Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why isn't there a law to force politicians or businessmen, who are guilty of illegal financial activities, to give back 2x-5x the amount stolen?	[ "* many financial crimes have punitive damages, which can do exactly that * financial crimes are often committed to hide a business doing poorly, and by the time they reach trial, the business is in shambles...if they money isn't there any more, such a ruling doesn't help * the law wants to balance punishment with ...	[ "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...
How are we able to study space so extensively?	[ "It's all based on the facts of what kind of light the produce and how they interact with objects around them" ]	[ "They use [spectrographs](_URL_0_), a device which measures the light that comes off that planet. This works because most substances have their own spectral fingerprint, which is very recognizable. For example, if you hold salt in a candleflame and look at the spectrum, it will have a bright orange emission line, ...
Why does bottled water have an expiry date?	[ "The bottle will degrade over a long period of time and compounds will leach into the water from the plastic." ]	[ "Your question reminded me of this frikkin awesome documentary of about planned obsolescence. [Video snippet](_URL_0_), and the whole documentary, I can't find... but Im sure someone else may be able to. ELI5 version: Because companies want you to keep them in business." ]
Is tor still as secure as it was when it first came out or has the government come with new ways to spy on tor users?	[ "First of all, Tor is a DARPA-project, so it was built using governmental money, so there's that. To your actual question: It used to be safer. One of the problems is, that if a single entity owns/controls enough nodes in the tor-network it can track pretty much everything that went over it nodes. It has been known...	[ "It's a neural connection. In ophthalmology there are two rules: Hering's law and Sherrington's law. Basically together these two laws describe the way the eyes can work together. Whenever your brain tells you to look right, for example, it sends a signal to both eyes to tell them to turn right. It sends the same s...
How do companies that buy & re-sell other people's debt make money?	[ "I get that they are \"bottom feeders\" but to be fair if someone doesn't repay their debts (of at least the principle amount) they ultimately stole that money. Thanks in advance for the downvotes ;)" ]	[ "I've always wondered this too. I know for sure they get money from the ads on their page because of the amount of viewers coming in each day. I've also heard that its by the number of views per video or total subscribers. That I'm not to sure about tho." ]
What is machine learning and how does it work?	[ "Machine learning is a discipline that develops algorithms to get computers (aka thinking machines) to learn without having to be explicitly taught. It works very similar to the way our brains work. When you are born, your brain is a blank slate, and is hard wired to detect common patterns and associations. You gue...	[ "Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): You can find the basic answer with a google / wiki search. Please start there and come back with a more specific question. If you disagree with this decision, please send a [message to the moderators.](_URL...
How does communication with satellites, astronauts, rovers and space probes like Discovery or Voyager work? What type of Tx/Rx signal is used?	[ "> for radio waves (radio communication) to propagate you need an atmosphere Nope, electromagnetic waves actually travel best in a vacuum. Adding particles in the way only causes interference. Are you thinking of sound waves?" ]	[ "Nope, and it's likely we won't ever find anything. There are many theories for how life originated, but anything looking like life as we know it was [probably based on RNA.](_URL_0_) RNA can replicate and catalyze chemical reactions, so it's a simple system that can do everything that life requires. The specifics ...
How did the light gun from the original NES work?	[ "The zapper (the gun) was a light detector. When you fired the trigger the screen would turn black except for a small square around the target. If the gun registered the light from that square, it would be a hit. If you were pointing the detector at a black part of the screen it's a miss. This is why holding the gu...	[ "I'll let a physicist give you the indepth explanation but the simple one is: [Band gaps](_URL_0_). Most balls, when compressed from the force of falling and impacting the ground, generate energy in the form of heat. But your juggling balls most likely have florescent material in them, that absorbs some of the ene...
What are believed to be the risks to individuals who cannot be vaccinated (the very young, immunocompromised etc) of being exposed to unvaccinated people?	[ "Pertussis or whooping cough is a danger for newborns. They can literally die without showing any symptom. The first vaccine is after one month. A total of four or five are necessary for immunity, but after the first shot the baby has a bit of protection. That being said, there are kids that haven't finished their ...	[ "Just because there weren't insurgencies in the modern sense doesn't mean there weren't rebellions and uprisings. Rome had a notoriously difficult time keeping down the people of Germania, Gaul and Britannia, for example but the rebellions usually played out through more traditional military conflicts. One disadva...
Have homosapiens ever had direct competition (survival of the fittest/smartest?)? If so, who and how did they lose out? And if not, why not?	[ "If you are asking were there other Homo species at the same time as Homo sapiens, then yes, multiple other species in fact. Homo Erectus, Homo Naledi, Homo Neanderthals, Homo heidelbergensis. And of course the possibly of other species we just have not discovered yet. As to your second/third question of how or w...	[ "Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo...
A recent post suggested a woman was 39 weeks pregnant. How long can a woman possibly be pregnant? Can a pregnancy last 350 days and deliver a living baby?	[ "That's completely normal. A normal pregnancy is about 40 weeks, with 42 weeks being considered the upper limit of normal. After all, months usually don't have 28 days but 30 or 31. A longer duration of pregancy carries risks for both the mother and the infant, because the child simply may become too big and becaus...	[ "OK, well, let's try it! We'll make a Ferrari-looking car for the common man, instead of the boxier shapes we currently have! Wait, hang on, we'll need to raise the body a bit from the wheels. This isn't going to be used in racing conditions, it could be used on any road, even gravel. Don't want to have rocks cons...
How did America become the global hegemon and why did we come to dominate the world so quickly despite being such a young nation?	[ "World War II. Every other industrial power in the world got huge amounts of their infrastructure destroyed; apart from an attack on Hawaii and some minor Alaskan islands, the US itself was untouched by the war. The USSR managed to recover fast enough to oppose the US during the Cold War, but that just encouraged t...	[ "If your next door neighbor is trampling flowers in your backyard, and your much larger, much bigger neighbor from across the street decides to try and stop him, it's in your interest to just let him do that, whether with implicit or explicit approval. ... especially when you can't get to that corner of the backyar...
Would the Reformation have occurred without the invention of the printing press?	[ "There's a few good threads on this around - I found this one particularly good: _URL_0_" ]	[ "/u/idjet has done great (and patient!) work with his/her [AMA](_URL_0_) on medieval witchcraft, heresy, and the inquisition. He/she deserves our thanks." ]
Why is it easier to cycle when gears are changed?	[ "Gearing alters the distance over which force is applied. Imagine trying to jump three feet straight up; you probably can't, right? But think about spreading it out by jumping three inches twelve times. That is much easier. It is much like using a lever, where you do the same amount of work but in a way you can exe...	[ "It's basically the same thing as asking all your friends for money, except the idea is that you're saying \"if I ride my bike across America, then will you donate a pledged amount to this charity?\" The idea is that you're doing something hard or complicated, and in return/as a \"reward\" of sorts, your friends g...
Why doesn't the sun bleach everything in space?	[ "It depends on how the material gets its color. The reason the flag is now bleached is that the dye used to make the colors were susceptible to absorbing UV and reacting. This reaction breaks the [color congujation](_URL_0_) of the molecule and it no longer reflects the same colors. Not all materials are at risk fr...	[ "This is pretty much how we preserve food (think about packaged cakes which last for months on the shelf). The bread would dry out very quickly in vacuo as the water would evaporate and be pumped out by the vacuum pump. This is why twinkles and the like are packaged with argon or nitrogen gas. The proteins in the b...
Why is Latin a dead language?	[ "It's considered \"dead\" because no one speaks it as their first language. People still know how to read Latin because it has continued to be used by the Catholic church, and Latin words are used in science and so on. Yes it could be revived. If enough people decided to start only speaking Latin around their child...	[ "Yes. Didn't your 6th grade math classroom have posters about that? Babylonians - base 60 Mayans - base 5 and base 20 Romans - hybrid base 10 and base 5 New Guinea - base 2, base 15 Various European civilizations - hybrid base 10, base 12, base 20 (cf. English dozen, or 12; French quatre-vingt-dix-huit, \"four-...
If we cannot see certain "colors", can camera lenses see these or can we just not see them on the camera screen/printed out?	[ "Yes cameras can pick up light waves that we can't see then interpret them into a media that we can. In fact that how skeletal x rays work, or if you hold you phone camera up to the ir light in the television remote." ]	[ "Well yes, at the maximum limit (which would increase with r ) the photons would be blocked. The same way you turn a light on in a room with no windows, and close the door. No one outside can observe the light as its being blocked by the wall. Then imagine that the walls/floor/ceiling are people, and the atoms that...
How online stores manage to ship same-day	[ "There's a really good article that goes into great depth about this at Mother Jones: [_URL_0_!](_URL_0_) I should warn you, though, I found it pretty tough to read in terms of making me come to terms with how my choices impact other people. :-/ TL;DR: because people get paid shitty, shitty money to *literal...	[ "lowest priority to get space on direct truck routes and/or rail/plane. And perhaps a bit of a disinterest to overperform which would undermine their higher cost options." ]
Why is it that we prefer another animal's breast milk over that of our own species?	[ "If human milk was more cost effective and less time consuming than cow milk, we probably would drink it. As it is, the animal that has the most amount of product for the least amount of work is the cow. And that's why we use them." ]	[ "Changed the flair from \"Earth Sciences\" to \"Psychology\". Although φ is not my field, I believe you will find a large part of your answer by researching the concepts of \"imprinting\" and particularly of \"cuteness\" (no, really - it's a thing; at least the way it was defined by Lorenz it is...) and the researc...
how a bycicle brake works	[ "Bikes commonly use [Bowden cables](_URL_0_). The cable housing is somewhat flexible but its length will never change by much. The ends of the cable housing are affixed right next to the brake handle and the brake itself, so the final bit of air that's spanned will also stay the same length. The end result is that ...	[ "How are you going to pressurize the inside of a popcorn kernel with a bicycle pump?" ]
If a photon doesn't have a an anti- counterpart because it is a boson, does that mean that a Helium-4 atom also don't have a anti- counterpart?	[ "It's not true that bosons can't have distinct antiparticles. A photon is a boson, and is its own antiparticle, but those two facts are not related to each other. ^(4)He is also a boson, but it does have a distinct antiparticle." ]	[ "Plato thought that non material things (ideas from \"eidos\", which means form) are the best kind of reality (so, material objects are not real). The things we see are only copy of the real objects. The important thing to know about ideas is: forms don't change (unlike objects). Non-material things exist in the H...
Why would a person voluntarily go into debt?	[ "Because while they know they can't immediately pay it back, they know they eventually can and when purchasing rather expensive items such as a car or a house, many people need to take out loans to be able to afford them. Debt is not bad. It lets you spend more money now and boosts the economy and your credit ratin...	[ "Here's a tidbit from getting mail back from the exploration expeditions in the late 1700s and early 1800s back from, say, Africa, or at least Mungo Park did this when he set out looking for the Niger and many others under Joseph Banks did the same. On the back of these letters, they'd say that whoever delivered th...
How do countries with nukes know they'll still work if tried to be used? Is there some kind of shelf life?	[ "The half-lives of fissile isotopes of uranium and plutonium used in many such devices are on the order of millennia at the low end. While hardware failures in the missiles or warheads might be compromised, the material actually used in the nuclear reactions will not \"go bad\" for a very long time." ]	[ "Dick waving contest. Despite being overly brusque, this is pretty much it. Plus, if this time proves to be different, you're ready." ]
Can sending sliver ions to the sky actually make it rain?	[ "Yes, but only if the conditions are right. The general idea is that if conditions are right to produce rain, you will get more rain if there are more particles in the air for the water to start condensing. This article has recent info, including plans to use drones to seed clouds. _URL_0_" ]	[ "You can show her the [silver fox experiment](_URL_0_) - [video](_URL_1_)" ]
Any idea what wars were like before recorded history, or if they even existed?	[ "Oh, they surely existed-- we find weapons and armor from people with no recorded history. However, the people who find, dig and interpret these sites aren't historians, they're anthropologists and archaeologists. \"History\" per se starts with written materials; without them you're in other domains, with other too...	[ "Congrats! You've asked what may be the single most-asked question on /r/AskHistorians. That's good news, because it means we have [a big FAQ file devoted to your question](_URL_1_). Check it out, and I hope it helps! Edit: And [here](_URL_0_) is a great answer from /u/talondearg, who answers it quite a bit." ]
What is the dew point and why does it matter on the weather channel?	[ "The dew point is a more accurate measure of how much moisture is in the air compared to a statistic like Relative Humidity. Basically, it would have to drop 55 more degrees before any moisture in the air could condense into water (fog or dew)." ]	[ "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." ]
Why was Stalin's USSR not considered Fascist?	[ "Stalin is technically \"communist,\" not fascist. Both are authoritarian systems that are anti-democratic, so while the two systems have ideological differences, in practice they look very similar." ]	[ "Remember that you are using the term in a peculiarly American way that would make no sense to a nineteenth century British person. In fact modern Europeans find American liberals pretty middle of the road, but that is a digression. A lot changed over that century. At the start universal suffrage (male) was dangero...
Do we know if The Exodus happened the way it's told in the Bible? If at all?	[ "To answer your question very briefly, we have no evidence of the Exodus ever occuring as a historical event. It is most likely a purely theological story, an analogy of God acting to protect the people of Israel. We can say with relative certainty that the Exodus as described in the Bible or Torah never occured, ...	[ "The Nicole Etcheson book was offered by the History Book Club when it first came out. It was the first serious historical work on the topic of Bleeding Kansas in thirty years, when it was published, back in 2004. Amazon still has a paper back edition for sale, but the History Book Club no longer stocks the hard co...
Where did the terms 'ho' and 'pimp' come from?	[ "['Pimp'](_URL_0_) is a late 16th century word, possibly deriving from the french word 'pimpant' (meaning alluring in seductive dress). Around 1785 in London, the word was first seen in text in the [Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue](_URL_1_) and meant \"A male procurer, or cock bawd\". In the 1970's, media attention...	[ "I just want to take a moment to thank Dan Monroe, Director and CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. His continued neglect of the Phillips Library Collections, and ensuring that the collection was unavailable both physically and digitally to researchers over the past 2 years (and for the forseeable futur...
Why did Japan adapt Western technology and government, but not China?	[ "First of all, China -did- adopt western technology and at least made an attempt to adopt western governance. This is what the Chinese northern army looked like by the late 1800s/early 1900s: _URL_2_ _URL_0_ _URL_1_ As you can see they looked very much like contemporary European forces with western weapons. The rea...	[ "The diet is the greatest factor. Many Asians will tell you they're \"skinny fat,\" meaning they look slender, but not necessarily in shape or toned, because their healthy body weights come from their diet, and less from exercise. Many Asian diets revolve around fresh vegetables, fish, grains and cooking the minima...
Will there ever be a sorting algorithm that beats O(n log n) in the average case?	[ "There's a formal proof that any sorting algorithm will need at least O(n log(n)) comparisons in the worst case, so that will never be beaten. You may find that proof in several algorithms books, but googling I found this: _URL_1_ However that tells us nothing about the average case. What we do know is that [insert...	[ "Say you have a banana and an apple. How many ways can you arrange those on a table? You can put the banana on the table. You can put the apple on the table. You can put both on the table, or you can put none of them on the table. There are four ways total that you can arrange these fruits. This represents 2 to the...
Why do i want to squeeze my cute dog, and other cute things?	[ "An evolutionary instinct to hold babies (cute things) close to you." ]	[ "You should get your blood sugar levels checked. You could be pre-diabetic or hyperglycemic, if you're having that kind of reaction get it checked soon." ]
have humans created a new species? (via selection)	[ "Using the biological species concept (which I assume, based on your question, is your framework), we have only created one to my knowledge: [Drosophila synthetica.](_URL_0_) If you use the morphological or phylogenetic species concepts, we have created buttloads." ]	[ "Actually this probably wouldn't have to take thousands of years, with the way we breed horses. If we were to find a type of horse that was more suitable for us to ride, we would then breed that horse with other horses trying to keep the trait that we like." ]
Where does the "blast" portion of a nuclear explosion come from?	[ "I'm assuming you're asking about fission bombs. Each fission reaction releases a large amount of energy, on average. Most of that energy is carried off as kinetic energy of the fission fragments. There are also gamma rays, neutrons, and possibly other light particles emitted during the fission reaction, which also...	[ "Media companies \"Nuking\" torrent files with data. Nuking basically means they put some kind of trojan horse in a movie/video game file, so when you download it, they can track it and report you to your ISP." ]
How do trees know to lose their leaves when the weather hasn't changed much from Summer -- > Fall -- > Winter?	[ "I think it may be related to light. During the winter, there is less sunlight for the leaves to collect, so it's a waste of their resources to continue to maintain them. It makes more sense for them to drop off so vital resources can be directed elsewhere to maintain suitable growth and health" ]	[ "They have sensors that detect both the speed of the wheel and the power that the engine is putting to the wheel. As long as there is traction some of the power to the wheel will be used to move the vehicle, therefore the wheel spins slower. But as soon as it slips, the wheel speeds up but there's no change in the ...
Why are political views and parties called left/right wing?	[ "This goes back to the French Revolution. Before the revolution, members from different classes would very occasionally meet when called by the king to advise him. The assembly of the different classes (also known as estates) was called the Estates General. The king called a meeting of the Estates General shortl...	[ "This is a very common question. You can use search to find [all the other really good answers](_URL_0_ ). This is instant, and faster than ust typing in your question every time. It's a way of cheating elections. Read the others, and then ask a more specific question." ]
The wikipedia article about pre-columbian contact of "old world" civilizations with American natives lists a number of possible instances. Which ones are the most accepted?	[ "Norse expeditions around 1000 CE are well established. Polynesian contact is also well regarded at this time, though some people are holding out for an archaeological smoking gun. The linguistic evidence associated with the spread of sweet potatoes through Polynesia is fairly convincing, but an actual archaeologic...	[ "On mobile, sorry for the formatting. Based on this Norwegian text (\"The Historical Northern Lights\") _URL_0_ There is disagreement on wether northern lights are mentioned in the Edda. According to some, NL in norse mythology are explained as reflected light from the shields of the valkyries. The first certain (...
How did we know there was no oxygen in space?	[ "Because space is a vacuum. We know space is a vacuum because it does not absorb light and does not slow down the planets." ]	[ "You're right to be confused. It is 100% wrong as depicted in the movie, and a lot of people of wondered about why they made such a grave error considering the rest of the movie was somewhat realistic. It is likely that the reason this happens in the movie is that it makes things more dramatic. Artistic license i...
how do bottle return centers make money when wherever you go, you only get 5 cents for them?	[ "They don't. Customers pay the 5 cent (or 10 cent, if you live in Michigan) deposit when they buy the bottled/canned beverage in the first place. When they return the bottles, they're getting their deposit back. Also, it's the law." ]	[ "TL:DR Snapchat is a simple application and is not worth much by itself. The reason that it is worth that much is because of its number of users. Firms are only interested in their growing number of users worldwide because this would potentially increase their own customer base for their own products. English is my...
How does my horoscope always seem to relate to something happening in my life?	[ "Because horoscopes are all written to vaguely relate to everyone's lives. Any horoscope will probably have something you might identify with if gullible enough." ]	[ "Let's say you want to travel to Chicago from Atlanta by car. Can you predict your exact position at any given time? No. You can predict where you are going to be in the next few seconds but as you look further ahead you lose accuracy. Sure, you could say, \"I'll be near Indy around 6pm on this road, but you don't ...
During the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, were the Soviets purposely giving ground as they had during Napoleon's invasion, or where they actually being driven back by the German war machine?	[ "To answer your question briefly, the Soviets were actually driven back by the German war machine. /u/MrMarbles2000 goes into the [reasons why in this answer](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "It's like in Mario Kart where if you drive off the side into the mud, the drag slows you down. If you drive back to the road in a perpendicular fashion, you minimize your time in the mud, but you've built up no momentum once you get to the road. If you drive parallel and angle yourself gradually toward the road, y...
We are taught that plants have cell walls, which make their cells rigid. Animals don't, so their cells are squishy. If this is true, how can so many fruits like cantalopes and grapes be squishy?	[ "Not every cell wall is the same. Cell walls of fruit cells have a certain metabolism which makes them softer in the ripening progress. Enzymes like PG and Pe (also some more glycanases) depolymerise the polysaccharides of the wall." ]	[ "Back in the day--maybe pre-1990s?--year-round fresh (not frozen, not concentrate) OJ was not as common and was more expensive. Then, some great new process was devised and it became more common and cheaper. With the new process, it's squeezed, then stored in vats for months at a time. This process caused it to los...
Does your brain make out to be better looking than you actually are?	[ "People generally think they look better in a mirror than in a picture. Your face is flipped in a mirror. But the other reason is because 90% of the time you see yourself it’s in a mirror and so you assume this is how you look but it’s not (not entirely anyway). So since you’re so accustomed to this look, seeing yo...	[ "Follow up question- how do people see me in the street: handsome mirror timaldinho or burn that photograph timaldinho?" ]
How does the human body produce electricity?	[ "Each cell pumps sodium ions out and potassium ions in producing a gradient for each ion. This produces a potential across the membrane of the cell. This potential plus the gradient can be used by the cell to transmit electrical signals" ]	[ "The saliva on your tongue is a much better conductor than the dead skin cells on your finger; even if you make them wet, dead skin cells. The tongue also has more sense cells per unit area than almost any other part of the body." ]
are the terms "positive" and "negative" when relating to atoms merely a naming convention?	[ "Yes. The convention was defined by [Ben Franklin](_URL_0_)." ]	[ "If you consider positrons to be antimatter, we already have an actual use for them: positron emission tomography (PET) can be used to detect tumours and image brain function." ]
Why is brown rice good to eat, but white rice isn't?	[ "Brown rice simply has more fiber and nutrients in it because the fiber and the germ have been removed from white rice. Although it still contains the same amount of carbs it makes you feel full longer because the fiber still remains in your stomach keeping it filled." ]	[ "You can simulate color vision by wearing a tinted lens in one eye and a differently tinted lens or no lens in the the other eye. For example, a red lens in the left eye and a green lens in the right eye. If you look at a grey object, it will appear equally bright to both eyes. If you look at a red object, it wil...
How could the Ancient Greeks have such detailed immaculate sculptures, and such basic paintings?	[ "Believe it or not those basic paintings were the style of the day. It is not like Greek painters could not paint intricate works of art due to lack of skill. It just so happened that people wanted painting in that style of simplicity." ]	[ "If you're taking about what you see online, it's probably because uploading HD wasn't really a thing back then. They uploaded them and they were compressed and at lower quality." ]
How does heating affect how caffeine is absorbed by the body?	[ "Not really - liquids are quickly brought to body temperature once ingested. What's important is in the _extraction_ of caffeine - we use hot water for brewing coffee and tea because hot water has a higher dissolving power, thus extracting compounds from coffee beans and tea leaves better than cold water." ]	[ "A pill or tablet takes a while to dissolve in your stomach and enter your bloodstream. If you crush it into powder it enters your bloodstream much faster." ]
If lightning is trying to find the quickest way to the ground, how come it doesn't go straight downwards?	[ "[Here's a strike in slow motion](_URL_0_). The initial \"feelers\" follow randomish paths determined by which nearby bit of air happens to have the least resistance. As soon as one of those paths reaches the ground, it becomes the path of least resistance to the ground because it has left behind a trail of ionised...	[ "This won't be the most in-depth answer but it's kinda like this Plants and tree love sunlight. They use it in photosynthesis to create this neat stuff called glucose, which is pretty much sugar. Allows them to grow n stuff. So the higher they get the more likely they are to get sunlight, which causes this thing c...
why do old scars hurt when the weather changes?	[ "I would venture to guess that it’s because scar tissue is much different than regular skin tissue in that it is essentially just connective tissue and does not have various layers. That area no longer has the insulation that normal skin layers would provide so the nerves there are slightly more exposed to the elem...	[ "Possibly friction. Alternatively, allergic reaction to the fabric softeners and washing powder that was left from the machine. A long walk makes you sweat slightly, this dissolves these chemicals, your skin absorbs them slightly." ]
Why news organizations don’t sue for libel when a truthful article is called ‘fake news’?	[ "That's not what libel is. Libel means that the information in the article itself is harmful or false. Saying an article is “fake news” after the fact simply because it might hurt someone's feelings is not libel as long as the article is factually correct." ]	[ "Because they use a separate company to provide ads, which come from different web servers. Imagine they're people. Dave works for the pizza company, he delivers your pizza. Sarah works for marketing company, she delivers the ads. Now, you could put a camera on your porch. Then you only open the door for Dave, but ...
How buff looking were warriors from ancient Greece or Rome?	[ "A bit of flab was considered a good thing. Greek, and in particular Spartan soldiers where immensely jacked, but a layer of fat was seen as a more militarily desirable attribute. Harder to gut you. Also harder to slice the valuable abdominal muscles, which if cut made you more or less useless. Also meant attrition...	[ "I'm curious as to why you say nobody from that time period coulf maintain that level of body fat." ]
Why does squinting partially improve vision?	[ "It has to do with the optics. When light is squeezed through a small space, it is fainter but there isn't room for fuzziness. Even better than squinting is making a hole with your thumb and finger and viewing it through one eye, then closing it until the image sharpens. The optics are more easily understood by loo...	[ "Could somebody explain how, if true, small amounts of alcohol is good for you?" ]
What are the benefits of drinking water everyday?	[ "Well the biggest one is that humans require water for almost every bodily function, so by drinking water we prevent dying." ]	[ "> Medical doctor Donald Unger crackedthe knuckles of his left hand every day for more than sixty years, but did notcrack the knuckles of his right hand. No arthritis or other ailments formed in either hand, earning him the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine, a parody of the Nobel Prize. Source:_URL_0_" ]
what happens when lightning hits the ocean?	[ "Interesting article [here](_URL_0_). In summary: It spreads along the surface and barely penetrates at all-- something like 10 to 20 feet, which isn't very far compared to the ocean as a whole. The salt makes a pretty big difference; salt water is a good conductor, pure water doesn't conduct at all." ]	[ "It can be done pretty much the same as dry land welding. There are some differences in method to make for a better weld, like isolating the area from the water, but thats not necessary. Mostly to keep it from cooling too fast and not being strong. This isnt a requirement though. I believe they may use a different ...
Zoned Earth Dams. What are the main purposes of each zone in an earth dam?	[ "You want a dam to hold back water. So you use something that is impervious to water as a core. In your sketch, this is clay. Clay however is not the most stable material and also can be washed away, so it is stabilized with rockfill. The filter zone is optional and is there to protect the core from erosion. It pr...	[ "Imagine any drug you take is like a key and that key can only fit into certain keyholes (receptors) on certain doors (target organ/tissue/nerve etc). There are different types of muscle relaxers (keys) that open certain doors and causes a reaction to occur behind that door (this is the drug action). This is how th...
Every object with mass is attracted to every other object in the universe. But is there any way of measuring whether this force is decreasing over time? (independent to distance)	[ "If the force were decreasing we would progressively weigh less and the length of earth's revolution around the sun would increase (longer year). The overall system is affected if the force decreases as the rest of the components do not decrease, planetary momentum for example." ]	[ "If it were not accelerating, then it would travel in a straight line (at a constant speed) - so it would not be in orbit, but would fly off in a straight line! Here's an easy way to think about it: Suppose you have a ball on a string, and you swing it over your head in circles. The tension in the string means i...
When military Jets fire missiles from under the wings, how does the aircraft stabilise itself?	[ "Let's look at the F/A-18 ~~unloaded~~, it weighs in at about 33,000 pounds empty, and 66,000 fueled and loaded. Some of the largest bombs you might expect it to carry are 2000 pounds. So even there we see an order of magnitude difference. It is equivalent to you carrying a load of groceries and setting down one ba...	[ "Yes, the transiting planet should more or less pass between the our telescopes and the star, which of course is a limitation. There are some alternatives that do not require the planet's plane to intersect our line of sight, such as Astrometry. It involves measuring the wobble of the star as the planet orbits aro...
Why is fiber optic cable better than copper cable?	[ "Imagine that each cable is like a highway with cars on it. The copper cable is like a highway with a few lanes on it, so if there is a lot of traffic it can get jammed up pretty easily. The fiber optic cable is like a highway with 1000 lanes, so a lot more cars can travel on the highway all at once." ]	[ "Lets say that you are drinking juice from a cup with one straw, you are getting the juice into your mouth but now you try two straws, you are getting more juice in less time in you mouth, you try three, it is faster ect. the same goes with 802.11n g b a. they each send more information at one given time to your co...
Did abiogenesis only occur once?	[ "The commonality of the genetic code found in all known forms of life powerfully suggests that, at least on earth, all presently known life forms descended from a single common ancestor. This does not preclude the possibility that life might arise by other means, however. It is possible that it has arisen by other ...	[ "The extreme arid (Yungay) region of the Atacama Desert in Chile seems to be too dry to support life. Microbes are present everywhere on Earth that there is liquid water. Soils of this region have even been used to assess the findings of Martian soil analysis by the Viking missions. _URL_0_" ]
Can you noticeably alter your facial appearance by "exercising" facial muscles?	[ "Sometimes the jaw muscle grow for no known reason at all. Take a look at [this paper](_URL_1_) and [this page](_URL_2_). The condition is called Idiopathic Masseter Muscle Hypertrophy. Sometimes it happens on [both sides](_URL_0_). It seems that Botulinum toxin A [helps](_URL_3_) in reducing the effects of this co...	[ "I like this. However, pictures are awesome. Your pictures with the flame on the drawing board? Good stuff. The video with candle/flame? Good stuff. Your face? Great face for TV, but I don't want to see it the majority of the time. It makes the viewer lose interest over a period of time. Personally, I liked learnin...
WW2 - Did Japan have to go to war with the U.S.? Couldn't they have gone to war solely with the Dutch/British in order to acquire the resources they needed? After all Hitler did that and the U.S. did not go to war.	[ "I've written about this a few times before, but the short answer is that if Japan wanted access to the oil and other resources of the colonial powers in Southeast Asia, it would have to go through the Philippines to get them; and the Philippines in the 1940s were an American colony. You can read more about Japanes...	[ "> What important implications does answering such a question, as to what is the origin of water on the moon, hold? Well, it's likely that the moon's water came from the same source as earth's water. But the moon's water is in a more pristine condition, more suitable for research. So we may be able to answer some v...
Why is it illegal to buy/sell human organs for transplant?	[ "Iran allow this. The market is government regulated. Donors get paid between $2000 - $4000 for a kidney. If a donor ends up needing an organ transplant in the future they skip the waiting list of which there is virtually none anyway. Seems to be a great way to do it if you ask me!" ]	[ "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." ]
Would a strong magnetic field have a noticeable effect on the human body? If so, how strong would the field need to be?	[ "There aren't any significant effects from the fields that people have been subjected to, about 10 Tesla (a typical MRI is ~2 T). It's difficult and expensive to make fields that are stronger but still big enough for a human to get inside. [Here](_URL_0_) is a review on the topic that might be a bit out of date." ]	[ "I would highly recommend listening to [The Hidden Brain Podcast](_URL_0_) called Our Better Nature. It talks all about the research showing the importance of nature on mental and social wellbeing. It discusses research done on having people smelling grass or looking at pictures of a forest while having an MRI take...
How valid is Argentina's historical claim to the Falklands?	[ "It's a bit of a complicated history. The islands were governed by various nations at different points, starting with France, but including Spain, Britain, Argentina, and the USA. Someone was kind enough to put up a graphical representation of [these changes over time](_URL_0_) on Wikipedia, which is a nice little ...	[ "Before I answer, may I ask who the speaker is for this particular lecture? Or if you have a link for me to listen to? I would like to know where they are coming from in their argument." ]
How fast did the news of the discovery of the Americas by Columbus spread throughout the world?	[ "How long did it take for the Icelandic to find out? I ask because they might have matched it with their old sagas of Vinland." ]	[ "This has been asked a few times, but there's never been, as far as I can tell, a comprehensive and well-sourced answer. So, I encourage people to provide one. That said, there have been _good_ answers. Here's [one](_URL_1_) with some good debate about what McCarthy got right or wrong, and [another](_URL_0_) that ...
If a different sperm cell were to reach my mom's egg, would I be a different person?	[ "There wouldn't be a you. There would be a someone else - one of your many possible brothers or sisters. They'd be more similar to you than the average sibling because you would share all the same maternal alleles, but then you wouldn't exist to know that." ]	[ "This video created by Vsauce 3 (Jake Roper) does a very good job explaining this: _URL_1_ I hope this answers your question. He also did another video on a simmilar line of - could you survive: _URL_0_" ]
Why were communists so against democracy?	[ "Just a reminder to people considering to post: historical examples only please, and preferably well sourced. Not 'your opinion as a communist', not 'this is what I think is wrong with democracy'." ]	[ "The Armageddon Letters came out a few years ago and seeks to examine this exact same question. The authors try to look at the conflict through the eyes and experiences of JFK, Khrushchev, and - especially - Castro. [Kennedy's PoV](_URL_0_) [Khrushchev's PoV](_URL_1_) [Castro's PoV](_URL_2_)" ]
How do we get propane? Where does it come from?	[ "Methane, propane, and all sorts of basic hydrocarbons are primarily made from fossil fuels, although a few come from natural sources like plants. Oil companies have developed very efficient ways of separating these chemicals in the oil, and then they purify the propane to ship it out" ]	[ "The Department of Energy has a web site that lists the breakdown. _URL_0_ In short, for Sept 2011, 63% of the price was crude oil, 14% refining, 12% distribution/marketing, and 11% taxes." ]
Why different genders prefer different types of alcohol (Men like whiskey and beer, women like vodka and wine). Is this sociological or are there biological elements to it as well?	[ "I imagine its a societal thing. If you go to Russia, I doubt you'll find that they treat vodka as a 'women only' drink. I doubt the French or the Italian look to wine as a drink associated with women." ]	[ "The better part of what you call \"taste\" comes from your nose. In order to better appreciate a taste, you must isolate it from everything around it. A clean glass has no odor. Put your nose in a red solo cup for a moment and appreciate the chemical aroma inherent in the vessel. Now grab a plastic cup that's bee...
Why do people keep telling me to drink water while drinking to stay hydrated, when in ye olden days before water sanitation, people drank beer all the time instead of water?	[ "Your question is like: > Why do people keep telling me to take a pill my doctor prescribes when in ye olden days people didn't have access to the same pills? Clean water is way easier to get now than it was then. Since you have access to clean water you should use it. In the same way, getting a doctor to prescri...	[ "There really wouldn't be much of a point. A well trained horse will know to avoid obstacles, not run into other horses, and even know how to take you home without any input from the rider if it's familiar enough with the rider's usual habits. Point being, with horses, yes, you can give them commands, but it's a l...
What effect do volcanic eruptions have on climate?	[ "Both right, but on different timescales. On average, volcanic eruptions have a 1-5 year cooling effect and a smaller but more persistent warming effect over the next few hundred or thousands years." ]	[ "Firstly - There are several countries that have changed enviromental policies, especially in Europe. However, the main reason some countries aren't doing more is that those kind of policies won't win your next election. Higher taxes on fossil fuels and meat for example is a good method to reduce CO2 emmisions, but...
How effective was the Westphalian principle if sovereignty in actually preventing conflict in Europe immediately after the thirty years war?	[ "The treaty was not designed to limit conflict - indeed, conflict continued a lot in northern Europe after this (Sweden went to war against Poland-Lithuania, Russia, Denmark, Denmark again, the Holy Roman Empire, the Bishopric of Bremen, Brandenburg etc. before the end of the 17th century, for example). The treaty ...	[ "They tried. Many states had extensive land claims in the west - Connecticut claimed a band of territory bypassing New York and stretching to the Pacific, and sent settlers to what is now Pennsylvania's Wyoming valley and the area around Cleveland in Ohio. Massachusetts made a similar claim to portions of Michigan ...
Is it possible to wrap a rope around earth?	[ "Yes, it's possible. Arguably, the communications cables that cross the various oceans already do this. Regarding 2, there would be a delay due to the speed of sound in the material." ]	[ "I have nothing useful except that this is one of those questions that's both original, interesting and testable without expensive equipment. Makes my high school teacher's heart beat faster. This is a perfect end-of-year question to engage my 15-year old pupils with. It'll be great fun to have them try to answer w...
How do deep sea creatures exist with the extreme water pressure	[ "Their internal pressure is the same as the external pressure. Their solid organs are not affected by the pressure. If they generate gas bubbles the pressure is the same. They produce high pressure gas bubbles. It is not a trick. For gas to exist at those pressures the pressure of the bubble must equal the external...	[ "This is a very good question, but I don't know if can be aquatically explained to a 5 year old. Still, I would love to see someone do it." ]
What would a nebula look like to human eyes?	[ "It's partially a post-image process, but it's more just that they can take really long exposures to get really deep images. If you were to look at it with the naked eye, you'd basically just see a bit of a faint haze. The trick is that the surface brightness of a resolved object (that is, an object that is larger ...	[ "Take a good telescope, and catalog the stars you can see. [Compute their distance](_URL_0_). Then plot everything in 3D, and you'll see that the stars that are reasonably close to us, form a spiral, and that we are roughly in the middle of one of the \"arms\" of that spiral." ]
Why do various animals when petted respond by closing or squinting their eyes? Goes for some humans too.	[ "With reptiles it can mean one of to things, it feels good and is enjoying. It can also mean they feel overwhelmingly uncomfortable and are attempting to block the stressful external stimuli of your existence." ]	[ "Particle on skin may cause danger, scratching removes particle (hopefully), relief of the damaging particle releases feel good chemicals into blood. At the same time scratching slightly damages skin, skin damage releases feel good chemical into blood to counteract pain. So kind of a mix of both." ]
Why do bright spots remain in your vision after looking at something bright?	[ "When light hits the back of your eye (the retina), each photon causes a change in a protein that then Cascades down signals to compose vision. This protein then has to be converted back to the original state to accept another photon. This happens extremely fast, but when I looking at bright light the conversion of...	[ "I know what OP is talking about and absolutely no one in the comments is addressing what he's talking about. It's definitely not tinnitus and it is not electrical appliances. It is a loud, distinctive high pitched noise, sounds exactly like the sound effect they use for a flashbang in video games. It lasts for a f...
How do hormones and their corresponding receptors evolve? Isn't there a chicken vs. egg problem?	[ "Imagine a simple organism with a membrane. It is floating through a pond and happens to come across a hormone-like molecule. This molecule allows this organism to produce twice as many offspring as similar organisms that can't import the hormone. Generations go by and eventually a mutation occurs, where a previous...	[ "[Al Jahiz](_URL_0_) proposed some ideas that would be considered precursors to some of Darwins. Many scholars had already developed some concept of what we would consider evolution, many long before Darwin. What made Darwin somewhat more special was that he hit on an explanation for the mechanism that drives evolu...
Why is the Emergency Alert System sound quality so poor?	[ "I can't quite give you all the answer, but basically the longer a signal can travel, the lower it's birate or quality is. For example there's a \"channel\" that is very low quality but can be hears all over the world. All you can send is morse code. It's utilised by militarys." ]	[ "You probably have a router or a switch that lets you connect several computers at once to your single internet connection. Simply put, your ISP has larger, more powerful routers and switches that Connect the neighbourhood to a larger part of the internet. something with these probably failed. it could be a softwar...
How do our brains know whether a sound came from a distance or is just faint?	[ "We do get a bit of 'parallax ranging' through having two separate ears. Also, sound tends to attenuate at a frequency dependent rate, with low frequencies carrying further, so experience with a particular sound can suggest it's distance." ]	[ "It's a quirk of the human eye. At the center of the eye (the fovea) we mostly have colour-sensitive cone cells to see detail and colour of what we're focusing on. Around the fovea we mostly have rod cells that can't see colour but are more sensitive to variations in light intensity and movement. Looking slightly ...
Why are breeding female dogs considered to be 'ruined' for breeding if mated to another breed male?	[ "If the breeds are very different in size a female from a small breed might have trouble delivering puppies sired by a large breed dog. This might cause damage to the female. So she might be 'ruined for life.' This may be the source for the rumor you heard. Crossing a large breed female with a small breed male woul...	[ "You are using the words legal repercussions in the context of international politics which does not really apply. The Good Friday Agreement does not have any judges, court room or police forces enforcing it. So what sanctions or other actions is to be taken is purely up to the country taking the action. So anythin...
Have we ever observed something becoming part of the observable universe?	[ "No. The further we look away, the further we look back in time. The furthest we can see is the cosmic microwave background radiation. It's how the Universe looked like 400,000 years after the Big Bang. It was very young and galaxies, stars, planets, and so on, didn't exist at the time. We can't look further than t...	[ "It really depends on what you mean by \"see.\" If you mean see with the unaided eye, then no we cannot. If you mean unambiguously detect and visualize, then we can. _URL_0_" ]
If an oven and bulb are connected in parallel, why is that the oven get more current?	[ "If it had higher resistance it would get less current. It has lower resistance so it gets more current." ]	[ "Imagine a bathtub full of water, the water represents electricity. The bathtub has a faucet, which represents the generation of electricity. Imagine now that there are little holes in the bottom of the bathtub, all plugged up. When ever a home needs power, unplug the drain and let the water flow out. Now imagine ...
What happens if a snow plow's plow catches a crack in the road while traveling at high speeds?	[ "Plows are usually mounted on some sort of shock absorber at an angle that makes them raise up when they are pushed back." ]	[ "To echo DubiousDoctor, what actually happens is developers in 2010 look at what features they can add to their app and still have it run reliably. This includes memory, CPU usage, and features available to the phone (motion control, gps, music, etc). In a given year, they have to say \"We can't do X, Y or Z becau...
Why is bottled water more expensive than bottled soda?	[ "Because people are more willing to pay for it. It's not a question about price/quality or production cost. Its marketing, they ask what ''we'' are willing to pay." ]	[ "A few reasons, first you may remember from high school chemistry the ideal gas law. PV=nRT, where P=pressure, V=volume, n= number of moles, R is a constant and T is temperature. If you spray a pressurized gas (the propellant in the can), which is typically butane or propane, as the gas comes out of the spray nozz...
How a happy person can still be depressed	[ "It's not hard to make a show of being happy when you aren't." ]	[ "They don't know yet and they don't yet. They have kind of worked out brain chemicals causing it sometimes and pills to regulate the brain chemistry, but clearly it's not as easy as it sounds and it's different for different people." ]
Why are oceans so salty and how much salt are we talking about. if you were to pile all of the salt from all of the oceans and seas and put it in one place how big would it be?	[ "The oceans are between 3-4% salt, there are roughly 1.37 x 10^21 kg of sea water in total, 4% of that would come out to 5.48 x 10^18 kg of salt." ]	[ "More precise follow-up: What kind of unit organization was there? How many men would, for example, the Akkadian army use for putting down a rebellion? Meeting other armies in the field? Were there standing professional armies? What was the command structure like, and who made up each rank?" ]
Is AskHistorians the right place to specifically ask for primary and secondary sources?	[ "Yes you are welcome to ask for book recommendations, and primary sources. :)" ]	[ "This submission has been removed because it is [soapboxing](_URL_1_.) or [moralizing:](_URL_0_) it has the effect of promoting an opinion on contemporary politics or social issues at the expense of historical integrity. There are certainly historical topics that relate to contemporary issues and it is possible for...
Why do TV shows have different directors for each episode?	[ "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...	[ "Imagine you are made of genetic soup. Some people have ingredients that just don't go well together and make the soup taste bad. But that's ok, because when you have a kid, we just take some of my soup and some of my wife's soup and pour it in together. So even though my soup has some bad ingredients, her ingredie...
At temperatures above 37 c how exactly does the body cool itself below ambient temperature?	[ "The human body has an open loop cooling system. It releases liquid water on to the skin. The water evaporates, and absorbs the latent heat of vaporisation. This cools the skin, and and the rest of the body. This system has several limitations: the body has to be able to find and process a lot of water, for a s...	[ "Many of these creams contain menthol (or sometimes peppermint oil, which is what menthol can be extracted from). Menthol stimulates TRPM8 receptors in the skin. These receptors are primarily for sensing cold, but menthol triggers their response and you get a cold feeling when you apply creams. Other menthol analog...
Why do we get very uncomfortable/get chills whenever we hear very squeaky sounds (like fabric pillows being scratched)?	[ "Copied and pasted from the post [here](_URL_0_) by kaze_no_saga: There are two theories. The sound resembles the cry of alarm of the primates long way down the evolutionary lane; The sound frequency resonates within the human ear canal, causing it to vibrate violently." ]	[ "Your brain is programmed by evolution to seek out patterns, and make sense of the world through stories. This has allowed humans to recognize certain laws of nature in order to take advantage of them (seeking out patterns is really just the fundamental building block of the scientific method). It has also allowed ...
Why can the Yakuza in Japan and other organized crime associations continue their operations if the identity of the leaders are known and the existence of the organization is known to the general public?	[ "In Japan specifically, there's kind of an informal arrangement between the government and the Yakuza. As long as they restrict themselves to certain areas, and don't cause too much trouble, the police turn a blind eye to some of their dealings. I think the reasoning goes that crime is inevitable, so it might as ...	[ "The problem is that if I want to get from A to B, I don't have a choice of which line I take. If company X provides a better service but doesn't run the line that takes me from A to B, that's no use to me. I'm not going to walk half a mile to station C to get a train to D and then walk another half a mile to my fi...
Explain me how a clock work in terms of it internal gears.	[ "So first you need power. A spring, a weight, a motor etc. This tries to turn a gear but the gear has essentially a ratchet on it. This ratchet is attached to some timing mechanism such as a pendum or another motor on a timer circuit. This moves back and forth and allows the gear to move forward once a second we'll...	[ "Little built-in batteries to drive an [RTC chip](_URL_0_). It's basically a tiny digital watch built into the device. On older PCs (think MS-DOS era), you had large, visible batteries that, while rechargeable, could go dead on you. DOS would ask you for the date & time before doing anything else on boot." ]
Quick question about 3 dimensional waves?	[ "> On a one dimensional surface, like a guitar string, introducing a wave means the thing oscillates in a second dimension. That does not need to be the case. A sound wave in one dimension is a longitudinal wave that has its oscillations along the direction of motion. The pressure or density oscillates like so: \|\|...	[ "Scooby Doo really confused me as a child when Shaggy \"threw his voice\" across the room to distract the monster. Humans cannot do this, it's impossible. A single directional speaker can, but we are like normal speakers and eminate sound waves in all directions from our mouths." ]
How do the Google crawler bots find unlisted content on the Internet? Where and through what do they search?	[ "They pretty much don't. However website owners have the option to tell Google \"hey, I have a site here, check it out!\" When pages don't link to each other, website owners have the option to host a special file, named sitemap, that does list all content that should be searched for." ]	[ "Have you ever those reCaptcha tests that ask you to select the squares with street signs in them? They are used to help teach self driving cars how to identify what is and isn't a street sign. Edit: CPG Grey does a video about it - _URL_0_" ]
Using a personal welder at home with an AC wall power source. Is the electrical welding arc still AC or has it been converted to DC?	[ "Welder/Boilermaker here, It should say right on the front panel. AC, DC, or AC/DC. There's also a stamped tag on the back of most welding machines that gives you all the specifics for that machine." ]	[ "At the atomic level, conduction and convection are largely the same, atoms knocking into each other and transferring momentum. The main difference is that while conduction is the random propagation that momentum, convection is about current flowing through a medium. When you hold your hand above a stove, the stov...
Why is ATP the molecule that supplies biological energy, instead of any of the other nucleotide triphosphates (i.e. UTP, GTP, CTP, or TTP)?	[ "I am not sure if predominantly using ATP was random or was just thermodynamically the most favorable, but I can shed light on where other nucleotides are used in metabolism. GTP is actually used as an energy resource in protein synthesis, gluconeogenesis and in signaling (specifically G Protein coupled signaling);...	[ "A TCP packet will only be processed if it's part of an existing socket, unless it's the first packet in the handshake process. So if the packet isn't part of some connection, the OS will just discard it. Every UDP packet is a \"stray\" packet. The operating system will process it and transfer it to whatever progra...
How do astronomers keep their colors in order?	[ "[Spectral lines](_URL_0_), these occur at very specific positions, and if they've been shifted we know that the star is moving. Also for something to be blueshifted from, let's say red to blue, it would have to be traveling at several thousand km/s and very few stars (if any) travel that fast." ]	[ "Because the ships are designed for functionality with the least amount of weight--not aesthetics. Function over form. Regarding the personal items floating around--depends. Lots of items are secured in place with adhesive velcro pads or bungee cords. It's not really the norm to have a bunch of junk floating all ov...
I live in the country. ELI5 how there is a well hundreds of feet beneath my house and how it provides me with a continuous source of fresh clean water	[ "There are layers of rock underneath your feet. Rain is absorbed by the soil when it falls and is pulled down by gravity. Passing through all this soil filters the water, but some contaminants can't be removed this way. After a long time it will be meet rock that it can't find its way through and accumulate in the ...	[ "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...

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