Sometimes it seems that scientists (especially British) know everything in the world. They have suitable explanations for cosmic wormholes, dark matter, and other globally important issues. However, some secrets, for all their apparent simplicity, are so complex that they can not be solved.
We present to the attention of readers of the top 7 very simple questions that scientists have no answer to.
7. How does a lightning strike occur?
Known fact: a cloud is formed after the air containing water vapor rises and cools, which will lead to the formation of cloud elements - water droplets and (or) ice crystals. And powerful cumulonimbus clouds can turn into thunderstorms. And they can save up to one hundred million volts of electricity, and bring them down to the ground in the form of lightning. But between these events a rather important step is missing. How do these clouds form a deadly electric lightning discharge? Based on what we know about electricity, this is not possible. An electric field in a thunderstorm is about 10 times smaller than a field that can create lightning.
But what happens in space, if there are a trillion of such lightnings!
Of course, for this case, scientists have prepared suitable theories. Some people think that an electric charge occurs when ice particles collide with each other. Some people think that the sun's rays are involved in this process. And there are supporters of the fact that lightning can be cast down by the god Thor, who is testing his hammer.
6. Why are we sleeping?
In sixth place in the ranking of the most interesting unanswered questions is the dream that is necessary for all representatives of the species Homo sapiens. According to scientists, a person who has reached the age of 78 spent an average of 25 years sleeping.
Anyone who has been awake all night knows how tired and nervous you feel afterwards. And if you do not sleep for several days in a row, you can even die. But since the human brain is still very little studied, the need for sleep is still a mystery, covered in darkness.
Scientists know that sleep does something good for the brain, but that’s what it’s - is still a mystery.
5. How many muscles are in the human body?
It is believed that a physically full average person has about 700 skeletal muscles in his body, but their actual number varies from 640 to 850. Some of the muscles in our body are very complex, and they may well be not one, but two different muscles. And some people have extra muscles in their body. Thus, the answer to this question is "a lot." Or, if you want to answer scientifically - "about 700".
4. Why does a placebo work?
When people think they are taking medicine, not a dummy, they feel better. This is another amazing example of how the human mind is fantastically arranged. At the same time, the strength of the effect on the body depends on the color of the placebo.
- The placebo effect of red pills is most pronounced, then in descending order they go: blue, green, yellow and white. These are the findings of a study in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. In this case, the effect of multi-colored real tablets was the same.
- A placebo received from a doctor in a white coat works better than a placebo received not from a doctor.
- In some cases, a placebo in terms of pain relief was equal to morphine.
A placebo has a positive effect even on people who know that they are not taking the real medicine. During the experiment, doctors told patients that they were receiving tablets with regular sugar inside, but there was a huge difference in the speed of recovery of patients taking placebo and regular patients. But doctors have no answer to the question of why we can trick the brain with false pills.
3. How does anesthesia affect a person?
Anesthesia helps to immerse the patient in deep sleep, or to anesthetize a certain part of the body. However, it is impossible to truly understand how anesthesia plunges people into unconsciousness until it becomes clear what consciousness is.
It is possible that during anesthesia between different regions of the cerebral cortex, synchronism is disturbed. Perhaps anesthesia causes quantum oscillations in neural microtubules. But all this is nothing more than theory.
2. Why are people left-handed and right-handed?
About 10% of people are left-handed. And the fact that at birth people already prefer either the left or the right hand is amazing.
Scientists have no idea why the human race does not use both hands equally. Perhaps there is a connection with speech skills. They (like motor skills) for the brain are the most energy-intensive activities. Neurologists have noticed that the brain seems to work with them in the same areas. In this case, the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the human body, and the right hemisphere controls the left, respectively. In most people, the left hemisphere is “responsible” for speech, it is most developed, and the right hand is dominant.
However, in most left-handed people, language processes also occur in the left hemisphere, and in this they do not differ from right-handed people. Then why do they use mainly the left hand?
Interestingly, gorillas and chimpanzees are also usually right-handed. It turns out that at some stage of evolution, people began to prefer to act either with their right or left hands. It remains only to find out at what exact moment, and for what purpose.
1. Why are we yawning?
In the first place in the selection of questions for which no answers have yet been found, is the mystery associated with yawning.
Hippocrates tried to answer the question of the necessity of this phenomenon. In his opinion, through yawning, a person gets rid of “bad air” and breathes in “good air”.
Later, scientists suggested that the act of yawning reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the body and increases the level of oxygen in the blood. This is comparable to Hippocrates' hunch, but sounds more scientific.
However, this theory does not explain why yawning is a frequent companion of feelings of fatigue. If you think logically, then we can increase the level of oxygen in the brain, but yawning slightly affects this parameter.
And why do not want to yawn when the body really needs an influx of oxygen? Indeed, yawning is usually not “attacked” by people during sports.
There are no answers so far for many seemingly simplest things that exist in the world. Maybe this is good, because scientists always have something to strive for and sooner or later they will solve the amazing secrets that Nature has bestowed on humanity.
