Page 24 - How It Works - Book of Amazing Answers To Curious Questions, 12

AMAZIG ANSWERS TO CURIOUS QUESTIONS -------------------

Electrons The nucleus,
How do we carry a protons and
made up of
negative
charge
neutrons
get drunl<?

How does drinking alcohol make
people drunk, and why do they suffer
from the side effects?
here are actually many there are some well-supported
kinds of alcohol in the theories. The slow reactions,
T chemical world, but the slurred speech and memory loss
one we drink the most is ethanol. of a drunk are probably caused by
It's the particular shape of an ethanol attaching to glutamate
ethanol molecule that gives a receptors in your brain's neural
glass of beer or a shot of the hard circuitry. These receptors
stuff its specific effects on the normally receive chemical signals
human brain. The molecule is from other parts of the brain, but
very tiny, made up of just two instead they get an ethanol
carbon atoms, six hydrogen molecule. This disrupts the flow of
atoms, and one oxygen atom. signals and generally slows the What are atoms?
Ethanol is water soluble, which whole brain down.
means it enters the blood stream Ethanol also binds to GABA It's the little things in life that make
readily, there to be carried (gamma-aminobutyricacid)
quickly to all parts of the body receptors, which normally serve the biggest difference
(most notably the liver and the to slow down brain activity.
brain). It's also fat soluble; like an Unlike glutamate receptors, � he bigbanghasa lotto Atoms are made up of various
all-access pass through various ethanol actually makes GABA answer for. The numbers of protons, neutrons
cell membranes and other places receptors more receptive, causing & T astonishing cosmic forces and electrons.
that are normally off limits. the brain to slow down even more. hypothesised to have created the But just like the expanding
A certain portion of the ethanol But alcohol isn't simply a universe formed all known types understanding of the universe,
you drink passes through your depressant, because it also of atom. Atoms that have since smaller and smaller sub-atomic
stomach to your small intestine, stimulates the production of gone on to do great things; particles are being discovered all
then absorbed into your dopamine and endorphins, creating stars, planets, us, and the time. This quest has led
bloodstream and carried to your chemicals that produce feelings of indeed the pen and paper used by particle physicists to build the
brain. That's what we're really pleasure. Research hasn't yet Russian chemist Dmitri Large Hadron Collider, a
concerned with. Research has not revealed the exact mechanism Mendeleev in his 1869 publication particle accelerator with the
conclusively determined exactly involved, but it may be similar to of the first universally recognised primary purpose of smashing
how ethanol accomplishes all of the way ethanol stimulates the form of the periodic table, which atoms with such force as to either
its various effects in the brain, but GABA receptors. was essentially a tabular list of the confirm or rule out the existence
atomic weights of all 117 known of the Higgs boson, a particle that
Red atom = Oxygen chemical elements. could explain the origin of the
Ethanol way atoms are bonded together universe's mass.
Of course, depending on the
Atoms hold the key to
mole they are the very substance of understanding where it all
everything we see and know. just started; where we're from in the
The particular shape of
an ethanol molecule as it's mind-boggling to truest sense and therefore render
makes it ideally suited to contemplate the size of the much pre-existing philosophy
getting humans drunk. universal macrocosm as we look redundant. Apparently, the
Slight differences in the
charge at each end of out into the cosmos, the answer to life isn't out there as we
the molecule make it microcosm is equally astounding. once thought, it's in here!
scluble in both water
and fat
Smaller and smaller
sub-atomic particles are being

discovered all the time
White atoms = Hydrogen

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