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What would happen if a person plucks their eye out of their eyesocket, leaving the optical nerve attached and they hold the eye in front of their other eye. What would they see?	You would see an overlapping image of your intact eye and a floating bloody eye. Similar to looking at your nose or just in front of it, the brain is capable of handling two visual inputs that don't align up perfectly.	[ "Conjunctival concretions can be seen easily by everting the eyelid. The projecting concretions can be removed if they are causing concerning symptoms. Removal can be performed by a eye doctor. Sometimes just a needle or a scalpel is used to remove the concretion under local light anesthesia of the conjunctiva in a...
Why does rubbing alcohol feel slightly warm to the touch when I pour it over my skin?	It does? Without testing this right now I would say it should feel slightly cold due to rapid evaporation. Compare it with water and report back.	[ "Product labels for rubbing alcohol include a number of warnings about the chemical, including the flammability hazards and its intended use only as a topical antiseptic and not for internal wounds or consumption. It should be used in a well-ventilated area due to inhalation hazards. Poisoning can occur from ingest...
what is the difference between a 200 calorie fasting deficit and a 200 calorie burning workout?	Working out gives you the cardiovascular benefits as well as raising your metabolism for a couple hours after workout which burns more calories.	[ "Intermittent fasting (intermittent energy restriction or intermittent calorie restriction) is an umbrella term for various eating diet plans that cycle between a period of fasting and non-fasting over a defined period. Intermittent fasting is under preliminary research to assess if it can produce weight loss compa...
When I make my instant coffee too weak, it tastes sweet, not bitter. Why?	Hello, I created a new account just to answer this question! There are many factors in why a coffee tastes bitter or not, but the largest contributing factors are dose, grind, and water temperature. Since you are using instant coffee, and I'm assuming you are using approximately the same water temperature, the only f...	[ "In addition to their sweetness, some sugar alcohols can produce a noticeable cooling sensation in the mouth when highly concentrated, for instance in sugar-free hard candy or chewing gum. This happens, for example, with the crystalline phase of sorbitol, erythritol, xylitol, mannitol, lactitol and maltitol. The co...
What makes psychedelics supposedly so effective in treating alcoholism?	What is your source for psychedelics being effective in treating alcoholism?	[ "According to the experimenters themselves, the rationale for using psychedelics to treat alcoholic patients is in the “clinical picture” presented in the features of alcoholic patients. Various personality types such as “neurotic, psychopathic, and schizoid” were thought to have a vulnerability that led to their a...
Roughly how long will it be before a manned ship could catch up with, and retrieve, Voyager 1?	Likely never. There are no projected means of propulsion that are theorized, according to the laws of physics, that would allow us to accomplish retrieving it in under several life spans of a human.	[ "These jumps decreased the time needed to return by ~59 years. Counting elapsed time, by the end of the seventh and final season, assuming one year elapsed per season, \"Voyager\" was 35 years' travel from Federation space.\n", "The fastest outward-bound spacecraft yet sent, Voyager 1, has covered 1/600 of a ligh...
What is the name of the phenomena where you are more likely to notice something because you encountered it before?	[Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon](_URL_0_)? Although I'd go with pyxlated's reply above.	[ "Sensation is an animal's, including humans', detection of external or internal stimulation (e.g., eyes detecting light waves, ears detecting sound waves). It is different from perception, which is about making sense of, or describing, the stimulation (e.g., seeing a chair, hearing a guitar).\n", "When someone se...
where will energy go when the universe goes through proton decay?	The energy would still be there, just more diffuse. It would be in the form of smaller packets of energy like muons and various neutrinos. Despite significant experimental effort, proton decay has never been observed.	[ "In the decay, an electron and an antineutrino are ejected at great speed from the tritium nucleus, changing one of the neutrons into a proton with the release of 18,600 electronvolts (eV) of energy. The neutrino escapes the system; the electron is generally captured within a short distance, but far enough away fro...
how did rudy giuliani and michael bloomberg manage to clean up new york city?	There are two episodes of the podcast Reply All that talk about it. The Crime Machine Parts 1 and 2. Basically the police started tracking crime stats in a very clever way and it allowed then to see patterns of crime and that allowed them to get very good at forcasting where to put resources.	[ "Rudy Giuliani, who later became Mayor of New York City, was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York during the investigation and trial of the case, and provided critical support and assistance to the prosecution.\n", "As Mayor of New York City during the September 11 attacks in 2001, Rud...
What does the radial density profile of the gaseous planets look like?	I don't have the relevant specific credentials to answer this, but the question was interesting enough to me that I went looking around. [This lecture slide set](_URL_3_) (Warning: 50mb PDF) about planetary and large moon interior composition was the best information I found. Take a look at pages 70-74 for your answer...	[ "Planets and stars have radial density gradients from their lower density surfaces to their much larger density compressed cores. Degenerate matter objects (white dwarfs; neutron star pulsars) have radial density gradients plus relativistic corrections.\n", "where \"C\" is the polar moment of inertia of the body,...
is there a universal weight unit scientists use?	In science, you use mass instead of weight,	[ "Engineers and scientists understand the distinctions between mass, force, and weight. Engineers in disciplines involving weight loading (force on a structure due to gravity), such as structural engineering, convert the mass of objects like concrete and automobiles (expressed in kilograms) to a force in newtons (by...
why does alt-tabbing out of some fullscreen apps cause black screens or partial alt-tabbing?	It depends on which fullscreen mode you're using. If you use borderless fullscreen. It's basically windowed mode without the border to fill up 100 & #37; of the screen space. In this case, everything on the desktop is kept in memory and you can switch back to it in an instant. If you use the real fullscreen mode, whi...	[ "Eye-tracking studies have shown that Internet users often ignore web page zones likely to contain display ads (sometimes called \"banner blindness\"), and this problem is worse online than in offline media. On the other hand, studies suggest that even those ads \"ignored\" by the users may influence the user subco...
how does upping the voltage of a cpu help overclock it?	Imagine a CPU is like an engine in a car and you increased the speed of the engine without giving it more gas. Some of the cylinders would misfire because they didn't have enough fuel and the engine would start to run worse and worse until it died. This is an analogy of what the CPU does with the power it takes to run ...	[ "BULLET::::- Reduce CPU supply voltage (\"undervolting\"). Many of today's CPUs can run stably at their stock speed, or even with a slight overclock, at a reduced voltage, which reduces heat output. Power consumption is approximately proportional to \"V·f\", that is, it varies linearly with the clock frequency and ...
why is oceania the continent of new zealand, but isn't considered one of the 7 continents?	When used in the context of being a continent it includes Australia. Otherwise it just refers to a region of islands and not a continent.	[ "New Zealand is part of a region known as Australasia, together with Australia. It also forms the southwestern extremity of the geographic and ethnographic region called Polynesia. The term Oceania is often used to denote the wider region encompassing the Australian continent, New Zealand and various islands in the...
Do your taste buds dull with age?	Dental Student here. Yes taste changes. Taste buds atrophy, the nerve connections to your brain increase or decrease depending on diet, your diet can alter how you taste. there are SO many reasons why taste changes as you age. As Hanzelitus said below, smoking playes a HUGE role in how one tastes - basically decreas...	[ "Local damage and inflammation that interferes with the taste buds or local nervous system, such as that stemming from radiation therapy, glossitis, tobacco use, or the wearing of dentures, can also cause ageusia. Other known causes include loss of taste sensitivity from aging (causing a difficulty detecting salty ...
About to start a major research project, any tips for organizing research and sources for later use?	With every book, create your own index as you read to use for citations and relevant information later on. Also a good idea to write up brief summaries of each chapter and book for quick reference.	[ "The research plan was organized along so-called Research Initiatives, which generally started and ended with \"specialist meetings\", where interdisciplinary teams discussed pressing research issues. Often a publication followed:\n", "The recommendations of the Smithsonian group passed to the Defense Science Boa...
Is there any difference between a block of ice and the same block of ice that received a certain amount of energy but not enough to melt it?	They will be at different temperatures. If both start at their melting point, then the one that received energy would be partially melted.	[ "When ice melts, it absorbs as much energy as it would take to heat an equivalent mass of water by 80 °C. During the melting process, the temperature remains constant at 0 °C. While melting, any energy added breaks the hydrogen bonds between ice (water) molecules. Energy becomes available to increase the thermal en...
how did california get so unlucky when it comes to water shortage? why isn't it affecting oregon and washington?	It is affecting Oregon and Washington. There is almost no snow pack on any of the mountains which means drought. The problem is the population of California is so much more than Oregon and Washington. Also, the western parts of OR snd WA are temperate rainforests. They generally get more rain than California anyway.	[ "In recent decades, California has been struck with a series of severe droughts. In order to facilitate continued deliveries of water to the thirsty southern half of the state, the Central Valley and State Water Projects have been forced to cut water supplies for agriculture in much of the San Joaquin Valley. Annua...
the little pi thing on the bottom of every page on reddit	This has been asked before but it is hard to search for. Reddit as a whole has a lot of people visiting the website at any given time. That many people would be too much for just one computer, so there's a special computer that moves each visitor to another computer (in a bank of computers) so each individual compute...	[ "Pivot is a software application from Microsoft Live Labs that allows users to interact with and search large amounts of data. It is based on Microsoft's Seadragon. It has been described as allowing users to view the web as a web rather than as isolated pages.\n", "BULLET::::- David Pogue, author of several books...
Were there any areas of science or industry where the Soviet Union was ahead of the United States?	It's maybe more "parallel" than "ahead", but one major area the Soviet Union pursued that the West mostly ignored was bacteriophage therapy. Phage therapy is the injection of viruses into the body that target and kill bacteria. In the Soviet Union, availability of modern broad-specturm antibiotics like penicillin was...	[ "During the Cold War era, the former Soviet Union invested heavily in science, attempting to match American achievements in nuclear science and its military and industrial applications. At the same time, the United States invested heavily in advancing its own nuclear research and development activities through a sy...
How were Newton's 3 laws of motion first proven to be true?	You cannot prove laws. You can only test them over and over again and fail to find any deviation. We might find a counterexample tomorrow - who knows! Newton based his laws on previous observations, more measurements were done to test his laws, they agreed with predictions, and over time people accepted the laws. ---...	[ "Dean and Campbell claimed that Newton’s laws of motion were only an approximation, and that Dean had discovered a fourth law of motion. This has been described as a nonlinear correction to one of Newton’s laws, which, if correct, would allegedly have rendered a reactionless drive feasible after all.\n", "Newton'...
what causes the brain to short circuit sometimes when staring / thinking about a word that causes it to feel completely alien to you?	_URL_0_ Repeated stimulation tends to cause reactive desensitization, which is useful in other contexts to keep you from feeling the clothes you are wearing rubbing on you constantly, or perpetually tasting your saliva.	[ "Auditory processing disorder is when a person \"is perfectly aware of sounds\" yet their brain abnormally deciphers the sounds. This could easily be confused with pseudo-listening because it effects a listeners' reading comprehension. The two differ because auditory processing disorder uncontrollable and unintenti...
What effect did the Napoleonic Wars have on French colonies controlled by Britain?	Acadia had been French until 1710 when it was conquered by Britain during Queen Anne's war. The British were worried about the loyalty of the Acadians in subsequent wars, and finally expelled them from Acadia in 1755, when circa 7,000 Acadians were deported. After this, there was little remaining French population or...	[ "The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones in which Britain invested large amounts of capital and resources to win. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy, which won a decisive victory over a Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805. Overseas colonies were attacked and occupied, including those of the Netherl...
if we are not supposed to generalize a group based on the actions of a few members of that group, why are all white people held responsible for slavery?	You're currently generalizing the group consisting of people in general based on the actions of the few people who hold white people responsible.	[ "Communication research revolving around critical race theory seeks to understand the privileges and associations of whiteness. The critical aspect of research involves the realization of white enrichment, where white people have profited from the injustices done unto minorities (see slavery) both knowingly and unk...
How deeply ingrained were the ways of Bushido in Japanese Warrior culture and when was it considered to be phased out?	If anything, the idea of Bushido experienced tremendous growth in the Edo period. Bushido became one of the ideas that would be used to develop an idea of 'Japaneseness,' or a Japanese national identity following the Meiji reformation. It is important to understand that in many ways Bushido was an invented tradition. I...	[ "More recently, it has been argued that modern \"bushidō\" discourse originated in the 1880s as a response to foreign stimuli, such as the English concept of \"gentlemanship\", by Japanese with considerable exposure to Western culture. Nitobe Inazo's \"bushidō\" interpretations followed a similar trajectory, althou...
How often would samurai commit seppuku	This really depends on the time frame you have in mind, since this practice changed quite a bit over the centuries. The earliest records of this specific type of suicide were in the final years of the Heian Period (794–1185) by Minamoto no Tametomo (1170) and Minamoto no Yorimasa (1180). It became more frequent over th...	[ "Some samurai chose to perform a considerably more taxing form of seppuku known as \"jūmonji giri\" (十文字切り, \"cross-shaped cut\"), in which there is no kaishakunin to put a quick end to the samurai's suffering. It involves a second and more painful vertical cut on the belly. A samurai performing \"jūmonji giri\" wa...
why do internal combustion engines produce different torque/power at different rpms?	explained here: _URL_0_	[ "Torque forms part of the basic specification of an engine: the power output of an engine is expressed as its torque multiplied by its rotational speed of the axis. Internal-combustion engines produce useful torque only over a limited range of rotational speeds (typically from around 1,000–6,000 rpm for a small car...
Why do we have a dozen? Why do we need another word for 12 items?	Answering this question completely would have to take into account a couple fields, and I'm not certain r/AskHistorians is the best place for any of them. Our English word for dozen derives from the French word douze meaning twelve and the suffix -aine referring to a collective unit. Thus, douzaine refers to a g...	[ "The English word \"dozen\" comes from the old form \"douzaine\", a French word meaning \"a group of twelve\" (\"\"Assemblage de choses de même nature au nombre de douze\"\"(translation: \"A group of twelve things of the same nature\" as defined in the eighth edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française). Th...
why are there unique hats for different professions, such as a painters hat or chefs hat?	Chefs hats (think the big white one with all the folds) started in France, you traditionally earned a gold for every technique of cooking eggs. An apprentice chef would wear a floppy “toque” until they started mastering techniques. Current day you’ll see a lot of skull-caps, worn to keep hair contained with a cool-vent...	[ "They are recognized by their distinctive shape, elaborately painted designs and artistry, as well as their ornamentation with bone carvings and sea lion whiskers. Russian and European explorers collected many Unangan wooden hats in the late 18th and 19th century; these hats are now part of many museum collections ...
how do the internet clocks that our computers sync to stay so accurate?	Really really good clocks. UTC is the common standard for civil time, and is in turn based off International Atomic Time (TIA), with the difference being that UTC adds in leap seconds when needed (basically UTC is exactly 37 seconds behind TIA). TIA meanwhile is the weighted average of some 400 atomic clocks locat...	[ "For a computer application the timing was still critical, but for a different reason. Conventional computers have a natural \"cycle time\" needed to complete an operation, the start and end of which typically consist of reading or writing memory. Thus the delay lines had to be timed such that the pulses would arri...
If I get a cold and then get cured, does that prevent me from catching another cold for some time ?	There are a large number of strains of rhino virus, as well as other viruses which cause the common cold, coronaviruses for example. Now adaptive immunity has provided protection against the current infection, it still takes a period of 3 weeks before the immune system has prepared to mount a rapid response, so this ...	[ "Current evidence does not support its use for the prevention of the common cold. There is, however, some evidence that regular use may shorten the length of colds. It is unclear whether supplementation affects the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, or dementia. It may be taken by mouth or by injection.\n", ...
What colour would water on Mars be- red or blue?	On reading this article: _URL_0_ it seems that water is intrinsically blue the deeper it goes - shallower parts might appear brownish red due to the dirt beneath and the sky above, but the water would still be blue (although it would reflect the sky somewhat, I'm not sure how much. - " Clean water appears blue in whi...	[ "\"Blue Mars\" takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed atmospheric pressure and temperature to increase so that liquid water can exist on the planet's surface, forming rivers and seas. It follows closely in time from the end of \"Green Mars\" and has a much wider scope than the previous two ...
why does hard fat (or visceral fat) occur in some people's belly, especially in alcoholics?	Alcoholics get big, hard bellies not from fat, but from fluid buildup called ascities. Heavy alcohol use damages your liver, and that liver damage causes fluid to back up into the belly, causing it to swell up and get firm like a water balloon. Someone who has ascities needs to see a doctor	[ "Visceral fat, also known as organ fat or \"intra-abdominal fat\", is located inside the peritoneal cavity, packed in between internal organs and torso, as opposed to subcutaneous fat, which is found underneath the skin, and intramuscular fat, which is found interspersed in skeletal muscle. Visceral fat is composed...
Did bombing raids during the WWII only target military targets or were there also intentional civilian targets being bombed?	Before WWII, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made a speech declaring bombing cilvilians, "against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks on the civilian population". Durring WWII, however, there was a movement away from this, starting with Churchill, in response to Germany's bombi...	[ "During World War II, it was believed by many military strategists of air power that major victories could be won by attacking industrial and political infrastructure, rather than purely military targets. Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians and some campaigns were deliberately desi...
can ants carry diseases (not poison) to human beings?	Diseases are transmitted to humans via vectors (Arthropods, specifically fleas, tick, and mosquitos) which can transmit in one of two ways - mechanical or biological transmission. Mechanical transmission is when the pathogen on its feet. Biological transmission is when the pathogen reproduces or undergoes some form of ...	[ "Some ant species are considered as pests, primarily those that occur in human habitations, where their presence is often problematic. For example, the presence of ants would be undesirable in sterile places such as hospitals or kitchens. Some species or genera commonly categorized as pests include the Argentine an...
how does esp and other sport networks come up with these obscure stats?	They have computer programs that do it. All the stats are recorded and maintained by either the league or the media themselves (usually both), so the data is all there. It's just a question of writing a computer program that pieces together stats out of that data, which isn't that hard to do: computers don't mind just ...	[ "BottomLine is ESPN's lower third sports information ticker. It is uniform in design and used on all ESPN networks. It displays current sports scores, stats, and headlines in a 'push-then-scroll' format. It also serves as a display for urgent information, such as breaking sports news, breaking significant national ...
why is the euro collapsing? it seems like such a good idea for all of europe to share a currency.	A single currency allows for more efficient trade, but removes monetary policy from the individual nations and gives it to the bank of the entire EuroZone. As everyone is using and borrowing the same currency, when some countries cough Greece cough lie about their finances to get in and then do a terrible job on the...	[ "In the mid-2010s, polls conducted across Europe, showed that because of the general \"disillusionment with the European Union,\" which has \"more noticeably affected Greece, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Italy,\" there is also a \"significant erosion\" in the support for a common currency. In th...
Dogfights in aerial combat started out using guns rather than missiles. What happened when the rounds missed their target?	Here's a link to the top response when the same question was asked here before: _URL_0_	[ "BULLET::::- \"Dogfighting missiles\" will aggressively seek the target you had when you launched the missile until they run out of fuel. These missiles can make multiple attempts at a single target, fly for long distances, and will continue to pursue even if you select another target.\n", "Enemy pilots at first ...
How common was blonde/red hair in Medieval England? Did it have any superstitious qualities or stereotypes associated with it?	u/sunagainstgold and I talked about the second half of your question [here](_URL_0_) (Sun's answer being part of last April Fool's "AskHistoricalFiction"), and I'd be happy to answer any follow-up. As for the first part, no data exists to give you an exact number, but there haven't been any large population shifts in E...	[ "During the medieval period, Spanish ladies preferred to dye their hair black, yet by the time of the Renaissance in the 16th century the fashion (imported from Italy) was to dye their hair blond or red.\n", "The Scandinavians were not the only ones to place strong emphasis on the beauty of blond hair; the French...
Were there any Finns among the Vikings, especially during the raids?	Short answer: Sure, probably, why not? Longer answer: We have no way of really knowing. Most of the sagas which concern themselves with vikings don't bother talking too much about the crew, unless they're important in some way. Finns in the sagas tend to be wizards, and specifically tend to be Sami, rather than viki...	[ "The first recorded Viking raid in Irish history occurred in AD 795 when Vikings, possibly from Norway looted the island of Lambay. This was followed by a raid on the coast of Brega in 798, and raids on the coast of Connacht in 807. These early Viking raids were generally small in scale and quick.\n", "Viking rai...
i've heard that no matter where you are in the universe, you're still equidistant from the universe's "edges" as it expands. how is this so? or am i getting this wrong?	The "edges" of the universe are just as far as we can see, not physical edges, because the light at the edges is from the beginning of the universe and there can't be any light from before the universe. It's like two ships on the ocean, which both see the horizon equidistant from themselves no matter where they are.	[ "The universe has no edge; it is not known whether it is finite or infinite, but we can only observe a finite amount of it (the observable universe). It has no centre: the Big Bang should not be visualised as an explosion outwards from a central point, but as an equal expansion at all points within itself. This exp...
why do central banks change interest rates?	Interest rates are powerful tools available with the banks to regulate the monetary policy of a country. The basic aim is to provide stability to the economy so that it does not fall apart. Central banks can increase the interest rates, resulting in increase in borrowing cost. By doing so, they are effectively trying ...	[ "The interest rate that is charged by a country's central or federal bank on loans and advances controls the money supply in the economy and the banking sector. This is typically done on a quarterly basis to control inflation and to stabilize the country’s exchange rates. A change in bank rates may trigger a ripple...
Since a tattoo darkens one's skin, does that means it increases the tattooed area's resistance to sun damage?	No. Naturally dark skin is due to the concentration of [melanin](_URL_1_), which is a natural [photoprotectant](_URL_0_), which means it undergoes processes to prevent DNA damage. Tattoo inks are not too different from your standard industrial-standard paints, usually made out of [heavy metals](_URL_2_). They don't pos...	[ "Damage to the compounds in tattoo ink cause the color of the resulting tattoo to change over time. For UV tattoos this may mean the tattoo becomes more visible under visible light or may not glow in black lighting. Blue UV inks are known to yellow or turn slightly brown with sun exposure.\n", "Some people have r...
I am a child in the Middle Ages, what is my life like?	A good example of this is Onfim, a 13th Century Russian boy whose writings were discovered in the mid-20th century. A brief overview of his writings can be found here: _URL_0_ A child in Middle Ages Europe may or may not have had schooling, depending on the time period, locality etc. As you can imagine, if you wer...	[ "BULLET::::- \"Making a Living in the Middle Ages: the People of Britain, 850–1520\" (London and New Haven, 2002 (Yale UP); London, 2003 (Penguin);), New Haven, 2003 (American paperback, Yale UP), 403 pp.\n", "On of land just to the north of the village of Østerlars, the centre offers impressions of the Middle Ag...
How much total data does the human genome take up?	The 1.5GB estimate at Wikipedia sounds right. (~800MB for the haploid genome, 23 chromosomes -- therefore ~1.5GB for all 46 chromosomes) However, it presumes a system where each base pair (of the 6.3 billion base pairs) would be coded by exactly 2 bits of data. Also it presumes that you know your DNA sequence exactly, ...	[ "In biological terms, there are 7.2 billion humans on the planet, each having a genome of 6.2 billion nucleotides. Since one byte can encode four nucleotide pairs, the individual genomes of every human on the planet could be encoded by approximately 1x10^19 bytes. The digital realm stored 500 times more information...
Did Curiosity and NASA ever determine what that strange "metallic arm" object was on Mars? Why couldn't Curiosity get closer and take clearer pictures of whatever is was?	It was completely driven by tabloid speculation. [Here's a bit of slightly intelligent speculation](_URL_1_), but it's still a bit outlandish. [Here are the actual two images taken by the rover: [Photo 1](_URL_2_), [Photo 2](_URL_0_). It's pretty much just an ordinary rock with a bit of lighter material catching the su...	[ "The NASA rover team had assessed the rock to be a suitable target for one of the first uses of \"Curiosity's\" contact instruments, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and the Alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS). The rock is dark gray and seems to contain grains or crystals, if any at all, that are finer than \...
Shouldn't the Earth be more "leveled out" by landslides/earthquakes/erosion?	By contrast the earth is smoother than the average cue ball, mountains and all	[ "Soil erosion may be a slow process that continues relatively unnoticed, or it may occur at an alarming rate causing a serious loss of topsoil. The loss of soil from farmland may be reflected in reduced crop production potential, lower surface water quality and damaged drainage networks.\n", "While erosion of soi...
why do popcorn kernels generally have either a smooth surface but are randomly shaped, or a distinct cracked surface but are usually more sphere shaped?	it has to do with the "wet" kernels. things like the rates of water evaporation, thickness of the skin, density of the meat/pulp inside will affect how each kernel dries and shrinks, thus its shape and texture when its a "dry" kernel. to be clear there is still water inside, thats why they pop when you heat them.	[ "Each kernel of popcorn contains a certain amount of moisture and oil. Unlike most other grains, the outer hull of the popcorn kernel is both strong and impervious to moisture and the starch inside consists almost entirely of a hard type.\n", "Popcorn varieties are broadly categorized by the shape of the kernels,...
the splitting of the atom.. what is it and why is it so significant?	When an atom splits a releases a HUGE amount of energy. With some atoms like Uranium, when an atom splits it releases energy but also a few particles called neutrons. These neutrons each go on to hit more atoms creating a chain reaction. If there are enough atoms the chain reaction keeps going on until it runs out of ...	[ "This splitting is called fine structure. The splitting is larger for atoms with higher atomic number. The splitting decreases towards the series limit. Another splitting occurs on the redder line of the doublet. This is because of splitting in the D level formula_4 and formula_5. Splitting in the D level has a les...
could a baby get sleep paralysis?	A baby could physiologically get sleep paralysis, sure. As to what their subconscious produces (and let's face it, babies are cognitively almost entirely subconscious), no one really knows. Technology has not gotten to a point where we can figure out what's going on in the brain of beings unable to effectively communic...	[ "Several circumstances have been identified that are associated with an increased risk of sleep paralysis. These include insomnia, sleep deprivation, an erratic sleep schedule, stress, and physical fatigue. It is also believed that there may be a genetic component in the development of RISP, because there is a high...
What happens in the rest frame of a particle that is causing Cherenkov radiation?	This is interesting to think about for a bit. You are correct, the pulse of light would be moving "backwards" from the particle's point of view. But this is different from light moving away from you in most contexts because here the Poynting vector and the group velocity are now in opposite directions. I'm not really s...	[ "Cherenkov radiation is a shock wave resulting from charged particles moving through a material faster than the velocity of light in that material. The radiation propagates with a characteristic angle with respect to the particle track, which depends on the particle velocity. Cherenkov detectors make use of this ef...
how do you pay bills in prison? (for long sentences, multiple years)	Well, first off, you cancel everything you can. Terminate the lease, sell the house, let them repossess the car. As for student loans, a prisoner can apply for the income based repayment schedule, and with the zero income, they won't be paying on the loan. But yes, there may well be a lot of debt and collections, jus...	[ "In the United Kingdom a jailed person, whose conviction is quashed, might be paid compensation for the time they were incarcerated. This is currently limited by statute to a maximum sum of £1,000,000 for those who have been incarcerated for more than ten years and £500,000 for any other cases, with deductions for ...
why do gas stations list the gas price to the thousands place?	Off topic: To the 3 people who commented, you are [shadowbanned](_URL_0_) since it says 4 reactions but i only see 1. Visit /r/ShadowBan/ to see if for Reddit as a whole, if not, then just this sub.	[ "Individual gas stations in the United States have little if any control over gasoline prices. The wholesale price of gasoline is determined according to area by oil companies which supply the gasoline, and their prices are largely determined by the world markets for oil. Individual gas stations are unlikely to sel...
- totalitarianism and politics	I dont exactly agree with Schmaltzed. Totalitarianism is political system, where the government tries to control every aspect of public but ALSO private life. In contrast a government that just controls the economy, military, art, education, science is not perse a totalitarian government. The greatest example is S...	[ "Majoritarianism is a traditional political philosophy or agenda that asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language, social class, or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the soc...
women who use contraception, stopping their periods for months/years at a time, where does it go? and is it unhealthy?	My gynecologist said that it's absolutely 100% fine. There are no adverse side effects to choosing to not menstruate every month. Some IUDs stop your period without hormonal assistance, but what I do is just take birth control pills without stopping for the last week of the month (this is the week that a period is trig...	[ "Women having periods (or whose periods stopped due to chemotherapy) may need to use barrier contraception (such as condoms) while taking trastuzumab, and for at least six months afterwards. This is because of the possibility of harming a developing fetus.\n", "Emergency contraceptive methods are medications (som...
why do guns recoil upwards and not any other direction?	You are referencing muzzle rise. > The primary reason for muzzle rise is that for nearly all firearms, the centerline of the barrel is above the center of contact between the shooter and the firearms' grips and stock. The recoil forces from the bullet being fired and the propellant gases exiting the muzzle act dire...	[ "For a gun firing under free-recoil conditions, the force on the gun may not only force the gun backwards, but may also cause it to rotate about its center of mass or recoil mount. This is particularly true of older firearms, such as the classic Kentucky rifle, where the butt stock angles down significantly lower t...
How did the various non-Russian(/Slavic) ethnic minorities of the USSR feel about fighting for them in WW2?	Well Georgians and Armenians held important posts in the USSR military complex and the science community lets not forget the Ashkenazi Jews who played a pivotal role in the creation of the USSR. I would say the USSR was a lot more inclusive than other empires	[ "Because the Russian people were Slavic, not Germanic, the Soviet Union was also attacked on racial grounds for \"living space\" as Nazi ideology believed that \"only\" the Nordic people (referred to as the Germanic people) represented the \"Herrenvolk\" (master race) which was to expand to the East (Drang nach Ost...
Somewhat of a meta question: What would Reddit's Historians put at the top of their 'recommended reading' lists for pre- or early-firearms warfare, from a strategic / logistics perspective?	Martin van Creveld's Supplying War is a good history of operational and tactical logistics. For my dissertation on historic military supply chains I needed to pull information on logistics from a number of sources as there is very rarely ever a logistics review of campaigns prior to the 20^th Century. What I was ab...	[ "There is no complete bibliography to the war; the largest guide to books is over 40 years old and lists over 6,000 titles selected by leading scholars. Many specialized topics such as Abraham Lincoln, women, and medicine have their own lengthy bibliographies. The books on major campaigns typically contain their ow...
Can you all help me come up with some interview questions to ask my grandfather, who live through the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during ww2?	First of all, apologies if any or all of the below is completely redundant. I don't know your experiences conducting interviews like this so I am assuming no to little familiarity with the process. Feel free to ignore this post if everything I am saying is redundant. You might get some good answers posting in /askant...	[ "The Japanese occupation of Indonesia from 1942 until 1945 during the Second World War marked a low point for both Ati Soetji and Aw herself. Together with other leaders of the colonial government, Aw's husband, Kapitein Lie Tjian Tjoen, was put in a concentration camp. Their family house at Jalan Kramat Raya 168, ...
How are heterochromias formed? Are they just a mistake or carried through your DNA?	There are cases indicating that sectoral heterochromia like yours was transmitted from a parent to child, which suggests that it's germ-line genetic, and not simply mistakes that arise during iris formation. Melanocytes in the iris are of neural crest origin, so it might suggest that you have something wonky going on ...	[ "Heterochromatin is a tightly packed form of DNA or \"condensed DNA\", which comes in multiple varieties. These varieties lie on a continuum between the two extremes of constitutive heterochromatin and facultative heterochromatin. Both play a role in the expression of genes. Because it is tightly packed, it was tho...
So many units! - What are the differences between a gray, RAD, and roentgen, and do how do they take into account differing radiation types?	Rad and Gy don't take into account radiation types. They only measure energy per unit of mass where it is deposited. 1 Gy = 1 J/kg, and 1 rad = 1 cGy. Sv is used to measure [dose-equivalent](_URL_0_) and it depends on the radiation type using quality factors. The dose in Gy of each radiation type is multiplied by the ...	[ "The gray is also used in radiation metrology as a unit of the radiation quantity kerma; defined as the sum of the initial kinetic energies of all the charged particles liberated by uncharged ionizing radiation in a sample of matter per unit mass. The gray is an important unit in ionising radiation measurement and ...
why you have to pay the bbc for your tv licence to watch programmes on itv, ch4 etc.	Because they are all part of the same funding pool. The obviously don't know what station you are watching at any given time, so there is no way to make that distinction, or somehow split profits based on what percentage you watch one over the other. > Are there any other situations that occur where you have to ...	[ "On 1 April 1991, the BBC took over the administration of television licensing in the UK, assuming the responsibility of licence fee collection and enforcement. Since this date, the BBC has been the statutory authority for issuing television licences (before April 1991, the statutory authority was the UK Home Offic...
I just finished watching the documentary series, 'The Story of India' by Michael Wood, and would appreciate if any of you'll could recommend books to learn about Indian history?	The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru. Part memoir, part history, part autobiography by one of the chief architects of modern India.	[ "Indian Trees: An Account of Trees, Shrubs, Woody Climbers, Bamboos, and Palms Indigenous or Commonly Cultivated in the British Indian Empire is a monograph on the trees of India, written by the German–British botanist and forestry administrator Sir Dietrich Brandis and published in London in 1906 by Archibald Cons...
British empire during WW1	Just about every country within the British Empire contributed to the British war effort in one way or another. Like Canada, the self-governing dominions of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa sent troops to fight on the various fronts. Their participation in the war was never in question as a British declaration o...	[ "In 1938 Britain was a global superpower, with political and economic control of a quarter of the world's population, industry and resources, in addition to its close allies in the independent Dominion nations (such as Canada and South Africa). From 1938 to mid-1942, the British coordinated the Allied effort in all...
Does ice melt more quickly when mixed with alcohol?	Yes it will, especially if the glass is not chilled. The heat will conduct through the liquid and into the glass much faster than the gas (air) surrounding just the ice. There is also a greater surface area of the cold system after the liquid pours over it and heat transfer is proportional to boundary area. Finally, wa...	[ "BULLET::::- The liquid left behind is richer in alcohol, and as a consequence, further freezing would take place at progressively lower temperatures. The frozen material, while always poorer in alcohol than the (increasingly rich) liquid, becomes progressively richer in alcohol.\n", "When ice melts, it absorbs a...
What really happened in Ireland to be so poor ?	While not the only cause, one of the largest contributing factors was The Great Famine, or The Irish Potatoe Famine that started in 1845. While the potatoe blight had happened all across europe, Ireland was affected much greater than any other European country, due to Corn Laws that the English passed, causing a great ...	[ "However, in 1845 there was a catastrophic failure of the potato crop on which a majority of Irish people depended for a living; this resulted in mass starvation and commercial depression, which deepened the following year. The catastrophe is known as the Great Famine, and also as the Irish Potato Famine. The econo...
Why haven’t black boxes in airplanes been engineered to have real-time streaming to a remote location yet?	I work with aircraft telemetry. On a test aircraft, we telemeter only a small portion of the parameters we record, because there isn't enough bandwidth to send everything in real time. It's probably not feasible to live stream all the parameters a black box records, and its easier to just make them really hard to destr...	[ "By 1967 when flight recorders were mandated by leading aviation countries, the casual misnomer had found its way into general use: “These so-called ‘black boxes’ are, in fact, of fluorescent flame-orange in colour.”\n", "Some aircraft cabins contain passenger entertainment systems. Short and medium haul cabins t...
how does a "word" become a word?	A word becomes a word when people use it and other people recognise and understand it. As simple as that. Dictionaries are just books, written by people. They put words and definitions for them into the books as they become common enough to need looking up. The word "quiz" was famously popularized by a man trying to ...	[ "When a person produces a word, they are essentially turning their thoughts into sounds, a process known as lexicalisation. In many psycholinguistic models this is considered to be at least a two-stage process. The first stage deals with semantics and syntax; the result of the first stage is an abstract notion of a...
Can someone please read & rebut this?	The article hits upon a truth but takes it to the wrong conclusion. The common theory (what most people are taught in school) is that random mutations and selection over time caused humans to evolve from amoebas. This is wrong, and the article points out the problems with this theory. However, evolutionists have d...	[ "The book appears in \"Gilmore Girls\" episode \"Pulp Friction\", when Lorelai Gilmore prepares the Dragon Fly Inn's library for her interview and states that all of the good books are gone, leaving her with five copies of \"He's Just Not That Into You\", which she hands an employee to dispose of. The book was also...
How good are people at picking random numbers?	Humans are biased. A number of studies so far confirm that humans are not a good source of randomness. A couple to get you started: * W. A. Wagenaar (1972). "Generation of random sequences by human subjects: a critical survey of the literature". Psychological Bulletin 77: p65–72 * Brugger, P. (1997). Variables that i...	[ "Random numbers are also used for non-gambling purposes, both where their use is mathematically important, such as sampling for opinion polls, and in situations where fairness is approximated by randomization, such as military draft lotteries and selecting jurors.\n", "Random numbers have uses in physics such as ...
What causes the increased capacitance with decreased separation between plates?	Capacitance is defined as charge per voltage. A large capacitance means that you can store a lot of charge per voltage, and a small capacitance means you can store very little charge per voltage. Further, in most cases the capacitance of a system is defined purely by its geometry, and it doesn't change depending on how...	[ "The capacitance C increases with the area A of the plates and with the permittivity ε of the dielectric material and decreases with the plate separation distance d. The capacitance is therefore greatest in devices made from materials with a high permittivity, large plate area, and small distance between plates.\n"...
If all the rivers leading to oceans slowly wash dirt into the sea, will there eventually be no dry land?	Erosion is only half of the equation. Mountains are also being slowly formed by the action of plate tectonics, driven by the heat of the earth's core. Today's earth is in a near steady-state balance between erosion washing the continents away and plate tectonics pushing up new ground. In the long term, when earth's ...	[ "When seawater reaches inland, problems related to contaminated soils may occur. Also, fish, birds, and coastal plants could lose parts of their habitat. Coral, important for bird and fish life, needs to grow vertically to remain close to the sea surface in order to get enough energy from sunlight. It has so far be...
the difference between "created" gems and "dug 'em out of the ground" gems	It takes a trained/experienced jeweler to spot the difference between a synthetic and a natural gem. In fact, for the benefit of inexperienced jewelers, synthetic gems often actually have a serial number imprinted in the crystal as a "this gem is synthetic" notification. In fact, as other commenters have pointed out,...	[ "BULLET::::- In \"Steven Universe\", Gems are a race of artificial intelligences composed of gemstones projecting light-construct bodies. These are created by bacteriophage-like Injector engines that drill into a planet's crust and infuse specific gems with the local biota's life energy, animating it; they do not r...
In regards to magnetic levitation, can a weak magnetic field's strength be made up for with a stronger magnetic field?	A good home for this question would be /r/AskScienceDiscussion.	[ "Pseudo-levitation constrains the movement of the magnets usually using some form of a tether or wall. This works because the theorem shows only that there is some direction in which there will be an instability. Limiting movement in that direction allows levitation with fewer than the full 3 dimensions available f...
How was the 'Nestorian' church viewed by western Christians in the sixth century?	I don't know the answer to this but I wanted to applaud for an excellent question, I didn't know how much I wanted to know about Nestorian until I read this post.	[ "The adoption of Nestorius' teaching, who had been condemned at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, effectively separated the Church of the East from the Byzantine church. The decisions were clearly aimed at pleasing the Zoroastrian Persian kings, who were at constant war with the now Christian Byzantine Empire: t...
Why did Pike formations become so popular in the 15th century? And why didn't people in Pike formations use shields?	A compact group of men with lots of pointy sticks is very difficult to attack frontally, and before rapidly reloading firearms were developed, was the most popular way of fighting. You might be familiar with the [ancient Greek phalanx as used by the Macedonians](_URL_5_). A compact spear formation is what Alexander use...	[ "The rise of firearms and artillery in the 16th century made the large formations consisting entirely of pikemen vulnerable to being shot down despite their close-combat power. The decline of the combat column of pikemen was starkly displayed at the terrible Battle of Bicocca in 1522, for instance, where arquebusie...
Did Hitler have a cult of personality?	Nazi Germany definitely had an enforced cult of personality around Hitler. More examples besides 'Hitler picture in every classroom': * 'German Salute' with an exclamation of 'Heil Hitler' was de facto mandatory for every citizen. 'Heil Hitler' also replaced "Mit freundlichen Gruessen" ('with kind regards') as th...	[ "Already in his lifetime, many elements in Hitler's personal beliefs and conduct were classified by psychiatrists as signs of psychosis or schizophrenia, for example, his faith that he was chosen by fate to liberate the German people from their supposed most dangerous threat, the Jews.\n", "Waite, who wrote an ex...
Revolutionary War	One question is why the British allocated so few men and so little materiél to crushing the colonists' revolt. First, in the years 1776-1781 Britain had other opponents than the Continentals and was fighting in other places. At the same time that Britain was engaged in trying to catch and defeat George Washington's ar...	[ "In the 1770s, the American Revolutionary War began with the passage of the Intolerable acts, and the battles of Lexington and Concord, and Bunker Hill. von Fersen told Beaumont that in France \"it is the fashion to rhapsodize over the Americans' rebelliousness against England\". France had officially declared war ...
What is the visual difference between nearsightedness and astigmatism?	Shortsightedness is a result of the eye focusing light in front of, instead of right at, the retina. The light comes to a focus, but then spreads out again before it hits the retina, so what you see is blurred. Astigmatism is, roughly, a difference in where light gets focused depending on the angle at which the light ...	[ "Astigmatism causes difficulties in seeing fine detail. Astigmatism can be often corrected by glasses with a lens that has different radii of curvature in different planes (a \"cylindrical\" lens), contact lenses, or refractive surgery.\n", "The second form of astigmatism occurs when the optical system is not sym...
Did Roman veterans get to keep their weapons and armour at the end of their service?	Virtually all the evidence for this questions is from the Imperial period, after the Roman Army had become regularized. That is -- the first century CE and after. We have good sources for how Imperial soldiers were paid and equipped. The basic answer is that the Roman State provided new recruits with all their basic...	[ "There is some evidence suggesting that by the time of the late Roman army, it became common practice to instead give soldiers that were found to be fit for service in the legion, an indelible Soldier's Mark; possibly to discourage desertion by making any former or deserting soldiers clearly identifiable in the pub...
do objects vibrating at their resonant frequencies break?	Not always. Objects break when they vibrate with enough force to overcome their structure (regardless of why they're vibrating), and it's easier to do that when vibrating something at its resonant frequency, but you still have to generate enough force to break it. That's easy to do with something like a wine glass, w...	[ "Any vibrating thing produces vibrations at a number of frequencies above the fundamental pitch. These are called overtones. When the overtones are integer multiples (e.g., 2×, 3× ... 6× ... ) of the fundamental frequency (called harmonics), then - neglecting damping - the oscillation is periodic—i.e., it vibrates ...
Did the Māori still have a significant seafaring tradition by the time of European Contact?	Waka (Māori canoes) were still in widespread usage by the time Europeans arrived but were not used for long-distance ocean exploration. Māori are currently thought to have first arrived in New Zealand during the late 13th Century and settlement probably continued for several generations or more. By the time Europeans...	[ "Allan Hanson proposed that several aspects of Maori culture had been invented by European scholars who were accustomed to analytical frameworks focused on long-distance migration and diffusion. Because of this, he believed that European scholars constructed the notion that a \"Great Fleet\" headed by a man named K...
Is there any way to tell whether a star system contains a planet if we consider that that planet's plane of orbit does not allow us to witness a variation of the star's luminosity as the planet passes over it?	The question suffers from a fundamental flaw. Namely, that's not the only way to discover extrasolar planets. It was the earliest, but its been more then a decade since it was the only kid on the block.	[ "Planets orbiting around one of the stars in binary systems are more easily detectable, as they cause perturbations in the orbits of stars themselves. However, with this method, follow-up observations are needed to determine which star the planet orbits around.\n", "This method has two major disadvantages. First,...
the difference between "entropy", "enthalpy", and how they relate to gibb's free energy.	Entropy - measure of the disorderliness of a system. If you had a box of toys in a box and took them out and played with them, at the end of the playtime your toys would be scattered all over the place. It's more disorderly now, so the entropy change would be positive. (Not exactly right, but for a 5 year old it will s...	[ "The word \"enthalpy\" was coined relatively late, in the early 20th century, in analogy with the 19th-century terms \"energy\" (introduced in its modern sense by Thomas Young in 1802) and \"entropy\" (coined in analogy to \"energy\" by Rudolf Clausius in 1865). Where \"energy\" uses the root of the Greek word (erg...
How is detecting exoplanets via transit effective if some planets take decades or more to complete an orbit?	The transit method is only practical for exoplanets with shorter orbital periods. It simply doesn't detect ones that takes years to orbit until you've been watching for a long time, which you can even see in the data directly if you plot all of the known exoplanets by orbital period [in this app hosting published value...	[ "The transit method of discovering exoplanets relies upon carefully monitoring the brightness of a star. If a planet is present and crosses the line of sight between Earth and the star, the star will dim at a regular interval by an amount that depends upon the radius of the transiting planet. In order to measure th...
why do gamers use headsets?	So you can have voice and game audio at the same time. Also headsets can have 7.1 setups that actually help in games by allowing for truly accurate locational sounds.	[ "The headset is most commonly used in online multiplayer games; however, it can also be used in some karaoke style games, for voice control, and to enhance the immersive experience of some single player games.\n", "The PS2 headset connects via USB 1.1 on the front of the console. The headset is most commonly used...
why does santa claus go by so many names (st. nicholas, kris kringle, etc)?	Santa Claus is an amalgam of dozens if not hundreds of different mythical/religious characters and a few actual historical figures. As such some of the names of those separate figures carried through to modernity as alternate names for Santa Claus.	[ "Santa Claus is the English name for the Christian Saint Nicholas, secularized in popular culture as an old man with supernatural powers living at the North Pole, much like magic and powerful characters in mythology: Santa Claus has supernatural powers and uses them to magnanimously deliver gifts to children around...
why are absurdly misspelled scams circulated?	From what I understand, they're written like that on purpose. It helps them immediately weed out the people who would be smart enough to figure out it's a scam partway through the process. The people who see all the spelling errors and don't immediately have red flags go up are generally gullible enough to go through t...	[ "Another form of scam involves the selling of \"systems\" which purport to improve a player's chances of selecting the winning numbers in a Lotto game. These scams are generally based on the buyer's (and perhaps the seller's) misunderstanding of probability and random numbers. Sale of these systems or software is l...
why is russia still so influential?	The russian military has the power to take over nations bordering the EU in a matter of days. Really, the only world powers capable of stopping them are the US and china, and china likely would not intervene. This basically lets Russia reserve the right to completely destabilize eastern Europe, even worse than they al...	[ "As a result of the reforms under Peter the Great, Russia managed to take a good standing among the European states. It became a powerful nation with an effective economy, strong fleet and army, and well developed science and culture. Unfortunately, all of the reforms occurred through violence, through suffering of...
How do insects and other seasonal organisms survive through the period where they aren't active when their lifespans are so short?	This period of inactivity that you have described is commonly referred to as diapause and can be broken down into five steps: * 1) Induction: At some point during development, the insect will be exposed to a number of token stimuli that indicate a likely shift in the environment, such as temperature or photoperiod. It...	[ "Increased allocation to reproduction early in life generally leads to a decrease in survival later in life (senescence); this occurs in both annual and perennial semelparous plants. Exceptions to this pattern include long-lived clonal (see ramets section below) and long-lived non-clonal perennial species (e.g., br...
Are gigantic Earth-like planets possible?	If it gets too big, it starts to attract a lot of hydrogen and helium and it becomes a gas giant.	[ "Some authors further suggest that the term Super-Earth might be limited to rocky planets without a significant atmosphere, or planets that have not just atmospheres but also solid surfaces or oceans with a sharp boundary between liquid and atmosphere, which the four giant planets in the Solar System do not have. \...
what effects do nitrites and nitrates contained in foods have on people?	Too high a dose of nitrates in a human can cause nitrate toxicity. The nitrate will oxidise the iron in hemoglobin leaving it unable to carry oxygen. Babies are especially vulnerable, with "blue baby syndrome" being the most common diagnosis. Long term exposure to nitrates has been linked to some types of colon can...	[ "Nitrate and nitrite are consumed from plant foods as well as animal foods, with 80% of a typical person's nitrate consumption coming from vegetables, especially leafy and root vegetables such as spinach and beets. Some nitrate is converted to nitrite in the human body. Nitrite is classified as generally recognized...
What is/are the common human observable phenomenon that science has not been able to explain?	Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.	[ "In scientific usage, a phenomenon is any event that is observable, including the use of instrumentation to observe, record, or compile data. Especially in physics, the study of a phenomenon may be described as measurements related to matter, energy, or time, such as Isaac Newton's observations of the moon's orbit ...
why is there such a push to limit lobbying in government, but not a push to hold the government accoutable for the ills that ensue?	I assume you mean ills and boons? Just accountable? In that vein, I've felt for a long time that when appropriate, laws should be written more like scientific grants. As in, "we are enacting this law for this purpose, and if successful, we will see these changes to these indices after this amount of time." Then (also ...	[ "Lobbying has been the subject of much debate and discussion. There is general consensus that lobbying has been a significant corrupting influence in American politics, although criticism is not universal, and there have been arguments put forward to suggest that the system is working properly.\n", "A similar vie...
Is there any verifiable evidence that pit bulls are more aggressive than other dog breeds (mental, etc), or has misrepresentation in the media formed this belief?	To my knowledge there isn't any evidence to suggest that they are more aggressive when you control for environment. I just did a search of the medical literature and didn't find any thorough study of aggressiveness in any dog breed. The general consensus among experts seems to be its pitbulls are so bad, but rather p...	[ "BULLET::::- The breeding history of Pit Bulls makes it impossible to rule out a violent propensity for any one dog as gameness and aggressiveness can be hidden for years. Given the Pit Bull's genetical physical strengths and abilities, a Pit Bull always poses the possibility of danger; given the Pit Bull's breedin...
What is the physical mechanism that causes multi-pendulum behavior?	The behavior is chaotic. This is the most famous chaotic system. The behavior cannot be described in a formal way, because it is impossible to predict what it will do in the future (small pertebations will make it take a different path ). How would you use it for energy generation? The only reason this keeps spinning ...	[ "The cause of this behavior was that the two pendulums were affecting each other through slight motions of the supporting mantlepiece. This process is called entrainment or mode locking in physics and is observed in other coupled oscillators. Synchronized pendulums have been used in clocks and were widely used in g...
Why was California the bread basket of America even though it's very short on water supply?	California has a perfectly good supply of water. Usage simply far outstrips that supply, much as it does in the central plains. There's quite a few reasons behind the large agricultural industry there though. The first and biggest reason is that Central Valley is simply the largest area of high grade soil anywhere on e...	[ "Additionally, the San Joaquin Valley in California has also been called the breadbasket of the world. The San Joaquin Valley produces the majority of the 12.8% of the United States' agricultural production (as measured by dollar value) that comes from California. Grapes—table, raisin, and, to a lesser extent, wine...
what causes a rue to thicken a sauce once it starts boiling?	Starch (such as the flour in roux) absorbs water and swells up when heated. Normally, these swollen starches would clump together, which is why you coat the individual starch granules in fat first by making a roux.	[ "\"Beurre blanc\" is prepared by reducing wine, shallots, and herbs (if used) until it is nearly dry. Although not necessary, cream can be added at this point as a stabilizer to the sauce. Lemon juice is sometimes used in place of vinegar, and stock can be added, as well. Cold, one-inch cubes of butter are then gra...
what does it mean when something that happens in a tv series or a movie is considered "canon" while certain other mediums are not (books or comics)?	Canon means it is part of the official storyline and is approved by the author, or a group the author has put in charge. For example ... Star Wars books had to be sent into Lucas Arts and be approved by George Lucas' team. They would read over it, edit stuff that was wrong, and send it back to the author to be correct...	[ "\"Supernatural\" was released on 18 November 2013 as part of the British Film Institute's \"Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film\" celebration. The 2-disc set contains four episodes on each disc, presented in the original transmission order.\n", "Supernatural horror film is a film genre that combines aspects of horror...
what's with this ameristralia thing?	There was a post describing how Aussies have fought with us in every war since ww2, then things escalated quickly	[ "The prostomium (sometimes also called the acron) is the first body segment in an annelid worm's body in the anterior end. It is in front of (but does not include) the mouth, being usually a small shelf- or lip-like extension over the dorsal side of the mouth. \n", "Plestiodon is a genus of lizards in the family ...

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