Social Science Questions & Answers

Although many birds can both swim and fly, no other bird can swim as well as the flightless penguins. Penguins have muscles, bones and organs very much like those of flying birds, so we assume that their ancestors must have been able to fly. Probably they slowly lost the power of flight while learning to swim faster and dive deeper …

Birds fly so well because they have developed skeletons which are especially light and strong. Most of their bones are hollow, with the interior webbed or honeycombed across by fine girders of bone to give added strength. They are sometimes called pneumatic or air-filled bones. A bird’s skull is made of thin bone in remarkable contrast to the solid, heavy …

The Oberammergau Passion Play was first performed in 1635 and is the result of a vow made by the inhabitants of the village that if God spared them from the effects of the bubonic plague then sweeping the region they would perform a passion play every ten years. The play is now performed in years ending with a zero, except …

Have you ever tried chasing a frisky grasshopper? If you have, you will definitely know that scampering after a jumpy bug is not an easy task. Most species of grasshoppers have a keen sense of hearing and the moment they sense trouble, they can hop fast and furious! Sometimes, shortage of food turns grasshoppers into migratory insects as they venture …

Clip-clop, clip-clop goes a horse on the road. If you look carefully you will see that it walks on the tips of its toes – like a ballet dancer. Walking on tiptoe for a long time is difficult for us, but horses find it the easiest thing to do. The foot of a horse is divided into a toe with …

The beak of a flamingo looks as if it has been broken in half and the halves bent downwards and rejoined. As you might expect there is a very good reason for this peculiar shape. Flamingos like to live in shallow lagoons and lakes. Despite their large size and their large beaks flamingos feed on the smallest of organisms in …

Dogs have a better sense of smell than we do because the physical structure of a dog is better adapted for scenting odours. In dogs this sense has remained keen, while in man it has become comparatively dull. Dogs use scent in feeding, detecting enemies, recognizing mates and offspring and in rivalry. The chemical sense of smell is called chemoreception …

Dogs have been at people’s side for longer than any other animal. But a lot of their actions can only be explained by their past before they were tamed by humans. For example, you may have noticed that a dog turns round three times on the spot before setting down to sleep – this may be because its ancestors had …

Most people think that cats purr to show pleasure or contentment. Purring is a king of low continuous rattling hum, but it is nothing to do with a cat’s real voice, for the vibration frequency is far lower that that of the vocal chords. In fact, a mother cat uses purring to call her kittens to feed. At birth kitten …

When someone falls from the fourth or fifth floor, and survives, we call it a miracle. When a cat falls from that height, we watch astonished as it lands on all fours, pauses, then straighten up and walks away looking just a little fazed. What would you call this, a miracle or God’s grace? Any guesses why cats survive while …