Pricey organs: Liver beats the brain for energy usage.

Yesterday, a friend of mine made a crazy claim; that the liver used more energy than the brain. Crazy because the brain always gets the credit for being the big energy hog. So I looked it up.

I found the energy usage by mass for the heart, kidneys, brain, and liver on Google Books. I got the masses of those organs from wikis and such. The result:

	kilocalories/kg/day	kg	kilocalories/day
Heart	610	* 0.3	= 183
Kidneys	390	* 0.3	= 117
Brain	296	* 1.4	= 414
Liver	290	* 1.5	= 435

So it's liver FTW!

Of course, there's error in those numbers, and each will fall somewhere in a range, but still. Quite unexpected.

Aside: Those numbers mean ~40% of the body's energy is used just by the brain and liver. ~55% by those four organs.

Aside #2: That Google Books link had another interesting fact. The brain in a newborn baby uses 74% of its energy!! Wow.

I lust after the Ferrari 458 Italia.

The most beautiful car I've seen. I may never be able to afford one, but man would I like to have one hanging in my garage!

Ferrari 458 Gallery

Yum.

Here's the article to go with those pictures:
Ferrari 458 Italia: New V8 revealed

First Post

I'm Chris Thiessen, a husband, a father, a technology enthusiast, the founder of zoomii.com. I'm some other things, too. This is my place to write things that need to get out, and don't belong elsewhere. Enjoy.