I stared at my brother and realized that I had just watched him perform an act of sternutation!

Hello kiddos,

This is Professor Mordy Maven, Thinker, Wonderer, and Figure-Outer of all things Science-ish. What that basically means is I try really hard to figure stuff out. I do the hard work so you don’t have to!

You won’t believe what happened to me yesterday. I was standing outside in the garden, racking a massive pile of leaves, when suddenly there was a terrible noise, somewhere between a roar and a shout. I felt the ground shake beneath me. The windows of our house shuddered and my hair blew back from my head. “EARTHQUAKE!” I screamed at my brother as I ducked into the doorway. But a moment later, I realized that the earth hadn’t quaked at all.

I looked around. Everything was still exactly where it had been before. So what had happened? I stared at my brother and realized that I had just watched him perform an act of sternutation! And we all know what that means, right? Yup, air, mucus, water, and foreign particles were being propelled out of that kid with incredible force.

In other words, my brother sneezed.