query
stringlengths
8
249
answer
stringlengths
45
7.8k
How do housebuilders ensure new builds don't rot in the rain or snow before they're completed?
Good treated lumber can usually take this sort of abuse for a time. A build isn't likely to be going for even a solid year, let alone several, if it is wood construction. Treated lumber typically used chemicals to preserve the wood and make it last longer, and they might also choose to apply some sort of sealant to aid...
What is equity and how does it work?
> I'm given $10,000 in equity You get a $10,000 piece of the company. If your company is valued at $10 million, you get ownership of 1/1000th of the company. As the company makes money , it usually goes in one of two places: 1, Back into the company . 2. Distributed to the owners, and you are one of those. You get a ch...
Why can games like Fortnite run well on mobile devices, while not being able to run on home computers with similar or better specifications?
In addition to what the other comment said, when you run a game on your PC you usually have other tasks running in the background like a web browser, voice chat, anti-virus, or mp3 player, while a mobile device puts all background apps to sleep. Also, while there are lots of different mobile devices these days, there a...
Although statistically uncommon(around 2-8% of all cases), are false sexual assault allegations still an issue when it comes to people coming forward against sexual assault?
At it's core, a society has two choices when confronting an allegation of abuse. One the one hand, we can say innocent until proven guilty. This means that the accuser must prove wrong-doing. Under this system, the penalties for failing to provide proof are minor to non-existent. Another system involves the accused bei...
why doesn’t canned food go bad?
The environment in a can is typically not conducive to bacterial growth - a lack of available oxygen inhibits bacteria that require it, high or low pH can stop growth, and high concentrations of salt also halt growth. Anything that's been treated for preservation and placed in a sealed container will generally take muc...
why isn’t Fukushima used as a site to dispose of nuclear waste ? If the area is already destroyed, is it harming anyone or anything to put nuclear waste there ?
We aren't really running out of space to put nuclear waste, relatively small amounts are created, and there is an abundance of places to dig deep holes. We are alos looking into active programs to recycle nuclear waste into different reactors. Fukushima is on a recovery route, and dumping more waste there would both hi...
Why are cinnamon candies so spicy, but cinnamon rolls, and other desserts with cinnamon are not?
cinnamaldehyde is available on amazon. It's pretty great when you want to spice up a big bottle of tea. It's pretty chemically stable, my bottle is about 3 years old and still packs a punch. I think they call it cinnamon oil, not sure if they say what the purity is.
Why is soda packaged differently than beer?
You can buy beer in the same six-pack glass cases, or in huge cardboard cases full of cans. Same as soda. I'm not sure I understand the question.
Why do Americans need to register to vote? Why can’t they consider every adult citizen without a felony or other excluding status with a mailing address in the area as eligible to vote?
Every state has its own laws on this and conducts its own election process for federal offices. Apart from a few civil rights and campaign finance laws enforced on the federal level, all the other procedural details are left up to the states. Some states make it easier to vote, some make it harder. None , to my knowled...
Why do animators usually draw their characters with less than 5 fingers?
Simply because most animations use a low-detail style of drawing, and actually showing 5 fingers requires a lot of detail in a small area — throwing off the artistic style. Same reason each person doesn't have 300 eyelashes.For the simple reason that it’s easier to fit three fingers and a thumb on a hand. Trying to dra...
Why does a rug feel warmer than a tile floor when they are at the same temperature?
we don't really sense temperature like a thermometer. what we detect in touch is a temperature difference . if an object is at a higher temperature, heat flows to your skin, raising its temperature and allowing you to detect that difference. if it is colder, heat flows from your skin and you detect a negative differenc...
. Why are old paintings painstakingly restored, but other antiques lose their value when the patina is removed?
Old paintings are often coated in varnish. A protective layer which can be removed and replaced with new varnish if you know what you're doing and have the right chemicals. This should never be attempted by an amateur and should only be done by a conservation technician after careful assessment.There is nothing equival...
Why do feet have such a big impact on body temperature?
There's a huge amount of blood vessels and less commonly known, the skin is just that much thinner on your foot. Both your hands and feet are your main ways of regulating body temperature, for largely the same reasons. Few people notice the effects of their hands, because most are not wearing gloves 24/7. Your hands an...
Why do some things sound better in our head but don't when spoken out loud?
Its merely your confidence when around people , around people or around no people . This impacts the way you speak or deliver your thoughts on spot. Some people are highly confident when no one around compared to when they are around people with whom they don't know much.
what really happens when ones heart "drops" in a startling situation?
The 'heart drop' feeling you experience is the sensation your body experiences when it begins to pump adrenaline into your system. A stressful or surprising event will trigger your body to respond by pumping adrenaline into your system, and that 'heart drop' you feel is the adrenaline system being kicked in, it's almos...
How do sinkholes form, why, and how do countries like China deal with fixing them, if at all?
Follow up question. Why did you never hear of sinkholes 10 years ago? Seems like they pop up all over the place now but I can't remember ever hearing of them or seeing them on the news until the last decade or so.
How can GPs and doctors see lots of sick people throughout the day and not get sick themselves?
So, this is just my opinion since I'm not a doctor, I'm in another field with many sick people, but I've found that cutting down on directly touching my face with my hands has made a world of difference during the cold season. As a preschool teacher, some days it feels like half of my job is cleaning mucus off of the k...
why does Google Crome use so much RAM?
The previous answers give good analogies, but I'll try to clear it up without getting too technical. It relies on the difference between Processes and Threads. Think about something that requires lots of different processing of different factors to ensure the outcome, such as driving. If you think about driving the car...
Why do giant or massive things in movies - like Godzilla or Titans - always seem to move so slowly?
Well, it's movies, so ultimately it's just an aesthetic choice by the director, animation director, character designer, etc but in real life, big things tend to move slowly relative to their size. They have inertia, which means that they require more energy to increase/decrease their speed or change direction. By makin...
why are mobile companies removing headphone jacks from smartphones nowadays ?
APPLE only did it because they want headphones/IEM etc manufacturers to pay for their Lightning connector , allowing them to have an easy revenue. They can’t monetise over the headphone jack because it isn’t “theirs”. Lightning connector on the other hand, is PROPRIETARY. here is a good article: it comes down to making...
Why does Flint, Michigan still not have clean drinking water?
The problem is that the original change uncoated the thousands of miles of buried lead pipes. Lead pipes if they're coated, don't have a problem with leeching. The new filtration system added chemical to clean the water, but also dissolved the coating that protected the pipes from leeching lead into the cleaned water. ...
Why are things like cars spray-painted, but others like the interior and exterior of houses are usually painted with brushes?
In addition to what others have said, spaying wastes a lot of paint due to poor adhesion or it blowing away. Cars, on the other hand, are electropainted, which means they charge the paint and the car so the paint is attracted to the car and there's little to no wasted paint", 'Used to be a contractor have painted many,...
Why are there so many hurricanes/natural disasters hitting the united states, but rarely you see that level of severity storm in canada?
Hurricanes form in warm air close to the equator. They loose energy as they head north into colder air. By the time they get to Canada they've lost so much energy they wouldn't be classified as hurricanes.
How do you tell a historical figures IQ post mortem?
You can't. Articles like that are simply making guesses based on whatever information they have on that historical figure - there's no reason to take any claim on George Washington's IQ seriously, any more than there would be if someone tried to claim that he had Asperger's Syndrome or suffered from seasonal affective ...
How to not become homeless
This can apply to any situation from work, to love, to homelessness, look for a mentor. Find someone who has achieved what you're looking for and then ask then how they did it. Not everyone is receptive to being a mentor so don't get discouraged if they don't want to help you, just move on to the next person. In order ...
How are braces able to move teeth without loosening them or making their roots weak?
Bracework does reduce the length of your roots , that's one of the reasons they do x-rays to determine if you're a good fit for braces. If your roots are already short you're better off keeping your crooked teeth rather than shelling out for straight teeth that will then fall out in a couple years time.My dentist told ...
How do we memorize voices?
Memories are created when neuron pathways are created in the brain. The more we subject our brains to the information, the stronger the pathways get. We can remember a kinds of things from words to smells to even sounds. The more you hear someone's voice, the easier it is to remember.
Why does a computer take longer to copy a file than to move it? Shouldn't it be the same since it's all data anyway?
There are filesystems where both those operations are mostly free, you just register the data as being part of a different file or part of two files at the same time without moving the underlying data. In those file systems you have to remember to actually duplicate the chunks once you start modifying one file and not ...
Why does only half of a wine cork expand when removed from the bottle?
The inside of the bottleneck isn't straight. It's slightly flared out to prevent the cork from pushing out under pressure. Especially apparent in champagne cork, which look like mushrooms when pulled out.
How does witness protection work?
A part of the problem here is that no answer will be entirely accurate. Because it is in the nature of the help that if it's too predictable, it won't work. If someone has enough resources to go after you and kill you because of what you may be willing to talk about on official record, they also have resources to go af...
What would hearing every frequency of sound at once sound like?
So there's a lot to unpack here. The big thing is that in nature there absolutely could be an essentially infinite continuum of frequencies, that doesn't mean you could detect them. Inside your ear are a bunch of tiny hairs that will vibrate when they're hit by the right frequency sound wave. But if you don't have a ha...
Why do things like a fork scratching a plate and fingernails on a chalkboard make us cringe really hard and what is the psychological effect behind it?
A theory from a previous posting of this question was that it's a remnant of some sort of survival mechanism of an ancestor of ours based on verbalizations that sounded similar.The frequency of sounds like this generate lots of peaks and troughs in quick succession. Our brain interprets this as one long unresolved/diss...
how did android become the de facto phone OS besides iOS?
Seems to me that the main reason why android is the most popular OS, is the fact that android is free. It set the ball rolling at the start, and as it was easier for smaller phone manufacturers to jump on to the free android train, rather than making their own extremely expensive OS , the android started to see a large...
Why did old cameras record and old TV's displayed images in a more square ish shape, and now the modern ones record/display images a lot more in a rectangular shape?
It started out with film size and they chose that aspect ratio to mimic what people typically see. Then once TV got locked into that standard the film industry started going for wider screens so the TV can't show their stuff as well. After a while they tried to standardize all the sizes and found that 16:9 worked prett...
Why are glasses associated with intelligence?
I think it mostly comes from the idea that, in ye oldde times, if you're holed up in the university or library or wherever reading by candlelight all the time then your eyes will get strained and you'll need glasses to continue reading. If you're a farmhand, you very well might need glasses by modern standards, but you...
Why is everyone so afraid of Saudi Arabia?
They're rich, they have oil, they have no morals, and they've funded a great deal of modern terrorism. They also seem to have the west by the balls because of the oil. The result is that Saudi Arabia can shit on anything it wants but the USA and Europe will still buy its oil and sell it weapons.
How giving money to the low-income population would boost the economy?
It would also make them more flexible in terms of employment. Giving money directly would give them the security to not settle for the first job that becomes available, but to better decide what is best for them. They may even be able to save money for all sorts of things, like healthcare, or job training or heck, vaca...
Please explain Carl Jung's theory on the shadow self and how to find your shadow self.
This is a reference to Carl Jung's work and theory. The shadow is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. These are dark, rejected aspects of our being. There is supposedly good in our shadow, as well. However, since it is only our unconscious, we are unaware of what that good is.
Why does the body store excess fat, and not just remove what it doesn't need through excretion?
Animals that stored some fat were better at surviving hard times when they found no food, were more successful at reproducing than the ones that didn't. Thus animals that didn't store fat disappeared. Humans evolved from ones that did. Since storing fat is a complicated process, it would take thousands of generations f...
How does a plane become "invisible" to radar?
Simplistically, radar works sort of like a bat/dolphins detection system. It sends a pulse out, and listens for what bounces back. Large flat surfaces will bounce more back.So the aim of an 'invisible' plane design is to dilute, capture or distort the radar so it doesn't return to thr origin point and give away it's po...
How does casting of underage children work for R-rated movies?
the minors aren't filmed in violent situations on set. even though the final film product after editing, scene cutting and post production shows the child in the same scene. & #x200B; every time the movie cuts to a different camera angle, you can consider that the actors have been replaced on the set and never even see...
Can Someone Explain How If A Theoretical Really Long Rod Was "Pulled" Forward Its Front End Would Move Immediately, But There Would Be A Time Delay Before Its Rear End Moved?
> Let me try to reformulate this: How is it possible for the front end of an object to move, but for the rear end of the same object to stay stationnary for a period of time, even really short, without that object stretching or gaining size, before also starting moving? Who says it doesn't stretch? By its very nature, ...
Why does a white radiator output more heat than a same sized chrome radiator?
Because it's a different, more powerful radiator. Color doesn't matter. That's like asking why is red Ferrari faster than a white Civic. It's not in the colors
What is Mein Kampf about?
Adolf Hitler's account of his experiences and ideas that he started writing in prison. It's part self-adulation, part psychotic conspiracy theory against Jews.
Why is it called clean energy if Nuclear Power creates Nuclear waste?
Nuclear plants create very little nuclear waste. A 1 GW nuclear plant will create about 20 tons of nuclear waste per year. Most nuclear plants have a capacity factor of 90% or higher so that 1 GW plant would make about 8 TWh so that's 2.5 grams of waste per MWh. It takes 120 kg of coal to generate 1 MWh of power. All o...
Why do magnets "die" after a while of being used?
Magnets actually are sensitive to a whole lot of things. External magnetic fields can demagnitize them. Shock or vibration can demagnetize them. And most importantly, heat will demagnitize them. The common grey 'ceramic/ferrite' magnets you might know from your fridge magnets are good only up to 450F. It's worse for ne...
Why is the Pacific Ocean so empty of land masses?
Arguably, the default state of the surface of the earth is to be lacking in land mass in the early days continents were scarce, and even today 75% of the earth's surface is covered in water to some extent there's no reason the pacific ocean is empty of land, it's just a name for a spot where there happens to not be any...
Why do objects in old cartoons that the characters interact with have distinctly different textures, colours, brightness, saturation, etc. than the background?
I think it's because the background is drawn once and used many times but those objects are drawn for the specific episode.
Why do only worms die on the sidewalk after it rains? Why not snails or slugs or other critters?
Earthworms aren't really evolved for dealing with sidewalks, they come to the surface because the rain has moisten the surface. Earthworms need damp soil to move and damp skin to breath. It's commonly said the worm burrows are flooded and the worms will drown if they don't surface, but that's generally not true. The bi...
What are gas planets like?
Gas giants are weird. They're primarily hydrogen, and the outside is light fluffy clouds of it and we believe the inside of Jupiter to be metallic hydrogen, but in between things get kind of weird As you descend into a gas giant you would just encounter hydrogen that was progressively denser, you'll pass through a laye...
How people who communicate in sign language raise babies that can communicate verbally
Quite simply, by allowing additional people to teach the child. Most children don't learn language just from their parents.
How does McDonalds make such a huge profit from franchising out its restaurants?
With out reading the franchise agreement, it's hard to discuss specifics, but in general this is what McDonalds used to do. McDonalds corporate used to find a location and build a restaurant there. Then find a tenant, and make running it as a McDonalds restaurant a requirement, so there's a monthly profit of the rent. ...
Why does being submerged in cold water makes you feel suffocated and gasp for air even when you could be taking in the water as you gasp?
It is physiological. I understand it to be the body reaction to cold it wants you to stop and conserve blood and heat to main organs. It doesn't want to running around wasting heat anf energy. Though it is also our shock response as we are not used to it we get scared and almost panic and strugle to breathe. You can le...
If fruit get their nutrients to grow from the tree, how do they continue to grow or ripen after they are picked from the tree?
Unripe fruit has lot of starch and complex carbohydrates, which are made of many sugar molecules tied together, which makes them not taste sweet, as the fruit ripens, those starches are broken down into sweet sugars. Basically, after a certain point fruits have all the nutrients they need and ripening doesn't require t...
What is NAT and why does it make playing with friends a pain in the butt on consoles?
It was not originally for safety, that's just a side effect. The real motivation is that you need an IP address to communicate on the internet, but we couldn't give everyone an address in version 4 of the protocol because there just weren't enough addresses. So some special software would connect to the internet and ge...
Why is it that when you get older, your hangovers become gradually worse? And I’m talking of a small age difference e.g. between a 21yo and a 25yo
> between a 21yo and a 25yo It's probably - an actually worse hangover caused from drinking more alcohol and drinking less water than you used to plus - confirmation bias whispering in your ear", 'I think my hangovers have gotten less painful as I got older, actually. I’m 28 now. I switched from whiskey and cognac to v...
Why isnt it possible to view the American flag on the moons surface with a powerful telescope?
It's possible, but not from the surface of the planet. Our atmosphere is full of tiny particles that -as strange as it is- bend light around and cause it to get distorted enough that we can't focus clearly enough on the moon's surface. From space is a different matter, atmospheric bloom and scattering are non-issues at...
What’s so special about the UNREAL ENGINE? There are so many video games that seemingly are powered by UNREAL.
The Unreal engine is very attractive to indie/small studios. When choosing an engine, studios have to weigh the pros and cons of each. Cryengine, for example, requires quite a bit of legal paperwork and usually a large cash payment up front. Indie studios who don't have a lot of capital to work with are fairly put off ...
Can someone ELI5 these time-is-an-illusion theories
Honestly, this is one of the best explanations I've heard for it: [_URL_0_] I think when people say time is an illusion, they are referring to how we perceive the fourth dimension as time. I find this, with his visual aid, really help me understand the basic idea of time.
Antimatter and if sound can be heard through it
Regarding question 2: Antimatter is comprised of antiparticles. Each particle has a corresponding antiparticle, all physical properties are the same, except for charge. laos, I'd like to point out that not all antimatter is charged negatively, nor is all regular matter charged positively. & #x200B; For question 1: Soun...
Is Islam really as violent and mysogynic as people say?
Let me preface that you shouldn't say a whole religion is one way or another. It's all about the person who practices. Don't be an ass and label and entire religion. A ton of people are making this a good/bad argument, so I'm going to try to give you a different take. Islam is interesting because unlike Christianity it...
the amendments up for vote in a few weeks. I seriously can’t understand these.
Since you're in Florida, questions like this are better in r/florida. Yes, they're state amendments. I'm in PA and I've never heard of those.
What is the difference between OLED and QLED technology? Which is better?
The way most digital screens work today is LCD - Liquid Crystal Display. Basically these molecules suspending in a fluid are made to align with or block light coming from a back light. Put red, blue, and green color filters over these controllable back-light filters, and when taken as groups they make up a pixel, where...
Why do addicts of hard drugs tend to lose many of their teeth?
In the case of meth, there's physical effects of the drugs and behavioral effects of addiction. In the first case, the drug dries your mouth out - saliva has antibacterial properties but if your mouth dries out, bacteria has an easier time eating and multiplying in your mouth causing cavities. It also makes you twitchy...
Why can't pennies be smaller?
As I understand it, part of the issue is that a lot of machines that accept or return coins sort them by weight, size or both. If you were to shave enough off a penny to make it cost less than a cent to make, many of those machines would either think is was a dime or reject it as invalid, neither of which is an ideal s...
What would happen if you had all of your spine fused
There are people who have had most, or all, of their spine fused. Seems to come up in connection with severe scoliosis. There's also people temporarily locked into full body casts and other such restraints. What happens is you move on with your life. It's done to improve your quality of life, not reduce it, such as red...
what does a maestro do and why is he so important when all the musicians have their partitions ?
If you've ever played in a large group you'll notice it's really hard to hear the other parts. Like when I played violin good luck trying to hear the violas or cellos during some parts of the song. The conductor keeps a beat so all the musicians can stay with each other assuming they're all following thr conductor.The ...
Why is it so hard for the body to fight off cancer?
Your immune system is really good at spotting foreign invaders and killing them, while not killing your own cells. Cancer is made of your own cells, which your immune system is specifically trying to not kill. Cancer cells won't be identified as a foreign invaders and thus won't be attacked and killed by your immune sy...
How is something simply 'deleted' when using something like a camera or phone?
Building off the other comments. Most of the time, like everyone else said, your device just marks that memory as available, so if it needs more memory it knows it can just write over whatever is there. That's all fine and dandy, but the data is still there, and that can also be a problem. Say you have personal informa...
How are secret government buildings/facilities kept from beings exposed by construction workers who worked at the cites? (Secret bunkers, bases, etc)
Either they build it themselves using military or government personnel, or they have a contracted company and everyone working on it will be vetted to various levels depending on what they're working on. This vetting includes things like NDA and possible criminal charges of espionage or treason if information is leaked...
What would happen if a massive planet came very close to earth, as in, would our gravity change?
Gravity is very distance dependent, and decreases by the square of distance. The Sun is obviously influencing the Earth, but doesn't do anything to us personally, because we're so close to Earth. So if some rouge planet zipped by us at the distance of, say, the moon, we wouldn't notice it at the individual level - we'd...
Why is it so difficult to stop peeing halfway while it's so much easier to control your bladder before you start?
I can cut off peeing mid stream perfectly fine Does this mean I'm a super hunan?", 'Ugh, when I was pregnant with my first, I was told to drink X number of bottles of water in X amount of time prior to the anatomy scan. I obliged and had to pee SO BAD. They tried to do the scan, but my bladder was too full and was basi...
How is Bose-Einstein Condensate and Dropelton different from the basic forms of matter which is Solid, Liquid and Gas
Plasma is basically a gas, but the electrons aren't bound to specific atoms and it's more like a bunch of nuclei in a sea of electrons. Bose-Einstein Condensate, to the best of my understanding, is that when you dilute a gas and cool it to almost absolute zero it begins to exhibit some unusual properties.Bose-Einstein ...
Ayn Rand, and why people are so enamoured or not with her.
She advocated the epithome of individualism and capitalism as reaction to the communistic regime she came from. Her views however are pushed so far the other side that the individual should disregard everybody else for it's gain or will. Being a gigantic fanboy, I could recommend the original Bioshock game, which is ab...
where is my insurance money going if every time I need to use it, it makes me pay for it myself over next few years?
Insurance costs aren't high because of $1k property damage accidents, insurance costs are high because sometimes people end up permanently disabled and the courts rule they need to get paid $400k by the person responsible for the accident. Your rates shot up because the data shows if you got into a fender bender you're...
Why are there galaxies made up of matter, but no galaxy made up of antimatter?
Currently an open question. As far as we can tell, matter and anti-matter are created together, yet the current state of the universe suggests there was some sort of imbalance where, after they finished trying to annihilate each other, there was only one type left over. We call this type: matter. Why was there an imbal...
How did English become such a dominant language worldwide?
It mostly started when the UK became a 'world leader' and they spread their language to the countries they dominated. one of the reasons why English is an official language in India. Now that the US is more the dominant one, English continues to be one of the most widespread languages. Having Internet available 24/7 al...
Why does it feel so..relieving to break something when we are very angry?
I have no formal education on this at all just anecdotal. Every get hit in the head, like hard? I very rarely get angry been with my gf for 6 years she has not seen me angry, but when I go to boxing and get hit in the head a switch flips I get extremely pissed and just try everything in my power to fight back. Now I do...
Why is the highest income bracket in US federal taxes $415K (36.9%), why not have higher taxed brackets at over $1M?
There is absolutely an element of fairness to this, that you *never* hear about here, given how young and politically left Reddit is as a whole. Contrary to what you hear on Reddit, the 'wealthy' do pay an absolute fuckton in taxes. The [2016 tax data] hit last week and here are a few highlights: • The top 1% paid a gr...
Why does wearing prescription glasses not made for you hurt your eyes, but using a telescope doesn’t?
Well, for one, you don't use telescopes every hour of every day of your life. You do with glasses, so the wrong ones will cause lasting damage from the eyes trying to focus poorly.I think it has something to do with the telescope lens being able to be adjusted to the eye. Most telescopes the lens are adjustable
What is UTC and how does it differ from GMT?
They're almost exactly the same. GMT is Greenwich Mean Time, named after the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. Having accurate synchronized clocks is important for calculating longitude, so in the 19th century all English ships kept a clock set to GMT to navigate. England pretty much ruled the world, so it was a...
How do junkyard/Dumps sort trash and recycling?
if it's mixed in with garbage, it doesn't. recycled goods are only recycled if they're clean. no grease, no dirt. & #x200B; on recycling line, magnets for metals, compressed air for paper goods, tumbler for bottles and cans. bottles vs cans separated by computer camera.
Why does redoing what we were doing when we thought of something we forgot bring back the memory?
When you create memories your brain connects what is taken in through the 5 sense and made into a complex chain of neurons that store the information. The memory made by the chain can then be triggered by doing something that relates to said memory. I'm not a neurologist so I dont know exactly
Why is key copying and shoe repair often done in the same store?
I can't help but wonder if this might be more subtle than just some equipment being used for both I bet number of shoe repair shops and key copying shops are about the same for a given neighborhood at the Pareto equilibrium so it was sustainable for a store doing one to do the other..
Why in English in W pronounced double u but in French its pronounced doo-bluh-vey (double V)? Did the letter V not exist?
Old English and Old Germanic had a sound like the sound we now associate with w but they wanted a letter for it so scribes often used uu.That was eventually rendered as the letter w.The letter was then taken into French & Spanish etc for use in foreign loanwords. It was a new letter for those alphabets that looked more...
What purpose do wasps serve?
Wasps exist because they happened to exist and they did it well enough to continue. That's why all life exists, not because any of them have a purpose to fulfill. That said, they do benefit us by pollinating crops and eating pests. It's just that this benefit is not a purpose.
How does splitting an atom cause such a huge explosion?
There's a lot of energy stored in atoms. Splitting an atom releases that energy, and also neutrons which then go on to split atoms around it, which causes the energy in those atoms to be released and also more neutrons which then go on to split even more atoms beyond that and so on and so forth. The energy released jus...
Why do capital cities tend to be the most populous in a country (I know there is exceptions like D.C and Ottawa)?
I would guess the other way- the governor would live the most populous city, making more people want to live close to it. Washington DC has a reason to be in that place instead of the largest city in the US . Jerusalem in Israel have the historic and religious reason. I don't know any other examples, but i'd guess they...
Why does cooler air feel cleaner and more pleasant to breathe?
This isn't an explanation but I think it's subjective. Where did you breathe this cold air? Where did you breathe the warm air? For me personally, living in FL, the cleanest air I've ever inhaled was in Fort Lauder dale, the skies were cartoonishly blue, and it was about 100 degrees. The sand was so hot it was borderli...
why do arms crossed over chest considered to be a denial? I personally find just comfortable.
A closed posture like having crossed arms is a body language indication that the person is unavailable or unreceptive to what's being said. People also tend to cross their arms when they're upset or disagree with the other person so it gets read subconsciously as a negative", 'I think it is precisely that. You cross yo...
What makes the skin in ones mouth different than our external skin? Why can it stay wet all the time without getting pruny??
If you mean your fingertips, their prunyness is a nervous system response. People with nerve damages in their fingers don't get pruny fingers to the same extent, or potentially at all. It's not merely a response to absorbing water. That being said, the skin inside your mouth is comprised of the oral mucosa, a mucus mem...
Why is the EPA allowing asbestos back into construction?
Probably because of the current US administration's deregulation push for a lot of things, which surprisingly coincidentally is good for Russia as they are the world's largest manufacturer of asbestos.The EPA no longer protects the earths environment. Unfortunately, it now helps businesses save/make moneyI am not sure ...
What are the rules in the music industry that govern how one artist’s song can be covered by another?
You pay a royalty - you can either ask permission beforehand and negotiate a rate, or just do it and pay the standard rate. Recording royalties are based on sales, while performance royalties are usually covered by a performance fee to ASCAP. Royalties go to the songwriter, not the band, because the band might have bee...
How do counterfeit bill detection pens work?
Generally, they don't In theory, counterfeit bills use paper that isn't up to the quality of that used by the US mint. Paper often has some level of starch in it, but the paper supplied to the US mint for the manufacture of paper currency is actually more like a sort of cloth, and does not contain any starches under no...
the Mercator effect on maps. I just can’t comprehend it. Surely if the IRL measurements are known, they just draw a scaled down version of that?
Buy a ball, draw an image on it, then cut the ball and try to make it into a rectangular map, you can't do that without changing the image. Has little to do with measurements themselves, more with going from a 3d ball shape to a 2d rectangle projection of that shape ", 'A scaled-down version of the real measurements st...
If Ebola is such a deadly virus, why hasn’t it taken over the world yet?
Honestly, it wasn't that bad if you have widespread access to modern medicine. In a fully equipped modern hospital a patient has a well above 50% survival rate, the only reason it caused such chaos and death was because certain countries lacked a modern healthcare system, especially in rural areas. tl;dr: modern medici...
Why do electronic devices, after having a technical difficulty, usually fix themselves after you turn them off and then on again?
Imagine your hard drive like an IKEA cardboard box. The data are the parts and screws you'll be using, and the programs are the instructions you will follow to turn those parts into a cupboard. Now, if you mess up in step 2, you may start having problems in step 5 only. At that point, pieces don't fit where they should...
Why have SSD prices so drastically dropped in the last year?
In additional to the usual technological answers which allow them to make more from less silicon , the market for flash memory is also in an oversupply state right now. When SSDs were new and there wasn't enough flash being produced to satisfy rising demand, flash went to the highest bidder. Now that there is excess fl...
why does rain affect our moods?
The rain puts me in a really good mood honestly. But I think it affects people because it's different and widespread, it's not like a small thing its everywhere you look the world is different from the normal sunny days. I find it beautiful and cleansing.
Why is gravity the weakest fundamental force?
This is one of the great unanswered questions in physics. We really don't know why gravity is so weak compared to the other forces, and if you could come up with any solid answer then you would have your name immortalized in science forever.