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train · 226k rows

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why when you miss somebody can you physically feel it in your chest?	It's called heartache. _URL_2_ _URL_0_ _URL_4_ _URL_5_ _URL_3_ _URL_1_	[ "Chest pain may be a symptom of myocardial infarctions ('heart attack'). If this condition is present in the body, discomfort will be felt in the chest that is similar to a heavy weight placed on the body. Sweating, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, and irregular heartbeat may also be experienced. If a heart at...
why plants don’t suffer negative effects from inbreeding	There are issues with inbreeding plants. A major issue is that they will all be susceptible to the same diseases. Bananas are all clones, and if there's a particular disease that develops, it could wipe out all of the bananas in the world. In fact the world used to commonly eat the Gros Michel banana, but it got decima...	[ "Historically, dichogamy has been regarded as a mechanism for reducing inbreeding. However, a survey of the angiosperms found that self-incompatible (SI) plants, which are incapable of inbreeding, were as likely to be dichogamous as were self-compatible (SC) plants. This finding led to a reinterpretation of dichoga...
Did the early 15th century in the Kingdom of Bohemia feature multiple races, religions, etc.?	This question has been answered time and time again in the last few weeks: _URL_4_ _URL_0_ _URL_3_ _URL_2_ _URL_5_ _URL_1_	[ "In 1212, Bohemia became a hereditary kingdom when Prince Přemysl Otakar I rose to the title of King by inheritance from Frederick II (Emperor from 1215), which was legalised in the document called the \"Golden Bull of Sicily\". The king's daughter, Agnes, became another Bohemian saint. Agnes preferred to enter a c...
are the 7+ magnitude earthquakes in japan and ecuador related?	Earthquakes happen pretty frequently, far more frequently than most people realize. Most of them are very small and don't catch much attention, though anyone of them could turn out to be damaging. That's the thing about Earthquakes they can be pretty unpredictable, and two being about the same strength and news wort...	[ "The struck the former Japanese provinces of Mino and Owari (present-day Aichi Prefecture) in the Nōbi Plain in the early morning of October 28 with a surface wave magnitude of 8.0. The event, also referred to as the or the , is the strongest known inland earthquake to have occurred in the Japanese archipelago.\n",...
why after shaving do i get pimples?	Small nicks or cuts on your skin get infected. Hairs once cut smooth to the skin have a chance of becoming ingrown and infected. And you can sometimes push dirt and bacteria into a pore causing it to become infected.	[ "A rash at the time of shaving is usually a sign of lack of lubrication. Razor burn is a common problem, especially among those who shave coarse hairs on areas with sensitive skin like the bikini line, pubic hair, underarms, chest, and beard. The condition can be caused by shaving too closely, shaving with a blunt ...
how are commercials cost-effective to a company? has anyone ever seen a comercial and thought, "wow! i'm going to go buy that."	It's not about pushing units. Well it is... but not always. Commercials and marketing have a lot to do with brand recognition and outreach. So when Bud Light is paying millions to show you a super bowl ad, they aren't expecting you to leap up and buy more bud light. They are trying to give you a positive view of th...	[ "Valuable customers is also a good marketing aspect for the company. Customers that are staying with a company for long terms are more inclined to share their experience of a business, with their friends, which will work better than expensive advertising because people tend to be more affected by people they are fa...
Why do cities in the US advertise their population size on their signs? What purpose does or did it serve?	Old thread, but not too much in there. u/MrDowntown gave an answer but it's unsourced. _URL_0_	[ "The use of signs to communicate a marketer's message places advertising in geographically identified areas in order to capture customer attention. The most obvious method of using signs is through billboards, which are generally located in high traffic areas. Outdoor billboards come in many sizes, though the most ...
If I was in space could I lift a 5000 lb. weight?	> Would I be able to push/pull a 5000 lb weight? Yes. The 5000 lb mass would not have any appreciable weight (since weight is a function of gravity). It would, however, have considerable inertia. This means it would take a long time for you to push/pull it.	[ "While the weight of an object is dependent on the strength of the local gravitational field, the mass of an object is independent of gravity, as mass is a measure of the quantity of matter. Accordingly, for astronauts in microgravity, no effort is required to hold objects off the cabin floor; they are \"weightless...
Best sources for book reviews, circa 1950s?	For academic social science or humanities book reviews, I would suggest [Jstor](_URL_1_). If you don't have access yourself, find someone who attends or teaches at a university, and who is willing to make a few searches for you. For non-academic reviews, I would suggest looking through the archives of various book rev...	[ "BULLET::::- \"The Great American Novel\" - An audio discussion between Greif, James Wood, and Lydon, in response to \"The New York Times\" Book Review solicited top twenty-five best books of the last quarter-century, (May 23, 2006).\n", "Sonnenschein wrote \"The Best Books\", a multivolume general bibliography t...
Will the rising sea-levels pose a risk to the major countries of the world?	Yes many places will experience severe problems due to the rise in sea level. A good place to start are the IPCC reports. [A chapter on coastal systems and low-lying areas](_URL_0_) [A chapter on small islands](_URL_14_) [A chapter on current observations, and what we might expect given different modeling scenarios....	[ "The most vulnerable future worlds to sea-level rise appear to be the A2 and B2 [IPCC] scenarios, which primarily reflects differences in the socio-economic situation (coastal population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP/capita), rather than the magnitude of sea-level rise. Small islands and deltaic settings st...
how do things like marijuana and alcohol get consumed through the mouth/stomach/lungs and then have an affect on the brain?	When you inhale, most of the stuff you're inhaling goes right into your blood. That's what the lungs are for, getting oxygen from the outside into your blood. & #x200B; Same with the digestive system. Your blood is what delivers nutrients to your body, so it has to get into your blood. & #x200B; Not everything ...	[ "Alcohol works in the brain primarily by increasing the effects of a neurotransmitter called γ-aminobutyric acid, or GABA. This is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, and by facilitating its actions, alcohol suppresses the activity of the central nervous system. The substance also directly affects a...
engine torque	Torque is a measure of how much force you apply to cause something to twist/rotate. So when you use a screwdiver, or open a bottle of soda, you're applying torque to the screw or bottlecap respectively. An engine's torque tells you how much torque the engine applies to your wheels -- which is a really handy measure be...	[ "Torque here refers to the torque applied to the crankshaft as a form of power generation, which usually is the result of gas expansion. In order for the torque to be generated, that force needs to be countered (supported) in the opposite direction, so engine mounts are essential in power generation, and their desi...
when we close our eyes do we actually see the color black or do we see something different that our brain is telling us is the color black but it's not? what's our brain telling our eyes to see when we close them?	Any "color" you see is ultimately your brain's interpretation of the signals is receiving from the eyes, which itself is formulated based on the cells that are stimulated by the light striking them. When you close your eyes, there is a (relative) absence of light, and so an absence of stimulation, and so no image for y...	[ "Black is a color, the perception of which is evoked by the total absence of light that stimulates any of the three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye and with very low brightness compared to the surroundings. A black visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness. Black is the darkest possib...
why does it seem like nascar is for red necks but formula1 is a high class sport?	F1 grew out of the tradition of top auto manufacturers racing their cars against each other to prove that their automobiles were the best. It was about building the fastest, most reliable, and most technically powerful car. NASCAR grew out of a history of selling illegal moonshine liquor. To evade the police, bootlegg...	[ "However, despite the vintage appearance of the cars, often they conceal underpinnings more closely related to modern NASCAR entries. Tuned V8 engines of more than are common, especially in the American cars, and the cars are often created especially for this race and usually ineligible for true vintage events else...
on products like sodas or snacks it states something along the lines of “not for resale” or “not to be sold individually”. how do things like concession stands get away with this?	The manufacturer sells them in bulk to be used for things like concession stands, but they aren't barcoded and they don't have the appropriate nutritional information on them to be sold individually as there are packaging laws that have to be followed. Concession stands are exempt from these sorts of rules, as they ar...	[ "E-liquids have been sold in packaging that resembles kid-friendly foods, beverages, or candies, which the US Food and Drug Administration argues attracts youth. Some e-liquids are sold in packaging closely resembling Tree Top-brand juice boxes, Reddi-wip whipped cream, or Sour Patch Kids gummy candy, for example.\...
Why exactly does the conflict in South Ossetia occure?	We have a 20 years rule, so ask historians can only help you with the least controversial parts of it. Zviad Gamsakhurdia (a jailbird dissident nationalist akin to the American black panthers) won the first multi-party elections in Georgia in October 1990 (a year before USSR was dissolved) and in December same year h...	[ "The Georgian–Ossetian conflict is an ethno-political conflict over Georgia's former autonomous region of South Ossetia, which evolved in 1989 and developed into a 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Despite a declared ceasefire and numerous peace efforts, the conflict remained unresolved. In August 2008, military tension...
Can someone tell me about the government of Weimar Germany?	I am curious to know what the context of this statement was. The Reichschancellor was the one responsible for appointing the cabinet. The constitution of the Weimar Republic for most intents and purposes was essentially the exact same one as the Kaiserreich, with the main exception being that the monarchical position...	[ "The Von Schleicher Cabinet \"de jure\" formed the government of Weimar Germany between 3 December 1932 and 28 January 1933 upon the resignation of Franz von Papen. The cabinet was made up of holdovers from Papen's which featured many right-wing independents or German National People's Party (DNVP). The government ...
Is the acceleration of the universe's expansion a constant? or is it changing with respect to time?	The Hubble parameter, which gives information about the rate of the expansion of space as a function of distance, is not constant. Its time dependence is given by the [Friedmann equations](_URL_0_). The reason the Hubble parameter changes with time is because the Hubble parameter depends on the energy densities of th...	[ "The definition of \"accelerating expansion\" is that the second time derivative of the cosmic scale factor, formula_2, is positive, which is equivalent to the deceleration parameter, formula_3, being negative. However, note this does not imply that the Hubble parameter is increasing with time. Since the Hubble par...
how does the it department handle which sites to block in a corporate environment? (more in comments)	Monitor traffic. Anything not work related, block.	[ "Its purpose is to promote a balanced approach to internet privacy between consumers and content providers by blocking advertisements and tracking cookies that do not respect the Do Not Track setting in a user's web browser. While some of its code is based on Adblock Plus, Privacy Badger only blocks those ads which...
Here in Norway, we eat bread for every meal except for dinner, the only hot meal of the day. I also know that it is different in other cultures, so when and how did this divide happen?	You might want to try r/askfoodhistorians	[ "Bread is served usually for breakfast (often replaced by bread rolls) and in the evening as (open) sandwiches, but rarely as a side dish for the main meal (popular, for example, with \"Eintopf\" or soup). The importance of bread in German cuisine is also illustrated by words such as \"Abendbrot\" (meaning supper, ...
Does bread lose any nutritional value (vitamins, calories, etc) when it goes stale?	I wouldn't assume so. Staleness is due to crystallization of starch molecules (which is why you should never leave bread in the fridge), and as such shouldn't have an impact on nutritional content.	[ "In the 1920s, Benjamin R. Jacobs began to document the loss of essential nutrients, however, through this processing of cereals and grains and to demonstrate a method by which the end products could be enriched with the lost nutrients. These nutrients promote good health and help to prevent some diseases.\n", "M...
the reports of people shining lasers in the eyes of pilots, how much of a hindrance is this?	_URL_1_ and _URL_0_ From a small distance it's a tiny red dot. When you aim it at a plane, they see a blinding green image where if caught by surprise can disorient the pilot. This isn't really catching a plane at 30,000 feet. Think of the low flying smaller plane or helicopter.	[ "The three visual effects above are the primary concern for aviation experts. This is because they could happen with lower-powered lasers that are commonly available. The fourth concern, eye damage, is much less likely: it would require specialized equipment not readily available to the general public.\n", "Beyon...
How does one wind up buried inside a medieval monastery rather than a cemetery?	Amazingly enough, I stumbled across a primary source yesterday that answers nearly all your questions here! It's a miracle story associated with Marguerite d'Oignt, a Carthusian prioress and mystical author from southern France who died in 1310. > It also happened another time that that same Guichard of Ars, the k...	[ "Any monk that dies at Mount Saint Bernard will end up in the monastery's communal coffin. The coffin comes out purely for funerals, and then is returned to the abbey's attic. In accordance with Trappist burial rites, monks are buried without a coffin. The hood of the cowl is folded over the face and the body is th...
difference between anarchism and communism	If socialism is defined as the broad movement to outgrow/overthrow exploitative economies, then anarchism is a libertarian branch of socialism. As the 19th-century anarchist Mikhail Bakunin succinctly put it: > Liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality. We...	[ "The term left anarchism is sometimes used synonymously with libertarian socialism, left-libertarianism, or social anarchism. More traditional anarchists typically discourage the concept of left-wing theories of anarchism on grounds of redundancy and that it lends legitimacy to the notion that anarchism is compatib...
if water can't be compressed in the same manner as air, why do we talk about both air pressure and water pressure?	Because the deeper you go, the more water presses on you. The more books you place on your head, the heavier the pile on your head is, right? It's the same way with water.	[ "Air pressure acting up against an object in air is greater than the pressure above pushing down. The buoyancy, in both cases, is equal to the weight of fluid displaced - Archimedes' principle holds for air just as it does for water.\n", "Due to internal attractive forces of a liquid, air bubbles within the liqui...
How did Bavaria become a rich region of germany	Real scholars and Bavarians would have a lot to add to this but I can give you some ideas. Going way back and running all the way up to the present Federal Republic of Germany in which Bavaria is a state, Bavaria has been an independent dukedom, kingdom, electorate and so on, so it's always had the political clout, w...	[ "The history of Bavaria includes its earliest settlement by Iron Age Celtic tribes, followed by the conquests of the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC, when the territory was incorporated into the provinces of Raetia and Noricum. It became a stem duchy in the 6th century AD following the collapse of the Western Ro...
why did i not develop seasonal allergies until well into my 20s?	I got them after I was pregnant. I was hoping the second pregnancy would take them away again...no such luck	[ "If both parents suffered from allergies in the past, there is a 66% chance for the individual to suffer from seasonal allergies, and the risk lowers to 60% if just one parent had suffered from allergies. The immune system also has strong influence on seasonal allergies, since it reacts differently to diverse aller...
Benefits and Risks of Hydrogen Peroxide	A legit M.D. told you to do this? For Parkinson's disease? This is appalling. Hydrogen peroxide is at best a disinfectant and it's internal use got popularized by a stupid book that touts it can cure you of ANY disease (including AIDS, cancer, etc.) when diluted just right. Things like this bother me more than anyt...	[ "Practitioners of alternative medicine have advocated the use of hydrogen peroxide for various conditions, including emphysema, influenza, AIDS and cancer, although there is no evidence of effectiveness and in some cases it may even be fatal.\n", "Hydrogen peroxide is a harmful byproduct of many normal metabolic ...
why are most dvd and video game cases still so big?	1) Marketing - people have been conditioned to look for the DVD-sized case ever since DVDs came out. 2) Theft deterrence - it's harder to fit big things in your pockets.	[ "Home console video games come packaged inside of a DVD-style case. Portables use a smaller format, but both are usually larger than the actual game media. Therefore, one may find cases made to hold only the game media, thus saving space and protecting the disks or cartridges from the open environment or improper s...
How did the rivalry between French and German influence the everyday life of people living in Alsace-Lorraine?	I think it's really important that your provide a timeframe here.	[ "The new border between France and Germany mainly followed the geolinguistic divide between French and German dialects, except in a few valleys of the Alsatian side of the Vosges mountains, the city of Metz and its region and in the area of Château-Salins (formerly in the Meurthe \"département\"), which were annexe...
Was there rhyming in the Bible originally?	Not normally, no. Rhyme is predominantly a feature of English poetry. Hebrew poetry, as in the psalms, is marked by other features. These include parallelism (including synonymous parallelism, where two lines express a similar or singular idea; antithetical parallelism, where two lines express a contrast; and a wh...	[ "The earliest surviving evidence of rhyming is the Chinese Shi Jing (ca. 10th century BC). Rhyme is also occasionally used in the Bible. Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not usually rhyme, but rhyme was used very occasionally. For instance, Catullus includes partial rhymes in the poem \"Cui dono lepidum novum l...
Did Peter the Great kill his son Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich? And if he did, why?	He died after extensive torture and two days after he had been sentenced to death; it was less of an explicit chopping off of the head and more of a withdrawal of medical care after he had been repeatedly subjected to the harshest treatment the Russian state could inflict upon a perceived traitor. Keep in mind that thi...	[ "Orlov served in the Imperial Russian Army, and through his connections with his brother, became one of the key conspirators in the plot to overthrow Tsar Peter III and replace him on the Russian throne with his wife, Catherine. The plot, carried out in 1762, was successful, and Peter was imprisoned under Alexei Or...
Photos and the Naked eye	Nope. First of all, telescopes cannot take actual color pictures - their pictures are always in grey-scale. In order to create a color picture you have to take pictures through different filters. If you want to have a so-called "natural color" image you need to record three images, one in red, one in green and one in b...	[ "The bearded man photograph provides an example of the photographic art of the era. On the one hand the photographer has used the light-coloured and unfocused eyes of the sitter to give a spiritual appearance to the face. On the other hand, by using the sitter's own qualities to create a spiritual aspect in the pic...
US Tank Destroyers in the Pacific	There was an initial requirement for 220 tank destroyer battalions, but the troop basis for 1943 called for only 144. Only a maximum of 106 battalions were ever active at one time, and the number required was trimmed to 78 in October 1943. Eleven tank destroyer battalions were converted to other types of units. Twenty-...	[ "A small number of tank destroyer battalions served in the South-West Pacific; due to the lack of Japanese armor, these were employed almost entirely in the infantry support role, effectively acting as highly mobile artillery. Due to their open-topped turrets, the tank destroyers were far more vulnerable than tanks...
why are some pale skinned people able to tan easily but others just burn and peel?	The color in skin is from a pigment called melanin. Melanin protects the skin from UV rays in sunlight. Too much UV causes a sunburn. Depending on your genes, you make a mix of eumelanin (brown color) and pheomelanin (red color). The brown blocks UV best. The red can actually make the UV do more damage. Fair skinned pe...	[ "In people with naturally occurring dark skin, the tanning occurs with the dramatic mobilization of melanin upward in the epidermis and continues with the increased production of melanin. This accounts for the fact that dark-skinned people get visibly darker after one or two weeks of sun exposure, and then lose the...
products like lysol claim to kill germs. how does it do that?	Typically it damages the makeup of the organism in some way - breaking down the outer layer, damaging its method of transportation or preventing replication. Like with the big C right now - it's outer layer is lipids. Fat. Which is why you can defeat it on surfaces with soap and water! The soap breaks down the outer ...	[ "Glufosinate is a broad-spectrum herbicide that is used to control important weeds such as morning glories, hemp sesbania (Sesbania bispinosa), Pennsylvania smartweed (Polygonum pensylvanicum) and yellow nutsedge similar to glyphosate. It is applied to young plants during early development for full effectiveness. I...
why were homo sapiens the only species of its kind to prosper, against the neanderthals and other species.	It's generally accepted that in places like Europe and Asia, where humans and neanderthals coexisted for some period of time, interbreeding occurred, and that direct descendants of those unions are still alive today. In fact, if you are of European or Asian descent, there is a good chance that between 1-4% of you genet...	[ "\"Homo sapiens neanderthalensis\" was proposed by King (1864) as an alternative to \"Homo neanderthalensis\". There have been \"taxonomic wars\" over whether Neanderthals were a separate species since their discovery in the 1860s. Pääbo (2014) frames this as a debate that is unresolvable in principle, \"since ther...
what exactly is turbo?	A turbocharger is a device which uses exhaust gases in an engine to power a fan (turbine) which pressurizes air and pumps it into the intake of a car. A turbo does not feed exhaust gases back into the car, but rather takes advantage of the otherwise wasted energy of high pressure exhaust gases. At low pressures, a tur...	[ "Turbo (formerly Spoonium) is a platform of tools that allows users to package Windows desktop applications and their dependencies into software containers. Application containers made with Turbo can run on any Windows machine without installers, app breaks, or dependencies.\n", "Turbo Studio packages all applica...
I gather that Papal Indulgences were first issued during the Crusades to essentially "give last rites in advance" to Christians likely to die far from a priest. Is this right, and how did this turn into the "buy your way out of purgatory" scheme that Martin Luther criticised?	A further question: Did any Priests or significant religious figures follow the armies of any Crusade, to act as a rallying of support, to organize things like Mass, etc., or to deliver the aforementioned rites to dying?	[ "After a papal legate was murdered by the Cathars in 1208, Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade. Abuses committed during the crusade caused Innocent III to informally institute the first papal inquisition to prevent future aberrational practices and to root out the remaining Cathars. Formalized under ...
Were Christian women in Europe expected to wear veils for religious reasons? If so, when did the custom decline?	At one point all women were required to cover their head for church. In general unmarried women were not obligated to cover their hair if they were not in church. Married women during the medieval era often cover their hair until the the custom completely died off sometime during the Renaissances depending on the count...	[ "Although women were required to wear veils in many churches through at least the 19th century, the resurgence of the wedding veil as a symbol of the bride, and its use even when not required by the bride's religion, coincided with societal emphasis on women being modest and well-behaved.\n", "In Indian subcontin...
how is .99 repeating a rational number?	It's a little funky, but the answer is the 0.999 repeating [is equal to 1!](_URL_0_...). There are various ways to prove this, ranging from simple algebra to more complicated series and limits, but the simple fact is that 0.999(repeating) is equal to 9/9 which is equal to 1, and those are all just different ways of ...	[ "99 × (A − C) can also be written as 99 × [(A − C) − 1] + 99 = 100 × [(A − C) − 1] − 1 × [(A − C) − 1] + 90 + 9 = 100 × [(A − C) − 1] + 90 + 9 − (A − C) + 1 = 100 × [(A − C) − 1] + 10 × 9 + 1 × [10 − (A − C)]. (The first digit is (A − C) − 1, the second is 9 and the third is 10 − (A − C). As 2 ≤ A − C ≤ 9, both the...
why can't soiled cardboard be recycled?	Separating and extracting the oil from the pulp requires too much effort and has too many risks for the crew and the facility (oil and food contaminants attract pests and bacterias). I assume it is more cost effective to trash the oily batch and use it for composting...	[ "Most types of cardboard are recyclable. Boards that are laminates, wax coated, or treated for wet-strength are often more difficult to recycle. Clean cardboard (\"i.e.,\" cardboard that has not been subject to chemical coatings) \"is usually worth recovering, although often the difference between the value it real...
how mma fighters can cut over 20 pounds in a day	I was with a camera crew that followed around WEC/UFC fighters for a couple days up to the fight and we interviewed them while they were trying to cut. Their corner men do everything for them (bringing them the remote control in their hotel room, carrying their bags, etc) because they aren't eating or drinking (more t...	[ "Throughout his career, Gunnar has never engaged in extensive weight cutting. His training weight is around 175–176 pounds, necessitating only a 5–6 pound weight cut. He has been a big proponent of instituting strict rules against weight cutting, arguing that the practice is dangerous to the fighters and counterpro...
why can the us postal service be given responsibility for the delivery of our mail, but when it never shows up just say "well we scanned it delivered so you'll have to talk to the seller" and not actually have repercussions?	Well, they're not responsible to you because they don't have a package to deliver to you. They can't magically make one appear. They are responsible to the person who shipped the package, if the person who shipped the package paid for mail insurance. But most shippers would rather pay less for mailing and handle t...	[ "The United States Postal Service has a monopoly on the delivery of \"non-urgent\" first-class mail, where delivery is not time-sensitive. It also has the exclusive right to use customer-owned mail boxes for placing the customer's mail for delivery. This means that, even though mail boxes, such as those in the door...
How much Ancient Greek philosophy originally came from Egypt?	#Part I Hi! Do you have a specific source in mind? I mainly ask because it is sort of a strange claim to make with respect to Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle. The preeminent influences on those thinkers were, first and foremost, each other. Further back, they are reacting above all to the Sophists, the Eleatics, th...	[ "Today, there is some debate regarding ancient Egyptian philosophy and its true scope and nature. Several of the ancient Greek philosophers regarded Egypt as a place of wisdom and philosophy. Isocrates (b. 436 BCE) states in \"Busiris\" that \"all men agree the Egyptians are the healthiest and most long of life amo...
why is it that people hate waking up even after getting 7-9 hours of sleep?	It depends on what phase you wake up in during your sleep cycle. If you finish your 90 minute sleep cycle and wake up around then, even if it’s only been 3 hours, you won’t feel as tired as of you wake up in the middle of your REM cycle, even if you have already slept 7+ hours. Also some people need more sleep than o...	[ "Diagnosing sleep apnea usually requires a professional sleep study performed in a sleep clinic, because the episodes of wakefulness caused by the disorder are extremely brief and patients usually do not remember experiencing them. Instead, many patients simply feel tired after getting several hours of sleep and ha...
How can we estimate the moment magnitude number of an earthquake that we know occurred, but have no direct measurements of?	When dealing with historic earthquakes, we often rely on the [Modified Mercalli Intensity scale](_URL_3_), which classifies earthquakes on the basis of the intensity of it's felt effects (e.g. damage, etc) as opposed to the [moment magnitude scale](_URL_1_), which is a direct measure of the energy released in an earthq...	[ "The seismic moment of an earthquake is typically estimated using whatever information is available to constrain its factors. For modern earthquakes, moment is usually estimated from ground motion recordings of earthquakes known as seismograms. For earthquakes that occurred in times before modern instruments were a...
Was there a Palestinian independence movement before the formation of the modern state of Israel?	The short answer is overwhelmingly yes. However, the formation of the identity, and how strong it was before the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence, is still a hotly contested issue today. To give you some background on why that is, the question of "Palestinism", or Palestinian nationalism, is extraordinarily ...	[ "The Partition Plan served as the basis for Israel's declaration of independence, but was not accepted by the Palestinian Arab leadership at the time. Though, in September 1948, the All-Palestine Government was declared within the Gaza Strip as an Egyptian protectorate and recognized by most members of the Arab Lea...
Good introduction to gauge theory?	I'm sorry, I don't believe that you'll be able to get in to studying gauge theories without the mathematics. I don't believe it's possible. If you do want to delve into the mathematics, though, I suggest studying the simplest case of a gauge theory, which is classical electromagnetism. There are many good books cove...	[ "The importance of gauge theories for physics stems from their tremendous success in providing a unified framework to describe the quantum-mechanical behavior of electromagnetism, the weak force and the strong force. This gauge theory, known as the Standard Model, accurately describes experimental predictions regar...
How much control did ancient empires actually have over their territories?	Using the Romans as an example (largely because I did a ton of work in NT/Early Christianity for a few years), it varied. Certain areas of the empire were under less control than the others. Take, for example, the province of Judea, where it's often said that Roman careers came here to die. The Roman prefect/procurator...	[ "However, its different territories were only connected through the person of the monarch, an aspect of empire seen as early as Achaemenid Persia. A modern historian, Juan de Contreras y Lopez de Ayala, Marqués de Lozoya described the Crown of Aragon as being more like a confederacy than a centralised kingdom, let ...
If humans could process gasoline for energy, how much gas would we need per day?	[The energy in 1 gallon of gasoline is 31,500 food calories,](_URL_0_) so for a typical 2,500 calories a day, that's 0.079 gallons, or 251g. This much butter would only give 1,800 calories. Or 1 gallon of petrol provides 12.6 days worth of food!	[ "As the average vehicle of the time consumed between two and three liters (about 0.5–0.8 gallons) of gasoline (petrol) an hour while idling, it was estimated that Americans wasted up to of oil per day idling their engines in the lines at gas stations.\n", "The United States accounts for about 44% of the world’s g...
if energy can't be created or destroyed how can the universe expand at an exponential rate, seeing as the same amount of energy has theoretically existed since the big bang?	In physics laws of conservation (like the conservation of energy) rely on a fundamental symmetry, which means that if you can transform a property of your physical system while not changing how the system itself works (in smartass terms it's invariant under a transformation), then there's a conserved quantity tied to t...	[ "There is no clear way to define the total energy in the universe using the most widely accepted theory of gravity, general relativity. Therefore, it remains controversial whether the total energy is conserved in an expanding universe. For instance, each photon that travels through intergalactic space loses energy ...
Where Do the Ancestors of the Modern Germans Now Living in Germany Originate From?	A large part of the Germans today are actually the descendants of the Tribes that used to live there. Its true that many migrated west, but the larger proportion stayed in germany.	[ "Edward Hine originated the notion, still current in Anglo-Israelism and some strains of U.S. Christian fundamentalism, that modern Germans are partly descended from the ancient Assyrians. This idea has no foundation in modern history, linguistics, or genetics.\n", "There are around 50,000 German descendants livi...
Would the whole earth be affected by an EMP from a coronal mass ejection, or would the side facing the sun only be affected?	A CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) does not produce an EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse). It's simply an ejection of charged particles from the sun, aka solar wind. The solar wind compresses Earth's magnetosphere on the day side and "pulls" on the night side. When Earth is hit by a large CME shock wave the magnetosphere "wobble...	[ "The soft X-ray flux of X class flares increases the ionization of the upper atmosphere, which can interfere with short-wave radio communication and can heat the outer atmosphere and thus increase the drag on low orbiting satellites, leading to orbital decay. Energetic particles in the magnetosphere contribute to t...
What exactly is going on in your eyes and brain when you see something that's "too bright?"	Rhodopsin is a protein that changes conformation in response to light, as a g-coupled receptor this passes the signal on to nerve fibres, which then passes it into the brain, and then in time resets itself. However, this therefore means it is a saturateable system, once all your Rhodopsin proteins change conformation...	[ "A stimulus which elicits a positive image will usually trigger a negative afterimage quickly via the adaptation process. To experience this phenomenon, one can look at a bright source of light and then look away to a dark area, such as by closing the eyes. At first one should see a fading positive afterimage, like...
What is instinct? How does it guide an animal's behavior?	I would respectfully disagree with the current top response. Our current understanding of animal behavior is such that each observed action is guided by a variety of factors and can have varying amounts of influence from genetics or ontogeny (learning). The nature vs. nurture argument is effectively null as no behavi...	[ "Instinct is a phenomenon that can be investigated from a multitude of angles: genetics, limbic system, nervous pathways, and environment. Researchers can study levels of instincts, from molecular to groups of individuals. Extremely specialized systems have evolved, resulting in individuals which exhibit behaviors ...
In an era of rapid urbanization and technological advancement, why did the Nazis feel that lebensraum - that is, lots of agricultural land - was necessary?	Lebensraum had a lot of its roots in the problems Germany encountered in WW1. & #x200B; During the First World War, the Central Powers ran into major supply issues in many areas, arguably the most critical being food. Germany and Austria Hungary were dependent on food imports prior to WW1, and the British naval bloc...	[ "The autarky movement before the World War II boosted the process and several plants were built. Bergius moved to Berlin where he was only marginally involved in the development. While he was in Bad Gastein Austria, his laboratory and his house were destroyed by an air raid. The rest of the war he stayed in Austria...
Is there any difference between the singularity that existed just before the Big Bang and those which occur in Black Holes?	The big bang singularity extends across all space for one point of time. The black holes singularity extends across all time at one point. So yes, they are different. Edit: Another way they are different is in the scalings of curvature invariants near the singularity. For the black hole singularity, the Kretchmann sca...	[ "In simple terms, he believes that the singularity in Einstein's field equation at the Big Bang is only an apparent singularity, similar to the well-known apparent singularity at the event horizon of a black hole. The latter singularity can be removed by a change of coordinate system, and Penrose proposes a differe...
In what format do nerves relay information to the brain? i.e., how does the brain “read” the information it receives from the nervous system?	You're begging the question here: DOES the brain "read" the information it receives from the nervous system? Many philosophers of mind argue that representations cannot be the basis of thought since they would lead to an infinite regress. If each stage of mental processing produces a "representation" to be "read" by th...	[ "How individual neurons or networks encode information is the subject of numerous studies and research. In central nervous system it mainly happens by altering the spike firing rate (frequency encoding) or relative spike timing (time encoding) .\n", "In the brain, messages are passed from a nerve cell to another ...
how a turbo works in a car.	To make a car faster, you need to fit as much air as you can into the engine. A turbo uses the exhaust gas coming out of the engine to spin a little wheel that pushes a lot of air into your engine, much more air than the engine could get by itself. More air = more fuel can be burned = more power.	[ "A turbopump is a propellant pump with two main components: a rotodynamic pump and a driving gas turbine, usually both mounted on the same shaft, or sometimes geared together. The purpose of a turbopump is to produce a high-pressure fluid for feeding a combustion chamber or other use.\n", "The Turbo S weighed , w...
In the later stages of WWII, the Soviets emptied their prisons to fill their ranks. How did all these trained and battle-hardened convicts affect post-war Russia?	Do you mean penal battalions (shtrafbats/shtrafniki)? If so, I refer you to a previous comment/post in a similar vein: _URL_0_ The comment seems to imply that the prisoner units were used in essentially suicide missions ("human mine clearers"), and had horrifying mortality rates. So the result would most likely be a...	[ "As the Second World War progressed, Joseph Stalin made an offer to many prisoners that in exchange for military service they would be granted a pardon or a reduction of their prison-term at the end of the war. After the war ended, many of those that had taken up this offer returned to prisons and labor camps, but ...
What causes those small holes at the beach in the sand that releases air when the water reaches them?	well, when waves come in and out, they aren't just on the surface, the water is being pushed through the sand. This causes a displacement of air, and, Earth being as lazy as it is, the air needs to find the easiest way to escape. That's through the surface. When the wave recedes, it causes a slight suction which will p...	[ "Groynes and breakwaters that run perpendicular to the shore protect it from erosion. Filling a breakwater with imported sand can stop the breakwater from trapping sand from the littoral stream (the ocean running along the shore.) Otherwise the breakwater may deprive downstream beaches of sand and accelerate erosio...
Black holes affect light; thus light is pulled by gravity. Does light exert its own pull in return?	Yep, light definitely does gravitate - everything does! In Einstein's gravity it's not just mass that gravitates, but mass and energy - and everything has energy. When it comes to a black hole, the gravity of the light it pulls in is pretty much always negligible by comparison. But there are instances where the grav...	[ "The gravitational weakening of light from high-gravity stars was predicted by John Michell in 1783 and Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1796, using Isaac Newton's concept of light corpuscles (see: emission theory) and who predicted that some stars would have a gravity so strong that light would not be able to escape. The e...
How did Marbury v. Madison establish judicial review in the United States? What was the role of SCOTUS before this decision?	Before the Marbury v. Madison case, the Supreme Court had not made any decisions that would significantly affect United States law, and was hardly recognized as an equal power to the other two branches. It had been realized that the courts had this power, but it was not until the SC had to step into the *Marbury v. M...	[ "Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that contravene the U.S. Constitution. Decided in 1803, \"Ma...
why do some books have spiked, uneven page edges opposite the binding, whereas others are flat?	This is called a deckled edge. It's a stylistic choice that makes the book seem older. Printing technology used to produce pages with an uneven width by default, but today this only happens as a result of an intentional aesthetic choice. Think of it as the book equivalent of distressed wood floors or jeans that are ma...	[ "A book in good condition should be a rectangular solid when at rest, whether upright or on its back, with the covers at right angles to the spine. If a book is out of square, usually from resting crooked on a shelf, or leans to the right or left when on its back, it is \"cocked\", or \"shelf-cocked\". If the cover...
the economic and social argument why capitalism is better than all alternatives?	Well I think a good way to answer this question is to look at those that defend capitalism, and those that defend other economic systems. There are definitely exceptions to the rule, but those who tend to love capitalism, are those that are doing well in it. That's the middle class and up. Those below middle class don'...	[ "Proponents of capitalism argue that it creates more prosperity than any other economic system and that its benefits are mainly to the ordinary person. Critics of capitalism variously associate it with economic instability, an inability to provide for the well-being of all people and an unsustainable danger to the ...
- why do i keep hearing the same scream of a man dying in films? ive heard it so many times.	You're probably hearing the [Wilhelm Scream](_URL_0_). It's a stock sound effect, but also one so used that at this point it is actually used explicitly because of its relative notoriety. Sort of a tongue-in-cheek bit.	[ "A few times during the film, a loud, ringing tone evocative of tinnitus is heard. This sound generally coincides with the death of a major character (Julian, Jasper) and is referred to by Julian herself, who describes the tones as the last time you'll ever hear that frequency. In this way, then, the loss of the to...
What was the French public opinion of Napoleon during his autocratic reign? He was certainly loved before his coup.	This is a broad question and I'm only going to focus upon the Brumaire coup itself and leave the Empire to others. Napoleon was arguably the most popular general in France by the time of the Brumaire coup in 1799. He already enjoyed great fame from the Italian campaign in which his victories led him to dictate a peace...	[ "Louis-Napoléon had previously made unsuccessful attempts to gain power, leading to his exile in London. His final attempt resulted in a \"coup d'état\" on 2 December 1851. French guards opened fire on a group of protesters, causing several deaths. This did little to help achieve the reputation that Louis-Napoléon ...
why can't aircraft flight data be stored online, like the icloud?	It can, but have your forgotten that "the cloud" and "data anytime, anywhere" is actually a pretty recent thing? Until someone makes it law, or planes start to disappear more regularly, there's no incentive for anyone to spend the money to make it happen.	[ "Airborne Internet can provide an interconnected digital data network between aircraft, and between aircraft and the ground. It has the potential to change how aircraft are monitored and tracked by the air traffic control system, and how they exchange information with and about other aircraft. Critical information ...
humans having unprotected sex can very easily contract stds. wild animals on the other hand always have unprotected sex and ive never heard of an std epidemic. why?	Check out Koala chlamydia. It's actually a really big problem with them; it has been in the news not so long ago.	[ "Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are bacteria, viruses or parasites that are spread by sexual contact, especially vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse, or unprotected sex. Oral sex is less risky than vaginal or anal intercourse. Many times, STIs initially do not cause symptoms, increasing the risk of unknowing...
Curious about the evolution of the "everyday shower" as a societal norm. Id love to know about when, where, and how fast showering went from a luxury, to an everyday must.	Moderator reminder: I have already had to go through and clean out this post multiple times. Do not post comments that rely totally on personal experiences. Also do not post conversations about modern cultural bathing practices, including the differences in average weekly bathing sessions between countries. This qu...	[ "Showering is mostly part of a daily routine primarily to promote cleanliness and prevent odor, disease and infection. Advances in science and medicine in the 19th century began to realize the benefit of regular bathing to an individual's health. As a result, most modern cultures encourage a daily personal hygiene ...
If lightning wants to ground taking the shortest path, then why does it travel in a zig-zag?	Lightning wants to take the path of least resistance, rather than the shortest path. So, when you see a zig-zag, it's "searching" for the path of least resistance by travelling through molecules in the air that provide the path of least resistance. Can probably get a better idea by examples of circuits, try looking u...	[ "Originally, scientists believed that such a lightning protection system of air terminals and \"downleads\" directed the current of the lightning down into the earth to be \"dissipated\". However, high speed photography has clearly demonstrated that lightning is actually composed of both a cloud component and an op...
At the rate stars are forming in the milky way, what are the chances humans will witness new light from a young star appear?	The star formation rate (SFR) of the Milky Way is estimated to be ~ 2 solar masses per year. ([Source](_URL_0_)). So naively, one might say it is very likely. However, this SFR is an average and you should not interpret it that there are 2 stars being born in the Milky Way consistently each year. Star formation occurs...	[ "These stars travel at speeds up to about 3,000 km/second. However, recently (November 2014) stars going up to a significant fraction of the speed of light have been postulated, based on numerical methods. Called Semi-Relativistic Hypervelocity Stars by the authors, these would be ejected by mergers of supermassive...
the difference between chemical and biological weapons	In basic terms, bioweapons are just living things used as weapons (or close to living, since there is some debate as to whether or not viruses are truly alive). So, bacteria, fungus, viruses, insects even, all count as bioweapons if they're being used to attack somebody. They don't necessarily have to be infectious or ...	[ "In general, chemical weapon agents are organized into several categories according to the physiological manner in which they affect the human body. Division may also be by tactical purpose or chemical structure. The names and number of categories varies slightly from source to source, but in general, types of chem...
Do microphones record audio in a similar way to cameras, as in frames per second?	Simple answer. The MICROPHONE does not. Your COMPUTER does. You can make microphones in lots of different ways, but one that you could make sitting as your desk is like this. You just need a good magnet and a coil of wire. The pressure waves that are sound need to vibrate something, usually called a diaphragm, that ...	[ "With a simple recording method, two microphones are placed 18 cm (7\") apart facing away from each other. This method will not create a real binaural recording. The distance and placement roughly approximates the position of an average human's ear canals, but that is not all that is needed. More elaborate techniqu...
How did the Arabs feel about the holocaust?	Few things to note here. 1) Iranians are not Arabs 2) Israel was not a state when the holocaust was happening Now to answer your question. There are some cases of Jewish-Arab clashes growing in the Middle East due to the Zionist movement. An example of that is [Grand Mufti of Jerusalem](_URL_0_). However most Arabs w...	[ "BULLET::::- 1948–2001: Antisemitism played a major role in the Jewish exodus from Arab lands. The Jewish population in the Arab Middle East and North Africa has decreased from 900,000 in 1948 to less than 8,000 in 2001.\n", "According to Ian Black, Middle East editor for The Guardian newspaper, the Palestinian e...
Are human beings closer to being on the smallest conceived scales of reality or the largest?	We can't really answer that question yet. A tau neutrino exists as about 2x10^-35 m. The universe is 4.3×10^26 m. The average human about 2x10^0 m. Arguably we are close to the big side of that. The problem is that we can't say with certainty if the universe is the largest thing or a neutrino the smallest. With what we...	[ "BULLET::::- Microdimensional mastery (John Barrow): John D. Barrow, going by the fact that humans have found it more cost-effective to extend any abilities to manipulate their environment over increasingly smaller dimensions rather than increasingly larger ones, reverses the classification downward from Type I-min...
what is the difference between anglicanism and catholicism?	The Head of the Church of England is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Head of the Catholic Church is His Holiness Pope Francis.	[ "According to Avis, the Anglican churches are both Catholic and Reformed. They are Catholic because they claim to be a manifestation of the Christian Church as the creed confesses it, but also because they are consciously aware of their continuity with the pre-Reformation Church. The Catholicity of Anglicanism is v...
why is it that when you ask someone to guess a number there's a high possibility it will be 7?	This is an interesting quirk of human psychology. Humans don't pick things at random, but they will try to. You end up with a weird situation when they pick the most 'random looking' number. Here's the general thought process: * Pick a number at random between 1 and 10 * 1 is out, that's the lowest it's not random *...	[ "This first guesser has the initial advantage in that all possible sums are available for his guess, but also lacks insight into what the others might be holding, as indicated by their subsequent guesses. Some variants also have the 'no bum shouts' or impossible call rule whereby a player cannot call more than the ...
When neuroscientists say a part of the brain "lights up," what's actually going on?	They are likely talking about fMRI scans. fMRI = functional Magnetic Resonance imaging. It depends on the blood oxygen level signal (BOLD- blood oxygen level dependent). The theory behind his is basically that if a part of your brain is working hard, it's going to need a lot of energy. So it would make sense that the m...	[ "So far as we know, everything we perceive, feel, think, know, and do are a result of neurons firing and resetting. When a cell in the brain fires, small chemical and electrical swings called the action potential may affect the firing of as many as a thousand other neurons in a process called neurotransmission. In ...
AskScience: How is it physically possible for a planet to orbit twin suns?	In addition to having a planet orbit a tight binary pair, you can have a planet around one star, with the second star further away (hundreds or thousands of AU).	[ "The two stars orbit each other with a period of only 2.15 days and an eccentricity of zero, indicating their orbit is close to circular. They are orbiting sufficiently close to each other that their rotation periods have most likely become tidally locked—meaning they always maintain the same face toward each other...
why is there a social stigma against prostitution and similar professions?	Before birth control it was a profession that led to the creation of bastard children that society doesn't want to deal with.	[ "Normally, people regard prostitution as an abnormal career and will show no respect towards this career. However, due to their low educational level and some personal reasons, it is always uneasy for them to change to other job fields or stop working as sex workers. Because of all these, they may suffer from short...
Was Hitler compared to someone ?	Prior to the arrival of Godwin's Law, and the inevitable conclusion of comparing all things to Hitler, during his own rise, Hitler was compared to many people, both real and imagined. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld kindly has done much of the legwork in providing what is the up to what is perhaps the most comprehensive study of ...	[ "BULLET::::- In 1952, 10% of Germans thought that Hitler was the greatest statesman and that his greatness would only be realised at a later date; and 22% thought he had made \"some mistakes\" but was still an excellent leader.\n", "Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was the leader of the National Socia...
Is it possible some Europeans visited the Americas long before the Vikings or Columbus and simply never wrote about it?	In Salt: a World History, Mark Kurlansky suggests that cod fishermen could have discovered Newfoundland and its massive cod fisheries as early as the mid 15th century. The reasoning for not relaying this discovery would be the intense competition for fishing spots between rival companies. Whether or not the theory hold...	[ "For a long time it was generally believed that Columbus and his crew had been the first Europeans to make landfall in the Americas. In fact they were not the first explorers from Europe to reach the Americas, having been preceded by the Viking expedition led by Leif Erikson in the 11th century; however, Columbus's...
why we still need to do the whole "left eye/right eye, option 1 or option 2" when getting glasses? why isn't there a machine that can test this just by looking at our eyes?	Vision is a really subjective experience, affected by many factors including the exact shape of lots of different parts of the eye. You've got two choices: 1. Get a complicated, expensive machine that gives you an OK pair of glasses; or 2. Buy a simple, comparatively cheap set of lenses, and check to see what lenses...	[ "A corrective lens with a power of zero is called a plano lens. These lenses are used when one or both eyes do not require correction of a refractive error. Some people with good natural eyesight like to wear eyeglasses as a style accessory, or want to change the appearance of their eyes using novelty contact lense...
What, if anything, was behind the limited range of given names in Tudor England?	I've looked at this question from a couple of different angles, [the first of which](_URL_1_) is specifically about the name "Thomas" and opens with--I promise I did not just edit this in--the three Catherines, two Annas situation. I'll paste [the later answer](_URL_0_) here because's it more of an actual answer to y...	[ "The names are given in modern English form followed by the names and titles (as far as is known) in contemporary Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and Latin, the prevalent \"official\" languages of the time in England.\n", "The toponymy of England, like the English language itself, derives from various linguistic origin...
What happens to the last remaining atom in a lump of radioactive material?At which point does it disintegrate?	Half life is just a a way to represent the probability of an atom to decay. No matter how many or how few atoms you have in a system, each atom has a 50% chance of decaying in one half life. These events are all independent, so one atom doesn't change based on the other atoms in the system. However, since there are ...	[ "During advanced decay, most of the remains have discolored and often blackened. Putrefaction, in which tissues and cells break down and liquidize as the body decays, will be almost complete. A decomposing human body in the earth will eventually release 32g of nitrogen, 10g of phosphorus, 4g of potassium, and 1g of...
why does city construction take so long? it seems like there are 100 projects that each get 10 guys.	It depends on the project, but in general there is a lot more going on than you notice. Like for example there was a recent building built in my area. For the first 3 months or so it looked like almost nothing was really being done when in reality they where getting the foundation exactly perfect witch is 100% importan...	[ "U.S. construction employment is heavily reliant on the housing market and new home construction. Measured from January 2008, construction employment was down 1.94 million as of October 2012. This follows a peak in construction employment due to the U.S. housing bubble throughout the mid-2000s, with a recent peak o...
how close are we to stopping dementia/similar afflictions? are there any measures that can be taken to prevent them?	you asked the same question yesterday...	[ "No treatments stop or reverse its progression, though some may temporarily improve symptoms. Affected people increasingly rely on others for assistance, often placing a burden on the caregiver. The pressures can include social, psychological, physical, and economic elements. Exercise programs may be beneficial wit...
How difficult would it have been for an American during World War I or World War II to avoid the draft by simply ignoring notices and moving around the country? How widespread was such a thing? Presumably this meant abandoning their identity from before the war?	During Word War I, our case for going to war wasn’t nearly as strong as in World War II. The war was in some ways “forced”. There was a lot of protest. To avoid this during World War II, a very robust system for “Conscientious Objectors” was set-up. You wouldn’t have needed to necessarily disappear at all to avoid war...	[ "Around 300,000 American men evaded or refused conscription in World War I. Aliens such as Emma Goldman were deported, while naturalized or even native-born citizens, including Eugene Debs, lost their citizenship for their activities. Helen Keller, a socialist, and Jane Addams, a pacifist, also publicly opposed the...
What are the origins of the LTTE and the related issues of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka?	This is a very long and complicated question that is still, even following the defeat of the LTTE in 2009, a sensitive topic. While it pushes up against the 20 year rule, I will do my best to stick to the conflict before 1997, though it will limit the discussion of the Tamil Tigers and the Śrī Lankān government's war ...	[ "Sri Lanka, from the early part of the 1980s, was facing an increasingly violent ethnic strife. The origins of this conflict can be traced to the independence of the island from Britain in 1948. At the time, a Sinhala majority government was instituted which passed legislation that were deemed discriminatory agains...
how does constantly pressurized compressed air not build up too much pressure and cause a pipe or hose to burst when a valve is closed?	The pressure doesn't keep increasing. It's pressurized to a certain level and stays there. Just as a balloon can hold pressure for days without the pressure increasing and bursting it. Edit: Or how a heavy book on a shelf doesn't press harder and harder until it breaks the shelf. The pressure has stabilized.	[ "In air-operated pinch valves, the rubber hoses are usually press-fitted and centered into the housing ends by the socket covers. There is no additional actuator, the valve closes as soon as there is a pressurized air supply into the body. When the air supply becomes interrupted and the volume of air exhausts, the ...
why are our spinal cords so poorly protected?	Most of your organs (nearly all of which are as utterly necessary for life as your spine) aren't protected by any bones at all (most of your GI tract for example). The spinal cord is actually a very key development in evolution and is conserved across a huge swath of animals (the phylum chordata). The spine's positio...	[ "Body cords must be kept in good working order lest their condition deteriorate. Common causes of broken body cords include breaks and damage to the prongs. Many body cords are made with clear plastic insulation so that any corrosion of the copper wire can be seen more easily.\n", "Tethered spinal cord is a disor...
a law was passed a while back that grants corporations the rights of people	This is not true. I understand why you are asking, because many news outlets report it as true, but it is just false. Corporate personhood is the term and it has been around for over 100 years. It means that the people that make up a corporation have the many of the same rights as every other citizen. They can enter i...	[ "In the 1800s, the US government could take away a firm's license if it acted irresponsibly. Corporations were viewed as \"creatures of the state\" under the law. In 1819, the United States Supreme Court in Dartmouth College vs. Woodward established a corporation as a legal person in specific contexts. This ruling ...
How does degreaser (soap, purple power, engine stuff) degrease?	Put simply, water and oil don't mix. You get a molecule where half of it will mix with water, and the other half will mix with oil. When you apply soap to something, it sticks to the oil. Then when you rinse, it also attaches to the water and washes away.	[ "Dehydratases are a group of lyase enzymes that form double and triple bonds in a substrate through the removal of water. They can be found in many places including the mitochondria, peroxisome and cytosol. There are more than 150 different dehydratase enzymes that are classified into four groups. Dehydratases can ...
how come we are often more energized when we're running on only a few hours of sleep, compared to days when we had a full 7-8 hours of sleep?	Sleep for humans is made up of 5 different 'types' or 'stages' divided into two categories, which we cycle through. This progression is Non-REM 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, then REM, after which we will either go back to Non-REM 2 and repeat from there, or wake up at least slightly and fall back asleep into Non-REM 1. Each stage ...	[ "Humans are generally diurnal. The average sleep requirement is between seven and nine hours per day for an adult and nine to ten hours per day for a child; elderly people usually sleep for six to seven hours. Having less sleep than this is common among humans, even though sleep deprivation can have negative health...
texas hold'em	This isn't really an ELI5 question because the answer(s) are entirely too broad. There are 100s of entire books written on poker strategies, especially more so in recent years as poker and WSOP tournaments have risen in popularity.	[ "Texas Hold 'em is an Xbox Live Arcade version of the popular poker variant of the same name developed by TikGames. It was released on August 23, 2006 and was the first XBLA game to be offered as a free download (for a limited time). After 48 hours, it was no longer a free download. It was also made available on th...
What is the body's conversion efficiency of energy stored in food to energy stored in fat, or energy available to do work with?	Well, as far as the processing, storage and other ‘taking in’ goes, you’re looking for the thermic effect of food. That is energy used to convert it from its raw state to one that’s ‘ready to burn’. Carbs have a 5-15% thermic effect, depending on complexity. Very complex carbs take more energy to process than simple o...	[ "About 70% of a human's total energy expenditure is due to the basal life processes taking place in the organs of the body (see table). About 20% of one's energy expenditure comes from physical activity and another 10% from thermogenesis, or digestion of food (\"postprandial thermogenesis\"). All of these processes...
Why are absolute rulers now called dictators instead of monarchs?	I suppose the primary difference between a monarchy and a dictatorship is in terms of self-identification. We still have absolute rulers being monarchs, mind you. KSA and Qatar, amongst other Gulf states, still have very strong monarchies. What differentiates a monarchy from a dictatorship is self-identification. A dic...	[ "Monarchic dictatorships are regimes in which \"a person of royal descent has inherited the position of head of state in accordance with accepted practice or constitution\". Regimes are not considered dictatorships if the monarch's role is largely ceremonial but absolute monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia can be cons...
As a car sits outside, does the temperature inside the car just keep going up, or is there an upper limit?	Car absorbs thermal energy from sunlight, but also radiates it back via [black body radiation](_URL_1_), and tranfer it throught [air convection](_URL_0_), etc. when equilibrium of those forces (not limited to what i mentioned)is achieved the body of a car will maintain constant temperature. Hope it helps.	[ "When the outside temperature is , the temperature inside a car parked in direct sunlight can quickly exceed . Young children or elderly adults left alone in a vehicle are at particular risk of succumbing to heat stroke. \"Heat stroke in children and in the elderly can occur within minutes, even if a car window is ...

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