question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Why do satellites' orbits degrade? | Atmospheric drag is the prime cause of orbital decay for satellites that orbit (comparatively) close to the Earth. The atmosphere does not stop abruptly at the edge of space; it tapers off gradually. There is still enough atmosphere at low orbital altitudes to gradually slow orbiting satellites through drag.
| [
"Orbital decay can occur due to tidal forces for objects below the synchronous orbit for the body they're orbiting. The gravity of the orbiting object raises tidal bulges in the primary, and since below the synchronous orbit the orbiting object is moving faster than the body's surface the bulges lag a short angle b... |
Were crowns ever altered? | Hi! I have an answer to an earlier question that I think will help you out:
* [What happened if the crown didn't fit?](_URL_0_)
Here's the most relevant bit:
[Some kingdoms did have crowns passed down from monarch to monarch, but rarely with importance attached to individual material crowns.] Crown-wearing was an ac... | [
"The image had originally featured a 12-point crown on the Virgin's head, but this disappeared in 1887–88. The change was first noticed on 23 February 1888, when the image was removed to a nearby church. Eventually a painter confessed on his deathbed that he had been instructed by a clergyman to remove the crown. T... |
If the early atmosphere didn't have an ozone layer, how did cyanobacteria survive to produce oxygen? | UV isn't necessarily completely lethal to cyanaobacteria. Modern day cyanobacteria actually have quite a few defense mechanisms against UV exposure.
[This website lists quite a few mechanisms](_URL_0_)
Some of which are living in communities where even if the top layer is extremely exposed, the layers below will stil... | [
"Some oxygen was stimulated by solar ultraviolet radiation to form ozone, which collected in a layer near the upper part of the atmosphere. The ozone layer absorbed, and still absorbs, a significant amount of the ultraviolet radiation that once had passed through the atmosphere. It allowed cells to colonize the sur... |
Arrows seem to be universal. Is there a time line of who/where invented the bow and arrow first. Or who when? | This is more of an archaeology question since bows are prehistoric. The oldest bow found is the 'Holmegaard bow' found in a bog in Denmark, dated from 7500BC. This is the earliest proof of a bow, but not the first. It just happened to survive because it was preserved in a bog. Earlier bows would have just rotted away, ... | [
"The bow and arrow are known to have been invented by the end of the Upper Paleolithic. Archery was an important military and hunting skill for over 10,000 year and figures prominently in the mythologies of many cultures.\n",
"The bow and arrow seems to have been invented in the later Paleolithic or early Mesolit... |
how is it that a googlemaps accessed thru a fixed broadband connection (adsl) can find my exact address on a map? | Your nexus 7 has GPS bro. | [
"The National Broadband Map was created by the NTIA and FCC. It was launched on February 17, 2011. It is a searchable database of information on high-speed Internet access. Although the map was in an early stage of development and contained errors, by entering specific addresses, users can acquire information on ho... |
how did seemingly uneducated individuals such as the wright brothers and john moses browning accomplish such feats of engineering? | A proper education is just formalizing the process of getting knowledge. Just because they didn't go to school for aerospace engineering doesn't mean they were clueless on the subject matter.
The levels of details and feats of engineering are completely different between back then and today. Back then they just needed... | [
"Benjamin Wright (October 10, 1770 – August 24, 1842) was an American civil engineer who was chief engineer of the Erie Canal and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. In 1969, the American Society of Civil Engineers declared him the \"Father of American Civil Engineering\".\n",
"Before engineering was recognized as a f... |
why is out of school suspension used as a punishment for students when getting out of school for a long period of time is almost generally enjoyed? | I have been teaching high school for the past 12 years. Over my career, my particular school has been increasing the number of in school suspensions and decreasing out of school suspensions. While completing a masters in administration I asked the principal why this was. His reply was, out of school suspension in the p... | [
"In academia, suspension (also known as temporary exclusion) is a mandatory leave assigned to a student as a form of punishment that can last anywhere from one day to several weeks, during which time the student is not allowed to attend regular school lessons\"===ISS/In-School Suspension===\n",
"Suspension or tem... |
st. thomas aquinas's argument from motion | It's the "first mover" argument that is still alive today. If things are "in motion" and we observe that things that are not in motion must be put in motion by an agent or actor, then if we regress back there must be a something that put the first motion in place. That must be god. | [
"There is a traditional connection between \"conatus\" and motion itself. Aquinas and Abravanel (1265–1321) both related the concept directly to that which Augustine (354–430 CE) saw to be the \"natural movements upward and downward or with their being balanced in an intermediate position\" described in his \"De Ci... |
what would happen to me if i were to drink only salt water? | You would definitely die. Your body cannot effectively filter the salt out of the saltwater and so your mental state would deteriorate, and you would dehydrate and die. | [
"Too much salt intake in adults can also occur from the drinking of seawater in survival situations or the drinking of soy sauce. Salt poisoning has also been seen in a number of adults with mental health problems.\n",
"Salt poisoning typically results in a feeling of confusion and jitteriness; more severe degree... |
Book suggestions for learning about the 30 Years War | Check out [The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson](_URL_0_) . I'm not a scholar and I'm obviously not flaired, but I read this book two years ago and, though it can be a bit of a slog, I haven't found anything better yet about the subject apart from primary sources. | [
"The book focuses on the causes of the French defeat in the Battle of France in 1940, and in part uses a relatively long-term view similar to that in his history scholarship (see Annales School). The main thesis of the book is that the French leadership failed to recognize that, since World War I, \"the whole rhyth... |
Where does kinetic energy go when mass is
destroyed? | First of all, it's easiest to imagine an object in its center of mass frame. Let's say you have a Carbon 14 nucleus at rest, and it beta decays into Nitrogen 14. Then you'll have the nitrogen nucleus moving one way, an electron moving faster in almost the opposite direction, and a neutrino moving even faster in a direc... | [
"Although mass cannot be converted to energy, in some reactions matter particles (which contain a form of rest energy) can be destroyed and the energy released can be converted to other types of energy that are more usable and obvious as forms of energy—such as light and energy of motion (heat, etc.). However, the ... |
why is java popular and why did google write android os in java? | > why did Google write android OS in Java?
It was written mostly in C, but also in C++, and some in other languages including Java. Only about 10% was written in Java.
| [
"Java is a set of computer software and specifications developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by the Oracle Corporation, that provides a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computin... |
what is that purplish gunk i spit out when i use the "crest" mouthwash? | You're talking about the Pro-Health stuff, right? The gunk you see is because that mouthwash is alcohol-free. Alcohol in traditional mouthwashes like Listerine is used to dissolve flavor oils and keep them mixed together. Without alcohol, this stuff separates.
Source: _URL_0_ | [
"Sanguinarine-containing mouthwashes are marketed as anti-plaque and anti-malodor. It is a toxic alkaloid herbal extract, obtained from plants such as \"Sanguinaria canadensis\" (Bloodroot), \"Argemone mexicana\" (Mexican Prickly Poppy) and others. However, its use is strongly associated with development of leukopl... |
Why does a fully gestated human baby seem so much less developed and lack the motor skills than the full term babies of other species? | It has to do with how the brain develops. If human babies were born at the equivalently developed time of other animals (particularly apes), it would be approximately 2-3 months later and they would have significantly larger heads. Obviously, this poses a problem for birthing. So human babies are born so helpless becau... | [
"The obstetrical dilemma also makes birth more difficult and results in increased maternal investment. Humans have evolved both bipedalism and large brain size. The evolution of bipedalism altered the shape of the pelvis, and shrunk the birth canal at the same time brains were evolving to be larger. The decreasing ... |
Why do Native Americans use English translations of their surnames instead of their indigenous languages? When and how did this custom start? | Piggyback question: why is *Tiger* such a popular name for the Miccosukee (and maybe the larger Seminole Nation)? There are no tigers in Florida, and panthers are exceedingly rare. | [
"Most names were received by English settlers who had little idea what they meant. Being naturally curious, they asked the natives what the names meant or conjectured among themselves or both. The natives were faced with having to explain the name in a language they knew but rudimentarily. They interpreted freely, ... |
Was Tsar Nicholas II responsible for his own downfall? | I actually had this question, in a slightly different form, on my Russian History final. The question there was: Did the Romanovs, Rasputin or historical forces lead to the collapse of the Tsarist regime. I will try to answer this as best as I can remember from that test (would be awesome if I had kept the test booklet... | [
"However he was critical of the monarchy in Russia. He believed that Nicholas II was to a large degree the one responsible for the collapse of Imperial Russia in 1917. His abdication and the subsequent abdication of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich were crucial mistakes which led to the abolition of monarchy and c... |
How does aging work? Did people age the same way 100 or 1000 years ago? | Aging was pretty much the same 100 and 1000 years ago. It's not exactly true that people didn't live as long hundreds of years ago. What's true is that the life expectancy was lower, but that was mainly due to much higher rates of death during infancy and childhood, and the lack of medicine to prevent people from dying... | [
"Age stratification is not a fixed phenomena, but rather varies with the passage of time and between cultures and populations. Shifting age structure of a population changes the age stratification. As life expectancy has increased dramatically in the last two centuries, the age strata by which people are characteri... |
why do women run differently compared to men? | Different pelvis & bone structure | [
"Women are also less likely to make the decision to run for office than men, despite having the same characteristics and qualifications. This is mainly due to two factors, the first is that women are less likely to be encouraged to run for office, and the second, women tend to view themselves less qualified for hol... |
how do interest work in a savings bank account? | Basically when you deposit money into a bank, the bank uses it to fuel their investments. The bank makes their money off of their investments. Since they are using your money to make their money, they give you a bit of the profits. But on savings accounts it is generally very low | [
"A savings account is a deposit account held at a retail bank that pays interest but cannot be used directly as money in the narrow sense of a medium of exchange (for example, by writing a cheque). These accounts let customers set aside a portion of their liquid assets while earning a monetary return. \n",
"A sav... |
What is stopping islands from eroding away? | Nothing. They do erode away. Here's one that went missing (i.e. eroded away) recently: [_URL_1_](_URL_1_)
Atolls are formed by erosion of the island: [_URL_0_](_URL_2_)
Of course, like all geological phenomena, it is a relatively slow process. There are other processes that create more islands (volcanic eru... | [
"Because Griend is unprotected by dykes, the island is slowly moving eastward. To prevent the island from vanishing altogether, some measures have been taken to protect it: along its southern edge, a few dams were built, and around 1990 the island was strengthened by building a low sand dyke along the north side. S... |
we were just taught how to calculate huge powers like 10^5 raised to the power 10^5 raised to the power something else. why do we need such numbers? | Huge numbers are needed to describe reality and do calculations about reality. For example, the mass of the Earth is around 6 x 10^24 kilograms. (Yes, doing physics means going Metric.) It's not just physics, either: in January 2016 the US National Debt stood at about $18.96 trillion. What's a "trillion"? Unless you as... | [
"In mathematics, a power of 10 is any of the integer powers of the number ten; in other words, ten multiplied by itself a certain number of times (when the power is a positive integer). By definition, the number one is a power (the zeroth power) of ten. The first few non-negative powers of ten are:\n",
"BULLET:::... |
what makes hot springs naturally hot? | Geothermal heating. Generally from a nearby source of magma heating the rocks. That's why Yellowstone has such a huge number of Geysers and hot springs, a good portion of the park sits atop a SuperVolcano.
EDIT: The Harrison Hot Springs in particular are situated on/near a tectonic border in a region called the Ring ... | [
"A hot spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater that rises from the Earth's crust. While some of these springs contain water that is a safe temperature for bathing, others are so hot that immersion can result in injury or death.\n",
"Warm springs are sometimes the result of ... |
Would a spherical magnet placed in the center of a hollow metal sphere stay in place? Details inside | Not an expert by any stretch, but I see one major issue with this scenario. What shape is the magnetic field of a spherical magnet? Is it possible to magnetize the small sphere so that one of the poles is at the center of the sphere and the other pole radiates in all directions? If so it seems that if all forces were b... | [
"Higher fields are possible by optimising the spherical design to take account of the fact that it is composed of point dipoles (and not line dipoles). This results in the stretching of the sphere to an elliptical shape and having a non-uniform distribution of magnetization over the component parts of the sphere. U... |
why are there always sales just before the financial year ends? | Because many people in the company have performance targets or even bonuses tied to revenue (or profit, or new customers, etc) in the fiscal year. So if the big day is approaching and they need a little bump to earn a bonus, then it's sale time.
Of course there is also the situation where its just being used as a mar... | [
"Sell in May and go away is an investment strategy for stocks based on a theory (sometimes known as the Halloween indicator) that the period from November to April inclusive has significantly stronger stock market growth on average than the other months. In such strategies, stocks are sold at the start of May and t... |
since i'm not a nielsen family, does pirating a show basically have the same effect as watching it on live tv? | With respect to TV ratings, if you're not participating in any special Nielsen Families (or related) program, then pirating would be effectively the same as watching the TV program live via antenna or via a passive cable/satellite tuner (e.g. using the QAM tuner built into your TV).
There are, however, cable/satellit... | [
"Hammocking is a technique used in broadcast programming whereby an unpopular television program is scheduled between two popular ones in the hope that viewers will watch it. This is especially used for new shows. Public broadcasting also uses this as a way of promoting serious but valuable content. Hammocking may ... |
how is uk's new surveillance law different from what data retention laws in the eu already allow the government to do? | A lot of it is basically legalising what GCHQ have been doing illegally for years - hacking devices and bulk collection of data. There are supposed safeguards againts misuse of these powers, but most people think they aren't enough and it'll essentially be a free-for-all.
> The law forces UK internet providers to s... | [
"The United Kingdom parliament its new laws increasing the power of data retention is essential to tackling crime and protecting the public. However, not all agree and believe that the primary objective in the data retention by the government is mass surveillance.\n",
"The act is also to ensure that communication... |
hiv/aids and why can't we kill it. | HIV is whats known as a retrovirus. Meaning every time it divides within you, it changes its receptors on the outer shell. When white blood cells produce antibodies for the original virus it has already changed. Because of this, there are many strains of the virus and vaccines are only able to protect you from one stra... | [
"The group's primary claim is that the existence of HIV (the human immunodeficiency virus) is not proven. A number of other claims follow from this one. The group acknowledges that AIDS exists, but denies that it is caused by HIV infection, producing a list of ten positions that attempts to criticize the establishe... |
are there any negative health consequences as a result of all the invisible waves (wifi, radio, x-ray ect.) that we are constantly exposed to? | X-rays are very rare to occur naturally, and the ones you get at the doctor are designed to be as low a dosage as possible.
As far as the long wavelengths like radio and infrared, it's precisely because they're longer that they do less damage. Regular colored light would do more damage to health than radio waves. | [
"This is a reference to the fact that very low doses of radiation have only marginal impacts on individual health outcomes. It is therefore difficult to detect the 'signal' of decreased or increased morbidity and mortality due to low-level radiation exposure in the 'noise' of other effects. The notion of radiation ... |
What prevents clouds from freezing solid falling as a solid chunk of ice? | A cloud is made up of liquid water droplets. A cloud forms when air is heated by the sun. As it rises, it slowly cools it reaches the saturation point and water condenses, forming a cloud. As long as the cloud and the air that its made of is warmer than the outside air around it, it floats! No there is nothing that pre... | [
"Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (about 10 μm in diameter) freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures lower than , because to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement similar to that in an ice lattice. Then the droplet... |
Is there an evolutional or functional difference between octopus intelligence and vertebrate intelligence? | Is there a difference in their intelligence? Not really, they have "intelligence" suited to their surrounding. They can't get much smarter than they are now (they can't really evolve in intelligence) as their blood-delivery is done via (I believe) copper, rather than the human's iron. This limits, physically, the amoun... | [
"Octopuses are highly intelligent, possibly more so than any other order of invertebrates. The level of their intelligence and learning capability are debated, but maze and problem-solving studies show they have both short- and long-term memory. Octopus have a highly complex nervous system, only part of which is lo... |
how do bathroom mirrors always get those little spots on them even if you literally never touch the mirror? | probably splashes from you brushing your teeth and washing your face and not wiping the mirror afterwards. | [
"There are also two pairs of mirrors in the museum, that are placed at an angle of 90 degrees in such a way that one cannot see one's own face but others can see. It was used by the Nawab to prevent predators from harming him, and was kept at a place so that the predator cannot see his face and think a mirror to be... |
When did water replace beer as the staple drink? | > I read that Beer/Cider/Wine was drunk as water to poor in quality to be drunk in middle ages.
This is frequently found in books (especially general readership books) but this can not be substantiated with primary sources and fails many logic tests.
The main point to consider is that poor water quality is a problem... | [
"In the United States, the popularity of bottled water declined in the early 20th century, when the advent of water chlorination reduced public concerns about water-borne diseases in municipal water supplies. However, it remained popular in Europe, where it spread to cafes and grocery stores in the second half of t... |
how does applying a foreign substance to a baseball (e.g. pine tar, vaseline, crisco) give the pitcher a competitive advantage over the hitter? why is it worth the risk? | If air is moving differently over one side of a moving object than the other, the object will get pushed sideways. It's the same principle that lets planes generate lift.
In baseball, the spin of the ball and the interaction of the laces with the air generates these effects, and makes the ball break. If you put somet... | [
"Pine tar is also sometimes used by pitchers to improve their grip on the ball in cold weather. This is allowed in spite of a regulation prohibiting the application of any foreign substance to a ball (except grip-improving Baseball Rubbing Mud applied by the umpires).8.02 Nevertheless batters feel it gives a pitche... |
Why does light not refract INSIDE different mediums? | Light refracts when there is a change in refractive index between mediums. Light does indeed refract within a medium because no real life medium is perfect in uniformity. Refractive indexes can change ever so slightly within different mediums. So if there were imperfections, the light would refract accordingly, but not... | [
"When light enters a material with higher refractive index, the angle of refraction will be smaller than the angle of incidence and the light will be refracted towards the normal of the surface. The higher the refractive index, the closer to the normal direction the light will travel. When passing into a medium wit... |
why do us american citizens have so little powers in controversial laws passed by congress? (i.e. gun control, raising of congressmen wages, etc.) | USA is more of a republic, not a democracy. We vote for (hopefully qualified) professionals to learn about laws, discuss, debate, and vote on our behalf. We essentially elect them to become educated on all of the important subjects so we don't end up with Joe Blow setting international policy. | [
"If Congress has felt its duty to do these things, why should it not also assume jurisdiction and enact laws to protect the lives of citizens of the United States against lynch law and mob violence? Are the rights of property, or what a citizen shall drink, or the ages and conditions under which children shall work... |
When was the arrow invented? As in a line/shape to indicate direction, not the weapon. | I admit that this is all conjecture based on my experience as an art student who specialized in print-making and typography, and years of experience in archery. I don't have much proof for this specific question other than knowledge of older representations of arrows indicating direction or attention (like bullet point... | [
"An early arrow symbol is found in an illustration of Bernard Forest de Bélidor's treatise \"L'architecture hydraulique\", printed in France in 1737. The arrow is here used to illustrate the direction of the flow of water and of the water wheel's rotation. \n",
"The bow and arrow seems to have been invented in th... |
Why were moors originally depicted as black by Europeans? | While there's always more to be said, this previous [answer](_URL_0_) by /u/sunagainstgold is a good start. | [
"As a large and diffuse ethnic group, the Moors consisted mostly of Berbers from Morocco and Western Algeria, sub-Saharan Africans from Mauritania, Northern Senegal, and Western Mali, Arab Bedouins, and Arab elite mostly from Yemen and Syria. Most writings on Moors applied darkness of skin as a trait for any and ev... |
How did Chicago grow as it did? | Meat, meat, and meat.
First, don't overlook Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes were crucial to the development of the region - shipping iron ore from Minnesota to Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to be smelted into steel using coke from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to be built into cars in Ohio and Detroit. While Chicag... | [
"During its first century as a city, Chicago grew at a rate that ranked among the fastest growing in the world. Within the span of forty years, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million by 1890. By the close of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world. Within f... |
why do we feel motivated after we are upset or angry? | Depends on where the motivation comes from. Sounds like it's from a place of retribution or to prove someone wrong. | [
"Anger causes a reduction in cognitive ability and the accurate processing of external stimuli. Dangers seem smaller, actions seem less risky, ventures seem more likely to succeed, and unfortunate events seem less likely. Angry people are more likely to make risky decisions, and make less realistic risk assessments... |
how does applying sunscreen regularly really help you age gracefully, considering that your skin cells constantly die and get replaced by new cells? | Because UVA rays damage the collagen layer below your skin, which acts as a sort of "support structure". This causes your skin to wrinkle and take on a "leathery" appearance. | [
"Photoaging has two main concerns: an increased risk for skin cancer and the appearance of damaged skin. In younger skin, sun damage will heal faster since the cells in the epidermis have a faster turnover rate, while in the older population the skin becomes thinner and the epidermis turnover rate for cell repair i... |
why do high end sports cars have scissor doors? is it just for aesthetics or is there a practical reason? | Typical high end sports car are much wider than regular car due to increased performance and the scissor door in high end sports car allow their owner to exit the vehicle easily even parked in between cars. By having the door opening up instead of traditionally outward, the owner would gain a lot more opening to get ou... | [
"The combination of hatchback-like shooting-brake design and collapsible rear seats gives the Ferrari FF a boot capacity of between . Luxury is the main element of the interior and the use of leather is incorporated throughout, just like the predecessors of the FF. Creature comforts like premium air conditioning, G... |
why companies choose advertising, sponsorships, expensive promotions, and blanket mailing over offering cheaper better service | Guess which one is more effective at making them money? **The one they are doing**. | [
"The principle of advertisement is basically to give a persuasive argument for a product then put it in front of the public. With the development of technology, it makes advertising much more easier. The word 'easier' means convenience and lower cost. In the past time, marketers usually printed the promotion messag... |
why are tote-bag apples cheaper than bulk apples? | Less labor, less materials, guaranteed purchase amount. That's probably the main 3.
What kind of tote? How would you suppose it arrives? If it's actually bulk apples that the workers put in on site from the same batch as the bulk tables, that leaves us with purchasing amounts. Stores make money when you buy more. They'... | [
"James Grieve apples used to be grown all over Europe and were delivered to the city markets via train or horse-and-cart, but because they bruised easily they had to be carefully packed in laundry-type wicker baskets filled with straw. The fruit cannot sustain modern supermarket handling, and so they are now only g... |
Why when I get an itchy throat, does my inner ear itch as well? | They're quite closely connected
_URL_0_ | [
"The phrase from which \"itching ears\" originates in the original Greek is κνηθόμενοι τὴν ἀκοήν (\"knēthomenoi tēn akoēn\"). κνηθόμενοι, the translation for \"having an itching ear\", is a present participle, signifying a present, continual action occurring.\n",
"Itch can originate in the peripheral nervous syst... |
hiring a lawyer | You'll have to focus your question a little, there are hundreds of specialties in law.
Contract law, criminal law, family law, intellectual property law, estate law, property law, etc.
And there are lawyers who specialize in certain things, like a trial. lawyer. | [
"A lawyer or attorney is a person who practices law, as an advocate, attorney, attorney at law, barrister, barrister-at-law, bar-at-law, canonist, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, counsellor, solicitor, legal executive, or public servant preparing, interpreting and applying law, but not as a para... |
2 questions for the geneticists | I think FISH *could* be considered optical mapping, though in general optical mapping is just done with a chromosomal stain and smashed chromosomes. I wouldn't consider old-school shotgun sequencing to be massively parallel sequencing though. I think the term is used more for the current Illumina, 454, and SOLID system... | [
"Geneticists are limited in how they can obtain data from human populations. As an example, consider a human characteristic. We are interested in deciding if the characteristic is inherited as a simple Mendelian trait. Following the laws of Mendelian inheritance, if the parents in a family do not have the character... |
why does airconditioning in my car consume gas but the headlights/radio does not? | The headlights and radio do consume gas (or if the engine is off they drain the battery, which is then recharged by burning gas later). They use a lot less than running the air con though, just because air con uses more energy. | [
"Because natural gas emits little pollutant when combusted, cleaner air quality has been measured in urban localities switching to natural gas vehicles Tailpipe can be reduced by 15–25% compared to gasoline, diesel. The greatest reductions occur in medium and heavy duty, light duty and refuse truck segments.\n",
... |
Why do we call it 'ancient Rome' and not ancient Italy? | Rome dominated the Italian peninsula in a way Athens never could. It was also unique in that the national identity of a region was tied to a single city. This was due to Rome's practice of granting citizenship to people who may have never seen the city. Since it was politicaly advantageous to be a Roman citizen it was ... | [
"On the other hand, according to Fomenko the word \"Rome\" is a placeholder and can signify any one of several different cities and kingdoms. He claims the \"First Rome\" or \"Ancient Rome\" or \"Mizraim\" is an ancient Egyptian kingdom in the delta of the Nile with its capital in Alexandria. The second and most fa... |
Quarks in Protons | You've asked a very good question, which will take a lot of description to answer in such a way that you'll be satisfied, but I'll do my best to make it understandable.
So, as you've mentioned, a proton is "made up of" three quarks (2 up and a down) and then are sort of "glued together" by a bunch of gluons. All of t... | [
"Protons are spin-½ fermions and are composed of three valence quarks, making them baryons (a sub-type of hadrons). The two up quarks and one down quark of a proton are held together by the strong force, mediated by gluons. A modern perspective has a proton composed of the valence quarks (up, up, down), the gluons,... |
why do people sell their things to pawn shops when they can sell it to auctions for a much better price? | You sell to a pawn shop when you need the cash right that second. You are facing eviction or want to keep the power on or need to buy drugs. It's for when you haven't got time for an auction. | [
"Although online auctions allow sellers to display their products, there is often a fee associated with such exhibitions. Other times, websites may charge a commission when products are sold. With the growing use of online auctions, the number of internet-related auction frauds have also increased. For instance, a ... |
what is a beta? | Can you be more specific? There are beta fish, beta phases of software, beta personalities/people, there's a letter of the Greek alphabet called beta, etc. which are you worried about? | [
"BETA is a pure object-oriented language originating within the \"Scandinavian School\" in object-orientation where the first object-oriented language Simula was developed. Among its notable features, it introduced nested classes, and unified classes with procedures into so called patterns.\n",
"BETA supports the... |
why does brown rice split open after it is boiled, but white rice doesn't? | White rice is just brown rice without the chaff or bran of the grain. The splitting it's this casing splitting open. White rice just doesn't have the casing. | [
"Brown rice is whole rice from which only the husk (the outermost layer) is removed. To produce white rice, the next layers underneath the husk (the bran layer and the germ) are removed leaving mostly the starchy endosperm.\n",
"Brown rice is a whole-grain rice with the inedible outer hull removed, white rice is ... |
why do many viruses that can kill you are hard to catch while less harmful ones are easy to catch but don't kill you | Because doctors and scientists have focused a great deal of effort making sure that viruses that can kill/debilitate you AND are easy to catch do not spread. This is mostly done through vaccines that provide herd immunity. If most people are immune to the virus, it is much harder for the virus to find suitable targets ... | [
"Because viruses use vital metabolic pathways within host cells to replicate, they are difficult to eliminate without using drugs that cause toxic effects to host cells in general. The most effective medical approaches to viral diseases are vaccinations to provide immunity to infection, and antiviral drugs that sel... |
would a human being from 5000 years ago look the same as a human being today, considering if it's from the same genus, species, subspecies? | Anatomically modern humans first appeared about 200,000 years ago. Behaviourally modern humans appeared about 40,000 years ago. Anatomically modern humans are physically the same as us, and as far as we know you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a modern human and a caveman from 200,000 BC just by lookin... | [
"Most scholars date the arrival of humans in Australia at 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, with a possible range of up to 125,000 years ago. The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa) are those of Mungo Man; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.\n",
"Recents estimates... |
Are Jungian archetypes similar to the Freudian psychological apparatus? | I believe Jung was referring to more of a "collective unconscious" than an individual one. Meaning these "archetypes" are sort of unconscious memories and knowledge passed down from our ancestors - almost like instincts are. Freud was talking more about an individual unconscious in the sense that the ego, id and supere... | [
"Carl Jung understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct. They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world... |
How exactly do we know how fast saturn is turning when it is all just gas? Do all layers of gas giants rotate at the same speed? How can we place a fixed point on a gas giant if its just one big sphere of gas? | The visible features of Saturn rotate at different rates depending on their latitude (distance from the equator). Astronomers have developed three different systems for measuring the rotational speed of Saturn. System I is for regions around the planet’s equator. The System I rotation speed is 10 hours and 14 minutes. ... | [
"BULLET::::- Rotation rate of Saturn: Why does the magnetosphere of Saturn exhibit a (slowly changing) periodicity close to that at which the planet's clouds rotate? What is the true rotation rate of Saturn's deep interior?\n",
"BULLET::::- Rotation rate of Saturn: Why does the magnetosphere of Saturn exhibit a (... |
Why aren't there any bacteria which can process food in cold temperatures (quickly)? | The speed of chemical reactions, including the enzymatic reactions of life, decrease by about a half for every ten degrees C drop in temperature. Cold-adaption usually involves changes to the composition of plasma membranes, so the organisms will always be slow in the cold. | [
"The temperature range in which food-borne bacteria can grow is known as the danger zone. Food safety agencies, such as the United States' Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSiIS), define the danger zone as roughly . The FSIS stipulates that potentially hazardous food should not be stored at temperatures in this ... |
how is a neuron conneted to so many others? | Dendrites and axons. These appendages are what communicate to other cells and other neurons. They can also be very long. Axons can be feet long, giving lots of room for large networks. | [
"A multipolar neuron (or multipolar neurone) is a type of neuron that possesses a single axon and many dendrites (and dendritic branches), allowing for the integration of a great deal of information from other neurons. These processes are projections from the nerve cell body. Multipolar neurons constitute the major... |
Did the Korean War increase the West's interest of Korean culture? Did it lead to more or less exportation of Korean culture? | I used to have a really good lesson plan for APUSH on how the Korean War was viewed by Americans in the 1950's, but for the life of me, I can't seem to find the damn thing.
The long and short of it is that the Korean War is called "America's forgotten war" for a [reason](_URL_2_). Returning GIs desperately wanted to f... | [
"It is hoped by some commentators that the surging popularity of Korean culture across Israel and Palestine may serve as a bridge over the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported that some Israeli and Palestinian K-pop fans see themselves as \"cultural missionaries\" and actively i... |
As objectively as possible, what was Andrew Jackson's beef with the second national bank, such that dismantling it became such a point of pride for him? | The problem was with the Bank itself. You can't compare this bank to the modern Federal Reserve system, because the US Government controls the modern Fed completely, and the US Government only owned 20% of the Second Bank of the United States. The bank was even more powerful than the current Fed in some ways though. I... | [
"When Jackson entered the White House in March 1829, dismantling the Bank was not part of his reform agenda. Although the President harbored an antipathy toward all banks, several members of the president's initial cabinet advised a cautious approach when it came to the B.U.S. Throughout 1829, Jackson and his close... |
Since being nervous raises your heart rate, does it have the same benefits as exercise? | While the two activities will both raise your heart rates, there are many other physiological differences between the two activities. When you exercise, your heart rate increases rather gradually, at least at a rate in which your body can withstand (most of the time). Nervousness brings about a very sudden increase in ... | [
"Regular exercise makes these systems more efficient by enlarging the heart muscle, enabling more blood to be pumped with each stroke, and increasing the number of small arteries in trained skeletal muscles, which supply more blood to working muscles. Exercise improves not just the respiratory system but the heart ... |
how do countries get rid of nuclear warheads when they decide they no longer want/need them? | They take them apart and mix the plutonium with a ceramic forming a fuel pellet. These pellets are then shipped to the correct type of nuclear reactor and used as nuclear fuel.
A lot of Soviet and American warheads dismantled due to treaties ended up as fuel in Canadian nuclear reactors as the two powers didn't trus... | [
"Nuclear targets can be attacked at any time, and doing so retards or even eliminates the development of that country's nuclear program (which then continues as before, but from its reduced development level). However, if the country has a mushroom cloud icon in place of a nuclear installation icon, this means that... |
Was Hitler's political success a result of his own skill and maneuvering, or simply Germans' desire for any strong leader and unified voice? | Put very succinctly, a little from Column A and a little from Column B.
On the phone in class atm, so can't be all that detailed (and I hope someone weighs in with considerably more detail) but suffice to say Hitler was not the only one deeply offended by the punitive measures of Versailles, by the 'threat' of the Jew... | [
"Hitler's leadership style was to give contradictory orders to his subordinates and to place them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped with those of others, to have \"the stronger one [do] the job\". In this way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinat... |
the rate at which muscles lose strength and size after halting a consistent exercise program? | Inactivity does not take long to have it's effects on muscles. Regardless of how consistently one has previously worked out, it will only take a few weeks of inactivity for muscle to lose size/power. Muscles require a lot of energy to maintain | [
"In order to minimize injury and maximize results, the novice begins at a comfortable level of muscular intensity and advances towards overload of the muscles over the course of the exercise program. Progressive overload requires a gradual increase in volume, intensity, frequency or time in order to achieve the tar... |
how do people determine the artist of a song and the featured artist of a song? | If you were making an album and invited me to sing parts of a song on it you'd be the artist and I'd be the featured guest. If it was my album and you came to rap part of a song I'd be the artist and you'd be the feature. It all depends on who is releasing the song as part of their catalog. | [
"BULLET::::- All artists who are mentioned in song credits are listed here; this includes one-time pairings of otherwise solo artists and those appearing as \"featured\" (for example, for \"It's All Love!\", both Kumi Koda and Misono receive a mention each).\n",
"Artists are listed alphabetically and separately i... |
When did the elite (or people not under labor) start weight training in order to counter the effects of a more relaxed lifestyle? | I'm going to politely disagree with theamazinghanna, who I am sure is in fact amazing. It's true that what we recognize as current weightlifting culture is a creation of the fitness craze of the 1970s. But if we're not talking about weightlifting solely, there was a fitness and health craze in the 1890s, one that man... | [
"During the 1980s, the science of conditioning and workouts greatly improved. Weight rooms and training equipment were improved. Trainers and doctors developed better diets and regimens to make athletes bigger, healthier, and stronger than they had ever been.\n",
"Until the 20th century, the history of strength t... |
how do films and shows make people appear on fire without causing injury? | If you ever visit one of the Universal Studios parks, they demonstrate this technique as part of their special effects/stunt shows. It's a little surreal watching a guy literally on fire 10 feet in front of you, but they explain a lot of the methods used to make it safe.
Basically, the stuntpeople are wearing as much... | [
"This can also involve the depiction of disturbing or horrifying events or actions to draw the attention of viewers, or to force them to consider the events depicted at a personal level. Examples in war films would include a scene of a military hospital with patients with severe or gory wounds, a shot of a battlefi... |
During reconstruction, did Virginia ever claim that it should be allowed to reabsorb West Virginia? Did the succession of West Virginia make it federally legal for regions to succeed from states? | After the war, Virginia never directly challenged the legitimacy of West Virginia but did dispute whether two counties in particular (i.e. Berkely and Jefferson Counties) belonged to West Virginia. These two were disputed because there were concerns regarding the elections held for secession. When most of the counties ... | [
"The Restored Government of Virginia was created after the Wheeling Convention (heavily attended by representatives of counties served by the B&O railroad), and ultimately the state of West Virginia was recognized in 1863. Additional Supreme Court litigation concerning West Virginia's constitution would continue un... |
why do screens often have odd pixel amounts like 1080 or 1440? why not even number like 1000 or 1400? | > There are historical reasons:
> Back in the day, analogue television had limited bandwidth. They used that bandwidth as well as they could and came up with a standard to transmit luminace and chrominance plus audio in that limited bandwidth. Later, when color TV was invented, they had to retrofit more chrominance i... | [
"The graphics mode simply made all pixels directly addressable. This translated to a resolution of not 720×350, but only 720×348 pixels (at 1 bit per pixel) because, for technical reasons (see Programming below), the screen height had to be a multiple of four. On a , which was the most common back then, the pixel r... |
why are speakers arranged with woofers on the bottom and tweeters on top? | Two reasons. First, subs are heavier because they have thicker membrane and bigger coils. The second one I can't explain that well in English, so I'll have to keep it at low-frequency noises tend to be less directional so it's not important to have them at head-height. This is also why tweeters are slightly tipped when... | [
"A woofer is a driver that reproduces low frequencies. The driver works with the characteristics of the enclosure to produce suitable low frequencies (see speaker enclosure for some of the design choices available). Indeed, both are so closely connected that they must be considered together in use. Only at design t... |
Can everyone be good at any instrument they like, or do you need to have some degree of talent? | Not commenting as my tag - but as someone who plays three instruments.
Practice is the #1 factor to becoming good at anything - however, certain physical traits can also be a factor.
For example, in playing piano and organ it is an advantage to having longer fingers, rather than shorter fingers.
For instruments like... | [
"Her advice for young musicians is to determine what they want to do and then work hard at it. It is important to learn good technique with a serious teacher. It is also important to think about musical interpretation. She noted, \"Don't be a robot--technique is one thing, but without the heart, the soul, the music... |
Why does the the spicy taste seem to stay around longer than all of the other tastes? | The hotness of spicy tastes is not sensed using taste buds: it's essentially a burn-like irritation that directly stimulates the nerve fibers. This is an example of [chemesthesis](_URL_0_). Not quite sure why the sensation persists longer, though. | [
"There is a general belief that eating spicy food and chili pepper in particular heats up passion, but as Jon Bonné says in an article on MSNBC, \"it's a big leap from heat in the mouth to heat between the sheets.\" The penile shape Bonné signals is confirmed by Michael Albertson and Ellen Albertson in their book \... |
What planets were known to non-Western cultures before modern telescopes, and what names did they give them? | [This is a nice site](_URL_0_) featuring the possibilities in a wide variety of languages (including Klingon!). In general, people were aware of the planets out to and including Saturn, but not beyond. Words for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are based either on the living languages adoption of terms or the names of the go... | [
"BULLET::::- 2nd millennium BC – Babylonian astronomers identify the inner planets Mercury and Venus and the outer planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which would remain the only known planets until the invention of the telescope in early modern times.\n",
"The seven classical planets are those easily seen with the... |
could different races of humans (asian, black, caucasian, hispanic, etc.) be classified as different breeds (such as labradors, retrievers, terriers, etc. for dogs and other animals)? why/why not? | Biologically there are no Human Races but one. However the genetical difference between Dog "races" is still much bigger then between Human "races" so the classification as breeds like with Dogs is just as inappropriate as the classification in races. | [
"Guessing a mixed-breed's ancestry can be difficult even for knowledgeable dog observers, because mixed-breeds have much more genetic variation than purebreds. For example, two black mixed-breed dogs might each have recessive genes that produce a blond coat and, therefore, produce offspring looking unlike their par... |
Segregation in Ptolemaic Egypt | NOOOOO!
This was only thing that bugged me more than the portrayal of Cleopatra. AC:O is amazing but the game's portrayal of social divides in Ptolemaic Egypt along ethnic and racial lines is inaccurate in many ways. For one thing ethnic segregation was never enforced in Egypt because it would just be impossible and i... | [
"\"Some anthropologists and historians much better informed than I am point out that segregation is as old as the hills. The Egyptians practiced it on the Israelites; the Greeks did likewise for the barbarians; the Romans segregated the Syrians; the Chinese segregated all foreigners; segregation is said to have pro... |
what's so special about minecraft? | It's like legos. End of story. | [
"\"Minecraft\" is a 3D sandbox game that has no specific goals to accomplish, allowing players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. However, there is an achievement system. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option for third-person perspective. The ga... |
why do some businesses not tell you their prices for services or merchandise up front. | I do this. For one of my products (I sell medical equipment) customers often jump to "How much does it cost". Our equipment creates hard savings for a hospital (versus "soft savings", like labor, ease of use, etc).
I dont want to tell them what it costs as it positions the solution incorrectly. I deflect as best possi... | [
"Most businesses sell their items, whether they are expensive automobiles, or inexpensive services based upon price. They do this not because it is the most profitable, but because they believe it is the easiest way to attract customers. Consumers and Business-to-Business buyers alike may be easily enticed to buy b... |
Are we the only intelligent life? | Although young, the universe is also very, very big, and very, very varied. The likelihood of us being the only sentient creatures in the universe is incredibly small, and dare I say it, quite self-centered of us to think so.
If you are interested in an estimate, the [Drake Equation](_URL_0_), courtesy of Frank Drake,... | [
"It is possible that even if complex life is common, intelligence (and consequently civilizations) is not. While there are remote sensing techniques that could perhaps detect life-bearing planets without relying on the signs of technology, none of them has any ability to tell if any detected life is intelligent. Th... |
What nation, instead of having been defeated in a war, might be more powerful today if it were victorious? | I have a feeling most countries, had they won the war they actually lost, would be stronger than they are today. For example, had Germany won WWI, there would've been no need for Nazi Germany. Had Germany won WWII, then that means Britain, the US, the Soviet Union and most of Europe would've lost too. There are a lot o... | [
"An even distribution of political, economic, and military capabilities between contending groups of states is likely to increase the probability of war; peace is preserved best when there is an imbalance of national capabilities between disadvantaged and advantaged nations; the aggressor will come from a small gro... |
Does environmental temperature have any effect on how quickly a fire spreads? | Yes, but moreso because Arizona is very dry when it's 90 degrees out. A muggy jungle at 100% humidity wouldn't burn any faster at 90 degrees, although it would be pretty unpleasant for firefighters nonetheless. | [
"In some regions, changes in temperature and precipitation are projected to increase the frequency and severity of fire events. Forest and bush fires cause burns, damage from smoke inhalation and other injuries.\n",
"Wind speed and land slope, like a mountain where the Beaver Creek Fire took place, influences fir... |
Why do things diffuse? | Molecular motion is random, and any given particle has (approximately) equal chance of heading at _any_ direction. If you set up a barrier, where there are more particles of one type on one side than another (for sample, salt concentration), you'll find that there are more particles moving in one direction than the oth... | [
"\"Diffuse interreflection\" is a process whereby light reflected from an object strikes other objects in the surrounding area, illuminating them. Diffuse interreflection specifically describes light reflected from objects which are not shiny or specular. In real life terms what this means is that light is reflecte... |
how come when you practice something for so long in one session, you start to get worse at it? | In a word, fatigue. You get tired both mentally and physically (even if you don’t immediately feel so) which hinders performance. | [
"How well one improves with practice depends on several factors, such as the frequency it is engaged in, and the type of feedback that is available for improvement. If feedback is not appropriate (either from an instructor or from self-reference to an information source), then the practice tends to be ineffective o... |
how a "turbo" charger for a cell phone works and why it is better or worse than usb 3.0 | Okay, because the other answers are making a mistake, I'm making my answer with it fixed:
USB limits the amperage, which is basically the "amount" of electrons that goes through. More of them make it charge faster, but because USB wasn't made to charge things; instead, it was made to transmit information; it limits th... | [
"For faster charging, dedicated chargers can be built in permanent locations and provided with high-current connections to the grid. In this style of connection, the charger's DC output has no effective limit, theoretical or practical. Such high voltage and high-current charging is called a DC fast charge (DCFC) or... |
What shape is a photon? | Strictly speaking, it's a point without any physical size, as are all elementary particles. But realistically, all excitations of fields aren't "real" particles, they only behave as such in certain processes.
If you, for whatever reason, absolutely need to give it a non-trivial shape, a sphere with size of roughly its... | [
"can be described as having right or left circular polarization, or a superposition of the two. Equivalently, a photon can be described as having horizontal or vertical linear polarization, or a superposition of the two.\n",
"A photon is massless, has no electric charge, and is a stable particle. A photon has two... |
What was the Ancient Greek name for the Delian League? And did they have a symbol, or banner they flew? | There was no name for the group, at least not as preserved in the sources. "Delian League" is a modern terminology based on the fact that Delos was the de facto headquarters of the alliance. Thucydides (1.97) essentially calls it a *hegemonia* and distinguishes that term from what the group would become later -- an *... | [
"The Delian League, founded in 478 BC, was an association of Greek city-states, with the number of members numbering between 150 and 330 under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasio... |
why is liquid nitrogen cold and is it possible to make it warm? | Let's take water as an example here for a moment.
Water is a liquid at room temperature, but if you heat it up it becomes a gas that we call steam. If you make water cold it becomes a solid which we call ice.
These changes in state occur because of temperature.
Nitrogen gas undergoes the same changes in state as wat... | [
"The culinary use of liquid nitrogen is mentioned in an 1890 recipe book titled \"Fancy Ices\" authored by Mrs. Agnes Marshall, but has been employed in more recent times by restaurants in the preparation of frozen desserts, such as ice cream, which can be created within moments at the table because of the speed at... |
the three branches of government. | Alright my little 5 year old.
Your kindergarten class is run by a teacher, right? Set sets all the rules for your class, is the one who makes sure the rules are followed, and judges the situation in which the rules are applied.
Your teacher is an authoritarian (though benevolent) dictator, who has the sole authority ... | [
"The Government consists of three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The Executive branch consists of the Cabinet and is led by the Prime Minister. It is totally independent of the legislative branch that consists of a bicameral parliament. The Upper House is the Senate whilst the National Assembly is t... |
how do some people have perfect pitch and others are tone deaf? | Inside your ear, there is a structure called the cochlea that houses specialized hairs that detect sound. Each hair is tuned like a tuning fork for a specific pitch or frequency of sound. Therefore, the hair only vibrates when it "hears" or is stimulated with that frequency of sound.
Our bodies are all unique. Some pe... | [
"Tone deafness is characterized by the inability to discriminate between different pitches, which are directly related to the frequencies of sound waves. Tone deafness is a related, but distinct disorder from beat deafness. People with tone deafness can recognize beat and can move in time to music, but they cannot ... |
why do drug addicts bend syringe needles? | So that they don't get reused. No one wants dirty needles in circulation, so they destroy them. | [
"Needle sharing is the practice of intravenous drug-users by which a syringe is shared by multiple individuals to administer intravenous drugs, and is a primary vector for diseases which can be transmitted through blood (blood-borne pathogens). People who inject drugs (PWID) are at an increased risk for Hepatitis C... |
how do we know how much to chew? | You don't start out knowing. You learn around the age of 2 and as your throat grows you learn to gradually take in as much as you can swallow. Some people don't learn and eat very slowly.
2 year olds put more than they can swallow into their mouths all the time. They tend to spit it out when they realize it's too muc... | [
"Doses for chewing vastly exceed doses used for smoking. By calculating the concentrations per leaf (\"an average concentration of 2.45 mg per gram\" of leaf), the average weight per leaf (\"about 50 g\" per 20 leaves, or 2.5g/leaf), and the standard dose for chewing (about 8-28 leaves), the doses can range from ab... |
Can I achieve zero speed? What would happen to time? | The takeaway message people get when reading about relativity is "weird shit happens when you go really fast," but that's not the important lesson. The important lesson is that all rest frames are equivalent, none are privileged. So, in your reference frame, you are sitting on your chair moving at zero velocity, and in... | [
"Both for human and artificial intelligence, hardware improvements increase the rate of future hardware improvements. Oversimplified, Moore's Law suggests that if the first doubling of speed took 18 months, the second would take 18 subjective months; or 9 external months, whereafter, four months, two months, and so... |
is uranium glass not radioactive and dangerous to use? | Is it radioactive? Yes.
Is it dangerous? No.
The amount of radiation that would be given off by the small amounts of uranium seeded in the glass (remember, glass is basically melted sand, so you just mix some uranium into the sand, melt it down into glass) would be negligible to cause harmful effects. Glass is very s... | [
"BULLET::::- Uranium (0.1% to 2%) can be added to give glass a fluorescent yellow or green colour. Uranium glass is typically not radioactive enough to be dangerous, but if ground into a powder, such as by polishing with sandpaper, and inhaled, it can be carcinogenic. When used with lead glass with a very high prop... |
how millionaires and billionaires keep their cash that isn't invested. isn't it dangerous to store all your cash over $250,000 in one bank? | Most millionaires and billionaires keep the majority of their wealth in investments, not cash. It's how they get richer without doing necessarily as much work. What liquid cash they have, they likely keep in multiple banks, not just one. | [
"The Millionaires is a novel written by Brad Meltzer examining the inner workings of private banking. After taking $3,000,000 from an abandoned account, brothers Oliver and Charlie Caruso are forced to escape the Secret Service. According to WorldCat, the book is in 2191 libraries \n",
"Author Ric Edelman writes:... |
I'm writing a short paper about the debate on geographic determinism. What sources should I read aside from Jared Diamond? | hi! you might try skimming this section of the FAQ; there are a few external references mentioned/linked here & there
* [Historians' views of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel"](_URL_0_) | [
"Inspired by the works of David Landes, Jared Diamond and Jeffrey Sachs, considered as “champions of the rediscovery of geography”, the book is the result of “a series of studies on the influence of geography\n",
"In Jared Diamond's book review on The New York Review of Books, he points out the narrow focus of th... |
if one were to strike a match on every planet in the solar system, what would the resulting flame look like? | Mercury: Nothing. No Oxygen means no fire, and matches do not contain their own oxidizer.
Venus: Doesn't really matter that there is too little ambient oxygen, the match is already destroyed either by the heat breaking down the large organic molecules, sulphuric acid rain, etc...
Mars: Similar to Mercury. While Mars ... | [
"Because the fireball was recorded by two cameras of the European Fireball Network, it was possible to calculate the trajectory of its flight through the atmosphere, and afterward also the characteristics of both its pre- and post-encounter orbit in the Solar System. The calculations were published by Czech astrono... |
Where does the brightness difference in saturns ring come from? | It's hard to get your mind around Saturn's rings. They're about 30 feet thick and 175,000 miles wide. Imagine doing a spacewalk on the sunlit side of the rings. Close up they'd look like a huge field of ice and rock stretching to infinity. You could 'stand' on them and see a horizon that was apparently infinite, with S... | [
"The brightness of the Saturn system depends on the orientation of its ring system. The rings contribute more to the overall brightness of the system when they are more inclined to the direction of illumination from the Sun and to the view of the observer. Wide open rings contribute about one magnitude of brightnes... |
What did the native English look like? | Your first sentence, though commonly held, is thought to be debunked by genetic evidence. The modern English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish are genetically very similar, almost to the point of being identical. The idea of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes immigrating to Britain in vast numbers and displacing the native Celts* s... | [
"New England in the early 17th century when English colonists first landed was tenanted by variously named tribes for the most part speaking languages of the Algonquian family. Our aboriginals spoke an eastern branch of the group. It often happened that whole regions were named after the tribe inhabiting it, such a... |
Who are the Indigenous people of Palestine? | > I want an unbiased answer of which group has the right of ownership of the land?
I feel this is your real question, the heart of the matter, and that's something no one in this subreddit can answer. Who can say that people even have the rights to the land? Who's to say the original inhabitants deserve the rights? T... | [
"While Palestinian culture is primarily Arab and Islamic, many Palestinians identify with earlier civilizations that inhabited the land of Palestine. According to Walid Khalidi, in Ottoman times \"the Palestinians considered themselves to be descended not only from Arab conquerors of the seventh century but also fr... |
The CCP under Mao apparently introduced Traditional Chinese Medicine in its modern form with intent to replace it with 'Western' evidence-based medicine over time, yet TCM remains broadly popular. Did the latter part of the plan just not succeed, or are there other reasons for TCM's resilience? | follow up: could you elaborate on "in its modern form"? what's different between that and the *old* TCM? | [
"TCM has been the subject of controversy within China. In 2006, the Chinese scholar Zhang Gongyao triggered a national debate when he published an article entitled \"Farewell to Traditional Chinese Medicine\", arguing that TCM was a pseudoscience that should be abolished in public healthcare and academia. The Chine... |
Is there truly no mention of Jesus Christ in Roman writings? | False. Jesus is mentioned twice by the historian Josephus.
Specifically, he says:
> [...] so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of **Jesus, who was called Christ**, whose name was James, and some others [...]
(Antiquities of the Jews Book 20, Chapter 9, 1)
Before that he wrot... | [
"Ehrman surveys the arguments Christ mythicists have made against the existence of Jesus since the idea was first mooted at the end of the 18th century. To the objection that there are no contemporary Roman records of Jesus' existence, Ehrman points out that such records exist for almost no one and there are mentio... |
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