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Good Questions: Ragweed, Snoring & Building Stories

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Each Friday, we like to answer some of the Good Questions you've emailed us.

Joanne from Woodbury has family allergic to ragweed. So, she wanted to know: What does ragweed look like?

There are 50 different flowering plants in the ragweed family

The most common kind is 5-feet tall, with hairy stems and green leaves. The flowers are small and yellowish green, but one plant can release a billion pollen grains over one season -- and those float.

The pollen can float up to 400 miles away, so…you can't escape it.

Marlys from Maple Lake and Fred from Minneapolis both asked this one: Why don't people wake themselves up by snoring?

A University of Minnesota sleep doctor said our loudest snoring comes at the time of night when we're in our deepest sleep.

In fact, kids sleep so soundly that studies have shown 40 percent of them wouldn't wake up to a smoke alarm.

Lynn asked: Why are the floors in buildings called stories?

It goes back to medieval times. Back then, people put rows of windows in their buildings that were decorated with painting or sculptures that told a story.

Or, as it was known in Latin, historia.

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