How can we catch a ball without looking at it? It is a combination of proprioception and the brain’s ability to predict. What is proprioception? It is the ability to sense your own body position. It is often called the sixth sense. All of our muscles, joints, and tendons have sensory receptors in them. When […]
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Why does the house always win in a casino? The house always wins because of the odds they give, the way casinos are set up, and because of psychology. Why is a casino called the house? It’s because the word “casino” comes from the Latin, through Italian, word “casa”, which means “house”. “Casino” means “small
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Why do we lose our voice when we are sick? We lose our voice because our vocal cords become inflamed. Let’s look at how the voice works to start with. We all have vocal cords inside our larynx, more commonly known as a voice box. The larynx is at the top of the trachea, the
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What is the difference between a forest, a wood, and a copse? These days, the difference is in the size, but it wasn’t always that way. Let’s look at all three of them. What is a copse? These days a copse is defined as a small group of trees. There is no defined size or
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Why is Las Vegas in the desert? Because it is a good location for a stop on the new southern Californian railway line. Las Vegas wasn’t the first settlement to spring up in the desert of Utah. The area used to be lush marshland, but that all dried up and formed the Mojave Desert, except
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How big and how small can a mammal be? The Etruscan shrew is the smallest mammal and is 40 mm long and weighs 2 g. The blue whale is the largest mammal and is 29.9 m long and weighs 199 tons. The African elephant is the largest land animal and is about 4 m tall
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How does a joint replacement work? By replacing parts of the joint, or by replacing the whole joint. Joint replacement surgery is called arthroplasty. It is made from the Greek word “arthro”, which means joint and “plasty”, which means to mold or form. It is carried out when a joint is no longer usable or
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Where was the first artificial dam? The Jawa Dam in Jordan. Natural dams exist all over the world and can be formed by landslides or trees getting caught at a narrow point in a river. It wouldn’t be difficult for early people to see how it is possible to dam a river. However, until people
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What are runes? Runes were a series of alphabets used by the Germanic peoples between approximately AD 150 and the 17th century. The word “rune” comes from the Proto-Germanic word “runo” and means “secret, mystery, secret conversation”. This name possibly comes from the legend that the ability to read runes was given to the Norse
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How does animal camouflage work? It works by upsetting the edges, mimicking shadows and background, copying shapes, scattering light and countershading, and hiding movement. Camouflage is obviously an evolved trait. All animals have gradually become the color and the shape that they are because it offered an advantage in that they weren’t eaten and got
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