Why do we work Monday to Friday? We work Monday to Friday with Saturday and Sunday off because of trade unions and because of Henry Ford, but he was improving on systems that had started earlier in the previous century. The idea of having Saturday and Sunday as a holiday is a relatively recent invention. […]
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What are the physics of roller coasters? Designers of roller coasters have to pay a lot of attention to physics because they need the roller coaster cars to move, they need them to stay on the tracks, and they need them to go fast enough to be thrilling but not so fast that they kill
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How do bone conduction headphones work? Bone conduction headphones send sound waves through the bones of your skull into your inner ear without using the eardrum. Our ear is made up of several parts. The outer part is the bit that you can see and it is called the pinna. It is shaped to direct
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Why did the samurai class end? The samurai class were eliminated during the Meiji Restoration when Japan modernized in a very short period of time. Although, most of them just changed roles, rather than disappearing. The samurai came out of a military class that had been formed in the Heian Period, 710 to 1185. Heian
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Why do moths fly into candles? Moths fly into candles because they are trying to keep their back to the light so that they don’t fly upside down and they fly into the candle by accident. There are several theories and the most prevalent theory is that they mistake the light for the light of
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Why are all animals becoming crabs? Well, all animals are not becoming crabs, but crabs have evolved separately five times, so there must be something about the crab form that is very advantageous. We don’t see that many of them, but there are more than 7,000 species of crab. They vary hugely in habitat and
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Why are some materials brittle? Materials such as glass and ceramics are brittle because their atoms are held together by strong bonds that cannot slide past each other. If you have ever dropped a jar of something on a hard floor, you will know that glass is very brittle and shatters when impacted. Or, if
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When was the first world map made? The first world map was made in the 6th century BC, but it was very limited. The first map that is close to a modern map, i.e. having all of the continents on it, was probably made in the late 19th century. The problem with maps is that
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Why can some people tolerate spicy food better than other people? The people who are more able to tolerate spicy food either have fewer taste receptors because of genetics or have desensitized the taste receptors that they do have. We find food that has capsaicin in it spicy. These are foods such as chili peppers
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Did pirates really bury treasure? Not really. There is only one known instance and even that is debatable. The idea of buried treasure and a map with an X on it was popularized by Robert Louis Stevenson in his book “Treasure Island”. When we think of pirates, we think of swashbuckling rouges with an eye
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