Why?

2023-04-22 21:00:29 WHY are ancient statues white?

Since their paint has come off.

Several factors influenced the modern look of the statues. First, the natural, non-persistent paint was being erased by weather conditions.

Second, there was no technology in the Classical era that could show the true color of the sculptures, so the architecture and sculpture of the Classical era, as a follower and imitator of antiquity, deprived their works of art of fun patterns and drawings. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-04-22 14:00:43 WHY cannot migratory birds travel across the ocean?

For most birds, a flight of many hours is extremely difficult. And flying across the ocean would require them to stay in the air for several days at a time. Therefore, even relatively small seas birds prefer to fly around the coastline or cross in the narrowest places, such as the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia. Among other things, away from the coast, birds cannot check their course against landmarks. Nevertheless, oceans are not an absolute barrier for birds.

The Little Ruff is a record-breaking species, whose breeding population in Alaska crosses most of the Pacific Ocean to reach its wintering grounds in New Zealand. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-04-21 21:00:59 WHY do some people possess webbing between their toes?

This feature is found in only a small number of people and stems from the course of embryonic development. The formation of a limb begins with a rounded projection. It grows, its end expands and flattens. Inside the "plate", muscles and bones are formed.

Separation of the fingers occurs as a result of mass death of the cells of the connecting tissue. Some mutations cause the cells not to die and develop into a membrane. And in animals transitioning to a near-water lifestyle, the webbing is picked up by selection and becomes a species trait. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-04-21 14:00:59 WHY is the axis of Uranus "horizontal"?

Unlike the other planets of the solar system, Uranus "lies on its side" relative to the plane of orbit around the Sun. If the Earth is commonly compared to a spinning, slightly inclined wolf, which moves around the Sun, the movement of Uranus resembles that of a rolling orbital ball.

The reasons for this position of the axis of Uranus remain unknown, but the main hypothesis suggests that during the formation of the solar system (3-4 billion years ago) Uranus collided with a protoplanet the size of the Earth, which led to a change in the tilt of the axis of Uranus. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-04-20 21:01:01 WHY was the "@" sign invented?

The "@" sign, so common in email addresses nowadays, wasn't invented especially for the Internet, as it may seem. The "@" sign has been around since the Renaissance, in the 15th and 16th centuries. In Spanish, Portuguese and French the symbol traditionally meant an arroba, a weight measure of 12-13 kilograms.

The @ symbol then became a variant of the preposition "at" in cursive letters, as it helped to condense notes. Since it was used in accounting documents, it naturally appeared on the keyboards of the first typewriters.

That's where Ray Tomlinson, a researcher at the American company BBN Technology, saw it when he was developing an email program that allowed messages to be sent to a remote computer. That's how the sign became a symbol of e-mail. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-03-17 21:00:32 WHY does friction cause an object to heat up?

Object surfaces are not perfectly flat. Groups of atoms and molecules form a topography with protrusions and depressions. When the protrusions of two parts come close together, they can catch on each other mechanically or get bound by the forces of intermolecular attraction.

As a result, the atoms on the surface of the sliding parts first shift slightly from their equilibrium positions, and then, when the shift becomes too great, the bond between them is broken, and they, like on springs, return to their original position. In doing so, they gain speed and push neighboring atoms, causing them to move chaotically.

And the chaotic motion of the atoms is heat. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-03-17 14:00:40 WHY does gargling with salt water cure a sore throat?

Gargling with salt water is a common treatment for sore throats. According to otolaryngologists, gargling with a solution consisting of half a teaspoon of salt and a quarter cup of warm water relieves the pain caused by inflammation. Similarly, if soda is added to salt water, the solution can break down dense mucus.

The solution cleanses the mouth, temporarily washing away bacteria and pus. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-03-16 21:00:34 WHY do we have a high or low voice?

Women speak with a higher voice as their cords are shorter and thinner. Men have a low voice because their cords are thicker and longer. The size of these body parts determines your heredity, so the height of your voice is hereditary. You may have a voice quite similar to that of your brother or sister.

Whether your voice is high or low depends on the size of your pharynx, the size of your larynx, and the length of your vocal cords. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-03-16 14:00:41 WHY do goats wear beards?

Circumstantial evidence of this is the characteristic habit of goats to rub their beards with the secret of their under-tail glands (which are absent in females), which contain sex pheromones.

As zoologists assume, it is a "physiological calendar" that allows congeners to determine the age, condition and also to become an individual.

This feature plays an important role for contacts between members of the same species. Открыть/Комментировать

2023-03-15 21:00:31 WHY is a circle exactly 360 degrees?

In Sumer, and later in Babylon, the decimal number system was used. In this system, numbers from 1 to 59 were written in the decimal system, then counted in "sixties", then in 3600 (= 60²), and so on.

It was then that the circle began to be divided into six times 60 parts, which were later called degrees. But why not just into 60 parts? There are different versions. One explains this choice by the duration of the year (365,25 days), that is, the sun for a day is moved relative to the stars by about 1 °.

According to another version, this division is associated with a regular hexagon inscribed into a circle. Such a construction was found on a cuneiform tablet found in 1936. It was used to estimate the ratio of the length of the circle to its diameter. Открыть/Комментировать