Moment of Um
Moment of Um is your daily answer to those questions that pop up out of nowhere and make you go… ummmmmmm. Brought to you by your friends at Brains On at APM Studios.
Episodes
Bones! We’ve got lots of them. Leg bones, arm bones, face bones, even ear bones! But…not all animals even have bones inside their bodies. So what are our skeletons for? Why do we have them? We asked pediatrician Dr. Emma Gerstenzang to help us find the answer.
Got a topic you’d like to bone up on? Send us a question at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll paTELLa you the answer.
Have you ever stayed up late talking to your friends while watching movies, or yelled for your teammates at a soccer match, or screamed at the top of your lungs walking through a haunted house? Maybe you woke up the next day with a hoarse, scratchy voice that you didn’t even recognize. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Jennifer Long, an otolaryngologist, about why we lose our voice when we yell or talk loudly.
Lots of people love sparkly, pretty things – especially precious stones, like diamonds. But who decides which stones are precious? And what makes diamonds so special? We asked geologist Marc M. Hirschmann to help us find the answer.
Got a priceless question? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help find a jewel of an answer!
Have you ever been tempted to lick something frozen? Hopefully not, because your tongue could get stuck! But don’t worry, we talked to engineer Alexis Noel all about why our tongue sticks to ice, and what to do about it if that happens to you!
Do you have a Moment of Um question that’s so good it’s giving you the chills? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help unfreeze your brain.
In places all over the world, there are ancient paintings in caves and on cliff walls that were made thousands of years ago by the people living there. But this was way before modern paints, and those people couldn’t mosey down to the craft store to buy their brushes…so how did they make their paintings? We asked anthropologist David Ian Howe to help us find the answer.
Bubbles are everywhere! Soap bubbles, fizzy seltzer bubbles, underwater bubbles – even bubblegum bubbles! But how do bubbles pop? We asked mechanical engineer Jacy Bird to help us find the answer.
Got a question that you’re bursting to share? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll POP by with the answer.
Pee is super cool! It’s 95% water. It’s sterile. And it can be a window into our overall health. But why is it yellow? We asked mechanical engineer Patricia Yang to help us find the answer.
Got a Moment of Um question? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help find the answer.
All different kinds of giant prehistoric creatures used to walk the Earth, from 20-foot-tall sloths to sharks longer than a school bus.. They all seem huge in our imaginations, but were animals in the past actually bigger than animals on Earth now? We asked paleontologist Kristi Curry Rogers to help us find the answer.
Got a BIG question? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help size up the answer!
If there’s one thing that’s generally known about sharks, it’s that they have sharp teeth. But have you heard they have to keep moving to stay alive? Why is that? In this episode we talk to shark scientist Melissa Cristina Marquez about this very question.
Do you have a Moment of Um question that seems kind of fishy? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll chew on the answer.
When our skin gets irritated, it reacts! And sometimes a rash appears. Rashes can be red, itchy, painful and bumpy… But how does our skin make them? We asked pediatrician Dr. Anjuli Gansto help us find the answer.
Got a question under your skin? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll rash to find the answer!
Radios are like magical devices. You just flip a switch and BAM, you can listen to everything from punk rock to world news. But how exactly does a radio work? And what’s the difference between AM and FM radio? We asked physics expert Angie Huerta to help us find the answer.
Got a question that’s AM-azing? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll dial in the answer.
If you’ve ever banged your knee pretty badly, you might have noticed the knee swells up to larger than its normal size. To ease your pain and make the swelling go down, maybe someone handed you an ice pack. But why is it ice that does the trick to reduce swelling, and does anything else work? We asked physical therapist Karen Litzy to help us find the answer.
Got a Moment of Um question that’s making your brain swell? ...
Lots of people love spicy food for that tongue-tingling feeling. But where does it come from? What’s happening in our mouths when we bite down on a jalapeño or chili flake? We asked taste and smell researcher Arthur Zimmerman to help us find the answer.
Got a tasteful question? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll spice up your life with the answer!
Earth is always moving around the sun, but does the sun move too? Or is it fixed in one place in the cosmos? In this episode, we talk to astrophysicist Brittany Kamai to get to the heart of this issue!
Do you have a Moment of Um question that’s burning in your brain? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help shine a light on the answer.
There are so many different kinds of bird nests out there: big ones, small ones, some as big as your head! Birds build their nests out of everything from twigs and grass to spider silk! But do they make a new nest every year? We asked bird expert Paul Bartell to help us find the answer.
Got a question that you’ve been thinking about owl night? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact – you won’t egret it!
Tattoos are a type of art that’s added permanently to a person’s skin using special inks and needles. It’s a way of decorating the body that has been around for a long time. But how long? When were the earliest tattoos? We asked sociologist David Lane to help us find the answer.
Got a question that’s really needling you? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll poke around until we find the answer!
It’s super helpful that each day of the week has its own name! Without these names, it’d be really hard to keep track of our calendars – and there’d be no such thing as #MotivationMonday or #TacoTuesday! But why do the days of the week have the names that they do? We asked language expert Amelia Tseng to help us find the answer.
Got a question that’s making you #WonderWednesday? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact,...
Movies are everywhere. They’re on our tablets, phones, and projected onto giant screens. But it hasn’t always been that way! So… when were movies first made? We asked cinema and media historian Laura Isabel Serna about it – and she helped us find the answer!
Got a question flickering in your mind’s eye? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll produce an animated answer!
We may not think much about sewing machines, but there are so many things we wouldn’t have without them! Think about how many things are sewn together in our everyday lives. Your shirts, pants, hats, pillows, backpack, even parts of your car seats! There’s no doubt that sewing machines were a revolutionary invention. But when exactly were the first ones made? We asked Articles of Interest host Avery Trufelman to help us fi...
People have all different kinds of animals as pets: dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils, pigs, you name it. The famous artist Salvador Dalí even had a pet lobster that he took for walks on a leash! But when did humans first start craving animal companionship? We asked anthropologist David Ian Howe to help us find the answer.
Got a question that you want to ask right meow? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll unle...
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