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train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
why does microwaving continuously for sixty seconds heat food so much more effectively than two consecutive thirty-second cycles?	The magnetron inside your microwave that generates the microwaves is a vacuum tube, and the cathode inside it has to warm up before it starts emitting electrons. (literally warm up, as in temperature) You will usually be able to hear a difference in the noise it makes a few seconds after you start it, this is when it...	[ "Studies have investigated the use of the microwave to clean non-metallic domestic sponges which have been thoroughly wetted. A 2006 study found that microwaving wet sponges for two minutes (at 1000 watt power) removed 99% of coliforms, \"E. coli\" and MS2 phages. \"Bacillus cereus\" spores were killed at four minu...
when i eat am i actually chewing as loud as it sounds like to me?	No, when you chew, vibrations travel through your jaw bone and directly to your inner ear, where you hear them. On the other hand, the vibrations have to travel through air to get to someone else's ear. Sound travels best in solids, followed by liquids, and worst in gasses. This is because molecules are closer togethe...	[ "Staring at another diner's plate is also considered rude. It is inappropriate to make sounds while chewing. Certain Indian food items can create sounds, so it is important to close the mouth and chew at a moderate pace.\n", "BULLET::::- Kid is a male goat who has a large appetite like Paxton, and chews anything ...
how are the body's major structures genetically coded?	The simplistic way of looking at genetics is that one gene codes for one protein, but this is not always the case. Think of embryology (the development of an organism) like the feudal system--middles ages. You have kings which control lords, lords that control knights, knights that control soldiers, etc. (I'm probably...	[ "Instead of affecting the organism's DNA sequence, non-genetic factors may cause the organism’s genes to express themselves differently. DNA in the human body is wrapped around histones, which are proteins that package and order DNA into structural units. DNA and histone are covered with chemical tags known as the ...
How were German embassies treated in the allied countries during WWII?	German embassies in countries of the Allied Powers (UK, France, US or the USSR) were closed down as soon as Germany declared officially war on these or otherwise. One week before invading Poland the German embassy in London and France advised all German residents in these countries to leave. After the British ultimatum...	[ "Since April 30, the US State Department had been actively pressuring all neutral countries that had retained diplomatic relations with Germany to prepare to close down German embassies and hand over their archives and records to the embassies of the Western Allies; and some had done so even before May 8. However, ...
how do relatively young people afford to live abroad for an entire year?	They do not pay for it themselves. In situations like you’ve described it’s generally 1) Mom and Dad, 2) academic scholarships, or 3) employer sponsorships.	[ "The majority of the people earn their livelihood through agriculture. There are also a number in government services, mostly army and police. Many young people go abroad and so people from the village are found in USA, France, South Africa, Spain, Greece, Italy, Salalah-Muscat (Oman), Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Dub...
How much water was stored by glaciers during the last glacial maximum?	Thinking about this in terms of percentages is a bit confusing because the total amount of fresh water on earth has changed. During the last glacial maximum, there was a greater total amount of freshwater because more of it is locked up in ice on land and the seas were lower and saltier. At the moment the size of the ...	[ "Ice sheets are the greatest potential source of global freshwater, holding approximately 77% of the global total. This corresponds to 80 m of world sea-level equivalent, with Antarctica accounting for 90% of this. Greenland accounts for most of the remaining 10%, with other ice bodies and glaciers accounting for l...
how are some fish able to come back to life after being frozen, and how long can they be frozen for and still come back to life?	It depends on the type of congelation, for example, you can use a fast-frezzer to freeze a fish so the freezing it's only superficial and if you put the fish in water again you wait for a few minutes and voilá, the fish has "revived", in change, if you use a normal freezer the fish won't be able to revive cuz a lot of ...	[ "Three species of bacteria, \"Carnobacterium pleistocenium\", \"Chryseobacterium greenlandensis\", and \"Herminiimonas glaciei\", have reportedly been revived after surviving for thousands of years frozen in ice.\n", "Three species of bacteria, \"Carnobacterium pleistocenium\", as well as \"Chryseobacterium green...
what exactly is phage and what do they do?	Phage is a Latin term that means "to consume". Bacteriophages for example are viruses which specialize in infecting bacteria ("phage" is typically short for bacteriophage). Such viruses are interesting as alternatives to antibiotics as viruses are usually extremely specific in the types of organisms they can infect mea...	[ "Phages are obligate intracellular parasites meaning that they are able to reproduce only while infecting bacteria. Phages therefore are found only within environments that contain bacteria. Most environments contain bacteria, including our own bodies (called normal flora). Often these bacteria are found in large n...
what makes shutting puppy mills down so hard even though they are repeat offenders?	Running a puppy mill, by itself, isn't illegal in any state. Most counties have regulations that require dogs to be licensed or which restrict the amount of dogs that can be in any given area. But the penalty for violating those regulations is usually limited to a small fine. Additionally, proving that those reg...	[ "Puppy mills in the US often start with hundreds of female dogs which serve their entire lives in the establishment. The females are bred until they can no longer conceive puppies, and are often euthanized after that. Two millions puppies are bred each year in the mills and almost 1.2 million dogs are euthanized in...
how can reading about something induce the feeling of a physical sensation?	Humans have a unique ability to encode feeling into art. One condenses their emotion into a sound or color or series of symbols, and another individual decodes and experiences those feelings with their brain. It's completely unique and an astonishing effect of our species' particular evolution.	[ "Sensation is used to portray a character's perceptions. It can help draw the reader in by conveying the actual sensations of things comprising the story, breathing life into its physical world. Since the reader has experienced only a portion of the sensations experienced by the character, the author aims to either...
What happened to polygamous Mormon families after the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints disavowed the practice in 1890? Did families just split up, or did any of them continue to practice polygamy in secret?	This is not a super easy question to answer because there aren't a lot of statistics on mormon families after the first manifesto disavowing the practice of polygamy. On top of that, the records don't usually differentiate between monogamous and polygamous marriages. There are a few references about what happened thou...	[ "When The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began excommunicating members who practiced polygamy after the Second Manifesto, Mormon fundamentalists began breaking away from the LDS Church. At first, there was one main Mormon fundamentalist group, the Council of Friends, also known as the \"Woolley group\"...
Is there a possibility of "adding more cone types" to the human eye?	Yes; in fact, there are human beings alive right now (mostly females) who have 4 cone types (called tetrachromats), and they are able to distinguish between colors that other people can't, and seem to have a richer and more complex sense of color.	[ "High-resolution imaging of the cone mosaic in the living human eye using Adaptive Optics has made it possible to address the question of how different genetic rearrangements affect the retinal phenotype at the cellular level.\n", "Cone cells, or cones, are photoreceptor cells in the retinas of vertebrate eyes (e...
Has the world experienced major migrations such as the current one before?	Yes, and in fact the [migration period](_URL_0_) is an important part of history. I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'the current situation' though, so I can't really go into much detail. Is it the religious aspect you are getting at, the distance traveled, something else?	[ "Human migration has been shifting toward cities and urban centres. The urban population jumped from 29% in 1950 to 50.5% in 2005. Working backwards from the United Nations prediction that the world will be 51.3 percent urban by 2010, Dr. Ron Wimberley, Dr. Libby Morris and Dr. Gregory Fulkerson estimated 23 May 20...
William the Conqueror conquered England. So does it mean that the current royal family has some viking blood?	Yes, but likely, so is everyone who has European descent. Most likely, every white European can, with reasonable confidence, claim descent from William the Conquerer, and at that, any given Norseman who had descendants. William lived in the 11th century, so lets use 1063 for our start date. In genealogy, traditional ...	[ "A dubious, later pedigree attributes to Ragnvald a daughter, Åsa Ragnvaldsdatter (\"Aseda Rognvaldsdatter\"), who married Eystein Ivarsson. It is through this line that Ragnvald Heidumhære is a purported ancestor of William the Conqueror (and subsequent British royal houses).\n", "William I (c. 1028 – 9 Septembe...
How historically accurate is "Aztec" from Gary Jennings?	If you don't mind spoilers, Aztec scholar mike smith wrote [a review of the book](_URL_0_). Basically, it's reasonably accurate but not perfect. Jennings does a good job covering the major aspects of Aztec culture and gives the reader a good 'feel' for what life would have been like, but many of the details are wrong...	[ "The Aztec was designed by the firm of Meyer & Holler. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992, it is decorated with vibrantly-colored columns, sculptures, furnishings and murals, many of which are authentic reproductions of Meso-American artifacts. Hanging in front of the stage is the origina...
how can sunscreen keep your skin from aging while still sitting in the sun long enough to tan?	To answer your title: No, it can’t. To answer your other question: Yes it’s basically the same damage, you can’t have a sun tan without skin damage, and skin damage leads to what looks like “quicker aging”. So sunscreen cannot “keep your skin from aging” it just keeps your skin from getting sun damage. Sunscreen wo...	[ "Sunscreen—Sunscreen is more transparent once applied to the skin and also has the ability to protect against UVA/UVB rays, although the sunscreen's ingredients have the ability to break down at a faster rate once exposed to sunlight, and some of the radiation is able to penetrate to the skin. In order for sunscree...
what does the 101 in beginners courses mean ?	It was introduced when colleges begin to organize course work systematically. Courses starting with a 1 are intended for freshman, 2 for sophomores, et cetera. The second digit is the content area and third digit the sequence. So the 101 is introductory course. 102, 103, etc should be take sequentially. Edit: 101 bec...	[ "BULLET::::- 101: (pronounced 'one o one') used to indicate basic knowledge; e.g., \"Didn't you learn to sweep the floor in housework 101?\" (from the numbering scheme of educational courses where 101 would be the first course in a sequence on the subject).\n", "The 101 course for each UGC is a 1 credit course th...
Are there historical records to document the provenance of religious artifacts like those kept in Notre Dame cathedral?	The chain of provenance is surprisingly detailed for a number of holy relics and artifacts across Europe, but only to a point. They all had to find some point of origin and these origin stories would typically be unsatisfying to the modern historian. Take, for example, the shards of the True Cross. Looking to hagiogra...	[ "The cathedral has been progressively stripped of its original decoration and works of art. Several noteworthy examples of Gothic, Baroque, and 19th-century sculptures and a group of 17th- and early 18th-century altarpieces remain in the cathedral's collection. The most important relics in Christendom, including th...
How did the USA phrase laws to keep people they didn't want to from voting?	It varied in place and time. One popular trick was to put a difficult barrier like a literacy test in the way, and then to put in a clause that would allow you to vote if you had been a voter prior to a certain date, or later if your father or grandfather had been a voter. [Here](_URL_0_) is a copy of the voting rules...	[ "In the United States of America, restrictions on the right to vote due to property ownership or lack thereof, and in some places literacy, were common until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Today all but a few states deny the right to vote to those who have been convicted of a felony at any point in their past (voti...
How did Mary, the mother of Jesus, become the center of cult-like worship in the Catholic church?	Some corrections before we get going in earnest: > How did Mary, the mother of Jesus, become the center of cult-like worship in the Catholic church? Two points here. First, the Christian devotion to Mary is a cult in the specific and technical use of the word. That is, it is a religious devotion centered around rit...	[ "As the mother of Jesus, Mary has a central role in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. Within the Catholic Church, the Virgin Mary is seen as the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church. By the early Middle Ages, Marian devotion had become an integral part of Church life. The Roman Catholic veneration of her...
Cost and protection of cloth armour?	There is an extensive discussion of the protection provided by armour in section 9 of Alan Williams The Knight and the Blast Furnace (Brill, 2003). This focusses on iron/steel armour, but reports some results for non-metallic armours. Longbows and crossbows can deliver 200J of energy at short range. To stop this wit...	[ "The armor was designed primarily to protect the torso of the warrior from obsidian swords, arrows and atlatl darts, it was made of successive layers of cotton and jute which would gradually slow and trap the arrows, rather than divert them, like European plate armour. Because this armor was padded it protected wel...
how x-ray machines work and what metal is typically used	They work similarly to CRT televisions, interestingly. There is an 'electron emitter', which generates a cloud of electrons around a coil. Then there is an 'electron collector', that pulls the electrons to itself with great acceleration. This acceleration gives the electrons their energy, with which they crash into an...	[ "An X-ray tube is a vacuum tube that converts electrical input power into X-rays. The availability of this controllable source of X-rays created the field of radiography, the imaging of partly opaque objects with penetrating radiation. In contrast to other sources of ionizing radiation, X-rays are only produced as ...
why do dogs eat grass?	Your doggie sometimes eats grass to help with tummy aches or if they ate something that didn't agree with them. But dogs and cats also think it tastes yummy, so will occasionally have it as a snack. It doesn't always mean something bad! Edit: in your dog's case, he/she may have gotten into the garbage, eaten somethin...	[ "While it is true that cats and dogs eat grass, it has nothing to do with the weather and is because cats and dogs are not exclusively carnivorous. Some researchers believe that dogs eat grass as an emetic when feeling ill.\n", "This grass provides food for livestock and wildlife. It is forage for cattle, sheep, ...
do steroids actually enlarge the head?	Moon face is the result of fat distribution to the face--the head is not actually getting bigger. It's a common side effect of Prednisone, an immunosuppressive corticosteroid, but can also result from prolonged anabolic steroid use. The specific mechanism that causes this is not known, but longer use generally correspo...	[ "Neurosteroids, also known as neuroactive steroids, are endogenous or exogenous steroids that rapidly alter neuronal excitability through interaction with ligand-gated ion channels and other cell surface receptors. The term \"neurosteroid\" was coined by the French physiologist Étienne-Émile Baulieu and refers to s...
why did a radical islamist behind a school attack shout "it is for daesh" if "daesh" is a horrible insult?	> Daesh is an acronym for the Arabic phrase al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) Maybe is has some other meaning but it seems its just an acronym So, yeh, he's pretty much saying "for ISIS" Edit: Further searching I found this from an article > The word is an Arabic acrony...	[ "Also on January 29, a Muslim Cleric in the Iraqi city of Mosul issued a fatwa stating, \"Expel the (Assyrian) Crusaders and infidels from the streets, schools, and institutions because they have offended the person of the prophet.\" It has been reported that Muslim students beat up a Christian student at Mosul Uni...
how will humanity determine if free will is a myth?	You don't know what is real and isn't. Therefore, you don't know if you can freely interact with anything because you don't know if it exists. This means it's not possible to determine... but that's just my take. For more information, look into metaphysics (or do yourself a favor and don't).	[ "Some Indeterminists would argue we have no free will either. If, with respect to human behaviour, a so-called 'cause' results in an indeterminate number of possible, so-called 'effects', that does not mean the person had the free-thinking independent will to choose that 'effect'. More likely, it was the indetermin...
If you relocated a sea turtle's nest to a completely different location, would the babies return to where the mother laid them or where the human relocated them to nest?	Salmon, I know, not a turtle, salmon exhibit this behaviour. Salmon are caught at fish-ladders and eggs removed, these are hatched and the just born salmon then are released in various rivers and creeks etc. These salmon now return to where they were released, not where the parent was born.	[ "Female sea turtles create nests to lay their eggs by digging a pit on the beach, typically between the high tide line and dune, using their rear flippers. Consequently, within the first seven days of hatching, hatchling sea turtles must make the journey from the nest back into the ocean. This trip occurs predomina...
Jellicoe, Beatty, and the current perception of the admirals of Jutland?	It's far from a unbiased account but here is Jellicoe's version written in 1932: _URL_1_ There is a book by Pulitzer prize winner Robert Massie called "Castles made of steel" that goes into this in depth. He also wrote a book called "Dreadnaught" dealing with the lead up to the war. I hearty recommend both books for t...	[ "Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, (17 January 1871 – 11 March 1936) was a Royal Navy officer. After serving in the Mahdist War and then the response to the Boxer Rebellion, he commanded the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, a tactically indecisive engagement aft...
why don't other organizations last as long as religions?	I don't know what you mean? Empires sometimes last just as long as, if not longer than religions. Iran is about 5000 years old if you count the proto-Elamite kingdom on the Iranian Plateau as the start of Iran. Azerbaijan could also count under the same kingdom. China's oldest dynasty is just older than christianit...	[ "Most religions start out their lives as cults or sects, i.e. groups in high tension with the surrounding society, containing different views and beliefs contrary to the societal norm. Over time, they tend to either die out, or become more established, mainstream and in less tension with society. Cults are new grou...
Particle accelerators "create conditions similar to the time just after the Big Bang". What do Physicists mean by this?	What do we understand from particle physics? We see that electromagnetism and the weak force unify at the energy scale of about 100 GeV. At those high energies, the two forces look the same and can be described by a single mathematical framework. Experimental data also indicates that at even higher energies (10^14 -...	[ "The Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted scientific theory to explain the early stages in the evolution of the Universe. For the first millisecond of the Big Bang, the temperatures were over 10 billion kelvins and photons had mean energies over a million electronvolts. These photons were sufficiently energe...
How do scholars sift through what is factual and what is mythical about Julius Caesar?	In short, it’s almost impossible to judge what is ‘factual’ about Caesar, and the same can be said about anyone from that time period. We can judge whether sources were exaggerated or not based on some archaeological finds, but when all you have to go on are written sources from ~2,000 years ago it’s important to kee...	[ "The story was carried by many major media outlets. However, classicist Mary Beard objected that there was no basis whatsoever for identifying it as Caesar, and accused the discoverers of staging a publicity stunt. Other historians were also quick to dispute the identification, among them Paul Zanker, an archaeolog...
What is drift velocity, and what is the difference between that and the speed of an electron?	The domino effect is not really a good way to think of it. Think about it more like a river with a lot of pingpong balls that is blocked off and turning on the switch makes the river flow, causing the balls to move. When you turn on the switch an electric field is created, which causes a force to work on the electron...	[ "In physics a drift velocity is the average velocity attained by charged particles, such as electrons, in a material due to an electric field. In general, an electron in a conductor will propagate randomly at the Fermi velocity, resulting in an average velocity of zero. Applying an electric field adds to this rando...
History of Secret Police	You could say the Eyes and Ears of the Persian Empire were a secret police, though they were more a general intelligence agency. IIRC Imperial (pre-communist) Russia had the first real secret police, in the sense of a spy agency with police powers outside the justice system, answering to the king.	[ "In Europe, secret police organizations originated in 18th-century Europe after the French Revolution, when such operations were established in an effort to detect any possible conspiracies or revolutionary subversion. The peak of secret-police operations in most of Europe was 1815 to 1860, \"when restrictions on v...
why do people get foam in their mouth when they have rabies or an epileptic seizure?	I can explain the seizures (epileptic here): when you have the most severe of epileptic seizures, you lose total control over your body. Obviously the most visible symptom of this is loss of limb control, ie, seizing. But most of the the rest of the body goes too - including the ability to swallow. A basic body surviva...	[ "The main sign of a gelastic seizure is a sudden outburst of laughter or crying with no apparent cause. The laughter may sound unpleasant and sardonic rather than joyful. The outburst usually lasts for less than a minute. During or shortly after a seizure, an individual might display some twitching, strange eye mov...
If a human body suddenly got sucked up into outer space what would happen to the human body? Why wouldn’t humans flash freeze?	I'll answer the second part: a human wouldn't flash-freeze because a vacuum is an extremely good insulator. On a human scale, the thin gas of interplanetary space is so thin that it doesn't really have any temperature at all. There's no convection or conduction of heat out of your body. Instead, there's only radiation ...	[ "The human body can briefly survive the hard vacuum of space unprotected, despite contrary depictions in much popular science fiction. Human flesh expands to about twice its size in such conditions, giving the visual effect of a body builder rather than an overfilled balloon. Consciousness is retained for up to 15 ...
how does adding money to be circulated affect the economy?	It causes inflation. When the total money in an economy (the money supply) increases too rapidly, the quality of the money (the currency value) often decreases. Economists generally think that this money supply increase (monetary inflation) causes the goods/services price increase (price inflation) over a longer perio...	[ "So, while money is a commodity whose price is affected by supply and demand, it does not become more beneficial to society if its supply is increased. Increasing the supply of money only confuses society's ability to calculate relative costs during the time of monetary expansion precisely because it is not injecte...
since black absorbs light, exactly how much warmer will you be in a black shirt, contra a white one? and also, are black people on average hotter than the rest?	Can I add to you question why women in Arabic countries wear black robes (burqas)? Wouldn't it make more sense to wear white ones?	[ "In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well. In elementary science, far ult...
if both lsd and psychedelic mushrooms use psilocybin then why does one give you an 'energizing' experience and the other gives a more 'relaxing' experience	They aren't the same chemical. Only mushrooms are/use psilocybin. LSD is a man made chemical called Lysergic acid Diethly amide (aka "acid"). They're both hallucinogens, but act on the brain and body in different ways. However, both have therapeutic and recreational uses under the right conditions.	[ "Psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin (the main ingredient in most hallucinogenic mushrooms) are the subject of renewed research interest because of their therapeutic potential. They could ease a variety of difficult-to-treat mental illnesses, such as chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and alcoh...
what are the amino acids? and what do they do to the body? (simple answers cause i’m a noob)	Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Imagine amino acids like lego blocks, you can assemble them into any shape and size. Amino acids are all identical, except for a single “side group”. This side group can be a single hydrogen, a complex carbon chain, some nitrogen groups, etc etc. These give the amino ac...	[ "Amino acids are the building blocks of peptides and enzymes while sugar-peptide chains are the backbone of RNA and DNA. In biological organisms, amino acids appear almost exclusively in the left-handed form (-amino acids) and sugars in the right-handed form (R-sugars). Since the enzymes catalyze reactions, they en...
why do people on reddit justify piracy of entertainment, just because they don't have easy access to the content?	The content creators only lose money if they lose a sale. If you download something you never would have paid for there is no loss to the legal owners of the content.	[ "Cara Cusumano, director of the Tribeca Film Festival, stated in April 2014: \"Piracy is less about people not wanting to pay and more about just wanting the immediacy – people saying, 'I want to watch Spiderman right now' and downloading it\". The statement occurred during the third year that the festival used the...
why when it's 'damp' old people feel it in their bones...	When bad weather roles in it tends to come with a lower barometric pressure (lower air pressure). This affects how much pressure your body is being subjected to. When there is lower barometric pressure your tissues are allowed to expand (for instance feeling that your joints are swollen or that there is more water r...	[ "BULLET::::- Due to the wetness of their bodies and brains, they tend to have a poorer and shorter memory compared to people of other temperaments, as wetness and coldness would result in decrease in transferring and storing data.\n", "Old people will also have a lot of symptoms. For example, healthy bones are cr...
What was the best year in human history?	This sounds like a "polltype question" which is not appropriate for askhistorians. sorry.	[ "In September 1931, Mayo and other prominent individuals of the time were invited by \"The New York Times\" to make a prediction concerning the world in eighty years time in the future, in 2011, to celebrate the paper's hundred-and-sixtieth anniversary since its establishment in 1851. Mayo's prediction was that the...
Why is the Mandlebrot set generated on the complex plane?	You necessarily use the multiplicative structure of the complex numbers to construct it. If we write f(z;c)=z^(2)+c, then this function is evaluated explicitly through the arithmetic of the complex numbers. The Mandelbrot set is defined to be the complex numbers c so that repeatedly applying f(z;c) to z=0 does not go o...	[ "Another related use of the complex plane is with the Nyquist stability criterion. This is a geometric principle which allows the stability of a closed-loop feedback system to be determined by inspecting a Nyquist plot of its open-loop magnitude and phase response as a function of frequency (or loop transfer functi...
Ottoman Historians: Would Ottomans place slaves purchased from the transatlantic slave route as Janissaries?	I've never read anything suggesting that they were. The primary method of recruiting jannisaries during its period as a slave-based institution was through the [devshirme](_URL_0_) which recruited from a quota of Christian boys, mostly from the Balkans. As the devshirme declined, it was replaced by a system of free-bo...	[ "The authorities of Ottoman and pre-Ottoman times kept no relevant official records, but observers in the late 1500s and early 1600s estimated that around 35,000 European slaves were held throughout this period on the Barbary Coast, across Tripoli and Tunis, but mostly in Algiers. The majority were sailors (particu...
why the celsius to fahrenheit conversion is what it is.	Because it's how the math works out between the two scales. Fahrenheit was originally created with the freezing point of water at 32 degrees and the boiling point at 212 -- don't ask why, they're arbitrary, except that they're 180 F degrees apart. Maybe it had something to do with how evenly divisible that number is ov...	[ "\"R\" is the gas constant and \"T\" is the absolute temperature . Thus, for exothermic reactions, (the standard enthalpy change, , is negative) \"K\" decreases with temperature, but for endothermic reactions ( is positive) \"K\" increases with temperature.\n", "The Fahrenheit scale uses the symbol ° to denote a ...
what exactly did sessions do, and why is is such a huge deal?	He was in communication with Russia during a time when Russia was suspected of tampering with our election. While this is not illegal, Sessions lied about this contact while under oath which IS illegal.	[ "Sessions was an early supporter of the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, and was a major policy adviser to the Trump campaign, especially in regard to immigration and national security. He was also on the short list to become Trump's running mate, a position that ultimately went to Mike Pence.\n", "Session...
why\|how do we make reddit bots that remove post automatically?	As to why, we make them because they are effective at combating spam and ensuring a level of quality without requiring a human to operate. A bot only requires a human to take a look at appeals and complaints, ie. to correct any false positives or negatives, instead of a human having to manually go through all posts. F...	[ "Postbacks are commonly seen in edit forms, where the user introduces information in a form and hits \"save\" or \"submit\", causing a postback. The server then refreshes the same page using the information it has just received.\n", "Computer programs called bots have often been used to perform simple and repetit...
if symptoms of being sick (mucous, sore throat, fatigue) are immune system responses, what does the cold virus actually do?	While your immune system is fighting them, pretty much nothing. However, if they were allowed to keep reproducing without a fight, then they would just keep killing off cells at faster and faster rates, eventually preventing vital functions from working and killing you.	[ "The symptoms of the common cold are believed to be primarily related to the immune response to the virus. The mechanism of this immune response is virus specific. For example, the rhinovirus is typically acquired by direct contact; it binds to human via ICAM-1 receptors and the CDHR3 receptor through unknown mecha...
when you accidentally close a book, and then try to get back on the same page, how is it that you can "randomly" open the book and be +/- a few pages of the page you were on?	You had some idea about where you were. You tried to open it there. The book also has a memory in that it was opened to a page. The bindings and paper had shifted.	[ "\"a book turns on when you open it, and automatically turns off when you close it. When I was a child, first learning to read, I believed that books were living things, that they slept when closed, awakened when open.\" \n", "\"They would not let me open it without searching my pockets, and depriving me of pen, ...
why do beavers make dams?	Beavers build lodges next to streams to live in. The living spaces are high and the entrances are low. They build dams so the entrances to the lodges become underwater while the living spaces stay above water.. Since the entrance is underwater things that can't swim can't get in, since the living spaces are abov...	[ "Beavers are known for their natural trait of building dams on rivers and streams, and building their homes (known as \"lodges\") in the resulting pond. Beavers also build canals to float building materials that are difficult to haul over land. They use powerful front teeth to cut trees and other plants that they u...
the importance of honey bees in our (daily) life and why they are dying off so rapidly	You've probably seen it on the news lately because one type of pesticide, a relatively new one called neonicitinoids, has been identified as a possible cause of colony collapse disorder - the sudden mass die off of hives. There's also the increase in mites that infect bees and possibly malnutrition. Bees are importa...	[ "Long shelf life of honey is attributed to an enzyme found in the stomach of bees. The bees mix glucose oxidase with expelled nectar they previously consumed, which then creates two byproducts: gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, partially responsible for honey's acidity and ability to suppress bacterial growth.\n...
how does wifi keep up with all the signals in the air?	WiFi uses something called CSMA/CA, which is Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance. What this really means is that it's a system where, although it might seem your device is constantly sending data, it's actually not. There'll be a pause where your laptop stops sending, and then your tablet will jump ...	[ "Due to the complex nature of radio propagation at typical Wi-Fi frequencies, particularly the effects of signal reflection off trees and buildings, algorithms can only approximately predict Wi-Fi signal strength for any given area in relation to a transmitter. This effect does not apply equally to long-range Wi-Fi...
If every human on earth walked east along the equator, would we slow down the rotation of the earth?	Well, yes, but the effect is completely irrelevant. It also doesn't build up. Let's idealize a human as a point mass (this is a very good approximation compared to Earth's radius). Your angular momentum is L = r p = r m v, where m is your mass, v is your velocity, and r the distance from the axis of rotation. If you'r...	[ "Because of a planet's rotation around its own axis, the gravitational acceleration is less at the equator than at the poles. In the 17th century, following the invention of the pendulum clock, French scientists found that clocks sent to French Guiana, on the northern coast of South America, ran slower than their e...
how come when i sing along with a song i sound awesome but when you take away the vocal track i sound ridiculously horrible?	I think your ears are blending the two voices. It also might be that you feel more confident in singing it with the vocals. Two things I do to tell how well I'm really doing: first, gradually decrease the volume of the song, but keep your singing voice the same. Second, take a finger and plug one ear while singing. It ...	[ "I was thinking to myself, if I want this song to be believable, it needs to be real, so I'm not going to put a girl on the song to sing who's straight. I'm just not going to do it. So I reached out to Lauren and she came in and she cut the vocal and it sounds awesome. Our voices sound really cool together because ...
Origin of Christmas tree and Christmas lights.	[This news article of NYT in Dec. 22, 2016](_URL_0_), relates the 'hot debate' between Riga in Latvia and Talinn in Estonia over the historical origin of Christmas tree, so we should take either of their claim with a grain of salt (Just for conformation, I came from neither of two, nor Germany, the third candidate of o...	[ "Modern Christmas trees originated during the Renaissance of early modern Germany. Its 16th-century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther, who is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree.\n", "The Christmas tree was first used by German Lutherans in...
The explanation of the Coriolis force that everyone gives about the relative difference between linear velocities on Earth. Is that correct?	A lot of people try to give "simplified" or "heuristic" descriptions of the Coriolis force, and end up getting it wrong and/or not covering all possible cases. Like you said, it's just one of the three terms that pop up when you transform the acceleration vector into a rotating reference frame (the other two being the...	[ "BULLET::::- Coriolis force. This action, due to the Earth's rotation, tends to displace any body travelling in the northern (southern) hemisphere towards its right (left). Its intensity per unit mass is proportional to the speed \"V\" and increases in magnitude from the equator (where it is zero) towards the poles...
day trading on the stock exchange	Hey look, finally an ELI5 that I can be helpful on. Day trading is a form of trading where you basically want to start and end the day with no open position. An open position means you either own a stock/option or haven't covered a short (I'm assuming you know what these mean if you've read up on stocks). Because of t...	[ "In business, the trading day or regular trading hours (RTH) is the time span that a particular stock exchange is open. For example, the New York Stock Exchange is, as of 2015, open from 9:30 AM Eastern Time to 4:00 PM Eastern Time. Trading days are usually Monday to Friday. When a trading day ends, all share tradi...
why does having chalk increase your grip while on something like monkey bars?	Chalk is typically made of magnesium carbonate which serves the purpose of keeping your hands dry. The reason it works isn't that it directly improves grip per se, it's that it prevents grip from degrading in the face of moisture. For most uses that moisture comes from your sweat, but in rock climbing you often ...	[ "Chalk is used by nearly all climbers to absorb problematic moisture, often sweat, on the hands. Typically, chalk is stored as a loose powder in a special chalk bag designed to prevent spillage, most often closed with a drawstring. This chalk bag is then hung by a carabiner from the climbing harness or from a simpl...
Did U.S. Marines carry out night operations during World War 2, on the scale that they do now?	The key moment of the Battle of Guadacanal was when the Kawaguchi brigade attacked a ridge to the south of Henderson field. That night, Carlson's Raider battalion and other elements of the First Marine Division held onto what soon was called Bloody Ridge, in an all night l...	[ "Night offensive action by the amphib recon Marines, not the normal practice during the earlier actions of World War II, was emphasized during the Okinawan campaign as the Marines conducted 21 night patrols and attacks, 13 of which were by the Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion.\n", "The United States Marine Cor...
Is there a minimum amount of molecules needed to form an ice crystal?	Any two or more water molecules that come together to form solid water (ice) will form a structure with the same geometry as a larger ice crystal. When you can actually start calling that structure a crystal is probably more of an opinion.	[ "Through a process called secondary nucleation, the crystals quickly increase in number, and because of its supercooled surrounding, the crystals will continue to grow. Sometimes, the concentration is estimated to reach one million ice crystals per cubic meter.\n", "Another example, not based on concentration but...
how does fat accumulate symmetricaly in both our legs when we become overweight. how do our legs and arms get the same amount of fat stored in them?	Fat is stored in cells called Adipocytes and generally they are evenly dispersed in our body	[ "Condition of the body: A body with a greater fat percentage and less lean body mass will have a faster rate of putrefaction, as fat retains more heat and it carries a larger amount of fluid in the tissues.\n", "There is also fat \"accumulation\" in various body parts. Patients often present with \"buffalo hump\"...
why is the reversible, and compact design of usb-c only made recently? why couldn't they have used this design decades ago when they were designing usb-a?	One of the other deals with this: USB was meant to be a replacement for SERIAL interfaces (Eg, RS232). It was a way to quickly transmit data that happened to also provide a little bit of power. Today, it's primarily used as a power source that happens to have a data exchange. In terms of transmitting information like...	[ "Often there are compromises between preserving appearance, maintaining original design and material properties, and ability to reverse changes. Reversibility is now emphasized so as to reduce problems with future treatment, investigation, and use.\n", "After its launch, several groups tried integrating the techn...
why can flood waters get 20-30 feet high on flat land, when water will fill it's given space, wouldn't the water "just flow away?"	It is flowing away.. Through your house and your neighbours' Water takes volume, if a lot of water arrive in a riverbed, it will overflow and take another path.	[ "Floods can happen on flat or low-lying areas when water is supplied by rainfall or snowmelt more rapidly than it can either infiltrate or run off. The excess accumulates in place, sometimes to hazardous depths. Surface soil can become saturated, which effectively stops infiltration, where the water table is shallo...
why are old tv screens round on the edge.	In addition to problems of fabricating the glass (remember, there’s a vacuum inside, so it has to hold up against roughly seven pounds per square inch of pressure from the atmosphere), it’s harder to get the electron beam to behave in the corners. For years, color TVs, which had three beams to control, were outright ro...	[ "Because of the building-block nature of the system, the configuration of the overall screen area and shape is flexible, leading to simple traditional rectangular displays, and more complex non-standard shapes.\n", "Depending on how a television set is adjusted, viewers can see a larger area than the title-safe a...
pharmacies - what in the world is taking so long?	I don't think you realize the volume of prescriptions they are dealing with. They pretty much fill them in order that they are received. When they then get to your prescription, they just don't fill it and hand it to you -- or just grab it off the shelf in the case of your steroid cream -- they review your computer ...	[ "The \"pharmerging\", or emerging pharmaceutical market economies, which include Brazil, India, Russia, Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Vietnam, accrued one fifth of global 2011 pharmaceutical expenditures; in future, aggregated data for th...
how to tell the difference between polar, non polar, and covalent bonds	polar and non polar bonds are covalent bonds. Bonds/molecules are polar when the electrons forming the bond are unequally distributed, like water molecule has bit of a V shape, but non-polar carbon dioxide is in line, O-C-O. In ionic bonds the electrons are entirely on the other atom.	[ "Bonds can fall between one of two extremesbeing completely nonpolar or completely polar. A completely nonpolar bond occurs when the electronegativities are identical and therefore possess a difference of zero. A completely polar bond is more correctly called an ionic bond, and occurs when the difference between el...
Were ancient battles actually as large as they are modernly depicted?	This is an interesting question in the context of early Ireland, because we don't really know how battles worked. Our historical sources tell us when battles were fought, where they took place and who fought them, but rarely give us accounts of what these fights actually looked like, in terms of scale and mechani...	[ "The battle is generally dated to 1274 BC in the Egyptian chronology, and is the earliest battle in recorded history for which details of tactics and formations are known. It is believed to have been the largest chariot battle ever fought, involving between 5,000 and 6,000 chariots in total.\n", "The defeated mas...
the reasons why the colonies sought independence from england.	The American colonies fought for several reasons. 1. They didn't want to pay taxes on goods such as paper and tea. Those taxes were meant to pay off the 7 years war, but the colonists figured that they didn't ask for the war. 2. King George refused to listen to the colonists' problems. They tried to raise issues, but...	[ "In England, a new round of colonial ventures in the New World was fueled by declining economic opportunities at home and growing religious intolerance for more radical Protestants (like the Puritans) who rejected the compromise Protestant theology of the established Church of England. After the demise of the Saint...
how does the milk, dye and soap experiment work?	Milk is an emulsion of fatty globules suspended in water. We can ignore the fat for now, just note that it helps keep the dye from mixing in too fast. What we're really interested in is the water. Water is rather interesting for a molecule. It has a negatively charged end (the oxygen) and a positively charged end (the...	[ "After homogenization of the cream, the mixture must undergo pasteurization. Pasteurization is a mild heat treatment of the cream, with the purpose of killing any harmful bacteria in the cream. The homogenized cream undergoes high temperature short time (HTST) pasteurization method. In this type of pasteurization t...
In light of water shortages around the world, could we simply dehumidify and purify water to make it drinkable? Or gather water droplets from heat and desert areas?	Yes, but it requires a lot of energy to cool to below the dewpoint, and the environment you’re in is going to need to have a fair amount of humidity. There just isn’t any humidity in the desert. places that have humidity, and the temperature is fairly close to the dewpoint so that you don’t need to use a lot of ener...	[ "In the developing world, the water is often of questionable quality, forcing the local population to try rudimentary filtration systems, such as the use of unsanitary cloth in a vain attempt to create potable water. This method is obviously not reliable and the results are rarely safe for consumption, particularly...
multiverse theory: is it thought that anything you can think of has happened in these universes (infinite possibility), or just everything possible within the laws of logic?	Given a potentially infinite number of universes, over a potentially infinite timespan, then it can be assumed that anything which is physically possible will occur at some point somewhere. To answer the point about the laws of physics and how they may apply in another universe.... no one knows. We know that there are...	[ "The multiverse idea has led to considerable research into the anthropic principle and has been of particular interest to particle physicists, because theories of everything do apparently generate large numbers of universes in which the physical constants vary widely. As yet, there is no evidence for the existence ...
why is second hand smoke about four times more toxic than mainstream smoke?	When people make these claims they usually mean over time rather then immediate. If you smoke in a confined space such as your house and then leave your kid in there for years they may get the exponential smoke inhalation. For the most part phrases like this are not based on realistic situations and are scare tactics. ...	[ "A 2007 Gallup poll found that 56% of respondents felt that second-hand smoke was \"very harmful\", a number that has held relatively steady since 1997. Another 29% believe that second-hand smoke is \"somewhat harmful\"; 10% answered \"not too harmful\", while 5% said \"not at all harmful\".\n", "Recent major sur...
how does a digital camera know when something is close or far away?	The passive form of autofocus analyses the image until the edges are sharp. If the focus area is wrong, the picture will be blurry where you want it to be crisp. The lens itself moves around to find the right focus. Active autofocus uses a different type of light (or even ultrasound) to focus. If there are two lights...	[ "An orientation sensor can be found in some digital cameras. By recording the orientation at the time of capture, the camera's software can determine whether the image should be oriented to landscape or portrait format.\n", "Almost all digital cameras, and most later film cameras, measure distance using electroac...
why are peanuts banned from schools but not workplaces? does the danger of an allergic reaction decrease with age?	Schools are responsible for the safety of their students. Businesses assume you are capable of managing your own allergy in the real world.	[ "Some school districts in the United States and elsewhere have banned peanuts. However, the efficacy of the bans in reducing allergic reactions is uncertain. A recent study in Canada has shown that there is no difference in the percentage of accidental exposures occurring in schools prohibiting peanuts than in scho...
if the sponge is dirty, how do your dishes become clean?	Plenty of studies on the bacteria levels in sponges, and the ways to sanitizer them such as putting a squeezed out sponge in a microwave for 10-15 seconds to superheat the bacteria. A sponge mostly works to mechanically remove food particles from the plate, the soap will break up proteins and fats, the hot water will ...	[ "The \"palayok\" should not be cleaned using household detergents, as the porous material would easily imbibe chemicals in the detergent that would later impart unwanted flavors in the food during cooking. It is instead cleaned by soaking in warm water and when the detritus has sufficiently softened, by scrubbing w...
What would happen if a major economy, like the United States, decided to cut off its physical borders and disallow material trade?	That's an insanely broad question, so I'll take just one part of it. Discussing the Internet, absolutely, it would actually continue to work quite well. Obviously, if there were no cross-border links, no traffic from outside the country would make it in. Traffic from inside would not make it out. The internet is fu...	[ "If a country's resources were not fully utilized, production and consumption could be increased at the national level without participating in international trade. The whole raison d'être of international trade would disappear, as would the possible gains. In this case, a State could even earn more by refraining f...
what happens if you're not a citizen of any country?	Well, [this movie](_URL_0_) leads me to believe that you sit in an airport...	[ "BULLET::::- to a non-citizen residents / foreigners, who does not have another passport, for example a stateless person, or their citizenship not defined, to allow them to leave the country, for example in cases of foreigners who infiltrated to Israel and are deported, or foreigners who need to leave the country f...
if i buy a software or a pc-game and upon installation i decide that i do not agree with the eula can i return the package and have my money back?	Usually, the EULA will state that if you disagree with the it, take it back to the store for a refund. Usually the store will refuse the refund as you had to open the package to read the EULA. At this point, you can do what others have done: Get a lawyer and force the issue or accept the loss ... good luck. For...	[ "Some of the following games are not freely redistributable software, as they have only been made available as a free download as freeware, but may only be downloaded from certain websites and with the explicit permission of the copyright owner. Consult the software license agreement.\n", "The user does not have ...
Roman historians- What were the General's daily routine like?	As far as my research has come. No one really knows, this might be because General's don't want to document about what they did after they woke up in the morning before having breakfast. They want to write about their heroic conquests so they can earn gravitas amongst the populace and support in the senate. Marius wasn...	[ "Roman generals were often career statesmen, remembered by history for reasons other than their service in the Roman Army. This page encompasses men whom history remembers for their accomplishments commanding Roman armies on land and sea.\n", "Over time the military system changed its equipment and roles, but thr...
A roman emperor (who's name I forgot) reportedly dressed in women's clothes; was this seen as a 'statement' on gender/sexual orientation, or rather an unusual sense of fashion?	I believe you are referring to Elagabalus. Elagabalus was an interesting fellow. He sometimes rode in a chariot pulled by naked women. He was extravagant in every way. There is speculation that he was transgender although I haven't found a definitive source on that. According to The Crimes Of Elagabalus by Icks (2012...	[ "Roman emperor Elagabalus (b. c. 204, d. 222) is said by Roman historians to have depilated, worn makeup and wigs, rejected being called a lord and preferred being called a lady, and offered vast sums of money to any physician who could provide the imperial body with female genitalia. Despite marrying several women...
the logistics of the legality of marriage from state to state in the united states	In order to get married, you need license from the county courthouse. Between that, and paperwork signed by you and your witnesses and filed with the courthouse, that's what makes a marriage legal. (In most places, at least -- common-law marriages are something else entirely.) Now you don't have to reapply for tha...	[ "The legal issues surrounding same-sex marriage in the United States are determined by the nation's federal system of government, in which the status of a person, including marital status, is determined in large measure by the individual states. Prior to 1996, the federal government did not define marriage; any mar...
Why did Saddam Hussein invade Iran in 1980?	From [an earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_) Part I Although it is tempting to reduce the war's origins to an atavistic land grab by an opportunistic Saddam Hussein, and this certainly was an important factor, the Iran-Iraq War had multiple well-springs. Iran-Iraq relations were characterized by tensions from the es...	[ "In September 1980 the Arab Nationalist and Sunni Muslim-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein of neighboring Iraq invaded Iran in an attempt to take advantage of revolutionary chaos and destroy the revolution in its infancy. Iran was \"galvanized\" and Iranians rallied behind their new government helping to stop and ...
What are the oldest Mongolian tribes that are still nomadic?	Most of Mongolians outside of Ulaanbataar are nomadic. What is your question?	[ "The Mongols in what is now Mongolia, Russia and China, and the Tatars or Turkic people of Eastern Europe and Central Asia were nomadic people who practiced nomadic transhumance on harsh Asian steppes. Some remnants of these populations are nomadic to this day. In Mongolia, about 40% of the population continues to ...
what would happen if we cured cancer?	Lol, i was wondering this just yesterday. If we cured cancer and heart disease, what's the next big thing that old people would die of, and at what typical age?	[ "Chemotherapy does not always work, and even when it is useful, it may not completely destroy the cancer. People frequently fail to understand its limitations. In one study of people who had been newly diagnosed with incurable, stage 4 cancer, more than two-thirds of people with lung cancer and more than four-fifth...
why do males typically have longer eyelashes than females?	Males on average are hairier than women, so their lashes too are thicker and appear longer (on average)	[ "On average, males have more body hair than females. Males have relatively more of the type of hair called terminal hair, especially on the face, chest, abdomen and back. In contrast, females have more vellus hair. Vellus hairs are smaller and therefore less visible.\n", "Men tend to have lower eyebrows relative ...
does the water included in a cup of tea count towards the 2 litres a day you're supposed to drink?	Absolutely. Many people point out that tea is a diuretic and makes you urinate more. However it does not make you urinate more than the volume of the tea you've drunk, so there's a net gain in water in your system. Also bear in mind that the figure of "2 litres of water" was never based on any sound research, it was ...	[ "As a unit of culinary measure, one teaspoon in the United States is tablespoon, that is, exactly 4.92892159375 mL; it is exactly 1 US fluid drams, US fl oz, US cup, and US liquid gallon and or 0.30078125 cubic inches. \n", "Brewing guidelines are not standardized, but 20 grams per liter of water, or approximatel...
does your car heater get warmer faster if you turn it all the way up to high, or if you use the "auto" setting that waits for the heater to warm up.	Most heaters use heat from cooling system of the engine. It takes several minutes for the engine to heat up enough for the heater to work. In 'Auto', the fans will only run slow until there is some warmth for them to distribute. The system will also run the fans quickly as long as the temperature in the car is below t...	[ "Once the engine has warmed up, the coolant is kept at a more or less constant temperature by the thermostat. The temperature of the air entering the vehicle's interior can be controlled by using a valve limiting the amount of coolant that goes through the heater core. Another method is blocking off the heater core...
why are film studios trying to get google to take down their own dmca infringement notices? what were those notices doing in the first place?	It's hard to be certain, but the article does posit a guess which is in line with what I would expect. It's probably an automated bot problem. Recently, Apple put out an app for the iPhone that can tell you the name of the song by listening to it. This is because they basically have a library of music and are able to ...	[ "Google asserted misuse of the DMCA in a filing concerning New Zealand's copyright act, quoting results from a 2005 study by California academics Laura Quilter and Jennifer Urban based on data from the Chilling Effects clearinghouse. Takedown notices targeting a competing business made up over half (57%) of the not...
why is being a lawyer drastically different from other professions?	It's not really unique -- doctors of all sorts have to go through a similar process. Basically what it comes down to is that they are jobs that require a great amount of trust from the customers -- doctors and lawyers are both in a position to really fuck over their customers without them realizing it. They go to s...	[ "In many countries, lawyers are general practitioners who represent clients in a broad field of legal matters. In others, there has been a tendency since the start of the 20th century for lawyers to specialize early in their careers.\n", "In order to maintain professionalism, the practice of law is typically over...
how a consumption tax could possibly work and the arguments against it.	Right now, the most popular consumption tax proposal is called the FairTax. There would be a 23% (inclusive) tax on all new goods, and there would be no income taxes, no tax on used goods, no tax on capital gains, etc. The 23% tax rate is estimated to collect the same amount of revenue as our current tax code. But, ...	[ "A true consumption tax would tax the imputed rental value of the home (which could be determined in the same way that valuation occurs for property tax purposes) and would not tax the increase in the value of the asset (the home). Andrews proposes to ignore this method of taxing imputed rental values because of it...
why do all of the east asian ethnicities seem to hate each other?	They don't hate each other (well, not too much). They all hate Japan. During the second world war, little of east asia was left untouched by them, and they committed war crimes left right and center everywhere they went as if it was their god given responsibility. The animosity continues to this day partly because the ...	[ "Although the concept of a united Asian people is not the same as that of the Asian race. It is even more debatable due to the fact that most of the world link the Asian identity to the people of South, East and Southeast Asia and exclude regions of Western Asia who do not consider themselves as part of the Eastern...
why does u.s. has different spelling, words and measurements than the other countries?	> Question 1: Why does the U.S. use inches, pounds, miles etc and other countries use kilograms, centimeter etc? We're used to the system, and there hasn't been a large-scale movement to change it. Even in countries where the metric system has replaced imperial, you'll often see a mix of imperial and metric - in the ...	[ "Over the past 400 years, the forms of the language used in the Americas—especially in the United States—and that used in the United Kingdom have diverged in a few minor ways, leading to the versions now often referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, gr...
Would a herbivore consume meat if it had no other food available to survive?	Yes, to a certain extent; many large herbivores like cows and elephants are continually accidentally eating little bits of meat in the form of snails and other bugs that get into their actual food; mountain gorillas eat exclusively leaf and fruit material most of the year and supplement their diets with insects when th...	[ "They eat primarily leaves, but also shoots, fruits, nuts, berries, bark, some native flowers, and even some small vertebrates. In addition, when they cannot find food, they have been known to eat the algae that grow on their fur for nutrients. They have large stomachs, with multiple chambers, which help to ferment...
When I "magnetize" a screwdriver what is exactly going on?	On a microscopic scale, a ferromagnetic substance is comprised of tiny little regions called domains. The magnetic field of the atoms of within a domain are all aligned in the same direction, but the domains themselves are not coaligned. It is kind of like it is a bunch of tiny magnets pointing different directions...	[ "BULLET::::- Magnets can pick up magnetic items (iron nails, staples, tacks, paper clips) that are either too small, too hard to reach, or too thin for fingers to hold. Some screwdrivers are magnetized for this purpose.\n", "Magnetorquers are essentially sets of electromagnets which are laid out to yield a rotati...
Which historical figures do you suspect were clinically psychopathic or somehow mentally disturbed?	Answering this question by definition requires people to speculate. As such, it is not appropriate for this sub.	[ "Historical descriptions of people or characters are sometimes noted in discussions of psychopathy, with claims of superficial resemblance or retrospective diagnosis. For example, a vignette by Theophrastus in Ancient Greece concerning \"The Unscrupulous Man\". On the other hand, the ancient Greek military statesma...
British monarchs and language	George I is asked by Parliament to take the throne because he is the grandson of Elizabeth Stuart, and great-grandson of James I. More importantly, he's also a Protestant. At this time, the early 1700s, there wasn't yet a German royal family, by the simple fact that Germany wouldn't become a country until 1871 under th...	[ "BULLET::::- Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) could speak ten languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Latin, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish and Irish. The Venetian Ambassador once said: \"it is as if she possessed these languages as if they were her mother tongue\".\n", "BULLET::::- British monarchs have...
Would you be able to feel particles going through your body?	You are asking 2 different kind of questions, if you could feel it or if you would die from it. In order to feel something, it would have to activate a neuron. In theory you could fire some radiation just right so it could trigger the neuron. in reality, walk through a contaminated zone and you feel the effects of ra...	[ "It is possible to measure the average kinetic energy of constituent microscopic particles if they are allowed to escape from the bulk of the system, through a small hole in the containing wall. The spectrum of velocities has to be measured, and the average calculated from that. It is not necessarily the case that ...
why are tractor-trailer engines designed to last 500,000+ miles while normal car engines rarely go for more than a few hundred-thousand?	Because tractor-trailers are designed for a lot of long-distance hauling. That's pretty much their entire purpose, so their engines are designed around those needs.	[ "Trekkertrek, which litterly means \"tractor pulling\", is a sport where a tractor needs to pull a trailer which is becoming more and more heavy by the time the trucks gets further. These days many of these tractors are powered by engines from heavy machinery or even fighterjet engines.\n", "An enclosed trailer t...
why linux usb file transfers lightning fast, and windows transfers at a snails pace?	By default, windows will write to USB drives in a slower, safer way than Linux (no caching). This means that if you remove the drive without unmounting it, the data written to the disk will actually be there. You can go into the drive properties in windows to enable write caching to speed up writes to the drive. But ...	[ "This is a list of Linux distributions that can be run entirely from the computer's RAM. That ability allows them to be very fast, since reading and writing data from/to RAM is much faster than on a hard disk drive. Many of these operating systems will load from a removable media such as a Live CD or a Live USB sti...
what is the evolutionary advantage of humans holding on to our waste byproduct for the toilet instead of just letting loose when it's ready?	Most animals don't just poop wherever/whenever they want. Dogs will try to do it far away from a food source, while cats will do it where they can bury it. The reason is that feces spreads disease very easily and taints food/water in contact with it. Some animals are more casual with their pooping -- usually grass-eati...	[ "Resource recovery can also be an aim in the context of sanitation. Here, the term refers to approaches to recover the resources that are contained in wastewater and human excreta (urine and feces). The term \"toilet resources\" has come into use recently. Those resources include: nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus...

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