Consumer Guide Online

Archive for July, 2008

It is likely that ants can sense the change in air pressure that happens before rain. That’s when they go into rescue-operation mode. The ant colony is very protective of its nest and, if rain is coming, the workers will block holes and move the queen and larvae to safer places, usually deeper underground.The general agitated activity you see above ground will be going on inside the nest as well.

The water droplets in clouds are very tiny – perhaps one tenth of a millimetre across and weighing little more than a dust particle.

Objects this small don’t have as strong a gravitational pull as bigger things, such as raindrops, which rapidly fall from the sky.

The tiny droplets of water get caught in updraughts, or convection currents, and are swept higher into the atmosphere where they gather together to make a cloud.

They are so light that the updraughts keep them up in the sky – it’s only when clouds get squashed together and the tiny droplets bump into one another and join together that they make big droplets and fall from the sky as rain. Clouds are just like fog, but higher in the air.

One of your facial nerves, called the trigeminal nerve, is responsible for sensations within the nose, mouth and eyes. It can become irritated by acidic or spicy smells or tastes.

The trigeminal nerve can be particularly sensitive to the strong smell of an onion, or even the taste of chilli, and reacts by making tears form in your eyes. Ginger, horseradish and even fizzy drinks can give you the same sort of reaction.

These burning, stinging, biting, prickling and tangy sensations have been part of food around the world for thousands of years, and it seems that the more we eat spicy foods, the more we get to like them.

After you close the freezer door, the air inside the cabinet cools down. Like most things, air contracts as it gets cooler. Because it is in a confined space, the contracting air causes the air pressure inside the freezer compartment to drop. The overall result is much lower air pressure inside the freezer than outside, so the freezer door is being “sucked” on.

The lower the temperature, the lower the air pressure and the harder it is to open the door. The freezer is colder than the fridge, so the freezer door is “sucked” on more firmly and is, therefore, harder to open.

There is not one conclusive answer to this, but there are a few interesting possibilities. Many mums and dads would agree that a child will jump in a puddle to defy his or her parents instructions not to do so. They display independence by doing just the opposite of what they’ve been told. For younger children, stamping in puddles, like playing in mud, eating snails and looking in cupboards, might be exploration – learning about new things they haven’t fully explored in the world around them. There is another possible reason, of course – children jump in puddles because it’s fun.

Goose bumps occur when your body is trying to warm itself up. When you get cold enough, your nerves send a signal to tiny muscles that are connected to the base of your hair follicles. The signal tells the tiny muscles to contract, and this makes the hair stand straight up. This muscle contraction also makes the skin pucker so that you look something like a plucked goose – hence the term “goose bumps”.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t warm you very much. But for animals that have a lot of fur, making their hair stand on end can warm them significantly. It helps to trap a layer of air close to their bodies and this insulates them from the cold.

Deciduous trees shed their leaves in autumn as a protective mechanism during the cold months of the year. In very cold climates, it is just too cold for the plant -the leaves freeze and cannot carry out their normal job of photosynthesis (making food with the help of the sun’s energy).

So, instead of having leaves hanging around doing nothing, the tree sheds them and goes into a kind of sleep – much like a grizzly bear hibernates.

In autumn, when the daily temperature or daylight hours decrease, the tree senses winter is just around the corner. In preparation for the cold, it shuts off the connection to the leaves, which then wither, die and fall off.

The colour results from a process called scattering of light which happens in the earth’s atmosphere. Light comes from the sun and is a mixture of all colours, so light of every colour passes through our atmosphere. But blue light has more energy than the other colours, and when it hits some of the tiny molecules of which our air is made, it gives a little of its energy to them. Once they have a shot of this energy, these little particles get so excited that they release the energy, or blue light. Because there are trillions of these molecules in our atmosphere, bouncing blue light in every direction, we always see blue light coming from the sky.

Dogs pant to cool themselves down. When humans get too hot, they perspire. Water seeps out through our pores and forms a thin layer of moisture over the skin. If we then stand in a breeze, it will cool us down.

As the breeze passes, it evaporates some of the perspiration on our bodies. When water evaporates, it draws heat from its environment. So, as perspiration evaporates from your skin it takes some of the heat out of your body.

Dogs don’t have sweat glands, except between their toes, so they can’t sweat. Instead, they pant. The breeze from the dog’s breath flows over his or her moist tongue and cools the blood that flows through it. And this eventually cools the dog’s whole body.

Fruits and vegetables
Eating at least two serves of fruit and five different vegetables every day is your No. 1 anti-aging weapon. Every time you choose a salad instead of a sausage roll, or fruit instead of a biscuit, you’ll be decreasing your risk of certain cancers, and heart disease. Green leafy vegetables, such as spinach and silver beet, are packed with anti-oxidants, which will protect you against cataracts. Orange-colored vegetables such as sweet potato, carrots, pumpkin and sweet corn are rich in B carotene, which converts to the vision vitamin, A. The red coloring in vine-ripened tomatoes, Spanish onions and red capsicum contains the potent anti-oxidant lycopene, which delays ageing. Cabbages and brussels sprouts contain indoles, which appear to have anti-cancer effects. Citrus fruits and berries packed with vitamin C, and mangoes, pawpaws, rockmelon and tamarillos rich in B carotene, take on cancer-fighting roles.

Soybeans and other legumes
Soybeans are rich in isoflavonoids, a group of non-nutrient anti-oxidants which offer protection against cancer.
These phyto-oestrogens (plant oestrogens), which Occur naturally in soybeans and other legumes, also can reduce menopause symptoms such as hot flushes.This would definitely help a woman to feel younger.

Nuts and seeds
Most nuts and seeds are rich in vitamin E, one of the fat-soluble vitamins. This vitamin also is a powerful anti-oxidant. Its major function is to protect all membranes from free-radical damage. There has been much recent interest in the role of vitamin E in the aging process and in preventing diseases such as cancer and heart disease. The amount of vitamin E that has been used in scientific studies is far greater than the amount we could obtain from our diet. However, it is still too early to recommend high-dosage supplements. A handful of almonds or a tablespoon of a seed oil will supply you with your daily vitamin E needs.

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