Everyday Biology: Did You Know? – Part 2

[C] Heart | Your built-in fiber-optic cables, zapping electricity so every muscle fiber beats to the same Tik-Tok.

[D] Sucrose | Plain old table sugar. Chemistry class was secretly Home-Ec; your body just cracks it back apart like a DIY kit.

[C] Scurvy | The pirate special: bleeding gums, lost teeth, and a lifetime supply of lime-flavored nicknames.

[C] Masseter | 200 lb of chomping power; your dentist’s favorite nightmare.

[D] Biochemistry | Cellular mixology that explains every brilliant and terrible idea you’ve ever had.

[A] Iron | Keeps the metal on a short leash; too much loose iron and bacteria throw a rave.

[D] O− | Gives to everyone, takes from no one; the polite guest at the transfusion party.

[C] Beriberi | Means “I can’t, I can’t” in Sinhalese; brown rice bran was the original life-hack.

[D] Multiple myeloma | Plasma cells spam useless antibodies like junk mail in your immune inbox.

[A] Pineal gland | Melatonin micro-factory; philosophers thought it was the soul, but it just knocks you out at night.

[A] Gregor Mendel | Pea-plant monk who ghost-wrote the laws of heredity, then watched his citations roll in… 35 years later.

[C] 110-160 bpm | Baby’s basically doing wind-sprints while assembling a whole body. Respect.

[D] Mycology | The study of organisms that give us both pizza dough and penicillin—basically nature’s party planners.

[C] Herbert Spencer | Philosopher who slapped the catchy slogan on evolution, then applied it to everything from biology to banking.

[D] Neck | Wraps around your windpipe like a tiny scarf that decides if you’re running on turbo or turtle mode.

[B] Ear | Inner-ear fluid sloshes like a spirit level; when you stop spinning, it keeps the party going—and the room wobbling.

[D] Y | Pocket-sized chromosome packing the “dude” switch plus bonus ear-hair futures. Might vanish in a few million years—better hurry.

[B] Lysosome | Enzyme-filled balloons that burst when the cell dies, turning the cytoplasm into soup.

[C] 6.5 | Slightly acidic, which is why it curdles in your 100×-stronger stomach acid—free cheese, anyone?

[B] Dendrology | Greek for “tree science”; basically time-traveling through plant diaries one ring at a time.

[A] Bifocal | Ben Franklin’s lazy hack: one lens for books, one for bar tabs, zero glasses-swapping.

[A] Albert Sabin | Oral vaccine that tasted like dessert and didn’t need needles; gave away the patent and still beat capitalism.

[B] Amphibians | Frogs are walking humidifiers; if they dry out, they suffocate—moisturize or die.

[A] Glucose + O₂ | Plants eat sunshine and burp oxygen; we inhale their trash and call it atmosphere.

[B] Clostridium botulinum | One sugar-cube of toxin could empty a city; dilute it and it’s Botox—same poison, new PR team.

[B] Liver | 24-hour detox, pharmacy, and battery bank; if it quits you’d need a suitcase of pills and a dialysis date.

[A] Nephron | Million per kidney, each filters ~180 L/day—biological mass-production at its finest.

[B] Tricalcium phosphate | Mineral concrete that doubles as a calcium ATM when the body needs spare change.

[B] 120/80 | Measured in “millimeters of mercury” because vintage machines literally used a mercury column—medicine kept the antique units for nostalgia points.

[A] Ampicillin | Broad-spectrum killer; wipes out good guys too, so your gut throws a diarrhea after-party.