KidzStuff Part 1 | Madicans Meditations

Kidz Stuff Part 1

October 2020

This article is aimed at 5 – 11-year olds and their parents. It contains some of the stuff I was interested in when I was a boy. Some items are those that all children seem to be interested in especially how certain parts of your body work. Truth be told I am still interested in all of these things – “My heart still leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky” - and I have enjoyed passing on some of this knowledge to my own nephews, nieces and god-children.

I can still remember the fascination I experienced as a 7-year-old when I first watched a spider build its web and sometimes (50+ years on) I still sit and watch one do it. It is one of the best free shows on this planet. I hope some of you parents will take the time to read these items with your own children. One of the things I have often noticed at parties is that small children always want to catch the attention of their parents. The insistent cries of “Mum, mum” or “Dad, dad” while their child tugs on their dress or trousers sometimes go unacknowledged (but not for long) as the parents busy themselves trying to catch up with friends and relatives and maybe have a quick drink into the bargain. Parents do not need me to tell them that children demand attention. Demanding attention is what children do and is actually written into their job description. However, when you do pay attention to children as an adult then the rewards are very satisfying. Teach a child something or just share knowledge with them and you will gain their undivided attention as they enthusiastically soak up what you have to say.

With the advent of the internet, we literally have the wealth of all the best and most interesting things that people have done or found out during the centuries. The items in this article and Part 2 scratch the surface of the huge amount of knowledge you can impart to your youngsters.

Solidarity

Brian Madican

Sept 2020

There are 7 items in this Part 1 of Kidz Stuff and 10 more items in Part 2.

What were the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.?
Why do we poop?
Wot is snot made of?
How to make an Egyptian mummy by Herodotus
Why do rainbows form?
Why is the sky blue?
What are the 9 parts of speech?

What were the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is a list of buildings and statues compiled by Philo of Byzantium in the 3rd century BCE. The list comprised of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Of the Seven, only the Great Pyramid in Egypt still remains. It was built in 2584-2561 BCE at Giza near modern day Cairo. For more than 3,800 years the Pyramid was the tallest building in the world. It was overtaken by Lincoln Cathedral in 1311 AD.

You can still visit the sites of the others, but sadly little if anything remains to wonder at.

There is nothing left of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which were constructed about 600 BCE.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a 33 metres (108 feet) high statue of the sun god Helios. It was built about 280 BCE and fell down in an earthquake in 226 BCE. The broken statue was then dismantled.

The 12.4 m (41 ft) tall gold and ivory statue of Zeus was housed in a temple in Olympia in 435 BCE. It was taken away to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) in the 6th century AD where it was destroyed in a fire. Part of the temple of Zeus is still standing at Olympia.

The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was the burial tomb of King Mausolus. It was built for him in 351 BCE by his sister, Artemisia. It was named after him and so became the first mausoleum in history. It fell in several earthquakes during the 12th century AD. Then its stones were recycled by the Knights of St John in the 15th century AD to build the Castle of St Peter in the bay of Bodrum in Turkey.

The Temple of Artemis was built in 323 BCE, but destroyed in 262AD. The site of the temple of Artemis was re-discovered in the 19th century. Archaeologists have re-constructed one of its columns on its water-logged site near Ephesus in Turkey.

The Lighthouse (or Pharos) of Alexandria in Egypt was constructed about 260BC and was about 100 metres (330 ft) tall. The lighthouse was severely damaged by three earthquakes between 956 AD and 1323 AD and became an abandoned ruin. The present day citadel of Qaitbay in Alexandria is thought have been constructed on the base of the Lighthouse.

In their day, these monuments and temples and statues were considered to be the most wonderful buildings and objects in the ancient world and their fame lives on to this day.

Why do we poop?

You might think the answer to this question is: what goes in must come out. After all, we eat because we need energy and food for our bodies to grow. Why can’t we just convert everything we put into our bodies into useful materials? Why do we still need to get rid of excess materials by pooping?

The reason for this is that not all materials can be broken down by your body to be used. Your body is amazing. It can absorb, digest and convert lots of foodstuffs, but it does have limits. It can’t break down everything you eat. One of the most well-known examples is fibre. This is often used to aid people who are constipated (can’t go to the toilet) exactly because it cannot be broken down and must therefore be expelled in your faeces (poo).

So, is it just fibre that we can’t break down that makes its way to our poo? No – our poo is so much more than just fibre! Some statistics say that human excrement (another word for poo) is made up of only about 8% fibre. What makes up the rest? Perhaps surprisingly, a lot of the stool (an individual poo) is made up of water (about 75% of its bulk is water!), but that still leaves about 17% of stool materials that are unaccounted for. This includes stuff like:

Dead bacteria: Our gut is full of bacteria. Some of the bacteria helps our digestion, but bacteria constantly reproduce and die as they go through their short lifespan. When these die, they pass into the stool. Dead bacteria release endotoxins (a kind of poison) which can be harmful to the body, so it’s important these are eliminated.
Live bacteria: Some live bacteria from the gut also make their way into our stools.
Old cells and old cell components: Like bacteria, the body’s cells also have lifespans. The gut-lining cells for example have a lifespan of about 3-4 days, after which they are shed to join the stool in its passage out the body. Remnants of other cells also find their way into the stool. The brown colour of poo is due to the breakdown products of old red blood cells that also find their way into the stool.
Mucus: Mucus is made by cells in the gut to act as a lubricant (like an oil) and this helps to move the stool along. It also protects the lining of the gut from the friction as it passes along. Some of this mucus finds its way into the stool. A stool that is well-coated with a thin layer of mucus explains the “clean poop effect”, where there is nothing on the toilet paper after wiping your bottom.
Waste products made by the body: This is perhaps the most important component of poo which explains why it’s so important to have good and regular bowel movements (another way to say “going to the toilet”). Let’s go into a bit more detail on this point:

What waste products do we need to eliminate?

We are exposed to chemicals in our every day lives from pollution, additives in food, medicines and more. Many of these chemicals cannot be recycled into useful chemicals in the body.

In our food, some naturally occurring chemicals like alcohol and caffeine (from tea and coffee) need to be detoxified (made safe) and eliminated.

There are even naturally made substances in the body that are not 100% re-used by the body, like certain hormones (e.g. oestrogen) and other chemicals we make (e.g. cholesterol).

There are two options for the fate of these materials. They are either passed out of our bodies through routes like defecation although other routes also exist like via urine (your wee), exhalation (breathing out) and sweat. (Defecation is yet another way to say “having a poo”). Or these materials stay in the body and accumulate, where they can potentially cause problems. When they build up to harmful or detrimental levels in the body, these chemicals are often called “toxins”.

The “bottom” line on why we poop is because it’s essential in order to get rid of waste products and harmful chemicals, so that our systems are clean and healthy, and so that we feel light and full of vitality.

Wot is snot?

Snot is nasal (from the nose) mucus. Your nose and throat have glands that produce over a pint of mucus every day. You swallow this throughout the day without even knowing it.

Mucus is useful for several reasons:

It keeps the linings of your nose moist
It traps dust when you inhale
It fights infections.

Mucus is usually thin and watery. When the mucus membranes (layers of tissue) become inflamed then mucus can thicken. It then becomes the runny nose-snot that runs out of your nose.

When you have a cold then your body increases snot production. Thicker mucus makes it difficult for bacteria to settle in your nose linings. Also, when you have a runny nose your body gets rid of bacteria by the mucus running out of your nose.

The same thing happens with allergies and hay-fever. Your nasal membranes become inflamed and produce excessive mucus to get rid of whatever you are allergic to.

You can also get a runny nose when you cry. Your tears come from tear glands under your eyelids. Most tears roll down your cheeks, but some drain into the tear ducts at the inner corners of your eyes. They mix with the mucus that lines the inside of your nose and your nose starts running.

Not all of your snot runs out of your nose though. Some of it will simply dry up on the lining inside of your nose and so produce those wonderfully coloured and beautifully shaped bogies.

How to make an Egyptian mummy by Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who lived from 484 BCE to 425 BCE. He was born in Halicarnassus (modern day Bodrum in Turkey) where the ruins of the famous original Mausoleum can still be found today. He was called “The Father of History” because he travelled through Greece, Turkey and Egypt and wrote down all the tales he was told in these places.

While he was in Egypt, he asked the priests how to make a mummy. For the richest people, a complex set of tools and techniques was used to preserve the body. An iron hook was used to pull the brain out through the nose, while a sharp stone was used to cut open the abdomen (the belly), and most of the internal organs were removed. These organs were preserved in Canopic jars – seen in the bottom left of the picture below. Sweet-smelling herbs, spices, and perfumes were packed into the cavities before the body was dried in salt to stop it from rotting. The body was then wrapped in bandages and placed in a sarcophagus – a big coffin.

Those unable to afford this expensive process had to make do with having embalming fluids injected into the body. For the poorest people, the intestines were cleared out, and the body was left to lie in salt for 70 days.

Ancient Egyptians didn’t just mummify themselves. They mummified all sorts of animals – birds, crocodiles, cats and even bulls which are big animals to mummify.

A huge bull mummy.

Cats turned into mummies. A Nile crocodile mummy.

It is well worth reading The Histories of Herodotus as there are lots of other interesting tales in this book including an account of the Battle of Thermopylae (The 300 Spartans), the Oracles of Delph and a great story of how the tyrant Peisistratus fooled the Athenians into thinking the gods were on his side by having the goddess Athena appear and support him.

Why and how do rainbows form?

Below are 2 explanations for how rainbows form. The first shows how sunlight hits water droplets in the air and splits the light into the colours of the spectrum.

Sir Isaac Newton was a famous scientist in the 1660s in England. He knew that white light could be divided up into individual colours by shining a light through a prism and seeing the spectrum. Lots of people had done this before Newton. However, Newton proved that the colours of the spectrum could not be divided into any other colours.

Newton ingeniously proved this by a really clever experiment that had not been done before. He shone a light through one prism to create a spectrum and then held another prism over each colour beam formed by the spectrum. The colours were not divided up into any other colours so red light entered the 2nd prism and came out red and green came out green etc. Newton decided that there were seven colours - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. If you look closely though you can’t really see indigo so nowadays only six colours are usually included in pictures of rainbows.

As a schoolboy I was taught to remember the colours of the spectrum by using the following sentence – Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain. The first letter of each word was the first letter of the rainbow so Richard – R – Red etc. You can still use this to remember the six colours using Richard Of York Gave Battle Valiantly. The Richard in this case refers to King Richard III. He was also the Duke of York and died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

And finally, I will end with a little poem about rainbows called My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

Why is the sky blue?

The sky is blue on clear cloudless days because the molecules in air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. When we look towards the sun at sunset, we see red and orange colours because the blue light has been scattered away from our line of sight.

A more detailed answer is below.

While we are up in the sky, let’s have a look at the atmosphere as well.

The atmosphere around the Earth is divided up into 5 major layers:

Exosphere - The last layer and the thinnest. It goes all the way to 10,000 km above the Earth's surface.
Thermosphere - The thermosphere is next and the air is very thin here. Temperatures can get extremely hot in the thermosphere.
Mesosphere - The mesosphere covers the next 50 miles beyond the stratosphere. This is where most meteors burn up upon entry. The coldest place on Earth is at the top of the mesosphere.
Stratosphere - The stratosphere extends for the next 32 miles after the troposphere. Unlike the troposphere the stratosphere gets its heat by the Ozone Layer absorbing radiation from the sun. As a result, it gets warmer the further away you get from the Earth. Weather balloons go as high as the stratosphere.
Troposphere - The troposphere is the layer next to the ground or surface of the Earth. It covers around 30,000-50,000 feet high. This is where we live and even where planes fly. Around 80% of the mass of the atmosphere is in the troposphere. The troposphere is heated by the surface of the Earth.

There is no clear definition between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space. There are a few official guidelines, most are between 50 and 80 miles from the surface of the Earth.

What are the 9 Parts of Speech?

Just as a wooden chair has parts – legs, a seat, a back, struts etc so too do sentences in speech. If you wanted to make a chair then you would need to know how to make the legs etc and how to put them together in the correct order to make something you could sit on comfortably. In the same way you need to know the parts of speech in order to create good sentences and make yourself clearly understood.