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ØTell Me Why
ØSome Facts About Science
Welcome to Tell Me Why Fun Facts page. Here you will be
learning some very interesting and amazing facts in a fun and easy

categorized synopsis format. This webpage will be updated whenever I

can so you can check back once in a while. Also, remember to check

out
my other site with a more in-depth interesting facts from around the

world: Did You Know?




Some facts here will no doubt : shock you , make you ponder, make
you wonder,
others you will know while others you will learn and you might even

yearn for
Click the category about
which you want to know the
FACTS :

vAstronomy
vBiology
vDid you know stuff
vFunny Stuff
vMiscellaneous
 ASTRONOMY
qEarth is the only planet not named after
a pagan god.
qVenus is the only planet that rotates
clockwise.
 BIOLOGY
1.Animals
2.Humans

 ANIMALS
qA cockroach will live nine days without its head before
it starves to death.
qThe cockroach has a high resistance to radiation and is
the creature most likely to survive a nuclear war.
qThe male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head
is attached to its body.
qThe female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
qElephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
qA pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
qHumans and dolphins are the only species that have sex
for pleasure.
qSome lions mate over 50 times a day.
 HUMANS
qThe strongest muscle in the human body
is the tongue.
qBabies are born without kneecaps. They
appear when the child is 2-6 years of
age.
qYour body is creating and killing 15
million red blood cells per second!
qThe most sensitive finger on the human
hand is the index finger.
 DID YOU KNOW STUFF
qPearls melt in vinegar.
qA quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.
qA dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
qBecause of Animal Crackers, many kids until they
reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as
a giraffe.
qThe Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps.
qIt is said that sucking on a copper penny will
cause a breathalyzer to read 0.
qAmerica once issued a 5-cent bill.
 Funny Stuff
Guinness Book Of Records holds the
record for being the book most stolen
from Public Libraries.
Donald Duck comics were banned in
Finland because he didn't wear pants.
In the 40's, the Bich pen was changed to
Bic for fear that Americans would
pronounce it 'Bitch.’
 Miscellaneous
qMost dust particles in your house are
made from dead skin.
If you ate too many carrots you would
turn orange.
qThe colder the room you sleep in, the
better the chances are that you'll have
a bad dream.
qNo piece of paper can be folded more
than 7 times.
 TELL ME WHY
ØQuestions About People
ØQuestions About Inventions and Machin
ØQuestions About The Environment,
Space and Science
ØQuestions About Food, Drinks and
Snacks
 QUESTIONS ABOUT
PEOPLE
Why do we perspire?
Why do people snore?
Why do we yawn?
Why do we blink our eyes?
Why do we dream?
 QUESTIONS ABOUT
INVENTIONS AND
MACHINES
Why do golf balls have dimples?
Why are most Glow-in-the-Dark items green

Why are Telephone Touch Pads set-up the w

Why do clocks run clockwise?

Why do we get a shock from electricity?
 QUESTIONS ABOUT
THE ENVIRONMENT,
SPACE AND SCIENCE
Why do bubbles attract?
Why is the sky blue?
Why is snow white?
Why do the stars twinkle?
Why does the moon shine?
 QUESTIONS ABOUT
FOOD, DRINKS AND
SNACKS
Why is Milk white?
Why is it called a "hamburger" when there

Why do doughnuts have holes?

Why do Onions make us cry?
Why does caffeine keep me awake?
 Why do we
perspire?

We perspire to
maintain to keep
the temperature
of our internal
thermostat set
to an average,
normal
temperature of
98.6 degrees
Fahrenheit. Our
Our bodies
bodies comeuse approximately 2,500
calories of our daily intake of calorie-
fully equipped
laden
with afood to fuel the body. This process,
known as oxidation, burns the calories,
Obviously, our bodies cannot tolerate this heat,


which causes the temperature of the blood to rise

dramatically, and the cooling center to springs into
action. The cooling center slows the calorie burning
process, and dilates, or opens, the blood vessels in
the skin to release the excess heat, and the fluid
known as perspiration. The release of this fluid
cleanses the body, as it pours through our pores,
which consist of millions of tiny openings in the
skin. Perspiration emerges on the surface of the
skin in the form of tiny, microscopic droplets,
which quickly evaporate, and cool the body to its
 Why do people
snore?

Vibrations of
soft tissues
located at the
back of our
throats cause
the noisy,
annoying sounds
of snoring that
sometimes
preventeach
against non- other when someone has
snorers
too muchfrom
tissue at the back of their
gettingortheir
mouth when an obstruction is

People with snoring problems tend to have
one of the following conditions:
Poor muscle tone in the tongue and throat
Excessive bulkiness of throat tissue
Long soft palate and/or uvula tissue in the
back of the mouth
Obstructed nasal airways
Snoring can be a serious medical problem
because it disturbs sleeping patterns and
deprives the snorer of necessary rest.

Did you know?
20% of the population experiences snoring
problems.
 Why do we
yawn?

THE TRUTH IS
that we don’t
completely
understand why
people, or animals
for that matter,
yawn.

It’s widely
assumed that
yawning occurs
Scientists do not purport to know all of the
because we are
biological mechanisms of the yawn, but tend
tired or bored or
to agree that a yawn is an involuntary

Technically, a yawn is the reflex opening of the
mouth followed by the deep

inhalation and slow exhalation of oxygen.

The very act of yawning is but one of a number of
involuntary reflexes controlled

by the spinal and nerve centers.

Scientists speculate that the onset of a yawn is
triggered either by fatigue, or by

sheer boredom as, at those times, breathing is
shallow, and little oxygen is carried

to the lungs by the oxygen-toting cardiovascular

This quite plausible theory of yawning falls short
of explaining many aspects of

yawning. Scientists explain away the "contagious"
nature of yawning, that is when

one person's yawn triggers another nearby to
yawn, as due to the power of

suggestion, but are at a loss when attempting to
explain why yawning occurs

excessively in patients with lower brainstem
damage or with multiple sclerosis.

Other unlocked mysteries include why fetuses in
 Why do we blink
our eyes?

To oil, lube, and
filter the eyes.

Blinking, as
opposed to
batting, our
eyes
automatically
supplies two
forms of
eyes. Eyelids
moisture themselves, our built-in
to our
"wind-shield
eyes, to keepwipers," are merely folds of
skin,
themcontrolled
from by muscles capable of

Mother Nature lined the rims of our eyelids with
20-30 sebaceous, oil-producing glands, which are
located between our eyelashes, and are invisible to
the naked eye. Blinking automatically coats the
eyelid and eyelashes with the lubricant it secretes,
to prevent them from drying out.

Blinking also protects the eye from dryness by
irrigating, not by irritating, the eye, The eyelid,
through suction, automatically draws the fluid we
cry with from the well we refer to as the tear duct
over the eyeball, to irrigate, and to moisturize the
eye. The process is similar to the manner in which
his eyes from sudden sandstorms in the desert.


Incidentally, the "camel eyelash" look is one many

women attempt to duplicate by using an eyelash
curler! Eyebrows, by the way, also serve their
purpose, as they catch the run-off perspiration
produces.
 Why do we
dream?

Two different
schools of
thought exist
as to why we
dream: the
 physiological school
, and the 
psychological school.

Both, however,
During this we
agree that phase of sleep, our closed
eyes
dream dart rapidly about, our brain
during
activity
the REM, peaks,
or and our muscles suffer

The physiological theory centers upon how our
body, specifically our brains,

function during the REM phase of sleep.
Proponents of this theory believe that

we dream to exercise the synapses, or pathways,
between brain cells, and that

dreaming takes over where the active and awake
brain leaves off. When awake, our

brains constantly transmit and receive messages,
which course through our billions

of brain cells to their appropriate destinations,
and keep our bodies in perpetual


The second physiological fact that lends credence
to this theory is that our brain

waves during REM sleep, as recorded by machines
measuring the brain's

electrical activity, are almost identical in nature to
the brain waves during the hours

we spend awake. This is not the case during the
other phases of sleep.

Psychological theorists of dreams focus upon


our thoughts and emotions, and

speculate that dreams deal with immediate


concerns in our lives, such as

unfinished business from the day, or concerns


we are incapable of handling

during the course of the day. Dreams can, in


fact, teach us things about

ourselves that we are unaware of.


Connections between dreams that the human



psyche have been made by many

Others have delved into more complicated


explanations for dreams, such

as the prophetic nature of dreams written


of in the Bible, which was

and is a belief held by many cultures.


Sigmund Freud, one of the

fathers of modern psychology, believed


dreams to be symbolic of any

number of things buried deep within our


minds and our memories.

 Why do golf balls
have dimples?

So that they
look cute?  
NO!

Because
the dimples
maximize the
distance golf
balls travel.
Dimpled balls
used
traveluntil golfers discovered that old, bumpy
up to
balls
four traveled
times longer distances. The science
of aerodynamics
farther than helps explain the dimpled

The dimples reduce the drag on a golf ball by
redirecting more air pressure behind

the golf ball rather than in front of it. The higher
levels of pressure behind the

golf balls force them to go far distances.

The dimples change the levels of pressure by
bringing the main air stream very

close to the surface of the golf ball. The dimples,
or "turbulators," increase the

turbulence in the layer of air located next to the
surface of the ball. This high
 Why are most Glow - in - the -
Dark items green?

A phenomenon
named phospho
rescence is
responsible for
the light most
Glow-in-the-
Dark items
emit.

Phosphorescen
If
ce not tampered
occurs when with, the light the object
emits is dim, and is always pale blue in color
light absorbed
by an object is

Chemists had a bright idea to spark interest in
this phenomenon and to make it

visually stimulating. They discovered that when
they mixed fluorescent dye with the

phosphorescent material, the object emitted a
glowing, brighter green, or sometimes

red, light.

The reason for this transformation is that
fluorescent compounds absorb the light

and rapidly emit it, giving the compounds a glowing
appearance. This phenomenon

The most commonly used phosphorescent material
used is zinc sulfide mixed with

copper, and the green fluorescent dye most likely
is sodium fluorescein. The most

likely source or red fluorescent dye is rhodamine.
Paired together, the

phosphorescent material and the fluorescent
material produce a ghostly, glowing

green or red light, and hours of enjoyment for
young and for old alike.
 Why are Telephone Touch Pads
set - up the way they are?

Mechanical
adding
machines,
based on
rotating
wheels, always
have the 0
button
adjacent to the
1 button.
put onto aBy
pad arranged as a 3 by 3 grid with
convention,
one left over, the order of the numbers was
mostthe
kept old same.
adding

On a rotary telephone dial, the 0 comes adjacent
to the 9 because a 0 in the

telephone number is signalled by 10 pulses on the
line. When telephones acquired

push buttons in a grid, the ordering of the buttons
was carried over from the old

telephone dial.
 Why do clocks run
clockwise?

Mechanical
clocks were

invented in the
northern
hemisphere by
inventors who
were trying to
make models of
the sun's
movement
head to setinonthe
your right. Since the hour hand on
sky.clock was made to follow the sun's motion
the

To watch
through the
the sky, it moves from left to right over
sun from the
 Why do we get a shock
from electricity?

Electricity
shocks us,
because it is an
outside force
that interferes
with the
internal
electricity our
bodies' nervous
systems we must first understand the
systems,
generate.
fundamentals of electricity itself.
In

Toscientific
fully terms, electricity is considered

Further simplified, it is so basic, that it defies
explanation, and is Mother

Nature's way of saying "Because I said so"!

Electricity comprises positive and negative
charges, opposite charges attract each

other, and similar charges repel each other. Those
charges attracted to each other

can be separated, with the end product being
potential energy, that is, energy that

will be released as voltage, should the two reunite.
We pay electric companies to

separate the positive and negative charges for us,

Unfortunately, since the human body consists
primarily of water, it too provides a

superb conductor for electrical energy, or voltage.

If, by chance, outside electrical energy enters our
bodies, now conductors, we will be

shocked when the voltage encounters, and
interferes with, the internal electrical

energy our nervous systems produce. The shocks
to our bodies, and the amount of

damage the electricity does to them, depends upon
the voltage our bodies are

subjected to, upon its level of energy, and upon
 Why do bubbles
attract?

Surface
tension plays
matchmaker in
changing the
status of a
bubble from
being single and
solitary, to
being part of a
couple, or part
equilibrium, but once the surface tension
of a multiple
joins the bubbles, it establishes a new
bubble group.
balance.

The internal air pressure of the single, solitary
bubble slightly exceeds that of the

air surrounding it, because the surface tension
reduces the bubble's surface as it

squeezes it into its round shape. The product of
being squeezed is a buoyant

bubble, which rises to the top of the water's
surface, because of its own inner water

level. The bubble happily floats about, surrounded
by uniform surface tension,

guided by the momentum it picked up when being
formed, and by changes in air


Because the slope's extension range is short, the
range of the force between the

bubbles is also short.

Two or more bubbles drifting close to each other
do not pass each other like ships

in the night if their surface tensions overlap. This
overlap destroys their

equilibrium, and, to compensate for the low tension
between the bubbles, the high

surface tension surrounding them forces them
together and restores their

equilibrium. If, however, the surface tension
 Why is the sky
blue?

The sky
appears blue to
us on a clear
day, because
the atoms of
nitrogen and
oxygen in the
atmosphere
separate the
suns light
blue whitescatters
light better than the rest,
into its many over the other colors in the
predominates
colors,
light and
spectrum, and makes the sky appear
 Why is snow
white?

Bright
marshmallow-
colored snow
blinds us with
its gleaming
white color
because it
reflects beams
of white light.
Instead
A beam of ofwhite sunlight entering a snow
absorbing
bank light, scattered by a zillion ice
is so quickly
snow's complex
crystals and air pockets that most of the

What little sunlight is absorbed by snow is
absorbed equally over the wavelengths

of visible light thus giving snow its white
appearance.

So while many natural objects get their blue, red,
and yellow colors from absorbing

light, snow is stuck with its white color because it
reflects light.
 Why do the
stars twinkle?

Stars twinkle
for the same
reason that the
air shimmies
above a
radiator or a
fire or hot
pavement;
because of
warm air rising
conductance, the heat passes trough
in the
something solid, such as wood or metal. This
atmosphere.
process is pretty slow.

Another way heat moves is radiation. In radiation,
the heat passes directly

through space in the form of photons, tiny packets
of energy travelling at the

speed of light. Radiation is the way that the sun's
warmth reaches Earth.

Finally there's convection. In convection, heat
warms the air. The warm air

becomes less dense (and thus lighter) than the
cool air around it, so it rises.

Convection is the reason stars twinkle.

When air heated by convection rises, it tumbles

As air warmed by the earth rises through the
atmosphere, it breaks into bubbles of

warm air. As light from the stars passes through
the bubbles, it's bent back and

forth. This is what makes the stars seem to
twinkle.

If there weren't any atmosphere, as on the moon,
the stars would shine steadily.
 Why does the
moon shine?

The moon, a
satellite, or
small body,
rotates on its
axis around the
earth, and
"shines" when
the sun's light
beams onto its
surface,
takes theand is the same length of time to
moon
reflected
orbit on itsback
axis, as it takes for it to orbit
to earth.
the earth.

The lunar month is divided into halves. During the
first half, lasting

approximately 14 days, the sun's light
unrelentingly strikes the moon, which has

no atmosphere or air to protect it from these
rays, and brings the temperature of

the moon to above that of the boiling point. The
second half of the lunar month

plunges the moon into cold, dark nights.

Man has learned a great deal about the moon since
the days when ancient man

worshipped it as a goddess who ruled the night.
 Why is Milk
white?

Those chalky-
white
mustaches that
color our lips
after chugging
down a
refreshing ice-
cold glass of
creamy milk is
caused
that by thein milk contains white colored
is found
protein
fat. The more cream in milk the more white it
called Casein.
is.

Low and non-fat milk appear more grayish rather
than white because they contain

less cream.

Another reason milk looks white to our naked eyes
is because some objects do not

absorb very much light. Rather than absorb light,
these objects reflect light. For

instance, red colored objects reflect only red light
and absorb the other colors of

light in the rainbow spectrum. The molecules that
make up Casein and cream

reflect light. That's why milk is white.

Did you know?

 Why is it called a " hamburger "
when there is no ham in it?

Why is it
"Where's the
beef" when it
should be
where's the
ham?

The answer is
really quite
simple:
more complicated. Who actually invented the
because Hambu
first hamburger remains a mystery.
rg, Germany
made the first

Some say it was a group of nomadic people called
the Tartars who tenderized their beef by placing
it under a horse's saddle--flattening it into a
patty. Others believe it was the German
immigrants who traveled to the United States
during the 19th century bringing with them their
favorite meal called Hamburg Style Beef-- a raw
chopped, piece of beef. Some argue Americans
placed the first cooked beef patty on a roll at the
St. Louis World's Fair in 1921.

Although beef is the most popular meat used in
hamburgers, other meats such as pork and turkey

Hamburgers remain one of the most favorite foods
among Americans today.

Ranking #1 among all restaurants with 26,000
stores in 119 countries,

McDonald's serves billions of hamburgers
worldwide.

Holy Hamburger!
On average, Americans eat 3 hamburgers a
week.
McDonald's has sold 12 hamburgers for every
person in the world.
60% of all sandwiches eaten are hamburgers.
 Why do doughnuts
have holes?

The question as
to why
doughnuts have
holes has been
raised by
dozens of
bakers over the
years, but most
agree that the
answer In
center. to this
short, the consistency of a
sticky question
doughnut lacking a hole would be, quite simply,
lies in the fact
doughy.

Another riveting theory as to the origin of the
bulls eye in the doughnut holds that

a sea captain named Hanson Gregory, while
manning his post one stormy night,

found it impossible both to steer his vessel and to
eat his fried cake. Out of sheer

frustration, and probably out of hunger, he
impaled his cake over one of the

spokes of the ship's wheel, thereby creating a
finger hold with which to grip the

cake. Quite pleased with his ingenuity, Mr. Gregory

Many credit Dutch settlers to America with
introducing the non-holed olykoeks,

or"oily cakes," to this continent, and with their
subsequent popularity.

There is no disputing the fact that the fried cake
became the rage in New York

and in New England, and that before long, it
became the specialty of coffee

shops. Fried cakes came into their own in 1673,
when a self-made New York

marketing guru, Anna Joralemon, made their
 Why do Onions
make us cry?

It is not the
strong odor of
the onion that
makes us cry,
but the gas
that the onion
releases when
we sever this
member of the
lily family.
Cutting an onion arouses a gas contained
within
 the onion, propanethiol S-oxide, which
The onion
then
itselfcouples with the enzymes in the onion to
contains

When this upwardly mobile gas encounters the
water produced by the tear ducts in

our eyelids, it produces sulfuric acid.

In response to the caustic acid, our eyes
automatically blink, and produce tears

which irrigate the eye, and which flush out the
sulfuric acid.

Another reflex to rid the eyes of a foreign
substance, that of rubbing our eyes with

our hands, often exacerbates the situation,
because our hands are coated with the
 Why does caffeine
keep me awake?

Caffeine
interrupts our
daily sleeping
patterns by
altering the
chemical
reactions in our
brain.

An addictive
our
drugbodies-keeping
that 90% us alert and hyperactive.
of Americans
consume every
After drinking a hot cup of caffeinated coffee,


the caffeine causes three different chemical

reactions that boost our energy levels:
It energizes us by pumping the hormone
adrenaline into our systems.
It increases dopamine levels within our bodies.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that stimulates
our "pleasure areas" in our brain making us feel
good.
It blocks the connection of adenosine to nerve
cells. Adenosine is the chemical that attaches to
receptors in the brain and causes drowsiness by
slowing down nerve cells activity.

The addictive and mood altering effects caused by

Today, 70% of all sodas in the United States
contain caffeine. Teenagers especially have become
dependent on caffeinated sodas or what many
refer to as "liquid candy." Teenage boys and girls
drink about twice as much "liquid candy" as milk,
whereas twenty years ago they drank twice as
much milk as soda.

While many soda companies argue that caffeine is
necessary to a soft drink's flavor, many
researchers have shown that most people are
hooked to a soda's caffeine content-NOT its
taste. Most people can't tell the difference