Why is there a plastic island in the Pacific Ocean? Because of the amount of plastic waste we throw into the sea and because of the point where ocean currents converge. There are plastic islands in all of the oceans on Earth, not just the Pacific. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch just happens to be […]
#795 Why is there a plastic island in the Pacific Ocean? Read More »
How many people do you need for a revolution? You need 3.5% of a population to start a revolution. There have been countless revolutions throughout human history. The ones that probably stick in our minds (depending on where we are from) are the French Revolution from 1789, the American Revolution from 1765, the Chinese Revolution
#793 How many people do you need for a revolution? Read More »
Do the three laws of robotics need updating? The three laws of robotics were an invention by Isaac Asimov and they were meant for a story, not to be a literal way of controlling the robots and AI in our lives today. We will need some kind of laws that robots have to follow at
#789 Do the three laws of robotics need updating? Read More »
Is “I think therefore I am” true? Probably. “I think therefore I am” is probably the most famous philosophical quotation of all time. It is probably the only one that most people will have heard of. It was coined by René Descartes in 1637. He was born in France in 1596 and he was a
#787 Is “I think therefore I am” true? Read More »
How can opera singers sing so loud? By training their diaphragm, their lungs, using their mouths to amplify the sound as much as possible, and adjusting the frequency of the sound they are making. Opera singers are louder than the average person, but they also have a way of making their voices easier to hear,
#785 How can opera singers sing so loud? Read More »
Why do we say “hack writer” and “quack doctor”? Hack comes from Hackney and quack comes from quacksalver, the Dutch for a seller of medicines. A hack has a negative image, but there is no reason why it should. The word was first used in about 1700 to refer to someone who is hired to
#783 Why do we say “hack writer” and “quack doctor”? Read More »
What is the steepest railway track a train can go up? The steepest track is the Calçada de São Francisco in Portugal, and it has an incline of 13.8%. This question has several parts because there are different ways that trains connect to a track. The most common type of train attaches to the track
#780 What is the steepest railway track a train can go up? Read More »
How was a mummy made? Along with many other steps, a mummy was made by emptying the body, preserving and drying it, and then carefully wrapping it. The mummies from Egypt are probably the most famous, but they were not the only people to make them. The Incans, some aboriginal Australian tribes, the Aztecs, some
#778 How was a mummy made? Read More »
What are “Spaghetti Westerns”? They are Westerns that were filmed in Italy rather than the United States. Westerns are movies that are set in the Wild West of America, and they generally feature cowboys and gunslingers. Western movies appeared almost as soon as silent movies appeared. The first real Western was The Great Train Robbery
#777 What are “Spaghetti Westerns”? Read More »
How does an e-cigarette work? It uses a battery to heat an element that vaporizes a solution of liquid nicotine which the smoker can inhale. The tobacco plant is native to Central and South America. People there started to eat the leaves as far back as 5000 BC. From there, it changed to burning the
#776 How does an e-cigarette work? Read More »
