What is DDT? It stands for dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane and was the first synthetic pesticide. It was banned in 1972. DDT didn’t start being used in large quantities until after the Second World War, but it had been discovered quite a while earlier. Othmar Zeidler, an Austrian chemist, first synthesized DDT in 1874. Nobody realized that it […]
How does a cheetah run so fast? It is a combination of their body weight, their claws, their spine, their joints, the type of muscles they have, their tail, their organs, and the size of their head and skeleton. Cheetahs are the fastest land animals. They have a top speed of approximately 113 km/h and
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What is the immortal jellyfish? It is a jellyfish called Turritopsis dohrnii that can revert to a sexually immature stage in its life and theoretically live forever. There are many organisms that are very long lived. There are plant organisms that are thousands of years old. A colony of quaking aspens is thought to be
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What causes malaria? It is caused by a parasite of the Plasmodium group and it is spread through the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito. The parasite is said to be from a group because there are five different parasites. They are called Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium Malariae, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium knowlesi. The
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Can insects fly in the rain? They pretty much all can, but many of them choose not to. Some do fly during the rain. It depends on their size, the temperature, and their ability to resist water. Interestingly, larger insects have more need to hide than smaller insects do. When the day is warm, insects
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Did dinosaurs really have feathers? A lot did, but, then again, there were a lot that didn’t. And they were more a kind of fluff than the feathers that we see on birds today. The idea that dinosaurs might have had feathers was first put forward in 1876. A British biologist called Thomas Huxley realized
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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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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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