question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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why do some cds have a static sound like if it was scratched even though the condition is "new"? | A scratched CD causes it to skip, not sound like it has static. Static would be caused by problem during the recording - faulty recording equipment, background noise, etc.. This static noise will be present in all copies of the CD. | [
"The tracks on \"1969\" are for the most part of good sound quality, resulting from four-track recording equipment being used. Some of the tracks feature light crackling, however, as they were sourced from acetates, the original tapes having been lost. The CD release is worse in this regard, as it appears that some... |
can somebody please give me a tl;dr on this whole nsa scandal? | the NSA since 9/11 has been given a purpose to track terrrorists and some of the methods they have done were considered immoral and would of been considered unconstitutional but, It's Not at all illegal.
Phone log database - They are constitutionally allowed if you consider the supreme court's interpretation in to co... | [
"In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, a congressional hearing in 1975 led by Senator Frank Church revealed that the NSA, in collaboration with Britain's SIGINT intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), had routinely intercepted the international communications of prominent anti-Vietna... |
What is the process for doping silicon? | /u/ron_leflore mentioned one process called thermal implantation, but a more modern process is [ion implantation](_URL_0_). You use a particle accelerator to shoot a beam of the dopant atoms into the semiconductor lattice. The advantage of this technique is by controlling the implantation energy you can precisely contr... | [
"The electrical characteristics of the silicon are controlled by adding material like phosphorus or boron to the silicon before it is melted. The added material is called dopant and the process is called doping. This method is also used with semiconductor materials other than silicon, such as gallium arsenide.\n",
... |
How bad was a slave's life in antiquity, truly? | I'm gonna go ahead and pull a chunk of this from one of the [answers I wrote up a little bit ago on this very thing :)](_URL_3_)
So. Roman slavery. You know how the Civil War was fought over slavery? Well ...in Rome, they were an integral part of society. However....strangely enough as it might seem, "slave" was a VE... | [
"The condition of the slaves was most pitiable in the ages of antiquity. According to Roman law and usage a slave was considered, not as a human being, but as a chattel, over which the master had the most absolute control, up to the point of inflicting death. From the time of the Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-61) a m... |
Does Jupiter's orbit impact the average global temperature of Earth? | On timescales on the order of 50-100 thousand years or more, the answer is yes, probably, to some extent.
As the planets revolve around the Sun, their gravitational fields are also constantly tugging a bit on one another, with Jupiter's "tug" being strongest by far. Over yearly timescales these forces vary in stren... | [
"In 2009, it was shown that the presence of a smaller planet at Jupiter's position in the Solar System might increase the impact rate of comets on the Earth significantly. A planet of Jupiter's mass still seems to provide increased protection against asteroids, but the total effect on all orbital bodies within the ... |
why is it that when you lay down and lay as still as possible, you can hear a pillow compressing no matter how still you lay? | I'm no scientist, but I would assume it's because there are hundreds of thousands of little fibers in a pillow and even though a human thinks they are laying perfectly still, they are still constantly moving (breathing, cardiovascular processes, etc.), which in return causes the fibers to constantly be moving in respon... | [
"Studies have shown that speaker pillows will certainly help some individuals with sleeping problems. The speaker pillow is generally used to play relaxing music for the individual while they fall asleep. People have also used the pillow to listen to their favorite music, radio show and audio books.\n",
"To deter... |
Would it be possible for a planet wide EMP to occur? | If sufficient nuclear devices were detonated simultaneously while in LEO (low earth orbit), and properly positioned it could be possible.
| [
"The risk of an EMP, either through solar or atmospheric activity or enemy attack, while not dismissed, was suggested to be overblown by the news media in a commentary in \"Physics Today\". Instead, the weapons from rogue states were still too small and uncoordinated to cause a massive EMP, underground infrastructu... |
what's it like for astronauts who have been in space to be back on earth with gravity? | In interviews I've heard and articles I've read concerning returning astronauts, not much if you just spent a few days on the space shuttle. But if you spend a few months on the Space Station, quite a bit happens. You begin to develop 'space reflexes'. You think nothing of letting go of your pen and then grabbing it ba... | [
"Leaving and returning to Earth's gravity causes “space sickness,” dizziness, and loss of balance in astronauts. By studying how changes can affect balance in the human body—involving the senses, the brain, the inner ear, and blood pressure—NASA hopes to develop treatments that can be used on Earth and in space to ... |
Actually GOOD textbooks? | I very curious regarding your opinion on the poor quality of textbooks. Can you give me examples of what you mean? Interpretations you disagree with? Facts wrong? Important subjects left out? | [
"Despite being marketed as a supplement, several titles have become widely used as primary textbooks for courses (the \"Discrete Mathematics\" and \"Statistics\" titles are examples). This is particularly true in settings where an important factor in the selection of a text is the price, such as in community colleg... |
how is momentum realated to mass and velocity?is momentum different than power? | You know how an object in motion tends to stay in motion? Now let's forget friction altogether and assume zero resistance to motion, the law of conservation of energy alone says that if I push you, you will keep moving forever, but how hard do I need to push you to move you? Depends on how heavy you are, and how far wi... | [
"Momentum is defined as the product of mass times velocity, and like velocity, it is a vector. French Scientist and Philosopher of the early 1600s René Descartes first discovered the concept of momentum but got stuck on the amount of motion (speed) which was not being conserved. Christian Huygens, a Dutch Scientist... |
why is the zipper merge faster? | The fourth point relies on a little bit of knowledge about traffic jams.
Traffic jams occur when one person slows down for some reason. We'll call him "1". When 1 slows down, the person behind him (2) has to slow down slightly more than 1, because 2 doesn't have psychic knowledge of exactly how slow 1 is going to go. ... | [
"The \"zipper merge\" is a late merge with more than two lanes in right-hand side traffic. The merging of three to two lanes makes a pattern which is more complicated than the one that is made by the merging of two to one lane. In an ideal situation, there actually arise two \"zippers\" now:\n",
"In traffic engin... |
How widespread were Sea Shanties spread? And are there any example of different regional variations of the same song? | Let’s first try and narrow this down and clarify / define some items. On a side note: this is a fantastic question which touches on the exciting areas of transnational history, identity, and globalisation. Before anything I am going to talk solely within the Anglo world- this itself will be shown to be far less limitin... | [
"Examples of sea songs include \"Spanish Ladies\", first popular in the Royal Navy, and \"The Stately Southerner\", a ballad about a U.S. war ship. Examples of sea songs that were poorly documented in the sailing era, but which gained great popularity among singers in the revival era, are \"The Leaving of Liverpool... |
why we care that companies track our web browsing to create targeted ads for us? | It's because people find their privacy being protected more important than seeing ads they might care about. Think of it as a person coming into your house unwanted and looking at all your belongings, ignoring you when you tell them to go away.
When he says "hey, I see you like to collect nutcrackers, here's the addre... | [
"In targeted advertising privacy is a complicated issue due to the type of protected user information and the number of parties involved. The three main parties involved in online advertising are the advertiser, the publisher and the network. People tend to want to keep their previously browsed websites private, al... |
why does wearing heels appear to enhance female appearance and appeal? is it cultural or biological or psychological? | It's cultural. They do change the way a woman looks but the response ("that specific look is better than when she doesn't wear heels") is cultural. That's why you hear stories about other cultures or time periods having different ideals of beauty (eg pale skin or extra weight are signs of prosperity and are therefore a... | [
"The intricate and complex history of high heels has led to a variety of cultural thoughts and lens through which people view them today. Firstly, it is very exclusively gendered in the sense that few men wear high heels in present times. Secondly, magazines like \"Playboy\", as well as other media sources portrayi... |
does getting hit on the head have to do with losing your taste buds? | Your tongue has many taste buds which send small signals to your brain whenever it tastes different things. When you hit your head just right, you can make it hard for those taste buds to communicate effectively. This can mean you lose one of your senses. Personally, I'd hate to never be able to taste chocolate again! | [
"Head trauma can cause lesions in regions of the central nervous system which are involved in processing taste stimuli, including thalamus, brain stem, and temporal lobes; it can also cause damage to neurological pathways involved in transmission of taste stimuli.\n",
"BULLET::::- Urea: oral daily ingestion has s... |
[Physics] Since LCDs rotate polarized light, why is the light not circularly polarized? | Linear polarization is when the electric field is pointing in one direction. Circular polarization is when there are two electric field components orthogonal to each other and 90 degrees out of phase. Think odd it like a 3D coordinate system. If it is traveling in the 'Z' direction then the electric fields are in the '... | [
"Circularly polarized light can be converted into linearly polarized light by passing it through a quarter-waveplate. Passing linearly polarized light through a quarter-waveplate with its axes at 45° to its polarization axis will convert it to circular polarization. In fact, this is the most common way of producing... |
if color is the wavelength then what exactly is brightness? | It's the wave intensity.
Wavelength is the distance between each wave's peak whereas the intensity is the "height" of each wave. | [
"Brightness is the subjective appearance of how bright an object appears given its surroundings and how it is illuminated. Lightness is the subjective appearance of how light a color appears to be. Colorfulness is the degree of difference between a color and grey. Chroma is the colorfulness relative to the brightne... |
why does the letter "s" always stand out slightly from other letters in conversation? | S is a sibilant, which means it is made up of high pitched noises. Since most other letters use lower pitches of sounds, the S stands out when it is spoken.
To compare, S is usually made of noise around 7,000 Hz high, but pretty much all other sounds don't use anything higher than 5,000 Hz. In fact, over the telephone... | [
"Each word in the spelling alphabet typically replaces the name of the letter with which it starts (acrophony). It is used to spell out words when speaking to someone not able to see the speaker, or when the audio channel is not clear. The lack of high frequencies on standard telephones makes it hard to distinguish... |
Does the terminal velocity of a fluid depend on its viscosity? | No. You can even drop *solids* and they still fall at pretty much the same rate. Although something with less viscosity is likely to break into smaller pieces, which would slow it down, or something like that.
What does matter is the viscosity of the fluid you drop it through. If you dropped a rock in water and maple ... | [
"In very general terms, the viscous stresses in a fluid are defined as those resulting from the relative velocity of different fluid particles. As such, the viscous stresses must depend on spatial gradients of the flow velocity. If the velocity gradients are small, then to a first approximation the viscous stresses... |
the arguments for 9/11 being an 'inside job' | I don't think this is a very good topic for ELI5, but here's my quick attempt:
A lot of things happened on 9/11 that have never happened in the history of America. Because of this, many people don't understand some of the more specific moments of that day. Everyone knows what the big picture is, but the argument is in... | [
"\"9/11 Truth movement\" is the collective name of loosely affiliated organizations and individuals that question whether the United States government, agencies of the United States or individuals within such agencies were either responsible for or purposefully complicit in the September 11 attacks. The term is als... |
I regret not learning more about physics while in college. Can r/askscience recommend a book(s) to bring me up to speed on as wide a variety of physics topics as is feasible? | Physics for future presidents _URL_1_
A textbook that's used in this great class. _URL_0_ | [
"BULLET::::1. Conceptual understanding: Investigation of what students know and how they learn it. Early research involved identifying and treating “misconceptions” about physics principles (e.g. “A heavier object will fall faster than a lighter object” or “acceleration is always zero when velocity is zero”). The t... |
how were integrals, derivatives, limits, and other calculus concepts originally discovered and applied? | They were discovered thousands of years ago, but the methods for that were super complex. Someone ssked Newton how he knew that earth had an elliptical orbit and not circular. So he went home and invented Calculus to explain his reasoning. | [
"Despite these attempts calculus continued to be developed using non-rigorous methods until around 1830 when Augustin Cauchy, and later Bernhard Riemann and Karl Weierstrass, redefined the derivative and integral using a rigorous definition of the concept of limit. The concept of using limits as a foundation for ca... |
why are speed cameras always accompanied by big signs that let motorists know they're there? | Because they are there to make you slow down, not to catch you speeding. | [
"The MP Angela Watkinson stated in parliament that vehicle activated signs were more effective than speed cameras – Department for Transport figures show that each vehicle-activated sign is estimated to prevent 3.1 accidents per year compared to 2.2 for speed cameras. Jim Fitzpatrick the Under-Secretary of State fo... |
If the earth rotated at the same speed but in the opposite direction, how long would a day be? | Since a day is commonly defined at noon to noon (or midnight to midnight), the actual time it takes to rotate once (1436 minutes) must be added to the change in the position of the sun relative to the earth (4 minutes), since the earth rotates in the same direction as it revolves around the sun.
If it rotated in the o... | [
"The angular speed of Earth's rotation in inertial space is ± . Multiplying by (180°/π radians) × (86,400 seconds/day) yields , indicating that Earth rotates more than 360° relative to the fixed stars in one solar day. Earth's movement along its nearly circular orbit while it is rotating once around its axis requir... |
What are some good books to read for an introduction to neurochemistry? | Any basic Neuroscience textbook, such as Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain by Bears, Connors and Paradiso have a basic overview. This was my textbook for my first year of my Neuroscience degree and I still find it useful. | [
"Neurochemical Research is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering neurochemistry. It was established in 1976 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media. The editor-in-chief is Arne Schousboe (University of Copenhagen).\n",
"Research in the field of neuropsychopharmacology encompasses a wide ... |
why does my laptop say i have an hour of battery left but then runs out within 15-20 minutes? | It's a rough estimate, the computer cannot tell which programs or websites or programs you will use in the future. All programs take up a certain amount of power for example, games and high resolution videos can take up more power than writing an essay, or reading a story. | [
"Battery life is limited because the capacity drops with time, eventually requiring replacement after as little as a year. A new battery typically stores enough energy to run the laptop for three to five hours, depending on usage, configuration, and power management settings. Yet, as it ages, the battery's energy s... |
Do the lungs, rather the bronchii and alveoli inside them fill from top to bottom, or vice versa? | Air moving into the lungs is caused by a negative pressure gradient "drawing" air into the lungs. It's not like pouring water into a lung shaped vase, so all the terminal bronchioles and alveoli should "fill up" at roughly the same time. | [
"The lungs are part of the lower respiratory tract, and accommodate the bronchial airways when they branch from the trachea. The bronchial airways terminate in alveoli, the lung parenchyma (the tissue in between), and veins, arteries, nerves, and lymphatic vessels. The trachea and bronchi have plexuses of lymph cap... |
why do our feet get cold whenever we're scared/nervous? | Not sure, but my guess would be blood being diverted to more critical areas (brain,heart, lungs etc) as part of the fight or flight response | [
"Frequent reports show that adolescents and adults with grade III and IV astroblastoma fall frequently before they even reach a doctor's office. Alertness is diminished when walking normally, forcing patients to exhibit awkward gait patterns to avoid imbalance.\n",
"Fear is explained to be an emotion that one mig... |
What would happen if when you get a shot or something injected to your body, there was an air bubble in it. | It could cause an [air embolism](_URL_0_).
However, it takes quite a bit of air ( > 100mL) to actually cause a problem, so it's mostly to err on the side of caution. | [
"BULLET::::8. Much later in the decompression, bubbles may reach a significant size and exert a local deformation, particularly in stiffer tissues such as tendons and ligaments, that excites nerve terminations and produces pain.\n",
"Close contact with an enclosed inert gas is lethal, but released into the open a... |
why do different countries measure their shoes differently? | When they started measuring, we didn't have cheap, quick world trade. We didn't have giant factories in China churning out everything. Shoes were generally made locally.
Local customs determined shoe sizing & there was no need to standardize because the odds of a pair of American shoes being sold in the UK or Japan... | [
"There are a wide variety of different types of shoes. Most types of shoes are designed for specific activities. For example, boots are typically designed for work or heavy outdoor use. Athletic shoes are designed for particular sports such as running, walking, or other sports. Some shoes are designed to be worn at... |
Can a photon be redshifted to 0 Hz/nonexistence in finite time? | In the [Big Rip](_URL_0_) scenario, yes - the redshift/scale factor could grow to infinite size in finite time. There will most likely not be a Big Rip (or a Big Crunch) in our universe though. The scale factor of our universe will increase indefinitely, but will not become infinite in finite time.
However, once the r... | [
"The quantum number can be interpreted as the number of photons in the mode. The two modes for each set of correspond to the two polarization states of the photon which has a spin of 1. For the energy of the mode is not zero. This vacuum energy of the electromagnetic field is responsible for the Casimir effect. In ... |
What is the hottest manmade temperature ever recorded on Earth, and how was it created? | The hottest temperature ever recorded on earth was about 5 trillion Kelvin in a quark-gluon plasma produced in the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. It was created by accelerating lead ions to incredibly high speeds, 99.9999% the speed of light, so when they collided there was enough energy for quarks and ... | [
"The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was on July 10, 1913, at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek), which is the highest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth. A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate. During the heat... |
My sailor uncle wonders: Why are equinox tides more intense? | During the equinox, the Moon is overhead at the equator. As the Earth rotates over the course of a day, the tidal bulge is going to (more or less) track the Moon as it moves across the sky. Thus the tidal bulge will rotate around the equator. Now, remember that along with a tidal bulge, there is a tidal minimum offs... | [
"Winds – Owing to the nature of terrain local affect are pronounced and when the general prevailing winds not too strong to mask these effect, there is a tendency for diurnal reversal of winds, the flow being anabatic during the day and katabatic at night, the latter being of considerable force.\n",
"Seasickness ... |
how can founder of a company (like steve jobs) be voted off it? | When a company is founded the owners are the initial founders. However they often need money to grow and pay out their salaries. To do this they need more investors. The new investors take part of the ownership of the company. This means they get a place on the board. The board is composed of the different owners of th... | [
"The four fictional companies vote for a company President, Vice President, and are allotted adult \"CEOs\", who are engineers with experience in the field, to advise them. Companies are given an RFP to which they respond in a paper and slideshow proposal which includes illustrations, diagrams, calculations, and re... |
there is a 1 lightyear long pole. you are holding one end of this pole, you turn that end. would a person on the other end of the pole take 1 year to see the pole turn? | It would take longer than a year. The pole would move at the speed of sound for the material that the pole is made of, which will be substantially slower than light. | [
"However, the use of \"poles\" is also now widespread. Here, the line is fixed to the very tip of the rod, with no reel used: in order to retrieve the line, the pole itself is taken apart until the line can be swung to hand. Poles are often very long in order to increase the angler's range—up to 16 metres.\n",
"T... |
what animals with eyes on the sides of their head see exactly? can they see both their sides at the same time? | Hold your finger in front of your face and slowly move it around your head. Follow it with your eyes keeping your head facing forward and try to note the position at which you can no longer see it. You may find that if you wiggle your finger when you can no longer see it then you can sense the movement (sort of like a ... | [
"Some predator animals, particularly large ones such as sperm whales and killer whales, have their two eyes positioned on opposite sides of their heads, although it is possible they have some binocular visual field.\n",
"Some animals - usually, but not always, prey animals - have their two eyes positioned on oppo... |
How does the body adapt itself to
increasing physical activity? | Exercise causes damage to your muscle, as part of repair your muscles start developing new blood vessels. Frequent running increases vessel density, which allows the muscles to get more oxygen and nutrients > less stress-induced catabolism. | [
"Every cell in the body is affected by movement. The brain improves as we use our muscles, which, in turn grow, with use. Scientific studies show that physical movement is the single most important thing to do to be physically healthier and smarter, regardless of age. Movement training can prevent or delay the onse... |
Any good films that depict the Crusades? | Do you want films *about* the crusades or do you want films that *teach* about the crusades? | [
"The movie version of \"The High Crusade\" differed in many significant respects from the novel. It was written with many comedy elements and had a much-reduced scope; the scoutship bearing the human knights landed at an isolated Wersgorix base, where they battled with the small Wersgorix battalion stationed there ... |
Is there a definitive answer to the Aspartame toxicity issue? | Going to link some stuff from science based medicine website:
_URL_3_
Scientific Studies
Aspartame has been found to be safe for human consumption by the regulatory agencies of more than ninety countries worldwide, with FDA officials describing aspartame as “one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additive... | [
"In 2010, the British Food Standards Agency funded a clinical study of people who claimed to experience side-effects after consuming aspartame. The double blind controlled study has been concluded and found no evidence of safety issues or side effects even amongst those volunteers who had previously claimed sensiti... |
Does a magnetic field affect water molecules? | Water is diamagnetic, so when exposed to an external magnetic field, it will magnetize in the direction opposing the external field. | [
"Some magnetic products claim that they \"change the molecular structure of water\", a pseudoscientific claim with no real scientific basis. There is no such thing as \"magnetized water\". Water is not paramagnetic, so its water molecules do not align in the presence of a magnetic field. Water is weakly diamagnetic... |
when my credit/debit card does not read for being too scratched, why does the reader then accept it after folding receipt paper around it and sliding it again? | The magnetic strip is magnetic but the head of the reader is prone to error if the surface it slides against is not smooth. So if you put a smooth outer layer on the card, the head now glides smoothly along the mag strip and reads the encoded numbers appropriately. | [
"Credit card numbers were originally embossed to allow easy transfer of the number to charge slips. With the decline of paper slips, some credit cards are no longer embossed and in fact the card number is no longer in the front.\n",
"Under the previous system, a customer typically had to hand their card to a sale... |
What were the differences between the "field hospitals" and the "evacuation hospitals" during WW2? | A field hospital was a hospital near the frontline, usually maintained by the division the patients belonged to. Evacuation hospitals were for long-term patients, usually located "at home". | [
"Receiving hospitals during the Civil War functioned as triage centers, providing short-term medical care until doctors forwarded patients to other towns or medical facilities. These hospitals were normally located in large cities or on routes where patients were to change their mode of transportation and continue ... |
why do luxury car company's with websites often never show the price of their vehicles? | Because if you have to ask...you can't afford it. | [
"This is a list of the most expensive cars sold in auto auctions through the traditional bidding process, that of those that attracted headline grabbing publicity, mainly for the high price their new owners have paid.\n",
"The growth of the Internet has fueled the availability of information on the prices of used... |
Why did the Japanese agree to the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty? | At the end of the Great War, only three naval powers remained in the world; The United States, The United Kingdom, and the Empire of Japan. Historically (circa 1900) Japanese naval doctrine was to keep a force of what could be classified as capital ships equal to 70% of the United States. Their theory was that if any w... | [
"The treaty established a maximum tonnage for the Japanese navy as 60% of the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy. For this reason, it was vociferously opposed by many Imperial Japanese Navy officers, including Admiral Satō Tetsutarō. This group formed the influential Fleet Faction which later achieved Japan's wit... |
why are all nfl punters white? | Give it time. | [
"Blackshirts are awarded to defensive starters and other key defensive players. Punters have also occasionally been honored for their individual efforts when covering punts, including Jesse Kosch and Alex Henery. Besides the black practice jerseys, which today have each player's name and number imprinted on them, t... |
How was the French nuclear deterrence perceived by the USSR? The US? | The French and British weapons in large part existed and continue to exist to increase national standing in the world. Being a nuclear power is a fairly exclusive club and the members of this club have a bigger stick when dealing on the world stage.
France's strategy was in large part to act as a trigger for US weapo... | [
"Strategies during the Cold War also dealt with nuclear attack and retaliation. The United States maintained a policy of limited first strike throughout the Cold War. In the event of a Soviet attack on the Western Front, resulting in a breakthrough, the United States would use tactical nuclear weapons to stop the a... |
why is a two-party system the stable result of first-past-the-post voting? what keeps it from collapsing into a single party system? | Because the two parties are free to change their positions. If a certain position makes one of the parties widely unpopular, they'll change it to win those voters back. The other party is doing that at the same time.
This constant tug-of-war leads to an equilibrium where either party has roughly the same number of sup... | [
"Duverger concluded that \"plurality election single-ballot procedures are likely to produce two-party systems, whereas proportional representation and runoff designs encourage multipartyism.\" He suggested there were two reasons why \"winner-takes-all\" systems leads to a two-party system. First, the weaker partie... |
How was warfare conducted between 1836-1914? | **Preface:** American Civil War and "the rest" (Franco-Prussian and Austro-Prussian primarily are two separate entities. They were two entirely different methods of waging war and need to be treated as separate cases. The Americans had a Jominian (a Napoleonic military theorist) understanding of warfare and thus attemp... | [
"Open warfare broke out in the summer of 1776 along the frontier of the Watauga, Holston, Nolichucky, and Doe rivers in East Tennessee, as well as the colonies (later states) of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It later spread to those along the Cumberland River in Middle Tennessee and in Kent... |
the science/biology/chemistry behind capsicain and hot peppers such as ghost pepper and carolina reaper and how the body reacts | Capsaicin binds to a receptor in nerves responsible for signalling heat, activating those nerves. Those nerves then send the signal to your brain that they are detecting heat, which causes the burning sensation in your mouth. More capsaicin means more of those heat-sensing nerves get activated, making your mouth feel... | [
"BULLET::::- Capsicum – the name given to a group of plants in the nightshade family, well known for producing hot chilli peppers such as the cayenne pepper and the jalapeño. A number of capsicum-based products, including teas and capsules, are promoted for their health benefits, including as a claimed cancer treat... |
What are some lesser-known or unusual ways the Jews hid from the Nazis? | Well, first, what exactly do you consider to be the "usual" ways? | [
"Since the Nazi terror reigned throughout the Aryan districts, the chances of remaining successfully hidden depended on a fluent knowledge of the language and on having close ties with the community. Many Poles were not willing to hide Jews who might have escaped the ghettos or who might have been in hiding due to ... |
why does co2 make a drink like coke feel 'fizzy' while nitrogen gas makes a drink like beer/ale feel smother? | Bubble size. imagine bubble wrap for mailing packages - it comes in different sizes, some with lots of little bubbles and then some with fewer but bigger bubbles.
In beer, N2 makes lots of little bubbles while CO2 makes fewer big bubbles. And just like how fine silt feels smoother than rough sand in your fingers, ... | [
"Although CO is most common for beverages, nitrogen gas is sometimes deliberately added to certain beers. The smaller bubble size creates a smoother beer head. Due to the poor solubility of nitrogen in beer, kegs or widgets are used for this.\n",
"Nitrogen is used under high pressure when dispensing dry stouts (s... |
how do you chug beer? like how do you get it to just slide down in one gulp? | Try opening your throat. Sounds like I'm being facetious, but I saw a guy once who had to neck a pint as him and his mates had to go get on a flight, and he just kinda knocked it back like a pelican. Just kinda constantly swallow | [
"The beer bong is either 'hit' or 'chugged'. A hit from the beer bong is when a valve is used and one drinks as much beer as they can before turning off the valve. Chugging is where an entire, or a number of beers are consumed in one use. A popular technique is to 'open' the esophagus and simply allow the beer to f... |
Why is it that people of most of South American and African colonies adopted the religion of their colonial masters but peoples of countries of Asia (India, Indonesia for sure) retained their original religious beliefs? | Well it *may* have to do with the fact that the colonial rulers of South America were Catholic vs the Protestantism that characterized British rule of North America and India. More to this point, the Phillipines which is firmly in Asia is staunchly Catholic to this day, and that is because it was ruled by the Spanish b... | [
"Catholicism was the only religion allowed in the colonial era; the indigenous were forced to abandon their beliefs, although many did not abandon it at all, for example, countries with predominantly Amerindian population such as Bolivia and Peru there is a syncretism between indigenous religions and the Catholic r... |
Could someone explain the ethnicities in the British Isles? (Saxons, Celtics etc.) | I can answer the aspect of the question referring to the Anglo-Saxons, and can touch on the Celts and Vikings in relation to that. I did want to primarily focus on the Celts, but that would require explaining the differences between Gaelic, Brittonic and Pictish culture which is so complicated and so debated its not ev... | [
"It suggested that the English and Irish cluster with other Northern and Eastern Europeans such as Germans and Poles, while some Basque and Italian individuals also clustered with Northern Europeans. Despite these stratifications, it noted the unusually high degree of European homogeneity: \"there is low apparent d... |
why hotdogs called “hotdogs”? | These immigrants brought not only sausages to America, but dachshund dogs. The name most likely began as a joke about the Germans' small, long, thin dogs. In fact, even Germans called the frankfurter a "little-dog" or "dachshund" sausage, thus linking the word "dog" to their popular concoction.
Hot Dog History | NHDSC... | [
"Hot Dog is a long-haired mutt who resembles a sheepdog. He usually thinks like a human in that his thoughts are presented in voice-over (or thought bubble in the comics) to the audience as asides where the dog's mouth does not move. Hot Dog is lazy, constantly hungry, and has a dislike for Reggie Mantle, much like... |
Why is it that politicians seem to be convinced that we don't have enough science graduates? Even though many people have graduated this year unable to find positions in industry/research/teaching courses | As someone who graduated with a degree in physics and is working in retail, I agree. You can create all the science graduates you want, but you don't get a whole hell of a lot of science done at a cash register. | [
"However, there appear to be some signs that engaging with the rest of society is becoming less hazardous to a career in science. So many people have social-media accounts now that becoming a public figure is not as unusual for scientists as previously. Moreover, as traditional funding sources stagnate, going publi... |
Why do some minerals crystallize into cubes while others form hexagons? | There are several things that influence the shape of a large crystal: thermodynamics and kinetics. For this though, I am going to focus on the thermodynamics for the larger crystals you find in nature.
Like everything in materials science and crystallography, the reason why anything happens is because the system can l... | [
"Many crystals naturally grow in faceted shapes. For instance, common table salt forms cubes and quartz forms hexagonal prisms. These characteristic shapes are a consequence of the crystal structure of the material and the surface energy, as well as the general conditions under which the crystal formed.\n",
"Adjo... |
Why has fascism in Italy been more present than in for example Spain or Portugal, countries with a similar history of fascism? | Be careful describing Francoist Spain as 'fascist.' The Falange--the Spanish fascist party--got less than 0.01% of the vote in the [1936 election that preceded the Spanish Civil War](_URL_0_). That's less than 7,000 votes. There were facist aspects of Franco's regime: Falange membership swelled after the outbreak o... | [
"However, since World War II historians have noted that in Italy's colonies Italian Fascism displayed extreme levels of violence. One-tenth of the population of the Italian colony of Libya died during the Fascist era, including from the use of gassings, concentration camps, starvation and disease; in Ethiopia durin... |
What is the highest resolution a screen can have, at least in theory. And when would the pixel size become so small that it doesn't matter to the eyes anymore? | The amount of pixels on a screen is unbounded; one can always build a bigger screen with more pixels. However, the usefulness of a massively huge screen is limited, which takes us to the second part of your question.
Current high-resolution (“retina”) screens are already at the point where the unaided human eye cannot... | [
"For example, a 15-inch (38 cm) display whose dimensions work out to 12 inches (30.48 cm) wide by 9 inches (22.86 cm) high, capable of a maximum 1024×768 (or XGA) pixel resolution, can display around 85 PPI/33.46PPCM in both the horizontal and vertical directions. This figure is determined by dividing the width (or... |
what would it take for americans to stop having guns? | Nothing. And as an American we don't give a fuck what you Brits think. Keep to your side of the ocean and maybe do something about that deeply fucked up surveillance state of yours before you worry about other people's problems, hmm? | [
"U.S. policy aims to maintain the right of most people to own most types of firearms, while restricting access to firearms by people considered to present a higher risk of misuse. Gun dealers in the U.S. are prohibited from selling handguns to those under the age of 21, and long guns to those under the age of 18. I... |
why do some males find glasses attractive? | Because the girl can look over them at you, tilting their head down. This mimics a slightly submissive posture and shows the whites of the eye around the bottom, and widening of the eyes is an unconscious sign of arousal. The resulting "sultry stare" ties into instinctive cues of attraction, and small reading glasses t... | [
"It is suggested that the masculinity of facial features is a reliable indication of good health, or, alternatively, that masculine-looking males are more likely to achieve high status. However, the correlation between attractive facial features and health has been questioned. Sociocultural factors, such as self-pe... |
Are extra spatial dimensions something we can accurately perceive with a trained mind? | Yes, a trained mind can perceive spatial dimensions of any dimension! You just have to train yourself to look at these spaces through the lens of equations, rather than trying to perceive it with the mind's eye.
The mind's eye is not good enough to really understand 3 dimensions, so adding more will just increase the... | [
"The understanding of three-dimensional space in humans is thought to be learned during infancy using unconscious inference, and is closely related to hand-eye coordination. The visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions is called depth perception.\n",
"A useful application of dimensional analogy in... |
Does the perceived size of the moon actually increase as it moves from the horizon to overhead? Or is it just an optical illusion? | You win the bet. The moon does *seem* larger to the eye near the horizon, but it's an illusion. Images like [this one](_URL_0_) allow a direct comparison of the apparent size of the moon at different points above the horizon and show that it's constant. | [
"One question concerning the Moon illusion, therefore, is whether the horizon Moon appears larger because its perceived angular size seems greater, or because its perceived physical size seems greater, or some combination of both. There is currently no consensus on this point. Most recent research on the Moon illus... |
Can the bacteria in your mouth utilize artificial sweetener? In other words, can artificial sweeteners give you cavities? | Artificial sweeteners aren't sugar, but most of them can be metabolized by bacteria. For example, aspartame is a peptide.
But they aren't frementable, so when they are metabolized, they don't generate the acids that wreck your enamel. I don't know about Splenda....it may be fermentable. I doubt it, but it may be. | [
"In the sweet version artificial sweeteners are also often added, as much as for health problems like diabetes, as for taste. As an alternative sweetener, natural \"ka’á he’é\" (Stevia rebaudiana) is preferred, which is an herb whose leaves are added in order to give a touch of sweetness. This is used principally i... |
How did Chechnya fall into radical Islamism while Bosnia & Herzegovina, despite being under even more direct support by Islamists and Jihadists than Chechnya, stayed a secular state? | **part 1**
/u/kaisermatias is probably best for explaining the situation in Chechnya but aside the specifics of religiosity in Bosnia (which I'll get to) one of the major reasons for a very different outcome is that the political structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is the outcome of Dayton Agreement, also known ... | [
"In Chechnya, Islam was considerably less ingrained than in the Imamate's other claims. Islam only began to make inroads in the 16th century in Chechnya, and even then was not highly important, with the indigenous Vainakh religion still holding strong. It was only at the point of the threat of Russian conquest that... |
What type of people became explorers an colonists? Was there a common background or profession? | I don't have a general answer, but I have some specific examples of those who had a choice to go exploring and did: Edmond Halley, who was exploring the oceans in the 17th century, Joseph Banks, who traveled on James Cook's first voyage in the 18th century, and Charles Darwin, who traveled on the Beagle in the 19th. Al... | [
"The first documented journeys by non-resident explorers were made by British explorers Bertram Thomas and St. John Philby in the early 1930s. Between 1946 and 1950, Wilfred Thesiger crossed the area several times and mapped large parts of the Empty Quarter including the mountains of Oman, as described in his 1959 ... |
Why does sound move so slowly in a Bose-Einstein condensate? | So the unique quality of the BEC is that they occupy the same quantum state, right? For all intents and purposes, it makes sense to look at a BEC of sodium (as your linked paper uses), as a single sodium cluster.
The speed of sound in a material depends on the propagation of the energy and the deformation under shear... | [
"The resonance properties of a cylinder may be understood by considering the behavior of a sound wave in air. Sound travels as a longitudinal compression wave, causing air molecules to move back and forth along the direction of travel. Within a tube, a standing wave is formed, whose wavelength depends on the length... |
How does digestion work when you're upside-down? If hung upside-down, would you eventually starve, even if you had food? | No, the smooth muscles in your esophagus will push the food down into your stomach independent of gravity. This is why you can take a gulp of water upside down.
As for the stomach and intestines, they also have layers of smooth muscle called tunica muscularis that maintain peristalsis in order to keep the food going i... | [
"The stomach twists around the longitudinal axis of the digestive tract, also known as \"volvulus\". Gas distension may occur prior to or after the stomach twists. The most common direction for rotation is clockwise, viewing the animal from behind. The stomach can rotate up to 360° in this direction and 90° counter... |
What did a college level world history textbook look like in 1900? | It really would not have existed, at least not really until after WW2.
World History as a field is still pretty new-- as our courses in World History at most universities. Prior to that, the most common history class that any college educated individual would attend was Western Civilization (which still exists on ple... | [
"The curriculum began in 1919 with \"Contemporary Civilization\", about the origins of western civilization. It became the framework for many similar educational models throughout the United States. Later in its history, especially in the 1990s, it became a heavily contested form of learning, seen by some as an app... |
how come plenty of deities in different ancient polytheist civilisations had more than one association? | > ancient civilisations shared similar ideologies
They didn't. And you need to understand the timescales involved: the Ancient Egyptian civilisation goes back to long before the 30th century BC, while the Ancient Greek civilisation didn't get going until the 12th century BC. We today are closer to Ancient Greece tha... | [
"As polytheistic systems evolve, there is a tendency for one deity, usually male, to achieve preeminence as king of the gods. This tendency can parallel the growth of hierarchical systems of political power in which a monarch eventually comes to assume ultimate authority for human affairs. Other gods come to serve ... |
how is a global recession possible? doesn't the reduction of money from one economy doing poorly have to go into another economy doing well? | If you have a factory making things, and then it shuts down, does the production of that factory go somewhere? No, it just disappears.
GDP isn't about money, it's about how much valuable stuff is produced by an economy, and that can go up or down independent of what's going on elsewhere in the world. A global recess... | [
"Whereas a national recession is identified by two quarters of decline, defining a global recession is more difficult, because a Developing country is expected to have a higher GDP growth than a Developed country. According to the IMF, the real GDP growth of the emerging and developing countries is on an uptrend an... |
What knowledge did the Incas have of the Amazon Rainforest and the people who lived there? How much Inca influence was there in the area? | The people of the Amazon were semi-nomadic, which made the Inca style of conquest and cultural integration difficult. Furthermore they were known to be violent. This was their best defense against conquest by both the ruling Andean powers and the Spanish/Portuguese. They had little to offer and and everyone else had to... | [
"Although the Spaniards of Peru afforded the Portuguese explorers every hospitality, they were nevertheless concerned to know how far the Portuguese had settled the Amazon. Based on the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, and the strength of the expedition of Francisco de Orellana, the Spanish considered the Amazon thei... |
Why did Julius Caesar fear prosecution when his term as governor of Cisalpine/Transalpine Gaul? | Fantastic question! It's been a while since I've answered one, so you just made my day here. Let's get into the whirlpool that's 1st century BCE Roman politics, shall we? :) **The first posts will be background to help you understand the last post. If you just want a quickie, scroll down a bit to the third post. If not... | [
"At the same time, Gaius Julius Caesar's term as governor of the provinces Transalpine Gaul, Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum was extended, hostilities in Gaul having reignited. By law, Caesar could not run for a second consulship until 10 years after his first, and he wished not to return to Rome as a private citizen.... |
what actually happens inside of a meat when its marinaded that gives it the flavor? | Depends a bit on the type of marinade you're using but generally three things:
* adds salt (which helps a lot with general flavor perception)
* allows more moisture to be absorbed so the meat is juicier
* adds the flavors in the marinate itself to the meat | [
"After the meat is removed from the marinade and dried, it is first browned in oil or lard and then braised with the strained marinade in a covered dish in a medium oven or on the stovetop. After simmering for four hours or more, depending on the size of the roast, the marinade will continue to flavor the roast and... |
Does a mug of coffee retain it's temperature for longer while sitting on a table or while held by hands? | Sitting on the table would loose less heat. Harder to lose heat to the air than your hand.
Imagine it like this. When you hold the mug feel how warm your hands are. Thats heat you are taking away fom the jug. Then feel the air right next to the mug. Not as warm right? The reason is its harder to transfer heat to... | [
"Much of the mug design aims at thermal insulation: the thick walls of a mug, as compared to the thinner walls of teacups, insulate the beverage to prevent it from cooling or warming quickly. The mug bottom is often not flat, but either concave or has an extra rim, to reduce the thermal contact with the surface on ... |
How is the lithosphere affected by global warming? | Well the lithosphere does include surface sediments, and the types of sediments deposited depends on local climate--and sea level, near the coasts--so that's a pretty straightforward example. Global erosion should also increase due to higher temperatures, and in particular erosion of calcium-bearing minerals and deposi... | [
"Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark has controversially argued that because solar variation modulates the cosmic ray flux on Earth, they would consequently affect the rate of cloud formation and hence be an indirect cause of global warming. Svensmark is one of several scientists outspokenly opposed to the mainstream... |
Does the body forgo its fat storage and consume muscle while you're on a Caloric deficit? | Here is a wall of text, forgive me.
Question 1: It is possible that there is research out there to figure that out, but the only way to truly test that hypothesis (at least that I can think of) would be to have otherwise healthy people lay in bed (with little to no movement - even getting up to go to the bathroom wou... | [
"The body has a natural store of fat (also called \"adipose tissue\") that stores reserve energy. One can still stay alive while the body breaks down the fatty tissue (hence people wasting away from starvation).\n",
"If not enough energy is taken in through diet, as in the process of starvation, the body will use... |
Why is the climate of extreme South America so different from the corresponding North American latitudes? | Tierra del Fuego is pretty much like the Aleutian Islands, so I'm not really sure what you mean here. | [
"In the extreme north and south the climate is a warm temperate one, the northern countries being on the whole hotter and drier than those in the southern zone; the south of the continent being narrower than the north, the influence of the surrounding ocean is more felt.\n",
"While the southern coast of the Unite... |
why does deleting things clear storage even though the pc only can’t find it? | When you delete a file the file system marks that file for deletion and deletes any references to that files location on disk.
As far as the OS is concerned, this space is now clear and that's reflected through the GUI. The files are still on the disk in the same place, the OS just sees that space as "Oh hey I can s... | [
"The recycling of old computers raises an important privacy issue. The old storage devices still hold private information, such as emails, passwords, and credit card numbers, which can be recovered simply by someone's using software available freely on the Internet. Deletion of a file does not actually remove the f... |
Why is the oxygen produced by the Amazon forest mostly consumed within the forest itself? | Plants produce O2 via photosynthesis in a 1:1 ratio with C incorporated into the plant body. Therefore, for a net transport of O2 out of the system, there needs to be a net addition of sequestered C. One can consider the Amazon system to be in quasi-steady state, no significant growth versus death and decay. That is... | [
"Rainforests are widely believed by laymen to contribute a significant amount of the world's oxygen, although it is now accepted by scientists that rainforests contribute little net oxygen to the atmosphere and deforestation has only a minor effect on atmospheric oxygen levels. However, the incineration and burning... |
why does nascar not like drafting? | Its more or less the track conditions than the car from my experience. Example you goto a high bank track like Texas motor speedway and start drafting, real drafting bumpers within a couple inches if not kissing, speeds will increase above what is expected. While at a more flat track... I believe California is fairly f... | [
"Drafting is most important at NASCAR's restrictor plate tracks, Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International Speedway, where the plates mean that much less power is available to push the large bodies through the air. Race cars reach their highest speeds on these superspeedways, so the aerodynamic forces are h... |
what makes some names feminine and some names masculine? | To answer that question well, we need to know if you are talking about names in English or in another language. English is kinda funny with the gender of it's words. Other languages, like French or Spanish, make every single word either feminine or masculine. In Spanish, for example, an o or an a at the end will determ... | [
"At the same time, the newer feminine forms in most such languages are usually derived from the primary masculine term by adding or changing a suffix (such as the German \"Ingenieurin\" from \"Ingenieur\", engineer), so some feminists hold that these words are not equivalent to the masculine words because they are ... |
What were the benefits of the Ulster Plantations in Northern Ireland? | OK, long time lurker here with his niche topic finally being mentioned :)
The main benefits to the crown at the time included firstly a huge protestant and loyalist/unionist majority for centuries to come (starting to become the minority at the present time). This gave them a number of benefits mainly including the in... | [
"The Plantation of Ulster was the biggest of the Plantations of Ireland. It led to the founding of many of Ulster's towns and created a lasting Ulster Protestant community in the province with ties to Britain. It also resulted in many of the native Irish losing their land and led to ethnic and sectarian conflict, n... |
what happens to your sense of smell after being hit in the nose? | Blood smells metallic to a lot of people. Depending on how hard you've been booped, you'll get a metallic smell, if not a coppery taste too, particularly if you've had a particularly deep conversation with someone else's knuckles.
Also being schmacked in the schnozz can loosen up the crusties up in your air hole, rele... | [
"On 11 August 2006, Virenque was taken to hospital at Moûtiers and transferred to Grenoble after falling during a mountain-bike race at Méribel. He broke his nose and needed 32 stitches to his face. Hitting his head led to feelings of worry and of depression, he said, and he lost his sense of smell.\n",
"Lesions ... |
I’ve read previously that Australian troops were the first in WW2 to fully stop the Germans on land, in Tobruk, and the first to stop the Japanese on land, in New Guinea. How did axis troops/leaders view Australian troops in general? | Some gentle clarification: by the time Australia and Japan went to war against each other, the latter had already suffered a number of relatively minor but symbolically significant defeats in China (contemporary observers saw these as challenges to the myth of Japanese invincibility), most notably at Taierzhuang and Ch... | [
"The only Japanese force to land in Australia during World War II was a reconnaissance party that landed in the Kimberley region of Western Australia on 19 January 1944 to investigate reports that the Allies were building large bases in the region. The party consisted of four Japanese officers on board a small fish... |
During the Cold War, East Germans were prohibited from escaping to the west, but if they did, was it a crime in West Germany to have escaped? | No, it wasn't a crime. About 3.5 million GDR citizens fled, 3 million of those to West Germany ([Source](_URL_0_)). There were state run refugee camps in the west where refugees got first orientation. A lot of people also had relatives in the west and could use them as a first station.
Regarding the question of whethe... | [
"During the Cold War, it was difficult for West Germans to visit East German relatives and friends and impossible vice versa. For East Germans, especially after the building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 and until Hungary opened up its border to the West in the late 1980s, thus allowing hundreds of thousands... |
Why do we find marine and land organisms buried together? | Primarily due to rising and falling sea levels. When the tectonic plates move they push up landmasses that were once underwater. The same way mountain ranges form over great spans of time. If you begin with a body of water (even part of an ocean) that contains organisms, then 20 millions years later that same area that... | [
"Live rock is rock from the ocean that has been introduced into a saltwater aquarium. Along with live sand, it confers to the closed marine system multiple benefits desired by the saltwater aquarium hobbyist. The name sometimes leads to misunderstandings, as the \"live rock\" itself is not actually alive, but rathe... |
if the individual acts involved are already illegal, why did they make a recent law making lynching a crime? | [The lynch law](_URL_0_) is federal. While things have improved over the last fifty years, many states have demonstrated a sympathetic reluctance to prosecute the perpetrators of mob violence. If justice appears to be miscarrying the feds can step in, and help investigate if the state needs it (similar to federal kidna... | [
"Attempts to pass similar legislation took a halt until the Costigan-Wagner Bill of 1934. Subsequent bills followed but the United States Congress never outlawed lynching due to powerful opposition from Southern senators.\n",
"Opponents of legislation often said lynchings prevented murder and rape. As documented ... |
Can anybody recommend a recent biography of Wu Zetian ancient china’s female emperor? | The answer will depend on your interest in Wu and your language skills, but in all cases the basic problem remains the same; the sources we have are very restricted and for the most part treat the empress as an example for future rulers to learn from, rather than as someone whose thoughts and deeds and character should... | [
"The Empress Wu Tse-Tien () is a 1939 Chinese historical film based on the life of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history. Directed by Fang Peilin, the film starred Gu Lanjun as the titular character.\n",
"Secret History of Empress Wu, also known as Wu Zetian Mishi, is a Chinese television series b... |
How did the hebrew god Yahweh evolve?. Is he really an offshoot of El, and was it polytheistic in its origins? | This is a very interesting topic. The natural place to start is of course the Old Testament itself. First, we have to clear some things up. "Yahweh" or "Yahu" and "El" were two distinct gods in the Caananite pantheon. This is actually reflected in the Hebrew text itself; if you read the early books of the Pentateuch, e... | [
"According to the Kenite hypothesis, Yahweh was historically a Midian deity, and the association of Moses' father-in-law with Midian reflects the historical adoption of the Midianite cult by the Hebrews. Moses apparently identified Jethro's concept of God, Yahweh, with the Israelites' God El Shaddai.\n",
"He does... |
If a comet is traveling through space, a vacuum, then why does it leave a 'trail' at all? | Comets only have visible tails when they are near the sun. The sun heats up their surface and some gases and dust boil off - that's the tail. It actually points away from the sun. [Like this](_URL_0_), not out behind like you may expect. | [
"Comets sometimes may disappear because of orbital derangement from an ellipse to a parabola or a hyperbola. Sir Isaac Newton showed that a body controlled by the Sun moves in a conic section—that is, an ellipse, a parabola or a hyperbola. Because the latter two are open curves, a comet which pursued such a path wo... |
why is my printer always fiddling with itself? | It's "cleaning" itself so the ink doesn't get jammed. | [
"The printer's primary purpose is to produce stereotype plates for use in printing presses, which it does by pressing type into soft plaster to create a flong. Babbage intended that the Engine's results be conveyed directly to mass printing, having recognized that many errors in previous tables were not the result ... |
molten salt nuclear reactors | Well, no one has answered yet... So I'll try to explain it: To put it simply. An MSR uses salt instead of water to transfer thermal energy. However, instead of having fuel rods like in traditional nuclear reactors, the uranium fuel is mixed in with the salt. This creates an inherently stable reactor, as when the heat i... | [
"A molten salt reactor (MSR) is a class of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary nuclear reactor coolant and/or the fuel is a molten salt mixture. MSRs offer multiple advantages over conventional nuclear power plants, although for historical reasons, they have not been deployed.\n",
"A molten salt reactor ... |
Lombards and Langobards? | They're two names - or, rather, variations on a name - for the same people. | [
"Lombardic or Langobardic is an extinct West Germanic language that was spoken by the Lombards (\"Langobardi\"), the Germanic people who settled in Italy in the sixth century. It was already rapidly declining by the seventh century because the invaders quickly adopted the Latin vernacular spoken by the local Gallo-... |
how does an automated telephone assistant know which numbers you dial? | Yes. It's actually two tones overlaid on top of each other. One tone indicates which row contains the button you pressed, and the other indicates which column. A computer can easily pick out the two tones, and work out which button they represent. | [
"An automatic dialer (auto dialer, auto-dialer, autodialer) is an electronic device or software that automatically dials telephone numbers. Once the call has been answered, the autodialer either plays a recorded message or connects the call to a live person.\n",
"The operator would connect to the base station by ... |
Is there a way to identify the Rate Determining Step in a mechanism? | Depends how good your knowledge of reaction mechanisms is. You can make a very educated guess based on what you know about intermediates’ energies (ie carbocations are unstable and take longer to form) but without kinetic data you can’t know for sure. | [
"In chemical kinetics, the overall rate of a reaction is often approximately determined by the slowest step, known as the rate-determining step (RDS) or rate-limiting step. For a given reaction mechanism, the prediction of the corresponding rate equation (for comparison with the experimental rate law) is often simp... |
how is the money distributed when you donate to research cancer? | In the case of Susan G. Komen it's distributed directly to the CEO. | [
"The net proceeds fund breast cancer research, education, and community outreach programs. Since its inception, more than $500 million has been raised, but only approximately 15% of funds received goes towards the cancer research the organization exists to raise money for.\n",
"Around 40% of the charity's researc... |
How successful was colonial America in keeping a separation between church and state? | One thing to bear in mind is that the meaning of the First Amendment was still being debated in the early years of the Republic. No-one flipped a switch and *boom* all traditions of state religion were extinguished. I wrote a comment on a similar subject [here](_URL_0_); for example, though some early presidents balked... | [
"During the sovereignty of the United States, the American government implemented the separation of church and state. It reduced the significant political power exerted by the Church, which led to the establishment of other faiths (particularly Protestantism) within the country. In this era, in the first decade of ... |
how do fat reduction procesures work? | Oh yes, fat cells can certainly be removed. Liposuction physically removes the adipose tissue from the body.
These are just temporary solutions though, your body can simply create more fat cells over time or have the current ones increase in size to store more fat. | [
"In general, fat is removed via a cannula (a hollow tube) and aspirator (a suction device). Liposuction techniques can be categorized by the amount of fluid injected, and by the mechanism by which the cannula works.\n",
"Fat is sometimes removed from one location to another on a person in an autograft, such as in... |
Aside from the Lend Lease, why didn't the allies send military support to the Soviet Union during WW2? | The Allies were in no position to send any amount of ground forces to assist the Soviets on the Eastern Front. Not only was the British Army preoccupied with operations in North Africa and the Mediterranean at large (and later the Pacific theatre), but the American military had not sufficiently "geared up" to provide a... | [
"The total lend-lease aid during the second World War had been estimated between $42–50 billion. The Soviet Union received shipments in war materials, military equipment and other supplies worth of $12,5 billions, about a quarter of the U.S. lend-lease aid provided to other allied countries. However, post-war negot... |
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