Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why is it that when I'm healthy, if I sleep for 10 hours I'm tired, but when I'm sick, I can sleep for 10 hours and need a nap?	[ "Because your immune system is burning through a lot of energy to fight the infection. You have to make a crap ton of new immune cells, antibodies, etc. You also might run a fever, which consumes a huge amount of energy." ]	[ "We also don't have as sensitive senses as dogs do, so we can't wake ourselves up at the slightest sound, touch, smell, change in light or taste. You'll notice that while the dog nods off easily, he'll be awoken by certain things that won't wake us up. Not to mention that they sleep when the need/can, whereas human...
Would a planet with a hollow center and a perfectly even distribution of mass throughout its crust create a zero gravity point at its center?	[ "Better than that, it'd create a zero gravity zone anywhere inside it, [not just at the centre](_URL_0_). This of course assumes that the planet is the only source of gravity in the Universe :-)" ]	[ "When a lot of stuff floats around it tends to group up... as those groups form they get more and more attracted to eachother. The more stuff there is the more gets attracted (gravety). Eventually there is so much stuff that the middle gets very hot! Everything there turns into this super dense ball. it keeps pulli...
Is there one big, planetwide weather system, or does each country calculate their own? If so, what sort of communication exists between them?	[ "Most countries have their own weather system, but that doesn’t mean they will only study their own country. For example, in Brazil they study the weather for most of South America, even if other countries have their own system" ]	[ "Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): You can find the basic answer with a google / wiki search. Please start there and come back with a more specific question. If you disagree with this decision, please send a [message to the moderators.](_URL...
why can't laptop/CPU processors be changed like how RAM and storage can be changed ?	[ "It can up until the socket changes for the cpu you want to use. Ram and storage are generic ports. Cpus sockets are generation specific and changes every two years or so worth the newer generation of processors" ]	[ "In addition to what others have said nations often sell export variants of hardware. These versions are usually less capable than what is in the selling nations' arsenals. When the US sells planes they will usually have a less capable avionics and radar systems. US tanks are sold with export armor that is less cap...
What were the major differences between London before the Battle of Hastings vs. London after with William the Conqueror as king?	[ "> I've heard a lot about the Domesday Book, but it just doesn't seem very important Allow me to disabuse you of this notion. The Great Survey, called the Domesday Book from the 12th century onward, is not only the model for every public record that came after it, but also the most comprehensive and important work ...	[ "I posted on ActiveHistory yesterday about a controversial statue of Edward Cornwallis in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Cornwallis, the renowned founder of the city, also has a little bit of historical baggage wherein he proclaimed a bounty on Mi'kmaq scalps in 1749 - a fairly bloodthirsty act. Similarly, he expressed the ...
Why does the sum of 1+2+3+4+5... to infinity = -1/12?	[ "To explain what the Wikipedia article is saying... Obviously 1+2+3+4+5+... doesn't give you -1/12, or anything finite. The more terms you add to the sum, the bigger it gets, without bound. Put loosely, it sums to infinity. But there's a funny argument you can do. Say I pick some number s and sum up the numbers 1^(...	[ "You know how authors write long stories using letters and words and the rules of grammar and writing? Its just like that. With enough knowledge of how to read (math), these kinds of explanations make sense. Dont feel bad that you cant read it. Its just like if you tried to read a story in a language you dont know....
How is it legal for people to offer services as "future tellers"?	[ "Their services are classified under entertainment. They don't have to be true, just like a movie doesn't have to be true, just as long as they entertain you. If customer want to believe it is true, the authorities don't get involved just as they won't get involved if you think Titanic was a factual documentary. ...	[ "Because it doesn't seem to work very well. Almost all of the sources for that article are news releases and news coverage, with very few peer-reviewed journals that actually document the results of their experiments. Unfortunately, this is the modus operandi for scammers, or those who just continue to believe in...
In the 18th century, astronomers went around the globe to observe the transit of Venus knowing that if they compare their measurements, they could figure out how far the sun is. How does this work?	[ "Parallax. When you look at an object against a background there is a difference in the apparent location of the foreground object depending on how separated two different observers are and how far away the background object is. Knowing the distance between the two observers and the exact timing of the event at eac...	[ "How did they do it (back then?) or how do they do it now? By using experiments and logical reasoning. You can't put a cell under a microscope and watch its metabolic functions. Instead you have to extrapolate out based on the inputs/outputs of the cell. In fact, the citric acid cycle was first postulated from expe...
Why is the domain to f(x) = x^x only positive numbers?	[ "You can consider x^x over negative x, but you have to make some choices about the logarithms of negative numbers, which aren't unique, as /u/Midtek explains. If you plot all of the possible x^x functions parametrically, you get a cool-looking [spindle](_URL_0_) that traces out all the possible values the function ...	[ "Say you have a banana and an apple. How many ways can you arrange those on a table? You can put the banana on the table. You can put the apple on the table. You can put both on the table, or you can put none of them on the table. There are four ways total that you can arrange these fruits. This represents 2 to the...
What is the student loan bubble? What happens if it "bursts"?	[ "The Student loan bubble is referencing the fact that student loan debt is non-dischargeable and a very large portion of the population is being burdened with between 10 and 30 thousand dollars of this type of debt each. It popping is either hundreds of thousands of students failing to pay back their debt and the ...	[ "You can look at the current inflation rates, if one rate is much higher than the other your choice is pretty simple, for instance if you were going to school in Zimbabwe I'd say wait until the last minute to pay your tuition. But there's not much difference between the US and UK inflation rates, the US's is slight...
How did monkeys get to the New World?	[ "Probably through a rafting event. During strong storms and floods, large sections of wetlands can be ripped free and set adrift. Under favourable conditions, such rafts can cross more than a thousand miles of ocean. South America and Africa were ~1,000 kilometres (600 miles) closer than they are today. Sea levels...	[ "They don't build the tunnel through the water, they dig under the rock that's under the water. [Here is a diagram](_URL_0_) so you can see what it looks like." ]
Why do many Americans think Obama is a terrible president and Bush was amazing? From my view (uk) it easily seems the other way around?	[ "As an American, I can tell you that there will always be about half the people who hate the president and half who like him. That's the nature of our polarizing political climate. Throw in a little racism, and bam: Obama is the worst president ever." ]	[ "\"Just about everyone here\" Where is \"here\" for you? It sounds like your question's premise is based on a small sample set based on personal observation. Before your question is addressed, you should be making sure the premise is valid..." ]
Are there any cultures/societies in recent existence ("recent" as in the past 200 years or so; the sooner the better) that use calendars other than Gregorian?	[ "The people of the island of Java in Indonesia use a 5-day week called a \"pasaran\". They've used this for nearly 400 years, and they continue to use it in parallel with the official Gregorian calendar used by Indonesia. The five days of their week are: Legi, Pahing, Pon, Wagé, Kliwon. They combine this 5-day week...	[ "In addition to what MI13 mentioned in their excellent answer, you have to keep in mind the tactical employment of Early Modern pike formations bore only superficial resemblance to Macedonian phalanxes. They both carried pikes, and that was it. The Spanish, on the cutting edge of military development in the 16th ce...
How do phones like the Samsung Galaxy S9 & Razer Phone reduce the resolution without any change in display size?	[ "Just like computer monitors do - the device interpolates the pixels of the image. In other words, rather than a 1-to-1 mapping of pixels, each pixel takes on some of the color of nearby pixels. There's no reason why other phones can't do this, as it's really just a matter of software. But interpolating the pixels ...	[ "Awesome question, you’re right that the research about this kinda sucks. If you are good at interpreting/understanding research articles then check this out, if not then I’ll cover the details below so don’t worry: _URL_0_ Generally, research of this nature is done using model organisms, in the case of this study...
The Mandelbrot Set or any other fractal	[ "[This has been posted to reddit a couple of times](_URL_0_). It's a beautiful semi-interactive discovery of the Julia and Mandlebrot sets. Requires a real browser, such as a very recent chrome or firefox. I haven't tested it on IE. *I know it's customary to explain in-band, but I believe this is an exceptional des...	[ "[This](_URL_0_) is a good resource on this question. The tldr version is that after about seven riffle (bridge) shuffles, you get pretty close to a uniform probability density over all possible deck orders. The reason why we settle for \"pretty good\" is that no finite use of riffle shuffle gets to a uniform distr...
How is a three cylinder engine balanced?	[ "There's a nice visualisation of a straight 3 four stroke [here](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "One note: most animals with legs don't have four of them; six is by far more common, as it is the number of legs on insects. And insects outnumber tetrapod vertebrates in both number of species and number of individuals by a longshot. Other even numbers of limbs are common on other arthropods, but four is basicall...
Why is n-type semiconductors net charge neutral though it has large number of electrons? Same with p-type semiconductors, it's net charge is also neutral though it has large number of holes?	[ "The materials before doping are neutral and the dopant atoms are neutral so the resultant doped materials are neutral. What changes is the number of *conduction* holes or electrons. The dopant atoms have different electronic structures allowing for this to happen as /u/sxbennett described." ]	[ "Pi-Hole is a dns sinkhole that is commonly used to block ad and tracker domains. DNS (Domain Name System) is the system that translates a url (www._URL_0_) into an IP address (150.140.208.53), since computers can only establish a connection to an IP address, not an URL. Pi-Hole works by acting like a DNS server. W...
Why do my muscles hurt after working out only after when I wake up from sleep ?	[ "It's called delayed onset muscle soreness and it's not induced by sleep. It happens approximately 24 hours after exercise and peaks at around 72 hours. It might seem like it happens after sleep only because you're typically going to sleep within that time period under normal circumstances. If you happened to stay ...	[ "Educated guess here. Lots of blood and lubricating fluid builds up in all the \"tubes\" of your genitals when you sexually excited, and the tubes expand a bit for better flow. The \"plan\" is all that fluid is expelled in an ejaculation, then all the blood flow goes back to the rest of your body and all your \"tub...
Describe the process that makes you go wiggly wobbly when you're on a skateboard going fast down a hill.	[ "It's called Speed Wobble and begins when some otherwise minor irregularity accelerates the wheel to one side. The restoring force is applied in phase with the progress of the irregularity, and the wheel turns to the other side where the process is repeated. If there is insufficient damping in the steering the osci...	[ "Point a flashlight at the wall and turn it on. See the small circle? Now, let's say your flashlight is delivering xyz power to the wall. So xyz power is landing in that circle, right? Tilt the flashlight in any direction. The circle spreads out across the wall doesn't it? But you didn't change the batteries or any...
In many conservative countries male-on-male sex is illegal, yet female-on-female isn't. Why?	[ "Because to many conservative people female sexuality doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they have sex with each other. It doesn't matter if they don't want to have sex with a man because they don't have a choice after they're married. But if they get raped, they will be blamed for \"enticing\" the man." ]	[ "The oldest condominium (i.e. territory with a shared sovereignity or territory with several sovereignities) I know about is Andora : basically, a country ruled by two foreign princes (one spanish cardinal, one french count/king/president) for the last 7 centuries. There are others, like an island between France an...
Did the Devil's Brigade (1st Special Service Force) take part in D-Day?	[ "No. They were in Italy at the time, having just captured Rome. If you are particularly interested in the 1st SSF, I would highly recommend Anne Hicks' \"The Last Fighting General: The Biography of Robert Tryon Frederick\". He was the first commander of the unit and an amazing officer." ]	[ "3 Main reasons According to Wikipedia: > The unmanned Dawn spacecraft, launched by NASA in 2007, is en route to Ceres. The probe has been orbiting asteroid 4 Vesta since July 15, 2011. After completing one year of explorations there it will continue on to Ceres, arriving in 2015, five months prior to the arrival ...
The ending to American Psycho	[ "It's supposed to confuse you. You're supposed to wonder if Patrick Bateman really committed those murders or if he hallucinated it all." ]	[ "You can't assume that they actually did any of it. Poe was never investigated for burying a man alive and the writers of the Halloween series were never investigated for being serial killers. How is a rapper any different?" ]
Why have humans not returned to the moon since 1972?	[ "Honestly, from what I've read, it looks like there's nothing really to do there. All the science that can be done, was done." ]	[ "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!" ]
Listening to podcasts about Roman history, it's often mentioned that we don't know where X battle took place. If we located it, would we be likely to find weapons and armor under the surface?	[ "hi! hopefully someone with battlefield archaeology expertise will be able to contribute here, but meanwhile, you may be interested in this recent post: tl;dr: either scavenged or have likely rotted * [What happened to all the weapons used in Roman/Medieval times?](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Tectonic forces move rock up and down all the time. Most of the time we find dinosaur bones it's because they've been uplifted and the rock above them eroded away so they're only now exposed at the surface. It's not rare to find them in even in mountains, so the shallowest dinosaur-fossil bearing layers are likely...
How do you test a lethal injection?	[ "These drugs aren't just \"kill people\" drugs. They are anesthetics and muscle relaxants. You know how much it takes to have the effect, as a function of body mass. You know that if you give a surgical patient too much, you have to revive them. In a death penalty setting, you give them more than enough, and choose...	[ "This has been done before, with animals. Here is a video allegedly showing an old Russian experiment done with a dog. It looks real to me, but, then so did The Wizard of Oz. Warning, it might be disturbing and upsetting to watch. _URL_0_" ]
Why is an air bubble in the blood vessels fatal?	[ "Usually it isnt. It's dissolved really quickly. That's why nurses in hospitals don't really care too much about it. It's only a problem when a large amount of air gets into the heart or brain. Then the air replaces the blood in various arteries very and can't be dissolved easily." ]	[ "Carbon dioxide, the stuff that makes carbonated drinks fizzy, and the gas that a burp from drinking a carbonated drink mostly consists of, is slightly acidic. Depending on the person it can trigger the same pain receptors in your nose and throat that mustard triggers just not quite as strongly. Some like it, some ...
Why do Sharpies bleed through paper, while some darker markers don't?	[ "Sharpies are alcohol based. So what's happening is when you touch the marker to the paper the alcohol moistens the contact point and the surroundings a bit allowing the ink to spread out. Other markers do bleed but not as significantly. Picture it this way, you drop ink onto a toilet paper square. When it lands, ...	[ "_URL_0_ Excellent article that gives more detail: * Everyone uses it, and want to keep to one brand, so someone in better times gets used to using Tide, all of a sudden can't afford it, either steals or buys it on the black market, rather than buying something cheap. * Since everyone uses it and sales volumes are ...
does a gravity wave speed up time?	[ "If you're referring to the stretching of the fabric of space, then the answer is yes - but only minutely (as in, you would never be able to detect it, ever). This is because not only is the effect of a gravity wave really, really, really small, but it's commonly accepted now that they move at the speed of light....	[ "Correct me if I'm wrong but AFAIK there is no accepted theory that rigorously motivates Einstein's GR, and the influence of mass distribution on the spacetime metric is axiomatic in the GR framework. i.e. the bending of spacetime by mass is a fundamental concept and there's no deeper explanation." ]
Can any given 2D shape be expressed as a single (probably incredibly complex) equation, or do many shapes require a piecewise graph?	[ "Yes. I used to waste so much time in high school typing long formulas into my TI-83 to get it to graph shapes I drew out ahead of time on graph paper. With enough time on your hands, you can use its parametric grapher to graph out your signature. I used the [Nyquist-Shannon sampling formula](_URL_0_). It smoothly ...	[ "Let's just begin with an understanding that the perspective on a typical painting is seeing the subject through a window. The frame is like a window frame, and the canvas is like the glass. This takes a three dimensional image and transfers one possible angle of viewing onto a two dimensional medium. For Cubism, ...
Nuclear fusion, and why it's important.	[ "Fusion = combine two atoms into one (and depending on the atoms, release tremendous amounts of energy). Think nuclear power, but far far more energy, and the materials required can be obtained from seawater at almost no cost." ]	[ "Vox and Kurzgesagt made pretty good videos 'bout it. Check 'em out [here](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_1_). You're welcome!" ]
During the Cultural Revolution, did Chinese refugees flee to the Soviet Union?	[ "Yes they did, though the majority who did escape were not Chinese but either Uyghurs or Mongols who fled East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia respectively. In particular, Uyghurs either fled due to religious reasons, as the CCP began to close down mosques, or for political or social reasons seeing that the majority w...	[ "Well first you have to ask why these movements purged so many intellectuals. In every case, it's your well-educated people who pose the biggest threat to your regime. Your professionals and college professionals are typically smart, well-organized, and resourceful. They make the most capable critics against the ...
Why are people more likely to sing when they're taking a shower/bath?	[ "As far as I'm aware, it's not that showering makes people more likely to sing. Rather, it's that it's a private environment that often has good acoustics and has a source of white noise (the shower) that drowns out other sounds. The shower is someplace where nobody will criticize you for singing and where you migh...	[ "Its the easiest way to get out of the kitchen for a 5 minute break." ]
(Calculus) Why is the Lagrange Multiplier significant (for what reason did Lagrange invent it?)	[ "Because it takes optimization (setting the derivative to zero) one step further by also taking constraints on your solutions into account. It seems like magic and too trivial to work, but it's quite powerful." ]	[ "Logarithms are a way of summarizing how big a number is. I'm pretty sure you already know an easy way of summarizing how big a number is: you just count the digits. You're doing this whenever you talk about \"earning six figures.\" But $120,000 isn't the same size as $800,000, is it? It'd be nice to have a way of ...
Is it possible to give a planet without an active core a magnetic field?	[ "I don't really know where the research is now but NASA talked about the feasibility of placing a magnetic field-generating satellite at the Mars-L1 Lagrange Point to shield Mars from the solar winds as seen in the diagram: _URL_1_ _URL_0_" ]	[ "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...
Does gravity effect objects instantly?	[ "To our knowledge it propagates at the speed of light. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Yes. That's why the second law is treated as a statistical law in modern times; it governs what will tend to happen, not what absolutely must happen every time." ]
If all humans were to disappear, but the earth was otherwise unchanged, is it likely that another intelligent species would eventually evolve?	[ "I don't think anyone can answer this question without speculating." ]	[ "Your asking essentially the chicken or the egg. Example, Did you stomach evolove first and create your brain and extremites to feed it. Or did your brain grow your stomach to power it. Har to say, as without something to feed the stomach, we would have no stomch. Without the brain to run everything, we wouldn't ha...
I have horrible vision, but why is it that when I wear goggles under water, I see perfectly?	[ "Same has has always happened for me, I have -5.75 vision in both eyes but underwater I see almost perfect! So another question would be how much does water change the refraction? So how bad of sight could it correct?" ]	[ "You breathe by having your Diaphragm expand your lungs, which creates an area of low pressure, causing the air to enter. You exhale in reverse. When sticking your head out the window, the air rushing by your mouth/nose is already at a lower pressure since it's moving. This means the pressure differential between t...
Why are eggs in America white and eggs in the UK in beige/cream?	[ "Brown eggs come from brown chickens with red lobes. White eggs come from white chickens with white lobes. No nutritional difference." ]	[ "England has been invaded a whole lot of times([73 different times since 1066](_URL_0_)). Each time new rulers came in the English language changed to mix a little bit with the language of the invaders. Several of those times, the invaders happened to be French. The people who were actually eating the animals (the ...
What causes a speech impedement such as a lisp, and is it possible to learn to speak without it?	[ "I also had a speech impediment when I was young, and learned to overcome it with speech therapy. It didn't take very long (just a few weeks of therapy). Later on in life, I had to have many teeth taken out and developed a speech impediment yet again due to the shape of my mouth changing, and I had to relearn how ...	[ "If you were to build a 'super' car, would it be the fastest? The car that uses the least fuel? The one that can carry the most cargo? The one with the most amounts of seats? The one that fits in every parking space because its small? Different people create different languages for different reasons. Some are supe...
Why is it humans have white parts(sclera) of eyes showing when other animals have full irises when looking straight ahead.	[ "_URL_0_ In other animals, the iris does not take up all of the opening. The sclera is still there, it's just colored the same as the iris. In humans, it is theorized that we evolved a prominent white sclera and small iris as a nonverbal communication tool, as humans are much more social creatures than most anima...	[ "Adrenaline. When a cascade is released it triggers a fight or flight response which can lead to involuntary subconscious actions. Covering the head protects it. Opening the mouth helps increase oxygen availability in case you have to run. Goosebumps go back to our primitive roots of putting up the hackles on our f...
I get 5-6 hours of sleep every night but never feel tired during the day.	[ "Well, the first thing that you have to understand is that everybody is different which means that everybody requires a different amount of time to sleep than others. This is because our bodies are controlled by sleep/wake homeostasis as well as the circadian rhythms that develop within the first few months of life...	[ "Overtiredness. \"Once overtired, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline flood your bloodstream. These are often referred to as ‘fight or flight’ hormones because they increase your state of awareness, speed up your heart rate, raise your blood pressure and cause tension to build up in your muscles. Despi...
Can a person actually be scared to death?	[ "I think so. If someones physical condition is bad they might get a heart attack due to the adrenaline. Otherwise I think it is not possible. _URL_0_ Edit: link" ]	[ "Just depends on how your brain precieves (sorry for spelling) the responses from nerve endings. I personally hate being tickled and do not like the feeling." ]
How do movies that turn out extremely terrible get a massive budget, without them realizing it's going to be a bad movie and a huge loss?	[ "Often, it's really hard to tell a movie isn't working until you have written it, hired all the actors, shot the movie and get into the editing process. Movie making is so hard, even the greatest movies ever made can feel terrible during production. Look at star wars. You basically make 3 movies every time you mak...	[ "Advertisers pay them according to how many people watch...measured by ratings. This is commercial, network TV of course. Many people think they are in the business of delivering programs to viewers, and advertising pays for it. Actually, they are in the business of delivering viewers to advertisers, and the progra...
What is the oldest recorded joke?	[ "\"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.\" It's Sumerian, and dates to 1900BC. Reference: _URL_0_" ]	[ "If I may ask a similar question, what are the origins of the story of Alexander capturing a pirate and asking him something like, \"What makes you think you can just go around stealing ships?\", to which the pirate replied, \"What makes you think you can just go about stealing the whole world?\"" ]
What effect did the black death have on the environment of Europe?	[ "Please specify what you mean by \"environment\". Do you mean the cultural human environment, or ecosystems such as forests and animal life? On what scale are we talking, macro or micro?" ]	[ "Related question: what was the size and importance of the medieval bleach industry?" ]
What prevents woodpeckers from getting concussions?	[ "Oh this is one I can answer! Woodpeckers have lots of neat adaptations that keep them from injuring themselves when the peck wood. One is that they have fairly thick spongy skull bones, another is cartilage padding. They also have a tongue so long it wraps around the back of their skull! Specifically to avoid a co...	[ "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." ]
Does a dog's breed really dictate it's temperament?	[ "Sub-categories of any species, including humans and dogs, are expected to have small differences in many areas, even without intentionally breeding for certain traits. Even when you do create a breed by selecting traits, you can unintentionally breed other traits. We know that dogs are bred for ability to smel...	[ "I know that linking to articles instead of responding is a bit discouraged on here, but Steve Novella gives a fabulous write-up of this myth, and how it has a grain of truth: [More Left Brain / Right Brain Nonsense](_URL_0_) Here's a quote: > So while some specific functions do lateralize, our minds and personalit...
What other dating systems were widely used other than B.C. and A.D.? When were those systems replaced?	[ "The Japanese used nengo (年号), eras declared by the imperial court. They didn't have a set length and a new era could be declared for any of a number of reasons: a new Emperor taking the throne, a natural disaster, astrology, etc. The longest nengo lasted for thirty-five years, but the majority were less than a...	[ "No. During development, there are certain milestones that can give an estimate of human age, i.e. the [metopic suture in an infants skull closes between 3 and 9mo](_URL_1_), [dental development and/or wear](_URL_3_), [lengths of long bones](_URL_4_), [indicators of puberty](_URL_2_), changes to skin elasticity, dr...
Did the 1989 abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine achieve the goals of the D.C. Court of Appeals in Syracuse Peace Council v. FCC?	[ "Would it be more accurate to say that this question is asking whether it had achieved those goals by 1997? I'm not entirely sure how the 20-year rule applies in a case like this." ]	[ "Follow up questions: In Robin Pierson's \"[The History of Byzantium](_URL_0_)\" podcast he mentions that the murder of Hypatia in Alexandria in 415 is used by some to mark the end of Classical Antiquity. [Her wikipedia article](_URL_2_) also mentions this under the section about her death. Was the death of Hypatia...
Why is it difficult to let a liquid run down your throat without having the urge to swallow?	[ "I think it’s because breathing is the default option for your throat. Your body would think you are drowning." ]	[ "One example would be with hydraulics. For example, if you have a U shaped pipe, with one end that is shorter than the other. If water is piped in from the higher end, it will naturally shoot out the short end. This is because water wants to equalize in height. Another example would be if greater force is applied t...
magnets have the ability to do work, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, so how are they able to do SO MUCH work (w=fxd) over their life?	[ "Magnets create a magnetic field. Magnetic objects in this field have _potential_ energy. The situation is similar to masses on earth. They gain potential energy when you lift them up. However, the earth itself (or the magnet) does not create the energy. No, its _you_ who does the work, by lifting them up." ]	[ "A frisbee has a similar shape to the wing of an airplane, so it generates lift. The spinning motion generates stability. That's basically all there is to it." ]
How does the UN General Assembly enforce its decisions?	[ "It doesn't. The power to enforce UN resolutions belongs to the UN Security Council, and any of the 5 permanent members (US, Russia, China, UK, and France) can veto any action the security council might take." ]	[ "I know that they did take into account movement from the earths tectonic plates when measuring. You have to bear in mind that this is one of the world's best funded scientific organisations which employs thousands of scientists, i'm pretty sure they thought of this." ]
Why is the country approximately 50/50 when it comes to the political spectrum? Is it a coincidence that it's divided so evenly, or is it a statistical phenomenon?	[ "No, it's actually what you would expect with a two-party system. Imagine tomorrow that either societal attitudes changed or the Democrats changed their policies so that they suddenly had the firm support of 60% of the country. The Republicans, now realizing that they're now never going to win the presidency or con...	[ "How loud a noise is in one ear, relative to the other ear, allows the brain to estimate where the source of the sound is coming from. When both sounds in each ear are in sync and being received at the same volume, your brain figures that the source of this noise must be located between your two ears; the middle (o...
Why does some music sound so amazing at the first listen, when other songs grow on you and then slowly become amazing?	[ "I'm a huge music listener and at the end of the day, the only music that survives my playlists is the one that grew on me. I think music that is immediately accessible is in the end boring. Of course, with experience with particular genres and bands, you start to enjoy a lot any new music the first time you hear i...	[ "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...
why can humans go crazy?	[ "It's not exclusive to humans. Look at animals kept in captivity, particularly the ones which are held in especially abusive conditions. You'll frequently find monkeys flinging their own shit around in zoos, caged birds plucking their own feathers out, dancing bears rocking back and forth, and so on. What causes it...	[ "As time passes you put the event or issue into its proper perspective as you learn more about it and things around it. Often times that makes you realize how inane some things are." ]
When transferring money from one bank to another digitally, what exactly is being transferred?	[ "Its trading IOUs All your bank account really is, is the bank saying they 'owe' you your balance whenever you'd like it. And of course, you trust them to pay you when you want it. All this does is shift that. Lets say you transfer $100, the other bank now has an IOU you for $100, and your original bank takes $100 ...	[ "[This video explains quite well how it works online, specifically Youtube](_URL_0_) TL;DW: Youtube only sends information about changes between frames of a video. Since there is usually very little difference between 2 frames the server can just say \"ehhh take what you had last time, shift this part a tiny bit th...
In Islamic countries, how are women who wear a face veil identified for official purposes?	[ "As I live in an arabic country, I can tell you, that on their passport, or official ID card, women have a picture of their face. This is taken by a female photographer. At official purposes (such as imigration on the airport) they lift it just enough that the officer can check and the camera can scan the face." ]	[ "The geography plays a role. The mountain ranges surrounding Iran sort of set natural borders. You can see it in these pics: _URL_0_ _URL_1_ Contrast Iran to the surrounding countries. Keeps people in and enemies out." ]
In WW2, there is photo graphical evidence of tanks being dug underground and used as a bunker/fortification. How common was this, and was this a proper military procedure?	[ "The German Army build several types of those. The first picture is a OT-Stahlunterstand mit Pantherturm. The Germans build several types through the war, the pillbox could be made out of steel/concrete or wood stands. These scans [1](_URL_2_),[2](_URL_1_) show the concrete base of the turrets, in this case the Pan...	[ "greetings all. Just a moderator reminder to potential respondents of what subreddit we're in here: it's /r/AskHistorians, so do review and comply with [the subreddit rules](_URL_11_). In a nutshell: > Answers in this subreddit are expected to be of a level that historians would provide: **comprehensive and inform...
How is audio recorded for TV and movies? Right during the scene or dubbed over in a studio later?	[ "Both. They will try to get good sound when they're filming it, but sometimes it's just not possible. When that happens, they'll bring the actors back to rerecord dialogue." ]	[ "You mean what happens afterward or what causes it? The cause is sometimes the local station or cable channel can sell local commercials (AKA spots), but their spot may not start exactly on schedule. You will see whatever spot is running on the network during that time slot. Some networks don't run spots in local s...
How is Sam Smiths "Stay with me" nominated for "Best song" grammy when a court just ruled in favor of Tom Petty, that the melody of the song was a direct rip off of "I won't back down"	[ "Look, bro, I guess I'll break it down for you since you haven't figured it out yet. Award shows are just commercials. They're big long commercials paid for by the industry. How are they supposed to make $$$ off the guy if they don't promote him?" ]	[ "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 is our brain hardwired to enjoy symmetry, patterns and complementary colors?	[ "This is a question that is still up in the air. A lot of studies that suggest those things were frequently helpful for our caveman ancestors. As some random examples: Symmetry is often a good indication of health, which is useful if you're trying to have kids that will survive. Complementary colors are something...	[ "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." ]
Why is the mass attenuation coefficient inversely proportional to density (mac = μ/ρ)?	[ "It’s just defined that way. An incoming beam fired at a thin absorber of thickness T is attenuated like exp[-μT], where μ is the attenuation coefficient. Sometimes it’s more convenient to give the target and “effective thickness” that takes into account the material it’s made of (which would normally be included o...	[ "It's easier to break up the clumps when there is less room for the clumps to slip away from you. When there is a lot of water, the powder will end up in a few clumps that swirl around, and if you just stir without seeking them out, they don't break up easily. When tehre is less water, simple stirring will cause th...
What is the process that enables our eyeballs to move in synchronisation?	[ "It's a neural connection. In ophthalmology there are two rules: Hering's law and Sherrington's law. Basically together these two laws describe the way the eyes can work together. Whenever your brain tells you to look right, for example, it sends a signal to both eyes to tell them to turn right. It sends the same s...	[ "You can't. It's called confirmation bias, where you pay more attention to those instances that confirm your belief than those that don't. Times when you've thought someone was staring and nobody was are not of interest, so disconfirming evidence is weighted less in your mind. It's a very well understood cognitive ...
When did humans first become aware of the nutritional value of food rather than it simply being something that ended hunger?	[ "When you say nutritional value do you mean, when did we start putting on those labels and knowing what everything is in there or how when did we understand you can't just live off carbs? and things like that?" ]	[ "Competition among restaurants to show that they were giving the customer the best value for their dollar. \"Well, this place gives me this much food for $5, but that other place gives me even more for the same price!\"" ]
If sound can't travel through space, how can radio waves?	[ "Sound is a compression wave, it travels by massive (which in this context just means \"having mass\") particles like molecules bumping into each other and transmitting that bump forward. Imagine being in a dense crowd, and then a group of people charge into one edge of the crowd. Their momentum will be tranferred ...	[ "The same way they do now: using satellite and microwave transmissions. Using the internet is kind of sketchy, because of a lack of control of the bandwidth that can cause the connection quality to drop, which is why other technologies are preferred when feasible." ]
How does science reconcile comets and asteroids as the source of Earth's preponderance of water when Jupiter is regarded as a shield against those same comets and asteroids?	[ "For one thing comets and planetismals would have been much more common in the early solar system. If (for example) Jupiter stops 90% of them from hitting us, but in the early solar system there were 100x as many of them, then we would have received 100x more impacts per year/century/millenium than we do now. (I d...	[ "A long time ago in places like Greece, Rome and even before that in really, really long ago places like Sumeria, and Egypt people made up stories about the stars/planets and the pictures they thought groups of stars made. These stories were usually about beings they considered to be gods or demigods (the word demi...
Is sunlight really that bad for you?	[ "well, there are pictures of truck drivers that have taken sun for only one side of the face. its a bit of a difference between sides of the face. _URL_0_ there is a bunch of other examples around. use sunscreen." ]	[ "When cells divide they make pretty much exact copies of themselves. Introduce radiation to the equation and the copying process goes screwy and the new cell is different. Rinse and repeat over and over and you end up with body cells which are completely different in shape size and function to what they were origin...
Wouldn't it be more fuel efficient if rockets took off like planes?	[ "It would and is. Carrying the wings into space would be extremely fuel inefficient, so the only successful design I know of that takes off that way then detaches from it's airplane stage when it reaches a certain speed and altitude. So far we haven't had any success with actually getting into orbit in this way, ...	[ "In the short term? just into space. In the long term? We need to know more. Lets assume were on a space ship orbiting the sun. Lets have one molecule of oxygen escape our space ship with some velocity opposite to our orbital velocity. That means the molecule is orbiting slightly slower then us and would go around ...
in ancient times, how did people know if people truly who they declared that they were?	[ "The biggest way was by being rich and educated. In a world where most people were illiterate farmers, wearing nice clothes, knowing how to ride a horse, being able to speak in the official, aristocratic accent, being able to read, wearing fancy clothes and jewelry, knowing who was who in the circles of power, and ...	[ "Congrats! You've asked what may be the single most-asked question on /r/AskHistorians. That's good news, because it means we have [a big FAQ file devoted to your question](_URL_1_). Check it out, and I hope it helps! Edit: And [here](_URL_0_) is a great answer from /u/talondearg, who answers it quite a bit." ]
Why are grades (elementrary, middle, hs) based on age and not knowledge?	[ "Well, this is not the reason, but I think if this were true, many high-school people would be in 3rd grade." ]	[ "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 is it when we hold our breath, we sink in water, yet a dead body floats?	[ "Corpses float because the gut bacteria create gas when they decompose the body. The GI tract becomes distended and may even rupture under the pressure of the gas produced." ]	[ "There are a few factors at work here : Moſt chairs are deſigned to ſit at about knee height ; they generally ſupport your back, and more importantly, your butt and legs. Toilets are uſually lower, and they are made with a large hole in the middle, into which you ſink a little. This lower height, lack of ſupport,...
Do satellites rotate with the earth?	[ "Satellites in geostationary orbit maintain the same position above the Earth because it takes them 24 hours to rotate. These are about 30,000 km up. Many satellites are much closer to Earth and orbit in a few hours." ]	[ "Poorly manufactured rockets are generally not perfectly symmetrical, either via the thrust or drag. This results in them not flying perfectly straight and is the reason why early rockets (chinese fire-arrows circa 10th century - > british congreve mid 19th century) were fairly ineffective weapons. If you have ever...
How do insects bite humans and other large animals? Wouldn't the size of an insect's mouth biting a human arm, be comparable to a human biting a flat surface such as a table?	[ "Insect mouthparts that are specifically designed to bite large animals (like mosquitoes and horseflies) are usually more like needles than jaws. Some insects that you might think of as biting insects, like fire ants, are actually stinging insects (again, with a needle-type design)." ]	[ "There are two strips of brain cells that run from ear to ear across the top of your head (The sensory-motor cortex). One strip is used to control all your movement in your body the other registers sensation all over your body. We can actually map out a person's body on these strips. When a person loses a limb, the...
Why are programs allowed to use 100% CPU ?	[ "We bought the CPU to be used, not to sit idle. If one program wants all of the CPU and no other programs want any, why would the program that wants it not be given it? The CPU doesn't have inertia. If someone else comes along and asks for CPU, it can be taken away from the first process in a tiny fraction of a sec...	[ "> what happens to the computer Nothing at all will happen to the computer, your installation of windows may stop working though and you'll need to either repair or reinstall it." ]
What causes the reaction to pass out/faint in people with phobias of blood/needles?	[ "The fancy name is vasovagal syncope. Exposure of a trigger (in this case the sight of blood or needles) causes a part of the brain to drop your heart rate, drop your blood pressure, or a mixture of both. The result is a loss in consciousness." ]	[ "Someone correct me if I am wrong but it goes back to when we had much hairier bodies and when alarmed we as well as a lot of other mammals would puff up our hair to make ourselves look bigger. Think of how when you scare a dog or a cat it hunches up and its hair stands on end, same thing happens to us just we dont...
Why have CPUs been limited in frequency to around 3.5Ghz for so many years? What prevents us from increasing the frequency to 10, 100, 1000Ghz?	[ "We're at a point where raising the frequency isn't worth the power consuption and heat dissipation. It's easier and more efficient to increase the count of transistors on the core, optimize the architecture, and to multply the number of core to gain power. Trying to reach such high speeds as 10 GHz or more would...	[ "You mix together water, buffer (keeps pH constant, some salt so the polymerase folds and functions right), primers (short pieces of DNA that match the beginning and end of the sequence you want to amplify), dNTPs (raw DNA bases), the template DNA you want to amplify off of, and DNA polymerase (the protein that ext...
Why does 30fps look and feel so much worse on pc than it does on consoles like the ps4?	[ "If a PC game is running at 30FPS, it is likely struggling to keep up with the demands of the current graphic settings and thus it's less an issue of frame rate and more an issue of frame rate consistency. Additionally, if you're at such a low frame rate you may be for example, turning off V-Sync (which ensures ent...	[ "Depends on the way the online stuff is done. It's either server side calculations, where you pressing the button sends a message to the server along the lines of \"hey he pressed shoot, tell me what happened please\" or client side which is \"hey he pressed a button so I figure the bullet went here and hit that gu...
Why is the area around a wound hotter than an area without a wound?	[ "The sensation of heat is caused by inflammation in response to your wound. Specifically, the [heat comes from increased blood flow](_URL_1_). While this is a local response in that it's around the wound rather than your whole body, it still involves peripheral areas responding and is only felt in the skin - so aro...	[ "Like many mammals, people have instincts to groom themselves to maintain health and attract mates. Part of our grooming instinct is to remove parasites, like ticks or lice. These bugs are not a common problem for many modern people (unless you live below the poverty line, or enjoy the outdoors in certain places). ...
Who's buying our personal data, and why is it so valuable?	[ "Not really much deeper implications. They use your location, your search history, your purchase history, etc. to find adds that appeal to you and to see what target demographic you belong to. If you're a business whose main customers are hispanic 20-25 years old females that love surfing, being able to advertise t...	[ "A long time ago, people who are now 80+ years old, took a vote in November to have free TV with ads, or paid TV without ads. They voted the latter. Now through some loopholes, the paid TV services are allowed to sell airtime to advertisers at the customer's expense." ]
After France fell in 1940, were colonies like Algeria and French Indochina controlled by Free France, or did Vichy France somehow take over?	[ "In the case of Syria and Lebanon, Vichy France was in control. There was no need to \"takeover.\" After the surrender of France, the Armee du Levant and the administration were pro-Vichy, and the Vichy government was able to further appoint its own administrator General Henri Dentz. It's my understanding that the ...	[ "Technically, the Avignon popes resided first in Carpentras, northeast of Avignon, which was the capital of the papal territory known as the Comtat Venaissin and had been ever since it was given to the papacy by Philip III in 1274. Avignon proper was independent of the Comtat, but it was owned by the Angevin counts...
Why the Command and Conquer series died?	[ "it's easy. EA. and before you think I'm bashing them or saying something stupid. it's actually true. just go play C & C4.... it was a disgrace to the series." ]	[ "Costs money to build and maintain the facilities, some countries don't feel like taking on the burden of that cost." ]
I have a math and odds question that I don't know how to explain in the title.	[ "You're thinking about this wrong, and this is actually known as the Gambler's Fallacy. (Black has been rolled 3 times in a row, therefore red HAS to be next) When you know the previous ball was a red, then the chance of the next ball being red is 40%. But, the chances of the next 2 balls being red is 40% times 40%...	[ "In your scenario $15 wou'd win $8. You would cash out at $23. $150 would cash out at $230 etc." ]
Addiction to an unknown substance?	[ "If somebody is slipping you enough of the substance for you to get addicted, you'll be able to feel it unless you're in a coma or something. The animal part of your brain will start making the connection with whatever it was you did to get the drug & you'll feel compelled to go do that action again. Just like the ...	[ "This sounds like an extreme example of \"Tip of my Tongue\". _URL_0_ I can't really give an overly scientific answer as to what causes it (some interesting articles on that page, though), but I'd imagine that it's just a \"brain fart\", kinda like deja vu. It's a problem with long-term semantic memory recall. (Se...
Do 2 particles traveling with the speed of light at CERN smash into each other with double the speed of light?	[ "No, they smash into each other at almost the speed of light. The speed of light is the same in all reference frames, which means that velocities don't add the way you'd intuitively expect." ]	[ "When using protons, the beam contains 2808 proton 'bunches', with each bunch containing 1.5e11 protons. That gives a total beam mass of 0.7 nanograms, or (from Wolfram Alpha) about 8x the mass of a red blood cell. Source _URL_0_ On the other hand, LHC also runs experiments with lead ions, with the aim of creating ...
Why is it still possible to turn your computer off when it's doing updates?	[ "It would be a problem if you couldn't. Imagine you're stuck in an update (common in Windows 10 now). Eventually you'll have to use your computer again, but if you had no way to force restart by forcing shutdown first, you've essentially bricked your computer. Operating system updates have become far more robust ov...	[ "Imagine driving a long distance on the road. Your destination is 160 miles away, so you drive along the highway at about 80mph and figure that you need about 2hours total. Then, in the middle of that 160mi, the road gets very bad (you had no chance of knowing that) so you can drive only 50mph. You don't know if th...
when you use a magnet to pull something across a distance, where is the energy coming from?	[ "The magnet has been imbued with energy in the manufacturing process. Electricity is passed through the metal aligning the atoms so that their poles (Pos, Neg) are pointing the same direction. The result is a magnetic field. If you measured the electrical output of the field over a the life of the magnet you would ...	[ "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....
Does the body naturally build leg muscle as you gain more weight (as in fat/non-muscle tissue) to better support the heavy body?	[ "Your assumption is right. But it does not make them (us) stronger in effect, because it is impossible to put the weight down. And with losing the weight the muscle mass which is then not needed anymore shrinks, too. The obese person would have to carry a backpack with thr weight they lost all day around to keep it...	[ "Like most parasitic infections, they have a life cycle. They're adapted to survive in the intestines as worms, but their eggs are passed in faeces to be consumed by the next animal, passing on the infection. The tapeworm eggs are eaten by animals, hatch and that's when they spread from the intestines to other bo...
Why tires have that inflatable tube on the inside and they are not just solid rubber.	[ "Solid rubber tires are used in things like lawnmowers, but for car, it would make driving/riding in it so uncomfortable, regular tires provide cushion." ]	[ "Submarines dive by filling ballast tanks with water. When the sub dives, air from the tanks is compressed into storage tanks, and replaced with seawater. In an emergency, the compressed air can be released back into the ballast tanks, blowing the seawater out and restoring positive buoyancy. Google \"submarine eme...
Can particles other than electrons and protons orbit one another to form "atoms"?	[ "Yes, but regular atoms are the most stable and common. You can make \"atoms\" about of muons and positrons, for example." ]	[ "The main issue is how much angular momentum they have with respect to the sun (or other body being orbiter). Starting from a great distance away they have time to accelerate a lot toward the sun from its gravity, but they don't have the momentum to the side to form a roughly circular orbit like the planets do. As ...
Do deep sea ecosystems follow the normal seasons?	[ "They are much less exposed to change. Most of the changes in ecosystems like reefs occur due to diurnal - crepuscular - nocturnal - crepuscular - diurnal shifts along with the environment being much more open to variable processess like erosion and sea forces. In deep sea areas, we don’t see a lot of change due to...	[ "Other parts of the world were/are just as eventful, you just don't heard about it because much of that history is either in other languages, lost, or never written down. Sailing technology was important, but it is not the be-all, end-all, other factors made the difference. Look at other parts of the world. The Ara...
Why is it 'Beheading' instead of 'Deheading'?	[ "The word \"head\" and the prefix \"de-\" are from different places. \"De-\" is a prefix usually attached to words that English borrowed from Latin or Romance languages (French, Italian, etc.), and \"head\" is a word that English borrowed from older German languages. \"Be-\" is a Germanic prefix." ]	[ "The world currently adheres to the Gregorian colander, which sets the year 1 AD at the believed birth year of Jesus Christ. (The calender does not have a 0 year, it goes from 1 BC to 1 AD) Anything before that is marked as BC or Before Christ. (Or BCE for Before the Common Era) Anything after is marked AD or Ano ...
Why are objects in my car mirror closer than they appear? What's the point of that?	[ "if your side-view mirror was a traditional flat mirror, you wouldn't be able to see very much because of its small size and distance from your eyes. Instead, a convex mirror is used, which means it is curved. This allows you to see a greater field of view, showing you more of the cars that are off to your side and...	[ "Have you ever walked into a room that had an odd smell, but three minutes later you couldn't really tell that the smell was there? Have you ever suddenly realized how hungry you are when someone passes by with a tasty looking snack? Have you ever had to pee, but you were busy doing something so it didn't really se...
What would happen if we placed an object orbiting around a black hole such that in the closest point of the orbit, the object is inside the Schwaszschild radius?	[ "If something enters the Schwarzschild radius, it's not coming back out again." ]	[ "No, because of time dilation. Rather than two objects travelling at the speed of light (which is impossible - nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light), let's consider objects at close to the speed of light. From the point of view of an external observer, each object is travelling at close to the speed...
To this day several institutions still persecute people for crimes they committed during World War 2. Have there been other wars where people were sued for their actions 70 years later?	[ "Argentina's still convicting ex-military members for crimes commited 35-37 years ago: > Former dictator Reynaldo Bignone attends the first day of the trial for his alleged involvement in the so called operation, 'Plan Condor,' in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday. Argentina began today its first human rights trial...	[ "The go-to dramatization is \"Judgement at Nuremberg\", a 1961 film starring Burt Lancaster and Spencer Tracey. It was very well regarded when it came out, garnering a number of Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) and winning for Adapted Screenplay. It still shows up on a number of \"great film\" lists, and ...
Why is it illegal to collect rainwater in some US states?	[ "This was orginally necessary to prevent owners of large ranches from being able to divert run off into holding ponds reducing or eliminating water which would otherwise be available to those further downstream. Your roof might seem inconsequential but if you imagine the loss of runoff if 1 million roofs were being...	[ "Energy consumption, pure and simple. RO membranes, hydrolysis, evaporation, etc., all take energy. A lot of it." ]
Why don't firefighters' oxygen tanks blow up when they walk into a burning building?	[ "SCBA tanks contain compressed air, (air being only 20% oxygen.) Pure oxygen is the last thing you want to be carrying around when you're fighting a fire. The tanks are made of fairly thick, ultra-high strength steel. Steel doesn't start to lose it strength until heated past about 350 degrees celsius. Steel has a ...	[ "What comes to mind is the boiled frog experiment. The basic \"idea\" behind it is that if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly raise the temperature, it'll die before jumping out. This is a widespread myth but it's untrue. It's likely based on experiments done in the mid 1800's, where scientists found out t...
How do historians feel about drawing conclusions from oral traditions? how accurate are they deemed, professionally speaking?	[ "This is a huge problem for all historians, and especially when trying to decipher human history from before the written word, ie pre-history. And that of course even makes the assumption that written history is by default more credible, which is far from true (and much written history is just adaptations of oral h...	[ "Congrats! You've asked what may be the single most-asked question on /r/AskHistorians. That's good news, because it means we have [a big FAQ file devoted to your question](_URL_1_). Check it out, and I hope it helps! Edit: And [here](_URL_0_) is a great answer from /u/talondearg, who answers it quite a bit." ]
Panic Attacks and what causes them.	[ "Panic attacks are when your brain sends the signal that there is danger when there generally isn't. The chemicals in your brain are in fight or flight mode. When your body has a mild reaction to the chemicals, that's anxiety. But when your body has a lot of those chemicals produced at once and you have a very seri...	[ "Read Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko. It deosn't give an actual reason, but the made up one is pretty cool. Russian distopic modern fantasy. Seriously though, my guess would be either: 1. Extra energy (I sometimes just start running places too.) 2. Seeing a little critter or something that you don't." ]
How can USPS, in 2015, continue to use handwritten missed delivery notifications?	[ "They're used between post offices. Inside the post office, the important information is your name and street address. The reason the mailman uses handwritten notices is that all mailmen are equipped with a hand. Most have two." ]	[ "It costs money by private cell providers to implement that system,. And there's no profit to be made. The only reason they would do it is if the law demanded it and the gov was going to pay to costs of it." ]
Why is it there are no American made Anime? (I.E. Japanese style animation)	[ "Well anime is a big part of Japanese culture. The American version of \"anime\" is cartoons I guess. Don't know why, but it's just culture." ]	[ "Less added sugar, less carbs. When you eat a diet where you get your energy based off of carbs you are running on glucose, basically your body is always in an insulin rush. This makes you fat. If you get most of your energy from good fats insetad of sugars youre body will shed it's fat. So more meat based fats or ...

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