CULTURAL QA 02-2022-10 BEING A COMPILATION THERE MAY BE ERRORS
Q1 Whatis the purpose of human nails beside scratching mosquito bites and the residueof stickers? A1 Petros Christodoulou SpecialistPlastic Surgeon, Head Physician Feb 1 The nail plate is a rigid structure that stabilizes the pulp of thefinger, whichfacilitates more effective and precise pinching. Not onlymechanically, but also byincreasing the sensitivity of the distal finger. It helps optimizesensitivity by applying counter pressure on the pulp during touching andpinching. It is a well documented fact that the ability to discriminate betweentwo fine points that are close to each other, by touching them, diminishes inthe absence of a nail plate. There exists a microsurgicalprocedure to help people who have a damaged nail and who rely on their fingersensory feedback at work. Itis called “vascularized nail graft transfer” and basically what is done is, thetoe nail is harvested along with surrounding tissue and vessels, while at thesame time the damaged finger nail and its surrounding tissue is removed. Thetoe nail is then used to replace the missing finger nail and the vessels areanastomosed to those on the hand, so that the graft has sufficient bloodsupply. This is ahighly specialized procedure that only a handful of microsurgeonsare able to perform, or have performed. So as you can see, ifmedicine is willing to spend time and energy on a 6–8 hour procedure to replacea nail, maybe the nail is not so useless after all. Q2 Whatdo pilots usually worry about in long flights? A2 Randy Duncan AirlinePilot Feb 2 There are lots of things to“worry” about but worry is too strong a word. There are things I think about more on a long flight, particularly if it’s over water. On any flight, I keep close tabs on our fuel and the weather at ourdestination. I usually check it every hour if it’s pretty good and more oftenif it’s not very good. I don’t want to be surprised by worse weather than we’reexpecting when we get near the airport. That’s because once you’re there, youhave fewer options than if you’re a few hundred miles away with more fuel. Ilike options. Over water, things are a littledifferent. Over land, there is always some close by airport that we can duckinto if there’s some kind of emergency. Over water, we may have to fly for hours to find an airport.My main concern is fire. There are lots of systems on the airplane to fightfire and there are lots of good, well considered checklists. But fire is sneakyand it doesn’t follow many rules. Once something is burning, it’s terribly difficult to locate it and putit out if it’s not right out in the open. It’s hard to isolate the problem ifits electrical and even harder if something else is burning. If somebodysmells smoke on one of my flights, I’m in “find concrete” mode right now. Ifothers smell it too and the flight attendants confirm it, I’m on the way downwith an emergency declaration to soon follow. I do not want to mess with fire and smoke. On a long overwater flight, a smoke or fire situation may have to betolerated for hours and that is a worry to me. So I have a mental map in myhead with a range ring around the nearest airport. If something happens, I’mturning to the appropriate heading as soon as possible. My little 737 flies from the U.S.to Hawaii. There are no airports anywhere so we are on our own if something badhappens. I don’t actively worry aboutthese kinds of things but I think about them and try to have a plan in place ifit happens. Q3 Humansevolved over time to have bigger brain sizes and smaller bodies. Are humanscontinuing to evolve in this direction so that future humans will have evenlarger brains with a much tinier body compared to current humans? A3 Mats Andersson B. Sc,M. Sc from Uppsala University Sun No. For the past 1,000–2,000years, we have evolved to have smaller brains. We don’t quite know why, but ithas been hypothesised that it has to do with writing—we don’t need to store asmuch in our heads now that we’ve got it on paper. Brains are insanelyexpensive to drag around and feed, and we don’t have more of it than weabsolutely need. The trend seems set to continue; they have studied the evolutionary pressures on us right now, and itturns out that everything else being equal, people with lower intelligence havemore children. (“Everything else” includes a huge effect from socioeconomicalfactors: rich people have fewer kids than poor people, and thisoverwhelms the effect from intelligence. But still.) Q4 Whyis India so dirty when compared to other countries? A4 Subramaniam Duraisamy ITAnalyst Mon This is the apartment complex in Chennai which has just 40 flats- meaningroughly 160 people living. You see the courtyard and a small play area. Its a “public” place for us160 residents, but its still kept clean because we have an Association which monitors cleanlinesswith strict enforcements and fines. The residents feel connectedwith the Apartment Association and any attempt to break the rules would invitescathing criticism. Now- the world outside my apartment is very different. That’s becauseonce we step out there is no “Association” to control us. Inside our apartmentcomplexes we know there is a system that is going to make us accountable whenwe litter. However on the public roads, the general Government is absent andthere lies the problem. Now is it possible to replicate the cleanliness culture of our gatedcommunity in our public places?. The answer is yes. Indian public places are dirtybecause there is a notorious absence of Government in the public. When I say “absence of Government”, I mean absenceof clean zones. Look at the below picture: This is a Metro station in India- a public place which is used bymillions of people on a day. And yet its clean because the station is designedto be clean. Most of the malls, newly opened theaters and newly laid roadstoday have cleanliness culture designed into them and people using itsubconsciously obey that culture- just like my apartment complex. This is whatis called a Clean Zone. So how do we go about doing this Divide the problem into smaller chunks. Its very difficult to keep onebig city clean or even one big market clean. However divide the market/ cityinto smaller Zones and start the cleanliness culture. Make citizens entering the clean zone aware that littering is a crime.Deploy cameras and USE ME dustbins at regular intervals. Have cleaning staffdoing their work visibly in the peak hours and give an impression ofmaintaining cleanliness. Make sure any flouting of the rule is heavily punished[fine of Rs. 10000]. Gradually expand the Clean Zone to the entire market. Over a period of time people would stop littering and wouldsubconsciously become connected to the laws of the Clean Zone. Its very easy to create a CleanZone. The person entering one should immediately realize that this is not a place where can shit around. He / she shouldfeel the presence of the watchful eye of the regulating body on the lookout foroffenders. That fear would do wonders. Unfortunately in India most public places are not designed forcleanliness. They are designed for utility and services- which generate litter,but no mechanism to clear away the litter nor a way to make sure that publicdoes not litter any further. My note- His gated community is a big compound. So cleaning facilities and disposing arrangementsare there. They pay a lot for staff. What about small homes in 3 cents of ground? Where they dispose waste ?Many municipalities make arrangements tocollect disposable waste kept in road side. Mostareas are kept as neat as possible everywhere India. Let one see plannedHariyana or Pondicherry. One should be proud of ourGovernment’s arrangements. Has he ever thought- how covid 19 waste disposed inIndia. Can thegated community help even 1% to eradicate part of a slum by donation? Q5 Howdid old ships accurately sail across an ocean and reach their destinationwithout overshooting or undershooting the port on the coast? A5 Pieter Read way tomuch about naval warfare Sat When Vasco da Gama’s fleet to India crossed from Africa to Calicut(India) they reached the Indian shore about 50 miles north of their intended destination.It took them two days sailing down the coast to reach the city. By the standards of the daythat was a fairly acceptable feat of navigation. This last leg of the journey was guided by a localpilot which probably explains why they ended up so close to their intendeddestination. Across longerdistances and less well known waters the margin of error might be larger. All in all 16th and 17th century navigators could typically get theirlatitude correct to within 30 to 50 miles by means of celestial navigation.Longitude depended entirely on dead reckoning which meant it could besurprisingly accurate in some cases (positive and negative errors in estimationcould cancel each other out) or off by a fairly large margin. During the 18th centuryinstruments and methods improved considerably. A late 18th century navigator could accurate gauge his latitude towithin 3 miles. Longitude was still more fraught with danger, a reading with a30 mile margin was regarded as quite accurate. For reference a modern smartphoneequipped with GPS is typically accurate to 16 feet or 4.9 meters. What is important to realize is that a sailing ship could cover anywherefrom 20 to 120 miles in a day so missing the intended port was more of an inconvenience than a majorimpediment. Where accurate navigation was more important was in avoiding wrecking your shipand sailing the fastest route, though admittedly reaching your intendeddestination is part of that. Q6 Whydon't TVs actually turn off anymore? 'Off' buttons only put them to sleep. A6 Walter Maslowski ElectronicTechnician at Public Transportation (2011–present)Updated Jan 31 TVs need to draw enough powerwhen “off” to monitor the remote control sensor, in order to turn back on when you press the remote’s power button. If you want to unplug them tosave energy, just buy an outlet switch on Amazon. They plug in between the outlet and the plug andhave a switch on top. you’llhave to get up to turn the TV on and off of course. BTW: The amount of powera TV draws in “sleep” mode is about 1 watt, it will hardly make a difference inyour electric bill. Nationally, though its an environmental issue. Itsestimated that there are almost 300 million TVs in the US.. 1 watt times 300million TVs means 300 million watts being generated along with the ensuingpollution, just so people don’t have get off the couch. EDIT: Thank you all for the overwhelming number of upvotes. I had no ideathis answer would be so popular. Also, these outlet switches are not just forpower savings. I use one on a power strip so I could turn the LED strip over mybed on and off without affecting the other items that are plugged into thestrip. (I used a bare LED strip with no built-in switch). Its great for Christmaslights too. My note- In India many homes have plug point with switch connectingTV and are physically switched OFF. More important is warmer setup box.One must ensure setup box connecting dish antenna cable is switched OFF, Q7 Arewomen smaller than men because across evolution they had to bear the caloriccost of pregnancy? A7 Mats Andersson B. Sc,M. Sc from Uppsala University Sun No.It’s the other way around, basically. Men are bigger for the same reason as other mammals have bigger males:they have had to compete for women. It’s probably at some point in our distant past—most likely as far backas the australopithecines, where the male seems to have been up to 50% biggerthan the female. But at that time, 2 million years ago or more, our matingstrategy was more like the gorilla, where one male holds a “harem” of femalesand is easily twice their size, than like the chimpanzees, who are more whatyou might call equal-opportunity serial adulterers and where the sexes are moreequal in size. We seem to be evolving out ofit, though; we have becomemore equal in size over time. It’s slow, because there’s not a hugeevolutionary pressure; being big has some advantages in some situations. Q8 Ifhumans suddenly disappeared, what would happen to our planet? A8 Mysterious Universe Answeredby Nishant Kumar Mohapatra Sat My note- A very interestinganswer. Interested readers can add still more to his answer. Just a few hours after humans disappear, lights around the world willshut down. Within 10 days, pets and farm animals will die out due to starvation anddehydration. A few weeks later, those adorable small dog breeds will no longer existas packs of bigger dogs hunt them down and take them out. A month later, cooling water at nuclear power plants will evaporate,leading to “a series of explosions much stronger than the Fukushima andChernobyl disasters.” After a year, the sky will light up with the thousands of objects we’veput in the Earth’s orbit as they come crashing back down. A quarter of a century after man’s disappearance, 75% of the planet’s paved citystreets and sidewalks will be covered in vegetation. Cities like Las Vegas and Dubaiwill be smothered in the sand as “the desert takes what belongs to it.” After 300 years, metal constructions like the Eiffel Tower and steelbridges, without maintenance, will crumble to the ground. Swamps that once covered large parts of the world will reappear. The only evidence of man-madebuildings after 10,000 years will be stone constructions, which can lastseveral hundred thousand years (covered by thick vegetations). Q9 Ifdaughters don't take care of their parents, why do they have a right over theproperty? Is it legal? A9 Kowshalyaa Kumaraguru 23,Software Engineer, India 23h "Daughters don't take careof parents, so they don't deserve an equal share" - is a common argumentput forward by people against property laws in India. As a woman, with a brother, I'll demand equal share in property from myparents, only if I equally contribute in taking care of them. BUT an importantthing to be mentioned here is, both my brother and I were provided the samestandard of education and we're equally encouraged to take up any career wewanted to. Also, just because I have a male sibling, I would not consider it as his‘default’ duty or I’ll take care only if he is unable to. It’s myresponsibility as much as it is his. In my mom's case, Her two brothers received better quality ofeducation. My mom was educated just enough to find a decent husband. One brother works in BSNL and the other one in HVF - courtesy of mygranddad's "connections", if you know what I mean. My mom was told she can work if herhusband wanted it. Sons took care of their parents albeit only for a while and my mom didn't- because she was incapable, because she was not provided the sameopportunities as her brothers. My mom does take care of her parents in hercapacity - taking food for them once in a while, restocking the kitchen etc. They didn't let her study or workas her heart desired - which rendered her incapable of financially supportingher parents or even herself - which was then used against her to deny her equal share of property. Now the sons, who split the property among themselves because they tookof their parents, no longer take care of them - which brings us to anotherpoint, not all sons take care of their parents but "sons who don't take care of their parentsshould not be given a share in property" is an argument rarely made. Q10 SaudiArabia: Are all Saudis rich? A10 Areej Musaed AdministrativeAnalyst at Air and Missile Defense (2020–present)Jan 30 Not all Saudis are rich. There are high, middle and low-income families. However, poverty is virtually non-existent as Saudi Arabia enjoys a strong socialwelfare system whereby each Saudi is entitled to the following:- People get easily out ofpoverty because educationis free from kindergarten through graduate school (even paid scholarshipsabroad). Health care is free for allSaudis, including medicine andcomplex surgeries. No income tax and only 15% VAT. Families with low and middleincomes receive a monthlyallowance to compensate for gas and water prices (still the cheapest gas pricein the world). Unemployed Saudis get supportedby the government by receiving a monthly allowance for a whole year until they get employed. Women whose salary is less than8000 Saudi Riyal get an80% discount on their daily commute to work via Uber (to support more womenjoining the workforce). Women whose salary is less than 8000 Saudi Riyal get an 80% discount on their children’s day centerfees (children are most likely the reason why women usually quit their jobs). Saudis with low income receiveloans with zero interestrates for establishing small businesses and projects, getting married or buyingtheir first car. In addition, the Saudi societyis very well connected and is built around family and friends. When someone gets unemployed, the family willalways take care of him or her until they get employed again. When a woman getsdivorced, her family will invite her back home to help raise the kids. Parentsnever go to senior care centers. Their son or daughter will takecare of them personally. Social support means life support. All the above QA are from Quora website on 09-02- 2022. Compiled and posted by R. Gopala krishnan on 10-02-2022 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1221095676.7386.1644442438225%40mail.yahoo.com.
