Depression seems to result from low levels of certain 'feel-good' chemicals in the brain. There are about billion nerve cells in the brain, which talk to each other using electrical signals. When these signals get to the end of one nerve cell they jump to the next at a site called a synapse, using a chemical messenger known as a neurotransmitter. One of the most important of these is a substance called serotonin, and people with depression tend to have low levels of this and similar chemicals. Antidepressants help to push up the levels of of these chemicals, helping to improve mood. St John's Wort is an example of a natural remedy that some people use, which is said to have a positive effect. Of course some people don't suffer from depression, but seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which can be worse at this time of year.

 

One thing in science is that you can go out and do an experiment about peoples' claims. If the facts don't fit the theory, then the theory goes straight out the window. Huxley once said that there's nothing more tragic in science than the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. That's how science works. Scientists are not so arrogant as to say they know everything, but there are things in cosmology that are absolutely certain, for instance the influence of radiation. There are other things that we don't know much about, however, for instance dark matter, and cosmologists are happy to admit this. At the moment it's impossible to say.

 

In the late 1970s scientists tackled this by using a very fast camera capable of taking 2000 pictures every second. Analysis of these images showed that a woodpecker's head tolerates a force of about 12 thousand times the force of gravity whenever it hits something, which is a considerable force going through its head, so why shouldn't it get brain damage? Well there are various woodpecker adaptations which means they are able to cope with this trauma, and one of them is that their skull bones are quite spongy which mean they can absorb shocks very well. Another adaptation is that a woodpecker's brain is small and so has a very big surface area to weight ratio, and so the force is spread over a large area. The photography also revealed that woodpeckers line their heads up very straight with whatever they tap into, so there's no rotational injury which, at least in people involved in car accidents, is a major cause of brain injury as delicate nerve fibres are torn by the brain trying to twist on itself.

 

This is interesting because most sightings of ghosts last between 5 and 30 seconds. But this this lasted longer if you saw her the entire time you had a conversation. You couldn't see her feet, which is also a give-away because ghosts don't usually respect floors ! If it is real it sounds like this was someone who probably lived in this house previously. If I were you I would find out a bit more about who lived there and see if it ties up, but a sighting of this duration would certainly raise eyebrows !

 

There doesn't seem to be enough in this one, I'm afraid. These are things that can't be explained but it needs more for me to say yes or no whether this was a ghost. It needs more examination in more detail such as whether anyone has reported anything like this before.

 

This is a well known, and there a lot of cases like this where people wake up and see an old woman or old man at the end of the bed. It has been put down to something psychological, almost like a waking dream. It is the kind of thing that we would like to get photos of, because then we would be more likely to believe it, although ghosts are very difficult to photograph.

 

This is a good point, we don't know why they can't be photographed. We don't know what ghosts are - whether they are something that has come back from the dead, or something else entirely. It would be brilliant if we could get photos, or even better would be a video. Stories of people saying they've got names from ghosts are probably not true.

 

Animals do react to things that we are unaware of, and are very sensitive to paranormal activity. Regarding the glow, try and get a photograph of it, and we can analyse it.

 

It could have been something, but lots of people feel presences in houses. I would need to see a lot more to be convinced.

 

That's a common thing, but an interesting one. Sounds of ghosts also evade recording, which is what would be needed here, but I think this is probably a likely paranormal occurence.

 

The temperature of an object is a measure of how much energy it has, and when something has energy the atoms in that object vibrate. The hotter it is the more they vibrate, the colder it is the less they vibrate. As you lower the temperature those vibrations reduce. As you get towards what we call absolute zero, that's when the vibration has almost completely stopped, so you can't get lower than -273 degrees, that's zero degrees Kelvin, matter has not energy or motion at this temperature, hence it's absolute zero.

It's False - Bees must collect the nectar from around 2 million flowers to produce half a kilo of honey.

It's True - It's the fastest land animal.

It's False - You actually shed closer to 50,000 skin cells a minute which, over a lifetime, add up in weight to nearly 3 stones in dead skin !

It's False - The average bed is home to a staggering 6 billion dust mites. These enjoy eating the 3 stones of dead skin we shed over a lifetime. Their droppings cause asthma.

It's False - some animals have blue blood (like crabs and lobsters) which contains copper instead of iron, and the blood of some worms and shellfish turns purple when it picks up oxygen !

It's True - A lightning strike on the ground nearby can kill if it creates a big voltage difference between your feet because the electricity flows through you, as well as across the ground. Keeping your feet together reduces the chances of this happening. Cows are apparently particularly vulnerable to this effect and so should take particular care during thunderstorms !

It's False - Most raindrops splatter down at a more sedate 7 miles per hour.

It's False - The average person does about 8000 - 10,000 steps a day, covering up to 115,000 miles in their lifetime.

It's True - Once in the morning and once in the evening, unless the hands have fallen off, of course!

It's False - Unless accompanied by other (clearly rampant) shenanigans, the average one minute smooch burns up about 26 calories.

It's False - In fact a massive 80% of the world's population live in the northern hemisphere, the bulk of them in Asia.

It's True - They munch enough gum to make a stick 5 million miles long. More worryingly, 75% of this is chewed by only 10% of the population !

It's False - African elephants can drink up 50 gallons a day which they slurp up using their trunks which themselves can hold a gallon and a half of water.

It's True - Some (even smaller) insects beat their wings even faster. Gnats zip along at over 600 wing beats a second which is why they produce that irritating whining noise in your ears when you are trying to get to sleep at night.

It's False - Recent surveys suggest that the average person actually walks closer to 50,000 miles in their lifetime, although this is likely to fall as we lead progressively more lazy lifestyles.

It's False - mountains actually shrink by only about 3 inches every 1000 years or so, although mountains made of softer rocks (like sandstone) disappear more quickly than mountains made of harder rocks, like granite.

It's True - The heart pumps about 5 litres of blood a minute (weighing roughly 5 kg), that's about a third of a tonne an hour, or 8 tonnes a day. Over a lifetime it adds up to 180,000 tonnes of blood - that's the equivalent of moving the weight of a few aircraft carriers around.

It's False - The sun is nearly 100 million miles away and you can see that ! In fact the farthest the unaided human eye can make out is about 2.4 million light years which is 140 million million million miles. This is the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy which you can just make out as a dim grey cloud in the night sky.

It's True - The scientific study of snails is called malacology.