Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: Is brain size related to intelligence?

Episode Date: May 19, 2018

The idea that the larger the brain, the higher the intelligence is an old one, but it's pretty much utterly false. Modern investigation into how the brain works suggests there's a lot more to take into account when comparing brain biology to intellect. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everybody, Chuck here, and welcome to another Saturday Select Stuff You Should Know episode where Josh and I take turns picking from the classics of some of our favorite episodes because some of you may not know

that there are far more than 300 episodes that you see at Apple Podcasts. We have over a thousand. So, you dig into the archives, and my pick this week is, from July 8th, 2014, is brain size related to intelligence. I just remember loving this one. Super fascinated about the brain as is Josh.

It's one of our favorite organs, to be honest. And how it relates to intelligence is pretty interesting. So, we get into all that in this episode. Please, to enjoy right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is Stuff You Should Know.

Yes, I think this might complete our brain, sweet. I don't know about that. Because we've done Einstein's brain. We've done difference between men and women's brains. And now we're tackling brain size, which is sort of, it's on both of those a little bit. It does. But there's always new findings, so.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If there's ever an ongoing sweet, it's gotta be the brain, man. It's growing all the time. It's changing shape, changing size, changing connections. You could almost say that sweet is plastic. Plasticity, baby. Yeah, that's right.

You sent me something that I think we should talk about first, Chuck. This is kind of like, this is just like a grab bag, hodge podge of loosely related studies that all find that we don't really know the answer to the question, does a big brain mean a smarter person? Because there's a lot of different conflicting findings. Well, a few million years ago, our brain started growing a lot

and that kind of timed out with becoming smarter and using tools and things. So I mean, there's a little bit of, you call it evidence. Well, yeah, there's definitely some, plenty of evidence. I think that's the confounding part, is that there's plenty of evidence that, yes, as a brain grows, it is correlated to intelligence, but then that's only holding true up to a point.

I sounded like a Soviet immigrant just then. That's only holding true up to a certain point. All right, y'all gov. All right, he's in Branson, Missouri though. Did you know that? Oh yeah. I think he's got like his own restaurant or something. Well, his own theater and I think all the theaters are food.

Right, buttery food. We should go to Branson, man. I wanna see what that place is all about. Okay. You know? Yeah. I mean, it's a parade of stars, if it's 1973. Right.

You know? Yeah. I bet your boy Ronnie Millsap is there. Yeah, if he doesn't have a place there, I'll bet he plays Branson fairly regularly. He sublets. He would play well there. Yeah, I bet.

So Branson. Yeah. How did we even get on? Oh yeah, the Russian thing, sorry. Brain size. So brain size does correlate to intelligence to a certain extent, but you can point out like, well, a sperm whale has a 17 pound brain.

Sure. Holy cow, it must be the smartest animal on the planet. Well, it's not. Right. I'm sorry to tell you sperm whale fans that it's not the smartest animal on the planet. Humans are the smartest animal on the planet and don't you forget it.

That's right. But we don't have the largest brains. So you kind of take that idea of, okay, well, if it's not brain size, maybe it has to do with the size of your brain in relation to your body. Then we start to get a little closer to jackpot. But even still, I just wanna,

I wanna spoil it for everybody. There's no definitive answer. Yeah. Well, sometimes those are the best ones because we get to explore all this stuff and we can't really get anything wrong because nobody knows what's right. Ooh, I like this then.

Yeah. I've turned. You know these. Yeah, now I feel good about this because I can't be wrong. Right, exactly. Well, I guess we should start off with a little bit about what determines what size brain you do have.

And again, they don't know everything about it, but they think that genetics plays a part. They know this in part by studying twins. And identical twins have, of course, the same genes. Fraternal twins have about half the same genes. Right. And there's a greater correlation in brain size if you're identical.

Then fraternal. Yeah, so genetics, you know, looks like it probably plays a role. Yeah, and they've done a lot of exploration into what genes in particular have to do with brain size. And they've isolated a few. One is called beta-catanin. Yeah.

There's a hyphen in there too. Yeah. It's a pretty flashy gene. Not beta-carotene. No, catanin. Yeah. And who's coming up with the naming convention for genes? They are all over the place.

Yeah. Like you can't look at the name of a gene and be like, that's obviously a gene. Yeah, yeah. Unless there's like a couple of weird consonants in a number and then another consonant, then you're like, well, that's a gene. You're right.

There's no consistency. Beta-catanin, that's a gene. It is a gene. And it's a gene that they know controls brain growth because they've injected poor mice with this stuff. Until their heads exploded. Exactly. They fell short of exploding, but a lot of the mice

died as a result of their heads growing too big. But their brains grew big. And as a result of their brains growing big, they exhibited more intelligence, higher cognitive function. They injected these things with a gene protein that made them smarter. But like Molly points out in this article,

you can't, that doesn't mean we should start doing that because these mice are dying. So you can't just, you can't play God as they say. No, but it does make you wonder like, OK, you don't want to shoot up beta-catanin before the SATs or anything like that. But like, is there a way to kind of tamper a little less, but still tamper with that gene?

Something put under your tongue and let it dissolve maybe. Sure. Like, you know, just epigenetically, just a tad bit. Yeah. Maybe, you know, amplify it just a tad and see what happens. But it would cause your brain to grow because that gene is partially responsible for the size that your brain gets to.

That's right. As far as large brains go. Yes. Like, it makes it larger. Yes. If you want to talk smaller brains, there's another gene. And boy, you were right. The names are all over the place.

Yeah. Just convention-wise. It's not like they have different names. Some are numbers and dashes. And some might get it together, people. ASPM, it's an abbreviation for abnormal spindle-like microcephaly associated. That's the name of the gene.

Yeah. That's just shameful. And they say microcephaly associated because that is a condition that you've probably seen before when you're born with a small head and small brain, which probably means you're going to have some cognitive impairment. Right.

So right there, smaller brain is correlated to less or lower faculty or cognitive function. Yeah. We should look into that more for another podcast. So I think it's, from the images I saw, it looks like, remember the movie Freaks? Yes, that guy is so cute. The deal.

I think you have normal size nose and ears and eyes, but your actual head and skull and brain are smaller. Right. You don't look like the African safari guy from Beetlejuice. No. It's not proportionately shrunk. Right. It's, yeah.

You get him down so small. Right. That's one of my favorites. What was that guy's name from Freaks? I've read about him before. Oh, his real name? No, he had his stage name. It was like Topsy or Flopsy or something like that.

And he apparently had the greatest personality of all time, just so lovable and was just exploited basically his whole life until that movie kind of got vengeance for him because he was a real life sideshow performer. Well, that's good. Yeah. Topsy? It wasn't Topsy.

That was the elephant that Edison electrocuted. Yeah, I think you're right. But it was something along those lines. Just a fun name. So check there's another gene. This is a little more genetically sounding. EMX2, the sequel. Sure.

Sounds like a dirt bike or a gene. Yeah. Yeah. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lashher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when

questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast

and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, again, we're not, we're not saying like, well, these are the genes that provide you with your intellect.

These are just genes that they are saying. things have to do with the size of your brain, and we also have figured out that if you mess with these genes, you may also be messing with cognitive function. So we're laying the groundwork here, everybody, just bear with us. The EMX2 gene apparently has to do with the growth of the functional subdivisions of the cortex. You have different cortices, they're responsible for different things. So like in that New York Times article, you sent me the guy who uses the visual cortex

as an example, where like you get all your visual sensory input and your brain puts it all together. That cortex, that region of your brain is responsible for a fairly specific but also very complicated task. Now this one functional cortex that the EMX2 gene is responsible for has to do with basically sensory input and motor output. So your behavior, like if I came across this desk at you and like pinched your cheeks, you'd like jump back.

I'd say what? Is it Wednesday? Right. You would make the connection that it was Wednesday. Your behavior would occur. So this EMX2 gene has to do with that cortex and its size. What they found is that bigger is not necessarily better, if you have a lower expression of it and you have a smaller subdivision of that cortex, you're not going to do very well behaviorally,

functionally. Like you won't be able to hit a baseball very well. But if it's too big, if that gene overexpresses, you don't get better at hitting a baseball. With this in particular, it seems to be fine tuned. So if you're not hitting that sweet spot, you're never going to hit a baseball. And there may be myriad other problems, but you're definitely not going to hit that baseball. So that means you're born with baseball talent? Pretty much.

Yeah. Because it's genetic. And there's some people who are so close to perfect that baseball just comes naturally to them. Right. Like Robert Redford. Exactly. Yeah.

He really gave those lights a wallop. Yeah. He's the natural. So that's the genetic basis of it, Chuck. Yeah. And I guess we should talk some about size if it's important, because this is sort of the debate that keeps going on and on is brain size corollary to intelligence levels. Right.

They did find or they have found links between, if you have a lot of brain growth, if it's disproportionate early on, they've linked that and early on being the first 12 months to, they've linked that to autism. So super rapid growth may, what it may do is just prevent those neural connections from happening like they should. Right. And actually, well, that kind of links into that tethering thing I sent you to. It does.

Which we will talk about later. In biology though, there's kind of this consensus that it's not the only determinant that has a lot to do with environment as well. I think kind of as a whole, people who investigate correlations between brain size and intelligence have totally abandoned the idea that your brain is predetermined to grow a certain way and then that's that. Yeah. Well, size-wise, they've also found that if you have ADHD, if you're an adolescent,

your brain might be three to four percent smaller than your classmate who does not have ADHD. Yeah. And your brain shrinks as you get older, but doesn't necessarily lose functionality because of the shrinkage. That's not to say when you get older, you don't lose functionality, but it's not due to the size. No, they think that it's probably mostly due to plaque buildup.

Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Okay. That your synapses are just kind of built up with gunk, remnant proteins from years and decades of firings. Can you shake that off by continuing to use it? Yes, that's one thing, but also they've recently found that while you sleep, they think now, the function of sleep, they didn't notice it before until, I don't know what kind of

new imaging technology they used, but they found out that there's this whole channel of basically a sewage system that just clears out all the gunk from your brain while you're sleeping at night. That's why you are cognitively refreshed from sleep. We did one on why sleep is so important, right? Yes. I think that was in there. We've done a bunch.

There's a whole sleep suite, too. All right. So one of the reasons why people are still debating whether or not brain size equals more intelligence or less intelligence is because there are a lot of different ways to measure the brain, like do you take a tape measure and go around it? Mm-hmm. Or do you go from the middle out? Or do you do it proportion to your body size, which is a real measurement called encephalation

quotient? Right. And if they're talking about your body size, what if you're super fat? Like there are all these different ways and no one I don't think has ever come to a consensus on the best way to actually do the measurement in the first place. No. And there's another really big outstanding question is how do you measure intelligence like are IQ tests actually legitimate?

Yeah. So when you have two parts of your equation that are both hinky, how can you come up with an answer? Well, it depends. Like if you're comparing species to species, that encephalization quotient actually has been proven to be pretty effective. So like the proportion of your brain to your body size is a pretty decent predictor of your EQ is what it's called.

As a mammal. Yes. As a mammal. When you go outside of mammals, it gets less and less effective. But with humans, for example, our brain is like 2.7 pounds on average. It's something like around two to three. I've seen as much as five, but I think it's about 3% of our body weight. But it uses up about 20% of the energy, which is another measure.

Yes. Like how much energy does your brain require? The more energy your brain requires, in addition to things like EQ, you can get a pretty good idea of how intelligent that being is. Yeah. Well, Einstein's brain remembers this was the same size, but different parts were bigger than others, right? So supposedly that's come under fire lately.

Oh, really? Yeah. Somebody was like, these studies are terrible. You can't make these huge leaps and bounds in conclusions just from a couple of strips of brain tissue. But apparently most studies have. Well, I think that's sort of like a juicy thing that people like to talk about. Einstein's brain.

Yeah. You know, I could see people making that leap. Right. And the idea that like, oh, well, Einstein's brain is just like anybody else's. Yeah. Well, that means that anybody could be a genius. You know? Yeah.

It's just the nature of the nurture side of things. But if his brain is structurally different, well, then genius is an inborn natural thing. It's just nature versus nurture played out on poor Einstein's slice that brain. Yeah. That lived in a garage for many years, like everyone's brain. So here's the most controversial thing. Like when you're comparing species to species, like you said, especially among mammals, Chuck, it's easier to say like, yes, this EQ thing works.

But within a single species, that's when things start to fall apart. For instance, specifically among humans, men tend to have about a hundred grams more mass to their brain than women. Right. But if a bigger brain means that you are more intelligent, then does that mean that men are more intelligent than women? I think we all know that women are more intelligent than men. Okay.

The brain size really has nothing to do with it, at least intra-species. That's what I'm saying. But there have been plenty of studies that I'm sure got a lot of people's hackles up. One guy named Michael McDaniel, who's a psychologist, basically entered the news cycle, bursting on to the scene in 2005. Yeah. Which is always a little bit like, yeah, who's this guy? Right.

Yeah. This is a study that was already made for CNN. Yeah. I mean, he said flat out that bigger brains means you're smarter. Yes. And that IE or EG, which one is it? IE in this case. Men are smarter than women.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what he was saying. Yeah. Because he basically put brain imaging tests and IQ tests together and said, well, there's a direct correlation between the two. And again, with these tests, they converted SAT scores of 100,017 and 18-year-olds to an IQ score.

And I don't see why they even had to do that. And they found that males average 3.63 IQ points higher. But I don't know. It just seems really hinky. Because first of all, they use 10,000 more females than males, so that's going to skew things. Yeah. And then it's an SAT.

Right. That's what they even mean. Yeah. Which has been proven time and time again to be biased. Yeah. And then they converted that to an IQ score with some, I guess, machine. Seems like some things would be lost in translation. Yeah.

I think it's a bunch of bunk. So yeah, I think you're not alone in the idea that it's a bunch of bunk. So a lot of scientists have said, OK, all right. This whole brain size correlating to intelligence stinks of phrenology when you're talking about looking at it just in the human species, right? Yeah. So what is it, though? I mean, surely there's got to be some biological part or aspect of the brain that correlates

to intelligence. If it's not size, then maybe it's the number of neurons that you have. Yeah. Neural connections. A lot of people have thought that that was kind of the second to most recent wave in thinking about what brain structure correlates to intelligence. Yeah. Was this the New York Times one about the tether hypothesis?

This is just December of last year. So it's pretty recent. And a couple of neuroscientists from Harvard, so you know they're right, they had a pretty simple explanation when, back in the day, when Tuk Tuk had a little bitty, tiny brain, their argument is that the neurons were tightly tethered in a pretty simple connection pattern. And that when our brain started getting bigger, those tethers were torn apart and it formed, it enabled us. We formed new neurons and new neural pathways and new circuits.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, it's like the brain size might have been about the same, and it was. But the neural connections were still following the primal animal connectivity, where it's like they connect in a predictable way, whereas with this untethered idea, they just blossomed out into the idea of like what neural connections look like today, rather than following like straight predictable lines, they were all over the place. And from these new connections, new associations arose, and that gave rise to intellect according to this.

Yeah. It's pretty simple, smart. Yeah, I think sometimes the simplest hypotheses might be on target. It's Occam's razor, my friend. Or maybe they just speak to me because I'm a dummy. Chuck Occam Bryant. Tether. I got tether.

I played tether ball. So that is a competing explanation. Another one that I've seen says that it's not the neurons, not the number of neurons, not even the number of neural connections. It's the chemistry and the complexity of the neurotransmitters that are being conducted between these neurons. And from this has kind of come this new idea that it's folly to even say, well, humans are obviously smarter than a bottlenose dolphin, even though they're smart, because the bottlenose

dolphin's experience, understanding of life, is so radically different from humans. You can't compare intellect to intellect. You can't say, well, a dolphin can't talk and speak, but I can't do things a dolphin can do. Right. Or maybe dolphins are speaking. I mean... To one another.

Yeah. Just not to us. Right. That doesn't make them less intelligent. So long and thanks for all the fish. And we're not... Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah.

And we're not like anthropomorphizing here. Basically, there is very little point, I guess. Yeah, I don't get it. And comparing the two, there's tremendous point to getting to cracking this code and understanding dolphin intellect or bird intellect or octopus intellect and human intellect. But to compare them is it's an exercise in futility. There's no point to it. I don't get it.

Yeah. I mean, compared dolphin A to dolphin B, one may be smarter. One might have a little patchy mustache and hang out at the gas station a lot. That's not the smart one. Yeah, I think people do this to either... I think they're trying to claim some either superiority of animals over humans or humans over animals. Right.

And that's a big issue these days. There are groups, animal rights groups, that are trying to further animal rights by getting them inalienable rights like humans have. Right. Which would really screw up the zoo system. Yeah. You can look for our podcast on that, too. We did.

Yeah. That was a good one. We were pretty heavily against zoos. Yeah, we did. But to each their own. But I haven't been to a zoo since then. David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips?

Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass. A new bass host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh man. Oh my husband.

Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. What is this project Enigma? I thought that was pretty interesting. It was another genetic thing. It was, it was neat though in that like this, well, Australian researchers said, hey, we

have something called the internet and MRIs and willing participants. So everybody starts sending in your brain scans. Is that who proved that the complexity of the neural activity was the most important thing? Was that project Enigma? No, that was a different one. That was, there was a new scientist or no, scientific American article that, that explored that idea as the, the synaptic proteins that create intellect or intelligence.

But the project Enigma basically found that there is a single mutation on a specific gene where if you have a C instead of T, I think, you have a bigger brain and they correlated that to more intelligent. Yeah. But again, using the IQ test. Well, what I'm tired of are the studies that throw out the results that don't make a good fun headline, you know, there was this one from Smithsonian magazine from December of last year that, well, they, it wasn't from them.

It was from the proceedings of the Royal Society B and Smithsonian reported on it. But it was a study of country mice and city mice. No way. Well, a bunch of animals, but they found that city mice and vole. I don't even know what that is, V-O-L-E. Prairie voles. What is that? They're little rodents.

Okay. They're very sweet. They, they are monogamous. Like a bull weevil? No. That's a bug. A vole is like a, like a prairie dog. I know.

You should look up prairie voles. Very cute. And the idea that they're very sweet is even better. You wouldn't like shoot one for being on your property. No. I mean, some people would, but not good people. I know someone who does that kind of thing. Shoots at voles?

Not voles, but woodchucks with, with the air rifles. That's not nice. Yeah. He knows who he is. Boo. But this study basically said that city mice and city voles had larger brains than country mice. And of course that makes a big headline because people are going to try and make the point

that, you know, people that live in urban environments are smarter and the hillbillies out in the country are dumber. They studied 10 animals, only two of them showed that and some of them showed the opposite. That the, I think bats and shrews, actually the country versions had larger brains. So they don't say any of that in the study because they just want a headline that says, you know, if you live in a city, you're smarter. Yeah. And we, I mean, we've been addressing this lately.

Like there is like a symbiotic collusion between bad science and bad science reporting, you know? Yeah. Like that. Or it's just like, you know, city, city people are smarter than country people. Right. Says this one study that, where the data was massaged. Right.

Well, can you, city person, can you go make butter with your hands? I have to say, can you farm land? No, of course not. But there, it is possible that there's a basis to this. Whereas city people are, their brains are more stimulated than country folk perhaps. And so more neural connections, more plasticity takes place. I don't, I don't think that's true. I think there's just as much stimulation in nature as there is in a city full of people.

Spends what you're stimulated by. Look at Darwin. He spent his entire life living in the country. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, like we're also, we also have hundreds of thousands of years of latent inhibition built up against a lot of the stuff in nature, whereas the stuff in Times Square is relatively new. So our brain isn't, doesn't defend against it quite as easily.

So hence we're possibly more stimulated. I think it depends on what you're doing with your time. Sure. If you're out in the country sitting around watching reality TV, if you're in the city, then you're overstimulated. In your apartment watching reality TV. I found this other study today too from Germany about pornography may reduce your brain size another kind of sexy headline and sample size of three.

And it's always self reported too. And when you're dealing with porn and self reporting, do you look at porn and check the box? Do you think your brain is small? Check the box. Boom. Yeah. How smart are you?

Somebody called Newsweek. They cannot say that watching porn calls a decrease in brain matter, but they did say they found that the volume of striatum, a brain region that's been associated with reward processing and motivated behavior was smaller, the more pornography you consumed. And basically where they're at is we don't know whether it's causing this or if people that... Oh yeah. They get struck down and they're like, ooh.

Yeah. They're just into watching porn more. Gotcha. Like in Idiocracy. Again. That movie. There's probably been no other movie that's made more of a legitimate appearance in our episodes than that movie.

Idiocracy. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah. Mike Judge, he's on to something. Yes. Do you watch Silicon Valley?

I haven't. It's good. I know Kamal Nanjiani's in it though. Yeah. He's funny. Does he do well? Yeah. Martin Star.

It's a good show. Nice. I think it was high time that someone took on the tech industry and like a comedy like that. Yeah. Leave it to Mike Judge. I know. I know.

It's a crusader. Satiric crusader. It's people feeling... Good about themselves. Right. Yeah. It's Mike Judge. If you want to know more about brain size in relation to whatever, just type in brain

in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com and it's... Get lost. That's what I say. Yeah. Type in brain and just go on a trip, man. Right. That's right. A journey.

I think that's the slogan for HowStuffWorks. Yeah. Yeah. And since I said search bar, it's time for what? Listener mail? Yes. Okay. I'm going to call this help for a fan in need.

Oh, that's nice. Hey, guys. I want some help, please. My wife and I are expecting our first kid this summer. And 13 days ago, we also found out that my wife has stage four breast cancer. So we are spending our third trimester getting chemo. My goodness. I know.

We're going to kick cancer in the butt. We have no doubt, but we're scared and overwhelmed, obviously. We're doing chemo now, then we'll have the baby get more chemo than bilateral mastectomy, then radiation. We have great doctors and great friends and family. So even in the face of this, we feel very lucky. And by the way, I got a follow up more recently that says there is no gestational diabetes and the cancer is already shrinking.

Oh, it's great. So things are going great so far. Thanks for not keeping us in suspense. I know. I was going to wait till the end. And he asked for a couple of favors. He said, first of all, if you want to follow and promote my Tumblr to keep people updated, it is HTTP colon slash slash gala freakadiki G-A-L-L-I-F-R-E-E-K-Y-D-E-E-K-Y dot tumblr.com.

He says, we're huge nerds in Dr. Who fans. So that was lost on me. Some Dr. Who reference, I guess. Apparently so. Does it have to do with the phone booth, maybe? That's the only thing you know about Dr. Who. I'm here. Secondly, I'm biking 150 miles to raise money.

And could you plug that? And you can go to go to G-O-O dot G-L slash 2-W-J-Z-X-Q. These people don't like normal words. Well, that's one of those shortened URLs. Oh, I see. It's a goo. Gotcha. And then third, how about a shout out?

I think that's what we're doing here. My wife is a little shy, so just use her nickname, the mayor. Oh, that's hilarious. She wears a sash during chemo and childbirth. I guess so. I mean, I call Emily the boss, though. I guess it's... The mayor.

Yeah. But the mayor is like the boss of several bosses, I would guess. Yeah. We used to call my friend Justin, who you know, the mayor of Atlanta, because everywhere you went, somebody knew him. He's a sociable fella. But now we just call him the manager of Atlanta, because everywhere you go, he has some improvement to that place.

Oh, OK. Like the lighting's not quite right or the door should be over there. That's hilarious. It's not located properly. It's Brits. Yeah. And then fourth, my wife works in public policy, specifically helping women and families get themselves out of poverty and advocating for low-income workers.

So there you have it, an awesome and incredible woman who dedicates her considerable talents to helping others, is pregnant and has breast cancer. Kind of hard to say no, right? I'm not above guilt-tripping. So Bob from Swathmore, Pennsylvania, there you go. People should go and check out that stuff and support your bike ride, and I hope things have continued to progress well for your wife and child, and keep us updated. Yeah.

And you keep me updated, at the very least, if not everybody listening. I will. OK. Thanks a lot, Bob and the mayor. Good luck to you both. And let's see if you want to get in touch with us, whether you're a mayor, a provincial governor, who knows. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at syskpodcast.

You can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com and join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it.

And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life.

Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.