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Why does the penis glans have mucous membrane instead of skin? | Normally, there is skin before the mucus membrane. This skin is called the prepuce, and it normally covers the glans. However, humans commonly remove this part of the skin during circumcision, and thus leave an exposed mucus membrane. |
Why wouldnt this work?A common joke in my country is about a man who wants to get a chicken which lays eggs so he can get more and more chickens and open a poultry farm | Well, you need two chickens if you want fertilized eggs. What is the joke? From this description, I'd say perhaps the joke is that the man does not realize that there is more to running a poultry farm than simply owning a chicken. But I think there's probably more implication in the original version. |
Why do people go bald on top of their head but not around their face? | I happened to intern at a research institute where I was working on alternative cures for baldness. So apparently hair growth is quite interesting. The hair growth on your head is controlled by two separate mechanisms. One controls the crown off the head , and the other controls the hair around the head. For a large nu... |
Why do I feel exhausted after being out in the sun for a few hours, even if I have not engaged in any physical activity? | Even if you don't do something, doesn't mean your *body* does nothing to. If it is really hot, your body tries to stay cool, and that requires a lot of energy.The Sun damage to your skin causes your body to respond, which makes you feel drowsy. You get a similar response when your body experiences extreme physical exer... |
How sure are we that physical constants are in fact constant? | This is actually a really interesting question that can be looked at specifically through Dirac's large number hypothesis. Dirac observed that the ratio of electric to grativational force between two electrons was approximately 10^40. Dirac noticed that this value was similar to the age of the universe in atomic units ... |
Why is suicide / assisted not covered under a pro choice mentality | Suicide is generally agreed to be a symptom of mental illness. A person whose mental health is severely compromised is considered to be incapable of giving informed consent, an important requirement for most major decisions . That said, many pro-choice advocates are also in favor of physician-assisted suicide in termin... |
Is the FBI and NSA running Tor? | The relevant software is open-source and known to be reasonably secure. The FBI itself said it was mostly helpless against Silk Road and whatnot until the people messed up in their use of TOR to reveal themselves. It is theoretically possible to create TOR entry and exit nodes that are compromised to get some informati... |
Why can't we remember dreams for nearly as long as real events? | It has to do with when a dream happens in the sleep cycle as well as how much sleep you get. Also try to stop drinking coffee for a couple days and see if you get better dreams', "Have you ever recorded a dream in a journal? Then you will 'remember' them when you read them. This is my theory. When you record a dream in... |
Is basic income for humans, when the robots take their jobs, a good thing or a bad thing? | We are faced with destitution in the midst of plenty. Everytime we automate jobs it means that the wealthy can get wealthier. But the poor lost their jobs. Clearly there is more wealth available. The machines are producing it. So it is up to us to devise a social mechanism to ensure everyone has what they need to survi... |
What is the difference between the terms immigrant, refugee, and asylum seeker? | Immigrant: Can I move in with you? Refugee: Dude my place sucks can I crash here for a bit while I figure out what to do? Asylum seeker: FUCK! They're going to get me I need a place to hide. Let me in dude! |
Why in sport we can't have people doping, wouldn't super athletes be a way more interesting viewing experience? | Yes, if everyone was doing steroids and doping sporting events would be much more action filled. But all drugs have a down side if not done in moderation.Sure would be .. but when they die after crossing the finish line because they are so doped up and their heart gives up it's not so good. |
Why have the phone companies not moved on to "caller ID v2" which can't be spoofed? | Why should they? Scam calls make them money, and people have no choice about who their local phone company is. There is no financial incentive for them to improve caller ID. |
Why are greenscreens in movies green? | Green screens have typically been green or blue because neither of those colors are as present in the human skin, so when they are working on them in post production, it is easier for the computer to differentiate more reading if you are still interested: _URL_0_ |
What is the best way to protect your PC against viruses and other internet junk. | To be truly and completely safe? unplug your computer, encase it in cement and throw it in a river. Other than that, there's no way to be completely safe. There are a handful of free antivirus/malware apps out there: * [AVG]* [Avast]* [Microsoft Security Essentials]* [Malwarebytes]* [et cetera] Much of what you can do,... |
What should I do if my plane is going down? Falling in water? Falling in open field? | Die knowing that you died in one of the most advanced machine your species created, comrade.Put on your seatbelt and hope for the best. That's really all you can do in either situation . |
How do things like walmarts straight talk work? They say it's the same networks but half the price. What, if anything, am I sacrificing if I switch over to it? | Its what in the industry is called an MVNO they lease bandwith at certain prices and keep the service bare bones i.e. no roaming, limited service areas, smaller data packages etc. The savings are then passed on to the consumer.The company is either owned by a major carrier or pays a major carrier for use of their tower... |
Why does organic milk have a significantly longer shelf life than regular milk? | According to a quick Google search, it appears to be pasteurized more thoroughly and in more sterile packaging. The extra cost of doing this is OK when you're already paying a premium anyway, but it's not cost effective for regular milk which already has a razor-thin profit margin. And note the expiration is only for u... |
Why is pubic hair curly? | The purpose of pubic hair is to radiate the smell of the genitalia of your sexual partners, so others can smell that you are sexually successful and want to have sex with you too. Curly hair typically has a much higher surface area than straight hair. |
Poison Oak, and why are some people allergic to it but I'm not? | You have a tolerance to the oils on the leaves of the poison oak. This means that your immune system recognizes the poison oak as foreign but does not trigger an inflammatory response. Contact dermatitis is a type 4 hypersensitivity reaction, which means that there is a chance that repeated exposure will cause a more s... |
Why cops chase cars making dangerous situations even worse? | They aren't just going to let them get away. But most police departments have policies in regards to police chases to help mitigate risk. |
What would happen if the earth spun the opposite direction? | The sun, stars and moon would rise in the west. The jet stream and trade winds would be reversed. Earth axis rotation will now be opposite to the Moon's orbital rotation so gravity will gradually slow both rotations lengthening the Earth day and bringing the Moon in closer. Edit: If the Earth were to slow down and then... |
Why do "forgot my password" dialogs only allow you to change your password, not tell you what your current one is? | If they're doing things right, they don't know your current password. When you set a password they put it through a "hashing" function and store the result. When you try to log in again, they put the password you entered through the same function and check if the result matches the one they have stored.The website does... |
how can a tiny magnet be stronger than the whole earth's gravity, when I pick up a little peace of metal from off the ground? | Short answer: gravity is actually really freaking weak compared to things like electromagnetism and the weak and strong atomic forces. However, gravity is also mono-polar. What this means is that while you have north and south magnetic poles and positive and negative electrical charge, there is no anti-gravity that is ... |
Why is welded armor better than riveted armor? | One of the top killers of crew members inside an armored vessel is [spalling]. Riveting two plates together means that there is essentially a metal pin holding to plates in place. Should an object hit any of those rivets the force can turn the rivet into a projectile that bounces around the inside of the vessel like a ... |
Why would you make child car seat straps/webbing out of a material that you cannot wash by submerging the straps in water? | As a parent who had been through more seats than I care to count, my guess would be so you buy another one. While you can wash parts of most seats, the straps are generally not removable to wash . I don't make seats, so I'm educated guessing |
How does a leather strap sharpen a razor? | > How can this possibly sharpen a metal blade? It doesn't sharpen it, it hones the blade. When you sharpen a blade the edge is made very thin. It is so thin that it is flexible, and can easily be curled over by use or even accidentally while sharpening. This makes what would otherwise be a sharp blade a bit blunt. By r... |
Stubbing Toe Hurts Like Hell While Actually Getting Cut Is Mild Pain | I know that the reason paper cuts hurt much worse than razor blade cuts is because the razor cut is so clean, just one simple straight line, while the paper cut is so jagged. Stubbing toe hurts because for some reason there are just so many damn nerves in your toes and feet - and such little padding provided for the li... |
Why do dogs have such short lifespans? | As compared to what? Compared to a fly, dogs live for ages. Compared to tortoises, humans die quickly. It all depends on perspective.Here's a fun fact: Most, if not all, life lasts around [1 billion heartbeats]. Animals with faster heartbeats have shorter lifespans, and ones with slower pulses generally live longer. It... |
To what extent can tissue be regenerated? | It depends on the organ. As you noted, limbs will not regenerate, but bones will "regenerate" if the pieces are brought back in proximity . Bones will reshape themselves based on the forces applied to it . Most solid organs also will not regenerate if damaged too badly or if the organ is lost to trauma. The liver is th... |
Why are the holes inside set-squares rounded? | Not an expert opinion, but it would likely be easier to manufacture and less brittle than a sharp edge. Rounded edges tend to distribute force out, whereas a point would be a focal spot for a breakage. Probably. |
Why does it take iPhone apps so long to cross over to Android? | The iOS app market is more lucrative, so it's not unusual for apps to be written for it first. Yes, more coding is necessary to bring the same app to Android.They have to rewrite it, of course they don't "hate" anyone. Among many other problems they have to be written in a different programming language. |
Does Germany have the power to send Europe into depression? | As the fourth largest economy in the world, Germany could send the whole world into a depressionIf the Germans decided to withdraw from the euro, it would probably cause massive disruption, and lead to the end of the euro. It would also probably be very bad for Germany as well. |
How are we able to see other planets like we see stars? | We can see planets for the exact same reason we see the moon. The process is exactly the same, except an optical aid of some sort is required to see them with the same clarity as they are so much farther awayBecause of the Sun. The Sun gives off light and the planets reflect it. |
How is Amazon able to fulfill such a wide variety of different types of product orders in such a short time (Same Day, Next Day, etc.)? | Amazon maintains large facilities all over the world stocked with common items. This allows you to ship as short a distance as possible and consequently get same day or next day delivery. If you look for something esoteric and strange you'll see that two day is about as fast as they can get to you.Amazon has a bunch of... |
Why is food (and other things) preserved when it is frozen? | What makes food go bad is bacteria. Bacteria cant live in the cold very easily and even if they do they slow way way down. Thus freezing prevents the bacteria from spoiling the food and the food stays good for longer. |
Why don't anti-migrant european countries like Hungary use lethal force to defend their borders? | War refugees are recognised by the UN. Even so death is not a reasonable reaction to unwanted immigration. I'm not a fan of bums asking me for money and cigarettes but that doesn't mean I can shoot them.There are several reasons, but the main one is Hungary and its leaders could be dragged to the ICC if such a thing we... |
How come when my battery goes out and I wait a few minutes, I can continue using my device for another 10 seconds repeatedly? | The battery isn't actually completely out of charge. The device shuts down to protect the battery, because if it goes under a certain amount of charge, the battery will be permanently damaged and will lose its ability to hold a charge. The normal shutoff amount is 6% , and the absolutely minimum before it starts being ... |
What does it mean when a fire is described as an "N"-alarm fire, where "N" is some number? | N isn't a number of any specific thing in most places. It varies from city to city, but it just means that a particular response level is required. Think of it as like being a DEFCON level for fire department, sort of. At one alarm, you'll send out a truck. At two, you'll send out two trucks and a supervisor, at three ... |
Why is the human body made for endurance instead of speed? | Compared to most animals, humans are bipedal. So in the most simplest of terms, we only get power from 2 legs instead of 4 making us slower. At the same time, we only consume half the power allowing us to run for much longer periods of time. |
How does these definitions of Distinction differ? | Distinction can be the process of *noticing* that something is different, or a distinction can be *the thing that is different*. I can make a distinction between two items by noticing that one is red and one is big. I can also say that the distinction between the two items is their sizeThe first one is an action, activ... |
Why was Dolly aging premarutely, and why are it's current clones (all four of them) healthy? What's the difference between them? | Dolly didn't "age prematurely", that's a myth. She died due to a lung disease. The disease was not genetic but possibly caused by Dolly needing to sleep indoors for security reasons. This would explain why the clones don't have the disease. |
What is CloudFlare's ddos protection is doing?(see picture) | The DDoS protection ensures that there are not a lot of connection requests coming from the same place. If there were, it would ignore them so that they didn't hinder the operation of the site. Thats the idea behind it at least. Having used cloudflare on a site before, it didn't necessarily always work as advertised", ... |
What are canker sores and why do they only occur in the mouth? | Canker sores are small, shallow ulcers that appear in the mouth and often make eating and talking uncomfortable. There are two types of canker sores: Simple canker sores. These may appear three or four times a year and last up to a week. They typically occur in people ages 10 to 20.Complex canker sores. These are less ... |
Why do galaxies appear elliptical? | Some of the older, disorganized ones [actually are], but more often the spiral galaxies are elliptical in pictures because you're seeing them at an angle. They're more or less flat, so unless you're looking at them from directly above they won't make a circle in the sky. |
If there is clearly a market for women's clothing with proper pockets, why are they so scarce? | Honestly, it's probably because the market for pockets isn't as strong as you may think. Think of it like this -- are there women's clothing with pockets? Yes. Have people who buy women's clothing purchased those clothes en masse instead of clothes without pockets? No. If people who buy women's clothing were regularly ... |
why is it so difficult for the medical community to give a straight answer about how much a procedure/appointment/etc. will cost? | The doctors and nurses don't even *know* how much shit costs. They just say what work they've done & the billing department handles the prices. Billing can't give you a straight answer because they have different rates for cash payments or insurance. Every insurance company negotiates a set of rates they'll pay for pro... |
Why do we shake our hands when we hurt them but no shake other parts of our bodies when we hurt them? | It also has to do with the nerves in that area. If you shake your hand when it gets hurt it activates the nerves in the hands and your brain can’t really differentiate between pain and the shaking sensation. Same reason we press on an injury like if you stub your toe or hit the side of a table with your hip.Part of it ... |
Why does orange juice taste better after you shake it? | My guess is that the sugar/pulp sink to the bottom when it sits in the fridge for a long time, so pouring without shaking first produces a cup of thinner, more bitter juice, whereas shaking the bottle first allows the sugar/pulp to spread throughout the rest of the juice evenly. Also, bubbles. I like when my orange jui... |
Why do many female dresses include bare backs? | Be Because it looks nice? This is a pretty odd question for ELI5Because it reveals more of the skin, which could be considered attractive, but also doesn't reveal anything that could be considered directly sexy. Because women want to look attractive even in higher class, but also don't want to look like prostitutes. Re... |
Why is it that brail is a thing/that blind people don't just feel the ABC's like those with site read them? | For most signs with braille tend to have bigger letters than can be read by a single finger. It would take the blind person a lot more time to trace each letter of the sign. Braille letters can be placed a lot more compactly, so it's quicker and easier to read.> Braille letters can be placed a lot more compactly, so it... |
How does adblock work and why doesn't Youtube get around it? | In very simple terms, it is just a blacklist that prevents certain domains or subdomains from loading. In more complicated terms, it also parses the sites source code and looks for things like iframes etc. to unfuck the site layout after the ads have been taken out. Also, websites rarely "notice" you having adblock and... |
Why do "Supreme" brand items sell for so much? | Supreme has a target audience of young, fashionable urbanites who are willing to throw down some money to look cool. Their quality is a step above something like Gap, and the price is too. Could you get higher quality stuff for cheaper? Yeah, probably. But you are paying for the design and branding. Nevertheless, in th... |
How can super tall buildings swing and sway at the top? I cant imagine concrete and steel bending and still be stable. | Get a really short fat stick. Try and bend it. Doesn't really work does it. Now get a longer stick of the same thickness and try to bend it. This time it is much easier to bend. That's because you are exerting a larger moment on it, because the size of the moment depends on how far away from the pivot point you are app... |
Where did the phrase, "What am I, chopped liver?" originate from? | No one is certain, but it's been traced back at last as far as 1949. _URL_0_ Theories focus the idea that liver isn't liked by everyone; that this is a low-prestige ethnic dish; and that this dish looks very unattractive. |
If North Korea remains isolated from South Korea, how long before the population becomes physically/genetically distinct from South Koreans? | When you're describing is known to evolutionary biologists as [allopatric speciation]. The answer is that it depends on the [evolutionary pressures] exerted on the populations. [Punctuated equilibrium] says that populations tend to remain relatively unchanged for long periods of time, followed by brief bursts of high p... |
What would happen to North Korea if Kim Jong Un died unexpectedly? Who would take power? | We don't know how NK's government works. They don't really like sharing information with anyone. We SUSPECT that the generals run the show, and Kim Jong Un is just a figurehead, but we don't know for certain. |
Why sometimes water doesnt drop smoothly but needs airholes for being smooth? | The fluid leaving the container is trying to leave an empty space behind it. Eventually this partial vacuum gets so strong that it overwhelms the flow from the outlet and sucks air back in against the direction of flow. This gulping action makes it really hard to pour. A small hole to allow air in, means the liquid can... |
How do movies and TV shows make money off of Netflix? | Netflix pays the studios for the rights to stream the movies. In the case of dvds/blu rays, netflix just buys a huge amount of copies and mails those out to people, they don't have to pay for it beyond the initial cost of buying the disc. |
When a computer is processing electrical voltages as 0s and 1s, at what point does the 0 become a 1, and how can the computer determine this? | It depends on how the system is set up, and varies from system to system. If a system is set to have 0.5v as 'high' and 0.05v as 'low', then it might have a dead region from 0.15v to 0.4v that is indeterminate, at which point the system may raise an error or behave in unexpected ways. |
How do cemeteries make money? | In the US, most cemeteries are required to set aside a certain amount of money for a perpetual maintenance fund. That's what you are paying for when you buy 25 square feet of land for $1000. Part of that money is invested, and the return on the investment pays for maintenance. |
Can someone easily explain the difference between a clause and a phrase? Grammatically speaking. | A phrase is a group of words without a subject doing a verb, e.g. "typing this phrase". A clause is a group of words that includes a subject and a verb, e.g. "while I was typing this clause". |
This is gross but would a human egg taste like a chicken egg if it was scaled up in size? | Nope A chicken egg contains all the nutrients that the embryo will need to form into a baby chicken, there is no resupply so it has to have all of the food within it A human egg is just a single cell that gets fertilized, it has no nutrients in it because it will implant on the uterine wall and be fed by the placenta u... |
What’s with nosebleeds? | Nosebleeds during exercise can happen because you breathe out of your nose pretty heavy and any intense strain to the noise plus dry air, dehydration etc can cause a nosebleed. |
Why is it so much easier to notice typos after you send a message, compared trying to proofread the message before you send it? | Your brain makes all kinds of assumptions for you when it builds a picture of something. Your eyes even have a blind spot that you never noticed because your brain fills in what it thinks should be there. When you are proofreading something that you just wrote, your brain will auto correct small mistakes because it kno... |
How can space be constantly growing? What emptiness is it replacing, if any? | It's not thought to be replacing anything. Rather over time, any two very distant points in space are further apart. Our leading theories of the universe are one that is infinite. There's no point where you reach an edge of "stuff," rather it's voids, galaxies, stars, and planets, in every direction forever. So there's... |
How did "Bitch", which started out as a term of female dog, ends up as being a curse word? | Actually a completely different source. **Bicched** is a Middle English word used to describe the state of rotten or spoiled food, in the 1400s it became a verb, **Bicchy**, meaning to go bad, and in the very early 1600s we see the first written entries for **Bitchy**, used to describe the act of complaining. Around th... |
Why do British TV seasons/series tend to have very few episodes while the average US season has 20+? | British Drama/sitcoms are generally written by one or two people . Whereas American shows are generally written by a team of writers including the creator of the show. For British shows, the creator has a vision of what they want to do so you get like a 6 episode series and only a few series in total. With a whole team... |
Why do some people feel temperature differently to others? | The major factor here is how active your thyroid is. Thyroid hormone has many functions, one of which is to increase metabolism. Increased metabolism causes your body to passively burn more fuel to generate energy , and this process produces heat. With this in mind, men tend to have higher thyroid activity than women. ... |
Why does raw seafood smell so much stronger than other animal proteins? | Chemicals in fish digestive systems that break down food turn on the fish's own body when it dies, speeding up decomposition. This is why you're supposed to gut a fish asap. The chemicals that cause the odor itself come from the decomposition and are called amines. _URL_0_ |
Why are some infections/diseases name/described as "fungus"? | Fungi aren't *just* decomposers, they're a whole kingdom of life . The yeasts you use in bread - and other kinds that naturally live on your skin - are fungi, for example.Because those diseases are actually fungi. Wich do not neceserally need dead organisms to feed on. |
When someone successfully sues a government institution (like the FCC), where does the payout money come from? Taxpayers? | Generally speaking, the goal of these types of lawsuits is not to receive damages, but to compel the institution in question to do or not do something. In this case, the FCC is being sued for withholding documents it's legally required to release under the Freedom of Information Act. If the plaintiffs win, the Judge wi... |
How do Siamese twins take exams? | Conjoined twins are so rare, no one really cares. A school is more likely to have a student struck by lightning while taking an exam than have a pair of unseparated conjoined twins show up. It is a waste of time to try to dream up rules for either case. Also, conjoined twins will be there to help each other for the res... |
How does it work in states where weed is legal? | Retail stores are set to open in places like Colorado within a year or two. In other places people still rely on their network of dealers or use medical marijuana facilities in the meantime. In places like California the ease of access to medical marijuana has pretty effectively hurt low level street dealers. At this p... |
How did the act of leaving the bottom button of a suit top/blazer undone come to be, and why do people say not to button them? | A few hundred years ago when we started to wear what we now call suits rich men wore riding coats while riding horses. The bottom button had to be undone so the coat didn't rip while seated. When they got off the horse the bottom button was never re-buttoned. Eventually everyone wearing suits started to do this to appe... |
How do ER doctors treat high fevers (40 Celcius and above)? | Ice bath and antipyretics. The ice bath forcibly lowers your core body temperature while the antipyretics are drugs that send chemical signals throughout your body to stop producing so much heat, thus temporarily shutting down the root cause of the fever. |
What's the rationale behind early voting days in the US? | It's pure practicality for allowing more people to vote. Some people know how they are going to vote well before election day, or won't be able to easily scheme the time on election day. Therefore, we allow voting for a period of time leading up to the official polling day to allow for schedules and relieve crowds at t... |
What's the most difficult thing to figure out when building a nuke? | Actually obtaining weapons grade fissile material is the most difficult part. That highly pure material requires extensive and costly processing that's hard to hide. The basic science behind the rest of a crude atom bomb is relatively trivial in today's age of cheap precision computing. Modeling the explosive charges a... |
Why is cooking live lobster or crab not considered animal cruelty? | If boiling a lobster alive was animal cruelty, then poisoning cockroaches would also be animal cruelty. Why do people care about lobsters, but not other arthropods with practically identical nervous systems? Because lobsters are big, and people who don't know anything about biology think bigger = more complex.Lobsters ... |
Why isn't Arkansas pronounced "Ar-Kans-ass"? | "Arkansas" is a French attempt at pronouncing a Quapaw language word that means "land of downriver people." Because Arkansas has a lot of French influence the French pronunciation stuck. "Kansas" is similarly a Frenchified Sioux word, but because there is much less French influence in that area the English pronunciatio... |
Why are USB plugs asymmetrical? How would it change the electricity flow--if at all--if made symmetrical? | The original USB plug was made asymmetrical because the computer wouldn't understand the data if it was coming in backwards. The most recent version of USB fixes this, and there's a new cable that can be plugged in either way. A number of devices are starting to use this new plug, like the current generation of Nexus p... |
How do scientists figure out the atomic structure of certain molecules such as dopamine or serotonin? | There's lots of different ways to do it. The technique, that u/Sablemint mentioned is one way to do it, but it only gives part of the picture. Another method is to use various organic chemistry techniques, such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance which indicates the positions of the hydrogen atoms in an organic molecule. You... |
How can speakers produce multiple tones at the same time? | They can be. Essentially, you can layer multiple tones over each other and play the resulting wave. So, you start with a simple [sine wave], which I'm sure is what you're thinking of for a single tone. You add in another wave of a different frequency, and get a [simple resultant wave]. Notice the little ripple in the m... |
How does falling kill someone? | If you just crack a few bones, you will probably survive. However, with slightly higher speeds, two very bad things happen: your bones break completely and you decelerate very fast. When your bones completely break and you're still moving, the bones are no longer able to help keep various bits of your body in position.... |
ELI15: What, neurologically, is intuition? | There is no formal understanding of what "intuition" is. What we do know is that it is not classified under the heading of "rational thought" because rational thought requires higher brain functions that we are consciously aware of. Intuition is believed to be lower brain processing of previous experiences to give you ... |
Why does cheese go bad when it's already essentially "bad" milk? | When they make cheese it's in a cozy bath with all the right bacteria to make cheesy goodness. People control that bath so that bacteria that makes things gross doesn't get in there. You and I have all sorts of gross making bacteria hanging about our places. When the cheese is exposed to that bacteria it goes bad. The ... |
is there any evidence at all of life after death? | If you're restricting yourself to scientific evidence, then no. If you're open to non-scientific evidence, then yes.Someone once pointed out that few people speculate about "where" we were before we were born. I don't believe in an afterlife at all, in any form, but reincarnation seems more plausible to me. There is an... |
How is art restoration often not just creating a simulacrum or a "Ship of Theseus"? | You're correct that art restoration, over a long enough time, creates a "Ship of Theseus," . But what's important in art isn't necessarily that the exact oil paint that da Vinci used remains on the canvas for all to see. Rather, we want to celebrate the technique and inspiration that enabled his art to be created. As l... |
If waterjet cutting is capable of slicing metal with water, how does it not destroy the pipes and nozzle that carry and direct the water? | Typically an finely-powdered abrasive is added just prior to stream exit, and the very hard ceramic nozzles *do* wear out quickly. But, they're easy and quick to replace. |
With all the satellites in space, how do we keep them organized? | That picture made them appear literally thousands of times bigger than they actually are. The picture makes it seem like cars on the highway, it's more like throwing a ball in the air and hitting an eagle. It is extremely unlikely, and we know where they all are. |
the word 'number' represented as 'No.' | It's a contraction of the Latin "numero". **Edit:** To hopefully stop the people who say "No, Latin for number is \'numerus\', not \'numero\'": You might note that I never said that "numero" was Latin for "number". The reason I never said that "numero" was Latin for "number" is because "numero" is not Latin for "number... |
why do some languages have upper and lower case letters. | Actually the reason is a lot simpler than you might think;Usually languages started out having only upper case letters. That's why on really old professional documents, lower case letters aren't really anywhere to be seen. It was only after scribes discovered that they could write much faster and take up a lot less spa... |
How can a public URL for sharing Google Photos albums (i.e. _URL_0_) can be secure? What prevents me from generating such a string and accessing albums created by random people? | Nothing, but the chances are so astronomically low that it doesn't really matter. For example, with the URL you provided, assuming that Google only uses upper and lower case letters + numbers, that's 61^17 different possibilities. Or 2241853325254885342546716970621. |
How do Reality TV 'interviews' work? | After the fact. What they don't show is that the interviews go on for HOURS and is not a simple stream of conscious, there's a producer there asking questions and prodding. The producers are skilled at interviewing in such a way that they can cut the segment together to appear to be a person talking rather than an inte... |
When does a murder become an assassination? | According to Merriam Webster dictionary - it's an "OR" statement a Murder is considered assassination if money was paid OR if it was done for political reasons So a hired hitman is an assassin because he is paidAnd John Wilkes Booth was an assassin whether or not he was paid', "Assassination usually means killing a per... |
How can my face "moisturizer" contain four ingredients that start with the word sodium? | Sodium is just an extremely common element. It also tends to react with just about anything so you end up with lots of different chemicals with sodium in them. Once sodium is in a larger molecule it doesn't aggressively react with other things anymore. For example sodium lauryl sulfate makes shampoo feel more foamy. Th... |
Why do cities restrict the maximum height of structures? | There's quite a few reasons. * Higher buildings mean a denser downtown core, causing greater traffic and possibly pollution issues as people come to work from bedroom communities and search for a place to park. So unless you have good public transport , concentrating things too much can be problematic. * They block lig... |
How did the maker of the first clock know what time to set the clock to? | Clocks were first set with High noon. When the sun was directly overhead. This meant that virtually every town had a slightly different time. Standardized time like we use was not implemented till the 1800s and it was done for the better efficiency of the railroadI saw a special on [atomic clocks] that iirc are the cur... |
How does every species of insects survive sub-zero winters? | Many don't For some, their hardy eggs are all that survive, tucked away somewhere insulated such as in the mud or underwater. Social insects are a little better off. The honeybee survives by all of the bees forming a ball within the hive, with the queen at the center. The beers shiver and buzz their wings to create hea... |
Why is there so much variation in accents in Britain? | Centuries of local communities separated by days travel from their neighbours. Horses were for the rich and trains are new.kanaduhisfruityeh summed it up up until the car and before that the horse became available to the poor it was completely normal to live and die on the farm or hamlet you were born at. You could liv... |
The difference between Kosher and Halal. | 1. Halal excludes alcohol, Kosher doesn't.2. Slaughtering practices are different. 3. Mixing meat and dairy is not Kosher, but is okay for Halal. This one can be taken very seriously, banning that the two be consumed in the same meal , even to the point of having separate dishwashers, sinks, plates, etc. 4. Halal allow... |
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