askscience

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Why is it on hot summer nights the temperature only cools down briefly at the break of Dawn? It seems counterintuitive. Why would it get cooler just as the sun is rising?	3395
This may sound like a silly question but how is it, when a seed is planted in the ground, that it knows which way to grow? How can a seed, buried down in the darkness, know where the sun is so as to grows upwards and similarly know where the water is so as to grow the roots downwards?	233
If someone received a smallpox vaccine before 1977, are they immunized against Monkeypox?	5
Why do some organisms live much longer than others? A mouse lives for a few years, a human for approx 80 years, and some tortoises for centuries? Why? What is the biological explanation for what determines a lifespan in a living organism?	1
It seems like every few years a palaeontologist discovers a dinosaur that was larger than has ever been known before. What is the scientific limit to how big a dinosaur can get?	1
Why do some male species (humans, dogs, etc) have their testicles descended into a scrotum, while other male species (elephants, golden moles, etc) have their testicles up inside their bodies?	1
Why does the Earth have a Moon but its nearest neighbours, Mars and Venus, don’t?	1
Why is there such a wide variety of dogs (everything from Great Danes to Pomeranians) and yet house cats remain essentially the same? Cats all about the same size, etc. Is it a difference in breeding or is there something biologically inherent in cats that keeps them all pretty much the same size?	1
What determines the direction a planet will spin on its axis? For example, why does the Earth spin counter-clockwise and not clockwise? Similarly, why do all the planets move counter-clockwise around the sun and not clockwise?	1
There is news today that scientists plan on bringing back Wooly Mammoths. Is it also scientifically possible to bring back earlier forms of Man, such as Neanderthals? If so, could modern Man interbreed with them to create stronger Homo Sapiens?	1

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