Strength Training
Quick Chem
A Little Science
You've Got No Backbone
Where Not On Earth...?!
200
Don't hold your breath—this broad, flattened muscle in your abdomen may get tired supporting your lungs.
Diaphragm
200
For the radioactive isotope thorium-232, it's about 14 billion years.
Half-life
200
The type 2 fibers of this kind of tissue are recruited during fast movements of the body.
Muscle
200
This part of a snail gets bigger as the snail gets older, with new coils, or whorls, being added over time.
Shell
200
Some numbers on this planet: 2.8 billion miles from the Sun; 16 moons, including Proteus; zero tridents.
Neptune
400
This largest muscle and primary hip extensor is located at the back of the human body, 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
The Pol III holoenzyme is the primary enzyme involved in the replication of this genetic material.
DNA
400
A jellyfish stings via nematocysts, barbed tubes that deploy venom upon contact with this part of the jelly-body.
Tentacles
400
Here's the Little Dumbbell Nebula, courtesy of this telescope that started out a little fuzzy but came into focus in 1993.
Hubble Space Telescope
600
Good thing this four-part muscle 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 single-celled Lactobacillus acidophilus is a low-pH-loving member of this prokaryotic domain.
Bacteria
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
Carolyn & Gene Shoemaker got top billing, but how about props for this astronomer whose co-comet crashed into Jupiter in 1994?
David H. Levy
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
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
800
Some stuff you can't make up. Certain types of this salad veggie of the ocean can shoot innards out their butts to entangle predators.
Sea cucumber
800
Mintaka is one of the three supergiant stars that make up this celestial fashion accessory.
Orion's Belt
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
The closest star to our Sun and a bit more than half as hot, this red dwarf is on pace to last for four trillion years, or even four trillion & one.
Proxima Centauri