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|---|---|---|
Why do lions live in prides if cats in general are solitary animals? | [
"They are different species which have evolved different patterns of behavior. Those behaviors persist because they are successful. A pride of lions, for instance, can bring down prey that would be difficult or impossible for a single lion to bring down. Your house cat is not descended from a lion, or vice versa, ... | [
"Marketing. It makes the reader more easily relate to them. They aren't really a group of editors and publicitsts pushing the book, it's just that one person in a small town that wrote a story."
] |
Does blowing on a cup of coffee or other hot liquid really do much to cool it down? | [
"Yes what you are doing is called convection cooling. The air you are blowing is cooler than the hot liquid forcing heat transfer. The faster you blow the quicker it cools. It also increases evaporation which cools the liquid down as well."
] | [
"It's just one of the things we simply don't know. A known thing is that rapid temperature changes can trigger a vasovagal response. Also, holding ice behind the ear can be seen as a type of cold pressor test, a test that actively targets the sympathetic nervous system. Since the vagus nerve predominantly consists ... |
What is The Great Attractor in space. | [
"It is an immense gravitational anomaly that our galaxy and hundreds of thousands of our neighboring galaxies appear to be attracted towards. We don't know what causes it."
] | [
"Depends on what you mean by noticeable, and *how far away from the object*. A gram of matter can be turned into a black hole, hypothetically, if you squish it into a tiny enough place. And you wouldn't say a black hole's gravity is unnoticeable since light can't escape it... but you'd have to be *really* close to ... |
Pixel resolution, and the difference between 1080p, 2K, 4K, and 10-bit | [
"2K and 4K refer to resolutions higher than 1080. 4K is exactly 4x the resolution of 1080p at a resolution of 3840x2160. 2K is only slightly higher than 1080p but it is a different aspect ratio, a resolution of 2048×1080. 10-bit refers to the color space of the image and has nothing to do with resolution. Most con... | [
"If you scale the Earth down to the size of a billiard ball, it will still actually be smoother than a billiard ball. There's under 20km altitude change between the peak of Everest and deepest part of the Mariana trench. That's about 0.15% of the Earth's diameter. Which is next to nothing, really. EDIT: Spelling"
] |
rubber bands get colder than they started when they contract? | [
"I am sure there will be physics papers published on this during the next months just like with the glowing sticky tape. One theory is briefly explained in the original video. As the rubber is stretched the molecules have to align in certain ways. This constricts them which increases the internal pressure of the ru... | [
"I'm sorry that I'm no expert, but I remember reading about this the last time a similar question was asked: _URL_0_ Basically, you percieve time faster after your run because of endorphines released during the work out, which means that the music seems slower. This is apparently also why a lot of rock musicians pl... |
Question about Electricity and Wind Farms (Help With My Son's Project) | [
"> The Wind Farm is capable of producing 24 MW. Is this per hour? Per Year? No, it's just 24MW. A watt is defined as one joule per second. According to [Wolfram Apha](_URL_0_), 24 megawatts is enough to power 4000 - 8000 US households."
] | [
"Imagine you have a computer on your house. Now you want to connect that computer to your friend 100 miles away. How do you do it? You could lay a 100 mile cable, but do you have the permissions to dig up roads and pathways? You would use a company whose cables were already there, and just use that network of cab... |
Why are northern Indians more fair-skinned compared to those from the south? | [
"Obviously not my area of expertise, but human skin color varies by latitude, not so much by climate. (See [this map](_URL_1_).) Latitudes further from the equator receive less sunlight throughout the year. Humans absorb sunlight through the skin to produce Vitamin D, which is needed to prevent various diseases lik... | [
"The actual chemicals in the cream cost pennies. What you're actually paying for is the company to invent that chemical. And India doesn't feel they have to pay for that."
] |
Is there a good, trustworthy resource that covers the history and development of medical pseudoscience? | [
"NIH provides good objective information about the current status of these topics and _URL_5_ has good information about their history. Here are those pages for the topics you asked about: **Homeopathy:** _URL_4_ _URL_0_ **Acupuncture:** _URL_1_ _URL_2_ **Chiropractic:** _URL_3_ http://www._URL_5_/medicine/divisio... | [
"I know nothing of the, I assume, television show that you're referring to. However, there were certainly people in the west of France whose religious views were regarded as \"unorthodox\" by the Church, such that there was a missionary campaign in the early 18th century to attempt to reestablish conventional chris... |
What is the relationship between reddit and imgur? | [
"Imgur was literally made by a guy who wanted to make sharing images on reddit easier. Other photosharing sites (photobucket etc) were bulky and not up to the amount of traffic reddit provided."
] | [
"Gif, jpg, png, mov, avi, mp4 and any other extension you see like that are really just a set of standards. A standard pretty much says, \"act and look this way when this happens, but when this happens do this\" gif has a standard that doesn't include sound. For some more information about these standards, look her... |
How did the typefonts of today, such as Times New Roman, become a lettering standard? | [
"Times New Roman isn't anybody's handwriting. It was a font designed for the British newspaper The Times. _URL_0_ It's popularity today is because Microsoft used it as its default font for a long time. As for why specifically it became popular, it's hard to say. It's very nicely legible, but so far are lots of oth... | [
"They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to *anyone* who mailed back the special offer."
] |
The difference between White, Brown, Pink, and Grey Noise. | [
"Are you familiar with the tone control on an audio amplifier? If the knob is set to the middle, then each frequency is amplified equally. That is like white noise. If the knob is turned halfway to bass, that's like pink noise. The low frequencies are stronger than the high. If the knob is turned all the way to b... | [
"Nobody has anwered this so I'll try. Basically, no. Punk-eek has to do with morphological change. Molecular clocks come from Kimura's Neutral Theory. The NT suggests that most fixed molecular sequence mutations are neutral and are driven by drift. Neutral mutations don't have a big effect on morphology. So one is ... |
When explaining the theory of relativity, the difference observed in passing time between a stationary observer and one who is moving is often used as a descriptor. How are stationary and moving defined? | [
"Of course there is no absolute notion of who is stationary and who is moving, that's what \"relativity\" means. The point is that if you have two observers moving relative to each other then each will see time move slower for the other. This is also what leads, naively, to the [twin paradox](_URL_0_)."
] | [
"Let me give you an example using a bit of math. If I have a point in 2D space, I need 2 coorinates to describe its position, x and y. The distance to the point is sqrt(x^2 + y^2) Ok now in 3D space I need three points: x, y, z. The distance to the point is sqrt(x2 + y2 + z2). See the pattern? Ok now about about 4D... |
Please explain (like I'm 5) why marijuana is illegal? | [
"Hemp was made illegal because it competed far to strongly with cotton as a textile (easier to grow, cheaper, more useful) and the people who grew cotton were rich and powerful, (100 years of slave labour, go figure). They were able to concoct a public relations and gov't lobbying campaign by inventing \"marijuana\... | [
"The more money that is in circulation the lower the value of each denomination of that money. So a dollar today may get you a candy bar, but after the government prints a whole bunch of money that same candy bar may cost you three dollars."
] |
How exactly in layman's terms does a data compression system work? | [
"Imagine a language in which all words are exactly five letters long. The change the language so that some words are abbreviated to two letters. You can't abbreviate everything, because there are more 5-letter words than 2-letter words, so you have to pick and choose what you are going to abbreviate. If you are tr... | [
"If you don't have even a 5 year olds level of understanding then why do you want to get into it? If you are actually interested then I can explain some of it, but you won't make money, trust me."
] |
Why is it bad to end a story with, "And it was all just a dream"? | [
"Because the reader has invested their interest in the characters and plot, and then you're like, oh, just kidding, it was all bullshit that didn't matter anyway. There is really no reason to say that unless you painted yourself into a corner with an ending you don't like, but you are too lazy to rewrite."
] | [
"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... |
How does a dog know it's the owner walking up to their door as opposed to a stranger? | [
"Dogs have outstanding hearing. Even a person can often identify another person coming from the sound of how they walk."
] | [
"Typically couriers were given information such as the name of the recipient and the town in which they resided. If the courier arrived in the town and asked where the person lived the locals could provide that information. People who were important enough to have couriers delivering them documents would be known."... |
Is there evidence supporting the idea that there was an ancient civilization lost to the oceans surrounding Great Britain and if so, what would be the implications? | [
"At first I was surprised at how horrible a chimera this article is, with real science and sensationalism mixed in. Then I saw it was the Daily Mail. Doggerland is not a 'kingdom', and it has little to do with the submerged features of the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney. There is also no evidence of a 'devastating tsuna... | [
"In short, we don't know. We only have a tiny handful of examples of Brythonic writing, and these take the form of 'curse tablets' found at the Roman temple-bath complex to Sulis-Minerva at Bath Spa in Somerset. These are written in the Latin alphabet and engraved in the same manner as the other tablets."
] |
[Astronomy]Is it possible to have an orbit around the earth and the moon? | [
"Because the center of mass of the Earth-Moon system is inside the Earth, this would just be a distant orbit around the Earth. So in a sense, any orbit around the Earth farther than the moon would satisfy this. The upper limit of this, the region where the Earth's gravity dominates over the sun's, is called the Hil... | [
"It wouldn't really work, as the tidal forces acting on the satellite would also be stealing its angular momentum, eventually pulling the satellite in. A really stable orbit wouldn't experience any tidal forces, by definition. Thermodynamics will always screw you!"
] |
How does a bank make money? | [
"There's a concept in economics called the money multiplier. Basically, a bank is only required to keep 10% of the value of its deposits on hand, and loans out the other 90%. The money that's loaned out is spent, deposited in a bank, and loaned out again. For example, A bank has $100,000 in deposits. It keeps $10,0... | [
"They don't, they sell merchandise or something else, or they sell market information based on how their website is used."
] |
How did the the crime rates of the "Wild West" compare to today? | [
"In reality it was significantly less than popular media would lead you to believe. I don't have the numbers at the moment, but actual murders in the \"wild west\" were very rare. Significantly less than you would see in contemporary eastern cities, I believe. The majority of the violence was tied to specific times... | [
"Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!"
] |
Economic Austerity: What it is, how is it supposed to work, and glaring problems with it. | [
"Someone can probably do a better job than me with explaining the actual concept, but from my understanding austerity means a policy to reduce government spending in order to reduce the deficit. As to the problems with it, the reduction of spending usually comes from lowering benefits and pubic services instead of... | [
"Hi there -- your submission is fine here, but I wanted to drop in a note to let people know that, as always, we do not allow discussion of [modern politics](_URL_0_) on this subreddit. Thanks!"
] |
So are there no banks "too big to fail" any more? | [
"Some of the financial reforms required banks to spend some of their money to ensure that if this situations happens in the future again, the tax payer wouldn't be on the hook. That was the big thing changed in the law."
] | [
"Lawyer and former state-level prosecutor here, How: That's the way history happened. The Federal Gov't has limited power, and didn't really do much in the early years, e.g., under Pres. Washington. Each time a need for a specific task would arise, say to investigate counterfeiting, a new police force would be born... |
How is the average student loan debt in the U.S. only around 20-30k? | [
"Several ways. First off, many people work while in college, and have somewhat less debt. Secondly, many people have scholarships or other financial aid. And thirdly, people get out of college and start paying down their student debt. The \"average\" debt includes people who have been out of college for a while, in... | [
"Some of it also has to do with what you are used to. Here's an anecdote... I am from the frozen part of the northern midwest. In the winter, it rarely gets above 15 degrees F, and wind chills are often below zero. I lived in this area for 13 years before I went to college in the mid-south (Kentucky). During the fi... |
Have the Romans incorporated the Jewish god Yahweh into the Roman pantheon in any way? | [
"Perhaps a little peripheral to your question, but it appears that the Romans did incorporate Yahweh into their magic. [This](_URL_0_) is an example of a magical gem with an anguipede on it. He is surrounded by the letters ΙΑΩ which are the Greek equivalent to the tetragrammaton. There are a ton of other examples a... | [
"> And to what extent did American Western lore penetrate into European literature, common talk, and theatre? Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show did [eight tours of Europe](_URL_2_), which were incredibly successful and played a large role in the European view of the American wild west. Wild West novels became very... |
Why do music videos before 2011 look so blurry, even though there were HD cameras available? | [
"If you're taking about what you see online, it's probably because uploading HD wasn't really a thing back then. They uploaded them and they were compressed and at lower quality."
] | [
"commercialism. if you were happy with your old stuff, you wouldn't need to buy new stuff. all the designers and manufacturers come out with new looking stuff and market the old stuff as ugly and new stuff as pretty in order to make money. our tastes are hugely influenced by others."
] |
How were Soviet economists trained? | [
"That sure is some subtle framing in your post."
] | [
"While not a scientific answer to your question at all, I want to suggest the excellent movie [Before the Fall](_URL_5_) (German Titel: Napola – Elite für den Führer) to anyone interested in this topic, which is a story about pupils in an elite high school in the German Reich."
] |
Why do drugs have a half-life and not a constant rate of elimination? | [
"It's because elimination, by both excretion and metabolization, depends on chemical reactions. So the rate of elimination depends on the concentration, because concentration determines the frequency with which the drug, or other chemical, will encounter the chemicals which will eliminate it."
] | [
"Every time you make a copy of a cell, there is a chance for errors. For example when you photocopy a first print, it is pretty crisp and close to the original, but there are a few minor discrepencies. Now if you photocopy the copy, it gets more distorted, and so on until some letters get hard to read, it gets diff... |
Does dark matter have mass? | [
"Dark matter is postulated because we are *missing mass*. When we look at the movements of galaxies and stars, there just is not enough mass observed to account for it. That said, dark matter without mass would not solve the original problem."
] | [
"There is a cool little experiment for figuring out how gravity work. If you place freely moving lead balls in a vacuum they will move towards each other. You can then measure the speed at which they move towards each other to find the force of gravity between them. Then you try different sizes and distances and ge... |
Why is Nicolas II of Imperial Russia perceived as an incompetent ruler? | [
"There is an extensive amount of research and historians opinions out there on this subject, one of the biggest reasons was that he took command of the Imperial Army in the first world war as it was getting battered to improve the moral of his men, it did not work and many blamed him for the military failures. His ... | [
"While not a scientific answer to your question at all, I want to suggest the excellent movie [Before the Fall](_URL_5_) (German Titel: Napola – Elite für den Führer) to anyone interested in this topic, which is a story about pupils in an elite high school in the German Reich."
] |
Music sounds noticeably slower after I work out. Mainly after running a great deal while I'm cooling down. Is there any explanation as to why this happens? | [
"The rate at which a human brain processes information is not constant. It changes based on a number of factors. When you feel a sudden threat, your body releases hormones that trigger a change in the rate at which your brain can process information. If your brain is processing information more quickly, your percep... | [
"You could have [tinnitus](_URL_0_). You should see a doctor if you want any further information, since asking for medical advice is not allowed in this forum."
] |
How does 'Libertarian Left' work? | [
"Left libertarians are socialists who don't like government. In the US, libertarians are right wingers who believe in limited government and have a set of ideas as to the proper role of government. Left libertarians, by contrast, believe a truly free society will naturally be socialist in nature, and arw actively... | [
"How exactly did labor markets (or whatever was in their place) function in the USSR? How did planners determine what was being paid (if this is a fair way to characterize it)? Did wages differ by trade/region/labor supply, and if so, how was this decided?"
] |
Why do clothes turn darker when wet? | [
"A wet cloth looks darker because less light is reflected from a wet cloth. _URL_0_ Google is useful"
] | [
"Not evaporate. The process is generally called photodegradation. Basically the sunlight is providing enough energy for chemical reactions to take take place. There are a huge variety of possible chemical reactions. For example, the photon could whack into a water molecule, causing it to break into oxygen and h... |
How come my dog wakes up when he hears the slightest knock or tap, but sleeps through me playing Call of Duty? | [
"Same reason why if you live at a frat house and have to sleep through parties each night. Your subconscious learns that the sound of parties are normal and pose no danger so your brain wont wake you up. You playing COD is normal for your dog so his mind knows it's okay to continue sleeping."
] | [
"Because they recognize things that are not a threat, and they don't recognize people. Think of how comfortable you are around airplanes and helicopters, but what if an alien spaceship came along."
] |
Why do people have that relaxing sensation when they smoke cigarettes after having a heavy meal? | [
"Chemical reaction from smoking releases a high which combined with fluctuating dopamine levels from eating a meal. Combine that with the deep breaths often associated with smoking and you have this \"trio\" of trickery going on. (I used to smoke, I was never one to smoke after a big meal, but i would smoke aft... | [
"You've pretty much got it. When you combine a bunch of ingredients in a flavored liquid, at first the flavors of the liquid will either just coat the pieces or barely penetrate the surface. As you let it sit, the flavors penetrate deeper into each piece of food, and each ingredient starts to give up its own juices... |
Why was Eva Peron so loved in Argentina? | [
"hi! you can get started with this earlier post * [What did Eva Perón actually do for Argentina?](_URL_0_)"
] | [
"Simply answer: Different culture means different views on stuff like that. Opinion: Even now, I feel like it was done as a result of foreign cultural influence."
] |
what happens if someone eats enough protein and some other nutrients but not enough calories? | [
"His reserves will be used to make up the difference. Initially this will be bloodsugar, next any excess body fat, and then his muscles will be converted to energy."
] | [
"If you don't like spending more money than you have to, you'll only buy a car big enough for your needs. A bigger car is more expensive, and uses a lot more gasoline than a little car. You wouldn't buy a big SUV if you didn't need it. Lean muscle mass burns energy - it's expensive for our bodies to build it, and k... |
What happened to 'Google Glass'? | [
"It was a bit ahead of its time, they wanted to bring in augmented reality before people could comprehend it. Also they added a camera to it which made people nervous so it was getting banned in many public places. Combine that with the fact it was awkward with glasses and the price tag was in a weird spot, it's fu... | [
"Because that patent is a crock of shit? The patent office doesn't check if the thing actually works before granting the patent."
] |
When dog's sit on their hind legs and "beg", did that stem from some evolutionary process that had a purpose in nature? | [
"Hate to say it, but he's training you to give him the treat. If you're giving it to him when he does that action, you're teaching him that it'll give him what he wants. It's likely been something that's built up over time, like him wanting to keep his eyes on the treat and leaning back to do so or something benign... | [
"When you're standing you're not actually resting. Your muscles are constantly making small adjustments with your ankles as the pivot point in order to stop you from falling on your face. Each adjustment isn't very intensive but it does this *alot*.Not only are your muscles doing this work constantly, it's only a s... |
Hadoop and how it fits in with Amazon EC2, S3, and Amazon Map Reduce | [
"MapReduce is a technique for handling large amounts of data. You get a bunch of computers (usually virtual- in the case of Amazon Elastic Map Reduce, you're using EC2 machines) and send part of the data to each of the machines. MapReduce gets its name from two important functions used in functional programming: ma... | [
"The ones that spring immediately to my mind are [Aleppo](_URL_1_) and [Samarkand](_URL_0_), both of which were active in Silk Road trade."
] |
If there are an innumerable amount of stars in the universe, why isn't our sky bright all the time? | [
"This is known as [Olber's Paradox](_URL_0_). Because the universe, so far as we know, contains an infinite number of stars, we should find that, whichever direction we look in, we see a star. But this doesn't reflect what we know about the night sky. There are billions of stars, but there are very large black area... | [
"[I've answered this question in the past](_URL_0_), I suggest you read that answer rather than me copy-pasting the whole thing. But the tl;dr is: 1. Computer models of the atmosphere are approximations. 2. The atmosphere is huge, and our supercomputers are relatively weak. 3. Because our computer models are so coa... |
Why do germs/viruses exist? | [
"You seem to be missing the point. Germs/viruses exist because nothing's manage to send them to extinction. Life doesn't have a \"purpose\" other than managing to stay alive long enough to be around still. They're clearly the ones winning. The common cold isn't close to extinct."
] | [
"Watch this video by Veritasium: _URL_1_ I think it answers your questions."
] |
- What exactly does "Alt-right" stand for and how are their beliefs different than "Right-wing"? | [
"The \"alt-right\" is a very far right section of American right-wing politics. Traditional right-wing politics in the US revolves around individual and state rights, economic conservatism, and social conservatism with a large influence for Christianity. Note that this has changed in recent years; the right-wing p... | [
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: how do metal detectors work? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: How do metal detectors work? ](_URL_1_) 1. [ELI5 how do metal detectors work? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5: How does a metal detector work? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5: How do metal detectors work? ](_URL_7_) 1. ... |
Why didn't the spanish or portuguese colonies form their own united states of America? | [
"The Portuguese colonies did form their own united states. It's called Brazil. Brazil and Uruguay became different countries because Brazil was a Portuguese colony and Uruguay was part of a Spanish colony, and while Portugal and Spain talked about uniting at one point, the idea was dropped and their colonies obviou... | [
"This has essentially been answered by the preceding comments, but what hasn't been contributed is this: _URL_0_. Muster and enrollment records, transfer lists, honours lists, etc, for the period of 1730 through 1898. Worth having, OP, if you're writing or researching the topic academically. To succinctly summarise... |
The phenomenon of "infinite mirror images" that occurs when two mirrors are facing opposite of each other. | [
"_URL_0_ _URL_1_ You might find these previous posts on the question useful"
] | [
"Grab a tennis ball and a lamp. Turn off every other light in the room. Hold up the tennis ball. Half is lit, half is dark. If you are looking from the side (you can see the lamp and the ball) you can see some of the dark side of the ball. The ONLY way to see nothing but lit ball is to have the lamp directly behin... |
Difference between a Blazer, sports jacket, and a suit jacket. | [
"Blazers and sports jackets do not come with matching trousers. Sports jackets tend to be made of heavier, rougher material. Think tweed and corduroy. They have a more casual cut than a suit jacket, and are considered to be far less formal than a suit jacket or a blazer. While blazers are more formal than a sport j... | [
"Ask Reddit is for personal opinions, stories, and the like. Essentially subjective answers to questions without hard answers. Something like \"whats your favorite food\" is a good post there ELI5 is for getting a simplified answer or explanation to a question that you don't understand. A good thread here would som... |
Why does skin "shine" after skidding it? | [
"The scrape removes the top layer of dead cells that act as the first layer of protection for your skin. The skin underneath is made of live/newly dead cells, which are wetter and plumper. That makes it \"shiny\". These cells will die pretty quickly, and you will have that top layer of dead cells again, which are n... | [
"The answer is actually very simple - most players are built to hold the CD such firmly in place that the laser head doesn't touch the disk. Of course some car players actually do scratch the disks, which never results in a happy listener. On the other hand, how the CD doesn't skip in a bump, is explained by readin... |
Does an object have less mass the closer it gets to absolute zero? | [
"Special relativity tells us that the mass of an object is simply its energy divided by the speed of light squared (m = E/c^2 ). That energy includes all kinds of energy, even thermal energy. The colder an object is, the less thermal energy it has, and the less mass it has. So yes, the object gets lighter as you c... | [
"Just taking the ideal gas equation of state: PV = NkT now N is fixed, because the balloon is sealed. P is too, it's just atmospheric pressure. So V = constant * T So it gets smaller if it gets colder. Of course this is simplified because it ignores the elastic pressure from the balloon itself which is actually kin... |
Can Brita water filters be used in public works water filtration? | [
"It would be prohibitively expensive because the vast majority of water from public works is not used for consumption. Much of it goes down the toilet, down the shower drain, to wash dishes, water the lawn, clean clothes, etc."
] | [
"They use a wavelength of light that is cancer causing. Do you want to sit under a cancer causing light? Plus, they aren't all that effective to stop, say a sneeze from transmitting to another person. It takes some time to kill the germs."
] |
Theoretically, in a perfect and very large vacuum, would a falling object have a terminal velocity? | [
"Terminal velocity happens when the force caused by air resistance equals the force caused by gravity. Without any air to cause resistance, there will be no terminal velocity, and the object will continue accelerating forever. Remember that forces simply cause acceleration. They do not directly determine speed. And... | [
"I think what you're getting at is the [Law of Laplace](_URL_0_), which describes the pressure exerted by a balloon-like structure as 2hT/r, where h is the thickness of the balloon, T is the tension in the rubber, and r is the radius of the balloon. From that equation, you can see that as r increases the pressure w... |
It took me 4 minutes to delete contents in a USB, while it took me about 10 seconds to format the USB with same content. | [
"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... | [
"When you are in a fasted state (not eating for 12+ hours), your body starts repairing itself and cleaning its internal organs. It is getting rid of old food sitting in your stomach, intestines, and colon. Basically your body refreshes itself and flushes itself of toxins. Because every time you eat, your body is fo... |
If I'm in a falling elevator and I jump 1' off of the ground right before it hits, what will happen? | [
"Considering that your jumping up won't come close to negating your free-fall velocity downward? You'll smack down into the floor slightly less quickly, but still very quickly. Breaking a lot of bones is probable."
] | [
"The same reason you can walk through an airplane isle even though you are unable to move at hundreds of miles an hour (or fly). The same reason you are able to survive walking around outside even though the earth is spinning around at thousands of miles per hour. Ir more precisely, why you can swim in a pool even... |
Do magnets ever "run out"? | [
"Magnets cannot ~~do work~~ produce a net gain in energy. If you use a magnet to lift something, you have to use an equal amount of work to get it back down. Think of magnets like a hill. You can get a lot of energy from rolling a ball down a hill, but you had to lift it up there in the first place."
] | [
"This question is pretty tough to imagine. Here's something that might help: Imagine you live on a [Möbius strip](_URL_0_). You're facing straight down at all times. You leave a ghost image of yourself as you go around the strip. Travel fully around and you get back to where you started, still looking the same way.... |
How did life evolve sexual reproduction via intercourse? | [
"A reasonable series of adaptations, in chronological order, all of which can be seen in various animals today: First you have broadcast spawning...eggs and sperm thrown out into the currents, mingling at will. Next, you have males that get close to females to fertilize their eggs, cloaca to cloaca so that eggs get... | [
"because there is no other option to continue the species. The exact same issues exist, and it could be bad, but the alternative is extinction. So between the two options we typically try for life, but ya, just because it is the best option doesn't mean its a good option."
] |
When a video is uploaded over and over again on youtube, what is physically happeening to make the video quality get worse each time? | [
"Compression. A typical camera records 1080p 30fps at 17Mbps, which is just under 1GB/min. Whereas a typical bitrate on YouTube is ~3Mbps, which is < 1/5 the size. Every time you re-upload it, YouTube goes through the whole compression process again. Compression is where they take a group of similar looking col... | [
"Soooo many things. Temperature, current water AND salt levels in your body, your diet (not just week-to-week, but also day-to-day, and sometimes meal-to-meal), hormones, exercise, current and previous health routines, sleep patterns, and the consistency of all of these factors. If you want to start having more \"g... |
Did British wives really have sex with foreign diplomats to advance both their husbands and, by extension, their countries interests? | [
"Christopher Andrew is a serious, well respected historian with the highest security clearance of any British historian ever. He's done the official histories for public publication of both MI5 and SIS/MI6 as well as having done numerous collaborations with spies such as Oleg Gordievsky. If he made the claim he wil... | [
"Asked recently on /r/askscience here: [How many people would you need to self-sufficiently populate a planet without inbreeding being a problem?](_URL_0_) Pitciarn islands makes a nice case study in humans. Pitcairn Islands were [settled by 6 men and 11 women](_URL_2_); and the majority of inhabitants are their d... |
Why do Soap Operas look so Soap Opera-y? | [
"Well, you don't describe the Soap Opera-y look very much but I think I know what you're referring to. Since soap operas have a new show every day of the week they have to have fast turn-around times. So, they were shot on video instead of film. Film takes longer to develop and video can be processed much quicker. ... | [
"An educated guess on my part, is that prior to the 80s, most TV shows were shot on film. Starting in the 80s, they started shooting shows on videotape. The tubes in the video cameras did not deal well with lights in the shots. There was a lot of streaking and burn in from the lights. You can also see this effect o... |
Why are hotel towels so absorbent? | [
"I've heard using fabric softener reduces your towels ability to absorb water. Try not using."
] | [
"They use a wavelength of light that is cancer causing. Do you want to sit under a cancer causing light? Plus, they aren't all that effective to stop, say a sneeze from transmitting to another person. It takes some time to kill the germs."
] |
If the Earth travels at roughly 17 miles per second around the sun, why is it that when a spaceship escapes Earth's gravitational pull (like on a trip to the moon), the Earth doesn't fly by in a matter of minutes? | [
"I may be wrong (so feel free to delete or correct or whatever if I am), but I would think it's because the spaceship is already travelling at the same speed at the Earth when it launches. If you stand on a moving train and then throw a ball, the ball doesn't suddenly slam into the back of the train because it alre... | [
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: how do the time differences between planets work in Interstellar? ](_URL_6_) 1. [ELI5:Interstellar's relativity of time. ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5:[Interstellar] Time moves faster is some places in space than others. ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Aging in the ... |
How soon was the universe able to support biological life? | [
"Since we don't know what the limits of biological life are, it's almost impossible to answer that. Planets probably formed as early as 12.8 billion years ago. But is that necessary for life? Is carbon? We just don't know."
] | [
"It's because space is dry. There's a reason you always hear astronomers going on about finding water somewhere or other. Even on earth, no extremophile bacteria can live where it's dry. This goes for places as ordinary as your jar of peanut butter (ever wonder why it doesn't get moldy?) or salt shaker. Oh sure, lo... |
How incredibly simple paintings can be sold for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. | [
"Art is about what you feel when you experience it. It is worth whatever you decide it is worth to you. There is no standard for good art versus bad art. Also, even tiny works can take years to master the skills necessary to plan and create it, which could make it worth more."
] | [
"Travel, opening campaign offices in each state, television and radio ads, and paying everyone who works for the campaign, from those who research your opposition, to those who manage your website -- it's a year+ long process with a lot more than a few speeches and shaken babies."
] |
Why does my voice get deeper the more tired that I am? | [
"It takes more energy to do a higher tone of voice. So your body just conserves energy by lowering you tone of voice"
] | [
"Sound waves usually come out in circles (or spheres) from the point where they originate. A circle is the same when viewed upside-down. So if you invert that source, or you invert yourself, the sound is the same."
] |
Is it possible to eject out of an airplane that is breaking the speed of sound, and live? | [
"Several people have already survived ejecting at that speed. The human body can't handle extended exposure to a large g-force but short exposure seems to not have very many negative effects."
] | [
"Legs would be blown into the windshield. [Here] (_URL_0_) is a youtube video showing exactly what would happen."
] |
Why is one's first reaction to hitting their finger is to put it in their mouth? | [
"For the same reason animals lick their wounds - there are some natural anti-bacterial properties to saliva that we know, instinctively, will help if there is an injury. [source](_URL_0_) Its 'instinct', so it just happens - our brains are wired to know that, if there is an injury, to try to lick it in order to get... | [
"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."
] |
; Does fibromyalgia really have a cure? | [
"[Disciplinary Actions against Michael Platt, M.D. ](_URL_0_) He isn't a doctor anymore due to \"negligence, incompetence, and inadequate record-keeping\". So I'm just going to disregard his \"alternative medicine\" views on fibromyalgia. It is bullshit."
] | [
"i just drop like a sack of potatoes. So if there is such a mechanism i want to ask the follow up question why mine doesn't work?"
] |
why did our brain evolve to dream during sleep time? | [
"There's no real consensus on why most mammals dream, but it's suggested that our brain didn't really evolve with the purpose of dreaming in mind, but that it would just be a side effect of the remains of the old, primitive brain activating the newer, more sophisticated brain areas we use to learn and remember duri... | [
"It's like a vestigial thing leftover from back when we did need them. Basically, it doesn't hurt our odds for survival, so it just sticks around."
] |
Why do we often have to buy items from retail stores, instead of the manufacturer's directly? (at cost, so it would be cheaper) | [
"Because of the convenience of having a great variety of products all condensed into one location. And nowadays, it would be a logistical nightmare for the manufacturer to deliver the items, or for the customer to pick up different items from different manufacturers."
] | [
"Along with all the other answers so far, I believe there is a social component. Having a conversation/interaction with another human is more fun and interesting than looking something up on Google. In addition, you might gain access to a perspective that isn't yet on the internet."
] |
Why are there so many articles about new disease treatments, but barely any significant progress? | [
"Most of the articles you come across are often the first step in the long journey towards production of a safe and effective medical treatment. The first step - discovering the possibility of a new kind of treatment - is really exciting as it allows speculation of some pretty amazing, albeit potential, results in ... | [
"Better cables (copper) and fibers, better best practices, fixing bugs in firmware of switches, routers, network cards, faster cpus in network devices. Protocols are the same but im sure they are being constantly updated. Also routing protocols are better, routers works better, the infrastructure is much better tha... |
Where or how can I find marriage records from 18th century England? | [
"From my father, who has done a detailed investigation of our family tree back through England to the 16th century Channel Islands: \"The first census in England was, I think, in 1841. Prior to that the only official records were the Parish Registers, created by Henry VIII about 1538 in which were recorded all birt... | [
"As an additional question: How would these relationships start? Would there be a sort of match making service via a third party or through the parents of the eromenos/wakashu?"
] |
How can I so easily differentiate between languages despite not speaking them? Why does Italian sound so different from French, for example? | [
"Languages don't all share the same set of sounds. Some of the vowel sounds heard in French don't appear in Italian or English; and French is very light on the consonants."
] | [
"Musical style, of course. But also the selection of instruments and how they are played. I work as a sound engineer, and there are a few of my friends i can recognize when are playing. And I guess in the same way you might recognize an author through the writing style, you might also recognize the way the music is... |
Was there ever a "wild" cow? | [
"The [aurochs](_URL_0_) is the wild ancestor of modern-day cattle and wild aurochs lasted up until the 17th century. If you really want to delve into early domestication you can read about possible multiple domestication events in [this paper](_URL_1_)."
] | [
"Follow on question: How often did rural sheriff's carry out capital sentences with no courts/appeals?"
] |
How does having extra generic information (down syndrome) result in a person with reduced ability? | [
"No, because embryonic growth is a very finely tuned process. With 3 chromosome-21 structures (Down Syndrome), some steps in this finely tuned process will be overexpressed which could lead to other steps being not expressed at all, or underexpressed, which could lead to other steps being skipped, which could lead ... | [
"The supreme court had previously held that making private copies available for use by others was legal in Canada (see BMG vs. John Doe). As such, there was no legal copyright infringement that copyright holders could use as leverage to get (the subpoenas required to get) ISPs to disclose the identities of the file... |
How can xylitol be an alcohol and a sugar at the same time? | [
"The Wikipedia page does a pretty good job explaining it. _URL_0_ Sugar alcohols are alcohols because they are organic molecules with -OH groups (in fact many of them). They have a formula close to that of sugars (missing just 2 H atoms) and have similar properties to sugars: they are sweet, they form white crystal... | [
"People often do. The native americans here in Canada have a habit of buying and drinking mouthwash to get wasted. it isn't safe though since they added a lot of chemicals in the ethanol."
] |
The controversial one: How legit is China's oft mentioned historical claim to Tibet? | [
"A question similar to this was asked [here](_URL_2_)."
] | [
"Can I piggyback on this question to ask how accurate James Clavell's novel Shogun was? I get it was fiction, but it seemed like he tried to convey a great deal of historical accuracy. I read it all of the time, and would be interested to learn what kind of misinformation I am picking up:)"
] |
What is this random thing on Ikea furniture and what is it for? | [
"you are supposed to secure the chest to the wall, lest you load the drawers, pull them out, and the dresser falls over onto an infant or whatever."
] | [
"Have you seen a Swedish blonde girl? Enough said."
] |
How does a wifi router knows that you have entered a correct password in order to use it? | [
"WiFi security (the kind where a pass is required to connect, not the \"coffee shop wifi\" where you connect then need to go to a webpage) is based on encryption. Everything is hopelessly scrambled beyond recognition, but your computer has the formula to descramble it! Except for one very important piece: the key. ... | [
"Your employer takes money out of your paycheck throughout the year to pay your local, state, and federal taxes. The amount they take out, however, is just an estimate how much tax you will probably owe at the end of the year. There's no way for the state, local, and federal governments to know what you actually do... |
How does increasing horsepower vs increasing torque effect an engine's performance? | [
"The first thing to understand is that both power and torque are rpm dependent. An engine doesn't simply have 300hp, it has 300hp at, say, 6000rpm (and full throttle). When car makers give one figure for torque or power, they just give the maximum value over the whole rpm range of that engine. The second thing is,... | [
"okay so you need to understand some basics of how os schedules work on a cpu. so lets say there's 1 core/1 thread. the os schedules processes to run on the 1 core/1 thread. the os decides what runs and when. now, a lot of times when the process is running on a core/thread the cpu has to fetch data or wait for som... |
Does the order of the atomic elements correspond to how frequently they are created? | [
"Yes and no. There is a general trend towards rarity as the elements get heavier, but there are regular fluctuations. [This](_URL_0_) graph shows relative abundance in the solar system by atomic number (with heavier elements than Uranium being artificial)."
] | [
"If you're wondering why all of the planets lie on the same *orbital plane*, it's because the planets were formed from orbiting debris, and that angular velocity (ie the spin) was preserved as the debris flattened out into a disc due to the effect of gravity."
] |
Why are computer processors produced in a vinyl size disc form? | [
"The silicon needed for the processors is produced as a huge cylinder, which is then sliced into these thin discs, called wafers. It's cylinder shaped because of a process called [Czolchralski process](_URL_0_)."
] | [
"To add to this, how does a round piece of plastic with grooves somehow play music just by spinning and having a needle move over it?"
] |
Why shouldn't I run outside during an earthquake? | [
"The things that are likely to fall on you when you are outside are: 1. Taller. 2. Heavier. 3. Often electrified. In principle... yes an empty field full of grass with no trees around would be a great place to be during an earthquake. However buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes, and so you should be saf... | [
"This video created by Vsauce 3 (Jake Roper) does a very good job explaining this: _URL_1_ I hope this answers your question. He also did another video on a simmilar line of - could you survive: _URL_0_"
] |
What could the later Roman emperors have done to prevent the fall of the empire? | [
"I don't think this is an appropriate question for this subreddit. Perhaps /r/historywhatif would be a better fit. Any answer would be complete speculation, given you could give a hypothetical leader any set of traits or skills, as well as fudging what resources he would have available. The vagueness of the term \... | [
"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... |
- Why is Citizen Kane considered to be the pinnacle of movie making? | [
"Besides its innovations, the performances are amazing, and the guts the unknown Welles demonstrated to take on William Randolph Hearst at the time is testimony to the power of art itself. The storytelling is so strong in certain scenes, also. Check out the dialogue-free scene in which Kane and his first wife grow ... | [
"Yeah, yeah, we get it, cuz of the sugar. But why COLA?? -- vs. any of dozens of other sweek drinks out there?? What is it about the taste of COLA that makes it the most popular flavor of drink (or soda/pop type drink)??"
] |
why are Academy Award winning movies typically movies the majority of folks don’t see? | [
"The people who award the Oscars are active participants in the industry. They are experts. The nominations are made exclusively by experts (cinematographers nominate people for the Best Cinematographer prize), but the winners are still picked by insiders. How do most people decide to go to a movie? Do they ask a c... | [
"The front page takes recent, top posts from your subscribed subreddits. Logically, if the AMA is newish, it won't have that many votes. Therefore, it won't be a top post (although it is recent), and you won't find it on your front page."
] |
What is the benefit of running Linux on a Chromebook? | [
"Not really. If you use your Chromebook for internet browsing, YouTube, Facebook, etc, then I wouldn't worry about it. Instilling Linux on a Chromebook would probably just allow you access to a larger amount of different programs."
] | [
"Honestly, they're kind of bragging to show you how good/fast/awesome they are. There is no other reason; it might be interesting to a very small segment of the population, but it's more about people going \"Wow, 20 billion results in 0.02 seconds!\""
] |
Over to you guys: When theologians asked J. B. S. Haldane what could be inferred about the mind of the Creator from the works of His Creation, he answered, "An inordinate fondness for beetles." | [
"There are a lot of species of beetles."
] | [
"Especially in insects, females often times need to feed to develop a full complement of eggs (synovigenic). Males will sometimes give a [nuptial gift](_URL_0_). Sometimes this gift (e.g. mantids) may be in the form of eating the entire male after mating. They are providing the female with nutrients, upping their c... |
Why does it seem like there are way more conspiracy theorists in the USA now than 20 years ago? | [
"Probably has a lot to do with the fact far more people have gotten on the internet in the past 10 years. Sure, internet wasn't rare in 2004 but more people than you might imagine weren't really using it until the last ~5 years. Additionally people tend to group up so that you'll get concentrations of people likely... | [
"My guess? When you're dealing with a lot of makeup, prosthesis, special effects its easier to hide flaws. You can see acne under makeup in high def, you couldn't really see that back in the day. Just a guess."
] |
What would happen if we planted earth plants on Mars and provided them with the right soil and adequate water? | [
"They would die. The atmosphere is far too thin to support exposed plant life. Also, the diurnal swing in temperatures would be far too drastic to handle (nights there can plummet to more than -100 degrees below zero). You'd basically need a pressurized greenhouse to have a decent shot at growing anything on the su... | [
"You'd probably get no signal, though that doesn't interfere with scrolling through pages and opening apps. The absence of gravity could confuse your phone's accelerometer. I don't know if iPhone shows horizonal screens the way other smarphones (like Androids) do, I assume yes. You'd probably get unexpected layout ... |
Why do muscles deteriorate with little/no exercise? | [
"Muscles are expensive for the body to maintain, and are made of yummy protein which is a good source of energy. If your body is not continually being reminded that you want/need that extra muscle it is going to break it down for energy and to \"cut costs\" on the energy requirements of the body. Extra muscle mass ... | [
"Freezers are designed to remove moisture to prevent freezer burn. Ice tends to be exposed to this moisture removal, so it ends up evaporating. But water has minerals in it. So you may discover that your ice cubes shrink over time, but they have the same amount of minerals in each remaining cube, so that you end up... |
Do files completely disappear when you delete them? How do recovery tools work and can you find these deleted files? | [
"When you delete a file off your hard drive, all that happens is that your computer marks that file as \"overwrite when necessary\". The file is still there *until* something needs to overwrite it."
] | [
"We can't be exact about the tree's location. But because a tree is a really big, massive thing (big compared to, say, an electron), the quantum \"spread\" in measurements of the tree's location is very, very small, especially compared to the size of the tree. So if you had really, really, really good instruments (... |
When we stare and "zone out," why does what we're staring at become blurry and double? | [
"For you to see one cohesive picture (like we always see) both our eyes need to focus on the thing we're looking at. In their resting state, our eyes don't do that. So when we relax, our eyes return to that resting state, essentially looking at two different spots, generating two separate images in the brain that... | [
"Distance is determined using Parallax. ever looked at your laptop screen with one eye, then changed to the other eye? what happens to the laptop screen? It seems to shift. the amount it shifts corresponds to the distance between your eyes, and the distance from you to the screen. You know the distance between y... |
Roughly what % or fraction of our own galaxy have we searched for "earth-like" planets and how will this change with the currently scheduled projects over the years? | [
"You may have grossly underestimated the size of our galaxy. There are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and on average, every star hosts at least one planet. We have currently detected only about 2,000 planets, so a simple order-of-magnitude estimate suggests we've only found about .000002% of plane... | [
"At the bottom level it encodes the way our DNA is processed: ribosomes, transfer RNAs etc. These are things we share with all known life. Then there are things like the cell cycle, which includes cell division. Different cell organelles like mitochondria, the way the cells are stabilized (the cytoskeleton). Probab... |
Why is vomiting dangerous for your heart as opposed to, say, sprinting? | [
"Vomiting isn’t necessarily “bad for your heart” per say. When you vomit, that leads to dehydration, reduction of acid so your body’s metabolic reactions might shift a little bit, or sometimes, though extremely uncommon and definitely an exception, it might be a symptom of a heart attack (primarily) in older women ... | [
"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... |
If you miss your period (not due to pregnancy) and have intercourse after (~1 week), is it possible to get pregnant? | [
"Yes. You can get pregnant around the time of ovulation. Missing a period can change your normal ovulation schedule, and there is no way of telling if ovulation is occurring in that one week, so the risk of pregnancy exists."
] | [
"Imagine you are made of genetic soup. Some people have ingredients that just don't go well together and make the soup taste bad. But that's ok, because when you have a kid, we just take some of my soup and some of my wife's soup and pour it in together. So even though my soup has some bad ingredients, her ingredie... |
If one had an electric motor on a car that turned one wheel and three generators on the other three wheels, with two battery banks (one charging and one being used) could I run this car forever? | [
"Nope! Any question that asks \"could I run such-and-such system forever?\" violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics. More specifically, you would not be able to recover electricity at a fast enough rate with the three generators to refill the battery powering the motor on the first wheel. Eventually, i... | [
"Couple things to consider. First, when you get tried in court, prosecutors will try to get you convicted for every crime you committed, not just the biggest one. So you may be on trial for murder, but also assault, battery, kidnapping, brandishing a weapon, etc... You may be found guilty for any number of them, a... |
Why is brushing your teeth so important for their (our) health? Did our ancestors make any moves towards cleaning their teeth? Is it related to dietary trends over the years? | [
"IANAD(entist), but our modern dental predicament is due to the ridiculous amounts of sugars that we consume in our foods. While there were toothbrushes and other dental instruments going back hundreds of years, food stuffs had far less sugar; people didn't have over processed industrial starchy-corn-syrup-fructose... | [
"Sorry, we don't allow [\"trivia seeking\" questions](_URL_0_). These tend to produce threads which are collections of disjointed, partial responses, and not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about an historical event, period, or person, please feel... |
Imagine if you filled a bucket with germs and cramed as much in as the bucket could hold. Enough that you could see the germs. What would it look like? | [
"It would depend on what germ it is. If it's something cellular (bacteria, fungi, protozoa), it will look like a paste. The color will most likely be pale yellow/creamy white, but it could be a variety of colors; red, orange, greenish in some cases. Even then, that would depend on what they were making at that mome... | [
"This is a evolutionary trait. the reason we believe it smells \"Bad\" is because it is bad for us to eat(or even be near). people who think it smells bad are less likely to eat garbage and so less likely to die from eating garbage. this means they survive to pass on there genes containing the gene responsible for ... |
why is emcee spelled out and not just initialized as M.C. since it stands for master of ceremonies? | [
"I have never once in my life seen it as anything other than M.C."
] | [
"There is a site, _URL_9_, that does an ELI5 for each xkcd strip. This particular strip is explained here: _URL_9_/wiki/index.php/1545:_Strengths_and_Weaknesses Your question isn't answered directly in the Wiki, but it does contain a link to the MCA (Most Common Ancestor) wiki article, here: _URL_11_"
] |
Which current American English accent is closest to the "original" American English accent? | [
"Tangier Island, VA was long super isolated and they're considered to have the oldest original American accent in the country _URL_0_ They speak how Americans were believed to speak in the 1600s"
] | [
"A half answer, and half question, but what part of the first section of the film do you not think is present anymore? The arc follows a training company through Marine Basic Training at Paris Island South Carolina. And for the time it depicts relatively normal portions of training. And still does today, close orde... |
Why, if I eat food normally, is the flavor immediately noticeable. But If I simply place my tongue on a piece of food and hold it there, I taste nothing? | [
"Mixing the food with your saliva and getting the smell to your nose are major components of taste. If you didn't have smell, the taste gets dulled (this is why people will pinch their nose while eating something they do not like)"
] | [
"Grab a tennis ball and a lamp. Turn off every other light in the room. Hold up the tennis ball. Half is lit, half is dark. If you are looking from the side (you can see the lamp and the ball) you can see some of the dark side of the ball. The ONLY way to see nothing but lit ball is to have the lamp directly behin... |
Electric and magnetic fields exist, and allow for photons. Gravitational and Gravitomagnetic fields exist. Do graviphotons (?) exist? Why/why not? | [
"The reserved name is [\"graviton\"](_URL_1_) for such a particle and it would be the result of a quantum theory of gravity. Except... we don't have a quantum theory of gravity, as the classical theory of gravity (general relativity) does not quantize nicely (unlike Maxwell's equations). The search to develop a suc... | [
"Look at [this picture](_URL_0_). Pretty much gets the idea across. The lines in the picture represent magentic field lines. Note how the disk is sorta \"pinched\" between them. In that fashion the disk is held in place."
] |
if I breathe in water through my mouth, does it go into my lungs? If so, how does it get out? | [
"Large scale fluid in the lungs is called pulmonary edema, and the fluid won't get expelled from the lungs by itself. This causes pneumonia and generally a host of very nasty things, such as collapsed lung and acidosis. The first reaction to inhaling water is coughing in an attempt to rid the lungs of water, and so... | [
"It's the [water cycle](_URL_0_) There is a limited amount of water on Earth but it's a pretty neat cycle where the water coming from waterfalls end up in rivers / the ground then joins the oceans, evaporates, goes up the sky, ends up raining down on mountains at cold temperature where they form snow / ice then mel... |
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