the.com/nervous system
Your body's wifi — mostly reliable, occasionally panics over nothing
means The network of nerves and the brain and spinal cord that carries signals around your body so you can sense, move, and react.
from From Latin nervus, meaning 'sinew' or 'tendon' — the ancients used it for any tough cord-like body part, not knowing some of those cords were carrying electrical messages rather than just pulling muscles. 'System' comes from Greek systema, 'organized whole, a thing put together.' It took centuries of anatomy after the Latin naming for nervus to narrow specifically to nerve tissue as we now understand it.
- signal speed
- some nerves fire faster than a race car
- gut brain
- your intestines run their own nervous system solo
- energy cost
- brain burns 20 percent of your calories idle
- reflex loop
- pain reflexes skip the brain entirely to save time