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Why do men have beards? | It is because beards are awesome things to have. You can keep food in them for later, and sometimes, if you're careful, you can convince birds to nest in them. Having beard birds makes you a hit with the ladies. I keep a peregrine falcon in mine. When you're older, you will understand the importance of falcons in wooin... |
Why are young children generally fussy eaters? Shouldn't they be biologically wired to eat anything and everything for strong growth and development? | Kids will eat anything at first, literally everything goes in the mouth, but if they're only offered a limited range of flavors and textures over time they only want certain things. We are all creatures of habit and there's comfort in knowing what to expect and what you're getting. |
Why don't we just bomb North Korea's leaders with drones? | I'm sure there are many nuanced explanations but the way I understand it, there is too much risk to the stability in the region. There are several really bad scenarios that could unfold - someone with some authority ordering a bum rush south, someone with a finger on a nuke deciding to end it all etc. Also - the idea o... |
The difference between a psychopath and a sociopath | Although Psychopathy and Sociopathy are often used interchangeably Psychopathy is not regarded as the same as anti social personality disorder in psychpathological/forensic/psych literature. ASPD shows a pretty common pathway from ADHD to Conduct Disorder to Substance Abuse to ASPD. It also seems to have a much bigger ... |
Why is it Asian countries have their own martial arts (kung-fu, ju-jistu, karate ect) whereas there are no western equivalents ? | Because a lot of martial arts in their current form are complete bullshit in terms of actual combat. I'll take a decent street brawler over a black belt in karate any day.There are western variations. Portugal for example has "jogo do pau" . They are just not famous, and many are diying off/died off already sadly. |
Why does the USPS delay packages when it has the ability to deliver them overnight? | In my experience, USPS has been pretty good about delivering my packages when they can, even when it's before the delivery date. UPS and FedEx have generally delivered on or even after that date. Then again I live in a city so who knows about the sorting center stuff others have mentioned. |
How does using car AC waste gas if it doesnt affect RPM? | When the AC turned on, the work it's doing makes it harder for the engine to turn. To compensate for this the ECU increases the amount of air+fuel going into the engine to deliver more power without the speed increasing.Over 45mph using your A/C is more fuel efficient than having your windows rolled down due to the inc... |
If recording artists are not selling music because everybody steals it, how do they afford multi-million dollars mansions and private jets? | [I'm gonna show you something, and I don't think you're gonna like it ] |
If I eat a baked potato and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, it's healthy. If chop up the potato and fry it in the oil first, it's unhealthy. Why? | Frying the potato causes a chemical reaction which changes chemicals into new chemicals, and in particular some of those new chemicals are really really tasty, and some are bad for you. In particular, if you're looking for more reading, the primary mechanism is called the [Maillard reaction], which was first described ... |
How can animals like the celiocanth and alligator gar who are considered "living fossils" go millions of years without really evolving all that much. | They're already really good at what they do, so there's no selection pressure. So they're mutating like everything else, but natural selection doesn't apply to then the same way it applies to organisms which aren't so well adapted to their environments. They've already been selected. They won. |
Why don't trickle down economics work? | Trickle-down economics don't work for the same reason trickle-up economics don't work. One is supply-side economics and the other is demand-side economics. **Real economies function as a complex interaction between supply and demand on very large and very tiny scales over various time-frames.** If you punish demand in ... |
Why are "mouth breathers" held in such low regard? | It's inconsiderate to exhale orally around people, as it often smells worse than nasal breath. Doing so is theoretically rude and taken as a sign of selfishness and ignorance. People who are out of shape physically also do it, and humans have obvious stigmas against those that do not take care of their bodies. It's als... |
How come the whole world uses the Christian year 2013? | There are many calendars in use. Muslim nations, for instance, use the Islamic calendar. It's why Ramadan seems to change its date every year. However, pretty much everyone also knows the Gregorian Calendar to make international trade, relations, etc easier. |
Code duplication and why it's bad | In addition to the maintanence problems others have mentioned, duplicating code is a symptom of poor design. If you find yourself having to code the same task over an over, changes are you haven't given enough thought to what part of your code is supposed to accomplish what function. For example, if you are making the ... |
Is Selectively breeding humans possible? | It would work to a certain extent, but dogs have particularly 'flexible' genetics that accounts for the massive variety of shapes and sizes. As for its effect on evolution, well, unless it was a worldwide, mass effort it wouldn't effect the general population. |
Why does no one care that the Bush and Bin Laden families are close? | Both are large, influential families politics and the oil business. Why is it odd they'd have some connections? The bin Laden family is also rather huge.The bin Laden family is huge, is very close to the Sauds , has been for decades, and cut ties with Osama literally a decade before 9/11.The Bin Laden family is a very ... |
. What is the 'god particle,' and why is it important? | It was called the 'goddamned particle' first and then it was shortened to 'the god particle' from L. Lederman. |
What the hell happened at the end of Inception? | It's been a while since I've seen the movie, I'm not sure if this was explored or not. Has anyone considered the possibility that Cobb is still dreaming in the end, but he's in the layer that is for the entirety of the movie considered reality and that Mal was alive, and awake, one layer up waiting for him with his rea... |
why does every disease seem curable in mice? | Mice and humans are similar in many ways and there's plenty of them. That's why were testing different things on them. Not everything is curable in mice, but most of the newest diseases are first curable in mice as a base of how we will help it in humans. |
is not the only place to get answers. | I dont get it, please explain this like I'm 5.. thank you.Why are you on a crusade against thought provoking questions? /r/answers only has 35k subscribers, while this has 112k. And /r/AskReddit has evolved into a place where people can karma whore and tell made-up stories. Has it ever occurred to you that a subreddit ... |
Do you get electrocuted if you touch overhead electrical wires? Why? | You can get electrocuted if you are touching something else at the same time, which allows the current to flow through you or if the voltage is high enough to arc from you to somewhere else allowing the current to flow. Birds can sit on a wire, because they aren't touching anything else at the same time and don't form ... |
How can old movies be converted to HD if the original source material wasn't? Karate Kid 2 looks amazing in 1080p. | Film is not only analog and higher quality than HD it also does well when scaled down in size and UP to. In film there are no pixels so you need to imagine the individual chemical molecules or molecule chains that are react when exposed to light are like the pixels. These chemical chains are smaller than the pixels we ... |
What would happen if a relatively small object, say from the size of a bullet up to a car, somehow accelerated to the speed of light at close to ground level in the atmosphere? | I know ELI5 doesn't like just links, but [this xkcd] gives a pretty good description of what would happen. |
Why do corporations have to use the ® or the ™ symbols next to logos if they're already covered by copyright law? | Because *copyright* generally doesn't apply to corporations and their logos. Corporations have *trademarks* which are either registered, or unregistered. The ® symbol is used for registered trademarks, and the ™ symbol is used for unregistered trademarks. > A few countries, including the United States and Canada, also ... |
why do black people have extremely curly hair? | It could be because that much curly/frizzy hair protects the scalp/skin from UV rays and sun damage, for one, which might be important if you live in a place which is very close to the equator/with a lot of direct sun. Or because it gives some protection from heat by allowing more passage of air. The alternate question... |
Why are Jewish people defined by religion rather than race? Serious | According to the traditional definition, someone who converts to Judaism or is born of a Jewish mother is a Jew. By this definition Judaism is neither a race nor a religion . It doesn't even mean that you're a certain race or religion, since if your mother was a convert and you don't practice the religion you have no J... |
Why exactly aren't British people allowed to have guns (Please feel free to clarify it) | It is possible to get a licence for some firearms, which can be used at ranges, private land e.g. farms. Aside from that, what would be the reason to need to own one? It wouldn't make me feel safer to own one, if I knew everyone else could own one too. Self defeating logic in my opinion. |
given the growing consensus on climate change - why has there not been an adverse impact on real estate proprotities prices in costal areas? | Just to add context IRC the international panel on climate change predicts a sea level rise of 0.2m-1.0m by 2100. The range in projections comes from different models. These different models predict how humans react to climate change. In the best case scenario, humans do everything we can to stop climate change so we e... |
How do single celled beings "know" what they're supposed to do/"want" to do? | This is actually what I went to university for: Biochemistry. So all interactions on a molecular level are completely stochastic. What this means is everything that happens in a cell is random chance. Molecules just bouncing around and knocking into each other at random and then things happen. Now I know this comes off... |
Why are there still people living without fresh water? | Infrastructure development, regional stability, government corruption, regulatory overhead , and lack of profit. Also, what many people don't know is that many artificial lakes in the Southwestern regions of the United States are slowly drying up due to increasing population density served by them, as well as climate c... |
if a smoker goes in to a coma for long enough, do they wake up without nicotine addiction? | I don't know about comas but my grandmother had a series of strokes and forgot that she was a cigarette smoker for over 50 years. Never asked for smoke again and no one ever reminded her of her habit.**Physical** cravings for nicotine would be gone but **mental** cravings would likely still remain.My mother, who used t... |
How did males come to believe that a woman "squirting" during sex was squirt juice and not urine??? | I've been with more than one squirter. Definitely not urine. That's like saying tea has caffeine in it so it's basically coffee. There may be trace amounts of urine in squirt, but it definitely isn't just pee. |
In the case of a deadly accident, how does the family of the deceased find out about it? | Sometimes the family has to do the investigating. I know a girl who's mum and dad died in a car crash on holiday, whilst they were on their way to the airport to come home. The first she knew about it was when her boyfriend went to collect them from the airport, and they simply weren't on the plane. It took another 6 h... |
Why do some American stores have condoms on shelves with other pharmaceutical products, while others keep them behind the counter with cigarettes and such? | Honestly I think it's just dependant on the area/particular store. If it's higher crime them they'll put stuff behind the counter or keep the shelves locked. I've seen it both ways and it's varied from place to place.Because some neighborhoods have nice residents who want patronize a business and some neighborhoods are... |
I was recently diagnosed with coeliac (gluten allergy) and of course need to change my diet. How does this come about when for the last 30 years or so I was fine? | My girlfriend has celiac, and is a nutritionist graduating from Johnson & Wales in May . She has run a gluten-free blog for the past several years and is extremely knowledgeable. If you have any questions, I'm sure she would be glad to answer them for you . She's busy finishing up classes for the semester so please be ... |
Why is attendance so mandatory in Highschool/College? Why can't you just pass the tests? | I'm just commenting to mock you. You say you don't need class but I honestly have trouble believing that by looking at your writing. You're not a unique and special snowflake and your insistence that you don't need to play by the rules will lead you to failure in life. |
How does car hotwiring even work? | The reason it is called hot wired is because when the procedure became common cars had coils that had a resistor that reduced the power going to the coil as it ran so it wouldn't burn out.When someone stole a car they would run a hot wire to the coil directly to power up the system and jump the contacts on the starter ... |
Why are some better known Youtubers allowed to use copyrighted music, whilst other smaller channels are penalised almost instantly? | Everyone is allowed to use copyrighted music, conforming to the legal definition of fair use. Youtube has an automated system for detecting certain music, based on samples uploaded by copyright holders. Of course, the system can only make a guess as to whether the music is present, not make an automatic determination o... |
How do shows feature newborn babies in the episodes? (Like when a character gives birth and the camera shows newborn?) | When a show/movie needs a baby, they either decide to use a real one, or a CG baby. If they decide to use a real baby, they go to a special agency and give a description of the type of baby they're looking for and the agency gives them pictures of babies given to them by the child's parents. A meeting is set up, the ba... |
why sometimes when you put food in the microwave you hear lots of sparking sounds, then take it out, and your food is still cold/warm | Sparking sounds? You've put metal in the microwave. Boiling sounds? Part of the food is boiling, but in microwaves this doesn't always transfer to the cold bits. Also, molecules that are already vibrating, absorb more energy than the still frozen ones, adding to this effect. |
When the black loading screen of a video-game is happening, what is actually going on 'behind it'? | Think of the video game like a bunch of things. There's your player thing, the enemy thing, your weapon thing, etc. When the player decides he wants to, for example, switch weapons to a rocket launcher, you need to go grab that rocket launcher thing. Think of the disc as a very large box full of things with a bunch of ... |
Why do they fine traffic violators(parking tickets) instead of offering educational services? | I live in Ohio. About two years ago I received a ticket for driving 82 in a 65 mph zone. The officer explained that I had something like 2 weeks to pay the fine, or I could take an online safety course and have the fine and points waived. The course would cost around $50, but that was at least $100 less than the ticket... |
How can a colour have no wavelenth? | Magenta doesn't appear on the rainbow for this reason. It is not a wavelength of light, but rather how we perceive the combination of red and blue wavelengths simultaneously and in equal amounts. Pink and brown are also like this. |
You are thirsty. Your body needs water. How long does it take for the water you drink to "rehydrate" you? | iirc its like 10 minutes of course, these kinds of answers are very generalized because the human body doesn't work at a uniform pace.If a hangover is dehydration and I drink a crapload of liquids for an hour or two, it still takes me all day to feel better?There are better answers here that answer your first few quest... |
What the Beatles did to the world | A few years ago, I recall I read an article saying that The Beatles spoiled rock. At first I was ultraged. After reading, I understood what they meant in the title. Like nosex_justdeath said, The Beatles were highly experimental. They somewhat changed the concept of rock. I'm not totally sure about it, but my brother, ... |
What kind of healthcare options do Americans living in poverty or homelessness have? | Taxpayers or no one. Either get treatment because you have state/federally funded insurance, or like me, you waste away because you have none. Kinda sucks requiring 8 surgeries and having infections leak into your bloodstream, but hey, free market and capitalism and 'merica, so i get to die.Wait til they get very sick ... |
How was it possible for electric cars to exist 100 years ago when the technology only recently became mature enough to become practical? | They used Lead-Acid batteries . You should keep in mind that these cars weren't competing with anything like a modern car - the Model T was still 20 years in the future - the first era of the electric car was around the 1880s. They were competing with horses and primitive combustion engines. Their idea of a practical a... |
Why do we randomly stutter or horribly mispronounce words we know even thought we have no actual speech impediment? | I was also wondering, don't know if allowed, what it is when you're talking but then your airway seizes up and you can't finish the word? It happens when you're trying not to cry most frequently. its like a spasm in your throat or something. never understood what it was |
Everything I need to know about smoking weed. | _URL_0_ This covers just about everything you could ever want to know. And for God's sake PASS TO THE LEFT! Not doing so results in [total protonic reversal], which really harshes everyone's buzz. |
Pain Tolerance. Do some people feel less pain than others, or are they simply more psychologically equipped to tolerate it? | Both I think. There is some evidence, for instance, that gingers feel more pain than others but it's also true that through exposure and training people can build up a psychological tolerance to pain as well.Pain is perspective. But at the same time people have less "pain receptors" than others. |
Why do people mostly eat hens, and not roosters? | When raising large numbers of birds, the makes tend to be violent and didn't each other. You grow females because they're more docile and less likely to killer the other birds. |
how can an airline justify me not being able to update a plane ticket to someone else's name? It's paid for, who cares who uses it as long as they're notified? | Airline tickets tend to be cheaper further out and get more expensive as you get closer to the travel date. This policy stops scalpers from buying all available tickets for a flight when they're at their cheapest, and then reselling them to make a profit. |
how do people vaccinated from a disease, still get the disease? | Your immune system works by Antigen Presenting Cells taking parts of the pathogen and presenting them to the lymphocytes through proteins called MHC, and the lymphocytes have receptors proteins. Both the MHC of the APCs and the receptors of the lymphocytes are really specific, the receptors of an individual lymphocyte ... |
Why is it ok to say words like "bitch"or "ass" on tv but not on the radio? | Actually the supreme courts ruling on broadcasting and the 1st amendment would over turn that, any censorship on language being applied to radio or TV is being applied by the station's policies and no actual enforcement agencies. |
Can police/ambulance personnel just turn on their sirens/lights or do they have to meet some criteria before? | Can't say. But, I live in NYC and on any given day you can observe cop cars turning their lights on and off to get through lights or make illegal turns . If there is criteria, it's either very minimal or summarily ignored. |
How can Samsung agree to manufacture iPhone panels and at the same time have pending patent case with them? | The company I work for recently sued one of our vendors, and won. We're still doing business with them. It's not uncommon. |
How are laws against monopolies actually enforced? Is it a company's fault if they just simply have an uncompetable business model? | In the Australian context, monopolies aren't illegal but if a monopolist does certain things to misuse its market power then that can be illegal |
Why do dogs lick us when they're happy? | [Trophallaxis]. The dogs are acting as puppies. After a hunt the adult dogs return to the den where the puppies are located. The puppies lick the dog's snout and neck area which tickles special spots there. Those spots, when tickled, make the adult dog puke. The puke has undigested kill in it, and the puppies eat it. T... |
How can countries use grams for mass and weight measurements if they are different things? | Because acceleration due to gravity is approximated as a constant. Similar to how 100 cm and 1 m are the same, 1kg and 9.81 N are approximately equal across the globe. Mass is preferred, because it is assumed that you can appropriately calibrate your scale to your local gravity fluctuations. That way even if a recipe c... |
Why do so many recipes not add salt to meat before it's cooked? | Because they're written by people who don't know what they're doing. Pretty much any recipe from a professional will season before cooking, at least with salt. There's some debate about how long before cooking you should salt, but it's a question of hours before cooking or seconds. Not after. Salting before cooking hel... |
if i would launch a toy helicopter in a moving train will it crash into the back of the train or stay on the same place in the train? | If you are inside the train, it will stay in the same place. There is no wind resistance, and the helicopter is already moving the same speed as the train. You don't even need these things to test it out. Next time you are in your car, try throwing a ball and see if it flies to the back of your car. There are two cavea... |
Why do potholes hardly ever happen on highways or freeways when they get far more traffic and less maintenance than streets and side roads? | ELI5: Why does OP rarely see maintenance on highways and freeways, but every time I get on I-40 bound for Oklahoma City it's under construction in at least three places?", 'Highways are made in large sections where the asphalt will have no seams or gaps. This makes it harder for water to get a foothold for erosion. The... |
why the human race would not last more than a month without insects. | It'd be something closer to 50 years. Without bees, we'd have to rely on other pollinators and humanity would lose all its fruits and root veggies, and would be stuck with grains and brassicas as its major energy source. Wars would start within 10 years over the arable corn and wheat land. |
If an appointment, medical procedure or service has a very long waiting list, does that mean the waiting list will increase indefinitely as the demand will ways be greater than what is provided? | If a service has a large waiting list, the provider can charge more. Once the price gets high enough, more providers will enter the market, resulting in shorter lines. When the ability for new providers to enter the market constrained , the wait can become decades. |
How are we still "discovering" numbers? | For me to describe what this would mean would be to ask what is the largest number you can think of that is divisible by 3? If you just start writing down a very large number, then how do you know it's is indeed a factor of 3 or whatever number? You would have to check in some manner. Primes are again numbers that have... |
How are charities able to feed multiple children with small individual donations of $7/day when here (USA) it would be enough for basically 1 maybe 2 children. | You could buy several pounds of dried rice and dried beans for under $1 if you purchase it whole-sale and not from a super market. Considering both of those expand a ton when cooking, it's a very cheap and efficient food source. A pound of rice could be like $0.50 or less, and that could be like 4-5 cups uncooked, whic... |
Why is some produce like avocados and limes sold by the count instead of by weight? | Where I live it's mostly by the each but produce stands will sometimes sell by the pound. It's almost always cheaper to buy a bag of limes than individual ones though and they last for a long time in the fridge. In Mexico I saw everything being sold by weight and avocados were so, so cheap.Avocados are also sold by the... |
Why can I force myself to stay awake longer, but can't force myself to go to sleep sooner. | Falling asleep needs a transition from having consciousness to having subconsciousness, which I think doesn't come naturally to everyone |
Why is it that dogs can't eat chicken bones, but coyotes can? | Feeding your dog ANY kind of natural bone is not really recommended. Bone chunks can cause all kinds of digestive issues, including perforation and tearing of the intestines. Coyotes eat bones because it is the best/only way they can get nutrients like calcium and phosphorus. Your dog gets this from dog food. Additiona... |
If breeding endangered animals in captivity is so difficult, why don’t we use methods such as IVF? | It's not necessarily that difficult. Species can be more or less difficult to breed. The smaller the pool you have, however, the bigger the genetic bottleneck you face, which itself can have damaging effects on the species. The real problem is, ok, you've bred the endangered species, now what? Species aren't generally ... |
Why do some people cash their paychecks? | I grew up in a very rural area and a lot of the older folks didn't trust banks. So they'd cash their checks and take the money home with them.I currently work at a bank doing financial sales. I 've noticed this trend over time and here are the reasons I 've discovered: -Some people "plan" out finances better using cash... |
If a dentist makes money off people with bad teeth, why would I use toothpaste that 4 out of 5 dentists recommend? | You do know that you're supposed to see your dentist even with healthy teeth, yeah?", 'because they prefer to check good teeth? and not a decaying grave yard? |
Why are software development tools freely available yet photo and video editing software prices so high? | It actually boils down to a business reason. Microsoft wants cool software to exist for windows. If you give developers the best tools to develop software on windows, more people will use those tools. Users will then be forced to buy Windows to run that software so Microsoft makes money. The same is true now for every ... |
Because science and medicine has been wrong for so much of history, how do we know science today is correct? | We don't. And, improvements and details will always change. But, that is way better than relying on some guesswork, trying things that just happened to maybe have worked last time or following the teachings of some 2500 year old scrolls written by people who think they heard it from a transcendent entity. And, when som... |
How did people freeze items/ have ice back before freezers? | This answer doesn't speak to ice specifically, but here in Appalachia we used to use spring houses. There are tons of springs everywhere, it's not uncommon for any rural property to have one coming out of a nearby hillside. A spring house is built over the spring, is usually brick or stone, and inside it has channels f... |
In the event of a fire or firedrill, how does someone in a wheelchair get off the top floor? | Two options, a safe havens mentioned by other redditors usually in the fire escape, those doors are usually rated to sustained direct fire for quite a while before failing. *in some countries* the elevators will work for the first 5 minutes of an alarm to allow disabled people to be brought to the ground floor. Followi... |
Why does heat take just seconds to damage your body, but cool takes minutes/hours to damage your body? | Touch something 150degrees ovrr your body temp, and something 150 under. Both will harm you, probably equally fast if it's the same material. |
Why are our sexual organs also where the pee comes out? | If you want to know how do the genitals end up being used to pee and have sex through the same organ it's because when we are embryos, the cells that become sexual organs and the ones that become the urinal tract are located in the same layer of cells and because of this, when they start developing, they end up being n... |
How do nurses, drug users, etc inject a drug directly into a vein? How do they know the needle tip hasn't gone through the vein or even missed it completely? | Finally, something I know! . It's all about the flash, the pop, the resistance. It's all in perfect harmony. You feel the pop, you get the flash of blood, and you meet little to no resistance when injecting or flushing. Feels good man. |
Where do all the chromosomes “go” during mitosis? | They're all there, it's just easier to represent two sets of chromosome instead of 23. Plus, when you understand how mitosis and meiosis works for two sets of chromosomes, you understand how it works for 23. |
Why isn't there more focus on technologies to remove green house gases from the atmosphere, as opposed to just a reduction in the emitting of those gases? | Basically, not dropping the glass of milk on the floor is much easier than putting all the milk back in the glass after you have done so. You could say that we should perhaps do both, but there's no guarantee that the implementation of such technology will have a net effect of reducing the green house gasses from the a... |
If someone can make a flashlight that runs off the heat from your hand why can't we use that technology in other machines that produce lots of heat. | Because the amount of energy available is quite small and extracting it requires expensive components. In a very large, industrial-scale system, capturing the waste heat can certainly be cost-effective , but for an ordinary desktop, it's probably not worth the cost of the heat-capturing system. |
When a limb "falls asleep" can damage occur if this happens a lot over time? | Absolutely, but it takes a few hours and you would not be able to stand the pain in a normal state. Short answer, it's caused by lack of blood flow. I have had heroin addicts come into my emergency department after falling asleep on a limb and not being able to wake up. Result - necrosis amongst other things! |
Why is bird feces white but all other animals are brown? | We mammals excrete nitrogenous body waste in urine because we can store a lot of water fairly conveniently and this dilution makes the waste less internally harmful. Birds can't carry much water or they would be too heavy to fly, so their kidneys have adapted to produce more concentrated dry nitrogenous wastes requirin... |
What happens when females with hemophilia go through their menstrual cycle? | Hemophilia is a genetic related disease. Men will the ones to suffer from it. Woman are carriers. The possibility of a woman having hemophilia is very small. The A en B variant is linked to the x-chromosome. The C variant is different but I'm not sure how that one works. Queen Victoria was a carrier, through marriage o... |
If time is infinite, won't everything exist again in the future? | Time is a measure created by humans. Moments of the universe are infinite if you go ahead with the presumption that the universe is infinite. And in that, highly doubt a loop. Since if we're talking about the sane universe, elements of the universe barely ever retrace their steps. Every element constantly transforms to... |
Why dont universities allow students to review their exam papers post-grading? | The logistics would be horrific. For our end of year exams, each question is marked by a different marker , to ensure consistency. That means that the versions of the scripts that get marked are scattered around numerous different people's offices. The scores are combined by the makers putting the marks for their quest... |
How do firefighters determine the origin of a fire, in a house that's been burnt down? | So I'm not an arson investigator but my dad is and while I don't know everything he knows I know a few things someone can surely expand on So burn patterns can tell you how a fire spread and from where by things are burned the worst, the way the smoke stains walls, ceiling, etc. Its also easy to spot accelerants like g... |
Why do some peoples' joints ache before it rains? | Pressure and humidity changes, for a bare bones answer. I'm sure someone will chime in and go more in depth. |
Why do certain business, like supermarkets, cafes or branches of banks, leave the lights on at night when they are closed and empty? | With supermarkets they leave the lights on because there are still people there working, the night stockers you usually see a couple of hours before the store closes. For banks they leave the lights on because it's easier to see the inside from outside if the lights are on. If someone were to break in then anybody on t... |
why are planes faster than cars? | This really isn't true. A Cessna tops out at about 140-150mph, and there are cars that can do well beyond that. It comes down to feasibility. There's no infrastructure for a car to ever do 300 mph. It's also dangerous as hell. For those kind of speeds on land, you'd want to be on a high speed train. |
How can we choose whether warm or cold air exits our mouths when breathing out? | The air coming from your lungs is at a constant warm temperature. But if you make a tight fast stream of air it pulls a lot of room-temperature air along with it, making it colder than just your breath. Faster moving air also feels cooler if it's already colder than your skin temp, because it carries heat away faster. |
Why doesn't the United States have foreign country military bases on its land? | The US won't allow it. The US does allow certain allies to train troops and use some of our bases in other ways, and NORAD is a joint US/Canada base. |
If denying your child food and water is child abuse, why is allowing them to become obese and unhealthy not? | You can live a long and happy life starting out as an obese and unhealthy kid. Not so much for the starving and perpetually parched. Edit: Looks like a South Carolina woman was charged in 2009 or '10 with neglect after letting her kid get up to 550 pounds / 250 kg. I'm ambivalent on this - the kid was 14 so had some ag... |
How does jumping work? | You're applying a net downward force that's greater than your weight. Since the floor pushes up against you with the same magnitude of force that you push on it, and since the floor certainly isn't going anywhere, this means that you are pushed up off the floor. Gravity then takes over and drags you back down. |
Why do we still have SD TV channels when HD looks like SD on an old TV? | There are a few reasons why SD channels still exist: 1) SD channels typically consume much less bandwidth than HD channels, so it is possible to carry many more SD channels than HD channels over the same coaxial cable or wireless spectrum . This point does not apply when a television service provider carries both HD an... |
Why do all airplane seats need to stay upright during takeoff and landing? | On a related note, I've suspected that the reason why electronic devices are not to be used during take off and landing isn't because they might interfere with the electronics of the plane itself, it's because the flight crew wants you to be paying attention to instructions rather than being distracted by your music or... |
Jock itch and why why scratching makes it worst. | Side note: You can use athlete's foot spray to get rid of jock itch. It stings, but it works very well. |
If cigarette companies wanted to sell more but keep people addicted, why do they fill them with chemicals instead of just nicotine? | The chemicals allow for nicotine to be more rapidly and more thoroughly absorbed into the bloodstream. So it's the same amount of nicotine per cigarette as far as regulations go, but it's delivered more efficiently. Your customers get a much better fix and therefore they buy your brand more. It also makes it much harde... |
When hunting, what's the point of wearing camouflage if you're just gonna wear a bunch of bright orange stuff along with it? | For upland game birds wearing orange prevents you from getting shot since to hunt them you commonly see people hunting in groups and the birds they have to be flushed from usually tall grass and bushes, so camo is not really a necessity. However, since a lot of camo gear can have water resistance and are good in cold w... |
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