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context: tag/moon/ question: Why does the moon get bigger when it's closer to the horizon? | The moon stays approximately the same size, whether measured by apparent size or actual size. Actual size is the number you would measure if you went to the moon with a long ruler. It would take a cataclysmic event such as collision with a planet to change the actual size of the moon. Apparent size is the angular diam... |
context: tag/orbit/ question: What keeps the North Star stuck at exactly North? | First of all, the North Star (that dot that earthlings currently see in the night sky when looking North) is not actually a single star. The North Star, also called Polaris, is a multiple star system which actually consists of five different stars. Three of these stars are relatively close to each other and are in orb... |
context: tag/planetary-alignment/ question: When do the planets in our solar system all line up? | The planets in our solar system never line up in one perfectly straight line like they show in the movies. If you look at a two-dimensional plot of the planets and their orbits on a piece of paper you may be lead to believe that all the planets will circle around to the same line eventually. In reality, the planets do... |
context: tag/quantum/ question: Could scientists perfectly simulate the entire universe in a computer, down to the last atom? | No. Even with an incredibly powerful computer, scientists could never perfectly simulate the entire universe in a computer. There are a few reasons for this. 1. The universe is non-deterministic.
On the fundamental level, the universe obeys quantum theory. Quantum theory is probabilistic and non-deterministic. This m... |
context: tag/quantum/ question: What did Schrodinger's Cat experiment prove? | "Schrodinger's Cat" was not a real experiment and therefore did not scientifically prove anything. Schrodinger's Cat is not even part of any scientific theory. Schrodinger's Cat was simply a teaching tool that Schrodinger used to illustrate how some people were misinterpreting quantum theory. Schrodinger constructed h... |
context: tag/quantum/ question: What keeps space empty? | Space is not empty. A point in outer space is filled with gas, dust, a wind of charged particles from the stars, light from stars, cosmic rays, radiation left over from the Big Bang, gravity, electric and magnetic fields, and neutrinos from nuclear reactions. As the book "Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space" by Dr... |
context: tag/quantum/ question: Why do quantum effects only happen on the atomic scale? | Quantum effects are not only confined to the atomic scale. There are several examples of macroscopic quantum behavior. Quantum physics describes matter and energy as quantum wavefunctions, which sometimes act like waves and sometimes act like particles, but are actually more complicated entities than just waves or par... |
context: tag/radiation/ question: Why doesn't my laptop emit radiation? | Your laptop computer does emit radiation. In fact, your laptop emits several different kinds of radiation: As you see, your laptop emits several different kinds of radiation. But all of the radiation emitted by your laptop is too low-frequency and too low-intensity to be harmful to humans. Also, many of these types of... |
context: tag/rain/ question: Does wasting household water remove it from the water cycle? | No, wasting household water does not ultimately remove that water from the global water cycle, but it does remove it from the portion of the water cycle that is readily accessible and usable by humans. Also, "wasting" water wastes the energy and resources that were used to process and deliver the water. Parents, city ... |
context: tag/rain/ question: What makes rain drops tear shaped? | Raindrops are not tear shaped when falling through the air. They are approximately round. As captured by James E. McDonald in a Journal of Meteorology article titled "The Shape and Aerodynamics of Large Raindrops", drops can even take on hamburger shapes when they get big enough. You might think that the resistance of... |
context: tag/sound/ question: Can wind travel faster than the speed of sound? | Yes, wind can travel faster than the speed of sound. Wind is just the bulk movement of a mass of air through space and is in principle no different from a train speeding along or a comet zipping through space. The only limitation on the bulk motion of objects with mass is the universal speed limit of the speed of ligh... |
context: tag/sound/ question: Does sound travel faster in space? | Sound does not travel at all in space. The vacuum of outer space has essentially zero air. Because sound is just vibrating air, space has no air to vibrate and therefore no sound. If you are sitting in a space ship and another space ship explodes, you would hear nothing. Exploding bombs, crashing asteroids, supernovas... |
context: tag/sound/ question: How does sound going slower in water make it hard to talk to someone underwater? | Sound travels faster in water than in air. The speed of sound in air under typical conditions is about 343 meters per second, while the speed of sound in water is about 1,480 meters per second. Fundamentally, standard sound is a compression wave traveling though a material. You can think of a material as a grid of hea... |
context: tag/sound/ question: What psychological effect makes notes on a piano that are an octave apart sound the same? | The effect is not psychological. It is physical. Notes on a piano that are separated by an octave are very similar physically. To understand why this is so, you have to understand first the basics of sound. Sound is a waving vibration of air that travels as it oscillates. The pattern of the vibrations in the air (the ... |
context: tag/sound/ question: Why are sound waves invisible? | Sound waves are not always invisible. Sound is simply the ordered vibration of matter (as opposed to heat, which is the disordered vibration of matter). Any time you see a vibration, you are seeing sound. For instance, hit a bell and watch it shake. That shaking motion of the bell is the sound waves traveling through ... |
context: tag/space-ship/ question: What could a space ship do if it stopped because it ran out of fuel? | Space ships do not stop when they run out of fuel. While outer space does contain gas, dust, light, fields, and microscopic particles, they are in too low of a concentration to have much effect on spaceships. As a result, there is essentially zero friction in space to slow down moving objects. Unlike ships in water, a... |
context: tag/space-ship/ question: What kind of space ships can make banking turns? | No kind of space ship can making banking turns in space. When an airplane makes a banking turn, it does so by deflecting off a cushion of air. The air redirects the plane's momentum in a new direction. In space, there is essentially no air, so space ships cannot make banking turns. In order for a space ship to turn, i... |
context: tag/space-ship/ question: What would space ships actually look like in space? | In space, there is only direct sunlight from the nearest star (light from the other stars is negligible in terms of illumination). On earth, we also have a sky that scatters some of the sunlight in all directions, creating ambient light. But in space, there is no sky to create ambient light. As a result, a spacecraft ... |
context: tag/sun/ question: How often does the sun's magnetic field flip? | The sun's magnetic field flips every eleven years. The sun is a giant sphere of hydrogen and helium gas that is compressed by gravity to the point of sustaining nuclear fusion, which releases vast amounts of energy that heats the sun to high temperatures. The sun's very high temperatures rip electrons off of many of t... |
context: tag/sun/ question: What keeps the sun spinning? | Nothing keeps the sun spinning. The sun spins under its own inertia and does not need any help to keep it going. Isaac Newton observed that objects in motion tend to stay in motion. This is called the Law of Inertia. It means that if an object is already moving and nothing acts on it to stop it, the object will just k... |
context: tag/tornado/ question: Where is the safest place to go when a tornado hits? | Contrary to popular belief, the safest place to go when a tornado hits is not under a highway overpass. This location has little to protect you from debris being thrown around by the tornado. Additionally, overpasses can collapse. Most of the damage that a tornado causes is due to its high winds knocking down structur... |
context: tag/vaccines/ question: How do vaccines cause autism? | Vaccines do not cause autism. No reputable scientific study has ever been able to link the two. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) states that "there is no relationship between vaccines containing thimerosal and autism rates in children." The Institute of Medicine conducted a scientific review of this topic an... |
context: tag/vaccines/ question: How does not washing your hands make you a healthier person? | Avoiding hand washing will make you ill, not healthy. There seems to be a trendy viewpoint recently that having bad hygiene will make you healthier in the long run because it will boost your immune system by exposing you to more germs. This view is false, although it can be traced back to a true principle. The life-sa... |
context: tag/vaccines/ question: Is there a difference between mainstream science and alternative science? | Yes, science and pseudoscience are polar opposites. The ultimate mission of science is to discover facts about the physical universe, no matter how complicated, disheartening, or unexpected those facts may be. In contrast, the ultimate mission of pseudoscience is to reject physical facts in order to promote ideas tha... |
context: tag/vaccines/ question: What is the debate over vaccines? | There is no real debate over vaccines. Essentially all medical doctors, scientists, research technicians, healthcare administrators, and politicians agree that vaccines are safe, effective, and lifesaving. This huge consensus among educated professionals was reached because of the large body of evidence demonstrating ... |
context: tag/vaccines/ question: What is the most harmful pseudo-science? | This question is rather subjective and depends on what you mean by "harmful". If you mean to ask which pseudo-science concept leads to the most bodily harm to humans, then the winner is definitely vaccine denialism. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines in protecting humans against specific diseases is one of the m... |
context: tag/vision/ question: How do carrots help you see in the dark? | Carrots do not help you see in the dark. Carrots do provide Vitamin A (in beta-carotene form) which is used by your body to maintain normal eyesight. But eating excess Vitamin A does not lead to better-than-normal eyesight. Most Americans get sufficient Vitamin A in their diet and therefore have the best eyesight that... |
context: tag/vision/ question: How long does it take our eyes to fully adapt to darkness? | First of all, it is impossible to see anything at all in total darkness. Total darkness means the absence of light, and our eyes depend on light to see. With that said, it is quite rare to be in a situation with total darkness, even at night. City lights reflecting off of clouds, car headlamps, the moon, the stars, an... |
context: tag/vision/ question: What are the five senses of the human body? | There are not just five senses in a human body. A healthy human can sense its environment and its internal state through dozens of channels. Eyesight provides the most information to the brain per second and is the most important sense. The second most information-rich sense is hearing. Next up comes the sense of touc... |
context: tag/vision/ question: Why don't our eyeballs fill up with water when we swim? | Although the eye's pupil is indeed a hole in the front surface of the eye, this hole is covered in the front by a strong, transparent coating called the cornea and in the back by a fibrous, transparent object called the lens. Also, the space between the cornea and the lens is filled with a gel-like fluid called the aq... |
context: tag/water/ question: Are any pills perfectly safe? | Nothing in this world is perfectly safe. Even drinking too much water can kill you. Newspapers contain several sad accounts of people dying of water overdose, many of them a result of drinking competitions, extreme child discipline, or fad diets. For instance, Jennete Killpack was sent to prison for killing her daught... |
context: tag/water/ question: Can water stay liquid below zero degrees Celsius? | Yes, water can stay liquid below zero degrees Celsius. There are a few ways in which this can happen. First of all, the phase of a material (whether it is gas, liquid, or solid) depends strongly on both its temperature and pressure. For most liquids, applying pressure raises the temperature at which the liquid freezes... |
context: tag/water/ question: How can there be clouds in winter when it is too cold for water to stay a vapor? | First of all, clouds are never made out of water vapor. Water vapor is invisible because its molecules are too far apart to optically scatter light. Whenever you see steam, mist, fog, or clouds, you are seeing small drops of liquid water or crystals of ice, and not water vapor. The water drops or ice crystals in the a... |
context: tag/water/ question: How do wells get their water from underground rivers? | Most wells do not get their water from underground rivers, but instead get the water from aquifers. Aquifers are layers of rock and soil with water flowing through their small pores. For the most part, there are not giant caves under earth's surface containing violent rivers of water flowing quickly through them. Inst... |
context: tag/water/ question: How does water dowsing work? | In the sense that it finds underground water, water dowsing does not work. Water dowsing involves the claim that a person can locate underground sources of water without using any scientific instruments. Typically, the person that is dowsing holds sticks or rods and walks around a property in the hopes that the rods w... |
context: tag/water/ question: How much water can a camel store in its hump? | Camels do not store water in their humps. Instead, camels use the humps to store energy-rich fat deposits. Many animals, including humans, use body fat as an energy storage. Unique to a camel, however, is the fact that it stores the fat in a hump up on top instead of around the belly or limbs. It does this to stay coo... |
context: tag/water/ question: Why does ice form on the top of a lake? | Warm water generally gets more dense as it gets colder, and therefore sinks. This fact may lead you to believe that ice should form on the bottom of a lake first. But a funny thing happens to water as it gets even colder. Colder than 4° Celsius (39° Fahrenheit), water begins expanding and becomes less dense as it gets... |
context: tag/water/ question: Why is ice slippery? | On its own, ice is not slippery. When you step onto an icy sidewalk, you do indeed feel a slippery surface. But the slipperiness is caused by a thin layer of liquid water and not directly by the solid ice itself. Water on a smooth surface is slippery because water is a low-viscosity liquid. As such, there are no perma... |
context: biology question: Are gender traits completely a result of societal expectations? | No. Gender traits in humans are largely determined by biophysical processes. There seems to be a vocal political faction that is trying to convince people in the name of liberty and equality that gender traits are completely learned, and therefore arbitrary. But this claim disagrees with scientific evidence. In genera... |
context: biology question: Are there any parts of the human body that get oxygen directly from the air and not from the blood? | Yes. Upper-layer skin cells and the cells in the front surface of the eyes get a significant amount of oxygen directly from the air rather than from the blood. Human bodies have a huge demand for oxygen. As a result, the oxygen that is able to passively diffuse into the body directly from the air is not nearly enough ... |
context: biology question: Can I turn my cat into a diamond? | Yes. It is scientifically possible to turn your beloved deceased pet or human relative into a diamond that you wear on your finger as a token of remembrance. In fact, there are companies that exist right now that are willing to do this for you. Diamonds that are created from the remains of a loved one are called "memo... |
context: biology question: Do Kirlian photographs show the soul of an organism? | No, Kirlian photographs do not show the soul of an organism. Kirlian photographs show the light that is released by the electrified air surrounding an object when the object is intentionally filled with electricity. Non-scientists and pseudo-scientists claim that the patterns of light captured in Kirlian photography a... |
context: biology question: Do koalas eat honey like other bears? | Despite the fact that the name "koala bear" is used in the popular culture of some countries, koalas are actually not bears. The more accurate name of "koala" is used in this animal's native land of Australia. Koalas are marsupials, just like kangaroos and possums. Like most other marsupials, koalas give birth to babi... |
context: biology question: Do poppy seeds contain narcotics? | Yes, poppy seeds contain narcotics. Poppy seeds are used to add flavor to many baked goods, salads, and pasta dishes; ranging from lemon bread to chicken salad. Poppy seeds are produced by the opium poppy plant, a plant that has been famous since ancient times for containing psychoactive chemicals. All parts of the op... |
context: biology question: How can we differentiate so many different foods if we can only taste four flavors on our tongue: sweet, bitter, sour, and salty? | Humans can taste more than four flavors on their tongue. Depending on how narrowly you define "taste", there are between five and several dozen independently experienced sensations on the tongue, according to the book "Taste and Smell: An Update" by Thomas Hummel. The seven most common flavors in food that are directl... |
context: biology question: How did doctors create my belly button? | Doctors did not create your belly button (or navel). The navel is not the scar or knot left by a doctor that cut your umbilical cord at birth. This fact is obvious to anyone that has ever had children or bathed newborns, but it is sometimes misunderstood by others. While you were in your mother's womb, your umbilical ... |
context: biology question: How do trees give earth all its oxygen? | All of earth's oxygen does not come from trees. Rather, the atmospheric oxygen that we depend on as humans comes predominantly from the ocean. According to National Geographic, about 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from marine plants and plant-like organisms. These ocean-living plants release molecular oxyge... |
context: biology question: How does the outer layer of skin cells on my finger detect when I am touching an object? | The outer layer of skin cells on your finger does not detect anything. The outer layer of your skin contains cells that are dead. In fact, the outermost 25 to 30 cell layers of your skin consist of dead cells that do nothing beyond providing a physical barrier that keeps water in and chemicals out. Furthermore, all re... |
context: biology question: How long before genetic sequencing is able to tell us exactly how our children will look and act? | Genetic sequencing will never be able to perfectly predict an organism's appearance and behavior for the simple reason that genes are not the only thing that determine biology. There are three basic factors that determine the nature of an organism: 1) genetics, 2) unconscious environmental factors, 3) learned and cons... |
context: biology question: How strong does a non-toxic odor have to be before it damages your sense of smell? | The sense of smell does not really work that way. If an odor, such as the smell of a strawberry, is not chemically reactive enough to do damage, your sense of smell will remain unharmed no matter how strong the smell becomes. In this way, the sense of smell is very different from the sense of sight and the sense of he... |
context: biology question: Is it completely random whether a baby is a boy or a girl? | Although the evidence is not yet extensive enough to be conclusive, analysis of genetic mechanisms seems to suggest that whether a certain couple will give birth to a boy versus a girl may not be completely random (i.e. a 50%-50% chance). Certain instances of conception and child-bearing may be slightly more likely to... |
context: biology question: What chemicals can make human tissue regenerate in seconds? | No chemicals can make human tissue regenerate in seconds. Biological tissue is composed mainly of a large collection of cells sitting in a scaffolding of proteins and sugar chains (the extracellular matrix) and bathed in fluids that carry various chemicals between the cells. The regeneration of tissue mainly involves ... |
context: biology question: When do birds use their teeth? | Birds do not have teeth. Without teeth, a bird cannot chew its food down to bits in its mouth like humans do. As detailed in the textbook Ornithology by Frank B. Gill, birds must instead rely on the muscular stomach-like pouch called the gizzard to crush down their food. Many species swallow stones and grit to aid in ... |
context: biology question: Where in my body is the original cell from which I was formed? | From one point of view, the original cell you came from (the fertilized egg cell) was destroyed long before your body was formed. From another point of view, every cell in your body is the original. In either case, there is not just one original cell sitting in your elbow or toe that can be identified as the ancestor ... |
context: biology question: Why are bats blind? | Bats are not blind and can in fact see quite well using their eyes. While most bats do have advanced ears that give them a form of vision in the dark known as echolocation, these good ears does not require them to have bad eyes. Bats use their good hearing to find food in the dark of night, and their good eyes to find... |
context: biology question: Why can only certain parts of the tongue taste sweet flavors? Is there an evolutionary benefit to this? | All parts of the tongue can taste every flavor. The tongue, and indeed the sides of the mouth, the epiglottis and other tissues are all covered with taste buds. Each taste bud contains many taste cells that can taste different flavors. According to the textbook "Neuroscience" edited by Dale Purves, this misconception ... |
context: biology question: Why does chewing gum take seven years to digest? | Swallowed chewing gum does not stay in your system for seven years. Gum, along with anything else inedible, passes from your mouth into the toilet in about a day or two, according to Dr. Michael Picco of the Mayo Clinic. Perhaps this misconception is popular due to the fact that gum is not easily digested and is also ... |
context: biology question: Why does every cell in our body contain DNA? | Not every cell in the human body contains DNA bundled in a cell nucleus. Specifically, mature red blood cells and cornified cells in the skin, hair, and nails contain no nucleus. As part of the maturation process, human red blood cells destroy their cell nuclei. They do this in order to carry as much oxygen as possibl... |
context: biology question: Why don't dogs sweat? | Dogs do sweat. Sweating is a physiological response to heat where sweat glands secrete salty water. When the water evaporates, it takes energy with it, cooling down the organism in the process. Although dogs don't sweat profusely and visibly the way humans do, they definitely have sweat glands that secrete sweat in re... |
context: biology question: Why don't I burst cells in my rear when I sit down? | You do burst cells when you sit down on broken glass or a pile of pins. The experience is painful and messy. But let's assume you were referring to sitting on a flat chair, in which case you do indeed burst very few of the cells in your body. Why is this? The answer lies in the difference between sitting on broken gla... |
context: biology question: Why will a mother bird abandon its chick if touched by a human? | A mother bird will not abandon its chick if touched by a human. Many birds have a limited sense of smell and will not be aware that a human has come near their chicks unless they see it happen. According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, it's best to leave birds alone anyways. A bird with feathers can... |
context: earth-science question: Clouds are just water vapor, so why do they move? | Clouds are not water vapor. Water vapor is the gas state of H2O and is invisible. The air around you on a humid summer day is chock full of water vapor, but you don't see any of it. On the other hand, there is very little water vapor in the air during the cold of winter, yet you can easily make clouds with your breath... |
context: earth-science question: How do geologists use carbon dating to find the age of rocks? | Geologists do not use carbon-based radiometric dating to determine the age of rocks. Carbon dating only works for objects that are younger than about 50,000 years, and most rocks of interest are older than that. Carbon dating is used by archeologists to date trees, plants, and animal remains; as well as human artifact... |
context: earth-science question: How do icebergs lose their salt? | Icebergs do not have any salt to begin with. Icebergs are not pieces of frozen ocean water. Rather, icebergs are frozen chunks of fresh water that began their life on land. It all starts when snow falls in a region of land that is too cold for the snow to melt. Over time, the non-salty snow builds up on the ground. Wi... |
context: earth-science question: How does trash in the ocean disappear? | Much of the trash in the ocean does not disappear, and this is becoming a big problem. Biodegradable materials such as paper, cardboard, and food quickly disintegrate, degrade, and are eaten by microorganisms in the ocean. However, materials such as plastic, glass, and metal do not degrade as well. Glass and metal ten... |
context: earth-science question: If I jump, will the entire earth move a little bit? | It's true that every force has an equal and opposite force. Newton's Third Law of Motion states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When the earth pushes on you to send you into the air after jumping, you also push on the earth with the same force. But forces are different from accelerations.... |
context: earth-science question: If I were able to dig a hole from the U.S. through the center of the earth, what part of China would I end up in? | The U.S. is in the northern hemisphere. If you went straight through the earth's center, you would end up in the southern hemisphere, nowhere near China. Take a globe of the earth and rest it on the palm of your hand like a basketball so that the U.S. is touching your palm. The spot on the globe pointing straight up i... |
context: earth-science question: What causes the water going down a drain to swirl clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere? | Water swirling down a drain does not always go a certain direction. You can get the same sink to swirl water clockwise one minute and counter-clockwise the next. This misunderstanding has its basis in a very real effect: the Coriolis force. The Coriolis force is in the same family as the centrifugal force. It is an in... |
context: earth-science question: What makes the Sahara the largest desert in the world? | The Sahara is not the largest desert in the world. Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. Deserts are not defined by hot temperatures and sand dunes. Rather, deserts are defined by a very low amount of rain and snow. These low amounts of precipitation lead to very little liquid water on the ground. As a result... |
context: earth-science question: What makes the soil in tropical rainforests so rich? | Actually, the soil in tropical rainforests is very poor. You would think with all that vegetation, warmth, and moisture that the soil must be very rich. But the truth is otherwise, as people who live in these regions are well aware. According to the textbook "Tropical Rainforests: Latin American Nature and Society in ... |
context: earth-science question: Why did so many people believe the world is flat when it is obviously a sphere? | The earth is not a sphere. The earth is an oblate spheroid with a diameter at the equator that is 43 km larger than at the poles, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This bulging at the equator is caused by the spinning motion of the earth, much like how spinning pizza dough in the air ca... |
context: earth-science question: Why does the air only contain water vapor and not other kinds of vapors? | The air does indeed contain many different vapors. Any time you smell something, it is because a strong concentration of that particular vapor has entered the air and then entered your nose. For instance, when peppermint oil is sitting out, some of it naturally evaporates. Peppermint oil in the vapor state then enters... |
context: earth-science question: Why don't the gases in the atmosphere separate out according to mass? | The various gases in earth's atmosphere do indeed partially separate out into layers according to molecular mass, as can be seen in the figure below. This figure shows the composition of the atmosphere as a function of the height above the ground. In this figure, the label for each curve indicates the gas that is repr... |
context: earth-science question: Why don't the oceans freeze? | If the temperature is cold enough, ocean water does freeze. The polar ice cap at earth's North Pole is a giant slab of frozen ocean water. At earth's South Pole, the land mass constituting Antarctica complicates the situation, so most of the ice there is compacted snow. Over cold regions such as Antarctica, Greenland,... |
context: earth-science question: Why is the sky not blue as seen from space? | The daytime sky is indeed blue as seen from space. Look closely at any color-accurate photograph of earth taken from space and the blue tint of everything on the day side is unmistakable. This blue tint is the sky. The daytime sky as viewed from space is not a solid, uniform blob of blue for two reasons: (1) there are... |
context: health question: Can a man's testosterone be boosted naturally? | Yes, but probably not in the way you are thinking, and only if the man has a healthy testosterone hormone system to begin with. Testosterone is an important hormone that plays many roles. In adult males, testosterone promotes muscle growth, physical energy, assertive and competitive moods, sperm development, libido, a... |
context: health question: How can Lyme disease last for years? | If treated, Lyme disease does not last for years. However, for some people, the after-effects of the disease can linger for months and sometimes even years. Alternative medicine providers call this condition "Chronic Lyme disease," but this title is simply wrong. For a person who has been infected with Lyme disease an... |
context: health question: How do antibiotics kill viruses? | Antibiotics don't kill viruses. Viruses can't be killed because they are not alive in the first place. As presented in any Virology textbook, such as the one by John Carter and Venetia Saunders, viruses do not eat food, metabolize, or reproduce on their own and can't be considered life. They are just bits of DNA insid... |
context: health question: How do baby walkers teach a baby to walk sooner? | Baby walkers do not teach a baby to walk and in fact delay the development of the baby's motor skills and walking ability. The walker acts as a crutch, denying the baby the opportunity to develop leg muscles and coordination on his own. Even more serious, the use of baby walkers has been found to lead to numerous acci... |
context: health question: How do your intestines detox your body? | The intestines are not the main organ that detoxifies the human body. That function is carried out mainly by the liver. It is the function of the intestines to absorb nutrients from the food you eat and excrete food that your body does not absorb. Although all cells have the ability to metabolize chemicals, it is main... |
context: health question: How does dust get in a house when the doors and windows are always closed? | Dust is more than just bits of dirt and sand from outside. In fact, any solid matter that is broken into small enough bits to be blown around becomes dust. Outside, common sources of dust are dirt, sand, pollen, and pollution. Indoors, common sources of dust include dead skin and hair cells from humans, the carcasses ... |
context: health question: How long can you wait after dropping food on the ground to eat it without having germs attached? Some say it's a five-second rule, others say ten. | Germs immediately attach to food dropped on the floor. They don't have to wait five seconds to do anything. Germs are very sticky creatures; as soon as your food touches the floor, the germs stick, according to research done by P. Dawson as reported in the Journal of Applied Microbiology. Dawson further found that sig... |
context: health question: How long do you have to exercise for it to count? | Exercise starts to "count" the second you start to exercise. By the word "count", I assume we mean that the exercise is making you healthier. Every second of physical exertion makes you healthier, no matter what the activity is, or how long you have been doing it. It's not like the first twenty minutes of a run accomp... |
context: health question: How often should hydrogen peroxide be used to treat wounds? | Hydrogen peroxide should never be used to treat wounds as it does more harm than good. In fact, no antiseptic should be used to treat wounds. While highly reactive chemical agents such as hydrogen peroxide do indeed kill some bacteria, they do more damage to healthy cells that are attempting to heal the wound. This fa... |
context: health question: I know anything from a plant is safe to eat, but anything from a lab can be dangerous. How can I tell if something came from a plant or a lab? | Not everything from a plant is safe to eat. Some of the most dangerous substances come from plants, not from laboratories. Cyanide is natural and is deadly. Backyard plants such as poison oak, poison ivy, and poison sumac should never be eaten. Mind-altering drugs like marijuana, tobacco, and cocaine all come from pla... |
context: health question: Is fruit juice healthier than whole fruit? | No, fruit juice is not healthier than whole fruit in general. Even if the juice is freshly squeezed on the spot, drinking the juice is less healthy than eating the fruit whole. You may be tempted into thinking that since fruit juice comes straight from the fruit, they must be nutritionally equivalent. But such thinkin... |
context: health question: What should I do if I can't swallow pills? | Virtually everyone can swallow pills. If you can swallow food, you can swallow pills. It just takes practice. For those with unusually large tonsils, an unusually sensitive gag reflex, and an unusually large pill to get down, swallowing may seem impossible. But even in such cases, swallowing down these pills can becom... |
context: health question: When someone's heart skips a beat, what is wrong with his heart? | There is most likely nothing wrong with his heart. But a person with a heart that frequently skips beats should talk with his doctor to be safe. If the person has already told his doctor and has had some heart tests done that came back normal, then there is probably nothing wrong with his heart. The feeling of your he... |
context: health question: Why do heart attacks always cause chest pain? | Heart attacks do not always cause chest pain. This is a dangerous misconception. While chest pain often does accompany a heart attack, sometimes it does not and the symptoms are less severe. The American Heart Association states, "Although it's common to have chest pain or discomfort, a heart attack may cause subtle s... |
context: health question: Why do women get more tooth problems during pregnancy? | Perhaps you have heard the old adage "gain a baby, lose a tooth". In this particular case, the old adage ends up being true, and the culprit is hormones. According to the Mayo Clinic, the higher levels of progesterone and estrogen in the mother's body help the baby grow but these hormones also weaken the bones and lig... |
context: health question: Why does chocolate cause acne? | Chocolate does not cause acne. Acne is caused by overactive sebaceous glands. Sebaceous glands are microscopic glands connected to the hair follicles. Their job is to secrete skin oil (sebum), which travels up the shaft of the hair and out onto the skin in order to waterproof the body. If the glands secrete too much s... |
context: health question: Why does mainstream medicine only treat patients with drugs? | Mainstream medicine does not only treat patients with drugs. Mainstream medicine encompasses all techniques that have been shown by credible evidence to successfully promote and protect human health. This includes surgery, physical therapy, exercise, balanced nutrition, adequate sleep, preventative care, counseling an... |
context: physics question: Can gold be created from other elements? | Yes, gold can be created from other elements. But the process requires nuclear reactions, and is so expensive that you currently cannot make money by selling the gold that you create from other elements. All regular matter is made out of atoms. All atoms are made out of a small nucleus containing protons and neutrons ... |
context: physics question: How bad would a person's injuries be if an elevator's cables snapped at the 100th floor so that the elevator fell to the bottom? | Elevator's cables almost never snap. And if a cable did snap, there are backup cables attached. Even if all the cables snapped, an elevator still would not fall to the bottom floor. Elevators have a passive, automatic, built-in braking system. The brakes require no electricity, no remote control, and no human operator... |
context: physics question: How do airplanes fly upside down if it's the shape of the wings that make them fly? | The shape of the wings is not the main reason that airplanes fly. Rather, the angle of attack for the wings is what creates most of the lift, as laid out in the book "Flight Physics" by Egbert Torenbeek and H. Wittenberg. The role angle of attack plays in flight is explained in detail by NASA's education website. If t... |
context: physics question: What stops a piece of paper from being folded more than seven times? | Nothing stops a piece of paper from being folded more than seven times if the paper is thin enough. Depending on the thickness and width of the paper, after a certain number of folds, the paper stack becomes thicker than it is wide. After that point, there simply is nothing left to fold, so the limit is reached. Each ... |
context: physics question: Why are the microwaves in a microwave oven tuned to water? | The microwaves in a microwave oven are not tuned to a resonant frequency of water. In fact, the microwaves generated inside a microwave oven are not really tuned to any particular resonant frequency since the waves are broadband. A broadband electromagnetic wave contains many frequencies. You need a monochromatic wave... |
context: physics question: Why does air friction affect a car's gas mileage? | Air friction does not significantly affect a car's gas mileage. Air turbulence does. Whereas air friction is the opposing force caused by air rubbing sideways along a surface, air turbulence is the act of stirring up the air and creating pressure differences. Cars are slowed down when they stir up the air too much. St... |
context: physics question: Why don't I feel the miles of air above me that are crushing me down? | Air does not crush you down. As a fluid, air flows around you and tries to crush you in. Fortunately, there is typically just as much pressure inside your body pressing outward as there is air pressure outside your body pushing inward. They typically cancel out, meaning that there is no overall force on you and you do... |
context: physics question: Why don't scientists use fractal concepts more considering that fractals are everywhere? | First of all, fractals are not everywhere. Fractals are shapes that are self-similar in nontrivial ways at several different scales, such as the shape of a tree's branches or a coastline. The arrangements of atoms in typical bulk solids are not fractal; they are crystalline. The shapes of large astronomical bodies are... |
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