Since the reason for using cosmetics has always been to make women look more attractive, we must remember that different ideas of "beauty" created different kinds of "cosmetics" all over the world.

For example, a savage African woman who cuts her skin and ru...

If you were to scoop up a teaspoonful of water from a pond and could examine it under a microscope, you would see more than a million tiny ani­mals swarming about in the water! These animals are the "Protozoa," and they are the simplest animals known to exist, since they c...

Bacteria are living beings (organisms) so small that they can be seen only with a microscope which enlarges several hundred times. Therefore, they are called "micro-organisms."

Long before people were able to see bacteria, they knew about the re...

For thousands of years of his existence, man lived in ignorance of what caused disease. Primitive people had "explanations" and beliefs about the subject, the most common of which was that sickness was caused by evil spirits inside the body of the victim.

It...

The best rule to follow about telling safe mushrooms from poisonous mushrooms is not to try! Despite what anyone may tell you, despite any "methods" you may know for telling them apart, you should never eat or even taste any mushroom that you find growin...

Fungi are very important to man for two opposite reasons: They do a great deal of good and they do a great deal of damage.

Fungi help man by causing decay so that rubbish doesn't accumulate endlessly. This also returns mineral salts to the earth which plants need. O...

Sometimes it seems as if nature is constantly battling against man, making it hard for him just to stay alive. It's as if the insect world and the plant world were trying to overcome the human world.

For example, if we were just to sit back and do nothing, a...

If you've ever tried to have an. aquarium at home, you've probably noticed the green scum that seems to gather from nowhere. These are algae. And when you go swimming in certain ponds and lakes, there are slippery weeds that tangle around your feet. These are algae, too. ...

In almost any moist, shaded wood, small plants can be found forming a green carpet on the surface of the ground. Most of these are mosses. Unlike such plants as the pea or bean, mosses have no roots or flowers. Instead, they have little threads which grow over the surface of th...

Every living thing that has its home in the desert must face the problem of getting along with very little water. In fact, if it can't find an answer to this question it can't survive.

The cactus does not live without water, but it does manage to sur...