Atoms are tiny particles which build together to make every substance. An atom is the tiniest bit of any pure substance or chemical element. You could fit two billion atoms on the full stop after this sentence. The number of atoms in the Universe is about 10 followed by 80 zeros. Atoms are mostly empty space dotted with a few even tinier particles called subatomic particles. In the centre of each atom is a dense core, or nucleus, made from two kinds of particle: protons and neutrons. Protons have a positive electrical charge, and neutrons none. Both protons and neutrons are made from different combinations of quarks (see quarks). If an atom were the size of a sports arena, its nucleus would be just the size of a pea. Around the nucleus whizz even tinier, negatively-charged particles called electrons (see electrons). Atoms can be split but they are usually held together by three forces: the electrical attraction between positive protons and...
Yes, they cough them to death. Marmots are benign, pot-bellied members of the squirrel family. They are about the size of a cat and squeak loudly when alarmed. Less appealingly, the bobac variety, found on the Mongolian steppe, is particularly susceptible to a lung infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, commonly known as bubonic plague. They spread it around by coughing on their neighbours, infecting fleas, rats and, ultimately, humans. All the great plagues that swept through Eastern Asia to Europe came from marmots in Mongolia. The estimated death-toll is over a billion, making the marmot second only to the malarial mosquito as a killer of humans. When marmots and humans succumb to plague, the lymph glands under the armpits and in the groin become black and swollen (these sores are called ‘buboes’, from Greek boubon, ‘groin’, hence ‘bubonic’). Mongolians will never eat a marmot’s armpits because ‘they contain the soul of a dead hunter’. The other parts of the marmot are a...
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