Chapter 10 Science Questions And Answers
10 Science Questions Every High School Graduate
1. What percentage of the earth is covered by water?
Answer: About 71 percent of the earth's surface is covered by water.
--Submitted by Robert Gagosian, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
2. What sorts of signals does the brain use to communicate sensations, thoughts and actions?
Answer: The single cells in the brain communicate through electrical and chemical signals.
--Submitted by Torsten Weisel, Rockefeller Institute, New York
3. Did dinosaurs and humans ever exist at the same time?
Answer: No. Dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Modern humans did not appear until around 200,000 years ago.
--Submitted by Andrew C. Revkin, New York …show more content…
--Submitted by Jonathan Weiner, 1995 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author
5. Why does a year consist of 365 days and a day of 24 hours?
Answer: A year, 365 days, is the time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun. A day, 24 hours, is the time it takes for the Earth to spin around once on its axis.
--Submitted by Leslie Sage, Nature Magazine
6. Why is the sky blue?
Answer: Solar radiation sunlight is scattered across the atmosphere by a process called diffused sky radiation. The sky is blue because much more short-wave radiation--blue light--is scattered across the sky than long-wave radiation--red light.
--Submitted by Roy Glauber, 2005 Nobel Prize Winner; Harvard University
7. What causes a rainbow?
Answer: Rainbows can be seen when there are water droplets in the air and the sun is shining. Sunlight, which contains all colors, is refracted, or bent, off the droplets at different angles, splitting into its different colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
--Submitted by Kim Kastens, Columbia University
8. What is it that makes diseases caused by viruses and bacteria hard to
1. What percentage of the earth is covered by water?
Answer: About 71 percent of the earth's surface is covered by water.
--Submitted by Robert Gagosian, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
2. What sorts of signals does the brain use to communicate sensations, thoughts and actions?
Answer: The single cells in the brain communicate through electrical and chemical signals.
--Submitted by Torsten Weisel, Rockefeller Institute, New York
3. Did dinosaurs and humans ever exist at the same time?
Answer: No. Dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Modern humans did not appear until around 200,000 years ago.
--Submitted by Andrew C. Revkin, New York …show more content…
--Submitted by Jonathan Weiner, 1995 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author
5. Why does a year consist of 365 days and a day of 24 hours?
Answer: A year, 365 days, is the time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun. A day, 24 hours, is the time it takes for the Earth to spin around once on its axis.
--Submitted by Leslie Sage, Nature Magazine
6. Why is the sky blue?
Answer: Solar radiation sunlight is scattered across the atmosphere by a process called diffused sky radiation. The sky is blue because much more short-wave radiation--blue light--is scattered across the sky than long-wave radiation--red light.
--Submitted by Roy Glauber, 2005 Nobel Prize Winner; Harvard University
7. What causes a rainbow?
Answer: Rainbows can be seen when there are water droplets in the air and the sun is shining. Sunlight, which contains all colors, is refracted, or bent, off the droplets at different angles, splitting into its different colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
--Submitted by Kim Kastens, Columbia University
8. What is it that makes diseases caused by viruses and bacteria hard to