Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
My great grandfather supposedly worked on the Manhattan Project, but I can't find any information on him.	You would be better off putting the name (first and last) into the title and asking specifically if anyone knows more about the whole project. In the text of the post itself, you'd be best off putting everything you know. Since there were thousands of people working on different parts of the Manhattan project, you'll w...	[ "Robert Frederick Christy (May 14, 1916 – October 3, 2012) was a Canadian-American theoretical physicist and later astrophysicist who was one of the last surviving people to have worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. He briefly served as acting president of California Institute of Technology (Caltech...
Considering grad school and I am seeking advice.	If you really want to do grad school, I would definitely be looking at schools other than the one you attended for undergrad. By looking at more schools, it's likely you'll find a history department that specializes more closely to your own research interests. You should NOT look to get an MA just because it's from the...	[ "\"Recommended Itinerary\" is an address McCullough gave to the 1986 graduating class of Middlebury College, in which he urged graduates to travel abroad to gain a better appreciation of the United States, and to study history in order to gain a better appreciation of their own time.\n", "The school runs a psycho...
what stops us patent office workers from stealing the ideas from submitted patents and copying them?	Their submission date would by necessity be after the original submission, and therefore not valid. The original submitter would have record of the date and easily win any legal challenge. I'd imagine there's also something in the job description about this (like how McDonald's employees can't win McDonald's contes...	[ "Two types of illegal patent acts can be handled by administrative authorities - ordinary infringement complaints regarding the making/importation, use, and sale/offering for sale of patented articles; and patent counterfeiting (which encompasses several acts similar to false marking). Administrative enforcement is...
Why did guerrillas form in South America, and How did individual governments respond to them?	Fidel's triumph in 1959 became an inspirational moment for students around both Central and South America. I cannot specifically look at South American movements in the 1960s, however, Guatemala remained in a state of Civil War (after the 1954 coup) between the authoritarian regime backed by the United States and rebel...	[ "The FARC began their rebel activities in the early 1960s during the National Front years in which bipartisan hegemony controlled and held political power. In an effort to exterminate the armed guerrilla movements the Colombian government aided by the United States launched an attack to destroy the \"Marquetalia Re...
How many particles of a disease causing virus do you need to be exposed to in order to contract the disease?	It depends on the particular virus. Hepititis is dozens of times more virulent than HIV (easier to get with the same amount of exposure) HIV is weakened relitivly quickly outside the human body while other viruses are more robust.	[ "For example, when an MOI of 1 (1 viral particle per cell) is used to infect a population of cells, the probability that a cell will not get infected is formula_8, and the probability that it be infected by a single particle is formula_9, by two particles is formula_10, by three particles is formula_11, and so on.\...
Is the air quality in major cities today worse than cities in the early 20th century like Birmingham which were industrial hubs?	This is largely dependent on which specific city you are trying to look at. I'm not sure of any city in the United States that actually has lower air quality levels than they did in the early 20th century even with population expansion. In the developing world you can definitely find cities like this. Beijing and Mum...	[ "Transportation (of all types including trucks, buses and cars) is a major contributor to air pollution in most industrialised nations. According to the American Surface Transportation Policy Project nearly half of all Americans are breathing unhealthy air. Their study showed air quality in dozens of metropolitan a...
When I undo an action on a word document, does it run the action in reverse or revert to a saved copy of what the document was like before the action?	It runs the action in reverse. Typically, a text editor has both an undo stack, and a redo stack. Every change gets pushed onto the undo stack. When you undo, the last change gets popped off the undo stack, reversed, and added to the redo stack. If you now redo, it gets popped off the redo stack, added to the document,...	[ "Undo is an interaction technique which is implemented in many computer programs. It erases the last change done to the document reverting it to an older state. In some more advanced programs such as graphic processing, undo will negate the last command done to the file being edited. With the possibility of undo, u...
How is it that electric eels can deliver up to 600 volts that stuns their prey, but they themselves don't get stunned?	> Nobody knows exactly how the electric eel keeps from shocking itself, but the best working hypothesis is that the vital organs like the brain and the heart are located as far as possible from the electric organ (up near the head), surrounded by fatty tissue that acts as an insulator. In cross section through the ta...	[ "In the electric eel, some 5,000 to 6,000 stacked electroplaques can make a shock up to 600 volts and up to 1 ampere of current. This level of current is reportedly enough to produce a brief and painful numbing shock likened to a stun gun discharge, which due to the voltage can be felt for some distance from the fi...
Why do some electronic items continue working temporarily when unplugged?	Many circuits have capacitors as one of their components. When you unplug your appliance, these capacitors still contain a charge and continue supplying a current while discharging.	[ "Some electronic components are stressed by the hot, cramped conditions inside a cabinet. Electrolytic capacitors dry out over time, and if a classic arcade cabinet is still using its original components, they may be near the end of their service life. A common step in refurbishing vintage electronics (of all types...
if something does a lot of noise, does it mean it's loosing power, transforming it to sound?	You have the right idea. The drill is wasting some power to vibrate the drill bit and the bits of the wall that are generating the sound. If, somehow, you could redirect this vibrational energy back into the drilling process it would be more efficient.	[ "Noise is a term often used to refer to an unwanted sound. In science and engineering, noise is an undesirable component that obscures a wanted signal. However, in sound perception it can often be used to identify the source of a sound and is an important component of timbre perception (see above).\n", "Noise is ...
why do humans crave a happy ending in movies?	It's not humans. It's mainly Americans. If you watch foreign films, they have realistic endings.	[ "In storylines where the protagonists are in physical danger, a happy ending mainly consists of their survival and successful completion of the quest or mission; where there is no physical danger, a happy ending may be lovers consummating their love despite various factors which may have thwarted it. A considerable...
How impactful was Lenin's New Economic Policies (NEP)?	It's interesting that you picked up on this because I'd agree that the NEP period is often overlooked in the histories of the early Soviet state. Much like the contemporary Weimar Republic, there's a temptation to read the NEP as either merely the aftermath of revolution or a foreword to the transformation 1930s. This ...	[ "The 10th party congress launched Lenin's \"New Economic Policy\" (NEP), in response to the poor state of the Russian economy that resulted from World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the War Communist system used during the latter. The state faced large scale popular revolts of workers, which Trotsky believed thr...
Attention loyal citizens of AskHistorians, it is time to come pay homage to your New Mods!	Oh, just what we need on this sub: more moderation. < /sarcasm > Seriously though, I've been following the answers of these three as flairs in the Sunday Digest, and if the quality of their moderation efforts match their dedication in their answers, I for one welcome our new mod overlords.	[ "The Young Mods' Forgotten Story is an album and song by the American soul music group the Impressions. The album was their second album released on Impressions member Curtis Mayfield's label Curtom Records originally in 1969.\n", "The MOD is considered by most ex-servicemen, including former head of the Armed Fo...
why do cell phone companies not allow you to buy a new phone without a large fee when you have a contract?	iPhones cost $500-700, when you upgrade the service provider (AT & T/Verizon/...) is basically paying Apple the difference in cost. In exchange they have you paying a contract for two years, with penalties for an early exit.	[ "Cell phone service companies, including major players like T-Mobile, as well as third-party retailers like Radio Shack, Wirefly and others have received growing attention due to complex rebate redemption rules. Both carriers and retailers make customers submit rebate claims during a 30-day window, often 6 months a...
Any good books on the varangian guard?	I highly recommend [The Varangians of Byzantium](_URL_0_). It's a somewhat difficult read in parts but it's just about the only good book on the Varangian Guard that's out there, to my knowledge.	[ "The Varangian Guard not only provided security for Byzantine emperors but participated in many wars involving Byzantium and often played a crucial role, since it was usually employed at critical moments of battle. By the late 13th century, Varangians were mostly ethnically assimilated by Byzantines, though the gua...
in a first person shooter, how is the video game able to track the trajectory of a fired bullet and its interaction with online players in real time?	For simple bullets, there is no trajectory tracked. What they do is called hitscanning. Basically they treat your gun as a laser pointer and wherever it is pointing is what is hit. Internally, it draws an imaginary line from your gun to some boundary, then calculates all of the objects that line crosses, then finds th...	[ "The speed of the player's shot (players take two shots) on net is recorded with a radar gun. The shot \"must\" hit the net to count. The fastest shot wins. If there is a radar gun malfunction, or if a radar gun is unavailable, a Most Accurate Shot competition will take place in lieu of the Hardest Shot. Players wi...
tank rounds - armor piercing tank shell, how do they work on other tanks when fired?	There are many different types of tank shells. Can't be bothered to mention them all. Armour Piercing are the classic antitank round. They're a solid shot that punches through armour through kinetic energy. However, they were kind of crap. To fly well they needed to be pointed, but pointed rounds break on armour q...	[ "Tank rounds are stored in individual fire-proof canisters, which reduce the chance of cookoffs in a fire inside the tank. The turret is electrically-powered (hydraulic turrets use flammable liquid that ignites if the turret is penetrated) and \"dry\": no active rounds are stored in it.\n", "Tanks usually go into...
at altitude, i will suffer the effects from a thinned atmosphere. if the oceans were removed, and i could walk down to the ocean floor, such as the marianas trench, what ill effects might i suffer?	If the oceans were removed, the atmosphere would just sit lower. Therefore, in the marianas trench, you'd have the effects of 1 atm, at current "sea level" you'd have the effects you have now on top of the Everest. I wouldn't encourage you to climb oceanless mt. Everest.	[ "The oceans depths and temperatures contains some of the most extreme conditions for any species to survive. The deeper one travels, the higher the pressure and the lower the visibility gets, causing completely blacked out conditions. Many of these conditions are too intense for humans to travel to, so instead of s...
Why didn't Rome expand the African portion of their empire past the immediate region bordering the Mediterranean sea?	I'll reiterate this [old answer of my own here](_URL_0_). The core points still remain solid, although I'll have to see if there are any salient recent works that cast more light on the nature of the engagement that they did have. I should also point out that moving armies by sea was not the easiest thing for a small...	[ "At the greatest extent of the Empire, the southern border lay along the deserts of Arabia in the Middle East and the Sahara in North Africa, which represented a natural barrier against expansion. The Empire controlled the Mediterranean shores and the mountain ranges further inland. The Romans attempted twice to oc...
what makes humans so curious, and why do we need to know everything?	I'm not a expert in this so it's possible I could be wrong but I believe it's basically a survival strategy of you know how to make traps is cook food that will give you an advantage. Add a result we basically need constant stimulation. In fact, boredom and disgust are the same emotion (kinda). I mean that they are th...	[ "Humans have adapted to pay attention to surprising and confusing information, because it could make the difference between life and death. (For instance, if a person left the campsite and mysteriously never returned, it would be wise for the others to be on guard for a predator or some other danger.) Understanding...
Why does water short out an electric circuit?	Well, firstly, metals conduct electricity well, but that isn't to say that non-metals don't conduct electricity. Electrical resistivity takes all kinds of values in all kinds of systems. However, you are correct in your intuition that for water it's largely the impurities doing the work and you have a sort of ionic con...	[ "Water has been shown not to be a very reliable substance to store electric charge long term, so more reliable materials are used for capacitors in industrial applications. However water has the advantage of being self healing after a breakdown, and if the water is steadily circulated through a de-ionizing resin an...
Double galaxy in the new Hubble image.	It's hard to tell without more information - it could be two interacting galaxies, it could be two galaxies in front of each other, or it could be an optical illusion. Which Hubble image are you referring to?	[ "In January 2005 the Hubble Heritage Project constructed a 11477 × 7965-pixel composite image (shown in the infobox above) of M51 using Hubble's ACS instrument. The image highlights the galaxy's spiral arms, and shows detail into some of the structures inside the arms.\n", "Hubble also devised the most commonly u...
difference of vapor pressure to saturated vapor pressure.	Saturated vapor pressure is the vapor pressure at equilibrium. But systems arent always at equilibrium, so saturated vapor pressure is a specific kind of vapor pressure, while vapor pressure is a larger term that encompasses any state.	[ "Vapor pressure (or vapour pressure in British spelling) or equilibrium vapor pressure is defined as the pressure exerted by a vapor in thermodynamic equilibrium with its condensed phases (solid or liquid) at a given temperature in a closed system. The equilibrium vapor pressure is an indication of a liquid's evapo...
how are movies being uploaded when they're not even officially out yet? (ts/cam?/rip/...)	Nobody has gotten it right yet. my time to shine. I used to (briefly) work in the movie industry. People at work, and the academy award voters, are given DVDs of the movie for review so they can see their own work (movie studio) and so they can give it awards (academy), especially if the movie comes out close to the...	[ "On some websites, users share entire films by breaking them up into segments that are about the size of the video length limit imposed by the site (e.g. a 15-minute video length limit). An emerging practice is for users to obfuscate the titles of feature-length films that they share by providing a title that is re...
what happens to cargo when a plane crashes?	Assuming you'd ordered from a reputable company, the cargo would be insured. Therefore in the case of a total loss of the aircraft (i.e. a crash) the shipping company would send you out a replacement item and claim the cost of that back from their insurance company. It's simply not worth the time, effort, and money th...	[ "This article lists aircraft accidents and incidents which resulted in at least 50 fatalities in a single occurrence involving commercial passenger and cargo flights, military passenger and cargo flights, or general aviation flights that have been involved in a ground or mid-air collision with either a commercial o...
why us has such complex presidential election system? why not a simple election system? e.g. count total republic/democratic voters all over us.who ever has higher vote, simply becomes president?	The current system gives more votes to smaller states. ~~In addition, it allows gerrymandering.~~ As both parties profit, no one wants to change that. Besides, this wouldn't actually help in solving the issues.	[ "In general elections where senators and presidents are elected at the same time, the presidential candidates often have their own slates of senatorial candidates. This means voters have more choices unlike in midterm elections, when there are usually only two major contending political forces.\n", "In the unique...
[Physics] Why do Materials sound the way they do?	What you should look for is called [resonance frequency](_URL_0_), some frequencys of vibration are propagating better in a material. This depends not only on crystaline structure of the material itself, but also on its size and shape.	[ "Although the sound is often described as metallic, it is most likely due to a combination of the density of the rock and a high degree of internal stress. The sound can be duplicated on a small scale by tapping the handle of a ceramic coffee cup.\n", "The sound can be created when two rough surfaces in an organi...
how does saltwater and freshwater fish body system work?	Living organisms need to have some amount of salt in them, but not too much. Now water will naturally want to flow from less-salty areas into more-salty areas to maintain its own balance. The body of a fish will not have the same saltiness as the water it lives in so fish have to do some special things to maintain the ...	[ "The presence of common salt, sodium chloride, helps to preserve salted fish, through inhibition of bacterial growth. When the solution of salt, or brine, is more concentrated—specifically, has a lower water potential—than the fluid of the fish tissue, osmosis will occur. Water molecules will pass from the fish tis...
Has there ever been a global crisis on par with global warming?	If what you mean by "daunting" is "existential," as in, "stuff that actually threatens our future existence as a species," the only other major existential threat that has existed in historical times (which is to say, after _Homo sapiens_ dispersed to the multiple continents and whatnot) is that of the nuclear arms rac...	[ "The Real Global Warming Disaster (\"Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?\") is a 2009 book by English journalist and author Christopher Booker in which he asserts that global warming can not be attributed to humans, and then alleges how the scienti...
why people are against government controlled healthcare and education/ free healthcare and education?	Any chance that anyone could actually give an unbiased account of this perspective rather than just turning this into a "this opinion is retarded" circle-jerk?	[ "Problems also arise in U.S. public schools concerning the teaching and display of religious issues. In various counties, school choice and school vouchers have been put forward as solutions to accommodate variety in beliefs and freedom of religion, by allowing individual school boards to choose between a secular, ...
the difference between a patent and a trade secret. if a product is patented, why the need to protect a special ingredient as a trade secret?	A patent requires filing a public record of how the thing works, complete with recipes or detailed diagrams. That protects anyone but the inventor from producing the thing for only 7 years, after which anyone can produce it. Trade secrets don’t have those issues.	[ "Compared to patents, the advantages of trade secrets are that a trade secret is not limited in time (it \"continues indefinitely as long as the secret is not revealed to the public\", whereas a patent is only in force for a specified time, after which others may freely copy the invention), a trade secret does not ...
In a perfectly 50/50 semi-transparent mirror, what determines whether a photon will go through it or bounce off? And is it possible to predetermine?	It's largely a quantum physics thing. 50/50 or half-silvered mirrors have a coating of reflective silver that covers about 50% of any given area on the glass. If the quantum interactions of the photon's waveform interact with the silver, it'll be reflected; if it doesn't it'll pass through the mirror unaffected. And...	[ "If a single photon is emitted into the entry port of the apparatus at the lower-left corner, it immediately encounters a beam-splitter. Because of the equal probabilities for transmission or reflection the photon will either continue straight ahead, be reflected by the mirror at the lower-right corner, and be dete...
I put a 1 liter bottle of water and two 0.5 liter bottles of water in the freezer. Will the two 0.5 liter bottles freeze faster as the 1 liter bottle and why (not)?	All other things being equal, yes. The biggest effect of splitting up the water in two containers is to increase the surface area where the warmer container is in contact with the cold surrounding air. You can get a bit of intuition for why this area of contact is important from [this video](_URL_1_), which shows water...	[ "The half-liter water bottle (16.9 fl oz) has nearly replaced the 16 ounce size. 700 mL (23.6 fl oz) and one-liter sizes are also common, though 20 fl oz, and 24 fl oz sizes remain popular, particularly in vending machines.\n", "The Container Recycling Institute estimates that 125 million disposable water bottles...
how do certain countries, like sweden, turn their garbage into energy?	burn anything combustible and anearobically digest organic waste and then use the methane produced to power generators	[ "In Sweden, some municipalities encourage the installation of disposers so as to increase the production of biogas. Some local authorities in Britain subsidize the purchase of garbage disposal units in order to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.\n", "Household waste in economically developed countries ...
Is it possible to express a musical sound's timbre quantitatively?	The perception of timbre has a lot to do with waveforms and overtones. You can quantify these by doing a Fourier transform and generating a graph showing which base frequencies are represented, at which amplitudes. You'll end up getting something more akin to a spectrum than a single number. The complicating factor is...	[ "Timbre is the quality that gives the listener the ability to distinguish between the sound of different instruments. The timbre of an instrument is determined by which overtones it emphasizes. That is to say, the relative volumes of these overtones to each other determines the specific \"flavor\", \"color\" or \"t...
why do anime opening songs often include english words at key points in the song?	This happens a lot in Japan because American and/or English language culture is pretty popular there and seen as "cool", or of having a cool sound. You could say it's analogous to American's getting Chinese characters as tattoos. You don't have to know what it means, exactly - it's just "cool" and says something about...	[ "According to the liner notes to the album \"Refrain of Evangelion\", director Hideaki Anno had originally wanted to use a piece of classical music as the opening, but due to concern that this might confuse the anime viewership, a decision was made to use a more upbeat J-pop song instead.\n", "The Japanese openin...
why is it that anytime something horrible happens in the usa the news outlets act like it is the first time this has happened?	Because if they act shocked and surprised it makes things more dramatic and then more people will watch it and they will get more money.	[ "The News Corporation scandal involves phone, voicemail, and computer hacking that were allegedly committed over a number of years. The scandal began in the United Kingdom, where the News International phone hacking scandal has to date resulted in the closure of the \"News of the World\" newspaper and the resignati...
why can you develop immunity to some diseases after having them once but not others?	It depends largely on the type of disease. Bacteria have proteins on their surfaces, and viruses have a protein shell that is left on the outside of your cells when they inject their genetic material. These proteins are markers that your immune system will learn, and use to fight the infection. We refer to these as a...	[ "Susceptibles have been exposed to neither the wild strain of the disease nor a vaccination against it, and thus have not developed immunity. Those individuals who have antibodies against an antigen associated with a particular infectious disease will not be susceptible, even if they did not produce the antibody th...
How difficult would it be to create an English computer language?	A lot of computer languages already try to accomplish this- making commands as simple and intuitive as possible. Python springs to mind. And other applications (wolfram alpha, google search) can to some extent take standard english input, interpret it to give it a precise meaning, and then give you results based on t...	[ "When Hopper recommended the development of a new programming language that would use entirely English words, she \"was told very quickly that [she] couldn't do this because computers didn't understand English.\" Still she persisted. “It's much easier for most people to write an English statement than it is to use ...
Before the modern level (for woodwork and such) was invented, how did people build things to be level to the ground?	You'd use a plum bob within an isosceles triangle, like [the square level here](_URL_1_) from an Egyptian tomb. You can start with just a taut piece of string or thread- that will give you a straight line. Then you pare and plane two boards, checking with the line, until they're straight. Put them together with a na...	[ "Along with stone, clay and animal parts, wood was one of the first materials worked by early humans. Microwear analysis of the Mousterian stone tools used by the Neanderthals show that many were used to work wood. The development of civilization was closely tied to the development of increasingly greater degrees o...
During the Black Death's onset, why didn't it infect and kill the nomads believed to be the original carriers from the central Asian plains before it could reach Europe and infect everyone there?	Both Giovanni Villani, famous merchant chronist in Florence and some Russian Chronicles agree that pestilence had already killed mass of Mongols as well as Turk nomads before its arrival in Crimean Peninsula. & nbsp; > 'But there were uncountable death in Turkey and other countries overseas, where the disease las...	[ "The Silk Road trade played a role in spreading the infamous Black Death. Originating in China, the bubonic plague was spread by Mongol warriors catapulting diseased corpses into enemy towns in the Crimea. The disease, spread by rats, was carried by merchant ships sailing across the Mediterranean that brought the p...
why is twitter worth $10 - $15 billion?	Valuing stocks can be complex, and will always end up the price the market is willing to buy it for. Having said that, usually the total value of the firm will be its present value. The present value will we be the value their assets and the "calculated" future profits. (More precise: Assets-debt + future profits disco...	[ "In July 2009, some of Twitter's revenue and user growth documents were published on \"TechCrunch\" after being illegally obtained by Hacker Croll. The documents projected 2009 revenues of US$400,000 in the third quarter and US$4 million in the fourth quarter along with 25 million users by the end of the year. The ...
Why are we so sure that Electron and Quarks and other elementary particles aren't made of anything else?	We are not so sure of that, we're just sure that there's no experimental evidence of it and have no theoretical need to posit anything smaller. If new evidence arises, that situation could change, as it did for protons and neutrons 50 years ago and atoms 100 years ago.	[ "Via quantum theory, protons and neutrons were found to contain quarks—up quarks and down quarks—now considered elementary particles. And within a molecule, the electron's three degrees of freedom (charge, spin, orbital) can separate via the wavefunction into three quasiparticles (holon, spinon, orbiton). Yet a fre...
how do scientist discover new things about the universe?	They do it with the scientific method: 1) Conjecture that something "could" be possible (or true). 2) Create an experiment that will test your hypothesis in such a way as to be sure you are actually measuring what you think you are measuring. 3) Use the results of your experiment to classify your initial hypothes...	[ "“Nobel prize winners in Physics finds out the origin of space” shows how the winners found out that the universe was made 13.8 billion years ago. There is also a model of a large particle accelerator to show how scientists tried to find out what the smallest particle is.\n", "The Search shows scientists who have...
why was the church so offended by the notion of Heliocentrism? It was pagan natural philosophers who came up with the generally accepted (generally accepted in the late middle ages I mean) notion of the geocentric model, not catholic theologians	Among other things, it was a violation of the idea of a naturally existing hierarchy, an idea which Christianity had fully adopted from Platonism or neo-Platonism through the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th c.) and St. Augustine of Hippo. This view of the universe orders the world into spheres of...	[ "After 1610, when Galileo began publicly supporting the heliocentric view which placed the Sun at the center of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. Galileo defended his theories by mean...
how do climbing plants know where to climb/grow?	Well first, vines grow out of their 'limbs'. So when they grow what's actually happening is their limbs are just getting longer. Their limbs are always facing up towards the sun, so they always grow up. Also, climbing plants grow in a rotating pattern. So if they are 'climbing' a pole they will go around and around...	[ "Gardeners can use the tendency of climbing plants to grow quickly. If a plant display is wanted quickly, a climber can achieve this. Climbers can be trained over walls, pergolas, fences, etc. Climbers can be grown over other plants to provide additional attraction. Artificial support can also be provided. Some cli...
What kind of people became pirates? (1400-1900 Atlantic/Caribbean)	I recently answered another question here about [how people became pirates in the early 18th century](_URL_1_) which answers a lot of this question. Like the answer to that question, what kinds of people became pirates could vary hugely. The majority of pirates were poor sailors, from lower class backgrounds just lik...	[ "Pirates were often former sailors experienced in naval warfare. Beginning in the 16th century, pirate captains recruited seamen to loot European merchant ships, especially the Spanish treasure fleets sailing from the Caribbean to Europe.\n", "The famous pirates of the early 18th century were a completely illegal...
Does anyone actually know what happened to Gaius Julius Caesar's ashes?	Even before Caesar became a cultural icon for Renaissance Italy and unification, people liked to tell stories linking him to various things. Most of them are ridiculous. There are some stories that claim that Caesar's body was moved from the Campus Martius (where bodies were traditionally burned) to the forum by an ang...	[ "BULLET::::- It was forbidden to bury the dead inside the pomerium. During his life, Julius Caesar received in advance the right to a tomb inside the pomerium, but his ashes were actually placed in his family tomb. However, Trajan's ashes were interred after his death in AD 117 at the foot of his Column, which was ...
Smallest possible air bubble in a liquid	The limit basically occurs when the pressure in the bubble required to maintain surface tension overcomes the chemical potential of the gas at that pressure. The limit for air bubbles in water is thought to be at around 50 nanometers. There's a lot of references about nanobubbles here: _URL_1_ Nanobubbles that adhere ...	[ "Gas bubbles with a radius greater than 1 micron should float to the surface of a standing liquid, whereas smaller ones should dissolve rapidly due to surface tension. The Tiny Bubble Group has been able to resolve this apparent paradox by developing and experimentally verifying a new model for stable gas nuclei.\n...
how is a nation's economy affected when its biggest export is an illegal good, a la cocaine via pablo escobar?	My understanding is that the value of the dollar is dependant on the number of dollars in circulation that represent the effective total 'worth' of a country. By printing money, more dollars represent the same amount of 'worth', meaning that each dollar is effectively worth less and less, and this is how countries prin...	[ "Improved cooperation of Mexico with the U.S. led to the recent arrests of 755 Sinaloa cartel suspects in U.S. cities and towns, but the U.S. market is being eclipsed by booming demand for cocaine in Europe, where users now pay twice the going U.S. rate. U.S. Attorney General announced September 17, 2008 that an in...
to what degree did the apple-publisher collusion affect e-book prices? what sort of price consequences can be expected from now on?	The prosecutors were able to conclusively show that the price of e-books had been raised $3-4 because of Apple's meddling. [Here is a chart!](_URL_0_) And yes, we are expected to see a drop in prices. Amazon has already begun lowering prices back to their original $9.99 (or even lower) levels.	[ "In June 2015, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 2-1 vote, concurred with Judge Cote that Apple conspired to e-book price fixing and violated federal antitrust law. Apple appealed the decision.\n", "In March 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear Apple's appeal that it conspired to ...
How much interest did Jews charge in the 14th century?	Those numbers are oddly specific, and 86% is extremely high. But other sources I've found are still quite high, but somewhat lower. See [here](_URL_1_), [here](_URL_0_), [here](_URL_4_), and [here](_URL_2_). As you can see from those, the reason is that Christians weren't forbidden from loaning money at any intere...	[ "The value of the Jewish community to the royal treasury had become considerably lessened during the 13th century through two circumstances: the king's income from other sources had continually increased, and the contributions of the Jews had decreased both absolutely and relatively. Besides this, the king had foun...
eli: why we call her royal majesty the queen of england instead of the queen of the united kingdom.	There hasn't been a Queen (or King) of England since 1707, when the separate monarchies of Scotland and England were legally joined together by an Act of Parliament, creating a single King (or Queen) of Great Britain. For one hundred years before this, the separate titles of "King of England" and "King of Scotland" ex...	[ "In the uncodified Constitution of the United Kingdom, the monarch (otherwise referred to as the sovereign or \"His/Her Majesty\", abbreviated H.M.) is the head of state. The Queen's image is used to signify British sovereignty and government authority—her profile, for instance, appearing on currency, and her portr...
how does a rubber band work on a molecular level?	Rubbers (aka elastic polymers) are made of atoms that are strongly attracted to one another, in a process called hydrogen bonding. The molecules form flexible chains that interconnect, like a crowd of people locking arms with each other randomly. When you stretch the rubber, the chains hold together. And when you st...	[ "The result is that a rubber band behaves somewhat like an ideal monatomic gas inasmuch as (to good approximation) that elastic polymers do not store any potential energy in stretched chemical bonds. No elastic work is done to \"stretch\" molecules when work is done upon these bulk polymers. Instead, all work done ...
How did the ukrainian culture develop after the Kiever Rus? Why did people claim ( and still do ) that the ukrainian culture and ethnicity are made-up/fictional?	As a matter of fact I got my degree as a Ukrainian historian. Unfortunately I haven't used it for ten years so my description could be sketchy. Leave a comment if you see something wrong. As you probably know Kievan Rus was federation of several Slavic tribes. It appeared on a trade route that connected Viking states...	[ "The history of Ukrainian nationality can be traced back to the Kiev-based kingdom of Kievan Rus' () of the 9th to 12th centuries. It was the predecessor state to what would eventually become the Eastern Slavic nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. During this time, Eastern Orthodoxy, a defining feature of Ukrai...
How much of this is true about Victorian London, anno 1868?	> The industrial revolution, in essence, is society going from almost a medieval society to the modern society which we live in today. This is untrue. While the Industrial Revolution certainly transformed Britain, it bore almost no resemblance to the Medieval era. > It's an increase in productivity that's never bee...	[ "Buildings from the Victorian era (1837–1901) and their diverse range of forms and ornamentation are the single largest group from any architectural period in London. The Victorian era saw unprecedented urbanization and growth in London, coinciding with Britain's ascendancy in the world economy and London's global ...
why aren't electrical sockets standardized globally in the same shape?	Because if you have 4 inputs try to make a universal standard then you end up with 5 inputs.	[ "The principal advantage of interchangeable sockets is that, instead of a separate wrench for each of the many different fastener sizes and types, only separate sockets are needed for each size and type. Because of their versatility, nearly all screw and bolt types now have sockets of different types made to fit th...
What sort of contact did the Okinawan's have with the Japanese throughout the 1500's (Sengoku Period)?	During the Sengoku period both China and Malaysia had a greater influence on Okinawa and the other Ryūkyū islands than Japan did. Only in the Edo Period (1603-1868) did the Japanese gain more influence, as they invaded the islands and made it a tributary. Ryūkyū remained an independent nation and had a formal trading...	[ "The first contacts occurred with the Ryūkyū Kingdom (modern Okinawa), a vassal of the Japanese fief of Satsuma since 1609. In 1844, a French naval expedition under Captain Fornier-Duplan onboard \"Alcmène\" visited Okinawa on April 28, 1844. Trade was denied, but Father Forcade was left behind with a Chinese trans...
how a transformer "steps up" and "steps down" voltage.	This is really hard to ELI5, but basically we found out that if you make loops of wire and pass electricity through them it turns into a magnet. If you have ever wrapped wire around a nail and then connected it to a battery you can see this for yourself. What we also found out is that the opposite is true. You can p...	[ "A transformer is a static device that converts alternating current from one voltage level to another level (higher or lower), or to the same level, without changing the frequency. A transformer transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A...
how come new military planes don't come out as frequently as they used to?	The time around WWII was a time of extremely rapid technological growth, as well as rapidly changing political environments. This made it conducive to rapidly churning out new aircraft every half-decade. There were wars that needed to be won, and new advancements that needed to be put into action. Since the 70's onwar...	[ "On average the Group annually receives 300 aircraft for storage and processes out about the same number (with 50 to 100 of those returning to flying service). Aircraft that fly again either return to the U.S. Military services, U.S. government agencies (such as the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Forest Service, and NASA) ...
Can you build muscle by just flexing for periods of time?	You can build muscle by flexing, yes. Muscle is made up of fibers (long muscle cells) that within them have units known as sarcomeres. These sarcomeres are laid on longitudinally and, during flexion of the muscle, contract to shorten. This is why they say to look for what's getting shorter when you want to know what...	[ "Flexibility is improved by stretching. Stretching should only be started when muscles are warm and the body temperature is raised. To be effective while stretching, force applied to the body must be held just beyond a feeling of pain and needs to be held for at least ten seconds. Increasing the range of motion cre...
if i'm in the exact same spot in my house on new years when the ball drops from one year to the next, am i in the exact same spot in the solar system, relative to the sun? (excluding expansion of the universe.)	Not quite. For a start there are leap-years. You're about a quarter of a day out each year until we throw in an extra day to tidy up. Without this the seasons would slowly drift out of synch with the year. Also there's the precession of the equinoxes, which means that eventually though the planet will be in the same p...	[ "Recent research demonstrates that the house is perfectly oriented and aligned to the position of the sunrise at the winter solstice or shortest day of the year - so that the rising sun bisects the house, running through the front door, out the rear door and hitting the sandstone cliff face at the rear of the house...
When did it become at least relatively common for servants to not live in - particularly in the north eastern United States	Hey! I can partly answer this one. But first, a few important points: I would argue that the most important thing to recognize is that live-in servants were never all that common in the US, although they were more common in the urban northeast than elsewhere. In 1880 in the northern US (North of the Mason-Dixon, East ...	[ "The demands that urbanization, industrialization, and immigration placed on poor and working-class families in the late 19th century left many children unattended. Rural states relied on family placements to care for their own homeless or dependent children. This was a precursor for today's foster care system.\n",...
"The United States are..." vs. "The United States is..."	This is one of the textbook examples of a place where Big Data can help pinpoint the specific moment in which things changed — [Google Ngrams of "The United States are" vs. "The United States is"](_URL_4_). (And by "textbook example," I mean, "one of the three examples the Google Ngrams people use to prove that their a...	[ "The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At , the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly...
How come the Angles and Saxons (and Jutes) did not adopt the local Romance language when they invaded Britain, just like the Franks, Visigoths, Vandals etc. did when they settled their respective locations?	In technical terms, it's because there was no local Romance language in Britain at the time these peoples invaded Britain. The two languages in most use at the time were Brythonic (the Celtic language that eventually became Welsh and Cornish) and Latin, the latter of which was not a spoken language outside of religious...	[ "These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants. The dialects spoken by these invaders formed what would be called Old English, which was also strongly influenced by yet another Germanic language, Old East Norse, spoken by Danish Viking invaders who settled mainly in the North-East. Engl...
Does earth's changing tilt angle require satellites to continually adjust themselves to stay geo-stationary?	The tilt is extremely slow changing and is drowned out by other effects. Disturbances from your trajectory are known as perturbations, and they can get quite complicated. The most dominant orbital perturbation for GEO satellites is solar radiation pressure. Sunlight imparts momentum onto the spacecraft, nudging it a...	[ "Note that for satellites, orbits are decoupled from the rotation of the Earth so the orbital period is not necessarily one day, but also that errors can accumulate over multiple orbits so that accuracy is important. For such problems, the rotation of the Earth would be immaterial unless variations with longitude a...
When I'm looking at a star where are my eyes focusing?	At infinity, which is to say they're not focusing, they're staring straight ahead. Their orientations are parallel.	[ "\"Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First he can only see shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself (516a...
What part of a volcanic eruption actually creates a powerful shockwave that can be heard loudly from far away?	This actually depends on the temperature of the magma and whether the surface of the magma is solid. Temperature plays a huge role in whether a volcano is explosive or not. Viscosity of a liquid is strongly linked to it's temperature--warmer magma is more liquidy. The more viscous magma is, the more often it explod...	[ "Scientists have been able to connect sounds to sights in both types of eruptions. In 2009, a video camera and a hydrophone were floating 1,200 meters below sea level in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa, watching and listening as the West Mata Volcano erupted in several ways. Putting video and audio together let resear...
why do younger people seem to prefer instructional videos over text, even when there are few visuals required?	Even if we accept your assertion that the most reliable information is via youtube, that only tells us about the content creators, not the content consumers. And I believe that in many cases, the content creators choose video over audio because it's easier, flashier, and less subject to academic criticism (spelling, g...	[ "In classrooms, teachers and students can use this tool to create videos to explain content, vocabulary, etc. Videos can make class time more productive for both teachers and students. Screencasts may increase student engagement and achievement and also provide more time in which students can work collaboratively i...
I remember somewhere in one of my high school US history classes that I read that, during the Civil War, it was a common practice for wealthier citizens to picnic on a hill and watch a battle. Was this true? Was this common in other eras as well?	This question has been mostly answered before: _URL_2_ This was something that mostly just occurred in the First Battle is Bull Run (Manassas). Washington, DC residents believed the battle would just be a rout for Union forces, so they gathered on the hillside to watch. The battle turned out to be the opposite. Par...	[ "During the American Civil War, Soldiers Delight was the scene of minor short-term fights between the Maryland Volunteers of the Confederate Army and the regular troops of the Union Army. After the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, the great estates of the early families were reduced to many small farms and...
why do newborn babies smile in their sleep?	TL;DR Gas Longer answer - babies often have involuntary movements all over their bodies (witness wet/dirty diapers), not just their faces. But it's also known that they dream, and that dreaming is essential for their health and development. Perhaps they still dream of heaven (questionable, of course, and endlessly deba...	[ "Beginning at birth, newborns have the capacity to signal generalized distress in response to unpleasant stimuli and bodily states, such as pain, hunger, body temperature, and stimulation. They may smile, seemingly involuntarily, when satiated, in their sleep, or in response to pleasant touch. Infants begin using a...
why can't we average out our sleep? like, if we sleep for 10 hours one day and 6 the next, why do we still feel we didn't get enough sleep even though on an average we slept for 8 hours?	It's not so much that we can't average it, it's that we can't store it. Sleeping 10 hours, when you only need 8 hours, doesn't make you more well-rested than the 8 hours (and in fact may make you feel worse). Think of it like a bucket of water; if you need 8 gallons to fill it put but you put in 10, the extra 2 just ov...	[ "\"National Geographic Magazine\" has reported that the demands of work, social activities, and the availability of 24-hour home entertainment and Internet access have caused people to sleep less now than in premodern times. \"USA Today\" reported in 2007 that most adults in the USA get about an hour less than the ...
why do live tv shows make such a big deal out of not saying the name of a product, when everyone clearly knows what it is?	Why specify live shows? If you every watched Dan Schneider's shows on Nickelodeon, they go one step further and even create fake parody products, like a Pear phone. When you mention a company, that's advertising, if you weren't paid, that's free advertising. Two issues with this, companies in the future will pay l...	[ "Some TV programs also deliberately place products into their shows as advertisements, a practice started in feature films and known as product placement. For example, a character could be drinking a certain kind of soda, going to a particular chain restaurant, or driving a certain make of car. (This is sometimes v...
Do most flying insects share a common ancestor? Or did multiple different species evolve to fly independently?	True flight is an extremely rare and difficult feat in terms of evolution. All known instances of flight in animals can trace its origin back to one of 4 sources (insects, birds, bats, and pterosaurs), and of those only birds are particularly efficient fliers. All flying insects can trace their wings to a single s...	[ "Adult insects typically move about by walking, flying, or sometimes swimming. As it allows for rapid yet stable movement, many insects adopt a tripedal gait in which they walk with their legs touching the ground in alternating triangles, composed of the front & rear on one side with the middle on the other side. I...
why is it so hard to make a gum that doesn't lose it's flavor?	Main ingredients of gum is a gum base, sweeteners, and flavoring. Your saliva can't break down the base (neither can your stomach acid), but your saliva works quickly to start digesting the sweeteners and flavoring, just like in other food, and you naturally swallow that partially digested flavoring/sweeteners. So, t...	[ "Studies have shown that gum flavor is perceived better in the presence of sweetener. Companies have started to create chemical systems in gum so that the sweetener and flavor release together in a controlled manner during chewing.\n", "The polymers that make up the main component of chewing gum base are hydropho...
what happens to the plastic pouch that's filled with laundry detergent? does it disintegrate into my clothes? is it even really plastic?	It's [polyvinyl alcohol](_URL_0_) and it simply dissolves in the wash water and then goes down the drain.	[ "The bag adheres to the skin using a disk made of flexible, adherent materials. Unfortunately, there can be problems with leaking and rashes (excoriation), and heavy physical exertion will exacerbate deterioration of the appliance. Sometimes the leakage occurs unexpectedly, and \"ostomates\" (as they are known) usu...
Do injuries take significant amounts of calories?	Yes but it is situational. The injury severity will determine the amount of calories needed for repair. One example is that a second or third degree burn will require substantially more calories for all the metabolic activities required to repair the damaged tissue. Something of this nature can actually cause weight lo...	[ "BULLET::::- Nutrients – Malnutrition or nutritional deficiencies have a recognizable impact on wound healing post trauma or surgical intervention. Nutrients including proteins, carbohydrates, arginine, glutamine, polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium, copper, zinc and iron all pla...
How was jewelry made in 4th century BC in Greece?	I assume that you are mostly interested in the antelope heads, which were probably produced by lost wax casting. Objects made from lost-wax casting have been found that are about 6000 years old, and lost-wax objects associated with the Aegean are found from ~1000BCE. The lost-wax process was widely used across the anci...	[ "The Greeks started using gold and gems in jewellery in 1600 BC, although beads shaped as shells and animals were produced widely in earlier times. Around 1500 BC, the main techniques of working gold in Greece included casting, twisting bars, and making wire. Many of these sophisticated techniques were popular in t...
why do you have to pop your ears when you dive down 8/10 feet under water but you can go 70/80 feet up an elevator without having to?	The change in pressure is greater when you go underwater then if you would up a lift in air. Because water is dense it creates more preassure. The same as when you gobup in a plane the preassure difference is very different causong your eara to pop.	[ "When the bell is raised, the pressure will drop and excess air due to expansion will automatically spill under the edges. If the divers are breathing from the bell airspace at the time, it may need to be vented with additional air to maintain a low carbon dioxide level. The decrease in pressure is proportional to ...
why does the catholic church deal with sexual assault allegations against priests as opposed to the law?	You’re mistaken. The priests answer to the same laws as you and I as applicable in their jurisdiction. However, with all situations such as this, the prosecution needs credible witnesses and bonafide proof to bring these charges against them. This is called due process and it’s guaranteed to all American citizens. The ...	[ "Major lawsuits emerged in 2001 claiming that priests had sexually abused minors. In response to the ensuing scandal, the Church has established formal procedures to prevent abuse, encourage reporting of any abuse that occurs and to handle such reports promptly, although groups representing victims have disputed th...
What caused Irish nationalism to take a distinctly left-wing position?	I would just like to note that European Nationalism is quite often left-wing. The SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in Wales, ETA in Basque, Catalan Nationalism and Kurdish Nationalism are all considered left-of-centre, though of course right wing nationalism still exists (UKIP, the EDL, the French National Front, Golden Da...	[ "Irish nationalism has been left-wing nationalism since its mainstream inception. Early nationalists during the 19th century such as the United Irishmen in the 1790s, Young Irelanders in the 1840s, Fenian Brotherhood during the 1880s and Sinn Féin and its successor Fianna Fáil in the 1920s all styled themselves in ...
the athletic part of being a car racer	Get in a Formula 1 car, drive it around a track in the same time as Lewis Hamilton, and then see how you feel. Racing cars put a LOT of force on the driver's body, and driving a car at that kind of speed for a long time does put a physical exertion on the driver's. For example, most will lose around 4kg of body weight...	[ "Contrary to what may be popularly assumed, racing drivers as a group do not have unusually better reflexes or peripheral response time. During repeated physiological (and psychological) evaluations of professional racing drivers, the two characteristics that stand out are racers' near-obsessive need to control the...
why does macau drive on the left when portugal drive on the right?	China used to have left and right hand driving in different parts of the country. They standardised it to the right in the '40s, but Macau is semi-autonomous and decided to stay left (like nearby Hong Kong).	[ "The United States Virgin Islands is the only place under United States jurisdiction where the rule of the road is to drive on the left. This was inherited from what was the then-current Danish practice at the time of the American acquisition in 1917. However, because Saint Thomas is a U.S. territory, most cars are...
This may be a silly question, but what did the Supreme Court do during the American Civil War?	Notable pre Dred Scott Cases. Amistad-(_URL_1_ > On March 9, Associate Justice Joseph Story delivered the Court's decision. Article IX of Pinckney's Treaty was ruled off topic since the Africans in question were never legal property. They were not criminals, as the U.S. Attorney's Office argued, but rather "unlawful...	[ "The period of the American Civil War and the immediate aftermath of Reconstruction saw shakeups in the Court and in legislation concerning its size. This culminated in the Judiciary Act of 1869, the last piece of legislation which altered the size of the Supreme Court. Pursuant to the Tenth Circuit 1863 Act, Steph...
how is instagram worth money if it doesn't make money?	Let's say you own facebook. Your friend own's google plus. Even though right now Instagram is not making money, you and your friend both believe that you could use the technology or the product to make money somehow, perhaps by integrating it with your service. If your friend gets control of Instagram entirely, you ...	[ "In February 2011, it was reported that Instagram had raised $7 million in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D'Angelo. The deal valued Instagram at around $20 million.\n", "On Instagram alone a profile with three-to...
why can isis/isil be considered as an independent state?	It isn't AFAIK. They might call themselves one, but I don't know any state that recognizes that claim. In terms of how could it be? They do meet a few of the criteria for being a state.	[ "The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who are also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have been trying to take back the areas they once controlled. Because of the revolt against the Assad regime in 2011, a civil war broke out which caused the country to weaken, ISIL took the chance to tak...
Given supernovae release neutrons, allowing heavier elements to be created, as well as the expanding universe, is it theoretically possible for there to be more heavy elements we have yet to find?	The question about superheavy elements has nothing to do with an expanding universe or neutrinos. We can produce elements up to 118, and beyond uranium (92) their lifetime decreases with increasing element number - while uranium has a lifetime of billions of years the heaviest elements just live fractions of a second....	[ "Super-heavy elements such as rutherfordium are produced by bombarding lighter elements in particle accelerators that induces fusion reactions. Whereas most of the isotopes of rutherfordium can be synthesized directly this way, some heavier ones have only been observed as decay products of elements with higher atom...
I'm looking for counterarguments to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States	While I confess that I'm generally politically sympathetic with the late Howard Zinn, I think that the main problem with his A People's History of the United States is that it is polemic, rather than history. It was admirable that Zinn made no efforts to disguise his point of view--everyone has one, and at the end of...	[ "Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, and socialist thinker. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote over twenty books, including his best-selling and influential...
how does the same comet pass earth more than once, and how do we figure out their "schedule"?	The vast majority of comets that we see are orbiting around the sun. Solar orbits tend to be fairly stable (although interactions with other bodies can alter them). The orbits of comets tend to be much longer than the Earth's 365 day long orbit, so they don't come around as often, but some of them come by often enough ...	[ "If a comet is traveling fast enough, it may leave the Solar System. Such comets follow the open path of a hyperbola, and as such they are called hyperbolic comets. To date, comets are only known to be ejected by interacting with another object in the Solar System, such as Jupiter. An example of this is thought to ...
the difference between different cpu types	The intel chip and the powerpc chips are different architures. That means that the CPU understands a completely different language. It's as if Intel speaks English, and PowerPC speaks Chinese.	[ "In a multiprocessing system, all CPUs may be equal, or some may be reserved for special purposes. A combination of hardware and operating system software design considerations determine the symmetry (or lack thereof) in a given system. For example, hardware or software considerations may require that only one part...
why does grunting, groaning or generally making little noises when you are in pain help the pain level go down?	your brain can only take a certain amount of input, and can only focus on so much at a time. By vocalizing, you're focusing your brainpower on an output and a feeling other than the massive pain input that your brain wants to focus on. Another method that's been proven to work are things like virtual reality sims whe...	[ "Pain asymbolia, also called pain dissociation, is a condition in which pain is experienced without unpleasantness. This usually results from injury to the brain, lobotomy, cingulotomy or morphine analgesia. Preexisting lesions of the insula may abolish the aversive quality of painful stimuli while preserving the l...
when the federal reserves buys bonds from the market, where exactly is the money coming from?	By printing money - or more accurately, by crediting the reserve balances of their member banks.	[ "BULLET::::4. Every business day, the Federal Reserve System engages in Open market operations. If the Federal Reserve wants to increase the money supply, it will buy securities (such as U.S. Treasury Bonds) anonymously from banks in exchange for dollars. If the Federal Reserve wants to decrease the money supply, i...
why i can buy a new tv for $300, new tablet for $500 but a new phone costs $700?	A new phone does not cost $700 dollars. Certain phones cost $700 dollars, just like there will also be high end TVs that cost $2000 dollars and low end phones that cost $30. And those high end phones cost that much because that is how much people are willing to pay in that market segment.	[ "North American consumers purchase a new television set on average every seven years, and the average household owns 2.8 televisions. , 48 million are sold each year at an average price of $460 and size of .\n", "In January 2017, Samsung has confirmed that Samsung Pay Mini will not only work on its Galaxy devices...
Why did a decimal clock and calendar not catch on?	Rest of the decimal units measured things that did not have any natural ratio. So there was nothing inherent about length that required 1ft=12in, so we might as well have all conversion ratios be a power of 10. But with the calendar there is a natural ratio that is not a power of 10: 1year=365.2.. days. So using a dec...	[ "Between 1794 and 1795, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the French government briefly mandated decimal clocks, with a day divided into 10 hours of 100 minutes each. The astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, among other individuals, modified the dial of his pocket watch to decimal time. A clo...
why when people get older they get this blue circle around their pupils?	It's not around their pupils. It's in the cornea, which is the first thing your finger touches if you decide to poke yourself right in the middle of your eye. It's called arcus senilus. It's above the iris, which surrounds the pupils. Over the course of your life, your body likes to put cholesterol in all sorts of pla...	[ "Dark circles are likely to become more noticeable and permanent with age. This is because as people get older, their skin loses collagen, becoming thinner and more translucent. Circles may also gradually begin to appear darker in one eye than the other as a result of some habitual facial expressions, such as an un...
What is the smallest body in space that can have or support an atmosphere?	If a gas molecule in the upper atmosphere is going faster than escape velocity, then it's gone! This is called [Jeans escape.](_URL_1_) Magnetic fields help by giving escaping molecules a chance to redirect, but the main force holding the atmosphere on is gravity. At a given temperature and at equilibrium all types ...	[ "The smallest solid objects can have water. At Earth, falling particles returned by high-altitude planes and balloons show water contents. In the outer Solar System, atmospheres show water spectra where water should have been depleted. The atmospheres of giant planets and Titan are replenished by infall from an ext...
why are there so many more shootings, attacks, and bombings in europe than the us when the us is more actively involved in destabilized regions than countries, for instance, like france?	1. There aren't more shootings in Europe than in the USA, but there are more Islamic terrorist attacks, which I presume is your point. 2. Europe is more populous than the USA, the EU alone has over 500m residents. More people = more stuff happening. 3. Europe is closer to areas of unrest and shares land borders lead...	[ "Since 2014, more than 20 fatal attacks have been carried out in Europe. France saw eight attacks between January 2015 and July 2016; this included the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks, the November 2015 Paris attacks, and the July 2016 Nice truck attack. The United Kingdom saw three major attacks carried out in ...
What are some good history books about 1970s-1990s America (both domestically and in the wider world)?	A couple of good places to start are James Patterson's Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore or Sean Wilentz' The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008. Wilentz focuses primarily on politics while Patterson is a bit more wide-ranging by also including things like culture, economics, and soc...	[ "The Sixties is a documentary miniseries which premiered on CNN on May 29, 2014. Produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's studio Playtone, the 10-part series chronicled events and popular culture of the United States during the 1960s.\n", "The Seventies is a documentary miniseries which premiered on CNN on June ...
How much of "The Rape of Belgium" actually happened and how much of it was inflamed propaganda?	I recommend John Horne and Alan Kramer's German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial. It takes an extremely detailed look at the atrocities, the propaganda that followed (from BOTH sides), and the ways it was portrayed in the years following the war. /u/NMW and /u/elos_ have, to my knowledge, given answers about it i...	[ "During the First World War, Montgomery, horrified by reports of the \"Rape of Belgium\" in 1914, was an intense supporter of the war effort, seeing the war as a crusade to save civilization, regularly writing articles urging men to volunteer for the Canadian expeditionary force and for people on the home front to ...
could the force of a hurricane affect the rate of earths rotation?	Alright, math time. So an average hurricane's radius is about 500 km and is about 15 mm high. Approximating it as a cylinder, that means that it is moving a total volume of about 11 million cubic km of air. With a density of 1.225 kg/m^3, that is about 1.3×10^16 kg or air. That's a big number! That is, until we conside...	[ "It was from the 1821 Norfolk and Long Island hurricane that William C. Redfield published his account in the American Journal of Science presenting his first evidence that hurricanes had counter-clockwise rotation of destructive winds from area tree fall patterns he examined. This also corroborated John Farrar's p...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

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