It seems that there is only one big ocean in the world, because all oceans flow into each other. But there are five main oceans: Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and Antarctic Ocean. Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest ocean, covering about one-third of the Earth's surface. Atlantic Ocean is the … Continue reading How Many Oceans?
Maria Salomea Sklodowska, who later became Marie Curie, was a Polish girl who was passionate about learning science. But as she passed high school with a gold medal, twoobstacles stood in her way: first, university education for women was forbidden in Russian Occupied Poland; secondly, her father—a teacher himself—though encouraged her academic interests, did not … Continue reading The Girl Who Broke All Moulds
A volcano is a mountain that sometimes shoots hot, liquid rock out of its top. Deep inside a volcano is an area filled with liquid rock. If pressure builds up in the chamber, the volcano may explode, and liquid rock will shoot out of the top. When the liquid rock is within earth, it is … Continue reading Magma Versus Lava
Sometimes the surface of the Sun is dotted with dark regions called sunspots. These areas look dark because they are cooler than the surrounding regions. Sunspots appear in eleven-year cycles. Halfway through each cycle, during a time called solar maximum, we see many sunspots. Then, they gradually reduce over five years until there are few … Continue reading Sunspots
James Watt was a Scottish inventor and engineer. While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, he was once called in to repair a lab model of Newcomen's steam engine. During the repair, he noticed how little work the engine was capable of. He realized that there was an ample room for … Continue reading The Engineer Who Kickstarted The Industrial Revolution
Aristotle was born in Greece about two and a half thousand years ago. He was a natural philosopher. A natural philosopher studies different ideas about the meaning of life and the natural world. Aristotle, who tutored the famous king Alexander the Great, was also an astronomer. At that time, people believed the Earth was flat. … Continue reading Flat or Round
Robert Hooke was a British polymath. During his lifetime, he was active as a physicist, astronomer, geologist, meteorologist, and architect. He is often credited as the first scientist to visualize a microorganism using a microscope that he designed himself. Apart from devising Hooke’s law about elasticity of objects, he was put in charge for surveying … Continue reading England’s da Vinci
In 1964, two American scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were investigating radio signals coming from our galaxy, the Milky way. For this purpose, they were using a giant antenna located in Holmdel, New Jersey. Suddenly the two scientists noticed a strange background noise, similar to the buzzing sound you hear on a radio when … Continue reading The Big Bang Theory
Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Poland. His father a wealthy businessman, but Copernicus grew up to be a polymath— he was an astronomer, mathematician, and artist. In 1543, he published a book that shocked everyone. He said that the Earth didn’t stay still—it actually followed a path around the sun. So did the other planets. … Continue reading Sun At the Centre
Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago from a cloud of rock, dust, and gas surrounding the newly formed sun. Gravity pulled this space debris together to form a sphere, which eventually melted and developed a layered structure of metal and rock. This structure then cooled down, finally becoming cool enough to support liquid oceans … Continue reading From “Dead As a Rock” to “Brimming with Life”
While our brain makes up only about 5 percent of our body weight, it consumes nearly 25 percent of our rest time energy. However, despite being a massive energy consumer, our brain is remarkably efficient. Despite containing roughly 86 billion neurons and trillions of synaptic connections, the entire organ operates on a tiny amount of … Continue reading Hungry But Efficient
Johannes Gutenberg was a German inventor who is credited with inventing the first movable type printing press in Europe during fifteenth century. Though printing presses were already being used in East Asia, Gutenberg’s press enabled faster printing. Gutenberg's printing press later spread to various parts of the world, enabling mass printing of books, ushering the … Continue reading Information Revolution
The Greek scientist Ptolemy was born almost two thousand years ago. He lived and worked in Alexandria, Egypt. In those days, Egypt was part of the Roman Empire. From watching how the other planets moved, Ptolemy thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. He thought that the other planets and the sun … Continue reading Earth At the Centre
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist famous for developing the process of pasteurization. Through his studies, Pasteur realized that tiny microbes found naturally in the milk were to blame for its spoiling, and that these also could make people ill. He discovered that that boiling milk and then cooling it quickly made … Continue reading Preserving Foodstuffs
In 1928, the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming was tidying his lab. He was about to throw away an old petri dish of bacteria he’d been studying when he saw a big patch of mold on it. When Fleming looked closer, he noticed that the bacteria around the mold were no longer growing. He realized the … Continue reading Killing Bugs with Bugs
Humans have two intestines: small intestine and large intestine. While the small intestine absorbs nutrients from food, the large intestine (also called colon) acts as a sponge, soaking up remaining water, salts, and minerals from food waste before it turns into stool. In an average sized adult, the small intestine measures about 6 to 7 … Continue reading Tennis Court in Your Tummy
In ancient Greek mythology, Mercury is a fast footed god. In the realm of astronomy, mercury is a planet. In the field of metallurgy, Mercury is a metal. While mercury itself is also a metal, mercury the planet doesn’t contain mercury the metal in any substantial amounts. In fact, planet mercury is rich in iron. … Continue reading Iron Inside Mercury
Unlike planet Earth, planet Mercury doesn't have a moon. But looking from Earth, Mercury resembles earth’s moon. Just like our moon, Mercury's surface has many cliffs and craters. In the beginning, Earth, Mars, and Venus had craters as well. These craters were created due to impacts from incoming solar system debris during a period called … Continue reading Just Like Our Moon
If you try walking on the moon, you will need much less effort to walk and run. That is because moon’s gravity is only 16 percent of earth’s gravity. That means a person weighing 70 kilograms on earth would weigh only 12 kilos on moon. Having said that, you won’t get any thinner, your body … Continue reading Walking Easy Over the Moon
Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. Being so close to the sun, you might think it should always be baking hot. It is but not always. Mercury’s temperatures range from extremely hot (430 degrees Celsius) during day to extremely cold (minus 180 degrees Celsius) during night. Thus it endures a temperature swing of … Continue reading Baking Hot Days But Freezing Cold Nights