Split (3)

train · 273k rows

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Why is Barack Obama going to vote against any Palestinian move towards statehood?	[ "America has an influential Jewish/Israel lobby that can hurt any politician, including a President, who goes against Israel. More recently the pro-Israel base has expanded to include Christians who support Israel (people like Palin are very vocal about this). Added to this is 9/11 and the war on terror, which has ...
Why are babies seemingly unfazed by vomiting as compared to someone older?	[ "Babys do not yet possess the mental capacity to \"save all data\". They forget things that aren't to bad pretty fast. The same with little children. They stumble, fall, cry and 20 seconds later have forgotten they fell in the first place. For a baby its puke, wonder what was that, forget what happened, drool", ...
What makes rejection cause the brain to desire a person more? In what ways can you combat this responsive behavior?	[ "It may help to be conscious of the fact that the brain is not a passive recipient of emotion. In fact, the brain doesn’t react to stimuli based on emotion at all, it is in a mode of constant prediction and then compares its prediction to the stimuli and adjusts or filters from there. It’s powerful to know that the...
Why is seeing others having sex arousing? Is there some sort of evolutionary basis behind it? (NSFW)	[ "Yes. Group sex does different things for each gender. Group sex for males means they have a chance to pass their genes along when they otherwise wouldn't. For females it means their off-spring won't get killed. If an offspring isn't a males, then that male is likely to kill the offspring allowing more time for a f...
How common are traumatic 'triggers' in the general population? Are they really dangerous?	[ "basically a trigger can be anything that reminds you of some traumatic event. we'll ignore the entitled tossers who misapply the term to mean \"things that make them a little upset\" and stick to the actual psychology.\n\nbasically when you experience a really traumatic event it changes your brain, not in a perman...
Why do we like to bother our siblings much more than other human beings around us ?	[ "* familiarity - you know your sibling, what to expect from them in a way you don't with others\n* family bond - you are stuck with your siblings for the most part...friends might drift away, but you almost always will maintain a connection to close family\n* trust - you can \"fight\" with your siblings, knowing th...
Why did Lance Armstrong confess?	[ "From what I gather doing so may enable him to return to competition in other events that he cannot do with the ban. He's become a triathlon athlete and to go pro in it he needs the ban lifted.", "Perhaps I am being cynical, but I would not be surprised to see a book come out in the not to distant future and this...
How does the government of Eritrea work, and the current situation there?	[ "Eritrea is a one party state. Nominally their constitution allows for other political parties and elections, but since gaining their independence from Ethiopia in 1993, they've never had an election.\n\nThe government claims that because of their ongoing border disputes with Ethiopia, that there are extraordinary ...
what really happens in court cases where the evidence is illegally obtained?	[ "Just because something was obtained illegally, doesn't mean it is automatically thrown out of court.\n\nJudges can consider factors like, \"would it have been found anyways?\" and \"what where the conditions of the search?\" when deciding to allow evidence.", "If it's obtained illegally, then the jury will never...
When you get hit hard, why does the pain take a few seconds to be felt?	[ "Think about it like this, our body is full of nerve ends that transmit signals from where they are being touched, like if we are holding something hot, they transmit the feeling to our brain which receives the signal, processes it and then sends the information it processed back to its respective area.\n\nSo when ...
How is it that sites that offer paying with Bitcoin (like The Silkroad) can operate if the worth of Bitcoin can drop or jump tens of dollars in a matter of hours	[ "They don't. People who do business in Bitcoin almost always set the price according to the current conversion rate, and convert the money to dollars quickly.", "I assume you would price your wares in dollars and then accept however many bitcoin at the time were of equal value. \n\nWith the value being that volat...
How were wheel alignments performed on automobiles before the modern wheel alignment computer machines came out?	[ "You measure the space between the fronts of both tires and you measure the space between the backs and you adjust things until the two measurements line up", "When I was in the Army I did alignments on humvees with a measuring tape. Folks that run weekend car racing teams frequently have relatively cheap tools ...
How do 24/7 music livestreams work?	[ "They just create a list with all the musics they want to play and the program just reads them 1 by 1.\n\nAlso, when they need or feel like to, they can add new songs to \"Play Next\".\n\nThey don't need a dedicated PC for doing that. They can program a server to play music and stream it (it's not that complicated ...
Why aren't the crazy cult pastors, who claim they've talked to god or are some sort of messias, placed in mental hospitals?	[ "because they are not considered, or have produced a credible threat they are a danger to themselves or others. you are allowed to be crazy and not be hospitalized as long as you are safe", "Being crazy isn't a problem until you pose a threat to yourself an others. If you're just preaching a version of Christi...
Viacom vs. Directv	[ "Yeah, this is really pretty simple. Viacom wants more money from DirecTV for letting them carry their stuff. DirecTV doesn't want to pay more.\n\nViacom puts the screws to them by pulling their stuff, pissing off DirecTV customers, and then says, \"hey, we feel your pain. It's all DirecTV's fault. Why don't you ca...
Uniform circular motion in highschool physics	[ "Would you like to be more specific? It's easier to help when there is a question. I don't have a lecture written up" ]
Housing prices have dropped like a lead balloon but property taxes have not been lowered accordingly. Why?	[ "> Is there something I'm missing?\n\nYeah, the government uses the appraised value of the house. Until someone pays to have an appraisal done on the house, the house's new lower value isn't \"official\", and the government continues to pretend like the old value is the correct one. The taxes stay high.\n\n > I...
For a country that's emphasized education for so long, why is the majority of India still mired in poverty?	[ "because education only matters if you actually have a place to work where you can utilize what you learned.\n\nindia simply has WAY too many people, there is just not enough work for everyone.\n\nbeside that from my personal experiences in india people below your \"wealth level\" are treated poorly and its made ex...
Why can women experience multiple orgasms, but men just go limp after one?	[ "Evolutionarily, it is beneficial for a male to have a refractory period.the penis is shaped ina way that scoops out semen that is already in the vagina. if a man ejaculates and then immediately resumes intercourse, he will be removing his own semen from the _URL_0_ forcing the male to wait, the odds of this happen...
Amish are famous for barn-raising, but how often do they actually need to raise one?	[ "Not often, it's just an interesting sight to see a hundred men build a barn in a day instead of the usual three men taking thirty days.\n\nSince they're not paying for the labor, they can pull of the brute force build that a typical construction firm cant.", "They will also do other construction outside their ow...
Why don't we have animal organ donor clinics?	[ "I actually don't know but I would assume that it is because no healthy dog's owner would give up the dog's organs. If a dog is being put down, there is a reason. Thus, organs not salvageable. Also, who would pay for the storage? Vet bills are expensive and I doubt they would spend money on storing organs in hopes ...
What is the typical economic model of an American police department?	[ "Get tax money from government. Spend it on people and equipment." ]
why do animals poop so fast, but some humans take forever?	[ "Try the squatting position. It just falls right out", "I hadn't even considered that your knowledge about animal poop times was some sort of fetish - thanks for opening me up to that possibility with your disclaimer.\n\nIf you were eating a shit ton of vegetables and exercising a lot you'd poop very quickly. Or...
Why is "100" the number we use for complete percentages?	[ "Because Per-cent means \"per hundred\".\n\nYou used to occasionally see the percent symbol with two zeros underneath instead of one - meaning per thousand, but it's rare.", "\"per cent\" means \"per one hundred\" it is an easy way to visualize and explain fractional percentages. If you were to use, say 10...yo...
Can someone please explain how options in stock trading work?	[ "Stock options aren't actual stocks, they are a promise to be able to buy a stock in the future at a price set when the options are issued, or according to a set schedule. They are often given to employees of a company when it is new and private, in the hopes that the company will later go public or be bought, and ...
Why can't our normal speech be assigned musical pitch, e.g. C, C# and D?	[ "Normal speech does have pitch. Speaking with a single pitch throughout would sound very strange, so assigning a single pitch wouldn't work (monotone is a way to describe someone's speech for a reason), instead speech happens as a series of pitches. [Radiolab](_URL_0_) did a fun segment about how the spoken phrase ...
Why does Star Wars transcend typical Sci-Fi fandom and hit home for so many people.	[ "Well it was first (sort of).\n\nBefore Star Wars, Scifi in movies was very pulpy and bad.\n\nIt was proof that it could be done well.\n\nIt also has a lot of cultural significance beyond that. Since the success of Star Wars really was the moment when the 'summer blockbuster' aimed at the 15-20 male market became a...
What is Nest and why did Google buy it?	[ "It is a company that makes a high end smart thermostat and also a smoke detector. \n\n\n\nGoogle", "[NEST](_URL_1_) started by making smart thermostats. They self program after a few sets. They have motion sensors. You can set them with an app from your phone or pad or laptop. They are sleek and simple, cost...
Can you permanently lose feeling in your arm after sleeping on it?	[ "The circulation doesn't stop unless your heart isn't beating or you have something clogging the pipes.\n\nIf you put enough pressure on your arm then yes there would no longer be circulation, this is seen in the use of tourniquets to stop blood flow in emergencies.\n\nLack of blood flow to part of your body can ca...
In the US, why is it legal to brew beer and wine, but not legal to distill harder spirits?	[ "Distilled spirits are heavily taxed & always have been. In the oldest days of the country, whiskey was seen as an efficient way for remote farmers to concentrate their grain & move it to market. It can easily take 5-10 pounds of grain to make a single bottle of whiskey.\n\nThe other thing is that, unlike hom...
Why does sudden temperature change make us feel ill?	[ "Your body needs to be at a fairly consistent temperature of 37C\n\nYour body has various mechanisms to control this temperature (such as restricting the size of blood vessels near the skin, increasing heart rate, sweating etc), as a result humans can survive in quite a range of temperatures, but your body will be ...
What's the problem with kids lifting weights?	[ "_URL_0_\n\n > With both direct and indirect evidence suggesting that weightlifting may increase bone length and density, it seems as though this myth is untrue. Rather than stunt your growth, weightlifting when you are young may allow you to grow taller than you would without such exercise.", "Wrong form (which ...
Why is it that our eyes cannot repair their vision? so we don't have to wear glasses or contacts etc...	[ "This isn't a complete answer but they can, some people when they get glasses say their natural vision improves after a while. That may only apply to minor eyesight issues though.", "Sort of relevant; because what if \"repaired\" to a particular person is still abnormal?\n\nAs in, imagine having astigmatism (a mo...
How does vesting in company shares/stocks work?	[ "They were given to you over the stated schedule. They are gradually becoming yours. If they were options, then you would have the opportunity to buy them at a set price, called a strike price, which hopefully would be much lower than the price available to the general public at the same moment in time." ]
Piercing	[ "The studs you would normally would get at a retail like Claire's or Wal-Mart would be a size 22 gauge. Which is a lot smaller. Ear piercing guns do not remove any part of the ear. \n\n While the size 14 gauge is bigger so it takes a larger chunk of skin and flesh out. Which in turn causes more bleeding and pain. T...
what actually happens when you die from the flu?	[ "Depends. Probably the simplest thing is viral pneumonia leading to severe respiratory failure leading to death. If you have other long term illnesses these can also be triggered (e.g. someone with coronary heart disease might possibly have a heart attack due to the various stresses of being very unwell). \n ...
How can photochromic glasses change colour with the sunlight?	[ "from wikipedia:\n > In one sort of technology, molecules of silver chloride or another silver halide are embedded in photochromatic lenses. They are transparent to visible light without significant ultraviolet component, which is normal for artificial lighting. In another sort of technology, organic photochromic m...
Does climate change lead to an increase in extreme cold weather as well as extreme warm weather? If so, why is the average yearly temperature continuing to get warmer?	[ "That's a little backwards.\n\nGlobal warming means all storm systems are larger, in addition to the obvious that average temperatures are very slightly higher. However, larger storm systems means that cold fronts that used to die out as they head south will go much farther, bringing freezing weather to places tha...
Difference between RAM and Cache Memory	[ "Cache is your fridge/pantry - it stores things you've recently used or intend to use soon, and has a relatively low amount of storage. You can grab things in nearly real-time while trying to cook. \n\nRAM is the grocery store that's a mile away. Lots of storage for things you may or may not use frequently, but it ...
Women's excessive grunting in tennis	[ "Vocalizing while hitting the ball can help a player focus, and it can throw off their opponent's timing. Also, opponents can get clues about how the ball was hit based on the sound the racquet makes...grunting is supposed to obscure it. When there was no rule against it, tennis players have been gradually gettin...
What is happening when we hit our funny bone?	[ "You have the [ulnar nerve](_URL_0_) (in yellow) passing just below the skin at the elbow with bone under and when you hit a nerve that exposed it hurts." ]
What is a memory leak in the context of poorly optimized games?	[ "ELI5:\nMemory Leak: \n\n\"You go to a bar and ask for a glass of water, you drink the water but you never give up the glass, then you ask for another glass of water and so on until the bar runs out of glasses.\"\n\nGlasses = Block of memory\n\nWater = Whatever is in it.\n\nAccepted Behaviour: \n\n\"You go to a bar...
Why are some things invented (touchscreens for example, 40 years ago) but it takes so long for consumers to accept them? Price?	[ "Well the touch screen is kind of a bad example here. While it was invented in the 70s, there was nothing for it to be controlled with. Computers were mostly text based until 1992 when windows 3.1 was published. And even then the computers were mostly to slow to have a real benefit from touchscreens. Even today apa...
Why do we get tired when we oversleep?	[ "There is some bad science around here.\n\nIt's true that waking up in the middle of your sleep cycle will make you feel groggy, but that really isn't the whole story, and as someone has already pointed out, doesn't explain grogginess at the end of the sleep cycle. And it happens every time you are woken up from de...
I literally live in the other side of the American continent, explain me briefly about what's currently happening on America's politic.	[ "A fellow that quite a lot of people dislike is surprisingly in a position to upset a fellow that a lot of people dislike a bit less. \n\nYou know sports movies? How there's always an underdog team, full of likable kids who band together to beat the odds and defeat the team full of jerks? In this case, the jerk is ...
How do memories work? They are "stored" in a certain part of the brain but when you access memories what are you really accessing? The brain and body are just made up of atoms. Is there a physical or chemical explanation for it?	[ "A lot of this stuff is bull so lemme break it down for ya (neuroscience student researching memory). \n\nOur body is made up of a bunch of neurons (80,000,000 of these guys) and glia (around 100,000,000). While glia is important, neurons are the main actors in memory. The central neural doctrine is this: neurons t...
What is causing the current rise of authoritarian regimes in richer countries around the world?	[ "This is often attributed to populism, which basically means that average people believe the system is being rigged against them by the elites, so they want to create a super-elite (a powerful central government) that in theory shares their values and can stand up for their interests.", "Authoritarianism doesn'...
Why is alcohol and tobacco regulated by the same agency as firearms? Why aren't liquor and cigarettes regulated by the FDA?	[ "The ATF was formed to deal with gun running & smuggling of alcohol & tobacco. They were originally part of the Department of the Treasury and concerned with securing tax revenue, not safety or purity of the product.", "The fda is a regulatory agency. The atf is a law enforcement agency." ]
How would a radio transmission from a planet with a significant gravitational field work?	[ "I haven't seen the movie. Was the planet the other crew was on in motion relative to the Earth to cause time dilation, or was it a difference in gravity?\n\nEither way, what they'd experience is some sort of \"redshift\" or \"blueshift.\" The radio message would not be lost, but its frequency would either be lower...
Why in a room with 24 people do two people probably share the same birthday?	[ "First off there is 1 in 365 chance that two people share a birthday. That means there is a 364 in 365 chance they do not share a birthday. If you have a third man then the chance of him also having a different birthday then the two men is 363 in 365 so the combined chance is (364*363)/(365^2). You then continue ad...
Why do some people seem to retain "useless information" without effort, yet recalling someone's phone number can be so difficult while exerting effort to memorize it?	[ "We don't really live in the environment we evolved for. The things we find easy to memorize are the things we find 'cool'. Something like a phone number doesn't trip our primate senses into thinking it's information worth storing, but the destructive power of a photon torpedo? That's kind of like remembering how s...
With virtually infinite time, could we use selective breeding to bring out crazy traits in animals?	[ "Provided that those traits appeared at some point, yes.\n\nWe couldn't breed dogs to have horns unless at some point there was a dog who had the mutation to have horns. The same way that we can't breed humans to have gills, gills have to come around on their own, we can breed humans to all have gills once the muta...
what are once removed, and twice removed cousins	[ "The \"level\" of cousin (first cousin, second cousin, etc.) is dependent upon how many generations you are from your nearest common ancestor.\n\nSo \"first cousins\" have 1 generation between them and their nearest common ancestor, that ancestor being their grandparents (cousins - parents - grandparents).\n\n\"Sec...
bi-racial labels and how the media identifies us	[ "Reddit default subs are a shitty place to ask about racial issues. You might want to find somewhere better to ask if you want quality answers." ]
Why does it take at least 15 minutes to fill a prescription? What's going on back there?	[ "The pharmacist is ensuring that the prescribed medication is appropriate and safe before it is handed to you. Is it the right drug for the condition? Is the strength and regimen appropriate? Are there interactions with the patient's other medications to be aware of? \n\nPhysicians also do make prescribing errors f...
Why is it harder to breathe when walking into a strong wind?	[ "1) Breathing is a matter of lowering the pressure in your lungs so the higher pressure outside of your body pushes air into your lungs. The greater the difference in air pressure between two compartments (in this case, the atmosphere and your lungs) the faster the air flow.\n\n2) The faster the wind blows, the ...
How come that when you go to bed at 11PM you have a hard time to leave your bed at 7AM, but when you go to bed at 3AM you dont have any problems waking up at 11AM while you had the same hours of sleep?	[ "Might be a number of things. \n\n1) You aren't used to waking up early, so your body isn't ready for it. If you don't usually wake up at 7am and then suddenly do, it'll be hard. \n\n2) It's often colder in the morning, especially in the winter. Getting out of bed in the cold is hard. \n\n3) It's much brighter at 1...
You know how car windshield glass doesn't shatter, it just cracks? And even then, you have to put a lot of force into it? Why not make kitchenware out of that type of glass?	[ "Kitchen glassware used to be almost indestructible (ie, FireKing, Pyrex). It was the same stuff they use in labs.\n\nThey stopped selling it so durable, because people were using to cook meth.", "A windshield is made with 2 layers of glass and a layer of plastic in the middle. When the glass is broken, it sticks...
What is happening with AZ SB1062 and HB2153 (relating to the free exercise of religion)?	[ "So basically, Free Exercise of Religion is the issue here.\n\nAt it's simplest form, Free Exercise of Religion means that for example, I can't make a law that says \"You can't worship Jesus Christ.\"\n\nThat's a CLEAR violation of Free Exercise. \n\nHowever, there is a concept called a \"Neutral Law of General App...
The relevant differences between totalitarian and an authoritarian regimes.	[ "Authoritarian regimes want to consolidate and centralize power so that governments have all of it. They avoid checks and balances or anything to maintain the government's control. \n\nTotalitarianism goes further than that. In an totalitarian regime, checks and balances don't even exist. The state is all that real...
How do music artists split the profit when featuring each other on a single track?	[ "Sometimes they don't. Smaller artists often want to be featured on larger artists tracks and are paid a flat fee. \n\nOther times, it is an exchange. (1 for 1)\n\nNicki Minaj: \"50k for a verse, no album out\" implies that Kanye paid her $50,000 for her verse on Monster.", "They either just do it for love of the...
If Google's spent so much on anticopyright measures on YouTube how come movies with over 1 million hits exist?	[ "Videos are taken down for copyright infringement if one of the following things happens:\n\n1. The copyright owner registers the original with YouTube's automated Content ID system, sets it to block videos it matches, and the system actually identifes a match. This can be harder than it seems, because the copyrigh...
How does propulsion work in a vacuum. For instance, how would a space craft propel itself when there's nothing to push against?	[ "Rocket engines in a vacuum operate based on conservation of momentum. The total momentum of any system must remain the same. So if you expel something with momentum in one direction, the rest of the mass must move in the other direction (or else the momentum of the ship-plus-exhaust will have changed).\n\nAs a...
What makes Cape Horn so treacherous?	[ "High winds, strong currents, and large storms all combine to make for especially treacherous sailing. Keep in mind that treacherous seas were usually named when people forecast by red in the morning sailor take warning red in the evenin' sailor a pleasin' Imagine sailing through [seas like this](_URL_0_).", "...
What is the purpose of water towers?	[ "To get water to flow up out of the pipes below the ground into your house it needs to be pushed. Now this could be done by using a big pump at the water treatment plant, but the big pump would have to pump harder when more people had water running and pump less when less people had water running. The problem the...
When I was 5, those who were 10 looks old and mature. However, once I was 11, those who were 10 looks young and immature. Why?	[ "i have always wondered this i remember being like 5 or 6 and my brother who was 13 or 14 seemed like a grown ass man. and now a days 13 or 14 year olds look lile babies.", "I still feel like that with high school kids. When I was in middle school, high schoolers looked like straight up adults but now that I jus...
Why are there so many third world countries in Africa when the continent is considered the cradle of civilization?	[ "Bad climate, terrible leaders, heavily sought after resources, cultural barriers, foreign invaders taking sought after resources, constant border wars, lack of industrialization, anyone got any other reasons?", "When was Africa ever referred to as the cradle of civilization? You're thinking of Mesopotamia", "P...
why can my heaters easily keep my house at a nice 75 when its 15 degrees outside, but my AC struggles to dip below 70 when its 100 outside?	[ "Your heaters are a hell of a lot more powerful than your Air Conditioners\n\nAn AC unit can move 4-10 watts of heat per watt of power used, but it'll only use a few hundred watts. A big window AC unit might be rated at 10,000 BTU/hour or about 2.9 kW of heat removal which sounds pretty good, until you consider th...
How quad core (multi core?) works.	[ "It's like having more than one cook in a kitchen, instead of one really, really fast cook.\n\nWell, the problem is actually a little more complex: for years and years, they were training cooks just to work faster, but realized that they were getting towards the top of how fast one cook could work, so they decided ...
Why do some restaurants charge a service fee for larger groups?	[ "Generally because big groups are poor tippers, and are more work for the servers, bussers, and kitchen.\n\nIt's easier to take and prepare 20 orders from 10 tables spread out over 15 minutes than it is to deal with 20 orders from the same table all at the same time.", "Unless all four tables with two people show...
Why do females on average, live longer than men?	[ "There's a few reasons.\n\nFirst men tend to do more risky jobs then women. I can't quote a source right now but I recall something like 98% of all workplace deaths being men.\n\n\nSecondly there seems to be an evolutionary aspect. It's related to the first reason. Men hunted and did dangerous things which got them...
First grade math	[ "This is a good question, one that many mathematicians have dedicated their lives to studying.\n\nI'll try to keep the explanation simple, but since you are asking for a higher level of rigor, the explanation may be a little heavy.\n\nWhat you are looking for are the [Peano axioms](_URL_0_). These are a collection ...
Why is fruit better for you than candy in terms of sugar (if it really is)?	[ "Sugar is sugar. However, a fruit has many other things: lots of water, some fiber, some vitamins, etc. These things fill you up and generally take a lot longer to eat. Candy is not filling, and basically pure sugar so if someone is pigging out on apples vs. candy, they can likely eat a TON more sugar eating can...
What would happen if the earth slowly began to rotate the other direction?	[ "Assuming the transition were slow enough to not throw everybody down (which would be pretty slow), the biggest difference I could see would be weather. All the prevailing winds would flip direction, rain shadows would move to the other side of mountains, and so on. You can see the effect [in South America](_URL_0_...
How is the average lifespan decided for newborns?	[ "Basically it's a best case scenario of statistical projection. So if people are easily living to their 80s/90s now and medicine is improving and other factors like access to food, water, hygiene are improving you can make a projection based off of that. The problem is they don't account for things like the emergen...
Why do donuts have holes in them?	[ "Well, the first thing to note is that not all donuts have holes. There are \"filled donuts\" which are essentially donuts without the hole (as well as some filling).\n\nAs for why donuts with holes have holes, there are a number of explanations, but as far as I'm aware, noone actually knows for sure.\n\nOne explan...
Why are house pets not bothered by audio noises?	[ "Phage is right that they're used to the sounds. Think of it like a single crazy person who's on the street every day in the same spot - eventually you just tune them out. \n\nAlso, the audio that is produced around them isn't natural. It undergoes what's called \"dynamic range compression\", which flattens the nat...
Why does my mouth feel cleaner the morning after eating something garlic heavy the night before?	[ "I think it's a coincidence. \n\nI'm a dentist. If you brushed properly before you slept you probably shouldn't have had much plaque in your mouth overnight which would 'grow'. It could be the fact your breath was very garlic strong, so you noticed you didn't have plaque when you investigated why." ]
Vitamins. How do we know they're there, how do we know what they all separately do?	[ "We don't know what ALL vitamins and minerals are in food. Human nutrition is actually a lot murkier than people realize because there is a lot we still don't know. This is also why you get contradictory diet advice everywhere. But what we have figured out is through looking at the chemicals in food, either by ho...
Wikipedia says that the ISS orbits the Earth "at an altitude of between 330 and 435 km". Why is the altitude not fixed?	[ "At that altitude, there is actually still a little atmosphere and so the orbit will slowly degrade (get closer to the ground). Every once in a while they use boosters to raise it back into a higher orbit. The range of altitudes given are the range of altitudes that are considered okay.\n\nPlus, orbits are not perf...
Terminal Servers/RDS, their function and use in large organizations. (Crosspost from /r/sysadmin)	[ "> The terminal server communicates with one or more remote clients, (which could also be servers?)\n\nYou're sort of right. The TS actually is 'waiting to accept' connections from others, be it a workstation or server. \n\nNot as big as a bank or uni, but I can give you an example of how a company with multiple b...
How do 3-D glasses work?	[ "Light tends to \"point\" in a direction. When we make projectors for 3d, we make two movies, one made out of light pointing in one direction, and the other pointing in a direction at a right angle to it. Think of two pieces of light, one has his hand pointing up while he is running, then the other has his hand poi...
Why are some mathematical abstractions so much harder than others for humans to grasp?	[ "There are levels of abstraction, because certain abstract concepts rely on others, and thus must be presented later in schools. Can't do calculus without understanding numbers, operators, and algebra, basically.\n\nWhen you first learn an abstract concept, you translate. First few multiplications are indeed cons...
How did Jeff Bezos become a billionaire in the ‘90s, when Amazon literally wasn’t even turning a profit?	[ "profit potential. \n\nsame reason companies like uber, tesla, facebook, ect have massive market value despite little to no profit. Often times its just about getting users/eyeballs/customers, with the presumption that scale/efficiency will eventually produce a profit." ]
What differences are there between male and female brains? Of those which (so far) have been tested to always been the case and which vary depending on the subjects?	[ "Here is a page describing some of the difference between male and female brains, specifically an very interesting brain structure call the anterior hypothalamus. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nI think the differences are pretty well established,.. I recall this being discussed during my undergrad back in the 90's. \n\nThe article...
Bug people, what exactly is going on here?	[ "Dragonflies are predators. It looks like that one caught a fly and is feasting on its tasty inner goo." ]
Does ABS shorten stopping distance of a car?	[ "yes and no, you have to understand how ABS works. Generally you have an ABS sensor that detects how fast each wheel is moving. If the wheel is locked it will release brake pressure for a thousandths of a second and you will feel a slight \"kick\" in the brake pedal. \n\nThe reason this is helpful is because when y...
why do some people have curly hair while others don't.	[ "It's just a gene trait, along with many others as far as skin tone, texture, facial composition, height, etc." ]
Why doesn't air separate into layers of each of its individual components based on density?	[ "It would but air is far to volatile to stay separated. The sun heats the earth as the earth rotates on an axis as it orbits the sun. Everything is constantly changing as warm air rises creating winds that constantly mix the atmosphere." ]
What is true socialism, and why do people think it will save America?	[ "Literally nobody thinks it will save America. But certain socialist policies have proven highly effective in the past and in other first-world countries. \n\nFirst, socialism is not a form of government in and of itself. Socialism is an economic model in which the government controls industries and exerts signi...
How can the one dimensional form of Fourier's Law of Cooling and the thermal heat equation be used to model cooling	[ "I expanded the mathematical procedure for the solution here:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nI also just realised that I called it Fourier's equation instead of Fourier's Law (ops).\n\nAnyway, at the start I used a more complete form of Fourier's Law, though I kept it to the 1D version to not confuse you. A few lines down it gets t...
Why can some people sing well, but others can't hit a note to save their life?	[ "I would like to know why people always sound much better to themselves. I can think I'm singing along perfectly to a song, then hear a recording and it sounds like someone fisting a bull.", "I'm pretty sure it's something else than practice. I can't sing for shit and yet still I've tried alot. It has to be so...
Why my head gets foggy/buzzy for a few seconds after I have a really good stretch.	[ "Sounds like you're talking about head rush (orthostatic hypotension). Basically, if you've been sitting in one location for a while and then move, the blood pressure in your head drops because gravity pulls a lot of blood into your legs and feet when you stand. This takes a moment to correct itself, and during thi...
Why does it "smell" like winter or rain	[ "Because the particles in the air change. spring smells like pollen. Winter cold will suppress a lot of lighter smells but you get smoke from chimneys." ]
Why is it harder and harder to get a full night sleep the older you get?	[ "The cumulative effect of a life-time of alcohol, stimulants, sedentary life-style, overeating, rumination, rejection, heart break, loss, regret, humilation, meaninglessness, sadness, rage and the creeping fear of impending death.", "Because your brain produces less melatonin as you age. Less melatonin equals les...
Why don't we just use a different drug for lethal injection?	[ "What ever drug you pick has to come from somewhere, and has to be medical grade. Interestingly enough most drug manufactures don't want the reputation as the company that makes the drugs that kill people. So what ever you pick is going to be stigmatized and therefor hard to get. Ok, so pick something else, well no...
What's currently happening with Michigan's water and why?	[ "In Flint, MI (not the entire state) almost 2 years ago, the powers that be decided to stop using Lake Huron (via Detroit) as its water source and switch to using the Flint River, which to those who grew up in or around Flint is utterly laughable because it's a notoriously brown, murky, polluted mess, but I digress...
How are vitamins and supplements, that the body makes naturally, man-made?	[ "Firstly, your body doesn't naturally make vitamins, that's why you need to eat them. \nSecondly, most of them are just extracted. Most of the things we grow or produce for food, of necessity, have those vitamins in. Sometimes it's easier to just take them out. \nThirdly, you can make almost all of them artificia...
What actually caused the Great Depression?	[ "A lot of things:\n\n* In the 1920's low food prices supported by WWI price floors caused a mass wave of farm foreclosures.\n\n* The crash of 1929 shook confidence for lenders (though the stock market recovered briefly before plunging again).\n\n* The Fed constrained liquidity rather than easing borrowing, so the e...
Why is it ok to advertise alcohol on television, but not tobacco?	[ "Tobacco receives a lot of government oversight because its use, as intended, without any overuse or abuse, is absolutely known to cause any number of long-term health issues.\n\nAlcohol can also be dangerous, but moderate, responsible use has no long-lasting health effects, and it takes legitimate abuse of a...

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