WonderQuest
April Holladay, science journalist for HappyNews.com, lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A few years ago Holladay and her husband canoed the flood-swollen Mackenzie. For forty-six days they paddled alone a thousand miles through Canadian wilderness to the Arctic Ocean.
Now she writes a column about nature and science, which appears each Monday at HappyNews.com. The syndicated Q&A column takes a lucid look at what interests people about our world. April Holladay solves the mysteries we wonder about! To read April's past WonderQuest columns, please check out her site, www.wonderquest.com. If you have a question for April, visit this informational page.
Q: When we sleep on a bus trip, why are we often able to wake up just before our intended stop?
Joe, Singapore
A: You share an ability with creatures large and small. Bats wake up to hunt because their clock tells them it's dusk - summer or winter, no matter. A white-crowned sparrow fattens for weeks ahead of migration time because his clock triggers. A honeybee knows the exact time to visit a particular flower - when that flower is making nectar. Her "alarm" goes off and she...
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How do animals or insects that live deep under water or far in Earth get vitamins and energy from the sun? Do not all living things need the sun to live?
Jean-Pierre, Windsor, Canada
Where does the energy to sustain life around sea vents come from? I have heard that sulfur plays an interesting role.
Harry, Newark, Delaware, USA
Your questions lead us along life’s most basic path — survival of the species— the primary function of all organisms. When a creature...
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