Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
If we have video game graphics and physics rendered in real-time, why is audio still pre-rendered?	[ "Audio physics are wildly different from what you see in a videogame. Sound is made by a ridiculous amount of factors, and is much more complicated to generate within a virtual environment, as opposed to (the relatively simple) destruction on a large scale." ]	[ "When you write a computer program the compiler compiles the code into a machine readable executable code which is not human readable. For example a python program named _URL_0_ creates _URL_0_c similarly foo.java creates ~~foo.jar~~ foo.class .... (See correction below as pointed by /u/Schnutzel). Now you can ta...
Why is China's economy predicted to crash, and what would happen if it did?	[ "China is on the same path the United States was. They are undergoing their industrial revolution so to speak while the entire world is always trying to find the next \"China\" to invest cheap labor in. Once China doesn't have their cheap labor anymore they become an information based society that will eventually b...	[ "The more money that is in circulation the lower the value of each denomination of that money. So a dollar today may get you a candy bar, but after the government prints a whole bunch of money that same candy bar may cost you three dollars." ]
Is the nest-building instinct of birds genetic in origin?	[ "It is genetic in birds, just as is the creation of webs in many spiders. Although DNA only codes for protiens, and it makes sense to ask a question such as \"How can protiens dictate thoughts and actions as complex as nest-building,\" it is what those proteins create and help to run (cells such as neurons for ins...	[ "I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm fascinated by \"Old Europe.\" Just by the way you worded you're question, I'm assuming you're familiar with the \"Kurgan hypothesis.\" Anyway, we don't know much, and everything we know comes from archeological evidence, and more controversially, oral-folk traditions. The...
How to shows like Judge Judy work?	[ "It's kinda real. Both parties in the case have agreed to drop their cases in the real world and have it taken up in Judge Judy world. At that point they are pretty much at the whim of the show. She really was a judge and her knowledge of the law is fine...but...is it sensationalized and turned into entertainment? ...	[ "I've always wondered this too. I know for sure they get money from the ads on their page because of the amount of viewers coming in each day. I've also heard that its by the number of views per video or total subscribers. That I'm not to sure about tho." ]
Why does it take at least a half hour for me to feel the effects of a pill but when I drink coffee I can feel the caffeine instantly?	[ "There was an experiment/study done on heroin addicts (sorry no cite) where it was found that the addict started feeling the effects before the drug entered their system (i.e., before they even inserted the needle). The brain, in anticipation of getting the drug, starts to release endorphins because you're basicall...	[ "Processing power. Your IPhone may be good and a marvel of miniaturization, but it isn't nearly as powerful as your laptop. The laptop can process all of the complex images and ads far faster than your phone can because your laptop processes everything faster." ]
Just a basic question: What exactly does cause the whistle of a bomb being dropped?	[ "They were used for arming the bomb's fuse. This was to prevent the bomb being armed while it was close to the aircraft. More info [here.](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "The command wire detection is probably similar to what is described in this [article](_URL_0_), it has a description of how you might detect different wire lengths in an IED. Basically you emit a radio signal and change the frequency looking for any type of resonance. Different wires (length/width) will have a dif...
Why did Bush and Cheney not testify under oath to the 9/11 commission?	[ "Would it have mattered if they did? Surely if they had something to hide regarding 9/11 they wouldn't fear lying under oath?" ]	[ "The answer is in the question. \"Parliament\". They're in positions of authority and the peasants can't be given the idea that the same rules apply to them as to their lords." ]
In a room with no windows, why does having the air vent shut cause the door to resist being closed, but with the vent open it pulls itself closed?	[ "When you attempt to close the door, you're pushing and compressing air into the room. With nowhere for that air to go, it tries the only possible escape route - out the door that you're trying to close." ]	[ "> Are there any fabrics that act similar to one-way mirrors? Not only do fabrics not act like one-way mirrors, but one-way mirrors don't act like one-way mirrors. The \"one-way mirror\" myth is propagated by TV cop shows, but it's no less a myth for that. If you took a \"one-way mirror\" in a cop shop and turned...
Why people hate Steve Jobs	[ "He ignored his daughter, didn't acknowledge his biological parents, rarely donated to charity, and attempted to cheat his partner, Steve Wozniak out of money." ]	[ "Microsoft had almost complete market control back then. If you bought a computer, it had Windows on it in 99% of cases. Even now, [Apple's marketshare](_URL_0_) is small compared to windows, and there are viable alternatives like ubuntu even for the average consumer. Therefore, if you don't like safari, you can si...
Why can't anything escape a black hole?	[ "It really is a simple as being by definition... a black hole is a region of space where it escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. Since things do not go faster than the speed of light, things cannot escape a black hole." ]	[ "Every object's gravity is stronger the closer you are to it. Until you get close to its event horizon, a BH's gravity is almost the same as that of ay other object with the same mass." ]
How come it is so common for people to have this urge to do everything they need to do at 4am lying awake in bed, and then in the day get nothing done? And Rinse and repeat	[ "There is a new theory on sleep floating around that is becoming more commonly accepted that the 8 hour continuous nights sleep is a modern evolution and previously Humans had two sleep sessions per night. They would go to bed for '1st Sleep' and wake up during the night, do something productive then return to bed ...	[ "I watched the protests and movements in Hong Kong religiously for about a month. Of course there were many highs and lows of population in the streets throughout, but the streets tended to fill up after work and school hours and would die back down around 2 or 3 am. Those that were skipping school or work to prote...
How does the tax evasion loophole work?	[ "A loophole = > tax avoidance Tax evasion == a crime, you go to jail. These are completely different. The Congress adds loopholes on purpose, to encourage people to do things that Congress wants done but don't have the money for, like building businesses or funding charities. Rich people follow the law and take adv...	[ "If you don't have even a 5 year olds level of understanding then why do you want to get into it? If you are actually interested then I can explain some of it, but you won't make money, trust me." ]
is there any negative value for magnetic field?	[ "Could you clarify your question? The magnetic field is a vector field, meaning that it has a magnitude and a direction at every point in space. The magnitude is never less than zero by definition, and it doesn't generally make sense to try to label some directions as \"positive\" and some as \"negative\", as it do...	[ "The larger the Earth's net charge gets (whether + or -), the more it repels particles of the same charge and attracts ones of opposite charge. This has the effect of lowering the charge again. It's a self-regulating system." ]
Why is Armistice Day on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month?	[ "Are you asking why Armistice Day is celebrated at that point today? That's a very easy question - the World War I Armistice took effect at 11am on November 11. Or are you asking why it took effect at that time on that day back then?" ]	[ "Two social psychological concepts come to mind here. State dependent memory encoding and Erickson Arousal theory of learning. State dependent learning states that what ever state of mind you are in during encoding is the state of mind where recall would be optimal. Erickson arousal theory states that learning is m...
How can medicine( specifically pill form) target specific parts of the body?	[ "To answer your questions about weight loss pills. Generally they are a scam and sometimes dangerous. Decades ago they used amphetamines to help speed up weight loss. I highly recommend the movie Requiem for a Dream as it delves heavily into that subject and why it was a horrible idea to use amphetamines for weight...	[ "As a 5-year old, something you can relate to is Legos. Modern software design is just like Legos. The parts of the program are all built as standardized pieces. They can be taken apart and put back together in a variety of ways, but because of this use of standard parts, old parts can be removed and then new parts...
Did President Nixon try to amend the Constitution to allow for a third term?	[ "Nixon never made an effort to repeal the 22nd amendment. He was disgraced and resigned from office. He had no chance of being elected again. Ronald Reagan did, however and this was before the Star Wars prequels came out, so he might have just mixed up his former Republican presidents. Source: _URL_0_" ]	[ "What on earth is your source for that conjecture? My graduate school advisor was an early Americanist and I've never heard anything similar. Also, Voltaire died in 1778, three years before the American victory at Yorktown. How would he have proposed a monarch for a nascent country that didn't yet exist? EDIT: Ap...
So how did the skin tone evolved over time ?	[ "Humans evolved in Africa, and the ancestral human skin tone is black, similar to that of modern Africans. In the last 100-150 thousand years, humans have moved out of Africa and into places where the climate is considerably cooler. For these people it was less of an advantage to have dark skin - less sun = lower r...	[ "Tack on question: Is it possible that the difference is a result of the fact that the white people have picked up DNA from other species in genus homo (like the neanderthal) where the groups that stayed in Africa did not? edit: [Article on interbreeding with neanderthal](_URL_0_)" ]
Why are some warts benign?	[ "Are you confusing warts with something more akin to cancer? Warts are growths primarily caused by HPV 2 and 7. They don't have the genetic qualities that cause malignant growths to grow and spread because the forms of HPV that cause warts don't cause the genetic changes leading to constant out-of-control growth. S...	[ "technically because of [HOX genes](_URL_1_) and related things like [homebox](_URL_0_). That is, similar genes in all ancestors" ]
Need a little help and insight for Russian past.	[ "I think you came here on the wrong day. Better come back tomorrow, and by tomorrow I mean when it's April 2nd on Howland Island." ]	[ "You are asking for the history of fairy tales, this is a question for historians. Try r/askhistorians" ]
Can somebody explain what's going on in this video?	[ "Phil Plait and Walter Lyons can! > Assuming the video is real, I had a sneaky suspicion it had to do with the electric currents generated inside the cloud, the same currents that create lightning. Clouds can carry huge electric potentials — essentially, the ability to move charges around — and that stored energy ...	[ "In simple terms, most circuits that make sound or play back digitally recorded sounds use a timing circuit (like an oscillator) to send out the sound waves at a constant rate. More expensive toys will use crystal-based oscillators and low-battery cutoff circuits to keep things from getting funky as the power level...
Why do I get nauseous when my blood sugar is low, or when I haven't eaten for a long period of time?	[ "When your blood sugar is low, [glucagon](_URL_1_) is released into your blood stream by your pancreas. (glucagon is a hormone that tries to increase the amount of sugar in your bloodstream) This glucagon can induce hunger but can also [cause a feeling of nausea](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "It is called the adrenal \"Fight or Flight\" response. In mere milliseconds your adrenal glands kick in and tell your nervous system to respond to the stimuli. It is a fail-safe for if any predators happen to spring out of the bushes while we were busy foraging for nuts and berries. _URL_1_ _URL_0_" ]
When and why did we start using green bottles for wine and brown bottles for beer?	[ "Brown (or \"Amber\" as it is called when referring to glass color) is the best color to protect the contents of a bottle against light. Beer can be degraded and become \"skunky\" if it is exposed to too much sunlight or artificial light. That is why most beer bottles are amber. Wine is less sensitive to light, and...	[ "Glass can be easily recycled and so can paper. Paper also biodegrades readily, both are better long term than plastic/fossil fuel products including transport and production emissions. Plastic is just cheaper." ]
Why does the uterine lining have to shed every month?	[ "it has ot do with efifciency and the body not knowing any better since its acting on a blind cycle expecting fertilization to happen. if no fertilization occured, there's no point keeping that tissue(and the egg) aronud until the next cycle, plus that tissue is only there due to hormonal changes meant ot facilitat...	[ "You mean the Animal Planet one? Hype and marketing. Then it became a euphemism for menstruation (I'll fill you in if you want, but it's gross sex stuff...) and took on a life of its own." ]
How do they shoot slow motion music videos where the singer's mouth still syncs with the song at normal speed?	[ "They play the music at the same % as how fast they plan to sped up/slow down the video and have the singers lip-sync to that version." ]	[ "Basically, there are different photosensitive chemicals that capture different colors of light. Getting things in terms of light and dark using one chemical is fairly easy. However, the first hurdle was discovering and being able to produce chemicals that only reacted to certain colors of light. Then, the differen...
How does the Experience Intel technology work in NBA replays?	[ "By the looks of it, it's just really good math. Using a bunch of high-resolution cameras around the arena, they can combine what the cameras see with what they know about the objects to fill in the gaps and create 3-D models of each person, which allows you to render the same frame from different angles. Notice th...	[ "It's just in their DNA. Even now, science can't fully explain the phenomena we call \"instincts\", even though we can see them in action, and have them ourselves." ]
Why is it that when a girl decides to give up her baby for adoption, she's applauded for doing the right thing, but when a man doesn't want to be a parent, he's a deadbeat?	[ "What your describing first is the woman chosing to give birth to the child and put it up for adoption, rather than have an abortion. In this example you're talking about people applauding her for doing the HARD thing of actually bringing the child to term, and then giving it up to live in a better home than she ca...	[ "The Vietnam War was very controversial. A lot of returning troops were called names, spit on, etc. Many of those soldiers also personally didn't agree with the war, they were just doing their jobs. And don't forget there was a draft -- so for many of those soldiers it was basically a choice between going to war, o...
Why do you like the taste of some food but not other food?	[ "Liking certain tastes is genetic. Sweet and salty are universally liked since liking these flavors led ancient people to seek out foods with necessary vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Aversion to bitter is said to help in avoiding toxins. How one tastes things is to some degree genetic- cilantro tastes wond...	[ "Different ingredients, different storage situations, different flavirong, different length of time they are aged." ]
Why do legal fees remain so high when the labor market has a surplus of lawyers?	[ "There's not a demand for just a random lawyer. There's a large demand for good lawyers. There's a large supply of burger chefs, they're not particularly in demand though, and wages are low. You know who is in demand with high wages? A burger chef who makes the best burger on earth in a NYC restaurant for $50 a p...	[ "> Couldn't a TV station give less time for ads and charge more for them? Sure, but the people selling ads will see that as a bad deal, and go with the competition, which hurts the TV station, which incentivizes them to be competitive. > Couldn't there be less ad space on a website that costs more to use? Same as...
What is the purpose of a five-star military rank?	[ "Those ranks exist so that during wartime a single supreme commander can be appointed in a given operational area. This simplifies the chain of command by making it totally clear who is the senior officer. Remember that in a large operational setting (like a theater of war) there may be a large number of very senio...	[ "If you're a diplomat, someone who works in country A representing country B's government, country A has no legal authority over you. If you break country A's laws, they can kick you out, but if they want to send you to jail or something they need your home country's agreement. It exists because if it didn't exist,...
I was wondering if you could help me identify this bug? [X-Post from Answers]	[ "Looks like you've got a snakefly! ( _URL_0_ ) Not actually a true fly, but it's a cool little guy. I can't tell you any more than the order, though. I'm more a vertebrate person. Heheh." ]	[ "Franz Kafka was a writer. His stories are full of situations in which people are restricted or mistreated for apparently no reason. The situations never seem to make sense and there aren't any options to escape them. For example, in The Trial, the protagonist is suddenly arrested and charged with a crime. He's ...
What happens to water when it gets down so far?	[ "Given enough time, rivers will erode down to the level of their mouths (generally sea level, unless they empty into an inland lake). When the entire length of the river erodes down to that level, there's no gravitational energy to erode further since the water isn't falling downhill; the river essentially becomes ...	[ "This was covered in my Biology class. I don't remember the exact height (although I thought it was somewhere in the 300s), but there was a number of feet after which the capillary action was no longer strong enough to draw up the liquid required." ]
Why is the Conservative Party in the UK called the "Tories"?	[ "It was originally derived from the Irish term toraidhe, meaning highwayman or bandit, and then applied to supporters of Catholic Duke of York (later James II) in his succession to the throne of England. The political party known as the Tories were originally formed of Yorkist Tories (that is, supporters of James...	[ "Catty short answer: Rifles have [Rifling.](_URL_0_) Longer more helpful answer: Rifles are named after Rifling, which are spiral grooves in the barrel of the gun that put a spin on the bullet helping it achieve far greater accuracy. Muskets don't have rifling, but rifles do." ]
How does a 100% satisfaction guarantee work?	[ "Exactly. You'd contact them and express your lack of satisfaction and (in most cases) they'd refund you or send you a replacement." ]	[ "This is a more scientific answer than it sounds: it's all in your head. Try having a friend hold a pen there randomly half of the time. You guess when it's there, the more you guess the closer to chance you should get." ]
- be me - desk job, dull back pain , find a good chiropractor. The session is great but then the billing conversation got confusing. Paying with insurance is one rate , paying cash is a much smaller rate. Even with my good insurance, it’s still cheaper to pay cash. Who wins in this situation?	[ "You and your chiropractor win. Taking cash saves time and resources. Also provided instant cash rather than waiting on reimbursement." ]	[ "Savings: usually a slightly higher interest rate than a chequing account. Debit card: directly withdrawals from your chequing account. Credit card: a card that you can use to purchase items with and pay off at a later date or gradually. Usually has a fairly high rate of interest on unpaid balances. Offered by a ...
Why were helicopters used to the extent that they were in Vietnam?	[ "While I am not an expert at this, just an armchair military aviation enthusiast...my understanding is that the helicopters provided quicker and easier mobility than tanks or other land vehicles due to the jungle aspect of the country. It could also be that land vehicles are more prone to attack. While the helicopt...	[ "Caterpillar trained mechanic here. Modern era excavators do have hydraulically powered tracks, along with all the other moving parts. The engine is only there to provide power to the hydraulic pumps. There is a component called a rotary manifold that allows the hydraulic fluid to flow through multiple separate gal...
Why do computers need cooling for their processors and tablets and smartphones don't?	[ "Smart phones and tablets are often compact. By using metal parts which are in contact they can effectively dump heat directly away from the CPU, through conduction as opposed to computers and laptops which have gaps and spaces and rely on convection to release heat. In this case a computer/laptop would require a f...	[ "very simple, Air is a horrible transfer medium for energy, Water is a good tranfter medium for energy. It takes longer for the energy in the air to flow to the ice cube then the energy in the water to flow in the ice cube, When when there is steam in the air, its still maybe 50% humidity compared to 100% humidity...
Does the force of gravity travel at c?	[ "Yes. According to general relativity, changes in the gravitational field propagate at the speed of light. The best experimental verification of this so far (as far as I know) is the temporal coincidence between gravitational waves and gamma rays from the recent neutron star merger event, which set limits on the di...	[ "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 ...
Why exactly is it that I can "charge" an insulator (such as glass) even though electrons are supposed to not be free to move within it?	[ "You're confusing the act of placing charge on a body with the behavior of those charges after they've been placed. The distinction between insulator and conductor has to do with the ease of motion of charges IN the body, not the ease of placing charge ON the body. You can charge up your glass rod, but when you do,...	[ "The only way you can link a lightbulb to the entangled particle is to make the two interact. Since you're next to the lightbulb you're interacting with that. This chain of interaction causes you to measure the particle before your journey has even begun." ]
What is the purpose of a Dyson Sphere?	[ "The general idea is that the technological capabilities of a species can be determined by the amount of energy they can harness. First it was just muscle power, then fire, now it is into fossil fuels, nuclear, etc. Capturing the energy which falls onto our planet limits the amount of renewable energy available tho...	[ "He was one of the people who originally described the Higgs field/boson. For information on that, you can just do a search." ]
Why can we see a surface, yet we can't see one single atom? Doesn't an atom reflect light too?	[ "No, in fact an individual atom to small to be able to reflect light, thus it is actually impossible to \"see\" a single atom with our eyes. No amount of magnification could ever make one visible, we need tools to test for them and abstract visualizations to give us concept." ]	[ "Think of it like a hose... and a room made of sponge. The light bulb is a hose, spraying water (light) everywhere. The room is a sponge, absorbing the water (light) all the time. The moment you turn the light off, it's like closing the faucet to which the hose is attached. It stops spraying water (light) everywhe...
Why is it so easy to take out loans and credit cards in children's and young adults names in America.	[ "Banks and creditors see you as a good investment. Get you in debt early and keep making money off of you for years to come. Having a clean credit report is another reason but with out any credit history you're going to get a higher interest rate. This will further handcuff a young adult even more if they aren't sm...	[ "Wells Fargo, the company, didn't benefit much, if at all. However, Wells Fargo had monthly quotas of new accounts that their employees had to meet or they were subject to disciplinary action. Since it's quite difficult for a bank branch employee to generate interest in creating additional accounts (bank branches a...
Are there any types of graphs or coordinate systems used in mathematics other than cartesian and polar?	[ "Geometry people sometimes use homogeneous coordinates, where any point (x,y) in the cartesian grid gets mapped to (xz,yz,z) for arbitrary z. This is is helpful because any line passing through the origin can be described by changing just one coordinate (the third one), and because ~~you can describe the \"endpoint...	[ "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...
[Middle Eastern History] What would have been the buying power of "30 pieces of silver" to Judas at the time of his betrayal?	[ "There's always room for more answers, but these past threads might get you started: _URL_1_? _URL_2_? _URL_0_?" ]	[ "The retail stores can buy in bulk. And when they do, they get a special discount from the manufacturer. This is part normal, and part enticement from the manufacturer to get their product out there. Typical electronics markup from manufacturer to vendor is 20-30%. That 30% allows the vendor to discount the device ...
How does hydroplaning happen? Is there any "safe" speed?	[ "When there is water on the road your tyre has to shove it out of the way if it's to stay in contact with the road. The tyre has grooves in it to make this easier, but there's a limit to how fast they can move water. Exceed this and the water builds up like a wedge under the tyre, lifting it off the road. You are n...	[ "There are marks along the highway at measured intervals. A plane flies overhead, timing cars as they pass these marks. They radio to the cruiser on the ground a description of the car, who then stops them and writes the ticket." ]
Do all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum travel at the same speed?	[ "Only in vacuum they would have the same speed which is the speed of light. But speed changes depending on the actual wavelength and the medium they are traveling through. Also the wavelength affects how the electromagnetic wave interacts with obstacles." ]	[ "More generally, it's a consequence of the principle of least action. This can be applied to light to give us Fermat's principle, that light always takes the shortest path between two points. From there it's a matter of plane geometry to show that upon reflection, this shortest distance occurs precisely when the an...
China: why Qing dynasty sabres worn backward?	[ "If you look at the first two pictures, note that the bow is also carried on the left side. If the saber hilt is pointing forward, then it could easily get tangled up with the bow, which was the primary weapon of a Qing cavalryman on horseback. To draw, the left hand would rotate the saber so that the hilt would po...	[ "As a followup question, what \"image\" did they project? By this I mean, was it like a sign of nobility? Was it to show loyalty to a particular faction/religion/craft? Was it considered low class or as brands for criminals? Thank you. Cool question OP." ]
Are mental illnesses curable?	[ "Generally speaking, no. Technically speaking, it depends. A true mental illness (genetically predisposed to it) can’t be cured because it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain. Medications temporarily fix this, but as soon as medication is ceased, it comes back. My entire family is riddled with depression, ADHD, anx...	[ "Reading that page hurt my head so very very much. There is so much shit and garbage on that page it is ridiculous. No, these people are completely nuts. And for any of the points they did make that are valid - experiments performed after the results they discuss have disproven the original results - or the origi...
WHEN did the Eastern Roman (a.k.a. Byzantine) Empire switch from Latin to Greek? Or was it too gradual to notice?	[ "The ~~eighth century Greek historian, Theophanes,~~ sixth century Greek historian, Procopius, records that in 535, Emperor Justinian (527-565) decreed that Greek should be the 'language of the state'. This was despite Justinian himself being a Latin-speaking Illyrian, and many of his generals and diplomats speakin...	[ "The languages you are talking about are the Indo-European languages. Almost all languages in Europe are part of this language family. The original language that all of these descended from (Proto-Indo-European) had gendered words like that, so almost all of the languages that came from it also have it. Originally,...
Why can Google search the entire Internet faster than a computer can search its hard drive?	[ "Google doesn't search the internet when you run a google search, they search their highly optimized indexes from their own database. The database is formed by google \"spiders\" that crawl \"the web\". If you wanted, you could build a highly optimize database of your hard drive's contents that you could run search...	[ "Imagine you're trying to find a coffee shop in a city. If you've been there recently, it should be pretty easy to find. If it's been 10 years since you've been to the coffee shop or the city, it might take you a LONG time to find. It also might take long to find if you've been to other, similar coffee shops in the...
Why don't carnivores like dogs/cats not need dietary Vitamin C like we do? They won't get this vitamin from eating an obligatory meat diet.	[ "It's actually interesting as this is an example of humans losing a gene/pathway function (vitamin C synthesis), which is retained in most other mammals, including carnivores [like dogs](_URL_1_). The [GULO (L-gulonolactone oxidase)](_URL_2_) gene is required to produce vitamin C from precursor dietary molecules....	[ "This is just a cultural tradition. In Moroccan and Persian cooking and older-style English cooking, the use of fruits with meats is very common. Vegetables aren't usually found in baking because they turn to mush. There are some exceptions, like carrot cake." ]
[historical geography question]Any get detailed map of ancinet greece and the ancient greek world?	[ "* [northern Greek mainland](_URL_0_) * [southern Greek mainland](_URL_3_) * [southern Italy](_URL_6_) * [Anatolia](_URL_2_) * [Black Sea, Scythia](_URL_4_) * [Syria, Mesopotamia](_URL_5_) * [northern Africa (Roman era)](_URL_1_) * [Parthia, Persia, Bactria](_URL_7_) A couple of those are suboptimal (I'd like to fi...	[ "A big one is, well, most of the bible. Was there a united monarchy? If so, what did it look like? Is there something behind the Exodus narrative, or is it a myth to give the Israelites a history separate from the other Canaanite groups?" ]
What would happen if a spaceship traveling at or near the speed of light collided with a planet or some other large object?	[ "_URL_0_ \"A 1 kg mass traveling at 99% of the speed of light would have a kinetic energy of 5.47×1017 joules. In explosive terms, it would be equal to 132 megatons of TNT or approximately 32 megatons more than the theoretical max yield of the tsar bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. 1 kg of ma...	[ "> Does this have something to do with the relativistic Doppler effect? That's exactly it. It's the same as listening to music played from a car approaching you - it will sound sped up and higher pitch. There are also true relativistic effects in play - clocks on the approaching planet will be calculated to run slo...
Why do cars always have carpeted floors?	[ "Some cars do actually have a non-carpeted floor -- usually a bare floor. Cars designed for racing and production factory high-performance cars commonly have no floor covering material. Carpeted floors make the car look nicer and definitely reduce the noise and vibration in the passenger cabin significantly, for a ...	[ "Evolutionary adaptation and natural selection. You ever spent your entire life wandering around rocky fields? It would make sense that the animals with the harder covering for their feet would suffer less infections and then be less likely to die off." ]
What usually happened to soldiers listed as MIA in WW2? Where they ever found or just assumed dead?	[ "The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a Defense Department Agency, is charged with searching for, recovering, and identifying Americans from past conflicts, from WWII through the end of the Cold War. For this time period, they are not assumed dead until their remains are recovered. That said, their family members ...	[ "No. And to discuss why involves discussion of burden of proof. \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\" Sailing across either the Atlantic and Pacific, and making contact is a pretty extraordinary claim. Books such as \"Peru Before the Incas\", and \" The Last of the Incas\" have nothing to say abo...
- Why does a new song sound amazing on multiple plays the first day only to sound oddly bad and repetitive the day after?	[ "I feel like this depends on the type of songs you're listening to. What music are we talking about?" ]	[ "I'm not sure there is a system in place - apart from doing your research :). The question is: Is research really redundant? - If more studies give the same results = > Confirmation - If more studies give different results = > Debunked Not to mention that no study uses the exact same premise / method, so while it ...
I have always been told that we dont know how people were able to construct the ancient pyramids. I have never thought about it from a critical perspective until today. Do we know how the pyramids were built?	[ "I studied it briefly in my history class last term. There was a huge labour force available to the Egyptian govt at the time. Scientists today replicated a small scale pyramid with the same size blocks in a NOVA pyramid experiment. There are limestone quarries near by, it is believed that they used rollers possibl...	[ "Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How do mind-controlled prosthetics actually work? And how do they \"feel\" when worn? ](_URL_0_) ^(_8 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How are prosthetic hands controlled? ](_URL_2_) ^(_13 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How do moveable prosthetics work? ](_...
What prevents microchip manufactures from using defective (but functional) CPUs	[ "make a CPU's with 8 cores. did all 8 cores pass? great! that's a Intel i7-8000 series. oh shucks....2 of them broke? that's not so bad. that's Intel I7-6000 series. oh seriously? half the cores are busted? damn.. that's Intel i7-4000 series wtf? more than half of the cores are fucked? dood seriously? well le...	[ "They basically just keep track of how much energy they provided to the communal grid, and how much their customers drew from the communal grid. They can produce it at a certain price, and prove their customers drew that power out the other side, so it doesn't really matter where the specific electrons came from as...
Please explain baseball to me like I'm a five year old European?	[ "The rules of baseball are can get extremely complicated because there are so many nuances so I'm going to give you a very watered down version; a version a five year old would understand. The object of the game is for each team to play through 9 \"innings\". Whichever team has the most runs (points) at the end of...	[ "It's nighttime. Here, have a telescope. See that building way over there? You can pick out details in the rooms that are lit, maybe even see people, what they're doing, etc. Now using the telescope, in your own dark room, find your car keys." ]
If I attempt something with 1% probability 100 times, I don't get a 100% proability. What probability DO I get and how do I calculate that?	[ "This kind of thing is called a [Bernoulli Process](_URL_0_), which is complicated and hard to ELI5. But in this specific case, if you're asking “what's the probability that I win at least once in 100 attempts” the easiest way to answer it is to reverse the question: “what's the probability that you don't win at ...	[ "what do you mean? how is the randomness computed in general? or a pattern like in a maze? There are many algorithms used for having a pretty... random randomess, and usually you can use a feature wich use the time, the number of processes your computer use, and a lot of small insignificant variable wich change a l...
does unripe fruit have lower digestible caloric content than ripe fruit?	[ "After a fruit has been picked the count doesn't change. However the bioavailability does, as enzymes work to ripen and convert complex structures to simple ones like starch to sugar." ]	[ "* A \"Sell-By\" date tells the store how long to display the product for sale. You should buy the product before the date expires. It is a stock control system for the stores. * A \"Best By (or Before)\" date is recommended for best flavor or quality. It is not a purchase or safety date. It is a guarantee for the ...
What is happening inside our brain when we "zone out"?	[ "I wasn't able to dig up much on the neurological end, but Marcus Raichle coined the term [\"default mode network\"](_URL_2_) to describe the network of regions in the frontal and parietal cortex that are active when not focused on a directed task. It also transmits electical signals more slowly than the task posit...	[ "Johnny loves math, he's very good at it. But every summer break in between grades, he doesn't practice his math. He does other things like skating, baseball, and playing spin the bottle. No math equations or learning takes place all summer long. When Johnny returns to school, his brain hasn't kept up on math what...
Why do so many democrats/liberals like Ron Paul?	[ "Ron Paul runs as a Republican (presumably because it's virtually impossible for third-party candidates to get footholds in national elections), but many of his values are much closer to modern libertarian philosophy. Modern libertarianism in the United States is generally interested in minimal government and maxim...	[ "\"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 babies born with gut flora or do they get them overtime from eating food?	[ "Babies are born with gut flora. [Rautava et al 2012](_URL_0_) has this review of gut microbes in pediatric gastroenterology. It was originally thought that the uterus/placenta in pregnancy was more or less sterile, but apparently that is not the case. It seems that the infant likely is colonized in the uterus befo...	[ "Orginally, bread did not have yeast. It was simple water/flour paste that was cooked over flame or on a hot stone. This is \"unleavened\" bread. It's still made this way in many countries. Yeasts were not something you bought...they were (and still are!) yeasts that are floating around in the air all the time. At ...
- How I know I'm not inside a coma.	[ "How do you know that when you dream that is your actual self living in some odd dimension, and when you \"wake up\" it is your actual self dreaming." ]	[ "[Has there ever been a three way battle?](_URL_1_) [Has there ever been an example of a three way battle or war?](_URL_0_)" ]
Does it matter where our nutrition comes from? If a pill was formulated with 100% RDI of everything we need nutritionally, would taking one of these a day be equivalent to eating healthily?	[ "I'm interested to know whether there would be any problems from the lack of a certain volume of food going through the gut? (Edited to make more sense)" ]	[ "Phones are already expensive. Using the absolute best parts available at the time to create some überdevice would cause the price to skyrocket and only a select few people would be able to afford it. It would probably cost the company more money to put something like this together than they could earn by selling i...
If Russia isn't giving the Ukrainians rebels 100's T-80's who is? If they were captured from Ukrainian forces wouldn't that be well known...	[ "Just because Russia says they aren't giving the rebels supplies doesn't mean anyone believes them." ]	[ "Taiwan used to be a small native-held island, in China's sphere of influence but not considered very important. In the 17th century or so, Chinese colonists started showing up. When Japan gained control over the island in 1895, a majority of its inhabitants were (Han) Chinese. After World War II, Japan gave the is...
Why do I shiver at the end of a piss?	[ "Nobody knows. [Not even Cecil Adams has had any luck cracking this one.](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "The general consensus is [attention and approval seeking](_URL_4_) or [medical issues](_URL_1_). In [domesticated animals](_URL_2_), the approval seeking is generally from the owner. Because we see this in wild animals as well, it can't just be a human-approval mechanism. The attention seeking can be extended to t...
Is there an Uncanny Valley for speech?	[ "Not a computer scientist, but your question inspired some searching and here are my results: This does appear to be a [recognized issue](_URL_3_) in [speech simulation](_URL_1_) - (paywalled review [here](_URL_5_)) [It's especially a problem when simulating the physical movements to produce image in addition to ...	[ "Sort of. As you can see in Jurassic park 3, they can find out the shape of the voice box and get an idea of the nature of their vocals. They probably couldn't work it out exactly, and a lot of Jurassic Park is sort of filled in gaps." ]
Why can we send emojis over text, but we can't send bold/italicized/underlined text?	[ "The top comment thread on that post answers it in a pretty ELI5 way. The TL;DR is that SMS has to be backwards compatible with every device ever made. Emoji just use use some character codes that didn't have any meaning & assigns them to pictures." ]	[ "If you ask for 1 pen, it costs you two dollars. If you ask for 100 000 pens, they will only cost you one dollar each. I prefer selling you 100 000 pens at half price, than selling you 1 at full price and have 99 999 sitting around doing nothing. In a similar way, if you ask for a small amount of money, you pay a b...
How is it possible to program a random number generator? Wouldn't it need an algorithm	[ "The programmer provides the seed number, often choosing the time in milliseconds (a pretty random number). Encryption software uses stronger methods of randomness like asking you to move the mouse for a few seconds and pulling random data from that." ]	[ "just basic code that reads the source/html code of the reddit page. When you visit a website, they know exactly what page you've come from. Therefore imgur bots just look at the numbers, then looking up the heading in the source of the page" ]
Black Friday (The motivations behind it, from a business perspective)	[ "It's mostly the psychological association. For some people, Black Friday is the only time of year they make major purchases. For others, it's the only time they can afford to buy Christmas presents. By \"extending Black Friday\" people have a larger window to get what they need, or get tempted to make a big purcha...	[ "If this is homework, write a bit about the assignment, give some context and give your initial thoughts. See also the [rules regarding homework](_URL_0_) and/or try /r/HomeworkHelp" ]
If laws of thermodynamics make all heaters 100% effective, does this extend to things like computers?	[ "You're totally correct. The only way that the energy from your appliances doesn't get converted to heat will be if you let the heat escape your house another way (light, sound, charging your cellphone and then carrying it outside, etc.) You're also correct that efficient lightbulbs only really matter in the summer...	[ "Current law: Amount of current entering a junction (the place where two or more wires meet) is the same as the amount of current leaving the junction. Analogy: Think of a busy traffic intersection where many roads meet. On any given day, the total number of cars that have arrived at the intersection will ...
Considering the physics involved in the various features of rollercoasters (loops, hills, barrel roles, etc.), would it be theoretically possible to safely ride one without any type of restraint?	[ "Yes to some, no to others. A lot of rollercoasters have loop the loops [where the people are on the inside of the loops](_URL_0_). These would be safe in the main if you were going fast enough at the top. Even then though you have the possibility of the ride jamming at the top and you falling to your death. What ...	[ "Bare knuckles boxers don't hit as hard as ones with gloves. It may seem counter-intuitive, but a fighter with gloves is actually far more dangerous than a fighter without them. The fighter with gloves can launch full-force attacks that create a huge impact wave in their target. In contrast, the fighter without glo...
What does dying of "natural causes" entail?	[ "This is a pretty popular question. There was a lengthy conversation about it a couple weeks ago. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Pleading no contest means that you are not admitting that you committed the crime that the government says you committed, but that you believe that the government has enough evidence to find you guilty. It's basically accepting the punishment for a crime without admitting that you actually committed the crime." ]
How did the American Civil War affect Mexico?	[ "Another question, to flesh out certain aspects :How was trading with Mexico different during the war was the south trading more with Mexico from sheer proximity? What was the south's/the U.S's view and relation on Mexico after the war? (how did it contrast with before?)" ]	[ "Hey everyone! I'm back from conducting two months of fieldwork in Belize. While I cannot discuss the specifics of this season's fieldwork, I can talk a little bit about the area if anyone is interested. I was working in the Xunantunich/Buenavista/Arenal region of Belize near the Guatemala border. Cahal Pech was lo...
Why do I make choices late at night that I never would earlier in the day?	[ "Willpower seems to be a resource that's depleted as we use it to make difficult decisions throughout the day. If that's the correct explanation in your case, then after an especially relaxing, tough-decision-free day, you should still retain the ability at midnight to recognize that those phone calls are bad ideas...	[ "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 ...
How is it possible for a thunder to reach the floor and how does it “pick” it’s target?	[ "Basically it’s pure electricity. It always looks for the least resistant path it can find. Usually the metal stuff or the stuff with highest conductivity is the destination." ]	[ "We're looking for such behavior, but have no found any yet. Here's a slideshow about trying to find quark composites at the LHC, _URL_0_ One way would be through essentially Rutherford scattering where hard scatter interactions punctuate normal scattering behavior, like how Rutherford proved the idea of hard ato...
If light moves at a constant speed, does it never need to speed up? How can it be instantly at 300,000km/s?	[ "Photons are weird things. They are always moving at 300,000km/s. They never speed up or slow down, they pop into being already travelling at light speed." ]	[ "When Einstein was first formulating his theory of relativity in the 1910s, he worked through some of the equations and they produced a really weird result - they said that the universe should expand. This didn't make any sense to him (understandably - it's a bizzare result) and he assumed that there was a mistake ...
Why the USA is keen to use drone strikes to target terrorists but doesn't appear to use them to target the drug cartels in Mexico / South America who arguably are just as ruthless as the terrorists?	[ "We aren't at war with Mexico and South America; if we were to start bombing indiscriminately, there would be tremendous political ramifications involving their governments." ]	[ "In the country of Rwanda there were different groups of people. One was called the Hutus, and the other was called the Tutsis. The Hutus didn't like the Tutsis because the Tutsis had more money, and always bossed the Hutus around. Then one day the French government which was was in charge of Rwanda tried to allow ...
Are there elements that do not exist in any significant quantity on earth that scientists have created?	[ "Most of the elements heavier than uranium, as well as smaller technetium, are synthetic or exist naturally only in trace levels. These are all radioactive. No new stable elements have been created, because all of them exist naturally. There is an idea that very heavy elements, around 126 protons, might be stabler ...	[ "Banks make money [out of thin air](_URL_0_) when they lend money. They do so by crediting your deposit and taking on the liability. Your promisary note, your obligation to pay the debt back ends up on the other side of the ledger and voila! Money is introduced into the system from nothing. Banks don't need money t...
How does it cost the American people tens of millions of dollars for their president to play golf?	[ "Air Force One alone costs nearly $180,000 per hour of flight as of 2012, so just taking that into account, along with the cost of security, staff, etc, you can easily see why the costs add up." ]	[ "Article III, Section 2 of the US constitution says that states or citizens can sue foreign governments in the US Supreme Court. It's one of the very few cases where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction. And sure, they could just not show up -- the same way you could choose not to show up if you were sued. B...
What are all of the unused radio waves being used for like the non AM and FM ones?	[ "Firstly, you're talking about different units with AM and FM. FM is around 100 mHz. AM is around 1000 kHz (1 mHz). As for the stuff in between and outside that range, it is mostly all used, just for different stuff. For example, things in the 5-30 mHz are considered shortwave, and lots of radio stations around the...	[ "K and W denote the assignment area, general east (w) and west (k) of the Mississippi, the other 3 letters are either requested by the registering party or randomly by the FCC." ]
How can a hummingbird keep its head steady even though its body is shaking considerably.	[ "Hold your hand out at arms length and look at it. Now start moving your head around without taking your eyes off your hand. Your eyes do naturally what many birds do with their heads. Human beings keep their eyes steady but many birds lack this ability and have little to no eye movement. They help make up for it ...	[ "Edit: STSCI people have [posted an explanation](_URL_4_). There's also a [youtube video](_URL_3_) which explains it around 1:45. The long and short of it is that Hubble was tracking background stars throughout those images, and its orbit around the Earth meant that the comet had noticeable parallax which cause...
Is it possible to create a magnet so strong that it collapses into a black hole?	[ "> Would it be possible to do the same thing but swap gravitational force for the electromagnetic force? Perhaps with an extremely powerful electromagnet? We don't think it's possible to have black holes that operate on electromagnetism instead of gravity. This is because 'large scale' electromagnetism balances i...	[ "Nice idea, but it won't work. There are a few reasons: (1) We know dark matter does not feel the electromagnetic force. If the dark matter were Dyson spheres, from absorbing the energy of the stars they surround, they would radiate in the infrared, and so we'd detect this. In fact, people have looked, and [no Dyso...
Why do most people hate being recorded in public?	[ "Privacy concerns, mainly. When you record someone, you deny them the opportunity to control how they're presented to others, effectively taking that power for yourself." ]	[ "\"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..." ]
Why is Lithium carbonate okay but Lithium chloride is toxic? Both anions are pretty safe on their own.	[ "The only difference I can think of is that chlorides are extremely soluble in water, while carbonates are often much less soluble. Given comparable amounts of each salt, the chloride will give quite a bit more free Li+" ]	[ "What you're looking for is called a \"binary phase diagram\" - these things describe which phases are present in equilibrium at a given temperature and composition, for a mixture of two compounds. Read up on phase diagrams [here](_URL_0_), if you want. The basic idea is that some things are miscible, others only t...
What actually happens when you swallow something and it goes down the wrong pipe?	[ "The “wrong pipe” is the trachea. Since your mouth has to do double-duty — breathing air in and out and swallowing food — things don’t always run smoothly. When somebody feels like something went down the wrong pipe, it usually means that it went into his or her trachea, a process known as aspiration. In otherwise ...	[ "Your immune system is pretty beastly. Keep in mind the environment in which the human body was conditioned for included ravaging diseases and general filth. Our immune system has adapted to combat common environmental microbes and pathogens through built up passive immunity. Unless the fly transmits something spec...
Is there an evolutionary explanation for masturbation?	[ "While there are surely psychological and social considerations to be discussed, I will focus on the biological. One view is that masturbation leads to a higher proportion of younger healthy higher motility sperm in the ejaculate. Older sperm cells may potentially be less motile. Of course, the counter effect is t...	[ "My theory is that you all are used to typing with the left hand while jacking off with the right." ]
How are pictures of planets so focused and not blurred, when they move at a speed of several km/s?	[ "They're very far away. It's like looking at a distant mountain, or any object on the horizon, when you're in a car. It's far enough that it looks almost stationary. Compare it to the nearby objects that seem to zoom past, even though your speed doesn't change. Also, you often have to adjust the telescope every few...	[ "This is a difficult question to answer since your eye does not work like a CCD with a refresh or frame rate per se. There is a small delay when after recieving a photon a retinal cell cannot recieve another (since the molecule needs to be \"recharged\"). I actually don't know what this time delay is perhaps a bett...
Does intermittent fasting have benefits independent of daily caloric restriction? Is longevity associated with fasting only because of restricted daily energy intake and output?	[ "yes, it's not the number of calories per se but giving the body longer in a state of reduced metabolic processing ie rest. The modern accessibility of food means people are eating more than we have evolved (without exercise to earn it) thus have a constant need to create insulin and fat cells - > obesity & diabete...	[ "The simple thing that sets functional programming apart from imperative programming is that functional programs do not have \"state\" (this isn't really true at a low level of course, but it's true in an abstract kind of way). Imperative languages maintain state through storing variables and other things of that n...
Why don't all cancer charities/researcher/etc... all join forces?	[ "> surely they must be fairly similar to each other And that's where you're wrong; there's huge genetic diversity. The only thing cancers really have in common is uncontrolled cell growth. For example, [this paper](_URL_10_) examined the genomes of cancers from 50 different breast cancer patients and found 1,700 g...	[ "So, I don't know if you know this, but Blackstone did just what you are suggesting. After the housing crash of 2009, they went out and bought up homes in different cities. They put them all under the umbrella of a REIT (real estate investment trust) called \"Invitation Homes\" and then spun it out in an IPO a few...
Why is the new My Little Pony show so popular?	[ "I'm still not sure if a big portion of the internet is fucking with me" ]	[ "You know how people thought there's some angry god that throws lightning bolts when you do or don't do something? Well people are afraid of things they don't understand." ]
What is Facebook's "free basics" and why are most people against.	[ "Free Basics is a programme put together by Facebook to provide free internet access to people who don't have it. The problem is, it's not the internet. It's a few sites that Facebook and their partners have decided that they're going to offer. Obviously Facebook is there, but you don't have Google, LinkedIn, Youtu...	[ "Some amount of money paid to each citizen no strings, as an alternative to social security. I think the numbers pay out to similar costs. And the benefits are supposed to be substantial. It's already in practice at a small scale in Alaska." ]
Self Harm. WHY does causing oneself physical pain make emotional pain subside?	[ "During times of stress and/or great physical pain your body releases endorphins and other chemicals that act as natural pain killers. These painkillers work in the same was as morphine and other opiates, so it is roughly equivalent to giving themselves a very mild opiate high. Opiates/endorphins also make you feel...	[ "I'm sorry that I'm no expert, but I remember reading about this the last time a similar question was asked: _URL_0_ Basically, you percieve time faster after your run because of endorphines released during the work out, which means that the music seems slower. This is apparently also why a lot of rock musicians pl...
The differences between motorsports? (Daytona, Indy 500, NASCAR, Le Mans, etc.)	[ "Different types of motorsports have different rules governing them. These rules dictate track type, engine size, type of car, etc. For instance, NASCAR dictates what kind of car can be raced. All of the cars in NASCAR are virtually the same, minus some tweaks here and there, like spoiler angle. Daytona is a race t...	[ "This was true all over the place. Her in South Florida, I have researched this. The terminology used was \"female impersonation.\" Between Miami and West Palm Beach there were many places where drag shows took place that from a news stand point appeared to have been popular among homosexuals. Prior to the 1950s it...
Are 'Tha' and 'Thee' as in "Tha Home" and "Thee Houses" two separate words, two separate pronunciations, or some other plural english weirdness?	[ "The two pronunciations of the word \"the\", that is, sounding like 'tha' or 'thee,' follow the same rule as \"a\" vs. \"an.\" When the the follows a vowel sound, you use 'thee' (ex. The Apple). And if the doesn't, you use 'tha' (The car). They are both only one word, however." ]	[ "They can be. Essentially, you can layer multiple tones over each other and play the resulting wave. So, you start with a simple [sine wave](_URL_1_), which I'm sure is what you're thinking of for a single tone. You add in another wave of a different frequency, and get a [simple resultant wave](_URL_0_). Notice the...
Why can't freshwater fish live in salt water, and vice versa?	[ "Their cells and body are adapted for that certain kind of environment. Naturally, a salt water fish will try to excrete as much salt as they can to maintain a \"balance\" in their body. If they go in a freshwater pond, there would be less salt than they are used to and they'd die. A freshwater fish would immediate...	[ "I'll defer to someone with more specific expertise, but here's my take: In the case of blood separation, you're dealing with relatively large solid particles suspended (not dissolved) in a fluid. In the case of different liquid metals mixed together, it would depend on whether the metals are miscible (soluble in o...
Is it possible to boil water with sound waves?	[ "Simply put, sound does not carry a lot of energy. Even if all of the sound energy in your voice were used to heat a cup of water, and somehow that water wasn't transferring any heat to its surroundings, it would still take you [over a year of yelling to heat the water](_URL_0_) up to boiling! For this reason, I'd ...	[ "Your microwave oven is pushing several hundred watts into a pretty small enclosed space. It's not transmitting heat -- it's exciting water molecules in your frozen burrito. Your Wi-Fi access point is pushing less than a watt and scattering it in all directions, which is why it will do nothing to your burrito." ]
What is the 4th dimension and can you possibly explain it in layman's terms?	[ "Instead of thinking of \"the fourth dimension\" as a place or as time (although it's often, not incorrectly, used to refer to time), think of the number of dimensions as characterizing how many directions you can go. In our spacetime, we can uniquely locate an event by where it happens and when. So how do we do ...	[ "To a 5 year old? Only Carl Sagan can do that.... _URL_0_ _URL_1_" ]
How is the world in 53 trillion USD of debt?	[ "Think of it this way. I lend Jim $5. Jim lends that $5 to Mary. Mary then lends that $5 to John. There is a total of $15 of debt, despite only $5 entering the system." ]	[ "Its because the US has a lot of extremely wealthy people. Its not because the poor are so poor, its just that the rich are so rich. _URL_0_ Notice how many of the people on this list are from the US?" ]

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