Booklet Answers

How much do you know about Chemistry and the effect it has on our everyday lives?

1. Why are most babies born with blue eyes?
C - only a small amount of Melanin, the pigment responsible for eye colour, is present in the iris at birth - the rest appears gradually during a baby's first year.

2. Why do chefs add salt to vegetables when they cook them?
C - No good reason - they won't absorb enough salt to be tasted by most people and the salt only increases the boiling speed of water by a tiny amount

3. What makes sparklers spark?
B - Burning iron particles

4. Why do stars twinkle?
A - Turbulence in the layers of the Earth's atmosphere bends the light from the stars as it passes through, making them look like they are twinkling.

5. Why do onions make you cry?
B - Onions contain sulfenic acid which is released as a gas when you cut into them. When this combines with the waer in the eyes, it creates a mild sulphuric acid. You cry because your brain tells your tear ducts to produce more water to dilute the acid.

I hope you did well!