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Why is it team Great Britain in the Olympics but England, Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland in other tournaments, such as the World Cup?	Football got their start on the British Isles. The first international football match was an England vs. Scotland match in 1870, and there was a yearly "Home Country Championship" in Football nearly 50 years before there was a World Cup. So by the time Football spread to the rest of Europe and the World, there was a long tradition of the British Countries competing separately, and it was natural for them to apply separately to FIFA for membership. Compare with the Olympics, which at their start in 1896 consisted almost entirely of individual events. There was no comparable long history of England vs. Scotland forming teams and competing against each other in Track, Bicycling, or Wrestling, so no reason for them to form separate teams in those events for the Olympics. When football was then added to the Olympics, it was just one event among many, so there 'd be no reason for Great Britain to separate just because of that.
The UK parliament has voted to bomb Syria, everybody in my circle is against the idea, what are the arguments FOR bombing Syria?	It isn't just "bombing Syria." It's bombing ISIS/ISIL in Syria. By killing them in Syria and Iraq, it is hindering their ability to gain ground, money, influence, and people under their control. In turn, this will limit their ability to project influence and conduct attacks in the West> Nobody seems to be FOR bombing in Syria. So why was the vote an overwhelming "Yes" by politicians? That's a combination of demographics, and confirmation bias. Search ukpollingreport to get national polls, which suggest about a 20%+ lead in national opinion for conducting bombing raids. > How can this possibly be good? Supporters argue that bombing ISIL in Syria will degrade their capacity to carry out terror attacks overseas, and rule parts of Syria & Iraq using terror as a tool of public policy.
Why do iPhones have issues with sending and receiving pictures from androids, and vice versa?	iPhones will use iMessage to send texts if it thought that the other side had an iPhone. If you had an iPhone, and then switched to an android phone, you might have not deregistered iMessage _URL_0_ If you don't do that, then people on iPhones sending messages to your android device will try to use iMessage and fail. When it fails, it should try to switch to SMS, but I can see a potential for it to fail on a multimedia message and not try to switch to MMS. I don't know though, but I've seen lots of problems on my wife's side, where my wife has an iPhone and often has problems with sending texts to people who used to have an iPhone and moved to an android phone.
OK, I'm enamored with all the "It's 2013 in New Zealand" posts, but what would happen if we were ALL on the same universal time?	Clock time would no longer be associated with shared events like lunchtime and bedtime. A good chunk of the world would have a annoying and potentially confusing date change in the middle of their waking dayBusiness would suffer, I imagine a major part of world-spanning companies would find it more difficult to communicate with components on the other side of the globe. As it is right now, you know that Japan is X hours ahead, you know what "3AM in Japan" means, because you can associate that time with your own time, and be reasonably sure no one would be there if you called. In the universal time, companies would have hours based around daylight, but with no shared reference. Call Japan right after lunch and you might not realize that you are calling them at the exact middle of the night Sure, these problems could be sorted out but the system in place now works fine, and there would be enough confusion adding up that intercontinental business would have a noticeable amount of trouble attempting to franchise overseas.12:00 Noon wouldn't mean the sun is at it's highest point in the day in every spot. Sundial makers would be really put out.A lot of people would have very boring fireworksGetting up with 2am would be normal for more people
Americans are considered "lazy" but Europeans, on average, take 10 more vacation days per year (source inside).	I've only heard that Americans rush through life and work too much. I think you may be confusing the Americans-are-fat stereotype with lazy.You could make an argument that it's precisely because we work more that we end up being perceived as lazy. The whole culture of convenience in our personal lives is probably at least partially tied to the fact that we have less leisure time, but this "wasted" leisure time comes off as simply "lazy" to European eyesSpeaking as a reluctant resident of the American south, I'll tell you that Americans aren't lazy, just fat. If anything they are horrible workaholics, never taking their eyes off of "what's next" or the "job at hand". From what I have observed in my 18 years of being an american it's that we as a culture seem to have forgotten how to stop and enjoy ourselves.I think you are trying to relate two different things. Americans being lazy is a stereotype that other people have, but it isn't based on how many days a year they have off. Consider this made-up statement: Asians are considered better at maths but Americans, on average, have 1.4 more calculators per household. It's not related but at some level it may appear to be related.
Why do the powers at be make it so difficult to travel the world, live where one wants, and basically be more free to live and work anywhere?	I don't think you could answer this in an ELI5, or even a dissertation. There are so many factors at play. I'd like to hope that eventually we can work toward cultural compatibility, much and such as if you live in the EU you can travel and work in any country there and cross borders without controls. 1, We have inherent racism in the system, if you're not white you're a immigrant. If you're from a first world country you're an ex-pat. 2, Wealth inequality. We like our way of life and don't want to dilute it, so try to avoid letting poor people into the west. Which goes hand in hand with; 3, Living condition disparity. The majority of the worlds population lives below the poverty line, and in some horrific places. With open borders we could realistically expect migration to overwhelm the countries being migrated too. They would collapse under the sheer numbers involved. 4, Cultural fear; we fear that if we let everyone in, then all of a sudden we'll lose out cultural identities, as an extreme Bin Laden will be voted in as president and sharia law will take over Denmark.. There's natural xenophobia throughout the world, particularly when dealing with alternative cultures. If we could resolve those issues we'd be well on the way. They're pretty big issues though. Things are getting better across the first world in respect to visa's and travel, we're a long ways off yet though.Because modern societies are so large that they require different things for upholding said societies and allowing them to function
If our taste is largely linked to our smell, how come some things taste completely different from the way they smell? (i.e. soap)	Some things like soap have scents specifically added to them in order to smell pleasant. But whatever they use to add that scent either doesn't add a taste as well or is otherwise overwhelmed by the actual taste of the chemicals in the soap.
How are personality disorders like psychopathy or ANPD treated in a clinical setting?	First off, psychopathy is not a disorder, a spectrum, or a diagnosis. It is a trait that might appear in any number of disorders, sort of like "difficulty falling asleep" is a trait that might appear in disorders like depression or schizophrenia. With all personality disorders, you can fully expect to see a psychiatrist or therapist at some point in your treatment. You'll never need to check into a psychiatric hospital against your will. There are many different kinds of therapies and medications, many of which are particular to specific disorders, so you 'd have to be more specific regarding that.
How does the postal service machinery know the correct amount of postage has been put on via stamps? Especially with old postage stamps, or a many small currency stamps.	The usps is very outdated and playing catch up they aren't good at catching it and rely on the workers a lot to catch it . They use to be really terrible and I know people who would ship out dozens of packages daily all at 1 lb no matter what and rarely ever had issues for years . Fedex use to check 10% of packages for accuracy and now I am not positive but it might be 100% of them . Conveyor belts , cameras , sensors , scales barcodes it all gets processed now with lightning speeds at the distribution centers . Watch any Fedex or ups warehouse video or documentary online and you can see how crazy they are . Tons of people still scam the post office all that happens is you get a " postage due" notice unless it's on a massive wide scale then maybe they will investigate and prosecute . Fedex and ups just bill you no matter what depending on weight and dimensions .
How can so much of our hair fall out during the day without it appearing any thinner?	Hair has a life cycle, just like everything else on your body. For every hair you lose, you are growing one to replace it. According to: _URL_0_ The hair renews itself in 2 to 6 year cycles that are broken down into 3 phases: • The growth phase which lasts for 2 to 6 years, during which the hair grows 1 or 2cm a month. • The transitional phase, which corresponds to a resting phase of 2 to 3 weeks: activity stops and the hair no longer grows. • The falling phase which lasts for 2 to 4 months and ends the hair cycle by the hair falling out. At the same time, a new bud appears that then forms a new hair shaft. During its life, each follicle is capable of reproducing around twenty cycles.
Why does salt and too much sugar make us thirsty?	Both are soluble in water and get absorbed more or less completely by our digestive system. This results in an increase in solutes in our blood and extracellular fluid, which is bad news for our cells as water will be drained from them through osmosis. Sugars will be converted to burned by our cells, converted to glycogen and fat relatively quickly, but the salt has to be removed by the kidneys which means it has to be expelled through urine. As the kidneys can only concentrate urine to a certain point, it will need more water to channel the salts into, luckily we have osmoreceptors near our brain that initiate water seeking behavior when our body fluids are too saltySalt has a quite unique property, it attracts water. This is why our body uses salt for water balance. Salt gets solved in water and if there is too much the relative salt level in the body will increase and the body tells you to drink more water so that it can urinate out the excess salt. Sugar might be because our cells instantly start to break sugar down. That process requires water.
If laptops have been around since the early/mid 90s and they had LCD screens, why were LCD TVs not developed sooner?	A lot had to do with price. Laptops were expensive, and there was no way to do one with a CRT. LCDs were still developing fast, and were very expensive. On the other hand, the CRT makers had long since amortised all their capital costs, in contrast to the LCD makers who were paying for expensive tooling up. TV is a very price-sensitive market, so the CRT makers chased the LCDs down in price and maintained their advantageBesides cost.. The refresh rate of LED was terrible. So terrible that Windows made a mouse option of "mouse trails". Because you could move your mouse and lose track of it due to the slow refresh rate. Any moving image would leave trails and artifacts. Which is why the first laptops where just small word processors.LCDs didn't look anywhere near as good as CRTs for the money either. Even to this day, a CRT TV technically has better color depth and dynamic range than an LCD. I think OLEDs will finally start putting flat panels in the color quality range of CRTs. It was literally a case of 2 steps forward, 1 step back. so the answer is just the cost/picture quality wasn't there.Have you ever looked at an old laptop screen? They look like shitBecause early LCDs had Low brightness, poor color, and narrow angles of visibility.They did have LCD TVs since the 80's but the screens were tiny. LCD screens became popular due to a few different factors. 1) being yields of large enough LCD panels. 2) being TV signals being digitized .In addition so some of other excellent responses, it is important to remember the first few generations of laptops had monochrome displays.The technology was too expensive back then, people weren't willing to pay en masse for super expensive TV's .
Why do some countries have toilet bowls with more water than others?	Have you seen a map of your country? It's mostly a desert in the middle and all the settlements are around the coast. You don't have much fresh water. Other countries can be quite liberal with their use of water but you're stuck with your efficient toilet designs.
Why can blackheads be extracted but pimples can be popped?	No. Both are an infections. A blackhead is one that the infection and dirt is open to the air so it oxidizes and turns a dark brown or blackish color. A whitehead is one where the dirt and infection are within a closed pore and so stays white or yellowish and you have to force it out of the pore to get rid of it . Note that not all black spots on your face are blackheads. Some, like those on your nose, are pores around small hairs that produce natural oils that keep your skin healthy. These oils also happen to collect a bit of dirt and look black but they are not an infection. In fact removing them too often can cause ingrown hairs, can damage oil production leading to dry skin, and can cause infection points as pore stop being protected by oils.
Why does my stomach feel shaky and nauseous when I don't get enough sleep?	Your digestive system has a routine, it does certain things at certain times of the day. When you disrupt your routine , your digestive routine also gets disrupted, which can make you feel unwell. The digestive routine is an example of a [Circadian rhythm]', "When I don't get enough sleep ceu the coffee. Lots of coffee. Which results in said symptoms. Got coffee? Might be that.I am a doctor and I think you need more sleep. Disclaimer: PhD in Physics.
Why is palm oil such a major ingredient in almost every single item that is being sold at grocery stores?	Palm oil is cheap to produce and is very stable at high temperatures for frying and cooking applications. Compared to other food oils, it's more versatile and cost-effective for companies to use.
Why is transgender grouped with LGBT?	LGBT has generally expanded to include anyone outside of cis heterosexuals, as they all commonly fight for the same human rights.Two reasons. One, we have common enemies: most anti-LGB people are anti-T, and most anti-T people are anti-LGBT. This isn't absolute, but it's a strong rule of thumb, and was even stronger historically. Two, almost all trans people are, or are seen by the public as being, LGB at some point in their lives, because a 'straight' orientation living as one sex becomes a 'gay' one as the other sex in the eyes of the public and vice-versa.1. Because we face similar problems. Homophobia and transphobia are similar and intertwined. 2. Because the communities have historically been together. Further in the past, there was less distinction between gay and trans.Society has historically disliked gays/lesbians because they don't adhere to gender conformity; They don't conform to the gender stereotype that if you're a man you fall in love with a woman . This is why many people tend to dislike feminine gay men and butch lesbians more than other gays/lesbians. Trans people are also gender non-conforming, but in a different way, i.e., that woman were all born with vaginas and men were all born with penises. So naturally, people who are anti-gay are also anti-trans because they don't like people who don't conform to gender stereotypes. This puts trans people in a similar boat with gays/lesbians/bisexuals. They're disliked by society by not being normal, so they share some common issues and common enemies.
Why can't I swallow twice in quick succession, without it being difficult?	It's because swallowing starts a chain reaction of muscle movements in the throat all the way down the digestive tract called peristalsis. So the top muscles in the throat have to wait until the adjacent muscles are ready to start again. It's like trying to start a "wave" at a sporting event when the person next to you is still standing up. It just doesnt workI want to thank you. For I just spent the last two minutes trying this. Without successBut, why am I able to swallow fast while drinking and now, need to wait a few seconds?
What exactly does 12 years of public school teach you that you can't learn on your own either through books or the Internet?	Here are some of the things I learned in K-12 that I don't think I could have learned nearly as effectively through books or the internet. Obviously, much of this is subjective. In no particular order: * Right from wrong* How to socialize face-to-face* How it feels to be bullied* Personal responsibility* That I am not special* What heartbreak feels like* Time management* Public speaking* What it looks, smells, and feels like to dissect a rat
Why aren't the MLB leagues divided by Eastern and Western conferences like the NBA and NHL?	Because they started as 2 completely separate leagues, the American League and the National League. They were completely separate except or the All Star Game and World Series for most of their existence. Regular season games between AL and NL teams didn't start until 1997, and both leagues even had their own umpires, offices, and presidents until 1999/2000. also, the fact that they have different rules would make realignment take a little more work than the snap of a finger.
Why, even though I used to be tiny and have a fast metabolism, did quitting Prozac (antidepressants) cause me to gain nearly 50 pounds in two months?	It most likely affected your appetite causing you to eat more than you used to. Have you had any changes in how active you are?', "Sounds like food became the primary substitute for your meds. I know when I'm sad I start binge eating like crazy. Maybe your mood changed your behavior in small, but powerful ways.
How does developers input "traps" in their software for pirated copies? How do they distinguish between real and pirate, and why can't someone just upload new copies without it?	This is called "digital rights management", or DRM. DRM comes in a variety of forms. When software came with printed manuals, sometimes there 'd be information on the manual the program would force you to enter. Later, when software came on CD's, often extra DRM data on the CD was written in non-standard locations that can be read by most CD drives through low-level operating system calls, but cannot be written by most home CD burners. For game consoles, games use proprietary cartridges or discs that are different from normal forms of those media. The console manufacturer basically tightly controls the production of physical copies of games. So for the most part, you can't e.g. simply use a normal DVD burner to make copies of Wii games. These days, where most software is bought and sold on the internet, DRM has to take a different approach because there's no physical stuff you can put extra required information on. It often involves the software contacting a server being run by the publisher , and ensuring the usage of the software is authorized. For example it may check that the serial number is legitimate, or it may require the user to login to an account. It will also generally deny access to serial numbers or user accounts that are seen in multiple locations. > why can't someone just upload new copies without it? This is called "cracking
What's the difference between the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the FBI?	The DOJ is a cabinet-level agency which is responsible for enforcing US federal law. The FBI is an agency which operates under that . A full breakdown is here:_URL_0_
Why they don't teach how to do taxes, credit cards, insurance(health and auto), loans, investments in general public schools.	They teach the underlying skills you need to figure these things out on your own. Reading comprehension, a bit of research, and some basic math is all you really need to figure out how all this stuff works. If schools had to teach you every life skill you'd need, we'd be in school for the entirety of our lives. The purpose of education is to teach you how to reason about the world around you so you can better face the vast variety of challenges life will throw at you, not to tell you the solution to every problem you will face in your lifetime.
Why hasn't anyone else been to the moon? It seems like something that super rich people would do for fun, like James Cameron going to the Mariana Trench.	If' Elon Musk has taught you nothing else, it's that getting to space is really, really hard and expensive. Getting a submersible that can withstand the depths of the ocean is small potatoes in comparison. Least of all that you're not sittin on top of a giant bomb that can go off if something goes wrong. The worst that can happen is that you spring a leak and are crushed like cotton candy in a fat kids fingers.
What's the difference between an Artifact and a Relic?	In Christianity, a relic is a bone or other body part of a saint, sometimes extended to include related items like pieces of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Other ancient objects are referred to as "relics" by analogy, but the word tends to imply religious significance. Any man-made item from history can be an archeological artifact.
is there a certain amount of bandwidth available? Why is there a cap on gigs from Cell phone service? And why does the internet slow down?	There is a limitation on the bandwidth available. It's usually referred to as capacity. The hardware that a company has deployed can only handle so much traffic at once. Anymore and it will usually slow everything down for everyone or result in quality issues. The cap and slowing down the internet are traffic management practices. Companies use them to control how much traffic is going through their network to ensure that the quality of service for all users are high. At least that's the public reasoning. In reality they're there for a revenue grab. Except for a few densely populated areas during certain times of the day, capacity really isn't an issue for the companies. Many parts of the world doesn't have nearly as stringent bandwidth management practices yet maintain cheaper and better service.> is there a certain amount of bandwidth available? At any given time, yes. Think of the path your internet data takes between your ISP and your computer as a pipe, where you can only physically push so much "stuff" through them at one time before they start to get "clogged"; this is a very simplified explanation, but serves well enough for our purposes here. > Why is there a cap on gigs from Cell phone service? To keep any one person/group of people from hogging too much of the available bandwidth at any given time, slowing it down for everyone else. > why does the internet slow down? Like above, bandwidth constraints. With cable internet for example, generally you and your neighbors all connect to your service through the same physical point, so if they're using a lot it can leave less for the rest of the neighborhood. With cell-based internet it isn't necessarily centralized to your local neighborhood, but follows the same concept.
How high up do you have to be above water for it to be fatal when you hit the surface?	Just on a side note: Do we have to worry about you asking such a question?', "It depends what cause of death you're looking for, impact or drowning. From the Golden Gate Bridge wikipedia article: > The Golden Gate Bridge is the second-most used\xa0suicide site/suicide bridge\xa0in the world, after the\xa0Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.\xa0The deck is about 245 feet above the water. After a fall of four seconds,\xa0jumpers hit the water at around 75\xa0mph or about 120\xa0km/h. Most of the jumpers die from impact\xa0trauma. About 5% of the jumpers survive the initial impact but generally\xa0drown or die of\xa0hypothermia\xa0in the cold water. High-diving records. _URL_0_: > In 1987 Olivier Fave attempted a double back somersault from 177\xa0ft but broke his back upon impact and had to be rescued.There was a Mythbusters episode on this a LONG time ago. I believe it was around 200 feet when the mere impact would kill you. They said it was like the equivalent of falling 50 feet onto concrete. But like I said it was a long time ago so I may not be remembering correctly[Judging from this chart] I would say you need to be about an 8. Anything above that and you may not be able to affect the change required to initiate the fall. Anything less and you probably would still be able to swimHow about if you had something attached to the bottom of your feet like a rock. This would break up the water surface tension allowing you to enter the water with no impact trauma to yourself. Ignoring the subsequent problem of the rock dragging you to the bottom and drowning!', "Watched a documentary about the people who've attempted suicide off the Golden Gate Bridge and lived..it was horrible to hear them say that the minute they jumped, they instantly regretted it..How high could you go if the surface tension was being interrupted? Like jumping into a large breaking wave or similar disturbanceFriend of mine broke his neck at appx 40 ft jump into a water filled quarry. Positioning and body type matter.
How does Jesus's death allow all humans who worship Jesus to be forgiven from their sins?	In the Jewish tradition, animals were sacrificed for sins but only temporarily. Every year they were supposed to go to the temple in Jerusalem and do this. They were waiting for a messiah to come to take their sins away permanently. They don't believe Jesus was the messiah for lots of reasons but two big ones were that he died and he didn't overthrow the romans. Christians believe he is the messiah and that his death replaced the need for animal sacrifices and that he is the bridge to God . Because he had the power to call angels down he could have easily gotten away from dying on the cross and several times Jewish leaders tried to capture him or stone him and was able to miraculously get away.
Why is pornography not illegal like prostitution is, considering everyone involved is doing it for the money?	Because well because. Long answer, I think that the rationale is that, for pornography, you're paying two people to have sex with each other, and no one is exchanging money in return for an orgasm provided by the other party. I think there's also some expectation that the parties involved are only playing a role . And maybe everyone just imagines that the plot is what's really important, and they're only having sex on camera to further their on screen chemistry. Oh, screw it. There is no reason. It's an arbitrary distinction and it's silly. That's really the answer. EDIT: Need to explain. I'm in no way saying that pornography should be illegal. I'm just not entirely sure why prostitution isn't. In the words of the late George Carlin: "Selling is legal. Fucking is legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?"', "I'm sorry this isn't an explanation but it looks like other people have this covered. Just wanted to leave [This] here.
How does the are corrosive acids and digestive enzymes produced without destroying the glands that produce them?	Your organs release enzymes in an inactive form and when the enzyme reaches its destination it becomes activated. The proteases and phospholipases are secreted by the pancreas in inactive forms and are activated once the enzymes enter the duodemum by the enzyme enterpeptidase that resides there. Pepsin in the stomach is secreted as pepsinogen and only when in low pH does it become pepsin. Things that break sugar and non phospholipases are secreted normally because they are not as dangerous.I presume this is a question aimed at the stomach/intestines no? The stomach produces mucus that coats its lining and protects it from degradation. However to your point, about every 3ish days, the cells turn over here, which is very fast. Edit: foveolar, not goblet cells
function that yawns serve?	If you breathe in irregular patterns, you'll end up yawning. Kind of like a reset to get you breathing properly again, as well as giving you more oxygen etc. And for some reason, they're contagious. If you see someone, or even think about yawning, you'll most likely yawn too, just like I did while talking about it. This is my understanding of it anyway ", 'By yawning you are increasing blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen levels which makes you more alert and improves your basic motor functions.
Why are siblings not sexually attracted to each other?	There's probably a lot of elements to it, genes and immune systems definitely play are part. Take for example the article below which suggests a 'survey of couples suggests people are more attracted to those who have very different immunity genes from their own'. So, as relatives would have similar immunity genes, it would be natural for us to seek partners with different immunities. _URL_0_", 'It seems to be rather hard wired in us to not mate with people that we grow up with. Even in communities where children are raised collectively they mostly find partners outside of the group instead of the other children they were raised withThere is a theory which suggest that our sense of smell plays a huge role in "incest aversion". _URL_2URL_2_ TL;DR is you subconsciously recognize someone from your own family via smell you will not be attracted to them.That's the theory anyway.The phenomenon has a name: _URL_3_ obviously you can't test it, but you can find examples of people brought up in communal childcare situations like the Israeli Kibbutz system and see if it works even with non-siblings who grow up in close proximity.As a rule, you seek out that which is similar but different. Your body has an innate understanding that producing offspring with your sibling is just not as productive in terms of genetic variance than that of a stranger in another town. You do, however, have an attraction to those who look similar to your parents, as past experience tells you that they will be strong, and good carers for your offspring.
what are the pros and cons for fasting for a whole month the way Muslims fast to the human body?	Just to ensure we are all on the same page: muslims only don't eat or drink during the daylight hours of Ramadan. They are free to do whatever after that.
Why do we yawn, and what does it do to our bodies?	The reason why we yawn hasn't been proven yet, but there are some speculative answers: * We yawn because we are bored/tired and this causes us to not take in as much breath as we normally do. So we yawn to help bring more oxygen in and take out carbon dioxide. * Another theory is that we our brain gets hot and we yawn to cool it down, this can actually be proven in many ways: 1. When we open our jaws that wide bloodflow to the brain actually increases which means more oxygen will be traveling upwards. 2. When individuals held a hot pack to their heads they yawned 41% of the time however when it was a cold pack they yawned 9% of the time. Scientists aren't actually sure why yawning is contagious however, but it seems to be linked with empathy and mimicry. This is because yawning may be a product of a quality inherent in social animals. In humans, it’s the ability to understand and feel another individual’s emotions. When we see happy people we tend to smile and imitate the same goes for unhappy people. So when we see someone yawning we imitate not purposefully but it's just a byproduct of how we work.
Why isn't distillation of ocean/sea water a viable option for drinking water supply?	most desalination plants work by forcing see water through a series of membranes under great pressure. This pressure takes a lot of power, and power is expensive. The cost makes it nonviable for most countries. There is a Noble Prize for the person who comes up with a cheap way to make sea water drinkable at a mass level cheaply.Water has very high heat capacity and very high heat of vapourization; this means it takes a lot of energy to boil it for distillation. There are several other technologies that achieve the same result and require less energy so they're preferentially used.Takes a huge amount of resources to do it large-scale.
What would happen to the world economy if every country switched to the same currency?	Immidiate financial meltdown, as variations in currency value is one of the major ways countries use to prevent economic depression from one country spread to another. Before the adoption of the Euro, a EU wide depression was much less likely than today.Long story short it would remove one variable from the foreign trade equation but at the same time it would cause very large problems for nations that aren't as fiscally responsible as others. As an example Greece and Spain as part of the Eurozone have had large problems that couldn't just print their way out of using the same tactics that the US has been using of late. Eventually it would all stabilize out and everything would return to some sort of normalcy though. That might take decades though.
We are all on the same international time, but does time flow differently for each one of us?	There are circumstances where time flows are different rates between different frames of reference. This is referred to as time dilation. This occurs when the differing frames of reference are moving at a high velocity relative to one another, or in differing gravitational fields. For pretty much all humans, our relative speeds are so low, and our gravity so similar, that these effects are negligible in how we experience time relative to one another. Further more, even if you were experiencing a strong relative effect, your own time will always seem normal, because 'you' are a part of that time, slowed down or sped up as well. So the perception of time passing slowly or quickly is just that, a perception, not a physical reality. Interestingly, time isn't alone in the dilation aspect, the same is true of distance, but again only measurable at relative speeds well beyond what we normally experience.
Why do some shirts look more translucent, sometimes even transparent, when they get wet?	If something is uneven then it will bend and reflect light in different direction. If it is smooth the light will pass the object in the same direction. Water will fill uneven part and smooth the object. You can compare it to scratched and unscratched plastic. The amount of light that passes trough is the same but the direktion is changed. A simple experiment is to looks at frosted glas that is hard to see something trough. If you ad a strip of clear tape on it you can look trough it like clear glass because the tape will fill out the unevenness of the surface Compare snow and ice. They are both frozen water but small uneven snow flakes will look white but a large and even block of ice will look transparent.
Why do belly buttons never heal or disappear like most other scars we get on our body?	They already have healed. It isn't that different from most scars where something is cut off. If your arm cut off, the end of the stump would heal in a way that vaguely resembles a belly button. It matters how deep the cut is. If it's just on the most surface layers of the skin, you won't even notice a scar. The more deep, the more serious the scar.
What are warts and where do they come from?	Warts are caused by HPV. It's a viral infection. Warts can be contagious under the right conditions.Wow! In looking at the [Wikipedia page on warts], it appears that using a placebo is nearly as effective as using the usual medical treatment : 48% were cured with the placebo, 75% with the acid.
Why do engines have a harder time starting when they are cold?	Northern Canada checking in. To go along with what the rest are saying regarding fuel, two big factors that resist an easy start are the thickness of the engine oil and the tightness of the sealing surfaces. When very cold the oil is incredibly thick and provides a lot of resistance to the engine trying to spin. This means you have to crank the engine over longer before it will actually fire up, and it puts a lot of strain on the battery. At those temperatures most metals contract slightly leaving larger gaps between surfaces that are supposed to be a very snug fit. This makes it hard for the pistons to create any real compression in the cylinders. This usually means that even once a cylinder or two manage to fire, the rest may not join in right away or at the very least run rough for a few seconds until they have some heat to help seal. So basically when it's cold: fuel doesn't work as well, batteries don't work as well, oil doesn't work as well, and the engines themselves aren't very well sealed.
How does wind happen and what determines gusts and various speeds in different geographical locations?	Wind happens because of differences in atmospheric pressure - things seek to equalize themselves so that air from high pressure area tries to flow to low pressure areas to equalize things. Air moves all the time, e.g., due to temperature differences and the rising of warmer air. The earth's rotation also causes movements. Topographic features can affect movement, etc. All these causes localized changes in pressure that can cause sudden gusts or larger scale air movements
The horizon is where the curvature of the earth obsructs your view of the ground. If the Earth was flat what would the horizon look like?	Probably not all that different to be honest, because aerial or [atmospheric perspective] would kick in, which is the effect you get when you see distant bluish mountains fading into the sky. As things get further away the atmosphere causes the contrast to drop and the view to fade. It wouldn't be so far before the ground would disappear into the sky.
what's the difference between a dead body and a live body?	This is a tricky question, because there are different kinds of "dead". For instance, someone can be brain-dead, but the rest of their body can still be alive. But for simplicity's sake, let's say that you have an unambiguous cadaver being compared to a live person. In that case, the live person has a fully-functional metabolism. All of their individual cells are alive and engaging in constant chemical reactions to convert sugars into energy. In a cadaver, that process has stopped. The lungs are no longer oxygenating blood, and the heart is no longer pumping blood, so all the person's cells are dead or dying.The difference between all living things and non-living things is that a dead thing can not act to preserve it's form. A rock continues on it's path and gets acted upon. Eventually, it decays. A living thing can preserve it's form by attaining values and evading destruction . In the case of the human body, metabolism preserves many functions and yes, electrical pulses in the nervous system and brain preserve it's mind. Should the brain become electrically dead, the person is said to be brain-dead. However, if enough metabolic processes are still keeping the brain alive, full electric impulses can sometimes return - it's tricky! .
Why does lightning branch out?	The charged particles within the lightning are trying to find the path of least resistance to the ground, where charges of the opposite polarity are building up. This trying to find the most convenient way to reach the ground means that sometimes the stream of particles making up the lightning will split, causing branching.
Why can drinking TOO MUCH water make your muscles cramp when exercising?	What causes cramps is loss of electrolytes. Drinking too much water can cause your system to flush out too many electrolytes, but it is not specific to drinking water while exercising but rather you drinking too much water in general.I'm kind of guessing based off of a limited understanding, but your body not only needs water it needs electrolytes. If you drink too much water you can flush electrolytes out. If you don't replace those electrolytes then your body will not react well I'm assuming the cramping is part of that.
How does Google maps track my location even though I have no Wi-Fi or a sim card?	GPS. GPS requires no Wi-Fi or any connection at all. GPS works with geo-stationary satellites which constantly send signals to earth. Lots and lots of satellites. Those signals include which satellite send the signal and the time when this was send. A module within the smartphone receives those signals. If it received signals from atleast 3 different satellites, it can calculate based on the position of the 3 satellites and the time it took the module to receive signals from those the position on earths surface. As I said, this is no connection. Your phone sends nothing for this. It just uses data which is broadcast to everyone all the time.How are you connecting to Google Maps? If your device has GPS, it would use that to locate you on the map, but without access to Wi-Fi or a cellular data network it wouldn't be able to download any map data except for what had already been downloaded previously.
Why do dogs go crazy, and get "the zoomies," after a bath?	Actually we don't know the real reason why dog's have a habit of doing this but there's a lot of theories. 1. Dogs don't like the extra weight of the water on their bodies and so they try and get dry as quickly as they can 2. The water washes their scent and so they run and roll around in order to get their scent back 3. The dog's scared of the taking a bath, so when the bath is over they have a bunch of adrenaline and so they have a lot of energy afterwards There's a few other theories. But there's no concrete proof that any theories are correct
The life cycle of the Sand Worms in the Dune books	Wikipedia has a pretty detailed but fairly straightforward entry which includes a "Lifecycle" section - _URL_0_ Edit: it's Wikipedia, not a dedicated Dune wiki. Also formatting why Edit 2: gave up on formattingThe "little makers" and the sandtrout are the same thing. They are the juvenile form of the large adult worms. They actively seek out water and store it in gigantic pockets under the sand, where it mixes with the organic "excretions" of the sandtrout. This becomes the pre-spice mass, and a chain reaction of water and organic material begins that forms the precursor to the spice. Eventually the chain reaction reaches a critical stage and the pocket under the sand can't contain the pressure, resulting in a bug explosion called "spice blow". This scatters the organic mass all across the sand, which turns into spice from the exposure to oxygen and sunlight. In the process of the explosion, millions of sandtrout are killed, but the few that survive enter into a hibernation state, and eventually emerge as small sandworms.
Cyprus rejects the EU bailout plan: how big is this?	Not correct. The truth is, that nobody knows right now. This is completely uncharted territory. Anything can happen, from what you said, to receiving a bailout from Russia, to receiving a new settlement from the EU. In the meantime, the EU has said that temporarily, they will continue supporting banks in Cyprus as needed . Another big question is what happens when the banks do re-open, which may happen next Thu or Fri.
An easy way to tell which Asian language you're looking at.	Korean is pretty easy to distinguish. There are lots of perpendicular lines and circles. _URL_1_ As far as Japanese vs. Chinese, that can be harder . Japanese has both a phonetic alphabet and kanji, which are the pictographs, borrowed from Chinese centuries ago. Chinese will be all pictographs, but Japanese will tend to have hiragana or katakana mixed in: _URL_3_ _URL_2_ A good letter to look for is _URL_0_, which is a common Japanese particle for ownership .
Why do girls typically have long hair and boys typically have short hair? Was there a point in time where this wasn't the case?	Mostly just how the sexes prefer to have their hair. Men through time were usually the breadwinners, and soldiers, which lead them to adopt a shorter hair style. In the 20's most women adopted a shorter hair style as they started to become more liberated. When metal/rock was popular, men grew their hair longer. Its based on where society is at that time, and necessity.
Why are scams so common as ads on webpages?	Well my common sense says money, i.e Ads provide money if you can advertise anything then why not and small websites will have more scams. These scammer's make enough money to pay the little amounts of fee to advertise and the people who rent servers out to smaller websites don't care where money is coming from as long as they make money so they get a lot more scammers then legit ads. That's why big sites don't have scamming ad's now you may ask about facebook that's based from your cookies sometimes you get ads on facebook that are scams but if you look closely it says underneath ads not by facebook that generally means you have a malware of some sort. I am not sure if this is the main reason though there may be other reasons to this problem.
Why Microsoft was sued for violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Laws, visuals would be helpful?	One reason why they were being sued for violating the antitrust laws is because they included their Internet browser with their operating system. So they lawyer that was suing microsoft said that netscape was being affected because people were using Microsoft Internet Explorer and that Microsoft was including that browser as a way of pushing netscape out. There was also several cases where they used their size and how many users they had to get software makers to focus on making software available to them rather than available to others such as Linux or Apple. Programs such as word that was used in every office.
If there is a bee in a car and the car is travelling at 50mph, does the bee have to fly faster than 50mph to move from the backseat to the front seat?	> does the bee have to fly faster than 50mph to move from the backseat to the front seat? No. The bee flies by pushing against the air around it, and all of the air in the car is moving along with the car. It's much the same as the fact that, even though the earth is rotating from west to east at hundreds of miles per hour , you don't have to run faster than a speeding bullet to take a step from west to east, because the ground you're walking on is moving along with the earth.
How does Blu-Ray protection and ripping work?	The "files" you see when you try and explore a Blu Ray disk are encoded in a way that prevents people from playing and/or copying the file directly from the disk. Applications like MakeMKV are programmed to read the files on a Blu Ray disk and decode them into a file that can then either be played directly by programs like VLC, or further transcoded into a more efficient file like an MP4. From what I can remember, the DRM is partly handled by the drive itself, and MakeMKV does some trickery to make the Blu Ray DRM think it's just being played by a Blu Ray player. You can actually see that MakeMKV is "playing" the video, but at a much faster rate, and outputting the video it's seeing into an MKV file.
What happened in Benghazi, how Obama is involved, and if Republican outrage is justified	Americans were killed during an attack on the embassy. Most people blame the attackres for the deaths but the GOP/FOX is trying to put the blame on Obama and other high ranking officials. The main reason for a lack of coverage from the so-called main stream media is because almost nothing has materialized out of the dozen or so "investigations" the GOP has paraded in congress. The FOX crew has been screaming bloody murder and treason but have nothing to go on besides circumstantial speculations.
how come when you pour water out of some glasses it pours smooth but some times it goes down the side?	Water tends to want to "stick" to glass, and other surfaces. This is called adhesion. This is one of the forces acting to turn the water as it pours. The faster you pour, the more force that is required to turn the liquid to keep it attached to the glass. At some point, the water is moving too fast for the adhesive force to turn it, and it detaches from the surface. Here's a kind of similar analogy Imagine you're running down a hall with a hardwood floor in socks, and there is a corner you want to turn around at the end. If you're running slowly, you can probably stay close to the wall. If you're sprinting, you're either going to slip or you have to take a wider turn and "detach" from the wall.I wonder where I can buy teapots and measuring jugs with low adhesion? All the ones I have purchased so far seem to dribble all over the place instead of pouring liquids out cleanly :( There was such a thing as a spout protector made of rubber that improved the odds of getting your tea into the cup without spills but I can't find them in shops now.
Why aren't lie detectors used in courts of law?	Never volunteer to take a lie detector test. They're unreliable and inadmissible, so if you pass it doesn't help. But if you fail they'll assume it worked correctly. It's no-win.Simply put, they are not reliable. Even if used outside of a court of law, their results are not admissible as evidence in a court of law .Because they are little more than voodoo. Once of law enforcement's biggest challenges is figuring out who is telling the truth, so it is pretty seductive when someone tells them they have a magic box that can do that. It can also intimidate suspect who believe they work into telling the truth. But the reality is there is almost no scientific basis behind them, the results are highly subjective, and study done with them show they aren't any better than a good human observer.
What's the difference between a creepypasta and an urban legend?	There's not a huge difference, but creepypastas are generally posted on message boards and urban legends are generally spread by ear. Creepypastas also tend to be longer stories or other media while urban legends are shorter pieces of speculation nothing much, Creepypastas are the urban legend concept but in an internet form. as the other guy said, Creepypasta tends to have more "evidence" or backstory to them, but thats more just the format than anything else, you don't tend to have a lot of time in RL to go in depth. You can also trace creepypastas far easier than traditional urban legends, since the internet leaves a paper trail.An Urban Legend is generally seen as something that evolved in the past. Some story, rumor, or otherwise propagated belief that was spread largely through word of mouth, usually with one largely untraceable source, often based on some misunderstanding of a natural event or actual circumstance that, over time, changed into a more fantastic belief. Sometimes the explanations for these are fairly mundane, while others still have no real root cause. Creepypasta are essentially artificial urban legends - stories that are created with the intent of being treated or described in the same way. However, unlike urban legends, we can trace back to the original Slenderman photo post, or the first story of Jeff the Killer, or the original write up of The Rake. While the characters and stories might catch on and spread, there's a very solid, definitively fictional origin source for a creepypasta. Essentially, they're both going for the same effect - one over a longer time that can't really be created intentionally with great ease, another more modern and deliberately attempting to appeal to the same emotions.
what tennis players are looking for in a ball before they serve? Are they looking for the newest balls?	To add onto the technical reasons, they could also be using looking at the ball as a focusing/reset method to stay in the zoneThey can be looking for the newest balls, the balls with fewest imperfections etc, the balls which feel the firmest etc, or a ball they recognise that they previously hit a great shot with. These balls will be faster than older, slower balls.Professional tennis players hit tennis balls pretty hard. These tennis balls lose their 'bounce' or their pressure as they are constantly being struck. Thus is why there are a couple ball change periods during a tennis match, usually by the official umpire.
Why sea lions are called that?	Hi ! > It is hard to believe these large but docile looking creatures have been named after a fierce predator like the Lion. The Steller Sea Lion is an opportunistic predator feeding on a wide variety of fish, octopus, squid and things like sea snails and sea slugs. Looking at those fangs and the size of “Samson” it is clear to see why they are called a Sea Lion! _URL_0_
Why are some flies and moths attracted to artificial lights?	Moths navigate using the moon as a frame of reference. When there is a bright light source nearby, it confuses them. If they are flying in a particular direction by keeping the moon on one side of them or directly in front of them, they could end up flying around a nearby light source in circles - thinking they are going in a straight line. Or, they could fly straight into it. This isn't a problem with the moon. Imagine you are navigating using a compass and there is a HUGE magnet on the side of the road. You could end up driving around it in circles - thinking you are headed straight assuming you are only as smart as a moth.It is not that they are attracted to it, it is that they are confused by it. They are use to navigating by the sun and/or moon depending on species. That exists at a very different angle and distance than our artificial lights. When a bug tries to navigate via artificial lights its angles are all wrong and it spirals in toward said light
what happens to my body if I never go outside?	Not going outside isn't the real issue. It's the secondary conditions that re probably linked with it, like not getting any exercise. As long as you maintain a healthy lifestyle, say, by exercising regularly, eating right, maybe taking some vitamin D supplements or something, you should be fine. I think the bigger issue is why you'd not be going outside.
How can things be plated with 1 or 2 microns of gold without the gold wearing away	One of gold's cool properties, the one that makes it shiny, is that it's quite resistant to corrosion and oxidization. To wear gold away you literally have to scrape the atoms off. It's not like silver, where the top layer oxidizes into something black and ugly.
Why do the US and UK have the same Father’s Day but different Mother’s Days?	In the UK they dont celebrate "Mothers day" they celebrate "Mothering Sunday" . It is celebrated on the Sunday closest to March 25th, because it is nine months prior to Christmas, meaning it is approximately the time Jesus would have been conceived . In the US the date for Mothers day is loosely chosen on the founder's mother's day of death. Tldr, religion in the UK created the different day; fathers day has no such religious connection
Why do we fall out of bed frequently as children, but stop by our teens?	I've been a bad OP, I have now found my answer in a previous ELI5, apologies. _URL_0_
Why do people get hungry after alcoholic drinks?	A few ideas You tend to go out drinking when you would be snacking or having a meal. Ever had a burger a few hours into a night out and find yourself still hungry at the end, or throw back an order of nachos as you go? Getting hungry after that doesn't happen very often. You tend to be more active when out drinking, and spend a lot of time walking or standing or dancing. This burns calories so your body wants a top up. Drinking increases your need to urinate, causing your sodium levels to drop, so your body tells you to top yourself up, hence the desire for fries, nuts, chips, a 16" doner meat pizza Your digestive system doesn't enjoy being stuffed full of nothing but liquid, and wants you to redress the balance. I actually get bad cramps if I drink too much fizzy alcohol drink without the odd top up.
How do Car Keys hold their charge? Do they get charged by the car?	The battery holds charge like any other battery, it just lasts a long time because it uses so little electricity. You can open your key fob and change the battery if it runs out.As others have mentioned, the battery does eventually die. You should know that if that happens, you're not stranded: you can almost always still drive the car. For instance, on my car , the key fob has a little latch that releases a mechanical key that will open the door, and if you hold the key fob against the car's power button, it will start even with a dead key battery. Check your owner's manual, just in case!
Why do birds have sudden "twitchy" movements?	Its because birds eyes dont move in there head so they do the quick movements to look around', "A bird's head weighs practically nothing, so it's easy for them to accelerate it to quickly look around. We probably look twitchy to elephants, whose head movements are a lumbering affair.
why when I lick my dry lips it makes them more dry	Your lips are naturally lubricated and kept moist by oils secreted by your skin. When you lick them, you remove that oil, leaving them unprotected.
What is happening in the brain when time "slows down" in high-pressure situations?	It is probably an evolutionary trait that allows more relative reaction time to pass, allowing the individual to survive a threatening situation. It's called [tachypsychia]. It causes the outside world to relatively appear to move in slow motion. We measure the perception of time passing by two methods, observing the behavior of the outside world, and the experience of the perception we take in. We are used to these being pretty much in sync. Here is one theory. When we feel immediate threat, it appears that our perceptions speed up, taking in the outside world at a faster rate than we are used to. This difference causes the outside world to appear to move more slowly relative to the speed of perception that we are used to. Imagine that you are in a car traveling down a freeway that runs parallel to a train track. Your car and a train are moving at the same speed. There is no speed difference relative to you and the train. Then you hit your accelerator and speed up. Relative to you, the train is perceived as slowing down. Of course, in this situation, you have the countryside to compare against, but if you had only yourself and the train, you'd clearly perceive that the train was slowing down. This appears to be what is happening to your perception of the world when tachypsychia occurs--your processing is speeding up, so the outside world appears to slow down. This has not been proven through cognitive studies, but it is the best explanation for it that I have found.
What is dust? Why does it accumulate on untouched objects?	I'm going to start off assuming you mean household dust. The dust that you have around home that accumulates on everything is a combination of many things. Pollen, dirt that has been raised by weather, dead skin cells, hair follicles, insect husks, micro pollutants in the air, among many other things. ~~The reason that things get "dusty" is that when all these particles are just floating around, they are attracted to bigger objects. Anything that has mass has gravity, so the larger objects are "pulling" the smaller particles towards them. Over time these particles become visible and that's when you get a layer of dust.~~ Edit: I was wrong about that part, check the repliesbiggest part of dust is dead human skin, it accumulates everywhere.
Why aren't lie detectors used more often in court cases?	Mostly because they don't actually work. The truth is that they are not a very good tool to tell if someone is lying. The threat of them or the willingness to undergo a lie detector test are sometimes used in official manner, but really lie detector test are not really reliable or trustworthy. The guy who popularized/invented the lie detector was the same person who invented Wonder Woman and her lasso that makes people tell the truth.
Why can't Facebook and Twitter themselves shut down ISIS accounts, as opposed to Anonymous or lone hackers?	ISIS doesn't have an official Facebook or Twitter account, but individual members and supporters do. FB/Twitter won't suspend their accounts unless the individual users violate the law or terms of service.Intelligence agencies use these accounts to gather information. It would not be surprising if some of the accounts are run by intelligence agencies as well.
Why do most children's toys from fast food places have those weird triangular screws?	It is to prevent children from being able to open the toy and access anything that may not be child-friendly on the inside - sharp/tiny pieces. Most kids know how to use a screwdriverEvery fuckin thing for kids have these .. some fuckin kid musta picked out the screws or chewed the batteries and then the parents went on a crusade . Every. Fucking. Thing.
If businesses are already allowed to deny anyone service for whatever reason they choose, why is Indiana's religious freedom bill such a big deal?	Businesses are not allowed to deny to serve anyone for whatever reason. Where did you hear this was so?', "If you kick out one black family for a bullshit excuse, nobody can question you. If you kick out every black family for a bullshit excuse, somebody's going to put the pieces together and they'll have the grounds for a lawsuit.You think business are allowed to deny service to anyone they want on any basis they want? Try putting up a "Whites only" in your shop window and see what happensnot for what ever, they cant deny service for protected groups. they cant deny becouse of race and in most they cant deny becouse of gender and sexuality.
why do i lose weight when im asleep	It's mostly water loss. You exhale water vapor and don't drink water to replace it. I usually use the restroom at least once during the night, too - a pint of pee is a pound of mass.
- How can I regulate my entire body's temperature by sticking my foot outside of my bedsheets?	It's like a heat sink on a cpu. Blood there exposed to cooler air cools your blood. This cooler blood circulates in your bloodstream cooling your body. New warm blood pumps into your foot cooling it a little bit more
What is the difference between an LCD monitor and an LCD TV?	In general, monitors are designed with a finer dot pitch than TVs because you are sitting closer to a monitor than a TV. Monitors also have faster response times. Monitors will lack much of the fancy video processing that TVs do, because desktop video cards are supposed to take care of that. This is a big cost center for TV manufacturers. Monitors typically do not have speakers or audio outputs. TVs always do. Monitors often have a 16:10 aspect ratio. TVs are nearly always 16:9. Monitors have much tighter tolerances for color consistency across the panel. Monitors will not support the fancy internet-connected features many high-end TVs have. For that matter, the software driving monitors--including the menus and UI--is a lot simpler than the software driving a typical TV. Simpler software requires less beefy hardware, which lowers cost. By far the majority of monitor sales are to OEMs to bundle with PCs. This is a lucrative, stable revenue stream, which allows the manufacturer to accept tighter profit margins on aftermarket monitor sales. TVs do not enjoy a similar stable revenue stream, so profit margins must widen somewhat, which drives up pricesSo they should look exactly the same, the resolution is exactly the same on the same sized screen. Thete are different types, lcd led but that has to do with the light source. Typically there is a florescent light source but the new ones have leds which can be turned on to gry better contrast ratios', "Only differentiating factor now at this point is whether or not it has to ability to receive over-the-air tv channels. If it cannot do this by itself, then it is just a monitor that can display cable tv and other things that provide a visual source. High end monitors will tend to have a much higher resolution than many HD tv's too I believe, though I may be wrong on this.
How does oil kill mosquito larvae? Can't they just poke their breathing tube through the oil?	They depend on the surface tension of the water to stay at the top. Oil breaks the surface tension. When that happens, the larvae sinks.
Whats the story behind those "gold coin" infomercials that claim the coin that they sell for $10 is worth thousands?	They are replicas that are coated in gold , they aren't worth thousands, $10 is probably a lot more than what they are really worth, maybe 25¢.
If I could legally build a 10 km² yard extension out of dirt and sod off the coast of new Brunswick, have I officially increased the land area of Canada by 10 km²?	Theoretically, but since 10 km^2 is only about 0.0001 percent of Canada's total land area, it doesn't really put a dent in the official number. The problem with measuring the land area of a country, especially one with an astronomically long coastline like Canada, is that it's functionally impossible to accurately measure to even a relatively large margin of error.Yes. However, the reported figures for a countries land area are estimates, and 10 km^2 are within the margin of error of those estimates. Also note the rest of Canada is not static, either. Sand bars in the St. Lawrence, melting glaciers on Baffin Island, those could easily account for 10 km^2 worth of change from year to year.Yes. That's how Singapore went from 580 square kilometres in 1960 to 720 today.
Why does bottled water taste differently from one brand to another?	It isn't just water, there are trace minerals added to affect taste.Each company uses a different source for their water, different sources means different minerals in the water. Further more some enrich the water with minerals. Different minerals dissolved in the water give it a distinct flavor.
How does a CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) system provide power 24/7?	So you are focusing the sun's light using an array of mirrors on a large tower that heats up and melts a chemical it heats it until is well above its melting point, the excess heat is used to boil water and make steam as it is pumped back down to a massive holding tank. This tank holds tons of molten salt throughout the day and as night falls the tank has reached a peak temperature the molten salt is then pumped through the system throughout the night because it is so hot it can continue to make steam and still remain a liquid, come morning it is almost as cold as it can get before becoming a solid but that is okay because the sun comes back out and heats the salt again.It melts a form of silica which remains extremely hot and use that heat to generate power after the sun is gone.That sort of solar power uses a boat load of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a thing to make it really hot. The thing they use will also stay hot for a really long time. Long enough that it's still radiating heat after the sun goes down.
Why is it that most domestic cats are afraid of water but big cats aren't?	It depends on the species of cat. For example tigers love to swim but lions are more or less afraid of the water. I remember this because of an interesting discussion on Ligers because it mentions that the constant swimming and climbing often freaks out the lion parent but is normal to the tiger.You know how cats are drawn to heat sources in the environment? Cats are quite sensitive to overheating and especially cold. Fur is pretty much the only thing protecting cats from unhealthy temperatures. They are way worse at body temperature control than say humans or dogs, as they can't sweat or pant effectively. Properly functioning fur helps for too hot and too cold. Unlike, say, wool which can be quite warm even wet, cat fur becomes pretty much useless for temperature control when soaked in water. Cold weather + wet undercoat + no shelter = major trouble. In extreme conditions getting wet can easily be dangerous for cat, so they naturally avoid water. There are of course different personalities in cats, different living environments, but also different breeds have slightly different fur composition , which affects how well the fur protects them from rain and temperature conditions. So some cats hate water more, some don't or don't need to care that much.
How does Steven Hawking's wheeelchair work?	Well, I don't know how Steven Hawking's wheelchair works, but my grandmother in law had MS, and she had a wheelchair controlled by this: _URL_0_ Its a straw you blow or suck on, and can be used as an input for various devices.
The FDA and its role in tobacco regulation	I'm not knowledgeable on this subject, but I think the ATF regulates tobacco, not the FDA.
How come most animals sleep cycles are in tune with the day / night cycle of the earth?	Most animals can see better during the day. It is dark at night, and harder to see for most animals, so they sleep then.
How do you pay back $1.2 Quadrillion derivatives market with a World Wide GDP of only 100 trillion?	Notional value is face value, it doesn't mean it changes hands. So we could establish a financial instrument worth $1000 and only exchange money when it changes by 1%. We basically created $1000 in notional value out of thin air, but it doesn't really mean it exists or would ever need to exist.
Why and how is the brain able to "forget" tragic events and pain?	I'm not sure I 'd call this an "ability". This is something that is usually caused rather than the brain, well, deciding to do it. That said, there are quite a few different things that might be happening here. Your personal experience if pretty obvious trauma, during which the brain might not have recorded the memories in the first place. There is a delay between you experiencing something and it being encoded into long-term memory. Trauma can prevent that from happening. Different kinds of physical trauma can cause physical damage, which may cause a person to forget things. There is also temporary traumatic memory loss, where the brain will just refuse to access memories which are there. This is usually, as mentioned, temporary. Finally, women "forgetting" the pain of childbirth is more a natural Human ability to focus on the positive. It's pretty common to have an inherently mixed experience, but if the positives outweigh the negatives, we tend to ignore the latter.
How did Japan become fascist prior to the second world war?	Japan had been a fascist society for centuries, it simply wasn't called that because "fascism" hadn't been invented yet.
Can someone explain the difference between type I and type II diabetes for me?	Diabetes Mellitus: A disease which produces a state of extremely high blood sugar. Fun fact, the name comes from latin for "Honey Urine" because all the extra sugar gets dumped into the urine and the original test was to actually taste the patient's urine for sweetness. Type I : Your pancreas fails to produce the hormone Insulin. Insulin is made and released in response to high blood sugars, like right after a meal. It signals muscles and fat to take up the sugar in the blood, restoring the normal level and providing energy for muscles and fuel for fat to store. Without the pancreas producing insulin, there is no "move out of the blood and into the cells" signal, and the blood sugar rises to dangerously high levels. These patients without replacement insulin will waste away, they can eat but the fuel can't get into the muscles and fat so metabolically they starve. This disease was a death sentence until the advent of bovine insulin that patients could inject to replace the stuff their pancreas was not making. Type II : A slower disease that occurs later in life and over a longer time span. The pancreas makes insulin fine but the cells insulin works on, muscles and fat, become "insensitive" to the signal. The "move fuel from the bloodstream to the cells" signal isn't getting through, and the result is blood sugar levels remain high. The effect isn't as pronounced as Type I so these patients don't starve but the chronically high blood sugar damages small vessels and nerves. So these people lose sensation in the feet, have kidney and eye problems, and can't fight infections easier . Thus management initially focuses on diet and exercise, to reduce body fat and the sugar taken in the diet can slow disease progress considerably. Eventually if not treated right, the pancreas burns out from over producing insulin in response to the high sugar diet and these patients too require insulin therapy.
Does listening to music at a higher volume (on a phone) use more battery?	This has been asked before here: _URL_0_ .TLDR: YesNext-level question: Does a phone use more battery at a higher volume while playing through a bluetooth connection? edit: "All 4 comments" can only see three. Somebody here is shadow-banned :)
is petting a cat actually good for you and if so why?	Dogs don't purr It is the best feeling when a cat is on your lap purring her little heart out. Or when they nuzzel your face and give you headbutts. My cat licks my ear and that is just awesome, to me anyway.Yes, it does apply to most animals. A friendly interaction with an animal, such as petting or cuddling does reduce stress in an individual. I think some studies have linked it with reduced blood pressure, but I think that has more to do with the reduction in stress. So yes, it is good for youAs a man allergic to cats i feel as if is should say noSome research is indicating far more benefits then lower blood pressure. _URL_0_', "It's good for the cat, and the thought of that is good for me.
What caused the downfall of Disco Music in the US?	It's urban music of sort of excessive dance, drugs and sex, and of a 'scene' . There was a blacklash against it for all of those reasons. But in many ways, it just went underground for awhile and then re-emerged; just look at dance music. In many respects, it was made with limited technology, and with all the new, more electronic ways to make music it mutated, because people don't want to do the 'same old thing'
Why do those blue Christmas lights look so fuzzy and blurry whereas other colours are perfectly clear?	Blue scatters more widely than other colors when it passes through the eyeball. Red and green is focused right onto the retina blue is focused slightly in front of it which causes a halo around bright blue lights. Together these things cause intense blue light to spread out across the retina interfering with other parts of the scene. Human vision also becomes more sensitive to blue when ambient light levels are low. Known as the Purkinje effect.People who are nearsighted can't focus light on the blue end of the spectrum as well as light on the red end, it has to do with chromatic aberration in our eyes. You probably also have a hard time reading blue LED signs at night.
How come, when you feel unsafe in your room, you instantly feel a little bit safer by pulling the covers over you?	I don't know the specifics but I bet it is the same thing that calms animals down when you cover their eyes. . Less stimuli for your brain to try to interpret through the thinking of feeling a threat.
The (n!) possible combinations formula	First of all, what does n! mean? It means multiplying the number n by the one preceding it, then the next one, all the way down to 1. So 7! is 7 * 6 * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1. Now, let's see how those combinations work. A silly question: how many combinations do you have for a single letter A? Just one - the letter is sitting there. Now, suppose you add in a letter B. You have two possible positions for it, before and after the A: AB, BA. Now, let's add in a letter C. For each of our two previous combinations, we can insert the C before the first letter, between the two of them or behind the second one: C + AB = CAB, ACB, ABC C + BA = CBA, BCA, BAC If we add a letter D, I won't spell out all the possibilities, but there's 24 of them: the D can come as the first, second, third or fourth letter in the set , and there are the six possibilities above for the order of A, B and C. Every new element you add has as many possible positions of insertion in each previous combination of the set as the size of the set . So, the n^th element has n possible positions, and you multiply it by the number of previous sets, which in turn is given by times the number of sets one step before, and so on until we reach the first element. n * * * * * 3 * 2 * 1 = n!

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