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How are credit card transactions on airplane processed? | I have a family member that works for an airline company. Credit cards are processed post-flight, as in, when you swipe your card, the number and charge is stored until the plane lands and can connect to the card company database. Because of this, if you have a card with a magnetic strip, you can theoretically use that... |
Why can something be waterproof, but only for a certain amount of time? What happens after the nth minute that suddenly negates any waterproofing? | Without knowing what you're talking about specifically, it's hard to say. But a guess would be that the object has an outer skin, which water will slowly permeate through. While the water is penetrating the skin, the components inside will stay dry and safe . But once the water gets all the way through the skin, the co... |
Why eating at home and making your own food is better for you than eating unhealthy food if you track the calories/fat/sodium/ect.. content | They often aren't, but the main problem with eating out would be consistency of portions. If Bob from Chipotle gives you 150g of guac, and Sam from Chiptole gives you 230g of guac, you may not realize the difference in portion size, but Chipotle's calorie counter online might list guac as a 100g side, and both people j... |
Why are most modern houses built with wood frames? | Wood is popular because it's inexpensive, quickly and easily assembled, allows for relatively large amounts of insulation , and they're strong enough to survive many common weather/geologic issues while better, more expensive materials have little effect on the home's ability to survive rare, catastrophic weather like ... |
Why do people like Mosh Pits? | It started in the 70s and 80s at punk shows, where people's dancing got wilder and wilder, and eventually got to where people were slamming into each other. It kind of went from there. It was originally called mashing, but it turned into moshing because that's the way the singer from Bad Brains, who had a Jamaican acce... |
Why, when ironing, it takes infinitely longer than the rest of the entire garment to iron out a crease you accidentally create? | Clothing wrinkles when the fibers are creased. Usually this happens because of pressure, which causes folds in the fiber . Ironing/pressing works by using a mixture of heat and pressure to re-shape the fibers flat again. Heat is especially useful in re-shaping fibers. When you accidentally iron a crease into your cloth... |
why we count years in terms of C.E. and B.C.E. | The Roman Catholic Church, which controlled a major portion of the civilized world for over a thousand years, adopted the Julian Calendar, which is similar to the calendar that we have today. They started counting from the supposed birth of Jesus, calling the new period AD and the period before his birth as BC. The cal... |
Why does exposure to loud sounds cause deafness? | there are tiny hairs in your ear that turn vibrations into an electric single, which is what your brain actually hears. if they get hit with more than they can take they fall over. |
I was asked about Ethical Egoism the other day and didn't have a very good answer even after reading wikipedia; what does it mean? | Ethical egoism is the idea that right and wrong are dependent only on self-interest. That is, it's right for me to do things that are good for me, and it's wrong for me to do things that are bad for me. The effects of my actions on *other* people aren't relevant. |
Why people prefer to say that they're 'Marxist' rather than 'communist'? | Marxism is a philosophy while communism is an economic system. Think of Marxism like the blueprint of a house while communism is like the finished house. The Marxism blueprint has been used to make several communist houses, but all of those houses have been structurally unstable and most of them have collapsed. Marxist... |
Why are all of the most-viewed videos on sites like PornHub currently incest related? [NSFW] | I am no expert but, people tend to want to satisfy their curiosity and that includes delving into the tabooPorn companies are like any other form of media, they copy what seems to be doing well. A few years ago it was all about parodies along the lines of "Not Star Wars XXX". Add in the naughty/taboo aspects of human n... |
Biologically, what makes certain animals so difficult to keep alive in captivity (specifically the Giant Panda)? | It depends on the animal. Some animals have natural ranges that are simply too large for a zoo to accommodate. Other animals suffer psychologically when they can't exercise their predatory instincts. Other animals have dietary needs that are difficult to meet in captivity. Many animals don't acclimate well to a human p... |
Why are the world's deserts where they are/not at the equator? | Deserts are less about sheer temperature as they are about aridity. Rainfall patterns are influenced mostly by air currents. The way air circulates around the planet causes particularly dry air in bands 30 degree off the equator, which is where you'll find most deserts.Hadley cells man. All of the air at the equator ri... |
What actually happens when a young mans voice 'breaks' during puberty? | Girls\' voices break, too. During puberty, your whole body grows at a rapid pace. That includes your larynx. It thickens and elongates. But when it's at a "transitional" size, it doesn't vibrate as steadily as it did when you were smaller. You grow into it. And when you get old, the larynx loses some flexibility, which... |
Why do politicians want to ban encryption? | SOME people who fight crimes/terrorism thinks that a better society means a society where we can monitor everything. Because if we can monitor everything we can fight all crimes. Fortunately some guy thought of this plan a long time ago and wrote a scifi novel to make people understand what an utterly bad idea this is.... |
How does the aerial camera in NFL stay in focus and how do they control it? | There are a set of guide wires that the over head camera sits on. They run the length of the stadium and either the camera rig pulls itself along these guide wires, or the guide wires themselves move and thus the camera moves. It's probably the former because it makes more sense but I really I'm not sure. An operator i... |
What does rooting your device do and what is rooting? | Rooting an Android device is gaining access to the Root directory. Users can't access this by default. When you get your phone you only have certain access, you're effectively like a user on a company network. You are limited to what you can do, you are given an interface to use, you are given certain default programs ... |
Why does my stomach still hurt in the same place after my gallbladder's been removed? | Holy shit man, I have the EXACT thing. This is bugging me out! Mine was 3 years ago and mine was much more serious than your average cholecystectomy. I have asked my doctor about this and it can be one of two things . 1. Since you don't have a gallbladder to store bile, which breaks down fatty foods, your body doesn't ... |
Why does the foam on beer stay there for a much longer time compared to other fizzy drinks like soda? | The biggest difference is that beer, unlike simple carbonated solutions of water, contain additional compounds, which act as surfactants. Surfactants consist of chemical structures with both a polar part and a non-polar part, as shown here. In beer, there are plenty of components that act as surfactants, especially pro... |
What's the difference between 'www3.' and 'www.' website urls? | It's difficult to give a comprehensive answer here, but the thing is that there's nothing to stop the people responsible for the site having whatever they like in place of the www - convention dictates that your web server is called _URL_3_ in order to distinguish it from other servers that might also live there but th... |
Why do you lean when playing racing games? E.g leaning into corners or moving the controller to the side | Especially when it comes to a new, foreign, and time-limited tasks, your brain is trying to "find the solution" to the problem given as quickly as possible. Because of this, you sometimes use the wrong solution for this specific problem and apply the real life solution . Ever see those game show outtakes where people a... |
Why are diamonds cut the way they are? If they are so expensive doing so diminishes its volume hence worth? | In a sense, I guess I'd say it's the same reason why the statue of David is worth more than the chunk of marble Michelangelo carved it out of. Generally speaking, diamonds are priced by the karat, which, for diamonds, is a weight measurement equivalent to [.2 grams]. However, the value of a diamond is also determined b... |
Why don't police make suspects take a lie detector test to see if he/she actually committed the crime they are suspected of? | b/c they are not reliable and the results are not admissible in court, so that would be a waste of time/moneyPolice cannot force you you to give them any information because people have a constitutional right not to self-incriminate. Also, lie detectors are garbage at actually separating truth from falsity. Even if som... |
How can solids keep its form if the atoms that make it up are constantly moving? | In a solid the atoms that make it up is not constantly moving. That is the difference between a solid and a liquid. The atoms are moving a bit but they will not move past each other and will therefore keep its general configuration. Some solids, especially pure metals, will allow you to mold the solid as you can move t... |
Why don't animals with shorter lifespans/generations (often prey) 'out evolve' those with longer lifespans/generations (often predators)? | First, prey animals aren't just competing with predators, they are competing with other species, with the plants and insects they eat, with parasites and disease causing microbes, and with each other. Their evolutionary efforts aren't just going to be focused on predators. In addition, short lifespan, in itself, can be... |
Why are full blown trailers being called “teaser” trailers all of a sudden? | There is a rule, enforced by the MPAA, that "trailers" must be less than 2 minutes 30 seconds. There was a convention, enforced by nobody, that "teasers" must be less than 60 seconds. However, the Internet made this whole convention semi-meaningless as more people see trailers and teasers on the Internet than in theate... |
The difference between active and inactive ingredients in medication, hygiene products etc. | In medication : **Active ingredient:** Any component that provides pharmacological activity or other direct effect in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or animals. **Inactive ingredient:** Any component of a drug product o... |
Why is it that most palm trees in Santa Monica slant toward the ocean, when thats the direction the wind comes from? | The ocean's large reflective surface area and lack of light blocking structures create an opportunity for the plant/tree life to receive more sun by angling toward it, so they naturally grow toward this surface as time passes to harness more of the suns energy. |
how do computer chips store information? | Computers store their information in binary, ones and zeros. Anything that has two positions can store binary information. A series of switches on the wall can store binary information, so can a bunch of water glasses . There are a number of ways to store information in a computer. I'll talk about two of them. The most... |
If multiple countries economic systems collapse... | What about the people who don't produce food? They're all going to starve while you get the economy started back up. |
How are late night TV infomercials beneficial to companies? | It’s cheap airtime compared to most of the day, and allows product or brand exposure for much longer time segments. |
the pros and cons of Scotland becoming independent. | > Cons > * Although the budget for an independent Scotland balances with current expenditure, that is based on oil revenue which will run out. > * Scotland is a large country wih a small population, resulting in a higher cost of providing public services. * Scotland has a higher percentage of public sector employment t... |
Why do some bands have many many singles off of an album released for radio airplay, but other bands usually only ever seem to have like one or maybe two? | What makes a good single and what makes a good album are different things. For the radio or MP3 shuffle, a song should be less than 4 minutes and make sense on its own. For an album, the songs are supposed to be played in a certain order, and combine to tell a story. A good example is Pink Floyd's *The Wall*. There are... |
whats that on the chocolate ? | Milk skin or lactoderm refers to a sticky film of protein that forms on top of milk and milk-containing liquids . It is caused by the denaturation of proteins such as beta-lactoglobulin . _URL_0_ |
why do we spend trillions of dollars exploring out of space while we have only discovered less then 5% of our ocean | You can do a lot more interesting science in space than at the bottom of the ocean. Also, NASA's spent less than $800 billion, inflation adjusted, over it's entire existence, including aerodynamics and basic research on Earth. |
Just exactly what is the conductor of an orchestra doing and how is he/she doing it? | Conductors have a number of roles. Generally for weaker groups, their main roles are to keep everyone in time with each other, dictate the dynamics of the music and to cue players for their entries. These things still happen at higher levels, but to varying degrees. Different conductors have different interpretations o... |
the point of view of those in favor of and opposed to dog breeding | Pro: If I am going to commit to caring for a dog for the next 10-15 years, I should be able to get the dog I want, and breeds give me a good idea what kind of dog a puppy is going to grow into. Con: There are thousands, if not millions of dogs that are euthanized every year because no one wants them. Every dog created ... |
What do scientists mean when they say all we know and see is really just an illusion? | Your brain gets signals from your senses via nerves and interprets these signals in a such a way that your consciousness perceives reality. So *you* does not experience reality first-hand, but only through signals from your nerves which it interprets as originating from reality.There's a standard Philosophy 101 example... |
The difference between a humidifier and a vaporizer | A humidifier is a device that adds humidity to the air, through evaporation. A vaporizer is a type of humidifier, that instead of waiting for the water to evaporate, shoots hot air with atomized water into it the air. This creates zones where the water content exceeds 100% humidity, and briefly condenses back into wate... |
Is there any sort of evolutionary advantage to our heads/necks being shaped such that we require a pillow to sleep comfortably? | We don't require a pillow. You can sleep on a flat hard surface with no pillows at all. Comfort we have now is a modern invention. |
What happens when the safety screen is removed from a microwave (and you use it)? | So the way microwaves work is by creating standing waves of electromagnetic radiation - light - that cause the water molecules in whatever you're microwaving to wiggle around, generating heat. It will do roughly the same thing to the water in your skin. The effect won't be as pronounced, since you can't set up a standi... |
Questions about Hardware Abstraction Layer | Windows Vista onwards lets you move from one computer to another - it will figure out which HAL to use during boot. You may have noticed that when you try this, you need to reactiveate your Windows license though. So you *can* copy your Windows image from one PC to another, you'll just need to reactivate. Before this, ... |
Why is the stock price important for a company? | The stock price is a good reflection of the faith the market has in your company. You are right in saying VW isn't really losing any more with the stock price going down, but it is an indication of how the market and investors think about their product. People are dumping VW shares because they expect this scandal is g... |
is it correct to say that if an airplane has 1/1000000 chance of crashing, in the flight number 500000 has a chance of 50% that an airplane has already crashed? | > is it correct to say that if an airplane has 1/1000000 chance of crashing, in the flight number 500000 has a chance of 50% that an airplane has already crashed? No. Consider a 6-sided die. There's a 1/6 chance that you'll roll a 1. But you don't have a 50% chance of rolling a 1 after three rolls. The way you calculat... |
How close is the connection between reddit and imgur? | It was created to host images used on Reddit, which is still its main purpose today. However, some people only go on imgur. I know a girl in a class I had who was browsing Imgur, I saw that the images were the daily popular Reddit posts, so I asked her if she's on Reddit, but she had no clue what Reddit was. |
What would happen if I gave up my country citizenship and refuse to take up any other? | Most countries will not let you give up your citizenship if you aren't a citizen of any other country. That said, some people do end up stateless. Being stateless does not give you any special ability to cross borders without a visa or ID. Quite the opposite, it would make crossing national borders very difficult. No o... |
How come Facebook has no direct competitors. | Facebook DOES have direct competitors, it just beats them. Here's why: even though the ToS of Facebook is stupidly crazy, so many people are on Facebook that it's hard to leave. Would you go to a "better" party, if you were the only one there? No. You wouldn't. You would stay at your shitty party and hang with all of y... |
Why police can shut down concerts.. | There are a plethora of reasons police could shut down an event like that, something like a threat or hazard, maybe to many people in one spot etc. It would be up to the venue to refund the customers if they so chose.Considering how many different sets of laws and regulations related to noise, alcohol/drug policy, fire... |
Why do I get an erection every time after I eat? | Don't have an explanation. Never happened to me. But wow, this really interests me :D Never heard of a condition like that before |
How do video game speed-runners develop their strategy for beating a game so quickly? | Practice, for the most part. When you run the same area of a game 100 times a day, you tend to get good at it. In all of those attempts, you're gonna try different things, maybe because you're looking for a faster way and maybe because you're just bored. If you realize that you can cut across a gap by doing a certain t... |
- How the dial lock on a safe works. | Im too lazy to find pics. Imagine a pizza on a table. Stand the pizza on its edge. Remove one slice from the pizza. Place a metal bar above the pizza. Now as you rotate the pizza the metal bar will fall into the pizza when the missing section is aligned with the bar. Now imagine you had 2 pizzas with 1 piece missing ea... |
When did the 'hard work pays off' mentality become less and less realistic? | It isn't less realistic. Assuming that "hard work pays off" is closely related to social mobility, [this article] shows that there is no less social mobility than there was a generation ago. Of course, it could be argued that "hard work pays off" and social mobility aren't the same thing, in which case that article isn... |
When looking from the Moon, why does the Earth appear the same size as the Moon from viewed from Earth? | It does not. Your premise is false. Earth seen from the Moon is much larger than the Moon seen from Earth.[source] Looking at a photo you can't tell one way or the other, because the apparent size depends on the length of lens used and on how the photo was enlarged. |
Why do some retailers require signatures for credit card charges and others do not? | They all do, but only if you reach a certain amount. It's a security thing and not worth it if you're getting and candy bar of pack or condoms. On another note is it weird that those are the two things to pop into my head? |
why are amazons (or any company's) servers/scripts named with seemingly jibberish names like _URL_0_ (1)? | Typically this is done automatically as part of the build pipeline to facilitate caching. Next time a build is completed the bundled scripts/css will be combined in a file with a different name. Since it has a different name the browser won’t find it in cache and will pull down this new version from the server |
Why do certain foods (like cookies) go soft when they've been in the cupboard a while, but other foods like bread become hard? | Breads and cakes go "hard" because the moisture in the air actually crystallizes the structure. Cookies on the other hand are much drier and the absorption of water from the air adds moisture to their structure and causes it to re-bond with pliable connections. That's why stale cookies are softer but pliable. Anecdote:... |
After you exercise your Miranda Rights ("I am using my right to remain silent.") do the police have to stop asking you questions or can they keep interrogating you? | I could go for days about this but since it is ELI5 here is a super simple version. A person may not invoke the right to remain silent by being silent and not responding to police questions they must expressly invoke this right. Until expressly invoked officers may continue questioning. After invoked the officers may n... |
How can blind peoble "feel" colors? | I have not heard of blind people "feeling" colors, but I did recently hear about a study that showed blind people could still identify emotions in photographs of people. _URL_0_While most of the sensory input goes to the visual cortex which is the part of the brain that lets us see things, some information may be going... |
What does some of the lingo for reddit stand for? Like TIL or NSFW? | TIL=Today I learned NSFW= not safe for Work SFW=safe for Work HIF=How I feel .. MRW=My reaction when EDIT: ELI5=explain like Im 5 NSFL= not save for life TIFU=today I fucked up TL,DR=to long, didnt read. Edit^2:^grammar[Here is a list from the reddit FAQ that includes a lot of them.]TIL: today I learnedNSFW: not safe f... |
Why do they put tar and other harmful chemicals they advertise about in cigarettes? What's the difference between smoking a cig and smoking just tobacco without the tar and chemicals? | Tar is part of the tobacco, that's true - but there are hundreds of other chemicals that are added to to cigarettes. The big tobacco companies claim that these additives make the cigarettes more flavorful and provide a more pleasurable smoking experience. Others have argued that they make cigarettes more addictive. Smo... |
EL15: The European royal families | Why were the royal families of so many countries related? Simple, royalty marries royalty. When there is nobody to marry in your own country you go looking abroad. In the past there was also a lot of politics involved.They were individuals and families that sought and achieved power, sustained it through generations an... |
How is it possible to hear multiple sounds at once? Since sound is vibration of the air/your ear drum, shouldn't the vibrayions combine into one single vibration? | The 'one single vibration' you hear is the sum of the vibrations at each frequency. Your ear has a variety of little hairs, all of which are tuned to resonate only within a specific frequency range. The combination of which hairs are vibrating and the amplitude of their vibration allows you to discriminate between soun... |
If your skin cells are constantly regenerating, why does a mole, freckle, birthmark, etc. generally stay with you for life? | Moles exist because the cells DNA has mutated to become a mole. These cells continue to divide with the same mole DNA so the mole won't go away. If you remove all the cells that make up a mole it won't come back. Not sure if freckles a d birthmarks operate the same way. Probably do. I bet if you cut off a birthmark som... |
Why is the Wilhelm scream used in so many movies and TV shows? | Using stock footage is always easier than recording. It's cheaper and faster. Movie studios have libraries with thousands of stock footage for filmmakers to use. The Wilhelm Scream gained fame thanks to Ben Burtt, the sound designer for Lucasfilm. Burtt had a liking for the Wilhelm Scream, a stock scream he found in so... |
Why do female voices in choirs stand out more? | The way our hearing works, we notice higher tones more readily than lower tones. You'll notice with most music, the higher notes carry the melody and the lower notes provide rhythm and harmony. Since women tend to have higher voices than men, we hear their voices more readily. However, you would notice if the male part... |
How do the numbers get allocated for houses / buildings in the United States? | In most places, it's counted in city blocks. So if an address is "8526 X Street", then that place is on the 8500 block of X Street, which is the equivalent of 85 city blocks from wherever the city's zero point is. This is actually pretty useful for getting a rough idea of where something is - for example, in my city, i... |
What are tax returns, and how do they work? | Your employer take a certain percentage of your income every pay cheque and instead of paying it to you, it gets paid to the government instead. A tax return is your opportunity to prove to the government that they took too much and that they should give some of it back to you. So a tax return is a document that lists ... |
Is it actually possible to stop the world cup from happening in Qatar and, what would the consequences of this be? | A boycott is still possible but more than likely it would be the FiFA sponsors that would end up forcing a venue change. Qatar would probably be better off now than if the games were actually not held there. They lack the infrastructure to deal with the number of people expected to attend in person, and have essentiall... |
Why isn't alcohol a schedule one drug in the USA? | From the exact same thread about nicotine: laws are political, not scientific.We tried that with Prohibition and it just lead to a huge amount of crime. It's harder to prohibit Alcohol than other substances because 1. alcohol is strongly embedded in our culture . 2. alcohol is really, really easy to make. Stop scheduli... |
What does it mean for the body to ‘fight’ a virus? | To kill the cells infected by it and prevent the viruses already in your body from infecting more of your cells.The first part is achieved chiefly by so called T-killer-cells, the rest is the standard human immune response. Wikipedia gets you a long way to understanding those, for literature I would recommend Janeway's... |
Why isn't there Displayport on new TVs in general and most TV's just have HDMI 1.4? | A port like HDMI or Displayport is only useful if it's on both the sending and the receiving device. HDMI was released before Displayport and is a standard that was developed by a collection of companies, all of which are in the business of making things like DVD players and TVs. If you want to put an HDMI port on some... |
How do actors get paid? | They usually get a fixed salary, with major movies like MCU movies actors get a bump in salary if the movie does really well, RDJ gets's ~$50 million for every marvel movie he does .For movies, terms are negotiated between the producer and the talent agent. This usually results in a lump sum. In some cases there are ac... |
Why are cars so damn expensive? | Well lots of reasons: * Materials. Obviously a cheaper car will have cheaper materials. Perhaps more plastic than other cars or fabric instead of leather, but even in the case of fabric, not all fabric is of the same quality. This adds a lot more to the cost than you might think. Add in the actual drive train and the m... |
What if feels like to be high | Pretty good. You slow down a little bit, the kinesthetic field of your body gets a little wacked and distorted, sometimes giving you a vague sensation of your limbs slowly growing or stretching. Your brain is more prone to making connections, actual or erroneous, and so you get some profoundly great and profoundly stup... |
Why do people frown when they're thinking? | Frowning seems to cause you to narrow your eyes so that you can reduce your field of vision. This cuts off extraneous information and lets you devote more brain time to what you are pondering upon. When I'm concentrating deeply, I tend to scowl, and people ask me why I do that and i say "I'm thinking furiously". |
What happens in your brain when you tell yourself to focus harder? | You have two general types of distractions, emotional or your senses. When you focus you tell your brain to regulate your emotions. [The limbic system does that.] To filter out sensory information you use the [the pulvinar nuclei of the thalamus] which play a major role in attention, and filter out unnecessary informat... |
What do people mean when they say "my religious right", and why does this hold up in any legal context? | UK perspective here. The first attempts at a right to religious freedom in Britain can be traced back to a pair of proclamations made by James II of England and VII of Scotland in 1687. These Royal Indulgences granted broad religious freedom in England by suspending penal laws enforcing conformity to the Church of Engl... |
How does data on a hard drive become "fragmented"? | The computer has files of varying sizes. These take up varying amounts of spaces on the hard drive. Say you write to the hard drive 3 different files. One takes up 5 "spaces" the next 2 spaces, and the last 5 spaces. Later, you delete the 2 space file. Now you 've got 5 occupied spaces, 2 free spaces, 5 occupied spaces... |
Why are some isotopes radioactive? What is radioactiveness actually? | Radioactivity is basically a measure of how unstable a particular isotope is. The more unstable, the more "radioactive" an isotope is. Radioactivity is dangerous because when a nucleus decays it splits into a bunch of pieces that go flying out and can damage the things around it. A nucleus is composed of neutrons and p... |
How is enough oxygen supplied for long space missions? | "rebreathing" technology. Basically the air around us is made up of ~21% oxygen. The rest is nitrogen and other gases like argon, methane and so on. When we breathe in, our lungs only extract about 5% of that 20%, replacing that volume of missing gas with the Carbon dioxide we are exhaling while the rest of the 80% is ... |
They say that every 7-15 years every cell in your body gets replaced. Then how do tattoos last more that 15 years? | Because ink is not a cell, the cells in and around the ink will die but the ink will still be there. |
If I dug a hole from the US to the other side of the world and jumped feet first, would I come out head first on the other side? | If you did this through the North Pole, you would come our feet first, ignoring air resistance. If you did this anywhere else, you would slam into the side of the hole because Coriolis effect._URL_0_ You'd die before you hit five miles down of the heat/oxygen toxicity. |
Why are most large explosions compared to how much TNT it is equivalent to? | Explosives used to consist of lots of different mixtures, and it was hard to express just how much energy would be released with a particular explosive. They weren't very consistent. Trinitrotoluene is one chemical that explodes via a predictable chemical reaction: a certain amount of TNT always corresponds to a certai... |
Could i bring someone to a deserted island and kill them and not be arrested? | Possibly, but you'd have to make sure the body was never found and you escaped. If what you're asking is would you be able to go to a place where murder isn't a crime, then no. There are no islands that aren't claimed by at least one government, and they all have laws against murder. There are some places, like Antarct... |
Why can people cross their eyes but not make them point away from each other? | You can but it's a lot more difficult because it doesn't add any benefit for vision. Look at yourself in a mirror, tip your head forward so you're sort of looking upwards at the reflection of your eyes. Then turn your head slightly to the side while continuing to look at your own eyes and you will see them diverge slig... |
What evolutionary benefit do stripes give zebras? | It's harder for predators to pick a single zebra out of the crowd. If they can't single out a target, it's a lot harder for the predator to take it down. Remember, evolution is less about "advantages" and more about "not having disadvantages". Many herd animals are striped or patterned. |
What happens if a pregnant woman continues to carry a dead fetus after it dies? | It would begin to decay, which could lead to infection and death for the mother. That said, when a fetus dies it's generally expelled by the uterus in a fairly short time. |
Manual breathing. Why is it that whenever I think about breathing, I then have to control my own breathing, when it usually just occurs naturally? | you have a sort of "pseudo" voluntary control over your breathing. This is for instances where it would not be advisable to take a breath . At all other times, you have areas in your brain called subconscious somatic motor control centers that are responsible for controlling things like breathing naturally. They also c... |
Why do night-vision goggles make everything look green? | Humans evolved to detect green. Our eyes can pick up a green signal that is 10 times weaker than red or blue. Since we can see small amounts of green, we can also see small changes in shades of green. If you need to show a picture to a human using just one color, green is the best way to do it', "The human eye is capab... |
In general, are free mixtapes or EPs that are released online copyrighted? If so, why go through the trouble? | > If so, why go through the trouble? There isn't any "trouble", copyright automatically applies unless they explicitly waive it. |
How is Social Security maintained? | It was supposed to be invested, but instead it's siphoned to general revenue and operated as a ponzi scheme. |
Why do you need to change the oil in a car | Motor oil is made of chains of hydrocarbons. The longer the chains, the more viscous the oil. Engines are designed to use a certain range of viscosity to lubricate the moving metal parts of an engine. Over time, these hydrocarbon chains will start to breakdown into shorter chains. At some point, this causes viscosity t... |
The power of a brand. For example, why do people wait in long lines for days to pick up an iPhone, but nobody does so for Samsung or Microsoft products. | Because no one that uses Samsung or Microsoft products gets a chub when the shove their new phone in someone's face on launch day and say "LOOK! SEE WHAT I HAVE? AREN\'T I COOL?!?!?"', "Because they managed to turn a brand into a status symbol. iPhones, android phones, HTC, windows phones all largely do the same thing.... |
Is aspartame actually bad for you? | It depends on whether you believe scientists or emails that have a subject line that starts with FW: FW: FW: FW:. Health agencies have set limits on the daily amount, like 40 mg/kg in Europe. That works out to about 16 cans of Diet Coke safely in a day. But even that doesn't appear to be based on a demonstrated issue w... |
How do we use radar to figure out where it's raining and where lightning has struck? | Rainfall appears on certain types of radar - it reflects the radar signal back to the dish, which is also able to detect the motion of raindrops . Wikipedia has more details [here] . Lightning detection is different - it doesn't use radar at all. Instead, receivers pick up the burst of static noise from the lightning b... |
Music files are simply files made up of encoded data. Why can't we run a program to artificially create more songs by inputting random data into an MP3 encoder to create potentially new songs? | If you randomly throw data together, you'll get the musical equivalent of monkeys playing with typewriters, random gibberish where 99.9999% of the results will sounds that aren't really music. There are more advanced programs that work to make pleasant music, but trying to make pleasant sounding music is not an easy ta... |
What is the connection between Greenland and Denmark? | Greenland is a country within the Kingdom of Denmark, similar to how Scotland is a country within the UK. Greenland has been aspiring to greater autonomy, and Denmark has completely, putting them on a track to assume increasingly more control of their domestic affair. Despite this, Greenland remains economically depend... |
Why do dogs sniff their own butts? | Dogs have glands in their butts that emit a smell they use to identify themselves. Hence why dogs sniff each others butts. And I guess dogs like to smell their own for reaffirmation and perhaps to get the smell dialed in case they get lost and need to backtrack. |
Why do I sense when I'm about to be shocked by static electricity? | I think I know what you mean by that What happens when you get close to a highly charged static source which is usually an accumulation of electrons is that the hairs on your arm or head or wherever which are neutrally charged initially start to have their own electrons repelled by that negative charge , causing them t... |
Why does the milk I bought have a super long shelf life? | It's the extra pasteurization that does it. By pasteurizing it at a higher temperature, they give it a longer shelf life. However, that's only before opening. After you open it, it has the same fridge life as other milk that has just been opened.So fairlife milk is produced by ultra pasteurizing and ultra-filtering mil... |
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