Bored Panda got in touch with Hazel Lindsey, the founder of SwH Learning, an online educational platform for students aged 11-18 with a passion for all things science- and math-related. We were curious if the tutor could share an unusual or lesser-known scientific fact from her area of expertise that has the potential to amaze or intrigue our readers. Hazel said: “There are more than 60,000 miles of blood vessels (veins, arteries, capillaries, etc.) in the human body. If they were laid end-to-end, that's enough to wrap around the Earth at least twice.”
We were curious if Lindsey ever encountered any scientific mysteries or enigmas that still puzzle the scientific community. Hazel provided us with some insights about the teenage stage in human life: “We're still not completely sure why humans seem to be the only species that go through a teenage stage in their life. One of my lecturers at Cambridge University, Dr. David Bainbridge, wrote a book on this (Teenagers: A Natural History). He believes that adolescence evolved between 800,000 and 300,000 years ago, extremely close to a great leap forward in human brain size when our ancestors’ brains grew to the size of those of modern humans. However, there is also a large reorganization of the brain during the teenage years, as it doesn't grow much between the ages of 12 and 20, so it could be that the teenage years allow our brain to develop more than other species.”
We also wanted to know what areas of science or scientific theories have been widely misunderstood or misrepresented and would benefit from clarification. The founder of SwH Learning shared with us: “This is a tricky one! In my experience, it's not necessarily certain scientific theories that have been misrepresented, but more how science in general is reported in the press, on social media, etc. Everything is geared towards clicks, meaning scientific advances and breakthroughs are often hyped up well beyond what they actually mean in a practical sense.”
Finally, Hazel added: “The discovery of a new compound that could potentially be used to fight cancer 15-20 years in the future, for example, will be revealed as a miracle cure on an Instagram post, leading to a lot of false hope and skepticism about science in general when inevitably nothing more is heard for a long time.”
