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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Can a tortoise live without its shell? No. Tortoises and turtles are not just inside their shells. They are the shells. The shells are part of their skeletons. Tortoises and turtles actually come from the same family. In fact, tortoises are turtles. They all come from the family testudines, which are reptiles with a shell
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What causes muscle cramps? There are several potential reasons, but nobody actually knows the real reason. Whatever the reason, all cramps happen in the same way. You may be exercising or you may be at rest, but your muscle will suddenly and involuntarily contract. This can be extremely painful and alarming. The only thing you
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Why do cars only have five gears? They actually don’t. Some cars have 4 and some cars have 6 or 7. Modern cars have an infinite number and electric cars don’t have any. Most manual cars have five gears, but that doesn’t mean all cars have five. However, five is the most common number because
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Why are some animals cold-blooded? It lets them go for longer without eating, which means they can survive in more inhospitable areas. There are three types of animals: warm-blooded, cold-blooded, and those in between. Warm-blooded animals are called endotherms and they are able to maintain their body temperature by using their metabolism. We are endotherms.
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How high can a plane and helicopter fly? The world record for the highest a plane has managed to fly after taking off from the ground is 123,523 feet, or 37,649 meters. (The record stipulates taking off from the ground because planes that have flown higher than this are basically rockets with wings that have
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What is the difference between a crocodile and an alligator? There are many differences, including their color, size, snout shape, where they live, behavior, the strength of their bite, and many more. Both crocodiles and alligators come from the family crocodilian. They appeared about 94 million years ago and have a thick scaly skin. They
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How is an addict’s brain different to a non-addict’s? They have significant changes in the reward, stress, and self-control parts of their brains. Whether or not someone becomes an addict is based on a number of things, but experiments have shown that up to 50% of that risk is genetic. One of these experiments looked
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How do pythons kill their prey? They squeeze their prey to constrict blood flow before consuming the prey whole. Before we start, pythons are not boa constrictors. I always thought they were the same thing, but they aren’t. Pythons are longer than boa constrictors and they come from different areas. Boa constrictors are found in
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