Science News
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Scientists have finally proved that there is no such thing are Werewolves. At least, they've shown that the full moon doesn't affect how animals behave. A couple of researchers analy... |
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Top 5 vegetables : Percentage of people who rate the following as their preferred vegetable :Carrots - 17%, Potatoes - 15%, Broccoli - 13%, Peas - 7%, Sprouts - 7%... |
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People are fascinated by science fiction and especially the concept of time travel; the success of Back to The Future is testimony to that. But is time travel still only in the domai... |
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You may recall the purple carrots we mentioned last month from Victorian times that are set to make a comeback. Well now there are purple potatoes waiting to join them. So why purple... |
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28 male volunteers have recently tried out a new male contraceptive system developed by Dr. Richard Anderson, at Edinburgh University. He implanted one or two rods, containing a man-... |
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Today 6 times as many children have the itchy skin condition eczema compared with 50 years ago, and doctors at Sheffield University are blaming soap. Dermatologist Dr. Michael Cork h... |
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How about an virtual oven ready chicken? An Israeli geneticist called Angdor Cahaner from The Rehovot Agronomy Institute, has blended a species of bare skinned chicken with no feathe... |
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Last week a healthy baby girl was born using IVF treatment. That's nothing new - but what's special about this particular kid is that she was developed from an embryo that had been f... |
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American scientists have developed a genetically modified mosquito to help tackle the growing problem of malaria, which affects over 250 million people around the world. Malaria is c... |
| Questions
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How old is the eldest person to have reached the top of Mt. Everest ?
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66 - an Italian, this week just gone
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Why do onions make us cry when we cut them and is there any way to prevent this ?
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Onions are a member of the Allium family of vegetables that also includes leeks, shallots, chives, garlic and sharp scallion. The tears come from volatile oils containing substances called amino acid sulphoxides, which give the members of this family of vegetables their characteristic smells. So why do we cry ? Well, when you cut the onion you also release substances called allinases which break down the amino acid sulphoxides to something called sulphenic acid which then turns into something called syn-propanethial-S-oxide which irritates nerve fibres on the surface of the eye, triggering tear production. Because it takes time for this substance to form, this explains why we don't start to cry until at least 30 seconds into cutting up an onion. So how do you solve the problem ? There are 3 ways. 1) Heat the onions before you cut them. This destroys the allinase which causes the reaction to happen in the first place, so the onion cannot make you cry. 2) cut the onions outside in a well-ventilated area 3) cut them under water.
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