Why do cats purr?
Science has figured out how cats purr, and that they can do it while both inhaling and exhaling, but the why behind our favorite cat noise is still a mystery.
It would seem that cats purr when they are content, but sometimes they also do it when they are nervous or afraid. It is theorized that cats potentially purr because they find the particular vibration soothing, but that is merely conjecture.
What lives in the darkest parts of the ocean?
Most of what scientists know about the ocean is found in its top layer. Deeper than approximately 200 meters though, called the twilight zone, most of it remains unknown. Deeper than 1,000 meters, there is no light at all, and though we know there is life down there, we have never seen most of it.
Sperm whales can dive up to 2,000 meters though, and giant squid live in the twilight zone. The darkest part of the ocean called the midnight zone remains mostly a mystery.
Where do baby eels come from?
One would think that mating and reproduction would be an open-and-closed scientific fact, but that isn’t true for European eels.
It is likely that mating is involved in making baby eels, but no one has ever actually seen European eels mate, though we know they must.
Because the adults live in Europe, their origin is a mystery. Scientists have discovered that “adult eels leave Europe, digest their stomachs(!), grow gonads, and swim in the general direction of the Bermuda Triangle.”
Later in the Spring, the baby eels appear near the Bermuda Triangle, aka the Sargasso Sea. The baby eels then swim toward Europe.
Though scientists have tracked the eels closer to their breeding place than ever before, still they do not know how they mate, as an “adult European eel has never even been seen in the Sargasso Sea.”
Why do we have gravity?
Another thing that we know exists, but we don’t know why, is gravity.
In physics, most things “can be explained at the level of particles interacting with each other,” but gravity isn’t one of them.
Physicists have suggested the existence of particles called gravitons, but there is not yet evidence to support that.
What good bacteria should be in our gut?
While it is known that having a certain amount of “good bacteria” in our gut improves our health, there is not yet a standard definition “for what constitutes a ‘healthy’ population of gut mircrobes.”
So all the products that contain probiotics that are supposed to “heal your gut” are really just taking shots in the dark. We do know that good bacteria can help, but probiotic products merely pass through our system, rather than live in our gut long-term.
Not only do we not known how large a population of good bacteria we need in our gut, we also do not know which species “should be there.”
How do you plan the most efficient road trip?
Maybe this one seems like an odd one to be on the list, but scientists have called planning the most efficient road trip to be a “traveling salesman problem” for over one hundred years.
An efficient road trip would be one that uses the shortest routes, takes the least amount of gas, and doesn’t involve visiting the same place more than once.
Yet the world’s leading computer scientists and mathematicians still have not figured out a tried-and-true formula for making this a reality.
Why do we dream?
Another thing that science hasn’t quite figured out is why we dream when we sleep. Obviously there are several theories as to why we might dream, but no clear-cut scientific reason yet.
To add to that, scientists don’t really know why we sleep either. Scientists know why sleep is important and how important it is to get enough of it, but they don’t know really why we do it when other species don’t require it as much.
How does Tylenol work?
Tylenol is often used as a pain reliever and fever reducer, yet scientists don’t know how it exactly works.
There are a few theories as to how it works, but it remains a 150-year-old mystery. We know it works though, even if we don’t know how.
What is the other 95% of the universe made of?
All that scientists and astronomers have observed and documented of the universe, including Earth, everything on it, and everything that has been observed via telescopes, only makes up about 5% of the universe.
That means that there’s still 95% of the universe that we have not observed. NASA explains that this is because the 95% we don’t really know anything about is not visible matter, antimatter, or giant black holes.
Physicists have figured out their best guess on the calculations of what that 95% is made up of — 68% “dark energy” and 27% “dark matter.” Neither of which scientists have figured out yet.
Why do we yawn?
Though every single one of us yawn when we are tired or bored or when we see others yawn, it is not known why we yawn.
Scientists know yawning doesn’t do anything, yet we still do it.
“No physiological effect of yawning has been observed so far,” Professor of neuroscience Adrian Guggisberg told the New York Times.
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false. the oxygen thing has been debunked ago. There is also the psychological component like reading the work seeing someone do it or just thinking about makes you want to yawn I had to yawn 3 times just reading and writing this.