Strength Training
Quick Chem
A Little Science
You've Got No Backbone
Reaping What You Sow
200
Don't hold your breath—this broad, flattened muscle in your abdomen won't soon get tired supporting your lungs.
Diaphragm
200
For the radioactive isotope thorium-232, it's about 14 billion years.
Half-life
200
The single-celled Lactobacillus acidophilus is a low-pH-loving member of this prokaryotic domain.
Bacteria
200
This part of a snail gets bigger as the snail gets older, with new coils, or whorls, being added over time.
Shell
200
Plant some Crocus sativus and you may fetch up to $5,000 per kilogram of this crimson spice.
Saffron
400
This largest muscle and primary hip extensor is located on the posterior side of the human body—it may be called "back", but it's not part of your actual back.
Glutes (gluteus maximus)
400
Saponification, or the hydrolysis of a fat by an alkali, is the process of making this.
Soap
400
Described by Einstein as "spooky action at a distance", two particles are considered to be this when they share the same fate regardless of distance.
Entangled
400
A jellyfish stings via nematocysts, barbed tubes that deploy venom upon contact with this part of the jelly-body.
Tentacles
400
Impatiens capensis, colloquially known as the spotted jewelweed, uses ballistochory to shoot these structures several feet away from the plant's main body.
Seeds
600
Good thing this four-part muscle used for kicking isn't in a seventies movie—with glasses, would it be called four-eyes or eight-eyes?
Quads (quadriceps femoris)
600
In batteries and electrolytic cells, this electrode is the opposite of an anode.
Cathode
600
The type 2 fibers of this kind of tissue are recruited during fast movements of the body.
Muscle
600
Much of the "squid ink" used in cooking is actually ink from these fellow cephalopods, slower than squids and with W-shaped pupils.
Cuttlefish
600
Second to the British, this disease was the primary cause of the Irish Potato Famine.
Blight
800
Am I at the gym or the Olympics? This muscle in your brachium will help you show off your medal after you earn it in a game of stone-sliding.
Biceps (biceps brachii)
800
This type of chemical bond is also called electrovalent.
Ionic
800
The Pol III holoenzyme is the primary enzyme involved in the replication of this genetic material.
DNA
800
Some stuff you can't make up. Certain types of this salad veggie of the ocean can shoot innards out of their butts to entangle predators.
Sea cucumber
800
Named for the broad leaves of family Nymphaeaceae, this wife of Prongs and mother of The Chosen One died on Halloween in 1981.
Lily Potter
1000
Without a hat, it appears to be a typical muscle—when it dons a brown fedora, it's an unmistakable secret agent.
Shaving muscle (platysma)
1000
Atomic number 27, it's used in EV batteries & when mixed with alumina, it's a brilliant blue.
Cobalt
1000
These eukaryotic microsymbiotes assist plants with nutrient uptake—their name may sound small, but it's an entirely different prefix.
Mycorrhizae
1000
All you need is love... unless you're this kind of critter in phylum porifera, in which case you need ocean currents to bring you food.
Sponge
1000
In medieval times, one might check that a person is truly dead by the process of urtication, or beating the skin with this plant.
Stinging nettle