Random things you have always wanted to know

[warri0r45]

What a cryptically written post warrior. Were you referring to me with your "...he pretends knows the answers to these questions". Because I honestly can't tell if you were. But it that is the case, that's pretty insulting. What, you think I'm just pretending I know what the webbing inbetween the fingers it called? Think I'm pretending to know why a plane can't take off without it's engines, or what Newton's laws are? I really don't follow your logic here...

 

 

 

No, no. Not at all. I'll give you a clue at what I'm referring to - I could tell you what it is straight up by going by the way this place runs and the devisiveness of the topic, I'd better not or this thread will turn into a flame war.

 

 

 

But don't worry, definately not referring to you.

 

 

 

Edit: By the way, I realised I was semantically challenged so I edited the post. For the record, the 'he' in that first paragraph was referring to myself as an example. Perhaps you'll be able to work your way around my sloppy semantics and figure out what my questioning is alluding to. My clarity in writing wasn't great.

[trapical]

Ah, now I see what you were getting at. Oh, and I apologize for jumping the gun on you like that :wink:

[warri0r45]

Ah, now I see what you were getting at. Oh, and I apologize for jumping the gun on you like that :wink:

 

 

 

Haha, no worries. :)

[speedofsound]

Why do girls wear short shorts if they don't want you noticing they're legs? I got slapped ofr lookng at a girls legs once >.< I asked her that question and she called me sketchy :wall:

 

 

 

Also, why do girls walk around in a bikini but won't walk around in underwear??

[fakeitormakeit]

How did everything come to be if once there was nothing? but obivously nothing must have been something to create what has been made. The eternal question.

[hellbellz]

Is it the brain or body that is addicted to something such as a game, or alcohol? Or is it neither. :oops:

[Rebdragon]

Why the heck is water transparent in all it's forms, yet suddenly becomes opaque and white when in cloud form? Still don't get that.

 

 

 

Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths: they thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the cloud, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance of the clouds at their base.

 

 

 

Easy as cake.

 

 

 

Geez, you responded to that weeks ago, and I'm only noticing is just now after it was bumped up... man I've got to work on my awareness :-w . Thanks a ton for the answer, that's always bugged the hell out of me for some reason.

 

 

 

Q2:If someone is imperfect, is it possible for them to view something as anything but imperfect, even if they're observing something that truely is perfect?

[runescapeloser22]

Whats the plastic thing at the end of my shoelace called?

 

Nobody ever seems to know #-o

[drago_lark]

I heard this in a joke on SNL once but it really got me thinking.

 

 

 

Say I saved someones life. If I chose to save them on my beliefs and my beliefs are not in my direct control. Do I really have free will?

[Rebdragon]

I heard this in a joke on SNL once but it really got me thinking.

 

 

 

Say I saved someones life. If I chose to save them on my beliefs and my beliefs are not in my direct control. Do I really have free will?

 

Maraka :mrgreen: :lol:

[Sir_Alex85]

Also, why do girls walk around in a bikini but won't walk around in underwear??

 

 

 

One word:

 

 

 

Satan.

[Kevin_]

Whats the plastic thing at the end of my shoelace called?

 

Nobody ever seems to know #-o

 

It doesn't have a name, because it's a part of the shoelace :P.

[hellbellz]

Whats the plastic thing at the end of my shoelace called?

 

Nobody ever seems to know #-o

 

It doesn't have a name, because it's a part of the shoelace :P.

It does damnit! I was reading through a big random fact site on the 'net. I'll try to search it up and post.

 

 

 

Aglets! Thats the name. All in under a minute. :mrgreen:

[Kevin_]

Whats the plastic thing at the end of my shoelace called?

 

Nobody ever seems to know #-o

 

It doesn't have a name, because it's a part of the shoelace :P.

It does damnit! I was reading through a big random fact site on the 'net. I'll try to search it up and post.

 

 

 

Aglets! Thats the name. All in under a minute. :mrgreen:

 

Aglets, never heard of that before, pretty useless anyways, the word is never or even barely used :P, the fact that alot of people don't know what it is prooves it :).

[DegenerateX]

If the genes we get from our parents affect what we are, then do we in our life-time altar our genes for future generations depending on our actions during life.

 

 

 

Why do all the gangster get the girls during high school and all the nerds later in life?

 

 

 

Why do people pay millions for a piece of artwork by some famous guy if all he did was paint it yellow?

 

 

 

Why am I good at all sports except soccer even though I've been playing it the longest (11 years).

 

 

 

Why does having a modern rock band not require any instrumental skills?

[Alan_1134]

1. can hamsters swim?

 

 

 

No. :cry:

 

 

 

:XD:

 

 

 

If you are standing on a pretty fast train and you jumped straight up would the train pass underneath you or would you keep going with the train?

 

 

 

If a fly is in your car and you're going pretty fast, if the fly just hovered would it get hit by the back window?

[trapical]

1) If the genes we get from our parents affect what we are, then do we in our life-time altar our genes for future generations depending on our actions during life.

 

 

 

2)Why do all the gangster get the girls during high school and all the nerds later in life?

 

 

 

3)Why does having a modern rock band not require any instrumental skills?

 

1)What? No, you can't alter your genes. Doing so causes death of the cell. Your genes just make you "aggressive" or "intelligent" it's not like they set your fate. The Soviet Union actually believed that you could alter one's genes, since they refused to believe the Genetics theories put forth by the Americans. So the leader of Russia's agriculture ordered everyone to freeze their plant's seeds before they planted them. He thought that is he showed the seeds cold weather when it was a seed, when the seed grew the new cells would have genes that helped them in frost. This was obviously false, freezing the seeds made most of them sterile. This led to the complete collapse of the USSR's wheat production which starved the country and destroyed the economy, which led to the end of the Cold War.

 

 

 

2) Heh, as some of you might remember, I already answered this question throughly in my final post of the series "Ten Day's Ten Threads" :P

 

 

 

3) New singers or rock bands don't need skill. They need to know someone in the business. An example was done to show just how easily any random person can become a popstar if she knows the right people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rHGo-EvY3Q

[meol]

1. can hamsters swim?

 

 

 

No. :cry:

 

 

 

:XD:

 

 

 

If you are standing on a pretty fast train and you jumped straight up would the train pass underneath you or would you keep going with the train?

 

 

 

If a fly is in your car and you're going pretty fast, if the fly just hovered would it get hit by the back window?

 

No, thanks to good oldInertia, you'll keep moving with the same speed as you had been doing before jumping. However, if the train magically stopped while you are in mid-air, you'd actually hit the front of the train with enormous velocity, probably killing yourself.

 

 

 

If the fly was flying calmly on the outside, and entered your car through the window as it was passing by the fly, it indeed would hit the back window.

[warri0r45]

1) If the genes we get from our parents affect what we are, then do we in our life-time altar our genes for future generations depending on our actions during life.

 

 

 

2)Why do all the gangster get the girls during high school and all the nerds later in life?

 

 

 

3)Why does having a modern rock band not require any instrumental skills?

 

1)What? No, you can't alter your genes. Doing so causes death of the cell. Your genes just make you "aggressive" or "intelligent" it's not like they set your fate. The Soviet Union actually believed that you could alter one's genes, since they refused to believe the Genetics theories put forth by the Americans. So the leader of Russia's agriculture ordered everyone to freeze their plant's seeds before they planted them. He thought that is he showed the seeds cold weather when it was a seed, when the seed grew the new cells would have genes that helped them in frost. This was obviously false, freezing the seeds made most of them sterile. This led to the complete collapse of the USSR's wheat production which starved the country and destroyed the economy, which led to the end of the Cold War.

 

 

 

2) Heh, as some of you might remember, I already answered this question throughly in my final post of the series "Ten Day's Ten Threads" :P

 

 

 

3) New singers or rock bands don't need skill. They need to know someone in the business. An example was done to show just how easily any random person can become a popstar if she knows the right people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rHGo-EvY3Q

 

 

 

If I could just add to number (1) (cool story by the way, silly russians :P ) -

 

 

 

Genes are not altered in our lifetime based on our actions. They are altered (manipulated or rearranged is perhaps the better word), however, during the process of meiosis in producing sex cells such as sperm or eggs. What happens is that in my production of sperm, my chromosome number is halved from 46 to 23. The 46 I started off with, whose genetic material you possess in every cell of your body, is essentially 2 copies of all of the genes you need; one set from either parent. So to sum that up, you, as a fully formed human being, have cells with 23 chromosomes from mum and 23 from dad. It's important to note at this stage that a pair of a specific chromosome, one being from mum and one from dad, are said to be homologous. This means that they both carry the same genes, just variations of those genes. Note that above I stated you have 2 copies of genes, meaning they both have the same genes, yet with different variations of these genes on each. Think of having either brown or blue eyes when I say a variation of a gene.

 

 

 

Now what happens in producing sex cells and halving this number from 46 to 23 are two key processes to make you unique from both mum and dad.

 

 

 

The first is a process called independant assortment, which means when your chromosomes line up along a cell equator to be sepearated (46 along the equator to be separated to 23 in each daughter cell), whose chromosome (i.e. the one you got from mum or the one you got from dad) goes to which daughter cell is random. They are said to assort independantly of each other i.e. whether one sperm get's one of mum's 23 or one of dad's 23 is random; you could get either in any given sperm cell. As a result of this, different genes on different chromosomes are said to sort independnantly of each other, which gives you a random combination of both mum and dad's genes. To put this another way, taking 2 genes into consideration, a possible offspring could have blue eyes and brown hair, brown eyes and brown hair, blue eyes and black hair or brown eyes and black hair. All of this assuming that genes for eye colour and hair colour lie on different chromosomes. (If you're not confused by this point you're doing well!!)

 

 

 

The second process is called crossing over in which segments of two homologous chromosomes, one of mum's and one of dad's, swap in order to get an even more varied selection of genes. This is viable for the simple reason that (hopefully this soulds familiar) homologous chromosomes carry exactly the same genes but just variations of those genes. To put that another way, mum's chromosome in a homologous pair could have a gene for brown eye colour. Dad's chromosome in that same homologous pair will have the same gene, but it might code for blue eye colour (just to reiterate).

 

 

 

Now to make things even more confusing, saying that our actions in life don't alter our genes isn't neccessarily true. Mutations induced by working in a chemical or nuclear industry and having some unfortunate accidents can induce mutational change your genes, but only for those cells the mutations effect. I'd ignore this point and focus on the meiotic genetic rearrangements stated above.

 

 

 

Ok, back on track now and to the final part of the cycle. After both the processes of independnant assortment and crossing over have taken place in forming 4 new cells from one parent cell (as is the case in meiosis summarised by 46 duplicated to 92, separated to 46 in 2 cells, further separated to 23 in 4 cells [for more information, see the meiosis wikipedia link]), what happens is the obvious fertilization statge where the newly formed sperm and egg combine after sex. This gives you 23 + 23 = 46 chromosomes to form one whole, functioning zygote.

 

 

 

Oh man (Ignore this next bit). Add Mendelian Inheritance on top of that and I'll have confused myself beyond belief. :XD:

 

 

 

Feel free to correct me on anything Trapical, I might have missed something or made an error. :XD:

 

 

 

So finally, to DegenerateX, if my ramblings weren't up to scratch or at all confusing (which I'm thinking right now they are), here are the topics for you to study if you so desire:

 

 

 

Meiosis

 

independant assortment

 

crossing over

[r2d2]

Is it the brain or body that is addicted to something such as a game, or alcohol? Or is it neither. :oops:

 

the brain is part of the body...

 

 

 

the remainder of the body is incapable of free thought, or any thought at all for that matter. both games and alcohol (and tobacco) affect the pleasure receptors in your brain, so technically it would be your brain, though one would say you are addicted.

 

 

 

_____

 

go animated jelly-sacks!

[underu2000]

I will ignore the fact that these questions have been answered already, and put in my own answers! :P

 

 

 

If the genes we get from our parents affect what we are, then do we in our life-time altar our genes for future generations depending on our actions during life.

 

I think warri0r45's answer would pwn any that I could think of. But you're getting confused with Lamarck's theory of evolution and Darwin's theory.

 

In Lamarck's theory, the environment directly causes adjustments in organisms, and these organisms pass down these modified genes. This, of course, is wrong. It's like saying that a body builder's son will get large muscles regardless of working out or not. In the modern understanding of evolution, nothing short of a mutation can cause the DNA to change in our lifetime.

 

Why do all the gangster get the girls during high school and all the nerds later in life?

 

I wouldn't consider paying the price tags as "getting the girls". As for your question, it would just be because girls want to get the best possible dude they can. In high school, the guy with the looks/popularity. Later on, the guy with the fat wallet.

 

 

 

Why do people pay millions for a piece of artwork by some famous guy if all he did was paint it yellow?

 

Art is always about inventiveness and expression. If the artist can successfully potray understandable concepts to the viewer, it doesn't matter if it's spray paint or oil pastel.

 

"Abstract art" is a massive concept. Not all art has to be realistic or magnificent, all it has to do is stimulate the mind.

 

And I seriously doubt he just "painted it yellow". There has to be a touch that makes it interesting. Linkey if you can?

 

 

 

Why am I good at all sports except soccer even though I've been playing it the longest (11 years).

 

Honestly, if you can pass the ball, you're fine. But I think you're just being overcritical of yours. Either that, or you're playing with manchester united in your practice sessions. :-k

 

 

 

Why does having a modern rock band not require any instrumental skills?

 

I always thought statements like these are somewhat hypocritical. Unless you are in a rock band yourself, or at least play an instrument, it wouldn't be fair to say professional rock bands have no skill.

 

Or unless you mean the rock bands of today versus the rock bands of old. That would also be relatively opinion based, but more like what trapical said, that nowadays

as long as you have the right contacts, you can be famous.

[johntm]

If the genes we get from our parents affect what we are, then do we in our life-time altar our genes for future generations depending on our actions during life.

 

 

 

Why do all the gangster get the girls during high school and all the nerds later in life?

 

 

 

Why do people pay millions for a piece of artwork by some famous guy if all he did was paint it yellow?

 

 

 

Why am I good at all sports except soccer even though I've been playing it the longest (11 years).

 

 

 

Why does having a modern rock band not require any instrumental skills?

 

 

 

1. I have no clue.

 

 

 

2. Cuz they get rich. Gold diggers ftl.

 

 

 

3. Cuz they too stupid to give it to me.

 

 

 

4. Cause you just plain suck :D

 

 

 

5. By rock, you mean metal right?

 

 

 

 

 

XD

 

 

 

If you are standing on a pretty fast train and you jumped straight up would the train pass underneath you or would you keep going with the train?

 

 

 

If a fly is in your car and you're going pretty fast, if the fly just hovered would it get hit by the back window?

 

 

 

1. Yes. Actually im pretty sure it would pass underneath you.

 

 

 

2. Dont let a fly in your car.

[Rebdragon]

Why am I good at all sports except soccer even though I've been playing it the longest (11 years).

 

Honestly, if you can pass the ball, you're fine. But I think you're just being overcritical of yours. Either that, or you're playing with manchester united in your practice sessions. :-k

 

Err... not really. You need to be tactically capable (very important to have the all the basic stuff subconsiously implanted, so you have time to think about the more advanced tactics), you need to be aware of the entire field ,all the time, you need to have good endurance, you need to be able to read people, and, especially on offense, you need to have skill with keeping the ball close to you and using moves quickly and effectively. Can't forget shooting, using the body to defend and attack, knowing where to be before you need to be there, positioning yourself properly in the way to help the team the most, etc. So, it's not just "passing the ball" :| .

 

 

 

Played for over a decade myself, so I really can't get why you don't think you got better. Did you play with people far below your skill level, your entire life? 'Cause every moment of games and practices you're learning, both subconsciously and consciously. Honestly, if you explained an offensive move to me with words I wouldn't be able to tell you how to stop it, but if you tried and do the move on me I'd be able to react to it and stick you into the ground after playing most of my soccer career as an outside defender, (unless we're talking college level moves). That's not something you learn out of a book, it's just something that happens the more you play.

 

 

 

You seriously don't think you improved significantly after 11 years? Why?

[trapical]

....Genetics....Biology... Chromosomes...inheritance...I like pink ponies!

 

Heh, the MCAT is in less than 3 days so naturally seeing a post about Genetics caught my attention. You did a pretty good job warri0r, I found it slightly odd that you listed Mendel's second law, Indep Assort, and then went right into the formation of the chiasmata. Whatever happened to Mendel's first law of Segregation? Well I guess it wasn't really needed to explain your point, but still, that was the first time I saw the points presented in that order. It was all very counter-academic, which is a word I just made up to mean "not the way one expects it to be taught in the schools".

 

 

 

Regardless, that doesn't really matter here and you did a good job. Sure you went overly in depth for what tip.it really needed, but hey, thats the fun part :)

[warri0r45]

If the genes we get from our parents affect what we are, then do we in our life-time altar our genes for future generations depending on our actions during life.

 

 

 

Why do all the gangster get the girls during high school and all the nerds later in life?

 

 

 

Why do people pay millions for a piece of artwork by some famous guy if all he did was paint it yellow?

 

 

 

Why am I good at all sports except soccer even though I've been playing it the longest (11 years).

 

 

 

Why does having a modern rock band not require any instrumental skills?

 

 

 

1. I have no clue.

 

 

 

2. Cuz they get rich. Gold diggers ftl.

 

 

 

3. Cuz they too stupid to give it to me.

 

 

 

4. Cause you just plain suck :D

 

 

 

5. By rock, you mean metal right?

 

 

 

 

 

XD

 

 

 

If you are standing on a pretty fast train and you jumped straight up would the train pass underneath you or would you keep going with the train?

 

 

 

If a fly is in your car and you're going pretty fast, if the fly just hovered would it get hit by the back window?

 

 

 

1. Yes. Actually im pretty sure it would pass underneath you.

 

 

 

2. Dont let a fly in your car.

 

 

 

Ouch. Please, listen to the album Catch 33 by Meshuggah and then tell me they have no instrumental skills. :lol: :P