What happens in your brain when you learn a second language? The hippocampus and cerebral cortex get larger. The grey matter in the brain becomes denser and the amount of white matter increases. These changes are most noticeable in children that learn a second language from a young age, but they are also visible in […]
#567 What happens in your brain when you learn a second language? Read More »
Why can blowing up a balloon make you pass out? Because we hyperventilate and have too much oxygen and not enough carbon dioxide. Counterintuitively, it is too much oxygen and not enough carbon dioxide that can cause people to faint when they blow up a balloon. One would think that it is a lack of
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Are all bones made of calcium? Mammal bones and bird bones are all mostly made of collagen and calcium. Fish bones are either made of collagen and calcium, or of cartilage. Our bones, and all mammal bones, are not made only of calcium. Calcium is a large part, but it is not everything. Mammal bones
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What is the difference between short and long-term memory? Short-term memory holds small blocks of information for a few seconds up to a few minutes. Long-term memory holds information indefinitely. Memories can cross from short-term into long-term and be held for longer. There are three steps in making a memory and short-term memory is the
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Why are hammerhead sharks shaped like that? The location of their eyes on the end of the hammer give them a greater ability to locate and catch stingrays. There are several different types of hammerhead shark, but they all have the same hammer-shaped head. This hammer shape is called a cephalofoil. The hammerhead shark with
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What is a sponge? Sponges are animals that have a very porous skeleton and live in the sea. When we talk about sponges, we are talking about the organisms and not the sponges we use to wash. Although, the one is based on the other. There is a big trade in diving for and selling
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How would a cure for cancer work? It would teach the immune system to attack the cancer cells. All of the cells in our bodies reproduce to make more copies of themselves and they are all programmed to last for a certain length of time. Cells have a preprogrammed signal that causes them to die
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Why are organ transplants so difficult? Because the organs are usually harvested from people who have died, there is a very short time window to perform the transplant, and the immune system tries to destroy the new organ. There are very few organs that can be taken from a living donor. You can obviously take
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Why are flowers different colors? Because they have evolved to attract different types of animals and insects. Flowers need insects and animals for two reasons: to pollinate them and to spread their seeds. Most plants need to be pollinated so that they can reproduce. Plants have a male part, called the stamen, that produces pollen.
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How do fireflies glow? They combine a chemical called luciferin, an enzyme called luciferases, oxygen, and fuel. Fireflies are not actually flies; they are beetles. They are also not one single type of beetle. They come from a family of beetle called Lampyridae, which contains about 2,000 different types of beetles and nearly all of
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