Alina Ellonen, 10
Free weight depends on its density. The density of the air mass, on the other hand, is affected by its temperature.
Colder air is denser than the corresponding warm air and therefore also heavier. In the cold, the air can be about seven percent heavier than in the heat, although we hardly notice it.
Thunderstorms in Finland usually occur in summer and in warm weather. During them, the air is therefore light rather than heavy.
Weather that feels heavy during a thunderstorm is not caused by the weight of the air mass, but by the fact that there is a lot of moisture in the air, i.e. water vapor. Because water vapor is transparent, we can’t see it, but we can feel it on our skin.
In humid air, liquid does not evaporate from the skin in the same way as in cooler or drier air, which can make you feel stuffy.
The warmer the air is, the more water vapor it can contain. For the same reason, humid air combined with hot temperatures feels oppressive even without the threat of thunder.
In warm weather, there is also a warning in Finland about the humidity due to humidity in connection with weather forecasts.
Lea Saukkonen
meteorologist
weather Institute
The most massive in the world or the universe are the multitudes of galaxies.
What is the biggest thing in the world?
Justiina Haataja, 8
The universe the scales are huge.
Perhaps you can get an idea of the size of things by starting with the size of our planet. The Earth is about 12,700 kilometers in diameter. The Sun, our own star, is about 1.4 million kilometers in diameter.
The Milky Way, or our own galaxy, on the other hand, consists of hundreds of billions of stars of various sizes, the largest of which can be hundreds of times bigger than our Sun.
The Milky Way is about 1.2 trillion kilometers in diameter. As a galaxy, the Milky Way is fairly average in size.
Even larger than galaxies are galaxy clusters. They can include thousands of galaxies. The diameters of a cluster of galaxies can be 100 trillion kilometers, depending on the method of calculation. This number would have 20 zeros written open.
Clusters of galaxies are the largest things in the universe held together by gravity.
Even bigger things are still noticed. Superclusters – that is, clusters of galaxies – can be up to 1,000 trillion kilometers in size. However, it is difficult to estimate the size of supersets due to their vague shape.
Pekka Heinämäki
University researcher
University of Turku
There must be a warning on the packaging of a toxic substance.
Why do poisons exist? Who invented poison?
Lina Pulli, 5
With poisons refers to various substances that can cause harmful effects to humans and other organisms. Poisons occur in nature, and people also develop them themselves.
In nature, there are poisons, for example, in some plants, animals, bacteria and fungi. Poisons are often an important means of survival for them.
For example, many plants use poison to ward off the threat of insects. Some animals, such as some snakes, also use poison for hunting.
Humanity has also used poisons for various purposes for centuries, for example in medicine and agriculture.
Poisons have been very useful, for example, in the development of medicines, but poisons have also caused risks. For example, poisons used in agriculture can cause environmental problems and health threats.
People have used poisons found in nature already in prehistoric times, i.e. thousands of years ago. The earliest signs of this are the Ebers papyrus, written about 1,500 years before the beginning of the chronology.
People have also been developing poisons themselves for so long that it is impossible to name the first inventors of poisons.
Matti Vuento
professor emeritus
University of Jyväskylä
Many of the dinosaurs apparently had sensitive snouts.
Did dinosaurs fondle each other?
Eliel Haataja, 3
We do not definitely know a lot about the behavior of dinosaurs. Animal behavior is very poorly preserved as fossils, often only footprints tell about it. So we don’t know if dinosaurs petted each other.
However, we do know that many dinosaurs have very sensitive snouts. Such is known, for example, from many predatory dinosaurs, such as Despletosaurus and Tyrannosaurus.
So the sensitive muzzle was very meaningful to them, but what was it used for?
From dinosaur relatives, we know that during the mating season of crocodiles, the male caresses the back and sides of the female “gently” with his snout. In today’s dinosaurs, birds, and animals, the use of beaks often plays a major role in the reproduction and mating of many species.
In species that mate for a long time, such as swans and albatrosses, the spouses often sock and peck each other with their beaks in gestures that can be described as affectionate. Such displays of affection between spouses also improve their cohesion and trust that the spouse participates in the care of the common chicks.
The sensitive snout of dinosaurs would indicate that they too may have had a similar use of caressing as birds. Unlike birds, many dinosaurs also had movable fingers, so they were able to use them similarly for crunching and digging.
Mikko K. Haaramo
vertebrate paleontologist
university of Helsinki
Send the question, the questioner’s full name and age to [email protected]. The column is edited by Touko Kauppinen and Juha Merimaa.
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