Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
What's the difference between an Artifact and a Relic?	[ "In Christianity, a relic is a bone or other body part of a saint, sometimes extended to include related items like pieces of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Other ancient objects are referred to as \"relics\" by analogy, but the word tends to imply religious significance. Any man-made item from history can...
is there a certain amount of bandwidth available? Why is there a cap on gigs from Cell phone service? And why does the internet slow down?	[ "There is a limitation on the bandwidth available. It's usually referred to as capacity. The hardware that a company has deployed can only handle so much traffic at once. Anymore and it will usually slow everything down for everyone or result in quality issues.\n\nThe cap and slowing down the internet are traffic m...
How high up do you have to be above water for it to be fatal when you hit the surface?	[ "Just on a side note: Do we have to worry about you asking such a question?", "It depends what cause of death you're looking for, impact or drowning.\n\n From the Golden Gate Bridge wikipedia article:\n\n > The Golden Gate Bridge is the second-most used suicide site/suicide bridge in the world, after the Nanjing ...
How does Jesus's death allow all humans who worship Jesus to be forgiven from their sins?	[ "In the Jewish tradition, animals were sacrificed for sins but only temporarily. Every year they were supposed to go to the temple in Jerusalem and do this. They were waiting (and still are) for a messiah to come to take their sins away permanently. They don't believe Jesus was the messiah for lots of reasons but t...
Why is pornography not illegal like prostitution is, considering everyone involved is doing it for the money?	[ "Because...well because.\n\nLong answer, I think that the rationale is that, for pornography, you're paying two people to have sex with each other, and no one is exchanging money in return for an orgasm provided by the other party. I think there's also some expectation that the parties involved are only playing a ...
What are the relationships called between incestually related family members? If a father has a son with his daughter through incest, would that child be considered the son and brother of the daughter? Would it be the grandson and son of the father? What is the single technical term for this?	[ "The single technical term for this would be 'Fucked Up'", "In human genetics it is known as a consanguineous relationship." ]
How does the are corrosive acids and digestive enzymes produced without destroying the glands that produce them?	[ "Your organs release enzymes in an inactive form and when the enzyme reaches its destination it becomes activated. \n\nThe proteases(things that break proteins) and phospholipases(things that break phospholipids) are secreted by the pancreas in inactive forms ( for example, trypsinogen) and are activated once the e...
function that yawns serve?	[ "If you breathe in irregular patterns, you'll end up yawning. Kind of like a reset to get you breathing properly again, as well as giving you more oxygen etc.\n\nAnd for some reason, they're contagious. If you see someone, or even think about yawning, you'll most likely yawn too, just like I did while talking about...
I'm making hot dogs in the microwave. The packaging says "1 hot dog is 30 sec but 2 or more are a minute and 10 sec" Why do I have to increase time when making more than one? Won't they cook the same for the time of 1 hot dog?	[ "Your microwave oven outputs microwaves (pretty self-explanatory), for regular cooking (not defrost or simar functions), the microwave oven outputs a fixed rate of microwaves. Since there is a fixed amount, more things to cook means less microwaves for each. \n \nThink of it like putting a splitter on a garden ho...
Homophobia in Russia	[ "As other commenters said, religious thing is more important than you might think. One more fact to consider is, in USSR homosexuality was illegal. But also there's a fact that \"russian anti-gay laws\" is for large part is an anti-russian propaganda. There's currently no law against being gay. There's a law agains...
Why are siblings not sexually attracted to each other?	[ "There's probably a lot of elements to it, genes and immune systems definitely play are part. Take for example the article below which suggests a 'survey of couples suggests people are more attracted to those who have very different immunity genes from their own'. So, as relatives would have similar immunity genes,...
what are the pros and cons for fasting for a whole month the way Muslims fast to the human body?	[ "Just to ensure we are all on the same page: muslims only don't eat or drink during the daylight hours of Ramadan. They are free to do whatever after that.", "I tried intermittent fasting as a diet. 16 hours of 0 calories, and then usually about 3000 calories spread over 8 hours.\n\nPros: I lost 60 lbs! I had ...
Who creates computer viruses and why do they do it?	[ "Programmers do, and for a variety of reasons. You can sell peoples personal information for a decent amount, or steal their bank account number, or turn their computer into a proxy for attacking something else.", "One reason is to create slave farms for ddos attacks. Ddos is the equivalent to attempting to over...
Why do we yawn, and what does it do to our bodies?	[ "The reason why we yawn hasn't been proven yet, but there are some speculative answers:\n\n* We yawn because we are bored/tired and this causes us to not take in as much breath as we normally do. So we yawn to help bring more oxygen in and take out carbon dioxide.\n\n* Another theory is that we our brain gets hot a...
Why does the hot water out of the tap look cloudy?	[ "Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why does hot water out of the tap look cloudy. ](_URL_4_)\n1. [ELI5: Why is hot water from the tap always cloudy? ](_URL_3_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does hot water come out white/cloudy from the tap but when I boil cold water it is transparent? ...
Why isn't distillation of ocean/sea water a viable option for drinking water supply?	[ "most desalination plants work by forcing see water through a series of membranes (filters) under great pressure. This pressure takes a lot of power, and power is expensive. The cost makes it nonviable for most countries. \n\nThere is a Noble Prize for the person who comes up with a cheap way to make sea water drin...
What would happen to the world economy if every country switched to the same currency?	[ "Immidiate financial meltdown, as variations in currency value (and countries revaluing--by printing more/less money, changing interest and lending rates--their currency relative to the currency of another country) is one of the major ways countries use to prevent economic depression from one country spread to anot...
We are all on the same international time, but does time flow differently for each one of us?	[ "There are circumstances where time flows are different rates between different frames of reference. This is referred to as time dilation. This occurs when the differing frames of reference are moving at a high velocity relative to one another, or in differing gravitational fields.\n\nFor pretty much all humans, ou...
Why do viruses undergo evolution way faster than humans?	[ "Speed of evolution is linked to how quickly an organism reproduces. Viruses reproduce literally millions of times faster than humans; so quickly that we can observe their evolution.", "They don't really evolve \"faster\" it just seems that way for three reasons:\n\n1.) They're simpler. Imagine you had a l...
Why do some shirts look more translucent, sometimes even transparent, when they get wet?	[ "If something is uneven then it will bend and reflect light in different direction. If it is smooth the light will pass the object in the same direction. Water will fill uneven part and smooth the object.\n\nYou can compare it to scratched and unscratched plastic. The amount of light that passes trough is the same ...
Why do belly buttons never heal or disappear like most other scars we get on our body?	[ "They already have healed. It isn't that different from most scars where something is cut off. If your arm cut off, the end of the stump would heal in a way that vaguely resembles a belly button. It matters how deep the cut is. If it's just on the most surface layers of the skin, you won't even notice a scar. The m...
What are warts and where do they come from?	[ "Warts are caused by HPV. It's a viral infection. Warts can be contagious under the right conditions.", "Wow! In looking at the [Wikipedia page on warts](_URL_0_), it appears that using a placebo is nearly as effective as using the usual medical treatment (salicylic acid): 48% were cured with the placebo, 75% wi...
Why do engines have a harder time starting when they are cold?	[ "Northern Canada checking in.\n\nTo go along with what the rest are saying regarding fuel, two big factors that resist an easy start are the thickness of the engine oil and the tightness of the sealing surfaces. \n\nWhen very cold (I'm talking -30 or -40) the oil is incredibly thick and provides a lot of resistanc...
How does wind happen and what determines gusts and various speeds in different geographical locations?	[ "Wind happens because of differences in atmospheric pressure - things seek to equalize themselves so that air from high pressure area tries to flow to low pressure areas to equalize things. \n\nAir moves all the time, e.g., due to temperature differences and the rising of warmer air. The earth's rotation also cause...
The horizon is where the curvature of the earth obsructs your view of the ground. If the Earth was flat what would the horizon look like?	[ "Probably not all that different to be honest, because aerial or [atmospheric perspective](_URL_0_) would kick in, which is the effect you get when you see distant bluish mountains fading into the sky. As things get further away the atmosphere causes the contrast to drop and the view to fade. It wouldn't be so far ...
what's the difference between a dead body and a live body?	[ "This is a tricky question, because there are different kinds of \"dead\". For instance, someone can be brain-dead, but the rest of their body can still be alive. But for simplicity's sake, let's say that you have an unambiguous cadaver being compared to a live person.\n\nIn that case, the live person has a fully...
Why does lightning branch out?	[ "The charged particles within the lightning are trying to find the path of least resistance to the ground, where charges of the opposite polarity are building up. \nThis trying to find the most convenient way to reach the ground means that sometimes the stream of particles making up the lightning will split, causin...
Why can drinking TOO MUCH water make your muscles cramp when exercising?	[ "What causes cramps is loss of electrolytes. Drinking too much water can cause your system to flush out too many electrolytes, but it is not specific to drinking water while exercising but rather you drinking too much water in general.", "I'm kind of guessing based off of a limited understanding, but your body no...
How does Google maps track my location even though I have no Wi-Fi or a sim card?	[ "GPS.\n\nGPS requires no Wi-Fi or any connection at all.\n\nGPS works with geo-stationary satellites which constantly send signals to earth. Lots and lots of satellites. Those signals include which satellite send the signal and the time when this was send. A module within the smartphone receives those signals. If i...
Why do dogs go crazy, and get "the zoomies," after a bath?	[ "Actually we don't know the real reason why dog's have a habit of doing this but there's a lot of theories.\n\n1. Dogs don't like the extra weight of the water on their bodies and so they try and get dry as quickly as they can\n\n2. The water washes their scent and so they run and roll around in order to get their ...
The life cycle of the Sand Worms in the Dune books	[ "Wikipedia has a pretty detailed but fairly straightforward entry which includes a \"Lifecycle\" section - _URL_0_\n\n(May contain spoilers for the whole series)\n\nEdit: it's Wikipedia, not a dedicated Dune wiki. Also formatting why\n\nEdit 2: gave up on formatting", "The \"little makers\" and the sandtrout are ...
Cyprus rejects the EU bailout plan: how big is this?	[ "Not correct. The truth is, that nobody knows right now. This is completely uncharted territory. Anything can happen, from what you said, to receiving a bailout from Russia, to receiving a new settlement from the EU. In the meantime, the EU has said that temporarily, they will continue supporting banks in Cyprus as...
An easy way to tell which Asian language you're looking at.	[ "Korean is pretty easy to distinguish. There are lots of perpendicular lines and circles. _URL_1_\n\nAs far as Japanese vs. Chinese, that can be harder (assuming, of course, that you can't read either). Japanese has both a phonetic alphabet (two actually, hiragana and katakana) and kanji, which are the pictographs,...
Why do shipping boxes cost more than moving boxes?	[ "Different boxes have different \"crush strength\" and weight bearing capacities ratings. There should be a stamp on the box that tells you how much abuse the box can take. \n \nMoving boxes are usually \"ECT 32\", which stands for \"Edge Crush Test 32lbs\". This means that the box is certified to take 32lbs/in o...
Why do girls typically have long hair and boys typically have short hair? Was there a point in time where this wasn't the case?	[ "Mostly just how the sexes prefer to have their hair. Men through time were usually the breadwinners, and soldiers, which lead them to adopt a shorter hair style. In the 20's most women adopted a shorter hair style as they started to become more liberated. When metal/rock was popular, men grew their hair longer. It...
Why are scams so common as ads on webpages?	[ "Well my common sense says money, i.e Ads provide money if you can advertise anything then why not and small websites will have more scams. These scammer's make enough money to pay the little amounts of fee to advertise and the people who rent servers out to smaller websites don't care where money is coming from as...
Can anyone please ELI5 why some computer programs crash more than others, and why it happens at all?	[ "Lets start with a little story.\n\nA man is lost wandering in the desert, when he come upon a magic lamp. He rubs the lamp and a genie appears who grants him three wishes. The man who has been walking for days in the desert quickly wishes that his feet didn't hurt anymore. The genie says: \"Your wish is granted...
the difference between Tex-Mex and authentic Mexican food.	[ "Tex-Mex is an Americanize version of Mexican cuisine. From what I understand in Mexico, and South American countries ground beef isn't really a thing (It's actually frowned upon). They prefer to chop up steak. It's basically more appealing to the masses in America and skips a lot of corners in the traditions and f...
Why Microsoft was sued for violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Laws, visuals would be helpful?	[ "One reason why they were being sued for violating the antitrust laws is because they included their Internet browser with their operating system. So they lawyer that was suing microsoft said that netscape was being affected because people were using Microsoft Internet Explorer and that Microsoft was including th...
If there is a bee in a car and the car is travelling at 50mph, does the bee have to fly faster than 50mph to move from the backseat to the front seat?	[ "> does the bee have to fly faster than 50mph to move from the backseat to the front seat?\n\nNo. The bee flies by pushing against the air around it, and all of the air in the car is moving along with the car.\n\nIt's much the same as the fact that, even though the earth is rotating from west to east at hundreds o...
How does Blu-Ray protection and ripping work?	[ "The \"files\" you see when you try and explore a Blu Ray disk are encoded in a way that prevents people from playing and/or copying the file directly from the disk. Applications like MakeMKV are programmed to read the files on a Blu Ray disk and decode them into a file that can then either be played directly by pr...
What happened in Benghazi, how Obama is involved, and if Republican outrage is justified	[ "Americans were killed during an attack on the embassy. Most people blame the attackres for the deaths but the GOP/FOX is trying to put the blame on Obama and other high ranking officials. The main reason for a lack of coverage from the so-called main stream media is because almost nothing has materialized out o...
how come when you pour water out of some glasses it pours smooth but some times it goes down the side?	[ "Water tends to want to \"stick\" to glass, and other surfaces. This is called adhesion. This is one of the forces acting to turn the water as it pours. The faster you pour, the more force that is required to turn the liquid to keep it attached to the glass. At some point, the water is moving too fast for the adhes...
Why aren't lie detectors used in courts of law?	[ "Never volunteer to take a lie detector test. They're unreliable and inadmissible, so if you pass it doesn't help. But if you fail they'll assume it worked correctly. It's no-win.", "Simply put, they are not reliable. Even if used outside of a court of law, their results are not admissible as evidence in a court ...
What's the difference between a creepypasta and an urban legend?	[ "There's not a huge difference, but creepypastas are generally posted on message boards and urban legends are generally spread by ear. Creepypastas also tend to be longer stories or other media (Slenderman was originally two photoshopped images) while urban legends are shorter pieces of speculation (\"There are all...
what tennis players are looking for in a ball before they serve? Are they looking for the newest balls?	[ "To add onto the technical reasons, they could also be using looking at the ball as a focusing/reset method to stay in the zone.", "They can be looking for the newest balls, the balls with fewest imperfections etc, the balls which feel the firmest etc, or a ball they recognise that they previously hit a great sho...
Why sea lions are called that?	[ "Hi !\n\n > It is hard to believe these large but docile looking creatures have been named after a fierce predator like the Lion. (...) The Steller Sea Lion is an opportunistic predator feeding on a wide variety of fish, octopus, squid and things like sea snails and sea slugs. (...) Looking at those fangs and the ...
Why are some flies and moths attracted to artificial lights?	[ "Moths navigate using the moon as a frame of reference. When there is a bright light source nearby, it confuses them. If they are flying in a particular direction by keeping the moon on one side of them or directly in front of them, they could end up flying around a nearby light source in circles - thinking they ...
what happens to my body if I never go outside?	[ "Not going outside isn't the real issue. It's the secondary conditions that re probably linked with it, like not getting any exercise. \n\nAs long as you maintain a healthy lifestyle, say, by exercising regularly, eating right, maybe taking some vitamin D supplements or something, you should be fine. I think the bi...
Stock Options	[ "I'm not sure what the first guy who responded here was talking about, but it wasn't stock options... stock options are something occasionally offered to employees, but they're quite different than merely receiving shares of stock.\n\nStock options are essentially a way to gamble on the price of a stock. In orde...
How can things be plated with 1 or 2 microns of gold without the gold wearing away	[ "One of gold's cool properties, the one that makes it shiny, is that it's quite resistant to corrosion and oxidization. To wear gold away you literally have to scrape the atoms off. It's not like silver, where the top layer oxidizes into something black and ugly." ]
Why do the US and UK have the same Father’s Day but different Mother’s Days?	[ "In the UK they dont celebrate \"Mothers day\" they celebrate \"Mothering Sunday\" (although it is named interchangeably). It is celebrated on the Sunday closest to March 25th, because it is nine months prior to Christmas, meaning it is approximately the time Jesus would have been conceived (well. Except he probabl...
Why do we fall out of bed frequently as children, but stop by our teens?	[ "I've been a bad OP, I have now found my answer in a previous ELI5, apologies.\n\n_URL_0_", "Because when you're a teenager, your body is less prone to gravitating towards the monsters under your bed. Children just come closer." ]
Why do people get hungry after alcoholic drinks?	[ "A few ideas...\n\nYou tend to go out drinking when you would be snacking or having a meal. Ever had a burger a few hours into a night out and find yourself still hungry at the end, or throw back an order of nachos as you go? Getting hungry after that doesn't happen very often.\n\nYou tend to be more active when ou...
How do Car Keys hold their charge? Do they get charged by the car?	[ "The battery holds charge like any other battery, it just lasts a long time because it uses so little electricity. You can open your key fob and change the battery if it runs out.", "As others have mentioned, the battery does eventually die. You should know that if that happens, you're not stranded: you can alm...
Why do birds have sudden "twitchy" movements?	[ "Its because birds eyes dont move in there head so they do the quick movements to look around", "A bird's head weighs practically nothing, so it's easy for them to accelerate it to quickly look around. We probably look twitchy to elephants, whose head movements are a lumbering affair." ]
why when I lick my dry lips it makes them more dry	[ "Your lips are naturally lubricated and kept moist by oils secreted by your skin. When you lick them, you remove that oil, leaving them unprotected." ]
What is happening in the brain when time "slows down" in high-pressure situations?	[ "It is probably an evolutionary trait that allows more relative reaction time to pass, allowing the individual to survive a threatening situation. It's called [tachypsychia](_URL_0_). It causes the outside world to relatively appear to move in slow motion. \n\nWe measure the perception of time passing by two method...
What is dust? Why does it accumulate on untouched objects?	[ "I'm going to start off assuming you mean household dust. The dust that you have around home that accumulates on everything is a combination of many things. Pollen, dirt that has been raised by weather, dead skin cells, hair follicles, insect husks, micro pollutants in the air, among many other things.\n\n~~The rea...
How do people build artificial islands?	[ "I'm not sure about the island in the article, but maybe this will help? \n_URL_0_" ]
Why aren't lie detectors used more often in court cases?	[ "Mostly because they don't actually work.\n\nThe truth is that they are not a very good tool to tell if someone is lying. \n\nThe threat of them or the willingness to undergo a lie detector test are sometimes used in official manner, but really lie detector test are not really reliable or trustworthy.\n\nThe guy wh...
Why can't Facebook and Twitter themselves shut down ISIS accounts, as opposed to Anonymous or lone hackers?	[ "ISIS doesn't have an official Facebook or Twitter account, but individual members and supporters do. FB/Twitter won't suspend their accounts unless the individual users violate the law or terms of service.", "Intelligence agencies use these accounts to gather information. It would not be surprising if some of th...
Why do most children's toys from fast food places have those weird triangular screws?	[ "It is to prevent children from being able to open the toy and access anything that may not be child-friendly on the inside - sharp/tiny pieces. Most kids know how to use a screwdriver.", "Every fuckin thing for kids have these.....\n\n...some fuckin kid musta picked out the screws or chewed the batteries and the...
How was the first computer programmed?	[ "The first computers were human beings who did calculations for the government.\n\nBut you want to know about the machines.\n\nThe first machine computers were hard wired. They were built to perform one function, to make calculations about artillery round trajectories. There were some lovely machines built to do th...
If businesses are already allowed to deny anyone service for whatever reason they choose, why is Indiana's religious freedom bill such a big deal?	[ "Businesses are not allowed to deny to serve anyone for whatever reason. Where did you hear this was so?", "If you kick out one black family for a bullshit excuse, nobody can question you.\n\nIf you kick out every black family for a bullshit excuse, somebody's going to put the pieces together and they'll have ...
Why does a guitar have harmonics only on certain parts of the fretboard/string?	[ "First you need to understand the concept of overtones.\n\nLet's say you play the open E string. The main and strongest tone you're going to hear is the E note, because that's the main frequency the string is vibrating at. But because the string isn't vibrating at exactly the same speed across the whole string \\(t...
why do i lose weight when im asleep	[ "It's mostly water loss. You exhale water vapor and don't drink water to replace it. I usually use the restroom at least once during the night, too - a pint of pee is a pound of mass." ]
Why don't planes just have cameras onboard that stream footage from the cabin?	[ "Bandwidth when you're in the middle of nowhere over the Pacific Ocean." ]
- How can I regulate my entire body's temperature by sticking my foot outside of my bedsheets?	[ "It's like a heat sink on a cpu. Blood there exposed to cooler air cools your blood. This cooler blood circulates in your bloodstream cooling your body. New warm blood pumps into your foot cooling it a little bit more" ]
What is the difference between an LCD monitor and an LCD TV?	[ "In general, monitors are designed with a finer dot pitch (ie. the pixels are smaller) than TVs because you are sitting closer to a monitor than a TV.\n\nMonitors also have faster response times.\n\nMonitors will lack much of the fancy video processing that TVs do, because desktop video cards are supposed to take c...
How does oil kill mosquito larvae? Can't they just poke their breathing tube through the oil?	[ "They depend on the surface tension of the water to stay at the top. Oil breaks the surface tension. When that happens, the larvae sinks." ]
Whats the story behind those "gold coin" infomercials that claim the coin that they sell for $10 is worth thousands?	[ "They are replicas that are coated in gold (not made of gold), they aren't worth thousands, $10 is probably a lot more than what they are really worth, maybe 25¢.", "The 'thousands' they are referring to is how much money old folks are willing to spend on these collections. Sadly, my 90 year-old Parkinson's stric...
If I could legally build a 10 km² yard extension out of dirt and sod off the coast of new Brunswick, have I officially increased the land area of Canada by 10 km²?	[ "Theoretically, but since 10 km^2 is only about 0.0001 percent of Canada's total land area, it doesn't really put a dent in the official number.\n\nThe problem with measuring the land area of a country, especially one with an astronomically long coastline like Canada, is that it's functionally impossible to accurat...
Why does bottled water taste differently from one brand to another?	[ "It isn't just water, there are trace minerals added to affect taste.", "Each company uses a different source for their water, different sources means different minerals in the water. Further more some enrich the water with minerals. Different minerals dissolved in the water give it a distinct flavor." ]
What are "compliments"? In period films I often see people sending compliments. "My compliments, sir." "My compliments to Colonel Smith. Inform him I will be there soon." What does it mean? Why did we stop doing that?	[ "Very old style formal letters often opened or closed with a lot of long and effusive compliments and well-wishes. To the point where it was frankly quite inconvenient.\n\nWhen letter writing became more widespread these long and wordy blocks of flowery salutations, well-wishes, etc got condensed down to just \"com...
Why wasn't the US Patriot Act used to stop gang violence?	[ "Gang violence is predominately a concern for state and local governments, not federal." ]
How does a CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) system provide power 24/7?	[ "So you are focusing the sun's light using an array of mirrors on a large tower that heats up and melts a chemical (often a salt of some kind) it heats it until is well above its melting point, the excess heat is used to boil water and make steam as it is pumped back down to a massive holding tank. This tank holds ...
Why is it that most domestic cats are afraid of water but big cats aren't?	[ "It depends on the species of cat. For example tigers love to swim but lions are more or less afraid of the water. I remember this because of an interesting discussion on Ligers(half-lion half-tiger) because it mentions that the constant swimming and climbing often freaks out the lion parent but is normal to the ti...
How does Steven Hawking's wheeelchair work?	[ "Well, I don't know how Steven Hawking's wheelchair works, but my grandmother in law had MS, and she had a wheelchair controlled by this:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIts a straw you blow or suck on, and can be used as an input for various devices." ]
The FDA and its role in tobacco regulation	[ "I'm not knowledgeable on this subject, but I think the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms) regulates tobacco, not the FDA." ]
How are some species considered "domesticated"? How would evolution favour domestication? Could domestication be considered a favourable trait?	[ "Domesticated basically means they live synergistically with humans. This can be evolutionarily favored because the humans help the domesticated animals reproduce, protect them from predators, etc. This is extremely strong in some species (corn, cattle).", "Evolution doesn't really \"favor\" domestication. We cr...
How come most animals sleep cycles are in tune with the day / night cycle of the earth?	[ "Most animals can see better during the day. It is dark at night, and harder to see for most animals, so they sleep then." ]
How do you pay back $1.2 Quadrillion derivatives market with a World Wide GDP of only 100 trillion?	[ "Notional value is face value, it doesn't mean it changes hands. So we could establish a financial instrument worth $1000 and only exchange money when it changes by 1%. We basically created $1000 in notional value out of thin air, but it doesn't really mean it exists or would ever need to exist." ]
How is it not abuse of the political process for the Senate to take a bill that passed the House of Representatives; replace its contents and title with something completely unrelated; and then pass it as such?	[ "The Constitution has what is termed the \"origination clause\" that requires all spending originate in the House. So any bill that includes government expenditures must start life as a House bill.\n\nHowever, getting bills through the Senate is much harder than getting them through the House. As a result, the Se...
Why and how is the brain able to "forget" tragic events and pain?	[ "I'm not sure I'd call this an \"ability\". This is something that is usually caused rather than the brain, well, deciding to do it. \n\nThat said, there are quite a few different things that might be happening here. Your personal experience if pretty obvious trauma, during which the brain might not have *recorde...
How did Japan become fascist prior to the second world war?	[ "Japan had been a fascist society (I.e. a dictatorship with a strong emphasis on the military and deeply authoritarian culture) for centuries, it simply wasn't called that because \"fascism\" hadn't been invented yet." ]
When did RC toys start being called drones?	[ "When the media decided to leverage the negative connotations associated with 'drone' to sensationalise things.", "The FAA says a drone is an unmanned air vehicle that can be flown beyond line of sight. Other uses are buzzwords.", "When it became cool to be a \"Drone Operator\" rather than \"RC Toy Enthusiast.\...
Can someone explain the difference between type I and type II diabetes for me?	[ "Diabetes Mellitus: A disease which produces a state of extremely high blood sugar. Fun fact, the name comes from latin for \"Honey Urine\" because all the extra sugar gets dumped into the urine and the original test was to actually taste the patient's urine for sweetness.\n\nType I (Juvenile Type): Your pancreas f...
How do radio stations know how many listeners they have?	[ "Here in Germany, they have devices for TV ratings, but radio listener numbers are estimated via telephone interviews, in which people are asked which stations they regularly listen to.\n\nSince the dates for these are well-known (similar to sweep months in US TV), private radio stations will often try and push the...
What keeps time moving forward?	[ "What is time? Can you fill a cup with it? Can you measure out a piece of time and give it to someone? How do you know time has passed at all?\n\nThe easiest to understand description of time I've ever gotten is: change. You perceive time because things change. Simple observable things like the sun moving across th...
Does listening to music at a higher volume (on a phone) use more battery?	[ "This has been asked before here: _URL_0_ .\nTLDR: Yes.", "Next-level question:\n\nDoes a phone use more battery at a higher volume while playing through a bluetooth connection?\n\nedit: \"All 4 comments\" can only see three. Somebody here is shadow-banned :)" ]
is petting a cat actually good for you and if so why?	[ "Dogs don't purr... It is the best feeling when a cat is on your lap purring her little heart out. Or when they nuzzel your face and give you headbutts. My cat licks my ear and that is just awesome, to me anyway.", "Yes, it does apply to most animals. A friendly interaction with an animal, such as petting or cudd...
What caused the downfall of Disco Music in the US?	[ "It's urban music of sort of excessive dance, drugs and sex, and of a 'scene' (fashion). There was a blacklash against it for all of those reasons. But in many ways, it just went underground for awhile and then re-emerged; just look at dance music. In many respects, it was made with limited technology, and with all...
Why do those blue Christmas lights look so fuzzy and blurry whereas other colours are perfectly clear?	[ "Blue scatters more widely than other colors when it passes through the eyeball. Red and green is focused right onto the retina blue is focused slightly in front of it which causes a halo around bright blue lights. Together these things cause intense blue light to spread out across the retina interfering with other...
Why is cancer not contagious?	[ "Because it's not a virus or strain of bacteria. It's a cell mutation.", "You don't catch cancer, it's grown from your own cells. Some things you catch can cause cancer, though.", "Tasmanian devils suffer from a terrifying [contagious form of cancer that is unique to them.](_URL_0_)\n\nSo, it is at least possib...
How come, when you feel unsafe in your room, you instantly feel a little bit safer by pulling the covers over you?	[ "I don't know the specifics but I bet it is the same thing that calms animals down when you cover their eyes. (Like when you are moving alligators around the zoo or whatnot). Less stimuli for your brain to try to interpret through the thinking of feeling a threat.", "We're the descendants of small, burrowing a...
The (n!) possible combinations formula	[ "First of all, what does n! mean? It means multiplying the number n by the one preceding it, then the next one, all the way down to 1. So 7! is 7 * 6 * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1.\n\nNow, let's see how those combinations work.\n\nA silly question: how many combinations do you have for a single letter A? Just one - the...
The origin of the surnames "English", "French", and "Irish."	[ "People got those last names because they were from that country. If you're in England and have two Johns and one is French, you might call him French John or John French. Same deal with other countries. On a related note, the name Scott comes from the country Scotland. For some odd reason though, it has made the j...
How does Google's new app streaming work?	[ "It sounds like it streams the application to your phone (very much like a Remote Desktop session). \n\nThe Agawi link (last link) will give you more technical details.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\"streamed” apps are actually running on virtual machines on Google’s cloud platform, and respond to your taps and touches similar to...
What drives people to post movie spoilers?	[ "So you really have to understand the psychology of self esteem and self image. They are playing this game where they're smarter than you and better than you, and to win they make you mad. Recently, studies have debunked the idea that bullies secretly have low self-esteem. Turns out, no, they're usually very narcis...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.