Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why can't I goto a doctor 2x a year and just get screened for every disease and eliminate the risk of cancer/etc?	[ "If you had the money you could. But no insurance company or universal health care would cover that." ]	[ "Phones are already expensive. Using the absolute best parts available at the time to create some überdevice would cause the price to skyrocket and only a select few people would be able to afford it. It would probably cost the company more money to put something like this together than they could earn by selling i...
Why do companies/stores offer cash back instead of just a discounted price? Tax breaks or something similar?	[ "I sell you something for a dollar that costs me fifty cents to make and sell, you get it, I get a dollar of revenue and fifty cents of gross profit. I sell you something for two dollars with a one dollar cash back coupon redeemable upon your next purchase. You get it, I get two dollars of pure revenue (which infla...	[ "Online tracking is easy. Whenever you click on an ad, it sets a cookie on your computer that marks you as arriving to that site from the ad. Your each activity on that site is tracked and noted when you make your purchase. Offline is a bit different. Depending on the size and marketing efforts of a company, they m...
Is there any scientific merit to the claim that "good quality" alcoholic drinks do not give people headaches?	[ "Worth bearing in mind that a lot of the hangover is caused by alcohol, it's metabolism causing dehydration, and the toxic byproducts of alcohol metabolism. There is some very good information [here](_URL_3_) about the causes of alcohol toxicity. There is speculation that fusel alcohols may contribute, but there is...	[ "Dehydration causes your brain to shrink. As your braincase is essentially sealed, this shrinkage causes negative pressure between your brain and skull, which has the effect of pulling on the inside of your skull - like being squeezed, but from the inside. This is what causes the pain." ]
Why is gold worth so much money in modern times?	[ "It does have some practical applications, but mostly it's essentially just a currency. That is, it has value because people agree it has value." ]	[ "What for? The comet won't take you anywhere your spacecraft cannot go on its own. I mean in order to attach to a comet you should reach it gently, i.e. match its position and its velocity very closely. Once you do that, even if you don't attach or \"ride\" it, gravity determines that your orbit will be (approximat...
When did Blue Raspberry become a flavor?	[ "Basically there are already a lot of flavors we associate with red, like strawberry, cherry, and tomato. Many raspberries are purplish (which is taken by grape), so it isn't too much of a stretch to call it blue to differentiate from the crowded red field." ]	[ "You probably don't remember windows 3.1.. when windows 95 came out shit was forever changed. When win98 came out, everything wrong with win95 was fixed (for the most part). Better question- why was windows 95 so good? Edit: just to wrap this question up in three simple words.. the start menu." ]
Why doesn't the human body have a limit for the amount of fat it will store?	[ "In large part because, for the overwhelming majority of the history of the species, having too much food was not a problem for reproduction, and so there'd be no strong selection pressure favoring any particular limit to obesity. Most people have a limit to how much the body will allow them to bleed, for instance,...	[ "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...
Since all crop-lands are being overfarmed, and nutrients are being drained, what will happen when all these nutrients are completely drained? Or will that point ever come?	[ "They will not be completely drained because we add them back into the land. By rotating crops, adding fertilizer, and adding ash from burning crops after harvest we bring the land back to a rich state that can nourish crops." ]	[ "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 do the two numbers on engine oil mean? Such as 5w 20 and 10w 40	[ "Previous reply was pretty close. \"W\" is often referred to as winter or more specifically cold, this is the viscosity of the oil when it is cold. The 2nd number is the operational viscosity, or how well it flows once heated. It's is best to put the recommended oil weight in a car. Truth be told there is a complex...	[ "The selected temperature isn't necessarily the temperature coming out of the vents. If you're trying to warm/cool a room to a certain temperature, it puts out more extreme air. Room is 70, you want 72, the heater comes out at 75. Room is 75, you want 72, the AC puts out 70." ]
Why are foreign accents usually thought of as sexual and arousing?	[ "It's because my brain tells me that if you come from far away you cannot be my sister. So we will have beautiful non-retarded babies." ]	[ "[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...
In a historical sense, could entire populations of humans have a non-prehistorical common ancestor?	[ "Iceland (about 300,000 people) was first colonized by Norwegian sailors in the 9th century and remains one of the countries with the lowest genetic diversity (heterozygosity) [in Europe](_URL_0_), if not the world. A third of its inhabitants have a common ancestor in a person that lived in the 19th century, or ano...	[ "Hi readers! Since questions like these often attract anecdotal answers, just a quick reminder: you are in /r/AskHistorians, so do ensure that answers are comprehensive and informative, and based on solid source material. Personal anecdotes or other casual chitchat/speculation/opinion are not accepted as answers he...
Does LSD affect animals in the same way it affects us? Say, a dog or monkey?	[ "I don't know anything about the physiological results of giving drugs to animals, but [here's](_URL_0_) an interesting series of images of spiders' webs while under the influence of different drugs." ]	[ "Brains easily perform many, many tasks hat are difficult for computer. Take that we know brains are optimized for pattern-finding. Consider intelligent life forms have to interact with a real 3-world and real time. Which means they can check their expectations. Testings a supposition is as simple as rotating an o...
What are matter density fluctuations?	[ "When we look up at the sky, we see clumps of matter: stars here, galaxies there, and so on. Though the night sky looks very homogenous on large scales, if you look close enough, there are inhomogeneous patches everywhere. Astrophysicists have a certain theory for how this \"clumpiness\" came about. They say that ...	[ "Inside those clumps is dry flour. The surrounding flour holds the water tension creating the clump. Thats why you have to mix the flour thoroughly in order to break the water tension in each indivual clump. EDIT: I had used the wrong spelling for the word \"tension\"." ]
Where does the fear of heights come from? Is it genetic or learned?	[ "It's learned. They have done studies with kids and they don't have a fear of heights when born but learn it very quickly. That said if your parents are afraid of something there is a good chance you will be because you see them being afraid at a young age. Here is an interesting article on a study where they ha...	[ "Someone correct me if I am wrong but it goes back to when we had much hairier bodies and when alarmed we as well as a lot of other mammals would puff up our hair to make ourselves look bigger. Think of how when you scare a dog or a cat it hunches up and its hair stands on end, same thing happens to us just we dont...
If you have a capacitor in parallel with a cell and a resistor, why does the maximum voltage through the resistor before charging never equal the voltage of the capacitor after charging?	[ "1. \"Voltage through the resistor\" is meaningless. Do you mean the voltage across the resistor? 2. If the capacitor and resistor are in parallel, then the voltage across them is equal at all times. Before or after charging. 3. If you actually meant the capacitor is being charged by a current running through the r...	[ "Before RICO laws it was hard to take down an entire organization because the mob boss could never be connected to any specific crime. The Mob boss would talk to his under-boss about an illicit act. The under-boss would pass the info along to a caporegime (a sort of lieutenant) who would then instruct one of his ga...
Speed of light question ...	[ "Velocity is not additive at relativistic speeds. Well, technically it's not additive at any speeds, but the closer you get to 0, the more accurate of an approximation you get by adding up the two velocities. [Here's a page on Wolfram Alpha](_URL_0_) where you can plug in various numbers to see how it works. In ...	[ "The formula E = mc^(2) holds only when in the rest frame of the particle (or system of particles). A single light particle has no rest frame, and so it's not the correct formula. The full formula, valid for all particles (massless or not) and in any frame is E^(2) = (mc^(2))^(2)+(pc)^(2), where p is the mo...
Considering you had a long enough higway pointing towards a sunset, how fast would you need to drive to enjoy a 1 hour long sunset?	[ "Depending on your latitude, between about 800 and 1600 km/h, ignoring weirdness at the polar regions." ]	[ "the effect on the scale you are talking about is very small. our galaxy is cca 100000 light years big. one orbit of our sun around it takes cca 210 milions years. that means, that even if you are looking on from one end of galaxy to the other one, it looks almost the same. stars also evolve on time-scale of bilion...
Why light changes color depending on wavelength?	[ "Your question seems to assume that colour is a separate property that happens to change based on wavelength. Our eyes have the ability to sense the wavelength of light, and colour is simply the word we use to describe that sensation. So it isn't one thing changing in response to another - they are actually the sam...	[ "The spectrum of Bremsstrahlung cannot \"shift,\" except in its intensity. Bremsstrahlung is \"braking radiation\" and depends only on the charge of the atomic nucleus. A given electron interacting with the nuclear charge can be slowed down by any amount, producing a spectrum of radiation essentially from the acc...
Does the number of links in a chain affect the amount of pressure placed upon each individual link, while under tension?	[ "No. The amount of stress experienced by links in a chain due to a given load is dependent on the size (and shape) of the links, not by the number of links. The load on the chain has to be carried individually by each link. Otherwise, if you had a long enough chain, you could hold an arbitrarily large load with an ...	[ "You open a pizza shop and hire your nephew to take phone orders. For the first few weeks, you only get two or three calls per evening, so you get by with just one phone line and only your nephew assisting you. Then, someone posts a fantastic review of your place on reddit and the business explodes. Now you've got ...
Why didn't USA sign Kyoto Protocol which would have helped the entire world on an environment friendly path?	[ "Because the Kyoto Protocol's goals isn't to put the entire world on an environment friendly path. It's to put all the blame for Greenhouse gas emission on developed countries and force a cap on them while telling the developing countries that they would be paid to cut their Greenhouse gas emission. Developing coun...	[ "Too expensive, little or no benefit. The people that benefit from metric (scientists, engineering) already switched over long ago. For everyone else: Does it really matter if the speed limit is in mph or kph? Are you having trouble converting the speed limit to feet per second on a daily basis? No? Then we're fine...
If you are sure that someone stole your wallet and put it in their purse, what would happen to you (legally speaking) if you stole their purse to prove they stole your wallet?	[ "Provided it was in the purse, or you had reasonable grounds to suspect it was in there. In the US you have a lot of grounds to do a lot more than that in order to protect your property. In other places, you would probably have the grounds to, so long as your purpose was only to retrieve your own property. Legally ...	[ "Let's say you wanted to gamble at the horse track. You think Three-Legged Limpet is the horse to win on (despite having only three legs). You decide to place a $100 bet, but you don't have $100 on you now (payday isn't until tomorrow). The bookie agrees to take only $20, with the understanding that you will pay up...
What is "special" about the visible light spectrum that made it the basis for animal vision? Why not some other region of the EM spectrum?	[ "Peak emission of the sun. \"Wien's law says that the Sun's peak emission per unit wavelength is at 502 nm.\" 502 nm is green. Edit: Here's a graph. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Not a full answer to your question, but an example: Humans cannot digest cellulose, the main components of the cell wall in plants. Some animals like Cows however can (with the help of all their stomachs and their microbiome). Thus the nutritional value of plants like grass is vastly different between cows and hum...
How does the Deep Space Network (DSN) work?	[ "The DSN uses 3 antenas spaced aproximately 120º around the earth so there are always two of them in line of sight with any interplanetary object. This way, the velocity and the position can be tracked via doppler effect and triangulation." ]	[ "A few different ways; - [Lasers](_URL_0_) for really close things like the moon. - [Parallax](_URL_2_) used for nearby planets and stars. - [Standard candles](_URL_1_), the brightness of a specific type of supernova which gives a good range. - [Red Shift](_URL_3_) for things very far away. For more detail on how a...
Why is the Thylacines (Tasmanian Tigers) endangerment/extinction status still not certain?	[ "The criterion for something to be classified as extinct is that there are no sightings of it for a certain period of time. That doesn't mean, of course, that the animal doesn't still exist somewhere in a small, undetected population. And then you get into cryptozoology and such things. But, for all practical purpo...	[ "The New York Attorney General declared it as gambling and doesn't want the two sites taking bets from New York residents. The site has always been a mix of gambling and fantasy. Here's the full article _URL_0_" ]
What makes bad bacteria bad for your health, and why isn’t it bad anymore once it is killed. (But still in/on your body)	[ "When they are alive they can do what they do to live in your body like feed on you or feed on other stuff in you and poop out poisonous things your body can't handle and also fight with good bacteria for territory in your body for more food. When they are killed they can't do what they do and your body's military,...	[ "Well, think of it like a car. The individual parts of a car mean nothing. Every bolt, nut, belt and fuel serve a purpose altogether. Sure you can run it without a few things, but it will wear and tear faster. A car is alive with fuel cycling through the system via combustion and the energy from the battery provi...
What is hypermodernity, I would some explaination of the wikipedia's definition if possible?	[ "Basically, make a thing and then figure out what it does, rather than make a thing to perform a certain task." ]	[ "One interesting event of early 1914 was the the [slashing of the Rokeby Venus](_URL_0_). Mary Richardson, a suffragette, hacked at [The Rokeby Venus](_URL_1_) by Diego Velázquez with a meat cleaver while visiting the Royal Gallery in London. The painting was very famous and King Edward VII had provided £8,00...
Why wasn't Japanese emperor Hirohito deposed after WW2?	[ "Everyone in this thread who says he had no authority is not correct. After the war, the emperor's apologists claimed he was a powerless figurehead. Others claimed he was an all-powerful autocrat in the same fashion as the Russian Tsars. The truth is somewhere in between. Hirohito participated in daily war councils...	[ "Well, the UK doesn't have a written constitution, so Parliament can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. I believe that would include the power to cancel Brexit, but I'm definitely not a UK constitutional law scholar. The answer to your question is that it is unnecessary. Democracies all have methods to re...
Why do paparazzi not get the same flak as the person whom hacked the nude pictures in the fappening?	[ "Because when you are in a public space, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Everyone can take your photos and the photos would belong to them. A hacker on the other hand steals something belongs to you. What's in the photos doesn't matter legaly. It's yours and taken without your consent. Edit: Some p...	[ "Becsuse all tux's basically look the same, just different sizes and are a basic loose fit. Easy for many men to wear the same thing. But theres a bajillion styles of wedding dresses and different styles for different shapes and they're usually fitted. Odds of finding a generic sized dress in a style you like that ...
Does pubic hair have a specific function?	[ "I don't yet see anyone mentioning that pubic hair can act as a visual signal of sexual maturity. Of course, we don't use it as such today, when we wear clothing and prosecute people who go after young people who might even yet have had pubes for several years (and rightly so). Nevertheless, it does serve as an ext...	[ "[_URL_1_](_URL_0_) says it was [evolved to protect us from viruses.](_URL_2_) edit: added a better source" ]
why do astronauts float around in the ISS and their muscles deteriorate when the earth's gravitational field is strong enough to hold a massive object like the moon in orbit? Why aren't they pulled towards the earth-side of the space station?	[ "The astronauts are falling at the same rate as the space station, so they remain at rest with respect to it." ]	[ "Very careful simulation based on testing data. Engineers have experimentally gathered data about all the different materials used to make the telescope. This data includes failure points given applied loads, vibrational frequencies, etc. They can use this along with a computational model of the sattelite to predic...
When you pour liquid out of a bottle, does it pour faster if you hold it vertically with the opening on the bottom or if you pour it at the maximum angle at which the liquid pours smoothly and does not "gulp" out?	[ "Why not try it yourself with a bottle of water and a timer? Directly apply the scientific method!" ]	[ "I like this. However, pictures are awesome. Your pictures with the flame on the drawing board? Good stuff. The video with candle/flame? Good stuff. Your face? Great face for TV, but I don't want to see it the majority of the time. It makes the viewer lose interest over a period of time. Personally, I liked learnin...
What causes dandruff and what can cure it?	[ "If I’m not mistaken dandruff is a fungal infection on your scalp that feeds on the oils your hair/scalp produces. Head and shoulders has a medication that strips the oil out of your scalp effectively taking away their food supply." ]	[ "Or in my father's case, how come his seasonal allergies went away when he turned 45?" ]
Can anyone identify the uniform being worn in this photo? (Most likely WW2, possibly Norwegian)	[ "The uniform is definitely wartime. During periods of peace, the tally (hat band) would include the name of the ship he was serving on. This was usually removed in a combat theater to avoid giving the enemy a potential source of intel on ship locations, etc. The only insignia I can see is the one atop the pork pie...	[ "Reminder: This is AskHistorians, not AskRandomPeopleWhoCanGoogle. If you do not have in-depth knowledge of the level expected of a historian, whether amateur or professional, do not post. Thank you." ]
Why do the optic nerves from each eye cross each other before entering the brain?	[ "That crossover is called the Optic Chiasm, and it serves to knit together visual field information. Imagine separating your visual field (the total area you can see) into left and right halves. Those halves do not directly correspond with your left and right eyes. Your left eye has some information from both the l...	[ "Each parent gives half a chromosome pair to the child, yes, but the range of genetic variations is huge: During meiosis the chromosome pairs line up, and during that time they often swap sections randomly in a process called [crossover](_URL_0_). So each individual sperm/egg cell has what's probably a unique com...
Why are brown dwarfs not just considered very large planets?	[ "Brown dwarfs have sufficient mass for fusion of deuterium, whereas anything smaller than this class does not. At a certain point yet to be determined by scientists, once a mass generates enough energy it's not a planet anymore." ]	[ "They use [Doppler spectroscopy](_URL_0_) to determine the relative motions and period of the star and planet. [Orbital mechanics](_URL_2_) then gives the mass ratio of both. Edit: [Dannei's comment](_URL_1_) is a far more complete and instructive answer to this question." ]
If the universe is expanding, is there a center point from which the expansion propagates?	[ "(this is a [FAQ](_URL_0_)) No, the expansion is not like an explosion propagating outward into space. It's a uniform enlarging of the entire universe, all points becoming more distant from all other points. The universe is thought to be infinite in extent, and if it is, then there couldn't be a center. Picture...	[ "No. This is one of the great unsolved problems of theoretical physics, called the hierarchy problem. People have different theories for explaining it, like supersymmetry, large extra dimensions, brane-world scenarios and so on, but none of these are truly convincing and there is no experimental evidence for any of...
Why is christianity so prevalent within the Korean ethnicity group.	[ "Most of the non-white world was colonized by European countries, but Korea during the same period was colonized by Japan. European countries imported Christianity to their colonies, which caused it to be seen as the religion of the oppressors. For example, South Vietnamese dictator Ngo Dinh Diem was a Catholic, wh...	[ "This is a pretty common question here; here's some links from the FAQ: _URL_2_ _URL_4_ and a few others that have been posted over the years: _URL_3_ _URL_1_ _URL_0_ Most posts agree that it is largely a post-war pop phenomenon with fairly little evidence to support it." ]
How can rappers get away with talking about smoking weed so blatantly?	[ "Action movie stars aren't investigated in case they really shot all those guys and blew up that helicopter. Music is entertainment, it's not assumed to be factual." ]	[ "_URL_0_ The short version is they were recorded during a sting operation in which police were informed of the show's activities. You have no expectation of privacy during the commission of a crime in most jurisdictions. Local law varies, though." ]
As George Carlin suggests, does our immune system "need germs to practice on" in order to get stronger?	[ "Yes, the immune system produces antibodies which prime the immune system to defend against the specific intruder. Amount of the germs/ viruses makes no difference; too much will of course overwhelm your defenses, but for inoculation, just a very small amount of virus (usually attenuated) is needed. Time and freque...	[ "Before I answer, may I ask who the speaker is for this particular lecture? Or if you have a link for me to listen to? I would like to know where they are coming from in their argument." ]
The Medieval Surname! In early 14th Century England, would a peasant have a surname? If so, would he change his surname if his status in society changed (i.e. he became a Trader or a Blacksmith)? Lastly, if he then married, would the Medieval woman change her surname to his?	[ "/u/ForgedIronMadeIt partially answered this question when speaking about [the prevalence of the Smith surname](_URL_2_) /u/yodatsracist also has a post on [when surnames came into use](_URL_1_) and [the tradition of wives taking their husbands surname](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "What's the other option? You have a birth certificate, driver's license, social security card, mortgage, car payments, credit history, and like a billion other things with your name attached to it. You have to go through all the proper channels to change your name without changing your identity. Also it's not like...
How do Google's driverless cars work?	[ "A system including cameras, GPS, proximity sensors all work together to drive the car. Pretty much every road in north america is mapped on GPS. The GPS gives the rough information on the route the car should take and what to expect in terms of directions. That information is few to the computer on board that trac...	[ "It's a box that a bunch of microwaves are pumped in to and according to our currant understanding of physics it should not produce any thrust, yet multiple test have reported that it does produce thrust. We have no clue what this means as of yet." ]
Why do cuts and wounds itch while healing?	[ "It's caused by histamine, which is a chemical trigger released by your immune system during healing to activate certain cells (which are needed to repair and renew the damaged tissue). Histamine is also used for a heap of other stuff in your body, but that's another story." ]	[ "Talking completely out of my ass here, maybe it has to do with some instinctive grooming drive that we inherited from our ancestors. If you go to the zoo or watch a documentary, you can see that apes/etc. instinctively groom each other; so some people probably get a sense of pleasure from seeing such things becaus...
Why does gasoline smell so good if it's so toxic?	[ "While some people do find the smell of gasoline to be good, that's not the intent. Gas is odorless but they add in a smell so it can be identified. It's essentially a warning system so that people don't cause harm to themselves or others unknowingly." ]	[ "I read an article a somewhere that said it was do the the \"roughness\" or randomness of the noise. As the fingers nails catch and slip it produces random variances in the amplitude and frequency of the noise. Our brains find the signal unpredictable and that somehow causes it the view it as a danger. There are a...
When bleeding, how does the body regain the blood it has lost? How does the body actually create that blood and how does it know when to stop?	[ "The spleen has a reserve of red blood cells that can be released when needed, new RBCs are made in the bone marrow. Plasma is water and salts from the digestive system, that's the actual liquid part that carries everything. White blood cells (immune system) and platelets are also made in the bone marrow. The simp...	[ "The browser simply stores the last scroll location in memory so even if a new request is sent (it may well just load a locally cached version depending on settings/browser) it can jump straight to it." ]
Decongestants and Antihistamines = Dehydration. Where does the fluid go?	[ "I know that some decongestants pull water into the mucus to make the consistency less viscous and therefore easier to expel. So, snot steals your mucus." ]	[ "Maybe you have an allergy and the winds are blowing the pollen and dryness is aggravating it." ]
I was told Harry Truman did not know of the Manhattan Project's existence until he was sworn in. Is this true? If so, when he was VP did he have any say in the war effort?	[ "There's always more to be said (especially on Truman's involvement in the war effort), but the ever-erudite /u/restricteddata answered a similar question here: [Why wasn't Truman told about the atomic bomb whilst he was Vice-President?](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "The film \"A Knight's Tale\" is surprisingly accurate to the spirit of the times, apparently. Also, Jurgen Habermas states that during pre-Renaissance (or Enlightenment) times, there was a marked divide between 'private' and 'public.' To Habermas, things and people that were public mattered, and thus, a celebrity ...
River temperature fluctuations	[ "The Potomac river below Little Falls is tidal - meaning its both effected by the downsteam flow as well as the tide in the Chesapeake. I think this graph shows a longer-trend of rising temperatures of the river modulated by the semi-diurnal tide." ]	[ "yes--tied to changes in air pressure. [here's one version of the explanation](_URL_0_)." ]
Will having thousands of glass bottles full of liquids in room effect the A/C bill notably?	[ "Think of it as a fridge. An empty fridge will consume more power because there is nothing in it to \"control\" the requested temperature other than the seal on the door. Whereas a fridge full of food and liquids will consume less because they \"regulate\" the temperatures by quickly absorbing the changes that occu...	[ "Ask him to provide a source for that statistic next time you see him. The number seems high, but not outside the realm of possibility considering [this](_URL_0_) site claims 40% of energy consumption is from buildings. He should be able to provide sources for his claim, or at least explain where he came up with t...
why so many big American companies have an indian CEO	[ "Almost 1 in 7 people that live on the planet right now are indian. Lots of people are indian." ]	[ "The planned location right over the country's largest river probably has something to do with it." ]
What was the warsaw uprising	[ "Warsaw was under Nazi rule. People didn't like that, especially the Jews living in the ghetto. People were purposely starved, killed in the streets. The Polish Underground State was formed - a resistance paramilitary which was made of several groups that wanted to liberate Poland (and save Jews). Some folks with ...	[ "There is an australian film called Beneath Hill 60 which I liked (_URL_3_). The movie itself is based on the writings of an actual person Oliver Woodward who was an engineer in Ypres I believe? (_URL_4_) I would also hope that as an Australian film it would a tad less Hollywoodetized, actual historians who have ...
To what extent was the Space (/missile) Race "Our Germans vs their Germans?" How has the popular and "expert" views on the involvement of German scientists changed over time?	[ "If we define the Space Race as starting in 1955, which is when both the US and the USSR declared they'll get a satellite into orbit, this statement is completely and categorically false. Though I am unsure of the degree of German involvement in the US space program, there was absolutely no German participation in ...	[ "most of the sources seem to be Soviet or Russian _URL_0_" ]
Is there any evidence, or anything that points in the direction of the existence of a "soul" ?	[ "[MacDougall](_URL_0_)'s finding that the soul weighs 21 grams has never been replicated. It's almost certain that it was an error of measurement in the original experiment. Beyond that, no, there's no evidence for the existence of a \"soul\" - by which I mean some kind of thing which doesn't exist physically, y...	[ "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...
Was the Martin Luther King quote "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal" accurate?	[ "Strictly speaking, no. Much of Hitler's power to govern came from the Enabling Act of 1933 which amended the Wiemar Constitution to allow Hitler to legislate and govern by decree without approval from the Reichstag. The Enabling Act had limits, however. One proviso was that the office of President would not be cha...	[ "You might do well to clarify your question a little. Are you talking about a specific country, e.g. the USA or South Africa? Are you talking about a specific period in history, e.g. civil rights movement USA or Apartheid South Africa? Its a very wide question - you probably have a specific period and place in mind...
Why do some flammable liquids require a wick to burn well?	[ "The fuels that you're referring to don't like to burn in liquid form, and are much easier to ignite as a gas. When you light a candle, for example, the flame from the match or lighter first melts, then vaporizes the wax in the wick, allowing it to burn. As this fuel burns, the heat it generates melts more wax, whi...	[ "You sort of answered it with your last sentence there... A flame is a light source. Usually relatively bright, if you're looking right into it. The reason you don't see \"through\" it is similar to looking at bright stars versus dim stars in the sky. You technically CAN see through the flame, but the light coming ...
Why do so many porn websites give you viruses/try to scam you?	[ "It largely has to do with advertising. Free porn sites need a method of generating income to stay online. However, most advertisers are unwilling to host their ads on porn sites because it reflects poorly on both the advertisers, and the reputable companies they represent. As a result, pornography websites have to...	[ "To get you to spend $29.95 on their \"work from home\" information package." ]
Why would someone in a country that offers individual rights and protections ever admit to a crime they did not commit, assuming no mental issues?	[ "Because, even in countries that offer individual rights and protections, police are allowed to deliberately cause mental issues. People who are trapped all night in an interrogation room do not act rationally." ]	[ "The IRS doesn't have all our information. Filing your taxes is good for you because you get to tell them you shouldn't really have had to pay as much taxes as you owed, and if they agree they'll give you a chunk back. Filing taxes is good for the government because if they later discover you made income without pa...
Why are cockroaches so hard to kill?	[ "* Partially Decentralized Nervous System The body can survive and function even without the head. * Decentralized Air Intake A series of pores supply the body with oxygen. * Low pressure circulatory system Doesn't bleed to death from large wounds. * Hard Exoskeleton Additional benefit of not sweating i...	[ "Because they don't have to stop, and they have a long road to go. Merging two companies is an extraordinarily complicated process... and that's just for two small companies. A merger between TWC and Comcast is likely to be one of the most complicated legal things... ever. Since its going to take them years to ful...
Why was the human evolved to be so weak compared to Apes?	[ "One widespread notion about human evolution and our place in our original ecosystem is that we have evolved as long-distance hunters (as opposed as sprinters). This means we made use for improved stamina as opposed to brute strength." ]	[ "Our intelligence. Tool making and fashioning weapons and traps seems to be our best bet." ]
How do humans know whether a sound is coming from above or below? And front or back?	[ "The fleshy part of your ear. Sound bounces off of it and your brain uses that to determine whether it's behind or in front of you. Fun experiment; Use Play-Doh to change the shape of your ear. You won't be able to determine if a sound is above, below, in front of, or behind you. [Here](_URL_0_) is a decent video."...	[ "We can read lips (and empathize doing other things) because of neurons in our brain called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons that fire when we do something ourselves and when we view someone else doing it. For example, if we see somebody perform a dance move, some neurons fire in our own brains as if we...
Why is it called inflation and not deflation when the value of money goes down?	[ "Inflation is or can be a symptom of an increase in the money supply. Hence inflation. You can also think of the number of dollars it takes to buy something \"inflating\"." ]	[ "Think of a rare baseball card. If there's only 10 of them in existence, then everyone would want them and they would be willing to trade hundreds of chocolate bars for it. Now think if they printed 990 more of that rare baseball card. Now everyone has one, and no one is willing to trade a chocolate bar for it." ]
why does experiencing one or more pregnancies seem to lead to long term struggles with body weight for women ?	[ "I am sure a real doctor will come and correct my language, but to put it simply, hormonal and muscular changes in the body and a lifestyle change generally, all lead to weight gain. After giving birth is is not unusual for the stomach muscles, especially on small women, to be trashed. This means that they look tub...	[ "As a follow up, would the impact be lower in close-knit tribes of hunter gatherers with better social support than would be found in agriculturally-based civilizations with greater social stratification and more physical/socio-cultural barriers to group intimacy? And what role do certain beliefs regarding babies/s...
what is the difference between conduction, convection and radiation?	[ "At the atomic level, conduction and convection are largely the same, atoms knocking into each other and transferring momentum. The main difference is that while conduction is the random propagation that momentum, convection is about current flowing through a medium. When you hold your hand above a stove, the stov...	[ "Your microwave oven is pushing several hundred watts into a pretty small enclosed space. It's not transmitting heat -- it's exciting water molecules in your frozen burrito. Your Wi-Fi access point is pushing less than a watt and scattering it in all directions, which is why it will do nothing to your burrito." ]
How different was life for an average Roman in say... 1AD and 1000AD	[ "I am in no way qualified to answer this question, but it seems to me you might consider asking over at /r/askhistorians." ]	[ "This ventures pretty far into /r/HistoricalWhatIf territory. There are simply too many variables to lay out a definite answer - 1400-2013 is a long period and Eurasia would fairly inevitably see massive, potentially empire-ending upheavals in every sphere of society, from religion to politics to technology to popu...
How long has the idea of humor been around?	[ "This is likely a thing we had before we were 'human.' The higher apes are capable of 'Three Stooges' type humor and can laugh in their way. Jane Goodall described specifically chimp laughter as sort of spasms of intake of air, rather than outgoing spasms. It is quieter, but happens in the same circumstances as wha...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
What's led to all the discoveries in cancer research lately?	[ "Have there been more than normal? I don't know if there's anything out of the ordinary. The media will often take any discovery in cell and molecular biology and apply it to the treatment of cancer, and researchers funding often comes from the treatment of disease. Sites share what sounds interesting, and I might ...	[ "It's similar to the way 125% subprime mortgages spread (without getting into the debate about whether that caused the recession) - you get a few groups who think a similar way, with broadly the same ideas, motivations, worldview, that sort of thing, and when one of them comes up with a policy that fits those ways ...
How do cells get oxygen if red blood cells can't enter tissue fluid since they're too big to leave capillaries?	[ "The red blood cells contain a pigment called haemoglobin, which binds to oxygen when the red blood cell travels to the lungs, forming oxyhaemoglobin. The red blood cells then are pumped around the body, and in areas of low oxygen concentration, the oxygen dissociates from the haemoglobin, and can passively diffus...	[ "I think it's generally accepted that animals are able to traverse open ocean on vegetative rafts. Basically, you might have a storm on land and have a bunch of trees and detritus gather up into a big floating pile, or raft. Given the right winds and water currents, these can get out into the open ocean and travel ...
The MTGHeadQuarters drama with spoiled cards?	[ "From /u/fe-addict: Someone on Reddit saw MTGHQ got a preview, criticized WotC for supporting him. Trick responded that they don't support him and that him getting a preview was a mistake and that they will double down on removing him from every last list/promotional offer he was on from WotC. HQ exploded about al...	[ "The New York Attorney General declared it as gambling and doesn't want the two sites taking bets from New York residents. The site has always been a mix of gambling and fantasy. Here's the full article _URL_0_" ]
If I ran a 17th century tavern in England and I had guests come in late at night, what canned or preserved or leftover food would I be able to offer them?	[ "If you were a tavern owner you'd likely have access to bread, cheese, beer, onions and porridge (boiled grain with vegetables, meat or fish if could be afforded). All of which have a reasonable shelf life. Depending on how wealthy your customers were meat pies, chops and wine may be served." ]	[ "Your question is like: > Why do people keep telling me to take a pill my doctor prescribes when in ye olden days people didn't have access to the same pills? Clean water is way easier to get now than it was then. Since you have access to clean water you should use it. In the same way, getting a doctor to prescri...
Is it feasible to completely eradicate mosquitoes without devastating the ecosystem?	[ "Another thing to keep in mind is that mosquitoes are not one species, or even just one genus! There are [more than 3,500 species of mosquito](_URL_8_) divided into 41 genera. Only some of the genera are able to transmit diseases (such as malaria from the link)." ]	[ "It takes a ton of energy, and the cost is prohibitive. [Here is a good explanation why](_URL_0_) Here are some other discussions on this topic. _URL_2_ _URL_1_ _URL_3_ _URL_4_" ]
How planes get AC working at such high altitude going so fast?	[ "It takes superheated air off of the engine known as bleed air. The air is then sent through a heat exchanger that takes the cold ambient air and mixes them to the desired temperature." ]	[ "I know Air travel and contrail contribution to cloud clover definitely changes surface temperature in cities. In the 3 day stand down of (almost) all air traffic in the days following the 9/11 attacks, there were measurable decreases in surface temperature . I can only assume the effect would contribute in other m...
"Phases" of electrical power	[ "Senior Electrical engineering student here. First off, phases in electricity is only for AC not DC. You have to understand what AC is first. Alternating current means that the voltage/current is constantly changing up and down. We represent this usually as a sin/cos wave. Refer to the image linked below. Now you c...	[ "No, you'd be lucky to power two lightbulbs using an exercise bike, and since every home has a refrigerator, which uses about 20 times that amount of power, it's just not gonna happen, sadly :(" ]
why do helium balloons die after a few days	[ "The helium molecules are smaller than the latex molecules of the balloon, so the helium can slowly leak through the latex (that's why the mylar balloons last longer)" ]	[ "They only go home. They're one-way message carriers. You take one from where it's living and bring it elsewhere, then tie a message to it and free it, and it'll go back home. They can't be used to send a message to some arbitrary location." ]
Why are prime numbers so difficult to find?	[ "They don't have a real pattern. Even numbers are every other number. Numbers that can be divided by 7 are every 7th number so you can make a simple formula to find them all X=(7K) where K is any number. But what pattern do prime numbers have? If there was something they all could be divided by then they wouldn't b...	[ "They have to make sure it's in stock (add some time to get it, if not), check with your doctor, check for interactions, and check with however many insurance companies, then count, double, and triple-count the pills, all while doing this with other customers." ]
Why do gas stations mostly all have "pay at the pump" when they could make more money without it by having more people enter their stores?	[ "I'm old enough to remember when pay at the pump was introduced. It is a very big convenience to not have to traipse into the store to pay/prepay and then pump, especially if a store has 10-12 pumps and everyone is having to wait in line to pay. During the introduction of pay a the pump, I avoided convenience store...	[ "Depends on the year of the vehicle. My old 1975 ford had a mechanical float and showed the fuel level at all times. On newer cars and it's electrical there's most likely a float in the tank still except it's connected to a sensor. The reason it only works when the car is on is so it doesn't drain the battery. Whil...
why does the fridge door seem so much harder to open when you just closed it?	[ "The cold dry air was just replaced with humid air at room temperature, and when it is cooled, the pressure drops. Over time pressure will be equalized, as the seal isnt perfect. And thats why it is easier to open the fridge the first time, compared to when you realize you forgo something and try to open it again. ...	[ "Our ancestors when in the wild would enjoy a fresh kill, body still warm. If you came across a dead animal that had been there a while, well you wouldn't want that would you. Evolution has taught us warm is preferable to cold. Unless of course you are eating mint chocolate chip ice cream." ]
Why Gaben is such a good guy?	[ "Everyone likes Steam, because its easy to use and have a lot of promotions and special deals. Everyone also likes Portal and Half-Life and Counter-Strike and Team Fortress. Gabe is the face in front of it all." ]	[ "Steam downloads files directly to the right location, so there is no other unpacking to be done. Or in other words, it installs as it downloads." ]
what's the benefit to the average person of patents on 3d printers being lifted in 2014.. And what exactly does a 3d printer do?	[ "When patents expire, anyone is entitled to build the patented invention. That means there will be lots of competitive products, bringing the price down for the consumer." ]	[ "A document written by barons of England and King John in 1215, the predecessor of the Declaration of Independence. The barons felt that they were getting screwed by King John, who did unpopular things like levy taxes without consent. (Sound familiar?) This led to a small rebellion that ended with the Magna Carta a...
Why is water so important to life?	[ "Water is a bit polar, giving it properties of adhesion,cohesion, and able to dissolve a large amount of solutes. Water is also a wonderful temperature regulator with high thermal capacity, and wide temperature range in liquid state. Water can dissolve gasses such as oxygen, one of the primary electron acceptors fo...	[ "Look at it like a phone and charger. If you put a load of energy into the phone (more than it's rated for), it'll do serious damage almost immediately. If you use an underrated charger, it'll put only a little energy in, but the phone will use more than it's getting and eventually die. Heat is just a form of ener...
Why do people still submit scientific papers to pay-to-view journals? Has anyone tried creating one for free?	[ "The \"impact factor\" of a journal was developed as a way for libraries to be able to gauge which journals were the most important ones in a field to subscribe to. If articles from journal A get cited 10 times as often by other authors than articles in journal B, the library should subscribe to journal A if you ca...	[ "The torrents you see every day (EZTV, xViD, etc) are part of [The Scene](_URL_1_) and do it mostly for pride and nerd cred for being the first to release something. Most of the initial seeders are affiliated with those groups, many on zombie botnets. From there, it goes into general P2P distribution. Basically, th...
Why have shields never been used in warfare since the popularization of guns?	[ "A shield powerful enough to stop a bullet is called body armor. It is too heavy to hold out in front of you, so it is worn sewn into a vest or other clothing. Thus it doesn't look like a shield, but it is one. Police and soldiers wear this regularly." ]	[ "If you're new to the thread, please don't post the Mythbusters episode again. Mythbusters is entertaining but it's not history (or more specifically, it's not historical proof of anything.) The short answer is no, not that we know of. /u/davidaop, our pirate expert, and I have both answered [questions about th...
Is HIV actually "cured" or not?	[ "Essentially, with modern treatments, doctors can make sure that if you catch it early and can afford the treatment, they can prevent it from turning into AIDS for a very long time. The \"functional cure\" stuff is typical media exaggeration, though it does hold some promise for future treatments. What a \"function...	[ "[This thread](_URL_0_) by u/efini lists a number of people who claimed to be the last former living slaves. Although many of the claimants have unverifiable claims, you'll see that Peter Mills's census records do support his age claims - he was born in 1860, three years before emancipation and died in the 1970s, a...
Theoretically is it possible to play my music on shuffle and it will play through the playlist just by chance in the exact order it is in?	[ "In one of the iterations of the iPod, Steve Jobs actually mentioned that the shuffle feature had been deliberately programmed to make it LESS random but seem MORE random. To explain, with a completely random algorithm, the iPod would occasionally choose songs that were sequential. This irritated some listeners, wh...	[ "Netflix/hulu/shomi or all other good streaming services have an international database. It analyzes every movie and how many people watched it, and how many people rated it. The importance is more of public rating, rather than views. It also has an algorithm to group movies together for the \"For You\" section. Bo...
how can a barrel create a unique pattern on a bullet?	[ "> How strong is this ID method? Not very, and certainly nowhere near the nonsense portrayed on TV. A well preserved bullet can often be said to be consistent with a certain firearm after testing. Unless that particular gun has some unique defect or wear pattern it is impossible to conclusively link a bullet to a s...	[ "Edit: STSCI people have [posted an explanation](_URL_4_). There's also a [youtube video](_URL_3_) which explains it around 1:45. The long and short of it is that Hubble was tracking background stars throughout those images, and its orbit around the Earth meant that the comet had noticeable parallax which cause...
If the rest of the universe disappeared outside of the solar system, would anything change for us?	[ "You wouldn't notice anything. There would be no light, of any wavelength, to study, and any gravitational effects of other stars or galaxies are too small to impact your life." ]	[ "Such hypothetical / speculative / open-ended questions are better suited for our new-ish sister sub /r/asksciencediscussion. Please consider reposting there instead." ]
Statistics: data in the natural sciences is often really noisy. How do you determine which samples to keep and which to throw out?	[ "There's not a single answer for this... it varies based on what you're doing. You also often don't want to \"throw out\" the outliers, just identify them as such. A common basic method is finding the solution which minimizes some error criteria, such as mean-squared error, and then calling anything more than n sta...	[ "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...
How does the 100 year old light bulb work?	[ "It's actually nowhere near as exceptional as you think. A huge proportion of the wear on light bulb filaments is to to thermal expansion and contraction from being turned on/off (this is why bulbs only ever to fail when you first turn them on). These very old bulbs are bulbs that have been left on continuously, so...	[ "Because the law required them to be back-ward compatible with anything and everything ever invented. And people expect them to look a certain way, so they keep it up. And because it's a lot of time from Very Important Useless People (congressmen) to change the law for something that's really not that important. Am...
What the hell is going on when you see the actors credited as 'Executive Producers' in a TV show?	[ "It's usually written into their contract - down to the size of the font and placement on the 'card' and even whether it stands alone or is under or above someone else's credit. It can vary from contract to contract in terms of what it really means for a person's paycheck; in some cases (certain movies, for example...	[ "Why wouldn't they be? If 4lb boxes of cheerios cost > 4x more than 1lb boxes of cheerios, you could combine 4 1lb boxes and get a 4lb box and profit. But you can't combine 4 televisions into one big television. I don't know about TVs, but in general, larger objects with tiny features tend to be more difficult to m...
You use your A/C to defog your window, next time it is cold outside, it is harder to defog without using the A/C. Why does this happen?	[ "Unless you live in a desert, it's generally quite humid in the summer and that humidity plus you (you breathe out moisture) means too much humidity and it will condense onto the windshield. Therefore you use your AC to defog in the summer and make sure it's on recirculate. Don't want to keep bringing in humid air ...	[ "Humid air is less dense than dry air, because N2 is 28 amu and O2 is 32 amu, while H2O is 18 amu. This means there's less drag and less lift when the air is humid. To generate the same amount of lift in humid air, an airplane must either fly faster, fly in a more nose high attitude, or fly with flaps. In practice,...
how does déjà vu occur?	[ "It occurs when there is a glitch in the matrix" ]	[ "related question: is it the same way as remembering sights, sounds, and textures? what about other stuff like \"sense of balance\" and \"sense of time\"?" ]
How do fibre optic cables actually work?	[ "On its most basic functionality you can think of it this way: If the light is on, the receiver thinks it is a 1 If the light is off, the receiver thinks it is a 0 How fast can you change states? Depends on the fiber and the devices connected at each side. Basic fiber connections use two fiber strands. One for rece...	[ "_URL_0_ The wikipedia article is excellent and better than any of the answers in here so far. If you have specific parts you don't understand, ask away and I can help explain them to you." ]
What is that falling feeling you get in your stomach when you go down a hill in a car or rollercoaster	[ "Did you ever jump into a cool swimming pool or river or something, and notice after five minutes or so that it's no longer cold? That's because your body 'gets used' to things after a bit. Your body is used to gravity (and in fact evolved to take advantage of gravity). So you don't even notice that your insides.....	[ "Someone correct me if I am wrong but it goes back to when we had much hairier bodies and when alarmed we as well as a lot of other mammals would puff up our hair to make ourselves look bigger. Think of how when you scare a dog or a cat it hunches up and its hair stands on end, same thing happens to us just we dont...
if something has a rechargeable battery that is dead (such as a Gameboy SP), why can't it still be used if a charge cable is plugged into a power source?	[ "Some things don't have a direct path from plug to device. Only from battery to device." ]	[ "Because your laptop requires something around ~~1~~70 watts to operate, and the USB connection only delivers a couple of watts -- maybe 4.5 watts if you use USB 3.0. Simply put, your laptop requires far, far more power than USB was designed to deliver." ]
Why does music have emotional effects on us?	[ "Give me a moment to find a source, but I've heard a lot that major/minor scales correlate to pitch intervals in human speech. We tend to use major (\"happy\") intervals for positive responses, minor (\"sad\") intervals for negative, and perfect fourths or fifths for neutralk responses." ]	[ "I don't have an explanation, but I would suggest that everyone explore other genres, don't just settle for what the radio serves up. Top 40 charts are extremely limiting. [Here's a great tool for exploring](_URL_1_). An acquaintance in college exposed me to electro/ambient, and I've enjoyed it ever since. Also, [t...
Why do we shiver when we pee?	[ "I don't get these at all, but with the regularity of these threads it seems that everyone else in the world does. What gives?" ]	[ "Ecologist here- I can't cite anything specific right now since I'm at work and don't have the time to do research but from a behavior standpoint tapping objects could be from positive reinforcement from a learned behavior. E.g. You're standing in line at a fast food joint waiting for someone to take your order. Y...
Why are printers such a universal pain in the ass?	[ "Now Ben Franklin may have been a little difficult to work with but I hear he was a stand up guy." ]	[ "I do a lot of web dev / product work, the simple answer? The annoying ones work. A beautiful, simple, unobtrusive ad does not get nearly the same clicks. Having something annoying and in your face yields a much higher percentage. For the record I hate them and try to keep our ads tasteful. But there are times whe...
Help explaining some of the pockets of Europe NOT hit by the Black Death	[ "Krakow and Milan both instituted very draconian quarantine procedures early on. I have no idea what happened in the Pyrénées, but it could easily be related to lack of travel in that relatively sparsely populated and mountainous area." ]	[ "I don't know exactly what you mean by \"authentic\". There is no such map dating from the 9th century. The map itself is not very good - it overemphasizes the reach and coherence of a lot of polities. England, for example, doesn't exist, and what did exist certainly didn't look like that. EDIT: After some discussi...
How does alcohol make you confident?	[ "Alcohol is a GABA ~~agonist~~ positive allosteric modulator. This means it affects certain receptors in your brain that modulate \"inhibition\". You brain needs to get excited in order to do things - but it also needs a way to calm down to avoid freaking out in a state of hyperactivity. In general, GABA accomplish...	[ "There are three neurochemical hypotheses as to why someone would experience anxiety: abnormal serotonergic neurotransmission in the CNS, hypoactive GABA receptors in the PNS, and overactivity of Beta-adrenergic receptors in the PNS. The GABA receptor hypoactivity and beta receptor overactivity are primarily respon...
Why does the urge to pee go away for a few minutes if you don't go pee and then come back again?	[ "In an instinctive sense, it's advantageous to have control over those necessary bodily functions. In the wild, an animal may have to take a shit, but if immediate danger is present, the body can wait for quite awhile if necessary. Our bodies adapted to wait for our command if it's request to go potty is denied for...	[ "The human brain is great at recognizing patterns and is very used to making predictions about the environment. For example, due your experience, when you're walking in the street your brain tells you \"people are walking in a certain direction and they're going to keep doing so\". When you experience something new...
The difference between Visa and MasterCard?	[ "It is pretty much Coke and Pepsi. Both provide a network that allows a vendor to get money from the bank that is backing a credit or debit card. Their services are almost identical. While they are almost universally co-accepted in the US, this can vary internationally. My personal experience is I have seen more Ma...	[ "C'mon this is explainlikeimfive Linux - Legos - there are sets you can get or you can just build whatever you want. Might need a manual for some things. Windows - GI Joe - Everyone knows it and there are all kinds of cool accessories for it, but still a GI Joe in the end. Vulnerable to dogs and little ...
how Coke Zero can have 0 calories?	[ "Coke Zero uses an artificial sweetener instead of sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Artifical sweeteners are like sugar, but much sweeter. As a result, you can use less of it. Since you're using less \"sugar\", there are fewer calories in the overall drink. In the case of Coke Zero, the calorie count is 0.75 calo...	[ "What WtheCore said, plus drinks at restaurants are produced by mixing a syrup with carbonated water. Differences in the water used, errors in how much syrup is being used/maintenance and cleaning on the machine can all impact the end result." ]
Since copper has antimicrobial properties, why aren't most medical tools made with it?	[ "Copper is very soft, expensive, and has a tendency to corrode. Compare to stainless steel, which is strong, a lot cheaper, and doesn't corrode. Copper salts are also toxic inside the body, but the main reasons are the other things." ]	[ "The commercial is VERY deceptive but they aren't lying. They are selling a coin plated in 31 mg of gold. That is why they can advertise. I think they actually sell them b/c people don't do their research into gold. They are taking advantage of all the news reports of the increased price of gold. The face value of...

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