This little exercise will help you start thinking creatively. Pretend that you are on a team in charge of coming up with a name for a new chocolate flavored breakfast cereal. Take 5 minutes and come up with as many creative names as you can for this new cereal. How many did you get? 0-5 You need to practice. 5-10 Pretty good. Next time try for double. 11-20 Good job! 20+ You have an excellent imagination. You can repeat this exercise as many times as you want with different products (they don't have to be all cereals). The more you practice the better you'll get. More Creativity Articles ..read more

The brain is made up of billions of nerve cells, called neurons. There are over 100 million neurons per square inch of your brain! Neurons communicate to nearby neighbors via electrical and chemical signals sent between axons and dendrites. An axon is a long slender projection from a neuron which transmits signals away from the cell and towards other nearby neurons. Bundles of axons make up nerves and are the primary way that signals are transmitted throughout the body. The axons in your spinal cord can be as long as 3 feet. A dendrite is a projection from a neuron that receives signals fro ..read more

dif-fi-dent adj :: Hesitant in acting or speaking through lack of self-confidence. Shy. "Johnny was no longer the diffident and acquiescent little boy that he once was." More Vocabulary Articles ..read more

Braingle's Daily Brain Teaser for May 20, 2024 Sue and Ron are playing a game. Sue says: A huge gray mammal with a trunk. Ron says: A black and orange cat found in India. Sue says: A large animal with a horn on its nose. Ron says: A smelly black and white mammal. Sue says: A jumping marsupial that lives in Australia. From the following choices, what does Ron say next: A long-necked, flightless bird. A slow-moving reptile with a shell. A large African cat with a mane. Check Braingle.com for the answer ..read more

Everyone has had the experience where you have something on the tip of your tongue, but you can't remember it. One way to try to recall the information is to think around it. Another way is to stop thinking about it and let your unconscious mind process it for a while. Sometimes the fact will jump into your mind the moment after you stop thinking about it. Normally, once you remember the fact, it seems obvious and you can hardly imagine why you couldn't remember it in the first place. This proves a few facts about memory. First, it shows that memory is not all or none. In other words, someti ..read more

Many famous thinkers got their bright ideas while they were relaxing and not thinking about the problem. Archimedes got his sudden flash of genius while taking a bath and Darwin figured out evolution while driving down the road. These flashes of insight happen because the unconscious mind continues to process information in the background while you are doing other things. If your subconscious figures something out, it will seem like the idea came out of nowhere. One way to encourage this is to periodically review your notebook to remind your subconscious mind about some of your recorded idea ..read more

quan-da-ry noun :: A state of difficulty or perplexity; doubt; uncertainty. verb :: To bring into a state of uncertainty, perplexity, or difficulty. "Once or twice as I stood waiting there for things to accomplish themselves, I could not resist an impulse to laugh at my miserable quandary." --Wells, H.G. More Vocabulary Articles ..read more

Braingle's Daily Brain Teaser for May 17, 2024 I clean. I protect. My last four is seen in a connected series. But my last three is usually seen on paper. Check Braingle.com for the answer ..read more

Elaborating on an existing idea is a great way to come up with new and better ideas. One way to do this is by taking an idea apart and looking at its components. By looking at one part at a time, you might be able to ignore your preconceived notions about the idea and come up with some interesting improvements. Start by listing the attributes of the idea. Just the act of listing the individual pieces will get your mind thinking about improvements or modifications. For example, if someone asked you to design a better bird feeder, you might be at a loss about where to start. It's a little over ..read more

per-i-pa-tet-ic adj :: Moving or traveling from place to place. "Once my children were born I gave up my peripatetic lifestyle and settled down." More Vocabulary Articles ..read more