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aftbit 4 days ago

My mom once worked as a gas station attendant and general gopher, back when gas stations had car repair shops attached (late 70s). She used to chain smoke as well. Whenever a customer would complain, she would intentionally spill a tiny bit of gasoline on the ground[1], then put her cigarette out in the puddle. She told me she would never light one while filling, because the spark and flame from the lighter could be enough to start a fire, but that the cigarette itself was not hot enough. I've never repeated this experiment.

1: Yeah I know this is a bad idea itself, but what can you do? She was ~20 and her pre-frontal cortex was still not fully developed.

fwip 4 days ago | parent [-]

Nit-pick: the meme about people's prefrontal-cortex not being fully developed until age 25 is not true. What is true is that there was a longitudinal study that found that people's brains continued to change under MRI as far as they tracked the participants, which was below the age of 25.

thefifthsetpin 3 days ago | parent [-]

The nit is that the change observed was not development?

fwip 3 days ago | parent [-]

My nit is that we don't actually have evidence supporting the idea that it stops at or around 25. As far as I know, the brain continues to have observable changes throughout your life.

(The person I replied to didn't make this claim directly, but it's an oft-cited myth that it seemed like they were referencing.)

thaumasiotes 3 days ago | parent [-]

> As far as I know, the brain continues to have observable changes throughout your life.

That would imply that people might retain the ability to form memories past the age of 25, though.