Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why were Europeans and Asians able to advance technologically while natives of North America, South America, and Africa were not?	[ "Try reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He attributes the discrepancy to the way Eurasia is a large landmass in a relatively small latitude range, allowing people (merchants, warriors, etc), crops, germs (Europeans much more resistant to germs compared to Native Americans because they're exposed to ...	[ "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." ]
What is 'Virtue Signalling'?	[ "Virtue signaling is when you try do bring significant attention the the fact that you did something good or virtuous just to make yourself look better (this works for belief systems as well). It sort of makes one question the motives behind your actions. Did you do it because you felt like it was the right thing t...	[ "Because Virgin and Straight talk utilize bandwidth throttling and also use unused carrier bands from the major providers. Verizon and other Major carriers provide the hardcore backbone for primary subscribers, and then use the secondary carriers to give a cheaper option, but at reduced functionality. They may not ...
Why do they reduce miles of highway to one lane when there's no construction?	[ "There's no construction, that doesn't mean there's no work. Survey teams and inspection teams need to be protected as well. Not all road construction work involve backhoes and steamrollers." ]	[ "Data. Pure, gooey, delicious data. Seriously though - the Airlines are collecting data on a massive scale. If they notice an uptick in travel to/from one city they will use that information to update how their resources are distributed." ]
Do fingerprints actually decrease the life of halogen light bulbs? If so, why?	[ "Very much truth. The oils from your hands make that part of the bulb get hotter than the surrounding glass. The oil doesn't absorb into the glass but it prevents the heat from the bulb from dissipating as efficiently as it would when surrounded by air. The uneven heating leads to thermal stress and eventual (somet...	[ "California has really strict laws. The exact wording is just to comply with a particular labeling law required by the state. And since it makes sense to give the same products to California that you give to the rest of the US, it's common for many products to have the warning printed on the label. Realistically, t...
Why do we have eyebrows?	[ "There's also the \"aquatic ape theory,\" which postulates that we evolved our current bodies in an environment in which there was lots of fresh water around and we did lots of diving and stuff underwater (collecting clams etc). When you emerge from the water, your eyebrows will enable most of the water flowing fro...	[ "Empathy! In humans earlier stages it was important for us to care of our tribe and to care for each other. Thus creating a system for young and old to survive." ]
Is exercising twice a day the same as exercising once a day, for two days?	[ "Well, that depends on what you're trying to do... If you're trying to lose weight, and the exercise is aerobic then yes. It's basically the same in terms of the benefit. If you're trying to gain weight, or strength then no, since this type relies on the time in between the workouts to recover and rebuild." ]	[ "When you copy the file to another drive, bits of information are being physically moved. Also if you are using USB 2.0 the data is delivered at a slower rate than it can be written. If you move or cut and paste the file to the same drive, the information stays in the same place and only the pointers to its locatio...
How do parents decide that babies need glasses?	[ "The parent's part isn't too hard. The easiest example is child might have trouble recognizing faces or objects from a distance. As for the optometrist, they don't perform a vision test, they measure the eye. How light interacts with the human eye is actually very well understood and can be predicted to a certain d...	[ "For myopia (nearsightedness), there's nothing we can say definitively. But researchers have found a [correlation between myopia and time spent indoors.](_URL_1_) For animals, it's extremely uncommon but researchers were able to [induce myopia in an experiment](_URL_0_)" ]
For how long is frozen meat still eatable.	[ "Stuff in industrial warehouses, held at -18C, is good for at least 2 years. This is for all cuts of chicken, fish, pork and beef. While is this slightly anecdotal, it says so right on the box it is in. I worked in a warehouse for 3 years." ]	[ "This is not to discourage further conversation, but this question was asked (and responded to) 3 years ago. The thread is [here](_URL_0_) and in particular u/The_Alaskan , u/grantimatter , and u/soulstealer1984 contributed." ]
Why are temps colder when you increase elevation even though you are "closer" to the sun?	[ "The atmosphere acts like a blanket. The Sun's radiant heat warms the Earth, and the atmosphere keeps in the heat. When you go up in elevation, it is like the blanket getting much thinner. Getting a wee bit closer to the Sun does not compensate for the thinner blanket." ]	[ "If you have a 30W light bulb right in front of you and a 100W light bulb on the other side of the football field, the 30W bulb will appear much brighter because it's so close. By the time the 100W bulb's light gets to you, it's scattered so much that there's barely anything left to come straight at you. Stars ar...
Why hasn't the U.S. government issued a formal declaration of war in any conflict since WWII?	[ "Congress has to make a vote on it, making it harder to achieve. Also the laws of wars, as established after World War II, are very strict and would leave the US government open to litigation (for war for any reason except self-defense). Now the US has something called Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) ...	[ "Because neither party wants it. For the Republicans, they have a substantial portion of their base which is opposed to minimum wage hikes -- or even a minimum wage at all. For the Democrats, they want the wage raised, but the don't want to lose the issue. Every few years they can run on the idea of raising the wag...
What happens if someone dies halfway through rewriting their will?	[ "Since you didnt get to sign it (usually at the end, you stopped midway) i think it's not valid as a legal will." ]	[ "A bypass machine and ventilator. Along with a crap ton of blood products. And your body is packed in ice to reduce body temp so everything slows down and gives them more time. To restart you get a zap directly to the heart, and a pacemaker. Source: had heart valve replaced was \"dead\" for 18 min and had my blood...
How can gun sights indicate the bullet’s trajectory when it’s above the barrel?	[ "Gun sights have what is called a \"zero\". The zero is the range at which the bullet will hit where the sight is aimed. Closer than the zero a bullet will generally hit high, farther it will hit low. Most rifle and some pistols have adjustable sights that dial up and down so the user can adjust the zero to a prefe...	[ "One: known patterns of spread and parameters of the patient. For instance, a woman in her earlier thirties with tumors in breast, ribs, and brain is most likely to have breast primary with bone and brain metastases. Two: pathology. Take a biopsy, or a tumor excision, and look at it under a microscope. Some tumors ...
How does Google know/decide which search queries are 'inappropriate' (pornstar names etc.) and to stop trying to auto-complete them?	[ "Since Google can see what links you click on from their page, their system can notice that searching \"Asa Akira\" (nice choice BTW) tends to lead to pornographic sites. Using this information, they'll decide that the term indicates a desire for pornography and they won't put it in auto-complete. It's fine if you ...	[ "Purge processes tend to be run on a schedule. It depends on how often they've scheduled that process to run. There's also data caching that has to be updated and that's on a schedule as well." ]
How do energy saving light bulbs work?	[ "I am assuming you mean CFL's vs incandescent. In this case incandescent bulbs heat a filament enough that its blackbody radiation shifts into the visible range. Now a lot of this electricity that goes into heating dosen't make it out as visible light but instead as heat and is essentially wasted since we cant see...	[ "They are based on an algorithm that uses a secret pre agreed key and the clock in the device. After some time has elapsed the code you have no longer matches the current time." ]
Why does iodinated CT contrast cause patients to feel warm and flushed?	[ "The leading hypothesis is that it due to contrast being hyperosmolar (a higher concentration of dissolved things) compared to blood. This results in increased blood flow to the area of injection and thus increased warmth around the site of injection. Generalized flushing is relatively rare ( < 5%) and may be assoc...	[ "In addition to the concept of activation (mentioned by another poster here), the most common layman's usage of \"becomes radioactive\" simply means \"gets contaminated with radioactive material.\" So, for example, let's say a nuclear bomb is detonated. That blast releases both a bunch of direct, immediate radiat...
Why are our ring finger muscles connected to our pinky finger muscles?	[ "I am going to assume that your referring to how when you flex your little finger your ring finger moves. It would be because there aren't individual finger flexor muscles, there is just the flexor digitorum profundus and superficialis which flex the 2-5 fingers via tendons. Though different parts of these muscles ...	[ "I don't actually know the whole idea behind it but I believe it is intentional habit building. The idea being that if you spend 2 months acting like a character, their mannerisms, their way of thinking etc then when it comes time to actually shoot the scenes you will do these things naturally and subconsciously...
how a fan cools off a room when friction creates heat?	[ "A fan does not cool the room. A fan cools you. Heat is jiggling atoms. Heat is transferred when one atom jiggles into another atom and transfers some of that jiggle. If two atoms are jiggling at the same rate, there isn't much jiggle transferred. You are constantly generating heat. That heat is being transferred i...	[ "The main way that it works is that instead of liquid from your skin evaporating, the lotion evaporates instead. There are more factors involved, but they serve mostly as a barrier." ]
A scene from the movie Gravity - SPOILERS AHEAD!	[ "You're right to be confused. It is 100% wrong as depicted in the movie, and a lot of people of wondered about why they made such a grave error considering the rest of the movie was somewhat realistic. It is likely that the reason this happens in the movie is that it makes things more dramatic. Artistic license i...	[ "I tagged your submission NSFW. Please remember that many contributors and readers here work in offices that frown upon images such as this being linked or porn even discussed. Thank you!" ]
How different could an atmosphere be while remaining breathable?	[ "No, for an atmosphere to be breathable, we really only require oxygen at a concentration close to what we have now (~21%), and the requirement that the rest of the atmosphere be relatively unreactive and harmless at the pressures at which we hope to breath. Currently, the 78% nitrogen and ~1% argon do the trick fo...	[ "we would have to start out in protective domes first. but the plans for long term colonization include terraforming, which is a fancy word for planet engineering. elon musk recently said the fastest way to get that done would be by nuking the polls. the slow way would be to introduce plant life or algae to make ox...
Next comet visible to naked eye	[ "Well, Halley's comet will be back in 2061." ]	[ "They could only identify a few — those closest to us — and they looked just like stars except they moved differently through the sky." ]
Why is the day to day use of the word 'Fantasy' most often associated with medieval centered works of fiction?	[ "When The Lord of the Rings was published, it spawned a giant wave of medieval-ish swords & sorcery books. The genre became known as \"fantasy\" and people haven't stopped calling it that. Since it's such a common type of genre fiction, people generally associate the term with it. If you want to talk about someth...	[ "Growing up in Germany hearing about the Nazis for the first time. It was so far removed from my 1980's reality.. I started seeing my surroundings in a different light. Being curious about my friends' Grandparents whereabouts vs. my Grandparent (both U.S. vets) When my Grandfather (WWII vet) came over from Californ...
When a TV remote is running low on batteries, why does pressing the buttons harder make it more responsive?	[ "Buttons work by pressing two conductors together to complete a circuit. The greater the surface area of contact, the more easily electricity flows, sometimes enough to make a difference whether a device functions or not. A lot of it might be in your head, as well. When you hold the button down, the remote is basic...	[ "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 ...
What exactly is happening when I accidently reverse the batteries in my wireless controller and cause it to smoke?	[ "Some capacitors are polarized. They are used in DC operated devices all the time, as there is always a higher voltage on the one side. Put a polarized capacitor, or a battery connected to it, in backwards and they can explode and/or smoke. I would assume they would have diodes in place to prevent it, as something ...	[ "> I mean whether you put your left earphone on your right ear or vice versa. I still hear the same thing. Not at all. If you have stereo sound on, and a train is coming from left of your screen to the right, the left earphone will play the sound louder." ]
I've heard that services like Uber & Lyft are in a legal "gray area", and they have been ruled legal in some places, but illegal in others. Why is this?	[ "It's new, legislation hasn't caught up yet. In 5-years, these guys will be paying extra for licenses, insurance, fines, health/safety and all sorts of other bureaucracy" ]	[ "Reddit is not a democracy. Each subreddit is run by the mods according to their wishes. If a mod team thinks that links to certain sites are harming the discussion in their subreddit somehow (false information, biased source, etc.) then they ban it because they think it will make the sub better. The democratic par...
Why do flashing lights make epileptic people have seizures?	[ "Not all people with epilepsy have seizures triggered by lights. It's a subtype of epilepsy called photosensitive epilepsy, and it effects about 1 in 20 of people with epilepsy. The exact mechanism isn't perfectly understood because for ethical reasons, it's obviously hard to do any sort of brain imaging while it's...	[ "Not speculation, but not a full high-quality answer, either. Just something to get started. Quick and jerky means longer time spent holding still, which means sharper vision. It's actually really difficult to see when your head is moving--our brains just fill in the details while what we actually see looks like a ...
Why has the Mexican drug war gotten so much worse, when drugs have been moving through the country for years?	[ "There used to more cooperation between the drug trafficking organizations and the Mexican government. Obviously the drug trade was still against the law, but there was a sort of gentlemen's agreement on the way things would be conducted. The cartels wouldn't target civilians, would minimize violence and wouldn't d...	[ "I can't quite give you all the answer, but basically the longer a signal can travel, the lower it's birate or quality is. For example there's a \"channel\" that is very low quality but can be hears all over the world. All you can send is morse code. It's utilised by militarys." ]
why do people use verbose/redundant languages?	[ "Can you expand on this a little bit? What do you mean by verbose/redundant?" ]	[ "Imma answer your question, but first let me tell you about this time I watered the lawn on a warm july afternoon, there were clouds in the sky and childrens laughter.... ok seriously, who knows, maybe they just like to hear themselves type, or create an emotional connection to the recipe, perhaps they are just kil...
What's to stop someone from outside US from simply taking a "vacation" and never leaving?	[ "Nothing. Until your money runs out. Then you need a job. Which requires you to have a visa, or other valid document. Which you won't have, because you never did the paperwork. You can offcourse do various \"non-official\" jobs, but then your risk getting caught by police, or any other authority that deals with mon...	[ "It's easy if you're an international company. Let's say you do business in two countries: Country A (60% tax) - Sales: $1 billion - Manufacturing costs: $0.5 billion - Research and Development: $0.5 billion - Net profit: $0 - Tax Owed: $0 Country B (0% Tax) - Sales: $1 billion - Manufacturing costs: $0 (all your i...
Why am I able to hear a demodulated commercial FM radio signal through my computer speakers?	[ "EE here, a rf low pass filter followed by a Rf detector forms a crude fm demodulator. In this case the wiring and passive components form the filter, and nonlinearity in the audio amp causes it to act like a rf detector." ]	[ "\"High\" and \"low\" are relative so it is difficult to interpret the question. At any rate, your eardrum and the tiny hair therein have frequency-response based on their mechanics (geometry, material, ect). Given the size of the hairs, the answer might have more to do with mechanical resonance than with neuroscie...
Why did the sun appear on the North side (on their right as they traveled West) of sailors doing around Africa in Herodotus' Histories?	[ "I'm not familiar with the story you're talking about. But in the Northern Hemisphere the sun sweeps across the southern part of the sky, and in the Southern Hemisphere it sweeps across the northern part of the sky. Half of Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere, so as you sail around it you're going to see the sun i...	[ "Niépce's house is now a [museum](_URL_1_) and photography is not allowed inside, so unfortunately there is no modern photograph of the view from the window that I can find. That said, [on the website of the Harry Ransom Center](_URL_0_), you can see a sketch done by the historian Helmut Gernsheim, who rediscovered...
What does U2 get out of releasing it's new album for free on iTunes?	[ "A new generation of people listening to their music. Said people may consider buying their other albums which are not free." ]	[ "Insurance. Companies with high-cost, high-risk tasks like sending a $200M thing into space pay BIG insurance premiums for just these kinds of situations. It should be noted the launch today was a test launch." ]
Why do (most) British singers lose their accent when they sing?	[ "Try this in your head: Say \"Matter\" as you would normally, then again emphasizing the \"t\" If you're American, it'll sound like \"mader, maT-ter\". The second one sounds much more British - and this is actually one of the biggest differences in their accent. However, when you sing (ignoring rap and other spoke...	[ "some artists still release albums once a year or every other year. a lot of it now is that artists don't make much money off of album sales, the majority of the money comes from Touring. So, they release an album, then tour in support of it for a year or two, then back to the studios to record a new album, that th...
Why is it illegal to post a full movie online, but it isn't illegal to post a full video game online (like those "Let's Play"-style things on Youtube)?	[ "Fair Use, they're reviewing the material. That said, the bigger game companies don't like that much either." ]	[ "When you write a computer program the compiler compiles the code into a machine readable executable code which is not human readable. For example a python program named _URL_0_ creates _URL_0_c similarly foo.java creates ~~foo.jar~~ foo.class .... (See correction below as pointed by /u/Schnutzel). Now you can ta...
Why cant most console video games support cross platform multiplayer?	[ "They actually can, but is there any point in doing so? It's not going to increase sales. If anything, as it is, some people might buy the same game twice because they want to play with their friends on both PS4 and XB1. The problem with making it cross console/PC is that PC will always be superior in terms of con...	[ "Because they would get sued. The legal system isn't like some kind of beep-boop robot that overlooks totally obvious loopholes. Any company that claimed \"No, we were really advertising the endorsement of Bill Gates, plumber, from Bumfuck, Nebraska.\" would get laughed out of court. As /u/Snewzie pointed out with ...
Is the infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 2 more than the infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1?	[ "No, it's the same size of infinity. The way to handle it is to consider a mapping between the two sets. For every number between zero and two, you can divide it by two to find a partner in the set between zero and one. Every number is mapped so the infinities are the same size." ]	[ "It depends on how much you value money (for most people, winning $2 million isn't literally twice as good as winning $1 million, they'll both make you pretty happy), and how you evaluate risk. From a pure expected value standpoint, the value of making the bet is higher than not making the bet, this doesn't depend ...
What do the Board of Directors actually do?	[ "Shareholders elect the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors have three main functions: they appoint and remove the CEO and other high corporate officers, they have to sign off on the most important corporate decisions, like a merger or a dividend, and they have an oversight responsibility to identify major p...	[ "Round here (Telford, UK) the local one stores salt for de-icing roads in winter. There's another one around which has a riding school in it." ]
Why does Earth hardly ever get hit by meteors?	[ "The earth gets \"hit\" by much, much more space debris (including meteorites) than the moon (and both bodies are being constantly bombarded by it). Most of it burns away in the Earth's atmosphere, however." ]	[ "There isn't a whole lot of fat and meat on humans. When you compare us to a seal or whale. Humans are too boney. Normally when a shark attacks a human they quickly realized this isn't the meal they want and will stop." ]
I've heard talk that Planned Parenthood targets minorities. Where might this idea come from, and is there any truth to it?	[ "What do you mean by target?in terms of advertising? It's likely true to some extent,since PP tends to try to help poor people in particular.minorities are more likely to be poor and not have access to proper care. Since that is their audience,they'll will target their ads to help spread awareness as effectively as...	[ "Nurse practitioners often have years of nursing experience and then return to get their masters degree and become a medical provider. Some work under a Physician guidance but some can work on their own. Physician assistants are similar to nurse practitioners in that they have clinic experience, get their masters a...
Why do some people get personal offended if a woman says she doesn't want kids?	[ "People who do have kids have personally decided to make a sacrifice in their quality of life to have children. When confronted with somebody who choses not to have kids, it makes them question whether they've made the right decisions in life. Rather than accept that they may have made the wrong choice, it's easier...	[ "All species have a typical \"litter size\" for when they successfully breed. It depends greatly on the amount of care the offspring require (this includes the energy put into the eggs). There is a trade-off between how many offspring you can make and the quality of those offspring [(Source)](_URL_4_) For example, ...
Did any regions in the deep south of the US refuse to help the Confederacy during the Civil War?	[ "East Tennessee was maybe the largest, most unionist part of the south below the 36th parallel. East Tennesseean insurgents burned bridges, confederate soldiers hanged east Tennesseeans. There's a book in a Baptist Church in Cades' cove in which someone wrote that they have not me in the church during the war to av...	[ "From Wikipedia: \"Despite having early caucuses, Iowa, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri were not penalized, because their contests did not allocate national delegates\" [Source](_URL_1_) Basically they had votes that didn't count, now they had the \"real\" vote. They did that because they wanted to matter m...
Why can a company's class A and class B shares rise and fall independently from one another?	[ "If one pays a dividend and the other doesn't, changes to the dividend payout will impact one class significantly and barely budge the other. If the company is really struggling the lower class shares may also be at greater risk and therefore more volatile. Usually share classes do move more or less in tandem, but ...	[ "CPU cores communicate cache line locking and staleness information between each other using a bus protocol such as [MESI](_URL_1_) or [AMBA/AXI](_URL_2_). These protocols are then used by the CPU to implement atomic instructions such as `lock xadd` on x86 and `ldrex/strex` on ARM. Edit: Here's an article that give...
An anechoic chamber in Minneapolis is recorded as being -9 decibels. How can there be a negative decibel measurement?	[ "The decibel is a logarithmic scale, rather than a linear one like \"meters\" or \"seconds\". The difference between 10 cm and 20 cm is the same as the difference between 30 cm and 40 cm, but the difference between 10 decibels and 20 decibels is not the same as the difference between 30 decibels and 40 decibels...	[ "The warmth that radiates from your body acts like a kind of insulation. So let's say you're standing in 32 degrees weather with no wind and it feels a certain way. Once the wind blows against you, your \"insulation\" gets blown away and suddenly 32 degrees feels colder than before, even though the temperature tech...
What is 99.9% "empty space" in an atom, exactly?	[ "> I read that an atom consists of 99.9% empty space (and the nucleus inside, too) - so what exactly is there? Nothing. It's empty. If something was there, it wouldn't be called \"empty.\"" ]	[ "The human mind is incapable of comprehending \"nothingness\", because we've never experienced it. Think of it this way: If you've never seen the color red, but you're aware of the idea of the color red, how would you describe the color red to someone else? You couldn't. You'd have nothng to base it on." ]
Overwatch x Living Tombstone questions	[ "During matches you can change characters to counter (or deal with being countered by) characters on the other team. Like with TF2, if you've ever played that." ]	[ "Tissue engineering - What are some ways to measure cell viability in 3D scaffolds besides MTT, CyQuant, live/dead and histology?" ]
Did people living in high mortality societies (esp child mortality) feel differently about grief and loss than us?	[ "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...	[ "For the basics, I'd start with Nehemiah Levtzion's (older) Ancient Ghana and Mali. Susan Keech McIntosh has a paper reviewing developments since that book was published, \"Reconceptualizing Early Ghana\" (Canadian Journal of African Studies 42 (2008), 343\\-373). Susan McIntosh and Rodney McIntosh have a wide rang...
What is happening since Antibiotics are going to stop working for us?	[ "The problem is... evolution. We've used antibiotics so much that, if things continue, only antibiotic-resistant germs will survive and reproduce. We can keep coming up with new antobiotics, but the cycle will just keep repeating unless we manage to find something that kills 100% of all germs... not easy to do with...	[ "Every time you make a copy of a cell, there is a chance for errors. For example when you photocopy a first print, it is pretty crisp and close to the original, but there are a few minor discrepencies. Now if you photocopy the copy, it gets more distorted, and so on until some letters get hard to read, it gets diff...
Why does water have no taste?	[ "We can't taste pure water (H2O), because there are no receptors in our mouth to register the molecule. If water does have a taste, it comes from other minerals that are solved in the water. Fun fact, I think that cats and dogs are able to taste water, because they do have the correct receptors." ]	[ "The temperature sensors in your skin can only detect relative changes in temperature. Not absolute temperature. You can show this by doing a simple experiment with three cups of water. one cup of ice water, one cup of room temperature water, and one cup of hot water. Place a finger of your right hand in the ice w...
That unsettling feeling you get when you see a bad injury.	[ "It's called empathy mixed with a bit of realization. Empathy is being able to imagine yourself in the same situation as someone else and having many of the feelings that come along with that situation. The realization comes in when you look up and realize that it happened to someone and you suddenly feel terrible...	[ "I don't so much think of it as an evolutionary thing. There's really no benefit to being confused. It comes down to computing power. Your brain just takes a minute to recall old information/piece together new information to develop an idea of where you are and how you got there. I'm currently in flight school and...
After the collapse of the Soviet Union did any noteworthy historical evidence come out from the KGB or Stasi? For example, were any files found that referred to JFKs assassination?	[ "Im sure that there are hundreds of books based off of research done on sources from the Soviet archives. One author, David M Glantz, has completely rewritten the history of World War Two in the east. One of the interesting \"discoveries\" he made during his research was that of the 2nd Kharkov offensive. The 2nd ...	[ "To be clear, with very few exceptions, everybody is spying on everybody they can reasonably afford to. International politics often involves knowing who will support or oppose different proposals and learning the best way to change their support if you don't agree with it. Perhaps Germany is planning in secret to ...
Homosexuality in Native American Groups (Original)	[ "This has been [asked](_URL_0_) previously if you'd like to check out that answer." ]	[ "There's room for discussion, perhaps the section [Natural Disasters](_URL_0_) from our FAQ will answer your inquiry. You might also be interested in this [NPR article](_URL_1_) on how Kiowa recorded events like tornadoes." ]
How do those "commemorative gold coins" sold on TV work? Are they a scam?	[ "If you mean things like those produced by the National Collector's Mint, such as the 9/11 commemorative coin, they are simply a private company that produces coinage which is not legal tender and has no value beyond its components and/or collector interest. Arguably, at least some of these companies attempt t...	[ "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 ...
After ascending to the Spanish throne in 1975, Juan Carlos I took the titular title King of Jerusalem. Has this claim caused any issues with Israel and/or Muslim countries?	[ "I'm curious how he ended up with the title in the first place when after the fall of the Latin States the title was part of the HRE?" ]	[ "The major difficulty with questions like this is what we mean by those terms -- what is a country, what is a civilization, what is meant by power? For example, the Mongols conquered large parts of Asia and Europe beginning in the 13th century, but was that a nation? Or civilization? How would you rank its power re...
[Sponsored Content] How many people will be saved from starvation by the recently passed Farmer Assurance Provision to US House bill 933?	[ "Sec. 735 of US HR 933, known popularly as the Monsanto Protection Act ladies and gentlemen /r/askscience has successfully jumped the shark!" ]	[ "The supreme court had previously held that making private copies available for use by others was legal in Canada (see BMG vs. John Doe). As such, there was no legal copyright infringement that copyright holders could use as leverage to get (the subpoenas required to get) ISPs to disclose the identities of the file...
Why does the uncertainty principle refer to position and momentum instead of position and velocity?	[ "Heisenberg originally wrote: \"It can be expressed in its simplest form as follows: One can never know with perfect accuracy both of those two important factors which determine the movement of one of the smallest particles—its position and its velocity. It is impossible to determine accurately both the position an...	[ "The LHC doesn't send single particles around, they move clouds of particles in groups around. They source these particles from pure element samples; if you want cesium nuclei to be accelerated then they would get a very pure sample of cesium and heat it to a plasma, then draw the electrons away to leave bare cesiu...
Why does ice not rotate with the cup when in a cup of water that's being rotated?	[ "It has to do with the viscosity of the fluid. By rotating a cup you're trying to force the water to rotate by viscous shear (friction) forces on the wall. For water at this scale, the inertial (non-viscous) forces are much stronger than the viscous forces -- this is the essence of the Reynolds number. The water wi...	[ "The equation you posted is about the thermal energy change. (dT is temperature not time). The object in the freezer will cool faster because it has more convective heat transfer, temperature change due to a difference with the surrounding air. See [here](_URL_0_). You want to look at Q^dot not Q. Q^dot is the rate...
Surely gerrymandering will ultimately help one party less (Democrat or Republican in the US), so why doesn't that one party actively campaign against it?	[ "It helps republicans in some cases, it helps democrats in some cases, but it helps virtually every individual currently holding office. For example, if I'm a congressperson for Dallas, Texas, lets say it's a 60/40 split in favor of republicans. Perhaps Gerrymandering has created 3 solidly republican districts and...	[ "Can you clarify your question? I see a map of a county in AZ detailed with geographic representations, and another map of the town boundaries in MA. You should look at similar maps to compare the 2 [MA](_URL_1_) and [AZ](_URL_3_) If you're asking about the make up of the political boundaries (i.e. Why does AZ not ...
Why is there such an even split between democrats and republicans?	[ "It's not really. There have been significantly more people who identify as Democrat than Republican for > 20 years, but democratic support tends to come from groups with low voter turnout. The biggest shift in the American electorate is the rise of independents. _URL_0_" ]	[ "I feel like this question is a bit outside of this subreddit's scope, it's really more of an economics question, plus if you look at [this graph](_URL_0_) then you can see that they were at very similar levels until around 20 years ago when they diverged, so anything following that violates the subreddits 20 year ...
Why are "Moscow Mules" always served in a copper mug - what is special about the mug?	[ "The reasoning that the mug gets cold is obviously a good thing, but that implies that copper has a very high exchange rate of temperature. It does, that's why they use copper for computer heatsinks. Very good at heat transfer. Which is bad. Your drink will get warmer faster and your body heat will transfer to the ...	[ "Did this used to be a sphere that you broke open? It seems like you have something similar to a [Moqui marble](_URL_0_). These are basically just iron rich waters that flow throughout the rock and end up precipitating in certain areas that contain a nucleus of a certain material. If it is cylindrical, then you pr...
What level of planet detail is practical to attain with an amateur telescope?	[ "With an eight-inch telescope, Saturn looks like this: _URL_0_ And you could see bands on Jupiter." ]	[ "> I see pictures like this: _URL_0_ and long to see this sight for myself. I think those types of pictures are taken using decent cameras with high ISO settings and a long exposure time (maybe 25 seconds or more). They don't reflect what you'd see with the naked eye, unfortunately. Here's one photographer's rendit...
How close should I drive to another car to use the air gap behind it?	[ "The movie was [Days of Thunder](_URL_0_) and he was talking about [Slipstreaming or Drafting](_URL_1_). As to your question, this depends on * The velocity of the cars * Geometry of both cars * Atmosphere status (temperature, rain, snow ... although they have very little effect at higher speeds) On the street it's...	[ "OP-- are you asking about the shortest time interval needed by the brain to distinguish two separate sounds in time? (forward/backward masking) Or are you asking how far apart in frequency two tones have to be for our brain to distinguish them as two separate tones and not one combined tone? (critical bandwidth) O...
How is it decided whether someone is sane or insane during a trial?	[ "I studied brain science in university, but am not a lawyer. That's not actually what they are trying to decide. They decide something more specific: if the person was unable to appreciate the consequences of their actions due to mental illness. Normally this is done by having a couple of different psychiatrist...	[ "_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...
Why do the tidal forces that act on Earth and Io's crust which produce friction not violate the second law of thermodynamics? Are the orbits decaying? Is there some other system losing energy in this process?	[ "Lots of good answers about process here, but I don't think anybody's put a clear focus on the key question: what system is losing energy when tidal energy is generated? The answer for both Jupiter/Io and Earth/Moon is: the planet's rotation is slowing down. & #x200B;" ]	[ "Yes. For a normal vacuum, yes these objects would be, but for small masses, the kinetic energy needed to ensure they never collide or fly off into infinity is tiny." ]
Why does your nose run when you cry?	[ "Tears drain through the tear duct (nasolacrimal duct) into the nasal cavity. So unless your tear duct is blocked, crying enough necessarily leads to a runny nose." ]	[ "To keep balance we need our arms to swing roughly in time with our legs, when at walking pace this is quite slow and easy to do, when running we need to do it quicker. By bending the arm it lets us move it forward and backward quicker so is better for running, but when walking the energy required to keep the arm b...
How does intelligence change with age?	[ "An accepted academic philosophy states that as we age, we gain a form of \"crystalized intelligence\" which is formed through the brain's natural assimilation of lived experiences. But although we gain this \"intelligence\" other variants such as kinesthetic and operational intelligences greatly diminish. This is ...	[ "Spelling never really gets any harder. Vocabulary just expands. It would be like having addition class." ]
Do we know of any micro-organisms that could possibly survive space travel via asteroid?	[ "I am not exactly qualified to answer this question, but I did read an article the other day regarding Tardigrades. From what I understand they are the closest microorganisms that humans know of that could survive each of those kinds of environments. Here's a link to more information about them. _URL_0_" ]	[ "This was experimented with a bit in the '50s by both the Americans and the Soviets. The main issue is that to protect the crew from radiation you need a lot of heavy shielding, and this makes it difficult to fly. _URL_0_" ]
What exactly happens to your body when it is given up to science? Where does it go and what do they do to it?	[ "When you die, and you are health(ish) the morgue will give your body to an institution, such as a university or a hospital, that then will use your body to learn more about how living people's bodies work. I had the \"privilege\" of seeing a cadaver (a donated body) at a local university and they basically used it...	[ "I've deleted this thread because all the answers were speculation and assertion which goes against the spirit of /r/AskScience. Feel free to ask again at a later time where you might hopefully get a better response." ]
If California is so dry, why is so much food grown there? Why not just grow it elsewhere?	[ "Dry climates tend to have very rich soil because little rain leeches nutrients from the soil (but they need irrigation to make the soil productive). California also has a very mild climate that features a very long growing season allowing a large of variety of agricultural products to be grown (many are quite val...	[ "The sugar in the cookies is hygroscopic, which means that it will draw moisture from the air into the sugar's structure and hold on to it. Bread however is not hygroscopic and the moisture inside of it evaporates into the air. The moisture that evaporates from the slice of bread is then drawn into the cookies." ]
How do energetically excited atoms give off light?	[ "> How does this decay process actually happen, and why does an electron decaying to a lower-energy state produce an electromagnetic wave? The atom plus electromagnetic field is described by a quantum state vector, and the state vector evolves with time according to quantum mechanics. Electrons have electric charge...	[ "Basically, we're not looking at the colours as one would normally look at colours. Instead, you're looking at the spectrum. [This is an image showing the spectra of several galaxies.](_URL_2_) See the spikes? We know exactly what part of the spectrum those spikes should appear in if there's no red shift or blue ...
How can experts find the source of a fire from inspecting a burnt down house?	[ "the tea room in my factory burnt down a while back the firemen put the fire out, then came back the next day to look around / do a fire safety check the top fire guy (whatever he's called) spend 15min explaining to the trainee he had with him where the fire started, how is spread, what caused it to spread like tha...	[ "I actually applied for a job doing this exact thing a couple years ago. What they did, was to have the contractor send the reasearch facility a small sample of the wall, which was prepared and studied under a [Scanning electron microscope](_URL_0_). Known as a SEM, these types of microscopes bombards your sample w...
Why can some animals & insects eat wood, but humans can't?	[ "The short answet is that we can't digest cellulose, and neither can those other animals. Ruminants (cows) and termites use symbiotic bacteria living in their gut to digest it for them. Leaf cutter ants take leaves and grow fungus on them and then eat the fungus." ]	[ "Food takes time to reach the stomach, and you'll notice if you eat and then wait you'll be less hungry. Chewing more simply takes more time to do, and so you get full with less food" ]
Why are there layers of clouds in the sky?	[ "It's the latter: water condenses into clouds at different heights depending on the temperature and the amount of water vapor in the surrounding air at that height. Clouds will form wherever condensation is happening faster than evaporation. Those two rates depend on both the temperature of that layer of air, as we...	[ "A pretty big part of it is chemical bonding. Throughout the structure, there are different types of bonds with varying strengths and affinities (hydrogen, ionic, and covalent). There are different levels of structuring that also aid in shape, those being primary, secondary, tertiary, and sometimes quaternary. The...
Is there a biological or scientific reason people splash water in their faces to feel better after a stressful situation?	[ "The ancient Samurai codex of Hagakure recommends that when one is feeling flustered, it is best to dab your tongue and swipe a spot of saliva between the brows. It will cool even your hottest temper." ]	[ "It's called the Mpemba effect _URL_0_ There's controversy around it because much of the evidence is anecdotal and the effect can't yet be reliably recreated in a controlled lab-setting. However, this anecdotal, non-repeatable evidence has come from enough disparate and respected sources that the Royal Society ha...
Why is calculus important in the medical field?	[ "When you take any medication, someone has to have calculated how long the drug lasts at each dosage level. They have determined the correct dose for each body weight. They know how that medication is affected by other drugs, including how the duration or decay rate changes. To do these types of calculations, scien...	[ "Well depending on how many fingers they had they'd probably use a different base counting system. We use base 10, there are 10 different units before we gave to move to another digit. This is largely from the fact we have 10 fingers to count on. So a 8 fingered alien would count 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15...
How do forensic psychologists create such specific criminal profiles?	[ "They don't. Criminal profiling is a pretty controversial topic among professionals. For every criminal profile that is right there is usually one that is wrong. The efficacy of criminal profiling is hotly debated. It doesn't help that shows misrepresent what it is and how well is works." ]	[ "Follow on question: how good/reliable/accurate were wanted ads and descriptions? How often were the wrong people brought in from far away only to be released when recognized as not the person being sought?" ]
Why and how is snake venom used to create medication? What kind of medication is this and what are its "special" characteristics?	[ "While I can't tell you if or how it is used in other medicine I can tell you how it is used when making antivenom. The idea with using snake venom to make an antidote is essentially the same as the basic idea behind vaccines: Using a small harmless dose to encourage an immune system to learn to fight the real dea...	[ "Ok, here we go. This is my first ELI5, so I hope it helps. Feel free to critique anything. Think of DNA as a recipe. You have all kinds of recipes: cakes, pies, fruitcake. For the rest of this example, we will use cake recipes. There are set instructions, but you can also tweak them a little (strawberry cake, van...
What is it that radical groups have that makes many young people from wealthy countries join them even though it makes no sense objectively?	[ "They are fighting for something they believe in. Just because you don't believe in it doesn't mean it doesn't make \"objective\" sense. Values are not objective. People want to be involved with a movement that is bigger than themselves. It gives them a sense of purpose and meaning in life that's bigger than just g...	[ "_URL_0_ Radioactive subtances are substances that are unstable in the short term (meaning, they decay into lighter elements). When they decay, they emit energetic particles (alpha, beta, gamma radiation) that affects the chemical composition of our body's atoms, damaging them. Depending on how much radiation you a...
How does drinking distilled water differ from tap water in regards to the health of a person who suffers from gout?	[ "Probably not at all. Gout is unrelated to the salts (calcium, magnesium, etc.) found in trace amounts in tap water; instead, it results from uric acid that precipitates in joints and tendons. It is generally thought that this uric acid (which is comprised solely of [hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen](_URL_0_)) came f...	[ "Hey all, lurker turned member here. Saw this and couldn't not put my two cents in. I'm an LPG contractor for Calor in the UK, and I've had insight and heard a lot of details in a lot of meetings over the years. Simple answer? Oil, as we are all so constantly reminded, is a finite resource. Why use your own when yo...
Why does ICE need a criminal conviction in order to deport illegals?	[ "I believe what you're referring to is the process by which someone is deported. In order to be deported, most persons must first go through deportation proceedings. These proceedings are to determine if the person is truly here illegally and if they're eligible for any type of relief that would permit them to rema...	[ "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 does ice expand?	[ "As water solidifies into ice, water molecules arrange themselves into a crystalline structure [that looks like this.](_URL_0_) Because there's much more space between the molecules when they are arranged than when they're free to move as a liquid, there's also the need to occupy more volume to hold the same amount...	[ "heat melts the plastic which is then stretched by blowing into it like a bubble. The plastic cools and the bubble stays." ]
Why it would be destructive to humanity if we implemented a perfect society as illustrated in the book, "The Giver?"	[ "If you read \"The Giver\" and don't know the answer to your own question, you need to read the book again. It is spelled out in black and white (no pun intended) the problems with this perfect society." ]	[ "Every time you make a copy of a cell, there is a chance for errors. For example when you photocopy a first print, it is pretty crisp and close to the original, but there are a few minor discrepencies. Now if you photocopy the copy, it gets more distorted, and so on until some letters get hard to read, it gets diff...
What does depression do to your body that allows it to sleep for so long?	[ "I dont know that its necessarily biological in the sense of like certain sleeping hormones are released but more on the side of lacking motivation and not wanting to be awake so you dont have to deal with the feelings. Because alternatively, in some people with depression theres a lack of sleep or usableness to sl...	[ "Genetically speaking it exists because it poses a survival advantage. Sometimes the guys who go out hunting get killed by the tiger, and the ones who gather nuts and berries near the cave live to pass on their genes. Also some studies show that depresses persons have a more accurate appraisal of the world. So in...
What are the differences between different types of toothpaste (eg whitening vs enamel strength vs gum repair) and why doesn’t one toothpaste just do everything?	[ "Most toothpastes all have same ingredients, just some more than others. Mainly a marketing ploy." ]	[ "Breasts and thighs cook at different rates. If you cook them the same amount of time, you are likely overcooking the breast and perfectly cooking the thighs. Also, tenderness is a combo of the structure of the meat and moisture level. Chicken breast has almost no fat or connective tissue. When you cook it, you are...
The difference between inner joins and left joins on MySQL	[ "This is an excellent visual guide on all things SQL joins. [A Visual Explanation of SQL Joins](_URL_1_) Edit: [Here is one i used to had a printout of stuck next to my desk at work: ](_URL_0_) Similar venn diagram style but in a 1 page format." ]	[ "A news article and paper (Madera et al. 2009, see below) were forwarded around my department a few months ago about how women are described differently than men in reference letters and the consequences of that. They found that: 1) people described in reference letters that used \"communal\" or \"emotive\" words t...
How can experiments run on unique apparatus be peer reviewed?	[ "The same way that experiments run on non-unique apparatus are reviewed. The reviewer reads it, ensures that 1) it's noteworthy, 2) it makes sense and 3) it's original. I mean, reviewers don't exactly go and run the experiments anyways. There's always a level of trust involved that the data were not fabricated." ]	[ "They are photographed vertically in a booth. The booth has a high-res camera mounted facing down. You put the piece face up on the table and photograph it." ]
Wednesday What's New in History	[ "Hebrew University announced today they found a seal bearing the name of King Hezekiah. _URL_0_" ]	[ "BTW, for those that are downvoting this question, I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to explain the motivation. On reddit in general I could care less if something I write gets downvoted, but here in askHistorians it decreases the chances something I ask will get answered so if I am breaking some sor...
How did the polls get it so wrong in the UK about BREXIT, and how does the same phenomenon apply to the US for this election?	[ "The BREXIT polls weren't \"so wrong.\" They pretty consistently depicted about equal amounts of support for each side and the final vote ended up being 51-49. There is no \"phenomenon\" in play here and the BREXIT polling has nothing to do with the US election." ]	[ "A few things to realize before trying to draw conclusions like this: * Science is an evolving process that doesn't end with a single study. One study's results could be refined or contradicted by other studies, and it takes multiple iterations to suss out the truth. * Science journalism is terrible. University PR ...
Why does sweat become cold when we perspire?	[ "For the exact purpose you sweat in the first place. It is the tool your body uses to regulate temperature. As the sweat evaporates into the atmosphere, a heat exchange takes place and you experience a cooling sensation. It is similar to (though not exactly like) the water in your car's radiator cooling the engine...	[ "The molecules in the steel bind with the sulfur molecules left on your fingers from things like garlic and onions, and when you rub your hands against the steel under cold water, the molecules are washed away." ]
How do automatic windshield wipers know when the windshield is wet?	[ "There is a sensor on the windshield, usually translucide so you don't see the wires. This sensor act like a phone touch screen, it changes capacitance when water is rolling down on the windshield. this changes inform the onboard computer and automatically engage the wipers. Some also provide how much water there i...	[ "Assuming your hypothetical planet has an atmosphere, it would have weather. By definition, even if the weather at any given place were always the same, it would still be weather. There have been studies on this topic, with varying results, depending on constraints and assumptions. However, all results (specificall...
How close are we to stopping dementia/similar afflictions? Are there any measures that can be taken to prevent them?	[ "I believe that there is a lot of potentially very significant research underway that will offer hope to people with these conditions in the not too distant future, but they are sufficiently far off that there is still a lot of ground to cover. The human brain is the most complex structure known to us in the unive...	[ "This is just a quick response. Fission: Search generation 4 reactors. This is the active area of research for the future of nuclear fission reactors. In addition, small modular reactors (SMRs) are big areas of research. Fusion: In this area you have competition between inertial confinement fusion and tokamaks. In...
How true is it that racism was created by Western Imperialism?	[ "They're not saying that there were no problems between people (we'd identify as) of different races before the concept of race arose; of course there were. \"Racism\" vs. \"Harmony\" is a false dichotomy. You don't have to really get too far into the history: race as a rigid category with scientific pretensions is...	[ "Let me just correct you the IVC sites was first discovered by Archeologist Daya Ram Sahni in 1921 at Harrappa, present day Pakistan. The second major was discovered by R.D Banerjee at Mohenjodaro in Sindh, Pakistan(then British India). Just to Add on in 1853 A.Cunningham a British Engineer did discover a Harrappan...
In China, kids are taught to be sitting up straight from a very young age. Is this actually beneficial physically?	[ "Chiropractor told me this morning that if your bones are misaligned it can affect your organs and how they are positioned. If you slouch and have bad posture it makes sense that your organs, intestines, stomach will be somewhat compressed throughout the day and throwing other joints out of alignment. In Asian cu...	[ "The structure of an LCD panel [isn't completely flat](_URL_0_). This isn't an accurate analogy in terms of structure, it's just the principle. If you imagine an LCD super zoomed in, think of it as looking down at a cityscape, all skyscrapers and such. If you look down at it directly from above, you can see the st...
Does the heart rate respond to changes in the muscles or does the heart rate respond to changes in the respiration rate?	[ "The main influence on heart rate is stimulation from the autonomic nervous system, either from sympathetic fibres (increase HR) or parasympathetic fibres (decrease HR). These signals are constantly fine tuning the heart rate in response to various changes in your body, including both how much oxygen you’re taking ...	[ "The Doppler effect depends on the relative speeds of the source of light and the observer of that light. So yes, some alien observing the sun from a different star would see the light of the sun red-shifted or blue-shifted depending on whether it was moving towards or away from them. It is interesting that the equ...
How do the bacteria from "microbiomes" in the GI and elsewhere in the body begin?	[ "Yes, and that's one of the reasons natural birth and breast feeding is preferred over c-section and bottle feeding. It allows faster seeding of the GI tract." ]	[ "You might want to take a look at [epigenetics](_URL_0_), which is a study of where the rubber of genetics meets the road of environment. Basically biological functions are entirely due to protein activity. Protein activity is influenced by many factors, but the big ones are genetic and environmental. Protein act...
Why is that when you subtract a number from its reverse, the difference is a product of 9?	[ "Well the two digit number can be represented by 10x+y (eg 21 is 10x2+1), and its reverse is thus 10y+x (eg 12 is 10x1+2). Now when you subtract the two, you get: (10x+y)-(10y+x) = 10x-x+y-10y = 9x-9y = 9(x-y). Now it no longer matters what x and y are, since there's a 9 outside, the number must be divisible by 9."...	[ "There is a back door into every house. People put alarms all over their house. Have a key? You can get in the front door. When you need to break in you use the back door. Now only bad people use the back doors. So when someone comes in the back door, the alarm goes off. Your crack is a bad person, technically. He ...
What's the difference between polyethylene and a very long linear paraffin?	[ "Purely linear polyethylene is indeed just a very long linear alkane (paraffin). In practice, however, almost all commercial polyethylene has some chain branching, even if the chains are short. The molecular weights of commercial polyethylenes also tend to be far higher than what you'd find in naturally occurring l...	[ "Thank you for this helpful post. As a mostly uneducated consumer on this topic, I have often wondered the answer to this very question. My primary concern is which one causes the least environmental damage to the actual earth after it's thrown away, as I recently found out that even though my town collects my recy...
How does the ATM know how the value of each paper bill that is inserted or ejected from the machine?	[ "For deposits, the ATM is equipped with sensors that can identify the bill denomination and validity to a certain extent. A well crafted counterfeit could fool the sensors (especially bleached bills), but a stack of paper with the #5 in the corners would not. For withdrawals, the machine is pre-programmed to believ...	[ "By what it will buy. That's pretty much it. What it will buy is influenced by outside psychological factors: do gas suppliers think a shortage is coming up? Less gas for the same money. Was there a major crop failure someplace? Fewer groceries for the same money. Did the stock market drop last week? Prices in gen...
How many cannonballs could a 16th (17th and 18th) century ship take before it sank?	[ "Adding to the many excellent replies, wooden ships lasted well into the 19th century. One technology that made them dangerously obsolete was the Paixhans gun. It allowed naval guns -- which needed to fire at low angle and high velocity -- to fire explosive shells. The explosive shell was trigged using a delayed fu...	[ "When you say \"Does this apply to modern day\", do you mean to ask whether it is still the case that the family of Otanes \"submit[s] to the rule of the king only so far as they themselves choose [and] continues to be the only free family\" in modern-day Iran (or Afghanistan, or Iraq, etc.)? If that's really what ...
Why is GPS always significantly slower than the car odometer? Which is more accurate?	[ "The accuracy of a vehicle's speedometer is specified by SAE standards. There have been several iterations over the years, including bracketing (positive and negative allowance) and 0-x percentage allowances. These standards are available behind paywalls if you are interested. There are also different legislative ...	[ "In cities and towns there are organizations whose job is to keep track of traffic on their roads and highways. These are usually radio or tv stations, but some larger cities (LA or NYC) have specially designated groups who just keep track of traffic. All of these places have databases that are constantly updated ...
Are conjoined twins more common now than in the past?	[ "I believe there has been a subtle increase in the number of cases but this is to be expected given that the number of twins in general is increasing, largely related to fertility treatments. I believe the increase in incidence of congenital twins has largely mirrored the increase in all twin types, but I don't hav...	[ "_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...
Why do I get butterflies in my stomach when I am nervous or anxious?	[ "Really basic (to the point it's almost wrong, but still explains it correctly): Being nervous/anxious triggers the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) which sort of tells the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) to chill out, since it's not necessary to digest food when you're about to run fo...	[ "Think of a marbel in a field at night, you know it is somewhere on the field but you just cannot make it out. Now imagine it's moving. On the other hand, imagine a street light with a fly buzzing around it. You cannot see the fly but if you look at the light long enough you can just make out something changing in ...

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