Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why don't animals react the same way to bad smells like humans do?	[ "Dogs are particularly attracted to very strong smells because they can use it to hide their own smell. It's a form of camouflage: remember that dogs are predators, and anything that makes it harder for their prey to detect them is an advantage. Humans are repelled by the smell of things like faeces and rotting fle...	[ "It's just in their DNA. Even now, science can't fully explain the phenomena we call \"instincts\", even though we can see them in action, and have them ourselves." ]
why shouldn't I reuse a plastic bottle?	[ "So long as you keep it clean, there's nothing wrong with reusing a plastic bottle. Try not to use it for too long, though; months is probably pushing it, and don't leave it in the heat, because the chemical composition of the plastic can break down and contaminate the water." ]	[ "Renewable resource. Much cheaper than metal and way easier to manufacture and goes through less change during manufacturing. Wood is unbelievably strong too. Much stronger than you think." ]
Is there any limit to the amount of electrons a conductor can hold?	[ "There is. This is why capacitors are voltage-rated - you can only accumulate so much charge before you reach the breakdown voltage of the dielectric and the potential barrier isn't enough to keep electrons from jumping across the plates. Same thing happens for any conductor separated from ground by any dielectric ...	[ "We can use skin on our touch screens because skin and flesh conducts electricity (in reality it is the capacitance property but is is closely related to conductivity). However you can not use gloves as the cloth they are made from does not conduct electricity. So glove manufacturers are adding strands or films of ...
If FIFA is a horribly corrupt entity, why don't the players and countries stand together to create a new association that actually is "for the good of the game"?	[ "Because it's been entrenched for years, almost literally a century at this point, and the player/leagues are making millions upon millions so they have no incentive to change it." ]	[ "Simplest answer I can give. The Arab world was tribal for a long time. Islam split into two general camps when one king usurped another (origins of the Shia-sunni divide). As it developed , more interpretations of Islam occurred. However only one interpretation could hold Islamic caliphate. When tribes start to co...
Why can't you drink water and inhale/exhale at the same time?	[ "Because the paths between your nose/mouth and stomach/lungs all intersect at one point and there's a flap that moves based on whether you want stuff to go to your stomach or lungs. You can't do both because of the nature of the flap. It's either the esophagus or the trachea." ]	[ "Althoguh not an entirely scientific response, people can generally \"focus\" on one intensive thought process while also being able to perform a more \"automatic\" thing. Take your example of singing the song: if you know the song very well, the words just come naturally and doesn't cost a lot of brain processing,...
Does the universe have a net charge?	[ "Found a previous thread: [What is the net charge of the universe?](_URL_0_) The answers were: * From /u/cavityQED, flaired \"AMO Physics\": our observations suggest that the universe is charge-neutral; if the universe had a net charge we would find evidence of the EM force acting at large scales, which we don't, a...	[ "maxwell was the first one that realised that the electric and magnetic field are two sides of the same field. For example if you have a purely electric field in 1 frame; you will also find a magnetic field in another frame. In calculations you can describe both by a field strengh tensor F_ab. With this tensor you ...
Is it possible to device a treatment for ebola by looking at the pathway that Mosquitoes use to digest the virus?	[ "Killing a virus is never a problem. There are countless things that can kill ebola or HIV. The problem is doing it without harming other things. There is noting in mosquito digestive system that will selectively kill ebola or HIV and not harm your body. Because they are digesting your blood cells along with the vi...	[ "Nope. Cell phones have a huge amount of infrastructure in order to work. Remember when you've got no bars, first responders wouldn't be OK with that. So, they use radios with bigger antennas and more power and the signal goes directly to their police station. Just today, AT & T got a contract and some dedicated ra...
Why is Apple's shuffle not completely random?	[ "Because when it was completely random, people complained that it wasn't random. People are actually pretty bad at judging randomness. For example, a truly random playlist can play the same song twice in a row. Or the same artist 5 times in a row. When people here this, they see the repetition or pattern and cry ou...	[ "If I recall correctly from an advertising class I had at university, the Big Mac that gets shown in those advertisements is ingredient for ingredient exactly the same as the ones you get when you order it at your local restaurant. HOWEVER, for the advertisement, they spend hours meticulously preparing it as one ...
Why identical twins are not completely mirror image in anatomy	[ "You are not a mirror image of your twin. You and your twin share the same DNA. This means that you both develop according to the same \"plan\"/genes. Like building a house: if you build two houses using one set of blueprints, the houses will be identical, not mirror-imaged. The fireplace will still be on the left ...	[ "Actually we do. _URL_0_ The reason its so complicated is because we have so many dialects, accents, and speaking mannerisms. The program itself needs (I believe) a minute of speech from the subject before mimicing the speech." ]
Why isn't an asteroid wobbly like jello?	[ "I just saw a talk by Neil Degrasse Tyson on this issue. Asteroids are non-Newtonian solids. The may very well behave like jello. They might be a hard, solid rock, but they may also be a collection of small rocks that are held together by its own weak gravity. We simply don't know with any given asteroid." ]	[ "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...
Explain the difference to me between Nixon's Watergate and the Obama NSA scandal.	[ "1. Nixon wasn't impeached 2. NSA stuff has been going on before Obama took office" ]	[ "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 /...
My science teacher doesn't believe in global warming because of volcanoes and their CO2 levels after they erupt. Is this credible, and is it possible that he is right?	[ "[Skeptical Science](_URL_0_) has a ton of facts and figures (with citations) that are aimed at addressing most of the common misconceptions about climate change. I highly recommend it in addition to the answers that were given here." ]	[ "Most Christmas trees are grown on tree farms, not harvested from forests. In order to get the ideal shape for the tree, the tree needs space to grow, must be trimmable, kept free of critters, disease, etc. A christmas tree takes about 7-10 years to grow, and during that period of time it is extracting carbon from ...
Why do different molds favor different foods?	[ "I believe different molds convert one chemical into another chemical. If a mold is looking for lactose, it'll be happier in milk or cheese than in bread. So, lactose-digesting molds will usually show up in dairy-based foods. Also, molds are often airborne, and are also regionally based. A bread mold in the US mig...	[ "This is a deceptively deep question that has to do with spectroscopy selection rules. If you google \"Raman scattering selection rules\" and take a look at some of the results you'll learn a lot. In this case there's a complimentary distinction between IR spectra and Raman. In a very crude sense, because of the se...
Why can’t we implant a pump into patients who need a heart transplant to circulate blood instead of heart transplants?	[ "We can, and do. It’s called a ventricular assist device (VAD) and can help some candidates survive long enough to find a new heart." ]	[ "It's way, way, WAY, too expensive. The power plant alone would probably be more expensive than the entire lifetime cost of an average bulk carrier. Not to mention the insane mess of regulation that is involved with running a nuclear reactor. Basically, big ships run on bunker fuel, and bunker fuel is ludicrously...
We don't have veins running EVERYWHERE under our skin, right? So why independent of the place of the cut, we always bleed?	[ "You have [capillaries](_URL_1_) that connects the veins with the arteries and those are very very tiny and run pretty much everywhere. [Simple wikipedia on capillaries](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "There are a lot more steps involved than you see. From your perspective as a customer, you see the the money leave your account immediately when you make a purchase; but in reality there's a lot of processing that goes on and banks talking to each other and checking with each other before passing the money over. J...
Why did so much technological innovation happen in the old world rather than the new world? Was there anything stoping the Native Americans from inventing new things?	[ "They did some things that weren't done in the old world, like [permanently changing the soil](_URL_0_). As I understand it \"Old World\" refers to Europe, Asia, and Africa. New technologies flowed through these three continents and compounded upon each other through trade, which the Americas were isolated from fo...	[ "You're going to need to narrow down your time frame here, keep in mind you're asking about a time frame of 1000 years over a very, very large area of land with vastly different cultures. You'll be more likely to receive an answer if you narrow the question down to a more specific time." ]
How did Germany and Japan recover economically so well after World War 2?	[ "Edit: [This guy](_URL_0_) said it better than I ever could. ~~Both countries were industrious before the war so even after the destruction they had skilled labor and knowledge needed for manufacturing products other countries want. I can't talk about Japan, but Germany quickly developed a free market economy with ...	[ "Britain was occupied by Rome from 43 AD to 410 AD, which is shorter than most other areas. During that time, the island was never fully occupied, and they always lived besides the Anglo-Saxons in Scotland. The geographic isolation also plays an important role. On the main land, Spain, France and Italy may have be...
What is the most realistic answer to the question of how earlier humans consistently (or inconsistently) made fire without proper fire making tools?	[ "Hi there -- while this question may garner some answers here, you may also want to crosspost it to r/askanthropology." ]	[ "From what I've read they ate a lot more rough course foods. Chewing things that are hard scrape our teeth for us kind of like it does for other animals. The problem for our modern teeth is we eat a lot of soft refined foods and a lot of sugar. That stuff just sits there and gets stuck which causes tooth decay." ]
If something similar to a Dialysis machine was to clean my blood from co2 and oxygenate it, could I live without my lungs ?	[ "[Heart-Lung machines](_URL_0_) exist and are used during some surgeries. And scientists are getting close to creating an artificial lung that can be transplanted into patient's body." ]	[ "Here's how this would go: 1. The police would notify you that they had found your organs. 2. The person with your organs would be brought to court. 3. In the wait for the court date, you would die. 4. The person with your organs would eventually be sentenced to prison time." ]
Do supercomputers have similar parameters like ram or hdd size or something entirely different?	[ "Supercomputers are generally built to the particular specifications of their application, which means they don't have any well defined specifications. You might for example have a render farm for a movie production team which is optimized for video rendering, or you might have a computer which simulates molecular ...	[ "How to train a dragon took 90 Million CPU hours to render (_URL_2_). They used HP servers.(_URL_0_) Big Hero 6 (199 Million Core Hours). The render farm used on this production was able to produce 1.1 Million core hours a day. (_URL_1_). I am guessing there are using 55,000 Intel Xeon Core Server farm to render th...
Do Kepler's laws still apply for bodies of similar masses? If not, are there similar ones which do?	[ "Kepler's laws hold exactly in Newtonian gravity when there are only two bodies and they can be treated as either point particles or perfect spheres." ]	[ "> Does this have something to do with the relativistic Doppler effect? That's exactly it. It's the same as listening to music played from a car approaching you - it will sound sped up and higher pitch. There are also true relativistic effects in play - clocks on the approaching planet will be calculated to run slo...
Is there any consensus on who shot Tupac?	[ "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." ]	[ "Maybe better phrasing would be 'does any recently declassified information regarding the Korean war change commonly held perspectives about the conflict?'" ]
How well known were the now-famous minds of the ancient world?	[ "A general rule of thumb is that anybody whose works we possess today was extremely well known in ancient times. This isn't to say that their relative fame hasn't changed--Aristotle for example was well regarded in classical times but was canonized during the Medieval period--but if someone was minor or obscure the...	[ "Follow up. Would they be able to figure it out considering the travel times involved in traveling between the hemispheres back then?" ]
Why can steroids make a woman's clitoris larger but not make a man's penis larger?	[ "The tissue in the clitoris/penis has testosterone (T) receptors. Men usually make enough T to fill up all their receptors. Women usually do not. So adding T to a man's body doesn't do anything his body isn't already doing, whereas for a woman it goes into receptors (that would have been soaking up estrogen) and d...	[ "A reasonable series of adaptations, in chronological order, all of which can be seen in various animals today: First you have broadcast spawning...eggs and sperm thrown out into the currents, mingling at will. Next, you have males that get close to females to fertilize their eggs, cloaca to cloaca so that eggs get...
If I eat food off the ground, never wash my hands...pretty much expose myself to germs, will my body be able to better fight off germs/disease?	[ "Yes. But be wary. Some species of bacteria can cause illness with ingestion of less than 10 organisms. Also, S. aureus, which lives on your skin, can also cause digestive issues when ingested. Say no to hand sanitizer; wash hands with water and regular soap when necessary." ]	[ "> Is this like in ancient battles, where the amount of troops plays a crucial role in defeating an enemy army? Sort of like that. The white blood cells can ingest pathogens and produce antibodies to fight them off, but their ability to ingest or produce antibodies is of course limited by their number. A greater lo...
Why do we only have hair where we do?	[ "I have hair everywhere, except palms, soles and forehead. How about that? :)" ]	[ "It is down to the combination of the genes you get half the genes from your mother and half from your father but those genes are an almost random selection of those genes which go to make up each so can be combined in trillions of different ways. Like saying you get half a pack of cards from one parent and half fr...
Help settle a debate on AskReddit: Are healthy vaginas 'full of bacteria'?	[ "There are countless billions of bacteria in the typical healthy vagina. The prinicipal type of bacteria are lactobacilli which are what cause the vagina to be acidic by converting lactose and other sugars to lactic acid. It is this acidity which prevents overgrowth of infectious types of microorganism." ]	[ "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." ]
Why do I have to press shift to type a "?" It's on the same key as "/" which I use about once a month.	[ "I can't answer your question, but I use the / key dozens of times a day, every day. The choice had to be made at some point, and that was what \"they\" chose." ]	[ "The urge to swallow comes when the food is mashed into a sort of runny paste that can very easily be swallowed. Try chewing up a piece of bread, but then use your tongue to mash it back into a single big mass, you'll probably notice an urge to chew it up again before swallowing. Also, try eating some really dry fo...
What exactly goes on when someone tries to "boost the signal"?	[ "Literally increase the power of the transmitter. In other words, make the electric and magnetic fields of the transmission larger by using more current in the antenna." ]	[ "Normally when you download a file like off itunes or wherever you download the whole thing from one other computer or server. The easiest way I can picture torrenting is like plumbing, normally you only have one water pipe coming into your house that feeds all of the faucets etc which can result in low water pres...
What makes a rock skip on the water?	[ "Basically because the angle is so low, the water behaves the same as a solid surface. If there was more force downwards then it would break the surface and sudden resistance would make the rock tumble and slow, then sink. The best rocks for skimming should be flat to spread out the force across more water although...	[ "Flies are highly sensitive to changes in air pressure and/light. When you attack it with a newspaper or swatter, you are using a flicking motion with your wrist that causes it to move much faster than your hand alone (think about how the tips of whips move faster than the speed of sound). So the window of time the...
What was the difference between a Greek phalanx, a Macedonian phalanx, and a Phoenecian phalanx?	[ "Follow-up question; when did the Greek phalanx go out of fashion in favour of the Macedonian style, and why?" ]	[ "I just want to take a moment to thank Dan Monroe, Director and CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. His continued neglect of the Phillips Library Collections, and ensuring that the collection was unavailable both physically and digitally to researchers over the past 2 years (and for the forseeable futur...
How can the USA have no national language, yet use English on most official documents?	[ "There is no reason to declare an official language. English is the one that is used so it is naturally on every document. Some documents have stuff repeated in other languages, not not all of them." ]	[ "Just because it's unoccupied doesn't mean it's unowned. When the US was forming and expanding, it claimed a lot of land for itself. Most of that land it then sold or gave to various citizens (or other entities). A lot of these land claims were huge, so a family lived on the land and over generations sold it off t...
What does it mean that the integral of sin(x)/x dx equals the sine integral (+ constant)?	[ "The integral of sin(x)/x is well defined and we the value of the integral Si(x). We can use a variety of numeric techniques to evaluate Si(x). We can also use the definition of Si(x) to derive and prove a number of useful relations. However we can not express Si(x) in a simple form. If you think about it sin(x) is...	[ "Think about things bouncing around. Imagine a box with a fan in it. Put 20 balls in ithe box. Now imagine a basket to one side just the right size for the balls. Turn on the fan. The balls jump around randomly. At some point a ball will fall into the basket. This will happen at a given rate which will depends on h...
The true difference between horsepower and torque, and towing capacity and such?	[ "Torque is the measure of twisting force an engine produces. Power is defined as work per time unit, and automotive horsepower is calculated as hp=torque x rpm/5252. Race car engines make plenty of hp, but they do so at really high RPMs compared to tow vehicles. They just don't have much torque at lower RPMs. A sem...	[ "Looks price and class. That's it. When you pay for an escort you're paying for \"the girlfriend experience\" you talk to them eat with them you know go on a \"real\" date but at the end you know your getting lucky. With a whore your getting some drug addicted pimp abused woman who only wants to get you off as fast...
How might the design for an anti-matter engine look?	[ "Ask science: How cool are spaceships going to be? Scientifically speaking." ]	[ "It's a box that a bunch of microwaves are pumped in to and according to our currant understanding of physics it should not produce any thrust, yet multiple test have reported that it does produce thrust. We have no clue what this means as of yet." ]
what are horses used for this day in age where pretty much all farming is done with vehicles and such.	[ "Horses are used by police. They are extremely useful for crowd control because humans naturally become more cautious (most of the time) around them, they put the officer higher than the crowd, and they are more nimble in a crowd than motorcycles or bikes. Horses are used in park to pull fancy carts. Horses are u...	[ "Well, for one, that's not true. You can often haggle for any number of different types of purchases. But in general, arguing over the price of a tomato just isn't worth the hassle. Cars are very expensive, so it makes much more sense to try and negotiate a better price. Same for homes. I also haggle with the store...
How can western countries or others like japan be rich and have a high standards of living if they have little to no natural resources compared to other much poorer nations? And how long can they keep this up?	[ "Many Western countries have tons of natural resources. Even if they didn't though, the big answers are colonization and industrialism. European countries took the raw resources from weaker countries, and processed them into more valuable finished goods. As for how long they can keep this up, it really depends on ...	[ "Eating uncooked vegetables and rougher food in general helped, a much lower intake of sugar helped, and an expected lifespan of thirty or forty years meant your teeth didn't need to last nearly as long as we hope they do today. Animals in the wild never brush their teeth and they last." ]
What will the James Web telescope reveal about other planets?	[ "In terms of exoplanets one of the big goals is to do spectroscopy of their atmospheres, which would allow us to see their chemical makeup. This would tell us a lot about the conditions on these planets, and may also help in the search for life. For example, oxygen is very reactive and you wouldn't expect to see mu...	[ "Based on how much we have learned about Pluto: Is there something you regret about the design of New Horizon now? Which additional instrument would have been the most useful addition?" ]
Where does the energy from this claimed "perpetual motion" machine come from?	[ "Thanks for sharing, it's a slick video. Sorry for being a downer, but I think that it's actually very appropriate to assume that a hidden power source is being used. The wheel appears to be taking several revolutions to accelerate to top speed. That means that energy is being added to the system well after the ini...	[ "Let's imagine that you have a small water mill and a glass. If you use the glass directly on the water mill, the water mill will not turn regularly because you need to refill your glass with water. Now, let's use a funnel between your glass and your mill. You are now able to run your mill. (Most of sand mill toys...
If I were to have a large sheet of graphene (in a single layer), what would it look like?	[ "Yes pretty transparent. The property you're looking for is \"transmittance\" and is dependent on thickness. A single layer would be pretty clear. Here's a paper where they use graphene in a LCD due to its transparency. _URL_0_" ]	[ "This has actually already been done, [here is a video](_URL_0_). The problem is that the image coming from the eye is full of gaps and errors which our brain has evolved to cover up. We think we see a perfectly clear image but in reality it's distorted and constantly waving back and forth." ]
Why do florescent light bulbs have a feint glow even when turned off?	[ "It has to do with the lifetime for decay of the fluorescent molecule from an excited state to a lower energy state. Typically in light emitting bulbs you have to excite the atoms to a higher energy state and then they will eventually relax down to the lower state and emit light as they do so. How long they stay in...	[ "Because the law required them to be back-ward compatible with anything and everything ever invented. And people expect them to look a certain way, so they keep it up. And because it's a lot of time from Very Important Useless People (congressmen) to change the law for something that's really not that important. Am...
Why is the U.S. the only industrialized nation without mandatory paid family leave by employers?	[ "I'll admit I'm bias on this topic, but unions, US once had a great union movement that fought for the 40 hour work week, safe work conditions, minimum wage. Most other countries had the same thing and unions continued to fight and won paid leave and higher minimum wage. The US hasn't had strong labour unions since...	[ "I'm away from home right now, or I could give you a more complete quote, but John Gottman in his book \"And Baby Makes Three\" talks about the evolutionary loss of our \"fourth\" trimester. Essentially, we are forced to be born too early because our greatest evolutionary asset (our brain) means that our heads woul...
Why is there a negative correlation between planet size and rotation speed?	[ "[Here](_URL_0_) is a quick plot I made using the bodies in your link. There is a linear regression line. I'm not particularly convinced that there is a trend. [Here](_URL_2_) is a more fair linear scale plot of just the \"planets\". And [here](_URL_1_) is the linear section (removing Mercury, Venus and Pluto). ---...	[ "I don't think we'd feel it, but I do know some other effects that would occur. The Coriolis effect would be a lot more pronounced, acting over smaller distances (although, still probably not over the space of a toilet bowl). ~~Storms would be really really violent.~~ That's all I've got...somebody else want to tak...
How is water both an acid and a base, and is it ever in a non- aqueous state?	[ "Water is not both an acid and a base, it is either an acid or a base, depending on the ion concentrations within the fluid. Aqueous is defined as being in solution in which water is the solvent so the term \"aqueous\" doesn't even really apply. You can, of course, freeze it so that it's not longer a fluid, bu...	[ "Basically any molecule that has a optical exitation at the wave length sent out by your fluorophore, which depends on its electronic structure, can act as a quencher. You'd have to be a little more specific with your question." ]
(kinda): Adventure Time	[ "It's a very layered show. All that random stuff takes on meaning with time. One example is a snail that is in every episode (Like in the background waving) and by season 3 it becomes a very sinister and ominous thing to see. It's a kids show, but it still has great character development and writing. If you watch ...	[ "ESPN's 30 for 30 series has a great one called Once Brothers you might be interested in. It centers around 2 NBA players who were best friends but had a falling out over the conflict." ]
Where does the gum go when teeth grow in ?	[ "Pressure from the erupting tooth causes the gum to break down. After the tooth has emerged, the gum tissue recedes down the tooth until it is in the proper place. Tissue recession in this case means essentially that it shrinks." ]	[ "I do sex-ed with teens, this is what I tell them about it, I sometimes use three witheboard pens to examplify: Imagine a penis like three tubes bundled together, two on top and one on the bottom, the erectile tissue in the penis is formed like that and when you get an erection they fill with blood. In most cases t...
Why should you wait until your car has warmed up before driving?	[ "You don’t. 99.9% of modern cars you can jump right in and drive away. Now That doesn’t mean floor it when it’s negative 3 out, but just drive normally." ]	[ "The rate at which the pasta absorbs water depends on the water's temperature. If you add pasta to cold water and then heat it, the rate at which the pasta soaks up water will change depending on how much water you put in the pot, how high you turn the burner on, and other variables. This makes it hard to time it a...
Why do we shed tears when crying and what makes the face become red and warm?	[ "The face thing is easy. Blood rushes to the face and for some it is blatantly visible. There is no medical/biological reason why when we're sad we cry though." ]	[ "In psychology, this is generally discussed as part of the [general adaptation syndrome](_URL_0_). As a part of the emotional stressor, you activate your [sympathetic nervous system in your autonomic nervous system with a fight or flight response](_URL_1_). During this emotional event (such as a loss of a loved one...
When someone gets shot in the head, how do they die almost immediately?	[ "Some have survived gunshots to the brain. There are a lot of essential parts which control your body's autonomic functions which are vital to survive. Your heart doesn't beat on its own nor do your lungs breathe without signals from the brain. If these parts are damaged, you will be unable to survive. Shots to oth...	[ "Fast internet and faster servers. Human reaction times are on the order of 100ms or so. Ping time, which is round-trip packet flight time is often on the order of half that or so. Round trip is therefore on the order of human reaction if you give the server a little time to do stuff. Also, the server only sends b...
Why does the battery on your laptop or phone degrade if you charge it too much or for too long?	[ "Lithium Ion batteries rely on very small molecular structures to store charge, and these slowly become damaged. The more energy in the battery (both keeping it fully charged and keeping it warm) causes the structures to break down quicker. It's a completely different reaction, but it's a little like how iron rust...	[ "Your eyes work by constantly producing chemicals that is broken down by light. By measuring how much chemicals is in your vision cells you can find out how much light they receive. When it is light there is very little chemicals present and when it is dark there is lots of chemicals. However it takes your cells ab...
Why Are Cane Fields Burned After A Harvest?	[ "Plant ash is also an incredible, fast-acting fertilizer as it's been broken down and ready for reabsorption." ]	[ "As a follow up question, how are the farmers/owners of that land compensated today? Battlefields of WW1 are still claiming victims and damaging property with exploding ordinances. Wouldn't this not be covered under insurance as acts of war are pretty much never covered? Or is there a special fund or type of insur...
Why can Birds and Squirrels sit, jump, and run on powerlines, but if I touch one, I'm dead?	[ "This was explained to me by an electrician friend, but its been a while so it may not be accurate. My understanding is that the bird can survive touching a power line because the bird isn't grounded. Technically, if you were dropped from a plane and were able to grab ahold of a power line without touching the grou...	[ "On average, air is air. However, on a very small scale, there are pockets of low/high pressure, and low/high concentrations of all sorts of chemicals. You can see [in this incredible gif](_URL_1_) how \"tendrils\" of electricity are extended first. They travel through as low-resistance a path as they can find, and...
How was citizenship proven before ID cards and birth certificates?	[ "In the middle ages, local churches kept many forms of records regarding baptisms, consanguinity, etc. If you were a serf, there were also manorial records." ]	[ "Retailers used a small machine with two rollers that made a carbon copy of your details and those of the retailer on a triplicate carbon copy slip. That is the reason your credit card still has raised lettering in the front. You got one copy, the retailer kept one and the other copy was submitted to the bank for c...
What makes an object silver as opposed to white?	[ "> Does it have something to do with how much the material scatters the light? Yes: There are two phenomenons at play here: * Very smooth surfaces will reflect light coherently producing sharp reflections while rough surfaces will reflect light in somewhat random directions producing blurry reflections. * Dielec...	[ "The extra oxygen is just barely hanging on to the molecule. Any little disturbance, even photons, will knock it off. When that oxygen goes rogue, it will attach to pretty much anything in the vicinity, effectively \"bleaching\" whatever it attaches to. Edit: you guys are right, but this is ELI5, I'm trying to keep...
Why there is no such thing as "-isms" in American Politics based on charismatic leaders, such as Peronism, Franquism or Maoism? (i.e. no Lincolnism, etc.)	[ "Americans are not very fond of -isms, probably because of the associations of ideological extremes and radical, undemocratic movements. But certainly we have inspiring leaders--many politicians latch onto the writings of a particular Founding Father, there used to be a big faction of \"Roosevelt Republicans\" (for...	[ "Sorry, we don't allow [throughout history questions](_URL_0_). These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your qu...
Have there been any studies relating to the tendency of people to seek out entertainment rather than information? e.g. like is happening on reddit.	[ "I guess I'd counter with a different question - how exactly does watching National Geographic really benefit you, besides the entertainment value? You state this as if it was self-evident, but really why is knowing the lifecycle of lions more useful then celebrity gossip? I'd definitely consider the former more a...	[ "For any creature to be able to stop eating when food is readily available, they need to have mechanisms that react to the amount consumed and triggers some sort of instinct to stop. For this mechanism to evolve naturally, the creatures would have to have gone through long periods of fatally over-abundant food. Thi...
Why hasn't evolution made humans perceive overweight people as more attractive? Considering that being overweight means having access to food which humans need to survive.	[ "Overweight and pale used to mean attractive, because it suggested that you didn't need to work, and therefore you sat inside all day and ate. It is not attractive these days, because overweight means you gorge yourself on fast food before returning to your cubicle. Thin and tan is attractive, because it means you ...	[ "\"Damn, this rock feels warm\" \"Holy shit is that another rock? I bet it's even warmer\" Seriously, though, they are on a constant search for warm objects to heat themselves up. We burn lots of calories to keep our bodies warm enough for life processes to happen. Reptiles don't have that luxury" ]
I just finished reading Shogun by James Clavell and I have some questions about the historical events that followed the Battle of Sekigahara	[ "Christianity was banned, and people were usually registered to Buddhist temples through the danka system. Missionaries/Jesuits were absolutely not allowed to stay in Japan, and would be killed if found out, especially if they had an underground church. The Japanese era of Sakoku (closed off country) was created i...	[ "why did Napoleon's troops love him after Russia and Leipzig? one battle does not destroy a reputation such as the one Lee built. The post war \"soldier's peace,\" Lee's post war apolitical role and Longstreet's republicanism (opening himself up to unfair criticism by the virginia school) helped post war romantici...
What is causing this specific version of the Galaxy Note 7 to have so much trouble?	[ "If we knew the answer to that question, the problem could be addressed. Given that Samsung has suspended manufacturing it seems likely that they don't know, or cannot fix it. As for what is burning, the battery is a very high energy storage device. Getting energy out to power your phone needs to be a strictly cont...	[ "The government was overthrown and everyone was like \"yaay democracy\" but then everyone remembered they had different opinions. So now the more extreme groups are like \"omg totally our time\" and being all extreme and shit. Thats how I would explain it, as I understand it, as quickly as possible." ]
Many facets of American social culture appear to have gotten less "formal" over the course of the last 100 years (male/female dress, reverence for elders etc). Are there any noticeable examples of American society becoming more formal over this time period?	[ "Resumes have become an institution in the last 75 or so years. It used to be you carried a note from a Lord or trade guild and that was about it. These days people agonize over small details because these trivial things seem to mater. You will not find a lot of historical examples of resumes since they were almost...	[ "In the US, the [National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984](_URL_1_) required that if a state allowed anyone under the age of 21 to drink then their Federal highway appropriation would be reduced by 10%. The law has been amended multiple times since and was last amended in 2012 to reduce the appropriation reductio...
Why does communicating faster than light imply a violation of causality?	[ "Causality says that there must be a cause to any effect. If a messenger sends a message, regardless of how fast it is sent, everybody in the universe who observes the messages agrees that the messenger sent the message before the receiver received it. Depending on how fast each observer was moving relative to the ...	[ "This is a question that has no simple answer. We recognised that Mercury didn't behave quite as Newton's Laws of Motion predicted. Albert Einstein postulated that this was because we assumed time was universal, and introduced mathematical structures (Special and later General Relativity) that did not assume time w...
What exactly is bureaucracy, how does it develop in a society and is it a negative or a positive thing?	[ "It is simply a way of coordinating the efforts of a large number of people. It crops up in any organization large enough that roles become specialized. For example When a person Making a product doesn't have the time to order supplies. They arrange for someone good at tracking down suppliers to order for them, and...	[ "The only examples that I can think of are in Serbia and in Occupied Belgium and France. In Serbia, bands of civilians and soldiers, called 'komitadjis', fought against the failed Austro-Hungarian invasion in 1914, and against the Central Powers occupation from Sept. 1915 onwards. Fighting bands like these had alre...
What is Linux and its pros and cons?	[ "Yep, Linux is an operating system. Pros - It's open source. People can change the code however they want. So you get a lot of different options in terms of how your desktop works. Previously, the built-in software store gave some versions of Linux an edge because it made it very easy to find/install software. But...	[ "This is a very common question. You can use search to find [all the other really good answers](_URL_0_ ). This is instant, and faster than ust typing in your question every time. It's a way of cheating elections. Read the others, and then ask a more specific question." ]
Overthinking and rumination - the feeling of being 'stuck inside your head.'	[ "Humans are unique in that we possess the capacity to be self-aware and consciously think about decisions and observations, as well as consider potential outcomes. Generally, if there is no impetus to make a decision quickly, the brain will mull over a decision for a long period of time. Similarly, the brain is als...	[ "Usually when we type, we are using our working memory to hold the info we want to type. Our working memory only has so much space in it that if something new pops up it pushes back the old info and takes front seat; attention also affects this. Think of it like a bus. What you're trying to type is in the drivers ...
Is Light that is red shifted, also polarized?	[ "We can only tell that light is red shifted when it's from a specific elemental emission, such as Hydrogen or Helium. These emissions do happen at distinct wavelengths but are not necessarily polarized. Polarization can easily be determined with a polarizer. If someone was to shine a flashlight towards you and move...	[ "Everything on board the ship will experience time to behave normally. You can not experience your own time dilation, and neither can the camera. You can also say that you are in fact stationary and experiencing no time dilation, and it is the solar system that is moving relative to the ship, since there is no abso...
Sexism and goddesses	[ "//Greek women were not allowed to vote or own/trade non-petty property(?)// This is true, the only items married ancient Greek women were allowed to own outright were personal feminine artefacts referred to as 'Paraphernalia' (meaning 'beyond dowry') A husband could not legally sell or give away his wife's parap...	[ "I don’t think there’s anything to explain. Sometimes we as humans are just hypocrites. Why is Bill Clinton given a pass on all the allegations against him? Why do people follow some bits of the bible and reject the bits they don’t like? Humans are strange." ]
Have two countries or empires ever willfully merged?	[ "Sure. Egypt and Syria voluntarily united between 1958 and 1961 in the United Arab Republic. The merger was the product of the zeitgeist for Pan-Arab Nationalism as led by Gamal Abdel Nasser that, at least in theory, called for the unity of all Arab states. Nasser was made President and the merger ultimately fell ...	[ "Lawyer and former state-level prosecutor here, How: That's the way history happened. The Federal Gov't has limited power, and didn't really do much in the early years, e.g., under Pres. Washington. Each time a need for a specific task would arise, say to investigate counterfeiting, a new police force would be born...
How did Thailand Managed to Avoid being Colonized?	[ "This question has been asked before, with a few good in depth answers by u/sterio _URL_0_" ]	[ "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 /...
Impact (if any) of the European revolutions of 1848 on the lead up to the American Civil War?	[ "Over 200,000 German-born Americans served in the Union Army, while less than 5,000 fought for the Confederacy. The massive emigration sparked by the Revolutions of 1848 certainly gave the Union a massive boost in manpower." ]	[ "Aside from the Walter diary, one of the most harrowing accounts of 1812 is Sergeant Bourgogne - with Napoleon's Imperial Guard in the Russian campaign and on the retreat from Moscow 1812 - 13 by Adrien Bourgogne who typified the Imperial Guard's hard fighting grumblers. *A Soldier for Napoleon The Campaigns of L...
How do cashiers do the trick where they put ink on the receipts with only their finger	[ "Thermal reciept paper does not have ink applied to the paper by the printer. It does contain a dye that darkens when exposed to heat. While the heat from a thermal printer head is more than enough to darken parts of the paper, any sufficient heat source can work. Something else that can generate a moderate amou...	[ "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 is there an emphasis on a closed loop to Faraday's law?	[ "It's easy to imagine that when you turn on a circuit, an electron goes zipping all the way around. While it will do So eventually, it's important to remember that there are electrons already in the places where that first electron wants to go. So when electron number one wants to jump to position number two, there...	[ "Either you're misunderstanding the example given, or whoever gave you the example is confused. The only thing I can think of that might make sense is if the professor were trying to explain how different geometries can have different properties, so that the distance between A and B in a straight line (i.e. throug...
How can trees live to be thousands of years old?	[ "Actually, the record is [somewhat over 5000 years](_URL_0_). [Clonal trees](_URL_0_#Clonal_trees) may be very much more. Possibly up to a million years. As to why - trees have a lot of things going for them. They can survive when some bits die, they retain the ability to grow new bits, once they've adapted to cope...	[ "How do you know a year has passed without looking at a calendar? I imagine they sense the temperature/climate changes like anything else." ]
The difference between a restricted and unrestricted free agent in the NHL.	[ "A unrestricted free agent can sign with whoever he wants. The team he used to play for has no special rights as compared to any other team in the league. A restricted free agent on the other hand, if another team makes an offer to him (called an \"offer sheet,\") his current team has a window of time to respond to...	[ "Basically if you plot the image density versus integrated energy on a pixel, you will find that no system is perfectly linear. Even the time of exposure (shutter speed) can affect the results. Film was especially bad in this respect. And lead to things like [\"Black lightning\"](_URL_1_) on photographs. Caused by ...
Why are electrical powerpoints different between countries/continents when their purpose is the same?	[ "_URL_0_ Explains it much better than I could." ]	[ "Imagine you have a computer on your house. Now you want to connect that computer to your friend 100 miles away. How do you do it? You could lay a 100 mile cable, but do you have the permissions to dig up roads and pathways? You would use a company whose cables were already there, and just use that network of cab...
Does space have a distinct smell?	[ "The smell of space has been described in a variety of ways, by many different people. The most common seem to be along the lines of seared steak, hot metal, and welding fumes. Think ozone, sulfur. Gunpowder. Those metallic smells." ]	[ "This is pretty much how we preserve food (think about packaged cakes which last for months on the shelf). The bread would dry out very quickly in vacuo as the water would evaporate and be pumped out by the vacuum pump. This is why twinkles and the like are packaged with argon or nitrogen gas. The proteins in the b...
Why minor chords tend to make us feel sad, and major chords give us a "feel good" feeling?	[ "I suppose because it sounds like voices in a way. For example, if you shout \"Yay!\" it sounds light and feels almost the same a a major chord. When you moan or make sad sounds they sound darker and more like a minor chord. It's just natural, I guess." ]	[ "Several of your questions can be answered when you are reminded that you are studying Western Music theory. There are scales other than the 12 note, chromatic scale. Pentatonic is one example, and there are microtonal scales which are not chromatic. Experimental composers have also worked with music that uses m...
How can a video game receive rewards when it hasn't even been released yet?	[ "You mean AWARDS, right? Most anticipated game award could be some of them. Don't need a release for that one. :) The others are because the award judges get advanced near-complete versions of the game to experiment with. They get to see the in-game graphics, try to play it, and so on to allow them to get enoug...	[ "Your employer takes money out of your paycheck throughout the year to pay your local, state, and federal taxes. The amount they take out, however, is just an estimate how much tax you will probably owe at the end of the year. There's no way for the state, local, and federal governments to know what you actually do...
Why does a pimple hurt less after being popped even though it is now an open wound?	[ "You relieve the pressure under the skin when you pop it. The pimple is caused by a blockage of your pores which causes a buildup of pressure. The increased pressure causes inflammation locally putting pressure on the nerves in your skin. When you pop it, you relieve pressure allowing the fluid to drain. Make sure ...	[ "The puss filled blisters contained virus remnants that were near the end of their life cycle. Some were dead, others weakened. As such, they were using dead and weak and remenants of viruses similar to how modern vaccines work." ]
How common were western movie style shoot outs and duels in the wild west?	[ "Almost unheard of. There were of course occasional gunfights, like the OK Corral, but the movie-style showdown on Main Street at high noon essentially never happened. The one time it did happen - the Wild Bill Hickok shootout with Davis Tutt - was so widely reported that it became mythology. In reality, grudges 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...
V6 vs I6 engines: pros, cons?	[ "I6 is an inline 6 meaning they are all in a row. This is considered ideal and the more balanced engine of the two. The v6 is obviously in a v configuration with two banks of 3 cylinders. Its good for stuffing a higher displacement engine in a small place. Most cars that offer a 4cylinder and a 6 cylinder will go w...	[ "For most people, there just isn't that much difference. Both have browsers, spread-sheets, word processors, photo editors. Both have thousands and thousands of apps. There certainly are some apps or games that can run only on one or the other, and if that's true for you, it might be enough to make the difference. ...
Ok so lets assume that RNA randomly arranged itself on early Earth, how was it able to copy itself? Why is this specific arrangement of atoms so special?	[ "If there's a whole soup of amino acids floating around, a chain of RNA will pick up extra amino acids to make pairs. Then if it separates, you have two strips with the same pattern and those can collect more free amino acids in the same pattern, and so on. Whatever pattern was better at making copies would have...	[ "Mirrors do not reflect your image horizontally. If you move your right hand, the right side of the image in the mirror also moves. You're so used to interacting with other people though, that the mind interprets your reflection as another person who is moving the opposite hand." ]
Do returning spaceships have to re-enter the atmosphere at "blazing" speeds?	[ "It takes a huge multistage rocket to get the spaceship up to orbital speeds. To slow it down before you hit the atmosphere, you would need to produce the same amount of delta-v, so you'd require a rocket about the same size as the one you started with on Earth (though a little smaller because you don't have an atm...	[ "I'm familiar with this behaviour in blackbirds in the UK. It sounds as though the birds you describe are doing the same thing. You have correctly identified that not all birds do this - different species have typical responses to threats and flying fast and low is one such response. Unfortunately for the bird it i...
What was the civilian casualty rate in the age of musket?	[ "You may want to specify down on a certain conflict or far more specific time frame than this. \"Age of musket\" is a, frankly, horrible term and it lumps together over 300 years of history which experienced arguably the greatest change in Western warfare ever. It's absolutely impossible and even more irresponsible...	[ "As far as I'm aware the only source for that number is Caesar himself. I'd say you're right to assume that too high a number for an army of that period, particularly in such a politically decentralized area." ]
When did righty become tighty and lefty loosey?	[ "Relatedly, why is it that people tend to measure whether you're turning a screw \"right\" from the top of the screw? After all, if you look at the movement with the bottom as the reference point, it's actually turning left." ]	[ "Can you be more specific? Are you asking when people started stereotyping higher education as liberal in nature, or are you making the assumption that it's de facto liberal now and are looking for a point in history when (and if) it shifted to more liberal values?" ]
What laws or moral codes did Abraham Lincoln break in order to protect the union and slaves?	[ "Hi there, (1) Please wait at least 24 hours in between times you ask a question in AskHistorians. (2) If you choose to resubmit this question, please avoid the leading/fraught wording you've used here. \"Did Abraham Lincoln break any moral codes\" would be a great substitute." ]	[ "[Wikipedia](_URL_0_) has some good comments on it. I remember the notes about Napoleon from elementary school history. > There is a popular story that Napoleon changed the rule of the road in the European countries he conquered from keep-left to keep-right. Some justifications are symbolic, such as that Napoleon...
If a nuclear fallout were to actually occur, where would be the safest place to survive, and why?	[ "The Caribbean Islands. Their weather patterns form over the central atlantic, far from any strike areas, so you don't have to deal with radioactive elements blowing in on the wind. They're close to the equator so they'll stay relatively warm in a mild nuclear winter, and they're generally politically unimportant s...	[ "U Boats were active off of the Island of Newfoundland (where I am from). I believe Newfoundland has the dubious distinction of being the [only North American landmass attacked during WW2](_URL_2_); a U Boat torpedo missed its target and hit Bell Island (off of Newfoundland's coast). What's really interesting is th...
What are some good books for reading about the history of AIDS and how it was interpreted/addressed by both religous fundamental groups and homosexuals?	[ "'And the band played on' by Randy Shilts is an absolute must for reading on the AIDS crisis. It covers the politics of the Reagan Administration and the Evangelical side of the Republic Party, and their attitudes towards LGBT people at the time. Most notable Is the difference in compassion to those who contracted ...	[ "For Hamilton's role as Treasury Secretary I'd recommend Ron Chernow's biography. It's not as strong on Hamilton's role as a soldier in my opinion, or the political situation generally, but it really shows Hamilton's brilliance on the establishing the financial health of the new country." ]
Why do I sometimes get a minor erection when I poo?	[ "I have no scientific info to back this up but I would assume it's because of prostate stimulation by contracting your shitter muscles." ]	[ "Your blood pressure is momentarily dropping as your heart must work against your momentum to pump blood to your brain." ]
ELI5: Why does water taste terrible when you're sick, even though you're supposed to be drinking lots of fluids to get better?	[ "It's a part of so called [sickness behavior](_URL_0_). Imagine you're an animal living in wilderness and your food/water sources are scarce and require certain amount of energy to get to them. At the same time, there is quite high chance that you will fail in this task so it is wise to avoid search for them and in...	[ "This illustrates the difference between this subreddit and r/answers. This kind of requests doesn't belong here. r/explainlikeimfive serves the purpose of explaining hard things in easier ways. r/answers works for trivial and curious questions like this one." ]
Why do some scripted tv comedies still use laugh tracks and live studio audiences nowadays? I dont know anyone who doesnt find them insulting to their intelligence.	[ "I don't feel my intelligence is insulted. Laughter is actually a group activity. Studies have backed this up: on being told a joke, you're much more likely to laugh if you're with other people than if you're on your own. Movies don't need laugh tracks, because they're designed to be watched in an auditorium with a...	[ "As a singular person, someone can be either above or below (or at) the desired pitch. When you combine thousands of people together, usually in an area that is designed with acoustics in mind, everyone's voice sorta \"averages\" together, making it sound fairly decent to the average ear." ]
Can astronauts knock a spacecraft off course my moving around inside it?	[ "By changing the distribution of mass about the center of mass of the object they can affect its trajectory. Pushing off would not as the sum of all forces would equal zero. It is like trying to pick yourself up to fly." ]	[ "While common sense says \"No\", newton's third law and all that, Mythbusters have actually proven that it DOES work due to some clever physics. Its similar to how old ships used to sail against the wind and all that." ]
I don't understand how it is possible to cool a car engine with air alone. So how does air-cooled engines work?	[ "There is a lot of air, and the average temperature of the air is suitable for long-term engine operation. It's simply a matter of exchanging the engine heat with enough air. Even liquid cooled engines do this, they use a fluid to move the heat to a radiator and from there into the air. An air cooled engine simply ...	[ "This is a type of helicopter that uses the NOTAR (NO TAil Rotor) system. Inside the tail of the helicopter (where there would normally be a tail rotor) is a fan that creates air pressure that which exits via slots in the tail creating a boundary layer of air. This can change the direction airflow around the tail o...
How do casinos know and prove that someone is counting cards?	[ "Dealers themselves are trained to count cards. That way they know when the deck is positive or negative and they just look for people that changing their bets to suit. If the deck is very stacked in the players favour and someone ups their bets from $50 to $500 then back down to $50 the dealer knows they are coun...	[ "They have rather large production crews that work behind the scenes to do exactly that. It's not like the announcers are doing it. That combined with modern computer technology let them do it in a way that seems rather seamless to the viewer." ]
how YouTube is able to almost instantly change the resolution of a streaming video?	[ "Why wouldn't they be able to do that? They encode every available resolution and only send the one you request; if you change your choice they just start sending something they already had. It isn't like they encode videos for you personally." ]	[ "You tell the shortening service a URL, it stores that URL in its database and generates a short code. When somebody tries to go to _URL_0_ it looks up the full URL from its database and redirects the browser. Depending on the service the short URL might be temporary (it will be removed from the database after a wh...
How do new trees grow in the forrest if the canopy blocks out all light below it?	[ "Sometimes huge trees fall over and pulls down a lot of other vegetation creating a hole in the canopy and new trees compete to fill the gap." ]	[ "This guy, [Kamal Meattle](_URL_2_) from India, has been studying precisely that for past past couple of decades. They have been using combinations of [areca palm](_URL_1_)(Dypsis lutescens) for producing oxygen during daylight hours, [snake plant or mother in law's tongue](_URL_0_)(Sansevieria trifasciata) for pro...
If the IRS lost emails, wouldnt the recipients of those emails also have copies?	[ "It's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of a government building." ]	[ "They store it all on a hard drive the size of Texas! Actually, it's split across thousands and thousands of hard drives, in probably hundreds of buildings. Here's a [picture](_URL_0_) of just one of them. This one is in Iowa." ]
How come North Korea is going through a famine?	[ "Because even though the DPRK is the 10^th largest worldwide producer of fresh fruit and 12^th largest in vegetables a lot of it is exported to finance military expenditured. And their grain industry is seriously lacking in modern methods and almost exclusively run by manpower since petrol is reserved for high part...	[ "Because for the most part they are not important in current affairs section of news in Europe or the Americas. Their industries and markets are too small to be of any major concern." ]
What temperature (if any) would be required to ignite the earth's atmosphere?	[ "Going with the definition of ignition as rapid oxidation. Nitrogen gas is 78% of the atmosphere, and doesn't burn at all. It has a super-stable triple bond, so oxygen is never going to find a way in there. Nitrogen is actually used as a fire extinguisher. Oxygen is 21%. You can't burn oxygen with more oxygen. Argo...	[ "Here is a paper from 1992 that gives a \"simplified\" mechanism. _URL_4_ In short, radicals are formed and then the reaction proceeds very quickly. There can be a large number of different species that take part in the reaction so it is a very complicated thing to describe kinetically. Reactions that may initiate ...
Was hoping someone can explain the scope of oil drilling. When discovering a new, untapped oil reservoir, is it comparable to placing a straw in a bucket of water, or a straw in a pool?	[ "Neither. There isn't a void in the Earth with oil in it, it's trapped inbetween the grains of usually a sandstone (although there are lots of different types of reservoirs). I have written extensively on the subject [here](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "This doesn't change between babies and adults. It's actually the exact same. What changes is they way we take our drinks as we get older. As babies we are drinking from a nipple (either an actual nipple of a simulated one on baby bottles). A baby has to suck to get liquid out of it. If you tilt a baby bottle, ver...
From a historical perspective, what is the reason for the relatively high populations of India and China, compared to places like Europe and South America, for example? Were the Indians and Chinese of the past comparatively healthier than people in other areas?	[ "hi! you'll find more info in the FAQ (link on sidebar) * [Why do China and India have such large populations?](_URL_3_)" ]	[ "Neither. We've simply adapted our medical technology to help our pets live longer than they used to. Just as humans lived much shorter lives around the time that dogs were being domesticated, so did dogs. As our diet and technology improved, our lifespan increased- and we brought the same attention to our companio...

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