Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Why is it that, after World War II, Japan could only have a "Self-Defense-Force", while Germany could have an actual military?	[ "Germany was crucial if western Europe were to be successfully defended from any Soviet invasion. That's really all there was to it: the practical consideration that a disarmed Germany was a drain on NATO's efforts." ]	[ "Britain was occupied by Rome from 43 AD to 410 AD, which is shorter than most other areas. During that time, the island was never fully occupied, and they always lived besides the Anglo-Saxons in Scotland. The geographic isolation also plays an important role. On the main land, Spain, France and Italy may have be...
What's happening when actors in movies and TV shows are snorting lines of cocaine?	[ "Its typically lactose powder, or vitamin b powder for those who are lactose intolerant. These powders are harmless even if snorted. If they are snorting a lot of \"coke\" the straw is typically coated on the inside with vaseline, which will cause most of the powder to stick to the straw, instead of going into the ...	[ "It has already been answered, but I will add some more detail. A camera records the visuals, an microphone records the audio, obviously. The problem is, that unlike with consumer cameras, the audio isn't recorded to the same file as the video. So, you are left with a very high quality audio track, and a separate v...
I've been on the National Do Not Call Registry for awhile now. I still get multiple telemarketer calls every week. How do they get away with this?	[ "Former telemarketer here, 1. When you register on the DNC List it is only active for a certain amount of time. After about a year you need to renew yourself on whatever website you used to register. 1. Tell the telemarketer that you are on the DNC List. They may be working with older information, and will have...	[ "Buying things piece by piece is always more expensive than buying things all together. Netflix would love to have a deal where they get everything from NBC. But NBC makes more money licensing each show separately. So they do and they can because they own the rights to the shows they created. As for pirating, it ...
What is gerrymandering?	[ "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." ]	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why is it that when two cars have their turn signals on, they seem to be in sync for a while, but then fall out of sync?	[ "Let's say one car blinks every 0.6 seconds and another blinks every 0.8 seconds. Blinker A: 0 0.6 1.2 1.8 2.4 3.0 3.6 Blinker B: 0 0.8 1.6 2.4 3.2 4.0 4.8 They'll sync up exactly at 2.4. They may also appear to be in sync when they're close, such as when blinker A is at 3.0 and Blinker B is at 3.2 (only 1/5 of a s...	[ "I guess it depends on who \"we\" is. Check out [this video](_URL_0_ ). She might be a little spooky, but it's something some people at least can learn. Other people can move their ears, but that's somethign only dogs and cats should be able to do. It's a matter of practice. Eye coordination, so they point towards ...
Can someone explain how tilt shift photography works like I've just learned to tie my own shoelaces	[ "First, you take a photo of something, as if you were looking down upon it at 45 degree angle. So the angle already sets it up like it were one a table top and waiste height. Then you zoom in a little bit, to aleviete the effect of perspective, to make it look more like a 2d isometric video game for the SNES or Gen...	[ "We are pushing against an 'edge' beyond which the notion of particles stops making sense: The amount of detail that the universe allows at the small scale. Look up 'the Planck Length'. The ELI5 version is that we are trying to zoom in and we're getting pixels." ]
How is shaving your hair different from plucking it...	[ "Layman here, but hair will not grow back thicker when you shave it. What happens is that shaving creates flat ends to the hairs (rather than the naturally-tapered ends) which makes it look thicker. Hair will appear to grow back faster when shaving as compared to plucking, though, as plucking can remove it at t...	[ "One gathers the files, one applies it. Depending on what it is, if you started installing before you had all the pieces of the file, and something happened to the download, bad things could potentially happen." ]
Why don't I laugh much when I'm alone, but with friends, the same things are hilarious.	[ "Laughter is a form of communication. When you're with other people, you laugh to let them know you think something is funny. When you're alone, there's nobody to share it with so, unless something is off the charts funny, you normally keep it to yourself." ]	[ "There are a few different answers because there are a few different psychological approaches. TheCanadianDoctor's answer is the biological approach. Using the behavioral/learning approach, I would say it was because when you learned that word, you learned it by forming a connection between the (echoic) sound and t...
In the last ~200 years, when was the time where the wealth was most evenly distributed	[ "I am not sure if it is permitted under the rules, but there was an interesting article in last week issue of The Economist investigating this question [here](_URL_4_). (The article actually is a summary the thesis of a book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Piketty, an economist at the Paris School ...	[ "> hate for those less well-off. It's not hate. The people who feel that way believe that handouts will undermine work ethic. The notion of work ethic, self-made men, and owning one's own means of production are core American tenets. When people talk about loving their country, they're talking about loving a system...
In what period of time to the ancient Greeks establish their funerary practices?	[ "Not really my area but I know that Tholos and shaft tombs were dated from Mycenae to around the 10th century." ]	[ "[_URL_0_](_URL_0_) Think cannibalism, burial at sea, there are plenty of variations on burial as well. I think the most interesting is the use of scavenger animals for disposal: Warning of somewhat graphic pictures @ bottom of page: [_URL_1_](_URL_1_)" ]
Since you can always cut a distance in half, is there infinite distance between any two points?	[ "No. Even if you kept halving those distances an infinite amount of times until the distances became infinitesimal, if you added up all those infinitesimally small pieces you'd end up with the original length. Edit: This is essentially the basis of calculus. You take something, chop it down to tiny tiny bits and th...	[ "Blood doesn't rush around your body in one big tube. What happens is the blood vessels split and become thinner and thinner. Think of a fan where the bottom is the main artery which splits into finer tubes called capillaries. This splitting happens all through your skin, so there are millions of very fine capilla...
Did pre-Industrial cities engage in "zoning" regulation?	[ "Tanning was usually relegated to the [outskirts of town](_URL_1_) due to the nature of the industry. Slaughter houses also used to be relegated to [certain streets.](_URL_0_) These both refer to England, though it seems to have happened in other places as well." ]	[ "As a reminder, [top-level answers](_URL_0_) in this community need to be \"comprehensive and imformative.\" Single-links to Wikipedia and unsourced opinions do not clear that bar. This question already rests on a part of history hamstrung by the fuzzy diagnostics of diseases in the past and an almost unavoidable b...
How could tachyons theoretically be used to send a message back in time?	[ "Let's say that Alice and Bob are in separate space ships that are heading in opposite directions at a large percentage of the speed of light. After 10 seconds (in her reference frame) Alice sends a message to Bob via tachyons and it instantly arrives at Bob's ship, due to time dilation only 5 seconds have passed f...	[ "Quoting [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) (a bit naughty, but it's a nice way to express what I think): > The proposed theory is inconsistent with quantum mechanics and critics have ruled it out on those grounds. Which is essentially saying what you pointed out, yes. If what they're doing is as easy as it sounds - just runnin...
My cat goes wild in the presence of bleach. Why is this?	[ "Well, shit, it sounds like she's getting some kind of chemical high. I'm not a veterinarian but I suspect it's probably not good for her brain (because chemicals rarely are, and bleach is known to be toxic). I'd say keep her in a bathroom or something if you're gonna be bleaching." ]	[ "Likely the store was not able to sell it for a high enough price, compared to the price the distributor was willing to give for the return. It literally would cost them money to sell you the product, making it \"toxic\" As for the later call, they probably were denied the return, meaning they had to get rid of the...
Why does color see so different from pitch?	[ "We have 3 types of color receptors in our eye, for red green and blue, so every color we see is a permutation of those three. Meanwhile, our ear has 20,000-30,000 fibers with different resonant frequencies, to tell us which pitch we're listening to. So they're quite a bit different. A large continuum of sensors f...	[ "Rod cells are much more sensitive than cone cells, and the periphery of your eye is much more rich in rod cells (vs. the cone cell rich center). Thus, the peripheral parts of your vision are much more sensitive to light than the center." ]
When did Southerners start denying the Civil War was about slavery?	[ "Literally within a year of the end of the Civil War, but efforts to rehabilitate the Southern cause really kicked into high gear in the 1870s and 1880s, after the end of Reconstruction. Of course, the reason it emerged so quickly was that it [drew from decades of earlier defences of Southern society](_URL_1_). I d...	[ "This submission has been removed because it is [soapboxing](_URL_1_.), [promoting a political agenda, or moralizing](_URL_0_). We don't allow content that does these things because they are detrimental to unbiased and academic discussion of history." ]
"Bridge Ices Before Road"	[ "Under pavement on a road you've got layers and layers of dirt that will help to insulate and keep the road a bit warmer a bit longer. Under pavement on a bridge is (commonly) metal and then more cold air below that which will allow it to drop in temperature quicker than the surrounding roadway. Toss water on both ...	[ "For cars, it's important to reduce drag. For busses & trains, the priority is volume and getting as many people on as possible. Efficiency is the name of the game" ]
If they say multi-tasking is just focusing on one at a time, but how do I play a game and listen to a podcast simultaneously then?	[ "If they say that.. Your brain is a biological computer with physical limits. When you do easy/boring tasks your mind will wander to not waste the resources spent to experiencing waking life. The game you are playing is played either poorly or according to a predecided strategy from when you \"learned how to play....	[ "It's like you're driving a car down the highway and you need to replace the tires because they're old and worn out. You could engineer a really complicated system that would allow you to safely change the tires while you're still moving. Or, you could just stop the car, replace the tires, then get going again. ...
Using a 300MHz oscillator, could I make a miniature microwave transmitter?	[ "You'd need much, much more than just that. So the answer is no. On top of that, you haven't really specified what that Kyocera 9517 exactly is (and I haven't found anything on google) but you are missing quite a lot of key components for a transmitter at that frequency. A power source, amplification, microwave fil...	[ "There are current projects where hobbiests are making microchips with pretty low-tech tools. _URL_0_ _URL_3_ _URL_1_ with that tech, we get a desk sized 386 with enough work, but check this: _URL_0_wiki/SQUIDfab While the experiment was a failure, the basis for a quantum computer was functioning for a while." ]
If I start tunneling towards the center of the Earth, what is the maximum gravitational force I'd experience?	[ "> What if we're talking about a perfect sphere of uniform density? Is there a formula for where maximum G is felt? At the surface. The [shell theorem](_URL_0_) says that as you pass inside each \"shell\" of the Earth, that shell no longer has any net gravitational effect on you - the region pulling you forwards is...	[ "Light travels along curved paths near massive objects like black holes. This is because mass causes space-time to curve. If you get close enough to a black hole then the curvature is so tight that it \"falls\" back in. Even if you try to shine the light directly outward so it won't curve to one side or another, it...
If there is so much research, how do scientists avoid finding something that has already been found?	[ "I'm not sure there is a system in place - apart from doing your research :). The question is: Is research really redundant? - If more studies give the same results = > Confirmation - If more studies give different results = > Debunked Not to mention that no study uses the exact same premise / method, so while it ...	[ "When you search reddit the rank of each submission can change dramatically within seconds, especially those not on the front page. By the time you reach the lower ranks, the posts you read before drop or rise to another page. What can also happen is the same news story or event is posted at once because many reddi...
In the Roman Empire, were there any rules regarding weapon ownership, similar to today's gun laws?	[ "The carrying of weapons inside of Rome was forbidden, it was even considered sacrilege to do so. Source: _URL_4_" ]	[ "How would we know what an \"average citizen\" thought? Every text we have is produced by the elite class. Whether people lost friends or family is impossible to know in the specifics. We do know that military disaster did not affect the political careers of the generals involved. Rosenstein in Imperatores Victi ...
How does information become classified (secret, top secret, etc.), who determines access to the information, and how many levels exist?	[ "Not to be Dickhead McBuzzkill here, but if any of you do or have actually worked with classified information, please be aware of what you are posting. It is fairly easy to violate your NDAs, and something as simple as \"I work for X and know Y\" may get you into more trouble than it is worth, especially if you wan...	[ "There are a lot of different schemes for encoding and timing the communications so that don't interfere with each other. [Stolen from this wiki page](_URL_0_): * In the US, AT & T and T-Mobile use GSM which is based on [TDMA](_URL_4_). TDMA tells each phone to transmit in a specific time window. e.g. Phone 1 talks...
What happened to the Pinkerton Detective Agency? When, Why, and How did they lose power?	[ "A related question, what's a source for history of the pinkerton agency. The few that i've looked at either take the side of their being awesome detectives who turned America into America for Americans, or horrible cronies who battled labor for cash. Any slightly more objective/comprehensive books out there?" ]	[ "Personally I don't think there were a surge in popularity in the 20th century. Wallpaper has been around since the Renaissance as an alternative to tapestry and a good number of homes have them as they are the cheapest way to decorate a house. According to books such as *Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Do...
Is there any way to experience the rotation of the earth?	[ "Yes. Enjoy your weight that is not proportional to your mass because of partial centrifugal cancelation. One way is also to fixate on a star aligned near the rotation axis of earth. There is one good star on the north side. You need to look at it to a time comparable that the stars take to move a distance you can ...	[ "Through exposure. Put a camera in a dark room and take a long exposure picture. They do the same thing for seeing things far away in space. The reason it takes satellites so long to get a picture is because they have been taking a long exposure shot the entire time." ]
what happens when a show is abruptly cancelled such the case like Roseanne's show do the investor lose money, does the network just eat the cost, is roseanne liable for any future profit? So many questions agh	[ "It depends on what stage of production they were on. If episodes of the show were already filmed and ready to broadcast, then yes, the studio is going to lose money, because they spent money to film the show and now they can't broadcast it and get the advertising money. If all the already-filmed episodes of the sh...	[ "A “pilot” is a term for a test run of something. The term “pilot project” refers to tentative model or solution that if it proves successful will become standardized or official. Many tv shows create “pilot” episodes that are then reviewed and later a decision is made to give a show a longer run. Amazon is famous ...
How do live sports commentators know what player has the ball almost immediately?	[ "They pay attention to formation, as well as have complete knowledge of uniform number and body shape/size." ]	[ "Using statistics. A representative sample of a country's population either get asked to keep a record of what they watch or listen to or have devices in their TVs or radios that do this. This information is gathered and the figures are scaled up to the whole country. EDIT: grammar" ]
Why does it take so long for eyes to adjust to changes in light when pupils can quickly constrict and dilate?	[ "Pupils adjust for some changes quickly. Night adaption is a chemical process that takes about half an hour in the retina itself, this happens after the pupil has fully dilated. Wikipedia has more details on the process, am on tablet so hyperlinks are a pain." ]	[ "I don't so much think of it as an evolutionary thing. There's really no benefit to being confused. It comes down to computing power. Your brain just takes a minute to recall old information/piece together new information to develop an idea of where you are and how you got there. I'm currently in flight school and...
Pink Slime: Evidence that it is harmful, or simply an "ew" factor?	[ "Kranar -- Straight ammonia, no. But Ammonium Hydroxide, which is what they use, is approved by the USDA, the EU, the World Health Organization and the UN, among others. It's used in plenty of food products, and has been for years. Source: _URL_1_" ]	[ "They actually debunked that, same with that nonsense about listening to classical music in the womb making your child smarter. It was all just BS to sell some cds. I'll see if I can find an article about it, and I'll edit this to put it in. And now to see if this answer is long enough, or if it will get auto-modd...
Why can't they make space elevators with propellers on them to reduce tension forces?	[ "That would only work in the atmosphere, where the propellers have something to push: air. But the cable will experience the same amount of tension above the atmosphere, where there is no air for the propellers to push. The only real solution is to find a way to manufacture, in large quantity at reasonable cost, a ...	[ "Each builder is going to do what they want. Google pictures of Beijing some time, they have entire large blocks of buildings the same style and height. They also are far more regulated about how they build. I imagine in a more free market economy, each builder wants their building to be \"their building\" and not ...
Did alcohol still damage my body or brain if I didn't have a hangover	[ "Drinking water doesn’t do anything, unless you dilute the alcohol beforehand. Any amount of alcohol damages your body’s cells." ]	[ "> I am a skinny guy who can eat a lot of garbage and drink the worst things on earth without gaining much weight. Studies have shown people are awful at estimating how many calories they eat. Chances are you eat garbage, but not that much garbage." ]
Why does Monterey Bay have such a large offshore canyon but San Francisco Bay does not?	[ "The prevailing theory is that Monterey Bay used to be the outlet for the Colorado River before the San Andreas fault moved it and redirected the flow. Geologists are trying to confirm this presently. Similar canyons can be found at the outlets of major rivers worldwide." ]	[ "From _URL_0_ \"... Like Magic Shell, Carvel’s Brown Bonnet chocolate topping instantly forms a hard shell around ice cream. And, just like Magic Shell, one of the main ingredients is coconut oil. Tropical oils, including coconut, are naturally high in saturated fat—consisting of about 90 percent of the stuff. As P...
what determines a stocks price other than people buying and selling that stock?	[ "Nothing. At least nothing for a company still in business. A failing company's stock eventually goes to (assets - liabilities) / total shares. But that's generally a fraction of a penny per share." ]	[ "A certain number of rotations of the gears causes a specific change in height of the elevator. This isn't something that has any drift to it, it's pretty constant on the kind of scale we care about. A little tuning and you have it set with all the heights. Not much to it." ]
If I dug a hole through to the other side of the earth (ie apple-core style), and jumped down the hole, what happens when I get to the middle?	[ "By that time, you have accelerated to about 8 km/s over the course of 21 minutes. You then decelerate for the next 21 minutes, until you reach the other side and come to a stop. If you don't grab on to something, you'll fall back towards the centre. This makes certain assumptions that keep the problem interesting....	[ "Like instantly? We'd all keep moving at thousand miles per hour. We would all die pretty much instantly. The only people who might make it would be in the air. I'd imagine the oceans would fuck shit up too. Imagine the Pacific Ocean, all of the Pacific Ocean, all at once, rushing into California at a thousand mile...
why all medications you see on TV seem to mention tuberculosis.	[ "Tuberculosis can exist in a latent, non-contagious and asymptomatic state. In fact, in immunocompetent people there is a ninety percent chance if they get infected it will remain in this state for life. However, if someone becomes immunocompromised, even briefly, it can activate the disease. Because one third of t...	[ "> How are drug companies able to patent products whose mechanism of action is unknown? In order to patent something it must be new, useful, and not obvious (and of course patentable). Nowhere in there is it required that one know exactly how it works. If for example a company wants to make a drug to help stop clot...
How do erasers erase?	[ "Take a pencil and write on paper. What happens is the pencil \"lead\" (really a black carbon stick of something called 'graphite') scrapes off and sticks to the paper. It's pretty sticky so it stays and forms letters and drawings. Now take an eraser to that pencill drawing. Paper was rough and the graphite stuck t...	[ "Like this! Oh, sorry. Forgot you weren't a real 5-year-old." ]
Is there a reason our space probes don't go, um, up or down? Is there anything to be gained by exploring the Y-axis of the solar system?	[ "There is very little out there, so there would be very little to see. It is also harder to do - most of our space craft make use of gravitational slingshot maneuvers, which can only substantially alter a craft's velocity within the plane of the orbit! That means either taking a long time to get to where we're goin...	[ "Conservation of angular momentum. If you're standing on the edge of a platform, your angular momentum is zero. If you start wheeling your arms in a clockwise fashion, your trunk will have to start turning in a counterclockwise fashion so that the total angular momentum of your body is still zero. This is what you ...
in a room that is 100% dark, why or why isn't it possible to fall asleep with your eyes open?	[ "Throughout the day, you blink in order to lubricate your eyes and stop them from drying out. Some people - like myself - have eyelids which don't close all the way. At night, this can cause your eyes to dry out and you may awaken with red, dry eyes. Another reason is that closed eyes will in general help to protec...	[ "There are a few factors at work here : Moſt chairs are deſigned to ſit at about knee height ; they generally ſupport your back, and more importantly, your butt and legs. Toilets are uſually lower, and they are made with a large hole in the middle, into which you ſink a little. This lower height, lack of ſupport,...
Are there any mythological representations of historical figures?	[ "Völsunga saga is not mythology as is usually understood. Sagas are in essence historical narratives, so it is no surprise that historical figures show up. A Scandinavian example of what you seek could perhaps be Saxo's \"Deeds of the Danes\" which is a history, but where Norse gods like Thor and Odin show up - alt...	[ "Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to [our rules](_URL_1_). This policy is further explained in this [Rules Roundtable thread](_URL_3_) and this [META Thread](_URL_...
why does snot, when having a cold, change side from one nostril to the other throughout the day?	[ "Actually, it does it all the time, but you tend only to notice it when you've got an excess of snot. It's called the [nasal cycle](_URL_0_) which has nothing to do with noses on two wheels." ]	[ "It's not so much about recessive traits, but about how complex the mapping from genotype (your genetic sequence) to phenotype (your observable characteristics) is. There's not just a single gene that's the \"how your nose looks\" gene, and some of the genes that do determine how your nose looks might interact in c...
The phrase "we lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume."	[ "It's a joke. I first heard it on Saturday Night Live when they did a skit called \"the change bank\". Basically it was a bank that gave you change for your money. Say you have a fifty dollar bill and you want 2 twenties and a ten, they can do that for you. At the end of the skit the bank CEO says, \"You may ask h...	[ "I want a bunch of lollipops, but I can't afford them. I tell you and 2 other friends that I have this great idea where we can all get a bunch of lollipops; you just have to give me one now and then get 3 people to give you one. Sounds like a great idea that we all get 3 lollipops for the price of one! The problem ...
what does the overdrive button on a car do?	[ "_URL_0_ There is a phenomenon in engines where the most efficient power output is not the highest engine speed (RPM). Overdrive is a gear ratio for the transmission that allows your car, at high speeds, to use a lower engine speed in order to be more fuel efficient. It should only go into effect at higher speeds (...	[ "When you want to compress a series of data (say, a sound recording) you can look for patterns in the data, and just record the patterns instead of the original measurements. DCT describes data as the sum of a series of waves (cosine functions) vibrating at different frequencies. This turns out to be a great way to...
How does stuff like sugar and salt dissolve into water?	[ "There are three things to consider when thinking about dissolution. The solvent’s (water’s) interaction with itself (among nearby water molecules), the solute’s (salt or sugar’s) interaction with itself, and the interaction between the solvent and the solute. In order to dissolve, this last interaction must be str...	[ "Gravity Gravity pulls the water up a little bit. More than it can pull the land (which is attached to other land and on average all further away) Note that the land does get pulled too - which is why you get a tide opposite the moon - thats the land being pulled away from the water!" ]
What causes the EMP when a nuclear warhead detonates?	[ "EMP stands for electro-magnetic pulse, in this case [Nuclear EMP](_URL_1_ ). When the device detonates, the gamma radiation emitted runs into the gas in the atmosphere. It knocks off the electrons, in a phenomenon called the [Compton Effect](_URL_0_). All the electrons in the Compton current are moving very fast >...	[ "The command wire detection is probably similar to what is described in this [article](_URL_0_), it has a description of how you might detect different wire lengths in an IED. Basically you emit a radio signal and change the frequency looking for any type of resonance. Different wires (length/width) will have a dif...
Why are coconut water cans so thick?	[ "Because they're not carbonated. Cans that are internally pressurized can be made thinner, because the pressure prevents dents. But non-carbonated beverages require thicker cans." ]	[ "California has some labeling and quality laws that are more strict than the rest of the country. If they didn't put that on there, then they could sell it in every state except California. So they just slap it on everything in order to avoid the hassle of worrying where in the united states it will wind up. If you...
Since LIGO's observation of gravitational waves, is it generally assumed that gravity has a force carrying particle that is yet to be discovered, or are there additional factors to consider?	[ "General relativity is our best way to 'do' gravity, but all the other forces are done best by quantum field theory. This has caused many people to try to do gravity with quantum field theory, which introduces this idea of the graviton. This approach has, broadly speaking, failed so far. Gravitational waves are a ...	[ "If you ignore air resistance but take into account the rotation of the Earth, there are two effects which will slightly change the trajectory of the dropped object. There's the Coriolis force and the centrifugal force. The centrifugal acceleration only depends on your location on the Earth, so you can think of it ...
How do scientists measure the height of a mountain	[ "To calculate the elevation of a mountain, scientists would measure the distance between two points on the ground and then measure the angles between the top of the mountain and each point. Trigonometry, it’s actually one of my favorite maths." ]	[ "They don't. They have really really good camera's that can take a picture from really far away." ]
What was the reason for the universal adoption of the base 10 number system we use today?	[ "> It seems like the obvious answer would be that's the number of digits on hands, but is that actually true? Yes, mostly. ~~The Romans had a base 5 number system because of 5 digits on each hand. That is why V became 5, X:10, L:50, C:100, etc.~~ *EDIT: [Apparently is is some sort of bastardized, non positional bas...	[ "I heard it had a lot to do with the invention / discovery of the camera obscura. This helped people understand perspective / proportions / etc better. Here's a quick article I found about it - but there are a ton of others, videos, books, etc that talk about it in more depth. _URL_0_" ]
If aspartame is so sweet why do diet drinks and regular drinks taste so different?	[ "sweet and taste are not the same things. sugar have own taste, aspartame have different taste, high-fructose corn syrup have different taste. everything have own taste." ]	[ "In short, marketing. Long answer, just repeat that phrase like you're [Steve Ballmer at the MIX '08 conference] (_URL_0_). Dasani (Coca-Cola), Aquafina (Pepsi), and co marketed the hell out of Bottled Water claiming all these health benefits and the \"purity\" of it and how much \"better\" it was for you compared ...
What gas can be separated out of water by sucking it in a Vacuum through a thin channel?	[ "Those bubbles are dissolved gas molecules from the air. If you removed all the water, you'd get a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, and so on. However, all these gases have slightly different solubilities in water, so the exact proportion of these bubbles would vary quite a bit. Also, those bubbl...	[ "As the OP have mentioned in a comment above, fast moving fluids, in this case air, have lower pressure. Animals breath by expanding the chest cavity which causes the pressure surrounding the lung to lower. This causes the higher pressure outside air to rush in and inflate the lung. But if the pressure outside sudd...
Why do American cartoons portray coffee as a highly addictive substance to keep you awake or give characters the shakes? Is coffee in America so much different to the rest of the world?	[ "Coffee is addictive. Excessive caffeine can give you the shakes. I don't know what coffee is like in the rest of the world but it has caffeine in it here." ]	[ "This doesn't change between babies and adults. It's actually the exact same. What changes is they way we take our drinks as we get older. As babies we are drinking from a nipple (either an actual nipple of a simulated one on baby bottles). A baby has to suck to get liquid out of it. If you tilt a baby bottle, ver...
What exactly does conscious and subconscious mean?	[ "Conscious is any cognitive process that you are aware of. Unconscious processing is any cognitive process that you are not consciously aware of. Most of what goes on in the brain is unconscious. You don't have to think about what muscles to move where to press a button; how to form your lips and tongue to speak wo...	[ "Usually when we type, we are using our working memory to hold the info we want to type. Our working memory only has so much space in it that if something new pops up it pushes back the old info and takes front seat; attention also affects this. Think of it like a bus. What you're trying to type is in the drivers ...
Is light slowed down by the air's friction?	[ "Light does travel slower in air than in free space, but this is caused by refraction, which acts very differently from friction. Friction is the result of the electromagnetic forces between the atoms on two surfaces near each other such that these forces oppose the direction of motion and cause kinetic energy to b...	[ "You've actually captured the of the idea behind [Aether theories](_URL_0_). People thought that electromagnetic waves needed a medium to pass through, and they called it the Aether. (In an interesting historical side note, in the 1800's many physics buildings were built without the use of nails or screws, because ...
How do we know dark matter is actually a thing and not a mistake in the gravitational equations?	[ "TLDR bullet cluster. The bullet cluster is formed by the collision of two large galaxy clusters, and in x-rays, you can see a tangled mess. However, you can directly infer the mass density using gravitational lensing (the bending of light behind the cluster) and doing this you find that the majority of the mass of...	[ "For the Schwarzschild metric, you consider the geodesic equations in the equatiorial plane \\(which is any plane crossing r=0 by symmetry\\). Combining these three equations into one gives an ordinary differential equation. Newton predicts the same differential equation except for one term. Newton's equation is u'...
What affect did the Black Death have on the royal families of Europe? How did they handle it?	[ "I know of at least 1 case where the Black Death directly impacted the political viability of a dynasty. King Edward III of England's daughter Joan of Kent was en route to marry Peter of Castille, son of Alfonso XI of Castille and Maria of Portugal when she and her party were exposed to the plague outbreak in Borde...	[ "Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_0_): 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...
What is euler's constant?	[ "Take (1 + 1/n)^n As n gets larger and larger, the total gets closer and closer to e. It's not as intuitive as pi, but that might help. Examples: * (1+1/2)^2 = 1.5^2 = 2.25 * (1 + 1/100)^100 = 1.01^100 = 2.7048138294215260932671947108075 * (1 + 1/1000000)^1000000 = 1.000001^1000000 = 2.7182804693193768838197997084...	[ "No. This can never and will never be explained at the level you're interested in. The proof itself is hundreds of pages long, and will bring up an almost unimaginable amount of complex and foreign mathematics. Only a handful of people in the world understand its proof." ]
How was it that major parts of Poland were spared of the black death, when almost the entirety of Europe was ravaged by it?	[ "Hey there! While there's always more to be said about the topic, /u/Mikedash recently wrote a [fantastic series](_URL_0_) on this particular topic. I'd recommend giving it a read!" ]	[ "In [Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco's Chinatown](_URL_0_), Risse provides the following in reference to practices and attitudes in China at the time: > Most villagers, however still practiced the instillation of a powder made from dried smallpox scabs. Instead of conferring immunity, this strategy o...
If a person is given an addictive drug without their knowledge, but still felt the effects of the drug, would their craving for the drug be the same as someone who knows the source of the pleasure?	[ "This doesn't directly address your question, but people get physical withdrawal symptoms from substances they don't know are addictive, and still exhibit similar symptoms. This usually presents when doctors fail to inform patients they need to taper SSRIs, particularly venlafaxine [Effexor], patients forget, or...	[ "Think about it like this. When learning an additional language you are suggesting that you learn it in the following manner: New Language -- > Known Language -- > Association with actual object or action. So, when learning a language for the first time, you simply have no middle man. You are associating the word d...
How can the Greek government have spent so much that they are still broke? What was all this money spent on?	[ "In a single word: corruption. Not only the politicians (almost all of them), also the population. Since the Ottoman times, the Greek culture holds the idea that the government is an enemy and everything should be done to avoid giving money to it. So tax evasion is rampant and socially acceptable, in all layers of ...	[ "Travel, opening campaign offices in each state, television and radio ads, and paying everyone who works for the campaign, from those who research your opposition, to those who manage your website -- it's a year+ long process with a lot more than a few speeches and shaken babies." ]
What is a concept album?	[ "An album where all the songs follow a storyline or a general theme throughout, for example Rush - 2112 follows a world without music, Marilyn Mansons - Mechanical Animals is about the life of a successful music star whereas like Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf was inspired by Josh Homme driving throug...	[ "Usually the overall meaning will be kept but the words will change so they rhyme. As in 99 red balloons." ]
how does The NY Times Bestseller list Work? It seems like every book is on there.	[ "It's actually multiple lists. There are lists from \"hardcover fiction\" to \"children's picture books\". These lists can change on a weekly basis. There are also monthly lists for \"science\" or \"business\" or \"sports and fitness\", etc. The reason it seems like every book is a \"New York Times Bestseller!\" is...	[ "U.S. sales taxes are VERY Complicated. We don't have a national sales tax that applies evenly across the board. Sales tax goes down to the state, county, and even local levels. The tax you pay in one store could be completely different to the tax you pay in the store across the street in extreme circumstances. Plu...
If we discovered alien life would they also be carbon based lifeforms? If not what could they be made of?	[ "The reason carbon works for life is because its atomic structure allows for various types very complex chemistry to occur. In fact this chemistry can be so complex that we have given it it's own field of study, Organic chemistry. Some scientists think that silicone based life would be possible because of certain ...	[ "The same way that astronomers find out almost everything. They use [spectrography](_URL_0_). Absorbtion colors - the specific colors of light that get emitted when light is absorbed by matter - tell you exactly what element or molecule did the absorbtion and emission. This process works with suns, atmospheres, pla...
Is brushing your teeth with toothpaste truly the only way to maintain them ?	[ "Related: I've heard recently (pretty sure it was on reddit, maybe askscience even) that there was a study that actually suggested brushing your teeth without tooth paste was more effective and got them cleaner. Any truth in that?" ]	[ "> Why would it even matter if you're planning to live in a house for 20 years? It matters mainly if you want to refinance your mortgage. Refinancing is when you replace your loan with a crappy interest rate with a new one with a better interest rate. Technically, the way it works is you get a new loan with a good ...
Could someone explain to me the process of being electrocuted? How and when does it happen?	[ "When too much electricity runs through your body, it damages nerves and structures in a way that can kill you. Most of the time it happens in construction/industrial accidents, or occasionally with lightning." ]	[ "It's because of the way that lightning moves. It doesn't just appear as one coherent bolt all in one go. Lighting consists of several distinct stages. The first stage is marked by what are called stepped leaders. These are essentially filaments of charge which originate in the cloud. Each stepped leader moves a fe...
Why is MSG used instead of salt?	[ "MSG has a different taste than sodium chloride, one that is savoury rather than simply salty. This taste is often referred to as [umami](_URL_0_). MSG is a type of salt, but different in composition and taste than the usual table salt. Additionally, for what it's worth, the connection between eating MSG and gettin...	[ "Some things are just easier and quicker to clean by hand. Say you have a sink full of food debris, leftover after you've washed your dishes. You can muck it out by hand and rinse it with soap and water, or pour industrial strength bleach on it. Which do you think would be quicker, easier, and safer?" ]
Why are bagpipes traditionally used for police funerals in the US?	[ "The tradition of bagpipes being played at funerals comes from Irish and Scottish tradition. In the mid-19th century, millions of Irish folks immigrated to the United States, mostly due to famine in Ireland. The United States was, big surprise, very racist towards these Irish immigrants, and therefore they were oft...	[ "I believe there was a piece on the post war escape of Nazis titled Odessa File: Rise of the fourth Reich, in which the documentary crew investigated and came across some strong evidence to support a historical conspiracy theory that Martin Bormann had escaped Berlin in 1945, fled to Paraguay, died and was buried t...
Can dynastic china be seen as the world's first nation-state?	[ "The Old Kingdom of Egypt is usually considered to be the first nation state. There were older city states in Sumeria, but they had a city of about 10,000 people or less, and territory around 25 kilometers radius, that included another 10 or 20 thousand. These city states were near other city states, and warfare wa...	[ "Hi! I think what you are referring to is that the Congo Free State was Leopold II's personal property. I think this answer from an AMA by u/Matthew_G_Stanard , the author of ''Selling the Congo'' adresses the consequences in depth quite well: _URL_0_" ]
the aristocrats joke	[ "When you're older, sweetie. It's a joke only for grown-ups." ]	[ "I'm pretty sure that there are stereotypes about people from rural areas being inbred in many places, definitely here in the UK." ]
Why do lighters have smaller flames when cold and bigger flames when warm?	[ "Butane gets thicker when cold so it doesn't come out as fast so it only produced a small Flame." ]	[ "Seasons are the result of the tilt of the Earth. Earth spins on a slight angle compared to the circle of its orbit around the Sun. This means that at different times of year, the poles are pointed towards or away from the Sun. This affects how much daylight the poles get, with the impact decreasing as you get towa...
Why do humans bare their teeth (smile) to show positive emotions when baring teeth is an almost universal signal of aggression or fear among other mammals?	[ "In primates, showing teeth within a /closed/ mouth is a submissive gesture. It shows that there is no aggression going on. If a monkey bares fangs with their mouth open, then that is a dominant gesture. I did behavioural research with monkeys for several years." ]	[ "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...
why aren't AK47's an "accurate" rifle	[ "1. AK-47's distance between the sight and post is very short which makes it so that for longer ranges, it is extremely difficult to line up an accurate shot as you are more likely to be misaligned with your eye to the sights. 2. It uses a relatively low velocity round, meaning it arcs more and spends more time to ...	[ "Personally, if movies were word for word adaptations of books, they would be hours and hours long, plus most of whats happening would be slow and full of long dialogue scenes, due to the way books work. Movies are a completely different form of media to books. You have to allow some discrepancies in production and...
SERIOUS: Why is it that the penis doesn't bruise with vigorous motion/sucking when it has such thin skin and a large number of small blood vessels that are filled to the max?	[ "Can’t believe I decided to answer this but these movements are moving the skin of the shaft. It’s flexible but it does have a cap on how much you can “stretch” it. It’s fairly easy to tear the skin of a shaft. It has tons of maxed out blood vessels but that’s in the actual muscle of the penis itself. You can defin...	[ "In short, Neuroplasticity. Pain and pleasure are both literally \"just in your mind\". By that, I mean that what our minds interpret as pain or pleasure is dictated by the firing of certain neurons in our brains. The pain and pleasure areas lie fairly closely together in the brain. Neurons from one \"area\" can gr...
Theory Thursday \| Academic/Professional History Free-for-All	[ "I have a question/observation that is mostly addressed to /u/khosikulu and /u/profrhodes. Though if other post-colonial scholars feel moved to answer, I am all ears. In conversations with Ghanaians that I have met, they have strongly positive attitudes toward Kwame Nkrumah, both from those old enough to remember h...	[ "Just to clarify what namer98 told us mods when asking if it was okay to post this: All questions need to be submitted to Professor Sarna by email before the AMA. It is not \"live\" like the AMAs we host here in AskHistorians. So, please go to that r/Judaism thread to post your questions before the time of ...
How would menstruation work in zero G?	[ "This was actually something that NASA scientists were worried about. It was theorized that the blood might actually flow backwards causing something called retrograde menstruation. In reality, it works basically the same way it does on earth. Female astronauts use pads or tampons." ]	[ "In 0 gravity astronauts have to be careful about what they have in space [like the corned beef sandwich that almost got everyone killed](_URL_0_). The suits they wear don't have any fluff or other weird things that can fly off the fabric and get into the electronics and cause problems." ]
Why do some phone batteries 'die' before reaching 0%?	[ "Cell phone batteries as they get older often have issues with judging 0% to 100%. This in most cases leads to the phone shutting down below 10% as the phone is displaying incorrect battery storage info." ]	[ "I learned about this researching how to help my kid be a better sleeper. Essentially, you are over-tired. There is a \"sweet spot\" for everyone regarding the time they should go to bed (just the right level of drowsy). Once you get past that, your brain thinks there must be an important reason for you to continue...
What is a reverse mortgage?	[ "With a typical mortgage, the bank gives you a loan to purchase a home. You pay off the loan slowly and at the end you own the home free and clear. With a reverse mortgage, the bank pays YOU some amount of money every month for some number of payments. After that, THEY own the house." ]	[ "Before I get all high & mighty about the term \"Dark Ages,\" can you define what you mean for us?" ]
When a threat is made against a plane, what use is a military jet escort?	[ "Just an armchair general here, but I would send the escort to make certain that the plane isn't going to get flown into a building, or the pentagon, or whatever." ]	[ "Those websites aren't interested in what happens when SHTF. They are interested in what might happen this week, namely that people might send them money. They are definitely in favor of people sending them money. If sending you gold, or MREs, will get you to send them money, then they are all over that. Since the ...
Default Subreddits topic thread	[ "...Why do they have default subreddits? Do they ever remove them? What makes a subreddit default-worthy? I'm five years old, please explain... Thanks in advance! Also, before they add a new subreddit to the default list, do they ask the owners' permission first?" ]	[ "Top = amount of upvotes-downvotes New = time since posting Hot = how fast something is getting upvotes Controversial = a ratio of downvotes to upvotes" ]
Besides sweating and shivering, how else do humans thermoregulate? (On our own, not with things like AC or heating)	[ "Humans can also vasoconstrict or dilate their blood vessels to control body temp. Vasoconstriction to save heat, vasodilate to dissipate it quicker. Which I guess you could argue is part of sweating and shivering. Also behavioral changes are often overlooked, like reducing surface area to conserve heat (curl up in...	[ "It is less conscious choice than you think. I've never seen a mammal flair their fur just for the hell of it. They are always either freaked out or cold. That's the same reason you get goose-bumps. You just have less fur (probably), so the effect is less dramatic. Birds, of the other hand, can move their feathers ...
How can services like Google Drive offer so much storage for no charge?	[ "Google offer 'free' services to lock people into using Google, this in turns makes people use other services such as search and gmail, where they do make money for people clicking on advertisements. It's also another way of gathering as much information about people to enable them to target specific types of adve...	[ "Take a look at this video at starting around 2:10 : _URL_0_ To summarize, it's made out of very thick materials (steel, titanium) and many safety precautions to make sure data is not destroyed." ]
Can you explain this photo? (link in the description)	[ "As an observation, the way the side panels have 'seams' folded over, i would suggest it's made of canvas rather than wood panels. Perhaps it's a mock up for training purposes? Edit: I cannot find any evidence of tanks being used by the Bulgarian army during WWI. The uniforms do indeed match closely to WWI uniforms...	[ "Hi! I have approved this post but as a general tip, when asking about the accuracy of videos it's generally best to list the specific claims as specifically as possible for our commenters to address since they might not be able to view a video from where they comment. Thank you!" ]
What causes pills to be drastically different sizes?	[ "When you take a pill it's not 100% the labeled medication. There are other ingredients that help it do its job and release when and how it is supposed to. Sometimes a medicine needs more extra ingredients to do its job so you end up with a bigger pill." ]	[ "Each company that assigns bar codes has a unique prefix, the first part of the code. It's up to them to not put the same code on different products." ]
How does anesthesia work?	[ "There are three components to anesthesia: Analgesia (pain relief), Amnesia (memory loss) and immobilization. Different drugs are used to cause these different effects as required by the procedure. In surgery, an induction agent may be given through the IV but general anesthesia is usually maintained with [inhaled...	[ "Could you be more specific? This is an extremely broad question that would take forty hours and several textbooks to properly explain." ]
How can Snapchat immediatley release an almost universal update to all phone types and other updates are "rolling out"?	[ "Basically iPhone and android are 2 different continents. Picture North America and Europe. In North America (iOS) you have mostly English, Spanish, and a little French or other. iDevices have a finite set of hardware differences and due to the way iOS updates roll out you have a very specific set of languages. So...	[ "They adjust polling to compensate for differences between the people they poll and the general demographics. So if they only reach half as many millennials as the general population would suggest, then they weight the ones they do reach twice as much. Same for gender, race, etc." ]
When did the Holy Roman Empire stop controlling Italy, and why?	[ "I wish I were more qualified to discuss the topic, but I believe this article gives a broad overview of the topic: _URL_0_ Northern Italy was used as both a bargaining tool and prize by the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and France and thus passed between them with frequency, exacerbated by incredibly confusing European...	[ "I think this question is not exactly historical more economic. Imagine a similar situation, you buy a brand new car for £10,000. Eight years later you realise that it is no longer fit for use, and so try to sell it. Finding no buyers you scrap the clunker. Did £10,000 just disappear? No you got eight years of qual...
why do we use "X" as a variable when there are twenty five other letters in the alphabet	[ "X is by convention a specific sort of variable, it represents the \"unknown thing\" in an equation - the value you are solving the equation for. Other letters of the alphabet are commonly used for other sorts of variables. As for why X is used for this particular purpose, [check out this video](_URL_1_) for one p...	[ "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...
To what extent did Cavalry and Infantry soldiers work together?	[ "Rarely did this happen, mainly because there is a need for infantry to maintain unit cohesion for ease of command and attack. However there are exceptions. During the final years of the First French Republic, Napoleon adopted a new unit for French battalions to incorporate, the voltigeur. The voltigeur or vaul...	[ "The movie was [Days of Thunder](_URL_0_) and he was talking about [Slipstreaming or Drafting](_URL_1_). As to your question, this depends on * The velocity of the cars * Geometry of both cars * Atmosphere status (temperature, rain, snow ... although they have very little effect at higher speeds) On the street it's...
How telescopes can see back in time?	[ "Have someone stand a couple of hundred meters away and then make the clap really loudly. Maybe with some stick or something. You're seeing the clap as it happens, but hear the sound a few seconds later. You're basically hearing \"sound from the past\", because the clap already happened when you hear it. With light...	[ "we used television cameras with vidicon tubes. These let it turn the optical data into electronic pictures, and let us turn those pictures into a digital bitstream, which was sent to earth. edit: fixed typos" ]
Computers are almost always performing more than one task at once. How do the computers keep these tasks from getting "mixed up" with each other?	[ "This is one of the roles of the operating system. There are some complicated details, but the most important thing here is the concept of [virtual memory](_URL_0_). With virtual memory, the operating system can present to each process (program) what seems like a continuous block of memory and guarantees that this ...	[ "The microwave primarily heats polar molecules (such as water) in the food. If the moisture content of the food is not homogeneous, the heating also might not be. Also, the intensity (power) of the microwaves vs position in the chamber can vary quite a bit. Newer microwave ovens use a couple of techniques to help...
Why do cast of big movies like Avengers go for the movie promotions, they already know the movie will be successful and making a lot of profit, why waste time and money?	[ "A big part of the reason the movie becomes successful is the promotion. In fact, often just as much money is spent on marketing as on actually making the film. Also, related quote: \"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.”" ]	[ "Imagine a needle in a haystack that is 10 kilometers wide, and there are only 10 people designated to finding said needle. It would take them an insanely long time. They might find a few of the needles in their allotted time frame, but likely not all of them. When a game is released to the public, it's the same wa...
Why doesn’t scratching your own back feel as good compared to when someone else does it for you?	[ "I think it's the same concept when you try tickle yourself. The body knows that what's coming, so your brain and body chills out. When someone else does it, even though you know there is back scratch incoming, you don't know their precise movements of hands and fingers, - body & brain tenses or relaxes." ]	[ "In short, Neuroplasticity. Pain and pleasure are both literally \"just in your mind\". By that, I mean that what our minds interpret as pain or pleasure is dictated by the firing of certain neurons in our brains. The pain and pleasure areas lie fairly closely together in the brain. Neurons from one \"area\" can gr...
When, and why, was lead chosen to be the go to material for bullets?	[ "Not a historian, but many years experience with muzzle loading firearms. Lead has many properties that make it desirable for bullets. First it has been available commercially for many centuries, dating back to the Romans, at least. Next it is easy to work with, melts easily in a simple pot over a wood fire, no f...	[ "We do know how to make it and actually can make better with modern processes. This is one of those yarns about ancient technology being mysterious and better. Total BS." ]
Why does whipping egg whites make them so fluffy?	[ "Just like with cream, you're adding air to the mix. Egg whites have lots of protein, and proteins (among other things) provide structure, in this case for the air bubbles you're introducing. It's even better if you whip egg whites in a copper bowl, because a little bit of the copper from the bowl mixes with the pr...	[ "Have you compared to see how fast the water would calm and flatten if you didn't turn it? You might have to have tighter control and better reproducibility on how you disturb the water in the first place." ]
How come I've never heard anything from Mongolia?	[ "Because Monglia has a population of under 3 million and a tiny economy. It's also landlocked and surrounded by much larger neighbors. It basically has no international profile." ]	[ "They most certainly aren't. Google search: Bruce McArthur Perhaps media distracts your focus to live events?" ]
How can eyesight degrade over time, and how does wearing glasses supposedly slow this degradation?	[ "Eyeglasses or contacts don't slow worsening vision, they only correct for it so you can see clearly. Likewise, they. don't make your eyesight worse. Your eyes aren't \"not relaxed\" when you wear glasses or contacts. Intuitively, this should make sense because the eyes of people with perfect vision who don't need ...	[ "Think of a wire mesh, like an insert on a window. Because it’s so thin light get’s through no problem. It’s the same with most materials, if it’s thin enough some light will get through. Let’s add some thickness by stacking up layers of the wire mesh. After a few layers it’s hard to see through and after a few mor...
Could a water balloon survive a long fall if submerged?	[ "Pretty sure there's been no research regarding a falling balloon with water. But this sounds like a perfect opportunity to set yourself up a hypothesis and conduct yourself an experiment." ]	[ "You're talking about as part of a stage show? Where someone does a high dive into a shallow pool? They just do a belly-flop. Hitting the water like that makes you stop much faster and not hit the bottom of the pool." ]
Dogs and cats are carnivores not omnivores. Why is it that most of the food we give them is primarily grains and vegetables?	[ "Dogs and cats EVOLVED from carnivores. They have developed a more omnivorous diet over the years. This is more true with dogs than cats, and wolves are actually able to eat some plant matter to supplement their diet." ]	[ "All vertebrates are craniates, and all craniates are chordates. Chordates have 5 things you need to look for. - Notochord: Pretty much the spine before it developed into a spine (which happened when vertebrates evolved) made of cartilage - Dorsal neural tube: Equivalent of spinal cord - Pharyngeal slits: Known as...
how does cancer kill us?	[ "It's one type of cell who's programming goes wrong and doesn't stop growing/reproducing killing the other types of cells around it for it to survive" ]	[ "Every time you make a copy of a cell, there is a chance for errors. For example when you photocopy a first print, it is pretty crisp and close to the original, but there are a few minor discrepencies. Now if you photocopy the copy, it gets more distorted, and so on until some letters get hard to read, it gets diff...
How does a spider START their web?	[ "Usually they sit on one side and start spinning the thread, letting a breeze carry it. Since the thread is sticky, when the breeze carries it into another object, it attaches. The spider detects this, crosses to the other side, reinforces it, and then starts laying out the rest of the web from there." ]	[ "They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to anyone who mailed back the special offer." ]
Are male to female transgenders seem more common than female to male?	[ "In current day society, at least in the Western world, it is accepted that women wear what historically were men's clothes: Pants, suit. What is not accepted (yet) is that men wear what historically are women's clothes: Skirt, dress. So it is easier for woman to give in to these wishes, without many social consequ...	[ "Assuming you are referring to the orientation of a human while falling: Yes there is a significant difference. Terminal velocity (the final speed in free fall) is reached when the gravitational force and the air resistance are at equilibrium. Obviously, gravity does not depend on your orientation. However, the mor...

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