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1. Tears help us see. Starting with the most basic function of tears, they enable us to see. Literally. Tears not only lubricate our eyeballs and eyelids, they also prevent dehydration of our various mucous membranes. No lubrication, no eyesight. Writes Bergman: “Without tears, life would be drastically different for humans–in the short run enormously uncomfortable, and in the long run eyesight would be blocked out altogether.”

2. Tears kill bacteria. No need for Clorox wipes. We’ve got tears! Our own antibacterial and antiviral agent working for us, fighting off all the germs we pick up on community computers, shopping carts, public sinks, and all those places the nasty little guys make their homes and procreate. Tears contain lysozyme, a fluid that the germ-a-phobic dreams about in her sleep, because it can kill 90 to 95 percent of all bacteria in just five to 10 minutes! Which translates, I’m guessing, to three months’ worth of colds and stomach viruses.

3. Tears remove toxins. Biochemist William Frey, who has been researching tears for as long as I’ve been searching for sanity, found in one

One of the most common reasons for bullying is image. Anyone who looks the least bit different from what is considered to be normal will likely face bullying at some point in his life. Kids with freckles, acne, moles, buck teeth and other physical differences will be targeted by bullies.

Kids who go out of their way to sit in the front of the class, answer the teacher’s questions and do well on exams are also convenient targets because they are considered to be “nerds”.

Kids who don’t have the same style of clothing as their peers are often the targets of bullies.

We tend to equate buying things with positive emotions. Subsequently, we think that purchasing new stuff makes us happy. It's a pretty clear correlation. In a study published in Neuron, researchers looked at what's going on in the brain when we think about buying stuff. When a product image flashed before people's eyes, an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens lit up when a subject liked what they saw. Essentially, the brain's pleasure center kicks into gear and floods the brain with dopamine at the very thought of getting something we want. The weirdest thing about this is that just thinking about buying something is pretty much the same as actually buying it.

"Thinking about acquisition provides momentary happiness boosts to materialistic people, and because they tend to think about acquisition a lot, such thoughts have the potential to provide frequent mood boosts," Richins wrote, "but the positive emotions associated with acquisition are short-lived. Although materialists still experience positive emotions after making a purchase, these emotions are less intense than before they actually acquire a product."

It's probably no surprise to most of us, but study after study shows that buying stuff doesn't make us happy. More importantly, we're actually unhappy when we put too much value on material objects.The big problem here isn't just that we're a little bummed out when someone else has more stuff than we do. It's that when we put a lot of emphasis on materialistic value, we're prone to depression, personality disorders, and more. One study from

it’s Daylight Saving Time! Daylight Saving Time (or “Summer Time,” as it’s known in many parts of the world) was created to make better use of the long sunlight hours of the summer. By “springing” clocks forward an hour in March, we move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening. On the first Sunday in November, we “fall back” and rewind our clocks to return to Standard Time.

"Dinosaurs became ever more 'birdy' over time," Brusatte said, but there was no single missing link, he added. Birds and dinosaurs are like two colors in a rainbow, he said — you can recognize each, but they bleed into each other at their borders.

The new pedigree of carnivorous dinosaur evolution is the most comprehensive one ever assembled, the researchers say. The findings show that birdlike features such as wings and feathers developed slowly over tens of millions of years.

The label of "bird" is somewhat arbitrary, but scientists consider the feathered fossil Archaeopteryx to be the first of the group, Brusatte said. "What probably distinguishes birds is the ability to have powered flight," he said, though it's possible that other dinosaurs could fly too.

For starters, cats’ visual fields are broader than ours, spanning roughly 200 degrees instead of 180 degrees, and their visual acuity isn’t as good. So, the things humans can sharply resolve at distances of 100-200 feet look blurry to cats, which can see these objects at distances of up to 20 feet. That might not sound so great, but there’s a trade-off: Because of the various photoreceptors parked in cats’ retinas, they kick our asses at seeing in dim light. Instead of the color-resolving, detail-loving cone cells that populate the center of human retinas, cats (and dogs) have many more rod cells, which excel in dim light and are responsible for night-vision capability. The rod cells also refresh more quickly, which lets cats pick up very rapid movements — like, for example, the quickly shifting path a marauding laser dot might trace. Lastly, cats see colors differently than we do, which is why the cat-versions of these images look less vibrant than the people-versions. Scientists used to think cats were dichromats — able to only see two colors — but they’re not, exactly. While feline photoreceptors are most sensitive to wavelengths in the blue-violet and greenish-yellow ranges, it appears they might be able to see a little bit of green as well. In other words, cats are mostly red-green color blind, as are many of us, with a little bit of green creeping in.

"The origin of our time system of 24 hours in a day with each hour subdivided into 60 minutes and then 60 seconds is complex and interesting," says Dr Nick Lomb, consultant curator of astronomy, from the Sydney Observatory.

Our 24-hour day comes from the ancient Egyptians who divided day-time into 10 hours they measured with devices such as shadow clocks, and added a twilight hour at the beginning and another one at the end of the day-time, says Lomb.

"Night-time was divided in 12 hours, based on the observations of stars. The Egyptians had a system of 36 star groups called 'decans' — chosen so that on any night one decan rose 40 minutes after the previous one.

Bullying is repeated verbal, physical, social or psychological aggressive behaviour by a person or group directed towards a less powerful person or group that is intended to cause harm, distress or fear.

verbal or written abuse - such as targeted name-calling or jokes, or displaying offensive posters violence - including threats of violence

sexual harassment - unwelcome or unreciprocated conduct of a sexual nature, which could reasonably be expected to cause offence, humiliation or intimidation homophobia and other hostile behaviour towards students relating to gender and sexuality discrimination including racial discrimination - treating people differently because of their identity cyberbullying - either online or via mobile phone.

Dealing with Bullying

Unless you’ve directly experienced bullying, you may not realize just how devastating it can be, especially to a child or teenager. As well as being deeply hurtful, bullying can leave anyone feeling frightened, angry, depressed, and totally undermined. But bullying should never be tolerated. Whether you’re the one being bullied, or you’re a teacher or parent who thinks their child is being bullied or engaged in bullying behavior, there are steps you can take to deal with the problem.

What also is amazing is the sheer size difference of planets. While humans think of Earth as a large planet, in reality it is dwarfed by the massive gas giants lurking at the outer edges of our Solar System. This article explores the planets in order of size, with a bit of context as to how they got that way.

No human was around 4.5 billion years ago when the Solar System was formed, so what we know about its birth comes from several sources: examining rocks on Earth and other places, looking at other solar systems in formation and doing computer models, among other methods. As more information comes in, some of our theories of the Solar System must change to suit the new evidence.