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What is definitely known about the subconscious/unconscious?	So first, both subconscious and unconscious, like nearly every other word used in psychology, are just handy descriptors with arbitrary and changeable definitions, they aren't like "gravity" or something where there's some kind of measurable physical constant. Depending upon which definition you happen to be using you...	[ "Charles Rycroft explains that the subconscious is a term \"never used in psychoanalytic writings\". Peter Gay says that the use of the term subconscious where unconscious is meant is \"a common and telling mistake\"; indeed, \"when [the term] is employed to say something 'Freudian', it is proof that the writer has...
how does science disprove religion?	It doesn't. Science and religion address and cover completely different things. Religious people, who say otherwise, are stupid and atheists, who say otherwise, are stupid.	[ "In a dissertation on faith and doubt, Raman says one of the reasons for the incompatibility of science and religion is that in science \"one believes what one sees, whereas in religion one sees what one believes in\". Science relies on data for its belief and religion on intuition. Faith is a necessary component i...
If I could physically manipulate atoms, how much force would it take to smash or combine two?	Warning: Not a particle physicist. First, for colliding hydrogen and oxygen to make water, that's not exactly what happens. When you add a certain amount of energy to hydrogen and oxygen (the activation energy), they are able to break up and recombine to form water and heat. This reaction is not a direct collision, it...	[ "The explosive power of a fully moderated explosion is thus limited, at worst it may be equal to a chemical explosive of similar mass. Again quoting Heisenberg: \"One can never make an explosive with slow neutrons, not even with the heavy water machine, as then the neutrons only go with thermal speed, with the resu...
What did the Romans ever do for the Ancient Israelis?	Well we do know about a rather large ramp construction up to Masada due to Flavius Josephus but that was military rather than civilian! Caesarea was s provincial capital back in Roman Judea. According to Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, it was rebuilt under Herod/Roman Rule and the Romans with the full works: Amph...	[ "The museum traces the history of the Jews and, in particular, their relationship with Rome. This goes back to the time of Judas Maccabeus who, in the mid-2nd century BCE, petitioned Rome for help in opposing the Hellenistic Kings to restore Jewish worship in Jerusalem. According to tradition the two ambassadors se...
why does water make white t-shirts see-through?	_URL_0_ To sum up the article (correct me if I'm wrong), it's basically about the complexity of the material and how many surfaces there are. Cloth is made up of lots of fibers all woven together, so there are a lot of air-cloth surfaces in there. So when light hits the cloth, it gets bounced all about in lots of dir...	[ "Grey water (also written; greywater, gray water, or graywater) is water used with appliances that do not involve or encounter human waste. It gets its name relative to black water which is heavily contaminated with human waste. Different resources suggest what equipment produce grey or black water. However, it is ...
What is the largest non-self-propelling object that we can shoot into Low Earth Orbit?	You actually can't get anything into the orbit of earth without a small rocket. Not because of a not powerful gun, we could get to orbital velocity just fine. However, the apoapsis would still be in the atmosphere where the cannon was fired, so you would have to do a small burn at periapsis to raise the apoapsis and ci...	[ "The orbit would be around 150km in altitude. Energetically, this would require a launch vehicle powerful enough to be capable of putting the weapon 'into orbit'. However the orbit was only a fraction of a full orbit, not sustained, and so there would be much less need to control a precise orbit, or to maintain it ...
was black and white as a film medium necessary before the evolution of colour?	There are a couple reasons we couldn't really have jumped straight to color film. One is that early photographic film was sensitive only to blue-green, blue, violet, and ultraviolet - so we had no way of recording red light. We could never make full-color pictures without a dye sensitive to red light. Another reason...	[ "Monochrome (black and white) photography was first exemplified by the daguerreotype in 1839 and later improved by other methods including: calotype, ambrotype, tintype, albumen print and gelatin silver print. The majority of photography remained monochrome until the mid-20th century, although experiments were prod...
What was the strength of the post-WWI German Monarchists movement and is there any meaningful support for it still?	I'm not going to delete this question since it does seem to be predominantly historical, but it is a borderline case. The last half of this question does violate our pre-1993 rule. For commenters: Please only make analysis on historical German Monarchism. While you can quickly answer the second part of the question...	[ "Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 led to the German Revolution. The Hohenzollerns were overthrown and the Weimar Republic was established, thus bringing an end to the German monarchy. Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is the current head of the royal Prussian line, while Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzolle...
Is blue cheese mould benign because it's in very small quantities, or because it's a different kind of mould? Can you get ill from eating too much?	It's a non-pathogenic mold so knock yourself out.	[ "The mould \"Penicillium roqueforti\" contributes the blue coloration and much of the flavour in blue cheeses such as Roquefort and Stilton. Mould fungi are processed to produce vegetarian meat substitutes such as Quorn.\n", "The rind is normally natural, clean and a yellowy straw colour. It may be oiled with oli...
what is needed to get matter to being a bose-einstein condensate, the least known about state of matter?	You want bosons in a system(usually weakly or noninteracting- typically using a dilute gas) at a low enough temperature. At it's core, a BEC is a bunch of bosons sitting in the same ground state. You want bosons as opposed to fermions because Pauli exclusion won't allow fermions to all chill in the same ground state....	[ "Compared to more commonly encountered states of matter, Bose–Einstein condensates are extremely fragile. The slightest interaction with the external environment can be enough to warm them past the condensation threshold, eliminating their interesting properties and forming a normal gas.\n", "In 1995, a gas of ru...
Why is the elementary charge not redefined to be one-third of its current value to avoid the fractional charges of the quarks?	> Why is the elementary charge its current value instead of one-third, so that the charge of any fundamental particle is truly elementary? Is it a matter of historical convention, so that -e is the charge of the electron? We discovered protons and electrons a long time before we discovered quarks and their fractional...	[ "In particle physics, the X-charge (or simply X) is a conserved quantum number associated with the SO(10) grand unification theory. It is thought to be conserved in strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational and Higgs interactions. Because the X-charge is related to the weak hypercharge, it varies depending on...
How would one enroll in a Medieval University, and how did they pay for it?	I'm only familiar with the ~11/12th century universitas and its creation, so I can't answer for later schools. Enrollment, prices, and payments depended on what school you went to. “School” meant one charismatic master surrounded by students in a university town. Many of these students were foreign, so to protect th...	[ "The medieval universities formed as guilds of masters (teachers) and/or students on the model established by the crafts guilds. Once the scholars were able to receive a charter, they would begin negotiations with municipal authorities to secure fair rents for lecture halls and other concessions. Because they had n...
how does a space telescope judge distance?	Parallax is the most common type for near-ish objects. Put something in front of you. Look at it with only one eye open, then the other. You notice how you can use those two slightly different images to judge the distance? That's *basically* how we do it for nearby objects too. We can look at a star from one poin...	[ "BULLET::::- NASA astronomers report that the Hubble Space Telescope can now precisely measure distances up to 10,000 light-years away by using spatial scanning, a ten-fold improvement over earlier measurements. ()\n", "The parallax method is the fundamental calibration step for distance determination in astrophy...
How can photons move in waves if they have a constant speed?	Photons don't move in waves. Photons are waves. Well, kind of. Photons act like particles in some circumstances. They act like waves in other circumstances. The truth is that they're quantum objects that have some properties that are analogous to those of particles, and some properties that are analogous t...	[ "Individually, each of these waves travels at the speed of light in vacuum, \"not\" at the (slower) speed of light in glass. Yet when the waves are added up, they surprisingly create \"only\" a wave that travels at the slower speed.\n", "Signal velocity is usually equal to group velocity (the speed of a short \"p...
If the U.S. Constitution framers were so concerned about federal government asserting to much power and the executive (Presidential) branch becoming a Monarch, how come they didn't establish term limits on the Executive branch?	The issue came up multiple times in the Constitutional Convention, as well as the Ratification debates. 1. They believed voting was enough to counter any bad side-effects of no term limits. People would only vote for Presidents if they didn't think they were a tyrant. If they did do something tyrant-like, they could...	[ "The balance of federal powers and those powers held by the states as defined in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution was first addressed in the case of \"McCulloch v. Maryland\" (1819). The Court's decision by Chief Justice John Marshall asserted that the laws adopted by the federal government, when exerc...
What caused the Turkic migrations? In the 7th century, they seemingly were mostly confined to the steppes. By the 11th century, Turkic states, mercenaries and slave-soldiers were everywhere throughout the Middle East and dominated the political scene. What happened?	Phew, good question. Bear with me as I try to help you understand this situation. (part 1) Turkic Confederations Luckily for us, Persian chroniclers tell us that in the 10th century, the lands of modern-day Northern Kazakhstan are shared by a Nomadic Steppe people known as the Kirghiz and the Kazakhs. A bit West ...	[ "In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus' state to the south and east. Like many ot...
how does an iv drip work? how does the body accept and process that fluid?	It's a windy day outside. You're holding a glass of water and turn it over. The water spills out. Does it fall straight down? No - it falls at angle in the direction the wind is blowing. This is similar to the fluid entering your blood. When the needle enters the vessel, the fast moving blood "pulls" the fluid out of...	[ "A standard IV infusion set consists of a pre-filled, sterile container (glass bottle, plastic bottle or plastic bag) of fluids with an attachment that allows the fluid to flow one drop at a time, making it easy to see the flow rate (and also reducing air bubbles); a long sterile tube with a clamp to regulate or st...
How did KGB spies work there way through the U.S.? Did the Red Scare actually help in their capture?	First off, are you familiar with the declassification of VENONA? During that period, the Soviet relied on one-time pads to send ciphers. Given that WW2 demanded many more ciphers for military ops, the Soviets ended up having to recycle some pads. Once you start recycling crypto, it becomes crackable. By 1944, the e...	[ "During the Cold War, the KGB (and allied services, including the East German Stasi under Markus Wolf, and the Cuban Intelligence Directorate [formerly known as Dirección General de Inteligencia or DGI]) frequently sought to entrap CIA officers. The KGB believed that Americans were sex-obsessed materialists, and th...
why can my phone not connect to two different bluetooth devices?	It should, devices have been able to connect through multiple Bluetooth channels since like 2.1. My smart watch is always connected via bluetooth, and then I can pair my earbuds with no issue. If you're specifically talking about like, bluetooth speakers, then the device has to support it (The speakers, not your phone...	[ "Because the Bluetooth system hops over 79 channels, the probability of interfering with another Bluetooth system is less than 1.5%. This allows several Bluetooth piconets to operate in the same area at the same time with minimal interference.\n", "Bluetooth exists in numerous products such as telephones, speaker...
what would happen to the economy if the entire world decided diamonds, gold, silver, etc were worthless?	Well they all have uses in everyday products, so their value would be re-evaluated. As for any country with a gold standard, their economy would most likely crash.	[ "Imbalances in international trade were theoretically rectified automatically by the gold standard. A country with a deficit would have depleted gold reserves and would thus have to reduce its money supply. The resulting fall in demand would reduce imports and the lowering of prices would boost exports; thus the de...
overthrow of hawaii monarchy	Sugar cane farming was the major export from Hawaii. White American plantation owners moved over in mass in the mid-1800's. Along with the plantation owners came American missionaries. The powerful influence of religion and profit doomed the Hawaiian Monarchy in the long term. There were a lot of arguments and a fe...	[ "Following the proroguing of the legislature and the unsuccessful attempts of the queen to promulgate a new constitution, the monarchy was overthrow on January 17, 1893. After a brief transition under the Provisional Government, the oligarchical Republic of Hawaii was established on July 4, 1894. During this period...
Why did the Fukushima nuclear plant switch to using fresh water after the accident?	Salt is corrosive. As water boils in the core, the salt concentrates, and you get deposits that impinge heat transfer. With enough salt you can eventually have molten salt which is harder to manage. If you had any intact fuel, the salt and sediment from raw water will plug the fuel inlet debris strainers, preventing ad...	[ "A year after the accident it was announced that even the water of the Chernobyl plant's cooling pond was within acceptable norms. Despite this, two months after the disaster the Kiev water supply was switched from the Dnieper to the Desna River. Meanwhile, massive silt traps were constructed, along with an enormou...
Why was a revolver type mechanism never adopted for military rifles?	There were military issued revolving cylinder mechanisms on rifles. _URL_0_ There's one example used in the Civil War- over 4 thousand were purchased for the Civil War, and it was used at some level by both sides. The issue was basically cost and reliability. The carbine had a reputation for discharging all i...	[ "Most modern revolvers are \"traditional double-action\", which means they may operate either in single-action or self-cocking mode. The accepted meaning of \"double-action\" has, confusingly, come to be the same as \"self-cocking\", so modern revolvers that cannot be pre-cocked are called \"double-action-only\". T...
the manti te'o situation.	Manti Te'o is a very good American college football player for the University of Notre Dame. He plays linebacker, a defensive position, and plays it so well that he was voted second place for the very important Heisman Trophy, a prize that defensive players almost never win. In September, Manti told a bunch of people ...	[ "The Mensalão scandal () took place in Brazil in 2005 and threatened to bring down the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. \"Mensalão\" is a neologism and variant of the word for \"big monthly payment\" (\"salário mensal\" or \"mensalidade\").\n", "Brazil, which has been considered \"yet another clear sign t...
When an embryo is developing, how do the first few cells "decide" which end will be the head and which end will be the feet?	After the blastula, the embryo undergoes gastrulation where the germ layers are formed. These 3 germ layers will become all the different body tissues, and I'd recommend reading up on [germ layers](_URL_0_). Cells that differentiate do so by signalling cues from other cells through the process of signal transduction. T...	[ "Following this, a narrow line of cells appears on the surface on the embryo. Its growth makes the embryo undergo gastrulation, in which the three primary tissue layers of the fetus, the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm, develop. The narrow line of cells begin to form the endoderm and mesoderm. The ectoderm begins ...
when you buy land, what do you actually own in terms of height and depth? and who dictates this?	Well, first off it's important to note that the land may not include mineral rights. So you can purchase the land, but you may not have the rights to any valuable things in it, like oil or gold or whatever. From a practical view, you own enough land beneath the ground level, and enough air above the ground level, for ...	[ "Ownership of land can be held separately from the ownership of rights over that land, including sporting rights, mineral rights, development rights, air rights, and such other rights as may be worth segregating from simple land ownership.\n", "The definition of land can include the buildings situated upon the la...
Why didn't the US Civil War get as trench-y as WW1?	simple answer is -- a combination of technology, geography, and European military doctrine. Generally what you said. At the outbreak of WWI, European commanders still engaged in battles characterized by large units of soldiers directly engaging each other. However, new advances in weaponry made these tactics impract...	[ "Another example of trench warfare after World Wars I and II was the Iran–Iraq War, in which both armies lacked training in combined arms operations. However, both countries often prepared entrenched defensive positions and underground tunnels to protect and supply the cities and bases throughout the regions. Anoth...
how is it determined that a very specific chemical or food (e.g. bacon) causes cancer?	Salt cured pork belly doesn't cause cancer. Nitrite and nitrate preservatives used in bacon making causes cancer. These interact with the red meat cells to make N-nitroso compounds, which cause cancer in bowels	[ "Starting in the 1970s, Dr. Weinstein was among the first groups of researchers to make the connection between chemical compounds that are commonly found in the environment and their cancer-causing potential by identifying carcinogens that would be able to find molecular targets in the body. Weinstein investigated ...
What's the difference between Special Relativity and the Lorentz transformations?	The Lorentz transformations are an integral part of SR. They are how you transform between different inertial reference frames.	[ "In relativistic physics, Lorentz symmetry, named after Hendrik Lorentz, is an equivalence of observation or observational symmetry due to special relativity implying that the laws of physics stay the same for all observers that are moving with respect to one another within an inertial frame. It has also been descr...
the situation at standing rock	As far as my understanding, it's being built on land that's been procured by the army corp of engineers, so technically private. The Sioux of that area say the land was taken from them in violation of a treaty, some years ago. Their main concern is that it will go under the Missouri River, a vital life source to the tr...	[ "Rockfall, caused by ice jacking during freeze-thaw cycles in the Rocky Mountains, is cited as a \"chronic hazard\" at over 750 locations by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). On May 24, 2019, a rockfall from a mountain ledge occurred at milepost 22 of SH 145 near Dolores, completely covering and clo...
re-financing my mortgage	Okay, he means no money out of pocket. All those closing costs would get rolled into your loan, slightly driving up the principal(what you owe). What you want to do is get the breakdown of what it will really cost,and calculate your break even point (the point where your savings on your payments offsets the extra c...	[ "BULLET::::- Even though the mortgage is 30 years, the borrower could theoretically pay off the loan earlier than 30 years, and will usually do so when rates have gone down, forcing the investor to have to reinvest his money at lower interest rates, something he may have not planned for. This is known as \"prepayme...
How far above the earth does gravity lose its pull?	In a Newtonian picture, if we had just the Earth, the gravitational influence of a body extends infinitely out and just falls off as things get further away. Incorporating the sun and other solar system bodies, we can ask when the Sun's influence begins to dominate Earth's influence. Specifically, we can look for Ea...	[ "The gravity of Earth is the acceleration that is imparted to objects due to the distribution of mass within the Earth. Near the Earth's surface, gravitational acceleration is approximately . Local differences in topography, geology, and deeper tectonic structure cause local and broad, regional differences in the E...
Historically, are USSR and Soviet Union synonymous?	I believe your teacher is incorrect. Russia is not the same as the USSR as Russia is one republic in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Perhaps that is what your teacher meant. Unless there's some obscure nuance I'm unaware of the USSR and the Soviet Union are the same thing.	[ "The Soviet Union (or more formally USSR – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was established in 1922 as a federation of nationalities, which eventually came to encompass 15 major national territories, each organized as a Union-level republic (Soviet Socialist Republic or SSR). All 15 national republics, crea...
How many of the French aristocrats who fled to England/Austria/wherever after the Revolution of eventually managed to come back to France? Did Napoleon allow any of them to return?	Yay! My dissertation is relevant! Over the course of the decade 1789-1799, over 150,000 _émigrés_ fled France - some voluntarily when feudal privileges were abolished in August 1789, others forcibly as political refugees. About a quarter of those were clergy who refused to take the [Civil Oath](_URL_0_). About 25,0...	[ "The demise of Maximilien Robespierre in 1795 provided a brief window of opportunity for French Royalists at home and abroad. For example, those who had participated in the Vendée uprising were able to communicate with their supporters in Great Britain. These rebels, in collaboration with their British allies, atte...
How does the optic nerve know what color a particular photoreceptor in the eye is responsible for?	tl;dr - color information is relayed by ganglion cells, not photoreceptors, to the brain. Once there, we don't really know how color information is organized other than input from different kinds of ganglion cells goes to different layers of primary visual cortex (V1), but then is ultimately combined anyway in blobs in...	[ "Retinal is a conjugated chromophore. In the human eye, retinal begins in an 11-\"cis\"-retinal configuration, which, upon capturing a photon of the correct wavelength, straightens out into an all-\"trans\"-retinal configuration. This configuration change pushes against an opsin protein in the retina, which trigger...
if calories in = calories out, what difference would 3000 calories of bread compared to 3000 calories of protein have in terms of weight loss?	So long as you are getting all of the nutrients you need in the day there is no practical difference between sources of calories and it is the raw number in compared to the amount of energy you are burning that matters.	[ "A single serving of 44.0 g has 96 Calories (kilocalories), 1.0 g of fat, but no trans or saturated fat, 1.0 mg of sodium, 22.0 g of carbohydrates, 0 g of dietary fiber, 6.0 g of sugar, and 1.0 g of protein.\n", "In 100 grams, wheat provides 327 kilocalories and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, D...
why do i get sick from old raw chicken, even if i cook the hell out of it?	> Considering germs are supposed to die at a relatively low temperature (i.e., less that 200 degrees) At that point, it's not the germs you have to worry about. Rather, it's the toxic chemicals that they release as part of their metabolism. Cooking doesn't help with that.	[ "People have reacted by buying less chicken, causing poultry sales and prices to fall. Many individuals have stockpiled supplies for a possible flu pandemic. International health officials and other experts have pointed out that many unknown questions still hover around the disease.\n", "A 2012 chicken meat study...
why are some u.s. cities, like nyc, designed in a nice grid-system while others, like boston, look like something a drunken toddler with a magic marker drew on his parents' walls?	Some cities' roads were planned in advance - SLC and Chicago are good examples. They laid out the streets in a grid BEFORE people started building roads, houses, etc. In the case of Boston (and many old cities in New England, Europe and elsewhere) the cities were not really planned in advance. The roads at the time...	[ "The neighborhood is also notable for its unusual street grid. The original street plan was based upon Lenape Indian paths and the boundaries of Dutch farms. In 1839, this was redrawn to better match the rest of Brooklyn, resulting in several buildings that are oddly-shaped or face the street at an angle.\n", "Li...
do animals in the wild fail to produce milk in the same way as humans?	Yes, some mothers fail to produce milk, especially in hard times when food is less available. And, yes, those babies generally just die. Sometimes they're abandoned before they die because mom is desperate for food herself and can't afford to keep trying to produce inadequate milk. Baby's going to die anyway, it's bett...	[ "Milk from other mammalian species (goat, sheep, etc.) should not be used as a substitute for cow's milk, as milk proteins from other mammals are often cross-reactive. Nevertheless, some people with cow's milk allergy can tolerate goat’s or sheep’s milk, and vice versa. Milk from camels, pigs, reindeer, horses, and...
I have heard that people before the 20th century drank huge amounts of alcohol from an early age because water was not safe to drink otherwise. If this is true, how did teetotal groups (most obviously, Muslims) survive?	You may find [this AskHistorians thread](_URL_0_) from a few years ago has some discussion on yhe subject, at least until this one takes off.	[ "At times and places of poor public sanitation (such as Medieval Europe), the consumption of alcoholic drinks was a way of avoiding water-borne diseases such as cholera. Small beer and faux wine in particular, were used for this purpose. Although alcohol kills bacteria, its low concentration in these beverages woul...
Do insects get thirsty?	Insects do require water for their metabolism. However, they are very small and have an exoskeleton, which means they do not lose much water through evaporation. Their water requirements are therefore rather low. Many insects obtain enough water from their diet, for example when they feed on plant leaves. Small raindro...	[ "Another possible source contributing to higher levels of initial body water in insects is hemolymph volume. The insect equivalent to blood, hemolymph is the fluid found within the hemocoel, and is the largest pool of extracellular water within the insect body. In the fruit-fly \"Drosophila melanogaster\", flies se...
Why don't astronauts use steroids to prevent muscle atrophy?	Likely because steroid use comes with its own set of drawbacks and side effects. Seeing as space travel is already quite unhealthy (i.e. radiological hazard is higher), its not a good idea to introduce even more potential problems.	[ "BULLET::::- Barbiturates and Benzodiazepines are both very strong sedatives. While they certainly would work (at least short term) in helping astronauts sleep, they have side effects that could affect the astronaut's ability to perform his/her job, especially in the \"morning.\" This side effect renders barbiturat...
Do nonlinear differential equations truly have no analytic solutions or have we just not discovered a method of solving them?	We don't have any general solution, but it doesn't mean we don't know how to solve some of them.	[ "Many differential equations cannot be solved using symbolic computation (\"analysis\"). For practical purposes, however – such as in engineering – a numeric approximation to the solution is often sufficient. The algorithms studied here can be used to compute such an approximation. An alternative method is to use t...
why do high schools and colleges press so hard on learning a second language?	Partly because it is a unique opportunity. It is very hard to learn a second language as a adult. The best time to do so is early childhood, failing at that, it takes the sort of dedicated, repeated classroom time you'll rarely find outside of an academic setting. If you ever want to learn a second language, that is...	[ "In some countries, such as Australia, it is so common nowadays for a foreign language to be taught in schools that the subject of language education is referred to LOTE or Language Other Than English. In the majority of English-speaking education centers, French, Spanish and German are the most popular languages t...
How did people of Rome at the time react to Paul's Epistle to the Romans?	Do you mean the church in Rome? There is no direct evidence for this. The best I suppose one could do would be to analyse 1 Clement which appears to be from an elder in Rome to the church in Corinth, and would provide some very indirect evidence on the church of Rome, but even this is dated to late 1st century/early 2n...	[ "Protests against Rome began in earnest when Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and professor at the university of Wittenberg, called in 1517 for a reopening of the debate on the sale of indulgences. The quick spread of discontent occurred to a large degree because of the printing press and the resulting swift move...
Is it true that marijuana can cause (activate?) schizophrenia in people predisposed to it?	There is definitely correlation. Causation is up for debate. _URL_0_ This article tends to lean towards at least partial causation. But you'll find a lot of people argue the other side.	[ "Cannabis use is also suspected to contribute to the hyperdopaminergic state that is characteristic of schizophrenia. Compounds found in cannabis, such as THC, have been shown to increase the activity of dopamine pathways in the brain, suggesting that cannabis may exacerbate symptoms of psychosis in schizophrenics....
what barriers are in place to stop an up-and-coming drug company from undercutting the epi-pen monopoly?	> So why is it that nobody has made some new kind of plastic autoinjector that works as easily as an Epi-pen and packs the same dosage of Ephinepherine? Parts of the delivery system are still under patent. You would have to be careful not to violate those patents while making your new kind of autoinjector. Then, ...	[ "However, other companies may not be able to enter the market due to another barrier to entry, intellectual property (IP) rights. The drug company may have a patent on the new formulation, barring competitors until the patent expires unless they can license rights from the IP owner. An example of a competitive adva...
The destruction of the 2nd Temple is remembered as a terrible event in Jewish history and, in some ways, a part of the Jewish identity. With the establishment of the state of Israel, was there ever a movement to create a 3rd Temple?	Rebuilding the Temple has been an extremely fraught issue, accelerated considerably since Israel regained control of the Mount after the Six Day War. The Israeli PM at the time, Levi Eshkol, ceded official control of the Mount & the Al Asqa Mosque to the Muslim Waqf, where it continues to this day. While many religio...	[ "BULLET::::3. The Second Temple built by Ezra and Nehemiah was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land that continues to this day.\n", "The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE marked a turning point in Jewish history. In the absence...
if everyone wore respirators for 1 year, would every cold and flu virus go extinct?	No. Many new flu epidemics happen from inter-species transmission. New variants often appear first in chickens or other birds, then spread to pigs, and then spread to humans.	[ "As the influenza virus can persist outside of the body, it can also be transmitted by contaminated surfaces such as banknotes, doorknobs, light switches and other household items. The length of time the virus will persist on a surface varies, with the virus surviving for one to two days on hard, non-porous surface...
if two offspring come from the same parents, how come their genes/characteristics are different from each other?	Imagine a woman drops in 100 red balls in a vase and a man dropps in 100 green balls. Now you go ahead and pull 100 balls out if that vase. Each ball symbolises a gene, one of them is dad's curly hair the other one is mom's eyes. Etc. Now do that 10 times. Each result will be easily different. And we have a whole lot m...	[ "In heredity the genes of the parents are passed on to their offspring unchanged. That is why the organisms which carry the same genotype should be identical in every feature. However, this is not the case. Due to environmental conditions they can vary from each other up to a certain point. There are two types of m...
if the aca is giving insurance to everyone, why do i still pay $350 per month for insurance?	"I understand that the ACA will be taking portions of everyone's paycheck to cover insurance for all, right?" Wrong, that's not even kind of what the ACA does. ACA requires you to buy insurance from somewhere, and sets up some extra places where people who don't have jobs or places to buy insurance can. This will no...	[ "By 2017, nearly 70% of those on the ACA marketplace exchanges could purchase insurance for less than $75/month after subsidies. The ACA was evaluated multiple times by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which scored it as a moderate deficit reducer, as it included tax hikes primarily on high income taxpayers (...
why in american culture, is using the middle finger as in "flicking you off", considered offensive?	From [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) > The middle finger originated in Classical antiquity, where the gesture was used as a symbol of anal intercourse in a manner meant to degrade, intimidate and threaten the individual receiving the gesture. It also represented the phallus, with the fingers next to the middle finger representi...	[ "In Western culture, \"the finger\" or the middle finger (as in giving someone the (middle) finger or the bird or flipping someone off) is an obscene hand gesture. The gesture communicates moderate to extreme contempt, and is roughly equivalent in meaning to \"fuck me\", \"fuck you\", \"shove it up your ass/arse\",...
why use median vs mean for household income data?	In places where the income spread is relatively narrow (400 - 1000%) such as Scandinavian countries, then high or low income outliers are well treated by the data. In places where the income spread is wide (1,000,000%) such as Russia or the USA, a small number of outliers can seriously skew data. Outliers in high inc...	[ "Median household income is commonly used to measure the relative prosperity of populations in different geographical locations. It divides households into two equal segments with the first half of households earning less than the median household income and the other half earning more.\n", "It is important to no...
how do viruses with a high mortality rate actually manage to survive and spread out in the wild?	Some viruses have reservoirs - meaning that they can stay in hosts that aren't affected by the disease (the mosquito Aedes aegypti can carry a number of viruses that can give humans diseases, e.g. yellow, Zika and dengue fever). Other times, a virus doesn't need its host to survive for very long. If the human can st...	[ "Viruses can cause massive human mortality. The smallpox virus killed an estimated 10 to 15 million human beings per year until 1967. Smallpox was finally eliminated in 1977 by extinction of the virus through vaccination, and the impact of viruses such as influenza, poliomyelitis and measles are mainly controlled b...
In a busy office environment is it more efficient to boil a full kettle, then re-boil for subsequent cups, or boil small amounts of water for each cup?	The heat capacity of water is near constant, it changes by less than a percent between room temperature and boiling. So it requires the same amount of energy to heat a given amount of water from 20 to 30 C as from 90 C to 100 C. That means you don't gain anything from heating water that's already warm, you've only lost...	[ "Overall comparative efficiency can only be estimated by calculating the energy wasted by the water heater, and comparing it with that wasted by heating more water than necessary in a kettle in typical circumstances. Kettle efficiency is subject to patterns of usage, and can be improved by user discipline; dispense...
why is it so easy to stream a live event, and seemingly impossible to stream a live event in hd?	There is a user that streams hockey games for a specific team who I won't rat out. I once asked him why he does not stream in HD and he said there were a few reasons, first is that the equipment is more expensive. Secondly, he needs a higher upload speed than he currently has, which also costs more money. These are the...	[ "Live streaming refers to online streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real time. It is often referred to simply as streaming, however this abbreviated term is ambiguous due to the fact that \"streaming\" may refer to any media delivered and played back simultaneously without requiring a complete...
how can game bundles be profitable to the seller?	Most games in bundles like that aren't new. The people who made them game have already made their investment, these are just the excess copies, they bundle them together because while you might not pay $10/game, you might pay $20 for three games.	[ "Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and the rest split between the game developers. Humble Bundle continues to o...
what benifit / purpose does day trading on the stock market serve?	One of the big purposes of the stock market is to provide liquidity - the ability to quickly sell any stock that you own. When investors price any particular asset, they take liquidity into account; lower liquidity (harder to sell) means that the price is also lower. The markets don't have a big issues with day tradi...	[ "Day trading is speculation in securities, specifically buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading day, such that all positions are closed before the market closes for the trading day. Traders who trade in this capacity with the motive of profit are therefore speculators. The methods of quick ...
Is there an evolutionary and selection aspect to the exponential rise of technology in the last 150 years or so?	> "Has mankind had the mental capacity to make very profound discoveries throughout the last 4000 years or so but been limited by other factors?" No. Humans have not changed in the last 10k years to any degree that would explain the explosion in productivity and technology. And actually, the most profound change ha...	[ "Technological innovation and human population can be similarly considered, and this has been offered as an explanation for the apparent hyperbolic growth of the human population in the past, instead of a simpler exponential growth.\n", "Unified growth theory suggests that during most of human existence, technolo...
How does tap water stay clean through transit?	Pipes in any finished water distribution system are supposed to be cleaned/flushed out according to an established regimen, depending on the diameter and length of pipe, water quality, average flow rate and other factors. A common standard in such systems is that each segment gets thoroughly flushed at least annually, ...	[ "Water flow through a tap can be reduced by inexpensive small plastic flow reducers. These restrict flow between 15 and 50%, aiding water conservation and reducing the burden on both water supply and treatment facilities.\n", "Refill is a nationwide scheme providing a network of points offering the public free ta...
Was military combat more often performed by highly trained warriors before the introduction of firearms, or is that an invention of film and fiction?	While there is an element of truth in your main question (whether combat required "better trained troops" vs. "less trained ones," the thesis you read seems rather suspicious. The best comparison for your argument is that of a longbowman vs. an arquebusier. An arguebusier usually took only a few weeks to train, espec...	[ "Historical martial arts reconstruction developed in the later 20th century and became influential in cinema only from ca. the 1990s. Earlier sequences of combat with pre-Renaissance weaponry were typically based on classical fencing techniques, or choreographed as ad-hoc \"blade whacking\".\n", "Other arts exist...
Pre-Columbian Civilization in North America	What you really need to read is the book [1491](_URL_0_) by Charles Mann. He gives the best treatment of this out of anybody, and it's an awesome read.	[ "The author notes that, according to these findings, two of the first six independent centers of civilization arose in the Americas: the first, Norte Chico or \"Caral-Supe\", in present-day northern Peru; and that of Formative-era Mesoamerica in what is now southern Mexico.\n", "The culture of Pre-Columbian North...
explain some of plato's most important philosophical ideas	Really there's only two things you need from Plato: forms, and the philosopher king. Forms are a little tough. Plato liked to use analogies to describe it, like the cave dwellers staring at shadows on a wall, but I'm going to make an original one. Imagine there is a god of the color blue. Everything he touches becomes...	[ "The core of Plato's philosophy is the Theory of Forms (or Ideas), and many writers have seen in this metaphysical theory a justification for the use of literary allegory. Fletcher, for example, wrote:\n", "Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy. Plato also appears to ha...
why is the ring finger so connected to the middle and little finger?	> Why can't I move my ring finger without moving my little or middle finger, I can. Is that abnormal?	[ "The use of the fourth finger of the left hand (the 'ring finger') is associated with an old belief that the left hand's ring finger is connected by a vein directly to the heart: the \"vena amoris\" or vein of love. This idea was known in 16th and 17th century England, when Henry Swinburne referred to it in his boo...
the hanging gardens of Babylon weren't in Babylon but in Nineveh is this true??	While it doesn't directly address the article you cited, you'll be interested in [this](_URL_0_) answer by /u/mythoplokos!	[ "To date, no archaeological evidence has been found at Babylon for the Hanging Gardens. It is possible that evidence exists beneath the Euphrates, which cannot be excavated safely at present. The river flowed east of its current position during the time of Nebuchadnezzar II, and little is known about the western po...
What was the Mongol government like during the time of Genghis Khan	Let's start by recognizing that a lot of the places were severally depopulated (especially in Western Asia) after the Mongol conquests which tends to, as you might imagine, make control a lot easier. Territory at the time of Genghis's death stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea. You may have learned tha...	[ "Mongols were highly tolerant of most religions during the early Mongol Empire, and typically sponsored several at the same time. To avoid strife, Genghis Khan set up an institution that ensured complete religious freedom, though he himself was a shamanist. Under his administration, all religious leaders were exemp...
why do we capitalize "happy new year"?	My guess is that happy is capitalized because it's the beginning of a sentence, and New Year is a proper noun (shorthand for New Year's Day).	[ "Happy New Year, America is an American television special that aired on the CBS television network to celebrate the New Year. It first aired on December 31, 1979 (leading into 1980), and last aired December 31, 1995 (leading into 1996).\n", "\"Many happy returns\" is a greeting which is used by some on birthdays...
why do ed medications, whether prescription or otc supplements, also delay orgasm?	They don't delay orgasm. They simply help you get hard(er), and remain hard during sex. But you still orgasm normally	[ "Orgasm disorders, specifically anorgasmia, present as persistent delays or absence of orgasm following a normal sexual excitement phase in at least 75% of sexual encounters. The disorder can have physical, psychological, or pharmacological origins. SSRI antidepressants are a common pharmaceutical culprit, as they ...
If hydrogen is so low in mass how did it ever coalesce into population III stars?	i think you need to have a large planet to keep the solar wind from blowing away the upper atmosphere of hydrogen of something like a gas giant.... there is not really a solar wind in a star forming nebula. What happens is a sufficient mass of gas exists in an area small enough that it is gravitationally bound. it co...	[ "Early theories concerning the nature of the lowest-mass stars and the hydrogen-burning limit suggested that a population I object with a mass less than 0.07 solar masses () or a population II object less than would never go through normal stellar evolution and would become a completely degenerate star. The first s...
what it means when actors are "classically trained"	It means they trained in a program which focused on the work of Saint-Denis and Stanislavski. Most modern techniques of acting are derived from their works. A classically trained actor has learned the science and history of their craft in a way that a common actor who is merely talented has not. This training implies t...	[ "Classical acting is a type of acting that is based on the theories and systems of select classical actors including Konstantin Stanislavski and Michel Saint-Denis, including the expression of the body, voice, imagination, personalizing, improvisation, external stimuli, and script analysis.\n", "BULLET::::- Class...
Where did the Carthaginian and Roman Rivalry come from? How did it start and why?	Damnit, I should be studying. I blame you for this. So a group of mercenaries in Sicily (calling themselves "Mamertines" after an Oscan god) had been let into the city of Messana which they took over. So the tyrant of Syracuse (Hiero) wasn't terribly fond of this and began attacking. After suffering a setback the ...	[ "The Carthaginians were rivals to the Greeks and Romans. Carthage fought the Punic Wars, three wars with Rome: the First Punic War (264 to 241 BC), over Sicily; the Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC), in which Hannibal invaded Europe; and the Third Punic War (149 to 146 BC). Carthage lost the first two wars, and in t...
How close were the Romans to completely conquering England, Wales & Scotland?	As you are no doubt aware, most of Scotland isn't that productive in terms of land. Scotland could have been conquered easily but there was no material benefit to doing so, particularly when Hadrian's wall was such a brilliant defensive position and the infrastructure around the wall was so well developed. You are corr...	[ "The conquest of Britain continued under command of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who expanded the Roman Empire as far as Caledonia, or modern day Scotland, between 77 and 84. In 82 Agricola crossed an unidentified body of water and defeated peoples unknown to the Romans until then. He fortified the coast facing Ireland,...
Is there a way or has there ever been a case where protons are removed from the nucleus of an atom?	Yes, we can remove protons from a nucleus using various kinds of nuclear reactions. If you're asking whether there exists any nucleus with only neutrons in it (besides a single neutron), no such nucleus is bound. There are only resonances, like the dineutron and the tetraneutron, which decay with half-lives on the ord...	[ "For a proton to escape a nucleus, the proton separation energy must be negative - the proton is therefore unbound, and tunnels out of the nucleus in a finite time. Proton emission is not seen in naturally occurring isotopes; proton emitters can be produced via nuclear reactions, usually using linear particle accel...
the us occasionally has drone strikes in yemen (i.e. we have airplanes dropping bombs on a foreign country), yet we are not at war with this country in any way. how is this possible?	I may be wrong here, but I remember hearing that the Yemeni government supported some of the drone strikes, as the strikes were on essentially rebels against their government. I think it came out in one of the diplomatic cable releases that a Yemeni official had said "We'll keep saying they're our bombs"?	[ "The U.S. launched a series of drone attacks in Yemen to curb a perceived growing terror threat due to political chaos in Yemen. Since December 2009, U.S. strikes in Yemen have been carried out by the U.S. military with intelligence support from the CIA. The drone strikes are protested by human-rights groups who sa...
Spin is an intrinsic property of a particle; how does it interact with other particles' spin if it isn't a force?	Let's think of this classically first. When modeling a rotating electrically charged body using classical E & M, the rotation or "spin" will induce a magnetic dipole moment, and thus there is a corresponding magnetic field. This is where the force comes from (in this case, the relevant boson is the photon.) When mo...	[ "Spin is an intrinsic property of elementary particles, and its direction is an important degree of freedom. It is sometimes visualized as the rotation of an object around its own axis (hence the name \"\"), though this notion is somewhat misguided at subatomic scales because elementary particles are believed to be...
Is there any evidence that Pope John Paul I was murdered?	There are conflicting stories as to who found him and when, which raised questions, but the Vatican hasn't investigated it and believes that there was no wrongdoing. Because of the "in-house" nature of dealing with a pope's death, there was never anything credible for conspiracy theorists to go off of.	[ "Pope John Paul I died suddenly in September 1978, 33 days after his election. Following contradictory reports about the circumstances of his death and apparent anomalies about the issuing of the death certificate and other procedures, several conspiracy theories have gained currency.\n", "The attempted assassina...
Why did the Founding Fathers of America choose a plurality voting system?	I'm dodging your question because I don't know the precise answer. I don't care much about third parties, but I do agree we could have a much better system (IRV with batch elimination would be a nice start). I re-read Federalist 10 yesterday. I'm not sure that Madison would consider our system today a 2 party system. I...	[ "By popular pressure, states had recently expanded voting rights to nearly all white men in nearly all elections. For example, in 1824, state legislatures chose Presidential electors in six states, but by 1828, four had transitioned to voter choice. Also, while nationally organized parties had fielded rival candida...
- why "artificial" elements that are man-made are significant and put onto the periodic table.	Well, each element on the periodic table represents a completely different kind of atom. This is important from the perspective of physics. It just so happens that some of those atoms do not exist in nature (or, possibly do exist, but then disappear so quickly we could never observe them). Any high quality periodic ...	[ "A synthetic element is one of 24 chemical elements that do not occur naturally on Earth: they have been created by human manipulation of fundamental particles in a nuclear reactor or particle accelerator, or detonation of an atomic bomb; and thus are called \"synthetic\", \"artificial\", or \"man-made\". The synth...
how does checking out a book from the library support the author or publishing company of a book?	The library has to pay for each copy of the book that they own. If a particular book is checked out frequently enough, the library system will purchase more copies of the book so people don't have to wait as long for it to become available for them to read, which means more money goes to the author/publisher.	[ "Books can be viewed in a list view or grid view in the user's library. They can be arranged based on title, author, file size, file type, and when they were last opened. Users can also arrange their books into collections.\n", "Books can be viewed in a list view or grid view in the user's library. They can be ar...
what happens when you recycle something that isn't recyclable?	Dang it, I read an article about this just recently and now I can't find it. There are people whose job is to watch the stuff come down a conveyer belt, and they pick out what is not recyclable. They can miss things, though, which then go into the recycling, uh, machines (I should really find the article) and can mess ...	[ "\"Recyclate\" is a raw material that is sent to, and processed in a waste recycling plant or materials recovery facility which will be used to form new products. The material is collected in various methods and delivered to a facility where it undergoes re-manufacturing so that it can be used in the production of ...
why do we get homesick?	Familiar surroundings, people, and routines provide a sense of security and comfort. In a new place, you may find yourself missing the comforts of home and loved ones. Those homesick feelings are completely normal. Some people may only feel a little loneliness, sadness, or anxiety. Others may feel physical symptoms, l...	[ "In its mild form, homesickness prompts the development of coping skills and motivates healthy attachment behaviors, such as renewing contact with loved ones. Indeed, nearly all people miss something about home when they are away, making homesickness a nearly universal experience. However, intense homesickness can ...
what's with the british parliament and pedophilia?	There are currently 650 MPs in the House of Commons, and 700+ Lords in the House of Lords. These sex offences go back to at least the 70s, so there must be several thousand people who have been in Parliament during that time. Chances are out of those thousands, several will have paedophilic tendencies, and being in a ...	[ "The Papists Act 1734 (8 Geo. 2, c. 25) was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of Great Britain during the reign of George II. Its long title was \"An act to indemnify protestant purchasers of estates of papists, against the penalties or forfeitures papists are liable to for not having enrolled their est...
How did vertebrates evolve a "backwards" retina?	It may be useful to consider the vertebrate process of [neurulation](_URL_0_) that forms the [neural tube](_URL_1_). Insects don't do this. The eyes branch off the forebrain, i.e. part of the inside of the neural tube. As a result the you might say the eye is "backwards" relative to where it would be if it were a si...	[ "The cephalopod retina does not originate as an outgrowth of the brain, as the vertebrate one does. It is arguable that this difference shows that vertebrate and cephalopod eyes are not homologous but have evolved separately. From an evolutionary perspective, a more complex structure such as the inverted retina can...
Historically, how much did the Catholic church charge for indulgences for various different sins and what is today's value (inflation considered)?	Indulgences were never categorized by sin and they did not forgive sins (though undoubtedly this was the popular perception of them by ordinary Christians). All of them stipulated that you had to be “contrite and confessed” for them to be valid. An indulgence was meant to reduce time you (or officially after 1478 y...	[ "Martin Luther, professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg and town preacher, wrote the \"Ninety-five Theses\" against the contemporary practice of the church with respect to indulgences. In the Roman Catholic Church, practically the only Christian church in Western Europe at the time, indulgences ...
what are the facial differences between men and women?	Sexual Dimorphism - Some species of animals exhibit differences between sexes so that an individual of that species can fulfil they're reproductive and survival requirements relative to they're species. the differences can vary for different species and there is no set characteristic for males or females. i.e. in mamma...	[ "It is suggested that the masculinity of facial features is a reliable indication of good health, or, alternatively, that masculine-looking males are more likely to achieve high status. However, the correlation between attractive facial features and health has been questioned. Sociocultural factors, such as self-pe...
Louisiana used to be one of the crowns of the French Empire. What happened to it?	First, we are talking two hundred years, and Louisiana had a [very different shape](_URL_1_) when it was French : US history basically happened between now and then. Second, is it Louisiana, or is it the Southern states that are poor and unequal ? Look how similar its neighbours are in the two indicators you mentioned....	[ "In 1763, France ceded Louisiana to Spain to compensate for the loss of Florida, which had been ceded to the British in 1763 after losing the war of the 7 years (Spain and France were allies). The Government of Louisiana lived in New Orleans, capital of Lower Louisiana, but had representatives (or \"commandants\") ...
[Astronomy] If the dark side of the earth points outwards from the sun, how come we see the same constelations throughout year?	We don't. For example, Orion cannot be seen in the Northern summer.	[ "In the case of annual aberration of starlight, the direction of incoming starlight as seen in the Earth's moving frame is tilted relative to the angle observed in the Sun's frame. Since the direction of motion of the Earth changes during its orbit, the direction of this tilting changes during the course of the yea...
Why does the Japanese Imperial family not have a last name?	Fun fact: the current emperor of Japan published a paper in Science in 1992 ([link here](_URL_1_)—requires subscription; doi:10.1126/science.1411568): the article, which is about early Japanese scientists, is signed "Akihito", and there is a little biographical footnote that says: "Akihito. His Majesty the Emperor o...	[ "The Japanese emperor and his families have no surname for historical reasons, only a given name such as Hirohito (), which is almost universally avoided in Japan: Japanese prefer to say \"the Emperor\" or \"the Crown Prince\", out of respect and as a measure of politeness.\n", "In Japan, the emperor and his fami...
how can i help anyone with depression.	Read [this](_URL_0_), for one. It is vaguely humorous, but it addresses arguably the worst thing about depression. If a person is depressed for legitimate situational reasons, the best thing to do is give them passive support and encouragement. If a person is depressed because of problems involving brain chemistry...	[ "Depression is a treatable illness. Treatments for a major depressive episode may be provided by mental health specialists (i.e. psychologist, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, etc.), mental health centers or organizations, hospitals, outpatient clinics, social service agencies, private clinics, peer suppo...
In the Christian religion Lucifer punishes the evil in hell, despite him being "the fallen angel" who will fight god at the end of days.... Why would he punish his supporters/followers? How did this belief come about?	So, I can speak to this a little from a historical perspective of the ancient world. Perhaps someone else can chime in with medieval perspectives. First off, let's disentangle some terms in their original context. "Satan" in Hebrew means "adversary" or "accuser." The sense is sometimes used formally as "prosecuting...	[ "Satan, formerly called Lucifer, is the first major character introduced in the poem. He was once the most beautiful of all angels, and is a tragic figure who famously declares: \"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.\" Following his failed rebellion against God, he is cast out from Heaven and condemned to ...
how could there be so little voter fraud in us without photo id before?	because if you're really trying to fix an election, having individuals show up at polls claiming to be a person who's registered there, but won't show up, is a really inefficient way to do it.	[ "Election law expert Richard L. Hasen noted that it was \"the only prominent non-governmental organization claiming that voter fraud is a major problem,\" and called the Center a Republican Party front group whose support of a photo ID requirement was intended to suppress the minority vote. \n", "Some experts, su...
prenuptial agreements	Essentially, it's pre-planning a divorce. It's a legal document detailing how assets will be split in the event a marriage ends. It's most often used if there's some kind of disparity in assets going into the marriage. If one person has 90 percent of the wealth and the other has 10 percent going in, a prenuptial agree...	[ "A prenuptial agreement, antenuptial agreement, or premarital agreement (PNA), commonly abbreviated as prenup, is a contract entered into prior to marriage, civil union, or any agreement prior to the main agreement by the people intending to marry or contract with each other. The content of a prenuptial agreement c...
Light bends around massive objects. Could there be something so massive that light orbited around it?	Short answer: Yes. If you're near a black hole. Longer answer: So you already hit on the fact that light can't escape black holes, and it turns out that if you are at just the right distance from the event horizon (which is sort of the point of no return- where the black hole begins and the normal universe en...	[ "According to Prof Leonhardt, all optical illusions can slow down rays of light and the sphere can be used to bend this illusion around an object, reflecting off it and making it appear to be invisible. Mr Perczel added: \"When the light is bent it engulfs the object, much like water covering a rock sitting in a ri...
objects turn darker when wet, why do hands not turn darker when wet.	Now I'm no water scientist or anything but the stuff that gets darker when wet is the stuff that absorbs the water, like paper towels or fabric or something. Spill some water on some plastic or metal and it doesn't get absorbed. Therefore, humans are made of plastic or metal	[ "This effect is sometimes called \"wet look\", since wetting wood with water often displays the chatoyancy, albeit only until the wood dries. Certain finishes cause the wood grain to become more pronounced. Oil finishes, epoxy, and shellac can strongly bring out the \"wet look\" effect. When the refractive index of...
When are a human fetus's senses first activated? What effects would these "new" senses have on it?	Receptors begin to develop within the first several weeks. However, neural pathways for many of these (pain, for example) will not exist until the third trimester, with development of the thalamus. Check out results in: DISCOVER (When does a fetus feel pain?) JAMA (*Fetal pain: A systematic multidisciplina...	[ "The sense modalities of the fetus develop prenatally and are functioning very well at birth. The examination of such abilities is connected with experimental examination of behaviour, provoked by stimuli.\n", "The human vomeronasal organ has epithelia that may be able to serve as a chemical sensory organ; howeve...
even if we were to figure out light speed travel how can it possibly be safe?	> Like I'm sure it's impossible to get from point A to point B in space in a "straight" line without coming across an inevitable planet, asteroid, star, black hole or whatever else. Not at all. If you pick a random direction in the sky, you are overwhelmingly likely to go many billions of light-years without hitti...	[ "In 2018, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency made public a 2010 report that surveyed multiple different approaches to faster-than-light travel. One physicist who reviewed the report explained, that, while the theories were legitimate, they did not represent \"something that's going to connect with engineering any...
why can't we put windmills on things like air conditioners and cars to generate energy as they use it?	Because they pull more energy out of the system than they give back. The AC unit will have to work harder to maintain the same air flow rate if there are turbines blocking its outlet. It's always a net-loss, in a perfect, frictionless, non-conductive universe the best you could hope to do is break even.	[ "Ion wind generators and wind turbines share some of the same advantages and disadvantages. Both are subject to the conditions of the wind, and are unable to generate electricity if the weather conditions are not favorable. This can be mitigated to some degree with strategic placement of the devices in areas with m...
why do individuals vomit after a concussion?	Did you know that there is a part of the brain that controls vomitting? See: _URL_0_ When the brain encounters a physical shock, it is possible that this part of the brain becomes triggered. Once that happens, nausea may occur, which sometimes leads to vomitting. Because of the triggering, the brain might be tryin...	[ "Repeated or profuse vomiting may cause erosions to the esophagus or small tears in the esophageal mucosa (Mallory–Weiss tear). This may become apparent if fresh red blood is mixed with vomit after several episodes.\n", "Sufferers may vomit or retch 6–12 times in an hour and an episode may last from a few hours t...
What language preceded Ancient Greek?	Here's a family tree of Indo-European languages. _URL_0_	[ "The Ancient Greek language includes the forms of Greek used in Ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BCE to the 6th century CE. It is often roughly divided into the Archaic period (9th to 6th centuries BCE), Classical period (5th and 4th centuries BCE), and Hellenistic period (Koine Gree...
how do us government agencies "recruit" new (young) agents?	That particular instance might have just been a family connection. His sister talked her boss into giving him a job. I do know that many government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA) recruit people off of college campuses through career fairs and seminars. Its all fairly mundane stuff though.	[ "Some third-party recruiters work on their own, while others operate through an agency, acting as direct contacts between client companies and the job candidates they recruit. They can specialize in client relationships only (sales or business development), in finding candidates (recruiting or sourcing), or in both...

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