Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Can you travel faster than light relative to a moving object?	[ "The most basic way to phrase the answer to this is that [speeds don't add like you think they do](_URL_0_). To expand a little: if you are watching a ship move away from you at 0.9c in one direction and another ship moving away from you at 0.9c in the opposite direction then, of course, you see the distance increa...	[ "To say what would happen, you need a reliable theory. But there are no reliable theories in which ftl travel is possible. There are plenty of crazy theories with ftl travel, so I guess you could pick one and use that, but it would be no less scientific to save yourself the effort and just make it up :)" ]
How come humans can't fall asleep at will, like dogs and cats?	[ "Who says dogs and cats can fall asleep at will?" ]	[ "Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't ant...
Why does our new friend, the Potoo, have such crazy looking eyes? What is the evolutionary benefit of such large eyes? What is the reason for the coloring?	[ "[Potoo's](_URL_0_) are a type of bird (of which there are many species) which are active at night. They are nocturnal. Animals which rely on vision, but hunt at night, typically evolve very large eyes in order to be better able to see their prey. So, potoos have large eyes because they are nocturnal predators who ...	[ "Please use the search function. _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_13_ TL;DR: Why is a bad question with no good answer. We can't tell entirely with other animals, because we can't directly communicate though anecdotally, many seem to." ]
What factors positioned America to become a world power?	[ "The best explanation I've heard is this: During World War I and WWII, the rest of the industrialized world exploded and killed itself while we kept all of our infrastructure intact, despite our participating in those wars. So, we got all the benefits of economic stimulus from war spending and little of the destruc...	[ "A couple reasons. In the United States, the burden of proof is on the prosecutor to show that the defendant committed the crime. This \"presumption of innocence\" makes preparing a case hard work, because to win, the prosecutor has to convince 12 regular people that, with absolutely no doubt, the defendant commit...
Why doesn't the speed of cracking glass (3000 mph, source: all over Google) create a sonic boom?	[ "A sonic boom results from an object traveling through a medium faster than the sound speed in said medium. A cracking piece of glass does not involve any object moving through a medium, rather it is a force propagating through glass. The sound speed in glass is much higher than in air (air is about 340 m/s, and gl...	[ "Your whole high school is in the gym for an assembly. The presentation comes to an end and everyone needs to leave all at once. If you never open the doors, people will never leave. If you open one door, how long will it take for everyone to leave? If you open all the doors, how long will it take for everyone t...
During the Cold War, did the West (US, UK, Western Europe) consider Soviet university degrees to be comparable to theirs in terms of quality of education?	[ "Hi, while you're waiting for a direct reply here, you might be interested in this answer to a similar question * /u/Shashank1000 in [How did the Education System (primary, secondary, tertiary and vocational) in the USSR compare to the education offered in western countries like Britain and America during a similar...	[ "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...
What does "It is a violation of Federal Law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling" typically mean exactly?	[ "I think it means that you use it for other than cleaning. Hydrochloric acid can be used for many other things other than cleaning, some of them involves harming other humans. And a lot of products have ingredients that can be used for other purposes, look at cough medicine, it could be used to create meth-amphetam...	[ "High coercivity vs. low coercivity. You're never going to need to re-write the information on the magnetic stripe of your credit card, so its stripe has high coercivity. That means it took a lot of energy to produce, but will take a lot of energy to erase. Hotel keys need to be re-written almost daily, so their st...
How does the shoulder rotator cuff work? How is the arm able to move in a complete circle and why is the shoulder so prone to injury?	[ "Rotator cuff muscles are a group of 4 muscles that stabilize the shoulder. They all attach to the humerus (arm bone) and the scapula ( two flat things on your back) at varous places. The shoulder joint is a highly mobile joint, its literally a ball in a socket so it can rotate 360 degrees. With this type of range ...	[ "How exactly did labor markets (or whatever was in their place) function in the USSR? How did planners determine what was being paid (if this is a fair way to characterize it)? Did wages differ by trade/region/labor supply, and if so, how was this decided?" ]
Why can we extract energy from sunlight, but not other light sources?	[ "Solar panels can be fuelled by normal, electric light. But they won't get much power from it, since sunlight is usually a lot brighter than electric light or firelight. If you have a very bright light, or if you hold your solar panel very close to the light, you might get a useful amount of power from it. This i...	[ "When cells divide they make pretty much exact copies of themselves. Introduce radiation to the equation and the copying process goes screwy and the new cell is different. Rinse and repeat over and over and you end up with body cells which are completely different in shape size and function to what they were origin...
Is there a difference between the way Islam is practiced in Arab countries compared to African ones?	[ "The largest Muslim country in the world is...Indonesia. So sometimes pop culture isn't right. Including reddit pop culture." ]	[ "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...
How many people joined the British Army on August 4, 1914 - the day they declared war?	[ "Not a huge number, given the timeline: war was declared at [7pm GMT, effective 11pm](_URL_2_). Lord Kitchener was appointed Secretary of State for War on 5 August, and began accelerating armed forces recruitment, but his first major appeal for volunteers wasn't until 7 August. You have to bear in mind that a 4-ye...	[ "From my father, who has done a detailed investigation of our family tree back through England to the 16th century Channel Islands: \"The first census in England was, I think, in 1841. Prior to that the only official records were the Parish Registers, created by Henry VIII about 1538 in which were recorded all birt...
What is the force carrier particle for magnetism?	[ "The photon, but imagining two charged objects or two magnetic dipoles constantly shooting photons back and forth between each other isn't an accurate way to imagine electromagnetism. The whole \"particle exchange\" thing isn't literal, it's a way to do calculations." ]	[ "The long answer is fairly intricate, but basically, a finished mRNA that is present in the nucleus will have a sequence that indicates it is ready to be exported into the cytoplasm. This sequence is added or modified during post-processing of the raw mRNA transcripts. These signals are recognized by transport prot...
What's the difference between Alzheimer's and Dementia?	[ "Dementia is just a word defined as: > A chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning. Dementia is a symptom of Alzheimer's however Dementia is not its own disease and has many causes from Alzhei...	[ "[The Straight Dope covered this](_URL_0_). Basically, they started out as being made by two different production teams, but after a certain point, they became essentially interchangeable, but they kept both names going." ]
What wavelength of ultraviolet is the most effective to kill the mold spores and most bacteria?	[ "This works basically by shredding DNA, and from the looks of it, anything \\ < 280nm \$UVC\$ is your best bet. I can't say for sure what this will do to your fruit. A little more about that DNA damage: [_URL_1_](_URL_1_) There's some movement to use these UVC\\-wavelength technologies in hospitals: [_URL_0_...	[ "There is no such thing as vitamin B17. To fit the common definition of vitamin it must be a substance proven to be essential for achieving and maintaining health. This term \"Vitamin B17\" applies to the drug Laetrile and the substance Amygdalin which Laetril is made from. Neither of these have been shown to be ...
Why does an applause eventually synchronize?	[ "Pressure. If I see one person clapping, I might think, \"meh\" and sit. Someone is going to start clapping with that person most likely (in certain places). Now, I have the pressure of two people subliminally telling me to clap. The reason it takes a long time is because the number of people clapping increases in...	[ "/u/flooey is right, but in addition to that: we have a lot more in common than people realize. For the vast, vast, vast majority of political issues that have been debated through the ages we have essentially a consensus on how to answer them. We are not going back to the gold standard, we don't want a king or que...
How come on most days I feel lazy and don't want to do anything or even leave the house and then on a random day I suddenly have the "urge" to be productive and/or stay busy?	[ "I'm not citing a source because this is just speculation, but mood and neurotransmitters probably have much do with it. You haven't established a routine, so your body doesn't have a circadian rhythm in terms of when to release which chemicals in the body. That might make you awake and alert and driven at noon on ...	[ "Your brain is programmed by evolution to seek out patterns, and make sense of the world through stories. This has allowed humans to recognize certain laws of nature in order to take advantage of them (seeking out patterns is really just the fundamental building block of the scientific method). It has also allowed ...
The Fiscal Cliff and its ramifications	[ "Last summer, Congress was having trouble coming up with an agreement to cut spending and increase the Debt Ceiling. So they came up with an idea they they were going to choose a few people to come up with a compromise, then if they could come to an agreement, they would wave a lot of political red tape in an effor...	[ "Politicians are terrified still (post 9/11 thing, but also kinda always) of being seen as soft on \"defense.\" Any proposed cuts to our military budget wil be portrayed as such, mostly by those pols who get lots of $$$ from military contractors, and the ever-compliant \"liberal\" media." ]
Why are formulas that explain complicated things so simple? What's so special about multiplication, division, etc. E.g. E = MC^2	[ "Just as a side note, E = mc^2 is not as simple as you think. That's just a degenerate form of the equation where momentum is set to zero. The full equation is: E^(2) = (mc^(2))^(2) + (pc)^(2)" ]	[ "Think about things bouncing around. Imagine a box with a fan in it. Put 20 balls in ithe box. Now imagine a basket to one side just the right size for the balls. Turn on the fan. The balls jump around randomly. At some point a ball will fall into the basket. This will happen at a given rate which will depends on h...
I'm near-sighted, why are objects far away in a mirror close to me, also blurry?	[ "Looking at an object in a mirror is the same as looking at the object at a distance of (distance from you to mirror) + (distance from object to mirror). To see something, light travels off of an object, through the pupil and to the retina. The pupil focuses this light so that lands correctly on the retina. Blurry ...	[ "They use a device called an [autorefractor](_URL_0_). It projects an image onto the retina, and uses a camera to see if the image in is focus. It then rapidly adjusts the focus of the projector until the image on the retina is in focus, which allows it to calculate how out-of-focus your eye is. They often uses aut...
Most carcinogens seem to have benzene rings in their chemical structure. How (or why?) do benzene rings likely cause cancer?	[ "Most of these compounds form large bulky compounds called adducts in the DNA. This causes errors during cell division because the enzymes that replicate the DNA cannot \"read\" these adducts. If the adduct occurs in the right place, this can cause dysregulation of the cell cycle, which leads to cancer. Edit: Just...	[ "It is a function of the actual construction of the device that took the picture. The \"X\" shape is caused by diffraction of light about internal mirror supports in the imaging device (in this case, probably the Hubble Space Telescope). Like this: _URL_1_ The image describes how these diffraction effects become h...
Is there any landform that has both existed since the formation of the Earth, and has never once been submerged under a body of water?	[ "Not since the Earth's formation exactly, but the [cratons](_URL_0_) are the oldest sections of the crust. They've been part of continents since their origin, but I can't say for sure that they haven't all been submerged at some point by shallow seas during periods of high sea level." ]	[ "The US Board on Geographic Names oversees this, and makes up rules to keep spellings consistent. For example, it was this agency which decreed that all the various place names ending in -borough and -burgh should all instead be spelled -boro (with Pittsburgh being the honourable exception): that way, nobody gets c...
the pentagon papers content and while it was so negatively viewed	[ "Here's a quote from the New York Times concerning the Pentagon Papers: > They demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance. Basically the Pentagon Papers di...	[ "_URL_0_ Mainly because it blows wide open the idea of civilisation at that time being technologically primitive. This thing is extremely advanced, both in its construction and in some of the complex calculations that they now think it was designed to perform." ]
Why does the etymology of so many words stop at the Latin origin?	[ "In addition to everything here, the Romans were the first ones to begin writing everything down. I mean these guys recorded everything even some really obscure things. It's really easy to study Latin and compare it to other European languages because it influenced everything and it's conveniently written down." ...	[ "Given the sheer number of languages in the world (around 6000), it's quite difficult to get a handle of even reliable estimates of how many speakers each one has, let alone how l of its speakers also speak a language other than its national language. But there are hundreds of languages across the world in non-Angl...
Why do toilets at home have a seat that is completed, but Comercial toilets usually are horseshoe shaped?	[ "For dudes. Guys rarely lift the seat in public bathrooms and that little space that's open is where the majority of piss would dribble onto." ]	[ "It's not so much as a synonym as a criticism. The \"story\" is that if you feed enough oats to a horse, it's crap will contain surplus oats (oats that passed through the horse's digestive track) and the sparrow can get its oats from the horse shit. The criticism of trickle down economics is two-fold. First and for...
Recently went to the hospital and found out my organs are on the opposite side of my body. I am 30 and just finding this out...is there any thing I should be concerned about with this ? Shouldn't I have been informed of this earlier in life ?	[ "It is a condition know as situs inversus, and about 1 person in 10,000 has it. If all the organs are reversed, the body functions completely normally, and it is not unusual for it to go undetected. The main issue is making sure medical providers know about it, especially in an emergency. In some cases, the rever...	[ "If you're talking about self-awareness, then around the age of two assuming you follow the mirror test as a valid test of self-awareness. Basically, you show the child a mirror. If they think it's another child, it's not self-aware. If it recognizes the image in the mirror as themself, they are self-aware." ]
Why did China decide to land on the moon?	[ "Technology needs to be created to accomplish such a major feat. This technology can have multiple uses to both the military and consumers. Space conquest is in humanities future. So counties with an edge will be at an advantage. What better way of creating a great space program than shooting for the moon? Here wa...	[ "They probably are testing out the waters to see how well the product does. In America where Apple has a dominance over what everyone thinks of when talking about tablets (sportscasters getting paid to advertise the Microsoft Surface and calling it an iPad on tv), they don't want to spend a bunch of money on advert...
Why do most areas in America have counties and cities that overlap each other?	[ "The country is divided into states, states are divided into counties, and counties are divided into towns and cities (with some areas that are \"unincorporated\"- not part of any town or city). Counties generally don't provide many services, but when the county has unincorporated areas, they have to step in and pr...	[ "Those 2^n people are not all unique - one person can take up many \"slots\". Let's say your parents were third cousins. That would mean they share 2 of their great-great grandparents. Those 2 people are 4 of your great-great-great grandparents, appearing once on your mother's side and once on your father's side. ...
Since a persons medical care is supposed to be private, how can a company legally drug test you and if there are any prescription drugs in your system, you have to show them your prescription? What about HIPAA?	[ "HIPAA does not protect against information you choose to disclose. It's preventing others from disclosing information without your permission. A company can ask your permission to have this information, and you can deny it if you don't want to do business with that company. Therefore it's no HIPAA violation....	[ "Another way of looking at it: [Why does my prescription take so damn long to fill](_URL_0_)" ]
Why do we launch rockets/shuttles into space vertically instead of building a spacecraft that takes off like an airplane and gradually leaves the atmosphere?	[ "That's a spaceplane, and yes, it lets you use lift and more efficient jet engines. But a plane can't practically stage away empty fuel tanks while staying a stable plane, so it's harder as well. In fact, the main reason to make a spaceplane is that it's the most practical way to make an SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit...	[ "Imagine your perspective from a car, in every aspect. Your vision is taken up almost entirely by the car, and not the road. You are focused on the road, but in reality, most of your FOV is the car itself, which relative to you, is not moving. You are also feeling the air inside the car, not the outside air. Howeve...
ELI how trial by battle was ever considered valid proof of innocence	[ "It's a religion thing. The gods favored the combatants, or the cause for which they fought. So if you have two dudes trying to murder each other to prove their innocence or the other guy's guilt, then god would pick the correct one to win." ]	[ "So the TL:NR is going to be \"That line doesn't really do jack\" here's why: Like someone using music or audio without consent saying \"Blahbity blah belongs to such and such, no claim to copyright is made\" or some such gives you no legal protection in court should that person decide to sue you the same is going ...
How do states that have outlawed standing armies justify their national guards?	[ "They are contingencies for emergency. Outlawing a standing army is simply stating that they aren't looking for a fight and/or are unwilling to fund one." ]	[ "[This thread](_URL_0_) suggests the origin of the myth after the Thirty Years' War from the point of view of critiquing a Wiki article (which has since been edited). The scholars cited both trace the claim back to a 1790 popular article, point out that there would not have been an emergency law body to pass any la...
For fat loss, why is it better to maintain a lower heart rate instead of the highest you safely can?	[ "The reason for this is because fats are harder to metabolize than sugars/carbohydrates. Fats inherently have more energy in them, but must go through a more complicated process to be broken down and used for energetic activities. If you exercise at a really high heart rate, your body will switch over to sugar meta...	[ "The resistive force is the engine compressing the air in the cylinders. When you use a low gear you are spinning the engine the fastest for your speed. Therefore the most compression events happen per time, and you get the most breaking. Tldr, your converting kinetic energy to hot air" ]
When plants take in sunlight and use nutrients to grow is the mass of the Earth increasing?	[ "Yes, a tiny bit. You're right in that most of the mass is already part of earth. That being said, a small amount of mass is contributed by the chemical bonds the plants form through photosynthesis, due to mass energy equivalence. This is not unique to photosynthesis, any chemical bond contributes mass. However, t...	[ "Nuclear fusion in stars produces all the elements up to iron - it requires an input of energy for elements heavier than iron to form. They are only formed during the massive energy output of a supernova (not a nova - a nova is just an outburst of surface fusion, it doesn't destroy the star). You asked how this e...
How does the human body create electricity?	[ "We don't. The closest we come to that is the electron transport chain in mitochondria during the production of ATP." ]	[ "... you ever felt warm standing in the sun? bam your feeling lights energy...." ]
Durag, is it just a fashion accessory or does it have function?	[ "Waves are a hairstyle for curly hair in which the curls are brushed and/or combed and flattened out, creating a ripple-like pattern. The hairstyle begins with a short-cropped haircut and frequent brushing and/or combing of the curls, which trains the curls to flatten out. Pomades and moisturizers can help hold...	[ "[Striped shirts](_URL_0_) tend to cause problems with video recording and, if the pattern is fine enough, photos. It is due to the creation of a [moire](_URL_1_) pattern where 2 sets of parallel lines that are not quite parallel (the lines on the shirt and the pixels on the sensor) create a illusion of density wav...
Why do organisms want to reproduce?	[ "It's actually very simple. All organisms we see reproduce because we only see the ones that do. If an organism exists, someone gave birth to it, and someone gave birth to the one before, and so on all the way back for more than a billion years. If at any point an organism had no desire to reproduce, that branch en...	[ "Computers run on sets of instructions telling it how to run all the parts of the computer and build an interface so you can use those parts. Say you're following a recipe for a cake. Then you finish the cake and someone comes along with a better way to make a cake by adding another ingredient and changing how muc...
How come, at room temperature, things like metal and a wooden or linoleum floor are cold and things like fabric and plastic are a neutral temperature?	[ "Have you ever heard of the term \"conducting heat\"? Metal conducts heat better than plastic, meaning heat transfers through it faster than it does plastic. So when you touch metal, your heat leaves you more noticeably than when you touch plastic, making your senses tell you that the metal is actually at a cooler ...	[ "It's a question of wattage. Wifi operates on the order of 1 watt, whereas your microwave operates on the order of 1 kilowatt. So in a sense your router does heat the objects around it, just three orders of magnitude more slowly, which is plenty slow enough for the surrounding air to cool whatever it is back down."...
What was life like in South America during World War 2? Did it affect everyday citizens much?	[ "More of course can be said but I imagine this will be of interest for you: _URL_0_" ]	[ "This isn't so much a historical question as a biological one, that is, the question of how various body compositions react to malnutrition. Furthermore, given that the portion of the population of 1940s Europe who could be deemed obese was likely incredibly marginal, we don't really have enough points of historica...
Why my phone battery doesn't drain at a constant rate	[ "When it gets low, it turns off some things. I suspect it started doing GPS checks a lot less often, dimmed the screen, and slowed down the CPU." ]	[ "The stronger transmitter also has a more sensitive receiver. The signal threshold that your mobile device can detect is higher than what a dedicated router can pick up, allowing the mobile device to be compact and the router to pick up the slack on both sides of the communication." ]
Why are mixed race people considered black?	[ "It's cultural. Those same people would be viewed as white or simply as mixed in other cultural contexts." ]	[ "You don't get spots or stripes when you stir chocolate milk mix into milk... I believe the appearance of stripes and spots would have to be written into their genes As neither parent genetically had stripes or spots, this is out of the question." ]
Why does steel wool burn with a match or when touched by a battery, shouldn’t it melt or not burn at all?	[ "Iron only melts at very high temperature so a match can't melt it. Iron reacts easily with oxygen: rust is just iron oxide. Reactions work better and faster at higher temperatures. If iron is made into a form where it has a very large surface area, as with steel wool, then a little surface rust is affects all the ...	[ "The basic chemistry is oxidation using oxygen in the air to react with the magnesium and iron powder in your MRE heater to create a fast exothermic chemical reaction that creates heat. _URL_0_ Looked up the Safety Data Sheet for flameless heaters: _URL_1_ The chemicals are: Magnesium-5% Iron Alloy (Magnesium & Iro...
Is it possible that dark matter is a bunch of neutrino clusters?	[ "It is not generally thought so, due to neutrino's that we know of being too \"hot\" or fast moving. If dark matter were neutrino's they would not reproduce the velocity curves around galaxies. No neutrino ever seen has less than the escape velocity of the galaxy, something that is required by dark matter. Dark Ma...	[ "The opposite of that is more likely to be true. What you're asking is roughly analogous to suggesting that melting all the crayons together would give you more colors." ]
the meaning behind "turtles all the way down"	[ "> A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the r...	[ "No one is sure. Basically some physicists and mathematicians did a bunch of math to try come up with a theory that explains both quantum mechanics and relativity. This math lead to a bunch of strange conclusions like 10+ dimensions. So far no one has come up with an experiment that can test string theory." ]
Can someone explain to me the monty hall dilemma? Why does switching doors give you a higher probability of winning?	[ "Imagine you have 100 doors, and there is a prize behind one. You pick one door and then 98 others are opened. The prize is either behind your door, or the other one that is unopened. Should you switch? Absolutely, because you had a 1/100 shot of guessing right with your first pick, and a 99/100 chance if you swit...	[ "Current law: Amount of current entering a junction (the place where two or more wires meet) is the same as the amount of current leaving the junction. Analogy: Think of a busy traffic intersection where many roads meet. On any given day, the total number of cars that have arrived at the intersection will ...
How does the weak force turn protons into neutrons?	[ "it's allowed via the weak interaction. up turns into down plus a w boson, the w decays into an electron and an antineutrino. there's no good way of explaining it classically" ]	[ "Look at the \"normal\" and \"misfolded\" states in [this admittedly ugly graphic](_URL_0_). The red and yellow dots are both a energy minimums, and the barrier separating them is high. Going from one to the other is hard. For something like a prion, though, the misfolded protein can associate with a normal one and...
How do companies mass-produce food items that require eggs?	[ "There are egg-breaking machines that can open thousands of eggs per hour into big buckets. They can even automatically separate yolks from whites, if you like. This is normally done at the egg processing plant, and the containers of liquid are then delivered." ]	[ "They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to anyone who mailed back the special offer." ]
Why is there typically no lightening during a snowstorm, when a similar storm in the summer will have lightening?	[ "This question was asked just a couple of days ago. [Please use the search next time before asking questions.](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Commercially frozen meat is often flash frozen, this means that the ice crystals formed are small and don't damage the meat cells very much. If you freeze meat at home it's a much slower process, Large ice crystals form an like little spears puncture the cell walls of the meat. This means that when it defrosts the...
How do Majorana Fermions exist? And why do people think that neutrinos are a example of a Majorana Fermion?	[ "There are other particles which are their own antiparticles (photon, Higgs boson), and they’re not “constantly annihilating themselves.” Indeed, even a particle and it’s antiparticle can exist for a finite amount of time without annihilating (look up pions or positronium for examples). However, the fact that they...	[ "If you consider positrons to be antimatter, we already have an actual use for them: positron emission tomography (PET) can be used to detect tumours and image brain function." ]
How come when we squint at a light it make a plus shape?	[ "[Diffraction](_URL_2_). Squinting makes the effective [aperture](_URL_1_) change shape, and additionally eyelashes get in the way and function as a sort of a very rough [diffraction grating](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "It's the association of a new toy/item that we get from it. You're unlikely to associate that action with anything else in any case. It's like how some people associate a biker bell as to get out of the way." ]
Why is it that my 12-year old dvd player can handle the newest (encrypted) DVD's without a hitch but my 2013 Macbook is unable to duplicate my purchased dvd for a digital backup?	[ "Your 12 year old dvd \"Player\" ? Playing a DVD and ripping a DVD are two different things." ]	[ "When we use the term \"information\" in this context, we really mean something rather mundane. The idea is this: In quantum mechanics, two distinct quantum states cannot evolve into the same state. Classical calculations indicate that any two black holes of the same charge, mass, and angular momentum are indisting...
Why do far away things appear small?	[ "Draw a line from each rod and cone in your eye, through your lens and out into the world. Your field of view is composed of anything that intercepts those lines. These lines expand outward in a cone shape (because your eye's lens is convex), so objects that are closer are \"hit\" by more of these view-lines than t...	[ "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." ]
Why does alcohol sting when you put it on cuts?	[ "Alcohol kills bacteria cells, which is why we put it on cuts (preventing infection). Alcohol also kills cells composing your flesh, which is why it hurts." ]	[ "I don't know for sure, but your fingers are some of the most sensitive parts of your body to facilitate your sense of touch. They are relatively small but packed full of more nerves than many other parts of the body. I would assume it has to do with a few things. Mainly, those same nerves are in place but are not ...
Which empire or government in history holds the worst record of killing its own subjects?	[ "In terms of a proportion of the population, Pol Pot managed to wipe out roughly 21% of Cambodians. Edit: And the Rwandan Genocide was also roughly 20%, if you can pin that on anyone in particular. The Taiping Rebellion, if you count the rebelling citizens as subjects, killed around 20% also. And the transition to ...	[ "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." ]
How do they lay the foundation for structures in water without it being pushed away by the water?	[ "They generally divert the water to another area or build a coffer dam in the middle of the body of water and then pump the water out. Really going to depend on the specifics of the project." ]	[ "Great Britain is isolated from mainland Europe by the English Channel. This gave them a great natural defense, and encouraged the maintenance of a strong navy. When shipbuilding technology advanced to the point that ships could travel thousands of miles reliably Britain was perfectly suited to take advantage. They...
Does fiber networking rely on our same visual "Roy G Biv" spectrum? If yes, can current technology use the colors like channels to increase bandwidth?	[ "Fiber works on infra-red light, rather than visible light. The reason for this is that glass is more transparent in infra-red than visible. Visible light only has quite a short range in fiber, whereas infra-red can go 50 miles, and more importantly, infra-red can be boosted by erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (a spec...	[ "Because the absorption bands correspond to electronic transitions between orbitals. Changing what an atom is bound to will change the energy level differences. More specific to metal coordination complexes, one can analyze metal complexes via [crystal field theory](_URL_0_). Again, interaction with ligands can cha...
Why did the Romans bother invading and conquering the British isles?	[ "Here are a couple for replies from times this question was made. [First](_URL_0_), the highest voted answers by /u/BaffledPlato and /u/QVCatullus [Second](_URL_1_), the highest voted answer by /u/sapere_avde" ]	[ "> I've heard a lot about the Domesday Book, but it just doesn't seem very important Allow me to disabuse you of this notion. The Great Survey, called the Domesday Book from the 12th century onward, is not only the model for every public record that came after it, but also the most comprehensive and important work ...
Can planets have liquid atmospheres?	[ "A lack of surface pressure will cause the liquid to evaporate and create a gaseous atmosphere (or, if the planet doesn't have enough gravity to hang onto the gas, then the gas will escape into space over time)." ]	[ "Would depend on what the weather is like and how big the methane lakes are. Not sure but interesting question." ]
Why is water so important to life?	[ "Water is plays several roles regarding life. You can think of life as a complex chemistry set. Chemistry can't happen unless the chemicals can interact. Water acts as a solvent for those chemical reactions to happen and delivers those chemicals to where they are needed. Why water and not something else? Well, wat...	[ "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...
Do we know what happened to Pompeia after Caesar divorced her for not being "above suspicion" in the Bona Dea festival controversy?	[ "There is no further mention of her in any extant source that I can find, not even in scholia. She disappears from the historical record. :(" ]	[ "I assume by division into two empires you mean the period between AD 395 and AD 476 (or AD 480) when the Empire was ruled by two emperors: one in the East and one in the West. Note that it was still the single empire during that time, not only theoretically but in the practice as well: the same constitutional laws...
how does the ufc get away with paying their fighters so little?	[ "Supply and Demand, to put it simply. The public is apparently willing to pay hundreds of millions to watch Mayweather and Pacquiao, and just the same UFC fighters are apparently willing to fight despite not receiving such massive payouts. If, as a collective whole, UFC fighters were unwilling to fight without gett...	[ "It's legal because Congress signs it into law and there's no provision in the Constitution to say a draft is illegal." ]
Why are the events that happened in Charleston considered a "shooting" and not "an act of terrorism"?	[ "> Obviously my question was biased and I was trying to prove a point As the sidebar says: > Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view. Don't do this here. This thread has been removed. Try /r/changemyview or /r/politics." ]	[ "[William Chrystal](_URL_0_) has made it his late-in-life calling to advance the case of Alexander Hamilton. He maintains that we know so little of Hamilton's legacy as a founding father because he died early and Jefferson and his followers had control of shaping the perception of that early period (and Hamilton, w...
What is happening with the Ebola patients "rising from the dead"?	[ "They aren't. The people either weren't actually dead, or the stories are complete fabrications. No zombie apocalypse for you." ]	[ "Follow up question: what happened to the soldiers who survived? Were they converted to laborers for the cleanup effort or still used as soldiers under the new government? Because having a couple hundred thousand armed unemployed people doesn't sound like an option." ]
How cetaceans like the sperm whale manage to hold their breath for so long and at such depths?	[ "Whales and other mammals of the sea have drastically increased amount of myoglobin, which is an oxygen carrier like hemoglobin (but holds less oxygen and is a part of the muscle). That’s why whale meat (and seal) looks so dark and weird, it has a bunch of myoglobin, which “holds” its oxygen using an atom of iron."...	[ "If you are really interested in this, [watch this.](_URL_0_) It's a one hour lecture by Dr. Hans Mark, who was at NASA during the 70's and lead some of the deep space missions. The short answer is that they rely on gravitational boosts from other planets (usually Jupiter) and the sun. The orbital trajectories are ...
What would happen if my car uses regular gasoline but i put premium on it	[ "Nothing bad will happen, but you are just wasting money, it doesnt offer you any benefits. To take advantage of premium gasolines your car engine needs to be built to operate at higher compression in the pistons, sports cars will be built like that, but a honda civic is not." ]	[ "Let's say your computer is a line of students (programs) in primary school waiting to be served lunch (processing resources). Skyrim, the school bully, has the notorious reputation of beating other kids up to get the Fullscreen pass which allows him to cut in front of the lunch line so he gets the highest priority...
Why is slouching bad for our backs even though our evolutionary ancestors slouched all the time?	[ "Our evolutionary ancestors developed a different posture and it is part of some of the most pivotal aspects of our evolutionary development. We have an upright and efficient stance that allows us to excel at distance travel. Gorillas aren't our ancestors, and their posture shouldn't be seen as a throw back to a '...	[ "I recommend reading 'At Home' by Bill Bryson. He goes through this in detail. From what I recall, houses used to be just one big room, animals, people, servants all in the one place. Over the centuries, people got bette at building walls, so they built these buildings higher - this showed your wealth and was much ...
is there any limit to how big a supermassive blackhole can be (size/mass)? what is the biggest we have found yet?	[ "The largest black hole discovered yet is [S5 0014+81](_URL_1_), a supermassive hole 40 billion times as massive as our sun. Its event horizon dwarfs our solar system and the matter surrounding it has been heated up so much it glows brighter than all the stars in our galaxy combined. On the limit to how big a smbh...	[ "The general idea is that the technological capabilities of a species can be determined by the amount of energy they can harness. First it was just muscle power, then fire, now it is into fossil fuels, nuclear, etc. Capturing the energy which falls onto our planet limits the amount of renewable energy available tho...
Why are some viral infections acute while others are persistent through life?	[ "One mechanism is that some viruses can establish a [latent infection](_URL_0_) in some cells. For example, Herpes Simplex establishes a latent infection of certain nerve cells. A latent infection is one where the infection becomes essentially inactive in all ways, but can reactivate at a later time and start produ...	[ "It's likely easier to maintain many smaller simpler softwares than 1 large complex one. If something were to go wrong it would already be partially isolated and so easier to identify. EDIT: Also that comment about money seems valid." ]
Is there an intrinsic need for physical money?	[ "There isn't a need. But since transaction fee is zero for physical currency, its cheaper than intangible currency." ]	[ "I assume you are in the US. Business and individuals are responsible for income taxes on income from any source, even barter. Sales taxes are state and local government specific so I don't know if there's any technicalities in any jurisdiction that could get the business out of charging for those, but I doubt it, ...
Health Insurance and how accessible it really is	[ "> If I have a certain disorder, can I not get health insurance? For now, it would be very difficult to get a policy for a reasonable price. Yes. [Starting in January 2014](_URL_0_), however, insurance companies will be prevented from denying you or charging you more based on Pre-Existing Conditions. One of the thi...	[ "Hi! I have approved this post but as a general tip, when asking about the accuracy of videos it's generally best to list the specific claims as specifically as possible for our commenters to address since they might not be able to view a video from where they comment. Thank you!" ]
How does Family Guy make so many episodes each year, if it takes half a year to make each episode?	[ "A pregnancy takes 40 weeks. Bit 20 pregnant women can carry 20 babies to term in less than a year, too." ]	[ "Because there are no laws that govern the entirety of the internet. There are laws in countries that limit what the people living inside of its borders can do with the internet, but those laws dont apply if you arent in that country. All pirate bay has to do to stay operational is to find a country that doesn't ca...
Why do people buy those "beats" headphones when they sound very bad for that price?	[ "It's a status thing. They don't buy Beats because they want quality headphones, they buy Beats because it's the cool thing to do." ]	[ "You are correct - we are only able to tell the horizontal direction of a sound using timing, and it cannot tell us whether it is in front of us, or behind us. But your ears are a strange shape. This shape distorts the sound differently, depending on where it comes from. Using this, we can tell if it is in front or...
How come ATT can't give me the prices that Cricket uses? ATT owns Cricket, another cell phone provider. They have completely different plan options, but will not offer them through each other???	[ "They probably offer lower end devices or different quality of service for Cricket to offset the price difference. Similar scenario with Sprint and Boost. Just trying to attract a different audience." ]	[ "Discovery Channel, TLC, The History Channel, they started out as niche channels...inexpensive programming aimed at a specific audience it was easier to target ads for. Then came Mythbusters, a big hit that appealed to a broader audience. Soon all the networks wanted to try to reach a wider range of viewers, and ...
How do soap and shampoo work?	[ "[Here is a basic sketch of soap's structure (surrounding a grease particle).](_URL_0_) The secret behind soap is its structure. More specifically, it's how different parts of its structure behave. The head of each soap molecule (the round thing) is hydrophilic, which literally means that it loves water (it dissol...	[ "Imagine you are made of genetic soup. Some people have ingredients that just don't go well together and make the soup taste bad. But that's ok, because when you have a kid, we just take some of my soup and some of my wife's soup and pour it in together. So even though my soup has some bad ingredients, her ingredie...
What causes our bodies to reject organ transplants but not blood or plasma transfusions?	[ "We do reject blood if it is the wrong blood type and has antigen markers that our bodies reject. Plasma doesn't contain cells so rejection is rare. Organs contain even more different types of cells which can be recognized as foreign which is why our bodies reject them." ]	[ "Depends on what level the study is at. Look at people who regularly eat lots of red meat and bacon, and compare it to people who don't If there is a difference in cancer rates between the two groups, something is causing a higher rate of cancer. Maybe work place exposure, food, lifestyle etc. Then take genetically...
From the view of a chemist, why is lead so bad for humans?	[ "[The primary cause of lead's toxicity is its interference with a variety of enzymes because it binds to sulfhydryl groups found on many enzymes. Part of lead's toxicity results from its ability to mimic other metals that take part in biological processes, which act as cofactors in many enzymatic reactions, displac...	[ "A couple reasons. In the United States, the burden of proof is on the prosecutor to show that the defendant committed the crime. This \"presumption of innocence\" makes preparing a case hard work, because to win, the prosecutor has to convince 12 regular people that, with absolutely no doubt, the defendant commit...
What exactly is/causes the popping sound you hear after removing an object that has been stuck somewhere with suction?	[ "Your friend is right, it is caused by a clap of gas rushing into the vacuum sending out the sound waves" ]	[ "I am sure there will be physics papers published on this during the next months just like with the glowing sticky tape. One theory is briefly explained in the original video. As the rubber is stretched the molecules have to align in certain ways. This constricts them which increases the internal pressure of the ru...
yo science peoples, what is actually happening when a product like "febreeze" is 'clearing/deodorising' the air?	[ "The cyclodextrin molecule sort of resembles a donut. When you spray Febreze, the water in the product partially dissolves the odor, allowing it to form a complex inside the 'hole' of the cyclodextrin donut shape. The stink molecule is still there, but it can't bind to your odor receptors, so you can't smell it. De...	[ "Think of it this way: clothes are made of threads that are wrapped around each other in a mildly organized tangle. Imagine say, a bag with a dozen headphones that are a bit tangled. Now shake the bag violently for five minutes, sometimes pulling on headphone loops. Are they more tangled or less tangled? Most often...
During the Age of Discovery, how seriously did mariners take stories of sea monsters, mythical creatures, and other perils?	[ "One of my favourite Askhistorians answers ever addresses at least part of your question: [Would a crew of a ship departing from Venice in the 14th century towards Middle East have any plans ready in case they encounter a leviathan on their route?](_URL_2_) Original answer by /u/sunagainstgold." ]	[ "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...
If education is so important for kids, why do teachers--especially charter ones--have crappy pay and salary caps?	[ "The short answer (in the US) is that there is no shortage of teachers. Labor is a commodity like anything else, and it gets cheaper in capitalist countries with large supply. There are other contributing factors as well, like reduce education budgets, increasingly expensive school supplies, and the breakdown of un...	[ "Your answer was removed shortly before you posted this question. It did not meet our standards. We ask that answers in this subreddit be in-depth and comprehensive, and highly suggest that comments include citations for the information. In the future, please take the time to better familiarize yourself with [the ...
What does a health risk increase by xx% mean? Is it former percentage (=yy%) + xx% or yy% * xx%?	[ "You didn’t give enough context to properly get into this, but a) in nonscientific press, it means nothing, because the author probably doesn’t understand how percentages work and b) in scientific press it means that, all other things being equal, for every one person who develops a disease in absence of the risk f...	[ "adding velocities becomes a bit different near the speed of light. normally if you call the speed of the craft u and the speed of the object relative to the craft v then the speed of the object would simply be v + u. when your adding velocities reaching the speed of light you use the following: u + v ...
How could someone escape from a black hole? Is it even possible?	[ "By definition it is impossible. If light cannot escape nothing else can (since nothing can go faster than light...essentially the escape velocity for the black hole is faster than light speed). The event horizon defines the boundary where you are far enough from the singularity that at least light can escape...any...	[ "So, do you mean on the edge of the event horizon? (some one will be able to sort of answer you on that.) Or do you mean inside the event horizon, on the possible surface of what is believed to be a singularity? cause we don't know that one at all, it gets weird in there." ]
Why do cars and sport games come out “a year early”?	[ "It’s released towards the end of the year to be enjoyed during most of The following year." ]	[ "Your question reminded me of this frikkin awesome documentary of about planned obsolescence. [Video snippet](_URL_0_), and the whole documentary, I can't find... but Im sure someone else may be able to. ELI5 version: Because companies want you to keep them in business." ]
how religion developed such a loathing of sexuality.	[ "Before the invention of modern contraceptives and antibiotics, having sex had much more serious consequences. There was no protection against sexually transmitted diseases and random sex would often lead to unwanted children - we all know how well the pull-out method works. So people attempted to limit sexual beha...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
Atmospheric entry: Why can't space ships do more gradual and gentle entry into atmosphere?	[ "I think that the shuttle had a relatively elegant re-entry." ]	[ "Because we are very close relatively speaking in terms of evolution. We are, in a broad sense, not \"very\" different to each other. That's why it's hard. For example, Nicotine (and caffeine) were created by plants to attack insect \"brains\" and those molecules also bind to humans brains. But it can be done!, one...
Difference between cooking, roasting and frying food	[ "Cooking refers to any process which takes raw food and chemically changes it so it's cooked. Roasting and frying are both methods of cooking. Roasting involves placing the food in a hot oven, and relies on the high temperature of the air in the oven to cook the food. Roasting is often a slow process, because air i...	[ "Ask Reddit is for personal opinions, stories, and the like. Essentially subjective answers to questions without hard answers. Something like \"whats your favorite food\" is a good post there ELI5 is for getting a simplified answer or explanation to a question that you don't understand. A good thread here would som...
Why do companies have limited "enrollment periods" for employee benefit sign ups rather than just allowing employees to change benefits at any time?	[ "A lot of benefits are based on a certain block of time. For example most health insurance plans have deductibles the apply for an entire year. Allowing you to change plans at any time would mess that all up. This is why the only allow you to change at a certain time or if you have change jobs or have another \"qua...	[ "Briefly, because the [pair potential](_URL_0_) between bonded atoms is asymmetric. When atoms are bonded, they sit at a certain equilibrium distance where electrostatic attraction balances repulsion from the Exclusion Principle. The balance can be thought of as a potential energy well with an approximately parabo...
Why did Nasa not send the rovers to the icecaps?	[ "Ice caps are pretty dangerous environments, with rough terrain, lots of crevasses, etc. The number one priority with landers is finding a spot safe enough to be sure they can get to the ground in one piece. Then they pick the most scientifically interesting spot out of those. Ice caps are difficult. I'm sure they'...	[ "Apparently the market has spoken and they weren't selling enough for it to be worthwhile. Companies will produce anything that makes them money." ]
The purpose and history of underwear, why aren't pants enough?	[ "Long story short, when underwear first became standard, it was faster, easier and cheaper to wash/dry/replace linen undergarments than outer garments made of heavier or more expensive fabrics like wool or brocade or whatever. Even today, with clothes that are much easier to wash and magic clothes-drying machines, ...	[ "Here's a tidbit from getting mail back from the exploration expeditions in the late 1700s and early 1800s back from, say, Africa, or at least Mungo Park did this when he set out looking for the Niger and many others under Joseph Banks did the same. On the back of these letters, they'd say that whoever delivered th...
How does a Crock Pot not burn your food after hours of cooking, even though it’s not being stirred?	[ "Simple enough - they cook at a much lower temperature which is why they take longer. The lower temperature isn't enough to burn your food. Also, they are usually fairly well sealed, so the water in the food doesn't evaporate and that also helps prevent burning." ]	[ "That would be a net loss of power because no machine (stirling engine, fan, refrigeration unit, or helicopter) is perfectly efficient. Friction will soak up some of that energy somewhere along the line. It may be possible to compensate for some of that inefficiency with good engineering, but that will only make th...
was it possible for a person of a working class back ground to get into Oxbridge in 1890?	[ "I haven't found a definitive answer, but I've e-mailed Oxford and Cambridge about it. It is, however, interesting to note that Oxford established a women's college in 1875. Now, [I'll quote](_URL_0_) : > In an interesting piece of reverse trading, the two subjects that had been studied only by women - English and...	[ "Hi readers! Since questions like these often attract anecdotal answers, just a quick reminder: you are in /r/AskHistorians, so do ensure that answers are comprehensive and informative, and based on solid source material. Personal anecdotes or other casual chitchat/speculation/opinion are not accepted as answers he...
Why do rooms look smaller when they are empty?	[ "Because you have nothing to compare the size of the room to. Works both ways, bigger or smaller, you have no reference to put spatial awareness to. Stick a bed in the room, and suddenly there is a reference" ]	[ "The body can get energy from two sources (well 3, but since you are a kid I'll ignore alcohol. Also, I don't think that's stored in the body for any length of time anyway) fat and sugar. When you eat the body immediately starts using all that delicious sugar it got. After a while it starts running out of sugar an...
Why do our eyes jolt around when looking around, instead of smooth transitions?	[ "Your brain actually conveniently \"forgets\" the inbetween. You saw what was there, but your mind didn't \"play\" the transition. This is because when your eye darts around, there is a fast blur. Because seeing blurs all the time is annoying junk information to the brain, you end up seeing and remembering only the...	[ "The type of muscle fibers in the meat. Chickens have mostly what we call \"fast twitch\" muscle fibers. Cows are what we call \"slow twitch.\" Fast twitch can react and move very quickly, but get tired fast. Slow fibers are slower moving but can keep going for a while. Humans have a mix of the two, but with much m...
How does using my car's airconditioning or other features affect my fuel consumption?	[ "Your air conditioning is generally powered directly from the engine using a auxiliary belt/serpentine. When the air con pump is active it will put an extra load on the engine causing both a drop in engine power(relative to the wheels) and an increase in fuel consumption." ]	[ "The Gulf Stream primarily exists because of the action of winds blowing across the subtropical Atlantic. A good (but small) map of the surface currents is [here](_URL_0_). Unfortunately, many people are taught this [image](_URL_1_) of ocean circulation which both dramatically simplifies the Thermohaline Circulati...
What is it about fast food that when eaten late at night, gives your stomach that hangover feeling in the morning?	[ "probably the beer that prompted you to eat fast food late at night? i'm just kidding. Most likely: this might be something that is unique to you (or a grouping of people with the same experience). it could be that your body is having a hard time processing junkfoods like that, and is reacting adversely, and not ...	[ "Now I am by no means a biologist, so I know I’m not answering or explaining but I can share a little of my own experience. I work free lance in the film industry so I will work long days weeks and hours for a period of time and then be unemployed while I try to arrange the next project. At the end of every shoot, ...
Some friends are calling for "All votes to be counted" in what they believe is a close election result. How to statistically prove them wrong? (crosspost from /r/statistics/)	[ "States do count all votes. I'm unclear on what your friends' issue is." ]	[ "Go to a new area of Australia (or wherever). Comb one acre very carefully, cataloging every species. Figure out how many new species there are. Do this in a few different places, figure out about how many new species there are in general, and extrapolate." ]
Why does America have a privatized military?	[ "Why wouldn't they? It stops them from needing to detach soldiers from the rest of the swuad/platoon/battalion, etc. They are a self-sufficient group that doesn't really report to anyone. They are able to be more discreet than actual soldiers. Normally they do have soldiers with people, but the private security for...	[ "Greetings everyone. In the few minutes this sub has been up, it's attracting sub-standard responses. Just a reminder of a few of the rules: * no responses covering events/conditions post-1994, per this sub's \"20-year rule\" prohibiting discussion of current events * no anecdotes * no speculation OP: your question...
Why is cancer so difficult to cure? How long will it take to cure?	[ "Cancer is hard to cure for a few reasons: 1. It's really lots and lots of different diseases - talking about \"curing cancer\" is like talking about \"curing viruses\". 2. Ultimately cancer is made up of bits of you that have gone wrong - so it's harder to find a difference between the bits that are causing the pr...	[ "At this level of mathematics it's not a matter of the math being too hard, it's that no one has ever thought of doing the math in that way. If no one has ever thought of doing the math in that way previously, there's no way we could have a supercomputer do it. One way we have computers solve problems like this is ...
How could Mt. Gox lose $478 million dollars in bitcoins, almost everything they had, and not realize it?	[ "Extreme incompetence or criminal negligence. Take your pick!" ]	[ "Because there are no laws that govern the entirety of the internet. There are laws in countries that limit what the people living inside of its borders can do with the internet, but those laws dont apply if you arent in that country. All pirate bay has to do to stay operational is to find a country that doesn't ca...
how do rapid phone charging stations work?	[ "Rapid chargers supply the maximum amperage that your phone can charge at (as opposed to most phone chargers and USB ports). . Most USB ports are 0.5A Phone chargers and USB charging ports are 1.0-1.5A Rapid Chargers and most tablet chargers are 2.0-3.0A . Since Power = Amperage squared times Resistance (and resis...	[ "It's a box that a bunch of microwaves are pumped in to and according to our currant understanding of physics it should not produce any thrust, yet multiple test have reported that it does produce thrust. We have no clue what this means as of yet." ]
What's the biological purpose of males getting sleepy after ejaculation?	[ "It's about pair bonding. If you fall asleep next to your partner you are likely to wake up next to them. It's to promote bonding." ]	[ "Post-coital tristesse is the term you are looking for! Do a google search and surf around, there are several perspectives, but the most fascinating to me is that the Greeks characterized this phenomenon and discussed it. Aka I don’t have a simple hard and fast answer for you, but that’s the name." ]

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