Why is the sky blue and the sunset orange
Seven-year-old Yousef from Irbid asks the show's founding question. Dana explains how sunlight scatters in the air, why evening skies turn orange, and shows a torch and milk experiment to see it at ho…
Do fish sleep
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Show notes
Sleeping underwater
Lina lives by the Red Sea and has watched fish at night that seemed to be resting but never closed their eyes. Dana rings Dr Sami Khoury, a marine biologist in Aqaba, to find out what rest looks like for a creature with no eyelids.
- Why fish cannot close their eyes and what they do instead
- Parrotfish and the bubble of slime they sleep in
- Sharks that have to keep moving, and how they rest half a brain
- How scientists can tell a fish is asleep
- Lina's challenge: watch a goldfish at night and report back
Send your question as a voice note to Dana on Witspeak.
Transcript
Welcome back to Why Is The Sky. I am Dana Khalil, and today we are going underwater. Lina is nine, she lives in Aqaba right by the Red Sea, and she sent me a voice note asking whether fish sleep, because she has seen them floating very still at night but their eyes are always open. Lina, I did not know the answer, so I did what scientists do when they do not know. I asked someone who does. Dr Sami Khoury studies fish in the Red Sea and he is going to join us by phone to tell us about fish that sleep in bubbles, sharks that rest one half of their brain at a time, and how you can tell a fish is asleep at all. Then I have a challenge for you. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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