Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
If you took individual hydrogen ions in a vacuum, and individually gave them each an electron, and did this over and over until you had about a litre's worth of them, then put them all together, would you essentially have a litre of noble hydrogen? Could you do this with all (stable) elements?	[ "so you are taking H^+ and giving it an electron, which is turning it into H, and doing this until you have a whole bucket of them? you would end up with a container of hydrogen gas (H2). the H atoms have only 1 electron in their \"s\" shell, and since that is their outer shell and to fill it they would need 2 elec...	[ "The reason we fill blimps with gas is to equalize the pressure inside and outside. If you try to have a vaccuum blimp, you need to make it from a material that's capable of holding up against 101,250 newtons per meter squared of pressure. I don't know of anything that could do that for something the size of a blim...
Will a light bulb explode if you put gum on it, and if so, why?	[ "Science, if you are talking about a hot incandescent bulb. When I was a child I had a reading light that clipped onto the head of my bed, with a small and hot 60 watt incandescent bulb. One day I discovered if I licked my finger and touched the bulb it makes a \"sizzle\" as the saliva boiled. That was really cool ...	[ "I have nothing useful except that this is one of those questions that's both original, interesting and testable without expensive equipment. Makes my high school teacher's heart beat faster. This is a perfect end-of-year question to engage my 15-year old pupils with. It'll be great fun to have them try to answer w...
What is "spacing out"?	[ "It's called [mind-wandering](_URL_0_). It's long been thought that the [default mode network](_URL_1_) is what drives this. This network refers to a number of regions in the brain which show greater activity when people are not engaged in any active task (or are engaged in an easier relative to harder task). The i...	[ "You could not have viewed the big bang from a distance, because it filled the entire universe, and occurred everywhere at the same time. It was an expansion of space, not an explosion in space." ]
Why are animals/insects more poisonous in warmer climates?	[ "Check out this video. _URL_0_ It hits your question rather spot on" ]	[ "You might have one of those thermostats that operates with a metal coil. The metal contracts/expands depending on temperature, triggering the AC to cool or heat the room. Now, if the coil has been over extended repeatedly the tension in the coil gets weird and it starts to contract/expand differently than what it ...
Is it possible to get any information about a photon without absorbing it?	[ "There's something called a weak measurement where you can get information from the fact that something has not interacted. An example is [Hardy's paradox](_URL_0_) where a positron and electron are created and each go through 50/50 beamsplitters and maybe meet in the middle and maybe don't. If they meet in the m...	[ "I recommend listening to Feynman describe the sum-over-histories model of quantum electrodynamics (for which he and two other men won the 1965 Nobel prize in physics): [Here's the video.](_URL_0_) There are a lot of amplitudes, phases, and little spinning clock analogies involved. Essentially, light takes all poss...
What is the actual mechanism of the stomach flu?	[ "Depending on which bacteria, virus or fungus (or parasite) causes the 'stomach flu' the modes of how vomiting and diarrhea are caused can be somewhat different. Generally though, the diarhea is caused by toxins that affect the intestinal wall membranes' permeability for certain ions causing an imbalance in osmolar...	[ "Probably some fish are a good example to explain why. Pangasius is a fish that's cultivated in Vietnam. It can get oxygen out of the air, so for the farmer (sorry, don't know the proper word in english) it doesn't matter too much if the water is clean or not. They can grow a lot of fish in a really small amount ...
Why doesn't your stomach acid destroy the nutrients in food?	[ "Your stomach's goal is to break down big foreign molecules, like proteins, into usable building blocks, like amino acids. It doesn't blast building blocks into their component atoms. For the most part, cooking doesn't remove nutritional value either. Boiling or steaming food can lead to nutrients being leeched out...	[ "One theory is that [we're too clean](_URL_0_). By keeping our kids clean and not letting them chew on UFOs (unidentified floor objects), we're either preventing their immune systems from building a proper \"database\" of pathogens early on, or we're preventing them from coming into contact with symbiotic species t...
How have we discovered many exoplanets but not the hypothesized planet x in our own solar system?	[ "Think of a marbel in a field at night, you know it is somewhere on the field but you just cannot make it out. Now imagine it's moving. On the other hand, imagine a street light with a fly buzzing around it. You cannot see the fly but if you look at the light long enough you can just make out something changing in ...	[ "Because we are very close relatively speaking in terms of evolution. We are, in a broad sense, not \"very\" different to each other. That's why it's hard. For example, Nicotine (and caffeine) were created by plants to attack insect \"brains\" and those molecules also bind to humans brains. But it can be done!, one...
What happens when we run of out phone numbers?	[ "It looks like we will run out of numbers about 2038, and then will make numbers one or two digits longer: _URL_0_" ]	[ "It depends on how long you're willing to wait, and how much death and genetic diseases you're willing to tolerate. The absolute minimum is two fertile people - one male and one female. yes, you would have genetic problems with a larger than ideal portion of their grandchildren. As these die and the remaining mutat...
why didn't Nixon just pardon himself during the whole watergate scandal?	[ "Because you can only pardon those that have been convicted. He had not been convicted, and if he had been, he could not be president, and therefore could not pardon himself." ]	[ "Look at it like a chess board: After 100+ moves, it's hard to set every step back until you're in the start position. It's easier to remove all the pieces from the board and start all over. ^This ^was ^explained ^before" ]
Why is Da Vinci's Last Supper taken as historicaly evidence of anything?	[ "Those claims that you're hearing are mostly thought of only because of the book [The Da Vinci Code](_URL_0_), which was a work of fiction that placed da Vinci at the center of an ancient conspiracy to protect the secret children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. A few history writers have made claims like that, but mos...	[ "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." ]
What were parties really like during the Roaring 20s?	[ "Lynn Dumenil's The Modern Temper argues that while the parties and flappers existed like Fitzgerald portrayed, that books such as Gatsby give a false impression about how widespread the lifestyle was. Dumenil suggests that only the smallest minority of the nation enjoyed the idea of the \"Roaring Twenties.\"" ...	[ "Hello prospective respondents. Everyone loves to talk about food (and drinks!), so just a reminder of which sub we're in: it's /r/AskHistorians so no personal anecdotes, urban myths or conjecture. Respondents here are expected to have expertise in the subject, offer in-depth information and cite *reputable s...
Why can some feelings, like being hungry or tired, get progressively worse but after enough time has passed without eating or sleeping your body no longer feels as bad as it did before?	[ "Because your body assumes that you're staying up late/not eating for an important reason and so adapts. Haven't slept in awhile? Your body thinks \"Well I must be awake because I need to in order to survive\" and gives you what people call a \"second wind\". This keeps you alert and focused so that you can do what...	[ "Entropy man. It takes more energy to keep something \"clean\" or \"arranged\" than it does to let it go to chaos and become a mess. Put a bunch of strings in a box and shake it. Things will get tangled up quickly, and take more time/energy from you to untie/unknot the item(s). User /u/crnaruka answered this best i...
Why doesn't blood clot in an erect penis?	[ "Blood is still circulating. If it wasn't the tissue would become hypoxic, ischemic, and finally necrotic in a short matter of time." ]	[ "This is called as some white cloak disorder or something similar. Had read it on the net. This happens to me every time my doc measures my BP. The only remedy to this is to tell your doc that this happens before he measures your BP and while noting it down, the doc might normalise it." ]
How can baby animals start walking basically immediately after their birth, but humans can't?	[ "Some species of animals are precocial which means they are relatively mature and mobile from the moment they are born (or hatched.) Humans are altricial which means our young are born pretty much helpless. But we are far from the only altricial species! Rabbits are born blind and hairless, for instance, which ...	[ "Because the brain wakes up in stages and not all at once. Those stages progress essentially from the back of the brain to the front. The areas in the back are the basics and the ones closer to the front are more complex. That's why we're at first able to stumble around and sort of see things, then maybe mumble a f...
Is there a maximum density to which a gas can be compressed? Can it become a "solid"?	[ "The answer is yes! The phase the matter is in (gas-liquid-solid) is a function of both pressure and temperature. As you raise temperature matter typically moves from solid to liquid and then to gas. Raising pressure works in the opposite direction. These two can have quite complex relationships with one another. W...	[ "Negative air pressure. Warmer air takes up more volume than cooler air. When food is hot, and you seal it in an airtight container, the remaining air in the airtight container is warmed by the hot food. As the food cools -- even a little -- the air temperature also cools. As the air temperature decreases, the co...
Do humans have ways of harnessing geothermal energy and turning it into power?	[ "Definitely. Iceland in particular is leading the way in geothermal energy production because of its unique volcanically active region. About 25% of Iceland's electricity is generated by geothermal plants. Icelanders use geothermal not only for electricity production, but for heating houses directly. _URL_0_" ]	[ "[100 lightning strikes per second worldwide](_URL_1_) * [500 Megajoules per strike](_URL_2_) = 50 Gigawatts. As of 2008, worldwide power usage was [15 Terawatts](_URL_3_). 50 GW / 15 TW = .33%, so not much if we could capture every single lightning strike. It actually is a lot higher than I expected. If you are ...
Ocean water is much colder far below the surface where sunlight cant reach it. Why? Why doesn't the sun (and volcanic activity) continually heat the ocean? Are there natural heat sinks?	[ "That cold water came from somewhere cold. Specifically, the Arctic or Antarctic. The ocean is constantly circulating: water gets cooled near the poles, which causes it to sink and flow at depth toward the equator, forming a cold layer beneath the warm sun-heated water near the surface. You're absolutely right that...	[ "...can someone reply to my post here? I'm off to sleep, but want to find out the answer in the morning. This methane-sinks business sounds dubious as hell, I'd love to see the math on that though. I'm just biochem, need a physicist in the house!" ]
What is a bubble in economics?	[ "A bubble is when a commodity becomes highly over-valued due to market speculation. People see the price of something rising and think that they had better buy it before the price rises even higher so that they can eventually sell at a profit. This drives the price higher and attracts more speculators. Of course, p...	[ "Did nobody here do the thing when you were kids in which you take a water balloon and then fill it half with air? The air acts as a shock absorber and it's actually super hard to get it to pop by throwing it against a surface, even throwing it hard just causes it to bounce. Good way to freak people out without ...
When did it become rude to talk during classical music concerts?	[ "hi! not intending to quash more enthusiastic contributions from the arts experts around here, but there have been at least a couple of related discussions that can get you started question \"What were some of the do's and don'ts for watching an opera in the time of Handel or Mozart or Rossini and when did etiquett...	[ "I recommend reading 'At Home' by Bill Bryson. He goes through this in detail. From what I recall, houses used to be just one big room, animals, people, servants all in the one place. Over the centuries, people got bette at building walls, so they built these buildings higher - this showed your wealth and was much ...
Do cancerous tumors grow nerves?	[ "Not in the way you are probably thinking, no. Simply put, a tumor arises when a single cell gains the ability to reproduce without limit. So what you see is a large number of a single cell type. Tumors can secrete angiogenesis factors, which trick the body into growing blood vessels around it. But there is no grow...	[ "\"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 ...
If lecture-style teaching is proving to be ineffective, why do we still use it?	[ "Generally at the university level you're expected to figure out a lot for yourself; the books and library are all there for you. You can reread sections as much as you want and you can find a slew of alternative resources to learn the same thing in the library. (And of course for the last ~15 years on the internet...	[ "Since it goes state to state as far as rules my first inclination would be power. If you live in a state with a powerful majority party, it's in the interest of that states party to go for winner take all so that the party ,with it's deep reach in all districts, can try to coerce said districts to support the cand...
What happened to Detroit?	[ "When you have a city that puts all of its eggs in one basket, sometimes that backfires. The city was built and paid for in large part due to the auto industry, which due to various factors (unions driving labor costs up, foreign competition, failure to innovate for a few decades, not providing enough products that...	[ "Actual answer: wages haven't kept up with inflation and/or worker productivity. You can find charts on Google showing the discrepancies between real worker productivity and real wages. I edited my post, Mr. Jizzler." ]
The seemingly recent prominence of Right-Wing Extremist groups in Europe, especially Eastern Europe.	[ "You're simply witnessing how humans can sometimes react to uncertainty and economic problems (which really get to simply well-being and survival problems). Germany became dominated by Nazis much for the same reason after all. Right-wing authoritarianism is generally associated with intolerance for ambiguity and fo...	[ "The first 100 issues of an important UK archaeology monograph series, East Anglian Archaeology, were recently made available [for free on their website](_URL_0_). These are site reports - publications of archaeological data - for the UK counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and parts of Cambridgeshire. The series includes...
Is there any genetic/evolutionary explanation for why adolescent humans often have an "I'm invincible" outlook to life? And is this behaviour displayed in any other species?	[ "The evolutionary reason would be that we need to develop certain skills to the very limit, and that means discovering for ourselves what those limits are. Can we outwit that leopard by climbing that sheer rockface? Can we get that deer if we jump out of a tree onto its back? We will never learn to hunt or survive ...	[ "I'd probably go for how high-calorie food tastes delicious. Obviously in a natural competitive environment, food's not readily available, and so the sense of taste evolved to enable identification of high-calorie food (as well as identifying bitter poisons) so you can find the best possible food to keep you from s...
What historical reasons lead to the different treatment of Maori culture in New Zealand and Australia	[ "First I think you might want to reword your title again because I think you want to compare the treatment of Maori and Aboriginal culture rather than just Maori culture in the two nations." ]	[ "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...
How would A.I be created? is it as simple as writing a certain type of code or something more?	[ "Right now it the closest we have gotten is using artificial neural networks. _URL_0_ It isn't quite as complex as mapping all of the synapses in the human brain. Basically we can make a neural network, and by feeding it a set of inputs and the correct output, we can teach it what kind of output we want in the futu...	[ "To supplement what My_Empty_Wallet [said](_URL_0_): it's worth noting that the satellites aren't complicated flying space computers and don't tell you when to turn. They're just atomic clocks with radios and a bit of laser rangefinding gear. Your satnav/phone/whatever has a radio receiver that picks up the clock s...
When you eat something hot and burn your tongue, why does your tongue feel weird afterward and why does your sense of taste get messed up for a short period of time?	[ "Your tongue feels weird because you've just burned a part off and done some minor sensory nerve damage. Which is also why your sense of taste gets messed up." ]	[ "Correct me other Redditors if I am wrong, but I believe it has to do with ph levels. Capsaicin is decently acidic, while milk and other dairy products are decently basic. Because of this, dairy is able to negate the acids causing the “spicy” much more efficiently than water, which being neither basic or acidic, mo...
Why are the primary colors red, yellow, and blue; while on color pallets for computers use red, blue, and green as the 'primary' set?	[ "There are actually two sets of primary colors. The primary colors of light (aka the additive primary colors) are red, green, and blue. The primary colors of pigment (aka the subtractive primary colors) are cyan, magenta, and yellow, which is sometimes approximated as red, blue, and yellow (especially for children)...	[ "When youre 37 times further from the sun everything can look pretty dim and grey. The cameras on these craft also don't always image the same wavelength band as human eyeballs. The original photographs are therefore often quite washed out or at incorrect wavelengths. Space agencies do release those photos for more...
Why is the Pirate Bay in Sweden despite the legal issues instead of another country where the Pirate Bay would be completely legal?	[ "The Pirate Bay founders and organisation are based in Sweden because that's where the people involved live. However, the actual servers are not based in Sweden. Or more correctly, at times they may be, but it's incredibly difficult to work out where they are. [They run on virtual machines that can be dismantled an...	[ "Regular downloads are when the file or files are coming from one location (a server). You (your browser) asks the server for the file and it sends it to you. When downloading using torrents you there is no one server to download from. Instead you ask the server, or tracker, for information on who has the file or f...
Why do flash drives and SD cards only come with storage in roots of 2 (8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, etc.), but hard drives come in round numbers (like 500 GB, 600 GB, 700 GB, 750 GB, etc.).	[ "Basicly the HD always is fooling you when you buy a Harddrive of say 500Gb then mount it in your computer it will NOT be of 500Gb ... why because they count 1 Kb as 1000b instead of as it is 1024b this iterates up to 1Mb is counted 10001000 instead of as the computer counts: 10241024 or 1 Gb as 102410241024 th...	[ "The pills aren't 500mg, the dose of the drug is. Some drugs need to be buffered differently so they will be absorbed by your body properly without causing a reaction. That could very well make a 10mg dose require a bigger pill than a 500 mg dose of a different drug." ]
Why is there a breathalizer test for alcohol levels but there isnt one for any other drugs? Do other drugs not escape through the lungs like alcohol, and why does alcohol exit the lungs?	[ "Breathalyzer tests detect the presence of acetaldehydes that are the result of alcohol being metabolized and are passed easily out through the lungs. Other drugs just don't result in the same sort of molecules. The metabolites of THC are present in urine for weeks and that's what the tests look for." ]	[ "Not sure about animals that have migrated from land into the water and then back again, but I know that fish have basically done the opposite. To be more specific, ray-finned fishes were originally aquatic (unsurprisingly), but were then forced to spend more time on land due to periods of drought and developed pri...
Does a person who is underweight and doesnt gain any weight but eats alot of sugar still get diabetes?	[ "Well Type I diabetes is almost always genetic, having nothing to do with diet. Type 2 diabetes is caused by a variety of lifestyle and genetic factors, including obesity, lack of exercise, and consumption of sugar, saturated fats and trans fats. AskScience does not give out medical advice, so you'll have to talk t...	[ "A smaller animal, all other things being equal, has more surface area relative to its volume. More surface area is more area that has to push air out of the way as you fall. This results in a counter force, as you push on the air, the air pushes on you. The result is you hit a top speed (in an atmosphere) called ...
Can anyone tell me what the black mass are and what are their purpose? (NSFW/NSFL)	[ "It looks to me like it may have started out as a hydrocele that got infected somehow. Based on the description, infection was noted, the scrotum was opened to drain/remove the dead tissue, and the patient was given antibiotics and blood. Plastic surgery was attempted on the penis and surrounding tissue but wasn't ...	[ "CPU cores communicate cache line locking and staleness information between each other using a bus protocol such as [MESI](_URL_1_) or [AMBA/AXI](_URL_2_). These protocols are then used by the CPU to implement atomic instructions such as `lock xadd` on x86 and `ldrex/strex` on ARM. Edit: Here's an article that give...
Have missile defense systems advanced since the cold war? Why are missiles so hard to intercept?	[ "Certainly they have advanced. Computers were the size of big rooms when the cold war started. Now you can put them on the missile. The difficulty is intercepting a missile is, literally, like hitting a bullet with a bullet fired from two guns (missiles really fly that fast). That is not easy to do at all." ]	[ "Let's say you have a 7 lane interstate. At each end there is a toll booth. In the past payments were processed manually and there was a receipt that had to print, but the printers were slow. Only do much traffic could get through. Fast forward to the future where you pay with the touch of a button and get an insta...
How do my contact lenses know which way to position themselves	[ "[The eye is not perfectly circular.](_URL_0_). The lens is shaped so that it only fits over the lens." ]	[ "Satellites are on a set orbit. The scientists put the satellite into that orbit to begin with, so they know when and where in space the satellite is going to be. When they launch a new satellite, they just calculate the appropriate trajectory and launch time to get the new satellite into space without hitting the ...
what percentage of calories do we actually take in? If I eat 2000 calories of food today, how much do I actually take in? I must poop some out?!	[ "Just to clear up some of the...err...interesting ideas here, the Calories listed on your food container are an estimation of how many calories you absorb. So, you'd absorb basically all listed calories. Your food has some quantity of additional 'thermodynamic' calories, which you do not absorb and are not listed. ...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear very well while yawning? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear while I am yawning? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: Why when we yawn we can't hear anything until the yawn is done? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear when I yawn? ](_URL_4_...
Why small businesses are considered "good"	[ "There is a block with 10 lemonade stands, they all do pretty good business. One day, Big Ass Mega Lemonade opens. The original 10 go out of business and the former owners get jobs working for BAML. Those 10 owners make a lot less money - and the owner of BAML, who happens to live far away, takes all that money an...	[ "Sometimes, people slow down to change lanes, enter, or exit, or because there's construction. It can take a little bit for even a minor slowdown to ripple all the way back through traffic. If it's a more major slowdown, more and more cars coming up behind it will be affected and have to slow down, too. This video ...
Are there any consumer products that "go bad" due to atomic half life rather than oxidisation or bacteria (or other)?	[ "The only widespread consumer product with any kind of half-life worth considering that I can think of are fire alarms, and even then the half-life is measured in centuries. Old watches with radium dials might qualify, but there the half-life is measured in millenia." ]	[ "The age of your eggs. Older eggs peel better. > If your aim is beautiful, pristine hard-boiled eggs for deviled eggs or a similar dish, the only sure-fire trick we know is to use old eggs. As eggs age, they gradually lose moisture through the pores in their shell and the air pocket at the tip expands. The pH ...
Why can we make machinery with extremely precise movements, but not robots that walk realistically?	[ "Factory line machines generally deal with precise, unchanging patterns of movement. The devices come in in the same way. They're moved in the same way. They leave in the same way. Walking has to deal with terrain, which can vary in elevation, height, traction, slope, all sorts of things. You could undoubtedly make...	[ "There are plenty of plants we have bred to be sterile to eliminate seeds (seedless grapes, watermelons, oranges, etc.). None of these can breed, period, so one can argue this is one answer to your question. We are also very close to having vat-grown meat, which can obviously no longer reproduce with its source ani...
why is gold so valuable ?	[ "Because it's rare, it's portable, it's easily identifiable, and rich people like to dangle it from their bodies and fashion their belongings out of it, all of which makes it a perfect candidate for a kind of unbacked universal currency." ]	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why do computer speakers emit staticky, Geiger counter-like sounds when you place a cell phone near them that's transmitting or receiving data?	[ "phones use waves that are in the electromagnetic spectrum, your speakers use electromagnets to operate and produce sound. so when your phone transmits it interrupts the electromagnets in your speakers and activates them, making the sound you hear. your speakers think they are getting a signal to play, but the sign...	[ "Lots. If you spend a lot of time in a building made of concrete, you're getting gammas from the small amount of potassium-40 in natural potassium. If you have an americium-241 smoke detector, you'll get gammas from that. ^(241)Am alpha-decays into ^(237)Np, but it doesn't always go directly to the ground state. So...
Why is it that when you stare into a light bulb you can shut your eyes and still see a glowing image of the light.	[ "The retinal photoreceptors are stimulated and likely continue to be stimulated after a bright light exposure. As long as they continue to be stimulated, a signal is sent to the brain that an light persists (positive afterimage). Eventually, it will fade as the stimulation decreases and may persist as a negative af...	[ "You can also poke your eye on the other side, to make the blotch appear toward your nose. (Look toward your nose while doing it.) You can also look upwards, poke your eye in your lower eyelid, and see the blotch high above. Try it with both eyes, see if you can make 3D stereo blotches. Same with looking downward. ...
Why do children like children's music? Or is more of a social construct?	[ "Somewhere I heard children enjoy repetition more, so that explains why they'll listen to the things a billion times. They also like playing with words and sounds since it's new to them." ]	[ "I would say yes. [Here's](_URL_0_) an article about Dr. Clara M. Davis, a pediatrician who did a ton of experiments where she presented a bunch of foods to infants and allowed them to pick whatever they wanted. She did find that infants did know what foods to choose, but the choices that were given were inherently...
People cover the cameras on their laptops but don't cover the front or back cameras on their phones, even though both the devices will be connected to the same network. Any particular reason why people do it?	[ "If you arent using your phone it's generally in a pocket/handbag/backpack etc. If you are using it you are aware of where it is and your surroundings. Computer cameras are stationary. And can be pointed right at intimate moments you dont want to be filmed. That's why they are covered but phones generally arent." ]	[ "We can read lips (and empathize doing other things) because of neurons in our brain called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons that fire when we do something ourselves and when we view someone else doing it. For example, if we see somebody perform a dance move, some neurons fire in our own brains as if we...
Why Tony Abbott banned the CEFC from investing in solar and wind energy?	[ "He has twice tried to get it shut down completely but the senate blocked the action. In lieu of shutting it down- he now wants to de-power it by pretending that he wishes to make rooftop solar and wind stand on their own without government help. I believe this is because he is against anything that smacks of legit...	[ "Cities/states want different income brackets in their city. So the local government will give grants to developers to develop for certain income classes. Like it's not just a welfare thing for poor people. Like a city would say \"we need some middle class people in this city\" but they know property prices are su...
If a super massive black hole is at the center of our galaxy, then why are there so many representations of a really bright light in the center?	[ "The closer you go to the center of a galaxy, the more stars there are. There are thousands of stars within three light years of the black hole at the center of the galaxy; by comparison, there are zero other stars within three light years of our sun. It's actually hard to observe our own galaxy because there are s...	[ "Dynamic range. Your eye can resolve a candle a mile away at night, or the sun shining on white walls at noon, basically at the same time. Phone cameras are more limited, and tend to adjust for the brightest object in the field of view. That tends to darken everything else relative to your eyesight." ]
Approximately how much solar energy could be harnessed between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn?	[ "Assuming you covered the entire area with 100% efficient solar cells, it would be 6.6 trillion^^^US kilowatts. distance between tropics = 5185000 metres diameter of the earth = 1274200 kilowatts power from the sun per square metre = ~ 1 kilowatt on the surface NB: For simplicity, calculations above assume that t...	[ "Light therapy lamps for SAD typically do not contain UV light, just a lot of visible light. Additinally, UV light interacts with your skin to create vitamin D, not your eyes. I would guess that the lethargy is just from lack of light in the winter in general rather from your contacts." ]
How do mirages work?	[ "Besides your being torturously dehydrated which can have severe impacts on your reasoning and perception, mirages can actually be the result of some pretty cool physics. When light from the sky comes it an angle towards the hot sand or asphalt, it will actually bend away from the ground back up towards your eye. T...	[ "An oasis that simply forms from something like intermittent rainfall may very well dry up. A stable oasis is more likely filled by some larger reservoir, such as an aquifer or buried river, which supplies more water than is lost to evaporation. The surface of a desert may well be very dry, but it is not necessaril...
Why do milk and milk semi-solids like sour cream "kill the burn" of spicy foods?	[ "Correct me other Redditors if I am wrong, but I believe it has to do with ph levels. Capsaicin is decently acidic, while milk and other dairy products are decently basic. Because of this, dairy is able to negate the acids causing the “spicy” much more efficiently than water, which being neither basic or acidic, mo...	[ "Different people do have different levels of sensitivity to different stimuli. People with Asperger's, for instance, tend to be sensitive to light and sound. It has to do with how the nervous system process the information the nerves are feeding it. Mental toughness is also part of it, as well as various technique...
Why do modern medications so often have negative, and sometimes severely harmful, side effects?	[ "They don't really. The chance of that stuff actually happening to you is practically nil - but if it does, from a legal standpoint you were warned in advance. From a medical perspective they probably have ways to tell that a certain mixture could have some side effect without needing actual cases of the effect o...	[ "commercialism. if you were happy with your old stuff, you wouldn't need to buy new stuff. all the designers and manufacturers come out with new looking stuff and market the old stuff as ugly and new stuff as pretty in order to make money. our tastes are hugely influenced by others." ]
What exactly is the point of having police officers on horseback? Is there a specific utility that they serve or is it more ceremonial?	[ "It's not. It's usually presumed that they are still very effective at crowd control - they are significantly more imposing than foot troopers, the smacks from their batons will be enhanced by their height, and yet they are unlikely to kill someone as much as pushing the crowd with a car would be." ]	[ "Well... Anyone can figure out who is speeding on a busy road, relative to the other vehicles around it moving at a normal rate (speed limit). The radar gun, let's them know the speed for the official report and ticket." ]
With satellite based internet wouldn't latency be reduced if satellites worked as repeaters?	[ "> assuming they were equidistant from the source. Who's \"they\", and who's \"the source\"? If \"the source\" is the satellite over Denver, and it is momentarily equidistant from a receiver in California and another in New York, then simultaneous instantaneous transmissions sent at that moment will be received sim...	[ "Simpler explanation: I write you a letter that says \"This letter was sent from < my address > on < date > and < time > . Please send me a letter back as soon as you get this, with the exact time and date you received this. You follow the instruction and send the second letter back to me. When I get your letter, I...
How do they catch people torrenting?	[ "They pay companies to seed their product and then take notes(IP Addresses) of those leeching while it is happening." ]	[ "Your computer will be doing calculations behind the scenes, which will only create profit for the owners of Utorrent. The computer will run hotter, slower and use more electricity." ]
Why is it so hard to predict the future of tech?	[ "Because you have to predict possible inventions, which are by definition things people haven't thought of before. For example, if you look at sci-fi movies or artwork from before the LCD panel was invented, the dashboard of spaceships would just have a whole bunch of shiny glowing analogue dials, like your speed...	[ "If you are cooking potatoes you don't need to look at them to know when they're done. You can simply set a timer and take them off it rings. In the same way we usually know how many iterations of some calculation is needed until we should arrive at the correct result. In some instances this is not exactly the cas...
The evolution of mercenaries?	[ "Mercenaries were previously a huge part of most wars, it was incredibly expensive to keep a standing army trained and ready to go and so mercenaries were an excellent alternative, being a band of men who did nothing but fight and could be hired at the time. In the ancient Greek world mercenaries were pretty much a...	[ "Absolutely! Predators migrating into new areas can have a huge impact and wipe out many species very quickly. Historically this occurred following environmental changes but more recently humans have brought the predators across. Some examples are feral cats on the Australian mainland _URL_1_ or black rats on Lord...
How does global warming create extreme COLD temperatures?	[ "Global Warming is a misnomer, it is really Climate Change." ]	[ "They did do that. Some people just claim that research funded by oil companies doesn't count as \"extensive research\", because they think it's too likely to be biased." ]
Why did it take so long for the first youtube video to get 1 billion views, but now videos get to 1 billion views routinely?	[ "Simple answer would be larger userbase. YouTube has been a growing platform for videos and its having a way larger amount people using it now than it did a couple of years ago." ]	[ "Inflation. Let's put it this way, in America it used to be that you could buy a steak dinner for let's say $5. Then today that same steak dinner would cost $50. How much we pay for things, and how much we get paid has increased slowly over time. In other countries, it has increased way faster, so something that us...
Is there such thing as blindspot for sound? If yes, what is the term for it? How does it happen?	[ "If you mean a condition where people can't hear specific sounds, then yes. The term is auditory agnosia. People with this condition can have perfectly normal hearing other than the fact that there are certain specific noises that they can't hear. It comes in different forms and can be caused by many different thin...	[ "Typically someone who is strabismic (crossed eyed) sees double early in life but the brain and visual system are incredible. They will do whatever needs to be done to insure that you see to the best of your ability. It does this in several ways. One way is suppression- your brain will only receive information from...
If matter cannot be created or destroyed, does it follow that there is a finite amount of matter in the universe?	[ "Matter is not conserved; mass-energy is conserved. The total amount of mass and energy is constant within the universe." ]	[ "Protecting intellectual property was supposed to foster innovation. To encourage people to come up with new ideas, because new ideas would be profitable for a while (the term of the copyright). However, giving limitless copyright terms causes the opposite effect: Nobody innovates or comes up with new ideas, becaus...
What are college credits and how do they work?	[ "A typical class that takes 1 semester is worth 3 credits (credit-hours), which usually means you spend 3 hours in class per week for that class. \"Full-time\" in college is usually 12-18 credits per semester, meaning you'll spend 12-18 hours in class per week. A typical undergraduate college degree is 120 credits....	[ "I could try to explain it to you, but this video is all you really need: _URL_9_" ]
Does the battery still drain if I hold down the electric motor, stopping it from spinning?	[ "You are right that there is zero work done in this situation but that is only because the motor is 0% efficient in this situation. None of the electrical power is being used to do useful work but is instead being converted mostly to heat. When you stall a motor like this, it is in fact drawing the maximum amount o...	[ "In an idealized setting, where one body orbits another in a perfect vacuum, no work is being done on either body (and thus no energy is consumed). Perpetual motion doesn't exist because the real universe is not such an idealized setting, but the error in this case is very, very tiny: the orbit of a planet around i...
How do marines stay in shape in submarines?	[ "Okay so a couple things are wrong with this question so I will explain. 1) Marines are known as the fittest in the armed forces not the Army. The Marines and Army are 2 different things. 2) Marines do not go on submarines. Sailors do and Sailors are in the Navy. 3) Subs while they are confined are still pretty mas...	[ "Well Christian Bale literally starved himself for his role in The Machinist - I wouldn't be surprised if other celebs were as reckless about their health to slim down for a role." ]
how does the fuel gage in the car measure how much gas is in the tank?	[ "There is a rod with a floating plastic bobber on it. As the gas fills it floats to the top of the rod telling the gauge you are full. The position of the floater changes the gauge" ]	[ "Flash memory comes in a few different flavors and it's kind of difficult to understand how it works: _URL_1_ If I were to ELI5 the above I would say: Imagine you have these microscopic swimming pools arranged in a grid, millions and millions of them. When you want to use them to store data, you fill some of them u...
How is it that a drug that has been around for 62 years, and is effective in treating AIDS, has been hiked by 5500%. Shouldn't there be generics by now?	[ "Even though other companies are allowed to make a generic now, a company still has to decide that they WANT to make a generic and then apply to the FDA for their generic formulation to be approved. This application is much quicker and easier than the one needed to get the drug originally approved but still takes t...	[ "Say there are 100 school kids and they all enjoy cheap cheap jello. When 4 of the kids decide they want all the jello (for whatever reason) - It's tasty - It's sexy - It makes them feel rich(er) - religious reasons. Supply and demand kicks in. They buy up all the jello and that drives up the price. Fun fact...
How were other minorities treated during America's period of racial segregation?	[ "I'd argue it's also noteworthy that for going back a long ways those groups constituting 'white' or 'caucasian' can't always get along. Russian and Irish and Italian and German and others had quasi-ethnic nationalistic hostilities they either carried over from the 'old world' or picked up in a big city here in the...	[ "Tanning was usually relegated to the [outskirts of town](_URL_1_) due to the nature of the industry. Slaughter houses also used to be relegated to [certain streets.](_URL_0_) These both refer to England, though it seems to have happened in other places as well." ]
How the heck do Keurig's actually work?	[ "They punch holes in the top and bottom of the capsule, and run hot water through it. Ahoy, matey! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [How Does a Keurig Work? \| The Coffee Whisperer ](_URL_1_) 1. [Inside the Keurig Vue V700, a Single-Serve Coffee Maker - Graphic - _URL_2_ ](_URL_4_) 1. [...	[ "_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." ]
Why was a game like Manhunt 2 given an [AO] rating but a game like Mortal Kombat X (with a lot more realistic and graphic animations) given an [M] rating?	[ "MKX's gore is more realistic sure, but it's set in a fantasy world where people can shoot fire, lightning, and ice out of their body. Manhunt was both graphic in gore and realism in the way the character could kill. Basically, MK can't be imitated in real life the way Manhunt 2 could be." ]	[ "Premature death simply means someone died before the life expectancy for that population. In the case of the German population, presumably you'd use their[ population table](_URL_0_) (Alternatively, one could use the WHO life table, I assume they break it down by country). So, for men that would be dying before 75...
What happens to gasses reased on atmosphere-less bodies? Like the moon.	[ "Molecules of gas easily reach escape velocity. They hang around for a short time, but soon dissipate into space." ]	[ "\"Vacuum\" is one of those words that has no precise definition. If you mean a volume with no fermions in it, nothing would happen. It'd just be a volume with no fermions in it. If you mean a volume with no fields in it, then that cannot exist by definition, so the question is meaningless." ]
When a new island forms, who does it belong to and how is that decided?	[ "It's called an \"Exclusive Economic Zone\", and was established by the UN. Specifically, the \"United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea\", as modified and approved in 1982. Basically, it extends about 200 nautical miles from from the coast of countries. Borders are established when two country's zones inter...	[ "ICANN originally had domains for countries as well as the ones for organizations (com/org/net etc). Recently, though, ICANN opened it up and allowed anyone with too much money to register a top level domain." ]
Radon Test Report is 3.2 pCi/l ... What does this mean?	[ "The unit is pico-Curies per liter, which measures how much radioactivity. The EPA states you don't want to exceed 4 pCi/L, but might want to consider lowering it between 2 and 4. Radon comes from the natural decay of uranium and radium in the Earth. It's there because Radon is a heavy gas and sinks. This means it ...	[ "> but also people who go somewhere like chernobyl, what do they use for protection? Unless you plan to work at the reactor side: Nothing. Don't go to the reactor ruin, don't eat things that grow in the exclusion zone, don't take material from there elsewhere. Ideally stay on the roads and other cleaned areas. The ...
Did the Romans hold aquatic races?	[ "There is a [long scene in the Aeneid](_URL_0_) where they hold a ship race. Of course, Virgil could have been somewhat fanciful, but he certainly got the idea from somewhere." ]	[ "There is a good deal of room for fresh responses to this question. But I briefly summarised the main controversies [in an earlier thread here](_URL_0_). The short answer is that we have no certainties about this at all, only a lot of supposition and a certain amount of reasonable deduction. Even the discovery of f...
Why is it that sometimes when we are emotionally hurt, we feel pain in our chest or heart?	[ "Emotions are actually linked to pain. It’s actually how anesthetics like laughing gas work. You still feel it but you just don’t care." ]	[ "Usually when we type, we are using our working memory to hold the info we want to type. Our working memory only has so much space in it that if something new pops up it pushes back the old info and takes front seat; attention also affects this. Think of it like a bus. What you're trying to type is in the drivers ...
Advantage of credit cards over debit cards	[ "If somebody hacks your credit card & runs up charges, calling the card issuer & telling them will allow you to simply NOT pay for those fraudulent charges. If somebody hacks your debit card, that money is already out of your bank account and you have to fight to get your money BACK. Given that little tidbit, I'm ...	[ "All the other reasons people are giving are valid, but I think for the majority of people it's down to advertising, pretty packaging, and the idea that spending more will get you something that's better." ]
How were cartoons (political or otherwise) printed in newspapers during the age of movable type?	[ "What /u/CptBuck said. Also, cartoons don't really appear in newspapers until the 19th century, first in the form of lithographs; Punch in Britain and La Caricature and Le Charivari in France in the 1830s. Before that they exist as stand alone sheets. What we would recognize as political cartoons, employing c...	[ "Since this is a homework question, we expect a little more effort from you. What research have you done so far for your paper? What are your findings so far? Is there anything specific you have a question about?" ]
Why does it rain so often in Winter? Or why does it seem to rain more often than in summer? Really annoying as a cyclist commuter (living in Germany)	[ "Germany and Europe get influxes of warm air from the Atlantic Ocean, which keeps things more temperate compared to similar latitudes in America and Russia. One side effect of that is that cold air from the Arctic mixes with the warmer and very wet air from the Ocean and Mediterranean, causing an increase in precip...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: how do metal detectors work? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: How do metal detectors work? ](_URL_1_) 1. [ELI5 how do metal detectors work? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5: How does a metal detector work? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5: How do metal detectors work? ](_URL_7_) 1. ...
If modern medicine cannot treat viruses, how does the human body's autoimmune system succeed in doing so?	[ "The chief difference that makes treating viral infections more difficult is that bacteria are host to a complete set of life processes, many of which can be targeted and disrupted with well-chosen substances. A virus doesn't have such processes going on. Most antiviral drugs focus on either preventing the virus fr...	[ "Antiviruses hook system calls to add their verification routines. System calls addresses are stored in the system service dispatch table (SSDT). Simply put, when a program wants to open a file, it tells Windows \"Open file.txt please\", and Windows looks at the SSDT where is the function to open a file, and calls ...
Could you explain the free software movement, LI5?	[ "People who create software are called \"developers\". To create software programs, they write instructions for computers that is called \"code\". Some developers feel that the best and fastest way to to create better and better programs for everybody is to let anyone who wants to look at this code so they can see...	[ "They make money in one of two different ways. 1. Donations - (Firefox). Pretty much your standard charity works. 2. Support Contracts (Red Hat) - Imagine a grocery store who offered you unlimited free food, but if you want any of it cooked, have to hire one of their chefs to cook it for you. You can still eat it r...
The biggest misconceptions about Christianity	[ "Ok, before anything gets going, let me say this up front: 1) Keep it civil. There is no reason to curse, insult, or mock another poster. 2) Keep it about history. Teacups in orbit, Flying Spaghetti Monsters, and \"Absence of Evidence\" arguments are for another subreddit. This place is about history, not if God/Go...	[ "Somebody else may want to expand further but there's a good write up dealing with some of the most popular criticisms of Che here: _URL_0_" ]
Why does it matter if certain species (like rhinos for example) go extinct? Is every species really that important to the ecology?	[ "Beyond the ecological standpoint, there's an ethical standpoint to consider. Just because we CAN kill a thing, should we? If we don't have any real benefit in killing off a species (for food, hide for clothing, etc), should we? If humans have, in past (and to a lesser extent, present) transgressions, driven specie...	[ "Part of the presence of pain is its purpose. Your nervous system continues to remind your brain the pain you've experienced so you know to protect it. For us, that means going to a doctor for a broken finger. But in nature, that means \"I need to guard this finger until it heals, or else I may die. If I try to ...
How do moles (nevi) start growing in your skin? What makes them stop growing?	[ "So our body is made up of cells. And each cell has a pigment that gives it the color of your skin. When a few cells get clustered together into a smaller region more than normal, there is a darker colour in that spot. They may randomly start growing but more often than not, it may mean there is a cancerous growth ...	[ "It is down to the combination of the genes you get half the genes from your mother and half from your father but those genes are an almost random selection of those genes which go to make up each so can be combined in trillions of different ways. Like saying you get half a pack of cards from one parent and half fr...
Could the world eventually become one race through the interbreeding of races over time?	[ "Yes. Technically we are already one race. The biological differences between what we refer to as \"races\" are so minor and negligible that there is no scientific basis for differentiating them. That's what people mean when they say that \"race\" is a cultural construct. But when it comes to those minor biological...	[ "> ...why are all species so distinct? Many species aren't particularly distinct. Certain species of rabbit and certain species of cat, for example, are aesthetically similar. Various species of bird are similar to one another, as are various species of fish, plants, etc. > ...why do we have chimpanzees and people...
What is the difference between using < tables > or < div > in webpage layout?	[ "Web development has moved towards more semantic markup. In a super small nutshell its kind of like the idea of using the right tool for the job. A table is supposed to be for tabular data, not layout -- this is why it is generally not used for layout anymore. It doesn't make semantic sense to. In other words, if...	[ "If somebody hacks your credit card & runs up charges, calling the card issuer & telling them will allow you to simply NOT pay for those fraudulent charges. If somebody hacks your debit card, that money is already out of your bank account and you have to fight to get your money BACK. Given that little tidbit, I'm ...
With regards to a falling mass, do forces multiply (or otherwise dramatically increase) when a fall is arrested in stages? (Free fall, resistance, free fall, resistance.)	[ "Momentum is what you want to look at here: When the first anchor becomes taught, the momentum will be > ~~P1= mv = m(gD)^0.5~~ When that anchor breaks, the climber enters free fall again, falling another [2D+d] until the remaining anchor catches, when the momentum becomes > ~~P2= P1-A + m( v1 + (g(2D+d))^0.5 ) = ...	[ "It seems like it depends on the size of the room, how structurally stable it is, and how adherent the paint is to itself. As you added successive layers of paint, supposing they adhered perfectly to each other, you would be adding to the weight on the ceiling. This would prove a challenge to the structure upholdi...
why reddit hates 9gag so much	[ "Go to the [site](_URL_0_). It's like your annoying 12 year old little brother that's just discovered the internet." ]	[ "This is more of an opinion or discussion question than a concept you're looking to have explained. Not really a topic for ELI5. Maybe /r/askreddit" ]
How did David Duke, a former KKK leader, win 39% of the vote in the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election?	[ "Ok folks, you will notice the large number of removed answers. That's because they weren't answers. They were pithy one liners that brought nothing to the table, were idle speculation, or attempts to be witty that fell terribly flat. If you are going to answer questions in this sub, answer with a QUALITY answe...	[ "> Jackie Mitchell was able to strike out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession, which shows women aren't incapable of competing with men. That's not a valid conclusion. In a sport where a .300 average is good, it is not unusual for two top hitters to get retired back to back. They also happened to be the fir...
I've heard of westerners such as Matteo Ricci going to China very early on. Were there ever any Chinese or other East Asians like him who traveled West?	[ "Zheng Weixin (1633-1673) was the first Chinese Jesuit priest and possibly the earliest Chinese person to visit Europe. His father was a Christian convert, so he was baptized at birth under the name Emmanuel de Siqueira. He departed from Macau for Europe in 1645. Zheng received a Jesuit education at the Collegio Ro...	[ "On mobile, but the first one that comes to mind is the Horatii of Rome, whom Livy recorded in his histories of Rome. From the wiki article: > According to Livy, the Horatii were male triplets from Rome. During a war between Rome and Alba Longa during the reign of Tullus Hostilius (approx. 672-642 B.C.), it was ag...
When your phone is ringing, why are the electronics around it buzzing?	[ "I don't think that's what OP is asking. You can have a phone on silent, sitting next to other electronic devices, and you'll often hear very distinct electronic buzzing type noises from the other devices specifically when the cell phone is ringing." ]	[ "One of the coolest properties of waves are that they are linear, meaning you can add them together to get a new wave. That new wave obays the wave equation just like the two original ones. So check this out here is a plot of sin(x) and of sin(2x) and of their sum. _URL_0_ Notice that two of those plots just look l...
Can astronauts beat off while they’re in space?	[ "It is possible to get an erection in microgravity but it is more difficult because the body is adapted to pushing blood upwards in the body being more difficult. This means blood pressure in the upper body tends to increase and the lower body decrease, making it more difficult to get the blood pressure necessary f...	[ "The same way that you and I do at home. Do not use too much toothpaste, and spit if you start to build up too much drool or foam." ]
Why do stock markets fall during panics (i.e. 9/11, presidential assassination)? Is every industry affected equally?	[ "Investors do NOT like uncertainty. Investors are well aware of--and profit from--standard risk-taking, which is (in general) a good thing. However, when there is a panic, it insinuates that it's something so out of the ordinary that no rational decisions can be made. That makes it difficult to predict market patte...	[ "You have a lemonade stand. You sell it for 50 cents a cup. One day you find out it's going to be very hot outside and people are going to want more lemonade. You figure you can get away with selling it for a little more since the demand is there. So you start charging 80 cents. You notice that the number of people...
Why is discovering the Higgs-Boson particle so significant?	[ "It verified parts of our current mathematical model of the fundamental functions of our universe, which predicted the existence of the particle, though that partical had never been observed. That means our current model of the universe is close to correct in this area, and is therefore useful for predicting how ce...	[ "It's the next step in mobile network data transmission. There's new stories causing a big deal about it but it's the same as if Apple was releasing a new iOS or if Microsoft was releasing a new version of Windows. 5G is just going to be faster. Some experts say could be 20 times faster then 4g. Bonus fact: the \"...
Is there any evidence that the CO2 levels were affected by the industrial pursuits of the Romans?	[ "Not necessarily carbon but [lead and other pollutants](_URL_0_) show up in ice cores. You're not really going to see any impact on atmospheric carbon until coal and other fossil fuels started to take over from water mills at the dawn of the industrial revolution." ]	[ "That's quite a big topic. The [IPCC](_URL_0_) would be a good place to start; there are reports that cover most of those questions." ]
In most colonized nations they speak the mother countries language even if it is not the primary language but with enough time it becomes the primary language. How come this never remotely happened for the Philippines even though the Spanish had invaded for over 400 years?	[ "It did, Spanish was the lingua franca for the Philippines until the end of the 19th Century. During the American administration of the Philippines after its cession by Spain in the late 19th Century after the American-Spanish War, and then the follow-up Philippine-American War, which established United States cont...	[ "Sugar cane farming was the major export from Hawaii. White American plantation owners moved over in mass in the mid-1800's. Along with the plantation owners came American missionaries. The powerful influence of religion and profit doomed the Hawaiian Monarchy in the long term. There were a lot of arguments and a f...
Why do some changes to apps require updated and others do not. For example: I always get new Snapchat filters without updating.	[ "The kind of update you are describing is a change to the stuff that an app is made of. This can include adding things like filters, but it's usually more fundamental stuff like changes in how the app works. But even without updates apps don't have to be static. They can have elements that \"update\" through normal...	[ "Imagine you have a Grey squirrel population in Arizona. All of a sudden, a grand canyon appears in the middle of their territory. The canyon is too big for squirrels on either side to traverse across, so you can effectively say you have two populations of squirrel that will never meet. Now progress millions and mi...
I once had a dream that I got shot in the arm, and when I woke up my arm hurt in the same spot. What caused this?	[ "Your arm hurt (for some reason, I don't know) and then you started dreaming about getting shot in the arm. Some external stimuli (like pain, or for example a phone ringing, or for example a full bladder) will be perceived during sleep, and then your brain makes a story about it in your dream." ]	[ "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...
How do crazy dictators like Kim Jong able to keep power?	[ "Because of however crazy he looks, Kim Jong Un and other extreme dictators follows exact 3 rules to keep their power: 1. Get key supportes on your side: A ruler NEVER rule alone, he needs other men to do his will, and how he is able to do this, by follow 2nd rule. 2. Control the treasure: This is the real job of...	[ "Magic. Or Dragons. Take your pick. Seriously, it's a work of fiction. Unless George R. R. Martin has explained it somewhere there isn't an answer." ]
What is insomnia and why can't our brains shut off when we're excessively tired	[ "Insomnia can be caused by many things, but one of the most common causes of insomnia is a non-functioning ability to produce the chemical that makes us begin to fall asleep. Our brain (neurotypically) naturally makes all of the chemicals we need on a given day to function. One of them, melatonin, is produced in lo...	[ "Has to do with your circadian rhythm: _URL_0_ Basically in a 24 hour period there are 2 times when your body is telling you to go to sleep and 2 times when it is telling you to be most awake. If you sleep late, when you wake up you might be closer to the time at which your body is telling you to sleep. _URL_1_dr-...
What is going on with Canadians protesting for higher taxes on foreign home buyers and how does it differ from foreigners buying homes in the US? Or better phrased, why aren't United States citizens also protesting?	[ "People with lots of spare cash are at historic highs. Worldwide interest rates are at historic lows. Bank accounts are not good places to store cash right now, because they effectively hemorrhage around 1-3% of your wealth every year. So rich people all over the world are desperately looking for alternative ways ...	[ "On top of this, how did Ernst Thalmann not appeal more than Hitler? Wouldn't most Germans be anti-war? Edit to rephrase: Wouldn't people support a system that help their economy and health and whatnot, rather than Hitler's ideals of genocide and combat, as well as suppression of media? Also to answer to the best o...
What will prevent people from waiting to buy healthcare until they get sick with the pre existing conditions clause?	[ "Nothing. Understand that you will have to pay a fine, and the fine increases every year. Other than that, nothing will prevent you from buying insurance when you need it." ]	[ "> If I know I'm going to be taxed, why go out and spend more money to be taxed less? Wouldn't it just be redundant? If you spend money, you get something for it. If you get taxed, the money is gone. If the government was gonna tax my $1 unless I spent it, I could spend it on a hot dog, and now I'm down one dollar ...
Does there exist 2 pieces of plastic that are each opaque but become transparent once placed in front of each other?	[ "This isn't quite what you asked for, but if you take two polarizing filters and place them at 90 degrees, no light gets through. If you then add a third polarizing filter at 45 degrees between the two filters... [light will get through all three of them](_URL_0_), even though the same two filters that were previou...	[ "Prologic works by flipping the phase on the audio meant for the rear channel. The decoder works like this: * any audio this is present on both the left and right channel and is in phase, is routed to the center speaker. * any audio that is present on both the left and right channel but is out of phase is routed ...

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