Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
the process of making meth. Is Breaking bad realistic?	[ "From what I've read, they retained chemists to make sure it was realistic, but changed minor details here and there such that you couldn't actually make meth. So in broad strokes, w/r/t ingredients and general procedures, it was correct." ]	[ "Here's [how that specific scene was shot](_URL_0_). In short, it wasn't an actual border crossing, there was a substantial amount of digital postproduction, and it wasn't even all one shot." ]
When you feel emotions of sorrow, sadness, regret, etc why does it have a physical sensation in your heart or stomach.	[ "Your brain and your guts talk to eachother, you have neurons in both places, in addition to this your brain and the rest of your body talk with eachother too. All emotions have physical sensations with them, we call them feelings because we FEEL them. Our body signals pain sensations to alert us so we can prepare ...	[ "I am by no way at all a scientist or veterinarian but I have been working with dogs for over a decade. I spent a lot of time as a dog handler is a large off leash facility and the first thing I taught myself was to leave everything at the door before I went in. If something was happening in my personal life or my ...
Are there any companies currently in existence that can trace their lineage back to the East India Company?	[ "Could someone answer this question about the Dutch East India Company and not the British one? The Dutch one was in the TIL that I think this question might be referencing!" ]	[ "If you're interested in how the Confederate government tried creating a positive image of itself in Great Britain as well as a negative image of the north, check out The Index. Henry Hotze was a Confederate agent in London and he created a newspaper dedicated to promoting the Confederacy and influencing public o...
and new to reddit, what is circle jerk?	[ "A circle jerk is when a group of guys get together in a circle, and jerk off the guy next to/in front of them. Everyone is jerking someone else off. A reddit circle jerk would be a sub-reddit where members post the same tired un-original content but everyone upvotes everything. Everyone jerks each other off by pas...	[ "Soylent Green was a movie about a wondrous food that satisfied all nutritional needs, but had a dark origin. Since then, it has become a generic term for a food so nutritionally complete you don't need to eat anything else. [This](_URL_3_) has been getting a lot of press lately." ]
The housing "bubble".	[ "You normally think of a house as just a place to live. You buy it if you want a place to live, and then you have a place to live. Woohoo. The thing is, housing prices were increasing, and everyone expected them to continue increasing. So a house was also a good investment. If you bought one, it would be worth mo...	[ "Since I'm talking to a child, I'll be brief.: Wages, in terms of what a person may buy with them, have not risen in many years, while the prices of things a person has to buy, has." ]
Was there a Western European, Byzantian, or Arab/Muslim military writer similar to Sun Zu in the Medieval era?	[ "There are at least a couple of Byzantine treatises called Tactica, including the famous one [by Emperor Leo VI](_URL_1_). It's pretty extensive...he talks about training as well as tactics for infantry, cavalry, artillery, and archers, and even navies. Also, while not an instructional work, Anna Comnena's [Alex...	[ "I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I can point you towards a very good book I read a few years ago. [Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle](_URL_0_) discusses the trial of [Ossian Sweet](_URL_1_), an African-American physician who killed a white man in self-defense in 1925 Detroit. The man was part of a white m...
Why do we wash our bodies (and everything else) with hot water but our teeth with cold water?	[ "For the same reason we prefer drinking cold water to warm water. It makes no difference, but we prefer the taste/feel of cold water in our mouths." ]	[ "When you eat chocolate, the cocoa butter melts in your mouth, causing the tasty chocolate flavors to coat the taste buds. If you have water in your mouth, the chocolate will either not melt or else it will melt and then seize up into a tight, solid mass because water interferes with the way cocoa butter solidifies...
A scholar has stated that the historical Jesus did not exist. What criticism can be said about his thesis, and what evidence exists to confirm HJ?	[ "We've had [one previous thread](_URL_0_) on this subject which is worth taking a look at, as well as this section in our FAQ [regarding the historical Jesus.](_URL_1_)" ]	[ "Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to [our rules](_URL_1_). This policy is further explained in this [Rules Roundtable thread](_URL_3_) and this [META Thread](_URL_...
Why do I like to sleep with a blanket, even when I'm already warm?	[ "Its something you are trained practically since inception. Being snug in a blanket or sheet imitates the womb which gave us comfort in the early years of our life. Infants and young ones can often be calmed just by wrapping them in baby blankets. edit:conception*" ]	[ "Your brain is programmed by evolution to seek out patterns, and make sense of the world through stories. This has allowed humans to recognize certain laws of nature in order to take advantage of them (seeking out patterns is really just the fundamental building block of the scientific method). It has also allowed ...
Official ELI5 Margaret Thatcher Thread	[ "I'm going through the comments on many Thatcher threads, news article comments and forums - and there is a lot of happiness over her death - parties, celebrations, pints. I think it'd be worthwhile explaining why she is hated." ]	[ "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...
If we stuck one end of a tube in the ocean and the other end in space, would the vacuum be strong enough to pull up the water column?	[ "No. Nothing at all would happen. The same vacuum (it's not actually a vacuum, but let's call it close enough) that would be acting on the end of that tube would be acting on the rest of the atmosphere. The same air that is in the rest of the atmosphere would be inside the tube. Think about it this way: let's say ...	[ "Suction cups form a smooth seal around a small pocket of air at low pressure. Atmospheric pressure causes a force that holds the suction cup against a surface when it is opposed to the low pressure inside of the cup. Once air leaks into the cup and increases the pressure, the suction effect goes away. Some suction...
How did people in B.C count years? What made them decide "maybe we should start counting up"?	[ "Western Europe didn't start counting years since the birth of Jesus until around 525 CE and even then it took a while to catch on. Most people would count the number of years of the current king or other relevant ruler. So it would be something like the 10th year in the reign of King Change1378. In Rome they would...	[ "You can use something like [this](_URL_0_). If you bounce light off a rotating mirror to a stationary mirror a long way away, then the rotating mirror has moved a bit by the time the light gets back and reflects off it a second time. By measuring the angle between the light source and where you see the reflected l...
What are electric field lines and magnetic field lines and how do they produce each other?	[ "Electric charges produce electric fields, or electric field lines if you prefer. Moving electric charges produce magnetic fields. When a conductor moves through a magnetic field, an electric current is induced in it." ]	[ "According to general relativity, gravity is a deformation of space-time. Space-time is not flat and therefore objects do not follow naturally straight trajectories in space-time. This is why we perceive gravity as \"force\", which does not exist in reality. We interpret the curved space-time around us as gene...
The earth's coldest spot recently measured at -93.2 Celsius. Is it snowing carbon dioxide there?	[ "No it's not. That freezing temp is for pure carbon dioxide at 1 atmosphere. Carbon dioxide makes up a very small percent of the atmosphere though so the partial pressure of atmospheric carbon dioxide is too low for it to freeze." ]	[ "I imagine you are talking about the internal combustion engine (ICE)that is commonly used around the world in automobiles. Think of the classic \"fire triangle\" when thinking of these engines. You need 3 things to make something burn: Fuel, Oxidizer, and heat. In an ICE these components are a Petroleum product s...
I own a 1943 Mosin Nagant rifle that was used during WWII that I bought from a surplus store. What happened to the extra Russian guns that were used in the war between its end in 1945 and when I bought it?	[ "With the end of the war, most of the Mosin rifles were sent back to the arsenal for refurbishment, and then crated. Some were sent to allies as military aid. Most ended up in storage for WW3. With the easing of import laws to the US for Curios and Relics in the 1980s, and more importantly the collapse of the Spvie...	[ "The Japanese used nengo (年号), eras declared by the imperial court. They didn't have a set length and a new era could be declared for any of a number of reasons: a new Emperor taking the throne, a natural disaster, astrology, etc. The longest nengo lasted for thirty-five years, but the majority were less than a...
Why is it so hard for a tenured professor to get fired?	[ "The rationale for tenure, with protections, is that academic pursuits should not be threatened by political and economic whims of administration - this would hamper the freedom of academic pursuits. The pursuit of \"truth\" has a long history of getting trampled by \"other interests\" and the goal is to isolate ac...	[ "Often times the company subsidizes part of the initial costs in exchange for you signing a longer term contract. A classic example in the US at least is mobile phone contracts. AT & T will sell me a new iPhone for $200 if I agree to a 2 year contract. A new iPhone by itself costs at least $600. AT & T pays differe...
What are these weird byproducts of electolysis?	[ "That's copper coming off of your electrodes. When you are performing electrolysis, you don't get just the ideal half reactions (here, Na+ - > NaOH and Cl- - > Cl2), but you also get other possible reactions (aka competing reactions). Which reactions actually take place depends on what contaminants you have in the ...	[ "if two natural metal deposits existed in the right lengths, shape and deposited close enough and if lightning hit the right spot I would assume you could get a natural TEA Laser. something like this [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)" ]
How do gun silencers work?	[ "From [another Reddit thread](_URL_4_) with the same question: > Ever open a soda can quickly and hear a pop? If you have, then you've no doubt tried opening it slowly and noticed that it's a lot quieter -- it just sort of hisses. > This is fundamentally how silencers work. The barrel in the silencer has a bunch ...	[ "Here is a great video explaining it. _URL_0_" ]
What would happen if someone would drink a big mug of coffee and go to bed before it kicks in?	[ "My intuition is that you would fall asleep just like normal, but then sleep lighter and maybe worse. There is a study I found that says [about that](_URL_0_). tl;dr: You'll sleep, but not very well." ]	[ "Everything your brain does requires energy, including \"nothing.\" Specifically, to stop yourself from having certain types of thoughts (let's call them \"dumb ideas\"), other parts of your brain capable of critical thinking, evaluation, scenario modeling & if-then extrapolation have to exert metabolic energy. Lat...
How does Disney Channel manage to stay on the air and be profitable for so long when all of the commercials shown on there advertise for upcoming Disney Channel shows?	[ "The Disney Channel is a full-time advertisement for the Disney brand. Children are immersed at a very young age into the Disney universe. They grow up continuing to be exposed to Disney content. Disney knows this creates demand for their products that FAR outweighs any potential revenue from third-party advertisin...	[ "[From Wikipedia](_URL_0_): > De Beers currently sells approximately 35% of the world’s rough diamond production through its distribution subsidiary, DTC. [And later](_URL_0_#Diamond_monopoly): > In 2000, the De Beers business model changed due to factors such as the decision by producers in Canada and Australia ...
Why does a small dome light drain a huge car battery over night, yet a couple of AAAs can power a significantly more powerful, non-LED headlamp for days?	[ "A car starter motor takes a lot of power. It has to turn over the engine enough times to cycle every piston and try to start each spark plug firing properly. You can leave a light on in your car for a day or two, but it'll drain the battery down too much to have enough power to turn the engine over. Plus you have ...	[ "Bacteria are responsible for causing bad breath, and they thrive all over the mouth, but mostly on the tongue. The tongue is warm and has many more nooks and crannies on its surface for bacteria to hide than your teeth do. These bacteria reproduce all day, and when you brush your teeth, spit, talk, eat, or swallow...
Why does the Canadian government support Israel?	[ "Well, because America does. And Canada supports America." ]	[ "I was always informed it was based on the focus of the website. A company would have a .com An organization would have a .org A database or network might have a .net The government has a .gov Meanwhile, the endings in .uk (England), .ca (Canada), .us (USA), .jp (Japan) are short for country cod...
What the hell are independent & dependent clauses? Similarly, what's the grammatical use of a semicolon?	[ "An independent clause can stand on its own as a complete sentence; a dependent clause can't. Semicolons are used to link two independent clauses that are somehow related to one another, as I did in the previous sentence. There are some other uses too, but that's the main one." ]	[ "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 ...
How do we detect new, exotic, stable particles in the LHC and other similar colliders?	[ "Stable and long-living particles are harder to find than short-living particles, but stable particles are also less common (we don't see any of them around on Earth apart from the few known stable particles). If they have an electric charge, we can measure them going through the detector. They would typically be h...	[ "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 there such a strong urge to tell secrets to people?	[ "Because humans crave connection with other humans. That urge isn't so strong if the person you share the secret with is present, but as soon as you're the only one in the room who knows the secret, you want to be connected again. Telling someone else will satiate that connection desire" ]	[ "Our body creates heat, so to maintain our internal body temperature we need to vent heat into the air. This is easy to do if the air is cooler than our body temperature, but when it's the same as our body temperature there's nowhere for that excess heat to go." ]
What is stopping me from starting my own country?	[ "Generally you get conquered but if you don’t occupy anything useful you can do it. [This country](_URL_0_) is an example of what you’re describing and it still exists." ]	[ "Well, you can take the costs that you pay for your everyday life. Rent, food, hygeine, medical care, dental, etc. Then add to those the costs of having guards, cooks, janitors, and lawyers involved.... it gets pretty expensive quickly." ]
If a solid is ground extremely finely, will it become a liquid?	[ "You'd have what's called a granular fluid, which has some properties of liquids but some different. [Here's a gif](_URL_0_) from [this page](_URL_1_). One thing that granular materials do that liquids don't is jam, where if you try to flow it through a funnel or something it can stop moving and become rigid." ]	[ "A few videos on youtube by people who make that kind of stuff: _URL_0_ _URL_1_ You need to start with a seed crystal which you dip in the saturated solution and then as the water evaporates the salt precipitates on the seed crystal. You may be increasing the speed of the evaporation by heating and that may be caus...
In a Democracy, if nobody knows which candidate anyone else voted for, how do we know we can trust the results of an election?	[ "Audit trails. In every good elections system, there's a way to go back to the physical ballots and count them again, and to compare how many ballots there are as compared to the number of people who showed up at the polls. There's no need to tie a specific ballot to the person who cast it." ]	[ "Your employer takes money out of your paycheck throughout the year to pay your local, state, and federal taxes. The amount they take out, however, is just an estimate how much tax you will probably owe at the end of the year. There's no way for the state, local, and federal governments to know what you actually do...
How exactly do windmills produce energy?	[ "The windmill turns a big magnet, and when you spin a magnet around you induce an electric field, and get electricity. Electric motors work about the same way backwards: passing electric current can make a magnet move. Just about every method of generating electricity except solar works this way. You're making stea...	[ "Thee same way airplanes do. They have a probe with a hole in the front of it. Air is forced into it by the movement of the helicopter or plane that pressure is read as airspeed" ]
When doctors take your blood, where does it go and what exactly do they do with it?	[ "First off, I'm curious what doctor has actually taken blood because in my experience it's almost always a nurse or lab tech. But to answer the meaty part of the question - blood goes to the laboratory usually where it's often either run on analyzers or processed to be shipped to another laboratory to be run on the...	[ "First off you need to aquire LOTS of samples from populations all over the world, tens of thousands at least. The more the better. You begin to compare all of this data from the genomes you collected with known migration patterns of ancient peoples and indigenous populations. Then you use computers to crunch all t...
How do cell phone cameras adjust focus without any moving parts?	[ "They do have moving parts. A really, really tiny linear electric motor moves the lens forward and backward. _URL_0_" ]	[ "I don't know for certain, but think about it: Plants are sedentary. They find a particular kind of environment that suits them well and, for the most part, stay in one place for their whole lives. They don't need to develop systems that allow for locomotion. They don't need to develop complex tissues and organs th...
Does the weight of the earth increase due to sunlight ? If so, by how much?	[ "> [The luminosity of radiant energy is 4 x 10^33 ergs/sec. Since 1 gram is worth 9 x 10^20 ergs, sunlight equals 4 x 10^12 grams/second or 4.4 million metric tons of equivalent mass per second .This is radiated over a sphere equal to the radius of the earths orbit 147 million kilometers in radius or 2.7 x 10^27 sq...	[ "Technically, it is possible if the body closer to the sun was orbiting at the L1 [Lagrange Point](_URL_0_) of the outer planet. In fact, we have satellites orbiting around this point. However, this is an unstable orbit and without active stabilization (hard to do for a whole planet) the inner body would fall into ...
Did any Native American tribes have pet wolves or dogs?	[ "Yes. Wolves can be tamed but are not domesticated (i.e. humans don't control their breeding). Native American dogs spanned both continents. Numerous previous questions have been asked and answered about them: * [Did pre-Columbian Native Americans have dogs? If so, what breeds are they known as today?](_URL_1_) * ...	[ "Is there a specific region and time period you are interested in? If not, your question would break our \"poll type\" question rule." ]
Were African slaves generally permitted to interact with Indians in places like early colonial Virginia? How did people like the Powhatan view Africans in comparison to the English?	[ "Just for clarity, what time periods are you inquiring about? The answer for the 1650s is very different than the answer for the 1760s" ]	[ "not discouraging anyone from contributing more info on this topic - especially with regard to how common pets were - but FYI there have been lots of questions about pets, so check out these posts for previous responses. [When and why did people start keeping pets?](_URL_2_) [When did it become common for people ...
Why it’s relaxing to sit in 100+ degree (F) water, but is uncomfortable for air temperature to be that high (especially when humid).	[ "The upper part of your body is still exposed to the cooler air, and being wet, water will evaporate from it, cooling it down further. Part of the enjoyment is the contrast between the hot and cold. When it is hot out, your whole body is hot, and when it is humid, your perspiration doesn't evaporate well. Also, you...	[ "We have separate sensors in our skin for sensing hot and cold temperatures (known as thermoreceptors). These sensors will get activated at specific temperature ranges (i.e. cold temperatures for cold thermoreceptors and hot temperatures for hot thermoreceptors) and the activation of these separate receptors is how...
All of these websites state to "buy gold", if the economy collapses. Why would do people assume we'd barter gold instead of housing, food, water, ammunition, etc?	[ "Those websites aren't interested in what happens when SHTF. They are interested in what might happen this week, namely that people might send them money. They are definitely in favor of people sending them money. If sending you gold, or MREs, will get you to send them money, then they are all over that. Since the ...	[ "After being deprived of sleep for long enough the body will begin to \"replace\" sleep with calories. Your body still needs the sleep of course but it begins to do what it needs to do to continue working. If you ever want to see this in action, it is common among the crab fishing crews in the Bering Sea. I've seen...
How do thermometers in PCs for example work?	[ "They'll use either a thermistor or a thermocouple. A thermistor is a type of resistor (a circuit component that resists the flow of electricity) that has a resistance heavily dependent on the temperature. By running a known voltage through the thermistor and measuring the voltage at the other end (to get the volta...	[ "Because water molecules are polar (have positively and negatively charged ends) so the oscillating EM field affects those molecules, but molecules that comprise air (O2, N2, etc) are non-polar, so the oscillating EM field doesn't affect them." ]
How does quartz work in watches?	[ "[How a quartz watch works: Engineer Guy] (_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Quoting [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) (a bit naughty, but it's a nice way to express what I think): > The proposed theory is inconsistent with quantum mechanics and critics have ruled it out on those grounds. Which is essentially saying what you pointed out, yes. If what they're doing is as easy as it sounds - just runnin...
This Gif. How does it work?	[ "The reversing is caused by the perspective effects (closer things look bigger) on the motion that triggers the backwards spinning wheel illusion, but only at certain places on the train (when you look there, the train can appear to reverse direction). This is my favorite [illusion](_URL_0_) of that type." ]	[ "Here, bill nye will explain it to you _URL_0_" ]
Why do I feel discomfort in certain areas when I think about something hurting them?	[ "Some theories suggest that in certain situations thinking about something happening to a specific body part causes the relevant brain areas to activate (in this case, the right arm sensory area), sometimes this activation is so much that it actually simulates the feeling you're thinking of, particularly if you hav...	[ "Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't ant...
Why do some companies deny certain credit cards?	[ "Credit cards make money by charging a fee to vendors. American Express charges a higher fee than other credit cards. If a store runs on narrow margins, they may actually be losing money from American Express users. That, plus Amex is denied in a lot of places, so Amex cardholders often carry other forms of payment...	[ "For colleges there are scholarships and grants that are limited to specific races, ethnicities, and genders. For both jobs and colleges they need to know that information for legal purposes in case they get sued for discrimination in the future." ]
Why do I need insurance? Couldn't I just deposit an equivalent amount into an account each week?	[ "You can self-insure by putting up a bond (state-by-state), but your specific approach doesn't fly. You have to have enough to cover the accident on _day one_, whereas it'd take you YEARS to have accumulated enough in your account to cover the accident that could happen at any time. So.. you have to put up a bond (...	[ "1. You can get your game out to more people, faster 2. You can make money on an ongoing basis, if players continue to play your game, as opposed to only getting paid once per user. Most businesses would rather have a steady stream of income. 3. You can potentially make a lot more money, and various success stories...
How does the Federal Reserve figure out how much money to print/mint each year?	[ "Minor quibble, for clarification only: the Fed doesn't produce coinage or currency. The US Mint and Bureau of Engraving and Printing, respectively, do that. But the Fed is the only entity that can place orders for either, so really, the question is still well-put. To answer, the Fed estimates the need for new coin...	[ "It's not unmanageable. The NSA doesn't always know what individuals to target. By collecting everything they can, they can look for patterns between people they do know about and connect that to people they don't. Then they can go back in the data and see what those new people did in the past." ]
Why do many animals have a "rare" type that is either solid white or black? Also why are they not any other color.	[ "Its a lack of pigmentation expressed in animals, caused by genetic mutation. Since all animals have genes related to pigmentation, all animals can have mutations in those genes. There are a few basic types: Amelanistic animals do not produce melanin. Axanthic animals lack yellow pigmentation. **Anerythri...	[ "Selective breeding by humans. If you want a good hunter then you breed the best hunters together, if you want a guard dog then you breed the animals that are more territorial. If you want a lap dog then you need to select the dogs that are less stressed by being around new and different humans. humans select the b...
Why do we laugh when tickled?	[ "Researchers in Germany have uncovered the reason why we laugh hysterically when we are tickled - and the answer is not because it is funny. According to scientists at the University of Tuebingen, tickling activates the part of our brain that anticipates pain - which is why you may accidentally lash out at someone ...	[ "I think it is hardwired into us. [Tommy Edison](_URL_0_) explains it better." ]
Does Occam's Razor disprove the Bible?	[ "Occam's Razor isn't meant to be a disproof of anything. It is more along the lines of a useful heuristic. Heuristics are simple rules to follow that often give you approximations to problems that are 'good enough' for most situations. Is an extremely complicated theory possibly the correct one about a given topic?...	[ "Not necessarily the earliest images, but among them. I wrote a lengthy response on magic wands at r/AcademicBiblical here: _URL_0_ Let me know if you have questions." ]
How come the UN or NATO isn't quick to act/doesn't care over Russia invading the Ukraine slowly?	[ "The UN has difficulty acting because in order for anything to get done, all of the Security Council member nations have to agree... and Russia is part of that security council. As for NATO, well... the Ukrane is not a member of NATO, and NATO is a military alliance. So unless all of the member nations want to...	[ "Because the technology was in it's infancy in 2014. Deep packet inspection was just being pioneered by the Chinese. Once it became possible to record your every website click the first ones to do it were the NSA. But now that shit's commercial and cheap enough and intelligent enough to make life really suck if y...
Why do people start smoking, even when there are so many health warnings against it?	[ "People are very bad at assessing long term risks. We haven't evolved to handle dangers and risks of long term activities. Even though we intellectually know the risks, it is hard for us to translate that intellectual knowledge into behavior, as it does not tell our instincts that it is dangerous. We instinctively ...	[ "Nostalgia, too ~ a lot of older guys that now have lots of money are reliving their youth - they either had one when they were young & want another, or wanted one when they were young and can now afford to pay the big bucks to get one." ]
Why does time seem to move faster when you are doing something enjoyable rather than doing something boring or that you don't want to do?	[ "Similarly, I wish snooze-minutes were as long as microwave-minutes" ]	[ "The heart doesn't work alone to pump blood. When you exercise, a lot of other systems kick in to help blood get through the body easier and recycle to the heart more efficiently. Movement of other muscles and one-way valves pushes blood along and veins dilate and contract to direct flow. Exercise makes those syste...
If the earth was a cube instead of a sphere, what would gravity be like at the edges?	[ "Gravity will pull you towards the center of the cube. if you stood near the center of a face, it would be like gravity normally is here on earth. However, as you move towards the edges, the pull of gravity still points towards the center of the cube, making it seem as if you were climbing uphill. You effectively a...	[ "When a lot of stuff floats around it tends to group up... as those groups form they get more and more attracted to eachother. The more stuff there is the more gets attracted (gravety). Eventually there is so much stuff that the middle gets very hot! Everything there turns into this super dense ball. it keeps pulli...
What's the difference between Christianity, Catholicism, and other religions (Protestant, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, etc.)?	[ "Not my content. Takes a funny approach but is pretty accurate. Think of it like a movie. The Torah is the first one, and the New Testament is the sequel. Then the Qu’ran comes out, and it retcons the last one like it never happened. There’s still Jesus, but he’s not the main character anymore, and the messiah hasn...	[ "Different types of motorsports have different rules governing them. These rules dictate track type, engine size, type of car, etc. For instance, NASCAR dictates what kind of car can be raced. All of the cars in NASCAR are virtually the same, minus some tweaks here and there, like spoiler angle. Daytona is a race t...
Why don't all public toilets in most Western countries like the USA installed with washing bidets?	[ "I have never seen a bidet in real life. It's just not something that ever caught on in the US." ]	[ "It would cost a lot of money. That money would have to come from taxpayers. Folks with modest income don't expect Government to start taxing the rich exclusively, given their political power. You can't tax poor people, they have no money. That means the tax would be on middle income people, and they don't want to ...
Can anyone explain how we get desensitized to sensory stimulus such as speeding in a car or tuning out background noises?	[ "Speed can only be detected when accelerating. If maintaining a constant velocity, you wouldn't feel you were moving. Even more so, without any frame references (something to compare yourself to), there is no way to even know you are moving, which goes into Special Relativity." ]	[ "I don't know exactly what medical stuff goes on with pain tolerance, but I do know that your tolerances can be built up as a result of repeated exposure to pain sources. I used to kick-box, and my class would train by punching and kicking wooden poles. The repeated impacts eventually toughened up our fists and out...
What started the European explorers craze that got them discovering the new world and Asia?	[ "Money, prestige, and the struggle for dominance over rival nations. The usual suspects. It started with Portuguese attempts to corner the spice trade to and from the East Indies by getting ships around Africa (to circumvent the Ottoman control of the ancient overland routes), which was made more complicated by the...	[ "[Here](_URL_0_) are Roggeveen's logs during the time he visited Easter Island. Nowhere does he mention 'whites, indians and Polynesians living in harmony'; he does, however, describe the natives' complexions as varying, some paler than others. Also, 'Polynesia' was not a word until 1756, 27 years after Jacob Rogge...
Do you have a better chance being chosen from 10/100 rather than 1/10?	[ "The same exact chance. Well, except that you can't be 10 out of a 100. You can only be 1, so 1 out of 10." ]	[ "Imagine a huge crowd of people trying to get into a building with two doors. For them, the doors look identical, but inside the building, one of them leads to a nice, wide corridor, but the other leads into a tight maze. You dont know that one path is much easier than the other, but since the tight path is clogged...
Why do we go to work every day?	[ "You're clearly in your teens or early 20's so I'll let this pass." ]	[ "If everyone has the same ideas, you have a shallow pool of ideas from which to draw. If you have people from lots of backgrounds (and I don't mean just racial) you have more chance of finding solutions your shallow pool would never have thought of." ]
If time is the 4th dimension, why can't I be at 2 places at the same time?	[ "All possible paths for a massive particle satisfy (d-t) < 0 and t > 0, where d and t are the spatial and temporal vectors respectively from the first point to the second. So you can't move from (d=0, t=0) to (d=1, t=0); no allowable path links one point to the other." ]	[ "The concept of humans not being able to multitask as an absolute is a flawed premise. We can for example, walk and talk. Even for processes in the brain, we can multitask. When people say that humans can't multitask, that generally relates to conscious thought processes and tasks that require conscious thought pro...
How do birds successfully fly in such a tight formation when there's hundreds or even thousands of them?	[ "They just keep their individual position in regard to the birds flying next to them rather than to the flock as a whole." ]	[ "The movie was [Days of Thunder](_URL_0_) and he was talking about [Slipstreaming or Drafting](_URL_1_). As to your question, this depends on * The velocity of the cars * Geometry of both cars * Atmosphere status (temperature, rain, snow ... although they have very little effect at higher speeds) On the street it's...
How do utilities in the far north (places like Fairbanks, AK) keep their distribution pipes from freezing in the winter?	[ "I live in Saskatchewan where in winter it usually dips below -40C (-40F) and we bury water lines below the frost line (about 8 feet below the surface). This summer I buried a water line 10 feet down and so far it has not frozen. Sometimes insulation is put above the line to help. I suppose even further north insul...	[ "They've spent the better part of the last few decades making it that way. They're existing in legal loopholes and held up by lobbyists campaigning to representatives that don't understand how technology works anyway. For example, none of them have a \"monopoly\" because you always have the choice of dish. It's a s...
Why does a pitch that is slightly flat sound better than one that is slightly sharp?	[ "I think that may be your opinion because flat sounds way worse to me than sharp. Can't say for sure though" ]	[ "If you ask for 1 pen, it costs you two dollars. If you ask for 100 000 pens, they will only cost you one dollar each. I prefer selling you 100 000 pens at half price, than selling you 1 at full price and have 99 999 sitting around doing nothing. In a similar way, if you ask for a small amount of money, you pay a b...
Can anyone explain the rise of fruited trees and how it affected life on Earth?	[ "Watch David Attenborough's 'Life on Earth'. Download it and watch it it is incredible. Remember that fruits are only really effective when there are animals around to eat the fruit and dristribte the seeds. Fruits basically exist as a seed disburtion device to spread out the seeds of the next generation. For many ...	[ "Have there been more than normal? I don't know if there's anything out of the ordinary. The media will often take any discovery in cell and molecular biology and apply it to the treatment of cancer, and researchers funding often comes from the treatment of disease. Sites share what sounds interesting, and I might ...
What determines the radius of curvature of a rainbow?	[ "See [this](_URL_1_) thread for a pretty good description, with diagrams, of what causes rainbows. However, I think it's clearer to think of a rainbow not as a \"circle,\" or a curve at a fixed distant position in space, but rather as an entire [conical surface](_URL_0_), with the vertex at your eye. It makes s...	[ "For the same reason that running scissors over a ribbon causes it to curl. The act of shading the paper not only lays down the pigment, but stretches the paper slightly, deforming it." ]
Why isn't Brunei part of Malaysia?	[ "Brunei was supposed to join the Federation of Malaysia, which is a federation consisting of Malaya (itself a federation), Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak. However, it faced a rebellion on its own front, the [Brunei Revolt](_URL_0_). Further, a referendum was held in each territory and the Bruneians didn't seem...	[ "[This question](_URL_0_) in the FAQ probably explains this sufficiently. Although actually the planets are very similar, if you consider them as two separate groups." ]
Is psychopathy considered a binary diagnosis or is it seen as a spectrum?	[ "Psychopathy is not a DSM diagnosis. However, individuals with the diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder are often referred to as “psychopaths” by the general public. For clinical purposes: A diagnosis of APD is categorical. You can have antisocial personality traits without APD. However, APD itself is an e...	[ "Basically if you plot the image density versus integrated energy on a pixel, you will find that no system is perfectly linear. Even the time of exposure (shutter speed) can affect the results. Film was especially bad in this respect. And lead to things like [\"Black lightning\"](_URL_1_) on photographs. Caused by ...
Why hasnt Russia or especially China made a Land grab in Mongolia?	[ "Mongolia has very few natural resources to speak of aside from some mining and is of little strategic value. Is taking that stuff worth violating the cardinal rule of modern international relations, which is \"don't invade other countries for territorial gain?\" You seem to be under the impression that land grabs ...	[ "From Wikipedia: \"Despite having early caucuses, Iowa, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri were not penalized, because their contests did not allocate national delegates\" [Source](_URL_1_) Basically they had votes that didn't count, now they had the \"real\" vote. They did that because they wanted to matter m...
Why do bees make honey, and why are they not angry that we are "stealing" it?	[ "I was just Googling this! Beekeepers provide a hive that reduces the amount of work needed to be done by the bees. They don't have to build the hive and they don't have to use as much energy to keep it the right temperature. As a result, they produce more honey than needed. The beekeeper takes the excess honey, bu...	[ "_URL_0_ Reportedly cows tend to feed more around sundown when the nutritional content of plants is higher. > “A series of USDA studies looked at animals’ ability to choose different forages. The researchers cut hay in the morning and in the evening and used this in the choice tests. They’ve done it with cattle, g...
Why did the American Flag retain the red, white, and blue of the Union Jack?	[ "I'm no historian, but to clarify the transition a bit, I believe that there is some argument that this was by way of the [British East India](_URL_1_) Company company flag, which probably looks pretty familiar to you if you know what the US flag looks like: > At the time of the American Revolution the [East India...	[ "This is a fun question. And it mostly has to do with cartographers and how they built /drew maps. Plus a little bit of British imperialism. Most of the early cartographers were employed by the rich Northern European countries to make maps of their country and the new world. So they put their native/home country fr...
What happens in our bodies when we die via blood loss?	[ "There is a limit to how much blood pressure your heart and blood vessels can generate. If the volume of your blood gets too low, you cannot pump enough blood and therefore oxygen to your brain, so it stops working and you die." ]	[ "Storing and testing blood costs money, so the blood bank charges the hospital and the hospital charges the patient for that plus the costs of administering it (and a bit extra). SOMETIMES blood doners get paid money (if blood is extremely scarce), but that's rare -- normally they donate the blood (which didn't cos...
How do people "fight" cancer versus those who don't?	[ "Being sick can be very hard work. When you are weak, fatigued, in pain, and hopped up on painkillers, it can take a lot of willpower to keep up on diet, exercise, hygiene, meds, therapy, and keeping in touch with your doctors. People who are \"fighting\" are actively and aggressively staying on top of those things...	[ "Buildings (especially skyscrapers) contain all sorts of materials (plastics, fiberglass, etc.) that are fine when they're just sitting there inside a wall, but are harmful or carcinogenic if they're thrown into the air and inhaled. 9/11 caused a giant cloud of dust and debris that the rescue workers were continuou...
Is the sound on atom bomb videos real?	[ "Yeah, that sucks. The sound is usually real, but the timing is adjusted for some inane reason. Before people started doing this on Youtube, one of the best things about seeing a nuclear blast in a movie or on tv was waiting for the sound, because it was stock footage and you always knew it was going to take a few ...	[ "What you're looking for is called \"hypercavitation\". The Russians used it for a rocket propelled torpedo with disastrous results. It does create a \"boom\" in a way, but because of the higher density of the water, it's more of a shockwave." ]
If B.O. is caused by bacteria on our skin eating sweat, why does deodorant block sweat rather than just kill the bacteria?	[ "you have two different products here. a deodorant covers the smell. an antiperspirant blocks your sweating, but is also perfumed. personally i dont use antiperspirants simply because i am not a sweaty person and dont need to. however if there is no sweat then there is no protein for the bacteria to eat then ther...	[ "Soaps are made out of long chained fatty acids, which means that they are a long chain of carbons and hydrogens, with an carboxylic acid functional group at the start of each chain. Theses fatty acids are what is called surfactants. They have both a hydrophobic (water-repelling, the long carbon chain) and hydrophi...
Will age/time work differently for a colony on Mars than it would on Earth/would a person be younger/older on one versus the other?	[ "Well a Martian day is about forty minutes longer than an Earth one, and a year is closer to double. So in terms of how many times around the sun, as a way of measuring age, Martians would be younger than a person born at the same time when measured by their calendars years." ]	[ "Bone mass decreases, but the bones don't actually get much smaller, just less dense. The height increase is mostly due to lengthening of the spinal column due to not fighting against gravity... the same happens every night when you sleep, to a lesser extent. Some more info: _URL_0_ _URL_1_" ]
The butcher told me to defrost meat in cold tap water, replacing the water several times during the process ... Why not warm tap water?	[ "Warm water leads to an faster proliferation of bacteria. The lower the temperature is, the harder for the bacteria to reproduce." ]	[ "Depends where in the world you are. Here in Australia, a lot of newer hotels use massive instant-hot water heaters. Meaning they don't store tanks of hot water, rather they heat water as needed. Plenty of smaller places (motels) use the same principal, but rather a small instant heater for each room. This is also ...
Is Cancer getting more common among people or is it because we are able to diagnose it more properly?	[ "Talking about phone signals has as much an effect as the signals have: No effect at all. Pollution is decreasing in large parts of the developed world. Wherever you get these ideas from: Better ignore it. Check what science says, not random strangers on the internet or other people who have no idea what they are t...	[ "The popularity of comic book characters and acceptance of the geek subculture, mainly. people aren't scared to show that they enjoy these things anymore." ]
In communist countries like China, how do some people get rich and become millionaires?	[ "China is not really a communist country anymore. They are a hybrid. Their political system is a single-party state with a dominant communist party. Their economic system is a weird mix of state-owned enterprises (communist) and \"Special Economic Zones\" which are pure capitalist." ]	[ "There are several ways. The main method imo, is mass buying games during promotional sales, they then sell the game with a slightly higher price than purchased remaining cheaper than the retailer. They buy games using vpns taking advantage of the Russian roubles low price where a game costing 20 quid will cost yo...
Amplitude of a Light Wave?	[ "The amplitude of an electromagnetic field is the strengths of its transverse electric and magnetic fields, measured in Volts per meter and Teslas respectively. If you want to look at it in terms of photons, the intensity is related to the number of photons as well as the square of the amplitude, so the field stren...	[ "It's not voodoo magic. It's kind of like brushing your hair. When you get up in the morning, your hair (assuming you have more hair on your head than I do) is all tangled from tossing and turning and all that other jazz. This is what regular light coming from, say, a light bulb looks like. It's all tangled and sca...
If our body creates memory cells for immunity after we have an infection or virus, how come cancer survivors are more likely to contract cancer again and die from it?	[ "Cancer isn't bacteria or virus, it's you body's own cells malfunctioning. Normally your immune system can notice when cells are reproducing uncontrollably, but not always. They are your cells, not foreign bodies. Even when tumors get destroyed, there are often still rogue cancer cells floating around in your blood...	[ "So you're in a war against an alien enemy you've never seen before. A scout party (Dendritic Cells) manages to destroy one and yanks off a piece of their armor (Antigen). They report back to their base (Lymph Nodes) to show (present) this piece of armor to everyone and to see if anyone has any answers on how to de...
Are deus ex-esque augmentations viable in the near or possibly far future?	[ "mechanical, absolutely. the nanobot stuff is a bit far fetched though. you can start here if you want: _URL_1_ also this: _URL_2_ also this: _URL_3_ and this guy's work _URL_0_" ]	[ "Not a computer scientist, but your question inspired some searching and here are my results: This does appear to be a [recognized issue](_URL_3_) in [speech simulation](_URL_1_) - (paywalled review [here](_URL_5_)) [It's especially a problem when simulating the physical movements to produce image in addition to ...
To what extent did Stalin and other world leaders know about FDR's disability?	[ "Stalin and Churchill would certainly have known; the wheelchair presented a logistical challenge at several of the conferences (Yalta for instance). There's mention made of some of that throughout the Liberation Trilogy by Atkinson, and I'm sure I've seen it in some of my reading on the war in Russia (again as i...	[ "Could you perhaps present us with your original source so we can see what the author writes about it? I think I know the answer, but I would like to know what exactly the author wrote. Also, could you remove the bonus question? We do not allow discussions of events after 1993." ]
why certain surgeries require months of recovery time	[ "Well, it really depends on the part of the body being operated on. Different types of cells in different areas of the body replicate and replace at different rates. A neuron, for example, can take as long as 7 years to replace itself (which is why brain damage is such a nasty injury). Shoulder muscles can take mon...	[ "It takes a while to implement the changes. How would you like it if the law changed overnight and you had to pay fees/go to jail next day without having a chance to adapt yet." ]
The difference sherbert, sorbet, ice cream, and frozen yogurt.	[ "All of these are made by freezing a liquid while stirring it to prevent the formation of large ice crystals. * Sorbet is fruit juice, sometimes diluted. * Sherbet (no r) is fruit juice with milk (in North America, this is a weird word internationally) * Ice cream is light custard (milk, cream, sugar, egg) * Frozen...	[ "From our standpoint as users, nothing at all. From Reddit's standpoint, one of them means the backend computers told them \"sorry too busy\" and the other means that the backend didn't respond at all." ]
Question about time travel.	[ "If somebody were able to do that, you could construct another reference frame in which the person went to A before B, or B before A." ]	[ "If you are referencing the recent post here on Reddit, I would caution you that even with all the progress implied by that post, with even the best current technology, we cannot perform a human head transplant. That being stated, there is absolutely no way to answer this question without an unhealthy dose of spec...
why are vibrators/dildos seemingly so much more socially acceptable than fleshlights? (Especially in film)	[ "lock and key cultural stereotype. there is the idea that since men want sex more than women, if a guy can get a lot of sex from women, he's applauded. if a woman gets a lot of sex from a guy, she's abhorred. combined with more modern ideals, if a woman has a dildo she's empowering her sexuality, while if a man has...	[ "A TV remote is just a tiny infrared flashlight basically. It only sends signals and uses any power while you push down the buttons. A game controller is constantly talking to the game system via radio frequencies." ]
Why Northern North America didn't have large ancient civilizations.	[ "[They did have a few large ancient civilizations](_URL_0_). The problem is that a lot of Northern North America isn't really suitable for agriculture, and large civilizations don't work without farmers." ]	[ "Try ask in /r/Archaeology and /r/AskAnthropology/. Those are the best groups to ask these type of questions." ]
How far were the Romans from an Industrial Revolution?	[ "This question has been asked before: [How far away was the Roman Empire from an Industrial Revolution?](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Related question: what was the size and importance of the medieval bleach industry?" ]
What does fox news do to give its self such a bad rep?	[ "They lie. On purpose. All the fucking time. You would be hard pressed to find another major news agency that knowingly and purposefully lies as much as Fox News. It really is sad that they get away with it." ]	[ "There is a delay - it's not really live. Every since the Janet Jackson nip slip there has been a 7 second delay (at least) that allows for bleeping or censoring in _almost_ realtime." ]
Why is a second 9,192,631,770 oscillations of caesium 133?	[ "Caesium 133 oscillates at a very precise frequency, and the second was already defined (less reliably) as 1/31,556,925.9747 of a year. (And it had been first defined as 1/86,400 of a day). They chose a number that precisely matched that original definition, so all earlier scientific data remains accurate (when you...	[ "Your calculator doesn't store all of the digits for 2^50, so the 1 at the very end gets removed from the memory. How many digits a calculator actually holds depends from calculator to calculator." ]
Why are we so surprised and disgusted by what we sound like when our voices are recorded?	[ "Because when we hear our voice, it's a combination of both air and bone conduction. When we hear it played back, it's missing the bone conduction and sounds different to what we think our voice sounds like. [Here's a not-science article with some credible source material](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "This is possible and if you have a smart phone that has the facebook app on it, most likely happening. The technology is possible because in your pocket you are carrying a device that has (among other things): -A microphone -A connection to the internet. That's it. That's all it takes. The only way to 100% ensure ...
Why do people say cattle is responsible for a lot of greenhouse gas emissions.	[ "Methane isnt a greenhouse gas simply because it contains carbon. Methane is an issue because despite having the same number of carbons as carbon dioxide, its a far stronger green house gas. This has to do with the molecular structure, not the contents of the molecule itself persay. So while Cows do not have a carb...	[ "Was Oliver North really just a scapegoat for the big fishes?" ]
Why did Britons get defeated by Saxons?	[ "You mention that you imagine the Britons having better technology. Could you talk a little more about that? It's not something I'm familiar with." ]	[ "Or would you put it down to factors such as the Army, Parliament, the Major General rule, religion at the time?" ]
Why aren’t USB and HDMI cables designed to be inserted both ways?	[ "It wasn't considered an issue when they were first designed. You weren't expected to be regularly plugging things in, you were expected to just set up your computer and leave it at that." ]	[ "This isn't an exact answer to your question, but there's something called an Inverse Problem, where one process is much more difficult than the opposite. A simple example is squaring and square rooting. With a pencil and paper, find 432^2 , and then independently, find the square root of 186624. Another example is...
If every digital thing is a bunch of 1s and 0s, approximately how many 1's or 0's are there for storing a text file of 100 words?	[ "In addition to all the other excellent answers: Computers can be very clever about storing text by looking for patterns. If, for example, you want to save the text \"gimme a beer gimme a beer gimme a beer\" this could be expressed as \"gimme a beer\"(x3) and need a fraction of the 1s/0s you might expect otherwise....	[ "Suppose there are tax brackets of $100, $200, with rates of 10, 20 percent. The first $100 of your income is taxed at 10%. If you make a dollar, the tax is 10 cents; if you make the full $100, the tax is $10. Now, what happens when you bump your income up to $101. If we did it your way, the tax would be 101 * 20%,...
If I were trapped in an air-tight room, how many plants would it take to produce enough oxygen for me to survive? [parameters inside]	[ "I think that [this](_URL_0_) answers your question nicely. \"...between 300 to 400 plants are needed to produce enough oxygen to keep a person alive in an hour.\"" ]	[ "Here's a way of thinking about it. When you first choose a door, there is a 1 in 3 chance of picking the door with a prize behind it. You are more likely to have picked a door with no prize. You would, theoretically, expect to pick a door with no prize 2 out of 3 times. Then, a door with no prize is eliminat...
If I build a large enclosure and maintain its oxygen levels at twice the normal levels, could I grow giant insects? And how many generations would it take for them to get significantly larger?	[ "Millions of years, if at all. The things you listed aren't limiting factors in the traditional sense, they are simply environmental conditions. The incests aren't being kept small because the factors prevent them from growing, they are small because they evolved to be so in response to the conditions." ]	[ "If it fucks, makes a baby, and that baby can fuck and make a baby? Same species. Fuck, make a baby, but that baby cab only fuck and not make more babies? Related genus but not the same. Can fuck bug not make babies? Completely different species. Can't even fuck one another? Not trying hard enough. Can't fuck but...
When I poke my eye near my tear duct, what causes the black spot in the opposite corner of my sight?	[ "You can also poke your eye on the other side, to make the blotch appear toward your nose. (Look toward your nose while doing it.) You can also look upwards, poke your eye in your lower eyelid, and see the blotch high above. Try it with both eyes, see if you can make 3D stereo blotches. Same with looking downward. ...	[ "> When you're outside on a cold day, your nose tries its best to warm up the cold air you breathe before sending it to the lungs. Tiny blood vessels inside your nostrils open wider (dilate), helping to warm up that air. But that extra blood flow leads to more mucus production. You know what happens next. Drip, dri...
How votes were tallied on a National level before computers	[ "Many precincts still do hand counts but after polling stations close the volunteers start the process of hand counting ballots and then when they have finished counting they report their numbers to the regional election office who is responsible for tallying countywide results and reporting them to the state." ]	[ "[Here's](_URL_0_) a report from WBUR's Radio Boston on why some towns in New Hampshire receive higher Federal scrutiny of their elections procedures under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. tl;dl In 1970 New Hampshire had a literacy test and unusually low voter turnout triggered the oversight." ]
Why do fingers swell when you jam them?	[ "When you injure a body part, there is an increase of blood flow to the area. This helps with the healing process, by bringing more oxygen and nutrients to the area. It swells with the increased blood." ]	[ "Food Scientist here: Looked up the ingredients online but could not find the exact ingredients for the icing. However I will give it my best shot. It has too do with the amount of solids that is in the icing (mainly sugar and corn starch). The sugar will bind to the water, and will keep the water from forming very...
There's a huge variety of edible tubers in the Andes. Why are the potatoes we know the only ones that really spread out from there?	[ "Not all tubers are easily mass produced. The Andes have a diverse speciation due to complex evolutionary relationships based on steeped clines caused by altitudinal changes. Cassava is another important tuber, that is just not as known in America and Europe but certainly important throughout much of Latin America....	[ "American here, we don't like anything new near our buttholes. New things scare us, anything to do with buttholes scare us. We may be the best country in the world but we are very shy about our buttholes." ]
How are glaciers (the largest source of water) fresh water but the ocean is made of salt water?	[ "Sea water has gathered dissolved ions in it for billions of years. Thats why its salty. Those ions don't evaporate with the water and the don't fall as snow or rain that later becomes freshwater sources on Earth. The ice caps may be the largest source of fresh water on Earth at the moment, but the oceans have bee...	[ "Hello! I have degrees in molecular genetics and human physiology, so I’m not an expert in amphibian/reptile physiology. But I’ll give your question a go! The problem with most animals (mammals, for example) when it comes to freezing is the formation of ice crystals inside of our cells. They physically get in the w...
Is a degree in History worth anything?	[ "I have a History BA, and in my opinion it was a huge waste of money. It's exactly as valuable as any other Arts degree is, which is to say, not very. It's better than a high school degree, that's about it. People will tell you that companies like to hire history grads because they've learned strong critical thinki...	[ "Is there a specific region and time period you are interested in? If not, your question would break our \"poll type\" question rule." ]

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