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Are honey bees the only insects that can pollinate flowers?
by Marshall Brain | August 27, 2009
You Asked: Are honey bees the only insects that can pollinate flowers? If so, what happens if all the honey bees die? — Leigh, Raleigh, NC Marshall Brain Answered: Many plants have flowers that require an insect for pollination. And many different insects can do the job. Keep in mind that there were no honeybees [...]
The idea of “googling yourself” has been around for several years, but that is a pretty one-dimensional view of things. If you want a more detailed look, try this: http://personas.media.mit.edu Personas… uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how [...]
I am not a smoker, and I am not advocating that anyone smoke. However, I have a number of friends who do smoke. And the problem is that cigarettes have gotten incredibly expensive in recent years. I also live in North Carolina, which is a big tobacco growing state. Up until about 7 years ago [...]
Hey folks. A couple of weeks ago we recorded a show on competitive eating. Turns out we have a real life competitive eater (ranked #22) as a fan and he was kind enough to send us in a comprehensive email about this pastime. I’ve whittled it down to the question and answer portion so we can all get a little insight into this unusual competition.
So having said that, I give you Eric Livingston, aka STEAKBELLIE!!
Fun Engine Swap: A Volkswagen Bug with a Subaru WRX STI Engine
by Scott C. Benjamin | August 27, 2009
A little less than a month ago, I received an e-mail from David, a High Speed Stuff podcast listener in Germany. David wanted to know if we could do a podcast focused on modifications — specifically engine swaps. He mentioned a few different engine exchange kits he had heard of, including one for the Smartuki — a smart fortwo with a Suzuki GSXR1000 engine stuffed into it — and then he mentioned one that that I hadn’t heard of before…
Today I’ll be joining CNET gurus Tom Merritt, Jason Howell and (I believe) Rafe Needleman for Buzz Out Loud, CNET’s podcast of indeterminate length. If you’ve never tuned in or subscribed to the show, it’s a technology news program that not only delivers news but gives the stories context. The hosts chime in with their own perspectives on what the news actually means.
I was a fan of Buzz Out Loud before we began the TechStuff podcast. I consider the invitation to host the show to be an honor. I’m really looking forward to the experience.
CNET does things a little differently than the way we work at HowStuffWorks.com. We pre-record our podcasts. This helps us stay on schedule even when a host is out of the office — we have a buffer to keep us going. But CNET streams their shows live and then uploads them as podcasts later.
Yesterday, I posted about some of my questions about “District 9,” including my inability to completely believe part of the film’s basic premise. Since then, some great discussion has gone on in the comments. Commenter Rueben pointed me to a great io9 interview with director Neill Blomkamp, which talks about the social structure of the aliens known as prawns. That interview brought up more questions than answers for me.
Hey Google? I don’t think Microsoft‘s playing around anymore. And here’s what makes me say that: The company has struck a deal with Wolfram|Alpha to provide some of its high-powered data search results. So now Bing lets you search some seriously reliable information vetted by professionals at Wolfram Research, and Wolfram|Alpha has a very high-profile client that’ll help the company show off its mettle.
Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch wrote about the development, shortly after Stephen Wolfram made a post on the Wolfram|Alpha blog about the copious amounts of new information added to the database and other refinements they’d made to the computational knowledge engine over the summer. As Schonfeld points out, the Microsoft deal wasn’t mentioned in the post.
Schonfeld said that Bing may be the start of many licensing deals for Wolfram|Alpha, since the site has difficulty driving traffic. He feels that the site just isn’t very impressive in its presentation
You Asked: Is a coin toss always “fair”? Or is it better to choose heads or tails? — Sally, Rome, GA Marshall Brain Answered: We are taught to think of a coin toss as being a 50/50 proposition. It should not matter if you choose heads or tails, right? Wrong. Scientific research has shown that [...]
Where do the 24 electronics products sitting in the average American home go when they die? The EPA estimates that we sent more than 1.85 million tons of TVs, cell phones and computer products — a.k.a. e-waste — to landfills in 2006. And by 2015, a survey from Pike Research (via CNET) says that the global e-waste volume will reach 73 million tons.
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