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Why Is Yawning Contagious?Some current theories focus on yawning as a social cue (like laughing) that communicates information and helps organize group behavior.
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Why Is Hair Parted?The function of body and head hair, and why it grows the way it does.
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Why is Cow's Milk White?A combination of calcium-rich casein and certain fats give bovine juice its color.
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Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze on Ice?Actually, bare feet prevent these stately ice emperors from burning up in their suits.
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Why Does the Body Tan?An explanation of the purpose of melanin in humans and other animals.
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Why Does My Arm Fall Asleep?An explanation of limb numbness and paresthesia.
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Why Does Pain Make People Scream?Screaming is an evolutionarily useful tool becuase it lets others know something is wrong.
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Why Do You Stink?Don't get offended! You could be hyper-hygienic and you'd still ooze odors. Even grosser, bacteria's to blame.
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Why Do We Love Music?It's clear that a human brain knows a good tune when it hears one.
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Why Can't We Reach the End of the Rainbow?You'll never swim out to the horizon, and you'll never reach a rainbow's end. The visibility of both requires distance between object and observer.
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Why are Ears Shaped So Strangely?Those external folds of cartilage and skin, called the pinna, have important resonant properties that modify high-frequency sound waves entering the ear before funneling them to the middle ear.
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What Was the First Museum?The history of the public museum.
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What Makes My Ears Ring?That ringing or buzzing in the ear is a symptom of hearing loss resulting from excessively loud noises.
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What Makes Wheels Appear to Spin Backward?Two competing theories are currently rolling around the academic journals for acceptance.
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What's the Doppler Effect?The Doppler effect describes the difference between a sound and its source.
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What is Fire?Prometheus stole fire from the gods and bequeathed it to humans. Aristotle defined it as one of the four essential elements.
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What's a Species?Determining which categories an organism falls into is no easy matter. In general, physical characteristics determine grouping.
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What is a Sonic Boom? Can I See One?The sound barrier is just a certain velocity relative to the surrounding environment, not an actual membrane to be penetrated by a jet's nose. Yet we have photos.
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What is 20/20 Vision? -
What Causes Hunger Pangs?Hunger speaks not from the belly but from the brain.
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What Causes a Charlie Horse?Expect cramps during states of exercise and dehydration.
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What are Birthmarks?The term "birthmark" can refer to all sorts of spots.
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Is Cow-Tipping Possible?The physics of cow-tipping, to the extent that much is known about it.
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How Many Cells are in the Brain?The complexity of the task requires a fairly inconceivable 100 billion neurons, interconnected via trillions of synapses.
