Interesting General Science Questions

• WHY DOES A BIRD NOT GET AN ELECTRIC SHOCK WHEN IT SITS ON A LIVE WIRE?

A bird sitting on a live wire will get a shock only if the electric current passes through its body. We can compare the flow of electricity through a body to the flow of water. Like in a water flow, electric current always flows from a higher potential level to a lower potential level. The two wires in an electric post are kept in different potentials. One wire, which we call live, will be at a high potential, and it is the phase wire. The other wire is neutral and its potential is zero. On sitting on the live wire, the bird’s potential will also be raised to the same potential as the wires. A current will pass through its body from the live wire to the neutral wire. The bird can sit on the live wire without getting electric shock as long as it doesn't touch the neutral wire.

• WHY DO FLOWERS HAVE DIFFERENT COLORS?

Flowers are colorful for one main purpose,survival.Flowers are responsible for the survival of plants from one generation to another.For this,they need the help of insects and birds.It is both the scents and colors which attract insects and birds,which land on the flower to sip its nectar.In doing so,they help to spread the pollen for new flowers.

  

  Flowers get their colors from some chemical dyes in their cells, called pigments.When petals contain enough carotene,they will look yellow,orange, and dark brown. Green petals mainly contain chlorophyll. Petals of white flowers have no pigments,but are full of air bubbles.

• WHY ARE THERE SEVEN DAYS IN A WEEK?

There is no mathematical or astronomical reasons for the number of days in a week,as there is for the number of days or months in a year, which are determined by the movements of sun and moon, respectively.

The Babylonians were the first civilization to have a seven -day week. They created a 7-day a week so they could devote one day a week to worship the seven heavenly bodies that they knew.

Later in history, other cultures had weeks varying in length from 4 to 10 days,depending on the frequency of their markets. In the Book of Genesis, God created the world in six days;on the seventh day he rested.

• WHAT ARE FOSSILS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE?

Fossils are formed when a plant or animal dies and its soft body parts degrade,leaving behind harder parts as leaves, bones, and shells. These are very important to us because fossils provide vital information about the history of the planet.

Fossils provide information about the topography, the climatic conditions,animal culture,habitat and other factors that prevailed during a particular era. Fossils are also important tool in understanding evolutionary processes. They provide real physical evidence for processes that occurred millions of years ago.

• WHY BOTANY AND MEDICINE WERE WELL DEVELOPED IN ANCIENT INDIA?

There is evidence that the people of Ancient India had knowledge of botany and medicine even as far as back as 2500 BC. The Rig Veda tells us about the action of light on plants, and during the vedic period, the medicinal properties of plants were known too. Later, botany evolved into medicine, and the science of agriculture. A document dated about the 6th century BC describes the use of about 960 medicinal plants, and includes information on such topics as anatomy,physiology,pathology and obstetrics. 

Ayurveda developed in India around 1500 BC, and the earliest Ayurvedic treatises was the Sushruta Samhita which is attributed to the great physician Sushruta. He wrote on medicine,Pathology,anatomy,midwifery,ophthalmology,biology and hygiene.

Charak, the great Hindu physician lived around 320 BC. His teachings are compiled into what is known as "Charak Samhita" and it is also one of the classics of ancient Indian Medicine.

• COWS CONTRIBUTION IN GLOBAL WARMING

Agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14% of the world's green house gases. A significant portion of these emissions come from Methane. The world's 1.5 billion cows and billions of other grazing animals emit dozens of polluting gases,including lots of methane. The average dairy cow emits 100 to 200 litres of methane a day.Methane is lighter than air,colorless,odorless - and this is the gas that animals burp out. Methane is also known as Marsh gas. This is because it is produced when plants and other organic matter decompose in the absence of oxygen.

• THE ANCIENT GEOLOGISTS WHO STUDIED THE ORIGIN OF THE EARTH?

Al Biruni was one of the earliest geologists, whose works during the Middle Ages included the earliest writings on the geology of India, hypothesizing that the Indian subcontinent was once a sea. Avicenna was a famous Persian who theorized on the formation of mountains, origin of earthquakes, formation of minerals, and the diversity of the Earth’s terrain. William Whiston published ‘A New Theory of the Earth’ in 1696. Later, James Hutton, a Scottish scientist argued that the processes occurring in the Earth today had their counter parts in the ancient past. He is considered the founder of modern geology.

• WHY ROCKS ARE CALLED THE PAGES OF THE EARTH’S HISTORY BOOK?

Almost all the Earth’s history, to the extent that it is recorded, is recorded in rocks. The characteristics that rocks display are related in an orderly fashion to the processes that created the rock. The presence of fossil corals, or the shells of other marine organisms in a limestone indicates that it was deposited on the sea floor, and that what now is land, once lay beneath the waves. Old lava flows represent the eruptions of ancient volcanoes, and vents that were active many millions of years ago. Beds of rock-salt point to the former existence of inland seas that evaporated in the sunshine. Seams of coal, which are the compressed remains of accumulations of peat, suggest widespread swamps and luxuriant vegetation. So, we can say that studying the way the Earth works now furnishes an understanding of the characteristics of rocks and the history they represent.

• WHY IS SEA FLOOR SPREADING?

The sea floor spreading is the movement of two oceanic plates move apart, the rocks break, and form a crack between the plates. Earthquakes occur along the plate boundary. Magma rises through the cracks, and seeps out onto the ocean floor like a long, thin, undersea volcano. As the magma meets the water, it cools and solidifies, adding to the edges of the sideways-moving plates. The magma piles up along the crack, and a long chain of mountains forms gradually on the ocean floor. This chain I s called an oceanic ridge. An example of an oceanic ridge is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It is one part of a system of mid-oceanic ridges that stretches for 80,467 kilometres through the world’s oceans. The underwater mountains of the ridge may be more than three and a quarter kilometres higher than the surrounding sea floor.

• WHY IS THE EGYPTIAN VULTURE CONSIDERED TO BE VERY INTELLIGENT?

The Egyptian vulture is the smallest of all the European vultures. This white and black raptor with a naked yellow face is found In Southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India. Among the natural habitats favoured by the Egyptian vulture are plains, wetlands, uplands, and mountains. Egyptian vultures are specialists in egg-eating. They are among the only known birds in the world to use stones as tools. They will repeatedly strike at an abandoned ostrich egg with stones, and then use their beak to enlarge the hole and penetrate the membrane. This behavior is not instinctive, but learned from other vultures, as the species is very intelligent.

• WHAT IS A NUCLEAR WINTER?

Nuclear winter is a term that describes the climatic effects of nuclear war. If a nuclear bomb is dropped, the sky will blaze with the radiance of a thousand suns. Millions of living things will be burnt to ash. Finally, as nuclear firestorms set cities and forests ablaze, torrents of smoke will ascend into the atmosphere to entomb the planet in billowing, black clouds of ash.Because sunlight would not able to reach Earth, global temperatures would drop dramatically, and our ability to produce food would be greatly reduced. The result will be noontime darkness,plummeting temperatures, crop failures, food scarcity and the eventual death of life on planet Earth.

• WHICH ARE THE DIFFERENT LAYERS OF THE ATMOSPHERE?

 The Earth's atmosphere can be divided into several layers. These layers are divided based on the characteristics of the gases found at that height.

  The first layer of the atmosphere is called the troposphere. The troposphere is the layer that we live in, and where weather occurs.

 The next layer of our atmosphere is called the stratosphere. Above the stratosphere lies the mesosphere. Above the mesosphere is the thermosphere. Extending from the top of the thermosphere to 10,000 KM above the Earth, is the exosphere. The troposphere is known as the lower atmosphere. The stratosphere and the mesosphere form the middle atmosphere, and the thermosphere is the upper atmosphere.

• WHY DO WE SAY THAT THE SUN DRIVES THE EARTH'S WEATHER SYSTEM?

The Sun is the driving force behind weather. As solar energy reaches the Earth, equatorial regions heat up more than the poles. As land or ocean water warms, it heats the air next to it, and this air begins rising. The heated air rises, and cooler air from else where flows into replace it. At the same time, the Earth's rotation causes the air to begin turning, as it flows along the ground, or high in the air. The result is a complicated picture with storms and winds carrying cool air towards the tropics, and warm air toward the poles. It is the unequal distribution of solar energy on the planet that caused temperature variations, which in turn, cause the wind and weather.