BRAIN DUMP

Why aren’t blue whales more intelligent than humans if their brains are so big?

Kevin Machin

■ A blue whale’s brain is around five-times bigger than a human’s. However, a blue whale’s brain only accounts for about 0.007 per cent of its total body weight. Human brains account for 0.02 per cent of their total body mass, making them proportionally 286-times larger than a blue whale’s, and have many more complex folds and neural pathways than a simple blue whale brain. AG

Could vaccinations have stopped the spread of plague in medieval times?

Ros Denton

■ The deadly plague that killed a third of Europe was caused by a bacteria called Yersinia pestis. If the people of the 1300s had today’s technology they could indeed have created a vaccine. Scientists today have developed vaccinations against several strains of the Black Death. Lab trials of this vaccine had a success rate of 80 to 100 per cent. You