Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
What's the difference between a 10Mb/s connection and a 100Mb/s one when the "bits" travel at the speed of electricity in both cases?	[ "Nobody is really giving a good answer. The difference is this: at 100 Mb, the bits are packed tighter together. So suppose you have a piece of wire such that it takes a [nanosecond](_URL_0_) for the signal to travel from one end to the other. This is the same regardless of how fast you're sending data. What change...
How was the very first language created?	[ "By language I am assuming you are NOT talking about written language, but noises and sounds that represent actions or items\n\nThe earliest of early, Homosapiens always travelled in tribes. They developed concepts, similar to today, and passed them down from generation to generation (ie: Hunting would consist of e...
Why do movies look smooth at 24 fps but video games look choppy under 60 fps?	[ "A computer frame is a rendering of an exact point in time. A camera frame is a capture of everything over a short period of time (e.g. 1/24th of a second).\n\nLets say a baseball pitcher throws a ball to a catcher. A computer will render the ball as it leaves the pitchers hand, every new frame the ball will appe...
why has my health insurance premium doubled in the last year while my plan has remained the same?	[ "There are two factors, neither of which are about you or you have any control over.\n\n1) Employer contribution.\n\nIf this has gone down or has remained capped at previous years levels, the percentage of the premium cost you pay goes up.\n\n2) Insurer Confidence\n\nThis year insurance companies are very uncertain...
What are the primary arguments against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)?	[ "The issues are multi-fold and both sides misinterpret why the other has a problem, basic human psychology there.\n#1. It was forced, the legislation was not written up comprehensively, it was mashed together and pushed through as quickly as possible despite the majority of Americans not knowing what it was. They ...
what makes some drugs more expensive than the other?	[ "* Expense and ease to manufacture - some drugs are very difficult to make, particularly when they involve very rare diseases or conditions, or have to be tailored for a specific individual each time like gene therapy can be.\n\n* Age of the drug - If it's been around for 25 years, odds are if it's highly profitabl...
Hertz vs FPS	[ "In this instance:\n\nHertz is a measure of how many times a screen can refresh itself from top-to-bottom.\n\nFPS is the number of total on-screen images the computer/console can render in a second.\n\nExample: my PS4 can run at 60 FPS (it can output 60 new images a second)... my TV has a refresh rate of 240 hz (it...
RAM Timings (e.g. 9-9-9-24)	[ "RAM clock speed tells us how many transfers of individual bits of data can be made per second. The timings tell us how soon we're able to start reading data after we ask for it.\n\nRAM timings are made up of four numbers. \n\nThe first number is CL, or the CAS latency. If our RAM is already \"looking\" at the row ...
why won't world leaders recognize Crimea seceeding from Ukraine?	[ "A referendum vote during a military takeover in which the Country being voted to join is occupying the region unlawfully is both unlawful and immoral. If Russia wasn't occupying the region and Crimea independently decided to vote on secession citing Ukraine's instability then the vote would have to be recognized....
If HTML 5 is smaller, faster, and more effecient, why don't GIF dependent sites such as Imgur and Tumblr use it already?	[ "It's still fairly new. It's not supported on all devices, not everyone likes or uses them. And the process to make them is very different, so it's not like you can go \"Alright, gifmakers, just hit the Html5 button at the end now.\"" ]
Why does the USA government allow cable companies to have monopolies over a area?	[ "Natural monopolies are not illegal. A monopoly is only illegal if you actively take actions to prevent or eliminate competition. One such action is buying out the competition, but competition choosing to not invest in the region you choose to invest is not illegal.", "It's hard enough to get one company to inves...
How come certain vaccinations will last for your whole life, despite the fact that your body cells are continuously dying and regrowing anew?	[ "Your immune system fights disease with chemicals called antibodies, found in your white blood cells. Each antibody type can kill a different virus, bacteria, or disease. If your white blood cells come into contact with a dangerous pathogen, your immune system creates the antibodies that it knows will work to stop ...
Why is Comcast hated so much?	[ "Customers expect better service for the money that they're paying. \n \nThere are two ways to look at this: \n1. The customer expects too much from comcast for what that customer actually pays. \n2. Comcast is giving too little to customers for what the customer pays. \n \nThese two views are independently...
My Windows 95 computer from '96 can run Doom and stream music in the background, but my Windows 10 2016 Xbox can't. Why?	[ "It can, technically speaking hardware wise. The thing is that its Operating System is not coded/configured to do it, as a choice from the developers. They probably want you to listen to the game music/sounds alone instead of listening to your music. Now, the reason why they would want that beats me." ]
How does dynamic cruise control and accident prevention braking work?	[ "I believe these systems constantly monitor the field of view in front of the car. \nImagine a camera with a green zone amber, and red. \nIf it's in the green zone, the car cruises along as normal, when you get too close to the car it prepares its systems giving you chance to brake yourself based on it's recommende...
How did Oprah get to be such a big deal?	[ "She struck a chord with a lot of people because they could relate to her, for the fact that she had grown up poor, her struggles with her weight, and so on. She hit TV at a time when daytime talk shows were hugely popular, and she's very good at what she does: so good that her show was syndicated nationally extre...
I have a portable air conditioner. Is it more effective to direct the vents towards the floor or ceiling to cool a room?	[ "Since cooler air sinks, aiming the vents up will result in more even cooling. If you're sitting on the floor, aiming the vents horizontal or down may be more comfortable.", "Hot air floats, cool air sinks.. thats why many heaters in a room are at the bottom. So facing it up would probably more effective." ]
Why does every shower, no matter how hot I have it set for, always have that initial burst of ICE COLD WATER?	[ "I'm about to change your life.\n\nTurn the shower on and let it heat up before actually getting into it.", "Because the hot water comes from the water heater. There is water in the pipes between the water heater and the shower head. When the shower is not in use that water is sitting in the pipes. It is at room ...
How do clouds float if they are so heavy?	[ "There are 2 aspects that allow clouds to stay up. \n\n1) they're incredibly sparse: entire clouds are heavy but each drop is small, very small, about one micron, or one-hundred-thousandth of an inch across. Each individual particle is so small that...\n\n2) warm air currents keep clouds afloat: warm air rising fro...
Looking into a mirror, and/or looking at photographs of ourselves does not give an accurate view of how others perceive us physically. Does looking into a 360 degree mirror/those 3-panel angled mirrors in dressing rooms, give a more accurate representation?	[ "I'm not sure I agree with your premise, other than as has been mentioned the subjective aspect of perception which is going to vary for everyone. But aside from that, why do you think a mirror and/or photographs aren't \"accurate\" representations?", "Any redditor has an identical twin? How different is to watch...
Why is it that maps are all oriented with North at the top?	[ "Polaris!\n\nWhile medieval maps were oriented toward Jerusalem (hence our word \"orient\" means both find our bearings and the east), renaissance cartographers rediscovered Greek/Roman maps and liked their use of Polaris, the north star. \n\nExplorers used stars to navigate to the new world. So as they added to ...
Why don't hockey teams use extremely large men as goalies?	[ "The rules limit how big a goalie's pads can be, so they don't show up with giant pads that block the goal.\n\nSo a fat guy might take up a lot of space, but much of his body will be unprotected from 150+ km/h slap shots. He might block the first few, but he'll be leaving the ice on a stretcher before the game is ...
How do new medical techniques spread?	[ "One of the main ways they spread are through residencies and fellowships.\n\nResidencies and the first thing med students do once they become doctors. They go work at a hospital in their chosen specialty and spend a few years learning the craft by working with skilled doctors. Obviously areas with the latest and g...
How do international credit ratings work? Italy has never defaulted on its sovereign debt, Germany has defaulted over 5 times. Why does Germany have a better rating than Italy?	[ "well, they are issued by companies that all have their own unique blend of reasons to issue them.\n\nbut considering at least 4 of those 5 times \"Germany\" defaulted it was a different country, it is pretty obvious they will pay more attention to the current economic situation than how the country (or whatever co...
Can we go relatively faster than the speed of light?	[ "No. ALL velocities are relative, so the prohibitions of relativity apply to any inertial reference frame. In this case, they would observe the other ship to be going very quickly, but still sub-light speed: at very high velocities, you can't simply add one ship's velocity to the other; there's a more complex formu...
Why do we swallow spit more often when we have a sore throat?	[ "It probably just seems that you swallow more when you have a sore throat because it is painful. When you're feeling fine, you swallow without even thinking about it." ]
people with methemoglobinemia	[ "They can't run or hold their breath as long, but they still have enough normal red blood cells to survive. If they didn't they would die. Also, there is a medication called methylene blue that converts the abnormal iron in the red blood cells back to normal." ]
How do completely autonomous vehicles navigate parking lots?	[ "Autonomous vehicles usually use a combination of stereoscopic cameras and LIDAR to build a 3D map of the local vicinity:\n\nStereo cameras use the slight differences between the images perceived by two side-by-side cameras to determine how far away something is. (Try closing one eye then the other, closer objects ...
Why do my contacts stay on the front of my eyes?	[ "Their shape. The front part of your eyes has slightly sharper curvature than the rest as a result of your natural lens. The contact lens is designed to hug this curvature, moving it away from that spot would cause it to flex in a way it wasn't designed to." ]
Why does my internet go so much faster when downloading from Steam or a torrent?	[ "Your download speeds depend both on your connection to the server and the server's capacity. If you're connecting to a server on the other side of the world, you'll probably get a crappy download speed, even if both you and the server have a super fast connection to your ISP. Because of this, large networks like ...
How did we find the equator and how do we know we actually pinpointed it exactly?	[ "By measuring the height of the sun at noon during the summer solstice. At that time the sun is directly 90 degrees above you only if you are on the equator. \n\nEdit: equinoxes not solstice" ]
British steel crisis	[ "1. Overcapacity in world supply and Europe in particular.\n2. Most British steelworks are old not very efficient compared to modern plants.\n3. Lack of knowledge. Steel R & D in England is virtually non-existent. Even with an old steel mill you can produce high quality steel for a competitive price if you know wha...
When I put my hand/face out of the window of a car, why does the air come in quick gusts not a steadier flow?	[ "The air around your car is a turbulent flow. This is the opposite of a steady (laminar) flow. Fluids (such as water and air) experience turbulent flow when flowing around an obstacle (such as your car or hand) due to drag the obstacle exerts on the fluid.", "You know when you turn a small necked bottle upside do...
Why do my teet hurt when I eat sugary candy (Taffy, Tootsie Rolls...)	[ "Almost certainly a cavity. Your saliva dissolves the sugar and the liquid sugar mix can get into the smallest of places, so it may only be a really really tiny cavity, but still something to get checked out." ]
Why do moonshiners always make the moonshine in the woods	[ "You got it right, it's because it's illegal. If you have it in your home, then you have the evidence with you 24/7. There are also many witnesses around and nosy neighbors. \n\nHowever, if your setup is in the woods then you reduce your exposure. There is no one around to see you. Also if the cops find it, th...
Space time Travel?	[ "Relativity tells us that clocks in motion tick slower than those at rest. This effect becomes very apparent when the speeds involved are close to that of light. So an astronaut who flies away from Earth at near lightspeed, turns around and comes back will have had the clock onboard their spaceship ticking a lot ...
How come sometimes a commercial will come on TV for like 5 seconds, then immediately cut to a different one?	[ "Most of the time, it's because you're watching a national feed, and the local stations have a right to broadcast local commercials at that time. The local station's master control doesn't switch over to playing its local commercial in time, so you get a bit of the national feed still spilling over." ]
Why are most animals not afraid of bugs like humans	[ "To most animals, bugs are either food (not scary), or just a normal fact of life (not scary). Most humans don't eat bugs, and don't live with them." ]
Why cant we add smells to carbon monoxide like we do to other gases?	[ "We certainly could. But the dangerous sources of carbon monoxide aren't pre-bottled, where someone could add an odor. Instead they are the product of combustion. So there is no opportunity to add anything.", "CO is a byproduct of combustion (in most cases), not a pre bottled product. All scented gases are manufa...
Before refrigerators, how did people keep cold stuff cold?	[ "They used to collect ice in the winter and warehouse it. Then they would sell people blocks of ice that they would put in their \"ice boxes\" which were like our refrigerators exept without the self-cooling. [Ice Trade](_URL_0_)", "Beer doesn't need to be kept cold. People just prefer it cold and even that wasn...
ELIV: Can someone please explain to me why BitTorrent isn't illegal?	[ "BitTorrent is not used ONLY for illegal downloading. That's like banning hammers because they can be used to break into homes.", "The reason why is because Torrent files are only used to map and locate file availability, no one single host actually exists. Also, torrents were originally intended to distribute l...
It seems like every major news website, or newspaper find its sources from Reuters, then why don't people go read news from _URL_0_ directly ?	[ "Reuters is a 'wire service' also called a 'news agency', their main role is to provide bare-bones news to other news outlets. However, they don't do much of the wider context stuff such as explanations, analysis and commentary, most people prefer to read their news from sources which are written to their demograph...
Why do alot of people hate The Conservative Party of Canada?	[ "I would say that more people [strongly] dislike our current Prime Minister (Steve Harper's) version of the Conservative party. A lot of people do not agree with his particular tactics, his policies and his way of conducting himself and his cabinet. In contrast, I would say that people are not always as strongly op...
What is a lobotomy and what does it do?	[ "Lobotomy is a called a surgical procedure in the brain. What they do its surgically disconnect the frontal part of the brain. This frontal cortex has has an important function in autonomy and personality. \nWith lobotomy they tried to cure psychological disorders such as schizophrenia. \nThe results appeared to...
How does an imaginary number become an ordered pair?	[ "First, your prof misspoke a little...he should have said complex numbers can be used as ordered pair.\n\nAll complex numbers are in the form a + bi, and it is sometimes useful to treat them as the ordered pair (a, b). When a = 0, you have an imaginary number in the form (0, b), and when b = 0, you h...
How do developers reverse engineer server software for "private servers" or emulators?	[ "They look at when data is sent, what that data is, and what the expected result from the server is. From that, they can construct a working server." ]
How did we get our current meal pattern of eating 3 meals a day in the morning, afternoon, and evening?	[ "Doing hard physical labor in the fields. When we were an agrarian society people spent a massive amount of calories in the effort of growing our food every day, and large percentages of the population did this work. Upwards of 6000 calories can be burned in a day for extreme physical labor such as was needed on fa...
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)	[ "Imagine your brain is like a light bulb. Off is your normal state. When something dangerous happens it turns on. When it's on you are in a heightened state of awareness, you notice everything, you're anxious and scared. This is useful because in a dangerous situation you need that fear and awareness to get somewhe...
Why are students considered more liberal than their contemporaries (both in modern and historical times)?	[ "The young, which students tend to be, do not have as much invested with the current culture or status quo. They often do not yet have jobs or have only entry level/base level jobs, do not tend to own property, do not tend to have much savings or investments, do not have families that they have to care for, etc. Th...
Why does the weather forecast indicate 100% humidity while we clearly aren't breathing in water?	[ "100% is the relative humidity. So, the air contains as much humidity as it is possible for air to contain. At 50% relative humidity, the air contains half as much water as it is capable of containing.", "100% humidity means that the air is saturated with water. This means that no more water can be absorbed i...
How do mirrors work for multiple users?	[ "Imagine the mirror is a smooth floor and visible light is a bouncy ball, mirrors reflect light the same way a ball would bounce off a smooth floor. Meaning the angle the ball hits the ground is equal to the angle it bounces off. You throw the ball from different angles, it bounces off in different directions.", ...
Why is it that 60° in air feels fine but when you get in a 60° swimming pool it feels cold and comfortable?	[ "The reason why 60 degree air is so much more comfortable than 60 degree water is that water is about 25 times as thermally conductive as air is. This means that water at any temperature transmits its heat (or absorbs yours) 25 times more quickly than air of the same temperature. It is this reason why it is possi...
What is the technology at work in the Power Balance Performance bracelets?	[ "Nothing. It's a complete lie. There have been no peer reviewed and accepted scientific studies that have found Benefits from such products. \n\nmagnets, rocks, crystals, etc do not affect your body in any way." ]
How is it determined whether an animal is red meat or not?	[ "It depends if you're using it in a strict nutritional sense or in a more layman sense- pork, for instance, is technically red meat even tough it is quite light in colour and people will call it \"the other white meat\".\n\nRed meat is higher in myoglobin than white meat, which in a nutritional science sense whit...
Why does every router I have ever owned need to be restarted so often?	[ "Dont buy a cheap router. Buy a nice $70-120 router and youll be much happier.", "It's probably a piece of steaming shit. Put DD-WRT on your router if it supports it. It has kept me from having to restart my router on a regular basis. This indicates poor software on the manufacturers part rather than the hardware...
What does filing for bankruptcy mean?	[ "It essentially means \"I don't have the money to pay back my debts\". Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy(there are other kinds, but Chapter 7, \"liquidation bankruptcy\" is usually what people refer to as \"filing for bankruptcy\" for individuals).\n\n\nWhen an application for chapter 7 bankruptcy is approved by a fe...
How come there are elderly who can still do a lot of things on their own both mental and physical activities (walking, chores, hobbies etc.) but there are elderly who are extremely frail and seem incapable of doing things on their own (unable to respond coherently to questions and the like)?	[ "Part of it is genetics part of it is lifestyle.\nThe body is a big machine with lots of moving parts and each part has lots of dependencies.\n\nThings like Alzheimers obviously affect a number of the elderly. Whereas some people just get lucky and get through with no afflictions.\n\nThe best bet if you want to gro...
Why do our teeth need constant maintenance during our lives but are preserved for decades after death with no maintenance?	[ "Pretty much because we don't eat or drink when we're dead. It's the acids in food and drink that do the most damage to teeth, also the mechanical grinding when we chew. After death, none of this happens anymore, so the teeth aren't subject to the same stresses.", "The bacteria which cause tooth decay can't survi...
Was President Bill Clinton completely impeached, and if so who took over control of the White House?	[ "In order for the President to be removed through impeachment:\n\n1. The House votes to impeach the President. Then,\n2. The Senate has a trial and votes on whether to find the President guilty or not\n\nClinton was impeached. That is, the first part happened: the House voted to impeach him. \n\nHowever he was acqu...
Why are we able to physically feel pain or other sensations when dreaming?	[ "Is this a common thing? I don't think I've ever felt pain in a dream.", "What you're doing is imagining the feeling. You know how pain feels, so when you feel like you should be experiencing it in your dream, you imagine how it feels.", "It's funny you say this, because I wonder if it's the other way around (r...
Why are fat people unattractive to the general population?	[ "Programming. The ideals of attractiveness have changed dramatically over the centuries; in fact, a nice pot belly was the sign of a healthy woman not 100 years ago. Thin people didn't make it through the winter when the food ran out and evolution has taught us to seek the healthiest mates; thus, fat = healthy = ...
Why are progress bars when installing or downloading software so wildly inaccurate? Why is it difficult to estimate this?	[ "Imagine driving a long distance on the road. Your destination is 160 miles away, so you drive along the highway at about 80mph and figure that you need about 2hours total.\n\nThen, in the middle of that 160mi, the road gets very bad (you had no chance of knowing that) so you can drive only 50mph. You don't know if...
What happens to a roach when you spray Raid on it?	[ "It's basically the equivalent of nerve gas on a human or other mammal. The reason it doesn't hurt us like that is because we are physiologically different enough that it doesn't react the same way (although note they can be much more toxic to cats)\n\nIt basically keeps their nerves from being able to fire (which ...
How are parrots and other bird mimics able to copy such a range of sound despite not having lips to make plosives and having a very different shape palate?	[ "I don't know the answer to this, but I know that birds have a very different voice box to humans located at the bottom of their windpipe (called a syrinx). I would guess that they don't use their tongues to modify sound as we do, but just use their syrinx. \n\nEdit: Wikipedia indicates this is the case _URL_0_" ]
Why do saltine crackers get rid of aftertastes?	[ "Saltines are fairly bland, just white flour and salt. It forms a paste in your mouth, and when you swallow or rinse with water it washes away any other food particles or residual odor compounds that might still be in the mouth.\n\nIt resets the nerves. Similar to how you smell a jar of coffee grounds between smell...
Why is everything so cheap in USA compared to Scandinavia?	[ "Costs of imports including both transportation costs, duties and the like, sales tax, higher wages for workers, more stringent laws about what can or can't be in food/products, etc." ]
How do some posts get thousands of points in Karma before being removed for rule violation?	[ "This probably happens because the mods of default subs cannot possibly keep up with the amount of new posts that are constantly being added. Look at the number of subscribers and compare it to the number of mods for that sub for a visual." ]
ELI: Why are parts of our body, such as the bottom of our feet so ticklish?	[ "Possibly not just because they are more sensitive. The most likely theory is that being ticklish is a defensive mechanism, ticklish areas seem to be vulnerable places and so we have this defensive mechanism when they are touched. This could be _why_ there are more nerve endings there. Older people tend to be less ...
Cosmos Question: Why are all the particles that make up the rings of Saturn moving in the same direction on the same plane?	[ "There's actually another thread on almost this exact topic going on in ELI5 right now. [Check it out](_URL_0_), the answers are the same.\n\nThe short answer is that the planet's spin drags particles it captures around in the same direction, just like a piece of dirt caught in the whirlpool of a drain. Some are fr...
If you were inside the compartment of a moving vehicle, (airplane, train ect.) And you jumped, what stops you from ending up in the back of that compartment?	[ "Even though you may not have been physically moving your body, your body is still moving at around the same rate of speed as the vehicle. When you jump, your body continues moving at that speed, keeping you from moving backward from where you initially jumped." ]
How does someone go about changing their identities and their families, as shown in Breaking Bad and Goodfellas?	[ "It depends, because you're using two different examples, but I'll see what I can't do, champ.\n\nIn the Breaking Bad example, you have a family. Like everyone else, that family was each born somewhere, and lives somewhere. That is what makes them unique, is their names and where they live. All you have to do t...
Why is it so hard for large amounts of Tylenol to pass through the liver?	[ "Tylenol is paracetamol/acetaminophen.\n\nMedications within the body are broken down and produce metabolites. In the case of Paracetamol (acetaminophen) it is metabolised within the liver (via 3 pathways - the 3rd pathway produces the problem metabolite). Specifically, NAPQI is the metabolite responsible for the...
How does a tattoo stay permanent?	[ "The ink is deep enough that it is under the cells that are shed. However, if it's too deep, the ink will spread a little." ]
Why is a video taken from my phone camera a couple GB but a movie which is much longer is about the same size?	[ "It is possible to significantly compress video, but it takes a lot of computing power, too much for your phone to do it on the fly.\n\nYou could take your video, run it through a conversion and compression process for an hour or so, and wind up with something much smaller that looks pretty much the same.", "Vide...
where do the bugs appear from?	[ "Mealy bugs are a special kind of case actually. Females are mostly totally sedentary as adults and only disburse as [juveniles.](_URL_1_) But males develop into much [more insect-looking insects](_URL_2_) and they leave the host plant to go find new females. \nMealy bugs are also sometimes transported around by...
What's the difference between being depressed and having depression?	[ "These two terms are synonyms. \n\nI think what you're actually trying to ask is: how do I know if I'm clinically depressed, or just legitimately sad. There are actually diagnostic criteria to determine this.\n\n[Here's an easy-to-read summary.](_URL_0_)" ]
Why the American government is apprehensive about raising taxes on the rich	[ "Two answers:\n1) Some People say that if you overtax the rich people will stop investing and working towards becoming more wealthy and that we don't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem.\n2) Other people say that rich people are the major contributors in most cases to political candidates and that if ...
Turing completeness	[ "It basically means that a computer, or a computer language, is as powerful as a Turing machine. Powerful in the sense that it is possible to solve all the problems that a Turing machine can solve. It doesn't say anything about how fast it would solve them or how easy it would be to make the programs that solve the...
Pidgin	[ "\"Pidgin\" isn't a single language. A pidgin language is a grammatically simplified language that develops between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. Basically a mix of simple words from many languages combined with very simple grammar.\n\nIn this case the BBC is using West/Central African P...
What is the purpose of "aerating"/agitating liquids in areas such as factory holding ponds or wastewater evaporators/boilers etc.?	[ "When they release it back to nature, they want the micro-organisms to have a head start, so that it is digested as soon as possible. Air lines are a really cheap way to increase this effect." ]
If a wound has recently stopped bleeding and you wash it, how come it starts bleeding again?	[ "You haven't actually stopped bleeding when it first looks like it. \n\nYour blood carries fragile balls in it that explode when they hit broken skin, which makes the blood go hard. When the blood on the outside starts to harden a little bit, you just bleed under the hard bit to try and make more hard blood. \n\nTh...
Why hot/boiling water freezes faster than cold water?	[ "[Mpemba Effect](_URL_0_)\n\nTL:DR It doesn't always freeze more quickly and when it does no one really knows why", "It's not even agreed that it does freeze faster than cold water, much less the reason.\n\nHowever, there are many proposed explanations for the effect which each hold water. For example, when ho...
After watching the Ferry capsizing in Korea, why is it so hard to get inside and rescue those people?	[ "Theres a bunch of things that make it extremely dangerous for divers to go in.\n\nAs you probably suspected, the water at that depth is very murky and its pitch black, so visibility is even worse than terrible, making it very hard to manouver down there, even harder to search for anything that isn't in front of yo...
Why does salt make other flavours stand out more?	[ "Here's a nifty history on salt : _URL_0_\n\nSo basically, we should distinguish taste from flavor. Taste is usually defined as the intensity of a sensory reaction to a food on the anatomical tongue. Flavor is one of the five: sweet, salty, ugami, bitter, or spicy. Taste is almost always used the same way flavor is...
How do bugs survive when I bend my muscular middle finger, placing it behind my thumb, tense with the power of thirty arched bows, release with the explosive force of Thor himself, and flick them across the room?	[ "Excellent description of flicking a bug. A full paint can is really heavy and when you drop it, it dents. But an empty paint can is really light, and when you drop it, it's fine. Same thing goes with living stuff but living stuff is squishier. If you drop a horse from fifty feet, it squishes. A person: squishes bu...
How is it possible that we are heading into a mini ice age in 15 years?	[ "The link given below details what may be a better model of the behavior of the sun. Solar output varies in ways not well understood. \n\nYes we are altering the atmosphere of the Earth which is producing climate change. \n\nClimate change has occurred in the past. The evolution of human intelligence and our specie...
How can something be unnatural when everything comes from the nature itself?	[ "I think the term unnatural is a description of something that would not occur in nature if it were not from human intervention. \n\n\nI understand that we (humans) are also natural and perhaps you could argue that technology is just a natural process in our evolution therefore nothing is unnatural. However, we...
Jazz has a long history of contrafact. How does copyright law handle this?	[ "The whole point of a contrafact is to avoid copyright and royalty concerns. A chord progression can't be copywritten." ]
why does putting my headphones in the wrong ears make the mix sound like it has less bass?	[ "If you're talking about \"ear\" phones, manufacturers generally mold each bud to fit in a specific L or R auditory canal. If you put them on the wrong way, they do not seal the canal, allowing the pressure waves to travel out instead of to your drum." ]
How come some liquids(like milk) can be held in paper cartons, and some can not(like toothpaste)?	[ "Toothpaste isn't a liquid. It's a paste. And the easiest way to dispense a thicker substance like that is in a tube you can squeeze. Also, nobody needs a 1L carton of toothpaste.", "Well, in the specific case of toothpaste, a paper container wouldn't be as convenient for getting it out. Current toothpaste contai...
What it would be like to see into the infrared and ultraviolet bands of the electromagnetic spectrum?	[ "You know colours of the rainbow? There would be more of them.\n\nSome colours pass through walls (radiowaves) and some are blocked by glass (UV), so you would see some cool stuff going on." ]
How does a vacuum tube work? Those tiny dim bulbs that are in guitar amps and high-end audio gear.	[ "The hot wire at one end (the emitter) gets hot enough to randomly spit out free electrons.\n\nthe electrode the other end (the collector) is given a voltage to attract those free electrons.\n\nThe grid in the middle can be varied in voltage to attract or repel the free electron, But because it's a mesh at lot of t...
What is all the drama going on with Reddit right now?	[ "_URL_0_\n\npretty much explains everything. /u/chooter a moderator and IAMA's talent coordinator was fired out of the blue and only a few people with tight lips knows why. There has been very little communication between the volunteer mods that keep reddit running and the admins. /u/chooter's firing upset a bun...
why does Internet Explorer get made fun of so much? What exactly makes other browsers so much better?	[ "Contrary to what /u/Boringbear claims, the current version of Internet Explorer is on par with other browsers.\n\nWhen Internet Explorer first came onto the scene, it was by far the best browser. Because it was so popular (it was included with Windows), it came up with ways to do nifty things on websites. Unfortun...
Is taking a 3 hour nap during the day and sleeping 5 hours at night equivalent to getting a full 8 hour sleep at night?	[ "I don't think anyone has given you a real answer to your question, so here it goes: We all need sleep, some more than others (this is typically broken down by age). If you fell asleep for one minute 60 separate times, your body wouldn't gain the same value as if you slept for a straight hour. This happens because ...
When someone is killed by execution, why is the proper term 'hanged' instead of 'hung'?	[ "Here's the top comment by /u/xtremity from when this was [asked a year ago](_URL_0_):\n\n > As far as modern British English is concerned, hung is the normal form in most general uses, e.g. they hung out the washing; but hanged is the form normally used in reference to execution by hanging: the prisoner was ha...
Why when the US invaded Japan it became a functioning and successful country yet our efforts elsewhere may have failed or proven more difficult?	[ "Japan was an empire who laid down their arms -- full and clear surrender.\n\nIn Afghanistan and Iraq, the leadership never surrendered. There really was no one who could, being a major problem.\n\nThis remaining leadership gives you a lot of stability, which is particularly important in a post-war rebuilding. The ...
Why is car insurance complusary and not optional like other insurances?	[ "Because by driving a vehicle you're potentially putting other people at risk. If I don't have homeowner's insurance and my house burns down, that sucks for me and my family, but nobody else is really harmed if I can't afford to buy a new house.\n\nBut if I drive my car into a sidewalk full of pedestrians and hurt ...
Why do all (or most) languages capitalize the first letter of a sentence?	[ "Not all languages do, as you know, but we can be more specific than that. Nearly all of the languages that do capitalize the first letter of a sentence (or any letters at all, really) are those that use the [Latin alphabet](_URL_1_). The reason most of those languages capitalize has a lot to do with the histor...
Why does Splenda have a stronger taste than Sugar?	[ "The sugar substitute, Sucralose, that is used to make Splenda is a derivative of Sucrose (table sugar) that is chemically changed to be non-caloric and exceptionally sweeter. They replace three Hydroxyl (HO) bonds on the Sucrose with Chlorine (Cl). Originally, the makers intended to make an efficient insecticide o...

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