DIU Activities > Alumni
Sharpen Your General Knowledge
Shamim Ansary:
Why Do Toes and Fingers Wrinkle In the Bathtub and After a Swim?
Actually, toes and fingers don’t wrinkle in the bathtub at all.
They are puckering from swelling. The thick outside layer of skin called the stratum corneum takes on excess water when soaked, sort of like dried beans when soaked in water.
The underlying skin and connective tissue don’t absorb water and don’t swell along with it.
This anchoring of the skin-tissue layers makes the swelled area appear puckered.
It’s not just the fingers and toes that do this, though they are easier to see because the stratum corneum in those areas is thickest.
When you see your fingers and toes wrinkling, take it as a sign that your entire body is on guard to prevent water, soap, dirt, and germs from invading through your skin.
Shamim Ansary:
How Was Soap Invented and When?
The world would be a far less fragrant place without soap, and what would we buy Grandma for her birthday?
Come Clean. It’s anybody’s guess how people washed in the distant past. Maybe they didn’t bother and just picked off the crusty bits. Soap is an unlikely combination of fat and any alkaline substance, so it’s amazing that anyone invented it at all.
The ancient Mesopotamians somehow worked out that mixing animal fat with wood ash makes a substance that can clean clothes and people. They made soap in clay cylinders as far back as 2800 BC.
The ancient Egyptians were using soap made from fats and alkaline salts by about 1500 BC. Maybe they found out about it from their neighbors, the Mesopotamians.
The ancient Romans were very fond of bathing and built public baths all over their empire, but they didn’t use soap. There’s some evidence to suggest that Roman women used a soap-like substance on their hair starting from around AD 50.
People were making soap in Europe by the 600s, but they weren’t using it nearly enough. The Middle Ages saw personal hygiene at its lowest point. Soap was a luxury item until the middle of the 19th century, so be very glad you weren’t around in those days.
Getting into scrapes: Instead of using soap the ancient Romans cleaned themselves by oiling their bodies, then scraping off the oil using a special scraper called a ‘strigil’. Really posh Romans would have a slave do the scraping for them.
If you’re fed up of smelling of roses, make your own soap and you can smell however you like!
EQUIPMENT NEEDED
a neutral glycerin soap bar (available from health or craft shops), a knife, a wooden spoon, a microwaveable bowl, a microwave, various food colourings, essential oils. moulds (you can improvise with washed-out food or drink containers – or buy proper soap moulds from a craft shop)
BASIC SOAP
Cut the soap into small chunks or grate into thin shavings. Be careful not to cut yourself!
Put the soap into a microwaveable bowl and heat in a microwave until it has melted (about 50 seconds) or you can melt it in a saucepan on a cooker.
If you’d like to add colour, add it now drop by drop, stirring with a wooden spoon, until your soap is the colour you want. You can also add a scent at this point. mixing a few drops of the essential oil of your choice.
Pour the liquid soap into your mould. The soap will take about 45 minutes to harden, depending on the size of it.
STRIPY SOAP
To create stripes of colour in your soap, follow basic steps, but then rather than pouring all the colour into one mould, divide it into four moulds. You will end up with a shallow layer of colour at the bottom of each. Now you need to repeat this process using a different colour each time until you have built up four stripy soaps.
Try to add each new layer of coloured soap while the previous layer is still a bit soft. When all your layers are in place, leave it to harden fully.
SWIRLY SOAP
To create swirls of colour in your soap, follow basic steps 1-4 but don’t add any colouring to the soap until it is poured into the mould.
When the soap is in its mould, add a few drops of one colour at one end, and a different colour at the other end (add other colours too, if you want). When you’ve added your drops of colour, take a toothpick or spoon and use it to stir the colours into the soap and create swirls. Leave to harden.
CHUNKY SOAP
To create chunks of colour in your soap, you need first of all to cut up a colored soap (home-made or bought) into little chunks and put these chunks into the bottom of your mould.
Then make a different colored soap, following basic steps 1-4, pouring the liquid soap into the mould over the chunks. Leave to harden. (You can insert other things into the soap bar, such as a plastic spider to scare your mom!)
Shamim Ansary:
What Part of the Body Has the Thickest Skin?
The part of the body that has the thickest skin is pretty much as you’d suspect.
The soles of the feet and palms of the hands have the thickest layer of skin. After that, the back and nape of the neck are the thickest.
The thinnest layer of skin is around the eyes, particularly the eyelids.
Shamim Ansary:
Why Do We Wrinkle as We Age and How Can We Prevent It?
Skin changes that cause wrinkles do accompany aging, as the deeper layer of skin, the dermis, gets thinner.
But it happens more quickly in sun-exposed areas and in people who smoke. The breakdown of two kinds of molecules, collagen and elastin, is at fault.
Collagen type 1 is the molecule that makes up the bulk of the skin. Loss of this type of collagen, the same type found in bones, affects the elderly, and smoking can make it worse.
At least five studies have found that smoking is associated with “smoker’s face,†one that is prematurely aged by fine wrinkles that can accentuate the coarser wrinkles that occur along the lines of expression.
As for elastin, the stretchy molecules that help support the skin, ultraviolet rays cause direct damage, breaking the molecules down.
To help avoid wrinkles as you age, avoid smoking, stay out of the sun, routinely use hats and sunscreens, and use a good moisturizer, which holds water in the dermis and plumps it up.
Shamim Ansary:
Is the Weather Warmest When the Earth Is Closet to the Sun?
Surprisingly, the earth’s distance from the sun has nothing to do with weather!
The earth’s path around the sun is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse, or egg shape. The earth is actually nearest the sun around January 2, when it’s “only†91,402,000 miles away. This point is called the perihelion. At the earth’s aphelion, or farthest point from the sun, it’s 94,510,000 miles away. And this point falls around July 5.
Why is our weather coldest when the earth is closest to the sun? Because weather is determined mostly by the tilt of the earth’s axis at various times of the year.
When it’s winter here, the earth is tilted in such a way that much of the sun’s radiation reaches us at an angle, and bounces off our atmosphere. In summer, the sun’s rays reach us more directly, and therefore the weather is warmer. Also, in winter the days are shorter, and much of the sun’s heat is reflected off the earth by snow.
The earth doesn’t travel around the sun at a constant speed, either; the speed varies at different points in the earth’s orbit!
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