Daily Wicki

foXnoMad Why You Shouldn’t Unclog Your Ears By Holding Your Nose And Blowing One sensation most of us who have flown are familiar with is having our ears pop upon takeoff, leading to discomfort when we return to the ground. A common way to “unclog” your ears is to hold your nose closed then breath hard. Although it’s often an effective way of equalizing the  air  pressure in your ears with the surrounding environment, there’s a very good reason why you should avoid doing it altogether. Why Your Ears Pop In The First Place Inside your middle ear down toward your throat is the Eustachian (or pharyngotympanic) tube. The  Eustachian tube  is normally closed off but it has a little pocket of air inside, which is usually equal to the surrounding pressure. Even though airplane cabins are pressurized, on most commercial aircraft the pressure is equivalent to roughly 2,100 meters (~6,900 feet) above sea level. The higher up you are the lower the air pressure an...

Unconventional oil Unconventional oil is petroleum produced or extracted using techniques other than the conventional ( oil well ) method. Oil industries and governments across the globe are investing in unconventional oil sources due to the increasing scarcity of conventional oil reserves . Sources of unconventional oil According to the International Energy Agency 's (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2001 [1] unconventional oil included " oil shales , oil sands -based synthetic crudes and derivative products, ( heavy oil , Orimulsion®), coal-based liquid supplies , biomass-based liquid supplies , gas to liquid (GTL) - liquids arising from chemical processing of gas." [2] In the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2011 report, "[u]nconventional oil include[d] extra-heavy oil , natural bitumen (oil sands), kerogen oil , liquids and gases arising from chemical processing of natural gas (GTL), coal-to-liquids (CTL) and additives." [3] Defining unconventional...