10 Scientific Answers To Common And Irritating Questions In Life

Why is a bag of chips full of air?
Is it because the companies are trying to fool me into buying a bigger pack?

Why can’t I kill a housefly as easily as I can kill a mosquito?
The questions seem to be very simple. They are, and so are the answers – scientifically proven.

1. Why is a bag of chips full of air?

Let’s get one thing straight – it is NOT because the companies want to show that the packet is full of chips.

And it isn’t air – it is mostly Nitrogen.

It is called a slack fill and the manufacturers use this “air” to keep the product fresh and protect it against damage during transportation and handling. If there was no air, you would get soggy and spoilt chips. You don’t want soggy and spoilt chips, do you?

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2. Why does my headphone cable get tangled into knots every time I keep them in my pockets?

Scientists found the cause for this and it is called, “spontaneous knotting of an agitated string”. The study says that with an average length of a headphone, there is a 50% chance that it will knot in your bag.

The study also concluded that the longer your headphone cable, the higher the chances of it knotting.

Also, Y-shaped headphones knot very easily than the “can” variety.

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3. Why don’t I like every selfie I click of myself?

Because of the mere-exposure effect. If you are not happy with your selfie, go and stand in front of the mirror. There is a good chance you will like what you see in your reflection better than your selfie.

This is because you have been familiar with that image and hence have grown up liking it so much better than your selfies.

But this might change with the next generation if they just keep on taking too many selfies.

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4. Why is a baby’s crying so annoying?

Because you are a human. All humans are wired to respond to an infant’s cry. That’s how we have evolved. It is an evolutionary instinct. You are wired to care about a human baby, even when it is not your own.

There is one upside to this reaction – you suddenly become very alert when you listen to a baby cry. A good way to lose that drowsiness.

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5. Why do we all have the urge to listen to another person’s phone conversation?

Because it is irritating, scientifically. No, you are not curious. Curiosity is just a side effect. When a person talks on the phone near you, your concentration drops significantly because your brain is trying to figure out what the other person is saying.

You only hear one part of the conversation and your brain desperately wants in on the other part. Hence the eavesdropping habit of every human

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6. Why does it always have to rain during the weekends?!

No, it is not because of your rotten luck. It is because humans produce pollutants like Carbon monoxide, ozone and aerosol. These particles reflect the sunlight away and make the water particles cling to them.

And when the traffic finally stops on the weekend, all the condensed water vapor finally is released in the form of rain.

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7. Why do my shoelaces always get untied?

Because you are tying the granny knot. In the granny knot, the loops are perpendicular to the knot which means the more you move, the more these loops move too.

Try tying the reef knot, which is much more stable and is not really different than the granny knot.

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8. Why can’t I kill a housefly as easily as I kill a mosquito?

Because of their compound eyes, they have literally 360-degree peripheral vision, that means you cannot sneak up on them from behind.

They also have super fast reflexes. After detection they process the information within 100 milliseconds and off they go.

In comparison, the average human reflex time is around 300 millisecond.

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9. Why is my shirt so tough to iron after I take it out of the cupboard?

Because it is dry and the fabric is not mouldable. That is why steam irons work so well, and that is why moist clothes are easily ironed.

The fabric molecules are easily broken when you wet the clothes, and hence new crease-less bonds are formed when you iron on it.

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10. Why does bad grammar always irritate me?

Because our brain subconsciously knows when a sentence is grammatically wrong. A study by neuroscientists showed that brain activity in the language region gave off signals when participants were shown wrong sentences, even when the participant didn’t know that the sentence was wrong.

The same signals weren’t produced when the participants were shown correct sentences. Now you know.

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There you go. Now you can go and show off these answers at the next house party you have with your friends.

Until then, LONG LIVE SCIENCE!

Hope you learned something new. If you have any more of such questions, please let us know in the comments.