Red tides are a natural phenomenon caused by high concentration of microscopic algae that are poisonous. The organism produces a toxin that affects the central nervous system of fish, paralyzing them. As a result, dead fish are washed ashore. They can cause human illness and deaths too, following consumption of toxic fish. When red tide algae reproduce in dense concentrations …

The German scientist Paul Ehrlich, considered the father of chemotherapy, originally coined the term magic bullet in the 19th century to refer to arsenic containing chemicals that showed the remarkable ability to cure syphilis — a sexually transmitted disease. He proposed the seminal idea that each disease must be treated with a chemical specific for that disease. His greatest contribution …

Ever since man has been aware of worlds beyond our own, he has begun to wonder whether he is alone in the Universe. Do other races of creatures very different or perhaps quite similar to ourselves exist on distant planets? This desire to explore beyond the confines of our world and to imagine what possible life forms could exist on …

People grow two sets of teeth during their lifetimes the primary or baby teeth, and the second, permanent teeth. The first primary teeth appear when a child is about six months old. The rest of them erupt between sixth and thirtieth month, and there are only twenty teeth in this set. The permanent teeth in humans appear between the sixth and …

Fruity, musk, floral, woodsy… believe it or not, the human nose can detect the difference between nearly 1,000 different odours. Our nose is very sensitive to delicate variations in smell. To cater to the need ‘to smell good’, perfume manufacturers churn out innovative new fragrances all the time. Perfume manufacturers spend a lot of money on making a perfume, research, …

A laser mouse is a type of optical mouse. It uses a laser beam which is invisible, or nearly invisible, to the human eye. The beam emitted by the laser mouse moves with the user’s hand, triggering an optical sensor system. It works in tandem with a system which tracks how far the mouse has moved by bouncing hundreds of …

The human eye is shaped like a ball with a bulge in the front. In the middle of this bulge is a hole called the pupil, which is the part we see as the black circle in the middle of the colored iris. The pupil lets in light to the eye. Behind it is the lens, which focuses the picture …

They grow from a bed of skin containing Keratin-a horn like substance. This bed lies beneath the top skin and as the nail grows it becomes hard and smooth. There is similarity between human nails and animals claws and hooves.

Dolphins and whales live in the deep blue sea, but strangely these animals are not able to see the colour blue! Leo Peichl of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt and his colleagues discovered during routine tests that seals do not respond to the blue colour. Intrigued, they carried out similar tests on few other species, such …

Experts studying different human populations are very interested in the distribution of blood groups. For example, it has been noted that Amerindians (American Indians) are practically always blood group O. There are very few pure Amerindians with blood group A, and group B is conspicuous by its absence. Asiatics have far more member of group B than Europeans Among Europeans, …