If you ever won a competition, chances are high that you want to do it again. So, if someone offers you an edge, temptation is high to use it, no matter the cost. May it be a drink from the gods or an injection by your coach – over the centuries there were a lot of things people used to […]

Childhood development is largely defined by vertical growth. For generations, parents have kept a story pole or even marked a door jamb with their kid’s height every birthday, or perhaps even several times per year. Whatever your height may be, and whatever height you’d like to be, one thing is certain: we can lose weight, we can dye our hair, […]

Magnets are everywhere. Just about every electronic device uses them including the speakers you’re using to listen to me talk right now. Deriving their name from the Greek Island of Magnesia, magnets have come to play an integral part of our modern world. As anyone whose ever watched a certain particularly powerful mutant of the villainous variety do his thing […]

If Daredevil has taught us anything, it’s that, while a closely guarded secret within the blind community, blind people inevitably all become superheroes after losing their sight thanks to their other senses being insanely enhanced. But when talking the real world, does this enhancing of one’s other senses really occur when the lights go out permanently? Well, for those who […]

Ever wonder how the 20/20 and 6/6 vision scales work? Well, wonder no more. With approximately half of adults requiring some form of corrective eyewear to compensate for visual impairment of various forms, chances are you have had your eyesight graded on the 20/20 or 6/6 scales before. If you haven’t, you have probably heard other people saying they have […]

There are several different types of blood.  Contained within them are different types of cells and countless molecules that give our bodies the needed nutrients to work effectively. The two main types of cells within the blood are red and white blood cells. Red blood cells make up nearly 45% of your blood volume. White blood cells make up less […]

silentrob asks: Is it true that beards grow faster in the winter than they do in the summer? A commonly touted notion is that your hair will grow faster, be thicker, and otherwise naturally longer in the winter time thanks to the supposed evolutionary benefit to help keep you warm in the colder months. But is this actually true? And […]

el_juano asks: Is it possible for someone to get infected with cancer from someone else? In an oversimplified nutshell, cancer is, to quote cancer.gov, a disease “in which abnormal cells divide without control and can invade nearby tissues.”  Given its propensity to spread and divide in an uncontrolled manner throughout a person’s body, it brings up the question of whether […]

MasaC asks: Why do fingernails on a chalkboard make us cringe? Few sounds cause humans to cringe more than nails across a chalkboard, a fork scraped on a plate, or a heavy metal chair dragged across a tiled floor.  But what exactly is it about this sort of scraping noise that is so offensive to our brains that many even […]

L.I.A.L asks: Why do we have moles all over our body and what do they do? Moles, in general, are simply an abnormal grouping of cells called melanocytes. Melanocytes are the cells responsible for giving your skin its pigment. They reside in the basal layer of your skin, and overall, have a surprisingly uniform distribution. Their density will vary depending […]