question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Do we have any evidence of extrasolar asteroid belts or comets? | We don't have the resolution yet to observe any of these directly. What has been seen are disks of debris around several stars, and the ALMA array just delivered a really spectacular example (_URL_0_). So there's every expectation that things like asteroid belts and cometary clouds are the norm. | [
"Main-belt comets (MBCs) are bodies orbiting within the asteroid belt that have shown comet-like activity during part of their orbit. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory defines a main-belt asteroid as an asteroid with a semi-major axis (average distance from the Sun) of more than 2 AU but less than 3.2 AU, and a perihel... |
why would someone have a caymen or offshore bank account if they weren't doing something illegal or had something to hide? | Well they don't tax in the same way. Keeping money offshore isn't illegal, it's also extremely secure. | [
"Offshore companies are legal, said Panamanian lawyer and former controller of the republic Alvin Weeden; illegality arises when they are used for money laundering, arms smuggling, terrorism, or tax evasion.\n",
"Gigaba apparently told state security agents that the account was opened by one of his officials with... |
How did weapons/tools made from meteoric iron compare to those made from smelted ore? | You're asking historians about metal smithing ? ;P
Who knows, maybe one will have a better answer. But here goes. Meteoric iron has most of the volatiles cooked out of it, and a very high amount of nickel in it. This is generally expensive to do even today as the energy requirements are fairly high.
So here's a description of the process. _URL_1_
The brittle metal is welded with a more common base metal and you go from there.
Smelted ores, you don't have the advantage of roasting them in a vacuum at insanely high temperatures. The sulfur in the coal, phosphorus in the ore, and of course the carbon in the coal, and nitrogen in the atmosphere will all affect the final metal product generally in ways not to your advantage.
Most likely you won't see any real high quality nickel steels made on earth until well into mass production of jet engines by GE, and the
rest of them simply because there wasn't much need for high temp superalloys with superfine granularity up until then. Plus no cheap electricity for induction and arc furnaces, and massive vacuum chambers until then. ;)
I'll provide the next link for some pretty pictures of superalloy granularity, and some background info. _URL_0_
There, that should be enough material to cheat off of for when a real historian visits. :D | [
"Before the advent of iron smelting, meteoric iron was the only source of iron metal apart from minor amounts of telluric iron. Meteoric iron was already used before the beginning of the iron age to make cultural objects, tools and weapons.\n",
"The place and time for the discovery of iron smelting is not known, ... |
how can a member of the commonwealth be considered independent but still have a constitutional monarchy with queen elizabeth ii as the head of state? | You are thinking about this all the wrong way. She is not the “queen of the Commonwealth”. She is the queen of the United Kingdom. But she’s also the queen of Canada, which is a completely separate job. Then, she’s also the queen of Australia, which is a completely separate job from the first 2.
So, each country that she’s the head of state of is independent. Their queens just happen to be the same person. | [
"Since succeeding her father on 6 February 1952, Queen Elizabeth II has been head of state of 32 different independent states; currently, there are 16 states, called Commonwealth realms. Within the Westminster system in each realm, the Queen's government is headed by a prime minister. Appointment and dismissal of p... |
how ice does this in the freezer sometimes | Water near top of cube freezes first. Lets say it all freezes except one small hole at the top, so you have a thin layer of ice with a hole in it floating on the top of the cube. As water continues to freeze under the surface, it expands out the hole in the top and causes the spike to grow.
_URL_0_ | [
"Small freezer-unit machines sit inside the freezer (or the freezer part of the refrigerator) and operate similar to a food processor in slow-motion. Every few seconds, the paddles stir the mixture to prevent formation of large ice crystals. When the ice cream sufficiently freezes, the paddles automatically stop ro... |
how much would educated medieval Europeans, have known about the history of the world before Christ? | When it comes to medieval conceptions of history, a lot would have been founded on the Bible: the Creation was the starting point of many medieval chronicles, and they moved through the biblical patriarchs such as Abraham to the historical present. Works such as Eusebius' Chronicon were widely quoted by medieval chroniclers: Chronicon begins with the kings of the Babylonians and moves through various states such as Ancient Egypt and Athens up to Rome - so yes, it was feasible that medieval people would have had an idea of who pharaohs or Hammurabi were. In the early middle ages especially this kind of preservation of older texts was rather centred on Constantinople in the east; that is where Jerome composed a Latin version, with additions, of Eusebius' text.
While it is true that literacy was limited especially early on in the period, it must be noted that other methods of transmitting information - such as reading the treasured books out loud to an entire community - were much more prominent than they would be today. On a day-to-day level, though, people would have been much more aware of the Greco-Roman world than of the more distant past: figures such as Aristotle and Hercules would have appeared in decorative objects exchanged among the nobility, for example.
In fact, quite often it seems that the pre-Christian past was seen as less relevant and more of a necessity to link the period of interest to the chronicler to the beginning of time, that is, the Creation such as in the case of Higden's Polychronicon. On the other hand, a link to the classical civilisations such as Trojans in the case of the Capetians, for example, was often very desirable as precedent and history were nearly universally necessary for the legitimacy of dynasties - and most other things really, such as legislation. The non-European civilisations were not quite as useful for this purpose, and often lacked the exact connotations of virtue that were more easily achieved by references to the Greco-Roman past. | [
"In 708, some monks at Hexham accused Bede of having committed heresy in his work \"De Temporibus\". The standard theological view of world history at the time was known as the Six Ages of the World; in his book, Bede calculated the age of the world for himself, rather than accepting the authority of Isidore of Sev... |
information retention when asleep | Omelette du fromage? | [
"Research evidence suggests that sleep is involved in the acquisition, maintenance and retrieval of memories as well as memory consolidation. Subsequently, sleep deprivation has been shown to affect both working memory and long-term memory processes.\n",
"One way sleep is involved in the creation of long-term mem... |
Do flies and other seemingly hyper-fast insects perceive time differently than humans? | You're looking, in part, for the [flicker fusion threshold](_URL_2_) of non-human species. Pigeons, for example, can independently perceive flashes at about 100Hz, which is a hell of a lot faster than humans. Dragonflies may, based on the potential information content of the neural signaling, respond [quite a bit faster than that](_URL_1_). Flicker fusion isn't everything, but it's pretty close to what you're looking for.
In other words, probably.
There's also a signficant limitation of all visual systems, however, in that the retina (which functions in a very similar manner in all species with eyes or light-sensing organs) takes time to process incoming light. Everything sees the world at a surprisingly similar delay, about 50-100ms. The entire loop between visual input to initiation of motor output is about [200ms](_URL_3_) for flies.
However, the important thing is that this is only vision. If you want something *really* fast, you have to go to tactile stimulation, such as air currents hitting the cerci. Delay on those loops from input to action is tiny; "A roach will begin running between 8.2 to 70.2 ms after a puff of air is directed at the anal cerci (Roeder, 1948)" ([source](_URL_0_) of citation; original article is ~~not available elsewhere from what I can tell~~ [here](_URL_5_) for those with institutional access).
Insects, in particular, respond to the world *vastly* more rapidly than humans. What you want to call "perception" is a trickier question, but it is very clear that for the relevant behavioral outcomes, they are fast as hell.
~~Edit: I am disappointed that "but do they even really perceive?" has stuck to the top by virtue of being first, despite providing no information or, really, anything other than a bare hint of a philosophical argument.~~
Edit 2: Completely forgot to explain what [cerci](_URL_4_) are. They're the things that poke off the back of an insect's abdomen. Cerci are ridiculously good at detecting and localizing air disturbances, work a bit like ears without, as far as I know, the independent frequency detection. | [
"Flies have rapid reflexes that aid their escape from predators but their sustained flight speeds are low. Dolichopodid flies in the genus \"Condylostylus\" respond in less than 5 milliseconds to camera flashes by taking flight. In the past, the deer bot fly, \"Cephenemyia\", was claimed to be one of the fastest in... |
Modern Languages, when did they appear? | hi! there's room for examples of more languages, but you'll previous responses in the this section of the FAQ*
[How far back could I go and still communicate?](_URL_0_)
*see the link on the sidebar or the wiki tab | [
"Vernaculars acquired the status of official languages through metalinguistic publications. Between 1437 and 1586, the first grammar of Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German and English were written, though not always immediately published. It is to be understood that the first vestiges of those languages precede... |
my glasses fog up when i drink hot coffee on a cold day, but why don't my eyeballs fog up when i take off my glasses? | It's not just temperature difference that matters, the surface still needs to be fairly cold otherwise the water vapor won't condensate on the surface. I don't know what sort of temperature's you'd need though, so this may not actually make a difference in the case of your eyes.
The main reason though, is that your eyes are already wet. Human eyes are designed to be moist at all times, that's why we blink and why we have tear ducts, to keep them moist. I bet you have at some point had really horrible felling eyes, it will have been because they were dry. It's not that this means we are always looking through fog, the condensation that fogs up glasses isn't a single sheet, it's loads of tiny little droplets, that's what makes it hard to see through. Even if water did condense onto our eyes, it would just spread out across the film of water already there, and so we'd still see through it.
As for contact lenses, they are going to be just as moist as your eyeballs would be, so they are protected int he same way.
There are a couple of ways we could stop glasses from fogging up. Most glasses do already have an anti-fog layer on them to help prevent it happening all the time, without this coating it would happen with lower temperature differences and less water vapor. One way to improve this layer would be to make it perfectly hydrophobic, so any water would just slide straight off, or we could integrate some sort of pump so that your glasses are constantly covered in a thin film of water. In either case, It think it's easier to just wipe the condensation off once in a while. | [
"Masks tend to fog when warm humid exhaled air condenses on the cold inside of the faceplate. To prevent fogging many divers spit into the dry mask before use, spread the saliva around the inside of the glass and rinse it out with a little water. The saliva residue allows condensation to wet the glass and form a co... |
why do we have the tendency to fall when you look down from height? | Vertigo--you lose your balance. | [
"There are logical biological causes of fear of falling. Firstly, there is the innate so-called \"cliff edge phenomenon\", whereby even toddlers, as well as many animals, avoid large drops, even without having previously had a bad experience.\n",
"Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to he... |
i purchase controlling share (51%) of publicly traded company. what happens next? | You get voting rights at annual shareholder meetings. Since you have more shares than anyone else combined, you win any votes. You have to follow the company bylaws though, so what you can do is limited. | [
"If all the shareholders of the company choose to exercise their stock option, the company's outstanding shares would increase by 100 million. The market capitalization of the stock would increase to $60 billion (previous market capitalization + cash received from owners of rights converting their rights to shares)... |
Was the rape of Germany in the wake of WWII the largest known case of mass rape/brutalization in human history? Have any such events as brutal as this occurred at the hands of an occupying army? | One very brutal occupation of a city was the "Rape of Nanking". After Japanese captured the city in 1937 the Japanese Imperial Army spent weeks killing between 200,000 and 300,000 people and raping between 20,000-80,000 women. I do not know how large the "Rape of Germany" was and do not know any significant statistics of information regarding it however the "Rape of Nanking" was a very wide scale brutalization and may be comparable with the "Rape of Germany" that you mentioned. | [
"Germany was the site of mass rape by invading Allied forces, most notably the Soviet army, during the latter part of World War II, with the estimated number of victims ranging from tens of thousands to as many as two million.\n",
"Acts of mass rape and other war crimes were committed by Soviet troops during the ... |
How environmentally damaging is the production of a Hybrid car as opposed to a standard gas car? | According to the Argonne National Laboratory's GREET model, [they're about the same, for the most part](_URL_0_) (see page 73 for the graph detailing total energy use). There is one aspect according to the graphs where hybrids fare worse, and that is SOx emissions, chiefly due to the batteries. | [
"The hybrid vehicle typically achieves greater fuel economy and lower emissions than conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), resulting in fewer emissions being generated. These savings are primarily achieved by three elements of a typical hybrid design:\n",
"According to a 2009 study by The Nati... |
why would anyone want to buy berkshire hathaway's stock if they never pay dividends? | Instead of paying dividends, the company reinvests in itself, so therefore you would expect stock prices to rise faster than a company that does pay dividends. So the value you get from the stock is the increase in the value of the shares you own over time, instead of a cash payout of dividends. As mentioned, Berkshire Hathaway's stock has, historically, performed extremely well so it is a valuable stock to own. | [
"Berkshire Hathaway has never split its Class A shares because of management's desire to attract long-term investors as opposed to short-term speculators. However, Berkshire Hathaway created a Class B stock, with a per-share value originally kept (by specific management rules) close to of that of the original share... |
Since there's roughly 5 times as much dark matter as regular matter, why doesn't this mess up orbits or satellite trajectories? | The dark matter is very dilute, and so does not make an appreciable change in the gravitational influence of the Sun and planets on each other.
You can read a description [here](_URL_0_). | [
"and a Milky Way mass of . These ratios are one of the main arguments in favor of the presence of large amounts of dark matter in the universe; if dark matter did not exist, a much smaller mass-to-light ratios would be expected.\n",
"Another important result from the HDF was the very small number of foreground st... |
Why don't I feel pain in my sleep? | "Pain" has two components: nocioception and conscious awareness. The prior occurs during sleep, but not the latter.
Nocioception is the physical or chemical stimulation of the pain receptor neurons ("nocioceptors") due to an aversive stimulus and the transducing and encoding of these signals. These signals from the receptors are relayed to a second neuron that brings the signal from the spinal cord to the [thalamus](_URL_3_) and then a third neuron, which brings the signal from the thalamus to the neurons in the "primary receiving area" of your [somatosensory cortex](_URL_1_), which is in the parietal lobe. This receiving area also reacts to the neurons that encode signals generated by touch, temperature, and proprioception (where your body is in space) and helps you mentally integrate and become aware of these signals.
During sleep, the signals do not really reach your cortex due to a "gating" effect by the thalamus, which is a part of the brain that functions like a major relay and integration center for many sensory pathways. It is hyperpolarized in this state, making it much harder to excite (depolarize) and thus harder for the signal to transmit. There may be other gating mechanisms as well, but this is the one I'm most familiar with. In short, the signals from the painful stimulus thus have trouble reaching your conscious brain centers.
I'm sure there are neurologists or anesthesiologists here that can give a more thorough/accurate answer, but that's the best I have.
EDIT: I'll find something peer-reviewed for you in a moment, but [this](_URL_2_) looks relatively accurate to start off.
EDIT2:[ Peer-reviewed](_URL_0_), nice quick summary. | [
"BULLET::::- “Small-fibre polyneuropathy can interfere with the ability to feel pain or changes in temperature”. For some individuals, neuropathic pain can be more prominent at night, which makes it harder to sleep and thus rest and recovery in order to rehabilitate nerve damage can be difficult. This may be a resu... |
Is there more to weight loss than eating less calories than you use? | The complexity comes in the fact that "calories in" and "calories out" aren't as simple as they sound. Not every person digests food exactly the same way, which lends some fuzziness to "calories in," and human basal metabolism can be surprisingly variable, which makes "calories out" hard to estimate accurately as well.
From a strictly thermodynamic standpoint, it is impossible to not lose weight if you are consuming fewer calories than you are expending. However, ensuring that that is indeed the case is more complicated than plugging numbers into nutritional facts panels and exercise calculators. | [
"A commonly asserted \"rule\" for weight gain or loss is based on the assumption that one pound of human fat tissue contains about 3,500 kilocalories (often simply called \"calories\" in the field of nutrition). Thus, eating 500 fewer calories than one needs per day should result in a loss of about a pound per week... |
Taking a rubik's cube apart and re-assembeling in random order, what is the likelyhood that it would be could be solved? | What you are doing is considering all the permutation on the cubes of your Rubik's cube (with the constraint that a corner must go to a corner and so on ...). And you want to know if you can come back to the initial position using only legal moves
You can use group theory to do that. What you are exactly doing is looking at the quotient of the permutation group of the cubes by the action of the subgroup generated by the legal moves. With this vocabulary, you are asking the probability that a random permutation is in the equivalence class (or the subgroup) containing the initial position.
The cardinal of this quotient is 12 (I cannot find a good source for that, but the [wiki page](_URL_0_) should point in the right direction). By group theory, all equivalence classes have the same number of element which means that **if you do a permutation at random, you have 1/12 chance that it will be solvable.** | [
"This argument was not improved upon for many years. Also, it is not a constructive proof: it does not exhibit a concrete position that needs this many moves. It was conjectured that the so-called superflip would be a position that is very difficult. A Rubik's Cube is in the superflip pattern when each corner piece... |
Is this true? Did Britain really replace India's education system and caused the decline of social values? | This image does not appear to be accurate. I went and tried to look up the Parliamentary record for February 1835 and it seems that [Parliament was in fact not in session on the 2nd February 1835](_URL_2_). On the FAQs for the Parliamentary Archives [the question of Lord Macaulay's alleged speech is actually dealt with specifically](_URL_1_) (they must have had a few enquiries about it already!): it doesn't address the question of when Parliament was in session in 1835 but advises that Lord Macaulay was not a Member of Parliament in 1835.
Helpfully, it goes on to add that Macaulay *was* a member of the Supreme Council in India in 1835, and on the 2nd February he did in fact deliver [an education-flavoured Minute to the Supreme Council](_URL_0_), on the subject of an Act of Parliament which apportioned public funds for teaching in India. I have no knowledge of the wider context here, but from reading the Minute it appears that there was at this time a controversy over whether the funds should go to "European" institutions which taught in English, or "Oriental" institutions which taught mainly in Sanskrit and Arabic. The wording of the Act itself appears to have been silent on this issue.
Anyway Macaulay was as contemptuous of Indian culture as this image suggests, but from a completely different direction: rather than fearing the rich, ancient culture of India, and desiring to destroy its traditional education so as to break the self-esteem of the Indians and thus better dominate them (as per the image), he in fact thought Indian education was essentially valueless, and that assigning public funds to the propagation of it was a waste of money and effort. He remarks (at paragraph 10 of the Minute as set out in the link above):
*"I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed fully admitted by those members of the committee who support the oriental plan of education."*
The Minute continues on in this theme, and to lift one more quote evocative of the whole, he remarks in his summing-up (at paragraph 33 of the link):
*"I think it clear that... we are free to employ our funds as we choose, that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best worth knowing, that English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic, that the natives are desirous to be taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit or Arabic, that neither as the languages of law nor as the languages of religion have the Sanscrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to our encouragement, that it is possible to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to be directed."*
The actual quote in the image does not feature anywhere in the Minute and seems to have been entirely fabricated with a view to flattering Indian readers.
I hope somebody more intelligent than me can comment more generally on British educational policy in India in the period in question, but I can say that the linked image is very misleading: it claims Macaulay's remarks were given in a much more high-level situation than they actually were (a speech in Parliament as opposed to a minute delivered to the Indian governing body), and it claims that Macaulay was fearful of pre-existing education in India (most likely by completely fabricating a quote), rather than dismissive of it, as he actually seems to have been. | [
"The literary critic and historian Gauri Viswanathan identifies two major changes to the relation between Britain and India that came about as the result of the act: first, the assumption by the British of a new responsibility for Indian people's education; and, second, the relaxation of controls on missionary acti... |
why oled display, which are so successful on mobile and tv markets, is having a hard transition into laptop market? | You'll note that OLED televisions are *extremely* more expensive than non-OLED.
This isn't a big deal on tiny phone displays, but there's not a market for that kind of markup on laptops. | [
"With the arrival of Quantum Dot LCD displays, LG released an article describing why they still see OLED as the future of Television displays: \"In fact, OLED technology is the technology that is so much advanced that it should not be compared to an LCD based QD. Hence, even though LG already has the technology to ... |
why are keyboards arranged in a slanted grid instead of a standard grid? | It is a holdover form mechanical typewriters.
If you look at the keys you might notice, that the center of each key is fixed so that no two keys have their center in the same horizontal position.
This is important because mechanical typewriters used to have levers that reached up from the keys forward to then angle towards a position in the center where the actual typing took place. Obviously the two levers couldn't overlap and anchoring the levers anywhere but the center of the keys would have resulted in them breaking sooner.
[This is the best image I could find with a quick google search, but it should be sufficient to illustrate what I am trying to describe.](_URL_0_) | [
"There are a number of different arrangements of alphabetic, numeric, and punctuation symbols on keys. These different keyboard layouts arise mainly because different people need easy access to different symbols, either because they are inputting text in different languages, or because they need a specialized layou... |
Leon Trotsky. *Why* did he do what he did? | I'm not a historian or expert by any stretch of the imagination, but what I know about Trotsky's early life comes from his autobiography (available online [here](_URL_0_)) entitled "My Life".
I'm going to copy-paste some of [Chapter 6: The Break](_URL_1_) to get to the jist of your question, but I'd suggest reading that chapter as he gives many more details of his life growing up:
> In 1894 Alexander III died. As was usual on such occasions, the liberal hopes sought support from the heir to the throne. He replied with a kick. At the audience granted to the Zemstvo leaders, the young Czar described their aspirations for a constitution as “nonsensical dreams.” This speech was published in the press. The word-of-mouth report was that the paper from which the Czar had read his speech said “groundless dreams,” but in his agitation the Czar had expressed himself more harshly than he intended. I was fifteen at the time. I was unreservedly on the side of the nonsensical dreams, and not on that of the Czar. Vaguely I believed in a gradual development which would bring backward Russia nearer to advanced Europe. Beyond that my political ideas did not go.
> Commercial, multi-racial, loudly colored and noisy Odessa remained, to an extraordinary degree, far behind other centres in a political sense. In St. Petersburg, in Moscow, in Kiev, there were already in existence at that time numerous socialist circles in the educational institutions. Odessa had none. In 1895 Friedrich Engels died. Secret reports were read at meetings held in his memory by student groups in the various cities of Russia. I was then in my sixteenth year. But I did not know even the name of Engels, and could hardly say anything definite about Marx. As a matter of fact, I probably had never heard of him.
> My political frame of mind while at school was vaguely oppositionist, but no more than that. In my day, revolutionary questions were still unknown among the students. It was whispered that certain groups met at the private gymnasium maintained by the Czech, Novak; that there had been arrests; that Novak, who was our instructor in athletics, had been dismissed and replaced by an army officer. In the environment surrounding the home of the Schpentzers there was dissatisfaction, but the regime was held to be unshakable. The boldest dreamed of a constitution as possible only after several decades. As for Yanovka, the subject was unmentionable there. When I returned to the village after my graduation from school, bringing with me dim democratic ideas, Father, immediately alert, remarked with hostility: “This will not come to pass even in three hundred years.” He was convinced of the futility of all reformists’ efforts and was apprehensive for his son. In 1921, when he came to me in the Kremlin, after having escaped the Red and White perils with his life, I jestingly asked: “Do you remember what you used to say that the Czarist order was good for another three hundred years?” The old man smiled slyly and replied in Ukrainian: “This time, let your truth prevail.”
> [...]
> I faced the first crossroads on my path, poorly equipped politically even for a seventeen-year-old boy of that period. Too many questions confronted me all at once, without the necessary sequence and order. Restlessly I cast about me. One thing is certain: even then life had stored within my consciousness a considerable load of social protest. What did it consist of? Sympathy for the down-trodden and indignation over injustice the latter was perhaps the stronger feeling. Beginning with my earliest childhood, in all the impressions of my daily life human inequality stood out in exceptionally coarse and stark forms. Injustice often assumed the character of impudent license; human dignity was under heel at every step. It is enough for me to recall the flogging of peasants. Even before I had any theories, all these things imprinted themselves deeply on me and piled up a store of impressions of great explosive force. It was perhaps because of this that I seemed to hesitate for a while before reaching the great conclusions which I was impelled to draw from the observations of the first period of my life.
TL;DR: Going to school in Odessa exposed him to a more urban and multi-ethnic culture which in turn lead him to more radical ideas, beginning as a "Revolutionary Progressive" who turned Marxist during his late-teens after being arrested. | [
"Lenin said in 1921 that Trotsky was \"in love with organisation,\" but in working politics, \"he has not got a clue.\" Swain explains the paradox by arguing that Trotsky was not good at teamwork; he was a loner who had mostly worked as a journalist, not as a professional revolutionary like the others.\n",
"After... |
child porn and internet | Yes. In both situations. Federal law for pornography is 18 nationwide in the USA. Consent is to actually physically sleep with said person, which generally isn't possible across state lines. | [
"Child pornography is prevalent on the international, national, regional, and local levels. The differences of production, distribution, producers, evasion techniques, and status are explained in figure one. Child pornography is a multibillion-dollar enterprise that includes photographs, books, audiotapes, videos a... |
Does slavery/forced labor leave an archaeological footprint? | There is a very extensive literature on the archaeology of plantation slavery in the Americas, which generally leaves a considerable trace given the facilities required to house plantation slaves.
Besides the facilities (and how slave housing compares to the housing of free people), burials are probably the best indicator of slavery. The kind of work slaves (at least plantation slaves) were required to do was generally very taxing on the skeletons, and so considerable trauma on a number of bodies is evidence for slavery. This is very obvious in burials at plantations where skeletal trauma due to lifting heavy loads or performing repetitive motions is considerably worse on the bodies of slaves than on free individuals (though the kinds of stress can be very similar in kind, if not scale, to the stress on the skeletons of farmers and other poor laborers).
Likewise, life-expectancy is generally considerably shorter among plantation slaves than the free population of the Americas, and this should be evident from the burials.
Finally, the general quality of burials is always a good indicator of social standing in a society, even societies without slavery. The amount and kind of stuff you are buried with generally indicates your social standing. In many cases (though I hesitate to say all), even poor laborers and farmers may end up buried with a few possessions. In plantation slavery, very rarely do we find slaves buried with anything other than the clothes on their backs. Most often, burials of children born into slavery (again, plantation slavery in the Americas here) are the most common contexts to find any burial goods, while adults often have nothing or almost nothing to their name.
[A good example](_URL_2_) would be the [African Burial Ground](_URL_1_) in New York City. This was a burial ground found during the excavation of a foundation for a building and held more than 400 bodies of slaves from the mid 18th century. While these were largely domestic slaves, the same indicators I discussed above were applicable, including the general lack of burial goods (excepting children generally), the low life expectancy evidenced by the bodies, and the considerable skeletal trauma on the bodies. Importantly, this burial ground was located outside the city walls and limits as they stood in the mid 18th century, and so the very location of the cemetery helps indicate the social status of the people buried there as slaves.
As for non-plantation slavery, similar indicators in burials and living conditions would also be the primary criteria for establishing the presence of slavery. For instance, in Egypt, the common notion of the Pyramids at Giza being built by slaves [has been recently challenged](_URL_0_) by excavations of the worker's town at the base of the pyramids. While the workers certainly have skeletal trauma indicative of hard labor - as slaves would - they also have evidence for fairly extensive medical care, which is not typically afforded to slaves. Additionally, the ammount of animal bone - particularly cattle - is extremely high, indicating that they were eating a diet that was very good and possibly better than your average Egyptian (in terms of protein consume). Basically, the archaeological evidence indicates that while the people who built the pyramids did have to do hard labor, their quality of life was generally considerably better than we would expect of slaves.
As a little additional note, this has been a really productive area for archaeologists working in time periods with extensive historical records (for instance, colonial America) because the archaeological work can give a perspective on the lives of slaves it is often difficult to get from the historical records which are generally written by slave owners, and not the slaves themselves. Combining the written records with the archaeology helps get at more sides of the issue and helps write a more inclusive history. | [
"A common ethical issue in modern archaeology has been the treatment of human remains found during excavations, especially those that represent the ancestors of aboriginal groups in the New World or the remains of other minority races elsewhere. Where previously sites of great significance to native peoples could b... |
how did live tv broadcasts work before the invention of digital cameras? | Old TV cameras used a specialized form of cathode ray tube called a video tube to scan the image and convert it into an electrical signal, which could then be broadcast and converted back into video by an image-forming cathode ray tube in the viewer's television.
_URL_0_ | [
"Videotape technology was still in its infancy when Australian television was launched in 1956 and video recorders did not become widely available to Australian TV stations until the 1960s. For the first few years, the only available method for capturing TV programs was the kinescope process, in which a fixed movie... |
Why does an anechoic chamber have such an adverse affect on people? | It's a form of [sensory deprivation](_URL_0_) - you're missing all the background sounds you subconsciously process. With no input to process your brain doesn't turn off, rather it digs up memories & images and plays with them instead. [Nice video.](_URL_1_) | [
"In other words, the system has a severely censored and distorted view of reality from biased and filtering sensory organs which displaces understanding of the actual real-world which pales and tends to disappear. This displacement creates a type of sensory deprivation and a kind of hallucinogenic effect on those i... |
how do hospitals in the u.s. expect their patients to pay their bills? why are the bills so outrageous? | They expect you to have insurance (which you're required to have as of the end of this month).
They also expect you to take everything you read on the Internet with a grain of salt and either understand the full story behind it and the actual outcome. | [
"In the United States, some Medicare patients have spent several days \"at\" the hospital, but never officially being \"in\" the hospital, which results in unexpected bills and makes them ineligible for Medicare payment for some future necessary services, especially skilled nursing care.\n",
"This means that peop... |
When did English language change from calling someone's age "Six and Twenty" to "Twenty Six"? | I don't know as to when/how this change may have occured, but I do know that in German this is how numbers such as '26', '51', '36', etc. are phrased. IIRC '26' in German is 'sechundzwanzig' (sech-und-zwanzig) which in English is literally 'six-and-twenty'. So this phrasing could be a hold-out from the English language's Germanic origins. Anyone better informed than I please feel free to step-in and correct me! | [
"The issue of age was first addressed with the critical period hypothesis. The strict version of this hypothesis states that there is a cut-off age at about 12, after which learners lose the ability to fully learn a language. However, the exact age marking the end of the critical period is debated, and ranges from ... |
we often see inter-species friendships in the wild, but it's always seems to be 2 animals. why aren't there entire groups hanging out together? | TL;DR: law of the jungle
You are talking about a Timon-Pumbaa-Simba kind of group, with 3 or more species involved? Starting from the begin, you would need 2 individuals A and B that finds each other to start with, that are already in a stable friendly relationship meaning all basic needs (e.g. eating, drinking, sleeping) satisfied, that could mean:
1. they are in a long time friendly relationship (that is rare because one could be hungry at a time)
2. The relationship isn't long yet, they are still alerted even between them and adding a third unknown party member C would imply stress level to increase for everyone of them, having their survival instinct to let them run away.
Also, there are more relationships to guarantee: A and B could be in a mutual friendly relationship, but either of them could be hostile towards C or vice versa.
Supposing 2 individuals you'd have only 2 links (A likes B, B likes A), while they would be 6 for 3 individuals, 12 for 4 etc. | [
"Mutualism can contribute to the formation of interspecies friendships because it involves a pair of organisms experiencing mutually beneficial exchanges with each other which may lead to a long-lasting bond. The mutualistic relationship observed between coyotes and badgers after hunting ground squirrels together i... |
If an object with mass (theoretically) attains infinite mass at light speed, how can a neutrino (theoretically) travel faster? | So the notion that an object gains mass as it travels faster is largely considered to be an outdated way of teaching the subject as it tends to lead to a lot of confusion. Specifically, while Newton defined momentum p=mv, relativistic momentum is defined to be p=mv/(1-(v/c)^2 )^1/2 . So if you take that denominator together with the m, you can call that a "relativistic mass" but it leads to a lot of confusion. What's better to note is that momentum can reach an arbitrarily large value *without* v getting bigger than c. Since forces only change momentum, not velocity *per se*, you can't apply a force to go faster than c.
Anyways, it's more than likely that OPERA has some part of its experiment wrong. We aren't sure what yet, but we really aren't sure what it would mean if we did confirm that the neutrinos in this experiment were indeed traveling faster than c. | [
"It was assumed for a long time in the framework of the standard model of particle physics, that neutrinos are massless. Thus they should travel at exactly the speed of light according to special relativity. However, since the discovery of neutrino oscillations it is assumed that they possess some small amount of m... |
why is it not safe to drink tap water when it's not clean, but perfectly okay to shower in it? | Your skin is remarkably resilient and meant to protect you. Some things are too large to pass through your skin into your blood, but when you eat them they can pass through your intestines (their job is to absorb stuff so they’re good at it). This happens especially with heavy metals like lead or mercury. You can hold and touch them and be fine (as long as it isn’t for too long and they don’t touch any open wounds or sores) but once you eat them it’s open season on your nervous system.
Most contamination in water is heavy metals, and they’re in such low doses that rinsing yourself with contaminated water in the shower usually won’t hurt you (unless something is seriously wrong). But if you drink the water you can ingest a lot of the metals, and because it takes a long time to get rid of them they can poison you over time. | [
"Tap water remains susceptible to biological or chemical contamination. In the event of contamination deemed dangerous to public health, government officials typically issue an advisory regarding water consumption. In the case of biological contamination, residents are usually advised to boil their water before con... |
When starving or extremely hungry, does the human body do anything to make "bad" tasting food more tolerable? | Absolutely. There are [stories](_URL_0_) of people lost at sea and they have described turtle blood as tasting like "the elixir of life" and getting cravings for fish eyes for the liquid and vitamins. | [
"Taste aversion is fairly common in humans. When humans eat bad food (e.g., spoiled meat) and get sick, they may find that food aversive until extinction occurs, if ever. Also, as in nature, a food does not have to \"cause\" the sickness for it to become aversive. A human who eats sushi for the first time and who h... |
is ice in the center of an ice cube different from the ice on the outside of an ice cube? | Ice cubes don’t actually freeze the way you’re imagining. It’s not like an onion, where it freezes inward layer by layer. There’s a lot more flexibility in the freezing process as water and ice coexist and transform into one another. As the center-most water freezes, it will in fact exert a pressure on the ‘outer’ shells, despite the added flexibility of the freezing process. That force will actually melt the outer shells juuust a bit, allowing them to expand naturally without cracking, or it’ll crack, and then just re-solidify as a normal whole. The ‘dirty’ bits you often see in ice cubes aren’t cracks, but the impurities in the water. If you clean an ice cube tray really well, and fill it with pure water, the ice cubes will be crystal clear. | [
"An ice cube is a small piece of ice, which is rectangular as viewed from above and trapezoidal as viewed from the side. Ice cubes are products of mechanical refrigeration and are usually produced to cool beverages. They may be produced at home in a freezer with an ice tray or in an automated ice-making accessory. ... |
How does the human body handle getting new antibodies from vaccines? | You do not have a set amount of free antibodies in circulation. Your white blood cells are capable of ramping up production of specific antibodies in response to specific exposures, but this does not dilute out other antibodies.
Generally speaking, the production of one antibody also does not hamper the production of other antibodies; in fact, most infectious agents have many characteristic structures that are recognized by multiple antibodies that you produce simultaneously. To my knowledge, vaccines have never been shown to reduce the ability to produce antibodies to other antigens, even those on unrelated pathogens.
Finally, your tissues also store away 'memory' white blood cells that preserve their ability to produce specific antibodies for decades, which are also not affected by vaccines, to my knowledge.
Note that a large amount of antibodies can temporarily reduce the immune response--this is the rationale behind administering [intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG)](_URL_0_) as medical therapy. This is thought to work through several mechanisms, but the effect is not from dilution of existing antibodies. | [
"The immune system recognizes viruses when antigens on the surfaces of virus particles bind to immune receptors that are specific for these antigens. This is similar to a lock recognizing a key. After an infection, the body produces many more of these virus-specific immune receptors, which prevent re-infection by t... |
Do you recognize these people? | The "military uniform" appears to me to be a Knights Templar uniform of the Free and Accepted Masons. This would make it a fraternal uniform rather than a military one. | [
"The identity of the person honoured in the specific name is not given in Günther's description but it is thought likely to be the Scottish missionary and explorer Dr. David Livingstone (1813-1873) who was the first known European to discover Lake Malawi in 1856, collecting the first specimens of fishes from the La... |
what causes libido, and why does it vary so much between people? | Doctor here and I want to clarify a point of confusion in a lot of these threads.
Libido and the ability to have an erection are two different things.
I have plenty of male patients who cannot achieve an erection but have tons of libido. The opposite is also true. Many men can have erections but lack interest in sex.
Very roughly, libido is more a product of neurochemistry while erection is a product physiology. | [
"Libido (; colloquial: sex drive) is a person's overall sexual drive or desire for sexual activity. Libido is influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. Biologically, the sex hormones and associated neurotransmitters that act upon the nucleus accumbens (primarily testosterone and dopamine, respect... |
If you visited a random star, how could you quickly determine if there are planets orbiting it? | With today's science, you would have to photograph the system, while filtering out the star.
Repeat every few hours, comparing photographs.
Anything that moved is likely a planet.
Add 200 years to technology and your computer would automatically filter out all known background stars... Leaving planets. | [
"Planets orbiting around one of the stars in binary systems are more easily detectable, as they cause perturbations in the orbits of stars themselves. However, with this method, follow-up observations are needed to determine which star the planet orbits around.\n",
"The probability of a random planetary orbit bei... |
What was the first animal recorded to go extinct? | Do you mean from a written history point of view of a recorded point of view?
As an anthropology major I work with the "oldest known subject" of a species often. We have a lot of knowledge of species which have been extinct for a very long time, but we never give a very concrete "end" date to those species.
We like to say from "so and so to around 1.8 million years ago." or "latest specimen dated was to..." Because of how little the earth was travelled it would be very difficult to say that someone saw the extinct of a species (and recorded it correctly) because there could have been other groups of that species that they just were not seeing. It is hard for us to say that we are seeing the absolute latest of a species because there may not be very many specimens that were preserved or we may just not have found them yet.
The first animal recorded on the wikipedia article to go extinct with a specific date on extinction was the Moa in the 15th century. However, I know this list is incorrect as it is only counting non-hominid species. It is counting what we would consider "animals."
_URL_0_ | [
"Many of the extinct animals were subspecies or color morphs such as the pied raven or disputed species like the tarpan or the gravenche. Most extinctions occurred in prehistoric times. The species gone extinct in the last 500 years were mostly from peripheral regions of Europe like the Caucasus, the North Atlantic... |
if i cannot fall asleep, but i'm laying in bed: comfortable and relaxed, is my body still getting a healthy amount of recharging time? | Your body does, your brain doesn't. After some nights you end up going crazy. It happened to me, it was pretty serious. | [
"Some treatments involve lifestyle changes, such as avoiding alcohol or muscle relaxants, losing weight, and quitting smoking. Many people benefit from sleeping at a 30-degree elevation of the upper body or higher, as if in a recliner. Doing so helps prevent the gravitational collapse of the airway. Lateral positio... |
Are several copies of the same memory stored in the brain? | Memories, contrary to popular belief, does not work like a video record. There are, in effect, no "copies" of memories at all.
The brain is a cluster of neurons, roughly 100-150 billion neurons, or that is the estimate (to put that into context, that is a higher number than there are stars in our milky way). Memory, or everything else, for that matter, is when a cluster of neurons fire together. So a memory is only a pattern, so to speak. That pattern can, and will change, usually just a tiny bit, everytime it's fired.
This is why creating false memories is so easy, and why our memories are an extremely fallible source of information.
For more information about how fallible our memory is, I recommend the book "Suggestions of Abuse" by Dr. Michael D. Yapko, and here's an excerpt from and interview, which you might be interested in: _URL_0_ | [
"The brain does not store memories in one unified structure, as might be seen in a computer's hard disk drive. Instead, different types of memory are stored in different regions of the brain. Long-term memory is typically divided up into two major headings: explicit memory and implicit memory.\n",
"Memories can b... |
what is going on when we pop our backs? | Releasing built up pressure bubbles from strain or stress from joints in your back. Same thing thing when you pop (crack) your fingers. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Pop Turns:\" The lead \"pops\" the follow in a rock - step motion, and can then use his right arm to start the follow spinning (also letting go of the left hand), or step down on 3 to initiate rotation together which then often leads to a Throwout move.\n",
"\"Pushing Buttons\" features a heavier s... |
What prevents bighorn sheep from constantly getting (fatal) concussions? And could we adapt this anatomy for improvement of football helmets? | Bighorn sheep slam their horns together during mating season and they do not drop to the ground. They have unique adaptations that allow them to slam or bang their horns together and not drop dead. Concussions in humans are caused by events that make the brain hit the inside of the skull. This is why a human get concussions from being jolted around in car accidents or sports injuries in which collisions are involved. Bighorn sheep have three ways of protecting themselves. The first way they are protected is the fact that their horns bend. Since their horns bend this draws out the time of the collision and reduces the force. The second way bighorn sheep are protected against concussions is the fact that their skull bones shift and rotate around the sutures. The skull is double-layered and the sutures are in a honeycomb pattern. This makes the sutures spring-like, this helps reduce the force when the sheep collide. The third adaptation bighorn sheep have to prevent concussions is that most of the energy from the collision goes to their neck muscles. Bighorn sheep have developed very strong neck muscles. These are the adaptations that animals have developed. These unique adaptations are the reason that a concussion is very unlikely. | [
"Helmets can be used to decrease closed-head injuries acquired during athletic activities, and are considered necessary for sports such as American \"tackle\" football, where frequent head impacts are a normal part of the game. However, recent studies have questioned the effectiveness of even American football helm... |
eli 5: why do cells all look 2d under the microscope , how or when can you see a 3d cell? | Try Confocal laser scanning microscopy. | [
"Such cells are tuned to different frequencies and orientations, even with different phase relationships, possibly for extracting disparity (depth) information and to attribute depth to detected lines and edges. This may result in a 3D 'wire-frame' representation as used in computer graphics. The fact that input fr... |
When did English supplant Latin as the language of science and mathematics? | For those who might answer, do you mean in England, or the world as a whole? | [
"Although Latin was once the universal academic language in Europe, academics no longer use it for writing papers or daily discourse. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic Church, as part of the Vatican II reforms in the 1960s, modernized its religious liturgies to allow less use of Latin and more use of vernacular langu... |
does everyone hear their own accent and just consider it normal, or is there a universal set sound for people hearing those who sound the same? | Accents are all about perspective. Anyone who speaks a certain way that is from their point of view "normal" and "default." You too have an accent but just consider it normal yourself. | [
"It can be noted that use of language such as certain accents may result in an individual experiencing prejudice. For example, some accents hold more prestige than others depending on the cultural context. However, with so many dialects, it can be difficult to determine which is the most preferable. The best answer... |
I am an Englishman. Its the middle of WW1. What is a job I can have, and maintain, that doesn't earn me public scorn for not enlisting? | Mining, agriculture, ship building - industry didn't stop for war, although the introduction of [women into British industry](_URL_1_) did allow for more men to go and fight. Coal mining was grossly inefficient at this point (still done only with a manual pick and bucket) so a high complement of manpower was required to keep the lights on (and power the boilers of ships etc).
A newly created [ministry of munitions](_URL_0_) oversaw war production, especially weapons and (obviously) ammunition. | [
"BULLET::::- Every soldier during his three years of basic army service will learn a manual trade, and will be given an opportunity, while in the army, to spend much of his last year at home working in that trade.\n",
"Following World War I, soldiers who had previously worked on irrigation activities along the Mu... |
how the brain combines the information it receives from both of our eyes to form a single "instance" of the world? how it knows which information is seen from single/both eye/s and it combines it to see every thing only once? | It’s probably a too complex and still not a fully understood concept of neurosensorics.
For one, the brain does not “remove” any duplicate images, these are effectively used for spatial perception.
Also, some of the neurons in the optic nerve change their position at the chiasma opticum and follow to the other side of the brain, so collectively neurons originating from one eye actually go to both sides of the brain. So in most cases of healthy functioning visual analysis from both eyes is done as one rather than two discrete images.
There’s also the fact that one eye is usually dominant and provides the bulk of detailed visual information while the other adds additional info for spatial perception. So effectively there is one dominant image from one eye while the other provides additional details (maybe something like bump-maps). | [
"The information about the image via the eye is transmitted to the brain along the optic nerve. Different populations of ganglion cells in the retina send information to the brain through the optic nerve. About 90% of the axons in the optic nerve go to the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus. These axons ori... |
what does it mean when hawks and eagles have better eyesight than us? does it mean they can literally zoom in on creatures on the ground, or do they just see things in a higher resolution? | They can see more detail- they have the equivalent of 20/2 vision, they can see clearly at 20 feet away what a normal human needs to be at 2 feet away to see clearly. They also see a broader spectrum of light than humans, so they can see more colors than we can. | [
"In addition to eagles, birds such as hawks, falcons, and robins have extraordinary vision which enable them to gather their prey easily. Their eyes are stated to be larger in size than their brain, by weight. Color vision with resolution and clarity are the most prominent features of eagles' eyes, hence sharp-sigh... |
What is the physiologic difference between whispering and speaking in your regular voice? | Take one hand and put it on your neck, palm on the front of your throat. Now, say "I am speaking louuuuuuuudly." You'll feel a vibration on your hand. That's your vocal cords flapping around in your neck. Try it again, but whisper. Where before you were pronouncing vowels with your vocal cords, now your vocal cords are relaxed and not vibrating. Air is pushing out of your lungs and through your mouth/teeth, which produces a hissing sound, but there are no vowel vibrations between the p's, k's, and other consonants.
Compare the sound and physiological mechanism of the "s" and "z" sounds in English. Note where your tongue, teeth, and lips are. Basically the same, but "z" uses your vocal cords, "s" doesn't. Same for "b vs. p", "d vs. t" and even "th" as pronounced in "the vs. thing". The field of linguistics studies these differences quite closely, you should check it out. | [
"Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are abducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains the same as in normal speech.\n",
"Whispering is generally used ... |
what about canned spaghetti makes it taste so different? | So the big ingredient differences between [chef boyardee spaghetti sauce](_URL_1_) and [Prego spaghetti sauce](_URL_0_) are (references to all in one products are things like spaghetti and meatballs or ravioli that include pasta, sauce and meat or cheese in a single product):
Ingredient|Chef Boyardee|Prego|Impact
:--|:-:|:-:|:--
Carrots|Has them|doesn't|not in most Boyardee all in one cans
Sweetener|Corn Syrup|Sugar|Less sweetener in Boyardee
Oil|Soybean|Canola|0.5g less oil in Boyardee than Prego (but Boyardee adds 2g of fat in meat
salt|40% more salt|N/A|Most of the all in one products have different types of salts--potassium chloride aluminum chloride
onion and garlic|no extract|both dried and extract|onions follow salt in both lists so likely similar amounts excluding extracts
cheese|Romano|none|there are cheese varieties of Prego
other|see impact|NA|The sauce doesn't but many all in one products include lactic acid or yeast extract likely to boost vitamin counts, Boyardee includes unnamed spices
I would expect the difference in sodium (and any other salts used in the pasta and sauce products) play the largest role, but the difference in onions and garlic, and nutrient ingredients in boyardee (yeast extract, lactic acid) could be playing a role in the flavor differences as well. | [
"In areas and situations where in-season, perfectly ripe tomatoes are not available, canned tomatoes are often used as an alternative to prepare dishes such as tomato sauce or pizza. The top uses for canned tomatoes are Italian or pasta sauces, chili, soup, pizza, stew, casseroles, and Mexican cuisine.\n",
"Spagh... |
when people do coke in movies, what are they actually sniffing? | Lots of different recipes. For snorting they use powdered lactose, or a vitamin b power if there are lactose intolerance issues. Also, if the actor is using a straw or something to snort it, they will coat the inside with Vaseline so very little will actually go in the nose. Snorting anything will cause congestion. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Sniff\": A shady looking, paranoid individual whose nose is always covered in white powder (the implication being that it is cocaine, but this is never stated), and who sniffs and snorts anything he sees.\n",
"The 1978 film Up In Smoke contains a memorable scene where a woman snorts Ajax after mist... |
why do we have tonsils? | Tonsils are lymphatic tissue, meaning tissue that is responsible for capturing, sequestering, and destroying infectious agents. The places in your body that have the most lymphatic tissue are the places that are the easiest to infect through. Your mouth is what you use to eat and breathe, daily, and so your tonsils are located right there at the back of your throat, as prisons and death rows for anything that tries to infect you through your mouth and throat.
By the way, the tonsils that we think of as "tonsils" are actually not the only ones. Those are the palatine tonsils. There are also lingual tonsils (which sit on the back of the tongue and look like really big taste buds) and also pharyngeal tonsils (which are at the top of the throat, where the nasal cavity ends). Those guys typically don't get as swollen or infected as the palatine tonsils, and so they're almost never removed. | [
"Tonsils are part of the first line of defense in the mouth as they create white blood cells in order to fight diseases, bacteria and viruses that enter through the mouth. Due to being exposed numerous amounts of things that enter the mouth, tonsils can become infected, which is called tonsillitis. This occurs main... |
how is it that water increases friction in small amounts, but decreases it in large amounts? | Water is both cohesive (it sticks to itself) and adhesive (it sticks to other things) but these effects are relatively weak and more noticeable on a small scale. When you lick your finger to turn a page, there is a thin layer of molecules which is adhering to your finger and the page, making them sticky.
When you have a larger amount of water, like on a water slide, the molecules are still adhering to your butt and to the slide, but there are now bazillions more water molecules in between. The fluid dynamic of them sliding over each other, amplified by gravity pulling you downhill, overpowers the weak forces of cohesion and adhesion. | [
"This simple explanation is quite popular. There is, however, no evidence to show that increased pressure means increased friction and unless this is so, there can be no effect. Even if it does exist it must be quite insignificant compared with the gyroscopic and Coriolis drifts.\n",
", a single study has demonst... |
How do man made satellites avoid damage from the solar wind? | First of all, most of the radiation and charged particles in the solar wind are deflected by Earth's magnetic field so they don't reach the satellite.
For the stuff that still gets through, satellites are shielded with several layers of materials. I don't know all the techniques but for instance the most satellites have a thick aluminium case to prevent both ionizing radiation and meteorite impacts. There are also thin layers of gold sheets that absorb a lot of radiation (thanks to the high atomic number of gold).
Polyethylene is often used for manned missions as the high hydrogen content helps absorbing radiation as well.
Sources:
_URL_6_
_URL_4_
_URL_5_
[paper over-viewing the 1950-200 period](_URL_2_)
[shielding from debris impact](_URL_0_)
extra resource for settlement outside Earth (also have a look on the [rest of the pages](_URL_1_))
_URL_1_/Chapt4.html#Shielding | [
"BULLET::::- Space weather. All man-made satellite systems are subject to space weather and space debris threats. For example, a solar super-storm event composed of an extremely large and fast earthbound Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) could disable the geosynchronous or GPS satellite elements of WAAS.\n",
"Solar cel... |
how did the first explorers navigate the oceans? | Actually, stars were used to navigate in nearly every regard, including distance and location on sea. This is why stars and constellations have been categorized and named. The North Star was also very important as it was the “north” of traveling. Compasses, once invented, assisted this use of stars too. Stars were a literal lifesaver for navigators in the past. | [
"On \"Cartographer\", we imagine that these explorers were from the tiny island of Numa in the Southern Indian Ocean. As advanced seafarers, they navigated every corner of the Earth. We have created a language unique to them and tell stories through song that describe their creation, discoveries and ultimate demise... |
why trees produce different shapes/sizes of leaves. | A thing to remember about evolution (that I often see is either forgotten or never realized) is that so long as a trait works well enough, and doesn't kill an organism or weaken it to the point of applying direct evolutionary pressure, it will remain.
Leaves are a balance between energy expenditure (to grow) and energy production. Trial and error from mutation and different plant branches of the evolutionary tree will lead to variety. | [
"The shape and structure of leaves vary considerably from species to species of plant, depending largely on their adaptation to climate and available light, but also to other factors such as grazing animals (such as deer), available nutrients, and ecological competition from other plants. Considerable changes in le... |
Why is CO2 measured in tons if it is a gas? | Tonnes are a unit of mass. Gasses are matter and have mass. The mass of a certain amount is a constant. It will have the same mass at any temperature/pressure. The same cannot be said of volume, which deviates based on temperature and pressure. | [
"A kilogram of carbon, whether contained in petrol, diesel, kerosene, or any other hydrocarbon fuel in a vehicle, leads to approximately 3.6 kg of CO emissions. Due to the carbon content of gasoline, its combustion emits 2.3 kg/l (19.4 lb/US gal) of CO; since diesel fuel is more energy dense per unit volume, diesel... |
How did the Medici maintain control over Florence's electoral system during the 15th century? | Although some public offices were indeed assigned by lot, when these weren't ad-hoc positions like special judges or ambassadors they tended to be rapidly rotating, with tenures of around a month. Candidates were nonetheless pre-selected by the leaders of the various *Arti*; and here lay the power and influence of Cosimo.
In the city of Florence the major bourgeois professional associations, commonly referred to as the *Arti Maggiori* (roughly translatable as "Major Guilds") were the primary writers of laws, rules, and regulations. Each *Arte Maggiore elected a *Priore* who sat in a council called *Priorato delle Arti*, more colloquially referred to as *Signoria*, which was Florence's powerful executive body. Cosimo, through his great wealth and influence, was able to influence the leaders of the *Arti* directly, modifying their shortlist of candidates for the *Priorato*. Plus, the *Arti* and their leaders were associations of working artisans who made ample use of credit lines from the Medici bank; much like credit windows used by modern businesses to plug gaps between purchase of raw materials and sale of finished goods. Even when Cosimo was exiled from the city of Florence by the *Balìa*, a powerful ad-hoc intradepartmental committee of prominent politicians, it was only a matter of time until the *Priorato*'s rapid rotation meant his sympathizers (and debtors) were in the majority and reversed his sentence. Soon the *Balìa* too would be reconstituted and include a majority of Cosimo's allies.
Cosimo's good relations with the leaders of the *Arti*, tight control over the shortlist for important positions drawn by lot, and diversified investments and business interests, allowed him to pull the strings behind the scenes. The system wasn't perfect, nor did it allow for total control, but it was sufficiently effective that before long, foreign ambassadors, after a token appearance at the *Palazzo Vecchio*, went straight to Cosimo's home in the *Via Larga*. | [
"Florence had been under informal Medici control since 1434. During the War of the League of Cognac, the Florentines rebelled against the Medici, then represented by Ippolito de' Medici, and restored the freedom of their republic. Following the Republic's surrender in the Siege of Florence, Charles V, Holy Roman Em... |
How sure are historians about the US/CIA involvement of the 1973 coup in Chile? | I think what Devine is getting at is there is a difference between being directly behind a coup calling the shots and being in support of a coup and some of the events leading up to it.
As for the coup itself, Devine is correct that the coup was totally of the making of the Chilean military. There was no CIA puppet that was in charge during the coup. The US did not have advance knowledge of the exact date and time of the coup.
However, the US did help facilitate some of the conditions which made the coup possible. It is true that Allende's economic policies did produce problems for Chile but the economic debacle was helped along by financing the pots and pans marches and the truckers strike. The CIA allowed for popular discontent to physically come into being. Without CIA money, the marches and strike that were part of the military's calculation to launch the coup would not have happened. Without these events, it is hard to say whether the military would have acted.
In the end I think Devine makes an important distinction that some have forgotten. However, to claim that the US didn't have a large role in the 73 would be disingenuous at best. | [
"In the Chilean coup of 1973, Augusto Pinochet rose to power, overthrowing the democratically elected president Salvador Allende. A subsequent September 2000 report from the CIA, using declassified documents related to the military coup, found that the CIA \"probably appeared to condone\" the 1973 coup, but that th... |
how come warm water tastes so bad? | > cold actually suppresses 'bad actors' that alter (or add to) the taste of water. Any slight impurities or anything that could make the water taste a little 'off' is easier to taste when it's warm. Drink a shitty beer sometime at room temperature vs icy cold. You can drink just about any swill at 4 deg C, not so much at room temp.
_URL_0_ | [
"Some substances activate cold trigeminal receptors even when not at low temperatures. This \"fresh\" or \"minty\" sensation can be tasted in peppermint, spearmint, menthol, ethanol, and camphor. Caused by activation of the same mechanism that signals cold, TRPM8 ion channels on nerve cells, unlike the actual chang... |
if ebola is a virus, why can't we just make a vaccine out a weak or dead version of the virus like we do with other vaccines? | Many viruses mutate too quickly or have too many different strains to create an effective vaccine, since vaccines generally only work against the precise virus used in the vaccine. I don't know if that's the case for Ebola specifically, but it is for many other viral agents like HIV. | [
"A vaccine against a particular virus is relatively easy to create. The virus is foreign to the body, and therefore expresses antigens that the immune system can recognize. Furthermore, viruses usually only provide a few viable variants. By contrast, developing vaccines for viruses that mutate constantly such as in... |
offensive starbucks cups | We live in a society where people can somehow become a frenzied crowd offended by the most mundane things in life. | [
"Starbucks Corporation actually boosts the secondary market by creating mugs and cards that are regional. For instance, in 2013, there were regional cards only released in the city on the card. These included New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, and the first county card for Orang... |
why do people like to romanticize monarchies, but then look at dictatorships in the worst light possible? | There is no difference between an absolute monarchy and a dictatorship. Almost all surviving monarchies are Constitutional Monarchies with a firm democratic presence, where the monarch is little more than a figurehead or spiritual leader.
If you mean 'why do we romanticize them in literature', it's a simpler answer. The very worst people to place in charge of a country are the people who desire power. In romanticist literature, there is someone who does not desire power but upon whom power is thrust - a Good King, or Prince, or even Princess.
We like fictional Kings and Queens for the same reason that we like our superheroes to be the products of accident or birth. We view ambition with contempt, and want to believe that only those who do not desire power are fit to wield it. | [
"The International Monarchist League, founded in 1943, has always sought to promote monarchy on the grounds that it strengthens popular liberty, both in a democracy and in a dictatorship, because by definition the monarch is not beholden to politicians.\n",
"Monarchic dictatorships are regimes in which \"a person... |
why do tendons take so long to regrow even though they are non complex and completely internal so no need to get rid of bacteria? | They're very tough and dense, without any blood vessels within so it's really difficult to get nutrients where they're needed for the repair. | [
"Conversely, tendons that have lost their original strength due to extended periods of inactivity can regain most of their mechanical properties through gradual re-loading of the tendon, due to the tendon's response to mechanical loading. Biological signaling events initiate re-growth at the site, while mechanical ... |
Can an Oral Rehydration Solution like Pedialyte cure a hangover? | Rehydrating certainly helps, and so does replenishing lost nutrients. However, it's the breakdown of alcohol into acetaldehyde that gives you the nauseous feeling. I do like seeing the weekly Saturday mornings posts of this question. | [
"It also can be given intravenously as a source of bicarbonate for preventing or controlling mild to moderate metabolic acidosis in patients with restricted oral intake (for sodium bicarbonate) whose oxidative processes are not seriously impaired. However, the use in lactic acidosis is contraindicated. It can cause... |
What holds a chunk of an substance together? | When you pick up a solid chunk of iron or gold, it is primarily the electromagnetic force which maintains rigidity and volume. Additionally the Pauli exclusion principle (which disallows fermions such as electrons to occupy identical quantum states together) is essential to the stability of matter and prevents matter from collapsing into superdense lumps.
* Lieb, Elliott H. ["The stability of matter: from atoms to stars."](_URL_2_) Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 1991. 11-59.
* Lieb, Elliott H. ["The stability of matter."](_URL_0_) Reviews of Modern Physics 48.4 (1976): 553.
Both papers get pretty math-ey, but it is worth reading the introductory sections to both for the big picture argument.
> Why do they not just fuse into one piece of iron?
Metals often have oxidized coatings on their surfaces, essentially the chemical reaction potential is "spent" and the crust acts as a shield. In vacuum, metals will indeed fuse together. This is called [cold welding](_URL_1_) and it is an issue when designing spacecraft. | [
"In materials science, fragile matter is a granular material that is jammed solid. Everyday examples include beans getting stuck in a hopper in a whole food shop, or milk powder getting jammed in an upside-down bottle. The term was coined by physicist Michael Cates, who asserts that such circumstances warrant a new... |
Why do clouds stay in "puffs" rather than just diffusing out all over the sky? | I'm a meteorologist. Hopefully I haven't screwed this up but I'm a bit out of practice since I spend most of my time at work looking at satellite pictures, radar, and weather models. Not on the science.
I believe the simplest answer is that in these clouds, the rate at which water vapor mixes out of a cloud through turbulence is equal to or less than the rate water vapor is injected into it, through moist air entering it from below, then cooling and condensing. Unless it isn't, in which case it dissipates. This doesn't take into account rain, which also obviously robs a cloud of its moisture.
Now why moist air is injected from below into a cloud makes for a much, much longer answer. It's a huge chunk of the material I had to learn for my degree and for my job training.
One reason air may rise from the ground is because the airmass in that area has become unstable. This happens when the rate the atmosphere cools with height exceeds a certain rate. In a dry atmosphere this is about 10 degrees Celsius per kilometer. When you have these conditions an air parcel rising from the ground will cool more slowly than the surrounding air cools with height, meaning it becomes warmer and less dense than the surrounding air, meaning it will continue to want to rise.
Now, when one parcel of air rises, physics dictates that another parcel of air has to swoop in from somewhere to take it's place. So the atmosphere mixes, with some parcels moving upwards and others downward. Parcels will tend to move upwards in areas where the surface heats the most (more or less), and where the atmosphere will want to tend to become unstable first/the most. These preferentially heated areas are where cumulus clouds, the puffy ones, will form and sustain themselves.
Interestingly, when water condenses, heat is released, warming the air around it and making it less dense. This can cause a vicious cycle where air will become even more unstable and want to rise even further, which can allow for cumulonimbus, aka thunderstorms, to develop. It tends not to happen though, since the atmosphere is usually too stable at some layer of the atmosphere. Where the atmosphere is stable, a parcel rising will cool faster than the surrounding air cools, making it want to sink back to where it came from.
Another way for clouds to form is when one warm, less dense airmass moves overtop of a cold denser airmass. This happens along the warm front and these form nimbostratus, altostratus, cirrostratus and cirrus clouds.
There's other types of clouds too. Orographic clouds, where air is forced upwards over a mountain. About six or seven different kinds of fog which involve the air near the surface cooling and condensing in some way.
| [
"Scientists had initially dismissed the meteorological explanation of the clouds because the plumes only seemed to be unique to Bennett Island and not the other, similar islands, and because it was thought that the 1,000 foot high island was too low to generate orographic clouds. Orographic clouds normally form whe... |
why isn't mens clothing as skin-tight/revealing as womens clothing? | Oh my dear young person, you should have been around in the 60's, 70's and 80's. You could count the hairs on each testicle, the clothes were so tight ! | [
"Clothing designed to be worn by either sex is called unisex clothing. Unisex clothes, such as T-shirts, tend to be cut straighter to fit a wider variety of bodies. The majority of unisex clothing styles have started out as menswear, but some articles, like the fedora, were originally worn by women.\n",
"A form-f... |
What is this growing on the leaves? | Maple Mites or a form of little wasp. Eggs are laid then those bumps form around them to protect them.. think the bump is part of the leaf.
Harmless.. no need to really do anything.
_URL_0_ | [
"The thin, partially recurved, spreading leaves form a dense rosette at the growth head of adult plants. They are smooth, dull green, deeply grooved (U shaped in cross-section) and have reddish-brown margins and slightly hooked teeth.\n",
"The leaves are alternate, long and wide, stiff, yellow green and dull matt... |
If a deep sea fish was brought to sea level, would It explode because of lack of pressure? | It does not explode per se but it does incur fatal injuries. Most fish have air filled sacs in their bodies called swim bladders. Fish can change the amount of air in them (slowly) to change their buoyancy. If you bring a deep fish up to fast they don't have time to regulate the amount of air in the sac, under less pressure, the air in the sac expands. This squishes their internal organs, makes their eyes bulge out and even the sac can protrude from the mouth. Putting the fish back in water does little to help it - its as good as dead. So if you bring a fish up and it looks like this it IS IN A LOT OF PAIN. please, just kill it quickly.
| [
"Most fish that have evolved in this harsh environment are not capable of surviving in laboratory conditions, and attempts to keep them in captivity have led to their deaths. Deep-sea organisms contain gas-filled spaces (vacuoles). Gas is compressed under high pressure and expands under low pressure. Because of thi... |
When we say that a mathematical problem has no analytical solution, is that due to our limited knowledge of math and it may be possible to find an analytical solution in the future, or do we know them to be completely unsolvable? | There might be cases of both. For example polynomial equations of order 5 or higher have been shown to be without analytical solutions in general.
Other problems however might have analytical solutions that noone has found yet, but I believe this is the minority of problems. | [
"With more complicated equations in real or complex numbers, simple methods to solve equations can fail. Often, root-finding algorithms like the Newton–Raphson method can be used to find a numerical solution to an equation, which, for some applications, can be entirely sufficient to solve some problem.\n",
"Not o... |
I've heard that the mobilization of the country and the transition to a war economy at the outbreak of WWII is what ended the Great Depression, how much truth is there to that? | If you look at the literature on the Great Depression, you will find that economists and economic historians cannot agree on why the recession began or ended. This may seem a bit odd, since it seems that history based on hard facts that can be measured in interest rates, GDP per capita, stock values, etc., would be more concrete than other areas of historical research, but it is simply not the case. Instead, it seems that the economy cannot be explained by mathematical models, no matter how much we wish that it could be. This is most clear in explanations of the *causes* of the Great Depression (an area of considerably greater research). The so-called monetarists such as Milton Friedman argue that policymakers could have avoided the Great Depression by increasing the money supply and mitigating deflation; the so-called Keynesians, such as John Maynard Keynes himself, argue that policymakers could have avoided the Great Depression by increasing government expenditures at the outset of the recession. Some economists argue that restrictions on trade aimed at protecting domestic industries at the start of the recession are what made the depression "great"; others argue that this had little effect. These are considered mainstream in economics today, but the list goes on.
Scholars do not agree on what ended the Great Depression either. Some say that the New Deal would have ended the Great Depression and that the Second World War only accelerated FDR's recover. Similarly, others argue that increased government expenditure at the outset of the war ended the depression (both ideas highlight government expenditure or "fiscal policy," in economics lingo). Others argue that fiscal policy did not directly improve the economy and that the recovery was "natural," i.e., that it was poised to happen anyway as a natural part of the business cycle and that fiscal policy, where it did play a role, was only a catalyst. In this view, the Second World War may have sped up the end of the Great Depression, but it was not an essential cause. Some economists, such as Christina Romer, argue that, just as a retraction in the money supply *caused* the Great Depression, an increase in the money supply in the United States that resulted from gold inflows (something which has evaded the popular memory, which focuses more on the direct actions of governments) ended the Great Depression. According to this interpretation, neither fiscal policy *nor* the Second World War played a decisive role in ending the Great Depression (at least in the United States).
In all seriousness, if someone else comes behind me and points to one cause of the end of the Great Depression, I will find you a paper written by a major economist published in a major journal that contradicts their claim. This is the nature of the field of history, of course, but in this case it seems especially striking to me because these papers are based on objective, numerical data. And while the consensus is that the outbreak of the Second World War ended the Great Depression, I think that the most honest approach for a historian would be to admit that the "truth" is unknowable and that we will all implant our modern political philosophies into our interpretations. The politics surrounding the Great Depression are, ironically I think, much easier to understand, because they were created by people with perceptions and ideologies that they could articulate. The economy articulates no such theories or agendas. | [
"On the home front, mobilization of the U.S. economy was managed by Roosevelt's War Production Board. The wartime production boom led to full employment, wiping out this vestige of the Great Depression. Indeed, labor shortages encouraged industry to look for new sources of workers, finding new roles for women and b... |
why do people go to private universities in the united states | It's usually not about religion. I can think of four typical reasons. First, private universities often advertise having better student/teacher ratios, meaning smaller classes and more individual attention. Second, some private universities have very strong alumni networks, which may give graduates better career opportunities after graduation. Third, private universities are often more attractive and have nicer (often more intimate) campuses.
The final reason is probably the most significant: it's relatively easy to get (non-dischargeable) loans for higher education, and teenagers often have little understanding of debt and the consequences of spending $100,000 on a B.A. degree.
One final thing to point out: public universities in the U.S. aren't that cheap anymore. Undergraduate tuition at UC Berkeley is over $15,000 per year, and that's if you're a California resident. If you're from another state, you're looking at nearly $40,000 per year. Remember, public universities are only really "public" if you're from the same state. And if you're from a state that doesn't have a good public university system, then you're out of luck. | [
"In the US, many universities and colleges are private, mostly operating as educational and research nonprofit organizations, while there are also for-profit universities. About 20% of American college students attend private colleges. Most of the remainder attend state-supported schools.\n",
"Private universitie... |
Does an amputee's necessary daily caloric intake lower? What about a paraplegic? | If they live a similar enough lifestyle as a normal person an amputees necessary caloric intake would lower as there would be less tissue that they need to supply energy and nutrients for. A paraplegic may experience a milder version of this as the tissue is still there and must therefore be supplied with nutrients and energy to stay alive, and most of the work originally done by the legs must be taken over by the hands but over time muscles atrophy and there is essentially less tissue that needs to be supplied with energy. (I am using energy and nutrients interchangeably here as they are very closely related).
EDIT: I should clarify that I based this as if there are no variables in energy used per cell following amputation or prosthesis usage. There would obviously be changes in energy usage in certain parts in an amputee or paraplegic, prosthesis/wheelchair or not but I don't know enough specifics to calculate or speak to that level. | [
"Creatine monohydrate could also be helpful for AMPD patients, as it provides an alternative source of energy for anaerobic muscle tissue and was found to be helpful in the treatment of other, unrelated muscular myopathies.\n",
"Amphetamine is a stimulant that has been found to improve both physical and cognitive... |
programming, how does it differ between different architectures? | It varies between different programming languages and compilers. Anyway, this sub really isn't this place for this kind of questions. Try /r/Programming or /r/learnprogramming. | [
"According to developer Eric Sink, the differences between system design, software development, and programming are more apparent. Already in the current market place there can be found a segregation between programmers and developers, in that one who implements is not the same as the one who designs the class stru... |
why is it that if you refresh/go back/etc. on some websites it will save information you entered but not on others? | It all depends on the site but it has to do with cookies. Cookies are temporary stored information that are saved within the web browser. Some sites make it so if you’re on a certain page (like a sign up one) it will save the information that was assumed entered correctly. It’s mostly used for convenience but when sites don’t use it, it’s because it can be a security risk. | [
"Although this particular instance of the data has become inaccessible, it's important to note that the information can always be saved by other means before expiration (copied, or even via screen shots) and published again.\n",
"The means by which a user can stop pages being recorded, and delete records of previ... |
What are some of the earliest beverages we know of besides water? | The oldest non-water beverage is probably milk, as humans have been drinking the milk of other animals since we first domesticated them during the Neolithic period.
The oldest alcoholic beverage, on the other hand is a subject of debate. Some say it's mead, others that it's a fruit-based alcohol, while others maintain that it's beer. According to chemical tests performed on pottery from ancient Persia, beer dates back to at least 3500 BCE. It's mentioned in the [Ebla tablets](_URL_0_), the Epic of Gilgamesh states that as Enkidu "...drank seven pitchers of beer, his heart grew light, his face glowed and he sang out with joy," and the Code of Hammurabi contained regulations for taverns. | [
"Professor McGovern explains: “The earliest chemically confirmed alcoholic beverage in the world was discovered at Jiahu in the Yellow River Valley of China (Henan province), ca. 7000-6600 B.C. (Early Neolithic Period). It was an extreme fermented beverage made of wild grapes (the earliest attested use), hawthorn, ... |
why does google offer so many services for free? | If you are not the customer you are the product.
Google makes tons of money from ads, the more they know about you the better they can target the ads you see. The more things you do with them or through them the more they know about you. | [
"Google Free Zone was a global initiative undertaken by the Internet company Google in collaboration with mobile phone-based Internet providers, whereby the providers waive data (bandwidth) charges (also known as \"zero-rate\") for accessing select Google products such as Google Search, Gmail, and Google+. In order... |
When and why did the acceptance of "ethnic descriptions" change within those ethnic groups in the U.S.? | In many cases, these were labels created and applied by the majority upon the minority, who had no say in the matter and were not asked. Or at least this is how those minorities perceived it.
In the case of Asian-Americans and the term “Oriental,” this happened after the Civil Rights movement, since large waves of Asian immigrants only came after the change in immigration laws in 1965. Writing in 1989, Ronald Takaki, in [Strangers from a Different Shore](_URL_0_), writes how younger Asian-Americans were thinking about this at the time:
"Today, young Asian Americans want to listen to these stories--to shatter images of themselves and their ancestors as "strangers" and to understand who they are as Asian Americans. [...] They want to know what is their history and "what is the movies." They want to trace the origins of terms applied to them. "Why are we called 'Oriental'?" they question, resenting the appellation that has identified Asians as exotic, mysterious, strange, and foreign. [...] Who decided what names would be given to the different regions and peoples of the world?"
In the case of Latinos, during the Civil Rights movement, Chicanos in the South-West began objecting to the term "Hispanic," which they also felt was being imposed upon them without their say in the matter. They especially disliked the fact that it identified them as having to do with Spain, while they themselves showed pride in their indigenous roots and their mestizo nature. Today, however, this all depends upon region and age. In most of the country, Latinos don’t really care if they are called “Latino” or “Hispanic.” Many actually prefer “Hispanic.” And lots of others prefer to be called from the country of their ancestors, e.g. “Mexican-American.”
Other changes such as “Frenchman” to “French,” probably just has to do with language change, with the former just sounding old-fashioned.
| [
"Demographers state that, due to new waves of immigration, the American people through the early 20th century were mostly multi-ethnic descendants of various immigrant nationalities, who maintained cultural distinctiveness until, over time, assimilation, migration and integration took place. The Civil Rights Moveme... |
History teacher needs help - First Bank of the United States. | Basically, the idea was to solve the problems with the previous fiat currency, the Continental, which had been printed into oblivion, and also to solve the inconvertibility problems -- with so many state and private banks issuing paper, you couldn't necessarily use paper from one bank somewhere else. By having a unified currency, the paper would be convertible everywhere in the U.S. That's probably the easiest facet of it to explain to school-aged children.
The other goals were to establish credit and raise money for the United States as a whole and to pay off the war debts from 1776, since by that point probably no one was accepting Continentals. This is probably harder to explain to young scholars. Most of them have no concept of inflation, so it's nearly impossible to explain the fun government trick of inflating its way out of (part of) its debt.
One thing you can do in that class situation is to highlight to constitutional issues and the opposition from Jefferson and Madison. A debate assigning some of the class to Jefferson's school and some to Hamilton's school may lead the class to doing enough research and conversation to learn the subject thoroughly with little aid on your part. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Legislative and Documentary History of the Bank of the United States: Including the Original Bank of North America\", by Matthew St. Clair Clarke and David A. Hall. This collection of documents was aimed to include the entire proceedings, debates, and resolutions of Congress relating to the Bank of N... |
the differences between heavy cream, whipping cream, evaporated milk, half-and-half, etc. | milk is quite a fatty substance. they're healthy fats though. whole milk is mostly as it is when it comes out the cow, except it's boiled and homogenized. homogenization is blending it so that it doesnt separate like it would naturally do.
cream comes out of the cow at the same time as the milk. heavy or double cream is just that. when it has a high percentage of butter fats in it, it's suitable for whipping. whipped cream is simply made by bashing air into little fat pockets. if you keep beating it for long enough, you get butter.
the cream that doesnt have the right percentage of butterfat in it to whip, is used for half and half. that's half cream and half milk.
evaporated milk is just that. the water's been evaporated and it's been sterilized so it can last a lot longer. condensed milk is basically very similar but with a lot of added sugar, which increases it's shelflife.
recipes..there's hundreds. they mostly add a touch of luxury and smoothness to whatever you're making. thicker cream is better when you want to use just a extra little liquid for that purpose, thinner cream when volume doesnt matter so much, and spreading it out is more important.
source: dad's a dairyfarmer. | [
"Upon standing for 12 to 24 hours, fresh milk has a tendency to separate into a high-fat cream layer on top of a larger, low-fat milk layer. The cream often is sold as a separate product with its own uses. Today the separation of the cream from the milk usually is accomplished rapidly in centrifugal cream separator... |
why are the senate and house so different? | The main reason is that the entire house is elected every two years (such as today), but only 1/3 of the senate is elected.
So it's not that the senate "went red" it's that most of the senate seats that were up for reelection were democratic seats, so it was very difficult for them to have not only held their seats but taken over republican seats. 65 senate seats weren't up in this election, of those 42 were republican. So the worst technically possible outcome for republicans was a 42-58 split.
Also, the house has seats based on population, so big states will have more seats. But the senate has two seats per state regardless of size. Low population states tend to be republican due to being more rural, and so rural areas (and so republican areas) tend to have more republicans. | [
"The Senate is widely considered both a more deliberative and more prestigious body than the House of Representatives due to its longer terms, smaller size, and statewide constituencies, which historically led to a more collegial and less partisan atmosphere. The presiding officer of the Senate is the vice presiden... |
different kinds of therapies (cognitive, behavioral, etc). | Cognitive therapy aims to change your thinking processes so that you can rationalise problems and anxieties better. Behavioural therapy aims to change your actions to break out of a cycle or get into a better routine and making you feel better/more productive as a result. Therapists are trained in both and choose which one to focus on based on what they think the client would benefit from most. | [
"The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (formerly the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy) is for those with a more cognitive orientation. The ABCT also has an interest group in behavior analysis, which focuses on clinical behavior analysis. In addition, the Association for Behaviora... |
would a "universal basic income" lead to communism? | Basic income was advocated for by Milton Friedman; after Adam Smith, he's probably the most influential free market economist.
Communism has nothing to do with basic income, which is completely compatible with capitalism. Communist is an economic system in which all property is communally owned and manufacturing depends on need rather than profit. Basic income is a policy in which all people are given a small amount of money to ensure they have just enough to live on. | [
"By the beginning of the 21st century, capitalism had become the pervasive economic system worldwide. The collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991 significantly reduced the influence of Socialism as an alternative economic system. Socialist movements continue to be influential in some parts of the world, most notably La... |
Does Quantum Mechanics Allow for the Possibility of Different Eventualities? | This is a very good and deep question. The short answer is -- we don't know. I know this is shocking for such a basic question so let me explain:
The Schrodinger Equation governs the evolution of the universe in terms of a wave function and it is completely deterministic (and reversible to boot). But according to the Copenhagen Interpretation (the dominant "interpretation" of quantum mechanics), the wave function collapses upon observation in a completely nondeterministic way -- aka God playing dice with the universe. Now what is an observation and who is qualified as an observer to cause such collapse? These are difficult questions and the Copenhagen Interpretation struggles with these.
There are many other interpretations but one notable one for your question is the Everett Interpretation which is completely deterministic. Everett says that wave function collapse is an illusion and that in reality it is simply the observer getting entangled with the observed. This is a very elegant and mathematically beautiful resolution of what we see. However, the consequence is that at every moment the universe is splitting into huge numbers of "worlds" ... hence this later came to be called the many-world interpretation. According to this, from an observer vantage point it appears that things happen randomly, but in reality all possibilities are happening so there is no actual randomness.
In summary, we are stuck between a couple of possibilities. One brings with it a certain inelegance and capricious arbitrariness to the universe with wave function collapse. The other requires us to accept an enormous number of parallel worlds. There are many other theories too but I hope this gives a flavor of why your question is very deep and the answer is still unknown.
For all practical purposes, the Copenhagen Interpretation works on a day to day basis. So perhaps it's simplest to just accept that the universe is random. It's just that we don't know if that is really true under the hood ...
| [
"A primer on quantum mechanics (such as from David J. Griffiths' \"Introduction to Quantum Mechanics\") suggests that the very notion of having a molecule choose a state over all others purely based on an exterior system, with no simultaneous effects on said molecule, is completely contrary to how quantum mechanics... |
Is it possible for the neurological effects of autism to wear off as a person gets older? If so, how? | Typically improvements in symptoms are seen through skill acquisition. If a child (or adult) with ASD has great parents and/or professionals in their life they can learn to mitigate many of the impairing effects of Autism.
Wear off probably isn't quite the right term however, because on the flip side a person with ASD can tend towards isolation and repetition which puts people at high risk of worsening symptoms over time and as they get older.
Sauces: psychologist and work with people with ASD | [
"Some studies have reported diagnoses of autism in children due to a loss of language or social skills, as opposed to a failure to make progress, typically from 15 to 30 months of age. The validity of this distinction remains controversial; it is possible that regressive autism is a specific subtype, or that there ... |
How would a graviton enact an interaction with a photon near a black hole? | > But I had a question regarding how photons would be pulled into a black holes event horizon if the speculated gravitons max speed is c.
It really has nothing to do with it. How photons are pulled into a black hole is fully described by general relativity. You don't need quantum gravity for it. And your question is likely based off of a misunderstanding that gravity on the quantum level works by sending gravitons back and forth between particles. That is not the case. It is also not the case that charges attract and repel each other by sending photons back and forth. This is often repeated in popscience but false. It's just not how quantum field theory works, or it's a butchered version of quantum field theory at best (see _URL_0_ - so butchered and widespread that this is the third time I'm posting this link today alone).
So in short, there is no need for a gravitons to be able to "catch up with" a photon to affect it gravitationally. | [
"The photon sphere is a spherical boundary of zero thickness in which photons that move on tangents to that sphere would be trapped in a circular orbit about the black hole. For non-rotating black holes, the photon sphere has a radius 1.5 times the Schwarzschild radius. Their orbits would be dynamically unstable, h... |
What was British gun culture like in the 1950s? | Have not seen that film, but were these BB guns or actual firearms? | [
"Like British gun culture, Canadian gun culture is also largely represented by sport-shooting and hunting and less on self-defense. Sport-shooting has always been a popular activity for both gun-owners and non-gun-owners in Canada. It is also a bridge and a leeway between American and British attitudes towards fire... |
Can you see LADEE pass over the moon from Earth? | Short answer: no
LADEE is a small spacecraft, it's only 2.37m high and if it were visible then so should all the other spacecraft there now as well, including the Apollo descent stages, lunar rovers, debris etc. Even Hubble wouldn't be able to make it out. | [
"Lovell is one of only three men to travel to the Moon twice, but unlike John Young and Eugene Cernan, he never walked on it. He accrued over 715 hours, and had seen a total of 269 sunrises from space, on his Gemini and Apollo flights. This was a personal record that stood until the Skylab 3 mission in July through... |
why and how does full moon affect tides? how is full moon any different to the other stages of the moon? | Because the sun also affects the tides as well. When the moon is full (or new), the Moon, Earth, and Sun are all lined up, meaning the gravitational effect the Sun and Moon have on the tides are combined and at full strength. These are called ~~"neap"~~ "spring" tides.
This is contrasted when the Moon, Earth, and Sun form a 90 degree angle (First or third quarter) and the Sun and Moon's gravitational pull work against each other. | [
"Scientists have confirmed that the combined effect of the Sun and Moon on the Earth's oceans, the tide, is when the Moon is either new or full. and that during lunar perigee, the tidal force is somewhat stronger, resulting in perigean spring tides. However, even at its most powerful, this force is still relatively... |
Do bugs shiver when cold? | Shivering is reflex of warm blooded mammals such as ourselves to produce more body heat when we are losing too much of it to the environment. Insects do not maintain a constant body temperature. Their physical activity is limited by the environment they are in. I remember Evan Rachel Wood describing filming certain scenes in the re-imagined Westworld where a fly "co-star" was first chilled to make it essentially go to sleep before being applied to her skin. As the ambient heat of the surrounding air and her skin warms the bug up, it then appears to come to life and starts crawling around her face. The crazy things people do for their art... | [
"The chill-coma temperature in relation to flying insects is the temperature at which flight muscles cannot be activated. Compared to honey bees and carpenter bees, bumblebees have the lowest chill-coma temperature. Of the bumblebees \"Bombus bimaculatus\" has the lowest at . However, bumblebees have been seen to f... |
microwave background & the temperature of the big bang | Well we can do one of those things. By the expansion of the universe, even light expands (goes to a longer wavelength). Longer wavelength - > lower energy, so it's as if the temperature of the stuff emitting the light was colder. Right now the light looks as if it was emitted by a 2.75 Kelvin object (pretty darned cold). But when we correct for the expansion of the universe, it would have been about 4000 Kelvin. What had happened at around that temperature: Hotter than that (previously) the universe was a plasma, a gas so hot where the electrons couldn't stay bound to the nuclei. Since there are free charged particles floating about, the material is opaque to the transmission of light. But then about 300000 years into the universe's existence, the universe has cooled enough that the plasma cools into a gas. Now electrons can stay bound around nuclei (largely hydrogen and helium). Since the gas is now neutral particles, atoms, light can freely travel again. This is known as [recombination](_URL_0_) | [
"The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the thermal radiation assumed to be left over from the \"Big Bang\" of cosmology. The CMB is a snapshot of the oldest light in our universe, imprinted on the sky when the universe was just 380,000 years old. It shows tiny temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions ... |
Does honey production/consumption help or harm the bee population? | Not sure if there is a good conclusive scientific answer, grounded in reliable data, to this question. It might be context sensitive. I've read reports that in London, at least, the "grass roots" effort to help the bees [are doing more harm than good](_URL_0_). But then, there is also [this](_URL_1_), touting how bees in urban environments benefit from more abundant resources. Not sure if honey consumption (or bee products in general, ie beeswax lip balm, candles, soaps, etc.) or other commercial impingement has as big of an impact as you assume. I live in California, where lately, bees have been in the news because almond growers here are desperate to get sufficient pollination of their crops. If anything, a perfectly efficient economy would see honey prices drop due to over supply. | [
"With that said, honeybees perform some level of pollination of nearly 75% of all plant species directly used for human food worldwide. Catastrophic loss of honeybees could have significant impact, therefore; it is estimated that seven out of the 60 major agricultural crops in North American economy would be lost, ... |
how come a mother's mother is called a grandmother, but a mother's aunt is called a great aunt and not a grand aunt? | according to [this source](_URL_0_) Grand aunt is also acceptable. In this case grand and great are synonymous but grand is derived from French where great is derived from Old English | [
"A great-aunt or grandaunt(sometimes written grand-aunt) is the sister of one's grandparent. A half-great-aunt or half-grandaunt is the half-sister of one's grandparent. A great-aunt-in-law or grandaunt-in-law is the wife of one's great-uncle or granduncle (brother of one's grandparent). A great-aunt-in-law or gran... |
why aren't polygamist rights treated similarly to gay rights? | Polygamy is a far more complicated change - to make polygamy work, you have to rewrite every law about what a marriage is, what the rights connected to it are, and so on.
For example, if A, B and C are all married to each other, what happens when they divorce? Does each get 1/3 of the household income paid to them in alimony? What if C wants to divorce B but stay with A? What if C wants to marry D as well as A and B, but B doesn't want to marry D?
Who gets the visitation rights in hospital? Or healthcare benefits? Or child custody? How do you tax them?
With gay marriage, all you're doing is changing the list of people who can get married, you're not changing the nature of the legal relationship as you would if you add more than two parties.
Note, that doesn't mean that we _shouldn't_ do it, or that it's morally wrong or right to have polygamous marriage, only that it's not the same as allowing gay marriage and it's much harder to actually implement the changes. | [
"Opposition to same-sex marriage is based on claims such as that homosexuality is unnatural and abnormal, that the recognition of same-sex unions will promote homosexuality in society, and that children are better off when raised by opposite-sex couples. These claims are refuted by science, which shows that sexual ... |
What did people in the far north do during the winter darkness before electric lighting? | They used open flame for lighting, in lanterns, candles, torches etc. To save more expensive candles one could burn shingles in a contraption like [this.](_URL_0_) | [
"The Stewarts usually wintered abroad to escape the worst of the Scottish winter. Murdostoun was the first house in Scotland to receive electric lighting in September 1882. The electricity was generated by a steam powered generator. They acquired a motorcar in 1908 and the telephone was installed in 1910.\n",
"In... |
How did the early hominids leave Africa? | On foot - you can cross from Africa to Asia on foot in Egypt, or at least, you could before the Suez Canal was built. No swimming necessary.
It was also a gradual, multi-generational spread, not a single group moving from Egypt to Siberia in a decade or anything. | [
"Until the 1980s, scientists assumed that hominins had been restricted to the African continent for the whole of the Early Pleistocene (until about 0.8 Ma), only migrating out during a phase named Out of Africa I. Thus, the vast majority of archaeological effort was disproportionately focused on Africa. The Dmanisi... |
What are the most reliable statistics we have regarding arrests and executions during the Stalin era? | Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence
J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov
The American Historical Review
Vol. 98, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 1017-1049
_URL_0_ | [
"Official figures put the total number of documentable executions during the years 1937 and 1938 at 681,692, whereas the total estimate of deaths brought about by Soviet repression during the Great Purge ranges from 950,000 to 1.2 million, which includes executions, deaths in detention and those who died shortly af... |
the hierarchy of the catholic church: pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, deacons | This is going to be confusing -- >
From the bottom up:
* Deacon: A deacon is some Joe Smoe who was trained to read the bible, and preform mass. Usualy only for rural places where a priest isn't always available.
* Priest: Front line of the church. Preforms mass, confers **most** sacraments (eucharist, marriage, baptism, reconciliation, anointing of the sick. Must have a masters in theology and go through a "training program" with the church
* Bishop: the bishop is the "commander" of the priests in his dioceses. They report to him. The bishop leads mass in a cathedral, and can confer **all** the sacraments. (There are seven, the bishop can confer Holy Orders and Conformation while a priest cannot) A short list of possible candidates is maintained by bishops in the area, and it is sent to the Apostolic Nuncio, who picks who he thinks is the best 3 candidates(or rejects them all, and tells them to start over). That is then sent to the Vatican council who selects one(or tells the apostolic nuncio to start over)
* Cardinal: Bishop with more to do. They technically aren't hirer than bishops (and Bishops do NOT report to cardinals), but pretty much are. They reside in there cathedrals around the world, but travel to the Vatican to vote in the Vatican Council. This is the body that elects the new pope. To become a Cardinal, the current pope needs to appoint you as one.
* The Pope: His Holiness is the head of the Catholic Church. Literately his word it Theological Law. The Pope is elected by the Vatican Council, with some ridiculous electing rules i don't care to get into.
[CGP Grey's *How to Become Pope*](_URL_0_) is the best explication for not reading
Source: I teach CCD | [
"Ordained clergy in the Roman Catholic Church are either deacons, priests, or bishops belonging to the diaconate, the presbyterate, or the episcopate, respectively. Among bishops, some are metropolitans, archbishops, or patriarchs. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, the supreme and universal hierarch of the Church, an... |
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