What happened at Dunkirk? 338,226 British and French soldiers were evacuated from the beach at Dunkirk over the space of 8 days. That was far better than anyone in the British government expected, but about 20,000 soldiers died and 90,000 were captured by the Germans. Along with that, 300 ships were sunk, 100 planes were […]
#1306 What happened at Dunkirk? Read More »
How are sellotape (Scotch tape), duct tape, stick glue, wood glue, and superglue different? All the types of glue have different chemical components and they are different in the way that they dry. They also stick or don’t stick to different things. Adhesive tape is called sellotape in the UK and Scotch tape in the
How could a whistle get free phone calls? Old telephone routing equipment worked on sound at a specific frequency. Some whistles blew at exactly the same frequency and could be used to trick the phone equipment. The people who were cheating the phone system called themselves “phreaks”, which was a combination of “phone” and “freak”.
#1304 How could a whistle get free phone calls? Read More »
How do drones hover? Drones hover by using a mix of sensors to adjust their rotor blades. The majority of commercially available drones have four sets of rotor blades, one on each corner. This makes them much easier to control at low speeds and much more stable. The military have drones like this, but they
#1303 How do drones hover? Read More »
What is junk DNA? Junk DNA is DNA that doesn’t seem to do anything. It is not part of our coding DNA. DNA is in the cell nucleus of all of our cells. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. The deoxyribo part is sugar. The nucleic acid part is a long chain like molecule. Inside the
#1302 What is junk DNA? Read More »
Why was there a tulip bubble? There was a tulip bubble in Holland and across Europe in the 16th century because tulips were rare and because people didn’t want to lose out on an opportunity to make money. The tulip bubble, also called tulipmania, is a good showcase for human nature. It shows how people
#1301 Why was there a tulip bubble? Read More »
Why were there so many revolutions in 1848? There are a number of factors why there were so many revolutions in 1848, from economics to climate. Starting in 1848 and going through to 1849, there were revolutions in over 50 different countries and principalities. These were mostly in Europe, but countries in South America were
#1300 Why were there so many revolutions in 1848? Read More »
What do mitochondria do? Mitochondria produce almost all of the chemical energy that cells need for all of their functions. Without the mitochondria, we can’t do anything. The word “mitochondria” was created in 1898 by a microbiologist called Carl Benda. He took the Greek word “mitos”, which means “thread”, and “khondrion”, which means “little granule”.
#1299 What do mitochondria do? Read More »
Who was first to the North and South Poles? The first person to reach both the North and South Poles was Roald Amundsen. Although, he didn’t reach the North Pole by foot. The first person to reach the North Pole by foot was Wally Herbert. Let’s look at the North Pole first. There are two
#1298 Who was first to the North and South Poles? Read More »
How does an iron lung work? An iron lung works by creating a space of negative pressure to inflate the lungs. You have probably seen images of people in an iron lung. It was typically a cylindrical contraption, slightly longer then the height of the patient. It had a hole for the head to stick
#1297 How does an iron lung work? Read More »
