Derek H. asks: Why does extreme lowering of body temperature sometimes help people survive when they’re otherwise dead for extended periods? We’ve all probably heard of a person being pulled from cold water after a seemingly unrevivable timeframe. Miraculously, they survive and more or less make full recoveries. A 7-year-old girl named Stella Berndtsson from Sweden currently holds the record […]
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Jess M. asks: Where did the zika virus originally come from? The Zika virus was first discovered in 1947 in a Sentinel Rhesus monkey in Uganda. It was later shown to reside in mosquitoes in 1948, with the first human infections documented in 1952. Zika belongs to a class of viruses known as Arboviruses, which are essentially any virus transmitted […]
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Jeremy A. asks: Why is stress bad for you? Shouldn’t we have evolved to not get stressed given it’s harmful? Stress, in general, comes in a few different forms- acute, episodic, and chronic. Acute stress can be very beneficial to you. Have you ever come face to face with a rabid puma? If so, the ability of your body to […]
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Jessi K. asks: Joking aside, is it possible to be literally allergic to exercise? Most couch-potatoes have probably at some point in their lives said, “I can’t run a mile without feeling like I’m going to die!” They might also sarcastically proclaim they must be allergic to exercise. And, amazingly enough, it turns out there is a rare disorder in […]
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Brenda V. asks: Is it true that men can breastfeed babies naturally? The ability to lactate exists in a variety of male animals, though male milk production is typically a rare occurrence. However, male Dayak fruit bats are commonly known to lactate. So what about human male lactation? Believe it or not, men can, in fact, lactate. Possessing all the […]
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The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Calculus involves the study of limits. By the time they were done arguing about who had invented it, Isaac Newton and G. W. Leibniz had probably both reached their limit as well. Science has seen a number of simultaneous discoveries. Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry independently discovered electromagnetic induction. Charles […]
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Gina A. asks: Is the ocean continually getting saltier as salt comes in from the rivers or is there some way that the salt gets moved back onto land? Most sea salts come from water-caused erosion, whereby rivers ultimately carry the dissolved salts to the oceans. Absent a few key processes, the ocean’s salinity would continuously increase; however, there are […]
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Terran N. asks: Why do some people have different colored eyes? The Basics of Eye Color Eye color is a function of pigmentation both at the back of the iris (iris pigment epithelium) and in its stroma (the front of the iris), as well as the density of the cells in the stroma. In most cases these factors, and hence […]
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Ryan D. asks: Does the dangly thing in the back of my throat serve any purpose? Hanging from the back edge of your soft palate, the palatine uvula seems to serve several functions, none of which are particularly necessary for most people, which is why it can generally be removed with few, if any, noticeable side effects. In fact, in […]
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Jay G. asks: Why do fruits change colour and flavour when they ripen? Fruits and vegetables (see: The Difference Between Fruits and Vegetables) come in a wide array of colors that change throughout their ripening process, with the brightest colors often occurring when the fruit is optimally ripened. But why do fruits change color at all? There are two ways […]
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Jared U. asks: Why isn’t normal body temperature the temperature that humans are most comfortable in? Each summer as temperatures approach 98° Fahrenheit (about 37° Celsius), we hear news stories about people suffering (and sometimes even dying) from overheating. Yet these temperatures are essentially the same as normal body heat. So why isn’t this a comfortable temperature for us? Our […]
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Roman S. asks: How does spitting in swimming goggles keep them from fogging up? The “fog” you may sometimes experience on your glasses or goggles occurs when atmospheric humidity near the lens condenses; this happens due to a relatively significant discrepancy between the temperature of the lens and the surrounding air. As the surface attempts to reach an equilibrium between […]
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Harry K. asks: Why are raindrops always so small. Would it be possible to have a single raindrop that contains gallons of water? At only about half as wide in diameter as a U.S. penny, the largest raindrops ever recorded, between 8.8 mm and 1 cm, were observed by scientists in the clouds above Brazil (1995) and the Marshall Islands […]
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Laura K. asks: Why does the yolk of a hard-boiled egg sometimes turn green? The process of hard-boiling an egg involves denaturation. During this process, the amino acid chains found in the proteins in the egg are altered from their original, raw egg state, with the denaturation temperature varying somewhat depending on the specific protein in question (see chart here). […]
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Nathan K. asks: Is it true that mosquitoes are more attracted to some people than others or does it just seem that way? Female mosquitoes can put a damper on any outdoor event when they start to snack on those present. (Note: only the females drink your blood; they don’t need it for their own nourishment, but for certain nutrients […]
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Medical science has advanced an astounding amount in the last 50 years or so and we can do things today that a half a century ago even in that era’s science fiction would have been considered science fiction. By the same token though, there were things done in the 1950s and 1960s that people today are still skeptical actually happened, […]
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Chris G. asks: We know there is a coldest temperature at absolute zero. Is there also a hottest temperature possible? The idea of absolute hot springs from its better-known cousin, absolute zero, which, as you may recall, is 0 K, -273.15° C or -459.67° F. And although abridged definitions of the lowest temperature will frequently state it is the point […]
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Jon K. asks: Why do I sometimes naturally bite my tongue when concentrating on things? The short answer as to why some people bite their tongue when concentrating is that the tongue requires a surprising amount of brain power to manage- beyond general motor control, it’s covered in various types of sensors constantly providing feedback to your brain about what’s […]
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