Have you ever wondered why U.S. money is green?
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The color of American money goes back to the British colonies.
Like magic.
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Mobile phones and tablets are basically mini computers – and to a computer, everything is a number.
The world’s smallest frog can fit on a dime.
E.N. Rittmeyer et al. (2012)
Scientists have identified the world’s smallest animal – for now. It could be possible smaller creatures exist that have not yet been discovered.
Scientists don’t know for sure why this happens - but we have some theories.
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The truth is scientists aren’t exactly sure why our fingers and toes get wrinkly in the bath. But here’s what we know, and what we suspect.
Hummingbirds flap their wings 800 times per minute.
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How do hummingbirds drink sugary nectar and not get sick? Don’t they need a balanced diet to stay healthy? Do they eat anything else?
There are so many number systems! The ones you know now were developed over centuries but we are still making up more now.
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The Romans were great engineers but they had a terrible number system. It didn’t even have zero.
Most people cry when they’re feeling sad, or when they are having big feelings.
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Crying is something everyone does sometimes – an expert in the history of emotions explains why people cry to express their feelings.
When you’re feeling sick, your immune system is fighting to get you well again.
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The white blood cells act as an army of fighting cells, protecting your body from bad cells known as germs. White blood cells can capture germs and even swallow them.
Rats will eat anything and they have a LOT of babies. That’s why there’s so many of them.
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Black rats are originally from India and brown rats are originally from China.
Even when we are asleep, we can still feel if we are comfortable and our ‘sixth sense’ is working to let us know where we are in our beds.
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Our body knows how it is moving and where it is because of a sense called proprioception, a ‘sixth sense’ that helps your body know where it is in the world. And it works even while you’re asleep.
Those worksheets might not do much for a child’s grades.
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How much homework kids should do is a subject of great debate.
Everyone forgets things sometimes.
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Have you ever walked into a room and realised you can’t remember what you were looking for? We tend to do this more when we are thinking of a few things at once or doing two things at the same time.
Blowing bubbles is fun and also involves a lot of science.
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Bubbles in fizzy drinks are full of science you probably didn’t know about - and which can even be found in volcanoes!
If you have been drinking more water than your body needs, the body tells the kidney filters to get rid of the spare water. That’s when your urine will look paler.
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One of the waste products that your kidneys put into your urine is a chemical called urobilin, and it is yellow.
The air up high is just really bad at ‘holding’ onto the radiation coming from the Sun, and the warmth passes straight through it on its journey toward the ground.
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It helps if you imagine the ground here on Earth as a big heater. It keeps us warm, and if you move away from the heater you feel cold.
Another reason you don’t want to get too close to a black hole is because of something we call ‘spaghettification’. If this happened to Earth it would be… unpleasant.
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If you got too close to a black hole, it would suck you in and you’d never be able to escape, even if you were travelling at the speed of light.
This point of no return is called the event horizon.
Scratching is a natural behavior for cats.
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Have a cat who just loves to scratch? Declawing is a major surgery that comes with serious long-term side effects – and it might not solve the problem anyway.
Fighting fire during training session.
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What exactly is inside those red fire extinguisher canisters, and does it work better than water?
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You could jump much higher on the moon than you can on Earth – but you’d be in no danger of shooting off into space.
Researchers pour a barrel of hagfish into a holding tank aboard a research vessel about 20 miles off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
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Hagfish have been called the most disgusting creatures in the ocean. But what are they?