Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
How do we forget?	[ "First let's look at how we remember things, then we'll work backwards.\n\nRemember in class when you were asked to make a \"brain storm\" where you would draw a circle and write something in it? Then as you came up with more ideas you'd draw more circles, and you would connect them with lines? Memories kind of wor...
Why is haggling something that just doesn't happen any more?	[ "Market efficiency in action.\n\nUsed to be if I wanted to buy something, I didn't have a lot of choices. There were no supermarkets or shopping malls, and I was pretty much stuck with wherever I was willing to walk to. If a seller was charging more than I wanted to pay, I couldn't just go somewhere else.\n\nLuck...
Why are computer and calculator number pads in the opposite order of phone keypads?	[ "The original calculator had a 1x9 column of number buttons for each digit, with 1 at the bottom and 9 at the top. To make an 8 digit calculator you had 8 \"5\" keys in a row.\n\nWhen calculator people figured you could use one \"5\" key if you did numbers in order with a \"0\" key, they folded the 1x9 up into a 3...
Why are autopsies almost always definitive? How come they can give answers when biopsies and other medical procedures can't?	[ "Sometimes, trying to cure a living person is like working on a car while it's still running. There are a lot of limits to what can be done without being too invasive. When the car is turned off (or the person is dead) you can delve endlessly into researching the engine, taking things apart and so on without being ...
Why do some people get incredibly grumpy when they are hungry?	[ "It could be an effect of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Take a look at this list of symptoms on the wiki page:\n\n_URL_0_", "While many factors contribute to this \"Hangryness\", it's believed that a large part of this aggression is caused by a droop in [serotonin levels.](_URL_1_) Serotonin is what is called a...
When was the 'first' Monday?	[ "As pointed out there is some vagary in your question, but I'm going to go with \"some time around the first century AD\". This is when the Romans started to switch from the 8 day week to 7 day a week, and moved from using simple letters to denote days of the week to using celestial bodies. This is when the secon...
What should an adult do if they are being assaulted by a minor?	[ "Flee or defend themselves.\n\nYou can defend yourself against anyone, minor or not.", "i read that he spit on your car etc etc.\n\nthe simple answer to your question is this:\nyou may only enter combat after all other options are exhausted. example: leaving, backing away, saying please dont assault me. and even ...
What makes the F-14 so loved and the F-35 so hated?	[ "F-14 takes you on a highway to the danger zone F-35 will not.", "The F-14 wasn't an important step in aviation history; it was just a very large, expensive jet that was very capable; it was to the Navy as the F-22 is to the USAF today.\n\nThe biggest difference though:\n\nThe F-14 came about during the Cold War;...
why do we feel energized after shower?	[ "Hot showers relaxes muscles and releases oxytocin -which eases stress-. Cold showers, on the other hand, put the brain on an alert state, thus \"waking\" or \"energizing\" -as you said- the body. \n\nI believe you refer to the latter.\n\nEDIT: As mentioned by u/Weaponomics, cold showers also stimulate blood flow."...
How does an Etch-a-sketch work?	[ "The inside of an etch-a-sketch is filled with a very fine powder that clings to the transparent screen at the front, the 2 knobs direct a small stylus to scrape the powder off of the screen, allowing you to draw. By shaking it, you redistribute the powder and fully coat the front of the screen again." ]
Who is the USA fighting and why?	[ "> I'm still confused on who we are fighting.\n\nYou're not the only one. I'd bet that a good 1/3rd of the people in the US Congress aren't clear on this question either.\n\nAs with many things, there's the theory and then there's the reality.\n\nIn theory...\n\nWe're only supposed to be actively fighting the peop...
Didn't we know there was water on Mars?	[ "The Martian \"ice\" caps are actually frozen CO2, not H2O. The Curiosity rover has found H2O on Mars." ]
Why couldn't artists 500+ years ago achieve the same level of detail as artists today?	[ "I heard it had a lot to do with the invention / discovery of the camera obscura.\n\nThis helped people understand perspective / proportions / etc better. \n\nHere's a quick article I found about it - but there are a ton of others, videos, books, etc that talk about it in more depth.\n\n_URL_0_", "What do you mea...
What makes some humans generally considered more attractive than others?	[ "It is just a tool of evolution. We are programmed to seek out optimal mates for reproducing, and we can dicern more than just physical attributes from looks. Just over 200 years ago, being obese to morbidly obese was considered very attractive, because it meant their family was wealthy and could afford to eat enou...
Can a piece of toilet paper absorb the same amount of water after a cycle of wet-dry-wet?	[ "Probably not. Toilet paper is designed to break up in water. I would expect the gaps in the fibers, the gaps that hold the water, would collapse as it soaks, leaving less volume for water retention after drying out." ]
What is the Safe Harbour agreement and how does today's ruling affect users of Facebook, etc?	[ "Put simply, Safe Harbour in this context relates to an agreement between the EU and the USA that US companies can store EU citizens' data in the USA. Although not exclusively aimed at internet companies, they are the ones most affected because they're most likely to have users worldwide but data processing exclus...
Why is it when I'm working on a programming problem, or something with numbers, when I get up and do something else away from the computer for awhile, it comes to much easier when I get back?	[ "I'm certainly no voice on the matter, but I'd venture to say in those cases that tunnel vision is the issue. Taking a breather if you're tunneling is usually the best way to stop tunneling and get back on track. Could be completely wrong though." ]
Marx's Theory of the Class Struggle	[ "Throughout history there have been two groups of people : the Haves and the Have-nots. Whether it be within feudalism or capitalism, these groups will always be in conflict because one group (capitalists) control the means of production while the other (proletariat) have to sell their labor to survive. This confli...
why can I sing reasonably well in my choirboy voice but horribly out of tune in my man voice.	[ "All I can think of is that singing in falsetto is utilizing another vocal cords than what causes the deep voice. Since they are muscles, maybe you have not trained your normal voice to sing, while the falsetto one has been chilling there, ready to sing. \n\nTrust me, I took singing lessons for 3 years." ]
why water completely damages a cell phone when submerged.	[ "Electronic circuits are designed to only allow electricity to pass through certain parts at certain times. That's how your phone works.\n\nIt's a set of boolean functions (1 or 0/true or false). Electricity passes through chip, and it makes a decision such as \"and/or\". If it's 'and', it sends the signal one w...
Why does coffee taste so differently after smoking?	[ "Here you can find some interesting points. To sum it up, a tobacco really can change the taste receptors\n\n_URL_0_" ]
How can people argue for mandatory drug testing to receive government benefits? Doesnt this violate the constitution through self incrimination? Doesnt testing for BAC when pulled over also do this?	[ "You are not legally entitled to most government benefits; you must be eligible. If not using illegal drugs is a condition for eligibility, then you can be required to prove that to obtain the benefits. That's not unconstitutional, because you're not being compelled to do anything--it is your choice to seek the ben...
the beef between G-Unit and Murder Inc.	[ "Basically Ja-Rule (murder inc.) and 50-Cent (G-Unit) took slight jabs at each other, Ja-Rule calling 50 jealous because of the respect Ja has in the hood. 50 and Ja then dissed each other in a couple of songs back to back thus causing each others' groups to beef. Eminem and 50 were real close friends and Eminem t...
why do computer hackers get a longer/harsher sentence than a murderer would?	[ "Because governments are afraid of hackers. Murderers only kill people. Hackers can kill banks, defense systems, nuclear plants, expose politician's dirty secrets etc.", "Also, I don't think I've ever seen a hacker put to death.", "First, note that this is commonly said but not always true. In Florida, for i...
Since China landed on the moon I've heard talk of helium-3 mining. What are the practical applications of helium-3 and why would we need to go to the Moon to get it?	[ "Helium-3 is used in fusion research, neutron detection, cryogenics, and medical imaging according to wikipedia. \n\nHelum-3 is one neutron short of being normal Helium-4. Helium-3 fusion is attractive for a few reasons. First, there are no radioactive byproducts. Also it can lead to direct electrical production ...
In regards to firearms	[ "A lot of differences between weapons are in areas that don't feature so much in games. For example the cost, the weight, the distribution of the weight, whether or not the ammo is the same as for other weapons, the weight of the ammo, how easy it is to take apart and clean, how often it requires cleaning, etc.\n\n...
The different .txt file encodings (ANSI vs Unicode vs Unicode big endian vs UTF-8)	[ "A text file is basically a series of bytes - numbers from 0 to 255 - and we want to interpret that as a series of characters. Let's start with a simple one-byte-per-character plan. Pretty much everyone agrees how to assign 0 to 127 to common characters like A-Z and 0-9, that's called ASCII. Various countries came ...
What would happen to a dead body in space?	[ "It would dry out over time as the liquid boils out of it and, if left in direct sun light long enough, could probably gets some nasty burns.", "They have these body farms where they check all sorts of cool things regarding decomp etc... I can't imagine why they haven't sent one up there yet, as well as put one a...
Why do only women wear makeup?	[ "For a variety of reasons, through history, due to biological, cultural, economic and other factors, beauty and sexuality became of larger emphasis for women than for men and so products were made to supposedly enhance one's beauty.\n\nMen however do wear makeup. Not as much but many men do." ]
How exactly does fat exit my body after a workout?	[ "Fat (triglyceride) is made up of Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon. When 'burned', the fat is combined with Oxygen from the atmosphere to create CO2, which you exhale. About 85% of the weight you lose is exhaled as CO2.\n\nThe remaining ~15% is turned into water, which you expel in your urine." ]
Why are 7 and 13 considered lucky and unlucky respectively?	[ "this is a cultural thing and if you travel to various parts of the world you'll find the same does not hold true for them. for instance, Chinese and Japanese consider 4 to be unlucky and not 13. The reason for that specifically, is because some of the pronunciations of 4 are similar or the same as their word for...
Is it even possible to change a U.S Supreme Court ruling?	[ "Is it possible to change the ruling? No. The ruling is a single event, in the past - it can't be changed.\n\nBut the decision can be overriden in a number of ways.\n\n1) Most common - lawmakers in Congress look at the Supreme Court ruling and figure out a way to do what they want to do without violating the Cons...
Why do individuals vomit after a concussion?	[ "Did you know that there is a part of the brain that controls vomitting? See: _URL_0_ \n\nWhen the brain encounters a physical shock, it is possible that this part of the brain becomes triggered. Once that happens, nausea may occur, which sometimes leads to vomitting. Because of the triggering, the brain might b...
What causes an apple to have more than 1 stalk?	[ "Photoshop or a bamboozler.\n\nYou're actually seeing the top and bottom of the Apple, it's basically an Apple with a growth problem. Op just added a stem to the butt." ]
Why isn't there dry human food with all the needed essentials like there is for pets?	[ "Because we don't want it. There is no demand for it and we prefer a varied diet.\n\nThere is [soylent](_URL_0_) which is a smoothie type thing which is essentially all you need to eat. It claims to have all the nutrients, fats, calories and whatnot a human needs to be able to survive on it alone. It exists, but it...
Why is my doctor visit almost double the price when I use my copay and bill it to my insurance?	[ "Insurance companies only pay a fraction of the billed price so it needs to be marked up." ]
Why do christians focus so much on the homosexuality part of leviticus but nothing else; i.e. shell fish, tattoos, not shaving...	[ "Christian here. The simple answer is because its an easy one to pick on and christians don't really understand the references to homosexuality that are made in the bible. (TLDR;) \n \nFirst of all, this is not an all encompassing truth. As with extremists of other topics, it is always the outspoken and somewhat ...
Why and how are surgical instruments so often left inside patients?	[ "This is not as frequent an occurrence as is usually made out to be. But it does happen once in a while when there is too much chaos in the OR or when there is a systematic failure in the steps taken.\n\nThere are many safety check employed to prevent such incidents.\n\nAll the instruments and pads that go into a s...
Why has the fasces symbol, which is often associated with fascism, been incorporated by so many official offices and institutions in the United States?	[ "You've got it backwards. The fasces was a symbol of power which the fascists adopted later, just like how the swastika was a symbols before it was adopted by the Nazis.\n\nIt was a symbol of government power going back to the Roman empire, and the founding fathers, who attempted to emulate Rome, adopted it themsel...
Prior to radios, satellite imagery, and other military technology, how did opposing armies locate eachother for battle?	[ "So, when you think of things like this, you're probably thinking of something like in the movies, where a few guys are moving through the woods or jungle or wherever and can hide their tracks.\n\nThat's not an army.\n\nAn army is thousands of people. A scout can find traces of 4,000 people walking somewhere -- e...
What is the feeling of semi-weakness people sometimes get when they are cold?	[ "At cold temperatures, oxygen is more tightly bound to the hemoglobin in blood and does not release as easily. This slower rate of release leads to a lower amount of oxygen available to your muscles, making contraction more difficult.\n\nAlso when we are cold, blood is conserved around our vital organs to ensure ou...
If Tupac is dead, who receives the royalties when someone listens to his music? And same for other deceased artists	[ "Tupac's estate was managed by his mother until she died a few years ago. Control of the estate then passed on to a a trustee that his mother appointed before her death. His mother and now the trustee was the beneficiary of all financial gains from his estate as well as empowered to make legal decisions regarding c...
[BIOLOGY] Why does it hurt when theres air passing through you? Flatulence meaning..	[ "Excessive gas literally causes your intestines to bloat and stretch. Most of the pain comes from the muscular contractions of your intestines trying to squeeze air instead of digested food which results in cramping pains. A good fart should make things feel better :)", "If it hurts to fart, you should probably s...
If attorneys have a monopoly on the practice of law, why are they so unwilling to help average citizens?	[ "If no one was injured (mentally, physically, or monetarily) then there is no case, so that means that you aren't looking to hire legal representation. No chance of pro bono or conditional work from the firm.\n\nWhat you were looking for in those cases was legal advice. Legal advice is never free from a law firm. I...
What determines a person's sexuality?	[ "The matter is heavily debated and there's no concise answer to it yet. \n\nGenetics is a promising possibility, but is confounded by the aforementioned factors involving twins and sexual mismatch. \n\nThere are a large number of interesting sex-related interactions that occur before and shortly after birth. For e...
Why drug treatment seems to be so popular in US for various psychological disorders ?	[ "Because it makes people money, and it's the answer people want to hear. Most people don't want to be told that dealing with certain problems is going to take an immense amount of work and time, that things are not going to immediately be better.\n\nOf course, there are a great deal of disorders than can only be ef...
How is the ratio between different currencies calculated?	[ "Short answer - the market.\n\nThe exchange rate is decided by people buying and selling currency. So the market thinks that 1 Euro is = to $1.25. Therefore that's what the rate is.", "It isn't exactly calculated, it just happens naturally (in most cases). If a U.S. dollar buys you a can of soda, and a euro buy...
When a meteorite strikes a planet and leaves a crater, why is there a big hole but no meteorite in it?	[ "When it hits the planet, there is so much energy it literally explodes. That's why there's a crater and nothing bigger than meteorite gravel left behind.\n\nThink about tossing a snowball at a wall.", "If you throw an egg at your wall, and it leaves a mess, why is there no egg in that mess?" ]
what the deal is with Hugo Chavez?	[ "I don't want to start a debate but Booyahhayoob's little recounting leaves rather a lot to be desired. While this isn't comprehensive, here are a few of the major issues that have occurred with the Chavez regime:\n\n1) Food shortages. In 2003, Chavez imposed price controls on food. As is predictable by basic ec...
Why is what's going on in Ukraine right now not already considered war?	[ "It's not a war because Russia hasn't formally declared war on the entire country and has only moved units into the eastern portion currently being contested. If they insert unmarked units there, it's not war because they still officially deny that the units are theirs, meaning that they're supporting the rebels by...
"It is the sense of being watched that constrains social action" (Mirzoeff 1999, 2009:45).	[ "What do you not understand/need help elaborating on?\n\nThere are a number of social psychology experiments you could reference here. There's also an entire literature on whether lab experimentation is generalizable to the population, given the influence of the lab itself- ie. people likely act differently when th...
Who is the USA so in debt to?	[ "This article explains it:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nMost of the debt is owned by a domestic organization called \"social security\". I'm assuming you Americans know what that is. Some sort of social safety net provider?\n\nAnyway bottom line is US debt is denominated in USD and the federal reserve can print unlimited quantiti...
Why do NCAA basketball rules differ so much from NBA rules? E.g., different 3pt distance, different free throw rules, different time format	[ "The NCAA is unofficially a minor league player development system for the NBA, but the people running it, don't work for the NBA, and don't particularly care about developing NBA Talent. There's a degree of inertia here, in that college basketball has been around a really long time(longer than the NBA) with their ...
Why do man made satellites, such as the ISS, appear bright like stars when they pass overhead even though they have no signifigant light source?	[ "If you ever look at the ISS sighting times for your city, you will notice they are always early morning or late evening - never the middle of the night. This is because the sky has to be dark to see it, but the spacecraft must still be in view of the sun to reflect its light.\n\nWhen you watch the ISS go by what o...
Can black holes bend light from planets so we are actually seeing them in the wrong place?	[ "This is an occurrence known as gravitational lensing and isn't specific to black holes, but any object with significant mass. Objects whose light is bent do then appear in the \"wrong\" place. We can even see objects (stars, galaxies) that would've been otherwise obstructed (blocked) from vision if lensing didn't...
Why does tomato ketchup taste nothing like tomatoes	[ "Ketchup contains a lot of sugar and vinegar, both of which will mask the flavor of a tomato, not to mention also mask the flavor of the food you use it on. There's usually plenty of sodium in ketchup as well, which will overwhelm your tastebuds, hiding the tomato flavor even further.", "At least Finland has \"na...
Why do organized crime groups(especially well-known ones, such as Mafias etc.) still exist and thrive? Why are they not being taken down?	[ "They are being taken down, these groups are far less prevalent and forward than they used to be.\n\nThat being said, in order to take one down law enforcement has to nab the leadership and charge them with a crime that will stick them behind bars for years--decades ideally. That is very hard since the brains of th...
Why is the current generation waiting for the baby boomers to die out?	[ "They're the ones running the world. They have all the jobs, all the money, run all the businesses & control the government. The younger generations, even into their 30s and 40s, are left with a world run by their parents that they can't change." ]
Why don't highlighter colors exist on anything digital?	[ "Highlighter colors are a type of [blacklight-reactive ink](_URL_0_). They reflect light like normal, but they also absorb ultraviolet light and re-remit it at a visible wavelength. That means that the ink appears brighter than it should given the level of ambient light, making it look like it's glowing.\n\nCom...
Germans eat raw pork, almost nobody gets sick	[ "I believe that prosciutto is also raw pork that has been carefully prepared and aged. In the case of Mett,\n\n > Unless pre-packaged, the German Hackfleischverordnung (\"minced meat directive\") permits mett to be sold only on the day of production.\n\nThat is likely to keep it safe to eat, and it may be subject ...
Zeitgest	[ "Spirit of the times. A zeitgeist is a collection of generalizations regarding a specific era of time and place so we can intelligently speak about different sociological trends. For example, the zeitgeist of post-9-11 was very patriotic and fearful, so that affected many of our laws, foreign policy, and how indi...
My brother just came in and took me to say silk 5 times and spell it. Then he asked me what do cows drink and I responded "milk" even though it is water. Why did I say this?	[ "In addition to what /r/katembers says, you're not actually wrong.\n\nCalves drink milk.\n\nCalves are baby cows.\n\nTherefore cows drink milk.\n\nSo feel free to go right back in there, whack your dumb brother on the side of his fool head, and pronounce this truth to demonstrate your accuracy.", "silk silk silk ...
Russia's political system and it's democratic system.	[ "In some ways Russia has a good democracy. The president is limited to two sequential terms (although the president can run again after a break). Theoretically there are three branches of power (judicial, executive, and the duma), and the constitution gives the right for multiple parties to operate.\n\nIn reality, ...
Why metal is forbidden from the microwave.	[ "Not really an expert on this, but basically the way microwaves work is they send a lot of microwaves (duh) across the heating chamber. This makes the particles of items inside move a lot faster and therefore raise the temperature of the item. This works fine for foods etc, but for metals accelerating the particles...
How does a hose work with an attachment? How does it not explode off? Does the water pressure stop?	[ "> Does the water pressure stop?\n\nPressure is static, it doesn't change. When allowed the escape the water will constantly flow out but when stopped it doesn't continually build up. Normal water pressure is about 40-45 psi.", "the same reason your house doesn’t explode when you turn off the sink. there’s water...
How much saliva does a human produce each day, and what is it made out of?	[ "Daily salivary output. There is much debate about the amount of saliva that is produced in a healthy person perday; estimates range from 0.75 to 1.5 litres per day while it is generally accepted that during sleep the amount drops to nearly zero.\n\nHuman saliva comprises 99.5% mostly water, plus electrolytes, mucu...
Can someone explain the fall of the Soviet Union (like I am five)?	[ "Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, after almost two decades in power as the General Secretary of the Communist Party (de facto leader of the USSR). He was senile and barely functioned in his last years.\n\nWith his death, an era ended in Soviet history that later came to be called zastoy, or \"stagnation\". It was a ...
What is the true purpose of "Tag a friend who ..." spam-posts on facebook?	[ "Generating range, e.g., exposure. Getting a brands' name 'out there'. Every view, every click, every page loaded is, at its base level, an interaction with a brand, or product and a potential customer. \nAny page, be it a standalone website, a facebook page, a blog or whatever kind of means a company decides to u...
Why is pressure measured in inches?	[ "It's measured in inches of mercury (inHg). \n\nPressure used to be measured compared to how much pressure an inch of mercury in a glass column exerted. Or the other way round, how much a certain pressure moved the mercury. Simply, you have a container of mercury with a tube standing in it. Air pressure pressing ...
Why don't game AIs use self-learning behavior like they do with robotics simulations?	[ "Genetic algorithms (not Markov chains) are not without their problems, but I think you fundamentally miss the point of game AI here. It's not supposed to be good at it's job. It's supposed to be believable. You want the guards to act like real human guards, for example. I can tell you pretty categorically that...
Do really small creatures have self-awareness?	[ "Awareness is an emergent property of the complexity of our brain. Only brains that are able to reach a certain level of complexity are able to create awareness. Only in a couple of species awareness has been proven, and all in a limited way when compared to humans. \n\nIn some way, the behavior of insects is more ...
The ridiculously high and growing suicide rate in Japan.	[ "Suicide rates among males have always been high in Japan. \n\nThe culture praises both a collectivist mentality to supporting the group, plus a strong sense of personal honor. When a man supposes that his utility to the group is less than his contribution (due to age, infirmary, failure or circumstances beyond his...
Why doesn’t stereo volume stop at a point before distortion occurs in stock speakers? Conversely, why don’t stock speakers hold up to the capability of their stereo counterparts?	[ "Manufacturers often make more variety of speaker than head unit, so low quality speakers are often paired with more powerful head units. They want to keep the overall system inexpensive, but they're not able to get a cheaper head unit.", "Another thing to add to the great explanations so far is that most receive...
Why do my eyes water when I do a really satisfying wee?	[ "A great piss can beat an ejaculation in my honest opinion. You know that piss that you have been holding onto since breaking the piss seal 56 minutes earlier at the train station. And in that 56 minutes those last minute traveller beers have mutated into an agonising need to evacuate your bladder only exacerbated ...
Why do we sneeze sometimes as a response to pain?	[ "The nerves in your face are very close together and sometimes a signal on one can cause an adjacent one to fire. \n\nSame reason some people sneeze in bright light." ]
Dimples on a golf ball, how do they work?	[ "When a fluid (such as air) flows around an spherical object like a ping pong ball, it creates a lot of drag. This is due to a boundary layer of slower moving air really close to the surface of the ball. A ping pong ball will have have a smooth boundary layer. Eventually this layer seperates from the ball. A smooth...
pointers in C or C++ and how to use them successfully	[ "A pointer is a package of ( if you want to think about it in the most technical way ) a 4/8 byte integer (depends on if you compile a 32bit or 64bit binary) with some address in the memory of the system, and a size. The size specifies how large in bytes the thing it points to is, or the size in bytes of each eleme...
Why does video compression make red so pixelated?	[ "This can be an effect of \"Chroma subsampling\": _URL_0_\n\nIn ELI5, more compression is done to the color parts of images/video than to the black-and-white parts of it. This saves a lot of space but is not _that_ noticable to us usually." ]
Why is Republican leadership voting to approve Obama's budget?	[ "There are several parts to the Bipartisan Budget Agreement. \n\n* It eases spending caps for FY 2016 and FY 2017. That includes defense spending which is huge for defense hawk Republicans. \n\n* It takes the possibility of going beyond the debt limit/extraordinary measures off the table which provides stability in...
Can ice get old? If so, how long does it take and what happens to it?	[ "Ummm glaciers? Pretty sure those are like upwards of 100000+ years old and are still palatable", "They don't \"expire\", but they can evaporate. If you ever have really old ice in the freezer you'll notice it gets smaller through the months. The top layers of the ice slowly evaporates. Literally little bits of H...
Why are there "runts" of, for instance, a litter of puppies?	[ "They were just born smaller then the rest, and when it comes to feeding time they get pushed to the side by the bigger puppies. Why it happens is just genetics, they got the short straw and ended up a little smaller, aka they are the Runt of the litter.", "In any group of 5 individuals, one is going to be the sm...
Why is it commonly assumed that water is a prerequisite for (extraterrestrial) life?	[ "Basically, we haven't seen any exceptions to the rule \"life needs water,\" so we aren't making any guesses about what kinds of \"other life\" might arise.\n\nTo put it another way, it's totally possible that there are rock monsters living on some far-off planet that don't need water and don't look like any other ...
How does Flonase work?	[ "Flonase is fluticasone, a corticosteroid. Basically it's a synthetic derivative from a class of chemical naturally occurring in your body which function to regulate immune response, among other things. When you have a stuffy nose due to allergies is because your immune system is over-reacting to the allergen. Flut...
When did Westward expatiation put an end to the "Wild West"?	[ "The U.S. census officially declared the western frontier to be closed in 1890. Thus, the year 1890 is traditionally considered to mark the end of the \"Wild West\"." ]
Why aren't there any well known businesses that existed before the industrial era?	[ "[There are a few](_URL_0_), but most companies from that era just didn't last into the modern age.\n\nA few breweries and textile operations have been around for hundreds of years, but all the plague doctors and sail-riggers are out of business.", "before industrial era, companies didn't go big. they were in o...
when I go to delete or move a file open in another program why doesn't Windows tell me which program I should close?	[ "Because it's simply not the default behaviour of the OS. The phrase you're looking for is \"which process has a handle to this file\" - there are a number of utilities, such as Process Explorer by Sysinternals, that can illuminate handles for you", "On Mac OS X, it tells you which program is using the file in qu...
Why do some people call muslims moslems?	[ "I think it's just a language thing. That first syllable in \"Muslim\" is a sound that you won't really find in the English language. Some say Moslem, some say Mooslim, when it's really right down the middle. Muslim.\n\nSource: Brown person who speaks brown person languages that contains sounds problematic for Engl...
How does an Anti Virus know whats a Virus and what isnt?	[ "It typically has two layers of defense.\n\nThe first is the actual signature database. It's a bunch of \"wanted\" posters, a catalogue of known malware.\n\nThe second layer is searching for suspicious activity. Executables that run themselves automatically, request access to key systems and otherwise do shady st...
Does the numerical order of dimensions matter? Does time need to be, explicitly, the 4th dimension?	[ "Not really. The first three, length, width, and depth were accepted as \"dimensions\" after René Descartes described how to find something's location. But as theoretical mathematics provided new things that counted as \"dimensions,\" they just tacked it onto the list.", "They're a coordinate system. If you all a...
Why does Obamacare get so much bad press?	[ "The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is not the same thing as universal healthcare. It has a lot of issues, but it has also solved a lot of problems. There is definitely room for reform, but I don't condemn it, nor do I think all liberals feel one way or the other on it.", "Obamacare is not universal healthca...
Steganography	[ "You can hide any data in an image file. Of course, the amount of data you can hide is limited. At some point, you will visibly affect the image file, so the data won't be \"hidden\" any more. \n \nBut if you hid a virus or other malicious code, I don't see how you could get it to execute. (Unless someone extra...
Why do race cars omit airbags in their cars?	[ "The purpose of an airbag is to keep your head from slamming against the dashboard and causing an injury. It is necessary because the seatbelts we use do not fully prevent your body from flailing about.\n\nRace car drivers are fully secured with a system of harnesses and don't move as violently during an accident. ...
Why is identifying as another gender ok but identifying as another race crazy?	[ "Duplicate of other posts\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_3_" ]
What is International Monetary Fund ? What are their objectives ?	[ "Since the early 70's the IMF has existed as a bank of last resort for troubled economies. \n\nA hallmark of dysfunctional countries is that they develop foreign borrowing based economies, which means that in order to function those countries need to continue borrowing money from foreigners to help finance a gover...
Why do some dogs not eat over their bowl?	[ "It has to do with the \"fitness\" of the dog. i.e., an alpha dog would not do this. This is because in the wild, the stronger dog will have taken a bigger part in the hunting of the food, simultaneously less threatened overall, while the less fit dogs in the pack will likely obtain the \"scraps\" of meat and retre...
Stem Cells. What they are and the controversy about them?	[ "This has been asked many times, but I think having someone actually answer you personally causes you to get more out of the response. \n\nOverview of DNA/RNA: Every cell in your body (not including your sperm or egg) have the same DNA. DNA is like a giant (and I mean giant) library. Individual units of DNA are cal...
Why is it some people have huge bulging veins on their arms and others can never achieve that even working out their forearms.	[ "it has almost nothing to do with musculature and everything to do with bodyfat. if you have fat covering your veins, you'll never see them. the people you're observing are almost definitely leaner than you are.\n\nof course, it's not a hard and fast rule and some lean people won't be very vascular, but it applies ...
How high and far could you jump on Pluto?	[ "Gravity on Pluto is about 1/15 of gravity on Earth, or about half of the Moon's gravity. If we assume you can put the same energy into your jump as you can on Earth, you'll leave the ground at the same speed and jump 15 times higher than you can on Earth. You're also in the air for 15 times longer, so if you also ...
What would really happen if everyone tried to empty their bank accounts all at once?	[ "It's called a bank run. Without intervention from a central government or reserve bank, the bank will go bust, and most people will lose their money. \n\nMost countries use a system called fractional reserve banking. Under this system banks only have to hold a fraction of their deposits in reserve, say for example...
Why was/is there no special prosecutor for the top secret emails or Flynn unmasking or Clinton foundation?	[ "There have been no credible issues with the Clinton Foundation. It's routinely one of the top rated charities in the world and publishes audited financial statements. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_", "One article I read stated that a key reason the Deputy GA decided to appoint the Special Counsel was because Sessions wa...

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