question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Why does my voice tend to go higher around new company or in formal situations? | Higher pitched voices are often perceived as less threatening. So it is a way of reassuring new people you are not a threat. It could also be the excitement of meeting a new person being expressed as a higher pitch. | [
"Deep voice privilege, an idea in sociology and psychology, is the privilege that a man gains from having a deeper speaking voice. According to one study, there is a correlation between voice pitch, CEO salary, and size of firm that the CEO runs.\n",
"The ability and right to a voice is linked with feelings of re... |
Is it possible to cryogenically freeze an entire ovary to save the eggs for later? | I don't believe we've reached a point where we can 'revive' tissue after cryopreservation. In the case of gametes and embryos, special freezing media is required to protect them from cold shock and freezing damage. Cryoprotectants such as low density lipoproteins and glycerol stabilise the plasma membrane during chilli... | [
"Cryopreservation in humans with regards to infertility involves preservation of embryos, sperm, or oocytes via freezing. Conception, \"in vitro\", is attempted when the sperm is thawed and introduced to the 'fresh' eggs, the frozen eggs are thawed and sperm is placed with the eggs and together they are placed back... |
how do we know that pet euthanasia is truly painless? | First, I'm sorry to hear you're going through this. It's the absolute worst part of owning a pet.
To answer your question, though, pet euthanasia is essentially done with a large dose of anesthesia. Have you ever had surgery? It's the same process, but with an alternative end. The feeling you felt while being put unde... | [
"People deal with their unwanted pets in many ways. Some people have the pet euthanized (also known as \"putting it down\" or \"putting it to sleep\"), although many veterinarians do not consider this to be an ethical use of their resources for young and healthy animals, while others argue that euthanasia is a more... |
Why not send a drone to Mars that can recharge with solar panels? | NASA is considering the possibility of a helicopter drone for a future Mars mission. You can read about this [from NASA](_URL_3_), as well as some articles on others sites, such as [this](http://www._URL_0_/28360-nasa-mars-helicopter-drone.html) (from _URL_0_) and [this](https://www._URL_1_/extreme/229937-nasa-testing... | [
"Although spacecraft are protected by Whipple shields, solar panels, which are exposed to the Sun, wear from low-mass impacts. These produce a cloud of plasma which is an electrical risk to the panels.\n",
"Even at a destination, the SEP system can be configured to provide power to maintain the systems or prevent... |
Conspiracy people claim the Apollo Astronauts would have been killed by radiation outside of the protection of the Van Allen Belt. How much of this is pseudo science? | Well all of it. Apollo 11 that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was deliberately launched from the descending node of the geomagnetic plane specifically so that it would be almost completely out of reach of the Van Allen Belts by the time it was far enough away from the Earth to no longer be protected. The trajec... | [
"Reliable projections for CNS risks from space radiation exposure cannot be made at this time due to a paucity of data on the subject. Existing animal and cellular data do suggest that space radiation can produce neurological and behavioral effects; therefore, it is possible that mission operations will be impacted... |
how does the body store water? | It gets absorbed and distributed throughout all your cells within your body. It's not really stored anywhere, but when your cells are at a nice hydrated state, any access water that enters your body will go to your bladder, which is why the more water you drink, the clearer, or more like water, your urine gets. | [
"Water is found both inside and outside the body’s cells. It forms part of the blood, helping to carry the blood cells around the body and keeping oxygen and important nutrients in solution so that they can be taken up by tissues such as glands, bone and muscle. Even the organs and muscles are mostly water.\n",
"... |
Why did Japan and South Korea turn into a democratic state with little corruption but other East Asian countries did not? | I don't think that the premise of this question (that Japan and South Korea have avoided corruption, unlike the rest of East Asia) really holds up. If you look at the Economist's [Democracy Index](_URL_0_), and Transparency International's [Corruption Perceptions Index](_URL_1_), you'll find that things are a little mo... | [
"However, the Joseon dynasty court which ruled Korea was well aware of the displacement of the traditional ruling classes of China as a result of the First and the Second Opium Wars, and maintained a strict policy of isolationism forbidding any of those they ruled to trade with the outside world to avoid a similar ... |
dual citizenship | Some countries allow dual citizenships but there are some countries which do not allow it. And then there are some countries which are very vague if they allow it or not.
> Are you responsible for both nation's laws?
As a citizen or non-citizen, you are always responsible for any country's laws. And ignorance is ne... | [
"Based on the U.S. Department of State regulation on dual citizenship (7 FAM 082), the Supreme Court of the United States has stated that dual citizenship is a \"status long recognized in the law\" and that \"a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilitie... |
what is standard error and confidence interval? | Both answers so far have been laymen's guesses at what are specific terms.
Standard Error is an estimate, normally of the standard deviation from the mean of a population based on a sample. It's estimated by dividing the standard deviation of the sample by the square root of the sample size.
If you have a population ... | [
"A very common error that arises from the construction of a confidence interval is the belief that the level of confidence such as formula_67 means 95% chance. This is incorrect. The level of confidence is based on a measure of certainty, not probability. Hence, the values of formula_68 fall between 0 and 1, exclus... |
physiologically speaking, how do falls from heights kill people? | Its not the fall that kills you, its the sudden deceleration at the end.
So your body is tough, but its not unbreakable. Hitting concrete at 120 miles per hour (roughly terminal velocity for a human I believe) is a lot of force.
So your bones are breaking into pieces which is going to wreck, rip and tear all sorts ... | [
"According to the HSE “Falls from height are one of the biggest causes of workplace fatalities and major injuries. Common causes are falls from ladders and through fragile roofs. The purpose of WAHR is to prevent death and injury from a fall from height.\"\n",
"Falling from height in the workplace accounts for ne... |
how do microchips know time? | Crystal oscillators
[Wikipedia](_URL_1_)
> A crystal oscillator is an electronic oscillator circuit that uses the mechanical resonance of a vibrating crystal of piezoelectric material to create an electrical signal with a very precise frequency. This frequency is commonly used to keep track of time (as in quartz wrist... | [
"Time capture is the concept of making sense of time-related data based on timestamps generated by system software. Software that run on PCs and other digital devices rely on internal software clocks to generate timestamps. In turn, these timestamps serve as the basis for representing when an event has occurred (i.... |
Does light and sound truly travel in a wave-like manner as we draw it (sine wave), or is the pattern of travel misrepresented by our pictures of the sine wave and the actual travel motion something different? | No, they don't 'travel' in a sine wave. Rather, if you take a sound wave, and you measure the air pressure along its path, you'll notice that you will measure a sine wave in pressure.
Similarly, for light, if you measure the electric field along the path of light, you will measure a sine wave. | [
"For example, when a wave travels through an anisotropic medium, such as light waves through an asymmetric crystal or sound waves through a sedimentary rock, the wave vector may not point exactly in the direction of wave propagation.\n",
"Associated with propagation of a disturbance are several different velociti... |
what processes or treatments are performed upon meat to classify it as a carcinogen according to the who study? what can i look for on the nutrition facts label to determine whether it's relatively safe? | The most recent one (about processed or red meat like bacon, sausage, and steak) is actually a report based on over 800 independent studies they've aggregated the information on.
The methods vary, but the results show that consumption of those products leads to an increased cancer risk, thus they are "carcinogens". Th... | [
"There are concerns about a relationship between the consumption of meat, in particular processed and red meat, and increased cancer risk. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a specialized agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), classified processed meat (e.g., bacon, ham, hot dogs, sausa... |
How did walled cities deal with urban sprawl when walls were critical for city defense? | In the case of Rome, they would just build a new, larger wall around the city. It is important to note that city walls were huge undertakings that were extremely costly, so usually walls were only built when it was believed that the cost of not building a wall would exceed the cost of building one. By the time gunpowde... | [
"In the wake of city growth and the ensuing change of defensive strategy, focusing more on the defense of forts around cities, many city walls were demolished. Also, the invention of gunpowder rendered walls less effective, as siege cannons could then be used to blast through walls, allowing armies to simply march ... |
Do people transitioning through HRT experience changes in muscle tone and physical ability? | I am unaware of any studies specifically about muscle tone in transgender people, if anyone knows about them I'd love to read up on them.
In terms of policy, the International Olympics Committee recognizes that hormone replacement therapy significantly alters an athlete's abilities. Transgender people who have been on... | [
"The psychological changes are harder to define, since HRT is usually the first physical action that takes place when transitioning. This fact alone has a significant psychological impact, which is hard to distinguish from hormonally induced changes. Most trans men report an increase of energy and an increased sex ... |
is there really a difference between large tv screens and computer screens anymore? | Many TVs actually have post-processing in order to make their picture look better than similar competitors. This software causes slight input lag that may not be noticeable for some, but with PC gamers it can be noticeable.
| [
"Recently \"widescreen\" has spread from television to computing where both desktop and laptop computers are commonly equipped with widescreen displays. There are some complaints about distortions of movie picture ratio due to some DVD playback software not taking account of aspect ratios; but this may subside as t... |
Why does drinking whiskey help my throat when it is sore? | When you drink whiskey (and don't have a sore throat) it feels kind of hot and tingly, right? That happens because compounds in the whiskey (primarily alcohol and some tannins) are able to partially turn on the same neurons that normally sense heat and pain. It's a relatively weak effect, and short lived, but it happen... | [
"Home remedies for throat irritation include gargling with warm water twice a day, sipping honey and lemon mixture or sucking on medicated lozenges. If the cause is dry air, then one should humidify the home. Since smoke irritates the throat, stop smoking and avoid all fumes from chemicals, paints and volatile liqu... |
why is it hard to get a good picture of something that "glows in the dark?" | Your eyes are magnificent sensors, and cameras are not as good. Your eye has adaptive gain control, which allows you to see better in the dark by trading "frame rate" for sensitivity. To get the same effect in a camera, you need a longer exposure. If you have a nice camera and a tripod, you should be able to get gre... | [
"Light direction is very important to the quality of a photoclinometric image. Light that comes from directly over the surface (behind the camera) makes it hard to distinguish the shadows. Multiple light sources are also a problem, since they destroy important shadows required for the algorithms to work properly.\n... |
What should I know about Arendt before reading her? The good and bad. | Here is a [haAretz article on what's controversial with her writings on Eichmann](_URL_1_). [That controversy was made into a film](_URL_0_).
For her writings on Totalitarianism she had no access to Russian language sources. She relies on the sayings out of date with what she is using them for not sourced and taken, a... | [
"Dan Gardner argues that Ehrlich has been insufficiently forthright in acknowledging errors he made, while being intellectually dishonest or evasive in taking credit for things he claims he got \"right\". For example, he rarely acknowledges the mistakes he made in predicting material shortages, massive death tolls ... |
the relationship between the legislative, judicial and executive branches of the us government. | They're mutually independent branches of government that have (many) various, different responsibilities and, generally, have the capacity to limit the actions of one another. | [
"The executive branch is headed by the president and is formally independent of both the legislature and the judiciary. The cabinet serves as a set of advisers to the president. They include the vice president and heads of the executive departments. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of Congress, the S... |
what is a power over ethernet interface module | Some modern networking equipment can get power via the Ethernet cord along with network access. You see it in devices that may be hardwired with ethernet, but that would otherwise be difficult to get power to - like security cameras, access points and conference phones.
However, in order for Power over Ethernet (PoE)... | [
"Power over Ethernet or PoE describes any of several standard or ad-hoc systems which pass electric power along with data on twisted pair Ethernet cabling. This allows a single cable to provide both data connection and electric power to devices such as wireless access points, IP cameras, and VoIP phones.\n",
"The... |
what happens to money lost due to depreciation? | The $5000 wasn't lost. The guy you bought the car from has it. | [
"Depreciation has been defined as the diminution in the utility or value of an asset. Depreciation is a non cash expense. It does not result in any cash outflow. Causes of depreciation are natural wear and tear.\n",
"Depreciation is applied to tangible assets when those assets have an anticipated lifespan of more... |
How was it like on Earth immediately after the impact that formed the moon? | I think the prevailing theory is that the impact was so energetic that within hours the entire surface of the planet was raised to somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 degrees Celsius, meaning that it was entirely molten rock and a great deal of vaporized rock as well. If there was liquid water on the Earth before th... | [
"Samples brought back from the Apollo program showed that the Moon was composed of the same material as the mantle of the Earth. This surprising result was still unexplained in the early 1970s, when Cameron began work on an explanation of the Moon's origins. He theorized that the formation of the Moon was the resul... |
why were old movies like "gone with the wind" and "wizard of oz" in color when movies were still in black in white until the late 50s/early 60s | Technicolor was cumbersome and required expensive specialty cameras and lighting. It was at first only suitable for big-budget pictures, sort of like 3D today.
Also, many directors preferred black and white for stylistic reasons. This is even true today; look at Schindler's List.
Edit: Jesus, I get it. Schindler's Li... | [
"Richard O'Brien originally intended for the film to be in black and white for the first 20 minutes and turning to color when Frank-N-Furter appeared, starting with red color on his lipstick and spreading color throughout the picture as the song continued—a direct allusion to \"The Wizard of Oz\". It was vetoed by ... |
Geologists: What forces caused these adjacent mountain formations to end up looking so different? | Looks like the darker mountains are cinder cones of volcanic origin. | [
"At the time of their deposition the rocks of the Northern Limestone Alps were located several hundred kilometres south of their present position. About 35 million years ago, tectonic forces, that are still active today, began to push these geological units northwards. At that time several kilometres of rock and se... |
why does the weather say 39 but "feels like 30" wouldnt it just be 30 outside? | Ambient temperature in a general area VS perceived temperature due to humidity and wind chill making it colder. | [
"It is the approximate southern border of the horse latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, meaning that much of the land area touching the 30th parallel is arid or semi-arid. If there is a source of wind from a body of water the area would more likely be subtropical.\n",
"It is in Earth's middle latitudes, between... |
Does rinsing or just running water over my hands without soap after using the bathroom do anything? | I dont think that rubbing your hands together will kill bacteria. They are too small to unfluence that way.
About the hot and cold water. You would need to put your hand in boiling water for an extended amount of time (hours) before it even remotely kills enough bacteria to be considered clean. And switching between h... | [
"Washing hands with soap and water eliminates microorganisms from the skin and hands. This provides some protection against transmission of VHF and other diseases. This requires at least cake soap cut into small pieces, soap dishes with openings that allow water to drain away, running water or a bucket kept full wi... |
why does beer make you crave salty/fatty food? | Alcohol releases dopamine in your brain, when it starts to wear off you start looking for something else that will release dopamine.
Fat and salt are particular good for this (to do with evolution of humans.) | [
"Several colloquial terms used to refer to central obesity, and to people who have it, refer to beer drinking. However, there is little scientific evidence that beer drinkers are more prone to central obesity, despite its being known colloquially as \"beer belly\", \"beer gut\", or \"beer pot\". One of the few stud... |
how do usb plugs built in to outlets work with phones and other devices that use usb? don’t you need to convert ac to dc? | There is either a converter built into the wall before the usb. So it goes wires > converter > USB. Or the cube is used because the normal outlet uses the two prongs and not USB. | [
"Since the Universal Serial Bus specification provides for a five-volt power supply (with limited maximum power), it is possible to use a USB cable to connect a device to a power supply. Products based on this approach include chargers for cellular phones, portable digital audio players, and tablet computers. They ... |
how humid would air need to be for a human to breath their liquid requirements in a 24 hour period? | It couldn't happen. At 100 degrees F (38C) the partial pressure of water vapor at 100% relative humidity is 49mmHg and change. Humans exhale 47mmHg of water vapor. So at 100% humidity in a 100 degree environment that would effectively "stop" the water loss that comes from exhaling, but not add a huge amount of water ba... | [
"Even with quiet breathing, the inspiratory flow rate at the nares of an adult usually exceeds 12 liters a minute, and can exceed 30 liters a minute for someone with mild respiratory distress. Traditional oxygen therapy is limited to six liters a minute and does not begin to approach the inspiratory demand of an ad... |
laser thermometers. | The laser part is just to visually indicate where you are measuring, the actual temperature is read by a calibrated infra red sensor. Similar to on a remote control. | [
"Thermopile laser sensors (Fig 1) are used for measuring laser power from a few µW to several W (see section 2.4). The incoming radiation of the laser is converted into heat energy at the surface. This heat input produces a temperature gradient across the sensor. Making use of the thermoelectric effect a voltage is... |
Do waves move faster then light because of the sinusoidal path they take? | Light "waves" do not move sinusoidally. This is a convenient way of representing light's wave-like properties, but they don't actually slew ftom side to side like an old truck with a sloppy steering box. | [
"Waves that are sinusoidal in time but propagate through a medium whose properties vary with position (an \"inhomogeneous\" medium) may propagate at a velocity that varies with position, and as a result may not be sinusoidal in space. The figure at right shows an example. As the wave slows down, the wavelength gets... |
how does apple make more money than google / android? | Android isn't a company. Google doesn't completely own the phones that have their operating system in it, so they only get a portion of the profit from them. Apple owns the entire process. I also wouldn't be surprised if the profit on an individual phone was more for an iPhone than an android phone for a lot of reas... | [
"Apple amassed 65% of all profits made by the eight largest worldwide smartphone manufacturers in quarter one of 2014, according to a report by Canaccord Genuity. In the first quarter of 2015, the company garnered 92% of all earnings.\n",
"Similar to the Android Market, Google shared in the revenue generated by a... |
What was Richard III's role in the end of The War of the Roses? | Is this related to your [High School English Assignment](_URL_0_) or a separate homework? | [
"The Wars of the Roses began the following year, with the First Battle of St Albans. Initially, Richard aimed only to purge his Lancastrian political opponents from positions of influence over the king. It was not until October 1460 that he claimed the throne for the House of York. In that year the Yorkists had cap... |
why is there such a significant price gap between canadian crude oil prices and us crude oil prices? | There isn't a price gap between the price of west texas crude this is what the stock market is looking at when saying the price of oil is xx per barrel.
The price gap is caused by a misnomer what you are calling canadian crude oil is not actual crude. It is bitumen. Now for Canada to ship it it needs to be diluted so... | [
"More recently, between 2011 and 2014 the price of crude oil was relatively stable, fluctuating around $US100 per barrel. It dropped sharply in late 2014 to below $US70 where it remained for most of 2015. In early 2016 it traded at a low of $US27. The price drop has been attributed to both oversupply and reduced de... |
who are you genetically closer to? | Your kids. As you said, kids are 50% "you". But your siblings are only 25% "you" in average.
It is true that they are made 50% your mum and 50% your dad as well. But consider that your dad's DNA is made of copy A and B of each chromosome, and your mum copy C and D. Then you could have got copy A from your dad and C... | [
"Second, presuming a panmictic population, the vast majority of pairs of individuals exhibit a roughly average level of relatedness. For a given individual, the majority of others are not worth helping or harming. While it is easy to identify the few most closely related ones (see: kin recognition), it is hard to i... |
why does white meat chicken always taste dryer than dark meat chicken? | There's more fat in the dark meat. Fats and oils will keep the dark meat moist even when the water in the white meat has cooked off.
> [Dark meat contains 2.64 times more saturated fat than white meat, per gram of protein.](_URL_0_) | [
"In nutritional studies however, \"white meat\" includes poultry and fish, but excludes all mammal flesh, which is considered red meat. The United States Department of Agriculture classifies meats as red if the myoglobin level is higher than 65%. This categorization is controversial as some types of fish, such as t... |
somalia and what's happening there | Today 'Somalia' is basically a geographic expression, the country has had no central government since the 80s. The previous government did a lot of bad things in the north so when that government (Siad Barre) fell they were able to step away and run their own business. So the north is a pretty decent place. They have t... | [
"Since January 1991, Somalia has been in a [[Somali Civil War|state of civil war]], without a functioning central government that controls the entire country. The northwestern region of [[Somaliland]] unilaterally declared independence in May 1991, while the northeastern region of [[Puntland]] unilaterally declared... |
why almost no smartphone protective case has a cover for the camera glass? | A decent quality smartphone will have a hard protective layer (e.g. gorilla glass) over the lens so it doesn't get scratched. It will resist scratches pretty well.
On the other hand, smartphone cases are made of cheaper materials, usually some kind of plastic, and are much easier to scratch. So if you had a case ov... | [
"iFixit gave the phone a 2 out of 10 in terms of repairability, praising the solid construction which improved durability, but mentions that it is \"very difficult\" to open the device without damaging the glass camera cover due to the unibody design, and panned the difficulty in replacing the screen and the adhesi... |
How would Viking warbands choose their leader? | The leader was the person who most obviously had the qualities of leadership (I'll explain more at the end). Those qualities included:
*Good lineage. Was your father or father's father a great leader and an honorable person who paid their debts and was honest with their business? Did they come from a hospitable famil... | [
"Paul Glader, associate professor of journalism at Berlin School of Creative Leadership, wrote about his experience of a Summer spent ruling a clan in \"Vikings: War of Clans\", summarising \"I enjoyed my Summer as a Viking chief. I learned that many of the principles of good leadership in real life apply in these ... |
does tire tread help when driving on wet surfaces? if so; how? | Tread refers specifically to the channels cut into the surface of a tire. The tread is designed to shed water displaced from under the road contacting surfaces of the tire, though the actual pattern isn't actually terribly important so long as certain key criteria are met, and is highly stylized.
An over-inflated tire... | [
"BULLET::::- \"Wet traction—\"Wet traction is the tire's traction, or grip, under wet conditions. Wet traction is improved by the tread design's ability to channel water out of the tire footprint and reduce hydroplaning. However, tires with a circular cross-section, such as those found on racing bicycles, when prop... |
why is that when i say "a university student" it sounds right but when i say "an university student" like it should be in english, it sounds completely wrong. | Someone posted something similar the other day on here, and it more has to do with pronunciation not lettering.
You use the singular designator "a," for words that follow don't have a vowel sound. You use "an" if it is a vowel sound. | [
"In the UK a university student is said to \"study\", to \"read\" or, informally, simply to \"do\" a subject. In the recent past the expression 'to read a subject' was more common at the older universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. In the US a student \"studies\" or \"majors in\" a subject (although \"concentra... |
why did adam sandler seemingly stop being funny some years ago? | I'd say that your sense of humor has changed, Adam Sandler's humor has always been childish/frat guy's humor | [
"Sandler has been referenced multiple times in various media, including in the TV shows \"The Simpsons\" in the episode \"Monty Can't Buy Me Love\", in \"Family Guy\" in the episode \"Stew-Roids\", and in \"South Park\" in the episode \"You're Getting Old\". He was also referenced in the video game \"\". The HBO se... |
what is with the weird "bubble in your throat" phenomenon? | I am pretty sure it's just some mucus messing with your vocal cords, as ,usually, coughing to clear your voice will get rid of it.The voice changes, usually gets a deeper pitch, because the air you are exiling is not just making the vocal cord vibrate, but also all the mucus covering them and all the temporary mucus me... | [
"Gargling (same root as 'gurgle') is the act of bubbling liquid in the mouth. It is also the washing of one's mouth and throat with a liquid that is kept in motion by breathing through it with a gurgling sound. Vibration caused by the muscles in the throat and back of the mouth cause the liquid to bubble and flurry... |
a fever. | Hi i am a doctor.
In response to an invading pathogen (bug) the body starts an inflammatory cascade (attacks the bug). Lots of chemicals are released (cytokines etc) these chemicals cause the brain to reset the normal body temperature to a higher value, say 40 degrees Celsius. This is believed to help the immune syste... | [
"A fever can be caused by many medical conditions ranging from non serious to life-threatening. This includes viral, bacterial and parasitic infections such as the common cold, urinary tract infections, meningitis, malaria and appendicitis among others. Non-infectious causes include vasculitis, deep vein thrombosis... |
the sudden outrage towards dr. oz | This doesn't explain why it's suddenly become such a big issue, but as for the outrage itself...
He uses (abuses) his status as a medical doctor (specifically, he seems to be an excellent heart surgeon) in order to make large piles of money by promoting bullshit alternative medicine to people who don't know any better... | [
"He is a proponent of alternative medicine, and has been criticized by physicians, government officials, and publications, including \"Popular Science\" and \"The New Yorker\", for giving non-scientific advice and promoting pseudoscience. In 2014 the British Medical Journal examined over 400 medical or health recom... |
Who is generally credited with being the first musician/band/musical act etc. to have branched beyond performance to merchandise their name as a brand? | Some professional signers of the baroque period and later had sweet merch, although I don't believe any of them profited from it directly through royalties or such, only indirectly through spreading their celebrity. It was a bit of a "thing" to have little enamel miniatures of your favorite singer and you could put the... | [
"By 1982, musical performers played the Horse on a regular basis, with many performers being nationally known or critically renowned artists. Some now well known acts such as Suzanne Vega, Stanley Jordan, George Winston, Michelle Shocked, Tracy Chapman, Dar Williams, Northampton-area native Sonya Kitchell and comed... |
how come household incomes haven't gone up significantly in decades if more and more women have joined the labor force? | In part precisely because more and more women have entered the labor force. Labor supply went up faster than demand, so labor became cheaper. The other issue is that technically compensation has continued to increase. People tend to only look at wage and say that people get paid the same as three decades ago. That's no... | [
"However, as indicated by the charts below, household income has still increased significantly since the late 1970s and early 80s in real terms, partly due to higher individual median wages, and partly due to increased opportunities for women.\n",
"During the Great Recession, which spanned December 2007 to June 2... |
Will the GPS coordinates of a fixed point on land change due to Continental Drift? Also, why is 0 lattitude 0 longitude in the ocean instead of on land? | > Will the GPS coordinates of a fixed point on land change due to Continental Drift?
Yes, Very Very VERY slowly.. at most [2-6 inches a year](_URL_2_).
> Also, why is 0 latitude 0 Longitude in the ocean instead of on land?
Well the Earth is a sphere so 0 latitude is the equator. Runs right round the middle of the... | [
"If a global reference frame (such as WGS84, for example) is used, the longitude of a place on the surface will change from year to year. To minimize this change, when dealing just with points on a single plate, a different reference frame can be used, whose coordinates are fixed to a particular plate, such as \"NA... |
How do people in space (ex: living on the ISS) keep track of time? Do they adjust their sleep-wake schedules according to one master clock? | Pretty much. There is so much to do for astronauts whether it's science, maintenance, spacewalks etc. that their days are fairly choreographed and planned. Then they just block off time for sleeping each 24 hour period. One of the physiological issues with life on the ISS is there is a sunset/sunrise every 90 minutes a... | [
"Orbiting spacecraft typically experience many sunrises and sunsets in a 24-hour period, or in the case of Apollo program astronauts travelling to the moon, none. Thus it is not possible to calibrate time zones with respect to the sun, and still respect a 24-hour sleep/wake cycle. A common practice for space explor... |
Is it technically possible that somewhere in the Universe some of the fundamental constants are actually variable? | Is it possible in the sense that we can't conclusively rule it out? I guess I have to reluctantly say yes; that's the price of having empirical science.
Is it possible in the sense that there is *any* reason to believe it happens, or in the sense that it's consistent with our present observations? Absolutely not. | [
"In a more philosophical context, the conclusion that these quantities are constant raises the question of why they have the specific value they do in what appears to be a \"fine-tuned Universe\", while their being variable would mean that their known values are merely an accident of the current time at which we ha... |
who was jeffrey epstein? why is him committing suicide suspicious? what does him committing suicide mean? | Had a child sex slave trafficking ring with multiple elite billionaires involved but hasn’t given much info and was supposed to go to trial soon also was on suicide watch but somehow still committed “suicide” it’s suspicious because there’s a high chance it’s a coverup | [
"Epstein died of an overdose of Carbitral, a form of barbiturate or sleeping pill, in his locked bedroom on 27 August 1967. He was discovered after his butler had knocked on the door and then, hearing no response, asked the housekeeper to call the police. Epstein was found on a single bed, dressed in pyjamas, with ... |
if your body, very slowly, began to not get the oxygen it needs, which systems would shut down first? (and last) and why? | Im not aware of any published evidence on this so I will give my professional opinion.
Firstly it depends on why are not getting the oxygen it needs. The two main reasons are because of a lack of oxygen in the air (rare) or your lungs not oxygenating blood properly (common).
Not having enough oxygen in your blood (a... | [
"\"One of medicine's new frontiers: treating the dead\", recognizes that cells that have been without oxygen for more than five minutes die, not from lack of oxygen, but rather when their oxygen supply is resumed. Therefore, practitioners of this approach, e.g., at the Resuscitation Science institute at the Univers... |
how are synthetic materials (such as plastic) unnatural / toxic, if they are made from ingredients found on earth? | Naturally occuring chemicals can be used to make chemicals which do not occur in nature. Think of it like baking a cake. The main ingredients in cake (sugar, flour, oil, eggs) are all naturally occuring but you would never a cake in nature. It's similar with plastics. While the chemicals used in plastic manufacturing (... | [
"Pure plastics have low toxicity due to their insolubility in water and because they are biochemically inert, due to a large molecular weight. Plastic products contain a variety of additives, some of which can be toxic. For example, plasticizers like adipates and phthalates are often added to brittle plastics like ... |
what do you do with your invention idea? | Write all plans, print it out and mail it to yourself, never opening it.
It's a poor man's copyright.
Other than that, I don't know. Hopefully someone else has more in-depth knowledge. | [
"Invention is often a creative process. An open and curious mind allows an inventor to see beyond what is known. Seeing a new possibility, connection or relationship can spark an invention. Inventive thinking frequently involves combining concepts or elements from different realms that would not normally be put tog... |
how do television ratings work? how long do i have to be tuned in to a channel for the rating to count? and what's the correlation between the rating number (i.e. 13.4) and the number of viewers? | Ratings are based off what are called Nielsen Ratings. The Nielsen Company employs a system where they select families of a certain demographic in every single area code and "hires" out these families to be what are known as The Nielsen Families.
How do they gather what shows they watch? Nielsen employs a box that c... | [
"Television rating point (TRP) for calculation purposes is a device attached to the TV set in a few thousand viewers, houses for judging purposes. These numbers are treated as a sample from the overall TV owners in different geographical and demographic sectors. Using a device a special code is telecasted during th... |
why are smartphones $500-700+ while laptops with the same or better specs are considerably less? | Designing electronics when you have no, or relaxed space constraints is **much** easier and therefore cheaper. Also, the specific parts, while maybe less powerful, are likely more efficient with regards to power (this is highly variable, of course). So even though your particular processor or whatnot is *slower,* it ... | [
"As far as computers are concerned, off-the-shelf versions are usually newer and hence more powerful than proprietary POS terminals. Custom modifications are added as needed. Other products, like touchscreen tablets and laptops, are readily available in the market, and they are more portable than traditional POS te... |
how are these girls doing the math in their head so fast? | Do you notice how they're moving their hands around as the guy reads the numbers? That's because they're using a mental abacus. An abacus allows you to do fast calculations that would be very hard to do in your head. All they have to do is picture what the abacus would look like and they can read off the answer even wi... | [
"In the Team Competition section, each participating school sends in four selected student mathematicians per year level. The participants compete against other schools in the Christchurch Horncastle Arena. It's a speed competition and takes 30 minutes. There are 20 questions for each team to complete, the aim bein... |
why it hurts to look at the sky on a cloudy day | * ELI5 version: the sky is still very bright even when you're not looking at the sun, so it can still hurt your eyes.
* Super technical version: [Here is an AskScience question that has a very detailed answer](_URL_0_). | [
"When visibility is poor, as at night during rainstorms or fog, the eye tends to relax and focus on its best distance, technically known as \"empty field\" or \"dark focus\". This distance is usually just under one meter (one yard), but varies considerably among people. The tendency is aggravated by objects close t... |
li5: poker | In almost every form of poker, you make a five card hand. The hands ranked from best to worst (the notation should make sense if you're familiar with playing cards, Jc is the jack of clubs, Th is the ten of hearts, etc):
* Straight flush (same suit, 5 in a row, like 5h 6h 7h 8h 9h)
* Four of a kind (like 6c 6s 6d 6h 9... | [
"Five-card draw (also known as a Cantrell draw) is a poker variant that is considered the simplest variant of poker, and is the basis for video poker. As a result, it is often the first variant learned by new players. It is commonly played in home games but rarely played in casino and tournament play. The variant i... |
how did humans discover music? or is there music among animals as well? | "Or is there music among animals as well?"
You - you've never heard of a bird? | [
"This natural history of music begins with Attenborough playing the piano. Searching for the origins of human music, he traces its connections to the musical sounds that other animals make: the beauty of the wolf's howl, the complexity of the bat's cry, the deep rumble of the elephant's signals, the acoustically so... |
Who was the first Ottoman Sultan to claim the title of Caliph, and how was he able to legitimize himself as such? | Selim I "the Grim," over the course of his brief reign 1512-1520, secured Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, the three Islamic holy cities, and utterly demolished the Mamelukes of Egypt, who had been seen as the holders/protectors of the Holy Cities. Selim's conquests totally changed the character of the Ottoman holdings, w... | [
"The Ottoman Dynasty embodied the Ottoman Caliphate since the fourteenth century, starting with the reign of Murad I. The Ottoman Dynasty kept the title Caliph, power over all Muslims, as Mehmed's cousin Abdülmecid II took the title. The Ottoman Dynasty left as a political-religious successor to Muhammad and a lead... |
Why did Moscow become the capitol of the USSR even though Petrograd was the center of the revolution? | Firstly, one only has to look at a map of the positions of the soviet civil war/pre 1939. Petrograd was mere miles away from first the German occupied areas of Russia signed away by the bolsheviks, and then also threatened by the breakaway Baltic republics and Finland. Moscow, being in the centre of Bolshevik Russia wa... | [
"Following the success of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin, fearing possible foreign invasion, moved the capital from Saint Petersburg back to Moscow on March 12, 1918. The Kremlin once again became the seat of power and the political centre of the new state.\n",
"In 1918 Moscow became the country's... |
How much does an understanding of historical linguistics benefit study of the period? | Do you mean historical linguistics or knowing the languages? Historical linguistics is the study of how languages change over time, it's what's used to reconstruct things like Proto-Indo-European. It's not the same as knowing the languages, a historical linguist doesn't necessarily actually know the language that he's ... | [
"Historical linguistics provides the main basis for the theory, analysing the development and changes of languages, and establishing relations between the various Indo-European languages, including the time frame of their development. It also provides information about shared words, and the corresponding area of th... |
the concept of "hanging on" or "fighting" when you're dying from a disease like cancer | It's less from a medical standpoint and more a matter of will. Someone hanging on or fighting means they still want to live. Once someone decides they don't want to live anymore, or they give in to death, a survival part of the brain shuts down and the illness takes over. When someone "hangs on" or "fights to survive" ... | [
"Battle with cancer is a term used by the media when referring to people suffering from cancer. Those who have died are said to have \"lost their battle with cancer\", while the living are described as \"fighting cancer\". It has been argued that words such as \"battle\" and \"fight\" are inappropriate, as they sug... |
what's wrong with the word 'negro'? how is 'black' politically more correct than 'negro'? | Apparently words that have a neutral definition can become slurs if they are constantly used to describe someone we don't like. Negro, just as a word outside of any context, is completly neutral; it's the Spanish word for black. However, because it was previously used to name people that we oppresed, the word is now ... | [
"However, during the 1950s and 1960s, some black American leaders, notably Malcolm X, objected to the word \"Negro\" because they associated it with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination that treated African Americans as second class citizens, or worse. Malcolm X preferred \"Black\" to \"Negr... |
Do the deaf need to wear hearing protection? | Depends why they're deaf. If it's a neurological thing, the physical ear being in good shape, it would make sense to try and preserve your ears in case of a medical advance that could restore your hearing. | [
"These are generally worn by people with a hearing loss who either prefer a more cosmetic appeal of their hearing aids by being attached to their glasses or where sound cannot be passed in the normal way, via a hearing aids, perhaps due to a blockage in the ear canal. pathway or if the client suffers from continual... |
what are 'short-links' such as _url_1_, _url_2_, and _url_0_ used for? | The goal is to make URL's smaller, which is beneficial if e.g. you have a comment section or tweet you want to send and there's a character limit. It may also just look better than a medium to long size url.
An exception is that some of those URL shorteners are also used maliciously by criminals to hide the original U... | [
"The shortest possible long-term URLs were generated by NanoURL from December 2009 until about 2011, associated with the top-level \".to\" (Tonga) domain, in the form , where represents a sequence of random numbers and letters.\n",
"The company uses HTTP 301 redirects for its links. The shortcuts are intended to ... |
Is there any historical inspiration or precedence behind the "Ludovico technique," or is it strictly a creation of Anthony Burgess and/or Stanley Kubrick for A Clockwork Orange? | What springs to mind when reading this is Ivan Pavlov and his theory of classical conditioning (for which he used dogs to illustrate this) among other learning theories.
**Now who was Ivan Pavlov?**
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Behaviourist who in 1927 conducted an experiment which would (alongside *operant conditioning... | [
"BULLET::::- In the Anthony Burgess novel \"A Clockwork Orange\", later adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick, the \"Ludovico Technique\" is a form of mind control that causes the subject, in this case the thug anti-hero Alex, to feel sickness and pain whenever he has a violent or anti-social impulse. This backfir... |
If a planet was orbiting a star, and that star were to go supernova, would the planet continue to orbit it? would there be a delay before it stops orbiting it? | In our current understanding of gravity (general relativity), gravity travels at the speed of light. If you're sitting at the exploding star, any orbiting object 5 light hours away will appear to continue as normal for 10 hours (5 for the effect to reach it, 5 more for that news to make it back to you). If you're sitti... | [
"Planet Nine could have been captured from outside the Solar System during a close encounter between the Sun and another star. If a planet was in a distant orbit around this star, three-body interactions during the encounter could alter the planet's path, leaving it in a stable orbit around the Sun. A planet origin... |
Why did the KPD, SPD and Members of the Many Socialist and Communist Militias and Originations Not Offer Any Significant Resistance to the Nazis in 1933? With Not Even a Real Attempt at a General Strike like During the Kappputsch? | I have read many different takes on this question. A decent if incomplete explanation is that these forces were (a) demoralized and (b) split against each other.
(B) is the less complex explanation, so I'll briefly address this. To the KPD, the SPD was a "fascist" political party that had ruined the promise of the 191... | [
"Among circles of the workers' parties KPD and SPD there were different interpretations of the reasons for the rise of the Nazis and their electoral success. A portion of the Social Democrats blamed the devastating role of Communists in the final phase of the Weimar Republic. The Communist Party, in turn, insulted ... |
How were the letters written by Apostle Paul delivered? | First off, Saint Paul never knew Jesus. This is a very common misconception. He was not one of the original 12 apostles. He was a Jewish/Roman military man of the Roman Empire who at first persecuted Christians, then later converted, became a missionary and became arguably the key founder of Christianity. He was from T... | [
"Most New Testament scholars believe Paul the Apostle wrote this letter from Corinth, although information appended to this work in many early manuscripts (e.g., Codices Alexandrinus, Mosquensis, and Angelicus) state that Paul wrote it in Athens after Timothy had returned from Macedonia with news of the state of th... |
Why did 1960s Communist China engage in so many territorial conflicts over tiniest bits of land with such major powers as India and as the USSR? | It wasn't necessarily "Mao" that was responsible for these actions. If anything, Zhou Enlai played a bigger part, having been China's foreign minister up until the 1960s.
Before we get to the Chola incident and the 1963 Sino-Pakistan agreement, you should understand that the Chola incident was a result of the Sino-In... | [
"Relations between the Soviet Union and Japan between the Communist takeover in 1917 and the collapse of Communism in 1991 tended to be hostile. Japan had sent troops to counter the Bolshevik presence in Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War, and both countries had been in opposite camps during World War I... |
i have terrible vision, but sometimes if i blink hard enough, my vision goes crystal clear til i blink again. why? | As someone who's spent 4 years studying, researching and working clinically with eyeballs, here's my guess:
You're likely forcing your focusing system to focus through as much blur as it possibly can, assuming that while you "blink enough" you're concentrating your gaze, at a single object or direction. Both your cor... | [
"Blinking results in blurred and incomplete image of the fundus. It is imperative to instruct the patient not to blink when the fundus photo is taken.The patient may blink normally at any other time to prevent the excessive drying of the eye. A dry eye may also lead to a blurred fundus photo. When dry eye is suspec... |
to anybody who has used nesquik milkshake powder, why is it that the chocolate powder never mixes in with the milk fully, yet the banana powder does? | The primary ingredients in the banana powder are cane sugar and maltodextrin (which is a white powder made from flour starch and used as a food additive). Both are very soluble in water (or milk), so it dissolves easily.
The chocolate powder, the primary ingredients are cane sugar (dissolves easily) and cocoa powder.... | [
"Powdered milk is frequently used in the manufacture of infant formula, confectionery such as chocolate and caramel candy, and in recipes for baked goods where adding liquid milk would render the product too thin. Powdered milk is also widely used in various sweets such as the famous Indian milk balls known as gula... |
why does a scientific calculator show "0" as a result if i add 1 to a really high number and then substract said high number although it should show "1"? | Your calculator doesn't store all of the digits for 2^50, so the 1 at the very end gets removed from the memory. How many digits a calculator actually holds depends from calculator to calculator. | [
"Most calculators and many computer programs present very large and very small results in scientific notation, typically invoked by a key labelled (for \"exponent\"), (for \"enter exponent\"), , , , or depending on vendor and model. Because superscripted exponents like 10 cannot always be conveniently displayed, th... |
how does regenerative brakes work ? | Electrical induction.
You have probably made an electromagnet out of a coil of wire around a nail and a battery in school. Electricity flowing through a conductor will form a magnetic field around the conductor, and the reverse is true as well. A magnetic field moving around a conductor will cause an electrical curren... | [
"Regenerative braking is an energy recovery mechanism which slows a vehicle or object by converting its kinetic energy into a form which can be either used immediately or stored until needed. In this mechanism, the electric motor uses the vehicle's momentum to recover energy that would be otherwise lost to the brak... |
why do some tv shows have a sign language interpreter on the screen? why can't they just use subtitles? | As far as the interpreter goes, though, some deaf people may prefer it because they're accessing information in their own language (one that is readily accessible)... English is usually the second language learned for deaf people, so that may be a secondary choice. | [
"There have also been a few local stations that have broadcast programming in American Sign Language, accompanied by English closed captioning. Prior to the development of closed captioning, it was not uncommon for some public television programs to incorporate ASL translations by an on-screen interpreter. An inter... |
"the core of the planet earth is made of iron and nickel": how scientists can determine that if no one has been in the core of the earth? | We have a pretty good idea about what's on the inside of the Earth, based on the geologist's equivalent of a CAT scan or an MRI -- earthquake data. When an earthquake happens, it sends waves bouncing around the inside of the planet. These waves change direction and speed based on the kinds of materials they pass thro... | [
"Earth's core is believed to be mostly an alloy of iron and nickel. The density indicates that it also contains a significant amount of lighter elements. Elements such as hydrogen would be stable in the Earth's core, however the conditions at the formation of the core would not be suitable for its inclusion. Carbon... |
Iberian Peninsula in Medieval times | I'm so happy you asked this. I've been reading a book called Spain: [The Root and the Flower by John A. Crow](_URL_0_) that has been extremely interesting to me. I've really learned a lot and I'd highly suggest his work.
& #x200B;
In short, Iberia was fundamentally different from the rest of Europe because, during ... | [
"Much of the Iberian peninsula had been occupied by the Moors after 711, although the northernmost portion was divided between several Christian states. In the 11th century, and again in the thirteenth, the Christian kingdoms of the north gradually drove the Muslims from central and most of southern Iberia.\n",
"... |
Were the British involved in instigating the 19th century revolutions against Spain in Latin America? | Sorry for the long delay in getting to this, unfortunately it has been a hectic week. The British were definitely involved in the Latin American revolutions to a greater or lesser extent. It is worth noting that the British were fighting Napoleon during the early 19th century and had a giant army all ready to go and ... | [
"Multiple revolutions in Latin America allowed the region to break free of the mother country. Repeated attempts to regain control failed, as Spain had no help from European powers. Indeed, Britain and the United States worked against Spain, enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. British merchants and bankers took a domina... |
the event horizon of a black hole | Because any direction past the event horizon points inward. Space itself is warped so massively beyond the horizon that nothing can get out not only because the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, but there is literally no direction that is "out". | [
"The event horizon of a black hole may be thought of as a surface moving outward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between escaping and falling back. The event horizon of a white hole is a surface moving inward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between being swept outward and suc... |
what does it mean when a wound gets "infected?" | It means that bacteria or fungus has set in the wound and has begun to grow off of the tissue in that area. | [
"The symptoms of an infection depends on the type of disease. Some signs of infection affect the whole body generally, such as fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, fevers, night sweats, chills, aches and pains. Others are specific to individual body parts, such as skin rashes, coughing, or a runny nose.\n",
"I... |
do painkillers (advil, tylenol, etc) reduce pain in the specific area that is hurting or do they affect the whole body but you only notice it woking on the area that is in pain? | The pain killers you listed reduce inflammation in different ways so they would help calm down a throbbing injury where inflammatory response is strongest -- they act at the site of the pain. However, the effective anti-inflammation molecules are in your blood so its not like they can't affect more than one region. If ... | [
"Oral and topical pain killers are effective to treat the pain caused by otitis media. Oral agents include ibuprofen, paracetamol (acetaminophen), and opiates. Evidence for the combination over single agents is lacking. Topical agents shown to be effective include antipyrine and benzocaine ear drops. Decongestants ... |
What benefits would the addition of a third eye bring? | Eyes (and cameras) are basically devices for taking in a bunch of light, and sorting it out by angle. If you see something in one eye, you know that it's somewhere along a ray starting at your eye and going out in a particular direction, but you don't know where along the ray it is.
Adding a second eye gives you anoth... | [
"While the cornea contributes most of the eye's focusing power, its focus is fixed. Accommodation (the refocusing of light to better view near objects) is accomplished by changing the geometry of the lens. Medical terms related to the cornea often start with the prefix \"\"kerat-\"\" from the Greek word κέρας, \"ho... |
In WWI, did executions of soldiers suffering from PTSD or "shell shock" for the crime of desertion actually occur, and if so how common were they? | This is actually a very complex question for reasons that I’ll try to outline. Please note that I will be using “shell shock” and PTSD interchangeably and will approach the question largely from the British perspective.
Early in the war, physicians began to handle cases of psychological breakdown, paralysis, and distu... | [
"Generally, cowardice was punishable by execution during World War I, and those who were caught were often court-martialed and, in many cases, executed by firing squad. British men executed for cowardice were often not commemorated on war memorials, and their families often did not receive benefits and had to endur... |
difference of chinese dialects and written languages | **Spoken**
There are (I hate this word) actually many, many more dialects of Chinese than just Mandarin and Cantonese, although it's true that those are the two largest and most influential. Mandarin in particular enjoys a strong legal status as the official language of the People's Republic of China, including as the... | [
"Chinese languages and dialects vary by not only pronunciation, but also, to a lesser extent, vocabulary and grammar. Modern written Chinese, which replaced Classical Chinese as the written standard as an indirect result of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, is not technically bound to any single variety; however, it... |
Rules Roundtable VI: No Historical "What-If?" Questions or Counterfactuals | What Ifs are *really* popular questions sometimes, but the thing is, with a little work most 'what if' questions can actually be turned into really good, really interesting questions that match the rules. It's all about the angle and perspective you have when asking the question. If you never need a bit of help phrasin... | [
"Counterfactuals refer to things that are contrary to the actual situation. In English, counterfactuals can be expressed implicitly in \"if\"-clauses by using a tense form that normally refers to a time prior to the time actually semantically referred to in the \"if\"-clause. For example, \"If I knew that, I wouldn... |
Are all sperm Clones? It doesn't matter Which sperm got to the egg, i was going to be me no matter what correct? (contemplating the miracle of my existence) | No, they are not clones at all.
Each sperm represents a completely different shuffled assortment of your dad's genetic material.
Because of recombination, there are millions and millions of possible sperm and eggs that your parents can create.
IT IS NOT TRUE that your parents are giving you a set of fully intact chr... | [
"A human egg contains only one set of chromosomes (23) and is said to be haploid. Sperm also have only one set of 23 chromosomes and are therefore haploid. When an egg and sperm fuse at fertilization, the two sets of chromosomes come together to form a unique \"diploid\" individual with 46 chromosomes.\n",
"The b... |
Why do people seem to make mistakes more often when in front of people? | If you're longboarding and showing people (or not, I guess), it's likely that you start (subconsciously or not) focusing on doing it "properly" by thinking through the steps you take one by one, instead of focusing on the whole--which would be the same reason most sports coaches become worse at their sport when they st... | [
"Mistakes in conversation occur when participants in the conversation are operating with different implicit rules and expectations for the SPEAKING model. Mistakes often results from disagreements about inclusion of participants, mismatched ends, unexpected act sequences, keys or instrumentalities. In general mista... |
why isn't the night sky just one big light? | Two things:
1) Regardless of how big the universe is, light still takes time to get places. The universe is 13.77 billion years old, so light has only had 13.77 billion years to get here. Because the universe is expanding, we can see stuff from much farther away than that, but there's still a limit on how far away sta... | [
"The term night sky refers to the sky as seen at night. The term is usually associated with skygazing and astronomy, with reference to views of celestial bodies such as stars, the Moon, and planets that become visible on a clear night after the Sun has set. Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlight, st... |
Why does northern Canada look so strange on Google Maps? | What you are seing here are features left by the passage of the last continental glaciation. Most of Canada was under 2-3 km of ice a mere 12 000 years ago. That ice sheet flowed, and then melted, leaving behind all kinds of features.
In this one, I note a prominent group of elongated hills trending NW-SE, probably [d... | [
"Northerns are similar to westerns but are set in the frozen north of North America; that is, Canada or Alaska. Of the two, Canada was the most common setting, although many tropes could apply to both. Popular locations within Canada are the Yukon, the Barren Grounds, and area around Hudson Bay. Generic names used ... |
Why did the United States use images of Native Americans on its' coins during an era of Indian persecution? | **Tl;dr** It does seem counter-intuitive to honor Native Americans on coins while denying their humanity and the right to their own language, religion, culture and customs, but this simply didn't slow America down. Phil Deloria does a great job of showing how the *idea* of Native Americans has pretty much always been ... | [
"The Library of Congress acquired these images as copyright deposits from about 1900 through 1930. The dates on them are dates of registration, not the dates when the photographs were taken. About two-thirds (1,608) of these images were not published in \"The North American Indian\" and therefore offer a different ... |
How would bread have been cut/served prior to the invention of the sandwich? | This isn't perhaps the cutting techniques you're looking for, but stale bread often used to be cut into a square shape and used as a plate, in what was called a 'trencher'. A 'good trencherman' would be one who ate a lot of food. These bits of bread would be given out as alms after a nobleman's meal if those eating d... | [
"The modern concept of a sandwich using slices of bread as found within the West can arguably be traced to 18th-century Europe. However, the use of some kind of bread or bread-like substance to lie under (or under \"and\" over) some other food, or used to scoop up and enclose or wrap some other type of food, long p... |
how has the economy managed to compensate for a majority of women entering the workforce in the past several decades, along with a rise in unmarried households - essentially doubling the demand for high paying jobs in a short period of time? | The economy hasn't doubled high-paying jobs. An interesting book on the subject is called "The Two-Income Trap" by Elizabeth Warren.
The simple answer is that women entering the workforce made quality housing more expensive and made it so unmarried mothers have almost no chance to move up in social classes - most u... | [
"A prolonged period of unemployment can lead to what economists call the discouraged worker effect, where workers drop out of the labor supply. The wives of discouraged workers do not behave as secondary workers, altering their labor supply in response to their spouses' transitory bouts with unemployment, but rathe... |
what does the president of france do as co-prince of andorra? | The coprinses have, like most heads of state of modern monarchies, more of a ceremonial function than a political one. The don't even have the right to veto governmental decisions. They are also have representatives in place so the President of France will normally not directly concern Andorran affairs that often.
The... | [
"Official diplomatic relations between Andorra and France were established after the signing of a joint \"Treaty of Good Neighborhood, Friendship and Cooperation\" between Andorra, France and Spain; after Andorra adopted a new constitution establishing them as a parliamentary democracy. The President of France acts... |
What do most people not understand or realize about WWI? | The toll that it took on the British aristocracy in terms of casualties and the impact that had on the loosening of the class system in subsequent decades. In terms of proportion of aristocratic males killed it was a greater rate than the English Civil war of the 17th c. This changed the social fabric in unexpected way... | [
"World War I had a lasting impact on social memory. It was seen by many in Britain as signalling the end of an era of stability stretching back to the Victorian period, and across Europe many regarded it as a watershed. Historian Samuel Hynes explained:\n",
"These beliefs did not become widely shared because they... |
Grover Cleveland met his wife when she was born and he was 27. He took care of her after her father died and married her when she turned 21. How was this relationship viewed by the public? | More input is always welcome; in the meantime, this exact question came up last month, and you may be interested in what u/WovenCoverlet and u/sunagainstgold [had to say on the topic](_URL_0_). | [
"Cleveland's fifth son, Grover Cleveland, became the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, the only president to serve non-consecutive terms. He was 16 years old at the time of his father's death and reputedly learned of the event from a boy hawking newspapers. Grover Cleveland spoke highly of his father in... |
how do criminal defendants end up with charges like "four counts of murder" when only two people are killed? | Sometimes it is hard to prove that an accused murderer had all the requirements of a crime. With 1st degree murder, the prosecution needs to prove everything in 2nd degree murder, PLUS the act/s were premeditated.
If the jury agreed that he was reacting, and not making specific plans, that would eliminate 1 st de... | [
"If a person committing a predicate felony directly contributed to the death of the victim then the person will be charged with murder in the first degree - felony murder which is a capital felony. The only two sentences available for that statute are life in prison and the death penalty. \n",
"A count of murder ... |
How far did the KGB infiltrate the American government? | As a follow-up, would the handling of foreign spies for the USSR generally be the responsibility of GRU, KGB, or a different agency? Or all three? | [
"Aldrich Ames, a CIA counterintelligence agent working in the SE Division, approached the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. on April 16, 1985, and within a month received $50,000 from the KGB in exchange for espionage service. Meeting with Soviet official and go-between Sergey Dmitriyevich Chuvakhin on June 13, Am... |
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