Biology
Exploring "Why" questions about Biology
483 articles
Why were revolvers created to generally have 6 shots?
Ease of design, mostly. If you stack 7 circles in as close a shape possible, you get an hexagon with 2 on top, 3 in the middle, and 2 at the bottom. Use the centre as a rotating part, and you get 6 ho
Why aren’t noise cancelling headphones as effective in cancelling high pitch sounds as their in cancelling low pitch sounds?
The way noise cancelling works is that it has a microphone pick up some noise and then a speaker produce that noise phase shifted 180 degrees. The resulting waveforms precisely cancel out. However, th
Why do people that “look” friendly, and have friendly facial features, generally end up being nice and friendly?
[Roald Dahl had a theory.](_URL_0_) From "The Twits": > “If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the
Why isn’t your real computer infected when you have a virus on a virtual machine?
It has no way to get out of the box you made for it. A virtual machine is self contained. As far as anything on it is concerned there is no bigger outside computer.
Why is it generally accepted that you can go at least five over the speed limit without being pulled over?
Speed cameras have a margin of error and so do speedometers. The police recognize this and typically allow a margin to avoid falsely ticketing people. After about 5mp over though, you should be out of
Why is open-mouth breathing often associated to lower intelligence? Is there any biological or behavioral link between the two?
It's part of the "boorish brute" stereotype that's roughly as old as social classes are. Laborers who have to expend lots of energy throughout the day will end up panting heavily and loudly over the c
Why exactly do phone carriers sell their cellular devices with all of those unnecessary apps that users can’t delete and stay on your phone forever unused?
Somebody is paying them to. Since it's not you, suspicion would have to fall on the app producers, or the data sellers that benefit from the data extracted by the apps.
Why does the HIV virus spread very easily through vaginal and anal sex, but hardly ever through oral sex?
In anal and vaginal sex is easier to get the friction that can 'break through' your layer of barriers (mostly in anal sex because anal doesn't produce lubrication like vagina) i think in oral sex its
Why does cross breeding work between certain species but not all?
Your genetic code is like a recipe, a series of biological steps that describe how to make you you. Your unique recipe is created by going through your parents' recipes, and at each step choosing at r
Why do cash deposits not generate new money?
What you're describing is a problem with banking that led to the Great Depression. The stock market crash set of a chain reaction where everyone tried to take out their money from the banks at once, b