News Features

Thursday April 5, 2012 04:00 AM EDT

In winter I’ve gotten big shocks from static electricity when getting out of my car, and once saw a video where a crewman touching a race car during a pit stop was thrown back several feet, I presume from static charge built up as the car circled the track. This gotten me wondering: Have there been instances of injury or death from static discharge?

— Mike

Yes, many — and if you’re not...

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Thursday March 29, 2012 04:00 AM EDT

Is there any evidence to support the mantra that cutting taxes stimulates job growth? I’m old enough to remember the Reagan years, and it seems most of those tax cuts went into the pockets of the wealthy, and what trickled down was pink slips as jobs went offshore. Was that an anomaly, or par for the course as tax cuts go?

— Keynes Friedman Locke Jr., Greenspan, Minn.

Touchy subject. The...

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News Features

Thursday March 8, 2012 04:00 AM EST
Is consuming expired prescription medicines really all that dangerous? Some friends of mine insist taking pills beyond the printed expiration date is flirting with death, while another claims expiration dates on labels are BS, there solely to prompt us to order refills and spend more money. I once treated a nasty headache with the only thing I had on hand, some Vicodin that was about a year out... | more...

News Features

Thursday March 1, 2012 04:00 AM EST

With the population of the United States growing ever more obese and oil becoming scarcer, I wonder if the government has started taking into account the energy its population is storing in body fat. Hypothetically, how much would this add to the nation’s energy reserves?

— John Prokos, Kathmandu

John, you know I admire outside-the-box thinking, and this is about as out there as it gets....

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News Features

Thursday February 23, 2012 04:00 AM EST

I heard about a soldier who had been a spotter in helicopter patrols because, being color-blind, he could pick out camouflage from background foliage more easily. I vaguely remember reading about a study linking color blindness in animals to selective pressure. Is there an evolutionary advantage to being color-blind?

— Luke, via the Straight Dope Message Board

This may seem counterintuitive,...

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News Features

Thursday February 16, 2012 04:00 AM EST

A friend insists a team of scientists is dedicated to cloning a woolly mammoth. I’d love to believe this is true, and if it is, what are the plans for these critters? Zoos? Releasing them into the wild? Farming? Or a pet for the billionaire that already has everything else? Also, why start with woolly mammoths and not something smaller and hopefully easier, like passenger pigeons?

— Michael...

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News Features

Thursday February 9, 2012 04:00 AM EST

Please comment on the global energy-conservation insanity surrounding the incandescent light bulb, i.e., initiatives around the world to ban it. (Some call the instigators of these measures “eco-fascists.”) How good are energy-saving fluorescent or halogen light bulbs really?

— Ivona, Chicago

You want a comment? I’ll give you two:

1) Although halogen bulbs don’t offer much of an energy...

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News Features

Thursday February 2, 2012 04:00 AM EST

What is the influence of video games on the human mind?

— Brian

Why, they’re the greatest boon to intellectual development since the invention of movable type.

Not everybody thinks this. The common view from President Obama on down is that video games rot your mind, sap your strength, and probably give you acne and bad breath.

I don’t claim video games have been 100 percent beneficial. The...

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News Features

Thursday January 26, 2012 04:00 AM EST

Is there a difference between red (Republican heartland conservative) states and blue (Democratic coastal liberal) states in terms of IQ? The Republicans certainly seem dumber than a bag of doorknobs — for example, any of the current batch running for president. The Democrats seem smarter, if just as crooked. For the record, I’m a registered independent.

— Arthur Weissman

We need to talk...

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News Features

Thursday January 19, 2012 04:00 AM EST

In The Empire Strikes Back there’s a scene where Han Solo must cut open his tauntaun and climb inside the steaming corpse with Luke. They do this to avoid what appear to be Arctic conditions on the ice planet Hoth. My questions: If I were to find myself in

similar conditions on Earth, what would be the best animal of similar size (300 to 600 kilos) to slice up and crawl inside, and how long...

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News Features

Thursday January 12, 2012 04:00 AM EST
Now more than ever, the world seems to be in need of ray guns. I’m curious why lasers aren’t used for more of this type of work. Surely the success of such weapons in Flash Gordon, Star Wars, and Star Trek is more than enough justification for their use instead of pesky gunpowder or nuclear weapons. What’s the holdup? Can the problems be solved? Should I be scared of laser pointers? — Joe... | more...

News Features

Thursday January 5, 2012 04:00 AM EST

I’ve been reading about the coelacanth, the fish thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago that turned up in an Indonesian fish market. Do you know any good coelacanth recipes? Seems like this would be a nice change from a Filet-o-Fish. — Jim, Pawhuska, Oklahoma

I hear you. Every so often you think: right now a tasty morsel of endangered species would really hit the spot. However, one...

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News Features, 5 Things to Do, 5 Things Featured Item

Thursday December 29, 2011 04:00 AM EST
Straight Dope column from 2011 | more...

News Features

Thursday December 22, 2011 04:00 AM EST

There’s a common belief that “sucking the poison out” is an effective snakebite remedy. I also heard journalist Stephanie Nolen talk about a man in Sudan who set his foot on fire after a snake bite, which he claimed saved him from the poison. Is either of these treatments effective?

— Dyer

I treasure questions like yours, Dyer, because of the insight they give me into the human mind....

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News Features

Thursday December 15, 2011 04:00 AM EST

Why is there no (or at least, so little) naturally occurring blue food? Nature seems to have provided us with edible substances of every other hue, but the only blue food to be found in the supermarket is invariably artificially colored. Even blueberries aren’t really blue. How come?

— Matt McElligott

If we’re going to study the ancient texts, Matt, we need to have those texts in front of us....

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News Features

Thursday December 8, 2011 04:00 AM EST
Know what I think about your answer to the question of whether there’s a God? (I mean, besides the fact that it was a load of soft-pedaling quasi-theistic horseshit?) I think the subtext suggests we have a case of Antony Flew-ism here. The late philosopher was a longtime atheist who embraced deism late in life. You’re of the age when one starts hanging one’s hopes on there being a god after... | more...

News Features

Thursday December 1, 2011 04:00 AM EST

In your recent column on conspiracy theories about the government injecting chemicals into the atmosphere, you disparaged the idea of geoengineering, or at least using sulfur dioxide to counter global warning. But you don’t defend your position. Is it a good or bad idea, and why?

— Rob, via the Straight Dope Message Board

One problem at a time, muchacho. First I had to explain why it was...

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News Features

Wednesday November 23, 2011 04:00 AM EST

What’s that smell in the air (some people like it, others don’t) right before it rains? I’ve lived all over the country and there’s no variation ... when you smell it, you know rain is on its way.

— Nicky, Mount Prospect, Ill.

The smell is called petrichor, the scent of rain falling on dry earth. It’s caused by a couple of compounds in the soil, one of them known as geosmin, “earth-smell,” a...

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News Features

Thursday November 17, 2011 04:00 AM EST
I grew up in Alaska and I’ve heard this story forever, including when I worked on a salmon fishing boat for two summers. It’s the claim of a sometimes lethal danger to fishermen posed by a large halibut landed on deck but not yet dead. According to the story, a flopping halibut broke a commercial fisherman’s leg in two places, causing him to bleed to death on deck because he was alone and... | more...

News Features

Thursday November 10, 2011 04:00 AM EST

Have you ever addressed the question of God? It would seem like a fairly important question in the fight against ignorance, yet I couldn’t find anything like “Does God exist?” in the archives. Was there ever an article about this or some equivalent topic?

— Bldysabba, via the Straight Dope message board

Nope, I’ve never written about this. Nobody ever asked. That all you wanted to know?...

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News Features

Thursday October 27, 2011 04:00 AM EDT
Zombies have so many disturbing traits, but my question involves only two: the stench of their decomposition and their tendency to congregate in large numbers. A single dead body gives off a foul odor that is almost overpowering, certainly enough to make a normal person vomit if they were close enough. Now, say you’re one of those zombie apocalypse survivors, barricading yourself inside a... | more...

News Features

Thursday October 20, 2011 04:00 AM EDT
I’m a fairly intelligent, well-educated person with a facebook. I get SO ANNOYED when people are constantly picking out my typos and making it seem like I’m an idiot for making them. Is there actually a correlation between intelligence and how prone one is to make careless mistakes will typing? There are external factors like ... my D key sometimes sticks, etc. But it’s facebook, not my... | more...

News Features

Thursday October 13, 2011 04:00 AM EDT
About 20 years ago when I lived in Vancouver, I watched a TV local news segment about how the University of British Columbia’s forestry department had created a system for injecting hormones into growing trees to produce a “square tree.” Much was made of the advantages for the lumber industry: reduction of waste and so on. It seemed promising at the time, but I’ve never heard any more about it.... | more...

News Features

Thursday October 6, 2011 04:00 AM EDT

On the History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” series, they said aliens came to earth to mine gold in order to protect their atmosphere. On radio’s “Coast to Coast AM,” they said our government is shooting gold into the atmosphere to protect us from gamma rays. How do they get the gold to stay up in the sky and not fall back down to earth?

— Jean Brown, Savannah, Georgia

Please watch the movie...

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News Features

Thursday September 29, 2011 04:00 AM EDT

Would I be able to take down a fully grown T. rex armed only with my Beretta 92FS 9mm pistol and a full clip? What about with a 12-gauge shotgun?

— Jeramie Powers

At a meta level, the research department was impressed with your question, Jeramie. What with tsunamis, tornadoes and looming sovereign debt default, Little Ed observed, the past year has taught us to be ready for anything. Sure,...

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