Manor, mansion, villa, stately home or hall? They are all words that describe a large, expensive house, but they have slightly different origins. A manor is a British term now, but the tradition of manors comes from all over western Europe, having started in Rome. The word comes from the Latin “manere”, which meant remain, […]
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What is a cavity? It is a hole in the enamel of the tooth that bacteria can get in through. We have 32 teeth, assuming you haven’t had your wisdom teeth out, and they are divided into three different types of teeth. We have incisors, canines, and molars. Incisors are the cutting teeth. The name
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Why did we lose all our fur? There are several hypotheses, but probably so that we could cool down more easily. However, nobody knows the actual reason why we lost our fur and there is no way of knowing when we lost it, as well. We are the only hairless ape, but we are obviously
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Why do flies buzz and cicadas and crickets chirp? Flies buzz because of how fast their wings have to move, cicadas chirp by flexing their tymbal, and crickets rub their wings together. Flies aren’t the only insects that buzz. The majority of insects produce some kind of buzzing sound when they fly. Some insects produce
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What languages became English? A Germanic language brought by the Anglo-Saxons, then Norse brought by the Scandinavian Vikings, and then French brought by the Normans. No language really has a starting point, but you can often see the languages that combined to make them. For example, French, Italian, and Spanish all evolved from Latin, which
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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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Why are mince pies called mince pies and why are puddings called puddings? Mince pies are called mince pies because they used to contain minced meat (ground beef) and puddings are called puddings because they used to be encased in some kind of skin and steamed. Mince pies are a traditional food eaten at Christmas
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Why are the police called cops? Police officers are called cops because “to cop” meant to arrest someone. There are many expressions used to refer to the police in English speaking countries. Probably the most famous expression is cop. It is so common that many police officers even refer to themselves as cops or coppers,
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What is the Mercator projection? It is a map projection that tries to put the countries from a sphere onto a rectangle. Almost all world maps you see, and all of the ones we learned about at school, use the Mercator projection. Because of this, we all have a distorted view of how big countries
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