Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
How do shops on etsy sell copyrighted characters from companies like Nintendo, Disney, and Marvel?	[ "because the shops are small and these large companies arent trolling through etsy to find their intellectual property, and theyre the ones that have to file the report with etsy to get any action taken. i dont doubt if someone went around and reported all these shops to the respective companies, that most of those...	[ "Depends on the country. Some countries have laws in place that ensure equal service for all providers using the same network, i.e. the network owner aren't allowed to diminish the service in any way for providers who \"rent\" their network. As for your particular example, they're both owned by the same corporation...
Other than, of course, the Civil War, are there any instances of US States going to war with each other?	[ "The [Whiskey Rebellion](_URL_0_) in the early 1790s comes to mind. Essentially, the federal government levied a tax on the production of whiskey. This alienated many settlers on the western frontier who would distill whiskey from excess grain as it was cheaper and easier to transport for sale. Tensions escalated i...	[ "The Nicole Etcheson book was offered by the History Book Club when it first came out. It was the first serious historical work on the topic of Bleeding Kansas in thirty years, when it was published, back in 2004. Amazon still has a paper back edition for sale, but the History Book Club no longer stocks the hard co...
How much coffee would I need to add to a cup of water for it to have no net hydration?	[ "You would probably have to measure that level in your own body. It wouldn't be the same between different people or in the same person on different days. However, the [dehydrating effects of caffeinated drinks](_URL_0_) appears to be exaggerated in popular culture. One of the google hits was a scientific publica...	[ "Incidentally, this is the problem that _URL_0_ is trying to solve. Here is the map of the overall plan: _URL_1_ There is enough solar energy in the Sahara desert in 6 hours to power the entire world in 1 year. From the Sahara, they plan on connecting Europe with underwater high voltage direct current lines. The p...
How is a microwave able to warm up food but not things like plastics, papers, glasses, etc.?	[ "Microwave oven work through something called Dielectric Heating. It only works on stuff that is made of a Dielectric Material. When a dielectric material is in a magnetic field, the molecules turn to face the direction of the field. A microwave from the viewpoint of a stationary molecule is a rapidly changing m...	[ "There are a few different technologies. I assume you are thinking of the touch screen on your phone screen. That works because the screen is electrified just a little bit, not enough for you to even notice. When you touch the screen it messes up the electrical field. The computer can measure how the field changes ...
Why arent there different colors of humans? (I mean beyond black, white and other ones that are currently everywhere)	[ "As No_Easy_Buckets said \"Variance in skin color is due to a thing called melanin.\"; but one thing to bare in mind is that humans really kind of naked mammals. Most mammals have fur or hair covering their bodies. If you consider our hair color and imagine humans being covered with hair then you might have the ran...	[ "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." ]
Why cant we just make up a number when we divide by 0 by 0	[ "You could define it to be anything you want, but such a definition isn't very useful. Suppose that you decided to define multiplication in such a way that zero has an inverse. Then for any number x you would have: x=x\\1 (multiplication by 1 has no effect) =x\\(0\\0^-1 ) (00^-1 =1 by assumption) =(x\\*0^-1 )...	[ "I saw a comment on a post earlier than explained it pretty well. Say I have $5, Tom has nothing, and Ted has nothing. If I lend Tom $5, and then Tom lends Ted $5, I am broke. If I borrow $5 from Ted,tv here has been $15 of debt created" ]
What's the worst an identity thief could do if they somehow stole my social security number but nothing else?	[ "Well, if I have your social, I probably also have your name. A quick Internet search would yield your birthday. With those, making a couple small edits to a fake social security card and I can go get your birth certificate. Now I can make a driver's license in your name. With that, I can do pretty much whatever I ...	[ "They basically just keep track of how much energy they provided to the communal grid, and how much their customers drew from the communal grid. They can produce it at a certain price, and prove their customers drew that power out the other side, so it doesn't really matter where the specific electrons came from as...
WTF is a money market account	[ "A money market account is designed to be the safest possible investment account: it is a mutual fund with the entire goal of maintaining $1/share forever. As such, it won't actually return anything, particularly now when interest rates on treasury bonds, the only investment safe enough for such an account, are so ...	[ "In regards to the gun laws in Switzerland...you can have a gun, it's the ammunition which is ludicrously regulated. Also they make more money from their banking and taxation of businesses than they do from income tax if I'm not mistaken." ]
Why ejaculation feels better the longer you last?	[ "Because your brain has more time to \"set things in place\" - orgasms are partly chemical and partly electrical." ]	[ "This is like asking \"why does a fire burn itself out - what's the point of using up all the fuel if it can't sustain itself?\"." ]
How come green lasers make you blind but red lasers don’t?	[ "Any laser can blind you, no matter what the colour is. The colour of a laser is just it's wavelength, what matters when it comes to if a laser can blind you or not is it's wattage. You can have either a low wattage or high wattage laser of any wavelength. Edit: Green lasers can sometimes be more dangerous though ...	[ "1. Even if you are camouflaged (a better word is cryptic) in the visible spectrum for humans, you might not be cryptic in the ultraviolet spectrum. Bees can detect UV light, and many bee-pollinated flowers have UV patterns that indicate \"landing zones\" for the bees. I'm not sure what a specific example would be ...
What is game theory?	[ "Basically, it is the branch of mathematics that quantizes any sort of competitive interaction between more than one person. Examples are pricing strategies, game shows, and most notably the prisoner's dilemma. Each person playing a game has a choice between some finite number of objects, and the combination of cho...	[ "Imagine you have 100 doors, and there is a prize behind one. You pick one door and then 98 others are opened. The prize is either behind your door, or the other one that is unopened. Should you switch? Absolutely, because you had a 1/100 shot of guessing right with your first pick, and a 99/100 chance if you swit...
How effective was playing dead in medieval war and what measures were implemented to combat it?	[ "I'm sorry, I'm not clear what exactly you mean. Is the goal of playing dead to ambush the enemy somehow or is it to escape unharmed? Either way, it would be a fairly risky idea. Medieval soldiers (and locals near the battlefield) saw it as their right to loot the dead and wounded, and would often either kill wound...	[ "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...
Why are text and disclaimers in ads/commercials allowed to be so small?	[ "The FTC governs this. There are not rules on exact fonts or sizes allowed, but the disclaimers must be in the same manner as the offer (ie, if the offer is text, the disclaimer must be in text, if the offer is verbal, the disclaimer must be verbal as well). The standard for being applicable or not is \"is it clear...	[ "I haven't been to the movies in a while, but AFAIK those shorts are all created by novice film enthusiasts. Coke has a contest, and chooses which one(s) to play." ]
What is the "Science" that is being shown in this XKCD comic?	[ "It's the theoretical spectral graph of blackbody radiation of an object at around 2.7 K, as per Planck's Law. It's special because it was at around this temperature that the Universe had cooled sufficiently after the Big Bang to release photons, around 13.8ish billion years ago. Lo and behold, when we found the Co...	[ "If you could drop the counter into the same position in exactly the same way and the game was in exactly the same state then it would fall exactly the same way. However, you can't do that because even though it may seem like you are doing things the same way on the large scale, on the small scale there are very ti...
Inspired by recent meme on r/steam, How does verifying the cache of a steam game (TF2, CS:GO, etc) solve so many problems that could be lengthy fixes?	[ "To explore what cache verification does, it's important to be passingly familiar with a particular concept in computer science: that of the checksum. A file's checksum, briefly, is a small piece of data that a computer can create by looking at the ones and zeroes that make it up. A checksum, then, is sort of lik...	[ "Imagine you want to cook some food. You reach for a recipe book. Not being very brave you go for something simple. You take the eggs and mushrooms and butter and ham out of the fridge, and you follow the instructions carefully. At the end of the process you enjoy your omelette and think \"if I ever want this omele...
Is it accurate to say that France was the leading European power in the 17th-19th centuries? To what do you attribute its ascendancy in the 17th century?	[ "Supplemental Question time. Would it be wrong to go as far to say France was the leading European power from 1453 to 1870?" ]	[ "Guiscard was a Hauteville, and that family had friendly relations with the duke of Normandy. Hautevilles assisted William in his invasion of England. Guiscard moved to the Italian peninsula in 1047, when he was in his early 30s and William was in his late teens. I can't find any documents showing a direct relation...
How come I eat a 1lb. taco and weigh 99 lb. how come I am not 1% taco?	[ "It's all about attitude and confidence. If you believe you are 1% taco and act like you are 1% taco, then you ARE 1% taco." ]	[ "First of all, there are limits to how much is given for free. Usually \"one per visit\", \"one per day\" or \"one per week\". That keeps the costs from getting too prohibitive. The winner could go into a McDonald's, get an ice cream, and had to come back later, and couldn't just sit in the lobby from open to close...
How does Alzheimer's disease work?	[ "Basically it destroys the communication between neurons and destroys the cells. Parts affected are related to memory, as the hippocampus, that’s why memory degrades and yes, it worsen with time, as more neurons are destroyed and other parts of the brain also get affected. I’m sorry for you, this should be a hard p...	[ "It basically has a list, if it doesnt have the answer, it asks other dns servers untill one does, or it figures out that the server doesnt exist" ]
What is the appeal for celebrities to take part in an AmA?	[ "3 main reasons: 1: publicity for their work 2: publicity for a charity 3: they love chatting with fans" ]	[ "hi! not discouraging further discussion here, but fyi, this question has come up a few times, so check out previous responses here: * [What was so great about the Mona Lisa?](_URL_1_) * [Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?](_URL_0_) if you have followup questions on locked posts, ask them here & include the user's use...
How large of an asteroid could we destroy/divert from the earth?	[ "There's quite a lot of variables, the biggest being how much advance warning and the asteroid trajectory. More warning means you can nudge it farther from the earth, making any deviation larger. There's also a difference between something set to skim the atmosphere and something set to impact 45 deg. Speed factors...	[ "Because we are very close relatively speaking in terms of evolution. We are, in a broad sense, not \"very\" different to each other. That's why it's hard. For example, Nicotine (and caffeine) were created by plants to attack insect \"brains\" and those molecules also bind to humans brains. But it can be done!, one...
How is an electron hole anything but a theoretical concept?	[ "It's not really a physical entity but neither is it a purely theoretical concept. The absence of an electron can leave behind a net positive charge in an atom and that space can move as an electron from a neighbouring atom fills the space but leaves the hole in its own atom, which is similar to the positive charge...	[ "If the system before and after tunneling has the same energy, the law is not violated. That's the whole point of tunneling - it doesn't need to acquire more energy and climb that potential well to escape." ]
When did propaganda start？	[ "I'm not trying to write off your question but; It depends on how you want to define propaganda. Does that include coins bearing image or phrase? A statue? A corner stone with your name on it effecting some structure? Using the dictionary definition - a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitud...	[ "This is a broad question do you have a specific time period or place in mind?" ]
Why does 65 mph in a car feel nothing like going 25 mph on a roller coaster?	[ "Acceleration, my friend. Roller coaster accelerate both by changing direction and by changing speed. This creates a strong feeling of acceleration in directions which are atypical for driving on a flat surface. Essentially, you merely aren't used to that kind of motion, so it feels different, and thus exciting." ]	[ "Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't ant...
Would the consequences for an eruption of the Thera Volcano in Santorini today be as dramatic as it was during the Minoan Civilization?	[ "Couple of things. Thera isn't big enough to cause a large eruption now. There is no caldera to collapse, no big lava reservoir, etc... It is a shell of its former self. What causes the extreme violence of island volcanoes (also see [Krakatoa](_URL_0_) in the Pacific) is the sudden mixture of large lava domes and c...	[ "Here are a couple threads on the subject of thorium reactors: * [Is thorium a viable option for supplying energy in America?](_URL_2_) * [whats the truth about thorium reactors? And why doesn't anyone know about them?](_URL_4_) * [Why aren't we using thorium reactors now?](_URL_1_) * [Why don't we have Liquid Fluo...
what is the Origin of the Red Cross symbol used to differentiate medics from other soldiers?	[ "Follow-up question: How well have this symbol been respected since it surfaced, in the various conflicts it was present?" ]	[ "Look up bone wax and bone hemostasis by means of tamponade. Note that it does not cause normal clotting. Bone can bleed very profusely and cannot be cauterised or compressed like tissue. Sailors softened a mixture of beeswax and salicylic in hot water (which also steralised it) and smeared it to block the bleeding...
Why is it hard to make a tight fist just after waking?	[ "Scratch that! This question has been answered [here](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "Entropy man. It takes more energy to keep something \"clean\" or \"arranged\" than it does to let it go to chaos and become a mess. Put a bunch of strings in a box and shake it. Things will get tangled up quickly, and take more time/energy from you to untie/unknot the item(s). User /u/crnaruka answered this best i...
How can charities be used for money laundering?	[ "> but how does that work? Suppose I am going to launder money and I create a charity. I am going to only hire myself as well as some close family and friends to administer this charity, paying them a generous wage. (Yes, charities pay their employees, they are not always volunteers.) In fact it is so generous that...	[ "It's always easier to destroy than to build, and acts of really pure altruism between states are hard to find. (I take it you are looking for state rather than individual actors.) But here are some candidates: * Britain's abolition of the slave trade * The UN eradicating smallpox * Denmark getting the Jews out t...
Does the buildup of massive cities (NYC, Dubai, etc.) impact the wobble / axis of Earth in any discernible way?	[ "No. Big water reservoirs do, however, they have orders of magnitude more mass. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Get a protractor, tape or glue a straw to the straight edge, and tie a weighed down string to the middle. When you get on the plane, look down the straw at a star that you can easily pick out from the night sky (hope you're travelling at night!) and is viewable from both hemispheres, and mark where the string hang...
How is it still considered free speech if they have designated "protest areas"?	[ "It is a hotly debated legal argument. The justification is for keeping the peace or public safety, which is another requirement of government. Under Bush, the idea of \"free speech zones\" was expanded and there are many allegations that protesters are given less access than supporters. This is obviously problemat...	[ "Can you clarify your question? I see a map of a county in AZ detailed with geographic representations, and another map of the town boundaries in MA. You should look at similar maps to compare the 2 [MA](_URL_1_) and [AZ](_URL_3_) If you're asking about the make up of the political boundaries (i.e. Why does AZ not ...
Why are men bigger than women?	[ "Sexual dimorphism reduces mating resistance. Yes, that means what you think." ]	[ "You're eating less than you think, and he's eating more than he claims. He probably does minimal exercise at the gym, and downs a couple of sugary gatorades while he's at it. Both of you start a food diary on _URL_0_ (or anything similar), compare after a few days. You'll see what's really up." ]
Why is it that the longer a piece of taut rope is, the looser it appears to be?	[ "The first part of this answer has to do with pulling a rope truly straight. The amount of force used to \"straighten\" a rope is exponentially higher the closer it gets to completely straight. If you pull on a rope enough to raise it one inch, you have to pull on it twice as hard to raise it the next inch, and fou...	[ "Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't ant...
Howcome i'm getting hungry after a few hours of not eating, even though my body can survive for weeks without food?	[ "If you wait until the point where you are about to actually die of starvation and/or thirst, before you try to obtain more food or water, you have put yourself in a needlessly dangerous situation. In economic terms, it would be the equivalent of deciding that until such time as your bank account is zero and your w...	[ "This phenomenon is called the \"Pain Gate Theory\". When you injure yourself, pain signals travel from the site of injury to your brain. When you do something else to that part of the body, for example rubbing it with your hand, this also sends signals to your brain. However, because both signals are coming fr...
How do you perform CPR and give compressions to a person who has fractured his chest bones?	[ "In a situation when a person actually needs CPR a beating heart takes precedence over anything else even a fractured sternum/ribs. if the ribs puncture your lung and give you a pneumothorax, they can still fix you up later, but if the heart stop beating only for 5 minutes your brain cells will start to become necr...	[ "Now that I think about it, you could calculate the effects to get a very rough idea of what would happen. I could try if you want, but I would need you to answer pretty much only a single question: What is the yield of the device? Using that I can calculate the probable internal pressure of the block, a rough est...
Why is it "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" instead of just "life, liberty, and happiness"? What makes "the pursuit of" so important that it needs to be included?	[ "> What is the meaning of \"the pursuit of\" anyways? To \"pursue\" means \"To aim for, go after (a specified objective, situation etc.)\". So \"the pursuit of happiness\" means \"striving to reach a state of happiness\". > What difference does it make if it was left out, if any? To say that you are entitled of \...	[ "The \"sincere intentions\" of the Japanese Imperialists were similar to those of any other expansionist imperialist power. The Imperialists honestly believed, or convinced themselves they believed, that expanding the Japanese demesne would be good for both the Japanese people and those they were conquering. The pr...
Why are injuries not passed onto future offspring like some conditions are?	[ "Injuries don't have any effect on your DNA and aren't contagious so you can't pass them on. They're one time incidents. Using your examples, in scenario 1, the child being born is taking genetic information from mom and dad, so he has a risk of getting dad's condition. In scenario 2, the child does not take any ge...	[ "Short version: evolution and natural selective pressures don't care that we've figured out how to do blood transfusions." ]
How do frost free fridges work?	[ "The cooling plate is the back panel, which doesn't get cold enough to freeze. Condensation runs down the back panel and is caught in a gutter, lead through the back into a pipe which leads to a method of evaporating the condensate. Either a hat on top of the compressor, which gets hot while it's running, or I've s...	[ "Much of the ice is locked up on land and not free floating. The Greenland Ice Sheet for instance: _URL_0_" ]
If light has no mass, than how can it be sucked into black holes?	[ "Historically, gravity was thought of as a force between massive objects. Einstein's theory of general relativity trumped that with the idea that gravity is actually caused by the interaction between space and something called the \"stress-energy tensor\", which basically measures the density of energy (of which ma...	[ "Because gravity isn't actually a force that acts between two massive bodies (though that's a very good approximation, for the most part). It's what happens when mass and energy curve spacetime. When spacetime is curved, anything that tries to travel on a straight line will end up on a curved path, and we see tha...
How do you tame a wild animal?	[ "All of the domesticated animals became that way because we selected the most docile specimens of the species and bred them over a number of generations, selecting again the most docile for each new generation. Depending on the lifetime of the particular animal this can take many years. In a tightly controlled expe...	[ "A woman named Frances Wright did something like what you are asking in 1824. In Memphis, TN she bought two thousand acres of land from Andrew Jackson and would buy slaves. On this land she set up a co-operative labor system where they could basically work off their price of purchase and then they would be set free...
Why can fighter pilots pass out from doing intense turns with high amounts of g-forces?	[ "* Your brain needs the right amount of oxygen in order to work properly. * Oxygen travels to the brain in your blood. * When under high g-forces, blood is either forced down to your legs, away from your head (causing a \"black out\"), or up into your head from the rest of your body (causing a \"red out\"). * An ox...	[ "Our brains didn't evolve with cars in mind. They evolved with, like, being hunted by a jaguar (or whatever) in mind. So your brain doesn't know what to do with a car. It thinks hey, we're sitting, our body's not really doing anything physical, there's very little activity or stimulus... this seems like a good time...
Why putting your elbow on the table is considered bad manners.	[ "Putting your elbows on the table takes up space and blocks you (and everyone on either side of you) from conversation. It's harder for people to talk to everyone if someone is leaning forward onto the table; they'd have to lean backwards in order to speak around you." ]	[ "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 did small countries like Liechtenstein or Malta avoid being absorbed into larger countries?	[ "For those two countries, the answer is that they didn't. Neither became fully independent until the twentieth century. Liechtenstein is a rather funny case. It was originally the personal property of an aristocratic Austrian family. They bought it in order to qualify for a seat on the Imperial diet of the Holy Rom...	[ "There are lots of ways for animals to traverse the earth, not to be trite. Addressing your specific example, this wiki. _URL_1_ Indonesia was at one time linked to the rest of the islands in that part of the world, when sea levels were lower due to so much water being bound up in polar glaciers. When the glaciers...
why are cell phones starting to favor a design that does not support replaceable batteries?	[ "Because it allows phones to be a tiny fraction of an inch thinner, and that's all the rage these days. It makes the whole phone need to be replaced when the battery goes bad rather than the easier/cheaper option of just replacing the battery. It make the phone slightly sturdier. It allows for packing components...	[ "The election system in the United States leads itself towards two dominant parties. That isn't based on bad politicians, or bad media, or bad voters, it's a simple fact of the system. No third party has risen up enough to upset the balance and replace one of the two primary parties." ]
The purpose of a $1 salary	[ "It's a tradition among the tech giants in silicon valley to have a $1 a year salary. They own such a big share of the company they are worth billions so putting them on a $200k/year salary is stupid because it's in their best intentions to make the company work." ]	[ "> Basu (2006) argues that the prevalence of 99 cent prices in shops can be explained with rational consumers who disregard the rightmost digits of the price. This bounded rational behaviour leads to a Bertrand equilibrium with positive markups. We use data from an Austrian price comparison site and results highly ...
Yo, what made spears more effective than halberds?	[ "I'd recommend the reply from /u/WARitter [here](_URL_0_). It doesn't directly answer your question, but it addresses both the spear and halberd, including historically when one became favored over the other. More generally, when you're looking at a superlative like \"most effective in history,\" there are a lot of...	[ "New answers are always welcome here, but while waiting for them, you may be interested in reading these old threads: * [How did European late medieval/early renaissance pike squares compare to classical phalanxes? Going head to head, would a phalanx of Athenian hoplites stand a chance against a square of Swiss pik...
Would a Helicopter work in space?	[ "No. But, assuming you could get the engine to run in a vacuum, it would spin itself around in a potentially entertaining manner." ]	[ "A lot of experiments to see what happens when there is little to no gravity going on. How it affects human body, how it affects, plants, animals, bacteria, equipement ect. It's also much easier to set up experiments that require very cold temperatures or very low pressures. [Here's a list.](_URL_0_)" ]
What kind of clouds are these and why are they shaped like that?	[ "They are called[ mammatus clouds](_URL_0_). The reason they are shaped like that is largely a mystery, but the link has lots of theories. Apologies if this isn't a good enough answer, but I figured I might as well since there's no answer yet." ]	[ "That picture is taken from the shadow of Jupiter. You're seeing the \"night\" side of Jupiter, except for a tiny curve of \"twilight\" Jupiter." ]
Why is it that when I'm super tired, sometimes like yesterday, I don't even really remember hitting the pillow. Other times, like today, I have to sit there for a hour or so before I even fall asleep? I feel like I was just as tired today as I was yesterday	[ "Stress. Stress is keeping you up awake at night, until you become so sleep deprived your body forces you to be knocked out." ]	[ "Sleep: the computer is still \"on\" but in a low-power state so that it can resume normal operation within a few seconds. Usually you'll just wiggle the mouse or press a key, and by the time your screen warms up the computer is good to go. Hibernate: the computer is \"off\" but saves its working state to the hard ...
I've heard that one of the Popes issued a ban on crossbows at one point for use in fighting other Christians. How effective was this ban, and how effective was the crossbow at the time when compared to the longbow?	[ "I can't tell you about the implementation of the ban, but I can tell you its source. The Second Lateran Council--Canon 29 to be precise--under Pope Innocent II in 1139 banned the use of crossbows against Christians. The below seems to be the agreed-upon translation: > We prohibit under anathema that murderous art...	[ "Define “useful”. If useful takes criteria like economical or efficient into account, then no. Any cutting or destruction the LHC is capable of is done more easily/efficiently by more traditional methods. Do realize, this is a machine that requires insane amounts of energy to operate. The proton beam could penetr...
Have there been societies where the husband was absorbed into the wife's family rather than wife into husband's? Where children were considered primarily part of the mother's family rather than the fathers?	[ "Yes. The term you're looking for is either \"matrilocality\" or \"matrilinearity,\" depending on which angle you're actually interested in. Wikipedia has a short article on matrilocality, _URL_0_ (which also has a link to \"matrilineal\"). Briefly, the difference has to do with physical residence vs. family membe...	[ "The female pelvis is flatter, more rounded and proportionally larger to assist childbirth. The sacrum (back of the pelvis) also shorter, wider and angled backwards for the same reason. The female waist-hip ratio contributes to hip sway when walking in order to balance the weight. Men sway, though less. Having a w...
How can 'artists' put out cover versions of songs yet not fall foul of copyright?	[ "Because there's something called a mandatory license that basically says that anyone can make a cover song by paying a legally set rate to the copyright owner. The copyright owner doesn't have the ability to prevent it as long as they pay the license fee. This only applies once the song has been published by someo...	[ "There are a lot of people in the world who don't care about laws, or the laws of other countries, or the property rights of other people. For example if you stole a piece of art from someone in England that a wealthy member of the royal family in Saudi Arabia wanted they probably don't care at all that it was stol...
Two part question, Xpost with askreddit: What would be the lowest population that the earth could have and maintain modern technology? What would be the optimum world population?	[ "Impossibru. But in all seriousness, this is at best a wild guess, at worst, simply impossible to give a semi-reasonable answer without doing an immense amount of conjecture based research unless you place some VERY specific stipulations on optimums. Pardon the top level reply, as it's not strongly based on sources...	[ "Let's say you're a game developer, and you wanted to give out codes for people to get into the beta of your game. You decide to do this by giving access to one person to start, and then every Friday everyone in the program can invite 4 friends. So on the initial day, you only have 1 person playing. But after the 1...
Why every year thousands of people call for an independent investigation into 9/11 and it never happens?	[ "[There was an independent 9/11 commission that performed an investigation.](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "> how it really amounts to a bunch of bologna I don't have an answer, but I do need to point out that bologna = lunch meat. Baloney = nonsense." ]
why is there conflict in Syria?	[ "Terrorist groups and rebel groups are trying to overthrow the government. The terrorists (including Al Qaeda in Syria) and rebels are funded by the US Government to buy weapons. Syrian government is killing them with guns paid for by Russia. This is what is called a proxy war, and neither nation ever learns their ...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why eating Sushi is healthy and safe and why other raw meats can't achieve this.	[ "It all depends on the likelihood of parasites and how the meat was handled. There's nothing wrong with raw beef, for example. The problem with raw chicken is that it's often contaminated with salmonella and raw pork can have trichinosis. Cooking is necessary to kill those pathogens. They could theoretically be oka...	[ "Basically, the nukes we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very small nukes (compared to what we have at our disposal today) and, while they DID cause radioactive fallout, they caused a (relatively) small amount of it, and it is no longer dangerous to live there - but it WAS dangerous for many years after the ...
Why drinking different spirits makes you more drunk than sticking to one?	[ "> Why drinking different spirits makes you more drunk than sticking to one? It doesn't. There's definitely a psychosomatic effect at play: If you think you're supposed to be more drunk, you'll actually feel more drunk. But mixing different types of alcohol has no impact on your actual level of inebriation (assumin...	[ "Your body can only process a certain amount of water within a certain amount of time. Anything extra gets pushed through the system faster. Think of it like putting a bucket under a faucet and another bucket under a waterfall. Your body can only process one bucket at a time, so even though the waterfall will fill...
Why are some allergies so common, like peanuts?	[ "Because parents have made peanut allergies more prevalent by not giving peanuts to their kids because they're scared they have a peanut allergy." ]	[ "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." ]
It's a major element of the American Dream that in the US, anybody can 'make it big', start from nothing and make their fortune; how much class mobility was there really in the 19th and 20th centuries in the US? Did it stand out, in comparison to Europe over the same period?	[ "Follow up question (please don't delete) how influential were nobility titles on economic upward mobility in the Europe of that same time?" ]	[ "Post-Roman England? Anglo-Saxon England? Viking England? Norman England? England of the Magna Carta? Late Medieval Elizabethan England? The middle ages stretched almost a thousand years with a lot of different societal, cultural and religious differences in that time. Regardless, we have no evidence that ethnicity...
How much of (Breaking Bad Spoilers) Hank's investigation in the final season of Breaking Bad was actually legal, and provided evidence which could be used in court?	[ "Hank would surely fudge some of the particulars in charging documents, but he had Walt's co conspirator willfully record a video confession implication Walt in all sorts of crimes. None of that was really evidence, but that combined with fact that they (come up with some defensible reason to follow him) trailed Wa...	[ "Hola will put itself between your computer and your destination. So instead of computer - Internet - destination (and the way back) The following will happen: Computer - Internet - hola server - Internet - destination (same on the way back) Your destination believes your request comes from US (or somewhere el...
How do dynastys/nations/empires fall? How did the most powerful geopolitical force in your era collapse? Was it an avoidable mistake, or a flaw inherent in the culture?	[ "It really depends on how you want to define power but lets go with the Mongol Empire because they're always fun. By the time they stopped expanding the Mongols had developed into an extremely complex and sophisticated commercial empire. Vital to maintaining their strength and influence were various trade stations ...	[ "Hi there, those interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So ...
Can someone explain, with specific examples, the argument for why baby boomers are ruining the economy?	[ "The big one is not saving for retirement. That means they will work longer, which in turn means younger generations will not be entering the workforce or being promoted as quickly as if the boomers had the money to retire and create a job opening." ]	[ "In addition to everything here, the Romans were the first ones to begin writing everything down. I mean these guys recorded everything even some really obscure things. It's really easy to study Latin and compare it to other European languages because it influenced everything and it's conveniently written down." ...
Where do flies actually go for the winter?	[ "When I was a house painter, I found a shit ton of flies under some flaking paint In really cold climates, I believe they die and the eggs they left behind hatch in the spring" ]	[ "Our built up immunity can last a really long time... against viruses that don't change / evolve very much (like polio, chickenpox, etc.). But the cold and flu are constantly changing, they're like viruses on crack cocaine just constantly on the move and lookin' for that next high (in this case, the high would be i...
I'm a Soviet citizen in the 1930s, the NKVD search my home and find forbidden western literature, what happens to me?	[ "Some questions to clarify OP's premise: Did the NKVD do regular searches of civilian homes or would there have had to be suspicion of a crime? Would that suspicion need to be based on anything substantial? And what qualifies as \"forbidden Western literature\"?" ]	[ "Depends on the state. [Each state has different statutes governing this] (_URL_0_). Also, several states have no statutes at all, meaning that if you get wrongfully convinced there, you have no automatic right to recourse. I believe (but am not 100% on it) that you can take the state to civil court, but obviously,...
Is Chaos Theory more theory or hypothesis?	[ "Theory does not exclusively mean scientific theory. Group theory cannot be tested experimentally either, but studying group structures is useful and all the theorems of group theory are certainly true (as true as any other theorem in math anyway). Chaos theory is with regards to certain behaviours exhibited by non...	[ "There is a controversial claim that a cold spot in the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) may be evidence of a parallel universe: _URL_2_" ]
Theoritically, would some sort of insect species be able to evolve human like caracteristics like Intelligence, society, etc?	[ "Well, they have societies of sorts, but none of them are really aware of it. And human-like intellect would require a human size brain (or at least a pretty big one). And arthropods (at least on land) are severely restricted in size. Their exoskeleton structure can only hold so much. And I believe that most of th...	[ "Basically, you have to be weaker if you want the kind of fine muscle control we have. Chimps and gorillas physically could not do the kinds of things we can do with our hands - sculpture, art, writing, etc. - because of the way their muscles are attached to their bones. They have better leverage because their an...
Ancient egypt and ancient egypt	[ "There's always room for discussion, but perhaps this previous topic from a few days ago will answer your inquiry. * [China was founded by ancient Egypt? Can someone explain this for me?](_URL_0_) by /u/Tiako" ]	[ "Not to discourage any further answers, but these older posts are worth a read: [Is Plato's Critias the only historical text to mention Atlantis?](_URL_2_) [Did Greeks of Plato's time (or later) think that Atlantis had actually existed in the past?](_URL_1_) By /u/XenophontheAthenian This [answer](_URL_0_) by /u/...
Why does Earth have an axial tilt?	[ "It's unlikely that we'll ever know for sure. But one theory is that something rather large hit the Earth in the distant past. It's possible that this collision is what created the moon." ]	[ "Do the best with what you have. Florida and California are US launch sites because they are good enough. There's certainly an advantage to an equator launch, but logistically and practically its far easier to launch from home... and cheaper! Baikonur (Kazakhstan) fits a similar idea... although being the USSR's la...
Why do computers sometimes move slowly?	[ "I don't have time to give you the whole story but a common reason is that the computer is \"blocking\", is, waiting for a resource. Say you have two programs running, and both need access to the hard disk. The disk can only change one thing on the disk at a time and it takes time to move the head from one place to...	[ "Imagine you're trying to find a coffee shop in a city. If you've been there recently, it should be pretty easy to find. If it's been 10 years since you've been to the coffee shop or the city, it might take you a LONG time to find. It also might take long to find if you've been to other, similar coffee shops in the...
Want to check if your answer is appropriate for a 5 year old audience? Use this simple tool to measure grade level of your writing.	[ "Thanks! Alternatively, you can calculate an actual grade level of readibility (e.g. 7th grade, 9th grade [US System]) by using the [Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula](_URL_0_). I don't know any good calculators for this online, but I do know you can calculate it instantly by pasting the text into Microsoft Office...	[ "Wix and other builders limit you to technologies and controls that they create. Sometimes you can customize a few things here and there, but a good comparison is vehicles. You know those playskool cars everyone had as a kid (I'm taking ELI5 literally)? [Of course you do.](_URL_1_) Now compare that to an actual man...
Before 1950, have experts ever conceived that goods could be intangible?	[ "How do you mean by tangible? For centuries before 1950, you could buy stock or hold a patent. While there was a piece of paper affirming your ownership of the stock or patent, it merely represented an intangible idea." ]	[ "hi! you may be interested in this post * [Why are the Swiss renowned chocolatiers?](_URL_0_) and perhaps also this one * [To what extent did tropical stimulants (coffee, tea, tobacco, chocolate...) have an impact on European industrialization?](_URL_1_) Meanwhile, since posts on popular food items tend to attract ...
Is there a possibility that a giant "magnet" planet may exist? If so, how would it behave?	[ "Will you settle for tiny magnet stars instead? There are 21 known [magnetars](_URL_0_), a type of neutron star with an immensely powerful magnetic field. Their magnetic fields measure at 10^8 tesla or more, in comparison to neodymium magnet's 1.25 tesla. I wouldn't recommend landing on one though. Not only is the...	[ "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...
why weren't crossbows used in the musket era? It seems like they'd be more effective.	[ "Crossbows require considerable physical strength to reload, and are very heavy and hard to aim without at least months of training. They also don't work when wet or covered in mud, and taking them apart to clean them isn't a one-man job. Muskets are easier to aim, shoot faster (and are thus more lethal), lighter, ...	[ "BTW, for those that are downvoting this question, I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to explain the motivation. On reddit in general I could care less if something I write gets downvoted, but here in askHistorians it decreases the chances something I ask will get answered so if I am breaking some sor...
What happens inside they body that cause hiccups? Also is there a way of actually getting rid of them?	[ "The sudden involuntary snapping shut and opening of your diaphragm is what causes hiccups. I'm not really sure about the ways to cure then but I've heard sugar helps" ]	[ "The reaction to thinking things you don't want to think is generally along the lines of \"no, don't think that.\" Since talking to yourself is associated with crazy people, most people don't say anything out loud. But because they're trying to overcome a negative thought using just willpower, extra \"force\" gener...
Why do we have the capacity to feel 'moved' by extraordinary art/music/literature?	[ "There are a lot of scientific answers here; I think a quote from Peter Ustinov's character in the movie \"History Boys\" might also shed some light on it: [\"The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to...	[ "Imagine every time you eat something, a large burly man appears in front of you and dances a burlesque routine. Without fail, this goes on for several years. Soon you fail to even think that this rotund mustachioed man is anything out of the ordinary. After all, every time you even begin to take a bite of somethin...
Why do the words "first" and "second" sound nothing like "one" and "two" when all other numbers do?	[ "First comes from Old English. Second comes from Latin through Old French. One and two come from Old English too. But these numbers sound pretty similar even in other indoeuropean languages, the common roots show. Note that the word \"prime\" can be used in a similar way as first, e.g. \"my prime concern is xyz\"...	[ "Because most people will see it as a lower value. Just like stuff are advertised for 19.99 and a lot of people will think of that as \"less than twenty.\" 3.699 gets rounded in people's heads as three-sixty, not three-seventy. In a couple of days you can train your self to see the real value, 19.99 actually means ...
You're on a train and it crashes. Is it better to be in a forward facing or a rear facing seat?	[ "It's better to be facing backwards (this applies in planes as well). Either way, you're basically going to be decelerating instantaneously. The difference is where the force is applied. When facing backwards, the force is distributed across your entire back and it keeps all of your body parts held in stable positi...	[ "We use a frame of reference where the cosmic microwave background has no velocity, which is about 600 km/s from the velocity of the Sun. This is the \"CMB rest frame\". In practice, most galaxies, stars, and planets move at < 1000 km/s relative to each other, so relativistic effects are so small that they're compl...
How do nutritionists know that something has zero calories?	[ "There is an instrument called a bomb calorimeter. Its just a relatively closed system that is filled with pure oxygen so that you can burn stuff. After you are done burning stuff you see how much energy went into raising the temperature of the water around the sample." ]	[ "In 0 gravity astronauts have to be careful about what they have in space [like the corned beef sandwich that almost got everyone killed](_URL_0_). The suits they wear don't have any fluff or other weird things that can fly off the fabric and get into the electronics and cause problems." ]
Why are women less likely to become scientists?	[ "I'll let HonestAbeRinkin write out a more complete answer, but it comes down to a few things: 1. Sexism. 2. A tradeoff between having babies and pursuing a scientific career. 3. Cultural attitudes about the manliness or ungirliness of certain sciences. All of these are changing for the better, as is the representa...	[ "_URL_2_ columnist William Saletan waded into this issue several years ago with similar questions to yours. Here's an article posted AFTER his initial article and several followups, all of which can be reached via links within the article. It's an interesting journey with commentary from psychologists, statistician...
What is a powerhouse of a cell?	[ "\"Powerhouse\" is an outdated term for \"place where energy is created.\" Today the term \"power plant\" is probably better, but for some reason the term Powerhouse of the Cell is still in use. \"Powerhouse of the cell\" refers to the part of the cell where energy is generated for the cell to use. We're talking ab...	[ "I usually explain it to my friends using phones: & nbsp; Switch - You can call anyone in your area code but can't get anyone outside of your area code. & nbsp; Router - You can call people in your area code(switch), but anything not in your area code is forwarded from the switch to the router. The Router can for...
What was the largest advantage that one civilization held over the rest of the world in military technology at any time?	[ "The Hitties had the advantage of iron in the bronze age. Once should note it wasn't steel and poor iron likely not as good for arms and armor as good bronze. The main advantage of iron was that it was much more readily availiable in the area, therefore you could field a much greater number of troops." ]	[ "In addition to everything here, the Romans were the first ones to begin writing everything down. I mean these guys recorded everything even some really obscure things. It's really easy to study Latin and compare it to other European languages because it influenced everything and it's conveniently written down." ...
Why is army camouflage pixelated when that’s the polar opposite design of any natural environment that you would be trying to blend in with??	[ "Apparently, it takes twice as long to notice a person in digital camouflage than it does the old camo pattern. See _URL_1_, especially [this photo](_URL_0_) As one expert says, large blotchy patterns work best for long distances and small patterns work best up close. Digital camo uses both." ]	[ "They used to not be able to read the warped text. Processing plain text and processing an image of text are different. And since the image is distorted it cant figure out the word in the text. Some newer captchas ask you to select from a set of images. Now the computer would have to analyze each image for the item...
Can +∞ cancel out -∞ and vice versa?	[ "Imagine I have infinite hotel rooms and give you all of them, I'd have 0 left and you've have infinite. Imagine I have infinite hotel rooms and give you all of them except for the first 7, I'd have 7 left and you've have infinite. Imagine I have infinite hotel rooms and give you all of the odd ones, I'd have inf...	[ "Also need to take into account power plays You get a + if you are on the ice for an even strength or short handed goal (your team scores while short handed) You get a - if you are on the ice for even strength or short handed goal (your team on power play and gets scored on)" ]
Why are revolver type pistols still popular during our modern time? what advantage do they have over clip based more modern designs?	[ "The biggest advantage is they can fire long or very powerful cartridges that would require a massive grip or don't work well in [blowback or short recoil operation](_URL_2_) most semi-automatics use. Gas operation used in rifles and the [Desert Eagle](_URL_2_) (a semi-auto that shoots pretty standard revolver cali...	[ "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...
Why do "fringe" political parties field candidates when there is no hope of winning. I give you Arizona 2018. As of now, 1% difference in the Senate race and the Green Party has 2% of the vote.	[ "Some people disagree with democrats and republicans. There have been more than just those 2 parties in history, and sometimes they win. People are sometimes idealists who believe they should vote for what/who they truly believe in, instead of picking the lesser of two evils. This doesnt always work out, but it sho...	[ "Experimental Pharmacologist, infectious disease. If taught med students on this. Its fairly standard in theory but in practice some tend to ignore the guidelines. The theory is, you use as much information as you can to predict; Sepsis with skin infection - mostly likely gram + 50-60% chance of S. aureus, 5-10% St...
Why are Unix like operating systems so appreciated? What are the day to day advantages over other operating systems?	[ "They're built around tools that do one thing, but do it exceedingly well. To use a very broad analogy, Windows is like cooking with a large swiss army knife. Unix is like cooking with discrete tools." ]	[ "I have a chackboard with 100 words written on it. You ask me to delete every word that starts with A which there are 6 words. They're written randomly on the chalk board. I need to search for the words, and then neatly delete the words without deleting anything nearby. But you instead asked me to delete everythin...
How can a digital clock drift in accuracy?	[ "There are 2 main ways digital clocks keep time: 1) not really used but by counting the A/C inversions in standard household power, it typically runs at 50 or 60hz so you can simply count a certain number of inversions and roll over a second. Why is this inaccurate? because 50 and 60 is a target, depending on load ...	[ "I use Android, but it does the same thing. I think it just uses GPS to figure out where you spend time everyday and makes an educated guess." ]
How does eating food rich in vitamin C improve the immunity in once body to diseases?	[ "Short answer: it doesn't, unless you happen to have a vitamin C deficiency, in which case taking vitamin C supplements (naturally in your food or supplements) will restore your body's natural defence mechanisms. Taking vitamin C will change nothing in a healthy human being with a balanced diet. Also, for what it's...	[ "Really, it was very hard to keep fruit from going bad, even when dried it could mold in the heat and humidity of an ocean voyage. That's why Captain Cook was so pleased with sauerkraut on his voyage: it kept well and prevented scurvy. The rest is pretty straightforward: salted meat in barrels, flour or biscuits s...
If Mars’ atmosphere is primarily Carbon Dioxide, why isn’t it succumbing to the green house effect that we’re trying to avoid on our planet (by limiting CO2)?	[ "There is a greenhouse on Mars caused by the predominantly CO2 atmosphere, but it's relatively small because the atmosphere is so thin. For the three planets that experience a significant greenhouse effect, the amount of warming is strongly a function of how thick the atmosphere is: - The expected global tempera...	[ "we would have to start out in protective domes first. but the plans for long term colonization include terraforming, which is a fancy word for planet engineering. elon musk recently said the fastest way to get that done would be by nuking the polls. the slow way would be to introduce plant life or algae to make ox...
how much better can a food advertisement look than the actual food before it's considered false advertising?	[ "The food advertisement doesn't even have to be a picture of the food. There's nothing on it that actually says \"oh BTW, this is actually a picture of what we're selling\". The iconic milk commercial with the close-up of the milk flowing out all slow-motion out of the glass is actually full-speed watered-down scho...	[ "Adam Ruins Everything did an episode related to this, and they show their sources on screen Here's a clip: _URL_0_" ]
What is the clear fluid that fills a bilster (from heat or pressure) and what is it's purpose?	[ "It's usually plasma, which is the liquid part of blood that the red and white cells are suspended in. It helps the healing process of the underlying damaged skin." ]	[ "This occurs for the same reason why the hottest part of the day is usually around 3 PM. To picture this, imagine a pot of water on the stove as the earth and the fire beneath the pot as the sun. The flame is set on high like the months of June during the solstice until the water's temperature reaches 50C. Then, li...
Why does the pink insulation in houses make you itchy?	[ "Have you ever broken a glass and you get those tiny (almost microscopic) shards of glass under your skin? You can feel that they are there, and it is a mix of itchy and maybe some slight discomfort? Same thing for the insulation. It has tiny shards of glass in it." ]	[ "I actually applied for a job doing this exact thing a couple years ago. What they did, was to have the contractor send the reasearch facility a small sample of the wall, which was prepared and studied under a [Scanning electron microscope](_URL_0_). Known as a SEM, these types of microscopes bombards your sample w...
How are proteins and complex structures encoded into our DNA?	[ "DNA is shaped like a ladder, with 4 types of rung. When a certain protein is needed, the ladder comes apart, and each rung attracts a certain kind of rung from a type of half ladder called RNA. These RNA rungs link together and float off to a factory called a ribosome. This is called [Transcription](_URL_0_) In th...	[ "This video by Numberphile explains Encryption fairly well. Not exactly what you are asking but it might help non the less as it does touch on why primes and factoring help with the process. Edit: [A link to the video might be handy](_URL_0_) The key is that there is a number, an astonishingly huge number (Twitter...
If the current British royalty is descended from William of Orange, King of Hanover, why is the current Queen also the ruler of Hanover?	[ "William was of Orange, not Hanover - that was George I. William III & II came in as half of William and Mary, but it was his wife Mary II who was the heir. They died without issue, leaving the throne to Anne, Mary II's sister. There was no [directly succeeding Stadtholder](_URL_0_) in the Netherlands. Anne also di...	[ "Origin of Rajputs are still somewhat debated, although the rise and fall of the Hepthalites is associated with the term. It might be that once the Hepthalites were defeated, the prominent tribes were accepted into the Hindu fold as higher caste kshatriyas, i.e. Rajputs. Other associated tribes like Jats and Gurjar...
How does the TSA decide when or when not to display "TSA Precheck" on my boarding pass?	[ "It has nothing to do with TSA. The airline issuing the boarding pass controls whether the TSA precheck comes up....you need to register your TSA precheck account with each airline." ]	[ "Ha, I wrote a paper on this once. If I had to boil it down to one cause... I would say its the fact that in the US railroad infrastructure is (mostly) owned by private companies, which is fairly unique in the world. The US has the most sophisticated and impressive freight railroad transportation in the world (thin...
Did they make paper airplanes before Wright brothers?	[ "Like someone else said, it was asked before. [Here's a link!](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "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." ]
Why is it that hot or even warm water causes our sunburns to hurt more?	[ "Hot water increases blood flow to the skin. More blood means more sensitivity, more sensitivity means more pain." ]	[ "Red heads have a mutation in their MC1R (Melanocortin 1 receptor) that stops it functioning. Normally this receptor is involved in the UV response pathway that causes melanin producing cells to switch from red/lighter pheomelanin to darker eumelanin. As a result redheads cannot tan." ]
Can you drown someone with water vapor?	[ "The maximum humidity at ambient temperature is still only a small percentage, nowhere near close to enough to start displacing oxygen. You could do it with water above its boiling point, but drowning is the least of your concerns then." ]	[ "If you make enough of it, yeah, it is expected to form an anti-H2 molecule. Experimentally, as far as I am aware the record confinement is 309 anti-hydrogen atoms for 1,000 seconds ([link](_URL_0_)). This [recent paper](_URL_1_) from ALPHA has some more info about the current methods using for generating anti hyd...
how come we have Latin phrases in the English language?	[ "For many centuries Latin was the only language that was commonly understood across many areas/countries/royal domains in Europe. It was used as a religious as well as an academic and sciences language. It was little spoken outside of church but much written and read by those with an education. As a result of cen...	[ "because we make loopholes for everything we wanted to do anyways, we invent our vices to justify our virtues" ]
Why are most large explosions compared to how much TNT it is equivalent to?	[ "Explosives used to consist of lots of different mixtures, and it was hard to express just how much energy would be released with a particular explosive. They weren't very consistent. Trinitrotoluene is one chemical that explodes via a predictable chemical reaction: a certain amount of TNT always corresponds to a c...	[ "I'm a journalist. I can tell you straight up : it's for audience. These videos create shock, which is the best hook television news has over the viewer. The whole ethics speech they'll give you about people having the right to see it is BS. Television is a business, news or not, sadly. This is even more true in th...
It's 1900 or so, and I'm a "proper," accredited historian with a thorough education and an extensive knowledge of the sources available to me. What's the biggest misconception I have about the past, from a modern perspective?	[ "Would a historian back then also have huge differences from us in terms of what archaeological data he had? I know technology played a big role in terms of our gaining raw data about ancient history, but I don't know what was discovered then. How big would the gap between our understanding of ancient cultures and ...	[ "Around the time that people started thinking that an old-timey hat would seriously make them look extra-classy and respectable. They definitely do look cool, but only in the same way that a necktie looks cool. You can't wear it with a gamer t-shirt and expect people to treat you like Frank Sinatra." ]
In court cases, how is someone banned from the internet, forever?	[ "People can be banned from lots of things. Someone might be banned from driving, for example. But that doesn't stop him from borrowing a friend's car, physically getting behind the wheel, and driving off. What it does mean, is that if he gets caught driving, he's likely to get a hefty fine or a spell in prison (a...	[ "These shows are always a bit of fun and play creatively with the truth. Indeed ballistics isn't as cut and dried as \"every gun has a unique fingerprint, no two can ever be the same\". Marks are compared by eye, very similar guns will have very similar marks. Even much real life courtroom \"science\" is pretty poo...

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