HOW DID THE EGYPTIANS PRESERVE MUMMIES?

The afterlife was one of the faiths of Ancient Egypt. One of the ways they prepared for the afterlife was to try and preserve the dead body as long as possible. They did this through a process called embalming. These embalmed bodies are called mummies. It is estimated that 70 million mummies were made in […]

WHAT ARE WHITE BLOOD CELLS?

White blood cells (WBCs), or leukocytes, are the body’s defence or immune system. In a normal adult body there are 4,000 to 10,000 (average 7,000) WBCs per microliter of blood. When the number of WBCs in your blood increases, this is a sign of an infection somewhere in your body. There are five types of […]

WHEN DID HYPNOSIS BEGIN?

Hypnosis has had a very colorful and long history. Since there have been humans, there has been hypnosis. The earliest examples can be found in ancient tribal ceremonies of our early ancestors. It was used in both healing ceremonies and ceremonies preparing for tribal war. In these early times the hypnotherapist was called a ‘shaman’. […]

How did Halloween originate?

The name Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows Even, meaning the evening of All Hallows Day (better known as All Saints’ Day). It has been named so because Halloween’s Day is celebrated on the evening of 31 October when it is also the first day of All Saints’ Day (which ends on the evening […]

How did schools originate?

Men have lived together in groups since they very earliest times. Each group tried to keep together and to find ways that would keep the group going after its individual members were gone. In order for the group and values to survive, it was necessary for the older members to teach children all that they […]

Why do the Northern Lights appear?

The Northern Lights is the common name for Aurora Borealis. It is an awe-inspiring display of the natural lights when the electrically charged particles from the Sun collide with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. Apart from the most common pale green and pink, shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet have also been […]

Why don’t all clouds produce rain?

‘Water vapor’ is always present in the air. When the temperature reduces, the water vapor condenses into tiny droplets of water. Now we say that the air is ‘saturated’. When this saturated warm air rises to an altitude where the temperature is lower, more condensation takes place and we have ‘cloud’ made of closely packed […]

Where is Easter Island?

Easter Island, known as ‘Rapa Nui’ in the native Polynesian language or ‘Isla de Pascua’ in Spanish, is an island in the South Pacific Ocean belonging to Chile. Located 3,600 km west of continental Chile and 2,075 km east of Pitcairn Island, it is one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world. Some […]

Principles of chromatography

Chromatography’ is an analytical technique commonly used for separating a mixture of chemical substances into its individual components, so that the individual components can be thoroughly analyzed. There are many types of chromatography e.g., liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, ion-exchange chromatography, affinity chromatography, but all of these employ the same basic principles. Chromatography is a separation […]

States of Matter: Bose-Einstein Condensate

An illustration of a “super-photon” created when physicists turned photons of light into a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. Credit: Soumik Of the five states matter can be in, the Bose-Einstein condensate is perhaps the most mysterious. Gases, liquids, solids and plasmas were all well studied for decades, if not centuries; Bose-Einstein condensates […]