Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
how does a mechanical keyboard improve typing speed?	Tactile feedback is improved, resulting in less missed keys, AND key actuation rate (the speed at which the keys move up and down) is greatly improved, resulting in a more fluid key movement, which can contribute quite a bit to speed.	[ "Typing speed generally improves with practice. While practicing, it is important to ensure that there are no weak keys. Typing speed is typically determined by how slow these weak keys are typed rather than how fast the remaining keys are typed. If a stage is reached where irrespective of the amount of practice, t...
When did depictions of Hindu gods begin having more than two arms?	The Vedas actually are fairly aniconic, and so the depiction of what we call today the Hindu gods was relatively late, not until the early centuries CE with he development of so-called Puranic or Shramanic Hinduism. This in turn was probably a result of influence from Buddhism, which in turn may have been taking cues...	[ "In Hindu, Buddhist and Egyptian iconography the symbol of the arm is used to illustrate the power of the sovereign. In Hindu tradition gods are depicted with several arms which carry specific symbols of their powers. It is believed that several arms depict omnipotence of gods. \n", "Many of the ancient Shiva scu...
if you are traveling faster than the speed of sound and you turn to say something to you friend, will they hear it ?	If the air inside is still (meaning you're travelling in a pressurized cabin and the air is travelling with you) then yes, your friend will hear you. This does not count as going faster than the speed of sound because the speed of sound in measured relatively to the air that the sound crosses (inside the cabin), not t...	[ "A simple example concerns the model on which aether was originally built: sound. The speed of propagation for mechanical waves, the speed of sound, is defined by the mechanical properties of the medium. Sound travels 4.3 times faster in water than in air. This explains why a person hearing an explosion underwater ...
why is there an attendance policy for many classes in college when i'm the one paying for the classes?	Being the customer does not entitle you to dictate the nature of the product - all it entitles you to is the choice whether or not to purchase said product. The professor, as the provider of said product, retain the ability to dictate what type of service they will provide and how that service will be provided. In th...	[ "Some online classes also provide experience in a class, so that when people take them, they have already been introduced to the subject and know what to expect, and even more classes provide High School/College credit allowing people to take the classes at their own pace. Many online classes cost money to take but...
why do american cargo trucks have the engine sticking out in front of the driver whereas european trucks have the engine below the driver?	US laws have maximum trailer restrictions, EU has total length restrictions so it makes sense to have as short of a prime mover as possible so you can have a longer trailer.	[ "Engines are now typically mounted behind the driver on most trucks and are typically supercharged, run on a methanol alcohol and corn-based oil fuel, and have displacement of up to 575 cubic inches (9.42 L). Axles are mostly taken from either heavy-duty military trucks or road vehicles such as school buses, and ar...
Monday Methods: Who we are is defined by who we aren't – Edward Said and Orientalism	It is really striking just how much of our understanding of history and culture is shaped by this particular form of colonialist self-definition. My field, for one, thrives on Orientalism, and trying to let go of this worldview involves giving up a lot of the things we think we know. The Greeks, of course, were the ea...	[ "Since the 19th century, \"orientalist\" has been the traditional term for a scholar of Oriental studies; however, the use in English of \"Orientalism\" to describe academic \"Oriental studies\" is rare: the \"Oxford English Dictionary\" cites only one such usage, by Lord Byron in 1812. Orientalism is more widely u...
What were students in the Soviet Union taught about other forms of socialism, particularly Maoism and Trotskyism?	To piggy back off of your question... Was Gramsci ever taught to Soviets? I can see how Gramsci might be considered particularly unpalatable to the Soviet system, so I would be shocked if the answer was "Yes."	[ "Education in the communist states included a considerable amount of indoctrination, both in special political and philosophical courses and in properly crafted courses of general education: history, geography, world literature, etc. Soviet ideology was taught in the Soviet Union divided into three disciplines: sci...
what will they do with the royals world series champions shirts?	At least some of the time, those kinds of products get donated to places like the really poor parts of third-world countries. There's some great pictures floating around the internet of rural African kids wearing championship shirts from a team that didn't actually win.	[ "The Kansas City Royals have honored the Monarchs by wearing replica uniforms during regular-season baseball games on several occasions, including July 14, 2001 (at Pittsburgh), July 1, 2007 and May 30, 2009 (at home vs. White Sox), June 9, 2012 (at Pittsburgh), July 21, 2012 and June 23, 2019(both at home vs. Minn...
how does my body let out a fart and not also all my stools, even when watery?	Psh, speak for yourself. If mine is "watery" it's like an air powered paint grenade.	[ "Symptoms include tenesmus (the sensation of incomplete emptying of the rectum after defecation has occurred) and constipation. Retention of stool may result in fecal loading (retention of a mass of stool of any consistency) or fecal impaction (retention of a mass of hard stool). This mass may stretch the walls of ...
What are the interrelationships between tool-steel metallurgical properties?	The website explains it in the following paragraphs, perhaps not that well: _URL_0_ The choices are low-carbon steel, high-carbon steel, and alloy (stainless) steel. The authors may be overgeneralizing, because there are many, many different alloys of steel. The following is generally true: Carbon steels are easie...	[ "Tool steel refers to a variety of carbon and alloy steels that are particularly well-suited to be made into tools. Their suitability comes from their distinctive hardness, resistance to abrasion and deformation, and their ability to hold a cutting edge at elevated temperatures. As a result, tool steels are suited ...
When they were independent, how were Duchies, Principalities and Marquisates effectively different than kingdoms? If you were monarch of a sovereign state, why wouldn't you call yourself a king?	Fully independent happened very rarely - at least in theory, they were vassal to someone, and even if they fought that off, the theoretical liege lord could at any time with the approval of the papacy, the emperor and other lords come stomping to bring you in line. Many of these states would be within the Holy Roman E...	[ "Traditionally, a grand duchy, such as Luxembourg or Tuscany (1569–1860), was generally independent and sovereign. There were also many sovereign or semi-sovereign duchies in the \"de facto\" confederate Holy Roman Empire (961–1806) and German-speaking areas.\n", "Not all feudal states or monarchies were/are rule...
why in grade school i used 30+ year old textbooks, but in college textbooks last one semester?	I have no proof of this...but I have a feeling it boils down to money disguised as publishers keeping information up to date. Although I don't think that is every case. Books are business. They need to make a buck somehow. Also, I was an English major in college and I saw "updates" in books that were ridiculous (e....	[ "While textbooks are issued to students, they were not used quite as often as in traditional schools. This was caused by both a shortage on funding, and other resources phasing them out. Students still studied the state's/district's curriculum, but in more advanced and interesting ways. This has turned out to be su...
how do lungs control breathing rate?	You have a muscle called the diaphragm which actually does the work. _URL_0_ As it contracts, it "opens" your lungs so they take in air.	[ "The lungs are not capable of expanding to breathe on their own, and will only do so when there is an increase in the volume of the thoracic cavity. This is achieved by the muscles of respiration, through the contraction of the diaphragm, and the intercostal muscles which pull the rib cage upwards as shown in the d...
what is imax and how is it better than normal cinema screens?	Normal film shoots on 35mm film, while IMAX film shoots on 70mm film. Larger film means that you can enlarge the picture way beyond a normal screen size without losing picture quality. Basically, you can keep the picture quality pristine on those massive screens because the film itself is much larger.	[ "IMAX is a system using film with more than ten times the frame size of a 35 mm film to produce image quality far superior to conventional film. IMAX theaters use an oversized screen as well as special projectors. Invented by a Canadian company, the first permanent IMAX theater was at Ontario Place in Toronto, Cana...
Do some snowflakes have depth to them?	All snowflakes have depth to them. [Though some are more "three-dimensional than others](_URL_0_).	[ "BULLET::::- \"Depth hoar\" — Depth hoar comprises faceted snow crystals, usually poorly or completely unbonded (unsintered) to adjacent crystals, creating a weak zone in the snowpack. Depth hoar forms from metamorphism of the snowpack in response to a large temperature gradient between the warmer ground beneath th...
How are the receptor sites on synapses cleared or cleaned?	There are several ways. * Some neurotransmitters are just pumped back into the presynaptic cell. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors partially block the reuptake of serotonin, for instance, letting it sit in the synapse and perisynaptic space longer. * Some neurotransmitters are also cleared by astrocytes, which ...	[ "These receptor proteins are typically composed of at least two different domains: a transmembrane domain which includes the ion pore, and an extracellular domain which includes the ligand binding location (an allosteric binding site). This modularity has enabled a 'divide and conquer' approach to finding the struc...
. why are some people born not as smart as others, not accounting for mental disabilities?	It actually isn't clear that anyone is born more or less smart than someone else. At least not significantly so. "Smartness" is enormously affected by education, and people have a huge range of different educational experiences.	[ "Fortunately for people who display difficulty relating to others, social skills can be learned, as they are not simply inherent to an individual's personality or disposition. Therefore, there is hope for anyone who wishes to improve their social skills, including those with psychosocial or neurological disorders. ...
Why did Japan never adopt the crossbow?	I would note at the outset that there are some mentions of the crossbow in Japanese history. Just google 'oyumi' for some background information. It is, however, correct to note that their usage is vastly less prevalent than in China. Compared to the Chinese, the Japanese would have had logistical problems in produc...	[ "According to Japanese records, the Oyumi was different from the hand held crossbow also in use during the same time period. This quote from a seventh-century source seems to suggest that the Oyumi may have able to fire multiple arrows at once \"the Oyumi were lined up and fired at random, the arrows fell like rain...
why don't women catcall men?	Women are not encouraged to express their sexuality in the same way as men in our culture. Women actually having lots of sex or otherwise finding too many men attractive is frowned upon (the term "slut shaming" is used to describe this).	[ "The women being there only for mechanical reasons creates a dichotomy that connects women to their bodies, while men are more connected with their head. Men are delivering these babies and are thus in control of the situation.\n", "Men often dominate conversations in public, even where they know less about a sub...
Why was obsidian so valuable to prehistoric peoples?	Obsidian can be used to make sharp cutting tools. It is a hard stone to work, but the thin flakes can be shaped and turned into very effective knives. It is more brittle than metal, but it keeps its cutting edge longer. Obsidian is so sharp, it was used to make surgic...	[ "Obsidian is a naturally formed volcanic glass that was an important part of the material culture of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Obsidian was a highly integrated part of daily and ritual life, and its widespread and varied use may be a significant contributor to Mesoamerica's lack of metallurgy. Lithic and contextua...
Are there any documented cases of evolution where there has been speciation?	[Ring species](_URL_1_) are great examples of speciation in progress right now. [Wikipedia: Speciation](_URL_0_) also gives examples of observed speciation.	[ "It has been suggested that this taxon may have arisen in the Early Cretaceous (more than one hundred million years ago) and so there may be other explanatory models for mammalian evolution beside an explosive radiation from a single surviving lineage following the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction of the Mesozoic me...
why does grammar seem to be less important in spoken language than in written language.	Because writing is seen as more formal than speaking. Why does formality matter? Basically, in a society you have multiple people speaking multiple different dialects, each with their own grammar rules (for example, in the US we have General American English, African American English, Hawaii Creole English, Southern ...	[ "Because grammar is less easily borrowed than words, grammar is usually considered stronger evidence for language relationships than vocabulary. The following correspondences (slightly modified to account for the reconstruction of Proto-Altaic by Starostin et al. [2003]) have been suggested by Kaiser and Shevoroshk...
Is walking to work more polluting than driving?	You're probably still going to eat that food whether you walk to work or not. But now there is the elimination of the pollution from your vehicle, which is to be factored out of the equation. If you're concerned about your food choices and the amount they increase your carbon footprint, then you should look into buying...	[ "Car-free walking was created to encourage walkers to use public transport rather than using cars to reach the start of a walk. This is to reduce the number of cars in the countryside, particularly in National Parks, which can cause congestion and inappropriate parking. It is also to support bus and train services ...
if both parties agree gerrymandering is bad and accusing the other side of the aisle, what is truly preventing gerrymandering from being outlawed?	Gerrymandering is only bad for one party, and it's great for the other. So despite both parties agreeing that it can be bad, they also know they can benefit greatly from it. The benefit for them outweighs the detriment, no matter how much they want to whine about how bad it is to appease to voters. After all, they migh...	[ "Gerrymandering is most likely to emerge, in majoritarian systems, where the country is divided into several voting districts and the candidate with the most votes wins the district. If the ruling party is in charge of drawing the district lines, it can abuse the fact that in a majoritarian system all votes that do...
What makes air smell "fresh"?	could it just be the absence of other scents?	[ "Air fresheners introduce fragrance into the air of interior spaces either as droplets which transition to vapor, or as the molecules of fragrance ingredients directly evaporating from a source. Fragrance diffuses into the air to mask other odors or to introduce a specific odor.\n", "Some air fresheners contain c...
Did Coca-Cola really create the current image of Santa Claus?	Thanks to /u/Subs-man for summoning me with confidence that may or may not be warranted. Cultural icons like Santa Claus naturally attract a great deal of attention, and anyone who asserts that they found the "real source" of this sort of thing will confront agitated readers and also opponents who will maintain that t...	[ "Coca-Cola's advertising has significantly affected American culture, and it is frequently credited with inventing the modern image of Santa Claus as an old man in a red-and-white suit. Although the company did start using the red-and-white Santa image in the 1930s, with its winter advertising campaigns illustrated...
why isn't french a lingua franca anymore?	It is a Lingua Franca, in much of Africa, and in several parts of the middle east. It's also an extremely popular second (third, fourth, fifth) language in other parts of the world. The reason English has become so popular is because it's so pervasive. We have products shipping all over the world, jam-packed with ...	[ "As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to the Americas, Africa, Polynesia, South-East Asia, as well as the Caribbean. French is the second most studied foreign language in the world after English, and is a lingua franca in some regions, notab...
How was land divvied out to settlers in the US during colonization? Was there ever a point where it was sold by the local or federal government?	Yes. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 is a prime example of this. Created by the Congress under the Articles of Confederation (precursor to the modern Constitution), the Ordinance handled the expansion of the states into the Northwest Territory comprised of what are today Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, an...	[ "In the United States, the earliest settlers claimed land by simply fencing it in. Later, as the American government formed, unsettled land became technically owned by the government and programs to register land ownership developed, usually making raw land available for low prices or for free, if the owner improve...
With a powerful telescope, is it possible to see the 'outline' of certain stars? Or are they all simply too far away for them to appear as anything else other than a point of light no matter the magnification?	[There are some stars that we can very roughly resolve](_URL_1_), e.g. [Mira (Hubble Space Telescope)](_URL_3_) or [Pi1_Gruis (Very Large Telescope)](_URL_2_). The limit for resolution comes from the [diffraction limit](_URL_4_). So for more and better resolution pictures of other stars we will need bigger telescopes....	[ "The astronomers use observations and data captured by the Spitzer Space Telescope and other telescopes to create a complete picture of the star forming regions within an approximately 1600 light-year radius centered on the Solar System. These regions are partly or completely clouded by interstellar dust and theref...
why are electric rails in public transportation unaffected by rain?	Even wet things have resistance. Put enough space between the voltage difference and there will be minimal current flow. Look at the insulators in overhead wires. The really high voltage ones are built in ripples to increase the distance between the high voltage and the ground even when wet.	[ "“Low adhesion” at the rail potentially causes damage to wheels and the rails. Typically, low adhesion conditions are associated with environmental causes arising from seasonal leaf fall, or industrial pollution. Occasionally the cause can be another less obvious factor such as light oxidation of the railhead or ev...
Why do we use operator precedence to eliminate ambiguity in math instead of simply "going left to right"?	It's because of the prevalence of coefficients and exponents on variables in algebra. For instance, take the expression 2x + 3y. If we were to use your way of going left to right, we would always have to put parentheses and make it look like 2x + (3y). Similarly, if we were to have the expression 4x^2 + 3x + 2, we w...	[ "In addition, because many operators are not associative, the order within any single level is usually defined by grouping left to right so that codice_15 is interpreted as rather than ; such operators are perhaps misleadingly referred to as \"left associative\". Exceptions exist; for example, languages with operat...
Why is the switch from IPv4 to IPv6 so difficult? What key principles are slowing migration to the new standard?	Network engineer here. Probably the biggest factor is that there isn't really a pressing need to change yet. Its true there are no new IPv4 space to hand out from Arin, but there's still plenty of space floating around. Secondly, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Meaning once you have a network up and working, don...	[ "An IPv6 transition mechanism is a technology that facilitates the transitioning of the Internet from the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) infrastructure in use since 1983 to the successor addressing and routing system of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). As IPv4 and IPv6 networks are not directly interoperable...
Stories about Germans fighting their way to allied lines to avoid soviet capture	There are many stories. A very good one is that of General Walther Wenck, commander of the 12th Army, which Hitler called on to break the siege of Berlin. After trying and seeing it impossible, Wenck pivoted his troops to the east to help the beleaguered 9th Army escape across the Elbe. Wenck was the youngest general i...	[ "For twelve days and nights they marched through the snow following the railway lines eastwards past Liegnitz and Breslau remaining at large longer than almost all of the escapers. On 6 April 1944, the Germans circulated \"wanted posters\" with their photographs and, just 2 miles from the Polish frontier, they were...
[Book Recommendation] Geopolitical history of Medival Europe	There have been a few attempts to apply IR theory to the Middle Ages, although I have to warn you it's not going to look like modern geopolitics in the sense of sovereign actors (states or otherwise) acting in their own interests. The general role of the Middle Ages in IR thought, at least recently, involves what the d...	[ "Pio Colonnello has privileged some themes of research: the investigation on authors and themes included between transcendental criticism and phenomenological thought (by Kant to Husserl); the reflections on the fundamentals problems of philosophy of existence and of contemporary hermeneutics (Heidegger, Jaspers, R...
why do torrents for tv shows come out within hours of the episode, but for movies it often takes weeks?	For TV shows, someone has the recording equipment and software all prepped and ready for the airing of the show. So all they have to do is record it, encode it, and create the torrent. In contrast, movies first show in a theater. Theaters have policies against recording, so whoever does it typically has to actually wor...	[ "Torrents-Time is a browser plugin that allows websites to have the same functionality as the popular Popcorn Time program, without requiring the client to download an application. Released 2 February 2016, sites such as The Pirate Bay and the now defunct KickassTorrents others supported the plugin within days, all...
i recently learned that the sun is actually further away from earth in the summer. how is it warmer during the summer, yet it’s farther away from us then in the winter?	The seasons are caused by the angle the light from the sun is hitting us at (and how long each day), which in turn comes from the Earth being tilted. In the summer, it's hitting the northern hemisphere more directly, so it heats up that region more. It's the opposite in the southern hemisphere (when it's summer in the ...	[ "BULLET::::- The distance from the Earth to the Sun varies. The Earth is closest to the Sun (at perihelion) in January, which is summer in the Southern Hemisphere. It is furthest away (at aphelion) in July, which is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and only 93.55% of the solar radiation from the Sun falls on a gi...
Does the brain send signals consistently to keep a muscle in the same state?	yes - you can think of muscles as huge bundles of motor units, which are small bundles of muscle cells. Each motor unit has its own motor neuron. When you raise one arm out to the side and are holding it there, your motor cortex is sending out a consistent stream of signals to keep that arm up. However, it requires ...	[ "In some areas of the brain, such as the hippocampus, neurons are arranged in such a way that they all receive synaptic inputs in the same area. Because these neurons are in the same orientation, the extracellular signals from the generation of action potentials don't cancel out, but rather add up to give a signal ...
How are strong acids neutralized by weak bases, and vice versa?	The terms strong and weak are generally used to describe the ability of an acid or base to react with water. Water is both a very weak base and a very weak acid. This means that an acid has to be pretty good at donating H^+ in order to completely react with water; on the base side, the base has to be pretty good at t...	[ "Weak bases exist in chemical equilibrium much in the same way as weak acids do, with a base dissociation constant (K) indicating the strength of the base. For example, when ammonia is put in water, the following equilibrium is set up:\n", "When a weak acid reacts with a weak base, the equivalence point solution ...
whats the difference between being passive aggressive and sarcastic.	Passive-aggressive behavior is a way of expressing hostility in an indirect way, so it can be denied when confronted. It can manifest itself in a variety of ways. You might intentionally forget something important in retaliation for someone genuinely forgetting something, then try to subtlely link them together. Or ...	[ "Murphy and Oberlin also see passive aggression as part of a larger umbrella of hidden anger stemming from ten traits of the angry child or adult. These traits include making one's own misery, the inability to analyze problems, blaming others, turning bad feelings into angry ones, attacking people, lacking empathy,...
Before the columbian exchange why weren't the Native Americans as interconnected as the europeans? Would that not of helped them advance in technology?	Hello, I am someone who went to school for archaeology in the US and has done archaeological field work. My specialty is the American SW, but I do have a general educational background. I'd like to say that answering this question is difficult is because of how vague it is. Which American-Indians were less interconnec...	[ "Here the Columbian Exchange occurred two thousand years early, when a Carthaginian fleet was blown across the Atlantic to discover the New World. This premature contact gave the Native American civilizations time to recover from the shock of new diseases and adopt the newcomers' technology; in addition, the early ...
Why are there no pictures of China's famine during the Great Leap Forward from 1958-1961?	The lack of pictures is related to the fact that officials were covering up the existence of the famine from upper government officials and foreign visitors as long as they could. Now, there is written description as well as numerous witness accounts of famine victims dying from starvation. Here are some excerpts o...	[ "The Great Leap Forward in China in 1958 corresponded closely with the myth of superabundance; economic planners reduced the acreage space for planting wheat and grains, trying to force farmers and agricultural labourers into accepting new forms of industry. As a result, production of wheat and grain was slowed dan...
photosynthesis.	I'm just going to throw the complicated equation out there and break it down piece by piece. 6CO_2_ + 6 H_2_O + sunlight ==== > C_6_H_12_O_6_ + 6O_2_ Chemically this describes the process of photosynthesis, now the ELI5: The first thing is carbon dioxide (literally 1 carbon, 2 oxygens). Second is water...	[ "Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that can later be released to fuel the organisms' activities. This chemical energy is stored in carbohydrate molecules, such as sugars, which are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water – hence the name \"...
why do you feel distress in the heart region when you think about something emotionally painful? why there and not in any other part of the body?	The neurological process involved in the perception of heartache is not known, but is thought to involve the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, which during stress may overstimulate the vagus nerve causing pain, nausea or muscle tightness in the chest. source: _URL_0_	[ "The neurological process involved in the perception of heartache is not known, but is thought to involve the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, which during stress may overstimulate the vagus nerve causing pain, nausea or muscle tightness in the chest. Research by Naomi Eisenberger and Matthew Lieberman of th...
Does my phone weigh more when it's charged?	Yes, the total mass will increase by a tiny tiny tiny bit upon charging due to the additional electrochemical energy pumped into the battery. Counter-intuitive though this may seem, [the mass-energy equivalence principle](_URL_0_) is nevertheless very much real and adding energy to a system will increase its apparent m...	[ "Load cell will produce a small electric current when weight is applied. The electric current is sent to Digital Weight Indicator via a normal cable. The Digital Weight Indicator will amplify the electric current and translate it to digital weight. Example: 15.7 kg\n", "However, Luke Hopewell from Gizmodo Austral...
What limitations does lacking a language place on the human brain's ability to think logically/reason?	Being deaf is not the same as not knowing a language. Could you clarify your question a bit more?	[ "There is a spectrum of opinions on the role of language in cognition. At one extreme, philosophers like Michael Dummett have argued that thought is impossible in the absence of language; and social scientists influenced by Benjamin Whorf have believed that the natural languages that people grow up speaking will ha...
why do i sometimes get an eyelash type hair on my arms?	Chances are you have a lot of melanin in that specific follicle and it makes your hair darker, it usually happens on or around moles and freckles.	[ "An eyelash curler is a good makeup kit tool because it gives the illusion of bigger and brighter eyes and helps lengthen the eyelashes. When it is applied using different tactics such going heavier on the outer corner eyelashes, it gives a different and well-defined shape to the eyes. It is easy to use without pro...
How true is the assertion that the culture of the Roman Empire was much more martial and militaristic compared to the Han Chinese Empire?	Well the Roman military was generally more central to the political organization of the Empire and in many ways to society at large, but that is really more of an institutional matter. I'm not certain that comparing rates of "militarism" is something we can do, or even if it is something worth doing. Can you define "mi...	[ "Several scholars have made comparative studies of the two empires. As historian Samuel Adshead puts it, \"Other comparisons could be made ... None, however, offers so close a parallel with Han China as the Roman empire\". These have tended to focus on the philosophical and intellectual histories of China and the G...
Opinions on "They Came Before Columbus" by Dr. Ivan Sertima	I've written previously on van Sertima [here](_URL_1_), covering a lot of the topics in the book. This Current Anthropology [article](_URL_2_)also goes into further detail on some notable claims in the books]. Recent genetic research shows [no evidence](_URL_0_) of admixture with Africans among Native Americans. This...	[ "Columbus's letter (particularly the Latin edition) forged the initial public perception of the newly discovered lands. Indeed, until the discovery of Columbus's on-board journal, first published in the 19th century, this letter was the only known direct testimony by Columbus of his experiences on the first voyage ...
How was the War of 1812 related to the Napoleonic Wars?	Well, basically, one of the big causes of the war (How important it was depends on who you ask or read, though!) was Britain's impressment of American sailors from American ships. They were doing this because trained sailors were a valuable commodity, and the Royal Navy needed every one it could get in order to keep up...	[ "The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European powers formed into various coalitions, financed and usually led by the United Kingdom. The wars stemmed from the unresolved disputes associated with ...
; i heard that the president of the us needs permission from congress to go to war, but i also heard that the president has nuclear launch codes and if he gives the order to attack it must be followed. wtf!?	The Constitution states that Congress has the power to declare war. However, Congress has given the president the power to use military force for short periods of time where US interests are concerned. In the nuclear age, the reason is obvious: the war could be over before Congress could even be assembled to vote on a...	[ "Since World War II, the President of the United States has had sole authority to launch U.S. nuclear weapons, whether as a first strike or nuclear retaliation. This arrangement was seen as necessary during the Cold War to present a credible nuclear deterrent; if an attack was detected, the United States would have...
What are the mechanics behind some animals having a good sense of smell?	It's generally put down to the size of the olfactory epithelium and the number of active olfactory receptors genes. That is, the amount of tissue within the nose that has cells that express receptors for picking up smells can vary a lot. A human has about 10 cm^2 of olfactory epithelium, a dog can have up to 200 cm^2 ...	[ "Their sense of smell, while much better than that of humans, is not quite as good as that of a dog. It is believed to play a key role in the social interactions of horses as well as detecting other key scents in the environment. Horses have two olfactory centers. The first system is in the nostrils and nasal cavit...
why does our body heat up (and start sweating) when we are in pain?	Nice try, Ajax, but no. You are on the right track with adrenaline and fight or flight, but then you go off the rails with blood pressure and oxygen, and sweat making you hot. Like I said fight or flight is absolutely correct. In either situation - fighting or fleeing - your body needs to prepare for sudden explosiv...	[ "Severe heat intolerance (e.g., nausea, dizziness, and headache), and tingling, pricking, pinchy or burning pain over the entire body on exposure to hot environments or prolonged exercise which improve after cooling the body. Occurs in the absence of any causative skin, metabolic, or neurological disorders.\n", "...
how an inch of rain equates a foot of snow	Snow is fluffy. If you melt a foot of snow, the fluffiness goes away and discover it was only an inch of water. The rest was air.	[ "It snows on average 90 days per year above the altitude of 1500m. The first snow comes during the first half of October, while the last one during the first half of May (above 1500m) or late April at lower altitudes. At high altitudes the snow is present on average for 200 days each year. The thickness of the snow...
why does it hurt so much more and longer, after ripping skin off near your finger nail compared to your toe nail?	Your fingers are far more sensitive than your toes, mostly because we use our fingers to interact with the world while our toes are just used to help us run faster.	[ "The ten fingernails are usually equally bitten to approximately the same degree. Biting nails can lead to broken skin on the cuticle. When cuticles are improperly removed, they are susceptible to microbial and viral infections such as paronychia. Saliva may then redden and infect the skin. In rare cases, fingernai...
Why are most landmasses on Earth continent-sized and not just a bunch of little islands? Is there a reason why most of our land is clumped together?	An interesting question! I suppose it comes down to the way tectonic processes work. The processes that form continental crust mostly occur at convergent plate boundaries, which means they don't occur in random little spots throughout the oceans to create islands (hot spots do that! But we're talking about continents h...	[ "Some islands lie on sections of continental crust that have rifted and drifted apart from a main continental landmass. While not considered continents because of their relatively small size, they may be considered microcontinents. Madagascar, the largest example, is usually considered an island of Africa, but its ...
Is there any evidence that the Soviet Union had the atomic bomb before America did?	The Soviet Union did not explode their first atomic bomb until 1949. There were a small number of Russian scientists that worked on the theory of nuclear fission before 1941, but it wasn't until after Germany collapsed, that Stalin ordered the Soviet atomic bomb program to be put into high gear. Stalin also put Beria i...	[ "Behind the scenes, the Soviet government was working on building its own atomic weapons. During the war, Soviet efforts had been limited by a lack of uranium but new supplies in Eastern Europe were found and provided a steady supply while the Soviets developed a domestic source. While American experts had predicte...
Why did the Mongols not conquer Byzantium?	Forgive me, I am not formally educated in this area, but I believe the mongols had a hard time with large walls and castles. The Theodosian Walls in Constantinople would have been quite the challenge for a Mongol army, and it is possible they wanted to focus on easier targets before tackling that one.	[ "In their later years, faced with the threat of the Egyptian Mamluks, the Crusaders' hopes rested with a Franco-Mongol alliance. Although the Mongols successfully attacked as far south as Damascus on these campaigns, the ability to effectively coordinate with Crusades from the west was repeatedly frustrated most no...
How were the peoples of the different pre-unification states of Italy viewed by the rest of Europe?	I'll assume that by "pre-unification" you mean in the period between Napoleonic Italy and Italian Unification; although the Italian States created by what is more widely referred to as "The European Restoration" were the successors of polities with long and storied histories. But I'm also not entirely sure what sort of...	[ "Until 1859, Italy wasn't yet a unified state but a sum of kingdoms and independent republics (Kingdom of Naples, Republic of Venice, Papal States, etc.). The situation changed with the unification of Italy. France saw this geopolitical change as a possible threat from the other side of the Alps border, partially a...
if usps postman doesn't ask for my sign and drops off package, what's stopping someone from ordering expensive stuff from amazon and claiming it never arrived ?	The shipper decides if a signature is needed. I have delivered $5 items requiring a signature and also left $2000 items on a porch when the shipper did not require proof of delivery. Source: Ex FedEx driver	[ "In early 2018, President Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Amazon's use of the United States Postal Service and its prices for the delivery of packages, stating, \"I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy,\" Trump tweeted. \"Amazon should ...
Which single species accounts for the largest portion of earth's biomass?	[According to wikipedia](_URL_1_) (I hope this is considered a valid source) Antartic Krill > is, in terms of biomass, probably the most abundant animal species on the planet (approximately 500 million tonnes). Source of this figure is [here](_URL_0_). Would still be nice to have an expert confirm this as well as p...	[ "Estimates for the global biomass of species and higher level groups are not always consistent across the literature. The total global biomass has been estimated at about 550 billion tonnes C. Most of this biomass is found on land, with only 5 to 10 billion tonnes C found in the oceans. On land, there is about 1,00...
What were Soviet blocking detachments during WW2?	Yes, the Red Army did deploy units who could shoot retreating units, but the practice wasn't nearly as widespread as often depicted. The actual number of retreating soldiers shot by the 'Barrier Troops' on the spot was relatively small. The already low figure for people killed also includes soldiers arrested by barri...	[ "Intended to galvanise the morale of the hard-pressed Red Army and emphasize patriotism, it had a generally detrimental effect and was not consistently implemented by commanders who viewed diverting troops to create blocking detachments as a waste of manpower. On 29 October 1944, blocking detachments were disbanded...
if people are not satisfied with the u.s. government, why don't they vote for a third party?	It's gamesmanship, essentially. Let's use an example; say there are 101 people, almost evenly split between voting for two parties. 50 voters apiece, with one guy making the difference between the two parties (the swing vote). Let's say this guy votes randomly. If you, as a Democrat, vote Democrat, then both parties ...	[ "Certain voters are likely to refrain from elections in comparison to others because of politicians. Politicians generally oblige to the interests and wants of the citizens voting for them, and the welfare of some citizens is not properly attended to by these politicians. Voters and non-voters can have the gap of p...
What affect did the Black Death have on the royal families of Europe? How did they handle it?	I know of at least 1 case where the Black Death directly impacted the political viability of a dynasty. King Edward III of England's daughter Joan of Kent was en route to marry Peter of Castille, son of Alfonso XI of Castille and Maria of Portugal when she and her party were exposed to the plague outbreak in Bordeaux,...	[ "There seem to have been very few victims of the Black Death at higher levels of society. The only member of the royal family who can be said with any certainty to have died from the Black Death was in France at the time of her infection. Edward III's daughter Joan was residing in Bordeaux on her way to marry Pedro...
how come i sober up from intoxication, even though i don't urinate or go to sleep?	Urination and sleeping have nothing to do with becoming sober. Alcohol is metabolized by the human body, and the resulting substances are either used by the body or excreted. Alcohol metabolism is important to life. The average adult human body produces a "shot" of alcohol approximately once every week. In effect.....	[ "If a suitable place to urinate does not become available, the person may reach a stage where they are no longer able to refrain from urination and involuntary voiding of the bladder may take place. Instances of this sort will often result in full emptying of the bladder, but are likely to be one-off or rare occurr...
What did the Wehrmacht get wrong in WW2?	I mentioned this in a different thread regarding why the Germans lost due to natural disasters. In this answer about Operation Barbarossa, and being badly prepared for warfare, I mentioned how the Germans were badly prepared for Winter and a few examples about the hierarchy structure within the Wehrmacht. I did elobora...	[ "As the war progressed and the Wehrmacht began to lose strength and momentum against the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany began implementing measures to ensure the safety and reliability of its weapons. The Wehrmacht needed to minimize the risk of injury or death caused by faults of its military equipment, munitions, and...
Why do coins have people's heads on them?	Before mass media or any sort of printing, there was no way to see what a ruler looked like without a painting of some sort, which was extremely expensive. Therefore empires put the faces of their rulers on the coins, so that the subjects of the empire could see the face of their emperor. Incidentally, the Eastern Rom...	[ "On earlier coins, the head was much smaller in relation to the size of the coin. For example, on a Lincoln cent, the head covers about one-sixth of the area. On the Buffalo nickel, the Native American's head occupies about five-sixths of the area. Moreover, the nickel is a larger coin. Large heads also adorn the M...
what does the electric shock therapy do in a mental hospital?	The proper name for that kind of therapy is electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT. The way ECT is done in real life isn't exactly like in the movies. In real life, the first step is to first use medicine to make the patient fall asleep. Patients are never awake during ECT. Then, they inject the patient with a differ...	[ "The term \"shock therapy\" is a misnomer. The pathophysiological state of shock was not routinely induced by any of the therapies and does not occur at all as a result of the only treatment still in use, electroconvulsive therapy. The term was coined long before the advent of the use of electricity as a mode of tr...
how are magnets produced/extracted?	There is type of iron ore called magnetite, also known as lodestone, is a natural permanent magnet. Magnets can also be made using other large magnets. You take a piece of material and place it next to a large magnet and after some time that piece of material becomes a magnet.	[ "Magnetation is the processing of iron ore tailings, the waste product of iron ore mines, to recover hematite. Crushed mine tailings are mixed with water to create a slurry; the slurry is then pumped through magnetic separation chambers to extract hematite. Commercial interest in this process stems from the possibi...
why does the u.s military use depleted uranium in their ammunition?	It's a dense material! Denser than lead while having excellent strength. This combination increases the kinetic energy of the projectile. Thus the impact force.	[ "The US military used depleted uranium in tank kinetic energy penetrators and 20–30 mm cannon ordnance. Significant controversy regarding the long term safety of depleted uranium exists, including claims of pyrophoric, genotoxic, and teratogenic heavy metal effects. Many have cited its use during the war as a contr...
How did the vikings prepare their dried/salted cods? Are there any specific recipes that we still use today?	Well, there are no written documents from Viking Age Scandinavia, and since nobody carved their favorite cod recipe into a runestone, we've got no definite evidence, which is usually the case. The best we can usually do then is to extrapolate back from the Scandinavian Middle Ages. (corresponding to the European High-L...	[ "Salt cod has been produced for at least 500 years, since the time of the European discoveries of the New World. Before refrigeration, there was a need to preserve the codfish; drying and salting are ancient techniques to preserve nutrients and the process makes the codfish tastier.\n", "Drying preserves many nut...
why does it hurt so bad when you pop something into or out of its joint?	Pain is, at the core, a signal that something is damaged and you should do something about it, or protect it, or something. In the case of joints popping out, your body is telling you in no mild terms, "Don't you fucking walk on that leg with your hip popped or you are going to tear a ligament and be crippled forever s...	[ "The physical mechanism behind the popping or cracking sound heard when cracking joints such as knuckles has recently been elucidated by cine MRI to be caused by tribonucleation as a gas bubble forms in the synovial fluid that bathes the joint. Despite this evidence, many still believe it to be caused by synovial f...
why did the nazis despise the russians more than their other allied enemies on the western front?	The Nazis viewed the Slavic people as racially inferior but also the Nazis never foresaw themselves fighting Britain or a lot of the west as they were also of the Aryan race and subsequently "Übermensch". The desired German Empire was taking inspiration from the British in India and Hitler was a little disappointed Br...	[ "Defenders of the actions taken by the Western allies maintain that \"Realpolitik\" made it impossible to do anything else, and that they were in no shape to start an utterly un-winnable war with the Soviet Union over the subjugation of Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries immediately after the e...
why has the us military switched to a digital looking camouflage on clothes from the traditional more wavy looking pattern?	In testing like [this](_URL_1_), MARPAT is the digital camo, it takes about [3 times](_URL_0_) as long to identify MARPAT vs traditional camo	[ "The Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), also unofficially referred to as ACUPAT (Army Combat Uniform Pattern) or Digital Camouflage (digicam), is a digital military camouflage pattern formerly used by the United States Army in their Army Combat Uniform. The pattern was chosen after laboratory and field tests from ...
When discussing new strains of flu, what does H7N9/H5N1/etc refer to?	They're labelled according to which specific variant of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins they have. _URL_0_	[ "\"A/H3N2 has become the predominant flu subtype in the United States, and the record over the past 25 years shows that seasons dominated by H3N2 tend to be worse than those dominated by type A/H1N1 or type B.\" Many H3N2 viruses making people ill in this 2007–2008 flu season differ from the strains in the vaccine ...
How were gunpowder weapons implemented in Chinese and Japanese warfare?	Finally, a chance to use my degree! The Japanese and Chinese had gunpowder hand-cannons long before the 1500s, but gunpowder small arms didn't play an important role in East Asian warfare until around the 1540s. As the semi-apocryphal story goes, two Portuguese adventurers - the first Europeans ever to visit Japan ...	[ "The invention of gunpowder weapons revolutionized siege warfare, Gunpowder is said to have been conceived in China. It was when the Mongols, after invading China, went on to subdue Japan. Their ships sunk from being hit by a typhoon, resulting in half of their army drowning at sea. Marine archaeology has revealed ...
In a packed grocery store with long cashier lines, is it better to choose one at random?	Personally I evaluate the amount of products in each persons cart, I'd rather get in the line with five lightly loaded carts than two heavily loaded ones. Also I've found that younger to middle aged (20-35) cashiers seem to be a bit faster. Several elderly persons in a line are usually a red flag as they tend to write...	[ "Many stores have a number of checkout stations. Some stations may have an automated cashier (self-checkout). Express lanes might limit the type of payment, or number or type of goods, to expedite service. If each checkout station has a separate queue, customers have to guess which line will move the fastest, to mi...
It takes antibiotics 4-6 weeks to treat acne. What's happening in that time?	Many antibiotics are not "bactericidal" as much as they are "bacteristatic". In other words, they can prevent bacteria from replicating (by inhibiting division, stopping synthesis of important components, etc). However the bacteria still need to die of ""old age"" or be killed by the body's defenses. This can take time...	[ "Acne usually flares up 2–3 weeks into the treatment and is usually mild and tolerable. Occasionally this flare-up is severe, necessitating oral antiobiotics such as erythromycin. A short course of oral prednisolone may be required. Some dermatologists favour a few weeks of pre-treatment with oral antibiotics befor...
What made the Soviet Union a super power? Why isn't Russia one now?	A detailed discussion of Russia as it exists today is probably outside of the scope of this sub. However, it's not difficult to highlight differences between the USSR in its prime and the Russian federation post-disintegration. 1. The USSR was a larger and more populous entity than the Russian Federation. The USSR's ...	[ "In a similar way, Russia which suffered during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The Soviet Union's centrally controlled economy decided to invest a big part of its resources to enhance its industrial production and infrastructures to assure its survival, thus becoming a world superpower.\n", "Th...
Has an amphibious assault ever been pushed back and thwarted on the beach, before the invaders got to establish some kind of beach head?	Gallipoli would come close even though it lasted 8 months. The Allies really didn't manage to expand their beachhead with most of their attacks to expand the beachhead failing. So while it wasn't thwarted on the beach itself they didn't really manage to get past the establish a beachhead phase.	[ "The landing took place in two waves due to a shortage of landing craft. The first wave hit the beach near Agnone, about from the bridge, at 22:00 hours and took fire from the Italian defenders almost immediately. Under the leadership of Durnford-Slater, Young and Lieutenant George Herbert, all experienced combat o...
why does states in usa want to ban abortion?	I will try to answer this as objectively as possible and will explain the difference perspectives since there isn't really a complete black and white answer to this. There are essentially two major viewpoints: * That as soon as a women becomes pregnant, there is a living being inside of her. And removing said being w...	[ "Paul has said that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution do not grant the federal government any authority to legalize or ban abortion, stating that \"the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue.\" However, this has not stopped Paul from voting in fa...
what does it mean to be an evangelical christian and why is this category so prominent in surveys?	The word evangelical means someone who is actively trying to spread their religion. Most Christian denominations have some elements of evangelism. In the US, the term is used to describe a loose group of culturally conservative and politically active denominations, who typically believe governance should be based on ...	[ "According to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life study, Evangelicals can be broadly divided into three camps: traditionalist, centrist, and modernist. A 2004 Pew survey identified that while 70.4% of Americans call themselves \"Christian,\" Evangelicals only make up 26.3 percent of the population, while Cathol...
why video game companies make such beautiful cinematic trailers about their video games, but they never lead to a full fledged movie on the big screen?	A lot of it comes down to budget as well. Blizzard puts out crazy sexy looking cinematics and it would look great on the big screen but Blizzard has also said that if they were to make a full length feature film that looked as good as the cinematics that it would be the most expensive movie ever made. At the end of t...	[ "Beginning in the late 1990s to early 2000s, video game trailers began to be produced as they became more mainstream. Used to entice viewers to go out and play the game, game trailers are very useful. The content and production process is similar to that for movies, complicated by the need to convey the way the gam...
why isn't cheating in marriage a punishable crime?	Cheating is a punishable crime in many religions, and there are also countries who make it illegal too--here is a wiki I found, hope that helps :) _URL_0_	[ "Adultery can lead to a sexless marriage in two ways: it can cause the partner having the affair to have reduced sexual interest in their spouse, and if the affair is discovered, the \"innocent\" spouse may cease to want to be intimate with the cheating spouse.\n", "Distinction between mere 'breach of contract' a...
How much "agency" does a single cell in a multicellular animal have compared to a unicellular animal? What is the most complex behaviour a single cell is capable of?	Hahah. This is such a fucking good, yet remarkably complex question. I often think of it as one of the greatest questions - especially in its extrapolation to a human and one's place in civilization. Its immeasurable really. All things are dictated by their physical circumstance as far as science subscribes to determin...	[ "All organisms consist of structural units called cells; some contain a single cell (unicellular) and others contain many units (multicellular). Multicellular organisms are able to specialize cells to perform specific functions. A group of such cells is a tissue, and in animals these occur as four basic types, name...
If my mouthwash "kills the germs that cause bad breath, plaque, etc etc" then how do they come back?	Because it doesn't kill all the germs. You aren't going to kill even all the ones in your mouth, but aside from that there are trillions of microbes living in your body that can just move right back in to the freshly cleaned habitat. Then on top of that you are constantly taking in new microbes through breathing an...	[ "Research in the field of microbiotas shows that only a limited set of microbes cause tooth decay, with most of the bacteria in the human mouth being harmless. Focused attention on cavity-causing bacteria such as \"Streptococcus mutans\" has led research into new mouthwash treatments that prevent these bacteria fro...
If you were to float in space without a spacesuit, is there a distance from the sun at which you would neither freeze nor burn up?	Space is cold but it's also very sparse. It's not space that has temperature, it's the residual gases that are in it. We rely on contact heat transfer with the air on Earth to evacuate a part of the heat our body produces. With that source of heat loss gone, overheating is more a problem than freezing in space. For exa...	[ "In space, pilots would require pressurized chambers or space suits to supply fresh air. While there, they would experience weightlessness, which could potentially cause disorientation. Further potential risks included radiation and micrometeoroid strikes, both of which would normally be absorbed in the atmosphere....
If a live power line touched the surface of the water in the middle of the ocean, how large of a "fatal zone" would it create?	Useful info for anyone trying to answer: _URL_0_	[ "It is quite likely that overhead line crossings of broad waters can be replaced with underwater cables. The overhead line crossing the Strait of Messina — which, with a span of 3646 meters, was one of the longest overhead line crossings in the world, with 200-meter pylons among the highest in the world — was repla...
How may we mathematically predict the color of an element or compound?	You will want to calculate the energy difference between the valence molecular orbital and the excited molecular orbitals - or, in the case of bulk material, valence band and conduction band (namely, the band gap).	[ "BULLET::::- Color specifies an element's properties using the broad categories commonly presented in periodic tables: Actinide, alkali metal, alkaline earth metal, lanthanide, post-transition metal, metalloid, noble gas, polyatomic or diatomic nonmetal, and transition metal.\n", "In empirical formulas, these pro...
how did the hms challenger find challenger deep in 1875 without access to submersibles or sonar?	A very long string, with a lump of lead on the end. No - really. Though rope, of course, rather than string. A big lump of lead on the end - the line goes slack(ish) when it reaches the bottom. Grease pressed into the hollow end of the cup could sample the bottom.	[ "To enable her to probe the depths, 15 of \"Challenger's\" 17 guns were removed and her spars reduced to make more space available. Laboratories, extra cabins and a special dredging platform were installed. \"Challenger\" used mainly sail power during the expedition; the steam engine was used only for powering the ...
How often does any given red blood cell cycle through the heart?	normal cardiac output for an average sized person is 5L/min, and normal blood volume for an averaged sized person is 5L. Therefore any red blood cell would go through the heart twice in a minute, once through the left side and once through the right side.	[ "The functional lifetime of a red blood cell is about 100–120 days, during which time the red blood cells are continually moved by the blood flow push (in arteries), pull (in veins) and a combination of the two as they squeeze through microvessels such as capillaries. They are also recycled in the bone marrow.\n", ...
how game developers write and design games for the xbox 360, ps3, and pc simultaneously?	One of the big ideas in programming is abstraction. Basically, this means hiding away as many details as you can about things, in order to get a higher level view of it. Using a web browser is a good example of abstraction: In order to view a web page, you do not need to know anything about how the internet works. Yo...	[ "Game programmers can specialize on one platform or another, such as the Wii U or Windows. So, in addition to specializing in one game programming discipline, a programmer may also specialize in development on a certain platform. Therefore, one game programmer's title might be \"PlayStation 3 3D Graphics Programmer...
Can sound waves be altered to travel more or less distance based on wind conditions?	I'm an acoustical engineer. The effects of wind and temperature gradients on sound are actually quite similar. The important concept here is refraction. To begin, I want to explain the basic concept of how sound carries and decays over distance. This is dependent upon the frequency of the sound (more specifically th...	[ "The speed of sound varies with temperature. Since temperature and sound velocity normally decrease with increasing altitude, sound is refracted upward, away from listeners on the ground, creating an acoustic shadow at some distance from the source. Wind shear of 4 m/(s · km) can produce refraction equal to a typic...
starting work in a bio lab. Could someone simply but thoroughly explain PCR and the procedure?	Wow! Congratulations on getting a placement at a university at your level of education. I think that'll provide a _very_ good experience for you. Now, you know that DNA is double-stranded, and to replicate it, you will need to pull the two strands apart. However, once you have your single-stranded DNA, how do you star...	[ "In 1983 Kary Mullis devised a method for the in-vitro amplification of DNA, known as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which revolutionized the chemical processes used in the laboratory to manipulate it. PCR could be used to synthesize specific pieces of DNA and made possible the sequencing of DNA of organisms,...
Is a spider's instinctual ability to form a perfect web passed down through its genetics?	It has to be, since it's not like adult spiders are around to teach their young, and inheritance through DNA, fundamentally, is the only way to pass this sort of thing on otherwise. (There are epigenetic effects, but they come down to messing around with DNA through other mechanisms). For spider web weaving, you'd fi...	[ "Most spider species are highly competitive and territorial, so observing sociality in certain species is rare. Because of this, it can often provide insight into the evolution of sociality. It has been proposed that sociality evolved from a subsocial spider species through the acquisition of three main behavioral ...
how do you calculate a use-by date?	Use by is a mark of safety - and is used to show what the point in time to food will no longer be safe to eat would be. To test for it, manufacturers will do a shelf life study, where they analyse both bacteria in the product, and how the product looks/tastes over time (depending on the food), and determine the length...	[ "One standard approach is to look up (or calculate, using a known rule) the value of the first day of the week of a given century, look up (or calculate, using a method of congruence) an adjustment for the month, calculate the number of leap years since the start of the century, and then add these together along wi...
Why did Lee choose to commit his army to attack Cemetery Ridge during the Battle of Gettysburg?	This is a classic debate in how the battle was fought, but I just want to clear up a misconception, if there is one (maybe someone else will read this and learn, even if you alread knew). Longstreet understood the immense power of the rifle on the defensive. He knew that an attacker would suffer massive casualties agai...	[ "On July 1, 1863, Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard left infantry and artillery to hold the hill in case the army needed to fall back from its positions north and west of Gettysburg. Cemetery Hill became the rallying point for retreating Union troops of the I Corps and XI Corps (from fighting north and northwest of town)....
why do films from the 70's and 80's have that definitive coloring?	It has to do with the film itself: pretty much everyone was using the same one or two Kodak stocks, and there was a switch in the mid 70s to a different formulation that was sharper but had a slightly less natural look than before. You can find all sorts of debate online about the differences between [5254 and 5247 fil...	[ "Although it had been available previously, color in Hollywood feature films first became truly practical from the studios' commercial perspective with the advent of Technicolor, whose main advantage was quality prints in less time than its competitors. In its earliest incarnations, Technicolor was another two-colo...
does the president's foreign policy affect the price of gas?	Yes it will. Depending on how the President feels towards OPEC and other countries that have oil will affect how they feel about us. If the President goes pissing off all of these countries they could easily raise prices or stop giving us oil entirely such as in 1973 when we supported the Yom Kippur War and they embarg...	[ "BULLET::::- A drastic pushing back of the government shortage. This actually meant adapting tariffs and prices to the \"reality\", resulting in a price explosion of goods and services (e.g. petroleum prices raised to the international level, the price of gasoline went from 0.04 to 0.30 per liter). The government e...
biologically, what happens when your body "learns to use less oxygen"?	I'm not sure you really "learn to use less oxygen." The poster in that thread didn't know what he was talking about, he was just asking. In running for example you can use a little bit less oxygen by losing weight and developing a more efficient technique, but otherwise as you get more aerobically fit you learn to proc...	[ "In oxygen poor environments the human body manufactures a protein called hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), which initiates and drives the processes which allow the body to adapt to those low-oxygen conditions. Typically this involves increasing the concentrations of naturally made EPO, mobilising iron and an increas...
why is a 1440p phone 400$ but a 1440p monitor almost as expensive without any other internals or programing	Phones and monitors are two very different products in two different markets. Monitors are also generally much larger than phones, and bigger screens cost more.	[ "The 7000 series was targeted at mainstream business computing, and started with a street price of $2449, inclusive of a 15-inch monitor. The 8000 was designed for \"power-hungry\" business users. Both series were announced in September 1998.\n", "In 2018, the low-priced microcontrollers above from 2015 are all m...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.