Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
Newtons Law of Cooling/Microwaves	[ "A quick look at [the Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) reveals this quote:\n\n > Finally, in the case of heat transfer by thermal radiation, Newton's law of cooling is not true\n\nThis is the key. A microwave doesn't work by just adding ambient heat to food through conduction and convection. Microwaves are a form ele...
Goosebumps, what the heck are they?	[ "Goosebumps is a series of children's horror fiction novellas by American author R. L. Stine, published by Scholastic Publishing. The stories follow child characters, who find themselves in scary situations; usually involving monsters and other supernatural elements. From 1992 to 1997, 62 books were published under...
Is there a reason why various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linked In, etc.) use blue as their theme color?	[ "You may want to take this answer with a pinch of salt because I'm not 100% sure, But I would imagine the reason why is because certain colours can physiologically change your view on things.\nThe colour blue is known to give a more calming, trust worthy view. I recommend reading up on [this](_URL_0_) it goes deepe...
Would there be any way to "improve" the internet if we could start it all over?	[ "Tons of stuff we could improve on.\n\nFor starters, the early days of the internet were like a small, rural community where nobody locks their cars or homes. Many of the protocols rely on a fundamentally high level of trust.\n\nWe could build encryption into everything. We could build out the email system in suc...
when you have x^3, you can "explode" this out into x * x * x. What is happening when you take a root? Is there any way to "explode" that?	[ "Ish. You can view xxx as x^1 * x^1 * x^1. Since sqrt(x) is x^0.5, you can do the same thing, as long as all the powers sum to 0.5, like so: x^0.5 = x^0.25 * x^0.25, or x^0.5 = x^1 * x^-0.5", "Not really, because a root (of n-th order) is equal to x^(1/n) and you can't multiply X by itself 1/n times. I would ...
why does ice stick to an empty cup when you're trying to get it in your mouth?	[ "When the ice cube melts, some water will stay surrounding the cube, \"connecting\" it to the cup, sorta like a vaccum.", "Two wonderful properties of water are at work here, cohesion and adhesion.\n\nAdhesion means a substance sticks to other substances, and has the same root as adhesive.\n\nCohesion means a sub...
Why do DVD menus loop so poorly?	[ "In the DVD menus the DVD players have to move back to the starting point to re-read the video, and so there is a gap where it is moving the disk.\n\n\nsorry about my last comment i didn't quite understand what you were asking.", "DVD's have limited storage space. So in order to save space the DVD menus are small...
Why do we make fun of France so much?	[ "We make fun of them because we can't really control them. Britain will do whatever we say so they're our besties. France is like that cool kid who generally hangs out with you but sometimes makes you look like a complete dick by calling you out just when you think you've got the gang worshipping you.", "It is si...
How does Cable-Modem "Turboboost" work?	[ "In typical Internet use, most things that are transmitted down the wire to your computer are very small. Like this web page, for example. It contains a few bytes of text, and several image files that are themselves just a few bytes.\n\nA common service offering from Internet providers is to give you considerably...
What are Bayesian Statistics, and how are they used to filter spam?	[ "Bayes theorem is a simple equation in probability theory that basically lets you calculate how likely a hypothesis based on how much evidence it has and it's prior probability.\n\nA naive bayesian classifier is a type of machine learning algorithm that uses this equation to try to figure out the probability that a...
What would the US have to do to revert back to a no political party system?	[ "There is no way. Political parties are not part of the government. They are a group of like-minded people who decided the best way to get what they want is to unite behind a single nominee. Political parties are a natural result of our freedom to assemble. Dissolving them would be a violation of the First Amen...
Why haven't the USA and Russia ever gone to war?	[ "Generally, a country will only choose to go to war if they believe that the benefits of winning are worth the losses they will take getting that victory. The thing about the Cold War is that there were very few upsides to any potential conflict and a mountain of downsides.", "Nuclear weapons. \n\nThese are weapo...
Why does alcohol on an open wound hurt extremely bad the first time, but no pain if poured on seconds later?	[ "The same reason you aren't constantly aware of the smell of a room or the feeling of clothes on your body: sensory adaptation. The first time you feel it, it's fresh, but past that, it stops being a new sensation and so your nerves stop sending out signals about it." ]
how life was created, how seemingly inert atoms formed what we are today, these weird organic creatures with sentience	[ "Those atoms aren't inert.\n\nThey react with other atoms, attaching and detaching from each other, requiring energy, releasing energy, etc. All life depends on chemical actions to function. Life is a natural extension of a chemically reactive environment.", "An MIT physicist (Jeremy England) recently launched ...
In this 2012 satellite photo of Berlin, you can distinguish West and East Berlin by the tone of the street lights. Why?	[ "The East and West used different types of lights, and there's no reason to tear down perfectly good lights that are only a few decades old.", "becuase of the types of bulbs and ballasts used. from the looks of it, east germany was using high pressure sodium bulbs and the west was using some form of mercury vapor...
Why are e-cigarettes bans becoming widespread BEFORE any conclusive studies have been done on their safety? How can you ban something that is not well understood?	[ "It's an idea called the \"precautionary principle.\" It says that the burden to prove safety---once there's some reason to doubt whether something is safe---is on the group that wants to introduce something, rather than on the population. The fear is that allowing widespread use of potentially dangerous things cr...
is an animal being turned on its back the equivalent to a human being held upside down?	[ "Not really. The main problem with turning human beings upside down is one of gravity and circulation. The human body is designed to be vertical or horizontal. Valves in the veins are designed to assist blood return from the lower body back to the heart. Between heartbeats, as gravity pulls blood downward, the valv...
What is the science behind TNT Pop-Its (Snap Bags)? What makes them explode when you throw them at something?	[ "Inside the tiny bag is ~99.99% gravel or sand, the other 0.01% is a chemical called silver fulminate. It's a highly unstable chemical that ignites under any sort of friction ( by dropping, squeezing, or stepping on it). When the chemical ignites it creates a shockwave that travels faster than the speed of sound an...
Why Israel does not like the Iran nuclear deal?	[ "It's simple: they know Iran is full of shit." ]
The weird noise your eyes make sometimes when you blink, what is it?	[ "It’s the tensor tympani muscle in your middle ear contracting. It’s sort of like the muscle pressing against the hearing bones in your ear creating a whooshing or rumbling sound" ]
Why does time asleep feel the exact same whether it's four or eight or ten hours?	[ "I believe it has something to do with the fact that you are not conciscious when asleep, and thus any kind of recollection of elapsed time is beyond what you're brain had been doing while asleep." ]
Red Cross told me my blood is super special because I am O-Negative, and CMV-Negative, and my 5 units of blood helped save premature babies, what is CMV-Negative, and why does it help premature babies?	[ "Cytomegalovirus negative. It's a very common viral infection that normally doesn't produce any symptoms. However, it can be dangerous towards immunocompromised patients and can cause liver failure. By not having it you can't expose it to the premature babies, which have weakened immune systems. This reduces their ...
How does Reddit make money?	[ "Advertisement (as AlxeYo pointed out, you might have an ad-blocker on), sponsored links, and reddit gold.", "This question is better suited to [/r/answers](/r/answers) ." ]
why we can secure banking/investment accts online but we can't secure voting	[ "The requirements are different.\n\nMost importantly, banking information needs to be tied to the person making the transaction. If any inconsistencies come up they need to be able to make sure they have enough identification information to trace the transactions back to the person who made them.\n\nThis is exactl...
How does Netflix make money on original programming?	[ "Netflix is paying its rent with member subscriptions. Whatever keeps folks paying $/month will drive their decision making. By whatever logic, they've determined the most folks are willing to pay is $8-12/month. That means the only way they can increase profits is to make money elsewhere or lower costs. \n\nSi...
If Stephen Colbert is so marketable and millions of people watch Jimmy Fallon clips on YouTube, then why don't the networks move their shows to prime time?	[ "these shows win against nothing. would people tune in every night when its up against football, voice, ncis, ect ect? I think they would struggle to garner as many viewers in primetime.", "Consider the demographics of the viewership throughout the day. Who is watching at what times, what content they are cons...
Relativity	[ "First off, relativity is hard. It screws with everything you know, it makes distances shorter and time longer and things heavier.\n\nBasically all Einstein saw was that the speed of light was always the same. Now, that's pretty weird if you think about it. If I throw a ball at you with 30 km/h, you see it coming w...
Christopher Nolan's movie, "The Prestige"	[ "Eek - this is a tough one... I had to watch the movie twice to have it make sense... \nThe Christian Bale character was actually a set of twins, but no one ever knew it - not even his wife. They take turns dressing as the assistant throughout the entire movie. \nOne of the twins was in love with the wife, the oth...
How is that the colors we see organize into a repetitive pattern (ROYGBIVROY...) while their physical wavelengths are linear (390-700nm)?	[ "The issue is wavelength doesn't define color. Photons can be any single wavelength, but our eyes sense the number of red, blue and green photons (there is lots of overlap), so a single wavelength light will be one color, such as red, green or blue, that doesn't cover what you get when you have two different wavele...
Why can we see the xenon atoms in the IBM logo but not the atoms of the surface they're on?	[ "For the same reason that you can't clearly see objects far behind the subject of a photograph. The background is not in focus. That is a simplified explanation, but basically still true." ]
What would happen to the United States if China called the debt to be paid in full within 12 months?	[ "the debt is in bonds. which have a set maturity schedule. the bond holder doesn't get to dictate the terms. only the bond creator does.", "1. they can't. it doesn't work like that. my mortgage company can't say \"ok...pay is everything tomorrow or we're taking your house\". China can't do that either wit...
What exactly happens to your debt when you die. Who is left unpaid?	[ "All assets are usually frozen. The executor to the estate that is assigned by the state (usually identified in the will) must, by law, pay off all debt before any inheritance is given out. If no money or assets are left in the estate, the unpaid folks are out of luck !", "In the US, creditors get first dibs at y...
Why hasn't NSA's "Prism" database been hacked?	[ "A common feature of secure cross network scenarios is a 'data diode' which literally only allows data to pass on one direction. \n\nSo even if some hacky malware does manage to get through to the secure system there is absolutely no way for it to send anything back.", "Systems like this are infiltrated from time...
Why can't huge companies like Google and YouTube beat ad blockers?	[ "Ad blockers work in one of two ways.\n\n* The \"Take it and dump it\" method.\n* The \"Refuse to ask for it\" method.\n\nThe majority of ad blockers work on the \"Refuse to ask for it\" method.\n\nBasically when a page is loaded, your ad blocker consults a list of known ad serving addresses to check if the content...
What would happen to the human body if it got exposed to the extreme pressures of the deep ocean?	[ "rapid compression.\n\nif I had to guess... and this is a guess, your body would quickly fill less tightly filled spaces within itself. (intestines, heart, lungs, ears.\n\nrapid outgassing via anus, rapid color change of your skin almost akin to when you open a compressed water bottle and it makes condensation. lik...
. How does a knife cut through stuff	[ "Every material has some amount of stress it can absorb before it gives way. Knives create a lot of stress by taking the force you apply and putting it in a very small surface area.", "Imagine sticking your hand in a bag with little stones or beads or dried beans etc. Like Amélie Poulain in that famous movie. You...
Why does everybody with Down's Syndrome look alike	[ "Because those facial features are a symptom of Down's Syndrome." ]
Why do parents need to force their children to eat?	[ "It's not about forcing them to eat. It about forcing them to ready right. Left up to children they will eat only candy and snacks. That's why parents want their kids to eat all their actual food on their plate (veggies and grains) before letting them go and eating dessert. The fact that some parents over propor...
why does it sting when I put my contacts in if I haven't slept much /well?	[ "Eye gunk (Rheum) is kinda floating around our eyes while we sleep. When we first wake up, it takes some time/binking for that to go into the corners of our eyes which we end up wiping away. Putting contacts in shortly after waking up, this stuff gets stuck behind the contacts and irritates the eyes... Actually I h...
What does the three-body problem mean?	[ "It's just an interaction involving three objects.\n\nThe Earth orbiting the sun (if we forget about all the other planets, moons, etc) is a two-body problem.\n\nBut if we lived in a binary star system, it would be a three-body problem. Two suns and a planet all orbiting their collective center of mass.\n\nThe thir...
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. How do companies stay in business and recover when they have no money?	[ "Chapter 11 and chapter 7 are very different. Chapter 7 is game over, sell off everything, pay whatever debts you can from the sale of assets.\n\nChapter 11 might be a temporary crunch. For example, an oil company in Texas has sold 1 billion dollars of oil to Japan. It takes 1 month for the super tanker to go from ...
Why does Israel continue to build/expand settlements in Palestinian lands despite international condemnation?	[ "Cause it does not care. \nIt gets the USA to veto any action against it at the UN. The P5 countries: US/RUSSIA/CHINA/UK/FRANCE can put a magic veto on any action they don't like against a country they support. So the UN has really no power at all, just puppet bullshit and more money wasting. The are also the bigge...
Why is Friday the 13th unlucky?	[ "\"Consequently, several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.\n\nOne theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.\n\nIn numerology, the number twelve is considered the num...
How do wild animals know to not drink salt water?	[ "it doesn't taste as good as fresh water. that's the same reason you wouldn't drink it if no one taught you.", "Ever took a big gulp of salt water while swimming. Tastes like crap, you feel like crap. An animal too dumb or not equipped to realize saltwater is bad will go extinct pretty quickly or adapt when expos...
Why do people have a hard time with public speaking?	[ "Worry too much about how people are judging them and less on the subject matter being delivered. \n\nConfidence is just a nice word for giving less of a crap about what other people think about you." ]
Why does acne hurt, and what is the actual white puss from?	[ "The acne hurts from the inflammation. The majority of puss is actually not dirt or dead bacteria. It is your own white blood cells (mostly neutrophils)." ]
If a women drugs and rapes a man then becomes pregnant, can she be forced to undergo an abortion?	[ "Of course not. Why would you think this?", "The state cannot force a medical procedure like this. Abortion is only legal because of a woman's right to privacy and control over her own body.", "No. while she committed a crime and should be punished for that, giving up her bodily autonomy (as in, whether to have...
What it would take to shut down the internet in the US	[ "Every country has an equivalent of the UKs peering points provided by \"telehouse\" and \"telecity\". This is where Internet providers connect to each other, and to international carriers who in turn connect to other Internet providers. The US will likely have many of these, so in order to stop all Internet traffi...
How does gas compression work? Highschool chemistry taught me that various states of matter are the same thing just molecularly tighter. Why is a compressed gas not just liquid?	[ "Super compressed gas does become a liquid for most gasses (though I think a few gasses like hydrogen get kinda funky there instead). Compressing gasses brings the molecules closer together, but most gasses need to be compressed quite a bit (or cooled down a lot, or some combination of both) before they actually ...
How does the box office work? For example Interstellar cost 165m to make but it only grossed 173m. How in the world does a cast get paid with 8m?	[ "Also worth noting that the profits from a movie don't end after a month of release. DVD sales, rentals, licensing agreements with streaming services etc all create revenue after the initial release of a movie.", "Salaries are included in the cost of the movie.", "8m might not seem like a massive profit. But th...
If your eyes don't have pain receptors, why does it hurt to look at the sun?	[ "It is incorrect to suggest eyes don't have pain receptors. Some structures in the eye can be among the most sensitive to pain. The retina itself may not react to damage, but there are cells in it which (While photosensitive) are not used in vision. Instead, it appears some of these cells function to stimulate the ...
If I drink half of a Five Hour Energy, will I have half the energy for five hours or the "full" amount of energy for 2.5 hours?	[ "There are multiple active ingredients in the stuff. Each of them has a curve that initially goes up relatively quickly and then fades slowly as your body processes it.\n\nIf you take half, the strength of those curves cut, but they are not squashed in the time dimension.\n\nThat said, it takes a lot longer than 5 ...
What is quantum tunneling and how does it work in stars?	[ "Things at subatomic scales are a lot fuzzier than things at everyday scales. You might visualize electrons and protons as little balls at definite positions in space moving in definite directions, but understand that this is only a conceptual model. They aren't actually like this. Electrons aren't balls. Neither a...
How do physicists transform observation into formulas? Isn't there a chance they aren't accurate, precise, valid or reliable?	[ "The easiest way to support the accuracy of a formula is to make the dataset larger, or in other words take thousands upon thousands of observations. Computers can tell you the probability of your data just happening to follow your formula randomly, and when that probability gets suitably small (most commonly und...
How do illiterate people in developed countries function?	[ "Being illiterate doesn't necessarily mean that you can't read at all. A lot of times means that you can sort of read but you can't comprehend a lot of what you read. There are plenty of kids in school who can say the words that are on the page, but they don't really know what it means. If you're on of those people...
Why were the Star Wars prequels considered so bad?	[ "Personally, my question would be more along the lines of \"why were the original Star Wars movies considered to be so good?\" \n\nThey had awful scenes and dumb humor throughout. The greatest thing about Star Wars IMO was the universe it created. Jedi, lightsabers, space travel, all amazing. However, breaking it d...
how does a thermal explosion cause a human to get knocked back, as often seen in action movies?	[ "Movies aren't always representative of real life. Action movies even less so.\n\nOf course, it's possible for an explosion to knock people back. Because of the rapidity with which explosion take place, they almost always create a shock wave. The problem with being knocked back with the shockwave from a thermal exp...
What goes into making a music video? Can JT just ask Scarlett Johansson to make-out with him on camera?	[ "As SAG actors, they are required to be paid for the production and usage, and as a big celebrity Johansson's agent surely negotiated a huge sum for her performance.\n\nThe role of the actual musician in making the music video might be pretty minimal. The concept of the actual video primarily comes from the direct...
How do police and military forces decide which puppies will become members of their team?	[ "I believe they pick specific breeds from the start and train them all, only to give up the really ineffective ones." ]
Why are metals like bronze harder than the metals used to create them.	[ "It has to do with the different phases that form in alloys. Basically two materials form a matrix that creates a hybrid grain structure that is stronger than the homogeneous materials themselves. It is a bit complex, but think about it like concrete. Concrete is really made up of sand, pebbles, and rocks. Each on ...
How can US Mail delivery vary so much in delivery times just because of an extra fee?	[ "I think your airplane analogy has merit but you're thinking of it backwards. Think about it this way. Generally speaking, a direct flight to your destination costs more than one with layovers. Why is that? \n\nLet's use an example. ATL is a huge airport, because it's a major hub. Lots of regional and local flights...
Selenium and mercury	[ "Mercury and selenium have a high tendency to bind to one another. This is bad because selenium is used in some very important enzymes, and when mercury binds to these enzymes they get deactivated. The selenium in fish isn't being used by the body (yet), so if mercury binds to that selenium instead, there's no harm...
if we Americans strive to separate church and state, why are so many polling locations in churches?	[ "Why cant they be?\n\nThe separation of church and state just means that there can be know government endorsed religion. It does not mean that politicians cant be religious or that government functions couldn't be held in a church etc.", "Because churches are large buildings that are empty on Tuesdays. That's rea...
What is making the prices of houses in the UK so high? Is there any hope of fixing this issue?	[ "There are a finite number of houses and a finite amount of space. So as population grows and more and more people want houses... prices rise.\n\nThere is no solution save a good plague or a good war. Need to get rid of the bodies or acquire more land.", "As Lokiorin said there is limited space but you can also...
how does "old faithful" erupt so consistently	[ "[It doesn't](_URL_0_), at least, not anymore. The 1983 Borah Peak earthquake set the schedule off balance, and another in 1998 really changed things up. \n\nGeysers are fed by underground rivers that lie above a pool of magma. After an eruption, the water begins to fill back up and the pressure increases. Pressure...
why do our eyes/brains struggle to figure out how many numbers/letters are in something when one repeats it self vs when all are different (12333332 vs 60292813)	[ "This is because it is easier for the human brain to count different numbers since you can know at which number you are looking at (The criterion is that the next number is visibly different than the previous).\nWhen you have to deal with a repeatitive number, you \"have\" doubts whether you skipped or count twice ...
Why do Black Lives Matter protesters only show up for police-involved shootings? Why are black-on-black shootings ignored?	[ "The protesters aren't there just because people are dying or because they hate \"shootings\". Black lives matter is about a particular issue - injustice at the hands of the people / systems that are designed to protect us all equally.\n\nYou might as well be asking why the same people aren't also showing up for ev...
Beer and rate of consumption...	[ "2 a day would be healthier.\n\nWhen you drink 14 at once, your body is going to struggle to deal with it at once, you're taxing your system a lot more. \n\nWhile a couple a day, your liver can deal with that without a bunch of backlog, you're not going to be sick, not going to be dehydrated etc..." ]
Supreme Court decision on Citizens United	[ "To understand Citizens United, we actually have to go back to some earlier cases to get the context.\n\nThe first concept to understand here is that the line of cases beginning with Buckley v. Valeo and continued in Citizens United basically said \"the ability to spend money to support a given ideological vi...
When momentarily walking past fumes (exhaust, tar, etc) is it better to breathe normally or to restrict your breathing for a short period (thus reducing oxygen intake)?	[ "Hold it. There isn't harm in short periods without breathing, so the down side is nil. The stuff you're breathing probably isn't going to hurt you if it's just a whiff, but there's more potential harm from it than from held breath." ]
How is the Universe expanding if gravity pulls things together?	[ "Wouldn't physicists like to know.\n\nBut seriously, they dont know. At this point, all we have are some theories. Mainly, dark energy. Basically an unknown, undetectable force that pushes on everything in the universe. Locally, its not strong enough to overcome gravity, which is why stars, planets, orbits, galaxie...
How does the placebo effect actually work?	[ "You have substances in your body that are chemically very similar to the drugs that are prescribed by physicians. The reason drugs work is because we have receptors that drugs may biochemically bond with. In the case of placebo, it's believed that the suggestion actually activates the body to create and mobilise t...
How do those 90's "Magic Eye" pictures work?	[ "The proper name is \"single-image random dot stereogram\" (SIRDS)\n\nIt's tricky, and describing it without drawing diagrams is a little hard, but I'll try:\n\nImagine a 3-D model on a table. There's a piece of glass halfway between your eyes and the model.\n\nPaint a random dot of color on the glass near the midd...
Why do we find "sweet" things so pleasurable? Even other animals really seem to enjoy sweet things.	[ "Sweet implies calories, and animals need calories to survive. Animals evolved not knowing where their next meal was coming from, so it benefits them to eat as many calories as possible while they can. By making calories pleasurable, it creates a desire to eat them." ]
Why can't electrons have a defined position?	[ "I suspect you have an image in your mind of electrons moving around in space like physical objects such as ping-pong balls. So you'd be right in asking \"how can't that object have a defined position?\".\n\nBut there are other ways of thinking about electrons. Imagine I yell \"I am an electron!\" from across the...
how do multilane highways reduce traffic if they merge to fewer lanes without oppurtunity to turn off?	[ "They alow the people driving at a faster rate to get ahead of those that are driving at a slower rate and causing the traffic to collect behind them.", "They don't, at least not at the particular point. The idea is that enough people have already turned off that you don't need so many lanes anymore.\n\nIt is a ...
Canned meat not needing refrigeration?	[ "Part of the canning process is heating the cans after they are sealed. The heat kills any bacteria present in the contents, and the sealed can prevents any new bacteria from getting in. As long as the can isn't compromised most canned goods remain safe almost indefinitely (although many won't taste good after a lo...
Why is North Korea so secluded?	[ "Ok. So here's the \"non-loaded-rhetoric\" version.\n\nThe isolation in North Korea has two aspects. The ideological aspect, and the \"actually useful\" aspect. THe ideological aspect deals with the ruling political philosophy of the nation, Juche. Juche is, in simple terms, the idea of self-reliance. And not the \...
Why do the members of the Whitehouse press pool yell out questions to the President after they have been told that no questions will be taken.	[ "That's what you do as a journalist, ask questions. You wouldn't be doing your job if you kept quiet. It's pretty normal in all settings like this. There's a big difference between \"we asked, and he didn't want to answer\" and not asking at all.\n\nI don't know if it's ever worked in a presidential press conferenc...
Why do we use the "Qwerty" keyboard?	[ "You can wiki for more.\n\nThe basic story is that English has a number of common letter pairs. On old typewriters these letter pairs were often so close together that the arms (that \"type\" the letters onto the page) could swing in and jam if the operator was too quick. So the Qwerty board was developed. It br...
How do companies like EB games and Gamestop make money when the game/console creators sell the game online for the same price?	[ "Source: I was an assistant manager at Gamestop, and I worked there from 2011-2014. \n\nA very large majority of their money comes from used games. We paid $54 for every $60 new game we sold. We only made about $25 off of new consoles. The only thing that keeps them afloat is used games. We would make $35 off a use...
How do pressure cookers work?	[ "A pressure cooker is a device that uses a sealed container to capture all the fumes developed during heating liquids. Imagine if you have a pot full of water. If the pot is sealed and you heat it up, steam will develop. Because of this steam, the pressure in the (sealed) container increases. Thermodynamics predict...
What would happen to the financial stability of the United States if foreign governments suddenly stopped investing (and reinvesting) in U.S. treasury bonds?	[ "Foreign Governments don't use Treasuries as a form of investment, the yield is so low on them that they often don't even beat inflation resulting in a small real loos for those holding them.\n\nThere are a couple of reasons why a sovereign (or institutional investor) would still choose to hold UST's;\n\n* They are...
Why there is such a variance in the human phenotype, as compared to other species?	[ "the same reason asian people tend to look the same to a white person. they're so different from us that we overlook the subtle differences that are in fact obvious to someone or some animal of the same species. \n\ne.g. they do vary, you just don't notice it because you aren't an elephant. \n\nthe point about huma...
How exactly did Edward Snowden get hold of all the documents he leaked?	[ "From [this article](_URL_0_) : \"As a system administrator, Snowden was allowed to look at any file he wanted, and his actions were largely unaudited. “At certain levels, you are the audit,” said an intelligence official. \" and \"... a system administrator has the right to copy, to take information from one compu...
If poverty is so bad in an area like in ghettos or in Africa. Why do people so readily continue having children only to be born in to hardship?	[ "You think of them as another mouth to feed because you're a middle class guy in a nation with child labor laws.\n\nIf you were in the developing world you might think of them as another pair of hands to help with the work or something to exchange for goods in a wedding. Or you might simply be uneducated with no a...
why aren't there electoral systems that allow negative votes?	[ "There are several different voting systems that allow you to downvote certain candidates. However it is usually not compulsory. However the most effective way to keep people from voting strategically is to use a ranked voting system where you sort the options from most preferable to least preferable.", "This wou...
Is Generalized Anxiety Disorder something you're born with, or are there life-triggers that set it off? Can you ever truly be "cured" of it?	[ "TLDR: We don't know.\n\nSince brain science is a young field and not much is well understood yet, psychiatry mostly aims towards addressing mental illnesses pragmatically, rather than trying to achieve a deep understanding of mental illnesses, with a goal of eliminating symptoms. In this way, it is firmly within t...
Do smarter brains use more energy or do they just use it better? How?	[ "Some studies have found that when people are not very good at a particular task, they exert more mental effort and use more glucose and that, likewise, the more skilled you are, the more efficient your brain is and the less glucose you need. Complicating matters, at least one study suggests the opposite—that more ...
How does changing electricity companies work when it travels in the same wires?	[ "See the electricity network as a huge tank (the wires). There are some things that need to be done: the tank has to be filled with electricity, the tank has to be maintained and the electricity has to be distributed to the people. \n\nThese things can be done by different companies! There is usually only one compa...
At what point is a virally infected person no longer considered a "carrier"? How can we become immune to certain things without carrying/spreading the sickness ?	[ "I'm not sure about the first part but I can answer the second part. The answer is vaccines. Vaccinations contain a weakened variation or something that resembles the disease causing micro organism. By doing this, it teaches our immune system to fight off the pathogen by copying traits of the disease that our bo...
Why do my mom's ashes make a weird sound?	[ "> What happens to the bones during cremation?\n\nIf I had to guess, it probably is the hard, remnants of bone hitting the inside.\n\nThat, or ghosts.", "They are not ashes like cigarette ashes or ashes from burning wood. \nmost of what makes up human ashes is bone. \n\nCremation of an average adult can result...
Why is it so much easier to remember song lyrics without even trying, yet vocabulary words and their definitions take forever to memorize?	[ "Music therapist here. It's because the information is stored in multiple locations in your brain!\n\nLanguage is primarily stored in the left hemisphere of the brain, while music is stored on both sides of the brain. So when you learn words associated with music (i.e. lyrics) there are more parts of your brain bei...
Why do we have fingerprints, why are they located on our fingers/hands?	[ "\"Fingerprints\" are actually NOT only on your fingers and hands but over your entire body! If you look closely at your arm you'll notice hundreds of tiny lines across your arm, this is most obvious near your elbow. These are actually the same lines as your fingerprints.\n \n[Here's an example of what your skin lo...
Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) photograph	[ "Have you ever seen a [long exposure photo](_URL_0_)? They look pretty cool. Basically, instead of having the camera shutter open and shut very quickly (as most cameras do), you set up the camera so that the shutter stays open for a few seconds or a few minutes or even longer, to let in more light than it normally ...
How exactly does the counting for total karma work?	[ "Keep in mind that self. posts don't add anything to your karma count.", "Looks like your Football post wasn't counted. Maybe the mods there shut that option down or it's because of the kind of link." ]
Why don't all companies do what supermarkets do with advertising?	[ "Because Apple and Samsung don't sell the same products.\n\nBut companies are allowed to say that they sell a product for less if they actually do." ]
How are "generations" measured? Where is the cut off?	[ "A \"generation\" is a vague unit of time, so it depends on the context. In genealogical or biological terms, it is strictly the parent/child measurement, so yes, you would be in the same generation as your cousin, since you share the same percentage of genes of your grandparents. \n\n\nIn a sociological context,...
Why can't we distinguish the temperature of an object you're expecting could be hot or cold, straight away when we first touch it?	[ "It's a delay in the body. An easy way to explain it is reaction time. If someone threw something at your face and you even knew it was happening, your time is delayed. Your brain would need to process about where the object is heading, how fast, how quickly you need to be to catch it, or how quick you need to be t...
Negative Imaginary Numbers	[ "By radical, I assume you mean specifically the square root so I'll use the format sqrt(x)\n\nIn general sqrt(x) * sqrt(x) = x\n\nSo sqrt(-1) * sqrt(-1) = -1\n\nNow we define the value \"i\" as sqrt(-1) = i\n\nYou'r right that (-1) * (-1) = 1, so if i*i = -1 then i can't be any normal number, it has to be something...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

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