How does a speedometer work? By translating the speed of the wheel’s rotation into a magnetic field. These days, electronic speedometers are becoming more common, but mechanical ones are still the norm. Let’s look at mechanical ones first. The mechanical speedometer has a dial that sits in the dashboard and miles or kilometers around the […]
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Why is a strike called a “strike”? Because sailors in 1768 struck their ships. To strike a ship means to take off its topsail, making the ship incapable of movement. The word “stricken” comes from the same place. As in, the ship was stricken on the rocks. On a ship, the command to take down
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Where is the source of the Nile? The Nile starts as the White Nile and the Blue Nile before they come together. The White Nile probably starts in Lake Rweru and the Blue Nile probably starts in Lake Tana. The Nile is one of the longest rivers in the world. It used to be the
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What makes our joints pop and click? Escaping gas, moving tendons and ligaments, or rubbing surfaces. There are about 360 joints in the human body, although that depends on age. A joint is the connection between two bones that connects them and allows them to move. Without joints we would be unable to move. There
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What is the difference between carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores? Amongst other things, they have differences in their teeth, mouths, eyes, saliva, intestines and their stomachs. Herbivores obviously live off plants. They are known as primary consumers because they eat the energy that the plants have produced through photosynthesis and introduce it into the food chain.
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How small is nanotechnology? It is between 1 and 100 nanometers. 1 nanometer is 0.000001 mm. It is hard to imagine how small that is. A human hair is about 0.1 mm wide, which makes it 100,000 nm. Nanotechnology is between a thousand and a hundred thousand times smaller than the width of a hair.
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What is the oldest stone circle in the world? Probably the stone circles at Göbekli Tepe, which are almost 12,000 years old. A stone circle is literally a ring made of standing stones. There were many earth circles and wooden stake circles made as well, but they haven’t lasted as well as the stone circles.
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Why don’t we move when we’re dreaming? Chemicals in the brain inhibit the motor neurons and stop them from triggering the muscles. As well as this, the membrane potential in the motor neurons decreases, meaning the nerves need more voltage to trigger them. We dream when we are in REM sleep, which is one of
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What happens in your brain when you learn a second language? The hippocampus and cerebral cortex get larger. The grey matter in the brain becomes denser and the amount of white matter increases. These changes are most noticeable in children that learn a second language from a young age, but they are also visible in
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Who owns the North Pole and the South Pole? This is a surprisingly difficult question. Technically, no country owns either of them, although a lot of countries make claims. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the USA have made claims on the North Pole. Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom all
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