Do you know why people go bald?

Prof. Know Why explains:

Normally, there are about 100,000 to 150,000 hair strands on the human scalp. However many people cannot retain them and eventually go bald.

Androgenetic Alopecia, the most common type of baldness — otherwise known as male pattern baldness — occurs due to a chemical known as Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) that builds up around the follicle and eventually kills the follicle and the hair. In simple terms, the growing cycle becomes shorter. So the hair does not grow as long as it once did. It becomes finer, and eventually the growth cycle is eliminated.

A follicle’s resistance to DHT is genetic – which is why some people go bald and others do not. If you have relatives with thin hair or who are bald, you may well develop the same problem. Doctors say that the gene can be inherited from either the mother’s or the father’s side of the family and skips generations.

In other conditions, such as Alopecia Totalis and Alopecia Universalis, the entire scalp and entire body become completely bald due to a viral condition.

Patch baldness, in which hair falls out of the scalp in patches, is caused by stress or poor nutrition or adverse scalp conditions. In this case, the hair usually grow back once the cause has been rectified.

While the effects of hair loss can be devastating, there are treatment options from non-surgical techniques to hair transplants that can slow or stop hair loss or even gain the appearance of a full head of hair. So just don't worry too much and be happy!

Do you know why trees shed leaves?

Prof. Know Why explains:

Like people, the leaves of trees also age, but do so much more rapidly. Each spring the young leaves develop from buds and then rapidly mature to full size to carry on photosynthesis (the process that provides food needed for the tree to grow and maintain itself). By autumn, the leaves of many hardwood trees reach old age and do not function well. At this time a tree must also prepare for the harsher weather conditions of winter. Signals to the tree indicating it is time to prepare for winter include shorter days, less intense sunlight and cooler temperatures. Prior to the leaves falling, nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus move from the leaf into the adjacent stem to be reused during the next growing season. The following spring a new crop of leaves are produced and the cycle is repeated.

To sum up, in early autumn, in response to the shortening days and declining intensity of sunlight, leaves begin the processes leading up to their fall. The veins that carry fluids into and out of the leaf gradually close off, as a layer of cells forms at the base of each leaf. Once this separation layer is complete and the connecting tissues are sealed off, the leaf is ready to fall.

Thus while trees can live for decades and even centuries, some parts of the tree like the leaves, live for only a few months or years (in certain varieties of trees).

Do you know why people snore?

Prof. Know Why explains:

This is one of the most common problems worldwide. Snoring occurs when the muscles at the back of the throat relax during sleep and narrow the passage through which you breathe. As the air passes through this narrowing, the soft palate and uvula vibrate and produce the sound of snoring. The airway can be further narrowed due to:

- Poor muscle tone (after alcohol or sedative use).
- Enlarged tonsils and adenoids.
- A long soft palate or uvula.
- Blocked nasal airways from polyps, a deviated septum, allergies or a cold.
- Excessive weight causing tissue at the neck to be bulky and flaccid.
- Tissue swelling from cigarette smoking.
- Hypothyroidism.

However, snoring can be treated medically.

Somnoplasty is a new technique to treat snoring painlessly. It involves placing an electrode for a brief moment into the soft palate to locally reduce the quantity of tissue. As it heals over the next few weeks and the soft palate shortens and stiffens, the vibration of the soft palate decreases and snoring is eliminated.

In selected cases, laser treatment is the best choice. It is done using a high-intensity laser beam to trim and reshape the uvula and soft palate.

Wearing a dental appliance at night can also offer another solution. Molded to the teeth, this appliance keeps the lower jaw in a forward position during your sleep therefore decreasing your snoring. This appliance is often used to treat obstructive sleep apnea.

Do you know why camels survive without water?

Prof. Know Why explains:

The humps on a camel's back are actually huge heaps of fat and flesh that can weigh as much as 80 pounds in a healthy camel. These humps help camels survive for weeks without food and water.

When water and food become scarce in the deserts where camels roam, the fatty humps serve as stored food and are used for nourishment. As the camel's body metabolizes or uses up the humps' stored fat, the hump becomes smaller and flabbier. So the longer the camel goes without eating, the smaller its hump gets. The size of a camel's hump helps determine a camel's health, food sources, and overall well-being.

These humps, or reserves of fat, are the reason why camels can go for days without water and food. While humans are supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day, camels can go without water for nearly 2 weeks!

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 Bush winked at the Queen?

Miss Finder –The Journo, investigates:

When you've just made it sound like the Queen is more than 200 years old, there could be only one way of recovering from the gaffe. That’s typically the Bush’s self-proclaimed way of projecting smartness, after a blundering stupid act. Yes! Turning to her and giving her a sly wink which might not necessarily needed to be included in any book of royal etiquette though. That's exactly what happened on 7^th of May, 2007 after George Bush mangled his greeting to the Queen on her state visit to the U.S.

Stumbling over his words, he came perilously close to suggesting that the monarch had toured the States in 1776. And although the President's following wink was initially rewarded with a regal glare, the Queen did at least seem to see the funny side of the blunder.

Being human, it was only a forgivable slip-of-tongue-issue, though not expected, which could have been rectified with a normal and humble ‘sorry’, instead.

But may be that the president, without finding any other form of expression, resorted to his impulsive cowboy-type street smartness!

Any comments guys?