Why can owls turn their heads so far? Because their heads are only connected by one socket, which can rotate. Owls are renowned for several things. One of them is their ability to swivel their heads completely around so they can keep an eye out for prey or predators. Being able to turn their heads […]
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What is Lou Gehrig’s disease? It is a disease that causes progressive degeneration of the nerve cells in the spine and brain. The disease is called Lou Gehrig’s disease after a famous baseball player who died of it, but the disease’s actual name is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). “Amyotrophic” comes from Greek. “A” means “no”.
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What is acid reflux? The acid from the stomach comes back up the esophagus, causing a lot of pain and sometimes even damage. Most animals that have a stomach that digests their food produce stomach acid. The acid in our stomachs is very strong. It has a pH of roughly 2, which makes it a
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How can a baseball player possibly hit the ball? They have to swing at where they think the ball will be because they cannot actually see it. There are different types of baseball pitches, and they travel at different speeds, so let’s just look at the fastball, which is a simple and straight pitch. The
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Do bulls really hate red? No, they don’t. It is the movement that they don’t like. The fact that bulls hate red has become common knowledge. It is even in sayings, such as, “like a red rag to a bull” meaning a trigger to anger someone, and “seeing red”, meaning in such a blind rage
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What is a bookworm? A bookworm is any number of insects, or the larvae of insects, that eat books. They are not actually worms. Why would an insect eat a book? What food is there in a book? Some insects don’t actually eat the books, but fungi and mold that grow on the pages of
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What is a hernia? There are different types of hernia in different parts of the body, but they are all caused by something pushing through a tear in a muscle. The hint to what it is is in the name. The word hernia comes from the Latin “hernia”, which means “rupture”. There are technically 9
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Are elephants the only source of ivory? No. Ivory comes from many other animals, besides elephants. It is also possible to make synthetic ivory. Ivory is a hard, white substance that forms the teeth and tusks of a lot of animals. It is made of dentine, which is a form of bone. The inside of
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Why does walking become harder as we get older? It is a combination of age-related factors, such as stiff joints, brittle bones, lack of balance, deteriorating muscles, shortening ligaments, deteriorating nerves, and even neurological factors. As we age, our bodies start to deteriorate and that results in a changed way of walking. That is unavoidable,
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How can you tell if a planet has life? The light coming to us from the planet’s star would show signs of oxygen, water, or some other chemical that we associate with life. The first problem with trying to find life on other planets is that we tend to look for the signs that our
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