Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
how did we as humans collectively decide on the location of the international date line?	It didn't. The date line is the opposite side of the globe to the Prime Meridian (roughly). There were multiple Prime Meridians throughout history, typlically countries with large a large navy or merchant shipping fleet would have their own. Eventually they all lost out to the current PM.	[ "However, the conventional International Date Line is a relatively recent geographic and political construct whose exact location has moved from time to time depending on the needs of different interested parties. While it is well-understood why the conventional date line is located in the Pacific Ocean, there are ...
Were does the inertia of a playground swing come from?	Swings with children pumping their legs to increase their peak height have actually quite complicated physics that many people confuse with the simpler case of a pendulum with constant peak height and constant total energy. Where does the extra energy come from to increase the child's total energy (gravitational pote...	[ "A familiar experience of both parametric and driven oscillation is playing on a swing. Rocking back and forth pumps the swing as a driven harmonic oscillator, but once moving, the swing can also be parametrically driven by alternately standing and squatting at key points in the swing arc. This changes moment of in...
Why do serrations help knives and saws cut?	Serrated blades focus the pressure onto many smaller points of contact, and those contact points are at a higher angle, both of which works better to cut some surfaces or materials. It isn't quite as smooth of a cut, though.	[ "BULLET::::- Serrated blade knives have a wavy, scalloped or saw-like blade. Serrations help when cutting things that are hard on the outside and soft on the inside (such as bread or tomatoes); the saw-like action breaks the surface more easily than anything except the very sharpest smooth blade. They are also part...
How were Medieval churches and cathedrals financed?	Selling indulgences per se was not the main way cathedrals were financed in the Middle Ages, though they certainly had an important role in constructing St. Peter’s. The main source of financing of cathedrals came from the local communities, lay and clerical, that commissioned them. Remember that the rise of the gr...	[ "In the 1180s, Strongbow and other Norman magnates helped to fund a complete rebuilding of Christ Church, initially a wooden building, in stone, comprising the construction of a choir, choir aisles and transepts, the crypt and chapels to St. Edmund and St. Mary and St. Lô.\n", "All medieval collegiate churches or...
How long did Humans typically go without eating?	I would suggest that you consider cross-posting this to /r/AskAnthropology, as it is less an historical question than one about human physiology.	[ "There is insufficient scientific data on exactly how long people can live without food. Although the length of time varies with an individual's percentage of body fat and general health, one medical study estimates that in adults complete starvation leads to death within 8 to 12 weeks. Starvation begins when an in...
when movies make hundreds of millions, whats an accurate picture of where this money comes from and where it ends up?	Typically, a writer/producer develop the idea for a film. They take this idea and 'sell' it to a studio for, let's say, 10 $. The studio will now hire actors, writers (maybe even the same one), producer/directors, sets etc etc etc and spend 50 $ on this all to make a final/finished movie. Since they've spent (50+10) 6...	[ "The film became a blockbuster upon its release, grossing over $32 million, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1971 and one of the most successful films in history, with an expense-to-profit ratio of 1:32; beyond that, it is estimated video rentals and purchases in the United States since the 1980s have p...
When did my Iron Meteorite form?	Iron meteorites formed within a few ~50 million years of the start of the solar system so it's about 4.5 to 4.567 billion years old.	[ "Metallic iron is virtually unknown on the surface of the Earth except as iron-nickel alloys from meteorites and very rare forms of deep mantle xenoliths. Iron meteorites themselves are thought to have originated from stellar bodies larger than 1,000 km in diameter. The origin of iron can be ultimately traced to fo...
What reactions happen in the brain when someone experiences in 'epiphany'?	When researchers study this, they typically call it "insight" and is often used in the context of problem solving. There are some interesting behavioral aspects of insight: the longer you are working on a problem, the closer you feel you are to a solution, but if you ask people what they think the answer is, they aren'...	[ "Early on, the intoxicant will cause a strong feeling of thirst, followed by weakness, nausea, and loss of appetite. More severe symptoms ensue, including confusion, muscle twitching, and bleeding in or around the brain. Death results by the swelling of the brain against the skull. (Normal serum sodium levels are 1...
When a person says they're not fat, but big boned, can that actually be the cause for their big size? How much bigger could someone's bones be than that of the average person's, with or without looking fat?	Two different questions here. One, yes some people have larger bone structures. Two, the statement is colloquially used in America by people who deny that they're overweight. The second half of your question, however, delves into social science and observation and I'll get downvoted to hell if I dig deeper into it.	[ "to estimate the fat content. This estimate is distorted by the fact that muscles and bones have different densities: for a person with a more-than-average amount of bone mass, the estimate will be too low. However, this method gives highly reproducible results for individual persons (± 1%), unlike the methods disc...
do good gut bacteria fight against each other?	Yes! It's definitely an active area of research, but you can be pretty assured that wherever there is a dense, varied bacterial community, they are fighting each other. Certainly indirectly via competition for resources, and in some cases directly by poisoning each other. When there are lots of bacteria growing togethe...	[ "The commensal bacteria are nonpathogenic and defend our airways against the pathogens. There are several possible mechanisms. Commensals are the native competitors of pathogenic bacteria, because they tend to occupy the same ecological niche inside the human body. Secondly, they are able to produce antibacterial s...
Why is it that when a spacecraft docks with the ISS, the force of them docking doesn't disrupt the orbit of the station?	It does! Whenever two bodies in space come into contact, they transfer momentum. Fortunately, when spacecraft dock with the ISS, they use their thrusters to dock at a speed which does not have a significant impact on the overall momentum of the space station. Should the space station's orbit be affected by the docking ...	[ "Docking and undocking describe spacecraft using a docking port, without assistance and under their own power. Berthing takes place when a spacecraft or unpowered module cannot use a docking port or requires assistance to use one. This assistance may come from a spacecraft, such as when the Space Shuttle used its r...
Would meat ever spoil if we killed all bacteria on it and kept it in a vacuum?	[Neil deGrasse Tyson on Food for Mars Missions](_URL_1_), Neil deGrasse explains how they conserve food in space, and how the texture changes even if no microbes are in the food. [Tasting Astronaut Food: Inside NASA's Space Food Systems Laboratory](_URL_0_), 20 minute video about space food (but not any real science t...	[ "As these microorganisms colonize a piece of meat, they begin to break it down, leaving behind toxins that can cause enteritis or food poisoning, potentially lethal in the rare case of botulism. The microorganisms do not survive a thorough cooking of the meat, but several of their toxins and microbial spores do. Th...
why do most restaurants/fast food places use foamy soap?	The soap is the same as normal hand soap. It is the dispenser that makes the soap foam. These dispensers help to reduce waste by making it seem like you have more soap than you really do. It doesn't take a lot of soap to effectively wash your hands either.	[ "Because of their intended use in wet and potentially hazardous environments, most soap dishes are designed with safety in mind. Such features include unbreakable materials, non-slip surfaces, rounded edges, and secure installation elements (e.g., wall mount hardware, a suction cup, or non-skid feet). Depositing or...
In the Andy Williams Christmas song "It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" he says "There'll be parties for hosting Marshmallows for toasting And caroling out in the snow There'll be scary ghost stories". Why is he talking about Scary Ghost Stories at Christmas?	The tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time is a moderately long one, and – certainly outside the US, where Hallowe'en has often only become a big thing in the last 20-25 years (very much true where I write, here in the UK) – it significantly antedates current conventions. The key shaper of the Christmas ...	[ "A number of reviewers had a problem with \"Do They Know It's Christmas?\" being set in a homeless shelter; both Hyman and West called it an \"odd choice\", and Slezak said he \"struggled\" with the location. Chaney called the lyrics \"condescending\", and found the juxtaposition of the singers' smiling faces and t...
To what extent can/do multiple strains of an illness (like 2 different kinds of the flu or 2 colds for example) infect a person at the same time and compete for control of their body?	For something like the flu or a cold if the viruses have different target cells they probably don't compete much. They are just waiting until they find the right cell type to replicate. As for bacterial pathogens there would be a lot of competition for limiting nutrients, such as iron, with not only our cells but our...	[ "Infection with one genotype does not confer immunity against others, and concurrent infection with two strains is possible. In most of these cases, one of the strains removes the other from the host in a short time. This finding opens the door to replacing strains non-responsive to medication with others easier to...
why is the default stressful dream "unprepared in high school" for so many people?	I think it's because school is the first time people are "graded" based on effort entirely within their social circle they are immersed in daily. It's not just hormones causing you to feel uncomfortable, anxious and stressed, but you also have to compare your worth against people who are your peers, which probably sma...	[ "An optimal level of stress is considered good because medical students develop coping abilities. However, too much stress causes problems. Previous studies have reported that a significant percentage of medical students suffer anxiety disorders because stress has a strong relationship to emotional and behavioral p...
Did any non-Austrian influenced Italians (i.e. Scicilians) oppose unification in the 19th century?	When the unification movement started, Cavour only wanted Piedmont to annex what was North of Rome. He practiced Realpolitik, which meant he was interested in tangible results and all of his actions were calculated. Garibaldi, a Romantic Italian, wanted unity for all of Italy. Garibaldi sent his army of Red Shirts to t...	[ "At the time, the struggle for Italian unification was perceived to be waged primarily against the Habsburgs, since they directly controlled the predominantly Italian-speaking northeastern part of present-day Italy and were the most powerful force against the Italian unification. The Austrian Empire vigorously repr...
why does a phone need to be charged above 15% to take a picture?	First, phones make some assumptions about the battery. They might know the charge level, but they calculate the rate they are draining at based on current activity. So if you fire up the camera and sees that the drain-rate goes up, the phone might go "Uh oh, I'm about to lose power" and warn you. Using the camera means...	[ "However, Luke Hopewell from Gizmodo Australia wrote in reply: \"Yes it's heavy, but it's something you get used to. Sam said that the phone is too heavy to even contemplate living with, and that's almost true. If you can get past the weight of the device, you're in for a treat. The weight is almost beneficial when...
What was the largest slave plantation in history?	Just briefly reviewing this [book](_URL_1_) which also has the 223 figure as the average size I would think that there would be no plantations significantly larger than the average given that: 1) in jamaica the top 1% of slave owners (119) had 45025 slaves suggesting an average size of the largest plantations of ~378 ...	[ "The 1860 U.S. Census counted 3,605 slaveowners in West Virginia. Of this number 2,572 (71%) owned 5 or less. These owners accounted for 33% of the total number of slaves. In 15 counties there was a total of 92 owners of 20 or more slaves. The greatest numbers of slaves occurred in the counties of Jefferson (3,960)...
For experts about the American Revolution in the South--what happened to the British soldiers who were stationed in Charleston when the Revolutionary War started?	I'm afraid the answer is disappointingly simple: there were no British regulars in Charleston in 1775, and by the time open fighting began, the British had other worries than immediate reconquest of a somewhat insignificant town. The pre-war British army was quite small, numbering just under 50,000, and most were in I...	[ "Revolutionary War pension applications and colonial records provide considerable information on the South Carolina militia units and officers, and the battles in which they fought. When Charlestown fell on May 12, 1780, most of the generals were taken as prisoners by the British and the regiments were left to fend...
In Western Europe in the 16th/17th centuries, how achievable would it have been to 'pretend' to a higher status? Are there examples of people doing so?	Perkin Warbeck as Richard of York: Not only did young Perkin Warbeck masquerade as a prince, he nearly succeeded in overthrowing King Henry VII of England. In 1491, Warbeck appeared in Ireland claiming he was Richard of York, the youngest son of the former King Edward IV. The real Richard was most likely murdered in ...	[ "The term \"pretender\" may apply to claimants with arguably genuine rights (as the various pretenders of the Wars of the Roses who regarded the \"de facto\" monarch as a usurper). It may also be used for those possessing an arguable right to a position who do \"not\" actively claim it, as well as impostors with wh...
How oppressive was Lee Kuan Yew's government? What questionable policies did it enforce?	Follow-up question: What are the best books to read to begin studying about LKY? I've watched his interviews on Charlie Rose and I find I am utterly fascinated by him. Thank you!	[ "Led by Hong Xiuquan, the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ, the goals of the Taipings were religious, nationalist, and political in nature; they sought the conversion of the Chinese people to the Taiping's syncretic version of Christianity, the overthrow of the ruling Manchus, and a wholesale transformation ...
how do wet dreams cause one to cum if there is no sexual pleasure in reality?	Sexual pleasure is mostly in the mind. Your dreams are fully capable of providing that. What little contact is needed for wet dreams is provided by your underwear/other clothing, sheets, or actually masturbating in your sleep.	[ "The Hall data analysis shows that sexual dreams occur no more than 10% of the time and are more prevalent in young to mid-teens. Another study showed that 8% of both men and women's dreams have sexual content. In some cases, sexual dreams may result in orgasms or nocturnal emissions. These are colloquially known a...
During the Three kingdoms period, was Lu Bu real? And was he as strong as people say he was?	Lü Bu was a real person, yes. Chen Shou's Sangouzhi (三國志, Records of the Three Kingdoms, written in the 3rd century) mentions him, and that's pretty much the most cited historical document for the time period/location. While the site itself is mostly dedicated to Luo Guanzhong's Sanguo yanyi (三國演義, Romance of t...	[ "In the 14th-century historical novel \"Romance of the Three Kingdoms\", which dramatises the events before and during the Three Kingdoms period, Lü Bu is portrayed as a nearly invincible warrior but an incapable leader who is further marred by character flaws. While adhering to historical records in the general co...
Hypothetically, could anaphylactic shock be treated by sending the victim bungee-jumping or other adrenaline-inducing experience?	Another question: Wouldn't the fact that you probably think your dying during anaphylactic shock cause you to pump out adrenaline anyway? Why doesn't this solve its own problem?	[ "Anaphylactic shock requires advanced medical care immediately; but other first aid measures include rescue breathing (part of CPR) and administration of epinephrine using an EpiPen for immediate administration of epinephrine (adrenaline) to reverse swelling and to keep the respiratory airway (trachea) open.\n", ...
how does picture format conversion work? eg. png to jpg	It's basically the same as translating languages. A program knows how to read and save both formats and remakes the original in the other format.	[ "JPEG uses a lossy form of compression based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT). This mathematical operation converts each frame/field of the video source from the spatial (2D) domain into the frequency domain (a.k.a. transform domain). A perceptual model based loosely on the human psychovisual system discards ...
why is it that every device i own slowly but surely slows down and refuses to work like they once did no matter what i do? shouldn't upgrades and better technology ensure longer lifetimes for gadgets, not kill them off and force me to buy new ones?	I'll start off with a little anecdote. I was on the train when a woman was talking to her coworker about how "every company does planned obsolescence," and while this is true to a small and shady extent, she used it as an excuse for her phone slowing down and battery life getting shitty which is wrong. Let me explain ...	[ "In some cases, technology is accessible but sufficiently complex that most users without specialized training are able to operate it without necessarily understanding how it works. Additionally, the process of consumerization has led to an influx in the number of devices in businesses and accessing private network...
When did garbage collection become a common feature in American cities? What did people do with their refuse before that?	TL;DR: Roughly 1880 - 1890, starting largely in New York City. For a brief overview, [A Filthy History: When New Yorkers Lived Knee-Deep in Trash](_URL_5_) gives a pretty good outline, and is a review of a book, [_Picking Up_](_URL_1_), by Robin Nagle, with much more detail. In the late 19th century, garbage consis...	[ "Similar municipal systems of waste disposal sprung up at the turn of the 20th century in other large cities of Europe and North America. In 1895, New York City became the first U.S. city with public-sector garbage management.\n", "Similar municipal systems of waste disposal sprung up at the turn of the 20th cent...
how does having sickle cell protect against malaria?	We don't know exactly, but it has something do do with the fact that the Malaria parasite lives in the red blood cells for part of their development. There are different theories, but they basically come down to one of two things: * Either the red blood cells of people with sickle-cell disease are just more difficul...	[ "The impact of sickle cell trait on malaria immunity illustrates some evolutionary trade-offs that have occurred because of endemic malaria. Sickle cell trait causes a change in the hemoglobin molecule in the blood. Normally, red blood cells have a very flexible, biconcave shape that allows them to move through nar...
What was the lifelong illness that plagued Augustus?	Could you explain why you think that Augustus suffered from a lifelong illness in the first place?	[ "Augustus fell dangerously ill in 23 BC and did not expect to recover. The model of late imperial succession suggested that the closest male relative would succeed, despite the fact that Marcellus had held no office and lacked military experience. His marriage to Augustus' daughter seemed to be a strong indicator, ...
How come North and West are common English surnames, but not East and South?	Hello everyone. Just want to give a quick heads up as to why there are a bunch of removed comments, because people keep asking. Here are some of the removed comments, in their entirety: > Damn it. I need an answer. > WHY IS EVERYTHING REMOVED? Every time I’m genuinely curious :( > Geez, what happened here? Most ...	[ "BULLET::::- In most of the eastern half of England, plurals and past participle endings which are pronounced and (with the vowel of \"kit\") in RP may be pronounced with a schwa . This can be found as far north as Wakefield and as far south as Essex. This is unusual in being an east-west division in pronunciation ...
the physics that make the double bounce on a trampoline so effective and at launching kids so high in the air.	When you land on a trampoline, the weight of your body landing loads the webbing and springs with potential energy. More people landing on the webbing at the same time creates more potential energy on the trampoline. Once those other people jump, all that potential is passed to the person in the middle, where most o...	[ "Trampolining or trampoline gymnastics is a recreational activity, acrobatic training tool as well as a competitive Olympic sport in which athletes perform acrobatics while bouncing on a trampoline. In competition, these can include simple jumps in the straight, pike, tuck, or straddle position to more complex comb...
Would fighter jets experience G forces if they fought in space? For example, would it be possible for the x-wing pilots in star wars to black out from over G's?	Absolutely they would. G-forces, as they're referred to in air-to-air combat, are the forces experienced by the pilot due to centripetal acceleration as they make tight turns, and for brief periods can exceed 5x the force of gravity. In space, there wouldn't be the constant downward force of gravity, since we're pres...	[ "Later jets such as the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F/A-18 Super Hornet, Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale can sustain high g loads for longer periods, and are therefore more physically demanding. By using a modern g-suit in combination with anti-g strain techniques, a trained pilot is now expected ...
why the u.s. is going after fifa, but none of the international big banks?	With the FIFA scandal, the issue can be traced back to certain individuals who took bribes and against who they have proof. (though it has not actually gone through a court of law yet, so we don't even know what charges they will eventually end up with) With the banking crisis, it is much much harder to point at a sin...	[ "One condition FIFA imposed was the creation of a professional football league – Major League Soccer was founded in 1993 and began operating in 1996. There was some initial controversy about awarding the World Cup to a country where football was not a nationally popular sport, and at the time, in 1988, the U.S. did...
How are the fundamental forces related, and how does the weak force fit in? (many questions)	> From what I understand, gravity has one property (sorry I don't have a better word for this) and reaches it's lowest energy state when anything displaying this property (mass) is brought close together. Electromagnetism has two properties, positive and negative charge, that reach lower energy states when brought tog...	[ "The weak force is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons. Its most familiar effect is beta decay (of neutrons in atomic nuclei) and the associated radioactivity. The word \"weak\" derives from the fact that the field strength is some 10 times less than that of the strong force. Still, it is stronger than ...
Does cognitive ability such as memory, processing decline as we age?	There are two ways to look at it. Synaptogenesis, which is the process of forming new synapses, declines sharply after infancy and throughout childhood, but then accelerates again in adolescence. It drops off again as you enter adulthood and continues to decline across adulthood. This means it is harder for you to make...	[ "Working memory is among the cognitive functions most sensitive to decline in old age. Several explanations have been offered for this decline in psychology. One is the processing speed theory of cognitive aging by Tim Salthouse. Drawing on the finding of general slowing of cognitive processes as people grow older,...
What is the highest velocity an object in space can travel at before relativistic effects take place (or become a problem?)	It depends what you mean by noticeable. In order to experience a 1% change in elapsed time or distance, you'd have to be going 14% the speed of light.	[ "Sources conflict about the projected speed, perhaps 30% of the speed of light, \"c\", but 9% may be more likely. At 30%, relativistic effects between people on Earth and on the spacecraft, such as time dilation would become more noticeable, such as the shipboard time being less than the Earth observed time.\n", ...
how do natural fields exist? (more specifically, ones found in the middle of forests.)	It's part of ecological succession. Environments are constantly changing. It's a system that is complicated by an almost infinite amount of factors and conditions. Usually a glade represents an area that recently changed so that it could no longer support the other surrounding plants. This could be because of poor soil...	[ "A forest consists of many components that can be broadly divided into two categories that are biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) components. The living parts include trees, shrubs, vines, grasses and other herbaceous (non-woody) plants, mosses, algae, fungi, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and...
I'm looking for examples (Sources) of literature which typify Colonialist attitude? To use as a reading in Church.	Hi! I think the best example i can think of would be Rudyard Kipling's White Man's Burden. You can find it on the internet but here's a link anyway: _URL_0_ Cheers!	[ "In Elizabethan England, no subject was more familiar to writers than theology. Elizabethans learned to embrace religious studies in petty school, where they \"read from selections from the Book of Common Prayer and memorized Catechisms from the Scriptures\". This influence is evident in Spenser's text, as demonstr...
Was illegal immigration around in the US during the late 1800s and early 1900s?	Immigration was first regulated on a mass scale in [1892](_URL_2_), when the requirement to be registered at Ellis Island was created. Immediately illegal immigration came into existence. The term "wop" for Italian-Americans derives from ["without papers"](_URL_3_) and dates from 1908. "Wetback" for Mexican-Americans w...	[ "Shortly after the U.S. Civil War, some states started to pass their own immigration laws, which prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in 1876 that immigration was a federal responsibility. The Immigration Act of 1891 established an Office of the Superintendent of Immigration within the Treasury Department. This ...
When Hernan Cortez and the Spaniards arrived in the Aztec empire in 1519, it is been said that Cortes was taken to the king of the Aztecs and told them he was a peaceful emissary sent by King of Spain. How was this information relayed to the Aztecs linguistically?	There’s one quite clear answer to this: the Spaniards communicated at first via two translators, the Spaniard Géronimo de Aguilar and the Nahua woman Malinche/Malintzin (also "Marina" to the Spanish). For a few years before Cortés reached modern-day Mexico in February 1519, other conquistadors had already been sent fro...	[ "Moctezuma gave lavish gifts of gold to the Spaniards which, rather than placating them, excited their ambitions for plunder. In his letters to King Charles, Cortés claimed to have learned at this point that he was considered by the Aztecs to be either an emissary of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl or Quetza...
Why do we get hungry sooner after a small, high-calorie meal than after a large, low-calorie meal even if the net caloric content is the same?	Hunger is a physiological response to a range of chemical markers in blood changing, such as depleted blood glucose and reduced blood amino acid content. When you eat, you trigger a number of chemical pathways, such as through stretch receptors in the stomach wall, which stimulate secretion of gastric juice, and G cell...	[ "In the era of foraging for food, hunter-gatherers rarely knew where their next meal would come from. As a result, filling their stomachs up with lots of food was advantageous since food was scarce. Intense consumption of high-energy foods was selected for when the availability of food was low and it was more diffi...
Why are American spellings of many words different from English spellings?	I can only speak for the Australian experience. There has been some use of US spelling in Australia. For example the ALP which is the Australian Labor Party. It was spelt with the American spelling of Labour as they believed it showed that they were progressive. Originally they had been proRepublic (still are, but ...	[ "American English is different from British English in terms of spelling (one example being the dropped \"u\" in words such as color/colour), grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and slang usage. The differences are not usually a barrier to effective communication between an American English and a British English sp...
how do software updates like ios11 speed up the phone?	The hardware will determine the maximum performance. How fast a app or the operation system depends on hot the program code is written. There are multiple ways to write code that do the same thing and it is usually the case. The simplest and fastest way write code often will result in a slow program. If you spend more...	[ "iOS 9 is a smaller update than iOS 8, requiring 1.3 GB of space, compared to 4.58 GB for iOS 8. Additionally, iOS 9 includes an option to temporarily delete apps to allow the update to install. Once the update has been installed, the apps will be automatically restored. iOS 9 also features \"app thinning\" functio...
Why do dogs obey our commands?	We've selectively bred them to be good at it.	[ "Working dogs have always learned to obey commands related to the work that they historically performed, such as when a herding dog moves a flock of animals in response to a shepherd's whistled directions, or a hunting dog searching for (or chasing down) quarry or leaving the treed quarry at the hunter's command.\n...
why are the majority of boundaries between us states perfect straight lines?	Most of these answers make conventional sense, but they don't get to the heart of why this is really true, /u/maphhifi. Here's the thing: maps differ depending on who draws them, and more importantly, where those people are from. A map that the Haudenosaunee (aka Iroquois) people would have drawn to lay out their terr...	[ "Because of its unique history, many of the boundaries of the political divisions of the United States were artificially constructed (rather than being permitted to evolve and drawn using natural features of the landscape). Therefore, many U.S. states have straight lines as boundaries, especially in the West. Howev...
How is there a way to clean radioactive water like the water at the Fukushima plant?	It's not the water itself that's radioactive, it's that it's contaminated with radioactive matter. You can separate that out any which way; filtration or evaporation and so on. _In principle_ it's very easy, but in practice it's much more difficult because of the safety hazards posed by the radiation.	[ "Forty-five tons of highly radioactive water leaked from the apparatus being used to decontaminate the water at the plant. Plant workers attempted to contain the leak, but it was unknown if any of the water escaped into the water table or the ocean.\n", "This method has been developed by among others, by professo...
What altitude does sound stop working?	NB This is not a complete answer, but this may be of use to someone who has time to write and research a fuller answer: The atmosphere doesn't suddenly stop in the same way that - say - the oceans do with a clear boundary between water and air. Instead the atmospheric pressure gets less and less, and the density also ...	[ "Note that the speed of sound decreases somewhat with altitude, due to lower temperatures found there (typically up to 25 km). At even higher altitudes the temperature starts increasing, with the corresponding increase in the speed of sound.\n", "As altitude increases through the atmosphere, the first sound waves...
Why do white shirts glow under U.V. lights?	Washing powder often contains a compound that fluoresces under UV light. This is to make your "whites seem whiter" when outside in the sun.	[ "Fluorescent compounds are often used to enhance the appearance of fabric and paper, causing a \"whitening\" effect. A white surface treated with an optical brightener can emit more visible light than that which shines on it, making it appear brighter. The blue light emitted by the brightener compensates for the di...
hypnosis	Please do not talk about hypnosis from a Freudian standpoint (ie: subconscious and conscious minds). Hypnosis is a state of selective attention and concentration in which highly suggestible people (10% or so of the population) can exert a lot of control over the processes in their brain using top-down control. For exam...	[ "The earliest definition of hypnosis was given by Braid, who coined the term \"hypnotism\" as an abbreviation for \"neuro-hypnotism\", or nervous sleep, which he contrasted with \"normal\" sleep, and defined as: \"a peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental ...
do other mammals (apes, cows, etc.) get high from weed smoke, or trip balls with magic mushrooms?	Elephants seem to deliberately go for fallen, fermented fruit knowing full well from experience the effect it will have. An elephant never forgets it really loves you, mate. Nah, really really, OK, like you know, defnally LOVES you. Who you calling big nose...?	[ "Due to the bioaccumulation of caesium-137, some mushrooms as well as wild animals which eat them, e.g. wild boars hunted in Germany and deer in Austria, may have levels which are not considered safe for human consumption. Mandatory radioactivity testing of sheep in parts of the UK that graze on lands with contamin...
If elephants had gone extinct before humans came about, and we had never found mammoth remains with soft tissue intact, would we have known that they had trunks through their skeletons alone?	Trunks do leave visible attachment marks for muscles, ligaments, & such on the skull. However, from osteological correlates alone, it would be impossible to infer exactly what the trunk looks like. In what is perhaps a "reverse-application" of this line of reasoning, [trunks can be rejected for sauropod dinosaurs](_U...	[ "The skeleton of an ancient species of elephant has been preserved in the sediment near what was once the edge of a quite small lake revealed by excavations in advance of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. The skeleton was surrounded by flint tools suggesting it was butchered for its meat by early humans of that era. On...
Was The Ottoman Empire eager to join WWI against Britain as retribution for the Treaty of Balta Liman in 1838, or were they more weary and only did so at the bequest of their ally Germany?	By the onset of WWI, the Ottoman Empire, despite being a parliamentary monarchy by name, functioned more as a de facto oligarchy, with the men in charge being known as the the [Three Pashas](_URL_0_). It was under the Three Pashas that the Empire entered the [Ottoman-German Alliance](_URL_1_), signed on August 2nd, 191...	[ "The Anglo-Ottoman Convention was only part of a wider bargaining process and the complexities of the competing European commercial interests in the region prevented its ratification. Russia, France, and Germany (and later Italy) also had been pressing the Ottoman government for railway concessions. Ratification wa...
why wasps and other insects like it exist	Animals and other lifeforms do not exist "for a reason", and while every lifeform inhabits a niche in it's environment, it does not have to be beneficial to that environment, or to other life in that environment- there is no purpose here. There is no requirement to contribute, only life's purpose to perpetuate it...	[ "Common insects that prey on wasps include praying mantises, dragonflies, centipedes, beetles and moths. In fact, large wasps will even prey on smaller wasps. Spiders will also capture wasps in their webs and eat them. Predatory reptiles and amphibians, such as frogs, lizards, toads, and salamanders see the wasp as...
why are multiple car dealerships all clumped together next to each other?	You know, I never knew the exact reason behind it until I saw this video: _URL_0_ He explains why you see no gas stations and then 2 next to each other. Video is only 4 minutes long btw.	[ "Used car dealers carry cars from many different manufacturers, while new car dealerships are generally franchises associated with only one manufacturer. Some new car dealerships may carry multiple brands from the same manufacturer. In some locales, dealerships have been consolidated and a single owner may control ...
how do animal claws start fat at the base and grow pointy?	They are getring used up, meaning theyll get pointy. in the case of a dog, they usually get pointy by the dog just walking, In the case of cats (and I assume many other animals too) the claws grow frome inside out, at the same time as as from back to front. Thats why a cat needs something to claw at, to remove the outm...	[ "In contrast to nails, claws are typically curved ventrally (downwards in animals) and compressed sideways. They serve a multitude of functionsincluding climbing, digging, and fightingand have undergone numerous adaptive changes in different animal taxa. Claws are pointed at their ends and are composed of two layer...
why haven't we been able to discover how to craft very old things, such as greek fire?	We can make things like Greek Fire was described. But without knowing what it was we can't be sure what we made was actually the old recipe. It isn't a problem of making the mixture, it is a question of identification of what it was.	[ "The conservation and restoration of Ancient Greek pottery is a sub-section of the broader topic of conservation and restoration of ceramic objects. Ancient Greek pottery is one of the most commonly found types of artifacts from the ancient Greek world. The information learned from vase paintings forms the foundati...
Why does Croatia's coat of arms have the red and white checkered part? Is there any back story to this or is it just there?	It comes from legends about Red Croatia and White Croatia. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, an Eastern Roman Emperor in the 900s talks about inviting the tribe of "White Croatians" to be part of the empire, when they migrated from Bavaria & Krakow, because they were prone to allying with Franks or Turks and that made...	[ "The coat-of-arms consists of the traditional red and white squares or \"grb\", which simply means 'coat-of-arms'. It has been used to symbolise the Croats for centuries; some speculate that it was derived from Red and White Croatia, historic lands of the Croatian tribe but there is no generally accepted proof for ...
twin peaks	Erm, what part? There are lots of things about Twin Peaks that are hard to understand.	[ "\"Twin Peaks\" is an American television serial drama created by Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). \"Twin Peaks\" features a large ensemble cast, ...
why do eyes get red when watching tv or a screen for a long time	From straining them. You're focused so you blink less. The same idea can be used when putting pressure on a body part for to long will make it red. The touch is focused on per say.	[ "The red-eye effect, which occurs when flash photos are taken when the pupil is too widely open (so that light from the flash that passes into the eye through the pupil reflects off the fundus at the back of the eyeball), can also be eliminated at this stage.\n", "Red-eye effect is seen in photographs of children...
does an older phone battery (less capacity) charge faster than a new phone with brand new battery? and if it’s using a portable battery, will it use less of that portable batteries “juice” to charge than a new phone?	Speed of charge, and total capacity can be very unrelated traits of a battery. With advances in technology, not only are newer batteries capable of holding more electrical charge in the same physical form factor, but they also are capable of drawing more current without overheating, allowing them to recharge faster th...	[ "older phones tend to draw more battery power in the vicinity of iBeacons, while the newer phones can be more efficient in the same environment. In addition to the time spent by the phone scanning, number of scans and number of beacons in the vicinity are also significant factors for battery drain, as pointed out b...
why do our bodies produce phlegm when we run/exert ourselves? how did making it harder to breathe help our ancestors?	Well, remember that we aren't so much 'producing' phlegm as we are expelling unwanted things from our body through the medium of phlegm. Vomiting, for example, isn't intrinsically useful or pleasant, but it's a mechanism to remove harmful things from our body.	[ "The Phlegmatics draw their name from the ancient four humors theory of the Greek doctor Hippocrates (460-370 BC), who believed certain human moods, emotions and behaviors were caused by body fluids (called \"humors\"): blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. A phlegmatic person is calm and unemotional. Phlegma...
when a mosquito bites me, does it take enough blood for the night or does it come back for seconds?	Only females bite, and they bit until they're abdomen is full. From (Mosquito FAQ's)[_URL_0_]: A female will continue to bite and draw blood until her abdomen is full. If she is interrupted before she is full, she will fly to the next person. After feeding, the mosquito rests for two or three days before laying her ...	[ "Symptoms typically begin approximately 11 days after an infected mosquito has bitten a person and the parasites can be seen in the blood between 10 – 12 days after infection. The parasite may multiply rapidly resulting in very high parasite densities that may be fatal.\n", "When mosquitoes bite a person, they do...
How did the typical rock arrive in my backyard?	Where do you live? The answer to that question will shape the specifics to your backyard. For example in my home state of Michigan most of our geology is related to the movement of glaciers. When the glaciers encroached downwards they blulldozed and pulverized rocks in the path into till. This till is carried southward...	[ "The Rocks became established shortly after the colony's formation in 1788. It was known as Tallawoladah by the Cadigal people. The original buildings were first traditional vernacular houses, of wattle and daub, with thatched roofs, and later of local sandstone, from which the area derives its name. From the earli...
why did america put a term limit in place after such a successful president	Well it's important to realize that the 2 term limit had been enshrined in the American Consciousness since George Washington, so the fact that FDR broke that centuries old precedent (for good reasons, but still) was alarming so there was an impetus to make the unwritten rule a written one. The whole point of a term l...	[ "Though dismissed by the Constitutional Convention, the concept of term limits for U.S. presidents took hold during the presidencies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. As his second term entered its final year in 1796, George Washington was exhausted from years of public service, and his health had begun to...
why do governments subsidise fossil fuel companies when they are so rich?	Because lobbying. The companies pay people lots of money to convince politicians that it's in their best interests to give taxpayer money to petrochemical companies.	[ "BULLET::::- Fossil fuel companies: Traditional fossil fuel corporations could benefit or lose from stricter global warming regulations. A reduction in the use of fossil fuels could negatively impact fossil fuel corporations. However, the fact that fossil fuel companies are a large source of energy, are also the pr...
how does a car jack work?	A regular car jack just uses a lever and a hydrolic actuator to lift the car. The force required to lift the car is less when you use a lever. Give me a fulcrum and a lever long enought and I'll move the world.	[ "A jack, screwjack or jackscrew is a mechanical device used as a lifting device to lift heavy loads or to apply great forces. A mechanical jack employs a screw thread for lifting heavy equipment. A hydraulic jack uses hydraulic power. The most common form is a car jack, floor jack or garage jack, which lifts vehicl...
how do airlines get my bag to my destination?	Inside a modern airport is a massive network of conveyor belts that take the luggage from the check in counter to the area where the baggage handlers are. As the baggage travels down the belt, pneumatic pushers or gates redirect the bags into different belts that redirect the bag to the proper staging area. From the...	[ "A bag is entered into the baggage handling system when an airline agent, or self check system, assign the luggage a tag with a unique ten digit barcode. Airlines are also incorporating RFID chips into the tags to track bags in real time and to reduce the number of mishandled bags. The BHS will then scan and sort t...
how does wifi and cell service get slow when too many people are visiting my town of 1500 people?	It's like a pipe. The pipe is sized to supply the normal population, but when there are lots of people, the demand exceeds the flow-rate of the pipe. Data needs structure to flow along - and it's expensive, so the suppliers don't install more capacity than needed. When lots of people suck on the pipe at the same time ...	[ "In contrast to development in cities, in rural areas certain people even in 2014 still suffered connection speeds below 256 kbit/s during daytimes and only can achieve speeds of more than 1 Mbit/s during nighttimes.\n", "The residence hall is an old Sleep hotel. The rent for a small room is $4245–4800 for almost...
why charging someone more money for insurance based on age isn't considered discrimination.	Why not base the pricing off of driving history alone? Thinks about this for a moment. You just answered your own question. On their first day behind the wheel, a brand new driver has NO DRIVING HISTORY. Therefore, their premium cost is high. The cost is reduced as they gain more experience, unless their driving h...	[ "Age discrimination is prevalent because companies have to consider how long older works will stay and the costs of their health insurance accordingly. When companies let these insecurities affect their treatment of older workers- hostile work environment, demotions, lower employment rates-, these older workers who...
how do two brown haired people create a blonde baby?	Could be that you carry the gene, as does the father. Genes can be determined using Punnett squares, specific gene combinations are given letters, either capital or lowercase. Capital letters denote a dominant trait that will mask a recessive trait, marked with a lowercase letter. In this example I’ll say that hair ...	[ "One phenotype (brown/blonde) has a dominant brown allele and a recessive blond allele. A person with a brown allele will have brown hair; a person with no brown alleles will be blond. This explains why two brown-haired parents can produce a blond-haired child. However, this can only be possible if both parent are ...
do cats and dogs 'like' their owners, or is it simply an intrinsic sense of security that draws them to their human companions?	I read somewhere that domestic pets have had the attachment to humans bred into them over 1000's of years.	[ "As a family dog, they make good security dogs and faithful family guardians. They can be very friendly and playful, even in old age. They regard their family as their flock, and will keep their distance until they are sure a stranger is not a threat. When annoyed, they may attack without warning, so a considerable...
How important is Earth's distance from the sun, for human survival?	You're pretty much asking what the definition is of the [habitable zone](_URL_0_). And yes, astronomers have put a great deal of thought and work into this. Unfortunately the answer to how far you could move Earth in/out depends heavily on theoretical climate models. The [Kasting](_URL_1_) (1993) model was the standar...	[ "BULLET::::- Jeremiah Horrocks: Astronomer who calculated that the distance between Earth and the sun was 59,000,000 miles – though well short of the actual distance of 93,000,000 miles, his estimate was more accurate than any other calculations of his time.\n", "BULLET::::- The distance of Earth from the Sun is ...
whats that thing i see when my eyes are closed, while i press the top of my eyes side to side?	I've never heard of what you described; most people see random patters of colors kind of like looking through a kaleidoscope....It's called an "entoptic phenomenon," meaning that it originates from the eyeball. When you apply pressure to the eyeball, you also put pressure on the retina, which is basically the part of ...	[ "Bell's phenomenon (also known as the palpebral oculogyric reflex) is a medical sign that allows observers to notice an upward and outward movement of the eye, when an attempt is made to close the eyes. The upward movement of the eye is present in the majority of the population, and is a defensive mechanism. The ph...
What is the oldest, continuous land border in the world?	Do you want one that has been fixed in place for the longest time? If so, the Swedish-Norwegian border (which remained even when the countries were in a Union 1814-1905) has been the same since 1660. Portugal has had the same borders since about 1300, but the states on the other side of the border has gone from Catil...	[ "The oldest known boundary stone in China is from Jiangsu Province. Dating from 12 A.D., it bears the inscription \"the sea area from Jiaozhou Bay to the east of Guixan county belongs to Langya Shire and the waters from the south of Guixan county to the east of the estuary of Guanhe River belongs to Donghai Shire.\...
how do statistical websites count enormous numbers such as the birth and death count, or the population of the earth, or even money spent on illegal drugs?	These are estimates based off some formula. Lots of governments and organizations collect vast amounts of demographic data and publish it freely, all you need to do is a look at a few numbers for whatever you are interested in, devise a formula, and easy enough. For example, If I drink 1 liter of water a day, After a...	[ "The measures of central tendency, mean, median, and mode, should be considered when assessing a population pyramid. since the data is not completely accurate. For example, the average age could be used to determine the type of population in a particular region. A population with an average age of 15 would have a y...
how can bill clinton almost get impeached for lying to congress, yet hayden and other intelligence agency officials do so regularly and nothing happens?	Impeachment is NOT the removal of office, it simply means to formally bring charges against an official. Clinton was impeached.	[ "Since Ken Starr had already completed an extensive investigation, the House Judiciary Committee conducted no investigations of its own into Clinton's alleged wrongdoing, and it held no serious impeachment-related hearings before the 1998 midterm elections. Nevertheless, impeachment was one of the major issues in t...
how do you really know sites like duckduckgo aren't stealing your info and selling it?	You can always see what data websites are asking for from your browser (in most browsers you can press F12 and go to the "network" tab). If you do that for [DuckDuckGo](_URL_0_) and compare it to [Google](_URL_1_) you can see that Google stores all kinds of unique identifiers in a cookie while DuckDuckGo doesn't. Whil...	[ "DuckDuckGo, founded in 2008, is known for being privacy focused and not tracking its users. DuckDuckGo does not collect or share any personal information of users, such as IP addresses or cookies, which other search engines usually do log and keep for some time. It also does not have spam, and protects user privac...
why aren't planets or the moon declared property of a country?	International treaties barring the claiming of any body outside of the Earth by countries. Plus you can declare as much as you want it doesn't make it so.	[ "Independent sovereign nations claim the planet's entire land surface, except for some parts of Antarctica, a few land parcels along the Danube river's western bank, and the unclaimed area of Bir Tawil between Egypt and Sudan. , there are 193 sovereign states that are member states of the United Nations, plus two o...
who were the first to harness the power of advertising? who figured out that concept?	Animals use advertising. Big feathers, bright colors, songs, dances. "I've got the best product! Have sex with me" It's as old as time	[ "The history of advertising can be traced to ancient civilizations. It became a major force in capitalist economies in the mid-19th century, based primarily on newspapers and magazines. In the 20th century, advertising grew rapidly with new technologies such as direct mail, radio, television, the internet and mobil...
Why do young children cry at bedtime?	Remember that the idea of having babies and small children sleep in a separate room - much less a separate bed - from his or her parents is an incredibly recent invention in terms of human evolution, and it's not a universal invention either. Babies didn't evolve to cry when they're being put to bed; they evolved to cr...	[ "BULLET::::- Promotes peaceful sleep: Infants who co-sleep were found to rarely cry during the night compared to infants who slept in a separate room, who startled throughout the night and spent four times more minutes crying than co-sleeping infants.\n", "Crying in infants is associated with high stress levels a...
- how do so many sportstars, actors, etc. that make millions of dollars end up in debts?	Because they, like many others in our society, spend more than they make. Yes, they make a lot. They also spend > a lot.	[ "Scores of movie notables spent their last years here, so have far less famous people from behind the scenes of the industry. Those with money paid their own way, while others, who had no money, paid nothing. Fees are based solely on the \"ability to pay.\"\n", "Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson is an exampl...
could memory loss make you "forget" you have depression, or any other mental illness?	A treatment for severe depression is electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), where you run an electrical voltage through the brain. This causes memory loss. It's the most effective treatment for depression we know of. It's possible that memory loss facilitates the therapeutic effects. The patients don't forget about their il...	[ "Some mental illnesses, including depression and psychosis, may produce symptoms that must be differentiated from both delirium and dementia. Therefore, any dementia evaluation should include a depression screening such as the Neuropsychiatric Inventory or the Geriatric Depression Scale. Physicians used to think th...
Why did the germans choose Verdun in WW1 as one of their main targets ?	At a basic level, Verdun was intended to bleed France's armies. Falkenhayn, the commanding German officer, hoped to capture a number of French positions, forcing the French to counter attack to retake them, leaving them open to bombardment from German artillery positions. Falkenhayn hoped to recreate the devastation wr...	[ "The German attacking forces were not able to enter the city of Verdun itself and by December 1916 had been forced back beyond the original French trench lines of February. The sector again became a relatively inactive one as the allied focus shifted to the Somme and the Germans adopted a defensive stance. While ge...
Why haven't the great muslim empires been able to regain their former glory?	Not to pick on you specifically, but there have been a lot of this sort of a question recently. This is not a well-phrased question. If you want really good answers from good historians, you need to frame your question positively, ie. "Why did X happen?" Asking why something didn't happen can only generate vague ans...	[ "The Muslim conquests brought about the collapse of the Sassanid Empire and a great territorial loss for the Byzantine Empire. The reasons for the Muslim success are hard to reconstruct in hindsight, primarily because only fragmentary sources from the period have survived. Fred McGraw Donner suggests that formation...
During heavy exertion, such as lifting, why do we close our airways?	I can offer a little bit of information on this, but not the complete picture. We don't really need to breathe when we lift or go through quick, heavy exertions. Weightlifting is almost purely an anaerobic exercise (my physio syllabus actually says its 100% anaerobic which makes sense). Oxidative phosphorylation practi...	[ "During heavy breathing as in exertion, a large number of accessory muscles in the neck and abdomen are recruited, that during exhalation pull the ribcage down, decreasing the volume of the thoracic cavity. The FRC is now decreased, but since the lungs cannot be emptied completely there is still about a litre of re...
In theory, could it be possible for there to be a genetic mutation that stops genetic mutations?	It is possible to get mutations in the DNA polymerase or any of the many proteins involved in DNA repair that would decrease the mutation rate. In fact many of the commercial DNA polymerases used in [PCR] (_URL_0_) are enginered to have very low mutation rates in the PCR environment. However, it is impossible to make D...	[ "As with all genetic disorders, it is of course also possible for a human to acquire it spontaneously through mutation, rather than inheriting it, because of a new mutation in one of their parents' gametes. Spontaneous mutations account for about 33% of all cases of haemophilia A. About 30% of cases of haemophilia ...
Are there any examples of cross breeding animal species with very similar genomes ie those with recent evolutionary divergence?	Male Donkey + Female Horse = [Mule](_URL_1_) Male Horse + Female Donkey = [Hinny](_URL_2_) Male Lion + Female Tiger = [Liger](_URL_3_) Male Tiger + Female Lion = [Tiglon](_URL_0_) There may be others. I am unaware of cross breeds done that are further separated than these animals. In most cases the result of thes...	[ "A taxonomist decides whether to recognize a subspecies or not. A common criterion for recognizing two distinct populations as subspecies rather than full species is the ability of them to interbreed without a fitness penalty. In the wild, subspecies do not interbreed due to geographic isolation or sexual selection...
Medieval Europe experts, how do you feel about Terry Jones' series "Medieval Lives?"	Personally I can't give an opinion, but my medieval Prof (who's a genius, if a little insane) quite likes them, only thing he's considered showing us.	[ "Terry Jones' Medieval Lives is a 2004 television documentary series produced for the BBC. Written and hosted by Terry Jones, each half-hour episode examines a particular Medieval personality, with the intent of separating myth from reality.\n", "Jones explained his motivation for making this series in the articl...
why is some food "aged" and still edible while others are rotten and tossed out?	Rotten food is an uncontrolled explosion of microorganism activity, which is almost always going to produce toxins or at least make the food entirely unpleasant. Aging food is a more controlled process. Conditions such as temperature, humidity, salinity, etc are tuned to allow some bacteria, yeasts, etc to grow and to...	[ "Eating deteriorated food could not be considered safe due to mycotoxins or microbial wastes. Some pathogenic bacteria, such as \"Clostridium perfringens\" and \"Bacillus cereus\", are capable of causing spoilage.\n", "Many of the items, such as kindling and arrows, degrade over time and ultimately break, making ...
what exactly causes paranoia?	Paranoia and Panic Attacks are reactions to stress or unbalanced brain chemistry. Essentially your body is reacting to stress like it did when our ancestors were living in trees and caves. You get a dump of adrenalin and other hormones to help you focus and discern danger. With no physical danger, those chemicals s...	[ "Paranoia is a belief system heavily influenced by fear. This extreme fear mostly becomes so strong that it leads to delusion or irrationality. The paranoid thought usually consists of someone or something plotting against him or her. Paranoia can be caused by simple fears, exposure to/experience of trauma, etc. Th...
why is there an android vs ios "feud" among consumers.	The same reason there's a feud between XBox & Playstation gamers or people that drive Fords and Chevrolets or Team Edward claims superiority over Team Jacob in the Twilight fandom. People are tribal & insecure. They want to be convinced that they made the right choice and that the "other side" is wrong so that th...	[ "BULLET::::- Complaint opened in 2015 that the dominance of the Android operating system was abused to make it difficult for competing third-party apps and search engines to be pre-installed on mobile phones. (See European Union vs. Google.)\n", "Android has suffered from \"fragmentation\", a situation where the ...
In 1600, would a 'citizen' of the Holy Roman Empire identity themselves as such? Would they even know they were one? Or was their view much more local?	Citizenship in 1600 Germany was awarded by the Cities which derived [city rights from the Kaiser](_URL_0_) or the lord of the land (bishop, prince etc). Each new citizen had to make a Bürgereid, a Citizen's Oath, and repeat it every the "swear day" (Schwurtag). Now, the wording was different from town to town - Some w...	[ "Before 1806, when general citizenship was largely nonexistent in the Holy Roman Empire, its inhabitants were subject to varying estate regulations. In different ways from one territory of the empire to another, these regulations classified inhabitants into different groups, such as dynasts, members of the court en...
How do we know that the Earth's atmosphere used to contain more oxygen than nitrogen in the past?	So first off, Earth's atmosphere never contained more oxygen than nitrogen. The highest the oxygen fraction ever reached was 35% during the Carboniferous period some 300 million year ago. [Here's a history](_URL_0_) of oxygen concentration over time. Now, how do we know that? Largely through proxies of other elements ...	[ "The atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood. Most geologists believe it was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other relatively inert gases, and was lacking in free oxygen. There is, however, evidence that an oxygen-rich atmosphere existed since the early Archean.\n", "At the time o...
Why are women less likely to become scientists?	I'll let HonestAbeRinkin write out a more complete answer, but it comes down to a few things: 1. Sexism. 2. A tradeoff between having babies and pursuing a scientific career. 3. Cultural attitudes about the manliness or ungirliness of certain sciences. All of these are changing for the better, as is the representat...	[ "For women who are pursuing STEM major careers, these individuals often face gender disparities in the work field, especially in regards to science and engineering. It has become more common for women to pursue undergraduate degrees in science, but are continuously discredited in salary rates and higher ranking pos...
how do slow songs like lullabies induce sleep?	Music promotes overall arousal or relaxation in listeners, with heart rate being only one factor among many that music influences. When a music listener's brain registers the tempo of a song, his brain sends signals to the body that cause breathing to either accelerate or decelerate, matching the tempo of the music. At...	[ "Rhythmically, there are shared patterns. Lullabies are usually in triple meter or 6/8 time, giving them a \"characteristic swinging or rocking motion.\" This mimics the movement a baby experiences in the womb as a mother moves. In addition, infants' preference for rhythm shares a strong connection with what they h...
who owned ancient artifacts before they were in museums, assuming most museums were built in the 20th century?	You should pose this question to /r/archeology as the folks in that subreddit are very helpful and friendly.	[ "Early museums began as the private collections of wealthy individuals, families or institutions of art and rare or curious natural objects and artifacts. These were often displayed in so-called wonder rooms or cabinets of curiosities. One of the oldest museums known is Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum, built by Princess E...
Are organisms that use non-XY sex determination systems "male" and "female" in the same sense as mammals?	We use the female designation to tell which animal has the ova and which ones don't. Usually this is how we go about it regardless of the chromosome structure. ZZ birds are designated as male since they do not have ovaries. Likewise, XX humans are designated female because they carry the ovary. Animals that carry bo...	[ "Not all species share a common sex-determination system. In most animals, including humans, sex is determined genetically, but in some species it can be determined due to social, environmental, or other factors. For example, \"Cymothoa exigua\" changes sex depending on the number of females present in the vicinity...
why do countries import and export the same product, like crude oil, or chicken?	Different types of chicken, different flavours of crude plus individual companies with different trade agreements with other companies and countries	[ "An export in international trade is a good or service produced in one country that is bought by someone in another country. The sum of the exports of the states is significantly lower than the value of the United States's total exports. The difference results from goods originating from states of origin, returned ...
in the world of trading stocks, what is margin buying power?	Buying on margin is essentially taking out a loan to buy securities, using your already owned securities as collateral. Say you own a bunch of stocks worth $100,000. Your broker might lend you up to $70,000 to buy other stocks using your $100K as collateral. If the stock values drop to a certain level though you ris...	[ "This trading or \"betting with positive edge\" method involves a [[Money management\|risk management]] component that uses three elements: number of shares or [[Futures contracts\|futures]] held, the current market price, and current market [[Volatility (finance)\|volatility]]. An initial risk rule determines positio...

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