Curious Cook: The nine-metre brain

The important role of digestion and absorption of food is managed by our second brain – a nine-metre tract of neurons living in our guts, and the source of that 'gut feeling'. 

One of Ayatollah Khomeini’s odder statements was, “If a fly gets into the throat of one who is fasting, it is not necessary to pull it out.” What he wouldn’t have known was that the fly mentioned would be profoundly interfering with the human body’s second brain, a nine-metre long collection of neurons (brain cells), neurotransmitters and proteins that function very similarly to the brain in our heads.