I Learned This Today

#374 Why does a chicken’s head stay perfectly still when you move its body around?

October 12, 2022

Why does a chicken’s head stay perfectly still when you move its body around? Because chickens cannot move their eyeballs in their eye socket and because they don’t have a vestibulo-ocular reflex. Our heads (humans) are pretty much constantly moving, yet we can see perfectly well. This is all thanks to the vestibulo-ocular reflex which […]

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#371 When did the last woolly mammoth disappear?

October 9, 2022

When did the last woolly mammoth disappear? A population of woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island until about 2000 BC, about 500 years after the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Woolly mammoths appeared in Siberia about 700,000 years ago. They were the same size as a modern African Elephant: up to 3.4 m at

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#324 Could penguins fly in the past?

August 23, 2022

Could penguins fly in the past? Yes, they could, but millions of years ago. There are many birds that could fly at some point but that have lost the ability. The Galapagos Cormorant is a good example. They are only found on two of the Galapagos islands. They are not originally from the island, so

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#322 Why do dragonflies have four wings?

August 21, 2022 / 1 Comment

Why do dragonflies have four wings? So that they can hover and fly in any direction that they wish. Most insects have two pairs of wings but the second set in some of them have evolved to have a different purpose. Two examples of these are flies and beetles. (I know we are talking about

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#305 When happens when you are bitten by a venomous snake?

August 4, 2022

What happens when you are bitten by a venomous snake? The venom either attacks the cells, the circulatory system or the nerve system. There are 3,500 species of snake and 600 of those are venomous. Many of them are not dangerous to people but some of them can be lethal. Venomous snakes inject venom through

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#300 How do hummingbirds flap their wings so fast?

July 30, 2022 / 2 Comments

How do hummingbirds flap their wings so fast? By having very strong, fast twitch chest muscles, by twisting their wings instead of flapping them, and by being able to use oxygen and energy very quickly. There are 361 species of hummingbird altogether. The smallest species grow to about 5 cm and weigh 2 grams The

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#298 How big was the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs?

July 28, 2022

How big was the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs? It was probably 10 km across, but it could have been anywhere between 10 and 17 km. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit Earth about 66 million years ago. Apparently, according to research, it was 66,043,000 (±11,000 years). The asteroid came down in the Yucatan

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#297 Why do ant bites hurt?

July 27, 2022

Why do ant bites hurt? Ants both bite and sting. They drip formic acid onto your skin and some ants inject venom. Not all ants bite. There are estimated to be 22,000 different species of ant and they are on pretty much every landmass except for Antarctica. It is estimated that ants make up between

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#281 Why do horses need horseshoes?

July 11, 2022

I learned this today. Why do horses need horseshoes? They only need horseshoes if they are going to be walking on hard or rough surfaces for a long time. The hoof of a horse consists of several different parts. The part that we can see is called the wall. This is up to two centimeters

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#280 How does fly spray work?

July 10, 2022

I learned this today. How does fly spray work? By blocking the insect from using its nerves to move its muscles. There are two kinds of fly spray. There are repellents, which are sprays you apply to your body to stop insects landing on you and biting. Then there are insecticide fly sprays that kill

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Animals