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Why does everyone hate flash so much? Why is everyone trying to get it blocked everywhere? | Flash is a system where web designers can do things on a webpage that is not usually possible through html. It can play video, connect to servers, read and write to the operating system files, and more. Unfortunately, to achieve all of these features, flash had to give its programs increased access to the operating sys... |
How do I use a semicolon? | Basically you use them to replace transitional phrases like: "such as," "and so," "hence," or "that is to say."', "A couple cases: * 1) Lists that contain internal punctuation* 2) As a substitute for a conjuction between independent clauses* 3) Between independent clauses that are linked by a transitional phrase or a c... |
Where did the stereotypical image of the Halloween witch come from? | The idea of witches riding brooms is hundreds of years old. Otherwise, witches in history were depicted as regular looking women . The green skin, long pointy nose, and regular witches hat come from ~~Dorothy~~ Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz . Prior to that film, the Wicked Witch ... |
Why aren't can't people remember distinct memories from their childhood? | Human memory is actually a very flawed system. We have forget lots of things - most of our sensory input is almost immediately dumped and we retain a very small fraction of what we perceive.Also, memory is highly fluid. The current understanding of memory is that memories are re-experienced and recreated every time we ... |
The "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" conspiracy, it's plausibility, and scientific evidence related to the conspiracy. | Jet fuel burns from 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel at 2750°. However, for the towers to give way, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength, which was entirely possible. Hope that clears that up a bit for you. |
Why don't we use anesthetic before getting piercings and tattoos? | Because administration of anesthesia is a potentially deadly activity requiring generally a much higher level of training and credentials then administering a tramp stamp.Anesthesia potentially has very serious side effects, so whenever possible it's not administered. The pain of a tattoo or piercing is very much beara... |
Where do the rocks around the perimeter of lakes come from? | I suspect the reason is that: Rocks around the lake are those we see laying on the soil's surface or partially in-bedded, being as water from rain, melting snow, the natural level of the lake water rising and receding, washes the surrounding soil into the lake leaving the heavier rocks visible. Take a flat area of land... |
Why does cleaning our tongue (I.E When brushing our teeth) make our breath smell better? | Because your tongue is home to tons of bacteria that cause bad breath. Brushing your tongue removes themYour breath goes over all of the tongue to get out of the mouth. Getting rid of the bacteria causing bad smells on the tongue reduces the smell picked up by your breath. |
how do satnav routing algorithms work? | [This animation] shows the basic way it works, using something called "Dijkstra's Algorithm". In this algorithm, junctions or intersections are called "nodes". Paths between nodes are assigned a "cost" - the cost might represent the distance, or the journey time. In the animation, we are trying to find the best route f... |
Why do new games sold digitally on steam cost as much as physical disks for consoles? | Not sure but steam library usually doesnt scratch, can be re-downloaded to a new hdd on a new pc, game is usually full of more goodies/customizable than a console disk blah blah. Also disks are obsolete. I dont even have an optical drive and the only time I would have ever really needed one was installing drivers, whic... |
Why can I always see the moon? During the day, why can I still see it, though slightly faded? | Because it's there. The moon is a big ball of rock and dust about a quarter of a million miles above us. At night, the part that the sun shines on is easily visible to us, but the rest of the moon is still there. During the day it gets just as much light as Earth, and is quite reflective, so it's bright enough to be se... |
Why are "weeds" more fertile than other plants? | This is essentially *why* we classify them as weeds. The defining trait of weeds is "they grow where we don't want them to" and fairly typically this involves invasive growth, tolerance for disturbed earth, and rapid spread/growth. In other words, "they show up where we're doing yard work, and won't go away" Biological... |
Pointers in C++, how to use them and why we need them | It's a pointer to a memory location. If you have a massive data structure then it's more efficient to pass a pointer which just points to a memory location than it is to pass it as a variable that will duplicate the data structure. |
Where did the bacteria in our mouths come from? | Your fingers, straws, cups, forks, spoons, the air, the food you put in your mouth has bacteria on it your toothbrush has bacteria all over it. Bacteria are extremely numerous and extremely common. Brushing your teeth doesn't eliminate all of them, cooking your food doesn't eliminate all of them. They're a fact of natu... |
does every living creature feel pain? | No, many animals lack the nervous system requirements to feel pain as we would understand it. Plants are totally out of the running and bacteria are just single cells.Apart from the excellent answers already given, it is also thought insects can feel no pain.This is because mortally wounded insects often don't even see... |
Why do Atomic Bombs make a "Mushroom" shaped cloud when they detonate? | Hot air rises. When there is a large enough source of heat, it creates a column of hot air that is much hotter in the center than on the edges. The center of the column rises faster, causing the air around the edges to curl and create the mushroom shape. Then, with a big enough explosion the air eventually reaches the ... |
Why do hackers feel the need to release private information to the public like officals' names and addresses? What do they gain from this? | The same thing that kid in middle school got out of making fun of your shoes and squirting ketchup on them. Publicity and embarrassment. Bullies thrive off of the reaction they get out of it, my assumption is thats what pointless hackers get out of pointless hacking.I writing this under the assumption you mean blackhat... |
Why fog lights are able to cut through fog while brights only light up the fog more. | Fog lights are closer to the ground and are aimed slightly downward, so that only the fog very close to the road's surface reflects light back. High beams are high and have a wide beam that sends light upward, so that instead of just a thin layer of fog between you and the road being lit up just about everything in fro... |
What is turbulence? And how do airplane pilots sometimes know when they are about to hit turbulence? | Pilot here Pilot reports are really the best way to know when it will be bumpy. One plane 100 miles ahead will report turbulence at a certain altitude to ATC and then they will relay the message to other planes. Those other planes can then decide if they want to deviate course or altitude Also just don't fly into those... |
What's the difference between RealD 3D & IMAX 3D? | IMAX uses a different polarization technique . RealD 3D can tolerate a lot more head movement, while with IMAX 3D you pretty much have to keep your head focused on the screen, but can work even when sitting at an extreme angle, RealD 3D has a more noticeable sweetspot . RealD 3D is shown on a single 2K projector or a s... |
how do your eyes get dilated? | How: A little muscle called the iris dilator constricts and relaxes according to stimuli, to let more or less light in as needed. Good info here: _URL_0_. Sometimes your optometrist will use drops to see inside better. Drugs and trauma can also make one or both eyes dilate improperly. Fun fact: Women used to put drops ... |
What is the difference between Shia and Sunni branches of Islam | It started after Muhammed died and there was a power struggle over who would be caliph. Basically that's where everything went to hell. Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr, the father of Muhammad's wife Aisha, was Muhammad's rightful successor. Shias believe that Muhammad divinely ordained his cousin and son-in-law Ali Ibn Ab... |
How can any drug cost $360,000 a year for a patient. | When a pharmaceutical company creates and patents a new drug, they can charge as much as they want for it, since no one else is able to sell or produce it without their consent. The reason this doesn't completely prevent people from accessing the drug is because their health insurance providers often pay for it. On top... |
Why are some foods high in sodium but they don't taste particularly salty? | Not all sodium is in the form of salt . Baking soda, for example, doesn't taste nearly as salty as the same amount as salt. MSG has sodium and isn't salty . Also, other tastes, especially sweetness, can hide the taste of salt. |
How is the curiosity rover different than the mars rover? | NASA has successfully landed three rovers on Mars. You can [see the differences here]. The Curiosity rover has 10 times the mass of scientific instruments than the Spirit or Opportunity rovers. It will be much better at studying the climate and geology of Mars, and better at determining whether there is/was life there.... |
Where does the money dissappear in a financial crisis like the one in 2008? | I believe it was never there. It was money 'shown' on shares of all the worlds companies. As soon as the confidence goes, the share price falls and therefore even with the same amount of shares the value is lost if no one is willing to pay for them. |
Tipping in the US. | It's a cycle. Tipping may have originated because wages were low, or customers were being generous. From there however, wages were cut because employers realized that servers were making more for tips. Then there was more pressure to tip, so more people did, and then wages were cut further, etc. No one minds the system... |
why do we have recurring dreams. What makes our brain think those things over and over again? Also what makes us think of things in dreams? | Ok. This is going to sound a bit strange, but you can trust what I say around 70% of the time. Ok, here we go: There's a structure in your brain called the hypocampus. Its job is to collect your audio and visual senses and relay them to your higher brain for processing. Much like many businesses have a department dedic... |
The difference between OOP, Top-Down programming, and bottom-up programming. | [This is bottom up programming.] The first sentence says it all. [This is top down programming.] Again, the first sentence says it all. [Object Oriented Programming] is a concept of encapsulating tuples of data as "objects" as a type and associating them with behaviors relating to those types. It takes a bit of descrip... |
Why is healthcare in the US so connected to religion? | One of the inherent values of Christianity is taking care of the sick and the infirm. Providing medical care is a natural outgrowth of this belief. It is my understanding that medicine was not always the respected career field it is now. It was once sort of looked down upon because you spent your time around sick peopl... |
Can lakes that are dead zones be "un-dead zoned" or purified | Possibly. The problem is the absence of adequate oxygen, but the underlying cause can be different. For instance the most common cause is the increase in phosphorus allowing the bacteria that feeds on it growing at a faster rate, and they eat up the oxygen. So we could find something to destroy the bacteria in large qu... |
How does a gentle rocking motion help send people to sleep? | Because it reminds then of being in the woumb. Same reason that white noise lulls people to sleep. |
How does Google or _URL_0_ still know my real IP address when I'm using a VPN? | They shouldn't be able to do that. But, as [this page on the whatismyipaddress website] describes, it may be that the real IP address is being "leaked". The leak is using something called "WebRTC", which can be tricked into finding your real IP address and sending it to the server. The page also describes how to preven... |
Why does human hair grow for so long that it has to be cut while the hair on chimpanzees or cats for instance just stop at a certain point? | I think that's because they have fur/body hair rather than hair. Poodles, for example, have hair and they need regular haircuts, i believe. I don't really know why the body hair/fur doesn't grow, probably just falls out before it gets too long whereas the hair on our head doesn't do the same or had a longer life. |
Why do minor illnesses like a head cold take the body sometimes weeks to get rid of, whereas Gastroenteritis or Influenza can take a day or two? | Different viruses/bacteria have different durations before our immune system can eradicate the pathogen. Also, in areas like the sinuses, inflammation from allergies or viral infections can predispose the tight areas to subsequent bacterial overgrowth/infection due to lack of ability to drain properly. |
Why when I think about actually breathing do i find myself having to breathe "manually" until I forget about it? | Breathing is an act that is based in an involuntary part of the brain but a portion has become voluntary . Two different brain circuits can control it, therefore it seems necessary at times and completely automatic at other times. Edit:typos, typos, typos |
What actually happens when food or a drink "goes down the wrong pipe"? | I seem to be prone to this for some reason, I've never figured out why. I figured out years ago that when I feel this is about to happen I just quickly bend over as if reaching for my toes. I can literally feel the liquid draining back up my throat and the problem is gone. I cannot stress how much this one weird trick ... |
how can the majority of large animals eat so infrequently and such simple diets yet maintain such strength and mass? | They eat 5-7000 calories/day. That is a huge amount for a < 300 lb animal. Meat is very calorie dense and they eat a ton of it. |
How to claim unfair dismissal in the UK? | You can read about [employment tribunal] over at _URL_0_. If you scroll down there's a enquiry line you can call. |
Why am I no longer hungry after being hungry for a long time? | You eat food and your stomach has stuff in it, then when it starts to be digested your body want to replenish the lost food in your stomach. After there is no more food your body adjusts to have little of no food and you wont get hungry for a little while. ', "It's a survival thing I'm case of famine so you'll still be... |
How can it be that my singing Hallmark card has more technological power than Apollo 11? | This trope is accurate when discussing processing power, but not technological power. I'm not even sure how one would measure technological power.Exponential growth is pretty staggering, and transistor-based electronics have experienced a pretty steady exponential growth since their inception. Microscopic-scale transis... |
What is abstraction in computer science? | Computers do lots of really complex things, right? In order to make them simple for people to understand and work with, we provide *abstractions* of them. Let's say we want to have a linked list of numbers. You could, every time you want to add an element to that list, allocate the memory, put the value in your new dat... |
How is it that during the day I can see the moon and the sun, but on the opposite side of the earth it's night time and the moon is clearly visible? | If the moon is directly above you, the it will NOT be visible on the other side of the earth. It will be a dark, moonless night for them. If the moon is to your left, it will appear to the right in the sky of someone on the other side of the earth from you. The moon is high above the earth. Therefore visible to a large... |
What's going on with the NBA? | Some NBA owners are terrible businessmen who negotiate contracts they can't afford to pay. The rest of the league can't tell them to fix it themselves, because as soon as they stop operating as a single entity they lose anti-trust protection. As a result, the league has to protect the mismanaged teams. They chose to lo... |
Why do people become more religious as they get older? | Statistics notwithstanding, you're generalizing. I'm in my 70s, never thought much about religion when I was young , but as I've gotten older I've become more and more aware of the damage religious belief and doctrine does to people -- especially younger people who have been brainwashed. The older I get, the more ANTI-... |
Sleep? What is that? | Sleep is a metabolic process where your body is put at rest because your brain needs some time to cool off from all the information it had to process that day.A good analogy is a not so perfect vehicle. Imagine a vehicle that can only be driven 2 hours at a time before it overheats. To be able to drive long distance, y... |
When nuclear bombs are tested over water, what happens under the water's surface? | The water's surface is vaporized immediately due to the extreme heat. Those water vapors travel upward and mingle with all of the radio active particles before going far up into the atmosphere. Those tiny water vapors carry radioactive particles with them until the vapors condense and fall as a rain drops. Then you hav... |
how a suppressor can thread into a barrel, and the bullet still pass through, since there is now less space? | Threaded barrels have the threads on the outside, not the inside. The suppressor will thread onto that, so the internal barrel diameter will not change. [Here's a picture of the threadings on a barrel.]", 'There would have to be pre built in threading for it to fit. You are correct that you would not be able to just ad... |
Why are movie tickets so expensive? | If that were the case, they would do it. The prices are pretty carefully figured out to maximize profit. If they cut the price they wouldn't get enough people to cover the lower per-ticket price, and if they raised it they wouldn't get enough extra to cover the lost people. Note that this balance point is different for... |
When you look in a mirror why is left and right reversed, but not up and down? | It isn't left-right reversed. It is front-back reversed. It *seems* like left and right flip because in order for you to normally turn yourself around, you rotate to one side or the other 180 degrees. If you were a being that normally faced the other direction by rolling yourself forward or backward 180 degrees, mirror... |
If i cut a human in half using a sword at the speed of light will i kill him instantly? | [Everything within roughly a mile of you and your target would be leveled, and a firestorm would engulf the surrounding area. Where you stood would now be a sizable crater.]', "Since matter can't accelerate to the speed of light, let's assume the sword's just moving very close to that speed. Then the movement of the sw... |
Why does my voice sound different (and awful) when it's recorded and I hear it replayed? | When you normally hear your own voice you are hearing two distinct things. First, you hear the normal sound waves coming through the air, into your ear just like everyone else. Second, you are hearing the bone conduction. This is the vibration that your voice causes in your bones that gets transferred to your inner ear... |
How can entropy be reversed? | The traditional answer is There is insufficient data for a meaningful answer. However, simply put: at this point it does not appear to be something we can do *universally*. Entropy is simply the universe's tendency to "settle out" with time; everything gradually settles into low-energy states where they can "jostle" th... |
Why does the tap water at another persons house taste different than the water in your own house, even though it comes from the same source? | Not always, maybe from different wells, or different water treatment plants. Maybe different type of plumbing in their house. PEX vs copper pipes? |
Why Does Adding CO2 To Water Change Its Taste? | When CO2 dissolves in water, part of it actually undergoes an acid-base reaction with the water. That reaction creates a small amount of carbonic acid . Being an acid, it makes the water taste mildly sour. The taste also can vary depending on the origin of the water as well as the process of carbonationWhen u add CO2 g... |
How do writing credits work on TV shows? | It's the main people in the making of the show that get the "big credits" so the staring actors, director, editor, producer etc. Anyone else is just seen as regular crew members and easily be replaced, it's these bigger names that make the show what it is. |
when someone finds treasure, do they get to keep it? | It's a big, fat it depends. Typically if you find something, you have an obligation to try to return it to its owner. Only after you do that and wait long enough does the property become legally yours. However, there are laws governing salvage and abandoned property that apply. If I go through the effort to recover som... |
How much damage does a beer, or 2, or 3, etc do to your physical health? | In moderation? Unless you have an alcohol triggered medical issue it's gonna do damn near nil to your overall health. |
Why isn't there any war on japan. Are they simply peaceful? | There are still attacks on Japan. In 1997, there was a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway, which used Sarin Gas. The gas is a deadly nerve agent , and is manufactured only for use as a chemical weapon. Also, Japan, after the end of World War II, became a new country, with the old, military-run government removed. Bec... |
Why are the tips of our fingernails white? | I'm sure you 've heard about [tape over frosted glass] trick right? Your nail is actually rough on the underside, especially with bits of dead skin still attached. The part of your nail that didn't grow out is firmly "adhered" to the nailbed so it appears translucent because the hydration provided by the nailbed smooth... |
how do blind people know where to find the little Braille signs? | They don't know where to find them, they just check the most obvious locations, you may notice that the signs are at natural level in a natural location and not hidden.Aside from the answer already given, Braille is also a dying language. With the rise of screen readers , voice recognition software and other technologi... |
How the "Mass Effect" concept works | It's a made up hand-wavey sci-fi excuse to not think too hard about how your video game spaceship gets from place to place. There is no scientific explanation. |
What did Aristotle mean when he said man was a "political animal"? | Aristotle constructs man as a fundamentally political animal as opposed to other philosophers like Hobbes or Locke who construct man as individuals who just happen to enter into a society for individual benefit. Aristotle was a realist, and since the only men who exist purely alone were either "beasts or gods", it make... |
Why was Muammar Gaddafi such a bad person? | Mostly the standard dictator spiel - took power in a coup , ruled undemocratically, suppressed any opposition. He distinguished himself by his particular attention to cultivating his cult of personality. He was a particular villain in the West because he identified as a socialist, opposed the US, and aligned himself wi... |
Why does cancer cause so much pain, and which types are the most painful? | My guess would be Liver or Kidney cancer would be the most painful do to the fact that you could not take pain meds. If the meds dont get filtered out correctly they can not be proscribed. |
With what technology do scientists find new planets and explore deep space? | We are not actually observing the planets themselves, they are too far away for our telescopes. What we are observing is how bright the stars are. If a star gets dimmer every now and then, at the same interval, again and again and again, then obviously something is passing in front of it at regular intervals. |
How are traffic light timings decided? Is there a kind of formula for determining timings? | The short answer is yes. For individual signals or small networks, the timing can be figured by hand, but for larger networks, civil/traffic engineers use models and even purpose built computer software to link every light in a massive network together to try to prevent jams and keep traffic flowing. Contrary to what f... |
things that glow in the dark | First, let's think of [Newton's cradle], consisting entirely of two balls. One ball falls, transfer that energy to a second ball, which rises. It eventually falls too, and transfer that energy back to the first ball. The key concept here is that energy is conserved. What happens when you shine light on a material? Ther... |
Why does plastic get hot when you bend it really fast? | Essentially: Hot means heat. Heat is energy. The energy comes from forcing mechanical energy into the plastic itself. |
How is it that something physical happens in your dream and then you wake up and can still feel the sensation? | You don't ever directly experience sensation , you only experience *perception* — the mental state *caused* by sensation. But the brain can also generate false perceptions. That is, it can experience mental states usually experienced in response to sensation, even without the sensation. Dreaming is the most common cond... |
Redditors, what's the difference of Best, Top, and Hot? | "Top" has the most up votes. "Best" takes into account the ratio of up to down votes, how quickly they get the votes, etc. "Hot" are those which are getting votes and responses regardless of if it is highly voted overall. "Hot" would tend to include highly controversial comments which the former options may notBest - H... |
How do they plan and simulate fireworks? | I can speak to how it's done by professional display companies. Specialized software such as [Finale] allows you to set your firing positions or create a rendering of the structure you're shooting from. The software has a wide variety of preloaded fireworks and effects, and you can basically drag-and-drop them. Well it... |
What would happen immediately if i were to hold something that was incredibly radioactive | You 'd end up like this guy: _URL_0_ > Over the next nine days Slotin suffered an "agonizing sequence of radiation-induced traumas" including severe diarrhea, reduced urine output, swollen hands, erythema, "massive blisters on his hands and forearms", intestinal paralysis, gangrene and ultimately "a total disintegratio... |
Scientific Theory vs. layman's idea of theory. | Scientific concept of a theory: "Based on our testing and observations we believe this is the way things generally work." Layman's concept of a theory: "All that science and you guys only have a *guess*?"', "* Scientific Theory: An idea supported by a great base of corroborating evidence. This is because in science, as... |
What is the strange tingly feeling I get when I consciously relax or 'reverse-flex' my legs? | I can also do this but have never been able to describe it and thought I was alone. I can seem to do it with my entire body. |
What keeps other countries from "bringing the war" to US soil? | "Force projection", or being able to attack targets a long way from your own country, is not easy. If you want to attack by air military aircraft don't tend to have very long range, especially fighters. The options are to have a conveniently located airbase, have an aircraft carrier, or run a complicated air-to-air ref... |
The differences between cow's milk, soy milk, and almond milk. | Well almond milk is blended almonds in water and soy milk is blended soy beans in water. I'm not too familiar with cow's milk but I assume it is blended cow and water", 'Milk: Liquid extracted from the teets of cow Soy Milk: Soy beans mixed with water and ground in a blender in to a very fine mixture, then all of the l... |
Why do some movies and games come out later in certain parts of the world than others? | If you're talking about theatrical releases, sometimes, even if theater owners are pretty sure a movie is going to be a hit, they like to wait until it is in fact a hit so they can use it in their advertising: "The Number 1 movie in America" etc. It also helps to build up buzz. This is why there used to be "road shows,... |
Why does turning the batteries (in a remote control for instance) provide a little bit more energy? | The battery contacts get corroded by a thin film of oxide, and moving the battery scrapes the oxide clear or moves to a spot with less oxide.It doesnt add more energy. The voltage of the batteries begins to sag both under load and when being depleted. Once the voltage drops to a certain point, the device is unable to o... |
why is a tomato considered a fruit? | Any plant that has seeds is a fruit. “Vegetable” is strictly a culinary term, to distinguish sweet fruits like cherries from savory fruits like tomatoes. |
Why does a hovering helicopter rotate with the Earth? | When starting off on the ground the helicopter already has inertia, going around the center of the Earth. After lifting off, that inertia can't magically go away since that's a violation of conservation of momentum. This is also true with rockets. NASA prefers to launch rockets in the direction of the planet's rotation... |
Why do Television News Programs get locations completely wrong on maps so often? | In the past you had a newspaper once per day. The journalists supplied the stories, editors checked them for editorial issues, content checkers would fact check them and when the newspaper went to the printer it was checked and double checked. Then some people in the publishing company went from "If we get rid of the c... |
how does sound travel on the ISS | The air inside the ISS is travelling right along with them and isn't accelerating. It's no different from how you're able to talk normally on a plane despite going ~2/3 the speed of sound. Or why when you toss a ball up in a vehicle it doesn't fly to the back.The earth is also rapidly rotating and hurling through space... |
How come a lot of styles 50 or so years ago dated very well, yet a lot of styles from only 20 or 30 years ago seem to have aged horribly? | Actually, that seems to be the standard cycle. From my experience. In the 70s retro-style/fashion from the 30s was "in".Today, it's from the 60s. In the 70s and 80s, 60s style/fashion just looked ridiculous. Give it 20 or 30 years, and we'll be reliving the 90s. Get your flannel shirts ready! |
How did the Soviets make their submarines quieter than American submarines? | Perhaps I'm missing something, but Soviet subs were pretty much always noisier than US ones if you compare like with like. The latest Red Navy ones were usually about as stealthy as the previous generation of USN boats. Unless you're comparing diesel electric subs with nuclear ones, which isn't really a valid compariso... |
Why can i vividly remember something from 10 years ago but cant remember what I ate a week ago? | Our brain has two places where memories are stored - one is temporary and another is permanent. So everyday things like the food you eat, dress you wear,etc. are stored in the temporary compartment. Other things that happen during the day - like you getting your first car,etc. too are stored in this unit. When you slee... |
Why do objects turn bright red when very hot? | All objects emit some radiation, as objects get hotter, the frequency of the radiation gets higher. Objects that are around room temperature emit radiation that has a lower frequency than we can see. As the objects get hotter, the frequency goes up until we can see it as red, then yellow, all the way up to blue. This m... |
How is it that approaching rain has a smell? What is it that we're smelling an hour before a storm arrives? | My old organic chemistry professor explained the smell of rain coming in class once. It's also on his [website]: > People often think that they can smell rain coming before it actually starts to rain. Strange, as we would be in rough shape if we actually could smell water as it makes up most of our bodies . > There is ... |
How does a person that never drinks untreated water not become ill after swimming in a lake or ocean? | You are absolutely right to think that we ought to pick up diseases. The reason we don't is because the authorities go to great lengths to ensure that the water we swim in is kept relatively free of nasty stuff. It's [not recommended] to swim in water which is not properly managed and monitored.Your body has white bloo... |
What is so appealing about Doctor Who? | I hated the first couple random episodes I watched. Totally didn't get it or the people who like it. Yet now I'm a great fan. I got sucked into that universe immediately after watching the 2005 first episode with Rose and the ninth doctor. It may have been a more accessible entry point because the doctor, the companion... |
Why does some tap water have so many small air bubbles that it looks like its actually white? | I think OP asks the milky white type of water that takes some time to clear up. That's caused by the pressure in the main pipes. Water needs pressure so it can travel from the reservoir to your home. Increasing pressure makes air more soluble and it mixes in easily. Once it is near your faucet, the water loses pressure... |
Why does Kim Jung Un wear a western suit? | They don't really see suits as "innately western," they also use architecture designs from the west and even the Android operating system . Because it works fine. There's also evidence he himself isn't anti-west, seeing as how he went to school in Switzerland, loves US basketball to the point of inviting Dennis Rodman.... |
3D that doesn't require glasses, like the Nintendo 3DS | It works because the LCD screen on a 3DS is not your conventional LCD. It uses a technique that basically splits the images sent to each eye based on the angle the eye is to the display. You know those funky strips that changes the picture when you move it? It's a similar effect, only your brain interprets the result a... |
How was google earth created/made, and how how did google complete it so quickly? | It was funded by the CIA and made using satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS, or geographic information systems. This project had access to all the images already taken and just compiled them into a single globe. Also if you are asking about street view, Google is an international company and has street view c... |
Why do our tastes change over time? | Very likely our tastes change for the same reason everything else about us changes: We grow, we have new experiences, we learn new things. Most of the cells in our bodies are less than seven years old, and our brains rewire pathways every time you learn something new or have an emotional experience. So there is every r... |
What happens to a spider after it gets sucked up the vacuum cleaner? | Already answered this one, then you deleted and posted again? Original answer:"Suffocation in the dust I suppose but if it survives the thrill ride of the vacuum hose then I would guess a death by starvation." |
Why do I get irritable when I'm hungry? | Because the animal inside you activates and you engage in "Predator" mode, doing everything in order to secure food and guarantee the survival of your speciesLow blood sugar. Your body has burned through the glucose it has on store and one of the side effects of [hypoglycemia] is irritability.Because when you're full, ... |
Why do we squint to focus on things far away? | Our vision basically comes from light passing through the pupil and focusing on the retina, which is the back of the eye. So when you squint, you are changing the shape of your eye and decreasing the amount of light that will enter your pupil. The limited amount of rays make it more likely that they will become more ea... |
Why deep 'cones/holes' are created in the centre of a whirlpool | While the other comment makes sense I think this is more ELI5. Remember the centripetal force from highschool physics? The rotation of the water causes the water to want to move more to the outside, causing a water deficit in the center. You probably remember from highschool that in order to keep something in a circle ... |
How come people might stutter when they talk, but you don't stutter when you sing a song? | Music therapist here. It's the same reason why people with traumatic brain injuries who loose all ability to speak can sometimes still sing. The speech center of the brain is located in a very small part of the left hemisphere. When we are speaking, that part of the brain lights up. But music is associated with many pa... |
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