What do tonsils do? The tonsils contain a lot of white blood cells and they are one of the body’s first lines of defense against infection. Firstly, do you know where your tonsils are? For the whole of my life, I thought the thing hanging down at the back of my throat, just behind the […]
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What causes dyslexia? It is caused by a difference in the brain parts that process reading, but nobody knows exactly what causes that difference. As an aside, there is a common joke that the word for people who cannot read or spell very easily, dyslexia, is one of the hardest words to read or spell.
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Why do we have fingerprints? We have fingerprints to help us grip and to help us feel things. We all have fingerprints on our fingers that are made up of swirls and creases in the skin of our fingers. All primates have fingerprints, which goes a long way to showing how useful they are for
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Why are cockroaches so strong? They have a very hard exoskeleton, they breathe through different parts of their body, they have a decentralized nervous system, they can eat anything, they have strong immune systems, and they don’t need to eat and drink for long periods of time. A cockroach is not one insect but a
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Why are Omega-3 fatty acids good for us? They are healthy fats that are supposed to support heart health, lower triglycerides, improve blood vessels, aid the immune system, and do good things in the brain. What are Omega-3 fatty acids? They are not just one fat. There are 11 different types altogether. When we are
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Why can animals jump higher and farther than us? They have more muscles, more elastic joints, tails, more speed, and they can impart more power into the ground. Note, I am going to look at mammals, not insects, which can jump many times their own body length. The highest a human can jump is 2.45
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When does a seed start growing? The vast majority of seeds start growing when they are exposed to enough water, which activates hormones inside them. Some seeds need sunlight or other things, but water is by far the biggest trigger. Seeds can be a very efficient way for a plant to spread its DNA over
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Do piranhas eat meat? They do, but not very often and they are not the carnivores that we have been led to believe. Many people fear piranhas and they have been used in movies as a plot device. In the James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, one of the characters was fed to piranhas,
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How high can birds fly? A Ruppell’s vulture was hit by a plane at 11,300 meters. The bird was identified by the feathers after the plane landed. There may be other birds that have flown higher, but they have not been encountered, so this is probably the record. There are three things that dictate the
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Is cocaine natural? The main ingredient in cocaine comes from a natural plant, but it needs to be processed. Cocaine is a stimulant taken from the leaves of the coca plant. The Coca plant grows in South America, on the lower slopes of the Andes. Because it is such a valuable crop, cultivation has spread
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