BIG QUESTIONS

Who Ensures That "No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of This Film"?

Rest easy, Air Bud fans. The AHA outlines their standards of animal care in their “Guidelines for the Safe Use of Animals in Filmed Media.”

Why Is Bird Poop White?

Birds’ digestive systems and naughty bits don’t work exactly like ours or most other animals'. Instead of pooping and peeing separately, they basically do it all in one weird mess.

What Causes "Old Book Smell"?

“A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness” is how an international team of chemists describes the unique odor of old books in a study. Poetic, sure, but what causes it?Books are made up almost e

How Did Nickelodeon Make Green Slime?

Don't say, "I don't know." Since making its debut on 'You Can't Do That on Television,' Nickelodeon’s green slime has become an icon of pop culture.

Is It Really Illegal to Remove Your Mattress Tag?

Spoiler Alert: It's not. The purpose of the tag is to assure consumers that they’re buying a new, never-been-used product and to let them know exactly what’s inside it.

Where Do Seedless Watermelons Come From?

When a run-of-the-mill watermelon and a souped-up frankenmelon love each other very much, they come together and make a baby seedless wundermelon.Seedless watermelons are a lot like mules – sterile hybrids formed by crossing genetically incompatible paren

What Happened to Bob Ross' Paintings?

Bob Ross said he made over 30,000 paintings in his lifetime. If he didn’t sell them, where did his army of happy clouds go? We’ll let Bob explain:“One of the questions that I hear over and over and over is, ‘What do we do with all these paintings we do o

Why Does Getting Hit in the Testicles Hurt So Much?

More than any other bodily injury, getting hit in the testicles is probably what every man dreads most. Of all the soft, fleshy spots on the human body, none register the same kind of incapacitating, end-of-the-world pain as the family jewels.

What's the Origin of 'Let the Cat Out of the Bag'?

There are two popularly cited origins for the phrase "let the cat out of the bag," but neither is very clearly recorded as leading to it.

Why Were CD Boxes So Big in the Early 1990s?

Image credit: Daniel R. Tobias/Wikimedia CommonsI was working at Tower Records back in the late 1980s, when the compact disc started replacing the vinyl LP. Beyond the arguments over the analog vs. digital sound (which continue to this day) and the higher

How Did Slipping on a Banana Peel Become a Comedy Staple?

It is now a deadly weapon in Mario Kart and a slapstick comedy staple, but how did the banana peel gets its reputation as such a threatening object?A Danger to SocietyBefore the discovery of its comedic potential, the banana skin was considered a real pub

What Is Greenwich Mean Time?

In south London, at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, it’s possible to walk up to a metal strip running along the ground in a courtyard and, stepping over it with one foot, straddle the world. Suddenly, one half of your body is in the Western Hemisphere a

Why Don't Spiders Get Stuck in Their Webs?

Image credit: StockbyteWhen a bug flies into a spider web, the game is over. It’s almost instantly stuck, and a sitting duck for the web’s owner. When you or I walk into a web, we’re a little better off than the bug because we won’t be dinner, but the sti

How Do Glowsticks Glow?

Picture an atom. Now picture that atom getting excited. Maybe its birthday is coming up. Anyway, when an atom or a molecule gets excited, its electrons' energy levels go up. When the electrons fall back down to their normal state, they release energy in t

What's the Difference Between a Street and a Road?

Reader Brit asks: "Is there any rhyme or reason to calling a road an avenue, a boulevard, a street or a lane? Is it just at the discretion of whoever names the

Why Does Everything Look Green Through Night Vision Goggles?

The characteristic green tint is by design, for a few reasons. First, device makers have experimented with a few different colors and found that the different shades that make up the monochrome night vision image are most accurately perceived and distingu

Do You Own The Space Above Your House?

Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos means "whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell."

Why is the Retirement Age 65?

In the early 1880s, Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck of Germany had a problem. Marxist unrest was spreading across Europe and some of his own countrymen were calling for socialist reforms. To take the wind out of their sails and stave off more radical policie

Allen Watkin from London, UK, Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0

What Happened To All Those Chargers Destroyed in Dukes of Hazzard?

Over seven seasons, the General Lee went airborne more than 150 times. Although it seemed fine on screen, the General rarely survived a jump. Warner Brothers totaled an average of two Chargers per episode.

Why Does 60-Degree Water Feel Colder Than 60-Degree Air?

If the air and the water are the same temperature, what accounts for the difference that we perceive? It's a matter of heat transfer, the transition of thermal energy from a hotter object to a cooler object.

When Will URL Shorteners Run Out of Links?

More than 250 million messages are tweeted daily. Approximately 290,000 status updates are posted to Facebook every minute. And who knows the number of instant messages that contain hyperlinks. Probably a lot.One thing is for certain: A good number of tho

How Does Glow-in-the-Dark Stuff Work?

If you’re a member of my generation or the one that raised it, your house was probably full of all sorts of glow-in-the-dark stuff in the 80s and 90s. Yo-yo's, stickers, action figures, clothing, you name it. As a kid, I thought it was just short of magic

Why Do People Feel Phantom Cellphone Vibrations?

Let’s picture a typical moment in my day: I’m minding my own business, with my iPhone in my back pocket. Suddenly, my left cheek is shaking as the phone vibrates and does the bzzt, bzzt, bzzt-ing dance of its people on my backside. I check the phone, and

Why Are Traffic Lights Red and Green?

The very first traffic light, installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London in December 1868, had red and green gas lamps for nighttime use. The device was pretty crude, and less than a month after it went operational, it exploded and killed the un

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