The BrainSnail Blog
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846 articles · page 6 of 36
Why Is Venus So Hot? The Runaway Greenhouse Next Door
Venus is nearly the Earth's twin and gets less sunlight at its surface than Earth, yet it is hot enough to melt lead. How its air got that way, and the lesson.
How Do Wind Turbines Work? From Breeze to Grid
A wind turbine is a propeller run backwards: the wind turns the blades and the blades turn a generator. Why the blades are wings, and why they are so big.
What Is Statistics? Making Sense of Data When No Single Measurement Can Be Trusted
Statistics is the science of drawing conclusions from data that vary. What averages hide, why samples work, what a p-value does not say, and how numbers lie.
How the Potato Changed the World: From Andean Tuber to Half of Europe's Dinner
The potato was domesticated in the Andes, feared in Europe for two centuries, then fed the industrial age. Why it was distrusted, and the famine it caused.
Why Are There Seven Days in a Week? Babylon, the Planets and a Cycle Nobody Owns
The week has no basis in astronomy, unlike the day, month and year. Where the seven-day cycle came from, why the days are named for planets, and why it stuck.
Why Do So Many Cultures Have Dragons? Serpents, Storms and the Bones in the Ground
Dragons appear in the myths of China, Europe, India, the Americas and the Middle East with no contact between them. The theories for why, east and west.
What Is Stonehenge? Who Built It, How, and What It Might Have Been For
Stonehenge is a circle of standing stones on Salisbury Plain, built and rebuilt over 1,500 years from about 3000 BC. Where the stones came from and why.
How Do X-Rays Work? Seeing Bones Through Skin
X-rays are light with enough energy to pass through flesh and be stopped by bone. How they are made, what the dose means, and how a CT scanner builds a slice.
How Do Snakes Move? Four Gaits Without a Single Leg
A snake has no legs and can outpace a person, climb a tree, cross loose sand and swim. The four ways it moves, and the scales and muscles that make them work.
What Is Credit? How Borrowing Works and How Lenders Decide
Credit is the trust that lets you use money now and pay later. How interest prices it, what a credit score measures, and why loans cost people different sums.
Why Are Diamonds So Hard? Carbon in Two Forms
Diamond and pencil graphite are the same element; one is the hardest natural substance and the other flakes onto paper. The bonding behind the difference.
How Do Electric Cars Work? Batteries, Motors and the Missing Gearbox
An electric car replaces the engine, gearbox and fuel tank with a battery, a motor and a controller. How each part works, why it needs no gears, and charging.
What Is Hip Hop? Four Elements and the Music That Took Over the World
Hip hop began at Bronx block parties in the 1970s as a culture of DJing, MCing, breaking and graffiti. How rap over beats became the world's dominant pop music.
Who Were the Pirates of the Caribbean? The Golden Age of Piracy and Its End
For about thirty years around 1700 pirates ruled the sea lanes of the Caribbean. Who they were, how their ships were run, and how they were wiped out.
What Are Fungi? Neither Plant Nor Animal, and Closer to Us Than to Trees
Fungi are a kingdom of their own: organisms that digest food outside their bodies and grow as networks of threads. What a mushroom is, and what fungi do for us.
What Is Permafrost? The Frozen Ground That Is Starting to Thaw
Permafrost is ground that has stayed frozen for at least two years, and it underlies a quarter of the northern hemisphere. What is in it, and what thaw does.
What Makes People Happy? What Fifty Years of Research Actually Found
Happiness research asks people how satisfied they are and looks for what predicts the answer. What money, relationships, health and work contribute.
What Is Trigonometry? Triangles, Circles and the Waves in Everything
Trigonometry began as the study of triangles and became the maths of anything that repeats. What sine, cosine and tangent are, and why they describe waves.
How Is Beer Brewed? Malt, Hops, Yeast and Time
Beer is water in which the sugars of malted grain have been fermented by yeast and flavoured with hops. The ingredients, and why ale and lager differ.
What Is Diabetes? Sugar, Insulin and the Two Diseases That Share a Name
Diabetes is the failure to control blood sugar, because the body has stopped making insulin or responding to it. The two types, the damage, and the treatments.
How Is Steel Made? Iron, Carbon and the Furnace
Steel is iron with a little carbon and a lot of control. How ore becomes iron, how iron becomes steel, and why a fraction of a percent of carbon matters.
Who Were the Samurai? Japan's Warrior Class From Rise to Abolition
The samurai were Japan's hereditary military class for seven hundred years, from provincial warriors to ruling clerks. Their code, and why they were abolished.
How Does a Jet Engine Work? Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow
A jet engine draws in air, squeezes it, burns fuel in it and throws it out behind faster than it came in. The four stages, and why the fan does the work.
What Are Asteroids? Leftovers of the Solar System and the Odds of a Hit
Asteroids are rocky and metallic bodies, mostly between Mars and Jupiter, left over from the solar system's birth. What they are and the odds of a hit.
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