I learned this today. A pearl forms in the shell of a mollusk when an irritant becomes trapped there and the mollusk covers it with a fluid that hardens. There are three different types of pearl. There are natural pearls, cultured pearls, and imitation pearls. I am not going to look at imitation pearls. Natural […]
#192 How does a pearl form? Read More »
I learned this today. Our voices change when we inhale helium because sound travels through it faster than it does through air. There are two things we need to look at: Why sound travels at different speeds through different mediums and how our voices work. Sound is a wave of vibrations that travel through a
#189 Why does our voice change when we inhale helium? Read More »
I learned this today. Vellum is a material for writing on that is made from prepared animal skin. The document on the front of this article is the Magna Carta. It is the document that tried to control King John of England and is one of the most famous documents in the UK. It was
#186 What is vellum? Read More »
I learned this today. Pineapples grow from a small shrub and not on a tree. The majority of fruits grow on trees. Some that don’t grow on trees grown on a hanging vine, like grapes. Some grow directly on the ground. Watermelon and other melons grow on the ground, but they are technically berries, and
#182 How do pineapples grow? Read More »
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 »
