The BrainSnail Blog
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846 articles · page 5 of 36
What Was Megalodon? The Largest Shark That Ever Lived, and Why It Is Gone
Megalodon was a shark up to 20 metres long that hunted whales for fifteen million years and vanished 3.6 million years ago. What teeth tell, and why it is gone.
How Did Dinosaurs Reproduce? Eggs, Nests and the Evidence for Parents
Every dinosaur hatched from an egg, and fossil nests, embryos and brooding adults show how. What the eggs were like, who brooded, and how fast the young grew.
What Is Bail? Why Suspects Go Free Before Trial and Who Decides
Bail is release from custody while a criminal case is pending, on conditions or a promise of money. Why the law presumes it, and why Britain and America differ.
What Is the Bhagavad Gita? A Conversation on a Battlefield
The Bhagavad Gita is a 700-verse dialogue between a warrior who will not fight and the god driving his chariot. What it teaches, and why it became central.
How Does a Bicycle Stay Upright? Gyroscopes, Trail and a Century of Wrong Answers
A moving bicycle balances itself, and for a century physicists gave the wrong reason. What the gyroscope does and does not do, what trail is, and the 2011 test.
How Does 3D Printing Work? Building Objects a Layer at a Time
A 3D printer makes a solid object by adding material in thin layers from a digital model instead of cutting it from a block. The main methods and their uses.
What Is the Tundra? The Treeless Land at the Top of the World
Tundra is the cold, treeless biome around the Arctic and above the treeline, where summer is too short for trees. What lives there, and why it is changing fast.
How Does Rubber Work? Why It Stretches, Snaps Back and Once Melted in Summer
Rubber stretches to several times its length and returns because its molecules are long tangled chains that straighten under load. What vulcanisation did.
Why Is Swimming So Hard? Drag, Buoyancy and the Physics of Moving Through Water
Water is 800 times denser than air and resists a body with a force that rises with the square of speed. Why swimmers go slowly, and how technique beats power.
What Is a Meteor Shower? Comet Dust Hitting the Sky on Schedule
A meteor shower is the Earth passing through the dust a comet left along its orbit, so grains burn up by the dozen each hour. Why they recur, and how to watch.
What Is Opera? Drama Sung From Beginning to End
Opera is a play in which everything is sung, born in Florence around 1600 as an attempt to revive Greek tragedy. How it is built, and why the voices sound so.
What Is Algebra? Letters for Numbers and the Art of the Unknown
Algebra is arithmetic done with symbols that stand for any number, turning particular sums into general rules. Where it came from, and why the letters matter.
What Are Parasites? Life at Someone Else's Expense
A parasite lives on or in another organism and feeds on it without killing it outright. The main kinds, how some steer their hosts, and why they are so many.
How Did Medieval Castles Work? Walls, Sieges and the End of the Fortress
A castle was a fortified home for a lord and a base for holding land, built to make attack expensive. How the defences evolved, and why cannon ended them.
How Does Concrete Work? Cement, Water and the Chemistry of Setting
Concrete is the most used material on Earth after water, and it hardens by a reaction that grows crystals, not by drying. What cement is, and why steel goes in.
How Do Helicopters Fly? Rotors, Torque and Why They Are So Hard to Control
A helicopter's rotor is a spinning wing, and tilting it is how the aircraft moves. How lift, steering and the tail rotor work, and what if the engine fails.
Why Are Bananas Seedless? A Fruit Bred Into a Dead End
The supermarket banana is a sterile clone of one plant, grown from cuttings for centuries and unable to breed. How it came to be, and what the fungus is doing.
How Does a Compass Work? A Needle, the Earth's Core and a Pole That Wanders
A compass needle is a magnet that aligns with the Earth's field, made by molten iron flowing in the core. Why north is not quite north, and why the field flips.
How Do Canal Locks Work? Lifting a Boat With Nothing but Water
A lock raises or lowers a boat between two water levels by filling or emptying a chamber. How the gates and paddles work, and how Panama lifts a ship 26 metres.
What Is Plankton? The Drifting Life That Makes Half the World's Oxygen
Plankton is every organism that drifts in water rather than swimming against it, from bacteria to jellyfish. Why it feeds the ocean and what it does to the air.
Why Do People Believe in Astrology? The Psychology of a Horoscope That Fits
Astrology has failed every controlled test and is read by hundreds of millions. The Barnum effect, the tests that sank it, and what it gives its readers.
Why Do We Get a Fever? The Body Turning Up Its Own Thermostat
A fever is not the infection overheating the body but the brain raising its set point on purpose. What triggers it, why heat helps, and when to bring it down.
What Was the Great Wall of China For? Walls, Frontiers and a Myth About the Moon
The Great Wall is not one wall but many, built over two thousand years against the peoples of the steppe. What it was meant to do, what it did, and the myths.
What Is Cholesterol? The Molecule Every Cell Needs and Every Artery Fears
Cholesterol is a fat the body makes and cannot do without, carried by particles whose balance sets the risk of heart disease. What the numbers mean.
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