query stringlengths 20 300 | positive listlengths 1 1 | negative listlengths 1 1 |
|---|---|---|
When doing cost-benefit analyses, what is the value of a human life? How is this determined? | [
"Depends on what you're analyzing and who you ask. The real question is how much are you willing to spend to stop a single person from dying. And that changes. A lot of times it's cultural, but I believe it's mostly done in reverse. Come up with a proposal that can save lives, work backwards to figure out the cost ... | [
"_URL_2_ columnist William Saletan waded into this issue several years ago with similar questions to yours. Here's an article posted AFTER his initial article and several followups, all of which can be reached via links within the article. It's an interesting journey with commentary from psychologists, statistician... |
How does the blood test for food allergies work? | [
"Blood tests measure the presence of IgE antibodies to specific foods. (IgE, short for “immunoglobulin E,” is the antibody that triggers food allergy symptoms.) In the past, these tests were called “RASTs” (which stands for radioallergosorbent tests) because they used radioactivity, but modern tests do not."
] | [
"It basically has a list, if it doesnt have the answer, it asks other dns servers untill one does, or it figures out that the server doesnt exist"
] |
What is the difference between jazz and blues? | [
"Blues generally uses specific chord progressions [google blues progression for some web sites]. Jazz often changes timing or chord progression and is much more free-form. [disclaimer - I have no musical talent, but like you, I can tell when I am heairng blues, and when I am hearing jazz.]"
] | [
"Salt & Pepper season our food. They make it taste better. Spices & Herbs flavor our food. They make it taste different. Season everything. source: Chef."
] |
Ocean phytoplankton and algae produce 70-80% of the earths atmospheric oxygen. Why is tree conservation for oxygen so popular over ocean conservation then? | [
"Trees are more familiar, and humanity’s effects on them are more easily understood. You can imagine 100 acres of rainforest being cleared for ranch land or banana plantations a lot more easily than a cloud of phytoplankton dying off. Just the simple fact that trees and humans are on land, while plankton and algae ... | [
"They get buried. Sediments get deposited on top of them, from processes such as sand dunes, rivers, volcanic eruptions, ocean deposits, and such. Once you pile a bunch of sediments over a landscape, the landscape sinks from the weight, which often allows for more sediments to be piled on top. Nearby continents (or... |
Why, biologically, does rubbing one's eyes make them red; and what do eyedrops do exactly to treat this? | [
"When you rub your eyes it stimulates the blood vessels and causes them to get bigger (dilate), so you see more of the red. Eye drops that \"get the red out\" are called vaso constrictors. They cause the vessels to get smaller (constrict), so you see more of the white."
] | [
"Awesome question, you’re right that the research about this kinda sucks. If you are good at interpreting/understanding research articles then check this out, if not then I’ll cover the details below so don’t worry: _URL_0_ Generally, research of this nature is done using model organisms, in the case of this study... |
What is wrong with eating horse? | [
"nothing. ppl just have their heads stuck up their asses."
] | [
"Same reason you don't keep turning the ignition key for hours in your car when it won't start -- there's no point in doing it, it won't get better."
] |
How does a company like SpaceX remain a functional and profitable company? | [
"They have large private investors which allow them to operate. Google and Fidelity Investments have invested about $1b, for example They have multiple contracts with NASA which run into multiple billions of dollars. They also do business deploying satellites. They are also in negotiations with the US military, an... | [
"Facebooked used exclusivity at first to drive demand, then learned from MySpace's mistakes. Remember how MySpace was infested with glitter and sparkle, and six billion videos that crashed your browser because some emo 15 year old thought she was original? Remember how Facebook was having none of that shit? They ... |
If everything is made out of atoms, but atoms aren't alive, how are there living things? | [
"Well, think of it like a car. The individual parts of a car mean nothing. Every bolt, nut, belt and fuel serve a purpose altogether. Sure you can run it without a few things, but it will wear and tear faster. A car is alive with fuel cycling through the system via combustion and the energy from the battery provi... | [
"Batteries are a result of a simple chemical reaction of 2 dissimilar metals and an electrolyte. For example a [galvanized nail, a copper penny and a potato](_URL_1_). The basic chemical reaction creates voltage, where the size of the surface area of the nail and penny creates current. If you stick 10 nails and pe... |
How did the Greeks know about liver regeneration? | [
"[This was asked before](_URL_0_) [Heres a formal academic article that really tackles the question.](_URL_1_) Short answer: they very likely didn’t. They viewed the Liver as an organ that was connected to wisdom or the soul (or both). They likely viewed his liver being gored at everyday and yet regrowing as symbol... | [
"[This previous discussion](_URL_0_) might help. In a nutshell: homosexuality was known to happen, but was frowned upon. Sex without the possibility of procreation was considered morally offensive to the divine guardians of fertility."
] |
Why do humans, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, still have skin that is so sensitive to the elements? E.g. wind/sunburn | [
"Because we can breed well before skin cancer kills us. If cancer killed most people before they reached sexual maturity (with enough time to raise a kid) then I suspect that we might become more immune to cancers."
] | [
"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... |
Acceleration is (m/s^2)... what the hell is s^2? | [
"what is distance? Meters (m) What is speed? Meters per second (number of meters moved per unit time m/s) What is accelleration? Meters per second per second (number of meters per second moved per second or change in the 'speed' per unit time) This is m/s/s which simplifies to m/s^2. For the simplification: The fra... | [
"Say you have a hammer and nail. If the hammer head is bigger than the nail, then the force of the hammer is distributed evenly against the head of the nail. The nail will go straight into the wood. Now say you have a hammer and a nail, but the nail head is bigger than the hammer. When you hit the hammer against t... |
Why does Radiation sickness happen, and how does radiation affect your body? | [
"There are two types of radiation effects: deterministic and stochastic Stochastic effects are associated with low radiation doses, and can take a long time to develop. As the name implies, it is \"only\" a higher probability/chance of developing cancer, due to mutations induced by the radiation, with limited/no im... | [
"Toxoplasma Gondii isn't thought to increase the affinity these animals have for cats. Instead, it decreases their aversion to cat urine. (The smell of cat urine should provoke fear in healthy rats.) There are studies (e.g. reference 20 in the wikipedia article) which suggest Toxoplasma Gondii *does* affect an inf... |
What controls the rate that turn signals blink at on automobiles? Also, what causes a turn signal to blink super fast when a bulb blows out? | [
"The turn signals are controlled by a special relay called a flasher. The flasher (on older cars) contains components that heat up when electricity flow through them, and when they get hot enough it breaks the connection, which shuts the signal off, and after a moment it cools enough and the circuit re-engages turn... | [
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Whistling ](_URL_6_) 1. [ELI5: How does whistling work? And how is it different from blowing? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: How does whistling work? (Wind/air pressure to sound with whistles, bottles, or lips.) ](_URL_4_) 1. [ELI5:How does whistling work... |
How can delivery companies like UPS, FedEx etc. leave your package in front of your door | [
"It is normal for them to leave the package at the door unless the shipper has specifically required that someone sign for it. It's common for residential deliveries to be done this way since most people are working during delivery hours. Sometimes packages are stolen. Now, UPS won't refund you because (and this is... | [
"Because it is unclear what if any laws have been broken and by whom. The US Congress (a majority of the 538 members) passed the USA Patriot Act which the NSA and other intelligence organizations have used as their basis for increasing the intrusiveness of their covert prying. The limits of that law have been tried... |
Is weight transferred through magnetism? | [
"Yes, the weight would still push the magnet down against the ground. This is because for every reaction, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. So for any force put on the magnet, an equal force will be pushed in the opposite direction. So the ground has to take that force. Now, the reason that things like... | [
"search askscience for a better answer but it would have to be very strong, I think there might be affects before you get strong enough to make the dimagnetism of water what kills you"
] |
Why do modern consoles like PS4 make you download the game disc onto the console's HDD? | [
"I've always thought it was because the game runs faster from a hard drive than constantly reading data from a spinning disc. If it was constantly scanning a disc and loading data gameplay / frame rate would be affected."
] | [
"Computers run on sets of instructions telling it how to run all the parts of the computer and build an interface so you can use those parts. Say you're following a recipe for a cake. Then you finish the cake and someone comes along with a better way to make a cake by adding another ingredient and changing how muc... |
How does the moon appear bigger on some days and smaller on others if its orbit remains the same? | [
"There actually are slight difference in the distance between the Earth and the moon depending over time but you can't see them with the naked eye. The reason the moon sometimes looks bigger is an illusion. When the moon is high in the sky you don't have any nearby objects to compare it to so you only judge it's s... | [
"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 ... |
What makes glass able to store so many different kinds of chemicals? | [
"Im gonna go ahead and post this. _URL_0_"
] | [
"Yes, definitely! A few years ago a few of my lab mates and I did a study on what bacteria lived on ourselves and various things around our lab. The place with the most bacteria and diversity was on my Nalgene water bottle! I wrote up an article describing what we did and how we used DNA sequencing to identify the ... |
Was there ever a period preceding firearms that used a Pike and Shot-esque formation but instead of firearms+polearms they used crossbows+polearms? | [
"This question is quite a popular one and has been discussed in the past. You may check the following responses that have been provided previously: [These responses](_URL_0_) by u/Valkine and u/Rittermeister refer to the cooperation of troops, including spearmen and missile troops. [This thread](_URL_3_) discusses ... | [
"There are are variety of different cooking methods we know of from prehistory. Spitted meat seems broadly common, in British Isles and Scandinavia there's evidence of heated stones and water pits being used to cook as well as spitted meat (Keating 1908:326), in Polynesia and other places there's evidence of essent... |
Why is pneumonia so dangerous to elderly people? | [
"Pneumonia is bacterial infection in the lungs that leads to fluid buildup there. You somewhat drown slowly from it. It is dangerous for everyone, but old people due to having weaker immune systems, accumulated injuries/conditions, and less mobility are more likely develop the infection."
] | [
"Because many empires have attempted to wage war there. Empires who have had great success in war have been defeated in what we now call Afghanistan. This quote from the princess bride sums it up fairly well. > You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ... |
Why does adding water to sand make it more workable? | [
"Regular sand is just a bunch of solid particles. Adding water adds a [polar liquid.](_URL_0_) Since water is polar, it makes semi-strong bonds with everything it's around. That's why water molecules stick together (surface tension, etc.) So the water acts like molecular glue, holding the sand particles together."
... | [
"The sugar is heated up until it melts and becomes liquid, and the liquid sugar is spun around in a colander with tiny holes in it. When it hits the air it solidifies into little strands of sugar glass."
] |
When a rape accusation is made, what are the exact steps of the process from accusation to prosecution? | [
"Depends. Police or the DA can handle it. One of them will decide whether there is enough evidence to support an arrest and decision to charge with the crime. In order to find out if there is enough evidence, a good PD of DA will try and gather facts. Pin the victim down on as many details as possible while being ... | [
"One interesting event of early 1914 was the the [slashing of the Rokeby Venus](_URL_0_). Mary Richardson, a suffragette, hacked at [*The* *Rokeby* *Venus*](_URL_1_) by Diego Velázquez with a meat cleaver while visiting the Royal Gallery in London. The painting was very famous and King Edward VII had provided £8,00... |
How long would it take to boil a bottle of water by shaking it, assuming no losses? | [
"Assuming that there is no loss at all, then it would just pressurize because this would have to be an isochoric system. However, given that this is purely a thought experiment, then for the sake of argument, sure you could boil water by shaking, but it depends upon your shaking frequency and magnitude. It is just ... | [
"This is actually part of a pretty major field of physics! There are many methods for this. iorgfeflkd has given the simplest one, but if you want to do this more accurately you need to do a proper computer simulation. One method is called \"molecular dynamics\". In this method, each atom is a particle, and you giv... |
In the Jim Crow South, what was the penalty for a white person breaking simple laws such as using a negro bathroom or drinking from a black water fountain? | [
"White people didn't face legal repercussions for using \"colored\" fountains. There would have been a chance of social derision from the White community, due to the association with African Americans, or the significantly lower quality of \"Colored\" specific areas but nothing illegal would have happened if a whit... | [
"actually that's how the vaccine for smallpox was invented. Edward Jenner after treating milkmaids came to the conclusion that milkmaids who had been infected with cowpox did not get smallpox. To test his hypothesis he inoculated his son with pus from a infected milkmaid and then exposed him to smallpox. A little u... |
Why Avocados/Guacamole Don't Turn Brown When You Leave The Pit In | [
"Avocado flesh turns brown due to oxidation. Any avocado flesh in contact with air will turn brown after a few hours. People think the pit does something magical but all it is doing it blocking oxygen from getting the flesh directly under the pit, so it keeps that green. It does absolutely nothing for the exposed f... | [
"Highly recommend the YouTube series from 3brown1blue on this topic. Visual explanation of this will always be better than just text in an comment. _URL_0_"
] |
How do mental illnesses and intelligence affect the brain's calorie consumption? | [
"What if intelligent people actually use their brain more efficiently and in the process burn less fuel? The short answer is no. No studies have been done on this, and would be near impossible to execute. PET scans can show glucose uptake in the brain, which is always high, but is very non-specific for how much upt... | [
"Because, even in countries that offer individual rights and protections, police are allowed to deliberately *cause* mental issues. People who are trapped all night in an interrogation room do not act rationally."
] |
Is it possible that the creation and subsequent use of major interstate roads causes weather patterns to shift over time? | [
"Indiana has numerous interstates, running in various directions radially to/from Indianapolis. It's not hugely surprising that one of them corresponds to common weather patterns, especially as the state also has a broad \"slope\" in elevation being low in the south and high in the north. The elevation along with l... | [
"They're simply really big. The larger the area you have touching the ground, the more weight you can have. Let's say you put three tons balancing on a needle. You're taking all those three tons, and concentrating them on one single spot, and that needle is gonna pierce right down through the asphalt. However, say ... |
Is there any reason stopping me from stockpiling gasoline while the prices are so low? | [
"Let me just chime in here with the actual practical answer to your question. The way that you stockpile gas is by purchasing gas futures. This is a contract whereby someone agrees \"I will give you X amount of gas in the future at Y price.\" Y price usually is a function of today's price + market expectations + a ... | [
"See, this is where it pays to have read the Bible. There is a parable where the master gives his servant some money to keep for him. To make sure it is safe, it buries it. When the master comes back, and the servant digs up the money and shows that he has not lost any of it, the master is upset because he has lost... |
Mobile recharged by lightning. | [
"Fried. The problem is bigger than just energy, it also matters how quickly it is applied. The battery needs to have a slower and longer application of a potential so that the ions have time to diffuse from one electrode to the other."
] | [
"Yes, it was predicted in some detail in 1945 by Dr. Vannevar Bush. You can read his predictions here: _URL_0_. In addition, Nikolas Tesla made some pretty good guesses about cellphones in Oct. 1909: _URL_1_."
] |
Is it possible for a moon around a planet to have it's own moon in orbit? | [
"The magic astronomical phrase to Google here is \"[Hill sphere](_URL_1_)\" - that's the volume around a body where the body's gravitation dominates the gravity of whatever it's orbiting around. Anyhow, [here](_URL_0_)'s a pretty good explanation of the situation. Short answer: yup. But usually they're not very sta... | [
"Yes! Apologies for not providing links, I'm currently on my phone. That said, check out the wikipedia articles on ”rogue planet” and ”rogue star.”"
] |
A jet engine takes air in from the front and shoots air out the back. How is that fundamentally different from a propeller? | [
"The *turbine* portion of a jet engine is exactly like a row of propellers inside a tube. However, a jet engine also has a *combustion* portion, in which a large quantity of fuel is burned and the expanding exhaust gases are directed out the back (rather like a rocket), propelling the plane forward. This portion is... | [
"A typical drip coffee machine has a set of tubing that runs from the bottom of the reservoir, into the burner below the coffee pot, and back up to above the grinds. When water goes down this tubing, it passes a one-way valve, so that the water that gets heated never mixes back with the reservoir. This means that a... |
ELIM5:What happens to Spiderman's used web lines? | [
"They dissolve after a few hours. He can adjust the formula to make it last longer if required."
] | [
"Yarr, ye forgot yer searchin' duties, for ['twas asked by those what came before ye!](_URL_0_) Enjoy yon molderin' explanations, and remember [rule 9](_URL_1_)."
] |
Why do all ancient Egyptian drawings use the same style with subjects heads looking to the side? | [
"I love art history, it's been a while since I studied this subject but I'll explain to the best of my memory: There are a couple of reasons, one major one being that the drawings interacted with heiroglyphs in such a way that they were sort of their own writing system. The drawings weren't intended to be art, they... | [
"As I live in an arabic country, I can tell you, that on their passport, or official ID card, women have a picture of their face. This is taken by a female photographer. At official purposes (such as imigration on the airport) they lift it just enough that the officer can check and the camera can scan the face."
] |
What makes a profession, a trade? | [
"Trades are typically blue-collar work. Most of them are very old professions. Carpenter. Smith. Mason. Potter. Welder. Plumber. All trades are professions. Not all professions are trades. I wouldn't consider Project Management to be a trade, for example. The line gets a bit blurry when using the phrase \"He's a __... | [
"Hi there! It seems that this is a moderately popular question, and so you might look at [this thread](_URL_1_) and [this one](_URL_0_) that seem to address a part of your question. Of course, that is not to discourage the hope that an expert will show up here and a little more to the discussion."
] |
How/why are college sports so big in America? | [
"American football was made popular by colleges and universities, then the pro leagues formed, not the other way around. The colleges and universities spent many years and lots of money creating the market for American football. The pro leagues were formed to try to capitalize on that market. In fact, a popular ane... | [
"Horse meat isn't rare at all. You can get it in many parts of europe. Tastes ok too. Anyway, that's culture. The same reason we think that bacon and eggs is a breakfast food, and don't eat grasshoppers."
] |
Is it correct to say that in an infinite string of random natural numbers, I can find any finite string of natural numbers (as a subset of the infinite string)? | [
"Probably you should be talking about sequences instead of strings or ordered sets. Allow me to try to formalize. For all *i* ≥ 0, let *x**_i_* be a stochastic variable with probability distribution *p*(*n*) defined on the nonnegative integers *n*. You need to clarify a bit what you mean by a random natural number.... | [
"Let's say you're a game developer, and you wanted to give out codes for people to get into the beta of your game. You decide to do this by giving access to one person to start, and then every Friday everyone in the program can invite 4 friends. So on the initial day, you only have 1 person playing. But after the 1... |
Why is the Japanese national anthem so controversial? | [
"Wrote this in the other post, but it comes down to the average Japanese person's lack of desire to return to the militaristic, god-emperor days of the early 20th century which led the country to war and ruin. The flag, the emperor and the anthem where things to be venerated and worshiped above all. Didn't work out... | [
"[Here's another response I wrote awhile back on this topic](_URL_0_) — feel free to ask follow-up questions though! Short answer: 1. they knew about the idea of atomic bombs prior to Hiroshima, 2. they got their initial information about what happened to it from American announcements, 3. they sent a survey crew t... |
What exactly is national debt? | [
"I explain it to my students like this. If the US spends more in any given year than it takes in as taxes (etc) then we call the amount overspent a deficit. If it happens the next year as well we add the second deficit to the first and call it the debt. So, deficit is the amount overspent in any given year. Debt is... | [
"This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_"
] |
why do do girls' hips rock from side to side while guys's hips don't seem to do anything? | [
"The female pelvis is flatter, more rounded and proportionally larger to assist childbirth. The sacrum (back of the pelvis) also shorter, wider and angled backwards for the same reason. The female waist-hip ratio contributes to hip sway when walking in order to balance the weight. Men sway, though less. Having a w... | [
"It's determined at fertilization - it depends on which sperm makes it to the egg. Your genetic code is made up of 26 chromosome pairs. The 26th pair is the sex pair. Females have two X chromosomes (XX), a symmetric pair. Males have an asymmetric pair: one X and one Y (XY). When you reproduce, you give one chromoso... |
Why won’t some places allow you to use certain credit cards? (i.e. American Express) | [
"Generally speaking, merchants pay credit card processors for the privilage of taking credit cards. The processer will provide (or sell) you the terminal and they handle all the work of ensuring the card is approved and the formal request to the card issuer for the payment. Once a period (week/2 weeks/month/etc) th... | [
"Many high end restaurants (or restaurant suppliers) get first pick. Particularly when it comes to meats and other things that spoil quickly. How many people at your supermarket are willing to pay top dollar for prime or whagu steak? Vs people going to a steak house."
] |
Since antibiotic-resistant bacteria are often less competitive than other species of bacteria, could introducing another bacteria that is harmless to humans but can outcompete the resistant bacteria be a useful treatment for multi-drug resistant infections? | [
"> Since antibiotic-resistant bacteria are often less competitive than other species of bacteria Source?"
] | [
"Engineering new chaperone proteins is probably a ways off. There are potentially easier ways to treat prion diseases, anyway. Essentially, susceptible protein must \"nucleate\", or turn into an aggregate of the prion form. This process is sufficiently slow as to be negligible in vivo, though; nucleated prion prote... |
How do we know "YHWH" in the Old Testament was pronounced as "Yahweh" and not anything else? | [
"We don't. The original pronunciation was lost, as the speaking of God's name is (and was historically) widely disapproved of by the Jews. [Here is an excerpt from *The Jewish Religion: A Companion* reprinted at My Jewish Learning, discussing the Tetragrammaton and talking about this very subject in the first few p... | [
"In 1875, Christopher Sholes with assistance from Amos Densmore rearranged the typewriter keyboard so that the commonest letters were not so close together and the type bars would come from opposite directions. Thus they would not clash together and jam the machine. The new arrangement was the \"QWERTY\" arrangeme... |
Are there any notable examples of major historical documents with spelling and grammatical errors? | [
"You will find that North American slave narratives can sometimes contain quite a lot of errors that we would today be quite alarmed by in a book or pamphlet. Generally speaking, this is either because the author uses a slightly more colloquial turn of phrase that seems more natural ('speedly' instead of 'speedily'... | [
"Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_2_): Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come t... |
Why is the Kardashian/West recording of Taylor Swift a big deal and what is it in reference to? | [
"Kayne released a song a few weeks back titled Famous, which had some more explicit lyrics talking about Swift (ie \"I feel that me and Taylor might still have sex), along with a music video which portrayed a nude wax statue of her and many other people (though most of the drama is about the song lyrics themselves)... | [
"Think of a rare baseball card. If there's only 10 of them in existence, then everyone would want them and they would be willing to trade hundreds of chocolate bars for it. Now think if they printed 990 more of that rare baseball card. Now everyone has one, and no one is willing to trade a chocolate bar for it."
] |
How does a pitcher in baseball decide if they want to be a starter or in the bullpen? | [
"Strength, skill, manager's preference, and maybe the most important, previous and upcoming play. You don't usually see the same pitcher start or play two whole games in a row. Taxing your pitcher is a great way to lose them."
] | [
"Many high end restaurants (or restaurant suppliers) get first pick. Particularly when it comes to meats and other things that spoil quickly. How many people at your supermarket are willing to pay top dollar for prime or whagu steak? Vs people going to a steak house."
] |
Do local police and sheriffs departments really get upset when federal agencies take over their cases? Why? | [
"Different crimes have different jurisdictions. Just because you break a federal law doesn't mean you can't be tried for a local crime. For example, a person is charged with robbing a liquor store AND trafficking high amounts of narcotics across state lines. The drug trafficking is a federal crime and would be sent... | [
"I worked on Law & Order: SVU for 2 seasons. Basically each episode was prepped (pre-production: location scouting, rough blocking, casting, etc) in 8 working days (M-F). The same episode was then shot the following 8 working days. Then after that, it would go into post-production (editing and such). The director n... |
How did geese learn they can cross the road and cars will stop for them? | [
"Geese don't give a fuck, they do what they want."
] | [
"How do you know a year has passed without looking at a calendar? I imagine they sense the temperature/climate changes like anything else."
] |
What is the lytic cycle? | [
"The lytic cycle is a viral life cycle where the virus replicates inside the host cell, which eventually kills and bursts the host cell, releasing all the new viruses into the environment. Cell bursting is called \"lysis\", hence the name lytic cycle. The lytic cycle is usually contrasted with the lysogenic cycle, ... | [
"_URL_0_ The wikipedia article is excellent and better than any of the answers in here so far. If you have specific parts you don't understand, ask away and I can help explain them to you."
] |
If you were to scream in the vacuum of space, would you be able to hear your own voice through the vibrations in your head? Or would you just hear silence? | [
"Barring the other physical consequences of being exposed to space vacuum unprotected....if you had air in your lungs to exhale and 'scream' with, the vibrations from your vocal chords would propagate through your bodily tissue/matter and you'd 'hear' it--just like you already do in an atmosphere (except you probab... | [
"Falling with Style. With much practice, our eyes and inner-ears work together to provide the brain with information. We aren't aware that this is going on, but fun house spinning tunnels mess with our eyes and spinning around really fast messes with our inner ears, both making walking difficult. We don't \"think a... |
What happens to your debt (car payments, mortgage, credit cards etc) when you die? | [
"This will vary from country to country, obviously. In common law countries like the USA, UK, Canada, etc, the general principle is that the person's estate pays creditors back as best it can, and all other debts are written off. Debts are not inherited by the next of kin. I'm sure the rules are very, very differen... | [
"Let's say you wanted to gamble at the horse track. You think Three-Legged Limpet is the horse to win on (despite having only three legs). You decide to place a $100 bet, but you don't have $100 on you now (payday isn't until tomorrow). The bookie agrees to take only $20, with the understanding that you will pay up... |
why did the US change the size of banknotes in 1929? | [
"This will not be an in-depth answer as I am unable to do cite sources at the moment, but as I recall this was based on a decision to reduce production (printing and materials) costs, hence the new notes being approximately 30% smaller than previous notes. It was also an effective anti-counterfeiting measure, as th... | [
"Greetings everyone. In the few minutes this sub has been up, it's attracting sub-standard responses. Just a reminder of a few of the rules: * no responses covering events/conditions post-1994, per this sub's \"20-year rule\" prohibiting discussion of current events * no anecdotes * no speculation OP: your question... |
Why can't the U.S. Government pay off its debt by just printing money and giving it to the people who owed it money? | [
"Two reasons. One, that will cause inflation. Two, cash is not inherently valuable, it's basically an IOU. Giving people cash to settle debts won't actually solve anything. Here's an analogy that helped someone else understand. You own a store, and you owe your friend $500. So, to settle the debt, you print out a $... | [
"Say you're in class, and good work provides results in jelly beans from the teacher. These are super jelly beans, and you need 10 beans a day to survive. So any amount of 10 beans is luxury. You work hard and you earn 20 beans, but in order to get those beans you used pencils and paper provided to you. Therefore ... |
Why don't we use anesthetic before getting piercings and tattoos? | [
"Because administration of anesthesia is a potentially deadly activity requiring generally a much higher level of training and credentials (and is therefore really expensive) then administering a tramp stamp."
] | [
"Cost, safety which is a component of cost, and the reception of the consumer to having to order and pay in some kind of interface when a large group of people can't even figure out credit card terminals at the grocery store. Additionally, wherever the food comes out you'd have to make sure it got I the right perso... |
Why do schools in the U.S punish their students so harshly? | [
"As a US teacher, here's what I've found. America is in an uninterrupted chain of nostalgia for the previous generation's form of schooling. Having had no major disruptive events to our institutions, we still essentially pine for the one-room schoolhouse model. Every school board I've seen has proudly boasted that,... | [
"Inflation. Let's put it this way, in America it used to be that you could buy a steak dinner for let's say $5. Then today that same steak dinner would cost $50. How much we pay for things, and how much we get paid has increased slowly over time. In other countries, it has increased way faster, so something that us... |
Why do all beverages have nutrition information on them (Calories, Fat, etc.) except for beer? | [
"In the USA, alcoholic drinks are exempt from nutritional labeling laws, because they are not considered foods. Some people say beer is a food, but the government disagrees."
] | [
"Because they would get sued. The legal system isn't like some kind of beep-boop robot that overlooks totally obvious loopholes. Any company that claimed \"No, we were really advertising the endorsement of Bill Gates, plumber, from Bumfuck, Nebraska.\" would get laughed out of court. As /u/Snewzie pointed out with ... |
On a tactical level, did infantry in feudal Japan (from the ashigaru to the samurai themselves) use battle tactics and formations? If so, what did they do? | [
"They did use formations. At the onset of the Sengoku Jidai, spears replaced mounted archery as the dominant form of fighting on Japanese battlefields. I don't know if you've ever fought with a spear but one on one it's a bit difficult to use at best, so formation fighting was simply better than non formation fight... | [
"The historians I've worked with relied on a lot of Geertz's work to explain the history of insular Southeast Asia, as well as other anthropologists. Perhaps one of the largest and first being Edmund Leach and his study *Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure*, which helped explain ... |
If an animal was raised until adulthood without ever interacting with its own species, would it still be able to identify its own kind? | [
"I'm not sure about identifying its own kind, but [this article](_URL_0_) suggests that chimpanzees raised in a human-dominated environment have difficulty re-integrating into a chimp-dominated environment. I also recall (but cannot for the life of me remember the actual name) a story of a chimp raised with humans ... | [
"We can, it is just it takes a lot of study and the language isn't in the same form as human language so it isn't just like learning German or Spanish and it comes with body language, scents and other non verbal cues _URL_0_"
] |
What makes a state "legitimate"? | [
"Short answer: nothing Longer answer: It's essentially arbitrary. A lot of nations with choose not to recognize a state, even if it's functional, if they don't want that state to come into being. But if a state can maintain its borders and its running a set of laws and infrastructure, who's to say it's not legitima... | [
"These days the most accurate answer comes from GIS data. This basically describes the shape of the country as a polygon, i.e., a shape made up of a sequence of straight lines connected together. There's a (relatively) simple [mathematical formula](_URL_0_) to determine the area of a polygon. There are some minor c... |
Were there cases of families treating their children badly because they feared their child was a fey, troll or changeling? (If I need to be more specific, then Scandinavia.) | [
"Not Scandinavia, but closish, by proxy. In Argentina, in the early 1900s, the legend that the seventh son would become a werewolf was so prevalent that a tradition was established by the federal government for the President of the Republic to automatically become the godfather of said child. The idea was that by ... | [
"Not to discourage further discussion, but you might be interested in these previous threads on Native American slavery: * [Were Native Americans ever taken back to Europe, as slaves or to be assimilated into European society?](_URL_1_) by u/anthropology_nerd. * [Were native American's ever taken as slaves?](_URL_0... |
Why are Chilli peppers so hot/spicy when the purpose of 'fruit' is to encourage animals to ingest the seeds they contain? | [
"Birds, believe it or not, cannot taste the spices in chilli peppers, and so they eat the chilis happily while most animals leave them. Birds travel much further distances than most animals, so when they poop out the seeds the plant can spread over much greater distances. So, basically, peppers evolved to taste goo... | [
"Think of it in groups, where the top 2 teams in each group continue on to the next round. Let's assume, in the next round: * The Winner of Group A plays the 2nd place team of Group B * and * The Second place team in Group A plays the winner of Group B If the 2nd placed team of Group A was a particularly strong tea... |
Pressure drops in Venturi's pipe vs Heat exchanger? | [
"Bernoulli effect assumes that there is no total energy change in the fluid flowing through the device. I dont think that holds for a heat exchanger. Another concern is the back pressure through the exchanger, lots of tiny pipes are going to have more losses then one big tube when the same flowrate is concerned. Yo... | [
"PSI sucks. period. The entire imperial system is the most arbitrary system. All of the units in our systems are more of less \"jerry-rigged.\" No such thing as a fundamental unit of the universe. mmHg is good, because we can create an all mechanical measurement device that is easy to read, that has a very large r... |
Why is white chocolate even considered chocolate? | [
"Because it uses cocoa butter, which is the fat that comes from the cocoa bean. That's the main flavoring agent of white chocolate - it just doesn't use the rich, bitter cocoa solids that other types of chocolate use."
] | [
"You mean the Animal Planet one? Hype and marketing. Then it became a euphemism for menstruation (I'll fill you in if you want, but it's gross sex stuff...) and took on a life of its own."
] |
How does the brain store memories, and why do we remember/don't remember certain memories? | [
"This is still an active research though I'm no expert and I'm sure others can answer you better. But i understand our memory is not really like how computers record things. We only extract information that are relevant to us and heavily compress it. Eg you see a mouse eating a cheese. Its quite an odd sight so you... | [
"They are kept in the device's RAM as you use the app, so that when you scroll back up, they are instantly available. Some apps may run out of RAM or otherwise optimize to save it, so the data will be erased from the RAM and lost, thus when you scroll back up, then it must re-load the data from the internet."
] |
How are mammals like whales not too buoyant to dive down as deep as they do while full of air? | [
"They're bouyant at the surface and have to propel themselves downward to a depth where the pressure compresses the spaces in their bodies to the point that they become negatively bouyant, i.e. they sink. For a person, this happens at around 8 metres with a 3mm wetsuit in fresh water. No idea what depth this would ... | [
"When we look up at the sky, we see clumps of matter: stars here, galaxies there, and so on. Though the night sky looks very homogenous on large scales, if you look close enough, there are inhomogeneous patches everywhere. Astrophysicists have a certain theory for how this \"clumpiness\" came about. They say that ... |
Why we try to save endangered species | [
"The first problem is that nature sometimes has little or nothing to do with it. Man has driven a lot of species to or near extinction. In some ways it's trying to repair what damage we have done. Next is once an animal is gone, it's gone. There is a lot to learn and discover about animals and many animals are very... | [
"Same reason you don't keep turning the ignition key for hours in your car when it won't start -- there's no point in doing it, it won't get better."
] |
What is the oldest continuous capital city? | [
"Rome is certainly a strong candidate -- for all recorded history, excluding very transitory military occupations, it has been capital of its own city state, regional nation among many other Italian nations (early Roman Kingdom, the Papal States), the Roman Empire, and/or a unified Italian nation."
] | [
"Most of the countries' names are that way for historical purposes. A prime example would be Georgia (the country). Georgians actually call their country Sakartvelo, which can be approximated with Latin characters just fine. But since they spoke a unique language and wrote in unique text ( საქართველო ), people jus... |
If a space ship left our galaxy bound for another, would the force thought to be expanding the universe push it back towards the milky way? | [
"Expansion (over sufficiently large distances) *increases* the distance between points in space. What you describe (ship pushed back toward the galaxy where it starts out) would be a *decrease* in distance between points in space."
] | [
"When you suck on a straw, it isn't the suction pulling the milk shake up. It's the weight of the column of air above the milkshake, extending into space pushing down on top of the milk shake as air pressure. All you did by sucking was remove the weight of air on top of the milkshake straw that was holding it down.... |
What does the 4th dimension (or others) have to do with time? | [
"Time is the fourth dimension. Your mind can't visualize it, so don't bother trying. But we are moving through time just like we are moving through space. But we can only go one direction."
] | [
"The weird taffy looking object that can be rendered as if it were a real 3D object that you see depicted as a Quaternion fractal isn't actually the fractal itself. It is a 3D \"slice\" of an undepictable 4D Julia Set. If you slice a 3D sphere the cut face is a 2D circular thing. If you slice a 3D cube parallel to ... |
Why do some countries only have Presidents or Prime Ministers, but some countries have both? And those that have both, why is it that in some places the President is more powerful (e.g. France) and in others the Prime Minister is more powerful (e.g. Germany)? | [
"Broadly speaking, there are two main types of government systems, parliamentary and presidential. There's a lot of variation within those types, and some countries don't really fit into either, but most countries do. In a presidential system the president is the head of state and the head of government. They are t... | [
"Power lifters focus on functional movements- the actual motions used to lift, push, and pull heavy items- to maximize the performance of the relevant muscles. Body builders focus on maximizing the size/appearance of many muscles that are superficially visible, but may not be relevant to the functional motion of li... |
Why is there such extreme wealth and luxury in places like Dubai, UAE, Abu Dhabi, etc. | [
"Those areas are rich in resources (mainly oil) which are owned by relatively small groups. Those groups/families have billions and billions of dollars."
] | [
"Inflation. Let's put it this way, in America it used to be that you could buy a steak dinner for let's say $5. Then today that same steak dinner would cost $50. How much we pay for things, and how much we get paid has increased slowly over time. In other countries, it has increased way faster, so something that us... |
What historical events have shaped Modern Australian national identity? | [
"It is my understanding (might be wrong it's been awhile) that the Australian involvement in the Gallipoli campaign during WWI had a big influence over Australian and New Zealand national identity. Edit* [This](_URL_0_) is a good summation of the events and remembrance of the battle at Gallipoli"
] | [
"Part of the answer can be found in what /u/LordHussyPants says [here](_URL_5_). /u/CrossyNZ also hosted a thread [here](_URL_3_) that may be of interest about \"Waitangi Day\" (6 Feb), which is when the British government signed a treaty with most of the Maori (but not all). The question has been [asked before](_U... |
If the typical 6pack beer plastic is so bad ecologically, why isn't it replaced by carton? | [
"Mostly because they are just a thing in the US and a big part of society there gives a shit about the environment. Paper is used for sixpacks in most other regions. Also most regions i know use bottles instead of cans."
] | [
"Relate it to Coke bottles: 20oz bottle: $1.50 -Easy to carry and drink quickly -Fit in cup holders -Convenient -Good for on the go 68oz (2liters): $1.09 -Large, bulky -Unconventional for casual drinking -Better for taking home Both of the bottles have the same product, but the have different markets, or who they a... |
Why do you have to pop your ears when you dive down 8/10 feet under water but you can go 70/80 feet up an elevator without having to? | [
"The change in pressure is greater when you go underwater then if you would up a lift in air. Because water is dense it creates more preassure. The same as when you gobup in a plane the preassure difference is very different causong your eara to pop."
] | [
"I know what you're getting at. Space is pretty easy to see. We can see loads of it with the naked eye and small telescopes. We can see even more of it with really big telescopes and radiotelescopes and we can work out a lot of it using data and mathematics. On the other hand, the oceans are pretty big and pretty ... |
Can a car's computer help eliminate insurance fraud, as in does it know if a car is in reverse when it makes impact with another vehicle? | [
"AFAIK most cars on board computers aren't tracking vehicle behaviour, merely monitoring things like mileage, average speeds etc. How this info is stored I'm not sure but I don't believe it's possible to treat them like a flight data recorder. However, many insurance companies are now offering tracking boxes in exc... | [
"Google Android has a feature that sends location data to the google servers, even if you have GPS turned off. If you use a Google Android phone, you can actually view your own data if login to Google and goto this site: _URL_0_ What Google is doing is fetching all this data that is sent from all the Google Android... |
How do we know what a complete dinosaur skeleton looks like if most of the skeleton has never been found? | [
"We actually dont know for certain what any dinosaur looked like. The depictions of dinosaurs are just our best educated guess of what they possibly might have looked like, which we make based on similarities between the bone structure of current species and those of fossilized remains."
] | [
"[This post](_URL_0_) has links for pictures of all the Apollo landing sites. These pictures were taken by a satellite around the moon. It's essentially impossible to take pictures of these sites from Earth. Kind of hard to believe at first, but it's true. You would need an unbelievably large telescope because the ... |
Do deep sea and deep earth organisms operate with comparable sleep/wake cycles to their sunlit counterparts? How much of sleep as a biological phenomenon is a product of the day/night cycle vs some kind of innateness? | [
"That's not something that's been researched to the point of having an answer. For almost all deep sea organisms, we don't even know their general operating behavior patterns, let alone their sleep cycles. Since they exist in an environment that we cannot access, we can only observe them by doing one of two things:... | [
"Two social psychological concepts come to mind here. State dependent memory encoding and Erickson Arousal theory of learning. State dependent learning states that what ever state of mind you are in during encoding is the state of mind where recall would be optimal. Erickson arousal theory states that learning is m... |
If someone is on death row and has a medical issue causing them the die sooner than their execution date, why would they be given medical help? | [
"Up until the moment the executioner turns the key, the state must provide care for their convicted felons. The logic behind this is that up until that last moment, the execution is not 100% certain. There are years of appeals, and the governor might still pardon the convicted at the last moment. Also, allowing som... | [
"Part of it is surely guesstimation, but more than anything, the doctor has access to data about the survival rates of a certain disease. Something like this one: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) In other words, hard numbers about how many people in the past have been cured and how many have not. Of course, real doctors have acc... |
What happens when an object rotates at the speed of light? Is it even possible? | [
"Can't happen. Not only for material/engineering reasons as QuantumCreeper says, but because nothing can go that fast. If you solve the equation of motion for a constant torque, you'll find that it just gets faster and faster but never reaches the speed of light at the extremities, similar to linear motion. If you ... | [
"only if it's structure is perfectly non-[amorphous](_URL_0_) so that it wouldn't start contorting with the inertial effect commonly known as the [centrifugal force](_URL_1_). This would rule out glass and many plastics Also it would have to also be in a perfect vacuum so that air resistance, or friction with the a... |
How on earth is it a good idea to cross lanes of traffic like this on an overpass? | [
"Cloverleafs are super-expensive to build, and stoplights cause inefficient traffic. In this design, there are only two stoplights (at the crossover), and only two turnabouts. Cars from the surface road don't have to stop at *any* stoplights before getting onto the highway if they're turning right; neither to cars ... | [
"I'm a journalist. I can tell you straight up : it's for audience. These videos create shock, which is the best hook television news has over the viewer. The whole ethics speech they'll give you about people having the right to see it is BS. Television is a business, news or not, sadly. This is even more true in th... |
What is frame pacing in video games, and how does it change the gameplay? | [
"Johnny and Amanda take 60 steps over a minute to cross the length of a hallway. Johnny takes one step per second. Every step would not look much different from one another so his motion is very smooth. Amanda hops every other step. All the even steps take 1.5 seconds while all the odd steps take 0.5 seconds. Both ... | [
"The big explanation that I heard for this a while back, it was on some sort of documentary \"The history of film\" or something from the discovery channel I think. 24 was the standard for a while, then the tech to do 48 came around. However, the big movie companies all had the 24 fps gear and wanted to replace it ... |
- Why don't polar bears change colors? | [
"it's not the reflection of the snow. the fur just appears white due to diffraction. their hair is pretty much fiber optic cable. and if you ever have seen a [bundle of cable](_URL_0_) it looks white . Same with the snow itself. Snow is transparent . diffracts light and looks white. Also clouds, individual water ... | [
"Please use the search function. _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_11_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_12_ _URL_13_ _URL_13_ TL;DR: Why is a bad question with no good answer. We can't tell entirely with other animals, because we can't directly communicate though anecdotally, many seem to."
] |
Do algal blooms help reduce CO2 levels? | [
"Absolutely they do. But small-scale blooms that do not last have a limited effect on atmospheric CO₂ as a whole. Iron-induced blooms such as the one in [this](_URL_0_) study show increased removal of CO₂ but also have a hard time explaining what happens to this carbon. They estimate mostly vertical mixing and depo... | [
"Some of my uni professors in the dendrochronology lab (tree rings) at the U of Arkansas did research on this by studying the climate of the area all the way back to about 1100. The research revealed that the 3 year period surrounding the colony was the driest, most extreme period of drought in the 800 years studie... |
Let's say we were able to clone a human being. Is the clone going to have the same fingerprints as the original? | [
"No. Fingerprints are determined by the motion of fluids in the uterus during gestation. This is why identical twins (exact same DNA) do not have identical fingerprints."
] | [
"In your example given, asthma is the body's immune reaction and not necessarily a function of the lungs so no, the person would still have asthma. -Correction in reply below Now, if someone had nerve damage in their hand (not resulting from a spinal issue) and successfully recieved a hand transplant, in theory thi... |
Where do fruit flies come from? | [
"Fruit flies can easily track down the scent of ripe or spoiled fruit, and since they are so small they can get into your house in a multitude of different ways. They then lay tiny eggs that grow up to be adult fruit flies in only just eight days. There may also already be eggs on fruit you buy from the store, that... | [
"Confirmation bias. They may well land on your light bulb. But you're not staring at your light bulb for hours and hours on end, so you wouldn't notice it as much."
] |
Why is sexual maturity reached before physical maturity? | [
"My presumption is that from a biological perspective, the single most imperative function of any animal is to reproduce. \"Growing old\" is a welcomed and helpful benefit, but it doesn't necessarily perpetuate the species."
] | [
"These sort of questions are really hard to answer under the auspices of \"science\". Someone can probably tell you a story based on a sort of \"evolutionary reasoning\" (and these stories are where a lot of evolutionary studies begin), but unless they can cite a serious research program that has investigated this... |
Why does my coconut milk effervesce when added to hot coffee? | [
"More likely than not, you are smelling some of the esters that are released when the hot coffee is combined with the cold milk. The heat from the coffee can cause some of the esters in the coconut/almond milk (the compounds that you smell as coconut or almond) to turn into their gas form from their previously liqu... | [
"[Source](_URL_0_) The cup (or shell) amplifies the ambient noise, which is the thing you hear. Many people believe it's an echo of your blood, this can easily be disproved. Try to exercise and put the cup to the ear. The noise is no louder, even if you hearth is beating faster."
] |
What causes the “white noise” you see on old CRT TVs? | [
"Are you speaking about the noise you get when you tune to a nonexistent TV channel? That’s the noise radiated by everything around you. That’s the noise generated inside the TV tuner because it is warmer than absolute zero. All of that noise gets amplified (and the amplifier adds noise as well) and that manifests ... | [
"That film is usually chemicals leaching out of the plastic! When plastic or rubber are made they use a variety of binders, stabilizers, blending agents etc, and not all of them are proving to be very shelf stable after all these years."
] |
How are private armies and military contractors legal? | [
"They operate in a nebulous area. For instance, America invaded Iraq and crushed the Iraqi regime. At that point in time, there were no laws in Iraq-- the old government was gone, and the new government hadn't been formed. They were literally operating in an area without laws. Now, the US government can claim juris... | [
"As a kind of add-on question, there were also anarchist militia groups active in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War. Were they organized very differently from the other armed groups during the war?"
] |
How did the apostles die? | [
"We have no historically reliable information for how any of the Apostles died. The traditions about them are all from the 2nd and 3rd Centuries, have no provenance and are sometimes contradictory. This includes the martyrdom traditions of Peter and Paul."
] | [
"Not to discourage anyone from answering your question but /r/AskBibleScholars may be a better match for your questions."
] |
When do you feel weightless in space? | [
"Weightless just means falling. In fact in movies and stuff they always say like \"there's no gravity in space\" which is absurd, the earth pulls on the International Space Station with basically like 95% the strength it pulls on something on the surface. You would have to be VERY far outside our solar system to on... | [
"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 ... |
What makes AC Electricity better? | [
"AC can be raised in voltage (and lowered again) via a relatively simple transformer. That is useful for long distance transmission because higher voltage needs less current for the same power. The resistance of wire means that the higher the current, the more power loss there will be. High voltage DC power lines ... | [
"Humidity. Ever wonder why farts stink so bad in the shower? Humidity. Air conditioners take humidity out of the air, so you can't smell the scents in the air as well. When you switch to fan mode, no humidity is lost, so you can smell all of those scents."
] |
Does working on complex problems with your brain increase it's usage of glucose? | [
"According to [this recent *Scientific American* column](_URL_0_) (pardon the informal language): > Although firing neurons summon extra blood, oxygen and glucose, any local increases in energy consumption are tiny compared with the brain's gluttonous baseline intake. So, in most cases, short periods of additional... | [
"Actually, there's evidence that having higher intelligence helps **prevent** antisocial behavior. For example, [Kandel et al. \\(1988\\)](_URL_1_) found that men who were at a high risk for criminal behavior were less likely to actually commit crimes if they had a high IQ. However, talking about the relationship ... |
How do ants find sugar? | [
"Richard Feynman noticed this phenomenon and did a series of impromptu experiments to determine the chemical signalling ants use. You can read further details in this interesting book: _URL_0_"
] | [
"The short answer is tiny bugs. As for why that spider is still there and surviving despite you never seeing bug carcasses it is because it is drinking the water left behind. Incy can survive a long time on just water."
] |
Can anyone recommend some excellent history documentaries? | [
"My all time favourite documentary is [The World at War](_URL_0_). Made by the BBC in the early 70's, they weave a narrative through the second world war, and then actually interview people who were there - on both sides! Interviewing Russians while in the middle of the cold war was so very cool of them! It's like ... | [
"_URL_0_ The Geography of Time by Robert Levine. Blew my mind the first time I read it."
] |
I read this on a picture, is it true? - "FACT: for every molecule of sugar you consume it takes 54 molecules of magnesium to process it" | [
"Magnesium is a common ion used in the catalytic sites of metalloenzymes. Check out the Wikipedia page for [glycolysis](_URL_1_). You'll find that 5 enzymes in the pathway use Mg^2+ as a cofactor. For sucrose, that translates to 20 magnesium ions involved in the catalytic reactions. [Isocitrate dehydrogenase](_URL_... | [
"Sight is caused by the cells at the back of your eye reacting to light. These signals are carried along a wire called the retinal ganglion to the part of your brain that sees. The cells in your eye and retinal ganglion cells are designed to be stimulated by light, but can be stimulated by lots of things. Pressure ... |
What is the point of keeping prisoners with a life sentence alive? | [
"Can you guarantee that our legal system is 100% effective all the time & never makes mistakes? That's why you don't just kill people. If you figure out you fucked up, you can't un-dead somebody later."
] | [
"Rotated through MedOnc. We collect data for 5, 10 and 15 year benchmarks for most cancers to get a vague idea of the progression of a type of cancer, not to tell people how long they’ve got. One example of its use is to compare treatment modalities e.g. 5 year survival of women with p+e+her+ breast cancer on letro... |
How do scientists know that the moon was formed from two planets colliding? | [
"The reasoning goes like this: The Moon missions brought back Moon rocks, which when studied, revealed that the Moon is primarily compromised of a kind of rock also found on Earth. Hence, scientists believe that the Moon's material came from Earth at some point. They also know that when Earth was formed, the materi... | [
"They start out as a giant blob of gasses and space dust, Sort of like pizza Dough. As they continue to spin they flatten once again like pizza dough."
] |
The Clint Eastwood speech. Like I'm a non-American 5 yo child. | [
"*The president is not doing a good enough job. I'm going to have an argument with a chair to illustrate this point.* *Lawyers are bad and shouldn't be president. I'm going to forget that Mitt Romney is a lawyer for awhile.* *I've lost my mind. Extreme old age and decades of having too much money lead to this sad s... | [
"Alrighty guys, because I've already had to remove ten comments similar to this, I'm going to leave a top-level mod post here. Please remember when posting here that this is not /r/Politics. We are not interested in contemporary politics, your opinions on current policies of countries, two word answers, one line an... |
Why did the U.S. decide to bomb civilian cities with atomic bombs rather than military targets during WWII? | [
"Hi there -- while there's always more to be said on this topic, [this section of our FAQ](_URL_6_) deals specifically with atomic bomb targeting, while [this answer](_URL_5_) from u/restricteddata deals with the question of warning leaflets."
] | [
"A couple reasons. In the United States, the burden of proof is on the prosecutor to show that the defendant committed the crime. This \"presumption of innocence\" makes preparing a case hard work, because to win, the prosecutor has to convince 12 regular people that, with absolutely no doubt, the defendant commit... |
The Whole Flouride Debacle. | [
"US water is fluoridated to ~1 mg/L. The linked study found evidence of harm at 11 mg/L... Drinking one glass of red wine a day has health benefits. A study showing that drinking ELEVEN glasses a day causes harm doesn't change that."
] | [
"Others have covered the biggest reason thoroughly (Scumbag Wakefield), but I've heard another minor one: vaccines 'are full of chemicals'. Aaaaargh. I'd rather be full of chemicals - which, as a thing that exists, I already am - than full of polio."
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.