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Science News
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Once you start to get a bit older it can take so long to light all of the candles on your birthday cake that the first-lit candles have almost burned down by the time you light the l... |
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Does your sports bag smell like something died in it ? Help is at hand in the form of an antibacterial sports bag invented by researchers at Auburn University in Alabama, US. Dave Wo... |
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NASA announced recently that scans of the Martian geology had revealed the presence of large quantities of water on the planet, paving the way for a manned mission to Mars in the fut... |
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Russia has announced plans to send a 6 man team to Mars by 2015. Building the 2 spacecraft needed for the trip is expected to cost over 20 billion dollars, over 70 percent of which, ... |
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Did you know that spiders doodle on their webs, adding splashes of decoration such as spirals, crosses and circles ? Now researchers think they know why. Only certain types of spider... |
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A local birdwatcher has shown that efforts to conserve birds could be failing, simply because we don't know what they get up to at night. Using special night vision viewing equipment... |
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Researchers at the University of New York have produced rats that can be steered by remote control. They say that rats like these could be used to clear minefields or to locate trapp... |
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Every autumn Monarch butterflies make their way from the northern US to Mexico where they spend the winter. But how do they know which direction to fly ? To find out researchers Henr... |
| Questions
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Since skin continuously replaces itself, why do tattoos last a lifetime ?
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The upper layer of the skin, the epidermis, which consists of flattened dried-out dead cells, is replaced continously throughout life. As cells are worn away from the top layer of skin they are replaced by new cells from below. Tattoos are injected deeper into the skin into a layer called the dermis below where the cells that make the epidermis come from. This means that the dye stays where it is put for life.
Show featuring dermatologist Jane Sterling about the skin and skin diseases
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Why does your stomach rumble when you are hungry ?
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The rumbling sounds you hear are your stomach gearing up to accept food. Whenever we feel hungry we usually placate our stomachs with some food soon afterwards and so the digestive system prepares itself in advance by releasing digestive juices and increasing the peristalsis of the stomach muscles. When we eat the food dampens the sound of the juices squirting around so the stomach sounds quiet. When we are empty though there is nothing to soak up the sounds and the result can be noisy !
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Is it true that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space ?
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This is a myth ! Although the Great Wall is extremely long it is only about 5 metres or so wide. At distances greater than about 20 km up (about twice the height of Mt. Everest), a person even with perfect eyesight, but without the aid of a telescope or binoculars, cannot physically resolve something that small on the ground. Allowing for the shadow cast by the Great Wall (making it wider) or sand accumulating on the windward side you might be able to see it from 60 km up, in places, but since this is still too low for a spacecraft to orbit, it's safe to say that you can't see it from space. Indeed, Neil Armstrong and other astronauts from the Apollo missions have all declared that it cannot be seen from space with the Naked Eye. Other man-made objects can though, such as cities because of their bright lights.
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What gives the best caffeine high, Tea or Coffee ?
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Tea leaves contain much more caffeine that coffee, but since less Tea than coffee is used in making a cup of each beverage, a cup of coffee actually has a much great caffeine content and hence you get a greater hit from a coffee than a tea. Unless you brew your tea really strong and make weak coffee !
Article about why plants make caffeine and how caffeine affects the body.
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