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If one were to fall into an active volcano, how long would it take to die and in what order would things happen? | Question | Answer---|---Would you feel pain if you fell into magma? | Yes. The pain would be that of being burnt alive.Would you drown? | No. Magma and lava are 2-3 times as thick as water, so the body would float.How would you die? | It depends. You would probably start to burn before you made contact with the magma, ... |
Why and how does alcohol affect a man's ability to reach orgasm and/or maintain an erection. | There are a few things alcohol does that all can add up to sexual performance issues. 1. Alcohol is a vasodilators. That means it causes your blood vessels to expand reducing blood pressure. Low blood pressure means your erection can be harder to maintain. 2. Alcohol is a depressant. That means it reduces neural activi... |
How does the body shed non-external cells? (not on the skin, or in the digestive tract?) | The 7 year thing isn't true. Stomach lining cells last a few days, cardiac muscle cells and long neurons may last your entire life. For interior cells, they're not really dying at a significant pace so the immune system's background clean-up procedure is good enough. Red blood cells turnover pretty quickly and mark the... |
Why are indigenous people in the United States called American Indians while in Canada the term is First Nations? | Indians is clearly a mistake originating from the Europeans who first arrived thinking they had found an ocean route to India. First Nation or aboriginal people seems to be more accurate since "Indians" never were from India. |
Why does bumping your forehead on something typically results in a bump while getting hit in the arm results in a bruise? | It's because your skull is so close to your skin. The blood that comes out of your broken blood vessels has nowhere else to go, so it pools up into a "lump". You get a similar lump in any other place where there isn't much flesh between the skin and the bone: your shins or the backside of your forearms, for example. An... |
why calculators have 789 on the top line (descending 456, 123) but phones have 123 on the top line (descending 456, 789) | Well the layout on phones is because Bell Labs did a study and found that 123 on the top was the best. Calculators is a little harder to figure out, [the wiki talks about it a bit], but it's probably because very old calculators had columns of numbers with the [smallest numbers on the bottom]. |
Why doesn't Mexico just legalize all drugs to end the war on drugs and stop cartels? | So lets say cartel mexicana sells x lbs of drugs a year. For every x lbs of drugs sold y people get shot/killed. Clearly, this leads to crime. \rSo Mexico legalizes drugs, and cartel Mexican now sells all their drugs in plain daylight. But they aren't the only ones, because now cartel average Joe wants to sell drugs as... |
What the hell is the difference between property and renters insurance? | Example: Your apartment catches fire by no fault of your own. Property insurance covers the building and makes sure the property is rebuilt or the cost of the property paid out. Renter's insurance will either replace or cover the cost of your personal belongings destroyed in the fire. |
Why do most people talk to pets with a higher pitched voice? | Habit and social convention mainly But pets tend to respond more positively to higher pitched sounds than lower pitches. Most likely it has to do with the lower pitched sounds being more aggressive/negative then higher pitcher sounds etc in the wild. But mainly just because it's a habit people have gotten into. |
When I'm submerged in water for a long time, why do my hands and feet prune-up but no other areas of skin do? | It's a biological response to give our hands and feet better traction/grip in the water. Someone did an experiment with marbles and water maybe another Redditor can find the link for you. :)", 'The skin puckers up to improve your grip / traction under wet conditions. No, Really. |
Is anyone doing anything to keep the pyramids and Sphinx from being attacked among all the chaos in Egypt? | These things aren't really in the areas where there is most of the chaos and I don't think either side is particularly interested in destroying several thousand year old structures. There might be some sort of security around these monuments, but I doubt it's necessary regardless. |
Why is the sky blue? And why can't we see the endlessness of space with our eyes during the day and night? | If you stick your hand out of the car window when it's moving, you can feel the air pushing against your hand. But what if you're just standing in your room? Does that mean the air isn't there? No it just means that you can't FEEL the air unless it bounces off something.Light works kinda the same. Most of the time we d... |
Why does drinking coffee make me pee more often? | Coffee is what is know as a diuretic, it cause water to leave your system faster than it is ingested, hence more urineCaffeine is a diuretic, so makes you pee more. |
how does the phrase "good on you" make any grammatical or logical sense? | You are a good person and I wish **good** things to happen up**on** **you**. |
Why do car manufacturers release new cars with next year's year? I.e., "The new 2016 Sorento" | It sounds better. Many of the 2016 models won't be sold until 2016 so they would sound older if they were called 2015 models. Same reason that "$1.99" sounds better than "$2"The "model year" of cars are one year ahead because although they are released a year ahead many more of them will be sold during the model year. |
How were languages translated between each other, and how could an early interpreter know multiple languages without proper translation existing during that time period? | The same way a child learns to speak the language of their parents - through actions/miming and generally interacting with that culture. This can take a long period of timeThrough physical objects, and miming actions. An example: I, an English speaker, hold up an apple, point to it, and say "Apple". The German person t... |
why does every part of our body seem to heal itself except teeth. Why isn't possible for the tooth to repair itself from say a cavity? | The outer part of a tooth - the enamel - is dead and the process that manufactured that enamel in the first place required it to be submerged in living tissue to deposit the enamel into place. So unless you have some way to encase that tooth back into living tissue, and then reactivate the biological process that cause... |
What about gold exactly makes it so expensive? | Because of its relative scarcity, the effort involved in mining and refining it, and the physical properties of the metal itself. To illustrate how rare gold is, here is a [representation] of all the gold that's ever been refined.The rarity of the metal, gold is very difficult to find in usable quantities, and only in ... |
How do our kidneys know what to use to create urine and what to preserve? | Its actually fairly complicated to explain at a 5 year old level. There are quite a few different factors that can determine the composition of the fluid leaving the kidney. Blood enters the kidney and the first step is to filter out all the things that should just stay in the blood. After that, factors such as how muc... |
Where does the debt go when someone or a company declares bankruptcy? | Any assets of the person or company will be sold where possible. After that, whatever money there is will be split between the various people that are owed money. In most countries, there is some kind of order of priority, for example the taxman might be paid before everyone else. After that, any remaining debt is writ... |
When we toss/throw an object, what in our brains is telling us how hard/soft/hard to throw it? | I have heard of something called [muscle memory]. I believe that this is what happens when people practice swinging a tennis racket over and over again, or standing and swinging a baseball bat at batting practice.I'm confused. Our brains don't tell us, we tell our brains. And that happens because of neurons and lots of... |
Home network versus mobile network | That is an option. You can actually get 3G dongles for a PC/laptop. But the speed, reliability, cost and download limits are usually not great in comparison to a wired internet connection. So there's not much point if you need it for a fixed location. Some people do use them though if they have particularly shitty fixe... |
Why is Yemen so poor unlike its neighbors? | yemen's neighbors have a lot of oil, which makes them very rich. yemen doesn't really have much oil of their own, so they are much poorer. in fact, by 2017 yemen will likely be out of oil altogether. |
Why is there a stereotype about engineers being socially inept stem from? How true is it? | Very technical fields tend to attract introverted people, and sometimes more socially inept people . This is prevalent, though not a golden rule) in engineering and other stem fields. Though as a chemical engineer, I blame the electrical engineers.People like to talk to other people about things that interest them or t... |
Why do your muscles randomly twitch sometimes and what causes it? | I heard this, and I don't know how true it is. Your brain send twitches to your muscles to make sure that part is still all right. Your brain thinks body parts are dead or not working when they don't move for so long, so it sends a twitch to make sure it still moves. |
How can a company "take over" another one? And how is this different from a sale of a company? | If a company is publicly traded, you just buy up a majority of the shares to take control of the Board of Directors and thus the company. If it's privately held it's a little more complicated because you have to negotiate with shareholders independently, but if you can convince enough investors to sell to you to get ma... |
Why do helicopters make a 'Chop Chop Chop' sound when their rotors are spinning at a constant rate through the air? | The pressure difference between the air flowing over and under the rotor blade forms a vortex at the blade tip . When a blade encounters the vortex from another blade, it slaps into the blade. Like a jetski hitting the wake of another jetski. The more the blade is loaded, the stronger the vortex, the louder the sound. ... |
When you are experiencing a sleepless night, how much does lying in bed (as opposed to staying busy until the morning) help your body function the next day? | Neither is really advantageous for the next day, because lack of sleep is lack of sleep. My personal preference would be actually doing something though, instead of driving myself nuts just lying there. That said, in the long run lying in bed is actually worse, because then your bed gets associated with wakefulness ins... |
why are actors allowed to take part in movies that they are not even allowed to watch? | Movie ratings are almost completely irrelevant and hold no legal actions or anything to them. They are just made up "suggestions" by the film industry is all. There are some rules about child actors in the entertainment world, but these are more focused labor enforcement rules and regulations.sometimes the studio makes... |
When major powers have a presidintial election do they do anything to prove to other countries that they didn't alter the outcome of the votes | To answer your question directly: yes, international observers inspect most national elections in the world, after a fashion. More specifically: the OAS and OSCE, for the Americas and Europe respectively, are supranational organizations that, among other duties, observe elections in their jurisdiction. As is the case w... |
If we base the start of this era with the birth of Christ then why is January 1st New Years instead of Christmas? | Having the year start on 1 January predates the birth of Jesus . We don't know the date of Jesus' birth; the origin of the date of Christmas is uncertain. Our era only came into use slowly starting in the 6th century, more or less by accident. It lacked the very powerful backing that would have been required to change ... |
Why must a person receive a driver's license prior to obtaining a motorcycler's license? | Here in the uk you can get your motorcycle licence first. Thats how I did itDrivers license is obtained when you know the rules of the road while driving a motor vehicle. Motorcycle license is obtained after you show you know how to safely operate a motorcycle on the road. That must be a local law thing, where you have... |
Surveillant Camera Man, what he does, is it legal or illegal in the US? | 1. An argument for harassment could be made if he's actively following someone around and refusing to leave, however the camera is irrelevant to that.2. There is a first amendment right to film and photograph anyone and anything in a public place . If you're in public, it is legal to film you, and you have no say in th... |
How does dust build up on moving fan blades like in a PC? | As the fan rotates, it creates friction with the air causing it to build up a charge. Dust particles will then want to stick to this. It works in the same way of rubbing a balloon onto your hair and having it stick. |
If disc are just binary data (0's & 1's) why can't I just copy a disk bit for bit and have it work to avoid the DRM? | You can duplicate the disc exactly, and the Xbox won't be able to tell it apart from an original disc. The trick is, you need to have the equipment to manufacture DVDs. I don't suppose you have a DVD factory sitting around in your living room, do you? Most of the data on a DVD is just a single long stream divided into ... |
How can businessmen and other officials have known connections to illegal gangs, but not be arrested? | Why do you think he wasn't arrested? You think he was invited to court to be indicted and decided to go check it out? In general, you have to commit a crime to be arrested. Hanging out with criminals, as long as they're not actively crimeing , is just hanging out with people.You have to commit a crime in order to be ar... |
Why is it so hard for convicted criminals to get jobs in a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world? | Because that country also has a shortage of jobs, and it's easy to find a non-criminal to fill the position. |
The first stage of the Saturn V rocket has 5 engines. Why didn't they use 1 much larger engine as opposed to 5 relatively smaller engines? | Simple answer a bigger engine didn't exist. The Saturn v is old its first launch was in 1967 so they worked with what they had at the time which was still a monstrous amount of thrust from a single booster. The Russians equivalent at the time of completion was the n1 and that had 30 boosters because that was all they c... |
Why does the American box office make so much money compared to the rest of the world? | World GDP - approx 75 Trillion US GDP - 16.77 trillion 16.77/75 = .22 The US represents 22% of the world economy. Simply put - the US has A LOT more money to spend than the majority of countries. On top of that, remember that the majority of movies are made in the US, by Americans, with a special eye to American audien... |
Why do we have to cook food in the oven for 20 minutes, but we can cook it in the microwave for 3 minutes? | Different types of energy. Convection is limited by diffusion. Microwaves have far greater depth of penetration and spin all of the water molecules in food. The resulting kinetic energy of the spinning molecules gives off heatOvens heat the food by primarily two means: Convection and thermal radiation . Both of those c... |
How Come Books don't have age restrictions? | Usually more mature literature will have more complex vocabulary and thus younger audiences are less likely to read it', "I think some do. Although I think it's at least a lot more relaxed because it is left to the reader's imagination of how bad it really is. |
Why does the American school system skip the letter 'E' in their grading system? | The F stands for fail, and doesn't figure in with the lettering system the same way. Some places do use E", 'Did you think that a standard explanation to this question would be too complex, thus asking for one tailored for a 5 year old?Back when I was in school, I asked several people why this was. The most common answ... |
Why are the Time Zone lines not straight and not equal sizes in width? | The time zones are drawn with the countries and regions of the world in mind. A lot of the time they're drawn on physical barriers as well so that people who are neighbours on either side of the time zone line aren't an hour apart from each other", 'Imagine you drive to work every day over this imaginary line called a ... |
Why do people talk about the relevancy of generations when there’s people of every age in society? | A generation as a whole has been brought up in a certain world/time period that can be noticeably different from younger or older. You could look at the “lost generation” where millions of men where wiped out in a senseless World War. My Grandparents lived through the Depression and married later in life and were alway... |
Does El Nino have anything to do with Chilean earthquake? | No. El Niño is purely a phenomena of water temperatures and weather. Chile then again is naturally prone to earthquakes due to its location [on the Ring of Fire]. |
How did a bill as dangerous as the NDAA get passed with overwhelming support? Are we, as a public, missing something? | It's must-pass legislation, otherwise our soldiers would not have food/gasoline/supplies to keep going. There is one provision that everyone is upset with, and rightfully so. They tried to pass the NDAA then amend out the detainment provision. |
Why do we not have dinosaur sized animals today? | We do. There were plenty of chicken sized dinosaurs. The big ones are easier to find and cooler to study, but an elephant is larger than most dinosaurs were.There is less oxygen in the atmosphere. Larger animals require more oxygen to stay alive, so animals gradually shrunk as oxygen levels decreased. IIRC they decreas... |
Why are bigger things often depicted as moving slower? | Let us imagine someone who is 6 feet tall and someone who is 6000 feet tall, both moving at the same speed. Our 6 foot man has a stride length of 2.5 feet every half second for a leisurely pace of about 3.4 mph. Each foot reaches a max speed of 6.8 mph. Now our 6000 foot man has a stride of 2500 feet for a pace of 3409... |
Why does being tickled make us laugh? | I remember reading that one purpose of parents ticking their children is it teaches them defensive reflexes if they are attacked at different parts of their body . Like puppies or kittens playing, it teaches them valuable life skills to survive. It makes you laugh / is fun because it is initially play. Parents wouldn't... |
What happens to butter after it becomes gas on the frying pan? | The water boils off. The fat melts into a liquid. The proteins kind of glob up and float around in the melted fat. |
Getting Into the Stock Trade | Start with an account at vanguard/fidelity and buy low fee index funds. If you don't already have one make your first account an IRA/Roth IRA . Most of the time they'll waive the minimum balance requirements if you agree to make regular savings contributions. |
Why does our singing sound better when listening to music? | I'm assuming because the music hides "defects" of our voice - we just don't hear them anymore. ', "It's easier to hit the correct pitch when you are listening to the song and can adjust to match the original singer. |
Why do most porn films completely skip a good foreplay & story build-up...and jump directly into the same old, boring, unsexy and beyond-overdone slam-bang routine? | I don't have an answer, I just want to comment to say that I appreciate the tag on this question.Low budget porn caters to the lowest common denominator - guys who will fast forward to the action and be done in three minutes. If you want better material, pay for it.Because that's exactly what large parts of their audie... |
Why is John Smith such a common name in the United States to the point that it's generic? What are some names like this in other countries? | Smith was a common surname because surnames used to be based on locations or occupations and there were a lot of smiths of all sorts who had family smithing businesses that remained for a while. John is a common first name because he is one of the disciples in the bible. I don't know why it's more popular than other bi... |
How do technology companies tell if you've voided their warranty or not? | Electronic goods also have liquid sensitive stickers inside them too. It will often be a small sticker or two placed inside an item which will change colour if it gets wet. These stickers are often criticised for being too sensitive as there have been reports of them changing colour just because it is a humid day. |
Why a silicone based life form would be so significant? | Silicon. Not silicone. Silicon is a metalloid element; silicone is what they make breast implants out of. So-called "silicon-based life" is a popular science fiction trope because silicon has similar chemical properties to carbon, which is what all known Earth life is based on. In reality, you can't just replace carbon... |
Why are so many invasive species in the US from China? | From my understanding, it has a lot to do with trade and shipping traffic. Water from ballast is good at spreading species, but also things like wood products, which is how things like the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, Asian Longhorn Beetle, and other things got here. Also, Asian Tiger Mosquito got here thru the transportatio... |
How do animals not get frost bite. | Horses can and do get frost bite on their ears.One of the main reasons why animals living in extreme environments can maintain a stable core temperature is due to their extremely efficient ability to control heat loss. One of the primary methods of this is Counter-current exchange, where vessels carrying warm blood run... |
Why does terrific mean something good, while terrible, horrible and horrific means something bad? | Terrific used to mean about the same as terrible: something that causes terror. In the 1800's it started meaning good things. The process by which a negative word takes on positive meanings is "amelioration". *Why* it happens is unclear, like a lot of language evolution. But there are more modern examples of "bad" word... |
the difference between Tex-Mex and Mexican food. | Your friends sound awful. Tex-Mex is the type of food that came about as regional takes on Mexican cuisine at and around the Texas/Mexican border. [Here's a list of legitimate Mexican dishes]. The difference between Tex Mex and "real" Mexican food might be the difference between Kentucky barbecue and Kansas barbecue. I... |
Why and when did women start shaving their armpits? | Of course, it's fashionable in some circles to claim this is a modern phenomena but the evidence proves otherwise. Ancient Egyptian women are reported to have removed body hair using depilatory pastes made from arsenic trisulfide, quicklime and starch. The Roman poet [Martial] noted that Roman women liked to remove all... |
Why do people use ELI5 versus a simple Google Search? | If I look up "string theory", I get a Wikipedia page that has an introduction of: > In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. In string theory, the different types of observed elementary particles ar... |
What's happening when youtube is processing a video that has been uploaded? | Youtube has to first decode the video you uploaded, then re-encode the file to every format it supports for every resolution it supports , and also "fingerprint" the video to look for copyrighted content. It has to extract the sound from the video and re-encode it at different bitrates as well . |
When did pride become a virtue, and why exactly is it grouped with the seven deadly sins? | Like ambition, pride can be both a virtue and a vice. Too little pride may make you into a lazy bum who never washes. Too much pride may make you into selfish prick. Moderation is betterThe "pride" referred to in the seven deadly sins is not the kind of pride as in pride in one's appearance, children, accomplishments, ... |
How do cats instinctively know to crap in the box? | I don't think it's the box, but more like the instinct to go in something that they can bury it in. My cats live outside and we used to have a litter box until I realized they were just going in the dirt and sand around various spots in the backyard.It's not instinct: they have to be taught. Luckily, they're usually ta... |
What is Math Linguistics? | Quite simply, it's a way of trying to understand a language by analyzing it statistically. It's especially relevant to artificial intelligence, especially things like automated translations. Computers don't understand language; in fact, the only thing they can really do is crunch numbers. So to translate from one langu... |
How do courts/police determine whether someone has claims has been raped is telling the truth? | They look at the story, ask the same question multiple times over the period of the interview, see whether it sounds like they're repeating a script, the story changes over time, or if it sounds like theyre actually recalling an event. They look at any physical evidence , are there any bruises, rashes or scrapes, DNA t... |
Why is daylight savings different all over the world? | As someone who lives in a tropical country, I can tell you daylight saving doesn't always make sense. Countries near the Equator have fairly indistinct seasons since they receive mostly the same amount of sunlight all year-long. So, while in European countries like Spain or France sunset may come at 20:00h in the summe... |
Why does water not have any color? | [Actually, water does have an intrinsic color.] > While relatively small quantities of water appear to be colorless, water's tint becomes a deeper blue as the thickness of the observed sample increases. The blue hue of water is an intrinsic property and is caused by the selective absorption and scattering of white ligh... |
What are the reasons as to why the oil price never return to $1 range since 9/11? | The specifics about why gas prices go up can be better explained by others, but this chart shows gas prices adjusted for inflation: _URL_0_ It seems like the climb started closer to 1999 than 2001, but asking why it hasn't gone back done since then is a great question. |
How does a TV remote work, or any remote for that matter? | Most TV remotes are IR . What that means is that at the top of the remote there is a little lightbulb of sorts behind a red cover. That lightbulb isn't intended to emit light in the spectrum we can see but rather the infrared specturum whose wavelength is slightly longer then the longest visible light waves we can see ... |
Why is climate change a political issue, even though it is more suited to climatology? | Because the implications of accepting climate change means more government regulation of the oil industry and other polluters. Being forced to pay for pollution means less profit for business. Republicans don't like government regulations and they like big business. |
How did they decide who stepped out of the Apollo lunar module first? | Buzz Aldrin answered it in his [AMA] a few months agoHistorically, the junior member of a mission, of which Aldrin was in this case, was the one to conduct a spacewalk. This left the more senior member in charge of the controls. However, because this was the first moon landing, Armstrong, the mission commander, was sel... |
How do you not suffocate on an airplane during a long flight? | It isn't sealed air tight, far from it. Air is constantly pumped into the cabin through the climate control system. The jet engines take some of the air that passes through their compressors and sent it to the plane's HVAC system for the passengers.They get a constant supply of fresh air from outside. It gets pressuriz... |
How do we know how the inside of our body works? | The inside of bodies works the same in everyone. Doctors have taken apart dead people to learn the parts and routinely take apart and repair living people when something goes wrong. |
If I'm starving, would it benefit me to not go to the toilet? | As you said, it has moved beyond the point where any nutrients would be picked up. The last place before your a-hole is the thick intestine that only picks up liquid, making your poop firm. The not so thick intestine has an enormous area of bulges, on which there are willi, on which there are microwilli, that collect n... |
If an electric car can gain range via regenerative braking and the like, why can't I power my car forever through the spinning wheels? | Perpetual motion machines are impossible. Even if you could make motors and regenerative braking systems that were 100% efficient , there's loss in friction, rolling resistance, aerodynamic drag, etc., etc. TANSTAAFL", 'The way regenerative braking works is by putting a reverse load on the electric motor to produce ele... |
Why is the fundamental theorem of calculus a theorem in the first place? | It seems you're misunderstanding the definition of the definite integral. The integral of a given function f does not mention an antiderivative F, and indeed it may be that no antiderivative exists. The integral of f over an interval is the limit of any Riemann sum when all such limits agree. If f happens to have an an... |
Why can game modders make the visuals look almost real, called photorealistic, while big budget game developers cant. | This is an extremely common question Short Answer - Standing on the shoulders of giants is easy Slightly Longer Answer - Game designers built a game that would play on a wide range of machines. Modders took that basic game and enhanced it so that it can only run on top end machines. It's not that the game designers cou... |
Why does inbreeding create mentality deficient offspring? | Inbreeding doesn't *necessarily* create offspring with any disability, or at least not anything noticable. What inbreeding *does* do is concentrate recessive genes and thus make genetic disorders more likely by increasing the probability of bad recessive genes being expressed. This probability goes up the closer in rel... |
Why is the performance of a graphics card tied so heavily to the drivers, to the point that a bad driver can cause a sudden drop in performance? | Yo don't write code to be executed on the graphics card directly. Yo write code in a API like DirectX or OpenGL that the driver converts or thing that are executed on the graphics card.So the performance depends on good the driver is. The reason for not writing directly to the graphics card is that then you would have ... |
How much of the universe is visible to a person at night? | Most of the stars that you see are within a few hundred light-years, and are of similar distance from one another. A few exceptions - mostly very bright supergiants - are visible from further, in the thousands of light-years . Some things that look like stars to the naked eye, like globular clusters, can be further awa... |
How come when we see someone that does something that causes themselves to get hurt, we sometimes cringe and feel phantom pain? | In short - mirror neurones!!It has to do with our ingrained sympathy towards one and other. Some diagnose psychopaths do not have these! It’s very interesting! Stuff you should know podcast did an awesome episode that a five year old could definitely understand and follow! Check it out!', "Linked to an evolutionary tra... |
What compels humans to want torture or pain fetishes or things like collars? | Some people are mentally unable to be sexually aroused or achieve orgasm, usually — when they are humiliated, or feel pain, or {arbitrary sexual fetish here}, it changes their neurochemistry so that they can experience sexual arousal and/or achieve orgasm. For some people it's the adrenaline thrill of the forbidden, or... |
Why are spaceships ring-shaped in some sci-fi movies/shows? | spinning a ring and sticking people to the inside is a very cheap way to make artificial gravity. We actually don't know how to make artificial gravity any other way right now. So they are being a little more accurate.There is the small in ship spinning ring in 2001: A Space Odyssey The first two might be because of th... |
how does such a small chip on a mobile device have such processing power and yet do not overheat? | Intentionally lowered clock speed and passive heat sink dissipation. The processing units are also designed to be low power and incredibly energy efficient, which contributes to lower waste heat, and lower amounts of heat needing to be removed. |
Why do I laugh when I receive bad news? | I sometimes smile or hold back a laugh when telling people bad news. I have no idea why I do this, because I definitely have sympathy/empathy for others and certainly feel bad in that moment. It feels very strange for my body to sort of betray how I feel or what I want it to do. The best way I can describe it is that i... |
Why do some actors have their name in the credits as "Some Actor as Dr Wilson" and some don't? | It's called "last billing." The order that the actors are listed in the credits is listed as billing. Generally, the bigger a name you are, the closer to the front you'll be listed. That's called "Top Billing" and it's the best place to be -- listed very first. But sometimes you'll have two actors of similar stature in... |
If some plants don't use photosynthesis as their method of survival, how do they still manage to stay alive & not die? | Of course, the exact definition of a plant is debated . Assuming that your definition is one of the more "lenient" ones, plants that don't use carbon dioxide are usually parasitic in nature and survive off of nutrients from another plant.Very few plants don't use photosynthesis. the few that don't use some other means ... |
it seems like even evolutionarily advantageous traits (e.g. bipedalism) come with trade-offs (e.g. back problems). what are the costs of consciousness? | Big and complex brain, which consumes quite a lot of energy, and also requires physical adaption .I don't know that I would say every positive thing has tradeoffs, but for one example of conciousness failing, look at an athlete choking. This is very often the result of overthinking their actions. Instead of allowing th... |
How can my body heal itself when I take a placebo, but not normally? | If you take a placebo, you can honestly convince yourself that you have actually taken medicine, which could change your perceptions of normally occuring sensations. Without a placebo, you need quite the imagination to do the same.There's a world of difference between the easing of a symptom under the Placebo Effect an... |
Why are eyes so prone to infection, as compared to other parts of our bodies? | Well the eyes are an "immunologically privileged" region of the body. Basically your immune system can't get into your eyes and poke around. However I don't think the eyes are any more susceptible to disease than any other region of the body. Do you have any sources on that?', "The reason why is not because of a lack o... |
Why are high winds always associated with cold weather? | It depends where you live. For example, if you happen to be in the UK: We tend to get calm periods when the Azores High is strong and moves/extends north towards us, blocking Atlantic lows, while the jet stream retreats further north away from us, removing it as a source of high winds. That is: we get low winds when a ... |
Why does water expand when frozen (ice), as opposed to other substances? | When frozen, water molecules arrange themselves in a particular grid-like pattern with lots of empty space between each molecule, thus increasing its volume. |
Why don't car & bike tires come in different colors other than black? | Plenty of bicycle tires in other colors _URL_0_ Most them are novelty tires, because colorizing the tire means the tire can't have carbon black or rubber, and has to be made with other substances which aren't as effective for traction. |
I think I understand space-time. What I don't understand is how we are able to observe distortions in it. | > Shouldn't we not be able to observe this in any way? Like the animated images on the picture can't observe the picture being bent because it is a dimension above their cognition? No. For example, if the picture is bent into a cylinder, the people in it will notice that they can return to their starting point by going... |
Since there's so much pushback on accepting refugees directly into first-world countries, why aren't these countries setting up refugee camps instead? | Because they're interested in scoring political points moreso than actually solving the problem. Right now, there's a huge backlash due to the Paris attacks, so going "boo immigration" is a cheap way to score points for conservatives and going "boo conservatives for being boo immigration" is a cheap way to score points... |
Why isn't Craig Ferguson taking over the Late Show instead of Colbert? | Who knows. It was really up to Letterman to decide; his company produces the show. Presumably Letterman thought Colbert could drive more ratings at 11pm than Ferguson could. |
why some people have dry ear wax while others have very wet ear wax. | Ooh! I learned that a few days ago! Genetics! Recessive and dominant genes. The texture of your ear wax is determined by one single gene and is therefore the best illustration of how dominant/recessive genes work. Wet ear wax is a dominant trait, dry ear wax is recessive. According to [this] article, dry ear wax is a m... |
What exactly is defragmenting my computer? How does it help my computer's performance? | On a conventional hard disk, the computer has to index and "point" to where data is stored and by default data is written to the first available sector in the drive.The problem comes when you start deleting, moving etc files because this leaves gaps in the disk sector. Following the earlier rule that computers will air... |
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