Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
How widespread was the accceptance "Soviet" nationality in the USSR in contrast to the ethnicity?	[ "While the initial focus of the USSR was to create a Soviet people, those plans went by the wayside in the 1930s in favor of Russifying the Soviet Union. Without government support, there wasn't really any reason to abandon your ethnicity, and it didn't happen often. The exact number of people who saw themselves as...	[ "Some questions to clarify OP's premise: Did the NKVD do regular searches of civilian homes or would there have had to be suspicion of a crime? Would that suspicion need to be based on anything substantial? And what qualifies as \"forbidden Western literature\"?" ]
Why can't radioactive nuclear reactor waste be used to generate further power?	[ "It can be. Only about 1% of the energy is used in conventional solid fuel light water reactors. The fuel is considered \"spent\" when it starts to gain small fissues in the core of the rods and fission byproducts accumulate. This can all be fixed with reprocessing, and in fact France does this now. However there a...	[ "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 would the world look like if electrons were spinning at 2/5 instead of 1/2?	[ "This would cause some problems theoretically. There are two kinds of particles which can exist: those whose quantum states are totally antisymmetric under exchange of identical particles, and those whose quantum states are totally symmetric under exchange of identical particles. There is a theorem called the [spin...	[ "The pitch if or voice is dependent on the length of or vocal chords. So our voices would be higher pitched. Additionally our range of hearing is based on the dimensions of various biomechanical stuff in our ears, so chances are our audible range will shift toward higher frequencies. It might maintain aspect ratio,...
How can I determine the colour of a planets sky based on it's chemical composition?	[ "The primary reason for the blue color is the strong dependence of the amount of scattering on the wavelength (lambda^-4 )[1] in combination with the Boltzmann-like spectrum of the sun. The easiest way to change the color would be to change the color of the sun. For example the sky on a planet with a red sun would ...	[ "A long time ago in places like Greece, Rome and even before that in really, really long ago places like Sumeria, and Egypt people made up stories about the stars/planets and the pictures they thought groups of stars made. These stories were usually about beings they considered to be gods or demigods (the word demi...
Why didn't the Allies occupy China in the same way they occupied Japan and Germany?	[ "China was one of the Allies. It was \"occupied\" by its own Nationalist Chinese troops, except for the region liberated by the Soviets (Manchukuo) which had a short term Soviet postwar occupation (August '45 to May '46) before it was handed over to the Chinese Communists." ]	[ "I can give an answer for Australia. The short answer is that it was possible if not likely to occur. In order to be accepted you basically had to assimilate as quickly as possible. The most well known example in Australia was a man known as Quong Tart who in the late 1800s s was a highlight of the social scene in ...
Why time travel cannot exist	[ "I assume you mean backwards time travel. It would allow the existence of violations in casualty, or the fact that causes precede effects. Since its impossible for things to happen before they are caused; many physicists simply conclude that the mechanism that would allow such impossibilities, in this case time tra...	[ "It can and does. Check out the double-slit experiment. _URL_0_" ]
Why can't non-christians go to christian 'heaven'?	[ "This is a stance which varies from denomination to denomination." ]	[ "> I’ve seen a lot of scientists say we can’t get through the Van Allen belts Who in particular? Were they working on the Van Allen belts, ionizing radiation in general, or biological impact of ionizing radiation? We can go through them easily, and if you don't spend days there the total dose is not a significant c...
Why do classical sculptures have small penises?	[ "hi! you may find some relevant info in these previous related threads [Why do Greco-Roman sculptures of men have such small penises?](_URL_4_) [Why do Greek and Roman statues, especially the ones intended to display the perfect body, have small penises?](_URL_2_) [How has penis size been regarded across times and ...	[ "_URL_0_ They did suffer from the disease. It wasn't recognized as a health issue until relatively recently." ]
During a Star Wars space battle, what happens to the lasers that don't hit their target?	[ "There's no lasers in Star wars: only blasters and their bigger derivative. What goes out of the barrel is \"bubble\" of gas in plasma state. It's still a physical object, subjected to regular physical laws. It doesn't even travel at relativistic speed (you can see them move), so most likely lose shots will end up ...	[ "The extras most certainly know what is going to happen in a scene, anything about them being kept \"in the dark\" is just Hollywood rumors. How do we know this is true? One simple fact. Nothing is done in one take. Every scene from ever major hollywood movie is shot many many times. Dozens of times if not more. Th...
Why do living things all have to eventually die?	[ "For an actual ELI5 explanation, it's because the components that synthesize your protein from DNA aren't perfect(very accurate, but each cell has millions of lines of DNA to replicate), so each time a cell replicates, there are thousands of errors in the DNA of your cell. Over time these snowball into causing the ...	[ "1. We gauge time by memorable events. The older we get the less memorable events occur. 2. The amount of time passed relative to one’s age varies. For a 5-year-old, one year is 20% of their entire life. For a 50-year-old, however, one year is only 2% of their life. 3. Our biological clock slows as we age." ]
What limits the size of trees?	[ "This was covered in my Biology class. I don't remember the exact height (although I thought it was somewhere in the 300s), but there was a number of feet after which the capillary action was no longer strong enough to draw up the liquid required." ]	[ "_URL_0_ Low information voters may make bad decisions. Voting restrictions can potentially be a tool to improve voter quality. For instance, same day voter registration may only attract the uninformed. Closing voter registration a month before the election might be reasonable." ]
Why do airplanes eject human waste while airborne and not when they have landed? (Linked story)	[ "The article itself states that airplanes are to empty waste at airports, and not while flying. This was an accident, and not intended or normal behavior." ]	[ "Likely the store was not able to sell it for a high enough price, compared to the price the distributor was willing to give for the return. It literally would cost them money to sell you the product, making it \"toxic\" As for the later call, they probably were denied the return, meaning they had to get rid of the...
Is the duration of a single earthquake correlated with the distance of the observer, meaning if I'm farther I would experience a longer or shorter duration?	[ "It's the fact that different types of waves travel at different speeds. The P waves (compression waves, like what we normally think of as sound) travel the fastest. Then the S waves (transverse waves) travel a little bit slower. Slower still are the surface waves, Rayleigh and Love waves. Every earthquake generat...	[ "Let's say that you pick out a person at random from a group. What is the probability that they are sick? Well, given that you don't know anything about them, you would just say that the chance they are sick is about the same as the chance anyone else - the number of sick people in the group over the total number o...
If Ritalin inhibits the reuptake of dopamine, then if I do something really fun before homework will my homework be as fun as what I was doing before?	[ "In order to do its thing, a hormone normally binds to a cell. Hormones that are bound to cells can't keep flowing around the bloodstream to do their thing. Reuptake inhibitors work by keeping active hormones in the bloodstream, where they can continue to flow around and affect your body. So, what they're really do...	[ "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...
Could human evolution really have happened as fast as it did?	[ "One thing to keep in mind is that change drives other change. For example, the enlargement of our forebrain caused our heads to be bigger at birth, which means we had to be born earlier to get out of the pelvis, which means some of those early traits were conserved in adults (hairlessness, big eyes, etc.). This is...	[ "Your asking essentially the chicken or the egg. Example, Did you stomach evolove first and create your brain and extremites to feed it. Or did your brain grow your stomach to power it. Har to say, as without something to feed the stomach, we would have no stomch. Without the brain to run everything, we wouldn't ha...
Why do potato chip companies put so much air in bags of chips?	[ "It's not air, it's nitrogen - the oxygen in air contributes to chips going stale. So using nitrogen keeps the chips fresh. As others have said, the inflation of the bag also acts as a cushion, reducing how much the bag can be crushed." ]	[ "It’s to insure that they are not liable for false advertising if some germs remain on the surface. They can just use the excuse that they never said it would kill everything." ]
Why there are no emergency parachutes in the airplanes?	[ "Because they would be next to useless. Passenger aircraft fly at a much higher altitude than you jump from with a normal parachute. So they would be useless if there was a problem mid flight. Few passengers have the proper training to use a parachute and there are not enough flight attendants to jump everyone in...	[ "Google doodles take a lot of effort to create, even the simplistic ones, and usually hope to serve the interests and audiences of multiple countries. So you have to understand even significant tragedies don't always get doodles (9/11 didn't get one this year either.) However, you're not wrong in that it's a littl...
How do math textbook writers come up with problems?	[ "Normally, they work backwards. So, for example, if you had a question on factoring polynomials, I would multiply a bunch of binomials and monomials together. Then I get a fully factorable polynomial. For example, (x-3)(2x+4)x = 4x^3 -2x^2 +x This is normally super easy because math has inverses- some operation t...	[ "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." ]
How come human teeth didn't evolve to be cavity proof?	[ "It is certainly our diet. Meso-paleolithic humans survived on a diet of huge amounts of fiber (which cleans teeth when chewed) small amounts of sugar, absolutely no processed foods, etc." ]	[ "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 do we look tired?	[ "\"The physiopathology of periorbital hyperchromia (which is the word for dark circles under the eyes) is not clearly deﬁned; however, blood ﬂow stagnation seems to be a determinant factor involved in the development of this process. This concept is supported by the fact that in the last years, cosmetic companies h...	[ "Well, there are a couple of things. First, there's the cumulative stress of the environment over time. Things like oxygen oxidizing things it's not supposed to and all sorts of other minor things that just add up over time. Second, there's the fact that it's built into our genetics. As a defense against cancer, ou...
How and why did flightless birds develop the inability to fly?	[ "Having working wings takes energy spent while growing. If flight has no advantages then it is more advantageous to grow more quickly. So genes which stopped wing development were advantageous to the organism. Some barnyard chickens can fly a hundred yards. They can easily evade four legged predators that way. They...	[ "Yes, the gene pool would be very shallow. They decided that was better than being extinct forever." ]
In space, would going from 0-450 mph in 2 seconds kill you?	[ "Yes. a = ΔV/t = (201.2 m/sec) / (2 sec) = 100.6 m/sec2 = 10.25 g Pilots like [John Stapp](_URL_0_) are sometimes exposed to g-forces of over 10 g's for multiple seconds and survive." ]	[ "* Your brain needs the right amount of oxygen in order to work properly. * Oxygen travels to the brain in your blood. * When under high g-forces, blood is either forced down to your legs, away from your head (causing a \"black out\"), or up into your head from the rest of your body (causing a \"red out\"). * An ox...
Why is ELI5 a default subreddit now?	[ "Probably because the reddit admins want new subscribers to see some decently insightful or non-meme content when they join. As a side note, ELI5 mods and community members are going to have to do a lot of work to keep the quality of the subreddit up." ]	[ "If you don't have even a 5 year olds level of understanding then why do you want to get into it? If you are actually interested then I can explain some of it, but you won't make money, trust me." ]
Why do we find babies, puppies, kittens, cute?	[ "We evolved to be attracted to babies for obvious reasons. A baby needs total protection from adults. Genes cannot be passed on by those who do not protect their young... So we evolved to be attracted to babies. This evolved trait has been expanded to anything that appears like a baby. Cats have a lot of the same ...	[ "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." ]
Why are twist off bottle caps so rare in the UK?	[ "To prevent children from opening the bottles. It's literally the only thing I can think of." ]	[ "It's how the bricks are made. The LEGO term is \"clutch power\". You have the top cylinders on the top of the bricks and then on the inside you have inner cylinders. They do give out but after a LONG time. Here's an example _URL_0_" ]
What was the first band shirt?	[ "In 'The Art of the Band T-shirt' (2007) an Elvis t-shirt from 1956 is noted as the first example of such clothing, which came five years after the movie 'A Streetcar Named Desire' was released in which Marlon Brando's plain white t-shirt ([Photo](_URL_0_)) made this type of garment extremely popular with youth. A ...	[ "You forget stuff all the time. What did you have for lunch on the first day of the third grade?" ]
How can population keep growing, and poverty declining, in a world that has limited resources?	[ "We keep getting better at using/gathering those limited resources... and \"limited\" in this sense is still a really large number." ]	[ "Imagine a bathtub full of water, the water represents electricity. The bathtub has a faucet, which represents the generation of electricity. Imagine now that there are little holes in the bottom of the bathtub, all plugged up. When ever a home needs power, unplug the drain and let the water flow out. Now imagine ...
Do astronauts catch colds, or other viruses?	[ "Almost half of astronauts get \"space sick\" during their flights. But this is basically motion sickness. Because of all the safety measures used to prevent astronauts from getting sick they don't get actual diseases very often, but it still happens sometimes. The astronauts on Apollo 7 got head colds during their...	[ "Not sure if it's the same link ecakir meant, but this is awesome: _URL_0_ It has the live camera feed, as well as a chart of exactly what each person is doing at that time. For example, at this moment: * Kotov is on Routine Activities - Exercise * Hopkins is on Routine Activities - Lunch (Experiments next) * Mast...
How did gladiators in Rome have so much muscle and strength eating what is portrayed as gruel?	[ "The way gladiators are portrayed in media doesn't particularly hold up to history. Gladiators ate a vegetarian diet, rich in carbohydrates. Gladiators also weren't the buff, oiled up dudes you see on TV. They commonly packed on quite a few extra pounds. Part of that is because they didn't train for looks (The buil...	[ "Back then people still needed jobs, now they dont and can practice harder for longer. And science helps by showing then methods on improving motions. You cam find cool videos on youtube" ]
How did ancient or old world women take care of their feminine needs during menstruation?	[ "The same way women in many developing countries still do it- wads of fabric or cotton between their legs. So basically, yes, ancient pads. I've also heard that medieval European women would roll cotton attached to a string and insert it as a tampon, but I am not sure how well-sourced that is." ]	[ "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...
Why does diesel fuel have such a high freeze point compared to gasoline.	[ "They're different chemicals. You can't get a proper answer to \"why do chemicals have the properties they do\" within the scope of ELI5: there's a reason it takes years and years to learn chemistry. But there is a pretty good rule of thumb, that bigger and heavier chemicals tend to melt (and boil) at higher temper...	[ "Though I can't answer the whole question, I'd like to point out that the Inferno doesn't depict Hell itself as cold -- only the lake in which traitors are submerged. Satan's in this area because his crime was betraying God. This wasn't a standard depiction of Hell or Satan at the time, it was because Dante was lin...
When it comes to "invasive" prostate exams, what are doctors trying to "feel" that they can't already see with things like ultrasound, MRIs, etc.?	[ "Ultrasound is an expensive test because it requires an expensive machine, doctors already have fingers \"right at hand\". Manual exam is feeling the surface of the prostate for bumps or lumps. The surface should be a smooth muscle; whereas bumps or lumps could be cancer. The prostate is in an inconvenient location...	[ "> How can they know there was a tornado? I'm sure all of the visual sightings and reports and path of destruction is a big clue. Unless it was a tornado-shaped herd of rampaging elephants. > Then, how can they deduce the level from that? The basic tornado intensity scale - the Fujita scale - is measured based off...
Do people without Nielsen boxes affect viewership ratings? Does recording a show and watching it later increase viewership counts?	[ "They still use nielsen pretty much exclusively. And nielsen still relies almost entirely on set-top boxes. They have a competitor in rentrak which uses actual data provided by cable provider partners. nielsen recently [struck a deal with dish network](_URL_0_) to do the same. Their numbers are garbage and that's n...	[ "There are multiple ways to estimate the illegal population. These include economic impact, public service usage, population samples, the census, and migration tracking. Economic impact looks at levels of spending and the flow of money to determine the population involved in the economy. We can compare this to the ...
How did West Berlin operate when it was located on East Germany during the Cold War?	[ "There was a network of transit routes people from West Berlin could use to go to nearby countries, and back to West Germany. Leaving those roads was forbidden, and you needed a visa to get in or out. There was also a few railroads with interzonal trains, which would go straight through Eastern Germany, though neve...	[ "The English province of Carolina originally included pretty much all of the land between Virginia and Florida. There were two distinct groups of settlements: settlers from Virginia established towns on the Roanoke River, while a different group of settlers established Charleston. With two distinct settlements sepa...
Why is Dichloromethane (DCM) denser than water?	[ "One aspect of the difference is molecular shape and packing structure. Dicloromethane doesn't take up much more space than water does, and the molecular weight is much higher. The shape of DCM allows it to pack together pretty well, so it can fit more mass in a certain volume. This is also the reason oil is less d...	[ "you open the freezer door, heat goes in melts the ice cream slightly, you close the door, the ice cream freezes but nothing is churning the ice cream so the freezing action forces the water out. rinse and repeat and you get large chunks of ice. ice cream also has lots of fat in it which tends to absorb any free fl...
How was the order of the alphabet decided?	[ "hi! there's always room for more input, but fyi, there are some very detailed posts on this topic in the FAQ * [Alphabetical Order(s)](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "They plan the landing sites well in advanced. It is determined by terrain (will it be a safe landing), different features (what looks interesting to study), and by past landings (they want to spread out so they can study as much ground as possible)" ]
Why do so many cheap beers have the name Ice in the name?	[ "They are \"ice filtered.\" In this process, the beer is chilled to just around the freezing point. Because of physics, ice crystals want to use some kind of particle as a nucleation point, and they do form around stray yeast cells and other tiny particles. This of course makes the particles effectively larger (sin...	[ "[This](_URL_0_) previous thread explains it as [entrainment](_URL_2_). When changing the diameter of your lips, the airflow is subject to the [Bernoulli effect](_URL_1_) where it speeds up. When the air moves faster, it draws in more surrounding air which is cooler than your body temperature, thus making it feel c...
Why do bourbons classify as 80 or 90 proof instead of just saying 40% or 45% alcohol?	[ "All alcohols do this, not just bourbon. As to why they don't just call it by the ABV: historical reasons. Sailors were given run rations and they needed to test if it were the right strength. Degrees proof is 7/4 times the alcohol percent. If you put rum on gunpowder it wouldn't ignite unless the ABV was about 5...	[ "Blood banker here. From a practical standpoint, titers of anti-B in type A people a never done. If you are type A, whether AO or AA, an infusion of type B cells will be highly dangerous to you. There may have been studies comparing titers of AO vs. AA, but they would have been done purely out of academic curiosity...
From Hamilton’s lyrics ‘The doctor turned around so he could have deniability’. Is this a rule most doctors follow during a duel? When in history was it rooted from?	[ "Yes, a doctor was often on hand but would not view the duel itself. In the generally unlikely event that the matter ended up in court, it allowed them to testify that they had not seen what occurred. That said, it was usually not the case they they would simply turn around, but more commonly they would remain a di...	[ "I don't have a lot to add to my already linked answers in the faq, but the two key questions here are: 1. What counts as \"hard evidence\"? Is hard evidence better than other kinds of evidence? Should we only formulate beliefs based on hard evidence? This is a set of epistemological and methodological questions no...
Would we know of the existence of light (photons), if we didn't have any sight?	[ "I think he is saying that without our senses we would not have looked for answers. For example, we heard noise and wondered what exactly it was and investigated until we arrived at a logical explanation for what our senses were detecting. I think that we are limited by our senses in a way. We are biased to think ...	[ "The question is asking you to examine your belief in events without absolute proof or evidence. Logically, everything in your life's experience tells you that it will make a sound, but you have no way to prove that it will. In any issue, some things have to be taken on faith." ]
If our inner ear fluid controls whether or not we're dizzy, why do things spinning in movies make us dizzy?	[ "It's because what your eyes are telling your brain is not consistent with what your ears are telling your brain. This is why you get car sick, too (but the other way around). When there is inconsistent information like this, it could indicate that you've ingested poison. What's a good way to get rid of ingested po...	[ "Radio stations do a lot of clever work to fit more information in the audio stream then just the audio. Originally an FM station were just a simple mono audio signal. However they found out that the signal quality were good enough to deliver audio signals at much higher frequency then the humans can hear. So they ...
Did the crime rate go up or down after the abolishment of Capitol Punishment in England? Are these statistics similar in other countries?	[ "capital* The death penalty is unlikely to be a succesful deterrent, because of the severity of the crimes it's usually associated with. Historically murders (and the like) have seen a reduction after abolishment of the death penalty (for instance in Canada), but this is far more likely due to socio-economic factor...	[ "Sorry, we don't allow [\"example seeking\" questions](_URL_0_). It's not that your question was bad; it's that these kinds of questions tend to produce threads that are collections of disjointed, partial, inadequate responses. If you have a question about a specific historical event, period, or person, feel free t...
Is there any evidence of ancient cultures referring to, what they would have classified as, ancient cultures?	[ "I think \"ancient cultures\" is a difficult concept in this context, but perhaps something like this is what you are looking for? > It would seem, too, that the Egyptians were the first people to establish solemn assemblies, and processions, and services; the Greeks learned all that from them. I consider this pro...	[ "I research assessment in higher education and I'm not a historian. I'm just commenting to flag changes in assessment thinking over the past decade or so towards criterion referenced assessment and away from curve based assessment. Your question seems to be focused on relative rank, in other words, if your grandfat...
Where do you end up if you keep walking towards the moon?	[ "Imagine for a moment that the Earth has no oceans and you can walk over the entire surface of it. Now let's plop you somewhere in North America. As the moon rises over the horizon you start to walk toward it. In North America the moon always appears to be slightly south from where you are, and when it is rising it...	[ "It's called the [Monty Hall problem](_URL_0_). Ultimately, what it comes down is that, from the start of the experiment/gameshow, there was only a 1 in 3 chance that you chose the door with the prize behind it, so if you repeat the experiment a thousand times over, the prize would be behind the other door two th...
loans and housing crisis	[ "The idea is that you would buy a house for, say, $100,000, of which $90,000 was financed (i.e. debt). Then, because housing prices were rising, in two years your house might be worth $150,000, and you still owed $90,000. Your house was worth $60,000 more than what you owed. This is called \"having $60,000 in equit...	[ "I don't think it is, as real estate has lots of documentation and large sums of money at a time. Money laundering is usually things that are cash heavy and small transaction sizes, meaning no paper trail. Do you have some examples?" ]
Is the asteroid belt going to become a planet eventually?	[ "Well, [Ceres](_URL_0_) is by far the biggest object in the asteroid belt and makes up about one third of the total mass of the asteroid belt. Ceres has a mass of about 1.3% of our moon. So the asteroid belt in total has a mass of roughly 4% of the moon. That is obviously not enough to make a planet similar to Eart...	[ "A long time ago in places like Greece, Rome and even before that in really, really long ago places like Sumeria, and Egypt people made up stories about the stars/planets and the pictures they thought groups of stars made. These stories were usually about beings they considered to be gods or demigods (the word demi...
Why does it take babies such a long time to learn basic motor skills compared to animals that are able to do it close within a month or even as soon as they're born?	[ "The human brain is amazingly complicated, more so than that of pretty much any other land critter. In order for that to work, we need big heads. The problem with this is that the human pelvis is too narrow to squeeze out a baby if the baby's head were much bigger than it is, so the brain is less developed at birth...	[ "The human brain is great at recognizing patterns and is very used to making predictions about the environment. For example, due your experience, when you're walking in the street your brain tells you \"people are walking in a certain direction and they're going to keep doing so\". When you experience something new...
how can prisons be "for profit"?	[ "* The building, the land, and all the physical stuff in the prison is owned by a private company. * All the staff are employed by a private company. * The local, state, or federal government contracts this company to hold prisoners. * They do this instead of building their own prison and hiring their own staff." ]	[ "Ha, I wrote a paper on this once. If I had to boil it down to one cause... I would say its the fact that in the US railroad infrastructure is (mostly) owned by private companies, which is fairly unique in the world. The US has the most sophisticated and impressive freight railroad transportation in the world (thin...
Can a planet have two Suns like Tatooine?	[ "Yes. There are plenty of binary star systems in the known universe. However, the planets orbiting them might not be habitable, as temperatures would likely vary greatly due to how the planet orbits the stars." ]	[ "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." ]
Are human beings closer to being on the smallest conceived scales of reality or the largest?	[ "We can't really answer that question yet. A tau neutrino exists as about 2x10^-35 m. The universe is 4.3×10^26 m. The average human about 2x10^0 m. Arguably we are close to the big side of that. The problem is that we can't say with certainty if the universe is the largest thing or a neutrino the smallest. With wh...	[ "Ah this is one of the main questions in the entire field of psychological perception. There are multiple fields discussing it. What you are speaking of specifically are called \"Affordances\" and the field of \"ecological perception\" does quite a good job at describing what you are asking. I suggest reading about...
If we visited the sun with a magic heat-proof ship, what would it look like, on a very close distance? Would it look like fire, or just a bright cloud, or something else?	[ "Just picture the Sun in Earth's sky, but filling half the sky. It wouldn't look like anything except literally blinding white. Now, if we posit adding enough filtering to diminish the overwhelming brightness to manageable levels, it would look pretty much like [this](_URL_1_) in visible light. Going even closer, t...	[ "While nothing can go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum (such a speed doesn't really make sense), something can go faster than the speed of light in other things. Light slows down as it passes through things, which is why refraction works (e.g. for lenses). What you see is a sort of \"light boom\" which ...
How there are more numbers between 0 and 1 than there are integers?	[ "An easy way to think of this one is that for any integer, you can place a decimal point in front of it to produce a number between 0 and 1. This proves there are at least as many numbers between 0 and 1 as integers. By adding zeros between the decimal and first non-zero value, you see that for every integer, you c...	[ "Hashes are one-way functions. They're designed specifically so that you can't \"solve for the other side of the equation\" and run them in reverse. You can turn a cow into hamburger. You can't turn a hamburger into a cow. Also, since the input to any hashing algorithm is infinite and the output is finite, the out...
Why do construction crews block of large portions of a road weeks before doing anything on it?	[ "They are more than likely working on it, you just don't see them when you drive by. They might be taking environmental samples, might have rain conditions, might get everything set and then a permitting issue causes a delay, might be one team who will set everything up to block off the road and the team doing the ...	[ "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." ]
How come Bugs if dropped from 1ft high dont get hurt as much as if a human was dropped from 10ft?	[ "Couple reasons. 1. Their exoskeleton prevents a lot of damage--you can flick an ant and have it fly 100x its own body length in distance, land, and keep moving. Imagine your skin being as strong as your bones. 2. Aerodynamics--dropping a piece of paper and a rock will fall to the ground much differently. Same goes...	[ "In a vacuum, both will land at essentially the same time, depending on local topography. The reason is that vertical acceleration and horizontal velocity aren't necessarily linked. Gravity is pulling both objects downward with the same force, regardless of their forward velocity. In an atmosphere you may have air ...
why do many major league player's sports contracts always include a deferred annuity portion?	[ "I'm not sure how common they are, but here are some possible reasons why a sports contract would include one: 1) Athletes are notoriously bad with money. Annuities provide a more stable source of income rather than giving it all to the player at once. 2) Because the salary is deferred, the team has more time to ...	[ "/u/deus_vult_a_cracker is probably correct. At my son's school they send home a blanket waiver for parents to sign allowing your child to be shown in media \"promoting the school, district or extra-curricular activity\"." ]
If music used in a YouTube video would technically be covered by fair use, why do movies have to pay royalties when they use music? Isn't that also fair use?	[ "If the use were actually considered fair use, then it doesn't matter if it's a movie or YouTube video. There are tons of infringing uses on YouTube. Having said that, movies have bigger budgets, though, and are more diligent. They're actually usually over-diligent and pay for things even though they shouldn't h...	[ "check out /r/darknetmarkets if youre surprised people doing illegal shit can still monetize it online. They sell drugs on the internet, and very rarely do people get caught. Shit's cray. and no, in the case of illegal internet sites (clearnet or darknet), the Identity of whoever runs the site is usually unknown. I...
Do Species with shorter life spans evolve faster than those with a longer life span?	[ "Sort of. In reality, it is generational time that is more important - We might die at 30 rather than 80 but give birth at 20 regardless. In such a case, lifespan is inconsequential. Then there are factors like how many offspring each breeding pair has, as well as rate of replication errors, which is not necessari...	[ "Setting aside the terminology of \"race\", it's entirely down to selective pressures of the different environments. In equatorial regions where the sun is plentiful, having a lot of melanin is useful in protecting against cancer. The further north/south you go from there, the less sun there is, so having less mela...
Japan and Korea being of a Chinese descent?	[ "You might want to read on the Japanese Jomon period (14,000 B.C.), and on the Korean Jeulmun period (8,000 B.C.) to know about both regions probable first peoples." ]	[ "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." ]
Is there a substance that the majority of humans are severely allergic to?	[ "The American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology defines an allergy as: > a chronic condition involving an abnormal reaction to an ordinarily harmless substance called an allergen. Meaning that by definition an \"abnormal\" reaction can't be present in \"the majority of humans\". So, the answer to your quest...	[ "A couple important things to remember: First, this is the hottest year since we've started recording them, and recent years have been similarly high. But another reason is because of how we design buildings. We design them to use air conditioning and the like. But back before AC, people had buildings designed to b...
Why is bread more nutritious than flour?	[ "Really really simple explanation. The energy in bread and flour is contained in little batteries (sugar molecules). But, the batteries in flour have a coating over the plus and minus terminals that slows the electricity that can flow out of the battery. If you cook the flour (bread), the heat removes the coating o...	[ "Damage potential is much, much greater too. Both malicious and accidental." ]
Let's say that I am a Russian Peasant During WW2, I get conscripted In the Army Around 1942-1943, What are my Chances to survive to the War and go back to my Farm?	[ "Giving you an actual statistical chance is meaningless, and difficult to do; there are a thousand and one things to keep in mind, most importantly: Your branch of service, your front, etc. That being said, your chances of surviving are considerably higher than an unfortunate in 1941-1942. The RKKA never achieved c...	[ "It depends on what you mean by an actual conversation, and im going to assume your speaking English. 1600's was the time of Shakespeare, and im sure you read some of his plays. In that time period, if someone said something, you would need to digest it before replying, and thats still considered modern English. Ev...
Complexity of computers compared to organisms	[ "It really isn't. A multicellular organism like yourself consists of several billion cells, and in every single one of those cells, millions upon millions of different biochemical reactions occur every single second, all the time. We consist of tens of thousands of different proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and nucl...	[ "along with the other users comments, also keep in mind that the ps4 has more headroom. on a pc, the cpu has to manage the OS and lots of other things running while ALSO playing a game. on a console all it has to worry about is the game and the XMB." ]
[Quantum Physics] Light being unable to escape a black hole?	[ "In addition to the other answer: If you are inside a black hole then there is no direction that would go outside. It would be like trying to reach last Saturday. In which direction is that? Inside the black hole every direction in space is \"inwards\", and reaching the singularity is as inevitable as reaching next...	[ "Because gravity isn't actually a force that acts between two massive bodies (though that's a very good approximation, for the most part). It's what happens when mass and energy curve spacetime. When spacetime is curved, anything that tries to travel on a straight line will end up on a curved path, and we see tha...
How can 3 CPU's made by 3 separate companies have the exact same security flaws?	[ "A CPU is a list of instructions. By necessity, they all have to run the same instructions no matter who makes it, otherwise every piece of software would have to have multiple versions based on what CPU is in the machine (just like they have to have multiple versions for PC, Mac, Sparc, etc). Imagine there are 3 c...	[ "Two reasons: 1) It isn't anything but a statistical coincidence. Look at how many movies get released in a year compared to how many are the same and you'll see the number is actually pretty small. 2) Some idea will be \"hot\" so movie studios try and capitalize on it. Movies are often completed and then held for ...
Why do vitamin C tablets say stuff like 800% your daily value? Does that mean the rest gets wasted?	[ "100% equals the minimum daily amount recommended by the FDA. You can easily surpass this by eating vitamin rich foods or by taking a pill. It doesn't mean that is all your body can process" ]	[ "This is a post WW2 phenomena. Tech was becoming a thing. Computers, atomics, etc Planned obsolescence required new, better model names, 1, 2, 3... At some point the univac 4 needed to be better just by the sound. Univac 400 vs the IBM 401. Jump a head to the nth degree. The univac 9000 or the OS X for that mat...
What percentage of pistol duels resulted in mortally wounding one or both participants?	[ "Hiya, I am by no means discouraging anyone from answering, but while I am fairly sure he will appear to enlighten you on duelling anyways, /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov wrote (among others) [this answer](_URL_0_) which covers a lot what you're asking about. Check out the [the duelling part of his profile](_URL_1_) for much m...	[ "_URL_2_ columnist William Saletan waded into this issue several years ago with similar questions to yours. Here's an article posted AFTER his initial article and several followups, all of which can be reached via links within the article. It's an interesting journey with commentary from psychologists, statistician...
How does hunting game help wildlife conservation as some claim it does?	[ "Stops overpopulation which in turn stops a species from using up all the resources in its area and dying out in large numbers." ]	[ "My inclination was to reject your teacher's assertion out of hand, but then I remembered the Eskimo Scouts, who I have a soft place in my heart for. [Here](_URL_2_)'s a bit of audio for you from NPR, and [here](_URL_1_)'s a text story from 1988. In brief: During World War II, Col. \"Muktuk\" Marston traveled Alas...
How does the immune system store information about infections that it has defeated? How is it able to "remember" diseases to produce antibodies?	[ "When the adaptive immune system (the part that makes antibodies) recognizes a pathogen and sets to work attacking it, most of a special kind of cell (a B cell) get turned into a plasma cell when activated which does nothing but crank out antibodies. A small number of the B cells will instead turn into memory B cel...	[ "Usually, when a checkpoint/save point is triggered, the game will just dump a list of statistics in a certain format to a save file. For example, there could be a property like this in a save file: CurrentSavePoint=24 And when that is loaded, it would just know that you saved at that save point and put you back th...
why are credit/debit card authorizations painfully slow?	[ "From the question I can only think you are reasonably young, as it's lightspeed quick to me, an old fart. The vendor has a computer that has to connect down a phone line/ internet connection to a bank computer that has to verify the details line up with you, the customer, and that you have the funds, and then tran...	[ "They're quoting you the \"I have servers and need high reliability\" level of service, not the \"I need to browse the internet\" level of service. If you want to run a server farm with gigabit speed, you're asking for upload speeds of a gigabit, with low latency and high accessibility. You may need to talk to ...
Why are big toes so much bigger (but not necessarily longer) than the rest of the toe crew?	[ "The big toe is the only toe that serves a major purpose in normal walking. You basically use it to push off at the end of a step, just before you lift your foot off the ground. You can lose all of your toes except that one without significantly affecting how you walk, but lose the big toe and it makes walking much...	[ "These sort of questions are really hard to answer under the auspices of \"science\". Someone can probably tell you a story based on a sort of \"evolutionary reasoning\" (and these stories are where a lot of evolutionary studies begin), but unless they can cite a serious research program that has investigated this...
why are Americans so obsessed with good credit? I have never owned a credit card, and I still got a loan on an apartment in Europe.	[ "credit score is american thing mate, they are pretty used to it and it seems strange to us, they dont see the problem in the system becouse they are so used to it." ]	[ "There is a fear, founded or not, that the government will require specific actions or information in order to provided service. Example: \"Oh, you want kidney stone procedure done? Sure, but first we need to see all of your grocery store receipts to see if your diet is causing the problem\" or \"Yes, we will be ha...
How does our circulatory system handle losing a limb?	[ "It doesn't really need to. Any cells that are still part of the body also still have blood vessels delivering blood to them. The only part of the circulatory system that was lost was the part that was delivering blood to the tissue that was also lost. Imagine if half of Manhattan disappeared. There'd be no issue g...	[ "This is going to be a country specific answer. In the United States, both 42 USC 1983 and the Americans with Disabilities act are the controlling law. Basically, a state actor like a prison guard can not abuse prisoners. Not giving an amputee some means of mobility would be abuse. Therefor, a wheelchair, prosthet...
Before Darwin wrote in length about the Theory of Evolution, had science produced any other versions on the origin of life that were backed by science?	[ "I'd like to point out that evolution isn't really an \"origin of life\" thing. It requires life to already be present. Origin of life would fall more under abiogenesis or extra terrestrial seeding or the like. But as others have said the Lamarckian ideas were used prior to Darwin's." ]	[ "Your asking essentially the chicken or the egg. Example, Did you stomach evolove first and create your brain and extremites to feed it. Or did your brain grow your stomach to power it. Har to say, as without something to feed the stomach, we would have no stomch. Without the brain to run everything, we wouldn't ha...
Why you see colors when you close your eyes really hard.	[ "Sight is caused by the cells at the back of your eye reacting to light. These signals are carried along a wire called the retinal ganglion to the part of your brain that sees. The cells in your eye and retinal ganglion cells are designed to be stimulated by light, but can be stimulated by lots of things. Pressure ...	[ "This is a more scientific answer than it sounds: it's all in your head. Try having a friend hold a pen there randomly half of the time. You guess when it's there, the more you guess the closer to chance you should get." ]
How do copyrights work?	[ "Yes. In fact, you don't even have to put a notice of copyright on your work; legal copyright protections still apply. All works are created by copyright automatically, from the moment of their creation. Kind of like how all people have inalienable civil rights as soon as they're born. You don't have to fill out a ...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why don't electrons and neutrinos have smaller components?	[ "> As I understand it, above the electroweak unification energy, it becomes clear that electrons and neutrinos become two states of the same spin 1/2 particle with weak hypercharge -1 and weak isospin ±1/2 Sure, but that's only for the left particles. Right electrons don't bundle up in a doublet, and have hyperchar...	[ "Most cells (think stuff like skin cells or blood cells) will be roughly the same size (for a given type of cell - size can vary widely between different cell types), no matter how large or small the organism is - larger organisms just have a lot more of them. But some cells will be larger for a larger organism - f...
Why do bands release albums in Japan with additional tracks they don't include on their North American and European releases?	[ "Apparently it's because albums are expensive in Japan, so it entices Japanese purchasers to buy the Japanese edition for the bonus track rather than ship a copy in" ]	[ "This is a hold-over from the physical book era. When physical books had to be printed, publishers had local partners in many different places in the world that did local marketing, printing, and distributing to local bookshops. So if you were in New York, you didn't have to talk to a book shop in Switzerland. The...
How do I use Flashcards for studying?	[ "topic name on one side, short description of topic on the other. So it could be an important name with a short explanation why the person, place, or thing is important. could be \"member of the XXX cartel\" with the members on the other side. Get creative, have fun. The point is to make a connection between the i...	[ "This video from Sagan will help. I couldn't explain it in a better way. _URL_0_" ]
How does my brain know to wake me up approximately at 6:30 AM (give or take 10 minutes) each morning even on weekends or when I'm up late?	[ "Circadian Rhythm. Basically your body likes routines. If you go to sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time everyday, so long as you're getting enough sleep, your body will fall into that pattern and wake you up without an alarm! Science is cool" ]	[ "Math. After we were able to accurately monitor and figure out the body's course it was simply (not that simple) math and physics that told us where it would go. (EX: at day 12 month 5 yr 1981 it was here, on day 27 3rd month yr 1984 it was here, insert big math problem, and we now know that on day 1 month 1 yr 198...
How are signatures legally binding when they can vary so much and be easily forged?	[ "Sweet, I'm the first one to post [this](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "They're not just reading the words. The inflection, tone, subtle actions etc are all up to the actor. \"Selling\" a character is actually *INCREDIBLY* difficult. Can you weep believably over your \"dead spouse\" who was just \"shot\" when you know it's actually another actor and the \"blood\" on his shirt is ...
Why doesn't the USA use the 'stone' as a weight measure, even though we use the rest of the Avoirdupois system?	[ "The stone (14 pounds, about 6kg) sounds like it should be a really ancient unit of measure, and it is. But it was only added to the UK's Imperial system in 1824, several decades after the U.S. had left the Empire. Update: Although today we often call the U.S. system of measurement \"Imperial,\" that's technically...	[ "Plant cells have little starchy organelles called statoliths - they're much heavier than other components of the cells. The statoliths fall to the bottom of the cells. In cells in the stem, statoliths on the bottom of the cell trigger the hormone auxin to inhibit growth on the lower part of the cell. This makes ...
So, where are all the beneficial infectious diseases?	[ "Your concept of 'disease' is too broad. A disease is by definition non-beneficial. It sounds like you are describing intestinal bacteria to me when you ask for a 'beneficial disease'. [Disease: noun - a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of...	[ "I don't feel qualified to explain indepthly but I'd like to provide this small piece of the puzzle. Inflation is not universally bad. Slow and steady inflation has the positive side effect of encouraging money to be spent right away while it is worth more, keeping more money flowing in the economy." ]
Do most move production companies have back up plans if a main character's actor dies?	[ "Productions will usually have an insurance policy on the wellbeing of their actors. A good example is Paul Walker, who was contracted to complete fast 7 and another 3 films after that. After his death, the insurance company paid out a considerable sum of money, which was used to pay for the CGI and whatnot to all...	[ "You mean what happens afterward or what causes it? The cause is sometimes the local station or cable channel can sell local commercials (AKA spots), but their spot may not start exactly on schedule. You will see whatever spot is running on the network during that time slot. Some networks don't run spots in local s...
Why does scratching a CD cause the contents to become unreadable?	[ "Reading cds is done by reflecting light off each bit. I guess it's comparable to reading Braille where you feel for bumps. If you scratch the cd you no longer get an accurate reflection so you don't know what it's supposed to be. Same way if you damage a Braille book you can't read it anymore." ]	[ "b/c the credit card is magnetized using a stronger magnet since you dont need to magnetize it again. but with a hotel keycard you need to magnetize it many times throughout it;s life so the threshold to overwrite it is not as strong." ]
Why do we cry when we're sad?	[ "Not an answer more than a comment but... I think tears are like a two for one deal. Sometimes we cry because we are powerless \"why dammit why?!?!\" or a \"holy shit that is beautiful and makes me feel really alive\" its a weird reaction and myself I am not certain either but I would like to gain some insight." ]	[ "Well first of all, the chemicals you listed are in actuality neurotransmitters. These are specialized molecules that are constantly floating around in the brain. I am by no means an expert, but I hypothesize that many different types of neurotransmitters were created simply as a survival trait. Being able to exper...
What was the reaction of British people to the American revolution?	[ "Do you mean Brits back home, or the colonists of British origin? Every one of the Thirteen colonies had their fair share of loyalists so I am led to believe, yet I rather imagine those back in Britain probably never heard much about it. This was in the day when information was word of mouth, and the only mass medi...	[ "Probably something like this - ^rumble rumble RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLECRASHSMASH Screams Oh god why, save us Or at least I assume so." ]
Does pumping oil out of the ground leave huge empty underground caverns? If so, why don't we wind up with enormous sinkholes?	[ "Oil generally doesn't form a full pocket of oil. Think of it like sand on the beach. If you dig a hole near the beach, the hole will fill up with water that leaches out of the near by sand. Depending on the type of oil being extracted, the oil can be inside porous rock, like [oil sands](_URL_0_), which looks and ...	[ "There are dozens of holes in our skull (think eyes, nose, mouth, cheekbones, spine....) but the temples are not among them. But our evolutionary ancestors, the early synapsids (as well as our relatives the dinosaurs and birds) actually did have [holes in their temples](_URL_0_), the [temporal fenestrae](_URL_1_)...
How does your brain determine what to remember and what to forget?	[ "I don't think we really know. Last I read we basically think memories are sets of connections between different cells in the brain that need constant maintenance. Imagine something like a book where each word is a cell and the paper (connecting them) rots away if left too long. They're thought to be stored in cata...	[ "It stays on the disk until it is overwritten. Your computer basically takes the part of the disk the memory is stored on and says \"this stuff is ok to overwrite with new data.\"" ]
why I get the feeling of "I am so hungry I could vomit"	[ "In my experience, it's because your stomach has only post nasal drip in there. Makes stomach mad. Edit: I know this because I've vomited for (I'm guessing) just this reason and all that came out was snot." ]	[ "You may have the 'beetus. Go have a glucose tolerance test done." ]
How does a hot surface injure skin?	[ "Heat can damage your body at the cellular level in a number of ways. When the temperature of your cells increases, the molecules inside them move at increasing speed, which can disrupt the structure of cellular components. Firstly, heat can break down (denature) proteins. The increased molecular motion can break a...	[ "A couple important things to remember: First, this is the hottest year since we've started recording them, and recent years have been similarly high. But another reason is because of how we design buildings. We design them to use air conditioning and the like. But back before AC, people had buildings designed to b...
Is there any point taking Advil before bed when I drink? Or will the effects just be worn off by the time I wake up?	[ "I get the no medical advice so as a random comment I want to point out that alcohol and Tylenol/Acetaminophen do not mix. If you are or have been drinking never ever take Tylenol/Acetaminophen. Not as you go to bed, not as you wake for the hangover." ]	[ "Two social psychological concepts come to mind here. State dependent memory encoding and Erickson Arousal theory of learning. State dependent learning states that what ever state of mind you are in during encoding is the state of mind where recall would be optimal. Erickson arousal theory states that learning is m...
How possible is it with today's technology to cryogenically preserve and revive a human?	[ "Not at all possible. There is currently a 0% chance of a successful revival after being cryogenically frozen. The technology just doesn't exist yet, if it ever will. It's impossible to predict when it might. There are levels of science involved we still have no idea how to overcome, such as the formation of ice cr...	[ "Well, there is very little data on this for obvious reasons. However the story of Genie* is one modern case of this happening. Reading about that is probably the most information you'll find on the subject. *_URL_0_" ]
Why, when I run, do I get cramps and whats the best way to avoid them?	[ "Your cramps come for your \"improper\" breathing. you have more CO2 in your body then your body can dissipate. To avoid craps make sure you exhale as much as your take in. the way I breath when I runs is two short out and one in. out-out-in, etc." ]	[ "Human skeletal muscle contains enough stored energy in the form of various chemicals to operate anaerobically - that is, without air (and more importantly oxygen) - for something like 10 to 30 seconds depending on the person (and I'm sure shorter or longer than that for some people). Once that reserve energy is u...
Does understanding E=MC2 actually require any individual steps in logic that are more complex than the logic required to understand 2+2=4?	[ "Not directly answering your question since E=mc^2 is physics, not maths. So requires observation in addition to pure logic. Let's stay within the realm of mathematics. Technically almost all mathematical results can be derived from a set of axioms (assumptions, logic is useless without assumptions) What makes no s...	[ "Think of the elephant as a million feathers tied together. A million feathers don't fall faster than one feather, whether they are tied together or not. (If you ignore the effect of the air, which is of course huge.)" ]
Why do we have fingerprints?	[ "They help with grip: the ridged surface is a little bit better at holding on to objects than a flat surface would be. They're on your toes as well because of your primate ancestry: your great (x 10000) grandpa picked stuff up with his toes more often and it came in handy (footy?). It never evolved out because ther...	[ "So that the 0.01% germ can go back to where they come from and warn the others not to come." ]
Is geostationary orbit possible on Venus?	[ "Venus rotates very slowly, so it would look different than a geostationary orbit around Earth. Roughly speaking, the satellite would rotate on the order of 1 million km above the surface - much, much higher than the 35,000 km altitude on earth. That would end up outside of Venus's hill sphere, which is to say, the...	[ "* it isn't very big, and would have to spin really, really fast to simulate 1g * spinning makes it hard to dock with * part of the point is to do experiments in a weightless environment." ]
Why was the Morse code discontinued?	[ "Morse code became obsolete when people found ways to transmit voice over radio/wire. As for the \"secret\" messages - they are not really secret, since anyone who knows the Morse code can decode them. And there are easier, more secure way of sending secret information than Morse Code. For individuals, it isn't rea...	[ "Costs money to build and maintain the facilities, some countries don't feel like taking on the burden of that cost." ]
Were the F4U and P-47 Originally designed as bomber interceptors?	[ "As a follow up: are there any online resources that list the formal aircraft specifications issued by the Army Air Corp and the Navy before and during WW2? Edit: in particular, it seems that the XP-47 was designed around the specifications in Circular Proposal 39-770. Is the text of this proposal anywhere online?"...	[ "Offhand, I have no idea what their lives would have been like, but I can recommend a book. Check out Empire Families by Elizabeth Beuttner, it's about the families of imperial civil servants and other administrators, and how they dealt with living in India. If you want to research them in particular, your best ...
EIL5 why SOPA is even being considered (I'm I Brit)	[ "Because there is a lot of money behind it, and the people deciding on it don't actually have a fucking clue." ]	[ "I feel like this should be in /r/answers. I can't imagine this is a complicated concept that needs to be simplified. This is a subreddit for explaining complex things as simply as possible, not a subreddit for asking questions a five-year-old would ask." ]
What role, if any at all, did the Soviet-Afghani War have to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union?	[ "It contributed in a few ways. First, it was an enormous expenditure that the USSR couldn't really afford. The USSR's economy was already struggling and this further weakened it. Second, the fact that the Soviets had to withdraw eventually with little to show for the nearly 10 year offensive was a major blow to int...	[ "[Saudi Aramco](_URL_0_) (the Saudi oil company) has substantially increased oil outputs by request of the US and some western countries. This has largely increased the the supply of oil, which has driven down the price big time. The US asked the Saudis to do this in order to put pressure on Russia, who makes near...

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