Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Exactly how a knife cuts you	[ "Knives work because there is a pressure concentration on the edge. Pressure is force per area. So say you have a knife and you place the flat edge on something (body) and press down, not much will happen. Now if you do the side that isn't sharpened and use the same pressure, you would feel more of the knife force ...	[ "[This video explains quite well how it works online, specifically Youtube](_URL_0_) TL;DW: Youtube only sends information about changes between frames of a video. Since there is usually very little difference between 2 frames the server can just say \"ehhh take what you had last time, shift this part a tiny bit th...
Why are people able to get away by not paying child support?	[ "It's very difficult to get someone jailed for not paying what they owe. You have to prove that they could pay but choose not to; even when that's possible, we're generally uncomfortable with the idea of jailing people for not paying debts. The other solution is taking their money. But we don't think it's okay fo...	[ "Simple: Their music doesn't act as a confession. Music is a performance, you wouldn't arrest an actor for being a murderer just because they play one in a movie would you? Similarly you wouldn't arrest Eric Clapton for admitting he shot the sheriff, and you can't arrest a rapper for saying they are \"ridin' dirty\...
How a fire alarm still beeps after the battery dies	[ "It doesn't - it beeps to tell you that battery needs replacing. If the battery were truly dead there wouldn't be any power to make the beeps (excluding those smoke detectors that have a small secondary battery to serve the purpose of warning to replace the main battery...99% certain mine don't)." ]	[ "It knows when it reaches a certain temperature and light. It will need a drink of water when dry they get thirsty too." ]
Do cannabinoid receptors in humans suggest that our ancestors were potheads, or is there some other use for them?	[ "These receptors were discovered when attempting to determine marijuana’s activity in the brain, hence the name. The receptors didn’t actually evolve for the sole purpose of getting high. Endocannabinoids are cannabinoids produced within the body that will bind to these receptors, regulating a slew of physiological...	[ "Generalising, but it's because the body has two broad drivers of feeding: * direct nutrient deficit (ie, you need energy - or at least, your body thinks you need energy!) * pleasurable food consumption - also known as [hedonic hunger](_URL_1_). Hedonic hunger probably primarily evolved to promote the consumption o...
Why is HF so dangerous when it's a fairly weak acid?	[ "We often used high concentration HF acid to etch and structure glass (quartz/borofloat/pyrex) in the cleanroom I used to work. From a chemical perspective HF is incredibly dangerous because it easily penetrates your skin and starts interfering with some of your biological processes. Among other things it binds to ...	[ "I'll have a crack at explaining this at ELI5 level. You know about powers of ten? Going from 10, to 100, to 1,000? Those represent three powers of ten. You could say that 1,000 could be written as 10^3. You could also say, \"Hey, I'm going to say this number and it means not juust the number, but the power of ten...
Why do people seem to disregard the "well regulated militia" part of the 2nd amendment?	[ "the founding fathers considered everyone capable of serving in combat to be in the militia. regulate in this context means to make regular. also militias don't issue guns, people bring their own guns to the militia when it assembles. that's why it says the right of the people, not the right of the militia." ]	[ "The film \"A Knight's Tale\" is surprisingly accurate to the spirit of the times, apparently. Also, Jurgen Habermas states that during pre-Renaissance (or Enlightenment) times, there was a marked divide between 'private' and 'public.' To Habermas, things and people that were public mattered, and thus, a celebrity ...
Israeli / Middle Eastern Historians -- what are some good sources for internal Israeli political history?	[ "I've found all of the below useful overviews: Two books by Leslie Stein, The Making of Modern Israel: 1948-1967 and Israel since the Six Day War: Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow Colin Shindler, A History of Modern Israel Howard Schacar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (Be aware that...	[ "In the Scroll of Esther (the Jewish text which details the events commemorated by the holiday Purim), King Achashverosh makes this offer to Queen Esther. I am not aware of any other instances in Jewish religious texts. Queen Esther asks instead for the King to spare her life and that of the Jews living in Persia."...
If I fall asleep at 12:30am and naturally wake up at 6:30am, will I be better or worse off then getting 2 more hours of sleep, but waking up to an alarm?	[ "I heard it's best if you get up the first time you wake up naturally. It's your natural cycle. Majority of people need around 8 hours but there are people who just need 6. some might need 10, it depends. I've noticed myself that I'm less tired if I get up the first time I wake! You should try it :)" ]	[ "Every meridian experiences solar noon (where the sun is highest in the sky) at a different time. It's pretty impractical to keep track of time that way if you have to synchronize with people across moderate distances, who would be using a slightly different time value. This is why we invented time zones, where we'...
How "reality" TV can openly deceive an audience with fake tricks and scripts and still keep an audience?	[ "Because it really doesn't matter. If people like the characters and situations they tune in. Whether it's 100% real and unscripted doesn't play a part. You don't like the characters and situations, so you don't watch it." ]	[ "Studies have shown that the placebo effect triggers the brain's built in pharmacy to start releasing chemicals. Take for example patients with Parkinson's disease. One of the medications to reduce Parkinson symptoms is basically dopamine. A Parkinson's patient that had been given a placebo and told it was his norm...
Why was there never the equivalent of a Protestant Reformation in the Eastern Church?	[ "This is actually a difficult question to answer, because you're asking \"Why didn't X happen?\" which is counter-factual history. In short, the answer is because the conditions that obtained in reformation Europe against the background of western Catholicism never occurred in Eastern Orthodoxy. I suppose, to rephr...	[ "For any flairs that tackle this question, would it be possible to include the latest date for the persistence of what we might call a feudalistic institution? I know that the French revolution put paid to a lot of feudal privileges by the 1790s and that serfdom persisted in Russian until 1861. But how much do prop...
Why does our immune system not develop a strong resistance against the common cold although we get it many times throughout our lifetime?	[ "The common cold isn't just one virus, it's hundreds of different viruses that produce similar symptoms. They're different enough that your body doesn't recognize them as being the same thing, so having seen one variation doesn't protect you from the others." ]	[ "There is a site, _URL_9_, that does an ELI5 for each xkcd strip. This particular strip is explained here: _URL_9_/wiki/index.php/1545:_Strengths_and_Weaknesses Your question isn't answered directly in the Wiki, but it does contain a link to the MCA (Most Common Ancestor) wiki article, here: _URL_11_" ]
why do hot liquids explode in the blender?	[ "Being hot they are evaporating fairly quickly (faster than cold liquids) the added surface area and energy from blending makes it evaporate even faster. Causing air pressure to build until the lid pops off then blending liquids without a lid causes quite a mess. The trick is to take out the middle plug and hold t...	[ "Part of the enjoyment of steak is the texture, and how as you chew flavorful fats and oils are releases. Also, as a solid block, your steak retains its heat for longer. But ones you pulverize it, all the texture is broken down, all the fats and oils are released and diluted, and it cools much more quickly." ]
any other planets in our solar system have earthquakes? (astronomy/geology)	[ "As far as I know, no exoplanet probe was provided with a seismometer and we don't know for sure whether there are Mars- or Venus-quakes, but it is deemed unlikely. Jupiter is a gas giant and where there is no solid surface, there cannot be an equivalent of an earthquake. Some of its moons, though, are strongly inf...	[ "You need to check out asteroseismology, that measures the pressure waves (sound waves) that propagate within stars. Asteroseismologists use sound waves within stars to detect their internal structure. You can listen to a couple of stars in this [video](_URL_0_), skip to 4:00 to listen to a red giant star. I recomm...
The earth is hurtling around the sun, the sun is hurtling around the galaxy, the Milky Way is hurtling towards Andromeda. How much distance through space will I travel in an average lifetime?	[ "With respect to the Sun, you'll travel [over 40 billion miles](_URL_0_) in a lifetime of 70-odd years. The answer will be completely different if you pick a different reference point." ]	[ "You get the full year's worth of radiation. From an outside point of view, we see that time is dilated and the astronaut is moving very slowly inside their spaceship. But we see the spaceship take a full year to reach its destination, and gets hit by all this radiation along the way. From the astronaut's point of ...
Do all sound frequencies dissipate equally in air, or do some frequencies penetrate farther than others?	[ "There are two factors to consider: 1. Obstructions. 2. The weather. Specifically temperature and humidity. The larger the wavelength (lower frequency) the easier it will be for sound to diffract around obstructions. So when you talk about an urban environment, or an environment with other sorts of obstructions, th...	[ "Your whole high school is in the gym for an assembly. The presentation comes to an end and everyone needs to leave all at once. If you never open the doors, people will never leave. If you open one door, how long will it take for everyone to leave? If you open all the doors, how long will it take for everyone t...
What is the speed of gravity?	[ "As far as we know, the speed of gravity is the same as the speed of light, but this is pretty hard to measure. There have a been a few coarse measurements that are consistent with this. There's another tricky issue that the gravitational field encodes information about the velocity of the source, so the Earth isn'...	[ "Think about things bouncing around. Imagine a box with a fan in it. Put 20 balls in ithe box. Now imagine a basket to one side just the right size for the balls. Turn on the fan. The balls jump around randomly. At some point a ball will fall into the basket. This will happen at a given rate which will depends on h...
What is TCP/IP, and how did it become the dominant protocol of the internet?	[ "It's not the \"dominant\" protocol of the Internet. It's how the Internet is able to function. It was developed to be the underlying protocol suite that the Internet uses. Without it, there is no Internet as we know it today." ]	[ "If your next door neighbor is trampling flowers in your backyard, and your much larger, much bigger neighbor from across the street decides to try and stop him, it's in your interest to just let him do that, whether with implicit or explicit approval. ... especially when you can't get to that corner of the backyar...
what would the world look like through something other than eyes ?	[ "no light mean complete darkness. But if you want to go the no eyes route there are fish like The Cave Tetra (I forgot the name) that had eyes at one point, no longer needed them and now their just flesh filled sockets. Other marine animals don't see, exactly, but they can notice the difference of how much light is...	[ "I recall reading somewhere that the language you speak alters your perception. Have there been studies to find out to what degree it might do this? i.e. We have a lot of sentences that start with \"I\". Does that effect how we think towards being more interested in our selves?" ]
At what point did alcoholism start to become acknowledged as a real medical problem and not just a moral failing?	[ "Hiya, there is always more to be said (and in this case, there's probably plenty more), but I think you might find [this answer](_URL_0_) by /u/LukeInTheSkyWith of some help." ]	[ "There still is moonshiners today but there was a marked decrease as legalization spread through the states, obviously if the tax isn't too excessive then there is much less demand for the black market. It's like drug legalization, would you continue to get cocaine from a gangbanger or get high-premium cocaine fr...
why does working out when you're young stunt your growth?	[ "No, it doesn't. Working out does not interfere with genetics. (No, being fat isn't a genetic, although slower base metabolism may be). Working out doesn't stunt or increase your natural height in any significant way." ]	[ "Think of it this way: clothes are made of threads that are wrapped around each other in a mildly organized tangle. Imagine say, a bag with a dozen headphones that are a bit tangled. Now shake the bag violently for five minutes, sometimes pulling on headphone loops. Are they more tangled or less tangled? Most often...
Why does McDonalds have a site especially for black people and how is that not racist?	[ "McDonalds has been aggressively marketing towards black people for years. It's not racist because of its focus, because all marketing is focused on some demographic. It could be racist based on the content of the marketing, but I don't see that here. There's plenty of marketing that focuses on white people, but th...	[ "Obesity is still seen as an ideal look for women by many in [Mauritania](_URL_0_) where some parents who can afford it send their daughters to [fattening farms](_URL_3_). The practice is called leblouh or gavage. Many [African cultures](_URL_1_) prefer a more rounded female figure. This ideal is indeed linked to i...
As a living thing, is "time" and lifespan as we know it predicated on chemical reactions?	[ "Even here on earth, some species are able to perceive and react to the world at very different speeds than others. For example, if you used a human brain to drive a hummingbird or a swift, that bird would promptly crash into something. Perception of time relates to how quickly signals are able to move through the ...	[ "You might want to take a look at [epigenetics](_URL_0_), which is a study of where the rubber of genetics meets the road of environment. Basically biological functions are entirely due to protein activity. Protein activity is influenced by many factors, but the big ones are genetic and environmental. Protein act...
Why do most people not like the taste of beer when they are young?	[ "Children are pre-disposed (genetically) to like sweet things and be repelled by bitter things. My understanding of this is that it is a evolutionary poisoning prevention method, bitter plants are more likely poisonous than sweet ones. As we grow up, the bitter aversion decreases and we are able to appreciate the d...	[ "The tobacco industry spent decades lying to the American public about the dangers of smoking. The outright claimed it was good for you and faked scientific studies to say it didn't cause cancer. They got sued for a bunch of money over this. One of the terms of the settlement was that they needed to fund anti-smok...
As Rome expanded, they had abundant contact with the Celts. Did any part of celtic folklore become assimilated into mainstream Roman culture? If so, what?	[ "Are you referring to Gallo-Roman culture? Within Gaul the usual intermixing of Roman and native culture took place much as it did in other areas that were conquered." ]	[ "Unfortunately, this isn't a subject area which I can talk specifically about, hence I felt making a comment would be uncouth, however, all the same, for the sake of other responders, I though it'd be useful to say that I think you'll have to be more specific here (for the sake of getting the response you want) . F...
What was life like in Early Christian Ireland?	[ "Little different to any 'Celtic' society really. Ireland was made up of petty kingdoms usually engaged in constant small scale wars with each other. The legal system would have been Brehon law, meaning it would be unrelated to either the civil or common law worlds that dominate much of the world today." ]	[ "This might be easier for people to answer if you gave a specific time and place. Are we talking about Italian renaissance choir boys or Chinese imperial officials? Edit: specific time not a specific Tim" ]
Why do people's moods change based on the weather?	[ "There's actually a mood disorder called \"Seasonal Affective Disorder\" [(SAD)](_URL_0_) Some experts think it's genetic. Some think that people's hormones fluctuate throughout the year and people with SAD just have more severe fluctuations. There're other reasons, too. When it rains, atmospheric pressure [drops]...	[ "It's called the \"mere exposure effect.\" Simply being exposed to something will make people like it more than something they've never been exposed to. In terms of evolution, this makes sense. Things that are familiar are more likely to be safer than things that are unknown." ]
If diesel locomotives have electric motors, why don't all types of big trucks have electric motors?	[ "Because a mechanical gearbox and clutch is still within the realm of engineering feasibility for a 50 ton truck.Even if it were a series-hybrid drivetrain setup like on the diesel locomotive, the generator+motor would create extra losses on each conversion from electrical < - > mechanical and lower the overall eff...	[ "Myoelectric prosthesis are connected to your body by electrodes on the skin or in the remaining muscles of the limb you lost. If you try to move your missing limb, your brain will still send an electric signal through nerves. The electrodes will sense and transmit the electric signals to your prosthetic arm whose...
If a nearby star goes supernova, what are the consequences in our solar system?	[ "A supernova [within 75-100 lightyears](_URL_0_) could shower us with enough radiation to break down most of the ozone in the ozone layer making life temporarily difficult for plants. One in the next solar system over could exceed the gravitational binding energy of the atmosphere (RIP atmosphere, you were good whi...	[ "Approximately nothing. A few isolated areas would be louder for a moment." ]
What specifically about cigarettes raises hematocrit levels?	[ "It's the destruction of your lungs that is mainly responsible. Hematocrit goes up as a response to less oxygen reaching the blood. If your goal is to increase your hematocrit for more stamina in sports, smoking or other ways of sabotaging your lungs is the wrong way of doing it. You'd be better off moving to Chile...	[ "This is actually an interesting question for not only leukemia, but all cancers. The reason is that there are circulating tumor cells CTC present in the blood. These CTCs are thought to be responsible for metastatic tumors. So, can a CTC plant itself in another person and develop into a tumor? This question was ad...
Why does this rare earth magnet refuse to flip over?	[ "This would be weird if it didn't flip, except it does. [0:32](_URL_0_) and [0:36](_URL_1_) in the vid show that the magnet does indeed flip over to the damaged side." ]	[ "This question is pretty tough to imagine. Here's something that might help: Imagine you live on a [Möbius strip](_URL_0_). You're facing straight down at all times. You leave a ghost image of yourself as you go around the strip. Travel fully around and you get back to where you started, still looking the same way....
Why to things sometimes feel wet when they are very cold?	[ "Cold objects cause water to condense out of the air, so what you're feeling is actually water." ]	[ "I think it would be all about heat transfer/ heat capacity. Water can hold a lot of heat (it's thermal capacity is high), and water would conduct heat better to your body than just warm cloth." ]
Would it be possible to make a "GPS" that spans the universe?	[ "You can use pulsars to do something like that, although that would only work within a single galaxy. In fact, the Voyager probe has a map to Earth using pulsars for triangulation." ]	[ "We aren't really sure why, but it doesn't seem that something like that can be done. Think about it like your bladder; you can build up a need to urinate, but you cannot urinate so much that your bladder is more than empty." ]
During deep-space fly-bys, satellite reconnaissance etc. what's with all the composite images, false colors, and "recreations"? Why can't NASA/the ESA just take a photo?	[ "When youre 37 times further from the sun everything can look pretty dim and grey. The cameras on these craft also don't always image the same wavelength band as human eyeballs. The original photographs are therefore often quite washed out or at incorrect wavelengths. Space agencies do release those photos for more...	[ "You can estimate the composition of objects that emit or absorb/reflect radiation (light, IR, xrays) by looking at the spectral signature of the radiation. There are some examples at the wiki page on [astronomical spectroscopy](_URL_1_). If the asteroid orbits another asteroid, then we can use what we know about o...
What's the maximum gravity that the human body can tolerate?	[ "It depends on what you mean by tolerate. If they are expected to function normally, and do useful physical work, it would depend on their strength (and working out would make you useful in higher gravities). A couple of g's would be the most even a very strong person could tolerate. If you're just talking about su...	[ "You should read [this](_URL_0_) from PBS/Nova. One of the interesting scenarios is the Hagedorn temperature that appears in string theory. As you approach this temperature, as you put a given amount of heat into the system, it increases the temperature less and less. As a result, there is a limiting temperature th...
Why can't the body just excrete the excessive fat after absorbing the required amount ?	[ "Because for most of human history, consistently eating more than you needed was a rare thing. There was no evolutionary pressure towards the kind of mechanism you're talking about." ]	[ "It would eventually leak, and then we'd have radioactive contamination spreading into the ocean that's impossible to contain. Also, that waste is still radioactive enough to generate a large amount of heat - enough heat to wreak havoc on the ecosystem down there." ]
Why do cheap rings (like mood rings) leave a green outline on my finger after I've worn them for a while?	[ "The acid/salt in you skin causes the copper in the ring to change copper carbonate, which is green." ]	[ "Do you have a fly screen over the window? If so what you are observing is a [Moiré pattern](_URL_0_) being projected onto the window. Essentially the light is passing through the screen and the light waves get split up and then interact with each other causing spots of superposition where some regions are darker a...
Why are large stores called "Big Box stores?"	[ "As far as I know, it is because they are generally giant 1 story square(ish) buildings. They look kind of like a box." ]	[ "When playing Blackjack, there are a set of odds for how much a player can be expected to win based on how the House(the casino) plays and the likelihood of a player getting Blackjack. As the game progresses, more cards are shown, leaving less than a full deck inside. In Blackjack, having a deck full of high cards...
The Missouri Compromise	[ "The Missouri compromise disallowed slavery north of latitude 36.5 N, but compromised that Missouri (north of that latitude) could have slaves. This was between abolitionists and pro-slavery states, and It helped keep the status quo. Slave states wanted more slave states, and non-slave states wanted more non slave ...	[ "What's your definition of lenient? The treaty of Paris was the largest transfer of land in history." ]
Why is having the higher ground so important in battle?	[ "Height gives vision advantage, you can see further which helps you see what your enemy is doing. It also gives advantage in both attacking and defending. First - Its harder to go up a hill than down it so being on the hill means your enemy has to work harder to get to you. If you decide to charge your enemy, you'...	[ "Imagine a quarter floating in the air in front of you. It's not blocking vision right? Now imagine a lot of quarters. Any two quarters are at least five feet apart. Five feet into that cloud isn't going to obstruct vision really. Nor will 20ft. Bit eventually those floating quarters will start to interfere. You c...
How could I figure out the distance a projectile (flying upwards at high speed) is from the surface of a planet, while taking into consideration that gravity weakens as it gets higher?	[ "You're seriously overthinking this. If you know the initial velocity, you know the initial kinetic energy. If you know the current velocity, you know the current kinetic energy. Any difference between the two must be what's gained in gravitational potential, which you can then plug into the formula to solve for al...	[ "It's not about pushing the air with your legs. By swinging your head back and your legs forward (when you're about to start swinging forwards), you're exerting some force on the chain which actually lifts you up a little higher. On the way back, you do the opposite motion (head forward, feet back), which lifts you...
How can people tell whether or not animals are able to see what colors they can and can't see?	[ "Well it's pretty much impossible to know for certain how different animals' brains interpret light with respect to color, so some of it is based on assumption and educated guessing. What scientists do know for certain is that some animals lack the photo-receptors necessary to capture and perceive certain frequenci...	[ "Yes they understand the concept. But albino members usually get abandoned by the group because they stand out very clearly to predators, making them a liability for the survival of the rest of the group." ]
Could we use positive nuclei instead of electrons for electricity?	[ "There are situations where the current is mediated by a transfer of ions instead of electrons. An example is neuron signal transmission." ]	[ "Because that would be prohibitively expensive and require more expensive infrastructure in order to get the power back out. Plus now you have the danger of a cave-in. Nuclear power plants are actually exceedingly safe. There are extremely rare incidents that can cause wider spread damage, but on average they are...
Does a ball ever stop bouncing?	[ "In the magical world of ideal classical approximations and fantastical physical properties, the ball would never stop bouncing. Classical mechanics carries no notion of a quanta of energy, so you could continue to cut it in half indefinitely. Bisecting the bounce height will never get you to zero height until you ...	[ "It's going to continue as long as humans keep introducing value into the economy. Are we going to get to the point where candy bars cost $1000? Maybe. Maybe the US won't be around that long. Maybe we'll replace the dollar with the new dollar to get prices back to a lower point like Mexico did in the mid-90s with t...
Why don't people come in more colors?	[ "we're the top predators on earth.....the fuck do we need to hide from?" ]	[ "We can and do, but it is far too complicated and expensive a process to be practical. _URL_0_" ]
Why is it impossible (very difficult) to reverse a password hash?	[ "Hashing is destructive. To take an easy example that's easier to wrap your head around, we can make our own hashing algorithm. For simplicity, imagine we have a password system where users have 4-digit pin codes as passwords. So a real simple hash would be something like this: 1. Pick a number between 1111 and 9...	[ "First of all that's not a scientifically established fact, just a working assumption based on a relatively large sample. Now, for your question. It basically comes down to the fact that the amount of possible configurations is many orders of magnitude larger than the amount of living humans, coupled with the high ...
Can LED light ever look as natural as incandescent light bulbs?	[ "Yes, it is possible -- we can generate every frequency (pure black being an exemption) to a few decimal places of precision now with LED and laser diodes by merging and diffusing different colors, but the main issue that we have encountered is being able to get the same brightness levels with properly merged color...	[ "I had to consult his Nobel prize lecture to get some of the experimental details. It is well worth a read. _URL_0_ Lenard seems to have worked with electrons with energies around 30 keV (that is, accelerated by 30000 volts). Electrons of these energies will be fairly efficiently absorbed by materials on a length s...
what is the difference between a symphonic orchestra and a philharmonic orchestra?	[ "There is no difference. \"Symphonic\" means 'playing together' and \"philharmonic\" means 'love of music'. It's like the difference between saying 'based on' vs. saying 'based upon'....no difference." ]	[ "I just want to take a moment to thank Dan Monroe, Director and CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. His continued neglect of the Phillips Library Collections, and ensuring that the collection was unavailable both physically and digitally to researchers over the past 2 years (and for the forseeable futur...
What makes some laughs more infectious than others?	[ "People can usually tell if a laugh is genuine or not, as well as what exactly they are laughing at. It's the sense of humor that's infectious, not the laugh" ]	[ "Well as far as I know it started with this prank video: _URL_0_ And after that it simply went viral." ]
Why are kids who ARE vaccinated at risk from kids who aren't?	[ "Someone vaccinated against a disease can still be infected by a variant strain (this is why you need to get a new flu shot every year, not the because the old one has somehow \"worn off\"). Viruses mutate into new strains rather quickly and easily, but to do so they need to replicate, which means they need a host,...	[ "Imagine you have 100 doors, and there is a prize behind one. You pick one door and then 98 others are opened. The prize is either behind your door, or the other one that is unopened. Should you switch? Absolutely, because you had a 1/100 shot of guessing right with your first pick, and a 99/100 chance if you swit...
In a packed grocery store with long cashier lines, is it better to choose one at random?	[ "Personally I evaluate the amount of products in each persons cart, I'd rather get in the line with five lightly loaded carts than two heavily loaded ones. Also I've found that younger to middle aged (20-35) cashiers seem to be a bit faster. Several elderly persons in a line are usually a red flag as they tend to w...	[ "I don't know where you experienced this but I do it all the time. I bought a tv one day. It came up to $500 and something. I handed the dude 4 100 dollar bills, and told him I was going to put the rest on a card. He punched in the $400 and got my new Total of $100 something. Then I ran my card like normal." ]
The Chinese recession. Why? What? How will it effect the average American and European?	[ "1) The Chinese stock market is crashing because most of the stocks there are very overvalued. For more for details on what that means, see the ELI5 answer I gave [here](_URL_0_) 2) It won't affect American and European stocks very much. The Chinese government has made it extremely hard for foreign companies to inv...	[ "If you have Netflix there's a very good documentary titled \"the world without US\" It explains your exact question." ]
- Why/how does caffeine help keep you awake?	[ "Caffiene is a chemical that interacts with our brains that allows us to stay awake through its interaction with our sleep centers. Caffeine bonds to neuro-receptors in your brain, blocking a chemical called adenosine from matching in your brain with its associated receptor. This receptor is thought to cause and p...	[ "Why doesn't wearing blue socks make me fart? If the research says it doesn't, it doesn't. There doesn't need to be a \"why\" to explain why two things aren't related. A much better question would be, if sugar doesn't cause a rush, why have we thought it did for so long?" ]
Why is chewing on ice thought to be a symptom of iron deficiency or anemia?	[ "Its thought that chewing ice in anemics sends blood rushing to the brain, making them more alert. Pica (craving/chewing things that aren't food or otherwise have no nutritional value) is linked to an iron deficiency - its not totally clear why for some substances." ]	[ "Although I'm not especially well-read in Russian history, a well known and frequently-cited work on this topic is Yuri Slezkine's Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North. The \"Arctic Mirrors\" refers to the ways that Russians saw the indigenous peoples of Siberia (the \"small peoples\") as pro...
Why didn't the French use longbows in the 100 year war?	[ "It was only really fashionable in the British Isles at that time. Not only that, but the Welsh longbow, as it is known, is an incredibly hard weapon to master, requiring constant practise from the age of 7. The French and other kingdoms did try to get their own artisans (the social class longbowmen came from) to l...	[ "There were a few reasons that I know of - Making plate cover those parts while retaining mobility was actually pretty much impossible. (i'm assuming my hamstrings you mean the back of the knee joint?) - when you look at plate suits by themselves they often appear to be full of gaps, however men-at-arms wore tunics...
Why can't we dispose of nuclear waste by putting on a subduction tectonic plate to sink it into the earth's core?	[ "It would work. But the subduction plates move at the same rate that your toenails grow, or thereabouts. So it would take years and years and years for the waste to disappear. Years that highly radioactive/toxic material is sitting on the ocean floor, polluting the water and killing nearby organisms. Not to mention...	[ "Do the best with what you have. Florida and California are US launch sites because they are good enough. There's certainly an advantage to an equator launch, but logistically and practically its far easier to launch from home... and cheaper! Baikonur (Kazakhstan) fits a similar idea... although being the USSR's la...
The internet Mark Zuckerberg is providing for India	[ "Zuckerberg wants to provide limited internet access to all of India for free, and then charge for access to additional sites. But by golly would you look at that, Facebook just happens to be one of the sites offered for free, what a coincidence. But really, this idea that access to some sites get privileged over a...	[ "Just an add-on question, how hard was it (during the time of the Indian struggle for Independence) to get into colleges like Oxford, Cambridge and UCL? Was it as hard as it is today or comparatively easier? (Gandhi attended UCL, if I'm not mistaken.)" ]
Was the ban on homosexuality enforced in Scotland between 1967-1980 and Northern Ireland between 1967-1982?	[ "Follow up question: if it was, how was it enforced?" ]	[ "Gargatua already gave great answer. I'd like to just give one example of a place where the matter carried by glacier has formed a clearly visible large landmark. In Finland there are three ridges called [I, II and III Salpausselkä ](_URL_12_). They were formed around 12 250–12 050, 11 790–11 590 and 11 300–10 400...
Can an object be absolutely still relative to open space?	[ "The rule of relativity states that nothing can move through space faster than c, but you are correct that space itself can expand away from us faster than c. This is what leads to the \"cosmic horizon\": A point sufficiently far away such that no information past that point can ever reach us. As for your ti...	[ "I hate that this question is downvoted so much. C'mon people, why are we punishing people for asking questions? Whatever happened to \"there's no such thing as a dumb question?\" awersF, please keep asking questions about the world around you. Discoveries are made because people question their perceptions establis...
Why does our body want to jump when it feels a lot of pain at once?	[ "Adds extra stimulation to dull the senses, like rubbing your arm after getting punched and such. Why did you have an extremely hot bowl of milk?" ]	[ "Your evolutionary ancestor is calling for help, frightening the enemy, and moving you a bit away from the danger while your brain can catch up and decide what to do next." ]
When did the anti-GMO movement begin, and what started it?	[ "It started around the mid-1990s. It was started by a few researches from outside the biosciences and agriculture fields and a lot of crazy luddites who react to anything they don't understand with hostility. Anti-GM folks have about as strong a grasp of the science as anti-vaxxers and global warming denialists." ]	[ "Within 5 years hopefully. _URL_2_ _URL_0_ _URL_1_ The cost is following the same curve as that of computers etc. Really quite worrying for farming industry based countries but undoubtedly better from an ethical and environmental standpoint." ]
Can you cure cavities with a natural diet?	[ "it was originally on natural news, so right off the bat, no. teeth don't work that way. it'd be like hoping your tooth would \"grow back\" after getting chipped. ever see any hockey players regrow teeth?" ]	[ "It depends on the study! Be careful, these are not scientific surveys but advertisement surveys. Usually in advertisements like these, the advertisers like to get the best results possible to build their brand trust. So what they'll do is send out surveys to dentists asking them if they could \"recommend\" the bra...
Why doesn't a garden-hose eventually explode even when the tap is on and the nozzle on the other end is shut-off/closed?	[ "Your plumbing supplies water at a certain maximum pressure. That pressure is lower than the pressure required to stretch the hose. So it's less like blowing up a balloon, and more like blowing through a pinched straw. No matter how hard your lungs can blow, the straw's not going to explode." ]	[ "Your middle ear is connected to your oral cavity via the [Eustachian tubes](_URL_0_). One of the functions of the Eustachian tubes is to ensure that your hearing is not affected by changes in atmospheric pressure. If you've ever experienced a sudden change in altitude (e.g. driving down a long, steep hill), you'll...
The divisible by 3 trick	[ "Replace 168 with abc. Now a is the hundred unit, b is the 10 unit etc... I can re write abc as a(100) + b(10) + c(1) and further more as a(99 +1) + b(9 +1) + c(1) . Multiply out the brackets and group gives you (99a +9b) + a +b+c. As you can see the first 2 terms are divisible by 3 so for any number you can assume...	[ "[This](_URL_0_) is a good resource on this question. The tldr version is that after about seven riffle (bridge) shuffles, you get pretty close to a uniform probability density over all possible deck orders. The reason why we settle for \"pretty good\" is that no finite use of riffle shuffle gets to a uniform distr...
Are we starving and killing bees when we take their honey?	[ "Bees produce way more honey then they utilize, so we are just taking the excess. It's like feeding your dog scraps instead of throwing them away." ]	[ "Actually, you're not far off with the butterfly net hypothesis. Here's how it usually went in broad terms: 1) European traders showed up with manufactured goods that Africans wanted/needed. In exchange, the Europeans wanted slaves. 2) Because there was an economic incentive to do so, various tribes/groups of Afric...
How do Vitamins Work?	[ "Glucose is not a vitamin. It's a sugar. Vitamins are just molecules. They are very arbitrarily defined - there are some substances considered vitamins in humans that are not vitamins in other animals (vitamin C, for example). The concept of vitamins emerged from studies of nutrition and the diseases and malfunctio...	[ "Here is a great video explaining it. _URL_0_" ]
Why can't people with O-Negative blood donate platelets?	[ "O- is in short supply due to the demand as universal donor. B- is just an insanely rare blood type, less than 1% in caucasians if I remember right. Important because the only 2 types this type can receive (without risking sensitization to D) is b neg and o neg. Theres no reason they couldnt donate platelets, but ...	[ "When you tell a child \"don't ever lick cold metal\", you'll often find the kid with his tongue stuck to a metal pole as soon as you turn your back, even though it would never even think to do that if you said nothing. It's called reverse pshychology, and it applies to most people. You could say we just don't like...
What is the purpose of expiration dates more than a year away?	[ "There tends to be 2 forms of expiration date: * Use by dates - where the product is not considered safe for consumption after that date (e.g. milk that will have gone off). * Best before / expiration dates - dates on products that don't really spoil / won't got 'off' but nonetheless will no longer be at their pe...	[ "I think that's why they label it like that. If you want to sell their product your only going to be able to charge the price on the can or look bad to your customers. If they don't want to sell for that price carry a competing product." ]
(Post-)WWII Naval/Military Question	[ "With ship to ship communication you could use less power so that you wouldn't transmit as far. Think about the difference between a kid's Walkie Talkie that will barely communicate across the street compared to a CB radio in a big rig truck. If you wanted to communicate at a distance you would have to use a more p...	[ "This Week's Rundown! /u/textandtrowel on [\"How did medieval Islamic historians write about/conceptualise the history of their religion? Please also tell me about who wrote history in the medieval Islamic world, why, and what written history was used for in medieval Islamic society.\"](_URL_0_) /u/prufrock451 on [...
How did human species protect themshelves before the ability to make tools?	[ "Since toolmaking by hominids far predates written history, this question is better asked in r/askanthropology" ]	[ "We didnt, we lived in warmer climates until we learned how slowly over time as we moved north" ]
Given the amount of lint that comes out of the dryer, are my clothes slowly disintegrating with time? Would they eventually disappear completely?	[ "Yes, the intense heat and friction in dryers causes the fibers in your clothes to shed their external layer. This is why pants or bedsheets become shiny-looking over time, and also why the lower back of hoodies and tee shirts (where fabric rubs against chairs or backpacks) begin to form pills, or little balls of l...	[ "Precocious child: \"What is everything made out of?\" Science: \"Little things called atoms.\" PC: \"Well, what are atoms made out of?\" Science: \"Smaller things called protons, neutrons, and electrons.\" PC: \"What are those made out of?\" Science: \"Even smaller things called quarks.\" PC: \"What are qua...
Can electrons from a particular atom be anywhere in the universe but statisticaly nearly always in a definite zone near the core or there is places those electrons can't be?	[ "Electrons can not exist within nodes. The number and shape of nodes is dependent on the orbital angular momentum." ]	[ "You don't feel temperature directly, you feel the rate at which heat leaves your body. So it really depends on the material's heat conductivity and how it's arranged as a heat sink. Generally, the rate of heat transfer is inversely proportional to temperature, all else equal, and since you can't reach absolute zer...
Water have higher heat capacity than air, but also conduct heat better, so my question is which one is a better insulator, and what's the different between heat capacity and conductivity?	[ "Air, or to be more general, the substance with the lower thermal conductivity would be the better insulator. Capacity is the amount of energy needed to increase the heat of a substance by a set amount. Conductivity is the rate at which that energy is transferred." ]	[ "Keeping it fairly ELI5: The heat generated by electricity is due to resistance. Copper has very low resistance. The law of conservation of energy essentially means that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Only transferred/converted. By resisting the electrical flow, that energy must go somewhere. It is express...
How do restaurants, pubs, etc. process credit/debit card "tips".	[ "When you give them your card, they put a temporary authorization on it to verify that the card is valid and has funds available. After you've filled in your tip amount, they simply bill you for the total (price plus tip), which is what shows up on your statement." ]	[ "Yelp has recently become a bit extortionist in regard to which reviews they show. Business that are Yelp-members may have the couple reviews that show by default be very high ones, even if the majority of their reviews are poor. Additionally, companies that choose not to become members will show poor reviews, even...
In the middle ages, was romantic love between spouses encouraged or considered profane?	[ "\"Middle ages\" covers a huge amount of time; could you be more specific? Also, where?" ]	[ "I've posted a bit on erotic Moche pottery before [here](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_1_). Those two should answer some of your question- let me know if you have any more specific inquiries they don't cover!" ]
Why do retailers store millions of credits card numbers? Shouldn't they be required to delete these once they have received payment?	[ "They shouldn't be storing credit card numbers, it's a basic component of [PCI compliance](_URL_0_). There's just lots of really bad brogramers writing shitty business software out there." ]	[ "Storage is getting cheaper just as fast as we're finding new ways to use it up. They'll just keep buying more, and more dense, hard drives. Many big companies (like Google) use a ton of off-the-shelf drives, so as those get cheaper and have greater capacity, these companies can take advantage by either replacing f...
"Pound jumps as Bank of England hints at rate rise"	[ "It's relative. If the rates for pounds are more than dollars, one might sell dollars to buy pounds to get higher interest. This makes the cost of dollars go down (many sellers) and the cost of pounds of up (many buyers)." ]	[ "It's called the Mpemba effect _URL_0_ There's controversy around it because much of the evidence is anecdotal and the effect can't yet be reliably recreated in a controlled lab-setting. However, this anecdotal, non-repeatable evidence has come from enough disparate and respected sources that the Royal Society ha...
When describing the event of having a stroke, what constitutes it being a major or minor stroke and what does that mean for the person experiencing it?	[ "You can think of the blood supply of the brain as a tree. The trunk gives rise to large branches, which give rise to smaller branches, which give rise to even smaller branches. They eventually give rise to leaves, which can represent the many things a brain can do A stroke is the equivalent of one of the branches ...	[ "In addition to the sort of generic guidelines /u/Ansuz07 laid out, each city basically makes their own rules. Where I live this means that for the most part, N–S ones are named \"Avenue\" and E–W ones are \"Street.\" We also have a good number of \"Places,\" which is generally a small street sticking off of a larg...
How and when did the 5 day work week come about?	[ "You may be interested in these previous questions from the “[Months, weeks, weekends, days of the week, and other calendar-related questions](_URL_2_)” section of our Popular Questions page (which is linked at the top of every page in this subreddit, and in the sidebar): * [Where did the structure of the week...	[ "This comes from Malcolm Gladwell. He is a pop psych writer and no one should listen to him. The [10,000 hour deal has been debunked](_URL_0_) in a study." ]
If the moon ever fell into, say, the Pacific Ocean, how much water would be displaced?	[ "This answer is lacking as well, but is kind of helpful for some perspective if you know how big the moon is. All the water on planet Earth. Size comparison. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Sorry OP for not having an answer, but I have a question related to this that your question has inspired. Would NASA consider gathering the orbital debris from the impact by sending a spaceship to collect rocks and stuff to bring back home? Also, would they consider sending a probe to analyze the crater to possibl...
How much do rockets pollute? And at what point is it better for the environment to shoot all of our trash into outer space instead of piling it up?	[ "Considering that on average it costs $10,000/lb to launch the cost of launching our trash into space is not feasible. And that's just to low Earth orbit. Then factor in the orbit and where it would need to be in order to not affect space travel/satellites, or the possibility of the launch vehicle exploding and it...	[ "Orbital distance probably, but probably not into an actual orbit. An orbit is basically falling toward the earth but having enough sideways speed to miss actually hitting the earth. Matter ejected from a volcano would not achieve the sideways speed necessary to maintain an orbit so it would simply fall back to ear...
Why can we eat raw fish, but not raw meat?	[ "You can eat raw meat. However, you should understand that both fish and meat is relatively dangerous to eat raw, since it you'll be consuming all the pathogens that the meat contains before handling and the ones that come from handling; so know your source. It is strongly adviced to freeze both fish and meat befor...	[ "Two reasons: 1. You're making a false comparison by comparing the criminalization of adultery against the subsidization of marriage. Gay marriage being illegal doesn't mean you go to jail for it - it just means that you can't file paperwork with the government. In contrast, adultery being illegal means they pu...
Does F=ma hold true for rockets?	[ "Technically F = dp/dt = ma assumes constant mass. Some people try to derive the rocket equation by taking dp/dt = m dv/dt + v dm/dt, but notice that the v in the second term should be the exhaust velocity of the propellant, not v which is the velocity of the rocket. This derivation ...	[ "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you pull up on your bootstraps with your hands, then your bootstraps pull down on your hands by the same amount. The net force on your body is zero." ]
ELI 5 - why do we never hear of tornados causing major devastation in big cities?	[ "There just aren't a lot of big cities in the same places where tornadoes are common -- it's physically possible, and it does happen, just not often." ]	[ "It varies, but not much individually. The problem is when everyone does it. It's kind of like why you're taught not to pick a flower from a garden when growing up. You alone, picking one flower, is not going to be noticed, it's not going to affect the plant or garden overall, but if everyone picks just 1, very s...
Why is it that double decker buses have only been used in North American for the past decade while they've been used in Europe for more than a century?	[ "lots of low bridges and efficiency are the main reason. A bendy bus can load and unload at twice the speed. Also less handicap accessible. The ones being use in the US are in very few cities or just for fun. I know the one that started up in Las Vegas, is more for fun than anything else." ]	[ "I recommend reading 'At Home' by Bill Bryson. He goes through this in detail. From what I recall, houses used to be just one big room, animals, people, servants all in the one place. Over the centuries, people got bette at building walls, so they built these buildings higher - this showed your wealth and was much ...
How did humans discover how to make bread?	[ "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 ...	[ "Back then people still needed jobs, now they dont and can practice harder for longer. And science helps by showing then methods on improving motions. You cam find cool videos on youtube" ]
If we are made of 99.99% empty space then why does light not pass though us?	[ "An ELI(actually)5 answer: The photons that make up light we can see are HUGE compared to the gaps between the atoms that make up your body. So a photon hitting you is like a tennis ball hitting the mesh of a tennis racquet, it just bounces off. Very compact photons like x-rays, which are about 50 times smaller tha...	[ "one does. you just don't see it coz transparent liquid + transparent liquid = transparent liquid." ]
How often in nature are females the bigger of the two genders?	[ "In general, in situations where females produce a lot of eggs, they are larger. You see this in some fish, spiders, etc. Growing big lets you make lots of eggs, because you can get more food and also can simply hold more eggs. This favors huge females and smaller males. On the other hand, if males compete over fem...	[ "There is no evidence to support a difference in swimming speed. However, the difference in the mass of X and Y chromosomes _is_ used in many artificial sex selection methods." ]
What it means when a firearm has a "gas-operated reloading" system?	[ "In the barrel, some of the expanding gasses get sent into another tube which provides the energy needed to push back the bolt and enable the case to be ejected and load the next round." ]	[ "Before RICO laws it was hard to take down an entire organization because the mob boss could never be connected to any specific crime. The Mob boss would talk to his under-boss about an illicit act. The under-boss would pass the info along to a caporegime (a sort of lieutenant) who would then instruct one of his ga...
What was the relationship like between the captain and quartermaster on pirate ships?	[ "The quartermaster was in charge of stock and receiving. Also in times of combat, the quartermaster led the boarding party onto enemy ships. These two charges gave him a large amount of influence among the sailors considering the amount of trust he would have to build. In non-combative situations the quartermaster ...	[ "A couple of archived threads contain a lot of good information. From February 2014, [this one here](_URL_6_) has a top-level comment about medieval Europe and a lot of further information in the comments below. And then [this one](_URL_5_) covers Rome, South American cultures, China, Japan, ancient Greece, and anc...
why do I feel 'hot' when the air temp is around 80 degrees? I thought my body temp was 98?	[ "The speed of heat transfer increases the greater the difference in temperature. Because you can't shed body heat as quickly you feel hot, as it is harder to maintain temperature." ]	[ "You might have one of those thermostats that operates with a metal coil. The metal contracts/expands depending on temperature, triggering the AC to cool or heat the room. Now, if the coil has been over extended repeatedly the tension in the coil gets weird and it starts to contract/expand differently than what it ...
How do marine biologists get reliable population estimates for marine animals that move around all the time?	[ "An excellent question! For wild populations, the [mark-recapture method](_URL_0_) (and its variants, such as the sight-resight method) can be quite effective. The method involves marking individuals (commonly, with a tag), releasing them, gathering another sample of individuals some time later, and then using the ...	[ "They use [spectrographs](_URL_0_), a device which measures the light that comes off that planet. This works because most substances have their own spectral fingerprint, which is very recognizable. For example, if you hold salt in a candleflame and look at the spectrum, it will have a bright orange emission line, ...
Why is the Russian T-34 tank considered to be the greatest and most successful weapons of WWII?	[ "One does not require any sources to observe that it is not very rigorous to attempt to rank vastly different anything given the unstated and subjective criteria that make up \"successful weapon of WWII\". A good parlour game nonetheless." ]	[ "You may be interested in this similar earlier thread. _URL_0_ See responses by Blanglegorph, jonewer and myself. The short answer is that any positions of relative advance (e.g. Rocketry) tended to be out of desperation, whilst Allied advances (e.g. Computers) tended to be more a case of doing things they could af...
How/why where the Dutch in the 1600's so succesful? And why did it end?	[ "The Dutch were partly left behind by the growth of Britain as a seafaring nation. Both were competing for similar trade routes and so they would of course clash. There were a series of wars in the Netherlands in the mid to late 17th century which weakened the Dutch and which were taken advantage of by British priv...	[ "Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_0_): Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come t...
Why is there an explosion (as shown in the movies - The Martian and Interstellar) when the airlock is not properly closed/sealed?	[ "In the book, what happened is that there was a rip in the canvas near the airlock, causing the entire airlock to be ejected from the rest of the structure. If the entire structure was pressurized to 1 atm, then that would have been a significant force on the airlock, which is likely mostly light and not tied down....	[ "Crickets, like all other insects, are cold-blooded. They take on the temperature of their surroundings. Many characteristics of cold-blooded animals, like the rate at which crickets chirp, or the speed at which ants walk, follow an equation called the Arrhenius equation. This equation describes the activation ener...
Are there any objects outside of the Laniakea Supercluster that are visible to the naked eye?	[ "Transiently. There are a few galaxies that one can see with the naked eye on a dark night, but these are within a few million light years (still the local group). It's possible that witnessing a supernova in a more distant galaxy may be possible, in this in fact has happened. [This explosion](_URL_0_) was briefly ...	[ "Well, partially, but it's like saying \"Do we expect to see life forms on Earth?\" - Some get killed by volcanoes - Some get killed by floods - Some get killed by droughts Etc etc \\- But some organisms survive these events, reproduce, spread, etc. The usual framework for discussing these things is the Drake Equat...
When momentarily walking past fumes (exhaust, tar, etc) is it better to breathe normally or to restrict your breathing for a short period (thus reducing oxygen intake)?	[ "Hold it. There isn't harm in short periods without breathing, so the down side is nil. The stuff you're breathing probably isn't going to hurt you if it's just a whiff, but there's more potential harm from it than from held breath." ]	[ "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 does fear make your mouth go dry?	[ "Part of the fight or flight response is digestion slowing down or stopping, which could include a slow or stop in saliva production, since it's part of the digestive process." ]	[ "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 are some theories of how the universe was created other than The Big Bang?	[ "I don't think the big bang covers creation, it's more focused on expansion and explaining how it changed over time. Similar to how biological evolution is about biodiversity and not abiogenesis. But there currently aren't any decent contenders for the big bang. There is a lot it currently covers that would need to...	[ "This is as long lecture by Lawrence Krauss, but it's absolutely fascinating: _URL_0_" ]
What does a microwave do differently when put into defrost mode?	[ "Defrost is just a very low power mode, which is achieved by turning on the magnetron (which generates the microwaves) for very short and infrequent bursts. This is done because microwaves are very good at imparting energy to the outside of an object, but it takes time for that energy (in the form of heat) to reac...	[ "Let’s say you’re making cookies. The recipe calls for creaming room temperature butter with sugar. Cold butter will not incorporate well with the sugar, making it grainy rather than fluffy. Then, if you were to add cold eggs to the creamed butter and sugar mixture, the coldness of the eggs would cause that mixtur...
Why do we get so much mucus build up when we cry?	[ "What is happening is that tears drain from the outside top of your eye into the middle corner into your \"nasolacrimal duct.\" This ducts is basically a straight tube into your nose where the tears mix with mucus secretions and come out your nose. If you are crying for a long time it is possible for your nose to b...	[ "Mostly drying out. You just spent a lot time not refreshing your water supply, and if you weren't amply hydrated your body will make short-term cuts to the amount of water it sends to various places to conserve it. That includes your mouth and eyes. The \"slime\" and \"eye crusties\" are partially dried out collec...

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