What do you do with dead elements?

Barium!

Why are eyes so funny?

They're full of humor!

And this is how our eyes keep their round shape! They are full of a thick, watery, jelly-like substance called the vitreous humor. This substance is thick enough that it keeps our eyes from collapsing inwards, so they keep their round shape. The humor is also see-through so it lets light pass (if it didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to see anything, which would make our eyes kind of useless). So now you can see the “humor” in this joke! For some optical illusions and information on how to trick your eyes, see the Optical Illusions page.

I have plenty of eyes, yet I can't see. I have no nose, yet I can smell. What am I?

A potato!

Have you seen a potato after it’s been left sitting in the cupboard too long? It starts growing these weird, bulgy things from the small, round spots that you see all over the potato. No, the potato isn’t mutating into a potato-monster bent on world domination, as interesting as that would be. Those little, round spots covering the potato are called eyes, and the bulgy things that grow from them are the beginnings of a new potato, or rather, a new potato plant, because what we usually call a potato is actually the root of the potato plant.

What goes around and around a tree, but never leaves the tree and never goes inside the tree ?

Bark!

The term bark is usually used to refer to the outermost, dead layer of a tree that surrounds it. That’s right, it’s dead, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a purpose. The bark takes on the very important role of protecting the tree from extreme heat, extreme cold, bugs, birds, harsh weather, and a whole lot of other things that would kill the tree if it didn’t have its protective layer of bark. It’s sort of like the tree’s natural armor that it keeps re-growing as it gets worn down.

Interesting Note: What we usually call bark is what scientists call cork. There’s always a layer of cork growing outwards on the outside of the tree, but as this layer of cork gets too thick the outside part dies and turns into what we call bark.

Rings!

What causes the rings that you see when you cut a tree in half, you ask? Well, if you look closely, you’ll notice that each ring is made up of a light colored ring and a thinner, dark colored ring. The light colored ring, the thicker one, is the part of the wood that the tree grew during the spring and summer when the tree was growing really fast. The dark colored ring, the thinner one, was the wood that the tree grew during the fall and winter when the tree was growing slowly (which is why the dark ring is thinner). So each pair of light and dark rings represents a cycle of spring, summer, fall and winter, which is why we can tell the rough age of a tree by counting its rings. If you’re looking for the type of “rings” that you wear on your hand, however, then you’re “barking” up the wrong tree! Oh, wow, that was a really bad pun …

Two atoms are walking down the sidewalk,
Atom 1: “Wait! Stop! I think I lost an electron!"
Atom 2: “Are you sure?”
Atom 1: “Yeah, I’m positive!”

All matter is made up of very, very, VERY tiny building blocks. These building blocks are called atoms, and they’re too small to tell one apart from another, but we can see their total when we have a lot of them. For instance, we can’t see each of the atoms that make up a glass of water, but we certainly can see a glass of water, which is made up of trillions of trillions of atoms. Each atom is made of three different parts though, and those are neutrons, protons and electrons. Neutrons have no electric charge (making them neutral), but electrons and protons have opposite electric charges, with electrons having a negative charge and protons having a positive charge. In an atom, the protons and neutrons form the solid, dense center (called the nucleus), which usually doesn't move around, and the electrons are free to float around the outside of the atom. Normally, in an atom, the number of electrons and protons is the same, so the charges cancel each other out and make the entire atom neutral (no charge). If the atom loses an electron, though, then there are more protons than electrons, so the entire atom becomes positive. I hope you see how “positively” delightful this joke is now. For more information on electrons, check out the Static Electricity Experiments page, and for more information on atoms and how they stick together, see the Guar Gum Slime experiment.