Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why does adding neutrons to an element cause a radioactive isotope to be made, and why only in some cases?	[ "There's a reasonably in-depth answer [here](_URL_0_). In layman's terms, what it's saying is that as you add neutrons past a certain point, these added neutrons have to go into higher-energy states. In general, high-energy states are less stable than lower-energy states, hence the reduction in stability overall. W...	[ "Engineering new chaperone proteins is probably a ways off. There are potentially easier ways to treat prion diseases, anyway. Essentially, susceptible protein must \"nucleate\", or turn into an aggregate of the prion form. This process is sufficiently slow as to be negligible in vivo, though; nucleated prion prote...
Why did Albania side with China during the Sino-Soviet split?	[ "A few reasons. 1. Albania needed a patron and needed to be with someone. 2. Enver Hoxza was a committed and hard core communist and didn't like the Krushchev \"reforms\". Hoxza thought Krushchev was going soft. 3. And this is the most important one, Tito had designs over Albania and it looked like the Soviets were...	[ "Hi, I've approved the post, but just a note to you and potential respondents: this subreddit has a 20-year rule against discussing current events, so any answers will have to cut off at 1997. If you're looking for answers that can include 1998-2012, do consider x-posting elsewhere, eg. a foreign affairs sub like /...
Can someone explain to me emergent properties? _URL_0_	[ "Emergent properties are properties are properties that only become apparent when something is present in numbers. A single piece of paper is easy to tear, an emergent property of paper is that it is difficult to tear (like a phone book). Single heart cells beat erratically, when enough heart cells are put together...	[ "Your eyes are perceiving that your body should be in one position (lying down in case of the linked gif), yet the signal from the balance centers in your ears are sending a different signal to your brain. This dissonance causes your brain to try and make you feel how you should based on the signal from your eyes."...
How would increasing a speed limit on a highway reduce the chance of accidents?	[ "Higher speed limit allows more vehicles to pass through a space in a certain amount of time, lowering the amount of crowding. Also, allowing drivers to go a more natural speed for the road conditions lowers the amount of disparity in speed between those obeying the law and those driving at what would be considered...	[ "think of the internet like a giant pipe from your house. How big the pipe is is the bandwidth. So the more bandwidth you are using the less other people can use." ]
Will paint dry in space?	[ "Yes, paint \"drying\" is the release of the volatile solvent from the paint. An analogous term is \"off-gassing\". On earth, if you want to \"off-gas\" a solvent, you put the part or article containing the solvent into a vacuum chamber. The lower pressure causes any volatile material to (whether it is a petrochemi...	[ "A lot of experiments to see what happens when there is little to no gravity going on. How it affects human body, how it affects, plants, animals, bacteria, equipement ect. It's also much easier to set up experiments that require very cold temperatures or very low pressures. [Here's a list.](_URL_0_)" ]
Why does biology/evolution favor a 50-50 gender split in humans and other mammals even though from a reproductive perspective the male is not necessary after successful insemination?	[ "I think there's a misconception here that everything we see about humans is \"favored by evolution\". A better way of describing it would be \"the best that evolution can do\". Humans have a 50/50 split because our process of random sex chromosome assignment makes it about an even chance of having a Y chromosome ...	[ "DNA that fails to replicate \"dies out.\" DNA will naturally mutate when it's copied (a standard process for cells). Sometimes these mutations are beneficial and lead to an organism having better odds at reproducing. Consider two mice. One of them has a mutation which allows it to run 10% faster. Sometime later, ...
When 2 or more sound wave met, it produces sounds from the initial waves despite its form is altered to something else. How is that even possible?	[ "The two waves are only altered where they meet. Once the waves move passed each other, they go back to being just a single wave. Remember what sound waves are, vibrating molecules, most often for us, air molecules. At the point where two waves meet, each wave is trying to get the air molecules at that one point...	[ "An octave is twice the frequency. Think of a child on a swing going back and forth with a constant frequency. If you push at this frequency, you will impart energy to the swinging child. If you push at a different frequency, then your pushes (in general) will not correspond to the times that the swing comes back t...
Is there any reason that the orbitals within subshells are primes numbers?	[ "It has to do with quantum numbers. The l quantum number, known as the azimuthal (I learnt it as angular momentum, but wikipedia says otherwise) quantum number, is what determines whether the electrons orbital is s/p/d/f/g in nature. It can take values 0, 1, 2, 3, 5 for s, p, d, f, g respectively. There is another...	[ "ELI5 version (Using Power Rangers): Primary: The smaller parts that make up the zord (i.e. ball bearings, connecting rods, etc.) Secondary: The specific structures of the Zord (i.e. arm + leg = alpha helices, torso = beta sheet) Tertiary: Zord Quaternary: Megazord p.s. in case you didn't know the zords are their ...
What would happen if our Sun was replaced by a 1 solar mass black hole?	[ "It would get very dark and cold here." ]	[ "SPH modeling suggests you'd end up with one planet. There doesn't seem to be a lot of data that I can find on this. _URL_0_" ]
Why are there three separate languages for the Scandinavian countries, mainly Norway, Sweden, and Finland?	[ "[Wikipedia](_URL_0_) Norway and Sweden spoke the same language under Viking rule, and for a while after, but they were always different dialects. Eventually they diverged completely, apparently sometime in the Middle Ages. Finnish is completely different. It comes from the Uralic family, rather than the Germanic f...	[ "The oldest condominium (i.e. territory with a shared sovereignity or territory with several sovereignities) I know about is Andora : basically, a country ruled by two foreign princes (one spanish cardinal, one french count/king/president) for the last 7 centuries. There are others, like an island between France an...
Why do some restaurants only sell Coke products and others only sell Pepsi? How do they choose?	[ "They make an agreement with a salesman for the local distributor. Usually they pick whoever will make them the better deal." ]	[ "The NFL doesn't put the line there, the network airing the game does, and it is not totally accurate because adding the effect is not going to line up with the chains down to an inch and the chains are official. The lines are pretty close but there are times it looks like a first down when in fact it is not so the...
What objections did the British have to giving the American colonies members in Parliament around the time of the American Revolution?	[ "Follow-up question: How many seats in Parliament would the mainland colonies have probably been allotted, based on population or whatever methods they used, if they had been treated as equal Englishmen? Would it be enough to actually make a difference on the passage of the Stamp Act etc?" ]	[ "The IRS has admitted to unfairly targeting groups during the 2012 election, based solely on the fact that their requests for tax-exemption contained the words \"Tea Party\" or \"Patriot\" in the name. The initial revelation on Thursday claimed that this was solely an activity of \"lower-level\" employees in Cincin...
if people think the US landing on the moon was fake why can we just use our powerful telescopes to take a picture of it?	[ "Earth based telescopes are not powerful enough to image the lunar landing sites - however a recent probe sent to the moon was able to take pictures. _URL_0_ However if you are a die hard conspiracy nut you could just claim that those images are just another part of the cover up." ]	[ "[The comments on this gif](_URL_0_) explain it, specifically [this one](_URL_0_csz5f42): > It's called retinoscopy. You shine a narrow beam through the pupil and focus it on the retina. Then you move the beam up and down. If the beam moves up or down on the retina too fast or too slow compared to your own movemen...
Why do our bodies sit around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit but 98.6 degree weather feels hot?	[ "The human body produces heat, at a rate of somewhere around 100 W averaged over a day, and it needs to get rid of it. If the temperature of our environment is too close to our body temperature, the efficiency with which we can shed our heat is greatly reduced. When the environment is as hot or hotter than our body...	[ "I found this basic experiment after a quick google search: _URL_2_ TL;DR: Measurements after a 1h exposure in the sun: Black shirt: 130 °F, white shirt: 107 °F (Difference: 23 °F or 15 °C). Admittedly not the most rigorous of experiments, but it shows that the phenomenon is real and that the difference can be mor...
What makes music sound good? what causes it to release dopamine in the brain?	[ "Here's one theory... Music is communication, just like a conversation. The frequencies used in music to convey emotion are [similar in pattern](_URL_0_) to the frequencies used in speech to convey the same emotions. So for example when we hear a sad song, the notes and their corresponding frequencies are mimickin...	[ "Hey, I made a quick [video](_URL_4_) to answer your video! If you don't want to watch the video here's what I run over: - Sometimes our thoughts wander, leading us to a thought that we may see as sad or depressing! This can be done subconsciously and without us knowing! - Stimuli can affect our mood, for example: ...
I've heard that human ventilation rate is controlled by the concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood, not the concentration of oxgyen, because it's more important to precisely control blood pH. When someone drowns or suffocates, is death caused by a drop in blood pH or the loss of oxygen?	[ "You can't consciously hold your breath long enough to lower blood pH to lethal levels. As the concentration of CO2 in your blood increases, eventually it will reach the breath-hold breakpoint, where you will reflexively inhale. If you're still underwater at this point, you will inhale water, triggering coughing ...	[ "The body works very hard to make sure that the foods you eat don't significantly alter your blood pH, because fairly tiny changes will simply kill you. Anyone who claims that their diet helps with, prevents, or actually cures a cancer by altering blood pH is a quack, pure and simple. To put it in perspective, any ...
Why can't another WIFI device interfere with another one	[ "> Hey, I'm the router, send me your information\" as Man in the Middle Attack They can do exactly this. It is known as an [ARP poisoning attack](_URL_0_) and it is a type of man-in-the-middle. An attacker sends spoofed ARP packets to other machines on the network, causing them to route all packets through the atta...	[ "The same way you can be in the same yard as a bee. You only get stung if you are a threat. Just ask Steve Irwin." ]
How does tubing along the top of a wall prevent the use of ladders to get over it?	[ "I dont exactly know what your talking about do you have a photo of a reference of this ?" ]	[ "Many international flights have layovers in countries not in the intended destination. Instead of forcing all of these passengers to first be cleared with the government of the layover country, which is time consuming and costs money, they simply designate an area for these people to board their separate flights w...
why is the human lower back so prone to pain as we age?	[ "Because humans aren't fully designed to walk upright. On an evolutionary level, this is \"new\" to us as our ancestors used to walk on all 4 limbs. As such, through our evolutionary path, we still haven't adapted completely to walking upright and quite possibly never will. Other factors include that we don't follo...	[ "Physically developing we are close to a bobcat or other animals in terms of lifespan. We have a much, much more complex world than any other animal does though. We have to eat that play-doh and stick that key in the electric socket to learn that we want to be a philosophy major or an architect. Bobcats can't build...
Why are most songs about three to five minutes long, and movies about two hours long?	[ "In the good old age before Commercial Radio songs were a multiple of lengths. Take for example Meat Loaf's bat out of hell or Queen's Bohemian Rapsody which are long. Commercial Radio required adverts to be inserted at specific points as the time was \"sold\" to investors. This meant radio required songs to fit a...	[ "Engineers are working on that. But you also have to realize this may be a bit misleading of a thought. Battery consumption via screen lighting is also a majority of what a phone does nowadays. Think that no matter what app you are using or what you are doing on your phone you'll always have your screen on. It is ...
How do we know blue eyes didn't exist more than 10,000 years ago?	[ "We don't. What we do know is that every person with blue eyes has genetic material that shows they are descended from a single human that lived about that time ago. So there may well have been other blue-eyed people around at that time, or earlier, but none of their descendants survived to the modern day." ]	[ "No. And to discuss why involves discussion of burden of proof. \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\" Sailing across either the Atlantic and Pacific, and making contact is a pretty extraordinary claim. Books such as \"Peru Before the Incas\", and \" The Last of the Incas\" have nothing to say abo...
cigarette alternatives	[ "There are. There's gum, there're patches as you yourself mention, and other alternatives. However, most people smoke because they like smoking, they like the people they smoke with, and wearing a patch isn't the same." ]	[ "Some of the salt is replaced with potassium chloride which has a similar taste and the benefit of potassium which can be difficult to get in your diet. There might be other substitutions that I'm not aware of." ]
Why are the heads of hammerhead sharks shaped the way they are?	[ "[Several reasons:](_URL_0_) * What u/MJMurcott said * Sharks can sense electricity; the hammerheads' hammer head spreads those sensors out so it acts like a big metal detector (rather than a small one). They particularly like stingrays, which tend to burrow, so having a bigger area to detect buried prey via their ...	[ "Bra design trends. It was an exaggeration of the hourglass figure and intended to highlight femininity. The trend died out with the rise of the women’s lib movement." ]
What exactly is muscle memory?	[ "Muscle memory is when you routinely perform an action to the point where you don't consciously think about doing it. This can bring up a whole mess of trouble when you do a similar task that results in a completely different action -- most easily evident in video games of similar genres. Say for one shooter that c...	[ "Johnny loves math, he's very good at it. But every summer break in between grades, he doesn't practice his math. He does other things like skating, baseball, and playing spin the bottle. No math equations or learning takes place all summer long. When Johnny returns to school, his brain hasn't kept up on math what...
Why did the British Empire use Australia (which was so far away) as a prison? Weren't there cheaper locations?	[ "Before the War of Independence, the British would [ship petty criminals](_URL_0_) to America. Their labor was useful to the economic development of colonies, especially when it came to hard and dangerous work that free colonists didn't want to do. After a certain number of years, they would be free and become norm...	[ "Most of the interior filming is done in Highclere Castle, aka the Abbey, with the exception of some sets which were built in studio. Considering that most shots are done in actual historical places, it's possible that they aren't allowed to film smoking shots indoors due to the preservation of the houses. However,...
If I take a ship from Alexandria to Rome, during the Ancient Roman period, what are my chances of sinking?	[ "Sailing was the primary mode of transportation as it was often much faster than land routes, particularly for cargo, into the fifth century in the Western Med. and substantially later in the Eastern. Stanford's [ORBIS](_URL_1_) project can give you a rough sense of travel times, though these data are to be used wi...	[ "If you're new to the thread, please don't post the Mythbusters episode again. Mythbusters is entertaining but it's not history (or more specifically, it's not historical proof of anything.) The short answer is no, not that we know of. /u/davidaop, our pirate expert, and I have both answered [questions about th...
Does it matter what time I brush my teeth?	[ "Brushing is about killing bacteria, hardening enamel and reducing plaque. You should concentrate on massaging gums though. You shouldn't brush after eating, because acidity of your mouth is high, which makes it easier to damage enamel." ]	[ "_URL_0_ Reportedly cows tend to feed more around sundown when the nutritional content of plants is higher. > “A series of USDA studies looked at animals’ ability to choose different forages. The researchers cut hay in the morning and in the evening and used this in the choice tests. They’ve done it with cattle, g...
Why does a house smell different when it hasn't been occupied for a while?	[ "Like you're five: Your nose has little traffic lights in them. These traffic lights send signals to your brain to tell your brain if the smell is good or bad. When your nose finds new smells the traffic lights turn green, and new smells start to move in. After smelling a smell for awhile your noses traffic lights ...	[ "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." ]
What kind of information can people (governments, corporations, hackers, ect.) remotely pull from your computer and how to protect yourself against them.	[ "This is an extremely broad question, but I'll attempt to tackle it from a personal computer perspective: In theory, anything on your computer can be accessed by anyone with an external connection to your computer. They do this using a variety of means, but it usually involves a: + Virus, or other malicious code (e...	[ "I was curious about this as well, so I did some google-fu and found some results. This is all secondhand so take it with a grain of salt. It seems that the stations contract survey companies to get a rough estimate based on a sample population in the area. Arbitron is one of those companies. How do they do it? The...
Why do apps need access to everything on my phone?	[ "They don't. Take the ubiquitous 'flashlight' app, that needs access to your contact list, your call history, and all your texts. It's all marketing, that app is phoning home all your personal data to a server somewhere." ]	[ "Your question reminded me of this frikkin awesome documentary of about planned obsolescence. [Video snippet](_URL_0_), and the whole documentary, I can't find... but Im sure someone else may be able to. ELI5 version: Because companies want you to keep them in business." ]
If most shows and movies are shot at 24 FPS, why is there a visible difference between 60Hz and 120Hz televisions?	[ "120 Hz TVs often do something called [motion interpolation](_URL_0_), where they take a 60 Hz source, and sort of \"guess\" at what the frames in-between the existing frames should look like. The TV then displays a 120Hz image, where every even frame is from the original 60Hz source, and every odd frame is an inte...	[ "The super super simple version is this: Rulers and clocks change based on where the observer is located. But the laws of physics do not change, and are the same in every frame of reference. A slightly more complex (but still accessible) explanation can be found [here](_URL_0_)." ]
Why do some chargers charges phones faster than others?	[ "Because they're sending more power through. I know this is a rather poor explanation, but it's the simple truth. The voltages are always the same, but the Amperage is higher which means that more power courses through the cable per second. All batteries have an inherent safe-amperage for charging, but it's often...	[ "When you take a pill it's not 100% the labeled medication. There are other ingredients that help it do its job and release when and how it is supposed to. Sometimes a medicine needs more extra ingredients to do its job so you end up with a bigger pill." ]
Why can't you suffocate by holding your breath?	[ "If you do it long enough you will pass out and start breathing again (assuming you don't hit your head on the way down), but most of the time your Britain will just go \"nope\" and force you to breath" ]	[ "This video created by Vsauce 3 (Jake Roper) does a very good job explaining this: _URL_1_ I hope this answers your question. He also did another video on a simmilar line of - could you survive: _URL_0_" ]
What percentage of peasants in the Roman Empire (say in the years 100 and 400 BCE) would have been made up of free men rather than slaves?	[ "What do you mean by 'peasant' in the question. It's not clear to me what you're asking because the term is a loose one and not directly applicable to the Roman Empire." ]	[ "How would we know what an \"average citizen\" thought? Every text we have is produced by the elite class. Whether people lost friends or family is impossible to know in the specifics. We do know that military disaster did not affect the political careers of the generals involved. Rosenstein in Imperatores Victi ...
What did Russia do with its ships in the Black sea after the Crimean war?	[ "> Russia had to remove its ships from the Black sea. --- That's incorrect - per Russo-Turkish protocol, every country could have up to 6 steamers 50 m in length and up to 800 tonn plus 4 ships (steam-driven or under sails) up to 200 tonn. > Its is quite a distance to get to the Baltic sea from there, so did they ...	[ "If you're new to the thread, please don't post the Mythbusters episode again. Mythbusters is entertaining but it's not history (or more specifically, it's not historical proof of anything.) The short answer is no, not that we know of. /u/davidaop, our pirate expert, and I have both answered [questions about th...
Are there any accounts if regional dialects/accents of Latin?	[ "Modern-day Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Romania all had their own regional dialects, which is why their version of Latin does not sound much like Latin today. If you want more specifics, I suggest checking out /r/linguistics." ]	[ "Ooooo, Tony Robinson did a good one. It's the first part of a documentary called \"Romans\" ([Wikipedia link](_URL_1_)). Try watching it [here on Dailymotion](_URL_0_). It's about 45 minutes long, so it's not exhaustive, but definitely full of lots of great information." ]
Is it possible for a standing urinal to erode from people unrinating on it constantly similar to landscape changes due to weather? If so, how long would it take before a hole was formed through the urinal?	[ "Fired ceramic is extremely durable; we're talking thousands of years...thus we find pot sherds in the archaeological record that are broken, yet not terribly worn or eroded in other ways. Ceramic, especially when glazed, is also significantly acid-resistant. So basically, it would have to be peed on pretty conti...	[ "> Eg: like that indian bloke that didn't eat for 70 years. Spoiler alert: He eats just like anyone else. He claims not to eat, but that claim is ridiculous. There were two \"tests\" performed, but the first showed that he lost weight during the 10 days that he was being monitored, and the second test allowed him...
[Biochemistry] Aside from lipids, carbohydrates and protein, are there any other molecules that can be metabolized into Acetyl-CoA and fed into the Krebs cycle?	[ "To be fair lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins are nearly every substance in the body besides micronutrients. Although this qualifies as carbohydrates, ketone bodies can be fed into the kreb's cycle, but can lead to ketoacidosis. This can cause your blood pH to lower and can be fatal. But lipids, carbohydrates, an...	[ "I imagine you are talking about the internal combustion engine (ICE)that is commonly used around the world in automobiles. Think of the classic \"fire triangle\" when thinking of these engines. You need 3 things to make something burn: Fuel, Oxidizer, and heat. In an ICE these components are a Petroleum product s...
when I'm really depressed, what causes the physical feeling in my chest that feels like a sad heart?	[ "There is a part of your brain that is responsible for controlling emotional reactions (anterior cingulate cortex), and it becomes more active whenever we are under severe emotional stress. This leads to many reactions. Chief among them are the stimulating of the vagus nerves (found in the chest and abdomen region...	[ "The body can get energy from two sources (well 3, but since you are a kid I'll ignore alcohol. Also, I don't think that's stored in the body for any length of time anyway) fat and sugar. When you eat the body immediately starts using all that delicious sugar it got. After a while it starts running out of sugar an...
What happened in Libya and why is it a presidential issue?	[ "I think it was more about how Mitt Romney claimed the President handled the issue. In recent history, President Bush received substantial criticism for continuing to read to children instead of immediately leaving the room to handle the issue. In turn, Obama criticized the Governor for sending out a press release ...	[ "[Search before submitting, especially when asking about current events. The search box is in the upper righthand corner of the page.](_URL_0_)" ]
Is there any research to suggest that babies look to their parents to see how to react?	[ "Yes, babies do take their cues from others! In my book \"[Experimenting With Babies](_URL_0_),\" I describe a 2003 study in which an adult describes some objects in either a neutral tone or a fearful tone. Then the babies get to choose which object to play with. By about 12 months, babies avoid the objects describ...	[ "It is sort of evolution. You start out with our ancestors cracking open eggs and slurping the liquids inside. Some other ancestor found wild grass seeds and chewed on them. A third one saw a calf drinking from an utter. A fourth one found salt either in a cave or on a rocky shore. A fifth one ate some sugar beets ...
How the hell you could essentially travel to the future by going faster than light.	[ "Oooh read the top comment on [this thread](_URL_0_)!" ]	[ "From my understanding (and if there are any neurologists please come and correct me) it’s less about seeing and more about stimulating the same firing pattern across your neurons as if you had seen it. Essentially you can force your brain to act as if something was happening when it hasn’t." ]
Do insects sleep or hibernate or regenerate their bodies in a systematic, periodic way?	[ "Their lifespans are generally too short to carry out a yearly hibernation. But insects also undergo metamorphosis which is regeneration, I suppose. Instead of hibernating, many insects shed their exoskeletons and grow a new one underneath. There are also cicadas, some kinds spend 16 years underground as larvae be...	[ "This is due to your circadian rhythm. It isn't feasible to adjust your circadian rhythm by more than an hour a day. So if your sleep schedule has a sudden change your circadian rhythm won't be able to catch up. This is primary factor in jet lag as well. Interesting note- Some people are more controlled by their ci...
Why can animals like Sudan the Rhino interbreed with family members and be genetically sound when humans can't?	[ "because there is no other option to continue the species. The exact same issues exist, and it could be bad, but the alternative is extinction. So between the two options we typically try for life, but ya, just because it is the best option doesn't mean its a good option." ]	[ "One recent example of what happens is [here](_URL_0_) This community of Muslims in Great Britain promotes marriage between cousins, and the birth defect rate is dramatically higher than average. **Research for BBC2's Newsnight in November 2005 showed British Pakistanis accounted for 3.4 per cent of all births but...
Names of pirates in/around the Caribbean between 1700 and 1745	[ "* Edward \"Blackbeard\" Teach (1715/16-1718 out of New Providence) * Stede Bonnet (1717-18 home port not specified) * Henry Jennings (1716-18, out of Nassau, New Providence. Interesting fact, Jennings actually did not die but surrendered to Woodes Rogers and lived out the rest of his life on a plantation in Bermud...	[ "Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!" ]
how do astronauts deal with celibacy?	[ "Some people have been celibate for far longer than the 6 months astronauts usually spend up in space. It really isn't that big of a problem. However some probably do masturbate sometimes, they just do it privately and wipe it off with a towel." ]	[ "Ask science: How cool are spaceships going to be? Scientifically speaking." ]
What does a standard reduction potential of zero actually mean?	[ "Standard reduction potentials are directly related to the free energy of a reaction. G = -nFE So a positive E means a negative free energy which corresponds to a spontaneous reaction and a negative E means a positive free energy which means a reaction that requires energy to proceed. So what does E = 0 mean? Well...	[ "Say you have a banana and an apple. How many ways can you arrange those on a table? You can put the banana on the table. You can put the apple on the table. You can put both on the table, or you can put none of them on the table. There are four ways total that you can arrange these fruits. This represents 2 to the...
How the Universe is ever expanding.	[ "This is as long lecture by Lawrence Krauss, but it's absolutely fascinating: _URL_0_" ]	[ "Nobody knows. We're still trying to figure out what crazy shit went down in the Big Bang. All we know is that there's energy now and it is conserved in the things we can observe." ]
Are there any facts that animals (probably monkeys?) cheated, broke the rules or disobey them during experiments in order to get an advantage?	[ "Dolphins were rewarded with food for collecting trash. Dolphin rips a small piece of paper off of the trash everytime they wanted a treat instead of searching for multiple pieces of trash. _URL_0_" ]	[ "At the most basic level, instead of telling a computer what to do, you give it the tools to learn from what it has done. For example, imagine a tic-tac-toe game. Instead of telling it what to do, you give it the ability to remember games; and whether or not it won the game. then, when it has to make a move, it loo...
What separates galaxies?	[ "There's no line of demarcation. Think of it as cities. As you're leaving town, you hit the suburbs. Things are more spread out and not as dense. By the end, you're passing houses every couple of miles. Then, you're out on the road by yourself with nothing but various gasses and dust. When you start to come up to t...	[ "It doesn't pull, exactly. It may be easier to think of space as tablecloth pulled taut; if you put something on it, it makes a dent. The \"dent\" is the deformation of space by the mass of the object. This deformation literally bends space and results in the object still going in a straight line that has been def...
Why is California in a Drought? What's causing it, what's the worst that can come from it, and how do we stop it?	[ "Farmers basically have access to free water. They convert it into crops to sell for money. There is no need for them to be \"efficient\". 80% of CA water goes to agriculture. 30-40% of that goes to cows (alfalfa hay, and irrigated pasture). _URL_2_ 30% goes to fruits and nuts most of which is almonds which we grow...	[ "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 eating snow kill you eventually	[ "You ARE supposed to drink snow-water (edit:) when there isn't any other water available, it's a great source of water in an emergency. But you're never supposed to eat snow unless it has melted first. Eating snow makes it much easier to die of hypothermia. It doesn't matter if you're in a good shelter, because t...	[ "There are two things that make ice cream soft - the ice is in very small crystals, and tiny bubbles of air mixed into it. When you melt and refreze it, some of the air bubbles merge to create bigger bubbles with more solid material around them, and the ice crystals that form are much bigger, tying the mass togethe...
Why does video shown at 50-60fps look so unnatural?	[ "It's just because you are used to 24fps video." ]	[ "Brains easily perform many, many tasks hat are difficult for computer. Take that we know brains are optimized for pattern-finding. Consider intelligent life forms have to interact with a real 3-world and real time. Which means they can check their expectations. Testings a supposition is as simple as rotating an o...
How were the United States of America divided into the Nifty Fifty we have today?	[ "Mark Stein's [How the States Got Their Shapes](_URL_0_) is a nice quick-and-dirty rundown of how each state came to be the shape it is today. It's just a fun little pop-history book, though. You won't find much in the way of deep, well-sourced historical analysis in it. There's also a [History Channel show](_URL...	[ "Umm I don't think that's the story as to why we are \"different\" than animals. Many different organisms have lateralized brains. The major difference is our incredibly developed cerebral cortex, most notably the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions. _URL_0_ \"Specialization of the two hemi...
Why aren't all gas tanks on the same side of the car?	[ "Supposedly, as the Subaru dealer told me, Subaru's gas tank is on the passenger side because Subaru is big on safety. If you're out of gas on the highway, it's safer to fill up on the passenger side than on the driver side with traffic speeding past." ]	[ "This goes back to the French Revolution. Before the revolution, members from different classes would very occasionally meet when called by the king to advise him. The assembly of the different classes (also known as estates) was called the Estates General. The king called a meeting of the Estates General shortl...
Why was "Me ne frego" ("I don't care") chosen by Mussolini as one of his mottoes?	[ "The catchphrase originated (not linguistically, but for this context) with the \"warrior-poet\" Gabriele d'Annunzio and became popular among Italian soldiers in World War I. It was an expression of courage and bravado, not carelessness: \"we might die tomorrow, but me ne frego.\" After the war, it continued to be ...	[ "Fermat's last theorem states that for integer values a, b and c the equation a^n + b^n = c^n is never true for any n greater than two. So for example a=1 b=2 c=3 n=4 gives you 1+16=81 which is obviously false. This is rather simple, but proving that it was true turned out to be an utter bear. Proving Fermat's las...
how do clouds hold rain and hailstone?	[ "A cloud is water vapor, plain and simple. It's a puff of mist that floats in the air, and nothing more. No other particles besides little droplets of water held up by wind and heat. Rain forms and falls from a cloud when these droplets clump together, usually converging on a speck of dust, and then become too heav...	[ "Meteorologists haver been keeping records of things for a long time...they are some of the first \"big data\" people. Basically, on a global scale, things like temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind direction measured and recorded. Patterns and trends are observed... if the data in a certain area looks a certa...
Why do animal trials rarely translate into novel medical therapies in humans?	[ "The human scientists are controlled behind curtain by the secret mice society in order to improve the micekind. Unfortunately for us, the usefulness of mice model for humans is somewhat overrated. [Mice Are Telling Cancer Researchers: Give It Up](_URL_2_) I've seen comments from an expert in this field about hu...	[ "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 ...
If the time dilation (w.r.t. a "far off" observer) approaches infinity as one approaches the event horizon of a black hole, how can anything ever fall into a black hole from an external observer's point of view?	[ "> If the time dilation (w.r.t. a \"far off\" observer) approaches infinity as one approaches the event horizon of a black hole, how can anything ever fall into a black hole from an external observer's point of view? You're exactly right. Things crossing the event horizon seem to take forever from an outside point...	[ "You know the saying \"All roads lead to Rome?\" The equivalent for black holes is \"all paths lead to the center.\"" ]
How the sun fades colours.	[ "If your referring to paint, this should answer your question: _URL_0_ But basically, UV radiation degrades paint over time." ]	[ "For the same reason that running scissors over a ribbon causes it to curl. The act of shading the paper not only lays down the pigment, but stretches the paper slightly, deforming it." ]
Banach-Tarski Paradox	[ "It's not really about monkeying with infinity, it's about monkeying with the continuum. It has been proven that you can split the balls into finitely many non-intersecting pieces and still make 2 balls. But these pieces are basically \"clouds of points\". But yeah, real world doesn't work like that son, now go cle...	[ "He could cut you a long thin (as opposed to wide) slice, put a half twist in it, and attach the two ends. You would then have a turkey [möbius strip](_URL_0_) which only has one side and one edge." ]
The criteria required for an organism to be a different species from other similar organisms and why there are many different variations in humans yet we're all the same species.	[ "In sexual animals, all that is required is that the species must be able to make viable offspring. A kangaroo and a dog cannot make a baby. A horse and a zebra can, but a zorse is not viable, since it cannot make children. Thus a horse and a zebra are different species. There are very rare exceptions to this, bu...	[ "Different gasoline taxes. Different distances between the nearest refinery. Different blend requirements for the gasoline(California). Different requirements on who's allowed to pump gasoline into a car(Oregon/New Jersey). Different minimum wages. Different property values for a gas station sized plot of land. Dif...
Freaking Meditation, how does it work?	[ "I really appreciated [this guy's no-nonsense explanation of mindfulness meditation](_URL_1_) btw: Someone at Google, [really appreciates meditation.](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "From what I have read the whole brain training thing is well funded hyped up science jargon designed to sell you something you don't need. Effects do not generalize and are temporary. Do yourself a favor and go read a book, go for a walk, and do something new. See this meta analysis: _URL_0_ \"The authors conclude...
If I go to bed an hour or so earlier than usual, even if tired, why am I unable to sleep the entire night?	[ "Try making sure you get sleep in multiples of 90 minutes. If you are sleeping 8 hours exactly and waking up tired, try 7.5 or 9 hours." ]	[ "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...
What happens if the fuel rods in a nuclear reactor are lowered too far/quickly?	[ "Commercial reactor designs don't move the fuel rods. The fuel rods are stationary and control rods are inserted or withdraw. The control rods utilize boron or some other neutron poison to control the reaction rate. Inserting the control rods lowers reactor power and withdrawing the rods causes power to increase. ...	[ "Basically OPEC dropped the price of oil per barrel because they didn't want to lose money. They wanted to drive the price of oil so low that we have to stop fracing cause we wouldn't make any money. Certain countries need to sell oil for a certain amount per barrel otherwise they won't make any money. They can dri...
How does "gravitational slingshot" work?	[ "The object doesn't gain speed from the gravitational field itself-that would violate the conservation of energy. The gain in velocity comes from the velocity of the planet in its orbit around the sun- some of this momentum is transferred to the spacecraft. It's like how a tennis ball bouncing off a moving racket g...	[ "Here's is a rocket sled which was manned by John P. Stapp _URL_2_ He went from 0 to 632 mph in 5 seconds (5.8 G's). He also decelerated in 1.4 seconds with a peak deceleration of 46.2 Gs at the end of that. And here's a Mythbuster's example of a rocker sled going really fast _URL_2_" ]
- Why do we have moles on our skin?	[ "1. Natural carcinogens in the environment (e.g. UV from the sun) cause mutations in your skin cells. 2. Some of these mutations cause those cells to grow unnaturally crazy (think first steps of cancer). 3. In built defense mechanisms steps in and detects abnormal growth or messed up genome that cannot be easily fi...	[ "Please use the search function. _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_13_ TL;DR: Why is a bad question with no good answer. We can't tell entirely with other animals, because we can't directly communicate though anecdotally, many seem to." ]
Why do trauma victims fetishize the things that caused them the trauma?	[ "My best guess is that it's a way of taking back control. The original trauma probably left them feeling powerless. Turning it around, making it their own might make them feel like they're the ones in control." ]	[ "It's about novelty. When it's new, we cherish it and want to take care of it. Novelty eventually becomes familiarity. We see this a lot with cars. That new car, the owner is so careful. At some point, however, it becomes OK to toss that empty Big Mac box in the back seat." ]
How does a smoke detector work?	[ "There are 2 primary kinds. The first is photoelectric. Basically, there is a small LED and a light detector in a small chamber. When smoke enters the chamber, the detector records a different voltage, as smoke particles scatter the LED light. The second is an ionization detector. These have a very tiny bit of radi...	[ "Newer ones might be electronic. The original style would have a recording on a sound cylinder or disk, which would be wound by pulling the string. Generally, much like a record player. A number of the older ones basically are tiny little record players." ]
- Can usable guns be made from titanium?	[ "Regulations that exist that require detectable metal in the firearms for that very purpose. Titanium doesn't make a very good barrel, it expands and flexes to much. Titanium alloys have been used in the frame on certain models, but those trigger the metal detectors, not only because of the alloy material, but beca...	[ "hi all. All comments so far have been removed, which have been links to rebuttals of the now-well-worn archery video. Please note that the OP is not asking about the video, or even archery: the question is regarding other weapons. Thanks!" ]
What happens to helium-filled birthday balloons that are released into open air?	[ "they go up a few thousand feet and pop as the gas in the balloon expands beyond the stretching limit for the rubber. No balloon will ever make it into orbit.. orbit requires thousands and thousands of miles an hour of lateral velocity" ]	[ "It really depends on how far you drive on whether they make it back or not, but I'm assuming they starve and die looking for their hive, just like how a hummingbird runs out of energy quickly without sugar when it gets trapped in a building. I found [this](_URL_0_) if it helps." ]
What happens if you fire a gun in space?	[ "It'll fire the bullet in the direction it's facing. If you're not braced against something then you'll get the same momentum in the opposite direction and start moving backwards. The cartridge for the bullet contains the fuel and oxidizer that it needs to be able to fire" ]	[ "I mean, you can work out and gain mass, but the statement about muscle is taking into account that you follow the same routine as in earth and were stabilized on not gainong/losing muscle. What it means is that since you don't make work against gravity to walk, move things, etc. Doing the same workout with the sa...
Why did the Europeans and the indigenous Americans genetically integrate, whereas in the United States territory this did not occur?	[ "hi! not discouraging other responses, but fyi, there's a section on this in the FAQ that can get you started * [Racial differences between North America and Latin America](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "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...
Canned meat not needing refrigeration?	[ "Part of the canning process is heating the cans after they are sealed. The heat kills any bacteria present in the contents, and the sealed can prevents any new bacteria from getting in. As long as the can isn't compromised most canned goods remain safe almost indefinitely (although many won't taste good after a lo...	[ "Personal preference. I know people who prefer it at room temperature." ]
Why do snowflakes not stick to each other on the way down and form huge snowballs?	[ "They do stick together. Instead of forming a snowball (which we have to use our hands to pack snow together) they just join up and create those giant snow flakes you see sometimes." ]	[ "Let's take plan old white glue for an example. It is a bunch of sticky stuff in water. When the water evaporates, the stuff that's left behind is frozen into place. When it's in the bottle, there's nowhere for the water vapor to evaporate to, so it stays wet and sticky." ]
Why is there a crazy amount of handicapped parking at public places?	[ "The number of handicapped spaces is determined by zoning laws. Those laws tend to err on the side of caution, and sometimes don't account for gym having fewer handicapped customers than a clinic." ]	[ "\"Just about everyone here\" Where is \"here\" for you? It sounds like your question's premise is based on a small sample set based on personal observation. Before your question is addressed, you should be making sure the premise is valid..." ]
Why is it that when I buy a small drink in Costa, it's £2.50, but when I get a large (exactly twice the size) it's £3?	[ "same reason that large popcorn is only a quid more. you're paying for the product, the price it costs to hire the barista, the premises rent, the cost of the paper cup, the electricity to power the cafe, etc. prolly £0.15 of the price is actually the cost of the coffee. I used to work at cafe nero, and found that...	[ "Suppose there are tax brackets of $100, $200, with rates of 10, 20 percent. The first $100 of your income is taxed at 10%. If you make a dollar, the tax is 10 cents; if you make the full $100, the tax is $10. Now, what happens when you bump your income up to $101. If we did it your way, the tax would be 101 * 20%,...
Why are scientific papers sometimes released behind a paywall?	[ "Journals have to pay the bills. You can either make money through subscriptions, or advertising. Advertising would compromise the integrity of the journal, so unless they generate a lot of subscription income (i.e. NEJM or Chest), they need the money." ]	[ "Sugar tastes good. When faced with a choice between that which is smart and that which is pleasing, most people will spend their money on the latter. A business exists to sell people what they want to buy, not what some might feel they should buy." ]
Is it dangerous to eat burnt foods?	[ "[First thing I found on google.](_URL_0_) It's not dangerous the way speedballs or blindfolded skiing is dangerous. But it is unhealthy and harmful." ]	[ "In addition to what's been said: The portion that has cooled acts as an insulator for the middle. This means the middle stays warm enough to act as an incubator for all sorts of bacteria." ]
Why are there military batallions called something like "954th Tank Batallion" even though the whole army only has 20 of them?	[ "_URL_0_ So basically, the army creates a division as they are needed during war time. As war dies down and the size of the army is no longer needed, some division get deactivated. They choose which stay active and deactivated based upon the history and glories of that division. It's like how the Space Marine chapt...	[ "That's the time UNIX time rolls over signed 32bit integer storage capability. 32 bits just tells you how many binary digits you're using to write down a binary number. 32 digits. It's not unlike to having 2 decimal places to write down a number. After 01 comes 02. After 11 comes 12. But after 99 comes..? With comp...
What happens to the 0.01% of bacteria that isnt killed by wipes/cleaners? Are they injured or disabled?	[ "There's also the [minimum infective dose](_URL_0_) to take into consideration. Let's say you're about to eat a sandwich and you've just washed your hands. If it takes 40 E. coli to infect you and washing your hands killed all but 10, you're likely to not be infected." ]	[ "I notice a lot of these natural selection questions are a lot easier to understand if you question the fate of the opposite, in this case the answer becomes clearer if you ask instead \"What happened to the living things that didn't try their best to produce offspring?\" Well they had fewer heirs and eventually di...
Why/How can China require people to take trash down from Everest when that's in not China? (Nepal)	[ "Half of Everest is in China, one route goes up on the chinese side, and one or two from the nepalese side" ]	[ "They probably are testing out the waters to see how well the product does. In America where Apple has a dominance over what everyone thinks of when talking about tablets (sportscasters getting paid to advertise the Microsoft Surface and calling it an iPad on tv), they don't want to spend a bunch of money on advert...
Why warn people with heart condition?	[ "Cardio and pulmonary functions are closely linked. Distress on otherwise healthy lungs can jeopardize blood flow and oxygenation, both of which have a direct effect on the heart. It follows that air quality could adversely affect both heart and lungs." ]	[ "To confirm that you're ready. What if the game just started and something came along and killed your guy?" ]
Why do we have registries for sex offenders but not for murderers?	[ "[Recidivism Rates](_URL_0_) - the statistics and likelihood of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences. Sex Offenders are statistically more likely to offend again than murders are. Furthermore Sex Offenders are really easy targets for politicians to use...	[ "_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 does snow leave my car so dirty?	[ "Are you talking about driving around in a place like New England during the winter? If so it's not the snow that makes your car dirty - its mostly the salt they lay down and some crud on the road. The road is wet and very briney during/after a snow storm in an area that salts because the salt melts the snow, so as...	[ "More likely they were 'sandblasted' by road grit. Get a good polishing compound and polish the plastic. A buffer pad on a drill speeds things up and saves you from reliving scenes in Karate Kid." ]
Why is it important to find the origin of a virus, in order to create a vaccine for it?	[ "Actually knowing where the virus came from is not necessary. But obtaining a virus or very closely related virus is necessary to develop attenuated progeny, or alternatively inactivated, epitopes to stimulate an immune response. Knowing the origin is needed for epidemiology or pandemiology to develop safeguards an...	[ "Let’s say you want to sell apple pies. You buy all the ingredients, make the pie and sell it. You’ve paid for flour, apples, sugar, fat, etc. For one pie, these ingredients cost you 5$. You sell the pie for 20$. You’ve added 15$ of value to those ingredients, so you are taxed on the value you’ve added. At 10% that...
If hot air rises, why does it get colder the higher up in the atmosphere?	[ "It doesn't always get colder the higher up you go. [Here is a picture of a typical temperature profile of our atmosphere](_URL_3_). In the lower atmosphere, the temperature usually drops as you go higher because the sun heats the surface of the earth. The surface of the earth then heats the air. The closer air is...	[ "It's to do with the fact that the sun's light is hitting the point on the earth where you're observing it from at a lower angle. It's travelling through more atmosphere at that angle than if it was right overhead so the shorter wavelengths (on the blue end of the spectrum) get scattered and the longer wavelengths ...
The lenses on my sunglasses claim to block 100% of UVA/B light, but should I be concerned about how much light enters my eye from around the frame?	[ "> Just how damaging are UV rays to my eyes, anyway? Depends on your medical history. Are you an albino, photosensitive, an alien? If not, I'd not worry about incident diffuse light." ]	[ "Looking at the sun will blind you. Any time, anywhere. Including when you look at the sun during the partial phases of a solar eclipse. Naturally, people who don't know any better are more likely to look at the sun during a solar eclipse. They should not. One can look at the sun safely only during \"totality,\" th...
If your nails are dead why do they hurt if they're too short?	[ "Because your fingers are not dead, and the parts of your fingers that are normally covered by nails are extremely sensitive since they normally have to feel through the nails (so they're used to feeling spread out pressure) and now they can feel things directly (and often feel the edge of the nail digging into t...	[ "A part of it is that we have fewer stem-cells ready to take the place of any damaged cells. As we grow our initial stem cells take find their homes and begin specializing. We always have a certain number of stem-cells in our bodies, but fewer as we age. Also, each time a cell divides it loses a link in a chain of ...
What is there to stop food/drinks manufacturers from outright lying about the ingredients and nutritional information of their products?	[ "Usually steep fines and punishments when caught. And it is when caught, not if caught." ]	[ "In the UK, TV broadcasting first started with the BBC, which is funded by a television licence. As such the BBC required no advertising to pay its way. Commercial broadcasting came along later, and with it came worries about the power and persuasive influence of TV advertising. Because of this laws, regulations an...
How do you program a If-sentence without actually using it?	[ "The structure behind if is actually embedded in a CPU level, that is, the CPU itself is built with a structure that allows you to jump to any instruction you'd like in the instruction set, namely [beq](_URL_0_). With that is straightforward to build the if-statement. In fact, the earlier programming languages use...	[ "Not a computer scientist, but your question inspired some searching and here are my results: This does appear to be a [recognized issue](_URL_3_) in [speech simulation](_URL_1_) - (paywalled review [here](_URL_5_)) [It's especially a problem when simulating the physical movements to produce image in addition to ...
How exactly does human regurgitation (vomiting) work?	[ "It's actually a very complex physiological reflex system. It can be initiated by the brain (hypothalamus) or by lower-level reflexes (gag reflex in the throat, for example). It's studied in detail. Vomiting is a chain-reaction of reflexes - in addition to emptying the stomach contents, you want to ensure that th...	[ "Dunno about a weird feeling but I definitely get 'wet mouth' before a spew. Quite a handy little early warning." ]
What is the limit of space travels for humans right now?	[ "very very limited. space outside of Earth's atmosphere is dangerous. this is where the ISS is. primary danger is micrometeoroids that can puncture. basically putting your space ship in front of a machine gun and hoping all the bullets miss you. space outside of Earth's magnetosphere is even more dangerous. i...	[ "Honestly, from what I've read, it looks like there's nothing really to do there. All the science that can be done, was done." ]
Why does cracking my neck/knuckels feel good?	[ "I guess when you crack your joints, the fact that the gas bubbles are popping should alleviate any lingering pressure you feel within those joints. With less pressure, it makes sense for your joints to feel slightly looser and therefore somewhat pleasurable in comparison." ]	[ "Some have suggested that it causes dopamine responses. Similar brain mechanics to forms of addiction (alcoholism, smoking, drug abuse etc). _URL_0_" ]
how important is it to wash fruit you bought from the grocery store? Aren't they pre-cleaned?	[ "Former produce clerk here. There's probably nothing inherently dangerous on the fruits and vegetables at your grocery store, and you could easily get away with eating them straight off the shelf. However, washing before eating just makes good sense; if you assume it's clean when you pick it up then you're assuming...	[ "In a super crazy simple world where every variable was controlled other than energy in + energy out, then no, it would not matter, same overall result. In the real world, it matters a lot. Try putting your down jacket over your raincoat on a wet day. There are 100s of examples like this one where order and other ...
How is a spinning black hole different from a static black hole, and how can you know it is spinning if you cannot see inside the event horizon?	[ "The structure of spacetime outside a rotating black hole is different - compare the [Schwarzschild](_URL_2_) and [Kerr](_URL_0_) metrics. As a consequence stuff orbiting around the black hole with the same spin orientation as the black hole will be closer, while stuff orbiting opposite to the black hole will be fu...	[ "Astronomers always proposed the existence of unseen bodies to explain anomalous gravitational behavior. It led to the discovery of Neptune, for example, when a small decceleration of Uranus was detected. The precession of Mercury's perihellion was also atributed to a hypothetical planet called Vulcan. Dark matter ...
Why are neutrons neutral if they 'spin'?	[ "They have a magnetic dipole moment, but the electric charge of a neutron is zero." ]	[ "It has to do with quantum numbers. The l quantum number, known as the azimuthal (I learnt it as angular momentum, but wikipedia says otherwise) quantum number, is what determines whether the electrons orbital is s/p/d/f/g in nature. It can take values 0, 1, 2, 3, 5 for s, p, d, f, g respectively. There is another...
How does one get the flu/cold, etc. It doesn't just hang out in micro clouds in my back yard does it?	[ "That user is not correct. Cold and flu viruses can't survive outside of a human body for more than 24 hours. When you get the flu it almost always comes from other people. It's possible to carry the virus and not show symptoms, so you can get it even if nobody around you appears to have the flu." ]	[ "We calculate a 'feels like temperature by taking into account the expected air temperature, relative humidity and the strength of the wind at around 5 feet (the typical height of an human face) combined with our understanding of how heat is lost from the human body during cold and windy days. & #x200B; ...
You're not suppose to use Band-aids/coverings for a scarless and well healed tattoo. So why are they used for every other cut, scrape, or puncture for extended periods of time?	[ "For tattoos, the needle only goes a certain distance into your skin so it's not a full puncture. On top of this, the idea of a tattoo is to have the ink stay in your skin; if you cover it or use medicated ointment, you'll pull up the ink and ruin the tattoo in general. Since cuts, scrapes and punctures are wounds ...	[ "Online, pictures of cars are often pointing out what an awful job they did parking or driving or whatever. Also, reddit specifically asks that we don't post personal information. If we could see the plate for the guy that parked like a jack-ass at the local Goodwill, some other jack-ass might look up their informa...
Why do dancers count by 8?	[ "My understanding is that most music is written if 4/4 time (Four beats per bar), so the music (And more specifically, the rhytm) is separated into these 4 pulse units. Since 4 beats are rarely enough to complete a given \"step\", dancers will instead spread each movement over 8 pulses, or two bars. You'll find whe...	[ "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" ]

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