question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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why does most of the body bruise when struck, but the top of the head gets a hard lump? | A bruise happens when you bleed inside your skin. If it is soft under the blood, then it will push down. As long as it is soft underneath, the blood has a place to go. So the bruise stays soft. If it is hard, because there is bone underneath, then it will push up. Skin can stretch, but only so much. So when skin can’t... | [
"A bruise, also known as a contusion, is a type of hematoma of tissue, the most common cause being capillaries damaged by trauma, causing localized bleeding that extravasate into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Most bruises are not very deep under the skin so that the bleeding causes a visible discoloration. ... |
what causes the aggressiveness in tiny dogs (like chihuahuas and poms)? | People treat small dogs like fucking toys. They're so cute that they invariably get away with a lot of behavior that we wouldn't tolerate from big dogs. This, coupled with general lack of understanding on how to discipline dogs, leads to small dogs being treated like human infants instead of pets. Aggressiveness is a n... | [
"A 2008 University of Pennsylvania study of 6,000 dog owners who were interviewed indicated that dogs of smaller breeds were more likely to be \"genetically predisposed towards aggressive behaviour\". Dachshunds were rated the most aggressive, with 20% having bitten strangers, as well as high rates of attacks on ot... |
How stable would elements in the island of stability be? | Likely not very. Some calculations predict very long lifetimes for certain superheavy nuclides. But the uncertainties are large. The lifetimes for alpha decay and spontaneous fission depends exponentially on the shape of the nuclear potential well.
> Is it plausible that elements in the island can exist for thousands... | [
"The island of stability is a region outside the valley of stability where it is predicted that a set of heavy isotopes with near magic numbers of protons and neutrons will locally reverse the trend of decreasing stability in elements heavier than uranium.\n",
"In nuclear physics, the island of stability is the p... |
does the english language itself (disregarding history, geography, and politics) have any characteristics that helped it be as popular it is? | It's extremely promiscuous, and will borrow words from anywhere. And the grammar is often somewhat loose too, in that it's easy to repurpose words as different parts of speech in a way that is often difficult to even translate into some other languages. It's a language formed by melding a Germanic language (which itse... | [
"English is often considered to be the lingua franca of the world today due to the diversity of countries and communities that have adopted English as a national, commercial, or social form of communication. Globalization, colonialism, and the capitalist system have all helped promote English as the world's dominan... |
Was there any major trade route (like Silk Road in Old World) in America before the arrival of Columbus? | I went digging for an answer and found the same question from a few years ago. [Check it out. ](_URL_0_) | [
"Prior to the Silk Road an ancient overland route existed through the Eurasian Steppe. Silk and horses were traded as key commodities; secondary trade included furs, weapons, musical instruments, precious stones (turquoise, lapis lazuli, agate, nephrite) and jewels. This route extended for approximately . Trans-Eur... |
Does having large quantities of sex alter the shape of a vagina? | To try to stem the tide of some of these questions, the deleted comments are all jokes, insults and the like. These kinds of comments do not have a place in /r/AskScience so they are deleted. Please try to leave top level comments for answers. | [
"It has been postulated that the shape of the human penis may have been selected by sperm competition. The shape could have favored displacement of seminal fluids implanted within the female reproductive tract by rival males: the thrusting action which occurs during sexual intercourse can mechanically remove semina... |
why university fees trebled in the uk last year | University fees have been increasing gradually from when they were first introduced in 1998 at £1000/year.
However, in 2009/2010, there was a [review](_URL_0_) on the subject of higher education. The review was agreed when Labour objected to the previous round of increases in university fees, and the Tories said they ... | [
"Since October 1998, most undergraduates have paid fees that had risen to a set maximum of £3,375 per annum by the academic year 2011-12. These fees are repayable after graduation, contingent on attaining a certain level of income, with the state paying all fees for students from the poorest backgrounds. UK student... |
if food is sanatized in an oven or any heating device at a certain temperature, why do we take so many precautions beforehand with germs and bacteria? | Bacteria poop.
Even if you kill all the bacteria & viruses (which you can't be sure of) the bacteria might release chemicals that aren't healthy.
A great example is botulism - it's not the bacteria that make you sick, it's the toxins they release while they're reproducing that kill you. | [
"Thermometers are important in food safety, where food at temperatures within can be prone to potentially harmful levels of bacterial growth after several hours which could lead to foodborne illness. This includes monitoring refrigeration temperatures and maintaining temperatures in foods being served under heat la... |
What would my daily schedule look like if I were a Roman soldier heading into a battle? | The first thing to realize is that there was no such thing as a typical battle. The Romans did not agree upon a meeting time with an enemy, show up on the field, and slug it out when the arranged time came. Battles were unpredictable, volatile, and almost never took place when you wanted them to. It would be a terri... | [
"In addition to the above, which gives further reasons to doubt the figures given about the size of the Roman forces at the Battle of the Allia, it has to be noted that the Romans did not have much time to prepare for the battle properly since after their embassy was rebuffed by the Romans, the Gauls immediately ma... |
does globalization further prejudice? if so how? | **TL;DR: Yes.**
First step is to define what globalization is.
> the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture.
"*Interchange*" is the key word here because it requires two things - a functional form of communication (which reduce... | [
"Globalization is sometimes perceived as a cause of a phenomenon called the \"race to the bottom\" that implies that to minimize cost and increase delivery speed, businesses tend to locate operations in countries with the least stringent environmental and labor regulations. Pressure to do this is increased if compe... |
how do you learn how to draw when it doesn't come to you as a natural talent? | It doesn't come to anyone naturally, it's just those that are good never stopped practicing as a kid | [
"Although the ability to draw has always come easy, the process takes practice, “For years and years, I would just flip pages in sketchbooks and draw, draw, draw until something came out. That’s a good way to approach it, I think.” Talking about his artistic process, he explains that is doesn’t always come out the ... |
how can pop music be considered a genre on its own? | The actual meaning of the **word** used to describe music isn't really important. Think about **rock**. That's just a stone. **Metal** is self explanatory.
Pop music doesn't have to be popular. It just has to adhere to the musical styles of other pop music. | [
"Although much of the music that appears on record charts is seen as pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other styles such as urban, dance, rock, Latin, and country; nonetheless, there are core elements that define pop music. Identifying fac... |
how come some people's faces are blurred out in documentaries and other people's aren't? | It really depends on where the items are shot. Here in the United States, the general rule of thumb is "does the person have a reasonable expectation of privacy?"
For example, if you're doing an interview in a public place and random people walk behind the person you're interviewing, those people don't have a "reasona... | [
"For interviews, some individuals choose to be videotaped in silhouette to mask their facial features and protect their anonymity, typically accompanied by a dubbed voice. This is done when the individuals may be endangered if it is known they were interviewed.\n",
"\"For me, one of the biggest problems with pure... |
why do toddlers enjoy making people smile and laugh so much? | Positive feedback. It's just like the rat who keeps pushing a lever to make food come out of a dispenser in his cage. The rat (or the toddler) doesn't understand the mechanism that produces the positive result, only that the action produces the result, so they keep repeating the action. | [
"While these children often came off as happy due to their sociable nature, often there are internal drawbacks to the way they act. 76–86% of these children were reported as believing that they either had few friends or problems with their friends. This is possibly due to the fact that although they are very friend... |
Why were Japanese Emperors so powerless ? | The Imperial Court in Kyoto effectively ran on tribute; it produced no actual revenue of its own. The theory was that the Emperor was supposed to effectively give away the land to the daimyos and samurai in what was supposedly his land, and receive taxation from them. In turn, he would govern (which effectively meant o... | [
"The growth of the samurai class from the 10th century gradually weakened the power of the imperial family over the realm, leading to a time of instability. Emperors have been known to come into conflict with the reigning shogun from time to time. Some instances, such as Emperor Go-Toba's 1221 rebellion against the... |
how come the earth's age is determined from the age of it's meterorites? couldn't the meteorite be much older than the earth? | Isotope dating is also used on rocks found on the Earth. So, no, the Earth is not a great deal (if at all) younger than meteorites. | [
"The age of the Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years This age may represent the age of the Earth's accretion, of core formation, or of the material from which the Earth formed. This dating is based on evidence from radiometric age-dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the radiometric age... |
Why is football not a major sport in many countries of the former British Empire? | I can only speak to America, and the popularity of "Gridiron" Football and Baseball as opposed to Association Football, and Cricket. Someone else will have to fill you in on the other former colonies.
[American Football:](_URL_0_)
> Speaking only to football, it was because of college. I believe that in England, ru... | [
"The modern global game of football evolved out of traditional football games played in England in the 19th century and today is the highest profile sport in the United Kingdom by a very wide margin. This has been the case for generations, but the gap is widely perceived to have increased since the early 1990s, and... |
How do electricity and magnetism fall on the electromagnetic spectrum? | > smallest wavelength possible is the planck length
This is a common misconception. There's nothing particularly limiting about the Planck length other than it's really tiny. There's no reason to think that it should be the smallest measure of size. For instance, the Planck mass is actually quite large, and masses a... | [
"\"The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws.\"\n",
"In the 19th century it had become clear that electricity and magnetism were related, ... |
In WWII did the old famous UK units fight any better than regular regiments? | In relation to the Coldsteam Guards and indeed all of the Household Division, every single ceremonial soldier is also an active soldier, meaning that they all have the capability to serve internationally or however the monarch deems fit (this in practise is controlled by professional senior officers). Guards by definit... | [
"On the eve of World War I the British Army included seven light infantry regiments. These differed from other infantry only in maintaining such traditional distinctions as badges that included a bugle horn, dark green home service helmets for full dress, and a fast-stepping parade ground march.\n",
"The modern F... |
if vomiting gets rid of potentially poisonous food, then why do so many animals eat their vomit? | Canids (dogs, wolves, coyotes, and their other wild relatives) gulp large pieces of unchewed and/or boney food. After letting it soften for a bit, they bring it back up in private where they can sort out the bone and chew the meat without dealing with their packmates. They don't consume their vomit if they're puking be... | [
"Animals with an empty stomach readily vomit after ingestion of this substance. However, when there is food in the stomach of the animals the stimulation to vomit decreases, so more quantities may be absorbed. It has been found that ANTU may cause death in some animals within 2–4 hours of ingestion, while animals t... |
Did Stalin have access to the scientific data that came out of the Manhattan Project? | Answering on mobile so I can't give proper citations but I'll try to point you in the right direction.
Klaus Fuchs worked inside the Manhattan project on the plutonium implosion problem. He passed technical information to the Soviets both on the atomic and hydrogen bomb programs. He confessed to these crimes in 1950 ... | [
"The Soviet Union needed spies who had security clearance high enough to have access to classified information at the Manhattan Project and who could understand and interpret what they were stealing. Moscow also needed reliable spies who believed in the communist cause and would provide accurate information. Theodo... |
Whats the deal with super alkaline water? | Every day of your life you have eaten and drank both acidic and alkaline things without having any effect on the pH of your body. Your body contains numerous regulatory mechanisms and buffering systems to prevent the things you ingest from affecting the pH of your blood or cells. The idea that consuming alkaline water... | [
"A water ionizer (also known as an alkaline ionizer) is a home appliance which claims to raise the pH of drinking water by using electrolysis to separate the incoming water stream into acidic and alkaline components. The alkaline stream of the treated water is called alkaline water. Proponents claim that consumptio... |
When I look at an optical illusion, like a spiral, why do I continue to see things "spin" in my vision after? | The cause is neural adaptation. If you are exposed to a certain stimulus for a long period of time, your brain starts to adapt to it, your neurons become desensitized for that stimulus. This happens at several levels, from the retina to higher cortical areas. So if that stimulus stops suddenly, usually you start to per... | [
"The illusion tricks us into thinking we are looking at a perspective picture, and thus according to Changizi, switches on our future-seeing abilities. Since we aren't actually moving and the figure is static, we misperceive the straight lines as curved ones.\n",
"The illusion is augmented by the spiral component... |
How well supported is the theory that Yahweh began as a minor Canaanite deity? | By the time of the Babylonian exile (circa 590 BCE), Yahweh was definitely being worshipped as a monotheistic deity. For example, even if one subscribes to a division of the book of Isaiah into two parts, it is widely agreed that proto-Isaiah (chapters 1-39) was written before the Babylonian exile and it is strongly mo... | [
"He does not appear to have been a Canaanite god, although the Israelites were originally Canaanites. The head of the Canaanite pantheon was El, and one theory holds that the word 'Yahweh' is based on the Hebrew root HYH/HWH, meaning \"cause to exist\", as a shortened form of the phrase \"ˀel ḏū yahwī ṣabaˀôt\", ()... |
When the Romans were using the Aqueduct system, how did they deal with potential contaminants in the water? | The water was made to flow continuously without stagnation. There were sedimentation tanks located periodically along the length of the aqueducts to remove impurities. There were also access points for maintenance workers.
_URL_0_ | [
"Before the development of aqueduct technology, Romans, like most of their contemporaries in the ancient world, relied on local water sources such as springs and streams, supplemented by groundwater from privately or publicly owned wells, and by seasonal rain-water drained from rooftops into storage jars and cister... |
What was the social structure like in Achaemenid Persia? | Part of the reason the Achaemenid Persia is considered feudalistic is that we don't know much about the social structure besides that the king ruled through a series of other minor kings. There were three primary class divisions: warrior/aristocracy, priests, and farmers, though this structure was also influenced via d... | [
"The Achaemenid dynasty of the Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, ruled an area from Greece and Turkey to the Indus River and Central Asia during the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. Persian politics included a tolerance for other cultures, a highly centralized government, and significant infrastructure developme... |
Is there a reason why we can't invent a device to objective measure pain level? | Pain can't even be defined, let alone measured.
Seriously, try to define pain!
In the end it doesn't really matter because pain is a subjective experience. It doesn't matter what caused the pain, only how much you are in and that's pretty well measured by asking the patient 'on a scale of 1-10, 1 being no pain and 10... | [
"Pain's intensity is distinct from its unpleasantness. For example, it is possible through psychosurgery and some drug treatments, or by suggestion (as in hypnosis and placebo), to reduce or eliminate the unpleasantness of pain without affecting its intensity.\n",
"Pain is studied in a laboratory setting due to t... |
How were the Romans able to control such a massive empire? | The same way the British were able to in modern times.
You need to distinguish between an ideological territorial Empire and a trading Empire.
The Romans did not care too much about the customs of their conquered peoples, provided they did not openly rebel, they allowed them a great deal of autonomy so long as they... | [
"The Roman Empire had reached its greatest extent under the Emperor Trajan. However, before Trajan, the Emperor Augustus set about stabilizing the frontiers of the Empire. As a result, the Romans were more interested in simply defending their territory and consolidating the Empire rather than in attempting to conqu... |
How does algae always grow? | Algae can be carried in the air as well. This has been known forever. Ehrenberg (1848) found diatoms in dust from the HMS Beagle (the same one Darwin himself sailed on).
Maguire (1963) also found some in rain samples.
Cleaning water with intensive chemicals does not kill 100% of all organisms. Algae are includ... | [
"Growth in most brown algae occurs at the tips of structures as a result of divisions in a single \"apical cell\" or in a row of such cells. As this apical cell divides, the new cells that it produces develop into all the tissues of the alga. Branchings and other lateral structures appear when the apical cell divid... |
What sort of honorifics did commoners used to address each other in the Byzantine Empire? | That's a good question, but unfortunately those classes of people didn't leave behind much of their own writings so we can't be too sure. To paraphrase my OED: If they were family, they would have used the word describing their relationship like son or cousin. Pious epithets were also popular like "God-honoring" or "... | [
"Especially at the beginning of the Byzantine Empire, Medieval Greek borrowed numerous words from Latin, among them mainly titles and other terms of the imperial court’s life like Αὔγουστος (“Augustus”), πρίγκιψ (Lat. \"princeps\", “Prince”), μάγιστρος (“Master”), κοιαίστωρ (Lat.\" quaestor\", “Quaestor”), ὀφφικιάλ... |
what is the difference between a muslim and an islamist? | A Muslim is just a follower of the religion of Islam.
An Islamist is someone who thinks Islam should guide society in every way, politically, socially, economically. They're similar to religious conservatives in the US who want Bible-based values in the government. | [
"Islamism is a set of political ideologies, derived from various fundamentalist views, which hold that Islam is not only a religion but a political system that should govern the legal, economic and social imperatives of the state. Many Islamists do not refer to themselves as such and it is not a single particular m... |
Do increased temperatures affect humanity's tendencies to commit criminal acts? | It's a common example for showing correlations. Ice cream sales go up as crime goes up, so a fallacious thought would be to consider one to cause the other.
However, the moderating item is temperature, so that suggests what you're saying.
[Here](_URL_1_) is a paper on not showing that relationship. [Here](_URL_0_) is... | [
"Warmer temperatures may also lead an increase in aggression levels. Research has shows links between higher temperatures and increased aggressive and criminal behaviour. Which can be seen by the rise in the rate of criminality during the warmer summer months.\n",
"In addition to physical stress, excessive heat c... |
Why are olinguitos and olingos considered completely different species, whereas chihuahua and great danes are considered the same species? | Because Chihuahuas and Great Danes are genetically extremely similar, while Olinguitos and Olingos are genetically more different from each other than humans are from chimps.
Don't be mislead by the human-induced changes in dog breeds. Comparing dog breeds is more like comparing [Peter Dinklage](_URL_1_) to [The Rock... | [
"This does not mean that they are not purebred Chihuahuas; they just do not meet the requirements to enter a conformation show. Oversized Chihuahuas are seen in some of the best, and worst, bloodlines. Chihuahuas do not breed true for size, and puppies from the same litter can mature in drastically different sizes ... |
How is the Human Genome Project different from modern day whole genome sequencing? | Yes, the end goal is essentially the same. There were basically two limitations to the HGP: computational and (bio)chemistry.
At the time that HGP was started, available techniques for sequencing were only able to sequence short stretches of DNA. One of the challenges was to figure out how to take many sequences shor... | [
"The Human Genome Project originally aimed to map the nucleotides contained in a human haploid reference genome (more than three billion). The \"genome\" of any given individual is unique; mapping the \"human genome\" involved sequencing a small number of individuals and then assembling these together to get a comp... |
how are people under house arrest monitored, and how common is it for them to break curfew? | Depends on the jurisdiction and the nature of the offense. Options include telephone check ins, home visit curfew checks by probation/police, and electronic monitoring.
You might get away with it but why take the chance, the consequences aren't worth it. | [
"The types of house arrest vary in severity according to the requirements of the court order. A curfew may restrict an offender to their house at certain times, usually during hours of darkness. \"Home confinement\" or detention requires an offender to remain at home at all times, apart from the above-mentioned exc... |
How does a Liquid Fluoride Thermal Reactor (LFTR) work? | This is an (over)simplified diagram [here.](_URL_0_)
But basically nuclear fission of the thorium heats molten salt (not high pressure water) the difference in temperature between this molten salt and coolant (water usually) can be used to turn a turbine which in turn generates electricity.
Ultimately energy comes fr... | [
"The liquid fluoride thorium reactor (acronym LFTR; often pronounced \"lifter\") is a type of molten salt reactor. LFTRs use the thorium fuel cycle with a fluoride-based, molten, liquid salt for fuel. In a typical design, the liquid is pumped between a critical core and an external heat exchanger where the heat is ... |
how does magnetic putty work? | The putty isn't magnetic. It is ferromagnetic ( like Iron). So, you can interpret this as watching millions of tiny iron bits ( This is how the putty is probably made- mixing iron powder in putty) being attracted by a magnet. The magnet moves to the centre because the particles are attracted and then are reorienting th... | [
"A magnetic PUF exists on a magnetic stripe card. The physical structure of the magnetic media applied to a card is fabricated by blending billions of particles of barium ferrite together in a slurry during the manufacturing process. The particles have many different shapes and sizes. The slurry is applied to a rec... |
When did "modern" military basic infantry training begin, and what was it like previously? | Well, I can at least answer what pre-dated modern basic training, though I'll leave to other experts when our idea of "basic training" evolved.
Before basic training, there was "on the job" training conducted at the unit level, at least in the American tradition. Health screenings would be conducted by the recruiting ... | [
"The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) was a military training program instituted by the United States Army during World War II to meet wartime demands both for junior officers and soldiers with technical skills. Conducted at 227 American universities, it offered training in such fields as engineering, forei... |
this obama drone warfare deal | Drones are used to kill people instead of having planes with pilots in them killing people.
It's not new to Obama but he has been using it quite a bit. | [
"In a March 2010 speech, Koh voiced his strong support for the legality of targeted killing by aerial drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries included by the U.S. government as being within the scope of the war on terror. The State Department's legal adviser said that \"U.S. targeting practices, inclu... |
how do bluetooth things work, more specifically bluetooth earphones? | Wireless devices (basically everything, these days) communicate by sending electromagnetic waves over the air that get picked up by other devices and interpreted as data. But in order for two devices to talk, they need to be speaking the same language, like maybe the waves should all be a certain length. Bluetooth is s... | [
"Bluetooth exists in numerous products such as telephones, speakers, tablets, media players, robotics systems, laptops, and console gaming equipment as well as some high definition headsets, modems, hearing aids and even watches. Given the variety of devices which use the Bluetooth, coupled with the contemporary de... |
Why is it, that when you put your finger close to a small, unfocused light-source, it appears to block the light out from the opposite side? | I just posted this elsewhere:
> Short answer, optics.
It is somewhat hard to explain in words, but easy to understand in concept.
So, I drew you a picture.
_URL_0_
Ok:
As you move the finger down towards the top of the arrow, light is blocked starting from lower on the image.
Any questions?
| [
"Optical touch technology functions when a finger or an object touches the surface, causing the light to scatter, the reflection is caught with sensors or cameras that send the data to software which dictates response to the touch, depending on the type of reflection measured.\n",
"Empedocles' idea, that we see o... |
the reason our mouths constantly produce saliva. | Have you ever had a dry mouth? It's a pretty bad time. Without the constant flow of saliva, our mouth and throat would desiccate (dry out) and crack. It would be painful. We need the flow of mucous in order to swallow. | [
"Saliva keeps the ecosystem of the mouth in balance. It contains its own bacterial enzymes that are beneficial to our health. An example of these are lysozomes. These antibacterial agents in saliva kill bacteria in our mouths and protect from potentially dangerous diseases. In addition, saliva contains phosphate an... |
- what happens to all the championship merchandise they have ready for the team that doesn't win? why don't we see it anywhere? | They give it away to poor people in other countries. _URL_0_ | [
"Most of these games can be found in some stores (often at a substantial price) due to the government's lack of enforcing the banning of these games. Many major stores, however, will not stock the following banned titles.\n",
"After a win, the champion could either buy the most expensive prize he/she could afford... |
besides aerodynamics, what factors influence the changing styles of cars and other automobiles throughout the years? | Government crash test safety regulations have had a massive effect on the design of cars, far more so than aerodynamics.
The tall doors, narrow windows, thick pillars, blunt front ends, and high rears that define virtually every sedan these days are largely to pass crash tests.
| [
"The aerodynamic design of cars has evolved from the 1920s to the end of the 20th century. This change in design from a blunt body to a more streamlined body reduced the drag coefficient from about 0.95 to 0.30.\n",
"One episode in the history of the inherent conflict between functional design and the demands of ... |
what does it mean when someone tells you to "ping" them? | Pinging someone usually needs context. It depends on the most frequent medium of instant communication involved and therefore can be sending a message on any one (or more) of the following:
* text based SMS
* whatsapp
* google chat ping
You get the drift. | [
"Ping measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer that are echoed back to the source. The name comes from active sonar terminology that sends a pulse of sound and listens for the echo to detect objects under water.\n",
"In blogging, a ping is an XML-RPC-based... |
why aren't resolutions like 8k (and even higher) more available. comparing a 1080p phone screen size to something like a 60" tv gives me the impression a higher pixel density should be easily achievable. | Denser concentrations of electronic components employ vastly more expensive manufacturing processes. The display accounts for a significant portion of the cost of producing your phone. So, even assuming price and size scale linearly (which they don't), if your 15- square-inch phone display costs $250 to produce, the co... | [
"Occasionally, 1080p (Full HD or FHD) has been included into the 2K resolution definition. Although 1920x1080 could be considered as having a horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels, most media, including web content and books on video production, cinema references and definitions, define 1080p and 2K r... |
Whats the truth about soy? Is it really healthy? Are the reports of high estrogen levels rumor or fact? | Some of these are well, meaning, but very ill-informed, because it's something that gets repeated. The short answer is, those reports are distorting the truth, because soy does not contain estrogen, in the human sense.
Plant derived estrogen-like, or estrogen mimics are called [phytoestrogens](_URL_0_). Soy contains i... | [
"BULLET::::- Soy products decrease sperm quality due to the high content of a type of phytoestrogen called isoflavones. Theoretically, this exposure to high levels of phytoestrogen in men may alter the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. A few studies on animals have shown that such a hormonal effect may be signif... |
Understanding reactions in Feynman Diagrams? | Here's a tutorial: _URL_0_ | [
"The graph for these equations is a sigmoid curve (specifically a logistic function), which is typical for autocatalytic reactions: these chemical reactions proceed slowly at the start (the induction period) because there is little catalyst present, the rate of reaction increases progressively as the reaction proce... |
why do they land the falcon 9 on a ship instead of on land? | Sure, but barges are safer because you can easily put them away from anything valuable. And if the rocket misses it just lands in water rather than smashing on land. You can also move your pad anywhere, including the most fuel efficient locations on the equator of the Earth's spin, or international waters so you don't ... | [
"BULLET::::- SpaceX successfully lands the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a platform at sea, the fourth time it has made such a landing. The landing, made aboard a platform in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida after launching a communications satellite into orbit, is particularly challenging becaus... |
if haribo sugarless gummy bears are as bad as most people say, why are they still in production, and who buys them? | I'm a type 1 diabetic (Jonas Brothers or Jay Cutler, not Paula Deen) and try and avoid candy. I buy the Haribo sugarless gummies because they won't screw up my glucose levels like regular kinds do. I only eat like a handful at a time. | [
"Gummy bears ordinarily contain mostly empty calories, but recently gummy bears containing vitamin C, produced by manufacturers such as Sconza or Bear Essentials, are being marketed to parents of young children. Multivitamins have also been produced in the form of gummi bears to motivate consumption by young, picky... |
how are fake languages in movies, television, and literature constructed and what sorts of professionals are responsible?? | I know that Tolkien, for one, was fascinated by languages and created all of the languages of Middle Earth himself. I seem to recall hearing once that Lord of the Rings was actually just a history he wrote to give more life to the languages he was inventing, but I'm too lazy to try to validate a source for that. | [
"Fake-fiction is a genre which deliberately presents real, unscripted events in the form of a fiction film, making them appear as staged. The concept was introduced by Pierre Bismuth to describe his 2016 film \"Where is Rocky II?\"\n",
"Another filmmaker whose work could be associated with the concept of fake-fic... |
is it possible for 2 sets of people to have offspring with the exact same dna? | It's possible, but it's astonishingly unlikely. Even if you have the same two people have two kids and they end up with all the same chromosomes, there will generally be around 100-200 mutations. Getting zero mutations is possible, but it's not as likely as winning the Powerball only to be crushed by a bale of falling ... | [
"Theoretically, there is a chance that they might not share genes. This is very rare and is due to there being a smaller possibility of inheriting the same chromosomes from the shared parent. However, the same is also theoretically possible for full siblings, albeit (comparatively) much less likely. Because of the ... |
why is it when you watch tv shows 90s/80s there are strange lighting effects created by moving lights on screen but not prior to this time or after? | An educated guess on my part, is that prior to the 80s, most TV shows were shot on film. Starting in the 80s, they started shooting shows on videotape. The tubes in the video cameras did not deal well with lights in the shots. There was a lot of streaking and burn in from the lights. You can also see this effect on som... | [
"Traditionally theatre and stage lighting has been of the \"generic\" type. These are lights which are focussed, geled, and then simply dimmed to give the effect the designer wants. In recent years the emergence of moving lights (or automated lights) has had a substantial impact of theatre and stage lighting.\n",
... |
Statistically speaking, am I more likely to get into a fatal car accident for each day that passes where I don't die in a car accident? | In general statistics the answer would be no. The probability is the same every day, especially in your stated scenario where all factors are equal and nothing has changed from yesterday.
Peer reviewed article here: _URL_0_ | [
"According to road traffic safety experts, the actual number of casualties may be higher than what is documented, as many traffic collisions go unreported. Moreover, victims who die some time after the collision, a span of time which may vary from a few hours to several days, are not counted as car crash victims.\n... |
Are people with extra chromosomes denser than the average human? | In sperm cells, you can centrifuge them to select for male vs female because the larger X chromosome makes those cells slightly more dense than cells containing a Y chromosome. So I suppose this should be true of cells with an extra chromosome too. But this is a very small effect, and extra chromosomes typically affect... | [
"In large multicellular organisms, variations in ploidy level between different tissues, organs, or cell lineages are common. Because the chromosome number is generally reduced only by the specialized process of meiosis, the somatic cells of the body inherit and maintain the chromosome number of the zygote by mitos... |
What happened to the soldiers who participated in the Boston Massacre? | They went to trial and were defended by John Adams (yes - that John Adams). According to Howard Zinn, six were acquitted and "two were punished by having their thumbs branded and were discharged from the army". | [
"The Boston Massacre, known to the British as the Incident on King Street, was a confrontation on March 5, 1770 in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. The event was heavily publicized by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. British troops ... |
how do some hand soaps leave you "squeaky clean" (non slippery) and others don't | A soap with a stronger binding affinity to oil will leave your hands less slippery. This is due to more oil being bound by the soap, and subsequently washed away by water. | [
"Automatic soap dispensers (also known as touchless or no-touch soap dispensers) dispense a controlled amount of soap solution (or a similar liquid such as a hand sanitizer). They are often used in conjunction with automatic faucets in public restrooms. They function to conserve the amount of soap used and stem inf... |
how far could a diesel tanker travel while consuming its own cargo? | From a trucking website -
“Empty I get 5.7 - 6.78 mpg. Loaded can be anywhere from mid 4's in the mountains up to 6.23 mpg. Over all average loaded has been 5.5 - 5.8 mpg.”
And
“I have an 09 International Prostar with 07 MaxxForce 475hp that pulls flatbed. When at gross averaging 6.8mpg, @ 68 mph and empty 10.0mpg... | [
"Assuming the Emma Maersk consumes diesel (as opposed to fuel oil which would be the more precise fuel) then 1 kg diesel = 1.202 litres = 0.317 US gallons. This corresponds to 46,525 kJ. Assuming a standard 14 tonnes per container (per teu) this yields 74 kJ per tonne-km at a speed of 45 kmh (24 knots).\n",
"The ... |
When the lava flowing in Hawaii cools off what will they do with it? | I don't think there's any removing it. If you need a road you might build over it. I also was wondering what happens to people's properties. Do they still own that surveyed acre of land? Once it's cooled, can they go back there and build again? Do they need permission to do so? | [
"Hawaiian eruptions often begin as a line of vent eruptions along a fissure vent, a so-called \"curtain of fire.\" These die down as the lava begins to concentrate at a few of the vents. Central-vent eruptions, meanwhile, often take the form of large lava fountains (both continuous and sporadic), which can reach he... |
why does a bachelor's in math say it's one of arts? isn't math a science? | The "arts" referenced in the "Bachelor of the Arts" (BA) are the "liberal arts", defined as:
> academic subjects such as literature, philosophy, mathematics, and social and physical sciences as distinct from professional and technical subjects
Basically, all of your academic disciplines, other than business & eng... | [
"In practice, this is essentially equivalent to a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree with a speciality in mathematics. Relatively few institutions award Bachelor of Mathematics degrees, and the distinction between those that do and those that award B.Sc or B.A. degrees for mathematics is usually bureauc... |
how do those tablets work that the dentists gives kids to make the plaque show up red in their mouth? | Plaque is a film on teeth that's very porous. When you pour dye-filled water over it, it'll run off of a bare tooth surface but get sucked into any plaque and so show up with an intense colour.
It's the same as if you have a white vinyl table cloth, and put a piece of newspaper on it, and then toss a bucket of dyed wa... | [
"Disclosing tablets are similar to that of disclosing gels, except that they are placed in the mouth and chewed on for approximately one minute. The remaining tablet or saliva is then spit out. Disclosing gels will show the presence of the plaque, but will often not show the level of maturity of the plaque. Disclos... |
where does the feeling of a sore throat come from when you have a cold? why does it feel rough? and why do warm beverages help? | A sore throat happens when the mucous membranes lining your throat become inflamed. This is a common symptom of a cold or other infection. Your body sends a lot of extra white blood cells to the area of the infection to kill the bacteria or virus that's present, and that's what causes the inflammation. Hot beverages ca... | [
"There is an old wives tale that having a hot drink can help with common cold and influenza symptoms, including sore throat, but there is only limited evidence to support this idea. If the sore throat is unrelated to a cold and is caused by for example tonsillitis, a cold drink may be helpful.\n",
"Chilliness, co... |
how does a smartphone secretly waste data? | No. "In the background" just means "When you're not looking at it."
If you go into your settings and disconnect from your mobile data connection, it will terminate and will prevent any app from pulling data across it. | [
"A senior analyst at the Burton Group research firm recommends that the best way to ensure data will not be tampered with is to not store it on the client device (mobile device). As such, there is no local copy to lose if the mobile device is stolen and the data can reside on servers within the data center with acc... |
If a woman has an irregular period, let's say once every five months, does she extend her birthing years? | I disagree with the idea that women don't "run out of eggs" during their lives, as the other commenter suggests.
The current consensus is that the hormonal irregularity of menopause is a kind of retrospective marker of the depletion of ovarian follicles. The age of ovarian follicle depletion is based on the number of ... | [
"Events after 42 weeks are considered postterm. When a pregnancy exceeds 42 weeks, the risk of complications for both the woman and the fetus increases significantly. Therefore, in an otherwise uncomplicated pregnancy, obstetricians usually prefer to induce labour at some stage between 41 and 42 weeks.\n",
"The a... |
why 12 (a dozen) is the typical quantity for many things | 12 is easily divided evenly into smaller amounts. You can divide 12 evenly by 2, 3, 4, and 6. If it was 10 then you could divide it by 2 and 5. | [
"Quantity is among the basic classes of things along with quality, substance, change, and relation. Some quantities are such by their inner nature (as number), while others function as states (properties, dimensions, attributes) of things such as heavy and light, long and short, broad and narrow, small and great, o... |
what happens when money is digitally transfered from one bank to another? is the money later picked up to be stored there? or is there some sort or digital i.o.u. involved? | I think you'll find that 90% of the world economy operates on 'digital IOUs' these days. That's literally all there is. | [
"The following example shows a classic transfer of funds transaction, where money is removed from one account and added to another. If either the removal or the addition fails, the entire transaction is rolled back.\n",
"BULLET::::- During a transaction, money is taken out of the user’s account within the applica... |
why shaking cold water makes it freeze | Water molecules are polar, which means the 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen atoms within don't share electrons equally. In other words, each water molecule is slightly magnetic with the hydrogen molecules being slightly positive while the oxygen molecule is slightly negative (it hogs the electrons from the little hydrogens). N... | [
"Traditionally, hot water has been used because it slightly melts the layer of ice below it, leading some operators to believe it forms a stronger bond during the freezing process because heating the water releases dissolved gases thus allowing the ice to freeze in a clearer state as well as reduces the freezing ti... |
why does acetone evaporate off the skin almost instantly? | Acetone has a very low boiling point (temperature where a liquid transitions into gas). For water, it’s 100C, for ethanol (100%) it’s 78C, for acetone it’s only 56C, so even at the temperature of your body (36-37C), it’s really easy for the molecules to detach and evaporate. | [
"Although itself flammable, acetone is used extensively as a solvent for the safe transportation and storage of acetylene, which cannot be safely pressurized as a pure compound. Vessels containing a porous material are first filled with acetone followed by acetylene, which dissolves into the acetone. One liter of a... |
Do plants get climate shock when being moved to the other hemisphere? | Plants in general have a ton of different receptor pathways to regulate their response due to environmental changes. However stuff like you are describing can put these cycles out of phase. Plants are for example known to show Jetlag. After a few days however, the regulatory enzymes are updated through stuff such as du... | [
"Cold waves that bring unexpected freezes and frosts during the growing season in mid-latitude zones can kill plants during the early and most vulnerable stages of growth, resulting in crop failure as plants are killed before they can be harvested economically. Such cold waves have caused famines. At times as deadl... |
Physics question: physics and scale (Not exactly sure how to formulate this question) | Newtonian physics seems to be a limiting approximation either from taking quantum mechanics for many particles in a warm environment at length scales much larger than their inherent deBroglie wavelength; or from taking the low-velocity limit in special relativity, or the low M/r limit in special relativity (where M is ... | [
"In the study of complex systems and hierarchy theory, the concept of scale refers to the combination of (1) the level of analysis (for example, analyzing the whole or a specific component of the system); and (2) the level of observation (for example, observing a system as an external viewer or as an internal parti... |
If Betelgeuse is dimming and is 650 light years from earth is it possible it's already went supernova? | Yes. Any event like that measurable by us would be delayed about 650 years. It could have gone supernova, though it could also do it several hundred thousand years from now.
We simply don't have accurate enough information to be able to predict when these events *should* happen with such accuracy. In fact, we don't ev... | [
"Some media outlets tied the fact that the red supergiant star Betelgeuse would undergo a supernova at some point in the future to the 2012 phenomenon. However, while Betelgeuse was certainly in the final stages of its life, and would die as a supernova, there was no way to predict the timing of the event to within... |
Do isotopes of a given element have different atomic radii? | The nucleus gets slightly larger with more neutrons, which also affects the protons and therefore the charge distribution. That has a small impact on the potential inside the nucleus, which has a really tiny impact on the "s" electron orbitals.
There is also an effect from the changed [reduced mass](_URL_0_): The nucl... | [
"Isotopes are distinguished by the atomic mass number (total protons and neutrons) for a particular isotope of an element, with this number combined with the pertinent element's symbol. IUPAC prefers that isotope symbols be written in superscript notation when practical, for example C and U. However, other notation... |
If you are on a plane traveling north faster than the speed of sound, will you be able to talk to someone who is sitting north of you? | Yes, the air inside the plane isn't moving relative to the other people inside the plane. | [
"Transport pilots adopted this formula to assure a slow, steady and comfortable descent for their passengers. Many aircraft had a cruising speed between . Three miles would be traveled in about 1.5–1.8 minutes, resulting in a rate of descent of about 550–660 feet per minute. That was about as fast as passengers cou... |
Is space the same as distance? | They are a little different.
* Space is a set of points
* Distance is a relationship between points
In a 100 cm box, you can measure the distance 1 cm in many different places. Are you measuring near the front of the box? Near the back? Or near the center? Distance alone doesn't tell you this.
A distortion (It does... | [
"In non-Euclidean space, such as our expanding universe, the angular diameter distance is only one of several definitions of distance, so that there can be different \"distances\" to the same object. See Distance measures (cosmology).\n",
"In expanding space, distance is a dynamic quantity which changes with time... |
what harm does having a large debt do? | We have to pay interest on our debt. So having a huge debt means we have to pay a lot of interest, which means we either have less money to spend on things we want/need or have to borrow even more money. | [
"Debt overhang is the condition of an organization (for example, a business, government, or family) that has existing debt so great that it cannot easily borrow more money, even when that new borrowing is actually a good investment that would more than pay for itself.\n",
"Some people argue against forgiving debt... |
Do photons have a physical volume, or are they 2 dimensional? | Photons are, as far as we know, fundamental point particles, which means they're *zero-dimensional* and don't have a volume.
For some purposes, however, you can treat a photon 'as though' it had a volume of ~lambda^(3), where lambda is it's wavelength. For instance, if you have a mesh of conducting wire with holes of ... | [
"A basic volume is a volume stored on a basic disk, while a dynamic volume is a volume stored on a dynamic disk. Basic volumes and dynamic volumes differ in ability to extend storage beyond one physical disk. The basic partitions are confined to one disk and their size is fixed. Dynamic volumes allow to adjust size... |
What types of sails did ancient galleys use? | The OCD, following Casson's superb books on ancient seafaring says that sails in the Mediterranean were made of linen, and adds that leather was often used in the corners or in strips to strengthen sailcloth. Besides that, what sort of sail a ship might have depends entirely on the sort of ship--there are several diffe... | [
"In ancient galleys under sail, most of the moving power came from a single square sail. It was rigged on a mast somewhat forwards of the center of the ship with a smaller mast carrying a head sail in the bow. Triangular lateen sails are attested as early as the 2nd century AD, and gradually became the sail of choi... |
If the speed of light is a constant, how can we "freeze" light, or slow it to 38 mph? | The speed of light in a vacuum is constant. It travels slower through various media because of interaction between light and atoms. | [
"These considerations show that the speed of light as a limit is a consequence of the properties of spacetime, and not of the properties of objects such as technologically imperfect space ships. The prohibition of faster-than-light motion, therefore, has nothing in particular to do with electromagnetic waves or lig... |
Today you can often seen non-experts debating whether the Nazi party was social ist or anti-socialist. Were these debates common when the Nazis were still in power? | It was debated even within the party in its early years (and I will narrow down my response to this particular point, though I realize you are asking about such discussions in general), when there still was an actual socialist wing led by the Strasser brothers. Ideologically, this all more or less ended with the Bamber... | [
"In January 1933 the NSDAP (Nazi party) took power and lost little time in setting up a one-party state in Germany. Membership of political parties (other than of the Nazi Party) became illegal, and the ban on political parties was enforced with particular effect in respect of (former) Communist Party members. Duri... |
why does it cost over $2 million to make a single family guy or the simpsons episode? | If I can recall, the Friends cast originally got somewhere around 100-200k per episode and ended up getting 800k-1mill per episode, or atleast that's when the show ended. The more a show makes, the more the actors demand. This drives the cost of the production up. For extremely successful shows like Family Guy and Simp... | [
"In the United States, the average broadcast network drama costs $3 million an episode to produce, while cable dramas cost $2 million on average. The pilot episode may be more expensive than a regular episode. In 2004, \"Lost\"'s two-hour pilot cost $10–$14 million, in 2008 \"Fringe\"'s two-hour pilot cost $10 mill... |
how did the tv industry become nothing but reality shows? | Those channels are breaking viewership records thanks to their reality shows. As many people as there are who say they like the high quality, educational shows, it turns out more people actually want the cheaply produced reality stuff, which is a win-win for the channels. | [
"Reality television has long existed in the United States, both played for laughs (such as \"Candid Camera\" and \"Real People\") and as drama (such as \"COPS\" and \"The Real World\"). A new variant – competition series placing ordinary people in unusual circumstances or in talent contests, generally eliminating a... |
why is it bad that rachel dolezal identifies as black even though she's apparently white? | The thing about race is that there's virtually no difference in brain chemistry or anything like that between races. Identifying as a different gender, for instance, is different, where actual physiological differences might come into play. Race identification is a very superficial thing, genetically, and plays more in... | [
"In June 2015, psychologist Halford Fairchild said, \"Rachel Dolezal is black because she identifies as black. Her identity was authentic, as far as I could tell.\" Sociologist Ann Morning also defended Dolezal, saying: \"We're getting more and more used to the idea that people's racial affiliation and identity and... |
Controversial issue I'd like resolved: do photons have mass? | No.
Light is deflected because spacetime is curved so that the shortest path is not a straight line. | [
"According to de Broglie, the neutrino and the photon have rest masses that are non-zero, though very low. That a photon is not quite massless is imposed by the coherence of his theory. Incidentally, this rejection of the hypothesis of a massless photon enabled him to doubt the hypothesis of the expansion of the un... |
Questions regarding the German occupation of the Channel Islands during WW2. | [Time Team - Series 18 Episode 4](_URL_0_) - 2011 - *Hitler's Island Fortress*
Key points from that episode;
Jersey was one of the densest occupations of anywhere in terms of soldiers per local and the jewel of Hitlers PR crown.
Massive anti aircraft batteries were built.
Mont Orgueil Castle had ... | [
"The German occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War essentially by-passed Herm. The island was claimed on 20 July 1940 by the Third Reich, a few weeks after the arrival of German troops in Guernsey and Jersey, German soldiers landed on the island to shoot a propaganda film, \"The Invasion of t... |
Do the psychedelic chemicals of psilocybin mushrooms serve an evolutionary function for the mushroom itself? | What does funny things to our nervous systems flat out kills other smaller organisms. Nicotine is used as an insecticide, for instance. Basically most alkaloids in nature exist as protection from predation in some way, but that's [not completely conclusive](_URL_0_). | [
"Psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin (the main ingredient in most hallucinogenic mushrooms) are the subject of renewed research interest because of their therapeutic potential. They could ease a variety of difficult-to-treat mental illnesses, such as chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and alcoh... |
Speaker Impedance | I'm not an expert in this, but here's is an educated guess:
[Impedance matching](_URL_0_)
I'd be happy if another purple or red tag weighed in on this.
| [
"Due to the reactive nature of a speaker's impedance over the audio band frequencies, giving a speaker a single value for 'impedance' rating is in principle impossible, as one may surmise from the impedance vs. frequency curve above. The nominal impedance of a loudspeaker is a convenient, single number reference th... |
can causality be measured with probability? | Kind of.
If you're looking for something free of assumptions that allows you to deduce causality directly from observation, this is very much impossible.
However, if you're ready to accept models of potential causality, there are various methods (generally called [causal inference](_URL_0_)) that can help you tease o... | [
"The empirical probability, relative frequency, or experimental probability of an event is the ratio of the number of outcomes in which a specified event occurs to the total number of trials, not in a theoretical sample space but in an actual experiment. In a more general sense, empirical probability estimates prob... |
how come the british colonization of ireland was able to spread the english language but not religion? | It did spread religion. England was originally Catholic, and they spread that Catholicism to Ireland. Then, during the rule of Henry the 8th, England split from the Catholic church, so that Henry could get divorced and remarried. That's how you get the Church of England. | [
"The English language was introduced to Ireland in the 13th century, following the Norman Conquest of Ireland. However, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule ... |
The photons sent after the big bang must have bumped into millions of galaxies, stars, planets, ... If matter absorbs photons, how is it possible that we still see the cosmic background radiation? | Most of it actually hasn't been absorbed or scattered significantly, because space is really mostly empty. However, a fraction of it is scattered as it passed through the hot [intracluster medium](_URL_1_) plasma around galaxy clusters. This results in a change in the spectrum of the light called the [Sunyaev–Zel'dov... | [
"At that same time, Robert H. Dicke, Jim Peebles, and David Wilkinson, astrophysicists at Princeton University just away, were preparing to search for microwave radiation in this region of the spectrum. Dicke and his colleagues reasoned that the Big Bang must have scattered not only the matter that condensed into g... |
How much can I trust cracked articles on history? | A lot of it is based somewhat in facts, but the stories, especially the headlines, are incredibly generalized and sensationalized, everyone your professor told you not to do in school basically. Their whole shtick revolves around "6 THINGS THAT WILL PROVE THAT COLUMBUS WAS A JERK" or some shit like that, so it's not su... | [
"If never formally retracted, fraudulent publications can remain an issue for many years as articles and books remain on shelves and continue to be cited. The case of S. Walter Poulshock, a 1960s early-career historian whose work was found to contain wholly fabricated material, was exposed in 1966 with the \"Americ... |
How did "crimes against humanity" come to be? | I think the ''crimes against humanity'' concept arose after World War II. That's really when the world community started to institute rules against mass firebombing, indiscriminate civilian causalities, genocide... Before that there was a kind of understanding that mutual destruction and death was acceptable, especiall... | [
"Crimes against humanity are certain acts that are deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian or an identifiable part of a civilian population. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place at the Nuremberg trials. Crimes against humanity have si... |
why would a landlord rent control an apartment? | Rent control is a state mandated option for people who are qualified under welfare care laws and regulations to ensure that people can afford housing.
Rent control and EHO homes are reserved pricing structures for what the tenant can afford to pay under what the laws deem appropriate. | [
"If an apartment is under \"vacancy control\", the city's ordinance works to deny or limit an owner's ability to increase its rent to new tenant(s). It works this way even in cases where the prior tenant voluntarily vacated the apartment or was evicted for a 'just cause' (such as failure to pay rent). In other word... |
Is it possible for a species to evolve itself into extinction and are there known examples of this? | The opposite (sort of) can also happen. A species may be introduced to a new environment and have such a dominating effect on it that it ruins the ecosystem and in turn kills itself off.
I remember reading (or seeing a clip) about a species of deer (I think, may have been moose) that was introduced to an island it had... | [
"The role of extinction in evolution is not very well understood and may depend on which type of extinction is considered. The causes of the continuous \"low-level\" extinction events, which form the majority of extinctions, may be the result of competition between species for limited resources (the competitive exc... |
Did Nazi soldiers smoke cigarettes, even though Hitler hated tobacco? | German soldiers were allowed to smoke and they were even issued cigarette rations, but far fewer than the Allied troops, and it was widely publicised that Hitler opposed tobacco. Posters, flyers, brochures and other propaganda material stressed that a true German soldier would try to refrain from smoking in order to ke... | [
"Adolf Hitler was a heavy smoker in his early life—he used to smoke 25 to 40 cigarettes daily—but gave up the habit, concluding that it was \"a waste of money\". In later years, Hitler viewed smoking as \"decadent\" and \"the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor\",... |
why is a gold karat a measure of purity but a diamond carat is a measure of weight? | They are two different words that are homonyms.
Other examples are rest and wrest, way and weigh, dye and die, knows and nose, etc.
A Karat is a measure of purity in increments of 1/24th. Therefore 24 Karat gold is 100% gold, but 10 Karat gold is alloyed with almost 60% of another metal.
A Carat is a measure of wei... | [
"Karat weight (K or kt) is a traditional fraction-based system used to denote the fineness of gold, with one karat being equal to 1/24 part of pure gold in an alloy. With the precision of modern assaying techniques, however, the fineness of gold ingots and bullion is more likely to appear as a decimal measurement. ... |
why are playstation 1 discs black while every other cd i have seen is mirrored | Real answer:
Sony thought that coating the discs in a black film would make piracy more difficult. There was a twofold (one of which an erroneous assumption) reason for this: One, that coating discs after burning them in a black transparent film was very difficult to nearly impossible to do outside of a manufacturer/f... | [
"The discs on the left appear dark and the ones on the right appear light, this is because of the two displays. In the display on the left, the dark area on the left seemingly belongs to the discs, and the discs are obscured by the light mist. On the right side, the same dark areas are interpreted as belonging to t... |
why is butt slapping so prevalent in major league baseball? | I think it's just an appreciative gesture. You know, I guess you get bored in the dug out too much with men. Not only baseball do it, American "football", bball as well | [
"Because baseball hitting is difficult, baseball rules prohibit the deliberate scratching or scuffing of a ball, or the application of any foreign substance that could conceivably affect the flight or visibility of a ball. Balls that are deliberately made more difficult to hit by applying foreign substances are oft... |
If the law of conservation states that energy cannot be destroyed or created, how was the entire known Universe transformed into bringing life? | So I think the question is a bit confusing, I should've worded it out like this:
Law of conservation = Energy cannot be created or destroyed. If that's true, how did:
1. Energy come to exist? Was it made from nothing, literally?
2. How can anything exist before the Big Bang that later on caused everything the way i... | [
"In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be \"conserved\" over time. This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. For... |
people are told not to overspent past their needs, but why is it ok that the us borrows so much money to overspent? | Personal finances are vastly different than a government's and certainly a country's.
Many firmly believe that the level to which the U.S. is in debt is getting close to the unmanageable (or past) level. That being said the idea of borrowing money to invest in the future is very appealing, it allows you to advance as... | [
"Some economists contend that the U.S. is borrowing to fund consumption of imports while accumulating unsustainable amounts of debt. On June 26, 2009, Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, called for the United States to increase its manufacturing base employment to 20% of the workforce, commenting that the U.S... |
What exactly is light? | Light = electromagnetic radiation. Light visible to human eyes makes up a small sliver of the complete electromagnetic spectrum. Light is essentially the same thing as Wifi, Bluetooth, FM radio, X-rays, microwaves, et cetera. It's just that they're all at very different wavelengths.
EM radiation is made up of photons,... | [
"In physics, the term \"light\" sometimes refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, whether visible or not. In this sense, gamma rays, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are also light. Like all types of EM radiation, visible light propagates as waves. However, the energy imparted by the waves is absor... |
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