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Archive for the ‘general science’ Category

It pains me to say, but this is true. There is no bone in your “bone,” but you can rupture the penis, which is called a penile fracture. Sudden trauma or bending of the penis in an erect state can break the thick fibrous coat surrounding the corpora cavernosa, which produce an erection.

This happens most frequently during sex. Don’t expect to get a cast and crutches. This injury is an emergency and requires surgery to prevent sexual dysfunction. Ouch!

The vestibular system is a complicated network of passageways and chambers within the inner ear that work together to control equilibrium and balance. Inside there are tubes and sacs that contain different fluids, each of which has a different composition. When you are healthy and both sides of your vestibular system are functioning properly, the two sides send symmetrical impulses to the brain. When you get very intoxicated, the alcohol changes the density of the blood, and this affects the intricate system of balance. That is when the spinning starts. This is similar to the condition called vertigo.

I wish my father had known the answer to this question, because maybe he would have yelled at my brother less. Cracking your knuckles is not as bad as people think. The usual concern is that knuckle popping causes arthritis. This does not happen. Chronic knuckle cracking may cause other types of damage, including stretching of the surrounding ligaments and a decrease in grip strength, but not arthritis. The popping sound is produced in the joint when bubbles burst in the synovial fluid surrounding the joint.

Chinese meals, for the most part, contain rice, little meat, and plenty of low-calorie vegetables. The rice and noodle dishes, such as fried rice and lo mein, contain carbohydrates that cause the blood sugar to peak and then plummet, provoking hunger. So if you are going out for Chinese, don’t forget the Peking duck, the General Tso’s chicken, or the spareribs. You may feel greasy and start quoting Mao, but you won’t feel hungry later.

Asparagus contains a sulfur compound called mercaptan, which is also found in onions, garlic, and rotten eggs (and in the secretions of skunks). The smell occurs when mercaptan is broken down in your digestive system. Not all people have the gene for the enzyme that breaks down mercaptan, so some of you can eat all the asparagus you want without stinking up the place. One study published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that only 46 percent of British people tested produced the odor, while 100 percent of French people tested did.

The damaging effects of electrocution are due to an electric current flowing through your body. Electricity won’t flow into a bird sitting on a high voltage wire because there is nowhere for the electricity to go after the bird, except into the air. So the bird is safe if it is standing on one wire. If it landed with a foot on two different wires, then …zap! Electricity would travel from one wire, through the bird and into the other wire. Similarly, if the bird touched an object in contact with the ground, the electricity could flow from the wire through the bird on its way to the ground. In this case, the bird has “earthed” the wire. High voltage wires are well spaced and well away from the ground, so birds, which are usually small, perch quite safely on one wire.

High up in some parts of the atmosphere there are tiny ice crystals. When the conditions are right, these ice crystals form a ring around the light coming from the moon. In these special conditions, the moon’s light can be redirected by millions of ice crystals. The light rays travel in a straight line from the moon, but then they bend as they pass through a crystal and come out in another direction. Other light rays are reflected from flat surfaces on the crystals.

If you are standing in the right place, light that passes through the ice crystals will look like a bright thin circle with the moon in the middle.

Every night, we all dream four or five times and each dream period lasts for 15 or 20 minutes.
No-one is entirely certain why we dream, but a prominent theory is that dreaming clears the brain of old, unwanted memories. Over a period of time, the brain acquires more information than it can hold – it has to clear unneeded and irrelevant memories to make way for more important ones. Some researchers describe dreams as “junk” information which the brain’s filing system is in the process of throwing out.

A liking for foods which taste sweet is present at birth – breast milk is sweet. Brussels sprouts don’t come into the sweet range. We also are born with a dislike for bitter or sour tastes and, at certain ages – particularly from three to about six or seven – most children really hate trying new flavours. Also, they very quickly pick up parental messages, for example, ice-cream is a reward food, vegetables are duty foods.

Children are like adults – they prefer rewards but, unlike most adults, they don’t take into account the health aspect of the food they eat. So, even though brussels sprouts are undoubtedly good for us, they often are rejected by children. However, studies have shown that if children are offered foods initially rejected time and time again, they will eventually get to like some of them.

An office block’s foundations are sunk so deeply into the ground that they won’t budge. The sections are made of strong columns that are firmly braced. So the whole structure is like a continuous rigid column jammed into the ground. Imagine your feet were set in a big block of cement half way up to your knees. Providing you hold your body rigid, there’s no way you will fall over – even in high winds. An office block and its foundations are a bit like this. Tall buildings are designed to sway a little in high winds. The top of a 100-storey building can sway, quite safely, up to 1.5m.