Did the Treaty of Versailles cause World War 2? The Treaty of Versailles didn’t directly cause World War 2, but it did put in place some of the contributing factors. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th, 1919. It was the peace treaty that brought World War 1 to an official end. The […]
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How do cats land on their feet? Cats land on their feet because they have an inbuilt mechanism called the “righting reflex”, which very quickly tells them which direction they are pointing in and to reorient themselves. Cats are famous for always landing on their feet. We all know that a cat dropped from almost
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Why do we yawn? There is no single clear reason why we yawn because we yawn at many different times for many different reasons. Yawning is an involuntary response, in that it happens without us thinking about it and we cannot stop once we have started, just like sneezing. In a yawn, we gradually open
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Is absinthe really hallucinogenic? No, absinthe is not really hallucinogenic. There are many stories of absinthe making people hallucinate. It is often associated with artists and creative people. There is a chemical in it called thujone, which has been cited as the reason why it is hallucinogenic and as the reason why it is harmful.
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Why are Stradivarius instruments good? Stradivarius instruments might be good because of their age, because of their craftmanship, because of the materials they are made of, because of the person playing them, or simply just because of their name. On the other hand, they might not be as good as we think they are. Most
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How do trombones work? Trombones and all brass instruments use different methods, but they all make a variety of sounds by altering the length of the tube the air travels through. All wind instruments generally work on the same principle, although they have some major differences. The general idea is that you blow into one
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What is a hedge fund? A hedge fund is a pool of money invested by private individuals. Their money has more power together than they each would have individually. The expression “hedge” fund came about in 1949 and the word “hedge” was used to imply that the fund was hedged against risk. That means that
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Why did the Royal Society begin? The Royal Society was formed in 1660 and it was started to bring like-minded scientists together and encourage research and discussion. The Royal Society in Britain is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world, but it is not the earliest. That is the Accademia dei Lincei in
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What is a Ponzi scheme? It is a type of fraud where you use money invested by new people to pay profits to the people who are already invested. It was named after Charles Ponzi who certainly didn’t invent the scheme but who made it famous. (Incidentally, Ponzi scheme, scam, and con are all relatively
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Why do we see faces in everything? We see faces in everything because it is far better to think there is a face in the forest and be wrong than to not think there is a face there and be eaten by a tiger. Seeing faces everywhere is called pareidolia. This is Greek. “Para” means
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