Everyday Life
Exploring "Why" questions about Everyday Life
479 articles
why does a natural gas furnace have to be vented out of the house while the gas oven/gas cooktop does not. What happens to the exhaust gases created from the oven/cooktop?
* A gas furnace burns waaaaay more fuel than a small oven or cook top. That's the reason its gasses have to be vented while for the oven the natural air exchange is good enough. * You use the oven onl
Why do things like paper and clothing become transparent when wet?
Paper and most clothing is made of long chains of molecules that will attract and loosely bind water. When they get wet the structure of the molecules that make up the paper or cloth changes slightly
Why do people go for coffee/tea/a drink as a way of meeting each other for a chat?
It's an open, public place, and it's something fairly non-committal. If you sit down for a full meal, you're there for probably the better part of an hour. If you grab a coffee, you can chat for as lo
Why can drinking too much alcohol cause you to go blind and what is the biology/chemistry behind it? Is it specifically because you absorb too much too quickly (like with moonshine/liquor/spirits),…
Drinkable alcohol is ethanol; it's what in the beer and spirits you buy at your liquor store. Moonshine that isn't distilled correctly builds methanol which the body metabolizes into formaldehyte (whi
Why is fruit better for you than candy in terms of sugar (if it really is)?
Sugar is sugar. However, a fruit has many other things: lots of water, some fiber, some vitamins, etc. These things fill you up and generally take a lot longer to eat.
Why was the Irish potato famine such a big deal? Didn’t they have other foods they could eat?
Ireland produced enough food during the famine, but it was seized by/owed to the English. The potato famine was less of a natural famine, and more of a genocide. Similar things happened to the Ukraini
why do car engines vibrate more when in park?
When your engine runs, it doesn't deliver nice constant power. It's a series of captured explosions delivering sudden bursts of power, followed by a lag until the next burst. This is more noticeable w
Why do TV shows and movies look “different”?
Most films are filmed in 24 frames per second. Where as most TV is filmed using higher FPS, like above 30FPS.
Why is shampoo almost always colored but conditioner is almost always white?
Hm, I guess that hasn't been my experience. Besides white I've had pink, blue, and yellow conditioner. Maybe it's just the brand you're buying?
Why do some women complain about “luxury” tax on tampons but accept taxes on other necessary hygiene products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet paper, etc?
Why does anyone have double-standards or make statements that aren´t 100% based in fact and logic? We are all people, women that do say that probably just think that tampons are more important to thei