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train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
How do metals that originate on Earth "cold-weld" in space?	The layer has to be rubbed off first - the parts won't just stick together spontaneously. This generally happens with moving parts: hinges, telescoping arrangements, pinned joints, etc. Every time they move, they scrape against each other, scouring off the oxidized layer. On Earth, the layer quickly reforms once exp...	[ "Metallic or native iron is rarely found on the surface of the Earth because it tends to oxidize. However, both the Earth's inner and outer core, that account for 35% of the mass of the whole Earth, are believed to consist largely of an iron alloy, possibly with nickel. Electric currents in the liquid outer core ar...
The Islamic star and crescent is the symbol of Islam today and is widely believed to be adopted from the Ottoman Empire. What symbol was used to represent the symbol before the rise of the Ottoman Empire?	> The Islamic star and crescent is the symbol of Islam today In order to regard something as Islamic, in this case the star and crescent symbol, it has to be regarded as such by a source of our knowledge of Islam, the Qur'an and/or Ḥadīth, or, at least, be endorsed by a figure, of some degree of perceived religious...	[ "The star and crescent symbol became strongly associated with the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, a symbol that had been used throughout the Middle East extending back to pre-Islamic times, especially in the Byzantine Empire and Crusader States which occupied the lands later assumed by the Ottoman Empire. By ex...
Is there something like an anti-microwave that will freeze your drink in 1-2 mins?	There is such a thing as an anti-griddle. You'll see it used sometimes on shows on the food network and it's used for rolled ice cream. But it would be a bit impractical for freezing a drink. Both because it's very expensive and because it freezes liquids that are spread over a flat surface rather than in, say, a glass...	[ "\"Frost-Free\" refrigerator/freezer units usually use a heating element to defrost their evaporators, a pan to collect and evaporate water from the frost that melts from the cold plate and/or evaporator coil, a timer which turns off the compressor and turns on the defrost element usually from once to 4 times a day...
what's going on in mexico right now with the raising of gas prices and other amenities? why are people looting stores and pissed off?	Well basically Pemex raised the rate to rougly 16 pesos per litre. That's roughly $1.30 Canadian. But the minimum wage remains around 80 pesos/day. So people are looting in rebellion, but also to get the stuff they need. But there's been some speculation that the government is arranging the lootings	[ "The 2017 Mexican protests were a series of protests against a hike in the price of gasoline by the Mexican government which came into effect on 1 January 2017. Thousands of protestors marched, blocked highways and shut down state-owned gas stations. The rise in price—known in Mexico as the —was a result of preside...
how come when you put ice cream on warm pie, the pie melts the ice cream, but the ice cream doesn’t freeze the pie?	The hot pie is way above freezing temperatures, but the ice cream is only slightly below freezing. Both object's temperatures will tend toward equilibrium, but that average temperature will still be well over freezing.	[ "The dish is made of ice cream placed in a pie dish lined with slices of sponge cake or Christmas pudding, and topped with meringue. The entire dessert is then placed in an extremely hot oven for a brief time, long enough to firm and caramelize the meringue but not long enough to begin melting the ice cream.\n", ...
When wood burns, what percentage of its mass is turned into energy?	Burning wood liberates about 20 megajoules per kilogram. Divided by c^2 , that's about 22 micrograms lost per kilogram of wood burned.	[ "The environmental impact of using wood as a fuel depends on how it is burnt. Higher temperatures result in more complete combustion and less noxious gases as a result of pyrolysis. Some may regard the burning of wood from a sustainable source as carbon-neutral. A tree, over the course of its lifetime, absorbs as m...
Why were some parts or counties of Louisiana not affected by the Emancipation Proclamation?	The Emancipation Proclamation in part [reads as follows](_URL_0_): > That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States...	[ "The Emancipation Proclamation, announced on September 22 and put in effect January 1, 1863, applied in the eleven states that were still in rebellion in 1863. The proclamation did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slave-holding border states that had remained in the Union, nor did it apply to Tennessee or...
as unhealthy as we now know it to be, does tobacco provide any kind of benefit to the human body?	Well, it does make you look cool.	[ "Among adults, the known causes are natural and artificial ionizing radiation, a few viruses such as human T-lymphotropic virus, and some chemicals, notably benzene and alkylating chemotherapy agents for previous malignancies. Use of tobacco is associated with a small increase in the risk of developing acute myeloi...
In a short time period and in the height of their success, the Beatles went from being a "silly love songs" boy band to a progressive countercultural group creating increasingly experimental music and art. Was it drugs? Marketing? Indian spirituality? What was the reason for this revolution?	The Beatles had no established pattern to follow. There was no showbiz pathway that acts their size typically followed - because there were no rock'n'roll bands as big as the Beatles before them. There's television interviews with the Beatles in 1963 (from when they were very popular in the UK but before they had broke...	[ "According to Gould, the Beatles changed the way people listened to popular music and experienced its role in their lives. From what began as the Beatlemania fad, the group's popularity grew into what was seen as an embodiment of sociocultural movements of the decade. As icons of the 1960s counterculture, Gould con...
how is dosing for medications and over the counter drugs universal?	It depends upon the medication and it’s mechanism of action (how it works within the body). Some medication doses are based on weight, as differences in size change the amount needed for the same result. Other medications are metabolized/ utilized in the body such that the amount available per dose is relatively cons...	[ "A wide variety of drugs are injected, often opioids: these may include legally prescribed medicines and medication such as morphine, as well as stronger compounds often favored in recreational drug use, which are often illegal. Although there are various methods of taking drugs, injection is favoured by some peopl...
why are most gun optics and telescopic optics circular, when if they were square you'd have a larger fov?	So that the lens magnifying what you're looking at doesn't distort the image. It evenly magnifies it so that whoever is aiming can still accurately gauge the size and shape of the target.	[ "Correctly made rectangular or square lens hoods are generally more efficient than cylindrical or conical ones because those shapes closely resemble the shape of the photograph. However, rectangular or square lens hoods should not be used with zoom lenses whose front elements rotate as the focal length is changed, ...
do animals recognize family members and avoid reproducing with them?	Absolutely no. An animal in heat is programmed for only one thing, as is any male of her species within range. They do not care if they are son, mother, sister, or father. The prime directive is procreation. There may be the odd species where this is not the norm, but that would be the exception.	[ "The ability of an animal to recognize its kin can be the difference between life and death for a mother’s children. If she recognizes her children properly, she will give her children food and avoid feeding non-familial children. Richard Dawkins hypothesized that an animal had the ability to recognize kin and non-...
how does tolerance to something work? for example, what makes your body more resistant to caffeine after ingesting it daily for a long period of time?	Biochemist here. Caffeine is an analog of adenosine, and as you probably know it's a stimulant. It does this by inhibiting the same receptors as adenosine, but that's not relevant to your question. When you ingest things into your body, they will eventually be utilized and broken down, or just broken down. The answer ...	[ "Tolerance to the effects of caffeine occurs for caffeine induced elevations in blood pressure and the subjective feelings of nervousness. Sensitization, the process whereby effects become more prominent with use, occurs for positive effects such as feelings of alertness and well being. Tolerance varies for daily, ...
Why is a year 365.2 days and how do we know it?	It just is. Why would you expect it to be 360 instead? 360 is just a convenient number to use for dividing circles because it has many divisors. The fact that it's close to the number of days in a solar year is pure coincidence. We know the number of days by measuring the angles the between the Sun, and the Earth a...	[ "Because a tropical year is 365.24219879 days, and a synodic month is 29.53058868 days, the difference between nineteen solar years and 235 lunar months is only about two hours. Thus by adding seven intercalary months in nineteen years, the solar years and the lunar years basically synchronize.\n", "Note: these y...
Why is the Heliopause directional as if all the galactic cosmic rays come from one location?	The heliosphere is the bubble produced by the solar wind pushing against the "interstellar medium" - the ambient gas/plasma within our galaxy. Both the interstellar medium and all the stars of the Milky Way are orbiting around the Milky Way centre. However, the stars aren't all orbiting at the same speed - there's a bi...	[ "An explanation for this has been proposed by Mikhail Medvedev and Adrian Melott. They point out that the galactic halo is not symmetric between north and south. The galaxy emits a wind that consists of protons and other charged particles, creating a cloud that extends into intergalactic space but is lopsided towar...
the nervous system	Motor-Brain to muscle. Allows you to move. Sensory-Sensory nerve cell to brain. Tells you what's happening. Cranial nerves-12 important nerves in the brain. Spinal nerves-several important nerves from the spinal cord. CNS-brain and spinal cord PNS-everything else Autonomic nervous system-that which happens automa...	[ "The nervous system consists of a dorsal cerebral ganglion or brain above the oesophagus and a nerve ring around the oesophagus, which links the brain with the single ventral nerve cord that runs the length of the body. Lateral nerves lead off this to innervate the muscles of the body wall.\n", "The nervous syste...
if texting while driving is bad/illegal why is it ok when car companies install navigation screens on their cars?	Those screens don't work when the car is in motion (or at least have severally reduced functionality).	[ "The scientific literature on the danger of driving while sending a text message from a mobile phone, or texting while driving, is limited. A simulation study at the University of Utah found a sixfold increase in distraction-related accidents when texting. Due to the complexity of smartphones that began to grow mor...
why do old erasers get hard?	Rubber and various plastics contain solvents and "plasticizers" that keep them soft and malleable. They evaporate over time, making them harder.	[ "Kneaded erasers (called putty rubbers outside the United States) have a plastic consistency and are common to most artists' standard toolkit. They can be pulled into a point for erasing small areas and tight detail erasing, molded into a textured surface and used like a reverse stamp to give texture, or used in a ...
I need help to put a date on a map I bought	I'm not positive on this because I don't know what French cartographic conventions were for showing the division of Germany. If they're like American custom, then East and West Germany should appear separately. They don't here, which means it's meant to represent Europe after October of 1990. (It's certainly not before...	[ "The dates indicate when each survey was conducted. If the sources are not clear about the precise dates, either the month or the date of publication is indicated. In the latter case, the date is marked with a (p).\n", "There has been no authoritative date for the map's production. Thomas Martin believed it dated...
Does the human body ever grow new blood vessels in our circulatory system?	Yes it does. [VEGF](_URL_0_) is responsible for this. As we grow, our body must supply the new cells with oxygen, nutrients, and waste removal. This also plays a role with cancer as tumors increase the production of VEGF to feed themselves. If we can block this growth factor, See: [Avastin](_URL_1_), we can inhibit tum...	[ "In vascularisation, also called angiogenesis, endothelial cells quickly grow into the tissue from older, intact blood vessels. These branch out in a systematic way, forming anastomoses with other vessels.\n", "The in-growth of new blood vessels is mediated by the upregulation of angiogenic cytokines. The enzyme ...
Are there illusions for touch the same way there are for other sight and hearing?	Lookup "Rubber Hand Illusion" or "Invisible Hand Illusion" on Google. It's a simple experiment designed in the 1990's that can convince your brain that a rubber hand sitting on a table in front of you is your actual hand. There's YouTube videos and lots of articles about it.	[ "Many illusions in vision are caused by adaptation, the prolonged exposure to a previous stimulus. In such cases, the perception of a subsequent stimulus is altered. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as a contingent after-effect. Similarly, adaptation can cause such illusions in the sense of touch.\n", "Th...
Sexuality and sex in Viking times	Ouch, this is a very wide question. Generally, when it comes to (male) homosexual sex, the vikings considered only the passive partner gay, and accusing someone of being the passive partner in a gay relationship was such a severe accusation that the accused had the right to challenge the accuser to a duel to the death...	[ "The practice of ' (sorcery) was considered ' in the Viking Age, and in Icelandic accounts and medieval Scandinavian laws, the term \" had connotations of a receptive, passive role of a freeborn man during homosexual intercourse. There are no written records of how the northern people thought of homosexuality befor...
how birth defects happen	There are many causes and many different situations. Some defects are chemically triggered, a perfectly normal fetus exposed to thalidomide at the wrong point in its development will turn out with a defect. Some defects are genetic, through a copying error or expression of a recessive trait a fetus will develop with ...	[ "Birth defects may result from genetic or chromosomal disorders, exposure to certain medications or chemicals, or certain infections during pregnancy. Risk factors include folate deficiency, drinking alcohol or smoking during pregnancy, poorly controlled diabetes, and a mother over the age of 35 years old. Many are...
how did humans discover the act of sexual intercourse?	At least with heterosexual sex, I've got a plug and you've got a socket and they are roughly in line with eachother, let's give it a shot.	[ "In the initial phase of Masters and Johnson's studies, from 1957 until 1965, they recorded some of the first laboratory data on the anatomy and physiology of human sexual response based on direct observation of 382 women and 312 men in what they conservatively estimated to be \"10,000 complete cycles of sexual res...
stack overflow and buffer overflow	Stack overflow Whenever you call a function, memory for that function is allocated in a place called the call stack. When the function completes its run, that memory is released. A stack overflow happens if too many functions are called, and there's not enough room in the stack (which has a hard size limit) to all...	[ "A stack buffer overflow occurs when a program writes to a memory address on the program's call stack outside of the intended data structure, which is usually a fixed-length buffer. Stack buffer overflow bugs are caused when a program writes more data to a buffer located on the stack than what is actually allocated...
sleep apnea and how it can lead to death	If you have sleep apnea, your throat closes off while you sleep. This makes your brain panic and wake you up hundreds of times a night, even if you don't realize it. Over time, it enlarges your heart which can kill you. Also, it can make you incredibly tired. I use a CPAP machine when I sleep that blows enough air to...	[ "Apnea can be involuntarily achieved, drug-induced (such as opiate toxicity or tryptamine toxicity), mechanically induced (for example, by strangulation or choking), or it can occur as a consequence of neurological disease or trauma. During sleep in patients who are suffering from sleep apnea, these events can occu...
bleach... how does it!	Color in living materials is often caused by molecules where electrons are relatively mobile (_URL_0_) - bleach adds oxygen atoms to these molecules, and electrons then tend to stay near to the oxygen atoms and lose enough mobility so that the molecule is no longer colorful	[ "Liquid bleach, often called just bleach, is a common chemical household product that consists of a dilute solution of sodium hypochlorite () and other secondary ingredients. It is a chlorine releasing bleaching agent widely used as a to whiten clothes and remove stains, as a disinfectant to kill germs, and for sev...
How and why did Russia expand over the Urals into Asia?	Without being too obnoxiously self-referential, anyone who has seen my answers in this sub concerning the growth and contraction of Mother Rus' during various periods of time knows that I am a big fan of great maps, so please allow me to start this answer with the provision of [such a map](_URL_1_). Once you see that ...	[ "The Russian Empire expanded its influence and possessions in Central Asia, especially in the later 19th century, conquering much of Russian Turkestan in 1865 and continuing to add territory as late as 1885.\n", "The Russians also expanded south, first with the transformation of the Ukrainian steppe into an agric...
why does time seem to slow when your body is in shock?	Think about the idea of your mind racing, When you have the feeling of shock your mind will race doing more in that short amount of time then normal give this illusion effect that time slows down	[ "Ordinary shock waves are stable, that is the speeds of characteristic behind the shock are greater than that of the shock itself, which is greater than the characteristics in front of the shock. The characteristic speed is the speed of small, travelling perturbations. These conditions are necessary for a shock wav...
In 1971, DC introduced their first black superhero, the Green Lantern John Stewart. How did the fan reaction at the time compare to the modern fan reaction to black legacy characters?	First, some background comic-related context: since Green Lanterns were introduced as an organization of "Space Cops" and Hal Jordan was never identified as the Green Lantern (rather, he was identified as the current Green Lantern of Earth), John Stewart's original introduction as a temporary substitute for Hal was s...	[ "John Stewart, one of the characters known as Green Lantern, is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics and was the first African-American superhero to appear in DC Comics. The character was created by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams, and first appeared in \"Green Lantern\" #87 (...
Why can't I leg press my weight if I am able to walk on my legs all the time?	Leg pressing involves lifting the weight, which involves more energy than carrying the weight. For example, pick a bowling ball off the ground an inch, then put it back down. Now lift it over your head and back down. The latter is harder. A better example may be to stand still with a bowling ball in your hand, or conti...	[ "An increase in leg length since the evolution of bipedalism changed how leg muscles functioned in upright gait. In humans the \"push\" for walking comes from the leg muscles acting at the ankle. A longer leg allows the use of the natural swing of the limb so that, when walking, humans do not need to use muscle to ...
In 1911, China appeared to be headed towards a democratic form of government. Why did China not choose Democracy?	Okay, I'm pretty new to reddit and Chinese history isn't my forte, but I am pretty sure that I can give you a pretty good answer on why China didn't become a documentary. At the end of the 19th century it was pretty well known that the Qing's modernization efforts had completely failed in almost every way possible and ...	[ "Democracy entered the Chinese consciousness because it was the form of government used in the West, potentially responsible for its industrial, economic and military advancements. A segment of Chinese scholars and politicians became persuaded that democratization and industrialization were imperative for a competi...
Why did Peter the Great make St. Petersburg the capital of Russia?	Russia lacked a warm(er) water port in which they could trade with other kingdoms/nations. Before Peter was able to seize Nyenskans, a fortress built by the Swedes in 1611, the only port that Russia heavily used was Arkhangelsk, which was neither attractive nor practical for international trade. Arkhangelsk was so cold...	[ "In 1703, Peter decided to found Saint Petersburg, a brand new capital city for the Tsardom of Russia, from scratch in the Neva River delta on the land around Nyenskans. Peter had disliked Moscow, the largest city and historical capital of Russia, which he considered to be inconveniently located and too isolated fr...
what are the advantages/disadvantages of royalty vs. equity deals for start up companies on shark tank?	> Why is 1 deal strictly worse than the other, how did you do the math to figure it out? Equity is ownership in the company. If they pay $100,000 for 5% of the company they will break even at the point the company is worth $2 million. But as the company becomes more valuable their profit isn't capped at any value; c...	[ "This is a disadvantage to companies and the market at large because it allows profit to be made without any successful business practice being conducted. The ethics of firms are compromised in the interest of increasing share value.\n", "The leveraged buyout model is common for normal business ventures where – a...
If mitochondrial DNA is always inherited from the mother, is the same true for chloroplast DNA? What about other organelles?	Yes and no, some plants DO inherit the chloroplast and other plastids maternally but there are a sizable amount of plants that inherit plastids paternally . For the most parts, it's angiosperms that inherit maternally and gymnosperms that inherit paternally but there are species in each group that will do the opposite....	[ "In addition to the nuclear genome, endosymbiont organelles contain their own genetic material typically as circular plasmids. Mitochondrial and chloroplast DNA varies across taxa, but membrane-bound proteins, especially electron transport chain constituents are most often encoded in the organelle. Chloroplasts and...
A historiography question. What do historians think about sensationalist history literature, e.g., Bill O'Reilly's "Killing (historical figures name here)" books.	A lot of professional historians don't like any popular history, although I think there is a lot of nuance within that category. What you're talking about is the dregs of pop history. The books usually function by positioning themselves as "knowing a secret" that the historical establishment doesn't want to know. They ...	[ "BULLET::::- Bain Attwood of the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University dismisses him as a \"tabloid historian\". However, Attwood concedes that \"Boyce is unable to demonstrate\" that the documents he says Windschuttle ignored \"would have provided factual killings of Ab...
hey reddit, i'm an australian and i would like to know how the welfare system works in america. thanks!	It's changing quite a bit with the PPACA (obamacare). There are many different aspects of what would be traditionally considered "welfare". For example, food stamps, aka the supplemental nutritional assistance program (SNAP), are given to individuals or families with low income to provide money for food. Typically thes...	[ "Canada's welfare programs are funded and administered at all levels of government (with 13 different provincial/territorial systems), and include medicare, public education (through graduate school), social housing and social services. Social support is given through programs including Social Assistance, Guarantee...
The lowest natural temperature ever recorded was -126F (in Antarctica). Would CO2 have precipitated out of the air?	This was answered about a month ago. The answer is no, because the partial pressure of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere is too low. The sublimation rate is faster than the condensation rate. _URL_0_	[ "Satellite measurements of the surface temperature of Antarctica, taken between 1982 and 2013, found a coldest temperature of −93.2 °C (−136 °F) on 10 August 2010, at . Although this is not comparable to an air temperature, it is believed that the air temperature at this location would have been lower than the offi...
if a large pill contains a small amount of medication, what is the rest of the pill for?	Most pills/tablets contain such a small amount of active ingredient that it would be impossible to handle it unless it's placed within a binding material. So it's mixed with a harmless bulking/binding ingredient and pressed into a pill form. They can also be used to mask unpleasant tastes or provide an additional ingre...	[ "The sizes of pill containers, when occasionally spoken of, are predominantly discussed in terms of fluid drams, although most also contain cubic centimeters and sometimes fluid ounces on the specifications.\n", "Each box, as supplied by the manufacturer, contains 3 blister packs of 28 tablets packaged in individ...
how the water cyle works and why are we "wasting" too much water.	Our supply of potable (drinkable) water is limited, and that's because we're really, really good at polluting water supplies. We're also very good at turning potable water into waste water, either through drinking it or using it in day to day activities, like flushing the toilet or washing our hands. The water we turn...	[ "The use of depletion forces to initiate flocculation is a common process in water treatment. The relatively small size of dispersed particles in waste water renders typical filtration methods ineffective. However, if the dispersion was to be destabilized and flocculation occur, particles can then be filtered out t...
What happens when you shoot a proton into Bose-Einstein condensate?	You would likely introduce enough energy to ensure that it is no longer a BSE.	[ "The positron would soon be annihilated by an electron and produce two 0.51 MeV gamma rays, while the neutron would be captured by a proton and release a 2.2 MeV gamma ray. This would produce a distinctive signature that could be detected. They then realised that by adding cadmium salt to their liquid scintillator ...
Can blind people tell if it's dark outside?	It depends on how blind they are. Fully blind people would need something to tell them it is dark. But being legally blind allows a spectrum of light sensitivity from vision just being blurry beyond use ( Which would allow them to tell if it is dark), to fully blind where they could not tell if it were dark without som...	[ "Night blindness is the difficulty for the eyes to adjust to dim light. Affected individuals are unable to distinguish images in low levels of illumination. People with night blindness have poor vision in the darkness, but see normally when adequate light is present.\n", "Nyctalopia ( ), also called night-blindne...
why do so many celebrities die from drug-related deaths?	I'll just give an opinion since I'm not a professional, but I am a grown-up and you're five. People who are celebrities (and by this, I am guessing you mean in the entertainment field, as opposed to famous scientists and so forth) are famous, in part, because they have very strong personalities and have become successf...	[ "\"Dead Celebrities\" includes references to several actors, singers and other celebrities who died in the summer of 2009, when the thirteenth season of \"South Park\" was on a mid-season hiatus. The episode serves not only to parody the celebrities themselves, but also to provide commentary on the tendency of Amer...
Why was arsenic available in pharmacies?	OK, so, as I predicted, one of the resident experts provided you with an answer. Luckily for me though, /u/mikedash did not cover some stuff I can tell you about, so you’re getting an AskHistorians double dip. Now, my knowledge-sharing gland is fully swollen, let’s get as far as we can from whatever mental image that c...	[ "The Act did not restrict who was allowed to sell arsenic, as until the 1868 Pharmacy Act there was no legal definition of a pharmacist. The Arsenic Act was repealed by the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933.\n", "Since at least 2000 BC, arsenic and inorganic arsenical compounds were both medicine and poison. In the 1...
why does a balloon explode when you puncture it, but does a tire slowly deflate?	Because a balloon is a thin stretched membrane where tear will spread. A tire is a lot less stretched, thicker and reinforced so it can sustain the forces on it. You can reinforce a balloon with just a bit of tape and then puncture it trough the tape and it will not explode just leak slowly.	[ "Near the end of its deflation, the balloon may suddenly shoot quickly in the air shortly before it drops down, due to the rubber rapidly squeezes out the remaining air inside as it reaches the inclination to return to its uninflated size.\n", "Also worth mentioning is the fact that tires simply lose air over tim...
What do we know about the early development of a "food service industry"--preparing food to sell or trade to others for immediate consumption?	Food service (in the sense of preparing food for others to eat) probably dates back farther than recorded history. Sellers of ready-to-eat food in marketplaces are recorded as far back as Sumer. Fast food becomes a giant industry in the urban areas of the Roman Empire. Most of the population lives in insulae, small ...	[ "Packaged foods are manufactured outside the home for purchase. This can be as simple as a butcher preparing meat, or as complex as a modern international food industry. Early food processing techniques were limited by available food preservation, packaging, and transportation. This mainly involved salting, curing,...
What causes some rocks/minerals to naturally form with right angles and straight edges?	The rocks and minerals all have a certain type of crystal structure. The nature of structures is such that the atoms want to be as close to each other as possible so as to increase the stability and decrease energy, which results in a close packed structure. Crystals are such that you have a specific arrangement of ato...	[ "Regional metamorphism tends to make the rock more indurated and at the same time to give it a foliated, shistose or gneissic texture, consisting of a planar arrangement of the minerals, so that platy or prismatic minerals like mica and hornblende have their longest axes arranged parallel to one another. For that r...
is there any irrefutable proof that the big bang occurred or that the universe is still expanding?	There's no such thing as 'irrefutable proof' outside of mathematics and formal logic. It doesn't exist, and science doesn't pretend to have it for anything. Seriously. You can't even irrefutably prove that the moon exists. What we do have is a [large range](_URL_0_) of different lines of evidence all of which conve...	[ "The Big Bang itself had been proposed in 1931, long before this period, by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian physicist, who suggested that the evident expansion of the Universe in time required that the Universe, if contracted backwards in time, would continue to do so until it could contract no further. This would brin...
voice classification	It's to do with how high/low your range is. In most (but not all) cases, this is also directly related to whether or not you are male or female (i.e.: women typically have higher voices than men). Sopranos (female) can usually get from Middle C + 2 octaves. Altos (female) can usually get from the F below Middle C + 2...	[ "A voice type classifies a singing voice by vocal range, vocal weight, tessitura, vocal timbre, vocal transition points (\"passaggia\") like breaks and lifts, and vocal register. Voice classification was developed for European classical music and seldom applies to other kinds of singing; voice classification is in ...
how does the "in the nose, out the mouth" trick help keep from throwing up?	It physically calms your body and brain and refocuses your mind away from the feeling of puking. When calm you're better able to control what your body is doing.	[ "Despite not forcing anything into the mouth, mouth corsets are usually very effective in gagging the victim. This is due to the fact that the chin piece prevents the wearer from opening their mouth and dislodging the gag, and the lacing at the back of the corset holds the gag tightly against the mouth, making a ve...
what can insurance agents do that we can't?	It depends a lot on what you're looking for and who the agent is. On a general level, an insurance agent is very knowledgeable about insurance and can help you figure out the coverage that's right for you and navigate some of the pitfalls of selecting insurance. In short: they can help you make the right decisions, whi...	[ "Insurers will often use insurance agents to initially market or underwrite their customers. Agents can be captive, meaning they write only for one company, or independent, meaning that they can issue policies from several companies. The existence and success of companies using insurance agents is likely due to imp...
Were knights on foot feared by normal men-at-arms? Were they in a sense "elite" fighters and avoided in combat?	The medieval period was more than 1000 years long, and covered whole Europe, parts of M.East and Asia, and the military culture in it varied wildly, so I can only give a very general TLDR answer, unless you specify what century you are interested in. Simply put, there was a great spectrum of "quality" between a common...	[ "Knights were expected, above all, to fight bravely and to display military professionalism and courtesy. When knights were taken as prisoners of war, they were customarily held for ransom in somewhat comfortable surroundings. This same standard of conduct did not apply to non-knights (archers, peasants, foot-soldi...
What's the smallest thing we can taste?	The smallest amount of something you can taste I am not sure on which compound is the winner, but [Neotame](_URL_0_) is as much as 13,000 times as sweet as sugar. So if you could taste a single grain of sugar which about a 1-10 mg you could taste around 10-100 picograms of neotame. A 100 picogram particle would be ...	[ "Taste is a form of chemoreception which occurs in the specialised taste receptors in the mouth. To date, there are five different types of taste these receptors can detect which are recognized: salt, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. Each type of receptor has a different manner of sensory transduction: that is, of d...
how can we tell that the super bowl had 111.5 million viewers when multiple people watched the same tv at different parties?	It's not like those numbers are actually derived from counting the number of eyeballs watching screens at any given time. Certain people (Nielsen families) are selected by the Nielsen Media Research corporation and given special set-top boxes which report back to Nielsen when the TV is on and what's being watched. Th...	[ "The telecast was the most watched Super Bowl in history with an average of 97.5 million viewers in the United States. These numbers were later surpassed by Super Bowl XLIII, Super Bowl XLIV and Super Bowl XLV, which now holds the record with an average of 111 million viewers, and 148.3 million total viewers watchi...
An honest question from an Australian about the movie "Lincoln".	You might also be interested in the following threads: * [Just saw LINCOLN where he was portrayed as having unwavering loyalty to abolitionism and America's Grandpa... this isn't true, is it? General questions about the movie's accuracy](_URL_4_) * [Your Opinion: How accurate is it to say the Civil War was fought ove...	[ "\"Lincoln\" received worldwide critical acclaim. The cast was notably lauded, especially Day-Lewis, Field, and Jones. The film currently holds an 89% approval rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 274 reviews with an average rating of 7.98/10, with the critical consensus \"Daniel Day-Lew...
diffraction and interference?	Assuming that you're talking about light here, diffraction and interference are due to the nature of light as a wave. Interference is probably the best place to start, and we'll be considering waves in a pool. If you imagine a series of water waves going from one end of the pool to the other, there are peaks and trou...	[ "Interference is the process by which two waves superimpose to form a resultant wave of greater or less amplitude. Interference usually refers to the interaction of waves that are correlated or coherent with each other. In constructive interference, the two waves are of the same phase interfere in a way such that t...
I always hear how smokers live ~10 years shorter. Is it all due to lung cancer? If a smoker doesn't get it, does he live as long as nonsmokers?	It's not all due to lung cancer. There are many other types of cancers that smoking cigarettes is linked to. Smoking also causes problems with blood flow, hardening of arteries and veins, oxygen distribution, and a host of other problems. Go [here](_URL_0_) to see more.	[ "15% of lung cancers in the US are of this type. Small cell lung cancer occurs almost exclusively in smokers; most commonly in heavy smokers and rarely in non-smokers. According to available data, slightly more than 50% of all lung cancer types is caused by factors other than active smoking and occurs in never smok...
Suggestions for interesting US History topics?	The formation and evolution of major league baseball.	[ "The Center for History and New Media worked in partnership with the American Social History Project (ASHP) at the City University of New York, to develop an online resource directed at American History teachers, along with online resources about the French Revolution. More recent projects have focused on developin...
how do dollar store nightlights and small electronics convert 110v to usable energy for a small led?	Think of how small an iPhone charger cube is and then remember that while 120V AC is going in, it's only outputting 5 volts DC. Instead of a bulky transformer to step the voltage down, it uses various solid state discrete components and minimal ICs to get the desired voltage. Using similar technology, converting 120V...	[ "BULLET::::- Install LED lights that utilize less energy. The prices of the lights are now affordable and many electric companies offer subsidized pricing at local stores such as Home Depot, Lowes and Ace Hardware\n", "Programmed from a desktop computer with a wireless network interface controller in Burlington, ...
What was the level of American investment in Nazi Germany?	This is an ambiguous question. Do you mean US government money? Assets held by American corporations? Assets held by American citizens?	[ "In December 1941, when the United States entered the war against Germany, 250 American firms owned more than $450 million of German assets. Major American companies with investments in Germany included General Motors, Standard Oil, IT&T, Singer, International Harvester, Eastman Kodak, Gillette, Coca-Cola, Kraft, W...
Has there ever beena popular revolution to instate a monarchy?	I can think of two examples one 19th century and one biblical. While it was probably not what the people had in mind, when the Greeks won their war of independence in the 1830s they ended up with a new monarchy. This had more to do with larger European assumptions of the appropriate form of government than any Greek ...	[ "On 15 November 1889, worn out by years of economic stagnation, in attrition with the majority of Army officers, as well as with rural and financial elites (for different reasons), the monarchy was overthrown by a military coup.\n", "In 1910, there was a revolution that deposed the monarchy. Amid corruption, repr...
why haven't we made calorie free food that's cheap and actually tastes good?	Most of the usable calories in food come from fats and sugars. These things are also what make foods taste good, so taking them out also removes much of the pleasant taste. There are substitutes for sugar, but no proper substitutes for fat.	[ "Unhealthy foods tend to be inexpensive when compared to their healthy counterparts. Because fruits and vegetables are not subsidized, the real cost of such crops have risen nearly 40 percent. On the other hand, the prices for soda, sweets, and fats and oils have declined due to the subsidy that the government prov...
Coughing Blood?	The lungs have a dual blood supply. The pulmonary arteries send blood to be oxygenated in the alveoli, while the bronchial arteries make sure the lung tissue itself gets nutrition and oxygen. As a result, there's a hell of a lot of blood vessels, from pretty large to incredibly tiny. Coughing up blood means blood's get...	[ "The complications of coughing can be classified as either acute or chronic. Acute complications include cough syncope (fainting spells due to decreased blood flow to the brain when coughs are prolonged and forceful), insomnia, cough-induced vomiting, rupture of blebs causing spontaneous pneumothorax (although this...
Does the 5 mn Km difference between earth's aphelion and perihelion around the sun mean that the summers are more intense in the Southern Hemisphere?	The Earth's tilt contributes more significantly to temperature than distance from the sun, although the southern hemisphere does get more energy from the sun during it's summer. However, the difference is more or less offset by the large southern oceans absorbing energy, so the net effect is that there is little diff...	[ "Currently, perihelion occurs during the southern hemisphere's summer. This means that solar radiation due to (1) axial tilt inclining the southern hemisphere toward the Sun and (2) the Earth's proximity to the Sun, both reach maximum during the summer and both reach minimum during the winter. Their effects on heat...
If I catch the flu, what is the total mass of virus in my body by the time I start showing symptoms?	Let's aim for within a few orders of magnitude. Let's say the average flu virion weighs around a femtogram (10^-18 kg) -- around the same as an HIV virion. How many virus particles in an infection? That's really tough, actually. The paper here: _URL_0_ estimates a peak titer of around 10^6. But that's TCID50, wh...	[ "When an infected person sneezes or coughs more than half a million virus particles can be spread to those close by. In otherwise healthy adults, influenza virus shedding (the time during which a person might be infectious to another person) increases sharply one-half to one day after infection, peaks on day 2 and ...
Problems with writing historiography papers	It sometimes seems as though there must be only one way to write a historiography paper -- as if anyone can just describe the entire state of a field somehow -- but there are actually several ways to do this well. Also, not everyone's reading of the shape of a field or its most pressing issues will match up. Historiogr...	[ "Authors of individual papers may face conflicts with their duty to report truthfully and impartially. Financial, career, political, and social interests are all sources of conflict. Authors' institutional interests become sources of conflict when the research might harm the institution's finances or offend the aut...
the relevance of the hillary clinton email scandal	The email scandal is actually pretty basic. While working for the State Department she was required to archive all public emails corresponding to her work. She did a few things to circumvent this: * On the day she was confirmed she purchased a private domain and eventually hosted her email there. * She used a privat...	[ "On September 13, 2016, emails were obtained that revealed Powell's private communications regarding both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Powell privately reiterated his comments regarding Clinton's email scandal, writing, \"I have told Hillary's minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me...
what do doctors do with unnecessary body parts like an appendix?	Biohazard waste (removed body parts and those disposable tools that come in contact with your blood, for instance) are destroyed in a way that is designed to make sure that no living cells could remain, such as dissolving in chemicals or burning to ash in an incinerator. I would like to point out that body parts that ...	[ "The appendix is also used as a means to access the colon in children with paralysed bowels or major rectal sphincter problems. The appendix is brought out to the skin surface and the child/parent can then attach a catheter and easily wash out the colon (via normal defaecation) using an appropriate solution.\n", ...
In Martin Scorsese's film, "Silence", Japanese Christian converts in the 17th century are portrayed as being excessively religious. What was the actual extent of Christian religiosity among the Japanese at that time?	By the 17th century, especially the 1640s when the film is set, the only remaining practicing Christians were likely to be die-hards. Much of the behavior shown among the converts in the film and novel — reluctance on pain of death to disrespect Christian images or to express verbal contempt for the Virgin Mary, placin...	[ "Aaron Baker in his book \"A Companion to Martin Scorsese\" discussed aspects of the theological themes in the film stating that: \"According to an analysis of the film by the Japanese-American theologian Fumitaka Masuoka, it pivots on the idea that the \"silence\" of God is in fact the \"message\" of God, being no...
how can companies like malt-o-meal make cereal exactly like general mills and other major companies and not get sued?	Not patented. Same way anyone can make a type of cheese or a cola -- baseically just can't get caught stealing their recipe or using their trademarks (name, characters or things that might cause consumers to think they were buying the real general mills product). See the same thing in fashion - everyone copies look/s...	[ "The cereal has been subsequently manufactured by numerous other suppliers under a generic brand, often in supermarkets' \"own brand\" range. In the United Kingdom, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose have all produced their own versions of the cereal.\n", "Other manufacturers of major brands of cereal (including Gen...
why can't dogs eat onions?	#Brief Overview Onions damage a dogs' red blood cells. Chemicals found in the onion lead to the dog developing anaemia, which is when it has too few red blood cells. This is because of how the onion's chemicals bond to the hemoglobin in our blood, which is what carries oxygen. The hemoglobin clumps up and doesn't ...	[ "Onions cause hemolytic anemia in dogs (and cats). Allyl propyl disulfide has been reported as being considered to be the main cause of onion poisoning in dogs. Thiosulfate has also been implicated. Thiosulfate levels are not affected by cooking or processing. Occasional exposure to small amounts is usually not a p...
What were the war aims of the Arab countries in the 1973 War?	The goals are uncertain for the long-term achievements, but we have a fair idea. Israel, of course, interpreted the goal as its destruction. From their perspective, this was a reasonable view, though we can get into the particulars of Sadat's prior overtures for a peace of sorts and how that factored in. Nevertheless, ...	[ "For the Arab states (and Egypt in particular), Arab successes during the war healed the psychological trauma of their defeat in the Six-Day War, allowing them to negotiate with the Israelis as equals. Because of the later setbacks in the war (which saw Israel gain a large salient on African soil and even more terr...
how do dating sites become successful if their success relies on a large number of members from the start?	Same as any service that requires a lot of people for success: you use really good marketing to convince a few people to try it until you get a self-sustaining community. Do you think Facebook and Twitter and Ebay and Amazon had billions of users from the get-go? Of course not! The community builds over time, starting...	[ "In online dating, individuals create profiles where they disclose personal information, photographs, hobbies, interests, religion and expectations. Then the user can search through hundreds of thousands of accounts and connect with multiple people at once which in return, gives the user more options and more oppor...
If you can cold weld metals in a vacuum because no oxides form, can you do it in 100% nitrogen?	You can cold weld metals in a vacuum because the gas molecules aren't adsorbed to the surface (or otherwise in the way), and in most cases, other surface contaminants as well as defects as well. If it was only due to oxides, you could do it with noble metals under ordinary conditions.	[ "Materials for use in vacuum systems must be carefully evaluated. Many materials have a degree of porosity, unimportant at ordinary pressures, but which would continually admit minute amounts of air into a vacuum system if incorrectly used. Some items, such as rubber and plastic, give off gases into a vacuum that c...
Why does it seem that Kings were referred to as Princes in 17th century texts?	In the early modern era, the term "Prince" also had a more generic meaning of "a ruler possessing some degree of sovereignty". In that sense, the ruler a small independent dukedom like Victor Amadeus of Savoy was just as much a "prince" as king James of Scotland. It's in this sense of the word prince that Machievelli...	[ "The title of \"king\" (\"wang\", ) was held by figurehead rulers of the Zhou dynasty, while the rulers of most states held the title of \"duke\" (\"gong\", ) or \"marquess\" (\"hou\", ). A major exception was Chu, whose rulers were called kings since King Wu of Chu started using the title c. 703 BC.\n", "The ori...
Are there any historians dealing with the social and political impact of culture, especially literature, over the past century?	I wrote a post a few days ago about the role of literature in history. I'm not sure if it provides you with anything you are looking for, but you may want to check it out. I have found literature to be particularly useful in my area of study. Since LGBT people have only very recently been able to participate openly i...	[ "It is now widely accepted by literary critics that paying attention to forms of access to literature, and to the reception history of individual works and authors, is an important part of the history of literary culture. In this context, the miscellany has grown rapidly in interest in eighteenth-century studies. A...
Do male species having lower life expectancy than female also occur in other animal species than human?	Life expectancy depends on a lot of different factors and whether males or females live longer depends on the species, some have males living longer, some have females, some about the same. A lot of it is down to the social or mating behavior. One example where females have a shorter life expectancy is the [Noisy Miner...	[ "Females are much larger than males, and have a higher life expectancy. The maximum lifespan for females is 17 years, whilst the average is 10 due to popular demand for them in big game fishing and as a high-quality food fish. \n", "Some argue that shorter male life expectancy is merely another manifestation of t...
why do football helmets not have a soft layer on the outside to lessen the impact of two helmets smacking together?	in an impact, alot of force is transfered. what feels "soft" to your hand means it'll compress to zero thickness without absorbing energy. that leads to the player's head impacting the really really hard shell. the foam that's inside the helmet is a hardish foam. it still compresses on impact. it just doesn't c...	[ "Because football helmets need to withstand multiple collisions, the helmet materials need to return to their original form after each hit. Padding materials need to be low density to make the helmet comfortable and practical without sacrificing energy absorption. Most football helmets are made from polyurethane o...
How do researchers track the history of agriculture?	> How do they differentiate whether the knowledge and skills were a result of outside groups influence versus a population simply growing to become agriculturist? This is something that's been determined by biologists, using DNA isolated from remains. By looking at genetic markers in the samples they collected across...	[ "The history of agricultural science is a sub-field of the history of agriculture which looks at the scientific advancement of techniques and understanding of agriculture. Early study of organic production in botanical gardens was continued in with agricultural experiment stations in several countries.\n", "BULLE...
why do you get money back from cans that you drink from but not the ones that hold food?	Drink cans are usually aluminum, while food cans are usually steel. Aluminum is a more valuable metal.	[ "Because they were typically made with steel, beverage cans faded out during the metal shortages of World War II. They were continued after the war, but fell out of use in 1960. They are now considered collector's items.\n", "In the days when bottles were washed and re-used, drinks manufacturers paid for the retu...
why is facebook stock falling? it's not like people have stopped using facebook and they still make a profit.	While you're partially correct, the stock is falling for two main reasons. Firstly, the shares were over priced to begin with. They were first sold for something like $38, when they should have started quite a bit lower like they planned on initially. Secondly, while people still use facebook, and it generates advert...	[ "A number of commentators argued retrospectively that Facebook had been heavily overvalued because of an illiquid private market on SecondMarket, where trades of stock were minimal and thus pricing unstable. Facebook's aggregate valuation went up from January 2011 to April 2012, before plummeting after the IPO in M...
Shouldn't the Glorious Revolution be considered a successful invasion of Britain by the Dutch?	William was married to Mary Stuart, the daughter of James II who was intended to succeed him by that invasion. Succeed him as co-monarch along with William, but succeed him nonetheless. William was invading on behalf of the impending British queen as well as his own behalf as her husband, not his own independent ta...	[ "As the invitation was initiated by figures who had little influence themselves, the legacy of the Glorious Revolution has been described as a successful propaganda act by William to cover up and justify his successful invasion. The claim that William was fighting for the Protestant cause in England was used to gre...
Weight loss/Physics question?	Yes, that is the majority of the weight that is being lost. The other waste streams you mentioned would also include some components like water, urea, electrolytes and metals but most of the organic waste will leave your body as carbon dioxide through your breath.	[ "A deadweight loss, also known as excess burden or allocative inefficiency, is a loss of economic efficiency that can occur when the free market equilibrium for a good or a service is not achieved. That can be caused by monopoly pricing in the case of artificial scarcity, an externality, a tax or subsidy, or a bind...
What kind of gifts did Romans exchange during Saturnalia?	According to Macrobius (Saturnalia, 1.11.49), the most common gifts were candles and figurines known as sigilla. The sigilla \- which one of Macrobius' characters, possibly correctly, connects with an ancient religious rite - were usually human-shaped. Beyond these standards, however, the range of gifts given wa...	[ "Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival in honour of the god Saturn, held on 17 December of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through to 23 December. The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving...
why is batman fighting superman?	Looked to me like someone Bruce Wayne cared about died during the destruction of Metropolis and Batman is holding a grudge against superman because of it.	[ "Superman tries to reason with Batman, but Batman uses his technological inventions and mastery of hand-to-hand combat to fight him on equal ground. During the battle, Superman compromises Batman's exoframe, while Queen shoots a kryptonite-tipped arrow to greatly weaken Superman. Batman reveals that he intentionall...
When was the last discovered "lost tribe?" Do you think there are any others? If so where?	I don't know when the most recent "first contact" was, although it was probably fairly recently, say in the last 20 or 30 years. There remain groups that have [resisted attempts at contact](_URL_0_), such as the Sentinelese, and there are almost certainly still groups in the Amazon or New Guinea. While historians oth...	[ "Historian Tudor Parfitt has declared that \"the Lost Tribes are indeed nothing but a myth\", and he writes that \"this myth is a vital feature of colonial discourse throughout the long period of European overseas empires, from the beginning of the fifteenth century, until the later half of the twentieth\".\n", "...
Sometimes, in a rush, I just rinse my hands with water (no soap). Does this do anything? Or should I just not bother washing them at all?	Does it do anything? Sure. There are all kinds of compounds that can build up on your hands that can loosely be called 'dirt,' and many will wash away with water. It's better than nothing, though how much better is dependent upon what you were previously exposed to. However, most bacteria aren't particularly water-sol...	[ "Washing hands with soap and water eliminates microorganisms from the skin and hands. This provides some protection against transmission of VHF and other diseases. This requires at least cake soap cut into small pieces, soap dishes with openings that allow water to drain away, running water or a bucket kept full wi...
How quick does water lose oxygen?	Water doesn't 'lose oxygen'. Instead, it is used up by marine life that need it for respiration. Consequently, the rate at which water becomes deoxygenated depends largely on the ecosystem in the surrounding environment. The reason that the Black Sea is mostly devoid of oxygen is because of the concentrations of salt t...	[ "Oxygen is poorly soluble in water. Fully aerated fresh water therefore contains only 8–10 ml O/liter compared to the O concentration of 210 ml/liter in the air at sea level. Furthermore, the coefficient of diffusion (i.e. the rate at which a substances diffuses from a region of high concentration to one of low con...
- why do automobiles lose such a drastic amount of power by turning the ac on?	The engine doesn't lose any power that it's producing at whatever gearing, temperature, and RPM it's at - what's happening is that the A/C unit needs a non-negligible amount of power (mechanical or otherwise) to run. Example: so if your car (I am pulling ALL of these numbers out of my butt) is doing steady 40mph in s...	[ "The voltage of the power outlet is usually near 12 V DC, (14V to 15V while the running engine is turning the alternator, in order to charge the car battery while providing electrical power), because it is unregulatedly directly powered from the car's electrical system.\n", "A second problem is that nominally \"t...
if skulls don't have prominent nose bones, why do noses protrude so much and feel so hard?	Nasal cartilage is what provides the structure. Cartilage is densely packed collagen which is why it feels hard. _URL_0_	[ "Fractures of facial bones, like other fractures, may be associated with pain, bruising, and swelling of the surrounding tissues (such symptoms can occur in the absence of fractures as well). Fractures of the nose, base of the skull, or maxilla may be associated with profuse nosebleeds. Nasal fractures may be assoc...
Can a low current or voltage do any long term damage to humans if applied for a long period?	Depends where in the body, and whether the heat can dissipate. There are many people now who have a brain implant that does just what you said - deliver a very low voltage of a specific point in the brain, helping with such things as Parkinson's, depression and other neurological issues. So when used correctly, it is e...	[ "BULLET::::- A Swedish study in 1992 tried to determine whether power lines caused some kind of poor health effects. The researchers surveyed persons living within 300 meters of high-voltage power lines over a 25-year period and looked for statistically significant increases in rates of over 800 ailments. The study...
How is Bronsted-Lowry acidity definition similar to Lewis acidity definition?	A Bronsted-Lowry base is a "proton acceptor" (a proton is a positively charged hydrogen ion). The proton is accepted because the base possesses a lone pair of electrons to make covalent bond with that proton. A lewis-base is by definition a lone pair "giver". Therefore all lewis bases are also Bronsted-Lowry bases. In...	[ "In an acid–base titration, the titration curve reflects the strength of the corresponding acid and base. For a strong acid and a strong base, the curve will be relatively smooth and very steep near the equivalence point. Because of this, a small change in titrant volume near the equivalence point results in a larg...
What did Asians and others in the far east think about Rome, Greece, and other western nations?	The Han Chinese knew about the Roman Empire, which they called Da Qin. They said that the Romans were "tall and virtuous" similar to themselves and, according to the themselves, the people of the west were once Chinese, but had since migrated. The Han also recorded some interesting information about the Roman govern...	[ "Thus, the great ancient capitals were linked — cities such as: Athens, home to Athenian democracy, and the Greek philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates; the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish capital, where Jesus of Nazareth preached and was executed around AD 30; and the city of Rome, which gave rise to the Roman ...
why do some people lose weight after taking up smoking? does the same thing happen with e-cigarettes?	Nicotine works by attatching to receptors on your cells. When this happens, it changes the chemistry of the cell and has the various effects that nicotine has. One of the receptors kinda fits on one that is used for the fight or flight response, so it sort of activates that effect. Part of this is lowering your appet...	[ "Cigarette smoking for weight loss is a weight control method whereby one consumes tobacco, often in the form of cigarettes, to decrease one's appetite. The practice dates to early knowledge of nicotine as an appetite suppressant.\n", "Weight gain as a side effect of smoking cessation remains a major aspect of sm...
how is isis able to sell oil on the black market to the tune of $3,000,000/day? who is buying it, where does the oil end up, and how does this network remain active?	Turkey produces and transports a significant amount of oil. Most of the effort in securing this oil is to ensure that nobody steals it or disrupts its delivery, but very little infrastructure exists to ensure that illicit oil is not being added to the system. Before oil ever makes it into a pipeline or a ship, it has ...	[ "ISIS has taken control of the oil refineries in Syria and has begun selling on the black market for less than oil would normally be sold. It has become an economic incentive to purchase oil from ISIS even if it means to fund a terrorist organization. Since September 2014, the United States, government of Syria, Ru...
Why did Arabs conquer the entirety of the Sassanian Empire, but only parts of the Eastern Roman Empire?	I definitely haven't read enough about Persia, so I won't comment on that, but I can quote a few extracts from recent books about what historians think the reasons are. Hopefully someone else familiar with the literature on this topic can come and talk about their views on this. From Peter Sarris' *Empires of Faith: T...	[ "During the Muslim conquest of Persia, the Arabs were drawn eastwards from the Iraqi plains to central and eastern Persia, then to Media, into Khorasan, Sistan and Transoxania. 15 years after the Battle of Nahāvand, the Arabs controlled all Sasanian domain except the parts of Afghanistan and Makran. Nancy Dupree st...
Can a planet have a degree of tilt and revolve/rotate at a rate so that a pole always tilted towards the planet's star?	Uranus has a tilt of about 98 degrees. This means that one period a year, the north pole roughly points to the Sun. During another period, the south pole roughly points to the Sun. So that portion can occur. When a planet is tidally locked, it always presents same face to its star. However when this occurs, the axis ...	[ "Another consequence of the rotation of a planet is the phenomenon of precession. Like a gyroscope, the overall effect is a slight \"wobble\" in the movement of the axis of a planet. Currently the tilt of the Earth's axis to its orbital plane (obliquity of the ecliptic) is 23.44 degrees, but this angle changes slow...
Why are there mountains on Mars that are much higher than the highest mountains on other planets in the solar system?	I found a decent explanation for it. "The large scale of the Tharsis shield volcanoes suggests that they formed from massive eruptions of fluid basalt over prolonged periods of time. Similar eruptions on earth are associated with flood basalt provinces and mantle hotspots. However, on earth the source region for hotsp...	[ "Mountains on other planets and natural satellites of the Solar System are often isolated and formed mainly by processes such as impacts, though there are examples of mountain ranges (or \"Montes\") somewhat similar to those on Earth. Saturn's moon Titan and Pluto, in particular exhibit large mountain ranges in cha...
why are insurance companies and other major businesses able to get away with shady practices?	Two parts, mostly. One, it is very hard to prove that a company is doing something fraudulent. Nobody is combing through every scrap of paperwork at a giant company looking for misdeeds, it's just not practical. Instead, particularly bad offenders are singled out and the government tries to make an example of them. ...	[ "Because insurers are frequently the victims of insurance fraud, insurance companies need to be on their guard. In addition, an unscrupulous insurer could, in theory, make more profits if it could either induce their insureds into settling for less than they are entitled to or from outright wrongly denying valid cl...
Has geographically localized human activity in aggregate been able to impact weather patterns / other things on a small time scale?	I'm not aware of it affecting large scale weather systems, but cities tend to absorb a lot of heat during the day, that is later released throughout the night. This causes big cities to often have a higher average night time temperature during summer than the areas immediately outside it. The usage of asphalt also aff...	[ "Sociodemographic factors include, but are not limited to: patterns of human migration and travel, effectiveness of public health and medical infrastructure in controlling and treating disease, the extent of anti-malarial drug resistance and the underlying health status of the population at hand. Environmental fact...

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