Ask the Replier a Question

[C~M]

If you get into folk stories and mythology you will see that almost every culture has a story explaining how the oceans became salty. The answer is really very simple. Salt in the ocean comes from rocks on land. Here's how it works:

The rain that falls on the land contains some dissolved carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. This causes the rainwater to be slightly acidic due to carbonic acid (which forms from carbon dioxide and water). The rain erodes the rock and the acid breaks down the rocks and carries it along in a dissolved state as ions. The ions in the runoff are carried to the streams and rivers to the ocean. Many of the dissolved ions are used by organisms in the ocean and are removed from the water. Others are not used up and are left for long periods of time where their concentrations increase over time.

The two ions that are present most often in seawater are are chloride and sodium. These two make up over 90% of all dissolved ions in seawater. By the way, the concentration of salt in seawater (salinity) is about 35 parts per thousand. In other words, about 35 of 1,000 (3.5%) of the weight of seawater comes from the dissolved salts; in a cubic mile of seawater the weight of the salt, as sodium chloride, would be about 120 million tons. And, just so you don't think seawater is worthless, a cubic mile of it also can contain up to 25 tons of gold and up to 45 tons of silver! Before you go out and try alchemy on seawater, though, just think about how big a cubic mile is.

By some estimates, if the salt in the ocean could be removed and spread evenly over the Earth's land surface it would form a layer more than 500 feet (166 m) thick, about the height of a 40-story office building.


Why is the grass green?

[BabyCheetah]

Grass and most other plants are green because they contain a pigment known as chlorophyll. The chlorophyll is used in the process of photosynthesis where a plant produces sugar in the presence of sunlight.

Why is cows milk white?

[C~M]

The calcium is a big contributor, but the other major factor is the colloidal nature of the liquid (hence its opacity).

"Both the fat globules and the smaller casein micelles, which are just large enough to deflect light, contribute to the opaque white color of milk. Skimmed milk, however, appears slightly blue because casein micelles scatter the shorter wavelengths (blue compared to red)

Why do we have to sleep?

[BabyCheetah]

We have to sleep because it is essential to maintaining normal levels of cognitive skills such as speech, memory, innovative and flexible thinking. In other words, sleep plays a significant role in brain development.

What happens if we don't sleep?

[C~M]

One of the first signs that someone is suffering from sleep loss is that they start to become moody and irritable. "If someone teases them, they're liable to swing at them rather than take it as a joke," says Neil Stanley, chairman of the British Sleep Society and the resident sleep scientist on Shattered.

The brain, perhaps surprisingly, tends to be the only organ affected by sleep loss. "There's very little evidence that the body fails at all if you go without sleep," says Professor Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University. "Provided you get adequate nutrition and physical rest, all of the organs from the neck down can cope fine."

Not so the brain, however. It's the one organ that really can't cope without sleep. Specifically, it's a region of the brain called the cerebral cortex that suffers the most. The cerebral cortex is arguably what makes us human. It governs what we think, what we say, what we do. "Without that, you become an automaton, a robot," says Horne.

And that is exactly what the acutely sleep-deprived turn into. The transition to human robot can kick in after just two days without sleep. "You end up just staring at things because you don't know what to look at next." Gradually, other symptoms begin to appear, like being easily distracted and unable to take part in conversations. "If you are in a conversation [with a sleep deprived person], they will most likely have stilted speech and speak in a monotone and not about anything at all interesting," adds Horne.

So what is it that periods of sleep, "those little slices of death", as Edgar Allen Poe called them, do for us? Essentially, sleep gives the cerebral cortex a chance to get enough rest so that it can start functioning normally again. "Even if you try and rest by shutting your eyes, plugging up your ears and lying on a bed with a mind clear of any thoughts, your cortex is not resting. Without sleep it just stops working," says Horne. Other parts of the brain do not work at such an intensity for all of our waking hours. Surprisingly little sleep is enough to rest the cortex, though - as little as two hours a night.

Sleep deprivation does more than turn you into a non-communicative vegetable, however. Sleep-deprived people have increased appetites, become shaky, get headaches and, mysteriously, get more horny. "If you consider that the average man thinks abou sex once evey 15 seconds, and you're awake for 24 hours a day, it's not surprising," says Stanley. As if to quell the urge, their bodies cool down a third of a degree.

After three days without sleep, hallucinations can kick in. The longest scientifically documented case of sleep deprivation was the provided by an American, Randy Gardner, in 1964, who, in an attempt to set a world record, stayed awake for 11 days. Four days in, he had a hallucination in which a street sign turned into a person, an episode quickly followed by a delusion where he though he was a famous black footballer. The hallucinations are due to what sleep scientists call dream intrusion. "If you deprive yourself of sleep, your body still needs to dream," says Stanley. "But because the dream is playing while you're still awake, you have two realities going on, so the hallucinations can seem very real."

Little is known about any long-term damage that sleep deprivation can cause. Studies in rats that were fed and watered, but kept awake until they died, showed that the animals eventually keeled over as their body temperature went haywire. They survived only 14 days, but as Horne points out, that's a long time for an animal that normally lives just two years.

Just how long a human can go without sleep is hard to judge, except to say that it is likely to be much longer than Gardner managed. After sleeping off his 11 day awake-athon, he showed no signs of long-term physical or mental damage. Horne says the idea that people kept awake for days will eventually go mad and start beating each other is nonsense. "What's far more likely is they'll just sit around and finally conk out."

Pushed to the absolute limit, however, the human body will ultimately succumb to sleep loss, although it would likely take more than 30 days of constant wakefulness. (The contestants in Shattered will attempt only seven days, be closely watched by doctors and allowed to grab an hour or two of sleep when they feel it is absolutely necessary.) Rather than the brain burning out, sleep deprivation would ultimately become fatal because of the stress it causes.

Why is the Ocean blue?

[BabyCheetah]

There are several theories:
Blue wavelengths are absorbed the least by the deep ocean water and are scattered and reflected back to the observer's eye
Particles in the water may help to reflect blue light
The ocean reflects the blue sky
Most of the time the ocean appears to be blue because this is the color our eyes see. But the ocean can be many other colors depending upon particles in the water, the depth of the water, and the amount of skylight.

The colors we see depend upon the reflection of the visible wavelengths of light to our eyes. The Franklin Institute provides a good explanation of how we see color at http://www.fi.edu/color/color.html.

Wavelengths of light pass through matter differently depending on the material's composition. Blue wavelengths are transmitted to greater depths of the ocean, while red wavelengths are absorbed quickly. Water molecules scatter blue wavelengths by absorbing the light waves, and then rapidly remitting the light waves in different directions. That is why there are mostly blue wavelengths that are reflected back to our eyes.

Sometimes oceans look green. This may be because there is an abundance of plant life or sediment from rivers that flow into the ocean. The blue light is absorbed more and the yellow pigments from plants mix with the blue light waves to produce the color green.

Sometimes parts of the oceans will look milky brown after a storm passes. This is because winds and currents associated with the storm churn up sand and sediment from the rivers that lead into the oceans.

The ocean may also reflect the blue sky. However this is prominent only at relatively low angles and when the water is smooth.

Why is the tomato considered a fruit?

[C~M]

Botanically speaking, anything that bears seeds is a fruit. The fruit forms
from the reproductive part of the plant, i.e., the flower. The ovary of the
flower becomes the fruit and inside the seeds form. So a tomato comes from
the flower and inside are the seeds. So it is a fruit. A nut is a seed and
the shell is the fruit. Anything from a part of the plant that is not the
flower is vegetative, i.e., does not reproduce. So leaves, stems and roots
are vegetables. So lettuce, carrots and potatoes are vegetables.

What is the Theory of Evolution?

[BabyCheetah]

Darwin's Theory of Evolution - The Premise
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the widely held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers -- all related. Darwin's general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) "descent with modification". That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism's genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival -- a process known as "natural selection." These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation. Over time, beneficial mutations accumulate and the result is an entirely different organism (not just a variation of the original, but an entirely different creature).

Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Natural Selection
While Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a relatively young archetype, the evolutionary worldview itself is as old as antiquity. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Anaximander postulated the development of life from non-life and the evolutionary descent of man from animal. Charles Darwin simply brought something new to the old philosophy -- a plausible mechanism called "natural selection." Natural selection acts to preserve and accumulate minor advantageous genetic mutations. Suppose a member of a species developed a functional advantage (it grew wings and learned to fly). Its offspring would inherit that advantage and pass it on to their offspring. The inferior (disadvantaged) members of the same species would gradually die out, leaving only the superior (advantaged) members of the species. Natural selection is the preservation of a functional advantage that enables a species to compete better in the wild. Natural selection is the naturalistic equivalent to domestic breeding. Over the centuries, human breeders have produced dramatic changes in domestic animal populations by selecting individuals to breed. Breeders eliminate undesirable traits gradually over time. Similarly, natural selection eliminates inferior species gradually over time.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Slowly But Surely...
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a slow gradual process. Darwin wrote, "...Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps." [1] Thus, Darwin conceded that, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." [2] Such a complex organ would be known as an "irreducibly complex system". An irreducibly complex system is one composed of multiple parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function. If even one part is missing, the entire system will fail to function. Every individual part is integral. [3] Thus, such a system could not have evolved slowly, piece by piece. The common mousetrap is an everyday non-biological example of irreducible complexity. It is composed of five basic parts: a catch (to hold the bait), a powerful spring, a thin rod called "the hammer," a holding bar to secure the hammer in place, and a platform to mount the trap. If any one of these parts is missing, the mechanism will not work. Each individual part is integral. The mousetrap is irreducibly complex. [4]

Darwin's Theory of Evolution - A Theory In Crisis
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a theory in crisis in light of the tremendous advances we've made in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics over the past fifty years. We now know that there are in fact tens of thousands of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level. Specified complexity pervades the microscopic biological world. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." [5]

And we don't need a microscope to observe irreducible complexity. The eye, the ear and the heart are all examples of irreducible complexity, though they were not recognized as such in Darwin's day. Nevertheless, Darwin confessed, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." [6]

Why is the planet round?

[C~M]

Planets are round because their gravitational field acts as though it originates from the center of the body and pulls everything toward it. With its large body and internal heating from radioactive elements, a planet behaves like a fluid, and over long periods of time succumbs to the gravitational pull from its center of gravity. The only way to get all the mass as close to planet's center of gravity as possible is to form a sphere. The technical name for this process is "isostatic adjustment." With much smaller bodies, such as the 20-kilometer asteroids we have seen in recent spacecraft images, the gravitational pull is too weak to overcome the asteroid's mechanical strength. As a result, these bodies do not form spheres. Rather they maintain irregular, fragmentary shapes.

Who discovered America?

[BabyCheetah]

The peopling of the Americas has been a controversial subject since Columbus. But scholars reached a rough consensus in the 20th century that nomadic hunters from eastern Siberia came to Alaska across the Bering Strait some 14,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, a time when sea levels were low enough to create a land bridge. These hunters followed herds of wooly mammoths and other large prehistoric animals (the wonderfully-named paleomegafauna). They traveled through an ice-free corridor in the Canadian Shield, between massive glaciers, into the heart of North America. From there they spread out across the unpeopled landscape and thereafter gave rise to the people we know as the American Indians.

Who created Google?

[C~M]

Bill Gross

Who created Pogo?

[BabyCheetah]

I don't know.

EA ?

[C~M]

EA is Electronic Arts

What is money made of?

[BabyCheetah]

I was guessing EA not asking.     I know I forgot to ask you a question

It's a custom blend of 25% cotton and 75% linen.

What materail are pennies made out of?

[C~M]

They are made out of a base material (zinc) and then plated with copper.

Why do we eat and then have to go to the bathroom?

[BabyCheetah]

Because what goes in must come out.   

Why is starbucks coffee so expensive?

[C~M]

Because that is all they sell and peopl who work there want to get paid.

Why don't McDonald's have everything on their menu for just a dollar?

[BabyCheetah]

Because then they won't make any money.

Why did McDonalds change their brand of oil?

[C~M]

To save money

Why can't we breathe under water?

[BabyCheetah]

Humans cannot breathe underwater because our lungs do not have enough surface area to absorb enough oxygen from water, and the lining in our lungs is adapted to handle air rather than water.

Why do fish live in water?