I learned this today. There is a carefully choreographed sequence of steps that enable us to vomit. Vomiting is a form of protection. It is the body’s way of getting rid of threats or things it feels might be dangerous. This could be a poison, it could be a chemical, it could be a virus […]
#179 How do we vomit? Read More »
I learned this today. Depending on who you ask and what fossils you look at and what you define as “human”, there have been between eight and twenty-one different species of human on this planet. All but one of them are now extinct. If you are like me, you probably think of ancient homo sapiens
#178 How many species of human have their been? Read More »
I learned this today. Octopuses have blue blood because they have adapted to live in cold, deep water. Octopuses live in every ocean on Earth, and they live in a range of different conditions. A lot of them live at great depths and this is the main reason why they have evolved to have blue
#171 Why do octopuses have blue blood? Read More »
I learned this today. A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury that temporarily affects brain functioning. Our brains are protected by cerebrospinal fluid. Cerebrospinal fluid is a colorless fluid that is derived from blood plasma, but it has no protein. It surrounds the brain and acts as a buffer between the brain and the
#170 What is a concussion? Read More »
I learned this today. Bamboo can grow so fast because it doesn’t need leaves until it is fully grown, it grows with a constant diameter, and it can stretch its cells. Bamboo is actually a grass, and it is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. Bamboo is generally fast growing, but some
#166 How does bamboo grow so fast? Read More »
I learned this today. Our bodies make energy from food by breaking it down and converting the chemical energy that is stored in it. Our bodies need energy to move and to exercise, but we also need energy just to live. Even when we think we are perfectly still, our bodies are burning energy so
#165 How do humans make energy from food? Read More »
I learned this today. No one seems to know the definite cause of Alzheimer’s Disease but it seems to be connected with the buildup of amyloid plaque in the brain, entanglement in the neurons, and inflammation of neurons. Alzheimer’s Disease was named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer. The disease had obviously existed for thousands of years,
#162 What causes Alzheimer’s Disease? Read More »
I learned this today. A nut is a hard-shelled pod that contains the fruit and a seed. The difference between a nut and a seed is the hard outer shell. A seed is an embryonic plant. It contains protein, vitamin B, minerals, fat, and dietary fiber. These are all of the things that the seed
#161 What is a nut? Read More »
I learned this today. There have been six mass extinctions on Earth that experts know about. The Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago. The Ordovician-Silurian Extinction 440 million years ago. The Devonian Extinction 365 million years ago. The Permian-Triassic Extinction 250 million years ago. The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction 210 million years ago. The Cretaceous-Tertiary
#139 What are the six great mass extinction events? Read More »
I learned this today. There are different types of stem cells, but they basically work by developing into different types of cells. There are 200 different types of cells in the body, and they all do different tasks. For example, neurons in the brain, white blood cells that fight infection, muscle cells, and the
#137 What are stem cells and how do they work? Read More »
