The Body, page 43
a condition known as adermatoglyphia: “Adermatoglyphia: The Genetic Disorder of People Born Without Fingerprints,” Smithsonian, Jan. 14, 2014.
Most quadrupeds cool by panting: Daniel E. Lieberman, “Human Locomotion and Heat Loss: An Evolutionary Perspective,” Comprehensive Physiology 5, no. 1 (Jan. 2015).
“The loss of most of our body hair”: Jablonski, Living Color, 26.
a man who weighs 155 pounds: Stark, Last Breath, 283–85.
Although salt is only a tiny part: Ashcroft, Life at the Extremes, 139.
Sweating is activated by the release of adrenaline: Ibid., 122.
Emotional sweating is what is measured: Tallis, Kingdom of Infinite Space, 23.
The two chemicals that account for the odor: Bainbridge, Teenagers, 48.
the number of bacteria on you: Andrews, Life That Lives on Man, 11.
To make one’s hands safely clean: Gawande, Better, 14–15; “What Is the Right Way to Wash Your Hands?,” Atlantic, Jan. 23, 2017.
One volunteer harbored a microbe: National Geographic News, Nov. 14, 2012.
The problem with antibacterial soaps: Blaser, Missing Microbes, 200.
They have lived with us for so long: David Shultz, “What the Mites on Your Face Say About Where You Came From,” Science, Dec. 14, 2015, www.sciencemag.org.
Studies of scratching showed: Linden, Touch, 185.
the most extraordinary case of unappeasable suffering: Ibid., 187–89.
We have about 100,000: Andrews, Life That Lives on Man, 38–39.
a hormone called dihydrotestosterone: Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, July 2012, 305.
considering how easily some of us lose it: Andrews, Life That Lives on Man, 42.
CHAPTER 3: MICROBIAL YOU
For nitrogen to be useful to us: Ben-Barak, Invisible Kingdom, 58.
Humans produce twenty digestive enzymes: Interview with Professor Christopher Gardner of Stanford University, Palo Alto, Jan. 29, 2018.
the average bacterium weighs about one-trillionth: Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, July 2014; West, Scale, 1.
But bacteria can swap genes: Crawford, Invisible Enemy, 14.
A single parent bacterium could in theory: Lane, Power, Sex, Suicide, 114.
In three days, its progeny: Maddox, What Remains to Be Discovered, 170.
If you put all Earth’s microbes in one heap: Crawford, Invisible Enemy, 13.
you are likely to have something like 40,000 species: “Learning About Who We Are,” Nature, June 14, 2012; “Molecular-Phylogenetic Characterization of Microbial Community Imbalances in Human Inflammatory Bowel Diseases,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Aug. 15, 2007.
Altogether your private load of microbes: Blaser, Missing Microbes, 25; Ben-Barak, Invisible Kingdom, 13.
In 2016, researchers from Israel and Canada: Nature, June 8, 2016.
Microbial communities can be surprisingly specific: “The Inside Story,” Nature, May 28, 2008.
just 1,415 are known to cause disease in humans: Crawford, Invisible Enemy, 15–16; Pasternak, Molecules Within Us, 143.
all these microbes have almost nothing in common: “The Microbes Within,” Nature, Feb. 25, 2015.
The herpes virus has endured: “They Reproduce, but They Don’t Eat, Breathe, or Excrete,” London Review of Books, March 9, 2001.
If you blew one up to the size of a tennis ball: Ben-Barak, Invisible Kingdom, 4.
he called the mysterious agent contagium vivum fluidum: Roossinck, Virus, 13.
Of the hundreds of thousands of viruses: Economist, June 24, 2017, 76.
Proctor found that the average quart of seawater: Zimmer, Planet of Viruses, 42–44.
ocean viruses alone if laid end to end: Crawford, Deadly Companions, 13.
Colds unquestionably are more frequent in winter: “Cold Comfort,” New Yorker, March 11, 2002, 42.
The common cold is not a single illness: “Unraveling the Key to a Cold Virus’s Effectiveness,” New York Times, Jan. 8, 2015.
In one, a volunteer was fitted with a device: “Cold Comfort,” 45.
In a similar study at the University of Arizona: Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Jan. 2017, 127.
In the real world, such infestations: “Germs Thrive at Work, Too,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 30, 2014.
Where microbes thrive is in the fabrics: Nature, June 25, 2015, 400.
Cryptococcus gattii was for decades: Scientific American, Dec. 2013, 47.
A most arresting illustration of that: “Giant Viruses,” American Scientist, July—Aug. 2011; Zimmer, Planet of Viruses, 89–91; “The Discovery and Characterization of Mimivirus, the Largest Known Virus and Putative Pneumonia Agent,” Emerging Infections, May 21, 2007; “Ironmonger Who Found a Unique Colony,” Daily Telegraph, Oct. 15, 2004; Bradford Telegraph and Argus, Oct. 15, 2014; “Out on a Limb,” Nature, Aug. 4, 2011.
Max von Pettenkofer was so vehemently offended: Le Fanu, Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, 179.
Salvarsan was effective against only a few things: Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 71 (2016).
The principal investigator at Oxford: Lax, Mould in Dr. Florey’s Coat, 77–79.
He was an unlikely candidate: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Chain, Sir Ernst Boris.”
By early 1941, they had just enough to trial the drug: Le Fanu, Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, 3–12; Economist, May 21, 2016, 19.
a lab assistant in Peoria named Mary Hunt: “Penicillin Comes to Peoria,” Historynet, June 2, 2014.
Every bit of penicillin made since that day: Blaser, Missing Microbes, 60; “The Real Story Behind Penicillin,” PBS NewsHour website, Sept. 27, 2013.
The British discoverers found to their chagrin: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Florey, Howard Walter.”
Chain, despite sharing the Nobel Prize: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Chain, Sir Ernst Boris.”
By attacking a broad spectrum of bacteria: New Yorker, Oct. 22, 2012, 36.
Grant ended up in Yale New Haven Hospital: Interview with Michael Kinch, Washington University of St. Louis, April 18, 2018.
antibiotics are prescribed for 70 percent of acute bronchitis cases: “Superbug: An Epidemic Begins,” Harvard Magazine, May—June 2014.
most Americans consume secondhand antibiotics: Blaser, Missing Microbes, 85; Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, July 2012, 306.
Sweden banned the agricultural use of antibiotics: Blaser, Missing Microbes, 84.
In 1977, the Food and Drug Administration: Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, July 2012, 306.
In consequence, the death rate: Bakalar, Where the Germs Are, 5–6.
They not only have grown steadily more resistant: “Don’t Pick Your Nose,” London Review of Books, July 2004.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: “World Super Germ Born in Guildford,” Daily Telegraph, Aug. 26, 2001; “Squashing Superbugs,” Scientific American, July 2009.
Today, MRSA and its cousins kill: “A Dearth in Innovation for Key Drugs,” New York Times, July 22, 2014.
CRE kills about half of all those it sickens: Nature, July 25, 2013, 394.
“It’s just too expensive for them”: Kinch interview; “Resistance Is Futile,” Atlantic, Oct. 15, 2011.
all but two of the eighteen largest: “Antibiotic Resistance Is Worrisome, but Not Hopeless,” New York Times, March 8, 2016.
At the current rate of spread: BBC Inside Science, BBC Radio 4, June 9, 2016; Chemistry World, March 2018, 51.
produce quorum-sensing drugs: New Scientist, Dec. 14, 2013, 36.
the most abundant bioparticles on Earth: “Reengineering Life,” Discovery, BBC Radio 4, May 8, 2017.
CHAPTER 4: THE BRAIN
The consistency of the brain: “Thanks for the Memory,” New York Review of Books, Oct. 5, 2006; Lieberman, Evolution of the Human Head, 211.
Altogether, the human brain is estimated to hold: “Solving the Brain,” Nature Neuroscience, July 17, 2013.
It makes up just 2 percent of our body weight: Allen, Lives of the Brain, 188.
the brain is by far the most expensive of our organs: Bribiescas, Men, 42.
The most efficient brains: Winston, Human Mind, 210.
the number is more like 86 billion: “Myths That Will Not Die,” Nature, Dec. 17, 2015.
“in a single cubic centimeter of brain tissue”: Eagleman, Incognito, 2.
It is divided into two hemispheres: Ashcroft, Spark of Life, 227; Allen, Lives of the Brain, 19.
six patches on the temporal lobe: “How Your Brain Recognizes All Those Faces,” Smithsonian.com, June 6, 2017.
Although the cerebellum occupies just 10 percent: Allen, Lives of the Brain, 14; Zeman, Consciousness, 57; Ashcroft, Spark of Life, 228–29.
how slowly or rapidly we age: “A Tiny Part of the Brain Appears to Orchestrate the Whole Body’s Aging,” Stat, July 26, 2017.
People whose amygdalae are destroyed: O’Sullivan, Brainstorm, 91.
Your nightmares may simply be: “What Are Dreams?,” Nova, PBS, Nov. 24, 2009.
The eyes send a hundred billion signals: “Attention,” New Yorker, Oct. 1, 2014.
only about 10 percent of the information: Nature, April 20, 2017, 296.
“While we have the overwhelming impression”: Le Fanu, Why Us?, 199.
implant entirely false memories in people’s heads: Guardian, Dec. 4, 2003, 8.
One year later, the psychologists asked: New Scientist, May 14, 2011, 39.
The mind breaks each memory: Bainbridge, Beyond the Zonules of Zinn, 287.
A single fleeting thought: Lieberman, Evolution of the Human Head, 183.
these fragments of memory: Le Fanu, Why Us?, 213; Winston, Human Mind, 82.
“It’s a little more like a Wikipedia page”: The Why Factor, BBC World Service, Sept. 6, 2013.
the United States has a national memory championship: Nature, April 7, 2011, 33.
The idea arose principally from a series: Draaisma, Forgetting, 163–70; “Memory,” National Geographic, Nov. 2007.
The person from whom we learned: “The Man Who Couldn’t Remember,” Nova, PBS, June 1, 2009; “How Memory Speaks,” New York Review of Books, May 22, 2014; New Scientist, Nov. 28, 2015, 36.
“Rarely in the history of neuroscience”: Nature Neuroscience, Feb. 2010, 139.
Brodmann was repeatedly overlooked: Neurosurgery, Jan. 2011, 6–11.
Both white matter and gray matter: Ashcroft, Spark of Life, 229.
the idea that we use only 10 percent: Scientific American, Aug. 2011, 35.
A teenager’s brain is only: “Get Knitting,” London Review of Books, Aug. 18, 2005.
The leading cause of deaths among teenagers: New Yorker, Aug. 31, 2015, 85.
The difficulty is that there is no certain way: “Human Brain Make New Nerve Cells,” Science News, April 5, 2018; All Things Considered transcript, National Public Radio, March 17, 2018.
The remaining third of his brain: Le Fanu, Why Us?, 192.
“If you were designing an organic machine”: “The Mystery of Consciousness,” New York Review of Books, Nov. 2, 1995.
In the 1880s, in a series of operations: Dittrich, Patient H.M., 79.
Moniz provided an almost perfect demonstration: “Unkind Cuts,” New York Review of Books, April 24, 1986.
The procedure was so crude: “The Lobotomy Files: One Doctor’s Legacy,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12, 2013.
Freeman was a psychiatrist with no surgical certification: El-Hai, Lobotomist, 209.
About two-thirds of Freeman’s subjects: Ibid., 171.
His most notorious failure was Rosemary Kennedy: Ibid., 173–74.
the very fact that the brain is so snugly encased: Sanghavi, Map of the Child, 107; Bainbridge, Beyond the Zonules of Zinn, 233–35.
known as contrecoup injuries: Lieberman, Evolution of the Human Head, 217.
In Britain, epilepsy remained on the statute books: Literary Review, Aug. 2016, 36.
“The history of epilepsy can be summarised”: British Medical Journal 315 (1997).
Capgras syndrome is a condition: “Can the Brain Explain Your Mind?,” New York Review of Books, March 24, 2011.
In Klüver-Bucy syndrome, the victims: “Urge,” New York Review of Books, Sept. 24, 2015.
Perhaps the most bizarre of all: Sternberg, NeuroLogic, 133.
Locked-in syndrome is different again: Owen, Into the Grey Zone, 4.
No one knows how many: “The Mind Reader,” Nature Neuroscience, June 13, 2014.
It may be simply that a less robust: Lieberman, Evolution of the Human Head, 556; “If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?,” Discover, Jan. 20, 2011.
CHAPTER 5: THE HEAD
Mary, Queen of Scots, needed three hearty whacks: Larson, Severed, 13.
Charlotte Corday, guillotined in 1793: Ibid., 246.
Davis became so celebrated: Australian Indigenous Law Review, no. 92 (2007); New Literatures Review, University of Melbourne, Oct. 2004.
He was convinced that a person’s intellect: Anthropological Review, Oct. 1868, 386–94.
he referred to it as “Mongolism”: Blakelaw and Jennett, Oxford Companion to the Body, 249; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
In one case, cited by Stephen Jay Gould: Gould, Mismeasure of Man, 138.
In 1861, during an autopsy on a stroke victim: Le Fanu, Why Us?, 180; “The Inferiority Complex,” New York Review of Books, Oct. 22, 1981.
No two authorities seem to agree: See McNeill, Face, 180; Perrett, In Your Face, 21; “A Conversation with Paul Ekman,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 2003.
Babies fresh from the womb: McNeill, Face, 4.
Although the change was too slight: Ibid., 26.
the French anatomist G.-B. Duchenne de Boulogne: New Yorker, Jan. 12, 2015, 35.
we all indulge in “microexpressions”: “Conversation with Paul Ekman.”
in favor of our small, active eyebrows: “Scientists Have an Intriguing New Theory About Our Eyebrows and Foreheads,” Vox, April 9, 2018.
One of the reasons the Mona Lisa: Perrett, In Your Face, 18.
external nose and intricate sinuses: Lieberman, Evolution of the Human Head, 312.
we have as many as thirty-three systems: The Uncommon Senses, BBC Radio 4, March 20, 2017.
your own white blood cells: “Blue Sky Sprites,” Naked Scientists, podcast, May 17, 2016; “Evolution of the Human Eye,” Scientific American, July 2011, 53.
muscae volitantes, or “hovering flies”: “Meet the Culprits Behind Bright Lights and Strange Floaters in Your Vision,” Smithsonian.com, Dec. 24, 2014.
If you held a human eyeball: McNeill, Face, 24.
The lens, which gets all the credit: Davies, Life Unfolding, 231.
Tears not only keep our eyelids: Lutz, Crying, 67–68.
you produce about five to ten ounces of tears: Ibid., 69.
Our scleras are unique: Lieberman, Evolution of the Human Head, 388.
Their main problem isn’t that their world is pallid: “Outcasts of the Islands,” New York Review of Books, March 6, 1997.
Much later, primates re-evolved the ability: National Geographic, Feb. 2016, 56.
The movements of the eye are called saccades: New Scientist, May 14, 2011, 356; Eagleman, Brain, 60.
Victorian naturalists sometimes cited this: Blakelaw and Jennett, Oxford Companion to the Body, 82; Roberts, Incredible Unlikeliness of Being, 114; Eagleman, Incognito, 32.
They were jawbones in our ancient ancestors: Shubin, Your Inner Fish, 160–62.
A pressure wave that moves the eardrum: Goldsmith, Discord, 6–7.
From the quietest detectable sound to the loudest: Ibid., 161.
This means that all sound waves: Bathurst, Sound, 28–29.
The term was coined by Colonel Sir Thomas Fortune Purves: Ibid., 124.
The reason we feel dizzy: Bainbridge, Beyond the Zonules of Zinn, 110.
When loss of balance is prolonged: Francis, Adventures in Human Being, 63.
half of people under the age of thirty: “World Without Scent,” Atlantic, Sept. 12, 2015.
“Smell is something of an orphan science”: Interview with Gary Beauchamp, Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, 2016.
the receptors are activated: Al-Khalili and McFadden, Life on the Edge, 158–59.
A banana, for example, contains three hundred volatiles: Shepherd, Neurogastronomy, 34–37.
Tomatoes have four hundred: Gilbert, What the Nose Knows, 45.
The smell of burned almonds: Brook, At the Edge of Uncertainty, 149.
The smell of licorice: “Secret of Liquorice Smell Unravelled,” Chemistry World, Jan. 2017.
it was first suggested way back in 1927: Holmes, Flavor, 49.
In 2014, researchers at the Université: Science, March 21, 2014.
why certain odors are so powerfully evocative of memories: Monell website, “Olfaction Primer: How Smell Works.”
researchers at the University of California: “Mechanisms of Scent-Tracking in Humans,” Nature, Jan. 4, 2007.
For five of fifteen smells tested: Holmes, Flavor, 63.
Babies and mothers are similarly skillful: Gilbert, What the Nose Knows, 63.
One of the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s: Platoni, We Have the Technology, 39.
Ninety percent of people who lose smell: Blodgett, Remembering Smell, 19.
