Category Kids Queries

When it comes to retaining memories, your brain is practically a bottomless pit – one that continues to deepen throughout your life. So why did you forget where you put your towel at swim practice? It turns out your brain is equipped with two types of memory…

Short-term: Powerful but fleeting, short – term memory is meant to store information – such as phone numbers, email addresses, and other humdrum everyday data, like the location of that towel at swim practice – that you won’t need to recall during your golden years. As you’d expect, short-term memories don’t linger. They fade even faster if you were distracted at the time the memory took shape (maybe a teammate was talking to you while put down your towel, or maybe you moved the towel many times during practice and your short – term memory can’t place its exact location).

Long-term: Experiences move from short-term to long-term memory when they’re  repeated (such as when you memorize flash cards to study for a test) or accompanied by meaningful emotions and significant sensory input (such as when you scored the winning goal or the day you got your pooch as a puppy). Scientists believe your brain has a limitless capacity for long – term memories, but sometimes you can’t recall a particular detail without help from sensory clues (a familiar smell is a powerful reminder) or the recollections of friends involved in the event.

Scientists blame such forgetfulness on a flaw on our ability to retrieve memories – a flaw that nonscientists call a ‘’brain fart’’.

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Every time you experience something new, electrical charges fire through the white matter in tour brain, creating chemical links that form a network of pathways out of neurons. Your memories are stored in these connected neurons, and the connections become stronger and expand into other neurons with repeated exposure to the new experience. Practicing a song on the guitar makes the same neural networks fire again and again, becoming stronger and thus making the song easier to play. Spending time with a new friend reinforces old connections and builds new ones as you learn about your pal’s habits. As you learn and gain new memories, your brain’s structure changes and makes new connections. The brain you have today will be different tomorrow.

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The skunk is a mammal primarily known for secreting a foul, noxious-smelling oily liquid from its anal glands and spraying it from its rear end when it feels threatened. Also known as polecats, skunks are classified in the Mephitidae family (or ‘skunk family’), which is in the order Carnivora. There are 12 known species of mephitis, most of which are found in the Western hemisphere (especially in the Americas).

Skunks come in a variety of sizes; they range from 15 to 37 inches long, 15 to 28 inches tall, and weigh between 0.5 and 8.2 kilograms (1.1-18 lbs). Their bodies are moderately elongated and consist of well-muscled legs. Skunks usually have long front claws that help them to dig.

Skunks reek because they have glands in their butts loaded with an icky musk. Skunk spray smells so bad because it consists of a mixture of chemicals containing sulfur (such as thiols), which are notorious for their pungent and nauseating odor, basically like the smell that rotten eggs have.

Many creatures of the animal kingdom are quite popular/notorious among humans for a variety of reasons: lions are known for their loud, thunderous roar, ostriches are known for burying their heads in the sand when they sense danger (which, by the way, is a myth), and skunks are known for their signature stinky spray. This spray is released from a skunk’s anus, and is notorious for its incredibly disgusting odor.

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Snot gets it’s yellow (and eventually green) color a chemical in your white blood cells, which your body unleashes to fight infection. Yellow mucus is a sign that whatever virus or infection you have is taking hold. The good news? Your body is fighting back. The yellow color comes from the cells — white blood cells, for example — rushing to kill the offending germs. Once the cells have done their work, they’re discarded in your snot and tinge it a yellowish-brown.

Your illness may last anywhere from 10 to 14 days, but keep an eye on your nasal discharge.

If your immune system kicks into high gear to fight infection, your snot may turn green and become especially thick. The color comes from dead white blood cells and other waste products.

But green snot isn’t always a reason to run to your doctor. In fact, some sinus infection may be viral, not bacterial.

Still, if you’ve had your cold or infection for 12 days or more, it may be a good time to make an appointment. You may have a bacterial sinus infection or another bacterial infection that requires medication. Look for other signs you’re not getting better, like fever, headache, or nausea.

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The sky is blue because air molecules in our atmosphere filter blue light out of the colour spectrum. A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light.  When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colours because the blue light has been scattered out and away from the line of sight. The white light from the sun is a mixture of all colours of the rainbow.  This was demonstrated by Isaac Newton, who used a prism to separate the different colours and so form a spectrum.  The colours of light are distinguished by their different wavelengths.  The visible part of the spectrum ranges from red light with a wavelength of about 720 nm, to violet with a wavelength of about 380 nm, with orange, yellow, green, blue and indigo between.  The three different types of colour receptors in the retina of the human eye respond most strongly to red, green and blue wavelengths, giving us our colour vision.

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Everyone’s blood contains the same basic stuff, but mixed in with that stuff are ‘’antigens’’. These special proteins act like an ID tag for a person’s own and not a foreign invader. Antigen combinations make different blood types – eight in all – which are passed along from parent to child just like eye color and other genetic traits. If you get in an accident and lose a lot of blood (or get sick and need a fresh supply), you’ll have to go to the hospital to get a ‘’transfusion’’ of someone else’s red stuff. Transfusions are simple procedures and the most common type of hospital procedure but they always start with the doctor determining the patient’s blood type. If you get a transfusion of the wrong type, your immune system will think it’s an infection and go on the attack!

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