A nosebleed

In Japanese and Chinese folk belief nosebleeds are signs of sexual excitement. Nosebleeds are very rarely fatal.

Comets

They are often popularly described as 'dirty snowballs', though recent observations have revealed dry dusty or rocky surfaces, suggesting that the ices are hidden beneath the crust. This theory is considered an important contribution to Solar System studies.

Sympathetic pregnancy, a condition in which a man experiences the symptoms of an expectant mother

The causes have not yet been determined to a medical certainty, but many hypotheses have been advanced.

A wormhole

It is fundamentally, a 'shortcut' through spacetime.

'Little Green Men 1'

While the hypothesis that pulsars were beacons from extraterrestrial civilizations was never taken very seriously, some discussed the far-reaching implications if it turned out to be true. A pulsar (portmanteau of pulsating star) is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation.

Who is the 20th century scientist who is describing his most famous experiment in the above words?

Ernest Rutherford

Describing the famous Geiger–Marsden experiment (also called the Gold foil experiment or the Rutherford experiment) that was conducted to probe the structure of the atom performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden in 1909, under his direction at the University of Manchester.

The Ig Nobel Prizes

The name is a play on the word ignoble and the name Alfred Nobel. They are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The stated aim of the prizes is to "first make people laugh, and then make them think".

The gorilla

It was classified as a World Heritage Site in 1979. In later years it has become known for its mountain gorillas, although poaching and the Congo Civil War have seriously damaged its wildlife population.

Nuclear weapon testing

Underground nuclear testing made up the majority of nuclear tests by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War; other forms of nuclear testing were banned by the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963. When the explosion is fully contained, underground nuclear testing emits a negligible amount of fallout.

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the Apollo 11 astronauts from their splashdown

President Nixon was on board to welcome the returning astronauts back to Earth, and their first steps on Earth are marked on the hangar deck of the craft.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

The ozone layer

Due to its widespread adoption and implementation it has been hailed as an example of exceptional international co-operation and it is believed that if the international agreement is adhered to, the ozone layer is expected to recover by 2050.

Vitamin C

He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937.

Who is the pioneer in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence that said the above words?

Frank Drake, of the namesake Drake equation

The equation is used to estimate the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. It is used in the fields of exobiology and the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Fish

Anadromous fish like the salmon live in the saltwater and travel to fresh water sources to spawn. Catadromous fish like the eel spend most of their lives in fresh water and migrate to the sea to breed.

"It's true because if it were not, all things would be the same ___."

Temperature

The theory that the universe has existed forever is in serious difficulty with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law, states that disorder always increases with time. Otherwise, the universe would be in a state of complete disorder by now, and everything would be at the same temperature. In an infinite and everlasting universe, every line of sight would end on the surface of a star. This would mean that the night sky would have been as bright as the surface of the Sun. (http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/lectures/62)

His work on IVF (In vitro fertilisation)

He is often called as the 'father of the test tube baby'.

On the island of Java (thus Java Man)

It was one of the first known specimens of Homo erectus. Dubois, called it Pithecanthropus erectus, which means 'upright ape-man' according to Greek/Latin roots. Subsequently, older human remains were discovered in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya.

Beetles

About 40% of all described insect species are beetles (about 400,000 species) constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms. The name Coleoptera is from the Greek for 'sheathed wing'.

Tim Berners-Lee

The inventor of the World Wide Web.

Strain impacts a muscle, and sprain a ligament

A strain is also called a pulled muscle, and occurs when muscle fibres tear as a result of over-stretching.

About which German genius, regarded as the greatest mathematician since antiquity is this possibly apocryphal story often told?

Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855)

Who is the author of this note?

Pierre de Fermat

After centuries, the proof came from Andrew Wiles in 1995.

Tree-rings

Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year.

Gamma-ray bursts

Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several minutes, although a typical burst lasts 20-40 seconds. A typical burst releases as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun will in its entire 10 billion year lifetime. Most observed GRBs are believed to be a narrow beam of intense radiation released during a supernova event, as a rapidly rotating, high-mass star collapses to form a neutron star or black hole.

Tulips

Rosalind Franklin (1920-58)

'Photo 51' is the nickname given to an X-ray diffraction image of DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin in 1952 that was critical evidence in identifying the structure of DNA.

The positions/motions of the planets/satellites of the solar system

"Hello world"

In general, it is simple enough that people who have no previous experience with computer programming can easily understand it, especially with the guidance of a teacher or a written guide. Using this simple program as a basis, computer science principles or elements of a specific programming language can be explained to novice programmers. Experienced programmers learning new languages can also gain a lot of information about a given language's syntax and structure from a hello world program.

To clear the confusion, Pauli's discovery was renamed as what, alluding to the Italian word 'bambino'?

Neutrino (X - neutron)

Enrico Fermi did the renaming.

The V-2 rocket (V is 'Vergeltungswaffe', German for 'reprisal weapon')

It was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. It was the progenitor of all modern rockets, including those used by the United States and Soviet Union space programs.

Galvanization

Methuselah

It is named after the Biblical figure reputed to have lived 969 years. Methuselah's exact location is undisclosed as a protection against vandalism.

Maxwell's demon

It was created by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell to "show that the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty." In the experiment, an imaginary container is divided into two parts by an insulated wall, with a door that can be opened and closed by what came to be called "Maxwell's Demon". The hypothetical demon opens the door to allow only the "hot" molecules of gas to flow through to a favored side of the chamber, causing that side to spontaneously heat up while the other side cools down.

The Burgess Shale

It is one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields and is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils.

Ptolemy (c. AD 90–c. AD 168)

The model was accepted as correct for more than a thousand years in Islamic and European societies through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The book is the most important source of information on ancient Greek astronomy.

'The God particle'

The name came from the the title of Leon Lederman's book, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. While use of this term may have contributed to increased media interest in particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider, many scientists dislike it, since it overstates the particle's importance.

Urea (produced by the Wöhler synthesis)

This chemical reaction was discovered in 1828 by Friedrich Wöhler and is considered the starting point of modern organic chemistry. This synthesis was a landmark in the history of science as it undermined the Vital Force Theory, which was believed for centuries to be true.

A reverse Turing test

Since a computer administers a test to determine if the subject is or is not human!

A lek

The term was originally used most commonly for Black Grouse and for Capercaillie, and lekking behaviour is quite common in birds of this type, such as Sage Grouse, Prairie Chicken, and Sharp-tailed Grouse.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859)

His journeys established South America as a field for scientific exploration.

Ice ages

The orangutan

The honeybee

By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their hive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new housing locations.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

There are several examples of embryonic stages showing features of ancestral organisms, but a 'strong' formulation of the concept has been discredited.

Oxygen

Hydrogen and helium are estimated to make up roughly 74% and 24% of all matter in the universe respectively.

Stainless steel

The Kubler-Ross model

It describes, in 5 discrete stages (Denial-Anger-Bargaining-Depression-Acceptance), a process by which people deal with grief and tragedy, especially when diagnosed with a terminal illness or catastrophic loss. In addition to this, the book brought mainstream awareness to the sensitivity required for better treatment of individuals who are dealing with a fatal disease.

Jesus Christ Lizard

When startled, the Common Basilisk escapes by speeding to the nearest edge of water—and continues sprinting. The lizard runs on only its hind legs in an erect position, holding its arms to its sides. This basilisk is so adroit on water because its feet are large and equipped with flaps of skin along the toes; when moving quickly, the lizard can cross a surface of water before sinking. On water it runs an average speed of 8.4 kph (or 5.2 mph), which is just a little slower than its speed on land.

Uranus

With the exception of earth, all the other planets take their names from Roman myth. Uranus is the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky. Sir William Herschel announced its discovery on March 13, 1781, expanding the known boundaries of the Solar System for the first time in modern history. Uranus was also the first planet discovered with a telescope.

It's the distance within which a celestial body will disintegrate due to a second body's tidal forces exceeding the first body's gravitational self-attraction

Inside the Roche limit, orbiting material will tend to disperse and form rings, while outside the limit, material will tend to coalesce. The term is named after Édouard Roche, the French astronomer who first calculated this theoretical limit in 1848.

Fractals

A fractal is 'a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole' a property called self-similarity.

A sluice

For example, a millrace is a sluice that channels water toward a water mill. Sluice gates are commonly used to control water levels and flow rates in rivers and canals. They are also used in wastewater treatment plants and to recover minerals in mining operations, and in watermills.

A tadpole

Punctuated equilibrium

In 1972, paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing this theory. Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species.

Celluloid

Celluloid is highly flammable and also easily decomposes, and is no longer widely used. Its most common uses today are in table tennis balls and guitar picks.

A lunar eclipse

An eclipse's rating on the Danjon Scale is denoted by the letter L and ranges from 0-4 (0 is Very dark eclipse - Moon almost invisible, especially at mid-totality and 4 is Very bright copper-red or orange eclipse.)

Gunpowder (also known as Black powder)

Gunpowder can be made just using potassium nitrate and charcoal, but without the sulfur, the powder is not as strong. It burns rapidly, producing a volume of hot gas made up of carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen, and a solid residue of potassium sulfide.

Phalanges (from phalanx)

In primates such as humans and monkeys, the thumb and big toe have two phalanges, while the other fingers and toes consist of three. Phalanges are classified as long bones.

Antimony (anti-monos means not-alone)

Asbestos

Most people who develop mesothelioma have worked on jobs where they inhaled asbestos particles, or they have been exposed to asbestos dust and fiber in other ways.

Vacuum

With his experiments Guericke disproved the hypothesis of "horror vacui", that nature abhors a vacuum, which for centuries was a problem for philosophers and scientists.

Lise Meitner

A 1997 Physics Today study concluded that Meitner's omission was "a rare instance in which personal negative opinions apparently led to the exclusion of a deserving scientist" from the Nobel.

The Hayflick limit

Prior to Hayflick's discovery it was believed that vertebrate cells had an unlimited potential to replicate.

The meniscus

It can be either concave or convex. A convex meniscus occurs when the molecules have a stronger attraction to each other than to the container (seen between mercury and glass in barometers). Conversely, a concave meniscus occurs when the molecules of the liquid attract those of the container (seen between water and an unfilled glass).

Can you guess what this 'trans-Atlantic' operation was called?

The Lindbergh Operation

The name was derived from that of American aviator Charles Lindbergh, because he was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, although the operation occurred strictly over telecommunications lines, and no aircraft were involved, other than those used to transport medical services persons.

Children

Calor, dolor, rubor and tumor

This quote from the Bhagavad Gita was famously used at what specific 1945 event?

Trinity (nuclear test)

It was the first test of technology for an atomic weapon. It was conducted by the United States on July 16, 1945 at a location in New Mexico. These words were uttered by J. Robert Oppenheimer who is remembered as "The Father of the Atomic Bomb".

Pregnancy

The original test actually used mice. The test consisted of injecting the tested woman's urine into a female rabbit, then examining the rabbit's ovaries a few days later, which would change in response to a hormone only secreted by pregnant women. It is a common misconception that the injected rabbit would die only if the woman was pregnant. This led to the phrase "the rabbit died" being used as a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test. In fact, all rabbits used for the test died, because they had to be surgically opened in order to examine the ovaries.

A tomogram

Tomography achieves this remarkable result by simply moving an x-ray source in one direction as the x-ray film is moved in the opposite direction during the exposure to sharpen structures in the focal plane, while structures in other planes appear blurred. The tomogram is the picture; the tomograph is the apparatus; and tomography is the process.

Paraffin

Paraffin wax refers to the solids with 20 ≤ n ≤ 40.

Pluto

Pluto was demoted from the list of planets in 2006.

Spores

Spores are the units of asexual reproduction, because a single spore develops into a new organism. By contrast, gametes are the units of sexual reproduction, as two gametes need to fuse to create a new organism.

Small openings that usually lead to respiratory systems

For example, in sharks and rays, a spiracle is found behind each eye, and is often used to pump water through the gills while the animal is at rest.

A lemur

The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO)

Of these satellites, only the Compton is not operating; one of its gyroscopes failed, and NASA ordered it to be de-orbited on June 4, 2000. Spitzer was the only one of the Great Observatories not launched by the Space Shuttle.

An astringent

Two common examples are calamine lotion and witch hazel.

Hitchhiker's thumb

People who do not have this condition are able to extend the thumb straight out with little backward bending. Neither condition appears to have any ill-effect on the thumb's function. While most people have either "hitchhiker's thumb" on both thumbs or neither, in some people the condition only presents itself on one thumb.

A colloid

For example, Milk is an emulsified colloid of liquid butterfat globules dispersed within a water-based fluid.

Epinephrine

Marine science

The gnomon

Heavy water

It helped him win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934.

Pica

It is named for the magpie as it is reputed to eat almost anything. Pica is seen in all ages, particularly in pregnant women and small children, especially among children who are developmentally disabled, where it is the most common eating disorder.

Incandescence and luminescence respectively

The incandescence of a theoretically perfectly black object is known as black body radiation. Luminescence can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions, or stress on a crystal.

Colostrum

Most species will generate colostrum within one day of giving birth.

A situation where a harmless species has evolved to mitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a common predator

The lowest level of a body of water

Organisms living in this zone are called benthos. Because light does not penetrate very deep ocean-water, the energy source for the benthic ecosystem is often organic matter from higher up in the water column which drifts down to the depths. This dead and decaying matter sustains the benthic food chain; most organisms in the benthic zone are scavengers or detritivores. In their habitats they can be considered as dominant creatures. Many organisms adapted to deep-water pressure cannot survive in the upper parts of the water column.

The Oort cloud

It is a spherical cloud of comets believed to lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year, from the Sun; this distance places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. The Kuiper belt and scattered disc, the other two known reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth the Oort cloud's distance. The outer extent of the Oort cloud defines the boundary of our Solar System.

From Dolly Parton, the famously busty country singer

2 of (USA, Liberia, Myanmar)

Syphilis

In addition, the Dutch called it the "Spanish disease", the Russians called it the "Polish disease", the Turks called it the "Christian disease" or "Frank disease" (frengi) and the Tahitians called it the "British disease". These 'national' names are due to the disease often being present among invading armies or sea crews, due to the high instance of unprotected sexual contact with prostitutes. It was also called "Great pox" in the 16th century to distinguish it from smallpox. The signs and symptoms of syphilis are numerous; before the advent of serological testing, precise diagnosis was very difficult. In fact, the disease was dubbed the "Great Imitator" because it was often confused with other diseases, particularly in its tertiary stage.

The Haber process (also Haber-Bosch process)

The Haber process is important because ammonia is difficult to produce on an industrial scale. Even though 78.1% of the air we breathe is nitrogen, the gas is relatively unreactive because nitrogen molecules are held together by strong triple bonds. Ammonia was first manufactured using the Haber process on an industrial scale in Germany during World War I to meet the high demand for ammonium nitrate (for use in explosives) at a time when supply of Chile saltpetre from Chile could not be guaranteed because this industry was then almost 100% in British hands. It has been suggested that without this process, Germany would not have started the war.

Protium

Hydrogen has three naturally occurring isotopes, denoted 1H, 2H, and 3H (Protium, Deuterium and Tritium). Hydrogen is the only element that has different names for its isotopes in common use today. Isotopes are any of the different forms of an element each having different atomic mass (mass number). Isotopes of an element have nuclei with the same number of protons (the same atomic number) but different numbers of neutrons. Therefore, isotopes have different mass numbers, which give the total number of nucleons—the number of protons plus neutrons.

Ayahuasca, and also called Yage in Columbia and Caapi in Brazil

'Aya' means in Quechua "spirit," "ancestor," "dead person," while 'huasca' means "vine," "rope". "Ayahuasca tourist" is a pejorative term for those who quest for a transcendent experience through using ayahuasca, implying an insincere Westerner wanting a taste of an exotic ritual.

The Tupolev Tu-144

It was the first supersonic transport aircraft (SST), constructed under the direction of the Soviet Tupolev design bureau headed by Alexei Tupolev (1925 – 2001). Western observers nicknamed the plane Concordski (sometimes Konkordski), sounding Russian yet still very close to the Concorde, to which the Tu-144 was visually similar. A prototype first flew on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, two months before Concorde.

Dementia

Although dementia is far more common in the geriatric population, it may occur in any stage of adulthood.

The Gaia hypothesis

Named after the Greek earth goddess, this hypothesis postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that promotes life overall.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis)

Daguerreotype by Louis Daguerre

The daguerreotype is a negative image, but the mirrored surface of the metal plate reflects the image and makes it appear positive in the proper light. Thus, daguerreotype is a direct photographic process without the capacity for duplication.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerrotype)

Nebula

Originally nebula was a general name for any extended astronomical object, including galaxies beyond the Milky Way. In these regions the formations of gas, dust and other materials 'clump' together to form larger masses, which attract further matter, and eventually will become big enough to form stars. The remaining materials are then believed to form planets, and other solar system objects.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula)

Cartesian geometry

In mathematics, the Cartesian coordinate system is used to determine each point uniquely in a plane through two numbers, usually called the x-coordinate or abscissa and the y-coordinate or ordinate of the point. The idea of this system was developed in 1637 in two writings by Descartes and independently by Pierre de Fermat, although Fermat did not publish the discovery.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)

Vesalius had the work published at the age of 28, taking great pains to ensure its quality. Many of the illustrations were made by commissioned artists—those in the first two books were done by Johannes Stephanus of Calcar, an employee/student of the great Venetian artist Titian—and were greatly superior to the illustrations in anatomical atlases of the day, which were often made by anatomy professors themselves.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_humani_corporis_fabrica)

The zebra

Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto

As a result of improvements Galileo Galilei made to the telescope, he was able to see celestial bodies more distinctly than ever before in human history. As a result, sometime between December 1609 and January 1610 Galileo Galilei discovered what came to be known as the Galilean moons although a Chinese historian of astronomy, Xi Zezong, claimed that the Chinese astronomer Gan De observed one of Jupiter's moons in 362 BC, nearly 2 millennia earlier than Galileo.

The Towers of Hanoi

The puzzle was invented by the French mathematician Édouard Lucas in 1883. There is a legend about an Indian temple which contains a large room with three time-worn posts in it surrounded by 64 golden disks. The priests of Brahma, acting out the command of an ancient prophecy, have been moving these disks, in accordance with the rules of the puzzle. According to the legend, when the last move of the puzzle is completed, the world will end. The puzzle is therefore also known as the Tower of Brahma puzzle.

Canada

Occasionally, Alouette I is misrepresented as the third satellite successfully put in orbit, rather than being from the third country ever to do so, but numerous Sputnik and Explorer program missions preceded it. The name "Alouette" came from the French "skylark" and from the title of a popular French-Canadian folk song, "Alouette."

Taser

The trademarked name Taser is an acronym for "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle". Tasers were introduced as a less-lethal weapon with the intention to be used by police to subdue fleeing, belligerent, or potentially dangerous suspects, often when a lethal weapon would have otherwise been used. Tasers have not proven unequivocally to reduce gun usage and there are a number of growing controversies surrounding them.

Moulting

It is often but not always an outer layer or covering, either at specific times of year, or at specific points in its life-cycle. Moulting can involve the epidermis (skin), hair or fur, or other external layer. In some species, other body parts may be shed, for example, wings in some insects. Examples include old feathers in birds, old hairs in mammals (especially dogs and other canidae), old skin in reptiles, and the entire exoskeleton in arthropods.

Flashbulb memory

For example, a great many people can remember where they were when they heard of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 or the assassination of U.S president John F. Kennedy, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., or musician John Lennon. The most pronounced difference between ordinary and flashbulb memory is that people believe flashbulb memories to be more accurately and vividly remembered.

The activity of winds and the winds' ability to shape the surface of the Earth and other planets

Winds may erode, transport, and deposit materials, and are effective agents in regions with sparse vegetation and a large supply of unconsolidated sediments. Although water is much more powerful than wind, æolian processes are important in arid environments such as deserts. The term is derived from the name of the Greek god, Æolus, the keeper of the winds.

A backdraft

Backdrafts are very dangerous situations, often surprising firefighters, regardless of their level of experience. The most common tactic used by firefighters in defusing a potential backdraft is to ventilate from the highest point, allowing the heat and smoke to escape without igniting explosively.

Satellites of Uranus are named after characters from the works of Shakespeare and Pope's The Rape of the Lock

The boundary that separates the zoogeographical regions of Asia and Australasia

West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, mostly organisms related to Australian species. The line is named after Alfred Russel Wallace, who noticed the apparent dividing line during his travels through the East Indies in the 19th century. The line runs through the Malay Archipelago, between Borneo and Sulawesi (Celebes); and between Bali (in the west) and Lombok (in the east).

The fever tree

It grows naturally in Zimbabwe and South Africa near the Limpopo River, as immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories. It is unique as it is the only tree where photo-synthasis takes place in the bark of the tree as the leaves are very small. It also grows a "sacraficial limb" which appears as a dead branch, and is used to dump unwanted nutrients from the soil.

One of the two soft spots on a newborn's skull

Fontanelles are soft spots on a baby's head which, during birth, enable the soft bony plates of the skull to flex, allowing the head to pass through the birth canal. Fontanelles are usually completely hardened by a child's second birthday, and will eventually form the sutures of the neurocranium. The fontanelles allow the infant brain to be imaged using ultrasonography. Once they are closed, most of the brain is inaccessible to ultrasound imaging, as the bony skull presents an acoustic barrier.

Protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts

The word derives from Mithridates VI, who so feared being poisoned that he regularly ingested small doses, aiming to develop immunity. Having been defeated by Pompey, legend has it that Mithridates tried to commit suicide using poison but failed because of his immunity and so had to resort to having a mercenary run him through with his sword. Mithridatization has been tried with success in Australia and Brazil and total immunity has been achieved even to multiple bites of extremely venomous cobras and pit vipers.

The health of a newborn child

The Apgar score is determined by evaluating the newborn baby on five simple criteria on a scale from zero to two and summing up the five values thus obtained. The resulting Apgar score ranges from zero to 10. The five criteria are Heart rate, Respiration, (Reflex) irritability, (Muscle) tone and (Skin) color - the mnemonic being 'How Ready Is This Child'.

Island gigantism

It is a form of natural selection in which bigger size provides a survival advantage. Large size in herbivores usually makes it harder to escape or hide from predators, but on islands, these are often lacking. Thus, island gigantism is not an evolutionary trend due to fundamentally new parameters determining fitness (as in island dwarfing), but rather the removal of constraints. With the arrival of humans and associated predators (dogs, cats, rats, pigs), many giant island endemics have become extinct.

Any infectious disease that is transmitted from animals to humans or from humans to animals (the latter is sometimes called reverse zoonosis)

Many serious diseases fall under this category. The simplest definition of a zoonosis is a disease that can be transmitted from other animals to humans. A slightly more technical definition is a disease that normally exists in other animals, but also infects humans.

Ricin

Ricin is poisonous if inhaled, injected, or ingested, acting as a toxin by the inhibition of protein synthesis. While there is no known antidote, the US military has developed a vaccine. The best-known documented use of ricin as an agent of biological warfare was by the Soviet Union's KGB during the Cold War. In 1978, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by Bulgarian secret police who surreptitiously 'shot' him on a London street with a modified umbrella using compressed gas to fire a tiny pellet contaminated with ricin into his leg.

Nitric acid

Nitric acid has long been used to confirm the presence of gold in items, and this is the origin of the colloquial term "acid test," referring to a gold standard test for genuine value.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is based on a vitalist world view, which sees the underlying causes of sickness as imbalances in a hypothetical vital force, and claims that homeopathic treatment can harmonize and re-balance the vital force in the body, so restoring health — a spiritual doctrine not found in modern biology or conventional medicine. The medical efficacy of homeopathic treatments is disputed both by experimental studies, and on scientific and medical grounds, and it is considered by most scientists to be ineffective.

The Great Barrier Reef

It is composed of roughly 3,000 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for 2,600 kilometres (1,616 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres (132,974 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in northeast Australia. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps.

Yellowcake

A wisdom tooth

In many mammals, molars they grind food; hence the Latin name mola, "millstone". Wisdom tooth is the last to appear, breaking through the surface of the gum at about the age of twenty, although this varies by ethnicity.

An embolism

This can be contrasted with a "thrombus" which is the formation of a clot within a blood vessel, rather than being carried from somewhere else. Blood clots form the most common embolic material by far: other possible embolic materials include fat globules (a fat embolism), air bubbles (an air embolism), talc embolism (often following drug abuse), septic emboli (containing pus and bacteria), or amniotic fluid. Emboli often have more serious consequences when they occur in the so-called "end-circulation": areas of the body that have no redundant blood supply, such as the brain, heart, and lungs.

A conjecture

Once a conjecture is formally proven true it is elevated to the status of theorem and may be used afterwards without risk in the construction of other formal mathematical proofs. Until that time, mathematicians may use the conjecture on a provisional basis, but any resulting work is itself conjectural until the underlying conjecture is cleared up.

Depleted uranium

It is primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238. Since depleted uranium contains less than one third as much uranium-235 as natural uranium, it is weakly radioactive and an external radiation dose from depleted uranium is about 60% of that from the same mass of uranium with a natural isotopic ratio. Depleted uranium behaves in the body as does natural uranium.

The act whereby an animal severs one of its own appendages to elude a predator's grasp

The animals that are captured by the tail will shed part of the tail structure and thus be able to flee. The detached tail will continue to wriggle, creating a deceptive sense of continued struggle and attracting the predator's attention away from the fleeing prey animal. The animal can partially regenerate its tail over a period of weeks. The new section will contain cartilage rather than bone and the skin will have different colouration, typically darker and with little or no pattern.

Bioluminescence

Ants

Ants have colonized almost every landmass on Earth. The only places lacking indigenous ant species are Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and the Hawaiian Islands. Individuals are divided into sub-fertile, and more commonly sterile, females ("workers"), fertile males ("drones"), and fertile females ("queens"). Colonies can occupy and use a wide area of land to support themselves. Ant colonies are sometimes described as superorganisms because the colony appears to operate as a single entity.

Seahorses and pipefishes

Seahorses reproduce in an unusual way: the male becomes pregnant. "The female inserts her ovipositor into the male’s brood pouch, where she deposits her eggs, which the male fertilizes. The fertilized eggs then embed in the pouch wall and become enveloped with tissues." New research indicates the male releases sperm into the surrounding sea water during fertilization, and not directly into the pouch as was previously thought. Most seahorse species' pregnancies lasts approximately two to three weeks.

Unlike noble gases, an inert gas is not necessarily elemental and is often molecular

Helium and neon are the only true elemental inert gases, because they do not form any (known) true chemical compounds, unlike the heavier noble gases (argon, krypton, xenon and radon).

The positron

The existence of positrons was first postulated in 1928 by Paul Dirac as a consequence of the Dirac equation. In 1932, positrons were discovered by Carl D. Anderson, who gave the positron its name. When a low-energy positron collides with a low-energy electron, annihilation occurs, resulting in the production of two gamma ray photons.

Arthur Eddington

Eddington helped to experimentally verify the theory of general relativity by observing the appearance of stars around the region of a solar eclipse.

Dialysis

It is a life support treatment and does not treat any kidney diseases. When healthy, the kidneys remove waste products (for example potassium, acid and urea) from the blood and also remove excess fluid in the form of urine. Dialysis treatments have to duplicate both of these functions as dialysis (waste removal) and ultrafiltration (fluid removal).

Arsenic

Arsenic poisoning kills by inhibition of essential metabolic enzymes, leading to death from multi-system organ failure.

Parthenogenesis

It is a form of asexual reproduction in which females produce eggs that develop without fertilization. It occurs naturally in some species, including lower plants, invertebrates (e.g. water fleas, aphids, some bees and parasitic wasps), and vertebrates (e.g. some reptiles, fish, and, very rarely, birds and sharks). It is sometimes also used to describe reproduction modes in hermaphroditic species which can self-fertilize.

Collagen

Collagen has been widely used in cosmetic surgery, as a healing aid for burn patients for reconstruction of bone and a wide variety of dental, orthopedic and surgical purposes. Collagens are widely employed in the construction of artificial skin substitutes used in the management of severe burns, as well as for a wide range of dental, orthopedic, and surgical purposes. These collagens may be derived from bovine, equine or porcine, and even human, sources and are sometimes used in combination with silicones, glycosaminoglycans, fibroblasts, growth factors and other substances.

The Saltwater or Estuarine Crocodile

A healthy adult male saltwater crocodile is typically 4.8 to 7 metres (15.75 to 21.6 ft) long, and weighs up to 770 kg (1697 lb), with many exceptions being much larger than this.

The boabab

Baobabs store water inside the swollen trunk (up to 120,000 litres to endure the harsh drought conditions particular to each region.

One that inhabits trees or bushes

Cellulose

Cellulose was discovered and isolated in the mid-nineteenth century by the French chemist Anselme Payen. Cellulose is not digestible by humans and is often referred to as 'dietary fiber' or 'roughage'.

Menlo Park

It was in the Menlo Park Laboratory that Thomas Edison came up with his most famous inventions, including the phonograph and a commercially viable incandescent light bulb filament and he is sometimes referred to as "the Wizard of Menlo Park".

Isabelline penguins

This is possibly in reference to the legend that the archduchess Isabella of Austria vowed not to change her undergarments until her husband united the northern and southern Low Countries by taking the city of Ostend--which took three years to accomplish. Isabellinism is different from albinism, though the faded color of the plumage calls albinism to mind. Isabelline penguins tend to live shorter lives than normal specimens, since their backs aren't well camouflaged against the deep, and they are often passed over as mates, so the trait is selected against.

CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research)

The convention establishing CERN was signed on 29 September 1954. From the original 12 signatories of the CERN convention, membership has grown to the present 20 member states. Its main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research. As of 2007, about half of the world's particle physics community, work on experiments conducted at CERN. As an international facility, the CERN sites are not officially under Swiss or French jurisdiction, and some company vehicles have diplomatic number plates.

Sulphur

Vulcanization refers to a specific curing process of rubber involving high heat and the addition of sulfur. It is a chemical process in which polymer molecules are linked to other polymer molecules by atomic bridges composed of sulfur atoms. This makes the bulk material harder, much more durable and also more resistant to chemical attack. It also makes the surface of the material smoother and prevents it from sticking to metal or plastic chemical catalysts.

Nikola Tesla

After his demonstration of wireless communication in 1893 and after being the victor in the "War of Currents", Tesla was widely respected as America's greatest electrical engineer. The SI unit measuring magnetic flux density or magnetic induction (commonly known as the magnetic field ), the tesla, was named in his honour. Aside from his work on electromagnetism and engineering, Tesla is said to have contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics and theoretical physics.

Portland cement

It is a fine powder produced by grinding Portland cement clinker (more than 90%), a maximum of about 5% gypsum which controls the set time, and up to 5% minor constituents (as allowed by various standards).

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778)

He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy."

Tsar Bomba ('Emperor Bomb')

The bomb had a yield of about 50 megatons of TNT and it was codenamed Ivan by its developers. The detonation qualifies as being the single most powerful device ever utilized throughout the history of humanity. The bomb was tested on October 30, 1961, in Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in the Arctic Sea. The device was scaled down from its original design of 100 megatons to reduce the resulting nuclear fallout.

Silver

The Galapagos tortoise

Adults of large species can weigh over 300 kilograms (660 lb) and measure 1.2 meters (3.9 ft) long. Although the maximum life expectancy of a wild tortoise is unknown, the average life expectancy is estimated to be 200 years.

Oleic acid

If a drop of oleic acid were to be added to a live bee, it would be dragged off, kicking and screaming, as if it were dead.

Walk/stand without falling

Some animals are better in this than humans, for example allowing a cat (as a quadruped using its inner ear and tail) to walk on a thin fence. All forms of equilibrioception can be described as the detection of acceleration. It is determined by the level of fluid properly called endolymph in the labyrinth - a complex set of tubing in the inner ear.

Pyrites

It is iron disulfide, FeS2, and is the most common of the sulfide minerals. The name pyrite is from a Greek word that means fire. This is likely due to the sparks that result when pyrite is struck against steel. This capacity made it popular for use in early firearms such as the wheellock.

The Gaboon viper

Their venom itself is not considered particularly toxic but their venom glands are enormous and produce the largest quantities of any venomous snake.

Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan (721–c.815), best known as Geber

His ethnic background is not clear; although most sources state he was an Arab, others describe him as Persian. He introduced many methods such as the syntheses of hydrochloric and nitric acids, distillation, and crystallisation.

Aluminum

It is very rare in its free form, occurring in oxygen-deficient environments such as volcanic mud. Aluminium has been produced in commercial quantities for just over 100 years.

Arsenic

As the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were somewhat ill-defined, it was frequently used for murder until the advent of the Marsh test, a sensitive chemical test for its presence. (Another less sensitive but more general test is the Reinsch test.)

The name given to the well-preserved natural mummy of a man from about 3300 BC

The names 'Frozen Fritz' and 'Similaun Man' are also used to refer to it.

Zircon

Their oxygen isotopic composition has been interpreted to indicate that more than 4.4 billion years ago there was already water on the surface of the Earth. This spectacular interpretation has been published in top scientific journals, but is the subject of debate.

Vitamins

In humans there are 13 vitamins: 4 fat-soluble (A, D, E and K) and 9 water-soluble (8 B vitamins and vitamin C).

The Siberian tiger

The Sumatran tiger is the smallest.

Archimedes

The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union, a meeting that takes place every four years. The Fields Medal is widely viewed as the top honor a mathematician can receive.

The chinook

Described and enthusiastically eaten by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the chinook salmon is spiritually and culturally prized among certain Native American tribes.

Superconductivity

At the temperature of 4.2 Kelvin, he observed that the resistance abruptly disappeared. In subsequent decades, superconductivity was found in several other materials. In 1913, lead was found to superconduct at 7 K, and in 1941 niobium nitride was found to superconduct at 16 K.

Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring isotope carbon-14 (14C) to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 60,000 years.

The cassowary

They are very large flightless birds native to the tropical forests of New Guinea and northeastern Australia. Normally cassowaries are very shy but when disturbed can lash out dangerously with their powerful legs. They are also considered to be one of the most dangerous animals to keep in zoos, based on the frequency and severity of injuries incurred by zookeepers.

Extinct in the Wild

The other categories are Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), and Near Threatened (NT).

On Mars

The central edifice stands 27 kilometres (around 17 miles) high above the mean surface level of Mars (about three times the elevation of Mount Everest above sea level and 2.6 times the height of Mauna Kea above its base). It is 550 km (342 miles) in width.

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–1794)

At the height of the French Revolution he was accused by Jean-Paul Marat of selling watered-down tobacco, and of other crimes, and was guillotined.

Oxygen

From 'oxys' (acid, literally "sharp", from the taste of acids) and (-genēs) (producer, literally begetter).

A cluster headache

Nicknamed "suicide headache", it is a neurological disease that involves, as its most prominent feature, an immense degree of pain. The cause of the disease is currently unknown.

A rapidly moving one

It is often used to gain control of very fast descents, including those of spacecraft during atmospheric reentry, or nuclear bombs. When used as a method of decreasing the landing distance of an aircraft below that available solely from the aircraft's brakes, the device is called a drag parachute or braking parachute.

Möbius strips

The number zero

His Brahmasphutasiddhanta is the earliest known text to treat zero as a number in its own right. It goes well beyond that, however, stating rules for arithmetic on negative numbers and zero which are quite close to the modern understanding. The major divergence is that Brahmagupta attempted to define division by zero, which is left undefined in modern mathematics. His definition of zero was quite accurate except he wrongly believed that 0/0 was equal to 0.

When it is dormant in the summer, as opposed to winter

Animals that estivate spend a summer inactive and insulated against heat to avoid the potentially harmful effects of the season (such as the increase in temperature, or relative lack of water), or to avoid contact with other species with which they may otherwise be in competition, or for which they are prey. Animals that estivate include North American desert tortoises, crocodiles, salamanders, and lungfishes.

The monkey-puzzle (X is monkey)

The proud owner of a young specimen in Cornwall was showing it to a group of friends, and one made the remark "It would puzzle a monkey to climb that"; as the tree species had no existing popular name, first 'monkey-puzzler', then 'monkey-puzzle' stuck. As a practical exercise, a monkey trying to climb one would not be so much puzzled as injured by the razor-sharp leaf edges.

Reye's syndrome

It is a potentially fatal disease that causes numerous detrimental effects to many organs, especially the brain and liver, as well as causing hypoglycemia. It also occurs in the absence of aspirin use.

An adverse effect associated with a medical practitioner or treatment

Iatros means physician in Greek, and -genic, meaning induced by, is derived from the International Scientific Vocabulary. Combined, they become iatrogenic, meaning physician-induced.

Merino

An event horizon

Light emitted from inside the horizon can never reach the observer, and anything that passes through the horizon from the observer's side is never seen again. A black hole is surrounded by an event horizon, for example.

Mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young

The only surviving examples of monotremes are all indigenous to Australia and New Guinea, although there is evidence that they were once more widespread.

The Saffir-Simpson scale

The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is used only to describe hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Ocean and northern Pacific Ocean east of the International Date Line. Other areas label their tropical cyclones as "cyclones" and "typhoons", and use their own classification scales.

The butterfly effect

The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or prevent a tornado from appearing). The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.

The okapi

Native just to the Ituri forests situated in the north east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it was known only to the local people until 1901.

5

The first orbiter, Enterprise, was not built for actual space flight, and was used only for testing purposes and is not considered an operational vehicle. It was followed by four operational space shuttles: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery and Atlantis. Challenger was destroyed on launch in 1986, and Endeavour was built as a replacement. Columbia was destroyed on re-entry in 2003.

Schrödinger's cat

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920)

A definitive example of an autodidact prodigy, Ramanujan compiled an estimated 3,900 theorems during his short lifetime. Although a small number of these results were actually false, most of his statements have now been proven to be correct. His deep intuition and uncanny algebraic manipulative ability enabled him to state results that were both original and highly unconventional, and these have inspired a vast amount of research.

The aardvark

The Aardvark is nocturnal and is a solitary creature that feeds almost exclusively on ants and termites (formicivore). However, it is not closely related to pigs.

Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS), or Micropsia

The condition is in terms of perception only; the mechanics of the eye are not affected, only the brain's interpretation of information passed from the eyes. The syndrome is associated with, and perhaps in part caused by, the classical migraine headache. The disorder is named after Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where the title character experiences many situations similar to those of micropsia and macropsia. Because Lewis Carroll recorded at least one episode of classical migraine, scholars have speculated that he may have experienced this syndrome himself.

An Argentinosaurus, a herbivorous sauropod

Not much of Argentinosaurus has been recovered: just some back vertebrae, tibia, fragmentary ribs, and sacrum. One vertebra had a length of 1.3 metres and the tibia was about 155 centimetres (58 inches) However, the spectacular proportions of these bones and the familiarity of the species' sauropod relatives allows paleontologists to estimate that full-grown specimens reached some 35 metres (115 feet) in length. Weight was perhaps 80 to 100 tonnes. It is the largest dinosaur that there is good evidence for.

A relationship where one organism benefits and the other is unaffected

It is derived from the English word commensal, meaning the sharing of food, and used of human social interaction. The word derives from the Latin com mensa, meaning sharing a table. An inquiline is an animal that lives commensally in the nest, burrow, or dwelling place of an animal of another species.

The pH scale

pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a solution. Solutions with a pH less than seven are considered acidic, while those with a pH greater than seven are considered basic (alkaline). pH 7 is considered neutral because it is the pH of pure water at 25 °C.

Tachyons

To date, the existence of tachyons has been neither confirmed nor explicitly ruled out.

Fingerprints

There are also more complex classification systems that further break down patterns to plain arches or tented arches.

Passenger pigeons

Martha was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where she was skinned and mounted. Martha is no longer on display, but is in the museum's archived collection.

A bascule bridge

Bascule is a French term for seesaw and balance, and bascule bridges operate along the same principle. They are the most common type of movable bridge in existence because they open quickly and require relatively little energy to operate. Probably the most famous bascule bridge in the world is Tower Bridge across the Thames in London, UK.

(c)Brain, considered the first computer virus for the PC

(c)Brain was written by two brothers, Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi, who lived in Lahore, Pakistan. The brothers told TIME magazine they had written it to protect their medical software from piracy and it was supposed to target copyright infringers only.

Who is this 'super' pioneer in the field of computer science who always resisted parallel solutions in favor of high-speed ones?

Seymour Cray (1925-1996), the architect of the Supercomputer

Iridium

The Iridium satellite constellation is a system of 66 active communication satellites and spares around the Earth. It allows worldwide voice and data communications using handheld devices. The Iridium network is unique in that it covers the whole earth, including poles, oceans and airways, however the service is interdicted due to American embargoes in North Korea, Iran, Libya and Sudan. The name was taken from the element Iridium, with the atomic number of 77 -- the size of the satellite constellation projected in the early stages of planning.

Broca's area

Broca's area is named after the 19th century physician Paul Broca who discovered it. He arrived at this discovery by studying the brains of aphasic patients (persons with speech and language disorders resulting from brain injuries).

Minamata disease

Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms. It was caused by the release of methyl mercury in the industrial wastewater and this toxic chemical bioaccumulated in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, which when eaten by the local populace resulted in mercury poisoning.

The sidereal period

This is considered to be an object's true orbital period.

Clouds

These two cloud types are divided into four more groups that distinguish the cloud's altitude - High, Medium, Low and Vertical.

IQ

In 1912, the abbreviation of "intelligence quotient" or I.Q., a translation of the German Intelligenz-Quotient, was coined by the German psychologist William Stern.

Gravitational Slingshot (or) Gravity Assist

It is a commonly used maneuver for visiting the outer planets, which would otherwise either take far too long or require far too much fuel using current propulsion technologies. It was first developed in 1959 at the Department of Applied Mathematics of Steklov Institute and employed in the Luna 3 Moon mission. From a large distance, the spacecraft appears to have bounced off the planet. The Mariner 10 probe was the first spacecraft to use the effect to reach another planet, passing by Venus on February 5, 1974 on its way to becoming the first spacecraft to explore Mercury.

Hedy Lamarr

In 2003, the Boeing corporation ran a series of recruitment ads featuring Hedy Lamarr as a woman of science. No reference to her film career was made in the ads.

The raptor (velociraptor means 'swift robber')

The Velociraptor depicted in the Jurassic Park films were scientifically inaccurate in numerous ways. One major discrepancy is that the size of the Velociraptor in the film was much greater than their diminutive real-world counterparts. The size of the film's Velociraptor may also have been increased for dramatic reasons by Spielberg.

Ceres, Eris, ...

Pluto (dwarf planets)

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the official scientific body for astronomical nomenclature, defines a "dwarf planet" as a celestial body within the Solar System that satisfies these four conditions: 1) is in orbit around the Sun 2) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape 3) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit 4) is not a satellite

Pioneer 10

Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt, and was the first spacecraft to make direct observations of Jupiter. It is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus at roughly 2.6 AUs per year and if Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would take Pioneer about 2 million years to reach it. There is no longer communication with the probe; the last contact was in 2003 and in 2006 a final attempt at contact failed.

Polaroid photography

Among other things, he invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, instant polaroid photography, and his retinex theory of color vision. At one time, he was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's richest scientist.

Snake eating!

It is a specialized form of feeding of animals which hunt and eat snakes. There are ophiophagous mammals (such as the skunks and the mongooses), birds (such as snake eagles, the Secretary Bird, and some hawks), lizards, and even other snakes, such as the North American Common Kingsnake. There is even an entire genus of snakes named after this habit, Ophiophagus, with species such as the venomous King Cobra.

The buckyball or fullerene

The fullerenes, discovered in 1985 by researchers at Rice University, are a family of carbon allotropes named after Richard Buckminster Fuller and are sometimes called buckyballs. They are molecules composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Buckminsterfullerene is the smallest fullerene in which no two pentagons share an edge. It is also the most common in terms of natural occurrence, as it can often be found in soot.

Paul Erdos

Erdos (1913-1996) was an immensely prolific (and famously eccentric) Hungarian-born mathematician who, with hundreds of collaborators, worked on problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set theory, and probability theory.

The orange

The quark

Quarks are the only fundamental particles that interact through all four of the fundamental forces. They come in six flavors, and their names (up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top) were also chosen arbitrarily based on the need to name them something that could be easily remembered and used. Antiparticles of quarks are called antiquarks.

Leptons

There are three known flavors of lepton: the electron, the muon, and the tau.

Lemmings (this belief is not true)

Lemmings will often migrate in large groups and as a result some lemmings will occasionally be pushed off cliffs or drowned in bodies of water simply by the press of their compatriots. The myth of lemming mass suicide has been popularized by The Walt Disney Company documentary White Wilderness which includes footage of lemmings running head-long over a ledge. However, the filmmakers contrived this scene. Due to their association with this odd behavior, Lemmings are a frequently-used metaphor in reference to people who go along unquestioningly with popular opinion.

The h index (sometimes called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number)

By definition, a scholar with an index of h has published h papers with at least h citations each. Thus, the h-index is the result of the balance between the number of publications and the number of citations per publication. The index is designed to improve upon simpler measures such as the total number of citations or publications, to distinguish truly influential scientists from those who simply publish many papers. The index is also not affected by single papers that have many citations. The index works properly only for comparing scientists working in the same field; citation conventions differ widely among different fields.

A facelift

Literally meaning 'surgical removal of wrinkles', it is a procedure used in plastic surgery to give a more youthful appearance. It usually involves the removal of excess facial skin, with or without the tightening of underlying tissues, and the redraping the skin on the patient's face and neck.

Ganymede

It is Jupiter's moon, and the largest moon in the entire solar system.

What are we talking about?

The Riemann hypothesis, formulated by Bernhard Riemann in 1859

A $1,000,000 prize has been offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute for the first correct proof. Most mathematicians believe the Riemann hypothesis to be true.

As the Chilean sea bass

Illegal overfishing threatens the species in some areas, as it is slow-growing, reaching maturity between ten and twelve years of age. The longline fishery has also been criticised for drowning thousands of seabirds, including albatrosses.

Banana

Proponents of nuclear power sometimes refer to the banana equivalent dose of radiation to support their arguments. Bananas are radioactive enough to regularly cause false alarms on radiation sensors used to detect possible illegal smuggling of nuclear material at US ports.

~ 13 times

The Moon makes a complete orbit about the Earth with respect to the fixed stars (its sidereal period) approximately once every 27.3 days. However, since the Earth is moving in its orbit about the Sun at the same time, it takes slightly longer for the Moon to show its same phase to Earth, which is about 29.5 days (its synodic period). Unlike most satellites of other planets, the Moon orbits near the ecliptic and not the Earth's equatorial plane.

He was the head Soviet rocket engineer and designer during the Space Race

Although trained as an aircraft designer, Korolyov's greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization and strategic planning. He oversaw the successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects.

4-6 hrs

Only the transparent section of the eyes (called cornea) is taken out and not the full eye ball.

Tuberculosis, just as deadly

The World Health Organization declared TB a global health emergency in 1993, and the Stop TB Partnership proposed a Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis which aims to save 14 million lives between 2006 and 2015.

Water

Blood is about 7% of the human body weight, so the average adult has a blood volume of about 5 litres, of which 2.7-3 litres is plasma.

AIDS

Technically, it is a biochemical technique used mainly in immunology to detect the presence of an antibody or an antigen in a sample. It has also found applications in the food industry in detecting potential food allergens such as milk, peanuts, walnuts, almonds, and eggs.

The skin!

This applies to exterior surface, as it covers the body, appearing to have the largest surface area of all the organs. Moreover, it applies to weight, as it weighs more than any single internal organ, accounting for about 15 percent of body weight. For the average adult human, the skin has a surface area of between 1.5-2.0 square meters, most of it is between 2-3 mm thick.

88

Examples are Ursa Major (containing the Big Dipper), Orion (containing a figure of a hunter), Leo (containing bright stars outlining the form of a lion) and Scorpius (a scorpion).

The parrot

As of February 2010, only 122 living individuals are known, most of which have been given names.

The Seikan Tunnel

It is a 53.85 km (33.49 mile) railway tunnel in Japan, with a 23.3 km (14.5 mile) portion under the seabed. It travels beneath the Tsugaru Strait — connecting the islands of Honshû and Hokkaidô. The Channel tunnel is 51.5kms (31 miles) long, but with an undersea section of 39kms (24 miles), it is the longest undersea tunnel in the world.