CULTURAL QA 04-2023-10 Q1 Are apes more closelyrelated to monkeys than humans? If so, why do we have a common ancestor withmonkeys but not with apes (gorillas and chimpanzees)?
A1 Claire Jordan, Degree inbiology and folklore; programmer, shop owner, secretary on newspaper 51m No - in fact humans are a typeof ape. And of course we have common ancestors with otherapes. 30mya - Simian primates split into Platyrrhines (called New World monkeysalthough the first one lived in North Africa) and Catarrhines. 25mya - Catarrhines split into Cercopithecidae (Old World monkeys) andHominoidae (apes). 15mya - Hominoidae split into Hylobatidae (gibbons and siamangs) andHominidae (great apes). 11mya - Hominidae split into Ponginae (orangutans) and Homininae. 8mya - Homininae split into Gorillini (gorillas) and Hominini. 7mya - Hominini split into Panina (common chimps and bonobos) andHominina (humans and proto-humans). Q2 What are some interestingfacts about mobile phones? A2 Akash Bahetra, FormerStudent Updated 5y Mobile phones can save your life- Shocked ? Confused ? Yes !! Mobile phones Can actuallysometimes save human's life . I was just going through the news and i saw a women claiming that heriphone saved her life at the Manchester Sucide Bombing Incident. You can See this post by Steve Bridgett She Said Her iphone deflected flying shrapnel while she was talking onthe phone. This is the picture of the iphone after the incident. I also Read One More News About Nokia Mobile saving a life of a man inafghanistan from a bullet . Here's the tweet of peter skillman , a Microsoft employee of the teamthat worked on that phone. Sometimes Mobile Phones Can doextraordinary things :) Q3 Can you tell about Desertof Ghost ship conversion? A3 Kathleen Pennell's Posts,Postedby Jo Mburu Fri Desert Of Ghost Ships only 30years ago, this was home to our planet’s 4th largest inland water mass; an ancient sea so vast, even Alexander the Great wrote of his struggles to cross it. In the 1960s, the Soviet Unionbegan diverting the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya; the two major rivers whichsupplied the vast majority of water to the Aral Sea, in order to irrigate theirmassive cotton plantation complex. Q4 The US standard railroadgauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedinglyodd number. Why was that gauge used? A4 Emily PalmerApr 1 Well, because that's the way theybuilt them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines werebuilt by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gaugethey used. So, why did 'they' usethat gauge then? Because the people who built thetramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons,which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use anyother spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, longdistance roads in England . You see,that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (includingEngland ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed theinitial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroyingtheir wagon wheels. Since thechariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter ofwheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gaugeof 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for anImperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Romanarmy chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of twowar horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two bigbooster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solidrocket boosters, or SRBs. TheSRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers whodesigned the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shippedby train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from thefactory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had tofit through that tunnel. Thetunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, asyou now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world'smost advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years agoby the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses controlalmost everything. Q5 The Great Wall of Chinatook 2,500 years to make. Considering the resources and technology available today,how long would it take if the wall was made today? A5 CaiLei, Lives in China(1975–present)Sat The Great Wall is not a singleproject, but a series of projects. Each dynasty in China built its own Great Wall. There are Qin Great Wall, HanGreat Wall, Tang Great Wall...Ming Great Wall, some are expanded on the basisof the original Great Wall, and some are newly built. The Qin Great Wall is only 1 meter high, it can only stop cavalry, and itis mostly built with gravel. Distributed in Gansu, Ningxia Hui AutonomousRegion, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and even where the Qingchuan Riverenters the sea in North Korea. The Qin Dynasty was from 221 BC to 227 BC, Afterall, the constructiontechnology at that time was not very developed, and the story of MengJiangnu crying and causingthe Qin Great Wall to collapse is just a fictional rumor; The Great Wall of Xinjiang inthe Tang Dynasty was mostly rammed earth, and Xinjiang is arid and has little rain, so the choice of localbuilding materials is limited; The Great Wall of the MingDynasty was built with glutinous rice as an adhesive and bricks. What you see when traveling in Beijing is usuallythe Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty. My note- Informative answer for me. Q6 What is obsolescence, andwhat are some examples? A6 Loring Chien, FormerPrincipal Engineer at Fortune 1000 Company (2002–2016)Mar 31 A Ford model T car is obsolete.At one time it was state of the art and a bargain at the price. But todays cars are faster, safer, more comfortable, more practical. Morestylish and meet umpteen safety regulations for crash safety, fuel economy,lighting, seat belts, airbags, Not to mention things that improve our driving experience, GPS,adaptive cruise control lane departure, auto-braking and in some cases selfdriving. Auto parking, TPMS, heated seats air conditioning and heating,intermittent and multispeed wipers, auto headlights, radio entertainment youname it. Not that people don’t ever driveModel T for nostalgia sake, but its no longer a daily driver. But its obsolete,can’t meet standards and can’t meet expectations for a car anymore. When a thing starts to become obsolete, it is in the stage ofobsolescence. Today, film camerasmeet that. They are still used but mainly for nostalgia. Incandescent bulbs inobsolescence, you can still buy a few, but LEDs have replaced them. Q7 How can we see divergingsun rays if the sun were really 93,000,000 miles away? A7 Wayne Boyd, Philosopher,published author, science writer. Apr 6 These train tracks appear to converge, do they not? It’s calledperspective. VP in this image is called the Vanishing Point. Neither the road nor thetrain tracks actually converge into a point. They just look like they do because the farther the things are, thesmaller they appear. The Sun is 93 million miles away. All the sun rays point to the sun’sdisk, 93 million miles away. Althoughfrom this position it looks like the rays of the Sun are not parallel,they are absolutely parallel. It is perspective that makes them appear toconverge at a vanishing point. Q8 What are some of theinteresting facts about India? A8 Angel Singh, Lives inLucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India (2004–present)Updated 1y 1. Only 3% of Indians pay Income Tax ie. around 40,579,268 (according tothe population in 2019). 2. The number of people (ie. around 23 million) travelling on India'strains each day is equal to the population of Australia. 3. India is the 2nd populouscountry and also the 7th largest country in the world. 4. India has more over 300,000 mosques. • Actually there are moremosques in India than any other Islamic country on Earth. 5. There's a village in Maharashtra named Shani Shingnapur that has nodoors and locks in the houses.• Villagers believed that God Shani, the God ofSaturn, will punish anyone attempting theft. ***6. The World's Only FloatingPost Office is in Srinagar's Dal Lake in India. • It also has a museum insideand being the Only Floating Post Office in the world, makes it a unique pieceof architecture. 7. There's a village named Snapdeal.com Nagar in Muzaffarnagar districtin Uttar Pradesh. • It was named so, as the e-commerce website installed 15 hand-pumps inthe village so the villagers do not have to walk miles to fetch water. You can see the Snapdeal logo sticked everywhere in the village. 8. The Indian National Kabbadi Team was the only team to won all theKabbadi World Cups before the game played against Iran in 2020. 9. Snakes & Ladders wasoriginated in Ancient India.• It was used as a part to teach moral instructionsand karma in early centuries. 10. The World's Highest Rail Bridge in being built in Jammu&Kashmir.•It is being constructed ata height of 359 metres from the riverbed of the Chenab river and is 1.3km longand 35metres higher than the Eiffel Tower. 11. A lake named Lonar Lake in Maharashtra was formed by a meteor 52,000years ago. 12. Mawsynaram is the wettestplace on Earth with 11,874mm of rain anually. 13. India was the first country to produce sugar. 14. Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra and Trigonometry originated from India. First, thankyou for this! It’s my first answer to get so many views andupvotes. Second, for the point 1st point, that value can't be 100% true. Hence,it’s a approx value calculated with the population in 2019, Please note 2019. Third, for the 14th point, I know I got wrong in the Algebra part. So I'msorry for that. My note- If my memory is correct there are floating post offices still inAlleppy District in Kerala. Q9 Do cats know what we are?Do they think we're some kind of big cat? Or just a very weird creature givingthem food. A9 All about Cats, Answeredby John Holt Jan 31 When kittens first open theireyes, they don’t perceive us as much more than a disembodied hand thatinteracts with them. As they mature they begins topick up on more complexities of what we are and begin to adjust their behavioraccordingly. Despite this theyinnately realize we are companions and caregivers, but also a differentspecies. A great example of this is how they communicate with us. The majority of feline to felinecommunication is based on body language, yet they learn fairly quickly ourbrains don’t work that way and begin meowing for specific cues. This is my Sadie girl, she has a meow for “food”, one for “getting low onwater”, one for “get out the toys”, and one for “I want scritches.” She hasrecognized I don’t readfeline communication methods as well as another cat would and has adjusted herbehavior accordingly. Q10 Which European countrieshave a good railway network with maximum high speed trains, such as French TGVor German ICE, etc.? A10 Nicholas Stone, Life longinterest in trains. Sat Four European countries haveparticularly well developed networks of dedicated high speed passenger lines. All feature running speeds of greater than 200km/h, station passing loops, grade separated junctions and advance trafficmanagement systems. Each has their own characteristics. I have travelled on allfour networks many times. Italian high speed passengerlines are essentially linear.There is one near continuous high speed line from Turin to Salerno - via Milan,Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples. This connects almost all of Italy’s majorpopulation centres - with buoyant passenger volumes. Consequently, there aretwo operators. State owned Trenitalia offering Le Frecce brand of high speedservice and the privately owned Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV). Operating on the high speed Italian rail network, an NTV train with thedistinctive .Italo branding. On board, there are three travel classes: smart,prima and club. France has a mainly radial highspeed network with four routesfanning out of Paris. State owned SNCF operates the world famous TGV train withtwo travel products. There’s the full service inOui trains and the budgetOuigo. SNCF has a majority stake in the Eurostar-Thalys international high seedservice, with Paris Gare du Nord departures to London, Brussels, Antwerp,Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Cologne. Spain also has a mainly radialnetwork, centred on Madrid.There are several noteworthy features. Dedicated high speed lines are built tothe 1,435 mm gauge rather than Iberian 1,668 mm gauge. Special trains travelover gauge changers at slow speed between the two networks. There is nowparticularly competitive domestic high speed passenger rail market, with Iryoreceiving special praise. A high speed Iryo passenger train in Spain. The trains offer three travelclasses and six fares. The rolling stock is identical to the Italian le Freecefleet, reflecting ownership. Iryo is jointly owned by Trenitalia, Air Nostrumand Globalvia. The German high speed networkand operations differ significantlyfrom the above three. A mixture of upgrade and new build links pairs of citiesrather than the radial or linear networks elsewhere. The principal operator isthe state owned Deutsche Bahn’s InterCity Express (ICE) service - offering twotravel classes and often full dining. Seat reservations are not mandatory.These long distance ICE service will use a mix of new build, upgrade andclassic tracks as they cross Germany. In my opinion, the German and Italian high speed passenger trains areamong the best in Europe. Both offer higher standards of passenger comfort anddining cars. Part of the Italian high speed through Tuscany, Umbria and Laziois particularly scenic. All the above QA are from Quora website on 11-04-2023 Quora answers need not be 100% correctanswers . Compiled and posted by R. Gopala Krishnan, 79, former ITS on 12-04-2023 -- 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/972016710.1533876.1681257463415%40mail.yahoo.com.
