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train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
how do sodium and potassium help aid in hydration?	You're on the right track with the sodium-potassium pump in relation to how muscle utilize the electrolytes. For actual "hydration", sodium and potassium don't directly help with hydration. As muscles do their thing, and your body sweats, it loses electrolytes (sodium, potassium, etc) so drinking fluids with those he...	[ "Sodium citrate is used to relieve discomfort in urinary-tract infections, such as cystitis, to reduce the acidosis seen in distal renal tubular acidosis, and can also be used as an osmotic laxative. It is a major component of the WHO oral rehydration solution.\n", "Sodium bisulfate is used primarily to lower pH....
How violent were the Middle Ages in England? Was crime and violent crime more common than in subsequent periods?	I'm a history student and this was one of the questions we got asked this year in our 'History of Violence' module. This probably isn't the answer you wanted to receive but to be honest it's difficult to say, because it depends how you look at it. For example, there was a lot more a risk of being murdered as you went ...	[ "Medieval Europe in the fourteenth century had already experienced widespread social violence, and even acts then punishable by death such as rape and murder were demonstrably far more common (especially relative to the population), compared to modern times.\n", "At the end of the 1700s, cases of deadly violence ...
Historians of China: Are there any books you recommend on the history of taoism?	Well, you are in luck, because the quality and number of English language books on daoism in China has increased significantly in recent years. My own journey with daoism (which began about twenty years ago) was much more circuitous than it could have been just ten or fifteen years later. More in a moment. Just h...	[ "The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism is a book written by Max Weber, a German economist and sociologist. It was first published in German under the title Konfuzianismus und Taoismus in 1915 and an adapted version appeared in 1920. An English translation was published in 1951 and several editions have bee...
do abusive parents produce abusive children, or submissive ones?	In cases of abused children, generally you end up with both situations arising. If a child is abused they can start to self identify as a victim and start to display learned helplessness - a state where they are convinced that no matter what they do, they're going to still be victimized and terrible things will continu...	[ "Child abuse is a complex phenomenon with multiple causes. No single factor can be identified as to why some adults behave abusively or neglectfully toward children. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) identify multiple factors at the ...
can someone please explain exactly what a 'realist' person is?	A realist is best seen as an opposite to an 'idealist' (someone who is focused on ideals rather than the practicalities of life). A realist therefore views the world "as it is" and doesn't see it in idealised or romanticised way. Hope that helps!	[ "BULLET::::- Realist: A realist tries to have good relationships with other people because he or she acquires his or her sense of being through others’ acknowledgement. She or he is considerate of other people and caters well to others because she or he does not like big changes or conflicts, but also goes through ...
Historians: What recently available source/material are you most excited about?	Rather dully, I'm most excited about a database. _URL_0_ - the National Archives recently made the (searchable) writings and correspondence of the U.S. "Founding Fathers" available for free online. I don't study the Founding Fathers, but it's already proving to be a tremendous resource. The annotations and biographi...	[ "Historical source (also known as historical material or historical data) is original source that contain important historical information. These sources are something that inform us about history at the most basic level,and these sources used as clues in order to study history.\n", "The Manuscripts and Archives ...
why do some large, multimillion dollar companies have so much trouble making a website that works well on mobile ?	There are a lot of potential aspects to this, but I'm a software developer who used to work for a giant digital agency making those multi-million dollar sites, and it is insane how much overhead and waste there is with companies that throw that kind of money around. One of my last projects before I left, a company lit...	[ "A major factor in the success or failure of this business model is in the control of costs, as usually maintaining a physical presence —paying for many physical store premises and their staffing— requires larger capital expenditure which online only businesses do not usually have. Conversely, a business selling mo...
how do domesticated pets know they're pregnant, especially that they're not surrounded by a community of themselves who might be familiar with pregnancy?	A cat I had apparently didn't know. She started squatting in her kitty litter for the first one. I moved her and when it was out I had to turn her nose around to get a whiff. That's all it took and her instincts took over so she started cleaning it and had several more. She knew to lay down to let them nurse.	[ "Rachel Hunter: \"'There's this thing people say that the child won't know its mother if it has a nanny and that's rubbish! I know dogs and babies are different, and I had a Great Dane at home in Auckland, and I left her when she was quite young because I had to go back to England for months, and she knew who I was...
Could natives of British colonies migrate between each other and to England?	The first serious emigration from what you describe as the colonies to the UK took place post American War of Independence with American loyalists arriving in the UK. Subsequent to that immigration to the UK from the colonies was mostly that of seamen, mostly from the sub continent, "paying off" ships in the UK and, so...	[ "By 1914, Europeans had migrated to the colonies in the millions. Some intended to remain in the colonies as temporary settlers, mainly as military personnel or on business. Others went to the colonies as immigrants. British people were by far the most numerous population to migrate to the colonies: 2.5 million set...
Who where the first people to establish the theory of evolution?	Ooooh, I got this!! The roots of what we consider evolutionary theory really begin with the theory of "unity of composition" proposed by Etienne Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (zoology professor at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France) in the 1830's. He basically said that all animal body plans could be reduced to ...	[ "The Theory of Evolution is a book by English evolutionary biologist and geneticist John Maynard Smith, originally published in 1958 in time for 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the centenary of the publication of \"The Origin of Species\" the following year. It serves as a general introduction ...
Is it possible to connect nerve cells to electrical wires?	I can comment on the electrical side of this question, but not the biological side. From an electrical standpoint - sure, it's possible. It wouldn't be an ordinary circuit, of course. I suspect that the best bet would be to try and setup (highly sensitive) inductive coupling between nerves and a nearby sensor. ...	[ "Electrical synapses are more common in the central nervous system than previously thought. Thus, rather than functioning as individual units, in some parts of the brain large ensembles of neurons may be active simultaneously to process neural information. Electrical synapses are formed by gap junctions that allow ...
How was (Roman) Catholicism treated under British rule between roughly 1700 up to WW2?	Catholics in Ireland certainly were oppressed. Big time. There is a famous phrase that stems from the famine days called "taking the soup" This was basically you had two choices: starve or convert to Church of England. This is called souperism. Basically if you decided not to starve it was called taking the soup. Cit...	[ "Although numerous Irish Catholic and Protestant soldiers and units had served in the British Army before the 19th Century, Catholicism had actually been outlawed in England and Ireland since the Reformation, and Ireland itself was nominally a separate state, the Kingdom of Ireland, ruled by a mostly-Protestant Bri...
What holds empires together ?	This is the question that destroys the image of Empires as being inherently evil states; why did so many people not only accept being part of an Empire but actively take part in them? Was it because the majority of humanity is/was evil or complacent? Or is it because Imperial states can offer something to people that i...	[ "Empires originated as different types of states, although they commonly began as powerful monarchies. Ideas about empires have changed over time, ranging from public approval to universal distaste. Empires are built out of separate units with some kind of diversity – ethnic, national, cultural, religious – and imp...
What were the reactions of early Jewish leaders to claims that Jesus had risen from the grave? Did they issue any refutations?	No, there are no reactions recorded. In general there isn't a whole lot of written material about Christianity from Jewish sources in this period. Rabbinic sources do have occasional reference to Jesus, but they don't generally contain meaningful details. It's also an issue that the narratives put Jesus in the wrong...	[ "A less common opinion among scholars hold that the crucifixion of Jesus was just an illusion. Accordingly, Jesus' body was really put on the cross, but his spirit did not die, but ascended to heaven. Thus the Jew erred because they did not recognized the \"Messiah\", the spiritual form of Jesus.Docetists are Chris...
Is it conceivable that we might tubes from the earth's surface into orbit and pump our smog or smoke from all the burning waste into the void of space to save the planet?	Gravity keeps it down.	[ "Removal of atmospheric gas in a more controlled manner could also prove difficult. Venus' extremely slow rotation means that space elevators would be very difficult to construct because the planet's geostationary orbit lies an impractical distance above the surface, and the very thick atmosphere to be removed make...
why aren't we supposed to lock our knees when standing?	It reduces the blood flow to your legs making your muscles do more with less resources. I heard this all through basic training because it was one of the main factors that causes people to pass out while standing at the position of attention. Other factors usually included looking at bright lights and tilting your head...	[ "The most common ways of sitting on the floor involve bending the knees. One can also sit with the legs unbent, using something solid as support for the back or leaning on one's arms. Sitting with bent legs can be done with the legs mostly parallel or by crossing them over each other.\n", "In medicine, joint lock...
What exactly are the limitations on childhood learning?	I feel qualified to answer this because I actually do Astrobiology education and have a masters in Education. There are many schools that try different things. Some education researchers believe the only limit is time. IE if a student grasp a topic quickly you can teach them anything. There have been people who have ...	[ "Although this difference isn’t substantial to the point where adults can learn more easily than children as shown by multiple studies as a result of neuroplasticity, it is important to outline the importance of interference as a hinderance towards learning in younger individuals. In particular, education systems s...
how did donald trump end up with so much money?	he made a business of getting investors to pay for a building to be built, called trump hotel, tower, ect. he didnt use his own money that had been used up with a previous failure. so he goes to people a b and c, and asks each for a million bucks. b and c agree. he uses that million, tells a "hey a, ive got 2 million ...	[ "Trump has often said that he began his career with \"a small loan of one million dollars\" from his father, and that he had to pay it back with interest. In October 2018, \"The New York Times\" reported that Trump \"was a millionaire by age 8\", borrowed at least $60 million from his father, largely failed to reim...
For depression and anxiety disorders, what is it in the brain that triggers the change in behaviour?	The one and only correct answer is: we don't know. Sure, it looks like serotonin is involved. But it also looks like many other neurotransmitters are involved. And it doesn't stop there, because there are several brain regions and nuclei which show either reduced or enhanced activity during a depression. And it doesn'...	[ "Some researchers have suggested that the disturbances in biological rhythms present in depressed individuals may actually be the result of previous disruptions in social interactions, which serve as cues for those rhythms. This possibility may help to explain the relationship between stressful life events and the ...
Germany and France are next to one another yet have vastly different languages. Why is this?	Territory that we now call France was part of Roman republic (and later Roman empire) for centuries. Its previous Celtic-speaking population adopted Latin language which later developed into dialects of Vulgar Latins, called Romance languages, which included the ancestor of Old French and finally French. Whereas most...	[ "Today German, together with French, is a common second foreign language in the western world, with English well established as a first foreign language. German ranks second (after English) among the best known foreign languages in the EU (on a par with French) as well as in Russia. In terms of student numbers acro...
how does ovulation work? what are 'safe days' and 'fertile days'?	Fertile days are the ones just before, during and just after ovulation, about 3-5 days depending on your cycle. It's the time you're most likely to get pregnant. Ovulation is when one of your ovaries releases an egg to your uterus. Safe days are the ones you are less likely to get pregnant. The most safe days will be j...	[ "Ovulation is the release of eggs from the ovaries. In humans, this event occurs when the ovarian follicles rupture and release the secondary oocyte ovarian cells. After ovulation, during the luteal phase, the egg will be available to be fertilized by sperm. In addition, the uterine lining (endometrium) is thickene...
At what point did different civilizations begin to build vertically? What are the earliest multi-story buildings?	Very early. The cities Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley Civilization (which existed fro 3000 BC-1700 BC) which can now be found in modern-day Pakistan and northwest India were excavated to have several multi-storey buildings. And an interesting feature of the very early city of Çatalhöyük in modern Turke...	[ "The earliest structures were built, accordingly with chronology, between La Galgada (3,000 - 2,000 b.C) and Chavin (1,200 - 300 BC). The artistic production recalls a lot of those found at the Moxeke complex, on Casma Valley.\n", "Early civilizations developed, often independently, in scattered locations around ...
Did Greece's ancient significance to Western history influence early decisions to admit it to the EU/Eurozone?	As a note, I'm going to use the term EU throughout, though technically EEC is accurate for much of the period discussed. The answer is no, though Greece did receive special political consideration: To give you an historical sketch, Greece ascended to the EU in 1981, several decades before other eastern european st...	[ "The country adopted the euro in 2001 and successfully hosted the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. More recently, Greece has suffered greatly from the late-2000s recession and has been central to the related European sovereign debt crisis. Due to the adoption of the euro, when Greece experienced financial crisi...
why isn't the white house flag at half staff following the tn shootings?	short answer is it's unclear. They lowered after Fort Hood, but don't usually lower federally for soldiers killed in line of duty. _URL_0_	[ "President Donald Trump was briefed on the shooting and offered his thoughts and prayers by tweet. He later declined to lower US flags to half-staff, as is custom for mass shootings, despite requests from Annapolis mayor Gavin Buckley and the lowering of Maryland flags by the Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan. On J...
why was the morse code discontinued?	Morse code became obsolete when people found ways to transmit voice over radio/wire. As for the "secret" messages - they are not really secret, since anyone who knows the Morse code can decode them. And there are easier, more secure way of sending secret information than Morse Code. For individuals, it isn't really wor...	[ "Various other companies and countries soon developed their own variations of the original Morse Code. Of special importance was one standard, originally created in Germany by Friedrich Clemens Gerke in 1848, which was simpler—it eliminated the long intra-character spaces and the two long dashes—but also included c...
Did Celtic cultures outside Gaul, Britain, and Ireland have druids too?	The first problem there is that ,due to the popularity of "Celtic" romanticism and Celtic Revival, a lot of features are popularly attributed to all of Celtic peoples without necessarily being attested or verified in sources, either historical or archaeological Druidism isn't an exception to this rule. Even if, thank...	[ "According to Greek and Roman accounts, in Gaul, Britain and Ireland, there was a priestly caste of \"magico-religious specialists\" known as the druids, although very little is definitely known about them. Following the Roman Empire's conquest of Gaul (58–51 BC) and southern Britannia (43 AD), Celtic religious pra...
Through The Odyssey, it's a severe threat to social order should Penelope entertain lovers (as exemplified in the ominous tale of Agamemnon's return), yet Odysseus himself has a string of lovers (Circe, Calypso, possibly Nausicca); was he a special case or indicative of a cultural double standard?	The short answer is that it was a big, BIG double standard. Ancient Greeks were extremely misogynistic by modern standards, and even by ancient standards. Women weren’t allowed out of the home alone, and they were expected to get married young, spin a lot of wool, and die in childbirth in their early twenties. A goo...	[ "Penelope's story is an attempt at narrative justice to retribute Helen for her erroneously idealised image in the \"Odyssey\" as the archetypal female. Penelope acts like a judicial arbiter, a position she held in Ithaca as the head of state and, during Odysseus' absence, as head of the household. The ancient form...
why the king of hearts (also known as the suicide king), is more often than not, depicted having a sword through his head	He doesn't. It's behind his head. The reason it's behind his head is that he was holding it up in the original drawings, while the other kings had their weapons vertical. The modern English design (double sided Monarchs) is based on the French design from the 15-16th century. In the original drawings, the red cards...	[ "BULLET::::- Suicide kings - The king of hearts is typically shown with a sword behind his head, making him appear to be stabbing himself. Similarly, the one-eyed king of diamonds is typically shown with an axe behind his head with the blade facing toward him. These depictions, and their blood-red color, inspired t...
For your average Russian serf around the time of Catherine II, would joining the army be a step up in life?	Modified from an [earlier answer](_URL_0_) Military service in the Petrine army and its successors was very much a mixed bag. One of Peter I's innovations, and one that made Russia's military unique up through the Napoleonic Wars was that he sought to establish a large, permanent force structure that made the Army a ...	[ "The process of reforming the army was associated with the unification of the Russian lands in the 15th century. Gradually, the Grand Duchy of Moscow included new petty princedoms, courts of independent princes were dismissed, and \"service people\" passed to the Grand Duke. As a result, the vassal Princes and Boya...
why do the vast majority of government websites look old and outdated?	Changes in design require new funding. Web development for the government doesn't run cheap - you have tons of regulation that has to be dealt with in addition to normal development. They will probably at minimum need to have a Project Manager (100-150K salary), Frontend Web Developer (65-100K salary), Backend Develop...	[ "The website is updated once a week with fresh material; some mirrors update monthly. Due to the high amount of material there is an editing backlog, causing some areas of FOTW to contain outdated information. There are also some mirrors that have not been updated for varying periods of time and which are therefore...
the third prong on an electrical plug	I usually refer people to this link which is funny, simple, and easy to read. _URL_0_	[ "The plug consists of two vertical and one horizontal flat pin, arranged like 3 sides (left, right and top) of a rectangle. The two vertical pins carry the same tip and ring signals used in other countries. The third pin (top, horizontal) used to be connected to ground and was occasionally used with switchboards, b...
Why don't vehicle exhaust pipes have some kind of CO2 and CO scrubbers like what spacecrafts have?	Money mostly. We definitely have technologies that can scrub CO2 out of exhaust but they are either going to require constantly replacing some kind of absorbing media or a large amount of energy to convert the CO2 into something usable (like oxygen or a new fuel like methanol). Both of these strategies require a sign...	[ "Vehicles with Diesel engine sold in the United States were since end of 2008 equipped with selective catalysator using Diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) to reduce NOx emissions, while vehicles sold in Europe had a bypass exhaust pipe only due the regulations witch ended up in Dieselgate.\n", "Diesel-powered motorships ...
can someone explain stimulus package (like i'm 5)?	Governments pay for projects, (like new highways or theatres,) so that more people can have jobs. Then more people will have money to spend, which will make more jobs for other people, (like shoemakers and dentists,) and soon enough people will be spending money and the government can start collecting saving tax money...	[ "BULLET::::- ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; commonly called \"the Stimulus Package”): legislation enacting net-deficit spending measures voted by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama, in February 2009, often compared with stimulus measures undertaken by Eurozone member-stat...
how is a spacecraft going to land on a meteor	There doesn't have to be significant gravitational pull - the probe will essentially fly up alongside and match velocities so that it ends up touching the meteor. This is very similar to a spacecraft docking at the space station.	[ "A hard landing of a spacecraft such as a rocket stage usually ends with its destruction and can be intentional or unintentional. When a high-velocity impact is planned (when its purpose is to study consequences of impact), the spacecraft is called an impactor.\n", "The lander was designed to deploy from the main...
what happens when we get "butterflys" in our stomach?	When you're nervous, your body floods with adrenaline. It's known as the fight-or-flight response as your body gets ready to react whatever way it needs to a danger. One of the things that happens is your body reduces blood flow to nonessential organs and increases the blood flow to your muscles. For the short time ...	[ "Butterflies in the stomach is the physical sensation in humans of a \"fluttery\" feeling in the stomach, caused by a reduction of blood flow to the organ. This is as a result of the release of adrenaline in the fight-or-flight response, which causes increased heart rate and blood pressure, consequently sending mor...
why do extreme temperatures make me lethargic?	It takes a lot of energy for your body to either heat itself up or cool itself down. Leaves less energy for things like exercise... which will in turn only heat you up further. Shivering when you're cold is a way for your body to generate heat by using your muscles. High temperatures cause considerable increases in ...	[ "There are limits both of heat and cold that an endothermic animal can bear and other far wider limits that an ectothermic animal may endure and yet live. The effect of too extreme a cold is to decrease metabolism, and hence to lessen the production of heat. Both catabolic and anabolic pathways share in this metabo...
why are fertility rates decreasing?	People are having less babies. Infant mortality dropped, women have other things to do than just parent, we have birth control. We can control when we get pregnant, and we don't need large families the way we use to. Fertility rates aren't decreasing in a Handsmaid Tale way. We have a bunch of techniques for getting p...	[ "On the other hand, there is some evidence that with rising economic development, fertility rates drop at first, but then begin to rise again as the level of social and economic development increases, while still remaining below the replacement rate.\n", "The relatively rapid decline in fertility is attributed to...
how do they show events that have not happened yet on t.v.? (ads for the opening ceremonies in sochi)	That's footage from past Winter Olympics, not Sochi.	[ "The opening ceremony took place on September 6, 2008. The pre-ceremony performance was a succession of various musical performances, ranging from military music to folk music and a performance of \"Ode to Joy\". Following a countdown, a fireworks display signalled the beginning of the ceremony proper. The national...
Can cancer spread through transfusion?	Its very unlikely. The cancer cells aren't cells of your own body, so your immune system will attack them. However there are some exceptions. If the cancer cells can make their way to an immunological privileged site (places where swelling is counterproductive and your immune system cannot reach... like eyes and test...	[ "In the tumor ECM, rapidly, beyond one mm3 of tumor is formed a network of blood vessels, the \"neovascularization\" (induced by \"neoangiogenesis\") around the tumor and which will allow the diffusion of oxygen and nutrients in the cancer tissue itself, which is not vascularized.\n", "BULLET::::- A known relatio...
when did wearing the jersey of your favorite sports team become popular, and why?	Showing support for your team has been a thing for a long time. I don't think that's changed appreciably in the last several decades. What has changed has been the availability of jerseys and the acceptability of wearing them in public. We've spent the last 50-60 years getting less formal & less rigid about dress ...	[ "Each team wears a pullover jersey (similar to what many teams wore in the 1970s and 1980s), as opposed to the traditional button-down jersey, with contrasting sleeve colors. The team uniforms, which took their color cues from youth sportswear, were designed by Majestic Athletic. The jerseys had a \"tribute patch\"...
How much of an image can you build of a person from simply examing their brain?	Not sure if this is allowed in the limits of your hypothetical experiment but if you put said person in an MRI and started doing [fMRI imaging of their brain](_URL_0_) in response to carefully thought out statements or words put to them you might well be able to figure out their gender and possibly ethnic background am...	[ "A method of determining how many people are at an event is the scientific analysis of photographs, video images, or both. Based on the quality of the image, it is possible to do a physical head count or to estimate attendance based on the density of people within similar areas. This permits the estimation of peopl...
is there no discernable brain activity that would allow us to read what a person is thinking?	We can detect which parts of the brain are lighting up, if the person is in an MRI, but not what memories, words, or images they are actually picturing. Brains are mindboggingly complex, and there is no one spot responsible for every word, image, or thought. If I think of a dog, it's not going to light up my brain the ...	[ "A central tenet of cognitive science is that a complete understanding of the mind/brain cannot be attained by studying only a single level. An example would be the problem of remembering a phone number and recalling it later. One approach to understanding this process would be to study behavior through direct obse...
Does muscular atrophy cause muscle memory/acquired skills to decay?	It likely depends on the cause of the atrophy. “Muscle” memory is actually a neurological phenomenon - a pathway worn into the brain from repetition. It should theoretically be retained unless the atrophy is neurologic (loss of its nerve supply will cause a muscle to atrophy) or possibly metabolic and organism wide (th...	[ "Spinal muscular atrophies (SMAs) are a genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of rare debilitating disorders characterised by the degeneration of lower motor neurons (neuronal cells situated in the anterior horn of the spinal cord) and subsequent atrophy (wasting) of various muscle groups in the body. Whil...
the difference between the domain controller and an active directory.	Active directory is the place where information about people and organizations are stored and accessed. The domain controller is the host(s) on the network that _manage_ membership within the network, often using active directory as it's source of rights, permissions etc. The domain controller is the air traffic cont...	[ "A domain controller is a server that automates the logins, user groups, and architecture of a domain, rather than manually coding this information on each host in the domain. It is common practice, but not required, to have the domain controller act as a DNS server. That is, it would assign names to hosts in the n...
why do american trucks and european trucks look so different?	Hahaha I WAS wondering, is this guy playing that trucking game? ETS2 is my current gaming addiction, I can't stop playing. Anyway it's mostly vehicle length regulations. For a while America had similar, either on a state-by-state or federal basis, I can't remember; one can still see older trucks of that design putte...	[ "Industrial trucks are trucks that are not licensed to travel on public roads (\"commercial trucks\" are licensed to travel on public roads). Industrial trucks are used to move materials over variable paths and when there is insufficient (or intermittent) flow volume such that the use of a conveyor cannot be justif...
If we were to colonize one of Jupiter's moons, would Jupiter have cycles the same way our moon has lunar cycles?	Yes, if you were on the side of the moon facing Jupiter, you would see Jupiter cycle through its phases every day. Jupiter's location on the sky wouldn't change during the course of the day, but the fraction of Jupiter's face illuminated by sunlight would cycle through the full set of phases. If you were on one of th...	[ "It is also predicted that Phobos, a moon of Mars, will break up and form into a planetary ring in about 50 million years. Its low orbit, with an orbital period that is shorter than a Martian day, is decaying due to tidal deceleration.\n", "Significant chemical cycles exist on Jupiter's moons. Recent evidence poi...
why exactly are whole life insurance policies considered scams?	The school of thought that calls them expensive has several solid points in their favor: * Insurance is supposed to protect the buyer against risks that would wipe them out financially. Life insurance makes a lot of sense when its on a sole breadwinner (protecting a spouse who is staying at home to raise the children...	[ "Although some aspects of the application process (such as underwriting and insurable interest provisions) make it difficult, life insurance policies have been used to facilitate exploitation and fraud. In the case of life insurance, there is a possible motive to purchase a life insurance policy, particularly if th...
why do anime characters have to yell the name of their move?	It's so that the "move" is identifiable to the audience. Think about how many kids have tried the "kamehamaha way" irl. Do you think that happened by accident? That kind of playground nonsense is what keeps shows like dbz and powerrangers popular.	[ "The word \"anime\" has also been criticised, e.g. in 1987, when Hayao Miyazaki stated that he despised the truncated word \"anime\" because to him it represented the desolation of the Japanese animation industry. He equated the desolation with animators lacking motivation and with mass-produced, overly expressioni...
sperm competition	Evolution does not need to be helpful. Evolution does not try to be helpful. Evolution is an emergent effect that happens as a result of things that copy themselves being more likely to exist. Nature doesn't care about being helpful, it just does things. Often helpful things get copied more often, because "helpful"...	[ "Sperm competition is the competition that occurs when females store sperm, of varying males, in their spermatheca and use this sperm to fertilize their eggs. This type of competition is prevalent when females mate more than once in which they store sperm in a viable condition and have sperm from previous matings p...
What was the difference between a marquess and earl in English peerage?	The title of Marquess/Marquis in the English/British peerage has only symbolic connection to the title's antecedents of border / "marcher" lords on the Continent or in England and Wales. The actual use of Marquess in the peerage was to be a title conspicuously higher and more rare than that of Earl, but not dilute t...	[ "The Marquessate of Winchester is the oldest English (and British) Marquessate still in existence, and as a result, the holder of the title is considered the Premier Marquess of England. The Marquess of Winchester, incidentally, is the only Marquess in the Peerage of England without a higher title; all other Marque...
when i sneeze i only sneeze once or twice, my so sneezes up to seven times. elif why does this happen?	Most likely, you are sneezing with more force than your SO is. Sneezing is a way of removing irritants from the nasal passages, whether this be pollen, dust, cat hair, etc. If you are sneezing at 40mph, and your SO is sneezing at 10mph, it will take more sneezes to dislodge whatever is irritating his or her nasal passa...	[ "The photic sneeze reflex manifests itself in the form of uncontrollable sneezing in response to a stimulus which would not produce a sneeze in people without the trait. The sneezes generally occur in bursts of 1 to 10 sneezes, followed by a refractory period that can be as long as 24 hours.\n", "There is much de...
How high do mountains have to be to affect precipitation?	One of the better answers to this question comes from this [paper](_URL_1_). These authors use the Andes as a (huge) natural laboratory and compare topography and satellite derived precipitation measurements to (among other things) try to understand what topography is necessary to produce a significant orographic effec...	[ "The highest precipitation amounts are found slightly upwind from the prevailing winds at the crests of mountain ranges, where they relieve and therefore the upward lifting is greatest. As the air descends the lee side of the mountain, it warms and dries, creating a rain shadow. On the lee side of the mountains, so...
why do car lock remotes not lock/unlock other cars within their range?	Both the remote and the car use a pseudo-random number generator with the same seed. A psuedo-random number isn't truly random, but acts like it. Two computers with the same seed number and using the same random function will generate the same sequence of "random" numbers. When you press your remote, it sends the next...	[ "Keyless remotes contain a short-range radio transmitter, and must be within a certain range, usually 5–20 meters, of the car to work. When a button is pushed, it sends a coded signal by radio waves to a receiver unit in the car, which locks or unlocks the door. Most RKEs operate at a frequency of 315 MHz for North...
Does a "simple" video have a smaller file size than a "busy" one?	For most compressed formats that is true. They generally try to reduce the file size by compressing individual frames in the video (intra-frame compression) and by recognizing similarities between frames (inter-frame compression). That means temporal properties of the video can be exploited to only encode differences f...	[ "TinyPic does not accept standard-definition video files which are larger than 500 Megabytes in size or longer than 15 minutes in length. Videos longer than 15 minutes are truncated to 15 minutes. Users can also upload high definition videos as long as they are no larger than 500 Megabytes in size and no longer tha...
Why is magnetic attraction more powerful than gravity? Also, is there such things as "magnetic waves"?	The answer is nobody has any idea _URL_0_	[ "Even though electromagnetism is far stronger than gravitation, electrostatic attraction is not relevant for large celestial bodies, such as planets, stars, and galaxies, simply because such bodies contain equal numbers of protons and electrons and so have a net electric charge of zero. Nothing \"cancels\" gravity,...
Why can't we make an all in one Group A Strep Vaccination?	This is very complicated answer. Here's a pretty good [review](_URL_0_). But long story short, there are two main reasons: 1) There is a theoretical (but possibly demonstrable) risk of rheumatic fever after vaccination. Presenting multiple antigens (such as you suggest) can drastically increase the chance of such a T...	[ "Choosing not to vaccinate is largely to blame for the recent outbreak of measles. Parents choosing not to vaccinate prevents herd immunity, which is what patients who suffer with immunocompromising diseases rely on to protect them. To prevent the measles outbreak of 2019 from getting worse it is necessary for anti...
Did medieval European clothing have pockets?	The short answer is no, no pockets. The long answer is that you wouldn't generally speaking have pockets built into your clothing like we do, but you might have a pouch, purse or scrip which fastened to your belt or girdle. A drawstring design like [this](_URL_0_) done on linen would be a good guide for a woman's alms...	[ "In European clothing, fitchets, resembling modern day pockets, appeared in the 13th century. Vertical slits were cut in the super tunic, which did not have any side openings, to allow access to purse or keys slung from the girdle of the tunic. According to historian Rebecca Unsworth, it was in the late 15th centur...
Would battles or skirmishes ever be started out of boredom in the middle ages?	I don't know that actual battles would spring up out of a couple thousand armored guys not having anything else to do, but I can tell you with certainty that the First Crusade was organized as a result of boredom among the nobility. Because there weren't any major wars going on, the knights were basically just raping ...	[ "In the Middle Ages it was unusual to fight in the winter, but the city of Haarlem was crucial and Don Fadrique stayed and put the town under siege. During the first two months of the siege, the situation was in balance. The Spanish army dug two tunnels to reach the city walls and collapse them. The defenders made ...
how does frostbite destroy and permanently damage flesh? and how do you know if you get it?	I'm no medical expert, but my understanding is as follows: Frostbite is caused when tissue freezes after prolonged exposure. As your body cools, blood is drawn away from extremities such as fingers or toes and concentrated in the core to protect vital organs. This drawing away, coupled with a constriction in the blood...	[ "Depending on the duration of exposure aerosol-induced frostbite can vary in depth. Most injuries of this type only affect the epidermis, the outermost layer of skin. However, if contact with the aerosol is prolonged the skin will freeze further and deeper layers of tissue will be affected, causing a more serious b...
If we know the bacteria that cause pneumonia why can't we make a vaccine for it?	Pneumonia just refers to an infection in the lung parenchyma. It can be caused by many bacteria and viruses but the most common is Strep pneumoniae, also called pneumococcus. There are 2 vaccines for pneumococcal pneumonia: Pneumovax and Prevnar. The first covers 23 serotypes of the pneumococcus bacteria and the se...	[ "Prevention of bacterial pneumonia is by vaccination against \"Streptococcus pneumoniae\" (pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine for adults and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine for children), \"Haemophilus influenzae\" type B, meningococcus, \"Bordetella pertussis\", \"Bacillus anthracis\", and \"Yersinia pestis\".\n",...
why do high-end restaurants do not show pictures of their food in their menu?	I'm married to a chef. The wow factor on presentation is important to him, and would be ruined if everyone knew how their food was going too look before it came out. Flexibility is important as well. If the kitchen is slammed, no one is going to have time to check against the menu picture to make sure the food matches...	[ "Some restaurants such as cafes and small eateries use a large chalkboard to display the entire menu. The advantage of using a chalkboard is that the menu items and prices can be changed; the downside is that the chalk may be hard to read in lower light or glare, and the restaurant has to have a staff member who ha...
There are so many theories about the beginnings of agriculture. But which one is the most accepted by the modern day historian?	This really is more of an archaeological and anthropological question so I suggest cross-posting it to /r/AskAnthropology. Besides that, can you be more specific about which hypotheses you are referring to? There have been tons of hypotheses suggested, and a few are better-accepted, but it's difficult to just blanket...	[ "Scholars have offered multiple hypotheses to explain the historical origins of agriculture. Studies of the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies indicate an initial period of intensification and increasing sedentism; examples are the Natufian culture in the Levant, and the Early Chinese Neolith...
why does ~x = -x - 1?	In binary math, for most systems, we use what is called Two's complement. It is a way to eliminate the possibility of a positive and negative 0. The highest bit (the left-most bit in a binary sequence) is the sign bit. If it is 1, it is a negative number. If it is 0, it is either 0 or a positive number. If you were t...	[ "If \"x\" and \"y\" are integers, rationals, or real numbers, then \"xy\"=0 implies \"x\"=0 or \"y\"=0. Suppose \"abc\"=0. Then, substituting \"a\" for \"x\" and \"bc\" for \"y\", we learn \"a\"=0 or \"bc\"=0. Then we can substitute again, letting \"x\"=\"b\" and \"y\"=\"c\", to show that if \"bc\"=0 then \"b\"=0 o...
Are medical tests structured to be more likely to give a false positive or a false negative?	Both. You're thinking of sensitivity (percentage of true positive) and specificity (percentage of true negative). A gold standard would have 100% of both. I don't think there's any "structure", what you see if what you get with a test (you compare the test with a gold standard). Tests that have low sensitivity and low ...	[ "BULLET::::- all types of medical test results can be true positive or false positive and true negative or false negative...these categories are hugely dependent on the prevalence of the disease being tested for; and, for example, a false positive test result is more likely when the prevalence of the disease being ...
Data transmission in Space	You do not need atmosphere to send radio signals. In fact, it is better without atmosphere.	[ "Data was transmitted to Earth in real time at the end of each science observation. The camera read-out formed an image of 768×768 pixels, and the analogue-to-digital converter resulted in a dynamic range of 8 bits. The data was then transmitted to Earth via one of six transmitters on the spacecraft; four were S-ba...
were the Saxons a united kingdom, or just a nebulous ethnic group in AD350?	While there definitely was not a 'united kingdom', the early Saxon migrations might have been coordinated by one or a few enterprising individuals (Bede's Hengest and Horsa, for example). Germanic social structure in this time was not strictly organised under territorial kings, but did allow for the election/appointmen...	[ "The peoples now called the 'Anglo-Saxons' largely came from Jutland and northern Germany, first landing in Eastern Britain. There are few records existing that account this migration, and those that were written come mainly from the Mediterranean area or were created long after the event. There was a small number ...
why pens appear 'bendy'	Believe it or not, like a camera, our brain has a "frame rate" or amount of information we can take in per second and process. It's about 15 f/s. (Side note: any motion slower than that doesn't really seem smooth to us.) Since our minds take in information in this finite way, filling in spaces as it needs to for the p...	[ "Dip pens are rarely used now for regular writing, most commonly having been replaced by fountain pens, rollerball pens, or ballpoint pens. However, dip pens are still appreciated by artists, as they can make great differences between thick and thin lines, and generally write more smoothly than other types of pens....
why is society so averse to people taking their own lives?	There are a lot of emotional and cynical responses to your question, but only a few of them touch on a small number of the reasons that suicide is considered a crime. There is an emotional basis to making it criminal to kill yourself. Most suicides (like most homicides) are attempted as a result of hasty decision mad...	[ "There is a tendency for individuals to be less rational when risks and exposures concern themselves as opposed to others. There is also a tendency to underestimate risks that are voluntary or where the individual sees themselves as being in control, such as smoking. A 2017 systematic review from the Cochrane colla...
In most photos of galaxies there seems to be a bright central core. Is that just some giant star or a huge mass of them?	Many hundreds of millions of stars. Look at [this](_URL_0_) ultra high resolution picture of the Andromeda Galaxy. This is a zoomable image, be sure to zoom way in. Each point of light is a star or star cluster. Note that in the bright core there are so many stars it becomes difficult to pick out individual ones.	[ "This galaxy has an active nucleus that matches a Seyfert 2 optical spectrum, suggesting that a low mass supermassive black hole is present at the core. Based upon the motion of stars in the nucleus, this object may have a mass of up to three million times the mass of the Sun.\n", "The structure and photometry of...
Are there any documented differences between men and women's swimming skills?	The idea of women and children first is rooted in chivalry. It has no real basis on men or women and their swimming ability. Scientifically though women naturally have more body fat than men which makes them more buoyant than their male counterparts.	[ "There is a contrast in the sports for each gender: the men's sports generally include confrontational, combative coordination and the women's sports typically are less aggressive and more individualized. Over the past century, women have been given more opportunities to participate in sports, and not just in sport...
why do songs on the radio sound higher pitched than songs played digitally or on cds?	The pitch is the same. It can be altered but is not. Your radio is not producing the bass portion as well as the other two. So you pay attention to the treble part more.	[ "Cloud recording services such as DAR.fm, Quick Record can record from all of these formats. Most PC based Internet radio ripping software is built for Shoutcast-style of streams as this MP3 based protocol offers the widest selection of Internet radio stations. Such wide selection of music is one of the major advan...
how does software know that you have already used their 30 day free trial after you uninstall and then re-install the software?	The application could have written the original installation date into the windows registry and this information would usually remain untouched after the de-installation.	[ "After expiry, users cannot download any software until they renew; however, they do not lose the use of released (non-beta) software that is already downloaded, nor is it necessary to renew immediately. Renewals add a year of access from the date of renewal, not the expiry date.\n", "The software used to be avai...
What causes some planes to have characteristic sounds? Is it the airframe, engines, a combination of these or something else?	There are a lot of things at play here. To give a one word answer: engines. However, that is a gross oversimplification. First, I'd like to address the ripping sound. To me, it sounds like a lot of that sound is simply an artifact of the fact that the F-15s are very loud and they are pegging out the microphone. ...	[ "The shape of the nose, windshield or canopy of an aircraft affects the sound produced. Much of the noise of a propeller aircraft is of aerodynamic origin due to the flow of air around the blades. The helicopter main and tail rotors also give rise to aerodynamic noise. This type of aerodynamic noise is mostly low f...
How does liquid soap clear the grease/oil layer of dishes in water so quickly?	Grease is hydrophobic. So it doesn't mix with water. Soap is usually amphiphilic which means it's got one side that mixes with water and one side that mixes with oil. The side that mixes with oil is attracted to the oil. The oil soap mix is actually water soluble. The link here might help: _URL_1_ The speed at which...	[ "The raw material used for these kinds of soap is olive oil. The Tripoli soap is also composed of: honey, essential oils, and natural aromatic raw materials like flowers, petals, and herbs. The soaps are dried in the sun, in a dry atmosphere, allowing the evaporation of the water that served to mix the different in...
what makes japanese bullet trains much faster and efficient than regular trains?	Lots of engineering went into the Shinkansen to make them more aerodynamic than other more typical trains. Wikipedia is nice to provide a [nice list](_URL_0_). But to sum up some of the major technological aspects: 1) It's its own private rail network, so the congestion of other lines have no effect. This is actuall...	[ "BULLET::::- Efficiency: Conventional rail is probably more efficient at lower speeds. But due to the lack of physical contact between the track and the vehicle, maglev trains experience no rolling resistance, leaving only air resistance and electromagnetic drag, potentially improving power efficiency. Some systems...
national socialism/fascism	This is slightly tricky because, like all political terms, the specifics of where fascism begins and ends aren't clear and each individual fascist thinker had varying perspectives on it. The six key tenets of fascism are - Nationalism. The belief that your nation and its people are special, and have a distinct ...	[ "Fascism () is a form of radical right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World ...
Why did "communist" revolutions often originate in agricultural instead of industrial societies?	I'm in mobile and don't have access to my notes or books, so I apologize for the less-than rigorous response. What you're asking about can essentially be restated as "Why does communist in practice not adhere to Marx's presentation of dialectical materialism." As I imagine you know, Marx says society moves from antiq...	[ "The labor movement and socialist movement of the late 19th century are seen as the prototypical social movements, leading to the formation of communist and social democratic parties and organisations. These tendencies were seen in poorer countries as pressure for reform continued, for example in Russia with the Ru...
Is the game "Crusader Kings 2" portrayal of 9th Century Italy accurate?	Politically, in terms of who is ruling each region, it's probably pretty close to the truth. Crusader Kings can be good about that stuff. That said, the way the nobility in any given region interacted is going to vary, and thus CK2's system is probably to broad to be an indication of what happened. Generally speaking...	[ "This game Chess Crusade is based on a chess board game, which is a reenactment of the Crusades. This is a series of war fought primarily in the Holy Land usually between the Roman Catholics of Western Europe and the Muslims of the Middle East. Also, it was a medieval military mission performed by the Europeans to ...
What's the difference between a primary source and an anecdote?	To clarify, as you asking in the broader sense of historical study, or specifically in the context of the "No Personal Anecdotes" rule on this subreddit?	[ "Many sources can be considered either primary or secondary, depending on the context in which they are used. Moreover, the distinction between \"primary\" and \"secondary\" sources is subjective and contextual, so that precise definitions are difficult to make. For example, if a historical text discusses old docum...
Do historians think Zoroaster existed?	Well, you can doubt the existence of virtually every historical figure, especially when it is as remote in history. There is a French scholar who wrote a book in the 1820s to prove (jokingly, of course) that Napoleon was an allegorical figure who never existed. However, names rarely appear out of thin air, except when ...	[ "The Greeks—in the Hellenistic sense of the term—had an understanding of Zoroaster as expressed by Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Agathias that saw him, at the core, to be the \"prophet and founder of the religion of the Iranian peoples,\" Beck notes that \"the rest was mostly fantasy\". Zoroaster was set in the ...
why can't we see very small things?	It doesn't even get down to physical properties such as wavelengths. The simple fact is that your eyes have limited resolution. Any light that passes into your eye has to be captured by the light-sensitive parts of cells at the retina (the so-called "rods" and "cones"), and there are only so many cells in your eye. ...	[ "Pictures taken in this fashion take on the appearance of a miniature model, taken from a short distance, and those not familiar with such pictures often cannot be convinced that it is the real object. This is because we cannot see depth when looking at such scenes in real life and our brains aren't equipped to dea...
Does this mean days were shorter while dinosaurs were being awesome because the earth was spinning faster?	If this guy were a drug that is so lethal to your mind because you risk immense mind blowing (tantamount to the Big Bang going off in your mind every microsecond) then i would take 2 pills... daily.	[ "However, others claim that dinosaurs lived year-round at very high latitudes, such as near the Colville River, which is now at about 70° N but at the time (70 million years ago) was 10° further north.\n", "Earth rotates once in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, but once every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 se...
how do investors who invest into apps like snapchat make their money back?	This is a bit long to explain, but I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. Imagine Snapchat as a bigass pie. An investor will buy up a percentage of that pie. As Snapchat grows, each piece of its pie will grow and become more valuable. However, the investor still owns the same percentage of the pie. So, because ea...	[ "External investors, such as venture capitalists and angel investors will use a pre-money valuation to determine how much equity to ask for in return for their cash injection to an entrepreneur and his or her startup company. This is calculated on a fully diluted basis.\n", "On January 25, 2014, App.net launched ...
What are instances in which candidates for the American presidency attempted or obtained assistance from foreign powers to win the election?	I cannot answer this in full for all US elections because that is not my field of knowledge. From my own field however, I can say that in the 1968 US presidential elections, the Soviet Union tried to interfere in it. Initially the Soviet ambassador was instructed by the Soviet Foreign Ministry to offer Democratic cand...	[ "An indirect presidential election was held on 16 April 2012 to choose a new president of the World Bank Group to replace Robert Zoellick, whose term expired in June. Although the organisation has always had presidents from, and nominated by, the United States, this election featured the nomination of two non-Unite...
Do men and women have mental/psychological traits that occur on average more for their respective sex than the other?	> Also I wanted to ask if any of these traits are the result of biology. Twin studies show that a part of our personality is determined by our genes. Identical twins reared apart are about as similar, in personality traits, [as twins reared together](_URL_0_). And as to differences: For example, little males and...	[ "Some researchers conclude that little difference exists between men and women in terms of sexual behavior. Other researchers disagree. Symmetrical men and women have a tendency to begin to have sexual intercourse at an earlier age, to have more sexual partners, to engage in a wider variety of sexual activities, an...
how much of humanity's creation accounts for earth's mass?	None. Everything we've built came from the Earth to begin with. You can't create or destroy mass so everything we've made weighs the same (in total) as the raw materials they were made from. If anything, the Earth is lighter since humans came along. We've built spacecraft and other things and thrown them off the surf...	[ "The mass of the Earth was first measured with any accuracy (within about 20% of the correct value) in the Schiehallion experiment in the 1770s, and within 1% of the modern value in the Cavendish experiment of 1798.\n", "Since 1800, the human population has increased from one billion to over seven billion. The co...
Where did the idea of signing one's name for approval of a contract (even for minor things like delivery of goods) come about?	Adding on, were there any methods of verification that a signature was from who it said it was?	[ "A contract is a legally binding voluntary agreement formed when one person makes an offer, and the other accepts it. There may be some preliminary discussion before an offer is formally made. Such pre-contractual representations are known variously as “invitations to treat”, “requests for information” or “statemen...
why do police body cams have such bad quality when camera's like gopro's are so cheap?	it's about how long you plan on recording. how many gigabytes would you need to record on your gopro for 8-12 hours? i bet that's a lot more than the size of the card you have.	[ "The various needs and budgets of police departments have led to a wide range of body camera equipment to be offered in recent years. Body camera manufacturers have constantly looked for technical innovations to improve their products. Many body cameras offer specific features like HD quality, infrared, night visio...
How did Nikita Khrushchev survive Stalin?	From [an earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_) The size and scale of the Great Purges sometimes obscures some of the subtleties of the Soviet system and the nature of political power under Stalin. While the Purges appeared to outsiders- both at the time and since- to be a case of the Revolution eating its own, the senior B...	[ "After the death of Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev became the Soviet leader following the deposition and execution of Lavrentiy Beria and the pushing aside of rivals Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. On 25 February 1956, Khrushchev shocked delegates to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party by cata...
Has any major political candidate before ever advocated the prohibition of people of a certain religion entering the United States?	I've been thinking about this a lot for the last couple days since I heard about some of the things Trump said. I've wanted to respond since seeing your question but I've refrained because I think it will be hard for me to answer without getting pretty close to violating the 20 year rule. I'm going to try anyway. I'd...	[ "The Prohibition Party, an original third party against the legalization of production and consumption of alcohol, was trying to win elections in the United States by running candidates since 1867, and the Prohibition Party was strongly supported by the Ku Klux Klan especially in the southern states. The Prohibitio...
Do viruses evolve?	Yes viruses do evolve. Evolution is the result of random modifications of the DNA sequence. These errors occur due to several factors, e.g. while the DNA is replicated to create a copy of the original virus. Theses errors occur in viruses as they occur in other cells and organisms. If such a error is beneficial to th...	[ "Viral evolution is a subfield of evolutionary biology and virology that is specifically concerned with the evolution of viruses. Viruses have short generation times and many, in particular RNA viruses, have relatively high mutation rates (on the order of one point mutation or more per genome per round of replicati...
why do poorer people tend to have more children?	There's a number of factors. 1) Below a certain threshold, even small amounts of money matter. If I have plenty of money, having a stash of condoms (or if female, taking birth control just in case) is relatively easy to do. If putting that money towards birth control means I may have to skip a meal, then I may be mo...	[ "A related concern is that high birth rates tend to place a greater burden of child rearing and education on populations already struggling with poverty. Consequently, inequality lowers average education and hampers economic growth. Also, in countries with a high burden of this kind, a reduction in fertility can ha...
From how far away is evidence of humanity optically visible?	With the naked eye, or with an optical telescope of sufficient size?	[ "Until this gamma-ray burst event, the Triangulum Galaxy, at a distance of about 2.9 million light years, was the most distant object visible to the naked eye. The galaxy remains the most distant permanent object viewable without aid.\n", "In 2013, Clay (Magellan II) was equipped with an adaptive secondary mirror...
What would happen if something were to heal into a cut or scrape?	it won't necessarily cause an infection. bullets are sterilized by heat so won't cause infections, a few historical figures would have lived longer if doctors hadn't been so set on removing the bullet. Your case is less clear. about what will happen to the object, I'm pretty sure that lightly embedded stuff will wor...	[ "Most penetration wounds require immediate treatment and are not as easy to repair. For example, a deep knife wound to the brachial plexus could damage and/or sever the nerve. According to where the cut was made, it could inhibit action potentials needed to innervate that nerve's specific muscle or muscles.\n", "...
what someone can do with your ssn	A person can do several things if they gain access to your personally identifiable information. The Social Security Sumber (or Social Insurance Number in Canada) is connected with several aspects of a citizen’s life. If a hacker has access to it, the consequences can be disastrous for the person whose identity was com...	[ "Many organizations, universities, and corporations historically used SSNs to uniquely identify their customer or student populations. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, also known as the Buckley Amendment, required changes that eliminated the use of the SSN as an identifier for a student. Educa...
how is our brain able to accurately pinpoint the area of our body that is feeling pain or being touched?	You have sensory receptors all over your body and they are there to detect input and communicate that with the brain. When you are touched, that is input, and the receptors generate a message that travels to the spinal cord and then up to the brain. Your brain is like a map and has a region that deals with decoding sen...	[ "One study recorded the brain activity of subjects using electroencephalography whilst subjects were shown footage of needle penetrating a hand. There was a recorded increase in activity in the frontal, temporal and parietal areas of the brain when the individuals were exposed to the footage and observed pain in ot...
If I were to send a tree to mars with sufficient nutritients and water(everything it would need to grow on earth), would it be able to grow and produce oxygen?	Nasa, among other groups with space exploration in mind, are asking that question themselves: _URL_0_ It seems the biggest problem to overcome is the low atmospheric pressure, which sucks the already rare water out of plants. Nutrients don't seem to be a problem.	[ "The study noted two plants, duckweed (\"Lemna minor\") and water fern (\"Azolla filiculoides\"), as particularly suitable, and they grow on the surface of water. The Mars habitat would have support the conditions of this food source, possible incorporating elements from greenhouse design or farming.\n", "If this...
why did columbus think he had found india, and not china or japan?	He knew where he was at relative to the equator. Both India and the West Indies occupy territory around 21ºN. China and Japan are further north than that.	[ "Columbus always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers. Columbus's refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were...
How is dark matter different than "the ether"	This has been asked over and over again. Try searching. [This thread](_URL_0_) is particularly relevant. Essentially, both are theories formulated to explain phenomena. In the case of ether, the predictions of the theory did not explain later results, so the idea was dropped in good scientific fashion. In the case of ...	[ "Dark matter can refer to any substance which interacts predominantly via gravity with visible matter (e.g., stars and planets). Hence in principle it need not be composed of a new type of fundamental particle but could, at least in part, be made up of standard baryonic matter, such as protons or neutrons. However,...
why do some peoples have reddish, yellowish etc. tints to their skins?	Yellow skin is caused by [Jaundice](_URL_0_) Red skin can be caused by a variety of reasons (sunburn, inflammation, blushing) all of which involve red blood cells congregating in your skin.	[ "Uneven pigmentation of some sort affects most people, regardless of bioethnic background or skin color. Skin may either appear lighter, or darker than normal, or lack pigmentation at all; there may be blotchy, uneven areas, patches of brown to gray discoloration or freckling. Apart from blood-related conditions su...

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