question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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how do ice cream shops adjust their business models to survive the winter months? | Sometimes you have to save money from the busy season to cover the slow season. Just like a farm only makes money at harvest the rest of the week year it's off of savings from the sale of the harvest.
Cut down on inventory, reduce labor are options | [
"The ice cream parlor is a family business that was founded in 1915 by Willem Crusio. His two sons continued in two ice cream parlors, of which one is still in existence and operated by the fourth generation of the family. The ice cream is made according to a secret family recipe. The parlor is currently operated b... |
is a heavier vehicle (truck) or a lighter vehicle (empty truck) able to stop quicker? (momentum/weight = more traction?) | It really depends on lot of things. I think empty trucks will stop faster than full truck. Full truck have lot of kinetic energy.
Difference in friction of empty and full truck is not as significant in a well paved dry road.
If its not paved or dry road or in a slope, cant really tell without specific details. | [
"BULLET::::- Heavy weight: A heavy vehicle requires more work to accelerate than a lighter vehicle, requiring more powerful (larger displacement or super/turbo-charged) engine with higher fuel consumption to achieve a similar power-to-weight ratio.\n",
"Most vehicles typically weigh between , though the ones made... |
Does living in the city have an effect on the immune system? | There are a lot of factors influencing this. You're thinking about car traffic and pollution, but there are other things such as close proximity to many different people that affects your immune system as well.
With regards to pollution, you'd probably be looking at one aspect of your immune system: allergies. You pro... | [
"The health of many residents differed depending on where they lived. The poor inner-city areas lacked or under-supplied the necessary health care that was available in other areas. Location was a primary cause of this problem. Inner cities' isolation from other parts of society was a large contributor to the poor ... |
how does the flu virus adapt every year so that our body can never fully prevent it from happening? | Think of it like a plant, there can be multiple strains of the same plant, but they arent the exact same, but in their base, they are the same, hence being the same species. It is very similar in the flu. There are different strains of it, which all mutated off of the original strain at some point. Scientists look at p... | [
"New influenza viruses are constantly evolving by mutation or by reassortment. Mutations can cause small changes in the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase antigens on the surface of the virus. This is called antigenic drift, which slowly creates an increasing variety of strains until one evolves that can infect people... |
why can we not just drain the energy/radiation from uranium rods so that they are not as deadly when we dispose of them/store them? | So you need to have some basic concept of what this stuff is. All stuff (matter) in the universe is made from essentially 3 main components (protons, neutrons, electrons). What makes different things different is the combinations of those three stuffs, but also the size (atomic weight). Here's the thing, because of the... | [
"One solution to this problem is to recycle the plutonium and use it as a fuel e.g. in fast reactors. In pyrometallurgical fast reactors, the separated plutonium and uranium are contaminated by actinides and cannot be used for nuclear weapons.\n",
"Other perceived problems include that enriched uranium can also b... |
What causes a filled water bottle to 'recoil' when it is being emptied? | Can you expand on what you mean by recoil?
Is it when you turn a full bottle upside down, how it empties in bursts and when a burst finishes, the bottle raises slightly? | [
"where the subscript n indicated that this force is net of the force of the empty bottle. The bottle is now emptied, thoroughly dried and refilled with the sample. The force, net of the empty bottle, is now:\n",
"Recoil is a rheological phenomenon observed only in non-Newtonian fluids that is characterized by a m... |
- why does 9 * 1/9 not equal 1? | It does. .9 repeating equals 1.
If you don't believe me, consider this. Any numbers that aren't equal must have some nonzero difference, right? So if 1 and .9 repeating aren't equal, what is the nonzero value of 1 - .9 repeating? | [
"There is a sense in which some multiples of 2 are \"more even\" than others. Multiples of 4 are called doubly even, since they can be divided by 2 twice. Not only is zero divisible by 4, zero has the unique property of being divisible by every power of 2, so it surpasses all other numbers in \"evenness\".\n",
"T... |
why does overvolting make overclocking more stable? | This subject is way too complex to ELI5. But here's a source that actually explains how the innards of a processor work.
_URL_0_
Essentially the increase in clock speed requires a higher threshold voltage for the tiny digital switches in the processor to keep up.
You might want to try one of the EEs over at /r/askel... | [
"In computing, overclocking is the practice of increasing the clock rate of a computer to exceed that certified by the manufacturer. Commonly operating voltage is also increased to maintain a component's operational stability at accelerated speeds. Semiconductor devices operated at higher frequencies and voltages i... |
oxytocin and its role in pair-bonding in human sexual relationships | Happy to explain this one but I'll need you to be a bit more specific about what you want to understand. Are you asking the how or why? | [
"There is evidence in a variety of species that the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin are involved in the bonding process, and in other forms of prosocial and reproductive behavior. Both chemicals facilitate pair bonding and maternal behavior in experiments on laboratory animals. In humans, there is evidence that o... |
How accurate were maps at the start of the 19th century? How much did the accuracy of maps improve after spy satellites could see exactly what the world looked like? | Map historian (among other hats) here. We need to define "accuracy" before we can really talk about relative terms; all maps are representations, so the accuracy is a subjective thing connected to the use of the map. It's already a spheroidal object put on a flat plane, so major concessions to geographical fidelity a... | [
"Maps had for centuries played an important role in the government of such a vast country, and surviving examples on stone dating from AD 1137 but based on much earlier surveys, show great accuracy, using a grid system. By then the Chinese had also developed the magnetic compass, and in the 13th century western ver... |
Did Pre-Columbian Native Americans Have Cauldrons? | So, are you asking whether Natives made soups and stews, or whether natives used metal cookware for them specifically?
The first answer is quite easy to answer. In both the Triple Alliance and Inca Empire, soups and stews were cooked, seemingly in earthenware or pottery. The Triple Alliance examples come to us via Spa... | [
"The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spans the time period from roughly 1000 BCE to 1,000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The Hopewell tradition summarizes the common aspects of the Native American culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern United States from 200 BCE ... |
what causes tattoo ink to stay in skin, when we are constantly shedding skin flakes? | The ink is injected much deeper in the skin. You usually lose the first few layers of skin, the ink is injected into the deepest layers of skin. | [
"The amount of ink that remains in the skin throughout the healing process determines how the final tattoo will look. If a tattoo becomes infected or the flakes fall off too soon (e.g., if it absorbs too much water and sloughs off early or is picked or scraped off) then the ink will not be properly fixed in the ski... |
Cats were originally domesticated because they kill vermin, and dogs were useful as guards and for hunting. They helped take care of us. In modern times, we completely take care of our pets. They're our family instead of our tools. When did this change? | I wouldn't say they aren't useful tools to the family. Put a couple cats in a warehouse and see all the vermin disappear. Likewise, let your cat in the garage and see that annoying mouse disappear forever. And of course, tons of people own dogs that alert the house for intruders, to say nothing about police and militar... | [
"It is thought cats were originally domesticated because they hunted mice that would eat stored grains, but a recent study found that cats domesticated themselves. They were never specifically sought out for domestication like dogs were but their coexistence with humans naturally developed from the mutually benefic... |
Why does air blow in the back windows of a car and out the front? | Air will flow from high pressure regions to low pressure regions. If what you say occurs, then it must be because the air pressure outside your rear window is higherr than the air pressure outside your front window.
Air flow around a car is turbulent and complex, so what you observe on your car isn't necessarily true... | [
"As the front of the car slows down the air without a diffuser, this is the ideal place for an inlet. A splitter is commonly used here, serving to increase the amount of downforce at the front of the car. The airstream is brought to stagnation above the splitter by an air dam, causing an area of high pressure. Belo... |
trading gold and silver commodities | If you are putting money on the line, I wouldn't bother with ELI5. Go ask this question in an investing community (maybe [r/PersonalFinance](_URL_0_) would help you?). | [
"Internationally, gold is traded primarily via over-the-counter (OTC) transactions, with limited volume trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) based on the LBMA price.\n",
"The main commodities traded on the Exchange have been Gold, Silver and Crude Oil. There are... |
What's the difference between relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory? | To put it simply, a quantum field theory is a quantum theory that is both:
1. Relativistic, and
2. Allows for creation and destruction of particles.
There also exists relativistic quantum mechanics without particle creation/destruction. This would be like solving the Dirac equation for a system with one electron.
A... | [
"In physics, relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is any Poincaré covariant formulation of quantum mechanics (QM). This theory is applicable to massive particles propagating at all velocities up to those comparable to the speed of light \"c\", and can accommodate massless particles. The theory has application in hi... |
How would a guaranteed income affect inflation? | Hey I read your links and read through the answers here. I don't think any answers here are satisfactory.
So there are a few things to address here. First I want to clarify what inflation is. Second I'll address methods of wage redistribution to create this guaranteed income. Finally i'll talk about the implicatio... | [
"BULLET::::- Inflation negatively impacts people with fixed incomes. For those on a fixed income—whose income lags behind a rise in prices, causing the actual purchasing power of their income to decline due to inflation—their living standards will inevitably decrease.\n",
"BULLET::::- Inflation creates a redistri... |
Why did the Nazis attempt to remove any evidence of the camps existing? | The destruction of the extermination camps, the cremation of bodies, and the excavation and cremation of shooting victims over the course of 1942-43/44 was constellation of different factors that aligned that pushed the Germans towards this aspect of the Holocaust.
One of the rationales behind the implementation of c... | [
"Being fully aware that Germany was about to be defeated in World War II, the SS invested its time in removing evidence of the crimes it committed in the concentration camps. They began destroying incriminating evidence in April 1945 and planned on murdering the prisoners using codenames \"Wolke A-I\" (Cloud A-1) a... |
How was sliced bread first received by the general public? Was it really considered one of the "greatest inventions?" | Automatic sliced bread was introduced to Chillicothe, Missouri in 1928 via a machine by Otto Rohwedder in Frank Bench's Chillicothe Bakery. The power driven multi blade slicer dated back to 1917, but had no takers until Bench. Sliced Klean-Maid Bread took off like a rocket and sales soared 2000% within weeks. By 1928, ... | [
"Sliced bread is a loaf of bread that has been sliced with a machine and packaged for convenience. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as \"the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped\". This led to the popular idiom \"greatest thing since sliced bread\".\n",
"On July 7, 1928, a bak... |
why are car model years not displayed on the car itself? | Because people don't want to advertise how old their car is. It would therefore be detrimental to sales.
I can tell you that I've seen examples (in other countries) where the model year was incorporated as part of the license plate. People absolutely *hated* it, and complained vehemently until that law was repealed. ... | [
"An automotive model year is categorically defined by the 10th digit of the vehicle identification number (VIN), and simply indicates any manufacturer-specified evolution in mid-cycle of a model range - such as revised paint options, trim options or any other minor specification change. The 10th VIN digit does not ... |
why are things that are hot to the touch, not so hot to the mouth i.e. coffee? | Two reasons mostly. The first is that your mouth is actually built to handle somewhat warmer temperatures than your skin. So something that is just a little too hot to stick a finger into is probably okay to drink.
The second is that you usually aren't taking big gulps of really hot coffee - you're taking sips. And... | [
"This particular sensation, called chemesthesis, is not a taste in the technical sense, because the sensation does not arise from taste buds, and a different set of nerve fibers carry it to the brain. Foods like chili peppers activate nerve fibers directly; the sensation interpreted as \"hot\" results from the stim... |
how do particles 'know' when they've been observed? | The whole "particles act differently when they are observed" is misleading. A more accurate description is "particles act differently when they are measured." This is because every method we have (or can imagine) of observing them alters some other characteristic than the one we are measuring.
TL;DR: particles do n... | [
"Even if the particles have equivalent physical properties, there remains a second method for distinguishing between particles, which is to track the trajectory of each particle. As long as the position of each particle can be measured with infinite precision (even when the particles collide), then there would be n... |
Looking for some recommendations for these specific topics... | Can you clarify what type of policymaking you're wanting to get into? While I can give you some suggestions for, say, foreign policy, I won't be of much help if you're interested in, for example, urban redevelopment.
I wouldn't suggest you read Said's *Orientalism*. While it's an important work, there's no need to put... | [
"Each Think Tank provides an opportunity for participants to highlight and explore topics that will be the focus of tourism research in the coming years. Interested researchers are invited to participate in workshops to identify 'hot topics' in sustainable tourism. These research workshops will run in parallel with... |
How do those little winter birds, like chickadees, not freeze to death, and, if they are just little well-insulated furnaces, where does all their energy come from, just seeds? | 1. They insulate themselves from air by floofing their feathers (stagnant air between their feathers is an excellent insulator)
2. They insulate themselves from ground by using a countercurrent heat exchange in their legs, aka a [rete mirabilis](_URL_0_) and by keeping their feet dry
| [
"During the winter, the longspur feeds on seeds. They pick them on the ground, rarely feeding directly on plants. They will forage around the same area for a period varying between a few minutes and an hour, then fly away looking for a new foraging area. Their seed diet is composed mainly of seeds from grass, foxta... |
si definition of a second | > The second is the duration of 9192631770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.
Alright, start in reverse.
Caesium-133 atom. [Caesium](_URL_0_) is an element. It's liquid at room temperature, and the most reactive o... | [
"The second is the International System of Units (SI) unit of time duration. It is also the standard single-unit time representation in many programming languages, most notably C, and part of UNIX/POSIX standards used by Linux, Mac OS X, etc.; to convert fractional days to fractional seconds, multiply the number by... |
Costa Concordia Salvage: Was there any new technology developed or had never been tested that was required for this operation? | The main techniques used in the Costa Concordia's salvage were hot-tapping to safely remove fuel from within the ship, a process which has existed for at least over a decade and involves the pumping water into the ship to maintain equal pressure while the fuel is being removed. The main method of righting the ship so... | [
"On 17 September 2013, \"Costa Concordia\" was brought to a vertical position through a parbuckling procedure. The cost for salvaging the ship increased to $799 million. In addition, the ship had suffered severe hull deformations in two places. Titan Salvage, the company directing the salvage operations, estimated ... |
what is it about how birds fly that humans haven't been able to replicate for human flight? | Hollow bones, and a whole lot of other things that make flying animals lightweight and aerodynamic. | [
"Ukita was interested in how birds fly, so he decided to pursue research in the area. From his research, he concluded that \"Computing the ratio of the wing's surface area to the body's weight and using that ratio to create an artificial wing for a human, then a human, too, will be able to fly like a bird.\"\n",
... |
do car headlights move faster than the speed of light? | No, the headlights will always travel at speed of light because speed of light is constant. So, in order to compensate, the moving object will experience time dilation. | [
"According to the theories prevailing at the time, light traveling through a moving medium would be dragged along by the medium, so the measured speed of the light would be a simple sum of its speed \"through\" the medium plus the speed \"of\" the medium.\n",
"BULLET::::4. The speed of light in moving media is no... |
Why do animals (including humans) lick their wounds? | Saliva has natural antiseptic in it, which helps keep the wound uninfected. Also it can remove bits (like gravel from a graze) which could harbour infection. | [
"Wound licking is an instinctive response in humans and many other animals to lick an injury. Dogs, cats, small rodents, horses, and primates all lick wounds. Saliva contains tissue factor which promotes the blood clotting mechanism. The enzyme lysozyme is found in many tissues and is known to attack the cell walls... |
why do people abandon houses? | There's a variety of things that happen. Sometimes a person moves away, or the house is inherited by a faraway relative. If these people can't or don't want to be landlords, and are unable to sell the house, they're stuck with the property taxes. They might just forget about the property, instead...if the county eventu... | [
"An abandoned village is a village that has, for some reason, been deserted. In many countries, and throughout history, thousands of villages have been deserted for a variety of causes. Abandonment of villages is often related to epidemic, famine, war, climate change, environmental destruction, or deliberate cleara... |
why does machine-made ice cubes have holes in them? | When you make them at home, you fill compartments in a tray with water and freeze the entire thing, so each compartment becomes an ice cube.
Ice makers work slightly differently. They have an array of fingers (or prongs or spikes, whatever) which are dipped into a container of water. These fingers are chilled, causi... | [
"Dedicated ice-maker machines can be used to produce ice cubes for laboratories and academic use. Ice cubes are also produced commercially and sold in bulk; these ice cubes, despite their name, are often cylindrical, and may have holes through the center to increase the available surface area (for faster heat trans... |
what is the difference, if any, between extra strength tylenol over the counter vs. prescription? | Prescription gives you a higher dosage, so for example instead of two pills, you only have to take one. And, at least in the U.S., it's likely the prescription Tylenol will be covered by your health insurance. My mom is a nurse in a clinic, and a lot of people on Medical Assistance ask for prescription ibuprofen becaus... | [
"The gliflozins are used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus but are most often used as second- or third-line agents instead of first-line because there are other medications on the market that have much longer safety record and are less expensive than gliflozins.\n",
"This combination medication should not be conf... |
why does agitating (rotating/stirring) concrete prevent it from setting? | Agitating concrete will only delay the setting process by preventing some of the bonds in the material from forming and breaking some of formed ones but it will still begin to set eventually.
There are a lot of factors that go into to setting concrete.
IMO, the most important place to start is knowing your aggregate.... | [
"The mat is made of concrete which is an aggregate of small rocks and cement. This mixture has to be supported by a framework to avoid sagging and fracture while setting. This process is known as shuttering and reinforcing. The materials used are long steel bars with longitudinal protrusions between the piles held ... |
What were the most important socio-political effects of the Little Ice Age? | You gotta be more specific. The Little Ice Age lasted from the Middle Ages to the Victorian Era and you'd expect that for such a long period of time, with specific dips in temperature, great changes have happened.
The demise of the Greenland colony was certainly the first one. There were tons of famines in Europe that... | [
"Historians have argued that cultural responses to the consequences of the Little Ice Age in Europe consisted of violent scapegoating. The prolonged cold, dry periods brought drought upon many European communities, resulting in poor crop growth, poor livestock survival, and increased activity of pathogens and disea... |
Did ancient Egyptians travel to the United States? | There have been no ancient Egyptian artifacts found *in situ* anywhere in the New World. [Thor Heyerdahls](_URL_0_) expedition from South America across the Pacific in 1947 merely showed that long distance sea travel in the distant past was possible, not that it actually occurred. | [
"Egyptian cultural officials initially stalled prospects of an American tour, as Egypt was then more closely aligned with the Soviet Union, where fifty pieces had toured in 1973. However, relations thawed later that year when the U.S. interceded on Egypt's behalf to prevent the total destruction of Egypt's Third Ar... |
this may be a dumb question but how does a car/truck tire handle the weight from the vehicle and not pop? | They're simply really big. The larger the area you have touching the ground, the more weight you can have.
Let's say you put three tons balancing on a needle. You're taking all those three tons, and concentrating them on one single spot, and that needle is gonna pierce right down through the asphalt. However, say you ... | [
"If (lateral) load transfer reaches the tire loading on one end of a vehicle, the inside wheel on that end will lift, causing a change in handling characteristic. If it reaches half the weight of the vehicle it will start to roll over. Some large trucks will roll over before skidding, while passenger vehicles and s... |
as an overweight male, why it's better for me to gain muscle via weights to lose weight than to do just cardio & reducing calorie intake | It isn't. You should do weights and cardio and reduce caloric intake. Better yet do some intermittent fasting, cut out all sugar, drop carbs to around 100-150 grams per day, and increase good fat intake. If you can restrict all consumption of anything but water to a 10 hour period every day you will be even more succes... | [
"Weight loss also depends on the type of strength training used. Weight training is generally used for bulking, but the bulking method will more than likely not increase weight because of the diet involved. However, when resistance or circuit training is used, because they are not geared towards bulking, women tend... |
What was the experience of the indigenous peoples of the Americas to lose so many of their members to colonialism, slavery, and diseases? | *part 1*
This is a huge area and topic, where experiences would vary accordingly - I'll focus mostly on central Mexico as per usual, although there are many parallels with other parts of Spanish America. Overall, the easy answer would be that of course, there was not only one experience of or response to conquest and ... | [
"As part of the process of conquest, the economic regimes of the European colonies in the Americas developed various forms of forced labor exploitation of the indigenous peoples. However, the relatively low population density of some of the South American territories, resistance by some aboriginal groups to accultu... |
What is your personal recommendation for an audiobook on the history of the United States? | Have you considered any of the Great Courses series of lectures on Audible? | [
"The audiobook was released by Brilliance Publishing on June 4, 2013.\" The Untold History of the United States\" audiobook was also written by Stone and Kuznick, narrated by Peter Berkrot. It runs 36 hours and 25 minutes.\n",
"The main body of \"The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature\... |
Is there a way to measure the amount of matter\mass in the universe? Is it a finite amount? | We can't measure anything outside of the observable universe per definition, so we don't know if it's finite. Our observable universe should have about [1.45×10^53 kg](_URL_0_) of ordinary mass (excluding dark matter). | [
"The mass of the observable universe is often quoted as 10 tonnes or 10 kg. In this context, mass refers to ordinary matter and includes the interstellar medium (ISM) and the intergalactic medium (IGM). However, it excludes dark matter and dark energy. This quoted value for the mass of ordinary matter in the univer... |
When I close my eyes, am I flexing or relaxing my eyelid? | You're not doing anything to the eyelid; what you are doing are flexing/relaxing muscles connected to it.
Now the general rule for muscle antagonism applies here: so opening *and* closing eyes involve *both* relaxation of one muscle and contraction of another (similar to the relationship between your biceps and tricep... | [
"The eyes may be closed, the body relaxed, with awareness of the overall asana. Adjustments are made until balance and alignment are experienced. Alignment that creates relaxation is indicative of a suitable position for the asana. The asana should be natural and comfortable, without any sharp pains.\n",
"Convers... |
Why do mitochondrial diseases affect different parts of the body? | The mitochondria plays an important role in a lot of cellular processes, some of which only occur in a specific type of cell. The least cell specific process is metabolisn; however, different cells specialize in different types of metabolic processes. For example a mutation that affects the electron transport pathway ... | [
"The majority of mitochondrial diseases are caused by mutations in genes of the nuclear DNA, whose gene products are imported into the mitochondria (mitochondrial proteins) as well as acquired mitochondrial conditions. Mitochondrial diseases take on unique characteristics both because of the way the diseases are of... |
How can radio waves be SO well spread? | [Lots of base stations](_URL_3_). Here's a site that will [show them for your area](_URL_1_). [Here's another one that takes a while to process](_URL_2_), but it has more detailed information. In a 4 mile radius of my zip code, it foung 95 towers with 557 antennae.
Also, some [buildings have cell signal repeaters](_UR... | [
"Broadcasting uses several parts of the radio spectrum, depending on the type of signals transmitted and the desired target audience. Long-wave and medium-wave signals can give reliable coverage of areas several hundred kilometres across, but work only with audio signals (speech and music),and are subject to natura... |
when i charge a phone, unplug it, then turn the phone off, how is the energy being stored within the phone? | Chemically.
When you charge your battery, the stuff inside it undergoes a chemical reaction. This reaction can be reversed, yielding a current from one pole of your battery to the other when you connect them by the electronic circuits in your phone when you switch your phone on.
There are several different chemical p... | [
"The phone shipped with an extra battery and extra stylus. The supplied power cable could be used as a travel charger or to plug into the included cradle, which could charge the phone and an extra battery simultaneously. Despite two batteries, the phone needed to be plugged in regularly. Swapping charged batteries ... |
Arthurian legends aside, were there any historical quests for the holy grail? | This might not be what you had in mind exactly but meet Otto Rahn, German medievalist, SS-Obersturmführer, and Grail Hunter for the Nazis. Rahn himself is a rather marginal figure even within Nazi occultism and while commonly held that in the early stages to have been a talented historian, his name as well as his work ... | [
"Roger Sherman Loomis (October 31, 1887 – October 11, 1966) was an American scholar and one of the foremost authorities on medieval and Arthurian literature. Loomis is perhaps best known for showing the roots of Arthurian legend, in particular the Holy Grail, in native Celtic mythology.\n",
"The story was inspire... |
how is tesla doing so well while losing $4,000 per car? is that loss misleading? | They aren't losing $4,000 per car. They sell the cars above the marginal cost of making the car, so they do make a "profit" on each car. But they spend that "profit" (and money they borrow) on expanding their business, including designing the new models, machinery and space to build the new models, and expanding the ... | [
"On June 4, 2017, the American Automobile Association raised insurance rates for Tesla owners following a report from the Highway Loss Data Institute. The report concluded that the Model S crashes 46% more often and is 50% more expensive to repair than comparable vehicles. Similarly, the Model X was concluded to cr... |
GMO sequences? | Nice try terrorists. Just kidding let's see what I can do.
I have the full sequence of the [Cauliflower Mosiac Virus](_URL_3_). Look in the article it has a full sequence. Also I googled 35S promoter and [This](_URL_1_) was the first result. Is this what you needed?
I'm having a little more trouble finding the nos te... | [
"Creating a GMO is a multi-step process. Genetic engineers must first choose what gene they wish to insert into the organism. This is driven by what the aim is for the resultant organism and is built on earlier research. Genetic screens can be carried out to determine potential genes and further tests then used to ... |
When will we be able to industrialize graphene and when will the consumer likely see graphene in household products such as computers? | I currently work in a research lab where several members are studying the properties and manufacturing techniques of graphene. There is a lot of research in the topic right now, and this is mostly because of increased media exposure and "buzz" surrounding the material.
The graphene that we can grow today is small and... | [
"Commercialization of graphene proceeded rapidly once commercial scale production was demonstrated. In 2014 two North East England commercial manufacturers, Applied Graphene Materials and Thomas Swan Limited (with Trinity College, Dublin researchers), began manufacturing. In East Anglia Cambridge Nanosystems operat... |
if we can't get under 7nm with silicon why are intel/amd not building bigger dies with more transistor instead of always shrinking? | > why aren't they building HUGE cpu that consume 3-400 watts? all we would have to do is having a bigger PSU and more efficient cooling.
Because it will generate a metric ton of heat. Like, a lot. Which means a big ol' heatsink and a noisy, high RPM fan. Your power user might use liquid cooling to make this more effi... | [
"As it becomes more difficult to manufacture ever smaller transistors, companies are using Multi-chip modules, Three-dimensional integrated circuits, 3D NAND, Package on package, and Through-silicon vias to increase performance and reducing size, without having to reduce the size of the transistors. \n",
"The mai... |
At what point in evolution on earth did cells or their earlier counterparts begin to have a drive for survival, and want themselves and their descendants to become more numerous? How did this evolve? | Err, cells can't actually think. They don't 'want' anything or have a 'drive' for anything. They don't 'decide' to evolve. Evolution isn't something an individual does, it's something that happens over generations and generations in a population. Random mutations occur, and by natural selection, the mutations are benef... | [
"The origin of cells was the most important step in the evolutionary theory of life on Earth. The birth of the cell marked the passage from pre-biotic chemistry to partitioned units resembling modern cells. The final transition to living entities that fulfill all the definitions of modern cells depended on the abil... |
why do conservative supporters always say "the problem with socialism is you eventually run put of other people's money." when socialism is brought up | It's an easy statement to dismiss something without actually having to bring up any arguments.
An equivalent inverse statement would be : "The problem with Capitalism is that eventually one person owns everything." | [
"Proponents of socialism argue that production for profit (i.e., capitalism) does not always satisfy the economic needs of people, especially the working-class, because capital only invests in production when it is profitable. This fails to satisfy demand, that is the needs of people who lack basic necessities but ... |
how to mathematicians make a living? | Mochizuki's proof/entire new theory is not the norm, at all.
Mathematicians (by which I will mean pure mathematicians - those who research mathematics itself), by and large, are paid to do research by either private companies or government funding. Governments have budgets for scientific and mathematical research for... | [
"Mathematicians involved with solving problems with applications in real life are called applied mathematicians. Applied mathematicians are mathematical scientists who, with their specialized knowledge and professional methodology, approach many of the imposing problems presented in related scientific fields. With ... |
what determines if someone is "hot-blooded" who loves the cold or "cold-blooded"who loves the heat? | It has to do with our ability to adapt. I currently live in Oklahoma and every year we go through the summers with unbearable heat and then winter rolls around and it's ridiculously cold. But by the time the seasons begin to change from one extreme to the other we have adapted and have to re-adapt. Some people are more... | [
"Animal body temperature control varies by species, so the terms \"warm-blooded\" and \"cold-blooded\" (though still in everyday use) suggest a false idea of there being only two categories of body temperature control, and are no longer used scientifically.\n",
"It has been hypothesized that warm-bloodedness evol... |
the missile knows where it is because it knows where it isn't. | Its a very confusing way of saying "if you know where you're going (where it isn't), and how to get there (the difference or deviation), you can figure out where you are".
"The variation" just means the missile got lost for a little bit, but it can fix that. | [
"Most infrared guided missiles have their seekers mounted on a gimbal. This allows the sensor to be pointed at the target when the missile is not. This is important for two main reasons. One is that before and during launch, the missile cannot always be pointed at the target. Rather, the pilot or operator points th... |
how exactly does a us president "push legislation through congress?" | The president has a lot of soft power, power that's not explicitly stated anywhere but that still exists. So for example, the president is the de facto leader of their political party and can do things like instruct the party not to support the candidate's reelection. He or she can also do some favor trading, such as o... | [
"Much of the legislation dealt with by Congress is drafted at the initiative of the executive branch. The president may personally propose legislation in annual and special messages to Congress including the annual State of the Union address and joint sessions of Congress. If Congress has adjourned without acting o... |
When you wake up late and don't remember turning off your alarms, what actually occurred? | Something horrible happened here. I'll just leave this link directing you to a [past post](_URL_0_) that may be helpful. | [
"A common false awakening is a \"late for work\" scenario. A person may \"wake up\" in a typical room, with most things looking normal, and realize he or she overslept and missed the start time at work or school. Clocks, if found in the dream, will show time indicating that fact. The resulting panic is often strong... |
Are there any books that specifically deal with how medieval cavalry was used? | For Norman and Anglo-Norman cavalry warfare, I would look at R. Allen Brown's "The Status of the Norman Knight" and "The Battle of Hastings", both located within Strickland's *Anglo-Norman Warfare: Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Military Organization*. Hell, I would just look through the entire book (it's... | [
"Some authors, such as Lynn White, claim the use of the stirrup in Europe stimulated development of the medieval knights which characterized feudal Europe. However, this thesis was disputed in the Great Stirrup Controversy by historians such as Bernard Bachrach, although it has been pointed out that the Carolingian... |
What is happening in a light bulb on a quantum scale? Is it really just turning electrons into photons following The Conservation of Energy? | Electrons are not turning into photons. What's happening is that a current of electrons is running through a wire similarly to water running through a pipe. However, this heats up the wire, since the wire has some resistance. Eventually, the wire is hot enough that it glows.
The energy to heat the wire comes from the ... | [
"Thus, when a material is illuminated, individual photons of light can make the valence electrons of an atom transition to a higher electronic energy level. The photon is destroyed in the process and the absorbed radiant energy is transformed to electric potential energy. Several things can happen then to the absor... |
How long can we expect the Mars Rover (and other manmade objects) to remain on Mars? | They'll be there at least for tens of thousands of years, we have evidence of early metal tools from here on Earth that have survived that long relatively in tact with, as you pointed out, more corrosive conditions. It's hard to say with much accuracy but there are certainly materials on the rover that wont erode or co... | [
"The final journey back to Mars is described to be under constant acceleration (except for brief shutdowns for rest) which took five weeks, with the acceleration being well above the comfortable threshold for human beings. However, even with the maximum distance possible between Mars and Saturn, the constant accele... |
Does the geometry of an atomic nucleus affect its stability? | Yes, the shape of a nucleus does generally affect its stability. From the liquid-drop model, you can see that there are volume and surface terms that both contribute to the binding energy.
In an extreme case of something very deformed and with a high Z, the deformation makes it more susceptible to spontaneous fission ... | [
"The hypothesis for the island of stability is based upon the nuclear shell model, which implies that the atomic nucleus is built up in \"shells\" in a manner similar to the structure of the much larger electron shells in atoms. In both cases, shells are just groups of quantum energy levels that are relatively clos... |
why can't we fly a plane as high as it can go and launch a rocket off the back of it, using less fuel and weight, plus using the momentum it already has with the plane? kinda like a giant missile to space. | We can but it is not terribly practical.
In very rough terms lowest possible orbital speed is about 25,000 km/hr. A rocket achieves that by throwing mass out the back and letting conservation of momentum do its thing. The difference between a rocket and an (airbreathing) jet engine is that all the propellant mass ha... | [
"The principal advantage of a rocket being launched by a high flying airplane is that it need not fly through the low, dense atmosphere, the drag of which requires a considerable amount of extra work and thus mass of propellant. Another advantage is to precisely launch a payload into any orbital inclination at any ... |
why have 'google' and 'photoshop' become verbs, but 'amazon' or 'wikipedia' haven't? | Not sure the reasoning, but I've definitely heard/used "wiki" as a verb. "I'm gonna wiki that to see if it's true" | [
"The name \"Google\" originated from a misspelling of \"googol\", which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Page and Brin write in their original paper on PageRank: \"We chose our systems name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10 and fits well with our goal of... |
why do criticality accidents never result in a nuclear explosion? | When nuclear material, such as the Demon Core, go supercritical, they generate a LOT of heat, which causes them to expand. The expansion is enough to end the supercritical state.
To achieve an explosion, the supercritical state has to be maintained as long as possible to permit a runaway reaction. This is not possibl... | [
"With the exception of research and experimental reactors, only a small number of reactor accidents are thought to have achieved prompt criticality, for example Chernobyl #4, the U.S. Army's SL-1, and Soviet submarine K-431. In all these examples the uncontrolled surge in power was sufficient to cause an explosion ... |
What are some common causes of static electricity outside of the widely known factors (i.e., wool sweaters, etc) | What are the widely known factors? This [link](_URL_0_) describes the action by which static charge builds up on people. I wasn't aware how it worked when I was told about it in a lecture a few years ago. | [
"Static electricity is usually caused when certain materials are rubbed against each other, like wool on plastic or the soles of shoes on carpet. The process causes electrons to be pulled from the surface of one material and relocated on the surface of the other material.\n",
"In addition, static electricity may ... |
When a Phase Change Occurs Because of Pressure Change (e.g. flashing of water), Does The Temp. Remain the Same? | You are correct, the water on his tongue boiled because the pressure was so low. The [phase diagram](_URL_0_) of water shows the thermodynamically preferred state of water for a given combination of pressure and temperature. Assuming the test subject was in a near vacuum the boiling temperature of water in his condit... | [
"BULLET::::- The change of phase means flow-induced pressure drops can cause further phase-change (e.g. water can evaporate through a valve) increasing the relative volume of the gaseous, compressible medium and increasing exit velocities, unlike single-phase incompressible flow where closing a valve would decrease... |
Why is Los Angeles so far from the coast? | There are no navigable rivers in southern California, so that was not an option. The area of downtown was inhabited by the Tongva people when Europeans arrived in the early 16th century. About 90% of the Tongva diet came from the acorns of the California Live Oak. The acorns are toxic unless they are painstakingly crus... | [
"Los Angeles offers an important and strategic location: being inside the United States, in the major state of California, and at the crossroads of both Asia and Latin America. Its location on the Pacific Rim makes it an obvious choice for most countries to locate its consulate. Also, Los Angeles boasts one of the ... |
If a large astroid is on path to hit earth, would we be able to do anything about it? | maybe.
If we had enough time we could do several things.
if it was a comet (made largely of ice) We could shine a laser at it, causing it to out gas on one side potentially moving it off course.
we could attach a small rocket/ion engine to it and push it off course
we could park a small space craft in front of it a... | [
"If these jets happen to be aimed towards our solar system, its consequences could significantly harm life on Earth and its biosphere, whose true impact depends on the amount of radiation received, the number of energetic particles and the source's distance. Knowing that the inclination of the binary system contain... |
what sense is most 'awake' when asleep? | with sound, I think it depends on if you have background noise on. Like I used to sleep with a radio on growing up, wasn't very loud but because of that, I wouldn't really wake up to other outside noises. Now I sleep with nothing on and I feel like I can wake up easier if a noise occurs | [
"Local sleep is a neurological phenomenon where brain activity in an organism that is otherwise awake enters a state which closely resembles that of sleep. In an Electroencephalogram, these patterns generally resemble NREM slow-wave sleep, and oscillate between 'on' and 'off' periods in the same way that would be e... |
how the time scale of minutes, hours, 12 hour half days, and 24 hours in a day were chosen. | Notice they are all base 6? Just like 360 degrees in a circle. This is because the first ones to write about it (Sumerians) had base six number system.
_URL_0_ | [
"Minutes may be expressed as an exact number of minutes past the hour specifying the time of day (e.g., 6:32 p.m. is \"six thirty-two\"). Additionally, when expressing the time using the \"past (after)\" or \"to (before)\" formula, it is conventional to choose the number of minutes below 30 (e.g., 6:32 p.m. is conv... |
What is the black-body radiation of a negative-temperature body? | Population inversion can't exist at thermal equilibrium, so you can't really expect the system to radiate according to the Planck distribution, which describes the radiation emitted by a system at thermal equilibrium.
Population inversion is used in lasers, which certainly don't emit a thermal spectrum. You can read m... | [
"Black-body radiation is the thermal electromagnetic radiation within or surrounding a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, emitted by a black body (an idealized opaque, non-reflective body). It has a specific spectrum and intensity that depends only on the body's temperature, which is assumed fo... |
what's the difference between simulator and emulator? | A simulation is a system that behaves similar to something else, but is implemented in an entirely different way. It provides the basic behavior of a system but may not necessarily abide by all of the rules of the system being simulated. It is there to give you an idea about how something works.
Think of a flight simu... | [
"A video game console emulator is a program that allows a personal computer or video game console to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Video game console emulators and hypervisors both perform hardware virtualization; words like \"virtualization\", \"virtual machine\", \"host\" and \"guest\" are no... |
If you are in space and objects accelerate past you, will you feel force? | Ok, so I'm not any sort of scienceologist, but I'm pretty confident that the answer is "no". There is no shared medium in space that would transfer any compression wave to you. The only way you would experience a force would be if you ended up in the path of whatever emissions this object may be releasing. | [
"Unless the state of motion of an object is known, it is impossible to distinguish whether an observed force is due to gravity or to acceleration—gravity and inertial acceleration have identical effects. Albert Einstein called this the equivalence principle, and said that only observers who feel no force at all—inc... |
why do people say an atheist can't be a republican? | They are incorrect, either as a joke or just being fairly misinformed.
Currently strong evangelical christians make up a very vocal part of the republican party. Also, republican talking heads will frequently bring up things like "the war on christmas" to get ratings. However, it is just ognorant to presume all christ... | [
"Although a diverse group themselves, atheists and secular people may include individuals who are fiscally conservative. In this case, fiscally conservative atheists and secularists will come together due to their opposition to the religiously bound social policies of the Christian right. There is still a social st... |
Has anyone here read Wendy Doniger's "The Hindus: An Alternative History" and can tell me why it's controversial enough to be censored? What do academic historians think of the book's contents (regardless of their thoughts on censorship)? | Hindusim, as it's practiced today–as with much we think of "traditional" in India—was heavily influenced by British colonialism, both in terms of what the British thought it was and should be, and as a reaction of Indian intellectuals to what the British thought about it. Doniger points out the big, messy, and diverse ... | [
"Writing about the 2006 Californian Hindu textbook controversy, Thapar opposed some of the changes that were proposed by Hindu groups to the coverage of Hinduism and Indian history in school textbooks. She contended that while Hindus have a legitimate right to a fair and culturally sensitive representation, some of... |
What happens if an earth-like planet crashes into a star? Or at least fall out of orbit and start approaching it? | An Earth-like planet crashing into its star is less like a crash than it is like a gnat flying into a campfire. The planet would vaporize as it falls into the deeper layers of star. | [
"Our star will likely not be directly affected by such an event, but the Earth may be easily affected by a nearby collision. Astronomers say that if a stellar collision happens within 100 light years of the Earth, the resulting gamma-ray burst could possibly destroy all life on Earth. This is still very unlikely th... |
how do i choose a credit card? | It depends - the credit card issuers put different features on different cards so that they'll appeal to different people.
- Some credit cards are low fee. Get one of these if you want to be frugal.
- Some cards are low interest. Get one of these if you have lots of high interest debt that you want to consolidate a... | [
"A credit card is linked to a line of credit (usually called a credit limit) created by the issuer of the credit card for the cardholder on which the cardholder can draw (i.e. borrow), either for payment to a merchant for a purchase or as a cash advance to the cardholder. Most credit cards are issued by or through ... |
if the majority of the world's human and plant population was wiped out suddenly, how would the survivors access the seed banks? | You're assuming that the staff that tend to the seed bank are also wiped out suddenly, and the seed bank survive intact.
I'd find it hard to imagine a scenario where that would be true.. I'd imagine that it's manned 24/7.. If the seed bank survives, the staff manning it will be ok too...
Not to mention the Norwegian ... | [
"The Tree-of-Life crop on Earth failed due to there being insufficient thallium oxide in the Earth's soil; the plants grew but didn't support the virus. As a result, the Protectors that led the colony to Earth died of starvation when their store of roots ran out.\n",
"Once a population has become established, com... |
If a multilingual person suffers from aphasia could they loose comprehension of one language while retaining the ability to understand another? | what kind of aphasia? | [
"Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. This damage is typically caused by a cerebral vascular accident (stroke), or head trauma; however, these are not the only possible causes. To be diagnosed with aphasia, a person's speech or language must be sig... |
why is our writing voice often so different from our way of speaking? | You rely a lot more on understood meanings/contexts and gestures and tend to be more repetitive when you speak for one. When you write, you have to clarify the context because you don't know who will be reading your writing or where they will do it. Similarly, you can't use gestures for obvious reasons so your words ha... | [
"Writing coaches, teachers, and authors of creative writing books often speak of the writer's voice as distinguished from other literary elements. However, as voice is often described vaguely, their distinction may be only superficial. In some instances, voice is defined nearly the same as style; in others, as genr... |
how come my vitamin c tablets have 1250% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin c? | A couple reasons. First, a lot is wasted and isn't actually utilized in the body. Acids or other microbes can use it up too, so you don't get the full about found in a pill. They overload your body with it so your body gets 100% (or at least close) of the vitamins suggested daily.
Second, your body can't utilize so mu... | [
"Vitamin C dietary supplements are available as tablets, capsules, drink mix packets, in multi-vitamin/mineral formulations, in antioxidant formulations, and as crystalline powder. Vitamin C is also added to some fruit juices and juice drinks. Tablet and capsule content ranges from 25 mg to 1500 mg per serving. The... |
why a lot of email scams actually look like scams? i have noticed many of the junk mails i receive, utilize random capital letters, bold writing, excessive exclamation marks and poor grammar. what do they hope to achieve from this any why do they not put more effort into their scam advertising? | Scammers will commonly use poor grammar, awkward phrasing and spelling on purpose as a sort of filter. Anyone responding to those emails must not be aware of the scam and or must not be smart enough to realize it is before it’s too late. It’s a fishing method that gets all the VERRY susceptible people. | [
"Faxed scam letters are in no way an uncommon occurrence. Today many scam letters are still faxed to corporate institutions, although they are not a large amount due to cost restraints on behalf of offenders.\n",
"A typical scenario is when the emails are sent to staff of a multinational corporation with offices/... |
Movies and Television series often portray certain swordsmen as "heroes" or "experts." People whose skill in battle far exceeded all of their opponents. Were there actually such swordsmen or warriors in the middle ages who had such unmatched skill or prowess? | These kinds of larger-than-life heroes are everywhere in medieval literature. You see them in Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon epic poetry (like the Battle of Maldon), Gregory of Tours, the Icelandic Sagas, Arthurian romance, etc. Super-human heroes were as much a part of the medieval imagination as they are of our own re... | [
"Mythology and folklore often exaggerate the skills of famous gunfighters. Most of these historical figures were not known to be capable of trick shooting, nor did they necessarily have a reputation for precision sharpshooting. Such tropes that are frequently seen in Westerns include shooting the center of a coin, ... |
How do U.S. servicemen who married Asian women between 1942-1967 get around anti-miscegenation laws when they returned to the states with their brides? | The law on the books for Virginia for instance, did not speak at all too the Asian population, but ONLY to marriage between black and white.
That was actually appoint during the Supreme Court's hearing of Loving v. Virginia, where because the law only spoke about 2 races, it was clearly racially biased and thus viola... | [
"Furthermore, it is estimated that there are \"... 15,000 Australian women who married American servicemen based in Australia during World War II and moved to the US to be with their husbands\". Allied servicemen also married many women in other countries where they were stationed at the end of the war, including F... |
Is it possible to make an entirely frictionless surface? | As far as I know, it is impossible to create a truly frictionless surface, but we can come very close. See: [Superlubricity](_URL_0_) | [
"The contact between surfaces, in reality, is a contact between roughness and the origin of the phenomenon of friction, and therefore of the dissipation of energy, is due precisely to the deformations that such bumps undergo due to the load and of relative movement. Plastic, elastic or rupture deformations can be o... |
Are modern day cinematic representation of WWII infantry helmets accurate in terms of durability? | There are enough leftover WWII helmets still around (as the design and materials didn't significantly change for decades) that the ones in the films are quite likely vintage. They were designed to deflect shrapnel and debris, and deflect rounds that weren't full-on, but they couldn't stop them. But remember, most of th... | [
"The M1 helmet is extremely popular with militaria collectors, and helmets from the World War II period are generally more valuable than later models. Both World War II and Vietnam era helmets are becoming harder to find. Those with (original) rare or unusual markings or some kind of documented history tend to be m... |
What effects does a pear-shaped nucleus actually have on an atom? And what causes it? | I'll try and make this as simple as possible.
Nuclear structure is something that's poorly understood. Specifically, when I say nuclear structure, I mean the way the protons and neutrons assemble, such as the shapes of their wavefunctions and their energies. Protons and neutrons in a nucleus are a lot like electrons i... | [
"The most common shapes for the density distribution of protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus are spherical, prolate, and oblate spheroidal, where the polar axis is assumed to be the spin axis (or direction of the spin angular momentum vector). Deformed nuclear shapes occur as a result of the competition betwee... |
why can i roll my eyes toward the top of my head but not the bottom? | Your optical nerve attaches to the back of your eyeball at an upward angle just below your eyes midpoint. As you look down, it causes more tension as it tries to straiten the optical nerve, as opposed to when you look up, the tension is released on the nerve by laying it flat against the bottom of your eye socket.
Th... | [
"The emphasis on the raised eyebrows and the rolling up of the eyes is such, that the actual nod of the head upwards has ended up being of secondary importance. A person can denote \"no\" by simply raising their eyebrows and rolling up their eyes, with the head staying completely still.\n",
"BULLET::::- Eyes up -... |
how is it physically possible, across all species, for hummingbirds to flap their wings anywhere from 10-30 or in the extreme up to 70-80 times "per second", or is that unit misinterpreted? | Hummingbirds have tiny little wings and relatively strong muscles to move those tiny little wings. | [
"They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound created by their beating wings which flap at high frequencies audible to humans. They hover in mid-air at rapid wing-flapping rates, which vary from around 12 beats per second in the largest species, to in excess of 80 in some of the smallest. Of those sp... |
"Hitler lost the war the moment it began"; Is there any truth to this? | The Soviets were indeed the first to utilize the concept of paratroopers, however most of their operations were limited with the majority of their paratroopers being used as regular infantry. That being said.... It depends on what angle one approaches this from, as this is one of those questions that never gets a stra... | [
"On 22 April 1945, at his afternoon situation conference, Hitler fell into a tearful rage (famously dramatized in the 2004 German film \"Downfall\") when he realised that his plans, prepared the previous day, could not be achieved. He declared that the war was lost, blaming the generals for the defeat and that he w... |
why/how did venezuela develop a coin shortage a few years ago? | At one point the value of the metal in the coins was worth more than the coins themselves due to inflation. When this happened any coins people had were melted down and paper money had to be used. | [
"Venezuela shared the common Spanish-American monetary system, based on the silver peso and the gold escudo, current throughout Spanish America. Trade, especially in cacao, brought money to the colony in the late 17th century in the form of coin from the Mexico money supply increased significantly after the Compañí... |
Is there a limit to how fast a substance can go through a pipe/tube? | Is the pipe frictionless,and does the fluid/gas have viscosity?
Most real pipes have a boundary layer close to the edges.
Other than those two issues,the limits would be how hard you can push (it's going to require more force the faster you go),and eventually,the speed of light.
You might also need to worry about ph... | [
"A cycloid profile will theoretically give the fastest half-pipe if friction is neglected. It is then called a brachistochrone curve. Such a curve in its pure form has infinitely short verts and is π times as wide as it is high. \n",
"A skilled athlete can perform in a half-pipe for an extended period of time by ... |
how close can we get a bomb to be as strong as a nuclear bomb without having it being nuclear? | There's an upper limit on the energy density of explosives, particularly on a mass basis. An airplane has to be able to lift, carry, and drop the thing.
For comparison, the Little Boy bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in WW2 was well over 1000 times more powerful than the MOAB the US dropped in Afghanistan, while ... | [
"The nuclear force holding an atomic nucleus together is very strong, in general much stronger than the repulsive electromagnetic forces between the protons. However, the nuclear force is also short range, dropping quickly in strength beyond about 1 femtometre, while the electromagnetic force has unlimited range. T... |
Did Tolkien use a lot of his experiences in WW1 to inspire certain parts of Lord of the Rings? | Tolkien was annoyed by analysts who claimed his work was an allegory of WW2, and responded that firstly he did not like historical allegory in fiction, and secondly that he began world-building long before WW2. He stated it was a lot more plausible that WW1 shaped the story, without admitting to an actual influence. It... | [
"In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to immediately volunteer for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: \"In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man wi... |
why are there no underwater cities? | Because it would be ridiculously expensive to build a city underwater... also it would be just nonsense. Why build a city where you need tunnels to get from A to B, it would be a nightmare on the topic of air circulation, some parts would need to be ankered to the ground to not float off Tides and algae would become an... | [
"The term underwater habitat is used for a range of applications, including some structures that are not exclusively underwater while operational, but all include a significant underwater component. There may be some overlap between underwater habitats and submersible vessels, and between structures which are compl... |
Did the Mali Kingdom Reach America before Columbus? | Was it possible that someone from West Africa crossed the Atlantic before the late 15th century? Sure it was, just like it was theoretically possible that Chinese ships crossed the Pacific. It is however extremely unlikely, first of all because there was no *reason* to do so, second of all because the rich islands of... | [
"In the 14th century CE King Abubakari II, the brother of King Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire is thought to have had a great armada of ships sitting on the coast of West Africa. This is corroborated by ibn Battuta himself who recalls several hundred Malian ships off the coast. The ships would communicate with each o... |
why are perpetual magnetic generators not a viable source of power? | short and sweet answer: because there is no such thing as a truly perpetual magnetic generator. It is a physically impossible thing. anyone who claims to have one is either crazy or a con artist. | [
"There are several reasons for using superconducting magnetic energy storage instead of other energy storage methods. The most important advantage of SMES is that the time delay during charge and discharge is quite short. Power is available almost instantaneously and very high power output can be provided for a bri... |
How long did it take for feral horses to become ubiquitous in the great plains? Did they begin to populate right after the columbian exchange or did it take the centuries to reach 19th century levels? | I'm sure somebody will be able to come along and expand. But I'll pull some information from the Native American history class I took.
For several centuries, the Spanish tried really hard to keep horses out of the hands of Native Americans, recognizing that horses were one of their biggest tactical advantages. And... | [
"In the 16th century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to Mexico. Some of the horses escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. The early American horse had been game for the earliest humans on the continent. It was hunted to extinction about 7000 BCE, just after the end of the l... |
Do black-holes retain the properties of the matter they absorb? | As far as I understand it, the current understanding is that of all the matter that falls into a black hole, only the quantities which are strictly conserved in all physical interactions, i.e. mass, electric charge, linear momentum and angular momentum are conserved.
So, in a way, a strong enough electromagnetic field... | [
"Steinhardt, Spergel and Jason Pollack have proposed that a small fraction of dark matter could have ultra-strong self-interactions, which would cause the particles to coalesce rapidly and collapse into seeds for early supermassive black holes.\n",
"Because a black hole has only a few internal parameters, most of... |
why is necrophilia so much more taboo than murder? | Victorian dogma about fear and revilement of death/respect for the dead that has lingered on. If we lived in a purely rational society, it would probably be possible to donate your body to necrophilia, because you are correct. Burying a dead body is throwing away a full set of valuable organs and tissues. It's a waste ... | [
"Necrophilia is a pathological fascination with dead bodies, which often takes the form of a desire to engage with them in sexual activities, such as intercourse. Although prohibited by the laws of many countries, there have been many reported cases of necrophilia throughout history.\n",
"Mbembe was clear that ne... |
can you think of anyone from before 1970 who predicted that something like the internet would exist? | Vannevar Bush, who conceptualized information technology in the 1940s (as opposed to mere _computing_: computers then were just meant to perform calculations). Douglas Engelbart, who invented the graphical user interface as we know it. Cf. [the mother of all demos](_URL_0_) from 1968, ([watch](_URL_1_))
What I find in... | [
"In 1968, Licklider and Taylor published \"The Computer as a Communication Device\". The article laid out the future of what the Internet would eventually become. It began with a prophetic statement: \"In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face.\"\n",
"198... |
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