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eli5 · 25k rows

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train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why are some drugs can treat both neurological disorders and mental disorders? For example, valproate acts both as an anticonvulsant and as an mood-stabilizer. Does it implies that the cause of (some) neurological disorders and the cause of (some) mental disorders are the same or highly related?	[ "It's not about the cause. Look at it this way: Aspirin can be used to treat a sprained ankle, and can also be used to help lower heart attack risk. Does that mean that sprained ankles and heart attacks have a related cause? Just because a drug that affects neurotransmitter X helps treat a disease does NOT mean tha...	[ "Yes, but getting such a hallucination in the first place would be unlikely. Photosensitive seizures are usually caused by improper feedback loops within the visual cortex that will cascade and amplify until they propagate all over the brain. This usually happens in the primary visual cortex (V1) that seldom activa...
What is the chalk at the billiards table for?	[ "You rub it on the end of the cues to make the contact surface less slippery, so that more of the force of a stroke is transmitted to the cueball. Same reason gymnasts rub their hands in it when swinging on beams, to maintain grip." ]	[ "Yes, Stops crap from growing, keeps drainage/erosion controlled so your tracks will not wash out and cause an incident. Pretty much alotta same reasons why you have gravel driveways." ]
In 1945, did the US every consider giving Japan a "warning shot" for the A-bomb?	[ "[I have written a bit about this here](_URL_0_) — it was considered briefly by the Interim Committee and the Scientific Committee to the Interim Committee. Which is to say, it went as high as the Secretary of War (not to Truman). It was rejected for several reasons, but mainly because the goal of the Manhattan Pro...	[ "It's actually a popularized myth that \"scientists thought an ice age was coming in the 1970s\". [This PDF](_URL_2_) contains a study of all peer-reviewed literature from 1965-1979 concerning climate change. Of the 49 articles that predicted changes to global temperatures, 42 predicted warming, while only 7 predic...
why do lightbulbs seem to go bad only when being turned on?	[ "The filaments in the bulb get thinner and thinner with more use. At some point they are thin enough that the surge of electricity when turning on the bulb is more than the filament can take." ]	[ "Hot and humid conditions speed the growth of bacteria and speeds up decay. Cold slows those processes. The same way food doesn't spoil as fast in a refrigerator or freezer." ]
What would happen if a citizen tried to sue or press criminal charges on the current President?	[ "a president cannot be sued for acts commited as president. Supreme court has ruled on that for nixon. similar to judges having immunity for their rulings, they are intended to act without the burden of private lawsuits. There is little question that a former president could be sued for private actions, whether the...	[ "Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!" ]
What causes us to transition from conscious to unconscious, in the context of falling to sleep? For example, right now I am feeling really tired, I'm yawning like crazy, but when I close my eyes, nothing happens.	[ "To quote William Dement, the retired dean of sleep studies at Stanford University, a co-discoverer of REM sleep, and co-founder of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center, \"As far as I know, the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy.”[\\[1\\]](_URL_0_) That is, however, dea...	[ "It gets hard to merge the information from two eyes into one. You think drunk people get it bad, though? My friend SWIM tells me that on hard dissociative drugs, you literally have to close one eye to see anything, the doublevision is so overwhelming. And because hard dissociative drugs remove your fine motor ...
The Difference Between Irony and Sarcasm	[ "When talking about irony, most people mean [situational irony](_URL_0_). It's essentially a situation where what happens is the opposite of what one would expect, often in a humorous (frequently morbidly so) way. For instance, a firehouse burning down, or an ambulance accidentally hitting and killing a pedestrian....	[ "Context is important. I'm not surprised to see a hot dog at a hot dog stand. I'd be surprised if I opened my wallet to pay for a hot dog and it only had a hot dog inside. I'm not surprised to see beach clothing at a beach, but would be concerned if I'm about to go into surgery and the surgeon shows up in a speedo....
Why do some parents still let their kids play football, knowing that it's likely they'll get a concussion.	[ "There are many reasons: it provides a social group, an extra-curricular activity, and physical exercise. It requires the kid to maintain good grades to continue his participation. Kids can get injured in any sport, and get hurt all the time outside of sports. Preventing kids from doing the things they want to do, ...	[ "Our brains didn't evolve with cars in mind. They evolved with, like, being hunted by a jaguar (or whatever) in mind. So your brain doesn't know what to do with a car. It thinks hey, we're sitting, our body's not really doing anything physical, there's very little activity or stimulus... this seems like a good time...
Have we created the "hottest event" we "know of" in the universe (using LHC particle collisions) since the Big Bang?	[ "Temperature has no meaning in most of these contexts. It's an equilibrium quantity related to the relationship, or change in entropy with energy. However, if you wanna just talk about raw kinetic energies of particles than the LHC doesn't even come close to the kind of energies we've seen \"in nature\". The energy...	[ "A hot plate of food does in fact have more energy (technically), but it has the same amount of \"food energy\". Food energy is the energy stored in chemical bonds within your meal, which is where the energy you body uses comes from. Check out [this](_URL_0_) thread! Richard Wrangham has written a lot of current ...
Why do we get Paranoid? What is the evolutionary benefit of paranoia? Why do we go in to a state of paranoia when gathering information about something (e.g. supernatural beings)?	[ "I think you are specializing paranoia too much. Meaning paranoia didn't \"evolve\" independent of all other aspects of our brain. Evolution is simply selecting for certain traits that provide an overall aide to survival. In this case paranoia may be a side affect of higher brain function and the ability to analy...	[ "Great minds think alike. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why does it feel good to crack your back? ](_URL_3_) ^(_7 comments_) 1. [Why does it feel so good when I crack my back? ](_URL_6_) ^(_ > 100 comments_) 1. [ELI5: What does \"cracking your back\" do, and why does it feel ...
What is the educated argument against man-made climate change?	[ "There is no educated scientific argument against it, not any more. Better than 98% of climatologists--the scientists who study the climate--agree that a) it's real and b) it's caused by human activity. The small residue of climatologists who still don't accept it is entirely normal in science. Some of them refuse ...	[ "Here are a few I'm aware of: - The DEA lists marijuana as a schedule 1 substance (no accepted medical use; high potential for abuse) and a lot of researchers in the US were under the impression the DEA based that on sound scientific data, which it did not. - The most definitive research showing the benefits of...
Why does rain come down as drops and not all at once?	[ "You have to think about air resistance as well. The larger the rain drop in the sky, the more air resistance it encounters. This will cause the droplet to almost take the shape of a balloon and when the air resistance over comes surface tension of the water it breaks and forms smaller droplets. So even if the larg...	[ "Kind of like if you're looking through some legos for a number of different parts, you usually come across one that you need so your search goes quickly until there's one last part you need. It might take you awhile to find that last specific part. That explanation is probably wrong but that's what I would say to...
Since our oxygen comes from plants photosynthesizing the CO2, would it be possible to make a device that synthetically converts CO2 into oxygen so we can keep recycling the same air instead of carrying bulky oxygen bottles into space and underwater?	[ "Yes, absolutely. however this would require a lot of energy to split the two carbon=oxygen bonds and form one oxygen=oxygen bond. So instead of carrying oxygen, you would need to carry an even larger battery supply." ]	[ "Basically, the air contains so much more oxygen than water does (0.21 of air is oxygen gas, 0.001 of seawater is oxygen gas) that whales can _still_ gain a net greater amount of oxygen and thus a higher metabolism than things like sharks. That's one reason whales can afford to burn a lot of energy maintaining high...
Why do they say we share 98% of DNA with chimpanzee’s but then we only share 50% of our DNA with our mother/father/siblings?	[ "More than 99% of every human's DNA is identical, and most of that is shared with chimpanzees. You get 50% of your DNA from your mother and 50% from your father, but most of it is identical from both sides." ]	[ "Each other. Me, You and your mum all have $5. I loan you $5, you now have $10 You loan your mum $5, you now have $5 and she has $10 Your mum loans me $5, she now has $5 and i have $5. Now we all have $5, but we're in $15 worth of debt." ]
How genetic algorithms learn and how new generations are made	[ "It's all up to the programmer. They write some arbitrary \"fitness test\" to assign a score to each member of the current generation & then breed them. Breeding, likewise, is up to the programmer. They figure out a way to represent attributes/parameters of the algorithm as numbers and then \"shuffle them up\" whil...	[ "It is awesome. They build themselves. Here's a an animated gif: _URL_0_ Here's a gif from actual footage: _URL_1_" ]
Why am I being taxed 30% on my paychecks?	[ "Most of the time your \"Tax\" has to do with \"withholding\" - check your withholding and see how much your company is withholding. If you've been seeing a return, that's likely because you're over-withholding. Be cautious though, if you under-withhold you will owe the government money at the end of the year. Y...	[ "Well, if it were hypothetically possible... Say goodbye to roads, fire departments, police, schools...." ]
How does ancient language decoding works?	[ "We need a \"[Rosetta Stone](_URL_0_)\" to know the real language." ]	[ "They use this - _URL_1_ It records all of the major news channels and indexes the closed captioning data so that it's searchable. _URL_0_" ]
How come some holidays are based on a certain date while others are based on a certain day of the month?	[ "Back in the 1970's the US government decided to move some holidays to Mondays so that people could have a 3 day weekend and get more rest and enjoyment from them. Certain ones were not moved, religious ones such as Christmas and Passover since those were not the purview of the government or ones whose significance...	[ "> Why are there many different sockest Because different engineers thouht that different things would be important for a socket, e.g. ability to transfer a lot of current vs. small size and simple (=cheap) construction. > Was this a big lapse in planning when electricity came about? People did not have much elect...
Is it possible to control your heart rate at will?	[ "Not with any great specificity (as in you can't think \"I want my heart to beat at 70 bpm\".) But, vagal (parasympathetic) stimulation using various forms of valsalva maneuvers are able to slow heart rates quite dramatically, albeit generally only temporarily. Additionally, you could increase heart rate by self-in...	[ "I'm sorry that I'm no expert, but I remember reading about this the last time a similar question was asked: _URL_0_ Basically, you percieve time faster after your run because of endorphines released during the work out, which means that the music seems slower. This is apparently also why a lot of rock musicians pl...
What would happen if you fired two neutrinos (beams) towards a single target from two different locations, but one was an antineutrino (beam)?	[ "Neutrino head on collision crossection is extremey low. The would interact through Z bosons (neutral weak current) which is the weakes force out there. (and the heaviest force carrier, besides higgs) So you would probably, with the most intense beam you can produce, have only couple photons come out. Preparing an ...	[ "You get the full year's worth of radiation. From an outside point of view, we see that time is dilated and the astronaut is moving very slowly inside their spaceship. But we see the spaceship take a full year to reach its destination, and gets hit by all this radiation along the way. From the astronaut's point of ...
Was every desert once a body of water?	[ "It's hard to say definitively whether or not every desert was once under a body of water, but desertification of once arable land is possible with poor land management, such as what happened with Africa after the Romans cut down all the trees. Sand is kind of always there, it's the vegetation and bio-mass that get...	[ "Do you mean a 'planet' covered in liquid or something completely liquid? It's possible but the chances are very small and the planet/oid that would be made would have to be incredibly small do to the density of the liquid in question it might be too massive and unstable since it will constantly be shifting. What w...
Why doesn't tin foil get hot on a grill?	[ "It gets hot, but it cools very quickly due to the large surface area. If you put a whole roll of foil on the grill it will burn the shit out of your hand." ]	[ "While there are still a lot of unpopped kernels and only a few already popped, the energy is absorbed by the unpopped kernels. It is only until a few unpopped kernels are left, that the already popped kernels start to absorb energy and get burnt. Copy pasted my top answer from: _URL_0_" ]
What physical aspect of things makes them different colors?	[ "There's no _single_ thing. It depends on the compound(s), it depends on the state (gas,liquid,solid), on the arrangement of the molecules in the solid (if it's solid). It can even depend on the _size_ of the particles of the substance (gold is yellow, nanoparticles of gold are red). Different colors come about be...	[ "The number of protons relates to the number of electrons, which impacts to how the atom interacts with other atoms. At the molecular level, different atomic bonding pattens, shapes, and configurations, which impacts how the molecule behaves with other molecules. It's about the interactions and behaviors" ]
Does a warm core temperature slow down the effects of frost bite?	[ "It depends to some degree on the level of cold. If it's cold enough that over hours you'd get frostbite as you slowly died from exposure, the coat would definitely postpone the point where the need to conserve heat results in frostbite. However, to some degree blood flow is locally controlled. If you stick your ha...	[ "Many of these creams contain menthol (or sometimes peppermint oil, which is what menthol can be extracted from). Menthol stimulates TRPM8 receptors in the skin. These receptors are primarily for sensing cold, but menthol triggers their response and you get a cold feeling when you apply creams. Other menthol analog...
What happens and what could happen when you keep your mouth closed when sneezing	[ "Well, the air gets forced somewhere -- out the nose is where it will primarily go, and force more out of there than a regular sneeze. However, there's another place the air will go -- out the tubes that connect to your ears. Your nostrils are too small to let all the air out of the sneeze, so it'll force its way...	[ "Cold air does not promote the spread of flu viruses. It is an urban legend. In fact cold air typically prevents the spread of viruses as the cells cannot last outside of the body as long." ]
When you hear nails on a chalk board, why do you feel it in your teeth?	[ "Frequencies within a certain range trigger a survival instinct within is that also increases our skin conductivity among other things. It's within the same range as a babys cry for example. Our ear canals have developed to amplify these noises as well." ]	[ "It doesn't, the ad was intended to make you associate Colgate with feeling virtuous and then want to buy Colgate the next time you're at the store." ]
Why was the 5.56mm round chosen as the NATO standard?	[ "in 1977 NATO agreed to adopt a 2nd round in addition to the 7.62x51mm round, specifically the SS109 steel tipped round which was designed to pierce a soviet style steel helmet at 600 meters. Jane's Infantry Weapons 1986–1987, pg. 362 The Small Arms Review vol.10, no.2 November 2006. It's 4am and I haven't looked i...	[ "At the time, it was the best means of transporting water. Meaning, it was cheap, malleable & most, of not all plumbers were able to literally, make pipes & fittings while on the site." ]
What slurs did foreign soldiers call American soldiers?	[ "This has been a fairly popular question in AskHistorians. /u/cthulhushrugged gives a great answer on Japanese nicknames for various Allied countries--and their propagandistic purposes--[in this thread](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "A half answer, and half question, but what part of the first section of the film do you not think is present anymore? The arc follows a training company through Marine Basic Training at Paris Island South Carolina. And for the time it depicts relatively normal portions of training. And still does today, close orde...
Why do some people hate Labor Unions?	[ "I which I could say. I'd like to know the same thing as well. The people I've met that are against labor unions are the same people who have little understanding nor memory of the history of working in the US. The buy into the propaganda that big corporations put out. They think that unions are only about greed. T...	[ "Neighbor across the street: \"Hey Tommy, will you mow my lawn?\" Tommy: \"Sure, I'll do it for $5/hr.\" Neighbor: \"How about $3?\" Tommy: \"I want $5.\" Neighbor: \"OK, well I'll just ask your brother.\" Tommy: \"My brother and I and all the neighborhood kids decided together that we weren't going to mow lawns fo...
When igniting a flammable substance from a gas canister, why doesn't the flame travel inwards towards the source and blow up the gas canister	[ "you need oxygen/fuel at a minimum ratio to combust. There is little or no oxygen in the gas canister." ]	[ "Okay, so fuel has mass. The more mass you add, the more thrust you need to move it, which means bigger engines and more fuel, which means more mass... All kidding aside, at a certain point adding more fuel becomes impractical. You have to put the fuel in a container, add more structure to the ship, etc, etc. You...
When you get pulled over by a cop and they "run" your license, what are they actually doing?	[ "They are checking your id against numerous databases to see if you have outstanding warrants for your arrest, if this is a repeat offense, if your license is up to date, if your license has been revoked, etc." ]	[ "Old filament lights won't do this, modern LED lights will, the brightness of the light is varied by switching the supply on and off rapidly the on time and off time can be varied, the longer it's on the brighter the light, this switching happens at something like a thousand times a second, the human eye can't dete...
Why are knives and swords curved?	[ "There are a number of reasons. Take the Berber Arabs, they used curved swords because they often rode into battle on horseback and the curvature helped to stabilize attacks and balance weight so that they can be more easily used. In a more generic sense, curvature also assists in damage since it forces more of a p...	[ "I suspect there's an aesthetic for organic lines and natural geometry coded somewhere deep in our dna. From a survival perspective it makes sense to be drawn to rolling geography - where one might remain more easily obscured from predators - rather than to geography with straight lines, which is basically an open ...
What percentage of our own galaxy have astronomers cataloged? How are names for stars selected?	[ "The USNO B catalog (the largest to date) contains about 1 billion stars and galaxies. There are roughly 300 billion stars in our galaxy, so we've cataloged about 0.3%. You can see about 6000 stars with your naked eye from a dark site with no moon. The vast distances, extinction from interstellar dust, and the fact...	[ "Parallax works for things close by, out to several hundred light years. Take an angular measurement in January, and another in June, and check the difference. The difference in angular position and the size of the Earth's orbit can be used to make the trigonometric calculation of distance. [See this graphic](_URL_...
Google offering $1M prize for a much smaller power inverter	[ "A power inverter converts battery power (which is DC) into the higher voltage AC used by devices you plug into a wall outlet. It is useful in a car, for example, when you need to provide power to an AC device. You plug the inverter into a cigarette lighter socket, and now you've got 120 volt AC for whatever device...	[ "The goal isn't to 'win' the goal is to make being attacked too expensive for the attacker. In other words, the only way to win is not to play." ]
When you're sick why do you feel hot and cold at the same time?	[ "When you are sick, your body responds to pyrogens secreted by bacteria by raising your body temperature. Whilst you are \"warming up\" despite being hot, your body is telling you you are cold. If you get under blankets you might go over the temperature your hypothalamus is aiming for, and feel hot." ]	[ "This is called Orthostatic Hypotension. This is basically low blood pressure, seeing as you are laying down, your heart doesn't need to beat that fast because your blood is only being pushed along, but when you stand up, gravity will pull the blood down from your head, causing the dizzyness and everything around y...
Why doesnt Oman have the same issues/crisis its southern neighbor Yemen Has?	[ "The same reason a lot of countries in the region don't have the same issue as Yemen has. It's a different country with a much more popular leader in Sultan Qaboos who has created a stable country with a relatively great economy based on oil and tourism." ]	[ "This has essentially been answered by the preceding comments, but what hasn't been contributed is this: _URL_0_. Muster and enrollment records, transfer lists, honours lists, etc, for the period of 1730 through 1898. Worth having, OP, if you're writing or researching the topic academically. To succinctly summarise...
Teacher just said that when gravity is the only acting force, an elephant and a feather would fall at the same speed.	[ "Think of the elephant as a million feathers tied together. A million feathers don't fall faster than one feather, whether they are tied together or not. (If you ignore the effect of the air, which is of course huge.)" ]	[ "Think about how you grip something like a tennis ball. You wrap your hand around the ball, right? Now, there's a microscopic space on both sides of the ball: one for your palm, and one from your fingers. I'm assuming that, since you know that nothing actually touches anything else, you know about electrons/electro...
When I donate money to cancer kids at a store checkout, does the company use my donation as a tax write off?	[ "They might. It depends which store and which organization the money is going to. I believe the charity Ronald McDonald House is attached the McDonald's corporation, so the money is probably a tax write-off. But some stores literally just let charities put a little donation box in front of their cash register for n...	[ "There is something similar called the nocebo effect: if you believe something will make you ill, it will. This is what is seen in people that get a rash from being near a Wi-Fi router - whether it's turned on or not. It's not the Wi-Fi signal that's causing the rash, it's the belief. Whether the same is true for...
Why do some dishes heat up quicker than the actual food contents?	[ "Today you learned there's a difference between scold and scald." ]	[ "That's because your device has to \"prep\" a lot of configurations such as encryption keys, protocols etc. Think of it as switching the battery in your car, you first gotta unplug it, check which wire goes well, reassure you did it correctly and then proceed to turn your car on. It took you time to do all that, ...
Culturally, who were the people of geographic Wales before the arrival of the Romans in the first century? How (if at all) were they separate from the Britons?	[ "There would be no distinction, the term \"Welsh\" wouldn't be used until Anglo Saxons showed up after Roman evacuation, coming from an old germanic term for \"stranger\" or \"foreigner\" The word \"Vlach\" in Romania has a similar origin, when germanic tribes moved in they began calling natives in the region as su...	[ "Follow-up/related: Do we have any idea how prevalent the Classically stereotypical physical traits for each group (e.g. big strapping blond-haired Dorians) actually were in those populations?" ]
What exactly happens when you donate your body to science?	[ "Most likely it will be sold to schools for dissection by medical students." ]	[ "Watch this video by Veritasium: _URL_1_ I think it answers your questions." ]
how do we know the layers of the earth if we've never passed the crust	[ "You find your Christmas presents stashed away by your parents. You want to know whats inside, but you can open them and let them know you found them. The first thing you likely do is shake them and listen to how the contents bounce around. Scientist do the exact same thing, except instead of a single human ear the...	[ "In the same way that when you stand in front of your house, you can see part of your town -- it's the view from inside." ]
What happens to individual members of colony based insects (ants, termites, etc) when they are separated from their colonies?	[ "If they left a pheromone trail and could locate it, or one left behind by another colony member they could find their way back. If not they are lost forever." ]	[ "I can't speak for sure in the case of Communism, but I imagine the government would handle that. In the case of Anarchists, it would depend on the core philosophy of the community. \"Anarchy\" is actually just a larger umbrella for many different ideas about how to run a community without (necessarily) the oversig...
Why are things such as Black History Month, the NAACP and Bet Awards, or any other minority specific groups/events exist, but ones exclusively for whites are considered racist?	[ "Because white people don't need any group representing them since they're the majority, and it's considered racist because historically the white race has been the oppressor not the oppressed." ]	[ "The Albanians don't call themselves \"Albanians.\" Their word for themselves is \"Shqiptarët,\" and their name for their nation is \"Shqipëri.\" This isn't uncommon, really. The Koreans don't call themselves Koreans. That name is derived from the name of one dynasty, the Goguryeo. Their name for themselves is \"Ha...
Did whales and hippos inherit aquatic birth from a common ancestor, or did they each evolve it separately? And why do some marine mammals, like sea otters, have aquatic birth, but others, like seals and sea lions, don't?	[ "> Did whales and hippos inherit aquatic birth from a common ancestor, or did they each evolve it separately? They come by it seperately > And why do some marine mammals, like sea otters, have aquatic birth, but others, like seals and sea lions, don't? This is going to come down to some combination of physiology a...	[ "That cold water came from somewhere cold. Specifically, the Arctic or Antarctic. The ocean is constantly circulating: water gets cooled near the poles, which causes it to sink and flow at depth toward the equator, forming a cold layer beneath the warm sun-heated water near the surface. You're absolutely right that...
Why is the American Education system so poor if we are expected to borrow/pay such large amounts of money for tuition?	[ "Colleges and graduate schools in the US are top-notch. Other countries send their best students here. Its the grade schools and high schools that stink." ]	[ "That's just it. It takes a while to amass information and use it. An animal just does whatever comes natural, aka 'instinct'. But humans are taught and trained and learn and practice and... and... Layers and layers of information and training to get us to the point where we can actually achieve more than the previ...
If you shine a white light through a blue filter, does it actually change the wavelength of the color?	[ "Filters remove certain colors from the light beam. White light has all the colors mixed together: the blue filter removes everything but blue. If the color isn't there to begin with, the filter can't add it. You can test this by getting a red laser pointer (which is only red) and shining it through a colored l...	[ "While nothing can go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum (such a speed doesn't really make sense), something can go faster than the speed of light in other things. Light slows down as it passes through things, which is why refraction works (e.g. for lenses). What you see is a sort of \"light boom\" which ...
The Great Depression and how it happened.	[ "According to Ben Bernanke (former Chairman of the Federal Reserve), it was the Federal Reserve that caused it: \"Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve System. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did...	[ "Could you specify your question (time, place)? \"Dark Ages\" refers to many different time periods in history, but I am assuming you mean the Early Middle Ages? This is a pretty wide topic to cover in a reddit thread." ]
Why does soda/carbonated drinks fizz so much when fresh ice is added to the drink?	[ "The surface of the ice is rough and has many imperfections, this creates nucleation site for bubbles to form causing many to form. Fun fact, Mentos being dropped in soda is not actually a chemical reaction. It is caused by the rough surface of the Mentos having many nucleation sites. The same thing happens when yo...	[ "[This](_URL_0_) previous thread explains it as [entrainment](_URL_2_). When changing the diameter of your lips, the airflow is subject to the [Bernoulli effect](_URL_1_) where it speeds up. When the air moves faster, it draws in more surrounding air which is cooler than your body temperature, thus making it feel c...
Why gay females have "lesbian" as a term, but gay males don't have a specific term?	[ "Gay is the specific term for males. Homosexual females have \"lesbian\" as a term, and homosexual males have \"gay\" as a term. Lesbians often get lumped into \"gay\" because it's just easier to say and write than \"homosexual\" or \"gay and lesbian\". It's just a convenience thing, like when people refer to a p...	[ "Words that often appear together are called \"collocations\", and it's simply the way we've learned them. We tend to process them as indivisible units -- phrases, rather than separate words. For example, when we say \"apples and oranges\", we're not thinking of two different kinds of fruit and then putting them in...
how dreams can feel so real.	[ "Everything you experience is actually just your brain's interpretation of signals its receiving from your eyes, nerve cells, nose, tongue, etc. So think of it this way. Imagine you're blind and you have a person who describes everything that they see to you. They've been doing that to you for your whole lif...	[ "I don't have a great explanation for this, but it's called frisson. Check out /r/frisson for more info." ]
When you lose weight/fat, where does it go?	[ "Your cells break the fat down into water and carbon dioxide. So you breathe and pee it out." ]	[ "Your computer keeps a list of where all your files are located on the hard drive. When you make a new file, it checks this list to make sure you don't use space that other files are using. So when you delete a file, your computer just deletes that file's entry from the list. Then, if you make a new file and try ...
what determines that a plant is a weed?	[ "A plant is only a weed if you don't want it. If you plant a field of corn, anything that's not corn is unwanted. I n a residential yard, some people say dandelion is just a weed, but dandelion is a healthy, normal plant, and is even useful as nutritious leafy greens. Dandelion used to be eaten more widely until it...	[ "The word is that the Denver Colorado dispensary was funded by money received from Mexican drug cartels. The DEA got word through an informant and shut it down. Tldr: local$$= ok Cartel $$= fed jail" ]
As our climate warms, what does mammalian (specifically human) life look like in 200 years if the average global temperature is +50F warmer than today? How about +25F?	[ "That's a huge temperature difference. For comparison, the average temperature during the hottest eras when dinosaurs still existed was at most 15 degrees F hotter than today. A change of 50 degrees globally would probably kill off most surface life I would imagine." ]	[ "This page gives a good run down of the typical surface and interior temperatures for baking bread. Cakes will be not too far off although maybe a little cooler due to the additional liquid content. Smaller drier items like cookies will be hotter. Roughly surface temperature will be about 10 to 20% cooler than the ...
Why does it seem like right after you learn something, you hear it everywhere	[ "It's called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon -- your brain wants to look for patterns in things, so when it learns something new, it gets to make all sorts of new patterns appear." ]	[ "The best answer here is going to include the phrase \"confirmation bias\" I guarantee it." ]
How does talking about issues in therapy help those to forget about their problems?	[ "It doesn't help you forget about your problems, it helps you by having someone listen to your issues, acknowledge them as real to you and provide you with healthy coping mechanisms so that you can address your problems in a way that accepts them and allows you to move past them Therapy isn't about forgetting traum...	[ "Two social psychological concepts come to mind here. State dependent memory encoding and Erickson Arousal theory of learning. State dependent learning states that what ever state of mind you are in during encoding is the state of mind where recall would be optimal. Erickson arousal theory states that learning is m...
When a baking recipe calls for a "pinch of salt" or some other ingredient, is there enough of the ingredient to actually have a marginal effect chemically in the baking process?	[ "A pinch of salt in a baked good doesn't impact the the baking process. It is there so when you eat it, the salt suppresses the bitter flavors and enhances the sweetness. _URL_1_ Most other things are added to give a little more complexity to the dish. One exception is baking soda added to beans. It helps make the ...	[ "Imagine you had several separate stereos that each played one element of a song; One stereo for the lead vocals, another for the bass, another for the keyboard, etc. In that scenario, you could adjust the volume and equalizer of each stereo separately, turn them on and off at will, change the timing of when each e...
Why does it seem like there was a larger graphical jump between 6th-7th gen consoles than 7th-8th?	[ "Diminishing graphical returns. Gpus draw triangles and the difference of 100 to 1000 is big 1000 to 10000 is noticeable and 10000 to 100000 is unremarkable. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Are you watching blu ray? Is it a good transfer? (Example: despite being made in the early 80's Blade Runner Ultimate Director's cut blu-ray is one of the best you can buy) How good is your blu ray player? Is it a ps3? All of these factors contribute to what you determine as a home viewing experience being inferio...
Blizzards (and other treats) made of pieces. Do they come whole or ground. Who grinds the shards?	[ "The DQ store receives the candy/cookies/whatever already broken down into pieces. The Oreos and Butterfingers and stuff like that all come crushed up, cookie dough and cheesecake come in little bit size pieces, etc. The only things that manually get chopped are bananas. Also, the stores don't get the stuff directl...	[ "First of all, there are limits to how much is given for free. Usually \"one per visit\", \"one per day\" or \"one per week\". That keeps the costs from getting too prohibitive. The winner could go into a McDonald's, get an ice cream, and had to come back later, and couldn't just sit in the lobby from open to close...
How come H-1 is radioactive, but it has no product of decay (alpa, bèta, gamma etc.)?	[ "It isn't radioactive. That number is the experimental lower bound on its half life if it were (i.e. we did an experiment to look for proton decay, didn't find any, so it must be longer than what this experiment can detect), and it is much, much, much longer than the age of the universe." ]	[ "Because it is not 100% passive. In order to detect the radar, the signal being received by the antenna is mixed with a signal from inside the radar detector called a \"local oscillator\". The signal from the LO can be received for a short distance outside the car. & #x200B; For a bit more information, google \"Su...
The Economist's 1865 article on the assassination of President Lincoln refers to his death as the " most lamentable [event] which has occurred since the coup d'etat". Which coup d'etat would they have been referring to?	[ "If I can ask a follow-up, why is Waterloo referred to as a \"lamentable event\" when this article was presumably written from an Anglo (at least, Anglo-American) perspective?" ]	[ "hi! in addition to /u/Jack_of_all_offs' link, here are a few more related discussions you may find of interest * [To what extent was the Tiananmen Square movement actually motivated by democracy?](_URL_1_) * [I've just read that there was no massacre of students in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989. What's the dea...
What causes a plane to make that "divebombing" sound when it nosedives towards the ground?	[ "If you are referring to that classic \"WW2\" divebomber sound, you might be thinking of the siren the German \"Stuka\" carried to cause panic and fear among those it was attacking. The siren was mounted to the landing gear spat and would be driven by a small propeller that intensified when the Stuka entered a dive...	[ "Essentially it’s because computers are smart. Sound is a wave, with how high or low a sound is being determined by how many waves it has per second. More waves = high pitch. So when a recording gets played at a faster speed, be that a record or on a computer, more waves come out in the same amount of time, so ever...
When someone is in a coma do their bodies still go through their natural circadian rhythm and sleep cycles?	[ "I'm not able to answer your second question, (also, many people with traumatic brain injuries will be placed into a coma for various reasons) but [I found this study](_URL_0_) that aimed to ask your main question. I was't able to read the whole paper but it looks like that overall, yes, people do maintain their ci...	[ "For a long time the most dangerous part of a surgery was the anesthesia. (This led to surgeries being done as QUICKLY as possible as to not kill the patient, cause permanent brain damage...ect) As the science of anesthesia got more advanced and magnitudes safer surgeons moved to a \"slow and steady\" approach to s...
If humans originated in Africa, how could they reach Iceland/Australia etc. without modern technology?	[ "Boat is the right answer. They reached Australia by traveling down from the Malay peninsula and through the Indonesian archipelago, possibly through Papua New Guinea. Look up the map, each sea voyage is quite short. They reached Greenland from North America, which is also a shortish voyage. [Wikipedia]( _URL_2_) ...	[ "The fossil record: we can look at the bones of animals that died a long time ago, and do special tests to tell us when they died. We can put this together to tell us what an animal, or its ancestor, looked like a long time ago. So far, they have shown up in the correct order. Speciation: say birds are blow...
What's happening inside your brain/body when you get that feeling where your 'heart drops'?	[ "Oh I thought you were talking about when your missing some one or something a lot, if some one could also explain that, that'd be great." ]	[ "Usually when we type, we are using our working memory to hold the info we want to type. Our working memory only has so much space in it that if something new pops up it pushes back the old info and takes front seat; attention also affects this. Think of it like a bus. What you're trying to type is in the drivers ...
how West Berlin operated while landlocked in East Germany.	[ "The Russians allowed a road into Berlin for supplies until they eventually shut it down. After that we [flew supplies to them](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "As an add-on: Would they have been eaten in extreme cases (Leningrad) or even [pressed into service](_URL_0_)?" ]
Why hasn't the Department of Justice prosecuted a single Wall Street CEO for fraudulent activities associated with the 2007/08 financial crisis?	[ "Because piercing the corporate veil is rarely done; in limited circumstances very limited pretty much only when the corporation is set up solely for an illegal purpose. Otherwise it's the corporations that's liable for the activities of the corporation. The few exceptions would be insider trading, embezzlement, an...	[ "The Armenian genocide by the Turks was a war crime. The use of poison gas was too, but all sides used it. I've never seen the German reprisals in Belgium described as a war crime, perhaps because Belgians were actively resisting the Germans. Part of the reason for disillusionment and cynicism was the inflammatory ...
How do police dogs differentiate between other officers and the criminals they are chasing?	[ "Police Officer here! In my experience, they don't! If you are standing in front of a police dog and make a sudden movement it doesn't like, you're going to have a bad time! They take a lot of cues from their handler so that might be why we avoid getting bitten most of the time but a uniform means nothing to a Poli...	[ "Lawyers see a lot of cases. It's very embarrassing to accidentally say the wrong name due to a mental mix-up. This prevents such a mistake." ]
How do baseball-sized hail form?	[ "So basically hail forms in what’s called a cumulonimbus cloud, those are the big dark scary looking tall ones that can also produce lighting. They get so tall as a result of up and down drafts, hot air rising straight up, cooling then going back down, hail is when the water molecules come together like a rain drop...	[ "bananas were actually artificially bred to be the shape we see them as today! while originally bananas weren't actually spherical, they weren't AS long and thin as they are now. quick googling brings up this article: _URL_0_ with some pics apparently link is weird on mobile so be careful, it was just one of the f...
Is there anything that is truly odorless?	[ "Something is odorless by definition if it cannot be smelled, unless you want to count a carbon monoxide detector as 'smelling' carbon monoxide. Smell is just a stimulation of some receptors in your nose. Asking about intrinsic odor is several miles into the Philosophy Zone." ]	[ "1. You you should clarify which \"STP\" you're referring to. * IUPAC defines standard temperature and pressure as as 0 °C and 100 kPa (0.9869 atm). * The National Institute of Standards and Technology uses 20 °C and 1 atm (101.3 kPa). * Many people use 25 °C and 1 atm (101.3 kPa) as standard ambient temperature ...
What’s the difference between Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel. And who does Rogue permanently absorb?	[ "The names Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel have both been applied to more than one character. Mar-Vell, the Kree alien, gave his powers to Carol Danvers, who became Ms. Marvel, and later was named Captain Marvel. This is he character getting a Marvel cinematic universe movie. A newer, different character named Ms. M...	[ "Salt & Pepper season our food. They make it taste better. Spices & Herbs flavor our food. They make it taste different. Season everything. source: Chef." ]
If light is an electromagnetic wave , just like infra red or radio, can we use non optical instruments like Antennae to detect it ?	[ "The principles are the same but the frequencies and wavelengths are very different. Visible light has wavelengths of about 500 nm or 1/20000 of a mm. You’d want pretty tiny antennas. Still, I remember a paper once where someone had realized that a microscopic organism was doing exactly that. It had an “eye” which ...	[ "It's not voodoo magic. It's kind of like brushing your hair. When you get up in the morning, your hair (assuming you have more hair on your head than I do) is all tangled from tossing and turning and all that other jazz. This is what regular light coming from, say, a light bulb looks like. It's all tangled and sca...
Why are thunderstorms spontaneous but blizzards can be predicted a week before one forms and can travel across a country without deteriorating?	[ "They predict thunderstorms days before they happen as well. The thunderstorm warning/watch is only shortly before the storm is due to warn people of its intensity and that they should take shelter." ]	[ "1) Both use the same weather radar that belongs to a third company selling its data. 2) Both are using the same device model, there can be more than one of them. (As in: the Bugatti Veyron is the world's most powerful production car, but a few hundred people own Bugatti Veyrons.)" ]
How powerful can a handheld electromagnet be?	[ "Does the power source have to handheld as well?" ]	[ "[Here](_URL_0_) is a WHO publication on the topic from 2007. From the summary statement: > Uncertainties in the hazard assessment include the role that control selection bias and exposure misclassification might have on the observed relationship between magnetic fields and childhood leukaemia. **In addition, virt...
People crash after taking stimulants, why does the opposite not happen after taking depressants?	[ "Both depressants and stimulants achieve their effect by increasing the amount of various neurotransmitters (like dopamine, etc.) that are available at the active sites in your brain. Stimulants increase ones that \"bring you up,\" while depressants increase the ones that mellow you out. At the same time, the body ...	[ "The business cycle. This is just how capitalism works--it goes from boom to bust and back. Actual hard answers are complicated bits of economics that are beyond an ELI5." ]
What is ping in videogames?	[ "* Latency is the time it takes for a message to get from you to the server you're sending it to. * Ping is a popular command line tool that is used to measure latency. * It sends a message to the remote server which gets echoed back and it tracks the time it takes to receive the echo. * It comes from the Navy wher...	[ "You know how you can kind of tell where someone came from by how they talk? Computer programs are the same way. Different computer programs respond in different ways. That's their \"accent\". It's basically trying to identify what type of computer someone has by exactly how it responds on the network, its' \"accen...
Why do some plugs have 3 prongs while some only have two?	[ "third prong is usually a dedicated ground, usually required for devices that have high loads, but some two prongs have a built in gfci" ]	[ "No, a 600 watt incandescent light bulb would not last as long as a magnetron. The heat would be dissipated mostly in the oven walls. It would not penetrate the surface of the food. It would be a conventional oven. Microwaves penetrate around 10mm and they don't heat the walls. The GE trivection oven uses convecti...
Why are some alleles more dominant than others?	[ "The dominant gene codes for a functional protein. The recessive gene codes for a non-functional protein or no protein at all. Brown hair is brown because there is pigment because there's a gene that codes for a protein that makes the pigment. If there gene doesn't code for a functional protein, no pigment makes i...	[ "When you take a pill it's not 100% the labeled medication. There are other ingredients that help it do its job and release when and how it is supposed to. Sometimes a medicine needs more extra ingredients to do its job so you end up with a bigger pill." ]
why do gas stations get to use a denomination smaller than a penny	[ "> if there are leftovers after the transactions .006 cents where does it go? It gets rounded, which evens out over the long run. The thing to remember is that you never buy gas in exact, gallon increments. So it really makes no difference whether or not a gallon of gas is priced in fractions of a cent, because you...	[ "There is an episode of This American Life that explains it really well: _URL_0_ They say that the real money is made of incentives from the manufacturer to sell the cars - they just need to move a set number of cars, it really doesn't matter how much they sell them for. And then they get big payouts from the manuf...
If one capsid of HIV works its way into my bloodstream, what are my chances of getting the virus?	[ "probably pretty rare. first things first, if HIV just gets into your blood stream, it could still be intercepted by Ab and get phagocytosed, where it would hopefully be degraded and not infect the macrophage. however, if it does attach to its receptor on T cells (CD4), it could enter the cell, and being a retrovir...	[ "The movie was [Days of Thunder](_URL_0_) and he was talking about [Slipstreaming or Drafting](_URL_1_). As to your question, this depends on * The velocity of the cars * Geometry of both cars * Atmosphere status (temperature, rain, snow ... although they have very little effect at higher speeds) On the street it's...
Does the age of the universe (13.7 billion years) account of the time dilation factor caused by velocity of the earth through space relative to a object with zero velocity?	[ "There is a reference frame in which the cosmic microwave background is most isotropic, that Earth is moving about 600 km/s relative to. There are no special physics in this frame, it is not preferred, but in it the universe is oldest and that frame is what that measurement corresponds to. However, the difference b...	[ "For the Schwarzschild metric, you consider the geodesic equations in the equatiorial plane \$which is any plane crossing r=0 by symmetry\$. Combining these three equations into one gives an ordinary differential equation. Newton predicts the same differential equation except for one term. Newton's equation is u'...
To what extent can a scientific calculator be programmed in an "Assembly"-ly way?	[ "If you can't jump, I can't think of a way to implement any kind of control flow. If you're asking more generally if there are any calculators that you can program, then TI graphing calculators come with [TI-BASIC](_URL_0_) which does indeed have control flow." ]	[ "Right now it the closest we have gotten is using artificial neural networks. _URL_0_ It isn't quite as complex as mapping all of the synapses in the human brain. Basically we can make a neural network, and by feeding it a set of inputs and the correct output, we can teach it what kind of output we want in the futu...
What is that bubbling creaking sound that my eyeballs make when I'm tired and I rub them?	[ "Wen you rub your eyes from left to right and vice versa, especially over the joint of the two lids, you are causing air to get into and under your eye lids. This forms bubbles and makes squishy noises. This seems to happen more if you are short sighted, because that means that your eyeball is not exactly spherical...	[ "The inner ear and outer ear are seperated by a layer of issue impermeable to the outside atmosphere called the ear drum, aka tympanic membrane. When the air pressure changes by a large amount, the air in the inner ear and the air outside the ear are not at equilibrium. To re-establish that equilibrium of pressure,...
explain the Birthday Paradox to me.	[ "[Diagram for referene](_URL_2_) It all comes down to the fact that any day has an equal change at being someones birthday, right? The trick is that YOUR birthday doesnt have to match with someone elses, but that SOMEONE must match with someone elses, see the distinction? In this case, you are matching pairs up, no...	[ "Penn & Teller: Bullshit! did a show on this, its very worth a watch, they break it down quite well and understandable. [Link to the full episode](_URL_0_) on youtube. Warning, NSFW language and boobies in like the first 2 seconds, because its Penn & Teller and thats what they do" ]
what's the difference between a corporation and a business?	[ "Corporations have been 'incorporated' as a separate legal entity. It could lose a lot of money (get sued) and the owner(s) would still be protected (the corporation tanked, but I did not have to pay any of my money in the lawsuit). \"Business\" is just general economic activity. I purchase groceries. That's bu...	[ "I was always informed it was based on the focus of the website. A company would have a .com An organization would have a .org A database or network might have a .net The government has a .gov Meanwhile, the endings in .uk (England), .ca (Canada), .us (USA), .jp (Japan) are short for country cod...
Why do internet sports streams often lag a bunch? Gamers on twitch usually deliver flawless HD streams. Why is a good sports stream hard?	[ "A lot more people watch sporting events, maxing out the ESPN servers bandwidth (or whoever is streaming the video). I work for a cable company and we are flooded with calls on Sunday's during football season about ESPN or some other sports streaming being terrible." ]	[ "The fishing spots are not randomly chosen. They are chosen because there is a lot of the desired fish there. Different fish will have specialized themselves to feed on different food, swim at different depths and handle different ocean conditions. So if you go to the place that best fits the fish you are after and...
If the top 1% or 1/10th of 1% account for nearly all of the US money, and the US is the wealthiest nation that has ever been, what's to stop the handful of people from leaving us pennieless?	[ "Most people don't have their wealth in cash, it's in the form of investments. Many of the investments are only worth money if other people value the investment. If everyone tried to sell and move the money elsewhere, the prices would collapse, and they'd have far less money. If they actually went through with this...	[ "Because while N. Korea might talk a mean game, they're basically harmless. Much of what you see in terms of N. Korea is purely spectacle make to build this image that they are this badass. In reality, N. Korea probably wouldn't be able to take over a Walmart in Texas. They're basically like a child who's threateni...
Why is sleep so comfortable shortly upon waking(especially when you have work/school/etc)?	[ "When you wake up in the morning, you get something called sleep inertia. It's the groggyness you feel up to two hours (usually half an hour) after you have woken up. It's a \"false\" kind of sleepy, which makes you want to stay in bed. This combined with how comfortable your warm, soft bed is, makes it so darn ha...	[ "Our brains didn't evolve with cars in mind. They evolved with, like, being hunted by a jaguar (or whatever) in mind. So your brain doesn't know what to do with a car. It thinks hey, we're sitting, our body's not really doing anything physical, there's very little activity or stimulus... this seems like a good time...
Why do humans have so much potential for gaining strength (Olympic weight lifters can lift almost 9x what the average person can), but the difference between the average runner and Usain Bolt is only 2x?	[ "There is a big difference between those 2 things: One requires more muscle mass. More muscle mass can generate more force. When you lift a weight you can slowly activate more muscles fibres contraction generating more and more force until it is enough to start lifting the object. Running on the other hand is a ver...	[ "Let's say you have a 7 lane interstate. At each end there is a toll booth. In the past payments were processed manually and there was a receipt that had to print, but the printers were slow. Only do much traffic could get through. Fast forward to the future where you pay with the touch of a button and get an insta...
What's the difference between timelapse and fast-forwardig a video?	[ "A time lapse is a really long stop motion, it only takes pictures occasionally. A video is continuous. Fast forward the video and you'll get the same effect as a time lapse. But if you play them at the same frames per second the video will appear smooth while the time lapse will look choppy." ]	[ "You don't lose money from an HSA. You lose it from a FSA (Flexible Spending Account), and you might want it if you have predictable expenses and want some tax-free money for them. You can't have both an HSA and an FSA." ]
If photons are redshifted as they travel through space, does that mean they lose energy? Where does that energy go?	[ "Conservation of energy is a consequence of the independence of the physical laws of time (that is, on when you make your measurements). This requirement does not hold in a big bang cosmology, in which the expansion renders different times distinguishable. Energy is not conserved on cosmological scales. Edit: gramm...	[ "Looking at something exercises the rod and cone cells in the back of your eyeballs which then send the signal down your optic nerves to allow your brain to process the information. If the subject is very bright, then your rod and cone cells get overworked and start to become less sensitive to whatever type of ligh...
Why does it cost more for higher internet speeds to the IP if it uses the same cable for all different speeds.	[ "It's mostly about the infrastructure back at the data center. Once you add up all of their customers, that has to handle a lot of data. They have an amount of switches and routers that can handle X bits per second of throughput, along with redundancies to allow for outages and maintenance (so if your customers add...	[ "Because taxes are complicated, and not all taxes relate to \"commerce\". For example, you pay taxes based on how much you make. But if you do something like donate to charity you have to pay less taxes. If you have an additional child you may end up paying less in taxes. If you get divorced you may have to pay les...
What is the reason for the relative secularism of the Turkic states in Central Asia?	[ "I wouldn't say they are so much \"secular\" as they are \"non-Islamic\"^1. Central Asian Islam has always been highly syncretic, and didn't go through the same processes of religious reform as occurred in the Middle East, but that doesn't mean they are non-religious. For example, last year Kyrgystan's parliament s...	[ "What do you mean here, can you provide specific examples? Most of South America is still extremely catholic and conservative, including when it comes to sex and sexuality." ]
How can consoles like the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X run games at 4k and cost only a few hundred dollars but a reliable PC that runs games at 4k costs in the thousands?	[ "By optimizing for pre-known hardware, utilizing tricks and methods to increase performance. When you know exactly what hardware your game will run on, you're able to program to it more efficiently. With that said, the performance of high-end gaming computers is much better, most often yielding better performance r...	[ "401K refers to a section of the USA tax code that allows employees to reserve a portion of their yearly income and put it into a retirement account (referred to simply as a 401K). The money that you put into your 401K is pre-tax. Example: You make $20,000 in 2014. You have $2000 of that put into your 401K. Come ne...
Could the appearance of the surface of the moon be spoiled by man?	[ "If you were on the moon; there is no object you can see on Earth to tell it had life. Unless you were really clever; during nighttime you may see the glow of cities but thats a collection of sources you are seeing; not any individual object. Now I say that assuming you meant naked eye/binoculars, if you had a tele...	[ "If your referring to paint, this should answer your question: _URL_0_ But basically, UV radiation degrades paint over time." ]
If we had an LHC equivalent in space, could its beam be useful than anything other than particle science? E.g., a beam weapon for spaceships, or a particle beam that slices through asteroids for mining	[ "Define “useful”. If useful takes criteria like economical or efficient into account, then no. Any cutting or destruction the LHC is capable of is done more easily/efficiently by more traditional methods. Do realize, this is a machine that requires insane amounts of energy to operate. The proton beam could penetr...	[ "The cells that make up your body divide and multiply as a normal part of your life. When you have cancer, though, it causes your cells to go crazy and multiply out of control. Chemotherapy, the special name for the medicines that are used to fight cancer, works by killing cells that multiply quickly. For the mos...
How a name seal is accepted instead of a signature in Japan. Wouldn't it be easy to fake/replicate or simply just steal?	[ "The name seal alone will not do not the trick. It is seal plus signature the vast majority of times. Most Japanese people will carry 2 seals. One for simple stuff which does not carry a lot of responsibility and one for important contracts with for example a bank. The important one is mostly done by a craftsman ...	[ "Basically, an artist writes out all of the required letters and symbols in a grid. Sometimes this is hand written, sometimes it's digital. Using a simple program, each letter is defined by it's position in the grid. This is uploaded as a font file, and then you can use it. It's really that simple, and there are [s...
Why are drug tests [for marijuana] still around?	[ "What does legality have to do with anything? Lots of things that are perfectly legal to do can also still get you legally fired. You can walk up to your boss and perfectly legally call him/her an asshole. And you'll get legally fired for this perfectly legal free speech. Companies can ban drug use among employees ...	[ "Politics. It's an easy issue to use to paint your opponent as \"evil\" regardless of which side of the debate they are on." ]
What is the allure of a smart watch, and other similar wearable tech?	[ "1. the watch is constantly in contact with your body. As tech improves, this will be _very_ valuable access to health related information. 2. If you believe voice-interface will be a significant part of the future of competing, you're going to have to have something outside of your pocket at all times. If you wa...	[ "because they are literally selling you scented water. so you have to make the commercials appeal to your emotion rather than your logic. like make you appear more sophisticated, high class, attractive to women, whatever." ]
On the entire spectrum of all electromagnetic radiation, how did our eyes end up only being able to "see" the small section called "visible light"?	[ "That small spectrum is what the sun produces most. If we evolved near a star that primarily emitted a different spectrum, we would be evolved to see that spectrum." ]	[ "Imagine you grew up flying in a plane. The ground looks like different colors. There's a green area over here, and a brown area over there. When you land for the first time, you're surprised that the green area is actually made up of large trees, and the brown area is made of rocks and shrubs. There are thousands ...

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