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A changing voice reflects more than changing pitch

The length, tissue structure, and flexibility of vocal folds affect how they vibrate, so a voice's pitch and quality need not move together. Puberty and aging are different processes, with considerable variation between people.

3–7 min

Questions you could explore

  • Why would a change in tissue flexibility affect more than pitch alone?
  • How could growth during puberty and changes later in life affect the voice in different ways?

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Health and the body

Daylight and the body's clock

Even in a room with no clocks, your body follows an internal roughly 24-hour schedule of sleepiness, hunger, and alertness. Those internal daily rhythms respond to outside cues, with morning and evening light helping reset and coordinate the body's master clock.

3–5 min
Health and the body

How vaccines build immune memory

The first time the immune system encounters an unfamiliar antigen, building a response takes time. Vaccines help develop recognition and memory before a later encounter with a pathogen. Different types introduce antigens or instructions for making them in different ways, offering a starting point for exploring how immune memory works.

4–5 min
Health and the body

Antibiotics and the viruses they cannot treat

Antibiotics can treat certain bacterial infections, but they do not treat the viruses that cause a common cold. Because bacteria are living cells with their own metabolic machinery and viruses are tiny genetic packages that hijack your cells, an antibiotic that disables bacteria has no matching target in the viruses that cause a cold.

2–3 min
A changing voice reflects more than changing pitch | Speech Topic | speaking.app