The Questions

These are questions from an evening brainstorming session that seem to have no answers - at least none my husband and I could come up with, without getting off the sofa and doing any actual research.

1. People who live at high altitudes often have larger than average hearts and lungs. Why are these disadvantageous to living at lower altitudes?
2. Can nearsightedness be reversed by doing eye exercises, and if so how does it work? How can one prevent the development of myopia in the first place?
3. Why do women in Africa perpetuate female genital mutilation? They know first-hand how awful it is, yet they don't stop it, and in fact are responsible for continuing it.
4. Why is Harry Potter such a success?
5. Why do street lights wink out just as you pass under them?
6. How come it doesn't itch when you shave your legs, but it does itch when you shave some other parts of your body (that's as much as I'm going to say about that one)?
7. Are single mothers more likely to have daughters, because somehow their bodies "know" they are in a difficult position and that a daughter is slightly more likely to thrive than a son, so they favor the implantation of eggs fertilized by X-chromosome sperm?
8. Why are some people unable to accept animals' awareness of the world, to the point of denying that animals can even suffer or appreciate better conditions?
9. Why do people prefer political leaders who subscribe to belief in a higher supernatural power?
10. Why do women accept - even embrace - sexist and unfair codes of conduct in some societies? 11. Why do people feel attracted to the people that they do?
12. Is it true that UV radiation is worse on cloudy days, and if so, why?
13. Why are women more often cold than men, even though they have a higher percentage of body fat? Is the fat in "strategic" locations that do not efficiently insulate? Are manly muscles better at insulating or producing heat than fat? Do men burn more calories/kg?
14. Why are some doctors/nurses so mean to women who want a natural birth?
15. Is eye color regulated by more genes than skin color?
16. Why does acne persist beyond the teenage years? and why isn't it selected against so vigorously - acne-affected individuals failing to get dates or reproduce - that it would disappear?
17. Is there a universal standard of beauty?
18. Is Larry Summers right?
19. Why does labor have to hurt so much and be so risky? Why do some fetuses develop heads that are bigger than their mothers' pelvic openings (when before the advent of C-sections, they would have automatically died, and their mothers too)?
20. Is olive oil actively good for you, or just not as bad as other oils?
21. Are low light levels bad for your eyes, and if so why?
22. Why do some women get urinary tract infections and others never do?
23. Where do guys like Tony Cox get their motivation? (he's a vet who vigorously defends big corporations that use antibiotics routinely as growth promoters in animals, thus compromising the effectiveness of medical antibiotics in humans) Does he really believe use of antibiotics is necessary for farming to be profitable? Is he just prostituting his morals for money? Does he secretly know he's wrong but he's repressed that knowledge?
24. Why don't men want to have children? It's easy for them - and risky and resource-intensive for women - yet women are usually the ones pushing to have babies.
25. Why do women get emotional/social benefits from marriage and men don't (or don't think they do)?
26. If a child of British and American parents can have dual citizenship, and a child of Swedish and French parents can have dual citizenship, and those individuals marry, can their children have quadruple citizenship? Does it ever end, or can people collect citizenships without limit?
27. Why do I always get hiccups on Sunday nights?
28. How do you keep someone loving you forever?