But, if these extra teeth were such an advantage for our ancestors, then why do most people today need to have their wisdom teeth removed? Again, the answer lies in evolution. As we humans have evolved, our skulls have become slightly smaller, while...
As we all learned in health class, human beings have 32 teeth. Twenty-eight of them come in before puberty, but the last four teeth, our third molars, usually come in during our late teens or early twenties, when were presumably older and wiser hence...
Craig and Bernard did laboratory experiments showing that fruit flies are two to three times more likely to fly toward a simple web reflecting ultraviolet light than toward a web not reflecting it. Craig and Bernard also found that many spiders, espe...
And any year with extreme variations in temperature from night to day tends to be a good year for maple syrup as well. All trees produce some natural sugars, which they use for energy in their own growth processes, but not all trees, or even all mapl...
If you take a spring walk through the woods in many parts of the Northeast, youll find buckets hanging from the sides of maple trees. Drop by drop, the buckets are filling up with the slightly sweet sap from the trees. When that sweet liquid is boile...
Since most of the smell receptors are located very high up, near the brain, they are out of the main flow of air. As a result, the smell receptors dont get a strong dose of whatevers in the air youre breathing. But when you sniff that is, when you ta...
Watch your dog next time you go for a walk chances are it sniffs at anything that might smell interesting. People sniff, too, when theyre trying to pick up a faint odor. Its clear that sniffing helps us smell those faint odors that we wouldnt otherwi...
This same principal explains how a barometer measures the atmospheric pressure. Since mercury is much heavier than water, the atmospheric pressure can only support a column of mercury about thirty inches high. But as the atmospheric pressure changes,...
When you sit down to a glass of iced tea with a straw in it, you might say that you are sucking the tea up through the straw. In fact, a more accurate description would be to say that the atmospheric pressure is pushing the liquid up the straw. With...
And on the flip side, its all too easy to gain weight eating low sugar, low calorie health food, or eating mostly protein, if you eat too much of it. In fact, some studies have shown that for some people, exercise and healthy eating can lead to weigh...
To many folks, the phrase dark side of the moon suggests theres a place you could go to on the moon which is perpetually cloaked in darkness. This is incorrect! Lets ignore lunar eclipses for now. With that exception, sunlight is always falling on so...
As the moon orbits the earth, the illumination from the sun gradually slides in and out of our view. Depending on the positions of the moon and sun, we on earth see the moon as waxing, full, or waning. During a new moon, the moon looks completely dar...
Maintain a balanced diet. Get plenty of exercise. Cut down on junk food. All are basic tenets of living a healthy lifestyle. And for good reason. Exercising regularly can help control weight gain. And theres evidence that being physically active can...
Initial research showed that malaria-carrying mosquitoes were more abundant in deforested areas, but didnt examine malaria rates. Scientists needed more evidence of a link between deforestation and disease. Later research in Brazil using high resolut...
So-called tree huggers are often seen as kooks or crazy environmentalists, but protecting trees, especially tropical rain forest trees may be a way to save millions of lives. This is particularly true in the Amazon rain forest where deforestation and...
