Dear Lydia,
A few thousand years ago, humans discovered that beans inside the bright green pods of cacao trees could be made into a real treat.
Read More ...Dear Kaitlyn,
Take a look around. Maybe you can turn your head to the left and right and move it up and down. You can move your eyes around in a bunch of different directions, and perhaps you can even cross them.
Read More ...Dear Emma,
For most of human history, people have enjoyed chocolate in a spicy, bitter drink. But when people discovered how to turn chocolate into a solid, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
That’s what I found out from my friend Omar Cornejo, a scientist at Washington State University who is very curious about the history and life of the cacao tree. Chocolate comes from the seeds of leathery fruits that grow on the tree.
If we cut open the fruit, we would find about 20 to 60 seeds on the inside. In ancient times, people would grind up the seeds … » More …
Read More ...Dear Tyra,
You read it right— taste buds can have a lifespan of anywhere from one to two weeks. That’s what I found out from my friend Charles Diako who researched food science at Washington State University. Before he explained exactly how and why we grow our taste buds, he told me two important things about them.
Read More ...Dear Christian,
If you’ve ever eaten a chili pepper, you know it can make you feel really hot. You might start sweating, get a runny nose, or even cry.
Read More ...Dear Christian,
When you think of wasabi, you might think of that hot green paste people serve up with sushi. Some restaurants put a bit of wasabi on your plate, but it’s usually not real wasabi. It’s actually a mixture of horseradish, mustard, and green dye. Real wasabi is a lot different.
That’s what I found out from my friend Thomas Lumpkin, a plant scientist who studied wasabi as a researcher at Washington State University. Wasabi is a plant that mainly grows in Japan in the cool, running water of mountain streams and springs.
Read More ...Dear Callum,
A lot of different animals, like wasps, spiders, snakes, jellyfish, and scorpions, make venom. Animals like the cone snail, the blue-ringed octopus, and centipedes do, too.
Read More ...Dear Zion,
Before humans even came up with the word “allergy,” they observed how some people would get rashes, sneezes or become really, really sick from different things in their environment. Historians even noted how people in ancient civilizations talked about something called “plant fever,” which gave people runny noses.
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