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How does your stomach know the difference between food/liquid - bowels/bladder? | Your stomach doesn't. The valve at the exit of your stomach opens and the contents of your stomach move to the small intestine. The small intestine absorbs the nutrients from the food and then it moves to the large intestine, which primarily absorbs water. What is left over is poop. Separately, your kidneys are respons... |
Why, after so many years, printers are still poorly designed and constantly run into problems? | I suspect it's because the profit margins on printers are razor thin. It's the Gillette razor model - give away the printer and make money on ink/toner. But then these days the aftermarket ink/toner does a great job and yet the printer manufacturers have conditioned people to expect cheap printers. & #x200B; Take a loo... |
how do cameras in movies get a shot of someone looking into a mirror from behind without the camera being in the shot? | Tilt shift lenses can achieve this effect. The lens has a special adjustable pivot that allows some creative angles to make it look like it's being taken straight on. [_URL_0_] |
How can humans share so much DNA with Lettuce, Banannas and Mushroom's? Do we share the same ancestors? | It's almost all non-coding DNA . Most of it is basic functions like DNA self-replication, repair, and regulation, and gene expression that all life has in common.Theoretically, precisely yes. If you go far enough back on the tree of life, most if not all living organisms on Earth are connected, so sharing DNA is expect... |
What is this weird feeling that causes to feel like your sorroundings are getting bigger or smaller when going to sleep and closing your eyes? | I have experienced this myself, most nights. all I could find that described it the most was 'Alice in Wonderland Syndrome' |
How do ears help in keeping balance? | Not a doctor of anything: inside your head, next to the part that handles hearing, but not really related to your ears per se, there are three little rings partially filled with fluid, one ring for each dimension we can move in. When we move or rotate, the fluid in these rings will move too, . Based on the movement of ... |
Why aren't iPhone viruses more common? What does Apple do that makes iPhones so secure virus-wise? | The main one is installing anything on an iPhone requires that the person pay $99 to Apple and Apple checks it for viruses. iPhones refuse to run anything that hasn't gone through this process. |
Why are the front of commuter trains flat? | You're right: it's not an efficient design for high speeds. And while it seems like your local subway or commuter rail might be going fast, there are practical speed limitations that normally prevent these trains from getting up to, or staying at a high speed where aerodynamics would really matter. The main one being, ... |
If neutering or spaying an animal is necessary to prevent unwanted babies, why not just give them a hysterectomy or vasectomy instead? Do the remaining hormones still have other negative effects? | Spaying is a hysterectomy plus some. Neutering can be notably quicker than a vasectomy. In a vasectomy you cut open the sack, snip the tubes, and tie them off. In neutering you cut it open and rip them out. Significantly faster when doing it on a large scale with things like sheep. The other option is banding but that ... |
How can space bend, expand, and ripple if it’s just an empty void? | We don't know. The best professional ideas we have are to try and treat spacetime as if it is some kind of particle field. This not gone very well at all. The most popular of these ideas is something called String Theory. It is not a theory, but String Hypothesis doesn't roll off the tongue. String Theory is untestable... |
Why are busses significantly safer than cars when they have far fewer safety features (eg airbags, seatbelt etc)? | The danger comes from slamming into something and stopping rapidly. That transfers forces to your body greater that it can handle and injuries occur. This is why cars have crumple zones, to extend that slowdown period to as long as possible. Buses have the advantage that they're large and heavy, so even if they are in ... |
why is is still hard to fall asleep when you’re sleep deprived? | Being sleep deprived makes your body think there's an emergency, and it can get stuck in a loop- You need to sleep right away! This is an emergency! What does the body do in an emergency? It makes chemicals to keep you awake and alert so you can handle the emergency! Oh no, now we need to sleep even more- the emergency... |
how do you know how big the universe is? | That's because we know how fast light travels. So if we see a star and we can measure that it's 94 trillion kilometers away , then we can divide that by the speed of light to see that it's about 10 light years away. In other words, it took 10 years for that light to come from that star and hit our eyes. So if a star is... |
how do skate boards stick to feet in the air? | Well, they just don't _URL_0_ the skateboarder gives the right force in the right moment to make it happen how he wants it. Someone probably can give you more info about the physics that they take advantage of. |
Why do rockets spin on their way up? What purpose does the spinning serve? | Wonder why when you are riding a bicycle and the bicycle is balanced as the wheel rotates / spins, but you lose balance as it gets slower, that's the same with rockets, it spins to keep itself balanced in air and be on its projectile. & #x200B; You spin a top, and while it is spinning it is straight, no wobbles, but it... |
What does Einstein meant when he said a person in free fall wouldn't feel any force / weightless? | Right - since you're not in a vacuum, you're not really in free fall, but rather, falling through a medium - which is not itself falling. That said, there are a few other distortions in terms of sensation if you're falling off a roof, since you can see the ground rushing up to meet you, and some of the experience of fa... |
How do apps like Apple Maps and Google Maps know how much traffic is present on a road? and how do they calculate the destination times accordingly? | Simplest way doesn't even require cross referencing lots of data. Just look at the app users that are *currently* using the app and note their speed given where they are. If they're on a freeway and they're going 15mph ? Traffic is really bad. As for destination times, since most road systems follow a similar pattern t... |
Why is the water in our drinking glass clear and colorless but all the water in Earth’s rivers /lakes/oceans blue? | Because water is very palely blue. So pale you don't notice it in a cup of water. But if you fill a tub, it's visibly blue. |
How do our stomachs that are protruding by bed time flatten overnight? | The biggest difference at morning versus at night is that you're actually a little taller in the morning. Especially if you're on your feet a lot or sitting upright during the day, your spine will compress a little at all of the cartilage between vertebrae. This compression is relieved overnight. Your longer spine has ... |
What is the purpose of different processors on the same phone? | It is probably because they can't buy enough of one chip to use in all of the phones of that model so different factories get different parts to meet demand. It probably isn't the only part like that, it is just one of the most obvious. |
How does telephones actually work? How can someone in other part of the world hear my voice or sounds through the telephone with almost no delay? | When you dial a number, or select one from your contacts, your phone sends a signal to your phone company telling them who you want communicate with. With a landline phone the signals use wires, and with a mobile phone they use radio waves. Your phone company has computerized equipment that understands those signals an... |
How did they record music before computers? | For both records and compact discs, copies were/are made by using the master recording to create metallic or metal-coated discs which are then used to physically press/mould the information onto a consumer record or CD. Before the advent of computers, these master recordings were typically made on high-quality reel-to-... |
Why is it hard to breathe after overeating? | Simple answer is there is less room inside your body for your lungs to expand because you 'over'-ate. Less room for air, hard to breathe. |
nightmares? Why would your brain scare you? | The Freudian view is that it is a way of hiding the 'wish' of a dream. So, according to Sigmund Freud, there are a bunch of changes going on called the 'dream work', which are there to modulate a stimulus from the subconscious in a metaphorical fashion, that stimulus, always representing a subconscious wish. The proble... |
Why do so many otherwise great TV shows struggle to end their stories well? What is it about the creative/production process that makes this so difficult? | Movies are self contained story. By the time the author finish the story he know the beginning, the end and everything in-between and can make sure that everything work together, fix any problem in the story. Sometime the story can be worked on for a long time before it's approved for filming, which give more time for ... |
How can two people in the same environment feel completely different temperatures? | Everything is a variable when it comes about heat perception. The most basic stuff is the area affected and how it receives/loses heat. Let's say that you're smaller than him and he has more body mass. You'll lose more heat to the environment as you don't have enough area and mass to keep the heat in your body, yet as ... |
Why does campfire smoke "follow people around?" | Smoke doesn't really follow you around. Like many things, the perception that it does is due to a confirmation bias. You've heard that it follows people, so you're more likely to notice and remember when the smoke seems to go towards you. You're less likely to notice all the time it's not going towards you, or to notic... |
How do antidepressants cause weight gain? | I'm not sure the mechanism behind it but my doctor, Dr. Huxtable, gave me an antidepressant that made me very sleepy, and when I woke up I was pregnant. |
Why does inbreeding result in a higher chance of genetic defects? | I'm no expert, but my understanding is that it increases the chances of defect genes expressing. If both the parents have it, it greatly increases the chance of it expressing |
Why is it hard for phone companies to supply unlimited high speed data? | they can absolutely. but it's the same thing that happens on the freeways if you live in a big area. at some point demand exceeds supply and you will have traffic jams aka slow downs. so to alleviate slowdowns, they put limits on everyone to reduce the amount of traffic jams. cellular frequencies are way more crowded t... |
Why does the acid in coca-cola cause tooth cavities, but the acid in oranges is fine? | Mostly, it's about quantity. Few people drink huge quantities of OJ every day. Lots of people drink a kind-of disgusting amount of coca-cola |
How come when permanent teeth grow in, they have bumpy edges, and how do they go away? | They're mamelons used to penetrate though gums. They disappear from attrition, chewing the tips of the teeth little by little.A tooth is formed by fusing lobs of dentin so each bump you see is one lobe. |
Snails: where do they get their shells? | Molluscs in general all had shells early in their evolution, the only clade to all loose their shells were cephalopods who evolved to be predators instead of bottom feefers/filter feeders, their trade off of shell for mobility is the defining feature of cephalopods. So the shell is part of them, they grow it, it's usua... |
Why can infants throw up without really reacting, but as we get older, throwing up becomes a horrible, scary thing? | I'm acquainted with some parents who's son at age 3 had his first incident of real vomiting. Poor little guy asked his parents if he was going to die. :- |
What causes the 'uncanny valley'? How does it work? | The uncanny valley effect arises primarily due to our emotional connection to who we're looking at. Our brains do a lot of subconscious work when we look at someone, evaluating dozens of different factors without us consciously being aware of the evaluation. If something looks sufficiently close to human, but just far ... |
What reasons would an employer have in firing someone who has declared bankruptcy? | In the US - I've applied for many jobs where I have access to sensitive banking information on customers. If my credit score or financials weren't in good working order, it's a no go. What I was told is that someone desperate for money might abuse authority, or that If you can't get your credit in check, why would we t... |
What do the folks on the floor of the NYSE do, when it seems like everything is electronic or done by computers now? | Honestly, mostly nothing. You walk around the floor and you'll see most of them on youtube, facebook, or reddit. I suppose some of them are trading there but they could also trade just as easily from an office, but there's value in being physically near other traders to get a feel for how the markets are doing. But yea... |
Why does the quality of GIFs, pics deteriorate with each repost? | If you were to download it and reupload it, then you're decompressing and compressing it again. Certain algorithms use lossy compression, which means that some data is lost in exchange for lower file sizes . & #x200B; So each time you compress/decompress you're losing a small amount of data each time, which in turn mak... |
Aerodynamic manoeuvres and Wing rakes | > why not use forward swept wings NASA did build a research plane to study forward swept wings, the X-29. _URL_0_ While the wings do help with maneuverability the wing-tips are subject to extreme torsional stress. That stress can cause wing-tip flutter, leading to loss of control, and even structural failure. Building ... |
Why do cars go faster than the highest speed limit? | Montana has a speed limit of 80, they won't make cars just for Montana. There are also time that for your own safety you need to accelerate faster than the speed limit to clear a bad situation. When it comes down to it people need to, and want to, have control over their safety and messing with that control is not a go... |
how does Amazon go from 2 day shipping to 1 day shipping? | Priority shipping. Amazon prime product is sorted as soon as it arrives in a facility and if local is sent out for delivery by truck by the morning or if it's interstate it gets sorted and goes directly on a plane and arrives at destination within a few hours and is sorted and ready for delivery by morning. Source: I w... |
Why did we spit the day in half with AM and PM? | We split the day originally because we lived our lives mostly in the daylight. It was convenient to mark time from sunrise to mid-day and then from mid-day to sunset. We haven't changed to a 24 hour clock because we're used to the 12 hour clock, as cumbersome as it is. I personally use a 24 hour clock. |
how do energy companies safely obtain radioactive material for nuclear power plants? | Not every radioactive material ore is very radioactive by itself, normal uranium is not much radioactive but the isotope uranium-235 is. Try to avoid associating radiation to immediate danger, not all kinds of radiation are dangerous and it's impossible to not be exposed to radiation during your life.Nuclear power plan... |
How does an increase in buying something cause the price to increase? | Because it increases demand. Let's say you have five apples. One guy wants to buy your apples, and nobody else. So he gets to just name any price he wants, and if you don't like it there is little you can do about it. If you need the money bad enough, you might be forced to accept an incredibly low price for those appl... |
why does thunder sound long and with a long rumble when the lightning is far away and why is it a short hard bang if it is really close? | If you're right next to me in the pool and I splash the water, it will smack against you sharply. If you're at the other end of the pool, it will just be some waves that slowly ripple by you. Sound waves behave a lot like water waves. If they have room to spread out, they will. There's also the effect of echoes bouncin... |
what is the purpose of non-antibacterial/normal hand soap? | Bacteria have a special oily layer called a cell membrane surrounding them to protect them. It's like their skin. Water and oil don't mix. When you rinse the bacteria with water, the water bounces off the oil. Soap is a special molecule. It has two hands. One hand holds oil. The other holds water. This allows the soap ... |
why is it that sometimes when drinking hot/cold water you feel it down your chest but other times you don’t? | Because of the way your nerves work, you can't actually feel temperature directly, only when heat is added or taken away, i.e. you can't actually feel the temperature of the air around you, just how much hotter or cooler than your skin it is. Your esophagus and stomach also have these kind of nerves, so what you are fe... |
How are complex functions like trigonometric or hyperbolic calculated on computers or scientific calculators? | Simple answer. Because the computer or calculator is running really fast. A simple floating point operation or integer can be done in one clock cycle. And there are dedicated hardware to do special functions, but let's ignore those for now. With high end calculators running 10mhz processors that means they can do 10 mi... |
How come people with Alzheimer's disease do not forget how to speak their native language? | My grandmother definitely forgot how to speak towards the end of her life. It's really just .how lucky they get. |
I’m in the northern hemisphere, why does the sun seem like it is setting in the north west? | The answer is pretty simple. In the summer it sets further north and in the winter it sets further south. The reason being because of the tilt of the earth. There is a common misconception that the seasons are caused by the proximity to the sun, but that's false. The earth is tilted at an angle and as it goes around th... |
How come people can be so open about their use of illegal drugs on the internet without getting caught by the police? | Most countries don't have a law prohibiting drug use. What they do have are laws against possession, intent to supply, supply and conspiracy to import / report. Aside from it costing a lot of money to trace the users post to their address, and to find out who sent it, and to gain a warrant to search the property, and t... |
Can people be sensitive to lightning or thunder storms? | The reason that lightning strikes is because a charge differential builds up between the clouds and the ground. It's like a really huge version of rubbing your feet on the carpet and then sparking the light switch or door knob. The winds rubbing against each other as part of a a weather front will make this charge happ... |
Why do flies spawn out of banana peels? How do they always get there? | I hate to break it to you, but they don't just spawn there. There are eggs that were laid in it. The fruit you eat has eggs on it already, and if you dont eat it in time, the eggs hatch. So eat up, and enjoy those fly eggs youre eating on those non peelable fruits", 'Usually the microscopic eggs are on the banana peel ... |
When experiencing (heavy) turbulence it somtimes feels like the airplane suddenly drops a few feet. Does this actually happen or what causes this feeling if it doesn't? | It does drop a few feet. Or goes up a few feet. Or goes sideways a few feet. It just depends on the motion of the particular bit of atmosphere you're flying through. If there's a change in wind from where you just came from, the plane responds by going in that direction and thus, you get tossed around a bit . |
; Why is dark skin selected for when you’re in the sun a lot? Dark colors absorbs most visible light, while white reflects it. Is it different for UV light? | Yes it's different. It's not about adsorbing light it's about absorbing less uv radiation, which is what dark skin does thanks to the melanin. Fun fact - Very early humans ancestors were actually light skinned, but then we began developing sweat glans and losing hair to survive. But obviously the African sun isn't too ... |
What causes foods like radishes, horseradish, and ginger to taste spicy? | < Looks to see we're in ELI5 > Radishes, horseradish, and ginger have different chemicals that work kind of like capsaicin, but not as strong, and for a shorter time. |
How do explosions kill? Like grenades and other explosives. | In 2 ways. Explosions themselves are similar to falling off a building. The pressure wave that comes from an explosion causes an effect that is like that of a wall hitting you, the rapid acceleration and deceleration. Basically it bruises your insides to the point that you bleed out, from the inside, it's bad. Grenades... |
Why do animals get away with not brushing their teeth, but human teeth will not last without regular brushing? | Most animals have the exact same issue with their teeth as we do. Most animal have a short lifespan just like human had for thousands of year, it's just recently that medical advancement allowed us to live longer on average. Our teeth don't become a problem until we are old, and in most of human history very few people... |
why is it easy to cross your eyes, but almost impossible to have each eye point outwards (left eye looks left, right eye looks right)? | It is a limitation of the muscles. There is no reason for your eyes to point away from each other, there is a reason for your eyes to both point inward. If you take your finger and put it against the end of your nose and focus on it you are essentially crossing your eyes. I am sure that there are some people out there ... |
Do animals in the wild get enough sleep or are they constantly sleep deprived? | Depending on the current situation of their surroundings and environment But on an average rate, animals often has a normal sleep routine due to the fact that they don't do much time-demanding tasks, unlike us humans. ELI5: They often have a normal sleep routine because basically all they do is Consume, Interact, Migra... |
How are literary devices and writing style captured in translated work? E.g. The Odyssey. | It's said that we can't understand a lot of Shakespeare now due to plays on words not working due to accent/word usage changes. |
What are stem cells and why are they important in research? | There are totipotent, pluripotent, multipotent stem cells Each can 'change' into various types of other cells So if we can harness this, we can probably recreate a person's completely lost organ |
why cant we store electricity indefinitely in batteries? | Time for some wibbly lines as we go back to the first modern batteries - the voltaic pile, developed by Volta. They were essentially a copper disc, on top of a zinc disc, on top of a piece of cardboard or felt soaked in salt water, repeated until you had the voltage you wanted. As basic as that design is, you can see p... |
How does "You can't prove a negative" work? | Prove that I don't have an invisible, intangible, undetectable teapot hidden inside my ass. You can't. Even proving I don't have a perfectly normal teapot in my ass is impossible, because I can just continue claiming that I do, and that you simply haven't located it yet. Proving something exists is easy, you find it, a... |
why do some events that happened a year ago feel like they were yesterday while others feel like they were years ago? | The amount of impact it had on you. Friend of mine just took a 5300 mile trip on a Harley through 12 states. It was a week ago, and he still doesn't feel like he's home. He's trapped in the mood from the adventure and can't shake it. A year from now it will be at the forefront of his memory whereas that awesome pizza w... |
Why do people confuse left and right but not up and down? | Facing someone your left and their left are different, however your up and their up are identical, one changes with the frame of reference the other doesn't. |
How can plastic contain acid that can dissolve a human body? | When you have an aqueous solution of an acid, the acid dissociates and an H^+ ion splits off from each acid molecule. This H^+ ion readily reacts with a lot of things, allowing acids to eat away at stuff by reacting with their molecules to form different ones. They react particularly aggressively with metals. However, ... |
Does mouthwash kill the *good* bacteria in your mouth similar to how hand sanitizer kills the *good* bacteria or your hands? | Both kill all bacteria because of the alcohol in them. Your mouth and hands don't need certain bacteria to function, so it's ok to use alcohol like this. Your gut needs the 'good' bacteria to function, which is partly why both products say not to drink them.Yes. The alcohol in it will kill virtually any bacteria it com... |
Why do so many people naturally have the instinct to pick scabs even if it's bad for healing? | I believe that our brains still harbour traces of the kind of instincts our primate forebears had. One of them is the urge to groom. Monkeys spend a great deal of each day grooming themselves and each other. It helps keep parasites down to a minimum and creates bonding among members in the troop. As evolved humans, we ... |
How do they "estimate" how many people were at events? | I've asked a police officer about that.Say you make a square with your fingers and reach out your arms and point it towards the crowd. they then count the number of heads they see there, say 54.They then count the number of squares they need to tile to cover the whole crowd. Say 36 squares.You then just multiply those,... |
What is preventing us from effectively storing energy harnessed by windmills and solar panels? | Cost. The cheapest way to store energy is by using water; either heating, cooling, or raising it while excess energy is available and then using it later, but the first two option requires the construction of a *huge* thermally insulated tank while the third is just fairly inefficient in converting back into electricit... |
Why do fish die after short periods of immobility? | They use the oxygen in the water When swimming the water flows against the gills where is absorbed If they aren't swimming they can't breathe |
How come sometimes when you take a drink, it causes extreme pain and discomfort as it goes down? | I know exactly what you're talking about - everyone I've talked to about it say it's an air bubble Edit: I've had it with multiple drinks, and only ever when I take a gulp not a sip |
If Hong Kong belongs to China, but has its own legal and political system, in what sense does Hong Kong belong to China? | CGP Grey actually has a great ELI5 video on this very thing. _URL_0_ My understanding is that it's not its own country anymore and China super seriously promises to not say or do anything about it. |
Why are cars able to go at speeds that are not allowed in normal roads? | I often wonder this. I guess because it's not against the law to go over those speeds on private land. The real reason is probably because people like to speed. Any car manufacturer who limited their car to speed limits would be signing their own death warrant. Even though it would technically be the decent thing to do... |
Why does it hurt so much when you drink orange juice after brushing teeth? | It shouldn't hurt. Most likely throughout the day plaque / spit / food coat your teeth and prevent the acidic orange juice from triggering sensitive nerves in your teeth. When you brush, you remove all that gunk. While the gunk is preventing the juice from touching your teeth, ultimately it's feeding more plauqe which ... |
Why do some electronic screens look weird at certain angles? | That's a difference between TN panels and IPS or VA. It's called viewing angle, and TN panels have worse vertical and horizontal viewing angles. You can find plenty of comparisons on YouTube, and it is because of how the panels were designed. Most phones have wide viewing angles, while computer displays have TN panels ... |
How is it possible that extinct species are "brought back to life"? | Outside of science fiction movies, it isn't currently possible. Theoretically, you could use cloning methods to insert DNA from an extinct species into the egg of a existing close relative. |
How does Microsoft and Sony compete with similar specs? | I think it's also important to mention that if one of them decides to innovate too much and go in a different way, it risks being a failure and also pushing the market share to the other company that decided to be traditional. Just like this PS4/XOne generation. Microsoft tried to be different and try s different appro... |
How/why do certain TV shows appear more ‘polished’, and others more ‘live’? | It's partially the lighting, and partially the camera style. Soap operas are evenly lit and shot with multiple cameras, shows like GoT are done per scene in single camera setups and have a lot of editing done after, as well.People are giving a lot of superficial reasons but there are two main underlying reasons: first,... |
Why can't phone cameras take pictures the way I see things at night, even though they can adjust for brightness? | The cheap and super small sensors and circuitry in phone cameras limit their capability, while quality DSLR cameras are much, much better. However, regardless of how close cameras get to accurately capturing photons, there will still be a major difference. Our brains do not use a single 'capture' of light to form an im... |
How is car boot / trunk space calculated? | In the modern era it's calculated off the model of the car on a computer. In the past they used to fill the car with bags of foam peanuts to calculate volume. |
Why is the chance of getting struck by lightning so low? | because you're really really small compared to everything. Electricity always follows the quickest path to ground. if you aren't the tallest thing, you wont be the contact point. |
What's the difference between a number 2 pencil and a pencil that isn't labeled number 2? And if number 2s are almost always required why not just only make number 2 pencils? | The #2 specifies the hardness of the graphite inside the pencil. The harder the graphite, the lighter the color that gets made. #2 pencils are usually specified for machine-readable documents because that's what the scanner is set for. Other grades/hardness of pencils are used for other items, such has carpenter pencil... |
why do things that move quickly see everything else moving slowly? | It's all relative. Our brain have to have some way of processing the concept of time in order to understand what is happening around us. If an object flies past you it may take a second or two to pass you if it is going slowly, or it may pass in a fraction of a second if moving quickly. The only data that your brain ha... |
Why does head lice always spread in schools? | Kids are in close proximity, aren't very hygienic, share hats and other clothing that can carry lice which all lead to it being most common among school kids. |
how a flyswatter kills a fly, yet leaves it seemingly unharmed. What kills the fly? | I believe it's internal injuries. You don't have to crack open the exoskeleton to smash the organs inside. Much like a person inside an armored vehicle that has a bomb go off under it. |
why do lips get chapped in cold weather compared to hot? Doesn’t the hot air absorb the moisture more? | Everybody who moves to Arizona ends up with chapped lips until your body gets used to it. Most people start off using chapstick, and you can do that indefinitely, but if you stop, your lips will be really chapped for about a week, and then they'll just adapt and you won't have to use chapstick any more. A lot of people... |
Why does shampoo bubble so much more on the second wash? | **ELI5**: Soap half likes water and half doesn't. The half that doesn't like water wants oil instead but will settle for just facing away from water. Bubbles happen when the part that doesn't like water all lines up to touch the air instead of the water, making the water stretchy. But soap likes oil and dirt better, so... |
Why is wine best stored horizontally? | So the cork stays moist, which makes sure that air can't get inside. It's really that simple. |
How do movies go from the raw footage (film or digital) to 4K? | While it's correct that 4K video is often shot in higher resolution and converted for the final product I think your confusion may come from what makes a RAW image RAW. RAW means that the image has not yet been processed into a compressed file yet. Essentially the RAW image is all of the data captured by the sensor, an... |
How does inertial damping work? | Since gravity is indistinguishable from acceleration, I assume it works with anti/artificial gravity. Simply apply gravity in the opposite direction your accelerating and voila! Unless you mean in the real world, then it doesn't. |
How is insurance profitable for insurance companies? | Depends on the type or insurance. Life insurance makes profit off the investment of the individuals premiums over their life time. Medical insurancel let's the healthy subsidise the sick basically. Vehicle or household insurance relies on the fact that a small percentage of their clients will lodge a claim compared to ... |
What are the obstacles preventing us from moving to plant-based plastics? | Nothing. We have plant-based plastics on the market right now. PLA plastic is commonly used in 3d printers. I have 20 pounds of it in my closet right now in various colors for my own printer. PLA is also used in product packaging, and other places. Mind you, this is only a tiny fraction of the total plastic market. Pet... |
How come they use heavy lead-acid batteries for conventional cars? | They're also almost indestructible. If they are cracked in an accident, they'll just leak. A lithium-ion for instance can explode if subject to enough shock..Lead-acid batteries are cheap, durable, and can put out tons of amps. Amps are important for starting engines. Lithium batteries are still expensive and not quite... |
How do real time lightning maps detect and track them? | Lightning is really easy to detect, it puts out a lot of radio waves. Next time a thunderstorm is nearby sit in your car and turn on the radio, make sure to switch the radio to A.M. and tune to a frequency that isn't receiving anything, just static. You will hear bursts of loud static over the radio, every burst is a l... |
How does the international community find out a country is enriching uranium for nuclear weapons? | First and foremost, they have to buy a shit ton of raw uranium. That's not something that is easy to do. The people who have it to sell are carefully monitored. Beyond that, enriching it for weapons requires a MASSIVE industrial infrastructure. During WW2 the US built an entire city just to house the people and factori... |
What is academic probation and how would somebody get it? | It means your grades are shit and if you don't shape up you're out. This is more typical in colleges or private schools since they don't want some slacker tanking their performance numbers. |
How can you pinpoint your location with GPS on your phone without service on the ground, but can’t do the same on an airplane? | GPS works by satellites sending a message with a time and location of when the message was sent, your phone can then work out how far away the satellite was when it sent the message by knowing how long it took for the message to get to it. if your phone has a message from 4 or more satellites it can know where it is in... |
Why is it recommended that half of our total calories should come from Carbohydrates? | It's not! That is one school of thought. Many carbs today are refined processed crap that should make up 0% of your calories. The thought is carbs give you energy but it's quick energy. Fat is a much better energy source. Sugar is not. |
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