Stupid questions...

[hallenrm]

This was aquestion asked to me in my series Curiosity Corner in the popular science monthly called Science Reporter.

My answer was as follows:

No accepted explanation for the oval shape of a bird’s egg is known. One can at best venture an informed guess. The reason may lie in the ultimate function of the egg than in its process of formation. Since an egg is an embryo several metabolic processes that require oxygen from the atmosphere are crucial for its hatching. As we know a bird’s egg has an air sac located at its broader edge. It is through this sac that oxygen diffusses inside. If the egg were spherical in shape this sac could be blocked when it faces the ground. An oval shape ensures that the chances of the air sac facing the ground are minimal and hence the chances that the egg will hatch successfully increase. Several other animals and insects do lay almost spherical eggs, but then they lay many more eggs at a time and only few hatch successfully.

Does anybody have any comments on this answer?

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

...Does anybody have any comments on this answer?

Plausible

[Boerseun]

Makes a lot more sense than my explanation, I reckon...

[GAHD]

Far as I know an egg's shape is simply caused by the way the bird's reproductive tract squeezes it out while the shell is still semi-soft.

[hallenrm]

Originally Posted by GAHD

Far as I know an egg's shape is simply caused by the way the bird's reproductive tract squeezes it out while the shell is still semi-soft.

Yes, that too is a factor to be considered in fact, in my article I also said:

The egg of a bird is also a result of growth of a cellular mass inside its ovum. This growth is again almost symmetric hence an egg inside the body of a bird is almost spherical. It assumes an oval shape, only as a result of the differences in pressure around its surface as it is ejected from the cochlea ( the organ through which the egg is ejected). This is so because an egg at the time of being laid is fairly plastic. The cochlea tract has to stretch quite a bit at the time of ejection. Towards the end of ejaculation it contracts and hence the circumference of the egg at one end is smaller.

Here's yet another stupid question of the same genre:

What is the reason for the conical shape of the candle flame?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

Yes, that too is a factor to be considered in fact, in my article I also said:

Not so fast! According to another several sources, the chicken egg is already hard upon arrival.

Originally Posted by yahoo

The egg shell is hard at the time of laying and the feed has a limited role in deciding its colour.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1070709AAPJ2U4

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 30,200 for Is a chicken egg soft when it's laid?. (0.10 seconds)

[hallenrm]

Thanks Turtle for correcting me!!

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

What is the reason for the conical shape of the candle flame?

When the plasma ignites, at the base of the flame, it's broad, fat and blue. It's blue because not all the gases in the mix have ignited yet, and is purely a chemical thing. The air sucked in to provide oxygen is relatively cold, and now everything starts getting hot (because of the continuous ignition). The resulting air rises, and the higher it rises, the more complete the ignition gets. That's why the flame's colour change as you go up. But now, the hot gas gets hotter still, which accellerates the mix due to normal convection. And the faster the gas goes, the thinner it stretches the 'body' of the flame out.

So, airflow at the bottom is slow; flame is fat.
The higher up the flame the faster the gas flows, and the thinner the flame.

Hence the conical shape.

Funny enough, this isn't demonstrable on the Space Station... Convection there doesn't work, and any flame will expand spherically until the oxygen inside the sphere is used up, and will then die.

[Kero]

This may be a stupid question, but i think its more of a stupid system.

How come someone will not be executed because they are sick? If you are going to kill someone why does it matter if they are in ill-health?

Crazy countires that kill people...

[Drip Curl Magic]

Originally Posted by Kero

This may be a stupid question, but i think its more of a stupid system.

How come someone will not be executed because they are sick? If you are going to kill someone why does it matter if they are in ill-health?

Crazy countires that kill people...

execution. I think, if I was going to be executed, it wouldn't matter either way to me. If I was going to die anyways, why not just put a bullet in my head the moment the decision to kill me is made?

Getting sent to death row must be the most depressing thing ever. Years to anticipate a deadline.