Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
How do big companies get hacked? Sony for example.	[ "The vast majority of hacking is completely un-hollywood. The most common types of hacks include: 1. getting a username and password from the garbage. 2. getting a username and password from someone on the phone because they are an idiot. 3. accounts not being turned off after people leave the organization (employe...	[ "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...
How does earth's magnetic field modulates cosmic ray?	[ "High-energy cosmic rays are charged particles so their path is bent by magnetic fields. Since the earth's magnetic field is so large and relatively strong it deflects many particles away so that they don't reach the surface." ]	[ "Read your own source carefully again, it has the answer for you. There are a few steps: * CFC's Emitted mostly in northern hemisphere. * Thorough mixing occurs in lower atmosphere over a period of years (CFC's are mostly non-reactive and insoluble) * A portion of well-mixed tropical air rises from the lower atmosp...
Why do related parents mean higher chance of developing illnesses?	[ "We get copies of genes from both our parents. Many really bad issues tend to only be bad if you get two bad copies, because if even one copy is fatal, then that particular illness isn't very likely to be passed on and goes extinct. So if you have two unrelated parents, and one of them has a bad copy that cause...	[ "Mosquito and flies like damp and warm environments. Hospitals, do their best to keep their environment dry and cool/freezing. Compared to the inside of a hospital, the incests prefer the garden outside where it is warmer, more wet. Nothing magical here." ]
Does a snail being crushed under my foot (accidentally) feel no pain the way we would (might) feel no pain if a 2000 tonne weight fell on us instantly?	[ "If i recall correctly, snails are super sensitive to touch and have relatively many pain/heat/cold receptors in thier skin." ]	[ "In order to feel something in or on your body, some sort of mechanical force needs to be detected, interpreted by receptors, transferred into an electrochemical signal, and sent to the brain. In the case of blood flowing through arteries, we have [baroreceptors](_URL_0_) which sense blood pressure. Changes in bloo...
What happens when you coil a magnetic field?	[ "I don't know what you mean by \"coiling\" a magnetic field. The coil you're describing in your first example isn't a coil of electric field, it's just a coil of wire (ie. conducting material). The general rules are [changing magnetic fields induce electric fields](_URL_0_) (as in the example you gave), and [changi...	[ "Where are you getting your 2.5 x 10^-4 m/s from? That's likely your issue. Take for example the rough copper wire calculation done in wikipedia [here](_URL_0_). They do a \"reasonable\" copper wire and come up with a drift velocity of ~10^-5 m/s, so maybe that's where you got a number like that. EXCEPT, they assum...
How did humans survive the ice age?	[ "Hi! The question is fine here, but just FYI, questions on early man are worth x-posting to our sister sub /r/AskAnthropology" ]	[ "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" ]
How to whistle without fingers?	[ "What I'm wondering is how one whistles WITH fingers, 'cause I've never understood how to do that. Only without fingers" ]	[ "Like this! Oh, sorry. Forgot you weren't a real 5-year-old." ]
How many calories per day are dedicated to producing hair?	[ "Really incomplete and probably incorrect answer: Measure the mass of protein (keratin and some others) and lipids that make up the hair grown daily. Multiply each weight by 4 and 9 respectively, and you'd have an idea of the amount of calories contained in hair. This doesn't account for all the other metabolic pr...	[ "Here's an [article at livescience](_URL_1_) that says essentially what others in this thread are saying. * We don't know how much oil reserves are in the Earth. * There's no defined length of time that is required for organic material to be converted into petroleum. * The rate at which oil is created is ~~likely~~...
If DNA is the blueprint for creating enzymes that synthesize DNA, how did DNA first come about?	[ "Miller and urey did an experiment some 50 years ago. They took basic chemicals and put it in a special flask that simulated prehistoric conditions such as lightning and volcanic acitivty. Macromolecules like DNA, RNA, and fats formed. Probably one of the coolest experiments ever in my opinio" ]	[ "At the most basic level, instead of telling a computer what to do, you give it the tools to learn from what it has done. For example, imagine a tic-tac-toe game. Instead of telling it what to do, you give it the ability to remember games; and whether or not it won the game. then, when it has to make a move, it loo...
Why does Congress keep extending/reauthorizing the Patriot Act if the overwhelming majority of American people and businesses oppose it?	[ "Partly because your perception of where people stand with regard to the Patriot Act and where the majority of people actually stand is not necessarily the same. Partly because politicians are in it for the power, and the Patriot act gives them power." ]	[ "> how does moving some nonexistent boundaries change the way the election will go? [Take a look at this picture](_URL_0_). There are 9 blue voters and 6 orange voters. A, B, and C show three ways of redistricting the map. In option A, blue wins all three districts by a 3-2 vote. In option B, blue wins 2 districts ...
how does a HOA (home owners association) have any power?	[ "The buyer of the property was sold it under the condition they agreed to abide by the HOA. This agreement requires any new buyer to sign the agreement in kind." ]	[ "Picture this: It's September 2001. The worst terrorist attack on American soil has just occurred. The twin towers were demolished in spectacular fashion. The Pentagon has one of its wings in rubble. Over ~~5,000~~ 3,000 Americans are dead, 6,000 injured. People are shocked, bewildered, and angry. \"How could this ...
why is it that music involving a piano sounds terrible when coming from my cell phone speaker?	[ "The speaker is either by design or by physical limitations less good at producing certain frequencies or combos. For example, you might notice that phone speakers don't produce great bass sound because they are so small. One note on an instrument isn't a pure sine wave - it's a bunch of different frequencies all ...	[ "A lot is also due to comparison. When one watches the news, they see footage from 10,000$ + studio cameras. These shoot full HD and are tripod mounted, so a shaky camera phone, which isn't the same quality as the studio will be noticed more." ]
I get that the late 19th century American West was "lawless" and gritty, but were there really shootouts in these towns on a daily/weekly basis? I mean was it THAT wild?	[ "Hi, hopefully others will jump in with more on the prevalence of shootouts, but I found a previous posts that asks a similar question, and includes links to a few posts on the accuracy of film tropes * [Was the Wild West really that wild?](_URL_0_) featuring /u/itsallfolklore" ]	[ "Most neighborhoods built after the 1950s, ie subdivisions in the suburbs, are built all at once. Meaning they will all be built within a year of each other and use 1-5 building plans. Homes built in cities or on privately owned lots outside the city limits that are not a part of a subdivision are built as the owne...
Why are most pens blue or black ink? Shouldn't they just all be black, or was there a reason that blue became popular?	[ "From about the 5th century to the late 19th or early 20th century, standard ink used in Europe was iron gall ink, which is dark blue. In the 20th century, ink manufacturers started to develop other formulas for inks, synthesizing new dyes that would not corrode the metal parts of fountain, dip, and ballpoint pens...	[ "Your eye sensors tire after a short while viewing a static image. In this example they're giving you a fixed point to focus on so that the image stays positioned in the same place on your retina. Notice how her lips are green in the negative. Staring at that wears our your green sensor there. Then, when you switch...
How do skateboarders not take serious injury when doing an ollie from a height that would injury you otherwise?	[ "There's no magic. They get hurt all the time. Rolling out can only do so much, and the knees take a beating." ]	[ "* They die. Due to a combination of high wind speeds and low visibility, cell phone towers actually kill nearly [7 million birds per year in the U.S. alone](_URL_2_). * Cell phone towers have [very few horizontal bars](_URL_1_) - most are vertical or angled, making them difficult/uncomfortable to land on. * Birds ...
How are old films colorized?	[ "Old films that were colorized in the old days were often hand colored. Yep, it's a painstaking process that can take multiple people months to complete. Old films colorized today can sometimes approximate colors from the film's exposure using computer algorithms, but still often needs manual correction." ]	[ "You take pictures, you enter amount, you send it in. They use a computer to analyze the check and the serial numbers to see if it's a true check, they also check the amount as well of course." ]
Why do some parts of the body gets bigger but some gets smaller with exercise?	[ "It depends on the exercise and diet. If you are in a calorie-deficit diet, your body will begin eating fat, so any fat reserve areas will shrink as they are consumed. If you are doing high-intensity work, your muscles will grow in order to better handle the load they are put under, causing those muscles to grow. I...	[ "The thing to understand is that volume of a sound (in dB) is not an absolute constant but instead depends on how far away your eardrum is from the source of the sound; this makes sense, further things are quieter. If a speaker and headphones are emitting at the same volume, the speaker will do less damage because ...
Why do Electrons have a charge of -1.60E-19 Coulombs instead of just -1 Coulomb?	[ "Why should they? 1 Coulomb was defined as the amount of charge transported by a current of 1 ampère in 1 second. It was never intended as the unit of 1 elementary charge." ]	[ "Just in case this helps to make something click, try it with the c included. E^2 -p^(2)c^2 = m^(2)c^4 with p=0, we have E^2 = m^(2)c^(4) yielding E=mc^2 which you may find familiar." ]
Why does some people's skin hold ink stains much more than others?	[ "People have different amounts of lose old skin cells at the top of their skin. If you regularly scrub your hands aggressively, most of the ink will stick to fresh cells deeper in the skin layer. Whereas someone who doesn't wash their hands as aggressively will have more of a layer of dead skin cells, and the ink s...	[ "It depends on how they prefer to form letters, size/coordination of their hand, what muscles they use to write, what they think looks best, and the effort they put into their writing. I have terrible handwriting usually, but when I put effort into it, I have an entirely different \"font\" with differently formed l...
Why is it so hard to swat a fly with your hand but easier with newspaper?	[ "Your newspaper has greater range, greater surface area, greater velocity, and you aren't afraid of hurt it or anything it hits." ]	[ "Because of Newton's First Law of Motion: \"In an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.\" You were moving along with the surface when you jumped or whatever and being in the air doesn't change that." ]
Why European fire safety standards are so lax compared to the US and Japan?	[ "Short answer: history. Most (not all) safety laws regard new construction. There are many buildings in Europe that have been standing for more than 300 years. New ideas get added on over time, but for the most part, there's no requirement to replace something that already exists. In the US, this is also the case t...	[ "In late 1811 and early 1812, the area north of Memphis experienced a series of earthquakes with magnitudes of 7-8. The biggest one destroyed the town of New Madrid, and caused damage throughout the region. Unlike California, building codes in the Midwest do not require earthquake resistant structures, and few peop...
How do micro-transaction games make decent profit?	[ "If you have a huge player base it only takes a tiny fraction of the users to pay a tiny amount it adds up quickly. These freemium games often have lower production cost and quality then big payed games." ]	[ "Normally by advertising. When you create a page they'll inject an advertisement on to the page, when the user clicks it the company offering the service will be paid (or in some cases they'll be paid every time the advert shows however this is rare). Other than that they may offer premium services, allowing you to...
Can all diseases be reduced to abnormal cell biology?	[ "The term \"cell biology\" is very broad and depending on who you ask, it can either mean something very very specific or something very very broad, so it's pretty hard to answer this question unless you clearly define what you mean by cell biology. Going with the broader definition that encompasses cellular physio...	[ "Well malnutrition has been extremely prevalent through human history, and nutritional science is fairly new. Once we had the science to try to determine the ideal we did, up until then a lot of people got sick for nutritional reasons. An easy example is average height, which is often linked to nutrition. Areas (an...
Why does something "hurt in the morning" but not when it happens?	[ "And as for exercise, your muscles are lose when it happens and stiffen throughout the night from inactivity. Sudden increased movements then shows up the microtears previously incurred" ]	[ "I don't so much think of it as an evolutionary thing. There's really no benefit to being confused. It comes down to computing power. Your brain just takes a minute to recall old information/piece together new information to develop an idea of where you are and how you got there. I'm currently in flight school and...
If the Earth rotated on its axis where one side always faced the sun, and the other side was always dark, how might that have affected evolution?	[ "We don't even know what climate and weather are like on tidally locked (same side always facing the star) worlds, so any discussion of biological evolution on such a planet is beyond speculative. This is an interesting question, because many exoplanets that we've discovered are expected to be tidally locked to the...	[ "Nocturnal animals (and deep-sea animals) have a layer of reflective tissue behind the retina called the tapetum lucidum. It's purpose is to act like a mirror and send light back through the retina, giving it twice the chance to hit it.... And thus making the eye twice as sensitive. We don't have it because we're ...
. Is laughter closer to involuntary or a social cue to let others know you find something funny?	[ "Both! Laughter is the second language of the human species (the first being crying). It emerged from play-fighting in our ancestral primates. It means, \"this is an opportunity for learning, there is no danger.\" This kind of laugh is called a Duchenne laugh. However, there is a different kind of laughter - non-Du...	[ "We would still maintain homeostasis, but we would be forced to do it through different mechanisms. Shivering is a simple way of generating heat by muscle use. Human infants and hibernating animals use [non-shivering thermogenesis](_URL_0_) to generate heat." ]
Does compressed air provide less buoyancy than uncompressed air?	[ "Yes and no. Very technically, the buoyant force would be the weight of the displaced liquid. If the compressed air and non compressed air vessels of equal volume were under water, the buoyant force would be identical. But, most people think of buoyancy as the NET ability of something to float, that is, the buoyan...	[ "You can compare it to trying to move a 10 kg box filled with marbles, and 5 kg of marbles without a box. For some reason moving the marbles are easier when they are in a box, even though you are moving more." ]
How does the speed of earth traveling through space affect the passage of time?	[ "The short answer is, we're not moving fast enough to experience any serious time dilation. The longer answer, we're moving roughly 627 km/s relative to CMBR _URL_1_. That means we are moving at roughly 0.002x the speed of light relative to CMBR. As you can see on this [chart](_URL_0_), time dilation wouldn't even ...	[ "They age at the same rate just not relative to us. If you where going 95% the speed of light then it would still take 1 year before your next birthday. However from someone that is going considerable slower you will be aging slower. by the time that your 1 year is up hundreds of years will have passed from their v...
With all the GMO foods these days, why can't I get a big honeycrisp apple year round?	[ "It has nothing to do with GMO food, so I have no idea where you're getting that idea. We get Gala and Granny Smith apples year round because there are countries around the globe that can produce them year round. Galas and Granny Smiths were first grown in the Southern Hemisphere. And since they're in the Southern ...	[ "> ...why are all species so distinct? Many species aren't particularly distinct. Certain species of rabbit and certain species of cat, for example, are aesthetically similar. Various species of bird are similar to one another, as are various species of fish, plants, etc. > ...why do we have chimpanzees and people...
Why do reporters constantly refer to Pres. Obama as Mr. Obama?	[ "This is actually a tradition going back to George Washington. James Madison and the House of Representatives insisted that he use \"mister president\" because they were really wary of nobility and executive power. You know, since they had just fought a war to escape from exactly those problems. _URL_0_" ]	[ "A quick google search suggests that gender specific clothes for children (pink vs. light blue) emerged sometime in the 1940's. I don't know about dresses, skirts and shorts etc. but [Here](_URL_0_) is a photo of Franklin D. Roosevelt taken in 1884, when he was 2. This was not uncommon at that time. edit: [here](_U...
How does the Nitrous Oxide in like every car movie ever actually make the car faster? How does it affect the engine?	[ "The secret is oxide. More oxygen means more fire means more energy to drive the pistons. It is used in short bursts as the engine isn't designed to run that hot or hard all the time. And hence why they sometimes pop pistons or blow a head gasket" ]	[ "as far as I understand it, it's because there is no actual proof that they are doing drugs. it's a production to show drugs, made to be as realistic as possible. think about it this way... star wars is proof that hyperspace travel is possible because it's a video proof as such." ]
How is blood liquid if it's made of cells?	[ "The cells are suspended in a liquid called plasma. The cells are small enough to be remain suspended in the plasma and remain viscous. Ever let blood dry? All the liquid evaporates out and the solid, crusty solids are left over." ]	[ "If you've ever sat in a car for a long time with the windows up, you'll notice the windows start fogging up. You end up respirating some of that water up. Everything else would either be urinated out, sweated out, or be involved in some other biological material output (some in feces, tears, bleeding, etc)" ]
Why do people without a chance of winning, like Donald Trump, run for US President?	[ "Dat publicity. Running for president gets your name out there and gets people buying your product, reading your books, and remembering your brand." ]	[ "Let's say you're starting a business and I loan you the money to get started. You make your payments and manage to keep the lights on. Soon, you start making a profit. I, who loaned you money, don't come demanding more money because you're making the payments on which we agreed. Your buddy Jeff has a business, to...
How does a heating coil work? Why does it not electrocute you when you touch it?	[ "Generally, the heat is produced by a conductor encased in an insulator (like ceramic). Since the external part is not a conductor (well, not a good one) it doesn't shock you when you touch it. Ceramic retains heat well, but doesn't conduct electricity." ]	[ "Ever had a furry rug? If you rub it a bit, you'll be able to zap someone. Lightning is something similar. Clouds are like a big fluffy rugs that are constantly rubbing against other fluffy rugs. When enough charge is accumulated, they zap the Earth. ---- In a bit more detail: when you get enough power, you can zap...
Ok, so my stomach tells me it's time to eat, how does the body know when it's time to get some fluids in your system?	[ "Basically how much salt you have in your blood will trigger chemical responses in your hypothalamus that will trigger a thirst response. _URL_0_" ]	[ "The problem with dry skin is that water can leave your skin too easily. Normally your skin has oils to help retain moisture, providing a barrier water can't easily penetrate. Putting water on your skin doesn't replace this oil, and can contribute to removing it." ]
When did the US military switch from State units to the format it is in today?	[ "[Militia Act of 1903](_URL_0_). After proving themselves to be rather poor soldiers in the Spanish-American war, the Act essentially made the militias a dual entity, both militia and national reserve force. It made them accountable to the Department of War (Defense) in their standards and practices as well as equi...	[ "Hi there! This is a reminder to potential respondents to this question that we have the [no current event rule](_URL_0_) in effect that in order to discourage off-topic discussions of current events confines questions, answers and all other comments to events that happened 20 years ago or more, inclusively (e.g. 1...
Where does "Seven Wonders of the World" come from? Who coined the term and when? Were they always the same wonders?	[ "Could I ask a followup? The actual compilers of those lists, what were their jobs or positions in Greek society? How did they become somewhat travel guides of their times and how did they become so well traveled in the Mediterranean?" ]	[ "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...
At what point in history did the English language become so widespread?	[ "Actually, before English became widespread, French was the language of the Aristocracy, and before that Latin was the top international language (at least on a Europocentic sense). English's current dominance stems from the fact that the British empire of the 19th century was \"the\" empire at the time, spreading ...	[ "This is a broad question do you have a specific time period or place in mind?" ]
Given new breakthroughs towards the possibility of transplanting a human head, would it be possible to transplant a male head to a female body?	[ "If you are referencing the recent post here on Reddit, I would caution you that even with all the progress implied by that post, with even the best current technology, we cannot perform a human head transplant. That being stated, there is absolutely no way to answer this question without an unhealthy dose of spec...	[ "Building a car is easier than rebuilding a car that's been obliterated in a ghastly accident. You can follow the same steps to build the new car every time and it'll work every time. Rebuilding the totaled car is a lot trickier. Each case is unique. What's damaged? How badly? What can be saved? What needs to be ...
Is it legal for a Gaming company to ban someone after they payed money on micro transactions?	[ "Well, when you agree to the terms of services, there is a clause that states that the company reserves the right to terminate their service or your access to their service without prior notice. So it's legal." ]	[ "Online tracking is easy. Whenever you click on an ad, it sets a cookie on your computer that marks you as arriving to that site from the ad. Your each activity on that site is tracked and noted when you make your purchase. Offline is a bit different. Depending on the size and marketing efforts of a company, they m...
Why is C the most dominant musical note? Why is it called C, and not A?	[ "Short answer: A 10th century Italian monk known as Odo of Arezzo (originally attributed to Pseudo-ono of Cluny until recent) wrote a treatise of sorts known as the Enchiridion musicales (\"Musical handbook\"), which was exactly just that. Basically he starts at the bottom pitch, calls that one \"A,\" and works his...	[ "Location will play a role (the longest nerve axon in the body is from the big toe to the low back) and the type of pain perceived (what kind of nerve cell is activated A or C fibers). Obviously greater distance to travel will effect how long it takes to register the injury. According to[ this WashU site](_URL_0_) ...
Is rust AKA iron oxide potentially toxic or harmful to humans?	[ "There's a classic little kid's experiment you can do where you put a magnet into a box of breakfast cereal, shake it up and pull the magnet out with iron filings on it. Iron filings are added to cereals as an iron supplement. It's not quite the same as rust, but it goes to show that a little iron in your diet isn'...	[ "You need to find out more specifically what is going on at the plant. If it's a refinery, and only a refinery, then they're probably using borax and soda ash. Cyanide is used in the smelting process, which extracts the gold from the ore and produces something called a doré bar. That's a bar of low-purity gol...
Very basic question. Does the strength of bonds between atoms like C-C or Si-Si (Silanes) change with pressure surrounding them? Atmospheric, Gravitational push-pull, even below a HUGE mind moggling ocean.. Etc?	[ "The strength of the bond doesn't change, but equilibrium distances between atoms can get compressed under high pressure. (Like, when you compress a spring, the spring doesn't get more or less 'strong', but its equilibrium length changes) You'd be surprised how little the pressure-volume term contributes to the to...	[ "The atmosphere does bulge out, both towards the moon and away from it. Similar to the tides in the ocean the phase of the atmospheric bulge lags the moon and the moon's antipodal point. Apparently the atmospheric bulge follows the ocean tides rather closely and is mostly due to the bulging of the ocean below the a...
What is the perception of the Korean War in South Korea?	[ "I just visited South Korea a couple of weeks ago. I talked to a few people about the war, and like you said about the US public, I felt that there was not much that attention to the war. There were far more foreigners talking about the war and North Korea than the actual South Koreans did. It hasn't been hot news ...	[ "I'd also like to ask Americans what state they live and how far their high school US history class got before the end of the year. How many got past Reconstruction? Did any get past World War II?" ]
why there aren't any caffeinated versions of lemon-lime soft drinks (Sprite, 7UP, Sierra Mist, etc.)?	[ "I'm surprised no one has mentioned this so far: The explanation makes more sense the other way around. That is, why do cola drinks contain caffeine? The reason is that kola nuts, which were the original flavoring (or one of them), contain caffeine, so it was natural that these products would retain the caffeine ...	[ "[Crazy Food Laws](_URL_0_) There are specific rules and regulations in how a company must list the Caloric information on their products. Calories must be listed in 5 calorie increments up to a total of 50, anything beyond that must be in 10 calorie increments. Weirdly, anything below 5 calories can be listed as 0...
What a filibuster is?	[ "(In the US Senate) In order to stop discussion on a bill you need 60 of 100 senators to agree. In order to pass a bill you need a majority of senators to agree. If you're group has 40-50 senators and you want to stop a bill from being passed you can just force the discussion to continue forever, this is called a ...	[ "Before I get all high & mighty about the term \"Dark Ages,\" can you define what you mean for us?" ]
What is happening when we "stretch" our muscles before exercise? Is it actually proven to be beneficial, or is it just something ingrained in the population, like fan death in Korea?	[ "A comprehensive warm-up programme [has been found](_URL_2_) to prevent injuries in soccer. Prevention of muscular injuries through stretching is evidenced further in [a 2007 review](_URL_1_). Another study shows benefits to runners from certain stretches^1 . However, static stretching [has its downsides](_URL_3_),...	[ "Think of it this way: clothes are made of threads that are wrapped around each other in a mildly organized tangle. Imagine say, a bag with a dozen headphones that are a bit tangled. Now shake the bag violently for five minutes, sometimes pulling on headphone loops. Are they more tangled or less tangled? Most often...
Why can pizza delivery drivers have light up signs on their cars, but my after market lights are considered a 'distraction'?	[ "There are strict requirements around how the signs can be set up. Your lights don't meet the requirements set forth in the applicable laws regulating vehicle lighting." ]	[ "Taxis have been under an immense amount of regulation. There were restrictions on how much they could charge, restrictions on how many taxis are allowed, and so on. Taxi medallions in New York (essentially a piece of paper giving you the right to operate a taxi) were going for over a million dollars. Uber and Lyft...
If the population is predicted to stabilise at 9 billion, how will an economy based on growth sustain itself?	[ "An economy can be based on productivity growth regardless of population growth. This happens through capital investment or education or technological advances." ]	[ "Viruses and bacteria have been around a long time. Viruses are not quite organisms. The need to hijack the DNA or RNA transcription machinery of a living cell to reproduce. They mutate easily. Some are able to reproduce in hosts of more than one species. The damage they cause if any is species-dependent. Ebola vir...
What process does a rape kit use to tell if someone has been raped or not?	[ "No, the kit can not measure consent. The kit looks for evidence of trauma and genetic material. The victim is the one who alleges facts regarding consent and then it is up to the investigators to build a case against the accused and up to the jury to decide if the evidence shows guilt or innocence of the accused" ...	[ "> How can they know there was a tornado? I'm sure all of the visual sightings and reports and path of destruction is a big clue. Unless it was a tornado-shaped herd of rampaging elephants. > Then, how can they deduce the level from that? The basic tornado intensity scale - the Fujita scale - is measured based off...
What's a good way to imagine really BIG or really small numbers? for example, how can I imagine how many people are on the world ~7.5 billions, if they were all in one big room?	[ "To really visualize just how many people there are on Earth, think about this. If you had unimpeded vision to the horizon in every direction and wasn't standing on anything. If everything you saw was people in a REALLY dense crowd* then you would be able to see about 430 Million people. To see the entire Earth pop...	[ "There's something called cognitive dissonance, which is a mental condition in which your brain is torn between two mutually exclusive ideas, thoughts, memories or concepts. It's an extremely uncomfortable state to be in, and the brain will jump through some pretty crazy hoops to resolve the situation. Most coping ...
Why do some drinks or vitamin supplements have 1000% or more of daily vitamins? What is the point?	[ "As someone who works in the vitamin industry, it is done because everyone thinks more is better and it really is quite bad for you. As an added bonus the vitamin c (ascorbic acid) is made from sorbitol, using the reichstein method. Not at all natural like people think it is." ]	[ "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." ]
What's so great about Guinness?	[ "I like it because it is nitrogenated instead of carbonated. The nitrogen bubbles are much smaller and more numerous, so it makes it taste smoother and thicker. On that technical aspect I think it is cool. Many people don't understand the nitrogenated aspect and think it is much thicker and heavier than it really i...	[ "Black history month is publicized more than any other \"months\", because the history of: slavery, mistreatment, suffrage, inequality, discrimination, poverty, challenges ..of black people." ]
Is there anywhere on earth's surface were the moon is not visible?	[ "Only if the sky is obscured. [Here's a scale picture of how far away the moon is](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Grab a tennis ball and a lamp. Turn off every other light in the room. Hold up the tennis ball. Half is lit, half is dark. If you are looking from the side (you can see the lamp and the ball) you can see some of the dark side of the ball. The ONLY way to see nothing but lit ball is to have the lamp directly behin...
Why does it feel more natural to kiss with our eyes closed than open?	[ "Staring is weird. Seriously, ever had someone just stare at you for a long period of time and get weirded out?" ]	[ "Our ancestors when in the wild would enjoy a fresh kill, body still warm. If you came across a dead animal that had been there a while, well you wouldn't want that would you. Evolution has taught us warm is preferable to cold. Unless of course you are eating mint chocolate chip ice cream." ]
Did phrases such as 'Gods know', 'For gods' sakes' and 'Gods help us' exist in Greek, Roman and Norse cultures?	[ "Using expressions like \"by the gods!\" was definitely common in Greece. It could be used seriously (like, in [Plato's account of Socrates' trial](_URL_1_), Meletus responds to a question by saying \"I swear by Zeus...\"), but, as an example, take a look at Aristophanes' comedy, [The Clouds,](_URL_0_) it's full ...	[ "The Greeks around the Black Sea were known as Pontic Greeks. They were divided into two major groups- North Pontic Greeks lived in the Crimea and what is now Russia's Black Sea coast while South Pontic Greeks lived along what is now Turkey's Black Sea coast. Their settlements were still intact from their foundatio...
Why are people generally interested in the katana, but not the jian?	[ "Quite simply, fame. Katanas are much more famous than jian. The reason they are more famous is because of the association of Katanas to the heavily romanticized Samurais. Whereas the Chinese jian and its wielders do not have much modern represantation, espicially overseas. Also, reddit is primarily an English w...	[ "\"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 cumulative is nutrition?	[ "Some nutrients that the body needs can be stored in fat cells or elsewhere. Many nutrients especially complex proteins are easily synthesized from amino acids readily available in most foods. Some amino acids can only be obtained from food, some of these may not be easily stored in the body. Unfortunately the que...	[ "Additionally, would it be common for someone to be admonished for smoking too much prior to the health factors coming to light?" ]
Since time moves relatively slower where gravity is stronger, if you have two twins the work in the same sky scraper their whole life, would the one who works on the bottom floor age slower than the one who works on the top floor?	[ "Yes, by a very small amount. This was shown by raising an atomic clock by a foot relative to another nearby atomic clock, and seeing that it ticked slightly faster. I saw the lead scientist give a talk and he mentioned jokingly that he was kind of sad that after all this development of the most accurate clocks pos...	[ "Each builder is going to do what they want. Google pictures of Beijing some time, they have entire large blocks of buildings the same style and height. They also are far more regulated about how they build. I imagine in a more free market economy, each builder wants their building to be \"their building\" and not ...
Why we talk when we are alone?	[ "Vocalizing thoughts is a natural part of communicating, even if it's just to yourself. Vocalized private speech is a form of self-talk, and is considered normal. Further info: _URL_1_ _URL_0_" ]	[ "Our body creates heat, so to maintain our internal body temperature we need to vent heat into the air. This is easy to do if the air is cooler than our body temperature, but when it's the same as our body temperature there's nowhere for that excess heat to go." ]
Why didn't Bangladesh accede to India after the 1971 war?	[ "The war was mainly for the purpose of Bangladesh's independence, so annexing Bangladesh would have basically defeated the purpose of the war. Also, as I said it was not a war between India and Pakistan \"over\" Bangladesh, they weren't fighting over who would control it, but India was aiding Bangladesh (East Pakis...	[ "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 /...
What are the differences between RealD 3D, Imax 3D, and Dolby Cinema 3D?	[ "ah, brushing up before watching Alita: Battle Angel?" ]	[ "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 ...
When companies have to cut the 5% of the budget why do a lot of employees get fired? Why can't they just cut 5% of salary from everyone?	[ "A company's budget is usually much larger than what they pay everyone. Cutting 5% can amount to far, far more money than 5% of everyone's pay. Not to mention the amount of money most large companies spend on worker's benefits. Usually an employee \"costs\" more to have than what they're paid. So cutting 5% of the...	[ "This comes from the way an analog mixer works and I think understanding this helps understand a good mix too. Each channel on an analog desk has an input, be it a mic (typically) or something else. These feed into the desk, there is no amplification at this point, just the microphone signals going straight in. Th...
How are the high-mountain trails built?	[ "There are trail crews, usually park or forest service, that spend full summers building and maintaining trails. you can imagine the fitness required for these jobs. If there are significant material needs (too heavy to carry), helicopters would be dispatched to airlift the materials to a desired location. A lot of...	[ "If you are really interested in this, [watch this.](_URL_0_) It's a one hour lecture by Dr. Hans Mark, who was at NASA during the 70's and lead some of the deep space missions. The short answer is that they rely on gravitational boosts from other planets (usually Jupiter) and the sun. The orbital trajectories are ...
How does youtube work now? Why does it no longer fully buffer when paused. Why does it have to reload when I rewind to something I've already watched?	[ "To the first point: for whatever reason, and there are loads of analytics to back this up, most people don't want YouTube videos all the way through, especially when they're over about 10 minutes in length. So Google realized they could save bandwidth by greatly reducing the amount of buffering they did for videos...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: how do metal detectors work? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: How do metal detectors work? ](_URL_1_) 1. [ELI5 how do metal detectors work? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5: How does a metal detector work? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5: How do metal detectors work? ](_URL_7_) 1. ...
How does a stock's price get calculated from day to day in response to supply/demand?	[ "People who have shares make offers to sell at a certain price, and people who want shares make offers to buy at a certain price. When the two prices coincide, a trade is made, and that determines the reported \"share price\". It's simply the latest price at which a trade has been made." ]	[ "> does the satellite emits one signal that is interpred by every single user on his own or do the satellite do any calculus that it send to the user. The satellite emits one signal. This signal contains, among other things, information on the time that it was emitted. GPS receivers collect this signal from multipl...
What is World Star Hip Hop, and why do they post so many videos of fights, death and violence if they are a Hip Hop site.	[ "They started as a hip hop site. Then they learned what brings in page views. Can't exactly just change the name of the site and brand they built, right?" ]	[ "like you're five: a fifth grader has some boxing gloves. Every time he puts on boxing gloves, he punches a class mate. He gets in trouble, but promises he'll never do it again--but the moment the teacher lets him put the gloves on, he punches people anyway. One day, there's an ad on TV that advertises for super-du...
Does listening to music on headphones VS speakers hurt our ears more if played at the same volume?	[ "The thing to understand is that volume of a sound (in dB) is not an absolute constant but instead depends on how far away your eardrum is from the source of the sound; this makes sense, further things are quieter. If a speaker and headphones are emitting at the same volume, the speaker will do less damage because ...	[ "It's just a matter of paying attention. You are more likely to pay attention when driving a car because a momentary distraction could kill you or someone else. The risk is still there when walking around your home but its far less likely." ]
What is stopping the vacuum of space from pulling everything off of the earth?	[ "The Earth has a gravitational pull due to its collective mass. Vacuums are the absence of particles and do not have a force associated with them. Perhaps you are thinking of opening a box full of air in a vacuum and all of the particles escaping. That's because the pressure inside the box is forcing the particles ...	[ "I imagine you are talking about the internal combustion engine (ICE)that is commonly used around the world in automobiles. Think of the classic \"fire triangle\" when thinking of these engines. You need 3 things to make something burn: Fuel, Oxidizer, and heat. In an ICE these components are a Petroleum product s...
How do engineers calculate the maximum weight a bridge can support?	[ "The structural strengths of all common building materials are well-studied and well-known. The actual practice is more complex than this, but the basic idea is you say \"This pillar is 1000 square inches of steel in cross-section, a square inch of steel can support a ton, so this pillar can support 1000 tons\". Th...	[ "It depends. In the US and other 1st-world countries, you can use tax records, asset prices (assets are stocks, real estate, etc.), salary data and other freely-available data to come up with a good guess. Other countries might require some more guesswork, but the principle is the same." ]
What is going on with Aliens: Colonial Marines	[ "Hype and expectation was built up over it, then they got a product which didn't live up to the hype and expectation." ]	[ "It's just gone back to RnD so that they can determine if it can be a profitable product or not. It's trial has ended so now it's up to wether they like the results." ]
How come hanging upside down for a long time doesn’t effect bats like it would humans?	[ "Pressure of a liquid is proportional to the depth of a liquid. So for animals, the blood pressure difference between head and foot (or between head when right side up and upside down) is related to the vertical distance involved. Bats are much, much smaller than humans. Flip a human upside down and the blood vesse...	[ "Simple terms, darkness releases melatonin, which helps us fall asleep, and probably to protect our eyes while we sleep." ]
Why are nuclear cooling towers shaped the way that they are?	[ "As the hot air rises out of the tower, it draws cooler, denser air in at the bottom. There may or may not be fans helping this. The shape improves convective airflow, and makes this work more efficiently." ]	[ "It's to counterbalance the claw. If it didn't have a narrow neck, the bell would have a smaller area, making it harder to hit the nail. With a tapered neck, you can have it still be the weight as the claw with a bigger head to smack the nail with. The overall weight is irrelevant, the same design is used for a 1l...
My parents are convinced that they need to start drinking ionized water because they say it balances your pH. Is there any science behind the benefits of drinking ionized water or high pH water?	[ "It's nonsense. See this post from a little while ago _URL_0_ It certainly won't increase the pH of you're body. The pH of your body is tightly controlled to be at the optimum pH for all your enzymes. Even if it did somehow raise your pH it wouldn't be good for you. In fact if it's raised enough you will die." ]	[ "Stale is causing a lot of confusion and i am assuming op wants to know why water changes flavor. Turning stale Is laymen term for oxidation. Oxidation refers to a change in oxidation state or a loss in electrons. Water in a closed system will never go stale but in certain containers technically it is going stale. ...
How is Cooking Oil Made?	[ "Take seed or fruit. Grind it. Collect oil. Vegetable oil Cooking oil is made from corn, sunflower, peanut, rapeseed (canola) Or alternatively rendered animal fat. Beef fat makes tallow, pig fat makes lard." ]	[ "By sitting next to a fire in which these plants were being burned as fuel, and noticing they felt different than when they sat near fires with other fuels." ]
Is there anything in the natural world that is truly "random"?	[ "Radiation is random. We can measure the radioactivity of a radioactive source and determine its half-life, but according to the laws of quantum physics it is impossible to predict when any particular atom will decay and produce radiation. True randomness does not exist in classic physics, i.e. Newton's Laws. But ...	[ "I'm not citing a source because this is just speculation, but mood and neurotransmitters probably have much do with it. You haven't established a routine, so your body doesn't have a circadian rhythm in terms of when to release which chemicals in the body. That might make you awake and alert and driven at noon on ...
Were Roman Orgies common and what class tended to attend?	[ "[Click me! All your questions about sex and ancient Rome will be answered there](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "While not a scientific answer to your question at all, I want to suggest the excellent movie [Before the Fall](_URL_5_) (German Titel: Napola – Elite für den Führer) to anyone interested in this topic, which is a story about pupils in an elite high school in the German Reich." ]
Why isn't text just rendered in the colour they're supposed to be?	[ "To \"smoothen\" it, this is called anti-aliasing. Without it, the text would appear very \"rough\" around the edges, and would be more of a strain to read. I'm sure someone will post a side by side comparison in a minute or two. :)" ]	[ "Even on older computers, the processor activity required for generating and displaying the graphical aspect of a pulldown menu is minimal, and thus the display should be effectively instantaneous. However, menus often display choices, the states of which are dependent on hardware or other running programs that mus...
The difference between a breed and a species.	[ "[It's not always clear](_URL_0_). Generally, a species is a group of organisms that can produce fertile offspring -- babies that can go on to have babies of their own. A horse and a donkey are different species, that can breed and produce a mule. But a mule is almost always sterile, because its parents were too ge...	[ "Salt & Pepper season our food. They make it taste better. Spices & Herbs flavor our food. They make it taste different. Season everything. source: Chef." ]
If the troposphere can extend twice as high above the equator as it does above the poles, why don’t we have wildly varying barometric pressures between the two places?	[ "> Given that you have more than twice as much air So this is incorrect. There is more or less the same amount of air above the equator and the pole (to within a very slight correction for Earth's oblateness and centrifugal force). That's exactly why the pressure is more or less the same at both locations, since pr...	[ "There isn't a global world police. It's easy for a single country to say \"hey, factories, cut that out\" if they collude, but no one really has the power to go a bunch of unrelated countries and then force laws onto them. I mean the US already goes pretty far into openly starting wars to influence the way oil is...
What prevents the Cordyceps variety of fungi from spreading to other living things besides insects, such as birds or mammals.	[ "> The host specificity is likely to be the natural outcome of the endoparasitic life, in which endoparasites have to develop highly specific and sophisticated mechanisms to recognize the host, to enter the host body, to avoid the host's immune system, to survive and proliferate under special endoparasitic environm...	[ "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...
Why chefs and cooks won't use pans with heat insulated handles?	[ "It's safer, and some do. But non-insulated ones are cheaper, and they can go in the oven, so you can cook more dishes with them. & #x200B; Would you, in a hurry, as a chef, prefer a pan that can be used for everything but you have to remember to grab it with a towel or prefer to have to sift to find 'just the rig...	[ "Ice caps are pretty dangerous environments, with rough terrain, lots of crevasses, etc. The number one priority with landers is finding a spot safe enough to be sure they can get to the ground in one piece. Then they pick the most scientifically interesting spot out of those. Ice caps are difficult. I'm sure they'...
Take a gum wrapper and chew on it. It hurts. Squeeze it with your fingers. It gets hot. What causes this?	[ "The aluminum in the wrapper creates a slight electric shock when placed in the acidic environment of your mouth. This creates the pain. The heat comes from the folding of the wrapper that occurs when you squeeze it. The wrinkling of the wrapper pushes aluminum against more aluminum in extremely confined spaces, cr...	[ "There are two major forces at work here. The first is the chemical bonds themselves. This would be the carbon-carbon and carbon-hydrogen bonds (among others) that hold a single molecule together. The other force is intermolecular forces, which hold a bunch of molecules together into a cohesive unit. As an analogy,...
Did ancient civilizations like Rome or Egypt have immigrant neighborhoods akin to Chinatown or little India?	[ "It's probable that there was a Jewish quarter in Rome by the late 1st/early 2nd century CE. From Juvenal's Satire III: hic, ubi nocturnae Numa constituebat amicae, nunc sacri fontis nemus et delubra locantur Iudaeis, – Here, where Numa established his night-time girlfriend, the grove and shrine of the sacred fou...	[ "You might do well to clarify your question a little. Are you talking about a specific country, e.g. the USA or South Africa? Are you talking about a specific period in history, e.g. civil rights movement USA or Apartheid South Africa? Its a very wide question - you probably have a specific period and place in mind...
Why do women live longer than men? I'd expect the opposite, since post-menopausal traits are the only traits that can never be subject to natural selection- and those are the years that make up the life expectancy difference.	[ "The \"grandmother hypothesis\" is one that has been put forward to explain why women go through menopause and spend a significant portion of their lives post--menopausally. That is, grandmothers do a lot to help raise their grandchildren, and in that fashion, reproductive success is increased through women living ...	[ "Imagine you have a Grey squirrel population in Arizona. All of a sudden, a grand canyon appears in the middle of their territory. The canyon is too big for squirrels on either side to traverse across, so you can effectively say you have two populations of squirrel that will never meet. Now progress millions and mi...
Why are there so many planes crashed in the Rocky Mountains, East of the Continental Divide?	[ "Many planes that are just fine at lower altitudes become overloaded and have difficulty climbing at the 10,000-15,000 feet needed to clear the mountains. Add to that the volatile weather and frequent cloud build up, and you have some added dangerous that an inexperience pilot might not be used to facing." ]	[ "To add a concrete example to what's already been stated: [The Sahara desert fertilizes the Amazon rainforest.](_URL_0_) Equatorial trade winds carry mineral dust (carbonates and oxides, mostly) from the Bodele depression in the Sahara to South America, significantly increasing the productivity of the Amazon basin....
- if nothing can travel faster than light, then how can we not see the "edge" of the universe? Wouldn't the universe be expanding at a speed equal to that of light?	[ "cosmologists theorize that the most distant objects we can see (13.7BLY away) are not moving away at some large velocity V, but instead the space between the object and the observer (us) is expanding and we can determine how far away an object is by how fast it the distance is increasing (Red shift)" ]	[ "It isn't expanding into anything. Imagine an infinite loaf of raisin bread rising as it bakes. Each raisin in the loaf will be further away from every other raisin, since the loaf is expanding and the distance between all of the raisins is growing." ]
Consequences of deprivation of parental love	[ "In 1944 there was an experiment on 40 babies in the US. They were bathed, fed and clothed but received no affection or emotional care. Within a few months half the babies died despite being physically healthy. Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is found in children who suffer neglect by their primary carers in ea...	[ "While I'm curious to hear the well thought out responses that I hope will come, I primarily want to give my condolences for the death of your father. Internet hug, fellow redditor." ]
How did English become a global language, and why English?	[ "Because English was the dominant language of the superpowers of the 19th (UK) and 20th (USA) centuries. Countries tend to not change their language, no matter how shitty it is, unless they have to." ]	[ "Etymonline has this interesting snippet: > mid-13c., \"tool for measuring right angles, carpenter's square,\" from Old French esquire \"a square, squareness,\" from Vulgar Latin exquadra, back-formation from exquadrare \"to square,\" from Latin ex \"out\" (see ex-) + quadrare \"make square, set in order, co...
Why is the Polish Solidarity movement not widely remembered in the West?	[ "It's difficult to answer a negative, but if I may offer a view on it: Solidarity's first rose to prominence in 1980, and lasted until 1981 when martial law was declared in Poland (Walesa was also recognised with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983), and then remained active, but considerably less so throughout the rest ...	[ "Could you explain what you mean by \"overlooked?\" Who is overlooking the Great Schism?" ]
Why do cells have a copy of the whole genome instead of only the genes they need?	[ "Because it would be much more difficult than just silencing genes that shouldn't be expressed in each cell type epigenetically (via DNA methylation, histone modifications, lincRNAs, etc). There are also very few genes that are truly cell-type-specific. Essentially all genes are expressed at least transiently in mo...	[ "Couple things to consider. First, when you get tried in court, prosecutors will try to get you convicted for every crime you committed, not just the biggest one. So you may be on trial for murder, but also assault, battery, kidnapping, brandishing a weapon, etc... You may be found guilty for any number of them, a...
How can we have pictures of our galaxy if we're in it?	[ "Those are pictures of other galaxies we believe look like ours, or artistic representations" ]	[ "This is a difficult question to answer since your eye does not work like a CCD with a refresh or frame rate per se. There is a small delay when after recieving a photon a retinal cell cannot recieve another (since the molecule needs to be \"recharged\"). I actually don't know what this time delay is perhaps a bett...
Why do flies that are trapped in a room continually fly around/land on people nearby?	[ "They're looking for food. Flies fly to do one of three things: - find food - find a mate (or lay eggs) - avoid a predator (or a swat) Otherwise, they want to save their energy and wouldn't fly at all. But the most food like smelling thing in the room is coming from you. But you're also swatting at it." ]	[ "Anyone feel free to add but according to a PHD in physics: \"They do, and you've just never noticed. But if you have a big enough mirror and can point it toward a radio tower, you can test it out yourself. Point this big mirror at the FM radio tower, and get out a portable FM radio. Now start at the mirror and sta...
Do I have to eat 1 pound of food to gain 1 pound?	[ "Technically, if you eat one pound of food, you will temporarily be one pound heavier - until the food digested, broken down, some converted to energy and some expelled as waste. If you're talking about sustained weight gain, like adding a pound of fat, then (basically) you need to ingest 3500 calories that are no...	[ "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 the skin on my face get so oily? What is the evolutionary function of it, how does it work, and how can I make it stop?	[ "What some of the other comments are saying is not true 1. You are not washing yourself too much, in fact if you have oily skin/hair you need to wash with soap even more than other people, if you stop washing nothing will change, in fact you might get worse acne from the build up of oil in your skin 2. You metaboli...	[ "I'd probably go for how high-calorie food tastes delicious. Obviously in a natural competitive environment, food's not readily available, and so the sense of taste evolved to enable identification of high-calorie food (as well as identifying bitter poisons) so you can find the best possible food to keep you from s...
When I'm on a swing, how is it possible to keep going higher just by pushing the air with my legs?	[ "It's not about pushing the air with your legs. By swinging your head back and your legs forward (when you're about to start swinging forwards), you're exerting some force on the chain which actually lifts you up a little higher. On the way back, you do the opposite motion (head forward, feet back), which lifts you...	[ "Intermolecular forces! In a solid, the atoms are close together, kept in place by attractions to the other atoms in the sample. In a liquid the atoms are still close together, but have more room to move. In a gas the atoms are free to fly away from each other, feeling minimal attraction to each other. When boiling...
Why do guys need to pee against something (tree, wall, etc.)?	[ "They don't need to. I usually only do it to get a little bit more privacy." ]	[ "Easier to write. When you're using your entire arm, making a freehand straight line across 3 feet is actually very difficult. All lines will naturally have a curve to them. They style then over the years develops to accentuate and embelish that. There are taggers out there now that are using pre-cut stencils, whi...
Is there some way to extract the rotational energy of the Earth and use it to run a power station?	[ "If this was possible (it probably is) it would be a horrible idea. You would literally be slowing down the earth. Maybe the effect would be small at first, but it would build up over time. The question is only how long would it take to have an effect, and how bad would the effect be." ]	[ "It wouldn't really work, as the tidal forces acting on the satellite would also be stealing its angular momentum, eventually pulling the satellite in. A really stable orbit wouldn't experience any tidal forces, by definition. Thermodynamics will always screw you!" ]
What type of political turmoil was going on in Germany in 1894?	[ "Do you have any other information on them, like religion, class, education, professions, political affiliations, whether they came from a city or the countryside?" ]	[ "Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!" ]
Why does Nickelback receive so much hate on the internet?	[ "I still like them, but the hate is because they reused the same melody for a few songs like [This.](_URL_0_) Honestly, they aren't the only ones." ]	[ "\"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..." ]

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