Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
In a car, Is HP linear?	[ "On a fundamental level, it's true that a 200 HP engine can deliver twice the power output of a 100 HP engine. But how that translates into real world performance depends on a large number of factors. The mass and shape of the vehicle are obviously important. A heavier car needs a more powerful engine to get the sa...	[ "Neither. The planets orbit the Sun in circles (to a good approximation). That means they stay at the same distance. That is not useful if you want to go to other planets or leave the solar system. Interplanetary probes follow elliptic orbits. To get to Mars, for example, the orbit has its perihelion (the closest p...
Why are some Americans so patriotic about the flag, army, tech, the moon, WWII, music etc. but so unpatriotic when it comes to taxes and welfare?	[ "> hate for those less well-off. It's not hate. The people who feel that way believe that handouts will undermine work ethic. The notion of work ethic, self-made men, and owning one's own means of production are core American tenets. When people talk about loving their country, they're talking about loving a system...	[ "Most of the time your \"Tax\" has to do with \"withholding\" - check your withholding and see how much your company is withholding. If you've been seeing a return, that's likely because you're over-withholding. Be cautious though, if you under-withhold you will owe the government money at the end of the year. Y...
If we need both eyes to see in "3D", why don't we see in "2D" when we cl9ose one of them?	[ "Even one-eyed people and people who don't have binocular depth perception due to childhood strabismus, vision impairment, etc. can still perceive the world in 3 dimensions. They just lack one tool that the rest of us have to get that 3-d information. In a sense we can only see in 2D when one eye is closed since we...	[ "Blood doesn't rush around your body in one big tube. What happens is the blood vessels split and become thinner and thinner. Think of a fan where the bottom is the main artery which splits into finer tubes called capillaries. This splitting happens all through your skin, so there are millions of very fine capilla...
How are cracks in the road formed?	[ "Thermal changes mostly. Contraction and expansion of materials. Concrete, asphalt, water-ice." ]	[ "Where were you in Europe? Any climate that doesn't freeze will have great roads, and climate that freezes will have bad roads, and anyone that has warn and cold snaps during the winter will have horrible roads." ]
Online Master's Degrees...	[ "If you are interested in pursuing a PhD, then I suggest that you first think through what it takes to gain admission to a PhD program that meets your ambition, and then think about what kind of MS program you can pursue that meet your constraints. As /u/EyeStache pointed out, there are obvious advantages to attend...	[ "mechanical, absolutely. the nanobot stuff is a bit far fetched though. you can start here if you want: _URL_1_ also this: _URL_2_ also this: _URL_3_ and this guy's work _URL_0_" ]
How do animals with open circulatory systems get rid of dead internal cells?	[ "It happens the same way, but it just takes much much longer since you have to rely on diffusion. These animals are usually also much smaller so their demands aren't as severe." ]	[ "Many Swedish traditional dishes contain animal organs. Pölsa contains liver and heart of pig. Lungmos was nearly the same thing, but included lugns. Leverpastej, paté of liver is still a very common sandwhich spread in Sweden. Blodpudding, blood pudding/black pudding is a common meal as well. Liver in stew...
Why do dogs chase their tails?	[ "Self-awareness (the ability to recognize a part or image of yourself as belonging to you) is a very high-order function. One current school of thought is that dogs are not self-aware, and therefore do not recognize their tail as belonging to themselves, but as some mysterious floating toy that moves. This also exp...	[ "Some have suggested that it causes dopamine responses. Similar brain mechanics to forms of addiction (alcoholism, smoking, drug abuse etc). _URL_0_" ]
Why can flies and other small bugs dodge your hand / fly swatter so easily?	[ "In simple terms, flies are so small that when you hit them a wave of air from your hand hits them out of the way before you can hit them. Fly swatters are perforated for this reason to make the wave of air less powerful and make it more likely that you will not push them out of the way or give away your position s...	[ "Anyone feel free to add but according to a PHD in physics: \"They do, and you've just never noticed. But if you have a big enough mirror and can point it toward a radio tower, you can test it out yourself. Point this big mirror at the FM radio tower, and get out a portable FM radio. Now start at the mirror and sta...
Why do cop cars not pull all the way over when giving a citation on a busy street?	[ "As an emergency responder, the real reason is to put a physical barrier between the officer standing beside your window and traffic. You'll see firetrucks and ambulances do the same type of positioning when responding to an accident." ]	[ "It takes a while to implement the changes. How would you like it if the law changed overnight and you had to pay fees/go to jail next day without having a chance to adapt yet." ]
How come in zombie themed movies and TV shows the characters never refer to the zombies as zombies?	[ "_URL_0_ > A subtrope of the Sci-Fi Ghetto. Can be used to highlight how their monsters are different. Suppose your monsters are rotting shambling undead that want to drink your blood. Call them zombies and every casual reader's going to assume they're after \"braaaaaiiinnss,\" while calling them vampires brings u...	[ "Words that often appear together are called \"collocations\", and it's simply the way we've learned them. We tend to process them as indivisible units -- phrases, rather than separate words. For example, when we say \"apples and oranges\", we're not thinking of two different kinds of fruit and then putting them in...
How long were Native Americans and Europeans in conflict?	[ "In a quite real sense, \"were\" isn't a useful word to use here, because the genocidal actions of the United States against native groups, and the ongoing legacy of settler colonialism, have powerfully affected native communities and do so even today. Quite a bit more can be said here, but these posts from u/snaps...	[ "It depends on what you mean by an actual conversation, and im going to assume your speaking English. 1600's was the time of Shakespeare, and im sure you read some of his plays. In that time period, if someone said something, you would need to digest it before replying, and thats still considered modern English. Ev...
in terms of sleeping, is it physiologically better to wake up naturally and only get 7 hours of sleep, or to go back to sleep for another hour or more to get 8+ ?	[ "Everyone is different, so for you, whatever makes you feel better! Most people think you should have between 7-9 hours sleep a night. You sleep in cycles - you'll fall asleep, then you'll get into a deeper sleep, then you'll dream, then you are in a lighter sleep, and you start the cycle again. Your body will want...	[ "To sell water and sports drinks. That's it. Most hydration experts will tell you \"drink when you're thirsty\". The human body has millions of years of evolution built in to tell you you need to drink. What it's never told you is that you need exactly 8 glasses of water a day. It's all marketing, and the fact that...
since the banks and rating bureaus were so fraudulent during the housing crisis which lead to the Great Recession, what stops the American people from suing big banks from what seems like such an easy case to win?	[ "The government has already fined some of them and taken a controlling stake in others. Ultimately the laws in place in 2008 encouraged that kind of sub-prime lending and the dubious rating that banks were using to pass those lemons off on eachother. Politicians wanted to increase homeownership rates and had encour...	[ "In a word? Rifling. Though Napoleon and the Revolutionary generals heavily utilised column formations throughout their campaigns, it was really only the introduction of rifling that witnessed the death-knell of the line. Such tactics were utilised at extreme cost when combined with rifled weapons during the Crimea...
Why do galaxies collapse into disks, but stars and planets collapse into spheres?	[ "One way to answer your question is that stars don't collapse into spheres. Stars collapse from a cloud of gas and dust, and while most of that goes into the central spheroid (the star), there's a lot left over which collapses into a disk, and it is from this disk which planets are made. The difference between th...	[ "For the same reason that balls bounce in general. When you drop a ball without any spin on it, it begins to compress when it hits the ground. It eventually ends up compressed enough that the momentum of the drop is canceled out, at which point it begins to decompress, causing it to rebound upward. Well, when you...
what are ramifications of the US pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council?	[ "Functionally none, other then extremely bad publicity. It wasn't a very effective group and there were a lot of problems with it, but its not like the US is going to start an alternative. It was basically a club for people to say they care about human rights, and required next to no effort besides membership, and...	[ "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!" ]
Why do we have to fill out our taxes if the government already has all our information (US)?	[ "The IRS doesn't have all our information. Filing your taxes is good for you because you get to tell them you shouldn't really have had to pay as much taxes as you owed, and if they agree they'll give you a chunk back. Filing taxes is good for the government because if they later discover you made income without pa...	[ "If you are not the customer you are the product. Google makes tons of money from ads, the more they know about you the better they can target the ads you see. The more things you do with them or through them the more they know about you." ]
What is fire? I thought everything was solid, liquid or a gas. Is it either of these three?	[ "Fire isn't a \"thing\". Fire is a process. It's a self-sustaining chemical reaction, where a fuel heats up enough to break apart oxygen molecules in the air and combine with the oxygen atoms itself. This results in more energy being released than was required to start the fire, so it keeps spreading to more fuel...	[ "When all Helium atoms fall into their many-body–quantum-mechanical ground state, they can all move synchronously. So there is no friction between atoms, but there could still be friction between the superfluid and e.g. the walls of a tube. Friction implies the transformation of kinetic energy to heat. A superfluid...
Weather anomaly in Arctic Canada: Why has it been colder than normal while the rest of the country will be warmer above normal? Again.	[ "Temp also has a lot to do with air currents. A wind pushes hot air from south america into the US during winter and we get a record high temp in february. A wind current that would normally blow south could have decided to stop and blow back towards the arctic." ]	[ "Every substance has a specific heat, defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of that material by one degree. This means that doubling the absolute temperature (i.e. °K) requires twice as much heat. This doesn't work if we're talking in °C, because 0 °C doesn't mean zero heat....
- What REALLY causes computers to slow down? Can it be stopped / reversed?	[ "How old is your computer? From my personal experience, I've found that its not necessarily the computer that is getting slower... Its that the applications that I'm trying to run simultaneously are getting more advanced over the months and years. Buying a computer in 2007 and running Office 2007, '07 websites on ...	[ "Think of it this way: clothes are made of threads that are wrapped around each other in a mildly organized tangle. Imagine say, a bag with a dozen headphones that are a bit tangled. Now shake the bag violently for five minutes, sometimes pulling on headphone loops. Are they more tangled or less tangled? Most often...
What causes the ‘warm’ feeling in the stomach when one consumes whiskey or other alcohol?	[ "When alcohol comes into contact with your mucous membrane (the tissue that lines your mouth, throat, and stomach), the alcohol has an effect on your nerve cells that detect temperature, making them more sensitive to heat. Normally, you can't feel your body heat, because your nerves ignore it, and only detect chang...	[ "Inside your ears are small chambers lined with even smaller hair like structures and filled with a fluid. As you move through space, or the room, your brain is taking note of how those hairs move in the fluid. It's constant feedback to your brain on which direction you are moving. When you drink, this fluid is di...
Why do government drug schedules exist? In the US anyway.	[ "Some drugs present more of a public health risk than others. Aspirin for example is not a particularly dangerous substance as a child could ingest an aspirin accidentally with little to no danger. An aspirin could be secretly dropped into a drink at the bar and be no problem. Having morphine as easily available is...	[ "Politics. It's an easy issue to use to paint your opponent as \"evil\" regardless of which side of the debate they are on." ]
Does a stellar body have the same gravity whether it's a black hole or a star?	[ "Yep! Black holes don't suck. They gravitate as much as amy mass would have. What makes black holes special is how small a volume all that mass is compressed into. In this scenario, the ship would have kept on its way, having already reached escape velocity." ]	[ "Inertia. Larger objects do experience a larger pull, but because they have a larger inertia they need this larger pull to make them accelerate. F=ma. If you have more mass, you need a larger force to achieve the same acceleration. [Veritasium- Misconceptions about falling objects](_URL_0_)" ]
Does electricity flow three dimensionally?	[ "The word \"electricity\" has several meanings. Assuming that you meant \"electric current\": Electric current doesn't take the path of least resistance. It takes all the possible paths, but most of it goes through the path of least resistance, a bit less through a path that is a bit more resistant etc. Electric cu...	[ "Quoting [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) (a bit naughty, but it's a nice way to express what I think): > The proposed theory is inconsistent with quantum mechanics and critics have ruled it out on those grounds. Which is essentially saying what you pointed out, yes. If what they're doing is as easy as it sounds - just runnin...
Why are semi-auto marksman rifles not as accurate as bolt-actions?	[ "There are a lot less variables with a bolt action. They are simple and strong, and that makes for less ‘play’ in the action. Semi autos use a gas system, rechamber based on recoil and basically have more moving parts, which is more that can throw off the ballistics of a given shot. They are also often constructed ...	[ "It depends on the missile, but, satellites have been shot down from orbit, both from [aircraft](_URL_0_) , and from the [surface](_URL_1_). Satellites are in predictable orbits, but are moving faster than aircraft, but aircraft can maneuver. So really, it depends on the maneuvering and tracking capability of the m...
How did the etiquette of taking one's hat off in Church come about?	[ "This isn't really a historical question. The reason for it is straight out of the Bible: _URL_0_" ]	[ "> i guess sometime before louis the 14th and after the fall of Rome. Could you please resubmit with a more specific time period in mind? We prefer not to have such broad, throughout history questions here." ]
Why doesnt a benign tumour growth have the same damaging effect as a malignant tumour growth?	[ "I can probably fight one duck sized horse, but I probably would be killed by 100 duck sized horses. In the same way, your body can handle one or two tumors without too many problems. It can't handle a ton of tumors all growing in different locations. A tumor is dangerous when it spreads to many different places in...	[ "Normal weapons are localized. A machine gun can only fire in one direction, an artillery shell can only hit one spot, and even bombs have a smallish blast radius. You can avoid hitting things that you don't want to hit, and if you're not the USA people can call you out for hitting things you shouldn't. Chemical we...
Why do birds bob their heads when they walk?	[ "*If you look closely, or take videos and watch them in slow motion, you will see the head actually stays in one place while the body walks past it. It then is jerked forward and put in front of the body and the body walks past it again. What this behavior does is keep the head still and in one spot as long as poss...	[ "The general consensus is [attention and approval seeking](_URL_4_) or [medical issues](_URL_1_). In [domesticated animals](_URL_2_), the approval seeking is generally from the owner. Because we see this in wild animals as well, it can't just be a human-approval mechanism. The attention seeking can be extended to t...
If a fire turns blue/colorless when enough oxygen is present, then why are campfires yellow/orange?	[ "Because just abundance of oxygen is not sufficient. You need that oxygen to interact with the fuel too, so the surface area and the rate of burning of fuel come into play. In a campfire, you get a lot of incompletely burnt soot particles (which is just unused fuel) because it couldn't efficiently react with the av...	[ "You sort of answered it with your last sentence there... A flame is a light source. Usually relatively bright, if you're looking right into it. The reason you don't see \"through\" it is similar to looking at bright stars versus dim stars in the sky. You technically CAN see through the flame, but the light coming ...
why is the Baphomet considered evil? Also, why does it associate with the Illuminati?	[ "Baphomet never existed. It was a wholesale construct (except perhaps the name) of King Philip IV of France, a man who in the 1300s, owed a lot of money to the Knights Templar. Rather than pay them, or let them hold influence over him, he concocted false charges that they worshipped some demonic entity called Bapho...	[ "A pyramid is the easiest type of building to make. Any group of people who want to make a large structure are always going to start with a pyramid. Staircases are always going to take more work. So, if you want to walk to the top you will always make one section a stair case which is always going to be straight up...
how was Russia able to redirect all cloud traffic through their country from multiple sources like Apple, Microsoft... Etc. Wouldn't they have to compromise all the individual systems (like apple) to do this? What are the broader implications of this?	[ "The Internet is a series of tubes. The Russians tricked the tube conductors to take alternate paths to their destinations. The tube conductors will take orders from anyone without verifying their authenticity." ]	[ "Because taxes are complicated, and not all taxes relate to \"commerce\". For example, you pay taxes based on how much you make. But if you do something like donate to charity you have to pay less taxes. If you have an additional child you may end up paying less in taxes. If you get divorced you may have to pay les...
How do artificial flavours work / how are they made?	[ "Mix a bunch of chemicals to taste like what you want, if its safe to eat and the FDA says its ok put it all over food. Taste is nothing but chemicals, and many things that are naturally occurring can have a synthetic version made chemically." ]	[ "They hire a guy and record him saying a bunch of popular names." ]
Why is it that sometimes we can't tell if something happened in real life, or in a dream?	[ "Sometimes I wake up thinking \"damn my gf is so hot...\" Then I realize it was a dream and I'm single." ]	[ "Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't ant...
If most of neutrinos were created during the big bang and neutrinos move faster than other matter, wouldn't big-bang-neutrinos be too far away to interact with?	[ "> Is it: because the universe is not expanding from a center, then big bang neutrinos are coming from all directions, not in an \"outward direction\" from some center? That's it! The Big Bang happened everywhere. It wasn't an explosion from a single central point that we can point to and say, \"there it was.\"" ...	[ "As the Universe expands, it deviates from flatness. So if you start off with a universe that is barely not flat, it will quickly become VERY highly curved. So we go out and measure that our Universe is [extremely close to flat](_URL_0_). This means it must have been yet closer in the distant past. How is that poss...
Why does it thunder after lightning strikes?	[ "They are both happening at the same time. But the speed of sound is slower than the speed of light. So you hear it after you see it." ]	[ "Pesticides used directly on food crops are not supposed to resist rain, at least not to the extent that they persist and poison people. Pesticides are often washed away by rain which is often part of the guidelines for use - rain can shorten the preharvest interval that is needed before crops can be harvested. The...
Did NASA sterilize the mars rovers to prevent relocating bacterial life to mars?	[ "I found this article that talks about. _URL_0_ My first thought was that they couldn’t survive place but some can. The article says that NASA has process to clean rovers to not contaminate other celestial bodies." ]	[ "Two main reasons. One was that the rocket engine they had planned to use , the N1, was not successful. It just was not reliable. You can YouTube the explosion, it's pretty spectacular. The second reason was that it was no longer worth the cost. The \"reward\" for getting there first was huge, and the Americans won...
Detecting Observers - Is This Possible?	[ "From what I know about the observer effect, it does not have to be a human observing the experiment to interfere with the results. > Let's say you have a room that has a display device which consistently outputs information regarding which-path and/or which-slit photon results from repeated automated dual-slit ex...	[ "It tracks mouse movement. If it was a bot it would immediately click the checkbox after it was loaded. You as a human have to move your mouse cursor to the checkbox and this movement is not in a straight line. So basically they just check mouse movement and time between checkbox being rendered and when it is click...
Could planes benefit from having dimples like golf balls?	[ "No. Dimples help on golf balls because they help with base drag, that is drag created by the low pressure region behind the moving thing. However, the dimples increase drag from skin friction. Golf balls are not aerodynamic and thus have a lot of base drag, thus the dimples help. But airplanes are made very aerody...	[ "It is the most efficient design. Adding more blades puts them closer together, causing each one to run into more turbulence from its neigbor. _URL_4_ _URL_2_ _URL_3_ _URL_1_ _URL_0_" ]
Do we know the average lifespan of dinosaurs? How would we know such a thing?	[ "> \"Traditional\" estimates based on slow, reptilian growth rates, combined with the enormous size of dinosaurs, led scientists to conclude it could be up to several hundred years. [Source](_URL_1_) [Source 2](_URL_0_) So, traditionally, age estimation was based on modern-day analogues of dinosaurs. However, \"gro...	[ "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 we like sleeping?	[ "For me I get to escape the torture of being in this reality for little while so that's a nice aspect. Also if you get into lucid dreaming it doesn't have to be \"just laying there\"." ]	[ "The rest gives your body time to heal itself through natural processes that take place inside of the body." ]
Do medical procedures/cures exist that are just too costly to be available to the public?	[ "When researching medical interventions, one of the biggest things is looking at cost-effectiveness. We try to compute a dollar per (quality-adjusted) life year saved, and assess whether or not it's a good way of allocating limited resources. I don't think there's a set consensus on what constitutes a 'good' value ...	[ "Hmm ... good question. Let me tell you where I think the answer lies: food. If you adjust for inflation, the prices of many basic foods is less today than it was in 1900. Take flour for example. Page 213 (document page 31) of [this U.S. Census document](_URL_1_) has the prices of many basic foodstuffs betwee...
Why do so many containers say "96% post consumer recycled material"? Why not 100%?	[ "Recycling paper isn't as simple as just mixing it with water, grinding it up and remoulding it. You need to add chemicals to the mix to make it look and behave like paper. Bleach, for example, is usually added to counteract the ink that is usually on recycled paper. Other chemicals are needed to make it not fall a...	[ "I sell you something for a dollar that costs me fifty cents to make and sell, you get it, I get a dollar of revenue and fifty cents of gross profit. I sell you something for two dollars with a one dollar cash back coupon redeemable upon your next purchase. You get it, I get two dollars of pure revenue (which infla...
Why does avogadro’s law only work for gases but not liquids?	[ "An assumption inherent in Avogadro's law is that the distance between the atoms is much larger than the size of the atoms. Compare for example an ideal gas to a van der Waals gas. In liquids this assumption does not hold, because all the molecules are basically touching. An ethanol molecule is quite a bit bigger t...	[ "Current law: Amount of current entering a junction (the place where two or more wires meet) is the same as the amount of current leaving the junction. Analogy: Think of a busy traffic intersection where many roads meet. On any given day, the total number of cars that have arrived at the intersection will ...
Why do multi-vitamins contain more than 100% of certain nutrients?	[ "Something people haven't patronized yet on here is bioavailability & bioaccessibility; even if it says 100%, you don't really get a 1:1 ratio of access/usage from it, same as when you eat food. Also, the daily recommended requirements are often really low, more like a \"this is good enough so you don't outright ha...	[ "They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to anyone who mailed back the special offer." ]
Why is there this giant burning hole in the ground?	[ "> The Derweze area is rich in natural gas. While drilling in 1971, Soviet geologists tapped into a cavern filled with natural gas.[2] The ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed, leaving a large hole with a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft) at 40°15′10″N 58°26′22″E. To avoid poisonous gas discharge, it was decided ...	[ "What you're seeing looks like a mud pot, not mud volcano. They're both real things. _URL_0_ > A mudpot — or mud pool — is a sort of acidic hot spring, or fumarole, with limited water. It usually takes the form of a pool of bubbling mud. The acid and microorganisms decompose surrounding rock into clay and mud. Ed...
How did the first person to create a watch know what time to set on ?	[ "Before mechanical watches and clocks you had hour glasses and sun dials, so the concept of seconds, minutes and hours was already known. If you want to know how they calibrated them, that was just a matter of counting a lot of times and taking the best mean value." ]	[ "Nøt sure how old it is but in my country, norway, we oftes say \"with/against the sun\". (With the sun being the same as with the clock). Quite independent of any mechanical apparatus." ]
If certain animals can regenerate limbs (geckos tails, octopus tentacles, starfish, etc.), why isn't there focus on how these animals do this to try and figure out human organ/limb regeneration?	[ "Actually it is being worked on presently, maybe you've heard of stem cell research? Same principle, but usually grown outside the body (currently), however there is a lot of talk about using straight injections for some issues, with spinal paralysis being a big one." ]	[ "The terms warm and cold blooded are misnomers. What these things really refer to is the type of heat regulation that type of animal uses. Reptiles and amphibians are 'cold blooded' or, much more accurately, ectothermic. Eco means outside, therm means heat. Reptiles can't make their own heat so they must rely on th...
Why there are no (many) realistic computer generated imagery (CGI) movies being made?	[ "I believe they made some realistic CGI films a few years ago. People found them unsettling. They weren't quite 100% realistic, but very very close, and people found that when they saw slightly odd behaviour in characters that looked that realistic, it was just \"wrong\". I'll try to find a reference..... Edit: fou...	[ "The basic requirements are carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water. A nutrient liquid containing just the right combination of the above would keep you alive for a while. Add some vitamin & mineral supplements and it will keep you alive indefinitely. It also helps to consume soluble and insoluble fiber (cellulose)...
How are "dry counties" legal in the United States when this is seemingly in direct opposition to the 21st amendment?	[ "The 21st Amendment only repeals the 18th Amendment which made transportation, sale, and manufacturing of alcohol a crime. The 21st Amendment does NOT give you the constitutional right to transport, sell, or manufacture alcohol." ]	[ "Perhaps the root is manioc. The clue of the hundred leagues between them and the sea led me to believe it was somewhere like Panama or Costa Rica - somewhere where the mountains would hem people to the coast. Dr. Payson Sheets' work in Cerén, El Salvador, has shown that manioc actually is a much larger staple crop...
How do jets fly up-side down?	[ "They can use their ailerons/elevators to change the overall angle of attack of the wing, giving them a moderate amount of lift at the expense of drag. It's not really the shape of the wing so much that produces lift anyway, it's the wing's angle that pushes downward on the air below it and pulls up on the air ab...	[ "4 Years old post, but it is due to refraction and differences in air density apparently _URL_0_" ]
If the sea evaporated, could it fit in the earth's atmosphere?	[ "Yes, as it was more than 4 billion years ago when the average temperature on Earth was greater than 100 C. By definition (at standard pressures), water would be in vapor form. As soon as the temperature dropped below 100 C, water vapor began condensing and forming the oceans. I don't need to say that a \"steam Ear...	[ "well, since it's a syringe it has at least one open end. Let's assume a real syringe, i.e. the piston has a proper seal and would need some force to be moved. The liquid should be fine for a short while and would stay inside the syringe... however, since we have vacuum, the liquid will soon start to boil (as the l...
If we put a billiard ball up in outer space and then puff some air at it, will it hold onto an amount proportional to the Earth via gravity and maintain an "atmosphere" almost indefinitely?	[ "The escape velocity for a 1kg sphere with radius 3cm: [.24 meters/hour](_URL_0_) Temperature of a gas with average velocity of .24 meters/hour, using the mass of Tungsten Hexaflouride, one of the heavier gasses I could find with some cursory internet searching: [.17 nanokelvin](_URL_1_). that is to say, any gas at...	[ "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...
What happened to the Merovingian dynasty after Carolingians took over?	[ "So Pippin III (or the Short) had himself elected by the leading nobles of Francia, with the knowledge the Pope was on his side. He then sent Childeric III (the last Merovingian king) to the monastery of St. Bertin, where he is said to have died in 755. Childeric's son Theuderic was raised inside a monastery, which...	[ "Follow-up question; when did the Greek phalanx go out of fashion in favour of the Macedonian style, and why?" ]
The game 'Rising Storm' claims Japanese soldiers in WWII were more courageous and ferocious than American soldiers. Is this true?	[ "Culled the baseless speculation and various degrees of racist non-answers. Please provide statements that can be sourced. Surely there must be historical literature regarding the attitudes of American and Japanese soldiers, and if not, literature regarding the origin of the stereotypes?" ]	[ "In [Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco's Chinatown](_URL_0_), Risse provides the following in reference to practices and attitudes in China at the time: > Most villagers, however still practiced the instillation of a powder made from dried smallpox scabs. Instead of conferring immunity, this strategy o...
I survived the German Holocaust of WW2, what do my next ten years look like?	[ "An important point-most victims and survivors were _not_ German; they were from Central and Eastern Europe and would have had no ties to Germany. So you have people from many areas with different options and different situations back where they came from and where in Germany or Eastern Europe you were at war's end...	[ "Read. Read this subreddit. Read this subreddit's [Popular Questions](_URL_1_). Read some of [this subreddit's recommended books about history](_URL_2_). Read some of [this subreddit's recommended academic resources](_URL_0_). Read. That should keep you occupied for a year or five. And, it'll get you started!" ]
How does HRT affect muscle mass and bone density in trans women?	[ "In general, undergoing HRT causes trans women to have an increased BMI, which involves both a reduction in muscle mass and an increase in stored body fat. The body fat is mostly gained in more \"feminine\" areas. According to [this study ](_URL_0_), there is no increased risk of osteoporosis (i.e. lower bone dens...	[ "In Texas you are sent to the prison of your birth gender and usually put into a special cell block where you don't have a roommate. I was a guard in the early nineties, and one person came in with male anatomy and breast implants. He identified himself as a woman but still had a penis, so there was no way he was ...
Why don’t physicists use relativistic mass anymore?	[ "It's a completely unnecessary concept. It's also ambiguous. If you define relativistic mass such that you maintain the non-relativistic expression for Newton's second law, you actually get different relativistic masses depending on the direction of the acceleration relative to the velocity of the object. Physici...	[ "You get the full year's worth of radiation. From an outside point of view, we see that time is dilated and the astronaut is moving very slowly inside their spaceship. But we see the spaceship take a full year to reach its destination, and gets hit by all this radiation along the way. From the astronaut's point of ...
How difficult was it for a German to resist orders from the Nazi party?	[ "I believe in his book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and The Final Solution, Christopher Browning states that most of the men did not ask of the duties. In fact, it was only a handful that refused to participate in any of the murders. Those who did refuse weren't disciplined. I also think he points out...	[ "This has essentially been answered by the preceding comments, but what hasn't been contributed is this: _URL_0_. Muster and enrollment records, transfer lists, honours lists, etc, for the period of 1730 through 1898. Worth having, OP, if you're writing or researching the topic academically. To succinctly summarise...
Why does the AFL-CIO support free trade? Doesn't that create downward pressure on wages?	[ "They don't support free trade. Most trade agreements, even some described as free trade, maintain controls that make the unions relatively happy. Things like so-called anti-dumping laws and the like. There is no free trade in the world today; just variations of control. And because unions have a lot of sway in gov...	[ "Before I answer, may I ask who the speaker is for this particular lecture? Or if you have a link for me to listen to? I would like to know where they are coming from in their argument." ]
/ Why does Popeye eat spinach to get strong?	[ "Because kids if you want to grow up big and strong like popeye you have to eat your vegetables" ]	[ "Marketing basically. Decades and decades of TV ads hammering home the idea that if you want to be seen as a normal successful member of society, you drink orange juice in the morning." ]
Did any nations issue "speed" to their troops in WWI?	[ "/u/Georgy_K_Zhukov has already linked my previous answer on the topic but while amphetamine was discovered in 1887 and methamphetamine in 1919, no commercial production existed until 1934 in the US resp. 1938 in Germany. Hence, its use for troops in WWI seems doubtful to the point of being able to dismiss right ou...	[ "Could you perhaps present us with your original source so we can see what the author writes about it? I think I know the answer, but I would like to know what exactly the author wrote. Also, could you remove the bonus question? We do not allow discussions of events after 1993." ]
why do some American bridges have little roofs on them?	[ "Protection from the elements is the correct answer. I would like to highlight the fact that covered bridges are no longer built, unless serving as a preservation or aesthetic endeavor. The technology dates back to a time before there were other practical/economical ways to protect the wood. The cost of the extra m...	[ "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." ]
How can slight increases in average temperature melt the polar ice caps when the temps near the poles are well below freezing?	[ "The northern polar ice cap is much smaller in the summer than it is in the winter, for obvious reasons. If temps rise slightly, the amount of ice in each season will be less due to more melting. However, average temp is not the only factor. A slight rise in average global temp can result in large temp increases re...	[ "Primarily because one party (GOP) supports industry and business in general, which includes oil. Petroleum products are used in all sorts of functions in our everyday lives in ways that you may not even be aware. So the burning of these fossil fuels is what has been found to cause climate change (according to clim...
Where does the 'thought' voice in my head come from ?	[ "I'm just going to take a stab at this since I'm a neuroscientist. Theres a part of your brain called the Wernikes area that is responsible for recognizing object names and placing labels on things. Normally this information gets sent to the Brocas area which is responsible for the motor actions of producing those ...	[ "Air pressure increases inside of the ear on one side of your eardrum. The same can happen when flying. If the air pressure is not the same on both sides then hearing is dulled. The eustachian tube in your ear is connected to the back of your throat, which allows air pressure to build on one side and not the other....
why do gears multiply forces ?	[ "Energy is force * distance. So, if you have the same amount of energy being transferred, you can increase the force and decrease the distance, or vice versa. When motion is converted via any method, whether it be pulleys, gears, or levers, and energy is not lost in the middle, you can do this kind of conversion - ...	[ "The next time you're on a highway, look for pairs of embedded inductive loops in the roadbed. By measuring how long it takes a vehicle to pass between the two loops an accurate measurement of vehicle speed can be calculated. Since we know the distance to the next exit and the velocity of vehicles passing through, ...
Why can some large corporations get away with directly attacking other large corporations in their commercials without getting in trouble for slander/defamation?	[ "Defamation (in US law) is a knowingly false statement of fact that causes damages. \"X sucks and is dumb and makes bad products\" isn't a statement of fact. It is an opinion, and opinion cannot be defamatory." ]	[ "Anti-trust laws give the Department of Justice the authority to make that call. It is decided case-by-case by the courts. The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice did indeed file a lawsuit arguing against the merger. In court, \"New Charter\" agreed to a list of concessions and regulations in order to c...
the Trans-Pacific Partnership	[ "More or less a way for corporations to literally be above the law and do whatever they want, among other things. Cross your fingers it doesn't go through." ]	[ "Can someone also explain why/when there seems to be a general shift in the prevailing opinion on reddit of \"TPP bad\" to \"TPP good?\" If I recall correctly, one of the biggest oppositions to TPP was because of the implications to Intellectual Property laws - is that no longer a concern, or is there an element of...
Why can't we land a probe on this supposed "alien asteroid" that has visited us from outside the solar system? Couldn't we use it to freeload, virtually fuel-free, to the outer reaches of our solar system? And beyond?	[ "In order to land on it, without just smashing into the damn thing and blowing it a new crater, we'd have to get a spacecraft up to the same speed that the asteroid is traveling at. And at that point, why do we need a free ride? We're already going at the same speed that it is. Just keep coasting." ]	[ "We have made functional fusion reactors, the Joint European Torus actually works quite well, and the ITER should be significantly better but isn't completed yet. So far fusion isn't commercially successful because it takes more power to create the fusion than it gets back out and cannot run continuously but it d...
What color is the sky on Jupiter?	[ "Well that's a surprisingly difficult question. What color is the sky on Earth? It isn't the color you see it as, because your eyes are [color biased](_URL_0_). The upper atmosphere of Jupiter is mostly hydrogen, which scatters light with a similar profile to oxygen. As you went deeper the air above would contain m...	[ "You might have some damage to your color cones in your eye. You should go see an optometrist about it. They specialize in that sort of thing and can help." ]
Is Personality Disorder a form of mental illness?	[ "Personality Disorders don't have any established underlying biological abnormalities or actual cognitive/emotional difficulties. For example, with a mental disease like ADHD, the brain has issues with uptake of dopamine in the frontal lobes, the result is a measurable inability to pay attention. With personality d...	[ "[Disciplinary Actions against Michael Platt, M.D. ](_URL_0_) He isn't a doctor anymore due to \"negligence, incompetence, and inadequate record-keeping\". So I'm just going to disregard his \"alternative medicine\" views on fibromyalgia. It is bullshit." ]
When I'm hungry and my stomach makes noises, what exactly is the cause of these noises?	[ "The noises you are hearing come from waves of contractions passing through your GI tract, churning their contents as they pass. Specifically, those that most likely cause the noises you hear are those of the MMC (Migrating Motor Complex); A series of waves that begin roughly 90 minutes after your stomach empties (...	[ "There are little tubes inside of your ear that have water in them. Normally, they help you tell which direction you're turning. Try it! Close your eyes and sit in a chair, and have your parent turn you in a circle. You can tell you're turning, right? Even though your eyes cant see anything, those tubes in your ear...
Why is it so important to leave a diesel engine running when making quick stops at places?	[ "A gasoline engine uses a spark plug to ignite the fuel air mixture in each cylinder and these explosions of gas are what provides the energy which propels the car. A diesel engine does not use spark plugs in each cylinder but rather uses the heat created by the compression of the air fuel mix in the cylinder to ca...	[ "He's hoping that he has scared you into learning the error of your ways. The best form of policing is preventing crime, and by doing things the way you described, it sounds like he's achieved his goal. You're thinking about it. \"I got away with it this time - next time I might not be so lucky, so I won't do it\...
I recently learned that the Mars atmosphere is 95% CO2. Since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, was isn't the planet much warmer?	[ "It may be 95% CO2, but there isn't much of it. Mars's atmosphere is less than 1% of ours. Essentially, a whole lot of nothing is still nothing." ]	[ "\"Stochiometric\" is the ratio of air and fuel. Ideal stochiometric for a gasoline-powered car at sea level is 14.7:1, air:fuel. If you are running rich, there is more fuel in the ratio. The additional fuel can add carbon build-up, which can lead to predetonation issues and other things. If you are running lean,...
Why does the sun go orange when setting, and make the sky pink?	[ "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 ...	[ "We do have a fairly good method for enacting laws on a temporary or trial basis, and it's called a [sunset provision](_URL_1_). A sunset provision is basically an expiration date for a law or regulation that will cause the law or regulation to cease being in effect if the law or regulation is not reauthorized. Oft...
How does mold end up growing on food and in damp conditions?	[ "Mold spores are ubiquitous in the air; short of living in a cleanroom, any time you expose anything to the atmosphere you're going to end up with spores. Once the spores land, if the temperature and humidity are right they will germinate and reproduce and begin to create the mold we all know and hate." ]	[ "The answer is about how long you want it to ferment for. Barley and flour both have some small amount of residual sugar in them, but in order to make beer you need A LOT of sugar to ferment for days and days. Pizza dough by contrast is thin, and not really bready but almost cracker like. Bread dough will usually a...
When are three staffs necessary in sheet music?	[ "When you have 3 instruments (excluding piano and some mallet percussion that use a Grand Staff) or a solo-performer and piano (or other instrument that uses a Grand Staff. Even having multiple voices can have a staff for each voice part though you do have hymnal style notation where all voice parts are put on a si...	[ "Apparently, it's [part of Quebec's tax auditing system](_URL_0_). There is [some speculation](_URL_1_) that the symbols are a visual checksum of the barcode part. Basically, Quebec told all restaurants that they need to use a standard device for printing receipts. This does the double duty of ensuring that receipt...
What is the difference between Ray Tracing and Path Tracing?	[ "Ray tracing is when rays that are going to the camera (or view) hot an object, and then multiple rays are projected out from that point of Orgin, to the various light sources, those rays either intersect with other objects, or reach their light source, depending on where the rays land information is taken and calc...	[ "For a traditional IRA, you can put money directly into it without paying taxes on that money. However, when you withdraw from the account, you must pay taxes on your earnings. In a Roth IRA, you do have to pay taxes on your money before you put it in, but you do not have to pay taxes on any earnings when you t...
How did pornography work in 14th century France?	[ "Unfortunately, I'm not really sure there even was pornography in 14th century france-- that would have been the 1300s. Is there a specific work you're thinking of? Either way, pornography would not have existed as we are aware of it and call it, the concept is a relative modern one, only dating to around 1850 or ...	[ "It doesn't have the same Christian puritanism that you find in the US, because Christianity is not pervasive there." ]
Why was poor eyesight not genetically removed when humans/prehumans were in their nomadic phase of evolution?	[ "Partial answer. Most people dont show signs of poor eyesight until they are past their teenage years. By then people had already bred. Regarding lifelong poor eyesight, 20/20 was not critical for survival in many areas/tribes. Farming, gathering, taking care of the home could still be managed to a reasonable exten...	[ "Most people copy ideas. If the tribe A comes up with a good idea, then tribe B next door will copy it. Or tribe A's good idea may make it powerful enough to conquer tribe B and force them to adopt their idea. Isolated communities may not be exposed to outsiders' ideas (like modern technology) so they don't copy th...
ELI: Why do so many countries keep royal families around?	[ "A royal family brings your country millions of tourists. And, they take over all the state dinners and stuff, leaving the politicians to actually do their job." ]	[ "Yarr, ye forgot yer searchin' duties, for ['twas asked by those what came before ye!](_URL_0_) Enjoy yon molderin' explanations, and remember [rule 9](_URL_1_)." ]
When your sick with a cold why do symptoms like sneezing and runny nose seem to stop when you're sleeping but start again as soon as you wake up?	[ "Being deeply asleep is a vulnerable time for your airway. It's best for the body not to pump pints of mucus into the throat and mouth as you auto breathe in deep sleep. It makes sense for the body to shut these mechanisms off as you sleep to protect your breathing." ]	[ "Our brains didn't evolve with cars in mind. They evolved with, like, being hunted by a jaguar (or whatever) in mind. So your brain doesn't know what to do with a car. It thinks hey, we're sitting, our body's not really doing anything physical, there's very little activity or stimulus... this seems like a good time...
If there has been no link to sugar causing hyperactivity, why do they tell you to drink orange juice to get a fetus moving?	[ "Because low blood sugar is associated with lethargy. A fetus with low blood sugar can be less active than one with normal blood sugar." ]	[ "Our brains didn't evolve with cars in mind. They evolved with, like, being hunted by a jaguar (or whatever) in mind. So your brain doesn't know what to do with a car. It thinks hey, we're sitting, our body's not really doing anything physical, there's very little activity or stimulus... this seems like a good time...
what made jimi hendrix arguably one of the best rock players of all time?	[ "Plenty of musicians are technically skilled, or excellent songwriters, or studio wizards, or are just plain passionate performers, but Jimi melded all that together and put out an amazing number of ridiculously great (not just great, but sometimes perfect) songs out in a very short time. Considering how short his ...	[ "I would be curious to know if Caesar's reputation was due to propaganda by his heir, Augustus. It would have been in his interest for Caesar to have been a great man, Augustus had a long reign and a lot of time to drill that idea home, and, the men who murdered Caesar, ie, the opposing view, didn't last long." ]
How do gun silencers work?	[ "To fire a bullet from a gun, gunpowder is ignited behind the bullet. The gunpowder creates a high-pressure pulse of hot gas. The pressure of the gas forces the bullet down the barrel of the gun. When the bullet exits the end of the barrel, it is like uncorking a bottle. The pressure behind the bullet is immense, h...	[ "Here is a great video explaining it. _URL_0_" ]
When ants bite a human, do they know they are biting a living thing?	[ "It's likely just a threat response. Some Activity Disturbs me enough = Bite. Ants aren't likely to have any complex thoughts." ]	[ "Your nerves are mostly sending either pain or pressure signals to your brain. However, they can only send one signal at a time, and pressure takes priority over pain. So when you get hurt and apply pressure, your body thinks \"ok there's pain and pressure but since we can only send one signal to this meatbags brai...
How do fish smell underwater?	[ "Smell is just the detection of individual chemicals in a medium. Air with a wide variety of chemicals mixed up in it gets swept up into our nose where there is a suite of chemical detectors, each triggered by a different compound. Fish have \"nostrils\" (though they don't lead to their lungs) where water can flow ...	[ "Here is a link to help. They basically have a tube that is separate from their throat, so they do not choke [click here](_URL_0_)" ]
What is brain plaque and what can happen if it is not taken care of and how can it be prevented?	[ "Alzheimer's disease involves amyloid plaque. No one quite knows why, although there are theories. [For some reason, amyloid protein breaks down and forms \"plaque\", which are blobs of goo that the brain can't remove.](_URL_0_) Alzheimer's also involves tangles of Tau protein, which is a structural support that gi...	[ "When you add a file to your computer, it gets put in the first available space - even if that space isn't big enough to fit the entire file in. If the space isn't big enough, the file gets SPLIT into several pieces and put in different places. Over time, constantly adding and deleting things means that all the stu...
How does clicking a box to confirm you're not a robot stop robots?	[ "The captcha isn't checking that you clicked the box. But how you clicked the box. What was the path of the mouse cursor movement. What was the delay in movement. What was the speed of the movement. What were the initial and ending coordinates Applying heuristics, it can give a confidence level if it matches any ...	[ "> How did we get metal to think? By: * building an electrical component (transistor) where a voltage on one line can act as a very fast switch on a different line. * finding a super-miniuaturized production process for these components. * wiring them together in increasingly complex systems to store numbers, do c...
How come I can tell if a a word is spelt wrong, but I can't tell which letter is incorrect?	[ "Many brain functions are actually independent of each other. The phenomena is called a dissociation. Beyond your example, there are much weirder cases that exist in brain-damaged patients: people who can read words but not understand them; or read them, but only understand the nouns--people who can speak, but not ...	[ "Because you are not paying attention to what time it is. Your focus is on the task at hand. (Space filler because autobot will delete answer) Because you are not paying attention to what time it is. Your focus is on the task at hand. Because you are not paying attention to what time it is. Your focus is on the t...
What is the scientific term for a person who is incapable of feeling emotions? Are there any recorded cases of this?	[ "I'm not sure that such a thing exists. Emotions are a type of cognition and are intimately associated with our other cognitive functions. I think a person who completely lacked emotions would look very much like someone in a coma. Emotions (and the motivations that guide them) are what we base our decisions to beg...	[ "_URL_0_ < - Here is an article discussing this particular paper written by climate science experts. They go through and show why the paper is incorrect. _URL_1_ < - This article deals with several past models the author (Roy Spencer) has released. Basically the issue with Spencer is that he is convinced CO2 has no...
What role did amphetamines have in WWII, by both sides? To what extent did its psychological effects impact leaders & troops thoughts and actions? Did they realize its harms?	[ "The book \"Ghost Soldiers\" discusses the use of amphetamines by the Rangers after the successful raid/rescue of POWs at the Cabanatuan POW camp. The Rangers were issued the pills since the operation was several days and there wasn't any real time to sleep since time was a factor getting the POWs back to Allied li...	[ "I've always been fascinated by the wide variety of \"Fall of Rome\" arguments and how they're affected by historical perspective. I was wondering: **Does your historical specialty advocate a certain theory for the fall of the Roman Empire? or what's a unique argument for the fall of the Roman Empire that you've co...
Do the effects of PEDs affect the children of the athletes that take them?	[ "Let's think about it this way. The only material passed from father to offspring is what is included in his sperm. Therefore, unless he does something to alter his sperm, nothing will be passed on. So for Lance, beyond having ultra awesome genes (let's face it, the guy was still a great athlete without PEDs, altho...	[ "_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 is it that the sound of a ticking watch does not produce mental distress as the sound of drops dripping, also at regular intervals, from a leaky tap?	[ "I can't answer this, but I do want to say, that at least for me, the sound of a ticking clock or watch absolutely does cause mental distress the way a drip does." ]	[ "Another component worth mentioning is that YouTube clips can 'intelligently buffer', while GIFs lack this functionality. Imagine your friend likes pistachios, but hates opening them. You, in your infinite kindness, start to crack open the shells and placing the open pistachios next to him/her. If your friend were ...
What causes a white blood cell to follow and track down a bacteria? (GIF in text).	[ "[Chemotaxis](_URL_0_) - the white blood cells are sensitive to certain short peptides that are released by bacteria (and by degradation of eukaryotic cells) that serve as an attractant that cause motion towards the source of said peptide." ]	[ "* Open your favourite FPS game. * Run across the map, keeping an object in the skybox at a constant angle in your view. You will go in a straight line. * Now run, keeping a nearby object at a constant angle. You will circlestrafe right into it. When insect navigation evolved, the only lights around were in the sk...
How is a random number generated, and how is it "truly" random?	[ "If you want truly random numbers, you have to observe atmospheric cosmic rays and turn that info into usable numbers. Check you _URL_0_ for their methodology Often times computers cheat and use their onboard clocks to get random numbers, which kind of works. Encryption programs, like Veracrypt, can use mouse movem...	[ "There's a battery (usually lithium coin cell) that keeps the RTC (real-time clock) hardware alive when the power is off. When the computer boots up, it queries this hardware to determine what time it is. The RTC uses a simple crystal oscillator to keep track of time, similar to the way a digital watch does." ]
Why do some people put their windshield wipers "up" when it is going to snow/ice?	[ "Both. The snow and ice can be hard to get out of the space between the wiper and your hood, and when you're scraping it out you can easily tear the rubber off the blade if it's glued to the windshield with ice." ]	[ "Seasons are the result of the tilt of the Earth. Earth spins on a slight angle compared to the circle of its orbit around the Sun. This means that at different times of year, the poles are pointed towards or away from the Sun. This affects how much daylight the poles get, with the impact decreasing as you get towa...
how (big) ancient cities, like Babylon, became deserted?	[ "Cities like that can only exist if the people there can make a lot of money from the location. When the craftsmen and traders could no longer easily buy and sell goods due to near constant warfare during the reign of the Seleucid empire, people started to leave for (hopefully) greener pastures. The ones who remain...	[ "The business cycle. This is just how capitalism works--it goes from boom to bust and back. Actual hard answers are complicated bits of economics that are beyond an ELI5." ]
What's the difference in the Nuclear waste left behind from a Nuclear meltdown (Chernobyl) compared to an atomic bomb?	[ "Because they spread out everywhere, and over a large area. Chernobyl's waste is mostly concentrated in the reactor itself when it melted down. Both are dangerous and still present, but the concentration levels at Chernobyl are what makes it more deadly. Plus the bombs \"consume\" a good amount of the product, and ...	[ "Highly unlikely. a/ if it could, they would already have noticed it. b/ a plane crash would create only a localised splash wave that would soon be absorbed by the water itself. c/ Tsunami meters dont work like seismometers, they work in a number of ways but need fairly significant readings before they start sendin...
Why aren't burn victims kept numb during healing?	[ "Some numbing agents have toxic chemicals in them so using them on an open wound is a bad idea. Plus there's no way of knowing who is or is not allergic to said chemicals. As far as 3rd degree burns go, the nerves are usually killed from the burn anyway so there's no need for pain meds." ]	[ "The nerves in your skin that detect temperature only measure the change in temperature and not whether it is cold or hot. Context and other variables tell your brain if it is cold or not but sometimes the brain still gets confused and sends you the wrong signal." ]
Based on what kind of technology are hackers’ internet activity safe from national security and the government?	[ "There are many ways to keep your internet actions safe. The first and most basic is a VPN, which encrypts all traffic between you and your destination so nobody can read it. Then you have TOR routers which break up your internet traffic and bounce it all around the world before it reaches its destination. Finally,...	[ "Because our bodies are electrochemical pathways that can be 'hacked'. The proper dose of chemical here, and suddenly you're having an epileptic seizure. A splash of a different chemical there, and you have the sudden feeling that something's biting your feet, so you climb a tree to escape it. Another chemical, and...
Do obese people have more nerve endings than thin people?	[ "I think the just get stretched out your body generally doesn't have the ability to regenerate nerve cells except for some peripheral nerves and only in response to trauma." ]	[ "Why would it have to be genetic? Maybe they just learned how to cope with heat when they were growing up in hot places. Anyway, there are a couple of very old biological principles about how [endothermic](_URL_0_) (\"warm-blooded\") species are expected to adapt to different climates. [Bergmann's rule](_URL_2_): t...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.