Norman Ernest Borlaug was known as the father of the Green Revolution because of the new strain of wheat he developed and the millions, possibly billions, of people he saved from starvation. He is said to have saved more lives than any person who has ever lived. There have been numerous agricultural revolutions over human […]
#880 Norman Ernest Borlaug – father of the Green Revolution Read More »
Where does cork come from? Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. The primary use of cork is to stop up wine bottles. About 20 billion bottles of wine are produced a year and about 80% of those bottles have cork stoppers in them. That is a huge amount of cork and
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Henrietta Lacks developed cervical cancer and the cells taken from a tumor biopsy have formed the HeLa cell line, named after her. Ms. Lacks didn’t know that her cells had been taken and she died in October 1951, before the significance of her cells was known. She was only 31 years old. She did not
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How do animals find water? They have many methods. Some animals can smell or sense water. Some animals get their water through eating plants. Some animals have evolved to need less water or to store water. Some animals can drink water that we couldn’t. Many animals instinctively know what signs to look for to find
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Can you live without a spleen? The spleen serves many functions, but you can live without it. Having it removed will affect your life, though. Your spleen is just inside your left rib cage, above your stomach. It is about 12 cm long and weighs approximately 70 g, about the size of an avocado. So,
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Why do some birds have red eyes? Birds with red eyes have a lot of tiny blood vessels in their eyes. Human eyes come in one of six colors. Our Eyes can be amber, blue, brown, gray, green, hazel, or pink. Pink eyes are actually a result of albinism. If someone is born albino, they
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What causes the bends? It is caused by the rapid release of nitrogen gas from the bloodstream. You don’t have any risk of the bends if you don’t go very deep. The bends becomes a risk if you dive any deeper than about 9 meters. It is caused because of the water pressure and because
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How does chilling a patient after cardiac arrest work? If the body temperature of a person whose heart has stopped beating is lowered, they can survive for longer without oxygen, which gives the medical staff longer to fix and resuscitate the person. Chilling a patient is an experimental technique that may or may not become
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During his career, Maurice Hilleman developed over 40 vaccinations. It is thought that his vaccinations save over 8 million lives every year. However, he was not interested in making a name for himself, only that his vaccines helped people. For this reason, despite having received his vaccines, very few people have ever heard of him.
#859 Maurice Hilleman – microbiologist specializing in vaccinology. Read More »
How do deep sea creatures see? They don’t see color, they have very large eyes, they use other senses, or they produce their own light. Light doesn’t penetrate very far into the ocean. It starts to get absorbed about 200 meters down and by about 1,000 m it has pretty much all gone. Because of
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