user810: I occasionally get asked some interesting questions, e.g.: 

why do stars go away when you look at them, 
why do men have nipples, 
why can't we make a smell-o-phone, 

etc. 
They seem silly and (from a scientist's perspective) pretty easy. But I'm tempted to ask them here just to see what kind of explanations people come up with for lay-people. Is this within our scope? 

user239: IMO, "why do men have nipples" would make an excellent question for this site.  Yes, it's kind of basic, but still a straightforward biological question, and also the kind of thing people may search for.
I could see "why can't we make a smell-o-phone" perhaps working too, though I think it might be best if the question itself were written in more biological terms.  Same for "why do stars go away when you look at them" — I might have suggested asking that particular question at astronomy.SE instead, but they'll be closed down in a few days. :-(

810: <p>I occasionally get asked some interesting questions, e.g.: </p>

<ol>
<li>why do stars go away when you look at them, </li>
<li>why do men have nipples, </li>
<li>why can't we make a smell-o-phone, </li>
</ol>

<p>etc. </p>

<p>They seem silly and (from a scientist's perspective) pretty easy. But I'm tempted to ask them here just to see what kind of explanations people come up with for lay-people. Is this within our scope? </p>
 239: <p>IMO, "why do men have nipples" would make an excellent question for this site.  Yes, it's kind of basic, but still a straightforward biological question, and also the kind of thing people may search for.</p>

<p>I could see "why can't we make a smell-o-phone" perhaps working too, though I think it might be best if the question itself were written in more biological terms.  Same for "why do stars go away when you look at them" &mdash; I might have suggested asking that particular question at <a href="https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/">astronomy.SE</a> instead, but <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/04/when-a-site-grows-quiet/">they'll be closed down in a few days</a>. :-(</p>
