Dear Professor Sy Yentz

What is the world's oldest fossil?

Sciencerely,

Mike Croscope

Dear Mr. Croscope,

The world's oldest fossil is Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Ha ha ha Professor Sy Yentz has his senatorial sense of humor.
The world's oldest fossil is an Australian fossil of a single bacterium, a simple one celled animal that is estimated to be 3.5 billion years old.
Sciencerely,
Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

What is the world's largest living organism?

Sciencerely,

Howie Doing

Dear Mr. Doing

It is the giant gourami that ate all my guppies. Ha ha ha. Just kidding. Professor Sy Yentz has his fishy sense of humor.

The world's largest living organism is stand of quaking aspen trees in Utah's Fishlake National Forest. Because the trees are all connected by roots, and because they all grew from the same tree, this stand of trees is really one big plant. The "plant" covers 106 acres and weighs 6,000 tons. It consists of about 47,000 stems, or individual trees ( I counted them). Each new, individual tree that is sprouted is called a ramet.

Sciencerely,

Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz,

How many volts are in lightning?

Love,

Manuel Labor

Dear Mr. Labor,

Well there were lots of volts in presidential balloting. Some are even legal. Ha ha ha Professor Sy Yentz has his electoral sense of humor.

A stroke of lightning discarges from 10-100 million volts of electricity. An average lightning stroke has 30,000 amperes.

Professor Sy Yentz

And..........Professor Sy Yentz,

How is the distance of a lightning flash calculated?

Dear Manny,

You're pushing it here with your extra credit question Manny, but Professor Sy Yentz is not shocked. Count the number of seconds between seeing a flash of lightning and hearing the sound of the thunder. Divide the number by 5 to determine the number of miles away that the lightning flashed.

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz,

Where is the world's most active volcano?

Sincerely,

Ella Phant

Dear Ms. Phant

What an explosive question! Don't you just lava Professor Sy Yentz sentz of humor?

The world's most active volcano is Kilauea in Hawaii. It has erupted continuously since 1983, spewing out 430 cubic yards per minute.....enough to fill a classroom. It is one of the five volcanoes that formed the Hawaiian Islands.

Sciencerely,

Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

What is the world's most common plant?

Sciencerely,

Artie Fact

Dear Mr. Fact,

Go petal your ware's somewhere else. You're a real pistil. Ha ha ha Professor Sy Yentz has his botanical sense of humor (humus?).

The most common plant is the orchid. Orchid's grow in every continent except Antarctica. Mostly, they grow in warm, wet climates. There are over 20,000 different types of orchids. The smallest are less than a cm. tall and the tallest orchids grow to over 35 meters in height. Most wild orchids grow on the trunks or branches of trees.

Sciencerely,

Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz,

Who invented the alarm clock?.

Sciencerely,

Lynn Guini

Dear Ms Guini,

What an alarming question. It really ticks me off. Ha ha ha , Professor Sy Yentz has his timely humor. Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, invented the alarm clock in 1787. His alarm clock, however, rang at only one time - 4 A.M. He invented the device so that hewould never sleep past his usual waking time. He never patented or manufactured it. The first modern alarm clock was made by Antoine Redier in 1847. It was a mechanical device. The electric alarm was not invented until 1890. The earliest mechanical clock was made in 725 B.C in China by Yi Xing and Liang Lingzan.

Sciencerely, Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

When do thunderstorms occur?

Sciencerely,

Bill Board

Dear Mr. Board

Usually just after Professor Sy Yentz has washed his car. Ha ha ha ha. Professor Sy Yentz has his meteorological sense of humor.

In the US, thunderstorms usually occur in the summer, especially May through August when large amounts of tropical maritime air move across the United States. Sorms usually develop when the surgface air is heated the most from the sun.

Sciencerely,

Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz,

Why do leaves change color in the fall?

Sciencerely,

Sal Monella

Dear Mr. Monella

Please leaf me alone. You're barking up the wrong tree. Ha ha ha. Professor Sy Yentz has his botanical sense of humor.

Actually,there are 3 factors that influence autumn leaf color. They are; leaf pigments, length of night, and weather. The timing of color change and leaf fall are primarily regulated by the increasing length of night. All of the other environmental influences-temperature, rainfall, food supply, etc.can vary. The steadily increasing length of night during autumn NEVER VARIES. As days grow shorter, and nights grow longer and cooler, biochemical processes in the leaf begin.

I'm rooting for you.....but perhaps you should branch out and ask another question.

Sciencerely,

Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

What causes hiccups?

Sincerely,

Bertha Nation

Dear Miss Nation

Stick a spoon in a glass of water and take 9 swallows. Ha ha ha, Professor Sy Yentz has his dry sense of humor.

Hiccups are like a tug-of-war between the diaphram trying to inhale and your mouth and throat trying their best to keep too much air from entering.

With each jerky movement of the diaphram, the rush of air makes a weird noise as it hits the vocal cords. That is the "hic" in hiccup.

Sciencerely,

Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Yentz,

Which disease is the most common?

Sincerely,

Cy Cology

Dear Mr. Cology

Your question is nothing to sneeze at. Ha ha ha, Professor Sy Yentz humor is contagious.

The most common noncontagious disease is periodontal disease, such as gingivitis of inflammation of the gums. Few people in their lifetime can avoid these effects of tooth decay. If you guessed correctly, you're entitled to a plaque. The most common contagious disease in the world is coryza, or......you guessed it, the common cold.

Sincerely,

Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

Why did Gabriel Fahrenheit define the freezing point of water to be 32 degrees instead of 0 degrees?

Sciencerely,

Frank Ensense

Dear Mr. Ensense,

What a chilly question. Ha ha ha Professor Sy Yentz has humid sense of humor.

Fahrenheit did not define 32 as the freezing point of water. Instead he define 0 as the freezing point of a water and salt mixture. Since salt lowers the freezing point of water, the freezing point for this mixture was lower than it would haave been for plain water. Upon defining the degree intervals between the freeaing and boiling points of the water and salt mixture, he found that water itself freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sciencerely, Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz,

What is the biggest star in the universe?

Sciencerely,

Wanda Lust,

Dear Ms. Lust,

Probably Will Smith, his movies make a lot of money……..ha ha ha Professor Sy Yentz has his celebritity sense of humor.

According to the Universe Today website - Astronomers use the terms "solar radius" and "solar mass" to compare large and smaller stars, so we'll do the same. A solar radius is 690,000 km (432,000 miles) and a solar mass (non denominational services could be different sizes than the mass) is 2 x 1030 kilograms (4.3 x 1030 pounds). That's 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg, or about the weight of Rosie O’Donnell- who is also a big star.

The largest known star is VY Canis Majoris; a red hypergiant star in the constellation Canis Major, located about 5,000 light-years from Earth. University of Minnesota professor Roberta Humphreys recently calculated its upper size at more than 2,100 times the size of the Sun. Placed in our Solar System, its surface would extend out past the orbit of Saturn. Light takes more than 8 hours to cross its circumference!Some astronomers disagree, and think that VY Canis Majoris might be smaller; merely 600 times the size of the Sun, extending past the orbit of Mars.That's the biggest star that we know of, but the Milky way probably has dozens of stars that are even larger, obscured by gas and dust so we can't see them.

Sciencerely,
Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz,

What Determines Sky's Colors At Sunrise And Sunset?

Sciencerely,
Terry Yaki

Dear Mr. Yaki
Your sunglassess. Ha ha ha Professor Sy Yentz has his optical sense of humor.
According to Science Daily,

The colors of the sunset result from a phenomenon called scattering, says Steven Ackerman, professor of meteorology at UW-Madison. Molecules and small particles in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays, causing them to scatter. Scattering affects the color of light coming from the sky, but the details are determined by the wavelength of the light and the size of the particle. The short-wavelength blue and violet are scattered by molecules in the air much more than other colors of the spectrum. This is why blue and violet light reaches our eyes from all directions on a clear day. But because we can't see violet very well, the sky appears blue.

Scattering also explains the colors of the sunrise and sunset, Ackerman says.

“Because the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more air at sunset and sunrise than during the day, when the sun is higher in the sky. More atmosphere means more molecules to scatter the violet and blue light away from your eyes. If the path is long enough, all of the blue and violet light scatters out of your line of sight. The other colors continue on their way to your eyes. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red.”

And because red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, the sun is red when it’s on the horizon, where its extremely long path through the atmosphere blocks all other colors.

Sciencerely
Professor Sy Yentz

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

So what's the story with chocolate?

Sciencerely,
Cal Ander

Dear Mr. Ander

From Science Daily - The chocolate enjoyed around the world today had its origins at least 3,100 years ago in Central America not as the sweet treat people now crave but as a celebratory beer-like beverage and status symbol, scientists said on Monday.

Researchers identified residue of a chemical compound that comes exclusively from the cacao plant -- the source of chocolate -- in pottery vessels dating from about 1100 BC in Puerto Escondido, Honduras.

This pushed back by at least 500 years the earliest documented use of cacao, an important luxury commodity in Mesoamerica before European invaders arrived and now the basis of the modern chocolate industry.

Cacao (pronounced cah-COW) seeds were used to make ceremonial beverages consumed by elites of the Aztecs and other civilizations, while also being used as a form of currency.

The Spanish conquistadors who shattered the Aztec empire in the 16th century were smitten with a chocolate beverage made from cacao seeds served in the palace of the emperor. However, this was not the form in which cacao had its beginnings.

"The earliest cacao beverages consumed at Puerto Escondido were likely produced by fermenting the sweet pulp surrounding the seeds," the scientists wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One of the researchers, anthropologist John Henderson of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said cacao beverages were being concocted far earlier than previously believed -- and it was a beer-like drink that started the chocolate craze.

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

How fast do fingernails grow?

Sciencerely,

Al Truism

Dear Al,

Professor Sy Yentz looked up the answer in his "nail file". Ha ha ha has his translucent keratin sense of humor.

Healthy nails grow about 0.8 inches (2 cm.) per year. The middle fingernail grows the fastest, because the longer the finger, the faster its nail growth. Fingernails grow four times as fast as toenails.

In case you were wondering, and I know you were, a fingernail is made of translucent keratin and the pink appearance of the nail comes from the blood vessels underneath the nail.

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Dear Professor Sy Yentz

What is a hurricane

Sciencerely,

Warren Peace

Dear Warren,

It is the opposite of a himacane you ninny. Ha ha, Professor Sy Yentz has his windy sense of humor.

A hurricane is a tropical storm with winds that have reached a constant speed of 74 miles per hour or more. Hurricane winds blow in a large spiral around a relative calm center known as the "eye." The "eye" is generally 20 to 30 miles wide, and the storm may extend outward 400 miles. As a hurricane approaches, the skies will begin to darken and winds will grow in strength. As a hurricane nears land, it can bring torrential rains, high winds, and storm surges. A single hurricane can last for more than 2 weeks over open waters and can run a path across the entire length of the eastern seaboard. August and September are peak months during the hurricane season that lasts from June 1 through November 30. (More Information on Hurricanes)

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