Posts tagged: Bonus Curios

One of the most mysterious systems in the human body actually sends signals you can see all over your skin: goosebumps. Those tiny pins of flesh can rise when you’re suddenly spooked by something, when you hear an inspiring song, or when you’re cold. How do so many different things trigger the same response? And why?

Goosebumps are a reaction of the nervous system, which is responsible for all of your senses; it channels a steady stream of information between your brain and body, interpreting everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. But just why goosebumps appear is traced to something a little less elegant: our animal ancestors.

As George A. Bubenik, a professor of zoology (of course!) explains over on Scientific American: Tiny muscle contractions cause your skin to round up when you get goosebumps; they also make every hair stand straight up. This was useful when we had more fur for a couple reasons. For one, it helped to keep us warmer when cold and, for two, made us look bigger when scared. Next time you see a dog and cat cross paths, watch for the fur on their backs to rise as they size each other up.

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A working model of the amazing machines we live in, The Human Body shows what we’re made of and how we work. We’ve created a handbook of hints and insider intelligence for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

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Plants rely on bees to shuttle pollen from male parts to female parts. As bees imbibe nectar, pollen bits stick to their fuzzy legs, hitching a ride to the next bloom. Some flowers, like the rhododendron, point bees to nectar via special markings, called nectar guides.

Our eyes can see some of these patterns—spot the rhododendron’s yellow specks! Others are only visible to bees and insects, whose ultraviolet sight creates giant color contrasts. Scientists speculate that nectar guides help bees remember their favorite flowers and cut the time they spend dowsing for nectar. This means more bee visitors, and more bees increase a plant’s odds of pollination.

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An interactive diorama of the earth’s biomes, Plants brims with secrets and surprises—we’ve even made a handbook of hints and fun facts for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

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Frogs generally need water to survive and reproduce, yet some species live in areas of the desert with little surface water and scant rainfall. These amphibians’ secret to survival is a mix of incredible adaptations and serious patience.

During dry stretches, desert frogs dig deep and bury themselves in the dampest mud they can find. Some will secrete a layer of mucus around the edges of their burrow. The mucus hardens and protects the moist frog from drying up. Once their burrow is in order, frogs aestivate, falling into a dormant state similar to hibernation.

Desert frogs can wait up to three years for rain. When it falls, they surface, enjoying a swim in ephemeral rainwater pools and overflowing oases topped with fresh blooms of tasty algae. They quickly eat, mate, and lay their eggs before the water evaporates. Then they return to their underground lairs to wait, again, for rain.

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An interactive diorama of the earth’s biomes, Plants brims with secrets and surprises—we’ve even made a handbook of hints and fun facts for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

Read more…

Heat weighs heavy in the arid desert. Rain offers little relief; it often evaporates even before it hits the ground. So how do oases—those lush breaks in the monotonous landscape—form?

Once you dig deep enough, it’s surprisingly easy to find water. Beneath desert sands, porous rocks like limestone hold huge reserves of water, called aquifers—imagine a sodden sponge, not a freely flowing river. Layers of hard, impenetrable rock above and below these stores keep water in place. Cracks along the hard rock layers let water in and out. Occasional rain seeps underground to recharge aquifers. When water surfaces, it springs forth to form shimmering oases.

Oases can be quite large. Four great springs feed the Ein Gedi oasis of Israel, generating a total of three million cubic meters of water per year, enough to fill 1,200 Olympic swimming pools. The result is a verdant oasis known for its botanical gardens and copious bottled water production.

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An interactive diorama of the earth’s biomes, Plants brims with secrets and surprises—we’ve even made a handbook of hints and fun facts for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

Read more…

The heart is a robust muscle. It bustles blood through the whole body, fighting gravity to send fresh blood to the brain, while gravity pulls blood to your other parts below the heart. When astronauts rocket into space, there’s less gravity to ease blood down. More fluid than usual floats into their necks and heads making their faces and neck veins swell.

Scientists at NASA have an experiment that shows how gravity affects your blood flow—here on earth: let your hand dangle below your waist for a couple minutes. Big veins, full of blood, will pop out. Now raise the same arm above your head for a minute. All the blood goes rushing down and those puffy veins disappear.

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A working model of the amazing machines we live in, The Human Body shows what we’re made of and how we work. We’ve created a handbook of hints and insider intelligence for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

Read more…

A mushroom isn’t a plant but a fungus. (The largest known living thing is a fungus sprawled out in Oregon—over 2,000 acres!) Fungi decompose leaves and other plant bits to get energy and recycle nutrients into the earth. Mushrooms also wield weather sorcery to disperse their “seeds,” aka spores.

A mushroom’s cap is packed with light, tiny spores. To give these spores a boost, mushrooms produce cooling mists that mix with warm air—and presto!—result in micro winds. These breezes send clouds of spores whirling outward to start new colonies.

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An interactive diorama of the earth’s biomes, Plants brims with secrets and surprises—we’ve even made a handbook of hints and fun facts for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

Read more…

Early in the summer, fireflies flicker around forest trees. Their twinkling patterns seem random and uncoordinated, but that’s not always the case.

In the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in the United States and dense forests of southeast Asia, some firefly species have rhythm. For about a half-minute, firefly males blink together to their own secret beat, then pause, as though waiting for a response. Scientists think these coordinated light shows may help these fireflies attract the right mates in places where multiple firefly species share a home. We like to imagine that the appeal of a good sense of rhythm is universal.

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An interactive diorama of the earth’s biomes, Plants brims with secrets and surprises—we’ve even made a handbook of hints and fun facts for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

Read more…

Plants need to spread their seeds to reproduce. To get the job done on the forest floor, the bloodroot wildflower—which oozes toxic, blood-red sap—has a novel partner: ants. A bloodroot seed’s outer coat comes with a fleshy nub called an elaiosome, which attracts ants. Worker ants cart seeds back to their nest, gorge on the flesh, and pile the still-intact seeds in the colony’s “trash room,” aka rich dirt prime for new bloodroots come spring.

This process, in which ants eat and disperse seeds, even has a name. It’s a mouthful: myrmecochory, based on the Greek word for ants, myrmeco.

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An interactive diorama of the earth’s biomes, Plants brims with secrets and surprises—we’ve even made a handbook of hints and fun facts for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

Read more…