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Why some drinks, especially vitamin drinks, say "drink it cold" on the packing? | Food and drinks taste very different at different temperatures. Most people prefer to drink coffee hot, it's not nearly the same when it's warm or cool or cold. And beers are meant to be served room temperature, cool, or cold depending on their type because their flavour changes at different temperatures. The drinks yo... |
How and why does a word like 'bi-monthly' exist as it does? It simultaneously means twice a month and once every two months, which is an incredibly important distinction. | Bi- as a prefix usually means every two , but using it as "twice per" seems to have crept into usage as a malapropism. The more correct and less confusing way of saying "twice a month" is "semimonthly". The error might arise because "bi-" can also be used to denote "a pair of" like bipedal=having two legs and bimonthly... |
Why does wood rot and go bad if left out in the water too long, but trees that grow in lakes can survive their entire life. | The simplest answer is that the trees are alive, and pieces of wood are pieces of dead trees. A tree has an entire internal system that regulates water and nutrients, and gets rid of excesses and wastes. The wood is dead, and therefore will begin to breakdown like any other life form after deathWood is xylem cells. The... |
Why does the room "spin" when we're drunk? | Inside your ears are small chambers lined with even smaller hair like structures and filled with a fluid. As you move through space, or the room, your brain is taking note of how those hairs move in the fluid. It's constant feedback to your brain on which direction you are moving. When you drink, this fluid is diluted ... |
Why are credit cards used so much these days and what are the benefits of it over a debit card? | A lot of people seem to be giving you the same bad information you've likely already heard. Credit cards don't inherently equal debt, they are tools. Different cards are intended for different uses. Many people think of credit cards as a way to buy now, and pay over time. While you certainly can do that, you really sho... |
The 'Patent' war between Rockstar, Google, Microsoft and others. | 'Rockstar' is just an umbrella essentially operated by Microsoft, Apple, and a few others. They got their hands on a portfolio of patents from Nortel a while back that Google wanted. Well google knew that these patents were probably going to be used to strike at Android, so they went ahead and bought a bunch of Motorol... |
How do skateboarders get air if they're not attached to the board? | The back foot pushes down, the front lifts up. Front foot slides forward pushing the board down slightly. The back lifts up because the combination of forces causes the board to level out in the air. |
The enormous/elongated ears on statues of the Buddha | Siddhartha Gautama was originally a wealthy prince, he used to wear extremely large gauges made from gold and gemstones as it is customary for wealthy people of his time. He took them off when he decided to abandon his wealth but his ears remained stretched. Artists often include his stretched ears to indicate his renu... |
How does bullying affect someone's mental health, outlook etc.? | depends on the level and persistance. we've seen it drive people to suicide, or it may just ruin a couple of hours and have no long effects. also, just as a note, the world isn't cut into bullies and bullied. There's a lot of overlap. |
why are there so many acts of police brutality coming to light recently? | News follows public interest. If people are interested in hearing stories about police brutality, more stories will be widely reported. As for the effects it has on the audience, the Availability Heuristic can explain how people associate the amount of news coverage a subject receives with how frequent it occurs. The A... |
Why do screws/bolts/nuts get loose and have to be tightened, in the first place? | It can be caused by many different things. It has to do with motion of course. I have a wooden chair I use all the time. It squeaks and twists and after about 6 months a screw will fall out and I'll tighten them all up. It's just wear and tear really. Even on industrial machines rattling or a motor vibration will over ... |
The sound that occurs in my ears before I yawn. | I'm not sure if you're talking about ear rumbling which is like a low rumbling sound, or pressure equalizing which is more of a sharp cracking or popping. I'll hit both. Ear rumbling is caused by muscles around your ears tensing. It's genetic, and only a subset of the population can do it on command. Flexing of muscles... |
what causes the dots and shapes to appear when trying to see in the dark? | Residual images in the individual cones of your eyesVision is amazing! We 've basically got this massive assembly line, all designed to help us see. When there's not enough signal coming in -- photons, hitting our eyes -- everything tries to help. Our iris expands, letting more photons fly in. We focus our attention on... |
Why do we use the word "cheesy" to mean something cliché? What's the connection? | Cheese, since the early 19th century, has been used as a noun to mean something top-rate, of impressive value, and eventually has also been used to mean wealth and money. This most likely comes from the Persian word chīz, meaning 'thing\'. According to the OED, young Anglo-Indians in the 19th century used to refer to t... |
Why do conservatives hang on to the fossil fuel industry so much? Why do they not like renewable industries? | Money. The oil and gas industries pump millions into republican campaigns, in the expectation that future policies and subsidies will help them to carry on carrying on making more money. ) There just isn't that combination of 'spare' money and political will in renewable energy industries at this time.Traditionally ren... |
What's the difference between the Tea Partiers and the Republican Base? | The Tea Party is known for more extreme conservatism - they're anti-tax, they want to cut spending, they do not believe in man-made global warming, anti same-sex marriage, etc. The Republican Base is a lot less extreme than they are. |
Why are fish "allergic" to air? | Fish are no more allergic to air then you are to water. We have lungs, these take the Oxygen out of the air and use it in our bodies. Fish have gills, these take the O^2 out of water. We are unable to take the O^2 out of water because we don't live in it and likewise fish can't take the O^2 out of air because they do n... |
Why aren't sign languages mentioned in reference sources such as the World Almanac? | Sign languages have a long history of being ignored by everyone, including academics. There are still substantial amounts of people who have not yet realized there is more than one. |
The gas leak in California | There's a methane gas leak in California right now, north of Los Angeles in Porto Ranch. What do you want to know about it? |
Why is everyone's go-to immediate crisis response "Oh my God" or "Jesus Christ" regardless of their religion? Even atheists say it too. | Because that is what our culture teaches you. The kind of language you use depends a lot on the language other people around you use, the kind of language you heard growing up, and the things you were taught to say either by your parents or at school. And many expressions don't necessarily have to be in line with your ... |
Why is zero plural? | Because language evolved to the point where we agreed that plurals are used for everything that isn't singular. Including zero apples, 1.1 apples, 2 apples, and -5 apples. |
why do you not need a prescription to buy reading glasses, but is required for nearsighted correction? (Glasses, contacts) | It's not actually required. You can go in and tell the optician to make any prescription strength you want. The reason you get an eye test when getting new glasses is that you do not have the tools or the knowledge on how to gauge your prescription, and therefore you may as well be spending hundreds of dollars on a wor... |
Why doesn’t cookie dough ice cream have a warning to “not eat raw cookie dough”? | The cookie dough in ice cream either does not use eggs or uses pasteurized eggs. Thus they are fully safe to eat rawOccasionally raw cookie dough in supermarkets will have eggs, but the eggs they use are pasteurized to kill bacteria that may propagate. |
How is using GPS free? Why isn't there an ongoing service fee? Who pays for it? | _URL_0_it's not free.. it's managed by our DoD if you're an American.GPS is tracked by satellites the US government has launched and has opened up for public use.GPS isn't charged for because of the way it works. Each satellite just constantly broadcasts the time. Receivers everywhere collect that time broadcast and us... |
How are so many "Competitive Eaters" really skinny when they take in so many calories? | They don't eat like that on a regular basis. One day every few months of eating ludicrous amounts isn't going to make you fat if you're eating healthy and exercising on every other day. |
Why does a taxi license cost €240,000 in France? | Taxi medallions in NYC are nearly $1M. The reason they are so expensive is that cities limit the number of taxis that are allowed to operate. They don't want 500 cabs clogging the streets if 100 can get the job done. Limited supply, huge demand, and you can find someone to pay very high prices.They don't cost anything ... |
Where can one read about WWI for academic purposes (ie sophisticated analysis of that time period) | Go to google and type in World War I. If you see a link that ends in .gov or .edu, give it a shot. |
Why is the Michelin tyre company so revered by Chefs across the word? | Apparently the tire company founded a travel guide company as a marketing strategy. The thought was that people would travel more if they where guided properly and thus use more tires. Pretty genius actually. So the travel guide company started reviewing restaurants as possible travel destinations and rated them. The r... |
What is the difference between the storage technology used in SSD's, and the one used in phones and USB-sticks? | Literally - Nothing except the controller in most cases.In those Few cases Technologically, the main differences between the two are in : The underlying technology used to construct the NAND, The quality of the Flash memory controller, The computer connector : USB or SATA. \tAnd then the primary difference between a fl... |
Is there a practical reason why some brands make phones without removable battery / SDcard, or they're just fucking with us? | If you want to make the battery removable, the entire design of the phone is restricted by that fact. It's a huge design decision that's taken out of your hands as a hardware designer. How do you make a glass front and back like the iPhone 4? Or a aluminum phone like the htc one? Can you make the phone as sturdy if you... |
Why is apologizing considered a sign of weakness? | This isn't studied so much, as it's largely a cultural phenomenon, but some researchers up in the Great White North called "Canadia" or something or other decided to do some surveying to discover why it might be. They found that Canadian men were just as likely to feel the need to apologize as women were when they felt... |
What are horse shoes, and why are they necessary? | A long time ago, people started living in cities and wanted to use their horses there. But they needed a place for the horses to live and because land is always at a premium in the city, there was no room for big happy grassy fields. So they kept the horses in little stalls where they stood in poop and pee all day, and... |
What are the implications of Earth's rotation being 23h 56m? | [This picture] explains pretty well. A 'solar day' is 24 hours, and this is what regulates our day/night cycles. This is why we don't have issues with those extra minutes adding up. The 23:56 hour day that you're referring to is the [sidereal day], which is based on the time it takes for the earth to rotate once relati... |
Why does artificial cool air feel different than natural cool air? | AC was invented because someone wanted to remove humidity from the air, it was only after they did this they found out that a side effect was cooling. Cali. doesn't have that much humidity and Florida has a more then any human should have to go through. I would say in Florida your noticing the cooling and humidity loss... |
Considering how common cracked phone screens are, why do the the manufactures seem to go out of their way to make the screens so damn hard to replace? | To make phones thin, manufacturers sacrifice modularity. No-gap screens have better optical qualityWhy would they want to make it easy for you to be able to replace the screen when they can just sell you a whole new phone at full price? |
If the power of EM waves dissipate over distance squared, how come we can send signals to outer space? Shouldn't the power get practically zero very quickly? | It would if they were beamed in all directions. However, signals sent to distant receivers are focussed into narrow beams, usually with giant dishes . The emitted beam is never exactly parallel so there is some divergence, which is just as well or you'd never hit something the size of a space probe at the distance of P... |
Why is the United States allies with Saudi Arabia? | Oil, oil, oil, oil and oil. Did I mention oil?The Saudis are a source of oil and they provide land for US military bases.The US doesn't care about human rights when it interferes with its interests. |
Can small organisms that bite (such as spiders or some forms of insects) detect that they're standing on a living organism? | You'd be surprised at how good these animals are at knowing when they are close to a meal. Don't forget that things like mosquitos have the advantage of millions upon millions of years of evolutionary selective pressure that have made them into blood sucking machines. They are extremely good at detecting certain odors ... |
Why does prion disease only affect mammals, and the majority of the time, mammals of the same species? | You need similar proteins to be susceptible to prion diseases. They cause a protein to mis-fold in a chain reaction that causes sticky aggregates of mis-folded proteins. If the prion does not have a similar protein to convert to its prion form, it cannot "infect" an individual. Are you sure that prion diseases don't in... |
If a doctor suddenly had a heart attack while doing surgery, would the other doctors work on the doctor or the patient? | Doctor would be removed from the operating room and the assisting surgeon would take over. The heart attacked doctor would be taken outside and treated somewhere else in the hospitalMost hospitals have enough doctors that both people could be attended to.They would continue to work on the patient to get them to a stage... |
Why are sausages usually "bent" while hotdogs are "straight" | Hot dogs are usually made from artificial casing, which is a straight tube. Other sausages are made from animal intestines, which are naturally curvedBecause hotdogs do not contain naturally occurring substances. THEY ARE AN ARTIFICIAL PROCESSED LIE. |
Why people hate Steve Jobs | He ignored his daughter, didn't acknowledge his biological parents, rarely donated to charity, and attempted to cheat his partner, Steve Wozniak out of money.He was an asshole. He disowned and ignored his first born daughter for her entire childhood. He threw tantrums at work, yadda yadda yadda. Have you read his biogr... |
Why are psilocybin mushrooms illegal and listed under Schedule I when they have lowest harm rate Vs. alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, and tobacco and also have profound proven medical benefits? | The same could be said for Marijuana or even ecstasy and LSD. In truth American drug laws haven't receive a serious restructuring on a national level in a very long time. That is why a lot of drugs with medical benefits or low risk of abuse are still classed as Schedule I. |
Why does YouTube give me ads about alcohol when they know I'm in the U.S. and under 21? | Because you’re gonna turn 21. And you’re gonna party. And JackAndCoke™️ is your thing. Unless you’re the most interesting man in the world. Or you’re thinking SoCo and Lime is gonna get you close to the honeys. Bacardi! Because you’re on a beach. Or you will be, once your SoundCloud takes off. All liquor marketing will... |
why cant trains get a more efficient emergency brake system? | One of the reasons that trains are so efficient is that their wheels don't have much rolling resistance. So you can't use car-type brakes very efficiently - there just isn't that much grip between the wheels and the track. Another reason, relevant for passenger trains, is that the people inside are not strapped in, the... |
Is starvation mode real? How does it work? | It's a myth. There have been studies done involving overweight/obese people that didn't consume any food at all for extended periods of time, and their weight loss was about what you'd expect given their calorie deficit. When people talk about starvation mode, that's really a misreading of the results of the Minnesota ... |
The difference between CPU speed and utilization. | "If it takes one woman nine months to have a child, can you can get nine women together to have a child in one month?" There are some tasks that can be divided up to go faster if you have more people working on it. But other tasks can't be - each part depends on the part before it, so if you add more people working on ... |
If humans develop traits are based on what was demanded of them from previous generations, why is baldness developed in men? | All species evolve, which I think is what you're asking about. Species have random mutations, which really are nothing more than random. Then, natural selections ensures that the mutations which are most beneficial to reproducing are the ones which survive. Baldness does not harm an individual's ability to reproduce, t... |
Are electrolytes a real thing, and if so, do they have any noticeable health benefit? | Yes electrolytes are a real thing and absolutely they have an affect on your health. You absolutely need them to live. They are minerals, like salt, potassium, magnesium and calcium that are responsible for carrying the electrical charges in your body Too much or too little potassium and your heart will either stop or ... |
why does belly button lint happen? | Well first of all, it's a small "cavity" in your body, so that's already something stuff more easily gets stuck in. Secondly, the belly button has a lot of tiny hairs in and around the walls of it, and they're mostly directed inwards. This causes them to lock dust and lint in place, rather than allowing it to fall back... |
why are galaxies (and our solar system) disc shaped rather than spheres? | At first when you have a young proto galaxy or proto star system, it's just a cloud of gas that you could roughly shaped like a sphere. But matter isn't uniformly distributed in there. There is some randomness that will cause forming object to spin as gravity make the gas collapse. You know figure skating, pulling thei... |
why are we typically less attracted to fat people? | In a really reduced nutshell: At a base, genetic level, humans are concerned with the survival of the species. So, in turn, we are hardwired to find those qualities attractive that will aid in that endeavor . And those qualities unattractive that will hinder that endeavor In cultures where only the rich are able to get... |
Why are there so many dead worms after a heavy rain? | worms create tunnels under the ground in order to find food and travel where they need to go. When it rains, the water seeps down into the soil and often floods these tunnels. Thus, the worms tunnel up to the surface in order to escape drowning. When they reach the surface, it is often a moot point because the amount o... |
What exactly happens in the brain during a coma? | The conscious mind shuts down for some reason, be it physical damage or a bodily response to something. Processes tat run in the background all run normally It's basically just sleeping, but for longer. |
How did the Republican and Democratic parties essentially switch their political positions from ~150 years ago? | Basically the South was shut out of both parties as the Civil Rights movement progressed. Once the Civil Rights Act actually passed in 1964, they lost a lot of faith in the party, marking the end of the "Solid South." That year was the first time since the Civil War that some southern states voted for a Republican cand... |
Why is it difficult for someone to produce perfect counterfeit money, as in, make their bills the exact same way so they're indistinguishable? | The government spends a lot of money making sure that the notes are hard to counterfeit, with special presses, special inks, and special components to the paper. A lot of the reason this works is that the government prints in large volumes. But here's another thing to remember: the government doesn't have to turn a pro... |
Why do companies run ads for 3 to 5 minutes on youtube? It gets skipped 99% of the time, wouldn't a 15 second ad be much more efficient in getting customers? | 15sec? I suspect most ads barely get the 5sec before the user skips them if its permitted. But the advertiser pays less if the viewer selects to skip it, so to their mind having a person skip the ad might not be so bad get their logo out there, and then bore them into skipping the end to save money.Youtube's ad policie... |
Why is George Osborne selling British public assets, when they are basically money-making machines? | he is selling them at a fraction of their worth to his friends, who will then make sure he continues to earn a lot of money once his time in power comes to an end.Yes, he needs the money right now so he can say he's fixed the deficit right now. He hopes we won't notice the fact that it won't stay fixed because he won't... |
Why is Putin so unpopular in the West? | Because people still dont trust the russians after all thats happened with them in the past 100 years or so that current generations still rememberWhile previous Russian leaders since the fall of the Soviet Union have been friendly to the U.S. and Western Europe, Putin has been more hostile toward the west, and has act... |
SIN, COSIN, TANGENT | Sine, Cosine, and Tangent are all based on the [right-angle triangle]. My math teacher taught us this mnemonic in order to remember the SOHCAHTOA equations:Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Trippin' On Acid S=O/HC=A/HT=O/A where S=sine, C=cosine, and T=tangent O=opposite - this is the length of the side directly ac... |
Why has such extreme corporate consolidation been able to happen in the past ~30 years? | I found the image you linked to pretty infuriating, so I didn't bother to decipher it. But in general, no, antitrust law does not exist to prevent companies from getting big. It exists to prevent companies from engaging in anticompetitive behavior. The whole topic of antitrust law is very big and complex, but the short... |
If TopGear gives a car a negative review can the BBC be held financially responsible if it's proven that the review hurt sales of the car? | Nope. You can't sue someone based on a critical opinion unless it contains lies.Not unless the things they said about the car were false. If they said "don't by Ford F150s because they all catch on fire after 30000 miles" then there could be a case. However, if they are just giving their opinions on a car then a compan... |
The joke "Why is a mouse when it spins?" | The joke's on you. It's like "No soap, radio!". The joke is supposed to be nonsense, and you're supposed to have no idea what's going on, *that's the joke*Found [this]. Sounds plausible. Refers to a moving part on a steam engine that reduces speed due to centrifugal force. |
How do speakers make every sound? | So, its actually just like acoustic sounds. Take your vocal cords for example, they vibrate at a particular frequency and volume, which in turn makes the air vibrate the same way, till the air vibrates your ear drum you get the idea. A speaker can have a lot of different designs, but lets keep it simple: one speaker, o... |
How do you make medicine? | Depends on the medicine. Some medicines are directly extracted from natural sources, yes. In those cases there are multiple methods to extract and purify the chemicals. You can sometimes heat the source in water, which then evaporates carrying some of your chemical of interest with it. You can run it through what's cal... |
Why does a hard drive have less space than the manufacturer says | A small portion is used to store the structure of the drive itself. But the big reason is that when the manufacturer says 256 GB, they mean 256 * 1,000,000,000 Bytes, or 256,000,000,000 bytes. When your computer says 238.5 GB it means 238.5 * 2^30 Bytes, or 256,087,425,024 Bytes. Basically, the people who advertise for... |
Why do conifers have a full duplicate of their genome? | Plants are very tolerant of polyploidy . They tend to just grow bigger. If you're a tree in a forest, growing bigger than your neighbors and getting first dibs on the sunlight is an awesome advantage, and soon everybody's doing it. |
Why Avocados/Guacamole Don't Turn Brown When You Leave The Pit In | Avocado flesh turns brown due to oxidation. Any avocado flesh in contact with air will turn brown after a few hours. People think the pit does something magical but all it is doing it blocking oxygen from getting the flesh directly under the pit, so it keeps that green. It does absolutely nothing for the exposed flesh.... |
Often people say when you get a splinter your body will learn to push it out at some point. How does it happen? | Your body doesn't learn to push it out, it's just that tissue regrows in such a way that the splinter is eventually moved towards the outside of the body, which eventually results in the splinter emerging from the skin. |
How are obscenely large digits of pi calculated and how do we know that they are accurate? | [Mathematicians eventually discovered that there are in fact exact formulas for calculating Pi . The only catch is that each formula requires you to do something an infinite number of times. go on forever.) One of the amazing things which interests people about Pi is that there isn’t just one formula, but a large numbe... |
What would happen to the earth if the moon was suddenly destroyed by an asteroid? | _URL_0_ This documentary covers the subject pretty extensively. Due to it's rather big size , the moon has quite some gravitational effects, like for example the tides and our orbit around the sun. Other than that it is a physical object that can block the sun, interact with other matter etc. Too much would happen to w... |
Are their medications for increasing Dopaminein levels in your brain for extended periods of time? | Define 'extended' and 'medication'. Cocaine will work, but obviously not if addiction and all that entails are considered unacceptable. There are plenty of more legitimate pharmaceuticals that prevent reuptake of dopamine but it's inherently very abusable and thus not a preferred way to treat anything. The risks? The r... |
In an accident when the steering wheel airbag deploys, why doesn’t the plastic cover hit the driver in the face? | There's a hinge, so it opens like a door with the force of the airbag. It's not launched at the driver's face. |
Why do you have to pay property taxes? | To pay for government services in the area. In my state, the lion's share of my property tax bill goes to the local school district. Some it also goes to my public library. |
How can people do several different voices? | Your voice is the product of the size and shape of your vocal folds, throat, skull and other things that transmit vibrations. If you can do impressions, you learn to manipulate your own instrument to sound different. |
how do cell phones make calls when they don't have a sim card or any carrier attached to them? | When you have no sim card inserted, the phone can still connect to nearby cell towers however you'll get a no service notification because whichever network the cell tower belongs to is refusing connection since it can't tell what network the phone is linked to. In the United States all carriers are required to connect... |
Aleph Numbers....whaaat? | In short, there are different values of infinity, and some are larger than others. Very crazy, but there it is. Here are examples of infinities: the number of whole numbers, , the number of even whole numbers, the number of fractions, and the number of all possible numbers , which cannot be written as a fraction) As it... |
How were speeches audible prior to modern amplification? | Acoustics and shouting played a big part. Even the ancient Greeks built large outdoor amphitheatres with acoustics designed to help magnify and project the human voice. Pre-amplification politicians just talked really loud so everyone could hear, although people at the back of the crowd often still had trouble. |
Please explain how the current wage gap in America works. | There is no wage gap. At least not in how you likely think. The 75% number often thrown around for women is based on all jobs for women averaged and compared to all jobs for men averaged. That gives you false information. Men hold a larger percentage of the top paying jobs. This is often because they work more overtime... |
Why does lightly hitting some electronics or machine "fix" them? | Sometimes there is a loose contact between 2 wires. Sometimes due to heat microchips can expand and pop out of their socket. giving it a gentle slap can fix these problems. |
How come damaged headphone cords give the impression of an instrumental track when the audio itself doesn't separate vocals and music? | You can get that effect if one channel of the audio has ended up connected where the ground connection should be. The sound produced by the headphones will then be the difference between the two channels, since one of the channels is effectively being used as the "zero" reference point. Vocals will usually be quite "ce... |
Why humans are so attracted to concerts even though their is shitty audio and the songs aren't as clear cut and good as they are when you listen to them on your iPod. | Concerts are social. You get out and do something with people that like the same thing as you. You can feel the energy of the music at a concert. You feel the bass of the speakers. You feel the electricity from the crowd. Concerts don't sound like recordings. Recordings are managed down to the minute detail. There are ... |
Why did the Netherlands stay a monarchy after Napoleon? They were a republic for more than two hundreds years | 1) Even during the days of the Republic the House of Orange had significant control of the government. 2) The Powers that win the Napoleonic wars wanted to stamp out Republicanism, so having the Dutch return to a Republic was not going to happen. 3) William II was willing to compromise and give up much of his authority... |
Punctuation In And Around Quotation Marks. | If whatever you're quoting has a period, like an entire sentence, then the period goes inside. "I'm going to procrastinate during finals week." If it's just a phrase, NOT a whole sentence, then it's outside. This thesis is supported by his claim that "the Earth revolves around the sun". For above, assume that the sente... |
All the bugs seem to disappear in winter but then repopulate in summer; where do they all go? | Burrow into the ground, under tree bark, under the grass and leaves, leave behind eggs that hatch as it warms up. There are a number of wintering options for insects. |
Why do people in western, developed countries typically get more allergies than people in other countries? | during development, many children are kept away from things that could make them sick or be potentially dangerous, like since peanut butter could be a choking hazard to a baby, the parents won't feed it to the baby, so the developing body won't recognize peanut butter in the future because of that, thus causing a reac... |
How does currency exchange work? What causes the currencies' relative values to fluctuate so much? | Supply and demand. The exchange rate is a price for which you buy the other currency. It's kind of a resource like copper, but the amount of the 'product' is controlled by a central bank. |
Why do people turn down their car stereo volume when they are lost | If your senses are being barraged by multiple things at a time, it’s hard to focus on just one thing. Turning down the music eliminates that distraction and makes it easier to focus on getting un-lost', "For me personally, when the stereo is blasting at a loud volume, it makes it more difficult to concentrate and focus... |
The Fiscal Cliff and its ramifications | Last summer, Congress was having trouble coming up with an agreement to cut spending and increase the Debt Ceiling. So they came up with an idea they they were going to choose a few people to come up with a compromise, then if they could come to an agreement, they would wave a lot of political red tape in an effort to ... |
What's the difference between viruses and bacteria? | Other than the fact that they can both make you ill they are completely different things. A bacterium is a microscopic single celled living organism that reproduces by binary fission . It can make you sick either by producing a toxin or reproducing to the point where it starts to crowd out other vital cells. A virus is... |
What are the protocols for surgeons when they are in the middle of a surgery but the power goes out? | Wait 0.5 seconds for the generators to kick in. In developing countries, I don't know. My guess is there aren't a ton of "protocols" in such hospitals. Maybe if it's daytime they just go outside.they turn on the backup generator or generators. shit like this has been anticipated and planned for. however, if all the pow... |
How do conductors of orchestra work? | The musicians are always looking at them. They will often use their peripheral vision, but they are always looking. The conductor communicates the beats of the measures, the tempo, the style of play you are to use, the volume you are to play at, signals for groups to come in or to stop laying, and many other things. |
What happens when I suck in my stomach? Do my organs just get crushed or what's the deal | There's little to no air inside you, other than your lungs. So you can't reduce the volume of your intestines, but you can move them elsewhere. When you suck in your stomach, notice that your ribs move. This sucks your insides up toward your chest cavity.Your diaphragm contracts, pulling your viscera upwards towards yo... |
How lead (Pb) stops radiation | Ionizing radiation is basically little particles flying off in all directions; it's not totally ridiculous to think of them as tiny bullets. Lead is very dense. Since the atoms are packed so close together, a particle has more chances to "hit something" and be absorbed before it makes it all the way through the materia... |
why does a deficiency in iron cause tiredness? | Iron in your blood helps to carry oxygen throughout your body. Less iron means less oxygen, which means less energyIron is a key ingredient in making hemoglobin the substance that allows red blood cells to transport oxygen. If there is a deficiency then oxygen is not transported as efficiently. So then since oxygen is ... |
The hole in the ozone layer. | Ozone has the chemical formula O*_3_*. It is constantly formed in our atmosphere. Ozone absorbs harmful UV light so it reduces the amount that reaches the ground. Hole isn't the best description really, there is a lot less of it over Antarctica and the southern parts of Earth. CFCs can react with ozone and turn it back... |
why do people over 50 refer to Asians as 'Orientals'? | Everything East of Europe used to be called the Orient. Europe used to be called Occident. Those from the Orient were referred to as Orientals. Somewhere along the line people, especially in the US, started thinking Oriental was a racist term. Elsewhere in the English speaking world it's frowned upon as being old fashi... |
What are the implications of a company trademarking common words? | If you make an app game, you can't have a title of the game be similar to Candy Crush Saga. I believe they trademarked they phraise and not the words.So the issue with King is that they did not just trademark "Candy Crush Saga" but are pursuing/have acquired trademarks for "Candy" and "Saga". This is why they are makin... |
How the heck do 3D printers work? What are the limitations to what they can print? | This question concerns one of the most frequently asked topics on ELI5, so it has been removed. Try the searchbar! It's okay to re-post questions, but please indicate that you did a search and that previous questions/answers didn't help you understand.The simple version is that they print one layer at a time, each laye... |
Why couldn't 17 people swim away from the sinking duck boat in MO? | These duckboats sink very quickly, because they are quite heavy. This feature has been known since they were invented in WWII. Unlike their WWII counterparts, these tourist boats have a roof to keep the sun off the passengers. When they sink, literally in seconds, the people can't fit out through the space between the ... |
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