The unmistakable smell of a fresh sea breeze is as synonymous with the British summer as melting ice creams, seagulls pinching chips and walking home with sand in your shoes. But its secret is a molecule and the bacteria that create it. The mystery molecule is called dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and is derived from dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), a […]
Read more "This is the molecule that makes that salty sea smell"The movement of plate tectonics is pushing North America away from Europe at a rate of one inch (2.54cm) per year. Almost all of North America lies on the North American tectonic plate – with the exception of a thin slice of California – while Europe and the majority of Asia share the Eurasian Tectonic plate. The two […]
Read more "New York City drifts about one inch each year"It’s no surprise that seagulls are dangerous animals. The largest gull species on the British Isles is the herring gull, who can reach a wingspan of up to a metre and a half and can weigh one and a half kilograms. This makes it one of Britain’s largest birds. During the breeding season, and after […]
Read more "Has a seagull ever killed a human?"A study conducted by the University of Westminster in London reported that warm air hand dryers increase bacteria counts by up to 254 per cent, as well as contaminating the surrounding area with bacteria too. The study assessed warm air hand dryers, paper towels and the latest models of ‘jet’ hand dryers, with all three […]
Read more "Paper towels transmit fewer germs than hand dryers"The evidence supporting claims that BPA contamination in food, packaging and in some cases receipts poses a health risk to humans is ambiguous and in many cases misleading. Trying to find consistent research on the topic is almost impossible. This tweet is based on claims made in a report published on the Environmental Working Group […]
Read more "Receipts aren’t cancerous despite the claims"The biggest factor in whether a child will enjoy and be motivated at school is in their genes. Data collected from a number of studies were found to support this claim. A team led by academics from Goldsmiths, University of London performed a meta-analysis of the studies involving a total of 13,000 twins from the UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, […]
Read more "Enjoying school is in your genes"The metaphor for how some things in life are irreversible has been irreversibly disproven by scientists who have unboiled an egg. It used to be thought that the chemical reactions involved with the proteins in eggs whites during cooking could not be undone, but researchers at the University of California Irvine succeeded and say their work […]
Read more "Why being able to unboil eggs is more important than it sounds"Dark haired smokers are more likely to become addicted to nicotine, according to research from Penn State University. The scientists noticed a relationship between melanin and levels of nicotine dependence. Melanin is the pigment found in hair and skin that is responsible for giving brunettes their dark brown hair colour. “We have found that the […]
Read more "Why do brunettes find it harder to quit?"It seems our closest relatives in the animal kingdom share even more with us than we might believe. We don’t just have complex emotional behaviours and tools in common, now chimpanzees have been observed to use grass as a body decoration. According to research published in Animal Cognition by Edwin van Leeuwen, a primate expert, the chimpanzees engaged in […]
Read more "Chimpanzees dress to impress"If you live in Sub-Saharan Africa you’re likely to have one of the healthiest diets in the world. Chad, Sierra Leone and Mali make up the top 3 countries for healthy eating according to a new report, meanwhile Armenia, Hungary and Belgium are the three worst. The research published in The Lancet in February 2015 is […]
Read more "Why we should all eat like the citizens of Chad"
The Untweetable Truth 