Nature
Exploring "Why" questions about Nature
487 articles
Why does a sniper need a spotter, when both of them are using scopes to look at the target? And how does the spotter know the wind speed if there are no moving objects like trees or a flag?
They're both using devices that give them that information. A spotter is used because while a sniper is certainly capable of gathering all that information and calculating it, having someone to feed h
Why are parts of the world (like the northern parts of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula) all desert when they are completely surrounded by water?
There are plenty of ways a desert can form, but those in particular are formed simply because of their distance from the equator. Due to the rotation of the Earth, global winds circulate in a way that
Why do online videos un-buffer when you rewind them?
YouTube started doing this a while ago, many people would pre-load minutes/hours of content without ever watching it, which is wasting YouTube's bandwidth. So, they now only stream video in segments,
Why do people and animals die from wild forest fires? Do they really spread that fast or just creep on you until it’s too late?
They can potentially spread very quickly ([this](_URL_0_) story has the fire advancing at up to 19 mph, which is much faster than a human can run). You also have the danger of sparks being blown by th
Why are there so many ladybugs in my house when spring comes around? And how did they get inside?
They usually come in to the house in the fall, when it starts to get cold outside, and lay dormant in the house over the winter. You start to see a lot of them in the spring as the warmer weather wake
Why do you lose less power to resistance when transmitting high voltages than when transmitting high currents?
The `V` in `P = V^2 / R` isn't the line voltage, it's the voltage drop across the line. Very important detail. The higher you can drive the voltage, the lower the current.
Why does the svartifoss waterfall cliff have squares
It looks like [basalt pillars](_URL_0_) erroded from the bottom. Basalt, due to the crystalline structure or something like that, naturally forms these shapes.
Why is sleep paralysis always familiarized with “terror-like” things? Why not puppies and rainbows?
If you look it up, it has something to do with the part of your brain that controls primal fear is being activated.
Why do car air conditioners need to be recharged, but home units (window, central air, etc) can be used continuously?
Coolant molecules are very small, and coolant is under extremely high pressure, so it's prone to leaking. Cars use non-solid piping for parts of the A/C system because the pipes need to be flexible. T
Why would the U.S. or its companies sell military technology it currently uses to other countries allies or potential adversaries?
It is actually against the law for the US or companies of the US to sell a WHOLE range of things without very special permission, and for some countries, the answer is often no--like China--and always