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A thread for those questions you wouldn't dare ask in real life/normally!

414 replies

LittleMissGerardButlerfan · 02/06/2013 17:14

Please feel free to ask questions and if I know the answer I will tell you, also feel free to answer others questions!

My stupid question is

Would I be able to see nits in my sons very short hair if he had them? (He has short brown hair)?

OP posts:
SkiBunnnnny · 04/06/2013 16:20

I suppose planets could be destroyed by asteroids or by being sucked into a star.

CaptainJamesTKirk · 04/06/2013 18:06

It does depend on their size... Those that go supernova and create blackholes are massive about 20-30times the size of our sun!

CaptainJamesTKirk · 04/06/2013 18:12

Life on planets can die from catastrophic events. I suppose planets can die too... Some planets are gases, some are dense solid and rocky. Small ones could 'collide' with bigger ones, pulled together by the planets gravitational fields. I'm guessing.
You've made me want to dig out all my old uni notes.

VitoCorleone · 04/06/2013 18:16

If the earth got sucked into a black hole what would happen? Would it explode?

God, im going to have space nightmares tonight

effingandjeffing · 04/06/2013 20:00

re the BSL - a lot of signs have mouth patterns that accompany the sign. In a lot of words the mouth pattern is similar to the lip pattern you make when you speak. Not always the case though - eg to differentiate between "big" and "very big" you would make the same sign but to signify "very" you would blow out your cheeks whilst making the sign for "big".

MarianaTrench · 04/06/2013 20:18

Why do my sneezes smell like honey?!

The internet tells me this is reasonably common but no explanation as to why.

LittleMissGerardButlerfan · 04/06/2013 21:01

Maybe the sneezing is because of pollen which could explain the honey smell?

OP posts:
LittleMissGerardButlerfan · 04/06/2013 21:02

Wow my thread is in classics :o

So who decides if a thread goes into classics?

OP posts:
Ilikethebreeze · 04/06/2013 21:06

Well done [grins]

Dont know. MNHQ I presume. Someone must like you at MNHQ!

Miniph · 04/06/2013 21:50

Agreeing regarding BSL.

Lip reading is a big part of sign language (I've been told off often for watching people's hands when they sign rather than their faces).

Some words you use the standard English lip pattern for others have their own special lip pattern (sticking tongue out or sort of puffing or saying an unrelated word). A lot of signs for different words are very similar (Liverpool and Lesbian are pretty close) or identical (red, boy, Russian) so you need the lip pattern (and context I guess) for it to make sense.

Body language and facial expressions, the speed and size of your signing also convey meaning. My BSL teacher had the most amazingly expressive face Smile

FryOneFatManic · 04/06/2013 21:51

MarianaTrench
Why do my sneezes smell like honey?!

WOW, I thought I must be weird and the only person who could smell this! And not just mine, if someone sneezes near to me, their sneezes also smell like honey.

FryOneFatManic · 04/06/2013 21:55

I just mentioned this to DP and he said he smells honey too. 26 years we've been together and I never knew that Grin

MarianaTrench · 04/06/2013 22:03

Ha fryone, weird isn't it? But why? Have we got lungs full of nectar?

RubyOnRails · 04/06/2013 22:20

Ok...but I hate honey because to me it smells of wee...it reminds me of wee anyway, can't quite say why but I can't stand eating it...anybody else think that?

PunkHedgehog · 05/06/2013 08:52

Good thread!

Blind people dreaming - some do 'see' in their dreams, some don't. It's not necessarily related to whether they were born blind or not. Oliver Sacks' book 'In the mind's eye' is a great read if you are interested in this sort of thing and general questions about how we see.

Carrot seeds - are you familiar with the plant cow parsley (or Queen Anne's lace)? That's the same family as carrots and has the same type of flower, like a lacy umbrella hence the name for the plant group 'umbellifera', which produces the seeds.

What's outside the universe? Excellent question and one that it's impossible for someone inside the universe to answer, because it's impossible for us to see out. We might be inside another bigger universe, or there might be lots of other universes not attached to ours, or there might be nothing (but it's a complicated sort of nothing, not just a vacuum with no 'stuff' but also no space or time for the 'stuff' to be in).

'Up' and 'Down' aren't absolute, they are in relation to other things. There is no up or down in zero gravity in space. Earth is in space, so it doesn't really have a 'top' and a 'bottom' - we've only decided the southern hemisphere is the bottom half because the people who started making maps lived in the 'top' half. Things fall 'down' when we drop them on earth because of gravity - they are attracted towards the centre of the planet underneath them, not to the south pole. If you are in Australia you still have your feet on the surface of the planet, gravity still pulls towards the centre, so that is still 'down', not 'up'.

Cain and Abel married women from the land of Nod (which is also where Cain was banished to after killing Abel). Nod was already full of people.

Genesis does not 'get everything in exactly the same order as evolution'. In fact if you read it you will find Genesis actually contains two accounts of the creation, and doesn't even have things in the same order in both of those. (See also the two gospels giving completely different family trees for Jesus, and tracing his lineage from David to, er, Joseph.)

The bible contains a lot of metaphors but isn't entirely metaphor. It also contains bits of history, although they've been very garbled by being passed down as stories for thousands of years - the flood, for example, appears in various forms in a lot of cultures from the Middle East and adjoining areas; versions can be found in Indian religious stories, and writings by the Egyptians, Babylonians etc. They are all a bit different but there are enough similarities to make it likely that they are all accounts of a real event. See Robin Lane Fox's book 'The unauthorised version' for a comparison of the bible with other historical records. The mishmash of stories and histories from lots of different times and sources were compiled into the current 'official' bible in the 4th century - some were kept in, lots were left out, Christianity could have been very different if other bits had been selected.

Adjectives are describing words for nouns. So a red book or a tall child. Describing words for verbs - a fast walk - are called adverbs.

Who made the map of the world? There isn't one map of the world, there are thousands (or maybe millions). All made by different people, and none of them completely accurate.

PunkHedgehog · 05/06/2013 11:45

Oh dear. Trivialanche kills thread.

alcibiades · 05/06/2013 20:24

I hope you haven't killed the thread, PunkHedghog, though your "trivialanche" reminded me that avalanches are not only snow, but can be rocks as well.

Anyhow, I did ask on another thread, ages ago, why some men who obviously shave yet leave a tiny tuft of hair just under their bottom lip. The only reply I got was of the "you really don't know?" variety. Well, no, I don't know, that's why I asked. I suppose I could ask my DH or my (adult) DS, but daren't in case the reason is embarrassing and they would snigger, or that they wouldn't know either and just snigger anyway. Confused

LittleMissGerardButlerfan · 05/06/2013 20:54

I have another question, why do people have either 2 or 4 slices of toast? I normally have 2 but was really hungry at the cafe the other day and they do gorgeous granary toast for 39p a slice, so I asked for 3 slices but felt really odd, like I was asking for a piece of moon cheese or something!!

My toaster is a 4 slice one so I can do 3 at a time, but just don't. I can understand having 2 slices if you only have a 2 slice toaster.

Maybe it's just the people I know? Or is there some toast law I am unaware of? :o

OP posts:
wannabedomesticgoddess · 05/06/2013 21:27

I eat three pieces of toast when I have poached eggs. But if I am having toast and jam, say, I agree. It feels odd to eat three pieces.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 05/06/2013 21:29

alci

I once asked a good male friend why he left that bit and he said it was painful to do and was tricky to make sure he didnt cut his lip. So some days he cant be bothered to take the time to do it.

joydevivre · 05/06/2013 21:32

Do all boys have the same willy as their dads? Given that they've only got one Y chromosome - from their dad natch. So will they grow up to have an identical penis? I've ALWAYS wanted to know this

RubyOnRails · 06/06/2013 08:07

No, my BIL has a wierd one apparently...They all joke about it...

alcibiades · 06/06/2013 20:58

Thanks, wannabe. I hadn't thought of the practicalities of shaving. I had wondered whether the lower lip tuft was some kind of statement, but it sounds more like men deciding what they will and won't shave, which is a good thing.

CoopedUp · 07/06/2013 07:42

Re: the PMS/Chocolate/windy pops question: I think it's the milk in the chocolate that causes the wind, and the love hormone thing that causes the choc craving. It just happens to be 'the perfect storm' just before you're due on because ( for me) only a twirl or three will do!

Carmody · 07/06/2013 16:53

Brilliant thread idea!

Our usual world map (called the Mercator Map) distorts the true size and shape of land areas in order to make the map more useful for ship navigation. For example, on the Mercator map, Greenland is shown as huge: larger than China when it's actually a quarter the size. Alaska is shown as dwarfing Mexico (Mexico is much larger) and Europe seems larger than South America (Europe is actually half the size of S. America).

Hasn't this distortion caused problems for land travellers or people who need to accurately size land areas? And why don't schools use more accurate representations of country sizes rather than the Mercator version? Is the distorted picture too set in our minds?