Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why do businesses not accept bills over $___ after ___o'clock?	[ "They only keep smaller amount of money in thr cash drawer, the rest has been deposited or is in a safe. If someone pays with a large bill, the cash drawer won't have have enough change for other customers, and there is no way to replenish it until the manager can open the safe or go to the bank in the morning" ]	[ "The one that gets me are the reporters down at the courthouse reporting live at 11pm getting the facts. Yeah, thanks, Sparky, the courthouse closed 6 hours ago. no need to be there in front of a dark marble court house where nothing will be happening again for another 10 hours." ]
Why were infrared satellites unable to track/find the wreckage of MH-370?	[ "Last I checked they didnt find Dzhokhar Tsarnaev using a satellite, someone walked over and saw the boat cover askew. As for your actual question, I'd imagine that most intelligence agencies try not to capture imagery of thousands of miles of empty ocean unless they have a reason to... Any geostationary satellite ...	[ "Because there are no laws that govern the entirety of the internet. There are laws in countries that limit what the people living inside of its borders can do with the internet, but those laws dont apply if you arent in that country. All pirate bay has to do to stay operational is to find a country that doesn't ca...
If pushed, would a frictionless marble roll across a surface or glide?	[ "If it was pushed in-line with its center of mass it would glide, and if it was given some torque as it was pushed it would have a rolling component, but it wouldn't roll without slipping, which is what most people mean when they think of rolling." ]	[ "Think of the elephant as a million feathers tied together. A million feathers don't fall faster than one feather, whether they are tied together or not. (If you ignore the effect of the air, which is of course huge.)" ]
Is it true that there was an unspoken rule amongst WWII pilots that said you shouldn't shoot at soldiers in parachutes while in the air?	[ "It is worth noting that Article 20 of the Hague Rules of Air Warfare (1923) explicitly prohibits the shooting bailing pilots. It was never adopted, but the fact that this was considered a possible explicit \"law of war\" is relevant." ]	[ "It's important to note that the Paraguayan population didn't decrease overall by 90%; that was the impact to the population of fighting age males. Franciso Solano Lopez's policies essentially conscripted every possible male in Paraguay over the course of the war as the situation grew more and more desperate. There...
How to fairly define an "unsolved" Rubiks Cube?	[ "I’m not aware of any strict regulations for competitions. After about 20 random moves, any Cube is in a orientation that no other Cube has ever been in. Ever. This is due to the unfathomable number of possible combinations. Moreover, scrambling it any further does not necessarily “mix it up” any more. Back in mi...	[ "You can learn it quite easily by following some of the tutorials on YouTube - I learned to do it without references in a couple of hours. It takes NO skill to just solve it - doing it really fast though, is something else." ]
What classifies as "fast food"?	[ "The evolution of Fast Food is actually fairly interesting but the term is applied to any food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredi...	[ "Go watch the movie Supersize Me and report back your findings." ]
Can anyone tell me more about the Kingdom of Strathclyde?	[ "I can recommend Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe Norman Davies Penguin UK, 27 okt. 2011 The second chapter is about that region." ]	[ "If you were born before nuclear testing was banned, it would be possible to estimate you age by the amount of strontium-90 in your teeth and bones." ]
how did pre industrial sailing ships move up to or move away from docks in a controlled manner?	[ "If winds were not suitable for sailing right up to the docks, they would run a line (rope) between ship and dock, and then gradually pull it in." ]	[ "If you're new to the thread, please don't post the Mythbusters episode again. Mythbusters is entertaining but it's not history (or more specifically, it's not historical proof of anything.) The short answer is no, not that we know of. /u/davidaop, our pirate expert, and I have both answered [questions about th...
How different would technology be if we used protons instead of electrons?	[ "Interesting question, which doesn't have a complete answer. Electrons move freely between atoms, while protons are relatively stationary, so the same time of circuitry would not work. In biological systems, positive ions dissolved in solution are used for electrical conduction, so we could have a system of fluidic...	[ "Most studies have shown that the energy savings are negligible if not completely nonexistent, so basically nothing would happen. We just don't because our government is decaying and sclerotic and can't get anything done, even non-controversial stuff." ]
What information does a dog glean about other dogs by sniffing their "markings"? I am guessing that gender would be a given, possibly the age of the other dog and age of the marking. Anything else?	[ "They can learn the gender of the other dog, as well a reproductive status. Dogs that are capable of reproduction are more likely to mark and male dogs are more likely to mark when in the presence of a female dog in heat or her urine. It's like OkCupid, but with piss for profiles." ]	[ "> \"Traditional\" estimates based on slow, reptilian growth rates, combined with the enormous size of dinosaurs, led scientists to conclude it could be up to several hundred years. [Source](_URL_1_) [Source 2](_URL_0_) So, traditionally, age estimation was based on modern-day analogues of dinosaurs. However, \"gro...
What were the religious practices of “native” Persians during Xenophon’s Anabasis?	[ "To start, I go into the general features of Zoroastrian theology [here](_URL_0_). I will have a look at my sources and see if I there is enough material to put together an answer adressing more specific to your question. The problem you face here is that there are very, very few native sources for the Achaemenid p...	[ "I wrote a detailed response about Tom Holland's documentary [here](_URL_0_), using primary source to argue that something very similar to modern Islam did exist quite early on. Also worth noting that Crone and Cook's Hagarism thesis is not taken seriously anymore (or even at the time) - it literally used only th...
Why did it seem to be the protocol during WWII to fly so many bombers together in such tight formations? It seems in doing so, it was easier for them to be taken out by Flak and other defenses. Would it not have been more effective to have the sorties spread out?	[ "From _URL_0_: There are a number of advantages to flying in formation. In the case of the bombers, it was to help with defending against fighters and it also helped with navigation. For example, in Europe, B-17s could cover each other's blind spots while they were flying in formation. It also made it easier for fi...	[ "The fruity fleshy bit of a strawberry is jummy and sweet. The seeds are not. If you were a bird and had the opportunity to eat either the jummy and sweet bit or the seeds, you'd only eat the jummy and sweet. By spreading evenly arcoss the strawberry you make sure that as many seeds spread as possible. Thus creatin...
Why is depression a thing, but the opposite isn't? In other words, why is it chemically possible to be depressed, but you never hear of people who are chemically so happy that basically nothing bad can get them out of the state of euphoria?	[ "That would be [mania] (_URL_0_). It is not an exact mirror image, but states of heightened emotions, energy, decreased need for sleep and hyperactivity do exist and they present with several different disorders. (Bipolar tends to be the best known one)" ]	[ "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...
How do free to play games such as fortnite battle royal make money?	[ "Usually through in game purchases. If you wanna play for free you can, if you wanna use a fancy gun or wear a tie dye speedo, you have to pay for that." ]	[ "TL:DR Snapchat is a simple application and is not worth much by itself. The reason that it is worth that much is because of its number of users. Firms are only interested in their growing number of users worldwide because this would potentially increase their own customer base for their own products. English is my...
Are there any examples or parasitism developing into symbiosis? Vice Versa?	[ "There is an example of this (sort of, maybe without the outright parasitism) within all eukaryotic cells. Mitochondria are theorised (with good evidence) to have originated as a result of an early eukaryote engulfing, or being invaded by, an aerobic prokaryote. Gradually this evolved into a symbiotic relationship ...	[ "Sometimes exposure therapy works, taking a little more each day until you build up a resistance. That's how a lot of the poison ivy medications work. Sometimes people age out of allergies, not sure why. And I've heard claims parasites can cure allergies and autoimmune disorders. Infecting yourself with hook worms ...
Why do Muslims have such a hard time assimilating, even into successive generations, whereas individuals from other cultures/religions/races are essentially totally assimilated by the 2nd generation?	[ "Because religion provides a framework for community support that perpetuates certain cultural aspects. Also certain religions have cultural aspects that make those differences more visible. Finally NONE of the cultures/religions/races have been totally assimilated. The Jewish people have not been assimilated comp...	[ "Historically the development of lactose tolerance started in Europe due to the cooler climate. Lactose was consumed in the middle east but in cheeses and sour milk drinks (you can still buy sour milk in Turkey, it's not very nice though). In europe, milk wouldn't go off as quickly and could be consumed, which caus...
Why can't the human brain be kept alive (and conscious) artificially?	[ "It would be possible to keep a brain alive on artificial machinery alone. However, it would likely be prohibitively expensive. It would also likely be unethical because we currently lack the capacity to reconnect nerves without damaging the connection and our ability to wire technology to the nervous system is sti...	[ "While something similar has been done, we just don't have the technology to create blood in the volumes we need. There is such a miniscule risk of infection via blood transfusion that I imagine the priority on such research is low. There are many levels of quality assurance that goes into making our blood supply s...
Short Answers to Simple Questions \| January 03, 2018	[ "In the 1410 campaign which resulted in the battle of Grunwald, why didn't the Livonian branch of the Teutonic Order aid the Prussian branch? Was there some political dissention which prevented this, or was the battle just fought too quickly for the Livonians to organize a campaign?" ]	[ "MTV was a subscription channel, the idea was to get people to pay every month for the music videos. By 1994, the end of the VJ era, this business model had clearly failed. Not enough kids would tell their parents \"I want my MTV\" and there were just too many other music and music video outlets for MTV to command ...
I want to find a book that puts the formation and early years of Islam into a historical context but I don't know how to sort through all the polemics and the fringe views	[ "There's actually a lot of very excellent scholarly literature on early Islam and its formation and on pre-and-early-Islamic Arabia and the Middle East in general. For a very solid introduction to the general topic of the formation of Islam, I would suggest _Muhammed and The Believers: At The Origin of Islam_ by Fr...	[ "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 we get a chill when we bite metal like a fork or a spoon?	[ "I don't think that happens to everybody. Do you have metal dental fillings?" ]	[ "I've read that the frequency of nails on chalkboard is very close to the frequency of the warning cries of macaque monkeys. So in short, it's a vestigial biological response to perceived danger." ]
What is the origin(s) of "Innocent until proven guilty?"	[ "It dates at least ot the Romans, but I don't know if our version of it traces directly from them or was reinvented in modern times. A fundamental principle of Roman law is that the burden of proof lies on him who asserts something (i.e., usually the accuser). This makes it into the Digest of Justinian (22.3) as ...	[ "_URL_0_ As the United Kingdom grew into an advanced maritime nation, British mariners kept at least one chronometer on GMT in order to calculate their longitude from the Greenwich meridian, which was by convention considered to have longitude zero degrees (this convention was internationally adopted in the Interna...
Why does it hurt when you bite your tongue accidentally but doesn't hurt when you do it on purpose?	[ "When you do it on purpose you don't bite as hard, because you don't want to hurt yourself. When you do it on accident you're biting pretty hard." ]	[ "Mint and similar substances stimulate nerves that detect cold temperatures. Thus, mint substances feel \"cool\". Similarly, peppers and other \"hot\" food, stimulate nerves that pick up high temperatures. So, if you eat mint, then drink a cold beverage, the effect is magnified. Also, if you eat a spicy food, then ...
How much iron is required to stop the sun's fusion process?	[ "You can add as much iron to a star as you want, it's not going to stop fusion. What kills fusion is when the star starts fusing iron itself. Iron is the end of the road for stellar fusion, once you hit iron there are no roads to fusion of heavier elements that release energy, it starts requiring energy. The reas...	[ "I'd be simpler just to build a [fusor](_URL_1_) with deuterium. _URL_0_" ]
How is raising the rental income requirements because we have a roommate not discrimination?	[ "Because if the relationship goes sour then she needs to know that each side can independently afford rent on their own. Edit: also states \"each applicant must qualify individually\"" ]	[ "Because it's legal and within the policies of the credit card companies to do so. So long as it is a \"cash discount\" and not a \"credit fee\", ~~the latter of which is against the policies of Mastercard/Visa in general.~~ According to the link from /u/JoeJoePotatoes below there has been a recent change in this a...
Why is LSD a hallucinogenic drug that is associated with serotonin and not dopamine?	[ "Pretty much all psychedelics bind to the serotonin 5HT-2A receptor and other serotonin receptor subtypes with lower affinity, which is thought to mediate a lot of hallucinogenic activity. LSD also binds to D2 [dopamine receptors](_URL_1_), while other psychedelics, like psilocybin and psilocin [do not](_URL_0_). I...	[ "They don't. Cocaine was 3 times more expensive, when everything is adjusted for, in the 80s than now. Tells you something about the economy in the 80s. The price of an ounce of high grade marijuana has also dropped significantly in the past ten years. Used to be an ounce of the best stuff would be between 350-400,...
Are the arguments for racial differences in intelligence, such as proposed by the 1994 book 'The Bell Curve', strong or weak?	[ "Current theory is less about racial differences and more about socio-economic differences. Poorer groups with less focus on education tend to perform worse on IQ tests than wealthier groups with more focus on education (over the past few generations). Of course, the current theory is largely biased away from conn...	[ "This is an interesting speculation. However, I do not believe it to be true. While you compare between universities, other possible factors are being ignored. Consider the [Performance of International Students Assessment (PISA)](_URL_1_;) in 2012. There's no correlation between climate and academic performance....
Considering the assassin of Franz Ferdinand, Gavrilo Princip survived to April 1918, is there any record on how he felt about his role in starting WW1?	[ "\"Could not believe that such a World War could break out as a result of an act like his. They did indeed think that such a World War might break out, but not at that moment.\" From the 1916 notes of Dr. Pappenheim, a future collaborator with Sigmund Freud, who interviewed Princip in his cell in Terezin/Theresiens...	[ "Follow-up question: at what point did people start referring to the war itself as a World War, or another Great War, or something of the sort? And what were people (I assume mostly in the press and in speeches by chiefs of state) calling the war before everyone agreed on the name we have now?" ]
Why isn't Dr. Oz cancelled yet?	[ "Even among general practitioners, medical jargon is hard for most people to understand, and a lot of people can't afford to go to the doctor about everything that they have questions about. Dr. Oz addresses both of these things and while he can be flat-out wrong, he gets people thinking about their health on a wi...	[ "The same reason you get viagra and penis pill spam in your email. Some people are unbelievably stupid and willing to spend money to prove it." ]
Kinetic energy and temperature	[ "First: Temperature isn't just the kinetic energy of the molecules, it includes all energetic 'degrees of freedom' of the material. However, at room temperature and for most substances it's almost entirely kinetic energy. Now to answer your question: A macroscopic object moving doesn't gain any temperature from its...	[ "Units are your friend, at least in physics. In the equation you gave, KE=1/2mv2, KE has units of joules. You should have also learned that a J is equal to kg*m2. And that is how you know the m is squared. When I was taking physics, I only memorized units and the basic parts of equations, then just filled in the re...
When a person has diarrhoea, why is it that they don't shit themselves in the night but struggle to keep it in during the day?	[ "The answer is basic gravitational pull on the diarrheacullar substance inside the body. While one is lying flat the discharge cannot defeat the force of gravity pulling it flat downwards and toward your back/front/side and not out your buttocks. However you will notice that while sitting or standing the gravy-like...	[ "To start, a hot place, will only ever transfer heat to a cold place. You wouldn't put your hand in a kettle and the kettle get hotter and your hand get colder, your hand would get hotter as the waters heat is transferred to your hand. SO! Your flat is hot, but outside is hotter, it heats up your house and then th...
Whats the advantage of a pension over just storing the money in a bank account	[ "A pension isn't a blob of money (from the recipient's perspective). It's a guaranteed payment at regular intervals. It can't run out, it can't drop in value due to a market crash or bank default...it is essentially risk free and lasts your whole life regardless of how long you live as long as the company who issu...	[ "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." ]
Why can't everything mix with water?	[ "It's all to do with affinity, the attraction of one molecule for another. Water molecules are polar - they have positively charged hydrogen ends and a negatively charged oxygen middle. Opposite charges attract so water molecules have a high affinity to each other. Oil molecules are non-polar, no great charges are ...	[ "You find your Christmas presents stashed away by your parents. You want to know whats inside, but you can open them and let them know you found them. The first thing you likely do is shake them and listen to how the contents bounce around. Scientist do the exact same thing, except instead of a single human ear the...
If babies crying are supposed to make people want to help, how come I want to strangle babies when they cry in public?	[ "It's probably annoying to you because it isn't your baby and you don't give a shit about them." ]	[ "Doppler effect. Think of sound as being invisible waves emitting from the source. Imagine an engine sitting still 100 yards away. It emits 1 wave per second. This is the \"normal\" sound. When the engine is traveling towards you, it is still emitting 1 wave per second, but between each emitted wave it is getting c...
If I drive behind a truck on the highway will I spend less on fuel due to less air resistance?	[ "This might help answer your question: _URL_0_ He isn't pedaling at all yet is being pulled along by the truck. Obviously your car wouldn't be able to be as close to a truck, but there would still be some benefit..." ]	[ "The same reason you can walk through an airplane isle even though you are unable to move at hundreds of miles an hour (or fly). The same reason you are able to survive walking around outside even though the earth is spinning around at thousands of miles per hour. Ir more precisely, why you can swim in a pool even...
Can someone please explain to me what exactly is IOT? I read about it a lot but I still couldn't really get it.	[ "It stands for Internet of Things. basically everything is connected to the internet,even your hoo-haa rattler." ]	[ "The next time you're on a highway, look for pairs of embedded inductive loops in the roadbed. By measuring how long it takes a vehicle to pass between the two loops an accurate measurement of vehicle speed can be calculated. Since we know the distance to the next exit and the velocity of vehicles passing through, ...
Why does the same tube of corticosteroid cream cost $325.00 in the USA and only $1.20 in India?	[ "The actual chemicals in the cream cost pennies. What you're actually paying for is the company to invent that chemical. And India doesn't feel they have to pay for that." ]	[ "A few reasons, first you may remember from high school chemistry the ideal gas law. PV=nRT, where P=pressure, V=volume, n= number of moles, R is a constant and T is temperature. If you spray a pressurized gas (the propellant in the can), which is typically butane or propane, as the gas comes out of the spray nozz...
How are chemical constituents of plants isolated?	[ "Well yes- there are a limited amount of properties, but each molecule will more than likely have a unique combination of these properties. For example, it is possible to separate only the choroplasts using centrifugation, and therefore get only chemicals from chloroplast. Another technique can then be used to sepa...	[ "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...
how do drug addicts end up using their drug of choice, without becoming addicted to all drugs?	[ "If you drink coffee every day to wake yourself up in the morning, you will eventually become addicted. How would this contribute to you becoming addicted to alcohol, tobacco or methamphetamines? They're completely different drugs with different effects, different feelings and, most importantly, different chemistry...	[ "It basically means committing to playing a role a certain way. One of my favorite examples is from when they were casting Buffy the Vampire Slayer: One of the characters in the show is Willow, who was written as a shy, introverted geek. During casting, they had those auditioning read the following scene: WILLOW: T...
Why do bikes fall over when staying still but balance while moving?	[ "It has to do with the geometry of the front fork, and of the front wheel. When the bike starts to lean to one side, the front wheel will steer towards that side, because of weight shifts. (try it while holding the bike by the saddle. You can steer the front wheel by making the bike lean!). This does not help any...	[ "Put a slinky in a long glass tube and fix one end of the slinky to one end of the tube. Now lay the tube on your desk. The slinky is all curled up . Next, stand the tube upright. One end of the slinky is fixed to the top of the tube and the bottom of the slinky dangles down. What if you held the tube at an angle.....
What is really happening when "and old injury" is acting up again?	[ "Bad injuries don't heal back the way they were, they heal back to scar tissue. That scar tissue is weaker and less functional than the original tissue. It also reacts differently to pressure changes. So those people who tell you they know rain is coming because their knee/back/elbow is acting up may very well be r...	[ "We aren't allowed to give medical advice. This is because none of us here can properly examine and diagnose you over the Internet. Go see a doctor." ]
How can I hold either end of a battery without being electrocuted?	[ "Your body has a variable, but generally pretty high resistance, that the voltage of a typical battery simply can't force current through at any meaningful rate. I don't recommend playing around with this, but generally you can touch both terminals of a car battery without any harm. A car battery can create a huge ...	[ "The same way you can be in the same yard as a bee. You only get stung if you are a threat. Just ask Steve Irwin." ]
Why do galaxies form a roughly flat spiral instead of say, a spherical shape?	[ "They start out as a giant blob of gasses and space dust, Sort of like pizza Dough. As they continue to spin they flatten once again like pizza dough." ]	[ "The [glycocalyx](_URL_1_) plays some part in this. Essentially, sugars and proteins in the cell membranes protrude out and carry charges with them. These can be organized in such a way to keep cells appropriately distanced from each other so that they don't fall apart or merge. There may be other factors, but thi...
How and Why do they put a sticker on every piece of fruit in the produce isle?	[ "It's required by many jurisdictions laws to identify source/etc. They're typically put on when packaged automatically not by hand and many lose fruits don't have them anyways [in my experience anyways]" ]	[ "They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to anyone who mailed back the special offer." ]
Why do establishments make bathroom doors push to go in but pull to come out? Why not make it pull to go in and push to go out and avoid touching the door with your clean hands?	[ "I've seen them both ways. In general, doors that open to hallways are put in so they don't swing into the hallway. It's a safety issue; you don't want to hit someone. Having the entrance a push makes it easier for you to enter the bathroom without contaminating the door if you are going in to wash something off ...	[ "Conservation of angular momentum. If you're standing on the edge of a platform, your angular momentum is zero. If you start wheeling your arms in a clockwise fashion, your trunk will have to start turning in a counterclockwise fashion so that the total angular momentum of your body is still zero. This is what you ...
What difference does the mix make on a music recording?	[ "Imagine you had several separate stereos that each played one element of a song; One stereo for the lead vocals, another for the bass, another for the keyboard, etc. In that scenario, you could adjust the volume and equalizer of each stereo separately, turn them on and off at will, change the timing of when each e...	[ "YouTube (and I assume other video websites) processes the uploaded videos. If you'd download a YT video, you'll find that it's not the same as the original file. If you would upload the file to a service that doesn't do any processing (such as cloud storage), then no matter how often you'd upload/download, the fil...
What does kombucha do for the body exactly and what makes good bacteria different?	[ "Nothing that any other fizzy sweet drink doesn't do. Kombucha has no real health benefits. It's all hype." ]	[ "Could somebody explain how, if true, small amounts of alcohol is good for you?" ]
the difference in sorting comments between "best" and "top"	[ "'Top' is purely 'highest voted', after the up/down delta. 'Best' takes into consideration much more, like how quickly a comment amasses upvotes, down/up ratio (not just the delta) and some other stuff." ]	[ "Because reddit fiddles with the displayed total of up/downvotes to prevent bots from scamming the system. You can basically trust the TOTAL amount of karma, but not the total number of up and down votes, since that is not accurate. Basically, if bot creators were able to see the precise impact of each vote, then ...
on Steve Wilkos Show, when a polygraph test is inconclusive, the tester does something called a "Forensic Credibility Assessment Test", what is that and how does it work?	[ "It's not a thing. It's made up jargon to make whatever this dude is doing sound legitimate and scientific. He literally explains what it is. He just asks the person questions and then assigns a score based on how truthful he feels the person is being. There's zero science or credibility behind it. It's pure quacke...	[ "Fed here. The Income Contingent Plan is going to adjust with your income from year to year. You'll need to re-certify. So if your plan is to never have an increase in pay, go for the Income Based Plan or ICR. However, if you start making more money in the next 20 years, your payment will go up and you'll most like...
The Romans invented the letter X but they also had a Roman numeral X? Wasn't that confusing?	[ "All of the Roman numerals are also letters. They used context to disambiguate, just as we don't confuse a number like MCMXCVI for an English word." ]	[ "Played tennis for a good part of my life and the explanation I got was that it came from a French game that when you scored the first point you moved up 15, when you scored again you moved another 15 and if you scored a third time you only moved up 10. So in other words blame the French." ]
Does the craving of different foods at different times have to do with what nutrients your body is currently in need of (protein vs carbs for example)?	[ "In most cases, no. You can read up on a quick summary by Peter Pressman of Cedars Sinai Medical Center and Roger Clemens of the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy [here](_URL_0_). The gist of it is that cravings are more a factor of sociocultural factors, stressful environments and hormonal fluct...	[ "Someone's musical taste derives from the same pleasure centers in the brain attributed to hobbies, obsessions, and activities that give someone the sense of contentness. Our reward and pleasure centers undergo change as one matures based on socio-environmental factors which can be attributed to some drastic change...
Why do singers lose their accents when they sing?	[ "Singing is an accent of its own, really. It has its own rhythm and cadence that fits into the song." ]	[ "People in different parts of the world make wildly different amounts of money. If you sold a dvd for 19.95 in africa or russia or south america everyone would laugh and go \"lol, no way\". But if you sold them for a dollar like they could afford then someone could just fly there, scoop up all the copies then take ...
What has been Greece been doing economically to become stable again since last year?	[ "Greece in the midst of yet another financial instability wave. What you observe as stability is the waiting time before the terms of the current agreement with the troika lenders are officially declared as not going to be reached, which in turn will be the excuse for another agreement accompanied with a stricter a...	[ "Olive oil has been mentioned, but perhaps not emphasized enough. Judging from the numbers of amphorae found in shipwrecks, I guess that olive oil and wine were major agricultural products and also traded. From the number of pictures of fishermen on pottery it would also seem that fishing was an important source of...
If a nuclear bomb went off in Boston harbor could scientists tell after the fact who had manufactured it, do they leave distinct radioactive signatures?	[ "Watched Sum of All Fears last night? You might want to look into the Monitoring Capabilities of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). You can read a bit about it here: _URL_0_ Basically, radiochemical analysis can tell you information about the bomb design and the metallurgical refinement techniques of the fis...	[ "Media companies \"Nuking\" torrent files with data. Nuking basically means they put some kind of trojan horse in a movie/video game file, so when you download it, they can track it and report you to your ISP." ]
If you had limitless, safe, clean electricity generation potential in one location on earth, what would be the best way to distribute it globally using today's technology?	[ "Incidentally, this is the problem that _URL_0_ is trying to solve. Here is the map of the overall plan: _URL_1_ There is enough solar energy in the Sahara desert in 6 hours to power the entire world in 1 year. From the Sahara, they plan on connecting Europe with underwater high voltage direct current lines. The p...	[ "Using the data from everyone who has a smartphone turned on." ]
Disease in the early Americas.	[ "Not to discourage further answers to this specific question, because there's always more that can be said, but there's a great answer by /u/anthropology_nerd about[ the diseases from the Americas that affected European colonisers here](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "This submission has been removed because it is [soapboxing](_URL_1_.), [promoting a political agenda, or moralizing](_URL_0_). We don't allow content that does these things because they are detrimental to unbiased and academic discussion of history." ]
Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology	[ "I recall reading somewhere that the language you speak alters your perception. Have there been studies to find out to what degree it might do this? i.e. We have a lot of sentences that start with \"I\". Does that effect how we think towards being more interested in our selves?" ]	[ "Nope. If you are referring to how individuals often find it difficult to pronounce words outside of their native language, that is less because of physiological difference, but because of neuroplastic / psychological habituation. Their brains are hard-wired to use some sounds more than others, making it difficult ...
Why can insects have 6+ limbs, but mammals only have 4?	[ "The cop-out answer is that we have four legs because we had four legs already. Tetrapods started off with four legs modified from fins, and some of us lost limbs (like snakes), but we never added new ones. Body plans are remarkably stable over time. So much so, that they were the basis of animal phyla before more ...	[ "No problem in math. What you are talking about is the base. For example, in base-16, or hexadecimal, the numbers are 0123456789ABCDEF, where A is the decimal (base 10) value of 10. It doesn't break math at all. Just how the numbers are represented. As for the why, we use base 10 because we have ten fingers." ]
Why was Vietnam able to transition to capitalism from a failing socialist state when the USSR collapsed attempting to do so?	[ "First, the USSR under Gorbachev in no way tried to transition to capitalism. Gorbachev was, by all counts, a committed communist who believe that the USSR needed reform but that reform could make socialism* work. So that means your question has to be either (A) why did the soviet union suffer a political collapse...	[ "This question is getting a lot of traffic after being [tweeted by @reddit](_URL_5_), so I thought I'd welcome those of you that haven't visited /r/AskHistorians before to the subreddit. Please do bear in mind that in order to keep the quality of answers here high we have [strict rules on comments](/r/AskHistorians...
What is the science behind our tastes in food?	[ "Paul Bloom wrote a terrific book that had a large chunk devoted to this topic: [link](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "Part of it is human ego. People tend to form their identity around the things they like and believe in. Especially young people who are in the formative years and still figuring out who they are as a person. This is why people tend to develop the attitude that \"The things I like are the best, and everything else ...
How did isolated Tibetan Buddhist monasteries feed themselves in the isolated mountains?	[ "Hello, Tibetan culture spans hundred of years. But if we are talking pre Modern industrialized Tibet. They were for the most part a slave/ surfdome. Monk were forbidden from working in fields or toiling with live stalk. All land was owned by the monk class and if you worked the land you kept a potion for your self...	[ "Often those organizations (soup kitchens) have food and quality standards to uphold legislated by the state. The food they serve must be unopened and/or sealed." ]
If an astronaut travel in a spaceship near the speed of light for one year. Because of the speed, the time inside the ship has only been one hour. How much cosmic radiation has the astronaut and the ship been bombarded? Is it one year or one hour?	[ "You get the full year's worth of radiation. From an outside point of view, we see that time is dilated and the astronaut is moving very slowly inside their spaceship. But we see the spaceship take a full year to reach its destination, and gets hit by all this radiation along the way. From the astronaut's point of ...	[ "There is no heat in space. Heat is the energy contained in matter. Since there is nothing in space (mostly) there is no heat. All energy that reaches the earth is in the form of radiation. Radiation that actually hits the earth, (a very small percentage of it) is either reflected off of the material it hits, or is...
Why is Mexico so poor?	[ "Mexico's GDP is not low, being slightly less than South Korea which is often considered an economic powerhouse. Mexican per capita income is over $10K USD. There are certainly a lot of poor citizens and it would take a more learned person than me to expound on the historical causes for that, but do not count that ...	[ "Your information is wrong. We are 13th on the list. _URL_0_ If you can't take the time to check your facts, please don't post." ]
German fortifications in Normandy at the start of the Invasion of Europe, 1944.	[ "Schmeelke & Schmeelke have a thin book, [\"German Defensive Batteries & Gun Emplacements on the Normandy Beaches Invasion: D-Day June 6, 1944\"](_URL_0_) which has a fair bit on the Batteries Longues and St. Marcouf, among others. The book is mostly focused on fortifications mounting heavy artillery, which may or ...	[ "Well we have records of of Akkadian, Assyrian, Sumerian and other Mesopotamian conquests dating back to around 3000 BCE. These records come in the form of art carved upon decorative pieces depicting conquests of cities. Though I believe the first battles we have written texts for are the battles of [Meggido](_URL_...
Do taste buds taste all types, or is there a "sour" taste bud?	[ "All taste buds taste all flavors. It used to be believed that different regions of the tongue tasted different flavors however that's not true." ]	[ "Sticking your tongue out or biting your lip while concentrating is not really that weird. Michael Jordan was famous for his tongue sticking out while going up for a dunk. It is an example of what’s called motor overflow or motor disinhibition. It happens sometimes when our brains are working really hard at somethi...
Polygamy in Denmark during the 1700’s?	[ "Well, that is quite a niche question! While I obviously can't know the exact history of Jens Nielsen, I'd wager that the short answer is no. At least, not very likely. You see, as a protestant nation, the laws of the time, especially concerning marriage and sexualty, were based on the bible, in this case the 6th c...	[ "Since this is a homework question, we expect a little more effort from you. What research have you done so far for your paper? What are your findings so far? Is there anything specific you have a question about?" ]
How do some very healthy people have such adverse physical reactions to cigarette smoke, while unhealthy people smoke all the time and don't have the same reactions?	[ "Perhaps it is the same reason non-celiac gluten-intolerant have adverse reactions to wheat after eating it their whole lives." ]	[ "My understanding is that spicy food is spicy because of capsaicin, the chemical responsible for \"hotness\". It binds to thermoreceptors and stimulates the same sensory pathway as something that is truly hot, temperature wise. Menthol acts in a similar way, it activates thermoreceptors that respond to cold tempera...
How are sexual fetishes developed?	[ "From personal experience, the mind becomes attached to great moments in life and finds something to bring that memory back, like hair or feet. Same thing with great trauma unfortunately. Seen a movie about a girl been gang raped and when she got older that was how she got off, by recreating the same circumstances....	[ "Some have suggested that it causes dopamine responses. Similar brain mechanics to forms of addiction (alcoholism, smoking, drug abuse etc). _URL_0_" ]
If a black hole is a singular, super-dense, zero-dimensional point in space, then how do they possess mass and diameter?	[ "Well, the diameter you're referring to isn't really the diameter of the super dense point, it's the diameter of the sphere within which things can't escape. It's more like the ring around a chained up dog. The dog might not be 30 feet across but we consider anything within that circle to be \"dangerous\" and part...	[ "We don't really. Flawed models are always an option to explain weird phenomenon, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time it happened. The reason the leading theories include Dark Matter and Dark Energy is because we can't find the error. Everything we can measure in scales we have access to seem to be matching...
Why do cars make that weird choppy noise when you roll down the windows?	[ "Have you ever blown in a bottle to get a tone? What's happening is that as you blow across the top of the bottle, it excites the air in the bottle and causes it to resonate. Now, when you open a car window, you're effectively turning the car into a giant bottle, but because it is so big, we hear the resonance as ...	[ "You have a [Vestibulo-ocular reflex](_URL_0_) which automatically corrects your gaze to accommodate any self-initiated head movement. To demonstrate this reflex, nod your head. Your eyes will automatically move counter to the direction of your head in order to keep these words fixed on your retina. Jaw movements d...
Why do people blur out the middle finger on TV?	[ "They feel that it will lose advertising dollars if they do not." ]	[ "California has really strict laws. The exact wording is just to comply with a particular labeling law required by the state. And since it makes sense to give the same products to California that you give to the rest of the US, it's common for many products to have the warning printed on the label. Realistically, t...
Did pirates ever directly or indirectly aid the advancement of fields like shipbuilding and cartography? Or even in terms of discovering new places and species?	[ "I spent a long time thinking about this, but no matter how generous I am with the question, I can't come up with anything other than \"no\". Even if we broaden the category of pirate to include groups like the Barbary Corsairs, we can't really really point to any advancements in terms of shipbuilding, cartography,...	[ "This Week's Rundown! /u/textandtrowel on [\"How did medieval Islamic historians write about/conceptualise the history of their religion? Please also tell me about who wrote history in the medieval Islamic world, why, and what written history was used for in medieval Islamic society.\"](_URL_0_) /u/prufrock451 on [...
When I read, I hear the words in my head. What's the difference between that and synesthesia? Isn't that an auditory sensation triggered by vision?	[ "It's an interesting question. Language, in humans, is an audio process primarily. i.e. we developed listening and speaking skills as part of our evolutionary adaptations to attain speech some time before we started using symbols to represent them. Written speech is a mechanism to associate symbols with speech eith...	[ "Think about it like this. When learning an additional language you are suggesting that you learn it in the following manner: New Language -- > Known Language -- > Association with actual object or action. So, when learning a language for the first time, you simply have no middle man. You are associating the word d...
How do buffets make money?	[ "For everyone that eats 5 plates there are people who went to a buffet had a plate and then realized they were not as hungry as they thought." ]	[ "Ever see a commercial for an \"End-of-year blowout?\" Dealerships heavily discount old model years when the new ones are released. They have to sell them, often at a loss." ]
What is fire, really? What makes a material flammable at the atomic level?	[ "Fire is hot gasses that result as a product of combustion. Most commonly in our day to day experience, this combustion is due to reactions with oxygen. Oxygen is highly reactive. Given heat and fuel, it will literally rip the fuel molecules apart, generating more heat as it does so. That makes it self-sustaining; ...	[ "Imagine you grew up flying in a plane. The ground looks like different colors. There's a green area over here, and a brown area over there. When you land for the first time, you're surprised that the green area is actually made up of large trees, and the brown area is made of rocks and shrubs. There are thousands ...
Is it possible that the universe is non-uniform in terms of physical laws?	[ "Because of [Noether's theorem,](_URL_0_) conservation of momentum is a result of us assuming that the laws of physics are invariant with spatial translation. So, if the laws of physics were different in some places, it would mean that momentum is conserved for our local space because of some new, arbitrary reason...	[ "First a disclaimer: while my tag says nuclear physics, this is a very different corner of nuclear physics from my own. I'm hesitant to use a word as strong as \"bullshit\", but I also wouldn't jump on board this result too firmly. Ultracold neutron experiments are notoriously problematic. Neutrons are very hard ...
Did chain restaurants exist before the rise of mass production? If so, how successful were they, and which ones were the most well known?	[ "Certainly no historian here, but I do love history. Maybe I can get the ball rolling here with this thread's first comment... I'm not sure what you mean by the \"rise of mass production\" as that sounds vague to me. Do you mean the beginning of the American Industrial Revolution which roughly began in the early 1...	[ "Hi there, those interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So ...
ELI: Gambling win/lose	[ "Generally, the 0 and 00 throw the odds in the house's favor. If they weren't there, a bet on red (for example) would have a 50% chance of doubling your money, so you'd break even in the long run. As it is, you only have an 18/38 chance, about a 47.4% chance, of doubling your money, so in the end you lose. A bet on...	[ "Reddit gets money, poster gets a false sense of achievement, and the giver gets to feel good about themselves for spending money" ]
Why does the U.S. Navy rail gun round explode into a fireball on contact when it is a solid metal round?	[ "[Kinetic energy](_URL_2_). An explosion is a release of a large amount of energy. This can be achieved with a chemical or nuclear reaction, but as you saw it can also be achieved by having a lot of kinetic energy." ]	[ "> Here's the basic idea. Hard candy (like a lollypop or a Jolly Rancher) is made from sugar, corn syrup, water and flavoring. You heat the ingredients together and boil the mixture to drive off all of the water. Then you let the temperature rise. What you are left with is a pure sugar syrup at about 300 degrees F ...
Why were futurist so optimistic about the year of 2000?	[ "People are more intrigued by big round numbers and our imaginations are much more potent than reality allows. There are still futurists going on about what the future holds but what they still don't base their guesstimates enough on is the efficiency of an invention. We have flying cars, jetpacks, even quantum le...	[ "Back then people still needed jobs, now they dont and can practice harder for longer. And science helps by showing then methods on improving motions. You cam find cool videos on youtube" ]
What method did scientists use to conclude that the Andromeda galaxy is on a collision course with us?	[ "By measuring the Doppler shift of spectral lines in Andromeda." ]	[ "Have you ever wondered what's inside your bouncy ball? Imagine it was too small to cut but you really, really wanted to know. What you might want to try is throwing it into something so hard that it breaks and you can see the smaller parts. Of course, if you only have another bouncy ball because that's the only th...
Why are vitamin supplements split into numbers?	[ "These are abbreviations of the different forms of the vitamin. In the case of vitamin D, you have the generic name, vitamin D. You have vitamin D2 (Calciferol) that is the form added to milk and vitamin D3 (Cholcalciferol), the form made under your skin, naturally. In other vitamins, they may be totally different ...	[ "You are right. It is mostly just the advertising aimed at making you buy it. So go for generics. Do not pay extra for the advertising. Ibuprofen is the same drug whatever the brand name." ]
Why is the Fibonacci sequence so prevalent in nature and space?	[ "The idea that the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci sequence occurs everywhere in nature and human esthetics is regarded by many as a pure myth: See e.g. [this article](_URL_2_) by mathematician Samuel Arbesman, and [this one](_URL_0_) by Prof Donald Simanek. [Here's one](_URL_1_) that debunks some of the claims in music...	[ "The best answer here is going to include the phrase \"confirmation bias\" I guarantee it." ]
Does using Air Conditioning use more fuel?	[ "Automotive air conditioners are not run from the battery (except for the fans and control system). The compressor is directly powered from the engine through a belt. Yes, it does use more fuel because it puts additional load on the engine. In small, cheap cars you can even feel the difference in acceleration when...	[ "The Gulf Stream primarily exists because of the action of winds blowing across the subtropical Atlantic. A good (but small) map of the surface currents is [here](_URL_0_). Unfortunately, many people are taught this [image](_URL_1_) of ocean circulation which both dramatically simplifies the Thermohaline Circulati...
Muhammed. Earliest references outside of the Quran.	[ "The earliest I can find on the internet is the [Teachings of Jacob](_URL_0_), a Byzantine Christian work from the 630s. It discusses Islam in reference to convincing the Jews to convert. There are also some Muslim biographical works on Muhammad from the 700s, such as سيرة رسول الله sirat rasul allah \"life of the ...	[ "It's generally considered to be Orlando Anderson. [Here's a previous /r/AskHistorians thread about it](_URL_0_). Edit: To follow the AutoModerator's suggestion, /u/TaftintheTub had a fantastic reply, but the entire thread is filled with great discussion." ]
How often did citizens of the Soviet Union actually get to explore western countries? Stories keep popping up on reddit about soviets being overwhelmed by the amount of goods in American supermarkets.	[ "Not often. Certainly it's true that Soviets who did make it to the west were surprised by material abundance. Leon Aron's biography of Boris Yeltsin talks about how shattering it was for Yeltsin to see an ordinary Texas supermarket. Keep in mind that Yeltsin had been a member of the Soviet elite--a member of the P...	[ "Brooke L. Blower covers this in her book, Becoming Americans in Paris: Transatlantic Politics and Culture between the World Wars, particularly Chapter 2: Reluctant Hosts. She writes, \"In the 1920s, Parisians of various political leanings developed an acute sense that Americans had formed a vibrant and troubling...
How does the gas pump automatically stop when its full?	[ "The pumping handle has a small sensor attached to the auto-clip that detects the air pressure inside the gas tank. When the tank hits about 90% full, the sensor disengages the auto-clip, and the pump turns off." ]	[ "They're either on a timer or on a sensor. Ever approach an intersection and see vertical and horizontal cuts in the pavement? That's where workers buried the sensors. Those work by detecting metal, not the weight of the vehicle." ]
Does light lose brightness the farther away it is?	[ "Light follows the [inverse square law](_URL_0_). So yes, it gets less intense the farther you are from the source." ]	[ "One fundamental example is the [asymptotic freedom](_URL_0_) of the strong force. At very short distance scales, the strong force (the force by which quarks and antiquarks and gluons interact) becomes much weaker at very short distance scales. The increasing strength of the strong force at larger distance scale...
What is Abstract methods/classes in Programming languages.	[ "So it's related to inheritance so I'll start there. So let's say you have a class, we'll call it \"animal\". Nothing is JUST an animal, we'll have a subclass for \"human\", \"monkey\" and \"turtle\" which inherit from animal. This is great because if there are things that we need to keep track of for all animals w...	[ "If you were to build a 'super' car, would it be the fastest? The car that uses the least fuel? The one that can carry the most cargo? The one with the most amounts of seats? The one that fits in every parking space because its small? Different people create different languages for different reasons. Some are supe...
Why do airplane windows have little holes in them?	[ "_URL_0_ Key Points > The breather hole is located in the middle pane of the cabin window, between an outer pane and an inner pane, and it’s meant regulate how much pressure is exerted onto the windows. & > The breather hole makes sure the outer pane bears the air pressure, so in the rare event one of the pa...	[ "Lots of airlines use the hub and spoke model. Rather than have a flight from every city to every other city, they have flights from the small cities to a few big cities, called \"hubs\". You then fly from the hub to your destination city, or perhaps to another hub, from which you fly to your destination. So let's ...
How much "lag" is there in the human brain?	[ "Nerves conduct in the range of 1-120 m/s, with different types having different conduction speeds. Sensory neurons in your skin for touch are about 30-70 m/s, and the big motor neurons that move your muscles are faster, at 100+ m/s. Ignoring the time that the brain takes to process things (which is a hell of a lot...	[ "HDTVs generally do a lot of processing on images it displays. Check and see if your TV has a game mode. It'll turn off the processing effects and offer less latency." ]
What is the origin of eating black eyed peas for good luck in the southern United States?	[ "It was one of the crops not destroyed during the Civil war. Farmers grew blacked eyed peas to feed their animals and the northern soldiers did not know what they were growing , so they left those fields alone. The survivors of the war felt lucky to have something to feed their families." ]	[ "This is a pretty common question here; here's some links from the FAQ: _URL_2_ _URL_4_ and a few others that have been posted over the years: _URL_3_ _URL_1_ _URL_0_ Most posts agree that it is largely a post-war pop phenomenon with fairly little evidence to support it." ]
How do Economists know GDP data is anywhere near accurate	[ "They don't, because it doesn't have to be. All it needs is to be consistent. The exact GDP's value isn't important, what economists really care about is how it changes. If they consistently apply the same measuring technique to get a precise result, it doesn't matter if it is 10% too high or 10% to low, so long ...	[ "Doesn't \"all these groups who do 10 years studies\" use it for exactly what it was designed for - measuring large groups, that is?" ]
If you fill a torus completely with water and begin rotating the torus, does the water inside begin rotating as fast as its container, or is there always some amout of friction between the interior of the torus and the water it contains?	[ "The water would eventually spin as fast as the toroid because the walls of the toroid would \"pull\" on the water with friction. The water would never be able to go faster than the toroid if the toroid is accelerating or keeping it's rate of spin. This could be used for energy storage as a flywheel but would be ex...	[ "The star is in hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning that there is a balance between the gravitational force and pressure forces. The total pressure force on a little element of fluid, however, is not proportional to the pressure. It is due to the pressure being slightly different on different sides of the element and ...
If the japanese language has no profanity like the F-word, how do the insult each other?	[ "We don't need profanity to insult one another, think of all the ways you can insult someone in English without using a profanity. Besides, languages can borrow words and their meanings." ]	[ "[Here's another response I wrote awhile back on this topic](_URL_0_) — feel free to ask follow-up questions though! Short answer: 1. they knew about the idea of atomic bombs prior to Hiroshima, 2. they got their initial information about what happened to it from American announcements, 3. they sent a survey crew t...
What is the scientific reasoning as to why all people that have abused crystal meth have distinct facial features?	[ "I worked in psych and we had a lot of \"Meth Mouth\". The drug causes tons of nerve and cardiac damage. But the Meth Mouth is mostly caused by dry mouth and teeth grinding. The dry mouth helps encourage tons of bacterial growth. The stimulating effects of the drug can cause the user to grind their teeth or tongue ...	[ "\"Just about everyone here\" Where is \"here\" for you? It sounds like your question's premise is based on a small sample set based on personal observation. Before your question is addressed, you should be making sure the premise is valid..." ]
How does any politician deserve credit for finding bin laden?	[ "Only the Commander and Chief does as the head of the military. But specifically President Obama made some decisions leading to bin Laden's death that others have said they would not have made, such as Romney. Mainly going into Pakistan without asking for permission first." ]	[ "Hi, could you edit your comment to remove the \"bonus\" question? This subreddit has a 20-year rule against discussing current affairs, and further, does not permit speculation. Thanks!" ]
Sometimes iTunes will have 'UK Edit' or 'UK edition' on an album, what does this mean and why is it different?	[ "Americans, on average, prefer a more \"country\" sound for some of their rock music, so the person who takes all the different recordings (the drums, the guitar, the main singer, the backing singers etc.) To add together to make the song also decides to add in to the background a tambourine, for example, being hit...	[ "Diamonds from countries that violate human rights in their mining are called blood diamonds. Some countries do restrict importing from blood diamond countries. The US has had such a restriction on Sierra Leone's diamonds since 2001, and set up the Clean Diamond Trade Act in 2003 specifically to try and combat it. ...
What male body part produces the tiny amount of estrogen men do have?	[ "Since men lack ovaries, they need to produce estrogen through a process involving an enzyme called aromatase that transforms testosterone into estradiol. The enzyme aromatase is produced by the adrenal glands." ]	[ "I'm not familiar with any case matching that exact description (among other things, an unmarried woman in England in the 1800s would have been legally able to own land without any need for a legal sex-change). The closest case I know of is that of [Sir Ewan Forbes](_URL_2_), though that was in the 1900s. Born in 1...
[Physics]if i take a hose, put one end in the ocean, and the other end in outer space, would the water flow down the pressure gradient out into the vacuum of space?	[ "Not even close. If you try to pull water up a hose with a vacuum pump, even the world's greatest pump, the highest it will go is about 34 feet. The reason is that sucking through a straw exerts an illusory force. The actual force comes from the atmospheric pressure pushing the liquid up. The maximum you'll get at ...	[ "A common misconception about thrust is that the thrust pushes against the ground, and that's what pushes the rocket up. But imagine you tape a balloon to a straw, and thread a string through the straw, and tie that string up horizontally. Inflate the balloon and let it go, and you'll see it rocket horizontally wit...
I recently read a Reddit post about a 500kilowatt radio signal so strong it was picked up on mattress coils. Does this mean audible radio programming could be heard from mattresses? If so, how is this possible and what are the mechanics behind it?	[ "> Does this mean audible radio programming could be heard from mattresses? Yup. > If so, how is this possible and what are the mechanics behind it? Radio waves induce a current in conductors, which in turn is used a vibrate a membrane to produce sound. Usually, the current is used to drive an electromagnet attac...	[ "One of the coolest properties of waves are that they are linear, meaning you can add them together to get a new wave. That new wave obays the wave equation just like the two original ones. So check this out here is a plot of sin(x) and of sin(2x) and of their sum. _URL_0_ Notice that two of those plots just look l...

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