Solved cryptogram
Nerve fibers are wrapped in a fatty sheath that lets a signal jump instead of crawling along.
Biology Facts, sourced to MedlinePlus.
What it means
Myelin is an insulator with regular gaps in it, and the electrical signal leaps from gap to gap rather than propagating smoothly down the whole membrane. That raises conduction speed by more than an order of magnitude and costs far less energy. Diseases that strip the sheath, such as multiple sclerosis, leave the nerve intact and the signal unable to travel properly.
The claim comes from MedlinePlus, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 76 letters over 22 different ones, graded hard.
- SourceMedlinePlus
- CollectionBiology Facts
- Difficultyhard
- Length76 letters, 22 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- NHLBIhard, 75 letters
- MedlinePluseasy, 72 letters
- NCBI Bookshelfeasy, 75 letters
- NCBI Bookshelfeasy, 77 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- National Human Genome Research Institutehard, 67 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveyhard, 66 letters
- NIDDKhard, 74 letters
- NIDCDhard, 74 letters