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why is water able to evaporated below the boiling point? i was always taught 212f (100c) was when water could turn into a gas. | First let me say, if you have the time, ignore my answer and read the first chapter of the feynman lectures here: _URL_0_ Absolutely ELI5, great stuff.
Here's my explanation.
People found that liquid water is made of a huge number of tiny molecules. These attract and repel each other (too close and they repel, too far and they break, right in the middle, and they balance ... kind of like weak springs), and they're constantly moving and jiggling about.
Evaporation is when the molecules on the surface, after some kick of energy from collisions below, break the last of their springs and bounce off into the air and just leave. And more and more leave like this, until poof, almost all are gone. So while temperature would affect it, it is not necessary for the water to be at boiling point. And you can imagine that different liquids evaporate at different rates based on the strength of those springy bonds.
And temperature is nothing but the kinetic energy of these molecules. The higher the temperature, the more they kick around.
Boiling is only a little bit different. It's not related to the water molecules on the SURFACE, but all around. Because you heated the water to such a high temperature that it just violently ejects water molecules all over the place, even inside (gas bubbles do form deep inside when you boil some water, right? Does that happen in evaporation? Nope.). And it's very easy for water to escape in the form of vapour.
Hope this cleared things up for you. | [
"At a temperature below the boiling point, any matter in liquid form will evaporate until the condensation of gas above reach an equilibrium. At this point the gas will condense at the same rate as the liquid evaporates. Thus, a liquid cannot exist permanently if the evaporated liquid is continually removed. A liqu... |
What language has the least overlap of English speakers? | Given the sheer number of languages in the world (around 6000), it's quite difficult to get a handle of even reliable estimates of how many speakers each one has, let alone how l of its speakers also speak a language other than its national language. But there are hundreds of languages across the world in non-Anglophone countries whose speakers are not educated in a system that teaches English (Amerindian languages of the Amazon, regional languages in Mali and Cote-d'Ivoire, and Central Eurasia where Russian dominates), almost none of which are taught to English-speakers outside the country. | [
"Five languages have more than 50 million native speakers in Europe: French, Italian, German, English and Russian. While Russian has the largest number of native speakers (more than 100 million in Europe), English has the largest number of speakers in total, including some 200 million speakers of English as a secon... |
law enforcement in usa | There are 15 times as many people who live in the US than in Australia. So it's reasonable that they would need more agencies to cover more issues.
State police can pursue you over state lines, they don't just stop chasing you when you cross the state line. | [
"Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police departments and sheriff's offices, with state police providing broader services. The New York Police Department (NYPD) is the largest in the country. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. ... |
Why are large nuclei unstable? | The Pauli exclusion principle forbids two particles from sharing the same quantum state. Therefore, as you add nucleons to the nucleus they are forced to occupy higher and higher energy states to avoid violating this principle.
A nucleus in which the valence nucleons occupy a high energy state is unstable, since lower energy states are accessible by ejecting a few nucleons.
| [
"The nuclear force is highly attractive at the distance of typical nucleon separation, and this overwhelms the repulsion between protons due to the electromagnetic force, thus allowing nuclei to exist. However, the residual strong force has a limited range because it decays quickly with distance (see Yukawa potenti... |
Why did France preferred a facist state instead of a socialist/communist one? | France hasn't preferred a nationalist rebels (fascists, monarchists and reactionary Catholics) to the Spanish Republic. On the contrary, in the beginning, France and its Popular Front govt feared of being surrounded by fascists from the all sides. They initially moved to support the republic, but when they made to Britain, they faced with British conservative govt being against any support to Spanish republicans. Basically, you see Blum being determined to send aid to Republic by 22nd of July, visit to Britain in 22 and 23 July, setting an arms embargo on Spanish Republic by 25th meaning reversal of the previous policy, and proposing a non-intervention pact on 8th of August. Blum also feared his alliance with centrist radicals might be disturbed even though rest of the coalition sure wanted to help Spanish republicans, and he wasn't able to split with Britain. Whether if Britain or France initiated the agreement is disputed, but of course non-intervention pact hadn't been followed by Hitler, fascist Italy or Portugal, and even though everyone knew what's going on, Committee for Non-Intervention hadn't found anything on it and Britain denied any knowledge on these interventions by Hitler and Mussolini. By the 1st of August, when the proposal for the non-intervention agreement was initiated, increased military aid by Germany and Italy was pretty well known even though Hitler was saying Germany is not and will not be aiding the right wing military uprising. | [
"In France, the collapse of a leftist government coalition between social-democrats and left-liberal republicans, and the subsequent far-right riots that brought to power an autocratic right-wing government, changed the equation: in order to resist a slippery slope of authoritarian encroachment, socialists were now... |
What are the limitations on our ability to see smaller things at longer distances? (i.e. Seeing pluto from Earth) | The two key limitations are 1) achieving a high enough angular resolution and 2) collecting enough light. The [angular resolution](_URL_4_) is the smallest angular distance between two sources of light, for which the system will see two distinct sources rather than one blob. [This cartoon](_URL_2_) helps to visualize what angular distance is and how it is related to angular size. In short the idea is that what determines whether you can resolve two features (and how well you can see them) is not just their actual separation in terms of distance, but the angle that separates them. For large separations, the angular distance (A) between two features is A=r/R, where r is the physical separation of the objects and R is the distance between the observer and the object.
This angular resolution (a) of a telescope in turn is limited by [diffraction](_URL_0_) and can be expressed as a=1.22\*l/D, where l is the wavelength of the light and D is the diameter of the lens. In other words, the angular resolution of the telescope is fixed by its physical parameters, especially the size of an aperture. So putting the two ideas together, if you are looking at a faraway object then its features will have an angular size A=r/R, and the smallest angular distance between two objects that your system can detect is a=1.22\*l/D. In other words, for a given size of a telescope, you will not be able to resolve features on a faraway object if they are spaced apart by a minimal separation. This required separation is larger and larger, the further away you are from the object in question. In other words, if you had a given camera, close to the planet you would be able to make out fine details, further away you would only be able to see the largest features, and further yet, it would just look like a blurry blob.
Finally, in order to actually image objects at an improved resolution, you need to not only have a sufficient theoretical angular resolution, but you also need to collect enough light to produce a clear image. For distant light sources, the apparent intensity drops as 1/R^(2), or as the inverse square of the separation as shown in [this diagram](_URL_1_). For dim and faraway objects (like Pluto!) you need to use fairly long exposure times (or a very large telescope) in order to have a high enough signal to noise ratio to collect a good image. To appreciate this problem, try taking a picture in a dimly lit room at a high ISO, in which case you can expect to get a result [like this](_URL_3_). | [
"Largest does not always equate to being the best telescopes, and overall light gathering power of the optical system can be a poor measure of a telescope's performance. Space-based telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, take advantage of being above the Earth's atmosphere to reach higher resolution and gr... |
why aren't police departments footing the bill instead of the tax payers when it comes to court settlements? | Most police departments are taxpayer funded. Where do you think the money is going to come from? | [
"As to the issue of taxation, the court noted that, before the amount of an attorney-and-client bill can be recovered, it must first be taxed against that latter party. When the other party to the litigation is required to pay costs, the taxation will not be as generous as where an attorney's own client is to pay t... |
Why was Jean Bernadotte elected heir-presumptive to Charles XIII of Sweden? | Although the candidacy of Bernadotte, a non-Swedish speaking and commoner, to become the Crown-Prince of Sweden in October 1810 seems rather unlikely, there were a number of factors working in the French marshal's favor. The internal political situation in Sweden in 1810 was rather tense. Sweden had been undergoing a long-term military decline for nearly a century and the recent reverses against the French in Swedish Pomerania in 1805-10 and against the Russians in the Finnish War of 1809 were capstones to the decline of Sweden's regional power. The latter war, coming with the loss of Finland prompted the Coup of 1809 in which the Swedish diet, the Riksdag, removed the Swedish king Gustav IV and placed the aged and childless Charles XIII on the throne.
Charles XIII was the safe choice for the throne as he had long experience as a regent for Gustav and was a compromise figure different Swedish political factions could agree upon. However, it was clear to many that Charles XIII was an expedient choice; not only did he have no living heirs, but he also suffered from bouts of physical incapacity. Charles XIII was not the energetic monarch that Sweden needed to reenergize its political fortunes.
As counter-intuitive as it might sound, a foreign-born heir was an ideal solution to this problem with the Swedish throne. Choosing a candidate from one of the cadet branches of the Swedish royal houses risked opening up the political wounds of the 1809 Coup. Additionally, Sweden's recent military reverses underscored the need of Sweden to have more solid allies in the future. Although Britain was allied with Sweden, its involvement in Spain precluded any real assistance to Sweden and Russia's invasion of Finland further added to Sweden's isolation. The Riksdag favored the Danish prince Christian August of Holstein-Augustenburg and approved him as a candidate in August 1809, but the Prince's untimely death the following May precluded this option.
The death of Christian August forced Swedish efforts towards France. A French military candidate for the throne was very attractive for a number of geopolitical and domestic reasons. Although Gustav IV held Napoleon in very ill-regard, Charles XIII did not and admired Napoleon's ability to bend the continent to his will. French arms had proved themselves successful in the various battles on the continent and many within Europe admired French administrative models. Swedish envoys to Napoleon in January 1810 to gain his approval for Christian August and cement Franco-Swedish relations signaled a general reorientation of Swedish foreign relations. This restorations of diplomatic relations led to an increased Swedish presence in France and the death of Christian August meant that they could seek a French candidate for the throne.
It came as a surprise to both Napoleon and Bernadotte when Baron Karl Otto Mörner on his own initiative offered the Bernadotte the Crown Prince in June 1810. Mörner did so without any authorization from Stockholm and the Riksdag put Mörner under arrest upon returning to Stockholm for his actions. As Mörner explained to Bernadotte, he was an ideal candidate for the throne:
> My Prince, Your modesty refuses to share my opinion that I believe
to be that of the wisest of my compatriots. Sweden does not need a
Dane, either a Russian, or a child whose long minority would cause
us harm… What she needs, it is a Frenchman who will adopt our
religion, who is known for his talents, for his courage and for the respect in which holds him the august Emperor of France; who belongs to the family of the Emperor, being the brother-in-law of the king of Spain; who has a son likely to replace his father without regency, when the Providence will order it.
Napoleon had toyed with the idea of his stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais as a candidate for the vacancy, but he was unacceptable for the Swedish envoys. Baron Lagerbielke, the Swedish envoy in Paris, reported to Stockholm that Eugène was "gentle and good," but
> but he does not seem to be a man of strong character; and, although he had had great opportunities, he does not appear to have developed any distinguishing talents.
Eugène himself does not seem to been very thrilled at the possibility of exchanging his vice-royalty of Italy for a Swedish crown and refused to convert to Lutheranism if offered the position.
Unlike Eugène, Bernadotte was willing to convert and possessed a number of qualities that made him an ideal candidate for the Swedes. The French Marshal had made contact with Swedish PoWs in Battle of
Lübeck in 1806 and Bernadotte's fair and chivalrous treatment of them, including Mörner's uncle, General Count Gustav Fredrik Mörner, had earned him a good reputation in the Swedish army. The elder Mörner defended his nephew's actions in France in the Riksdag and pushed for acceptance of the Bernadotte candidacy because "the marshal was allied, through his wife, to Napoleon, whose support could be most useful to Sweden." Aside from his personal connections to Napoleon, Bernadotte's experience as an administrator, both in his governance of Hanover and as Minister of War also highlighted that the French marshal had the experience necessary to be a reformist executive. Bernadotte's military record was somewhat spotty, but from the vantage point of 1810 was not that bad. Although he had made mistakes, his military reputation had yet to be tarred by his siding against Napoleon in 1813. This "ingratitude," as Napoleon put it on St. Helena, helped tarnish Bernadotte's military career and cast his mistakes in the worst possible light. For example, most of the early historiography on Auerstadt was derived from the memoirs of Davout's staff and painted Bernadotte as willfully not coming to Davout's aid out of jealousy, when Bernadotte was acting according to Napoleon's flawed orders.
Once he got over the initial shock of the Swedish offer, Bernadette proved himself an able politician. Bernadotte had recognized that his star in France was no longer in ascendancy in France, which had to be grating for a man who at one point was a rival of Napoleon in the conspiratorial last days of the Directory. Bernadotte wisely managed to avoid any concessions to Napoleon that would have restricted his freedom of action in Sweden. For his part, Napoleon was unaware of Charles XIII's poor health and thought Bernadotte would mostly concern himself with domestic issues. Giving Bernadotte leave to accept the Swedish offer was a means for Napoleon to get rid of a troublesome subordinate by kicking him upstairs into a gilded cage. The Crown Prince adeptly avoided Swedish belligerency during 1812 despite Napoleon's promises to restore Finland. Although Bernadotte was a prickly ally in 1813, his Russian and Austrian allies actually humored his proposals for a unified military strategy at Trachenberg and Allied military policy was actually formulated by Radetzky in Bohemia, he managed to improve Sweden's strategic fortunes. Bernadotte was also able to despite his many handicaps turn himself into a Swedish dynast and restore Sweden's fortunes both domestically and internationally.
*Sources*
Alm, Mikael and Britt-Inger Johannson. *Scripts of Kingship: Essays on Bernadotte and Dynastic Formation in an Age of Revolution*. Uppsala: Swedish Science Press, 2008.
Barton, D. Plunket. *Bernadotte and Napoleon, 1763-1810*. London: J. Murray, 1921.
Berdah, Jean-Francois. "The Triumph of Neutrality: Bernadotte and European Geopolitics (1810-1844)." *Revue d'Histoire Nordique*, no6-7 (2008): 15-78 | [
"In 1810, Bernadotte was unexpectedly elected the heir-presumptive to the childless King Charles XIII of Sweden, thanks to the advocacy of Baron Carl Otto Mörner, a Swedish courtier and obscure member of the Riksdag of the Estates.. He assumed the name Charles John and became the \"de facto\" regent and head of sta... |
After Japan attacked pearl harbour, what did [the Japanese leaders] tell the Japanese people in regards to why, and what the goal of it all was? | The Japanese leaders attempted to frame the Japanese attack in a very sympathetic context: essentially, that the US sought to crush Japan in an economic vyse, thus asserting its power in the Pacific in an attempt to spread Western Imperialism. War, it was thought, was the only possible solution, to allow Japan to become self-sufficient and to remain independent. In essence, the Japanese government attempted to frame the war as of of survival for the Japanese state.
The Japanese people, for the most part, were not nearly as supportive of the war against America as they were against China. Despite major propaganda efforts thanks to the de facto state-controlled press as seen [here in the Asahi Shimbun](_URL_0_), the typical Japanese person had a more positive view of the United States, thanks to the influx of American culture during the 1920s Taisho Democracy (Jazz being one example) as well as American goodwill towards Japan (the American aid after the Great Kanto Earthquake). There was also apprehension, as many Japanese were aware of the large scale of the US's military and that Japan's warmaking ability, already stretched by the war in China, simply could not compete. Still, civil dissent against the government's policy was virtually non-existent, as thanks to the Peace Preservation Law of the 1920s that essentially gave the government a carte blanche to crush dissenters (Socialists and Communists especially), as well as the Tokko special (secret) police, the Japanese imperial government had a tight rein on the popular will.
| [
"The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise air strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the neutral United States in Oahu, Hawaii—with the focus being directed against the naval base at Pearl Harbor—on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack sank four U.S. battleships, destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft, and killed nea... |
Are the protons and neutrons in a specific isotope always arranged in the same/similar way? | Yes, the arrangement matters. Just like atoms have discrete energy levels corresponding to arrangements of electrons, nuclei do as well.
> How many stable configurations are there for a given atom?
For a given nuclide, at most one (the ground state). However many nuclei are unstable even in the ground state.
> Are protons/neutrons organized "rigidly" into a nearly spherical nucleus? Or can the shape of the nucleus change/deform (either with time, or maybe just being statically asymmetrical)?
Protons and neutrons occupy quantum-mechanical orbitals. Most nuclei are not spherical. They can have both static or dynamical deformations.
> If the distribution of protons/neutrons is even slightly asymmetrical, wouldn't this give the nucleus some kind of dipole moment?
Not a dipole moment, because that would violate parity and time reversal, but the next leading order deviation from a spherical charge distribution is an electric quadrupole moment. Non-spherical nuclei (so most nuclei) have nonzero quadrupole moments.
> Is the arrangement of the protons/neutrons always the same/similar for a given isotope?
If they’re both in the ground state, or the same excited state, yes.
> For extremely heavy elements that are already unstable to begin with, does variations in the distribution of protons/neutrons help to increase or decrease stability from atom to atom?
In any nucleus, the arrangement of protons and neutrons plays a role in their stability.
> Do protons and neutrons move around while in the nucleus, or are they more or less fixed in place?
They “move” quantum-mechanically, just like electrons in atoms. | [
"Protons and neutrons are both nucleons, which may be bound together by the nuclear force to form atomic nuclei. The nucleus of the most common isotope of the hydrogen atom (with the chemical symbol \"H\") is a lone proton. The nuclei of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium contain one proton bound to ... |
Why does a standard computer keyboard have 12 function keys (F1 - F12)? | Holy guacamole, I can actually answer this one. But first we have to go back to mainframes...
Back in the days of yore, desktop computers weren't a thing. Instead, you'd have a keyboard and monitor connected to a terminal of one sort or another. There were two main categories: *character-oriented* terminals and *block (or data stream)-oriented* terminals. The former was cheaper to make due to the smaller component count and simply transmitted each keypress to the connected mainframe or (later on) minicomputer.
*Block-oriented* terminals were an interesting development. In exchange for adding a bit more circuitry to each terminal, the demands on a mainframe's time could be decreased. For example, consider an airline ticketing system. A booking agent wants to search for flights from JFK to SFO, deparing on 7/5/74. A *character-oriented* terminal would interrupt the mainframe each time a character was pressed, leading to expensive context switches as the mainframe had to service requests from each active terminal. A *block-oriented* terminal would be able to present a form with fillable fields for origin, destination, and date, which would only interrupt the mainframe when all data was submitted at once. IBM was able to take advantage of this to allow a single mainframe to serve a massive amount of terminals, but this meant that any interaction represented a relatively significant expense as compared to *character-oriented* terminals. (Consider the case of typing a paragraph of text and saving it. On a *character-oriented* terminal, the "save" command would be just one interrupt, after the interrupts for each letter. On a *block-oriented* terminal, the "save" command would be the *only* interrupt.)
This meant it was to IBM's benefit to be able to accomplish tasks with as few interactions as possible. Interactive time-sharing applications of the time such as ISPF could present menus, but navigating a hierarchical menu meant the mainframe would have to do more work. The solution was shortcut keys. Depending on context, a mainframe's numbered PF keys would accomplish different tasks. A user would memorize the ones they used most frequently, while common shortcuts could be displayed at the bottom of the screen, both resulting in fewer interrupts for the mainframe.
How did we get from mainframes to PCs? When the original IBM PC launched, it had 10 function keys in a bank on one side of the keyboard. PCs didn't have time-sharing capabilities, and each keystroke generated an interrupt, but users still enjoyed the ability to streamline frequent tasks when supported by a given application. A subsequent model, the PC/AT, contained a standard keyboard layout with exactly half of the 24 function keys that were common on 3270-series terminals of the time, arranged in one bank rather than two. ETA: As /u/OnlyDeanCanLayEggs notes below, this particular keyboard is sufficiently well-known that its model name, "Model M", is still widely recognized today.
Edit: Terminology. | [
"Fn is a modifier key, and works like other modifiers keys, such as Ctrl, Shift, Alt and AltGr. For a standard modifier key, the microcontroller inside the keyboard sends a scancode for the modifier itself, which is then interpreted by the operating system and combined with other simultaneous key-presses. The Fn ke... |
What were the physiques of pre history human beings, including ancient physiques, and even medieval physiques of warriors and also citizens of different classes? We see many of them in movies and tv shows like in 300, Spartacus, and Roman Empire, etc, with amazing physiques. Is this true at all? | A whole cadre of writers answered a [similar question](_URL_0_) including u/FraudianSlip and u/GBFel. Someone else may have something new to add of course. | [
"Classical civilizations from Rome to China tended to invest the most importance in familial or tribal affiliation than an individual's physical appearance (Dikötter 1992; Goldenberg 2003). Societies still tended to equate physical characteristics, such as hair and eye colour, with psychological and moral qualities... |
why don't animals or humans decompose in a bog? | There's so little oxygen in that kind of environment that the bacteria and small animals required to make the bodies decompose simply can't live. | [
"There are also so-called \"accidental trogloxenes\" which are surface organisms that enter caves for no survival reason. Some may even be \"troglophobes\" (“cave haters”), which cannot survive in caves for any extended period. Examples include deer which fell through a sinkhole, frogs swept into a cave by a flash ... |
the success of works of art such as mark rothko's | Colour field paintings basically stemmed from the idea that colour can provoke emotion, and quite powerful feelings at that. I think a lot of people are attracted to these works subconsciously for that reason. | [
"Mark Rothko Art Centre ( – DMRAC) is a multi-functional institution of culture, arts and education, located inside the arsenal building of the Daugavpils fortress in Daugavpils, Latvia. It is a unique place in Eastern Europe, where the original paintings of Mark Rothko are located. He was one of the great artists ... |
How frail were women in the Victorian era, really? | For the health of women in Victorian women, perception was reality. With the belief that women were physically inferior to men every ailment was a confirmation.
Wendy Mitchinson writes in Chapter 2 of *The Nature of their Bodies: Women and their Doctors in Victorian Canada* on "The Frailty of Women." She states:
> The view that women suffered from ill health corresponded to the belief that women were physically weaker than men when they were healthy. Because Victorians expected that those who were weaker would be more prone to disease, they would not have challenged this medical perception. In fact, the medical perception probably gained credibility because it reinforced what people already believed.
This could explain why sources from the time have women constantly struggling with sickness. | [
"Based on her study of cases from the Homewood Retreat, Cheryl Krasnick Warsh concludes that \"the realities of the household in late Victorian and Edwardian middle class society rendered certain elements — socially redundant women in particular — more susceptible to institutionalization than others.\"\n",
"In th... |
do we drill for oil to manufacture plastics, or are they made from the byproducts of oil refinement? | The refining process churns out a bunch of random shit. There's a neat picture [here](_URL_1_) that shows how different products are pulled out of crude oil at different temperatures. Plastics can be made from various refined products, but they're just not a significant use of oil overall: just 2.9% of crude use in the US goes to plastic production, [according to the EIA](_URL_0_). So no, plastics aren't a significant driver of oil demand. | [
"Crude oil can be refined into a wide variety of component hydrocarbons. \"Petrochemicals\" are the refined components of crude oil and the chemical products made from them. They are used as detergents, fertilizers, medicines, paints, plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber.\n",
"Synthetic crude may also... |
how does santa deliver toys to all the boys and girls in the world in one night? | You know how 1 year is like 7 to a dog? Well one night is like 1 year to Santa. | [
"The boy and the other children see thousands of Christmas elves gathered at the center of town waiting to send Santa Claus on his way. The boy is handpicked by Santa to receive the first gift of Christmas. Realizing that he could choose anything in the world, the boy asks for a bell from one of the reindeer's harn... |
Why do energy saturated systems have negative Kelvin temperatures? | You usually think of and treat temperature as a measure of how excited the system is. But an alternate definition, which is in some ways more fundamental, is that temperature indicates how much entropy increases when you add some heat.
Now, in most systems these definitions are equivalent. But in systems with a small number of discrete energy states, you can make them so highly saturated that adding more energy *reduces* the number of occupied states, and thus entropy. And if entropy decreases when you add heat, under the second definition temperature is negative.
Because of that, it's actually the *opposite* of what you say that happens. Energy will flow from any negative temperature system to any positive temperature one, because it's always entropically favorable for the former to lose heat and for the latter to gain it. | [
"A system with a truly negative temperature on the Kelvin scale is \"hotter\" than any system with a positive temperature. If a negative-temperature system and a positive-temperature system come in contact, heat will flow from the negative- to the positive-temperature system. A standard example of such a system is ... |
Is it true that there were only 500 German soldiers in Normandy? | I assume you mean on June 6th, 1944?
In that case, no, the Germans had many more men than 500. Based either on the beaches or shortly behind them were the 21st Panzer Division, 352nd Infantry Division, 709th Static Division, and 716th Static Division. This accounts for roughly 50,000 men.
In addition to these were a number of nearby divisions. For example the 91st Infantry Division (formerly Air Landing Division similar to an American Airborne division) was on the Cotentin peninsula and was able to get to the assault area by midday and mixed it up with the 82nd and 101st American Airborne Divisions. So in addition to the 50,000 Germans immediately defending the assault area, there were another 20-30,000 who were close enough to see battle on June 6th.
Against this the Americans, British, and Canadians threw 10+ divisions accounting for about 150,000 men, plus naval and air support. | [
"The German armies had lost large numbers of troops in Normandy and the subsequent pursuit. To counteract this, about 20,000 \"Luftwaffe\" personnel were reallocated to the German Army, invalided troops were redrafted into the front line and \"Volkssturm\" units were formed using barely trained civilians.\n",
"It... |
how does one get data off of a computer/phone/technological device after it's been deleted? | Oftentimes when you think you're deleting the data, you're simply deleting the references to the data, not the data itself.
Think about a library. Imagine you want to get rid of a book. What most computers do it simply remove that book's card in the card catalog. But, the book itself is still on the shelves if you know where to look.
The reason they do this is that it's way faster than going to where the file is stored and setting all of the bits to 0. This process is sometimes called "wiping" or "secure erasing". You can get specialty programs that will do this, but it's not built in to most systems. | [
"When data is deleted from storage devices, the references to the data are removed from the directory structure. The space can then be used, or overwritten, with data from other files or computer functions. The deleted data itself is not immediately removed from the physical drive and often exists as a number of di... |
the shift away from 3d and vividly colored graphics to flatter more geometric designs. | When a technology is new, it's used extensively and taken to its limits. After it ages, the gimmick of it fades away and is then removed. | [
"Even simple shading and size of an image could be considered pseudo-3D, as shading makes it look more realistic. If the light in a 2D game were 2D, it would only be visible on the outline, and because outlines are often dark, they would not be very clearly visible. However, any visible shading would indicate the u... |
why do kids become attached to blankies? | It’s not just a blanket. Lots of people get emotionally attached to other inanimate objects. Usually it is a blanket or a toy of some kind. Stuffed animals are common as well. I don’t know the actual reasoning behind it though. It usually has something to do with security, like they feel more comfortable when holding it. It’s almost like they feel naked without it or perhaps defenseless.
I’d almost say it’s the same sensation as if you had lost your phone or felt anxious or worried when you couldn’t find your phone or purse or wallet. Not the exact same principle, but similar in a way. | [
"Insecure attachment styles in toddlers involve unusual reunions after separation from a familiar person. The children may snub the returning caregiver, or may go to the person but then resist being picked up. They may reunite with the caregiver, but then persistently cling to him/her, and fail to return to their p... |
Did ancient civilisations actually build traps like we see in Indiana Jones. | Not to deter any new responses, but to get started [there have been similar](_URL_0_) questions a [few years ago—](_URL_2_) the basic gist of those threads is that Egyptian tombs could be mazelike and have deep pits and false walls, but the only account of having anything like Indiana Jones' pressure-sensitive plates that would trigger a booby trap is the Mausoleum of the first Qin Emperor, the one with all the terracotta warriors outside. According to a ~2100 year-old account (written about a century after the mausoleum's construction), [it was rigged with automated crossbows to shoot at intruders.](_URL_1_) This is obviously the most similar to the automatic blowdarts from the walls in Raiders. But those other posts note that there was nothing like that in Mesoamerica, and also that whatever mechanisms needed to operate such traps probably wouldn't hold up and remain functional after millennia and multiple uses. | [
"Early reports claimed the story was about humans who tried to lure Predators with Alien eggs, although the idea was scrapped. Influenced by the work of Erich von Däniken, Anderson researched von Däniken's theories on how he believed early civilisations were able to construct massive pyramids with the help of alien... |
why does downloading new software such as ios10 on my phone cause a noticeable decrease in battery life? | Hi.
All of these responses are from people who sound like (and judging from post histories) have no idea how software design works, so I'm going to throw something in here.
When you write code for ONE device, ONE configuration, you and your team can likely do a pretty damn good job of making it work optimally on the hardware. This much is very easy to understand IMO.
Now, what happens when you start piling on new features on that OS? Well, assuming you still only have one config, you can still do reasonably well, depending on what the new feature needs to do.
But, Apple doesn't have one config. Each year they add support for new configurations with new hardware in the new iDevices. Okay, now here is where keeping performance top notch gets tricky. As you have to start to generalize your code to work well on more configurations (maybe with some device specific code paths) and pray that your compiler teams can do the rest of the work in terms of generating optimal code for each device, keeping the same performance and battery life gets 100x harder. Do also note that Apple has the best mobile hardware support in the industry. Most Android phones lose support after around 2 years. Apple supports their devices for 4+ years.
Now, if Apple did absolutely nothing and kept piling on new features and configurations to support, the old devices would be entirely unusable. However, Apple is working around this by pushing out multiple versions of iOS, for various configurations. Generally this means various features being flipped off in code to maintain reasonable performance and battery life. But even then, it's very difficult to maintain perfect performance and battery life from day 1 as you become more and more distanced from that original code, feature set and configuration. | [
"Some users have experienced battery drain problems after updating to iOS 11. In a poll on its website, 70% of \"9to5Mac\" visitors reported decreased battery life after updating to the new operating system. However, in an article featuring Twitter complaints of battery life, \"Daily Express\" wrote that \"honestly... |
How/why do neon signs do this? | Did you take the video? And if so, did it look like this to the naked eye or did this only appear on camera?
It looks to me like it the kind of camera artifact that appears due to a fast-moving waveform being captured one frame at a time, so that in the final video it appears much slower, or even reversed. It's called the ["stroboscopic effect."](_URL_0_) | [
"The neon sign is an evolution of the earlier Geissler tube, which is a broken glass tube containing a \"rarefied\" gas (the gas pressure in the tube is well below atmospheric pressure). When a voltage is applied to electrodes inserted through the glass, an electrical glow discharge results. Geissler tubes were pop... |
How would a video look back on Earth that was recorded on a spaceship that was going close to the speed of light? | The video recorder and all it's circuitry would be affected by the relativistic effects too. The video would be a record of how things appeared to those aboard the ship. | [
"Both for the purposes of visual observation to determine a result and simply as a unique visual for the program, high speed cameras are used during experiments and have become a trademark of the series. Very fast footage of moving objects in front of a measured scale is commonly utilized to determine the speed of ... |
why do some foods make you "bring it to a boil" only to immediately have you turn it down to a simmer? why not just simmer it? | Because that's how you can be sure that the water is the right temperature for simmering without having to measure. To simmer means to cook something at a temperature just below boiling, where bubbles are still forming but the water is not vaporizing. To get to that point, it's easiest to first go up to boiling and then work your way down until you're just slightly above the temperature at which bubbles stop forming. | [
"Boiling is the process of heating the ingredient until all the water escaped and a uniform sticky mixture forms. The most important thing during boiling is heat control. If too much heat is used, the sugar will be overcooked and won't have the crispy taste. On the other hand, if the heat is not enough, the sugar w... |
Are Titan's hydrocarbon seas combustible? | The atmosphere of Titan is 95% nitrogen and 5% methane. For combustion to take place there needs to be oxygen in the atmosphere. Since there is no oxygen they can't ignite. On the other hand if there were oxygen they would burn just fine: whether something will burn does not depend on the temperature. | [
"Large bodies of liquid hydrocarbons are thought to be present on the surface of Titan, although they are not large enough to be considered oceans and are sometimes referred to as \"lakes\" or seas. The Cassini–Huygens space mission initially discovered only what appeared to be dry lakebeds and empty river channels... |
Why do we define the mass of a proton/neutron as 1/12 of carbon-12, and not 1/56 of iron-56? | It's not really "inaccuracies", the mass defect is what it is and all you're doing then would be to ensure that the defect is always positive. I don't really see where the use of that would be. In chemistry you're using isotope-weighted atomic masses (e.g. the numbers you'll see on a periodic table) most of the time, and that's a much larger change.
Anyway, multiple standards for the atomic mass unit (or Dalton) have existed, historically. It started with hydrogen being 1u, but O16 and N14 were later used as well before we settled on C12 as the standard. There are several reasons for that. One is the well-known fact that carbon forms many compounds, enabling more comparisons of the masses of whole molecules. Even more important is the fact that 12 is a highly composite number, divisible by 2,3,4 and 6. There are no isotopes that are as common and share that mathematical property.
The reason that property is important is that a method of making highly accurate mass measurements is to measure 'doublets' in mass-spectrometry (MS). In MS, ions are separated by the ratio of charge to mass (e/m). So an atom of C12 that has lost two electrons should have _almost_ the same ratio as an atom of Li6 that has only lost one electron. The very slight difference will correspond to the difference in mass between Li6 (6.015 u) and half a C12 (6 u).
So having a more composite mass number for your standard means more doublet comparisons can be made directly against it. | [
"The modern form of the whole number rule is that the atomic mass of a given elemental isotope is approximately the mass number (number of protons plus neutrons) times an atomic mass unit (approximate mass of a proton, neutron, or hydrogen-1 atom). This rule predicts the atomic mass of nuclides and isotopes with an... |
Fisticuffs / Boxing in the 1800's | Without gloves, bareknuckle fighters didn't hit the head very often; they couldn't risk breaking their hands. There were a lot of body hits, and broken ribs and noses, but it wasn't like modern boxing where the head is such a target.
In a recent *BBC History* magazine, there was reference to Tom Molineaux and Tom Cribb fighting to the 35th round, although [this link](_URL_0_) refers to the 39th round. | [
"James Figg (1684 – 7 December 1734, surname sometimes spelt 'Fig') exhibited and taught methods of fighting with swords, cudgels and fists from a base in London in the eighteenth century. He is widely recognized as the first English bare-knuckle boxing champion, reigning from 1719 to 1730.\n",
"Boxing was profes... |
Why are some people so amazing at video games? | Some people have more efficient brain-wiring than others. DNA defines a fractal-like initial configuration of the brain, but at least as important are early-life experiences, the order that the individual learns things, etc. On average, I'd expect someone that had started playing fast-paced games from childhood to have a higher degree of skill that someone that had started a lot later. So, like most other human properties, the answer comes down to "nature and nurture". | [
"Video games have been found to be more engaging; instead of providing information over an extended class period, games provide small amounts of information at relevant stages. Playing video games helps with metacognition (which describes the ability to think about your own thinking); strong metacognitive skills ha... |
what are the psychological reasons behind seeing and/or formulating conspiracy theories? | Here's a couple posts from a recent askreddit thread I read a while back that provide some good insight:
posted by thinkofanamefast
* "Conspiracy theories also seem to be more compelling to those with low self-worth, especially with regard to their sense of agency in the world at large. Conspiracy theories appear to be a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness. If you know the "truth" and others don't, that’s one way you can reassert feelings of having agency,” Swami says. It can be comforting to do your own research even if that research is flawed. It feels good to be the wise old goat in a flock of sheep." "In 2010, Viren Swami and a co-author summarized this research in The Psychologist, a scientific journal."
posted by FreshCircuit
* The most obviously ignorant people are the ones who over simplify complicated models. They do this in hope that the world can make simple sense. Unfortunately the world is massive and chaotic, and a huge percentage of outcomes are primarily due to chance. It is often at this boundary that our most clever of individuals have their ignorant moments. And it is when they refuse to let go that we see anybody can become ignorant.
While this is obvious in hindsight, it hurts to admit that any intelligent person can get locked in their own ideal conclusion given certain circumstances. None of us are perfectand thus none of us are immune. Even moreso when we prefer to use simple models for truths.
| [
"Doing research into conspiracy theories for his work on \"Brought to Light\", Moore came to develop his own opinions on the subject of a global conspiracy, stating that \"Yes, there is a conspiracy, indeed there are a great number of conspiracies, all tripping each other up ... the main thing that I learned about ... |
How did the rifle replace melee weapons despite how inaccurate they were in the early days? | Let's take it from the top but I want to predicate this post with a statement -- please do not fall into the common trap of believing those before us were somehow dumber than us or less enlightened. They were the same human beings we are today and they would not have done something that was clearly worse. They weren't idiots. Now let's dive into this?
Okay, why was gunpowder used? Well early on it was not for guns but for cannons. We can not question the effectiveness of cannons compared to more Medieval siege weapons like the trebuchet. Cannons and mortars were simply better in every way and turned sieges that would normally last a few months into ones that would last a few days. So gunpowder technology would begin development with practical warfare use in the late 13th and 14th centuries and would have nearly 200 years before we would begin seeing personal gunpowder based weapons used in large amounts.
So why were personal gunpowder based weapons, ie: muskets, introduced? One of the common things said is that the longbow was 'better' or that they just weren't effective enough to withstand the enemy just running over and killing you. This is true. That's why in the late 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries the principle tactic was not to make them tactically independent formations but to integrate the muskets with the pike and swordsman formations. The muskets decimate cavalry and enemy "melee only" formations with one or two volleys before engagement and the pikes clean up the rest and keep them safe. The Spanish *Tercio* is the common point of reference for this as they perfected this formation.
Why were they used though? I mean surely 'better' alternatives existed? Well sort of -- but the principle reason musketry took over so fast was because of ease of use. It took a lifetime to train someone to use a longbow or to become a horse rider. You lose 1000 trained archers and it takes many years to get men which can be considered trained enough to replace those lost. You put a musket in a mans hand and give him a 1-2 weeks of training and he's ready to be put out in the field. It doesn't require physical finesse or super strength or a lifetime of training to learn. This would allow much larger armies to be made and we would see armies going from just a few thousand men at most to being measured in the tens of thousands pretty regularly.
We tend to have a pretty presentist view of history. We see where rifles will be eventually; the average ones for the U.S. army these days has an operational range of 600-700+ yards and we have rifles that have an accurate operational range of almost two miles. So when we look at that we tend to impose those standards hundreds of years ago and go, man, how did they even use those? Well at the time they were revolutionary! Consider the psychological effect of hundreds of muskets (and these aren't modern rifles again, they are crude and therefore *loud* with lots and lots of smoke) going off at once in your face. That can not be overstated enough. It has been argued that the psychological effect of early musketry was what set it above its competitors more than anything else.
By the 17th and 18th centuries we have musket technology rapidly progressing. It's becoming lighter, more reliable, and more accurate. They go from being able to shoot 1 at most a minute into shooting 3-4 a minute consistently. They would begin to shoot reasonably accurately at 150-200 yards and with volley tactics would make an independent musket formation incredibly deadly. The death of 'melee weapons' as you're traditionally thinking of like pikes and halberds would come with the bayonet. Why slow down these rapidly progressing weapons with burdensome pikemen? When you put an early modern bayonet on a rifle (and I've handled these personally in the past, they are *much* bigger than we think) you get a similar range to a spear on your musket.
So now not only do you have a gun, a gun that shoots pretty damn fast and causes massive psychological damage and casualties to your enemy before they even reach you, you can just attach a bayonet and get your own pseudo-spear to contest with enemy cavalry and pikemen yourself. You may not be as effective as those 'melee troops' but the advantages gained by having hundreds of musketmen getting 1-3 shots off before combat would even begin offset that more than enough.
In a way I would say 'melee weapons' were never abandoned or replaced but just experienced a period of change. Bayonet charges would be a principle tactical maneuver for hundreds of years even into the late 19th century and World War I with effectiveness. So we're talking from the late 14th/15th century to two decades into the 20th where "melee combat" and weapons were still a central component to Western warfare until it would be overwhelmingly replaced with the power of guns. So a five century transitional shift sounds a lot more reasonable than an overnight abandonment of pikes for muskets, huh? | [
"During the 1850s, in a technological revolution of major proportions, the rifle musket began to replace the relatively inaccurate smoothbore musket in ever-increasing numbers, both in Europe and America. This process, accelerated by the Civil War, ensured that the rifled shoulder weapon would be the basic weapon u... |
How did ancient people keep stored water supplies such as cisterns safe to drink? | I’ve worked at a historical farm with a cistern. It is based on a farm in about the 1680’s. Edit- it is Pennsbury Manor outside of Philadelphia on the Delaware. Since the actual manse had been torn down it is a reconstruction based on historical records, though some of the window panes and artifacts are authentic. Including a large silver plated dish that was used for years as a sled by a nearby family!
They generally didn’t drink the water straight.
Either it was boiled (tea or hot chocolate, coffee wasn’t a huge thing in this area at the time) or stored in a generally antimicrobial state (beer/wine.) The farm I worked at had a brewery on site and made different levels of beer (small beer for example was made for consumption by children, slaves, and workers as an everyday beverage as it had about 1% abv, it was made from the last possible brew from the mash, usually the third) for the people there. Anything fermented was then considered safe to store. That wasn’t always true, as sanitizing wasn’t understood as well as it now, but it was much better than drinking water that people literally pooped in while on ships in the nearby river.
Cistern water was generally used without adulteration to water plants and feed animals. It usually was not used casually for human consumption since there was a known risk of disease and while they didn’t fully understand why, they knew drinking water directly from the source would be detrimental.
Again, this is from a specific place and time (William Penn’s reconstructed estate outside of Philadelphia) so I can’t speak to every cistern. | [
"Throughout history, people have devised systems to make getting and using water more convenient. Living in semi-arid regions, ancient Persians in the 1st millennium BC used qanat system to gain access to water in the mountains. Early Rome had indoor plumbing, meaning a system of aqueducts and pipes that terminated... |
what happens if you go straight up in space, no stopping, will you run into anything? | Almost certainly not, however gravity from the Earth and other objects will pull you towards them. There is a lot more space then there are objects to hit. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Nothing else comes close to those first few seconds after leaving the plane, because once you take that last step there is no going back. A racing driver or a skier or climber can pull over and stop, have a rest, but with parachuting, once you cross that threshold, you have to see it through.\"\n",
... |
how do lung x-rays work, if you can only see bones with an x-ray? | X-rays show a lot more than bone! They show density of everything inside of you. Bones are the thick and easy to get a nice X-ray of but all your organs show up as different types of shadow. Lungs are made of a thin tissue and should be full of air so you can’t see them on X-ray very well when you’re healthy. But that makes it easy to spot when something other than air is in your lungs such as fluid when you have pneumonia or tumors if you have cancer. | [
"Projectional radiography is the practice of producing two-dimensional images using x-ray radiation. Bones contain much calcium, which due to its relatively high atomic number absorbs x-rays efficiently. This reduces the amount of X-rays reaching the detector in the shadow of the bones, making them clearly visible ... |
why do soda 12-packs come in a 2x6 can box and beer 12-packs seem to always come in 3x4 can boxes | A long time ago, soda 12-pack boxes were sold in 3x4. But soda manufacturers realized that if they made the long box, that you could put the [box in your fridge and use it as a soda can dispenser](_URL_0_). This must have lead to an increase in sales of 12 packs, because easier access to cold beverages likely increases consumption. Why beer manufacturers have not adopted this strategy, who knows. Note, the volume of the 2x6 configuration is larger than the volume of the 3x4 configuration because they leave extra space to ensure the top cans push the bottom cans out - so bottlers consume more volume to ship 2x6 format than 3x4, meaning less product is shipped. | [
"Beverage cans and bottles are sold in multi-packs such as six packs, twelve packs, and cases of 24. These can be paperboard baskets, paperboard overwraps and cartons, corrugated fiberboard boxes, HDPE plastic handles, six pack rings, and shrink packs.\n",
"In the keg, fully made soda is stored under pressure jus... |
Has there ever been an estimate on how many planets there could possible be with the existence of Life? | A very simplistic but easy estimate can be made with the [Drake equation](_URL_0_).
The problem is that the values of things such as the fraction of planets that develop life and the fraction of life‐bearing planets that develop *intelligent* life are unknown and perhaps unknowable.
Here’s [Wolfram|Alpha’s interpretation](_URL_1_), with interactive coefficients. | [
"BULLET::::- No trace of life was discovered on any of the other planets in our solar system (or elsewhere in the universe), although it remained undetermined whether some forms of primitive life might exist, or might have existed, somewhere. Extrasolar planets were observed for the first time.\n",
"BULLET::::- N... |
why was Australia considered terra nullius when there were people living there already? | > why was Australia considered terra nullius when there were people living there already?
When the British came to Australia, they found a people who had no legal system, no leaders, no government. In other places, they had found native leaders with whom to make treaties to acquire the land; they couldn't find these people in Aboriginal society.
In addition to this, there was no development, such as one would see in "civilisation": farms, towns, roads, and so on. The Aborigines didn't use land in the same way as Europeans. Most importantly, the Aborigines didn't seem to have permanent residences, or make ongoing use of any piece of land. Therefore, the British assumed that the Aborigines didn't *own* the land. If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then *lack of* possession is also nine-tenths of the law.
Therefore, the British ruled that there was no legal ownership of the land in Australia. And, where there's no legal owners, everything's up for grabs.
Of course, it helped that this gave the British exactly what they wanted: a legal way to acquire the land.
> it was common for settlers to have "picnics" where they'd hunt the Aborigines for sport. is this true? how common was the practice if it's not made up?
As for "picnics" such as you've described, these did exist. There are eyewitness accounts of them, from both white fellas and black fellas.
A notable case was [the Myall Creek Massacre](_URL_0_), which is unusual in that it's almost the only time that the British culprits were arrested and convicted of murder. During that trial, it was indicated that these people were doing something which was common practice. However, it's not clear just how common these killings were. The ones we know about are only the ones which were mentioned or recorded. There may be many which were not diarised.
| [
"Unlike the rest of Australia, South Australia was not considered to be terra nullius. The enactment of the South Australia Act 1834 which enabled the province of South Australia to be established, acknowledged Aboriginal ownership and stated that no actions could be undertaken that would \"affect the rights of any... |
Why is electric charge quantized? | There is [a famous argument by Dirac](_URL_1_), which shows that the existence of magnetic monopoles and quantum mechanics goes hand in hand with the quantization of both electric and magnetic charge. [It came up in this topic some time back](_URL_0_).
The TL;DR version is:
(1) Introducing magnetic monopoles invalidates the use of the magnetic vector potential. But we need the vector potential to formulate the quantum version of electromagnetism.
(2) Dirac came up with a construction that effectively describes a magnetic monopoles as the endpoint of a very thin, infinitely long magnet. Something like a flux tube. This flux tube can still be described by a singular vector potential.
(3) Now demand that this magnet is actually non-physical, i.e. is not "detectable" by any means. This requirement can only be met if the electric and magnetic charge, p and q, satisfy: p*q = integer (in appropriate units).
Whether this argument truly *explains* charge quantization is a bit debatable. | [
"The conservation of electric charge, by contrast, can be derived by considering \"Ψ\" linear in the fields \"φ\" rather than in the derivatives. In quantum mechanics, the probability amplitude \"ψ\"(x) of finding a particle at a point x is a complex field \"φ\", because it ascribes a complex number to every point ... |
If you were facing away from a black hole as you fell into it, could you tell when you passed the event horizon because you would suddenly be facing towards the singularity without changing direction? | The equivalence principle suggests you would not notice as you fell through, as a discontinuous transition implies physics operates differently inside the horizon. Why would you suddenly be facing the singularity? | [
"An observer crossing the event horizon of a non-rotating and uncharged (or Schwarzschild) black hole cannot avoid the central singularity, which lies in the future world line of everything within the horizon. Thus one cannot avoid spaghettification by the tidal forces of the central singularity.\n",
"Observers c... |
How accurate is the movie "My Way"? | Hello,
Can you give some more specific examples on which part you are asking about? Not everyone has watched the movie, but should be able to give you answers on how accurate a scene is if you can describe it. | [
"A review in \"The Globe and Mail\" called \"The Right Way,\" \"an old-fashioned, grim Canadian movie\" that \"despite its paramount flows... marks the birth of a promising young director.\" The reviewer for the National Post wrote that despite the fact that the \"message is powerful and the production values fanta... |
why don't they make mid/rear engine front wheel drive cars? | When you accelerate, centre of gravity moves backwards. Rear mounted engine makes front wheels light - no weight equals low friction. Front mounted engine places weight above drive wheels, helps transfer power to road, whilst also using less drivetrain and cost.
| [
"Front-engine, rear-wheel drive vehicles tend to have the transmission up front just after the engine, but sometimes a front engine drives a rear-mounted transaxle. This is generally done for reasons of weight distribution, and is therefore common on sports cars. Another advantage is that as the driveshaft spins at... |
why is red eyes in pictures not as big of a problem as it used to be? | A selfie generally doesn't use a flash. Flash photography, especially from a flash that is positioned directly next to the lens, is still very much a problem for red-eye. | [
"The red-eye effect in photography is the common appearance of red pupils in color photographs of the eyes of humans and several other animals. It occurs when using a photographic flash very close to the camera lens (as with most compact cameras) in ambient low light.\n",
"However, the top-down factors of scenes ... |
What exactly makes us "think" or "know" in the brain? For example, I read a post saying caterpillars do not have the capacity to "think" or "know" [if they will turn into butterflies]? | Hi! I'm not a neuroscientist but I am a molecular biologist, so I have some vague insights and am also very interested in this topic. I just answered that caterpillar thread. My answer to it may help in your 2nd question (caterpillar consciousness). The short answer is, primitive organisms simply respond to stimuli in the environment, like plants do. So yes, it's to do with their brains - butterflies have something more like a big knot of nerves than a true brain, in the sense that humans or apes or dogs do. The point at which organisms' brains become complex enough to be capable of choice or free will or knowledge is a fuzzy matter at best.
Here was my answer to the degree to which a butterfly is conscious:
> Think about how single-celled organisms (or plants, if it's easier) interact with their environment. They don't "know" anything because they don't have the hardware to do so. I think in order to understand the answer to that question, you have to have a sense of how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.
Simple organisms have complex molecular systems that react to stimuli in their environment (light, heat, chemicals like proteins or sugars, pressure) that trigger chain reactions of chemical processes in their bodies.
Let's take a hypothetical example. A single cell may have a protein on its surface that changes its shape when, say, sugar molecules bump into it. That change of shape could cause other molecules within the cell to change shape or move differently, which would in turn cause other molecules to behave differently. All of these changes might cause the edge of the cell to extend towards the sugar molecule, allowing it to absorb the sugar more effectively. The cell "knew" that there was sugar nearby and "decided" to move towards it, but it's really just the result of a very complex network of molecular interactions.
Now imagine this on a huge scale. If you google it, I'm sure you can find out exactly what stimuli a caterpillar needs to be exposed to in order to induce the transformation into a butterfly. When it encounters those stimuli, an extremely complex and delicate chain of events will happen within the cells and tissues of the caterpillar, and the end result is the formation of a chrysalis, etc, and eventually becoming a butterfly.
So no, a caterpillar does not know it will become a butterfly because it cannot know anything. But its cellular programming knows how to become one, in the same way your stomach knows to growl, or your muscles know to contract and expand. That's just what they do.
I hope that's helpful and interesting. It was fun to write it out, in any case.
I will try to come back with some real sources.
edit: I am currently reading the Wikipedia entry on [consciousness](_URL_0_) and evolution. This is a very interesting question. I would love to hear from some neurobiologists and evolutionary biologists! | [
"More recent research suggests that many of our preferences, attitudes, and ideas come from the adaptive unconscious. However, subjects themselves do not realize this, and they are \"unaware of their own unawareness\". People wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states. A subject ... |
What was it like to fight in the Soviet admt during WW2? | I have a few responses on Soviet military culture you can find [here](_URL_0_). | [
"During World War II, most units of the NKVD Internal Troops were engaged alongside Red Army forces against Axis troops. They participated in the defense of Moscow, Leningrad, the Brest Fortress, Kiev, Odessa, Voronezh, Stalingrad, the North Caucasus and were heavily engaged during the Battle of Kursk.\n",
"Opera... |
Why was succession to the Ottoman throne "open" and not decided by the order of birth? Why did it often involve fratricide? | So, Ottoman succession is an extremely confusing nuanced evolution spanning six centuries. In 1261, the creation of the Ottoman polity, the Ottoman state used unigeniture to determine the new leader of the polity after the death of a sultan. As you can imagine, when a sultan has a dozen heirs capable of assuming control of the throne, violence occurred in the capital and surrounding areas without fail. With the death of a sultan, it benefitted the possible heirs who were closer geographically to the capital(which the Ottomans did not truly have until 1453) because they would hear about the death of the sultan earlier and thus be able to raise a stronger larger army more quickly than the heirs who did not hear about the death for many more weeks or months.
This caused obvious problems within the empire, how could an empire grow and spread if each time the leader died the state devolved into civil war for weeks, months, or even years while the heirs duked it out in intra-state conflicts? The short answer is that it could not. Pre-interregnum, the Ottoman state would often marry outside of the state into eastern Europe to solidify allies and create economic windfalls for themselves. Although economically the Ottoman State prospered in the 14th century, politically they became weakened by the external political influences. Post-interregnum, marriage took on a new concept in the Ottoman sultanate. No longer were possible heirs born in wedlock to external wives. Sultanic marriages become celibate, and the Sultan bred only with his royal concubines so as to prevent external powers from exerting influence on the princes of the state.
Now, with only internal princes having access to the throne, and harem politics not yet influencing the princes, the first sultan to commit fratricide started an evolving chain of fratricide and set the foundations for primogeniture. When Sultan Mehmed II ascended to the throne for the first time in 1444 he was only 13 years old. He deposed himself and had his father, Murad II, come back to lead the Ottoman armies against the Hungarians and Polish at the battle of Varna in the same year. Mehmed II again took control of the Ottoman throne in 1451, at the age of 21. This time, determined to seize and consolidate power in the sultanate, he preemptively committed fraticide so he would not be challenged in his right to rule the Ottoman Empire.
Succession shifted again in 1520 after Suleiman the Magnificent came to power. Considered to lead during the Ottoman golden age, Suleiman radically shifted the ideas of marriage, external influences, and succession. For the first time since Interregnum a sultan married and copulated with a former slave and concubine. Unlike the sultans before him, he allowed Hurrem Sultan and her offspring to stay at the courts, as normally the offspring and the mother would be banished to distant lands and only brought back if he was deemed to be the heir apparent.
This basically gave Hurrem unmatched political power insofar as she raised the heir to the Ottoman throne while still living in the imperial harem as Valide Sultan, or rather the queen mother. This led to a short period of primogeniture ending two centuries of unigeniture combat. The practice of primogeniture would continue into the 17th century until agnatic succession took over under Osman II after he allowed his brothers to live and avoid spending their life in the Kafes, or golden cages.
Sources:
Goffman, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge Press
Lessons from the Ottoman Harem on Culture, Religion, and Wars Murat Iyigun Economic Development and Cultural Change , Vol. 61, No. 4 (July 2013) , pp. 693-730
OTTOMAN HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE LITERATURE OF "DECLINE" OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES DOUGLAS A. HOWARD
Journal of Asian History , Vol. 22, No. 1 (1988) , pp. 52-77
| [
"The Ottoman Dynasty had unusual succession practices compared to other monarchies. Those succession practices changed over time, and ultimately the sultanate was abolished in 1922. Later, the House of Osman (Turkish: Osmanoğlu Ailesi) continued the latest succession practice for the head of the family.\n",
"The ... |
Did General Douglas MacArthur have any significant redeeming aspects as a military commander in WWII and Korea? | Well, the last one (insubordination) is why he ended up getting fired, so they can be discounted, I think. And I really don't think you can hold the artillery and air restrictions in Manilla against him. Such concerns are rightfully the purview of Generals. Those of us at lower levels know our lives are at risk anyway, we just ask that the risk is weighed by benefit.
Bottom line, he got things done. Although I am a believer that the MacArthur or Patton schools of leadership belong in the museum, you can't really deny that they achieved results.
His personal valor is, I think beyond question, coming out of WW1 with two DSCs and seven(!) Silver Stars.
I don't think you can hold the loss of the Philippines against him. He really did believe he would get more support than he actually did, though one does wonder if he had a proper appreciation for the bigger picture. His performance as commander SWPA doesn't seem to show any unusual blemishes, but it's not my major area of knowledge. Bear in mind, though, that there was a significant international component of this command, so he had to navigate many of the same mine fields as Eisenhower had to in Europe.
Given that he was basically HMFIC in Japan for the post-war years, I don't think you can look at how Japan turned out and say that he did badly in any way.
Finally, when it came to Korea (another international op), he went from keeping a tenuous toehold in the corner of the country to practically taking over the peninsula in nothing flat. It took a lot of that famous force of will of his in order to get approval for the Inch'on landings, and he saw it executed as near to perfectly as makes no difference, and an amphibious assault is up there on the difficult military feats list. | [
"Ostensibly for security, the Australian Government had given MacArthur control over the media in respect to operations in the theatre. MacArthur used this power for self-promotion and to convince the US public that the war in the Pacific was being won by his actions. Press releases implied that he was personally d... |
Why didn't Hitler just launch Operation Sealion while the Battle of Britain was happening? Wouldn't the RAF have been too busy to intervene with the landings? | Because an invasion is a *huge deal*. To be a bit crass, it's not like Civilization or Europa Univeralis or something where you drop some "army" unit onto the enemy territory and then you just rampage. I have little doubt in my mind that the Germans could have, if they so wished, snuck at least a token invasion force onto British soil. They could have slipped by and landed maybe even a significant landing force and done some real damage. The issue comes with, then what? Take D-Day for example -- the men who took the beaches didn't just take over France all by themselves. They needed reinforcements. They needed supplies. They needed all sorts of things to keep the offensive moving. Perhaps Germany could have rushed across in the chaos of the fighting, but the fact is, once they established a beach front, the British would just decimate them and cut them off.
The fact is, at every single point of the Battle of Britain, the British severely outnumbered the Germans in air power. Between June and October 1940, they had, on average, a ~340 plane differential. During the height of the fighting in August, the British would lose 204 aircraft but build 476 more. In the same span, the Germans would lose 397 but only replaced 313. The number dead was even more appalling -- the British noting 104 pilots killed in the fortnight and the Luftwaffe noting 623 dead or captured.
So the reality is, the Germans couldn't even maintain aerial dominance or even some level of control. They were never even winning the aerial battle itself. Without a navy, and without aerial dominance, how does an invasion force even begin to think of acting in any long term manner?
Max Hastings *Inferno* gives a wonderful account of the Battle of Britain, which is where I've gotten my numbers. | [
"On 2 July 1940, in the aftermath of the French surrender, Adolf Hitler decided that an invasion of Britain could only begin after achieving air superiority. On 12 July he outlined his reasoning: aerial domination over the invasion area and its sea approaches was necessary to compensate for the weakness of the \"Kr... |
if the air scatters all the colours away so we can only see the blue light, why doesnt looking through *more* air at sunset look more blue? | Good thinking, but... it's the other way around. The colour that gets scattered the most is blue. That's why the air is predominantly blue. The blue comes from all directions (is scattered the most). Now, when light passes through more air, there is no blue left, and only the least scattered ones (red) reach you eye. | [
"The sky can turn a multitude of colors such as red, orange, purple and yellow (especially near sunset or sunrise) when the light must pass through a much longer path (or optical depth) through the atmosphere. Scattering effects also partially polarize light from the sky and are most pronounced at an angle 90° from... |
the potential scottish independence from the uk. both sides (pro/con) and the history of the issue. (curious american). | You are not going to get an ubiased answer because the facts about the potential consequences aren't really known, so right now a lot of people are just making up things that they would like to be true and cherry-picking sources to support that.
From an economic standpoint, pro-union people say that this would suck for Scotland because Scotland would have to re-apply to join the EU and be forced to join the Euro. They also say the oil will run out soon and Scotland won't be able to subsist on oil forever. The basic idea is that Scotland will be a lot poorer and worse off if they are independent, in addition to which they will have less political power because they will become a small, mostly irrelevant, country.
Pro-independence people say that they won't have to rejoin the EU since they are already part of the EU, they won't have to take the Euro if they don't want to, that they will do well from their other industries and tourism etc and not just oil. That they won't be poor and won't be worse off without the UK.
It's pretty much impossible to predict what would happen, since for every source you can provide supporting one side of the issue you can get another equally valid source stating the opposite. Anyone insisting to you that their prediction is the only correct one is simply trying to get you to agree with their bias.
From an ideological perspective, many pro-independence people feel that they are "ruled from the South" and that they aren't duly represented in parliament, which is not unreasonable when you consider the two parties Scotland gave the most votes to in the 2010 general election were Labour and the Scottish National Party, and it's the Tories/Lib Dems who are actually in power in the UK (Scotland historically hates the Tories). So the UK government is actually the complete opposite of how most Scots would like it to look. A lot of people believe that Scotland will do better governing itself than being governed by people that they don't support and didn't vote for.
From the other side, unionists might say that they think Scotland is better off as part of a union in a powerful country than being a smaller, marginalised country. That our last Prime Minister was Scottish and that Scotland already gets enough of its own autonomy via the Scottish Parliament. And as well that the Scottish can't expect more representation than they already have considering they only have 5 million people to England's 53 million.
Culturally, there are some people that think Scottish culture is a completely separate thing to English/British culture, and they don't feel "British" and as a result don't feel any need to be part of a union. On the other hand, England/Scotland have been together for a long time and have shared a lot of culture over that time and there are plenty of people who don't feel alienated from "British culture", whatever that may be.
Of course, not everyone who has chosen a side would agree with the stances I've given as examples for their side, but imo these are the things that come up most commonly in debates.
Historically, the modern day movement began when oil was discovered in the North Sea. Basically, a lot of people got the idea (right or wrong) that if they left the UK and didn't have to share the prosperity in the oil, Scotland could be a lot better off and support itself. At the time Scotland was having some economic problems, i.e. industries were moving away and leaving a lot of poor people behind in their wake. So the idea of an independent Scotland living off oil riches was pretty tantalising. From then on it's been a growing movement, and led to the creation of the Scottish Assembly and a lot of devolution in government.
As an aside, there are also plenty of people in Scotland who buy into the whole Braveheart-"FREEDOM!" thing and just hate England because it's how they've been brought up and it's how all their friends think and they haven't really thought about it further than that. And there's probably a lot of people who will vote no because they are afraid of change. | [
"Scottish independence (; ) is the political movement for Scotland to become a sovereign state independent from the United Kingdom. In 2014, a national referendum was held in Scotland. Voters were asked: \"Should Scotland be an independent country?\" 44.7 percent of voters answered \"Yes\" and 55.3 percent answered... |
why when i'm trying to fall asleep do i begin reliving cringe-worthy moments in my past? | There are lots of reasons - one of the primary ones being that in our history as humans, avoiding pain was a much higher priority than seeking pleasure as pain. So it makes sense that our subconsciousness tends to focus on negatives rather than positives, especially as back when evolutionary pressure was at its highest on humans, something like a broken leg likely meant death. You can see this phenomenon playing out in people who are highly risk averse, even when the risk is small and the rewards are potentially great (making career moves, dating moves, etc).
As long as you reproduce, your DNA doesn't care how pleasurable your life is. Pain inhibits your ability to reproduce far more than pleasure helps it, or least that was the case back when evolutionary pressure was stronger for us and natural selection was ruthlessly weeding out unfavorable traits.
As for why you're focusing on social shame, when it comes to questions of the subconscious, the rule of thumb is to look back at what your concerns would have meant for a caveman. Back in the tribal days, if you were not accepted by your tribe, it meant you were far less likely to reproduce - and not only that, but if you weren't accepted by your tribe it was overwhelmingly likely that you would never be accepted by anyone as most people lived and died exclusively with the tribe they were raised in.
Also, your subconscious is smart enough to know what things are important for you to resolve. This does not mean that every thought pattern is beneficial - only that you can gain insight about how to proceed by analyzing your thought patterns. Your subconscious seems burdened by some bad memories and is bringing them up again in order to encourage some type of action on your part. That action is for you to decide, and there are professionals who can help you with that if you decide you want to do that. | [
"According to Dunne, our wakeful attention prevents us from seeing beyond the present moment, whilst when dreaming that attention fades and we gain the ability to recall more of our timeline. This allows fragments of our future to appear in pre-cognitive dreams, mixed in with fragments or memories of our past. Othe... |
taking a second mortgage out on a home or property. | In brief: They are a secured loan, which means they use the borrower’s home as security. If you fail to pay back your loan they'll come after your house. | [
"If a consumer takes out an additional loan secured against the value of his mortgage (known colloquially as a “second mortgage”, for up to approximately the current value of the house minus outstanding repayments) the consumer is then hypothecating the mortgage itself the creditor can still seize the house but in ... |
how are athletes so much faster and better then compared to 10+ years ago? | It's a good question, but Usain Bolt is not a very good example. Bolt is peerlessly bioemechanically engineered for running, there is simply no other human is this world who can come close to him. His height, the length of his legs, the size of his feet, even the placement his achilles tendon is simply perfect. He is and will be the finest runner in maybe decades. You are absolutely right that athletes are better and faster than before, and I think most of that is due to science and better equipment. Carbon fiber as a lighter material than glass fiber. Better nutrition than earlier, and basically more performance based research. Maybe some of it is due to evolution, but I don't think that's nearly enough for it to be interesting. | [
"Over the years athletes have become bigger, stronger, and faster; in turn athletes scored more points leading to the world record where it stands now at 9126 points by the current world record holder Kevin Mayer.\n",
"The difference even between world class and national level distance runners has been associated... |
explain to me please, like i'm 5, what the hell is going on in the movie primer. | I can't explain it like you're five. If that means I should be downvoted, I'll take it with good grace, cause I really don't know the rules here yet.
But I *can* explain it to you like you're a grad student in modern theoretical physics.
The source of the drama in *Primer* is the main characters' misunderstanding of how the universe works. When they first realize what their machine is doing — it's creating closed timelike curves, in the only bit of actual magic in the whole story — they assume the universe is strictly Einsteinian. You might have seen mention in the last few days about that experiment that confirmed special relativity; it was described in the press as being yet more evidence of the impossibility of time travel. That's because in a strictly Einsteinian universe, different observers will disagree on whether two events are simultaneous or not, but given any sequence of events all observers will agree on the *order* in which those events happened. Effects, in other words, can't ever *precede* their causes.
So the main characters in *Primer* build this machine that creates closed timelike curves. A closed timelike curve — which is *not* magic, by the way, but rather an especially exotic part of the theory of general relativity — is kind of like walking around the block. You walk out of your house, go along a path in one direction, then at a later time end up at the same place you started from. Except along a closed timelike curve, you return to both the same place *and time* you started from.
So they build time machines, and go back a day, and make money on the stock market. Along the way, they're careful not to mess with anything, because they assume the universe is Einsteinian; effects can't precede causes.
Except it turns out they're wrong. That's the tipping point of the whole story; the main characters think strict causality holds in our universe, when in fact it really doesn't. You *can* change the "past" … which isn't really the past at all, since in your frame of reference it hasn't happened yet.
And the whole story we see on screen is of these two characters thinking they have it all figured out, and then abruptly realizing they don't, and how they deal with that.
I said "the story we see on screen" deliberately. The remarkable think about *Primer* is that there are two whole movie's worth of stuff that happens *off-screen.* I'm talking now about the Granger incident, and the party.
About halfway through the movie, Granger — Abe's sort-of girlfriend's dad — appears *out of freaking nowhere.* He's traveled back in one of the boxes; that much is obvious. Which one? We're never told. From when? We're never told. Why? We're never told. It's an event that, in the context of the movie we see, is completely *acausal.* It has no cause. Which is our first clue that the world the movie takes place in doesn't behave the way we thought it did. Which is what provokes Abe to go use his failsafe box. In the beginning — again, we see *none* of this; it's just alluded to — Abe set up a box and locked it away, before ever doing anything else. This is so he could, at some indefinite time in the future should the need arise, go back to *before* anybody started using the time machines and reset the world. (Even then, Abe suspected that their universe wasn't strictly causal.) It's the Granger incident that inspires Abe to do this.
Except what does Abe find when he goes back? He finds that *Aaron has beat him to it.* Aaron found Abe's failsafe box, used it himself, then set up his *own* failsafe box that he could use to get around Abe if Abe ever decided to use his own failsafe. Which he did, so Aaron did, which is why when Abe goes back he finds that Aaron has already been through that day at least once, recorded all his conversations and is now reading them back from his earpiece.
And why did Aaron go back? The party. Which, again, is barely even alluded to in the movie, except for a few expository lines of narration. There was a party, something bad happened. Maybe somebody got hurt, or even killed. Aaron went back on his own, in secret, to fix it. To change it — because by this point, Aaron knows the world is not strictly causal. Except he didn't get it right the first time. Or the second. How many times did he go through that party, trying to make it all okay? Ten? A hundred? We don't know. We aren't told, nor are we shown. We're expected to figure it out from context and implications.
It's not until Abe pulls his own failsafe lever that things change. Abe discovers that Aaron has been living the same day over and over again, countless times, and Aaron recruits him to help him with the party. They do, with the understand that after that, the whole time-travel business is *over.*
Except not really. Because at the end of the movie, we see that *one of* the Aarons who now exists simultaneously with the others has gone off to France, and is building a new time machine. One the size of a house. For what reason, we can't even guess… | [
"The film opens with an introduction by Wood's friend, psychic Criswell: \"Greetings my friends! We are all interested in the future, For that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives!\". (This line appears in the narration for the General Motors' \"Futurama\" ride and its accompanying film, \"To... |
why can humans live longer now than we could, say, 500 years ago? | Humans *don't* live longer than we did back then. *Life expectancy* is longer *on average* now, but that's not the same thing as saying people can live longer now.
Look at it this way. Imagine that most people who live to adulthood die at the age of seventy. It would be fair to say, then, that human beings can live about seventy years. Some longer, some less, but the limit to how long a person lives is *around* seventy years.
But what if one person out of two dies in childhood?
In that case, the *average life expectancy* would only be about forty or so. Because half the population would die at a young age … even though everybody who *didn't* die at a young age would live to seventy years, plus or minus a couple.
And that's been the case pretty much throughout all of recorded history. A human being who *doesn't die young* will live *approximately* seventy years. Plus or minus a bit. But over time, as societies have changed, it's become less (or in some cases, more) likely for people to die for some reason before reaching their dotage. Infant mortality, dangerous lifestyles of the young and fit, et cetera, et cetera. This causes the *average life expectancy* to trend upward, as we get better and better, both individually and in social groups, of not dying young.
Basically, the story of a human life is this: If *nothing kills you,* you'll live to be *about* seventy years, give or take a bit. But if something kills you, you'll die sooner than that. Over the course of recorded history, the overall trend has been toward *fewer* people being killed young … but the human lifespan is not significantly different from what it's always been for as far back as people can remember. | [
"However, anthropologist John D. Hawks criticizes the popular conflation of life span (life expectancy) and maximum life span when popular science writers falsely imply that the average adult human does not live significantly longer than their ancestors. He writes, \"[a]ge-specific mortality rates have declined acr... |
why are wedding dresses so expensive? | People have "this is once in life time" mindset. Even though more and more people are have multiple weddings in their lives. Same logic diamond jewellers sell transparent piece of carbon for hell lot of money. | [
"About 75 percent of wedding dresses on the market are strapless dresses or sleeveless, in part because such dresses require less skill from the designers and are easier to alter to fit correctly. However, the sleeved wedding gown as well as wedding gowns with straps have both become more popular in recent years.\n... |
When I look in the mirror and move my eyes left to right, why do they look like they're not moving at all? | It's called [saccadic masking](_URL_0_).
When you move your eyes you actually don't see anything but your brain replaces the blackness with the last image you see
It is the reason that you think the first second when you look at your watch is much longer than the rest | [
"When humans turn the head from left to right, the image projected on the retinas moves in the direction opposite to the head movement. Without the head turning, such an image displacement would appear as something moving; but when it is correlated with the turning of the head, no movement of the environment is see... |
The Differing Economies in England, Spain, and the Netherlands in the 17th Century? | You'll want to talk about the differences in how England and Netherlands treated trade and their colonies. You may want to consider the role the Jewish banking families had on all three, as well as the more general motivation for expansion between the two.
Really though, at 1.5 pages you'll want to find a focused point/counter point relationship that quickly and easily identifies a key difference and then back that difference up with supporting evidence. | [
"During the Eighty Years' War the Dutch provinces became the most important trading centre of Northern Europe, replacing Flanders in this respect. During the Golden Age, there was a great flowering of trade, industry, the arts and the sciences in the Netherlands. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch were argua... |
Why is Russian word Kiev and not Ukrainian form Kyiv used in English? | The Canadian Broadcast Corporation online news opinion:
_URL_2_
> For more than five years, _URL_3_ referred to the capital of Ukraine as Kyiv instead of Kiev. We adopted this version at the same time the Canadian Press switched to Kyiv. The reason was simple.
> After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Ukraine revised some official English spellings to better match its country's language. The government said Kiev was based on a transliteration of Russian not of modern Ukrainian. It changed the city's name to Kyiv.
> Ukraine knew that such rulings applied only to its own government agencies' English publications, so in the mid-1990s it asked the world to recognize the new transliterations as well.
> Its first stop was the United Nations, and during the past few years the UN has been using Kyiv in its communiqués. Foreign Affairs in Ottawa also embraced the new spelling.
> But most major media outlets in the West have stuck with Kiev, perhaps because it is better known, perhaps because they don't want foreign governments dictating English spelling, or maybe because they're worried that Kyiv looks like a typo. A few days ago, some colleagues at CBC-TV challenged _URL_3_'s use of Kyiv. The "yi" stood out, as stories about alleged election fraud in Ukraine led newscasts and plastered the front pages of countless websites and newspapers.
> Despite a common misconception, television writers do need to worry about spelling — at least the spelling of the words superimposed over pictures on the screen. And it turns out that our senior television journalists prefer the much more familiar version Kiev.
> Within 24 hours, the inconsistency ended. CBC News (representing radio, television and the internet) ruled that all its journalists should spell Ukraine's capital Kiev. A pledge was also made to review the spelling in six months.
I think this sort of explains it Kiev was part of the Russian Empire and The Soviet Union(where Russian was the defacto offical language) for a long time so the English name for Kyiv/Kiev came from the Russian transliteration. After Ukraine became an independent country they changed the English name and asked other people to use it. Some government agreed(for official government usage) but overall the Kiev spelling was just more well known/entrenched (plus Kyiv looks a bit strange in English) so overall English speaking people continue to use Kiev.
A few more links:
_URL_0_
___________
P.S.
_URL_1_ and wikipedia(possibly based on that article) claims
> Kiev is also based on the old Ukrainian language spelling of the city name and was used by Ukrainians and their ancestors from the time of Kievan Rus until only about the last century[20]
Wikipedia citation is of Edward Burstynsky, former head of the Linguistics department at the University of Toronto, but the citation points to a citation from another article _URL_1_/ I didn't find a more direct quote/article from him about it.
| [
"Currently, \"Kiev\" is the traditional and most commonly used English name for the city. The Ukrainian government however uses \"Kyiv\" as the mandatory romanization where legislative and official acts are translated into English.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Ukrainian government maintains that the capital of Ukraine sh... |
the sickle cell and why it is in black people and why it makes them pass out, and what does it do? what is the sickle cell? | As said before, sickle cell is caused by a mutation for gene for hemoglobin in red blood cells. People with sickle cell anemia have 2 mutated alleles while those with "sickle cell trait" have only one mutated allele and one normal allele.
The abnormal hemoglobin is "sticky" in low oxygen environments and causes red blood cells to become deformed and sickled in shape and rigid. This is a problem because these cells cannot pass though blood vessels as easily as normal RBCs can. I think
(not sure on this one) that they can even get stuck and clog up vessels causing blindness and pain.
The reason why so many black people have sickle cell, is that having the trait (so only one copy of the mutated allele) makes people more resistant to malaria. Malaria is a huge problem is sub-saharan Africa. While the exact mechanism is still unknown, we believe that this resistance is caused by RBC's sickleing when infected by the malaia parasite. This makes people with sickle cell trait better able to survive than people without the trait in malaria prone regions.
So even though having sickle cell anemia makes people sick, having the sickle cell trait can be beneficial. | [
"Sickle cell disease is a blood disorder wherein there is a single amino acid substitution in the hemoglobin protein of the red blood cells, which causes these cells to assume a sickle shape, especially when under low oxygen tension. Sickling and sickle cell disease also confer some resistance to malaria parasitiza... |
If sea-level suddenly got raised by 8km, would you still need oxygen to breathe on the top of Mt. Everest? | You wouldn't need additional oxygen supplies if the atmosphere was displaced by the sea level rise. However, the atmosphere would be slightly thinner because the rise would increase the earth's radius by 8km from the 6371km and spread the atmosphere out a bit. The new pressure at the top of Everest (8,848m - 8,000m) would not be equivalent to that height above sea-level (848m) for our current atmosphere but close, still nowhere near pressures requiring oxygen supplies.
I didn't really take the increased mass of the earth into account, which would change the pressure gradient because of an increased gravity. The magnitude of the gravity change on this pressure gradient and the thinning of the atmosphere are both small and driven by spherical volume calculations 4/3pi r^3. I probably missed something but there is only so much math I want to do on a mobile. | [
"The top of Everest is nearly 9000 m above sea level. The peak was officially recognized in 2010 to be at an elevation of with the usual presence of snow and ice. Above about , which is approaching the cruising altitude of pressurized commercial jetliners, the air pressure is so low that the amount of available oxy... |
Did the concept of Italy endure even when Italy was politically fragmented? | Italy remained a concept from the fall of the Roman Empire up through the Risorgimento. To what extent different parts of what are modern day Italy (plus some parts that are in modern-day Slovenia) considered themselves Italian very likely varied at different times.
For example, Sicily became an Islamic state for a brief period around the 9th century. Various parts near the border with France and Switzerland swapped hands many times. But the Italian language was uniformly spoken throughout the Italian peninsula once Latin fell out of favor, and authors such as Machiavelli and Dante advocated for a unified Italy, so we know that the concept of a unified Italy is quite old. | [
"For many nationalist intellectuals and political leaders the process of unification of the Italian peninsula under a single national state was not complete however because several areas inhabited by Italian-speaking communities remained under what was seen as foreign rule. This situation gave rise to the idea that... |
why isn't there a national conversation about the mass genocide of the native americans? it seems to just be a glazed over part of our history. | Because genocide is mass intentional murder. What happened to the majority of the native americans occurred between the time of the first explorers and the pilgrims. The first explorers brought diseases with them that the native americans had no immunity to. This spread through the entire american continents killing between 70-90% of the indigenous population. (scholars disagree only on 70-90% range, not that it happened, but they all agree at least 70%.) It was a brutal one-two punch of smallpox (known) and suspected hantavirus. Since Europeans wouldn't know about germ theory for another 100s years, they had no idea that simply arriving and interacting with them would kill off so many. So by the time the pilgrims had to flee death and torture in England and took refuge in the new world's wilderness, there was almost 'nobody home'.
Even then things started out ok between european refugees and native americans. But you figure, they watched their people's almost die out to disease, then these whites start taking more and more land, and more and more of them arriving all the time, you're going to be upset at them too and there's going to be conflict. The europeans literally had no place else to go- they could stay in europe and be burned at the stake, or take their chances far away in the wilderness. Up and down the frontier, native americans would clash with new settlers spreading farther west...natives saw it as defending themselves, so did the settlers. Natives couldn't tell who was a passifist non-fighting puritan or quaker or anabaptist- they'd just hit a new farm that had taken more of their land, and kill the family in desperation. Then other settlers would round up volunteers and go kill indians in reprisal. In this way, pushing the frontier farther and farther as more and more people arrived.
It was only much later that european governments started getting greedy for the land, and that differing nationalities involved native americans in wars against other nationalities, using them to do their fighting with each other. It wouldn't be for about 200 years that the frontier had pushed west, and then clashes got so bad that the new 'American' government started pushing natives onto reservations, both to contain the problem and save lives on both sides. But by then, only in the west did many natives remain anyway. Of course, by the 1800s people finally figured out germs, and a couple American military talked about giving smallpox-laden blankets to native americans to solve the ongoing fighting...we know who discussed it from letters, and it's certainly likely it happened, but its unknown for sure whether they ever did.
It would be a clash of cultures native americans just weren't going to win, and when two peoples fight and kill each other, sheer numbers and more technology is going to win out. Thankfully, we've all gotten more civilized a few hundred years later. And certainly its not glazed over as part of history. Unless, like you, people operate under a mistaken impression that europeans arrived and just started killing natives for fun, and they think that's how most of them died. New diseases to which they had no immunity wiped most of them out, and then on-going small clashes with settlers for the next 200 years continued to whittle away at their populations. Then the west opened, and the conflict escalated with the government involved until there were so few left, and the end result; government lands set aside to relocate the small remaining populations to, in order to try to finally stop the endless killings on both sides.
-----
**TL;DR** No genocide: new diseases killed the majority off, and then ongoing small clashes that went on for a few hundred years as more and more people arrived kept whittling away at the populations. Then after about 200 years of culture clash resulting in deaths on both sides (but of course, mostly natives, due to lesser advancement/technology), the government relocations to try to finally solve the problem. Therefore, no national conversation about genocide because there never was one.
| [
"Native Americans in the United States were subject to military and land-taking campaigns by U.S. government policies. Disease reduced 95 percent the American Indian population between 1492 and 1900, the worst demographic collapse in human history. There were also frequent violent conflicts between Indians and sett... |
how does ballistic missile defense system work? | Yo dawg, we heard you like missiles, so we're shooting missiles at your missiles so you can... Yeah nevermind that.
But basically that's what's done, at least with an antiballistic missile system. Smaller faster missiles are shot at the incoming ( Ballistic ) missiles and blowing them up. This is how the Patriot missile system works.
_URL_0_
Some ships have a diffrent missile defense, which is a radar-controlled gatling gun. The same basic concept, see where a missile is going, shoot it full of holes.
_URL_1_
There's also a(n experimental) laster weapon which is mounted on a boeing aircraft. Again radar tracks the missiles and then a laser burns it to a crisp. | [
"Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and destruction of attacking missiles. Originally conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), its application has broadened to include shorter-ranged non-nuclear tacti... |
when i eat a bunch of sour fruits, for example sour apples or a lemon, why are my cheeks and forehead sweating so much? | I never experienced this myself but was intrigued as to why, so I did some research and found this answer.
> In general, sweating is caused by too much heat, even if you're not aware of the heat. This can happen if the bowel moves and so raises the core temperature. Such movement is often accompanied with sweating, and since you only feel the normal temperature on the skin, it is cold sweat. But at the same time your core is hot so you think it's cold, but it will later mix to normal.
> Anyway, it points to unusual bowel movement. This can be due to food allergy or, in a milder form, in food intolerances which are quite common. When it comes to sour ingredients, they are often in fruits, so I'll make a shot in the blue and say that you have a food intolerance against some fruits. You can check this hypothesis by trying chemically pure acetic acid to sour your food. If that doesn't result in sweat/hotness then it's probably the fruits.
Since it's found on the Interwebs I can't tell you for sure this is the answer but sounds likely.
**EDIT** Forgot to add the link _URL_0_ | [
"Gustatory hyperhidrosis is excessive sweating that certain individuals regularly experience on the forehead (scalp), upper lip, perioral region, or sternum a few moments after eating spicy foods, tomato sauce, chocolate, coffee, tea, or hot soups. This type of sweating is classified under focal hyperhidrosis, that... |
why does youtube say a video has 301+ views during the first few hours of a new video posted? | At 300 YouTube holds the count to make sure it's getting legit views. Sometimes two or more counts get in at the same time so often it's caught on 301 | [
"The video for the song was released on April 12, 2019. It simultaneously obtained the records of fastest-liked video and fastest viewed video on YouTube, reaching 3 million likes in 2 hours and 78 million views within 24 hours of release, making it the most viewed YouTube video in the first 24 hours after its rele... |
eil5: greek economic crisis and its ramifications for germany and the eurozone | Greece has a history of poor financial management, which meant they tended to inflate away their debt, which meant that they had to borrow at relatively high rates. When they joined the EU and Euro they agreed to manage their finances better, and being on the Euro meant they couldn't inflate, so their rates dropped. They took advantage of this and borrowed a lot of money, but didn't reform their finances and just cooked their books. That worked for a while, but now they're saying they can't pay and need to be bailed out or go bankrupt. | [
"The crisis led to a loss of confidence in the Greek economy, indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and rising cost of risk insurance on credit default swaps compared to the other Eurozone countries, particularly Germany. The government enacted 12 rounds of tax increases, spending cuts, and reforms from 201... |
During the middle ages, what was the common way to travel from England to Acre/Jerusalem, and how long did it take? | It depends on time and how wealthy you were - we'll stick to the crusading period from ca.1190-ca.1290.
If you were poor, you walked the whole way, across France, through the Alps, down through the Balkans into the Byzantine Empire, across Asia Minor, and down into the Levant from the north, regardless of time period.
If you were rich and English, it's probable you would have sailed - more on that in a sec. If you were rich and not English, you either walked as well or possibly sailed from one of the Italian city states (probably Venice), the latter becoming more probable as time progressed.
The major shift in transport can be mainly seen in the crusades themselves:
The First Crusade (ca.1096-1098) went overland in two waves. The first wave, the "People's Crusade" led by Peter the Hermit was annihilated in Anatolia. The second, better armed and supplied, made it through and took Jerusalem. This crusade was mainly composed of people from modern-day France.
The Second Crusade (ca.1146-1149) was a single group, and followed the same route as the First, composed of people mostly from northern France and Germany. This crusade was also more or less annihilated in Anatolia. A small contingent of Crusaders from England and the Low Countries, however, did travel there by boat, stopping off to capture the port of Lisbon before arriving safely.
All crusades after the Second traveled by ship, having learned their lesson. Travel times could vary widely based on where you were coming from and when you got to port - you didn't want to sail in the winter. Roughly speaking, it took two months to cross France and another month or so to sail to the Holy Land. For walking, that could definitely take as long as a year, although three would probably mean you ran into some interesting adventures. | [
"In the Middle Ages there were three main Christian pilgrimage sites: Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The large pilgrimage sites were often the graves of important apostles. The most famous pilgrims' way today is the one to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, also known as the Way of St. James. An... |
why do your legs turn red when taking a shower? | The hot water heats up the capillaries under your skin which makes them fill with more blood - Warmth causes blood vessels to dilate, which causes more blood to near the surface of the skin. When the body is warm, more blood is able to near the surface of the skin making the skin feel warm and look red. | [
"The red colour compound betanin is not broken down in the body, and in higher concentrations may temporarily cause urine or stools to assume a reddish colour, in the case of urine a condition called beeturia. Although harmless, this effect may cause initial concern due to the visual similarity to what appears to b... |
what happens to a recovered opiate addict if they require opiates for anesthesia or pain management? | This depends on the hospital, I think, and their procedures.
If someone has a known opiate addiction or dependency, pain management specialists would be consulted to carefully manage the case. The usual method would be to avoid using potentially addictive drugs, especially drugs that the patient has already used. They might keep the patient in the hospital longer for observation and help with tapering down the carefully-controlled dose of medication.
Alternatively, the physician can inject local anesthetic near the parts of the spinal cord that receive pain signals and block the pain while mostly avoiding involving the opioid receptors in the brain.
| [
"This learning process has two parts. First, opiate users must connect their drug withdrawal to their use of the drug, which is something that individuals exposed to opiates in hospital settings are more likely to do. When withdrawal is interpreted as a form of addiction, the perceived (and felt) need for more drug... |
what exactly is human trafficking? | It's basically slavery. It's people being transported and sold like goods, and robbed of their most basic freedoms. | [
"Federally, human trafficking is defined as \"the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery\". The International Labor (ILO) ... |
i visited a country recently where the exchange rate was like 1:45... and the average salary over there is like $10k... does that make them poor? | Kind of, but not necessarily. It means that if they took their salary, exchanged it for US dollars, and tried to spend them in the US, they'd be poor.
But presumably everything is cheaper in that country as well, so that a $10k salary might actually be enough to pay your bills and live comfortably.
Prices vary a lot between countries. In some countries you can stay at a hotel for a couple of dollars a day. In others, you need to pay close to a hundred times that. So whether they're poor or not depends on how much they can afford to buy with their local salary, and their local prices. | [
"Exchange rates: Tuvaluan dollars or Australian dollars per US dollar - 1.0902 (2010), 1.2822 (2009), 1.2137 (2007), 1.3285 (2006); 0.9695 (2011 est.); 0.97 (2012 est.); 1.1094 (2013 est.); 1.67 (2014 est.); 1.33 (2015 est.)\n",
"According to the Bank for International Settlements, the preliminary global results ... |
Over the years, I've heard it said that the US dropped more bombs on N. Vietnam than all of WW2. Did the US seriously consider using nuclear weapons as well? If so, what stopped their use? | There were some within the US policy establishment that advocated for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam. The reasons to oppose such a policy were many. From a political standpoint, it would have alienated the already-alienated American allies and domestic public, and could easily have led to an escalated role with (nuclear-armed) China (which is why the US did not contemplate invading North Vietnam). Any strategic use of the weapons (e.g. bombing North Vietnamese cities) would have incurred international outcry, condemnation, and possibly sanction, at the very least.
From a tactical standpoint, it is unclear that nuclear weapons would actually produce victory, or would be of much utility against such an enemy (tactical nuclear weapons are useful against massed columns and fixed positions, not diffused troops hiding in jungles). Lowering the threshold for nuclear use would only in the long run (and maybe the short run) hurt American interests — the US and its military were far more vulnerable to such weapons than the Vietnamese, and the US benefited from the assumption that such weapons would not be used regularly in warfare.
For many more details and discussions, see Nina Tannenwald, _The Nuclear Taboo_, which has a chapter on Vietnam. | [
"During U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War the use of nuclear weapons was suggested in order to \"defoliate forests, destroy bridges, roads, and railroad lines.\" In addition, the use of nuclear weapons was suggested during the planning for the bombing of Vietnam's dikes in order to flood rice paddies, disrupt the... |
will the us financial economy ever recover to the same degree of the mid-2000 collapse? interest rates on bank cd's etc. is it possible to surpass previous levels of financial security somehow? | The economy is generally very cyclical, so...yes...we can expect the economy to boom and bust over and over again. As for your specific examples, using higher interest rates as a generalized barometer for "the economy" isn't a very good yard stick. It is reasonable to say that our very low interest rates currently are the result of conditions in the economy that aren't good, but...high interests are an equally large problem as they decrease investment. For example, increases in interest rates correlate to [slower growth in the stock market](_URL_0_).
| [
"These mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO) initially offered attractive rates of return due to the higher interest rates on the mortgages; however, the lower credit quality ultimately caused massive defaults. While elements of the crisis first became more visible during 2007, ... |
If the Earth moves far and long enough from the sun, would the core freeze? And if so, how long would it take? | The internal heat budget of the Earth is not influenced appreciably by solar radiation. Rocks are generally not great conductors, so the incoming solar radiation only effects the temperature down to a few 10s of meters below the surface. The two main sources of internal heat are [primordial heat](_URL_2_) (i.e. heat left over from the formation of Earth, this is gradually decreasing through time) and [radiogenic heat](_URL_1_) (i.e. heat from the radioactive decay of elements like ^238 U, ^235 U ,^232 Th, and ^40 K, this is adding heat to the Earth). There are other sources of heat as well, such as frictional heating from the moving of material, both the [rising of plumes](_URL_3_) and [sinking of dense material](_URL_4_) and [latent heat generated by the solidification of the outer liquid core](_URL_0_). | [
"The Earth's inner core is thought to be slowly growing as the liquid outer core at the boundary with the inner core cools and solidifies due to the gradual cooling of the Earth's interior (about 100 degrees Celsius per billion years).\n",
"The growth of the inner core may be expected to consume most of the outer... |
what's the difference between a screw gun and an impact driver? | If you're talking about a regular drill and an impact wrench, the difference is that a traditional drill rotates at a constant speed. Whereas, impact wrenches literally use small, repeated impacts and higher torque to do the same job. Impact wrenches are generally used for applications where bolts need to be torqued down really hard and a traditional wrench or drill won't do the job. | [
"A manual impact driver is a tool that delivers a strong, sudden rotational force and forward thrust when struck on the back with a hammer. It is often used by mechanics to loosen larger screws (bolts) and nuts that are corrosively \"frozen\" or over-torqued. The direction can also be reversed for situations where ... |
What does the amount of blades do for a airplane or helicopter? | assuming the blade profile does not change, the increased number of blades will provide more lift or thrust per revolution, but consume more power. We like t use more blades or a larger profile to keep the tip velocity down, going sonic uses excess power. but, on the other hand, you want each revolution to slice off clean air | [
"The blades of a helicopter are long, narrow airfoils with a high aspect ratio, a shape that minimizes drag from tip vortices (see the wings of a glider for comparison). They generally contain a degree of washout that reduces the lift generated at the tips, where the airflow is fastest and vortex generation would b... |
how do flea collars work? | Flees travel from the body to the eyes and mouth to get water, so if you put band of something that kills fleas along the route they die. | [
"BULLET::::- Insect collar or flea collar. Impregnated with chemicals that repel or kill external parasites. They are usually a supplementary collar, worn in addition to the conventional buckle collar on a dog. They are also used on horses. The effectiveness of flea collars is arguable. Although they are convenient... |
how come mammals’ fur doesn’t come in a wider array of colors like green, blue, pink or purple? | The only reason reptiles like snakes are brightly colored is to alert predators that they are poisonous. Birds are brightly colored to attract mates. Fish are brightly colored to attract mates and alert predators they are poisonous. Amphibians like frogs are brightly colored to alert predators they are poisonous.
Mammals need to be camouflaged to better hunt and survive because food isn’t as easily found and predators are numerous.
Edit: am stupid and confused frogs for reptiles. | [
"The fur, which is soft, dense, and thick, is dark brown to gray on the upperparts, grading to black on the midback and yellowish brown on the sides. The underparts are sharply different in color. There, the hairs are dark gray at their bases and white at the tips, so that the fur appears grayish white. The fur is ... |
Why isn't metastatic cancer contagious if it's technically contagious within the body? | Cancer is able to survive in your body in part because the biomarkers are the same as your cells. You have defenses against cancer, but if that fails the cancer can spread through your lymphatic system.
Outside of the body, cancer cells are unlikely to survive. They require blood flow, thermal regulation, etc. Even if you coughed cancer cells into someone else, they'd be attacked by the immune system as foreign tissue and rapidly destroyed.
In Tasmanian devils, there actually was an issue of infectious face cancer, spread through biting (a social greeting) that was compounded by the severe inbreeding. They effectively all have the same immune system. | [
"Cancer, particularly when metastatic (spread to other places in the body), is a recognised risk factor for thrombosis. A number of mechanisms have been proposed, such as activation of the coagulation system by cancer cells or secretion of procoagulant substances. Furthermore, particular cancer treatments (such as ... |
if nuclear fallout is such a huge concern. how are nations able to test nuclear weapons within their borders. | Nuclear fallout is very minimal from standard nuclear weapons, hence how people live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki just fine today.
Nuclear tests will often be underground, underwater, or an airburst. The Japanese bombing was airbursts, which maximize destruction by create minimal fallout.
Regardless, nuclear fallout is not a huge concern except in a full-scale nuclear war or reactor meltdowns. In that case, thousands of nuclear weapons would be dropped. It's not something that happens in any significant quantity from a single weapon. Chernobyl is an example of an instance that did cause consider nuclear fallout, and the reactor core is still humming away, buried in concrete underground. | [
"Nuclear targets can be attacked at any time, and doing so retards or even eliminates the development of that country's nuclear program (which then continues as before, but from its reduced development level). However, if the country has a mushroom cloud icon in place of a nuclear installation icon, this means that... |
How is an “increased risk of cancer” actually measured? | As part of the scientific process researchers use control groups. Control groups are as close to the demographic of the test group as possible, only absent the variable to be tested. They then measure instances of the risk in both groups, and conclude a increase as being due to the variable.
This is a very simplistic answer, as it can be quite complex designing good control/test groups that minimize the effect of all variables except the independent variable. Less reliable results can/will occur when too many variables are either unrecognized or inadequately controlled for. | [
"For example, when studying risk factors of cancer, the cancer process may have been triggered long before actual diagnosis of cancer, and that therefore any exposure to risk factors in the \"lag\" time between may be unimportant.\n",
"In addition to these major risk factors there are also numerous other modifiab... |
How was the myth that people in the middle ages believed the earth was flat, started? | Not only did the Greeks know the earth was round and estimate the earth's cirumference, Arab astronomers managed to estimate the earth's diameter roughly accurately in the 9th century AD. Ahmad al-Farghani (c. 850 AD) observed that the earth's roundness could be seen every time a ship's mast disappeared in the distance. Even Christian theologians such as St. Augustine, Bede, Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas described the earth as a globe (Bennett 77).
According to Bennett, Washington Irving popularised the "flat earth myth" in the 19th century. Modern arrogance in assuming the backwardness of people in the Middle Ages allowed the myth to catch on then and never go away. Bennett suggests Russell, *Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians*, 1991 as a good source for further information.
Source: Bennett, Medieval Europe: A Short History, 2011. | [
"Historical writers have identified a number of historical circumstances that contributed to the origin and widespread acceptance of the flat-earth myth. American historian Jeffrey Burton Russell traced the nineteenth-century origins of what he called the Flat Error to a group of anticlerical French scholars, parti... |
TATA Box and transcription direction? | Your description is correct but you are not interpreting it correctly. The TATA box is "upstream", ie towards the 5' end. Transcription would start about 25 bp "downstream", ie 3' of the TATA box on the same strand. | [
"The TATA box is present in all genes that are transcribed by RNA polymerase II, which is most eukaryotic genes. The binding of the TATA box with TATA binding protein initiates the formation of a transcription factor complex. This is followed by binding of transcription factor TFIID, which then recruits TFIIB, TFII... |
What is the historicity of the writing of the Quran? | As the story goes, Muhammad first received communication from the Angel Gabriel in 610. He then did not receive another communication for quite some time, then he started receiving Qur'anic verses on a regular basis until his death.
Verses were recited to his Companions (or followers) and memorized verbatim and passed down until they were compiled and committed to paper by the Third Caliph, Uthman, between the years 653 and 656.
This puts compilation of the Qur'an at around 20 years after the death of Muhammad in 632.
An interesting side note: a [Qur'an has recently been carbon dated to several years before Uthman's compilation](_URL_0_), with some suggesting it predates Muhammad's supposed date of revelation. Although this appears to throw a wrench into traditional dating of revelation, I believe there will still have to be quite a bit of peer review before any new dates are accepted by both the scientific and Islamic communities. | [
"Originality of Quranic manuscripts. According to traditional Islamic scholarship, all of the Quran was written down by Muhammad's companions while he was alive (during 610–632 CE), but it was primarily an orally related document. The written compilation of the whole Qur'an in its definite form as we have it now wa... |
why are our veins sometimes flush with the skin, while other times they are raised? | When your body is warm and trying to cool down, it can do so by expanding your vessels near the surface of the skin, promoting release of heat to the environment. If you are extremely cold, the vessels near your skin constrict to help conserve heat and prevent its release to the environment. These processes are controlled by local mediators and the sympathetic nervous system. | [
"Superficial veins are important physiologically for cooling of the body. When the body is too hot the body shunts blood from the deep veins to the superficial veins, to facilitate heat transfer to the surroundings. Superficial veins can be seen under the skin. Those below the level of the heart tend to bulge out. ... |
Has there ever been an example of a pre-modern army or nation going to war primarily for humanitarian reasons? | The humanitarian intervention literature usually only refers to some of the post-Cold War interventions as being motivated *primarily* by humanitarian intent.
The oldest humanitarian intervention (defined here as interventions influenced by humanitarianism) that the humanitarian intervention literature usually covers is the intervention by the UK, France and Russia in the Greek War of Independence (1821-1832) to stop the Ottomans from massacring Christians. While "it would be hard to argue that humanitarian considerations were decisive in this intervention" ([Martha Finnemore](_URL_0_) ), humanitarian claims were used.
Other examples of interference and intervention that were at the very least *influenced by humanitarian claims* (note that they were all about saving Christians under non-Christian rule) although geostrategic concerns were overriding:
* French intervention in Lebanon in 1860-1861
* "Interference" by Austria, France, Italy, Prussia, and Russia during the Cretan Revolt 1866-1869
* Intervention in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bulgaria during the Bulgarian Agitation 1876-1878
* "Interference" in favor of the Christian Macedonian population of the Ottoman Empire in 1903-1908 | [
"Polman's book \"War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times\" argued that humanitarian aid intervention often ended up fueling wars and making them worse. Her book cited the example of the Rwandan genocide, where humanitarian groups facilitated the flow of aid to Hutu militia who were involved with the kil... |
How many Spaniards actually moved to and settled in Spanish possessions in the New World? | According to Jose C. Moya in The Oxford Handbook of Latin American History, there were about one million Spanish immigrants and about half a million Portuguese immigrants to their respective possessions in the Americas (8). According to J.H. Elliott in Empires of the Atlantic World, “the total number of emigrants from Spain to the Indies over the length of the sixteenth century is generally put at 200,000 to 250,000, or an average of 2,000 to 2,500 a year” (52). Initially, the vast majority of immigrants were men, but as this initial wave of men began to settle down, more women and families began coming over as well. Still, women probably never made up more than a third of immigrants to the New World. Elliott also points out that Spanish settlement patterns were shaped by their colonial priorities. Spaniards emphasized “the domination of peoples, and this involved taking possession of vast areas of territory. In the nature of things, such areas could only be thinly settled by the colonists, and it was natural that, if only for purposes of self protection, they should band together in towns” (38). This might explain why the numbers of immigrants might seem so small. Additionally, the costs of emigration from Spain were substantial, and for individuals and families who lacked important connections, it was often only possible to emigrate as members of a royally-affiliated endeavor.
Even though these numbers are presented by well-regarded experts, take them with a grain of salt. Migration and population figures are notoriously difficult to gather. In a society marked by drastic divisions in social class, race, and limpieza de sangre, population figures often depend on the identity of data collector. Who was considered worthy of being counted? This is not always clear from the records. And although emigration from Spain was heavily regulated, illegal migration was surprisingly common. This, of course, complicates our ability to know definitively how many people migrated.
Additionally, it is crucial to point out that different places in the Western Hemisphere had different migration rates. For example, in the sixteenth century, most immigrants traveled to the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Perú. These areas remained the most populated of Spain’s possessions, but as economic conditions changed over the following two-hundred years (like the growth in the sugar industry in Cuba or the growing importance of cities like Buenos Aires), immigration rates also fluctuated. In some areas of the New World, people of European descent eventually came to be the majority population (e.g. Río de la Plata), which made these regions “settler colonies” similar to Canada, Australia, or United States. Other regions (e.g. parts of New Spain, Guatemala, Bolivia) had much higher indigenous populations, so the cultural impact of immigration was mitigated (although still substantial).
Finally, Moya estimates that another seventeen million European immigrants moved to Latin America after independence, 43% from the Iberian Peninsula and 40% from Italy (8). These migrations further changed the ethnic and cultural makeup of Spanish possessions in the national period, shaping their national identities, economies, and social dynamics well into the twentieth century.
| [
"In the 16th century, following the military conquest of most of the new continent, perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered American ports. They were joined by 450,000 in the next century. Since the conquest of Mexico, this region became the principal destination of Spanish colonial settlers in the 16th century. The firs... |
Did teenager pregnancy rates rise with the new availability of cars in the 1920s? | /u/chocolatepot covers some of this in her [How common were flappers in the Roaring Twenties](_URL_1_) and in previous answers linked in that one.
I can’t precisely say if it did or didn’t raise the pregnancy rates slightly, but the important context is that sexual mores were *so* much more conservative then it’s hard for us to really grasp. As Chocopot says,
> As I explained in the bulk of that answer as well as [this one](_URL_2_), writing about and studies of sexuality and birth control during the period focused specifically on married women, with the young women who engaged in casual sex tending to be of the urban working classes and generally considered "delinquents". What was considered a normal level of envelope-pushing for rural and middle/upper-class young single women roughly in the "flapper" category does appear to have been kissing for fun in the moment, spending time with the opposite sex unchaperoned, and sleeping with men they were already engaged to - certainly big steps from previous generations' norms, but rather tame by our standards.
However, as Chocopot points out in [that linked answer](_URL_2_), starting with the increase of women in college and the formal workforce in the late 1800’s, we do begin to see modern dating (rather than courting). This trend started before the introduction of cars but was eventually encouraged by it. (I believe the books I’ve read associate cars with 1950s dating rather than 1920s dating in large part because of the slow diffusion of the technology through the depression years.)
As another [Chocopot post](_URL_3_) puts it:
> We also have to ask ourselves about the validity of the modern stereotype of the sexually liberated flapper. By and large, primary sources discuss kissing and "necking" as the main outlet for flapper sexuality.
Again, while obviously people throughout history have occasionally engaged in premarital sex (see the Bible, the Decameron, etc), I want to emphasize that it was strongly out of the norm before the Sexual Revolution in ways that we have a genuinely hard time understanding now. I went through some of Chocopot’s sources and others [here](_URL_0_). Very few women had pre-marital sex and the consistent finding seems to be that half or more of those who did had sex only with their fiancés.
Again, Chocopot:
> Katherine Bement Davis interviewed both married and unmarried women of various ages for *Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women* (1929), largely college graduates; the unmarried were mostly between 25 and 40 (so not falling into the definition of "flapper" at the time of the survey, technically), and the question of their sex lives was entirely unexplored. The subject is treated on in questions to the married women: the questions on contraceptive use were only given to married women, and only 71 (7%) of them said that they had had premarital sex at all. That said, of those women, 50 had had contraceptive information at the time. The majority (35) had had sex only with their fiancé, and less than half as many (16) had had sex with more than one person. Of the latter group, most were somewhat less educated to uneducated. (93 of all the married women, 9% of the whole, had had at least one abortion, most only one.) It seems likely to me that the trope of young women suddenly throwing off antiquated mores in 1920 or 1921 is simply not accurate, and that the transition from "sex before marriage almost never" to "casual sex before marriage" was much more gradual.
I’m going to make a significantly revised and expanded version of my own linked post the daughter post to this one. It eventually argues that we may see the effects of the automobile on premarital sex in the 19*50*s, rather than the 19*20*s, but this is by no means definitive. | [
"In the decades following World War II, the auto united in the United States with the single family dwelling to form suburbs. Suburban affluence led to a baby boomer generation far removed from the hardships of their parents. Community standards of the past, driven by scarcity and the need to share public resources... |
Paratroopers that didn't need parachutes | In the versions of that story I'm most familiar with the potential paratroops are Gurkhas. John Masters was a British officer whose first posting was to the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Prince of Wales's Own Gurkha Rifles, in his 1956 autobiography *Bugles and a Tiger* he outlines the background and attributes of the Gurkhas. As part of this he presents a selection of stories (or "magic-lantern slides" as he terms them) and legends, such as a lone Gurkha sentry challenging a British battleship as it moved up the Suez Canal in 1915, or a captured Gurkha who escapes his prison camp in south Burma and makes his way six hundred miles back to base, presenting intelligence officers with a map on which he recorded the precise route he had taken... a street map of London. They aren't presented as literally true, but illustrative. The relevant story about paratroops is:
"And there is the tale of the unwilling volunteers. This is about a Gurkha regiment that called for a hundred men to volunteer to become parachutists in 1940, a year when parachuting was thought to be the coming thing by many keen soldiers. The British officers explained that the jumps were made at first from balloons, and later from nice comfortable aeroplanes at a safe height of a thousand feet or more. The officers were surprised and pained to find that only seventy men volunteered. They reiterated their arguments. The Gurkhas still looked glum — if anything, glummer, and one lance-naik was heard to mutter that in his opinion five hundred feet was quite high enough. The officers then called on the sacred honour of the regiment and vowed that parachutes never — well, hardly ever — failed to open, and explained the numerous devices that made parachuting so safe. The lance-naik’s face cleared, and, speaking for all, he said, 'Oh, we jump with these parachutes, do we? That's different.'"
As with anecdotes of these types they reoccur with variations in details and dates; Neil Davis was an Australian photojournalist who covered the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation in Borneo in 1964 and visited a detachment of Gurkha troops. Tim Bowden's biography *One Crowded Hour* includes the paratroop story, told to Davis "with great gusto by a British Gurkha officer", with the Gurkhas being asked if they would jump from a Hercules against the Indonesians, initially refusing, then accepting if the planes fly slowly at 100 feet, and on being told that this was not possible as the parachutes wouldn't have time to open replying "Oh, that's all right then, you didn't mention parachutes before!" I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were versions that substituted other troops for Gurkhas, but obviously it's difficult to trace the origins of such anecdotes. | [
"In World War II, paratroopers most often used parachutes of a circular design. These parachutes could be steered to a small degree by pulling on the risers (four straps connecting the paratrooper's harness to the connectors) and suspension lines which attach to the parachute canopy itself. German paratroopers, who... |
if humans are 80% water, why are we classified as carbon-based? | My house is mostly air but I still say that it's a brick house.
The water is just filler. It's there so that chemicals can float about and react more easily, water is vital to life but it's doesn't define us like carbon does. | [
"Water and carbon dioxide are metabolic end products of oxidation of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Oxidising a gram of carbohydrate produces 0.60 grams of water; a gram of protein produces 0.41 grams of water; and a gram of fat produces 1.07 grams of water, making it possible for xerocoles to live with little ... |
how can redbull and monstersponsor so much sport things, it feels like everybody is sponsored by them | They have a lot of money and want to have advertisements around their biggest demographic. | [
"The game also features sponsorship representing fictional companies. There are a number of sponsorship tasks that can be completed on single-player or online matches, and reward a customization item for first-time completion, in addition to cash or follower boost. These tasks range from taking down each opponent o... |
In the late Roman Republic and early Empire, we see many similar busts of nobles, all with the same short cut and clean shaven face, but by the time we get to the Reign of Marcus Aurelius, long loose curls and full beards start to become a trend. How did this happen? Where did the fashion come from? | It became much more common around the time of the Punic Wars and thereafter (as Rome was expanding, integrating and becoming more and more of a regional hegemon) to have Greek tutors teach upper-class Romans. This gave them a more refined and Hellenistic appreciation for the arts. Note that this didn't mean they didn't have art and refinement in Rome before, but the culture was extremely militaristic and not as mature/worldly as the Greek world.
Greek styles came with that package. And it was quite common for Greeks to wear there hair long and have beards. This didn't become mainstream style until closer to Marcus Aurelius' time. At that point Rome had become quite wealthy and was clearly the center of the Mediterranean world. As such an increase in wealth and a change in how to obtain status (being close to the emperor as opposed a system based more on honoring and exaggerating your noble ancestry and winning acclaim in military combat-- though this last route certainly disappear by Aurelius' time).
Much of this came from Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Richard Miles as well as a few of Adrian Goldsworthy's books, such as "Augustus" and "Caesar". If you want a really comprehensive understanding of the Late Republic and Early Roman Empire, you can't get better than Goldsworthy. If you'd preference the drastic and society-shattering effects the Punic Wars had on Rome and the Mediterranean world (and a solid treatment of Carthage that has few solid primary sources to it's name to work with unfortunately), I can recommend Carthage Must be Destroyed as an enjoyable read.
The Punic Wars and the Civil Wars of the Late Republic altered the makeup of Roman society and especially the ruling class in almost unimaginable ways. Antonine Hair styles among them.
| [
"In the second century AD the Emperor Hadrian, according to Dio Cassius, was the first of all the Caesars to grow a full beard; Plutarch says that he did it to hide scars on his face. This was a period in Rome of widespread imitation of Greek culture, and many other men grew beards in imitation of Hadrian and the G... |
When a neuron dies, how does the replacement neuron re-establish the connections of the dead neuron? | Any "replacement neuron" generally doesn't re-establish the connections, but then there's generally no such thing as a replacement neuron.
Neurogenesis is very limited and occurs in the subgranule zone of the hippocampus integrating in the dentate gyrus, or in the subventricular zone integrating into olfactory bulb (in mice).
Any new connections for integrating cells must be reformed, and this will be accomplished in a use dependent fashion, much as they were formed originally.
Asking a new neuron to do the job of an established one is like asking a baby to do the job of a fifty year old man. | [
"If the axons of a neuron are damaged, as long as the cell body of the neuron is not damaged, the axons would regenerate and remake the synaptic connections with neurons with the help of guidepost cells. This is also referred to as neuroregeneration.\n",
"It has also been discovered through research that if the a... |
Polyphasic Sleep Cycle | One of my friends has been doing this off and on for about a year now. I can't really tell you the health risks/benefits for it, but I can tell you a little about it.
First, what you read is true about the first month being absolute hell. You are very groggy often and can get very irritable.
It's often very difficult to keep the schedule on even a day to day basis, so you have to be dedicated. You most definitely should keep your schedule. Missing one nap can throw you off and you will be miserable.
I'm not sure if what my friend does is correct, but say for the winter break, he will stop the sleep schedule so his body can recover. From what I gather this is not something you want to continually do to yourself for very long periods of time.
The benefit is of course that you have much more time and you can be much more productive. This is often Avery good plus and is the reason why its so alluring, especially for the college student. | [
"The term \"polyphasic sleep\" was first used in the early 20th century by psychologist J. S. Szymanski, who observed daily fluctuations in activity patterns (see ). It does not imply any particular sleep schedule. The circadian rhythm disorder known as irregular sleep-wake syndrome is an example of polyphasic slee... |
If our universe were totally empty except for two atoms, would the two eventfully collide due to gravity? | Guys, I think that your responses may belie the spirit of this question... I think what /u/scrappyisachamp is trying to ask is whether or not gravitational attraction, even when small, can be felt over great distances. In other words, let's assume that **charge doesn't even enter into this thought experiment.** Furthermore, that **the atoms begin at rest.**
My reading of the question was, if two atom-sized objects were light years apart (potentially, like, 13 billion light years apart -- empty universe) would the strength of their gravitational attraction (with no other forces acting on them, and starting at rest) *eventually* cause them to collide.
Correct my if I'm wrong /u/scrappyisachamp but I thought that's what you were asking.
EDIT: **IN A NON-EXPANDING UNIVERSE**
EDIT 2: It's going to be really funny if /u/scrappyisachamp comes back to this thread and is like "Oh no no. You didn't interpret the question right at all /u/gowronatemybaby7"
EDIT 3: Guys, /u/scrappyisachamp came back and [confirmed that I interpreted his question correctly.](_URL_1_)
EDIT 4: Assuming no atomic decay.
EDIT 5: Theoretical objects with no sub-particles that have roughly equivalent (and therefore relatively negligible) mass to an atom... Say, the mass of a Be atom. It really doesn't matter.
EDIT 6: No quantum fluctuations or multiverses.
EDIT 7: It seems like the general consensus is that given all of the above caveats, **YES** the objects would eventually come crashing together, as a result of gravitational attraction. However, if you add really any one of these various caveats, then the answer would be no. In other words, the closer you get to reality, the less relevant the question is, but given our current understanding of physics, and the laws of gravity allow us to answer this thought experiment "Yes".
EDIT 8:[My first gold ever!!](_URL_0_) | [
"Epicureanism states that atoms are unable to be broken down into any smaller parts, and Epicureans offered multiple arguments to support this position. Epicureans argue that because void is necessary for matter to move, anything which consists of both void and matter can be broken down, while if something contains... |
if colds are passed on by an infected creature, how did the first creature get it? | We're not really sure how viruses started. A virus is basically a chunk of DNA (or RNA) on it's own that can break into living cells and take over those cells to make it produce more viruses. Nobody's sure if viruses evolved as an offshoot of cellular life or if they're just a random corruption of broken-down cells. | [
"If the infestation can be limited to one or a few pieces, the insects may be killed through freezing of the object. The textile should be wrapped in plastic and vacuum-sealed, then brought to a freezing temperature as quickly as possible, to prevent the insects from adjusting to the cold. The object may be left fr... |
What type of "business school" training did people get in communist countries? | There was a recent thread on this: [What did economics classes look like in communist countries, particularly in the USSR?](_URL_0_)
Excerpting the top answer by /u/suchacleverguy:
> ... the focus of their curriculum was much more "business" oriented. Microeconomics courses in countries such as Russia focused on industrial planning. They used microeconomic tools such as marginal cost and revenue and so forth to determine the most efficient way to produce and price goods. ... | [
"The school was the first establishment of its kind in a former Communist country. KSAP cooperats with public administration schools in other countries, providing partners in Ukraine, Afghanistan, or Myanmar) with trainings and workshops.\n",
"The Communists established numerous schools, formulating a new type of... |
why do suntans start to fade? | Because you’re constantly shedding the damaged tanned skin cells with new non tan skin cells | [
"Suntans, which naturally develop in some individuals as a protective mechanism against the sun, are viewed by most in the Western world as desirable. This has led to an overall increase in exposure to UV radiation from both the natural sun and tanning lamps. Suntans can provide a modest sun protection factor (SPF)... |
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