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A Sweaty Subject

When human body temperature rises, tiny muscles around the sweat glands in the skin contract, squeezing perspiration - better known as sweat - out through the pores. Sweat is about 99 percent water. Dissolved in it are salts of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Sweat also contains tiny amounts of waste materials such as urea (the major toxin in ...

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Sweat
Geology

A River of Sand

Next time you're at the beach or in the desert, climb a sand dune in bare feet on a windy day. Stand still in various places on the gently sloping windward side. Watch how wind-driven sand grains ... Continue reading

RiverOfSand
Astronomy

How Far Are The Seven Sisters?

The Pleiades cluster, named by the ancient Greeks, is easily seen as a small grouping of stars lying near the shoulder of Taurus, the Bull, in the winter sky. Although it might be expected that the ... Continue reading

HowFarAreTheSevenSisters
Engineering

Don't Blow A Gasket!

Don't blow a gasket! Who hasn't heard this old adage at some time? What does it actually mean, and for that matter, what is a gasket? Gaskets are simple structures used to fill in and seal the spaces ... Continue reading

DontBlowAGasket
Biology

Will That Be One Hump or Two?

Camels are highly adaptive to their environments. Often called the ships of the desert, they have been domesticated by humans for thousands of years, as beasts of burden and as transportation. What ... Continue reading

Humps

The Weakest Force

WeakForceDid you know that gravity is the weakest force in the universe? Well, it's true! There are four fundamental forces (that we know of) in our universe: Strong Nuclear, Electromagnetic, Weak Nuclear and Gravitational. The strongest one is the Strong Nuclear force, which is responsible for keeping the nuclei of atoms together. About one hundred times weaker than the strong nuclear force is the electromagnetic one. This is the strongest force that we experience in our everyday lives. In fact, whenever we touch anything we experience the Electromagnetic force. The electrons in our skin repel electrons in whatever we touch through this force. The Weak Nuclear force is the one responsible for most decays of particles and nuclei - which is where radioactivity comes from. This force is about 10 billion times weaker than the Electromagnetic force.

The weakest of all is the Gravitational force. In fact, Gravitational force is 10 thousand billion billion billion billion times weaker than the Electromagnetic force. Well, it sort of makes sense because if the Gravitational force were stronger than the Electromagnetic one, we would fall right through the floor!