Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
How Were Knights/Common Soldiers Paid?	In the later middle ages in England, military service increasingly became based on service contracts, either for long or short periods. The earliest such short term contracts (that we have found) date from 1270 CE, when Prince Edward (later King Edward I) paid a company of knights to serve with him on the Eighth Crusad...	[ "The poor knights were impoverished military veterans, required to pray daily for the Knights Companion. In return, they received a salary and lodging in Windsor Castle. The knights are no longer necessarily poor, but are still military pensioners. They participate in the Order's processions, escorting the members,...
Is it possible for something travelling at the speed of light, such as photons, to orbit a body, like a black hole for example?	Yes, photons can orbit a body like a black hole, but there are no stable orbits. There is [a certain radius](_URL_0_) around a stationary black hole where a photon would have a circular orbit, but it isn't stable, so a photon deviating a little from that radius will either escape or be pulled into the black hole eventu...	[ "Current commonly accepted physical theories imply or assume the photon to be strictly massless. If the photon is not a strictly massless particle, it would not move at the exact speed of light, \"c\", in vacuum. Its speed would be lower and depend on its frequency. Relativity would be unaffected by this; the so-ca...
(Astronomy) How do astronomers differentiate the change in a stars color caused by movement (blue/red shift) from the change in color caused by temperature?	Spectroscopy. All the elements emit/absorb light of specific wavelengths. We can measure the wavelengths in the lab and we can find the same patterns in starlight - just shifted. This shift depends on their motion only, not on their temperature. Once you correct the spectrum for this shift (in software, not in a telesc...	[ "The motion of stellar objects can be determined by looking at their spectrum. Because of the Doppler effect, objects moving towards us are blueshifted, and objects moving away are redshifted. The wavelength of redshifted light is longer, appearing redder than the source. Conversely, the wavelength of blueshifted l...
Why is it reptiles and certain animals are able to survive such long periods on a single meal, compared to humans?	Cold blooded. Humans use up massive amounts of energy keeping ourselves at optimum temperature, humans also have higher than average energy requirements than most other mammals due to our larger brains. Humans can survive months without eating btw.	[ "Reptiles generally have a shorter retention time than mammals. However, this loss of digestive efficiency is offset by their ability to process food into smaller particles for digestion. Smaller particles are more easier to digest and ferment. \n", "Most reptiles are insectivorous or carnivorous and have simple ...
why do apartments keep raising rents every year until you leave, if they're just going to rent it out to someone new and unknown at a lower rent afterwards?	They aren't. Your rent is being increased to keep up with inflation, and rental prices in your market. Any new tenet will be paying a comparable amount to you.	[ "The proliferation of short term rentals can affect those in the area who are looking for long term rentals. Through short term rental, landlords can make upwards of 20% more than they would on a rent controlled property. Thus landlords convert their properties into short term rental units, and there are less long ...
After I receive a transition of blood, when does that blood physiologically become my blood?	Functionally, it remains the same. Both the donor blood and the recipient blood have the same oxygen-carrying properties, so from a blood-draw standpoint it all just looks like blood. In most cases, the transfused blood is also a very small part of the body's total blood volume, and so any differences between it and ...	[ "The first appearance in the blood is normally two months after infection. The only stage seen in the blood are gametocytes. These double in number for the first three days and mature. Having reached maturity, they gradually decline in number and normally disappear after a month. Secondary episodes may occur at var...
How did/do wings evolve? Why are the in-between generations of "not winged" to "winged" creatures considered advantageous for evolution's criteria?	There are considered 4 separate evolutions of flight- insects, bats, birds and pterosaurs. I can't comment on 3 of the 4, but there are two common theories for how pre-avian theropods started evolving wings. They are wing-like front limbs to aid in gliding and to aid in ascending steep surfaces/aid in climbing. Feather...	[ "Natural selection has played an enormous role in refining the wings, control and sensory systems, and anything else that affects aerodynamics or kinematics. One noteworthy trait is wing twist. Most insect wings are twisted, as are helicopter blades, with a higher angle of attack at the base. The twist generally is...
if some letters are silent in certain words then why include then at all?	Often just tradition. When they began printing books in English, there weren't many typesetters in England, so they imported Dutch typesetters who often spelled English words in a Dutch way. So that's how we got the 'h' in 'ghost' and 'ghastly.' Other times the silent letter actually serves a purpose. The difference b...	[ "The letter is usually (but not necessarily) silent if preceded by a consonant, as in \"en mand\" (‘a man’), \"blind\" (‘blind’). Many words ending in are pronounced with a stød, but it's still considered a silent letter.\n", "Some words contain silent letters, which do not represent any sound in modern English p...
how does it work in america when someone doesn't have health insurance?	I'm an "uninsured" Californian who was recently run over by a truck. Ambulance, 2 operations, countless MRIs and X-rays, 9 day stay in the ICU, lots of pills, physical therapy, follow ups, and outpatient gear (back brace, cane, etc). Ballpark estimate was a half million dollars, roughly $30 of which will be out-of-poc...	[ "Health insurance in the United States is any program that helps pay for medical expenses, whether through privately purchased insurance, social insurance, or a social welfare program funded by the government. Synonyms for this usage include \"health coverage\", \"health care coverage\", and \"health benefits\".\n"...
Did early agriculture effectively strip-mine the Fertile Crescent?	From the book [Guns, Germs, and Steel](_URL_0_), by Jared Diamond pg. 411: "The region's transformation from fertile woodland to eroded scrub or desert has been elucidated by paleobotanists and archeologists. Its woodlands were cleared for agriculture, or cut to obtain construction timber, or burned as firewood... B...	[ "The Fertile Crescent had many diverse climates, and major climatic changes encouraged the evolution of many \"r\" type annual plants, which produce more edible seeds than \"K\" type perennial plants. The region's dramatic variety in elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cult...
In the Antebellum South, how did plantation preachers treat the story of Moses and its anti-slavery elements?	It is important to remember that Christianisation was not a universal phenomenon in the antebellum South; efforts to bring slaves into the Christian fold begin on a meaningful scale only quite late in slavery's history, and the extent to which they were successful is highly debatable. For some context on this, I wrote ...	[ "Following the financial failure and human tragedy of his and his brothers' role in the slave trade, Moses broke with his brothers and refused to continue his business sponsorship of it. Later, after becoming a Quaker, he began a long crusade against slavery, and soon became Rhode Island's leading opponent of the s...
why do people hate the .gif file format?	It's old and terribly inefficient, meaning that a small number of frames make a file that is much larger and slower to load than modern file formats.	[ "CompuServe introduced GIF on June 15, 1987 to provide a color image format for their file downloading areas, replacing their earlier run-length encoding (RLE) format, which was black and white only. GIF became popular because it used LZW data compression, which was more efficient than the run-length encoding that ...
explain to me the difference between something as a nuclear reactor and something like a nuclear weapon, how are they different, and how are they the same?	In short, weapons are constructed to release the stored energy in the fuel all at once whereas reactors are designed to do so slowly over the course of decades. Technically a reactor can never explode like a bomb can and movies really exaggerate. It can explode but it’s more so because of intense pressures than a nucle...	[ "Most nuclear reactors use a chain reaction to induce a controlled rate of nuclear fission in fissile material, releasing both energy and free neutrons. A reactor consists of an assembly of nuclear fuel (a reactor core), usually surrounded by a neutron moderator such as regular water, heavy water, graphite, or zirc...
Why do satellite dishes near the equator NOT point up?	satellite dishes need to point towards the satellite the odds are very low for the satellite to be directly above you	[ "In the continental United States, because it is north of the equator, all gateway and subscriber dish antenna must have an unobstructed view of the southern sky. Because of the satellite's geostationary orbit, the gateway antenna can stay pointed at a fixed position.\n", "BULLET::::- Declination offset: Because ...
how exactly gps works? who owns the satellites? why i don't have to pay a fee to use them?	GPS satellites are basically big clocks in the sky that broadcast what time it is and what time they sent the signal. Your device "hears" from 4 satellites, and can do some cool equations using the difference in time from each satellite to determine where you exactly are. (This is the very simplified version) The US ...	[ "GPS is based on a network of satellites that constantly transmit radio signals. GPS receivers pick up these transmissions and compare the signals from several satellites in order to pinpoint the receiver’s location to within a few meters. This is done by comparing the time at which the signal was sent from the sat...
Were the majority of the population of North Africa ethnically black previous to the Islamic expansion?	There is a large genetic continuity between modern North African populations and their pre-Islamic ancestors. [Studies of Egyptian DNA](_URL_0_) show that waves of invaders and settlers have accounted for only about 10 percent of the population's DNA. As in many other modern Arab nations, the vast majority of people ar...	[ "Islam arrived in Central African Republic in the 17th Century as part of the expansion of the Saharan and Nile River slave routes. In February 2014, tens of thousands of Muslims fled the Central African Republic for Chad as they felt they were no longer safe in the country.\n", "Some West African slaves taken to...
in american football, other than the quarterback, why do most players never pass the ball?	Well it's not their job or position. Each individual position has a specific job. The quarterback's is to pass. The running back's is to carry the ball. The wide receiver and tight end's is to catch. The Offensive Line is to block. It's like asking why the shortstop doesn't pitch in baseball.	[ "Many early references to football refer to balls \"flying high\" and being \"hit here\". These, however, cannot be considered to be passing as there is no indication that they were between players of the same team. Similarly, they may not have been intentional passes (as opposed to fortuitously trying to move a ba...
why isn't caffeine dependency considered a 'drug addiction'?	Because with few exceptions, caffeine doesn't disrupt your life in any meaningful way. It's cheap and legal, which means people don't go broke or get in trouble for doing it. Not getting it can make people grumpy but it's not life-threatening. It's not especially bad for you. In many cases, it's also quite useful for i...	[ "Whether caffeine can result in an addictive disorder depends on how addiction is defined. Compulsive caffeine consumption under any circumstances has not been observed, and caffeine is therefore not generally considered addictive. However, some diagnostic models, such as the and ICD-10, include a classification of...
Did people justify slavery on the basis that it was 'better than what they'd have in their own country'?	Just a layman here so hopefully someone more knowledgeable comes along. The short answer is yes iirc. Here is a quote from Robert E. Lee > There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvant...	[ "Conservative writer David Horowitz wrote a list of ten reasons why \"Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too\" in 2001. He contends that there isn't one particular group that benefited from slavery, there isn't one group that is solely responsible for slavery, only a small percentage of w...
How does the cell control its mitochondria?	basically the same way it controls most of its organelles: the regulation of theexpression of mitochondrial proteins is not much different from other organelles. the reason for this is that the mDNA codes for few proteins _URL_1_ the genes for most of the mitochondrial proteins are stored in the nucleus and are thus...	[ "Mitochondria are thought to be organelles that developed from endocytosed bacteria which learned to coexist inside our cells. These bacteria maintained their own DNA, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which codes for components of the electron transport chain (ETC). The ETC is found in the inner mitochondrial membran...
what is the big deal with the movie "the breakfast club"?	It was one if the first teen angst/teen problems that portrayed teens in more of an adult manner. Plus, the music and directing was good. I'm 36 so it has plenty of nostalgia for me.	[ "Breakfast of Champions is a 1999 American satirical black comedy film adapted and directed by Alan Rudolph, from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s 1973 novel of the same name. Though the producers entered it into the 49th Berlin International Film Festival, the film was panned by critics and was a box office bomb that was with...
If I was in a perfect vacuum with zero gravity at rest, is there any possible way that I could move myself?	Exhale the air still in your lungs. Spit. Throw a shoe. Shoot laser beams out your eyes (assuming you have that ability, of course).	[ "Astronauts floating in space are able to move forward, backward, upwards, downwards, left, or right without restriction by using a jetpack. They are also able to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. Astronauts and structures can also enable or disable inertial dampeners, which automatically attempt to reduce spee...
How long were the ship battles in WWII?	If we are talking ship-to-ship combat then generally no, modern battleships took a lot of punishment before actually sinking. An example would be Bismarck which had pretty much it's entire superstructure shot away and took multiple torpedo hits before actually sinking. However, less modern battleships would prove ter...	[ "During World War II, there was an air battle waged against the Sakishima Islands' two largest islands that lasted for 82 days in order to neutralize Kamikaze airfields. Twenty-five US escort carriers, five larger fast carriers with their air groups consisting of fighters and torpedo bombers along with heavy naval ...
Why are you not supposed to use cellphones at gas pumps?	Mostly because people are paranoid. These is a non-zero chance your phone gives off a spark that ignites the gas fumes and blows up the whole station. There is also a non-zero chance that the Sun will electron tunnel 100% of it's mass right on top of Earth so take these non-zero chance things with a grain of salt.	[ "Devices that have rechargeable batteries and are always plugged in use standby power even if the battery is fully charged. Corded appliances such as vacuum cleaners, electric razors, and simple telephones do not need a standby mode and do not consume the standby power that cordless equivalents do.\n", "In a simi...
how does the combined birth control pill work and how likely is pregnancy if directions are not followed precisely?	The pill is designed to allow occasional missed doses, but its effectiveness definitely plummets if you don't use it correctly. You will not get your period if you're pregnant on the pill, since that's how pregnancy works (you may get implantation bleeding, but that's not everybody and is relatively mild). You need t...	[ "When the first birth control pill was being developed, the researchers were aware that they could use the contraceptive to space menstrual periods up to 90 days apart, but they settled on a 28-day cycle that would mimic a natural menstrual cycle and produce monthly periods. The intention behind this decision was t...
What evidence is there that the Black Death in the 14th Century was not bubonic plague?	As walker6168 said: hard to answer without the source article. I'll add that their data had better be pretty solid as there has been extant genetic caracterisation of pathogen material from mass graves from medieval Black Death epidemics ([source](_URL_0_)). However there was a suggestion that an Ebola-like virus mig...	[ "The Black Death seems to have originated in Central Asia, where the \"Y. pestis\" bacterium is endemic in the rodent population. It is unknown exactly what caused the outbreak, but a series of natural occurrences likely brought humans into contact with the infected rodents. The epidemic reached Constantinople in t...
According to wikipedia, instants after the big bang occurred, the four fundamental forces "separated" from each other. What exactly does that entail? How did they separate, and what were they like before they did?	To begin with: We do not know for a fact that the four fundamental forces were unified at some early stage. This is theoretical speculation/prejudice. Thus we cannot say how they separated, or what they were like before they separated. What we can do is offer scenarios in which something like this could happen. Let...	[ "If GUT is correct, after the Big Bang and during the electroweak epoch of the universe, the electroweak force separated from the strong force. Accordingly, a grand unification epoch is hypothesized to have existed prior to this.\n", "BULLET::::- For up to 10 seconds after the Big Bang, the energy density of the ...
Where is the mistake in this line of thinking?	Your mistake is thinking that amount of energy (or energy density) is what determines energy flow, when really it is entropy that determines it. As you know, heat will flow from a higher temperature object to a lower temperature object. In an ideal gas, temperature is simply a function of energy density- the higher t...	[ "\"How Not to Be Wrong\" explains the mathematics behind some of simplest day-to-day thinking. It then goes into more complex decisions people make. For example, Ellenberg explains many misconceptions about lotteries and whether or not they can be mathematically beaten.\n", "Instead, he proposes to focus on the p...
where does the name of the game “duck duck goose” come from?	Do you mean "duck, duck, grey duck"?	[ "Duck (), is a platform puzzle game developed and published by Bit Corporation in 1987, making it the very first Nintendo unlicensed video game released for Famicom (internationally known as NES). The title has been later published in 1990 as Duck Maze by HES and Dismac, respectively in Australia and Brazil.\n", ...
takata airbags has been given a $70 million fine with the possibility of a $200 million fine for non-compliance by the nhtsa. how are the fine amounts determined in large cases such as this?	The law states what the maximum possible fine can be per X thing. For example VW can have a maximum possible fine of $35,000 per car for what they did. Whether or not the maximum fine is sought depends on how the error came to be, what the company did to address it, if there was a criminal element involved (e.g. VW in...	[ "The TSA has also been criticized for not responding properly to theft and failing to reimburse passengers for stolen goods. For example, between 2011 and 2012, passengers at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport reported $300,000 in property lost or damaged by the TSA. The agency only reimbursed $35,000...
Creativity seems to be directly related with intelligence. What's the psychology behind this?	Well you could easily conclude that more intelligent people know how to use their brain faster, more efficiently, and can perform certain functions that slower and inexperienced people haven't used their brains for yet. Here's a cool fact I learned today. Albert Einstein supposedly didn't learn to speak until he was 3...	[ "Evidence attempts to look at correlations between intelligence and creativity from the 1950s onwards, by authors such as Barron, Guilford or Wallach and Kogan, regularly suggested that correlations between these concepts were low enough to justify treating them as distinct concepts. Some researchers believe that c...
how does the weatherman/woman know where to look on the chroma key when reporting?	They do look off camera to see the things the viewer is seeing. How awkward/smoothly they can pull it off depends on their expertise and experience. Take a look at [this random example](_URL_0_) from youtube. He spends most of the time looking off to the side as he is gesturing to the map. It doesn't come off as awkwa...	[ "The OPC provides an important role in the production of the National Weather Service Unified Surface Analysis. After the Weather Prediction Center, or WPC, sends out their analysis for the synoptic hour, OPC cuts and stitches the WPC analysis to its area. The National Hurricane Center, or NHC, stitches the analysi...
i have ulcerative colitis. it’s extremely painful. but if there are no pain-sensing nerves in the colon... what is actually hurting?	Where did you read that there are no pain sensing nerves in the colon? You have pain receptors in pretty much every part of the body, safe for the brain itself. The pain is caused by ulcers and subsequent inflammation, both triggering your pain receptors.	[ "Ulcerative colitis can affect any part of the colon (and other mucosa, such as the mouth), but when it affects the descending colon, it is called \"left-sided colitis\". Inflammation and ulcers on the lining of the intestine mark its presence. Symptoms of ulcerative colitis include diarrhea, bleeding, fever, abdom...
How could the pupa stage of insects evolve?	[Here's](_URL_0_) a sort of pop-sci version of the (relatively) current state of the field. The basic idea is an original group of insects whose initial form was basically the same as the adult form, followed by steps of less complete metamorphosis, and finally the kind of metamorphosis we think of today. It also disc...	[ "The pupal stage follows the larval stage and precedes adulthood (\"imago\") in insects with complete metamorphosis. The pupa is a non-feeding, usually sessile stage, or highly active as in mosquitoes. It is during pupation that the adult structures of the insect are formed while the larval structures are broken do...
why music or albums aren't released worldwide the same day	I can't speak as to why it started out that way, they are changing it to Fridays globally this summer _URL_0_	[ "However, in some countries, particularly in Asia, local music repertoire will still be released on different days. For instance, in Japan domestic acts will continue to release new music on Wednesdays, two days earlier than international repertoire.\n", "Music releases are now uniformly available around the worl...
what would happen if you sprayed a mosquito with mosquito repellent?	It will die, never knowing what it means to love.	[ "Some experts also recommend against applying chemicals such as DEET and sunscreen simultaneously since that would increase DEET penetration. Canadian researcher, Xiaochen Gu, a professor at the University of Manitoba’s faculty of Pharmacy who led a study about mosquitos, advises that DEET should be applied 30 or m...
In the early Middle Ages the belief in Witchcraft was condemned as "unChristian" by high-ranking churchmen, as well as by Charlemagne. At the same time, both secular and canon law decreed that Witchcraft existed, had power, and deserved punishment. How were these contrary positions resolved?	There isn't a lot to reconcile here, but rather a reframing. At no point did any decree of Catholic Church or medieval Christian king accept the existence of witchcraft (maleficium). Most of these decrees state flat out that belief in maleficium was itself the work of the devil, a contamination of the brain, of dre...	[ "During the Early Middle Ages, the Christian Churches did not conduct witch trials. The Germanic Council of Paderborn in 785 explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne later confirmed the law. Among Orthodox Eastern Christians concentrated in the Byzantine Empire, belief ...
Why can some viruses (smallpox, polio) be virtually eradicated while others cannot (HIV, influenza)?	There are some characteristics of a disease that make it practical to try to eradicate it: 1. Only infects one species 2. Short-term infection, followed by 3. long-term immunity 4. No asymptomatic carrier state 5. Highly effective vaccine 6. Visible and easily identified infection Those characteristics mean that it's...	[ "Of the many diseases of humans that were found to be caused by viruses in the 20th century one, smallpox, has been eradicated. The diseases caused by viruses such as HIV and influenza virus have proved to be more difficult to control. Other diseases, such as those caused by arboviruses, are presenting new challeng...
So, the universe is ever expanding. Does that also mean that the distance between our planets in our solar system will also slowly drift apart?	The answer is no. That's because the rate of expansion is too small to affect such closely gravitationally bound objects. The expansion can have an effect on the maximum size of a galaxy, but for a solar system the effect is way too small. Here are some numbers. Hubble's law for the expansion is that v=d*H. v being th...	[ "Planetary scientists have considered moving the Earth farther away from the sun as the solar luminosity increases over the next billion years. Various mechanisms have been proposed to increase the size of the Earth's orbit.\n", "As the Sun expands, it will swallow the planets Mercury and Venus. Earth's fate is l...
What happened to the Jews expelled from Spain and went to the Ottoman Empire?	Like... do they still exist? Yes. There are several thousand who still live in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire, at this point Turkey and the Balkans (including Greece). They continued to speak Judeo-Spanish/Ladino until a generation or two ago (so most people around 50 can speak it, but most people around 30 ca...	[ "Many Spanish Jews also fled to the Ottoman Empire, where they were given refuge. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, learning about the expulsion of Jews from Spain, dispatched the Ottoman Navy to bring the Jews safely to Ottoman lands, mainly to the cities of Thessaloniki (currently in Greece) and İzmir (cur...
- if pi is in between the number 3 and 4 how can it be infinite?	It is not an infinite amount. It is less than 4. In does take an infinite amount of digits to explain precisely what the amount is, but that's about being precise, not about being huge.	[ "Multiplying this infinite sum by 3 in base 5 gives …0000001. As there are no negative powers of 5 in this expansion of 1/3 (i.e. no numbers to the right of the decimal point), we see that 1/3 satisfies the definition of being a -adic integer in base 5.\n", "It has been conjectured that there are only a finite nu...
how do shops during the week still attract so many customers.	There will always be: - people with weekdays off that work a weekend day - part time workers - retirees - people who work flexible hours - housewives/husbands - people using their breaks - people on annual leave/holiday Naturally they generally add up to less than the usual weekend numbers, but it is evidently enough...	[ "Many retailers open very early (typically 5 am or even earlier) and offer doorbuster deals and loss leaders to draw people to their stores. It is not uncommon for long queues to form early in the morning of 26 December, hours before the opening of shops holding the big sales, especially at big-box consumer electro...
why does beer taste so different on nitro?	Beer on nitro - either on nitrokeg or draughtflow cans - has very little carbonation, which makes the mouthfeel very smooth. Carbonation is dissolved carbon dioxide, which actually adds a small amount of acid to the beer, and makes the mouthfeel prickly. The faucet for nitrokeg is different because it's a special type...	[ "Beers can be carbonated with CO or with other gases such as Nitrogen. These gases are not as soluble in water as carbon dioxide, so they form bubbles that do not grow through Ostwald ripening. This means that the beer has smaller bubbles and a more creamy and stable head. This less soluble gas gives the beer a dif...
Can black people have blond hair?	In theory yes. Melanesians (I'm not sure how you are defining "black") have a blond gene among them that is not related to the European genes and works in a different way: _URL_0_	[ "Black hair is the darkest and most common of all human hair colors globally, due to larger populations with this dominant trait. It is a dominant genetic trait, and it is found in people of all backgrounds and ethnicities. It has large amounts of eumelanin and is less dense than other hair colors. In English, blac...
why are people / country's banning or heavily against huawei from using 5g?	It's not because of 5G, but because of Huawei themselves. They have close ties to Chinese goverment, and other countries see that as a major threat. Huawei phones were even banned from being used in USA senate and other important places due to suspicions of Huawei installing spyware on their phones etc.	[ "Although successful internationally, Huawei has faced difficulties in some markets, due to cybersecurity allegations—primarily from the United States government—that Huawei's infrastructure equipment may enable surveillance by the Chinese government. Especially with the development of 5G wireless networks (which C...
if the average surface temperature on mars is below freezing, how is colonization a possibility?	Actually, the technology to protect us from such harsh conditions already exists for the most part, except that Mars has not atmosphere compared to the Earth, which is actually why it is so darn cold on the surface. Ideally, any colony we establish will actually have an atmosphere, as in air and whatnot. If we can do ...	[ "According to scientists, Mars exists on the outer edge of the habitable zone, a region of the Solar System where liquid water on the surface may be supported if concentrated greenhouse gases could increase the atmospheric pressure. The lack of both a magnetic field and geologic activity on Mars may be a result of ...
Have any other fashion choices/hairstyles/et cetera been ruined in the same manner as the "Hitler mustache," either before or after?	It wasn't as enduring, but another example from WWII was the umbrella becoming a symbol of appeasing one's enemies. Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister of Great Britain is perhaps most remembered for brokering the Munich Agreement, which basically said that Germany could have portions of Czechoslovakia if they prom...	[ "Curtained hair and undercuts went out of style in the early 2000s, but underwent a revival in the early 2010s among hipsters and skaters who imitated the 1930s and 1940s version: longer with pomade in or swept to one side on top and shaved or clipped at the sides. At the time, although the style had many different...
why does glitter stick to everything even if it isnt really sticky?	Glitter is made of a plastic that can easily create "static electricity". In short, the "static electricity" makes the glitter more easily able to be stuck on surfaces. And as they're very small, they can go everywhere and be very hard to take care of. #For more details on static electricity, read more below...	[ "Glitter can be seen as a tool of fashion used various subcultures, as it allows for a visible statement to be worn and seen on the body. This is because it has been theorized to be a \"flickering signifier\", or something that destabilizes known notions of popular culture, identity, and society. Glitter is associa...
When becoming accustomed to eating spicy food is your mouth physically changing/adapting to be more resistant to spice, or is it is a neural/phsychological change where you no longer experience the heat?	Conditioned responses. Over time your body acclimates to the stimulus, and you stop having as strong of a response. This is why it takes more and more for some people to get the same feeling from it. It's the same thing people experience with exercise, or drugs. You get used to the sensation, so it takes a bigger s...	[ "Stimulus generalization is another learning phenomenon that can be illustrated by conditioned taste aversion. This phenomenon demonstrates that we tend to develop aversions even to types of food that resemble the foods which cause us illness. For example, if one eats an orange and gets sick, one might also avoid e...
how do magnified mirrors work? and why do they seem blurry if you look into them from a distance?	A lens is a piece of glass that bends light so that the rays converge to a single point. If you bend a mirror it will make all the beams converge in the same pint, so it’s the same as a lens, only instead of passing light through, it reflects it, so both the observer and the object are on the same side, or in this case...	[ "They are made for applications requiring a strict reflection without a \"ghosting\" effect as seen with a second surface mirror, where a faint secondary reflection could be observed, coming from the front surface of the glass. This includes most optics applications where light is being manipulated in a specific ma...
why does the female body need less calories than the male?	Women are generally smaller and have less muscle mass than men, so they don't burn/require as many calories to perform the same metabolic functions. It's sort of similar to a smaller car needing a smaller gas tank and engine when compared to a larger car. A Mini Cooper and a Semi truck can both go 60 mph, but it takes ...	[ "Women in some societies are traditionally given less food than men since men are perceived to have heavier workloads. Household chores and agricultural tasks can in fact be very arduous and require additional energy and nutrients; however, physical activity, which largely determines energy requirements, is difficu...
When Germany reunified at the end of the cold war, how did the militaries of East Germany and West Germany merge into one?	This question was asked pretty recently: _URL_0_ Remember, the search bar is your friend. :)	[ "Following the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, there was a rapid move towards German reunification. East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states () were reconstituted along with t...
Did Winston Churchill approve of Alan Turings punishment ?	I cant see any evidence that he commented on it. However, its likely he did approve, to an extent. Cabinet notes from 24th Feb 1954. Winston Churchill. Tory Party won´t want to accept responsibility for makg. law on homosexuality more lenient – or for maisons tolerées. But, w´out enquiry - i) could we not limit public...	[ "Turing was targeted by government officials, which led him to feel that he could never have a normal life. The hormonal treatment also started having impact on him. Turing admits to Dr. Greenbaum that he should have gone to prison instead of taking the hormonal treatment. During another interaction with Dr. Greenb...
How do you devise an original research topic, fellow historians?	I pretty much at random pick a source text, read it, and see if anything sparks my imagination. I know this is too general so I'll give you two examples: 1. Latin America history class: I chose a topic at random from the teacher's list - the Panama canal and its construction. I looked online and found the treaty betwe...	[ "BULLET::::12. Historical research allows one to discuss past and present events in the context of the present condition, and allows one to reflect and provide possible answers to current issues and problems. Historical research helps us in answering questions such as: Where have we come from, where are we, who are...
Can we predict when the next major change in the earths layout and therefore map will be?	"Major" changes don't really happen when you're talking geological timescales. The tectonic plates are always moving. Tomorrow's map will be different from today's map, just on miniscule scales. The fastest moving plates are the Cocos and Nazca plates which are moving at the breakneck pace of about 6 inches a year....	[ "Where real-world patterns may not conform to the regions discussed, issues such as the ecological fallacy and the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) can lead to major misinterpretations, and other techniques are preferable. Similarly, the size and specificity of the displayed regions depend on the variable being...
the ongoing lawsuits between apple and google. why are they suing each other, and who is winning?	It's kind of like if McDonalds came out with a new sandwich called the McMushroom Burger, and it's an angus beef burger with mushrooms, gruyere cheese, a smokey chipotle BBQ sauce on a whole wheat bun. They release it, people go nuts and love it, and McDonalds is raking in the money. Then a month later Burger King co...	[ "Google has accused Apple (alongside Oracle, Microsoft and others) of trying to take down Android through patent litigation, rather than innovating and competing with better products and services. This ties into Apple's recent patent infringement lawsuits against Samsung, which by July 2012, included more than 50 l...
could someone please explain to me like i'm 5 what an insurance deductible is? metaphors are always good.	The deductable is the amount deducted from what the insurance company gives you when you file a claim. EXAMPLE: You wreck your car. It's insured value is $10,000 and it's a complete loss. You have a $1000 deductible. The insurance company therefore pays you $9000. As for the Roth thing, maybe you mean Roth IRA. In a...	[ "Insurance is a contract based upon speculation. The special facts, upon which the contingent chance is to be computed, lie most commonly in the knowledge of the insured only; the underwriter trusts to his representation and proceeds upon the confidence that he does not keep back any circumstance in his knowledge, ...
Around what voltage is needed for you to actually feel yourself being shocked?	It's not really as simple as a voltage measurement to determine sensation; voltage is a measure of electrical pressure (which will help to overcome the skin barrier), but amperage -- the measure of current -- plays easily an equal part in determining shock sensation. AC or DC current will also play a part, as will resi...	[ "Although voltage, current and duration of shock can be used to calculate the amount of energy applied (in Joules), these are not indicators of the intensity of the stimulus or how it may be perceived by the recipient. Static electric shocks that are experienced in daily life are of the order of 20,000 to 25,000 vo...
why are the american presidential primary elections not riddled with voters registering with the opposite party and voting against the candidate most likely to beat their favorite?	Nothing stops it, and registering for the opposing party in order to vote for the candidate that you think will win a nomination, but lose an election is not an unheard of thing. The major downside is that you remove your ability to vote for the candidate that you think is best suited to lead your own party's bid for...	[ "In United States presidential elections, vote pairing usually comes in the form of voters from \"safe\" states, or non-swing states, voting for third-party candidates, and voters from swing states voting for their second-preference candidate. This form of vote pairing encourages third-party support while minimizin...
why all the censorship on reddit in relation to the whole zoe quin thing	Also, what started the whole Quinn controversy was the rantings of a jilted lover; not exactly an unbiased source with credible verisimilitude. Quinn's game got publicity because of her public complaints about sexual harassment, the game got mostly good reviews from journalists, but far worse reviews from gamers. So t...	[ "In April 2013, the subreddit was threatened with a shutdown by Reddit admins after r/MensRights subscribers gathered personal information on a supposed blogger of feminist issues, and the subreddit's moderators advised members of the subreddit on how to proceed with this 'doxing' without running afoul of site rule...
Are mutations overrated?	The standing (already existing) genetic variation in a population is usually what is selected upon in a natural population. However, all of that natural variation was originally created through mutation. So neither is more important than the other, because all genetic variation was initially created by mutation. Does ...	[ "Mutation bias effects are superimposed on other processes. If selection would favour either one out of two mutations, but there is no extra advantage to having both, then the mutation that occurs the most frequently is the one that is most likely to become fixed in a population. Mutations leading to the loss of fu...
why the body can kill some viruses like the common cold but not others like hiv.	HIV is like a Blue Spy in Tf2. It takes the "skin" (cell membrane) of your cells and uses it to hide from your body's Red Team(immune T-cells). It also has a hack(reverse transcriptase) to infiltrate your spawn point(DNA) and stay there killing the entire Red Team at a rate faster then they can respawn. Eventually the...	[ "Common human diseases caused by viruses include the common cold, the flu, chickenpox and cold sores. Serious diseases such as Ebola and AIDS are also caused by viruses. Many viruses cause little or no disease and are said to be \"benign\". The more harmful viruses are described as virulent.\n", "Examples of comm...
What was British culture like right before the Anglo-Saxons settled the island?	The Roman province of Britannia in the 5th century was in the middle of a horrific economic collapse that marred the northern periphery of the Roman world. Robin Fleming's Britain After Rome deals with this economic collapse pretty extensively and that's the source I'll be using for the majority of this answer. The...	[ "However, by the early 1100's, the Anglo-Saxons and Gaels had become the dominant cultural force in most of the formerly Brittonic ruled territory in Britain, and the language and culture of the native Britons was thereafter gradually replaced in those regions, remaining only in Wales, Cornwall, Scilly Isles and Br...
The weird sounds that NASA recorded of Saturn, are these sounds audible to the human ear, or is this caused by the electromagnet interference caused by the planet? And what is actually going on?	No, these are electromagnetic phenomenons that are transferred into electric signals which are then amplified and used to excite the membrane of a loud speaker thus creating sound that we can hear. ---- sources: 1. _URL_0_ 2. _URL_2_ 3. _URL_4_ 4. _URL_3_ 5. _URL_1_	[ "On 7 December 2018 \"InSight\" recorded the sounds of Martian winds with SEIS, which is able to record vibrations within human hearing range, although rather low (aka subwoofer-type sounds), and these were sent back to Earth. This was the first time the sound of Mars wind was heard after two previous attempts.\n",...
Will a host body eventually replace the cells of a transplanted organ with cells of its own DNA, thus removing the need for immunosuppressants, or will the host body and transplanted organ always be genetically distinct?	Biology BS but still layman here: Most organs aren't capable of regenerating their cells to any great extent. Regardless, if the original organ was removed and a new one put in its place, there shouldn't be any cells from the previous organ from which to regenerate. Additionally, cells that were not part of the origi...	[ "Transplanted tissue is accepted by immunocompetent recipient if it is functional in the absence of immunosuppressive drugs and without histologic signs of rejection. Host can accept another graft from the same donor but reject graft from different donor. \n", "Substitution of whole genes or chromosomes, or large...
Can a brain injury cause someone to forget a language?	Given that some people with traumatic brain injuries can forget all manner of things (childhood memories, family members, what they did yesterday to name but a few) why do you think it's fishy someone with a brain injury could forget how to speak a language they used to know? And to be even a bit closer to the point, ...	[ "Damage and injury in the brain can severely lower one's ability to communicate, and therefore lower one's linguistic intelligence. Common forms of major damage are strokes, concussions, brain tumors, viral/bacterial damage, and drug-related damage. The three major linguistic disorders that result from these injuri...
Are there examples of Brits calling Americans terrorists (or equivalent) during the American Revolutionary War?	John Paul Jones and his ship the Ranger, sailed in the Irish sea during 1778. They raided White Haven, then tried to kidnap the Earl of Seakirk, from his Scotish castle. The Earl wasn't home. The crew of the Ranger wanted to burn his house down. Jones talked them into jus...	[ "During the 18th and 19th centuries, attacking an enemy during a parley was considered one of the grossest breaches of the rules of war. The British Army was accused of multiple parley violations during the American Revolutionary War, specifically arresting Continental Army officers engaged in negotiations as trait...
how is weather so unpredictable? why can you have 0% chance of rain when you go to sleep and wake up to hours of thunderstorms.?	Weather is really complicated issue, there are many many inputs you have to know to predict weather (like temperature, wind speed, humidity, clouds etc). What is more weather is phenomenon we can describe as highly sensitive to initial conditions. So let say you make two weather simulations, and the only difference bet...	[ "Late-night rains and early morning rains may simply be the last precipitation of a passing weather front. However, since fronts pass at night as often as they do in the day, morning rain is no predictor of a dry afternoon. However, this lore can describe non-frontal weather. Given sufficient surface heating, a lat...
how can data travel at the speed of light while electrons travel at a speed of 1 meter per day through a wire?	I'm not sure where you are getting that speed from. But the speed at which energy or signals travel down a cable is actually the speed of the electromagnetic wave, not the movement of electrons. Data transmission is simply machines looking for changes in energy along a cable. In the case of electrical signalling ove...	[ "Optical cables transfer data at the speed of light in glass. This is the speed of light in vacuum divided by the refractive index of the glass used, typically around 180,000 to 200,000 km/s, resulting in 5.0 to 5.5 microseconds of latency per km. Thus the round-trip delay time for 1000 km is around 11 milliseconds...
In ancient times, how did merchants traveling long distances ensure their safety? How did they make sure they were not being robbed in the way, or that they had enough supplies to last going from A to B?	Oh man, this is a really cool question, and I'll answer it as well as I can. I'll start by discussing the ancient Silk Road, because bad news always comes first. We know virtually nothing about a land route between Rome and China, if there actually was one. We know about routes between Parthia and China (Chinese envoys...	[ "Under the native pharaohs, the whole trade of southern Egypt with the Red Sea passed over these two roads; under the Ptolemies as well as in Roman and Byzantine times, merchants followed the same roads for purposes of barter at the coasts of Zanzibar and in Southern Arabia, India, and the Far East.\n", "At some ...
why are standard home lightbulb sockets shaped the way they are?	I guess to answer this we'd have to know what exactly you find weird about them. To me it makes perfect sense to have a threaded cylinder that secures the bulbs and make it easy to replace.	[ "Some sockets have pins placed closer together, preventing the low-power bulbs they use from being replaced by bulbs that are too high power, which may generate excessive heat and possibly cause a fire. These are sometimes called \"mini-bipin\". Where the terminals of the lamp are bent back onto the sides of the ba...
if video games require more use of the brain than something like reading, why are they considered to "rot your brain?"	They don't. This is just something moms tell their kids so they won't sit on their asses all day.	[ "\"Brain Games\" was suggested in the 1984 book \"Clinical Management of Memory Problems\" as an effective clinical device for memory retraining exercises. Noted for having a variety of useful games, patients would be faced with auditory and visual cues that may improve spatial reasoning.\n", "Another cognitive e...
why is it that the slower i go in a car, the tighter the turn is? even though my wheels are at the exact same angle.	That would be due to slippage, and is called understeer. It happens because, when the wheels have to push very hard to change your car's direction, they start to lose traction. At lower speeds they don't have to push as hard, so they slip less.	[ "The middle point on the curve in the third picture on the right is an unstable point, too. However the above-mentioned assumptions are not valid here. Torque and speed are the same but in case the speed will be increased only little then the torque of the drive will be much higher than the counter-torque of the ma...
how do steroids cure illnesses?	Steroids are a whole class of medications. They're not all muscle builders/recovery minimizers. The steroid you were likely prescribed was prednisone, and it serves as an anti-inflammatory which is going to assist your lungs in dealing with the bronchitis.	[ "Steroids may be of benefit in peritonitis, miliary disease, tubercular osteomyelitis, TB osteomyelitis, laryngeal TB, lymphadenitis and genitourinary disease, but the evidence is scant and the routine use of steroids cannot be recommended. Steroid treatment in these patients should be considered on a case by case ...
Why did Russia launch their 1939 invasion of Finland in the dead of winter?	The Soviet Union had been planning for the war for quite a while. Already in 1938 - that is prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (MRP) - Soviet war games in the Leningrad district were based on 'aggressive defense' after a 'theoretical' border incident at Mainila. So they had been preparing for the war quite some time ...	[ "The Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union began in November 1939 after the Finnish government had rejected the Soviet claims to the Karelian Isthmus and all islands in the Gulf of Finland, as well as a demand to dismantle the defences in Finnish Karelia. Finland at the time was only officially allied wit...
Which one is the oldest european coat of arms showing lions (or other exotic animals living far away)?	Lions weren't always as exotic as you think. As seen [here](_URL_0_), lions had a much greater range in the past than they do today. To quote wikipedia; > Herodotus reported that lions had been common in Greece around 480 BC. By 100 AD they were extirpated. A population of Asiatic lions survived until the tenth centu...	[ "A form of these arms was first used by King William the Lion in the 12th century, though no trace of them can be made out on his seal. However, a lion rampant can clearly be made out on the seal of his son, Alexander II. Over the years many writers have claimed them to be much older; even Alexander Nisbet, conside...
How did the most battle scarred countrys of WW2 cope with what must have been a very high amount of people with psychological disorders caused by the war?	China had the longest "experience" of the War (1937-45), very high battle and civilian casualties (estimates vary but 14M combined war dead is a minimum) and a staggering number of refugees (numbers are inexact but quite possibly 90 million people were displaced from their homes! That's two and a half times the enti...	[ "Per Fugelli has said that World War II resulted in many persons acquiring psychiatric disorders (\"psykiske senskadene\") which could be from experiencing \"bombing, accidents involving mines, burning down of homes, forcible evacuation, illness and starvation during the war and liberation. But it was maybe in part...
why does depression rebound so hard, the happier you were?	As someone who suffers from depression, I understand the feeling you describe. The simple answer is it's because you have further to fall. Imagine this. You pick a ball up off of level ground. The act of you picking up that ball and holding it in your hand gives it potential energy because you're resisting gravity t...	[ "Depression can lead to a high increase of unemployment. It is more likely a balance sheet recession can cause depression. \"Due to falling asset prices and bank losses, this has a large impact on economic activity\".\n", "Depressions are characterized by their length, by abnormally large increases in unemploymen...
why aren't all foods high in protein? isn't protein used for the structure of all living things?	Some proteins are indigestible by humans, such as keratin - when a food is labelled as high in protein, it should mean that it is high in available protein. This is not always the case. Some foods are also higher in carbohydrates, or fats, or fiber, than they are in protein. In short, "high in protein" effective...	[ "Protein can be found in a wide range of food. The best combination of protein sources depends on the region of the world, access, cost, amino acid types and nutrition balance, as well as acquired tastes. Some foods are high in certain amino acids, but their digestibility and the anti-nutritional factors present in...
why does my hair stand up when i'm scared?	The idea was that, back when the hair covering our bodies was thicker, making it stand up would make us look bigger & more intimidating to whatever is scaring us.	[ "People often say they feel their \"hair standing on end\" when they are frightened or in awe. In an extremely stressful situation, the body can employ the \"fight or flight\" response. As the body prepares itself for either fighting or running, the sympathetic nervous system floods the blood with adrenaline (epine...
How did wars back in the day work? Before guns and machinery. Would each person pick his target and fight him until one dies?	The Romans would employ a line relief system to allow fresh troops to move to the front if the front ranks, traditionally of hastati in the pre-Marius legions, were unsuccessful in breaking the enemy ranks. The most commonly cited depiction of the line relief system comes from Livy: "When the battle formation of the a...	[ "One could characterize the earlier years of the First World War as a clash of 20th-century technology with 19th-century military science creating ineffective battles with huge numbers of casualties on both sides. On land, only in the final year of the war did the major armies make effective steps in revolutionizin...
we have goat milk and cow milk to consume, but why is it merely impossible to find pig milk in a grocery store?	Firstly, it just doiesn't taste very good. Pig's milk is watery, and quite gamey. The real reason though is that pigs simply don't produce very much milk, and don't like being milked. Cows have been domesticated for thousands of years, and selectively bred for milk production and docility. Pigs, on the other hand, wil...	[ "Milk, cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products are not consumed by vegans due to their animal origin. The consumption of dairy products together with meat is also prohibited as non-kosher in the Jewish faith, based on Deuteronomy 14:21: \"You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.\"\n", "Some research...
If velocity is relative, is angular velocity and therefore centripetal acceleration relative? Further questions inside.	When considering one body orbiting another you cannot assume they are stationary with regard to one another. The body that is in orbit has a tangential velocity with regard to the body it is orbiting. The centripetal acceleration is simply a measurement of the change in this tangential velocity. It is the combinatio...	[ "In three dimensions, angular velocity is a pseudovector, with its magnitude measuring the rate at which an object rotates or revolves, and its direction pointing perpendicular to the instantaneous plane of rotation or angular displacement. The orientation of angular velocity is conventionally specified by the righ...
how do seat-belts know when to tighten?	A pendulum under the seat acts as a sensor. When it swings a certain way the seat belt locks up.	[ "BULLET::::- Seatbelts limit the forward motion of an occupant, stretch to absorb energy, to lengthen the time of the occupant's negative acceleration in a crash, reducing the loading on the occupants' body. They prevent occupants being ejected from the vehicle and ensure that they are in the correct position for t...
If microwaves are lower on the em spectrum, how can they be any more harmful than visible light?	Microwaves are not harmful in the ionizing radiation sense: they don't have enough energy to remove electrons from their orbits around most atoms. (Your cell phone won't give you cancer.) Microwaves that we cook with are tuned to the vibrational spectra of water (2450 MHz, 12cm, 10^-5 eV). Specifically the microwaves ...	[ "As the energy of radio frequency waves and microwaves is insufficient to directly disrupt individual chemical bonds in small or stable molecules, the effects are considered limited to thermal. Energy densities that are not sufficient to overheat the tissues are not shown to cause lasting damage. To clarify, the de...
how do surgical masks protect you from getting infected when there are huge gaps near your cheeks and the bridge of your nose?	Wearing a surgical mask is not an effective way of preventing they wearer from getting infected. (As you suspected) They are fairly effective in preventing the wearer from spreading their own droplets (sneezing, coughing, just breathing), thereby decreasing the chance of them infecting another person.	[ "Simple surgical masks protect wearers from being splashed in the mouth with body fluids, and prevent transmission of body fluids from the wearer to others, e.g. the patient. They also remind wearers not to touch their mouth or nose, which could otherwise transfer viruses and bacteria after having touched a contami...
How do different music scales and tuning systems work?	All Western music is based on a mathematical coincidence: 3^12 (531,441) is within 1.5% of 2^19 (524,288). Some background: Scales are based on the harmonic series of notes that come out of most simple resonant systems (the "registers" of woodwinds and brass instruments, or "overtones" of strings). Combining pure ...	[ "Most commonly, however, musical instruments are nowadays tuned using a different tuning system, called 12-tone equal temperament, in which the main intervals are typically perceived as consonant, but none is justly tuned and as consonant as a just interval, except for the unison and octave. Although the size of eq...
what is the "crunchy" feeling when a muscle knot is being massaged?	As I understand (from my massage therapist and physio), it's the muscle fascia sort of "slipping" past the skin, with just enough friction to "catch" and release repeatedly, such as when you rub your hands together when they're slightly wet. The effect is more pronounced if you're dehydrated. Working on the muscle fasc...	[ "BULLET::::- Friction massage is said to increase mobilization of adhesions between fascial layers, muscles, compartments and other soft tissues. They are thought to create an inflammatory response and instigate focus to injured areas. A 2012 systematic review found that no additional benefit was incurred from the ...
WW2, western front: where there contigency plans if the germans would have beaten the allies? If so, what where they?	The extended German goal for the Battle of the Bulge was to reach Antwerpen and destroy the port so that the Western Allies could not use it to supply their troops, capture Western Allied supply dumps, destroy Westen Allied field air bases and generally destroy and cripple as many Western Allied field units as possible...	[ "During the war, both sides disagreed on military strategy, especially the question of the opening of a second front against Germany in Western Europe. As early as July 1941, Stalin asked Britain to invade northern France, but Britain was in no position to carry out such a request. Stalin had also requested that th...
why do horses start side by side while runners are spread at equal distance before the race?	They will generally only spread runners out to compensate if they are restricted to a certain lane during the race. In races where there's no "lane" (like horse racing) everyone can move to the innermost lane basically immediately.	[ "After the start the drivers fight to get a good \"running position\". How well this succeeds depends on the horse, the \"starting position\" and how the opponents drive their horses. Due to the sulky width and the oval race track overtaking is a far more difficult manoeuver to achieve, in comparison with gallop ra...
Why did some rifles feature upward facing magazines in WWI or WWII?	Can you cite some examples.	[ "During World War I, it was quickly recognized that the Berthier's three-shot magazine was simply too small in comparison to foreign weapons, requiring too-frequent reloading. Additionally, it was found that trench mud and grit could enter the weapon through the opening in the bottom of the magazine. To correct the...
the scientific consensus says gmo's are safe, and we seem to value our scientific consensuses here in the usa on other issues...so whats all the fuss about?	Ag student here. This is a subject that obviously gets discussed quite a bit amongst my peers. First of all, I see way too much confusion over the difference between: 1. Plant/animal species that we've been artificially selecting for (intentionally or not) over thousands of years (NOT GMOs), and 2. Transgenic crops ...	[ "Commentators have criticized Stein's statements about GMOs, writing that they contradict the scientific consensus, which is that existing GM foods are no less safe than foods made from conventional crops. Among the critics was Jordan Weissmann, \"Slate\"'s business and economics editor, who wrote in July 2016: \"N...
how do gps apps such as maps or waze know the new formation of roads after construction?	It first important to understand how Google Maps gets all if it's data. Some of it's data is pre-programmed into their systems. This is usually used as initial data, especially for testing. Google provides many more features, however. They also show traffic and other information for your daily traveler. A few years ba...	[ "BULLET::::- 2009 – Waze, a community-oriented GPS app, allows for users to submit road info and route data based on location, such as reports of car accidents or traffic, and integrates that data into its routing algorithms for all users of the app\n", "Automatic vehicle location (AVL or ~locating; telelocating ...
Does musical interest correspond to intelligence?	I've looked for some papers on the subject and I didn't turn up empty. I've found [this paper] (_URL_1_) that indicates that emotion recognition in music and emotional intelligence are highly correlated. I've also found two papers ([one] (_URL_3_) and [two] (_URL_4_)) that claim that music has short-term benefits, but...	[ "Children’s musical interest may vary from exploring a specific instrument to listening to a type of musical literature that the child finds interesting because of his or her cultural background. In other words, early childhood musical interest lies with the involvement that the child is actively engaged in the lea...
How were sharks perceived in the WW2 Era? Particularly by the US Navy. More particularly by the types of people who would have made of the crew of the USS Indianapolis.	Expanded [from an earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_) Part I Jaws, both the novel and the book, certainly did shift cultural attitudes towards sharks as dangerous predators. However, neither Spielberg nor Benchley invented this image of the predator out of whole cloth. There was a long association within modern We...	[ "After the USS \"Indianapolis\" was torpedoed on 30 July 1945, most sailors who survived the sinking reportedly died from exposure to the elements rather than from shark bites. Some sailors, however, are believed to have died from shark bites, and oceanic whitetips are believed to have been responsible in those cas...
if america spends so much more on its military than russia, why are countries somewhat evenly matched?	They aren't. In a conventional war the US could handle multiple Russias at the same time. However the war wouldn't be conventional because Russia's policy on nuclear weapons is that they will use them as a first strike against enemy soldiers that are at war with Russia. This would force the US to retaliate with their o...	[ "The United States spends vastly more than other countries on national defense. The table below shows the top 10 countries with largest military expenditures as of 2015, the most recent year with publicly available data. As the table suggests, the United States spent nearly 3 times as much on the military than Chin...
does turning a car at a slower speed give it a sharper turning radius?	As long as your tires aren't slipping, they are controlling your path. So, your turning radius will just depend on steering wheel position.	[ "When turning, any object is subject to a certain amount of centrifugal force, directed away from the center around which the object is moving. As speed increases, the amount of force applied to the object also increases. As a result, standard narrow vehicles with a narrow wheel base, can only take turns up to rela...
i have a math and odds question that i don't know how to explain in the title.	You're thinking about this wrong, and this is actually known as the Gambler's Fallacy. (Black has been rolled 3 times in a row, therefore red HAS to be next) When you know the previous ball was a red, then the chance of the next ball being red is 40%. But, the chances of the next 2 balls being red is 40% times 40% or ...	[ "In gambling, the odds on display do not represent the true chances (as imagined by the bookmaker) that the event will or will not occur, but are the amount that the bookmaker will pay out on a winning bet, together with the required stake. In formulating the odds to display the bookmaker will have included a profi...
how can a broken heart hurt so much psychically?	Because the pain is infact not just emotional but also physical. Few reasons: 1)Hormones. When you're in love, the body produces elevated levels of feel- good chemicals (hormones like dopamine). You kinda get addicted to these chemicals. When your heart breaks , these chemicals are no longer produced and so you exper...	[ "A broken heart is a major stressor and has been found to precipitate episodes of major depression. In one study (death of a spouse), 24% of mourners were depressed at two months, 23% at seven months, 16% at 13 months and 14% at 25 months.\n", "Broken heart (also known as a heartbreak or heartache) is a metaphor ...
why does medical and other scientific research cost so much money? i've seen basic research funded by millions of dollars.	Yes, it does. Biomedical research starts with what you think of as lab experiments - people moving liquid from one tube to another, petri dishes, etc. Then it moves to animal studies, which themselves can easily cost millions of dollars per study. Then they move to human trials which can often cost tens of millions,...	[ "In the United States, data from ongoing surveys by the National Science Foundation (NSF) show that federal agencies provided only 44% of the $86 billion spent on basic research in 2015. The National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical companies collectively contribute $26.4 billion and $27 billion, which const...

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