Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
What causes loose skin on some people after losing weight?	[ "when you get fat, your skin stretches, there's almost no limit on how much the skin can stretch and you will get stretch marks if it stretches too fast. when you lose fat, it's hard for your skin to unstretch. so they are left with loose skin. of course the more weight they lose the more significant an issue th...
If people are constantly going to film school and learning how to properly make films, why are so many bad directors, editors, cinematographers, writers, etc. still getting work? Why are they not fired and replaced by someone who can do the job better?	[ "Thats kind of like thinking a pro athlete is shitty so they should be replaced.\n\nSure they aren't doing that well, and they are struggling, but the playing field is at such an absurdly high level you can't say the are 'bad'. Especially if you want to talk about the people who come out of film school.\n\ngo watch...
how a hardware store worker is affecting a whole country's economy	[ "He posts the true dollar to bolivar exchange rate. The Venezuelan government insists n setting the rate rather than permitting it to fluctuate based on demand.\n\nSince the people are now armed with better information, they are spending their bolivars with that information in mind.\n\nThe article explains this in...
when baking, why can you not simply 2x, 3x, etc the recipe to increase the batch?	[ "Baking is a very specific form of cooking that requires two things; humidity and temperature. When you're making your dough, you need it to raise and set. The size of your rolled/patted dough alters how it raises and sets. \n\nIf you multiply a baking recipe, it could possibly affect the size of your rolled/patted...
Why do my veins look blue when my blood is red?	[ "Oxygenated blood is the bright red you are familiar with, blood without oxygen is a darker red. Due to the way that light is absorbed by the skin and muscle between your veins and the surface, the dark red blood appears blue.\n\nEdit: any of the other answers stating that human blood is blue without oxygen are jus...
What does U2 get out of releasing it's new album for free on iTunes?	[ "A new generation of people listening to their music. Said people may consider buying their other albums which are not free.", "1. a fat check from apple.\n2. promotion of upcoming tour and a shit-ton of other commercial products that will undoubtedly be associated with the album and the brand.\n3. update in sal...
How does an insect's mind function relative to our own in terms of "thoughts," motivation, and instinct?	[ "As far as brain development is concerned, humans have a shared heritage with other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and even fish. There are structural similarities between the human brain and the brains of these species, and through various states of altered consciousness we can make an educated guess about t...
How do our toes, such a small part of our bodies, withstand our body weight with full stability without breaking?	[ "They've evolved to be strong enough to. Bones are pretty darn strong compared to their size/weight. That, along with your muscles helping support them, can generally withstand a good bit of weight, assuming you're relatively healthy. \n\nAnd if you trained those muscles, you could do even more. Ballet dancers can ...
The news is confusing me, how does a bill create jobs?	[ "I know of three ways, but there are possibly others too. For one, government can introduce tax deductions and other relieving measures so an employer has more money left with which he can employ more people. Other form of job creation through government is public infrastructure spending where they announce/push le...
Why do we call bigotry towards homosexuals homophobia?	[ "Homophobia is not a recognized clinical disorder the same way acrophobia is. It's first recorded use was in a NY Times article in the 80's.\n \nThe wiki page on homophobia has a section mentioning the same semantic criticism that you do, with LGBT scholars suggesting terms such as homonegativity or sexual prejudic...
How can the police or the fire departement tell what the cause of a fire was? For example by arson, by accident or just by nature itself?	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: How do technicians determine the cause of a fire? Eg. to a cigarette stub when everything is burned out. ](_URL_1_) ^(_ > 100 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: How do people determine how fires start? Wouldn't all the evidence of the cause of the fire be...
Death Tax	[ "The \"death tax\" (aka estate tax) doesn't actually kick in unless your grandmother's estate is worth more than $5.25 million. Your father doesn't know what he's talking about.", "You're talking about the [estate tax](_URL_0_).\n\nIf your grandmother's estate had significant value the government will charge you...
In empty space, without a reference point, how would traveling at the speed of light work? It seems like one's speed would be totally indeterminate and therefore would be able to travel at the speed of light.	[ "You can accelerate forever. The universe conspires to keep you below the speed of light, however. But it does it in a strange way. You, on your ship, would see time pass as normal. But you would experience lorentz contraction. As you continue to accelerate, distances along the axis of your travel would shrink. Not...
Why do scam websites that claim to sell "a revolutionary product" all look the same?	[ "Because they work. Scam artists and lazy people see an idea that brings money for little work, and they emulate that idea. Why fix something that isnt broken, right? Similar idea to why there are a million different versions of Minecraft and Bejewelled. The people peddling these things aren't innovators. They don'...
The difference between a president, a prime minister, and other types of national leaders	[ "There are 2 types of governments, at least among large developed nations like the UK, US, Canada, etc. A parliamentary or a Presidential system. Both have the same 3 basic branches of government. The judicial, executive and legislative. The differences lie with the executive.\n\nIn parliamentary system, the par...
If women have a right to their own bodies, why is abortion legal, but prostitution illegal?	[ "The straightforward answer to the legal question---at least in the U.S.---is that the government has a lot more power to regulate commercial activities done for entertainment than it has to regulate private medical decisions. \n\nThe slightly less straightforward answer has to do with how courts look at the inter...
Why, when looking at the reflection of my monitor in a glass of orange juice, do I see rainbows across the reflection?	[ "Because your glass is curved. So it's going to curve the light passing through it and reflecting off of it ever so slightly. \n\nBending light in such a manner produces a rainbow effect because the medium does not bend all the frequencies of light the by same amount." ]
how do people (Tom Petty Gaye family) win copyright battles over songs with loosely similar melodies? Haven't all the basic pop melodies been used a thousand times already?	[ "Songs can be stylistically similar in a number of different ways, and it's when these add up that infringement becomes a problem. In other words, yes, it is inevitable that occasionally two songs will share a similar melody here and there. However, songs consist of more than just melodies:\n\n- Lyrical content\n\n...
In movies, they need to keep having a phone connection for like 30secs in order to track someones location. Why?	[ "Excuse my language, but the movies are total bullshit in this case. It's just a plot device.\n\nWhenever you place a call, at least within North America, there are two Caller Identity records that automatically get tagged on the call. These tags are sent as part of the protocol to setup the call (before the call i...
Why are warm showers very sedative and cold showers very stimulating?	[ "The heat from a hot shower helps tightened or inflamed muscles (from stress or injury) relax and also promotes better blood flow and circulation. This, naturally, has a relaxing affect on the body.\n\nCold water can stimulate oxygen intake via the physical shock from the temperature and can also increase heart rat...
War on Terror	[ "Well, you can learn a lot here:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe term was first used by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s.\n\nIt's really more of a phrase that politicians use to get applause and to refer to the general military operations against terrorist organizations and other groups vaguely like them, than an actual wa...
why some game updates introduce more bugs	[ "Think of computer code like a spider web - if you tug on one end of the web, the entire web moves slightly because it's all connected. Now, ideally, code should be modular, such that if you change this one piece over here, that other piece over there is completely unaffected. However, in the real world, it's quite...
how can identical twins have distinctly different voices?	[ "Identical twins are only genetically identical.\n\nVoice is affected by a multitude of things; for example, your environment, have you smoked? Your diet, do you weight exactly the same amount and are you the same height? How and when you learnt to speak, were you presented with exactly the same learning materials?...
When we get issued plates for our IOTV vests in the army, we get told not to drop the plates or they might shatter. How can these plates that are rated for a 7.62x54mm bullet stop said bullet if they can't even hold up when they get dropped?	[ "It's not about being so hard as to stop the bullet. It's about reducing the amount of energy the bullet is carrying. Transferring that energy into the ceramic and distributing it throughout lessens the energy. As stated above cars are made to crumple at the hood forward. That way the energy of the impact is spread...
Why do we forget dreams so fast?	[ "They're not stored in long term memory. The reason for this is probably because there's no advantage to remembering them and remembering them would clog your memory up with crap.", "You can train yourself to remember dreams better. When you wake up and you still have that bit of memory of the dream, write it do...
How does 'dual-citizenship' work if one of the countries concerned doesn't have the provision of 'dual-citizenship'?	[ "It doesn't. If you are a citizen of a country that doesn't allow you to hold multiple citizenships, when push comes to shove you may have to decide to give one of them up. Or you may lose your original citizenship automatically as soon as you acquire your new one.\n\nBut it's not like, for example, the U.S. govern...
Why don't blood vessels sort of kink when we fold our knees/elbows?	[ "1. The outside of each blood vessel is made of a material that has the right blend of firmness and flexibility.\n\n2. Most blood vessels are surrounded by soft tissue that will yield first, or hard things (like bones) that will protect them from some of the pressure.\n\n3. The interior of blood vessels is pressuri...
How do cameras work exactly?	[ "Assuming you are referring to digital cameras (not the old-fashioned film cameras): \n\nLight from the subject (like a puppy) is focused onto a sensor chip using a lens, or more than one lens. There are different kinds of sensors, but the basic idea behind all of them are similar. They contain an array of sensor ...
What is a Banana Republic? How is it related to Bananas?	[ "Banana republic can either be:\n\nA fake republic, like the Nicaraguan republic in the late twentieth century. In this sense, banana is a connection to a centralized republic, like, int he hands of the few, in the case of Nicaragua, the hands of the banana business family. See the paradox?\n\nOr you can be referri...
What's stopping the Russians from crushing Ukraine like it did Hungary in 56'?	[ "You have to look at the bigger picture on this one. Putin is concerned with the eastern expansion of NATO and the US' rocket shield around Russia's soft underbelly. \nWhen the US announced in 2008 that they wanted to invite Ukraine to Nato, Lawrov said: \"Njet means njet\". \n\nSo it's important to analyse the con...
How do tattoos stay in our skin even though we shed and peel away skin after sunburns?	[ "Because we only shed and peel the upper layer of skin. The tattoo is a few layers deeper in and fairly well protected from peeling and shedding and loss of skin." ]
Why is Alcohol aged in Barrels?	[ "As far as Bourbon... The whiskey expands and contracts into the wood as it ages and with seasonal changes. This mellows the whiskey and imparts the oak flavor. The longer it ages the more mellow the flavor. This process creates longer molecular chains which aid in a better flavor. I drank some 23 year old bourbon ...
How is it that we've managed to make so many diverse variations of dogs, and would we be able to do this with any other animal on the same scale?	[ "Dogs (and closely related animals like wolves) have a really weird and seemingly unique thing called a [\"Slippery genome.\"](_URL_0_) We haven't discovered any other animals that have this yet, but it really helps in dog breeding.\n\nDogs basically have backup genes that allow them to survive mutation much better...
How cats survive falls	[ "When I was 5 our cat jumped off of our apartment terrace. It was explained to me that cats have 9 lives and when they fall from great distances they land on their feet, but lose a life. \nWe lived on 16th floor. \nMy parents said that each floor it past cost it a life, so by the time it reached the 7th floor it...
What does the parental advisory label do and does it prevent a child from buying CDs with that logo?	[ "The advisory label is voluntary. There is no law or regulation that requires a retailer to not sell to a minor. It was created as a response to gangster rap from the 90s entering the mainstream. \n\nIn contemporary times, I'm sure high school kids know more bad words than I do. And they probably know how to downlo...
Why do hear an echo like sound when we place a glass on our ear even though the room is quiet ?	[ "Seashell resonance.\n\nThe rushing sound that one hears is in fact the noise of the surrounding environment, resonating within the cavity of the shell. The same effect can be produced with any resonant cavity, such as an empty cup or even by simply cupping one's hand over one's ear. The similarity of the noise pro...
Why do moths and other bugs like to crowd around light sources so much?	[ "We think that moths use the moon/Sun for navigation. If you stand outside so that the moon is to your left, and walk keeping the moon to your left, you can keep a general heading.\n\nMoths developed this ability long, long before ANYTHING at night shined brightly other than the moon. So it gets confused when it ...
Why don't copyright laws affect China?	[ "US copyright laws only really apply in the US.\n\nInternational copyright laws apply worldwide, but only to the extent to which countries wish to enforce them within their borders. China isn't making it a priority, and there isn't much the rest of the world can do to force them.", "US courts don't have jurisdic...
why does my Apple IPhone require that I have at least 4.5 GB of storage available in order to update?	[ "The files you download in the update must be decompressed before being permanently installed. A 500 MB download could easily decompress into a couple of gigabytes or more." ]
Why is there such a small amount of steam games for mac?	[ "It takes effort to build the game for the mac. Not as much effort as building it from scratch, but it does take a significant investment. It can also be different enough that you may want a specific team just for the mac work. For many companies that extra effort isn't worth the cost given the relatively small ...
How does the 'auto' function on car lights work?	[ "A simple photosensitive detector can measure light levels. It's about outside ambient light, not light from oncoming cars. Even if light from oncoming cars hits the sensor, it is overall much less bright than full sunlight. Moreover, there can be multiple light sensors placed in different points around the car, an...
Why does everyone hate flash so much? Why is everyone trying to get it blocked everywhere?	[ "Flash is a system where web designers can do things on a webpage that is not usually possible through html. It can play video, connect to servers, read and write to the operating system files, and more.\n\nUnfortunately, to achieve all of these features, flash had to give its programs increased access to the oper...
How do I use a semicolon?	[ "Basically you use them to replace transitional phrases like: \"such as,\" \"and so,\" \"hence,\" or \"that is to say.\"", "A couple cases:\n\n* 1) Lists that contain internal punctuation\n* 2) As a substitute for a conjuction between independent clauses\n* 3) Between independent clauses that are linked by a tran...
Where did the stereotypical image of the Halloween witch come from?	[ "The idea of witches riding brooms is hundreds of years old. Otherwise, witches in history were depicted as regular looking women (or realistically ugly women, not mnosters).\n\nThe green skin, long pointy nose, and regular witches hat come from ~~Dorothy~~ Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in The ...
Why aren't can't people remember distinct memories from their childhood?	[ "Human memory is actually a very flawed system.\n\nWe have forget lots of things - most of our sensory input is almost immediately dumped and we retain a very small fraction of what we perceive.\nAlso, memory is highly fluid. The current understanding of memory is that memories are re-experienced and recreated eve...
The "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" conspiracy, it's plausibility, and scientific evidence related to the conspiracy.	[ "Jet fuel burns from 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel at 2750°. However, for the towers to give way, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength, which was entirely possible. Hope that clears that up a bit for you.", "While it is true that the meltin...
Why don't we use anesthetic before getting piercings and tattoos?	[ "Because administration of anesthesia is a potentially deadly activity requiring generally a much higher level of training and credentials (and is therefore really expensive) then administering a tramp stamp.", "Anesthesia potentially has very serious side effects, so whenever possible it's not administered. The ...
Where do the rocks around the perimeter of lakes come from?	[ "I suspect the reason is that: \n\nRocks around the lake are those we see laying on the soil's surface or partially in-bedded, being as water from rain, melting snow, the natural level of the lake water rising and receding, washes the surrounding soil into the lake leaving the heavier rocks visible.\n\nTake a flat ...
Why does cleaning our tongue (I.E When brushing our teeth) make our breath smell better?	[ "Because your tongue is home to tons of bacteria that cause bad breath. Brushing your tongue removes them.", "Your breath goes over all of the tongue to get out of the mouth. Getting rid of the bacteria causing bad smells on the tongue reduces the smell picked up by your breath." ]
how do satnav routing algorithms work?	[ "[This animation](_URL_0_) shows the basic way it works, using something called \"Dijkstra's Algorithm\".\n\nIn this algorithm, junctions or intersections are called \"nodes\". Paths between nodes are assigned a \"cost\" - the cost might represent the distance, or the journey time.\n\nIn the animation, we are tryin...
Why do new games sold digitally on steam cost as much as physical disks for consoles?	[ "Not sure but... steam library usually doesnt scratch, can be re-downloaded to a new hdd on a new pc, game is usually full of more goodies/customizable than a console disk blah blah. Also disks are obsolete. I dont even have an optical drive and the only time I would have ever really needed one was installing dr...
ELIP: Physics terms	[ "Speed: how fast you are going\n\nVelocity: Your speed and direction. (if you move backwards, your speed may be the same, but your velocity is negative)\n\nAcceleration: Your change in velocity as time changes. It can be the result of your speed changing (speeding up or slowing down) or it can be because of a chang...
Why can I always see the moon? During the day, why can I still see it, though slightly faded?	[ "Because it's there.\n\nThe moon is a big ball of rock and dust about a quarter of a million miles above us. At night, the part that the sun shines on is easily visible to us, but the rest of the moon is still there. During the day it gets just as much light as Earth, and is quite reflective, so it's bright enough ...
Why are "weeds" more fertile than other plants?	[ "This is essentially why we classify them as weeds. The defining trait of weeds is \"they grow where we don't want them to\" and fairly typically this involves invasive growth, tolerance for disturbed earth, and rapid spread/growth. In other words, \"they show up where we're doing yard work, and won't go away\"\n...
Pointers in C++, how to use them and why we need them	[ "It's a pointer to a memory location. If you have a massive data structure then it's more efficient to pass a pointer which just points to a memory location than it is to pass it as a variable that will duplicate the data structure." ]
Where did the bacteria in our mouths come from?	[ "Your fingers, straws, cups, forks, spoons, the air, the food you put in your mouth has bacteria on it (think eating a piece of bread,) your toothbrush has bacteria all over it.\n\nBacteria are extremely numerous and extremely common. Brushing your teeth doesn't eliminate all of them, cooking your food doesn't elim...
does every living creature feel pain?	[ "No, many animals lack the nervous system requirements to feel pain as we would understand it. Plants are totally out of the running and bacteria are just single cells.", "Apart from the excellent answers already given, it is also thought insects can feel no pain.\nThis is because mortally wounded insects often ...
how much power does the Queen of England really have?	[ "The first thing to remember is there no black and white period in time where the monarch simply stopped having \"real\" power. The British monarchy is entirely the result of literally more than a millennium of political evolution. There were, however, important steps to turning the monarchy from one of real power ...
Why do neo-Nazis exist outside of Germany if they're not part of the Aryan race?	[ "What do you mean by \"the Aryan race\"? The original Nazis took that phrase because, at the time, it was (wrongly) believed that most of the languages in Europe came from a region of Persia that was home to the actual Aryans. The Nazis then simply claimed there was an \"Aryan race\", and that it was the \"original...
Why do Atomic Bombs make a "Mushroom" shaped cloud when they detonate?	[ "Hot air rises. When there is a large enough source of heat, it creates a column of hot air that is much hotter in the center than on the edges. The center of the column rises faster, causing the air around the edges to curl and create the mushroom shape. Then, with a big enough explosion the air eventually reac...
Why do hackers feel the need to release private information to the public like officals' names and addresses? What do they gain from this?	[ "The same thing that kid in middle school got out of making fun of your shoes and squirting ketchup on them. Publicity and embarrassment. Bullies thrive off of the reaction they get out of it, my assumption is thats what pointless hackers get out of pointless hacking.", "I writing this under the assumption you me...
How Can Viewers Be Influenced by Unrealistic Standards of Beauty in the Media, but Not By Violence in the Media?	[ "It's a good question, and I think it really has to do with attitude more than anything else. And attitude is important.\n\nIt's entirely possible (even likely) that video games do influence people, but not necessarily in the ways you hear about in the media. The typical claim about video games, for example, is tha...
I currently have a cold, and have a runny nose. Why is it that when I snort really hard and my nasal cavity seems to get "tight" that i feel that release of air shortly after?	[ "I know exactly what you're talking about, like your nose pressurises then slowly deflates. \n\nWaiting for a good answer :)" ]
Why fog lights are able to cut through fog while brights only light up the fog more.	[ "Fog lights are closer to the ground and are aimed slightly downward, so that only the fog very close to the road's surface reflects light back. High beams are high and have a wide beam that sends light upward, so that instead of just a thin layer of fog between you and the road being lit up just about everything i...
What is turbulence? And how do airplane pilots sometimes know when they are about to hit turbulence?	[ "Pilot here...Pilot reports are really the best way to know when it will be bumpy. One plane 100 miles ahead will report turbulence at a certain altitude to ATC and then they will relay the message to other planes. Those other planes can then decide if they want to deviate course or altitude...Also just don't fly i...
What's the difference between RealD 3D & IMAX 3D?	[ "IMAX uses a different polarization technique (linear vs circular). RealD 3D can tolerate a lot more head movement, while with IMAX 3D you pretty much have to keep your head focused on the screen, but can work even when sitting at an extreme angle, RealD 3D has a more noticeable sweetspot (so the 3D effect degrades...
how do your eyes get dilated?	[ "How: A little muscle called the iris dilator constricts and relaxes according to stimuli, to let more or less light in as needed. Good info here: _URL_0_. Sometimes your optometrist will use drops to see inside better. Drugs and trauma (concussion) can also make one or both eyes dilate improperly. \n\nFun fact: Wo...
What is the difference between Shia and Sunni branches of Islam	[ "It started after Muhammed died and there was a power struggle over who would be caliph. Basically that's where everything went to hell. Sunnis believe that Abu Bakr, the father of Muhammad's wife Aisha, was Muhammad's rightful successor. \n \nShias believe that Muhammad divinely ordained his cousin and son-in-la...
How can any drug cost $360,000 a year for a patient.	[ "When a pharmaceutical company creates and patents a new drug, they can charge as much as they want for it, since no one else is able to sell or produce it without their consent. The reason this doesn't completely prevent people from accessing the drug is because their health insurance providers often pay for it. O...
Why are some foods high in sodium but they don't taste particularly salty?	[ "Not all sodium is in the form of salt (sodium chloride). Baking soda, for example, doesn't taste nearly as salty as the same amount as salt. MSG has sodium and isn't salty (though it's generally used in small quantities). Also, other tastes, especially sweetness, can hide the taste of salt." ]
How is the curiosity rover different than the mars rover?	[ "NASA has successfully landed three rovers on Mars. You can [see the differences here](_URL_0_).\n\nThe Curiosity rover has 10 times the mass of scientific instruments than the Spirit or Opportunity rovers.\n\nIt will be much better at studying the climate and geology of Mars, and better at determining whether the...
Are there any differences between Prison Labor and Slave Labor and should we worry about the future of privately owned prisons? I know Slavery is not entirely illegal according to the 13th Amendment. So it's kinda scary to imagine what could happen, am I worrying for no reason?	[ "> ... should we worry about the future of privately owned prisons?\n\nI don't think you need to worry about the future, privately owned prisons are a concern today.\n\nInstead of working solely to rehabilitate inmates, the prison industrial complex is very involved in lobbying government to influence laws to t...
What do people get out of being cuckolded/humiliated?	[ "I've been into cuckold fantasies for a couple years. I finally told my gf about it, and a few nights ago she slept with another guy. I was really worried that it was just a fantasy, and that afterwards I would feel jealous, disgusted, or angry. But I didn't. She sent me pictures of them together, and looking at th...
why when I eat spicy food my poop turns into water.	[ "Turning poop into water was one of Jesus' less popular miracles.", "You lower intestine removes water from your poop before you poop it out. This is to prevent you from becoming too thirsty. If your intestine doesn't like what you've eaten (For example if it's hot and painful to your intestine.) your lower intes...
Where does the money dissappear in a financial crisis like the one in 2008?	[ "I believe it was never there. It was money 'shown' on shares of all the worlds companies. As soon as the confidence goes, the share price falls and therefore even with the same amount of shares the value is lost if no one is willing to pay for them." ]
Tipping in the US.	[ "It's a cycle. Tipping may have originated because wages were low, or customers were being generous. From there however, wages were cut because employers realized that servers were making more for tips. Then there was more pressure to tip, so more people did, and then wages were cut further, etc.\n\nNo one (except ...
why do we have recurring dreams. What makes our brain think those things over and over again? Also what makes us think of things in dreams?	[ "Ok. This is going to sound a bit strange, but you can trust what I say around 70% of the time. Ok, here we go:\n\nThere's a structure in your brain called the hypocampus. Its job is to collect your audio and visual senses and relay them to your higher brain for processing. Much like many businesses have a departme...
The difference between OOP, Top-Down programming, and bottom-up programming.	[ "[This is bottom up programming.](_URL_3_) The first sentence says it all.\n\n[This is top down programming.](_URL_0_) Again, the first sentence says it all.\n\n[Object Oriented Programming](_URL_1_) is a concept of encapsulating tuples of data as \"objects\" as a type and associating them with behaviors relating t...
Why is healthcare in the US so connected to religion?	[ "One of the inherent values of Christianity (and one that is not practiced that well, imo) is taking care of the sick and the infirm. Providing medical care is a natural outgrowth of this belief. \n\nIt is my understanding that medicine was not always the respected career field it is now. It was once sort of looked...
Can lakes that are dead zones be "un-dead zoned" or purified	[ "Possibly.\n\nThe problem is the absence of adequate oxygen, but the underlying cause can be different. For instance the most common cause is the increase in phosphorus allowing the bacteria that feeds on it growing at a faster rate, and they eat up the oxygen.\n\nSo we could find something to destroy the bacteria ...
How does a gentle rocking motion help send people to sleep?	[ "Because it reminds then of being in the woumb. Same reason that white noise lulls people to sleep." ]
How does Google or _URL_0_ still know my real IP address when I'm using a VPN?	[ "They shouldn't be able to do that.\n\nBut, as [this page on the whatismyipaddress website](_URL_0_) describes, it may be that the real IP address is being \"leaked\". The leak is using something called \"WebRTC\", which can be tricked into finding your real IP address and sending it to the server.\n\nThe page also...
Why does human hair grow for so long that it has to be cut while the hair on chimpanzees or cats for instance just stop at a certain point?	[ "I think that's because they have fur/body hair rather than hair. Poodles, for example, have hair and they need regular haircuts, i believe. \n\nI don't really know why the body hair/fur doesn't grow, probably just falls out before it gets too long... whereas the hair on our head doesn't do the same or had a longer...
Why do minor illnesses like a head cold take the body sometimes weeks to get rid of, whereas Gastroenteritis or Influenza can take a day or two?	[ "Different viruses/bacteria have different durations before our immune system can eradicate the pathogen. Also, in areas like the sinuses, inflammation from allergies or viral infections can predispose the tight areas to subsequent bacterial overgrowth/infection due to lack of ability to drain properly." ]
Why when I think about actually breathing do i find myself having to breathe "manually" until I forget about it?	[ "Breathing is an act that is based in an involuntary part of the brain but a portion has become voluntary (because it's used in speech). Two different brain circuits can control it, therefore it seems necessary at times and completely automatic at other times. \n\nEdit:typos, typos, typos" ]
Why programs spend so much time shutting down/closing? Especially when I can force quit or even pull the plug without causing problems	[ "> Also, I'm pretty advanced with technology as I've done a lot of computer programming and keep up to date with a lot of tech stuff so you don't have to dumb it down TOO much\n\nGiven you're asking this question, you're not.\n\nAnyway, short answer is that they're saving their state. On shutdown, they'll be writi...
What actually happens when food or a drink "goes down the wrong pipe"?	[ "I seem to be prone to this for some reason, I've never figured out why. I figured out years ago that when I feel this is about to happen (I can always get the sensation right before I start coughing) I just quickly bend over as if reaching for my toes. I can literally feel the liquid draining back up my throat and...
how can the majority of large animals eat so infrequently and such simple diets yet maintain such strength and mass?	[ "They eat 5-7000 calories/day. That is a huge amount for a < 300 lb animal. Meat is very calorie dense and they eat a ton of it." ]
How to claim unfair dismissal in the UK?	[ "You can read about [employment tribunal](https://www._URL_0_/employment-tribunals) over at _URL_0_. If you scroll down there's a enquiry line you can call." ]
Why am I no longer hungry after being hungry for a long time?	[ "You eat food and your stomach has stuff in it, then when it starts to be digested your body want to replenish the lost food in your stomach. After there is no more food your body adjusts to have little of no food and you wont get hungry for a little while. (this is a very simply explain answer there is a much more...
How can it be that my singing Hallmark card has more technological power than Apollo 11?	[ "This trope is accurate when discussing processing power, but not technological power. I'm not even sure how one would measure technological power.", "Exponential growth is pretty staggering, and transistor-based electronics have experienced a pretty steady exponential growth since their inception.\n\nMicroscopic...
What is abstraction in computer science?	[ "Computers do lots of really complex things, right? In order to make them simple for people to understand and work with, we provide abstractions of them.\n\nLet's say we want to have a linked list of numbers. You could, every time you want to add an element to that list, allocate the memory, put the value in yo...
How is it that during the day I can see the moon and the sun, but on the opposite side of the earth it's night time and the moon is clearly visible?	[ "If the moon is directly above you, the it will NOT be visible on the other side of the earth. It will be a dark, moonless night for them. If the moon is to your left, it will appear to the right in the sky of someone on the other side of the earth from you. The moon is high above the earth. Therefore visible to ...
What's going on with the NBA?	[ "Some NBA owners are terrible businessmen who negotiate contracts they can't afford to pay. The rest of the league can't tell them to fix it themselves, because as soon as they stop operating as a single entity they lose anti-trust protection. As a result, the league has to protect the mismanaged teams. They cho...
Why do people become more religious as they get older?	[ "Statistics notwithstanding, you're generalizing. I'm in my 70s, never thought much about religion when I was young (because my folks were thoroughly secular and didn't care about religion), but as I've gotten older I've become more and more aware of the damage religious belief and doctrine does to people -- especi...
The concept of the trinity and Jesus his sacrifice.	[ "> Christians believe that there is one god that is 3 different people in one?\n\nMost do, in some way or other. You're right, it's highly illogical, but the Christian Church in its early years had the problem that the Bible talks of there being only one god, but it also seems to talk about Jesus and the Holy Spir...
Sleep? What is that?	[ "Sleep is a metabolic process where your body is put at rest because your brain needs some time to cool off from all the information it had to process that day.\nA good analogy is a not so perfect vehicle. Imagine a vehicle that can only be driven 2 hours at a time before it overheats. To be able to drive long dist...
When nuclear bombs are tested over water, what happens under the water's surface?	[ "The water's surface is vaporized immediately due to the extreme heat. Those water vapors travel upward and mingle with all of the radio active particles before going far up into the atmosphere. Those tiny water vapors carry radioactive particles with them until the vapors condense and fall as a rain drops. Then yo...
how a suppressor can thread into a barrel, and the bullet still pass through, since there is now less space?	[ "Threaded barrels have the threads on the outside, not the inside. The suppressor will thread onto that, so the internal barrel diameter will not change.\n\n[Here's a picture of the threadings on a barrel.](_URL_0_)", "There would have to be pre built in threading for it to fit. You are correct that you would not...
Why are movie tickets so expensive?	[ "If that were the case, they would do it. The prices are pretty carefully figured out to maximize profit. If they cut the price they wouldn't get enough people to cover the lower per-ticket price, and if they raised it they wouldn't get enough extra to cover the lost people. \n\nNote that this balance point is diff...

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