Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
What's so special about the golden ratio?	[ "Very little, and it doesn't. A lot of pop-sci documentaries and such will point to any ratio between 1.5 and 1.7 and call it the golden ratio, when there's no real reason to assume that this is the case. How do you know that it's not actually 8/5 that's special? To actually know that it's the golden ratio *specifi...	[ "I heard it had a lot to do with the invention / discovery of the camera obscura. This helped people understand perspective / proportions / etc better. Here's a quick article I found about it - but there are a ton of others, videos, books, etc that talk about it in more depth. _URL_0_" ]
why North American disks do not work in European players and visa versa	[ "DVD discs and players implement region codes, which allow publishers to control the release process across the globe. This helps ensure a movie released in one region is not mass copied and shipped to other regions before the official release happens there. Movie releases are often coordinated with television inte...	[ "As a follow up, does anyone have a rational reason why different countries do it at different times? Also, I feel like the answer to this question is very straight forward, but I just can't wrap my head around it: why does the southern hemisphere change in the opposite direction? And why are their seasons not dire...
Why has Kim Jong Un had such a change of heart all of a sudden?	[ "It is really impossible to know, but the most credible theory I have heard is that the recent [disaster at his primary nuclear test facility](_URL_0_) killed over 200 people, many of whom are believed to be his top scientists. If that is indeed what happened, then it is possible that he simply doesn't have the kno...	[ "Hi, I've approved the post, but just a note to you and potential respondents: this subreddit has a 20-year rule against discussing current events, so any answers will have to cut off at 1997. If you're looking for answers that can include 1998-2012, do consider x-posting elsewhere, eg. a foreign affairs sub like /...
Why do soft blankets seem to be warmer?	[ "Soft = more fluffy. Fluffier towels trap more air, which acts as an insulator to keep heat in." ]	[ "It is a matter of heat transfer. Specifically the heat transfer coefficient. Compare the coefficients of the two and you will see that your body (mostly fluid water) transfers heat energy more effectively through fluid rather than air." ]
Why water freezes from the top down	[ "When water freezes the molecules form small rings which take up more space than the liquid form does. That means that ice is less dense than water and floats to the top. This happens to be one of the many reasons why water is important to life on Earth. The ice forms an insulating layer which slows down the freezi...	[ "Has to do with the angles formed by the hydrogen with the oxygen. They clump together based on water being polar. This clumping forms larger patterns associated with these angles. These grow until it forms we think of as snowflakes. Varous enviromental factors impact how these crystals grow into snowflakes. [_URL_...
Why are smells stronger in the heat, rather than the cold?	[ "Your sense of smell works by picking up molecules from the air. Many things emit these molecules regularly. \"Volatility\" is a measure of how frequently something will emit an odor-causing molecule. When temperatures increase the speed of atoms increase, which leads to an increase in volatility. Basically, you s...	[ "The molecules in the steel bind with the sulfur molecules left on your fingers from things like garlic and onions, and when you rub your hands against the steel under cold water, the molecules are washed away." ]
Why do so many religions advocate celibacy? And when did virginity become a "sacred" thing for humans?	[ "According to the \"religious economies\" school of thought, celibacy was a tradition that religions adopted to signal their credibility to churchgoers and potential converts. Devotion to a religion is costly and risky for parishioners, since they spend time, money, and it determines their fate in the afterlife. Pr...	[ "The masks weren't just a long flute for air to flow through. They were filled with potpourri and other scented stuff. Before germs and bacteria were known, it was believed that disease was spread by foul odours, which can be counteracted or blocked with good odours. They did also believe that disease was spread by...
Light, gravity, electric fields and magnetic fields supposedly require no medium. Since dark mater is apparently everywhere, is it possible that dark matter is used as the medium for these things?	[ "Most likely not, for a couple reasons. 1. We already have a very good understanding of electrodynamics and (large scale) gravitation. None of our current understanding requires such a medium to exist. In fact, I'd argue lorentz invariance (a supremely important concept) prohibits these things to be tied to such ...	[ "We do use antimatter currently for practical uses, ever heard of a PET scan? It would be the ultimate energy storage medium because gathering meaningful amounts of antimatter from nature is impractical. The best place to find it now is in the van Allen radiation belts." ]
Why are northern US home driveways made of asphalt and souther driveways made of concrete?	[ "Asphalt softens in high temperatures. Concrete cracks in cold temperatures. That should tell you everything you need to know." ]	[ "_URL_0_ Reportedly cows tend to feed more around sundown when the nutritional content of plants is higher. > “A series of USDA studies looked at animals’ ability to choose different forages. The researchers cut hay in the morning and in the evening and used this in the choice tests. They’ve done it with cattle, g...
I heard today that slaves in Ancient Rome wouldn't be able to understand their Master's private conversation as the latter would be speaking in Greek. Do we have any accounts of how slaves experienced this? Or maybe in later times when Latin/French where the upper class languages?	[ "Hi! This came up recently [here](_URL_0_). As you see from the comments people disagree (but I will assert my opinion - the idea of speaking Greek in private is silly especially because Cicero didn't write to his friends in Greek). As for the experiences of slaves, I'm afraid they're entirely lost except maybe Pla...	[ "Alice wants to send a message to Bob. They are very far away. So, she writes a letter and gives it to Chris, who is a very nosy individual. Chris steams the envelope open, reads the letter, and then reseals it and hands it to Bob. If you are Alice and Bob, you probably don't want Chris to do that. So you develop a...
Why do emulators suck at running games when they are run on machines that are significantly more powerful than the original?	[ "They run the machine and the game. It's twice the job, since each input has to be translated into a game system input before being sent to the game, which returns something to the \"game system\" which has to be translated to be shown to you, while the game is running. If you add to this all the poor quality ROMs ...	[ "Are you watching blu ray? Is it a good transfer? (Example: despite being made in the early 80's Blade Runner Ultimate Director's cut blu-ray is one of the best you can buy) How good is your blu ray player? Is it a ps3? All of these factors contribute to what you determine as a home viewing experience being inferio...
the last four months of the year all have incorrect numerical prefixes. SEPTember OCTober NOVember DECember, but they are not the 7th,8th,9th,or 10th month. is there a historical reason for this?	[ "The first month of the year in the original Roman 10-month calendar was March, so September was the 7th month, October 8th, etc. This changed in various reforms which added 2 months to the beginning of the year, pushing all the other months forward. Caesar's calendar reforms (aka the Julian calendar) in 46 BCE gav...	[ "In non-drop-frame, there are exactly 30 frames in every second of footage, i.e., the timecode endings for every second go :00, :01, :02, ... :29. You should only use non-drop-frame timecodes if your footage is 30.000 frames per second. In drop-frame, the first second of every minute not divisible by ten misses th...
If our bodies have no use for organs like the appendix or wisdom teeth, why haven't they disappeared by now?	[ "Evolution takes a really really long time, and since we know how to remove them from people, we've effectively removed the evolutionary pressure to evolve past them. As long as we continue to let people with wisdom teeth and appendices mate,and remove them when they cause trouble, we're pretty much stuck with them...	[ "Not quite. For a start there are leap-years. You're about a quarter of a day out each year until we throw in an extra day to tidy up. Without this the seasons would slowly drift out of synch with the year. Also there's the precession of the equinoxes, which means that eventually though the planet will be in the sa...
Where does the word "clappers" originate as in the phrase to "run like the clappers"?	[ "A clapper is the part, in the middle of a bell, that strikes the body of the bell and creates the sound. If you ring a handbell really fast, the clapper whips back and forth like crazy. That’s the origin. It sounds old-timey as hell, and I have no idea who came up with some of he phrases from that era." ]	[ "The signals in your ethernet and fiber optic cables are also travelling at (effectively) the speed of light, but you still have a multiple-millisecond lag because your NIC, router, modem, and the two dozen routers between you and your target all need time to, you know, route. Any walkie-talkie I've ever used has...
How does German and Austrian society handle the teaching of WWII and the Nazis in their public schools and in the media?	[ "In Germany the students are taught about WWII extensively. About every school year either WWII, Hitler's rise to power (why could a democratic society enable a dictator come to power) or the holocaust (what lead to the murder of millions of jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals etc.) The history of anti-semitism is sh...	[ "On a recent trip to Queenstown in NZ, I was surprised to see the amount of respect show towards the Maori population and their culture. It was odd, as an Australian, to see such a proud embracing of a country's indigenous cultural heritage. I was watching the NZ morning news and the weather was read twice, once in...
How do they move zoo animals in emergency situations?	[ "With lots of sedation drugs, big flatbeds or enclosed containers, lots of coordination. Nothing moves fast." ]	[ "It has happened in some places. Most prisons are built pretty strong, so they would hold off pretty well until the cavalry arrived. Second, why would they come do this? There isn't much honor among thieves. The new boss probably doesn't want to risk their entire operation to get the old boss out." ]
what happens if a baby is born at 28 weeks?	[ "My baby was born at 27 weeks. She had icu 24 hr round the clock care for the first two weeks, then she was transferred to special care where she was monitored until around 36 weeks where she was let home. During the icu she was given fats and vitamins via a large syringe that would gradually build her mass. She h...	[ "u/ToxiClay is correct and there is a [really good episode of Radiolab](_URL_0_) that tells her story, including interviews with the patient and her doctor. They also go a bit into the answer to your question. Worth a listen." ]
What causes the vertical streaks that appear next to nuclear explosions? Photo example inside	[ "Edited: I have heard two things... * Rockets sent up to record various aspects of the test. * Vertical smoke flares which are used to observe the shockwave Edit 2: [Seems like it is a combination of the two](_URL_0_): > Sounding rockets or smoke flares may be launched just before a device explodes so that their v...	[ "A few reasons: - It was a [Falcon](_URL_0_), which is a pretty good sized rocket. - The launch was at sunset. So it wasn't daylight on the ground, but the rocket itself was in daylight. The sunlight reflected off the exhaust plume. - It was a south launch into polar orbit. The track of the launch went near the pop...
Why does skin attach to an object if in contact for a long period of time?	[ "As I understand it, the continual pressure causes bedsores. The body tries to heal these but they remain in contact with the material of the seat. This causes the flesh to regrow around and within the weave of the material leaving the person joined to it. This is another reason to change wound dressings often." ]	[ "Evolution. People who didn't get that weird feeling when dangling their limbs from the trees they were sleeping on were killed by cheetahs." ]
How does salt (from waters, eg the sea) find its way into the air?	[ "Looks like you got there by yourself, but just to confirm: when sea water evaporates, it doesn't take the salt with it, which is why rain isn't salty (and why we have fresh water at all). What can happen (as you guessed) is that small droplets of salty water are aerosolized by the action of the waves and the wind,...	[ "Because what's considered \"high amounts\" of things in air is actually quite a tiny amount. For example, pollen count is measured in grains of pollen per cubic meter of air, and the websites that I see to track it have \"very high\" pollen levels at around 10. That's 10 grains of pollen per cubic meter. Hardly so...
Has there ever been any notable cases of a triple agent or a quadruple agent?	[ "Since my last answer was within the 20 year rule limit, there are other historical examples of triple agents that are somewhat well known, particularly within the period around the 2nd World War and early Cold War period. Eddie Chapman, [who worked simultaneously for the British and the Germans] (_URL_1_) and Kim ...	[ "Could you perhaps present us with your original source so we can see what the author writes about it? I think I know the answer, but I would like to know what exactly the author wrote. Also, could you remove the bonus question? We do not allow discussions of events after 1993." ]
Earth's formation: Violent collisions or Gradual accretion?	[ "There was a recent paper by Yu and Jacobsen that has a nice diagram of how Earth accreted but basically the first 10% of the mass or so comes from frequent small collisions in a stage called planetesimal formation (think km sized objects or so). However, the bulk of the mass comes from 5-10 giant impacts (somethin...	[ "we would have to start out in protective domes first. but the plans for long term colonization include terraforming, which is a fancy word for planet engineering. elon musk recently said the fastest way to get that done would be by nuking the polls. the slow way would be to introduce plant life or algae to make ox...
How much have the plates changed in shape over the Earth's history?	[ "You can see how they have changed since Pangea in one of my favorite animations of all times by Colin Reeves [about break up](_URL_0_). We can try to understand the original shapes by what rocks correlate on different continents, the types of fossils and the shapes of the continental masses themselves. Larger pl...	[ "That would depend on who and when the determination was made, and the intelligence of the being to recognize the evidence. For example, lets assume all visible signs of human activity were non existent, would some future being recognize our existence because it found evidence of plastic in the genetic code of fish...
Why does the smoke from my Cigar change color after leaving my mouth?	[ "The smoke that comes off the tip burns at a lower temperature. Because it burns at a lower temperature, More toxins are released. This is why second hand smoke is worse than first hand smoke." ]	[ "Different ingredients, different storage situations, different flavirong, different length of time they are aged." ]
ATLAS and CMS combined results: is Higgs boson confirmed to exist?	[ "it means that it is known the process H - > tau tau is something that can indeed really happen, with a confidence of 5 sigmas. The existence of the Higgs boson was already determined at over 5 sigmas few years ago." ]	[ "The Ghostbusters infamous backpacks are supposed to be \"positron colliders\". When positrons collide with electrons, they either destroy them or scatter, they dont create magic lassos." ]
How did bugs such as Bees and Ants come to have "Queens"? How did physiologically different creature originate but remain the same species? Why is there no "Queen" Human?	[ "Efficiency! A small number of specialized breeding caste is enough to supply eggs for the whole hive. Keep in mind the queen is not in charge, she is just another specialized caste like workers or soldiers or drones. Worker bees can override and evict a queen if circumstances require, and some ant nests have ...	[ "'Twas oft asked here. Ye may enjoy these: 1. [ELI5:Why are men and women segregated in chess competitions? ](_URL_1_) 1. [ELI5: Why is there a separate league for men and women in chess in the year 2015? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Why do chess championships have a Men's and Women's class? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5:Why do che...
How is the universe expanding if there is no centre?	[ "I like this video, at the end he talks about the center and how the big bang happens everywhere _URL_0_" ]	[ "This video from Sagan will help. I couldn't explain it in a better way. _URL_0_" ]
Why does a certain note (defined by a frequency) sound different on different instruments, even though it's the same frequency?	[ "The only pure frequency is a sine wave. Instruments generate notes that have lots of complex harmonics, which add additional frequencies to the fundamental frequency. These harmonics are what give the instrument its particular tone." ]	[ "winds a spring, the spring then slowly turns a tube, typically made of metal, with bumps punched in it (think like a braille tube) this tube runs across little bits of metal that work sort of like tuning forks, the bumps \"flick\" the tuning forks and they make a sound. depending on where on the barrel the notch i...
When I stretch a piece of red plastic wrap over the end of a flashlight and turn it on, what is really happening to the light?	[ "The \"white\" light coming from your flashlight is leaving the bulb and traveling towards the red plastic. White light is of course all colors of light traveling together. When this white light hits the red plastic, the part of the light that is red continues through, but all of the other colors of the rainbow ar...	[ "It's a consequence of general relativity. The two fundamental principles of GTOR are: > 1. Matter and energy curve space time. They shape the geometry of space time > 2. Objects move in the straights possible paths through this space time. Because space time is curved those lines are not straight. So this mean...
Does bank account with all money which my country hold exist ?	[ "I once heard a guy on the radio who told that he performed transactions on the Dutch government national bank account, account number \"1\" at The Netherlands Bank. For instance, when the Netherlands needs to pay fees to the European Union, it is done from this bank account. I'm not sure if this account \"holds al...	[ "Lobby your own government to put pressure on the United States or donate to groups within the United States that support causes that you support." ]
Why can I rename an mp3 file while it's in use, but not a word/powerpoint/folder?	[ "It has nothing to do with the file. It depends on whether or not the program says it's done with the file. Your word processor says \"hey I'm using this file\" for as long as it's open; apparently, your media player says it's done as soon as the song is loaded." ]	[ "Most of the mark up is done by those who hold distribution rights within your country. Interestingly with the US minimum wage it takes about 8 min of work to earn enough to buy the song. In Australia at your minimum wage it would take you about 7 min of work to earn enough to buy the song. So they are more or les...
how do car dealerships make money when they claim the markup on new cars is only a few hundred dollars?	[ "There is an episode of This American Life that explains it really well: _URL_0_ They say that the real money is made of incentives from the manufacturer to sell the cars - they just need to move a set number of cars, it really doesn't matter how much they sell them for. And then they get big payouts from the manuf...	[ "There's a very fascinating documentary on this concept of modern-day marketing. The documentary is called \"[Century of the Self](_URL_0_) (it's long, but very good). Essentially, the way companies used to market was by way of practicality. \"Buy this because it has amazing features.\" Now, most everything is mar...
There are always campaigns to "stop global warming". Can we actually stop global warming, or are we just delaying it?	[ "If everyone in the world was to cooperate, we absolutely could fix it. There's two things that need to happen. One is to replenish our carbon sinks which convert CO2 into oxygen. Basically this means re-planting the world's forests and cleaning up the oceans so the photosynthesizing plankton and algae can return. ...	[ "Well liquid water becoming solid is freezing. However there are other ways of freezing things than just by changing their temperature. The freezing point of a substance depends on the pressure as well as the temperature. [Here](_URL_0_) is the phase diagram for water. At any point in the liquid phase, you can...
How does crop rotation work?	[ "Crops have different effects on the underlying soil. Vegetables tend to be taxing on the soil because they're grown really densely, they need a lot of nutrients, and they don't leave behind deep root systems to help replenish the soil by decaying. Legumes (like alfalfa or clover) harbor nitrogen fixing bacteria in...	[ "Usually sheep and other grass-eating animals. Sometimes scythes. _URL_0_" ]
Was what we see today as classical music the 'mainstream music' of its age or was it seen as sophisticated art?	[ "hi! there's lots of room for the musical historians to jump in here, but fyi, there have been a few related posts that you may be interested in: check this one out, it includes links to several more * [Classical Music currently has a stigma of being a luxury that the upper classes are able to enjoy. Was this alway...	[ "Your question is like: > Why do people keep telling me to take a pill my doctor prescribes when in ye olden days people didn't have access to the same pills? Clean water is way easier to get now than it was then. Since you have access to clean water you should use it. In the same way, getting a doctor to prescri...
At what point does counterfeit money legally fit the definition of being counterfeit?	[ "America has regulations for this: _URL_0_ > * Illustration must be less that .75 or more than 1.5, in linear dimension, of the currency > * Illustration must be one-sided. > * Destroy or erase anything used in the making of the illustration that contains an image or part of the illustration." ]	[ "There are 100 people in the US. Every single one of them has $10, so there are $1000 total in the US. Some of the people are farmers and decide to sell some of their milk. Everybody likes milk, so the farmers decide to sell a gallon for $1. You have $10 and you say, \"What the heck, I like milk. I'll buy it!\" No...
What was the geographic scope of timber framing/wattle and daub construction and why was it favored in some areas but no others?	[ "Is this question limited in scope to Eastern Europe/Near East or are you asking about a much more global scale?" ]	[ "As a reminder, [top-level answers](_URL_0_) in this community need to be \"comprehensive and imformative.\" Single-links to Wikipedia and unsourced opinions do not clear that bar. This question already rests on a part of history hamstrung by the fuzzy diagnostics of diseases in the past and an almost unavoidable b...
How does a company like "Open Office" make money if they just give their product away	[ "Most not for profits have a part of their company which focusses on support for those products, providing the knowledge which comes with having created a product to large companies who want it setting up, maintaining or custom functionality. Some companies also have a basic and a professional version, they give a...	[ "They calculate with what a average person would eat (because jot everyone eats tons just because it's all you can eat) and choose a price after that calculation. There are also person who don't eat much (old people e.g.)." ]
the sun has a peak on instesity at wavelengths that correspond to the Green color, does it has any association with plants being Green?	[ "A good explanation is given here _URL_0_ There isn't a consensus answer why plants are green. But some ideas are that by reflecting the green light it prevents the leaves from over heating, the leaves are already getting all the light they can use (photosynthesis also needs CO2, so if you are shining a really brig...	[ "The reason for this has to do with the rods in your eyes. Much like how everyone saw \"the dress\" in different colors, your eyes rods will pick up different colors a lot of the time. They also change the size of the rods daily just by what day of the week it is. So like on a Wednesday your rods will increase in s...
How can the NYPD open a branch in Israel?	[ "Because the Israeli's have said they can. As have the UK, Germans, French and other countries. It's part of a counter terrorism training program." ]	[ "That is exactly what's happening right now. There's a protest a JFK to release the people who are being detained for coming over." ]
How many sounds/pitches are there?	[ "Yes, our choice of notes is completely arbitrary. The western 12-note scale is just one of many that have been used by various cultures over the course of human history. Sound doesn't occur in discrete units, there's a limitless number of different frequencies that can exist. Something at 4000Hz is still technical...	[ "Imagine you wanted to send a digital file to a friend of yours, but all you have is a telephone and the binary data contents of the file. You tell your friend \"when I say beep you write down 1, when I say boop, you write down 0\", and then you read the contents of the file to him over the phone \"beep beep boop ...
What is an easy way to understand higher dimensions?	[ "I'm probably wrong but I thought we couldn't comprehend more than three dimensions because we're three-dimensional beings" ]	[ "To a 5 year old? Only Carl Sagan can do that.... _URL_0_ _URL_1_" ]
Is reading a book, and listening to an audio book similar enough to say you "read" an audio book?	[ "This is something I would also like to know as I listen to a lot of trade books in the car while travelling and have wondered if its ~~doing anything~~ actually planting the information into my head or I'm a just listening like a song." ]	[ "Need more detail! Was the pilots voice being played through the speakers? If so, are your headphones wireless? Or did the headphones not cancel out the noise like you thought they should? Edit-- * If playing through the speakers, your headphones are wireless and the signal sounded fine: digital comm problem (im...
Questions about my grapevine, plant genetics?	[ "The essential part of a leaf cutting is that it needs to contain a node. A node is a split in the branch. When the plant is cut and placed in soil or other medium the xylem and phloem will stop up soon. At that point, given nutrients it will form a new apical meristem and start creating new roots. This isn't alway...	[ "Here is the [sun's emission spectrum]( _URL_0_) ( yellow is upper atmosphere, red is ground level). Here is the [transmission spectrum of common glass]( _URL_1_). Comparing the two, you see that glass is very good at letting light from the sun pass through. When you put a plant indoors, however, you are lim...
Why is it that turning up the volume too high in your headphones can be painful, but listening at the same volume in a noisy environment feels completely fine?	[ "Our ears have a way of protecting themselves from high energy sound – it's called the [acoustic reflex](_URL_0_). The most delicate parts of our ears are the small hairs or cilia in the cochlea. Intense noises can damage them, so the acoustic reflex stiffens the bones that connect the eardrum to the middle and i...	[ "Compared to, say, sneakers, the sole of heels is very hard most of the time. And hard things (sole) hitting hard things (ground) make a louder noise than soft things (sneaker sole) hitting hard things (ground). // edit: The same is true with a lot of dress shoes. They have a hard sole as well and are about as equa...
The lack of affordable, intermediate mental healthcare between guidance counselors and psychiatrists who cost hundreds per hour?	[ "There appears to be a large push to use medication instead. Here in Canada you can even get these prescribed by a doctor in a walk in clinic who doesn't even know you. The cost to pay mental health professionals is greater than pills. Accessing mental health services from the government clinic means going on a wai...	[ "[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." ]
If world is spining with the force from the begining, shouldn't impact of asteroids coming from reverse angle slow the spin of the world?	[ "the rotational energy of the Earth is huge. It's absolutely massive. That's because the Earth is very massive. Usual impacts are absolutely negligible. Only impacts with planetoid-sized objects, such as the impact that formed the moon, are able to change the angular momentum significantly." ]	[ "A lot of the data your brain uses to control balance is visual. Try walking a balance beam with your eyes closed. This phenomenon happens sometimes because your brain doesn't realize that the object it is using as a stationary frame of reference for your movement, is itself moving. Your brain really thinks you ar...
What is the slowest thing in the universe?	[ "Because all rest frames are equivalent, any object in its own rest frame is the slowest object in the universe." ]	[ "If you know the full Hamiltonian for your system and the initial state, you in principle know how the system will evolve for all time. The time evolution is governed by the [time-dependent Schrodinger equation](_URL_0_). However you don't necessarily know what the results of measurements will be. For example, if y...
What would a bucket of DNA look like?	[ "Are we talking about the dried salt or a rehydrated form? As a dried salt, well, it will look like dried salt. The cleaner it is, the whiter it will be. Rehydrated, it will look like whatever you rehydrate it with. When we do DNA extractions in my lab, we generally rehydrate with TE, which looks just like water. S...	[ "They store it all on a hard drive the size of Texas! Actually, it's split across thousands and thousands of hard drives, in probably hundreds of buildings. Here's a [picture](_URL_0_) of just one of them. This one is in Iowa." ]
Why 2 cars of equal mass crashing into each other at 50 mph each is the same as 1 car crashing into a stationary wall at 50 mph, not 100mph.	[ "It's all about how quickly the cars in question slow down from 50 mph to 0. This is determined by how much of the impact can be absorbed by the body of the car. A concrete wall absorbs none of it, so a car crashing into one has to do all the absorbing. Two cars crashing straight into each other (at the same speed)...	[ "Causality says that there must be a cause to any effect. If a messenger sends a message, regardless of how fast it is sent, everybody in the universe who observes the messages agrees that the messenger sent the message before the receiver received it. Depending on how fast each observer was moving relative to the ...
Are there tiny planets in the universe? If so, would potential life on there be relative to size?	[ "The smallest \"planet\" that we know of is [Ceres](_URL_0_) which despite only having a diameter of 952km is spherical. It is not considered a true planet however as it has not cleared its orbit of other objects, instead being part of the asteroid belt. Small planets have major disadvantages when it comes to havin...	[ "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...
Why aren't large Fossil Fuel companies trying to create a successful renewable fuel source when it would essential wipe out their competition?	[ "Oil companies do invest in alternative energy (whether it be biofuel, wind or solar). The issue is that they already have so much money and infrastructure tied up in fossil fuel technology and research, and currently prices for alternative energy just aren't high enough to convince them to switch. For the prices...	[ "Nothing is stopping them. [ReactOS](_URL_0_) is a binary-compatible windows clone, for example. As for Apple's OS X, it itself is a clone/fork of [FreeBSD](_URL_1_)." ]
Why do domestic mammals (dogs, cats, cows, horses) have tails?	[ "Most mammals have tails, though some have lost it through evolution when it no longer fills any meaningful function. In these cases, they still have at least some functionality. Cats use their tails for balance and communicating, dogs also use their tails to communicate and cows and horses swat flies and other irr...	[ "Because of things under the floor of the car. Rear wheel drive cars have a drive shaft that runs from the transmission to the rear differential. It needs to be high enough off the road so that it doesn't bash into things, so they have to make a hump in the floor of the car. (or they could make the floor higher, b...
Why does the head of the Islam not distance their religion from terrorists?	[ "There is no \"head of Islam\", just like there is no \"head of Christianity\". The pope is the head of the Catholic church, which is just one of the many Christian denominations." ]	[ "It takes a while to implement the changes. How would you like it if the law changed overnight and you had to pay fees/go to jail next day without having a chance to adapt yet." ]
why do pens dry out if you leave the cap off even though most caps have holes in the top?	[ "The other thing to note is that many pen caps—particularly for felt-tip pens that are at risk of drying out, because of the type of ink they contain—have two sections, one inside the other. The inner section is usually fairly small, and is designed to form an air-tight seal around the tip of the pen to stop it f...	[ "Think of your brain like a billion streams of water that flow over the surface of a rock. The more you use a certain stream, the more \"powerful\" that stream becomes by digging away that rock. Now even if you have a nice dug place for a stream, sometimes randomly that stream won't have needed to flow for a while ...
What would happen if the umbilical cord of a newborn was never clamped or cut? Would it be possible for the newborn to grow up and live life into adulthood like that?	[ "If an umbilical cord is not clamped or cut, it will still naturally fall off after a few days. In fact, this is / was practised by some groups throughout history. The downside, of course, is that until it does fall off, you are carting around a slowly rotting placenta." ]	[ "why can some people be raised in a perfectly normal home be successful adults while others are a failure? There are many varied factors that go into peoples outcome." ]
How large is the smallest known star?	[ "It will certainly be a Neutron star of some sort. That are small and incredibly dense; almost but not quite as dense as a black hole _URL_0_ They are often only about 10km wide." ]	[ "Arxiv paper from 2011. > Unknown short-distance effects cancel the quartic divergence of the zero-point energies. If this renormalization took effect in the early universe after the last phase transition and applied only to modes whose wavelengths λ were shorter than the Hubble length H−1(t∗) at that time, then t...
Did the recent crashes/failures of airplanes change the safety statistics and principles of air travel in any significant way?	[ "No. There were something on the order of 35 million commercial flights (8.5 million from US airlines) in the world in 2014, and [657 million passengers on US airlines alone](_URL_2_) last year. While 2014 was slightly worse in terms of fatalities from the years prior, you can see that 2014 was actually the 12th-sa...	[ "There are two aspects to this question - how do we verify the integrity of a set of data, and how do we correct the data if we find corrupted bits? Data integrity is attacked by random corruption all the time, both on transmission and in storage (cosmic ray bit flips, random internet packet shenanigans), but integ...
How does the organ inside the ear that controls balance works, and why is it that if there's something wrong with it balance cannot be kept, even in full muscle tension?	[ "Envision jello on a plate. Now envision hairs are growing out of the plate and in to the jello, and the jello is topped with small pebbles that are stuck to it. If you tilt the plate, the weight of the pebbles being pull ed down by gravity causes jello to skew, bending the hairs inside in that direction. That is h...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear very well while yawning? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear while I am yawning? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: Why when we yawn we can't hear anything until the yawn is done? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear when I yawn? ](_URL_4_...
What is the craziness surrounding Jay-Z's Tidal?	[ "Tidal was billed as a music streaming service that paid artists better than Spotify or Pandora, which are notorious for not paying artists well. However, due to the big names at the promotion events and the artists attached, they haven't really been able to generate any sympathy for these very wealthy artists - at...	[ "many political assassinations could be linked to him? Think the answer may be in the question if you control the media and the legal system you can get away with nearly anything." ]
Why do new avian influenza variants seem to originate in the far east and/or China?	[ "People in these regions tend to live in close quarters with animals, particularly poultry and pigs which increases the odds of a virus making an interspecies jump to humans. \"...small-holder raising of animals with close interaction between humans, poultry, and pigs continues, providing the opportunity for inter...	[ "They probably are testing out the waters to see how well the product does. In America where Apple has a dominance over what everyone thinks of when talking about tablets (sportscasters getting paid to advertise the Microsoft Surface and calling it an iPad on tv), they don't want to spend a bunch of money on advert...
How and why does the human body generates heat?	[ "When we burn calories, we actually burn (oxidize) calories. The oxygen we breathe in is used for cells to take the food we eat and turn it into energy. The leftovers are heat, carbon dioxide (which we then breathe out), and a bit of water." ]	[ "We are endothermic and have a high metabolic requirement--one that is further stressed when we are submerged. Animals with gills, on the other hand, are almost exclusively poikilothermic and require much less oxygen. For us, the challenge is getting enough oxygen from the water to sustain our metabolism." ]
How does a scent occupy space? Example: in cigarette smoke, is the smell of the smoke bound up in the smoke itself? Can you only smell it as long as you are in proximity to some trace of the smoke?	[ "When you smell something, you are having little bits of whatever you are smelling go into your nose, where they hit receptors for various chemicals, which gives you the sensations of different smell. So, it is the smoke itself you are smelling." ]	[ "A few reasons, first you may remember from high school chemistry the ideal gas law. PV=nRT, where P=pressure, V=volume, n= number of moles, R is a constant and T is temperature. If you spray a pressurized gas (the propellant in the can), which is typically butane or propane, as the gas comes out of the spray nozz...
Why can't I see absorption lines when shining sunlight through a prism?	[ "It's not quite as simple as putting the prism in a shaft of sunlight The absorption lines are there, but in technical terms, light from the sun is not \"collimated\" enough to bring them in sharp focus. In other words, the spectrum is much too blurry to see sharp absorption lines, considering how faint they are al...	[ "As a general rule, whenever there's a charge imbalance, nature will try to fix that charge imbalance. In plasmas, really light electrons tend to have a lot of energy and fly out of the plasma due to heat energy alone. Really heavy ions tend to be harder to move, and so they stay inside of the plasma despite all th...
When researchers refer to "brain waves", as measured by an EEG, what exactly are the "waves" measuring?	[ "They are measuring the cortical electrical potentials (voltage) using electrodes placed on the scalp in specific positions. Any electric current has a voltage. The brain is made of neurons (cells) that generate small electric signals. The EEG only measures the electrical potentials of the outer part of the brain (...	[ "The signal your cellphone is sending out is a form of electro magnetic radiation. An antenna that receives this information uses a similar design to what we put inside speakers to filter the highs from the lows (called a crossover). Sometimes these crossovers and the speaker itself will pick up the signal your cel...
why do the US continue to back Israel and Saoudi Arabia?	[ "You do realize that at least Israel is one of the most moderate states in the Middle East. Would you like to support Syria instead? Which gasses its own citizens, oppresses women and is under a harsh dictatorship. Unfortunately, the only moderate state in the Middle East, happens to be Israel, Turkey, and Oman. Ad...	[ "Greetings everyone. In the few minutes this sub has been up, it's attracting sub-standard responses. Just a reminder of a few of the rules: * no responses covering events/conditions post-1994, per this sub's \"20-year rule\" prohibiting discussion of current events * no anecdotes * no speculation OP: your question...
Why does my face get red when I get embarrassed or nervous?	[ "Your face flushes red because the capillaries in your cheeks are dilating. They dilate because your autonomic (involuntary) sympathetic (fight-or-flight) nervous system kicks in when you get scared or nervous. The only way to avoid this is to do your best to stay calm so fight-or-flight doesn't kick in." ]	[ "Usually when we type, we are using our working memory to hold the info we want to type. Our working memory only has so much space in it that if something new pops up it pushes back the old info and takes front seat; attention also affects this. Think of it like a bus. What you're trying to type is in the drivers ...
Where does the matter that a new cell consists of come from during mitosis?	[ "Well, there is a phase between mitoses called Interphase. During this time the cell grows from food or other resources that it obtains. Once the cell becomes too large so that it's volume-to-surface area ratio becomes to large it begins mitosis. This is because the cell itself can't take in enough material to stay...	[ "Well when two hydrogen atoms and one dirty little blonde oxygen atom from accounting make sweet sweet love in the copy room...things get a little wet." ]
Why are channels like Discovery allowed to follow and film illegal activity and base a show on it?	[ "Because they are staged reenactments (based on court testimony) not reality." ]	[ "It's new, legislation hasn't caught up yet. In 5-years, these guys will be paying extra for licenses, insurance, fines, health/safety and all sorts of other bureaucracy" ]
What do the terms "52", "post-crisis", etc. mean in the context of comic books?	[ "The new 52 is referring to new DC comics reboot. It's basically when they restart the comic books, and make some changes to some of the characters. 52 is there latest reboot. Most of the characters have the same past/origins only with minor tweaks. The other reference was the reboot before the new 52. It happened ...	[ "Rotated through MedOnc. We collect data for 5, 10 and 15 year benchmarks for most cancers to get a vague idea of the progression of a type of cancer, not to tell people how long they’ve got. One example of its use is to compare treatment modalities e.g. 5 year survival of women with p+e+her+ breast cancer on letro...
Where does fear come from and why do different people fear different things?	[ "Fear is your body's way of warning you of mortal danger. Given enough 'fear', you'll produce adrenaline to help you fight or flee the danger. The way you learn to recognise something is by association. I don't need to be bitten by a shark to be afraid of it - because I've seen it (or the information has reached me...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
What happens when an object moves on earth, does it create a small vacuum?	[ "It doesn't create a vacuum unles it's moving at a cosmic speed, because air is just too fast for there to be even a momentary vacuum, but you will get a low pressure area." ]	[ "I imagine you are talking about the internal combustion engine (ICE)that is commonly used around the world in automobiles. Think of the classic \"fire triangle\" when thinking of these engines. You need 3 things to make something burn: Fuel, Oxidizer, and heat. In an ICE these components are a Petroleum product s...
Why is it that when you squish a moth it leaves a dust like smear?	[ "When you examine a moth's wing up close, you will find that the wing is full of [tiny scales](_URL_0_) made of [chitin](_URL_1_). When you roughly handle the wings, as you do when you smash one, these small scales break off and become powder-like. this creates the dusty smear you see." ]	[ "I don't know if this was ever the practice in Christian societies, but in both Jewish and Islamic cultures of the Middle Ages, there was a practice of \"refreshing\" the text of a sacred book by carefully, one letter at a time, scraping away the faded text, and instantly writing in a new letter in the identical fo...
How come nuclear waste storage facilities need to possibly last longer than civilization?	[ "> I understand that it stays radioactive for thousands of years but what warrants the construction of storage facilities that need to last longer that civilization on Earth? We don't really plan for civilization to end. If you know how long civilization is going to last then by all means let the rest of us know, b...	[ "A similar design was at least mentioned for Project Plowshare, and it considered detonating nukes inside the earth's crust to heat up underground water. It does not seem to have a code name, only known as \"Geothermal Power Plant\" as far as I know, so it would seem there no detailed plan was even created. Just be...
What were some of the most impressive pieces of North American Native technology, pre Europeans?	[ "_URL_20_ A similar thread was started 3 days ago about technology the Europeans adopted." ]	[ "The dental plaque on Neadnerthal teeth shows evidence of plant grains that have been cooked: > Here we report direct evidence for Neanderthal consumption of a variety of plant foods, in the form of phytoliths and starch grains recovered from dental calculus of Neanderthal skeletons from Shanidar Cave, Iraq, and S...
What do people mean exactly when they say Earth's escape velocity is 7 miles per second (correct if wrong) if a helium filled balloon can lightly float away?	[ "The escape velocity is the speed that an object has to be moving at the surface assuming no more force will be imparted. If you throw a baseball from the ground it needs to be traveling 7 miles/sec as it leaves your hand to make it to space, but you could attach a rocket to the same baseball and it could escape at...	[ "A combination of powerful engines and efficiency. Based on liftoff thrust, USSR's Energia was more powerful, 39,500 kN of liftoff thrust compared to Saturn V's 35,100 kN. USSR's N1 was also more powerful at 45,400 kN of liftoff thrust, but it never flew successfully. Both were not as efficient as the Saturn V and ...
How are we able to put more space/memory into processors, GPU's, ram, hard drives, etc. as time progresses?	[ "We are able to increase processor speed and hard drive space because transistors (the things that hold all the information) are getting smaller. Right now a transistor is about 14 nm and it will only get smaller." ]	[ "I think this is because you update your mental image of people you see every time you see them. Most of the time when you are looking at an object you mentally have access to two images - the last mental image of the object you had and the one currently in front of you. You generally update your mental image with ...
How do water bubbles form just underneath the topsoil like lawn pimples?	[ "Usually this happens in a place that had sod lay down on top of aoil that poorly drains and the roots havent penetrated. The water goes easily through the sod but gets stuck by the clay etc. Its a thing that you do not want to happen and is showing a failure of the sod and maybe overwatering." ]	[ "Because the secondary charge is packed in the shape of a star or a smiley and a small charge ignites and inflates the shape before the secondary charge blows up. _URL_0_" ]
Cultural appropriation and why it's a bad thing	[ "I think a few of these answers miss the key issue with cultural appropriation. When you appropriate a culture, you take pieces of their culture that they would usually be shamed or ridiculed for. A good example would be black women with braids. A friend of mine wore braids for much of her childhood and once told ...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
How did we come up with the term "horsepower" for the power of a car?	[ "Yes, that's where it comes from. Before people had really worked out what power really was and the maths about it, they established the idea of comparing a mechanical device to horses. They started by comparing the amount of water a pair of horses could lift in an hour, and worked from there. When we did work out ...	[ "Some people are responding with saying it's just Shakespeare. Can I just say as a Shakespeare specialist, this is not an acceptable answer? Shakespeare did not invent these things (and it is an open question how much of our modern Macbeth was written by Shakespeare any ways *EDIT: please note /u/texpeare dis...
The Keynesian Spending Multiplier	[ "When people are likely to spend their money rather than save it, the money they spend is in turn spent by the person receives it, and so on. Each dollar has more \"use\" in the economy. However, when people are tending to hold on to their cash, there needs to be more money in the economy to sustain it and allow fo...	[ "If I take home $1000/month and I spend $1500/month due to credit cards then I have a debt/income ratio of 150%." ]
Today, Karl Marx's influence on socialism seems monumental. How did Marx's ideas become so influential within the socialist movement?	[ "This is an extremely broad question, and answering it properly would require at the bare minimum, several pages of writing. If you are genuinely interested in what made Marx so influential, I would recommend reading up on early utopian socialists (specifically Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen) along with some readin...	[ "If I could add a question: Was Plato known for going out and engaging in dialectic in a similiar way to how he portrays Socrates? In the dialogues Socrates meets all sort of people, friends and foes, and discusses with them. But from reading Platos history I always get the impression that he spent most of his time...
What's stopping me or anyone from making crypto currency (Bitcoins/Electronic Currency)?	[ "Anyone can make a cryptocurrency. But very, very few people have the technical and mathematical know-how to make it secure, the business savvy to make it fly, and the persistence to keep it going. Basically, you need to come up with a fundamentally secure way for people to anonymously transfer wealth, come up with...	[ "Imagine you grew up flying in a plane. The ground looks like different colors. There's a green area over here, and a brown area over there. When you land for the first time, you're surprised that the green area is actually made up of large trees, and the brown area is made of rocks and shrubs. There are thousands ...
Why does X-Ray Fluorescence(XRF)knock out the innermost electrons?	[ "Your signal is known as the Zn K-edge. I'm assuming your Zn is part of some sort of crystal lattice. Essentially, for every orbital there's an X-ray absorption edge. K edges for s orbitals, L edges for p orbitals, M edges for d orbitals, and so on. So you can knock out any electron. However, at this particular pho...	[ "For that type of early photography you take a dark baseplate coated in silver and expose it to fumes from typically iodine or chlorine. This changes the pure silver to a compound that is sensitive to light. The places where the light hits are turned back into silver by that. So after exposure you get the image in ...
Is weight loss really just calories in/calories out, or do other things matter? (Like metabolism, what time of day you eat, ect)	[ "[Metabolic rate,](_URL_0_) and [time of day you eat,](_URL_1_) don't really matter much. It's honestly just as simple as calories in, calories out. Obviously your general health will be better if those calories are \"good calories\" like veggies and proteins, but in terms of weight loss, you really just need to ea...	[ "In true ELI5 fashion: imagine that every molecule of a medication is a tiny key- and by taking the medication, you release millions of those keys into your bloodstream, where they can reach the cells of your body. On the surface of every cell are one or more tiny locks- billions of locks. And by design, the key...
Acoustic - gravity waves ?	[ "I doubt we can supply an answer in the bounds of this subreddit. Any explanation we could come up with from this limited information would probably be speculation. The NASA scientist interviewed sounds like a solid expert on the topics discussed in that interview. To avoid confusion which is bound to come up, I'll...	[ "I think this is probably one of the (many) problems that currently makes space elevators impractical. My thought is to start by launching a rocket into geosync orbit carrying a spool of small cable and then using a projectile of some sort to launch the end of the cable back to Earth. Once it's back on Earth, you c...
With the millions (or billions) of barcodes in the world and more being added daily, how are they all unique?	[ "Barcodes are actually just a font what represent the numbers that are normally printed just below it. The most common type of barcode in North America is the UPC (Universal Product Code) that is owned and managed by GS1. GS1 officially licenses barcodes for products for sale, using a system where the first N numbe...	[ "Online tracking is easy. Whenever you click on an ad, it sets a cookie on your computer that marks you as arriving to that site from the ad. Your each activity on that site is tracked and noted when you make your purchase. Offline is a bit different. Depending on the size and marketing efforts of a company, they m...
Why do fan power knobs go 0-3-2-1	[ "Things like well pumps have electric motors like fans do. They require a capacitor to get the motor going and then the normal current can sustain it. Like how you can't start in 5th gear but you can drive in fifth gear after you get going. Fans have this configuration to extend the life of the fan. They can normal...	[ "What you have in your possession is an American Class A tunic, more known as a dress jacket (or tunic). He would not have worn this in action. The patch on the right chest signified a honorable discharge from the Armed Forces and it is very likely that the uniform was worn by the veteran at reunions. The two patch...
How does anti-venom work, and why does it require more venom to be produced (or is this a misconception)?	[ "They use an animal that won't die (horse) to produce antibodies against that venom. The only problem is that it's a big allergen and therefore if you were bitten by a rattle snake they would observe you for symptoms before they would give it to you and then they would be ready in case of anaphylactic shock" ]	[ "Imagine country A has laws that are intended to encourage new businesses, and so the laws there make is hard for old businesses to claim \"Hey we did that first!\" or \"Hey, that almost the same as what we do!\" Suppose country B has laws that are meant to protect that country's companies, and stop cheap-o foreign...
Does/can Febreze actually eliminate odors?	[ "The active ingredient in Febreeze is a large cyclic molecule called β-cyclodextrin (as seen [here](_URL_0_)). These molecules have a large gap in the middle, where other molecules, such as the ones responsible for certain odors can become bound to a certain extent. As a result of this binding the concentration of ...	[ "There's a very fascinating documentary on this concept of modern-day marketing. The documentary is called \"[Century of the Self](_URL_0_) (it's long, but very good). Essentially, the way companies used to market was by way of practicality. \"Buy this because it has amazing features.\" Now, most everything is mar...
Drummer boys in the 1700's and 1800's were exceptionally young. Weren't there large problems with them either getting scared and running from battle, or being much more likely to get PTSD?	[ "As a follow-up, is there any discussion and consensus about the psychological condition of the participants of these wars? Were they, as a society, less susceptible to trauma? Was 'shell shocked' a common condition?" ]	[ "_URL_0_ They did suffer from the disease. It wasn't recognized as a health issue until relatively recently." ]
NATO's Cold War strategy has been described as "fight like hell for three days, then blow up the world." How did they come to the conclusion that they could only hold out with conventional arms for a few days?	[ "A quick clarification question: where are you getting the \"three days\" quote from? From what I've read, NATO planners planned on being able to hold out for two to three weeks against an all-out Soviet attack, before having to go back to their respective governments for authorization to use nuclear arms. Now, thr...	[ "The Soyuz can actually rendezvous with the station in 6 hours (4 orbits) and they do that for most manned flights but it requires the station's orbit to be adjusted to just the right phase. For unmanned launches where there aren't 3 people crammed into a sardine can for 2 days, they do it the slow way because ther...
Why is 20/20 the reference for vision. I know what it means, but why was it chosen?	[ "Because good vision is defined by the average person being able to see clearly 20 feet away. If the average human could see well 30 feet away it would probably be 30/30" ]	[ "We basically use a base-12 number system for timekeeping instead of our normal base 10. We can divide 12 by 2, 3, 4, or 6, compared to 10 which we can divide by 2 and 5. Remember that in ancient times they didn't have precise measuring equipment. They had a sundial. They new sunrise, sunset, and noon as precise ti...
Is there anything in history that could explain why Portuguese had a very Russian sound to it. Were slavic countries at anytime a big part of Portuguese history?	[ "I know you've already gotten some general answers, and they're all pointing in the right direction. However I wanted to add my own as a linguist who actually studies this specific kind of thing: It's not the language; It's you. That Portuguese has a Russian sound to it is subjective. Yes, there are some sounds tha...	[ "Followup question, how different was middle eastern slavery from American slavery? Note: I'm from the UAE and sometimes I would see people who have very distinct african features but also a prominent arab last name. When I asked around people would just say \"they were the servants\". Edit: sentence structure" ]
Why do smaller animals such as tarantulas, birds, and reptiles have longer lifespans than larger carnivorous mammals like wolves, lions, etc?	[ "I feel like these animals are cherry-picked. Elephants, whales, bears, and sharks all have long life spans. Tortoises longer than almost anything else. Granted not all of those are carnivorous, but I feel it lends to my point. Similarly, rodents, small marsupials, and house cats aren't exactly long-lived creatures...	[ "Insurance rates are always based on the likelihood of something happening. This is why younger people pay higher auto insurance - they tend to have more accidents. Males tend to have more accidents as well. When you are young you would not want to pay the same rate for life insurance as does a 70 year old person. ...
Where Do North Korea Get Their Money From?	[ "Most of the DPRK's money comes from economic aid from China, Russia and the United States (yes really). They also make a fair bit of money selling weapons (old soviet era crap and a few home grown rockets/missiles), drugs (heroin and amphetamine), fake $100 bills (super notes) and they also export some minerals su...	[ "While it doesn't necessarily cover the entirety of your questions, /u/vonadler wrote [a great post](_URL_0_) about how the Germans financed their war effort." ]
How did the US "accidentally" bomb a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan? I know that mistakes can be made, but that seems like a pretty big mistake to me.	[ "Well. The story has changed a bit.. the afghans called in a fire support mission on the hospital, because they said they were taking fire from it. So we bombed it for them. ( the fire support missions are supplied by the us, but the targets are supplied by the Afghan military ) this is probably also why, the afgha...	[ "Extreme incompetence or criminal negligence. Take your pick!" ]
How can NASA mine the moon despite the 1967 outer space treaty?	[ "Simple, currently they are mining worthless moon rock of which there is a massive abundance as part of a project to make mooncrete, other countries see it as nothing valuable being lost and in the end everyone gets the invention of mooncrete." ]	[ "They got permission from the property holders to use those properties in the movie. Wether they paid to use them or if they were just given permission though. Who knows?" ]
Do we know what causes auditory phenomena such as the "Windsor Hum"? If we do not, what are the main competing hypotheses?	[ "Yes, wasn't the Windsor hum determined to be some heavy manufacturing machinery across the lake? I will bet the answers to all of the others are similar: low frequency industrial sounds that carry far at night and are difficult to pin-point because of their frequency and echos off hills and buildings and stuff." ]	[ "Before the War of the Roses was the Hundreds' year war, which weakened england. Furthermore, the next king in progression was Henry VI, who had a mental breakdown and was a super weak king. This shitty king made it seem as if this other dude, Richard the Duke of York, had a more legitimate claim to the throne. Ba...
It is possible for someone who suffers from DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), to have a Non-human alter?	[ "[Source - part I](_URL_1_) [Source -](_URL_0_) part II Yes - in the sense that all the evidence points to DID really being a complicated delusion of that a person has multiple alters. Historically there has been cases of people believing they had animal alters occurring. But realistically there is not evidence tha...	[ "Let's say you wanted to gamble at the horse track. You think Three-Legged Limpet is the horse to win on (despite having only three legs). You decide to place a $100 bet, but you don't have $100 on you now (payday isn't until tomorrow). The bookie agrees to take only $20, with the understanding that you will pay up...

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