Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
The process for acquiring a passport in the United States of America, and what countries require a passport?	[ "Your first instinct was correct, you need to google it. Passports are issued by the State Department of the federal government and their website will have all the info you need. ~~Also, it is almost impossible that you visited Mexico without a passport and definitely impossible that you got back in to the US witho...	[ "We were British colonies that formed a country that was mostly autonomous from Britain in 1867. Over time we've gradually gained more and more independence to the point where our connection to Britain is entirely ceremonial. We happen to share a head of state. Why do we still do things this way? It's a combination...
What happens if electricity passes through you?	[ "Trying to get outta class there? Fake a fever, it's less dangerous." ]	[ "It has nothing to do with human evolution. Wood is an insulating material so it draws heat from your body more slowly than metals do, because metals are conducting materials. When you feel hot/cold, you don't feel the absolute temperature of a material. You feel the effect that material has on the temperature of y...
If plasma is superheated gas, then can we make plasma water by superheating steam?	[ "Plasma is not just superheated gas, it's ionized gas. [These guys](_URL_0_) did a study of negatively charged water plasma." ]	[ "When people diet and try to lose weight, it is usually fat that they are trying to get rid of. Fat is how your body stores energy. Just like the fat in the food you eat has calories, the fat in your body has calories. If you burn 2500 calories, but only eat 2000 calories, your body will use body fat to make up the...
How/why do names become considered "old fashioned"?	[ "I read that the usual trend in baby names is that first a new name is used by the rich. Then the middle class copy them because it's seen as a bit of an aspirational name, then the poor copy the middle class. Then the rich and middle class stop using it because it's become a poor people name. Then the poor stop us...	[ "Horse meat isn't rare at all. You can get it in many parts of europe. Tastes ok too. Anyway, that's culture. The same reason we think that bacon and eggs is a breakfast food, and don't eat grasshoppers." ]
How do the light bending properties of large masses affect the night sky?	[ "There's no effect that could possibly be detected with the naked eye. Gravitational lensing is only a significant effect for a light path which goes very close to a very massive object, and considering how very empty the universe is, there's not too much risk of light being strongly bent in such a way. Most of the...	[ "Very long exposures. Also they use different sensors for different parts of the spectrum and then add all of the pictures together. It is not like you or I taking a picture which happens in a second or less. Hubble may look at something for many hours at a time and the do it again on another day and so forth until...
How can older individuals have immunity to something they've never seen, if naïve B/T cell lifespan is so short?	[ "I think having one tiny detail wrong is causing the hangup. You're right in that progenitor cells come from the marrow to the thymus to mature into T-cells, whereafter they then migrate into the periphery after being able to distinguish self from non-self. However, the thymus doesn't just flip a switch and shut of...	[ "Need more XP in artistry and executing your vision. It takes a lot of time to get really good at that, and to be able to coordinate what you're thinking with how your tools work and what you can do with your tools. -Dali painted [this](_URL_1_) when he was 66. Here are some people next to it for [scale](_URL_0_)....
If I'm wearing gloves and I touch something hot why does still burn me but not go through the glove?	[ "it does, essentially what's happening is the molecules in the hot thing are bumping into the molecules of the glove, making them more jiggly so they in turn bump into the molecules of your finger, the point where it hurts your hand is far lower than the point of ignition for the glove." ]	[ "Most touchscreens work using something called capacitive sensing. Basically, the touchscreen uses a conductor to detect when something is nearby. The human body is also a conductor, and therefore it can interfere with the electrical field of the touchscreen. The screen uses this to detect how a human is interactin...
why do videos generally play in 30 or 60 fps and not any number in between like 43fps	[ "60 Hz was the standard adopted for North American AC power delivery. This later translated into the standard frequency for television refresh for analog television. Which even later translated into the refresh rate for the LCD monitors used today. As to 30 vs. 60, both are above human visual persistence (the frequ...	[ "For the same reason we prefer drinking cold water to warm water. It makes no difference, but we prefer the taste/feel of cold water in our mouths." ]
Why do doctors say something is not contagious anymore, when the CDC says you can be contagious for up to a week after symptoms disappear?	[ "Yes, patients of the common cold and other diseases can [still be contagious](_URL_0_) after their symptoms disappear. But they're not so much of a threat to society anymore. Why? Because when symptoms such as a runny nose, constant sneezing, and coughing fits cease, you stop being a walking, virus-spewing factory...	[ "if your side-view mirror was a traditional flat mirror, you wouldn't be able to see very much because of its small size and distance from your eyes. Instead, a convex mirror is used, which means it is curved. This allows you to see a greater field of view, showing you more of the cars that are off to your side and...
Why does the universe "almost certainly not have an edge"?	[ "The full answer to your question depends on some pretty heavy math, which I'll be the first to admit I don't completely grasp, but in a nutshell it comes down to the idea that we can measure the large scale curvature of the universe using the data about the Cosmic Microwave Background recently provided by the [WMA...	[ "[I've answered this question in the past](_URL_0_), I suggest you read that answer rather than me copy-pasting the whole thing. But the tl;dr is: 1. Computer models of the atmosphere are approximations. 2. The atmosphere is huge, and our supercomputers are relatively weak. 3. Because our computer models are so coa...
What does pheromone look like? If you had ounces in a vial would it be gaseous, liquid, powdery?	[ "Pheromones are a large class of different biological molecules used for chemo-signalling, across all branches of life and especially well described in insects. The important common factor is that they are volatile so will evaporate (or dissolve) easily and be carried from their source through the air or water to t...	[ "I like the dry ice and water idea, and then put a balloon in the water too (underwater). Then all you need is a mechanism to pop the balloon, the water will muffle the pop into a poof, and you should get a nice burst of vapor along with it." ]
Why are military officers being appointed to be Directors of the CIA ?	[ "The CIA and the Armed Forces both fall under the IC, or Intelligence Community. Who better to run an org than a guy who commanded thousands in the military? The skillset directly translates. The CIA's mission is espionage/counter where the DIA is more all-source warfighter support." ]	[ "From the quick research I've done, it seems like Yahoo's CEO (who joined the company last summer) is working on building up a fresh, innovative team of mobile developers. Aside from Astrid, the company's bought up a lot of other start-ups in the past year - mainly mobile-centric - and shut down most of them, too. ...
How many trees does it take to supply oxygen for one person	[ "Using the Sycamore tree as a basis, assuming it grows 5 inches each year, and produces 100kg of new wood growth, it would take about 7-8 trees to produce the oxygen a human requires. These results vary depending on how much the tree grows, and what type of tree, but that gives you a rough idea. [source.](_URL_0_)...	[ "Other may give a better answer but the main problem is the lack of skin: you lose water, dehydration. Then open wounds are infection prone. Both of which requires a lot of medical attention to have a chance to recover. Then you also have complications like necrosis, smoke into the lungs. I think it will also reduc...
Can someone please explain to me why getting drunk is so great?	[ "those people take it overboard. a light buzz, especially when you're doing something you like (like watching sports, playing games, listening to music) can add and make the experience more fun. just getting black out drunk, acting like an asshole and doing things you can't remember isn't fun, IMO" ]	[ "There are two major \"leagues\" in American football. The Superbowl is the game at the end of the season where the \"winners\" of the two leagues play each other. Non-sports fans like to watch because halfway through the game there is a \"halftime show\" that usually features a major band or musical group. Also, p...
Why do all URLs include "www" in the front? Why is it necessary?	[ "Actually, they don't. Look at all those Google subsections; they replace \"www\" with, say, \"images\". Some don't even have that. Others, such as ftp sites (websites that act as fileservers using the FTP sharing protocol) have \"FTP\". Point is, there aren't any really strict rules to the name prefixes as the URL...	[ "Not just the US, but it tends to make the price seem cheaper: $49.99 looks better than $50 even though it is only 1c difference. It's a mind game" ]
If gravity propagates at the speed of light, we orbit where the sun used to be, not where it is. Why do we not fall out of orbit from this gravitational discrepancy?	[ "I just want to add this since nobody else has mentioned it. General Relativity says that the gravity from the sun 'encodes' the velocity of the Sun. Effectively, the gravity that the Earth feels from the Sun is due to where the Sun is right now, not ~8 minutes ago, because of this quirk." ]	[ "It would come down eventually due to drag. There was actually a bag of tools 'dropped' from the IIS, which came burning down 9 months later. [Link](_URL_0_) To see for yourself, try out [Kerbal Space Program](/r/kerbalspaceprogram), it's quite a silly game, yet it gives you a good idea on what orbit is and how mu...
How were movies edited before computers ?	[ "They viewed the film (on reels) frame by frame on a projector and then cut out the frames they didn't want physically from the reel. They then taped the two sections together to recreate the film. The editors were highly experienced at this, and it was done quickly and efficiently" ]	[ "They play the music at the same % as how fast they plan to sped up/slow down the video and have the singers lip-sync to that version." ]
How did people machine bronze gears and such in history?	[ "I can answer this as someone who works in modern manufacturing. During my formal education I had to make parts with tolerances of .001\" using hand tools. This included hand saws, files and abrasive stones. These abrasive stones were known for quite a long time. Whet stones being a pretty easy example. Sand and oi...	[ "That would depend on who and when the determination was made, and the intelligence of the being to recognize the evidence. For example, lets assume all visible signs of human activity were non existent, would some future being recognize our existence because it found evidence of plastic in the genetic code of fish...
Why do we call books for classes "textbooks" instead of just "books"?	[ "Because the term originally described a very specific kind of book, when they had a room in between the lines for you to write additional notes in while you studied. _URL_0_" ]	[ "This question comes up quite a bit, here are some answers I managed to dig up This on by [u/faceintheblue](_URL_9_) which brings up the point that since we are still so close to the two world wars in question we aren't comfortable with marking them as the same conflict. [_URL_9_](_URL_9_) This one by [**u/Comm...
Why are Scandinavian countries so socially progressive?	[ "I think this might be a bit of a controversial answer, but here goes: They are ethnically homogeneous. Socially progressive laws are much easier for people to accept and clamor for the more they see commonality between their neighbors. People in Scandinavian countries are all very similar as compared to the differ...	[ "The oldest condominium (i.e. territory with a shared sovereignity or territory with several sovereignities) I know about is Andora : basically, a country ruled by two foreign princes (one spanish cardinal, one french count/king/president) for the last 7 centuries. There are others, like an island between France an...
Can fruit DNA (like from an apple or orange) be traced back to the tree it came from?	[ "Not with the fruit we eat, since most of it is cloned. For example every single banana you have ever eaten is genetically identical. Same goes for some other fruits too. In the best case you could probably trace a fruit to a region or a single orchard, but beyond that all the plants are propagated by cuttings (clo...	[ "I used to work in retail and the answer is poorly. We can't possibly track any given customer across hundreds or thousands of potential stores. The ban really has two purposes: - It is a deterrent - many customers are too afraid of consequences to show up at the store again. - _If_ we do recognize them, we have ju...
the whole deal with Kim Dotcom.	[ "This is the very short version: * He is the owner of megaupload, which allowed anyone to upload files. * They are being charged with piracy because there was a lot of copyrighted material uploaded to the service. But the case is complex and raises some important issues, partly because he's not a US citizen and ...	[ "If you have a spare afternoon or two I'd check out these two Khan Academy playlists on the [Credit Crisis](_URL_2_) and the [Paulson Bailout](_URL_0_), and if you want to learn more about how banks work check out this [Banking and Money](_URL_1_) playlist as well; there's a few others on finance and credit as well...
why so many sites force you to have a long, strong password with special characters, and then allow anyone who knows 2 or 3 things about you to reset your password?	[ "The illusion of security is often more important to people than security itself." ]	[ "Think of the software like a building. When you construct it, certain specifications (settings) need to be determined as the foundation of the building. If any of these specifications need to be changed, you may have to tear down the building and make a new one. However, the furniture/wiring/plumbing inside can be...
Why, when exposed to high radiation, you die a week or a month later and not immediately? What happen in the body?	[ "I'm on mobile so I'm hoping someone will link some sources for me. When dosed with high amounts of radiation, DNA gets irreparably damaged, and the cells go apoptotic/necrotic. Instead of having normal cell division and turnover, there are no cells left to divide, and you rot slowly from the inside out." ]	[ "Your cell's DNA is like a paper manual for what it needs to do. Every time that cell divides, it photocopies the manual and gives a copy to the new cell. However, every photocopy can only be as good as the original copy and may also result in a lower quality. The original copy may also get some wear as you flip th...
Why doesn't the U.S. hire an agent/spy, give him extensive plastic surgery to make him look exactly like Dennis Rodman, send him to North Korea and take care of business?	[ "You see nothing wrong with this plan, do you?" ]	[ "Whoever carries out the assassination of Kim Jong Un has this to look forward to: - A death sentence. - A death sentence being placed on several generations of their family, and possibly other relations (such as known friends or their entire hometown). - No certainty that it would change anything at all." ]
Why is Saxony lower than Lower Saxony?	[ "The name came from the geographical height of the landscape rather than it being north or south on a map. It's the same reason the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg are called the Low Countries." ]	[ "Most of the countries' names are that way for historical purposes. A prime example would be Georgia (the country). Georgians actually call their country Sakartvelo, which can be approximated with Latin characters just fine. But since they spoke a unique language and wrote in unique text ( საქართველო ), people jus...
When did tobacco companies start adding to cigarettes all of the carcinogenic properties we know about today? Were cigarettes ever safe?	[ "Tobacco smoke contains most of those carcinogens naturally (there are such things as cigarette additives but they're mostly flavorants and they're regulated) Turns out burning a dried leaf and inhaling the smoke is bad for you. Go figure. \"Natural\" is not the same as \"good for you.\"" ]	[ "Are you asking a legal question, or as in how society viewed them? Legally speaking: Really, there's not such a thing as \"American\" citizenship, if you're looking at 1781. There were States, with their own definitions of citizenship. The conception of \"American citizenship\" such as it was, was wholly derivativ...
How would we clean up radiation after a nuclear blast?	[ "For radioactive dust, you can vacuum it up or sluice it off with water. For other radioactive rubble, buildings, etc, you can bulldoze it and then bury it, truck it away to another site, etc. That's about it. You can't make it \"non radioactive\". \\--- The logical thing to do is abandon the place for a few dec...	[ "Engineering new chaperone proteins is probably a ways off. There are potentially easier ways to treat prion diseases, anyway. Essentially, susceptible protein must \"nucleate\", or turn into an aggregate of the prion form. This process is sufficiently slow as to be negligible in vivo, though; nucleated prion prote...
Why does water put out fire?	[ "Remember the fire triangle - heat, oxygen, fuel. Water extinguishes a fire in two ways: 1.) Cools (removes heat). 2.) Displacement (separating the fire from its oxygen and fuel source)." ]	[ "Spice is carried on an oil, which is hydrophobic. Most it will do is spread the heat around. Something with fat in it, like milk, has a better chance of washing away the spicy oil." ]
Why did the Romans hate actors?	[ "Actors throughout history have been considered lower class, even often associated with prostitutes. This is true not only in the West, but also in the East. For example, the Empress Theodora was an actress and prostitute before marrying Justinian, and her history was used against her by political enemies. In Japan...	[ "My guess? When you're dealing with a lot of makeup, prosthesis, special effects its easier to hide flaws. You can see acne under makeup in high def, you couldn't really see that back in the day. Just a guess." ]
How does tv channel know their audiance ?	[ "Generally, networks \"know\" their audience first by setting their programming approach to meet a certain demographic (think Lifetime channel in the US being aimed at women). Then as they continue to broadcast they use research firms to confirm their programming is meeting their target audience, how that audience ...	[ "They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to anyone who mailed back the special offer." ]
How do glow sticks work?	[ "Small tube inside of large tube when you crack them you break the small tube releasing the chem into the larger one creating a reaction that gives off light" ]	[ "Chemical reaction to oxygen. Like you are five: Once the stuff inside the compressed tube meets the air...it goes all crazy and changes." ]
What is happening to cause these flashes inside ballistic gel?	[ "_URL_0_ Even shows another really cool gif example of a bullet traveling through ballistic gel. However, in these cases, I think combustion (probably of the ballistic gel itself) plays a role, whereas what the wikipedia article is about doesn't involve combustion at all. You can tell because at 3:15 in the video s...	[ "You were making ramen, so I am guessing your water was hot, making it less dense, that blob of oil may have just hit the water without force to break the surface tension, and sink with the help of gravity, and started to rise as the water cooled a bit and the initial impact had worn off." ]
How does air conditioning work?	[ "Expanding gas cools its surrounding. Condensing gas to a liquid heats up the surroundings. A/C exploits this property by condensing gas outside your home (in a condenser) using a pump to carry heat from the inside. Heat is collected inside your home in an evaporator. The evaporator is where the liquid turns int...	[ "They don't, it just feels cooler because there is always small amounts of moisture on your skin, even when you're not sweating, and the wind makes it evaporate faster." ]
What are elementary particles made of?	[ "Nothing. That's pretty much the definition of \"elementary.\" They are the smallest building blocks that we currently know of." ]	[ "I think people come to that interpretation due to Feynman diagrams since, in them, an antiparticle is pictorially represented as a line with an arrow going in the negative direction on the time axis. However, Feynman diagrams are in part just pictures to help one understand processes occurring and don't necessari...
How do snowflakes get their patterns on them?	[ "It has to do with favorable directions for crystal growth. In the cloud, the moisture begins to condense into a solid, drawing from water vapor. The crystal would much rather grow on rounded or jagged surfaces over flat surfaces because there is stronger bonding. This means that straight edges don't grow well, but...	[ "Ken Jordan's group at Pitt does a ton with different ice forms. Here's a link to his group page: _URL_0_ The publications there go into a lot of detail, but here's a bit of a TL;DR: The ice that you and I typically find every day has the oxygens arranged in a hexagonal lattice, but many of the hydrogens are diso...
Why we see so many great social programs featured on reddit from Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands? (and so few from countries with better resources)	[ "I don't know what you mean by \"better resources\". The countries you named are some of the wealthiest in the world. Norway, in particular, is flush with oil money." ]	[ "Neanderthals lived in some of the most heavily dug-over regions on the planet--Europe and the Near East. No doubt the prevalence of archaeologists has something to do with the prevalence of known fossils." ]
Why, after time, do PCs and Laptops start running really slow and crash all the time?	[ "No offense, but the people who typically ask me this are the kind of people who don't really take care of their computers. I've had my desktop for over 4 years and it's just as fast as the day I got it." ]	[ "Every time you make a copy of a cell, there is a chance for errors. For example when you photocopy a first print, it is pretty crisp and close to the original, but there are a few minor discrepencies. Now if you photocopy the copy, it gets more distorted, and so on until some letters get hard to read, it gets diff...
If in an AC circuit, current goes both ways, why are the switch and fuse connected to the live wire?	[ "The same current flows through both the live and neutral wires when the circuit is closed (turned on) and functioning correctly. The difference between live and neutral is when the circuit is open (switch is off); then only the live wire is connected to the electrical grid. If you were to connect a wire from liv...	[ "You've stumbled upon something called Parity. Parity is basically a word that describes the fact that you can rotate your right and all day long, but it will never be like your left hand. Nature has a certain kind of handedness! Moving charges interact with one another depending on their direction of travel and th...
Why is a perpetual motion machine impossible to build?	[ "The rules of thermodynamics can be loosely put as: Zero: The universe wants to play a game where it changes your internal energy. One: You can't beat the universe. You can only hope to tie it. Two: You can only tie the universe at absolute zero. Three: You can't get to absolute zero. Building a machine that never ...	[ "Quoting [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) (a bit naughty, but it's a nice way to express what I think): > The proposed theory is inconsistent with quantum mechanics and critics have ruled it out on those grounds. Which is essentially saying what you pointed out, yes. If what they're doing is as easy as it sounds - just runnin...
Does wind have the same effect on light that it does sound? Why or why not?	[ "The main difference is that the gas particles carry sound waves, while light is a propagating electromagnetic wave that travels through the medium, and not by the medium. The only way that there would be a visible effect by wind would be if it somehow changed the refraction of the air, like in a [mirage](_URL_...	[ "They really shouldn't. LED lights transmit at THz range (e.g. visible light) well well well above the GHz range your wifi uses." ]
Why are smartphone fingerprint scanners so quick and responsive, but laptop fingerprint scanners always seem to be so gimmicky and ineffective?	[ "phones dont actually scan your entire fingerprint. that's why you have to tap it a bunch of times during setup, so it can unlock even from a partial print. it's faster, but less secure havent used a laptop scanner but from what i've seen they're bigger than the ones on phones, so it's possible they scan the entire...	[ "Say you have a hammer and nail. If the hammer head is bigger than the nail, then the force of the hammer is distributed evenly against the head of the nail. The nail will go straight into the wood. Now say you have a hammer and a nail, but the nail head is bigger than the hammer. When you hit the hammer against t...
Why Canada remains a Commonwealth country of the British Empire?	[ "We were British colonies that formed a country that was mostly autonomous from Britain in 1867. Over time we've gradually gained more and more independence to the point where our connection to Britain is entirely ceremonial. We happen to share a head of state. Why do we still do things this way? It's a combination...	[ "On phone so short unsupported answer: it's the only place where humans/climate/etc haven't killed most or all of the megafauna." ]
What happens when you break the sound barrier?	[ "You go faster than sound. This means that the compression waves produced by the object propagate more slowly than the object itself moves. The result is turbulence at the transition speed, and a reinforced wave trailing the object (often called a Sonic Boom for aircraft)." ]	[ "It would reduce drag. A car going at 175 mph with a 35mph tailwind would only experience air resistance equivalent to that of a car going 140 mph with no wind. This can be a pretty huge difference because the slowing force from air drag increases with the square of speed. The power required to overcome it increase...
Can a historian be job? I love history so much and I’d love to make a living out of it someday. Are there any historians out there that could help guide me in the right direction?	[ "Several organizations hire historians, including the National Park Service (for example). One of the most well-known rangers in Yellowstone, for example, is historian Lee Whittlesey (who's written a ton of books about the history of the park). The Smithsonian hires historians, many larger organizations also hire h...	[ "Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to [our rules](_URL_1_). This policy is further explained in this [Rules Roundtable thread](_URL_3_) and this [META Thread](_URL_...
Why do wall chargers seem to charge iPhones faster than computers, xbox... etc	[ "To add to the other replies, current (measured in amps) is drawn by the phone rather than pushed by the charger, and the rating of the charger is how much can be drawn before it shuts down/overheats/burns out. By default, the phone will only draw a low amount of current (should probably only be 150mA to allow for...	[ "very simple, Air is a horrible transfer medium for energy, Water is a good tranfter medium for energy. It takes longer for the energy in the air to flow to the ice cube then the energy in the water to flow in the ice cube, When when there is steam in the air, its still maybe 50% humidity compared to 100% humidity...
If/when we give blood, do we produce more to replace it? And if we produce more and more blood, why don’t we explode?	[ "Our bone marrow produces blood. So when we give blood our body produces more. It takes roughly 8 weeks for your body to replenish what you give in typical blood donation. Blood cells like any other cell in our body eventually dies and gets replaced and sent out as waste. The body is generally finely tuned enough k...	[ "All species have a typical \"litter size\" for when they successfully breed. It depends greatly on the amount of care the offspring require (this includes the energy put into the eggs). There is a trade-off between how many offspring you can make and the quality of those offspring [(Source)](_URL_4_) For example, ...
Can two separate events happen at the EXACT SAME time? [i.e. two raindrops hit the ground]	[ "The funny thing about simultaneity in light of special relativity is that if two events seem to occur at the same time in one frame of reference, you can go to another frame where one occurs before the other or vice versa." ]	[ "Imagine you have an unlimited supply of BBs in a container. This container has an opening that allows the BBs to stream out at a very fast rate, specifically, 864,000,000 in a day (chosen to make math easy). Now imagine you have a plate below the container that all the BBs land on. This plate can count the BBs as ...
Do great apes who learn sign language use verb tenses?	[ "It is doubtful that any of the primates that were allegedly taught sign language were using any kind of language at all. Upon review, the \"primate linguists\" seem to have been so infatuated with their work that huge confirmation bias obtained: all things that the primates did which could be claimed word-like wer...	[ "Alrighty guys, because apparently maturity and self-control are in short supply tonight, I'll go ahead and make this thread-level post. * Your jokes are not funny. Needless to say, they do not belong here. If your comment has no substance, do not post it. If any further jokes occur here, you will be warned, wi...
Why most space missions go to Mars instead of Venus?	[ "It has an atmosphere that is extremely dense and hot enough to melt lead, which is a handicap to explorer vehicles. Mars is a lot more forgiving." ]	[ "There aren't usually enough women. \"Extra\" men generally leave and go elsewhere, either voluntarily, or forcibly." ]
As I am falling asleep, why do I see images and hear sounds that are almost like hallucinations, and how do they differ from normal dreaming?	[ "It's called hypnagogia. As you transition from awake to asleep, you pass through a weird bit where it is possible for bits of dream to get mixed in with external sensations, and/or for lingering bits of external sensations to get mixed into your dreams. This experience of dreamstuff while not entirely asleep can m...	[ "You could have [tinnitus](_URL_0_). You should see a doctor if you want any further information, since asking for medical advice is not allowed in this forum." ]
What is r/place, why did it stop and what is that pixel GIF thing?	[ "Place was an April fools reddit made two years ago. Place was essentially a canvas consisting of 1 million pixels (1000x1000). Users could change one pixels colour every 5 minutes or so (the delay between placements changed). As it progressed over the next couple of hours users started to make drawings and images ...	[ "Hi! Just wanted to let you know that while we encourage people to get in touch with flairs who might answer their questions, and bring the relevant threads to their attention, we prefer that you do this by sending them a PM. The public ping puts them on the spot, and if they don't answer (either because the questi...
Is there any legitimate scientific evidence that certain foods should be completely eliminated from your diet?	[ "I would say that any food containing added transfat should be avoided. > On a per-calorie basis, trans fats appear to increase the risk of CHD more than any other macronutrient, conferring a substantially increased risk at low levels of consumption (1 to 3% of total energy intake). and > Replacing 2% of food ...	[ "Hi there, the mod team has already had to remove several responses in this thread because we do not allow [personal anecdotes](_URL_3_). While they're sometimes quite interesting, they're unverifiable, impossible to cross-reference, and not of much use without more context. [This comment](_URL_3_) explains the rea...
What periods and peoples of the past 3000 years do we know the least about?	[ "Obvious ones would be the inhabitants of Western Europe that coexisted with Rome. Not much writing done sadly. Dacia, Gaul, Britain, my own Ireland of the era would all have left far less records of their passing than the Romans or Greeks. It's not btw, that we know nothing, just less than we know about their nei...	[ "They were. Syphilis was unknown to the rest if the world until it was brought back from the New World. Im sure there were more, but I cant think of any off the top of my head." ]
Why are plankton such a large portion of the biomass in the ocean but not in freshwater ecosystems?	[ "One factor concerning salinity is [osmotic pressure](_URL_2_). When the internal salt concentration of a cell is higher than the environment, the cell must have mechanisms to relieve this pressure, else it will swell and burst. [While there are some bacteria that can survive just fine in pure water, the osmotic st...	[ "It's way, way, WAY, too expensive. The power plant alone would probably be more expensive than the entire lifetime cost of an average bulk carrier. Not to mention the insane mess of regulation that is involved with running a nuclear reactor. Basically, big ships run on bunker fuel, and bunker fuel is ludicrously...
In the 1999 Learjet Crash the Pilots were incapacitated from Hypoxia in 15 seconds due to lack of oxygen, why does it hit so quickly and how can we survive without oxygen for upwards of 2 minutes in other situations like under water?	[ "The reason you can survive underwater for a reasonable length of time is that the air already in your lungs still contains oxygen. The problem comes when you are inhaling air that has little to no oxygen in it - you replace the (relatively) oxygen-rich air in your lungs with oxygen-starved air, and thus you run ou...	[ "It was a long time ago I read this theory so give me some slack on the details but I do have the explanation. So sleep happens in cycles right? the first 20-30 minutes are usually light sleep, and then you fall into your first \"cycle\" of the night, which contains REM sleep, deep sleep, etc. This typically lasts ...
why are some people naturally muscly without having to work out	[ "In addition to what's been said, muscle can also be built by doing things like manual labor. Also, having low body fat, which is more dependent on diet, can increase muscular definition." ]	[ "It's called [Steatopygia](_URL_0_), and is a genetic characteristic of Khoisan and Bantu people." ]
Why is the color of water coming from the sink different? Sometime its clear and sometime its gray. Same with ice	[ "You faucet has a little mesh cap called a [faucet aerator](_URL_0_). It's job is to mix air into the water to reduce splashing, noise, etc. The air mixed into the water scatters light and makes it look white. The same applies to ice from your freezer. It is white because of trapped air bubbles. Restaurants and pro...	[ "Firstly: does this actually happen? I don't think it does in my subjective experience. If it does happen to many, I would speculate that it's related to the complexity that is human consciousness. We have 'awake' and 'asleep' but within and between those there can be many differences in what the brain is doing a...
Are different antibiotics better for specific tasks than others?	[ "There are many many classes and subclasses of bacteria. Some antibiotics are broad-spectrum and target most anything, others are narrow spectrum and target only specific families. Different antibiotics have different potencies and side-effect risks. Sometimes the choice of antibiotics is somewhat arbitrary, other ...	[ "Antiviruses hook system calls to add their verification routines. System calls addresses are stored in the system service dispatch table (SSDT). Simply put, when a program wants to open a file, it tells Windows \"Open file.txt please\", and Windows looks at the SSDT where is the function to open a file, and calls ...
Why are viruses not considered living organisms?	[ "Because they don't reproduce themselves, they don't have a metabolism, they don't respond to stimuli and they're basically just DNA/RNA wraped in a protective protein case." ]	[ "We depend on our cells dividing and replicating continuously to keep us healthy as a whole. The instructions on how to do the dividing need to be perfect and there are built in error correction systems to ensure it is correct. As we age our error correction systems break down and copy errors degrade our organs a...
When did cancer become a notable diagnosis? What was cancer diagnosed as or attributed to before the medical field understood what it was?	[ "We've known about cancers for a very long time. [The oldest known description is Case 45 from this Egyptian papyrus from 1600 BC](_URL_2_), though I don't think it theorized about the cause. There's a great article about old Greco-Roman treatments [here](_URL_0_). According to the article, the oldest known theory ...	[ "Who is the first female central/standalone protagonist of a science fiction story that is not explicitly about gender (or makes gender a component of a portrayed utopia/dystopia)? How about a novel or serial-published-as-novel? For purposes of this question, assume SF is roughly a 20th+ century genre." ]
In fantasy video games archers can be seen setting their arrows on fire was this a real practice medieval archers did or is it a work of fantasy	[ "They definitely were A Thing, though as you'd expect, not nearly to the extent media these days would portray. I commend to your attention [this thread](_URL_0_), linking to previous answers by u/GBFel and u/Freevolous, and some extra questions answered by u/GBFel in the thread linked." ]	[ "There are are variety of different cooking methods we know of from prehistory. Spitted meat seems broadly common, in British Isles and Scandinavia there's evidence of heated stones and water pits being used to cook as well as spitted meat (Keating 1908:326), in Polynesia and other places there's evidence of essent...
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" ]	[ "> Ray Diaz got prisoned for sexual assault No, he wasn't. He was arrested and charged with sexual assault. This is just the first step in the criminal justice process. He will eventually go to trial, where his lawyer and the prosecution lawyer will argue about the evidence against him in front of a **judge and...
What was the reaction of Muslims to the abolishment of the Caliphate?	[ "At the time of the abolishment the Caliphate in the Ottoman empire had become not much more than a figurehead title, thanks to the general weakening of the Ottoman empire and colonization throughout the Middle East. As you noted, individuals were upset with such a long lived, Quran supported idea coming to an end....	[ "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 is the best way to split cake?	[ "Unfair on child 1. Assume child 1 cuts the cake into 1/3 and 2/3. Child 2 can then get at most 1/3, so they can cut 2/3 in any way they like and just take the 1/3 child 1 cut. Child 1 would then be left with potentially almost 0 cake, depending on what child 2 does." ]	[ "_URL_0_ isn't simple and depends highly on the material properties, the stresses on the object, and the shape/structure of the object. Fractures can propagate fast or slow, it all depends. It's a pretty interesting and advanced topic in engineering. You can read the wiki page for lots of details, though it gets fa...
Why can’t we point a telescope at the moon to prove we were there?	[ "People will still deny it. Say it was a fake photo or just been put there now. Some people will call a wall a window even when you open it and prove it." ]	[ "You can use something like [this](_URL_0_). If you bounce light off a rotating mirror to a stationary mirror a long way away, then the rotating mirror has moved a bit by the time the light gets back and reflects off it a second time. By measuring the angle between the light source and where you see the reflected l...
Why has the Brussels Court found Pope, Elizabeth Windsor and Canada PM guilty of Genocide?	[ "Given the number of people the Belgians murdered in the Congo, they, along with Germany, are the de facto world authorities on genocide." ]	[ "This submission has been removed because it is [soapboxing](_URL_1_.), [promoting a political agenda, or moralizing](_URL_0_). We don't allow content that does these things because they are detrimental to unbiased and academic discussion of history." ]
Can you see the Milky Way and the stars while drifting in space?	[ "Light from the sun radiates in straight vectors away from the surface. The radiation only changes direction when scattering, remitting, and reflecting from particles and gases. On earth, light pollution exists because the gases of the atmosphere reflect back some of the light emitted from the surface." ]	[ "> I see pictures like this: _URL_0_ and long to see this sight for myself. I think those types of pictures are taken using decent cameras with high ISO settings and a long exposure time (maybe 25 seconds or more). They don't reflect what you'd see with the naked eye, unfortunately. Here's one photographer's rendit...
What would happen if you shot a pistol at a rubber wall?	[ "It really does depend on a few factors; the inertia of the bullet upon impact, its angle of incidence, and the coefficient of restitution between the wall and the bullet (which is a function of their physical dimensions, conditions (temperature, pressure etc.) and the materials from which they are made). The term ...	[ "Uk Language? Pills will get you proper munted. Like out yer bonce. It'll make you think chubbers are buff and pull shapes all night. Draw makes you want to cotch. Then you get bare munch and need to smash a mint Aero and Potnoodle, maybe a maccie d's. Chang will make you Brap." ]
If our solar system were on the outer fringe of our galaxy, what would the night sky look like?	[ "We are, relatively speaking, near the outer fringe of the galaxy. [Here's an illustration](_URL_0_). And it looks like [This](_URL_1_)." ]	[ "You'd probably get no signal, though that doesn't interfere with scrolling through pages and opening apps. The absence of gravity could confuse your phone's accelerometer. I don't know if iPhone shows horizonal screens the way other smarphones (like Androids) do, I assume yes. You'd probably get unexpected layout ...
Why can't we use gravity to generate electricity like we do with other renewable energy sources?	[ "We do. For instance, any dam on a river that generates electricity is utilizing gravity to get the job done. The trick is, we're letting the water cycle do the heavy lifting of moving an object 'uphill' (our river water). So there's still an energy input, it's just that we humans don't have to supply it. If we wa...	[ "It's all about having an atmosphere, since that's what helicopters need to fly. [This article explains it quite nicely ](_URL_0_) Here's a relevant quote: *\"Elysium was that—unlike an airplane cabin—its atmosphere wasn’t canned up in some hollow tube. A landing spacecraft could enter its air like it would on Eart...
How does a phone vibrate?	[ "There's a tiny motor in the phone, which spins a weight. The weight is offset from the rotation, so that as it spins, the weight is [spun from side to side](_URL_0_) which makes the device vibrate." ]	[ "Because you sleep in weird positions and your muscles can't properly relax, or it's too cold and your body won't bother shivering, but the muscle still has to warm itself up,so it stays active and pulsates,and eventually it gets stuck" ]
what could happen if enough spacial matter was brought to Earth?	[ "The Earth is really big relative to the asteroids. The mass of the asteroid belt is 4% of the Earth's moon or 0.05% the mass of the Earth. Even if we stupidly brought all the asteroids to Earth (and what would we do with all of that?) it would add a little over a kilometer of rock to the surface and the gravity wo...	[ "Such hypothetical / speculative / open-ended questions are better suited for our new-ish sister sub /r/asksciencediscussion. Please consider reposting there instead." ]
What is the difference between a router and a modem?	[ "A modem allows a home computer or network to connect to the internet; it converts from, say, the signal from the cable jack to an ethernet port. A router, in effect, makes a tiny network; it allows multiple computers that are connected to it to communicate with one another, and can also allow those computers to sh...	[ "This is one of the most asked questions in this subreddit. Please search your question before posting. _URL_0_" ]
How do we measure the size of other planets?	[ "Assuming we know the distance from the planet to Earth, we take a point on Earth and connect a line to the top of the planet and another line to the bottom. This will give us a measurable angle ([roughly like this](_URL_0_)). We then use the angle and the distance to Earth to calculate the planet's diameter." ]	[ "A long time ago in places like Greece, Rome and even before that in really, really long ago places like Sumeria, and Egypt people made up stories about the stars/planets and the pictures they thought groups of stars made. These stories were usually about beings they considered to be gods or demigods (the word demi...
How is accupuncture supposed to work?	[ "Acupuncture is based on the belief that there are energy lines, \"meridians\", in your body. If these lines are in any way disturbed or blocked, putting needles in specific spots is supposed to fix that. Don't expect there to be much logic to it, it's pseudoscience and has never been scientifically proven to work ...	[ "I could try to explain it to you, but this video is all you really need: _URL_9_" ]
Why can we NOT drink seawater to survive?	[ "The problem with seawater is not trace minerals and metals, but rather the > 3% salt content. Your body needs to maintain a certain percentage of electrolytes, and doesn't have a good way to absorb only the water and not the salts from sea water. The result is that you'll need more and more water to offset the inc...	[ "Hi, this question was asked not too long ago, I recommend you check out this link: _URL_0_ That should answer your question. In short, I believe you would nut suffer from dehydration in the traditional sense, but various other problems arise, which I suggest you explore that link for more info." ]
Why is the spin of a particle represented by a number instead of a vector? Doesn't angular momentum have a direction?	[ "The spin of a particle just tells you about how much angular momentum it has. The spin state is a vector that tells you in which direction the spin is oriented." ]	[ "If the parity bit is wrong, that tells you the information is bad and should be ignored. So, in odd parity, if you had 10111000 and 00111000, you know that 10111000 is bad data and 00111000 is (probably) good data. The MSB is discarded because it contains no information. It's determined entirely by the other bits,...
What methods of propaganda were used to convince populations under monarchical rule that the monarchs rule was legitimate?	[ "Not discouraging anyone from providing more input on this - particularly regarding the thoughts/feelings of subjects - but this question was asked the other day, so check out this post for the discussion: [Have there ever been any monarchs/rulers with absolute authority who argued philosophically that monarchy was...	[ "Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_0_): Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come t...
Do "infinite timelines" & "infinite universes" mean the same thing or are they exclusive things?	[ "They aren't necessarily exclusive, but these terms are often found in sci-fi where the meanings are molded to fit a particular story, and don't necessarily have some fixed meaning. Do you have a specific instance you are referring to? In actual physics, they are extremely speculative, and not things for which exi...	[ "If you know the full Hamiltonian for your system and the initial state, you in principle know how the system will evolve for all time. The time evolution is governed by the [time-dependent Schrodinger equation](_URL_0_). However you don't necessarily know what the results of measurements will be. For example, if y...
Hegel's dialectic and theory of aesthetics.	[ "This is tricky because there is no easy way to discuss dialectics. The very basis of the theory is found in its difference to argument or debate. Classically the evolution of ideas comes from conflict; two ideas pitted against each other until one wins out over the other. That would be: Thesis v. Antithesis with o...	[ "as a follow-on question: I've heard of \"ritualized\" battles in some of the less developed parts of the world--remote pacific islands, rural africa, and the like. Is that true? What was the purpouse of such a ritual? what kinds of casualties were there? edit: as an aside, I'm pretty sure the WW1 \"live and let ...
Why do we want to stare at people who are visibly disabled/deformed/different?	[ "Novelty attracts, we are hard-wired to be curious." ]	[ "Think of a marbel in a field at night, you know it is somewhere on the field but you just cannot make it out. Now imagine it's moving. On the other hand, imagine a street light with a fly buzzing around it. You cannot see the fly but if you look at the light long enough you can just make out something changing in ...
How was Prussia's defeat at the hands of Denmark in the wars Shleswig war remembered by Germany?	[ "Prussia was not defeated by Denmark in the First Schleswig War, but was forced to withdraw by the Great Powers (principally Russia and Austria) who threatened war if they did not do so. This marked a temporary end to Prussian expansionism, until the end of the Austro-Russian alliance (brought about by the foolis...	[ "The way history class goes in Saudi Arabia is pretty much as follows: (We'll ignore the fact that much of the recent history glosses over some very important subjects) Grade 1-3: History of the Prophet Muhammad Grade 4-5: History of the Rashidun Khalifs (First 4 khalifs after the Prophet Muhammad) Grade 6-8: Hist...
Does gravity have a repulsive component?	[ "Newtonian gravity is strictly attractive, but Newtonian gravity is also wrong. The modern theory of gravity is General Relativity, which can be repulsive under certain circumstances. For instance, the universe's expansion is accelerating. That is due to general relativistic effects, AKA gravity. Gravity in GR ca...	[ "We're not completely sure what the Great Attractor itself is, but we now know that it is not as massive as we first thought, and it is in fact a galaxy cluster behind it that the Milky Way is drawn to, and not the Not-So-Great Attractor itself." ]
If an adult human thinks in language, then what goes through the mind of a thing without language, like a baby or a cat?	[ "I'd actually wager the majority of your thoughts are not in words. Probably only communication related thoughts are in words. You don't think in words while eating, or during a fist fight, while playing a sport, or any other numerous tasks. Babies think without words because they don't know any, they are by defini...	[ "Please use the search function. _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_13_ TL;DR: Why is a bad question with no good answer. We can't tell entirely with other animals, because we can't directly communicate though anecdotally, many seem to." ]
How do seeds determine where's the surface when planted underground?	[ "The very top of the root is called the root cap. Some of the cells in the root cap have sensors called statoliths that grow towards the pull of gravity. The stem also has a similar mechanism, but in reverse; so it grows upwards" ]	[ "I'm sure there are more knowledgeable folks here who can provide a more comprehensive answer, but [there is evidence](_URL_1_) birds navigate over such long distances in part by being biologically sensitive to the Earth's magnetic field. In other words, they have a built in compass. As for where to go, in at leas...
If one were to build a rotating ring around a planetary body, would it technically be in orbit?	[ "Larry Niven wrote a sci-fi novel called \"Ringworld\" about a habitable ring the size of Earths orbit and a million miles wide, orbiting a sun, spun for gravity, with thousand mile high mountains at the edges to contain the atmosphere. The idea spawned a lot of discussion, and eventually it was worked out that su...	[ "This is called a [rogue planet](_URL_0_). The candidate rogue planets that have been observed are typically brown dwarves, which are in a grey area (brown area?) between planets and stars." ]
Normal stars are made out of hydrogen which undergoes fusion. Can I make a star out of any element, provided I have enough mass to fuse that element? Say, Iron?	[ "Only elements to left of the peak, which is actually Iron, your example, can be fused to yield energy.: _URL_1_ Stuff to the right can be fissioned to yield energy. So things as heavy or heavier than iron signal the death of fusion in a star, as fusion then eats up energy rather than yielding it." ]	[ "All paint is colored by pigments which are usually chemicals that we find naturally in our world. We used to make our pigments from all sorts of different animals, plants, and metals. For instance, red or yellow could be made from rust (iron oxide). Think about how iron on an old car rusts and creates a dark red-...
Who were the Sabeans?	[ "I'm sorry I can't give you a more detailed response but my backpack was stolen in Jerusalem and had my book. \"Bronze Age to the Coming Age of Islam\" by Robert Hoyland should give you lots on information. I don't want to write anything without using it as a reference. I'm quite certain you can download an ebook c...	[ "Might be a bit earlier than what you were looking for, but the guardians of the Byzantine Emperor looked something like this: [Varangian Guard](_URL_0_)" ]
Is there any health benefits to halal/kosher meat?	[ "The ancient benefit of these religious requirements served the same purpose of the health codes of today. Following the rituals led to fewer diseases gotten from the meat. While they have become antiquated, there are still a few situations where it is possible or arguable that the religious requirements are strict...	[ "I'm sorry I can't give you a more detailed response but my backpack was stolen in Jerusalem and had my book. \"Bronze Age to the Coming Age of Islam\" by Robert Hoyland should give you lots on information. I don't want to write anything without using it as a reference. I'm quite certain you can download an ebook c...
If I were sleepwalking does that mean I gave my consent to my s/o to initiate sexual actions..?	[ "Hmm... In my opinion, no. Your subconscious is in control, so you can't control it. In my opinion, you didn't consent." ]	[ "The courts basically said that brexit cannot go forward under the stewardship of Theresa May, Prime Minister of Britain, without the consent of Parliament. In other words, the UK government made a non-binding referendum for the people to vote in, that said \"do you want to stay in the EU or leave?\" the leave cam...
Why does soap clean?	[ "You've played with magnets, right? So imagine soap like billions of tiny magnets. Each very tiny soap \"magnet\" has two ends: One that soaks up water well, and the other that soaks up dirt well. When you shower with just water, ever notice how you still kinda feel grimy afterwards? That's because water doesn't pi...	[ "I'm going to link you to wikipedia, but first let me give you a quick background. Primordial soup was the mix of substances that were present on early Earth. It is now believed that all living organisms can trace its lineage back to this 'soup.' This 'soup,' coupled with other factors, such as lightening, provided...
I rarely carry cash and 95% of my transactions are digital/online. Are US Dollars represented by paper currency somewhere or is it a digital currency too?	[ "Less than 10% of the money exists in physical cash form. Overwhelming amount of it just just numbers in an account on a computer." ]	[ "An actual hard drive has a spinning disk inside - information is stored as a magnetic charge. One direction of polarization means 0, the other means 1. So on this disk that is spinning inside your hard drive, you have millions upon millions of differently magnetized spots, and a head (think a record player) that h...
Should I take the rental car insurance the rental company offers?	[ "Yes, your insurance covers you. LDW is a rip-off unless you are planning on getting in an accident. Also, many credit cards provide protection if you use them to pay for a rental car. Check with your bank." ]	[ "well, there are pictures of truck drivers that have taken sun for only one side of the face. its a bit of a difference between sides of the face. _URL_0_ there is a bunch of other examples around. use sunscreen." ]
did the framers of the U.S. Constitution come up with the Electoral College as a way to give small states more influence, or is this just a popular misconception?	[ "What the framers wrote bears only a rough relationship to what we have now. The Electors were selected by the States, in whatever way the States wanted. Direct popular vote, by the States legislature, was up to them. Originally the Electors were voting for two candidates, both for President. (One had to be from a ...	[ "The Romans had an accurate calculation of the size of the world and a very good idea of the size of the Eurasian landmass. When you put those two together saddling west from Europe seems a spectacularly bad idea--Columbus was only willing to because he used a terrible set of calculations. I really don't see why yo...
How do missiles that lock onto vehicles work?	[ "Depends on the guidance the missile uses. An infra-red guided missile is said to have locked on when it gets a strong enough heat source to detect and track the target. An active radar guided missile locks on when it constantly moves a radar beam over the target to track it, rather than just scans over it every fe...	[ "A combination of gyroscopes, star trackers, and in low earth orbit, GPS" ]
How do DNA tests such as 23andMe determine percentage of ethnicity?	[ "There are genetic markers in DNA known as SNPs (Single nucleotide polymorphisms), essentially single letter changes in DNA. Certain populations and ethnic groups have a makeup of genetic markers that are unique to the ancestry and history of a population. By looking at which markers you have and which markers are ...	[ "I know that if it doesn't get it right it asks you type in the solution. Maybe that's how all the answers were fed to it except for the first 1,000 names the developers might have put in to get a prototype." ]
Why does the rain make plants and stuff look more green?	[ "It does indeed wash off the dust. It also coats over the rough surfaces, which contain tiny hairs (and other rough materials) that make the colors look a bit more grayish." ]	[ "it's a computer model, meant to simulate the feedback mechanisms of life on a planet orbiting a star that is getting hotter. There are black and white daisies. the black ones absorb light and heat the planet, white ones do the opposite. The competition between black and white daisy populations, with their succes...
Why do prescription pill bottles made up of a yellowish, maybe green, plastic? What purpose does it serve?	[ "It keeps out a large percentage of light. Some medicines contain chemicals that can be damaged by too much exposure to light (or the resulting heat)." ]	[ "You will need a longer yellow light for roads with a faster speed limit. You just need more time to react at 60 mph than you do at 35." ]
How is it that humans all over the world speak different languages, but there are still phrases that all humans know?	[ "There are no phrases that all humans know. However, there are some primitive sounds that people can make that are not language. This includes things like a scream if in pain, or a sigh when relaxing. Since these are not language, you don't have to be taught them, just as you don't have to be taught to squint whe...	[ "Read up on [Paul Ekman](_URL_1_) and his development of the [Facial Action Coding System](_URL_0_). A good introduction/explanation of his research is found in the book [Blink](_URL_2_) by Malcolm Gladwell. The short answer to your question is, 'no'. From the wikipedia article on Paul Ekman linked to above: > Ek...

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