I see a lot of interesting claims but unfortunately no references in sight.
E.g:
"Some scientists trained a bunch of flatworms to react in a special way to light. They noted how long it took the worms to learn, then they cut the worms up and fed the pieces to another batch of untrained worms. After their meal, the new worms were taught the same lesson. The second batch learned much faster. Wondering if this were a fluke (no, they were plenaria), some other scientists tried similar experimentation with mice. A batch of mice were trained to run a maze. Then their brains were removed, an extract was made from these brains and fed to another, untrained batch of mice. Once again, the new mice learned the maze much more quickly, up to twice as fast."
"German researchers trained honey bees to expect food at a certain time every day. Then they cut off the bees' heads and transplanted a part of their brains into the brains of other bees. The bees with the brain transplants then expected the food at the same time of day."
I just checked one literally at random, the one about the conductor stabbing himself through the hand with his baton during a performance. It has been confirmed by Wikipedia and two other sources, although I can't vouch for Wikipedia's accuracy, nor for the independence of the sources.
One sample does not a proof make, and the pural of "anecdote" is not "data." However, some of the items do check out as true.
I personally think it's a good starting point for talking to kids and asking whether you can believe everything you read on the internet. I also find it amusing.
E.g:
"Some scientists trained a bunch of flatworms to react in a special way to light. They noted how long it took the worms to learn, then they cut the worms up and fed the pieces to another batch of untrained worms. After their meal, the new worms were taught the same lesson. The second batch learned much faster. Wondering if this were a fluke (no, they were plenaria), some other scientists tried similar experimentation with mice. A batch of mice were trained to run a maze. Then their brains were removed, an extract was made from these brains and fed to another, untrained batch of mice. Once again, the new mice learned the maze much more quickly, up to twice as fast."
"German researchers trained honey bees to expect food at a certain time every day. Then they cut off the bees' heads and transplanted a part of their brains into the brains of other bees. The bees with the brain transplants then expected the food at the same time of day."
Does anyone know if this is for real?