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Can someone tell me what would cause a star to blink red, green, and blue to the naked eye? | [
"Twinkling is caused by [scintillation](_URL_0_), a phenomenon which is caused by moving air layers with different densities and temperatures. The star's light is refracted while it travels through these layers, so you can see the different wavelength (colors) of that light It can affect any star, although it is mo... | [
"While nothing can go faster than the speed of light *in a vacuum* (such a speed doesn't really make sense), something can go faster than the speed of light in other things. Light slows down as it passes through things, which is why refraction works (e.g. for lenses). What you see is a sort of \"light boom\" which ... |
Why are so many serial killers male, and why are female victims the most common? | [
"1. More men are serial killers because testosterone creates a greater perpencity for violence and lack of empathy 2. More women are victims because crime is largely committed by either A) lack of social mobility, B) invalidated emotional states, and C) greed. Women fulfill all the necessary remedies for these thin... | [
"_URL_2_ columnist William Saletan waded into this issue several years ago with similar questions to yours. Here's an article posted AFTER his initial article and several followups, all of which can be reached via links within the article. It's an interesting journey with commentary from psychologists, statistician... |
As an Australian, everytime I listen to Star Spangled Banner I feel very patriotic. Is there a particular reason such as the keys or tune that causes this? | [
"Anthems are designed to do this. I don't know exactly what it is, but many anthems have similar effects.try listening to some other ones."
] | [
"It's called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon -- your brain wants to look for patterns in things, so when it learns something new, it gets to make all sorts of new patterns appear."
] |
Why doesn't the ISS or orbiting satellites ever collide or get hit with misc space junk? | [
"They do collide with space junk. That's why they have to be built to withstand collisions with small objects flying at very high speeds. When explosions happen in space, there's no air resistance to slow down objects after they are thrown at such high velocities. So there are things orbiting earth at hundreds of m... | [
"Very careful simulation based on testing data. Engineers have experimentally gathered data about all the different materials used to make the telescope. This data includes failure points given applied loads, vibrational frequencies, etc. They can use this along with a computational model of the sattelite to predic... |
If I were to put a capacitor in a microwave oven, would it be charged by current induced by the microwaves? | [
"The capacitor would not charge. The net voltage swings integrate out to zero. Meaning the positive and negative voltage swings cancel out. But an LED is a diode and it would rectify the microwaves to produce net DC in it. So it would light. But maybe for only a few microseconds. The microwave field is so high pow... | [
"[This paper in 2010](_URL_0_) suggests there is some effects, not in DNA damage but in cell replication. The paper still mentions that findings are still heavily debated, citing problems of reproducibility. In the study they're using 0.1 - 0.5 mT (which is about 1 - 5 Gauss), and in the 2010 study I cited they use... |
Why do we pee so much when we drink alcohol? | [
"Alcohol inhibits the pituitary gland from producing anti-diuretic hormone (ADH). ADH is what tells your kidneys \"When you're done processing that waste, re-absorb most of the water\". So water goes right through your kidneys to your bladder and you have to pee a lot. By the by, a hangover makes you feel like crap... | [
"Your body can only process a certain amount of water within a certain amount of time. Anything extra gets pushed through the system faster. Think of it like putting a bucket under a faucet and another bucket under a waterfall. Your body can only process one bucket at a time, so even though the waterfall will fill... |
What makes AMD graphics cards so popular for cryptocurrency mining, and why does it matter? | [
"They are generally a good deal cheaper than Nvidia cards and for a good while now the architecture That AMD has been using (GCN aka graphics core next) turns out is really good for mining operations and better than Nvidia. So it makes sense for miners to use AMD since the cards are cheaper and they get better mini... | [
"Some connectors (such as headphone jacks) have an actual switch inside the jack that gets pressed when a cable is plugged in. HDMI doesn't. HDMI has two pins called the [Display Data Channel](_URL_0_ that allows the computer to get \"side\" information like how big the monitor is, what resolutions it can support, ... |
On my phone, what is GPRS, and what does turning it on and off do? | [
"It is the slowest form of Internet on your phone. If you've not got a 4G signal it will look for 3G. If you've got no 3G it will look for 2G. If there's no 2G it will look for GPRS."
] | [
"Both special relativity and general relativity affect clock rates. * **Special relativity:** Faster moving clocks run more slowly, so a low orbit (fast moving) clock runs more slowly than a high orbit (slow moving) clock or than a stationary clock on the Earth. * **General relativity:** Low altitude clocks run mor... |
How exactly do UN Peacekeeping forces (the deployed troops) ensure peace? | [
"It doesn't always work, but the idea is based around a show of force. Essentially, the idea is that by having a large (sometimes larger than indigenous forces) peace keeping army in place, then whatever factions are warring will think twice before taking certain actions. Essentially, it means that for fear of wha... | [
"They typically don't do \"cool movie things\" because real life isn't a cool action movie. About the most they've done recently (at least, publicly) is get in trouble with prostitutes, get drunk, and sneak into the white house when they shouldn't. Behind the scenes, they're responsible for keeping the President sa... |
How does a smoke detector's test button test the operation of the it to ensure it will work correctly in case there's a fire? | [
"On older detectors, it likely tested just the alarm and battery as others have said, however, more recent designs usually use a rather clever single-chip solution such as the [MC145010](_URL_0_). If you read the data sheet, the TEST pin (16) actually tests the photoelectric detection system by increasing the gain ... | [
"Your phone/laptop has a small internal battery that's used to regulate some circuits including the one used for the clock. Edit: You're not a phone. Oops."
] |
Crusades - What was the significance of the Battle of Hattin 1187? | [
"It was the overwhelming military victory that opened the way for Saladin to retake Jerusalem. Crusader losses made it difficult to continue an effective defense without reinforcements from Europe, but those wouldn't arrive for a couple of years."
] | [
"Awesome question, you’re right that the research about this kinda sucks. If you are good at interpreting/understanding research articles then check this out, if not then I’ll cover the details below so don’t worry: _URL_0_ Generally, research of this nature is done using model organisms, in the case of this study... |
How do speakers play multiple sounds at once? | [
"Interesting question if asked in reverse — how does your ear *hear* different sounds at the same time? All it can do is hear the sum of all the mixed vibrations hitting your ear at the same time. Your brain does a lot of the work, I guess."
] | [
"It has nothing to do with the file. It depends on whether or not the program says it's done with the file. Your word processor says \"hey I'm using this file\" for as long as it's open; apparently, your media player says it's done as soon as the song is loaded."
] |
how seeing eye dogs know where to go. | [
"Seeing eye dogs are guided by the blind person. They are trained to do what the human wants unless it would be unsafe. They keep humans from walking into holes or in front of cars, they are not GPS devices."
] | [
"Because you're a good boy, yes you are! who's a good boy?"
] |
What does it mean to flood or stall an engine? | [
"To stall an engine means to accidentally stop it running, by asking it to do more than it's capable off. The easiest way to stall an engine, with a manual gearbox, is to lift off the clutch too quickly. It's possible to stall an engine with an automatic gearbox too, but much harder. To flood an engine means to put... | [
"Working for the man. You are essentially loaning the bank the money during the interim period. They day-trade with everyone's float and keep the profits."
] |
Why is there little to no market for Native Ameican food? | [
"Regardless of the answers that may come up about the \"market\" for native American foods. I'd like to point out a [great older thread](_URL_0_) from /r/AskHistorians that talks about native american foods that may show you, that there is a whole lot of market for it... its just foods we don't necessarily associat... | [
"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."
] |
When in human history did graffiti become popular? | [
"There is a movie by Werner Herzog about the Chauvet Cave. Contains some of the earliest known cave paintings according to wikipedia. They are made ~30,000–32,000 years before present (1950)[_URL_4_]. Chauvet Cave entry on Wikipedia: _URL_4_ Docu Trailer: _URL_3_"
] | [
"Is there a specific region and time period you are interested in? If not, your question would break our \"poll type\" question rule."
] |
How are cameras able to follow who has the football in the NFL without fail, as well as when it flies through the air? | [
"They have a lot of cameras all around and [above the field](_URL_0_), run by professionals trained to see where the ball is. The bird's eye perspective of the cameras also make it much easier for the cameramen to track where the ball is. Also, each play starts out with a wide shot, and only focuses in on a player ... | [
"Nielsen does this, they tell you how on [their website](_URL_0_), but basically they just randomly select people and track everything they do by asking them to write down everything and walk around the streets with microphones to record whatever people are listening to. They aggregate the data and produce the rati... |
Is our peripheral vision really grayscale? | [
"Its not greyscale, however, colour perception is significantly reduced compared to the centre of our vision. When you look at something directly, it falls on a part of the eye [the fovea] that contains only cone cells. These cells allow us to see in colour. However, outside of that small part of the eye, rod cells... | [
"They just guess what colors should be there. For example we know what color the grass, sky, or skin color would be. Things such as a shirt, wall paper, or a book would just be our best judgement."
] |
Audio question: How does a speaker reproduce the sounds of multiple instruments at the same time? | [
"Answers here: * _URL_0_ * _URL_1_ * _URL_2_"
] | [
"That depends on the access point (the device actually sending out the wireless signal). In most cases, the broadband modem/router/access point is all one single device. There's something called QoS (quality of service) where you can give priority to some devices over others. The procedure to get into the control p... |
What makes scientists think that there is more than three dimensions? | [
"It's based on math. You need two dimensions to determine the location on a piece of paper, or plane. You need three dimensions to determine the position in space. the fourth dimension you can determine the position in space at any given time. What will blow your mind is getting you head around the fact that some ... | [
"Watch this video by Veritasium: _URL_1_ I think it answers your questions."
] |
How would things be different if it was the native Americans who "discovered" Europe? | [
"An interesting question, but better suited to /r/HistoricalWhatIf :)"
] | [
"Unfortunately, AskHistorians only deals with what did happen, not what *might have* happened and I've therefore had to remove your post. However, your question would be perfect for /r/HistoricalWhatIf, should you wish to cross-post. Thank you."
] |
Why do Dead animals stay preserved in alcohol instead of rotting like it would in water? | [
"Rotting doesn't just happen, bacteria and fungi have to breed in the dead tissue and start consuming it. Alcohol kills them all off. If the environment around the body is too cold, too dry, too oxygen poor, or too toxic, the decomposers die too and the body is mummified."
] | [
"Barrels breathe. They expand and contract with temperature changes, drawing the spirits into the wood and then pushing them out again. They also allow in a small amount of air that filters through the wood. The interaction of the spirit with the wood, the char on the barrel, and the air is what ages it. Once it's ... |
How is digital/electronic money created? What data is associated with a piece of digital money other than just the value (e.g: $1 = 1.00), and what's stopping Joe Schmoe from somehow creating counterfeit digital money? | [
"Digital money is created the same way paper checks \"create\" money: They don't, it's just a tool for a system of accounting."
] | [
"What is the MSRP of a 2019 Toyota Camry? * If I said $20,000, that could mean it could cost $15,000.00 and I just rounded up. Or it could cost $24,999.99 and I rounded down. * If I said $24,000, that could mean it cost between $23,500.00 and $24,499.99 This goes on until you reach the actual MSRP of the car, whic... |
How are cell towers able to transmit different information to every cellphone as opposed to broadcasting everyone the same information when listening to the radio? | [
"Cell towers do in fact transmit the same information to every cellphone in range. However, the data is encrypted, so that only the correct phone can understand the information meant for that particular phone. Each phone gets a time slot where the data sent is for that phone, and each phone gets a time slot where ... | [
"Likely based on maps of coverage area, overlaid with maps of where people live. The accuracy of either type of map isn't perfect (if coverage is blocked by a very specific hill in an otherwise-covered area, for example). But it's feasible to cover *basically all* of a big city, and these small urban areas contain ... |
What type of virus is HPV? | [
"\"Lytic or lysogenic\" are terms that refer to bacteriophages -- viruses that infect bacteria. It's not appropriate to use them for viruses like papillomaviruses, that infect eukaryotic cells. Generally speaking, when papillomaviruses integrate into the host genome (which is part of the process that leads to mali... | [
"\"America\" can't, but Texans in his district certainly can. Once every two years they get the opportunity Mr. Smith is a congressman, and he represents one particular place. Only people from that place get to vote for or against him. Unfortunately Mr. Smith represents a wealthy area near Austin, Texas where I sus... |
Did the Roman Empire ever have to engage in 'counter insurgency'? What did it look like? | [
"If referring to the \"hearts and minds\" type of counter insurgency operation like the recent wars in the Middle East, the Imperial Romans did not engage in much of that. \"Kill everyone\" was much more politically acceptable and expedient for them. Casualty numbers for revolts against the Romans were massive. Jos... | [
"Here are some others to check out: Marincola, J. (2011). Greek and Roman historiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kraus, C. S., Marincola, J., Pelling, C. B. R., & Woodman, A. J. (2010). Ancient historiography and its contexts: Studies in honour of A.J. Woodman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pausch, D. ... |
How come when you drop a ball on Concrete, it will bounce up a certain height and speed, but when it is dropped on a corner or edge, it will accelerate faster and go farther? | [
"When a ball falls down all of its momentum is going straight down which then when it bounces back up it has to fight gravity so a lot of energy is lost, when it bounces on an edge its momentum gets transferred horizontally which doesn't fight gravity and only has to fight air resistance so less energy is lost so i... | [
"The square cube law. Imagine a sugar cube that's 1 x 1 x 1 cm. There is I cubic cm of sugar there. Now imagine a sugar cube of 3 × 3 × 3 cm. There is not 3 cubic cm of sugar, but 27 cubic cm of sugar. The volume of material the cube is made of increases at a much higher rate than the size of the object, but the de... |
Why isn't Scientology considered a cult? | [
"They are considered to be a cult. There is no law against cults in the U.S. so it doesn't really matter here. Germany is not so friendly to scientologists."
] | [
"> how it really amounts to a bunch of bologna I don't have an answer, but I do need to point out that bologna = lunch meat. Baloney = nonsense."
] |
Is homebrew genetic engineering possible? | [
"You may want to look into the DIYbio movement. As far as I know, however, there's nothing available that would let you at home come up with an arbitrary genetic sequence, produce it yourself, and inject it into a bacteria or whatever. You can always do oldschool breeding, though. And there are kits available to d... | [
"This has been done before, with animals. Here is a video **allegedly** showing an old Russian experiment done with a dog. It looks real to me, but, then so did *The Wizard of Oz*. Warning, it might be disturbing and upsetting to watch. _URL_0_"
] |
Is watching a movie on a phone held close to your face an equivalent viewing experience to sitting a distance away from a big screen if they cover the same area of your field of vision? If not, why not? | [
"It isn't a matter of scale, but rather your eyes' focal point. Even if a big screen and a phone held up close are equivalent, there is still a difference between focusing your eyes several inches in front of you versus 50 feet away. ETA: I might answering LI6, so someone with more knowledge please come in and help... | [
"Light travels through a hole in each eye. When light passes through a smaller hole, it is more focused, stronger. Squinting makes the hole in your eye smaller. It hurts if you do it for too long because squinting tenses muscles around your eyes, and they get tired."
] |
How do arcade tokens work and can generic ones be used at any arcade? | [
"Some machines have the ability to weigh an inserted token (this is why arcade tokens are so heavy) to make sure it is viable. Also, others judge the tokens by their size (this is why some arcade tokens are huge). Some machines implement both of these systems to ensure maximum security. I saw a youtube video on thi... | [
"In 2000, while excavating the Boston Saloon site in Virginia City, Nevada (operated 1866-1875), we discovered [these mutilated coins](_URL_6_) beneath the floorboards. Cutting the half dollar, in particular, would have taken a great deal of effort and focus. Kelly Dixon, who directed the archaeological field schoo... |
What is a tax haven? | [
"Short version - A tax haven is a place where you have very low tax rates, the government/bank does not disclose how much its clients have, and foreign tax investigators are not allowed access to information. Long version - Tax havens are used usually by the rich as a way to store their money without paying taxes o... | [
"This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_"
] |
What would happen if someone swallowed super glue? | [
"Commercial Super Glue (CA) will set almost instantly when it contacts saliva. It's made to do that. You can use spit as \"Jet Kicker\". Likely, you wouldn't be able to swallow it as it will set so fast and be stuck to your tongue. You can use hot water to remove it when bound to skin. If you're trying to swallow m... | [
"Here is a good video on what you're talking about: _URL_0_ Basically the esophagus and the trachea are separated by the epiglottis. So when stuff goes down the wrong tube it means your food went down your trachea instead of your esophugus."
] |
Why is laughter a response to funiness? Why laughing? | [
"This is well studied but not well understood. We know that laughter is vocalized same reason that screaming in pain is vocalized. They are both announcement for those around us about what we are feeling for social benefit."
] | [
"I believe it involves something called mirror neurons. The connections in our brain are formed from cells called neurons, that will cause electrical signals to be sent to different areas, and to to other cells in the body. The way a mirror neuron works is weird but interesting. Essentially the same neurons involve... |
When did humans begin extensively studying history? | [
"The conventional answer is that the study of western history begins with [Herodotus](_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_... |
How can a Moon that's so far away from the sun (Titan, for example) generate enough heat to maintain liquid water oceans? | [
"Titan doesn't have liquid water oceans, it has liquid methane and ethane oceans. There are moons like Enceladus that are believed to have liquid water under the surface. This is caused by [tidal heating](_URL_0_), where the gravity of a large nearby body (like Saturn or Jupiter) causes the planet to flex so much t... | [
"In cookery we have dry heat and wet heat. Wet heat is boiling and stewing - effectctively cooking by immersing in warm liquid. Dry heat is grilling or deep frying. Deep frying counts as dry heat since once the skin crisps, further oil does not penetrate it. Microwaves heat the water molecules in the food, and cook... |
How does a gas station manage to serve thousands of cars multiple gallons of gas a day when the gas tanker trucks that deliver gas don’t look like they hold that much? How do gas stations manage to keep up with their demand? | [
"The underground tanks are bigger than one fuel tanker holds and they can deliver at all hours of the day. Tankers hold from 3000 to 6000 gallons of fuel, that’s a lot of cars you can fill"
] | [
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How do snakes move? ](_URL_0_) ^(_7 comments_) 1. [How the fuck do snakes move? ](_URL_4_) ^(_1 comment_) 1. [ELI5: How do snakes move so fast? Actually how do they move forward at all? ](_URL_5_) ^(_4 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How do snakes move for... |
What exactly does pumping your arms do when running? | [
"balance, for one, just as they provide in slower walks. just pin your arms to your sides and try running without moving them (also please video this). your upper body will have to lean further away from the receding foot to keep your torso low-centered. I suppose it would add core challenge... may be a new thing"
... | [
"Nobody knows why or even if it works, but that and variations of it are common practise in many countries. Cultural memes are like that, they spread, even if they don't have any real function."
] |
Why does pushing something feels like it requires less effort than pulling something? | [
"It could also be due to how you use your hands. Having to grip something in order to pull puts a lot of strain on wrists and fingers. When we push we don't need to grab onto anything."
] | [
"It has to do with vector math -- linear work is a dot product between force and displacement, while torque is a cross product between force and distance from the pivot. The dot product can be viewed as a quantity that increases as the two vectors are more parallel, and the cross product increases as the vectors ar... |
Why don't we put all power lines underground? | [
"Generally it's cheaper to run them above ground. It's also far less disruptive in metro areas where you may have to run across streets and homes, and potentially conflict with lots of other underground utilities like water, sewer, street drains, etc. Above ground lines are also much easier to repair. There are ad... | [
"The crushing pressures in the ocean among other things. And how would you remotely operate it? with miles of umbilical cabling or with radio that can only penetrate so far?"
] |
Why is the top layer of brand new chunky peanut butter so much more dense with peanuts than the rest of the jar? | [
"The peanut butter is heated to the point of being partially liquified when they pump it into the jars. The peanut pieces tend to rise slightly until the product cools enough to become more solid. **Edit:** If we want actual measurements (because \"peanuts are less dense than the peanut butter that you make from th... | [
"The secret parts of the recipe are the methods of preparation, and the amounts of each individual ingredient. All they have to declare for USDA regulations are the relative amounts of each ingredient, and certain things (\"natural flavors\") don't have to be directly specified. As far as keeping it secret inside t... |
Does gargling water reduce the risk of catching or spreading a viral infection such as influenza or rhinovirus? | [
"As far as I know, the only medical/anti-disease use of gargling is to use Salt Water or other rinses to kill off an infection in your throat (ie, sore throat). Not my area of expertise, so I'm just posting what little I do know to keep your thread from being empty. :)"
] | [
"Doctor here. I don't touch my face, eyes or nose unless I have just washed my hands. I don't eat in public without washing my hands. When I get sick, I can usually trace it back to some kind of shared food, like appies at a meeting or restaurant, and then I blame someone else. Some time ago I took an outdoor cour... |
How do multivitamins not supply the human body with all of its nutrients? | [
"The fact is that most people simply aren't that deficient in any particular nutrient that it's a medical necessity."
] | [
"I think it's also important to consider how much power the large food corporations have. They provide research funding to help promote their own products which creates a lot of contradictory/confusing information out there. For example, some people who helped develop the government recommended food guide in Canada... |
If an underage person were to have non-consensual sex with a legal aged person, and the person of legal age was the victim, who would get in trouble? | [
"The person who committed the rape would be legally responsible because the older person did not give consent. _URL_0_"
] | [
"Think of it this way. I own a house. In this house I allow several drug dealers to ply their wares. I don't sell drugs, I don't use drugs however I do FACILITATE knowingly, the use of drugs by my direct action and I am profiting off of it. Basically that's why, they know that they where facilitating the exchange o... |
How are we able to communicate with our spacecrafts so far away? (eg.New Horizons) | [
"Very powerful antenna, aimed very precisely, and very large dishes on Earth to pickup those signals. The antenna on spacecraft are extremely precise in directing a focused beam (signal) back to Earth, which makes up for their limited power. Antennas on Earth can be very powerful, and have large dishes to pick up w... | [
"Follow up question! How did nations carry out naval command and control before the invention of the radio?"
] |
Is the speed of light exactly 299,792,458 m/s? | [
"It is, because the meter is defined to the distance light travels in a certain time. The second is defined independently. Before it was defined this way, there was an uncertainty of about 10 m/s (forget the exact value)."
] | [
"The equation E = mc^(2) is true in any unit system. I could measure *E* in ergs and *m* in stones if I really wanted to. The equation would still be true. The formula is also not arbitrary at all. It's derivable from relativity."
] |
Do pharmaceutical companies really want to stop the legalization of marijuana? | [
"With marijuana legal, the sales of the follow medications would drop tremendously because marijuana is cheap and will get cheaper the longer it is legal. Muscle relaxers anti nausea pain killers appetite increases mood suppressants anxiety meds many more, but the above alone account for about billion dollars a yea... | [
"The word is that the Denver Colorado dispensary was funded by money received from Mexican drug cartels. The DEA got word through an informant and shut it down. Tldr: local$$= ok Cartel $$= fed jail"
] |
Caring for old documents | [
"UV light filtering glass is very expensive and not bulletproof light protection, unfortunately. We almost never use them in archives land, outside of very special situations where the originals need to be in constant display, like things in Washington DC. There is not a single thing in a UV frame at my archives, w... | [
"Not a direct answer to your question, but this mulching not be good practice as [a whole load of chemicals](_URL_0_) are used in the process of making the paper. Whether these will get into anything that you subsequently grow in the soil and eat and whether they are harmful to health I do not know."
] |
Why do planes fly both east and west if the Earth rotates at 1000 miles per hour? Wouldn't a plane need to fly over 1000 miles per hour to make any progress in one direction? | [
"We measure speed relative to the ground. So an object that appears stationary wouldn't be measured at 1000 mph just because it was on Earth. The air moves along with the Earth and everything along with it. If a plane had to fly over 1000 mph to make any progress, when you jumped, the ground would have move signifi... | [
"Air Force One alone costs nearly $180,000 per hour of flight as of 2012, so just taking that into account, along with the cost of security, staff, etc, you can easily see why the costs add up."
] |
If someone gets a hair transplant does the type of hair change? | [
"I don't know enough about implants or plugs or grafts, but I would imagine only the later could possibly lead to a difference in hair texture as straight or curly hair is based primarily on the shape of the follicle. If round, hair is straight. The less round, the more curly. Other factors are things like resistan... | [
"Xenotransfusion has been attempted in the 1600s, with mixed results, with sheep blood. Ape and chimp blood might work, as would pig blood as they all have similar Rh factors. Source: _URL_0_ Also, dog to cat transfusions can be done, bit only once as the cat will make antibodies to the blood. Also, apes, dogs, ca... |
Is there any truth to the claim that Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 in preemptive strike? | [
"In a word: no. In a few more words: the USSR was definitely not preparing for an imminent attack on Germany when Operation Barbarossa kicked off. Of course, we cannot know what was going on in Stalin's head and it is possible that the USSR would have joined the allies eventually anyway, but that's a different ques... | [
"There was no need to because: - Sweden already produced and sold iron ore. - Shipping is by far the cheapest means of transportation. Kiruna (the place where most of the ore comes from) is nearer to Narvik than to any other navable port/waterway. - Baltic sea tends to freeze. In the end, it would have been a total... |
What type of Government does Russia really have in practice? Socialist? Dictatorship? Democracy? | [
"Socialism is perhaps more an economic outlook than a form of government. Officially Russia is a democracy, however Putin's control over the press and a lack of general rights make it difficult to practice true democracy. As a result most would consider Russia to lean more towards a dictatorship."
] | [
"> The Derweze area is rich in natural gas. While drilling in 1971, Soviet geologists tapped into a cavern filled with natural gas.[2] The ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed, leaving a large hole with a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft) at 40°15′10″N 58°26′22″E. To avoid poisonous gas discharge, it was decided ... |
How close could two planets in say, our habitable zone be and still have a stable orbit? | [
"I have a follow up question! Is it possible for another earth sized planet to also have the exact orbital elliptical path of earth but exactly opposite to the earth? To clarify say the earth is arbitrarily on the left side the of the sun then at the same time the sister earth is the on right side. Are there any si... | [
"As Concise_Pirate points out, there are a number of species of varying degrees of intelligence here on Earth, but of course you're interested in intelligence that is similar to that of humans. There's no law of nature that forbids it. We might generally consider it to be more likely if they evolved in allopatry (b... |
why have severe allergies for example peanut allergies that can lead to someone's, death not been bred out by natural selection in humans? | [
"Because it isn't a simple gene. It is a combination of genes, as well as an environmental component. People without allergies have children with allergies. People with allergies have children without. Allergies can start off mild and over time develop into serious allergies. Or the opposite can happen, over time t... | [
"Don't get the idea that just because a tiger eats a deer, the tiger is better off than the deer. There are a lot more deer than tigers out there (and this goes for most predator-prey relationships). They have different ways of achive the goal of reproduction, but one isn't intrinsically better than the other. You ... |
If I stuck my hand in water that was magically under 1000 bars of pressure (same as the Mariana's trench bottom) what would happen to it? | [
"There's alot of good answers here, but most are missing a fundamental point: * Yes, the pressure *difference* (gauge pressure) is the primary mechanical mover for most pressure effects we see in our normal experience. * However, the *absolute* pressure in situations like this would cause the *solids* in your body ... | [
"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... |
Was there a city or cities in WWII that disguised themselves by stretching camo screening over populated and non-populated areas and switching them? | [
"Not exactly a city, but aircraft factories on U.S. west coast were camoed like that. [Article here.] (_URL_0_)"
] | [
"Depends how it's drawn. Like when you draw a picture do you draw it in pencil and then paint it? Or do you draw a little bit and paint it and then draw a little bit more. I believe it was wolfenstein which was the first game to render maps in low quality and then quickly re render in higher quality as the user wo... |
what are brushes on the sides of an escalator for? | [
"Here's [some information](_URL_0_)[PDF file] directly from one of the escalator manufacturers (Otis): > Mounted on escalator skirt panels, Otis’ staggered, double-row nylon bristles extend from the escalator sides. Passengers who stand too close to the skirt will feel the bristles and instinctively move away from... | [
"It doesn't, the ad was intended to make you associate Colgate with feeling virtuous and then want to buy Colgate the next time you're at the store."
] |
Why do we get brain freeze? | [
"From mayo clinic Scientists are still unsure about the exact mechanism that causes this pain. One theory is that the cold food or drink may temporarily alter blood flow in your nervous system, causing a brief headache. Blood vessels constrict to prevent the loss of body heat and then relax again to let blood flow ... | [
"[This](_URL_0_) previous thread explains it as [entrainment](_URL_2_). When changing the diameter of your lips, the airflow is subject to the [Bernoulli effect](_URL_1_) where it speeds up. When the air moves faster, it draws in more surrounding air which is cooler than your body temperature, thus making it feel c... |
Why the prices of milk are like this (Pic inside) | [
"Relate it to Coke bottles: 20oz bottle: $1.50 -Easy to carry and drink quickly -Fit in cup holders -Convenient -Good for on the go 68oz (2liters): $1.09 -Large, bulky -Unconventional for casual drinking -Better for taking home Both of the bottles have the same product, but the have different markets, or who they a... | [
"U.S. sales taxes are VERY Complicated. We don't have a national sales tax that applies evenly across the board. Sales tax goes down to the state, county, and even local levels. The tax you pay in one store could be completely different to the tax you pay in the store across the street in extreme circumstances. Plu... |
Is there any truth behind fairer skinned individuals facially aging faster than darker skinned individuals? | [
"1. What you see when you see a wrinkle is often the shadow the wrinkles causes. If you have light skin, then wrinkles can be more visible because the visual contrast is higher. 2. light skin people are typically more susceptible to the harms of UV rays due to the lower levels of melanin. This exposure can cause sk... | [
"UV light causes adjacent thymine or cytosine bases to form dimers, causing mutations during DNA replication. The longer strand is more likely to have these dimers generated, simply due to the increase in possible CC or TT combinations present. However, within a single protein sequence, the chance is the same. Note... |
Why is the picture in night vision goggles green? | [
"When the light enters the goggles, it's converted to electricity, then boosted electrically, then the light hits a phosphor screen (like the screen part of old school CRT displays) and converted again to light. There's no way to preserve the color, so it's effectively a black and white image, but it's converted to... | [
"It depends on how close to the center it is. In the center of the galaxy, the gravitational pull is so strong many solar systems are extremely small and contain two Suns orbiting around each other. The night there could very well look close to day here, assuming that the planet has an atmosphere."
] |
What's the oldest dynasty in exile that still has living members? | [
"[The current heir to the Hapsburg Empire was born in 1997](_URL_0_). He is an Austrian citizen but he is not allowed to use his titles there."
] | [
"There are some good answers to previous posts of this question, such as: _URL_0_ > The record keeps getting broken because so many world class observatories are taking extreme deep space imagery. > The observatory I work at, for example, routinely does this type of imagery (along with planetary discovery) - and ... |
Difference between murder and aggravated murder? | [
"Murder is killing someone. Aggravated murder is killing someone for a particularly bad reason or in a particularly bad way - for example: you were paid to do it, the victim was a judge or a police officer, you used a bomb, etc. Details will vary by jurisdiction, but here's a list of aggravating factors for Oregon:... | [
"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... |
What is Putin's ideal end game? What is he trying to accomplish with Crimea? | [
"His ideal end game is to keep Ukraine at least independent, or preferably a Russian ally. The seizure of Crimea gives Russia additional leverage over the new Kiev government, which means that Russia can make more demands than it could without Crimea. The peninsula is both a bargaining chip and a pinprick; in other... | [
"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 /... |
Is there a list somewhere of all the stars in the Milky Way? | [
"We cannot view all the stars in the Milky Way. There is a lot of dust between us and the other side of the galaxy [as you can see here in a picture of the Milky Way from earth](_URL_0_). As such there is not a complete catalog of all the stars. Heck, if they were able to catalog 1000 per day (which would be pretty... | [
"Yes we have 3d maps, [Wikipedia has one](_URL_1_) (scroll down). But maps like that are a bit tricky because it's hard to see the depth. Quick googling got [this interactive map](_URL_3_) that you can rotate freely. It's not quite quite 100 LY. You can also try standalone programs which have much bigger catalogues... |
How do you write reddit bots? | [
"I've written two. But their not as efficient as most i'm sure. I use [AutoIT](_URL_1_). It sweeps the reddit pages, parses (takes) out the data it needs, and replies / collects what it needs to. The downside is it's an executable (an application) so the computer has to be on. Meanwhile you could probably write a... | [
"I searched this sub for letters to santa, and found your question asked and answered many times. For example _URL_0_"
] |
What made Mithridates IV of Pontus so successful against Rome? | [
"Timing. He attacked Rome in the immediate aftermath of the Social Wars and roughly coinciding with Marius and Sulla's Civil War. Sulla certainly proved himself capable of smashing Mithridates' armies, but viewed the situation in Rome as more deserving of his attention, and so after driving Mithridates back he was ... | [
"The problems the Russian winter evoked weren't just coldness and snow, it was the melting period when the frozen ground began to thaw and the unpaved roads would become impassable by all kind of vehicles and even horses. This period is called [rasputitsa](_URL_0_), look at the photographs in the article and you wi... |
why don't we forget how to ride a bike? | [
"Because balance is a sense like seeing or hearing. Once you learn how to apply it to the mechanics of a bike, there's not a lot of complexity and it's easy to recall. The saying is from the early 20th century. Cars were rapidly changing and horses have their own personalities. Comparatively with bikes, once you'v... | [
"Imagine you're trying to find a coffee shop in a city. If you've been there recently, it should be pretty easy to find. If it's been 10 years since you've been to the coffee shop or the city, it might take you a LONG time to find. It also might take long to find if you've been to other, similar coffee shops in the... |
When a large nucleus absorbs a neutron, why does it undergo fission and not just emit the neutron? | [
"In a nucleus, it's a competition between the nuclear strong force and electromagnetic repulsion to hold the nucleus together or split it apart. In a large nucleus like U-235, the nuclear strong force *barely* edges over the electromagnetic repulsion. You have to note that the nuclear strong force falls off rapidly... | [
"Engineering new chaperone proteins is probably a ways off. There are potentially easier ways to treat prion diseases, anyway. Essentially, susceptible protein must \"nucleate\", or turn into an aggregate of the prion form. This process is sufficiently slow as to be negligible in vivo, though; nucleated prion prote... |
If I put a perfectly Green piece of paper in a completely dark room, and took a picture of it with a camera using a perfectly red flash, would the green Paper not appear in the picture? | [
"Interpreting perfectly green paper as meaning a piece of paper that only reflects 520nm wavelength light and absorbs all other wavelengths and red flash meaning it only emits 650nm light then the green paper would absorb the flash, not reflecting any light, so in the picture it would show up as black."
] | [
"Objects which freeze on the event horizon (from the perspective of a stationary observer at some fixed radius) become extremely redshifted over time. As we know ultimately that emitted light is granular (i.e photons), there would be a \"last blip\" of emission. > \"Now, this led early on to an image of a black h... |
Why does Magnesium have a hexagonal latice structure? | [
"Be careful not to apply the rationale of Lewis dot structures, which are all about octets and the like, to metal structures. Metals do not have distinct atomic orbitals to consider, but instead broad [*bands*](_URL_0_) of energy levels. Achieving noble gas configuration turns out to pretty much never happen in met... | [
"Look at [this picture](_URL_0_). Pretty much gets the idea across. The lines in the picture represent magentic field lines. Note how the disk is sorta \"pinched\" between them. In that fashion the disk is held in place."
] |
Will breathing in hydrogen gas make your voice even higher than from breathing in helium? And will it kill you? | [
"The only danger associated with inhaling hydrogen gas (so long as it doesn't ignite) is possible asphyxiation due to the lack of oxygen being inhaled. This danger also exists in inhaling helium and to the same extent. So as long as the helium doesn't kill you, you can perform the same actions with hydrogen instead... | [
"Humid air is less dense than dry air, because N2 is 28 amu and O2 is 32 amu, while H2O is 18 amu. This means there's less drag and less lift when the air is humid. To generate the same amount of lift in humid air, an airplane must either fly faster, fly in a more nose high attitude, or fly with flaps. In practice,... |
Why do we use maps the direction we do? And has there been any conflicting maps from different cultures in history that actually looked at maps upside down compared to other cultures? | [
"Medieval European maps were oriented every which way (well, within the cardinal directions). The fixation on a north=up orientation occurs with the revival of the Greek/Ptolemaic mapmaking tradition during the Renaissance. It might have even been a direct influence from Ptolemy's map (*Geography* was translated in... | [
"Honestly the answer will depend on how narrowly you want to define 'sandwich'. People all over the world have been eating things wrapped in bread (including flatbreads) for, well, ages. If they made bread, they made sandwiches."
] |
AskHistorians Podcast 087 - The Battle of Jutland, Part 1 | [
"As a footnote to this podcast: in between recording this podcast and now, I read John Brook's *The Battle of Jutland*. In this, Brooks casts doubt on the story about Room 40 I repeat in the podcast. Apparently, the German messages giving the British information on German plans weren't broken until after the messag... | [
"In the 1832 Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall, in the majority opinion, ruled that the Cherokee nation was its own distinct community and not subject to the laws of a particular state. How, Andrew Jackson chose not to enforce that ruling, thus paving the way for the Trail of Tear... |
What did the Aztecs do with the bodies of their many daily human sacrifices? | [
"hi! FYI, if you're interested in listening about it rather than reading, there was a great AskHistorians podcast recently that touches on this [AskHistorians Podcast Episode 003 Discussion Thread - On Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerican Cultures](_URL_3_)"
] | [
"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."
] |
Is there a difference in sound quality when I use the volume control wheel (a variable resistor, I assume) on my headphones as opposed to changing the volume through software? | [
"It is possible, the noise level of your computer output is generally constant, not depending of the software volume. If you put your software control to a low value and your pot to max, you amplify noise. So it is better to have your computer to a higher level to have a better signal to noise ration, and if this i... | [
"In a permanent-magnet DC generator, the output voltage is determined by the RPM, and the RPM is relative rotation between rotor and stator. So, if you spin the rotor at 100RPM, but spin the entire housing backwards at 200RPM, then the relative speed between the two is 100+200 = 300. And so the output voltage wil... |
What was life like in the US concentration camps during WWII? Were the Japanese Americans treated well and fed regularly? | [
"Is \"concentration camp\" accepted terminology? That's a very loaded phrase, usually only reserved for Nazi death camps."
] | [
"Early movie theaters (or, [Nickelodeons](_URL_1_)) provided an inexpensive and lucrative business opportunity for East European Jewish immigrants in the first decade of the twentieth century ([Sklar](_URL_2_) 41). Among them arose ambitious businessman Carl Laemmle, a German-born Jew, who was able to develop what ... |
How does acetaminophen act on the body to reduce fever? What actually causes the fever to drop? | [
"For non-Americans - he means paracetamol. In terms of how it works though, like most (if not all) antipyretics, paracetamol essentially interferes with the hypothalamus, which calls for a rise in temperature in response to infection. Paracetamol inhibits an enzyme (called cyclo-oxygenase) which inhibits the mechan... | [
"It means that physics, as we know it now, is actually a low energy solution to a more general high energy theory. The common analogy is the ferromagnet. Above a high temperature (the Curie Temperature) the magnetic domains are all randomly aligned. But as the ferromagnet cools, the solution will snap into an align... |
How do drug dealers make profit when they are buying drugs from another drug dealer who most likely bought drugs from another dealer? | [
"The same is true of literally any product in the world. For example, when you buy groceries, you don't buy from farmers do you? You buy from a store, that buys from a distributor, that buys from farmers. The farmer sells in bulk to the distributor who sells in less bulk to the store who sells in single units to yo... | [
"You also have to consider with gasoline: 1. Crude oil drilled out of the ground 2. Transported by train/pipe/boat to refinery 3. Goes through a multi-step process refining process involving a lot of pumps and heaters 4. Delivered by truck to a gas station. Losses due to transportation are probably small, but the t... |
Why is a battery's charge speed limited? Why can't it be instantaneous? | [
"Internal resistance and heat generated through incomplete conversion of electrical energy to chemical energy is the limiting factor. If you force too much energy too quickly into your batteries, they explode. They are working on some graphene super capacitors that could be charged in 1 minute or less and could con... | [
"Protecting intellectual property was supposed to foster innovation. To encourage people to come up with new ideas, because new ideas would be profitable for a while (the term of the copyright). However, giving limitless copyright terms causes the opposite effect: Nobody innovates or comes up with new ideas, becaus... |
Does poor sleep affect how long you'll live? | [
"So, it's a somewhat controversial issue, and there is some evidence that poor/insufficient sleep may **directly** contribute to decreased life span. However, what we DO know, is that poor/insufficient sleep can **indirectly** influence longevity by way of contributing to other health problems that clearly impact l... | [
"Current understanding is, that **one factor** in getting Myopia (short-sightedness) is [**not being exposed enough to natural outdoor light**](_URL_3_). So the **myth around staring at the TV will get you bad eyesight has some basis in the fact**, that at this times you are indoors and exposed to artificial lighte... |
Help with relating fundamental mechanics to calculus? | [
"The work done is the integral of force over distance, and this can be transformed into an integral of momentum over velocity: F dx = ma dx = m (dv/dt) dx = m dv (dx/dt) = mv dv The point is that if force only depends on position, and not velocity, then the work done is a total differential of kinetic energy. Thus ... | [
"Here's an imaging example : Let's look the absolute value of the Fourier Transform curve, which is a function of real numbers as a function frequency (just look at the positive frequencies). The value of the low frequency parts tells you if there is a lot of slowly-varying variations in the image while the higher ... |
Is this claim 'We know more about space than our own deep ocean' true? And why? | [
"Not in any obvious sense of the word. However, the claim is so vague and the wording is so subjective that there's no real way to answer this."
] | [
"Because when the Russians were coming up with a name, they chose \"universe explorer\" while the USA chose \"star explorer\""
] |
Is translational energy quantized like rotation and vibration, or is it a continuum? | [
"Yes, these translational levels are quantised - they are what you get out of the particle in a box exercises that you may have done when introduced to QM. They are extremely closely spaced, such that translational energy often \"looks\" classical because so many different translational energy levels are populated ... | [
"> My question is can you create a transformation of a quantum state, that from state |1 > +|0 > creates a state |0 > +|1 > . You can verify that the operator |1 > < 0| + |0 > < 1| does this. This is simply the Pauli σ*_x_* matrix, in the standard basis. > Add entanglement here, meaning from state |01 > +|10 > pro... |
Why below sea level areas of New Orleans were resettled after Katrina | [
"New Orleans has the largest port in the western hemisphere, out of which sixty percent of the midwest's grain supply is exported. It would be absurdly foolish to just abandon one of the nations most important cities, simply because of some flooding, especially considering this is not the first time the city has be... | [
"It's an excuse to be assholes. I live in St. Louis, which is where the Ferguson debacle was. Half of the stores there are closed. They do it to themselves."
] |
What causes us to blink when there's a loud sound? | [
"Pressure changes from the sound, and instinctive reaction to \"unexpected thing = protect sensitive organ\""
] | [
"It is supposed to be a natural reaction that our ancestors used to survive. It would keep them away from the nests of dangerous insects such as termites. It was the body's way of trying to avoid the danger and keep alive. If you believe in evolution you could say that it is part of evolution."
] |
Has all of the earth's land been discovered? | [
"There are new islands forming regularly from volcanic activity, but none would contain prehistoric life. There are certainly cave systems that we have not discovered that may contain various animals and fossils. There is an island, North Sentinel Island, where the native inhabitants have developed their own societ... | [
"Not any time soon. For example, in 1787, Mozart created a game when you rolled dice to randomly select measures you could put together to build a waltz. Turns out there are over 700 trillion combinations, meaning every man, woman, and child in the world could each have 100 million unique waltzes \"composed\" by Mo... |
My college campus in the south closes for just 1 inch of snow. How can a northern campus stay open with harsher weather | [
"Infrastructure. Northern cities build their infrastructure to handle snow. They have salt trucks, snow plows, etc to make travel safe. Southern areas don't because it wouldn't be economical to maintain that equipment for the one to two days a year they may need it."
] | [
"Because small pox is one specific virus, whereas the words \"cold\" and \"flu\" actually refer to a wide variety of different diseases that all have very similar symptoms. Furthermore, they mutate very quickly. It's sort of like people saying that they're looking for the \"cure for cancer\" - that's similarly misl... |
How do you find good reviews of recent history/"current events"/social science books without access to University paid for subscriptions to journals? | [
"If you live near a university you will likely be able to use their database access in the library. If you don't want to go to that trouble, you can also try using google scholar. It will lead to many academic articles. You will not have access to all of them, but many of them are available for free. You will want... | [
"If you have a spare afternoon or two I'd check out these two Khan Academy playlists on the [Credit Crisis](_URL_2_) and the [Paulson Bailout](_URL_0_), and if you want to learn more about how banks work check out this [Banking and Money](_URL_1_) playlist as well; there's a few others on finance and credit as well... |
How do humans feel heat? | [
"The average core temperature is actually 98.6, but that's not terribly important to the discussion; the average temperature at the surface of the skin is lower than 98.6. [Here's](_URL_0_) a useful graph relating ambient temperature and skin temperature. What we feel as being cool is the transfer of thermal energy... | [
"Well, we don't, exactly. But we can estimate, since we know how big the Earth is (and thus how much pressure there is there) and what the Earth is made of (and thus how much radioactive decay is heating it)."
] |
I have just been sent to prison in the Soviet Union. What should I expect? | [
"To piggy-back off of this, what was the Soviet criminal justice system like for non-political offenses? What investigative methods were employed? What was the case clearance rate like?"
] | [
"You seem to be describing a variant of the [ladder paradox](_URL_0_), just using a train and tunnel instead of a ladder and a garage, he he. > What does the outside observer see? The outside observer sees the front guillotine make a cut, then later after the train has passed further through the tunnel, the back g... |
Do all forms of fire or "burning" require oxygen? Can we have fire on Mars? | [
"CO2 is a very stable compound. Combustion is oxidization of a compound (essentially, using heat as a catalyst to cause a compound to break and re-combine with oxygen, creating a more stable oxidized compound as a result). To create a flame, you need three things: An oxidizing agent, a reducing agent (the fuel), an... | [
"FHR's are essentially like rusting iron. But with a few differences. Instead of Iron rusting the FHR's use Magnesium rusting to generate heat. But this process on its own is too slow. To be of any use this process must be accelerated. In essence a catalyst is needed just like the catalytic converted in your car wh... |
How does an oasis form in the middle of a desert and how does it not dry up because of the heat? | [
"An oasis that simply forms from something like intermittent rainfall may very well dry up. A stable oasis is more likely filled by some larger reservoir, such as an aquifer or buried river, which supplies more water than is lost to evaporation. The surface of a desert may well be very dry, but it is not necessaril... | [
"It's all about having an atmosphere, since that's what helicopters need to fly. [This article explains it quite nicely ](_URL_0_) Here's a relevant quote: *\"Elysium was that—unlike an airplane cabin—its atmosphere wasn’t canned up in some hollow tube. A landing spacecraft could enter its air like it would on Eart... |
How can the government subsidize sugar while taxing consumers for purchasing sugary drinks? | [
"Technically, sugar isn't subsidized, the [US Sugar Program](_URL_0_) seeks to artificially inflate the price of sugar by preventing imports and sometimes preventing domestic sales by local producers. That policy on sugar has lead many companies to use corn syrup and other sugar substitutes as a sweetener. Farm sub... | [
"There is mention in history books (and academic journals) on this topic. My research interests don't extend much past the 10th century CE, and not really much into tax issues, but this came up as part of a necessary footnote regarding early Muslim/Christian relations in Egypt and might give you some resources to l... |
How have USB flash drives come to be so small | [
"I believe the answer is Moore's Law, which you can learn about in this handy dandy wikipedia link I'm about to post and the only reason I'm still typing is that even though nothing more than a link to the page is necessary to answer your question, the stupid reddit rules for ELI5 require a certain amount of charac... | [
"[Here ya go](_URL_0_) tldr; Tiny tax long ago became a marketing gimmick."
] |
Do different Satan names mean different things? | [
"Some of them have been mashed together into one generalized \"bad guy\". In older versions of the Old Testament there were passages that described them as gods worshiped by tribes in conflict with Israel."
] | [
"_URL_2_ columnist William Saletan waded into this issue several years ago with similar questions to yours. Here's an article posted AFTER his initial article and several followups, all of which can be reached via links within the article. It's an interesting journey with commentary from psychologists, statistician... |
Why can we bring someone with HIV to undetectable levels, but we can't completely cure it? | [
"So HIV actually integrates into the genome of your T immune cells. Drugs can help kill any virus copies that escape these infected cells, thereby keeping it from spreading to more cells, but it doesn’t detect the virus DNA within these infected cells."
] | [
"Physicists had the same idea centuries before computers: if we could know the position and velocity of every atom in the universe, then we could know everything about it. Then we discovered quantum mechanics, which tells us that the exact position and velocity (actually, momentum) of a particle at any given time c... |
Why were there no major military campaigns in Europe during the American Revolution despite France, Great Britain, Spain, and the Netherlands being very close? | [
"I'm not sure what you are asking about exactly but there is the Angle-French War of 1778-1783, which can be viewed as an extension of covert assistance given by France, Netherlands, and Spain to the Americans, into an overt war against Britain. Perhaps you can better explain what it is you are asking."
] | [
"The tactics of the Rebellion are built more on speed than the perfidious Nelson. The Rebellion did not have the level of ship building nor material advantage to fight a large and lumbering opponent. I would argue that their tactics are more based off of the Danes fTom The Gunboat War rather than Nelson."
] |
Why do humans have to learn how to swim, while other mammals can do it instinctively? | [
"Hey, I searched reddit history and found this question several times. Here is the top voted comment from one of those: This roots into the whole \"why are human babies so defenseless\" it's because of our intelligence. If we were to be born with our brains fully formed and ready to go, with the skull to encompass ... | [
"I wouldn't call the ~4% change when you have a fever dramatically increased, also, the \"chills\" are the same as a fever(They are an attempt to increase core temp). The reason we can't is, we're not well adapted for cold. We lack a thick fur coat, thick fat coat or similar adaptions. We lose a significant amount ... |
How are tiny birds like sparrows able to fly headlong into strong winds without being blown away? | [
"If they can't fly faster than the local wind speed, they can't fly forwards against the wind. As easy as that."
] | [
"I think that since this is a real thing: _URL_0_ The backwards pull of the turbulent vacuum would be reduced by a rider behind the lead in the peloton. I found a nascar blog stating that 2 cars (lead and draft) go faster than 1, but figured I needed to find a better link."
] |
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