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train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
What's the deal with Hugh Everett's "Many Worlds Interpretation"- is this taken seriously?	> is this another one of those "Yes, that's another way of looking at the math, but it has no bearing on reality" things? Right now it is. It has no bearing on anything testable.	[ "There is a wide range of claims that are considered \"many-worlds\" interpretations. It was often claimed by those who do not believe in MWI that Everett himself was not entirely clear as to what he believed; however, MWI adherents (such as DeWitt, Tegmark, Deutsch and others) believe they fully understand Everett...
How long can brain cells live for?	Well, neurons (the cells generally being referred to with the term "brain cells) are only replaced by stem cells, so an animal's neurons are generally as old as it is. From [wikipedia](_URL_0_), the longest recorded lifespan of an animal is around 200 years, so that it is a limit on the lifespan of neurons as well. Th...	[ "Another interesting feature of the hybrot is its longevity. Neurons separated from a living brain usually die after only a couple of months. However, due to a specially designed incubator built around a gas-tight culture chamber selectively permeable to carbon dioxide, but impermeable to water vapor, reduces the r...
why do so many people wiggle their feet to fall asleep? what exactly's happening there?	I've never heard of this, but I assume it would give your mind something benign to focus on instead of thinking of things that may induce anxiety or other emotions that may keep you awake. Similar to the classic idea of counting sheep.	[ "Rises and falls of the body is a natural phenomenon during casual walking: when feet are apart the body is closer to the ground than when the feet are together. Some dances, e.g., Charleston, exaggerate this natural \"bobbing\", while in many others bobbing at each step is considered to be bad style or lack of pro...
Why do we hear a difference between good and wrong notes/tones in music?	A musical pitch is just the sound waves resonating at a certain frequency. So for example, middle A is a sound wave with a frequency of 440 Hz. If you play two notes at once, the ratio between the two frequencies will determine whether you perceive it as consonant or dissonant. Basically, small whole number ratios ...	[ "The highest notes can have a shrill, piercing quality and can be difficult to tune accurately. Different instruments often play differently in this respect due to the sensitivity of the bore and reed measurements. Using alternate fingerings and adjusting the embouchure help correct the pitch of these notes.\n", ...
why does software like itunes tell me "an unknown error occurred" and then give me an error number which obviously means the error is known?	Did you look up the code? Because there is a code for "Unknown error." It's what you get when none of the other known error codes match.	[ "The error messages has been described as being an example of poor user interface design. For most users, if the message appeared, the only choice was to hit 'R'—which repeated the message—or hit another letter, which caused the program to crash and all work to be lost. One scholar described it this way:\n", "An ...
what is instantaneous frequency?	Let's you were playing a trombone, moving the slide to constantly change the frequency of the notes. The instantaneous frequency would be the note your were playing at any given moment in time. If I grabbed your slide and stopped it from moving, it is the note you would keep on playing.	[ "Instantaneous phase and frequency are important concepts in signal processing that occur in the context of the representation and analysis of time-varying functions. The instantaneous phase (also known as local phase or simply phase) of a \"complex-valued\" function \"s\"(\"t\"), is the real-valued function:\n", ...
Can anyone help identify the ribbons and branch of service of my South African ancestor?	Thanks to a tip elsewhere, I think the cap badge might be from the 1st Infantry Brigade from the Union of South Africa. If that helps narrow the possibilities, Wikipedia says they served in Egypt and on the Western Front. Could the third medal then (from the left) be a French Cross/Croix de Guerre? I was looking all ...	[ "Robert H. C. (Bob) Kershaw (died 6 May 1998) was a fighter pilot and later businessman of South Africa, notable as the first South African recipient of the Distinguished Service Order in World War II, for his daring rescue of downed squadron leader John Frost.\n", "In 1906, King Edward VII gave the HAC the disti...
Why are Art History departments in colleges usually separate from History departments?	Someone studying art history would need to study history as well because historical context matters in studying works of art. However, it is more about the development of art than purely history. The difference between an art program and an art history program is similar to the split in many English departments--you ha...	[ "The School of Art + Art History + Design is an undergraduate and graduate school in the Arts Division of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. Formally known as the University of Washington School of Art, the institution is divided into three major departments, with the design departmen...
Is it true that Milan was relatively unscathed by the Black Death? How, as a major center of trade, were they able to manage this? Did they take any pro-active steps to spare the city?	You are probably referring to the Black Plague of 1348; this plague outbreak (the first in Europe identified as the Bubonic Plague) is estimated to have killed up to 40% of Europe's population, but only 10% of the population of the Italian city of Milan. I'd first point out that subsequent plague pandemics, notably tha...	[ "The Black Death devastated Venice in 1348, and once again between 1575 and 1577. In three years, the plague killed some 50,000 people. In 1630, the Italian plague of 1629–31 killed a third of Venice's 150,000 citizens. Venice began to lose its position as a center of international trade during the later part of th...
my iphone is 32 gb. it says i have 22.5 used gb and only 5.2 gb left, why is this.	Apple pre-loads the device with things like the operating system and apps. It has about 32GB storage before they load it.	[ "Since introduction in 2011, each account has 5 GB of free storage for owners of either an iOS device using iOS 5.x or later, or a Mac using OS X Lion 10.7 or later. Users can purchase additional storage for a total of 50 GB, 200GB or 2TB. The amount of storage is shared across all devices per iCloud Apple ID.\n", ...
why do most helmets have a bunch of gaps?	For ventilation and weight reduction. Sports helmets don't need to be maximally strong.They're plenty strong enough to do their job, so it's safe to make some holes in them to reduce weight and improve ventilation and comfort.	[ "The main reason for the development of the MICH was due to the protective but heavy PASGT being supplanted by these bump helmets by special forces operators due to them being lighter, more comfortable, closer-fitting, and made of plastic making them easier to mount accessories onto, especially night vision devices...
what is a stable star?	There is an online game about horses called Star Stable. Mister Ed was a TV show about a talking horse, so he was a stable star. There was a groupie in the '70s named Sable Starr. You're going to have to give some context to that question.	[ "Compact stars are often the endpoints of stellar evolution, and are in this respect also called stellar remnants. The state and type of a stellar remnant depends primarily on the mass of the star that it formed from. The ambiguous term \"compact star\" is often used when the exact nature of the star is not known, ...
Why are there natural grassy 'fields' with no canopy layer?	There's a lot of conditions that could cause that. In the Ozarks there are places like that called glades. These glades are formed over variable depth soil that can't support the growth of trees. If you don't do anything to these places they do tend to get overgrown by shrubs and other tree species that can handle t...	[ "A meadow is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grass and other non-woody plants. They attract a multitude of wildlife and support flora and fauna that could not thrive in other habitats. They provide areas for courtship displays, nesting, food gathering, pollinating insects, and sometimes sheltering, if the v...
what is donald trump's platform?	He literally doesn't have one. I recently read somewhere (can't remember where, sorry) how political reporters covering him are getting frustrated, because they try to find policy statements for background that are standard issue for candidates, and it simply doesn't exist for Trump. He is just making it up as he goes...	[ "Trump makes his case for why he would be an effective leader of the United States, and reassures Republicans that he upholds conservative values. He criticizes the media's coverage of him while defending his decisions on the campaign trail. \"Crippled America\" stresses that the United States needs to start \"winn...
In electricity, where does the flow of electrons actually come from?	The electrons were already in the copper, before the turbine started spinning. They were drifting between the atoms of copper. There's no damage, because the electrons just go back and forth. A typical speed might be 0.02 millimeters per cycle, at 50 cycles per second. Even if the current is DC, the electrons go aroun...	[ "In classical electromagnetism electrons move in the opposite direction of the current (by convention \"current\" describes a theoretical \"hole flow\"). In some semiconductors it \"appears\" \"holes\" are actually flowing because the direction of the voltage is opposite to the derivation below.\n", "When electro...
Why are popular depicted byzantine pieces of art less realistic than counterparts from the roman empire?	> Since the byzantines inherited much of the roman culture one would expect the art to have sustained the realistic depictions of known ancient artwork. Why? There are a lot of assumptions packed into your question. Roman portraiture, especially imperial portraits, were not realistic. It was strongly *idealiz...	[ "Byzantine art has been compared to contemporary abstraction, in its flatness and highly stylised depictions of figures and landscape. Some periods of Byzantine art, especially the so-called Macedonian art of around the 10th century, are more flexible in approach. Frescos of the Palaeologian Renaissance of the earl...
How much do you think Alexander the Great's success was due to his father?	I think what we see today regarding the credit given to Philip rather than Alexander is a bit on the revisionist side of the pendulum swing. What I mean by this is for quite a long time we'd all learned what an amazing human being Alexander was, who did all of these incredible things through sheer force of personality ...	[ "Alexander the Great (356BC-323BC) was a Greek king of Macedon and the creator of one of the largest empires in ancient history. He was tutored by the philosopher Aristotle and, as ruler, broke the power of Persia, overthrew the Persian king Darius III and conquered the Persian Empire. His Macedonian Empire stretch...
have we not yet found a scientific proof of homosexuality in humans?	My favorite come-back to "it's a choice" is "let us assume it IS a choice. Why the fuck do YOU care?"	[ "In February 2014, the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) issued a statement, in which it stated that there is no evidence to prove that homosexuality is unnatural: \"Based on existing scientific evidence and good practice guidelines from the field of psychiatry, the Indian Psychiatric Society would like to state tha...
what kind of people are on the committees for major awards like the oscars and how does someone get appointed to the committee?	You can't apply, you have to be invited. If you work in the film industry in some capacity and your work has been critically acclaimed they'll invite you into one of the categories. It's the same categories you win awards for so actors, actresses, directors, set designers, writers, hairstylists- they all have their own...	[ "In July 2017 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, also known as simply the Academy), invited Kunuk to become a member. The Academy, which has almost 7,000 motion picture professionals as members, is known internationally for their annual Academy Awards, the Oscars. In 2017 they invited 774 new m...
Why do lightbulbs need so much "free space" between the filament and the glass?	The bulb is filled with an inert gas (usually argon) that does not react with the filament. Throughout the bulb's life time, oxygen slowly seeps into the bulb, and once it passes some threshold, there is enough oxygen for the filament to oxidize and break, which causes the light to go out. Therefore, with a large bulb...	[ "In contrast to radio frequency waves used by Wi-Fi, lights cannot penetrate through walls and doors. This makes it more secure and makes it easier to control access to a network. As long as transparent materials like windows are covered, access to a Li-Fi channel is limited to devices inside the room.\n", "Becau...
What was the historical Western response to terrorism prior to the 20th century?	Not an answer just a note that terrorism is a slightly modern term. The example you ask is either piratry (if the ship was working independently) or a act of war (if the ship was state-sponsored in its acts). You'd have to define to terrorism before we can get a proper argument going. This is a good question however ...	[ "During the Cold War, especially in the 1970s, West Germany experienced severe terrorism, mostly perpetrated by far-left terrorist groups and culminating in the German Autumn of 1977, the country's most serious national crisis in postwar history. Terrorist incidents also took place in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of t...
why does white look pink after coming inside on a bright day? why does white look blue on a camera?	It's all about white balance. White, unfortunately, isn't white. It's made up of a lot of different colors in combination so that it looks white. But there are lots of ways to subtly change what "white" is - and when you see two different "whites" together, it's easy to see that one may look pink while another looks...	[ "White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of fresh snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on television and computer screens is created by a mixture of red, blue and green light.\n...
How can vegetarian animals be so similar to carnivore physically?	Herbivores have the ability to digest more plant matter, and get various nutrients that omnivores and carnivores can't. Herbivores can make certain proteins, while carnivores can't, so the carnivores eat the herbivores to get the proteins that they make. That's as simple as I can put it.	[ "\"Carnivore\" also may refer to the mammalian order Carnivora, but this is somewhat misleading: many, but not all, Carnivora are meat eaters, and even fewer are true obligate carnivores (see below). For example, while the Arctic polar bear eats meat almost exclusively (more than 90% of its diet is meat), most spec...
how is it that microscopes can see through an organism?	The microscope focuses on a very thin plane. Everything above and below is blurred out. So as long as light is getting through then you can see an image. If you think about it, MRI's get their pictures the same way. One layer is in sharp detail. Every thing else is taken out. I never tried to do anything but sex a fr...	[ "A microscope (from the , \"mikrós\", \"small\" and , \"skopeîn\", \"to look\" or \"see\") is an instrument used to see objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using such an instrument. Microscopic means invisible to the eye unl...
what is reactive power and how is it different from active power ?	There are some mathematical definitions of AC power, active power and reactive power - but they mostly require knowledge of complex numbers which i won't go into (unless someone wants me to). Definition of power Let us start with the definition of power in a component: Power = Voltage * Current A posit...	[ "Reactive power is the name given to unusable power. It does no work in the electrical system, but is used to charge capacitors or produce a magnetic field around the field of an inductor. Reactive power needs to be generated and distributed through a circuit to provide sufficient real power to enable processes to ...
Is there any benefit to being lighter skinned in colder climates?	Usually colder climates have less sun. Even if not, people cover up. Lighter skin helps people make more vitamin D with less light, so it is a survival thing for places where skin is more covered up or there is less sun.	[ "Other important factors of environmental factors include climate and disease. Climate has effects on determining what kinds of human variation are more adaptable to survive without much restrictions and hardships. For example, people who live in a climate where there is a lot of exposure to sunlight have a darker ...
Why are microphones so much smaller than speakers?	You don't need the full length of a wave to pick it up. The physics behind it can be complicated, but basically there is a piece of metal between magnets and the flux of the metal as it move in the pressure wave creates a voltage in the magnets. This voltage can be very small, as long as it's measurable. Once it's meas...	[ "While a large loudspeaker is naturally more directional because of its large size, a source with equivalent directivity can be made by utilizing an array of traditional small loudspeakers, all driven together in-phase. Acoustically equal to a large speaker, this creates a larger source size compared to wavelength,...
what is the mad cow disease? why can humans get it?	I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and the version humans get (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) are both caused by a "corrupted" or misfolded version of a certain protein that both cow and human cells make, called the prion protein (PrP). The disease doesn't spread as a ...	[ "Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as \"mad cow disease\", is a fatal brain disease affecting cattle. It is believed by most scientists that the disease may be transmitted to human beings who eat the brain or spinal cord of infected carcasses.ref name=\"FDA/CFSAN\"\n", "Cattle diseases were in th...
what causes ‘the zoomies’ in animals?	Children do not get hyperactive from ingesting sugar. If they become more active than before, it's because their blood sugar was LOW, before. If high blood sugar made people hyperactive, diabetics would be the most physically active people on earth, which is the opposite of what is observed. If your family members ...	[ "Plumb traveled to over sixty zoos in the US and Europe, filming captive elephants exhibiting what biologists refer to as stereotypy, a behavior only seen in captive animals, which includes rhythmic rocking, head bobbing, stepping back and forth, and pacing. This compulsive movement is a coping mechanism for stress...
Lobsters have blue blood due to a lack of haemoglobin. How do they transport oxygen around their body without it?	They have proteins called hemocyanins, which do the same thing, in essentially the same way. The active site uses copper instead of iron, so it's blue instead of red.	[ "Lobsters, like snails and spiders, have blue blood due to the presence of hemocyanin, which contains copper. In contrast, vertebrates and many other animals have red blood from iron-rich hemoglobin. Lobsters possess a green hepatopancreas, called the tomalley by chefs, which functions as the animal's liver and pan...
How do Tesla Coils make sound?	It makes sound in a manner similar to lightning - what a Tesla coil is doing is overcoming the breakdown resistance of the air and ionizing it, allowing the air to briefly become a conductor. This process causes the air to heat up and expand, and, in a single-spark scenario, makes the audible 'crack' you associate with...	[ "Tesla coils can also be used to generate sounds, including music, by modulating the system's effective \"break rate\" (i.e., the rate and duration of high power RF bursts) via MIDI data and a control unit. The actual MIDI data is interpreted by a microcontroller which converts the MIDI data into a PWM output which...
Can plasma only be made out of specific elements? Do the properties of the source elements influence the behavior of the plasma?	Just an educated guess, but since no-one's answered yet... Plasma is just a more "energized" state than gas. Heat up a solid, it turns liquid, heat that up, it turns gas and then even more to plasma. But with the increase of energy, chemical reactions come into serious play. As the energy of an atom increases, it tend...	[ "A plasma is any gas in which a significant percentage of the atoms or molecules are ionized. Fractional ionization in plasmas used for deposition and related materials processing varies from about 10 in typical capacitive discharges to as high as 5–10% in high density inductive plasmas. Processing plasmas are typi...
back in 2005 my speakers would always do a little bark before i got a text message, but not anymore. why did this happen and what changed?	The phone used 2G GSM(or another similar system) in 2005 and today you are likely using 4G 2G GSM Time-division multiple access to share a channel with 8 or 16 other cellphones. That mean that is transmit in short burst and the stopped tramsitting. There was buliple burst per second and it those burst that was picked ...	[ "Listeners complained when transmission ceased in 2005. In 2008, the transmission was reported in the press as gaining more attention than the spoken-word programming of Oneword, and even of attracting half a million listeners.\n", "Because the communication over telephone lines did not use any kind of error corr...
Were there eastern parallels to "Orientalism" at the height of eastern empires' powers?	I'll try to answer your question, sorry if it doesn't satisfy you. I will focus on the Ottoman Empire, though mostly on the 19th century so not really a time of 'height' We can see the judgement and views of Western Europe from travelogues made by Ottoman men who traveled there. These travelogues contains curiosity, ...	[ "In \"For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies\" (2006), Robert Irwin said that Said's concentrating the scope of \"Orientalism\" to the Middle East, especially Palestine and Egypt, was a mistake, because the Mandate of Palestine (1920–1948) and British Egypt (1882–1956) only were under direct Europe...
what is the difference between inflation and deflation (in terms of currency) and how are they caused?	Imagine a market with one guy selling apples. All the people in his village want apples, so that there is more money than goods. The price of each apple is now 10$. Now a lot of people notice that selling apples might be lucrative so new apple stands are popping up left and righht and every one of them wants to sell th...	[ "In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate). Inflation reduces the value of currency over time, but deflation increases it. This allows more goods and services to be bought than before wi...
how do brands (e.g. audemars piguet, hermes, etc.) get to where they are today? why does their brand cost so much? at which point did people start going 'it's actually reasonable to pay this price for this brand'?	David Lynch once said that the best thing about being wealthy was buying a book at a bookstore and never having to look at the price. There is a certain level of wealth where the difference between a $20 and $200 shirt is negligible, and they don't have to worry about it. There is a certain level of pretention where ...	[ "Branded products carried include HARIBO in Germany, Knoppers in Belgium and France, Marmite and Branston Pickle in Great Britain; and Vegemite and Milo in Australia. This is usually very strongly branded items, that in the past they have had difficulty in creating a generic version of the product. In the United St...
Dark matter finally detected? Can anyone shed some light on this?	As a rule of thumb: if dark matter were definitively detected it would be a big enough deal that you wouldn't have to ask reddit. It would be on the front page of the NYT, all the science blogs would be talking about it, etc. This is a possible indicated of dark matter axions, but I would be highly skeptical at this po...	[ "BULLET::::- NASA scientists report that hints of dark matter may have been detected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station. According to the scientists, \"the first results from the space-borne Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer confirm an unexplained excess of high-energy positrons in Eart...
enantiomers and how the differ from one another?	Look at your hands. Your left hand is a mirror copy of your right hand. If you position one on top of another, they do not match exactly - because they arent same, they are mirrored. This is what Enantiomers are - they are basically "mirrored molecules". They have same atoms, in same positions, connected to each other...	[ "The optical activity of enantiomers is additive. If different enantiomers exist together in one solution, their optical activity adds up. That is why racemates are optically inactive, as they nullify their clockwise and counter clockwise optical activities.\n", "If there is a pair of enantiomers, each with one s...
the "spin" classification system of particles and atoms	"Spin" refers to how a particle can have momentum without changing its position. A similar phenomena in the visible world is how a basketball can spin in place. That's not exactly what's happening to the particle, but we use the words "spin" and "angular momentum" for lack of better words in our vocabulary to explain i...	[ "In some ways, spin is like a vector quantity; it has a definite magnitude, and it has a \"direction\" (but quantization makes this \"direction\" different from the direction of an ordinary vector). All elementary particles of a given kind have the same magnitude of spin angular momentum, which is indicated by assi...
how do mods improve a game's graphics?	Well I know in the case of Skyrim a lot of the graphics were downgraded to make the game more readily available so upgrading wasn't hard because its framework was already capable for this, I think a lot of PC games are like this. Not sure how its done though.	[ "For advanced mods such as \"Desert Combat\" that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding sm...
basic physics and/or chemistry	What level are you after? And which area(s) of each subject?	[ "Chemical physics is a subdiscipline of chemistry and physics that investigates physicochemical phenomena using techniques from atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics; it is the branch of physics that studies chemical processes from the point of view of physics. While at the interface of physics ...
When did "I'm coming " or "coming" in general, begin to take on a sexual connotation in the English language?	This question might be a better fit at /r/etymology.	[ "English loanwords were common in late (pre-revival) Manx, e.g. \"boy\" (\"boy\"), \"badjer\" (\"badger\"), rather than the more usual Gaelic \"guilley\" and \"brock\". Henry Jenner, on asking someone what he was doing, was told \"Ta mee smokal pipe\" (\"I am smoking a pipe\"), and that \"[he] certainly considered ...
how do plants mimic each other if they can't see?	Plants don't actively mimic each other. It's a passive process that occurs through natural selection. For example, lets say you have a random selection of mimic plants, some of which are better at mimicking than the others. In this case, let's say that the mimic plants are weeds, and they are mimicking a legitimate ...	[ "Many plants have evolved to appear like other organisms, most commonly insects. This can have wide-ranging benefits including increasing pollination. In Pouyannian mimicry, flowers mimic a potential female mate visually, but the key stimuli are often chemical and tactile. \n", "Many species of flowers resemble e...
does anyone or any nation own antarctica?	Many countries have signed agreements that nobody can own Antarctica.	[ "Antarctica currently has no permanent population and therefore it has no citizenship nor government. All personnel present on Antarctica at any time are citizens or nationals of some sovereignty outside Antarctica, as there is no Antarctic sovereignty. The majority of Antarctica is claimed by one or more countries...
Are there any sources that describe upward mobility during the medieval era?	I think the social structure is far more fluid than you give it credit for certainly before c.1300. If you are thinking that the 'feudalistic system' in terms of a rigid pyramid structure then this is certainly not the case for inhibiting social mobility. Other, more pragmatic, factors tended to influence social mobili...	[ "In the late Middle Ages social mobility was not generally seen as a good thing, and could be regarded as dangerous to the social order. There had always been social mobility, as the economy expanded continuously, but much of it was in the church, which was more acceptable. In the 15th century the heavy losses from...
What happened to the Women in the workforce at the conclusion of WW2? Did they mostly remain working, or did they stop working for one reason or another.	There's always more to be said, but you may be interested in my answer to [What happened to female skilled labor, like Rosie the Riveter, after the conclusion of WWII?](_URL_0_)	[ "At the end of the war, most of the munitions-making jobs ended. Many factories were closed; others retooled for civilian production. In some jobs women were replaced by returning veterans who did not lose seniority because they were in service. However the number of women at work in 1946 was 87% of the number in 1...
essential oils.	They're the extracted/refined "essence" of plants, condensed down to an oil. Some people think they have all sorts of amazing healing properties but there's not a whole lot of science behind that. Currently, it's somewhat of a hot topic because a few big MLM schemes are marketing them fairly aggressively.	[ "Essential oils are volatile and liquid aroma compounds from natural sources, usually plants. They are not oils in a strict sense, but often share with oils a poor solubility in water. Essential oils often have an odor and are therefore used in food flavoring and perfumery. They are usually prepared by fragrance ex...
Why do we believe recent population growth is due to technological advancements?	I think this is more of a math misunderstanding than a historical question. It is easy to see the rate of growth is higher by looking at the graphs on a logarithmic scale, in which case an exponential function is a straight line while the population growth is curved.	[ "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", "Before industrialization technological progress resulted in an increase in t...
What's the proper name for the religion of ancient Greeks, Egyptians, or Norsemen other than just "x mythology" or "ancient x religion?"	This is a really great question, but answers must be framed with a great deal of ambiguity and caveats. The problem with translating foreign and especially ancient terms into modern English is that the vocabulary comes loaded with concepts that don't necessarily apply. To speak of "religion" in many pre-conversion soci...	[ "There are no official naming practices for the Hellenic religion, and the ancient Greeks did not have a word for \"religion\" in the modern sense. Some informal naming conventions have developed since the formation of the first Hellenic religious organizations in the 1990s, based on academically accepted descripti...
how does one design a cpu?	Are you asking how a CPU works, or process of building one? I'll try to answer the first question but I think you have to actually ask a CPU designer the other question... OK, so imagine that a computer is a small town. The main street is the BUS (this is the only street), and on main street there are a lot o...	[ "In more traditional processor architectures, a processor is usually programmed by defining the executed operations and their operands. For example, an addition instruction in a RISC architecture could look like the following.\n", "Processor design is the design engineering task of creating a processor, a key com...
What is the cause of the genealogical relationships of US Presidents? Is this common?	Once you get out past second or third cousin, there's a lot less general relationship between the people. I know I have several third and fourth cousins, but I've never once met them. As stated, a lot of those listed, especially close relatives (Second cousin, etc), are from the same geographical area. Social elite ar...	[ "This is a list of children of U.S. presidents, including stepchildren and alleged illegitimate children. All full names with married names are given. Currently there are 31 confirmed, known living presidential children, the oldest Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, the youngest confirmed Barron Trump. Two presidential child...
How easy/or hard would it be to tell that there is life on earth looking from another planet or galaxy?	The best method from a distance -- barring something like receiving a radio signal -- is to look for gases in the planetary atmosphere that are reactive and thus can only be there if they are constantly being replenished. Oxygen is the prime candidate for such a gas. Methane coexisting with oxygen is an even stronger...	[ "The chemistry of life may have begun shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago, during a habitable epoch when the Universe was only 10–17 million years old. According to the panspermia hypothesis, microscopic life—distributed by meteoroids, asteroids and other small Solar System bodies—may exist throughou...
why do computer air-dusters get cold?	When gas expands, it cools down. It's sort of because the molecules are a lot less crowded together (you can imagine how hot and stuffy you feel in a crowded subway car, and then you feel a lot cooler once you have some space). This is actually the premise behind how your refrigerator and air conditioner work. Your ...	[ "Dust accumulation caused by static cling is a significant issue for computers and other electronic devices with heat generating components that need to be cooled by airflow. Dust is carried into the computer by the airflow created by case- and component fans. The accumulated dust covers metal surfaces and clogs th...
where does the money that is given to charity for africa in the last 50 years go if the people there are still in poverty?	In countries where corruption, bribery and theft are an integral part of daily business. Money, food stuffs, clothing and medicine etc can disappear long before It reaches those in need.	[ "Self Help Africa is a recipient of funding from Irish Aid, the European Commission, US AID, the United Kingdom Department of Foreign and Overseas Development (DFID), of variety of trusts, foundations, other institutional donors, and the general public.\n", "From 2014 to 2017, ME to WE donated roughly 85 percent ...
if you can't get sunburnt through windows/glass because it blocks uv, how do greenhouses work for plants which need uv for photosynthesis?	I believe windows and glass have to be treated to block UV, it doesn't do that automatically because it is glass. So the glass for a greenhouse simply does not have that same treatment.	[ "In regions continuously exposed to sunlight, UV rays can cause biochemical damage to plants, and eventually lead to DNA mutations and damages in the long run. When one of the main molecules involved in photosynthesis, photosystem II (PSII) is damaged by UV rays, it induces responses in the plant, leading to the sy...
Is there a specific depth below Earth's surface where life ceases to exist?	_URL_0_ We've found life pretty deep, but it's generally tricky going extremely deep so it's hard to specify exactly where the cut off point is. Once you get to the mantle with temperatures of 500C any life will die based on what we know of extremophiles, but some bacteria can take a lot of heat and pressure.	[ "Life has been found at depths of 5 km in continents and 10.5 km below the ocean surface. The estimated volume of the deep biosphere is 2–2.3 billion cubic kilometers, about twice the volume of the oceans.\n", "Under certain test conditions, life forms have been observed to thrive in the near-weightlessness of sp...
Is there such a thing as "good stress"?	Depends on how stress is defined. When you jog or run, you are putting stress on your cardio vascular system. Is this good? Most doctors are going to say it is beneficial in moderation. In the long run, it strengthens your heart, lowers blood glucose levels, etc. Having deadlines for the completion of complicated me...	[ "In psychology, stress is a feeling of strain and pressure. Stress is a type of psychological pain. Small amounts of stress may be desired, beneficial, and even healthy. Positive stress helps improve athletic performance. It also plays a factor in motivation, adaptation, and reaction to the environment. Excessive a...
Is it true that you are more likely to get hurt during a car crash if you tense up?	To be entirely frank, the force regime that is encountered in a serious accident probably moots any effects of tensing up or relaxing. In minor accidents (fenderbenders and such) it might make a difference, but the effect is probably dependent on many uncontrolled variables. As far as the drunk driver hypothesis: I ...	[ "Following collisions, long-lasting psychological trauma may occur. These issues may make those who have been in a crash afraid to drive again. In some cases, the psychological trauma may affect individuals' life can cause difficulty to go to work, attend school, or perform family responsibilities.\n", "Erichsen ...
how do apartment buildings that use water towers never run out of water?	The tower is constantly filled with water from the water main. The tower is just there to allow gravity provide constant water pressure regardless of current usage, which is much easier than trying to get pumps to exactly balance supply and demand to maintain a constant pressure.	[ "Architects and builders have taken varied approaches to incorporating water towers into the design of their buildings. On many large commercial buildings, water towers are completely hidden behind an extension of the facade of the building. For cosmetic reasons, apartment buildings often enclose their tanks in roo...
why do different processor architectures require programs to be rewritten?	The processor architecture (more specifically the instruction set architecture) is sort of like the "language" it speaks. CPU instructions are 1s and 0s, but different architectures have different meanings assigned to different patterns of 1s and 0s. Code for a different architecture won't run because the CPU just wo...	[ "In some cases short sections of self-modifying code execute more slowly on modern processors. This is because a modern processor will usually try to keep blocks of code in its cache memory. Each time the program rewrites a part of itself, the rewritten part must be loaded into the cache again, which results in a s...
Civilizations of the pre-Columbian Americas - Massive Panel AMA	These two questions particularly relate to the Mississippian cultures and eastern north America: * How "Mississippian" was the Mississippian culture? By which I mean, was it heavily dependent on the river itself as an exchange network? Does the material culture indicate that the rivers themselves were central to the d...	[ "Cuicuilco is the site of the first large-scale ceremonial center in the Mexican Plateau and one of oldest of any size in the Americas, with occupation starting around 1000 BCE. Cuicuilco means “place of hieroglyphics” in Nahuatl. The most important structure of the site is the Gran Basamento Circular or “Great Cir...
if you are a beekeeper, and your bees fly away, how do you recapture them?	You basically own their house and the only female they have. Of course they are coming back	[ "Beekeepers are sometimes called to capture swarms that are cast by feral honey bees or from the hives of domestic beekeepers. Most beekeepers will remove a honeybee swarm for a small fee or maybe even free if they are nearby. Bee swarms can almost always be collected alive and relocated by a competent beekeeper or...
Is the "goldilocks zone" or habitable zone of a star different depending on the type of star?	Yes. Also, it varies in size, if I remember correctly.	[ "BULLET::::- In astrobiology, the Goldilocks zone refers to the habitable zone around a star: As Stephen Hawking put it, “like Goldilocks, the development of intelligent life requires that planetary temperatures be ‘just right’”. The Rare Earth Hypothesis uses the Goldilocks principle in the argument that a planet ...
Why doesn't gravity become infinitely strong at zero distance?	It does. This is what a gravitational singularity is. Note that this requires an object of zero size. For an object of finite size and density, gravity decreases as you go from the surface to the centre.	[ "BULLET::::- Because the force of gravity decreases with distance, objects with non-zero size will be subjected to a tidal force, or a differential pull, between the ends of the object nearest and furthest from the Earth. (An extreme version of this effect is spaghettification.) In a spacecraft in low Earth orbit (...
Why was the "Polish Corridor" created in a way that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany?	Refer to Point 13 of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's 1918 "14 Points" peace proposal. This point, which appealed to the large Polish-American community, stated: > An independent Polish state should be erected which *should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a...	[ "The creation of the territory known as Polish Corridor at the end of World War I separated the German exclave of East Prussia from the German Province of Pomerania. As a result, the German Ministry for Transport established a ferry connection to East Prussia (\"Sea Service East Prussia\" or \"Seedienst Ostpreußen\...
wjy is it that whenever i'm dirnk, loud music or loud anything is easy on the ears, but whenever i'm by mself, my esars ring like crazy?	if you've listened to a lot of loud music and the ringing becomes constant you might have developed [Tinnitus](_URL_0_). for temporary ringing... it has something to do with damaging your hearing ability little by little	[ "It is now thought by professionals that Farr was possibly suffering from hyperacusis, which occurs when the olivocochlear bundle in the inner ear is damaged, causing it to lose its ability to soften and filter sound, making loud noises physically unbearable (auditory efferent dysfunction). \n", "Hromadske Radio ...
Is there a theoretical rationale for the common core arithmetic curriculum?	Common Core is great. The issue is not with the curriculum but with 1.) parent/teacher ignorance of what it is and 2.) bad books/resources that corrupt publishing companies, like Pearson, release. Let me first explain what Common Core is. Common Core is a list of concepts that students should learn. It is not a new ...	[ "The Common Core mathematical standards recognizes both the sequential as well as integrated approach to teaching high-school mathematics, which resulted in increased adoption of integrated math programs for high school. Accordingly, the organizations providing post-secondary education updated their enrollment requ...
Why is so much of the New Testament written by Paul?	> Another way of looking at this could be: Why wasn't stuff written by the other apostles included? The apostles who spread in basically every direction from Jerusalem, and spread to sub-Saharan Africa, and even into India, surely they wrote stuff worth including? There's no evidence that the other apostles wrote an...	[ "Of the 27 books in the New Testament, 14 have been attributed to Paul; 7 of these are widely considered authentic and Paul's own, while the authorship of the other 7 is disputed. The undisputed letters are considered the most important sources since they contain what everyone agrees to be Paul's own statements abo...
why did washington, dc develop so that it has residential areas in it rather than just government property?	Because the people working in the government offices need to live nearby. And because they're all there, they need services (shops, barbers, coffee houses), all of which need to employ staff, who need to live nearby. And they need services, whose businesses need to... etc etc.	[ "The streets and highways of Washington, D.C., form the core of the city's surface transportation infrastructure. Given that it is a planned city, streets in the capital of the United States follow a distinctive layout and addressing scheme. There are of public roads in the city, of which are owned and maintained b...
Were certain gladiators in Ancient Rome as famous as our professional athletes today?	First, I have a BA in history. I'm fairly interested in Rome. But remember that this is just a reddit post and is bound to contain flaws. In short, yes. Kinda. It's difficult to tell what the average Roman thought of individual gladiators, but the fact that some of them have been preserved by historical accounts shows...	[ "Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered spectators an example of Rome's martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim. They were celebrated in high and low art, and their value as entertainers was commemorated in precious and commonplace objects throughou...
What military technology, if any, where the Japanese more advanced then the other countries during ww2?	You cannot really ignore ships for your question. Ships is one of the places where one of the best Japanese weapons of the war was deployed, the Type 93 "Long Lance" torpedo. The type 93 had a heavier warhead, better range, and better speed than any other torpedo in the war. It gave Japanese light fleet element devas...	[ "In the two decades between the two World Wars, radio technology in Japan made advancements on a par with that in the western nations. There were often impediments, however, in transferring these advancements into the military. For a long time, the Japanese had believed that they had the best fighting capability of...
how can so many deep sea creatures be so "squishy" when we have to travel down in a thick metal shell due to the high pressure?	Right now, you're under a quite a bit a pressure. You've got miles of air over your head pressing in on you at 1 atmosphere of pressure. At the same time, you and your ancestors have spent virtually all of your time at 1 atmosphere, so you've evolved to press outward at 1 atm. Likewise, the closed and empty bottle si...	[ "Because pressure in the ocean increases by about 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters of depth, the amount of pressure experienced by many marine organisms is extreme. Until recent years, the scientific community lacked detailed information about the effects of pressure on most deep sea organisms because the specimens...
who is ayn rand and why does my roommate hate her?	Hatred of Rand doesn't necessarily stem from her philosophy. Some people simply dislike her as an author for various reasons. Some people dislike her because they believe that she writes weak characters that undergo no growth. Others believe that her novels go on for about 800 more pages than necessary - in fact, in At...	[ "Advocate of Ayn Rand's philosophy, has references \"Atlas Shrugged\" in interviews. Formerly a baker on a Texaco ship, later a landlord and a day renovator. Opposes any form of rent control. Gained local notoriety in the 1999 provincial election by making two bleating noises during a Rotary meeting. Claimed his in...
Would moving your body (subtly and imperceptibly) back and forth at 99.99% the speed of light cause you to experience time any slower? Would you live longer than everyone else around you?	> Would moving your body (subtly and imperceptibly) back and forth at 99.99% the speed of light cause you to experience time any slower? Yes, for a fraction of a nanosecond. > Would you live longer than everyone else around you? No, you'd die a second or two earlier than them. So, you're vibrating with a peak...	[ "Einstein showed in his thought experiments that people travelling at different speeds, while agreeing on cause and effect, measure different time separations between events, and can even observe different chronological orderings between non-causally related events. Though these effects are typically minute in the ...
why does my flatulence sometimes smell similar to what i've recently eaten and other times like hot death?	There are several different species of bacteria in your intestines that produce various gases and compounds when they digest things. The contents of your food (fiber, sugar, proteins) affect the consistency and odor of your stool. Your stool smelling "similar" to what you ate is probably a coincidence. Also, your abili...	[ "Flatulence is observed even after years of surgery. Patients may suffer from persisted problems of producing flatus with foul-smell due to the accumulation of gas in the gastrointestinal tract. There can also be problems of abnormal distension of the abdomen after meals.\n", "The distinctive odor of feces is due...
what physiologically causes that "lurch" in your gut - when you get scared you've forgotten something or that you've upset someone etc	There is a biochemical signalling path called the 'gut-brain axis'. It connects the gastrointestinal tract with the central nervous system via the vagus nerves. It is why you are able to become nauseous from eating bad food. It is important for the regulation of the immune system, and has a great influence on neurotran...	[ "More persistent intention tremors are often caused by damage to certain regions of the brain. The most common cause of intention tremors is damage and/or degeneration in the cerebellum. The cerebellum is a part of the brain responsible for motor coordination, posture and balance. It is responsible for fine motor m...
what exactly happened during the french revolution? (referring to les miserables)	Starting with Louis XIII, France started moving towards absolutism, which is basically total dictatorship (opposite of absolutism is a total democracy). Louis XIV (Louis XIII's son) was even MORE absolutist, and over the course of his reign he got involved in a ton of wars and drove up France's national debt. Fast for...	[ "\"Les Misérables\" gave the relatively little-discussed rebellion widespread renown. The novel is one of the few works of literature that discusses the June Rebellion and the events leading up to it, though many of those only familiar with its popular musical adaptation wrongly assume that it takes place during th...
My textbook says electricity is faster than light?	You are right to be dubious of your textbook, because the statements made are false. Not "false but only because we are making an approximation" or "false but it's only an apparent effect and not real", but "egregiously and totally false", to the point that it's rather embarrassing that this paragraph made it into tha...	[ "The word \"electricity\" refers generally to the movement of electrons (or other charge carriers) through a conductor in the presence of potential and an electric field. The speed of this flow has multiple meanings. In everyday electrical and electronic devices, the signals or energy travel as electromagnetic wave...
how come drugs are found in urine much longer than in blood, when urine is filtered out of blood?	Imagine you have a pool ful of warter and you throw a special kind of colouring in there which turned the water red. Suppose you have a filter which removes the colouring from the pool, and jettersons it out. At first the pool would be bright red so you could just look at it and see that someone threw the colouring in...	[ "A urine sample is urine that has come from the bladder and can be provided or taken post-mortem. Urine is less likely to be infected with viruses such as HIV or Hepatitis B than blood samples. Many drugs have a higher concentration and can remain for much longer in urine than blood. Collection of urine samples can...
What sort of populist movements existed in the Middle Ages and/or Renaissance?	First of all, I would contest that the Renaissance is a distinct time period buuuuuuut, there were many populist movements during the Middle Ages. One could describe many of the heretical movements as populist/anti-establishment as many contested the sacraments, which were at the heart of everyday religious practice a...	[ "Conversely, the historian Barry S. Strauss argued that populism could also be seen in the ancient world, citing the examples of the fifth-century B.C. Athens and Populares, a political faction active in the Roman Republic from the second century BCE. The historian Rachel Foxley argued that the Levellers of sevente...
Why is Carbon Dioxide a gas while Silicon Dioxide is a solid?	Carbon dioxide is molecular: It exists as individual units of O=C=O Those bonds each have 4 electrons. SiO2 is reduced formula for silicon dioxide. It is not a molecular chemical. Each Silicon is actually bonded to 4 oxygens via 2 electron bonds. This means it is a solid because it forms a huge extended network.	[ "Carbon dioxide, like other gases, is soluble in water. However, unlike many other gases (oxygen for instance), it reacts with water and forms a balance of several ionic and non-ionic species (collectively known as dissolved inorganic carbon, or DIC). These are dissolved free carbon dioxide (CO ), carbonic acid (HC...
Will sunlight that's passing through glass have the same tanning effect on skin as direct sunlight?	Depends on the quality of the glass. If it's just old, plain glass, then yes, you can tan through it, and she should wear whatever sunblock she feels is best. The newer windows have some reflectivity, and reduce the UVA, and possibly the UVB rays. And yes, "effect" is what you were looking for. If you "affect" an acc...	[ "Photochromic lenses filter 100% UVA as well as UVB. UVB light is more energetic and causes sunburn as well as skin damage including cancers, UVA light causes skincancers but not usually sunburn. UVB is blocked by all glass, UVA light is not blocked by ordinary windows or lenses glass.\n", "The skin is usually mu...
How does a pregnant body "decide" when it's time to go into labor?	The body doesn't the baby does. When the baby starts to get cramped for space it gets stressed and releases the stress hormone cortisol. The cortisol from the baby then starts a cascade of events in the mother that leads to birth. EDIT: sorry I'm a veterinary student. This is how a lot of other species initiate partur...	[ "Gestation, called \"pregnancy\" in humans, is the period of time during which the fetus develops, dividing via mitosis inside the female. During this time, the fetus receives all of its nutrition and oxygenated blood from the female, filtered through the placenta, which is attached to the fetus' abdomen via an umb...
why its ok to name a person mohammed, but not an inanimate object, or animal.	Because humans think that other humans are more or better than things or animals. Since Mohammed is really important to Muslims, they thing you should only name "important things" like your son after him. On top of that some things or animals are considered "unclean" in some cultures, so using naming a dog after someon...	[ "The name \"Muhammad\" () means \"praiseworthy\" and appears four times in the Quran. The Quran also addresses Muhammad in the second person by various appellations; prophet, messenger, servant of God (\"'abd\"), announcer (\"bashir\"), witness (\"shahid\"), bearer of good tidings (\"mubashshir\"), warner (\"nathir...
How did scientists at the first nuclear explosion test (Trinity 1945) know for sure the bomb wouldn't destroy the planet?	Some people said it would, but the math showed otherwise. More were concerned with how people would use the weapon. _URL_0_	[ "BULLET::::- At 8:59 am and 45 seconds local time, Operation Crossroads was carried out as a fleet of 73 retired and unmanned ships were destroyed, sunk or damaged by an atomic bomb. The test took place at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean to observe what a nuclear weapon could do to American warships. It...
What would happen if you drove a vehicle onto a moving ramp?	They did this on a tv show...i dont remember which one... Anyway...they had a car driving 65mph drive up a ramp onto a flatbed truck moving 60mph... As the car hit the ramp they let off the gas and the momentum kept the car moving up the ramp at 5mph (relative to the ramp). ***Edit: it was on mythbusters...testing ...	[ "BULLET::::- On \"MythBusters\", Adam and Jamie tested whether KITT could in fact drive up the ramp into the mobile garage or whether upon hitting the ramp he would instantly accelerate into the truck and through the wall.\n", "There must be some positive movement of the vehicle. Simply rolling it forwards or bac...
peripheral neuropathy	Peripheral neuropathy is a malfunction of the nerves in the extremities, usually the arms or legs, but sometimes the face. It can cause numbness and tingling, or in some cases a very painful burning sensation or feelings like cold water being poured on the area.	[ "Peripheral neuropathy, often shortened to neuropathy, is a general term describing disease affecting the peripheral nerves, meaning nerves beyond the brain and spinal cord. Damage to peripheral nerves may impair sensation, movement, gland or organ function depending on which nerves are affected; in other words, ne...
how is there enough oil under the ground to power hundreds of millions of cars, planes, boats..etc. daily?	The earth is BIG, compared to our oil consumption: We consume 93,250,000 barrels a day of oil (not just gas) world wide. At 42 gallons per barrels, that's 3,916,500,000 gallons used every day! But!, the surface of the earth is 5.1 x 10^8 square kilometers. Oil has been found most everywhere, under land and water so le...	[ "In the United States, oil is primarily consumed as fuel for cars, buses, trucks and airplanes (in the form of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel). Two thirds of US oil consumption is due to the transportation sector. A national strategy designed to shift all transportation to a combined use of alternative fuels and plu...
Did Pearl Harbour have the same effect on Americans' perception of security as 9/11 did?	Sorta. It certainly put some American citizens of the mind that the Japanese were "the other", just like many Americans did regarding Muslims in the days and months(and until today, really) after 9/11. Since 9/11 is within the past 20 years or so(which makes it verboten for discussion), I'll simply point out that t...	[ "Pearl Harbor is generally regarded as an extraordinary event in American history, remembered as the first time since the War of 1812 that America was attacked in strength on its territory by foreign people – with only the September 11 attacks almost 60 years later being of a similarly catastrophic scale. It has be...
Has any serial killer ever been killed by somebody they were attempting to murder?	Not killed, but serial killer [Richard Ramirez](_URL_1_), who terrorized Southern California in the early 1980's as "The Night Stalker", after a failed attempt at a carjacking, was ultimately overpowered by a vengeful public and beaten within an inch of his life before he was taken into police custody. British serial ...	[ "The search for the serial killer, called \"the Atlanta Ripper\" by the press, found six different suspects, but no convictions were ever made, nor was the crime ever solved. By the end of 1911, fifteen women, all black or dark-skinned, all in their early 20s, had been murdered in the same manner. The \"Ripper\" ma...
Can the human acceleration limit be worked around?	Magnets won't work for this, however the idea of accelerating the whole body evenly is the right solution, though there is no practical way to do that yet. Right now what can be done is immersing a person in body-density liquid, this will increase the G-tolerance to an estimated 15~20G; if the person's lungs and othe...	[ "By riding the decelerator sled, in his 29th and last ride at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, Stapp demonstrated that a human can withstand at least 46.2 g (in the forward position, with adequate harnessing). This is the highest known acceleration voluntarily encountered by a human, set on December 10, 1954....
how does the "conscious" part of the brain know to ignore normal bodily functions?	This all has to do with how the brain is divided up with regards to function. All of the actions happening automatically in your body are controlled by their perspective parts of the brain, and those have nothing to do with sensations like pain. For example, the region of your brain (and corresponding nerves) that mak...	[ "Unconscious processing goes on in the mind of humans, not because we have to filter out threatening stimuli and impulses, but because many cognitive operations go on without conscious participation. The brain operates in this way in order not to flood the conscious part of the mind with impressions. The unconsciou...
why does food taste different outside than inside?	Not entirely familiar with this feeling, but since smell plays a huge role in the perception of taste (not directly, but taste is very limited and what we're used to when we say "taste" as an experience is actually a combination of taste and aroma), that might be the answer. Being outside means air movement can inter...	[ "The basic tastes contribute only partially to the sensation and flavor of food in the mouth—other factors include smell, detected by the olfactory epithelium of the nose; texture, detected through a variety of mechanoreceptors, muscle nerves, etc.; temperature, detected by thermoreceptors; and \"coolness\" (such a...
the difference between youtube's buffering and loading an image from anywhere else on internet - and why buffering is so much faster	This might not be the complete answer but a part of the answer. Try loading a video in Youtube, and then a video from a website which is not primarily a video-hosting site (Like IMDB). You will notice that the IMDB video takes significantly longer to load for the same quality of video. Google has some amazing compressi...	[ "Having a big and constantly full buffer which causes increased transmission delays and reduced interactivity, especially when looking at two or more simultaneous transmissions over the same channel, is called bufferbloat. Available channel bandwidth can also end up being unused, as some fast destinations may not b...
Blood contains so much salt, how conductive is it?	Approximately 0.7 S/m (siemens per meter) It depends on the hematocrit (the the proportion by volume of the blood that is red blood cells). A rough formula is 1.57/[1+1.91H/(1-H)] S/m where H is the hematocrit. Source:_URL_0_	[ "BULLET::::- The brine surrounding the cells has a higher concentration of salt than the fluid within the cells, but the cell fluid has a higher concentration of other solutes. This leads salt ions to diffuse into the cell, while the solutes in the cells cannot diffuse through the cell membranes into the brine. The...
when we say a person is worth $300 million, how much of that is the person actually entitled to?	Generally what that means is the person has wealth and assets valued at $300m. Which could include things like property, real estate, and stock in companies. So the person could, if they sold everything they owned at the price it is appraised for, come up with about $300m.	[ "There are multiple approaches to determining a person's status as a millionaire. One of the two most commonly used measurements is net worth, which counts the total value of all property owned by a household minus the household's debts. According to this definition, a household owning an $800k home, $50k of furnis...
What are some counterintuitive non-quantum level phenomena?	When a human being moves from a low-altitude place to a higher altitude place, their body has to cope with lower oxygen levels. One of the ways a body can adapt is to make more hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries most of the oxygen we breathe to our tissues. Some athletes will train in a high-altitu...	[ "Macroscopic scale quantum coherence leads to novel phenomena, the so-called macroscopic quantum phenomena. For instance, the laser, superconductivity and superfluidity are examples of highly coherent quantum systems whose effects are evident at the macroscopic scale. The macroscopic quantum coherence (Off-Diagonal...
How common was tarring and feathering in the American revolutionary period? Also, was this practice supported by revolutionary leadership?	Tar and feathering was not as common as you might think. It certainly did occur, and was truly horrific when it did, but we should try to understand the true nature of it, rather than the popular understanding of it. Revolutionary leadership never came out explicitly in support of tar and feathering. It was a mob acti...	[ "The Sons of Liberty popularized the use of tar and feathering to punish and humiliate offending government officials starting in 1767. This method was also used against British Loyalists during the American Revolution. This punishment had long been used by sailors to punish their mates.\n", "The practice appeare...
can someone explain the trade deal that obama is trying to push through? what is it, and why do a lot of democrats not like it?	Trans Pacific Partnership is a large corp sponsored bill. With most of its negotiations and contents being kept secret. If that doesn't already make you feel strange. Its job on top of Pacific Free Trade is international Copy Right and Piracy Laws. It forces each signer to recognize a lot of international over site wh...	[ "Like his predecessor, Obama pursued free trade agreements, in part due to the lack of progress at the Doha negotiations in lowering trade barriers worldwide. In October 2011, the United States entered into free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Congressional Republicans overwhelmingly suppor...
why do stores never charge the full dollar amount for goods, like a video game costs $59.99, not just $60?	We read left to right, so we see: > $59 before: > .99 The first thought we have is that it's below $60. While we later realise this to only be the case by a single cent, the first impression makes the price-tag appear cheaper that it really is. It's an illusion that makes us more likely to purchase something.	[ "Some video games have collector's editions available for limited amount of time. It can include additional content such as a comic book or a CD of soundtracks used in the game. The most expensive collector's edition was featured for Saints Row IV, priced at $1,000,000. However, it was never sold. \n", "The game ...

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