• From why you can't eat metal to how optical illusions work, we answer some of your most
burning questions about life!
• Hey there, my name is Melissa, I'll be reading out the questions and answers
• I'm Danger Dolan and I'm here to blow your mind with truth
10 – njihtgnalfeel asks, Why are trees green?
, • The only reason why trees are green is
because plants are stealing the green out of the ground!
That's why dirt is all brown and not green.
Anything that touches the ground is fair game: like fallen leaves, fruit, your pocket money,
and even your little siblings.
• They're green because of the chloroplasts inside the plant's cells.
A chemical called chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light, reflecting green, to generate
energy for the plant.
Plants that lose their leaves in fall, break down their chlorophyll for energy, which is
why they turn other colours. 9 – TheNeonLynx AJ asks, What is lava made
of?
, • Hate – volcanoes are giant frothing
pools of heat formed because someone ate all the cake without sharing, or from people who
don’t wipe their shoes before entering your house, I mean what are you doing?
The floors filthy now, I literally just cleaned it, how could you do this TO ME!?
• Lava starts out underground as a combination of molten and semi-molten rock.
It begins to cool and more parts solidify into volcanic glass and crystals as it reaches
the surface.
Chemically, it's mostly made of oxygen, silicon, some aluminium and iron, and a few others.
• I’m feeling hot, hot, hot…
hey Melissa, how’s it going?
• * • Oh yeah that’s right…
I killed her, derp 8 – pitbuls are good asks, Why can't I eat
metal?
, • Because you need to start with sandpaper
first, once your stomach grows accustomed to the texture, you can move up to bricks,
then iron and finally metal – and then if you’re really feeling up to it, go ahead
and eat some heavy metal • The acid in your stomach can break down
metal.
Stomach acid is made of potassium chloride, sodium chloride, and hydrochloric acid, and
is almost as strong as battery acid.
Too much metal in your system can be harmful though, so best not to eat that coin collection.
7 – CMac asks, How much data, in bytes, can the human brain store?
, • The standard brain can hold a whopping
FIVE kilobytes!
It’s enough to store 2 text files with a few things written on them OR less than a
second of a super low quality song – in fact, check out this song I’ve had in my
head for days: * • The human brain is the most complex structure
in the known universe, with each neuron making about 1000 connections to other neurons.
The average human mind can hold about 2.5 petabytes, in other words, 2.5 million gigabytes.
That's like three million hours of movies!
6 – Potato Cat asks, What was the first cartoon ever made?
, • The first ever cartoon was Super Planet
Dolan.
See, these episodes were actually made thousands of years ago, but it's taken this long for
them to reach Earth.
But no worries, we're working on a way to shorten the delay.
• The first animation shown in public was Pauvre Pierrot, Poor Pete, was created in
October 1892.
However, most historians cite the 1908 film Fantasmagorie as the first cartoon because
of its hand-drawn animation and style.
5 – Neon Synergy asks, Why do we have allergies?
, • Because sneezing is awesome.
I love the feeling that you get right before a sneeze and, oh man, the feeling of snot
on my face?
Delicious.
Best part is the eye-popping party trick – hey guys check this out, achoo, AAAAAH…
I’m just joking • Scientists aren't 100% sure why people
have allergies.
Due to how the body reacts, they think it's the immune system overreacting.
However, new studies have suggested that it might actually be our body's way of protecting
us from toxins in the environment.
• (sneezes) • Eww!
• *sniff* Yeah you don’t have to offer me a tissue or anything…
I’ll deal with it 4 – Taylor A Eh of PATREON asks, How do
optical illusions work?
, • They don’t work – they’re just regular
images that are broken jpgs in real life, but don’t worry, there’s an update going
out that should fix it, as well as add save states so that if you break an arm or something
you can just load up your last save game so that you don’t have to waste time in hospital
• Optical illusions use colour, light, and patterns to make images that trick our brains.
Because of the way our brains process information, these tricky patterns get processed one way
and create a mental version of the image that doesn't match what we see.
3 – Can crop circles be square?
, • It depends on whether the alien who created
it used Photoshop or Microsoft Paint – in Photoshop it’s easy to crop fields into
whatever shape you need, but in Paint it’s, well, slightly more difficult
• Yes, there are catalogued crop circles of almost every shape and design imaginable.
There's square ones, triangular, L-shaped, and even one that looks like a sideways question
mark.
2 – Chloe Tackett asks, Why do we have money?
, • Because if we didn’t, we couldn’t
buy milk from the store – we’d have to milk the cow ourselves.
Do you feel like milking thousands of cows just so you can make coffee, with beans you’ve
picked and grinded yourself in cups made of dry leaves only held together with your own
sweat?
Because if so, can you make me some too?
• Before the idea of money, there was bartering but it could be difficult to find someone
who wanted to trade.
Money in the form of Anatolian obsidian, emerged as early as 12 K BC as a way to make trade
easier.
A man could sell his cow at one vendor and buy grain from another, without worrying if
the grain guy wanted his cow.
• Dolan, I think there was something wrong with your coffee (achoo!)
• Ech!
• Oh I’m sorry…
did you want some?
1 – Jessica Badea asks, How do people know if history is true or not?
• A canine translator was hired to go and help out the historians that went to talk
to the oldest dog on Earth.
Since he's been around for millions of years, he's seen it all and has the true history
of the world.
Did you know that there was once Emu-flavoured dog food?
Isn’t that crazy?
That’s crazy – also reality is just a computer program, but the Emu thing really
blew me away • “The winners write the story” is going
to be the most common case with historical accounts, but that's why history is a combination
of many, many stories.
It's a complex network of truths, bias, and hopes.
Even if the history isn't 100% accurate, it still tells us a lot about a society's beliefs
and dreams.
So, in truth, we can never know for complete certainty.
Outro So, how about it?
Do you have any burning questions about life and the universe that you’d like us to answer
in a future video?
Go ahead and ask it in the comment box below