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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What is the biggest plant in the world? The Posidonia australis in Shark Bay, Australia. It is 200 square kilometers, which is 23 square kilometers larger than the city of Washington DC. It is not just the largest plant in the world, it is the largest organism as well. Researchers sampled it in many different
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What do tonsils do? The tonsils contain a lot of white blood cells and they are one of the body’s first lines of defense against infection. Firstly, do you know where your tonsils are? For the whole of my life, I thought the thing hanging down at the back of my throat, just behind the
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What causes dyslexia? It is caused by a difference in the brain parts that process reading, but nobody knows exactly what causes that difference. As an aside, there is a common joke that the word for people who cannot read or spell very easily, dyslexia, is one of the hardest words to read or spell.
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Why do we have fingerprints? We have fingerprints to help us grip and to help us feel things. We all have fingerprints on our fingers that are made up of swirls and creases in the skin of our fingers. All primates have fingerprints, which goes a long way to showing how useful they are for
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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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When does a seed start growing? The vast majority of seeds start growing when they are exposed to enough water, which activates hormones inside them. Some seeds need sunlight or other things, but water is by far the biggest trigger. Seeds can be a very efficient way for a plant to spread its DNA over
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