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What is the computer's BIOS and what does it do? | A BIOS is a small piece of software that is usually present on a chip on the motherboard like this:_URL_1_ When you power on your computer, before your operating system loads your computer needs to do a check of systems to make sure nothing has failed. It would be silly to start up a system with no video to see or no m... |
Actual ELI5: If dogs have such a good sense of smell, why do they stick their noses up our butts? | I've never had a dog stick his nose up my ass. Are you sure you don't have bacon lodged in a crevice?", 'Because we put peanut butter there to encourage them, silly!This is my opinion, but I'll give it a go. As others have said, dogs get their info from other dog's butts. What OP is most concerned about is how dogs wil... |
How does a gas pump know when the tank is full? | There is a small tube shaped like a T with a long top segment. The upper left end of the tube sticks down into the end of the nozzle, ready to be submerged in gas when the level gets high enough. The upper right end of the tube is blocked by a movable switch which can shut off the flow if pulled with enough pressure. T... |
How does a bladeless fan work? | Technically there are blades you just don't see them because they are covered. The fans in the base blows air around the ring. The ring itself is in the shape of an airplane wing so when this air is pushed around the ring it creates low pressure that in turn pulls air through the hole. Its hard to see in writing so I w... |
if the common cold is so common, why is there no cure? | The common cold is caused by microbes which are capable of adapting really quickly to new conditions. Your body learns to fight off one version but by the time you come into contact with it again it's so different that your body has to learn how to fight it off all over again.There are 1302931038019283102389 variations... |
What's the difference between agnostic and atheist? | They are not mutually exclusive. Atheism exists solely in relation to theism, and addresses a person's belief. Agnosticism exists solely in relation to Gnosticism, and addresses a person's knowledge. Think of it this way. You can understand a thing through two main methods: faith or knowledge. You can believe something... |
Why is zero kelvin 'absolute' zero? How can we know it is the coldest temperature possible? | Apparently 0K, or absolute zero, isn't the lowest temperature possible, as listed [here]. Don't bash/debate me about this, I'm no scientist, I just found the article |
How do we know our galaxy is moving if the only point of view is from within it? | I'm not an astrophysicist or really qualified at all to answer this but the short answer is redshift:_URL_0_ Summary:If the object that we are observing is moving away from us then the light that we observe shifts wavelength towards the red end of the spectrum. We can use this to compare our position relative to other ... |
Why is there no thunder or lightning during snow storms? | I'm actually in Texas and we had Thunder snow last week!", 'There really is. I live just north of Toronto Ontario and Saturday night it went from warm and raining, to cold and storming with a mix of snow and sleet.Yes, the thundersnow. I'm from chicago and have experience this. Very odd and very cool.Its just super rar... |
Why isn't there a universal currency? | Explaining like you're five would you rather have one really big balloon for your birthday party, or a bunch of much smaller balloons? The big balloon may look pretty and be very impressive, but if it pops, then you don't have any balloons left. If you have a bunch and a couple pop, though, you still have a bunch of ba... |
Why isn't there thunder and lightning during snow storms? | Thunder is caused by lightning, and lighting needs humid air. When it snows, the air is typically very dry. This is not always the case, of course, as anyone who's witnessed thundersnow can testify. |
why is gold so valuable ? | Wikipedia has [a useful chart of gold prices from 1960 to 2011]. The red line is inflation-adjusted price—meaning the price of gold adjusted by the rise of the cost of living over the years. The thing you'll notice is that gold had a huge 625% rise from 1977 to 1980—in 1980 gold was about 50% more expensive than it is ... |
LI5: What does the president actually do? | He does several things. A - He is the executive branch of the government. When Congress passes a bill, it ends up on his desk. His job is to consult his cabinet and then say yes or no to the bill and either veto it or sign it into law. B - He is the Commander in Chief of the US Military. Aside from a few checks and bal... |
Goosebumps, what are they? | There are tiny muscles attached to your hair follicles called arrector pili muscles. When they contract, they pull the skin down around the hairs making the little bumps and hairs stand up more. It's mainly a heat conserving mechanisms when the skin gets cold. |
What a DDOS attack is. | When you attempt to connect to another computer over the Internet, your computer sends the other computer a request to open the connection. Usually, it's done in a 3 way handshake. Basically, a message is sent from your computer to open a connection. Then the other computer sends a message back saying it's opened the c... |
What's the difference between "sarcastic" and "facetious"? | 'Facetiously' is the only word I know that uses all the vowels in alphabetical order.Sarcastic - Saying something that you don't literally mean in a mocking or attacking way. Facetious - Saying something that you don't literally mean in a joking way. Example of sarcasm: A semi trailer gets stuck under a bridge. Passerb... |
Why do cats hate water as much as they do? | Actually, most cats are either trained to like or dislike water, depending on their upbringing. It depends on how much time they've had to adjust to it. Some cats are very good at swimming, while others don't like it at all. |
What is anti matter? | Antimatter is identical to matter except it has an opposite electrical charge. An anti-matter proton has the same mass as a 'regular' proton, but has a negative charge |
why don't buses have seatbelts? | On a side note, buses have a low centre of mass. The engine is below the passenger compartment. Here's a vid of a bus balanced on 2 wheels; you can see the centre of grav is far below half way up the bus: _URL_0_ I don't know the question you asked. In my head, the seats tend to snap off if there is a sharp impact, mea... |
If body temperature is 98.7 degrees F, why does a 90 degree day feel hot instead of cool/neutral? | Heat flows from areas of high temperature to areas of low temperature. Heat will flow more readily between your body and the external environment when there is a large temperature difference, i.e., it's more difficult to lose heat when the external temperature approaches or rises above your core temperature. |
What exactly is a circlejerk | Well, it's cliche, but I got to say it's my man Jesus." And so on. They 've become so extreme that they start to take action and start putting Linux Live CDs into people's computers, or changing the wallpapers on the schools\' computers to Tux, the linux mascot. Now since they're all toeing the party line, conversation... |
Why doesn't Earth spiral closer and closer to the sun due to the sun's gravity? | It's not enough to make a difference, or even to measure, but due to gravitational radiation, the earth is constantly losing an extremely small amount of energy, and its orbit is every so slightly decaying. The sun will die long before the orbit decays enough to make any difference though. *If we use the previous value... |
What is antimatter? And how do we know it exists? | Every particle in the universe has an antiparticle, a particle with the same mass, but reversed charge and quantum spin. Antimatter is made the the antiaprticles of what amkes up regular matter: Antiprotons and antineutrons, orbited but positrons . We know it likely exists exists because we've observed antiparticles, s... |
What is big data? | Big data is pretty much what it says, it's a massive amount of data, both structured and unstructured . There are companies that write software to trawl through this mass of data to bring out meaning to it all. |
(US) Why do we have the two-dollar bill, and why isn't it more commonly used? | I think that things got more expensive, and increments of two didn't make sense anymore. I've asked this before, too. ;) |
...What is dust made of and where does it come from!? | Disgustingly, it's mostly dead skin along with dirt you track in from outside, parts and pieces from dead insects, etc. |
Why do doctors/nurses work such long shifts? | If the doctors/nurses work longer shifts, then the hospitals don't need to hire as many doctors. If the shifts are twelve hours long, then you only need two doctors, but if the shifts are eight hours long, then you need three. It's cheaper to only have two doctors instead of three.Nurse here: Any hospital I 've ever wo... |
The universe is expanding. Into what? | lets change your perspective a bit, because it is really just a matter of perspective. Pretend the universe is the non expanding one your intuition tells you about. so it doesn't get bigger. but it does get older doesn't it? the present is constantly moving forward, forging new territory into the future. but where is t... |
- Why can't you tickle yourself ? | My feet are ticklish enough that even I can't touch the bottoms of my feet without tickling. I'll laugh and squirm if i have to scratch on itch. It's kind of sad, really.Tickling is reaction of your body. When some one touching you if your body feel fear it will get ticklish so you can have reaction and you can avoid t... |
The plot to the Metal Gear series | Don't think it can be done, I can't even tell if Solid Snake is working for or against the Patriots. He talks like he's against them but spends all his time stopping anti-patriot plots. |
Chinese Water Torture. How does it work? | The water dropplets make you stay awake, and end up keeping you awake for long periods of time. The drops are irregular in their pattern, which is done purposly. When our mind senses that something might become a pattern, our minds attempt to make that pattern stay in it's routine. Imagine if someone ate McDonalds ever... |
I've read the main ideas behind General Relativity, but I still don't understand how spacetime being curved around something like a planet makes us "fall" towards it. | You may have already heard this explanation, but here goes: Spacetime works sort of like a sheet of fabric, it's actually a plane. Physical objects within that plane have mass. Depending on their mass, they can put indentations in spacetime, like placing a bowling ball on a trampoline. If you put a few tennis balls nea... |
What happens if a girl takes Viagra? | It's a mild vasodilator, meaning it might cause her blood vessels to slightly relax and get bigger, lowering her blood pressure a little bit.Viagra was originally intended as a blood pressure/heart pill. The erection was a side effect of the drug. At most, sexually speaking I guess you could get a rush of blood to the ... |
How sloths are not extinct | They are hard to get to, hard to spot, can defend themselves reasonably well, and aren't real good to eat. In addition, they can get by on a lot less food and water than other mammals, so they can outlast a lot of their competitors. |
What is scientology and why is it so controversial? | it's really no more ludicrous or greedy than any other religion. Scientology's mythos lines up more closely with modern day alien stories than most other religions, so non-Scientologists feel secure mocking Scientology while ignoring the logical inconsistencies in their own religions. also, Scientology is more forward ... |
How does both fusion and fission produce energy? By that principle, couldn't we split and then put together atoms indefinitely for infinite energy? | You can get energy by fissioning elements with a very high atomic number, or by fusioning elements with very low atomic numbers. You can't go back and forth. |
why can people visit Chernobyl without effects of radiation today? | Half life is the term you're looking for. All radioactive materials have a period known as a half life where the radiation decreases by 50% It varies for less than a second to millions of years. So if something has a half life of 2 years like Cesium-134 the amount of radiation after 14 years would be less than one perc... |
why Neanderthals and homo sapiens considered different species? | Tigers and lions can breed and produce viable offspring. We don't consider them the same species because they don't commonly breed in the wild. It's the lack gene flow between the two that's important. |
Why we cant go faster than light | Anything with mass is going to require literally infinite energy to reach the speed of light. We can get as arbitrarily close to that speed as we want , but can't ever actually reach it. This comes out of the mathematics of Einstein's special relativity, and seems to be a fundamental limit built right into the structur... |
The difference between bees, hornets, yellow jackets, and wasps. | Bees and wasps are completely different insects. Hornets are a type of wasp, as are Yellowjackets. Over here in the UK, we just call 'yellow jackets' wasps, which is somewhat confusing. They're just common wasps, the kind who annoy you when you're eating outside in the summer. They live in colonies and eat insect pests... |
What temperature is it in space? | > Say I went into space and the vacuum didn't kill me; would it be hot or cold? Depend on how much sunlight you get it would either be too cold or too warm. Its why space suits have a heating and cooling system built into them. Think of you as a person sitting in a big, clear thermos flask, in a walk in freezer and wit... |
The Monty hall problem- specifically one statement: Since the odds of choosing the car on the first round is 1/3, the odds of losing the game when you switch every time is also 1/3. | There are three different ways to arrange the different prizes. Door [1, 2, 3] 1. [Car , Goat, Goat] 2. [Goat, Car, Goat] 3. [Goat, Goat, Car] Let's say you pick door number one. If it's scenario one, then you picked the car. Monty opens either door two or three, and if you switch, you lose. If it's scenario two, you p... |
whats the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath? | Some use the terms interchangeably. One school of thought says psychopaths are born, while sociopaths are made. When distinctions are made, psychopaths are usually characterized as charming, devious, cold blooded people who will know something is wrong but not care. Sociopaths are considered to be able to form emotiona... |
When I "lose my voice" what is actually happening? | From a biological point of view: when you speak, you are passing air through your vocal folds , which vibrate to produce different sounds and allow you to speak. Generally, the most common issue that impedes speech and causes you to 'lose' your voice is edema of the various structures that form the larynx, as well as o... |
Why can people eat raw fish, but not raw chicken or beef? | Chicken or beef may have bacteria in them that makes people sick. E. coli is carried by cattle and traces of it can sometimes live on the meat, although it mostly gets there from unclean processing, because the bacteria is mainly found in the cow's manure. It will only be on the surface, though, so unground beef only n... |
Why is the order of operations in the order that it is? | It's purely a social construction. We interpret the symbols the way we do because that's the meaning they're supposed to convey. For example, numbers could work just as well if you wrote them backwards. You could perform addition and multiplication and so on all backwards. It's merely our convention that we write them ... |
why don't planets travel around the sun in a circular trajectory? | Gravity doesn't behave like a solid string. It's more like a rubber band. The pull changes based on how far the planet is from the sun. The rubber stretches more at some times than at others. |
Why Zebras weren't domesticated like horses. | Few animals can be domesticated. That's why out of the thousands of species of animals only a few have ever been domesticated. As Amarkov stated the temperament of zebras is too nasty and subject to panic for them to be domesticated. There is actually a popular theory that this is a big part of why Europeans have been ... |
Why does the moon look so much bigger when it's close to the horizon? | It doesn't have so much to do with the moon in reference to objects on the horizon, but to a different illusion. Our brains perceive the sky around us as an oval shaped dome, not a perfect sphere . Forgive my rushed MS Paint job, but line X to us appears shorter than line Y. As a result, the sky directly above us seems... |
What are calories and why does water not have any? | A single calorie is energy needed to heat 1 gram of water by 1^o C. Calorie in context of diet, is energy needed to rise temperature of 1kg of water by 1^o C. In other words, most cells of your body have tiny fireplaces. When they get cold, they burn some calories. They also burn calories when they are moving or thinki... |
Why does e^(pi*i) +1 = 0????? | Ok I'll have a go It's been a few years since I went through it in detail at A-Level, but I'll try and decipher the wiki page as best as I can. I'll jump in with the following expression [], if you want to know how that was derived then check out [this section] of the Wiki: 1. ***e^iθ* = *cos* + *i sin*** - [] Thus, fo... |
Why does water feel so much colder than air of the same temperature? | Water absorbs heat faster than air. What you are feeling is how fast heat escapes from your body. It's the same reason why a piece of metal will feel cold, while a piece of wood will feel warm. |
How has the Earth's core been so hot for so long? | There's some heat left over from the Earth's formation, and radioactive decay produces a lot of heat. |
How is Pluto, and very small celestial object that is very far from the Sun, able to orbit the Sun? | Pluto's mass is not an issue only the suns mass pulling on it. Dust at the same distance moving at the same speed will orbit, as would Jupiter. The velocity of the satellite in orbit is equal to the square root of /the radius of the orbit). That's for a circular orbit but its close enough. Note that the mass of the sat... |
What is Occam's Razor? | All else being equal, and in absence of a better explanation between competing hypothesis, the simpler one that requires fewer assumptions is generally preferred. If you're interested in these kinds of logical arguments, you should look up Wittgenstein's rule following paradox that says something like, any logical sequ... |
How do the Reddit bots work? | foot" or "meter" etc., if there was a number before that it would take the number and work it out in different units. Finally it would post a comment like this GET _URL_4_ That way a bot can do lots of things that a user can do, but from a computer program instead of a browser. Now, it is possible for a bot to also do ... |
What are the main differences between Sunni and Shia Islam? | Shi'ites believe the new Muslim leader should be a descendant of Muhammed . Sunnis believe they should elect their new leader. |
What's the difference between a recession and a depression? | Prior to 1929, there were no depressions or recessions. They were called panics. But in 1929, to make the financial situation sound less scary, the powers that be used a much gentler term, Depression. It's just a little depression in the road and we'll get past it with no real trouble. As it happens there was real trou... |
How is a no-fly zone implemented? | The group who institutes a no-fly zone uses military aircraft to patrol the area. Depending on the rules of the zone, it can be restricted to just military aircraft or all aircraft. If a plane/jet/fighter was flying where they shouldn't, they would be escorted out of the zone and/or shot down. |
How we have a picture of the Milky Way galaxy? | We don't have a picture of the entire Galaxy because we are in it don't have the technology to get a view from far away . Think of it this way, a galaxy is a metropolitan area with the center being the city and the arms being the suburbs. We are taking a picture of the city and suburbs opposite of us, but we are not ta... |
. What is autism? | So think for a minute about all the stuff your brain does without you realizing it, including all the stuff it tunes out and lets you ignore. You're not constantly aware of the way your shirt feels against your skin, right? Or when you're in the middle of a city or a crowded place, you're not continuously aware of ever... |
How can we see light from distance galaxies? | Your analogy of light as a grenade and photons are infinitely tightly-packed shrapnel works pretty well. But we can tell exactly what direction a photon has come from. If this wasn't the case, our eyes would just see a jumbled up mess of light, rather than a picture. With regards to very, very distant stars, very few p... |
How can you measure the speed of light if nothing goes faster than its speed? | Light still takes time to travel. So you can work out the speed of light by having a light source, a light detector, a clock and a mirror. Place the detector next to the light source, and the mirror a certain distance away. Rig the clock to turn on when the light starts and to stop when the detector sense the light fro... |
Why can't I remember the moment right before I fall asleep? | When I was a kid, I used to lie awake at night trying to sleep. Then I'd wake up the next day. I had a theory that to fall asleep, you had to think of a particular word or phrase or something but as soon as you did, you forgot it immediately. Then, when you're next stuck lying awake at night, you had to try and figure ... |
How are speed limits enforced by aircraft? | Usually, they aren't. Those signs are generally meant to make you slow down. It's insanely expensive to actually use aircraft merely for speed enforcement. If they happen to be up there and not busy, then sure, it might be fun to nab a speeder. But generally it's a scare tactic. Source: told this by multiple cops who t... |
The difference between http and https?! | https means it's encrypted on the way there. So if you were logging in somewhere only using http and someone intercepted the data, they could just see your username and password in plain text. If you used https it wouldn't be readable and your info would be safe. |
How chameleons change colors. | Chameleons don't actually change colour to blend with their surroundings. They change colour, yes, this does occur. The thing is, for the most part, they are actually naturally the colour of their surroundings. They also move in a hesitant and slow pattern, similar to leaves in a slow wind. Their main motivation for co... |
Why aren't there foreign military bases in America, but there are American military bases all over the world, even in countries that we never went to war with? | Foreign countries want military protection, don't want to pay for it. US wants to project military strength worldwide, needs lands for bases. Logical trade. |
Why do you get hiccups when you drink too much? | It's been a while, but I believe from my health class in high school, we covered this and the answer was that alcohol impairs your brain. Mainly affecting the part that controls movement and sensory input / muscular response output. First you get a little tipsy because you're not interpreting signals from your ear flui... |
Why do so many countries have debt? | Personal debt is normally not good, sovereign debt is in general not that bad. Why do you think it's bad? |
Decompression sickness, AKA 'the bends?' | Nitrogen is a very common element in our atmosphere, actually over 90% of the air that we breathe. There is a lot of nitrogen in our bloodstream as well, but it is dissolved - it is in thousands or even millions of tiny bubbles mixed in with our blood - and doesn't affect us. Underwater, the weight of the water gets ve... |
Why can animals eat raw meat and humans cannot? | We can eat raw meat, as other posters have mentioned. That said, we are more sensitive to the bacteria that live on raw meat than animals like dogs. Our digestive systems and the bacteria that live inside us are different than them. This means that a dog's digestive system can process foods ours can't .To add to the ab... |
How did early astronomers measure the distances from the Earth to e.g. the Moon, Sun, other planets? | The answer invokes names of the greats: Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Giovanni Cassini. It begins with Tycho Brahe looking up. Brahe carefully observed and recorded the apparent movements of the planets across the sky. He hired Kepler shortly before his death and Kepler continued these observations thereafter. Mixi... |
Why did we evolve to have one dominant hand and foot instead of just being ambidextrous? | in addition to kouhoutek's comment, i would say the level of dexterity we have because of being dominant is more important. since we are left or right handed, we naturally practice with our left or right hand, and become much more adept at skills with our one hand than we could if we had spent equal parts on both hands... |
Why cant we build spaceships in outer space and save the enormous cost of launching something out of the atmosphere? | We will eventually get there - we just don't have the technology/resources/experience to pull off constructing stuff from scratch in space. [Here] is an article explaining how one company is planning on pursuing this, with plans to send out prospecting satellites in 2015. So basically, it is far cheaper to construct so... |
How does what happens past a black hole's even horizon happen? | As you are aware, the event horizon is the point at which the gravitational pull of the black hole is so great that light cannot escape its pull. The escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. So it isn't so much a case of every direction leading into the singularity, but more like requiring an infinite amount... |
If nothing can escape a Black Hole, how come Hawking radiation can? | The Hawking radiation doesn't escape from inside the black hole. The virtual particles come into existence **outside** the horizon of the black hole, and one of them falls in. Once something is inside the horizon, it can **never** come back out. Period.Keep in mind it is only theoretical but basically *virtual particle... |
What happens inside my body when I crack my knuckles/other joints? Will it really cause me to get arthritis later in life? | I heard it was an air bubble that pops, or something to that effect. I also heard it can't cause arthritis |
Why didn't astronomers conclude that the universe is expanding based on the movement of our galaxy itself? | We're *inside* our galaxy, though. How could we measure its movement without checking against other galaxies?", 'Velocity is relative. In order for us to say we are moving, we have to have something to compare ourselves to. If you are standing by the side of the road and see a truck roll by, you would say it is moving ... |
Amps, Volts, and Watts! | Amps are a measure of electric current , Volts are measure of Voltage or 'electric potential difference', and Watts are a measure of power. Power is calculated by Voltage `x` Current. So a device that uses 2 Amps when plugged into a 120 Volt electrical outlet uses 240 Watts of power. You can reorganize the equation to ... |
why do teachers get paid so little? | Because most schools don't make a ton of money in the first place. The only feasible way to raise a teachers salary is to cut a ton of necessities from a school or substantially increase taxes, which almost no one is for. |
I know some diseases take more than one shot, but many don't. Why can't we clump all the vaccines we have a vaccine for into a single supershot? | Vaccines are like carefully cooked up dishes. Icecream sandwich and fries taste great individually but together they would probably suck. Likewise, when two vaccines mix they won't be as effective as they are individually. A vaccine is nothing but a sample of the organism that actually causes the disease in question . ... |
The Second Law of Thermodynamics ( law of entropy) | The law of entropy states that if a system doesn't have any influence from outside forces, it will generally become less organized. You can see how this makes sense given that there are more states of disorganization than there are of organization. E.g., a broken cup can take many forms but an unbroken cup can only tak... |
The Ireland and Northern Ireland conflict. | The most recent riots and troubles are not really related to the Republic Of Ireland , they are internal problems between two groups of people living in Northern Ireland: Unionists and Republicans. The Unionists , are extremely pro-British and want the north to remain part of the UK.The Republicans , want the North to ... |
Why do all the stars and planets look white when you're looking from earth? | Stars emit all known wavelengths of light. The color of a star is relative to where you're viewing it from, and/or what you're viewing it with, and how faint/far away it is. In the spectrum of colors emitted by stars that are visible by the human eye within the atmosphere of Earth, white and blue stand out the best due... |
Why does QM *need* gravity to be quantized? Why can't it be left not a fundamental force, but a space-time curvature as per GR? | It's like MCMXCII said: QM doesn't say anything about gravity, but we know gravity is there. GR doesn't readily describe gravity on small scales, but we know gravity works on small scales. Therefore, there are phenomena we can't describe, so they are trying to modify our best theories to describe it. |
Why/how do stars "TWINKLE?" | Do you know how when you look at a penny at the bottom of the pool it look like it's bouncing around and twinkling? That's because the water moving around is distorting the image of the penny. The same goes for the atmosphere--it causes distortion to the image of a star as the air moves around. That's why we like to pu... |
where did the water on mars go? | A lot is probably bound up under the soil as ice, and a lot also exists as polar ice caps. Liquid water doesn't last long because the atmospheric pressure is very low, making it evaporate very quickly. [edit] don't upvote this. Give your upvote to del33t's reply, below. It's better written, more comprehensive, and shou... |
Why does the statute of limitations exist? | Statute of limitations exists because the only thing the legal system likes more than Justice, is closure. SOL exists to compel Plaintiffs to pursue their grievances within a timely manner. If they don't, then in the eyes of the law it couldn't have been that important. For the possible Defendant, there is a sense of c... |
Why does bottled water have and expiration date on it? | short answer, it wouldnt and they're just covering their bases, so they wont get sued for millions of spacedollars for water-poisoning somebody in the year 2174. in the very long run the plastic at roomtemperature is going to leak somewhat less pleasant flavors into the water, and the trace amounts of whatever else mig... |
why do I feel like I have to cough when I clean out my ears with a Q-tip? | I have that feeling too but it only happens to me when I'm cleaning my left ear. Why? |
Why is it I can start falling asleep while watching T.V. or a movie but when I try to go to sleep I'm wide awake. | I would also love to hear an explanation as well. For me it seems to happen most often while reading a book. I'll literally start to drop off in the middle of a paragraph. I'll stop reading, put my book down on the nightstand, roll over and bam! wide wake |
Why can't Nobel Prizes be awarded posthumously? | Where would you stop? The contributions made to the various Nobel fields by people who are no longer alive are effectively without limit. If you opened up the pool to everyone who's *ever* lived, no one living would deserve an award in any particular year, because somebody dead would deserve it more. |
How does 'computer hacking' work? | SALLY ", or "SALLY "? Perhaps the programmer's check isn't as precise as he intended it to be.> Is it really like it is in the movies? I think a professional from every profession which exists could come forward and thoroughly explain that *nothing in the movies is even remotely accurate*. [This line of nonsense SPRING... |
Why does the moon and Mars have big impact craters on the surface and the Earth does not? | The Earth has a lot of active geological processes that over time wear down evidence of things like impact. The Moon and Mars are geographically dead, or at least far less dynamic than the Earth. Plate tectonics, volcanism, moving water, wind erosion, glacial movements all of these are constantly changing the surface o... |
- Enron, and their scandal | Many well-informed answers here, but here is another, hopefully more digestable answer. Enron was, at one point, an energy company involved in the development and distribution of natural gas. Gas prospecting is a complicated and risky business, so throughout the twentieth century, companies involved with gas prospectin... |
Why is the plural of goose geese, But the plural of moose isn't meese? | Basically it's because they come from different languages. Goose is a Germanic word, whereas moose is Algonquian. |
how can hawking radiation escape a black hole when light can't? | In my very limited understanding, particle/antiparticle pairs are being created throughout space, all the time. They jump away from each other and then loop back and cancel each other out immediately. Since the creation absorbs energy, and the annihilation radiates energy, the net effect is zero. But, in the immediate ... |
What happens to the matter that is "sucked" into a black hole? | Scientists can provide fancy explanations based on their knowledge of mathematics, but in reality there is absolutely no way of knowing for sure since we have never and probably will never observe the inside of a black hole past the event horizon. Therefore matter that goes into it could be broken down into energy and ... |
How can sharks smell blood over a mile away, even if the blood/water doesn't reach them? | They don't sense the blood a mile away. They sense the movement/behavior of the wounded creature through a special sense organ called Lateral lines. It would be cool to find out their detection range. _URL_0_", 'the source of the sent/blood has to be constant, if the source breaks the shark will circle back a few yards... |
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