Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
why cant leaf blower noise be muffled?	It can, if you want a 70 pound leaf blower. You can't just wave a wand and make noise go away. You need a lot of very absorbent material with plenty of room for gasses to expand, and also has a clear channel for exhaust to flow through, and even then, it'll still probably be loud.	[ "A leaf blower, commonly known as blower, is a gardening tool that propels air out of a nozzle to move debris such as leaves and grass cuttings. Leaf blowers are powered by electric or gasoline motors. Gasoline models have traditionally been two-stroke engines, but four-stroke engines were recently introduced to pa...
was/is there a reason there was looney tunes and merrie melodies? why didn't they just have one show?	[The Straight Dope covered this](_URL_0_). Basically, they started out as being made by two different production teams, but after a certain point, they became essentially interchangeable, but they kept both names going.	[ "More \"Looney Tunes\" characters were created (most of which first appeared in \"Merrie Melodies\" cartoons) such as Tweety (debuted in 1942's \"A Tale of Two Kitties\"), Sylvester (debuted in 1945's \"Life with Feathers\"), Yosemite Sam (debuted in 1945's \"Hare Trigger\"), Pepé Le Pew (debuted in 1945's \"Odor-a...
Why is the perception of pitch and loudness logarithmic rather than linear ?	A log scale gives you a more nuanced and differentiated perception of weak sounds, compared to linear. A linear scale would "compress" weak sounds into a much more narrow perceptual range, compared to log. It is probably advantageous for all creatures to have a more rich understanding of faint sounds, at the limit of ...	[ "Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound. Historically, the study of pitch and pitch perception has been a central problem in psychoacoustics, and has been instrumental in forming and testing theories of so...
Was there freedom of speech in Prussia of Frederick the Great?	The person you spoke to seems to have a very limited understanding of Early Modern censorship, which was infintely more oppressive than today. As such we will look at two examples. First, Frederick and Voltaire. While the two became friends, [in this article, you can see a very prickly history with Voltaire and Prussi...	[ "Frederick the Great, the first \"King \"of\" Prussia\", practised enlightened absolutism. He introduced a general civil code, abolished torture and established the principle that the Crown would not interfere in matters of justice. He also promoted an advanced secondary education, the forerunner of today's German ...
why do race cars have stickers for headlights? why not just real headlights or no stickers?	what stickers? i don't see any [here](_URL_0_)	[ "Modern F1 cars and other high-end formula racing cars have information displays on their steering wheels which can flash up the word \"flag\" to warn drivers when they are entering a sector with a local yellow. Most new circuits and older ones used for F1 employ trackside flashing lights at regular intervals, as a...
to keep the physics oriented questions going: i've always wondered what is outside our universe. if the universe is expanding (or contracting), shouldn't there be a space outside of our universe that's allowing for that expansion/contraction?	It's space itself that's expanding. The universe is (probably) infinite in extent, so when we say that it's "expanding," what we mean is that things are getting farther apart. It's not expanding "into" anything, because there's nothing outside of the universe (by definition). Not an easy concept to grasp, but it is wh...	[ "Regardless of the overall shape of the universe, the question of what the universe is expanding into is one which does not require an answer according to the theories which describe the expansion; the way we define space in our universe in no way requires additional exterior space into which it can expand since an...
Are there neuroprostheses (namely limb prostheses) that use the electrical impulses directly from severed nerves as control input? If not, why isn't it done?	I don't know anything about prostheses, but I've done lots of nerve recordings. The problem is that a "nerve" may contain several thousand individual axons, each of which (or at least groups of which) target different portions of a muscle (or different muscles). I know of no technology that would allow you to segregate...	[ "A robotic exoskeleton is a type of orthosis that uses actuators to either assist or resist the movement of a joint of an intact limb; this is not to be confused with a powered prosthesis, which replaces a missing limb. There are four purposes that robotic lower limb exoskeletons can accomplish:\n", "Several meth...
Why does light travel a longer distance through different medium?	[Check out the FAQ.](_URL_0_)	[ "In a medium, light usually does not propagate at a speed equal to \"c\"; further, different types of light wave will travel at different speeds. The speed at which the individual crests and troughs of a plane wave (a wave filling the whole space, with only one frequency) propagate is called the phase velocity \"v\...
why do you have to be over 18 to buy wd-40?	Apparently some genius decided it would be a great idea to inhale the WD40 fumes and get high that way. A bunch of people picked up on it, and so stores set up a policy that only allows adults to purchase these aerosol items. Which is kind of dumb, tbh. As soon as you turn 18 you suddenly stop being stupid? Not bloody ...	[ "Major gun sellers such as Dick's, Walmart, and Fred Meyer voluntarily bumped the age requirement on gun purchases from 18 to 21, the NRA challenged the new age requirement in court. Other businesses like Bank of America and Citibank also ended some of their dealings with certain gun manufacturers and vendors.\n", ...
why do people have trouble comprehending large numbers?	It's because most people have no frame of reference when it comes to very large numbers. People know that a million is a big number, and that a billion is bigger, but people have never seen a million OF anything, nor a billion, so it's hard to put into perspective. It's easy for a person to imagine a thousand of someth...	[ "People have a limited ability to retain information, which worsens when the amount of information increases. For this reason, people alter information to make it more memorable, such as separating a ten-digit phone number into three smaller groups or dividing the alphabet into sets of three to five letters. George...
When birds (specifically geese, but any birds) fly in a large pattern, how do they know their next move? Are all the birds following the bird at the front? Or do they all know where exactly to go, and just fly in a pattern for efficiency?	If you are asking about migration behavior, the most entertaining answer has to be a movie from the 90's called "Fly Away Home" based on the IRL efforts of Bill Lishman. The birds (Canada geese in the movie, whopping cranes IRL) have a migration instinct to take to the air when the right time of year comes. But they ...	[ "A wide variety of birds fly together in a symmetric V-shaped or a J-shaped coordinated formation, also referred to as an \"echelon\", especially during long distance flight or migration. It is often assumed that birds resort to this pattern of formation flying in order to save energy and improve the aerodynamic ef...
How do you build a liquid fuel rocket?	Hopefully you're already familiar with hobby-grade solid-engine rockets, as that would be the jumping off point for most beginners. Liquid engines are a bit more complicated, and usually have higher thrusts, so they're meant for bigger rockets. [Here's](_URL_1_) a good resource for getting started. > Which is best ...	[ "The liquid-fuel rocket is a rocket with an engine that uses propellants in liquid form. On March 16, 1926 in Auburn, Massachusetts, Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the \"father of modern rocketry\", launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in history, which used liquid oxygen and gasoline as propellants.\n", "Bipropellant...
What effect does cooking have on best before/expiry dates?	The expiration dates on food are simply for quality and not safety. Cooking chicken to 165F for 15s (internal temperature, not surface) is sufficient to reduce non-spore forming pathogenic bacteria to non-dangerous levels. If you cook the chicken and cool it down properly (135- > 70 in 2 hrs, then 70- > 41 in 4hrs; or ...	[ "Recovery time is the length of time it takes a cooking medium, such as fat or water, to return to the desired cooking temperature after the food is submerged in it. The term also pertains to the recovery time for ovens to return to their preset cooking temperature after being opened.\n", "\"Best before\" or \"be...
What determines the brightness of a light emitting object such as a light bulb or the sun? Is there more photons per every unit of surface area or are the wave lengths just more energetic?	Brightness is associated with intensity - which correlates to the number of photons. A single photon can, indeed, carry more energy than another. Since Energy is related to frequency and wavelength, a change in energy will simply change the wavelength of the photon. You know this phenomenon as color. Blue light ha...	[ "In photometric quantities every wavelength is weighted according to how sensitive the human eye is to it, while radiometric quantities use unweighted absolute power. For example, the eye responds much more strongly to green light than to red, so a green source will have greater luminous flux than a red source with...
Why did Rome and Greece have more artists than the Vikings?	Another Dane here, hej :). So, the viking age is not actually the same period as what you might think of as the classical era. The viking age is usually considered to have been from 796 to 1066 CE (e.v.t.), while the "classical era" when most of the famous Greeks and Romans lived would have been, extremely broadly, fr...	[ "Owing in part to the fact that the Roman cities were far larger than the Greek city-states in power and population, and generally less provincial, art in Ancient Rome took on a wider, and sometimes more utilitarian, purpose. Roman culture assimilated many cultures and was for the most part tolerant of the ways of ...
how do we know cern's large hadron collider isn't just creating new particles that otherwise wouldn't or do not exist??	The point of particle colliders is to generate scenarios that occur in other parts of the universe, but are hard for us to detect. High-energy particle interactions happen all the time, like in the centers of stars. It's a little bit tricky to get sensitive measuring equipment into the center of the Sun, though. So,...	[ "The Large Hadron Collider at CERN was designed to test the existence of the Higgs boson, an important but elusive piece of knowledge that had been sought by particle physicists for over 40 years. A very powerful particle accelerator was needed, because Higgs bosons might not be seen in lower energy experiments, an...
why is it so difficult to keep the pokemon go servers from crashing?	Imagine that you're in the ocean in a massive school of fish. A fishing boat casts it's net overboard and traps all of you. The crew tries to pull you all in but the wench isn't strong enough, so you all just sit there idling in the net. The school of fish are pokemon go players and the wench represents the servers.	[ "On November 30, 2018 the servers were shut down, citing the license running out and the game making barely enough to keep the servers running. Due to the license only allowing online games, the game needs the servers to work, even in a 'play alone' mode, using NPCs instead of other players in the mission.\n", "S...
how come if i nick my leg shaving it bleeds like a gunshot wound?	5% of all the blood in your body hangs out in your skin and your legs have lots of blood vessels near the surface. On a tiny, tiny level in your skin, when you cut your leg with a razor, it's so sharp it doesn't leave ragged edges like a normal cut would from something not so sharp. That makes it harder for your body's...	[ "BULLET::::2. The body is washed carefully. Any bleeding is stopped and all blood is buried along with the deceased. The body is thoroughly cleaned of dirt, body fluids, and solids, and anything else that may be on the skin. All jewelry is removed. The beard (if present) is not shaved.\n", "Cuts from shaving can ...
why do mechanical pencils squeak sometimes while you write?	Has to do with the "lead" used in them. They don't make points like old fashioned pencils and when they get flat on the tip, it creates a specific friction that causes a gross feeling and I'm assuming the squeaky noise you refer to. (I'm Deaf so I'm kinda going off people saying "Hey bro, your pencil is making a terrib...	[ "Mechanical pencils are used to provide lines of constant width without sharpening in technical drawing and in quick, neat writing. They have also been used for fine-art drawing. Since they do not have to be sharpened, they are also very popular with students. Mechanical pencils were first used in the 18th century,...
Can a liquid/gas get stuck to an adhesive?	Super glue is often vaporised used to highlight things such as fingerprints in forensic investigations. The wiki: _URL_0_ says many of the ways this adhesive attaches to oils and even humidity in the air	[ "This argument can be extended to the idea that when a surface is in a medium with which binding is favorable, it will be less likely to adhere to another surface, since the medium is taking up the potential sites on the surface that would otherwise be available to adhere to another surface. Naturally this applies ...
why can games such as pac man have a maximum level counter value of 256 (maximum 8bit integer value) when the score can go past it? (ex: 293370)	They decided to reserve 8 bit for the level counter and 16 bit for the score. You have to keep in mind that memory was a rare good when Pac Man was developed, so developers tried to make use of the memory in a distribution that made sense to them. If you are an expert Pac Man player and think 256 levels are too few, t...	[ "Because of the scoring process, it is possible to score 2,250 points in a single game, which is the maximum 375 points in each of the three columns and excluding Yahtzee bonuses, which are added at the end.\n", "In a 2-player game, the maximum score that can be made in one hand is 4,600 points. In a standard 4-p...
When astrophysicists say that a planet is the same size as Earth, do they mean in terms of mass or in terms of diameter?	Well, you probably won't catch an astrophysicist using a term as vague as "size," particularly not in a research paper - scientists will be specific when talking about radius, mass etc. But when these things get reported out and covered outside the primary literature, the word "size" can indeed mean different things. U...	[ "Recent discoveries have uncovered planets that are thought to be similar in size or mass to Earth. \"Earth-sized\" ranges are typically defined by mass. The lower range used in many definitions of the super-Earth class is 1.9 Earth masses; likewise, sub-Earths range up to the size of Venus (~0.815 Earth masses). A...
[other] why is there no requirements for us cabinet members?	> so why not say the secretary of energy be a doctorate who specializes in that? Because when you start placing such rules on appointments whoever makes those rules now is in charge, not the President. Also everyone reports to the President in the Executive Branch so trying to take away his authority is pointless. ...	[ "The Cabinet of the United States is part of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States. The Cabinet's role, inferred from the language of the Opinion Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1) of the Constitution, is to serve as an advisory body to the president of the United States. Additio...
what is tau in math, and why do some people prefer it to pi?	Numberphile did a video on this topic, it adresses most of the points: [Tau replaces Pi?](_URL_0_)	[ "In 2010, Michael Hartl proposed to use tau to represent Palais' circle constant: . He offered two reasons. First, is the number of radians in \"one turn\", which allows fractions of a turn to be expressed more directly: for instance, a turn would be represented as rad instead of rad. Second, visually resembles ...
Where and how did the "haunted church" trope originate?	Can I just tell you, thank you. Seriously. Thank you. People rarely ask about ghosts, and even more rarely about their interaction with sacred space- and here you’ve come along and made my day by asking the perfect question. Simply put, ghosts have a long history of appearing in churches and other religious structures...	[ "The church is claimed to be haunted although with much less activity than the former Borley Rectory. Alleged paranormal activity includes \"phantom organ music, ghostly chanting, and the ghost of a nun moving about the churchyard\". Ghost stories from the church and the rectory are frequently connected to a suppos...
why do our bodies twinge or feel a wave/rush when viewing a video of someone having an accident?	mirror neurons When we see someone perform an act, your brain fires as if you were performing the act. So your body cringes instinctively because your brain is acting like you just had an accident.	[ "Reaction videos are videos in which people react to events. In particular, videos showing the emotional reactions of people viewing television series episodes or film trailers are numerous and popular on video hosting services such as YouTube. The depicted persons may or may not be aware that they are being record...
Could adaptation be considered short-term evolution?	Evolution is changes in allele frequencies over time. So if the trait is due to a change in allele frequency, then it's evolution, though there are non-genetic ways some organisms can adapt. That said, bacterial antibiotic resistance is not just genetic, but spread by horizontal transfer and clearly under selection pr...	[ "The alternatives in question do not deny that evolutionary changes over time are the origin of the diversity of life, nor deny that the organisms alive today share a common ancestor from the distant past (or ancestors, in some proposals); rather, they propose alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change over time...
Was there some sort of "reverse-Orientalism" (Westernism?)?	/u/Zooasaurus and I talk about two different eras--19th century and Middle Ages--in [this earlier thread](_URL_1_). I'll c-p mine here, but you really should check out theirs as well! Oh, and I don't know if this interests you, but I also have an earlier answer on [medieval Arab Orientalism re: Persia and especially C...	[ "\"Re-Orientalism differs from Orientalism in its manner of and reasons for referencing the West: while challenging the metanarratives of Orientalism, re-Orientalism sets up alternative metanarratives of its own in order to articulate eastern identities, simultaneously deconstructing and reinforcing Orientalism.\"\...
why do we physically shake our heads to help change our train of thought?	Anything that can cause you to change your focus allows you to change your train of thought. The act of shaking your head gives you something else to think about for a second to allow your brain to stop what it was working on previously and then move on to something else.	[ "A head shake is a gesture in which the head is turned left and right along the transverse plane repeatedly in quick succession. In many cultures, it is most commonly, but not universally, used to indicate disagreement, denial, or rejection. Head shaking while trying food, in Western cultures, can also communicate ...
when i 'know what i mean', but can't seem to explain it in words, what is happening in my brain?	I think you are describing "presque vu" (French: almost seen) which is another word for Tip of the Tongue syndrome. There are a few different hypothesis as to what is happening. As far as I understand it, it is when your brain can't retrieve the total information. It can retrieve part of the desired information (such a...	[ "It usually means something along the line of: the consequence of a situation (which was once within your control), is now out of your control, that is, \"there's no changing the past, so learn from it and move on.\"\n", "Experiential Trace Hypothesis states that each time an individual interacts with the world, ...
Was anything like animal husbandry ever attempted on humans?	The word you are looking for is "eugenics." That is not a good answer, but hopefully knowing the terminology will help you find answers more easily if you search /r/askhistorians.	[ "Avenzoar (1091–1161), from Muslim Spain, introduced an experimental method in surgery, employing animal testing in order to experiment with surgical procedures before applying them to human patients. He also performed the earliest dissections and postmortem autopsies on both humans as well as animals.\n", "A stu...
Questions on red shifts and expansion of universe	1. Redshift due to relative velocity is indistinguishable from redshift due to expansion of the intervening space. 2. The expansion of the universe isn't a force itself, to properly characterize it you need an understanding of general relativity. It is happening everywhere in the universe constantly. 3. Yes, objects ...	[ "The redshifts of galaxies include both a component related to recessional velocity from expansion of the Universe, and a component related to peculiar motion (Doppler shift). The redshift due to expansion of the Universe depends upon the recessional velocity in a fashion determined by the cosmological model chosen...
Why does loud, low-pitched noise from powerful rockets and jet engines also have a distinctive high pitched crackle?	This is probably more the product of the sound [clipping](_URL_0_) due to its high amplitude at the mic. The sharp edges at the clipping point are high frequency components in the fourier series of the sound wave. This sounds like "crackle." If you saw the launch in person, you wouldn't hear the crackle. The Coor's...	[ "Noise is generally most intense when a rocket is close to the ground, since the noise from the engines radiates up away from the jet, as well as reflecting off the ground. This noise can be reduced somewhat by flame trenches with roofs, by water injection around the jet and by deflecting the jet at an angle.\n", ...
what do some people find appealing in communism?	What do you mean by "communism"? The actual definition of the term is of a society in which there are no class distinctions and no money, and the means of production are accessible to everyone. In this idyllic world, everyone is equal, everyone co-operates to produce exactly what we need when we need it, nobody needs ...	[ "It is evident that communist leaders pursued cultural leveling not only because they remained committed to the Marxist doctrine of eliminating class distinctions, but also because they deeply distrusted the old elites and were determined to prevent them from maintaining and reproducing their class advantage.\n", ...
why do we have decussation (cross over of nerves) in our nervous system?	This is one of those questions that science currently doesn't have a concrete answer to. One of the most popular hypothesis is that nerve crossover occurred when animals went from ventral to dorsal nerve cords. A long long time ago, a rudimentary nervous system developed in some animals. This is usually a kind of neur...	[ "BULLET::::- In the brain, where nerve fibers obliquely cross from one lateral part to the other, that is to say they cross at a level other than their origin. See for examples Decussation of pyramids and sensory decussation. Decussation describes the point where the nerves cross from one side of the brain to the o...
What happened to the tribes of Europe? When did their role start to fade and what caused it?	Well, these social groupings have been important well into the twentieth century. In the middle of the century, a leader arose in a particularly warlike central European tribe who combined millinarianism with mystified teachings regarding tribal identify bolstered by a fabricated lineage. Eventually a coalition of sur...	[ "During the 4th and 5th centuries CE, Visigoths and Vandals militarily organized themselves to sufficiently challenge and sack Rome in CE 410 and again in CE 455. Then in CE 476, the last Roman emperor was deposed by a German chieftain, an event which effectively ended Roman predominance in western Europe. Germanic...
Is the Nicotine responsible for the feeling you get when you smoke or is it the Carbon monoxide?	It's pretty easy to test since there are non-smoking nicotine products, like snus. In sweden, where I live, snus is probably more popular than cigarettes. The "highs" are quite similar. Perhaps I'm not being scientific enough here but I'm not speculating.	[ "Nicotine is a small molecule that, after inhalation into the lungs, quickly passes into the bloodstream, subsequently crossing the blood–brain barrier. Once in the brain, it binds to specific nicotine receptors, resulting in the release of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and norepinephrine.\n", "The symptoms...
what causes "brain farts"?	When this happens, you've rarely actually lost the memory. What usually happens is you've lost a way to find it. When you learn something, your brain makes pathways to find it later. If these aren't very strong, they can go away. If you didn't make many and most go away, it'll be really hard to find. Let's say you w...	[ "Decerebrate and decorticate posturing can indicate that brain herniation is occurring or is about to occur. Brain herniation is an extremely dangerous condition in which parts of the brain are pushed past hard structures within the skull. In herniation syndrome, which is indicative of brain herniation, decorticate...
Why everyone hates Inflation Theory? What is the best model to explain the beggining of the Universe?	I see there's some confusion here - "Inflation" doesn't refer to the general theory that the universe is expanding, it refers to a particular period in the early universe when the universe was expanding extremely rapidly. "Inflation" was a one-off (and fairly theoretical) event, but the expansion of the universe is con...	[ "In 1979, Alan Guth introduced the inflationary model of the universe to explain why the universe is flat and homogeneous (which refers to the smooth distribution of matter and radiation on a large scale). The basic idea was that the universe underwent a period of rapidly accelerating expansion a few instants after...
what is it that psychologists do and how do they actually help people other than being someone to talk with?	There's loads of different kinds of therapy out there for all different issues. Cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to be effective and is quite common. The therapist helps you to alter your perception of a situation and how you feel about the situation. So something you felt was really negative or you couldn'...	[ "In practice, clinical and counseling psychologists might work with individuals, couples, families, or groups in a variety of settings, including private practices, hospitals, mental health organizations, schools, businesses, and non-profit agencies.\n", "\"Consulting psychology shall be defined as the function o...
Were Confederate Memorials erected in the Deep South as a response to the Civil Rights Movement?	Not to deter further discussion, but... There's a very comprehensive [Monday Method's thread from just a few days ago](_URL_0_) featuring many flaired users discussing the statues, their importance (or lack thereof) to historical study, and the circumstances of their erection and removal to an extent, as well as some ...	[ "Confederate monument-building has often been part of widespread campaigns to promote and justify Jim Crow laws in the South, and assert white supremacy. According to the American Historical Association (AHA), the erection of Confederate monuments during the early twentieth century was \"part and parcel of the init...
what does it mean when an abandoned car on the highway has a white bag or object hanging out from the window?	There are certain laws pertaining to cars left on the side of the road. After a certain amount of time the car is considered abandoned and will be towed off the road. A white object (like a shirt or towel) is the the sign that you will be returning to the car and are not just abandoning it.	[ "\"When you're traveling down the highway, you see an image whether it's dirt on the back of a truck or a splat on a windshield or two birds sitting by the side of the road picking at something. All those things have inspired me at some point in my creativity.\"\n", "The highway is also notable for its variant of...
"why do my eyes change color?"	When the pupil size changes, the pigments in the iris compress or spread apart, changing the eye color a bit. So when your eyes are dilated in a darker room, your eyes will look darker, and when you're out in the sun (or a room with florescent lighting) they'll be lighter. Some people say this phenomenon happens whe...	[ "Changes (lightening or darkening) of eye colors during early childhood, puberty, pregnancy, and sometimes after serious trauma (like heterochromia) do represent cause for a plausible argument stating that some eyes can or do change, based on chemical reactions and hormonal changes within the body.\n", "The pheno...
how do weed killers like round up decipher between weed roots and plant roots?	Round up doesn't decipher, it kills almost any plant that absorbs enough of it, by inhibiting an enzyme plants need to grow. It doesn't generally kill woody plants, because it's typically sprayed on a large portion of the larger plants sensitive areas. The most popular targeted weed killer targets dicots (plants wi...	[ "In situations where there are massive growth of broadleaf weeds, using a good weed killer can be very helpful. This is usually the case for lawns or yards that are overgrown with such weeds. There are several good weed killers available in the market. It is also important to seek the advice of a weed plant expert ...
if red light is least scattered by air molecules, why is green a more visible color in laser pointers?	The human eye is most sensitive to green. Green is also scattered by air more than red. You can't see a laser from the side at all if there's nothing to scatter the light to you. This combination makes green lasers more visible than red ones.	[ "The apparent brightness of a spot from a laser beam depends on the optical power of the laser, the reflectivity of the surface, and the chromatic response of the human eye. For the same optical power, green laser light will seem brighter than other colors because the human eye is most sensitive at low light levels...
Is the siege and razing of Jerusalem in 70CE recorded in Jewish religious texts? If so, then what is said and what is the perspective on the event?	Flavious Iosephus recorded it, but that isn't a religious text, and Talmud was written only a few centuries later. So the first hand perspective is probably missing for the most part from the religious literature due to the fate the Jews met. In any case you should repost this question to /r/judaism, the Kosher Konsume...	[ "There are no extra-biblical sources for the Second Siege of Jerusalem, which has been dated to 587 BC. The date was arrived at by comparing the evidence of the Chronicle to dates given in the Book of Ezekiel in connection to the year of captivity of Jeconiah (i.e. the first fall of Jerusalem).\n", "The siege of ...
Is it logically possible for humans not to have had a mitochondrial Eve?	I can see how you might have a mitochondria introduced from, say, interbreeding with neanderthals and then have a separate mitochondrial population hanging around in Europe, but then you could just go back to the common ancestor of neanderthals and modern humans and find a mitochondrial Eve there. Of course, you could ...	[ "The name \"Mitochondrial Eve\" alludes to biblical Eve. This led to repeated misrepresentations or misconceptions in journalistic accounts on the topic. Popular science presentations of the topic usually point out such possible misconceptions by emphasizing the fact that the position of mt-MRCA is neither fixed in...
what did humans think time and gravity were before einstein and newton?	Newton didnt really change anything about how we percieved time that I can think of. Stuff falling down was intuitive to people, it didnt need explaining. Its just the way things were. And if it did need explaining "because god made it that way" was a perfectly valid answer to them.	[ "Einstein's beliefs had evolved over the years from those that he had held when he was young, when, as a logical positivist heavily influenced by his reading of David Hume and Ernst Mach, he had rejected such unobservable concepts as absolute time and space. Einstein believed: \n", "In 1905 a young, 26-year-old G...
Has the White House ever been burglarized?	Do you mean other than being looted and burned down in 1814?	[ "In April 2015, the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company, an underground safe deposit facility in London's Hatton Garden area, was burgled. The total stolen may have a value of up to £200 million, and the incident has been called the \"largest burglary in English legal history.\" The heist was planned and carried out...
Why were live-in domestic servants so much more common in the 19th and early 20th centuries than they are today?	I'm giving this answer mostly based on two books by the same historian, Frank Trentmann: - The Empire of Things (2016) - The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption (2012) From their titles alone, you may be able to guess that Trentmann would give a very goods-based answer. There's the obvious answer that d...	[ "Edwardian Britain had large numbers of male and female domestic servants, in both urban and rural areas. Middle and upper-class women relied on servants to run their homes smoothly. Servants were provided with food, clothing, housing, and a small wage, and lived in a self-enclosed social system inside the mansion....
the mpemba effect, and does it really work?	When you freeze water, normally cold water will freeze faster than hot water. This makes sense - 200F water needs to become 150F water before you can freeze it so you'd expect to see 150F water take less time to freeze. Usually, this is the case. The Mpemba Effect describes how, in certain circumstances, hot water w...	[ "However, in 2017, two research groups independently and simultaneously found theoretical evidence of the Mpemba effect and also predicted a new \"inverse\" Mpemba effect in which heating a cooled, far-from-equilibrium system takes less time than another system that is initially closer to equilibrium. Lu and Raz yi...
how come calculators are the only computers we've commonly adapted solar panels into? why haven't we intergrated them into things like laptops or cellphones?	Handheld calculators require very little power; tiny solar panels can power them. You'd need massive panels to power a smart phone. The power consumption difference is more than you'd think.	[ "The complexity of the model used for the solar system must be limited to the available computation facilities. In the 1920s punched card equipment came into use by L. J. Comrie in Britain. For the \"American Ephemeris\" an electromagnetic computer, the IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator was used since 19...
why do usb connectors have 2 sides? every time i go to plug one in i have to turn it around...	The thing is to realise that USB cables weren't created out of the blue; they were a solution to a problem, and that problem was the frankly nightmare situation that existed in the 90's of different connection standards. The rear panel of a PC would routinely have several formats of serial ports, perhaps a parralell po...	[ "Depending on vendor and design, USB ports are often closely spaced. Consequently, plugging a device into one port may physically block an adjacent port, particularly when the plug is not part of a cable but is integral to a device such as a USB flash drive. A horizontal array of horizontal sockets may be easy to f...
space debris artificial vs. natural	There really isn't any appreciable natural debris in the areas where satellites orbit. In the millions and millions of years of the Earth existing before we started sending stuff up all the rocks, dust and particles were dragged into Earth's atmosphere. However, Earth's orbit does carry it through the paths that comet...	[ "\"Space debris\" usually refers to the remains of spacecraft that have either fallen to Earth or are still orbiting Earth. Space debris may also consist of natural components such as chunks of rock and ice. The problem of space debris has grown as various space programs have left legacies of launches, explosions, ...
The absorbance/reflection of light is affected by the colour of the surface it hits; does this also apply to sound?	Absorption & reflection of light is not affected by the colour of something, it is precisely what gives something its colour. The colour that we perceive is a result of the electronic structure of an object and how light interacts with it. So a black surface does not absorb light because it is black, it is black be...	[ "When light reflects off of a material with higher refractive index than the medium in which is traveling, it undergoes a 180° phase shift. In contrast, when light reflects off of a material with lower refractive index the reflected light is in phase with the incident light. This is an important principle in the fi...
What is the relationship between the planck length/time and the speed of light?	The Planck lengths and times are defined such that their ratio is the speed of light. The only difference between them is a factor of c. The Planck units are not inherent universal pixel sizes, although that's a fairly common misconception.	[ "In physics, the Planck length, denoted , is a unit of length that is the distance light travels in one unit of Planck time. It is equal to It is a base unit in the system of Planck units, developed by physicist Max Planck. The Planck length can be defined from three fundamental physical constants: the speed of lig...
Why was Ottoman Empire so unprepared for first Balkan War?	In his study of Ottoman performance during the war, now routinely cited by Ottoman historians, Edward J. Erickson identifies the following as the primary factor involved in the Ottoman defeat: Beginning in 1910 the Ottomans had, in conjunction with German advisors, adopted what was at the time understood to be state-o...	[ "In the resulting war, the combined Balkan armies effectively destroyed Ottoman power in Europe in a series of victories. However, the League's triumph was short-lived. The antagonisms between the Balkan states still persisted, and after the successful conclusion of the First Balkan War, they resurfaced, especially...
If a person injected alcohol directly into their bloodstream would they become instantly drunk?	I would say that around/above 0.20 BAC is when you are piss drunk, and 0.20 BAC means "0.2% of a person's blood, by volume, is alcohol". For the average human with (according to google) 5 liters of blood, this comes out to 1/3rd of an ounce (_URL_0_), which is 10 cc's. It looks like bomertherus's suggestion of half a...	[ "Noting that deaths have been reported from alcohol poisoning via enemas, an alcohol enema can be used to very quickly instill alcohol into the bloodstream, absorbed through the membranes of the colon. However, great care must be taken as to the amount of alcohol used. Only a small amount is needed as the intestine...
How can some animals live for several centuries without dying off from cancer far earlier?	First, the examples in your second link seem mostly to be maximum lifespans, which is not the same as average lifespans. A single individual living far beyond the average lifespan isn't really indicative of anything, just that they're "lucky" enough to avoid mortal accidents, cancers, etc. Next, many of the animals ...	[ "For acute high exposures (1 hour, 42 ppm) all animals died, after showing difficulty breathing and gasping for air. Their lung tissues showed hemorrhagic lesions, inflammation, edema and necrosis in the bronchi. However recovery of the animals that survived was apparent 2 weeks after the treatment.\n", "Cancer i...
How hot is the moon during an eclipse?	Solar eclipse has no effect on temperature because the exact same amount of sun is still hitting the moon. A lunar eclipse would cause a slight decrease in temperature but they are so short it wouldn't be any impressive level.	[ "During eclipses with long totality, temperatures plunge on the moon but not in many of its seas. However, in some areas, the temperatures remain high. This especially applies to Oceanus Procellarum and Mare Tranquillitatis and mid to large craters, especially those with basalt floors and mostly in the middle porti...
When did people first start associating functions to y and x graphs? Why?	Mid 17th century. René Descartes published his La Géométrie in 1637, proposing the union of algebra and geometry, and a 1649 Latin translation expanded and clarified this to the two-axis system we know. We still call it Cartesian coordinates after Descartes.	[ "The development of analytical geometry around 1640 allowed mathematicians to go between geometric problems about curves and algebraic relations between \"variable coordinates \"x\" and \"y\".\" Calculus was developed using the notion of variables, with their associated geometric meaning, which persisted well into ...
in movies when they show pictures of the protagonists when they were younger do they get the actors to bring in actual pictures from their childhood or do they photoshop/use other actors for the pictures?	Vast majority of the time, they will use young actors. There may have been a couple occasions in which an actor used his actual own photo.	[ "Beyond basic publicity purposes, film stills were given to the actors themselves to send, signed or unsigned, to their fans and fan clubs. At various special events, stars might bring along a stack of these studio photos to sign in the presence of admirers, much like book signings by authors today.\n", "The like...
if our stomach acid is so strong, why do things that make us sick/give us food poisoning not get destroyed during digestion?	Your stomach acid isn't very strong (or more properly, concentrated), in the scheme of things. Much of the work is done by enzymes, in conjunction with the acid. Furthermore, the acid is produced as needed. You don't walk around with half a litre of concentrated acid sloshing around. The acid is produced by special ce...	[ "The stomach itself is protected from the strong acid by the secretion of a thick mucus layer, and by secretin induced buffering with sodium bicarbonate. Heartburn or peptic ulcers can develop when these mechanisms fail. Drugs of the antihistaminic and proton pump inhibitor classes can inhibit the production of aci...
why does wine come in large bottles, while beer comes in cases of much smaller ones?	Probably because of the fizz. Suppose beer came in one big bottle. Then if you open one you would have to consume it all at one time because if you don't it will eventually go flat. Wine does not have this problem. Edit: Now this makes me wonder about champagne...	[ "In the United States, small bottles are most popular for the on-premises market, where they are sold by the bucketful. The motivation in the 1970s was to target lighter drinkers, and to ensure that the lager beer stayed cold until finished. The market for beer in small bottles is smaller than that in regular size ...
What do historians think of Mikhail Gorbachev? Was his leadership of the USSR's break-up viewed as a success or a failure?	> Was his leadership of the USSR's break-up viewed as a success or a failure? Gorbachev never wanted the Soviet Union to break-up, so the answer is neither.	[ "Despite his failures in domestic reforms, his foreign affairs and defence policies consolidated the position of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as a superpower. His popularity among the citizenry waned during his last years, and the Soviet people's belief in communism and Marxism–Leninism slowly wit...
The Royal Frankish Annals contain references to "Saracens" and "Moors". Is there a precise distinction between these two terms for the Franks?	I cannot comment on the Annals, but in the Song of Roland, it's clear from the text that the author has very little real knowledge of those the author calls Muslims. He makes all sorts of descriptive mistakes that a person with even passing familiarity would not make (For example, Muslims are extremely monotheistic, ye...	[ "The Historia Francorum Senonensis (\"History of the Franks of Sens\") is a short anonymous Latin chronicle of the Frankish kings from 688 down to 1015. It was written at Sens before 1034 and is hostile towards the Capetian dynasty that had taken the throne of West Francia in 987. It was a popular text, widely used...
why do bodies of water (e.g. oceans, lakes etc...) do not sink into the ground that they are surrounded by.	The ground can only absorb so much water before it is saturated. If you pour water onto the soil it will percolate down until it reaches the bedrock, but once it gets there it has nowhere to go. That means, if you go deep enough down you'll reach a level where the soil is saturated with water and no more can be absorbe...	[ "The sea is largely affected by the inflow of numerous rivers, which bring sand, silt, and shells, which in turn form numerous bays, limans, and narrow spits. Because of these deposits, the sea bottom is relatively smooth and flat with the depth gradually increasing toward the middle. Also, due to the river inflow,...
How do historians draw general "rules" or find trends in empires, such as Rome and Britain, that can be indicators of rise, or even decline and imminent fall?	There are many models that seek to plot the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of empires, but perhaps the best-known at present is the one set out by the British historian Paul Kennedy in his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987). Kennedy's book does not cover the Roman empire, but does consider the B...	[ "ii) Historicists are bad at imagining conditions under which an identified trend ceases. Historical generalisations may be reduced to a set of laws of higher generality (i.e. one could say that history depends upon psychology). However, in order to form predictions from these generalisations we also need specific ...
why does the us have so many federal law enforcement agencies, many with overlapping objectives instead of having just one or two for all crimes?	Lawyer and former state-level prosecutor here, How: That's the way history happened. The Federal Gov't has limited power, and didn't really do much in the early years, e.g., under Pres. Washington. Each time a need for a specific task would arise, say to investigate counterfeiting, a new police force would be born!...	[ "At the federal level, there exists both federal police, who possess full federal authority as given to them under United States Code (U.S.C.), and federal law enforcement agencies, who are authorized to enforce various laws at the federal level. Both police and law enforcement agencies operate at the highest level...
how come only some parts of a city highway have streetlights?	They go in at intersections, interchanges, and other higher traffic volume areas, to make lane changes and merging safer. It's not worth the cost to light all parts of every freeway. Plus, highway lights damage crops, so their use is discouraged in rural areas.	[ "“Road lighting”, as distinct from \"street lighting\", encompasses the lighting of all types of highway, public maintainable streets and roads. “Street lighting” is term-specific to “streets” – that is: to highways allowing direct access to buildings or spaces in built-up areas.\n", "Street Lights are used to li...
Is there an evolutionary advantage to having a good singing voice?	I think a valid point to be raised here is that however you choose to define a gene in evolutionary terms, selection is acting on genes, not necessarily on thier observed modern phenotype. The genetic influence on a good singing voice - as we define a good singing voice in modern society - could be an enormous range of...	[ "Historically, species have been classified into the binary categories of vocal learner or vocal non-learner based on their ability to produce novel vocalizations or imitate other species, with evidence from social isolation, deafening studies, and cross-fostering experiments. However, vocal learners exhibit a grea...
Can only gravity slow down a spacecraft?	You can do the gravity assist in reverse to get rid of speed. This has been done by many probes travelling to inner solar system. I wrote a fairly lengthy [response](_URL_0_) to a gravity assist question here a little while ago.	[ "Linear acceleration, even at a low level, can provide sufficient g-force to provide useful benefits. A spacecraft under constant acceleration in a straight line would give the appearance of a gravitational pull in the direction opposite of the acceleration. This \"pull\" that would cause a loose object to \"fall\"...
why is the "t-pose" the default pose used when animating 3d models? why is this pose easier to work with then others?	The "T-Pose" isn't easier to animate with, the reason it was used it because it kept joints in the body away from other joints in the body (ie the upper arm bone, or humerus, is a good distance away from the spine bone, etc). This was useful for a couple reasons. For motion capture it allowed you to determine bone po...	[ "Pose to pose is a term used in animation, for creating key poses for characters and then inbetweening them in intermediate frames to make the character appear to move from one pose to the next. Pose-to-pose is used in traditional animation as well as computer-based 3D animation. The opposite concept is straight ah...
How do anti-inflammatories work exactly?	In inflammation, an enzyme called COX2 is upregulated which increases the production of prostoglandins that have a number of functions, among which binding to receptors on nerves that then causes the perception of pain and can induce fever. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) block the COX2 enzyme and the pr...	[ "Anti-inflammatories need to be administered as quickly as possible as the effect of these drugs can diminish even just an hour after meconium aspiration. For example, early administration of dexamethasone significantly enhanced gas exchange, reduced ventilatory pressures, decreased the number of neutrophils in the...
How much is actually known about Rurik, the legendary Varangian founder of Russia?	> Did he really exist? The answer, as you might suspect, is that it is unclear. Our earliest surviving reference to Rurik comes from the Russian Primary Chronicle which was compiled by Russian monks between 1037 AD and 1118 AD. However, according to the chronicle, Rurik enters history when he devastates the settle...	[ "The Rurik dynasty, or Rurikids (; ; , literally \"sons of Rurik\"), was a dynasty founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who established himself in Novgorod around the year AD 862. The Rurikids were the ruling dynasty of Kievan Rus' (after 882), as well as the successor principalities of Galicia-Volhynia (after 11...
Why is the dutch colonial legacy in Indonesia so much more muted than the colonial legacy of other powers?	If we are going to talk about the Dutch language and culture in the former Dutch East Indies, we have to also talk about how the Indonesian language came to be the national language and how it came to be the dominant first language today. This is instructive because it recalls the DEI's colonial policy in the early par...	[ "For most of the Dutch East Indies history, and that of the VOC before it, Dutch control over their territories was often tenuous, but was expanded over the course of the 19th century. Only in the early 20th century did Dutch dominance extend to what was to become the boundaries of modern-day Indonesia. Although hi...
History and thought process behind Seppuku	There were a variety of motives to committ seppuku. In general, seppuku is an elite practice, restricted to the samurai class and their families (on a side note, this is what makes the battlefield suicides of ordinary Japanese soldiers in the 1930s and 1940s so remarkable, since the values of a bygone elite had bee...	[ "\"Pachinko\" takes place between the years of 1910 and 1989, a period that included the Japanese occupation of Korea and World War II. As an historical novel, these events play a central role in \"Pachinko\", influencing the characters' decisions like Sunja’s moving to Japan.\n", "The origins of shakudo date bac...
why japanese people have problems with l/r letters?	Hi, I'm a linguist!! The reason is that in Japanese, these two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme. An Allophone is the actual physical thing that your mouth does when you make a sound. A Phoneme is the mental representation of that sound in your head. In Japanese, the phoneme /l/ is realized as [l] or [ɹ], ...	[ "Due to the difficulties that Japanese have in distinguishing \"l\" and \"r\", this expansion of Japanese phonology has not extended to inventing different kana for /l/ vs. /r/. Therefore, words with /l/ or /r/ may be spelled identically if borrowed into Japanese. One important exception is due to the fact that Jap...
if black friday is all positive revenue why don't they do deals and stuff more often than once a year?	Deals and discounts are usually done for two reasons. 1. To get rid of any long standing inventory to free-up room for new orders 2. In anticipation of high volumes of demand (surge in amount of customers) When demand is expected to be extremely high, companies can afford to mark down items and offer sales, the mini...	[ "Black Friday is one of the times that people feel they need to buy some stuff because, in this season, many stores offer huge discounts. Creating the mood of shopping that people spend a lot of money is coming from making a sense of urgency that many businesses use. Many companies emphasize Thanksgiving with the b...
why do people in movies/tv make giant slices across their palms for drawing blood (instead of elsewhere) and then go about their business with no discussion of the giant cut across their palm?	Please read this entire message --- Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): * Discussion of fiction, gaming, fantasy, etc. are not allowed on ELI5 (Rule 2). --- If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](_URL_1_) first. If you still feel the removal shoul...	[ "Luma contributed the film's blood and gore using practical footage as well as digital effects for more complex scenes. When Deadpool cuts off his own hand, DD did not want to be \"outdone\" by Luma and had \"buckets of blood pouring out\". Luma created the regrowing hand, inspired by the hand of a fetus. When Dead...
how does gyroscopic stability work on a tanks main gun.	Gyroscopic sensors detect movement of the tank in 3 dimensions. Computers convert that information into movement of the tank barrel, and signal hydraulic systems to move the gun in the opposite direction. The system can't compensate for linear movement (the straight up and down component, as opposed to rotation), so i...	[ "The Sherman, like its M3 predecessor, was one of the first tanks to feature a gyroscopically stabilized gun and sight. The stabilization was only in the vertical plane, as the mechanism could not slew the turret. The stabilizer was sufficient to keep the gun's elevation setting within 1/8th of a degree, or 2 mils ...
why are some cities 'twinned' with eachother? what does it mean for cities to be 'sister cities'?	Wow! Something I can actually answer. I do a lot of translation work for news articles and documents for this in China, so my scope will be limited to China and some of its own cities and their sister cities. The sister city program is a way for smaller cities (usually not Tier 1, which was a lot less until a few week...	[ "Sister cities, known in Europe as town twins, are cities which partner with each other to promote human contact and cultural links, although this partnering is not limited to cities and often includes counties, regions, states and other sub-national entities.\n", "Twin towns and sister cities are cooperative agr...
central banking	That sums up most of it, I just think the debate on these liabilities has abated, since the housing sector has stabilized. The assets were a hot potato, but it has since been cooled.	[ "Central banking has made various institutional appearances throughout the history of the United States. These institutions started with the First and Second banks of the United States, which were championed in large part by Alexander Hamilton.\n", "and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a c...
why do prosecutors go for maximum punishment even when they know they shouldn't?	The defense will fight their hardest to get the lowest penalty they can. So if the prosecution pushes for a "fair" punishment, the defense will likely bring that down to a lighter punishment - in other words, one that is not enough. But if the prosecution pushes for maximum punishment, and the defense pushes for mi...	[ "Prosecutors should never go ahead with more charges than are necessary just to encourage a defendant to plead guilty to a few. In the same way, they should never go ahead with a more serious charge just to encourage a defendant to plead guilty to a less serious one.\n", "Even when the charges are more serious, p...
how do we detect light when our eyes are closed?	Closing your eyes doesn't shut off your eyeballs. Light can still go through your skin. For proof take a small flashlight and push it against one of your fingers. Your finger will seem to glow	[ "Light detection (photosensitivity) is present in organisms as simple as seaweeds; the definition of a true eye varies, but in general eyes must have directional sensitivity, and thus have screening pigments so only light from the target direction is detected. Thus defined, they need not consist of more than one ph...
how does the word rem (rapid eye movement) have anything to do with sleeping?	REM is a stage of sleep during which your eyes literally move rapidly under closed lids. Eyes can move rapidly any time, of course, but the term REM is associated with sleep because that name was given specifically to that stage of sleep.	[ "BULLET::::- Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. REM sleep is classified into two categories: tonic and phasic. The phenomenon of REM sleep and its association with dreaming was discovered by Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman with assistance ...
whats the difference between key and push-to-start engines ? why do expensive/luxury rides have push-to-start engines ?	Up until the 1990s or so, most cars used keyed ignition locks, where the physical match of the key and the lock allowed the car to be started. If the key matched the lock, the key could turn and activate the ignition and start switches. To make this more secure, car manufacturers started trying other stuff like putti...	[ "Early experimentation with pull-through systems began by removing sources of high-pressure drop, such as tower dryers. This not only allowed for much higher air volumes, but it eliminated the need for the push fans, making use of more efficient and more powerful fans on the pull side only.\n", "Push starting is ...
how do rental car companies make most of their money?	Because most people don't drive anywhere near that much. Wear an tear on most cars can be estimated at 50 cents per mile. At $11/day (I've never seen prices that low, but whatever) if you drive less than 20 miles per day, you made them money. Then there are things like insurance that many people buy, which has a muc...	[ "Car rental companies operate by purchasing or leasing a number of fleet vehicles and renting them to their customers for a fee. Rental fleets can be structured in several ways – they can be owned outright (these are known as ‘risk vehicles’ because the car rental operator is taking a risk on how much the vehicle w...
What is it about the triple bond in nitrogen molecules that makes it so inert?	In terms of bond energies, triple bonds have a higher energy than double bond, which is in turn higher than single bonds. This tells us that triple bonds _require_ more energy to break. On that basis alone, you might think that triple bonds are inherently less reactive. However, when talking about _reactivity_, you ca...	[ "Given the great reactivity of atomic nitrogen, elemental nitrogen usually occurs as molecular N, dinitrogen. This molecule is a colourless, odourless, and tasteless diamagnetic gas at standard conditions: it melts at −210 °C and boils at −196 °C. Dinitrogen is mostly unreactive at room temperature, but it will nev...
liberal, conservative, left-wing and right-wing	Great question! :) Here's the technical definition * "Liberal" refers to a diverse group of philosophers from the 1700-1800s, including Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill. They differed on a lot of things, but all agreed on 1) absolute monarchy is bad, 2) state religion is bad, and 3) there s...	[ "The spectrum of left-wing politics ranges from center-left to far-left (or ultra-left). The term center-left describes a position within the political mainstream. The terms far-left and ultra-left refer to positions that are more radical. The center-left includes social democrats, social liberals, progressives and...
how does the extinction of the northern white rhino actually impacts the planet?	Going from three individuals to zero isn't going to make a difference now, that ship already sailed when the species' numbers collapsed years ago. The issue is that the habitat destruction and poaching that killed the white rhino will continue to wipe out species and alter ecosystems long after the last one dies. The...	[ "The species is inherently at risk because over 70% of its population occurs at a single site, Kaziranga National Park. Any catastrophic event such as disease, civil disorder, poaching, or habitat loss would have a devastating impact on the Indian rhino's status. However, small population of rhinos may be prone to ...
the probability of an event happening in a specific moment.	The probability of a specific time is, in fact, zero. But here's the quinky dink: zero probability does not mean impossible, and you've stumbled onto a pretty classic demonstration of why. The problem is that probability is only required to add up for certain "nice" kinds of events. If your number of events a large ...	[ "In probability theory, one says that an event happens almost surely (sometimes abbreviated as a.s.) if it happens with probability one. In other words, the set of possible exceptions may be non-empty, but it has probability zero. The concept is precisely the same as the concept of \"almost everywhere\" in measure ...
if we want to increase the value of a currency, why don't we just stop printing that currency?	The amount of physical currency in circulation is pretty small compared to the amount of non-physical currency Printing currency is really about keeping an adequate supply of it in the marketplace, bills and currency run out, get destroyed, etc. And with a bit of inflation every year, we always need more currency. Sto...	[ "When a currency rises higher than monetary authorities might like (making exports less competitive internationally), it is usually considered relatively easy for an independent central bank to counter this. By buying foreign currency or foreign financial assets (usually other governments' bonds), the central bank ...
what happens if i do not tip in the us?	Nothing. If they provide horrible service. Then don't tip. It's not a requirement to leave gratuity.	[ "BULLET::::- Tipping is not expected and some employees may not understand the gesture and return the money. Some employees are forbidden from accepting gratuities (this is mainly in positions of authority e.g. in a casino one cannot tip the dealer or a security guard however, this would not apply in a formal resta...
How did early Texas ranches feed their cattle through the winter?	Really interesting question here, and it made me want to learn more. In 1850, the U.S. Commissioner of Patents (the Department of Agriculture was not created until 1862) [posted a fascinating report from a rancher in northeast Texas](_URL_0_), who reported, "Cattle require no feeding. In spring and summer, the grass up...	[ "Prior to the mid-19th century, most ranchers primarily raised cattle for their own needs and to sell surplus meat and hides locally. There was also a limited market for hides, horns, hooves, and tallow in assorted manufacturing processes. While Texas contained vast herds of stray, free-ranging cattle available for...
why aren't jobs generally rewarded based on their required effort?	I used to feel this way, but as I've progressed through the career ladder of my life, from factory machinist -- > factory floor supervisor -- > office sales -- > graphic designer -- > art director -- > visual department director, I've come to realize that pay is (in most cases but obviously not all) more accuratel...	[ "This argument has been criticized as fallacious from a number of different angles. The first problem is that they posit rewards as a guarantee of performance, when rewards are supposed to be \"based on\" merit in their argument. It is argued that if abilities were inherent, there would be no need of a reward syste...
why do so many americans take prescription drugs?	Because most prescription medications improve quality of life, and the people taking them can afford to do so.	[ "Many US citizens purchase prescription drugs from Canada, either over the Internet or by traveling there to buy them in person, because prescription drug prices in Canada are substantially lower than prescription drug prices in the United States; this cross-border purchasing has been estimated at $1 billion annual...
During the early 1800s was there a certain type of abolitionist who believed that slavery should be outlawed in the North but allowed in the south?	I've never heard of such a thing. For the early 1800s, we should use the word "emancipationist" instead of "abolitionist." Abolitionists wanted the immediate, uncompensated end of slavery. They didn't really emerge until the 1830s with William Lloyd Garrison. Emancipationists desired a more gradual or gentle end to sla...	[ "The central issue after 1848 was the expansion of slavery, pitting the anti-slavery elements in the North, against the pro-slavery elements that dominated the South. A small number of active Northerners were abolitionists who declared that ownership of slaves was a sin (in terms of Protestant theology) and demande...
how can nerves be reconnected, but not repaired?	It's like a wire. You can kinda splice the nerves back together, but you can't run new wire to places where the old stuff died. But, you say, nerves are so complex! How do they put them back together exactly right? They actually don't. The brain just re-learns what the input means.	[ "When nerve repair cannot be performed without tension, nerve grafting can be used and is considered the most suitable treatment of peripheral nerve injuries, injuries to nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord. Nerve grafts are used to avoid tension at the proximal and distal ends, to reduce the likelihood of ...
why is toys r us the company responsible for the debt required to buy itself out?	That's how leverages buy outs work. The debt is on the company and secured by the assets of the company. Rates are higher but lower risk for investors since they are limited to losing their equity investment.	[ "On September 18, 2017, Toys \"R\" Us, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating the move would give it flexibility to deal with $5 billion in long-term debt, borrow $2 billion so it can pay suppliers for the upcoming holiday season and invest in improving current operations.\n", "On September 18, 2017, Toys ...

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