“¡How many brave men, how many beautiful women, how many gallant young men whom Galen, Hippocrates, or Aesculapius would have judged to be very healthy, ate breakfast with their relatives, companions, and friends, and in the evening dined with their ancestors in the other world!” – The Decameron, Bocaccio 1. The disease can occur in … Read more
This is the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. It’s also the largest invertebrate on Earth. And not only that, it is also the animal with the largest eyes, as they can measure up to 27 cm in diameter. It lives at a depth of 1000-2000 m in the cold waters of the Antarctic, New Zealand and … Read more
SARS-CoV-2, the etiological agent of the respiratory disease COVID-19, has turned our civilization upside down. It has spread in the blink of an eye across the globe. But the most terrifying thing is the death toll. Every day, thousands of people continue to swell the numbers. However, this virus is not one of the most … Read more
Endotherms, like mammals and birds, mainly use two methods to minimize heat loss by convection in cold environments: .Increasing heat production Reducing heat loss by increasing the efficiency of the insulation, but how? By empowering the BOUNDARY LAYER. The boundary layer is a layer of fluid (water or air) adjacent to the surface of an … Read more
The legs of newborn horses are 90% of the size they will reach as adults. In addition, a few hours after they’re born they can run… Just like humans, right? The average gallop speed is 44 km/h although the speed record is 88 km/h. Horses drink between 25 and 55 l of water a day, … Read more
Let’s be clear from the beginning: racism is an invention of human stupidity. If we think about it, there is nothing more absurd and simplistic than attributing someone an intellectual or innate inferiority because of their morphology or ethnicity. Racism is a belief based on a single principle: that within the human species, population subsets … Read more
Although we may find this behavior barbaric, we must try to avoid its humanization. It consists of the killing of the young offspring by a mature adult of the same species. It is a frequent behavior in the animal kingdom and it can be maternal or paternal, occur within or outside the family and take … Read more
Albert Einstein, the genius par excellence, said many remarkable things throughout his busy life. But one of his best-known and most misunderstood quotes is the following one, which he left written in a letter to his colleague the mathematician Max Born: “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is … Read more
The most widespread belief is that they do this to purge themselves, because of a malaise stomach, but the truth is that the evidence is not conclusive. In fact, not all dogs vomit after eating grass. However, there are many other hypotheses: It is a behaviour inherited from their ancestors the wolves: the vegetal matter … Read more
Although today we remember it as an honorable and impressive episode, the truth is that stress and anguish predominated in the Apollo 11 mission. The odds of returning from the Moon safely were really low. Maybe that’s why president Richard Nixon preferred to watch his back by having a memo written entitled In Event of … Read more
The skin is the largest organ of all vertebrates. Its main functions are: Protective (in terrestrial vertebrates it protects from drying out as well). Sensitive or sensory: perception of pressure, temperature, vibration… Excretory: elimination of waste substances. In some vertebrates it also participates in thermoregulation and water balance through sweating and vasodilatation-vasoconstriction. For example, when it … Read more
It has certainly disrupted our way of life. No one expected it. Its arrival has been too abrupt and we are still assimilating it. We often boast about them for being too small and too simple. Maybe, but that does not mean they should be taken lightly. They are capable of causing economic recessions and … Read more
This occurs in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), whose females are more aggressive and dominant than males. They possess a false penis and scrotum (pseudo penis and pseudo scrotum). However, the truth is that they have an enlarged clitoris shaped like a penis actually, which is erectile and used to urinate. And the vaginal lips … Read more
Pudu mephistophiles or Northern pudú It is the smallest deer (family Cervidae) in the world. It does not exceed 35 cm in height and 70 cm in length, and weighs between 3.3-6 kg. It lives in the high and cold steppes of the Colombian, Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes. Its trunk is brown, the neck is … Read more
It is one of the most controversial substances nowadays. It has been filling the pages of the major media around the world for some time now. While it is true that it has many uses and is very profitable, marketing often hides its darkest secrets. It is when they have been revealed that society has … Read more
The Common Dwarf Mongoose (Helogale parvula) is the smallest viverrid of the Afican continent. Viverrids are a family of carnivorous mammals that includes civets, ginets, mongooses and alike. Its small body barely reaches 30 cm in length, with a weight that usually does not reach 300 g. The tail can measure between 12-20 cm. Its … Read more
It’s probably one of the most common table talk conversations of the summer. When a watermelon is cut and the seeds are not perceived, a suspicion, a worry, a distrust, even a fear emanates from us. It seems unnatural, scientific witchcraft. The term “transgenic” will come out disdainfully and quickly from the person who has … Read more
More than one has been shocked after seen these alleged mosquitoes. They look like imposing and huge mosquitoes, but in fact they are Diptera of the Tipulidae family, also known as crain flies. True mosquitoes are also Diptera but they belong to the Culicidae family. They are thin, delicate-looking insects with long and thin legs, … Read more
This is the sea wasp or box jellyfish, Chironex fleckeri, a kind of jellyfish of the Cubozoa class: It inhabits shallow, turbid oceanic waters of Australia and Southeast Asia (although during the breeding season and polyp phase they can be found in rivers). The bell (“body”) is cube-shaped and translucid (Φ15-24cm). From each of the … Read more
Machines have become an indispensable tool for humans, to the point that some of them have become practically another extremity of our organisms, both literally and metaphorically if we refer to our indispensable mobile phone. Some of them already reproduce our anatomy, physiognomy and behaviour with a sinister realism, perhaps to make them more familiar … Read more