Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
store tells me to rub the chip when my debit card is not recognized? the chip is clean, so why does this help?	Sometimes a fine layer of oil forms on the chip. Rubbing it removes this layer	[ "Until the introduction of Chip & PIN, all face-to-face credit or debit card transactions involved the use of a magnetic stripe or mechanical imprint to read and record account data, and a signature for purposes of identity verification. The customer hands their card to the cashier at the point of sale who then pas...
How did Julius Caesar's mother and father raise him? And what effect did his upbringing have on his personality?	Little is known about Julius Caesar's early life; his father died when he was relatively young (about 16 years of age) and thus Julius was thrust into the position of pater familius at somewhat of a young age. It's extremely difficult to comment directly on how he was raised and his early life due to lack of evidence a...	[ "The early career of Julius Caesar was characterized by military adventurism and political persecution. Julius Caesar was born on July 13, 100 BC, into a patrician family, the gens Julia, which claimed descent from Iulus, son of the legendary Trojan prince Aeneas, supposedly the son of the goddess Venus. His father...
Why did iced tea, rather than hot tea, become popular in the United States?	While hot tea was extremely popular in the colonies that would become the United States, taxes on tea became a point contention for many colonists, leading to boycotts and the adoption of coffee as a preferred patriotic drink. As such, coffee is the standard hot drink in many American homes, and tea found it's niche...	[ "Iced tea had started to appear in the USA during the 1860s. Seen as a novelty at first, during the 1870s it became quite widespread. Recipes appeared in print, iced tea was offered on hotel menus, and it was on sale at railroad stations. Its popularity rapidly increased after Richard Blechynden introduced it at th...
showering after a meal	For a warm shower: Blood gets diverted to the skin, to lower your body's temperature (which increased all of a sudden when you're under hot/warm water). Since this happens on a large surface area (almost your entire body's surface area), there is a chance for your blood pressure to drop, since a majority of your blo...	[ "After supper, a couple watch through the window as their neighbor walks round the side of his house to spy on his own wife as she undresses. They seem puzzled at the incident, that has been happening \"one out of every two to three nights\" for the last three months. The man showers, as the woman prepares food for...
why does the same setting in the shower feel warmer in the summer than in the winter? i've noticed on a warm day, i need to turn the shower down because it feels too hot, but surely it's the same temperature?	The quick answer is, because in winter the cold water coming from your cold water feed is usually a lot colder. I don't know about where you live, but where I live (UK) in winter the water coming out the tap makes your hand go numb very quickly. In summer you can hold it under there all day. If you have a standa...	[ "The slow night-time cooling of a home after its external brick wall has been heated by the sun is one example of thermal lag. Thermal lag is the reason the high temperatures in summer continue to increase after the summer solstice (in this case, it is termed seasonal lag), and it is the reason a day's high tempera...
the difference between routers, switches, access points	In order of complexity: A hub connects several devices in a network. When it receives data on a port, it repeats that data out on every other port. These are pretty rare now that switches have become so affordable. A switch is a smarter hub. As it receives data, it learns which device is connected to each port. W...	[ "Layer 3 switching is solely based on (destination) IP address stored in the header of IP datagram (see layer 4 switching later on this page for the difference). The difference between a layer 3 switch and a router is the way the device is making the routing decision. Traditionally, routers use microprocessors to m...
why car companies have such a problem with the destruction of their cars in video games , but apparently not that much in the movies ?	It depends on the video game. Manufacturers like certain video games and license their vehicles to those games because they put the brand in front of young and impressionable consumers. They also like their product in movies for the same reason. The ability of the manufacturer to control how their product is used is an...	[ "The newly included damage feature received criticism for having limited effect on car performance (however a later update added the ability to \"turn on\" full damage and tire/fuel depletion). The AI was also criticized for still making CPU-drivers brake unexpectedly and not being aware of the player's car on the ...
How did people keep track of time during the middle ages?	In Western Europe, certainly in ecclesiastical and monastic contexts, the day was broken up into eight parts by the Canonical Hours. These were times which were specified for different prayers and services (I believe these are still in use today in at least some Catholic monasteries.) They started with the overnight ...	[ "Medieval astronomers also used sexagesimal numbers to note time. Al-Biruni first subdivided the hour sexagesimally into minutess, seconds, thirds and fourths in 1000 while discussing Jewish months. Around 1235 John of Sacrobosco continued this tradition, although Nothaft thought Sacrobosco was the first to do so. ...
Where there any inhabited places on Earth that were totally unaffected by World War II?	This is kind of a broad question. By "unaffected" are you purely referring to military action, or just any involvement with the war effort?	[ "In 1945, World War II was abruptly ended when an alien race appeared on Earth and began to slaughter the human population. This alien force, known as the \"Phantom Beasts\" (or Genjyu in Japanese) had effectively taken over more than half of the Earth. The year is 1999 – 54 years later, mankind is still fighting t...
what exactly happens with the moon during a full eclipse?	The Earths shadow lines up with the moon completely blocking out the light from the sun which usually lights it up during the night, like if you put your hand in front of a torch, whatever you were shining the torch at becomes unlit *Your hand is the earth)	[ "Eclipses may occur when the Earth and the Moon are aligned with the Sun, and the shadow of one body cast by the Sun falls on the other. So at new moon, when the Moon is in conjunction with the Sun, the Moon may pass in front of the Sun as seen from a narrow region on the surface of the Earth and cause a solar ecli...
why is it that a lizard can jump off insane heights but not take any damage and be fine but if we scaled us down to the size of a lizard we'd die from that high of a fall?	Lizards weigh less, so the impact when they land is a lot lower. If I fall, it's equivalent to a 100 pound person landing on me. If a 300 pound person falls, it's equivalent to a 300 pounds of person landing on them. The gecko just takes a few ounces of weight.	[ "A large lizard with a flattened head and body, its length is a maximum of . The soles of the feet have black rubber-like balls, an adaptation to living on rock outcrops. It is called the plated lizard because of the platelike scales on the back. This lizard is very shy and hard to approach. When threatened, it wil...
how did medical care become standardized?	Many, many smart inventions. I'm not a history geek, so I'm unsure about the specifics, but the conventional microscope was only created in the last hundred - two hundred years. From this, people discovered bacteria, viruses, amoebas, cells, and how each related. This spawned vaccinations to stop smallpox and rubella, ...	[ "To reduce competition, the Medical Act also raised the standards for qualifications in 1858. A modern codes of medical ethics were also implemented in the 19th century. Again, this proves the high degree of power that the profession had. As a result, many medical practitioners came to experience ethical problems. ...
How will the James Web Space Telescope orbit AROUND L2 lagrange point?	If you look at the individual coordinates then the point is unstable in the radial direction but stable in the other two. Overall that makes the point unstable but it gives a plane where you can orbit. _URL_0_	[ "The proposed satellite would have a dimension of , a mass of about 600 kg, and maneuver by means of an ion drive engine in combination with using the sheet as a light sail. Positioned at a distance of 100,000 km from the telescope, it would block more than 99.998% of the starlight.\n", "The Lagrange point of the...
why do we need the give the security code off the signature strip of credit cards when we buy things online?	It helps show you have possession of the physical card. That number is not stored on the magnetic stripe, so it can't be obtained using a card skimmer for example.	[ "Credit card security relies on the physical security of the plastic card as well as the privacy of the credit card number. Therefore, whenever a person other than the card owner has access to the card or its number, security is potentially compromised. Once, merchants would often accept credit card numbers without...
If you control for accidental death/death by misadventure, crime related deaths and suicide, how much longer is female life expectancy than male?	I don't think there's a good answer here. How do you count child birth? Or differences in nutrition? Or that women go to the doctor more often to get checked? Depending on the local culture, life might be harder or easier for women vs. men, this also contributes to health and mortality. So depending on the details you ...	[ "Since 2003, age-standardised rates of suicide have been stable for females across the life course whilst for young adult men there have been declines of between 5 and 8 deaths per 100,000 but increases of between 4 and 7 deaths per 100,000 in middle-aged men. Middle and older-aged men continue to suicide at rates ...
Has surface of the Earth always been covered to 71% by water?	> has dry land on surface always been only 29% of its surface? No, it varies. Controlling factors: 1) Amount of water on the planet. This has been stable for a long time, but early on in Earth's history would have increased in stages as much water was delivered via water rich asteroids, whilst some probably came ...	[ "Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface, mostly in seas and oceans. Small portions of water occur as groundwater (1.7%), in the glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland (1.7%), and in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of ice and liquid water suspended in air), and precipitation (0.001%).\n", "Earth's...
How accurate if the movie, "Inherit the Wind"?	One of the most glaring omissions in both the play and the film is leaving out defense attorney Dudley Field Malone, who gave an impressive speech on why the government should not step into religious matters, among other things citing the religious wars of Europe in the 17th century. It was an immensely powerful argum...	[ "The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind is a 1988 documentary outlining the successes and challenges of the casting, filming, and legacy of the 1939 film \"Gone with the Wind\", from concept to finished product. The documentary focuses on David O. Selznick from the time of the book's publication to the Academy ...
why does sweet and salty food taste better together?	We generally do not like the taste of bitter. Salt has the miraculous ability to block the taste of bitter. When we say salt is a "flavor enhancer" what we're typically talking about is its capacity to block bitter, allowing other flavors to come forward. So, the flavor profile of caramel gets richer and yummier beca...	[ "“Salty” is one of the “five flavors” of Chinese herbology and Chinese cuisine which Chinese see as the basis of good food. Salt is not generally sprinkled on a dish at the last moment or at the table, as is often the case in western cooking, but is more often one of the ingredients.\n", "One of the preferences o...
Do we really know how much protein we need per day?	There are all kinds of calories and estimates, and formulas for determining this, however what it really comes down to is every person is different. A person's caloric and nutrition needs are unique to themselves and defined by many different factors (predominantly metabolism but also activity level, lifestyle, etc.) S...	[ "Edible protein per unit area of land is a measure of agricultural productivity. This measure for various major foodstuffs is shown in the chart below. Values are expressed for one calendar year. Biological values and usable protein values have been added to the chart to show the true relative value of each foodsto...
bosnia	A place where bad people go.	[ "Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes referred to simply as Bosnia, is a country in Southeastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula. It has had permanent settlement since the Neolithic Age. By the early historical period it was inhabited by Illyrians and Celts. Christianity arrived in the 1st century, and by the 4th centu...
If I cook something at 200 Degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, why can’t I cook it for 10 minutes at 400?	It takes time for heat to penetrate food; if you cook at a higher temperature, the outside can be overdone while the inside isn't done yet. So, you generally pick a temperature that is a compromise to get an acceptable result. There are techniques that cook at low or high temps... Stir frying uses very small pieces o...	[ "If a large part of the cooking time is spent at temperatures lower than 60 °C (as when the contents of the cooker are slowly cooling over a long period), a danger of food poisoning due to bacterial infection, or toxins produced by multiplying bacteria, arises. It is essential to heat food sufficiently at the outse...
Questions About the Greek War of Independence	> > Why did the greeks rebel? The spread of Nationalism in Europe after French revolution and Napoleonic war. Also fueled by atrocities of Ottoman administrators in Greece and legal discrimination on Greek Christians population (They're allowed to practice Orthodox Christianity but couldn't hold many government...	[ "The Greek War of Independence refers to the efforts of the Greeks to establish an independent Greek state, at the time that Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire. The revolution was initially planned and organized through secret organizations, most notable of which the Filiki Eteria, that operated in Greece and ot...
During the American Civil War, what happened to the sitting Representatives and Senators of the seceded Southern states? Did they resign their offices, or maintain them?	They resigned...mostly. Seeing as their states had, per their lights, left the Union they viewed their service in the Congress at an end. After resignation, most went right home where they either sought some kind of office with the Confederacy or left politics for a while. One of the knock-on effects of this was to giv...	[ "In early 1877, the federal government withdrew its troops from the South after reaching a compromise over the national election. This marked the end to Reconstruction, and Governor Chamberlain left the state. The Democrats, calling themselves Redeemers, had taken control of South Carolina's legislature. Paramilita...
when employers take 1+ weeks to get back to you after an interview, what are they waiting for?	They are interviewing other people. There's really no reason to reject someone immediately, for two reasons: one, it limits their options, and two, it takes time. It's easier to send a rejection notice after someone has accepted the offer.	[ "Once an employer has received résumés, they will make a list of potential employees to be interviewed based on the résumé and any other information contributed. During the interview process, interviewers generally look for persons who they believe will be best for the job and work environment. The interview may oc...
Is whale sperm any bigger than human sperm?	[In male humans, sperm cells consists of a head 5 microns by 3 microns and a tail 41 microns long.](_URL_2_) Whale sperm vary in length according to species: [73.8 micron for a porpoise, 40.6 for a sperm whale, 52.5 for a humpback whale.](_URL_1_) I couldn't find it for the blue whale though, sadly. I will assume the...	[ "The penis on a right whale can be up to – the testes, at up to in length, in diameter, and weighing up to 525 kg (1157 lbs), are also by far the largest of any animal on Earth. The blue whale may be the largest animal on the planet, yet the testicles of the right whale are ten times the size of those of the blue w...
What evidence is there for the use of the Roman pilum?	Vegetius was writing in the later part of the empire, I believe when he talked about 5 spears being carried, he was talking about Plumbata, which were carried inside the shield and thrown before engaging with the sword. _URL_0_ _URL_1_	[ "The \"pilum\" is a rifle, fueled by niter powder and the standard weapon for legionaries and praetorian guardsmen. \"Pilum\" is assumed to be the Roman term, since \"Niter Piece\", an obscure real world term, seems to be a more general name for such weapons. It is named for the Roman spear, the \"pilum\". In \"New...
What is this I found at my grandma's house? (UK)	That is a form of currency- a note issued not by the Confederate States government or the State of South Carolina but by the Cotton Planters Loan Association. Or it appears to be- I'm no paper currency expert but I do know Confederate currency has been widely faked. Perhaps you should post this to /r/papermoney where c...	[ "The house contains portraits by Lawrence, Gainsborough, Romney, Lely, Reynolds, Hoppner, Kneller and many others, and a set of giant marble columns carrying busts, which are genuine antiques, collected in Italy by Lord Apsley, the son of the third earl, at the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1814.\n", "Blythe ...
difference between led, amoled, lcd, and retina display?	So these are terms that refer to some fundamentally different things. I'll throw a few other terms in the mix that will hopefully clarify things: ###Display Technology * Cathode ray tube (CRT) where an electron beam is used to excite colored phosphors on the inside of a glass screen. You may have heard it referred ...	[ "A LED-backlit LCD is a flat panel display that uses LED backlighting instead of the cold cathode fluorescent (CCFL) backlighting. LED-backlit displays use the same TFT LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display) technologies as CCFL-backlit displays, but offer reduced energy consumption, better contrast and ...
Schizophrenia and optical illusions…	Well, the Wired article that ablackhat linked has a decent description of the "what" that happens: > When healthy subjects looked at the concave faces, connections strengthened between the frontoparietal network, which is involved in top-down processing, and the visual areas of the brain that receive information f...	[ "Visual illusions can be categorised into physiological/pathological, perceptual and ambiguous (bistable/multistable). A deviation from the natural perception of objects (stimulus) encourages evaluation of the theories of perception. Visual perception in schizophrenia is distinguished by reduced contextual adjustme...
Question regarding British cruisers during WWII.	The shift towards smaller cruisers in the late 1930s was driven mainly by the 1936 London Naval Treaty. The 'Town's were built under the regime of the 1930 London Treaty, which placed a maximum cruiser tonnage of 10,000 tons. The 1936 treaty lowered this limit to 8,000 tons for ships laid down after 31st December 1936....	[ "Twenty-three British cruisers were lost to enemy action, mostly to air attack and submarines, in operations in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Indian Ocean. Sixteen of these losses were in the Mediterranean. The British included cruisers and anti-aircraft cruisers among convoy escorts in the Mediterranean and to ...
what is the difference between economic espionage and corporate espionage?	In most contexts they mean the same thing. Specifically referring to China they may be avoiding the term corporate espionage because in a lot of instances the government of China is the one doing the spying and then handing the information they gather over to state-run business to make use of.	[ "While economic espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governments and is international in scope, industrial or corporate espionage is more often national and occurs between companies or corporations.\n", "Economic or industrial espionage takes place in two main forms. In short, the purpose of espionage is to ...
In what ways does gender appear in archaeology?	Gender archaeology can be a tough nut to crack. Working with various sites within the Virginia City Landmark District in Nevada, we initially thought we were seeing evidence of women with some small, delicate buttons, but then a button expert said that they could have just as easily been from some masculine undergarmen...	[ "Gender archaeology is a method of studying past societies through their material culture by closely examining the social construction of gender identities and relations. Gender archaeology itself is based on the idea that nearly all individuals are naturally born to a biological sex (usually either male or female,...
Was there a scientific reason behind the decision to take a picture of this particular black hole instead of another one ?	Because it's really big. It's so big, that it looks bigger on the sky than closer black holes. We can talk about the "angular diameter" or "apparent diameter" of an object. This is how big it looks on the sky, rather than how big it really is. For instance, the Moon and the Sun have about the same angular diameter - h...	[ "studies into black holes with the goal to construct a black hole camera using the Event Horizon Telescope. This would allow testing of general theory of relativity by creating an image of the black hole shadow.\n", "Such research has attracted much media attention, as black holes have long captured the imaginati...
why is lifting weights with long arms heavier than with short arms?	It deoends on how you're lifting the weights, but usually the shoulder or the elbow will act as a pivot when lifting dumbbells. This is because when a force is applied along a rod (arm/forearm) that is fixed to a pivot (shoulder/elbow), the horizontal distance between the pivot and where the force is applied acts as a...	[ "Upper arm weights are another method of adding weight close to the core beyond that of a weighted vest, or to add resistance to the shoulders with less danger to the elbows than wrist weights or the added biceps/triceps strain. A problem with these is similar to thigh weights in that those with large biceps, trice...
why is it bad to defrost/heat up meat twice?	Commercially frozen meat is often flash frozen, this means that the ice crystals formed are small and don't damage the meat cells very much. If you freeze meat at home it's a much slower process, Large ice crystals form an like little spears puncture the cell walls of the meat. This means that when it defrosts the seco...	[ "People sometimes defrost frozen foods at room temperature because of time constraints or ignorance; such foods should be promptly consumed after cooking or discarded and never be refrozen or refrigerated since pathogens are not killed by the freezing process.\n", "Due to this phenomenon, microwave ovens set at t...
Is James Frazer's The Golden Bough 'true?' In other words, are its representations of ancient magic and religion accurate?	[I cross posted this answer on AskSocialScience, but if you want to reply, reply here] No, it's not. Well, it depends on what part you're talking about, and which edition; it faithful quote ethnographic material in parts, but the overall question is flawed. Check out the article **"When the Bough Breaks" by Jonathan Z...	[ "Among the most influential elements of the third edition of \"The Golden Bough\" is Frazer's theory of cultural evolution and the place Frazer assigns religion and magic in that theory. Frazer's theory of cultural evolution was not absolute and could reverse, but sought to broadly describe three (or possibly, four...
Who in Poland was most responsible for letting the partitions of the 18th Century be successful?	A combination of both. The Polish Sejm in the 18th Century was an extremly inefficient system as any member could veto any bill with just 1 vote. Essentially all it took was the Russians paying off a single member to create a destructive deadlock that allowed for the partitions. The Poles also did try to fight off the ...	[ "The First Partition of Poland took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. Growth in the Russian Empire's power, threatening the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Monarchy, was the primary motive behind this first partition. Frederick...
Brits in the IRA	It depends what you mean by "Brits", technically during 1916 and the War of Independence we were all Brits! James Connolly was born in Scotland to Irish parents and was one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, Sir Roger Casement was, as hit title suggests, knighted for diplomatic service to the Crown. There were many mem...	[ "The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; ) was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a \"workers' republic\" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerged in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of the Troubles, when the...
Why do small children seem to like the color red so much?	This is actually a very interesting question. Newborns show a preference for red over other colors (as measured by preferential looking time) ([Adams, 1987](_URL_0_); [Bornstein, 1976](_URL_1_); although see [Zemach et al. (2007)](_URL_2_) < - sorry, couldn't find non-paywalled versions of some of these). (Note, I thi...	[ "The age when infants begin showing a preference for color is at about 12 weeks old. Generally, children prefer the colors red/pink and blue, and cool colors are preferred over warm colors. Purple is a color favored more by girls than by boys. Color perception of children 3–5 years of age is an indicator of their d...
what if all people with the HIV virus died ?	I knew it had been asked before (the reddit search is worthless), here you go: _URL_0_	[ "In 2008, approximately 1.2 million people in the United States had HIV; 20% did not realize that they were infected. Over the 10-year period from 1999 to 2008, it resulted in about 17,500 deaths per year.\n", "In 2008 in the United States approximately 1.2 million people were living with HIV, resulting in about ...
water damage is horrible for houses. so what about when constructing a house, and it's completely exposed for weeks, and it rains?	Water damage is bad because the house traps moisture in, allowing mold to grow and wood to rot. When a house is incomplete and exposed to air, it is able to dry completely.	[ "Water damage describes a large number of possible losses caused by water intruding where it will enable attack of a material or system by destructive processes such as rotting of wood, growth, rusting of steel, de-laminating of materials such as plywood, and many others.\n", "Urban flooding can cause chronically...
Did the Nazi's ever destroy ancient and/or culturally significant buildings and sites in the same way ISIS are currently going about destroying important buildings in Syria, such as Palmyra?	Yes, they did. The destruction of monuments, artwork,etc. by the Nazis took two different forms. Either they were doing it to humiliate/culturally destroy an occupied people, or they were destroying German monuments/artwork/etc. to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Its also worth noting that the Nazis destroy...	[ "It became known on 4 September 2015 that ISIL had destroyed three of the best preserved tower tombs including the Tower of Elahbel. On 5 October 2015, news media reported that ISIL was destroying buildings with no religious meaning, including the monumental arch. On 20 January 2017, news emerged that the militants...
physical mimicry in nature	Evolution occurs by natural selection. What this means is that, in every generation, some individuals will reproduce and some will not. In this case the key point is whether or not each individual was caught by a predator before it had a chance to do the deed. Therefore it follows that a creature which, by pure rando...	[ "In evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. Often, mimicry functions to protect a species from predators, making it an antipredator ...
how do you distinguish when to use one hyphen and when to use two? (- vs --)	There's actually no such thing as "using two hyphens" -- despite the fact that I just did it! Using two hyphens is a hack to approximate a dash, since most computer keyboards don't have a key for dashes. A hyphen is used to join words ("a dog-friendly cafe") or sometimes numbers, as in a phone number ("555-1212"), a...	[ "A single hyphen is used to indicate a compound. What constitutes a compound is controversial, with some authors equating it to a \"word\" in English, and others not willing to limit it to the English concept of a word. Examples from POJ include \"forty\", \"circus\", and \"recover (from illness)\". The rule-based ...
how does someone determine if a company is a shell company or not?	If the company has no registered assets and doesn't do any business, its a shell.	[ "A shell corporation is a company or corporation that exists only on paper and has no office and no employees, but may have a bank account or may hold passive investments or be the registered owner of assets, such as intellectual property, or ships. Shell companies may be registered to the address of a company that...
Is development of muscle memory partially performed outside the brain?	I think the answer is no. As far as I’m aware there is no evidence of neuroplasticity in the neuromuscular junction or within the muscle. There might be something to say about muscle development (in size/strength and vascularity) and that may contribute to fluent performance of the task (eg playing guitar as per yo...	[ "Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used synonymously with motor learning. When a movement is repeated over time, a long-term muscle memory is created for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed with...
How does an electric arc choose it’s path in air (ex: a lightning bolt or Tesla coil)?	First, watch the video linked by /u/sxbennett - it's an amazing video showing what happens in a lightning strike. I've shown that same video to many others in the past to illustrate what's going on. But in more detail: The air in our atmosphere is non-conducting in general, so charges can build up in two separate loca...	[ "The various shapes of electric arcs are emergent properties of non-linear patterns of current and electric field. The arc occurs in the gas-filled space between two conductive electrodes (often made of tungsten or carbon) and it results in a very high temperature, capable of melting or vaporizing most materials. A...
What are the physics behind different baseball pitches?	My time to shine! There are really extensive posts on the net about it if you just google Magnus Force Baseball, but considering I had something to do with the matter recently, I may as well give you a TL;DR. Essentially, when you throw a ball-like object without any spin, the ball (theoretically) is under an equal dr...	[ "Pitches in different parts of the world have different characteristics. The nature of the pitch plays an important role in the actual game: it may have a significant influence on team selection and other aspects. As the pitch deteriorates throughout a match, this can also have considerable influence on the success...
Why does silica gel absorb water so effectively, and why only water?	I usually work with proteins dissolved in water, but I imagine it is approximately the same mechanism at play. So first, silica gel absorb tons of water because it has a huge specific surface area. We're talking about 800 m^2 /g of silica gel. Our lungs pale in comparison. When something gets wet, water is usually not...	[ "Silica gel's high specific surface area (around 800 m/g) allows it to adsorb water readily, making it useful as a desiccant (drying agent). Silica gel is often described as \"absorbing\" moisture, which may be appropriate when the gel's microscopic structure is ignored, as in silica gel packs or other products. Ho...
How long does it take sedimentary rock to form?	Hello, so this is a great question but the answer is hard to pin down. In general, there are a two processes that go into forming a sedimentary rock: 1) Lithification (i.e. deposition and compaction, weathering etc) The deposition of material which will go on to form the later rock. This could be sand, silt, shell/s...	[ "Many rocks now making up Earth's crust formed less than 100 million (1) years ago; however, the oldest known mineral grains are about 4.4 billion (4.4) years old, indicating that Earth has had a solid crust for at least 4.4 billion years.\n", "The oldest dated rocks on Earth, as an aggregate of minerals that hav...
the rules of rugby	I'll do what I can for you here, but there are some intricacies that will probably be missed: In general, you can't throw the ball in front of you, only directly to your side or a little bit backwards. This is to make you carry the ball across the field, or even to kick it. This is why you see the team with the ball...	[ "Rugby union, widely known simply as rugby, is a contact team sport which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is between two teams of 15 players using an oval-shaped ball on...
how do dictionaries determine the earliest known use of a word?	It's the first "known" use, so they take the first use that they are aware of and put it in. There's no guarantee it's the actual earliest use of the word. If an earlier use of the word shows up, then they will update the entry in the next edition. Most of the first known uses come from old documents.	[ "The earliest dictionaries in the English language were glossaries of French, Spanish or Latin words along with their definitions in English. The word \"dictionary\" was invented by an Englishman called John of Garland in 1220 — he had written a book \"Dictionarius\" to help with Latin \"diction\". An early non-alp...
Why does a piece of cloth act as such a good filter against odors and aromas and gases? Wouldn't the airborn molecules easily pass through the pores?	A piece of regular cloth often isn't a good filter because a lot of molecules, viruses, even bacteria can get through. If you're in a hospital and dealing with a patient with some airborne diseases you need to wear specially constructed masks that are relying on trapping droplets more than individual molecules.	[ "A particulate air filter is a device composed of fibrous or porous materials which removes solid particulates such as dust, pollen, mold, and bacteria from the air. Filters containing an adsorbent or catalyst such as charcoal (carbon) may also remove odors and gaseous pollutants such as volatile organic compounds ...
in cases of mass shootings with one perpetrator, why do witnesses often report seeing multiple attackers?	Gunshots are very loud. That means that they echo in situations where other sounds wouldn't have audible echos. They hear shots from several directions, and tell that to the police, who decide to play it safe and act as though there are multiple attackers.	[ "Because of the layout of the complex and the fact that the attacks took place in different locations, no witness saw the entire sequence of events. Investigation by police and prosecutors showed that approximately a dozen individuals had heard or seen portions of the attack, though none saw or was aware of the ent...
if families like rockefeller and rothschild have are famous for being rich and powerful, how come none of their members appear on rich lists online?	I think there are a couple reasons. First, old families get very adept at hiding their assets. Second, over time the wealth becomes very diffused so not one person holds that much money (i.e. the Vanderbilts). Sort of the opposite of the primogenitor laws of England where all the money stayed concentrated with one p...	[ "While the Rothschild family rose to the status of the wealthiest family of bankers in the 19th century, their wealth was distributed among a number of family members, preventing them from appearing among the wealthiest individuals. The richest among the Rothschilds was the head of its English branch—Nathan Mayer R...
the process of applying to and going to a four year college.	Those are some good questions! It's been a few years since I've had to complete the whole process, but I'll do my best. In order to go to college, you need to do a few things. You need to either be on your way to graduating high school, have already graduated high school, or have a piece of paper called a GED that is ...	[ "The application process takes considerable time and planning since it involves multiple steps, with choices to be made and deadlines to be met. Students file separate applications to each school, although the Common Application expedites the process in many instances. Most undergraduate institutions admit students...
There has been an increase in electric car sales. How do we dispose of their batteries, once their lifespan ends? And would disposing batteries release less pollutants compared to gas engines?	Lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars get worn out when they can only retain about 80% of their charge. That being said these batteries are still perfectly good for other applications like backing up solar or wind power. So these batteries are first repurposed once they can no longer be used for electric cars. A...	[ "A study published in 2011 by the Belfer Center, Harvard University, found that the gasoline costs savings of plug-in electric cars over the vehicles’ lifetimes do not offset their higher purchase prices. This finding was estimated comparing their lifetime net present value at 2010 purchase and operating costs for ...
When you are developing in the womb, how does your body know which way is up?	Hopefully, a developmental biologist will chime in and give you a more detailed response. Until then, I'll give it a go. There are a number of different strategies that organisms use to develop developmental axes - for us chordates, the primary axes are dorsal/ventral (front/back) and anterior/posterior (head to tail(...	[ "In later pregnancy, a complex motion called \"stepping\" develops. This movement consists of circular \"bicycling\" motion of legs, which helps the fetus move to a head-down position in preparation for birth.\n", "Fetal movement refers to motion of a fetus caused by its own muscle activity. Locomotor activity be...
Is it possible to turn electricity (energy) into matter? (metal, for example)	Particle colliders such as the LHC are essentially extremely inefficient machines that turn electricity into particles.	[ "Conventional nuclear reactions such as nuclear fission and nuclear fusion convert relatively small amounts of matter only indirectly into useful energy, such as electricity or rocket thrust. For electricity production released nuclear energy in the form of heat is typically used to boil water to turn a turbine-gen...
If the Hashemites trace their ancestry to Fatimah and Ali, why is the King of Jordan a Sunni Muslim?	I assume you meant 'descendants'. While Shia Islam began with the followers of Ali, Ali was and remains a celebrated figure within Sunni Islam, just like Peter within Protestant Christianity despite Catholics believing him first Pope.	[ "BULLET::::- It is the Islamic tradition that Muhammad, as an Arab, is descended from Abraham's son Ishmael. Jewish tradition also equates the descendants of Ishmael, Ishmaelites, with Arabs, while the descendants of Isaac by Jacob, who was also later known as Israel, are the Israelites.\n", "Fatimah bint Muhamma...
In the time when maps were still rare enough that most people had ever seen one, how much did the average peasant know about the geography of the surrounding world?(their province, island, nation or continent).	FYI, here's a similar recent post (I'm sure there have been others, but this is the only one I could find quickly) [I'm a peasant living in 16th century Britain, what do I know of the world outside my village?](_URL_0_) edit: finished my sentence!	[ "Approximately 500 maps are known between the late-1400s to the mid-1800s; the significant increase in number is due to the advent of the printing press, and few of the mapmakers had travelled to Jerusalem – most of the maps were either copies of others' maps or were imaginary (i.e. based on reading of religious te...
why does the smell of heated food spread easily?	A scent is actually physical particles that have spread out into the air and get inhaled into your nose. Hotter gases or molecules have more energy, and move around much more quickly. That means that the hot food item is sending off more excited particles into the air than a similar cold item. Because these particl...	[ "Substances such as ethanol and capsaicin cause a burning sensation by inducing a trigeminal nerve reaction together with normal taste reception. The sensation of heat is caused by the food's activating nerves that express TRPV1 and TRPA1 receptors. Some such plant-derived compounds that provide this sensation are ...
what's the big deal about the internet of things? why do people think it will change the world, and why do they think it will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars?	It means extending the configurability, extensibility, easy of access, and all the other perks of the Internet to everyday objects. It'll be amazing. Right now it's trivial to integrate your email to your cellphone, or some app to some other service. Imagine your bed talking to your central heating, your coffee machine...	[ "By 2014, over three billion people had gained access to the Internet from around the world. This is a major advance in worldwide access to information and knowledge, but translates to only 42 per cent of the world, leaving most of the world without access. Even those with access are often constrained by technical ...
if you were an English peasant in 1100 (after the Norman conquest) would you life likely be in anyway substantially worse or different than it would have been if lived in the same place 100 years before (before the Norman conquest)?	Ooh! I always like it when something comes up I can answer. I'm going to leave judgement value behind and mainly answer a long the lines of what changed after the Norman Conquest. Now the historiography has been a real long one but around the 20th century, around the rise of inter-disciplinarianism between history and...	[ "The years 1596-98 were the worst for many years for the English population, as bad harvests coincided with outbreaks of disease, as well as a fall in wages which forced many people into starvation. Given the state of the poorest classes, those with property felt threatened by revolt, a fact not helped by the boom ...
How did King Stephen de Blois of England die?	Stephen fell ill with a stomach disorder and died on October 25, 1154, at Dover Priory while traveling. He was buried at Faversham Abbey with his wife Matilda and son Eustace. King, Edmund, King Stephen (The English Monarchs Series) Edit to add the author is a professor at the University of Sheffield. Note: I hav...	[ "After war with the Kingdom of England was renewed in 1415, Charles was one of the many French noblemen at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415. He was discovered unwounded but trapped under a pile of corpses, incapacitated by the weight of his own armour. He was taken prisoner by the English, and spent the n...
why do we often feel more sad when viewing or hearing about animal suffering/death, than we do about the equivalent in humans?	There's a thing called the [Just-World Hypothesis](_URL_0_). Humans want to think that the world is a fair place; so when we hear about something bad happening to someone, there's a tendency to think of a reason they deserved it. The most common moral frameworks don't hold animals accountable for their actions, so ...	[ "Scientific publications have made it clear since the 1980s that the majority of researchers do believe animals suffer and feel pain, though it continues to be argued that their suffering may be reduced by an inability to experience the same dread of anticipation as humans, or to remember the suffering as vividly. ...
why are words like "queue" and "tea" have so many unnecessary letters behind them?	Some of them indicate a specific pronunciation. For example, the ea in "tea" indicates that it should be pronounced with the long e sound ("eeee"). Removing the a from the end would give you te, which could be pronounced "teh", "tay", or "tuh". Others, like queue and colonel, are leftovers from the etymology of ...	[ "BULLET::::- Queuing (getting in line/forming a line) is expected when there is any demand for an item or when waiting to board public transport, and is considered basic manners. Queues are formed on a first there first in line basis. The only exception to this is a pub where people will normally lean on the bar to...
the mindset of very rich people that are trying to get even richer	Some people decide that there is a direct connection between happiness and money. From their perspective, the more money you have, the happier you are. There is no limit to how much happiness money can create, as long as you keep having more money. These people might associate money with love, respect, power, freedom o...	[ "BULLET::::- To foster an inter-dependence among mankind, that \"every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection.\" He explains that the rich are permitted wealth, not for their own benefit, but \"for the glory of his Creator and th...
why do a lot of mentally disabled people look alike?	Typically they have similar genetic defects, thus similar appearance.	[ "Disabled people who are also racial minorities generally have less access to support and are more vulnerable to violent discrimination. For example, in the United States people of color who are mentally ill are more frequently victims of police brutality than their white counterparts. Camille A. Nelson, writing fo...
why does it make sense to design new paper money that is harder to fake, if the old bank notes are still valid?	I'd imagine it's because the old bank notes would be slowly weeded out of circulation, but the process cannot begin without the new bank notes.	[ "Money is tamper-evident in the sense that it should be difficult to produce a financial token without authorization, even if starting from a token of lower value. For example, forgers may attempt to clean the ink from a banknote and print the image of a higher-denomination note on it, giving them the carefully gua...
I have a question about an orbiting system?	There's nothing unusual about that orbit, it just looks odd because it's not relative to the frame of reference of the barycenter of the two bodies. If you were to look at the Earth-Moon system from the perspective of the Sun you would see something similar. The Earth-Moon system travels at 30km/s in orbit around the S...	[ "The state of an orbiting body at any given time is defined by the orbiting body's position and velocity with respect to the central body, which can be represented by the three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates (position of the orbiting body represented by x, y, and z) and the similar Cartesian components of the or...
what types of jobs do people in the cia actually do? how many people actually work as secret agents and whatnot?	There are tons of jobs in the CIA, from accountants and doctors to special operations types. The closest thing to James Bond would be guys from the Special Activities Division, the special operations arm of the CIA. they are recruited nearly exclusively from elite military units and perform similar tasks, such as direc...	[ "The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (the SIS or MI6), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the French foreign intelligence service (DGSE), the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (\"\", SVR), the Chinese Ministry of St...
Remind me - in the early years of World War II, why did so much of the fighting take place in the deserts of north Africa?	Because of the Berlin Conference, many European nations had colonized Africa, including France. France got most of the northern part of Africa, Algeria being a good example. The French fell quickly, and the Italians and Germans wished to take Africa now that it had no army to defend. Not wanting to allow lands and reso...	[ "The arrival of modern colonialism, World War I and World War II brought armies from afar to fight in North Africa, often against each other and not always against the native inhabitants. Battles such as the Tunisia Campaign eventually yielded the first battlefield victories of the Allies of World War II against th...
Are there any society-wide (epidemiological) consequences to the widespread use of flu vaccines?	The epidemiological consequence of widespread use of flu vaccines would be a widespread drop in flu infection rates =) There is no (reputable) evidence that widespread use of vaccines have any significant downside (standard caveats about exceptional or rare side cases apply). As the thread you linked pointed out, vac...	[ "In children, vaccines again showed high efficacy, but low effectiveness in preventing \"flu-like illness\". In children under the age of two, the data are extremely limited, but vaccination appeared to confer no measurable benefit. During the 2017–18 flu season, the CDC director indicated that 85 percent of the ch...
Can a human gain calories from eating common leaves?	The calories that are available to humans even in the leafy greens we eat like spinach aren't much. It would take like 10-15 pounds of spinach per day for you to get enough calories to survive and at that point the amount oxalate you'd be getting would be a serious problem. What makes leafy greens healthy to eat is no...	[ "Although not as nutritious as other organs such as fruit, leaves provide a food source for many organisms. The leaf is a vital source of energy production for the plant, and plants have evolved protection against animals that consume leaves, such as tannins, chemicals which hinder the digestion of proteins and hav...
why are for-profit universities (devry, ashford, phoenix, etc.) under so much scrutiny?	For-profit universities tend to be HUGELY profitable, but there's no real mechanism for shutting them down when they're bad. The government doesn't license higher education, so they have no power to do so. Traditional universities seek accreditation from professional associations, like the AACSB (the Association to A...	[ "Universities have taken a growing interest in creations that have revenue-generating potential, like online classes or lecture slides, while also showing concern for products that may be used by comparable institutions, potentially reducing their competitive advantage. In order to stay on top of others academicall...
Any precedence in US History for a natural disaster effecting a nation-wide election date?	I just did a quick google search and found this: _URL_0_ F. Glenn Abney and Larry B. Hill, "Natural Disasters as a Political Variable: The Effect of a Hurricane on an Urban Election", The American Political Science Review, Vol. 60, No. 4, 1966, pp. 974-981. Apparently, Hurricane Betsy flooded New Orleans pretty bad...	[ "This list of United States natural disasters is a list of notable natural disasters which occurred in the United States from 1816 to 2017. In May 2018, an exhaustive overview of recurrent natural disasters in the United States since 1900, based largely on government data, including data from NASA, FEMA and others,...
how does a common cold give me a headache?	The cold virus reproduces by hijacking the genetic machinery of host cells and causing host cells to manufacture copies of the virus. The virus then destroys the host cell outer membrane so that copies of the virus can escape the host cell and infect other cells. When the host cell membrane is destroyed, the contents ...	[ "It is possible to suffer from a cold-stimulus headache in both hot and cold weather, because the effect relies upon the temperature of the food being consumed rather than that of the environment. Other causes that may mimic the sensation of cold-stimulus headache include that produced when high speed drilling is p...
When will humans reach carrying capacity?	depends on how you weight different things, whether or not we implement population control, when/whether we develop various technologies, whether or not we adopt certain cultural/lifestyle changes like heavily cutting down on meat consumption. some estimates say we passed it, some say we have yet to pass it, some say ...	[ "Carrying capacity was originally used to determine the number of animals that could graze on a segment of land without destroying it. Later, the idea was expanded to more complex populations, like humans. For the human population, more complex variables such as sanitation and medical care are sometimes considered ...
What Limits Our Running Speed	There are two ways to answer this, physics and biology. Power required for acceleration increases exponentially with speed. Meaning that it takes significantly more power to accelerate from 18 to 20 mph than it does to accelerate from 8 to 10 mph. This is why almost anybody can run 15 mph but very few people can run 2...	[ "Limitations of animal running speed provides an overview of how various factors determine the maximum running speed. Some terrestrial animals are built for achieving extremely high speeds, such as the cheetah, pronghorn, race horse and greyhound, while humans can train to achieve high sprint speeds. There is no si...
erdogan's politics. turkey is a democratic country, why is he still in power?	He is in power because more people support him than oppose him. Turkey is, in a way, an extreme form of the US in that it's split between eastern turkey and western turkey. Eastern Turkey is very islamic and the entire country has tilted that way several times since Ataturk created a secular nation. Erdogan plays to th...	[ "Turkey considers itself a democratic country with a Prime Minister as the head of the government. Its political system is based on the separation of powers. Specifically, the executive branch consists of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers.\n", "Turkey is a presidential democracy with a multi-party s...
Did FDR campaign to Hoover's right during the 1932 election?	No, FDR did not campaign to the right of Hoover in 1932. He campaigned very much to the left of him. However, the Democrats did call Hoover a "Socialist" during the 1932 campaign, but not for the reasons you assume. The attack was political payback for what had happened four years earlier. In 1928, Herbert Hoover ra...	[ "Hoover's attempts to vindicate his administration fell on deaf ears, as much of the public blamed his administration for the depression. Roosevelt won 57.4 percent of the popular vote compared to Hoover's 39.7 percent. Hoover's popular vote was reduced by 26 percentage points from his result in the 1928 election, ...
Why did Davy Crockett oppose the Indian Removal Act?	This one is pretty straightforward. Crockett was a Whig, and the Whigs were against it. He doesn't seem like he would have been a Whig. Outwardly he seemed the epitome of a Jacksonian Democrat, being a self-made man of humble origins from the new western states ( even Jackson's home state of Tennessee). This he fou...	[ "The effect that Evarts's activism for the rights of indigenous peoples had on U.S. foreign policy through his son, William M. Evarts who was Secretary of State during the Hayes administration (1877-1881), is a question for historians. The moral and religious arguments that Evarts used against the Indian Removal Ac...
the end of the movie stanley kubrik's "the shining"	i assumed he was possessed by the spirit of the previous caretaker. basically the hotel is evil and the spirits inside consume him. the photo appears after his death- and now he is one of the ghosts doomed to haunt the hotel.	[ "In \"Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures\", Jack Nicholson recalls that Kubrick said \"The Shining\" is an overall optimistic story because \"anything that says there's anything after death is ultimately an optimistic story.\" Stephen King recounts hearing the same thing from Kubrick in conversation with him, and ...
if the universe is infinite, why is there doubt that there are other lifeforms?	The universe being infinite doesn't necessitate that everything happen in that universe. A unique event could still exist. Nor do we know the starting conditions of life, and with a sample size of one, we have no easy way to assign probability to its occurrence.	[ "According to Avicenna, the universe consists of a chain of actual beings, each giving existence to the one below it and responsible for the existence of the rest of the chain below. Because an actual infinite is deemed impossible by Avicenna, this chain as a whole must terminate in a being that is wholly simple an...
How many years do you reckon it would take good ole earth to repair itself from a nuclear holocaust?	In most of the models the southern hemisphere would be pretty much fine as the fallout, aerosols, and particulates would just swirl with the jet stream around the northern hemisphere. All the radioactive fallout would be gone pretty fast, the nuclear winter would be over after a few years, and then you'd have a nuclear...	[ "Decommissioning a reactor that has undergone a meltdown is inevitably more difficult and expensive. Three Mile Island was decommissioned 14 years after its incident for $837 million. The cost of the Fukushima disaster cleanup is not yet known, but has been estimated to cost around $100 billion. Chernobyl is not ye...
if a hospital has to be evacuated, what happens to patients that are in the middle of surgery?	Standard practice would be to get them stable enough for transfer. There would be a lot of variables depending on the type of surgery, and how far along they were in it. Evacuation of a building as large as a hospital is not a fast process so they would likely have time to get the surgery far enough along to keep the p...	[ "Patients who are waiting for surgery depend on the availability of the operating theater, and if any patient getting treatment in that room takes longer than scheduled, all patients who are waiting to be next must wait beyond their appointed time. It can be difficult to maximize efficient use of the operating room...
If we knew the exact positions of all particles in the universe, and simulated the universe on a computer starting at those positions with the time sped up, would we effectively be predicting the future?	No. Since I'm on the phone, this is going to be a bit terse (and linkless) but here we go. 1. Just the position of all the particles doesn't fully quantify the system. You need velocities too. 2. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says you can't jointly know the exact position and velocity of any particle, let al...	[ "From the time of Newton until about 1890, it was generally believed that if one knows the initial state of a system with great accuracy, and if all the forces acting on the system can be formulated with equal accuracy, it would be possible, in principle, to make predictions of the state of the universe for an infi...
What was it like in Post-Revolutionary War America in terms of establishing government, democracy, and popular opinion?	Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this! There were a number of questions facing the United States after the War ended. There was a nominal national government in the form of the Continental Congress, but it had barely survived the war and was in many ways powerless. Arguably the most immediate issue facing the ne...	[ "After the success of the American Revolution, the independent United States government of the former colonies was confronted by its own tax resistance campaigns. Three were suppressed militarily by the fledgling United States government:\n", "The American Revolution resulted in a government based on popular sove...
Do fat people have more muscle as they have to move more weight around?	[_URL_0_](_URL_0_) "The consensus is that obese individuals, regardless of age, have a greater absolute maximum muscle strength compared to non-obese persons, suggesting that increased adiposity acts as a chronic overload stimulus on the antigravity muscles (e.g., quadriceps and calf), thus increasing muscle size ...	[ "All body shapes are different, meaning, people carry fat in different places. Some locations on the body are more metabolically active than others, and those areas will lose weight quicker than those that are not as metabolically active. For many people, abdominal fat is more metabolically active, and can be reduc...
why are people able to get away by not paying child support?	It's very difficult to get someone jailed for not paying what they owe. You have to prove that they could pay but choose not to; even when that's possible, we're generally uncomfortable with the idea of jailing people for not paying debts. The other solution is taking their money. But we don't think it's okay for th...	[ "In some cases, relatives who bring up a child when the parents cannot bring up the child face sanctions and financial penalties, they can be left poor and homeless. There are also widespread complaints from church groups and others that the UK welfare state does insufficient work to prevent poverty, deprivation ev...
ancient languages deciphered	Your specific example of Sanskrit actually never needed to be “discovered”, because people didn’t stop using it. It became kind of like Latin for India and Asia, and continued to be studied by scholars throughout the centuries. That said, language changes over time, and linguists do have to do some detective work to f...	[ "In the case of Bronze Age literature, philology includes the prior decipherment of the language under study. This has notably been the case with the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Hittite, Ugaritic and Luwian languages. Beginning with the famous decipherment and translation of the Rosetta Stone by Jean-François Cha...
how do football clubs know who in a stadium has committed an offence in order to ban them?	CCTV surveillance and a security staff. There is usually at least one guard per section watching the crowd.	[ "In the case of a player repeatedly infringing the laws during the penalty kick, the referee may caution the player for persistent infringement. Note that \"all\" offences that occur before kick may be dealt with in this manner, regardless of the location of the offence.\n", "In case of an infringement of the law...
why does draining a large body of water cause it to form a vortex?	The vortex that forms is caused by the physical principle called angular momentum. Let us assume a straight walled circular pond, with a drain at the center bottom. As the water begins to drain, the flow of water comes from the edges towards the center. This creates momentum at an angle from the direction the water is ...	[ "Channel related drifts form when deepwater bottom-currents are confined to a smaller cross sectional area of flow and therefore their velocity increases substantially. This can happen if the deepwater bottom-current is trapped within a deep channel or within a gateway that connects two basins. Due to the high velo...
why is the us national debt/spending preventing businesses from creating jobs?	Yeah, it's kind of convoluted. The argument is that if federal spending goes unchecked, then people will have less faith in the government's ability to repay its debts. If that's the case, then people will be less willing to buy treasury bonds, and so the interest rates will go up. Since every other interest rate (in ...	[ "Debt held by the public is important because it reflects the extent to which the government goes into private credit markets to borrow. Such borrowing draws on private national saving and international saving, and therefore competes with investment in the nongovernmental sector (for factories and equipment, resear...
austerity	Austerity as in, "austerity measures" is the general idea of cutting government spending on benefits and public spending. This can include everything from social security to unemployment to (government) pensions. So the basic idea behind austerity is to reign in spending. If your government spends more than it mak...	[ "Austerity is a political-economic term referring to policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. Austerity measures are used by governments that find it difficult to pay their debts. The measures are meant to reduce the budget deficit by bri...
How does the brain decide the "best" way to recite long strings of numbers/alpha-numeric characters?	There's a psychological principle known as chunking by which people tend to automatically or at will divide large, unmanageable amounts of information into smaller, more useful pieces or chunks for the purpose of memorizing data. Think of a phone number. You don't remember Jenny's phone number as 4258675309, it's 425-...	[ "Once the algorithm is understood, one can type almost any character with a little practice, even if one hasn't typed it before. Muscle memory will make sure that frequent typists using this method don't have to think about how the characters are actually constructed, just as the vast majority of English typists do...
How can cancer be Sexually Transmitted?	Think of it as more like a bacterial infection or parasite. These cancers started out at one point as a typical cancer in one animal. Somehow as the cancer developed rather than the usual mutations that just allow it to grow faster and metastasize, it also picked up changes that allowed it avoid being recognized as for...	[ "Like many malignancies, penile cancer can spread to other parts of the body. It is usually a primary malignancy, the initial place from which a cancer spreads in the body. Much less often it is a secondary malignancy, one in which the cancer has spread to the penis from elsewhere. The staging of penile cancer is d...
If flies and bees were biting raw chicken outside, then it were to later be cooked, would that be a health risk?	It would be more dangerous if they landed on cooked food which was then eaten. Flies can carry harmful bacteria, but assuming the food is cooked quickly and thoroughly after contamination, the bacteria will not have had enough time to produce enough harmful toxins to make someone sick, and the bacteria will be dead so ...	[ "A 2012 chicken meat study found 60% of home cooks were at risk of food poisoning by washing whole poultry before it was cooked, which can spread bacteria around the kitchen. A further 16% of those surveyed incorrectly tasted chicken to see if it was cooked properly rather than using a safe meat thermometer.\n", ...
What drove the Ottomans to declare war in the first Balkan war before they could fully mobilize?	Your understanding of the beginning of the First Balkan War is not correct. There was no ultimatum: the war started when Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire on October 8. 1912 and the rest of the Balkan Coalition (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece) joined soon afterwards.	[ "The opening stages of the First Balkan War began with decisive Allied victories in both Thrace and Macedonia. Within a month, the Ottomans found themselves driven back by the Bulgarians to within 40 kilometers of Constantinople and badly beaten by the Serbians and the Greeks. A short armistice brought no conclusio...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.