How can hippos sleep underwater? They have a reflex that makes them bob up and down in the water while they are asleep so that they can breathe. Hippos are the third largest land animals. They are only beaten by white rhinos and elephants. Hippos grow up to 5 m long, including their tails, and […]
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Why do shoes smell? Shoes smell because bacteria break down the sweat and dead skin cells from our feet, producing waste products that smell bad. Bacteria live all over our skin, not just on our feet. These bacteria are called the skin microbiota. You may have heard of the gut microbiota, which is the name
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How can sunflowers clean up radiation? They take the radioactive isotopes out of the soil and combine them into their stems and flowers. There is radiation all around us, all of the time. Radiation is simply energy that moves from one place to another. The light energy that bounces of a rose and hits our
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Why is a duck-billed platypus so odd? It has a beak, no teeth, lays eggs, sweats milk, has 10 sex chromosomes, has webbed feet, has fur that glows, they have no stomachs, and has venomous spurs. The duck-billed platypus is native to Australia. Its name comes from Greek and means “flat foot”. It is so
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How is a mongoose immune to snake venom? They are not immune to all snake venom, just the snakes they live around. Even then, they have resistance rather than immunity. There are different types of venom for different types of snakes. The mongoose is particularly resistant to the venom of the cobra, which is a
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Why do we get déjà vu? There is a dysfunction in the part of your brain that processes familiarity and a correction by the part that processes memory. Déjà vu comes from French, and it means “already seen”. It is the feeling that you have already seen or experienced something you are seeing or experiencing
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How do our hearts and lungs work automatically? We have an autonomic nervous system that makes organs like the heart and the lungs function automatically. If you want to pick up a cup of tea, your brain has to go through several steps to accomplish the act. It has to make the decision to pick
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Why can owls turn their heads so far? Because their heads are only connected by one socket, which can rotate. Owls are renowned for several things. One of them is their ability to swivel their heads completely around so they can keep an eye out for prey or predators. Being able to turn their heads
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What is Lou Gehrig’s disease? It is a disease that causes progressive degeneration of the nerve cells in the spine and brain. The disease is called Lou Gehrig’s disease after a famous baseball player who died of it, but the disease’s actual name is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). “Amyotrophic” comes from Greek. “A” means “no”.
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What is acid reflux? The acid from the stomach comes back up the esophagus, causing a lot of pain and sometimes even damage. Most animals that have a stomach that digests their food produce stomach acid. The acid in our stomachs is very strong. It has a pH of roughly 2, which makes it a
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