Do you know why we have gallstones?

Prof. Know Why explains:

In medicine, gallstones (choleliths) are crystalline bodies formed within the body by accretion or concretion of normal or abnormal bile components. In easier words, they are small, hard, pathological concretions, composed chiefly of cholesterol, calcium salts, and bile pigments, formed in the gallbladder or in a bile duct.

Researchers believe that gallstones may be caused by a combination of factors, including inherited body chemistry, body weight, gallbladder motility (movement), and perhaps diet.

Cholesterol gallstones develop when bile contains too much cholesterol and not enough bile salts. Besides a high concentration of cholesterol, two other factors seem to be important in causing gallstones. The first is how often and how well the gallbladder contracts. Incomplete and infrequent emptying of the gallbladder may cause the bile to become over concentrated and contribute to gallstone formation. The second factor is the presence of proteins in the liver and bile that either promote or inhibit cholesterol crystallization into gallstones. In addition, increased levels of the hormone estrogen as a result of pregnancy, hormone therapy, or the use of birth control pills, may increase cholesterol levels in bile and also decrease gallbladder movement, resulting in gallstone formation.

Low-fiber, high-cholesterol diets, and diets high in starchy foods are suggested as contributing factors to gallstone formation. Other nutritional factors that may increase risk of gallstones include rapid weight loss, constipation, eating fewer meals per day, eating less fish, and low intakes of the nutrients folate, magnesium, calcium, and vitamin C.

On the other hand, coffee, wine, fish, and whole grain bread may decrease the risk of gallstones.

Do you know why onions make us cry?

Prof. Know Why explains:

It is not the strong odor of the onion, but the gas that the onion releases when we peel off this member of the lily family, makes us cry.

The onion itself contains oil, which contains sulfur, an irritant to both our noses and to our eyes. Cutting an onion arouses a gas contained within the onion, propanethiol S-oxide, which then couples with the enzymes in the onion to emit a passive sulfur compound. When this upwardly mobile gas encounters the water produced by the tear ducts in our eyelids, it produces sulfuric acid. In response to the caustic acid, our eyes automatically blink due to irritation and produce tears to flush out the sulfuric acid.

Moreover, to rid the eyes of this foreign substance, we instinctively rub our eyes with our hands, while into the act, which again exacerbates the situation, as our hands are coated with the caustic, sulfuric acid producing oil from cutting the onion.

The only remedy to get rid of this pungent, irritating oil of the onion is to boil it, and not to slice it or dice it.

Do you know why the sky is blue?

Prof. Know Why explains:

The atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere separate the sun’s white light into its many colors and scatter them throughout the atmosphere. The wavelength of the blue light scatters better than the rest, predominating over other colors in the light spectrum. This makes the sky appear blue to us on a clear day.

The scientific name for this phenomenon is ‘Tyndall Effect’, more commonly known as ‘Rayleigh Scattering’. This phenomenon describes the way in which light physically scatters, when it passes through particles in the earths atmosphere that are 1/10th in diameter of the color of light. The light spectrum ranges in wavelength from red to violet and since the wavelength of the blue light passes through the particles with greater ease than the wavelengths of other colors of light, the sky appears blue to the naked eye.

The human eye has three types of light receptors, known as cones, located in the retina. The cones are either considered to be red or blue or green, based upon their strong response to light at these wavelengths. As light stimulates these receptors, our vision translates the signals into the colors we see. The skylight stimulates the red and green cones almost equally, while stimulating the blue cones more strongly, resulting in the blue colour of the sky.

Do you know why we laugh?

Prof. Know Why explains:

The reasons we laugh, including ‘contagious’ laughter, may be products of evolution. Natural laughter is a two-part, spontaneous, response to humor, that has physiological, psychological, and physical benefits. Most agree that we laugh when we find something to be humorous, though different reasons exist for what we find to be humorous. Additionally, different things are humorous to us at different stages of life.

Laughter, a physiological response to humor, can be broken down into two parts. The first is a set of gestures, and the second is the production of sound. The brain forces to conduct both responses simultaneously.

From a physiological standpoint, a ‘sensor’ in the brain responds to laughter by triggering other neural circuits in the brain, which, in turn, generate more laughter. Oddly enough, laughter is an orderly response, and almost occurs spontaneously during pauses at the end of phrases, earning it the name the ‘punctuation effect’. Human beings are the only species capable of laughter, and an average adult does so approximately 17 times per day.

Scientists say that laughing is a great exercise and estimates that laughing 100 times is equivalent to a 10-minute workout on a rowing machine, or 15 minutes on a stationary exercise bike.

Do you know why Richard Gere kissed Big Brother Shilpa Shetty?

Scene 1 -Shilpa surprised!

Scene 2 -Shilpa resisting.

Scene 3 -Shilpa submitted, mission accomplished.

Miss Finder –The Journo, investigates:

The occasion was an AIDS awareness programme in New Delhi, India on 15^th of April, 2007. Hollywood star Richard Gere went on to hug his Pretty Woman, Big Brother Shilpa Shetty on stage. It was supposed to be a normal hug, or so was thought by Shilpa! But suddenly Richard held her tight, and then leaned on to kiss on her cheek. Shilpa was quite taken aback, tried to kind of resist somehow, but finally submitted, all with her gracious laugh.

Now, what could the reason be, behind this sudden act?

Well! It could be that Richard wanted to pass the message that AIDS doesn’t get transmitted like this, or one should be so much affectionate with an AIDS patient.

And it might also be for a spicy headline though, in his otherwise not so happening career at the moment!

Or could it be that he was eyeing this conservative Asian beauty all this days, post Celebrity Big Brother and was just waiting impatiently for a chance to get close to her?

And did someone say, he is in love with this elegant ever smiling dusky erotica?

Well! Well! Well! Why think so much dear? It was just only a mere kiss after all! Beg to differ? -Post your comments.

shilpa

Do you know why pregnant women crave for pickles and ice cream?

Prof. Know Why explains:

Pregnant women are famous for their midnight yearnings for pickles and ice cream. And the desire for chocolates is the stuff of legend.

It’s tempting to believe –as many people do –that cravings are the body’s way of telling us that we are lacking a certain nutrient which the food we crave can supply. Chocolates, as the belief goes, might soothe a broken heart by replacing compounds lost in oceans of tears. But pregnant women might crave ice cream because they need calcium and pickles because they lack sodium.

Pregnant women rarely crave for fruits and vegetables. More often, they yarn for foods that are very sweet, spicy or salty. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense. A craving for highly palatable foods may have been nature’s way of boosting calorie intake, ensuring a healthy pregnancy.

So would-be fathers –get ready for your sweet-heart’s sudden demand of a chocolate-ice cream in the wee hours of the night.

Do you know why stars twinkle?

Prof. Know Why explains:

On a clear, dark night, our eyes can see about 6,000 or so stars in the sky. They seem to twinkle, or change their brightness, all the time. The scientific name for this twinkling of stars is stellar scintillation or astronomical scintillation. Stars seem to twinkle when we see them from the Earth's surface, because we are viewing them through thick layers of turbulent (moving) air in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Earth's atmosphere comprises of layers of gases surrounding the Earth. It’s composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, 0.03% carbon dioxide, and other gases. These gaseous layers insulate the Earth from extreme temperatures and block the Earth from much of the Sun’s incoming ultraviolet radiation.

As light of a star travels through these layers of the Earth's atmosphere, it is bent or refracted many times and in random directions (it happens whenever it hits a change in density - like a pocket of cold air or hot air). This random refraction results in the star appear to our eyes as twinkling.

Stars would not appear to twinkle if viewed from outer space or from a planet that doesn't have an atmosphere.

Do you know why we suffer from blocked ears?

Prof. Know Why explains:

While travelling by aeroplane or climbing mountains we might have temporary ear blockage, which is not associated with loss of hearing though. This happens due to an imbalance in air pressure. Let’s see how it happens.

Ear comprises of three parts –external, middle and internal ear. And for normal hearing, we need to have proper air balance in the middle as well as the external ear. The ‘hearing mechanism’ works like this: A membrane called Tympanic membrane separates the middle ear from the external ear. The middle ear is connected with the upper part of the Pharynx by a tube called the Eustachian tube. Now, when we breathe in, a portion of the air enters the middle ear through this tube. So to balance the pressure within the ear for normal hearing, some amount of air also enters the external ear through the external auditory canal.

But when in a flight or on higher altitudes, the atmospheric pressure inside the middle ear remains the same, while that on the outside reduces, resulting in a pressure imbalance causing temporary ear blockage.