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 […]
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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.
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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
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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 »
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
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Why can we eat lettuce and spinach, but we can’t eat leaves and grass? We can’t eat leaves and grass because of the cellulose and silica they contain. There are several different ways of getting energy. Plants photosynthesize and make energy, which they store in their cells. Herbivores eat the plants to get the energy
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When did supermarkets start? The first supermarket was opened in 1916. Most of us don’t think twice about pushing a cart around a supermarket and then heading to the cash register to pay. However, that is a concept that is only slightly over 100 years old. A few changes in society had to happen before
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Why does popcorn pop? Pressure builds up as the water in the kernel heats up until it explodes. People have been eating popcorn for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence of popcorn from Peru in 4700 BC has been found. Corn, which is more commonly known as maize, was domesticated about 10,000 years ago but modern
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How does a pressure cooker work? By using high pressure to raise the boiling point of the water. Pressure cookers were invented in 1679 by a French physicist. He was trying to find a way to cook food faster. Cast iron pressure cookers were made in Germany in 1864. Pressure cookers improved through the early
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How does a refrigerator cool food? By transferring the heat from inside the refrigerator to outside using evaporation. Fresh foods have to be kept cool to make them last longer. As soon as they are opened, or cut, bacteria start to decompose them. When foods decompose, they taste bad, but some bacteria can produce toxins
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