Small Questions: Sheep
There are so many questions we could purpose about sheep. Their weird eyes… and um… so… okay maybe not that many questions. There is one that specifically has been bothering me stems from a weird social media post. I checked into the article, it was true, but that didn’t solve the weirdness. It raised way more questions about sheep and their wool. Like one, do sheep shed their wool? The answer is simple, some do and some don’t (the reason is much darker (selective breeding and side-stepping natural selection)). Furthermore, if they never shed their wool and it continually grows, how do they naturally live to old age? You see, a sheep that never sheds its wool would be fine living, but eventually, a predator would be able to take advantage of the extra weight since the sheep would eventually be unable to flee (effectively).
So, if humanity just disappeared, would it be possible for a sheep that didn’t shed to die of old age?
Just Theodore asking the hard questions.
Read MoreSmall Questions: Making Sausage
It is time for another exciting installment of small questions. Specifically, let’s discuss the packaging of sausages. Now I’ve seen sausage being made, and when it comes out of the machine, it differs from how it looks when you purchase it. For example, when you look at the sausage that you buy from a major distributor, all the sausages in the package are curved. So, why are the sausages curved? Is this the natural state of the pig intestines (casings) and the sausage eventually bends to this basic structure or is something else at play?
In this case, I think I have the answer – marketing. If the sausages were straight, the package would be smaller. If one of the competitors had a package with the same amount of meat in it, but the sausages were curved, the package would have to be bigger to accommodate the different form. Thus, an illusion is created. Your eye sees something larger and you assume you get more for the same price, but you could read the packages and know that they contain the same amount of food. Who knows, I could be wrong.
As always, Theodore asking the tough questions.
Read MoreSmall Questions – Milk
I know I discussed the differences between cold water and hot water. And yes, I realize there was a fallacy in that argument as water that is boiled would have mineral deposits removed thus changing the basic characteristics of the water. However, today I am focusing on milk. At a lunch with coworkers, I was discussing cultural differences and my Chinese coworker brought up the fact that they drink warm milk in their culture. But the kids that grow up in America drink their milk cold, and if the milk gets warm, these same kids find it off putting. I, having grown up in the United States of America, only have participated in cold milk. However, my mother never let me throw out a glass of milk so I’ve often imbibed in warm milk as a beverage. These two things taste different, warm milk and cold milk. So there are multiple times in which milk tastes different, think of a latte where it is steamed (but this could be changing the structure of the milk leading to its changes), when it is left out for only thirty minutes, or even when is ice cold.
So why the different flavors? Not all drinks do this, but water and milk do, what makes them so special? Perhaps, I am missing valuable data and need to start drinking more beverages at different temperatures.
As always, Theodore asking the tough questions.
Read MoreSmall Questions: About Fish and Cats
For an animal that despises water, why do cats love fish? How did they get addicted to something so foreign? And Tuna, that’s a pretty hard to get to fish, but they love it, have they always loved tuna? Do they have preferred fish… like, do some cats go: “anchovies are too salty for me, I am more of a sardine kind of kitty”?
Theodore asking the tough questions.
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