Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why cheap cars always have to look ugly, it's just a shape of the metal, producing Ferrari looking bumper shouldn't be that more expensive or challenging.	[ "Well because the exterior has to fit around the interior. With a car like a Ferrari, it's all about performance and flash. The shape of the body helps generate downforce to keep the car on the road at high speed. But this means sacrificing space inside. With a \"normal\" family car, the interior is more important ...	[ "If you have an approximate location, and you can approximate the type of rock, you can look at a geologic map of the area and come up with a fairly good idea of what it is and how old it is. If you have a piece of sandstone, a microscope, and a good idea of microbiology, you can look at the micro fossil assemblage...
What's the difference between AM and FM frequencies and why do people still use AM frequencies?	[ "AM stands for amplitude modulation. FM stands for Frequency Modulation. So AM waves would look like a series of waves of different heights while FM waves would look like a spring squeezed in different intervals if you put them side-by-side on an oscilloscope. As to why people use AM, it's because it gets the job ...	[ "They were easy to get a hold of because this was prior to the [National Firearms Act](_URL_3_). As to availability, [Thompson sold it by mail order and in stores](_URL_1_). Price doesn't seem to have been the determining factor. Only the civilian models used the circular drum magazine. The military [M1A1](_URL_4_)...
How can you determine the difference in properties (hardness/toughness/ductility etc) of different steel microstructures?	[ "At the 10,000 foot level, basically the smaller the components of the microstructure, the harder, less tough, and less ductile the bulk sample will be. The Hall–Petch relation tells us that smaller grains are associated with increased strength. Toughness and ductility are basically similar parameters, especially w...	[ "Well, someone's upvoted my other answer, which was very kind... but the answer was wrong, at least as far as iPhones are concerned. I did a bit of googling, and [found](_URL_0_) that it's actually a mechanical device which is vibrated by an electronic signal. When the chip is moved, it alters the pattern of the vi...
How does sound get different textures?	[ "It's all about waveform, which affects something called timbre. For example, a sine wave sounds very smooth, but a sawtooth wave sounds very harsh, even at the same frequency. I recommend you download or record sound files of musical instruments, everyday objects, etc., open them in Audacity (a sound software), an...	[ "I would suspect something like binaural recording would come into play. You can listen to the results here: _URL_0_" ]
How are bombs (especially the atomic bomb during the Manhattan project) built safely without worrying about it going off?	[ "uranium and plutonium aren't like gunpowder. It's not like a stray spark would make them explode. They're arguably safer to work with than conventional explosives in most respects. Nuclear material will only actually explode under very specific conditions. Building a machine that actually was able to create the he...	[ "It's similar to the principles behind a volcano. Pressure keeps building up and building up in one specific point. However, there is some strong material resisting that pressure, in the volcano case it is the dirt, rock, and metal sitting above it, and in the book case it's the pages sitting under the press. Howev...
Why is garlic odor so hard to get rid of on your hand?	[ "Yes, the garlic odor is caused by a sulphur containing molecule. It sticks to skin strongly via that S atom. Fortunately, that S atom also likes to stick to metal atoms, such as iron. If you have a stainless steel sink for example, you may be able to remove the smell by rubbing your hands on the surface a few time...	[ "Before DNA science was practical in criminal cases, the only evidence left on a gun would have been fingerprints, which gangsters (both real and fictional) would prevent either by wearing gloves or covering the handle of guns with fingerprint-resistant tape. If there were no fingerprints on the gun, then the only...
As historians, what would you want today's populations to record in diaries, blogs/vlogs, etc. to better assist historians of the future?	[ "Everyday events not related to big news stories, but more local and personal. The sources could include a digital \"diary,\" social media, video, or old-fashioned paper." ]	[ "Off the top of my head: * How, where, when, and by whom they were taught to write * How much practice they've had * How often they actually write by hand * What writing instrument, paper, and surface they're using * Their mental state * How carefully and at what speed they're writing * How old they are * Whether o...
If the observable universe is just a tiny fraction of the entire universe, why do we keep saying it's just 13.7 billion years old?	[ "We have to assume that the universe doesn't drastically change beyond what we can see (which due to the expansion of the universe, is a few times larger than 13.7 billion light years). We look at our patch of universe, and see from its rate of expansion that it's 13.7 billion years old, and so we must assume it's ...	[ "To answer the question literally, our current best measurements of the expansion rate, known as the Hubble constant, are around 70 (km/s) / Mpc with an error of about 2. The unit there is kilometers per second of recession velocity for every megaparsec away from us a given object is. (For example, [Planck results]...
What does space smell like?	[ "Smell is the detection of molecules floating in the air. Space is mostly vacuum, meaning there probably aren't enough molecules for your senses to detect anything (plus you wouldn't be able to inhale so there would be no way to get those few molecules into your nose to begin with). However, astronauts who have bee...	[ "None. Negative, actually, you lose time Plants require both sunlight and water to produce oxygen. Neither of those are present in noticable quantities inside a vacuum chamber. Furthermore, when there isn't sunlight plants actually consume oxygen. They produce about 10x as much a day as they consume at night, so i...
Were British really the "bad guys" in American revolution?	[ "Could I ask what book are you reading that claims the British were going to outlaw slavery almost 60 years before they actually did?" ]	[ "This submission has been removed because it is [soapboxing](_URL_1_.), [promoting a political agenda, or moralizing](_URL_0_). We don't allow content that does these things because they are detrimental to unbiased and academic discussion of history." ]
What is the reason certain colours fit together so well, while otheds clash?	[ "It is based on theories of [color harmony](_URL_0_). Basically, our eyes tend to see three things as pleasing: - Colors that are near each other on the color wheel - Colors that are directly opposite each other on the color wheel - Colors that are typically paired in nature. The redhead with green eyes is seen as ...	[ "Living in the same place doesn't always mean having the same social environment, and it's the latter where people get their speaking habits. In many American cities, black and white people tend to have different family backgrounds, live in different neighborhoods, go to different schools and have different jobs." ...
Which one of the four principal forces causes the tensile strength?	[ "It's the electromagnetic force. Pretty much everything you encounter in day to day life, other than falling, is due to the electromagnetic force. This is the force responsible for atomic bonds and chemical reactions. So things like tensile strength and spring forces are ultimately due to the electromagnetic force....	[ "The thickness of a thin film like that does vary, and the visual appearance of that rainbow sheen that soap bubbles take on is evidence of that fact--the color that a given point appears to be is caused by [thin film interference](_URL_0_). If it were all the same thickness (and viewed from the same direction) the...
Why are many bathroom sink faucets so close to the back of the sink?	[ "The reason is probably cost reduction. The faucet is most likely a casting. Castings of consumer products are made in such a high volume that costs associated with design (such as fancy curves, etc.) don't impact the cost of an individual unit much. The primary cost is the material. A shorter faucet means less met...	[ "In short, marketing. Long answer, just repeat that phrase like you're [Steve Ballmer at the MIX '08 conference] (_URL_0_). Dasani (Coca-Cola), Aquafina (Pepsi), and co marketed the hell out of Bottled Water claiming all these health benefits and the \"purity\" of it and how much \"better\" it was for you compared ...
If gravity affects time, can time affect gravity?	[ "General Relativity says that time passes more slowly in a gravity well. > In a theoretical situation where excessive time is produced, is gravity affected? Since time isn't really 'produced' by anything, there's no way for something like this to happen." ]	[ "Put a slinky in a long glass tube and fix one end of the slinky to one end of the tube. Now lay the tube on your desk. The slinky is all curled up . Next, stand the tube upright. One end of the slinky is fixed to the top of the tube and the bottom of the slinky dangles down. What if you held the tube at an angle.....
Why has a wheel never evolved in nature?	[ "You hit the nail on the head with a wheel being useless. It only works on good flat land and is really only efficient going downhill. Some creatures that live in flat lands have evolved to turn into a ball and roll at times. For example [this fellow](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "I guess one example would be some species of cave fish. Their ancestors became trapped in caves with very little or no light, and so there was no need to have eyesight, and it was gradually lost. _URL_0_" ]
Did the Romans assign decades with their own cultural character the way we do with the fifties, sixties, etc?	[ "Not that I've ever seen. The Romans, at least in the Republic and early principate, wouldn't have thought to do so because they named the years after the presiding consuls instead of counting from an arbitrary date. Other parts of the Roman world did have local traditions, but the only ones I can think of restart ...	[ "They just refer to the latin names of the numbers. For example, Ununoctium (118) might be converted to english as one-one-eightium. Linguists are welcome to correct me on the details, but the main point is that they're placeholders that refer literally to the number of the element." ]
Why do we like music?	[ "We honestly don't know, but it is culturally universal. Clearly humans feel some connection to it that animals and other biological organisms do not in the same way. Perhaps some could claim it's a form of mate attraction, similar to birds singing or whatever, as it does tend to have that effect, as does many hu...	[ "It is biologically engraved in us. Seeing water and fresh landscape meant survival in ancient days" ]
When a stock loses value, where does the lost value go?	[ "Imagine you buy a shiny new toy. It costs $20. A week later, you want to sell it to a friend, but that friend will only pay $15 because he knows he could have a new one for $20. You decide not to sell. A year later, the toy has gone out of fashion. Now, your friend will only pay $5 for it. It's in similar conditio...	[ "There are clear probate laws that handle most cases, explaining how one's possessions (called their estate) should be distributed. A person, called the executor of the estate, is approved by the courts to settle the person's affairs. They distribute the money in bank accounts, sell their house, whatever is needed....
How was the existence of Panagea established?	[ "There's more evidence than just looking at drift and coastline shapes. There are fossils of identical species on distant continents, showing that they were once close together. In addition, there is geological evidence such as identical rock layers on distant coasts." ]	[ "This is a pretty common question here; here's some links from the FAQ: _URL_2_ _URL_4_ and a few others that have been posted over the years: _URL_3_ _URL_1_ _URL_0_ Most posts agree that it is largely a post-war pop phenomenon with fairly little evidence to support it." ]
Why is there a natural limit for maximum muscle mass but there seems to be no limit (or at least a much much higher limit) for fat mass?	[ "Muscle needs to connect to bones and those are of a set size. Even if you want to get more muscle mass there is a point where there is nowhere to put it that you can continue to work the muscle group and maintain mass. Muscle also requires a robust blood supply of which there is a limited amount the heart can supp...	[ "Imagine you have a piece of paper with printed text on it. You now want to print the same amount of text on a paper with half the area on an inkjet printer. Now repeat this for half of that area. Keep repeating. Eventually, you'll get to the point where the printer can't print the tiny letters with enough detail. ...
Why birds always fly forming a V.	[ "The V formation greatly boosts the efficiency and range of flying birds, particularly over long migratory routes.All the birds except the first fly in the upwash (Upward motion of air) from the wingtip vortices ( whirlwind ) of the bird ahead. The upwash assists each bird in supporting its own weight in flight, in...	[ "* Open your favourite FPS game. * Run across the map, keeping an object in the skybox at a constant angle in your view. You will go in a straight line. * Now run, keeping a nearby object at a constant angle. You will circlestrafe right into it. When insect navigation evolved, the only lights around were in the sk...
why does the GOP hate President Barrack Obama more than any other Democratic leader in recent history?	[ "Right, so I don't know for sure if your premise is even true, but if it is, I think the following are three major contributing reasons. 1st: This is an important time for SCOTUS appointments. The balance might tip over with retirements and appointments in the next four years. 2nd: Basically, because of the way the...	[ "Hi, I've approved the post, but just a note to you and potential respondents: this subreddit has a 20-year rule against discussing current events, so any answers will have to cut off at 1997. If you're looking for answers that can include 1998-2012, do consider x-posting elsewhere, eg. a foreign affairs sub like /...
what makes the candy pop rocks pop in your mouth?	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: what makes pop rocks/popping candy 'pop'? ](_URL_2_) ^(_1 comment_) 1. [ELI5: What makes Pop Rocks pop? ](_URL_0_) ^(_4 comments_) 1. [[ELI5] Why do pop rocks pop in your mouth? ](_URL_1_) ^(_18 comments_)" ]	[ "Inflatable beach balls are mostly empty space, too. The thing is, light bounces off the outside surface of the beach ball and back into our eyes, just like it bounces off the electrons around an atom's nucleus." ]
How does water between two electrified parallel plates heat up?	[ "I'm sure there is some capacitive current, but mainly this is simple ohmic heating. The water acts like a resistor, and passing current through it heats it up. Water has a resistivity of about 100-1000 Ohm.m. Those plates probably have a surface area of about 10 cm^2 = 0.001 and a gap of about 0.01m which means th...	[ "It's not clear that this is the case. The effect, called the Mpemba effect, is not easy to reproduce, and does not have well defined criteria. Thus, it may only be true in trivial circumstances (like the hot water sample having a greater surface area exposed or otherwise subject to different conditions, while fai...
What is "bad gas" (or "bad diesel" in my case) and what are the complications it can cause for a motor vehicle?	[ "There are a few forms of bad diesel. Water or possible algea contamination being most common. Most diesels have a water trap that needs to be emptied every oil change. If the water is allowed to remain I've seen it rust out the fuel system internally. Diesel fuel has a lubricant in it and due to the lack of lubric...	[ "One of the main jobs of your colon/large intestine is to take the waste that's left over after food has gone through the rest of digestion, and to extract most of the water out of it, so that when you go to poo, what comes out is mostly dried out and your body hasn't wasted too much moisture. It takes some time fo...
Why is it that the term "All Natural" isn't FDA regulated?	[ "It's not obvious what it should mean. So having the FDA regulate it wouldn't be fair to the people whose products don't meet the FDA definition." ]	[ "Cost, safety which is a component of cost, and the reception of the consumer to having to order and pay in some kind of interface when a large group of people can't even figure out credit card terminals at the grocery store. Additionally, wherever the food comes out you'd have to make sure it got I the right perso...
Why did colonial states across [the] world/time seek independence instead of greater integration?	[ "They did. The famous American motto \"no taxation without representation\" doesn't just mean that they're angry about taxes. It also means \"give us proper representation at the government and we will be fine with these taxes\". The whole independence thing started as almost a last resort when the British crown re...	[ "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, when I'm driving along even a slightly busy highway, does the traffic build up to a complete stop, then slowly get back up to speed for no reason?	[ "Traffic congestion moves in waves backward from the source. If traffic stopped a few miles up the road an hour ago, the wave will have moved backward, and when you arrive at it, there will be no visible source for the problem." ]	[ "Google Android has a feature that sends location data to the google servers, even if you have GPS turned off. If you use a Google Android phone, you can actually view your own data if login to Google and goto this site: _URL_0_ What Google is doing is fetching all this data that is sent from all the Google Android...
How do you type in a language that doesn't have an alphabet?	[ "Writing in Japanese using the English alphabet is called romaji. So what happens is you write the word in romaji on your keyboard, and the computer inserts the symbols. For example if you set microsoft word to Japanese and typed the word \"konbanwa\" it will revert it to the hirigana symbols. (I don't have the ful...	[ "Since Google can see what links you click on from their page, their system can notice that searching \"Asa Akira\" (nice choice BTW) tends to lead to pornographic sites. Using this information, they'll decide that the term indicates a desire for pornography and they won't put it in auto-complete. It's fine if you ...
I spend a lot of time looking at computer and phone screens. What exactly is it doing to my eyes?	[ "Looking at a computer or phone requires concentration and attention. Your eyes need to focus on small print and details. This can fatigue the muscles in the eyes which makes them ache if you spend extended periods of time doing so. Also, you blink less often when focused which can cause dry eyes as well. And that'...	[ "Pointing a camera directly at the sun CAN damage the image sensor." ]
why are canker sores, ingrown toenails, and splinters so excrutiatingly painful?	[ "Hands, feet, the face, the mouth and the external genitals have a very large number of nerve endings that give a high level of the sense of touch in those parts. Other parts of the body are a lot less sensitive. Some internal organs sense no physical pain at all. It's pretty easy to see why the body has evolved th...	[ "Talking completely out of my ass here, maybe it has to do with some instinctive grooming drive that we inherited from our ancestors. If you go to the zoo or watch a documentary, you can see that apes/etc. instinctively groom each other; so some people probably get a sense of pleasure from seeing such things becaus...
In WW2 i have often read and seen pics of german snipers staying in ruined towns alone in random buildings/churches/towers. Was there a tactic they had to do this and did they not know that if they did this they would likely never return alive from that place again?	[ "I apologize since I am not offering an answer. However I am curious as to what books or articles you have read that discussed these snipers. It would help to know the resources you are referencing so that way we could look at what they referenced." ]	[ "They didn't. Homing pigeons naturally return to their nests. So what they did was establish rookeries where there were lots of nests of pigeons at key locations. They would then send those pigeons in cages to other key locations and when you needed to send a message you picked a rookerie closest to your target lo...
What did the Chinese do when a couple had twins before relaxing the one child limit? And now that it's at two children, what happens if they're triplets?	[ "Nothing. There is no penalty for multiple births. The law permits one \"live birth\" per marriage, so one set of twins counts as one live birth. In fact some people might even register two children born a year apart as twins." ]	[ "Let's say the cpu is some kind of calculator, for simplicity sake. You put some numbers into the calculator, then you ask the calculator to do something with it (subtract, add etc). Then the calculator gives you a number back, the result. Why more cores? Let's say you have 2 math problems. 1 core would mean 1 calc...
This may seem heartless, but don't take it that way: How did 16 people manage to die in NY as a result of Sandy when they had days to prepare/evacuate?	[ "Almost always its auto wreck related. Sometimes its people begin hit by large chunks of flying debris. And there are always people anywhere who will ignore warnings and stay in a dangerous area. No body thinks it could happen to them until it does." ]	[ "One thing to point out is the terrain. Iraq is in the populous parts of the country pretty flat, with a semi good road network across the country making it easy to move people around, and larger cities and towns to organize around. Afghanistan is some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. With little nation...
Why can we tell an airplane is pitched up when looking straight down the Aisle.	[ "Cause of your ears. Your ears have, on the inside of your skull, structures in them that are filled with fluid. The insides of these structures are lined with little sensory nerves that \"tell you\" where the fluid is. Since gravity pulls the fluid downward, these organs tell you which way is down." ]	[ "There isn't much in the planetary range of our solar system above or below us. Because of the way impacts of matter happen in the giant cloud that forms solar systems, it will eventually turn into a tight plane that's perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the solar system. Happens with galaxies eventually too."...
What do the two guys in the middle of the bobsled do?	[ "They contribute to the initial acceleration of the bobsled, and help steer by leaning." ]	[ "Very few aircraft backup without tugs anymore. Some use their thrust reversers (very carefully) but this is becoming rare. When going slowly forward (\"taxiing\") it's just low thrust from the engines, nothing is driving the wheels. Once you get moving, idle is usually fine to roll along." ]
why are many children of immigrants much taller than their parents who are short?	[ "It's pretty much nutrition. An example of the effect this can have is the difference between North and South Koreans. North Koreans are definitely shorter than South Koreans, even though the two groups are quite similar genetically, primarily because they eat less, and less good, food." ]	[ "One theory is that [we're too clean](_URL_0_). By keeping our kids clean and not letting them chew on UFOs (unidentified floor objects), we're either preventing their immune systems from building a proper \"database\" of pathogens early on, or we're preventing them from coming into contact with symbiotic species t...
Why didn't Native Americans advance as much as Europe and other parts of the world?	[ "Please consult our handy [list of popular questions](_URL_0_) regarding this - it's a question that's been asked and answered many times here. Short answer, the idea of being \"more advanced\" is a logical fallacy, and in many ways civilizations in the Americas were as advanced as any in the Old World." ]	[ "You're going to need to narrow down your time frame here, keep in mind you're asking about a time frame of 1000 years over a very, very large area of land with vastly different cultures. You'll be more likely to receive an answer if you narrow the question down to a more specific time." ]
Why do violinist always play the instrument on their chin?	[ "The left hand of the violin player is the one playing the notes and it has to be free to move up and down the neck as required, not clutching the instrument. The strings seen in cross-section form an arced shape, not flat like a guitar. The bow has to be able to \"attack\" through a range of angles so that it touc...	[ "Food takes time to reach the stomach, and you'll notice if you eat and then wait you'll be less hungry. Chewing more simply takes more time to do, and so you get full with less food" ]
Why do some dogs recognise people on screens whilst others don't?	[ "Animal intelligence is a strange thing. I think that some dogs develop a concept of face recognition, while others might not use it. It is like with the [dogs and the magician that makes it look like the wiener is floating in the air](_URL_0_), some dogs freak out and others aren't bothered even a bit." ]	[ "The sensors, much like those used in oceanographic research, consist of a source and a receiver. The receiver responds to returned (bounce-back) frequency signals from the source. Therefore, it is not really a distance the sensors respond to, but a certain amount of return. The closer you are, the more returned si...
Why do my eyes water when I yawn?	[ "Tightening the skin and muscles around your eyes can press on your tear glands and push out the fluid. If you didn't scrunch up your face while yawning you probably wouldn't tear." ]	[ "I asked my science teacher this like 10+years ago, basically your facial muscles squeeze your tear ducts" ]
Why does an MRI machine make so many different types of noises when it scans instead of one or two uniform sounds?	[ "To look at different types of tissues or to detect different pathologies, different sequences are used for an MRI. [Here](_URL_0_) is a list of the different sequences. Each sequence applies differing frequency pulses and gradients to excite the protons in the water molecules in the body. These pulses excite the p...	[ "It's completely cultural. Some languages are tonal, which means that a word's tone is an inherent part of its pronunciation. If you change the tone from a falling one to a rising tone, you've mispronounced it and have likely said a different word entirely. In Mandarin questions are indicated by adding the word \"m...
Is it possible to have an acid, or base, that's not in aqueous solution but rather in solid or gas phase? Obviously you can have solid bases like NaOH, but acids, and if so why are they no more common as solids or gases?	[ "Amines, phosphines, and even water can all act as bases in the gas phase. Hydrochloric acid, hydrocyanic acid, and acetic acid can act as acids in the gas phase. The reason you don't encounter them all that often is they will usually find something to react with and form a compound that is no longer stable in the ...	[ "It comes down to that water flows differently than air. While both air and water are fluids, the interaction of air with itself is very weak. Things encounter air resistance pretty much only from the molecules that they slam into. Meanwhile, water is fairly sticky atomically. Water molecules form hydrogen bonds e...
When Archaeologists dig up stuff, why is it so far underground when it's only a couple of thousand years old? Where did that dirt come from?	[ "It is called survivor bias. The ruins that didn't get buried have been destroyed, the only ones left to find are the ones that did. They can be buried by a combination of factors. Wind carrying dirt, rivers flooding and depositing silt, human refuse raising the floor level over time, stone sinking in soft soils, d...	[ "The questions aren't tailored for a specific contestant, they are randomly selected. The lower level questions are general knowledge that most people are likely to know. As the prize money increases, the questions get more obscure and specific to a given subject, but the subject can vary wildly from question to qu...
What European city changed hands the greatest number of times during the 20th century?	[ "How about Lviv? (Austria-Hungary, Ukrainian National Republic, Poland, USSR, occupied by Nazi Germany, USSR again, and Ukraine at present.)" ]	[ "Could you perhaps present us with your original source so we can see what the author writes about it? I think I know the answer, but I would like to know what exactly the author wrote. Also, could you remove the bonus question? We do not allow discussions of events after 1993." ]
The difference between Serotonin, Dopamine, and Endorphins	[ "Really short version: Endorphins block pain receptors. They're basically natural opioids and function in a really similar manner. They produce a similar feeling of euphoria to other opioids. Dopamine controls how much you are rewarded for a positive action. It doesn't directly produce a feeling of pleasure but rat...	[ "The id is your desire for this cookie. (::) The ego is your practical plan to get this cookie. (::) The superego torpedoes your plan because it's my cookie, and stealing is wrong. Munch." ]
What Mechanism Produces Black Body Radiation?	[ "For any object above absolute zero temperature, the component particles will have an energy distribution in which at least some of the particles are sitting above their lowest possible energy state (i.e. the Bose-Einstein distribution for bosons, and the Fermi-Dirac distribution for fermions). This means that some...	[ "The Schwarzchild solution describes the vacuum outside of a spherically symmetric mass distribution. So if you drew a big sphere around a large enough part of the universe and removed all of the mass outside it, that would be sphere with radius smaller than the Schwarchild radius. But since there is mass outside a...
Does ice go bad? If I found some ice cubes that had been sitting in a freezer since 1945, could I eat them?	[ "Assuming the ice hasn't subliminated(you might need a bigger ice block) and was placed in sterile and cold enough conditions. Yes you could eat it." ]	[ "Hi there! This is a reminder to potential respondents to this question that we have the [no current event rule](_URL_0_) in effect that in order to discourage off-topic discussions of current events confines questions, answers and all other comments to events that happened 20 years ago or more, inclusively (e.g. 1...
Why can't I buy a bare bones vehicle new anymore?	[ "There just isn't a market for that anymore, for a variety of reasons. Even the bargain-basement consumer expects both AM and FM, both heat and A/C, automatic transmission and the defrost option. Add to that government regulation that requires door beams, airbags, anti-lock braking, and 30+ miles per gallon, and th...	[ "Laws usually don't have to make sense. It is what the politicians and the lobbyists can make the people think are concerns." ]
Questions about Prussia	[ "In 1870, Prussia was the largest state in Germany. people had been talking about a German nation for a long time, but any such plan required Prussia's consent, and its king, Frederick, (for 300 years, all the leaders of Prussia were named either Frederick or Frederick William) was a staunch legitimist. He would on...	[ "Assuming she was Protestant: What interactions did she have with English soldiers? Were family members involved in helping either side? What did they do? How was participation viewed? How did her perception change after Bloody Sunday? Was she ever \"taxed\" by the Provos? Did she have Catholic friends and how did ...
If you were standing on the moon during a harvest moon would the ground beneath your feet appear red?	[ "No, the reddening is due to Earth's atmosphere." ]	[ "_URL_0_ Reportedly cows tend to feed more around sundown when the nutritional content of plants is higher. > “A series of USDA studies looked at animals’ ability to choose different forages. The researchers cut hay in the morning and in the evening and used this in the choice tests. They’ve done it with cattle, g...
Would a strong wind affect the freezing of water?	[ "Wind does not alter the temperature at which water freezes but the wind will increase the rate of heat loss. In order for water to freeze, it must lose heat to the surrounding environment. When a wind is blowing, it is constantly moving the air away from the surface and thus increases the rate of heat transfer. If...	[ "Have you ever blown in a bottle to get a tone? What's happening is that as you blow across the top of the bottle, it excites the air in the bottle and causes it to resonate. Now, when you open a car window, you're effectively turning the car into a giant bottle, but because it is so big, we hear the resonance as ...
When was string invented?	[ "A [string/rope-like](_URL_0_) cord was a found at the French Paleolithic rock art site dating tens of thousands of year ago. It would be easy to imagine that the use of plaited cord is very old." ]	[ "This won't exactly give you the spelled-out relationship of two fruits, but nonetheless: Check out [TimeTree](_URL_3_). It takes any two organisms and estimates how long ago their phylogenetic lineage split - i.e. when they had their last common ancestor. For example: * [Strawberries and Durian evolved in differen...
Please Explain to me stocks, the stock market, traders, stock brokers, everything having to do with stocks	[ "Search bar over there ====== > Gets asked about once a week. This isn't a complaint, just a PSA about using the search bar before you ask a question." ]	[ "If you have a spare afternoon or two I'd check out these two Khan Academy playlists on the [Credit Crisis](_URL_2_) and the [Paulson Bailout](_URL_0_), and if you want to learn more about how banks work check out this [Banking and Money](_URL_1_) playlist as well; there's a few others on finance and credit as well...
Why can't we put solar photovoltaic panels and wind turbines on top of a Tesla to allow it to run indefinitely?	[ "Putting a wind-turbine on the roof won't help since all it will do is add drag and cause the car to use more energy while driving. Solar Panels would also not be too helpful because at that size they generate only very limited amounts of power (probably not enough to charge the car to any significant degree) and t...	[ "For that you need mountains, with two lakes above each other, and a river to replenish the evaporated water. Most, if not all suitable sites are already used for that. *Construction is expensive, and the energy content is relatively low. As a theoretical exercise you can calculate the 'lake' sizes and heigh...
What is the rarest functional element of the periodic table in biology?	[ "By \"rarest\" I assume you mean \"rarest on Earth's surface.\" I am using this list: _URL_0_ By \"functional\" I assume you mean an element that is found naturally as part of an enzyme or other biomolecule. In that case, selenium (ranked 67th most abundant out of 78) seems like the rarest functional element in bi...	[ "Easy to measure, impossible to fake. You can tell if it's real without any effort at all. Doesn't break down, but it's too soft to use for tools or weapons. The amount available is limited, but it's heavy enough to make carrying large amounts rather difficult. And also very, very shiny. Nothing else on Earth meets...
To what extent were Nelson's manoeuvres at the Battle of Trafalgar influenced by the tactical genius of Admiral Ackbar?	[ "The tactics of the Rebellion are built more on speed than the perfidious Nelson. The Rebellion did not have the level of ship building nor material advantage to fight a large and lumbering opponent. I would argue that their tactics are more based off of the Danes fTom The Gunboat War rather than Nelson." ]	[ "[This thread](_URL_1_) has some good information about it. Basically though, no one is really certain of the route that they took through the alps, which makes it difficult to choose where to look. And actually, any remains found of elephants would probably give a more definitive answer as to the route. Also, bein...
Supposing we ever did find a way to factor large numbers in polynomial time, are there any fallback encryption methods that would still be safe?	[ "Cryptography depends on one-way functions ([Wiki link](_URL_0_)) to construct several algorithms. Factorization of large numbers is one type of one-way function, but it's not the only one. The Wikipedia link has more examples. To answer your question succinctly, yes, we do have several encryption schemes that aren...	[ "Did I even break my skull over that one! For one thing Martin is quite vague and elusive in his clues as to just what he means by these cycles. The least shitty approach I could come up with was inducing the irregular \"megawinters\" as volcanically-induced cooling episodes overprinted over a regular climatic sycl...
Why Google is so much better than Bing.	[ "Because Google has better algorithms in their search engine than Bing." ]	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
If lights speed is constant, how does it bounce off of a mirror without changing velocity?	[ "Remember, electrons can be pushed around by an electric field via the Lorentz force. In metallic coating type mirrors, the incoming EM wave drive the electrons in the reflective coating back in forth. Since the energy of the incoming wave is transferred to the electrons, the incoming wave is absorbed. Recall thoug...	[ "The reflected photon has a slightly lower frequency, and thus lower energy, than the original photon. This is basically the Doppler effect. The energy lost by the photon is equal to the kinetic energy gained by the solar sail." ]
Why do we celebrate MLK day on the third Monday of January, instead of his birthday, January 15th?	[ "In the late 60s, Congress voted to move a bunch of federal holidays (previously assigned specific days) to the nearest Monday so that federal employees could have 3 day weekends instead of a random day off in the middle of the week. When MLK day was made a federal holiday, they followed that pattern." ]	[ "I watched the protests and movements in Hong Kong religiously for about a month. Of course there were many highs and lows of population in the streets throughout, but the streets tended to fill up after work and school hours and would die back down around 2 or 3 am. Those that were skipping school or work to prote...
How can a cable possibly be stretched across the entire Atlantic Ocean?	[ "Undersea cables are large and very well protected from the elements. Animals aren't a major concern. The ocean is miles deep, but that isn't really a problem. Cables aren't placed by divers or submarines, their unspooled off the back of a big ship." ]	[ "If you put enough traffic on a freeway, no mater how wide the freeway is, no one can get anywhere. the same thing applies to networks, where if you flood them with enough traffic, with fake cars that don't actually want to get anywhere, nothing can get where it wants to go." ]
Did men who were forced to work as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War 2 exist?	[ "Yes, definitely. [Walter Dempster](_URL_0_), also known as Walterina Markova, is a well-known example in the Philippines. His life story was the subject of at least two biopics. There were more like him, though I can't find any sources that attest to how many male sex slaves there were. Ronald D. Klein (13, Augus...	[ "Aside from the Walter diary, one of the most harrowing accounts of 1812 is Sergeant Bourgogne - with Napoleon's Imperial Guard in the Russian campaign and on the retreat from Moscow 1812 - 13 by Adrien Bourgogne who typified the Imperial Guard's hard fighting grumblers. *A Soldier for Napoleon The Campaigns of L...
What is projective geometry and why do parallel lines intersect in it?	[ "It's geometry accounting for perspective projection. Imagine standing on railroad tracks that vanish in the distance. The tracks are parallel but appear to converge/intersect on the horizon." ]	[ "All chairs are furniture, but not all furniture are chairs. Because furniture might include sofas and tables, the second statement follows from the first. In formal logic, this is called a contrapositive. When a KKK member says that \"all blacks are niggers, but not all niggers are black,\" *he means that a \"ni...
Has wood ever been used as body armour? If not, why?	[ "Incans, Mayans, Native American Tribes, all had various armors that were made of wood, usually wood slats tied together around the torso. Similar to this one: _URL_11_ Bamboo Armor, though cheap, is far from uncommon, especially in Japan and China. Kendo and some other modern Sword sports still use bamboo armor th...	[ "There are authors who claim the practice began during the colonial period as an early \"mens\"/ \"ladies\" designation for an illiterate populace (the sun and moon being popular symbols for the genders during those times). The book : The Little Red Schoolhouse: A Sketchbook of Early American Education has the fo...
In the double split experiment, people say that, mathematically, electrons go through both slits, no slits and one slit and that all these possibilities are 'in superposition' with each other. What does this mean and do we know how/why it happens?	[ "We don't really know how and why they move, we only know where and when we can detect them. What happens between launch and detection is pure speculation." ]	[ "> What \"blocks\" the electricity off? A nifty little invention called a \"semiconductor\". You have probably heard this term before as being fundamental to the operation of various microchips, and it is this mechanism by which conduction along a wire can be controlled by the electrical input from a third wire. In...
Why is Wrestling (WWE, WrestleMania, etc.) so popular? Is it acting? Is it staged? Is it real fighting? I literally know nothing.	[ "Acting? Yes. Staged? Yes. Real fighting? No. Real physicality? Absolutely, especially all the jumping and body slams and whatnot. They just don't actually hit each other hard enough to do damage. It's basically a manly soap opera." ]	[ "Fish yawn as territorial or mating displays it's commonly accepted that all vertebrates yawn. Nobody knows why though here's an article on [why we think people yawn](_URL_0_). [Here is an article about fetal yawning](_URL_1_)" ]
What triggers some food to go right through you and how does the GI track put your food on the express track?	[ "It's not the food you eat that comes out, rather the crap already in you. Whatever you ate, if it was dodgy, your stomach needs all its resources to deal with it to try and stop you getting sick. As its fully concentrating there, it doesn't want to deal with the stuff in your colon so it expels it as quick as poss...	[ "The best way to understand relativity is that it explains the why of gravity (and motion in general) better than Newtonian physics. In general relativity (GR), all objects which have no forces on them (gravity is no longer considered a force) move in straight lines called geodesics. However, the caveat here is tha...
How do TV shows (aired on tv, netflix, amazon prime)make money?	[ "The company who creates the show sells it to Netflix, that’s how the “show” makes money. Netflix doesn’t make money on individual shows. They make money by users subscribing to the service, the subscriber may or may not ever watch a particular show, or any show, as long as they pay their bill, whatever. On regul...	[ "Many of the products sold through infomercials, especially information products, are not actually created until an order is placed. So, you may order a DVD set today but the next batch of orders are not created until the next week. It's a sort of 'standard' that the price of shipping should cover the entire cost o...
Why is John Cena suddenly a thing?	[ "Well as far as I know it started with this prank video: _URL_0_ And after that it simply went viral." ]	[ "Can you please give an example of \"everyone\" and of what \"recent reports\" your referring to? This is an incredibly loaded statement" ]
How does hibernation work? Do they stay in the same position the entirety of winter? If so how do they recover so quickly and how is it different from sleep?	[ "The main way hibernation works is by eating (and drinking) lots of stuff before winter (when most animals hibernate). They then go into a deep sleep, sort of, and are usually very hard to wake up (some exceptions apply, bears for example can be woken up pretty easily). During the hibernation their bodies use as l...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Heat rises, yet it is cold on top of a mountain. E ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: If heat rises, why is it freezing cold above the clouds? ](_URL_1_) 1. [ELI5: If heat rises, why are higher altitudes generally colder? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: If heat rises, w...
A whitening toothpaste advertises 1 shade whiter every week. Theoretically, could I brush my teeth 28 times in one sitting and have my teeth 2 shades whiter after?	[ "No. Brushing has nothing to do with it, the effect comes from having the chemicals sit on your teeth for a week." ]	[ "Many missions do use multiple slingshot encounters (aka \"Gravity Assist Maneuvers\"). If I recall correctly, the Rosetta mission performed two Earth GAMs and a Mars GAM. Cassini performed two GAMs past Venus, one past Earth, and another at Jupiter. However, this takes time. In order to pull off the double-earth s...
Why do seagulls 'dance' when looking for grub?	[ "As Zaggynl suggests, the acoustic effect of the paddling is what's causing the worms to come to the surface - and it's not just gulls who do it. People do it as well, drumming the soil to collect worms for bait (called 'grunting'!). However, the reason the worms come up isn't quite clear. Again as zaggynl points o...	[ "They have a pre-authorized list that people select from, and it has a pretty wide selection, meaning that there are songs for everyone. Other people like \"Pants on the Ground\" make their own songs, which they would obviously have rights to." ]
Why do colours look more vibrant on a rainy day?	[ "When the sun is out it is very bright. That bright light from the sun saturates out the colors. On a rainy day or cloudy day you don't get that saturation of sunlight. It's like the difference of have the volume on the TV all the way up as opposed to half way. You can still hear everything but it is painfully anno...	[ "You've pretty much got it. When you combine a bunch of ingredients in a flavored liquid, at first the flavors of the liquid will either just coat the pieces or barely penetrate the surface. As you let it sit, the flavors penetrate deeper into each piece of food, and each ingredient starts to give up its own juices...
Why is the "Censor Bleep" tone so consistent across most media?	[ "Traditionally audio equipment is tested by using a reference tone. This is just a generated sound wave, usually with a frequency of 1000 Hz, because that seems like a good enough number as any. Sometimes they'll also play a 100Hz and a 10,000Hz tone to test subwoofers and tweeters, but it's basically an easy way t...	[ "Thar be prosodic cues be makin' English sound English, e'en ye canna hear all the words over the wind whippin' through the sails. Summat these be the way the pitch be risin' and fallin' o'er the sentence; summat others be the ways we be combinin' sounds or no in English. I reckon ye may be findin' these rules fer ...
How long is the process of a supernova?	[ "Once the nickel/iron core of the star exceeds the Chandrasekhar limit (~1.4 solar masses) electron degeneracy can no longer support it against gravity: it becomes energetically favourable for electrons and protons to undergo inverse beta decay to form neutrons (and neutrinos), leading to a cataclysmic implosion of...	[ "Go light a bucket of gasoline on fire, it'll take a few minute to burn depending on the depth/width and whatnot. Now imagine something hundreds of billions of times larger." ]
If ice cubes melting doesn't make a cup of water overflow then how do ice caps melting raise sea levels?	[ "First off, there is a lot of ice that's not floating, but rather on top of land. It's clear that if this melts, sea levels rise. The north pole is floating ice, but the south pole is a landmass covered in 25-30 million cubic kilometers of ice. However, floating ice can also contribute. The sea is saltwater and the...	[ "The Earth is surrounded by a gaseous layer in the atmosphere known as the Ozone layer. The Ozone layer makes the earth habitable by 1) filtering out a certain amount of radiation from the Sun 2) reducing the amount of heat that reaches us from the Sun The main contributor of global warming is what is known as gree...
Why is there sand in a desert?	[ "As the soil dries out, it loses the ability to stick together in clumps. Over time the wind will carry all of the lighter topsoil away, leaving only heavier sand behind." ]	[ "Diatoms leave behind silicon tests when they die; essentially glass." ]
Why is every color commonly present in the sky but green?	[ "I don’t have a real scientific answer for you, but I’ve seen the sky turn weird green and yellow colors before, but it’s always right before a really bad storm" ]	[ "You might have some damage to your color cones in your eye. You should go see an optometrist about it. They specialize in that sort of thing and can help." ]
Is there a term or reason for instances where you haven't talked to a person in a long time and while thinking that you should contact them, they seem to contact you that day?	[ "[Confirmation bias](_URL_0_). Basically you quickly forget all the times that you think about a person you've not seen in a while and they don't contact you because the event is uninteresting and not noteworthy. The times it does happen stand out because of the coincidence." ]	[ "The signal your cellphone is sending out is a form of electro magnetic radiation. An antenna that receives this information uses a similar design to what we put inside speakers to filter the highs from the lows (called a crossover). Sometimes these crossovers and the speaker itself will pick up the signal your cel...
What is the significance (if any) of the scene in Batman Begins, when they order the faulty Batman masks, and Alfred breaks it to pieces with a bat.	[ "To show that even for Batman, things go wrong. And to provide a bit of comic relief." ]	[ "When researchers give chimps eggs, they often search the area for a particular plant that they like to eat with eggs. They gather some leaves, put the whole raw egg in one cheek, and a few leaves from the plant in the other cheek. Then they crack the egg inside their cheek and mix the egg and leaf together in thei...
What's stopping someone with high levels of body fat to get on a treadmill and run for (X) hours straight until it's all gone?	[ "Your nervous system, muscles, and, well, everything needs rest. Sleep plays a huge part in fitness. You tear down your body and it needs to heal. Rest plays a huge part in fitness. This is why you take breaks between sets when lifting heavier weights." ]	[ "It is the ultimate speed limit. You have to learn a little math to understand why, and get some concepts down. The simple term is 'relativistic effects.' As things get towards the speed of light then the effects of relativity take hold. To increase the speed of a material object, something with mass, it takes more...
Why does sound move at the same speed no matter how high the amplitude?	[ "It doesn't. The speed of sound in an ideal gas is c = sqrt(γ \\* P / ρ), where γ is the [adiabatic index](_URL_0_) (about 1.4 for air), P is pressure, and ρ is density. This formula assumes adiabatic equations of state, so P\\~ρ\\^γ, so very loud sounds with δP\\~P can induce nonlinear effects which change the pro...	[ "When a stationary atom emits a photon, the wavelength of light emitted depends on the energy an electron lost when it jumped down an energy level. However, if the atom is moving, the frequency of the optical wave will be doppler shifted either redder or bluer. Furthermore, the direction of the doppler shift (red o...
Energy of a wave is proportional to its amplitude. Energy of a photon is proportional to its frequency. How do those two propositions "connect"?	[ "This was one of the big concepts in the early days of quantum mechanics. You might look up the story behind the photoelectric effect. The short version is that a light wave has total energy built up in discrete units (photons). You can think of the amplitude of a wave as being proportional to the number of photons...	[ "No. The last two phosphate to phosphate bonds in ATP are \"high energy bonds\" while the bond in AMP is much more stable. To really understand this, remember, contrary to the way things are often taught, bonds are LOW energy systems. Breaking bonds requires energy, making bonds releases energy. In ATP, breaking t...
Why don't all current gen game systems have backwards compatibility?	[ "Backwards compatibility is fairly difficult, and comes with its own difficulties. The architecture of a PS3 and PS4 are radically different, so a game that is written to run on a PS3 architecture can't run on PS4 architecture at all. In order to achieve backwards compatibility, either the PS4 needs its internal ar...	[ "Obamacare does contain a provision saying that any insurance policy that existed before it was passed is exempt from its new regulations. However, insurance companies normally change their policies a lot each year, to the point where the regulations recognize them as different policies. Most companies have decid...
Gravitational lensing	[ "There isn't anything particularly special about 2012. But the Sun isn't a very good lens anyway - it's too small and too close, so you only notice lensing very close to its surface. There are three types of lensing we can see: 1) Microlensing. Two star systems line up, and the one in the background looks way brigh...	[ "Various reasons, but generally it's atmospheric distortion due to temperature gradients. Think about opening your door in the winter and watching the air shimmer as the heat goes out, or looking over a hot car in the summer. Same effect, larger distances.:)" ]
What are AR-15s used for?	[ "It's a fairly general purpose and easy to handle weapon, which made it popular enough to become even more popular. It's essential the Bic round-stick of firearms. Being popular means value retention, more affordable accessories, etc. It's also available in multiple calibers so you aren't talking about just one ty...	[ "I could try to explain it to you, but this video is all you really need: _URL_9_" ]
How have countries in history reacted to neighbors collapsing from internal strife?	[ "Depending on available resources and the cost of conquest/rebuilding and maintenance... invasion. I'm not saying it's the default response but as a sovereign entity losing cohesion is tantamount to inviting foreign interferance. This interferance may or may not be cloaked in altruism to restore the previous rule i...	[ "This submission has been removed because it is [soapboxing](_URL_1_.) or [moralizing:](_URL_0_) it has the effect of promoting an opinion on contemporary politics or social issues at the expense of historical integrity. There are certainly historical topics that relate to contemporary issues and it is possible for...
What happened to the aristocracy? Did the great wars/ great depression bleed the old money dry?	[ "> why there isn't really a high society in America Why would you think that? The US has plenty of billionaires and other extremely wealthy people in. There is a lot of \"old money\" that has been passed down since before the Robber Baron era of turn of the Century. Names like Rockefeller and Kennedy have been part...	[ "hi! there's lots of room for the musical historians to jump in here, but fyi, there have been a few related posts that you may be interested in: check this one out, it includes links to several more * [Classical Music currently has a stigma of being a luxury that the upper classes are able to enjoy. Was this alway...
Why is powdered milk more expensive than fresh milk?	[ "This may be a location thing, powdered milk should be cheaper - I know in the UK I get can get powder for 5l of milk for 1.40, 5l of milk would cost about twice that if bought in the biggest jugs, and 3x that if bought in the smaller ones. Powdered milk is easier to transport & store than fresh." ]	[ "commercialism. if you were happy with your old stuff, you wouldn't need to buy new stuff. all the designers and manufacturers come out with new looking stuff and market the old stuff as ugly and new stuff as pretty in order to make money. our tastes are hugely influenced by others." ]
How does charging a phone for too long make the battery life significantly shorter?	[ "In modern phones, it doesn't. They have smart systems that stop charging at 100% and let the battery drop some before charging again. It keeps the battery from being damaged. But phone batteries do like to be \"exercised\" and discharged down to 20 or 30% and recharged from there." ]	[ "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...
Is there conclusive answer to the Jefferson - Hemings question? Was it Thomas Jefferson or is their evidence it could have been another jefferson	[ "While there is a general agreement that Thomas Jefferson did father children by Sally Hemming, is there any evidence to prove or disprove that it was consensual? Was at an affair with some degree of romantic feelings or did Jefferson take advantage of Sallys position as a slave?" ]	[ "The \"how\" is simple: HTML is just text, which you can write in any text editor. It didn't require special tools then, and still doesn't. The following is valid HTML which I'm writing off the top of my head in the Reddit editing box: < HTML > < HEAD > < TITLE > Web Page < /TITLE > < /HEAD > < BODY ...
[Physics] why do dirt and sand, among other powdery substances, form conical piles?	[ "If you stick something on a slope, and make the slope too steep, it will slide down. If you try to make a pile of sand steeper than that, the individual grains will slide down. So you end up making a shape that's constantly at that slope, which gets you a cone." ]	[ "For the same reason that many depictions of Jesus Christ are of a white Italian esque guy rather than middle eastern, it's become mainstream. However, entertaining the question, some have argued that a UFO would need to spin or else it would risk tumbling around in the sky. Kind of like when you throw a frisbee a...
Has anyone ever observed a star go out in real time?	[ "I am not sure that we can really catch the \"last light\" from a star, because stars do not disappear all of the sudden. Most stars evolve to become white dwarfs and then fade over a timescale longer than the age of the Universe. More massive stars are expected to explode as supernovae, which are very bright for s...	[ "> I see pictures like this: _URL_0_ and long to see this sight for myself. I think those types of pictures are taken using decent cameras with high ISO settings and a long exposure time (maybe 25 seconds or more). They don't reflect what you'd see with the naked eye, unfortunately. Here's one photographer's rendit...
How can a claymore be a directional explosive without having an equal and opposite amount of force going backwards?	[ "The damage from a claymore comes not from the explosive directly, but from a bunch of ball bearings embedded on the front side of the device (it's a rectangular panel, curved so that it can hit an arc). It's essentially a C4 powered shotgun. Shaped charges in general do have an equal but opposite effect, they rely...	[ "It's simpler than that. An item has energy put into it, energy is not inherent in the object. In your example, identical objects, different distances from the earth, came to be different distances from the earth due to different amounts of work done to each of them. That work is stored and released in equally diff...
Could allergies eventually by phased out by evolution / natural selection? Or do genetics play no part?	[ "I suppose at least theoretically they could, but the last few years have seen allergy rates in the western world shoot up. The main theories for this are due to lack of exposure to allergens at a young age, leading to an immune system that overreacts to every foreign body that it detects. Allergies are a side-ef...	[ "Differing from the opinions here I dont think there is a selection for the exact opposite. Polymerases are very fast enzymes and they are very accurate. However making something work perfectly means that it would take much longer to complete the job. Here the selection is for speed. You want to grow, divide and co...
If both China and the United States rely on each others existence for overall/worldwide stability, why do they continuously provoke each other militarily?	[ "Because we don't agree with each other on a lot of issues. Just because a war between the two countries would be beyond devastating doesn't mean we are close friends. The US and China have many fundamental differences in philosophy and that's before you factor in economic and political differences. As an example, ...	[ "Let's say you're starting a business and I loan you the money to get started. You make your payments and manage to keep the lights on. Soon, you start making a profit. I, who loaned you money, don't come demanding more money because you're making the payments on which we agreed. Your buddy Jeff has a business, to...
How does the Swiss nationality law work at three levels simultaneously?	[ "Switzerland is officially called the Swiss Confederation. It's made up of smaller governments, like the states in the United States. Some citizenship records are kept at canton level (= state) and other records are kept at the town level. Triple level citizenship is recognized/documented at all three levels. The S...	[ "Credit companies are transnational? Reminds me of The Town when Ben Afflecks character thinks moving to Florida will get him off the hook for bank robbery charges." ]
Why, on a molecular level, does hot air rise?	[ "Here's a great explanation, better than anything I could write: _URL_0_" ]	[ "The fuels that you're referring to don't like to burn in liquid form, and are much easier to ignite as a gas. When you light a candle, for example, the flame from the match or lighter first melts, then vaporizes the wax in the wick, allowing it to burn. As this fuel burns, the heat it generates melts more wax, whi...
What happens in the body when it "adjusts" or "acclimates" to higher altitude?	[ "High altitude has a few effects on your physiology. The reason is due to the reduced atmospheric pressure, resulting in a lower driving pressure for respiration. Essentially, you have to work harder just to move air in and out, causing a slight degree of hyperventilation. This actually pushes your blood pH slight ...	[ "Psychology major here. We've focused (in my social psychology classes, in particular) on the idea of cognitive dissonance. What this means is: You perceive the world in one way. Reality comes along and shows that you might be wrong. You have two options, according to conventional information processing: accommodat...

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