Valerie C asks: Can staying awake too long really kill you? Every college student knows the eye-stinging pain of a caffeine-induced all-nighter.  It’s been well documented that prolonged sleep deprivation will lead to lower cognitive and motor function, as well as impaired memory; it might even give you the tired-giggles.  No one has ever definitively shown why sleep is necessary […]

George asks: Weird question, but do trees poop? A wise man once said, “Everybody poops.” Well that should probably be changed to everything poops, because all living things excrete waste. This brings us to a brilliant question posed by a reader whose head we’d love to crack open and see what’s going on inside- do trees poop? As it so […]

Kelley M. asks: Is a guy’s hand or foot size actually a good indicator of the length of their penis or is that a myth? Given that public nudity is generally considered unacceptable in most of the modern world (and if you’re wondering, see: When Did Humans Start Wearing Clothes?), people have long tried to come up with other potential […]

Julia C. asks: Why do you get a lump in your throat when you are sad? If, like me, you’ve been subjected to watching The Notebook with your spouse, you might have experienced an uncomfortable lump in your throat. As you attempt to breath heavy and avoid crying like a little kid who has just skinned her knee, you might […]

Shannon D. asks: How come people who smell really bad can never seem to smell their own stench? Have you ever sat next to a woman on a bus who lost her sense of smell? Or, at least, you assume so as the eye-watering fragrance wafting from her perfume is so overpowering that the nausea it induces makes you appreciate […]

Neal H. asks: Why do we put hydrogen peroxide on our cuts? As a child, did you ever skin your knee and fear telling your parents, afraid of your mom breaking out the brown bottle of pain containing hydrogen peroxide to “help heal” your wound? Given the agony it caused, you might have wondered whether the fizzing liquid was actually […]

Jerrod A. asks: How do trees pump water from their roots all the way to their tops and tips of their branches? Trees need water throughout their bodies, from the depths of the roots to the tips of their leaves, sometimes tens of meters above the ground. So how do they manage to get the water up there? To begin […]

Andrew C. asks: Is it possible to get the flu from getting a flu shot? Vaccines, in general, have been a massive boon to humanity. They’ve rid the world of an affliction that has plagued humanity for thousands of years in smallpox (for reference killing over 300 million people in the 20th century alone before it was eradicated), and have […]

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 […]

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 […]