Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why is that during masturbation to porn, you are stimulated, then afterwards, you are completely drawn back to what you were watching.	[ "When you're hungry, you're enthralled by sights of food. Once completely full, looking at more food makes you feel a bit iffy. (With actual sex as opposed to jerking it, you continue from sex to cuddling or somesuch activity, that probably makes the difference.)" ]	[ "Your brain stem has circuits going between the cortex (conscious command), nerve inputs (like vision and rotation), and outputs to the muscles that move the eye. These work together so if you tell your right eye to look left, your brainstem automatically moves your other eye the same way in the same amount. Unless...
What is Information in Physics?	[ "It's a way of thinking of matter in it's coherent form and all of it's attributes like size, shape, charge, inertia, etc. If you convert matter into energy the energy can still be detected so nothing is really lost. However if matter goes into a black hole, it exits the observable universe and is lost forever (out...	[ "Let me give you an example using a bit of math. If I have a point in 2D space, I need 2 coorinates to describe its position, x and y. The distance to the point is sqrt(x^2 + y^2) Ok now in 3D space I need three points: x, y, z. The distance to the point is sqrt(x2 + y2 + z2). See the pattern? Ok now about about 4D...
Why does it take so much time and encouragement for humans to learn how to walk but other animals can almost instinctively walk/fly sometimes within minutes of being born?	[ "Humans have a relatively big brain-to-body-weight ratio, especially for a good-sized land-dwelling animal. We also have a pelvis that evolved for a four-legged creature and had to be adapted for our current bi-pedal form. This means that it's a little tricky to get our babies' big ol' heads through their mother's...	[ "If i recall correctly, plants actually convert ~5% of incoming light to energy via photosynthesis. In addition to this, solar radiation is a pretty diffuse source of energy (one of several issues with solar panel technology, large areas are needed for any significant energy to be gathered). These two factors (poo...
Why did Maine not become a state until 1820?	[ "Maine became a state as part of the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was allowed statehood as a slave state, and Maine was separated from (iirc) Massachusetts to keep Free states and Slave states equally represented in the senate." ]	[ "Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!" ]
Why do things turn red to eventually white when they get really hot?	[ "Everything we can see emits thermal radiation, and the color of light of that radiation is determined by a frequency, or a mixture of frequencies. As something heats up, it emits the lowest frequency of visible light (red), and it gets hotter and hotter, it starts to emit higher frequency visible light (orange, ye...	[ "Capillary action, and your legs have this giant artery called the Femoral Artery. As the blood moves through the leg and foot (that is uncovered) it is cooled by the outside air easier, and returned to the body a bit cooler. With the capillaries spread over the feet, and skin it gets more surface area to cooler ai...
Where does the similarity between Russian tea-drinking culture, and Persian/Turkish tea-drinking culture stem from?	[ "I cannot answer this out of the standing but [there is an awesome 1968 book](_URL_0_) devoted entirely on the history of the Russian tea planting and tea drinking by William Pokhlyobkin. I'll see if he mentioned the mutual influence with Persia in any way. In the meantime here is something that you probably alread...	[ "Two rival houses fought in a dynastic war over who would be the next ruler of England. The first house was Lancaster whose symbol was a red rose and the second house was York whose symbol was a white rose, hence the name \"War of the Roses.\" The war lasted from 1455- 1485 with occasional battles being fought duri...
How does sites like facebook and twitter make huge amounts of money?	[ "Facebook and Twitter make money in two ways. They provide an advertising channel to the users that can be personalised to the user's profile and they sell user data to third parties." ]	[ "3 main reasons: 1: publicity for their work 2: publicity for a charity 3: they love chatting with fans" ]
Why do major chords make one feel uplifted/happy and minor chords make one feel contemplative/melancholy?	[ "Check this paper out, it's about how minor chords potentially mimic sad human voice and that's why you associate them with sadness. Pretty cool stuff _URL_0_" ]	[ "All sleep is not the same. A good nights sleep contains several cycles between different stages of sleep. Some of these stages of sleep are deeper than others. After a good nights sleep, you have been right through the sleep cycles, and you are in a light phase of sleep. This is the best way to wake up. When you h...
In the Wolf of Wall Street, what did they do involving the Steve Madden stock that was illegal and how did it make them so much money?	[ "It was a \"pump and dump\" scheme. Buy up a company that is doing terribly, talk it up like it is doing wonderfully along with faking your income reports, then sell off some shares while everyone thinks it is hot stuff. Then vanish with your gains before people discover it was all smoke and mirrors." ]	[ "It does use coca leaves, but not directly. The Stepan company is the only company licensed in the US to process coca leaves. It extracts cocaine which is used in medical procedures, and it also produces part of the flavoring for coke. [Source.](_URL_0_)" ]
Why is the Arab slave trade of Africa and other countries never talked about in history classes? I never heard about it until recently.	[ "While you wait for an answer to your question you might be interest in [these](_URL_1_) [previous](_URL_0_) answers regarding the slave trade conducted by Arabs and others across the Sahara and the Indian Ocean." ]	[ "As a followup, how was Nixon covered prior to that? Was he mentioned often at all?" ]
Why can't vet drugs to put animals down be used for inmates sentenced to death?	[ "So the companies that make these drugs actually don't want them used for executions, to the point where they will refuse to sell them to governments that do. And we use those drugs for lots of things other than executions, so its a really good threat. Government doesn't dare test it. They literally can't use the d...	[ "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...
Is the trait of being a picky eater a function of environment or genetics.	[ "It is a mixture of both, though there is strong evidence for dislike of some compounds (such as PROP and PTC) as being genetic. These are bitter compounds that are found in broccoli and some other bitter vegetables. When presented with a liquid solution of PROP, for instance, some people find it intensely bitter w...	[ "Ah this is one of the main questions in the entire field of psychological perception. There are multiple fields discussing it. What you are speaking of specifically are called \"Affordances\" and the field of \"ecological perception\" does quite a good job at describing what you are asking. I suggest reading about...
Train wheels. How exactly do they have traction?	[ "How well two surfaces stick to each other is called their \"coefficient of friction\", the higher the coefficient, the more they grip. Steel on steel actually has a pretty high coefficient (0.8), even compared to say, rubber on asphalt (0.9), which we normally think of as the ideal case for grip [(Source)](_URL_0_...	[ "Retailers used a small machine with two rollers that made a carbon copy of your details and those of the retailer on a triplicate carbon copy slip. That is the reason your credit card still has raised lettering in the front. You got one copy, the retailer kept one and the other copy was submitted to the bank for c...
How is having something sweet at the end of a meal a part of so many cultures around the world?	[ "To settle the stomach and to indicate the end of the meal. This may be a Pavlovian reaction, but there are scientific studies that show a sweet at the end of a meal signals the end of the meal and tells your body to crank up the digestion machine. This is also a bit of a guess on my part, but the tradition may ha...	[ "Because the reader has invested their interest in the characters and plot, and then you're like, oh, just kidding, it was all bullshit that didn't matter anyway. There is really no reason to say that unless you painted yourself into a corner with an ending you don't like, but you are too lazy to rewrite." ]
What causes that sunscreen smell in everything with an SPF?	[ "Opaque things all have high SPF. Paper. Bricks. Mountains. Pigeons. MDF. Sheet metal. Disappointment. The Future." ]	[ "From _URL_0_ \"... Like Magic Shell, Carvel’s Brown Bonnet chocolate topping instantly forms a hard shell around ice cream. And, just like Magic Shell, one of the main ingredients is coconut oil. Tropical oils, including coconut, are naturally high in saturated fat—consisting of about 90 percent of the stuff. As P...
Why is it called "The World Series" when no other countrys but the US is playing?	[ "The Toronto Blue Jays would like you to rephrase your question..." ]	[ "Scientist don't assume all life must follow the same rules. It's just that the life on Earth is the only kind of life we know of, and we know it very well, so it's the starting point for looking for extraterrestrial life. The conditions of earth are proven to nurture life, whereas other forms of life are purely ...
why is the permeability of free space such a "clean " number?	[ "Because we defined the amp as > the constant current that will produce an attractive force of 2 × 10^(−7) newtons per metre of length between two straight, parallel conductors of infinite length and negligible circular cross section placed one metre apart in a vacuum and so we end up with a clean number for the p...	[ "Your intuition is correct. To see this, note that we can transform to a frame in which they start out at rest, reducing it to the original problem. That frame is the rest frame of the system, and however long it takes them to collide in that frame is the amount of proper time it takes them to collide in any iner...
Are there any instances across history where the leader of the nation/ethnic group actually fought wars on the front lines (i.e. Braveheart)?	[ "Sure there are. Roman consuls (equivalent to a presidential office) were expected to lead Rome's armies in times of crisis, which they did. In the late republic and on, Rome was dominated by military men like Marius and Caeser, who all led men into war and fought alongside them. William Duke of Normandy, before he...	[ "Political parties are not an official part of the US government. People appear on the ballot representing themselves, not necessarily representing a party. Anyone who meets the requirements to be president can file paperwork to run with the Federal Election Commission and can file in each state to appear on the ba...
Have UN troops ever been in sustained combat?	[ "A topic I can finally contribute on!! In September of 1993 2nd battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment augmented by French troops on a UN deployment in the Balkans were sent in between serbian and croatian forces to supervise a cease fire. Upon advancing to the front lines the came under heavy machine gun, artil...	[ "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 /...
Does our hearing, like our vision, have a "framerate?"	[ "I think you might find that our vision doesn't have a framerate as such because, well they're not cameras, rather there is a constant stream of visual information being sent to our brains. [Vsauce covered that a while back](_URL_0_). As for sound and hearing it would be much the same idea. Our ears aren't micropho...	[ "Everything was hand-cranked, leading to inconsistency. Silent films aimed for 15fps, meaning it would need to be speed up to play in 24fps (a pull-down would be way too jarring)." ]
How exactly are modern wars profitable to a country?	[ "To a country? Usually they aren't in a monetary sense. Companies that make the parts that go boom make most of the money, along with military contractors. If you are talking about gaining something in return for the effort, it depends on who the war is against and where." ]	[ "It's similar to the way 125% subprime mortgages spread (without getting into the debate about whether that caused the recession) - you get a few groups who think a similar way, with broadly the same ideas, motivations, worldview, that sort of thing, and when one of them comes up with a policy that fits those ways ...
Why do Saturn's rings look so thin and stuck together, opposed to a loose more spaced out orbit?	[ "Wikipedia has a (well sourced) article on the nature of Saturns rings. \"Although many people think of Saturn's rings as being made up of a series of tiny ringlets (a concept that goes back to Laplace),[3] true gaps are few. It is more correct to think of the rings as an annular disk with concentric local maxima ...	[ "Think about how you grip something like a tennis ball. You wrap your hand around the ball, right? Now, there's a microscopic space on both sides of the ball: one for your palm, and one from your fingers. I'm assuming that, since you know that nothing actually touches anything else, you know about electrons/electro...
What is the formula calculators use to find pi?	[ "To answer your main question: it's programmed as a fixed value - they don't use any formula to find it. The value you see when you press the pi button is just an approximation to as many decimal places as your calculator supports." ]	[ "Answering the first part of your question: _URL_0_ _URL_1_ _URL_7_ _URL_3_ _URL_5_ _URL_6_ _URL_2_ _URL_4_" ]
Why does AIDS keep getting cured like once a week?	[ "There's lots of things that may kill/destroy a virus. The trick is finding something that doesn't also kill/destroy you." ]	[ "If by \"sudden\" you mean \"long-standing\" and by \"past several months\" you mean \"past several decades\", then you are absolutely right. You're basically seeing a few big news stories breaking around the same time and equating it to something that's \"just happened\". People have been fighting for renewable ...
Why do our extremities (fingers, nose, ears, etc.) turn pink/red when we're cold if blood is rushing away from those areas?	[ "Turns out the blood is actually being directed to those areas when they are cold through capillary dilation! Often times this won't occur until the core has had a chance to warm back up though, so it's usually the return from the cold that produces the most pronounced flushing" ]	[ "When you look directly at something, the light falls on your fovea, where the majority and highest density of cones are. Cones are the light sensing cells that recognize colour, and they don't function well in low light. What does function well are your rods, which exist at higher densities everywhere else in your...
With hundreds of thousands of registered users, why do front page links on Reddit top out at 4-5k upvotes?	[ "OK, so this hasn't been mentioned yet, and this is somewhat important: Reddit just squashes votes. Straight up, number drops precipitously if it gets too high. [From last time this came up:](_URL_0_) > It's because reddit has a vote-squashing algorithm. Have you guys not noticed that every well-voted thread ends ...	[ "This is a post WW2 phenomena. Tech was becoming a thing. Computers, atomics, etc Planned obsolescence required new, better model names, 1, 2, 3... At some point the univac 4 needed to be better just by the sound. Univac 400 vs the IBM 401. Jump a head to the nth degree. The univac 9000 or the OS X for that mat...
If photons are emitted/absorbed when an electron changes energy levels, how is it that light is constantly emitted?	[ "Have you ever seen a single atom emit a photon? No, your eyes do not register single photons (meaning you can't see just one photon). Generally you have a bunch of atoms that you heat up and they start glowing. Even though each excited atom emits at a random time, the average emission is a constant (if your excita...	[ "They use extremely fast camera shutters to capture a very short moment so you can see the light beam. However they can not reset the camera in time for the next frame so they cheat a bit by sending a new beam of light for the next frame. They make sure to synchronize the short beams of light with the camera shutte...
In the age of computers, why do traffic cops take ages to write a traffic ticket by hand? Why not have the system that scans your drivers license and creates a ticket for the next available court date?	[ "Some do, I know from personal experience the California Highway Patrol has a system and doohickey where your ticket is printed up just like a receipt at a store." ]	[ "The IRS doesn't know exactly how much money you will make this year based on a single paycheck, you might have a second job or a rental property or you might get a raise. They also don't know what deductions you qualify for or are going to take when they issue your pay cheque." ]
What prevents huge tech giants from just saying "no" when a foreign country says "do this, or be fined"? Couldn't a company like Google or Facebook just laugh and say "Try and make us pay. Our user base native to your country would sure be upset if you blocked us for not paying."?	[ "They could do that, but they do not have a monopoly on the market. Once it is blocked, another company will gain popularity and replace Google or Facebook." ]	[ "Most websites don't care what ads appear. They only care about how much the ad pays per click. So if the website (say reddit) has both a malware ad and a legit say amazon ad, and the malware ad payed $1.50 per click where as amazon payed $0.60 per click they would prefer the malware to stay. Although they cant rea...
How do we know when to wake up when we arrived at our stop when taking public transport?	[ "We don't. Most people who 'sleep' in public transport don't fully sleep. And these who do don't arrive where they want to. Most people who are able to fully sleep in public transport thus use their cellphone alarm to wake up in time. Some people only snooze a bit, they still hear stop announcements or they will op...	[ "Not going to be a full comment but I will give it a go. Vibration. Everybody reacts to different frequencies in odd ways (brown noise) the constant vibration of the car will cause drowsiness. The reason opening the window helps is not the breeze it's because the frequency of the vibration has been changed. I work ...
What are ants doing exactly, when you kick over their anthill?	[ "They immediately begin to rebuild. There are certain ants who are \"workers\" who go into immediate work mode to re accumulate the dirt lost. Other ants scout for imminent danger." ]	[ "There is a sizable \"hill\" in Rome (Monte Testaccio) which is [almost entirely old broken pieces of millions of olive oil jars](_URL_1_). Archaeologists use the site to gather information about the Roman economy at various times." ]
Why do so many lottery winners end up broke?	[ "In a nutshell, it's because they don't invest it. They blow it on crap they want, depreciating assets." ]	[ "I would imagine that big city folk see the drop in pay if they moved to a small town in terms of the cost of living in the big city. In the small Iowa town I lived in for 30 years, I lived quite well on 23k a year. But when I told big city folks those numbers, they saw that as poverty. I had a house, a paid off ca...
How does our brain perceive the passage of time?	[ "Similar questions have been asked several times before. You may be interested in the following posts: _URL_3_ _URL_8_ _URL_6_ _URL_0_ _URL_1_ _URL_4_ _URL_7_ _URL_2_ _URL_5_ _URL_9_ There are lots of really great questions and answers in /r/askscience that unfortunately get buried because of the high volume. It's ...	[ "Im pretty sure its because you actually fell back asleep those moments it seems to go by in a flash... because you lost consciousness." ]
What is the small plastic cap inside the lid of carbonised drinks and what is its purpose?	[ "It's there to create an airtight seal, so the carbonation doesn't leak out. If it was just the plastic screw-on top, it wouldn't be airtight, and your soda would be flat long before it was delivered to the store you bought it from." ]	[ "It roughs up the sound in the whistle so that it sounds more like [this](_URL_0_). Without it the whistle would sound smoother. Like [this](_URL_1_)" ]
Why do most mouthwash not include fluoride?	[ "I didn't realize this was a thing. Ive been buying ACT mouthwash (which has fluoride in it) for years and never really looked at any competitors. Also if I had to guess mouthwash wasn't originally designed to fight tooth decay but instead improve bad breath which doesn't require fluoride." ]	[ "Apparently the market has spoken and they weren't selling enough for it to be worthwhile. Companies will produce anything that makes them money." ]
Why is the most common time signature in western music 4/4?	[ "Humans have two legs. The two most common time signatures are 4/4 and 2/4 because it's easy for humans to relate to. We can relate to it so well because it's natural for us to move to the music is these signatures. After these, 3/4 is the next most common. Even in 3/4 though, the bars are normally counted in pair...	[ "Warning: anecdotal evidence ahead. I'd consider myself mathematically minded (studied Math and CS in college, currently working as a software engineer), and this is definitely true for me. I'm pretty terrible at remembering (and sometimes even understanding) song lyrics, but I'll often be in a bar or other noisy e...
Earwax. What is it and why do I have a lot more of it than my friends?	[ "ELY5: Earwax is boogers for your ears. Keeps all the extra dust and debris out of your ear so your eardrum doesn't get fucked" ]	[ "_URL_0_ The TL;DR version is that our throats are lined with special cells that use the wet mucus to trap the dust particles and little cellular \"hairs\" called \"cilia\" to transport them back up the windpipe and into the mouth, where we swallow them." ]
If the color of our skin is relative to the melanin we have in our bodies, would it be possible for people that have pale skin to get injections of melanin to make their skin less fair?	[ "Yes, the substance you speak of is in fact in clinical trials right now. It goes by the name Melanotan, more specifically Afemelanotide. supplemental reading: _URL_0_" ]	[ "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...
What's going on in Syria?	[ "In Tunisia, protests happened, and the government almost immediately collapsed. Then in Egypt, protests happened, and the government fought them for a while, until the army said \"we won't attack protesters\", and the government collapsed. Then in Libya, protests happened, the government fought them, and so did th...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
When is the first recorded instance of military leaders studying military history to plan for future battles?	[ "I don't know about \"military leaders studying military history,\" but one of the oldest military treatises that I know of is the Liutao written by Lu Shang, a Zhou dynasty general sometime around 1000 BC. He wrote this treaty upon reflecting on his defeat of the Shang dynasty forces during the overthrow of the Sh...	[ "Serious? No. Not to be too much of a buzzkill, but that is not the activity of a serious archaeologist. There are plenty of unserious archaeologists and other assorted quacks who attempt to locate particular individuals' tombs all the time, Herod the Great seemingly the big one du jour, but when you undertake an...
How long would I have to drive in a car at a constant 55 MPH to where the clock in the car would be a minute off due to relativity?	[ "55mph produces a [Lorentz factor](_URL_0_) of roughly 1.0000000000000036. That's the number of seconds that pass in the outside world for each second that passes in your 55mph car (or minutes/hours/years - any unit works). So, the clock drifts by 0.0000000000000036 minutes relative to the outside world for each su...	[ "We communicate with space ships by turning our message into radio waves, sending those radio waves through space, and having the space ship pick up and translate the radio waves into the message. Radio waves travel at the speed of light. Over very large distances, even something traveling at the speed of light can...
Why do people take photographs and not just cut out frames from videos?	[ "A video is not necessarily a series of professional photography quality images. In short, frames in a video don't look as good. Edit - For example, HDTV looks nice as video, but the frames have a resolution of 1920×1080 (or 2.1 megapixel). This is similar to a crappy digital camera from 10 years ago." ]	[ "Processing power. Your IPhone may be good and a marvel of miniaturization, but it isn't nearly as powerful as your laptop. The laptop can process all of the complex images and ads far faster than your phone can because your laptop processes everything faster." ]
Could the Doppler effect cause light to become ionizing?	[ "Yes, it is simply a question of speed. One extreme example of such extreme Doppler shift comes from cosmic radiation: For a proton moving fast enough, the Cosmic Microwave Background becomes blueshifted to the point where the photon has enough energy in the proton's rest frame to produce electron-positron pairs, o...	[ "This is known as [entrainment](_URL_0_). All of the crickets will be chirping on their own at their own rates, but soon they are 'brought together' towards their neighbors. Eventually all crickets in that area start chirping together. It's the same reason why you sometimes see fireflies also flashing at the same ...
How are you supposed to know if a self diagnosed mental illness isn't just the placebo effect?	[ "Its easy...a self diagnosed mental illness isnt the placebo effect. It cant be. The Placebo Effectis a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment. Now you could ...	[ "How do you tell the difference between a \"mathematical apparatus that works\" and something that is \"really real\"?" ]
Why do humans have different types of blood? And what do these differences actually mean?	[ "In terms of evolution: Reading a bit the article \"ABO blood group glycans modulate sialic acid recognition on erythrocytes\" (Cohen, M, et al. Blood, 2009), they suggest that the different blood type \"antigens found on human erythrocytes modulate the specific interactions of 3 sialic acid-recognizing proteins......	[ "We are exposed to millions of pathogens daily. Getting into a long answer will require explaining the entire immune process which can get lengthy, check out these pages: [Innate Immunity](_URL_4_) [T Helper Cell](_URL_1_) [Complement system](_URL_0_) [Adaptive Immunity](_URL_2_) [Generation of Antibody Diversity](...
Are a butterfly and a caterpillar the same animal genetically?	[ "They have the same genome yes. And it shouldn't be that surprising, the same genome that produces your eye is the same genome which produces your kidneys, two very different organs. One of the biggest discoveries from the human genome project was that the absolute number of genes is not that high, it's the regulat...	[ "In theory what you describe is possible, to a degree. Part of the problem is that going backwards, you could make lots of different high-level programs that result in the same executable. You would never be able to get back to the original code though. Information like variable names and sometimes function names a...
Was there a name for the Middle Ages during the Renaissance and Enlightenment?	[ "Well, Petrarch introduced the idea of the \"Dark Ages\" in the mid-14th century. Later Renaissance humanists, Bruni being a good example, took up his ideas, and adopted a three tier understanding of history - the glory that was Greece (and Rome), modern times, and the dark middle age between the two. So the term \...	[ "How about the \"knight-errant\" that is central in Don Quixote? Same idea as a hedge knight? Any basis in reality?" ]
What makes a man feel like he's a woman inside?	[ "We're not sure. We do know that there are parts of the brain that differ between men and women, and that in transgender people, some of these parts look more like their identified gender than their birth gender. But we don't know what causes the brain to develop that way." ]	[ "Yes, we understand this is a NSFW thread. Please refrain from commenting \",\" to save it. This isn't AskReddit or a \"Fap Later\" thread. It's an thread talking about the anatomy of taking large objects into your body. If it turns you on that much, [Reddit Gold gives you the ability to save comments](_URL_1_).....
Would it be possible for a body of liquid to exist in space by itself?	[ "In outer space, a liquid would boil/evaporate very quickly since space is a vacuum. If you have microgravity but with an atmosphere (such as inside the International Space Station), then liquids will tend to form spheres in order to minimize their surface area due to surface tension. If you wanted a body of liquid...	[ "Not at all. One of the most interesting demonstrations of this is breathable fish bags that allow gasses to pass but hold water...pretty handy for shipping fishes without suffocating them." ]
After World War 2 how did America end up with their economy improved and the rest of the world ended up broke?	[ "America didn't get bombed and saw immense federal spending that ended the great depression. Also, as it turns out, being the only industrial power that didn't get bombed to hell makes your economy pretty strong as there isn't a whole lot of competition." ]	[ "Let's say you're starting a business and I loan you the money to get started. You make your payments and manage to keep the lights on. Soon, you start making a profit. I, who loaned you money, don't come demanding more money because you're making the payments on which we agreed. Your buddy Jeff has a business, to...
In the upper term of the fraction in newton's law of universal gravitation (m_1 * m_2), why are the masses multiplied instead of added together?	[ "Why? Because multiplication is the correct way, it agrees with physical measurements. Think about if m_2=0, if you add m_1+m_2 you will get a force. Clearly there should be no gravitational force between m_1 and m_2, when m_2=0. Also, Feynman on why questions: _URL_0_" ]	[ "Think about things bouncing around. Imagine a box with a fan in it. Put 20 balls in ithe box. Now imagine a basket to one side just the right size for the balls. Turn on the fan. The balls jump around randomly. At some point a ball will fall into the basket. This will happen at a given rate which will depends on h...
Why dont we just take the garbage from our landfills on Earth and torpedo it into the sun?	[ "> Besides being expensive You can't just flippantly dismiss the cost as if it's only a minor setback. Let's find out just how expensive it would be, shall we? In the US alone we generate approximately 4.6 lbs of trash per person per day. There are 316 million people in the US. That's 1.5 billion pounds of trash p...	[ "It's way, way, WAY, too expensive. The power plant alone would probably be more expensive than the entire lifetime cost of an average bulk carrier. Not to mention the insane mess of regulation that is involved with running a nuclear reactor. Basically, big ships run on bunker fuel, and bunker fuel is ludicrously...
How do solo concert performers memorize such long pieces of music	[ "Most orchestra musicians have sheet music in front of them. Otherwise, they memorize through extensive practice and knowledge of music theory." ]	[ "They have lawyers & security companies they pay top dollar to help keep their information wiped from those databases. Also, they aren't giving out their information as frequently as we are. Our info gets out there when we sign up for accounts, online profiles, etc. Celebrities typically use the address of their la...
Reddit wont let me post anymore	[ "You used your account to post this, didn't you? Who told you you have to make a new one? Or are you banned from a particular subreddit or something? You should consider verifying your email (use a throwaway email if you want) - that usually lessens the posting restrictions." ]	[ "It might be that the gifs you're trying to load are on a server that can't handle large traffic like most video sharing websites can." ]
- Bandwidth and broadband linespeed	[ "_URL_0_ gives you the results in bits per seconds, while it's generally presented in bytes per second in applications used for downloading. So when you're downloading at 1.1MB/s, you're using 8.8Mb/s, because 1 byte is 8 bits." ]	[ "Not sure what you are asking here. Do you mean why we have more than one wavelength? Wavelength is basically another way to express signal's frequency. Different frequencies exists because their sources are different. You can imagine it for example with guitar strings - thicker strings produce lower frequency (i....
Why does psychological stress increases the risk of a heart attack?	[ "Psychological stress raises blood pressure. Fun Fact: psychosomatic illness (illness caused by the mind) is a real thing and can cause many different type of maladies, including heart attack." ]	[ "This article looks pretty relevant, Neural Correlates of Reexperiencing, Avoidance, and Dissociation in PTSD: [\\[PDF link warning\\]](_URL_0_). Quote from article: > As predicted, state reexperiencing severity was associated positively with right anterior insula activity and negatively with right rostral anterior...
Say hypothetically the phenomenon detected by the Kepler telescope is confirmed to be megastructures constructed by an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization; then what? What is/are our next step(s)?	[ "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." ]	[ "If you lived a few thousand years ago, you could make a good map of the constellations of the zodiac piece-by-piece at night. Then, at sunrise or sunset, you could measure the angle between the sun and celestial objects that are visible even in daylight: the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter are the best choices. You then ...
It is often heard that drinking small amounts of alcohol is good for you, but what if you binge on Friday night then have the recommended 1-2 glasses a day the rest of the week. Does the binge make the daily alcohol worse for you?	[ "Could somebody explain how, if true, small amounts of alcohol is good for you?" ]	[ "Listen to me. It's sleep cycles. People have been posting questions like this to ELI5 for months now. I got this answer form a previous ELI5. The answer is sleep cycles! Each sleep cycle is 90 min. If you wake up in the middle of one, you feel tired all day. So be sure to sleep in intervals of 90 min: 90 min, 3 ho...
If Mercury is at a temperature where it's solid, would it be tough like steel or brittle like ice?	[ "Mercury is extremely brittle when in solid form. In general mercury based compounds and materials will tend to be brittle due to the fact that mercury does not like bonding with other atoms or molecules. This means that mercury bonds tend to be quite weak and as a result, easy to pull apart. The reason for said re...	[ "Honey often contains botulism spores, growth of botulism is suppressed when there is low water activity (such as in honey), and it's suppressed when the pH is low. It needs to get 125'C to kill the spores. Botulism produces one of the most toxic poisons known to man when it grows. The temperature to kill botulism ...
Why does cracking knuckle and other joints only become necessary after a person has started doing it regularly?	[ "Not a doctor. But from what ive heard: When you crack your knuckles, you stretch the tendons in the joint and release gases that are normal, and trapped around* the joint. As time goes on the tendons tighten back up you feel the need to \"crack\" them again. I have also been told that the actual cracking sound do...	[ "Crickets, like all other insects, are cold-blooded. They take on the temperature of their surroundings. Many characteristics of cold-blooded animals, like the rate at which crickets chirp, or the speed at which ants walk, follow an equation called the Arrhenius equation. This equation describes the activation ener...
Why does root mean squared not equal 0?	[ "Because when you square positive numbers you get something > 0, and when you square negative numbers you also get something > 0. Average a bunch of these together, you're going to see a positive average." ]	[ "Here's an analogy. Let's say you're trying to find the solution to a very difficult maze. Everyone might be stuck trying to find their way out, but you're the first to find the solution. How do we know your solution is correct? You showed us the path - it's easy to verify that the path is correct, even though *fin...
Are LEDs small Cathode Ray Tubes?	[ "All three things you listed give off light according to one principle. When atoms or molecules fall in energy level, they sometimes give off light. CRTs shoot electrons at a material to excite it, and when the atoms in the material decrease their energy to the original state, they give off light. The light comes ...	[ "You can make your own spectrometer using a CD-ROM and a cereal box: _URL_6_ That way you can explore the different color spectra of different light sources for yourself! Hint: an incandescent bulb looks MUCH different than a halogen bulb... have fun!" ]
Why do I feel something touch me just before it actually does?	[ "It's actually called chronostasis, and it involves your brain filling in the time before the event and thus making the event seem to happen after you perceive it. There is a lag between when you something happens and when your perceive it, but your brain tells you that things are happening simultaneously. EDIT: L...	[ "Most likely, you are describing either: tinnitus, (transient) high blood pressure, or the phenomenon of acoustic-hypostimulation-hypersensitivity. In any case, it’s probably brain cancer and you gunna die. Edit: only every human so far has died" ]
If new elements are created by fusing old ones together (I'm aware that this is greatly simplified). Are there infinitely many undiscovered elements?	[ "No, probably not. The IUPAC sets the criteria for the discovery of a new element, and one of them is a minimum lifetime of around 10^(-14) seconds. That's roughly how long a nucleus needs to live for in order to form an electron cloud and be considered a chemical element. You can have nuclei with much shorter life...	[ "Our eyes can only see a certain range of light. This means we can only see colors that have wavelengths within the range we are physically capable of seeing. Other colors do exist we just can't see them because our eyes can't detect those wavelengths. Because we've only ever seen these colors, we can only imagine ...
Is there a scientifically viable explanation of quantum mechanics that suggests the universe is deterministic?	[ "Both [de Broglie-Bohm](_URL_1_) and [Everettian (ie Many Worlds)](_URL_0_) interpretations of quantum mechanics are deterministic." ]	[ "I initially was extremely sceptical, as the thread question is both wide-ranging and oddly specific. However, reading your explanatory post I got a much better idea of what it was you are looking for. You raise several valid points and I think the questions you are asking are interesting ones. But you mostly answe...
Why do so many people refuse to get vaccinated?	[ "Because there is a lot of misinformation and scaremongering about it. And people aren't smart enough or willing to spend the time in finding out the actual facts. For some, hearing some celebrity say it's bad on tv is worth more than what the entire scientific and medical community has to say." ]	[ "Hype and expectation was built up over it, then they got a product which didn't live up to the hype and expectation." ]
Roman warfare reads as being formulaic and scorning individualism, so how does this make sense with generals rewarding men for particular acts of initiative and bravery?	[ "The Roman army was incredibly disciplined and aggressive. Each soldier was trained to defend himself and his comrades in mutually supportive formations. This discipline was the key to the strength of the Legion, no matter who attacked the Romans they were always able to resist the destructive initial charge then u...	[ "Sorry, we don't allow [throughout history questions](_URL_0_). These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your qu...
How do they keep patients alive during heart surgery when they switch out the the heart for the new one?	[ "The surgeon sets up Cannulas (tubes) in both the \"in\" and \"out\" of the heart, usually the vena cava and aorta (although the sites can vary). These tubes are connected to an extracorporeal circulation machine that does many things: * Circulate the blood as a mechanical pump would. It's \"smooth\" though, there ...	[ "If you have a stream of foreign currency coming in, and you want to protect it from exchange rate fluctuations, you find someone else who has the opposite concern. If I want to protect a Euro to American Dollars (like an American company with a French subsidiary), I will find a investment bank (they typically brok...
Who were the Sogdians? Is there a good book that covers them?	[ "These books may be of assistance: The Silk Road: A New History, by Valerie Hansen: _URL_3_ Central Asia in World History (The New Oxford World History), by Peter B. Golden: _URL_0_ Religions of the Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century, by Richard Foltz: _URL_2_ Ad...	[ "Everything /u/snarkinturtle said is correct, but it doesn't directly answer your question. > A systematic comparison to other population groups shows that in relation to the population size and in relation to the general bioscientific reference to this group, Jews are over-represented in human genetic literature,...
Voyager - Radiation Levels - Jupiter	[ "Jupiter is not radioactive; it has an extremely strong magnetic field that traps particles (electrons) and accelerates them to incredible speeds. These, in turn, give off electromagnetic radiation. It is a situation identical to Earth's [Van Allen radiation belts](_URL_1_), only many times more powerful. See [_URL...	[ "If your referring to paint, this should answer your question: _URL_0_ But basically, UV radiation degrades paint over time." ]
How Mathematicians know that they've correctly solved a complex math equation when other equally skilled mathematicians cannot?	[ "Here's an analogy. Let's say you're trying to find the solution to a very difficult maze. Everyone might be stuck trying to find their way out, but you're the first to find the solution. How do we know your solution is correct? You showed us the path - it's easy to verify that the path is correct, even though *fin...	[ "> does the satellite emits one signal that is interpred by every single user on his own or do the satellite do any calculus that it send to the user. The satellite emits one signal. This signal contains, among other things, information on the time that it was emitted. GPS receivers collect this signal from multipl...
If I swat at a mosquito and miss, will it remember/fear me? Or does it just dodge on instinct and go back to its usual buzzing around/hunting?	[ "Insects only have a basic nervous system, so they're not capable of that kind of memory. Essentially, when a mosquito dodges a swat, it's because they interpret moving shadows/lines as predatory movement. Their compound eyes augment this survival reflex." ]	[ "Several insects navigate using the position of the sun (and moon) as a reference point. Sun is relatively stable on the sky, only moving as the earth revolves during the day, so when you move 100 meters in one direction, the sun is still in the same place relative to you. But if you have a lamp and move 100 meters...
Why my throat hurts when I get a cold/flu	[ "Ooh! I can VAGUELY answer this due to a video I saw in Biology class in 10th grade! So, vaguely: Your body (t-cells? I don't fuckin' know) perceives that there are some baddie virus bits in your system. It's like, \"shit, we gotta nuke the HELL out of those guys before they make us really sick!\" So it fires all i...	[ "It's all of that. Our vocal timbre, or the way our sounds, is comprised of two major factors. First, your vocal chords. Everyone's vocal chords are different, but basically, the longer and thicker your vocal chords are, the deeper your voice is. Second, your skull. The shape of your skull and the placement and sha...
If this new "study" says that dogs don't like to be hugged, then how does the ThunderShirt calm dogs, which essentially hugs them?	[ "A few things to realize before trying to draw conclusions like this: * Science is an evolving process that doesn't end with a single study. One study's results could be refined or contradicted by other studies, and it takes multiple iterations to suss out the truth. * Science journalism is terrible. University PR ...	[ "Floral patterns have been popular in Hawaii for a long time, but modern \"Aloha\" wear mostly stems from products created by Ellery Chun, in the 1930s, who used the fabric remaining from the production of kimonos to create shirts. The shirts caught on very quickly, selling as souvenirs to tourists and later to Am...
Why do we plan in colonising the Mars, but not the Moon?	[ "Once you accept that any colonizing is within the realm of science fixing at this point: Mars has visiting much closer to earth's potentially. It has water (albeit frozen) a decent amount of gravity (necessary for long term human muscle health), it could potentially hold an breathable atmosphere after enough centu...	[ "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...
How come there are far more patriarchies than matriarchies	[ "On average, men are physically stronger than women. And women become pregnant and give birth, which is of course quite disabling. Those things together would be sufficient to get men into leadership roles back when physical aptitude was the primary decider of power. And from there, tradition took over." ]	[ "This is a fascinating question! I am also curious in when and how this happened. I imagine it was state by state, so perhaps not all at once? Or was it only after the 19th amendment was passed?" ]
When, where and why was the idea of "no sex before/outside of marriage" created?	[ "You might want to try [r/AskAnthropology](_URL_0_). I know humans are serially monogamous and monogamy is one way to guarantee paternity without resorting to mate-guarding (which doesn't really work anyways/isn't practical for humans considering female ovulation is concealed)." ]	[ "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...
How can rice heat up in a microwave heat up over and over if microwaves simply vibrate water?	[ "All rice has some water in it. 'Dry' rice is something like 10% water. Even if the rice was 100% dry (and it would crumble to dust if it was!), microwaves would also affect the remaining starches, sugars and fibre - just not as well as it would affect the water." ]	[ "Sound is transmitted as a voltage signal through wires. The voltage changes just like the soundwave, and this goes into tiny magnets in headphones, or speakers, or telephones. The magnets shake the speaker back and forth as the voltage changes, and this movement makes pressure waves on the air. The pressure waves ...
Why did the descendants of Proto-Indo-European come to dominate so much of the world?	[ "While welcome here, this might reach more informed audiences at r/askanthropology and r/linguistics" ]	[ "They probably didn't. [Sweet potatoes, a south american crop, are found in Polynesia](_URL_0_), and [chicken, an Asian bird, is found in south america](_URL_1_), both pre-contact. Also, [Polynesia DNA is found in south america](_URL_2_)." ]
Why communism is such a bad thing?	[ "\"Everyone getting the same amount of money\" is an entirely absurd simplification of communist ideology. The basis of it is that the working masses are in control of the state, industries and businesses, and as such can organise society in a fair and equal manner. As for \"there is no incentive to work\", that ar...	[ "The more money that is in circulation the lower the value of each denomination of that money. So a dollar today may get you a candy bar, but after the government prints a whole bunch of money that same candy bar may cost you three dollars." ]
If 83.8% of US households own a computer and 74.4% of US households use the internet, why can't we have a fully democratic country where every citizen votes on every topic via a secured government polling service that verifies identities in person and assigns citizens a voting ID number?	[ "Other people had addressed the fundamental insecurity of online voting, but i wanted to address another point > where every citizen votes on every topic This is bad, because often governments have to do things we dont want, like raising taxes. If citizens vote on every topic then they will vote in tax cuts one da...	[ "Congress is comprised of two parts, the Senate and the House. The main difference is how states are represented. For the senate, every state gets 2 representatives. For the house, each state gets representatives proportional to their population. So California, Texas, and NY get a shit ton of house members in compa...
Are there any extant world monarchies which have retained a privileged "noble" class?	[ "One could argue Britain, as 92 hereditary peers still have the right to sit in the House of Lords (for which they're paid £300 a day) and debate, analyse, alter and delay government bills. However, these peers were elected (out of the large number of former hereditary peers) by the other Lords, and will not pass o...	[ "The list in question is not so much a list but an article with many names mentioned: \"[Elixir Poisoning in Medieval China](_URL_0_)\". Some excerpts are online; if you want the full version and cannot get it, PM me; I may be able to get a copy." ]
Why can we have such huge hard-disk space but comparably so little RAM?	[ "RAM is much more expensive per gigabyte than disk storage is. There are systems out there that will allow you to install more than 16GB, but they tend to be professional-class workstations, again more expensive than basic computers." ]	[ "There are a few things that may be happening. * The browser renders what data it has received, even if it isn't the complete page, in the brief instant before the screen clears to begin showing the next page. (Even if it's the same page.) * For subsequent page loads, some data may be cached on your machine and doe...
Would it be feasible to build a pressure cabin based on springs?	[ "Springs will focus all of the pressure wherever they are attached, transmitting it to the interior hull. They can't relieve pressure, only transmit it. The issue is that there is a massive pressure differential between the inside of the vessel and the outside. You're trying to keep 16,000 psi water from forcing ...	[ "This was experimented with a bit in the '50s by both the Americans and the Soviets. The main issue is that to protect the crew from radiation you need a lot of heavy shielding, and this makes it difficult to fly. _URL_0_" ]
Are terrestrials and gas giants the only two possible types of planet?	[ "There's actually an extensive list of planetary types on Wikipedia: _URL_0_ that said some like \"rogue planet\" could be a \"rogue terrestrial planet.\" However following the type theme of terrestrial and gas giant there are also ice giants, iron planets, ocean planets, coreless planets, and so on that are simila...	[ "Absolutely, but right now our best bet is to look for conditions that we know are able to support life." ]
why did toilets have the tanks much higher initially, and what changed that allowed them to be lowered?	[ "Better siphon geometries and more complicated castings allow water to suck the contents down the drain rather than try to push it down. This lead to higher volume lower speed flows, eliminating the need for the pressure/speed benefit of a tall tank." ]	[ "BTW, for those that are downvoting this question, I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to explain the motivation. On reddit in general I could care less if something I write gets downvoted, but here in askHistorians it decreases the chances something I ask will get answered so if I am breaking some sor...
If our bodies are normally 98 degrees, how is it that we get so hot and sweaty if the temperature outside is even a bit lower than that?	[ "Because your body generates heat, with everything you do, every piece of food you eat, is energy you're putting into your body that is used and turned into heat, or stored as fat. So the hotter your surroundings, the harder it is to get rid of that excess heat." ]	[ "It's a combination of factors, but the biggest was found in a study by a microbiologist named Peter Palese in 2007: the virus thrives in dry air. When you exhale, your expel a little bit of moisture; just tiny droplets too small to be seen. As the droplets fall to the ground, they start to evaporate. The virus in...
Why are some metals magnetic and others are not?	[ "Atoms have many electrons in shells around the nucleus. Some of those shells are full and others have only a few electrons in them. More interestingly, some metals share all the electrons in their outer shell, what are called free electrons, while others have some outer shell electrons bound to the atom. Each elec...	[ "It's one of the fundamental forces called the strong nuclear force. So while their charges repel them, this force is stronger and holds them together. It's very strong but very short ranged." ]
My position recently hired an ex cop. He has the stereotypical commando/swat/paramilitary attitude. Why does this develop so often and why do they think they're not oppressive?	[ "I can assume that if he's looking for a new job and not still with the force, he was fired for something like that, though he'd never admit that. The following is my theory: The police attract several different kind of people, and one of them is thus kind of person. They get off on being ass holes and having power...	[ "Hello everyone, Unfortunately, we have already had to remove a number of poor quality responses in this thread, including many asking about the deleted comments, which merely compound the issue. Please, before you attempt answer the question, keep in mind [our rules](_URL_7_) concerning in-depth and comprehensive...
Weird moon in the sky?	[ "That is a phenomenon called earthshine, it's caused by light reflecting off the earth onto the moon" ]	[ "Are you sure it is not water condensing on a cold surface or a layer of ice on the surface melting?" ]
How likely is it that Earth is the only planet with living beings, and that humans are the only species that have the intelligence to speak, create, develop etc?	[ "We don't really have great way to actually put a number to it, but the general consensus among scientists is that it's essentially a certainty that there is other intelligent life out there. Based on our current knowledge of exoplanets, it's estimated there as many as 40 billion Earth-like planets in our galax...	[ "I initially was extremely sceptical, as the thread question is both wide-ranging and oddly specific. However, reading your explanatory post I got a much better idea of what it was you are looking for. You raise several valid points and I think the questions you are asking are interesting ones. But you mostly answe...
Since people are dying from brain-eating bacteria from Neti pots, should I be worried when some tap water from the shower or bath goes up my nose?	[ "Is it possible for this to occur? Yes. Should you be worried? No. The chances of this happening are so extremely small. Be more worried about car accidents, heart disease, cancer, slipping in the kitchen, or slipping in the bathroom because your eyes are closed to prevent contact of the bacteria, than anything in ...	[ "To quote from the video: > Thanks to the local geology, the river basically turns on its side, gouging out passages and tunnels in the rocks below. Those banks are actually overhangs: there isn't any riverbed just below the surface, it's a deep, boiling mass of fast and deadly currents. The river at this point is...
Why didn't The PRC invade Taiwan shortly after they won the civil war in mainland China?	[ "[This thread is exactly the answer to your question](_URL_0_). In short, they couldn't realistically try and expect to succeed. I've heard some phrase it as 'virtually impossible' but that's a little more intense than I would personally put it. But the general census is that circumstances didn't allow for it." ]	[ "Greetings everyone. In the few minutes this sub has been up, it's attracting sub-standard responses. Just a reminder of a few of the rules: * no responses covering events/conditions post-1994, per this sub's \"20-year rule\" prohibiting discussion of current events * no anecdotes * no speculation OP: your question...
What is the temperature that a human can exist perpetually at and still live? What would they need to do to do so?	[ "Do you mean what is the highest such temperature, and/or what is the lowest such temperature? Because I think, say, 20 degrees Celsius will be acceptable given the criteria you've set out." ]	[ "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 restaurants serve bottomless breadsticks/bread/chips before a meal? I feel as if its counter productive for someone who comes into the restaurant hungry and before ordering they can load up on free carbs, decreasing the desire to order maybe a appetizer/extra food.	[ "Another good reason (not the only by any means) notice all those things tend to be salty and dry. Restaurants tend to make a lot of their margins on drinks, keep people drinking, keep the tab high. Why do you think free bar snacks are always things like chips, salted nuts etc?" ]	[ "When playing Blackjack, there are a set of odds for how much a player can be expected to win based on how the House(the casino) plays and the likelihood of a player getting Blackjack. As the game progresses, more cards are shown, leaving less than a full deck inside. In Blackjack, having a deck full of high cards...
What exactly is Planned Parenthood?	[ "UK guy here, we get sexual health services from the health service. It seems to me that planned parenthood is an American mechanism of identifying imbeciles and bigots: it seems to me that the more someone disagrees with the good that sexual health and contraceptive services do, the more likely they are to be a cu...	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why is it "bad" to make tea in the microwave vs a kettle?	[ "Much like a small sect of coffee drinkers, there are tea ~~connoisseurs~~ snobs that will turn their nose at you if you don't brew your tea at the proper temperature. Tea pots are designed to heat water to a specific temperature, where the microwave can produce irregular and inconsistent results. In reality, mos...	[ "When cells divide they make pretty much exact copies of themselves. Introduce radiation to the equation and the copying process goes screwy and the new cell is different. Rinse and repeat over and over and you end up with body cells which are completely different in shape size and function to what they were origin...
Does the moon look different from different places on Earth?	[ "Not especially, although the moon will appear in different places in the sky and may appear rotated relative to how it appears in another place. There are some trigonometrical differences that may qualify as technically \"different\", but they wouldn't be something you'd notice with the naked eye." ]	[ "> I see pictures like this: _URL_0_ and long to see this sight for myself. I think those types of pictures are taken using decent cameras with high ISO settings and a long exposure time (maybe 25 seconds or more). They don't reflect what you'd see with the naked eye, unfortunately. Here's one photographer's rendit...
How does water evaporate in room-temperature environments?	[ "Temperature is simply a measure of the average energy in a system. On an extremely small level, some points might be warmer, some colder. The spots in water where the energy is high will make those water molecules change state." ]	[ "The equation you posted is about the thermal energy change. (dT is temperature not time). The object in the freezer will cool faster because it has more convective heat transfer, temperature change due to a difference with the surrounding air. See [here](_URL_0_). You want to look at Q^dot not Q. Q^dot is the rate...
Why does it feel so good to tuck your knees up to your chest? Like while sitting or laying down? Mostly for women.	[ "The fetal position is a default comfort position for several reasons. One, it relieves tension across your stomach and the internal organs. If you're having cramps, it allows your stomach and intestines, as well as the muscles around them, to relax. Also, it is instinctively comforting because it protects our vita...	[ "This is called the [Cheerios Effect](_URL_1_). I find this amusing. Basically, when something is floating in a liquid, a [meniscus](_URL_0_) forms around it. (In the case of the bubbles, it's a concave meniscus.) Since the bubbles float, they want to be at the highest point achievable on the surface of the liquid,...

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