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eli5 · 25k rows

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train · 25k rows

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What is the effect, positive or negative, of receiving multiple immunizations at the same time; such as when the military goes through "shot lines" to receive all deployment related vaccines?	[ "It depends on the vaccines. We tend to not give multiple live attenuated vaccines all in one go but again, it depends on the patient as well as the vaccine. Source: am PharmD student who just this morning, had a test in my Preventive Care class that was 90% about vaccines." ]	[ "OK, you start taking the medications before so that by the time you get there, the drug's at a useful concentration in your system. The reason to keep taking them after is a bit more complicated. Malaria is caused by parasites. Once a mosquito bites you, the parasite travels to your liver, where it grows and cha...
Are there many examples (if any) of convicts transported to Australia in the 1700s-1800s, completing their sentences and then returning home to the UK?	[ "Once a convict completed his/her sentence in full (including the ticket-of-leave period) there was no requirement to remain in the colony. If he could raise the money for fare, or sign on a ship as crew he was free to leave. Some went to America, where part of San Francisco was referred to as \"Sydney-Town\", la...	[ "Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_2_): Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come t...
How detrimental is it when the last remaining speaker of a language or dialect dies?	[ "There's a documentary called \"The Linguists\", which kinda talks about this. They go to investigate three almost dead languages. They say that each language has its own way of describing the world. One of the languages had a counting system based on 12s and 20s, and they were discussing how different that is from...	[ "Do you mean besides there being almost no user base for an operating system that old? Or that it is no longer maintained by the developer of that OS, so no bug patches, security or driver updates? Or that the hardware it runs on is also likely to be ancient? Or that you won't have access to the latest API?" ]
Reptilian humanoids and why or why not I should believe this stuff.	[ "None of what he says is true, unless he is talking about football. Even then, I wouldn't believe anything he says about American football. His ideas are preposterous, and the idea of humanoid reptilian is actually among the most believable. He also believes the moon is artificial, and reality is a broadcast tele...	[ "> how it really amounts to a bunch of bologna I don't have an answer, but I do need to point out that bologna = lunch meat. Baloney = nonsense." ]
Why exactly does Kurdistan not exist?	[ "While waiting for a response to this specific post-WWI questions, you may be interested in some of my older responses: * [Have the Kurds ever had a state? If not why have they never been able to create one?](_URL_2_) * [Who were the Kurds, and has a Kurdish state ever existed?](_URL_0_) * [Why does there seem t...	[ "Hi, I've approved the post, but just a note to you and potential respondents: this subreddit has a 20-year rule against discussing current events, so any answers will have to cut off at 1997. If you're looking for answers that can include 1998-2012, do consider x-posting elsewhere, eg. a foreign affairs sub like /...
What is the logic/reasoning behind suicide bombers?	[ "If you're up against an enemy that outguns you by 100:1 and has resources (politically, financially, militarily) that you can't even dream of, but you hate them with a passion and want to hurt them any way you can, you might find that your options are very, very limited." ]	[ "I would recommend that you read [this](_URL_0_) article. It's written by Christopher Hitchens who volunteered to undergo the water boarding process. The tl;dr version is best summed up by Hitchens himself > You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of...
Why does plate tectonics require oceans?	[ "The reason is complex, and this explanation may be too simplified, but hopefully it is accurate enough to give you a clearer picture of what is going on. Water is a very important component of how rocks behave, and liquid water at earth's surface supplies a substantial component of the water found in rocks in the...	[ "To give a slightly different example that /u/Vampire_Seraphin's a current excavation off of the coast of Sri Lanka at a fishing village called Gotavaya is the first marine excavation of an ancient shipwreck in Indian waters. It is dated from the first century BCE/CE, which was the peak of the ancient trade, but as...
How do we know the chemical composition of stars that are so far away?	[ "Stars are big, fiery balls of constantly burning fuel. Now, you've probably seen something like this in high-school science, where you add a powdered chemical to a flame, and it suddenly changes colour; green, blue, red, etc. These changes occur because of the chemical compounds being added, and they absorb/refl...	[ "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." ]
How do machines distinguish between the different paper currencies, $1, $5, $10 etc..?	[ "older machines relied on magnetic properties of the ink in bills and features visible in UV. newer machines can do optical recognition in addition to the older techniques. Newer machines can also work with the features added to more modern bills to distinguish between the denominations." ]	[ "Tiny scratches or holes are punched in the disc by a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray Burner. When the CD/DVD/Blu-Ray is read, a Red(CD/DVD) or Blue(Blu-Ray) laser is used to detect the holes and scratches so they can be read as binary code." ]
Why couldn't the Romans have an Indstrial Revolution?	[ "The industrial revolution was made possible by a couple of key discoveries and inventions. One was steam power, which required coal. Another was things like the cotton gin and flying jenny that made textile production far more efficient than it used to be. Advances in agriculture like crop rotation made food produ...	[ "This question is getting a lot of traffic after being [tweeted by @reddit](_URL_5_), so I thought I'd welcome those of you that haven't visited /r/AskHistorians before to the subreddit. Please do bear in mind that in order to keep the quality of answers here high we have [strict rules on comments](/r/AskHistorians...
Why do 'flat earth conspiracists' think we are being lied to about the earth being round?	[ "Humans tend to lock in to beliefs early on, and then rigidly defend them. We don't like thinking we're wrong, or have been wrong. This is part of how religions survive so well despite not making any sense to outsiders. There's also very strong anti-intellectual streaks running through Western culture- outright rej...	[ "Inflatable beach balls are mostly empty space, too. The thing is, light bounces off the outside surface of the beach ball and back into our eyes, just like it bounces off the electrons around an atom's nucleus." ]
Thomas Jefferson wrote about the evils of slavery, yet he owned slaves. What were his real views?	[ "While not the final say on the matter, u/uncovered-history wrote an answer to a similar question here: _URL_1_ u/sowser also contributed to that answer, & referred to an earlier answer that many have found useful in understanding Jefferson's views on slavery here: _URL_0_" ]	[ "To pay less in taxes. The government takes taxes evenly. When they take income tax, they have a set book that everyone follows. And then, you submit your write-offs/deductions based on your personal situation and they have you pay less in taxes. This is good for a lot of self-employed people, or contract workers w...
why do republicans argue that Obama and liberal policies will destroy the economy when the NASDAQ is just shy of breaking a new record high?	[ "There isn't any downside to saying the sky is falling. Politicians aren't vying for the votes of economics professors, they are vying for the votes of people who don't have the willingness to look up the numbers themselves." ]	[ "We only have 150 years worth of direct temperature readings (ie. taken with a thermometer) for the planet. There are many different proxies for measuring temperature throughout the more distant past. CO2 ratios in air bubbles trapped in deep ice cores, tree ring data, marine sediment layers, and others. All of whi...
With all of the "checks and balances" in place, how can the President single-handedly withdraw the country from an international deal?	[ "The same way that if a President uses his Presidential Powers to issue an Executive Order, a different President can use his Presidential Powers to reverse that order." ]	[ "CPA here. I hate Trump, and there are tons of great reasons to hate the guy, but this is just one cherry picked data point that doesn't really tell us anything. The article you read is one big facepalm. That huge loss is called a Net Operating Loss, NOL. The rules for an NOL are pretty clear, and let you deduct t...
What would happen if you were born with fully functional eyes but a damaged/malformed occipital lobe?	[ "It really depends on where the damage is and how extensive it is. If you have a small lesion in the visual cortex (V1) you could have a blind area in your vision. It also depends on what hemisphere the damage is on. You could also easily be completely blind with a large enough area that is damaged. For other areas...	[ "you get over the novelty. thats been my experience. there is this guy at work who i used to think was a gargoyle at first but now i don't notice that he's a gargoyle. same thing for stunningly attractive people. you get over it." ]
How do time release pills work?	[ "The vast majority of most pills is simply sugars and binding agents. Only a small amount (usually like 10%) of the pill is the actual medicine. Normally, it's spread around pretty evenly so as soon as it hits your stomach and starts to dissolve, the medicine is available. But by ensuring there's a layer or two of ...	[ "Because the bullets are propelled by literal explosions. Now you'll all have to excuse any incorrect use of terminology here but the front of the bullet is what leaves the barrel, and the rest of it (the casing) is filled with gunpowder. When you pull the trigger the firing hammer hits the back of the bullet, sett...
What gives neutron stars a magnetic field?	[ "It's thought to be similar to how Earth has a magnetic field: a dynamo. In Earth, it's a rotating mass of liquid metal; in neutron stars, its this: > The strong fields of magnetars are understood as resulting from a magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process in the turbulent, extremely dense conducting fluid that exists ...	[ "The differentiation between quasar and AGN (active galaxy nucleus) is completely historical. In earlier times photography couldn't depict the surrounding galaxy with the heavily outshining nucleus, which was located in an area not bigger than the solar system, hence the name quasar (quasi stellar). As time went...
How do people at Nasa calculate the requirements for space travel?	[ "Maths. They did lots of maths. NASA did have computers pretty early on, but they also hired people to do the maths. The Apollo 11 mission, as well as project Mercury was calculated for the most part by Katherine Johnson, with the aid of a computer." ]	[ "A few different ways; - [Lasers](_URL_0_) for really close things like the moon. - [Parallax](_URL_2_) used for nearby planets and stars. - [Standard candles](_URL_1_), the brightness of a specific type of supernova which gives a good range. - [Red Shift](_URL_3_) for things very far away. For more detail on how a...
How can big companies like 'Pepsi' show 'Coca Cola' in their commercials. Wouldn't they need Coca Cola's permission first?	[ "No. Trademarks are tricky. Just showing them is fine. What you can't do is use a trademark to earn money without the permission of the owner. Since Pepsi is specifically saying, our soda is NOT Coke, I think that's what makes it ok. I could be off on this, so stand by for a better explanation." ]	[ "In the American legal system there is no legal obligation to report a crime or volunteer information to the police. It is criminal to help someone cover a crime up, or make it harder for the police to discover. It is criminal to lie to law enforcement during an investigation. And if subjected to a subpoena you mus...
When a town or a city elects a dog or a cat for mayor, how does that end up working?	[ "It is never official. Typically it only occurs in unincorporated towns where they don't have government at anything lower than the county level. Such communities will often elect an unofficial mayor as sort of a spokesman. Since there are no real laws covering this, there is nothing stopping them from getting sill...	[ "A smaller population may require the same type (police, fire, etc) services but at a much smaller scale. Mayberry only needed two cops, Atlanta needs thousands. The cost is greatly different. Other infrastructure are scaled accordingly." ]
Why does cracking your knuckles, neck and back feel good?	[ "It releases pressure. Certain gases build up in joints and collect into bubbles. Popping these bubbles lets the joints settle into a more comfortable spot." ]	[ "Some have suggested that it causes dopamine responses. Similar brain mechanics to forms of addiction (alcoholism, smoking, drug abuse etc). _URL_0_" ]
Nintendo Duck Hunt Gun/ How did the system know you were shooting ducks?	[ "The gun was able to tell between light and dark, and when you pulled the trigger the entire screen changed for a frame; the ducks/clay pigeons/what have you were a box with a different color/brightness than the rest of the screen, so if that's what the gun saw, it assumed you'd hit a duck. This is why the screen f...	[ "It photographs the paper and compares it to real bills. Also real money has magnetic ink they can use to double check them." ]
why were tv and movies black and white?	[ "Because the technology of how to create black and white photographs and moving pictures came first. Television at first was black and white too even though color movies already existed at that point. The technology to make color-tv was more expensive than b & w tv and the receivers for color were also more expensi...	[ "My guess? When you're dealing with a lot of makeup, prosthesis, special effects its easier to hide flaws. You can see acne under makeup in high def, you couldn't really see that back in the day. Just a guess." ]
how does a chickens reproductive system work?	[ "A chicken will produce eggs whether or not the rooster is involved, just as a human female will release eggs, whether or not a guy is involved. If there's no conception, there's a period, if there is, there's a pregnancy. With chickens, the eggs are laid and are either laid fertilized or not, depending on if the r...	[ "This is a weird thing to explain to a five year old." ]
Why is Chinese not pronounced the way it's spelled in English?	[ "Mainly because the pronunciations are somewhere between the multiple spellings. If you hear a native Chinese speaker say Beijing, you'll hear a subtle mixed 'p' / 'b' sound at the beginning, and a subtle mixed 'k' / 'j' sound at the second syllable. Chinese isn't the only language to suffer this. For example, ther...	[ "Forming words and sentences is a different skill set to matching heard words with their translated counterpart. You can hear cheval and connect that with a horse but being able to know you want the word for horse and that the word is cheval is harder. Basically multiple choice being easier versus short answer on ...
Why were so many of Caesar's assassins former friends of his?	[ "When it started looking like he intended to make himself a King/Tyrant. Romans really hated the idea of monarchy or tyranny. Brutus' ancestor was one of killers of the last king of Rome so it was kind of tradition. For a simplified version watch the \"Rome\" tv series. While not dead on accurate it will at least g...	[ "People care less about obeying rules when they are about to die. At this point what do they have to lose? Did Jerry over in cell D12 make a rude comment about your mother? Maybe Jerry should get stabbed 12 times with a sharpened tooth brush. What are the guards going to do about it? Kill you? lol!" ]
What happened to "www." before URLs? Why don't we need them any more?	[ "> Many domain names used for the World Wide Web begin with www because of the long-standing practice of naming Internet hosts (servers) according to the services they provide. A server could also support things such as email (_URL_13_), file transfer protocol (_URL_11_), newsgroups (_URL_12_), etc. [Wikipedi...	[ "If it starts with a vowel sound, you use an. While RPG doesn't have a vowel as the first letter, it is a vowel sound (ar-pee-jee). An example of the opposite is USB. Its pronounced with a consonant at the start (yoo-ess-bee), so its a USB, not an USB." ]
When prohibition ended, was it relatively easy to legitimize illegal breweries/distilleries?	[ "Don't forget that alcohol prohibition only lasted for 13 years; marijuana prohibition has lasted much longer. A lot of the infrastructure for distilleries and breweries was already in place. Breweries and distilleries still existed from before, and in some cases made alcoholic beverages for medicinal or other lega...	[ "The players still file taxes, and so these deals would have to be declared somewhere or they'd be breaking actual laws and not just league rules. You can also bet that the rest of the NBA would be furiously investigating the Kosherness of the deal when someone signs LeBron for the veteran minimum." ]
In the English language why is there always a U next to a Q?	[ "In Greek, there was a time when Q (called \"koppa\" and later replaced by kappa) was generally followed by rounded vowels (not just U) and by itself had an unvoiced K sound kind of like a hard G. Gradually, more and more of those sounds began to use the letter C, and Q only remained useful in order to make the /kw...	[ "With the Quebec Act of 1774, the British parlament cut Canada such a good deal, one that solved the many grievences of the French majority in Canada, that they saw no need to join the rebelion of the other thirteen colonies." ]
The austerity measures in Europe	[ "Some politicians thought \"We have huge debts, let's work more and spend less.\" and proceeeded to do so. It sounds logical, but the economy doesn't work like your banking account. People can make money only when other people spend money, so saving means that people make less money. The result is that people are l...	[ "Most countries produce what are called \"tourism satellite accounts\" which use a methodology to allocate certain portions of the output from various industries to tourism. There's actually an OECD manual on how it works. _URL_0_" ]
Tornado formation. How, why, and how do we know?	[ "Tornado formation still isn't well understood, even after decades of studying them, but the current consensus is that wind shear (change of direction of the wind with height) causes horizontal 'tubes' of spinning air to form inside an already rotating supercell thunderstorm. If one of these 'tubes' encounters a st...	[ "This video from Sagan will help. I couldn't explain it in a better way. _URL_0_" ]
Does a triangle vibrate forever if you ring it in space?	[ "It will vibrate for a very long time provided it's freely floating in space, but not forever. You are correct that the energy from the vibrations, with nowhere to go, will turn into heat. This heat will be lost as infrared radiation." ]	[ "Imagine two people holding the ends of a jump rope, with one person shaking their hand up and down but neither of the people moving their arms much. There are only so many shapes waves can take along the rope. [These](_URL_0_). This is the principle behind the wavefunctions: there are only so many shapes they can ...
Why are human kids so useless for so long compared to almost every other animal?	[ "We are born with small brains to fit through the womb. It takes along time for our brains to grow and mature because of its massive potential compared to animals. Animal brains aren't like ours" ]	[ "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 is a transgender person not considered to have a mental illness?	[ "There is a great deal of disagreement regarding what I'm about to say among those who are transgender, but consider thinking of it not as a mental illness but as a birth defect. The body developed one way but the brain developed another. The body produces one set of hormones, but the brain expects another. The bod...	[ "_URL_2_ columnist William Saletan waded into this issue several years ago with similar questions to yours. Here's an article posted AFTER his initial article and several followups, all of which can be reached via links within the article. It's an interesting journey with commentary from psychologists, statistician...
Knots (nautical/aeronautical). How they are measured? Why do ships and aircraft use knots and not mph/kph?	[ "If you look at a map/globe, you'll see horizontal and vertical lines across it. The gap between the horizontal lines is constant right across the globe (unlike the vertical lines, which get closer together as you get nearer to the poles - this will be more obvious on a globe than a map). \"Latitude\" is the name f...	[ "Your eyes are constantly making adjustments for your movement, and your brain corrects for motion blur. A camera has to take a snapshot during a moment in time. If you move the camera during that moment, then the image is blurred. However, if your camera has a very fast shutter speed then the image will not be blu...
Why do we have a registry and notification system for sex offenders but not murders? Don't they pose a greater threat to society?	[ "[Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide.](_URL_0_) It looks like sex offenders are more likely to re-offend than murderers by at least a little bit. Culture might also play a part in this by viewing murd...	[ "Never heard of anyone trying to grow in vitro wood. It's possible that someone is doing it somewhere but I doubt there's much money in such a prospect. The reason in vitro meat is desirable is because mass animal farming is highly destructive to the environment. Mass tree farming is not nearly so. Done properly it...
How are the Dallas Cowboys the 'world's most valuable team'?	[ "Value = The money people expect you to make in the future. The Cowboys aren't going anywhere, they'll never leave Dallas (their brand would be useless anywhere else), they have an ongoing, loyal, self-perpetuating fan base, and worldwide brand recognition. Therefore their 'value' (the ability to make consistent pr...	[ "Demographics: Some shows with lower than expected ratings can hold on if their viewers are concentrated across key demographics. For example the show Friday Night Lights was able to hold on as long as it did because it's average viewer was among the wealthiest in the USA." ]
What kind of sound do the stars make?	[ "You need to check out asteroseismology, that measures the pressure waves (sound waves) that propagate within stars. Asteroseismologists use sound waves within stars to detect their internal structure. You can listen to a couple of stars in this [video](_URL_0_), skip to 4:00 to listen to a red giant star. I recomm...	[ "They start out as a giant blob of gasses and space dust, Sort of like pizza Dough. As they continue to spin they flatten once again like pizza dough." ]
Why is the fundamental theorem of calculus a theorem in the first place?	[ "It seems you're misunderstanding the definition of the definite integral. The integral of a given function f(x) does not mention an antiderivative F(x), and indeed it may be that no antiderivative exists. The integral of f(x) over an interval is the limit of any Riemann sum when all such limits agree. If f(x) happ...	[ "The waves generated during earthquakes travel throughout the planet. If you know when and where the quake was, you can calculate how long it should take the waves to get to your monitors on the other side of the planet. Trouble was that the waves were not arriving when and where they were calculated assuming a tot...
Why is voltage and current specified in electrical equipments?	[ "The charger is rated for a certain voltage and amperage, but when you're charging your phone the charger just supplies the voltage and the phone regulates the current, up to the maximum the charger can output. The voltage does matter though because the phone is expecting a certain voltage to come in. 5V is standar...	[ "The easy answer is that it's US Law to name where the product is from. We don't trade with certain countries...so if a product says it's from some country we don't trade with, it could be a counterfeit/illegal. Also from the countries perspective, they obviously want people to know where it came from for obvious ...
Why does 1080p on a 4k TV look better than 1080p on a 1080p TV?	[ "In a 1080p screen each pixel is represented by four individual points of light, one for each color and two for green. However when projecting 1080p video on a 4K screen you have 16 individual points of light for each pixel. This gives you a lot more room to play with. If you just map it naively you end up with a c...	[ "Say you have a banana and an apple. How many ways can you arrange those on a table? You can put the banana on the table. You can put the apple on the table. You can put both on the table, or you can put none of them on the table. There are four ways total that you can arrange these fruits. This represents 2 to the...
From a non-religious standpoint, what we're the earliest recordings of the seven deadly sins?	[ "The seven deadly sins (originally eight) are a Christian religious concept. Obviously the concept of bad habits/motivations/actions isn't, but the seven deadly sins absolutely are. What are you looking for with \"non-religious\"?" ]	[ "I actually did a project for my high school Latin class on sexuality in Ancient Rome. I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but the Roman men preferred masturbation with the left hand. Most awkward and hilarious (to me) presentation I've ever given. \"I'll start with the topic I know most about - mastu...
Is it possible to change the structure of molecules using electricity or vibrations?	[ "Yes, but not in the way you are describing. We can use a technique called electrolysis to cause an otherwise non-spontaneous reaction like turning water back into hydrogen and oxygen. This process doesn't work beyond the molecular level though, so we aren't going to get different atoms from the process (so no wate...	[ "[Standing waves](_URL_0_) If you shake a string at right frequency \"knot\" points will form that stay stationary. This is due to the wave created by the shaking and the wave reflected from the other end interfering with each other. Video: Standing waves on a string _URL_2_ Objects that are more complex than a st...
How come not everybody sees the same colours when looking at Benhams Disk? [Repost]	[ "You can't look at Benham's disk on a monitor and know what color you \"would\" see on the real thing, ironically enough for almost the exact same reason we see color there in the first place. With a real-world disk, we see colors because some of our eye's receptors fire faster or linger longer than others - So a r...	[ "Hot air rises because it have lower density then cold air. Different densities of air have different optical properties. So you end up with light refracting and bending as it moves between the different layers of air. Since the boundaries between the layers are wobbly and constantly moving light will change direct...
In the days before geology, how did miners know where to dig?	[ "Hi, while you're waiting for answers here, you might check out the FAQ * FAQ section [Science](_URL_0_) - scroll down to section Mineral Resource Extraction (sorry I can't give a direct link - am on mobile)" ]	[ "Back then people still needed jobs, now they dont and can practice harder for longer. And science helps by showing then methods on improving motions. You cam find cool videos on youtube" ]
What do robbers do with stolen objects from museums? Why would anyone buy these stolen objects other than keeping them for their private collection?	[ "There are a lot of people in the world who don't care about laws, or the laws of other countries, or the property rights of other people. For example if you stole a piece of art from someone in England that a wealthy member of the royal family in Saudi Arabia wanted they probably don't care at all that it was stol...	[ "Good question! I'll answer that with another question: what's the appeal of music? Music is also usually abstract, in the sense it doesn't try to emulate any natural sound. You hear a guitar solo, it doesn't sound like anything in the real world, but it makes you feel something. An abstract painting is the sam...
How am I aware of the space my car takes up on the road?	[ "A combination of peripheral vision and experience. Although you're not looking at the passenger side, you can still see it in your peripheral vision. And with a bit of experience (which you get while you're learning) your brain can take this information and work out quite accurately where the front passenger-side ...	[ "You can't. It's called confirmation bias, where you pay more attention to those instances that confirm your belief than those that don't. Times when you've thought someone was staring and nobody was are not of interest, so disconfirming evidence is weighted less in your mind. It's a very well understood cognitive ...
Can someone give more detail on this photo I found today of a woman in military uniform?	[ "Don't let my flair fool you, for I have strange interest and familiarity with American WWI women's uniforms... And I can tell you right off that's not her uniform! Were she to be wearing her own WWI-era women's volunteer or auxiliary uniform, it would have a big ole no-nonsense wool skirt, and the jacket would be ...	[ "The treaty you're thinking of, is the UN Outer Space Treaty, which states we can't put nukes in outer space, among a other things. The X-37B itself, is a test bed for NASA and the USAF, in hopes of a new reusable shuttle. It's also suspected of being used to spy on the capabilities of other countries' military and...
Could I use a prism to see infrared light?	[ "Not to see it, no, but to detect it, definitely. That's how infrared was discovered originally. It was found that a thermometer placed in sunlight would heat up, and a thermometer placed in any part of a spectrum formed by sunlight passing through a prism would also heat up, and even if the thermometer was placed ...	[ "The problem is that the waste heat will always outweigh the temperature decrease from the ice. Its the same reason a refrigerator with the door open won't cool your apartment. The net effect would be to convert solar energy to heat. A more viable way to redirect solar energy is to put reflective particles such as ...
history buffs; In light of Pearl Harbor, my question is: when did the US and Japan become such close allies? At one point we declare war and now we are close. Was there a single event/treaty/election? Or was it a series of events?	[ "The warming of relations started pretty shortly after the war ended actually. Japanese Reconstruction started in 1945 and was led by General Douglas McArthur. During this time the U.S pushed for widespread Military, Economic, And social reform. We helped rebuild the cities that we destroyed and in return set up a ...	[ "Humans and dogs likely coevolved. The modern dog's prehistoric ancestors probably followed around human's prehistoric ancestors to eat scraps left behind. Over time, animals that were more friendly and useful were welcomed into the group, while others were excluded or killed. This would cause evolutionary changes,...
Why is the #1 most popular title on Netflix Instant Queue a stagnant shot of an oscillating fan?	[ "I can't sleep in complete quiet. I have a fan running every day of the year. I'd imagine plenty of people have this problem and some of those places might be cold in the winter. Put that video on and be asleep by the time it's finished!" ]	[ "The streaming service has to make agreements with the copyright management system in each country it works in, as they ahve to pay royalities for use of material. IF they haven't got the agreement, the service can't operate. This is also why different offerings are available in different countries; the rights for ...
Why does lacing our fingers the other way feel weird?	[ "These are probably things that have no definitive answer yet. I would imagine it is almost entirely psychological. Our mind tends to try to do things the most efficient way possible, and an action that requires minimal cerebral processing would be preferred, using muscle memory. So doing something the requires thi...	[ "In a super crazy simple world where every variable was controlled other than energy in + energy out, then no, it would not matter, same overall result. In the real world, it matters a lot. Try putting your down jacket over your raincoat on a wet day. There are 100s of examples like this one where order and other ...
What's the difference between a mixtape and an album?	[ "In the hip hop world, an album is a finely polished commercial release. A mixtape is closer to a \"demo\" in the rock world - it's less polished, rough sketches of songs, remixes or extra verses from already released tracks. Mixtapes are not generally intended to be sold commercially but rather shared to help an a...	[ "MAC adresses are hard-coded into physical hardware devices (and cannot be changed) - sort of like the street address for your house. IP address are set in software and can be moved/changed - sort of like your phone number. When you call 911, the operator can tell what your address is because your physical address ...
What's happening when random body parts or muscles just start twitching?	[ "It has to do with excitatory and inhibitory neurons connecting with muscle tissue. Some muscles and neurons fire when they are excited and others fire when they are not inhibited from firing. So, for whatever reason a neuron in your butt isn't sending an inhibitory signal so your muscle just keeps firing. It shoul...	[ "Awesome question; most don't stop and think about these things! So basically, Unmyelinated nerve fibers are found in the dermis, or commonly known as sensors in the skin. When those sensors are irritated, it is called an itch. Itches are signals to our selves that something is wrong and it should be check...
So plastic microbeads seem to be bad. Why?	[ "They can't be filtered out and make it out into the environment where they not only contain their original chemicals that can have bad effects but they also absorb organic chemicals in the environment that can also be bad. They are eaten by animals and then by humans." ]	[ "Most soap and shampoos are principally [emulsifying agents](_URL_1_), that help to dissolve nonpolar materials (oils, grease, etc) to dissolve in water (a polar liquid.) These are carried, along with the rest of the waste water (including human waste) to a [waste water treatment plant](_URL_0_). The wikipedia arti...
Did Harold Godwinson's Housecarls really defend his body after he was killed at the Battle of Hastings? In addition, if there is one, what is the general consensus on how he was killed?	[ "According to Bennett al's account of the battle in Fighting Techniques of the Medieval World, William ordered his archers to fire higher toward the end of the battle because the tired English soldiers would have found it more difficult to raise their shields to protect themselves. This fits with Harold receiving...	[ "This Week's Rundown! /u/textandtrowel on [\"How did medieval Islamic historians write about/conceptualise the history of their religion? Please also tell me about who wrote history in the medieval Islamic world, why, and what written history was used for in medieval Islamic society.\"](_URL_0_) /u/prufrock451 on [...
Did East Asian cultures ever employ throwing spears in warfare?	[ "David A Graff, in his book, Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900 AD, writes that Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty recruited 30,000 javelin-men from a region called Lingnan on the southern coast of China. This was for a campaign against the Korean kingdom of Koguryo in the 7th century AD. So whilst Chinese seemed to ha...	[ "Do you have a particular geographical region or time period in mind? You're more likely to get a good answer if you are more specific than \"people in the past\"." ]
How come i'm only ever congested in one nostril? and why does my nose clear up when I stand up?	[ "You [naturally use only one nostril at a time](_URL_0_), so that's where congestion builds up and where you notice it." ]	[ "You can't. It's called confirmation bias, where you pay more attention to those instances that confirm your belief than those that don't. Times when you've thought someone was staring and nobody was are not of interest, so disconfirming evidence is weighted less in your mind. It's a very well understood cognitive ...
Why is it that everytime I do something extremely stupid when I'm drunk, I forget.	[ "> alcohol interferes with key receptors in the brain, which in turn manufacture steroids that inhibit long-term potentiation (LTP), a process that strengthens the connections between neurons and is crucial to learning and memory [Journal of Neuroscience article on subject](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "The answer is fairly simple: there aren't any important organs at your extremities. The small muscles and tissues at the ends of your limbs aren't necessarily more resilient, they just aren't as important to body function. Your kidneys and liver need to work always, the pinky muscles don't." ]
Why redditors delete their comments and accounts after a while?	[ "The biggest reason is usually fear of doxxing. When you use the same account for a long time, you have probably said a fair amount about yourself over the years that a clever person can put together with enough spare time. If you switch accounts every 6 months or every year, it would be much harder. Another simil...	[ "I think we develop a \"been there, done that\" mentality in ways. I can not watch cartoons now. No matter what the topic. The irony is I just can't pay attention to cartoons." ]
Why is it so hard to make realistic water/liquids in video games?	[ "Water is made of lots of tiny particles, and these particles are constantly moving, colliding, and changing velocity. Solids have lots of particles, but they don't move, and you don't have to calculate their speed, or how they change position. It's harder for a CPU to calculate how to display water since there's...	[ "Everything in a computer is basically math (And a Xbox 360 is just a computer.) So do draw thing on the screen they use mathematical equation. People invent new mathematical equations (Often called algorithms) all the time. These new algorithms allow the the Xbox360 to do the math better and faster making the gra...
What happens if you buy something virtual and then the company goes to bankrupt or suddenly decides to close?	[ "You would lose your stuff and have no way to get your money back. You're not actually \"buying\" anything, you're paying them money for a license to use a thing. You don't have any right to it, in the same way that they can ban your account without giving you a refund." ]	[ "Lots of detailed replies, but nobody citing any actual science! Jonas & Kording [1] simulated a MOS 6502, the processor used in the Apple I and the Commodore 64, and systematically lesioned individual transistors, and observed if the processor could successfully boot one of three video games. 1565 of the transisto...
What makes the Taliban so hard to defeat?	[ "They have strong support among the population. It's almost a truism that you can't really defeat a popular insurgency through purely military means. It's essentially a political dispute and requires a political solution. To completely destroy it without one requires means much more draconian than Western militarie...	[ "My inclination was to reject your teacher's assertion out of hand, but then I remembered the Eskimo Scouts, who I have a soft place in my heart for. [Here](_URL_2_)'s a bit of audio for you from NPR, and [here](_URL_1_)'s a text story from 1988. In brief: During World War II, Col. \"Muktuk\" Marston traveled Alas...
How does Coca-Cola earn money from restaurants who have coke machines?	[ "They purchase these 5 gallon boxes of the coke product. There is a different box for each drink (one for Mello Yello, one for Coke, one for Diet Coke, etc.). These boxes are essentially just the syrup, the machine adds the carbonated water as it is going into your cup. It's really simple, the restaurant orders how...	[ "\"If a service is free, you're not the client - you're the product.\" Google Maps allows Google to collect data from its users - where you are, what kind of restaurants you like, which places you like to visit. They can use this data to show you ads, or they can charge businesses to make them appear first in your ...
How did scientists discover the shape of p-orbitals?	[ "Math. I actually just finished working out the math showing that p-orbitals are the shape they are. (Not a chance I could ELI5 the content of that math, unfortunately.)" ]	[ "They use [spectrographs](_URL_0_), a device which measures the light that comes off that planet. This works because most substances have their own spectral fingerprint, which is very recognizable. For example, if you hold salt in a candleflame and look at the spectrum, it will have a bright orange emission line, ...
Why is tax law so complicated?	[ "Imagine the tax brackets not as finite steps, but as a giant curve. Tax law is attempting (key word there) to create a flexible rate of taxes across that broad curve without having any giant 'chunks' at too many steps. Those stepping points are as fought over as any piece of government legislation. In the case of ...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why are some cars more efficient? Why can't be just make all cars the most efficient?	[ "In engineering everything is a trade-off. They have to balance a car between passenger/cargo capacity, power/performance, weight, safety, fuel efficiency, luxury, cost and probably a bunch more I can't think of atm. For example to make a car quieter (luxury) you need more sound deadening material and thus weight. ...	[ "If all states voted on the same day, that would ensure that the candidates would be campaigning in only the largest states. By spreading it out, more people have an opportunity to see and hear the candidates and (more to the point of the schedule), there's more opportunity for fundraising for the candidates." ]
Can someone explain the Indian partition to me (like I'm five)?	[ "So, India and Pakistan used to be divided into kingdoms. Some were Muslim kingdoms, Hindu kingdoms, etc. With British invasion all these kingdoms fell to British rule, and everyone was all mixed together, regardless of religion. This caused tensions between the Hindus and the Muslims. When Britain granted independ...	[ "[Richard Feynman](_URL_1_) ELI5's it pretty well in about 2 mins. Alan Alda had a contest and this [8 min video](_URL_0_) won." ]
Why did the US not invade and occupy the North during the Vietnam war?	[ "Hi! This question has come up a few times before; you may be interested in these threads: [Why was the US willing to invade North Korea in the Korean War, but wasn't willing to invade North Vietnam in the Vietnam War?](_URL_4_?) (h/t [u/Bernardito](_URL_2_)) [Is there a reason, during the Vietnam War, why the US n...	[ "One thing to point out is the terrain. Iraq is in the populous parts of the country pretty flat, with a semi good road network across the country making it easy to move people around, and larger cities and towns to organize around. Afghanistan is some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. With little nation...
[Geology] To what extent is continental drift random versus deterministic?	[ "Some component of the force driving plate motion comes from fluid motion in the convecting mantle (most of the force driving plate motion comes from the excess density of oceanic crust in subduction zones), and fluid motion is well known for being chaotic - although the convecting mantle obviously isn't turbulen...	[ "We don't know. We have lots of philosophical arguments one way or another, but we can't really say for sure because concepts like free-will tend to be ill-defined and too abstract to really nail down properly." ]
Why is Australia considered a continent, instead of a big island?	[ "Continents sit on continental lithosphere which is part of tectonic plates floating high on Earth's molten mantle. And Islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust, like Hawaii or other volcanic islands, or geologically they are part of some continent sitting on continental lithosphere." ]	[ "The fossil record: we can look at the bones of animals that died a long time ago, and do special tests to tell us when they died. We can put this together to tell us what an animal, or its ancestor, looked like a long time ago. So far, they have shown up in the correct order. Speciation: say birds are blow...
how do fraternities work? Do they serve any real function to the university?	[ "Depending on the university, they can be the core of \"involved\" students. A commuter school, or small school, often has its student government, sports pep rallys/student sections, volunteering, homecoming parades, etc being done by the Greek system. These are sometimes the students that are heavily involved in t...	[ "Basically advertising. Let's say hot chick \"A\" gets a million followers on Instagram. Company \"B\" wants A to advertise their drink. So B pays A to have a glass of whatever the drink is in her pictures." ]
why I blow cold air when I purse my lips, but warm air when I open my mouth.	[ "The air is not colder, it is moving at a faster speed; therefore it displaces more heat from your skin, so it feels colder, even though it's probably slightly hotter." ]	[ "To enable a substance to expand out of a can (it had to be compressed to fit inside) the molecules must be allowed to \"re-expand\" and bump each other further apart, in an effort to match the outside air pressure. To do this, the molecules inside demand more energy to allow the expansion to occur. That means th...
Why do snipers exhale before taking a shot?	[ "They actually exhale and during that time they take the shot. This is also accompanied by steadying the heart rate to time the exhale and shot between heart beats, the shot not the breath. It allows the sniper to take a steadier shot so not to move the barrel and make a more precise shot" ]	[ "Fast internet and faster servers. Human reaction times are on the order of 100ms or so. Ping time, which is round-trip packet flight time is often on the order of half that or so. Round trip is therefore on the order of human reaction if you give the server a little time to do stuff. Also, the server only sends b...
How and why is mathematics considered a field of Science?	[ "It's not a science. Science is the systematic use of inductive reasoning to draw conclusions. That is, we make conclusions about things by what we observe. Math, however, is the systematic use of deductive reasoning. You start with things you assume are true, then you logic to deduce other true things that follow ...	[ "Well one way is by selected specific people for your study. The studied that showed evidence that vaccines caused autism actually dropped people from the study who had children not become autistic, found children who had family history of autism to include in the study, and kept the numbers small. Another way coul...
How to maximize the value of a power tower?	[ "I'll solve the case where there are two numbers in the power tower. Firstly, we seek to maximize a^b where a+b is held constant. Note that this is equivalent to maximizing b * ln a, if we take the natural log of a^b. If a+b= some constant C, then we seek to maximize (C-a) * ln(a). The derivative of this is C/a -1 ...	[ "Given a mathematical function, or, more generally, given a system that produces some output for a given input, is there an input such that the input/output relation differ by a constant factor? If so, the input is an eigenvector and the constant is an eigenvalue. Explicitly, S(eigenvector) = eigenvalue*eigenvecto...
Why do some fishes need salt water to breathe under water and some fishes need fresh water to breathe under water?	[ "In one sense this is kind of backwards. It's like asking why some animals need tropical temperatures and others need polar temperatures. That's their home and they are adapted to it. But mechanically, bony fish that live in fresh water are constantly excreting surplus water, while fresh water is flowing into their...	[ "A recent study showed that it is natural for nostrils to have differing air intake volumes under normal conditions. The findings suggest this aids in identification of scents, as the reactions occur differently at a higher volume and an lower volume. Edit: [_URL_1_ Article](_URL_0_) \"The flow of air is greater in...
What’s the difference between “election meddling” and “election marketing”?	[ "Marketing advocates for a candidate. Interference commits criminal acts against the candidate's opponent and acts of fraud to silence contrary messages through hacking, falsification of social media voting and hijacking of internet moderation to forcibly censor facts." ]	[ "So, I don't know if you know this, but Blackstone did just what you are suggesting. After the housing crash of 2009, they went out and bought up homes in different cities. They put them all under the umbrella of a REIT (real estate investment trust) called \"Invitation Homes\" and then spun it out in an IPO a few...
Why do coughs happen during sleep and not sneezes?	[ "You're on the right track. You sneeze when an external irritant enters your nose. However, the neurotransmitters that send signals to the brain in order to initiate a sneeze are shut down during REM sleep. Also, because of reduced movement, you don't encounter as many particulates in the air. You can sneeze if t...	[ "seizures are caused by a massive amount of random impulses firing randomly and are uncoordinated. REM muscle twitches are usually coordinated movements relative to the dream." ]
Why does your face feel hot when you are embarrassed? Is there an actual temperature change?	[ "More blood is flowing to your face, blood is warm." ]	[ "Its your body reacting to the burn trying to stop it getting into your breathing system." ]
If the bicep is attached to the forarm, why does it peak instead of going in a straight line when you flex it and hold your hand inwards?	[ "When you curl your arm, the muscle relaxes and the fibers compress, so they bulge outwards." ]	[ "Grab a tennis ball and a lamp. Turn off every other light in the room. Hold up the tennis ball. Half is lit, half is dark. If you are looking from the side (you can see the lamp and the ball) you can see some of the dark side of the ball. The ONLY way to see nothing but lit ball is to have the lamp directly behin...
When I'm sitting on my couch and my phone signal switches from 4G to 3G or drops from 5 bars to just 1, what is happening to cause it?	[ "A sort of related issue I've wondered about to follow. If anyone can eli5, thank you. ELI5: Why is it that when I'm connected to wifi on my phone, it'll randomly disconnect to make me connect to 4g,3G,let, or some other communication classification? My personal conspiracy theory is that it's planned to trick me ...	[ "There are a few factors at work here : Moſt chairs are deſigned to ſit at about knee height ; they generally ſupport your back, and more importantly, your butt and legs. Toilets are uſually lower, and they are made with a large hole in the middle, into which you ſink a little. This lower height, lack of ſupport,...
What kind of steel makes magnets stronger?	[ "Electrical steel is what is used in transformers and motors. It has high permeability and small hysteresis. You can also look up magnetic circuit to see how your fixture could be used to generate the highest field for the flux generated by the magnet." ]	[ "[This paper in 2010](_URL_0_) suggests there is some effects, not in DNA damage but in cell replication. The paper still mentions that findings are still heavily debated, citing problems of reproducibility. In the study they're using 0.1 - 0.5 mT (which is about 1 - 5 Gauss), and in the 2010 study I cited they use...
How do divers that don't have an oxygen tank not get brain damage from lack of air?	[ "Mammals have bodily reflexes to being underwater known as [mammalian diving reflex](_URL_0_). Heart rates are reduced and our bodies let the outer layers cool(by not delivering blood) so that it can conserve oxygen. As babies fresh out of the womb this reflex is generally very strong but we lose it overtime, free ...	[ "Human babies live the womb surrounded by and breathing amniotic fluid. Their hearts have extra holes which seal themselves after birth which accommodate their reversed blood flow. We mammals adapt from an all fluid environment to a—gasp—no fluid environment. Tadpoles are humans. Ta da!" ]
What causes some asteroids to appear smoothed?	[ "It's possibly due to shaking by impacts ([REF](_URL_1_)). The idea is that when the asteroid is struck it shakes and the fine [regolith](_URL_0_) settles a bit. Think about taking a pile of something and then shaking the surface that the pile is on. Another aspect of this question is how one gets fine regolith in ...	[ "If you can accept my passing knowledge of the matter before someone more qualified shows up, it's in how digital cameras capture images. Rather than capturing a single giant frame like film cameras, they scan a frame progressively, line-by-line. This results in artifacts with fast-moving objects such as plane prop...
Can typical recessive genes become dominant over typical dominant genes when maintained as a homozygous recessive genotype over many generations?	[ "generally, a recessive allele is one that doesn't function. Babies' eyes usually start out blue, and if they have the gene for brown pigment, kids's eyes darken once that gene is expressed. if they have the gene for green, then there you go. the gene for blue isn't really doing anything. the gene for blue is the g...	[ "In the early Roman Empire, Emperors would attempt to maintain the illusion of living in a Republic although they held all the real power and the position of Senator was mostly for social prestige, not for influencing the Empire politically. This was referred to as the Principate, and lasted until roughly 280 AD. L...
How did pre-Iron Age humans (ie, "cavemen" or Göbekli Tepe-era people) trim their nails/maintain personal hygiene?	[ "Suggestion: post this to /anthropology. There are still hunter and gatherer peoples in the world today." ]	[ "1. well for one, the show is bullshit. 2. The Amish are allowed to use technology. THey just choose not to incorporate a great deal of it in their lives. If you hired a group of Amish to do some construction, for example, and offered them power tools, they are allowed to use them if they wish." ]
Why do cheap cars always have to look cheap? Couldn't you have a cheap car inside a body shaped something like a Ferrari?	[ "There's a Chinese company who does something exactly like this - great looking cars, that have subpar engines, interiors, etc. Can't remember the company name, but some google searching should produce it quickly. Top Gear did a feature on a few of cars a couple of years back." ]	[ "If you have an approximate location, and you can approximate the type of rock, you can look at a geologic map of the area and come up with a fairly good idea of what it is and how old it is. If you have a piece of sandstone, a microscope, and a good idea of microbiology, you can look at the micro fossil assemblage...
How did General Motors buy itself back from liquidation in 2009?	[ "The Government bailed out GM in 2009, to avoid an implosion of the auto industry. As a result, it became a GM stockholder. That's not something that anybody thought was a good idea. So, in 2013 GM had saved up enough money to buy back the government's shares and free itself from government ownership. MLC was the g...	[ "Well over here in the UK. ASDA which is owned by Wall Mart sells its own brand of all major sweets. Mars. Snickers, Twix, etc etc.....and they taste better at half the cost!" ]
How did the Catholics in India communicate with the papacy in the early church days?	[ "You're going to have to be more specific. Do you mean early church as in St. Thomas? If so, there would be no need to communicate with Rome. They weren't Roman Catholics and the doctrine of Papal primacy hadn't been fully developed yet. If you mean the coming of the Portuguese, they would've worked through a nunci...	[ "Through lawyers, visitations, many of them have phones hidden within their cells. Not to mention a lot of them have guards that help them out, or look the other way to allow them to do this." ]
What is ACTA what would be the benefits/consequences?	[ "At its core, the ACTA would be an international treaty for the protection of \"intellectual property\" (a term which comes under fire, but which basically means your right to be the one who controls the fate of things you invent, write, or program). So, at its core, the ACTA wants little more than for China and Sw...	[ "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...
Why did tricolours became the most common type of flag used by nations?	[ "The Dutch were the first to use the tricolour during their revolution, making themselves a republic. The tricolour then became a symbol of republicanism and became very popular during the French Revolution which shook the ground of Europe, inspiring republicanism in other countries to use the tricolour, for exampl...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
[Chemistry] What is the reaction happening in my US MRE heater bags? What gas is being produced?	[ "The basic chemistry is oxidation using oxygen in the air to react with the magnesium and iron powder in your MRE heater to create a fast exothermic chemical reaction that creates heat. _URL_0_ Looked up the Safety Data Sheet for flameless heaters: _URL_1_ The chemicals are: Magnesium-5% Iron Alloy (Magnesium & Iro...	[ "The thing that made the potatoes so special in the first place was that they were still fertile normal potatoes. If you read the book it talks about it a little more. All the other food was freeze dried so the bacteria died. The potatoes he started with had bacteria necessary to keep them growing. When the air loc...
Why does the Prime Meridian exist?	[ "Because longitude exists. In order to measure distance east and west, there needs to be some arbitrary zero point from which to measure. Thanks to imperialism, Greenwich, England became the standard, although other meridians have been used in different places and times." ]	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
What do other countries do to mitigate the influence of money in politics? Other words, what options does the US have for campaign finance reform?	[ "In some countries the state provides campaign funds for any party that got over a certain percentage of the vote in the previous election. And then have laws limiting how much a person can donated to a party and makes it illegal for corporations to donate to politicians. The US system now is pretty much making ope...	[ "I'm not normally one to naysay a request for knowledge, but this is not exactly a topic that can be explained like you were five. It requires a fairly extensive level of prior knowledge and understanding just to pose that question, and any answer posted is likely to be incomplete, wrong, or misleading. Sorry, but ...
What happens to my body when I eat crazy amounts of food in one day?	[ "6000 calories wouldn't lead to a 4.5 kg weight gain even if the pizzas themselves weighed that much. 6000 calories is about .75 kg of fat. The rest would be discarded into the toilet. Body fat is extremely high in calories. To put on 1 kg of body fat you're going to have to ingest an excess of 7700 calories (1 lb ...	[ "Because the paths between your nose/mouth and stomach/lungs all intersect at one point and there's a flap that moves based on whether you want stuff to go to your stomach or lungs. You can't do both because of the nature of the flap. It's either the esophagus or the trachea." ]
Why are hypocrites and people with double standards not the same thing?	[ "A hypocrite is someone who pretends to have some sort of virtue but really doesn't. A hypocrite would be, say, a priest who preaches about morality, etc and presents themselves as the epitome of what he is talking about but behind closed doors molests children. People usually use it to refer to people who say one ...	[ "\"Just about everyone here\" Where is \"here\" for you? It sounds like your question's premise is based on a small sample set based on personal observation. Before your question is addressed, you should be making sure the premise is valid..." ]
Why do we need to sleep with our eyes closed?	[ "Closing your eyes while sleeping protects the surface of your eye from foreign bodies and clears bacteria accumulated through the day. Although your cerebral cortex functions while you sleep, the eyes do not take in information while you are asleep. This enables your brain to process the data it has received alrea...	[ "You heighten your sense of touch on your lips for brief moment by blocking your sense of sight, making the kiss feel more intense." ]
Why do erections occur even when we‘re fast asleep?	[ "Hormone fluctuations. Testosterone levels are actually highest in the morning which is why men wake up with wood...also why men stop getting morning wood when they get old and levels drop." ]	[ "There are a few factors at work here : Moſt chairs are deſigned to ſit at about knee height ; they generally ſupport your back, and more importantly, your butt and legs. Toilets are uſually lower, and they are made with a large hole in the middle, into which you ſink a little. This lower height, lack of ſupport,...
How were those Don Bluth arcade games (Dragon's Lair, Space Ace)played?	[ "It was like a Quick Time Event in today's console games, but without the correct button or direction flashing on the screen. This was the learning curve back in the day w/o internet. You'd have to watch others play, maybe pick up a gaming magazine, or you and your quarters would figure it out. I bet Youtube videos...	[ "Let's say you wanted to gamble at the horse track. You think Three-Legged Limpet is the horse to win on (despite having only three legs). You decide to place a $100 bet, but you don't have $100 on you now (payday isn't until tomorrow). The bookie agrees to take only $20, with the understanding that you will pay up...

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