The largest spacecraft ever built, the ISS is also the world’s most expensive single object, costing upwards of 100 billion dollars, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The dimensions of the completed ISS research facility will be approximately 356 feet (109 meters) by 240 feet (73 meters), or slightly larger than a football field. When completed, the ISS will weigh around 450 tons (408,000 kg), or 450 times the weight of an average car.
The lightning rod, which Benjamin Franklin invented in 1749, is a metal pole mounted atop a building that draws lightning’s electrical charge away from the structure.
The rod is attached to an aluminum or copper cable that’s connected to an underground conductive grid. This allows the electricity to dissipate harmlessly.
Because lightning tends to strike the tallest object in the vicinity, lightning rods must be taller than any buildings or other objects in the area.
If installed properly, a lightning rod will carry a lightning bolt’s electrical charge through the path of least resistance along the cable into the ground, reducing the risk of fire or heat damage from the strike.
Now you know!
Getting your tonsils removed used to be a common childhood ritual — and a great excuse to eat ice cream.
It turns out, however, that tonsils play an important role in preventing future infections.
Tonsils are twin round lumps sitting in the back of the throat, while adenoids – which, like tonsils, are part of the lymphatic system – sit behind the nose and the roof of the mouth.
Together, tonsils and adenoids prevent infection by stopping germs from entering through the mouth and nose.
Another of Life’s Little Mysteries solved.
Strolling through the Louvre, you stop at Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Initially, she appears to be smiling; but as you move your gaze, the expression changes — not so happy anymore.
Among the top questions baffling art enthusiasts is the elusive grin. Did da Vinci intentionally create the ambiguous appearance?
Here’s her secret: Your first stare at the legendary canvas will most likely be directly at the sitter’s eyes. At this point, the part of your eye called the fovea that picks up fine details such as color will process the image of the eyes, while your imprecise peripheral vision will pick up the image of the lips. Because peripheral vision can’t distinguish fine details, it mistakes the shadows from the sitter’s cheekbones as a smile. When you return your gaze to the lips, your fovea sees the fine details of the lips. Voila! A smile turned upside down.
More useful knowledge from Life’s Little Mysteries.
The answer may stink, but eating or drinking anything gives us gas. In fact, it’s normal to fart up to half of a gallon (1.9 liters), or about 15 to 20 toots worth of gas, each day.
When we gulp down food, air comes with it. So if a belch seems rude, remember that the air has to leave our bodies one way or another.
Fragrant flatulence, however, comes from colonies of bacteria shacked up inside our lower intestinal tract (which is why it can take hours for gas to kick in after a meal). In the process of converting our meals into useful nutrients, these food-munching microbes produce a smelly by-product of hydrogen sulfide gas — the same stench that emanates from rotten eggs.
Although the gaseous response of bacteria to food differs from person to person (as every one has a unique collection of their own), the biggest gas-generating ingredients are sugars, especially the following four:
- Fructose — A natural ingredient in plants like onions, corn, wheat and even pears. It’s often concentrated into a sugary syrup for soft drinks and fruit drinks.
- Lactose — Milk’s sweet natural ingredient, also added to foods like bread and cereal. Some people are born with low levels of lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, a fact that inflates their gassy susceptibility.
- Raffinose — The secret gassy ingredient in beans, which is also found in broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, asparagus and other vegetables. Products like Beano, designed to reduce gas production, break down the sugar before it can reach eager intestinal bacteria.
- Sorbitol — Found in almost all fruits, this indigestible sugar is also used as an artificial sweetener in “diet” and sugar-free foods. Yes, sugar-free gum, candy, soda and anything else deceptively sweet can cause gas.
Other fart-forming ingredients include fiber and starches found in foods like corn, potatoes and wheat. While fats and protein don’t cause gas, they can make a meal take longer to digest — and give bacteria more time to generate gas from other ingredients.
Just about the only food that doesn’t give us gas? Rice.
Fighting flatulence takes trial and error to figure out which foods excite your intestinal friends and cutting back on them. As a general rule, taking anti-gas products like alpha-galactosidase (Beano) or lactase enzyme (Lactaid) with problematic foods can curb some flatulence — simethicone (Gas-X) only helps relieve bloating by passing gas faster.
Chronic irritating or painful gas may signal something serious, however, so seeing a gastrointestinal specialist is a good idea if this is the case.
