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Why doesn't an atoms atomic number correlate with how common the element is?	Exactly, the fusion processes are not that straight up as "just keep adding protons" (the atomic number is the number of protons in the nucleus, that's what defines the element). Lithium, for example, is "destroyed" easily, it becomes two Helium atoms when a proton hits a Lithium-7 atom, a process called "Lithium burni...	[ "Because this is the number of protons, the atomic number must be a whole number – there cannot be any fractional values. Moseley realised it was the atomic number, not the atomic weight that determines the order of the elements. What's more, because the atomic number increases in whole numbers from one element to ...
How does light pass through a transparent object, slow down, then speed up again?	To address part of your question. Light doesn't slow down ever. The photons are absorbed and then retransmitted a moment later that gives the illusion of slowing down. While a photon is on the move it's traveling at c always.	[ "According to Prof Leonhardt, all optical illusions can slow down rays of light and the sphere can be used to bend this illusion around an object, reflecting off it and making it appear to be invisible. Mr Perczel added: \"When the light is bent it engulfs the object, much like water covering a rock sitting in a ri...
Did the fact that Stalin and Beria were Georgian have any impact on Georgia during the Soviet Union's existence?	In short, a little bit during the era of Stalin and Beria, and mostly because of Beria. First, I'll make the minor distinction that Beria was ethnically Mingrelian, a group closely related to the Georgians but with their own language, who are from the northwest of Georgia (though few outside of Georgia make that disti...	[ "Soviet rule in Georgia was established by the Soviet Red Army during the February–March 1921 military campaign that was largely engineered by the two influential Georgian-born Soviet officials, Joseph Stalin, then People's Commissar for Nationalities for the RSFSR, and Grigol Ordzhonikidze, head of the Transcaucas...
Why did the Romans call the Greeks Graeci/-ae while the Greeks called themselves Hellenes?	The original form of the Latin was not actually Graecus but Graius (plural Graei)--Graecus appears to be an expanded form imitating the Greek suffix "-kos." It appears that the name was taken from a Greek-speaking people bordering some Italian settlement and was later applied to the entirety of Greek-speakers (...	[ "By Late Antiquity (c. 3rd–7th century CE), the Greeks referred to themselves as \"Graikoi\" (, \"Greeks\") and \"Rhomaioi\"/\"Romioi\" (//, \"Romans\") the latter of which was used since virtually all Greeks were Roman citizens after 212 CE. The term \"Hellene\" became applied to the followers of the polytheistic ...
Do molecules actually look like their displayed formulae?	You can't use normal light microscopes to see molecules. They are too small. There are other methods, such as x-ray crystallography and AFM, that can visualize certain aspects of molecular structure. The way we draw structural diagrams is a kind of short-hand to describe the connectivity and bonding between atoms in ...	[ "The molecular formula, on the other hand, shows the number of each type of atom in a molecule. The structural formula shows the arrangement of the molecule. It is also possible for different types of compounds to have equal empirical formulas.\n", "Chemical structures are traditionally represented using lines in...
Do infants with talkative parents develop language skills faster?	No, I don't believe there is any evidence of this (although I would love to be corrected). Language seems to develop (in "normal" kids) at a pretty constant rate across cultures, similar to learning to sit up, crawl, and walk. Exposure doesn't seem to affect rate of development. However, [one famous study in language...	[ "Another view, held by scientists specializing in Language acquisition, such as Tomasello, argues that young children's early language is concrete and item-based which implies that their speech is based on the lexical items known to them from the environment and the language of their caretakers. In addition, childr...
If I were to grind a solid into a powder down to the molecular level, would it behave as a liquid?	I seriously doubt it. There are nano powders that are just tens of nanometers in size and I know from working with them that they still behave like a powder and not a liquid. Size of a solid should not induce a phase change from solid to liquid like temperature or pressure do. I would expect the behavior to be much ...	[ "In a solid, only those particles that are at the surface can be involved in a reaction. Crushing a solid into smaller parts means that more particles are present at the surface, and the frequency of collisions between these and reactant particles increases, and so reaction occurs more rapidly. For example, Sherbet...
Why did cotton become a symbol for American slavery as opposed to other cash crops or grueling domestic chores?	The key cash crops grown by American slave labor before the 19th century were tobacco and rice. Little cotton was grown in the United States, in large part because separating the seeds from the raw cotton by hand was extremely labor-intensive and time-consuming. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which great...	[ "Paradoxically, the cotton gin, a labor-saving device, helped preserve and prolong slavery in the United States for another 70 years. Before the 1790s, slave labor was primarily employed in growing rice, tobacco, and indigo, none of which were especially profitable anymore. Neither was cotton, due to the difficulty...
Why did Captain Cook name New South Wales as such? What geographical similarities, if any, did he take note of?	It would appear to be named after Wales, not South Wales - in Cook's original journals - found here: _URL_0_ - he calls it simply New Wales: > I now once More hoisted English Colours, and in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third took possession of the whole Eastern coast from the above latitude down to this pl...	[ "The European discovery of New South Wales was made by Captain James Cook during his 1770 survey along the unmapped eastern coast of the Dutch-named continent of New Holland, now Australia. In his original journal(s) covering the survey, in triplicate to satisfy Admiralty Orders, Cook first named the land \"New Wal...
Why does Aluminium foil make so much noise when manipulating it ?	It's a thin metallic membrane that reflects sound waves efficiently. The numerous sound waves generated by the metallic surfaces striking one another during the process of balling up the foil cause the noise. It is similar to the sound of balling up paper but not as pronounced because foil reflects the sound waves mo...	[ "Aluminium foil (or aluminum foil), often referred to with the misnomer tin foil, is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves with a thickness less than ; thinner gauges down to are also commonly used. In the United States, foils are commonly gauged in thousandths of an inch or mils. Standard household foil is typic...
What happens to an ant colony if its Queen is artificially removed?	It depends on the species of ant. Harvester ants (large, red and slow) from Arizona will never raise a new queen, so the colony will die within about two years (which is the average lifespan of a worker). One quheen per colony. For reference, their queen lives for 20-25 years. Argentine ants (small, black, invasive spe...	[ "When the queen ant dies, there is no replacement and army ants cannot rear emergency queens. Most of the time, if the queen dies, the colony will likely die too. Queen loss can occur due to accidents during emigrations, predator attack, old age or illness. However, there are possibilities to avoid colony death. Wh...
Question from my daughters; If I were to travel back in time could I survive in the same atmosphere as the dinosaurs and find nutritious foods that wouldn't kill me (could I consume a dinosaur)?	Time of the dinosaurs covers an incredibly immense period of time, of course. Angiosperms, or trees that bear fruit, began evolving in the late Cretaceous, about 125 mya. On top of that, the fruits and vegetables we have today are highly domesticated and wildly different from their natural forms. So you wouldn't find,...	[ "In the McNinja universe dinosaurs are not extinct, but still alive and thriving on a remote island owned by Rupert Murdoch and a deserted, Pacific island housing the ruins of an old Amerindian civilization. Also, when Earth was hit by the meteor that killed off most of the original dinosaur population, some of the...
Are there any sources you would recommend for covering the decline of the Ottoman Empire?	I'd check the bibliography of Lord Kinross' "The Ottoman Centuries". Of course, he focuses like most on the period after the suppression of the Janissaries as the time of Ottoman decline...	[ "The most prominent writer on Ottoman decline was the historian Bernard Lewis, who argued that the Ottoman Empire experienced all-encompassing decline affecting government, society and civilization. He laid out his views in the 1958 article, \"Some Reflections on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire,\" which developed...
If all muscles work through contraction, how do people expand their lungs to breathe in?	Your lungs expand due to the fact that they are exposed to negative pressure from your diaphragm. [Here's a video](_URL_0_). When you breathe in, or inhale, your diaphragm contracts and moves downward. This increases the space in your chest cavity, into which your lungs expand. The intercostal muscles between your ribs...	[ "The lungs are expanded with the help of the diaphragm, a muscular sheet of tissue which contracts away from the thoracic cavity, thereby decreasing the pressure and pulling air into the lungs. When fully expanded, the lungs can reach to the 16th rib of the horse.\n", "The lungs are not capable of expanding to br...
What is a book on the former Imperial German colonies?	Are you looking for books on the colonies before or during World War I? Empires at War: 1911-1923 has a chapter by Heather Jones on the German Empire. Absolute Destruction by Isabell Hull discusses Germany's colonial policies in Southwest Africa. I know Germany had colonies in the Pacific but I have no suggestions for ...	[ "Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon is the German title for the Encyclopedia of German colonies which was published in 1920. The text had been finished by 1914 before World War I but was not printed due to the war. Thus it gives a wide range of information and then official views on the colonies of Germany at the end of it...
how long does holy water stay holy?	I believe you are taking it too literally. Holy water is water that has been blessed by a priest to be used in various traditions (baptisms, holy cross when entering church, etc). Holy Water should only be disposed through regular use, or by disposing of it in a special container. I would imagine that using holy...	[ "Holy water is water that has been blessed by a member of the clergy or a religious figure. The use for cleansing prior to a baptism and spiritual cleansing is common in several religions, from Christianity to Sikhism. The use of holy water as a sacramental for protection against evil is common among Anglicans, Rom...
If a black hole were to only be 'fed' electrons (or particles of like charge), would the electrostatic charge inside eventually destroy the black hole?	It might be impossible to do so. Specifically, you are asking if it's possible to pour electrons in a black hole until it becomes superextremal, that is, the charge becomes larger than the mass. The geometry of a charged, spherically symmetric black hole is described by the Reissner-Nordström metric, and for a superex...	[ "A charged black hole is a black hole that possesses electric charge. Since the electromagnetic repulsion in compressing an electrically charged mass is dramatically greater than the gravitational attraction (by about 40 orders of magnitude), it is not expected that black holes with a significant electric charge wi...
Regarding the Lincoln-Douglass debates, is this just good politics or is Lincoln a racist? (I know, it sounds like a loaded question, but I seriously want to hear a historian's opinion on it.)	[Presentism](_URL_0_), if you do it, you're gonna have a bad time. Was Lincoln racist by modern standards? Hell yes, but everyone was. It's better, when broaching this subject, to point out that Lincoln was not an abolitionist, promoting full equality for blacks, but rather antislavery. He thought it deplorable tha...	[ "In this respect, Douglass' views converged with that of Abraham Lincoln's in that those politicians who were saying that the Constitution was a justification for their beliefs in regard to slavery were doing so dishonestly.\n", "Lincoln's primary audience was white voters. Lincoln's views on slavery, race equali...
is it possible for humans to choose their own personalities?	There are some things you can't change. For instance, I am a very anxious person. I don't like that about myself, but I can't just stop being one. With a lot of personal effort and some counseling, I will become a slightly less anxious person, but it's still a root element of my personality that can't be chosen or unch...	[ "It is natural for human beings to want to identify with others. One way we do this is by categorizing individuals into specific social groups. While some groups may be readily noticeable (such as those defined by ethnicity or gender), other groups are less salient. Linguist Carmen Fought explains how an individual...
is there a science behind photographers telling us to say cheese?	The "eeeeeeeeeeeeee" bit results in a kinda-natural looking smile. And everyone knows that word, it's a very common word with a drawn out long e sound. If you tell people "make a natural smile" you get everything from "not a natural smile" to "please dont eat me."	[ "Perhaps because of strong Western influence, especially in the realm of photography, and perhaps because of increased numbers of Western visitors after photographic equipment became widely available,\"Say cheese\" has also entered into the Japanese language. However, \"say\" is almost always dropped from phrase, r...
what is pencil tip made up of? lead or graphite or both? why?	It contains no lead at all. It's made of graphite. The term "pencil lead" is only a reference to graphite's color, which is similar to lead's color.	[ "BULLET::::- The \"lead\" in pencils is made of graphite and clay, not lead; graphite was originally believed to be lead ore, but this is now known not to be the case. The graphite and clay mix is known as \"plumbago\", meaning \"lead ore\" in Latin, and is still known as \"black lead\" in Keswick, Cumbria and else...
when you're awaiting surgery why will they not even let you have a glass of water if you're thirsty as hell? why aren't all the iv fluids quenching the thirst anyway?	You can't drink anything because there is a chance you may regurgitate whatever is in your stomach as your body's reflexes are stopped while under anesthesia. If regurgitation happens whatever is in your stomach is pushed back up into your throat and mouth which you could accidentally inhale, causing you to suffocate o...	[ "It is important for patients not to eat or drink for up to 12 hours before the procedure. This is to prevent vomiting, which can result in aspiration, and also cause severe bleeding from the insertion site of the catheter. Failure to follow this simple preparation may result in dangerous consequences. In general, ...
how do locks and keys work when it comes down to uniqueness? is every lock-key combination unique? or could i get lucky and could i find another door or bike lock that matches my key?	Great minds think alike. I may have found yer answer, matey. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Is each lock and key combination unique, or do I share the same house key as a bunch of other people? ](_URL_2_) ^(_83 comments_) 1. [ELI5: How are keys unique? There must be millions of d...	[ "In master locksmithing, key relevance is the measurable difference between an original key and a copy made of that key, either from a wax impression or directly from the original, and how similar the two keys are in size and shape. It can also refer to the measurable difference between a key and the size required ...
What would the written language of the Mali Empire have been?	I think most of the writing that's survived in the sahel is arabic, the mauritanian manuscripts are and the most famous timbuktu manuscripts are too. However, according to University of Cape Town the Timbuktu manuscripts do also contain works in Songhay, Fulfulde, Tamasheq and Hausa. The problem is the manuscripts a...	[ "The Mali Empire (Manding: \"Nyeni\" or \"Niani\"; also historically referred to as the Manden Kurufaba, sometimes shortened to Manden) was an empire in West Africa from 1235 - 1400. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Musa Keita. The Manding languag...
why is there such a loud sound when we clap?	You're compressing the air between your hands rapidly, creating a pressure wave. Which is, you know, what sound is. The best, loudest claps involve cupping your hands to trap more air between them. Your hands squeeze that air together before it rapidly expands again out through the gaps between your hands. That rapid...	[ "A clap is the percussive sound made by striking together two flat surfaces, as in the body parts of humans or animals. Humans clap with the palms of their hands, often quickly and repeatedly to express appreciation or approval (see applause), but also in rhythm as a form of body percussion to match the sounds in m...
Can an asthma inhaler benefit someone who doesn't have asthma?	what drug is it? I know that atrovent (ventolin) opens your air ways significantly and is used by runners and weight lifters. However it's not a corticosteriod; which is what you have from the sounds of it. I used an inhaler to reduce phlem build up from envriomental triggers ( i ran a stone saw here on the canadain sh...	[ "Asthma, COPD, and smokers have reduced airflow ability. People who suffer from asthma and COPD show decreases in exhaled air due to inflammation of the airways. This inflammation causes narrowing of the airways which allows less air to be exhaled. Numerous things cause inflammation some examples are cigarette smok...
why does lettuce, the white part, get all brown and slimey?	It's residue from bacterial decomposition. Basically, the lettuce is going bad (rotting).	[ "Brown fat cells or plurivacuolar cells are polyhedral in shape. Unlike white fat cells, these cells have considerable cytoplasm, with lipid droplets scattered throughout. The nucleus is round, and, although eccentrically located, it is not in the periphery of the cell. The brown color comes from the large quantity...
Is it possible to create a self powered battery using magnets?	No, the magnets would just lock in place. Perpetual motion is not possible.	[ "Magnetos were used for specialized isolated power systems such as arc lamp systems or lighthouses, for which their simplicity was an advantage. They have never been widely applied for the purposes of bulk electricity generation, for the same purposes or to the same extent as either dynamos or alternators. Only in ...
why is it seemingly impossible to sync your blinker with the car in front of you? even if it's the same make/model?	(This may not be true for all cars, but it has been on the cars I've owned). The on/off blink timing for your turn signals isn't controlled by a chip, its controlled by an analogue circuit that uses the relative resistances of the lights/lamps in it. And even if you get the timing right with the same make/model car,...	[ "LEDs start blinking immediately upon being turned on, but slight manufacturing differences mean the frequency is slightly off between them, and the LEDs soon appear semi-random when there are several together. Small groups may sometimes converge and then diverge again in the way that a group of cars may have turn ...
how can people with alzheimers/dementia remember to speak and understand, for the most part, general conversations - but can forget things like their children, to eat, basic personal hygiene, etc?	Things like speech and understanding are impacted as well, but they are distributed in the brain over many neurons, not necessarily in the same spot, so they are easier to access even with impediments. Specific memories will tend to be localized and it's more likely that the disease can block or destroy them.	[ "Elderly patients with certain forms of dementia may not be able to remember what they had for lunch the previous day, but they will most likely remember their wedding day or they day their child was born. Reminiscence therapy uses this ability to recall events in the long term even when the patient's short term me...
why do athletes get heart attacks?	Exercise and activity is good for your body and for being fit, but athletes by definition go much farther than the state of being fit with the activity that they do. As such it is not uncommon for them to over tax their hearts and lungs, and if they have any kind of damage or defects that can prompt a heart attack. M...	[ "Athlete's heart is not dangerous for athletes (though if a nonathlete has symptoms of bradycardia, cardiomegaly, and cardiac hypertrophy, another illness may be present). Athlete's heart is not the cause of sudden cardiac death during or shortly after a workout, which mainly occurs due to hypertrophic cardiomyopat...
How is exposure to a virus correlated to one's likelihood of getting sick?	The basic idea is kind of the opposite of what you said. More viruses do not mean that they are easier to "spot", just that it is easier for them to overwhelm the host's defenses. This concept is called the "infectious dose", and it varies by organism (some organisms quickly overwhelm the host with just a few organisms...	[ "The risk for symptomatic infection is directly related to age, with more than 80% of adults having symptoms compatible with acute viral hepatitis and the majority of children having either asymptomatic or unrecognized infections.\n", "An individual may only develop signs of an infection after a period of subclin...
How did the institution of exiling criminals to siberia change from the Romanovs to the Soviet Union?	Firstly, it is important to note that prisons in Siberia weren't that bad under the Romanovs. Lenin himself was exiled there, and this is where a lot of the sources focus, so I will discuss it more. His experience in Siberia was hardly that of a prisoner - he was permitted to make his own way there, the journey took 11...	[ "As the police and court system were re-established in the Soviet Union shortly after the 1917 revolution, the NKVD secret police nearly exterminated the criminal underworld completely. Under Stalin, the forced labor camps (Gulag) overflowed with political prisoners and criminals, and a new organized group of top c...
How complicit were Colt Firearms and the US military in the disastrous introduction of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam war?	I think chiver's book is mostly pop history. > In 1964, the Army was informed that DuPont could not mass-produce the IMR 4475 stick powder to the specifications demanded by the M16. Therefore, Olin Mathieson Company provided a high-performance ball propellant. While the Olin WC 846 powder achieved the desired 3,300 f...	[ "During the Vietnam War, some South Vietnamese army units and defense militia were armed with Thompson submachine guns, and a few of these weapons were used by reconnaissance units, advisors, and other American troops. It was later replaced by the M16. Not only did some U.S. soldiers have use of them in Vietnam, bu...
if somebody shot a gun directly at you, how far away from the shooter would you have to be to realistically jump out of the way of the bullet in time?	Mythbusters did this. Because most bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, you would be hit before you knew the gun was even fired. No dodging possible. _URL_0_	[ "BULLET::::- Seesaw 60 – Two people stand atop a giant seesaw. They have 60 seconds to move a 10 kg barrel from one side to the other without letting either end of the seesaw touch the floor. A third person gets to call out advice to the other two people. This challenge has had 1 victory.\n", "Targets may be plac...
where and how do mountains, rivers, forests, and deserts form?	Generally speaking mountains form in one of two ways. The primary way is due to plate tectonics. The surface of the Earth, the continents and sea floor are broken up into a series of plates which sit on top of the mantle which is made up of liquid molten rock. As a result the plates are in constant but very slow motio...	[ "The desert sees limited plant growth in the winter, with grasses and xeric plants and shrubs sprouting, and with the arrival of spring, the rains encourage the growth and flowering of ephemeral plants. The mountains in the south of the country are covered in shrublike and juniper woodlands, and larger trees grow i...
Why is Strychnine referenced so often in popular culture in reference to poison? Was Strychnine a commonly used murder weapon?	Strychnine has long been used as a rat poison (or other mammal/bird pest poison). During the 19th century production increased dramatically and it became practically a household item. Pest control has always been a major concern and in the early industrial age it was something many people took into their own hands. St...	[ "Because strychnine produces some of the most dramatic and painful symptoms of any known toxic reaction, strychnine poisoning is often portrayed in literature and film including authors Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle.\n", "Strychnine poisoning can be fatal to humans and other animals and can occur by inha...
what happens to the newly "dead" bacteria on your hands after you use hand sanitizer that "kills" bacteria?	Like another poster has said, you can't really wash off the dead bacteria because water acts differently on them due to their size. Also when you use antibacterials, the area will quickly become repopulated with bacteria from your environment, other parts of your skin and by the bacteria that wasn't killed multiplyin...	[ "If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol (check the product label to be sure). Hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol is effective in killing Cronobacter germs. But use soap and water as soon as possible afterward because hand sanitizer does not kill all ...
In the 1820's, how did people send messages between countries?	Australia's first post office was officially born in 1809 in Sydney and was led by former convict [Issac Nichols](_URL_3_). He was put in charge of all mail arriving in New South Wales, as there quite a lot of mail theft from the incoming ships. He ran the post office out of his own home and townspeople would know they...	[ "During the early years of the 20th century industrial nations began building networks of powerful longwave transoceanic radiotelegraphy stations to communicate with other countries and keep in touch with their overseas colonies. These transmitted telegram traffic with Morse code at high speed using paper tape mach...
why do our eyes "burn" when they are red?	Red eyes usually mean there's a degree of inflamation going on. During inflamation, several chemicals are released and they cause blood vessels to become swollen and they become visible. Burning and Itching sensations are transmitted through unmyelinated nerve fibers that can be easily stimulated from those chemical I ...	[ "Chemical eye injury may result when an acidic or alkaline substance gets in the eye. Alkali burns are typically worse than acidic burns. Mild burns produce conjunctivitis, while more severe burns may cause the cornea to turn white. Litmus paper may be used to test for chemical causes. When a chemical cause has bee...
What were eating disorders like in colonial North America?	To answer this question, we first have to take a moment to consider the nature of mental illness. Mental illness is not a 'static' thing the way that physical illness is - the prevalence and the expression of mental illness is hugely dependent on the culture and surroundings a person was raised in, and the mental illne...	[ "Prior to the 1940s diabetes was virtually unheard of, but ever since the 1960s the prevalence has been on the rise. This rise is thought to be in part due to their food history and culture. Native Americans had a diverse food history prior to colonization, but after colonization the natives were forced to live on ...
how did they make glass 1,500 years ago?	You just need a really hot kiln. If you can make iron things you can make glass. Glass isnt hard to make.	[ "The history of glass-making dates back to at least 3600 years ago in Mesopotamia. However, some claim they may have been producing copies of glass objects from Egypt. Other archaeological evidence suggests that the first true glass was made in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or Egypt. The earliest known glass obj...
Contemporary evidence shows that Vikings were of average (or close) height, while historical sources assert that they were veritable giants. How do we reconcile this?	Average compared to whom? If you're referring to average compared to modern-day height, than historically they would have appeared to be quite large. It may also have been hyperbole on the account of historians; the Vikings were ferocious, as I recall, so may have simple been viewed as "giants" because of their fighti...	[ "Margaret Clunies Ross disagrees with the conclusions of a series of articles Motz published in the 1980s, arguing that “the giants represent a group of older deities, pushed into the background of Viking Age consciousness by peoples’ changing patterns of worship,” describing Motz’s argument as \"introduc[ing] an e...
[Physics] What happens to the kinetic energy in a car involved in a crash?	A crashed car will indeed be hotter, though I'm afraid I couldn't put a number on it. If you take a small bendable piece of metal like a paperclip and bend it back and forth quickly, you can make it quite hot to the touch; bending metal causes internal friction which releases heat.	[ "During the collision of small objects, kinetic energy is first converted to potential energy associated with a repulsive force between the particles (when the particles move against this force, i.e. the angle between the force and the relative velocity is obtuse), then this potential energy is converted back to ki...
We all know a lot venomous or poisonous animals mostly have bright colors to warn predators. Are there any animals that abuse this fact?	Sure, apparently this is called [Batesian mimicry](_URL_0_).	[ "Poisonous species often use bright colouring to warn potential predators of their toxicity. These warning colours tend to be red or yellow combined with black, with the fire salamander (\"Salamandra salamandra\") being an example. Once a predator has sampled one of these, it is likely to remember the colouration n...
how can a color blind person correctly name previously unseen colors when wearing enchroma glasses?	Colorblindness isn't black and white. It's not "I don't see purple" It's a shades thing, some Greens look more red, some purples look more blue. The enchroma seperates the wavelengths of light that is close together. It doesn't make purple appear, it makes the red more distinct / separate from the blue light. This mak...	[ "Ramachandran, a neuroscientist and author, studied the case of a grapheme-color synesthete who was also color blind. While he couldn't see certain colors with his eyes, he could still \"see\" those colors when looking at certain letters. Because he didn't have a name for those colors, he called them \"Martian colo...
why does zalgo text seem to display everywhere regardless of localization?	Zalgo text takes advantage of tricks built into unicode. Unicode is a standard for how text in all the world's major languages should be handled. It includes support not just for the latin alphabet but quite a few writing systems, including ones where text goes in other directions than left-to-right. On modern comput...	[ "The justification given by Virtual Map was that enough skill and effort was made in using SLA data to create maps that the company can claim its own independent copyright to, and suffered from a loss of potential profit when businesses reproduced their maps online without paying any licensing fees. Such use consti...
How come my urine color isn't affected by drinking colored drinks?	Largely food additives which are used for colouring follow one of three paths; they are either digested in your gut (broken down in to constituent bits which can be absorbed as food), absorbed as-is and later broken down by the liver, or they pass straight through unaffected (either not being absorbed by the gut at all...	[ "In case the urine looks in pink, red, or lighter brown is generally caused by beets, blackberries, certain food colorings, hemolytic anemia, renal impairment, urinary tract infection, medication, porphyria, intra-abdominal bleeding, vaginal bleeding, neoplasm located in either bladder or kidneys pathways.\n", "I...
Why didn't Russians eliminate the Feudal system even though they observed the rest of Europe go through the Renaissance because of the Feudal Systems end?	Russia ignored western Europe until the rule of Peter the Great (1682-1725).	[ "In contrast to Western Europe where feudalism created a strong central power, it took a strong central power to develop feudalism in Russia. A lack of true central power weakened and doomed the Russians to outside domination. The Russians developed its system of land/lord/worker, loosely called feudalism, after it...
What were some of the great duels and rivalries between historians?	Even though not exactly a duel, the [Historikerstreit](_URL_0_) ("historians' dispute") was a major controversy in German historiography concerning the singularity of the Holocaust. Basically, historian Ernst Nolte held two speeches (one in 1980, one in 1986) in which he argued that Hitler had good reasons to treat th...	[ "In Rome, the most famous duel was fought between three Horatii brothers and three Curiatii brothers, respecting precise rules during the 7th century BC. Marc Antony and Octavian also challenged each other to a duel which never came to fruition. The Lombards had dueling rituals too, often controlled by local judges...
why do (most) americans reject cars with a manual shift stick?	There used to be good reasons to drive a manual shift car (regarding getting good gas mileage), but that's really not an issue these days. The margin is so small that people would rather not have to deal with it. So if you are given a choice of manual or automatic, it becomes "why not automatic?" And the only legit ...	[ "Increasingly, companies have been equipping their trucks with automatic transmissions for a variety of reasons. Operating a manual transmission requires more skill and attention on the part of the driver, partly due to the unsynchronized transmission found in heavy-duty trucks. Companies have found that switching ...
how are artificial color dyes made differently from natural color dyes?	Natural dyes are made by taking something that's the right color and processing it into a dye. Artificial dyes are made by putting generic, commodity chemicals into a chemical reaction process that ends up with a dye.	[ "The most common anodizing processes, for example sulfuric acid on aluminium, produce a porous surface which can accept dyes easily. The number of dye colors is almost endless; however, the colors produced tend to vary according to the base alloy. The most common colors in industry, due to them being relatively che...
what did roger goodell do to cause such an uproar for him to resign?	He is the commissioner of the NFL and a lot of people are angry over how he handled the domestic violence controversy plaguing the league right now. Ray Rice was allowed to stay on the team and play while the issue played out in the legal system. There was a lot of uproar over this and Rice has since been deactivated ...	[ "Durell resigned after the United States House Committee on the Judiciary voted to recommend to the full United States House of Representatives that he be impeached for misconduct. Durell had been accused of irregularities in bankruptcy proceedings, corruption and drunkenness.\n", "In July 2012, during the Libor ...
did the Iliad change much or at all, over time?	For the period prior to the third century BCE this is a very controversial question among the people who specialise in this area: probably you'll scarcely find two Homerists with the same opinion. It's universally agreed that the text didn't change after the time of Didymos, a scholar who lived in the 1st century BCE....	[ "The \"Iliad\" was a standard work of great importance already in Classical Greece and remained so throughout the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. Subjects from the Trojan War were a favourite among ancient Greek dramatists. Aeschylus' trilogy, the \"Oresteia\", comprising \"Agamemnon\", \"The Libation Bearers\" ...
My professor uses a purple laser pointer I'm class and the dot always seems out of focus compared to a red laser. Why is this?	In short, it's evolution. Green is the most common colour in the human environment, so our eyes have adapted to be best at seeing greens. Reds are important, as they indicate food or danger, however our eyes are not that great at seeing the upper end of the light spectrum, namely the blues into ultraviolet. You may h...	[ "The violet 405 nm laser (whether constructed from GaN or frequency-doubled GaAs laser diodes) is not in fact blue, but appears to the eye as violet, a color for which a human eye has a very limited sensitivity. When pointed at many white objects (such as white paper or white clothes which have been washed in certa...
how do children acquire word meaning?	Most of it is context and repetition. You see a dog, you point at the dog, you say "dog". Your kid associates all things that shape with being a dog. Then you repeat that a million times a day for everything you see. With other words, like "what is that?" They learn from our tone, and from what we leave out of our sen...	[ "Children's development of language also includes semantics which is the attachment of meaning to words. This happens in three stages. First, each word means an entire sentence. For example, a young child may say “mama” but the child may mean “Here is Mama”, “Where is Mama?”, or “I see Mama.” In the second stage, w...
How do we identify smell of rotten meat as "sweet", what does it have in common with taste of sugar?	It's not the taste, but the smell. Certain molecules smell similar based of the molecules structure and what elements that are attached. The molecules released by the bacteria digesting the rotten meat would be a similar compound and have a similar structure to sugar. This means they would activate the same olfactory r...	[ "While classed as a sugar-alcohol for historical reasons, \"muco\"-inositol is more properly described as a sweet-alcohol due its perception by the mammal as sweet. It contains two distinct glucophores, as well as two distinct natrophores, within its cyclic structure. Aliphatic alcohols do not contain any gustaphor...
How much electricity do I need to shock myself with before I feel it?	It comes down to current. The rule of thumb that is taught in many places is the 1-10-100 rule: it takes 1 milliamp to feel it, 10 milliamps to prevent your muscles from relaxing to let go of the source, and 100 milliamps to mess with your heart enough to kill you.	[ "The feeling of an electric shock is caused by the stimulation of nerves as the neutralizing current flows through the human body. The energy stored as static electricity on an object varies depending on the size of the object and its capacitance, the voltage to which it is charged, and the dielectric constant of t...
Where does the term "Scandinavia" truly come from?	From to the OED: The name Scandinavia, which appears in the existing text of Pliny, is a mistake for Scadinavia, < Germanic *Skadīnaujā, whence by normal phonetic development Old English Scędenig (Beowulf 3336) = Old Norse Skáney (adopted in Old English as Scónég), the name of the southern extremity of Sweden; the te...	[ "The use of \"Scandinavia\" as a convenient general term for Denmark, Norway and Sweden is fairly recent. According to some historians, it was adopted and introduced in the eighteenth century, at a time when the ideas about a common heritage started to appear and develop into early literary and linguistic Scandinav...
how do employer personality assessment tests work and how could someone possibly fail one?	If you're applying for a sales position (or any customer-facing position), but your personality test indicates that you're strongly shy and introverted, they might consider that a "fail". It's not a judgement of you as a person, just an evaluation that perhaps you may not have the disposition to be well-suited for the ...	[ "Many organizations give tests to potential employees during the interview process to determine their job knowledge, overall intelligence, or honesty, and use these to predict how the employee will perform if hired. Research has touched on how maximum performance can be predicted by these tests. For example, one to...
if the sun and moon are both visible (and well above the horizon), how could the moon still have a shadow?	The moon's shadow is the side that isn't lit by the sun. It's not a place where the sun's light would shine, but is blocked by something else. "Shadow" is a bit of a misnomer. Half of the moon is in "shadow" at any given time, including when it happens to be visible alongside the sun.	[ "Since the Moon's axial tilt relative to its orbit around the Sun is nearly zero, the Sun traces out almost exactly the same path through the Moon's sky over the course of a year. As a result, there are craters and valleys near the Moon's poles that never receive direct sunlight, and there may exist mountains and h...
why are polygons in 3d modelling software by default triangles/rectangles (pentagons & up)	Triangles, as the simplest polygon, are the easiest to process and draw. You don't have to worry about weird cases where the vertices aren't all in the same plane, producing some sort of curved surface - an issue as soon as you go beyond 3 vertices. Edit: plus they have the useful property that they are always convex ...	[ "BULLET::::- Polygonal modeling – Points in 3D space, called vertices, are connected by line segments to form a polygon mesh. The vast majority of 3D models today are built as textured polygonal models, because they are flexible and because computers can render them so quickly. However, polygons are planar and can ...
Why did ancient people make soap?	Because you don't need germ theory to understand hygiene and general cleanliness. Some reading I dug up for you: * u/Somecrazynerd offers a [general overview on hygiene](_URL_1_); * u/BRIStoneman here examines [Anglo-Saxon and Norman hygienic practices](_URL_2_); * and u/DownvotingCorvo [looks at Aztec hygiene](_URL_0...	[ "The earliest recorded evidence of the production of soap-like materials dates back to around 2800 BC in ancient Babylon. A formula for soap consisting of water, alkali, and cassia oil was written on a Babylonian clay tablet around 2200 BC.\n", "The origin of Aleppo soap is unknown. Unverified claims of its great...
If you were woken up while sleeping, would you resume your sleep cycle or start over again?	Hi all, first Reddit post, been lurking for a couple weeks now and thoroughly enjoying everyones posts. I'm a sleep tech, I study how people sleep, help in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. While there is an expected textbook progression through the different sleep stages our bodies don't always follo...	[ "In a normal sleep cycle, REM sleep may be experienced at intervals of between 90 minutes and two hours every night, which means RBD episodes may occur up to four times a night. In a rare case, they may only happen once a week or once a month. Episodes occur more towards the morning hours because that is when REM s...
Why do some trees like Avocado trees have red leaves at first but then they turn green?	Delayed greening of leaves is very common in tropical trees like avocado. There are several hypothesized reasons. Green leaves (chloroplasts) are more nutritional for herbivores and costly for plants, so plants want to avoid them being eaten when young. Red colour is from tannins and anthocyanins which protect leaves f...	[ "why some leaves turn yellow. However, the yellow color can attract aphids, so some trees turn the leaves red instead by injecting a bright pigment. The loss of chlorophyll may also contribute to the abscission process.\n", "A green leaf is green because of the presence of a pigment known as chlorophyll, which is...
when does it stop being an homage or reference to another great work and cross over to becoming plagiarism/stealing copyrighted works?	When the copyright owner decides to sue you.	[ "Copyright infringement occurs when someone violates one of the exclusive rights listed in 17 USC 106. Commonly, this involves someone creating or distributing a \"copy\" of a protected work that is \"substantially similar\" to the original version.\n", "According to Kirby Ferguson in 2011 and his popular TED tal...
How does the current shift away from the concept of "feudalism" in medieval scholarship impact the understanding of statebuilding and the centralization of power in the early modern era?	My apologies for the delayed response! You're making one very big assumption here, which is that early modernists care what medievalists say. ;) I'm being uncharitable, of course, but not entirely inaccurate. As it turns out, rethinking feudalism isn't really a paradigm changer for early modern European historiograph...	[ "Another argument contends that the state developed out of economic and social crises that were prominent in late-medieval Europe. Religious wars between Catholics and Protestants, and the involvement of leaders in the domains of other leaders under religious reasons was the primary problem dealt with in the Peace ...
why is a 'swiss bank account' such a bigger thing than other countries bank accounts?	Switzerland has very strict privacy laws regarding banking - it is illegal for a bank to reveal the identity of an account holder. It also has a very stable economic and political position which means it is generally a safe place to keep your money. EDIT: the court can order the bank to reveal the identity of an accou...	[ "During the 1910s, bankers from Switzerland created numbered bank accounts to add a layer of anonymity for European clients seeking to avoid paying World War I taxes. With the passage of the Swiss Banking Law of 1932, the practice proliferated across the banking industry in Switzerland. Some Swiss banks supplement ...
how do farmers make sure that no fertilized/developing eggs make it to market?	Eggs can only get fertilized when there are roosters around to fertilize the eggs. No roosters, no fertilized eggs. So the way farmers make sure that no fertilized eggs get to the market is by separating them from the chickens. Now the tricky thing here is that farmers also need fertilized eggs to grow new chickens to...	[ "Broiler breeder farms raise parent stock which produce fertilized eggs. A broiler hatching egg is never sold at stores and is not meant for human consumption. The males and females are separate genetic lines or breeds. The chicks they produce will therefore be crossbreeds or \"crosses\". Since the birds are bred m...
If Iridium is apparently not the heaviest atom found in nature, than what accounts for for a chunk of pure iridium being the densest substance on Earth?	Like platinum and gold, iridium is a noble metal. This means it does not react with air or soil and forms nuggets. The noble metal osmium (by some sources) is slightly denser and is also found as an uncombined element. Osimium and iridium are also the densest elements period. The reason for this is due to lathanide...	[ "Iridium is one of the nine least abundant stable elements in Earth's crust, having an average mass fraction of 0.001 ppm in crustal rock; platinum is 10 times more abundant, gold is 40 times more abundant, and silver and mercury are 80 times more abundant. Tellurium is about as abundant as iridium. In contrast to ...
what does java do for the computer?	Java is an environment that programs can run in, kinda like Flash Player. Without Flash Player, you cannot watch Flash animations or play Flash games. Similarly, without Java, you can't play Java games or use Java programs. (Minecraft is a Java program.)	[ "Java was originally developed at Sun Microsystems starting in December 1990. It included a new programming language, a virtual machine, and a set of libraries for use with the language. These libraries are documented to programmers via application programming interfaces (APIs), which tell programmers what informat...
how do small particles actually move?	There isn't a thing that is "the particle," separate from the wavefunction. People often say things like "the wavefunction gives the probability that the particle will be detected at a certain point" but what that really means is that the wavefunction gives the probability that another wavefunction (that of the detecto...	[ "Particles tend to move from higher chemical potential to lower chemical potential. In this way, chemical potential is a generalization of \"potentials\" in physics such as gravitational potential. When a ball rolls down a hill, it is moving from a higher gravitational potential (higher internal energy thus higher ...
Is there a reason for radioactive decay to emit only alpha particles as protons and neutrons combination?	It's because an alpha particle has a very high binding energy per nucleon compared to other nuclei in this region. [Check out that sexy spike in binding energy at 4He.](_URL_0_) Formation of the alpha particle must occur within the mother nucleus prior to emission, and the high binding energy makes it for possible to...	[ "Alpha particles are commonly emitted by all of the larger radioactive nuclei such as uranium, thorium, actinium, and radium, as well as the transuranic elements. Unlike other types of decay, alpha decay as a process must have a minimum-size atomic nucleus that can support it. The smallest nuclei that have to date ...
- xkcd comic #1028	Just gonna throw this out there for future reference: _URL_0_	[ "xkcd, sometimes styled XKCD, is a webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as \"A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language\". Munroe states on the comic's website that the name of the comic is not an initialism, but \"just a word with no phonetic pronunci...
Is there a mental disorder that causes the delusion of having other mental disorders?	Hypochondria would be the general term. [Munchausen syndrome](_URL_0_) may be another example. I suppose psychosomatic disorders might qualify as well. Edit: just noticed the part about factitious disorders, so Munchausen wouldn't qualify.	[ "Delusions can suggest several diseases such as schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, a brief psychotic episode, mania, depression with psychotic features, or delusional disorders. One can differentiate delusional disorders from schizophrenia for example by the age of onset for delusional disorders being older ...
why do you feel unsafe when limbs are sticking out under your blankets?	I’m not a psychologist but I imagine it has to do with feeling exposed. When you sleep you’re at your most vulnerable so I think the body is trying to protect itself as best as possible before falling asleep. It’s that or because my parents let me watch Jurassic Park when I was too young and the velociraptors are stil...	[ "A blanket is often used since hypothermia is a major risk for a casualty. The blanket must be wrapped around the casualty to avoid the heat leak from below (this is not necessary when the stretcher has a mattress, e.g. a vacuum mattress, or in case of an ambulance stretcher). For this purpose, the blanket is put b...
How did ancient people develop martial arts?	We don't know how the earliest martial arts styles developed. For later martial arts, there tend to be three types of origin stories: 1. Divine inspiration. For example, received the techniques in a dream or vision, in a flash of enlightenment while praying, or being taught by god(s) or other supernatural beings (e.g....	[ "In Europe, the earliest sources of martial arts traditions date to Ancient Greece. Boxing (\"pygme\", \"pyx\"), wrestling (\"pale\") and pankration were represented in the Ancient Olympic Games. The Romans produced gladiatorial combat as a public spectacle.\n", "The genesis of Chinese martial arts has been attri...
The Limitations of the Huygens-Fresnel Principle in Wave Propagation	To understand shadows, consider this: The waves to the right of the slit (if the wave is traveling right) are the result of the sum of the waves from the points in the slit. If you go straight out from the center of the slit, consider all the waves you'd get from each point: the waves from the center of the slit reach ...	[ "The Huygens–Fresnel principle (named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel) is a method of analysis applied to problems of wave propagation both in the far-field limit and in near-field diffraction and also reflection. It states that every point on a wavefront is itsel...
Why haven't we deciphered Indus Valley Civilization script yet or are we any closer?	#What do you need to decipher a script? In order to successfully decipher a writing system, you must understand the language(s) written with that writing system. Most successful decipherments are based on bilingual or trilingual inscriptions and/or knowledge of the underlying language(s). Beginning with an example o...	[ "Indus script is largely pictorial and has not been deciphered yet. It may or may not include abstract signs. It is thought that they wrote from right to left and that the script is thought to be logographic. Because it has not been deciphered, linguists disagree on whether it is a complete and independent writing ...
When a byzantine emperor would choose a patriarch, would the patriarch give personal advise to the emperor?	I can answer in the case of one patriarch of Constantinople: Nestorius. Firstly, how was Nestorius chosen? His election came in the midst of a controversy over whom to elect to the position and his election was that of an outside candidate, so as not to give in to one of two factions in the city. He was at the time a ...	[ "The Patriarch of Constantinople had already adopted the title of \"ecumenical patriarch\", indicating what he saw as his position in the \"oikoumene\", the Christian world ideally headed by the emperor and the patriarch of the emperor's capital. Also under the influence of the imperial model of governance of the s...
I've heard the Soviets were victorious in WWII because they were willing to lose as many men as necessary to win battles. Is this true?	Yes and no. Josef Stalin was certainly OK with losing as many men as necessary-I don't know how it is possible for the mildly historically cognizant to come to any other conclusion. The man just did not value human life, period, and it amply showed during episodes like the "Rzhev Meat Grinder" of 1942, a case where t...	[ "Following the battle, the Soviets generally found the results unsatisfactory, despite their victory. Though the Soviet forces in the Far East in 1939 were not plagued by fundamental issues to the same extent as those in Europe during the 1941 campaigns, their generals were still unimpressed by their army's perform...
why is there so many muslims in indonesia, malaysia ... ?	Back in the day the Indian Ocean was host to a lot of trade (for the time). Monsoon winds helped reliably carry trade from as far as China to East Africa. A lot of the trade came to be dominated by Muslim merchants. In much the same way that West African kings and merchants began converting to Islam to share a religi...	[ "Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country, with Muslims constituting around 85% of the population. However, despite this there are significant minority religions in the country as well as a great deal of diversity in the expression of Islam between different groups of Muslims. This environment has meant that Indonesi...
What was the reaction to Polish territories being annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945?	The legitimate government of Poland, the Polish Government in Exile based in London. Was staunchly opposed to the annexation of Eastern Poland and the willingness of the Western allied powers to allow the Soviets to get away with it. The British government, specifically Winston Churchill was opposed to it, until the Ya...	[ "In 1939, following Nazi German and Soviet attack on Poland, the territory of the Second Polish Republic was divided between the two invaders. The eastern half of Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union. Soon afterward Moscow began a program of mass deportations of ethnic Poles as well as some Polish Jews, deep into...
If 1 of the heads of a Siamese Twin was to be choked/cut-off, would the other "head" die?	I'm not particularly qualified to answer this question, but I believe it would depend simply on the degree to which they were conjoined. Conjoined twins can be two wholly separate humans, only conjoined by a small area, such as sharing a leg or an arm, or can be highly conjoined, sharing one or more vital organs. Obvio...	[ "The first known example of separating conjoined twins happened in the Byzantine Empire in the 10th century when a pair of conjoined twins from Armenia came eventually to Constantinople. Many years later one of them died, so the surgeons in Constantinople decided to remove the body of the dead one. The result was p...
why are some gun calibers stronger than others, yet going by name 7.62mm is weaker than .338?	The caliber refers to the size of the projectile, not the amount of powder used to propel that projectile.	[ "Ballistics are similar to the .30-30 cartridge and its .308 caliber (7.62mm) bullet, but the larger diameter .321 (8.15 mm) bullet of the .32 WS will create a larger wound. However, given the same weight of bullet in both calibers, the .30 caliber would have a greater sectional density, and correspondingly greater...
Are there any wild animals that are showing signs of adapting to cars? IE: Looking both ways before crossing the street	Yes, in fact birds such as crows have been known to use cars to their advantage. They are able to learn when traffic stops and goes at lights and will then drop a hard nut into the road to be crushed by cars and wait for traffic to stop to retrieve the insides. So, not only some species adapting, some are using cars to...	[ "Common animals are eastern grey squirrels and skunks. There are two ways in which wildlife might be viewed here: as a control issue and as a recreational issue with conservation and education in mind. Deer can wander onto roads and into suburbs, so there is an annual Speeding Costs You…Deerly campaign for safe dri...
how does using cough medicine help your health?	It doesn't help your health, it simply suppresses your cough. IOW: It alleviates a symptom; it doesn't cure an infliction.	[ "According to the American Academy of Pediatrics the use of cough medicine to relieve cough symptoms is supported by little evidence and thus not recommended for treating cough symptoms in children. There is tentative evidence that the use of honey is better than no treatment or diphenhydramine in decreasing coughi...
what happens to dead bodies without any family or friends?	Depends on the state but if there is no will or estate left behind then they will usually be cremated. In my area if organ donors are found this way they sometimes make it to our forensic labs to help with decomp analysis or experimental use for high profile cases	[ "Human remains: According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), \"There is no direct risk of contagion or infectious disease from being near human remains for people who are not directly involved in recovery or other efforts that require handling dead bodies.” Most viruses and bacteria perish alon...
how did nail polish become a thing?	In Ancient Egypt and a few other ancient cultures the wealthy lacquered or otherwise painted their nails as a sign of status. The fact that they were able to afford the make-up and lived a leisurely enough life that they did not have to use their hands for labor thus breaking/damaging them was a major thing for the wea...	[ "Colored nail polish did not make an appearance until the 1920s. Early nail polish formulas were created using basic ingredients such as lavender oil, Carmine, oxide tin, and bergamot oil. It was more common to polish nails with tinted powders and creams, and finishing off by buffing the nail until left shiny. One ...
In WW2 did Germany control the food supply entering to and by how much the amount to Finland Sweden and Switzerland?	Yes and no. Sweden had a treaty with Britain and Germany ready at the outbreak of war to allow a certain number of ships through the British blockade and through the German minefields in the North Sea and Dogger's Banks. In theory, the Germans could strangle this trade after they had captured Norway in June 1940, but ...	[ "As Nazi Germany's war fortune waned, the Finnish government tried to reach a peace agreement with the Soviet Union in March 1944, which was not popular in Berlin; and hence food and munitions shipments from the Third Reich to Finland were once again discontinued in March 1944.\n", "In August 1944 Sweden determin...
why do humans seem to be the only animal that actively helps and feeds other strange* animals?	There are cases, noy entirely sure why(instinct?) but there are cases. For instance when X female mammal breastfeeds some other X mammal.	[ "Second, these animals are not tied to eating a specific type of food. For example, lynx do not thrive in human impacted environments because they rely so heavily on snowshoe hares. In contrast, raccoons have been very successful in urban landscapes because they can live in attics, chimneys, and even sewers, and ca...
if there was a nuclear strike, why wouldn't be able to make the missiles explode at a safer distance with a drone or a different missile?	ICBM's are extremely fast (upwards of Mach 23 on the LGM-30 Minuteman) towards the re-entry phase of the missile as it returns into earth's atmosphere. The best odds would be to strike one before it re-enters earths atmosphere which would involve creating military bases to track enemy projectiles and send out missile...	[ "By surrounding a nuclear warhead with dozens of such rods, each rod could be independently aimed to shoot down an enemy missile. A single such warhead might be able to destroy 50 missiles in a radius of a around it. A small fleet of such warheads could seriously disrupt any Soviet attack.\n", "Missiles could be ...
What is in the meat besides macronutrients and water?	That extra 75.5g is water. _URL_0_	[ "iFood (\"isotopic\" food) contains nutritients in which some atoms are replaced with their heavier non-radioactive isotopes (such as H or C). Biomolecules that incorporate heavier isotopes give rise to more stable molecular structures with increased resistance to damages associated with ageing or diseases. Medicin...
What is the earliest reference to inflation historically?	The pay increases of Roman legionaries imply inflation occurred in the imperial period. [Source](_URL_1_) for legionary pay over time. In addition the reforms to currency under Nero may have been a response to inflation (he reduced the weight of various coins, in theory devaluing them). Miriam Griffin discusses this I...	[ "In 1568 Jean Bodin (1530–1596) of France published \"Reply to Malestroit\", containing the first known analysis of inflation, which he claimed was caused by importation of gold and silver from South America, backing the quantity theory of money.\n", "By the nineteenth century, economists categorized three separa...
Why did building with stone never really take off in America?	I’m not quite sure where you’re getting the impression that the United States or it’s neighbors do not have stone houses. The US has plenty of stone construction for both residential (see colonial-style homes as a major example) and public (the US Capitol, for instance) buildings. Many older houses feature a stone foun...	[ "The use of concrete largely ended when the railroad arrived in 1876, bringing cheap lumber and the equipment needed for brick-making. The town had five brickworks, and the wooden buildings of downtown were completely replaced with brick by the beginning of World War I.\n", "Post-World War II the industry had to ...
why do so many game devs tie physics and other calculations to frame rate?	Because it's easier. There are two other options: 1) make physics and logic still tied to the actual framerate but scale it by the time between each frame 2) run physics seperately at a fixed rate and interpolate data when you render. So the FPS may be, say, 100, but physics calculations is still running 30 or 60 tim...	[ "Without this simulated effect each frame shows a perfect instant in time (analogous to a camera with an infinitely fast shutter), with zero motion blur. This is why a video game with a frame rate of 25-30 frames per second will seem staggered, while natural motion filmed at the same frame rate appears rather more ...
what happens in the us when a president dies?	You haven't been paying attention. When Gerald Ford died they closed the stock market on January 2, 2007. When Reagan died the markets were closed on June 11, 2004. Not a new thing. It's a national day of mourning so the markets are closed and flags will be half mast. They have been doing this since William McKinley di...	[ "If the president dies, resigns or is removed from office, the vice president automatically becomes president. Likewise, were a president-elect to die during the transition period, or decline to serve, the vice president-elect would become president on Inauguration Day. A vice president can also become the acting p...
why don't internet companies use the current electricity line infrastructure? you cant use the internet without electricity, so why not?	Not really cheaper. A couple outfits have tried it. The problem is that wiring for electricity isn't terrific for carrying high-speed data, and the filters/splitters/termination gear is expensive. It does have some uses in low-speed data, but it's not a likely candidate to replace coax, fiber, or even twisted pair da...	[ "Power-line Internet, also known as Broadband over power lines (BPL), carries Internet data on a conductor that is also used for electric power transmission. Because of the extensive power line infrastructure already in place, this technology can provide people in rural and low population areas access to the Intern...
why is it that, no matter which hotel i stay at, the hotel soap always seems to be the same in smell and dryness?	You probably stay at hotels in a similar price range, and over time they have polished their offerings to be rather similar -- in many cases even buying from the same suppliers -- because they know what the average customer wants. If you stay at posh hotels, the soaps vary a lot and are quite nice.	[ "Sea, brackish and other waters that contain appreciable amount of sodium ions (Na) interfere with the normal behavior of soap because of common-ion effect. In the presence of excess Na, the solubility of soap salts is reduced, making the soap less effective.\n", "Because of their intended use in wet and potentia...
do 100% blind people see any particular color even though they are blind? if so, what do they see and why?	I have read an interesting article about this. You might know there are some animals that have some sort of compass in their bodies. This way they can always sense what destination they are migrating at. Asking a blind-at-birth person what they see is like a migrating bird asking a human what they sense if they can't f...	[ "People who are not blind often imagine that people who are blind share a cultural identity in the way that other minority groups with shared experiences have a distinct culture. Various blind commentators have responded to this perception by explaining that more commonly, blind people integrate with the broader co...

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