11 Answers To Things You've Always Wondered About

1.

If our blood is red, why are our veins blue? No matter what people try to tell you, our blood is always red. So why do our veins look blue? It's because there are different wavelengths with different properties hitting our arm when we look at it. The blue light just happens to be absorbed by the blood and make it back to your eye.

2.

Why do we crave greasy food when we're hungover? Almost everyone craves a big ol' plate of greasy food after a night of drinking, but why? It's high in fat, high in calories, and you'd probably never eat any other time. The reason behind this craving is a brain chemical called galanin, which increases your appetite for fats. Since alcohol increases your body's production of galanin, you're going to want that big fat breakfast pronto.

3.

Why does turkey make you tired? The answer: it doesn't. Contrary to popular belief, it's not the tryptophan an amino acid that makes up the brain chemicals that make you tired in the turkey that makes you sleepy. It's actually the sheer amount of food and beverage you've consumed during your holiday meal.

4.

What is it about showers and creative thoughts? Our best ideas come to us in the shower because its a mindless task. Since your shower routine doesn't require much thought, it frees your mind to wander and think of something else.

5.

Why do we have eyebrows? You have to pluck them and prune them, so why do they even exist? Aside from being a very distinct feature on your face that helps you communicate, there's actually a very good reason eyebrows exist. If you've ever run longer than to catch a bus, you know just how sweaty your forehead can get - sweat can even drip down into your eyes and cause temporary blindness. And that's why your eyebrows exist. Consider them a built-in headband!

6.

What's the difference between "&" and "and" in movie credits? The ampersand means that two writers worked together to write the script, whereas "and" means that one writer re-wrote the others' work.

7.

Why do our fingers get wrinkly in the shower? Scientists have figured out why our fingers and toes get wrinkly during bath-time. It actually has nothing to do with absorbing the water, and everything to do with improving our grip on things underwater. Think of it like the treads in a tire giving a much better grip in slippery conditions. The human body is amazing.

8.

Why does the letter U almost always accompany the letter Q? The reason for this pairing is because QU is a digraph, which is a pair of letters that represents a single sound. In this case, it's "kw." Basically, the two are treated as a single character in the English language, mostly from borrowed words from Latin. Q's without U's aren't as common, but can be found in words like Iraq.

9.

Why can't we decide if tomatoes are fruits or vegetables? It looks like a vegetable, but it's classified as a fruit. Or is it the other way around? The tomato is technically a fruit since it protects and contains the seeds of its plant, but according to a Supreme Court ruling, is is classified as a vegetable. Why? The Tariff Act of March 3, 1883 required a tax to be paid on imported vegetables, but not fruit, and they didn't want any tomato farmers going untaxed.

10.

Why is the drinking age 21? You can thank the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 for this one. So while it's largely up to each state to decide their legal drinking age, this law told these states that they had to enact a minimum drinking age of 21 or else they would lose 10% of their highway funding. Since no state wanted to give up that funding, that means that no one under the age of 21 can legally purchase or publicly possess alcohol.

11.

Why do different languages call countries by different names? Most of us know Germany as, well, Germany. But to the Germans, they known their homeland as Deutschland. The simplest explanation is that languages pre-date countries, sometimes by centuries. So when small settlements joined together to create countries, like Germany, there were multiple names for the region, depending on the language. It's all in who you know.