Social Science Questions & Answers

Red squirrels, like their cousins the grey squirrels, eat a variety of food ranging from eggs raided from birds’ nests to nuts and pine cones. Pine cone seeds from the major part of their diet. These are methodically stripped from the pine cone. The squirrel nibbles out the seeds along on edge, and then, rotating the cone with its front …

A pen, that carries a supply of ink inside it, is called a fountain-pen. This ink supply is in a reservoir, either a disposable cartridge or a rubber, sac-like container inside the pen’s barrel. Disposable cartridges can be removed completely and replaced with a new one when they run dry, but the sac is filled by a different method. On …

Everybody has seen a spider’s web, and admired the skull which the spider has in web making. We know that the substance used in web making is silk, which the spider makes, and that it uses this silk not only for webs but for a whole variety of other purposes. We also know that the type of web varies very …

When plant die, the remains usually rot and break down into water, carbon dioxide and simple salts. But is swamps and bogs, layers of rotting plants are often buried and the decay is halted. Slowly, these plant remains are pressed into a compact substance called peat. When peat is dug up, 90 percent of its weight is often water. However, …

One of the three types of locust that forms swarms in Africa is the Desert Locust. This locust usually lives like a grasshopper in what is called a solitary phase. Sometimes, however, all the solitary locusts from a wide a area are driven together, perhaps by the weather, and they may find the conditions just right for feeding and mating. …

Insects don’t have lungs like you or me. Instead they have a tube system, which runs all over their body, and which carries air to all parts of the body. These tubes are called trachea. The air is carried to the body when the movement of the insect’s muscles pumps it there through openings in the insect’s skin.

Most plants have developed some way of avoiding being eaten. You only have to think of stinging nettles, roses or brambles to be painfully reminded that any creatures interfering with them can be stung or scratched quite severely. Many species of plants produce natural insecticides which keep unwanted insects at bay, but some tropical palms and acacias have enlisted the …

Humans have invented new and advanced ways of communicating with each other. Television, radio, telephones and of course email. You will be surprised to know that animals who seem to have very simple methods of communication – using their bodies and voices – are also capable of long distance communication. Foot stomping and low frequency rumbling created by elephants can …

While no one’s sure of the origin of ‘ok’, there are a handful of popular explanations. One view is that it derives from the Scot expression ‘och aye’, the Greek ‘ola kala’ (it is good), Choctaw Indian ‘oke’ or ‘okeh’ (it is so), French ‘aux Cayes’ (from Cayes, a port in Haiti with a reputation for good rum) or ‘au …

The earliest print appearance of the modern signs seem to come from a book on Mercantile Arithmetic by Johannes Widmann in 1489, used to indicate surpluses and deficits. The + is a simplification of the Latin “et” (comparable to the ampersand – &). Widmann referred to the symbols – and + as minus and mer. According to the ‘Earliest Uses …