I learned this today. Seasickness is caused because of a discrepancy between the vestibular system and the eyes. Just inside your head, you have your inner ear which is used for sound detection and for balance. The balance part is what causes seasickness. There are two parts: the cochlea and the vestibular system. The cochlea […]
#10 What causes seasickness? Read More »
I learned this today. An airbag can inflate so quickly because it contains sodium azide, which produces nitrogen gas when it ignites. When you are in a car crash, a series of steps happen to launch the airbags. An accelerometer measures that the car has rapidly decelerated. Impact sensors work out where the impact has
#9 How can an airbag inflate so quickly? Read More »
I learned this today. Vantablack is the blackest material ever made because it absorbs 99.965% of light. Anything that you have in front of you right now is reflecting light back into your eyes. For example, my phone case is red with a brown cat on it. It is night, so there is no sunlight.
#8 How can Vantablack be so black? Read More »
I learned this today. Salt preserves food by removing the water and vinegar preserves food by increasing its acidity. The refrigerator was invented in 1834. Before that, people used ice to keep food chilled. In the 1800s, Americans used over 5 million tons of ice annually. The ice was cut from northern countries (Scandinavian countries)
#7 How do salting and pickling preserve food? Read More »
I learned this today. The Earth wouldn’t really have seasons if it wasn’t tilted on its axis, and that is thanks to the moon. The Earth is tilted at an angle of 23.5°. If the Earth was completely straight, we would have mild temperature changes as the Earth moved closer and farther away from the
#6 Why does the Earth have seasons? Read More »
I learned this today. Labradors are used as guide dogs because of their temperament, but also because of their size. Guide dogs have been used for centuries. There is a painting of a blind man being led by a dog on the wall of a Roman house that was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius
#5 Why are labradors used as guide dogs? Read More »
I learned this today. Vultures can eat rotten meat that would make us very sick because their stomach acid is 100 times stronger than ours. If you or I were to go and find a dead animal by the side of the road and eat it, we would get very sick within a few hours.
#4 How can vultures eat rotten meat and not get sick? Read More »
I learned this today. The necktie that most men wear today came about because King Louis XIV of France liked the knotted neckerchiefs that the Croatian mercenaries in his army wore. People have worn cloths around their necks for as long as people have had cloth. Roman soldiers were the first people to wear knotted
#3 Why did men start wearing neckties? Read More »
I learned this today. Ketchup was created in the 17th century, but it wasn’t made of tomatoes. Ketchup began in Asia. The word ketchup either comes from the Hokkien Chinese word “ke-tsiap”, which was a salty sauce made from fermented fish, or the Malay word “kicap”, which was soy sauce. Whatever the origin of the
#2 Where did ketchup come from? What did it have to do with mushrooms? Read More »
I learned this today. We say, “the best thing since sliced bread”, but sliced bread has only been around since 1928. Humans have been eating bread for thousands of years. 30,000-year-old starch residue has been found on rocks used for pounding plants. Early humans could have spread the starch on a flat rock and cooked
#1 Who invented sliced bread? Read More »
