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If I use one earphone at 50% volume, audio seems much louder than with both earphones at the same volume. Do our ears actually distribute that audio and if so how? | Imagine your house is deathly quiet, and you can hear some things: a faucet dripping in the bathroom, the cat scratching her post, something walking around in the attic . Then, you turn on the TV, and you can't hear them any more. It's not that the sound of those things aren't reaching your ears, it's just that your br... |
Does stunted growth mean that growing will take longer, or that the maximum amount of growth has been permanently reduced? | 'Stunted growth' is a reduction in the **rate** at which a person will grow. This means they grow a lot slower than normal people. However, since you stop growing at around 18, stunted growth will result in a reduced size, assuming you have stunted growth throughout adolescence. |
why can NASA get super high resolution images of galaxies hundreds and thousands of light years away, but struggle and cannot get even a decent image of Pluto? | The same reason you can get a brilliant image of the mountain 100 miles away in the day with your camera phone but a professional photographer wouldn't be able to make out the detail of a flea across the room in the dark It's easy to take pictures of huge bright things, even if they're far away. TINY things are hard to... |
Why did serial connections (like USB) win out over parallel connections? | In the olden days, transistors / chips / electronics was expensive and wires & cables / connectors were cheap. These days, that equation is skewed the other way . So, if you needed to send 8-bit wide data down a cable you might use 8 wires plus a couple of control wires to signal the other end when there's data etc. et... |
Why do we view north as 'up' and south as 'down' etc.? | Would love to hear from cartagraphical historians. How long has north been at the top of the page? Did this emerge simultaneously in unconnected places, or is it the dominance of one ideal over others?', "The short answer is that it's arbitrary - there's no particular reason. But the real answer is longer than that. Ma... |
why should we invest in a pension scheme? | They are normally tax advantaged since governments want to encourage retirement planning. This means that a $1 put into retirement savings is worth more to you in the future than a $1 spent now. They also often get other protections. Depending on your jurisdiction they may be protected from certain types of legal actio... |
How does the printer know what to print? | If you have a dot matrix printer, it's pretty simple. First you click "print" on your computer. The computer then creates an image representation of your file. It picks a resolution, then goes over every inch of the page and records how much red, green, and blue is in each part. But at the end of that process you have ... |
What constitutes a radio station being HD quality, and how do they make it HD? | \'HD radio\' is a branded implementation of the In-Band/On-Channel method of \'hybrid\' broadcasting, wherein compact digital 'saddlebags\' are placed at either end of the station's reserved 'mask\' . In many cases, there is only one HD channel, \'HD1\'. Even if there are others, \'HD1\' always refers to the digital ve... |
Why do our ears feel weird when someone in the back of a car opens their window? | The air moving into your car doesn't have an exit, so it pressurizes the existing air in the car, which then pushes it back out, over and over again. This creates alternating high and low pressure zones, aka, the "WUBWUBWUBWUB". Sounds are basically just alternating high and low pressure zones, so your ears are hyperse... |
Health insurance: How much are they taking in vs what they are paying out, in the US? | The ACA requires that health insurance companies make this information public. It also requires that they spend at least 80% directly on patient care. The remaining 20% is for overhead and profit. Some health insurance companies had to offer partial refunds to patients because they spent less than 80% on patient care d... |
How does world news affect the stock market? | Much of what determines stock prices is market confidence-- that is, how people are feeling about the company. So if a huge war were about to happen, a defense contractor would likely shoot up. This is also evident when retail prices go up before holidays, stock prices fall when a key figure at the company leaves, etc.... |
Why do new "odors" have greater strength when first smelled but the longer you smell the more you become oblivious to it. | New Smell: "Hello"Brain: "Holy shit do you have the potential to cause me harm?"New Smell: " .."Brain: "Hey I asked you question!"New Smell: " ."Brain: "Meh"Your brain is geared to notice differences and block out things which are the same. So when you are first confronted with a new smell, you really notice it. Your b... |
How does squinting help improve vision temporarily? | It's much like looking through a pinhole camera. Less light can get through, but since it's much more focused near the middle of the eye it won't distort as much. If you ever want to make something far away look bigger make a tiny circle with your thumb and index finger :) |
Does cancelling my credit card hurt my credit? Or is it better to keep it and not use it? | Banks look at the total of all your credit lines, and the total of all of your debt. What they want to see is your debt to be a relatively low percentage of your total credit line. As the percentage of total debt goes up in relation to the total credit line, your credit rating goes down. When you cancel a credit card y... |
How come it is seemingly acceptable to Americans to describe fellow Americans of Asian or Latin descent as "Asians" or "Latinos" but not "African-Americans" as Africans? | Mainly because most "african-americans" have little to no actual african ethnicity aside from their skin colour. They don't follow african religion, speak african languages, they don't have any knowledge of their ancestors culture or even know where they come from in Africa for the most part. Any that do retain some he... |
Why were some countries allowed to break off from the USSR when it fell, and others were not? For example, why is Chechnya fighting for independence, but Ukraine simply got its independence? | The USSR was composed of different "republics", the largest of which was the Russian one. Ukraine was another. The region called Chechnya was a part of the Russian republic, just like, say, Siberia. When the USSR dissolved, the recognised republics were made countries, so the Ukrainian republic became Ukraine. As Chech... |
Why do drugs make our eyes look different? | It depends on what the drug is. Cannabis, for example, causes blood vessels in your eyes to expand slightly, which makes them more visible. Some people also get it from mild allergies to something in the plant. Drugs that cause increases of seratonin levels cause dilation. Seratonin stimulates the 5-HT2A receptor. It h... |
When downloading something why will 1GB take longer to download then another GB when they're both the same amount of information. | Because they may not be coming from the same place, or taking the same path. Imagine the streets in your town or city. There are freeways, where everyone drives really fast, and there are major roadways, where people drive at decent speeds but there are stoplights, and then there are surface streets, which have stop si... |
Why are such small discrepancies between analyst predictions and actual revenue, at the box office and elsewhere, treated as huge losses? | They aren't saying the movie was a flop because it took in ~5% less than they had anticipated a bit earlier. They are saying it was a flop because the studio stood to lose $70m on the film. They were revising a number that had been previously reported. |
For those who have seen GoT S4E8, I want to see how realistic something is (SPOILERS) | You know those hand squeezey things that people use to exercise their grip? There variants of those that go up to around 250-300 lbs of force. To crush a skull you'd need upwards of 500, so you'd have to be very, very strong to do it, or pick someone with an especially brittle skull. However if you did get 500lbs of fo... |
How do we know the coloring and personalities of dinosaurs? | We don't know what color dinosaurs were, but we can guess. As for personalities, we can assume that predators were predatory and herbivores were less so. |
What makes people heal faster than others? | Some factors affect the healing process and they may vary among people. How the wound has been treated and cleaned, nutritional status/intake, the state of the person's immune system are factors to healing. Also, people who have high sugar level/diabetics have slower healing. |
Why does even just water burn when it goes up your nose? | The PH and salinity of pure water burn the nose. Sometimes I use a Neti pot. To make the solution for it you add baking soda and salt to distilled water and then it doesn't burn. I forgot to do it once and it did burn like hell.It only burns when it gets way up there! The reason is that you have very sensitive pain and... |
Why does food that should be warm seem to taste worse when cold? Also why does it seem cold when left out for too long, when it should only be room temperature? | When it's warm, it has more flavor. Some liquids evaporate and give off that aroma, some liquids better coat your tongue. Food left out *is* cold, compared to the temperature it's served at and the temperature of your body. Food is usually heated above 100 degrees F. You body is in the 90s. Room temperature is usually ... |
Why aren't humans still evolving? | We are. It just takes many thousands, if not millions of years to visibly see evolution. Evolution doesn't occur in the 5,000 some years that written history has existed.Evolution happens when genetic material gets copied imperfectly from parents to children. These are "mutations" and usually don't change anything, or ... |
The Subjunctive Mood [English Grammar] | The subjunctive is used to talk about possibilities and hypotheticals, and it uses the past participle of the verb. For example: * If I **were** younger, I'd still get summers off. * If I **had seen** him, I would have waved hello. * If I **had jumped** higher, I would have won an Olympic gold medal. * If I **had gone*... |
How many wars are the US currently in, with whom and why? | It really depends on how you define "war". If you want to go by locations where troops are stationed and receive imminent danger pay and combat-zone tax relief, here is a list as of 2013: _URL_0_ There were several changes made in 2014 but this is a pretty good list to give an idea of where the US military is stationed... |
Why birds always fly forming a V. | The V formation greatly boosts the efficiency and range of flying birds, particularly over long migratory routes.All the birds except the first fly in the upwash from the wingtip vortices of the bird ahead. The upwash assists each bird in supporting its own weight in flight, in the same way a glider can climb or mainta... |
With the recent decline of an extension what would be the rippling effects to the rest of the world if greece's economy does collapse? | It might exacerbate the meltdown currently threatening China's economy because of too much debt, too much lending to people hoping to get rich in an expanding market, and cause a massive crash of stock prices as people sell to avoid losing even more. |
What did whaling ships in the 1800's do with the whales after killing them? | If you get a complete copy of Moby Dick by Melville, there are 40 chapters in the middle that describe whales and what they did with them when they killed them. I enjoyed those chapters more than the rest of the bookprocess them on the spot. drag the carcass to side of the processing boat. cut the blubber off the skin ... |
What exactly is going on when a doctor places their hand "down there" and asks me to cough? | Hate to break it to you but that guy at the bus stop was not a doctor.The doctor is checking for hernias , coughing increases the pressure inside the abdominal cavity so when you cough if there is a hernia it will be pushed further and he'll be able to feel it |
Why sometimes things are now expensive from manufacturer's website than a third-party reseller? | A major reason for this has to do with how the manufacturer's company is set up. They'd honestly rather not deal with small-time customers because packing boxes and shipping to locations is a lot of work. A place like Amazon has really efficient distribution methods, so it's cheaper and easier for them to ship packages... |
How are theaters allowed to oversell tickets | Unlike what other people are saying they didn't oversell. Their point of sale software has auditorium max capacity counts and won't let them sell more seats than they have. What usually happens is sometimes there are more one off empty seats than anticipated and they elected to not ask people to move down or make room ... |
If the Sun is closer to the Earth during Winter, why is it not hot as hell? | If you do the math, it turns out that the few percent distance difference between summer and winter, is massively outweighed by the different amounts of daylight the earth sees, as well as the angle of the sunlight. You can think of it sort of like this imagine having your hand about 3 feet away from a campfire, for 1 ... |
What are "shadows, midtones, and highlights" that you see in Photoshop/GIMP? | Shadows is the darkest part of the area selected, highlight is the lightest part, and midtone is the average part. That's all there is to it. |
Why does the surface of the moon seem much darker compared to the surface of the Earth? | The moon actually has a very low [albedo], it only reflects about 12% of light that shines on it. Snow and clouds reflect up to 80% while even soil reflects 20-30% When we look at the moon it seems bright because the sun is blasting it with a crap ton of light and reflecting even 12% of a crap ton of light is still a f... |
What are some of the side effects of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913? | This is an extremely broad topic. Could you be more specific about what you actually need explained? It's hard to determine what are the "effects" and "side effects" of legislation that impacted our economy and monetary in such significant ways. Almost anything could be shown to be related to it in some way. |
How do we know the chemical composition of stars that are so far away? | Stars are big, fiery balls of *constantly burning* fuel. Now, you've probably seen something like this in high-school science, where you add a powdered chemical to a flame, and it suddenly changes colour; green, blue, red, etc. These changes occur because of the chemical compounds being added, and they absorb/reflect d... |
What is exactly happening in turkey right now and between who and why ? | Turkish military vs Erdogan. Military has claimed they're overthrowing the government in the hopes that it will lead to a more democratic nation and the human rights of citizens will be upheld to a better degree. From what I gather, they're pretty sick of the oppression/Islamist leadership in which Erdogan seems to be ... |
How do these "hot singles in your area that want to fuck" websites work? | > Who is gullible enough Never underestimate the gullibility of a lonely socially challenged person that's unfamiliar with the Internet. And if the service that the link is providing is actually partially rewarding at all, such as if a mother of seven from Thailand with a nice younger voice is actually *talking for a w... |
why don’t protons all repel each other in the nucleus? | They do. But the strong force is stronger than the electromagnetic force at those very short ranges. Don't forget that there are four fundamental forces, the other two being the weak force and gravity. |
What exactly is asbestos and why is it so dangerous? | Asbestos is a fibrous mineral that can be woven like cloth. A sheet made of asbestos has amazing properties because, being essentially rock, it cannot burn and is terrific insulation. This lead to widespread adoption in the building industry as it gave cheap pre-fab structures the same insulation properties as stone bu... |
Is there any evidence to suggest that current animals have evolved to overcome specific environmental challenges due to human intervention? I.E. Roads, Buildings, Pollution? | Yes, definitely. A very early and popular example are/were moths in Manchester in England. Basically, the moths tended to be the color of tree bark for camouflage, but in the 19th century soot from factories in Manchester caused the trees to be darker in color. Moths with darker bodies and wings skyrocketed in populati... |
Why doesn’t ice cream freeze to be as solid as water does? | Ice cream freezes while being whipped/mechanically agitated. This limits the size of ice crystals that can form and traps air in the mixture. Both of those help with the creamy texture. If you take an ice cream container, let it melt and then refreeze it without agitation, it will have much larger ice crystals and less... |
Why is it illegal to use chemical weapons during war but it's perfectly okay to bomb, shoot, stab, drone strike and beat someone to death in the same context? | Chemical weapons have other issues associated with them , and beating someone to death slowly would be considered cruel and isn't typically allowed unless there was no other reasonable way to deal with the situation. Bombings might sound bad, but many people hit by bombings are killed pretty quickly. Chemical weapons o... |
HOW does exercise mitigate the symptoms of anxiety? | Basically exercise releases a ton of endorphins. This combats your brain releasing too much of a different chemical that might have made you feel more anxious or depressed.Not a biological explanation, but at least for me, exercise helps me release a lot of the energy and tension that gets pent up in me when I'm anxiou... |
- What does it feel like being high from smoking marijuana | You're five, right? It's like the last five years of your life, and hopefully the next two or three. But with more food. |
Why do ants and insects get trapped in pen circles? | There are a few different explanations for this, depending on what the circle is made of. Ants will get trapped in chalk and baking soda circles, as well. A big contender is that ants travel largely by a scent trail left behind by other ants. If you watch ants coming for pieces of food left on the floor or the sidewalk... |
Why Is The U.S. So Far Behind In Payment Technology? | The US has a large number of indipendant banks, where most of those regions have fairly unified small number of banks. Additionally, I know in Canada they have a unified payment management organization called Interac that sets the standards of payment method adoption though out the country. This means all banks stay on... |
how does activated charcoal remove poison | Paramedic here - Activated Charcoal doesn't remove poisons from the body, the thought is that poisons will bind to the Activated Charcoal which in turn prevents it from being absorbed into the blood stream via the GI tract. In reality, there isn't much evidence that Activated Charcoal is very effective, and it is rarel... |
Why can't a coup happen? | There are so many reasons a military coup could never happen in the USA. First of which is US pride in its self for its democratic ideals! If a military leader tried to take power their troops certainly wouldn't obey them and others would actively fight them. The US population all have access to the media, which is wel... |
Why is the mass of an object not a factor for the amount of speed at which it falls to the ground? | The simple answer is because more massive objects have a stronger gravitational force on them, but are equally harder to move. The Earth's gravity may be pulling on a large boulder with more **Force** than a small rock, but the small rock is much easier to **accelerate**. The more **Mass** something has, the more **For... |
How is a politician receiving money from a lobbyist NOT bribery? | It is bribery. It is illegal for any politician to receive any gifts or monetary donations from lobbyists period. Do you have information that someone has done this? Edit: typo fixThis sort of questions should go on /r/askreddit, or /r/answers. [/r/explainlikeimfive] is about complex and confusing subject being simplif... |
: Why is my computer downloading 36 mb/s, but my game is only downloading at a 4 mb/s speed ? | Your computer is reporting the transmission speed in Mbps . Steam, or whatever you're using to download your game is reporting the transmission speed in MBps . One megabyte is eight megabits. That doesn't account for it exactly, but I'd wager you've done some rounding. |
how do some screws/lids screw on so that they always finish tight facing the right way? | Threads for lids can be single start, or multi start. If it always finishes in the same place it’s a single start, meaning it has one set of threads. If it’s multi start, it can be put on in at least two, but sometimes three different locations, and will finish in one of three possible locations. It’s easy to look at t... |
Why can flies and other small bugs dodge your hand / fly swatter so easily? | In simple terms, flies are so small that when you hit them a wave of air from your hand hits them out of the way before you can hit them. Fly swatters are perforated for this reason to make the wave of air less powerful and make it more likely that you will not push them out of the way or give away your position since ... |
What happens if you don't have money at a toll road? | Had this happen in a big truck a couple times. I didn't have enough cash to pay the toll and they didn't take plastic. They gave me a slip of paper that had my toll on it and an 800 number, called that and paid with a card. If I hadn't paid within 10 days photos of my truck were on file from the security cameras and I ... |
Why people rub their eyes when tired? | From what I found is "Tired eyes\xa0get dry, and\xa0rubbing stimulates the lacrimal glands to produce more fluid.\xa0Tiredness\xa0also closes your\xa0eyes, so you may\xa0rub\xa0to keep them open. Finally, there's a connection between the muscles that move your\xa0eyes\xa0around and your heart. When these muscles are st... |
How are our eyes able achieve a "double exposure" effect? | That's called a "high dynamic range" effect, actually. There are several tricks your body uses, but one of them is that your brain really *does* weave together numerous separate exposures to create the image you think you are seeing. In reality your eyes are constantly jumping around and making adjustments. |
How are TV commercials played with correct timing during live television events? | Producers/directors in the control room have everything timed out. They know exactly when to cut for commercials. It may be live but everything is planned ahead. Also, some live programs usually have a bit of a delay. I used to do graphics for a 24/7 news channel-type, and there were screens in the CR showing a timer, ... |
- why do people want ivory so bad and why is it illegal? | Before the advent of plastics, ivory was a very durable alternative to wood. It was considered a luxury good because of its relative scarcity. Most countries have made ivory trade illegal because harvesting it requires killing of endangered elephants. |
How does Catch Scratch Fever works and why some people never contract it | Cat scratch fever is caused by a bacterium called Bartonella henselae or Bartonella quintana that around 40% of cats contract at some point in their lives. You become infected when a currently infected cat scratches, bites, you pet a cat with a cut, etc. It doesn't happen all the time because even though 40% of cats ha... |
What happens when I burn my tongue? | Its like burning your hand, the heat kills or damages some of the layers of tissue on your tongue. It hurts because your nerves are being burnt. |
What does it mean when something says that it's made from concentrate? | Orange Juice concentrate, for example, is OJ with most of the water removed, leaving concentrated juice. You then add water to get regular strength juice. Most other forms of concentrate are similar, they usually have the bulk of the water removed, making it easier and cheaper to store and shipExample: orange juice. Fr... |
Why can a 10 minute afternoon nap be beneficial, but 10 minutes of snooze after my alarm in the morning doesn't help? | In the morning, your brain starts pumping out 'wake up' chemicals, to combat your 'I'm sleeping' chemicals. In the afternoon 10 min nap doesn't start pumping to many chemicals, but does gives your brain time to rest. Source : Mythbusters Edit: 3000+ upvotes! Wow, thanks everyone! just broke my old record! |
"There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all of Earth's beaches" | Counted? Nobody. But you can estimate based on the size and density of beaches and deserts. Of course new sand is being added all the time. We can do similar about stars in the universe. We can estimate based on density and observation. The stars outnumber grains of sand by several orders of magnitude. The universe is ... |
If you poured 1 liter of neutrons from a bottle onto the ground, would it sink to the center of Earth, rise into space, attach to something, or what? | > If you poured 1 liter of neutrons from a bottle onto the ground, would it sink to the center of Earth, rise into space, attach to something, or what? Just neutrons? Well, first it would be a big question of how you got neutronium to stay together under standard Earth pressure in the first place. This liter of neutron... |
How will our planets water levels rise when the ice melts but a glass of ice water doesn't over flow when the ice melts? | The short answer is: There is a ton of ice not in the water. > So for argumentative purposes, cant we say that Earth is the glass and the oceans and the ice caps are the water and ice? We can't, due to all the ice melting on the land, like that on antartica, greenland, siberia, canada, and so on. [The Daily Show actual... |
Why does the sight/sound of flowing water make a person want to pee? | Ever hear of B. F. Skinner? He made the skinner box, and discovered that you can condition animals to do certain behaviors based on certain stimuli. It turns out that when we pee, it makes a sound kind of like liquid running. We associate this with relief when our bladder isn't feeling so good. |
What causes ice trays to shatter the ice upon removal? | Into ice cubes? The ridges on the ice cube tray are supposed to limit the connection between ice cubes to a small sliver of ice. Bending the tray puts a lot of stress on that thin area os a focal point. This breaks the ice into cubes. Is that what you meant? |
why do I sound different to myself than to everyone else | Because sound is vibration traveling through matter. The recording device records what your vibrations sound like traveling through the air. Your ears are partly hearing how your vibrations sound traveling through the bones and flesh in your head. |
The off side rule in football/soccer. | To add to the explanation of how it works, here's the reason: Without the offside rule, it would be a very successful tactic to have one attacker constantly hanging out near the other side's's goal hoping to receive long-distance passes to try and convert into goals. To counter that, a defender would have to cover him.... |
Why do people have fears of spiders and other bugs, even though some of them can't harm us? | For some, the fear of spiders is innate and not learned. According to a duo of psychologists, spiders are an evolutionarily-persistent ancestral hazard that humans are especially attuned to -- even when we’re not paying particular attention to anything else in our surroundings. After all, our ancestors in Africa co-exi... |
The role of Queen's Guard | It's right there in the name. They are active soldiers who have a duty to guard the royal residences in the UK. They are not for tourists, although a very big tourist attraction, they a trained soldiers who have the authority to kill if needed. Plenty of YouTube videos of them shouting at tourists. |
How is my Karma calculated? | Consider looking at /r/TheoryOfReddit. There are some interesting posts there.From what I can tell, karma is very sporadic and the system has a hard time keeping up with itself. For example let's say I make my very first post ever and wake up and see that my karma is at 1000. I click on my summary and only see it has 8... |
How come ADSL upload speeds are generally just a fraction of the download speed; whereas with cable or fiber optic internet they are usually the same? | It's by design; the "A" in ADSL stands for "asymmetric", meaning that it's been engineered so that bandwidth is heavily favored towards downloading. It's not really a matter of slowing down uploading, as it is speeding up downloading. Maybe an example will help. Let's say we have a DSL line that can handle 12 Mbps. So,... |
Why is the top button hole for most shirts horizontal as opposed to the usual vertical button hole? | The top button hole is horizontal to provide the most support or resistance when you tilt your neck forward and backward while the vertical lower button holes provide resistance to being pulled apart from the sides~~The strip of fabric with the buttons in it is typically made separately and then attached to the shirt. ... |
why do grass stains on shoes and clothing stay green for a very long time but cut grass turns brown much quicker? | Chorophyll is the molecule which makes plants green. Its used by plants in the process to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar. Sometimes chlorophyll can make dangerous side products, or it gets damaged, so plants are constantly breaking down and making new chlorophyll so they don't have too little or... |
Why do our earliest memories start around 4-5 years old? Why can't we remember everything since our birth? | For the life of me I can't remember what book or what class I read it in, but I remember the analogy is something like, "The way your brain and language develop during that time makes trying to access those old memories like trying to access and use a completely different operating system."', "[It's called infantile am... |
If humans have been cranially "modern" for atleast 40 000 years, why has civilization taken so long to kick off (Only in the last 5000 years or so) ? | The key change was the invention of agriculture which occurred about 10,000 years ago. Before that, humans had to spend all of their time meeting their basic needs especially food. Agriculture made it possible for people to have enough to eat and still have spare time to create civilization. *Edit:* Thanks to the sever... |
How come when you get sick you lose your appetite? | When actively fighting infection, your immune cells release signals for inflammation, which subsequently signals that the body is in stress. This activates the sympathetic nervous system, or the "fight-or-flight" response. When you're in "fight-or-flight" mode, blood flow and muscle activity in the stomach goes down, r... |
Why was cloning such a big deal in the 90's but now is rarely spoken about? | There were a lot of breakthroughs in the '90s, and that made it new and exciting and a big deal. And naturally also very blown out of proportion. There are still advances being made, but nothing huge. Cloning would not make a species viable, either. You need genetic diversity, which is the exact *opposite* of cloning. |
Why do fizzy drinks fizz when you put ice in them? | I would assume it's the same concept as adding Mentos to your Coke. All of the dissolved carbon dioxide forms bubbles in the microscopic holes on the surface of the ice. That's why you can't put Mentos in the same Coke or in a flat one. The fizz has already escaped. |
If in all my genealogical tree (my wife's too) there isn't any black person, it is possible that we have a black kid? If it is, why? | Depends on what you mean by "black". If you're talking about simply the skin color being black, then yes its very possible but extremely unlikely. Simply having black skin color could result due to genetic deficiencies producing unnaturally high amounts of melanin in the skin, giving you a "black" child. If you're talk... |
How Hawking believes that our search for understanding the Higgs Boson can bring an end to our universe. | Most things end up resting in the state of lowest energy. Think of riding your bike up and down hills, you coast down a hill to the bottom of a valley, but can't leave that valley unless you apply energy to get up and over the next hill. But there is also the effect of Quantum Tunneling, which would allow you to zip th... |
Explain cousins, second cousins, and removed cousins, LI5 | sibling = brother or sister. A cousin is a child of a sibling of your parent. In other words, he is one of your grandparents grandchildren that isn't your sibling. A second cousin is a child of a cousin of your parent. In other words, he is one of your great-grandparents great-grandchildren that isn't a cousin or sibli... |
Caught between asleep and awake? What is happening in my brain when I am trying to wake up but my body wont move? | This is called Sleep Paralysis. Basically when you go to sleep your body releases a molecule that makes your muscles inactive, this is to prevent you from moving in your sleep too much. Usually when you wake up this effect ends simultaneously however sometimes this doesn't quiet happen and this effect persists for a co... |
how do they determine the karat of diamonds? | _URL_0_ The carat is just a unit used in measuring the weight of gemstones. It's equal to 200mg.Should also note that karat is one of many important quality indicators of a diamond. The others being cut clarity and color, all of which vastly adjust prices and many consider way more important. |
How come you can see certain things better in the dark if you look at them out the corner of your eye, instead of directly at it? | Rods and cones, my dude. Essentially, the corner of our eyes contain the part that is "good at seeing in the dark", whereas the centre of our eyes do not. |
Why does fresh lime/lemon juice taste so much better than the stuff from concentrate? | I think the prevailing wisdom is that there are [chemical compounds in the lime juice which oxidize quite quickly, thus changing the flavor]. I did see a [side by side comparison] that shows 4 hour old lime juice tastes better than lime juiced squeezed to order though.Most industrial citrus squeezes, like the ones used... |
considering the totality of our universe as we know it, can it gain another ounce? | The short answer; No. The longer answer; yes. It turns out that in 'empty' space, a very tiny amount of matter is constantly created and destroyed . This is a pure chance thing, so _on average statistically_ the universe should not gain mass. However, averages are not perfect and it is definitely possible the universe ... |
Why do we perceive some colours as "lighter" than others, (e.g. yellow is "lighter" than blue)? | jebjosh369's explanation in regard to the brightness of color, or its more noticeable capabilities, makes a better analogy than lightness does. Perceiving some colors as lighter than others is a popular misconception because all colors can be lightened depending on the intensity of the color. As a graphic artist, I can... |
How do "off-brand" products come into being? Do the stores that sell them actually make them too? And does this require a license from the brand name company? Are profits split? | O It's been a while since I took economics so I can't remember all the specific terms, but essentially the reason why there are generic brands, and why they're typically made by the same name brand companies is because there are consumers who will only pay for products at certain price points. For example, some people ... |
Do people who have been resuscitated after drowning have lasting negative effects? | Depends on how fast they can be resuscitated. The chance of brain damage occurring starts to rise dramatically after 3 mins of no oxygen. The chance of death/ irreversible coma is almost 100% after 9 mins. |
How does honey help sore throat? How can it be almost instant even though it has to go through the digestive system first? | The reason pure honey stays fresh for so long is that it has almost zero water. A bacteria landing on the honey has its water drawn out of it by osmosis. This kills the bacteria. This is why food can be preserved in honey. A side note Alexander the great's body was preserved after his death in honey. I assume when hone... |
How can places like Office Depot sell notebooks for one cent? How do they profit/break even? | Loss Leaders, stores chose a few popular but inexpensive items that people would already be buying knowing that you'll finish buying whatever else is on your list while you're there. Also, since you feel like you're saving so much money on the cheap stuff, you'll probably make a few impulse buys. Ultimately the price o... |
What is the purpose of aftershave? | I may be wrong but my assumption was to prevent infection. You may have noticed that often after shaving you get a few red bumps where the razor has caught. This redness is your body responding to a breach in your first line of defence against infection, your skin. Aftershave contains alcohol, alcohol is antiseptic, it... |
What is this recent Kotaku Shitstorm about Bethesda and Ubisoft being blacklisted about? | It's about Bethesda and Ubisoft blacklisting Kotaku. They won't provide them with interviews, press releases, or complimentary copies of games to review because Kotaku leaked info about games in development, which those companies considered unnecessary and harmful. |
What's the difference between 'resin' and 'plastic'? They seem the same to me, so is there a significant difference or is it just marketing? | A resin is a generic word for organic polymers that is insoluble in water and hardens. The stuff excreted by trees is, for example a natural resin. Plastic is made from many types of man-made resins, and are themselves a type of resin, but not all resins are plastic. Edit: If thermosetting resins are really a type of r... |
Why do so many superhero origin stories involve parents dying? | It is a very common trope in fiction. It is frequently used because it can accomplish several things - give the protagonist a motive. Why are they a superhero / chasing this villain / in this job. Easy answer: their parents died. - if the crime was committed by the main antagonist, it's an easy way to establish that th... |
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