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Why are the Turks and Kurds currently in conflict? | The Kurds are an ethnic minority that live in Kurdistan . Turkey does not recognize this minority and does not grant them many rights. Also, there is a long history of massacres against the Kurds. The Kurds have formed separatist groups with the goal to become independent from Turkey. The main rebel group is the PKK wh... |
What is "Shepard's Tone" | There are two notes on top of one another. They're both the same note, such as both being a C note, but one is one octave above the other and has a much higher pitch. If you play a scale using notes like these, CDEFGABC with a much higher pitched CDEFGABC playing at the same time, the highest C of the first scale is th... |
Why are dogs affraid of vacuums? | Like people, all dogs personalities are not the same. I have three dogs of varying size . My bulldog is not scared of thunder or guns, but is afraid of the vacuum & fireworks. My mutt is afraid of absolutely everything . And my Pit/Whippet mix is not afraid of a damn thing on this earth; if anything she is just curious... |
Why do we so often have music stuck in our heads? | I don't know the actual science behind it but I know music is meant to get stuck in your head. It makes it more popular and catchy tunes and beats are often most popular. Plus, the human mind enjoys music it finds predictable and easy to listen to, which is exactly what gets stuck in your head. |
[NSFW maybe] how come when you tickle yourself you don't feel anything but when you masturbate its pleasurable? | When you are tickled your body thinks it's being attacked, thats why you can't tickle yourself ", 'To shorten it: tickling is a trait passed down from hundreds of millions of years, tickling was used for sort of training young to fight since your ticklish spots are your most sensitive spots for wounds. For masturbation... |
Why can public schools, funded by the government, limit the rights of its students? | It's a legal concept called [in loco parentis]. The school is legally acting in place of your parent while you're a student, and as such are allowed to act in your best interest as they see fit. There are some legal restrictions on this in the interest of upholding civil rights with regard to discrimination, abuse, and... |
How Memory Is Stored In the Brain And Subsequently Retrieved | Not an answer: But someone once told me a memory is only a memory of the last time you remembered it. So it may be very different from the main event. That's why it "fades". |
What is happening inside my console when a game is loading? | Loading from the hard drive to the RAM. In a computer , the processors, the GPU and CPU, need to have quick access to the data, and hard drives are far too slow to provide this, even new SSDs are still too slow. So what was the solution to this? RAM, or Random Access Memory. RAM is very very fast, providing the data ne... |
Is it possible for new types of sailor's knots to be "discovered"? Or have the common ones been around for hundreds of years? | The common ones have been around for ages. They are the most efficient and easiest to tie. There're four main types of knots: Bend - ties two lines together; Hitch - ties a line to another object; Loop - creates a loop in the rope; and stopper knots, which basically just make the line thicker. The most efficient form o... |
Whats the big deal about quantum computers. Whats the difference compared to normal computers? | There are problems a full-fledged quantum computer could solve in a reasonable amount of time that we don't think a classical computer could solve in any reasonable amount of time. One such problem is integer factorization – the best known algorithms for classical computers would take absurd amounts of time to run for ... |
What is happening when we are "emotionally exhausted"? | Get married and you will find out. Jokes aside. Emotions are thoughts and feelings that require your body to provide energy to do. if you're having a lot of those, they drain energy and make a person tired. Example might be a wife with a sick husband, she has to look after the kids, go to hospital everyday, cook meals ... |
How do presidents get up to speed on issues? | The President has not just a staff of secretaries but they have appoint a group called the "Cabinet" whose job it is to be an expert on various things. If he wanted more information about small business he could go to Penny Pritzker and ask her to compile a report. |
Why FTL implies backward time travel | it is a sci-fi show cliche for one thing in theory, the faster you go, the slower time goes for you and it approaches zero as you get closer to the speed of light. So, based on that logic, if you go faster than the speed of light, you go into negative time. Supposedly, matter can't go faster than the speed of light and... |
If underage sex is illegal and murder is illegal then why is viewing underage sex illegal but viewing murder is not? | People don't murder other people in order to create videos and profit from people watching them. But some adults do sexual things to children in order to create videos and make money. So when someone watches that underage sex video, they're creating an industry that hurts underage people, who by definition can't consen... |
why aren't faucet pipes straight? | Well, for THAT pipe I would imagine the bend helps slow the waterfall so it doesn't splash too much. But for the ones with the S-bend, like in the USA and other places, it traps water so smells and gas doesn't come back up the pipes. |
Newton's Second Law? | Slap a ball and it'll move in the direction you slapped it. Slap it harder and it'll move faster. |
How can fluids be incompressible? | Fluids aren't completely incompressible; they're generally more compressible than solids, for sure. It's just that, under the kind of conditions normally studied in fluid dynamics, they will only compress a little tiny bit. So we can simplify a *lot* of things if we just say "okay, pretend they can't be compressed". |
When a casino brings in a cooler, what exactly is the cooler doing? | Nothing because it's superstitious nonsense. If someone is counting cards at a blackjack table and the casino doesn't want to/can't kick them out for some reason, a new dealer will burn a card before they start, which makes it closer to time to shuffle and adds an additional unknown card which makes the count less accu... |
Why is it so difficult for Iran to build nuclear weapons today, if the US could build them in the 40's? | [The Manhattan Project] was a tremendous project. It [ grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion . Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and producing the fissile materials, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more ... |
What exactly is happening when we taste food? | Its your taste buds that pick up certain chemicals in your food. Your taste buds then send electric pulses to your brain and tells it this is what this thing tastes like, and this is the sensation you should release. That's why the natural human reaction is to pull away from spicy food.Smell also greatly influences how... |
Would "station spinning" (the "rotating wheel") really create a sensation of gravity in a space station? | It works, and the best part is that you don't have to rotate the station to see the effect. If you move around a stationary circular station the result is pretty similar; NASA played around with this during Skylab: _URL_0_", 'The effect would not stop the moment you jumped into the air, because if you did this you woul... |
If everything in the universe disappeared except Earth, our moon, and the Sun, would it be self-sufficient? | In the short term, probably. The loss of the other planets would have a small but non-negligible effect on the orbits of the three remaining bodies, so eventually something would likely start to go wrong there. That aside, the Earth-Moon system is pretty much self-sufficient. There isn't really anything that the Earth ... |
Humans have a limited audio and visual range. Do we also have a limited range of taste? | Taste is basically the ability to detect the chemical makeup of a substance. So yeah, pretty much any chemical we can't taste counts. |
Why do so many countries simply have 3 vertical or horizontal stripes as a flag? | For most of history, flags were considerably more complex. Back then, a noble house would make a flag that symbolized their wealth and power, so they would go all out, spending on it like a modern wealthy family spends on cars or gardens. The tricolor comes from the needs of the French Revolution. Before that, nobles h... |
If all dogs are the same species, how can there be so many different and diverse breeds? | We 've spent thousands of years breeding dogs for specific purposes, leading to a wide diversity of shapes suited to those purposes. Then in the last hundred years or so we 've started "ultra typing" these dogs, picking those traits that we think define a breed and selecting them to the extreme. They are all the same s... |
Near Sighted and Far sighted | Take a set of binoculars and look at something far away and focus them properly. Now put a book in front of the binoculars and try to read it. You can't because it's blurry. Similarly, if you are far-sighted, the lens in your eye does not focus properly on things that are close to it. |
Why is it that most people write in blue, but we print all books etc. in black? | As a lawyer, I always want my clients to sign documents in blue. It is a carry over from photocopying - photocopy is black & white, so a blue signature is "original". Of course this doesn't really apply as much now that everyone has color copiers but we still maintain the practice. But, because of this practice, all of... |
What happens in the body when you get swollen and how does the swelling go away? | Swelling is interstital fluid entering the area. It's different than bruising which is blood underneath the area of injury. The lymphatic system regulates the swelling and pulls that fluid out of the area eventually. However, in some cases it doesn't happen in certain spots as well which is why you see people with ankl... |
How do trains stay on their tracks? | Basically because the wheels aren't perfectly cylindrical, they are cone shaped, the outer side is a smaller diameter than the inner side. This means that the weight of the train and the difference in rotation speeds between matched wheels forces continuous position adjustments that keep the train centered between the ... |
why my computer speakers go spastic every time i get a call on my phone | Your mobile phone communicates with the phone network using electromagnetic radio waves. One feature of electromagnetic waves is that when they pass through a wire, they create an electric current in the wire. This is what's happening. The phone is generating electromagnetic waves so it can communicate with the phone n... |
Two people with no knowledge of each others language learning each others languages. | So I read a book that had something like this involved. It was about an American family going into their cabin, the son and father go first to make sure everything is ok. Then, the mom, daughter and baby get sick so the father goes bak home to help them, anyway, the boy met a Native American "tribe" or "family" I don't... |
where does the expression "you only use 10% of your brain" come from? | I learned just yesterday that this myth comes from a misunderstanding of a William James quote. Here's a pretty interesting [TedTalk] that explains!", 'I was always under the impression that it was because only ~10% of the brain is actually neurons and the rest was glial cells and other support cells that, while not do... |
Zero-Determinant Strategies vs. Tit-for-Tat in the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma | There are multiple levels you can strategize on. You can strategize just based on the current round. The optimal strategy is then to always defect. This might make my opponent defect more in future rounds, but I don't care. You can strategize based on the outcome of the previous round. Then the optimal strategy is tit-... |
Why haven't animals learnt to stay the fuck away from humans considering how often we kill them? | Those animal populations that are actively hunted do. You can tell this easily by observing deer. Deer who live in an area long enough learn when hunting season is and are much more skittish during that season. Deer also seem know when they are on land that is safe. I have often seen deer run like maniac to get away fr... |
How do matches work? | The tip of a match is dipped in phosphorus. Phosphorus burns when it is really hot. You swipe a match on a rough strip, which creates friction. Friction becomes heat. The heat causes the phosphorus to burn. The fire then uses the wooden matchstick as fuel, so it doesn’t stop burning. |
How does LTE/4G/3G data signals go through walls to a phone? Why is coverage "stronger" in different parts of a house? | You know how you can see through glass? That's because light waves in the visible range can pass through glass. You know how you have some glass that looks green? That's because it lets green light through but not red, orange, yellow, blue, or violet. Radio waves are light waves too. They just happen to be a different ... |
How can the DEA make the decision to ban Kratom in 30 days with no legislation passed by the US government? | > With no legislation passed by the US government But there was - **in 1970** when Nixon declared his "War on Drugs" and Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act _URL_0_ 3 years later the DEA was established with an amazing amount of unregulated power to decide what people are and are not legally allowed to put in... |
If a movie does well in the box office, who gets all of the money/profit? | The company that produced it . The people involved with making the film are generally paid by this company, and the company gets the profit from the actual output . I'm sure some actors and such have contracts that state that they'll get part of the profits from the film though. |
why do Muslims take issue with depictions of Prophet Muhammad, but seem okay with movies such as the Passion of the Christ which depict other major prophets of Islam? | We are not okay with movies such as the passion of Christ. As Muslims, we shouldn't depict any prophets, but we shouldn't get violent over it.Images of Jesus and Moses are also prohibited. The people who "seem okay with" it are just relatively tolerant Muslims. _URL_0_I think the point is that Muhammad did not want peo... |
Are the garbled words/spelling when viewing CC (Closed Caption) TV and online videos fixable? | If you're talking about closed captioning of live TV, no, it can't be fixed. They can barely keep up with typing everything the first time; no way could they go back. Anything that's recorded for later playback *could* be fixed, but the time and expense is rarely considered worth it, assuming you're just asking about f... |
How do modern pop bands/pop stars start their careers? for instance lady Gaga, Katey Perry, or Imagine Dragons | I'm going to be interested in what other people here have to say, since this is a question I've been thinking about recently too.Some things I do recall: Katy Perry supposedly started out playing shitty acoustic shows in LA, and Lady Gaga did a variety of things to start out - burlesque shows, shows in small NYC clubs,... |
Why is 0% brightness on smartphones still so bright? | I think the real reason is so that you can't turn the brightness down so low that you can't see the screen to turn it back up."0%" on a smartphone isn't actually 0%, it's likely something like 2 or 3 percent of your backlight's power ', "The backlight on your smartphone is either driven by LEDs, or if it's older a very... |
Are sweatshop workers better off if their factories close down? | If you're in a third world country, your other options might include: * Farm work: You vs. the elements, back breaking work* Mining: Sometimes in dangerous, unregulated, illegal conditions* Waste management: Possibly dealing with dangerous waste from first-world nations such as electronics which can contain highly toxi... |
Why do most people's faces swell up after crying for a long time or crying hard? | Your body is flooding your system with histamines causing inflamation, congestion, etc. in response to stress. |
How do trees know how long a year is? | Every plant has a time of year when they do the most growing. It's unimaginatively known as the "growing season". We can measure time using tree rings because for each species of tree there's a time of year when they start growing, and their growth is very fast, compared to a time of year when their growth is very slow... |
Why is it that in animated series, objects that can move around are drawn differently than static objects? | Drawn differently? Like the classic Wile E Coyote where you can tell that THAT rock right there is going to squish him because it's a different color? That's because when those were done animation was still printed on cels and those cels were [layered on top of each other]. So you'd have a background static layer that ... |
Why do people stop and look when there is a traffic accident ? | When we do the same mundane task over and over and over, our brain basically shuts off. We just continue doing the mundane task as a brain "sub routine" and we drift out. Car accidents are exciting and different, it wakes your brain up. Something is happening so now you're active in your involvement in driving. So you ... |
How does swarm intelligence work? How are ants or bees smarter as a group than an individual? | Each individual has a very short list of rules. For an ant, it might read something like, “When outside, look for food. When you have food, release scent. If you have no food, follow the scent.” For any individual, these instinctive behaviors don’t appear very intelligent. The average ant wanders around at random until... |
What do people in big corporate legal departments do all day? | It totally depends on the corporation and the lawyer, but activities might include: * Writing or reviewing contracts between one corporation and another* Responding to subpoenas or information requests from the government or law enforcement - for example if the FBI is tracking a criminal, they may ask Google and Facebo... |
Is it true that America does not negotiate with terrorists? Why not? | If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk. If you negotiate with terrorists, it feeds the cycle that people can manipulate you by being terrorists. Hence you get more terrorists.Technically this is completely and utterly false, the US negotiates all the time. However for the question you are aski... |
Why do all SUVs have a rear windshield wiper while almost every sedan doesn't? | I think it has to do with the rear window of SUV's/minivans being more vertical compared to a car which usually has a more angled back window. Passing air wont blow the water off the suv back window the same way it would in a car. |
Why are aboriginal boobies not blurred on TV when other boobs in the USA are blurred? | In the United States, the government isn't normally allowed to restrict speech, including what people put on television. There are a number of ways to get around this, but the biggest one is that free speech doesn't cover "obscenity." What this means, though, is that the ability to block someone from, say, putting boob... |
How can companies not have nutritional information on their food? | There are a few exceptions to the rules about labeling. If you're buying it from the company that makes it, then it probably falls under the "Delicatessen-type food, bakery products and confections that are sold directly to consumers from the location where prepared" exclusion. There are a few other exclusions, includi... |
Why has Iran so quickly reversed its footing on its nuclear program? | The latest sanctions on the Iranians have effectively crippled the countries economy to a point that is essentially unsustainable and will only get worse if they continue on their current course. The Iranians have come to the table and accepted very large concessions about their nuclear program in order to ease these s... |
Aren't Christian faith healers and self-proclaimed "prophets" blaspheming? Is it not against Christianity to claim to be able to personally provide access to God and salvation? | Well, blasphemy means either insulting a god, or claiming to have the powers of a god. Those wouldn't necessarily apply: the Christian Bible has many stories of people with powers of prophecy and healing. But from a religious point of view, the obvious question is: Do they actually have the gifts of healing and prophec... |
Our body fight diseases by increasing the temperature, why betraying it by cooling ourselves down? | Your body is a house, pathogens are a thousand and thousand of cockroaches ramping on the floor.Fever is basically the house habitant being like "Oh fuck it, let's burn the fucking house down". It's super effective but it can be very damaging, when a fever isn't really high, doctors usually advice to let it go and wait... |
How does too much salt increase blood pressure? | [It's not entirely clear that it does.] High levels of sodium consumption have traditionally been associated with hypertension . But recent research indicates that the relationship between sodium intake and hypertension is not nearly so straightforward as once believed. |
Why do people in movies automatically bleed through the mouth when they are injured in the belly area? It's something that happens in real life? | It's possible but not too common. If someone is stabbed or shot in the stomach, most of the blood would drain down, not be coughed up. However, if someone is stabbed in the lungs, it's definitely more possible. There's a lot of blood vessels in your lungs and you could definitely see people coughing up blood in that ca... |
When and why did humans begin to wear clothing? | When is tricky. Clothing is unlikely to survive as long as other tools, so we can't say with certainty that the earliest tool-users didn't wear furs or other clothing. As to why? That's also tricky. There's no historical or archaeological record of early clothing, so your guess is as good as anyone's. Common guesses in... |
Why is it rude to ask people how old they are? | Society seems to have an ideal age to look like , and everyone is always trying to look as close to that age as possible. Asking someone their age destroys any and all effort they've put into that attempt to appear closer to that ideal age. |
why to we have a divot beneath our noses and above our mouths. | It is a seam left over from when you were formed in your mothers womb A poetic explanation I 've heard is that your guardian angel comes down from heaven at the instant of your birth and puts its finger across your mouth, "shushing" you so you forget all your past lives and live this latest reincarnation to the fullest... |
ELI5: What are the best explanations of how to visualize an atom? | How about:- A small fuzzy ball that you can't quite see surrounded by a larger fuzzy cloud of stuff that you also can't quite get a fix on.The best model is a small, dense nucleus made of neutrons and protons, surrounded by an electron cloud. It's impossible to know whether an electron will be in a particular location ... |
- Why do my teeth get a funny feeling when I have to pee really badly? | I definately have experienced this and ive talked to many other people who have as well. Ive even heard it refferred to in a book, i cant remember the book at all unfortunately. I remember character used the phrase "i have to pee so bad my teeth are floating" or something to that effect. Ur def not alone dudeI can say ... |
If the United States got invaded today, what would happen? | By who, aliens? There is no country in the world that has the projective military power of the US. With their air and missile defenses, it is unlikely any country besides Mexico or Canada could get military forces anywhere near the mainland. Without being more specific, it is not a question that can be answeredConsider... |
What does "Depraved Heart Murder" mean? | You may be interested in the following thread. There are some bad answers in there, but a few comprehensive ones and discussion following. _URL_0_ |
The difference between private healthcare and public healthcare | I'm not 100% on the Australian system, but this should basically explain it: Public healthcare is a hospital. Lots of different patients, many doctors and nurses. Partially paid for by the government. Private healthcare is a called a practice. It's a lot smaller, and often targets one specific type of patient, e.g. tho... |
what is going on in your body when you get paranoid/anxiety attacks/vomitting when you smoke too much weed? | If you were 21 instead of 5, and happened to be visiting a state like mine with legal recreational cannabis, I might recommend you try an indica instead of a sativaI'll try my best but probably not the best explanation. Getting anxious and vomiting and all of the symptoms of a whitey is your body saying "something is n... |
Academic Probation, and University transferring help | Just pointing out that questions like these are *exactly* why your school has assigned you an advisor. They are very helpful and can usually answer questions about specific universities in your area and offer advise on how to tailor your studies towards transferring to the program you want at the school you're looking ... |
Why do children instinctively like cartoons ? | I think it's less that kids 'instinctively' like cartoons, but rather that producers understand what kids will like and cater to that. Cartoons are a big part of that, obviously, but also live action shows like teletubbies, yo gabba gabba, and sesame street, for example.I imagine it is due to the possibilities of anima... |
what exactly is vibrational and chassis tuning when automakers are testing vehicles and concepts? | Everything has a resonant frequency, the pitch where the whole structure will vibrate and generally cause problems for people in or near the thing. Bridges sometimes collapse because the wind or the people walking across it match the resonant frequency and amplify it until the structure fails. In cars, there are certai... |
How does someone end up owing thousands in back taxes? | Easy. Your W-2 was't filled out right and didn't automatically withdraw enough taxes. Then come tax time you owe thousands of dollars because you didnt pay enough during the year. However you didnt realize this was happening and don't have the money to pay right away. Boom back taxes. |
why is there a calm before the storm? | There isn't always, but when there is it is because when the warm, dry, stable air rolls in it 'calms down' the rest of the air. Source:[how stuff works] |
How does our brain create a mind? | This is a question no one knows the answer to, there are plenty of theories about what it could be though.I have a degree in Cognitive Science, and I can assure you that nobody knows. Not even close. It's often debated whether it is even possible for us to know. |
How are random product/reward codes generated? | Lets assume for a moment the key is comprised of just uppercase letters. This allows for 26 options for each character of the key, giving a total of 26^25 possible combinations. 26^25 is about 2.3 *10^ total, or about 3.2 *10^ possible combinations *for every living person on Earth*. So no, we probably won't run out of... |
Can you get a computer virus if you go to a site but don't click anything? Or stream a video but don't download it? | Yes. A site could have javascript that downloads or installs things, or if it uses flash, you could have an out of date version that's susceptible to an exploit in what you're watching. To stream something, you have to download it. Think of a download like going and buying a book to take home, and a stream as getting p... |
How is it someone can do 100 squats but can't run but a few miles? | ELI5: bulldozers can lift tons of weight but can't go fast. They are built for one thing and they do other things not as well. Race cars can go fast but can't lift tons. |
Why is there no tri-core processor (3x)? | /u/shawnaroo almost had it right. Integrated Circuits , due to the way they are manufactured, are *rectangular* in shape. And when you put multiple copies of something as big as a core on a chip, you essentially do a "cut and paste" . You also don't want to make a chip a lot longer than it is wide, or vice versa. So it... |
What laws prevent the majority stockholder of a corporation from just giving away the corporation's assets? | They're not her property. You can't give away property belonging to someone else. Even if that person is a legal fiction you have majority control over. The majority stockholder *could* push the board to give away assets, but that would likely be a breach of the board's [fiduciary duty] to the minority stockholders. Th... |
where does that style of writing that graffiti artists always use come from, and why do so many of them use it? | Grab a can of spray paint and start trying to write. With very thick lines created by the wide spray you are limited in the legibility if you don't write like that. |
What is the difference between cheap 35-49p energy drinks and red bull? | That brand costs a lot of money. They advertise the fuck out of their sugar water and sponsor crazy shit left and right. In addition to that, RB charges more to keep the impression that the brand is better than others. There's really no reason it should cost any more than Coca Cola. |
How can dogs smell cancer? | The current theory is that cancer cells produce characteristic organic compounds which get into the bloodstream and are then also present in the patient's breath - only in tiny amounts, but enough to be detected by a dog's amazingly keen sense of smell. Which compounds those are exactly is still being researched, in th... |
What does "force start" while using a torrent client actually accomplish? | In μTorrent at least, it means "Ignore download queue settings and start right now". For instance, if you have it set so no more than X torrents will be downloading at one time, the normal Start will respect that and put lower-priority torrents on hold. Force Start lets you override that setting temporarily for a parti... |
Why can Putin openly introduce ridiculous legislation against LGBT groups, (teaching kids that gays dont exist) yet still retain global political integrity? | I don't think he has retained global integrity. But he is the leader of his own sovereign nation, so besides going to war or using diplomatic channels to persuade him, there is nothing we can do to actually stop him. |
How can an area see very little rainfall but also see quite a bit of snowfall. | Several things to consider here. One is that an inch of rain can be a foot of snow. So if you get a couple of 10ths inch of rain, this could translate into several inches of snow. Another thing is that some places get rain seasonally. It may never rain in July and August, but maybe May gets most of the rain. The reason... |
Why some frequently occuring diseases like psoriasis are still incurable? | In order to cure a disease, you need to be able to : * Know what causes it and how that process or processes get started and progress * Be able to design some kind of agent that will reliably stop that process * Have that agent not cause worse effects than the original disease * Have there be a big enough motivation to... |
How are serving sizes on nutritional labels determined, and why are they often so much lower than a realistic amount that most people would consume? | They are arbitrary. They are just used so you have a reference for the nutrition label. The smaller the serving, the healthier you food looks to unobservant consumers.Whatever portion of the food has a reasonable amount of salt, fat, carbs or sugar is usually what they call a serving. But let's serious. A bag of chips ... |
Goosebumps, what the heck are they? | Goosebumps is a series of children's horror fiction novellas by American author R. L. Stine, published by Scholastic Publishing. The stories follow child characters, who find themselves in scary situations; usually involving monsters and other supernatural elements. From 1992 to 1997, 62 books were published under the ... |
Is there a reason why various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linked In, etc.) use blue as their theme color? | You may want to take this answer with a pinch of salt because I'm not 100% sure, But I would imagine the reason why is because certain colours can physiologically change your view on things.The colour blue is known to give a more calming, trust worthy view. I recommend reading up on [this] it goes deeper into the effec... |
Would there be any way to "improve" the internet if we could start it all over? | Tons of stuff we could improve on. For starters, the early days of the internet were like a small, rural community where nobody locks their cars or homes. Many of the protocols rely on a fundamentally high level of trust. We could build encryption into everything. We could build out the email system in such a way that ... |
why does ice stick to an empty cup when you're trying to get it in your mouth? | When the ice cube melts, some water will stay surrounding the cube, "connecting" it to the cup, sorta like a vaccum.Two wonderful properties of water are at work here, cohesion and adhesion. Adhesion means a substance sticks to other substances, and has the same root as adhesive. Cohesion means a substance sticks to it... |
Why do DVD menus loop so poorly? | In the DVD menus the DVD players have to move back to the starting point to re-read the video, and so there is a gap where it is moving the disk. sorry about my last comment i didn't quite understand what you were asking. |
How does Cable-Modem "Turboboost" work? | In typical Internet use, most things that are transmitted down the wire to your computer are very small. Like this web page, for example. It contains a few bytes of text, and several image files that are themselves just a few bytes. A common service offering from Internet providers is to give you *considerably* more ba... |
What would the US have to do to revert back to a no political party system? | There is no way. Political parties are not part of the government. They are a group of like-minded people who decided the best way to get what they want is to unite behind a single nominee. Political parties are a natural result of our freedom to assemble. Dissolving them would be a violation of the First Amendment. Ev... |
Why does alcohol on an open wound hurt extremely bad the first time, but no pain if poured on seconds later? | The same reason you aren't constantly aware of the smell of a room or the feeling of clothes on your body: sensory adaptation. The first time you feel it, it's fresh, but past that, it stops being a new sensation and so your nerves stop sending out signals about it. |
how life was created, how seemingly inert atoms formed what we are today, these weird organic creatures with sentience | Those atoms aren't inert. They react with other atoms, attaching and detaching from each other, requiring energy, releasing energy, etc. All life depends on chemical actions to function. Life is a natural extension of a chemically reactive environment.An MIT physicist recently launched a new theory of the origin of lif... |
In this 2012 satellite photo of Berlin, you can distinguish West and East Berlin by the tone of the street lights. Why? | The East and West used different types of lights, and there's no reason to tear down perfectly good lights that are only a few decades old. |
Why are e-cigarettes bans becoming widespread BEFORE any conclusive studies have been done on their safety? How can you ban something that is not well understood? | It's an idea called the "precautionary principle." It says that the burden to prove safety---once there's some reason to doubt whether something is safe---is on the group that wants to introduce something, rather than on the population. The fear is that allowing widespread use of potentially dangerous things creates in... |
is an animal being turned on its back the equivalent to a human being held upside down? | Not really. The main problem with turning human beings upside down is one of gravity and circulation. The human body is designed to be vertical or horizontal. Valves in the veins are designed to assist blood return from the lower body back to the heart. Between heartbeats, as gravity pulls blood downward, the valves cl... |
What is the science behind TNT Pop-Its (Snap Bags)? What makes them explode when you throw them at something? | Inside the tiny bag is ~99.99% gravel or sand, the other 0.01% is a chemical called silver fulminate. It's a highly unstable chemical that ignites under any sort of friction . When the chemical ignites it creates a shockwave that travels faster than the speed of sound and that's where the "snap" sound comes from . This... |
The weird noise your eyes make sometimes when you blink, what is it? | It’s the tensor tympani muscle in your middle ear contracting. It’s sort of like the muscle pressing against the hearing bones in your ear creating a whooshing or rumbling sound |
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