Moment of Um Brains On! Universe

Our world is FULL of microorganisms, or microbes for short! They’re tiny microscopic living things like bacteria– and they do so much for us! They help us digest our food. They help make some medicines– like antibiotics. They even help make some of our favorite foods like bread and cheese. Microbes sure are busy, but do they ever sleep? We asked microbiologist Daniel Bond to help us find the answer.

Got a question that’s keeping you up at night? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we won’t sleep on it!

If you’ve ever taken a close look at a beehive you can see that it is covered in tiny hexagons! But why is that? We asked bee researcher Jessica Kevill to help us find the answer.

Got a Moment of Um question that’s buzzing around in your brain? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help get it all sorted out.

A black hole is an area of outer space where gravity is so strong that nothing can get out … not even light! But what’s actually inside a black hole? Are there asteroids? Whole planets? A 1988 Buick LeSabre? We asked astrophysicist Amanda Farah to help us find the answer.

Got a question that’s just your cup of gravi-TEA? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help find the hole truth! 

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.

Do you have a Moment of Um question that’s so good it makes you want to scream? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact, and we’ll help vocalize the answer.

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!