question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Are anti-particles particles with a negative time value and that is why they are "destroyed" when they interact with normal matter with a positive time value? | [Searched](_URL_0_)
Relevant [discussion](_URL_5_)
Original question by [mindule](_URL_3_)
> If antiparticles move backwards through time (Feynman–Stueckelberg interpretation), how can we produce/contain them for any length of time?
Top comment courtesy [Amarkov](_URL_2_)
> You're misunderstanding some fundament... | [
"To be precise, the time-dependent equation only applies to lossless particles, because loss creates a lag between the field and the induced dipole. When averaged, the effect cancels out and the equation holds true for lossy particles as well. An equivalent time-averaged equation can be easily obtained by replacing... |
why does water not enter my nostrils when i go into the pool? | It's sorta like holding the top of a straw when you put the other end in a drink. The air that's there can't go anywhere, so the liquid can't enter.
That, and I'm always holding my nose shut underwater. | [
"The nasalis is a sphincter-like muscle of the nose whose function is to compress the nasal cartilages. It is the muscle responsible for \"flaring\" of the nostrils. Some people can use it to close the nostrils to prevent entry of water when underwater.\n",
"The water should not be tap water, which may contain sm... |
why do some english-speakers pronounce the letter 'r' like a 'w'? | The formal name for this is [Rhotacism](_URL_0_). It occurs in lots of languages, not just English, but in the opposite way (e.g other letters will turn into r's). In English, it causes the 'r' sound to become more like a 'w'.
There are some theories as to why it occurs (stress-related, shyness), but in most cases th... | [
"BULLET::::- The most common \"R\" sound, when pronounced in Northern England, is the typical English ; however, an is also widespread, particularly following a consonant or between vowels. This tap predominates most fully in the Scouse accent. The North, like most of the South, is largely (and increasingly) non-rh... |
how can i be watching a movie from the 1970's in blu-ray? | Old movies were filmed on actual film, which is far higher resolution even than HD. A huge amount of resolution is lost when you down-convert film to any commercial digital format.
To put Alien on Blu-ray they just had to go back to the original film, or an intermediate high-resolution scan that they might have used... | [
"A Blu-ray version of the film was released April 21, 2009. Unlike the laserdisc release, the Blu-ray version includes no special features. The laserdisc release included commentary, documentaries and alternative endings not included in the Blu-ray or DVD releases.\n",
"A Blu-ray was released on April 5, 2011 to ... |
why is sears holding doing so poorly and about to die? | Such as the recent bankruptcy of Sears Canada for example?
Probably the number one contributor to Sear's demise would be Eddie Lampert. He is the investment shark who bought the dying KMart in 2005 - which had considerable stock in Sears, which he used to wrest control of Sears properly. Since then he's done nothing b... | [
"On December 28, 2018. Sears Holdings announced that it would close an additional 80 Kmart and Sears stores, as it faces possible liquidation. Their deadline for a bid was December 28, 2018 at 4:00pm; if no offers are made for the company, it could face liquidation of the entire operation. During the last few minut... |
what do we know about gravity waves? and what can hope to accomplish should we master harnessing it and manipulating it? |
Gravity is the weakest of all forces. It takes something the size of the earth, 6 trillion trillion kilograms, just to exert 180 lbs of force on my body.
So it's difficult to imagine engineering applications for such a small force. Especially when it isn't understood at the quantum level yet.
| [
"Gravitational waves provide complementary information to that provided by other means. By combining observations of a single event made using different means, it is possible to gain a more complete understanding of the source's properties. This is known as multi-messenger astronomy. Gravitational waves can also be... |
how big of a space telescope in relation to the jwst would we need to take surface images of the exo-planet proxima centauri b that are comparable to pictures we have of jupiter etc. | Well, the camera on Juno has a resolution of 15 km per pixel.
_URL_0_
In order to get the same resolution for proxima Centauri B (4.2 lightyears away), we need an angular resolution of x = 3.78×10^-13 radians.
For comparison, the James Webb Telescope has an angular resolution of 4.85×10^-7 radians.
Now the size of ... | [
"The star has a extrasolar planet that has a minimum mass greater than Jupiters orbiting it in 442 days. Claims were made in 1999 that a dust disk around the star HD 210277, similar to that produced by the Kuiper Belt had been imaged, lying between 30 and 62 AU from the star. However, observations with the Spitzer ... |
Who exaltly was Bill Slim and why is the Burma Campaign known as the forgotten war? | William 'Bill' Slim was a British General who famously commanded the 14th Army, also known as the 'FBI' (Forgotten Boys in India) in WWII. He's generally considered one of the best, if not the best, British Generals of the war, for his attention to the logistics, training and morale of his troops, as well as his skill ... | [
"Following D-Day, the army in Burma began to think of itself as the \"Forgotten Army\", and Smith was sent back to England to lecture on the Burmese campaign. He was so successful that he was next sent to the United States to do the same in front of an American audience. Following this, for six months he was Britis... |
why do i need a strong password? why can't i just use whatever password i like and take on the responsibility if my account is broken in to? | Firstly why do sites force you to have strong passwords? Because of lawyers. You may decide that the security of a particular account is not that important to you, but many other users will not share that point of view.
Thus a site which does not take reasonable measures to ensure security faces the prospect of at l... | [
"The hardest passwords to crack, for a given length and character set, are random character strings; if long enough they resist brute force attacks (because there are many characters) and guessing attacks (due to high entropy). However, such passwords are typically the hardest to remember. The imposition of a requi... |
What does it mean when people talk of infinitely dimensioned space (Hilbert space)? | It means that there are an infinite number of degrees of freedom. Alternatively, that no finite subset of the space spans the space. Given any finite collection of vectors, there will be some other vector which is linearly independent of that collection.
Have you read the Wikipedia article on [Hilbert space](_URL_0_)? | [
"BULLET::::- Hilbert space, a space in many ways resembling a Euclidean space, but in important instances infinite-dimensional, studied in functional analysis and much used in mathematical physics, notably in quantum mechanics;\n",
"In mathematics, a zero-dimensional topological space (or nildimensional) is a top... |
when scientists say that your dna can change based on outside influences, what does that mean and how does that work? | Depends on what kind of changes you're talking about. Viruses change your DNA. Radiation changes you DNA.
There is also what is known as "epigenetic changes" which doesn't change the letters of the DNA code but changes what parts are read/expressed. Things like diet and stress seem to influence epigenetic changes, and... | [
"Shapiro points out that multiple cellular systems can affect DNA in response to specific environmental stimuli. These \"directed\" changes stand in contrast to both the undirected mutations in the modern synthesis and (in Shapiro's interpretation) the ban on information flowing from the environment into the genome... |
mars time | Mars spins slightly slower than the earth. A day on Mars is called a *Sol* and lasts 1^d 0^h 37^m 22.663^s , [NASA adjusts their timekeeping accordingly](_URL_0_). | [
"The first known reference to time on Mars appears in Percy Greg's novel \"Across the Zodiac\" (1880). The primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary divisions of the sol are based on the number 12. Sols are numbered 0 through the end of the year, with no additional structure to the calendar. The epoch is \"the u... |
why do all ants bump their heads whenever they go opposite ways? | Do you mean when they are traveling in opposite directions and touch their antennae together? They're communicating. They aren't "bumping their heads" they are sharing information through touch and pheromones about the location of food or predators. Similar to how bees dance to communicate. | [
"The basic idea is that the action of the repellent induces herd behavior in the ants. When ants are in \"panic\", they experience a strong tendency to follow each other. As a result, if a random fluctuation in the system produces a locally large amount of ants trying to reach one of the two doors, the fluctuation ... |
why are pain meds like vicodin so much different from otc drugs like ibuprofen? | They affect different chemical receptors.
Vicodin, codiene, morphine and other opiods/opiates have an effect on dopamine production/receptors in the body which are also responsible for "good" feelings and can suppress the feelings of pain. Ibuprofen and other usually just effect dilation of blood vessels allowing for ... | [
"Many drug therapies are available for pain management after third molar extractions including NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory), APAP (acetaminophen), and opioid formulations. Although each has its own pain-relieving efficacy, they also pose adverse effects. According to two doctors, Ibuprofen-APAP combinat... |
why is it that when a camera films confetti or snowflakes falling, the quality decreases hugely? | [This Tom Scott video](_URL_0_) answers this exact question.
Basically, it's about video compression. Video compression works by storing only (well, mostly) the changes between consecutive frames. If there's a lot of changes between frames, the video is hard to compress, so the compression must sacrifice the video qu... | [
"Noise in digital cameras can produce color distortion or confetti-like patterns, in indoor lighting typically occurring most severely on the blue component and least severely on the red component. Nearly all digital cameras apply noise reduction to long-exposure photographs to counteract noise due to pixel leakage... |
why do our muscles hurt when we sleep on them weird? | Because you slept on them weird. They were forced to maintain a position they wouldn't normally maintain, for an extended period of time, with an unusual amount and distribution of weight. Your forearm wasn't meant to have the weight of your torso resting on it for 7-9 hours at a time, so when you do it your forearm ba... | [
"Pain is typically related to tensing the abdominal wall muscles, so any type of movement is prone to aggravate pain. Lying quietly can be the least painful position. Most patients report that they cannot sleep on the painful side.\n",
"In addition, as a result of continuous muscular activity without proper rest ... |
how are roots able to break through asphalt roads ? | moisture causes cracks which will disrupt soil under the material..if there is a root nearby water will make it grow... | [
"Ruts in gravel roads can be removed by grading the road surface. Ruts in asphalt pavement can be filled with asphalt, then overlaid with another layer of asphalt, but better results can usually be achieved by grinding off the surface to restore the proper cross slope, then resurfacing. If the ruts are formed due t... |
Why do we use microwaves to heat food? | Microwaves penetrate deeply, are easy to produce, and are conveniently harmless.
Infrared ovens exist and we call them toaster ovens. However, it only heats the surface of food because most food is opaque to infrared and it has a very short wavelength. Microwaves are optimized to be absorbed well by food [but not too ... | [
"A microwave oven (also commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce thermal energy in a process known as dielectric heating. Microwave o... |
the final fantasy video game series | No, they're not all connected. Most of them are standalone stories, in fact. There are a handful of paired games, where the setting and sometimes characters are the same, but for the most part they're independent of each other.
I think that accounts for a lot of their success, actually. There's always a new story, ... | [
"The Final Fantasy Legend, known in Japan as , is a video game released for the Game Boy in December 1989 by Square Co. It is the first game in the \"SaGa\" series and the first role-playing video game for the system. Square translated the game into English for worldwide release and renamed it, linking it with the ... |
If there's old English, are there older versions of other languages like Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese etc? Did they sound very different as their modern counterparts? And have some languages barely changed or even not at all? | > If there's old English, are there older versions of other languages like Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese etc?
The simple answer is **yes**, on all counts. All languages change. They're changing right now. The English (or whatever you speak) is not the same as the English (whatever) of your parents. You might not ... | [
"BULLET::::- Modern languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Modern Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Panjabi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu\n",
"Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Sax... |
Why is "speed of light" the only time where a speed is used to quantify a distance? i.e. lightyears | It isn't. People often say thing likes "My house is about 20 minutes from the beach" when they mean "a distance which when traveled by car averages 20 minutes."
Also I have heard things like "san francisco is an hour and a half from LA" (by plane)
In tokyo I will tell people I am 5 mintues from the station. which I... | [
"Because the speed of light is now exactly defined in terms of the metre, more precise measurement of the speed of light does not result in a more accurate figure for its velocity in standard units, but rather a more accurate definition of the metre. The accuracy of the measured speed of light is considered to be w... |
What would happen if a human was hit by an electron near lightspeed? | The LHC is a proton-proton collier, I'm pretty sure. But let's say we have an electron with the same energy as an LHC proton--that's 7 tera-electron volts (TeV). An electron volt is the energy it takes to move one electron through one volt of potential, so this is like being hit with one electron at 7 teravolts, but th... | [
"The faster than light propulsion employed by Earthmen has the side-effect of stunning the human nervous system to a variable degree. Rootes is deeply affected, while Grunty is almost unaffected, resulting in an extensive period of time after each \"jump\" in which Grunty is the only aware entity on the ship, a sit... |
Could someone give me some simple explanations of the theories about what the universe exists in? | There are none. The universe is all there is (pretty much by definition). | [
"In Cook Islands creation myth, the universe was conceived of as being like the hollow of a vast coconut shell, the interior of this imaginary shell being Avaiki, the under world, and the outer side of the shell as the upper world of mortals. At various depths there are floors of different levels, or lands, which c... |
how wrestlers can eat a ton of punches and not get knocked out but ufc fighters can get knocked out in a simple punch. | Professional wrestling is staged. Think of it like a live stunt show. The punches pro wrestlers throw at each other are "pulled" punches, which means either the punch doesn't actually connect with the opponent, or the punch isn't really solid.
For a video example: _URL_0_ | [
"If a boxer has received large amount of damage to either their head or their body, and they continue to be punched in that area, the fight will soon end in a TKO. Large amounts of punishment to the head will also result in visible cuts. A TKO will also result if a boxer is knocked down three times. However, unlike... |
Are there any books on the Spanish Empire? I can't seem to find any... | The AskHistorians Books and Resources list has a [small section on Spain and the Spanish Empire](_URL_0_) that you could check out. | [
"His biography of \"Isabella of Castile\" – the Spanish queen who sent Columbus to the Americas, founded what became the world's first global empire, united Spain, set up the Inquisition and expelled Europe's largest community of Jews, was published in 2017. It won the Elizabeth Longford Prize in 2018 . The Spanish... |
How does human body excrete radioactive materials once they have been inhaled and/or ingested? | Stuff in the lungs isnt excreted, anything foreign, I can tell you ask a smoker of a few things over the years, you will end up coughing out.
I'm not aware if the radioactive elements build up to more risky levels compared to the day to day levels of other like elements in the body.
Just try to avoid russian cigarett... | [
"Radioactive contamination can be ingested into the human body if it is airborne or is taken in as contamination of food or drink, and will irradiate the body internally. The art and science of assessing internally generated radiation dose is Internal dosimetry.\n",
"In an radioactive area, radionuclide particula... |
"organic" compounds? | Organic materials in a strictly chemical sense means: the molecules contain carbon (C) atoms.
There is some exception to this rule: generally CO2, diamond, graphene and a few others are considered inorganic (that's just the opposite). This has historic reasons and the distinction is a bit arbitrary, though the distinc... | [
"Organic compounds may be classified in a variety of ways. One major distinction is between natural and synthetic compounds. Organic compounds can also be classified or subdivided by the presence of heteroatoms, e.g., organometallic compounds, which feature bonds between carbon and a metal, and organophosphorus com... |
To what extent (if any) were Romans involved in the second Greco-Persian war. | 1) It's not very plausible. Herodotos gives a detailed listing of ethnic groups in Xerxes' army, and while there's a lot to doubt in his account, that doesn't mean a historian should make stuff up (obviously it's different for a novelist!). The ethnic groups he lists are all from northern Greece, Asia Minor, and Persia... | [
"By 526–527, overt fighting between the two empires had broken out in the Transcaucasus region and upper Mesopotamia. At the same time, the Persians continued to exert pressure on the Romans to obtain funds from them. The early years of war favored the Persians: by 527 the Iberian revolt had been crushed, a Roman o... |
In terms of light production vs energy consumption, how much more efficient are modern LEDs than CFLs? What's the limit to increasing efficiency in future years? | Wikipedia article on [luminous efficacy](_URL_0_)
| [
"Efficient lighting is needed for sustainable architecture. As of 2011, some LED bulbs provide up to 150 lm/W and even inexpensive low-end models typically exceed 50 lm/W, so that a 6-watt LED could achieve the same results as a standard 40-watt incandescent bulb. Displacing less effective sources such as incandesc... |
Will a puddle of water stay there forever if the surrounding air humidity is stable at 100% (saturated)? | Yes. Water has a certain vapor pressure depending on temperature. When the ambient pressure is greater than the vapor pressure, condensation will occur. If the ambient pressure is lesser, evaporation will occur.
As long as there is enough water, air pressure in a closed system will tend to exactly the vapor pressure o... | [
"Precipitation occurs when local air becomes saturated with water vapor, and can no longer maintain the level of water vapor in gaseous form. This occurs when less dense moist air cools, usually when an airmass rises through the atmosphere. However, an airmass can also cool (e.g. through radiative cooling, or groun... |
How can a country have a trade deficit every year without running out money? | Economist here: These answers are pretty vague and terrible.
The real reason is a trade deficit is done on a free floating currency. So you never get to zero, you just erode the value of your money over time.
I.e. Each year the trade deficit devalues your currency by 1.5%. You never get to zero or run out of money, ... | [
"A country with a large trade surplus would generally see the value of its currency appreciate relative to other currencies, which would reduce the imbalance as the relative price of its exports increases. This currency appreciation occurs as the importing country sells its currency to buy the exporting country's c... |
how am i able to continue to sing a song, without being conscious i'm doing so, whilst being deep in thought about something else? | I'd assume it's because it's become muscle memory, in the same way as touch typing or any physical other activity works?
I touch type, and I don't consciously think 'I want to press the c button, so I have to put my finger here, and then press.' I just think of what I want to write, without consciously willing my f... | [
"\"To focus on one's self is to give time back to who you are and only at this point can we truly heal ourselves and replenish our energy levels. This is the space I get inspired in and then try to translate it into sound.\"\n",
"I'm trying to understand things in life right now and so I really don't feel that I ... |
why can our bodies develop resistance to harsh viruses such as the flu, but poison ivy still plagues many of us each year? | Poison Ivy, as indicated by the name, isn't a virus. Your reaction to poison ivy is an allergic/histamine reaction. The body's immune system is normally in the business of protecting us from bacteria, viruses, and other foreign invaders that can make us sick. But when urushiol from the poison ivy plant touches the ski... | [
"One of the reasons that infections are so frightening is the speed with which they can kill. Doctors dealing with human cases of avian flu in the Far East have seen their patients worsen dramatically and die within a day. Add to that the fear of the new and unknown, and emerging infections can seem truly terrifyin... |
Did German Troops Discharged after WWI Re-Enlist for WWII? | Hi there. Soldiers who served in WW1 certainly did serve for Germany in WW2. The majority of the interwar (and WW2) officer corps had served initially in WW1. Many of these officers were demobilised due to the limit placed on the German armed forces and later returned when Germany rearmed under the Nazis. However, betw... | [
"At the end of World War I, the forces of the German Empire were disbanded, the men returning home individually or in small groups. Many of them joined the \"Freikorps\" (Free Corps), a collection of volunteer paramilitary units that were involved in suppressing the German Revolution and border clashes between 1918... |
what was y2k? | This Eli5 makes me realize I'm getting very, very old. It's almost surreal that so many people alive now wouldn't know that! | [
"Y2K (also known as Y2K: The Movie) is a 1999 American made-for-television science fiction-thriller film directed by Dick Lowry and starring Ken Olin and Kate Vernon. The film takes a fictional look at the societal problems that could ensue from widespread computer shutdowns caused by the Year 2000 problem, also kn... |
Time for Fossilization? How long does it take? | The fossilization process begins at the time of an organism's death. Rapid burial under sediments is key for the fossilization process to begin. This prevents decomp from bacteria & protects the carcass from scavengers.
After the intial process, it will take thousands of years for a fossil to form. Fossils occur in... | [
"The first fossil find, a hominin skull dubbed \"TPL1\", was recovered at a depth of in December 2009. A mandible, \"TPL2\", was found the following year at a depth of . Radiocarbon and luminescence dating of the sediments established a minimum age of 51,000 to 46,000 years, and direct uranium-thorium dating of the... |
How come most Caribbean people are from African descent and not mixed like the rest of the Americas? | Most of us are mixed, though we may not look it. Someone who is 12.5% European and 87.5% African won't necessarily look much like the former. Also, remember that countries like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico are Caribbean countries, and people solely of African descent make up a small minority in them. M... | [
"Modern Caribbean people usually further identify by their own specific ethnic ancestry, therefore constituting various subgroups, largest of which are: Afro-Caribbean (largely descendants of emancipated African slaves) White Caribbean (largely descendants of European colonizers) and Indo-Caribbean (largely descend... |
why do some people think it's beneficial to "alkalize" the body? | A sufficiently charismatic snake-oil salesman convinced them of it.
Most people don't have much understanding of medicine, biology or science in general. If some huckster starts tossing around fancy sounding words, it's easy to convince them that he's right - especially if it's loosely connected to some actual facts. | [
"Alkaline diet (also known as the alkaline ash diet, alkaline acid diet, acid ash diet, and acid alkaline diet) describes a group of loosely related diets based on the misconception that different types of food can have an effect on the pH balance of the body. It originated from the acid ash hypothesis, which prima... |
at night time, why do windows appear to act as mirrors and lower the visibility through the glass? if you want to see outside the window at night, why is it best to turn out the lights? | Glass reflects a certain percentage of light passing through it. When you are on the darker side of the window, the light coming through the window is much brighter than the reflection. When you are on the bright side, the reflected light is much brighter than the light coming through the glass. | [
"Large mirrors are hinged at the back of each stripe of window. The unhinged edge of the windows points toward the Sun. The purpose of the mirrors is to reflect sunlight into the cylinders through the windows. Night is simulated by opening the mirrors, letting the window view empty space; this also permits heat to ... |
how is immigration policy determined in the us? why would the us want to limit the number of educated immigrants to the country? | The US has the easiest immigration policies -out of any country in the world.- That's because we've always prided ourselves on being a nation that is accepting of immigration. The US accepts 1 *million* legal immigrants EVERY year under a variety of criteria: education, job, sponsorship, family, political refuge, etc... | [
"Support for immigration restrictions, which began at the turn of the century and had built steadily for twenty years, led to congressional passage of the National Origins Act. This legislation severely restricted the total number of foreigners who would be allowed to enter the United States legally in any given ye... |
how can the gop win the senate but lose the house? | Some people do vote for candidates individually, not just by party.
But more importantly, only 1/3 of Senate seats are up for a vote in each 2-year election, while *all* the House seats are up for a vote every 2 years.
Also, in all but the smallest states, each House seat is voted on by only *some section* of the sta... | [
"The GOP made substantial gains in the U.S. Senate. While the Democrats maintained control over the chamber, their majority was reduced from 59–41 to 53–47 (both totals include two independents who caucus with the Democrats). One of the GOP pickups came in Arkansas, where John Boozman easily defeated incumbent Blan... |
Was Marcus Aurelius' Meditations published in his lifetime? How was he regarded as a leader, in light of his philosophical bent? What is the best English translation of Meditations? | The *Meditations* wasn't exactly published in any sense that we think of the word. We honestly don't know what he intended, but it seems unlikely that Marcus treated the text as anything other than his diary or journal (a more honest title may be *To Himself* rather than *Meditations*). In part because of this, we also... | [
"While on campaign between 170 and 180, Marcus Aurelius wrote his \"Meditations\" in Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. The original title of this work, if it had one, is unknown. \"Meditations\" as well as others, including \"To Himself\" were adopted later. He had a logical mind and his ... |
what is the loudness war and what side am i on? | The Loudness War is defined as a trend in recorded music that has gotten generally louder and louder over time. Early records were relatively quiet; later records would record at louder volumes; compact discs set a digital limit that sound engineers would come up against through different compression techniques, and so... | [
"\"Loud, Loud, Loud\" combines a two-chord piano melody by Vangelis with narration by Daniel Koplowitz, described by a fansite as \"the son of [a] diplomat\". The title is sung by a choir, who are not credited on the album sleeve. The narration reflects a spirit of countercultural optimism, speaking of \"The day yo... |
why can my phone with a 4 watt soc play back 1440p video without even getting warm to the touch while my laptop with a much more powerful gpu has to ramp up it's fans and make tons of heat to accomplish the same task. | Ah yes, Google’s and Apple’s VP9 beef. Blame Apple and/or Google. Whichever you think is guilty.
Gather around kids, let me tell you a story.
I’ll go off the assumption you are referring to a YouTube video here. And I am assuming you are using Chrome, not Safari, as Safari cannot play 1440p YouTube video (we will get... | [
"Inside the laptop, the USB power-supply has to output an additional amount of watts for the USB-powered fan, thus generating a small amount of additional heat. This additional heat generation is usually insignificant in relation to the amount of heat a fan moves away from the laptop.\n",
"While it is NOT uncommo... |
In our solar system, or any solar system really, does proximity to their sun determine the size of planets? | In our current standard theory of planetary formation, the planets are most likely formed further out in the protoplanetary disk and migrate inwards after being formed. In our solar system, the small dense rocky planets are closest to our Sun while the giant gas planets are further outside. We think we have a fairly go... | [
"While planets have been discovered orbiting similar stars to the Sun, most are gas giant or super-Earth sized, and many of these planetary systems have shown to be surprisingly different from our own. This measure is not entirely reliable as Mars and Venus also orbit the Sun but have different compositions and pro... |
FAQ Friday: Have you ever wondered how similar different languages actually are? Find out the answer, and ask your own linguistics questions! | Does learning more than a single language as a child affect the lifelong ability to learn other languages? If so, how? | [
"There is no formal distinction between two distinct languages and two varieties of a single language, but some linguists use mutual intelligibility as one of the primary factors in deciding between the two cases.\n",
"These differences between languages make translation difficult. No two languages are isomorphic... |
Did the red/black/white color scheme have the same "evil" connotations before the rise and fall of Nazi Germany? | From [an earlier answer of mine](_URL_3_)
No.
The choice of the Nazi color scheme in their banners was wrapped up in the politics of the German national flag. The flag of the united Germany was the [black-white-red tricolor](_URL_2_) with a [more complicated war flag](_URL_4_) used by some military units such as shi... | [
"When the Nazis came to power, they rejected the democratic German colours of black-red-\"gold\" used by the Weimar Republic. Nazis reintroduced the imperial colours (in German: \"die kaiserlichen Farben\" or \"Reichsfarben\") of black on the outside, white next, and a red center. The Nazi government used \"black-w... |
Was the original ethnicity/ethnicities behind the Olmec civilization physically notably different from the modern Amerindian populations that now inhabit the same area in any way? | I want to preface what I'm about to say by letting you know that we have a section in our FAQ titled [Travel and contact across the Atlantic before Columbus](_URL_1_) that contain other answers regarding the Olmec-African connection.
That being said, the Olmec heads may look different from their other artwork not beca... | [
"Indigenous peoples, also called \"\"originarios\"\" (\"native\" or \"original\") and less frequently, \"Amerindians\", could be categorized by geographic area, such as Andean, like the Aymaras and Quechuas (who formed the ancient Inca Empire), who are concentrated in the western departments of La Paz, Potosí, Orur... |
how does soap and shampoo "clean" you? could you use shampoo like a soap? | It's important to note that soap don't kill bacteria. Soap breaks the surface tension of water and in combination with the rubbing action of you hands, the bacteria gets washed off. Soap created emulsion between water and oil so that oils can be removed form the skin. Your hair needs oils and it's not good for your hai... | [
"Shampoo () is a hair care product, typically in the form of a viscous liquid, that is used for cleaning hair. Less commonly, shampoo is available in bar form, like a bar of soap. Shampoo is used by applying it to wet hair, massaging the product into the hair, and then rinsing it out. Some users may follow a shampo... |
Are whales, dolphins and other marine life affected by massive ocean storms? Is it hard for a dolphin to get to the surface for air when waves are 20ft high and the ocean is churning? | Sharks will go deep during a hurricane. Low pressure in the atmosphere above the water will reduce pressure under water, fooling them into thinking they are swimming shallower than they are.
_URL_0_
_URL_1_
| [
"Whales and dolphins suffer severely disabling barotrauma when exposed to excessive pressure changes induced by navy sonar, oil industry airguns, explosives, undersea earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.\n",
"Hydroacoustic disturbance is another critical issue for dolphins. Sources of noise can come from dredging,... |
Why hasn't the brain evolved to be able to regenerate itself as easily as skin does? In other words why don't brain cells grow back quickly/at all? | A mature neuron is orders of magnitude more complicated than a skin cell.
Is it as easy to replace an HD television as a lump of concrete the same size? | [
"Endogenous regeneration in the brain is the ability of cells to engage in the repair and regeneration process. While the brain has a limited capacity for regeneration, endogenous neural stem cells, as well as numerous pro-regenerative molecules, can participate in replacing and repairing damaged or diseased neuron... |
how does the scam in the wolf of wall street work? | The pump and dump scheme? I've only seen the movie once when it first came out, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Basically you buy a crapload of low value stocks and create a buzz, causing others to buy which increases the price. Once it hits a certain point you sell all your shares at a profit. Its market manipu... | [
"The Baltimore stockbroker scam relies on mass-mailing or emailing. The scammer begins with a large pool of marks, numbering ideally a power of two such as 1024 (2). The scammer divides the pool into two halves, and sends all the members of each half a prediction about the future outcome of an event with a binary o... |
what happens if no candidate gets the needed number of delegates for the republican nomination? | They vote again until one does, it is a fairly simple process. It is called a contested convention. | [
"The race for the Republican nomination is decided upon how many delegates a candidate receives. In this section we see how many pledged delegates each candidate has received to date ranking from first place (the most delegates) to sixth place (the least delegates). To be nominated, a candidate must win an absolute... |
why would a gravitational wave travel at the same speed as light? | Calling it the speed of light is sort of a misnomer, really. Instead, there's a speed of causality in the universe that no information can travel faster than. So light travels at the speed of causality, and so do gravitational waves.
For more information, watch [this](_URL_0_) great video from PBS Space Time. He expl... | [
"The speed of gravitational waves in the general theory of relativity is equal to the \"speed of light\" in a vacuum, \"c\". Within the theory of special relativity, the constant \"c\" is not exclusively about light; instead it is the highest possible speed for any interaction in nature. Formally, \"c\" is a conver... |
how does this phone holder for your car not break your phone? | There are two electronics components that are sensitive to magnets: cathode ray tube (CRT) screens and hard drives. Your phone does not have either of those- it has an LED or LCD screen instead of a CRT and uses flash memory instead of a hard drive.
With credit cards, the magnetic strip will get messed up with a stro... | [
"The phone comes with a one-year warranty, which does not cover scratches, cracks, smudge marks, liquid damage, and other forms of physical damage. Sending phones for repair is typically handled by the phone service provider, rather than through HTC.\n",
"The phone comes with a 1-year warranty, which does not cov... |
Ask Science: virtual images vs real images in optics | > But why can't a camera see them?
A camera can see them just fine. Take a picture of yourself in the mirror. Congratulations! You just photographed a virtual image.
You may be thinking of the fact that you can't focus a virtual image on a screen. That is to say, there is no position where you could place a flat... | [
"In optics, a virtual image is an image formed when the outgoing rays from a point on an object always diverge. The image appears to be located at the point of apparent divergence. Because the rays never really converge, a virtual image cannot be projected onto a screen. In diagrams of optical systems, virtual rays... |
how do travel agents get paid? | Aren't you paying this travel agent?
I'm surprised that there still are travel agents. I remember seeing travel agencies in strip malls when i was a little kid but I haven't seen one in years.
| [
"Traditionally, travel agencies' principal source of income was, and continues to be, commissions paid for bookings of car rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, sightseeing tours, tour operators, etc. A fixed (in most cases) percentage of the main element of the price is paid to the agent as a commission. Commis... |
How does a light bulb light up a whole room? | For an incandescent bulb, electricity runs through a filament in the middle causing it to heat up through simple Joule heating (essentially, the electrons in the electrical current smash into the atoms in the wire and lose some of their energy to heat). The filament heats up enough that it emits visible light through t... | [
"A recessed light or downlight (also pot light in Canadian English, sometimes can light (for canister light) in American English) is a light fixture that is installed into a hollow opening in a ceiling. When installed it appears to have light shining from a hole in the ceiling, concentrating the light in a downward... |
What's the smallest possible number of fundamental units, and what would they be? | In principle, you can have only one unit.
The idea is that some fundamental constants are actually just proportionality factors, so you can just set them as 1. These are the speed of light, Planck's constant and Boltzmann constant. So distance and time are the same, which are inverse mass, energy, frequency and tempe... | [
"If , the ring of the integers of formula_2 has infinitely many units that are equal to , where is an arbitrary integer, and is a particular unit called a \"fundamental unit\". Given a fundamental unit , there are three other fundamental units, its conjugate formula_16 and also formula_17 and formula_18 Commonly, o... |
why do many southeast asian countries have such harsh drug laws? | These countries are are trying to improve their economic standing. They don't want people to steal to get their high, or become homeless, or jobless. They also don't want the children of he area to get addicted to any drugs. That's where most of the anti-drug sentiment comes from. They see it as if your trafficking/sel... | [
"A large factor in the development of the drug trade in Central Asia is due to the region’s geography. Three of Central Asia’s southern states, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, share a collective border of about 3,000 km with Afghanistan, which produces about 70 percent of the world’s heroin. An estimated 9... |
We can create in vitro meat. Is there any research to create in vitro wood? | Never heard of anyone trying to grow in vitro wood. It's possible that someone is doing it somewhere but I doubt there's much money in such a prospect.
The reason in vitro meat is desirable is because mass animal farming is highly destructive to the environment. Mass tree farming is not nearly so. Done properly it wou... | [
"\"In vitro meat\", also called \"cultured meat\", \"clean meat\", \"cruelty-free meat\", \"shmeat\", and \"test-tube meat\", is an animal-flesh product that has never been part of a living animal with exception of the fetal calf serum taken from a slaughtered cow. In the 21st century, several research projects hav... |
why do people squeeze lotion onto the back of their hand? | The back of your hand gets dry and cracks the most, and needs as much lotion as possible. After they make sure the back is well covered the rest is dispersed evenly to the rest if the hands. | [
"\"Squeeze Box\" is a song by The Who from their album \"The Who by Numbers.\" Written by Pete Townshend, the lyrics are couched in sexual double entendres. Unlike many of the band's other hits, the song features country-like elements, seen in Townshend's guitar finger picking.\n",
"Effleurage can be firm or ligh... |
How did the Teutonic Order justify fighting Catholic Lithuania+Poland? | Ok so there is a lot going on with this question.
Lithuania was a pagan state until the Union of Krew(v)o in 1385-1386.
The knights that you refer to in your question would be the Teutonic Order, but by the time of the Union of Krewo they would have expanded and absorbed smaller regional orders as well. The most pro... | [
"The Polish-Lithuanian position was defended by Paulus Vladimiri, rector of the Jagiellonian University, who challenged legality of the Teutonic crusade against Lithuania. He argued that a forced conversion was incompatible with free will, which was an essential component of a genuine conversion. Therefore, the Kni... |
why does driving feel smoother in the drivers seat? | When you know what will happen, your body prepares for it.
Hard left, you know exactly when it will happen.
Aceleration, deceleration are the same, you prepare for acceleration when you press gas pedal.
Passengers are surprised when something happens, and their body doesn't react.
Like in football, if someone slams ... | [
"Another benefit comes when the heavy mass of the engine is located close to the back of the seats. It makes it easier for the suspension to absorb the force of bumps so the riders feel a smoother ride. But in sports cars the engine position is once again used to increase performance and the potentially smoother ri... |
The 3 divisibility rule is if you add up the digits of any number, and the sum you get is divisible why 3, then the larger number is too. Why is this? | Suppose we have a number that, in decimal representation, has the digits ABCD. This means 1000A+100B+10C+D. We can re-write this as
A+999A + B + 99B + C + 9C + D. The terms 999A, 99B, and 9C are all multiples of three.
Thus
ABCD = (multiple of 3) + A + B + C + D
Consequently, ABCD will be a multiple of three if A... | [
"The basic rule for divisibility by 4 is that if the number formed by the last two digits in a number is divisible by 4, the original number is divisible by 4; this is because 100 is divisible by 4 and so adding hundreds, thousands, etc. is simply adding another number that is divisible by 4. If any number ends in ... |
what prevents blood from flowing backwards into an iv bag? | Gravity.
The IV bag hangs above the patient and the solution flows down the IV line. This pressure pushes the IV solution into vein which prevents blood from flowing into the tube. | [
"A blood clot or other solid mass, as well as an air bubble, can be delivered into the circulation through an IV and end up blocking a vessel; this is called embolism. It is nearly impossible to inject air through a peripheral IV at a dangerous rate. The risk is greater with a central IV.\n",
"The tubing from the... |
how is it that breasts get slightly bigger then slightly smaller again during 'that time of the month' | Progesterone and prolactin are released during your period, which causes breast tissue to swell and milk glands to increase in size. Your body will also retain water which may contribute. | [
"The breasts of girls and women in early stages of development commonly are \"high\" and rounded, dome- or cone-shaped, and protrude almost horizontally from a female's chest wall. Over time, the sag on breasts tends to increase due to their natural weight, the relaxation of support structures, and aging. Breasts s... |
Will the continued acidification of our oceans by CO2 absorption have a notable impact on Earth's oxygen supply? (by causing environmental changes for plankton) | Are you referring to atmospheric oxygen, oceanic oxygen, or both? Also, are you asking about ocean acidification effects on primary productivity and photosynthesis in the ocean?
Atmospheric oxygen has indeed been going down as a result of fossil fuel burning. If you're interested in how atmospheric oxygen levels have a... | [
"As CO concentrations in the atmosphere increase via anthropogenic causes, acidification of the ocean will increase as the result of increasing CO sequestration by the ocean; the ocean is a great sink for carbon, absorbing more as its concentration in the atmosphere increases. As this occurs, there will be species ... |
why are 3d printed gun such a big deal? | Molding a gun and its parts takes a professional with lots of experience and knowledge, along with the expensive molds/etc.
A 3D printer you can buy at staples. | [
"The US Department of Homeland Security and the Joint Regional Intelligence Center released a memo stating that \"significant advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing capabilities, availability of free digital 3D printable files for firearms components, and difficulty regulating file sharing may present public s... |
how can we determine gender from handwriting? what makes some handwriting "girly"? | Women develop fine motor skills earlier than men. When leaning to write they have already developed past a males, and at that point I'm guessing they develop habits (better or worse) and they take over later in life. | [
"Uniformly the research indicates that gender can be determined at a significant level. The published studies on ethnicity, race, age, nationality, gender orientation, weight, and their relationship to handwriting have had mixed results.\n",
"More recently, women who write in genres commonly written by men someti... |
why is it that western and mid-western states (nevada, colorado) have very clean borders (demarcations with almost straight lines) whereas eastern states (florida, n.carolina) have not so clean borders? | Eastern states were often settled first, and divided up later. Even where not, they tended to be divided along natural boundaries 0 the state goes to this river, for example. So the boundaries are as random as the natural border.
In the west, the states were divided almost before people lived out there, certainly befo... | [
"Despite the economic development, liberalization and intensification of trade, and strategic geographic location, the southern U.S. border is one of the poorest regions in the nation. Most cases had shown that these communities formed when unscrupulous landowners illegally sold and subdivided rural lands, often to... |
Why a spacecraft reentry has to be so violent? Why don't they make reentries at slower speeds to avoid all the heating up and stuff? | Here's an important rule about space travel - it is exactly as hard to slow down in space as it is to speed up. You need a huge, two or three stage rocket to get into orbit, so you'd need the same huge rocket to slow down again. But you'd need to get that rocket into orbit - and that huge rocket got just a small capsu... | [
"Ballistic warheads and expendable vehicles do not require slowing at reentry, and in fact, are made streamlined so as to maintain their speed. Furthermore, slow-speed returns to Earth from near-space such as parachute jumps from balloons do not require heat shielding because the gravitational acceleration of an ob... |
In mid-1863, Vicksburg fell, and the Confederacy was officially split by the Union controlled Mississippi. How did this change the levels of support, and perception of the effort, within the regions of the Trans-Mississippi still under Confederate control? | The Trans-Mississippi Confederacy was essentially an orphaned entity after the U.S. closed the Vicksburg/Port Hudson corridor in July 1863. People were pretty easily resigned to it, to be honest. The primary sources I've read all felt like they knew that it was coming, and they knew that it meant they would get no more... | [
"Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863, leaving Port Hudson as the last remaining Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. General Banks accepted the surrender of the Confederate garrison at Port Hudson on July 9, ending the longest siege in U.S. military history. Control of the Mississippi River was the ce... |
What are the advantages/disadvantages for an organism to having a small or a large number of chromosome pairs? | There are clear advantages to having more chromosome pairs:
1. Gene redundancy: multiple copies of the same gene reside within the genome, so mutations in a single gene don’t necessarily lead to the complete disruption of protein synthesis since the duplicate gene will still function normally.
2. Heterosis: sometimes... | [
"However, in organisms with more than one set of chromosomes at the main life cycle stage, sex may also provide an advantage because, under random mating, it produces homozygotes and heterozygotes according to the Hardy-Weinberg ratio.\n",
"Chromosome polymorphisms are very common among fungi. Different isolates ... |
how are cabinet members chosen? | Per the law, the POTUS nominates the member and then that member is confirmed by the Senate. That is all that is actually legally required.
In practice, the POTUS will have a much longer vetting process run by various staffers or will dole out these nominations as repayment for political favors.
It is allowable beca... | [
"The cabinet is responsible to the bicameral parliament, the States General, which also has legislative powers. The 150 members of the House of Representatives, the lower house, are elected in direct elections on the basis of party-list proportional representation. These are held every four years, or sooner in case... |
Are astronauts on the ISS able to recognize constellations? How far away from the Earth's surface could you go before they become "skewed"? | Orbiting the Earth makes no difference in what you see in the night sky. If you think about it, you'll realize that as the Earth orbits the Sun each year, it covers a much, much greater distance, and yet the constellations don't appear to change their form or their relative positions. In fact, anywhere in the Solar S... | [
"BULLET::::- Apollo astronauts frequently aligned their spacecraft inertial navigation platforms and determined their positions relative to the Earth and Moon by sighting sets of stars with optical instruments. As a practical joke, the Apollo 1 crew named three of the stars in the Apollo catalog after themselves an... |
If a person were spinning perfectly horizontally in space, could they slow themselves by putting their arms out? Much like an ice-skater? | I haven't seen Gravity, but the essential idea you are referring to is conservation of angular momentum. The answer to your question is yes, you could slow down your rotational speed by moving mass away from the rotational axis.
Being in space (away from the effects of gravity) should have no effect on this principle... | [
"To perform the Russian twist, first, one should sit on the floor with knees bent as in a \"sit-up\" position. The feet should be kept together and slightly above the ground or put under a stable surface. The torso should be kept straight with the back kept off the ground at a 45 degree angle. Arms should be held t... |
why is berkshire hathaway (brk-a) being traded at $171,000/share? | Because there aren't many shares for sale. That means that each is worth a bigger % of the value of the company. | [
"On August 14, 2014, the price of Berkshire Hathaway's shares hit $200,000 a share for the first time, capitalizing the company at $328 billion. While Buffett had given away much of his stock to charities by this time, he still held 321,000 shares worth $64.2 billion. On August 20, 2014, Berkshire Hathaway was fine... |
Has sexual activity changed with changes in personal hygiene - in particular was oral sex common when people bathed very rarely? | There's an eighth to ninth century Old Irish penitential (a text that lets you know the penance for different sins) with explicit reference to oral sex:
*Nech dogni etrath o belaib iiii anni in cet-fecht ma gnathach acnapthe vii annis.*
*Nech touisim a sil hi gin a banscal penneth dib línaib v annos ma gnathach vii a... | [
"In Freudian psychology, the anal stage is said to follow the oral stage of infant or early-childhood development. This is a time when an infant's attention moves from oral stimulation to anal stimulation (usually the bowels but occasionally the bladder), usually synchronous with learning to control their excretory... |
how does one alphabetize kanji? | Korean doesn't fall into this category: it actually uses a real alphabet. Those characters that look like complicated Chinese-style logograms are actually syllable blocks, made up of (usually) two or three letters that represent sounds, and these letters have a fixed order (however, North Korea and South Korea use diff... | [
"Written Japanese uses several different scripts: kanji (Chinese characters), 2 sets of \"kana\" (phonetic syllabaries) and roman letters. While kana and roman letters can be typed directly into a computer, entering kanji is a more complicated process as there are far more kanji than there are keys on most keyboard... |
Is there anything like Sci-Fi literature dated before 1900/1800 ? | "[True Story](_URL_0_)" by Lucian dates to the 2nd century AD and includes travel to outer space, alien civilizations, and interplanetary war. However, the motivations weren't quite to write "science fiction," as it wasn't really based on any science, and rather to satirize those who wrote fantastic tales and claimed t... | [
"Possibly the first recorded Canadian work of science fiction is the 1896 \"Tisab Ting, or, The Electrical Kiss\", a pseudonymous first novel by an Ida May Ferguson of New Brunswick under the pseudonym \"Dyjan Fergus\". Set in late 20th century Montreal, it features an \"electrical genius\": a \"learned Chinaman\" ... |
the game of craps | For some reason this question keeps coming up. [This seems to be the best answer.](_URL_0_) | [
"Craps is a dice game in which the players make wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other (playing \"street craps\") or a bank (playing \"casino craps\", also known as \"table craps\", or often just \"craps\"). Because it requires little e... |
Has the total number of organisms on earth at a given time increased, decreased, or remained generally static over the last 500 or so years (more recent history) | Are you including prokaryotes (i.e. bacteria and archaea)? If so, the number is so large as to be more or less incomprehensible.
There are something like 10^15 bacterial cells (each one being considered an individual organism) in your body alone (also interesting to note: that's ten times as many of "your" cells as th... | [
"Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions. More than 99.9 percent of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have ... |
why water flows ? | Basically the force holding a liquid's molecules together is weaker than other forces that its experiencing. The most significant one usually being gravity. Gravity pulling down on the molecules in the liquid overcomes any sort of connection between the molecules, and the liquid will flow across whatever surface it's o... | [
"Runoff of water in channels is responsible for transport of sediment, nutrients, and pollution downstream. Without streamflow, the water in a given watershed would not be able to naturally progress to its final destination in a lake or ocean. This would disrupt the ecosystem. Streamflow is one important route of w... |
why are some things prioritized in media and other things aren't? | When it comes to international news in North America, there are two sources primarily used by news companies. The Associated Press in the USA and The Canadian Press in Canada. Once a story is found at a media organization it has to pass what I like the call the "do I care," test.
If you don't care about a story as a ... | [
"There are two primary areas of media agenda-setting: (i) the media tells us the news and (ii) tells us what to think about the news. Press coverage sends signals to audiences about the importance of mentioned issues, while framing the news induces the unsuspecting viewer into a particular response. Additionally, n... |
Why can light rays never approach one another in the event horizon of a black hole? | The definition of "parallel" changes because space-time itself changes in the presence of mass. Leave aside the mysteries of black holes for a moment. Suppose I send two space ships out to some distance away from the sun. Say they're 100 000 miles apart, and they use a system of lasers to align themselves and then shoo... | [
"BULLET::::- At the event horizon, formula_30 the speed of light shining outward away from the center of black hole is formula_31 It can not escape from the event horizon. Instead, it gets stuck at the event horizon. Since light moves faster than all others, matter can only move inward at the event horizon. Everyth... |
State of Britain after Rome but before the Anglo-Saxons | OK this is a very broad question, as it arguably covers about 100-250 years of history across a very diverse area with virtually no primary sources that can be considered trustworthy. For example, 2 sources which early historians of the period placed a lot of trust in have had a lot of doubt cast on them: Zosimus state... | [
"Roman Britain was in a state of political and economic collapse at the time of the Roman departure c. 400. A series of settlements (traditionally referred to as an invasion) by Germanic peoples began in the early fifth century, and by the sixth century the island would consist of many small kingdoms engaged in ong... |
How healthy is dog food? | This is a difficult question to answer. There are plenty of dogs that make it well into old age with something like "Old Roy," and other dogs that have died young despite having been fed a home-cooked diet comprised of all-natural foods. Fortunately, many dogs are capable of doing relatively well even on a diet that is... | [
"Joint and bone health is an important factor to be considered when purchasing a senior dog food. The addition of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate have been shown to improve cartilage formation, the composition of synovial fluid, as well as improve signs of osteoarthritis. The calcium to phosphorus ratio of seni... |
what stops people sitting in the emergency exit seats on a plane from pulling the window and killing everyone? | OK, nobody has explained it yet.
First of all, the door is 20-30kgs heavy, and you have to pull it out then turn it and toss it through in an emergency. In the air, the pressure is really high inside the plane, and low outside the plane. This means the air pressure forces the door closed, so you'd never be able to op... | [
"After the aircraft had stopped, the crew saw fire outside and began evacuation. When the emergency exits were opened, one of the right middle exit slides (R3) deflated after being punctured by debris from the aircraft, while one of the left slides (L2) failed to deploy at all for unknown reasons. The two rear left... |
how are deafblind people taught to communicate? | I'm a nurse that works with DeafBlind individuals, hopefully I can explain this well!
For most things, it's all about teaching the concept behind the idea. And using all other available senses. Also, repetition.
For an apple, you can sign with AITSL (adapted interactive tactile sign language - hand over hand) the ... | [
"Deafblind people communicate in many different ways as determined by the nature of their condition, the age of onset, and what resources are available to them. For example, someone who grew up deaf and experienced vision loss later in life is likely to use a sign language (in a visually modified or tactile form). ... |
what's the difference between vapor and smoke? | Vapor is basically just steam that is the same temperature of the surrounding air (which is why it doesn't burn your mouth). Smoke is a byproduct of combustion. It contains a whole bunch of chemicals but very little water.
Vapor is cool and mostly water.
Smoke is hot and has no water. | [
"Smoke is a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires (including stoves, candles, internal combustion e... |
Why does the sun appear yellow but stars at night appear white? And does the redshift in a stars light due to distance affect the color we see with the naked eye? | The Sun appears yellow from the Earth's surface mostly because the atmosphere scatters blue light. A bright G-type star like Capella also appears yellowish. Most stars, except some of the brightest ones, appear white because [the photoreceptor cells in our eyes which detect color (cones) require more light than the rod... | [
"This is why the sky appears blue and the sun yellow — more of the higher-frequency blue light arrives at the observer via indirect scattered paths; and less blue light follows the direct path, giving the sun a yellow tinge.\n",
"As the Sun crosses the sky, it may appear to be red, orange, yellow or white dependi... |
why are republicans and obama both in support of obamatrade? | Because it serves American economic interests. Not the American people, necessarily, but corporations definitely. We want to maintain global economic superiority and giving our megacorps more help with this legislation does that. These trade agreements may not help the average person but it makes us more powerful as a ... | [
"Attacking Obama relentlessly, emphasizing the stalled economy, and fueled by the anger of the Tea Party Movement, Republicans scored a landslide in the 2010 midterm elections, winning control of the House and gaining seats in the Senate. After the election, John Boehner replaced Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the Hous... |
How does one "shoot" alpha particles at something? | In Rutherford's days (and for simple tabletop experiments today), you just take an alpha source (a material that naturally decays by alpha emission), and collimate it. That means that you surround it with shielding except for the direction in which you want the alpha particles to move.
You can make your "beam" as dire... | [
"An alpha particle is a sub-microscopic, positively charged particle of matter. According to Thomson's model, if an alpha particle were to collide with an atom, it would just fly straight through, its path being deflected by at most a fraction of a degree. At the atomic scale, the concept of \"solid matter\" is mea... |
why tattoos do not initiate immune system response? | They do. The needle penetrating the skin causes histamine to be produced, thats why the area being worked gets red and swells somewhat. For anything else to happen there need to be antigens present. Those are molecules found for example on bacteria that cause them to stick to certain immune system cells and activate th... | [
"Perhaps due to the mechanism whereby the skin's immune system encapsulates pigment particles in fibrous tissue, tattoo inks have been described as \"remarkably nonreactive histologically\". However, some allergic reactions have been medically documented. No estimate of the overall incidence of allergic reactions t... |
Does Post-Modernism make the study of History futile? and if not why not? | I've also struggled with the question you are posing and I've come to the conclusion that the value of history is not tied to an absolute all-encompassing understanding or knowledge of the past. Here's my answer to this question.
The hardest part about it is that you're right. We can never know all of the past, and ... | [
"Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realization of its unattainability. Theodor W. Adorno said in 1970, \"It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more: neither art itself, nor art in relationship to the wh... |
before computer databases, how did states keep track of which license plates they already issued? | Well, they used old fashioned paper databases. That's how the world worked before computers were introduced. | [
"At this early point in the history of license plates in the United States of America, none of the 45 states, territories, or the District of Columbia, was issuing its own plates. In this year New York became the first state to require vehicle owners to register their vehicles. The owners of these early New York ve... |
what does bernie sanders stand for and why should i vote for him. | That's a pretty large answer. I'd encourage you to visit /r/sandersforpresident for some more thorough answers, but here's a brief rundown:
--Universal, single-payer healthcare for everyone.
--Removing the influence of money in politics, partially by getting Citizens United overturned.
--Pro gay marriage (not that t... | [
"The junior United States Senator and former Representative from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, formally announced his 2016 presidential campaign on May 26, 2015 on the foundation of reversing \"obscene levels\" of income and wealth inequality. Sanders stated that he would run an issue-oriented and positive campaign, foc... |
How does sunscreen stop you from getting burnt? | Yeah it contains one or more ingredients that absorb or reflect UV radiation very effectively. So while sunscreen usually doesn't change how you look in the visible spectrum, at least not much, if you had UV vision it would look like being smeared in paint.
The active ingredients can vary. Generally organic compounds ... | [
"Common side effects are peeling, itching, redness, dryness, burning, and dermatitis. Benzoyl peroxide bleaches hair, clothes, towels, bedclothing, and the like. Prolonged exposure to natural or artificial sun light (UV rays) is not recommended because the gel may cause photosensitivity. Irritation due to benzoyl p... |
why do websites bother having the age date range from the 1800s to present day? | Grizzled/bitter developer here, and there are multiple answers.
*Because the developer is inexperienced/lazy
*Because this particular date value isn't important so who cares
*Because you have to deploy 3 other pieces of code today, all without testing so you don't have time to add fiddly refinements
*Because it ... | [
"Silversurfers is the term widely used in the UK, Australia and some other English speaking countries to describe people who are aged over 50 and who use the internet on a frequent basis. The number of older users has increased dramatically over the past several years due to their being more accustomed to the techn... |
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