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Ever wondered why burying people 6ft underground s considered the norm? Many states don’t have laws that enforce burying a body 6ft under; it’s usually left up to the funeral homes to decide how deep they want the grave. In the UK, it’s up to the owner. As long as animals can’t dig the grave site up and expose the body or coffin and the depth doesn’t lead to any safety concerns, the body can be buried at whatever depth they prefer. Also, some areas may receive more rainfall than others, resulting in them burying bodies differently. An example of this is New Orleans most likely wouldn’t want to bury their bodies 6ft under because it would only cause waterlogging and the coffin surfacing (this is still a problem, coffins are floating to the surface during floods). One of the earliest documented instances where burying a body 6ft underground was mentioned was published in a leaflet in 1665 during the London plague(the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague in England and lasted 18 mont...

  A male of average height contains around 4 grams of iron, a female has about 3-5 grams, and children contain less than or equal to 3 grams. Most of this iron is stored in hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to the body’s organs and tissues, and also takes carbon dioxide from the organs and tissues to the lungs. Humans lose about 1 to 1.5 milligrams of iron daily. This is carried out by urine, vaginal fluids, sweat, feces, and tears. Iron is formed by stars with a large enough mass via fusion.  Sources: How Much Iron Is In The Body | Iron Disorders Institute , Hemoglobin test - Mayo Clinic , Interesting and Useful Facts about Iron (thoughtco.com)

One of the dances performed by forager bees is the waggle dance. Through the dance, bees can relay information about food sources, information like the distance, direction, and even the abundance of the source. The dance was first discovered by ethologist (someone studying animal behavioral patterns) Karl von Frisch and even he was surprised by it. The waggle dance is one of the most complex communicative rituals among insects, mostly due to the complexity and accuracy of the information relayed.  When someone hears of bees performing dances, they most likely think of the bees understanding the dance by watching it right? Turns out, the dance seems to be a multisensory experience for the bees; also, the inside of the hive is quite dark so seeing the dance would be difficult. The bees inside of the hive will usually touch their antennae with the dancing bee and feel the vibrations of the dance. A bee’s antennae allow the bee to FEEL SMELLS and vibrations. Smell might also play a ...

Wind turbines use the wind to push the blades of the turbine, spinning a generator and creating electricity. The terms “wind power” and “wind energy” have the same meaning, describing the process where wind is used to generate mechanical power or electricity. The mechanical power can be used for small, specific tasks like grinding grain or pumping water, or can be converted into electricity using a generator. The first wind turbine that generated electricity was built in 1887 in Scotland and was used to power a small cottage. Now there are over 341,000 wind turbines worldwide.  According to Windustry , “Wind turbines under 100 kilowatts cost roughly $3,000 to $8,000 per kilowatt of capacity. A 10 kilowatt machine (the size needed to power a large home) might have an installed cost of $50,000-$80,000 (or more). The costs for a utility scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per MW of nameplate capacity installed. Most of the commercial-scale turbines install...

  Most of the human population today is right-handed , something can be seen as far back in the archeological record researchers are able to see, but we still haven’t figured out what truly makes a person right or left-handed . However, here’s what we do know: genetics and environment play a role in determining a person’s handedness.  While there is no gene that determines left or right handedness, research conducted by William Brandler and his colleagues suggested that the same genes affecting the left-handed symmetry of the organs in our bodies can also affect the way a person’s brain is wired, in turn affecting whether someone’s left or right hand is dominant.  The environment the person is in can also affect whether they turn out to be left or right-handed . There have been times in the past when right-handedness was forced upon people, for example, teachers would force students to use their right hand and punish those who used their left hand, and some people believe...

  The biggest difference between a person who is sleeping and a person who is unconscious is that a person sleeping will respond to stimuli, for example, loud noises and being shaken. A sleeping person might move if they feel uncomfortable, but an unconscious person won’t. When used as adjectives, sleeping is asleep while unconscious is having no awareness.  A person is considered to be in a coma if they are unconscious for an extended period of time. They can’t be woken up, even when hurt or shaken. The person’s eyes are closed, and they don’t respond to things like sound in their environment. During a coma, the brain doesn’t go through the normal sleeping stages.  Sources: Sleeping vs Unconscious - What's the difference? | WikiDiff , Coma: Types, Causes, Recovery (verywellhealth.com)

  Human decomposition refers to the processes which cause a human body’s internal organs, tissues, and bones to decay and turn into organic material over time. Every dead person will go through the 5 main stages of decomposition: the fresh stage, the bloat stage, active decay, advanced decay, and the skeletal stage.  The fresh stage begins at the moment of death with the body still warm and in relatively good condition. While the body may not seem like it’s decomposing, some post-mortem indicators may start to take place, like the body becoming pale ( pallor mortis ), cold ( algor mortis ), and stiff ( rigor mortis ). Pallor mortis occurs within 15 to 20 minutes after death. As the blood stops moving through the body’s smallest blood vessels, the body becomes paler. This is not visible as quickly on people with darker skin compared to lighter skin. The rate at which the body temperature cools down to sync with the environmental temperature depends on a lot of factors, such as...

Through a process called mycoremediation, mushrooms can be used to remove chemicals from the soil and heavy metals from water through their mycelium (one of nature’s most resilient living organisms, fire-resistant, water-retardant, vegetative part of a fungus). Research suggests that mushrooms can convert pesticides and herbicides to less harmful compounds, remove heavy metals from brownfield sites (land that was once used for industry and now lies useless), and break down plastic. The main idea of mycoremediation is to use a fungi’s natural decomposition abilities to restore and regenerate land. With fire return intervals becoming increasingly shorter and fire severity growing more intense, ecologists have started to use mushrooms to repair severely scorched soil.  Most of the breakdown of toxins/waste takes place before the fruiting body is formed. The waste is typically fully absorbed by the fungus within a few weeks. The enzymes produced by a mushroom are able to break down a l...

Climate change - long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, for example: variations in the solar cycle, but ever since the 1800s, the main cause has been human activities, mostly the burning of fossil fuels. When humans burn fossil fuels, we generate greenhouse gas emissions that act similarly to a blanket wrapped around Earth, raising temperatures by trapping the sun’s heat. Some greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change are carbon dioxide and methane. These emissions can come from the gasoline used to drive a car or burning coal to heat a building. Carbon dioxide can also be released when land and forests are cleared. A major source of methane emissions are landfills where LFG (landfill gas - a byproduct of the decomposition of organic material in landfills) is made of about 50% methane.  Since greenhouse gas concentrations are at their highest level in 2 million years, Earth is about 1.1℃ warmer than it was during the late 1800s. Cl...

Rubber duck debugging, or rubber ducking, is a method of debugging code in software engineering. The term can be traced back to “The Pragmatic Programmer”, a book by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas detailing a programmer who carries around a rubber duck and debugs their code by explaining it to the duck, line by line.  Steps:  Get a rubber duck (preferably a bath-time duck, but any size is okay) Start explaining the code to the duck making sure to read each logical step out loud and in detail while pointing to the screen so that the duck knows which line you’re talking about Continue to go through your code until the solution to the problem is found The main point of the exercise is to have the developer slowly and carefully explain their code out loud, line by line. Since we think faster than we speak, verbally explaining the code forces the coder to slow down and, under the assumption the duck knows nothing about the code, the coder also has to be precise in their explanation w...

Foxglove grows throughout the United States and typically blooms in the spring. Its bell-shaped flowers are usually purple but can also be cream yellow, white, pink, or rose. Each foxglove plant can produce 1 to 2 million seeds and was used in heart failure treatment in the 18th century.  The “digitalis” part of foxglove’s botanical name, digitalis purpurea , is also the name of a heart medicine derived from this plant. Digitalis is used to help a weakened heart pump harder, so eating parts of the plant or sucking the flowers is basically taking an unregulated dose of heart medicine. After consuming the plant, symptoms for humans include an irregular or slow heartbeat, low blood pressure, nausea, headaches, blurred vision, hallucinations, a loss of appetite, and seeing halos around objects. The last 3 symptoms are commonly observed in people who have been poisoned over a long period of time.  Sources: Foxglove: How to Plant and Grow Foxglove Flowers | The Old Farmer's Almanac...

Some ways find an acceptable watermelon:  Look for a consistent and symmetrical shape. No matter what size and shape watermelons you buy, avoid melons with bumps, dents, and cuts. These signs can indicate that the fruit was inconsistently watered or wasn’t pollinated properly. The cuts and dents may announce the presence of insects or fungus.  Heavy for its size = good melon. If you pick up the watermelon and feel as though it's heavy for its size, it’ll usually mean the fruit is full of water and, thus, juicer.  Find a melon with a large ground spot. The ground or field spot of a watermelon is typically on the bottom of the melon. A large yellow ground spot indicates that the melon spent more time connected to the vine and should be sweeter. Avoid melons with white field spots which show that the fruit was picked too early and never hit peak ripeness; these melons are usually plain-flavored.  Pick melons that have a deep sound when tapped. Ripe watermelons give off ...

While butternut trees are some of the hardiest nut trees, they are becoming rarer in the wild and aren’t frequently found in nurseries. This is because the tree is susceptible to butternut canker, a deadly fungal disease. In some states, butternut canker killed up to 80% of butternut trees. There is no cure for this disease and affected trees typically die after a few years. Hybrid butternut trees usually have better resistance against butternut canker.  The native range of butternut trees ranges from all of northeastern United States and into southeastern Canada. The tree was once highly valued for its rich, sweet, and buttery flavored nuts and its light, golden wood. Butternut trees can be planted in spring or fall and usually show yellowish-green flowers in late spring. The flowers are replaced by fruits which then ripen into nuts in the fall. The trees can grow to be 40 to 60 feet tall and wide (12 to 18 meters ) but grow quite slowly with less than 12 inches added to their h...

  The Grim Reaper is a personification of death and isn’t someone who kills mortals, but rather transports their souls to the afterlife. He is often portrayed wearing a black cloak, holding a scythe in one hand, and an hourglass in the other.    The Grim Reaper seems to have appeared in the 14th century when Europe was facing the world’s worst pandemic, the Black Death. This medieval-era plague permanently changed how the average person saw death. With at least 25 million people dying in the initial outbreak, and millions continuing to die in outbreaks flaring up for centuries, a sense of sorrow and misery hovered above all activities, influencing writers and artists of the time. Death soon started to be symbolized by a skeleton in the artwork during the era. Most artists depicted this form of death in similar ways. Death was often shown holding arrows, a crossbow, or another weapon. Sometimes a young woman was seen standing at death’s side, providing a reminder of the l...