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how did apple rigg ebook prices and what was illegal about it? | Amazon was selling books for cheaper than the publishers wanted them sold, ebooks usually were much cheaper than physical books even on day of release. They basically controlled the prices at that time due to their volume as nobody else really sold very many ebooks. Publishers wanted to control the prices instead of h... | [
"In March 2010 Ingram Digital (a wholesaler part of the same group) warned its customers it might not be able to sell them e-books, as most large publishers were moving from the wholesale model (publishers offer wholesale discounts, and the final price is determined by retailers) to the agency model (publishers set... |
Is it theoretically possible to have an object that sits perfectly still with respect to the center of the universe? | This is a subtly complex question (my favorite kind of question), the deep answer to which is still being investigated. But here's what we know. (Disclaimer: My graduate degree is not in astrophysics but my undergraduate degree is.)
So, first of all, there is no center of the universe that we know of; not really even ... | [
"I might very rationally put it in dispute, whether there be any such centre in nature, or no; being that neither you nor any one else hath ever proved, whether the World be finite and figurate, or else infinite and interminate; yet nevertheless granting you, for the present, that it is finite, and of a terminate S... |
If I only have sound in one ear, like 1 headphone, in a silent environment, does my other ear try and compensate for not hearing by trying harder? | When sound input to the ear is low, the inner ear will ramp up its gain in order to compensate. For those in fields like engineering, consider this like a regenerative radio receiver. As the gain is increased to compensate for low stimuli, we eventually reach a threshold where the radio (or in this case the inner ear) ... | [
"When wearing stereo headphones, people with unilateral hearing loss can hear only one channel, hence the panning information (volume and time differences between channels) is lost; some instruments may be heard better than others if they are mixed predominantly to one channel, and in extreme cases of sound product... |
What is the oldest known creation myth? | Depends whether you're asking about the earliest myth we can posit based on later evidence, or the earliest attestation of a creation myth: for more specifics you might want to clarify which you're after.
For the record, [here's an earlier thread](_URL_0_), with an answer by u/Algernon_Asimov that addresses the first ... | [
"Some traces of the oldest authentic myths may have survived in runic songs. There is a song about the birth of the world – a bird lays three eggs and starts to lay out the nestlings – one becomes Sun, one becomes Moon and one becomes the Earth. Other Finno-Ugric peoples have also myths according to which the world... |
When would a statue of George Washington stop being offense to England? | No. If any offence was taken it would not have been accepted, or placed in a prominent position. | [
"The American statue of George III at Bowling Green, New York City was toppled on 9 July 1776 by Sons of Liberty during the American Revolution. A replica of the statue exits at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.\n",
"The monument caused quite a bit of controversy when it was first constructed... |
prunes vs plums. why do prunes have more health benefits than plums? or at least people speak of prunes' health benefits, but rarely of plums. | I think the answer begins with educating people that prunes are plums. I once was talking to a regular doctor about not being regular. He said, "Eat a lot of prunes." I said, "I've been eating a lot of plums." He said, "I said prunes." I said," prunes are dried plums." He said: [silence]. | [
"Prunes are 64% carbohydrates including dietary fiber, 2% protein, a rich source of vitamin K, and a moderate source of B vitamins and dietary minerals. The sorbitol content of dietary fiber likely provides the laxative effect associated with consuming prunes. Contrary to the name, boiled plums or prunes are not us... |
Why haven't the colors on Jupiter all mixed together yet? | The core of Jupiter is very hot. As a result, there is a significant temperature differential between the upper layers of Jupiter's atmosphere, and the lower layers. This causes convection, which moves the atmosphere around (similar to our own atmosphere regarding global wind patterns and ocean currents). Additionally,... | [
"Each planet's system displays slightly different characteristics. Jupiter's irregulars are grey to slightly red, consistent with C, P and D-type asteroids. Some groups of satellites are observed to display similar colours (see later sections). Saturn's irregulars are slightly redder than those of Jupiter.\n",
"T... |
how does my amazon alexa not react when a commercial for it comes on? | I haven't seen an Alexa commercial honestly, but mine does react to my television sometimes. Since the voice recognition is really done on Amazon's servers, not in the device itself, they could have code to filter out audio clips from their own commercials. | [
"In January 2013, Apple's claims were rejected by a US District judge, who argued that the company presented no evidence that Amazon had \"[attempted] to mimic Apple's site or advertising\", or communicated that its service \"possesses the characteristics and qualities that the public has come to expect from the Ap... |
why are people able to declare personal bankruptcy despite having substantial assets? | Bankruptcy does not mean someone has no assets. It also doesn't mean they necessarily get out of their existing debts without paying them.
When a person or company declares bankruptcy they are saying they cannot satisfy their current debts on time or in full. The courts are asked to step in and mediate who gets paid h... | [
"Personal bankruptcy law allows, in certain jurisdictions, an individual to be declared bankrupt. Virtually every country with a modern legal system features some form of debt relief for individuals. Personal bankruptcy is distinguished from corporate bankruptcy.\n",
"Personal bankruptcy (also known as personal i... |
How close are we to zeroing in the cause/causes of aging, or deterioration over time? How theoretical is immortality research in this day and age? | I don't know of anyone doing research on "immortality", at least not in biology. However, biogerontology, the study of aging, is a burgeoning field (or so I like to think, since I'm doing my PhD in an aging lab).
Robopuppy is somewhat correct when he states that many tissues aren't able to regenerate damage properly,... | [
"This definition of immortality has been challenged in the \"Handbook of the Biology of Aging\", because the increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age may be negligible at extremely old ages, an idea referred to as the late-life mortality plateau. The rate of mortality may cease to increase i... |
if we had a method of knowing the quantum state of every particle in the universe, would we be able to predict the future? | No, the best minds in science and physics agree that there are truly [stochastic](_URL_0_) (or random) events in the universe. These are defined as being unable to be predicated perfectly. | [
"The main theoretical argument against the quantum mind hypothesis is the assertion that quantum states in the brain would lose coherency before they reached a scale where they could be useful for neural processing. This supposition was elaborated by Tegmark. His calculations indicate that quantum systems in the br... |
Salt and Health: Again, American Heart Association says people are eating too much. Is there scientific consensus on this statement? | Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a published paper from that study yet (nor was I able to find an abstract). [This is the AHA press release.](_URL_1_) It sounds like they used some statistical modelling to draw associations between salt and blood pressure, and from blood pressure to mortality. Until we can se... | [
"In March 2014, another meta-analysis was published in the journal which found that reduced salt consumption and increased salt consumption, relative to the typical amount consumed by Americans, were associated with increased mortality. The study proved controversial because it found that the level of salt consumpt... |
What Would Happen if The Solar storm of 1859 Happened in Modern Times? | The fear mongering in this thread is set to 11. Humans survive. We would have police, we would have firefighters. Their tools would change but they would be there. Engineers would start fixing infrastructure. Without anything else to do we would have an enormous workforce that could be dedicated to fixing the problems.... | [
"The solar storm of 1859 (also known as the Carrington Event) was a powerful geomagnetic storm during solar cycle 10 (1855–1867). A solar coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetosphere and induced one of the largest geomagnetic storms on record, September 1–2, 1859. The associated \"white light flare\" in th... |
In reading an article about "pig-borne" flu I noticed that the flu is called H3N2v. It made me think of of H1N1 and I would like to ask about the system used to name these flus. Anything interesting? | H stands for Hemagglutinin and N for Neuraminidase which are proteins present in the capsule of the influenza virus. There is a slight difference between the proteins based on which the subtypes of the virii are named.
> Type A influenza is further classified into subtypes depending on which versions of two differen... | [
"The flu virus is officially designated by the WHO as \"Influenza A (H1N1)\", following a name change from \"swine flu\" to avoid suggestions that eating pork products carried a risk of infection, and is referred as such by Malaysia's Health Minister. However, Information Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yat... |
prunes are laxative, whereas plums aren't? | Prunes are extremely high in fiber.
Plums have the same amount of fiber, but with much more juice. When people eat plums, they usually eat 1 or 2 max. With prunes, they can kill a whole bag which is like 15 plums worth of fiber.
If you ate 15 plums you'd poop too. | [
"Prunes are 64% carbohydrates including dietary fiber, 2% protein, a rich source of vitamin K, and a moderate source of B vitamins and dietary minerals. The sorbitol content of dietary fiber likely provides the laxative effect associated with consuming prunes. Contrary to the name, boiled plums or prunes are not us... |
why do people who live in different countries keep their native accent long term, for example arnold schwarzenegger? | Because language acquisition occurs at a pretty young age. Part of language acquisition is learning what sounds are *language* and what sounds are *noise*. For example, adult English speakers pretty much cannot learn to speak a vastly different language, such as Mandarin, as a native because they literally either canno... | [
"In addition, many British people can to some degree temporarily \"swing\" their accent towards a more neutral form of English at will, to reduce difficulty where very different accents are involved, or when speaking to foreigners.\n",
"Though raised in the midwestern state of Ohio, Friedel developed a slight Eng... |
Would it be possible to build a spacecraft that could be flown directly into a gas planet and have it come out the other side? | If you mean through the center of a gas giant, no chance. The center of Jupiter is thought to be composed of hydrogen (a gas at room temperature), but because of how massive Jupiter is this gas gets compressed to solid densities and is thought to enter a state called [warm dense matter](_URL_1_). Suffice it to say that... | [
"Gerard K. O'Neill proposed that by using very large balloons it may be possible to construct a space port in the stratosphere. Rockets could launch from it or a mass driver could accelerate payloads into the orbit. This has the advantage that most (about 90%) of the atmosphere is below the space port.\n",
"Remov... |
- what is the difference between jump starting and push starting a car, and how and when would i do one or the other? | Push starting, or 'popping the clutch' only works with a manual transmission. It has the advantage that it doesn't require a second car or jumper cables, but it only works on hills.
Functionally, the key difference is that a jump start requires a functioning starter motor to work, whereas popping the clutch does not, ... | [
"Push starting, also known as bump starting, clutch starting, popping the clutch or crash starting, is a method of starting a motor vehicle with an internal combustion engine by engaging the manual transmission while the vehicle is in motion. The technique is most commonly employed when other starting methods (auto... |
Why is it so easy to heat a room but at the same time very difficult to cool it? | It's mainly because of the second law of thermodynamics. In an isolated system, say for example a room. Any energy you put in will follow entropy and disperse until it reaches a balance. But to cool something down you need to create an imbalance, witch is directly fighting entropy and therefore requires more energy. | [
"As the operative temperature of a room is a combination of the air temperature and the mean temperature of all the surfaces in the room this implies that people will feel increasingly cooler as the air flow through the wall increases. Occupants may be tempted to turn up the room thermostat to compensate and thereb... |
Techies of Reddit, is it possible to create an open world video game that renders and utilizes Google Maps? | I assume you mean Satellite View here, otherwise it would be a pretty boring world. The problem is that Satellite View it is just not high res enough and doesn't contain complete enough information to render a 3D world. You don't see all sides of a building, etc. It could be done, but it wouldn't look very good, cer... | [
"Google's DeepMind Technologies developed a system capable of learning how to play Atari video games using only pixels as data input. In 2015 they demonstrated their AlphaGo system, which learned the game of Go well enough to beat a professional Go player. Google Translate uses an LSTM to translate between more tha... |
Can CNS overtraining from working out impact reaction time, brain function, etc.? | Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with this notion - what is CNS overtraining? | [
"Neurogenesis in the adult brain is often associated with diseases that deteriorate the CNS, like Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease. While adult neurogenesis is up-regulated in the hippocampus in patients with these diseases, whether its effects are regenerative or inconclusive rema... |
why is it that when we speak to a person eye to eye, we can only focus on one eye of the other person instead of both even though we have two eyes? | How easy is it to look at two things at once? I'm going to assume it's pretty hard for you (if you don't have a lazy eye, of course). Our eyes look in tandem at one "point" at a time typically. This is an aspect of our evolution that is helpful to perceive and visually track potential prey. Both of our eyes are on the ... | [
"When two or more individuals talk, the person that talks is used to being looked at. Therefore, making eye contact can make other people expect conversation. Discussing eye contact is actually quite difficult because any attempt to categorize the degree (of sustained contact or measure of directness) and the natur... |
Are there any mammals or reptiles that evolved into the water and then back out again (or vice versa with amphibians)? | I don't know of any examples where a terrestrial vertebrate evolved to be fully aquatic and then evolved to be terrestrial again. There is a hypothesis that this is true of humans (_URL_0_) but most scientists consider it to be unlikely. In any case, if an animal did this, it would not change its phylum or even its cla... | [
"Primarily or exclusively aquatic animals have re-evolved from terrestrial tetrapods multiple times: examples include amphibians such as newts, reptiles such as crocodiles, sea turtles, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, marine mammals such as whales, seals and otters, and birds such as penguins. Many species... |
when someone is in jail being held on x amount of bond. if paid, where exactly does the money go, what are the conditions for the person that was in jail? | K, so if you pay the full bond (without a bondsman) the money is held til their court date as a guarantee that they won't run from the law, upon sentence you get the bond back. If it's so much you get a bondsman, then the the 30% you put in is forfeit to the bondsman. | [
"In the United Kingdom a jailed person, whose conviction is quashed, might be paid compensation for the time they were incarcerated. This is currently limited by statute to a maximum sum of £1,000,000 for those who have been incarcerated for more than ten years and £500,000 for any other cases, with deductions for ... |
how did france, as a kingdom, retain relative unity, while regions such as germany and italy were largely disunited until the 19th century? | This post assumes that France *wasn't* quite fractured during the time period in question. Was this the case, or is France being more unified than other nearby kingdoms for much of its history a misconception? | [
"Until 1859, Italy wasn't yet a unified state but a sum of kingdoms and independent republics (Kingdom of Naples, Republic of Venice, Papal States, etc.). The situation changed with the unification of Italy. France saw this geopolitical change as a possible threat from the other side of the Alps border, partially a... |
Why don't stove top heating elements short circuit when you put a metal pan on them? | There are lots of types of stoves, but you are most likely referencing a conventional electric stove with heating coils. These work by putting an electrical current through a resistor to convert electrical energy into heat energy.
The bare heating coil on a stove is actually contained within the heating element, and ... | [
"Aluminum or copper alone does not work on an induction stove because of the materials’ magnetic and electrical properties. Aluminum and copper cookware are more conductive than steel, but the skin depth in these materials is larger since they are non-magnetic. The current flows in a thicker layer in the metal, enc... |
Many East Asian cultures use characters in language, despite being considerably separate, is this a coincidence? | China was considered the model of a civilized culture in East Asia, in the same way Rome/Greece was seen in Europe and Persia was viewed in the Middle-East.
As a result, the surrounding peoples adopted Chinese culture because of the prestige it offered. Japan undertook the Taika Reforms in the 7th century AD in imitat... | [
"While most East Asian languages use—or have used—the Chinese script, only the Chinese language uses the characters as the predominant way of naming elements. On the other hand, the Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese primarily employ native writing systems for the names of the elements, such as Katakana, Hangul and Q... |
history buffs; in light of pearl harbor, my question is: when did the us and japan become such close allies? at one point we declare war and now we are close. was there a single event/treaty/election? or was it a series of events? | The warming of relations started pretty shortly after the war ended actually. Japanese Reconstruction started in 1945 and was led by General Douglas McArthur. During this time the U.S pushed for widespread Military, Economic, And social reform. We helped rebuild the cities that we destroyed and in return set up a more ... | [
"The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise air strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the neutral United States in Oahu, Hawaii—with the focus being directed against the naval base at Pearl Harbor—on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack sank four U.S. battleships, destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft, and killed nea... |
how the holy trinity works. which bit of it is god? if they're all god is christianity polytheistic? | This is a difficult concept which Christians admit cannot be fully understood by the human mind. First off, the Bible never uses the word "Trinity." The doctrine of the Trinity was conceived to describe the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, it cannot be modeled mathematically. ... | [
"Most modern Christians believe the Godhead is triune, meaning that the three persons of the Trinity are in one union in which each person is also wholly God. They also hold to the doctrine of a man-god Christ Jesus as God incarnate. These Christians also do not believe that one of the three divine figures is God a... |
What is the power source of the United States, Antarctic, Scientific Station? | [For a decade, a small 1.8MW nuclear reactor provided power for McMurdo.](_URL_0_)
These days, it's jet fuel.^*
^* ^- ^(*Common sense dictates there's probably a plutonium battery or two as well. Nobody's talking.*) | [
"The electric power station was built in 1976 by the subsidiary of Alterra Power, HS Orka and it was the world´s first geothermal power plant for electric power generation and hot water production for district heating.\n",
"In 1960, Pacific Gas and Electric began operation of the first successful geothermal elect... |
why do prey that vastly outnumber a predator, often flee instead of fight? | If the zebra attack the predators, they will probably win but the risk of injury is higher than running. When you run there's the chance that the lion won't be able to catch any zebra.
No individual zebra (or other herd animal) is going to put themselves in danger for the good of the herd as a whole. That kind of beha... | [
"In social predation, a group of predators cooperates to kill prey. This makes it possible to kill creatures larger than those they could overpower singly; for example, hyenas, and wolves collaborate to catch and kill herbivores as large as buffalo, and lions even hunt elephants. It can also make prey more readily ... |
Please clear things up for me about the Great Barrier Reef. How much is gone, how much is bleached, can it be saved, what are the long term effects? | *Apologies in advance for a lack of scientific sourcing. If you would like anything sourced better, let me know.*
Coral "bleaching" is the algae having left the "coral". That is, the coral itself is literally the skeleton, so being "bleached" is literally to be dead.
_URL_0_
But, since the "coral" is [mostly] just ... | [
"A freedom of information request by the Northern Queensland Conservation Council in 2014 showed that Queensland Nickel discharged nitrate-laden water into the Great Barrier Reef in 2009 and 2011—releasing of toxic waste water on the latter occasion. In June 2012, Queensland Nickel stated it intended to release was... |
How did Oubilette prisons work? | Archaeology provides some evidence that these prisoners were not forgotten about. The oubliettes at the Château de Pierrefonds and Château de Chinon in France for example feature stone beds, pit latrines and a hole in the ceiling used to descend food with a rope, which indicates that the prisoners were kept alive.
The... | [
"Modern prison designs have increasingly sought to restrict and control the movement of prisoners throughout the facility and also to allow a smaller prison staff to monitor prisoners directly; often using a decentralized \"podular\" layout. (In comparison, 19th-century prisons had large landings and cell blocks wh... |
What was the experience of Christmas like for people during the middles ages in Europe? How much were pagan elements like yule logs and evergreens in the house involved? | I'll do Britain. The problem identifying pagan elements is that we don't have that many sources about them. The Ulster Cycle mentions no midwinter festivities, the Welsh likewise, and the Romans and Greeks don't really mention much at all that's of any use. Bede tells us about *Modranicht*, but like many things in ... | [
"The plants traditionally associated with Christmas – holly, ivy, mistletoe, common yew - have had special roles in earlier religions and past cultures. Some early religions in Europe had midwinter festivals to celebrate the return of the sun from the shortest day. In the 4th and 5th centuries, 25 December was grad... |
How does a wind-up watch keep accurate time as it unwinds? | If it uses a coiled ribbon spring, it will run faster when it's tightly wound, but not by much. The design of the spring is that it has relatively constant torque over several rotations, so the speed of your watch doesn't change much from fully wound to almost unwound.
_URL_0_ | [
"Even with new materials and improved theories, it is impossible to regulate a mechanical watch so it keeps the same time in all positions. A tourbillon offers watchmakers the possibility of higher accuracy than conventional movements, although poising the balance well and ensuring that the balance spring expands a... |
United Nations Ineffectiveness? | The Rwandian Genocide is one of the most poignant signs of UN ineffectiveness. Where it wasn't so much blocking from the security council but an unwillingness to engage. | [
"While most agree that the UN could be improved, Noam Chomsky, a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, proposes that measures such as the US relinquishing its veto power in the Security Council and submitting to the rulings of the International Court of Justice could significantly improve the UN's ability to foste... |
why do you not puke when you take fatal levels of caffeine? | Caffeine pills are made specifically to be rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream, by the time poisoning occurs there is nothing in the stomach to throw up.
You would however throw up if you ate or drank anywhere near toxic levels of a more slowly absorbed foodstuff. | [
"The general population of healthy adults is not at risk for potential adverse effects from caffeine if they limit their consumption to 400 mg per day, which is the equivalent of 5 standard cans, with one can being 250ml in volume. Consumption of a single energy drink will not lead to excessive caffeine intake. Adv... |
why do we perceive someone typing in all caps as yelling? | As opposed to I'M ACTUALLY WHISPERING I'M JUST REALLY TALL? | [
"With the advent of the bulletin board system, or BBS, and later the Internet, typing messages in all caps commonly became closely identified with \"shouting\" or attention-seeking behavior, and may be considered rude. Its equivalence to shouting traces back to at least 1984 and before the Internet, back to printed... |
why does my dog follow me everywhere? | What else does she have to do? You're her main source of food, affection, and mental stimulation. Unless she has toys somewhere else in the house, there's nothing for her to do besides sleep and hang out with you. | [
"The tail of a dog can communicate a number of emotions and intentions. Tail wagging by dogs is familiar to those who interact with them. When a dog wags its tail, most people interpret this as the dog expressing happiness and friendliness. Though indeed tail wagging can express these positive emotions, it can also... |
how is solar energy converted into electrical energy? | The, very basic, idea is that photons are absorbed by a semiconductor, which releases electrons in the material. Then there's an electric potential difference in the solar cell so the electrons move to correct it. This is the electrical energy we get. The type of material has a lot to do with how well this works. P-N j... | [
"Solar power harnesses the energy of the sun to make electricity. Two typical methods for converting solar energy into electricity are photo-voltaic cells that are organized into panels and concentrated solar power, which uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight to either heat a fluid that runs an electrical generator ... |
What is the history of the boomerang? | From what I have learnt from Aboriginal elders (I taught in a high school in Outback Australia) there were a couple of uses for boomerangs. The first was as a hunting tool, which is the most known form of boomerang. It was designed to return after being thrown. The second was a war boomerang, which was heavier and w... | [
"Here's Boomer is an American adventure/drama series produced by Paramount Television that premiered on the NBC network on March 14, 1980. A television movie called \"A Christmas for Boomer\" aired on December 6, 1979 and served as the pilot. A spin-off of the live-action series \"The Red Hand Gang\", the show foll... |
What is the oldest known method for writing musical notation? | The oldest known writing we know about is [cuneiform in clay tablets](_URL_0_). Some tablets describe how to get the intervals and notes, and then those are used by name (as in play this and that).
The second part of the question is very complicated. There's the theory part, and then there's the performance practice p... | [
"The earliest extant music manuscripts written in tablature notation date from the first half of the 15th century, with the oldest example, a German manuscript dating from 1432, containing the earliest known setting of a partial organ mass as well as a piece based on a cantus firmus. These manuscripts used letters ... |
how fast does new fat form after you've eaten a big meal? | I'll answer your original question...
12-24 hours and you'll have stored the excess calories as fat. Depending on the source of those calories (sugars are processed fast, then things like complex carbs and protein take longer with fat taking the longest to digest) the amount of time it take for your body to break dow... | [
"After several days of fasting, all cells in the body begin to break down protein. This releases amino acids into the bloodstream, which can be converted into glucose by the liver. Since much of our muscle mass is protein, this phenomenon is responsible for the wasting away of muscle mass seen in starvation.\n",
... |
why were the documented acts of religious figures deemed miracles and not witchcraft back in the day? | When OUR guy does it, it's a miracle. When THEIR guy does it, it's witchcraft. Simple as that.
But as to "documented acts," outside of religious texts, there are no credible accounts of actual miracles. It's either straight-up myth, or people interpreting unusual but entirely natural phenomena as miracles.
| [
"Some ancient sightings of gods and spirits are thought to have been conjured up by means of (concave) mirrors, camera obscura or magic lantern projections. By the 16th century necromantic ceremonies and the conjuring of ghostly apparitions by charlatan \"magicians\" and \"witches\" seemed commonplace. In his 1613 ... |
If looking deep into space is looking back in time, are there phenomena that we can say happened early on in the universe but no longer occur? | Yes, that's exactly why we look at things at large distances. Very distant galaxies seem to be quite different than galaxies today. We see them interacting with other galaxies more often, they form stars much faster, etc. In fact, one of the most "distant things" we can see is the radiation left over from the Big Bang,... | [
"An important feature of the Big Bang spacetime is the presence of particle horizons. Since the universe has a finite age, and light travels at a finite speed, there may be events in the past whose light has not had time to reach us. This places a limit or a \"past horizon\" on the most distant objects that can be ... |
how come i still can't hear much the day after a concert | Basically inside the cochlea of your ear there are tiny hairs called Stereocilia. When a sound enters your ear it enters the cochlea and vibrates the little hairs, the movement of these little hairs is turned into electrical signals and sent to the brain.
Now these hairs are tiny, more than half as think as the hair o... | [
"Due to technical problems, a sound line broke down halfway through the show. As a result, the audience were allowed to stay after the show to watch the band perform \"Iron Maiden\" and \"Phantom of the Opera\" again for the recording.\n",
"In an interview with Los Angeles magazine, he revealed, \"I’m 80 percent ... |
I keep hearing more and more about solar flares/ storms - Are they a legitimate concern? What more can you tell me about this? | Solar storms are only worrisome to electronics and communications. A severe enough storm can disrupt the power grid, burn out sensitive components in satellites, etc.
The only thing you should worry about is where to go to get the best view of the amazing and beautiful auroras they can produce. | [
"Solar flares strongly influence the local space weather in the vicinity of the Earth. They can produce streams of highly energetic particles in the solar wind or stellar wind, known as a solar proton event. These particles can impact the Earth's magnetosphere (see main article at geomagnetic storm), and present ra... |
how can something like ready player one exist without being sued for copyright by basically everyone? | They got permission from the property holders to use those properties in the movie. Wether they paid to use them or if they were just given permission though. Who knows? | [
"Rarely has any abandonware case gone to court, but it is still unlawful to distribute copies of old copyrighted software and games, with or without compensation, in any Berne Convention signatory country.\n",
"The law in the United Kingdom does allow people to use copyrighted material for the purposes of parody,... |
what was the outcome of super tuesday and what does it mean? | First the Democratic Party and the Republican Party hold primary election to see who should be the party nominee. Then there is a general election where those two nominees fight each other to become president.
Primaries are held on different dates in different states. The general elections are all held on one day. Thi... | [
"Super Tuesday is the name for March 1, 2016, the day on which the largest simultaneous number of state presidential primary elections will be held in the United States. It will include Republican primaries in nine states and caucuses in two states, totaling 595 delegates (24.1% of the total). North Dakota holds th... |
Were bank robberies as common in the wild west are they're portrayed in westerns? | Not only were they not as common none of the violence was as common as portrayed in westerns. Bank Robberies were no more prevalent than they are today. In fact in my city St. Louis they are more common. The cattle town of Tombstone famous for gang shootouts.......4 deaths the year of the shootout at OK corral. Sorry i... | [
"George Sutherland Currie (March 20, 1871 – April 17, 1900), also known as George \"Flat-Nose\" Curry, was a Canadian-American robber of the American Old West. Curry was a mentor to Harvey Logan, who would adopt the surname Curry, and the two robbed banks together before both became members of Butch Cassidy's Wild ... |
If red hair is caused by recessive genes, blonde hair is also caused by recessive genes and dark hair is caused by dominant genes, how is it possible for parents to have brunette, blonde, and redheaded children? | [Pictures](_URL_0_) always help to explain this one, but essentially if both parents are carriers of the recessive gene, and both pass the recessive gene along, then two copies of the recessive gene= expression of recessive trait. | [
"Red hair can originate from several changes on the MC1R-gene. If one of these changes is present on both chromosomes then the respective individual is likely to have red hair. This type of inheritance is described as an autosomal recessive. Even if both parents do not have red hair themselves, both can be carriers... |
why do these certain ethnicities tend to own a majority of these certain businesses? | Imagine moving to a new country, you are going to stay with relatives or friends of relatives. They give a job at their business and then teach you the ropes. You now know "insert business name here" so you then start your own. If you go back far enough there may have social stigma around a job or around the ethnic gro... | [
"Minority owned businesses can also experience discrimination, both from suppliers and from banks and other sources of capital financing. In the US, there are tax benefits and even public relations benefits from having minority-owned businesses, so most instances of this occur outside of the United States.\n",
"A... |
why are most cooking oils ~120 calories per tbsp? | On a calorie level all oils are the same. Specifically all oils are 100% fat.
A gram of fat has 9 calories in it.
A tablespoon of oil weights about 14g.
14 * 9 = 126 | [
"Cooking oils are composed of various fractions of fatty acids. For the purpose of frying food, oils high in monounsaturated or saturated fats are generally popular, while oils high in polyunsaturated fats are less desirable. High oleic acid oils include almond, macadamia, olive, pecan, pistachio, and high-oleic cu... |
spoons and fork seem more efficient than chopsticks in almost every way, then why do people still use chopsticks? | They aren't more efficient in some respects.
Plus they are *way* cheaper than forks or spoons since they are just two sticks. No need for tines or a flattened rounded spoon-end. | [
"Since chopsticks (and spoons) are used in place of forks and knives, Chinese cuisine tends to serve dishes in bite-size pieces or employ cooking techniques that render dishes such as fish or \"hong shao rou\" soft enough to be picked apart easily. Some common etiquette is:\n",
"Different knives are sharpened dif... |
the suffixes after names in japanese (e.g. -chan, -kun, -san) | -chan is for when you call someone cute, or younger people.
-kun is for friends, your buddies.
-san is for adults and general people you want to adress politely
It's only used when addressing someone directly, not for yourself. It's basically just a way of indicating your relation to the person. | [
"In Japan, diminutive names are made by adding an honorific suffix to a person's name, or to part of the name. The suffix \"-chan\" is typically added to a girl's name as a term of endearment. The suffix \"-kun\" is added to a male's name. Outside of family, the suffix \"-kun\" typically implies a relationship betw... |
why can't you drink and take sleeping pills? it seems like they'd go great together. | Alcohol is a depressant, which slows activity of the brain/central nervous system. This effect compounds with sleeping pills and so your body can easily slow down too far, resulting in generally dangerous stuff. | [
"Correlations between the usage of drugs and dreaming have been documented, particularly the use of drugs, such as sedatives, and the suppression of dreaming because of drugging effects on the cycles and stages of sleep while not allowing the user to reach REM. Drugs used for their stimulating properties (cocaine, ... |
Marxist historical analyses of the Holocaust. | Edit: For ease of finding, [here](_URL_0_) is the part with sources and literature.
Ok, what makes it very difficult for me to answer your request for sources foremost is that there is a huge spectrum of Marxist analyses of the Holocaust and of Nazism. What form they take and their actual analysis depend heavily on th... | [
"While no textbooks in the sample overtly question the history of the Holocaust, some present it in partial or abstract terms, such that the reader learns little about the event. A Syrian textbook, for example, refers to the event as ‘conditions of oppression by the Nazis in Europe’; an Iraqi textbook similarly des... |
FAQ / Megathread: The Nazis, Chemical Weapons, and the Holocaust | I'm not sure if this question will be considered on topic or not...I think it is.
I'm curious how /u/commiespaceinvader and anyone else who has spent a good deal of time studying the atrocities of the Third Reich in an academic capacity feel about public figures invoking Hitler or the Nazis (Godwin's Law) in policy de... | [
"The resulting investigative series \"Nazis in America\" was initiated June 4, 1977, with a front page story on the murder of Chicago-area businessman Sydney Cohen by Raymond Lee Schultz, who had ties to the American Nazi Party in the 1960s and then became affiliated with the National States' Rights Party. The stor... |
why do ultrasounds heal injuries? | As I understand it there is not much research done on this. However, it could work due to increased circulation in the area where it's applied.. | [
"There are three potential effects of ultrasound. The first is the increase in blood flow in the treated area. The second is the decrease in pain from the reduction of swelling and edema. The third is the gentle massage of muscle tendons and/ or ligaments in the treated area because no strain is added and any scar ... |
how are events (like the grammys) supposedly "live" when they are showing us footage from the event in commercials? | They're showing footage from *past* Grammys in the commercials. Though the real event isn't *quite* live. There's a slight delay so that the network can beep out inappropriate language. | [
"There is more than one audio source of this concert as well as a video. According to Roger Taylor, the drummer of Queen, the complete show was supposed to be shown on TV in early 1977 but was never aired. Since then, the footage has leaked out to collectors, though in terrible quality. Over the years, some of the ... |
Why was the Bradley's 25mm autocannon able to knock out Soviet T-55s when the Sherman's 75mm cannon fared so poorly against German medium tanks? | Basically: developments in weapons technology, particularly in ammunition, allow for smaller caliber weaponry to deliver rounds with comparable, if not better, penetration profiles and greater force. Additionally, even though the Sherman's cannon was underpowered by contemporary, it could disable any production German ... | [
"The higher-velocity 76 mm gun gave Shermans anti-tank firepower at least equal to most of the German vehicles they encountered, particularly the Panzer IV and StuG III. The gun could penetrate of unsloped RHA at and at using the usual M62 round. The M1 helped to equalize the Sherman and the Panzer IV in terms of f... |
if .wav and .flac are both lossless, and also both mega-huge files, why bother with flac? | Flac files are quite a bit more compact than wav files.
Wav is uncompressed.
Flac is compressed, but lossless, which means it compresses in a way that reduces file size but not quality, unlike a compressed *lossy* format like MP3 that reduces file size and quality.
As I recall, a FLAC file is roughly half the size ... | [
"Since FLAC is a lossless scheme, it is suitable as an archive format for owners of CDs and other media who wish to preserve their audio collections. If the original media are lost, damaged, or worn out, a FLAC copy of the audio tracks ensures that an exact duplicate of the original data can be recovered at any tim... |
when my laptop is on and i put my hand on the lid i don't feel anything as long as i don't move my hand. as soon as i move it along the lid i feel a buzzing. why is this? | I'm guessing this is a brushed silver macbook, because the same thing happens with mine. Turn it off, and you'll find it still happens, because the "buzzing" is from the friction of your hand rubbing across the surface, not from the computer itself. Basically it feels smooth, but you're causing a low vibration when you... | [
"A 1993 article by George Fitzmaurice studied spatially aware palmtop computers. These devices had a 3D sensor, and moving the device caused the contents to move as if the contents were fixed in place. This interaction could be referred to as “moving to scroll.” Also, if the user moved the device away from their bo... |
why is urban density important and how does it work? | Until the 19th century, city transportation was either by foot or by animal. This meant that people had to live very close to where they worked. For lots of people to do that, it was necessary for large numbers of people to live in a small area, generally by making taller buildings with smaller living spaces. That's al... | [
"Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area. As such it is to be distinguished from other measures of population density. Urban density is considered an important factor in understanding how cities function. Research related to ... |
A question about how modern(ish) authors treat history | Speaking from personal experience, I would say he's the same. My parents' gave me his bio of Madison because my mother loved it so much and I had to stop because he never really critiques his sources, randomly drops quotes without context, and is overly concerned with telling his story than actually getting at history. | [
"New historicists analyse text with an eye to history. With this in mind, new historicism is not \"new\". Many of the critiques that existed between the 1920s and the 1950s also focused on literature's historical content. These critics based their assumptions of literature on the connection between texts and their ... |
Source for Ancient Civil Trials | Alexander, M.C. (1990), *Trials in the Late Roman Republic, 149 BC-50 BC.*, Toronto. (is available online)
Provides an in-depth list of trials from that period (date, charge, defendant, prosecutor, primary and secondary sources etc.). You would have to research trials which appeal to your needs (maybe P. Clodius would... | [
"The best source for the trials is considered to be the Venetian Marin Sanudo, who was the chronicler to the Council of Ten from 1496 to 1536. The documentary evidence was destroyed by order of Giacinto Gaggia, the bishop of Brescia, to prevent it from being used by the anticlerical opposition.\n",
"In its ancien... |
Scientists of reddit, other than DEET in mosquito spray, is there anything the average person can do/buy to reduce the amount of mosquitos that bite us? | I'm not sure what sorts of situations are leading to you getting bitten (are you asking about avoiding bites while outside your home, or while inside, or both, etc). But I'll try some [generic answers](_URL_0_).
1. Mosquito nets are cheap and extremely effective. Clearly they aren't useful if you're walking around out... | [
"For instance, parathion, one of the first OPPs commercialized, is many times more potent than malathion, an insecticide used in combating the Mediterranean fruit fly (Med-fly) and West Nile Virus-transmitting mosquitoes. Human and animal exposure to them can be through ingestion of foods containing them, or via ab... |
company valuation vs. revenue | According to Wikipedia, Facebook's revenue last year was actually a little over $12 billion and they have total assets of over $40 billion with a total equity of $38 billion. When were talking about the total value of a company, though, we are looking at more than just their revenue and tangible assets. Investors will ... | [
"Most often value is expressed in a Letter of Opinion of Value (LOV) when the business is being valued informally. Formal valuation reports generally get more detailed and expensive as the size of a company increases, but this is not always the case as the nature of the business and the industry it is operating in ... |
[THEORETICAL PHYSICS] Level 3 Multiverse: What causes the "bubbles" in meta-level space to form and why do they not expand at the same rate as the space between them? | (This is actually level 2 and not 3, level 3 is the Many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics)
In this scenario, bubbles form because of vacuum decay (you should search for "Coleman-de Luccia" if you want to know more about why bubbles form, but it's the same principle of why bubbles of vapor form when water is ... | [
"Many dynamic processes that generate bubbles are nonlinear, many exhibiting mathematically chaotic patterns consistent with chaos theory. In such cases, chaotic bubbles can be said to occur. In most systems they arise out of a forcing pressure that encounters some kind of resistance or shear factor, but the detail... |
why does looking at a reversed image of yourself look so weird? | Firstly your brain is incredibly sensitive at picking up very very subtle facial differences. Our faces are not perfectly symmetrical so a picture of your face is not the same as a mirrored image.
The other point is, when you see a photo that is 'reversed', it's actually the other way around.
You normally see yo... | [
"Looking at an image of oneself with the front-back axis flipped results in the perception of an image with its left-right axis flipped. When reflected in the mirror, your right hand remains directly opposite your real right hand, but it is perceived as the left hand of your image. When a person looks into a mirror... |
How does an airfoil create circulation? (plus a few other questions about lift) | These are great questions and I have to answer them for students all the time! There are rigorous arguments, hand-wavy arguments, all manner of things, lots of reasonably accurate/rigorous ways to describe why lift happens, and also a lot of really dubious awful ones (that pop up too frequently on this topic in /r/asks... | [
"An airfoil generates lift by exerting a downward force on the air as it flows past. According to Newton's third law, the air must exert an equal and opposite (upward) force on the airfoil, which is lift.\n",
"When an airfoil generates lift, several components of the overall velocity field contribute to a net cir... |
why are girl scouts and boy scouts gender segregated? | Girl Guides.
But they aren't, at least not any more. Girls can and do freely join Scouting bodies that were previously devoted exclusively to boys.
The reason for the segregation was because boy scouts was created very early in the 1900's by Robert Baden-Powell as a very traditional organization in a time when women... | [
"Most Girl Scouts of the USA units were originally segregated by race according to state and local laws and customs. By the 1950s, the GSUSA began significant national efforts to desegregate the camps and maintain racial balance. One of the first desegregations was Camp Shantituck in Kentucky, which was accomplishe... |
I’m an innocent soviet citizen who has been abducted by the KGB on suspicion of crime against the state, what will happen to me over the few weeks? Is there a chance of release? What if they force me to sign a false confession and I refuse? | I can recommend some memoirs of arrest and imprisonment under Stalin.
"Into the Whirlwind" by Yevgenia Ginzburg describes her arrest, interrogation and imprisonment during the Great Terror. She was the wife of a well-known poet who had enemies in the literary establishment. She and her husband were arrested on spuriou... | [
"BULLET::::- Vladimir Tkachenko, a 25-year old Soviet physicist who was working at Birmingham University in the United Kingdom, was abducted from the streets of London by two agents of the Soviet KGB intelligence agency, apparently because the Russians believed that he was preparing to defect to the West. After wit... |
Could the Dentists and Doctors of askscience provide some information about calcium sodium phosphosilicate toothpaste versus normal fluoride toothpaste? | There's some variety in the data as of this point. [This study](_URL_1_) found that CSPS was able to form a hydroxyapatite-like layer over dentin in vitro. [This study](_URL_2_) found that CSPS-coated dentin produced harder surfaces. However, [this study](_URL_0_) found CSPS to produce less remineralization effects ... | [
"Some Sensodyne products contain calcium sodium phosphosilicate CSPS (Novamin), which appears to help with tooth sensitivity. A randomized clinical trial published in 2015 demonstrated that dentifrices containing 5% CSPS may have the potential to mineralize and occlude the dentine in the oral environment. Sensodyne... |
Why is DNA made up of 4 amino acids? | You mean nucleic acids. Let's start with double helixes because they are stable (they protect the inside quite well) and simple (three objects binding together simultaneously is a chemical nightmare). That means we probably need an even number of nucleic acids (so we can keep our nice pairing up that makes replication ... | [
"There are twenty natural amino acids that are used to build the proteins that DNA encodes. However, there are only four nucleotides. Therefore, there cannot be a one-to-one correspondence between nucleotides and amino acids. Similarly, there are 16 2-mers, which is also not enough to unambiguously represent every ... |
ship of theseus | There isn't one. That's the point of it being a philosophical thought exercise. | [
"Pirithoos talks Theseus out of going to Crete to meet his bride-to-be, Phaedra, and instead the two journey to Euxine, home of the Amazons. There, Theseus falls in love with Hippolyta the leader of the Amazons, and after defeating her in single combat, takes her home to Athens with him. She is beautiful, athletic,... |
Historiography of Shays's Rebellion | Oops! Didn't see this earlier, but I'll try to do it justice.
Start with Szatmary's [*The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection*](_URL_1_). It is definitely going to soundly establish the economic backstory that is widely accepted. He covers the cycle of moving debt after the war that lead to Western Massachusetts farmer... | [
"Shays Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts in opposition to the state government’s increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. American Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebel... |
How does data travel from a router or a cell tower to each individual device only? | You haven't specified whether you mean wireless communication or wired so I'll answer for both.
In case of wireless communication, your phone or other wireless device would be connected to a station connected to the internet. The station would know and communicate with whatever it is connected to where it can be found... | [
"Network computer devices that originate, route and terminate the data are called network nodes. Nodes are generally identified by network addresses, and can include hosts such as personal computers, phones, and servers, as well as networking hardware such as routers and switches. Two such devices can be said to be... |
why is it that when we start getting weight, the most common place for fat to be laid down is the belly? | 1. Because that is where your major organs are, if you're going to store fat, might as well have it be somewhere that protects them and keeps them warm.
2. It's also right in the middle of your body's center of gravity, so it doesn't not throw off your balance. If fat built up first somewhere else, like in your feet or... | [
"Men are more likely to have fat stored in the abdomen due to sex hormone differences. Female sex hormone causes fat to be stored in the buttocks, thighs, and hips in women. When women reach menopause and the estrogen produced by the ovaries declines, fat migrates from the buttocks, hips and thighs to the waist; la... |
How can we accurately radioactively date rocks on
Earth, if the elements within them were formed in
star or supernova billions of years before? | If by "radioactively date" you radiocarbon dating, we don't use that for rocks. That method is generally only useful for about dating things to 50000 years, requires organic material, and requires regional calibration.
_URL_0_
As for dating geological materials, I will pass the podium to someone else. | [
"Uranium–lead radiometric dating involves using uranium-235 or uranium-238 to date a substance's absolute age. This scheme has been refined to the point that the error margin in dates of rocks can be as low as less than two million years in two-and-a-half billion years. An error margin of 2–5% has been achieved on ... |
if i were to hypothetically remove all the water from the mariana trench, would the high pressure still be there if i was standing at the bottom? | I assume you mean that if all water were gone in the trench and replaced by air? In that case, you would not have a noticeable pressure on you. Air weighs far, far less than water. You would not have a problem being in the bottom with just air above you. | [
"At the bottom of the trench the water column above exerts a pressure of , more than 1,000 times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. At this pressure, the density of water is increased by 4.96%, so that 95.27 of any unit of volume of water under the pressure of the Challenger Deep would contain the same... |
Would there be sound in a nebula? | The density of Nebulae are extremely low (~1000 particles/cm^3 ), so they cannot carry sound. They can be seen because they are so huge. | [
"A pulsar wind nebula (PWN, plural PWNe), sometimes called a plerion (derived from the Greek \"πλήρης\", \"pleres\", meaning \"full\"), is a type of nebula found inside the shells of supernova remnants (SNRe) that is powered by pulsar winds generated by its central pulsar. These nebulae were discovered in 1976 as s... |
Camera phone lens sizes and resolution | I am also an amateur astronomer (and telescope builder with some experience designing and correcting optical systems).
You are right. There is no work-around for diffraction limits, when the object is far from the lens.
Let's assume the lens' aperture is indeed 2mm. This gives a 50 arcsec resolving power - pretty clo... | [
"The angle of view of a lens depends upon its focal length and the camera's image sensor size; a sensor smaller than 35 mm film format (36×24 mm frame) gives a narrower angle of view for a lens of a given focal length than a camera equipped with a full-frame (35 mm) sensor. As of 2017, only a few current DSLRs have... |
How do nations communicate with each other? | Formal day to day communication happens between embassies and (typically) state departement of the host country. They send very official hand delivered letters to each other (called Diplomatic Notes). They can also have meetings with government officials and ambassadors.
Highest form of diplomatic contact are stat... | [
"International communication traditionally refers to communication between and among nation-states and connotes issues of national sovereignty, control of national information resources, and the supremacy of national governments.\n",
"Informal diplomacy (sometimes called Track II diplomacy) has been used for cent... |
Is it true that ancient Greek and Roman societies did not discriminate on the basis of skin color? Did they have concepts of race, or an analog? | I was a classics major, but I didn't do any specific study on this subject. However, it's been 12 hours, so I think my incomplete answer (though I hope not incorrect!) will be good enough.
Specific instances where race or something similar crops up that I can think of: Ethiopia was known of in Greek myth, even befor... | [
"Dominant in ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of human diversity was the thesis that physical differences between different populations could be attributed to environmental factors. Though ancient peoples likely had no knowledge of evolutionary theory or genetic variability, their concepts of race could be descr... |
why does ssd wear out/slow down as used? and why does hdd not have that problem? should ssd be replaced often to maintain system performance? | The structures that are switched to retain data can and do wear out from use. It's not a perfect system but it meets the needs of being fast, reliable, inexpensive to manufacture and scale able. It's easier to change the drives control firmware to spread write cycles around the memory to prevent over use and to maybe i... | [
"Due to their generally prohibitive cost versus HDD's at the time, until 2009, SSDs were mainly used in those aspects of mission critical applications where the speed of the storage system needed to be as high as possible. Since flash memory has become a common component of SSDs, the falling prices and increased de... |
Is female child related to paternal grandfather? | The X and Y sex chromosomes are but one one pair out of the 22 other autosome pairs each human cell normally contains. While it is true the female grandchild will not inherit the Y chromosome, thus ending that chromosome's line, she will still have roughly a quarter of her paternal grandfather's genetic information.
... | [
"Her paternal grandparents were King George I of Greece, child of King Christian IX of Denmark, and Olga Konstantinovna of Russia. Her maternal grandparents were Frederick III, German Emperor, and the Empress Victoria, the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. She was a paternal first cousin of Prin... |
how bad would it really be for the western world if china was to go bust. | They produce a lot of our goods, and they buy a lot of our debt. Consumer goods would skyrocket in price and the value of the dollar would steeply decline. In other words the stores would almost all be out of stock, and whatever is still available for sale would cost too much. | [
"Merrill Lynch predicted in 2011 that China would become the world's second largest pharmaceutical market in 2013 and the largest in 2020. The chief executive of Hoffmann-La Roche in 2012 stated a few years ago many Chinese life sciences scientists had to leave China but that many were now returning to conditions o... |
why sleeping in fetal position is bad for you | Because your neck most likely isn't in a good position since the pillow might be too high or too low. The other point is that deep breathing is restricted in the fetal position which is essential for a restful sleep. | [
"A study by Professor Chris Idzikowski, director of the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service found that people who consistently sleep in the fetal position tend to have a shy and sensitive personality.\n",
"Co-sleeping also increases the risks of suffocation and strangulation. The soft quality of the mattresses,... |
In what way does a body accept a new donated organ? Is it related to blood type? What causes it to be rejected? | It is not related to blood type. Every human cell expresses a type of proteins called major histocompatability proteins (MHC proteins) that serve as a marker for "self cells". The sequence and "shape" of these proteins varies greatly between people. Your white blood cells will destroy any cells or tissues expressing MH... | [
"There are clinical reasons why one cellular source may be more beneficial for the patient over the other. The transplant physician bases his or her request on this information. If a donor declines to donate via one method, the transplant center may or may not be able to accept the other, based on the clinical need... |
What are some good books about the history of the Netherlands? | Excuse me for phrasing it this way, but you must pick up **Jonathan Israel's *The Dutch Republic: It's Rise, Greatness and Fall 1477-180*6** (Clarendon Press; New Ed edition - 1998). It covers pretty much everything you need to know. Some think this book goes too much into arcane details, but the Dutch Republic was a c... | [
"The history of the Netherlands has long been colored by local histories financed by various institutions and leading families through the ages. There are several discrepancies to be found in period accounts between the various city archives, and the archives of other institutions such as water boards or the Bishop... |
If you were free falling towards the Earth and shot a handgun in front of you what would happen? | In free fall, you would eventually reach terminal velocity. When you fire the bullet, friction will act on the bullet and it will eventually reach terminal velocity (much slower than its initial velocity). I'm going to assume that the bullet reaches terminal velocity before it hits the ground - otherwise you would neve... | [
"Suddenly, they turned around, got on their knees, as if they were ordered to, they did it all together, aimed. And personally, I was standing there saying, they're not going to shoot, they can't do that. If they are going to shoot, it's going to be blank.\n",
"BULLET::::- A player who dives and catches a loose b... |
Why can I 'feel' bass but only hear other pitches at the same volume? | You have a variety of specialized mechanosensitive cells in your body (non-sound ones). The highest frequency sensitivity to touch comes from the neurons that have an end-organ called the Pacinian corpuscle. The Pacinian corpuscle is most sensitive to inputs around 260 Hz. By 500 Hz, or so, they are insensitive. At 260... | [
"Whenever two different pitches are played at the same time, their sound waves interact with each other – the highs and lows in the air pressure reinforce each other to produce a different sound wave. Any repeating sound wave that is not a sine wave can be modeled by many different sine waves of the appropriate fre... |
Any historians of humor here? | There's a great section on this in the FAQ buddy :) | [
"Jewish humor is rooted in several traditions. Recent scholarship places the origins of Jewish humor in one of history's earliest recorded documents, the Hebrew Bible, as well as the Talmud. In particular, the intellectual and legal methods of the Talmud, which uses elaborate legal arguments and situations often se... |
why do mris cost so much in the us compared to india | It's not just asia. Compare US prices to those paid even next door in Canada. This is the same for almost all medical care - in America you pay much more for the same thing.
In all 3 of those countries an MRI machine costs a lot of money. In two of those countries that MRI machine will be utilized to the fullest becau... | [
"The United States spends more on technology than Canada. In a 2004 study on medical imaging in Canada, it was found that Canada had 4.6 MRI scanners per million population while the U.S. had 19.5 per million. Canada's 10.3 CT scanners per million also ranked behind the U.S., which had 29.5 per million. The study d... |
how does the policy of "total war" affect the economy? | Total war is not about profits, its about capacity. You don't do it because its especially profitable, but because you have to to maximize output.
Your whole economy is dedicaded to war and has to be rearranged while there are very little "luxury consumer goods" afterwards, so no, your economy will take a blow during... | [
"A war economy or wartime economy is the set of contingencies undertaken by a modern state to mobilize its economy for war production. Philippe Le Billon describes a war economy as a \"system of producing, mobilizing and allocating resources to sustain the violence.\" Some measures taken include the increasing of T... |
Which part of the body lasts longest after death? | Bones and teeth. That's why bones and teeth are left when we unearth thousands of years old bodies. | [
"Most tissues and organs of the body can survive clinical death for considerable periods. Blood circulation can be stopped in the entire body below the heart for at least 30 minutes, with injury to the spinal cord being a limiting factor. Detached limbs may be successfully reattached after 6 hours of no blood circu... |
Where do the elements come from? | Most generally, the elements come from stars.
In the early universe it was hot and dense, but it was expanding so it was cooling. When it got to a low enough temperature, nucleons (protons and neutrons) were able to form, and when it cooled further, they were able to form hydrogen and helium, with a small spattering ... | [
"A number of physical elements (such as platinum, mercury, tin and zinc) have been known from antiquity, as they are found in their native form and are relatively simple to mine with primitive tools. Around 330 BCE, the Greek philosopher Aristotle proposed that everything is made up of a mixture of one or more \"ro... |
Are there any human species that have gone extinct? | As a side note, I should point out that [Neanderthal lived from about 500,000 to about 40,000 years ago](_URL_0_), or for a span of roughly 460,000 years, while [Homo sapiens have been around for about 100,000-200,000 years](_URL_1_).
So, I think it's a bit premature to say that we're around because we're the superi... | [
"One species, \"Barbus microbarbis\" from Rwanda, is known to have gone extinct in recent times. Several others are only known from the type specimens, and their status and continuing existence must be confirmed. As many of these are from Lake Victoria, which underwent massive ecological upheaval after Nile perch (... |
Gentle men/ladies, I would be most grateful if you could recommend to me a history of the Romani/Gypsy people. | [Bury Me Standing](_URL_0_)
I have never read this book, but I've heard good things about it. I have no idea how into the history it gets, and my understanding is that it is more an ethnography/sociological study. I assume it does deal with the history, however.
Looking at your tag, I'm reminded that Romani music is ... | [
"Many depictions of Romani people in literature and art present romanticized narratives of mystical powers of fortune telling or irascible or passionate temper paired with an indomitable love of freedom and a habit of criminality. Romani were a popular subject in Venetian painting from the time of Giorgione at the ... |
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