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Who is Zorro (15 November 12:36) |
| Johnston McCulley first introduced the character of Zorro. In 1920, Douglas Fairbanks Sr brought fame to McCulley, by starring as Don Diego Vega and Zorro. We now have Antonio Banderas carry... |
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Why does the WWF logo feature a panda (15 November 12:26) |
| The World Wildlife Fund was founded in UK by Sir Peter Scott, a British naturalist and painter, in 1961. The WWF got the idea of using Chi-Chi, a female giant panda at London Zoo. |
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What is the chemical composition of ivory (15 November 12:23) |
| Ivory tusks and teeth consist of an inner pulp cavity surrounded by dentine — a combination of connective tissues that have minerals and collagen properties. |
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What causes winterline and why is it visible only in a few places in the world (15 November 12:21) |
| From mid-October to January, when the sun sets, the western horizon turns a myriad combination of yellow, red, orange and mauve. This is known as the winterline. |
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Who is an ecotarian (15 November 12:18) |
| An ecotarian is a person who eats a diet of food grown or produced in an eco-friendly manner. In a wide sense, it is organic, locally produced food, minimally processed and with little packa... |
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What is peep culture (08 November 02:39) |
| Pop culture, with television and radio as entertainment, has evolved into peep culture, with reality TV and internet. |
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What is carbon dating
(08 November 02:36) |
| It is a method to determine the age of plants and fossils. Carbon has three naturally occurring isotopes, C12, C13 and C14. |
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Why does the touch-me-not shrink when touched (08 November 02:36) |
| The touch-me-not shrinks due to loss of turgidity (the pressure of content against the cell wall) by cells within the pulvini-specialised motor organs at leaf joints. |
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What is the anchor investor concept (08 November 02:35) |
| The anchor investor is a recently introduced category of investor in the Initial Public Offer (IPO). |
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What is Big Crunch theory (08 November 02:26) |
| This theory says the universe will one day stop expanding. Then, as gravity pulls on matter, the universe will begin to contract, falling inward until it has collapsed into a super-hot, supe... |
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Who is known as the Pumpkin King of Britain (08 November 02:24) |
| Ralph Upton of the village of Slindon, in West Sussex, south England, was known as the ‘Pumpkin King of Britain’. |
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Who is a super child (01 November 01:36) |
| The Super Child University in Gandhinagar promises couples that they can have a super child, who is tutored in the womb. |
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Why is a feature film so called (01 November 01:35) |
| The term 'feature' was an inheritance of the Vaudeville programme. When the feature film was first marketed, it meant a special film, that could be featured between advertising shorts. |
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What do nanomites mean (01 November 01:32) |
| Nanomites are nanosized particles, nanorobots or nanites, which when released into the bloodstream of a human kill infected or cancerous cells. |
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What is the significance of 65 in the dish Chicken65 (01 November 01:31) |
| Chicken65 is a spicy, deep-fried chicken dish popular as a bar snack, entree or quick snack. There exist a number of theories behind the number '65'. |
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What is Maslows hierarchy (01 November 01:22) |
| Maslow's hierarchy is a model for understanding human behaviour, put forth by Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, in the 1940s. |
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How did the hula-hoop get its name (01 November 01:20) |
| The hula-hoop got its name from the resemblance and movements made while spinning one swiftly around the body to Hawaiian hula dances. |
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What is white noise (25 October 02:33) |
| Noise that is produced by combining sounds of different frequencies together is called white noise. Since it contains all frequencies, white noise is used to mask other sounds. |
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What is greenmail (25 October 02:32) |
| Greenmail is a business tactic used by a company, a syndicate or an individual to threaten another company and make money. |
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What is industrial melanism (25 October 02:31) |
| It is caused when the natural environment of an organism is disturbed due to industrial pollution.
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What are batholiths (25 October 02:31) |
| Batholiths are enormous masses of igneous rock made up of once-molten material solidified below the earth’s surface. These are usually made of granite and extend over thousands of miles. |
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What is the Tate (25 October 02:29) |
| The Tate is an art gallery originally titled the National Gallery of British Art. It is situated on Millbank in Pimlico, London. It was founded in 1897 by Henry Tate with money earned from h... |
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Who are stags in the stock market (25 October 02:28) |
| An investor or speculator who subscribes to a new issue, expecting the price of the stock to rise immediately upon the start of trading is known as a stag. |
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Who is a digital nomad (11 October 04:04) |
| A person who works on the move is called a digital nomad. Such a worker may or may not be on the rolls of a company, and could be a consultant/freelancer/a writer on the move. |
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What is a black blizzard (11 October 04:00) |
| During the drought of the 1930s in America, with no natural anchors in place, the soil dried, turned to dust and blew eastward and southward in large dark clouds. |
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Why do newspapers print a combination of four dots - blue pink yellow black - at the bottom of each page (11 October 03:58) |
| The four dots - blue (cyan), pink (magenta), yellow and black are registration marks used during printing to help ensure the print is aligned properly. |
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On what basis are pincodes distributed (11 October 03:56) |
| A Postal Index Number or PIN or Pincode is the post office numbering or postal code system used by India Post. |
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Who founded YouTube (11 October 03:53) |
| Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, all early employees of PayPal, founded YouTube. |
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What is Dervish music (11 October 03:51) |
| Dervish word originates from the Turkish word ‘darvis', meaning poor or mendicant. |
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Who is a frenemy (04 October 12:15) |
| Frenemy is made of two opposites - friend and enemy - and is used for a person who appears to be both. |
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What is a zwitter ion (04 October 12:12) |
| A zwitter ion is an inner salt of amphoteric compound resulting due to the reaction between acidic and basic groups. Amino acids and proteins constitute both acidic and alkaline groups, as a... |
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Why does the sky look blue from the earth and black from the moon (04 October 12:11) |
| A phenomenon called Rayleigh's Scattering causes light to scatter when it passes through particles that have a diameter one-tenth that of the wavelength (colour) of light. |
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What is a mud bath (04 October 12:10) |
| Mud from certain water sources is wrapped around body parts before a proper bath. This contains therapeutic value and cures some skin-related diseases, including psoriasis. |
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What is a quadrillion (04 October 12:08) |
| Quadrillion is 1,000 trillion. It has a value in which 1 is followed by 15 zeros in Short Scale countries such as UK and USA. In Long Scale countries like some European nations, quadrillion ... |
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Why does the black box remain intact in an air crash (04 October 12:07) |
| Each aircraft is fitted with two pieces of equipment - Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) - that are designed to survive an air crash so that the data recorded helps... |
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The good earth How green was your flight (04 October 12:05) |
| The aviation sector accounts for 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In recognition of responsibility, it is now seen as increasingly serious about reducing its contribution to global war... |
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Who is an exceptor (27 September 02:16) |
| An exceptor is a person who chooses to eat meat on special occasions. A vegetarian by habit, the exceptor makes exceptions for days like weddings, festivals and celebrations. |
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What is thigmotropism (27 September 02:14) |
| Thigmotropism is the growth of a plant around a support. Tropism is a phenomena by which a plant, usually climber like money plant and ivy, responds to a stimulus. |
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Why do the eyes of some animals glow in the dark (27 September 02:13) |
| Some animals have a special, reflective surface right behind their retinas, called the tapetum lucidum, which helps animals see better in the dark. |
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Why dont we feel the tonnes of atmospheric pressure (27 September 02:11) |
| Atmospheric pressure, which is about 1 kg per sqcm of area, presses down on our body from all sides, but we don't feel it as it is balanced by fluid pressure from inside our body. |
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Why do food packages carry Kcal when they actually specify calories and not kilo-calories (27 September 02:10) |
| Kilocalories are commonly known as calories and abbreviated as kcal. |
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What is spider silk (27 September 02:08) |
| Spider silk, also known as gossamer, is a protein fibre spun by spiders. Spiders use their silk to make webs. They can also suspend themselves using it. |
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From brush to Brushes (20 September 12:44) |
| Hockney is not the only admirer of Brushes. Paris-based Gilles Guias, who swears by his handset art, plans to hold an iPhone art exhibition at a Paris gallery in December. |
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What is a boomburb (20 September 12:39) |
| A boomburb is a booming suburb or satellite townships dreamt up by developers. |
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How to tamper with your DNA (20 September 12:38) |
| The CBI's investigation into Aarushi's murder has hit a major hurdle with allegations that the victim’s DNA samples were swapped for those of an unidentified woman.
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How are electric pylons placed across mountains to transmit electricity (20 September 12:38) |
| Electric pylons are tall supports — made of galvanised steel lattice, steel tube or wood — used for power line construction. In normal terrain, they are assembled on the site. |
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What is the origin of the term cash cow (20 September 12:34) |
| Management guru Peter F Drucker coined the term in the mid-1960s to describe a business or product line with a large market share in a stagnant or declining market.
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What are Perseides (20 September 12:31) |
| The word Perseides is found in Greek mythology and refers to the descendants of Perseus — the name of a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. |
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What are Jack-o-lanterns (20 September 12:30) |
| According to an Irish folk tale, the soul of a dishonest farmer called Jack wanders the earth burning amber inside a vegetable. The Jack-o-lantern is supposed to have been named after him. |
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What is quasi-resonance (20 September 12:27) |
| The topology of the converter is determined by selecting an input capacitor with a capacitance much lower than the output capacitor. |
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