Sure, you think the world is full of solid objects. You think the radio youre listening to is solid. You think the floor youre standing on or the chair youre sitting in is solid. Heck, you probably think that you yourself are a solid object. Wrong. O...
The Oort cloud is a spherical haze of comets that surrounds our entire solar system. We often get the false impression that the solar system ends with Pluto. In fact, beyond Pluto is the Oort cloud, encircling everything else like an enormous shell....
Perhaps the baby isnt hearing properly, or perhaps the problem is cognitive. Or, as is sometimes the case, the babys parents arent speaking to the baby enough. Because experts believe that while some capacity for language is ingrained, learning how t...
Perhaps the baby isnt hearing properly, or perhaps the problem is cognitive. Or, as is sometimes the case, the babys parents arent speaking to the baby enough. Because experts believe that while some capacity for language is ingrained, learning how t...
But whats true for mammals isnt always true for the rest of the animal kingdom. The sex of baby birds is also determined by two different sex chromosomes, but in birds, its the male that has two of the same-shaped sex chromosomes and the female that...
In mammals, the sex of a baby is determined by the combination of chromosomes it inherits from its parents. Nearly every cell in a male body has two different sex chromosomesone is shaped like an X and one is shaped like a Y. Females also have two se...
Another sexual difference among mammals that doesnt hold with other animals is size. In most mammals the male is larger than the female, but in most other animals where there are two distinct sexes, the female is the larger one. Today scientists defi...
In this form of hereditary porphyria, the skin becomes white with anemia and very sensitive to light. (Remember that vampires only come out at night.) The teeth of Porphyria victims become reddish and even glow under ultraviolet light. Hair grows fas...
The vampire is the stuff of the great horror stories. However, a recent textbook by geneticist John Jenkins suggests that Bram Stokers legend of the vampire, Dracula, may have had its basis in a very real disease that prevents some people from gettin...
Since that time, scientists have found that numerous species of fungi produce chemicals to destroy bacteria and that bacteria even produce chemicals that destroy other bacteria. Antibiotics are relatively new in modern medicine, but the earliest medi...
When you take an aspirin, a decongestant, or a muscle relaxant, the drug youre taking was probably made by a chemist combining a specific mixture of chemicals. Microscopic Fungi And Bacteria Antibiotics, on the other hand, are chemicals produced by m...
Acetylene and hydrogen molecules are disappearing from the atmosphere of Saturns moon, Titan. Its a mystery befitting Sherlock Holmes investigative skills, a mystery NASA scientists hope to crack. About fifty percent larger than Earths moon, Titan is...
Galileo, however, used one of the earliest telescopes to look at Jupiter. He noticed that Jupiter has moons going around it. Apparently everything in the cosmos didnt have to go around the earth! Perhaps, Galileo said, it just looks like everything m...
What makes Galileo a science hero? For one thing, he moved human knowledge forward against outstanding prejudice and even persecution. Back in 1616, when Galileo argued that Copernicus had been right in suggesting the earth moves around the sun, he w...
Microwaves heat water by jerking the water molecules around, so to speak. Each water molecule has a slight positive electric charge on one side and a slight negative charge on the other. As microwaves pass by, they exert forces on those charges, firs...
