My brain started off as a single fertilized egg-cell, and now consists of billions (trillions?) of neurons, axons and other wobbly stuff.
This brain can contemplate programming in DNA, and Fast Radio Bursts, and can somehow steer me into adjusting a Ginger Snap recipe for the cookies my mother used to send me 55 years ago.
Of course, with this brain I can listen to podcasts that re-direct me to BOOKS, and the best book I read last year was Guilia Enders's book "Gut".
And right there on page 123 or 124 (the brain is good, the short-term memory not so much) Guilia points out that Trees don't have brains.
Of course they don't.
I knew that!
But how come I've never been rooted to the spot by this knowledge before?
Tomato plants don't have brains, neither do ferns.
Guilia says that the primary reason for having a brain is for movement. We need something to control the gangly movement of our limbs that take us to a food source, and we need a brain to control the muscles of our face so that we can smile when we find food.
Here I was, thinking that my brain is super-evolved to study DNA and FRBs.
My brain is really the main thing that distinguishes me from a Zucchini!
Cheers
Chris
P.S. Guilia points out that the first thing a sea-squirt does when it finds a home is to eat its brain, there being no further use for same, as the Sea-Squirt is sessile.
Thought you'd all like that ....
<------ Me using my brain
, eh?
