How much oil is left? About 1.5 trillion barrels, which is enough oil for roughly 47 years. There are several problems with this question. The first problem is that there are probably oil reserves that we don’t know about. The second problem is that oil drilling technology improves. The third is that estimates of how […]
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What are El Nino and La Nina? They are climate patterns that happen in the Pacific Ocean and affect weather all over the world. El Nino means “Little Boy” and La Nina means All of the climate in the world is connected and changes in one place can lead to climate events in other places.
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How do birds land? It depends on the size of the bird and whether it is a landing on land, a branch, or water. Generally, they lose as much speed as possible and grab on. The physics behind the way birds fly is the same as for airplanes. Anything that flies needs lift and thrust,
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How does an oil pipeline pump oil so far? They use centrifugal pumps to convert rotational energy into the energy that moves a fluid and there are more pumps every 100 km or so. There are 2,270,526 km of oil pipeline around the world. Not all of that is still in use, but it gives
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When does history start? This is a difficult question, but we have prehistory, protohistory, and then history. Protohistory is the point where prehistory becomes history and it is probably in about 3400 BC. This is an impossible question because there is no concrete date. History is said to begin with the development of writing systems
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How does a bicycle stay upright? It is a combination of things, but nobody seems to really know for definite. All of the reasons that a bicycle can stay upright are valid, but none of them seem to be required. You can alter many of them and, so long as the others are still in
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Geoffrey Chaucer was known as the Father of English Literature. This is obviously a topic that is only important to English speaking countries, but he was a significant force in the revitalization of English after the Norman invasion of England. Chaucer wasn’t the only writer that was operating at that time, but he was even
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Why is a plane’s propeller at the front but a boat’s at the back? Because of how they move through the medium they travel in, the angle they need to move at, and the obstacles they encounter. The propeller was obviously first used on a boat because they were invented long before planes were. The
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What is racketeering? It is a criminal act that usually involves extortion or a scheme to extract illegal profits. Racketeering became a big thing on October 15, 1970, when the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act became law in the United States. You may have heard of it in a movie because it is shorted
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Why does sunburned skin peel? It peels because the skin cells are dead, and the body is getting rid of them to make way for new cells. When looking at what makes sunburned skin peel, we have to look first at what causes sunburn? It is caused by ultraviolet light that comes from the sun.
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