Science questions for kids | Why is grandma called grandma and not, for example, Vaarila?

Aino Ahonen, 10

La-ends words often refer to places that can be visited. They can be formed from nouns such as cafe from the word coffee, quality words such as hospital from the word sick, or verbs such as swimming pool from the word swim.

In addition to Grandma, there are other places that refer to relatives. There are also men in them. For example, in addition to a mother-in-law, there is also an aunt. Those words have already been recorded in dictionaries in the 18th century. Perhaps surprisingly, the oldest information in the written language comes from the words enola and tätilä. They have appeared early in proverbs.

The words maammola and taattola, which are formed from old Eastern Finnish names for mother and father, also appear in old folk poems. Of those, taattola could also mean grandfather’s home.

Grandma is clearly a newer word and the only one that only has a grandchild’s point of view. The reason for the word becoming more common may have been that in the old days, it was used to think of grandma as the one who cooks and takes care of the children the most. Playing with dangers and other activities have not been perceived as important. The Vaarila word may just be coming.

Ulla-Maija Forsberg

professor of Finno-Ugric languages

university of Helsinki

Can a person live without drinking if he eats enough liquid food?

Rosa Viinikka, 6

Yes it would be possible, but then you should be very careful about what kind of food you eat.

It would be ideal if we ate food whose concentration was the same as the body’s own fluids. The concentration of the body’s fluids comes from the ingredients in the body’s water, such as salts and sugars. Those substances make the cells, i.e. the tiny building blocks of our body, work actively. In this case, the body can function normally.

Often the food we eat is stronger, in which case it is good to drink water, which dilutes the food. If the food is stronger and you don’t drink water, the body dries out, which slows down cell functions.

So those who want water from food alone should eat food that is as water-rich as possible, but not too sweet or salty. Even the juice squeezed from an orange is twice as concentrated as the body’s own fluids. Vegetables like cucumber, lettuce and watermelon would be the best to replace the need for water because they are high in water and the concentration is close to body fluids.

However, it is much easier to live if you don’t have to think about the strength of each bite. You should eat healthy and drink fresh water when you feel thirsty.

Tiina-Kaisa Kukko-Lukjanov

university lecturer in physiology and specialist researcher

university of Helsinki

Why is it dark in space even though the sun is shining, or is it?

Oskar Lindqvist, 11

In space it’s not completely dark.

In our near space, for example, we can see a dim glow, which is created when the Sun’s light is reflected by the dust in the space between the planets. That dust comes from, among other things, asteroids, comets and meteoroids.

Light also comes not only from the Sun, but also from numerous other stars in the universe. However, some of that light is extremely dim and difficult to perceive.

Because there are so many stars in the universe, already in the 19th century a German astronomer Heinrich Olbers wondered why the whole sky didn’t shine as bright as the Sun from Earth.

The explanation is that we always only see light that has had time to travel to us, and due to the expansion of the universe, the stars are also moving away from us.

There is also plenty of light cruising through space that our eyes cannot see. For example, the Sun and other stars emit infrared and ultraviolet light. The universe is also filled with cosmic background radiation from the moment of its birth, which our eyes can’t even reach.

Emilia Kilpua

professor of space physics

university of Helsinki

Who invented the rules of soccer?

Olivia Karhu, 8

Soccer previous games have already been played in the Middle Ages in different parts of Europe. There is information about those precursors of futis already from the 8th century in Britain.

The game called football was played in many English schools in the 19th century. Almost all of them had their own rules. According to some rules, the ball could also be carried in the hands. Based on them, rugby eventually developed.

The first uniform rules of football were attempted at Cambridge University in the 1840s. The rules, which are quite similar to the current football rules, were made at that university in 1863. They are called the Cambridge rules.

In the same year, the English Football Association was also founded. The clubs belonging to the association played by uniform rules, which were similar to those of Cambridge. The new rules changed the sport. In the past, for example, field players were still allowed to stop the ball with their hands.

The earliest rules did not have one and only author. The committee that decided on the rules of Cambridge was chaired by a university man Robert Burns. An important person in writing the first rules of the English Football Association was the secretary of the association Ebenezer Morley.

Matti Hintikka

information services coordinator

Sports and physical activity cultural center Tahto

Does water have a memory?

Lilli Kervinen, 11

Water consists of oxygen atoms and two hydrogen atoms. Water itself does not remember, but it carries substances with it that can give signs of where it has traveled. So the quality of the water is like its memory.

Water travels through rain to the soil, streams, rivers and lakes and continues to flow to the sea. On the way, for example, salts, nutrients necessary for living things and chemicals produced by humans are carried along. Sometimes those substances are eliminated by themselves, and sometimes people remove them, for example, in water purification plants.

When, for example, people and other animals use water, it does not disappear even then, but continues its cycle. Sometimes water stays in the soil for a long time. In cold conditions, the water turns into snow or ice, causing its flow to slow down or almost stop.

Especially in glaciers, water can linger for a very long time. The gases trapped in the pores of the glaciers can tell what the composition of the air was even hundreds of thousands of years ago. Water even older than glaciers has been found in deep mine shafts.

Water also evaporates back into the atmosphere as water vapor. Then it is cleansed, i.e. in a way it loses its memory again. Water vapor forms clouds that are carried by the winds. Finally, the water starts a new journey with the rain. Then new memories start to be born again.

Harri Koivusalo

professor of technical water management

Aalto university

Send the question, the questioner’s full name and age to [email protected]. The column is edited by Touko Kauppinen and Juha Merimaa.