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Can animals have other sexualities outside of heterosexuality? | Homosexuality has been observed in some species of penguins. In the context of these penguins, it's theorized that gay couples increase the number of parent caretaker penguins, but do not increase the number of child penguins that require care - gay parents can adopt orphaned children penguins.Oh very much so. Homosexu... |
How does my rear view mirror work when I use the tilt lever to manage the effect of the bright lights of the cars behind me? | This alters the angle of the mirror so it does not reflect back into your eyes. What remains is the image reflected off the glass - the same effect that you might get from a store window reflection |
Why is there neurological damage if our brain stops receiving oxygen? | Neurons need a lot of energy to maintain their function. This energy comes partly from oxidation of glucose, a process that requires oxygen. So no oxygen = > no energy production = > certain processes stop and induce cell-death |
Lets say we find life on other planets. How would this effect us on planet Earth? | Other answers in this thread are saying things like "not much," but I disagree with this opinion. Alot would be affected. First and foremost, religion would be in a huge cluster fuck. Some religions would re-interpret their religious documents to explain the aliens, while other religions would outright deny the fact an... |
Why do certain cases like Caylee Anthony, Trayvon Martin, and Amanda Todd get national attention when these things happen all the time? | The key is having a factor that elevates the prominence. Caylee Anthony - All the damming evidence that showed how she didn't appear to care about the fact her daughter was missing. This convinced the public she was guilty and captivated viewers to watch as she faced what they thought was impending justice. Trayvon Mar... |
Why hasn't 'natural selection' weeded out all the animals that think it's safe to cross the road? | We've had road crossings for about 110 years now, and only a lot of them with a meaningful amount of traffic for maybe 50. Even today the majority of a given species lives mostly away from roads. 100 years isn't nearly enough for evolution never-mind 50, and even if it were there's plenty of the species not facing the ... |
What is making the pop sound when a balloon pops? | Right on the second attempt. The sudden release of pressure causes a pressure wave to spread out from the event, which we hear as a bang. |
Wouldn't the carbon footprint of shipping used goods to be recycled largely offset the benefits of recycling? | It would probably depend on what the goal is. The benefit from recycling paper is you need to cut down fewer trees. The goal of recycling aluminum cans is to save on mining more aluminum. The other goal of both is also the main goal of recycling k-cups: keeping them out of landfills. Carbon footprints are a secondary c... |
Why do the numbers on a microwave seem to bounce around whenever I'm chewing? | This has to do with how the display works. Typically the lights in the display flash 50 or 60 times a second. Different parts of the display update at different times. So when your head is still it looks like a solid image, but when vibrations go through your head when you are chewing something crunchy or making a low ... |
What is the Dow Jones and NASDAQ and how are they effected day to day? | The NASDAQ is a stock exchange. That is publicly listed companies trade their stock on the NASDAQ. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a stock index, that is, a way of measuring how well a basket of certain stocks are performing. In the case of the DJIA this basket consists of 30 large publicly owned industrial compani... |
The technical feats/methods used in "Handle" robot from Boston Dynamics | There is a computer in the "torso". It has precise motion sensors that measure acceleration. Software in the computer has a model of physics that predicts the outcome of continuing the current state. Based on input controls, the user says they want to continue the current behavior, or do something new like "Jump". The ... |
How does birth control remain effective during the 7-day placebo period? | The pill has already done its job, you don't need to take those. The reason those placebo pills are there is so you don't mess up your pill schedule. If they just tell you "Only take 21 pills, then rest 7 days", they increase the chance that you forget when you are supposed to go back to taking the pill. Has it been 5 ... |
What compelled the Japanese to to declare war on the US and attack Pearl Harbor? | There are a few ways to look at the start of the war, but I'll give you the Economic answer: In the early and mid 30's the Japanese engaged in several aggressive actions in what is today eastern China. This annoyed the US to a fair degree, and as a result the US started instituting trade bans for specific raw materials... |
the story of the soviet union | This is one of my favorite topics, because it allows me to expand on a couple points. The first is exactly how bad things were in Tsarist Russia. Russia was one of the last honest to god Feudal societies on Earth. They had actually progressed past this earlier, but then reverted. The Serfs were considered literal prope... |
Are more police shootings happening or are we just hearing about them more? | I'd say it's combination of the two. Most cops are severely under trained, under immense pressure from quotas that their department issues and are undeniably racist. Couple all that with social media and boom. |
How does a CPU understand and execute machine code when it has never done something similar before? | It doesn't _understand_ it per se, any more than a ball 'understands' it should roll down hill. It is just a set up to generate certain outputs given certain inputs. Here's a really good mechanical illustration of how a CPU adds numbers: _URL_1_ To take it to the next level, someone build a CPU in minecraft that you ca... |
Why do people think it is so bad when machines or robots take over human jobs? | Because it's hard for the person who has lost their job to think of the bigger picture and the overall effect on the economy when they had such a big thing happen to them. It doesn't matter if their jeans are $24.99 instead of $29.99 when they can't afford to buy jeans at all. It's also much easier for people in genera... |
Why are 2 batteries generally inserted the opposite way to each other? | Battery configuration is meant to create a closed circuit. Them being reverse each other is simply for ease of manufacturing. It's easier to connect the negative to the positive right next to each other, and vice versa, than to take the negatives, and then span the length of the battery to create the circuit. It would ... |
Why are shots injected in the upper arm? | Such shots are intramuscular, meaning they go inside a muscle. Muscles have lots of blood vessels, so the medicine is picked up fairly quickly and spread to the rest of the body. The upper arm has a nice big muscle which is easy to get at. Another big muscle is the butt, which is where most of the shots in my childhood... |
Why do your fingers become swollen after going from a cold area to a warm area? | When you're cold, your blood vessels become thinner, particularly in your extremities . This is to stop you losing so much heat to the environment through them. If you get warm again, your blood vessels dilate to supply oxygen back to your tissues . Sometimes you'll get a tiny injury to one of your capillaries when thi... |
Why do unreleased cars get tested with the black wrap all over them? | The manufacturer doesn't want their competitors or their customers to know exactly what they are developing until the product is actually released. It takes years to develop a product like a new car. If Chrysler were to know how the 2021 Corvette was designed they might borrow from that to make their own sports car. An... |
Why isn't there a lens that shifts the spectrum from infrared to visible? | A lens uses refraction to bend light, typically to focus it. That mechanism doesn't change the wavelength. Now there is such a thing as nonlinear optics. Your typical green laser pointer uses this to double the frequency from infrared to green. But it isn't very efficient and needs high power. You can't simply double s... |
How is a person not disturbed by their snoring? | I imagine it becomes something they are used to and/or background noise. It's the same for people who leave the TV on while they sleep. The TV may be loud but they've gotten used to the noise so it doesn't bother/wake them.And even weirder. I am sometimes woken by my snoring but only in public settings like the classro... |
How is it possible for a CNN Tech Analyst to think changing s's to dollar sign will help you if your password is 'password'? | Well, it is an improvement. By how much is hard to say. Pa$$word isn't in any dictionary and probably not in the top 10 words of every brute force attack. So at least it will take the attacker a few milliseconds more to break in. But my guess is that Pa$$word with this little variation is still in many lists and won't ... |
Why do batteries lose their recharging ability over time? | Batteries are compact galvanic cells. They work by compartmentalizing a chemical reaction, in which one of the compounds is oxidized and the other is reduced . Galvanic cells separate these two reactions so that the electrons that the oxidized compound loses flow through a wire and end up reducing the other compound. T... |
When a user is given a public key, how is it that data encrypted by it cannot undergo the opposite operation to decrypt. | [Simple paint explanation] followed by the numbers explanation. This is the example I was able to actually grasp what was going on, rather than just explain without understanding.Think about a square root. Squaring most numbers is fairly easy and can be done on pencil and paper by most adults. Now ask those same adults... |
How did the number of soldiers under Nazi Germany not deplete in just a couple of years after having invaded so many countries so rapidly? | At first it was Germany who was the one inflicting massive casualties on their enemies. It wasn't until later in the war that Germany started to lose massive amounts of their soldiers. For instance, the loss of the 6th Army at Stalingrad and the loss of the Afrika Korps didn't occur until 1943. Edit - check out the fol... |
Why does my mouse hand get cold when I'm on the computer for too long? | I too get this. Well you're not alone at least. I hope someone can answer soon.If you rest your arm on the desk surface, as virtually everyone does, the pressure of the desk surface on your forearm may be restricting blood flow. Not only will that cause your hand to get cold, it may also reduce sensitivity in your fing... |
How does c-4 detonation work? | C-4 is an engineered explosive, specifically made to be insensitive to shock. You want soldiers to carry it around in case they need it, and if a stray bullet could cause someone's backpack to explode - there would be less volunteers to carry it around. The key is to create a highly concentrated shockwave. A detonator ... |
What is the point of those wooden honey-dipper things? | A former boss at a fancy restaurant I worked at once told me that the point is to be able to drizzle honey on things consistently and evenly, where as other tools like spoons would leave big drops here, little drops there. Makes the presentation better, I guess.There's nothing wrong with using a spoon, but the slotted ... |
Can someone explain how the Command Module from Saturn 5 managed to "blast off" from the moon? | You kind of got it right but the Command Module never went to the moon, that was the job of the [Lunar Module]. So the Command Module waited in orbit while the Lunar Module went down. And the Lunar Module had it's own fuel and rockets . If you look at [this] cutaway you can see that the Lunar Module really was in two p... |
What are apples made out of? | > Apples contain dietary fibre in their skins and core. About 10% of an apple is made up of carbohydrate and 4% of an apple is made up from a variety of vitamins and minerals. The rest of the apple, more than 80%, is water. [source] |
why do doctors ask you not to eat 12 hours before surgery/blood test? | The reason to not eat before surgery is to reduce the chances of you vomiting during the surgery and thus reduce the chances of you drowning in your own vomit, or just making it harder to do the surgery because they are preventing you drowning in your own vomit. For the blood tests they are specifically wanting to get ... |
How toys like Hot Wheels and Micro Machines are painted | Taking a shot in the dark here, but many things are painted in a process called "Electrostatic Painting" where the object, in this case a Hot Wheel car that is metal is given a small charge, much like how a magnet is created, and then paint in a powder form is sprayed all around it and is attracted electromagnetically ... |
What prevents me from setting myself up as a small ISP for my own benefit? | Well, you could either purchase some of Sky's bandwidth from them, which is the easiest way, or you could install a connection to the nearest hub yourself. For a few million dollars, minimum. I don't know what country you are in, but generally the major Telecom companies own the internet backbone that you are trying to... |
Why is the Nvidia Quadro FX series so expensive if they perform so poorly? | The Quadro series is not optimized or even built for gaming - its optimized for rendering, graphics design, etc. Quadro drivers aren't built for gaming, so there are none of the gaming-specific optimizations for it. > Workstation graphics cards are clocked slower for better stability & power consumption and are heavily... |
How can some people intuitively tell when a website/news article is bogus while others cannot? | Two things: 1) **Confirmation bias.** Confirmation bias is the tendency to believe things that reinforce your existing beliefs. This makes it harder for people to recognize something as fake if it is in line with their beliefs. So if you already think Hillary Clinton is evil and malicious, a fake news article that says... |
How does the hawk-eye technology work ? | Hawk-eye is just one of several systems that organizations are using to do things like assist refereeing. It's likely several cameras synchronized on a computer that runs a relatively simple computer vision algorithm to identify the ball from live feeds. If the cameras are synchronized properly you can take the positio... |
Why do they hire "analyzers" / "hosts" that never played the sport that they are "analyzing" / hosting? | Astronauts know how to fly the ship, and know a little bit of the math to get them to the moon. The physicists know the math of orbital mechanics like you know the alphabet, but only know how to fly the ship a little bit. Athletes are amazing at their sport, but aren't probably the best at being a host on the radio or ... |
How does an "En Passante" work in chess? | Basically, pawns have one special move : they can move two spaces instead of one the first time they move off of their original position. This was a change made very early in the history of European chess. *However*, you aren't allowed to use this special move to avoid being captured by an enemy pawn that is already on... |
Why is it acceptable for beef to be pink in the center, but not poultry or pork? | If handled properly during processing, beef and fish carry minimal risk of containing pathogens. Damn near all of the US poultry population is infected with salmonella . Meanwhile pork can have all kinds of nasties, considering the way pigs live and eat. There are poultry populations in other countries that are pathoge... |
Why do men get bald as they age? And what does it have to do with growing beard early? | The hairs on the top of the head are structurally different from the ones on the side. When you start to get older, your hair follicles become more sensitive to DHT, a type of testosterone. The increased sensitivity to DHT affects the hair follicles with the certain protein makeup on the top of the head, effectively ki... |
How do cats purr and why do they pad at soft surfaces before lying down? | Lots of animals paw at the ground - often times it's to check for rocks or other things that would make the animal uncomfortable. With movable blankets, pillows and so on, the action translates well to fluffing the surface for comfort. As for purring last I checked there was no answer - they still aren't entirely certa... |
Why are cold symptoms heightened when you first wake up? | The stuffy nose you get when you wake up without a cold is caused by the increased level of histamine your body produces to wake you up in the morning. With a cold, this is usually worse because there is already histamine from your cold. Think of it this way, antihistamines like Benadryl make you sleepy because they ba... |
Why are human babies so incapable and defenseless? | The birth canal can really only be so wide . The baby is born while the head can still pass through the birth canal. This leaves us birthing at a less developed stage than most mammals, which means our babies are more helpless. I'd a trade of that allows for a big head relative to the rest of our bodies; the head can c... |
How and when did USA get involved in the middle east? Who started it all? | The Middle East, has always been an area of interest for the West ever since we discovered that oil is a very profitable source of energy - over 120 years ago. In fact, the reason we call it the middle east is because it used to be literally towards the middle and the east of the map of the British Empire. So, short an... |
How do the HSBC key authenticators work? | Key authenticators usually work in a similar way. There is a clock and a secret, unique algorithm in the key generator, with the algorithm known to the verifying party. The algorithm will take the input time, round it to the nearest 30 seconds or so, and run it through the algorithm. The algorithm generates from that "... |
Please ELI5: Why do peoples' nipples get hard when they're cold? | It's a mix of two things: 1) contraction of the muscle layers under the skin, similar the goose bumps, and 2) an extremity is cold, so you body increases blood flow it keep it warm. For obvious reasons, nipples have historically been on the "important to keep warm" list, for reasons that should be obvious, you know, nu... |
Root causes of "Kashmir conflict" and who is the owner of the region, Pakistan or India? | So when the British were leaving India and had plans to divide it on religious lines, Kashmir had a Muslim majority and bordered Pakistan, so Pakistan felt it should be theirs. After all, Pakistan was intended to be the Muslim majority areas of India. The ruler of Kashmir decided to join India to have their guaranteed ... |
What's the thing with rappers and the "illuminati"? | There is nothing with rappers and the Illuminati. It is just stupid idiots trying to make themselves sound more important or more menacing than they really are. Like when some of the call themselves mafia or mafioso. They just want to portray themselves as tough when in actuality they are just dirtbags. |
What is the theoretical explanation for why planets/moons are always nearly perfect spheres? | Because a large enough mass of rock under gravity will deform like a plastic. In essence, the material flows, because the weight of it is so great. When it flows, it attempts to flow to the most conservative potential state, a sphere. That's the \'ideal\' shape where, if you think about it, there's no "Downhill" from a... |
How is it that our brain knows to make a "face" based upon your emotion? | There are a few aspects your question could be alluding to. From an evolutionary perspective, to cultural to just pure mechanics of creating a facial expression. For the main part, we just do it subconsciously. The reason we can't help but look sad when we hear bad news. Or not laugh when something hilarious comes up e... |
Why does 60 degrees feel cold when I'm inside but pleasant when I'm outside? | The sun provides a great deal of heat if you are outside. The light rays may not heat the air much because air is not dense but if it hits you, your body will feel warmer than being inside. Aside from the sun, when you are outside, you are usually not staying still. Moving around generates more body heat than staying s... |
why do wheels appear to spin in reverse when filmed? | Imagine there's a tire, and you've got a red dot on the side of the tire. You take a picture of the tire, then turn it forward, but not quite a full rotation. You take another picture, but the dot is is now slightly behind where it was in the first picture. Now repeat this multiple times. If you then showed someone tho... |
Why do certain foods and beverages taste better or worse at specific temperature ranges? | In part, the sense of smell plays a big part in taste. Flavor in food is typically comprised of a multitude of flavor and fragrance compounds. Examples: Vanillin, eugenol, thymol, etc. A lot of these compounds are "volatile" compounds, which means that at certain temperatures they will evaporate. When this happens, tho... |
How did we end up with taste buds that find things that are "bad" for us better tasting? | I assume you're talking about sugar and fat? These are only 'bad' for us because they're so readily accessible. We can eat as much sugar and fat as we want and there's nothing to stop or limit us. If you consider how we evolved, though, neither sugar nor fat were plentiful. Sugar required you to find and pick ripe berr... |
Why autism links to males 1/52 times but to females 1/352 times. | My guess? Because we are bad at recognizing autism in females. The symptoms are slightly different. Just like how there are more autistic kids today than there were 20 years ago. Its not that there is more autism, we are just better at diagnosing it. In 20 years, female diagnoses will catch up. We'll see more and more ... |
What is that falling feeling that you suddenly wake up too when you are sleeping? | It's called a hypnic jerk or "sleep start" it's the result of a mechanism of the brain that is engaged during sleep. The motor cortex of the brain basically goes offline for conscious movement, IE we are paralyzed while sleeping. This is to prevent a person from dreaming they were running, and actually running as they ... |
How do wooden roller coasters not fall apart? | If a plank is rotten, then you remove it and replace it with another plank. The structural integrity of the roller coaster is maintained because the wood that sustains it is continually being upgraded. The original roller coaster doesn't exist because each of it's component parts has been replaced piece by piece.Wooden... |
why do we shake hands? | It is a ritual show of nonaggression. If I offer you my right hand, you can be pretty sure there isn't a weapon in it.Started as the mutual hand on the other's forearm gesture you see in movies set in the middle ages. Hand on their lower sleeve allowed you to confirm they had "nothing up their sleeve" as in a dagger.Ex... |
Is it possible for someone to never learn to walk? | Yes, someone could be disabled at birth in a way that makes the person unable to walk . There have even been inheritable disorders that result in an inability to walk in families, although this is rare. _URL_0_', "Barring a disability, I don't think it's possible unless the person was actively discouraged from walking.... |
Why does everything sometimes look yellow outside after a thunderstorm? | > > > Most thunderstorms occur in the late afternoon. By this time of day, the sun is beginning to set. The orange hue is caused by the same process that causes the vivid colors at sunsets. Shorter wavelengths of light are scattered quickly, leaving only the yellow-orange-red end of the spectrum. _URL_0_', "I just look... |
Why is paint stripper called "aircraft remover"? | It's supposed to indicate that it will remove very, very tough pain jobs, like the kind you'd find on an aircraft. |
If anti cheat programs look through your computer to look for cheating tools, could they potentially also look for other "illegal" stuff and give it to a third party or to the police? | well, the simple answer is that if you install software onto your computer, it could do whatever the hell the programmers/developers want it to do, whether they make you aware of it or not. And if it could do that, it'd be described in the vaguest of language in the software's End User License Agreement . Your best bet... |
What exactly is the InstallShield shielding me from? | Generally open windows that run commands. You'd see things like DOS prompt windows open and close, open and close, with file copy output flying past. |
Why do we have to press ctrl + alt + del to log into a locked Windows account? | The Ctrl + Alt + Del key combination is known as the [Secure Attention Sequence] on Windows. This is not overridable by software outside the operating system. Pressing the SAS means you are guaranteed to get a response from the operating system, not from some other software. This is important because malicious software... |
Why do hurricanes never hit South America? | _URL_0_ It is more than 2-3. But it is somewhat protected due to the structure of the various major wind streams and ocean currents which will drive storms north most of the time. This protection means it will have fewer major storms.South America gets about one tropical storm a year, the most recent was Tropical Storm... |
What happens to elders whose family refuses to take care of them? | Stay tuned: Millions of Americans are about to find out. This is not a joke. And it doesn't happen only to those whose families turn away. See [here] and [here]. |
How does cooking some foods make them more nutritious? | A lot of the time food contains chemicals composed of things we can't use that we don't have the tools to break down. Cooking can sometimes help by breaking up these structures into their constituent parts that our bodies can deal with. |
What is that sinking feeling you get as you come to grips with the reality of the passing of someone you were close to? | Fear.. the instinctual reaction to a threat/change to your current life and environment. That person is gone and you fear how your life will be different since this reality is new and unknownI depends on the person and your relationship. I think it could be cause be relief of the passing of someone in pain, that they f... |
Why Can Pressure Freeze Water? | The water was below freezing but the ice crystals had nothing to start to form around. When you opened the bottle, the pressure change caused bubbles of CO2 to come out of solution. Those bubbles provided nucleation points for ice crystals to form around. Edit: Clarification in response to reply. |
What purpose does imagination serve? Do other animals have imaginations? | The imagination is likely the result of the ability to think abstractly and predict possible future events. Other animals have this capacity; for example dogs can predict the possibility of a treat, or anticipate their master's anger when they misbehave. Fantastical imagination is just the result of using such a system... |
Why are freight train engines no longer streamlined? | The amount of fuel efficiency lost from a slow-moving freight train having flat windows is minimal and probably barely offsets the savings of a cheaper construction process. |
if a teenager can be charged with child pornography for having nudes of himself, why haven't people be charged with flashing for sending unsolicited dick picks? | The only reason kids have been charged for having their own nudes is over zealous courts. The dick pics, in the other hand, are probably harassment or indecent exposure, but they're either much harder to prosecute or deemed nosy worth the time it would take to actually build a case against some one. |
Why, after being out in the freezing cold for a long time, does it hurt to put your hands in warm water? | When your hands are very cold, your veins constrict and push more blood toward your core to keep the more important organs functioning. When you expose them to something much warmer your veins dilate and blood rushes back in. This rapid change in temperature makes the veins expand again quickly, and it causes a burning... |
How is censorship legal if Freedom of Speech exists? | If you're talking about freedom of speech in the US, you might start by taking a look at [restrictions on the first amendment] in the U.S. What the bill of rights actually says is: > Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech This has been generalized to include the federal government as a whole, but th... |
Why does my brain think really hot water is cold sometimes? | The nerves in your skin that detect temperature only measure the **change** in temperature and not whether it is cold or hot. Context and other variables tell your brain if it is cold or not but sometimes the brain still gets confused and sends you the wrong signal. |
LI5: Can someone explain what's allegedly happened with Murdoch's phone hacking scandal, and why it's so important? | Police were investigating a girl's murder. One small detail of the case was that her family insisted she was still alive because phone records showed her voice mail was still being remotely checked regularly and some messages were even deleted. It turns out a News of the World employee was the one checking the voice ma... |
Why do light switches sometimes turn outlets on and off? | They've been intentionally wired that way, to allow you to control plugged-in devices by using the light switch. This is useful for devices that you would want to turn on or off frequently. For instance, lamps, so that you can turn off the lights with a light switch. |
Is there a psychological reason why a lot of people treat employees like crap in retail? | Yes, there is a reason. It's not so much retail in general as it is the specific type of retail. I don't have facts or statistics for this but I would be willing to bet the lower-priced a retail store is the more rude those customers might be. When people are shopping they might be frustrated they can't find an item, m... |
How did Queen / Freddy Mercury becomes so beloved and popular in an era when open homophobia was socially acceptable? | Homophobia became way more socially acceptable when AIDS came around. When queen was big glam was in, think David Bowie and Roxy music |
why does some website in some countries still can be accessed after it has been blocked? Does that coutry need something to hold the 'door' everytime or that site found another way in? | Nice try North Korea, can't fool us But seriously blocking a country from calling a website is like trying to block an entire country from making a phone call to Howard Stern. Howard can have a set up where a hundred phone numbers from a hundred different cities are redirected to him. Or he can have a million people ag... |
when sleep talking/walking what's going on in my brain? | When you sleep, chemicals in your brain are distributed to temporarily paralyze your body. Perhaps your brain doesn't produce quite enough of those chemicals and the sleep talking happens in correlation to your dreams. Don't quote me, I'm kind of guessing from information I've heard in the past. |
Why is an urge to pee so common when you have nerves before a big event? | Ever heard of the fight-or-flight response? When you are looking down the throat of a hungry tiger, your body instinctively goes into red alert. You need to run, so your muscles get a boost, as do your heart and lungs to supply oxygen. On the other hand, everything not immediately necessary gets cast aside. That includ... |
Why do torrent sites, like Kickass torrents, have to change their URL? | Because, sometimes governments have the power to force, or at least pressure DNS providers to not give a domain to a certain entity. That's why these torrent sites are often registered in Sweden , Tuvalu Cuba and Tonga . |
Why do Westerners like being tan while Asians prefer being pale? | Beauty has several societal factors. One of the biggest that can be seen across diverse cultures is what the powerful/rich do. For a long time in Western history, being pale was considered beautiful. Why? Because it meant you didn't work in the fields. If you didn't work in the fields, you had money Now that what work ... |
The difference between Prime Ministers and Presidents | While this is not true in all cases, the general distinction is: **Presidents** are elected directly by the people for the specific position of President. **Prime Ministers** are elected as members of parliament by their constituents, then selected by the members in their own party as leaders of their party. The Prime ... |
How are we able to tell the difference between fake nice and genuine nice? | As far as non-verbal cues, humans are embedded with a list of involuntary "tells" . For a single example, a genuine smile will cause crinkling of the cheeks and around the eyes, where a faked smile won't usually do so. There are also tonal differences. Faked niceness seems to almost always feature drawn out vowel sound... |
Why exactly is Netflix opposing the Comcast/TWC merger? | Because Comcast is known to throttle streaming services which is how Netflix makes most of their money nowadays. Add in the fact that almost every city in the US has Comcast or TWC and nothing else for cable services, that means that Most cities will now not be able to stream Netflix at the speed that they're used to.N... |
Why it feels so good to scratch rashes, poison ivy, bug bites, etc. if it is not a good thing to do. | There is a natural small release of "good feeling" chemicals in the brain when you scratch anything. This came about through evolution. If you have a mite or dangerous parasite your itching will kill it or at least it is worth a shot is what your brain tells you.This is my understanding as a five year old not very comp... |
Why can't old but good instruments (like Stradivariuses or Selmer Mk VIs) be recreated using modern tech? | The Stradivarius thing is a myth. People who claim to be able to identify one by sound, can't. And when blinded, have been known to pick modern instruments over them for sound quality. I don't know much about the MK VI, but I would expect it's the same. |
How does one gallon of gasoline emit around 20lbs of CO2? | Yes, there's that much oxygen being taken into the reaction. Every 1 atom of carbon takes in 2 atoms of oxygen, and oxygen weighs about 4/3 as much as carbon.If you started with 12 lbs. of carbon and burned it completely, you would wind up with 44 lbs., nearly 4 times as much. A gallon of gas is 6.2 lbs., and by weight... |
How is the Earth running out of water? | The concern is that we're running out of water that is usable for drinking and irrigation in places where people live. You're right that only a small amount of water leaves Earth and it's largely a closed system. What we're doing is pulling clean groundwater out of aquifers, using it, and putting it in the atmosphere w... |
Why does the military care if you have an undescended testicle? | Total guess here, but probably because at some stage soon you will need it bringing down surgically. They probably want you getting it sorted before enlisting in order to avoid paid downtime. |
What proof or facts of global warming is out there? | It's important to note that the argument is not about whether or not global warming is real. The Earth has measurably grown warmer by at least half a degree Celsius since 1980. Wikipedia has a good basic discussion. The goalposts in the last decade or so have been moved to ask whether or not global warming is *anthropo... |
Why are there a finite number of musical notes? | There isn't a finite number. As long as you can divide by 2, you can always make another note.Western culture chose to standardize musical notation with 12 semi-tones.Do a search on microtones or microtonal fretboards. Wild stuff. |
How come the NSA bugging the UN HQ and hacking UN computers hasn't started a massive "shit storm"? | Diplomats in the UN have conducted business under the assumption that the location they are at have been bugged for decades. While it certainly angers them when it comes out directly who is doing what it isn't that large of a surprise.Likely because every government on earth has assumed as much for decades, and because... |
How did they double the life expectancy of people with Down's Syndrome over the past few decades? | My uncle has DS and he's still going strong at 59, having led an amazingly full life. For his fiftieth birthday, he went to Liverpool football stadium and got to lift the European trophy! As far as I know, he hasn't had serious medical intervention, at least not in the past twenty years, and he's got by with dedicated ... |
If Japan knew that it could not win a protracted war with the US, why did they attack in WWII? | They didn't think the war would be protracted. By crippling the Pacific Fleet, they bought time to fortify their positions. They figured that the cost to retake the lost territory would be too high for the Americans to stomach. As for why they attacked at all, Japan was between a rock and a hard place. The US had an em... |
Why is it that when we're drunk and we close our eyes to sleep, it sometimes feels like the world is spinning around us or we're on some sort of fairground ride? | Basically there's a level in your ear that's calibrated to your specific blood density, but alcohol thins it out which makes that thing go off more easily. It's also why inner ear infections and hearing issues can give people vertigo.Is there an easy way to get rid of the spins that isn’t common knowledge? |
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