Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
When a lot of people die in one event, such as a natural disaster or 9/11, how do insurance companies pay everybody?	[ "To reduce risk from large disasters, insurance companies have their own insurance! It's called [\"reinsurance\"](_URL_0_), and it's a specialty field dominated by a few expert companies that don't sell ordinary insurance." ]	[ "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...
Why didn't late medieval armies resurrect the Roman way of fighting?	[ "In addition to what MI13 mentioned in their excellent answer, you have to keep in mind the tactical employment of Early Modern pike formations bore only superficial resemblance to Macedonian phalanxes. They both carried pikes, and that was it. The Spanish, on the cutting edge of military development in the 16th ce...	[ "There were a few reasons that I know of - Making plate cover those parts while retaining mobility was actually pretty much impossible. (i'm assuming my hamstrings you mean the back of the knee joint?) - when you look at plate suits by themselves they often appear to be full of gaps, however men-at-arms wore tunics...
Why is light affected by gravity if the equation for gravity requires mass?	[ "Light isn't really. The spacetime the light passes through is curved by the gravity. Light goes strait according to its own viewpoint. It seems bent to an outside observer. Welcome to the fun or thinking about relativity." ]	[ "For the Schwarzschild metric, you consider the geodesic equations in the equatiorial plane \$which is any plane crossing r=0 by symmetry\$. Combining these three equations into one gives an ordinary differential equation. Newton predicts the same differential equation except for one term. Newton's equation is u'...
Why is there such a delay between when movies leave theaters and when they come out on DVD/Blu-Ray?	[ "If the dvd/blu ray came out immediately a lot of people wouldn't bother going to see it at the cinema because they could easily wait until its released." ]	[ "Many states have laws on their books that explicitly state that car manufacturers cannot sell directly to their customers; they must operate through an intermediary car dealership. Tesla doesn't want to operate through dealerships, so they have to go to each state and basically ask their courts for an exemption to...
Why can I tell in old cartoons (and some new ones) when a drawn object will move or not by the end of the scene?	[ "They're drawn on different layers. Instead of drawing each frame from scratch, animators save time by drawing the background once, then laying the characters and other moving parts on top of it. The characters are drawn on transparent sheets. For each frame, they lay the sheet(s) on top of the background, take a p...	[ "Contracts from when the movie/show was first made. It’s in the contracts how much you get of the profits of the movie, and that’s forever. It’s not renegotiated for each release." ]
What were alternative ways to deal with the South after the Civil War that were considered but rejected for Reconstruction? How might things look different now if those were chosen instead?	[ "Ironically if Lincoln had lived Reconstruction would've been much more lenient. His major concern was trying to foster the American System and overcoming factionalism. As such his plans didn't call for military rule of the South and its attended problems. The Radical Republicans in Congress, riding the tide of pow...	[ "Businesses are usually worth more as \"going concerns\" than as a pile of office furniture. Allowing the company to keep operating is likely to lead to a greater recovery for their creditors than forcing it douse itself in gasoline and fling a match. This is half of the point of having bankruptcy laws in the first...
Why are our individual perceptions of 'the future' seemingly similar?	[ "Coz we dont exist in vacuum. Common cultural influences like reading the same \"future\" books and watching the same \"future\" movies induce some amount of same-ness in thinking." ]	[ "You are currently processing crystal clear images of your surroundings, focusing on this post, reading squiggles and translating them into sounds, connecting those sounds into words forming sentences with meaning while simultaneously feeling your hand on your mouse, smelling the air, hearing and interpreting sound...
Why do babies cry a lot?	[ "Babies are quite limited in how they can interact with the world around them. Crying is about the only means of communication in the beginning. If you are looking for an evolutionary response, it is because humans take care of our young over the long term. Unlike deer or rabbits, for example, who hide their babie...	[ "Becaus for most if them their frontal lobes aren’t developed yet and are very easily molded by repetition and hype. Adults have the ability and experience to see the BS in ads." ]
Bright object to the right of the moon?	[ "Since the question has already been answered, I'm just going to throw in a plug for my favourite app for answering these kinds of questions, [Google Sky Map](_URL_0_). Just point it at whatever is confusing you, and it tells you what and where everything is." ]	[ "A few reasons: - It was a [Falcon](_URL_0_), which is a pretty good sized rocket. - The launch was at sunset. So it wasn't daylight on the ground, but the rocket itself was in daylight. The sunlight reflected off the exhaust plume. - It was a south launch into polar orbit. The track of the launch went near the pop...
the difference between 4/4 and 2/2 time in music?	[ "You're absolutely right that there's no difference in the number of beats per measure, so in a sense they're pretty interchangeable. However, cut time is presumed to be a lot faster - since you're counting half notes instead of counting quarter notes. Often cut time (2/2) is used as a way to make sheet music easie...	[ "I can't give you an in depth description on how each differs on the technical level (by that I mean how they're programmed), but I know a bit about them. They're both video codecs, both ways to take raw pixel data and turn it into a nearly equivalent video file but with a small fraction of the size through video c...
What's going on in Syria?	[ "Know what, it's a cop-out and doesn't really answer the question, but some fantastic context can be found in a [recent Frontline](_URL_0_) called 'Syria behind the lines,' where they managed to embed one journalist with a rebel group on one side of a valley and another with the Syrian army unit on the other side."...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why does it seem that skin is the only human organ unable to adapt to weight loss?	[ "Skin does adapt. You're much larger/heavier when you're 20 years old than when you were 2 years old. If you rapidly gain weight you exceed the elastic limit of your skin (stretch marks). If you rapidly lose weight, you will end up with extra skin. If you lose 10 pounds in a year, you won't have a problem. Los...	[ "Look at it like a phone and charger. If you put a load of energy into the phone (more than it's rated for), it'll do serious damage almost immediately. If you use an underrated charger, it'll put only a little energy in, but the phone will use more than it's getting and eventually die. Heat is just a form of ener...
Why does CPR show up on a 12 lead EKG?	[ "Compressions cause motion, creating artifact on the EKG. If you notice, you will also see artifact when the ambulance goes over a bump. You can also pull on the wires, shift patients on the stretcher, etc. and see artifact. I had to [look this up](_URL_0_), but it makes sense to me that the waveform changes are du...	[ "So, just to be clear, based on what you describe in your post I am pretty sure you committed [mail fraud.](_URL_0_) Not a judgment, just a note that your nearly free CD's may have come with a sizable risk of imprisonment and large fines. Second, Columbia House made its money because you only got the first record ...
Where does background radiation in space come from?	[ "Well there's cosmic background radiation all the way from the Big Bang, but there is a ton of radiation in space from stars. If the vacuum of space didn't kill you, going into space without a suit would cause you to do quickly from the radiation." ]	[ "Your first question somewhat answers your second question. A neuron that is re-polarizing cannot fire another action potential. (This is known as the absolute refractory period.) Because it is unable to fire during this period the action potential traveling down the axon cannot go back the way it came. Note, when ...
Has the placebo effect been observed in animals of lower cognitive ability?	[ "No. The placebo effect is strongly tied to the fact someone is trying to help, and the resulting psychological reassurance. This level of cognition is beyond most animals. An interesting article (with references): _URL_0_ Interesting how it was proven acupuncture on horses (which is a thing) was proven to be no ...	[ "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 ...
How did the polynesians find Easter Island?	[ "hi! you may be interested in a few earlier posts * [How was Easter Island a remote place on Earth discovered by ancient people with rudimentary technology?](_URL_2_) * [How did ancient seafaring peoples of Melanesia find remote islands like Easter Island, yet miss the Americas?](_URL_3_) * [Polynesian diaspora](_U...	[ "This is a pretty common question here; here's some links from the FAQ: _URL_2_ _URL_4_ and a few others that have been posted over the years: _URL_3_ _URL_1_ _URL_0_ Most posts agree that it is largely a post-war pop phenomenon with fairly little evidence to support it." ]
Why don't people just replace the tires on their car with slightly larger diameter tires so the odometer increases more slowly?	[ "Tire diameter is an integral part of the car's design. Changing the diameter of the tire can throw off more than just the calibration of the speedometer and the odometer, but also things like ABS systems, anti-skid systems and other dynamic stability control often found in modern cars. It also affects the load put...	[ "Previous reply was pretty close. \"W\" is often referred to as winter or more specifically cold, this is the viscosity of the oil when it is cold. The 2nd number is the operational viscosity, or how well it flows once heated. It's is best to put the recommended oil weight in a car. Truth be told there is a complex...
If you start with 0.5, then add 0.25, then 0.125 and keep adding half of the number you just added, will you ever get to 1?	[ "Not in a finite number of additions. In mathematics, there is an idea called 'limits' where the answer is '1'. The beauty of the 'limits' idea is that it is entirely defined in terms of finite operations. What it basically says is that the process of addition will get you arbitrarily close to 1 if you add enough...	[ "For most cases no. You can only focus light to reach the temperature of the light source. It does not increase to infinity as you focus more light into a smaller area. A light bulb in a flash light is not very hot so you won’t achieve a fire with it. The moon acts as a reflector so the question gets more complic...
How was the Roman Republic viewed by people in the Byzantine empire?	[ "Someone with better knowledge of Byzantium than me will hopefully be able to provide a better answer than this. But I can at least say that yes, they certainly were aware of the Republic. Many of the sources we use for studying the Republic today are in Greek, and survive thanks to Byzantine copyists. There was a ...	[ "Not really, the name \"republicans\" (picked in the 1850s) was a reference to the republicanism that Thomas Jefferson supported in his own republican party at that time. It came from a quote: > some simple name like 'Republican' [that] would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its tr...
How can a country bomb another country because they contain groups of ISIS without first declaring war?	[ "If your next door neighbor is trampling flowers in your backyard, and your much larger, much bigger neighbor from across the street decides to try and stop him, it's in your interest to just let him do that, whether with implicit or explicit approval. ... especially when you can't get to that corner of the backyar...	[ "Greetings everyone. In the few minutes this sub has been up, it's attracting sub-standard responses. Just a reminder of a few of the rules: * no responses covering events/conditions post-1994, per this sub's \"20-year rule\" prohibiting discussion of current events * no anecdotes * no speculation OP: your question...
Why do Headset microphones of planes or helicopters which are worth hundret thousands of dollars, have such a bad voice quality, whereas my 30$ Headset delivers almost crystal clear voice through the internet?	[ "Helicopters are a noisy environment so headset mics have to be specially tuned to pick up voice. Sound quality is low mainly so that there is a reliable audio connection. Low sound quality > crystal clear sound quality with a chance of cutting out. It is generally hard to misunderstand voice, even with the lower s...	[ "Our eardrums vibrate - but that's not how our brain senses sound. The eardrum only transfers the sound from the outer ear to the inner ear. Within the inner ear is the cochlea, the part that actually senses the sound. The cochlea is filled with a fluid, and the sound is transferred into this fluid. Along the insid...
How can a bank freely sell my mortgage to another bank, but if I alter my loan at all I must pay an assortment of fees?	[ "Because that's what it says in the loan contract you signed. When you sign the document it means you agree to everything it says. Also, when a bank loans you money that loan is something that they own. To them, it's an asset like a building or a car. Wheres to you the loan is something that you owe, it's a liabili...	[ "It's worth mentioning that free markets =/= capitalism. A market is a method of distribution based on trade of commodities, while capitalism is an economic system characterized by a market and private ownership over the means of production. What this means is that other forms of (free) markets are possible. Mark...
Why do we have to clean dvd if there is fingerprint on it? And does having fingerprint on dvd affect the video quality?	[ "Dvds and cds are played back by shining a laser on the aluminum layer above the clear layer of plastic on the bottom. A fingerprint can reflect or distort the laser, which means that the aluminum layer can't be read. A digital recording like a DVD can skip frames or stop playing completely if the recording is unre...	[ "Say you have a hammer and nail. If the hammer head is bigger than the nail, then the force of the hammer is distributed evenly against the head of the nail. The nail will go straight into the wood. Now say you have a hammer and a nail, but the nail head is bigger than the hammer. When you hit the hammer against t...
Why is the legal age of consent for sex less than the legal age to watch pornography?	[ "Laws usually don't have to make sense. It is what the politicians and the lobbyists can make the people think are concerns." ]	[ "Well, you don't describe the Soap Opera-y look very much but I think I know what you're referring to. Since soap operas have a new show every day of the week they have to have fast turn-around times. So, they were shot on video instead of film. Film takes longer to develop and video can be processed much quicker. ...
why does chocolate milk from the store taste so much better than chocolate milk you make at home?	[ "It’s all about the mouthfeel, store bought will have a thickening agent added to it at the factory. I doubt you’ve ever done anything at home to thicken your own chocolate milk. Mouthfeel refers to the physical sensations in the mouth caused by food or drink, as distinct from taste. But despite the fact that it’s ...	[ "This doesn't change between babies and adults. It's actually the exact same. What changes is they way we take our drinks as we get older. As babies we are drinking from a nipple (either an actual nipple of a simulated one on baby bottles). A baby has to suck to get liquid out of it. If you tilt a baby bottle, ver...
Why do nails grow at the "root", instead of at the tips and what are the white circle things at the base?	[ "Your fingernail is made up of dead, compacted keratinized cells. These cells grow and develop in the nail matrix, at the \"root\" of the nail, but they eventually die and are pushed out over the nail bed by new cells. This means that the tips of your nails are dead. In fact, the entire nail that you can see is dea...	[ "Someone correct me if I am wrong but it goes back to when we had much hairier bodies and when alarmed we as well as a lot of other mammals would puff up our hair to make ourselves look bigger. Think of how when you scare a dog or a cat it hunches up and its hair stands on end, same thing happens to us just we dont...
Why is it that so many U.S states have bans on cell phone use while driving, yet you see tons of text-heavy billboards and flashy signs along roadways that are sometimes as distracting as reading a text on your phone?	[ "Field of vision. When you look down or at something close to you, you lose perception and scope of the world around you. You can prove this by looking at your phone to read this on reddit while holding the phone in front of, say, your TV. It's nearly impossible to focus on both (this is also how cameras get field ...	[ "I do a lot of web dev / product work, the simple answer? The annoying ones work. A beautiful, simple, unobtrusive ad does not get nearly the same clicks. Having something annoying and in your face yields a much higher percentage. For the record I hate them and try to keep our ads tasteful. But there are times whe...
How do eyes convert light into energy that the brain can understand?	[ "The rods and cones in your eye contain molecules that can be modified when struck by a photon of a certain energy. When this happens, it causes an electric potential in the cell. The retina is an extension of the brain, and when one of the cells in it is sufficiently excited, it fires, and that causes a cascade of...	[ "No, more energy is required to create the compounds than is stored in the compounds, because the production of them also required the metabolic maintenance of the plant which was constructing them. Imagine the fat cells in your own body - an adequate analogy despite the vastly different purposes. A pound of fat ha...
How cameramen film actors looking in the mirror without getting in the shot?	[ "There's a few tricky ways they do this. One is green screening an image onto the mirror, or editing out the cameraman in post production. Sometimes, they'll have an empty frame, or a glass window instead of the mirror & shoot the scene through the frame, so what looks like a reflection in the mirror is actually th...	[ "Reflections aren't seen at the distance of the reflective object, but the combined distance between you and the object and the object it's reflecting. That's because the light from travels from you, to the window then back to you, doubling the distance. It's not going from just the window to you. Optometrists actu...
Can a parabola be translated, scaled and rotated in such a manner that it would perfectly superimpose one half of a hyperbola?	[ "No- hyperbolas reach asymptotic limits, while quadratics have constantly changing slopes. So at really big numbers, no matter what values you choose, the hyperbola will look like a line and the parabola will be quadratic, with increasing slope." ]	[ "[META]: Not wanting to backseat mod here, but could you please rehost that image of the pantheon dome to _URL_2_, rather than the (donation-driven) Wikimedia servers? Reddit (and this subreddit) are pretty high traffic, and I'd hate to see AskScience costing Wikimedia a bunch of money." ]
I looked on google, couldn't find. How does a water cooler dispenser not leak where the bottle connects to the dispenser?	[ "Air pressure is preventing the water from emptying out of the bottle. The neck of the bottle extends into the reservoir below. Once the reservoir fills to the point where the water level reaches the bottle opening, no further air can move into the bottle to replace the water being emptied and a slight vacuum forms...	[ "Ice cream needs to be constantly stirred while it freezes. That way you entrain air into the mixture and get a nice texture. A home ice cream maker has three parts - a bowl, a paddle, and a turntable. The bowl is filled with coolant, which you freeze. When you pour the ingredients into that bowl, they will eventua...
What was the first mind-altering drug outlawed for recreational use?	[ "If you're talking about recent history, it would probably have to be the [1875 Anti-Opium Den Ordinance in San Francisco](_URL_2_). This was not a direct ban on opium, it was more of a piece of discriminatory legislation against the influx of Chinese immigrant workers. As far as direct ban on drugs, the first (at ...	[ "> If 90-100% of people wanted meth-with its known negative effects-legalized how can the government still refuse? Because, in our government, the citizens do not have the power to actually enact such measures, except through Constitutional Amendments directly (and even that is a weird process that we've never real...
I'm in New Hampshire. Yesterday morning it was 4 degrees and snowing, this morning is 56 degrees and feels like spring. How is this possible?	[ "Air is like fluid. Different densities can stack and create fronts. Sometimes these stacks or fronts, are huge and create long lasting weather patterns. Sometimes they are thin layers and can pass in a day or two." ]	[ "the science behind the phenomena or the measure? The phenomena is that particles absorb heat, but the rate of heat exchange is proportional to the temperature difference (energy rate of transfer = temp difference * mass of thing * specific heat capacity of thing). So heat exchangers commonly run fluid through to c...
What makes any given bacteria inherently beneficial or harmful to humans?	[ "A couple of factors play into this. 1. How well can it grow inside the body. This includes how well it adapts to the environment inside our body and also how well it can evade death from our immune system 2. Does it release toxins? This ones kind of a no brainer when it comes to harming the body. 3. How does our b...	[ "Because the cells that contact them are typically already dead. Our outer layer of skin is actually kind of like 'armor' of dead cells. Those cells keep the antiseptic from getting inside the body. This is why you can use bleach to wash the floor, but if you inject it into yourself you die. Painfully. Do not inje...
Why are mice bodies viewed as analogous to human bodies in laboratory settings?	[ "Because mice are cheap. In theory, researchers could use virtually any mammal for the types of tests they're running with mice. But mice are a lot easier to keep, breed and feed than, say, mountain lions. Only once you've run what tests you can on mice do you start moving to organisms closer (in the particular way...	[ "Ok, here we go. This is my first ELI5, so I hope it helps. Feel free to critique anything. Think of DNA as a recipe. You have all kinds of recipes: cakes, pies, fruitcake. For the rest of this example, we will use cake recipes. There are set instructions, but you can also tweak them a little (strawberry cake, van...
Are apes evolving into humans?	[ "No, while we share a common ancestor, our evolution went a different direction to apes. [This](_URL_0_) gives you an idea." ]	[ "Your asking essentially the chicken or the egg. Example, Did you stomach evolove first and create your brain and extremites to feed it. Or did your brain grow your stomach to power it. Har to say, as without something to feed the stomach, we would have no stomch. Without the brain to run everything, we wouldn't ha...
Why did the ants in my yard do this?	[ "Are they [leaf cutter ants?](_URL_0_) then they are collecting it to harvest fungus which grows on the little leafs." ]	[ "How do you know a year has passed without looking at a calendar? I imagine they sense the temperature/climate changes like anything else." ]
Are advancements in medicine the only major factor contributing to our life spans being longer than our ancestors?	[ "No, not really. If you look into the research you can see that better sanitation has more of an impact on our average life span than advancements in medicine." ]	[ "Depends on what level the study is at. Look at people who regularly eat lots of red meat and bacon, and compare it to people who don't If there is a difference in cancer rates between the two groups, something is causing a higher rate of cancer. Maybe work place exposure, food, lifestyle etc. Then take genetically...
How come when one first wakes up, he or she can go hours without feeling hungry if they never eat a thing, but as soon as they do eat something they'll immediately feel hungry for food soon after?	[ "I'm not sure of the whole story, but I was told that our liver and other parts work while we are sleeping/fasting to break down stored fats and maintain our blood sugar at a reasonable level. After we get up and start eating, well, like /u/pocketman22 said \"..your digestive system [wakes] up .\" Then the liver ...	[ "It's purely cultural. Check out these [articles](_URL_2_) on [breakfast around the world](_URL_0_) --- people in different places eat lots of different stuff for breakfast. There are some trends --- pretty much everybody wants something easy to prepare (eggs are popular everywhere), people in cold weather places t...
Why and how do my feet shrink when I'm cold and/or swell when I'm warm?	[ "Blood flow. Your body limits blood flow to the extremities (hands and feet) when cold. It increases flow when hot. Different issues with blood pressure can make the swelling worse especially in feet where your veins have to do more work to counteract gravity." ]	[ "The bigger you make something, the weaker it gets, because as you increase the size, mass grows faster than strength. Say you have an ice cube that's 1 cm x 1 cm x 1 cm. That's one cubic centimeter in volume, and it has a footprint of one square centimeter. If you make this cube 10 times larger in all dimensions,...
A thousand or so years ago, what implements were used to cut nails or hair? What was fashionable in nail lengths?	[ "Here is a thread you might be interested in: [How did people cut their nails before the nail clipper was invented?](_URL_0_) Fashion in inscrutable, but there are indications that the Romans, at least, liked neatly trimmed nails. If you look at this [sculpture of Constantine's hand](_URL_1_) , you can see that the...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
Why do we still have AM radio?	[ "AM radio has significantly better range so if you're a news organization you can make a new station ever 100 miles or way fewer AM stations and reach the same audience. Same goes for sports broadcasts." ]	[ "This is like asking \"why does a fire burn itself out - what's the point of using up all the fuel if it can't sustain itself?\"." ]
Is there any evidence of human evolution within the timeframe of recorded history (i.e. the last few thousand years)?	[ "As a species, we're getting taller. Some individuals are totally immune to HIV. The Tibetans have evolved a set of genes that let them cope at low-oxygen altitudes. Changes don't always have to be \"positive\" (remember evolution is not purpose/goal-driven). If your friend wants to see a human turn into a duck, th...	[ "Sure. Look at (domestic) cats and dogs. They differ physically far more than humans do. If you think that's an unfair example because we've been breeding them for a long time, then look at the eastern gray squirrel. They come in grey and black versions, which vary by location. Here in the Toronto area they are alm...
What actually IS a flame?	[ "Someone will have a better explanation in a few minutes but Ill still try: It's basically just hot gases, mainly the ones that are the product of the burning, so mainly CO2 and H2O. The are visible because of their temperature. Every substance emits electromagnetic waves based on their temperature. You can see thi...	[ "A calorie is how much energy it takes to heat up 1kg of water by 1 degree Celsius. By using a calorimeter, we burn the food and measure how much it heats up water. From that measurement we can get the amount of calories." ]
peripheral neuropathy	[ "Peripheral neuropathy is a malfunction of the nerves in the extremities, usually the arms or legs, but sometimes the face. It can cause numbness and tingling, or in some cases a very painful burning sensation or feelings like cold water being poured on the area." ]	[ "we don't have nerves for our veins, we do for skin but not veins" ]
Have there every been any society/cultures with no religious beliefs?	[ "[The Pirahã](_URL_1_) people, in addition to not having words for numbers and colors, have no social hierarchy/leadership, and no mythology. When asked why the world was created, they simply respond with, \"the world is created.\" Here's a video of Dr. Dan Everett, one of a handful of people in the world who can...	[ "Some uninhabited islands with archaeological discoveries would be Pitcairn Island (refuge of the Bounty mutineers) and Henderson Island (uninhabited today). Both these islands were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans. Both had been previously occupied by Polynesians, who had disappeared prior to European di...
Why are drugs illegal?	[ "A big part of the reason is the Puritans emigrated to the American colonies. Unlike other Christian sects that remained behind in Great Britain and Europe, the Puritans believed \"strong drink\" was ungodly. Subsequent generations of protestant Americans have inherited a belief in Alcohol as being morally wrong. B...	[ "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 are consecutive life sentences issued?	[ "Also let's say someone killed a few people and was given a life sentence for each murder. Then there is an appeal and one of the murder charges is overturned. He/she is still facing life from the other charges." ]	[ "Marketing. It's like you get one more for free. Like how things sell for one cent less than the nearest dollar." ]
Can someone please explain time dilation to me?	[ "Have you seen this video by sixty symbols? It's quite understandable. _URL_0_" ]	[ "Observation. Nothing goes faster than light. What Einstein showed was that light always moves at the speed of light no matter your reference frame (how fast you are moving) which is what \"relativity\" refers to - that light always moves the same speed and yet that each observer's frame of reference is still equ...
Why are certain colors considered "girly"?	[ "Simply because society says so. There is nothing inherently feminine or masculine about colors, except that some people started to say so, and that belief caught on." ]	[ "Are you familiar with the tone control on an audio amplifier? If the knob is set to the middle, then each frequency is amplified equally. That is like white noise. If the knob is turned halfway to bass, that's like pink noise. The low frequencies are stronger than the high. If the knob is turned all the way to b...
If the SI unit for mass is the kilogram, why do all Chemistry formulae use the gram?	[ "Because talking about 0.005 kilograms of something is much harder to read than talking about 5 grams. The two numbers are equivalent and you can use either of them depending on your need. The SI unit doesn't mean that all measurements must be in that exact unit." ]	[ "That has been done by Congress. The US officially switched in the 1970s. It did not stick. Those industries like the Sciences where it is much more useful switched, but general society where there is virtually no difference in the usages as we do not need to be that accurate in things there is not enough of a bene...
Why do hard-boiled eggs explode loudly when microwaved?	[ "As others have mentioned, boiling the water in the egg forms steam, which builds to high pressure and explodes the egg. But that raises the question (posed by /u/pavel_lishin ), why doesn't this happen when cooking eggs on the stovetop? It's not about even vs uneven heating, it's about boiling point. The water i...	[ "It's similar to the principles behind a volcano. Pressure keeps building up and building up in one specific point. However, there is some strong material resisting that pressure, in the volcano case it is the dirt, rock, and metal sitting above it, and in the book case it's the pages sitting under the press. Howev...
What were the Manson Family's motives?	[ "There is a great book discussing motive, and means and almost anything else you would like to know about Manson's case. It's called Helter Skelter, and it's written by Vincent Bugliosi." ]	[ "You mean the Animal Planet one? Hype and marketing. Then it became a euphemism for menstruation (I'll fill you in if you want, but it's gross sex stuff...) and took on a life of its own." ]
The Monty Hall Problem?	[ "Here's a way of thinking about it. When you first choose a door, there is a 1 in 3 chance of picking the door with a prize behind it. You are more likely to have picked a door with no prize. You would, theoretically, expect to pick a door with no prize 2 out of 3 times. Then, a door with no prize is eliminat...	[ "> and confirm that the entangled state change occurs with the expected delay/advance caused by time dilation? There is no state change, so there is no delay/advance to measure. That's what the no communication theorem means. Putting one particle on a satellite would be no different than just putting a delay betw...
Why did President Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009?	[ "[Nobel Prize Committee Press Release](_URL_0_) \"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.\"" ]	[ "Well as far as I know it started with this prank video: _URL_0_ And after that it simply went viral." ]
How is energy distributed in your body?	[ "The main transporter around the body is blood - or blood vessels - the fluid of blood is composed of a number of components - including dissolved (mostly) nutrients." ]	[ "Redistributing load on muscles and joints prevents harm and aches that would occur more frequently in a prolonged loading scenario. tl;dr feels good man" ]
Why many little countries popped during the first years of the Russian Revolution (1917)? And how they were back to the Soviet Union so quickly?	[ "The Russian Empire was comprised of any different national groups, most of whom did not want to be part of the empire. So when the Revolutions occurred several groups took advantage of the chaos (and in some cases aided by the Germans; the Ukrainian states and Belarus being a couple prominent examples) and declare...	[ "The way history class goes in Saudi Arabia is pretty much as follows: (We'll ignore the fact that much of the recent history glosses over some very important subjects) Grade 1-3: History of the Prophet Muhammad Grade 4-5: History of the Rashidun Khalifs (First 4 khalifs after the Prophet Muhammad) Grade 6-8: Hist...
Is there something like the "double dabble" algorithm, for trinary/base 3?	[ "It looks like it could be modified pretty easily. First off, instead of adding three to numbers that are at least five before the left shift, you add six to numbers that are at least ten (taking them to at least sixteen) after the left shift. The end result is the same, but it makes it a bit clearer and makes it g...	[ "Handwriting has changed over the years, hasn't it? It would appear that he showed up for service with the 2nd Australian Imperial Force , lasted only 8 weeks, and then showed up for a reserve unit, 3rd Infantry Brigade. The AIFs were Australia's expeditionary force. 1st AIF was WW1, 2nd AIF was WW2. With a term of...
Was the conversion of Rome from Republic to Empire necessary to facilitate its expansion?	[ "Sorry for the short answer, but I feel it's very relevant: almost all the expansion of Roman territory came in the Republic period, NOT the Imperial period. The territories conquered in the imperial period were Britain, Dacia, a small part of Germania, and some other minor areas such as Arabia and Mauretainia. Tha...	[ "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 ...
Why does the flu make your joints and muscles hurt? Shouldn't it just cause a fever and make you feel tired as your body dukes it out.	[ "The flu is a viral infection, which your body battles with its immune system, composed of white blood cells (WBCs). Your WBCs are stationed somewhat regularly throughout your body, including in your joints and muscles where they somewhat oversee daily minor repair to those regions. When you get the flu, the WBCs a...	[ "Educated guess here. Lots of blood and lubricating fluid builds up in all the \"tubes\" of your genitals when you sexually excited, and the tubes expand a bit for better flow. The \"plan\" is all that fluid is expelled in an ejaculation, then all the blood flow goes back to the rest of your body and all your \"tub...
why is a police/arrest record often called a "rap sheet"? Is there any history behind the name?	[ "According to [this site](_URL_0_), 'rap' in rap sheet comes from the meaning to strike or blow, as in \"he rapped on the door,\" as a metaphor for receiving a punishment, like \"to wrap one's knuckles\". The site says that the term \"get the rap\" was used in the 19th century to mean receive the punishment. You ca...	[ "_URL_0_ Excellent article that gives more detail: * Everyone uses it, and want to keep to one brand, so someone in better times gets used to using Tide, all of a sudden can't afford it, either steals or buys it on the black market, rather than buying something cheap. * Since everyone uses it and sales volumes are ...
What was the value of Africa to the Axis and Allies?	[ "For Britain specifically, the Suez Canal was the vital lifeline to India and the South East Asian colonies, and the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand. It was a crucial supply route and India was especially vulnerable to Axis interference thanks to its flowering nationalist movements. They were all vital for ...	[ "I asked a question about [the Rothschilds losing assets to Nazi Germany](_URL_0_) to one of the historians here. The answer I got was that they were diversified enough that losing their German assets didn't really hurt them much at all, and in the long run may actually have helped them." ]
How many times do I have to perfectly "riffle shuffle" a deck of cards before they will be back in the exact same order as I started?	[ "[This](_URL_0_) answers both your questions. TL;DR: This is two questions. The answer is 8 or 52. If you do out-shuffles (top card remains on top, bottom card remains on bottom) the answer is 8. This is well-known, and is the basis of some of the most baffling card tricks (by those who have mastered doing 8 perfec...	[ "According to a [Stanford study that mapped the genomes of 91 individual sperm cells from one man](_URL_0_), it can be quite different: > Each sperm in the sample underwent 23 recombination events, or mixing events. However, the study also showed that the degree of genetic mixing varied greatly between individual ...
How do animals avoid getting dehydrated when they hibernate?	[ "Good question. Some species that hibernate aren‘t sleeping for months straight but sometimes wake up for a short time, there they are theoratically able to drink. But more important is, that hibarnating animals have reduced temperature, metabolism and so on. When you metabolize fat water is created, for many hiber...	[ "very simple, Air is a horrible transfer medium for energy, Water is a good tranfter medium for energy. It takes longer for the energy in the air to flow to the ice cube then the energy in the water to flow in the ice cube, When when there is steam in the air, its still maybe 50% humidity compared to 100% humidity...
How are electronics cooled in space?	[ "Radiation. Everything emits thermal radiation, with the amount and frequency depending on the temperature of the object. If the heat emitted this way exceeds the heat generated internally and received from outside sources, then the object will cool down, which will reduce the amount of thermal radiation emitted, u...	[ "Me and a buddy of mine at a NASA internship got a chance to get inside the JPL cleanroom the Curiosity was assembled in. He had to take 2 special showers before he went in, and wore a special anti-static robe, mask, and hairnet. Before they let us in they detailed the extraordinary precautions they take before let...
Do viruses and bacteria have a colour?	[ "Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe viruses are too small to reflect visible spectrum light. So, in essence they are colourless. However, whether it be for aesthetic detail or visibility they are pseudocoloured to what ever is appealing or appropriate. Bacteria on the other hand, do express colour. Due to their...	[ "historical reasons mainly. like every country has a different flag, different countries have different uniforms for police, army, airforce, etc. usually there's high visibility versions as well, for those that have to work on the equivalent of interstates, such as that swedish one. a city patrol in sweden doesn't ...
Is oxygen distributed uniformly in a closed system?	[ "It would ultimately diffuse uniformly, but if you have people respirating the whole time, then it would depend on the volume of air, the total rate of oxygen consumption, how the people are distributed, and whether diffusion is being aided by things like fans and people moving around. This is actually a problem in...	[ "Your whole high school is in the gym for an assembly. The presentation comes to an end and everyone needs to leave all at once. If you never open the doors, people will never leave. If you open one door, how long will it take for everyone to leave? If you open all the doors, how long will it take for everyone t...
How do high rise buildings filter outdoor air for circulation?	[ "Hi rises don't have just one giant air moving HVAC. In my building each unit has their own hvac, and then there are three big ones that cool all the hallways, one in the gym, maybe a few more scattered throughout." ]	[ "Not science disclaimer: This is not science. Land is sold by the acre which is surface area. The whole point behind very tall buildings like the Burj Khalifa is to maximize that patch of planet that it is built upon. When the design constraints begin at the very bottom, the only choice is to go up. Pyramids ha...
How do scientists launch one photon at a time--and how do they know it's one photon?	[ "There are different kinds of single photon sources (depending on the energy of the photon you want), and I am by no means an expert on them (hopefully someone with more experience will comment soon). In the optical frequency range, it's common to use electron energy level transitions in a single atom as a single p...	[ "It's about exposure. A photo from Earth at night looking up has probably nothing in the frame other than stars. This means the camera can keep the shutter open for a longer period like 10 seconds, allowing dim objects like stars to be visible. Videos and pictures of astronauts have an astronaut in the foreground. ...
How and why did humans think of keeping animals as pets in the first place?	[ "It first started as agriculture not pets. Keeping animals for work and food was common long before pets. Anthropologists believe dogs, in a way, domesticated themselves. Humans are so wasteful that we were an excellent source of left over meat and bones. Eventually we noticed these packs following our packs and in...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
Why do we need to do court stuff to change our own name?	[ "What's the other option? You have a birth certificate, driver's license, social security card, mortgage, car payments, credit history, and like a billion other things with your name attached to it. You have to go through all the proper channels to change your name without changing your identity. Also it's not like...	[ "YouTube (and I assume other video websites) processes the uploaded videos. If you'd download a YT video, you'll find that it's not the same as the original file. If you would upload the file to a service that doesn't do any processing (such as cloud storage), then no matter how often you'd upload/download, the fil...
Why do whales die on land even though they breathe outside water?	[ "1. Their bodies aren't designed to be supported by a hard surface. Their buoyancy in water supports the whole body evenly and prevents the crushing of internal organs. 2. They overheat. Whales are very well insulated and rely on the water around them to keep them at a livable temperature." ]	[ "There's a nice summary of what will happen in the late stages of the solar system [here](_URL_0_). The various planets will move further out as the Sun sheds mass. The gas giants will be far enough out not to be engulfed by the Sun. However, due to the expansion of the Sun, the region of Jupiter and Saturn and pos...
If milk has a ph of 6.7 why does it help when i have acid reflux?	[ "First, 6.7 is about as close to neutral as you're likely to find, and it has a significant buffering capacity, meaning it can resist changes in pH by the stomach acid, which helps to bring the pH up. _URL_0_" ]	[ "I think a couple of researchers said the 9-9-9 plan wouldn't even come close to financing our current expenditures. But he was also talking about some serious spending cuts too, so it may have worked. The point is though that that tax plan would have been extremely regressive. Sales taxes in and of themselves are ...
what did Locke mean by 'property' in Life, Liberty, Property?	[ "Locke had this idea that you own your property by creating it. There are resources in the commons, like flowers in the meadow, trees in the forest, water in the rivers. And you can appropriate things from the commons by mixing your labor with them. So no one owns the water in the river. But if you go and fetch a b...	[ "Penn & Teller: Bullshit! did a show on this, its very worth a watch, they break it down quite well and understandable. [Link to the full episode](_URL_0_) on youtube. Warning, NSFW language and boobies in like the first 2 seconds, because its Penn & Teller and thats what they do" ]
What makes the number e so special and why is it used as the base of the natural logarithm?	[ "e is so special because the y coordinate of the function y=e^x at a certain point is also the slope at that point. So the slope at x=3 will be e^3. This property of e and the natural log are very useful when solving problems in calculus involving exponents and such." ]	[ "Binary system. All computer storage and programs work on the binary system - 1 and 0. So everything is powers of 2." ]
Why are women in classical art so seldomly beautiful by today's standards?	[ "Beauty is not as in flux throughout history as some would claim. So much of classical art was supported by patronage. While we like to believe the paintings seen in museums were the result of passionate artists so inspired by the Dukes and Duchesses of Shitshire and Upper Saxonbergen that they were compelled to pa...	[ "I heard it had a lot to do with the invention / discovery of the camera obscura. This helped people understand perspective / proportions / etc better. Here's a quick article I found about it - but there are a ton of others, videos, books, etc that talk about it in more depth. _URL_0_" ]
Is it coincidence that the earth's tilt is synchronized with its orbital apsides?	[ "They aren't synchronized. [Perihelion occurs in early January and aphelion in early July](_URL_0_), about 2 weeks away from the solstices. Due to [axial and apsidal precession](_URL_2_) (these are two of the [Milankovich cycles](_URL_1_)), the perihelion and aphelion change with respect to the solstices. So the da...	[ "Get a protractor, tape or glue a straw to the straight edge, and tie a weighed down string to the middle. When you get on the plane, look down the straw at a star that you can easily pick out from the night sky (hope you're travelling at night!) and is viewable from both hemispheres, and mark where the string hang...
Why do bugs like Ticks and other ones not drown when you hold them under water?	[ "They will, eventually, but it takes quite a long time. Bugs like ticks and fleas breathe not with lungs, but with little tiny holes in the outer shell that are connected to little tiny tubes that run throughout the inside of the body. These little holes (called spiracles) are so small that the surface tension of t...	[ "Basically the CO2 is in solution, mixed into the liquid. When you shake it you \"bring it out of solution\" which is a fancy way of saying you separated the CO2 gas from the liquid soda. However when you do this it takes up more space than when it was \"in solution\" so this creates a build up of pressure. Thus ex...
What would happen to a person if a large amount of water was dropped on them as in the .gif from /r/gifs today (link inside)	[ "Really need the gif. for it to make sense.. _URL_0_" ]	[ "No. Every material has a property called the \"[speed of sound](_URL_0_)\", which is actually the speed that energy travels through that material. When you push one end of the stick, the whole stick will not move at once. You'll actually cause a ripple through the stick -- a compression wave -- and that compress...
What stops the weight of the top floors of a skyscraper from crushing the lower floors?	[ "Simply put, they are strong enough to hold themselves up. Proper structural design with proper materials will go a long way. The fact that there is so much stress on the structure is why when sky scrapers fail they tend to do so completely. They are designed to hold up the weight of the floors above them, but not ...	[ "When sorting posts by 'hot' time is taken into account when ranking them. To see the posts with the most upvotes independent of time sort by 'top'. To more directly answer your question they slowly drop down as the time factor in the equation of their rankings increases." ]
Why is time based on religion?	[ "Because the people who created the system were extremely Christian." ]	[ "There are a few ways. Today we can do it by measuring distant stars parallax that changes slightly as we make a circle around the sun. We can look at other plants since we know their orbits and speeds. Finally, we can do what ancient people did, look at a pattern the sun makes in the sky. Each week exactly at the ...
Why is there so much salt in the oceans and seas? How did it get there?	[ "The salt in the ocean is basically minerals washed out of rocks from rain, rivers and the ocean ground itself. It concentrates more and more because evaporated water leaves the salt back, builds clouds, and if those clouds happen to rain over mainland, the water washes even more salt to the ocean." ]	[ "Trade. People from one part of the world travelled all over, and pidgeons are one of those species that went with them, either by staying up in the sails of ships, or hiding away inside train cars, or wherever they could rest." ]
What is involved in a bone marrow transplant?	[ "Bone Marrow is mainly there for producing both types of blood cells (white and red). If your bone marrow goes crazy and starts producing too many white blood cells, which fight disease, cancer happens. The procedure is two steps: First to kill all the existing bone marrow through radiation. This leaves you with no...	[ "_URL_0_ The wikipedia article is excellent and better than any of the answers in here so far. If you have specific parts you don't understand, ask away and I can help explain them to you." ]
How can we learn so much about a planet and star 1400 light years away?	[ "So we can see the light from the parent star. We watch stars for the very slight dimming that occurs when a planet transits (crosses the face of the star relative to Earth). By watching the planet transit the star, we can find out about its orbit and its mass by watching how much the parent star wobbles due to b...	[ "Scientist would probably start sending radio waves in that direction. That is all that could be done as we have not hope to do anything else." ]
why do candles only produce visible smoke after they're burnt out?	[ "You're seeing incomplete combustion producing a lot of smoke because it can't efficiently convert all of the fuel into CO2 and H2O. When enough energy is released and heat built up the combustion becomes much more efficient and you see flames (essentially a plasma from the intense heat) and less smoke." ]	[ "I'd say to be careful using \"later\" emitted. It's tough to get into the specific details of what \"later\" means here. That being said, think of a photon causing the electrons to move in the surface (like a metal with free electrons to move). But the way the electrons move creates a photon of their own that app...
If it so hard to immigrate to the US legally why are there so many immigrants (who have legal status), were immigration laws more lax in the past?	[ "Yes, immigration requirements have become less lax over time. From the 1890s to the 1950s, when many people were coming into the country via Ellis Island, the [requirements](_URL_0_) weren't much." ]	[ "Bass frequencies require more energy to record and reproduce than do higher ranges of audio. Old recording equipment didn't have the types of improvements we've made since then. The diaphragm in a modern microphone is much more sensitive to input and can record a sound with much less intensity than older equipment...
Why does a sibling's appearance not seem to change from my point of view?	[ "Take a picture of a cloud, then wait a couple minutes and take another picture of the same cloud. You think it will look the same, after all it doesn't look like its changing as you stare at it. But you will find that there is a noticeable difference between the 2 photos. It's just such a gradual and constant chan...	[ "YouTube (and I assume other video websites) processes the uploaded videos. If you'd download a YT video, you'll find that it's not the same as the original file. If you would upload the file to a service that doesn't do any processing (such as cloud storage), then no matter how often you'd upload/download, the fil...
was math created or discovered?	[ "> Arguably it's both. Very simplistically, you could boil mathematics down to inventing a set of axioms (the things you will assume to be true) and then discovering what you can prove to be true based on those assumptions. **** [^^Quote ^^taken ^^from ^^top ^^comment ^^in ^^this ^^thread ^^from ^^3 ^^years ^^ago ^...	[ "If we know how far away the moon is, which we can figure out from how long eclipses last, and we know how long it takes to orbit (a month), we can figure out the product of GM from Newton's equation (or we can just consider the gravitational acceleration at Earth's surface, since we know the radius). Cavendish mea...
Why do smaller dogs generally live longer than larger dogs?	[ "Simply stated, small dogs hearts don't have to work as hard as big dogs' hearts. Ex: a 100 pound saint Bernard's heart is working much harder to pump blood through out it's whole body than a 3 pound Chihuahua's heart is. This is the same reason v that a 7foot 300 pound man probably won't live as long as a 120 poun...	[ "Yup, the science behind this is quite clear! Low frequencies travel further than high frequencies. On the flip side, it’s harder to identify the origin of low frequencies, they appear to come from everywhere. Think about someone in the next street playing loud music. Do you hear the whole song, or just the deep ba...
What is the Read Option in the American Football?	[ "A read option play is a running play where the quarterback 'reads' the opposition's defense before deciding which running back to hand the ball to. This differs from a more traditional play where one predesignated back receives the ball and runs a predefined route." ]	[ "Some amount of money paid to each citizen no strings, as an alternative to social security. I think the numbers pay out to similar costs. And the benefits are supposed to be substantial. It's already in practice at a small scale in Alaska." ]
What happens during a flight check-in and why does it take so long?	[ "The check-in is quick for organised guests. Most of the waiting time is the agents sorting out guests who have either: stuffed up their booking, overweight with their luggage, carrying something considered a dangerous good, seat allocation changes and changing connection flights. This all takes time. Take note of ...	[ "They run it through a machine (algorithm) that scrambles text into an unrecognizable pattern. This machine is special. It can’t unscramble, it always scrambles things the same way, and it will never scramble different text into the same pattern. So, they run your password through the machine and hold onto the patt...
What is the difference between a bitmap and a vector image?	[ "Think of a bitmap image as a painting. It's a specific size, it has been created and each brush stroke is where it should be. If we were to take an image of that painting and stretch it out, it would start to look bad because it wasn't meant to be that size. Think of a vector as the painter who knows exactly how t...	[ "Here's a pretty good explainer. _URL_0_ Basically it comes down to different memory, different promises (reliability and service life), and different marketing." ]
How do cigarettes/chewing tobacco cause cancer?	[ "Chemicals in tobacco damage the body's cells, eventually causing errors in the cell replication process, at which point the cells start growing out of control and you get tumors." ]	[ "\"Everything changed for me\" \"I'll never forget the day that everything tadted like tofu. Everything tasted like nothing.\" Source, wife who went through chemo last year. Tastebuds are fast turnover cells that regenerate and die quickly. Chemo kills the tastebuds before they can develop and mature. What taste ...
Why do we close our eyes when we sneeze?	[ "So you won't get whatever you're expelling out of your nose into your eyes." ]	[ "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...
Why doesn’t the judge decide verdicts in major cases, leaving it up to a jury, but in minor cases they do?	[ "In the US any accused person always has the right to a jury trial in a criminal case, regardless of the severity of the charge." ]	[ "The film \"A Knight's Tale\" is surprisingly accurate to the spirit of the times, apparently. Also, Jurgen Habermas states that during pre-Renaissance (or Enlightenment) times, there was a marked divide between 'private' and 'public.' To Habermas, things and people that were public mattered, and thus, a celebrity ...
How inclined were the Japanese samurai to fight to the death?	[ "The fact that duels--as apposed to battlefield encounters--did not always end in the death of the loser is confirmed by the fact that Miyamoto Musashi, the author of The Book of Five Rings, had two duels with Gonnosuke. Moreover, Musashi was said to have engaged in numerous duels wherein it was pre-agreed that the...	[ "That is a question with a very big answer. Fortunately there exists online sources which can provide such information in an in-depth manner. The first of these is the Circle of Iranian Studies: _URL_0_ There is also this extensive list of material by Kaveh Farrokh: _URL_2_ The last of these is a text called Persia...
Why do I want to turn my music up?	[ "It's a psychological phenomenon much like addiction. Turning your music up sometimes makes you hear sounds that you didn't hear before. That bassist really does some crazy stuff in the background during the guitar solo! The violinist ends the movement with a subtle twist you never heard before! This gives you a bo...	[ "Fletcher Munson equal loudness contour curve. The optimum frequency response of your ears is around 85dB of loudness. So below that the bass frequencies seem quieter in relation to the higher frequencies. At 85dB it still isn't near flat or perfect, but it's as good as your ear gets." ]
How does DNA decide where a protein is used?	[ "Tissue-specific proteins are expressed only in the tissues with the proper [transcription factors](_URL_2_) or [chromatic structure](_URL_3_). For the protein to go to the right place within the cell, the proteins are sorted by a short code called a [target peptide](_URL_1_) at the N-most end of the protein. If pr...	[ "That's possibly a bit of a myth. The fifty-fifty legend seems to have started years before the first complete banana genome, and most articles reference back one or two old claims. I'm not saying it's exactly like the persistence anti-vaxx research, but there are similarities. So. Probably, a lot of that overlap...
How do game cartridges and video game discs work?	[ "Cartridges have memory chips inside that have the game code stored in them. When you insert the cartridge into the console, metal contacts in the console touch metal contacts on the game cartridge, and they can exchange data via electrical signals. The console loads the game off of the cartridge, and you play. Di...	[ "Well, back in the day, you didn't really have pay per view. You either paid for the channel (including less racy channels like HBO) or you didn't. If you paid for the channel, a technician came out to your cable box and installed a descrambler, which decrypted the signal and allowed your channel. The signals were...
Did those mentioned in the Panama Papers perform illegal actions?	[ "Depends on the country's laws, but the whole point was that they were exploiting loopholes. As in, they followed the letter of the law, but not the spirit. The money they made was intended to be taxed and used in other ways probably, but through a proper but legitimate misunderstanding of the law, they were able t...	[ "because much of your tax situation involved information that the govt and your employer do not have. Things like charitable contributions and other tax deductions, tax credits for things like using green energy, income from investments and savings." ]

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