Ask Us Anything(Page 3)

Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the ordinary to the off-the-wall.

Latest in Ask Us Anything

A postcard advertises the GM (or General Motors) Chevrolet Nova Custom coupe, seen from both the side and from the rear with the hatchback open, 1974. (Photo by Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)

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How do cars get their names? Art, science, and a legal process.

By Kristin Shaw

An Opened Prescription Medicine Bottle Among Many Other Sealed Bottles on Yellow Background High Angle View.

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How prescription drugs get their names

By Julia Craven

CALIFORNIA, USA - MAY 9: U.S. President Biden arrives at Moffett Federal Airfield of NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, United States on May 9, 2024.

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Why does Air Force One take so long to replace? It’s not just bureaucracy.

By Mack DeGeurin

Florida, Coral Gables, Classic Car Show, 1955 Pontiac, blue, chrome bumper,

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Why don’t cars have bulky bumpers anymore?

By Kristin Shaw

an arm covered in a rose tattoo

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Where does tattoo ink go in your body? There’s one particular spot.

By RJ Mackenzie

A pattern of ears on a background

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Why can some people wiggle their ears?

By Clarissa Brincat

two side by side illustrations. on the left, a man with a red background sweating next to a thermometer with a high temperature. on the right, a man with a blue background shivering next to a thermometer with a lower temperature

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What is ‘feels-like’ temperature? A meteorologist explains.

By Laura Baisas

Young woman yawning, close up

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Why do some people need less sleep?

By Clarissa Brincat

Once considered vestigial, the appendix may play an essential role in gut health.

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Which body parts do humans not need?

By Julia Craven

noses and a green stink cloud

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Can bad smells harm you?

By Keith Wagstaff

girl dreaming waking up

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Why don’t you remember all your dreams?

By Lauren Leffer

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare–as seen in the bright flash on the right side–on September 10, 2017. The image shows a combination of wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares, which has then been colorized.

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Could the Carrington Event happen again?

By Laura Baisas

Close up on woman white teeth.

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Could we ever regrow our adult teeth?

By Harriet Weber

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Do animals experience mental illness?

By Mack DeGeurin

a bird with white and black plummage and an egg on a nest and three other birds standing around her

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Which animals reproduce at the oldest age?

By Laura Baisas

(Original Caption) 1938-Close-up of the very front end of a 1938 Cadillac La Salle. This smaller counterpart to the Cadillac features a smaller radiator grille, and four headlights, as well as the hood ornament and bumper.

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Why don’t cars have hood ornaments anymore?

By Kristin Shaw

Voyager Golden Record cover on black background

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What is on the Voyager Golden Record? Shockingly, not The Beatles.

flying with cellphone airplane mode

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Why do we still have to use airplane mode?

The long finger sticking out of the Sun at the bottom left of this image is a coronal mass ejection. It was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on August 31, 2012.

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Does the Sun make noise?

By Harriet Weber

an orange cat with green eyes with its tongue out

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Why do some cats have orange fur? New hue clues in an old mystery.

By Clarissa Brincat

Anything with mass cannot reach lightspeed.

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What would happen to the human body moving at near lightspeed?

By Lauren Leffer

a slice of jelly toast faced down on the floor

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Is the five-second rule true? Don’t push your luck.

By Clarissa Brincat

dog kissing human licking face

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Why do dogs lick humans? It could be a sign of affection.

By Lauren Leffer

A Tesla Model 3 engaged in the so-called ‘Full Self Driving’ mode reportedly plowed through a deer without ever detecting it. While more advanced driverless systems use a mix of sensors including LiDAR, Tesla is trying to attain full autonomy using only cameras.

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Why are ‘driverless’ cars still hitting things?

By Mack DeGeurin

mercury broken thermometer

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Are ‘heavy metals’ dangerous? Yes, but not everything you’ve heard is true.

By Lauren Leffer

Peach and Blossom, the National Thanksgiving Turkeys, are seen on the South Lawn of the White House before recieving a Presidential Pardon from US President Joe Biden in Washington, DC, on November 25, 2024.

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How did Thanksgiving turkeys get so darn big?

By Mack DeGeurin

a body on a morgue table with only the feet showing and a toe tag on the big toe

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What happens when you donate your body to science?

By RJ Mackenzie

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How does science explain déjà vu? It’s a brain glitch with a purpose.

By Julia Craven

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Why do humans have toenails? Because we’re evolutionary ‘weirdos.’

By Lauren Leffer

the sound of your own voice

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Why do people hate the sound of their own voice?

By Julia Craven

raw milk poured into a glass

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Is raw milk safe? Science has a clear answer.

By Lauren Leffer

An image of the Sun from June 20, 2013, at 11:15 p.m. EDT.

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Why can’t we just launch all of Earth’s garbage into the sun?

By Harriet Weber

young woman in bed with alarm clock and eyes opened suffering insomnia and sleep disorder thinking about his problem on dark studio lighting in sleeping and nightmare issues

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What causes you to jolt awake right before falling asleep?

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Without humans, what would happen to Earth?

By Lauren Leffer

A graphic depicting the inner workings of a 2024 Toyota Mirai, showing the vehicle's hydrogen storage system, fuel cell, and electric motor.

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Why aren’t we driving hydrogen powered cars yet? There’s a reason EVs won.

By Harriet Weber

Janet Leigh screaming during iconic shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho.'

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Why do jump scares terrify us so much? Blame evolution.

poppy seed bagel

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What causes positive drug tests? It’s not just drugs… or poppy seeds.

By Lauren Leffer

Group of Snow Geese in elegant flight against blue sky at Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge in New Mexico in winter.

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Why do birds migrate? Scientists have a few major theories.

By Lauren Leffer

A variety of behaviors can foster muscle tension and lead to knots.

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What is a muscle knot actually? A pain in the neck, but not a knot.

By Harriet Weber

This artist concept illustrates the frenzied activity at the core of our Milky Way galaxy. The galactic center hosts a supermassive black hole in the region known as Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, with a mass of about four million times that of our sun.

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Can the black hole in the center of our galaxy expand to our solar system?

By Alex Hazlett

Using the microwave oven to heat food. Woman's hand puts plastic container with broccoli and buckwheat in the microwave

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Seriously, stop microwaving your food in plastic

By Lauren Leffer

a space craft floats in space

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What human-made object is the farthest from Earth?

By Alex Hazlett

Contrail clouds from passing jet planes streak the sky over the Utah desert.

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Why airplanes leave white streaks in the sky

By Lauren Leffer

child playing with fidget spinner

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Does fidgeting really help you focus?

By Lauren Leffer

Human ear closeup

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Why do we have earlobes? They make no evolutionary sense.

By Lauren Leffer

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Do aphrodisiacs work? What the science says.

By RJ Mackenzie

hands reaching out to tickle you

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Why are we ticklish? The science of the silly response.

By Lauren Leffer

baby sloth poses for the camera on the tree

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Which animals can and can’t fart?

By Alex Hazlett

Pouring cooking oil from bottle into frying pan, closeup

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What science actually says about seed oils

By Lauren Leffer

A rare visitor, a Mandarin Duck, showed up in Central Park, New York City in 2018.

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Why are there so many birds?

By Lauren Leffer

chewing gum pieces on red background

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Can chewing gum reshape your jawline? We asked experts.

Oil Pulling Mouthwash, dental oral hygiene rinse aid liquid, trendy alternative detoxifying mouthwash with toothbrush, toothpaste for cleaning teeth on bath background

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What does oil pulling do to your teeth? We asked dentists.

man sneezing on a colorful, illustrated background

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Why do some people sneeze so loudly?

By RJ Mackenzie

Orange juice with spoon of collagen

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Does drinking collagen actually do anything? We asked experts.

Dog sitting in nature in sunglasses

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Are you wearing the right sunglasses? How to prevent eye sunburn.

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

three colored bamboo toothbrushes in a ceramic glass on green background

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To rinse or not to rinse? You might be brushing your teeth wrong.

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

a person's hands typing on a laptop keyboard

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How do chatbots work?

By Popular Science Team

robot doctor talks to elderly person sitting in chair

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Will we ever be able to trust health advice from an AI?

By Keith Wagstaff

A person wearing running shorts holding their thigh on a beach, potentially wondering what happens when you pull a muscle, because they probably just did.

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Here’s what really happens when you pull a muscle

By Nicole Wetsman

engineers working on voyager 2

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How is Voyager’s vintage technology still flying?

By Popular Science Team

Magnetic tape and Blu-Ray Discs for data storage forming an infinity sign on a yellow background. Illustrated.

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Inside the search for the best way to save humanity’s data

By Charlotte Hu

Red and pink pill on yellow background with Swiss army knife coming out of it to symbolize off-label use of medications. Illustrated.

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Viagra and the abortion pill can treat multiple illnesses. But how?

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

An airplane taking off toward the camera at dusk, with lights along the runway and on the front of the plane, against a cloudy reddish sunset.

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Let’s talk about how planes fly

illustration of person at computer with devil horns and cloven hooves

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Does playing devil’s advocate do more harm than good?

By Julia Craven