Life Under the Microscope
In this slimy state, bacterial resistance to antibiotics can jump by up to a factor of a thousand.
What is a biofilm?
This organ uses about 20 percent of your resting energy budget despite making up only about 2 percent of body mass.
What is the brain?
This element, used in party balloons, is so rare on Earth that most commercial supplies come from deep natural gas wells.
What is helium?
This is the only place (outside of earth) where astronauts can find free snacks
What is the International Space Station?
Which came first: the discovery of vaccination or the first use of surgical anesthesia?
What is vaccination?
(1796 vs 1846)
Of all known genomes, this organism currently holds the record for the largest, with over 100 billion base pairs.
What is a fern?
Specifically the "A 160 Gbp fork fern" plant
The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants
This type of muscle fiber is fatigue-resistant and relies mostly on oxidative metabolism.
What are type I (slow-twitch) fibers?
This is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature.
What is mercury?
This giant planet radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun because it is still shrinking under its own gravity
What is Jupiter?
Which came first: photography or recorded sound?
What is photography?
(1839 vs 1877)
This cellular organelle was once a free-living microbe that merged with early eukaryotes.
What is the mitochondrion?
This hormone, discovered in the 1990s, is released from fat cells and signals energy status to the brain.
What is leptin?
This pH phenomenon explains why carbonated drinks taste sharper when cold.
What is increased CO₂ solubility leading to more carbonic acid?
This spacecraft is the farthest human-made object from Earth
What is Voyager 1?
Which came first: the publication of natural selection or the scientific understanding of how nerves control muscle contraction?
What is natural selection?
(1859 vs later nineteenth-century neuromuscular physiology)
This water creature can revert its mature cells back into stem-like states, allowing it to return to a juvenile form.
What is Turritopsis dohrnii, aka the “immortal jellyfish”?
This reflex can persist in adults if there’s upper motor neuron damage, but in infants it’s completely normal.
What is the Babinski sign?
Diamond and graphite differ only in how the atoms bond, making them examples of this chemical concept.
What are allotropes?
This moon of Saturn has lakes made not of water but of liquid methane and ethane.
What is Titan?
Which came first: X-ray imaging or the first powered airplane flight?
What is X-ray imaging?
(1895 vs 1903)