Social Science Questions & Answers

The female glow-worm is equipped with one of the most marvelous lighting systems in the world. A wingless beetle, she crawls about a night eating small insects. But on the lower side of her abdomen she possesses a “lantern” which she uses to signal to her winged mate flying above. This “lantern” has a transparent layer of skin, like the …

Minsk has been a city of many languages over time. Initially it was Ruthenian (later developed into modern Belarusian). After 1569, Polish became the official language. Belarusian national revival increased the use of Belarusian language but after World War II (by mid 1980s), Minsk was almost exclusively Russian-speaking. Most residents now use Russian in day-to-day life. Belarusian is understood as …

Most likely it was an Egyptian cobra, although the asp has been implicated. An asp is a type of viper and would mean a pretty painful death.

When land is scare, farms must be as productive as possible. For example less than 15 percent of Japan is suitable for farming. But through intensive farming, using fertilizers, irrigation, machinery and improved plant varieties yields are high, and Japan produces 70 percent of the food it needs.Another example of intensive agriculture is market gardening the production of flowers, fruit …

Zorbing is an extreme adventure sport involving a ball made of PVC, also called the zorb. The person, or persons, in case of ‘group zorbing’, gets inside and the ball is closed. The ball is then rolled down a hill, and it picks up speed as it goes. There are two ways to zorb: one involves getting wet and one …

Windfall tax is what’s imposed on windfall gains, an abnormal increase in the profits of any organization in the normal course of its business due to certain circumstances. An example would be the increase in the price of oil over the world. In this case, the oil exploration and production (E&P) companies will make huge gains if they sell oil …

The VIX is calculated and disseminated in realtime by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). It’s a weighted blend of prices for a range of options on the S&P 500 index. The formula uses a kernelsmoothed estimator that takes as inputs the current market prices for all out-of-the-money calls and puts forth front month and second month expirations. The goal …

Farming indoors is not a new concept, per se, as greenhouse-based agriculture has been in existence for some time. Numerous commercially viable crops (e.g., strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, herbs, and spices) have seen their way to the world’s supermarkets in ever increasing amounts over the last 15 years. Most of these operations are small when compared to factory farms, but …

Vedic literature is the sacred literature of the Hindus. Its four main works are the Rig Veda, the Sama Veda, the Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. Each Veda contains collections of hymns called Samhitas, most of which were composed by unknown holy men as long as 4,000 years ago. Ancient Vedic wisdom is recorded on palmleaf books.

Urban mining is the European fancy name for the process of making money out of garbage using sophisticated machinery. Urban mining is the process of reclaiming precious and minor metals from old electronic equipment. With the soaring price of metals, such recycling of previously mined metals is lucrative — 1 tonne of ore from a gold mine produces just 5 …