http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_archive.jsp?ccid=52 Reader's Digest Asia - Facts of Life Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:51:00 -0000 http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6682 Many people think that cats are afraid of water. They're not. Occasionally, one can see a cat pounce spontaneously into the water. Nature documentary fans can attest to the fact that many of the cats' larger relatives, such as tigers and jaguars, love to swim. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6683 There are five different types of corn. Popcorn is the only variety that will pop consistently. According to Greg Hoffman of American Popcorn, other corn might pop on occasion but with little regularity. The key to popcorn’s ability is, amazingly, water. Each popcorn kernel contains water, which most popcorn processors try to maintain at about 13.5 percent. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6684 Wouldn’t you get flushed if you were dumped into a vat of boiling water? But seriously, before the lobster gets boiled, it has a dark purplish-bluish colour. But hidden in the exoskeleton of the lobsters (and shrimp) is a pigment called astaxanthin, in a class of compounds called carotenoids. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6685 The saffron threads used to colour and flavour many dishes, particularly in Indian cooking, are the golden orange stigmata of the autumn crocus, a plant of the iris family. Autumn crocuses are far from rare. So why is saffron so dear? http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6686 We have probably all had this experience. We listen to a tape recording of ourselves talking with some friends. We insist the tape doesn’t sound at all like our voice, but everyone else’s sounds reasonably accurate. According to speech therapist Dr Mike D’Asaro, there is a universal pattern of rejection of one’s own voice. Is there a medical explanation? http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6687 Because of issues with national security, only the military and other approved agencies have access to the Precise Positioning http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6688 Science has not yet an­swer­ed why peanuts, which are classified as legumes, provoke such a swift, strong reaction in so many. One theory is that some peanut proteins evade digestion better than do the proteins in other legumes. Sicherer notes that undigested proteins ''show themselves more'' to the immune system. Another theory is that roasting the peanut makes it more allergenic. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6689 Simply because female cats don't have menstrual cycles. In human females, menstruation occurs due to the disintegration of the endometrium, the mucous membrane that lines the uterus. If no egg is fertilised, the endometrial cells shed and are evacuated from the body in the form of menstrual blood, a characteristic shared by primates such as gorillas. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6690 Weeping with laughter, sobbing in sorrow: Our bodies react similarly when emotions run high. A few scientists have explored the phys­ical pathways of emotional tears, but none have categorically stated why these tears exist. Tom Lutz, author of Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears, notes Darwin published snapshots of laughing and crying people to demonstrate that the same expression accompanies both behaviours. ''Some tears are squeezed out of the ducts simply because the face is scrunched up,'' explains Lutz. ''But tears also accompany the body's return to homeostasis after extreme excitation. So after a big laughing jag, tears are a sign that the body is returning to normal.'' http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6691 http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6346 It took the modern warfare and weaponry of World War I to provoke a surge of ingenuity among talented surgeons, who struggled to restore shattered jaws and repair gaping facial wounds. This was wide-scale facial reconstructive plastic surgery at its most challenging, and principles developed then underpin the technical leaps and bounds, and evolution of ideas, behind the plastic surgery of today. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6347 A female turkey weighs between 9.5 and 15 kilograms during the laying period of her life, Buckland says, while a chicken weighs just over one kilogram. Hence, the nutrient requirements to maintain a turkey's weight, let alone produce eggs, are much greater than those of a chicken. Plus, the laying period for a turkey is much shorter: During its reproductive lifespan, a turkey will produce 15 to 25 eggs averaging 90 grams each, while a chicken will yield 300 eggs of about 55 grams each. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6132 Pox, or pocks, is an ancient word for any disease characterised by pustules on the skin's surface. Aside from chicken pox and smallpox, there is also the lesser-known cowpox - carried by rodents but often transmitted to humans via contaminated cows during milking - and a rare form of smallpox seen in Africa called monkey pox.   http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6133 To accommodate this apparent dichotomy, phone companies devised phone numbers consisting of a combination of two letters and four digits. So, instead of having to remember a number like 52-6978, for example, customers asked for “Lancaster 6978.” In the phone book, the letters to be dialled were capitalised: LAncaster 6978. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6130 When alcohol is ingested, it swiftly travels through the bloodstream to the brain, where it makes contact with several receptors. These receptors release molecules that excite the cells of the brain, otherwise known as neurons. What results are symptoms of muscular incoordination, euphoria and mild cognitive impairment. This certainly makes a nice glass of wine a very interesting experience! http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6131 When stresses like fear and anger trigger our fight-or-flight instincts, our heart pumps harder, our lungs work faster and our vocal chords stretch open to accommodate the deep breaths we take to feed air to the lungs. The same reaction happens when we feel emotional and are about to cry. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6128 Closely connected to envoyer is the English word envoy (messenger, representative, diplomat), a derivative of the Latin in via (on one's way, en route). http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6129 How do they do it? They have a strong, wide “digger” foot that carves into the sand, yanking the oblong shell after it. “The shell is shaped well for going down,” says marine biologist and University of New Brunswick professor Heather Hunt. “Other clams have different strategies to deter predators, like having a hard shell, or staying deep.” Clams can also use jet propulsion, quickly closing the two halves of their open shell. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6122 If you bone up on references like this, you'll find they often come from the kennel, according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (14th edition). Two dogs on a single bone can lead to one fur-flying fight, the kind that might erupt when a belligerent person has a bone to pick with you. If your attacker has violence bred in the bone, and the fight is murderously serious, you might not make old bones. http://www.readersdigest.com.my/rd/rdhtml/en/magazine/mag_content.jsp?cid=6123 "Female fraternal twins, however, have a one in 58 chance of giving birth to fraternal twins," says Russell, ''lending credence to the import­ance of genetic factors in fraternal twinning. These figures are the same as those for the sisters or offspring of female fraternal twins.