Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why does it snow at sea level in America, but not at sea level in Australia?	[ "Australia is 25.2744° S, sitting at the Tropic of Capricorn, while New York is 40.7128° N, far away from the Tropic of Cancer, which is in México. Since New York is further away from the Equator, on average, it's colder than Australia. Now, why places at the Equator tend to be hotter than those at the Poles? The E...	[ "[Here's](_URL_0_) an image of the inclination of the Earth that illustrates the angle of sunlight during the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. This is the warmest the north pole gets. Now, think about taking a flashlight on a floor. When you point it directly down, the light is concentrated on a small ci...
Penis inspection day	[ "This used to be a thing in the US Army, typically called \"short arm inspection\". It was a check for STDs. Hasn't been done there in years, AFAIK. It was never a regular thing in schools. Unless you had a pedophile Physical Education teacher." ]	[ "I am pretty sure if this makes it to the front page then the number of teenage male burn victims will suddenly spike around the world." ]
Flattest part of a curved surface?	[ "There's many different measures of [curvature](_URL_0_). I'm not sure what you mean by being able to balance an object on it. Where you can balance an object has as much to do with the distance to the center of gravity as it does with the curvature." ]	[ "You should read up about the [Ehrenfest paradox](_URL_0_). It is indeed true that if you spin solid objects fast enough they do indeed have to deform, eventually falling apart." ]
Why our body isn't comfortable in cold water like it is in hot water?	[ "Water has higher thermal conductivity than air, meaning it can transfer or remove heat faster. 60F might feel fine in air because while your body is \\~98.6F, the air can't remove heat fast enough to offset natural heat generation, but for water it can. Thus your skin detects the loss of heat from itself and trigg...	[ "Look at it like a phone and charger. If you put a load of energy into the phone (more than it's rated for), it'll do serious damage almost immediately. If you use an underrated charger, it'll put only a little energy in, but the phone will use more than it's getting and eventually die. Heat is just a form of ener...
How do they film wildlife documentaries in such close proximity without disturbing the natural behaviour of the animals?	[ "Wildlife photographer here. They do it with long lenses, and weeks of squatting in cold, damp nature blinds, waiting for the right scene to happen in front of them. I cruise around Yellowstone for days at a time with a 600mm lens looking for critters. Or if you happen to be Walt Disney, you cheat. For the 1958 wil...	[ "Well, obviously you already know how you can overlay graphics on top of a still image. Creating an arrow or label on top of a photo isn't so hard, from that perspective. It's the movement and real-time camera sync that's hard. So how do you do it when the image moves and changes constantly? Well, the cameras posit...
Tax brackets and how it affects tax returns	[ "Your coworkers likely don't know how tax brackets work. That's unfortunately common. Here's a basic example of how they work and how your coworkers think they work. Let's say income between $0 and $50,000 is taxed at 20% and income over $50,000 is taxed at 30% - So if you earn $40,000 you will pay $8000 in incom...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Is there a standard formula to determine what kind/size of battery is needed given weight, travel time, & size of motor?	[ "_URL_0_ Add up the energy of all of your batteries in watt hours and divide by the power rating of the motor. That's how many hours the motor can run at full power." ]	[ "I imagine that society could re-determine current date/time by asking our astronomer friends where Earth is in its annual orbit around our Sun. Remaining terrestrial, we could compare sun rise/sun set times to existing predictions to determine date. Time of day is established (historically) based on solar time, w...
How was Lil Pump’s Gucci Gang music video produced?	[ "Is there really much of a mystery to it? They rented out a school, hired a bunch of extras to dance, and added in a CGI tiger." ]	[ "This has been done before, with animals. Here is a video allegedly showing an old Russian experiment done with a dog. It looks real to me, but, then so did The Wizard of Oz. Warning, it might be disturbing and upsetting to watch. _URL_0_" ]
Why do Microscopes come in 4x 10x 40x 100x instead of 5x 10x 50x 100x	[ "You commonly use a 1.25X eyepiece lens, so the 4 and 40X objectives become 5 and 50X total magnification, respectively. Other than that, I'm not sure if there is a clear reason other than historical precedence and that those particular magnification ratios are good for certain applications." ]	[ "Barring a few exceptions, sex in humans is determined by whether you have an XY or an XX chromosome pair. Men have 1 X and 1 Y chromosome, while women have 2 X's. Now, the gene that ensures that you're not colorblind or don't have hemophilia is present only on the X chromosome. The Y chromosome does not have it. S...
The US and Canada are the only countries in the world that officially celebrate Thanksgiving. Why is it celebrated on different days?	[ "Shorter growing season in Canada - earlier harvest. Try harvesting in November, you'd have to dig your crops out from under the snow." ]	[ "You have to go back to where and how these sports were founded. American football and basketball were first popularized as collegiate sports, so they played during the school year. When professional leagues founded, the seasons generally followed the established times. In football, this was also because many early...
(Mathematical) Logical Relations	[ "Formally speaking, a relation between a set X and a set Y is just a collection of pairs with one member from x and one member from y. For instance, if {Alice, Barbara, Charlie, Dan} is set X and {Pizza, Hot Dogs, Chicken} is set Y, then one possible relation would be the set of pairs of a person and a food they l...	[ "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" ]
Why does the `wait music` when I`m on hold on the phone sound like a bad grammophone record?	[ "Even some relatively modern phone systems only accept very low bitrate audio files due to simplicity of realtime decoding as it plays the file/stream for X number of callers. Also in the case of streaming music (semi common) the bitrate is so low just for bandwidth conservation purposes." ]	[ "Former telemarketer here, 1. When you register on the DNC List it is only active for a certain amount of time. After about a year you need to renew yourself on whatever website you used to register. 1. Tell the telemarketer that you are on the DNC List. They may be working with older information, and will have...
Did the Donner party actually resort to cannibalism?	[ "[The Archaeology of the Donner Party](_URL_0_) (2005) edited by Don Hardesty is an excellent treatment of the Donner party. Every indication strongly points toward cannibalism as a final act of desperation of the group. Later, a few survivors insisted they did not engage in cannibalism. A recent limited excavation...	[ "As a reminder, [top-level answers](_URL_0_) in this community need to be \"comprehensive and imformative.\" Single-links to Wikipedia and unsourced opinions do not clear that bar. This question already rests on a part of history hamstrung by the fuzzy diagnostics of diseases in the past and an almost unavoidable b...
What is muscle soreness, why do sore muscles hurt?	[ "Muscle fibers get torn when used to an extreme, so part of the soreness comes from that damage. The body's reaction to that damage also sends an increased number of leaukocytes and antiflammatory agents into the muscle which cause swelling and this also contributes to soreness." ]	[ "a program is like a piece of cloth occasionally a hole is found so you put a patch on it but the cloth remains the same size when you want to make a cloth a blanket then you make it bigger this is called bloat" ]
What is Operation Susannah?	[ "Operation Susannah was conducted in Egypt in 1954. As part of a false flag operation (where they blame someone else for what they're doing), a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and British-owned civilian targets, cinemas, libraries and A...	[ "There was Project Orion from the 1950's that was projected to reach 3.3% the speed of light (theoretically). _URL_0_" ]
Why is it that when you have nasal congestion and you tilt your body to a side while lying down, the nasal congestion switches to that side?	[ "Two reasons. First, shit slides downhill. Second, our noses naturally cycle blood flow from side to side so given time the congestion will switch sides anyway." ]	[ "It's all of that. Our vocal timbre, or the way our sounds, is comprised of two major factors. First, your vocal chords. Everyone's vocal chords are different, but basically, the longer and thicker your vocal chords are, the deeper your voice is. Second, your skull. The shape of your skull and the placement and sha...
If peoples lungs are under their rib-cage, why is it their stomach that inflates and deflates? Shouldn't it be their chest?	[ "When you inhale, one of the primary muscles you use is the [diaphragm](_URL_0_), which moves downward towards your stomach. Basically, when the diaphragm contracts downwards, it creates suction in your lungs that draws air in while pushing the organs in the lower part of your abdomen down and out. Much of the lung...	[ "For the same reason we say \"in a car\" but \"on a train\"... Or \"in a chair\" but \"on a couch\"... Preposition use is English is exceedingly arbitrary." ]
Why are cathedrals and other place of worship so grand and designed so ornate?	[ "There is the whole \"glory to God\" thing that is in play. Also, since faith is such an important aspect of many people's lives, they are willing to spend more time and effort on making sure it looks good, and using quality materials in it's construction. Also also, since there has traditionally been close ties be...	[ "They could, but the expensive cars are not appealing just because of their looks but are a sum of many parts: the looks, finely tuned suspension, high quality interior, high horsepower engine, brand name, etc. Imagine a car that looks like a Ferrari but has a loose suspension, 145-hp 4 cylinder auto, and cheap int...
If inflation depends on how much money we print, and how much money we print is an estimate based on bills being destroyed and population changed, then why do we see inflation every year and not deflation every now and then?	[ "because the people who print money decide that inflation is better then deflation and so they print just enough so there is slight inflation, but not out of control inflation." ]	[ "One thing to note to this otherwise awesome set of responses: We don't know why there isn't more of it. According to the physics we understand, the universe should have created exactly as much antimatter as matter in the Big Bang and we should see antimatter all over the sky. But we don't. The reason for this is o...
If we got international law, who are the law enforcers?	[ "International law is a network of treaties, it is not actual law enforced by a government like you think. There is no entity to \"enforce\" international law." ]	[ "This depends on the department, and the size. Some places, specially trained ordinary officers activate as SWAT when needed, other places, they are constantly dedicated, and wait back at the station until needed." ]
Eating before going to sleep, does it make a difference in how you process the calories?	[ "According to this [article](_URL_0_) > Calories consumed before bed cause no more weight gain than calories consumed at other times. The problem is that foods common among evening-eaters aren't often healthy, says Ellie Krieger, a registered dietitian and author of \"The Food You Crave.\" Snack foods, such as pot...	[ "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...
Is it mathematically possible to win a race but have a lower average velocity.	[ "Sort of. It's not possible to win a race of the same distance with a slower average velocity because average velocity is distance over time and to win you have to cover more distance than your opponent in the same time. The thing is though is that lots of races don't actually have all opponents travelling equal ...	[ "\"The only way to beat Roulette is to steal the money when the dealer's not looking.\" - Albert Einstein this goes for any casino game. they would not invent a game where the house will not have an edge." ]
What's the difference in activity for atoms in a fire and atoms in electricity?	[ "Electricity involves electrons \"jumping\" from one atom to another to create a net flow in one direction. Fire is a chemical reaction (where atoms bond/unbond with one another) that releases enough heat to vaporize the burning material and cause it to glow from the high temperature. They're not really related." ]	[ "Compare it to a bus, with one elektron being a bus and the amount of people in the bus the energy that an elektron carries. Amperage would be the amount of busses that are driving. Voltage the amount of people per bus, wattage the total amount of people transported and resistance the amount of people a bus would l...
Why are free neutrons unstable?	[ "Protons are slightly less massive (and therefore, energetic) then neutrons, and a neutron can turn into a proton by beta decay. Because the higher energy neutron can turn into the lower energy proton, it eventually does. A proton can't spontaneously decay into a neutron by inverse beta decay because the neutron ha...	[ "The key thing here is [Noether's theorem](_URL_0_), one of the most beautiful results in all of physics. Noether's theorem connects symmetries of nature to conserved quantities. For example, when physics is independent of spatial position, momentum is conserved. Or when physics is unchanged by rotating your view, ...
Do nutrients that are awaiting evacuation from our bladders, ever get reabsorbed?	[ "Nope, once it becomes a waste product it is expelled from the body, when it mixes with the urine there's no getting it back because it would be a waste to store it or try and process it, and urine is mostly toxic so once its in, its out." ]	[ "I'm away from home right now, or I could give you a more complete quote, but John Gottman in his book \"And Baby Makes Three\" talks about the evolutionary loss of our \"fourth\" trimester. Essentially, we are forced to be born too early because our greatest evolutionary asset (our brain) means that our heads woul...
Why do sneezes come out clean but forcefully blowing your nose produces snot?	[ "Because it is happening at such high speeds. It essentially vaporizes when it comes out of your nose so it doesn’t seem like an equivalent to the snot you blow your nose into. Also when you are blowing your nose it’s generally because your nose is full, while sneezing happens as a reflex. Fun anecdote from me, I s...	[ "[Sperm only constitute 2 to 5% of total semen volume](_URL_0_). The remainder of the seminal fluid is still expelled from the body during ejaculation. Your body will recycle unused sperm cells that reside in the testes. As new sperm are generated, old sperm will be broken down and their component nutrients recycle...
If a pn-junction (diode) has a built in potential, why can't it power a device, say a lightbulb, or be measured by a volt-meter?	[ "The short answer is that to power a light bulb or measure a voltage you need a current. The answer to why there is no current is a bit more satisfying. The current induced by the potential across the junction in equilibrium condition is balanced perfectly by a current due to the different concentration of charge c...	[ "Quoting [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) (a bit naughty, but it's a nice way to express what I think): > The proposed theory is inconsistent with quantum mechanics and critics have ruled it out on those grounds. Which is essentially saying what you pointed out, yes. If what they're doing is as easy as it sounds - just runnin...
In modern times, has any oppressed minority ever achieved socioeconomic equality in their country?	[ "It depends on your definition of oppressed minority. Do you mean strictly those groups who were slaves? For example, would you include groups like the Chinese, Japanese, Jews, etc? Many of whom have had their belongings and wealth taken from them, and severely discriminated against. Then you can add groups like th...	[ "This question is getting a lot of traffic after being [tweeted by @reddit](_URL_5_), so I thought I'd welcome those of you that haven't visited /r/AskHistorians before to the subreddit. Please do bear in mind that in order to keep the quality of answers here high we have [strict rules on comments](/r/AskHistorians...
How are pictures with all sides visible taken?	[ "They're just more extreme version of panoramas, mostly. You take a whole bunch of overlapping pictures and use software to stitch them together. The software lines up the overlapping bits and uses them for scaling. Something like Dubai360 probably used a really high quality camera on a gimbal (a mount that allows ...	[ "They don't work around them, they work with them. Malcolm in the Middle, for example, was not shot in front of a live audience. That gave them a LOT more flexibility. You'll also notice (if you pay attention) how much editing and looping is used in that show. It's a lot. It's like that for most single-camera ...
What is Fast Charging and how does it affect my phone's battery?	[ "The charger can adjust the voltage used for charging, using a higher voltage when the battery is low then stepping down the voltage as it heats up and/or nears full capacity to prevent it from becoming damaged. This requires both the battery and the charger to be able to utilize the different voltages and for ther...	[ "A fundamental truth of nature is that you cannot tell from any purely local observation how you're moving relative to something else. This is a very simplified version of what's called the equivalence principle. So the answer is nothing. Nothing at all happens to electricity as you approach the speed of light. B...
What are Alternative facts?	[ "\"Alternative Facts\" was a phrase coined by Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway during an interview with Chuck Todd. When asked why Press Secretary Shawn Spicer would say that Trump's Inauguration was the largest one ever, despite photographic and other evidence showing otherwise, she claimed that he was presenting \"...	[ "Top = amount of upvotes-downvotes New = time since posting Hot = how fast something is getting upvotes Controversial = a ratio of downvotes to upvotes" ]
Why do electronics usually require 2 batteries instead of just one bigger battery? ie: 2 AAA instead of 1 AA.	[ "It's to do with the voltages at play. The common battery sizes -- AAA, AA, C, and D -- are all 1.5V. If you connect two batteries in series, you increase the voltage. So, 2 AAA batteries have a total voltage of 3V, compared to a single AA battery with a voltage of 1.5V." ]	[ "The statistical effect is not that dramatic, because you are doubling your chances of winning, but not really halving your chances to lose. Say that there are ten tickets for a lottery. If I buy one ticket, I have a 1/10 chance to win. If I buy two tickets, I have a 1/5 chance to win. That's twice the chance to w...
How does international postage work since each country has their own postal system?	[ "The countries in the Universal Postal Union have agreed on common standards. If I pay the proper international postage rate in the United States, then any postal service will deliver to the proper address in their country after receiving the letter from the U.S. Postal Service, regardless of the local postage rate...	[ "As a follow up, does anyone have a rational reason why different countries do it at different times? Also, I feel like the answer to this question is very straight forward, but I just can't wrap my head around it: why does the southern hemisphere change in the opposite direction? And why are their seasons not dire...
Why did we switch from breathing into someone's mouth during CPR to just compressions?	[ "1) The compressions are more important, as they are more effective in keeping the person alive than blowing air into their lungs intermittently. 2) Putting your mouth on someone else's mouth is not only something that makes people squeamish, but there's a chance of a revived person throwing up in your mouth, or p...	[ "Find a kitchen sponge. Soak it with water. Now try drying it out with a syringe. If you spent enough hours to succeed, the sponge would fall apart from the huge number of holes you've made. And lungs are much bigger than kitchen sponges and the air cavities are smaller. And there are ribs and things in the way too...
Does falling snow affect the speed of sound in air?	[ "Snow on the ground makes the ground much less effective at reflecting sound waves, thereby muffling some of the sound that you would normally be hearing. Snow in the air does not affect the sound speed in air, although it may be possible that snowflakes serve to scatter sound waves and thereby mute them." ]	[ "The bigger you make something, the weaker it gets, because as you increase the size, mass grows faster than strength. Say you have an ice cube that's 1 cm x 1 cm x 1 cm. That's one cubic centimeter in volume, and it has a footprint of one square centimeter. If you make this cube 10 times larger in all dimensions,...
Did the ancient Mesopotamians look like current day Iraqis? Or do we not know how they looked like?	[ "Rooms Seven and Eight of the British Museum contain Assyrian artwork from Nineveh and Nimrud. These large stone bas-reliefs show various Assyrian kings, with their long curled hair and curled beards. There is other Assyrian artwork that shows hair length was generally longer than it is in modern Iraq. There is als...	[ "In all honestly I would argue it has to do with point of entry. Middle Eastern immigrants have to fly in, and thus enter in metropolitan areas with international airports. Thus, if you have a small budget, the natural progression would be to find a job in the immediate area, and of course taxi driving jobs, conven...
What is the Consumer Price Index?	[ "The CPI is a way to measure the changes in price of the products an average family buys. First economists determine what sort of products the average family buys. These products are then sorted into sub-categories, and each category is weighted. The higher the weight, the more important those particular products a...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
In George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, bastards of noblemen have bastard names, i.e. Snow, Sand, Flowers, etc. Is this based on anything in history? How were bastards acknowledged throughout history, specifically the medieval history that ASOIAF is based on?	[ "There's a previous thread [here](_URL_4_) which may help answer your questions" ]	[ "The way history class goes in Saudi Arabia is pretty much as follows: (We'll ignore the fact that much of the recent history glosses over some very important subjects) Grade 1-3: History of the Prophet Muhammad Grade 4-5: History of the Rashidun Khalifs (First 4 khalifs after the Prophet Muhammad) Grade 6-8: Hist...
Why states so tightly control the hours and number of liquor stores?	[ "It is an attempt to limit drunk driving combined with hold overs from the prohibition era and attempting to legislate morality. There are still dry counties in the US where purchasing alcohol is still illegal." ]	[ "It takes a while to implement the changes. How would you like it if the law changed overnight and you had to pay fees/go to jail next day without having a chance to adapt yet." ]
why flat maps of the Earth are so hard to do?	[ "Because the earth isn't flat. Take an orange, and peel it so that you have one big flat piece. That's the exact same problem." ]	[ "We know how far away every star is from us, and in what direction. Plug all these values into a big computer program and it will estimate the shape of the galaxy. Most of the pictures you've seen are an artist's imagining." ]
Why when I hit a fly with my hand they don't fall to their death or go unconscious? I would assume that if a human was hit that hard in the face that we would have significant damage.	[ "It's because the fly weighs so little. When you smack a human hard in the face, the heavy human doesn't move very much, so you wind up translating the energy of the strike into deformation of their dumb stupid face (and maybe next time they'll learn to shut their filthy pie hole). When you smack a fly, there's no ...	[ "Hrm. I am not certain as to the cells of the actual fruit, that is a good question. The cells of the seeds inside the fruit are most certainly alive, and ideally are designed to germinate once placed in the correct environmental conditions. My honest educated guess to your question is that in fact the cells of the...
Why do I freeze my ass off when the AC is set to 75 but am comfortable when the temp w/o AC is 75?	[ "Part of the air conditioning process involves blowing out cold air, and stopping the process when the desired temperature is reached. So, for example, if you wanted to cool the house down to 75 degrees, your AC unit would blow out cold (say, 55-degree) air -- not 75-degree air -- and would stop when the desired te...	[ "Every substance has a specific heat, defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of that material by one degree. This means that doubling the absolute temperature (i.e. °K) requires twice as much heat. This doesn't work if we're talking in °C, because 0 °C doesn't mean zero heat....
How can state, city, and public university laws supersede the second amendment and not allow people to "bear arms"?	[ "The same way that you can kick people out of your home if they have a weapon. The right to bear arms doesn't mean the right to do so on someone else's private property. Your authority to control access to your property is more fundamental that other people's rights to bear arms." ]	[ "There's probably several thousand BSL-3 facilities in the world. I don't think that's limiting anything. There's maybe a [few dozen BSL-4 facilities](_URL_0_) in the world. Maybe that's what you are talking about. If you were talking about BSL-4 facilities, the reason there aren't more is pretty simply money and n...
How does a helicopters main and tail rotor communicate when a pilot increases or decreases collective	[ "In most choppers, all rotors rotate at the same speed all the time. A governer is fitted to the engine that gives it more power if it slows down, or cuts power if it speeds up. The controls the pilot uses (or the flight computer adjusts) adjust the pitch, or angle, of the blades. So, when the pilot increases the c...	[ "motogp bike specifications are heavily regulated. the bike designers are free to do whatever they want within those guidelines. generally a longer wheelbase would be better for top speed (it would make the bike more stable), but it would have worse handling (it would be harder to turn). the same goes for being lo...
How is planetary rotation measured on gas giants?	[ "Worse than no fixed features is the fact it is differentially rotating. That is the equator rotates with a different period to the poles. We can still determine a length of day thought. We do so by exploiting the misalignment of the magnetic field to this spin axis. We can basically look at the rotation rate of th...	[ "With today's science, you would have to photograph the system, while filtering out the star. Repeat every few hours, comparing photographs. Anything that moved is likely a planet. Add 200 years to technology and your computer would automatically filter out all known background stars... Leaving planets." ]
How can Social Security be going bankrupt if, with every passing year (due to population growth) more & more people are contributing to it...so there should be more contributing than those receiving? What am I missing?	[ "With people living longer and baby boomers retiring, there is a shift is ratio of workers paying into the system vs. retirees collecting from the system... In the 1950's, there were 5 workers for each social security recipient. As recently as 2007, it was 3.3 to 1. Now, it's 2.8 for each 1. The payments they recei...	[ "Point a flashlight at the wall and turn it on. See the small circle? Now, let's say your flashlight is delivering xyz power to the wall. So xyz power is landing in that circle, right? Tilt the flashlight in any direction. The circle spreads out across the wall doesn't it? But you didn't change the batteries or any...
The appeal of comic book superheroes	[ "Superman is the embodiment of the perfectly \"good\" person. He's the one we all wish we could be. He fights crime, saves the world, gets cats out of trees, and calls his mother every week. No task is too small or unimportant. Batman, we empathize with. The big \"what-if\". If we had his resources, and experience...	[ "Demographics: Some shows with lower than expected ratings can hold on if their viewers are concentrated across key demographics. For example the show Friday Night Lights was able to hold on as long as it did because it's average viewer was among the wealthiest in the USA." ]
Why is styrofoam such a good insulator?	[ "Styrofoam is a very porous material, it has a lot of air stored in its pores. Heat moves through air by convection and through solids by conduction.u/donnychakras ,u/beef_parade has better explanation than mine, pls check it out. Hope I didn't mess up an assignment of yours. Apologize." ]	[ "Your newspaper has greater range, greater surface area, greater velocity, and you aren't afraid of hurt it or anything it hits." ]
Do astronauts in space have to push harder, in order to have a bowel movement?	[ "Explained very simply, think of it as a toothpaste tube. If you squeeze it, it will come out from the other end regardless of gravity. It might not drop as easily and might get stuck on the end of the tube, but it will come out nonetheless. Explained with a bit more Science, your gut actually has waves of small co...	[ "I used to wonder this as well. Some years ago, I watched a documentary (it was on \"odd things everyone wonders\") where it was explained this is because one of the most common things you see in bathrooms is folks dribbling as they get up. It's more common in some environments such as a nursing home, where many ma...
Did Lenn really fly to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire? How did his daughter Salya "walk among the stars"?	[ "Absolutely. As with all stories from the first age, the facts have become lost in the turnings of the wheel, but it is clear that Lenn did fly to the moon. Whether an eagle was involved is simply mixing up the story with other even older myths from the first age. Salya had plenty of help walking among the stars fr...	[ "Hi, I'm Dr Jim Leary, lecturer in Archaeology and Director of the [Archaeology Field School](_URL_3_) at the University of Reading in England. I'm going to be here in AskHistorians to give an AMA on the 10th of November at 5pm GMT. I'll be talking about my work on round mounds, which included recently [discoverin...
Why is it better to buy a house than to rent?	[ "It is not always better. But...consider a few details: 1. once you've bought your house you are no longer subject to rent changes (increases). You're locking in your fundamental living costs. 2. the interest you pay on that mortgage is tax deductible. So, the mortgage cost is not quite as high as you think. 3. the...	[ "Above post is a great explanation! If you want to simplify it, you could say that bacteria actually attack the cells of your body, while viruses take over your cells biological processes in order to survive (so technically viruses aren't living, they need their host in order to live and reproduce)" ]
Are winters worse in the north or south hemisphere?	[ "it's actually due to landmass. Because there is more landmass vs ocean in the north, there is a greater chance of 'worse' weather." ]	[ "Iowa and New Hampshire host the earliest presidential primaries. Winning Iowa and/or New Hampshire means starting off the race for the party nomination with plenty of momentum and validation of your campaign. Plus, in the lead-up to the election, political pundits need something to talk about, and the kick-off of ...
How do fuel pumps automatically stop filling up gas when filling up?	[ "Found on google.... & #x200B; Near the tip of the nozzle is a small hole, and a small pipe leads back from the hole into the handle. Suction is applied to this pipe using a venturi. When the tank is not full, air is being drawn through the hole by the vacuum, and the air flows easily. When [gasoline](_URL_0_)...	[ "Because as you get hungrier and hungrier, your body reacts by making you feel it so that you are more and more encouraged to go and find food. It's so you don't get lazy and just not eat and just \"endure\" the hunger - that wasn't a very good survival strategy in the conditions we had in our evolutionary history....
Why Microsoft keeps making Office programs for Mac, it's main competitor, while keeps ignoring Linux users?	[ "I'd guess that there are 3 big factors: - MacOS runs on around 11.5% of all desktop/laptop computers, whereas Linux runs on 1.68% - there are around 10 times as many Macs as Linux computers. ([Source](_URL_0_)). - I'd imagine that the ratio of businesses using Macs compared to Linux is even bigger, although I don'...	[ "They make money in one of two different ways. 1. Donations - (Firefox). Pretty much your standard charity works. 2. Support Contracts (Red Hat) - Imagine a grocery store who offered you unlimited free food, but if you want any of it cooked, have to hire one of their chefs to cook it for you. You can still eat it r...
META: How do I determine the credibility of a historian?	[ "Get a feel for what you are reading. Ask yourself do all their arguments follow? Are they sometimes making leaps of logic? Are they priviliging/relying one group of sources, if they are do they explain why? What perspective is the book written from, how might this affect the focus of the book? Are they making bad/...	[ "> What can history as an academic discipline do to regain students' interest? Offer a path to actual, well-paying jobs. College in 2018 is too expensive to get a degree just because you like the subject, or just for the sake of having a degree." ]
If 1/4 of the world was blown away by nuclear explosion, could the other 3/4 of the world survive?	[ "An explosion strong enough to eject 1/4th of the planet earth into space would kill everything on earth and turn the earth into molten rubble. Remember that cataclysmic events like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs were merely big enough to make a (by comparison to the earth small) dent into the earth." ]	[ "At stage 4, the cancer has spread throughout the body to multiple locations distant from the original tumor. It's considered uncurable at that point because it's not feasible, or really even possible to any degree of certainty, to remove all the tumors. At that point, the odds are pretty good you've not only got t...
Virtual pair production at the event horizon is often used to explain the mechanism behind Hawking radiation. This is usually accompanied with a disclaimer that it is not representative of the actual math that describes the phenomenon - so what is?	[ "You can have a look at Hawking's [original paper](_URL_0_) to read some of his thoughts on this issue. In particular, he describes the way that one can picture the black hole radiation with a pair of virtual particles coming into existence, and says: > It should be emphasized that these pictures of the mechanism r...	[ "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 does every scandal have the word “gate” at the end of it?	[ "It’s an allusion to “Watergate,” which was a huge scandal when President Nixon was in office." ]	[ "Many international flights have layovers in countries not in the intended destination. Instead of forcing all of these passengers to first be cleared with the government of the layover country, which is time consuming and costs money, they simply designate an area for these people to board their separate flights w...
Why do french fries taste bad after they’re cold?	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why do french fries taste awful if reheated, but something like pizza is comparable whether fresh or reheated? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5: What is it about french fries that make them taste so bad when reheated compared to other foods like pizza? ](_UR...	[ "It's about novelty. When it's new, we cherish it and want to take care of it. Novelty eventually becomes familiarity. We see this a lot with cars. That new car, the owner is so careful. At some point, however, it becomes OK to toss that empty Big Mac box in the back seat." ]
A Beginner's Guide to ELI5	[ "I think it's silly that this became a default subreddit. OP is clearly a faggot." ]	[ "This is a very good question, but I don't know if can be aquatically explained to a 5 year old. Still, I would love to see someone do it." ]
What is physically happening when your life flashes before your eyes?	[ "Any time you are in a new situation, your brain does a quick search of your memories to try to remember a similar situation you were in before. When your life flashes before your eyes a dangerous situation, that is your brain trying to figure out what is happening, if it has ever happened before, and if so, how yo...	[ "from what Ive found, the question has to many variables to nail down exactly, as each case is typically different. some research says its the swelling and shrinking of blood vessels, while others attribute it to memory association. In short, its a well documented phenoma with a variety of reasons and speculations ...
What keeps our bodies in place while we're asleep? What prevents us from rolling to the other side—or off—of the bed?	[ "I belieeeeve that your body releases a mild paralyzing agent to keep you from flopping around in your sleep. Some people (myself included) experience sleep paralasys when we wake up before said paralyIng agent has worn off and cannot move or speak upon waking up for a few minutes." ]	[ "I guess it depends on who \"we\" is. Check out [this video](_URL_0_ ). She might be a little spooky, but it's something some people at least can learn. Other people can move their ears, but that's somethign only dogs and cats should be able to do. It's a matter of practice. Eye coordination, so they point towards ...
How was OJ Simpson acquitted in the murder trial but then found guilty in a civil court?	[ "Because in a criminal trial, you need to be proven to be guilty \"beyond a reasonable doubt\" meaning no reasonable person would say you did it. In civil court you need to be found in the wrong on the balance of probabilities. essentially, it's a much lower standard of proof required to lose in civil court than C...	[ "You know how a school bully might threaten to beat you up if you don't give him your lunch money? Governor Perry is accused of doing sort of the same thing by threatening to not give a woman's department money if she didn't resign from office. Since it was the governor doing it, he should know better. This would b...
How historically accurate is the quote: "The war wasn’t only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn’t want to."?	[ "[Here's the text of Churchill's March 1946 speech at Fulton](_URL_1_), called the \"Iron curtain\" speech because that was what popularized the phrase. Churchill doesn't even talk about the reasons for WWII, much less describing them as \"to conquer sales markets.\" Instead, he focuses on the postwar situation, es...	[ "Apple doesn't want to just make a product to have a product in a category. They want to make a product that revolutionizes a category and gives them an entirely new stream of high-value business. Making a TV, a watch, or another phone with some varient parameters doesn't match that strategy until they can figure o...
Can a virus go extinct?	[ "Yes! In fact, humans have caused the (effective) extinction of a virus, on purpose. That would be smallpox, and its eradication is a great success of modern medicine. We're very close to doing it with polio as well." ]	[ "Every time you make a copy of a cell, there is a chance for errors. For example when you photocopy a first print, it is pretty crisp and close to the original, but there are a few minor discrepencies. Now if you photocopy the copy, it gets more distorted, and so on until some letters get hard to read, it gets diff...
Why is "natural" food better for you?	[ "> Why is \"natural\" food better for you? Some of it is and some of it isn't. Food with healthy ingredients is better for you. Food with toxins or contaminants isn't good for you, regardless of whether it's \"natural\" or not. > Can't we engineer food that is superior to \"natural\" food? Yes, and have been doi...	[ "I have a chackboard with 100 words written on it. You ask me to delete every word that starts with A which there are 6 words. They're written randomly on the chalk board. I need to search for the words, and then neatly delete the words without deleting anything nearby. But you instead asked me to delete everythin...
Why do we swing our arms when we walk?	[ "it's a counterbalance. Your body in fact is constantly fine-tuning your gait for maximum caloric efficiency. Now, you can help it by walking properly with a straight back, but if there's one thing the human body does extremely well it's maximise our efficiency when moving. Swinging our arms means we can keep going...	[ "Read Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko. It deosn't give an actual reason, but the made up one is pretty cool. Russian distopic modern fantasy. Seriously though, my guess would be either: 1. Extra energy (I sometimes just start running places too.) 2. Seeing a little critter or something that you don't." ]
What is Money Laundering?	[ "It is a term encompassing actions with the aim of making money coming from illegitimate sorces appear as they are legitimate. Example: You robbed a bank and now have 1000000 in cash you cannot just say you found. So every once in a while your lemonade stand will make a phantom sale where you earned cash, declared ...	[ "Imagine you’re a wrinkled shirt. Masseuse straightens you out so you’re nice and unwrinkled. But some people are so use to be wrinkled, they don’t know how it feels to be unwrinkled. That’s my best ELI5. I tried." ]
Were war photographers ever at serious risk in their work? How often?	[ "To make it simple: If you are in a war zone, you are at serious risk. There are many war and conflict photographers who died doing their job. One of the best known was probably Robert Capa, who founded Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson. Capa's lover and companion, Gerda Taro, was killed by a tank in the S...	[ "You may want to read this: _URL_1_ AMA by /u/Sterling_Mace about his experiences in Peleliu. He has written a book about the experience as well, and done other AMAs and comments around reddit a lot. He is also very open to talking about his experiences, and there are a few examples/instances of him discussing pe...
We now have terabyte SSD hard drives on laptops. That's amazing. Why is memory still limited to 4-8 frustrating little GB on most computers?	[ "There are two factors that I think you may be referring to To access memory the computer has to give it an address. I.E. it has to tell the program where the memory is. We used to have 32-bit operating systems which happen to be able to address 4 gigabytes of memory. Many programming were specifically designed for...	[ "The human body is very efficient at absorbing nutrients. The microvilli of the small intestine, where nutrient absorption occurs, have a surface area of about 2000-3000 square feet. Your food spends about four to six hours in the small intestine, slowly pushed along by peristaltic contractions. The absorption isn'...
Evidence of pre berring strait American indians?	[ "Before the strait existed, you wouldn't even need a boat. (The strait is the waterway.) Could they have meant before the Bering land bridge? It came and went a couple times as ocean levels changed." ]	[ "It's stylistic. Exaggeration of features is very common in art around the world, even in the modern day. This kind of topic gets into an area that is rather vilified in the archaeological community. Links from one cultural group to another (i.e. \"Semitic features\" being present in some South African native popul...
why do we measure in half-life and not 'life'?	[ "Because if you're dealing with something which decays away at a steady rate, halving each half-life, then you can't really ever say it's finished its full \"life\" - at least not easily. It wouldn't, for example, be twice as long as the half-life. Twice the half-life would leave a quarter of the original material ...	[ "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....
what's the difference between sim card and a SD card	[ "SIM stands for Subscriber Identification Module and it's like your ID card for your phone. The data on it tells your carrier who you are and who to bill your usage to. Theoretically you can throw your SIM card in any compatible phone and you can use it just like you bought it from the carrier (some carriers don't ...	[ "Everything in the city is much closer together (they are on foot all the time), and there are more public spots to hang out at. In a city you can beg from a lot of people and hang out under a bridge or something, but in the suburbs you would be in someone's yard most likely." ]
why do we bother curing symptomless diseases?	[ "There is no such thing as a symptomless disease. Having detrimental symptoms is part of the defintion of what classifies something as a disease." ]	[ "Well if we know how the hypothetical particle should react, we can build a detector based on that. If we still don't detect the particle, that's a clue that the model is incorrect. And this is what happened, if Wiki is to be believed." ]
Why are airplane (and some car) seats not designed to conform to the human vertebral column?	[ "The most likely reasoning is that properly designed seats take up room and taking up more room means less seats which means less money to make." ]	[ "Lots of airlines use the hub and spoke model. Rather than have a flight from every city to every other city, they have flights from the small cities to a few big cities, called \"hubs\". You then fly from the hub to your destination city, or perhaps to another hub, from which you fly to your destination. So let's ...
Why is the moon sometimes visible during the day?	[ "Because it orbits the earth at a rate different than the length of a day. You see the moon the best at night since a night moon is often in a full or gibbous (almost full) phase and because the contrast with the night sky is significant. But it's in the daytime sky half the time throughout its orbit." ]	[ "The same way you can see your house if you are in it. It looks different from if you were looking at it from the outside, but you can still see the walls." ]
Aside from the obvious social stigma of eating another person, is there any biological/chemical reason that we can't?	[ "Yes! There are some types of diseases called “prion diseases” that are a bit weird because their germs don't reproduce using DNA or RNA, they're all protein. A lot of them are easy to catch from cannibalism, including [kuru](_URL_1_) which was discovered that way, and [variant CJD](_URL_0_), which you can also get...	[ "because there are always going to be people that will be looking out for #1 (aka themselves). distribution is also a big challenge. like aid was sent to africa, it was all taken by the local warlords. short of sending an army platoon to protect and distribute the food, it will be taken by whoever is \"in power\" i...
How does water pressure get to the top floors of a skyscraper?	[ "Pumps and tanks. The tanks at the top are generally not all that small. [Here's](_URL_0_) a cool article on 'em." ]	[ "Mechanical engineer here, working on a PhD in fluid mechanics. Yes, it is possible. These situations would not be simple, as there are some pretty complicated-to-simulate mechanisms involved, but, yes, it could be done to a certain degree of approximation. Edit: To add a little more (I was in a rush earlier) less ...
Why do Greek and Roman statues, especially the ones intended to display the perfect body, have small penises?	[ "The small penis demonstrated self-containment and moderation in men. 'Everything in moderation' was a tenant that arisocratic, male Greeks liked to lay claim to, which the shrunken, flaccid penises were meant to demonstrate. The opposite would be the satyr, associated with bacchic frenzy. These half-man/half-goat ...	[ "In addition to [Pompeiian graffiti](_URL_1_) and other [epigraphy](_URL_3_), much of which was quite crude, we also have the books for a number of comedic plays by [Plautus](_URL_4_) and [Terence](_URL_0_) and satirical poems by [Horace](_URL_5_) and [Juvenal](_URL_2_). And what were they like? Much like humor in ...
Do we have any documented knowledge of what happened in north america before it was discovered ? Was there any big civilization like the Romans or Greeks? Or was it always just native american Indian tribes ?	[ "I'm sure you'll find a lot of answers to that question by rummaging through the FAQs about pre-Columbina America ([see: FAQ, Americas Before Columbus and Native American History](_URL_11_)). About sources, we've got a wide diversity of sources ranging from oral tradition and written records ([Aztec codices, for in...	[ "Please indicate the time period you're interested in for this question. Native Americans live in the present as well." ]
What type of fossil is this?	[ "I recommend posting this to /r/FossilID. Your photo is pretty low resolution. However, it looks like a cross-sectional view of the stem of a [crinoid](_URL_0_) to me. Check out [this specimen](_URL_1_), which looks similar. Edit: Link derp." ]	[ "From Left to Right: The [1939-1945 Star](_URL_2_) The [Atlantic Star](_URL_3_) The [Canadian Volunteer Service Medal](_URL_1_) The [War Medal](_URL_0_)" ]
What is stopping us from implementing Tesla's wireless energy transfer that he created in the early 1900's?	[ "Its way too inefficient (as mentioned in other comments). Quite a few people have problems even with WiFi power in the home, and thats no where near the power requirements of your home (couple of KW). I'm interested in your comment about power lines being updated though. Splitting power lines into overhead conduct...	[ "They did a few years back. It was called Olestra, and it was supposed to change the way we eat (or so they claimed). Basically, the stuff was a fat-substitute that the body simply wasn't able to absorb or digest, so it was just passed through the body. Unfortunately, a problem arose with the stuff because you were...
Why do moths eat holes through clothing? What attracts them to clothing in the first place?	[ "The moths themselves don't eat, they can't, they basically don't have mouth parts. It's the larva or caterpillar of the moths that eat the wool, fur and other natural fibers. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Info: are you talking like stuck between the screen and a closed window? If so, many screens, while sealed into the screen frame itself, are able to be open and closed. They can run on a little track in the side of the window frame and can actually leave a small gap at the top (between the screen frame and window...
Mechanics of Omnidirectional Treadmill	[ "_URL_0_ This video shows off a similar technology while letting you see the side and underside, which helps a lot in understanding what it's doing. It's basically one big conveyor belt, with a bunch of little conveyor belts on it facing the other direction. If the little belts move, they can move you forward and...	[ "You seem to be describing a variant of the [ladder paradox](_URL_0_), just using a train and tunnel instead of a ladder and a garage, he he. > What does the outside observer see? The outside observer sees the front guillotine make a cut, then later after the train has passed further through the tunnel, the back g...
Why does time run slower under huge gravitation?	[ "This is a question that has no simple answer. We recognised that Mercury didn't behave quite as Newton's Laws of Motion predicted. Albert Einstein postulated that this was because we assumed time was universal, and introduced mathematical structures (Special and later General Relativity) that did not assume time w...	[ "It's called Gravitational Lensing. Basically the gravity is so intense it causes the light from other objects to distort. We have also detected radio waves/exotic radiation from the matter being obliterated." ]
Why does such a massive airline company like Delta have to cancel all its flights because of a power outage near its headquarters?	[ "My SO flies for a Delta regional airline; from what he's been told, the issue has more to do with the checking in/checking out system than it does the flight systems - i.e. all flights currently in transit are not thought to be impacted at all by the system failure. Not sure why there isn't a backup system in pla...	[ "Think of a computer as a train station. The computer manages the programs (trains) as they move about the station. There are always more trains than there are platforms and tracks, but the computer manages the trains carefully so each train gets time on a platform to do it's business. Now imagine one of the train...
In the Marvel Superhero world, why do the Avengers not always work together?	[ "Because most of the Marvel movies happen at either the same time or very close together. I remember during Iron Man 2, Phil mentioned something about going to New Mexico, which is where Thor's hammer landed (and it's explicitly shown after the credits), making IM2 and Thor have a small amount of overlap in events....	[ "It's like concept cars. They're putting all of these extreme ideas on display, and the ready-to-wear version will be more subdued. It's meant to show the idea. Project Runway sometimes does a competition where the designers have to make 2 looks. One ready to wear, and one avant garde, but they have to have the sam...
Is there an equation that would allow me to calculate my biking "miles per gallon"?	[ "Well, sure, I don't see why not... On flat ground when I'm going kind of hard, I usually bike around 22mph at 240 watts, so that's about 700 calories/hr at 22mph, or roughly 33 calories per mile. If you do that for one hour, that's 700 calories. Then sure, you could figure out the caloric content of your oatmeal a...	[ "How did they do it (back then?) or how do they do it now? By using experiments and logical reasoning. You can't put a cell under a microscope and watch its metabolic functions. Instead you have to extrapolate out based on the inputs/outputs of the cell. In fact, the citric acid cycle was first postulated from expe...
What does it mean when a planet is classified as a "gas giant"? If they're made up mostly of gasses, what qualifies them as being planets rather than just balls of gas?	[ "All that a planet is is a large ball of matter that has 3 properties: * It orbits a star * It's massive enough that gravity has made it round * It has \"cleared its neighborhood\" of other bodies So a planet doesn't need to be made of rock, like Mercury, Venus, Earth, or Mars, to be a planet; any matter at all wil...	[ "A lot of it is fat, along with some glandular tissue that does the actual milk production. The glands don't take up much space, but spread throughout the breast during development - when they first develop ('bud'), they're concentrated at the center of the breast and form a fairly hard lump. Source: am currently g...
How do sports commentators (NFL, NBA, MLB) pull up random facts and stats so quick?	[ "They have a staff of people who do nothing but gather statistics like that." ]	[ "In cities and towns there are organizations whose job is to keep track of traffic on their roads and highways. These are usually radio or tv stations, but some larger cities (LA or NYC) have specially designated groups who just keep track of traffic. All of these places have databases that are constantly updated ...
On a molecular level, what causes us to age?	[ "Nobody really knows the whole answer. It seems like a large part of aging is caused by damage to DNA in cells that do reproduce, and damage to DNA and cell structures in cells that don't (like brain cells) that accumulates over time. A lot of the theory of aging goes off the \"copy of a copy\" theory, noting that...	[ "If you were to lie down in bed all day, your body would burn a certain amount of calories simply by pumping blood, breathing, and doing all the other involuntary bodily functions. This is called your basal metabolic rate. Disregarding any sort of exercise and what was consumed to receive the calories (i.e. was it ...
why are bugs attracted to light?	[ "Because a close-by and bright light source confuses them. Normally, all their light comes from the sun and moon in the sky, which means, as long as they're right-side up, both eyes will get a similar amount of light. However, if there's a lightbulb or candle or something right next to them, the eye closer to the l...	[ "Although flying in a straight line may be a more energy efficient path, the erratic flight patterns mean that their movement is less predictable by predators such as birds. Overtime this evolutionary advantage has stuck." ]
If no elephant was alive today and the only record we had of them was their bones, would we have been able to accurately give them something as unique as a trunk?	[ "I recently made a post about elephant skulls as well (after having the OP post in my thread, I thought I would contribute here): _URL_0_ That's the skull of an indian elephant. I suspect that with such a large entrance way for the bone, we could suspect that there was a large set of fleshwork coming through said h...	[ "Audit trails. In every good elections system, there's a way to go back to the physical ballots and count them again, and to compare how many ballots there are as compared to the number of people who showed up at the polls. There's no need to tie a specific ballot to the person who cast it." ]
If we threw a clock into outer space, at what point would it stop showing us the "right" time when viewed through a telescope?	[ "At the most basic, the clock will be behind based on its distance from you. If it's one light-year away, it will be a year behind. If it's a light-minute away, it will be a minute behind, simply because it takes that long for the light to reach you. This ignores any relativistic effects, but I think it's what you'...	[ "You have a flatbed tow truck, clean up every car on the highway, while they are moving. But it's in 3 dimensions, not one. You must be in an orbit, you must be in a certain orbit to intersect something, and you must intersect it at the same speed exact otherwise you will crash into it. The act of accelerating or d...
How does diversity enhance workplace productivity?	[ "If everyone has the same ideas, you have a shallow pool of ideas from which to draw. If you have people from lots of backgrounds (and I don't mean just racial) you have more chance of finding solutions your shallow pool would never have thought of." ]	[ "I know that linking to articles instead of responding is a bit discouraged on here, but Steve Novella gives a fabulous write-up of this myth, and how it has a grain of truth: [More Left Brain / Right Brain Nonsense](_URL_0_) Here's a quote: > So while some specific functions do lateralize, our minds and personalit...
What kind of drugs where used in the old west ?	[ "Opiates in many forms were very popular. Primary sources frequently discuss men going to Chinatowns to smoke opium. There were also assorted liquid \"medicines\" that contained opiates, and many women became addicted to these. When white society saw young people becoming addicted to opium in the mid 1870s - and in...	[ "I think you need to clarify your question a bit. There is a difference between a ritual performance wherein ritual participants reenact a myth that contains rape and a ritual performance wherein a ritual participant is raped. The rape of Xochiquetzal or Coniraya's defilement of the daughters of Pachacamac are two ...
If a cold is a viral infection, then why did paracetamol make my throat less sore?	[ "Paracetamol doesn't do anything to any disease (except worsen liver diseases - check your doses kids). Basically all over the counter drugs are just there to mask symptoms. Sometimes treating symptoms is very important, like reducing a fever if it is too high, but they don't cure the illness." ]	[ "Antiviruses hook system calls to add their verification routines. System calls addresses are stored in the system service dispatch table (SSDT). Simply put, when a program wants to open a file, it tells Windows \"Open file.txt please\", and Windows looks at the SSDT where is the function to open a file, and calls ...
Are the cells of, say, a fruit still alive when you pick it off the shelf and eat it?	[ "Hrm. I am not certain as to the cells of the actual fruit, that is a good question. The cells of the seeds inside the fruit are most certainly alive, and ideally are designed to germinate once placed in the correct environmental conditions. My honest educated guess to your question is that in fact the cells of the...	[ "Basically solid objects are formed from lattices of atoms that are bonded chemically. They can be highly ordered like a crystal, or they can be more chaotic and random, ie amorphous. When you cut something you break those chemical bonds holding atoms together at the point of the cut. At a microscopic level cutting...
Is there a running barrier?	[ "I think you're just running too fast. Your body has a concept called the lactate threshold - which is when your muscles are producing lactic acid at a faster rate than your body can remove it. As your lactate levels increase, you start feeling nauseated and like you have to stop exercising. Generally speaking, spr...	[ "Clean up would be a massive problem, not a slight one. And pedestrians would likely get hit in the head a lot. It'd cause many more problems that far outweigh the benefits." ]
Were ancient Greeks as pale, fair and "Western" as Western society tends to portray them? How long has the West been doing this for?	[ "Apart from how crazy this post has become, I want to clarify your question because you seem to be asking about two very separate things. 1. Were (some) ancient Greeks pale-skinned and fair-haired as contemporary native English speakers use those terms? 2. In what way did ancient Greeks 'found' Western culture or c...	[ "We make good guesses based on what little examples of skin have been preserved as impressions in stone, and what other animals we know that are similar are like. As we learn more, our guesses get better and hopefully more accurate. This is why we now believe that many dinosaurs had feathers, when we didn't before....

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