Can you cure male-pattern baldness? In male-pattern baldness, the hair follicles are still present on the scalp, they are simply dormant. What is male-pattern baldness? It is hair loss that most commonly happens to males and usually follows a specific pattern. It begins at the temples and at the top of the head. The hair […]
#398 Can you cure male-pattern baldness? Read More »
How does caffeine stop you from feeling sleepy? Caffeine stops you from feeling sleepy by blocking the action of adenosine on its receptors. So, why do we get sleepy? A lot of research has been done into why we need to sleep, but nobody has come up with an answer. We obviously do because if
#396 How does caffeine stop you from feeling sleepy? Read More »
Why are rabbit ears so long? A rabbit has big ears to cool itself down, not just to hear predators. Rabbits are herbivores and are obviously preyed upon by various other animals. Their large ears can swivel independently and can pick up sounds from up to 3km away. They can turn each ear 270 degrees,
#395 Why are rabbit ears so long? Read More »
Why does drinking milk help after eating spicy food? Milk helps after eating spicy food such as chili because it contains something called casein. When you eat spicy food, the oily capsaicin molecules attach themselves to nerve receptors in your mouth. These receptors then release a protein called TRPV1, which alerts your brain to heat.
#394 Why does drinking milk help after eating spicy food? Read More »
Why do we get jet lag? We get jet lag because rapid travel puts our circadian rhythm out of sync with the local time. Jet lag is a fairly recent problem. In fact, the expression “jet lag” was only coined in 1966. The reason for this is that you have to be able to jump
#393 Why do we get jet lag? Read More »
Why do mustard and wasabi make your nose hurt? Mustard and wasabi hurt your nose instead of your tongue and throat because the oil in them turns into a gas. Spices such as mustard and wasabi affect us in a very different way to chili. When you eat a spicy chili, the capsaicin in the
#390 Why do mustard and wasabi make your nose hurt? Read More »
Why do mosquito bites itch? Mosquito and insect bites itch because the immune response is triggered after the mosquito finishes biting. There are over 110 trillion mosquitoes from 3,000 different species around the world. I have no idea how they managed to calculate the number of actual mosquitoes. The word “mosquito” comes from Spanish where
#385 Why do mosquito bites itch? Read More »
What is chewing gum made of and what happens if you swallow it? These days, chewing gum is just a gum base with sweeteners and a plasticizer. You can swallow it without any harmful effects. Humans have used something to chew on for thousands of years. A 5,000-year-old lunch of birch bark tar with toothmarks
#384 What is chewing gum made of and what happens if you swallow it? Read More »
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
#374 Why does a chicken’s head stay perfectly still when you move its body around? Read More »
How much maple tree sap do you need to make 1 liter of maple syrup? It takes about 40 liters of sap to make 1 liter of maple syrup. Maple syrup is made by taking the sap from sugar maple, black maple, or red maple trees. The trees are tapped when they are about 30
#368 How much maple tree sap do you need to make 1 liter of maple syrup? Read More »
