question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
|---|---|---|
What is the oldest human language of which we know how native speakers would (more or less) pronounc it? | There are a few historical linguistics experts here, but this question may be worth x-posting to a linguistics sub (e.g. in the sticked Q & A post in /r/Linguistics). Meanwhile, to get you started there have been several posts on pronunciation of some ancient languages here
* [How do we know Assyrian pronunciations? ... | [
"The closest living language to them are the languages of the Mohawk and Tuscarora Iroquois, who once lived immediately north and south of them. The English and Dutch came to call them the Minqua, from Lenape, which breaks into min-kwe and translates to \"as a woman.\" As to when they arrived, some early records de... |
What was a 'club' in the context of Victorian-era Britain? | They varied greatly depending on their members. This ranged from exclusive aristocratic institutions to profession or trade based (the Oriental Club), politically-affiliated (National Liberal Club), interest based (the Arts club) etc. There was more or less a club for any "gentleman" who cared to belong to one. Some wo... | [
"The word “club,” in the sense of an association to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, became common in England at the time of \"Tatler\" and \"The Spectator\" (1709–1712). With the introduction of coffee-drinking in the middle of the 17th century, clubs entered on a more permanent phase. The coffee ho... |
The Wikipedia article for Anglo-Saxon paganism says that it "[developed] from the earlier Iron Age religion of continental northern Europe"; to what tradition is the article referring? What historical records exist of pre-Anglo Saxon pagan beliefs? | The entirety of what we are able to reconstruct from literary accounts concerning Anglo-Saxon paganism wouldnt be enough to fill an answer that would be acceptable on this subreddit to be quite honest. There are a few off hand mentions in Bede's writings that, if we take them at face value, indicate a heirarchal relig... | [
"Germanic paganism refers to the ethnic religion practiced by the Germanic peoples from the Iron Age until Christianisation during the Middle Ages. From both archaeological remains and literary sources, it is possible to trace a number of common or closely related beliefs throughout the Germanic area into the Middl... |
Did the Aztecs really sacrifice an average of 40 people a day, 1.2 million total. Was it, at least, in addition to religion, in part contributed to by use of hallucinogens like mushrooms? | Do you have a direct quotation or citation from Harris? I'd be interested in seeing where he is getting his information from.
There are two claims here:
1. Rate of sacrifice was 40/day, totaling up to 1.2M over an unspecified time frame.
2. Use of psychotropics drugs contributed to the rate at which sacrifices occur... | [
"The Aztecs were particularly noted for practicing human sacrifice on a large scale; an offering to Huitzilopochtli would be made to restore the blood he lost, as the sun was engaged in a daily battle. Human sacrifices would prevent the end of the world that could happen on each cycle of 52 years. In the 1487 re-co... |
Why do stimulants act as diuretics? | Some stimulants act as diuretics, but not all. It comes down to the chemistry of the particular substance and how an individual reacts to it. | [
"In medicine, diuretics are used to treat heart failure, liver cirrhosis, hypertension, influenza, water poisoning, and certain kidney diseases. Some diuretics, such as acetazolamide, help to make the urine more alkaline and are helpful in increasing excretion of substances such as aspirin in cases of overdose or p... |
why is the majority of the us navy nuclear powered ships but super tankers aren't? | Cost. Our newest nuclear aircraft carrier cost 13 billion dollars. How many loads of cargo are you going to have to haul to make up for that? And you would first have to have 13 billion dollars or have some one finance it for you. That is just not happening. Then you would have to have a crew capable of maintainin... | [
"At the present time, many important vessels in the United States Navy are powered by nuclear reactors. All submarines and aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered. Several cruisers were nuclear-powered but these have all been retired.\n",
"Instead of the gas turbines or diesel-electric systems used for propulsion o... |
Who was responsible for the production of the gold stars that jews were required to wear during WW2? | [These Guys](_URL_0_)
The company changed its name (used to be called "Geitel & Co")
/e: to clarify: I do not want to put blame on the successor company of the original manufacturer.. few companies could stay completely clear of any connection to the regime, even if they wanted to. I just found it interesting t... | [
"The first Gold Star was an M24 model. It had an alloy 496 cc engine, an Electron alloy gearbox, and a rigid frame made of light tubes devoid of sidecar attachment lugs. This model continued up to the start of World War II.\n",
"It has been popularly reported that the Nazis ordered all Danish Jews to wear an iden... |
Can viruses be transfered by air, only by breathing into another person? | Your question is a bit cryptic. So I am going to assume you are asking whether viruses can be transferred via air/wind route, or only through breathing/coughing onto another person.
The answer to this question is actually dependent on the particular virus of interest. For instance, Influenza (flu virus) is typically d... | [
"Viruses may reach the lung by a number of different routes. Respiratory syncytial virus is typically contracted when people touch contaminated objects and then they touch their eyes or nose. Other viral infections occur when contaminated airborne droplets are inhaled through the mouth or nose. Once in the upper ai... |
what improvements in spaceflight have we made since the moonlanding? | The efficiency of engines probably didn't improve very much as there is just so much energy in chemical reactions (the same engine is planned to be used in the new NASA SLS as was with the space shuttles since the 80s). There is research into more efficient electric engines but at the moment they aren't powerful enough... | [
"With or without VSE, human spaceflight will be made sustainable. However, without VSE, more funds could be directed toward reducing human spaceflight costs sufficiently for the betterment of low Earth orbit research, business, and tourism. Alternatively, VSE could afford advances in other scientific research (astr... |
what is a super tuesday? | Super Tuesday is a Tuesday on which a number of states hold primary elections in the United States. Many large states hold primaries on this day, and these are generally the first primaries after the 4 early primary/caucus states. It's an important day for presidential primary campaigns, because a lot of delegates are ... | [
"In the United States, Super Tuesday, in general, refers informally to one or more Tuesdays early in a United States presidential primary season when the greatest number of U.S. states hold primary elections and caucuses. More delegates to the presidential nominating conventions can be won on Super Tuesday than on ... |
Why isn't Stonehenge buried? | Let's look at what soil build up is caused by.
Soil increase or degradation is interesting. Some places gain soil over time, others they lose it, but both tend to happen very slowly. There are generally considered to be 6 types of soil bases: sand, silt, chalk, clay, peat and loam. Loam and peat are organic in origin... | [
"Stonehenge is effectively Britain's largest third millennium BC cemetery, containing 52 cremation burials and many other fragments of both burnt and unburnt bone. Many of the cremation deposits contained more than one individual, so that an estimate of the number of people buried here during that period may be bet... |
Is cryogenics legitimate, and if so have there been any recent advancements that take us closer to extending our lives? | I think you mean cryonics.
Human cyronics is one way process and not extension of life. It only preserves the structure of dead body by pumping toxic chemicals into body that would make revival totally impossible.
The theory is that in the far future people could recover that structure in great detail and reconstruc... | [
"For several decades, researchers have also pursued various forms of suspended animation as a means by which to indefinitely extend mammalian lifespan. Some scientists have voiced support for the feasibility of the cryopreservation of humans, known as cryonics. Cryonics is predicated on the concept that some people... |
How are telecommunications possible in outer space if there is no medium (atmosphere) for the waves to traverse? | The discovery that electromagnetic waves don't require a medium to travel through is one of the more important ones in the history of science. The idea of the aether was disproved by the famous Michelson-Morley experiment. Visible light, radio waves, microwaves etc are all electromagnetic waves of different frequencies... | [
"Free-space optical communication has been deployed in space, while terrestrial forms are naturally limited by geography, weather and the availability of light. This article provides a basic introduction to different forms of optical communication.\n",
"There is no air in outer space, nor there is any other type ... |
could a hacker take over a self-driving car and cause it to redirect or crash? | I don't think self-driving cars will be connected to the internet unless google has another crazy idea.
However contrary to popular belief hackers don't hack exclusively using the internet. If the car has a bluetooth or wifi network so that it can be controlled with the drivers devices then it opens a new attack vecto... | [
"A major problem is a car getting hacked. Autonomous cars, like all modern cars, are controlled by software, therefore, hackers can get into the software and manipulate the car's functionality to do harm.\n",
"Modern Internet-connected drive-by-wire cars can potentially be hacked remotely and used for such attack... |
How long can muscle tissue go without oxygen? | Hours. When we do surgery on a limb we often put a tourniquet on to a high level and leave it on to stop bleeding (stops blood flow). It would be painful if you were awake though. Can last several hours like this, but the less time the better. We even have a clock in the theatre to tell us how long tourniquet time was ... | [
"Oxygen consumption of skeletal muscle is approximately 50 times larger while contracting than in the resting state. Thus, resting the affected limb should delay onset of infarction substantially after arterial occlusion.\n",
"For the successful isolation of skeletal muscles, specific conditions are required. The... |
why does sand in the hourglass flow with a relatively even pace not depending on the amount of it left in the upper bulb? | Hourglasses definitely slow as they empty. You can simply visibly notice it. Not sure why you or the podcast host think they don't. | [
"While some early hourglasses actually did use sand as the granular mixture to measure time, many did not use sand at all. The material used in most bulbs was a combination of \"powdered marble, tin/lead oxides, and pulverized, burnt eggshell\". Over time, different textures of granule matter were tested to see whi... |
why does the ice on this trampoline break in a rectangular shape (to the right of the jumper at 0:42) | it looks like the point in time where the shock wave met up with the return z motion from the jump. It is possible that differences in the thickness of the ice, slight off balance of his weight hitting the mat, or spring tension/resistance differences led to us actually getting to see it. Versus the momentum going back... | [
"The loop jump is an edge jump in the sport of figure skating. It was created by German figure skater Werner Rittberger, and is often called the Rittberger in Europe. It also gets its name from the shape the blade would leave on the ice if the skater performed the rotation without leaving the ice. The skater execut... |
how do investors pick franchises and are they preferable to starting a business on your own? | Investors pick franchises based on what they think will be the best fit for where they want to operate their business. Several things come into play, such as the cost of the franchise, the amount of support they get for that money, the appeal of the product in that market, and how much competition there is for that pro... | [
"While some entrepreneurs are made offers of exactly what they are seeking, most of the offers the Dragons make either seek a greater percentage of the business (equity) or seek a royalty on the sales of the business (this has become more prevalent in later seasons). The entrepreneurs and Dragons may then engage in... |
Madness among royalty/nobility in earlier epochs. Any good resources/links/info? | Ludwig II of Bavaria
[Madness runs in the family] (_URL_0_)
His aunt was sure, that she swalloed a glass piano as a child, she spent many years in a mental facility were she translated a lot of literature. | [
"Charles Mackay (27 March 1814 – 24 December 1889) was a Scottish poet, journalist, author, anthologist, novelist, and songwriter, remembered mainly for his book \"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds\".\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Eisenhelm the Illusionist\" (\"Esquire\", December 1989) - An account ... |
how is it that johnson & johnson baby powder (talc-based) is being linked to asbestos-caused cancers, like mesothelioma? | It had asbestos in it for years and they kept that information under wraps so that people wouldn't sue them or they wouldn't be held responsible. And once the information got out... | [
"In December 2018, with 11,700 people suing Johnson & Johnson over cancers allegedly caused by baby powder, the company was forced to release internal documents. The documents showed that the company had known about asbestos contamination since at least as early as 1971 and had spent decades finding ways to conceal... |
why do we need to wear so many layers on our body when it's cold, but only one layer of pants? | Yes, keeping your "core" warm is more efficient in terms of amount of clothing than insulating your extremities. Your body can transfer heat from the torso to legs and feet. However, this only works for people going between heated rooms, like from your house, to your car, to your office.
For anyone that needs to in th... | [
"Layered clothing is a term describing a way of dressing using many garments that are worn on top of each other. Some of the layers have different, largely non-overlapping, functions. Using more or fewer layers, or replacing one layer but not others, allows for flexible clothing to match the needs of each situation... |
Why did Unionists object to power sharing in Northern Ireland in 1973? |
I’m sorry it took me so long to look at this. I needed to do a bit of research. I am not entirely sure whether by “power-sharing” you mean the concept or the specific institutions of the Executive set up in 1973 so I’ll deal with both.
Michael Kerr has argued that the idea of power-sharing was not the central issue fo... | [
"More recently, the Belfast Agreement (\"Good Friday Agreement\") of 10 April 1998 brought – on 2 December 1999 – a degree of power sharing to Northern Ireland, giving both unionists and nationalists control of limited areas of government. However, both the power-sharing Executive and the elected Assembly were susp... |
how are fall allergies/allergens different from spring allergies/allergens? | Allergies are simply due to your immune system responding to something entering your body that it doesn't really need to respond to, or having a much stronger reaction than is necessary. Seasonal allergies are usually caused by some plant product (for example, pollen), so it's just your body responding to a different s... | [
"Among seasonal allergies, there are some allergens that fuse together and produce a new type of allergy. For instance, grass pollen allergens cross-react with food allergy proteins in vegetables such as onion, lettuce, carrots, celery and corn. Besides, the cousins of birch pollen allergens, like apples, grapes, p... |
Was William the conqueror's harrying of the North of England in 1069-1070 a genocide? | I've written on this topic before, let me know if you have any follow up questions!
_URL_0_ | [
"In the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror's solution to stop a rebellion in 1069 was the brutal conquest and subjugation of the North of England. William's men burnt whole villages from the Humber to Tees, and slaughtered the inhabitants. Food stores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving ... |
why is it, that when trying to fall asleep people can become very anxious? | It is probably anxiety caused by the transitional period of finding and going to a new college, anxiety and anxious thoughts can have a knock-on effect. I assume the reason it is more severe at night is because you have less immediate stimulus to distract you from your negative thought patterns.
Not very scientific, I... | [
"Seriously anxious people find it difficult to control their worry and typically experience symptoms like Restlessness, Fatigue, Difficulty in concentrating, Irritability, Muscle tension and Sleep disturbance.\n",
"A person, then, who fears (i.e. experiences anticipatory anxiety over) not getting a good night's s... |
Australia history topics | A subject that could meet your listed requirements would be the experiences of soldier settlers after WW1 and what led to successes or failures. The theme of national identity could arise from the "A Land Fit for Heroes" slogan. | [
"The society undertakes a range of activities including lectures and workshops, functions, walks, talks, and visits on a wide variety of topics in Australian history. It holds an annual conference which addresses current historical issues in local history and heritage. Publications include the quarterly magazine, \... |
If a human was born and raised on a planet with less gravity than earth would the child be taller because of less force on the growing body? | Bone needs gravitational force in order to stimulate growth and remodeling, so no. The mechanical weight-bearing stress on bone imposed by gravity on Earth is vital for development and maintenance of bone strength and structure. | [
"It is estimated that the worldwide average height for an adult human male is about , while the worldwide average height for adult human females is about . Shrinkage of stature may begin in middle age in some individuals, but tends to be typical in the extremely aged. Through history human populations have universa... |
encapsulation and getters/setters | Encapsulation means that you don't have to know or care about internal workings of a class, and in fact, all internal workings are hidden from the outside, and your class only interacts with the outside world by using public methods.
For the most part, you might not care if you just make internal variable public, or i... | [
"In the case of swindling, con artists weave a dramaturgy where they hold a monopoly over some valuable asset, and the mark is set up as monopsonist, an exclusive buyer with access to a special deal. The scheme is premised on mutual need, and policing of these schemes is difficult because for part of the transactio... |
Is watching TV without an extra light source bad for your eyes? | I don't know if the light difference is bad for your eyes. What I do know is that watching television for too long can cause eye strain ([Asthenopia](_URL_0_)), but that is caused by focusing your eyes on one thing for too long. Also, watching television (or looking at any electrical light source) at night can cause me... | [
"Ergonomic studies had shown that prolonged work in the office environment with the presence of discomforting glares and disturbances from light reflections on the screen can be a cause of mild to severe adverse health effects, ranging from eye strain and headaches to photosensitive epileptic episodes. These effect... |
What is our earliest known evidence of magic tricks? | A few sleight-of-hand scholars (Penn & Teller among them) say the oldest known trick is the cup-and-balls, which was, they say, illustrated in the [tomb of Baqet III](_URL_0_) and ostensibly described in [an ancient Egyptian papyrus](_URL_4_) as performed by a magician named Dedi of Dejd-senefu.
Others say [that's... | [
"One of the earliest books on the subject is Gantziony's work of 1489, \"Natural and Unnatural Magic\", which describes and explains old-time tricks. In 1584, Englishman Reginald Scot published \"The Discoverie of Witchcraft\", part of which was devoted to debunking the claims that magicians used supernatural metho... |
If two people were to eat perfectly identical diets, would their excrement eventually be identical? | I think a more interesting question is "If two identical twins ate and drank everything the exact same, would their feces be the same?" | [
"The first recorded nutritional experiment with human subjects is found in the Bible's Book of Daniel. Daniel and his friends were captured by the king of Babylon during an invasion of Israel. Selected as court servants, they were to share in the king's fine foods and wine. But they objected, preferring vegetables ... |
People from your period of specialty had to have a sense of humour. How were political leaders and famous figures satirized? | In North Korea ... not so much so. Criticism or jokes about the Kims was typically punished with a trip to one of the country's concentration camps, and the offender's family wasn't spared either. Purges were particularly common in the mid- to late 1950s while Kim il-Sung was consolidating power, and then again in the ... | [
"His humour was, at the time (especially considering Portugal was still under the dictatorial Salazar regime), both unexpected and fresh. It included a lot of nonsense, and stories making fun of daily life.\n",
"This kind of humour is often attributed to such comedians and comedic writers as Lenny Bruce, Richard ... |
Was the architecture built in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc built in a grim style intentionally? | Although the drab ugliness of Eastern bloc architecture might seem like a tool of social oppression, the reality behind the adaptation of prefabricated concrete was more prosaic. This architectural style was an expedient solution to a postwar housing crisis that at the time seemed to be modern.
The popular image of ... | [
"Soviet-style cities are often traced to Modernist ideas in architecture such as those of Le Corbusier and his plans for Paris. The housing developments generally feature tower blocks in park-like settings, standardized and mass-produced using structural insulated panels within a short period of time.\n",
"Centra... |
these long and sometimes unrelated personality quizzes/questionnaires when applying for jobs. | Back in the '70s, there was a huge movement in business to measure everything you could, and use that data to improve.
They developed tests to show the personality of applicants and then used them in the hiring process. On the better designed ones it didn't matter if you lied or not. They looked at the answers and... | [
"Interview questions are generally designed to tap applicant attributes that are specifically relevant to the job for which the person is applying. The job-relevant applicant attributes that the questions purportedly assess are thought to be necessary for one to successfully perform on the job. The job-relevant con... |
If something were to hover in place for 365 days, would the earth complete an entire rotation under it, eventually returning it to it's original location? | Define in place. In place relative to what? The sun? The earth? Another object? | [
"As first explained by Maximilian Schuler in a 1923 paper, a pendulum whose period exactly equals the orbital period of a hypothetical satellite orbiting just above the surface of the earth (about 84 minutes) will tend to remain pointing at the center of the earth when its support is suddenly displaced. This princi... |
When did the concept of "nobility" in Western cultures die out? Is it even dead? | As already said the titles do still exist but hold no relevancy. The "nobility" as in a Feudal concept died out c.17th century and the remaining idea of a general aristocracy began dying out in the 19th century and was killed by the World Wars. I think anyway, this is a little outside my area of expertise *g* | [
"Since the end of World War I the hereditary nobility entitled to special rights has largely been abolished in the Western World as intrinsically discriminatory, and discredited as inferior in efficiency to individual meritocracy in the allocation of societal resources. Nobility came to be associated with social ra... |
why does fat bring so much flavor to meat; and why do garlic and onions also bring such rich flavor | Fat is like a carrier for lipophile aromas - like the essential oils in spices and herbs. That's why fat-reduced or fat-free products need to weigh this up with more sugar, salt and (artificial) flavouring - and still are less tasty than their fatty counterparts.
Some scientists (Stewart et al.) assume that some peopl... | [
"There are few regularly consumed foods rich in fat taste, due to the negative flavor that is evoked in large quantities. Foods whose flavor to which fat taste makes a small contribution include olive oil and fresh butter, along with various kinds of vegetable and nut oils.\n",
"Fattoush includes vegetables and h... |
why can routers only use 2.4ghz and 5ghz if they're so congested? | Radio spectrums are like a broad highway. Consider 2.4 and 5 as like the 2 far left lanes on a highway, but there are maybe 6 more lanes.
These 6 lanes are reserved for military communications(2 lanes), emergency responders radios(1 lane), aircraft radio communications(1 lane), and cell phone companies(2 lanes).
Thes... | [
"The 56kbit/s speed of analogue modems can only be achieved if there is a single digital to analogue conversion in the route from the ISP to the end user. Since DACS involves an additional conversion to digital, and then back to analogue, this means that the maximum possible bitrate over a DACS line is 33.6 kbit/s.... |
What's the mechanism by which oats lower cholesterol? | It's been awhile since I learned about this, but as I recall there are several proposed mechanisms. With regards to your later questions, it's not some awesome property of the oats themselves that lowers the cholesterol, but is instead a result of their high soluble fiber content. That means that any foods or a diet ... | [
"The presence of cholesterol exerts a profound but complicated influence on lipid bilayer properties because of its unique physical characteristics. Although it is a lipid, cholesterol bears little resemblance to a phospholipid. The hydrophilic domain of cholesterol is quite small, consisting of a single hydroxyl g... |
what is the point of have different words that mean the same thing? | Very few words mean *exactly* the same thing. Most synonyms offer various shades of meaning or have different connotations even though they have the same definition.
Also, to even ask "what is the point" is a nonsensical question. Languages weren't made up one day by a committee of people who made rational decisions. ... | [
"To \"[distinguish] between things that are the same and those that are different' one must use their senses to understand a thing (via sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) and then compare it to understandings of other things. From these observations, names can be given based on the sameness or difference between th... |
How accurate is it theoretically possible for weather forecasting to be? For example, with a powerful enough supercomputer, will we eventually be able to predict the exact track of a hurricane weeks in advance? Are there any other factors limiting prediction accuracy aside from computing power? | The practical limit of a weather forecasts is about 10 days, I believe the theoretical limit is around two weeks (sorry I can't find a reference, on mobile). The limit is because the weather is a chaotic system. Chaos in this context doesn't mean random, it has a specific meaning relating to the growth of tiny errors i... | [
"Manipulating the vast datasets and performing the complex calculations necessary to modern numerical weather prediction requires some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Even with the increasing power of supercomputers, the forecast skill of numerical weather models extends to only about six days. Fa... |
During the medieval period (let's say 1000-1500), which character's stories was more popular among the people of England: King Arthur or Robin Hood? | First, I think we need to ask two questions. The first is in literature or among the folk? And the second is where in England/Britain?
When it comes to which inspired more in writing (and by implication if we can allow that implication, who had a larger readership?), I think we'd have to give the nod to Arthur and his... | [
"During the High Middle Ages tales originated from Brythonic traditions, notably the Arthurian legend. Deriving from Welsh source; King Arthur, Excalibur and Merlin, while the Jersey poet Wace introduced the Knights of the Round Table. These stories are most centrally brought together within Geoffrey of Monmouth's ... |
Why do sodas use carbon dioxide and not other gases such as nitrogen or oxygen? | Carbon dioxide is used in fizzy drinks because it's more soluble in water than nitrogen or other potential suitable gases. You can dissolve ~1.75g of carbon dioxide in one kilogram of water at around 20°C (just a little under room temperature), compared to about 0.02g of nitrogen per kilogram of water at the same tempe... | [
"The conversion of dissolved carbon dioxide to gaseous carbon dioxide forms rapidly expanding gas bubbles in the soda, which pushes the beverage contents out of the container. Gases, in general, are more soluble in liquids at elevated pressures. Carbonated sodas contain elevated levels of carbon dioxide under press... |
how do people raise money by doing random things like staying in a cage or running ? | People sponsor them - they pay small amounts of money to encourage that person to keep going. | [
"Street fundraising consists of various ways of asking for donations on behalf of a charity. Those asking for donations may be paid employees of the charity (or more commonly a private contractor working on behalf of the charity), or they may be volunteers.\n",
"Jump’s services encompass various ways to approach ... |
how am i able to wake up regularly right before my alarm almost every single day? is this a sign of a stress/coping mechanism in the brain at play or something else? | Your brain has a kind of internal clock that helps you wake up at the same time every day. All mammals have it; this is why cats wake their owner up around the same time every day to get fed :)
By setting your alarm for the same time every day, you got your body used to waking up at that time. Because your body roughl... | [
"Today, many humans wake up with an alarm clock; however, people can also reliably wake themselves up at a specific time with no need for an alarm. Many sleep quite differently on workdays versus days off, a pattern which can lead to chronic circadian desynchronization. Many people regularly look at television and ... |
How do would more than 1 star in a solar system work? Would 1 star orbit another? What if there were 3 stars? | When one body orbits another, what is actually happening is that they're both orbiting the common center of mass. It's just that usually one is orders of magnitude more massive than the other, and so for all practical purposes the center of mass is in the center of the heavier body, and the lighter one appears to orbit... | [
"In a \"physical\" triple star system, each star orbits the center of mass of the system. Usually, two of the stars form a close binary system, and the third orbits this pair at a distance much larger than that of the binary orbit. This arrangement is called \"hierarchical\". The reason for this is that if the inne... |
who picked the jurors in the zimmerman court case? | I can't speak for Florida, but generally speaking...
In a court case with a jury, both the procecution and the defense have a say on who makes it onto the jury from the available jury pool. Each side can pull the "I don't like this person" card, sometimes a limited number of times. Also, the judge can dismiss a potent... | [
"Reporters and journalists questioned the evidence and workings of the case. Even though the white prosecutor's office did follow all the laws and did not do anything illegal, \"the court empaneled a seriously prejudiced jury of white Southern Baptists\". During the trial, the only real piece of evidence other than... |
Do houseplants "die from old age"? | Have you repoted your yellowing plants into fresh high quality soil at least once every year or two for the duration of you owning it?
I got a plant from my sister once that had been good for a long time but had been slowly becoming less and less healthy. (yellowing and thinning leaves)
First thing I did was pull the... | [
"A common problem occurs when the homeowner dies; if the surviving resident does not meet the requirements for ownership, then he or she is forced to sell the home. This can happen even if the survivor is the \"spouse\" of the deceased. However, many age-restricted communities have circumvented this issue by allowi... |
If the Universe is expanding, is the wavelength of light from distant stars effected? | Yes. It's called cosmological redshift and it's basically due to the wavelength of light getting stretched out from the expansion. | [
"In a simple (static and flat) universe, the light received from an object drops proportional to the square of its distance and the apparent area of the object also drops proportional to the square of the distance, so the surface brightness (light received per surface area) would be constant, independent of the dis... |
Why did the Crusaders march hundreds of miles overland instead of sailing to the Holy Land? | The crusading armies were transported in vessels to Constantinople and further parts of Asia-Minor by Alexios Komnenos. The crusaders swore a vow to uphold his interests. Any land the crusaders took were to be either delivered or restored to Alexios. In many regards, the crusaders had an opportunity to journey on foot ... | [
"The First Crusade march down the Mediterranean coast, from recently taken Antioch to Jerusalem, started on 13 January 1099. During the march the Crusaders encountered little resistance, as local rulers preferred to make peace with them and furnish them with supplies rather than fight, with a notable exception of t... |
refrigerate after opening | Because they've been treated to remove bacteria, which can grow by feeding on the material.
Once you open it, you've exposed it to bacteria again.
You can't get the cat out of the bag again.. wait is that how that goes? | [
"Because Oloroso Sherries have already been through years of oxidative aging, they can be safely stored for years before opening. Once opened, Oloroso will begin to slowly lose some of its aroma and flavor but can be kept, corked and refrigerated, for up to two months after opening. The older the Oloroso, the longe... |
when you're on a trampoline with other people, how does "stealing someone's bounce" work? | When you land on the trampoline you are coming down with a downward force. This force will make the trampoline stretch.
The trampoline then wants to return to a less stretched state and push you up at which point you jump again to jump higher or keep jumping.
The trampoline can only stretch up to a certain point overal... | [
"A trampoline is a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched between a steel frame using many coiled springs. People bounce on trampolines for recreational and competitive purposes.\n",
"Trampolines (sometimes referred to as indirect jump vectors) are memory locations holding addresses pointin... |
why is it so difficult for people to change their perspective on something when the evidence clearly shows that they are wrong? | This is the best (and most enjoyable) explanation I've ever found. _URL_0_ | [
"The deficit model, however, has been discredited by a wealth of literature that shows that simply giving more information to people does not necessarily change their views. This is partly because people want to feel that they have had their say (and have been heard) in any decision-making process, and partly becau... |
how can a scam like publishers clearing house still exist after so many years? no one actually believes they just became millionaires, right? | It is a lottery competition. They actually do have winners who do get the money they are promised. If it were a scam it would be illegal and they would be shut down, but so long as there are some winners (even if it is rare) they are not doing anything illegal so long as the State they are in allows lotteries. | [
"Operators of the scams buy old shelf companies with no complaint history to give the appearance they've been trading legitimately for long periods. When complaints cause reputation problems they close the company and start anew. Virtual offices, fake receptionists and fake testimonials are used, and telemarketers ... |
How many years ago did insects emerge? | There are actually quite a few fossil insects! It's true that their exoskeletons are quite different from bone, but they're still sturdy enough to be preserved under the right conditions. Many of the best fossil insect specimens are preserved in amber, such as [this 100 million year old](_URL_3_) individual, but ther... | [
"The most recent understanding of the evolution of insects is based on studies of the following branches of science: molecular biology, insect morphology, paleontology, insect taxonomy, evolution, embryology, bioinformatics and scientific computing. It is estimated that the class of insects originated on Earth abou... |
why do inanimate objects make popping noises randomly? | Probably due to the build up of gases or a change in temperature.
Many materials contract or expand when subject to colder or hotter temperatures. This expansion or contraction can result in noises, but they mostly sound like creaks and not pops.
When a gas is built up though, the pressure rises. Beyond a certain poi... | [
"The three Fimbles have a special \"sixth sense\" - when the Tinkling Tree tinkles its bell-like blossoms, it makes the nose, fingers and topknot of one or more Fimbles twitch as they get the \"Fimbling Feeling\". This tells the character(s) that they are going to find something. It may be a natural phenomenon - a ... |
if someone going above the speed of sound were to scream at the direction opposite to where they are traveling, would they be unable to hear themselves? | Sound vibrations carry through membranes and bones, doesn't need to be 'airborne' for you to hear your own self talk. | [
"A simple example concerns the model on which aether was originally built: sound. The speed of propagation for mechanical waves, the speed of sound, is defined by the mechanical properties of the medium. Sound travels 4.3 times faster in water than in air. This explains why a person hearing an explosion underwater ... |
why are flash and silverlight abandoning mobile support in favor of html5? | I'm going to get down-voted to hell for this, but here goes...
Flash and silverlight mobile versions aren't up to par with their desktop counterparts. They are buggier, and run a lot more slowly. They also use a LOT of resources.
That said, HTML5 isn't necessarily better. It's different. It can do some of the t... | [
"HTML5 is often cited as an alternative to Adobe Flash technology usage on web pages. Adobe released a tool that converts Flash to HTML5, and in June 2011, Google released an experimental tool that does the same. In January 2015, YouTube defaulted to HTML5 players to better support more devices.\n",
"Apple has be... |
Would it make any sense to pad the *outside* of a football helmet? | Let's assume that this question is primarily directed towards the high frequency of concussions sustained by football players. In this respect, our main concern is regarding the stabilization of the neck during high-impact trauma and less on helmet design.
The function of the helmet is two-fold. The hard surface of ... | [
"Because football helmets need to withstand multiple collisions, the helmet materials need to return to their original form after each hit. Padding materials need to be low density to make the helmet comfortable and practical without sacrificing energy absorption. Most football helmets are made from polyurethane o... |
Why didn’t modern day Canada’s provinces join the 13 colonies in rebellion? Did the Provinces have the same status as the American colonies had? Did they simply choose not to rebel? Was Canada affected at all by the Intolerable Acts, or exempt because they were not as hostile towards the British? | To answer this question, it is first important to identify the British colonies that would all become known as "Canada" in the 19th and 20th centuries:
The largest, and most populous, colony was Quebec - most often called "Canada" by the British American colonials. Quebec's boundaries extended throughout the entire Gr... | [
"After the American Civil War, the five colonies which made up British North America, Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, held meetings to consider uniting into a single country. This was due to a threat of annexation and invasion from the United States. Canadian Confederation beca... |
- what are carbs? | Carbohydrates. Literally, hydrates (molecules containing water or hydrogen/oxygen) of carbon. In short, molecules consisting of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
It includes starches, cellulose, and sugars, which are important in a lot of biology. They aren't essential in humans, but are a common source of energy. | [
"In food science and in many informal contexts, the term \"carbohydrate\" often means any food that is particularly rich in the complex carbohydrate starch (such as cereals, bread and pasta) or simple carbohydrates, such as sugar (found in candy, jams, and desserts).\n",
"Often in lists of nutritional information... |
How did the breweries of Eastern Europe fare during Communist rule and the transition to the free market? | The answer regarding Czechoslovakia is fairly simple, and I suspect the story would have been quite similar with Poland. They were nationalized. Now this process had already begun before the communist takeover of 1948, as the National Front government took over major industries and businesses following the war. In this... | [
"Following the Second World War, most breweries were nationalized under the Polish People's Republic communist regime. After the collapse of communism and return to capitalism, the market economy returned, international beer companies moved in and a period of consolidation followed. Three companies now control 80% ... |
How did generals like Crassus or Caesar raise their own legions with their own money? | The so-called "Marian reforms" consist simply of the legal and formal abolition of the property requirement, itself only a technicality by Marius' time, which allowed Marius to recruit from the *capite censi*, who never were a majority of the army. Marius passed no legislation regarding the means of levying troops or s... | [
"Caesar seizes the emergency funds from the treasury to fund his campaign, but, failing to pay off his soldiers, is later forced to decimate his own rebellious Ninth Legion. Pompey amasses a huge army in Greece while Caesar leads a one-year campaign against opposition in Spain. In Greece, Caesar is forced to retrea... |
why do some programs require you use their way of uninstalling them? | Because in Windows since time immemorial, the OS provided no installation facility, and programs are responsible for installing themselves. So there's a bunch of installation systems, each with their own bugs and features. It also means uninstallation is fully under the control of your program's maker, and may not even... | [
"Some tools offer features for the debugging of stored procedures: Step In, Step Over, Step Out, Run Until Exception, Breakpoints, View & Set Variables, View Call Stack, and so on. Users can debug any program-unit without making any modification to it, including triggers and object types.\n",
"Shortcomings: This ... |
why is refrigeration not required for single use coffee creamer shots? | They are [ultra high temp pasteurized](_URL_0_) and sealed, like shelf stable boxed milk is. As long as they are unopened, no bacteria, etc. can grow inside the container. | [
"Refrigerate a large glass filled with the required amount of sweetened coffee, and add the ice cream and chantilly just prior to serving. Often crushed roasted coffee beans are put on top of the chantilly as decoration.\n",
"The hot-air popper is sometimes pressed into service as a coffee roaster, but such a lig... |
What military technologies and strategies were devised between the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars? | Between the Seven Years War and the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars, France needed to get back to the top. Frederick the Great brought his power and energy into his army and created a very deadly war machine that the old armies of Europe had a hard time fighting. He brought up many innovations such as the standard... | [
"Strategy (and tactics) must constantly evolve in response to technological advances. A successful strategy from one era tends to remain in favor long after new developments in military weaponry and matériel have rendered it obsolete. World War I, and to a great extent the American Civil War, saw Napoleonic tactics... |
What was the attitude of the Germans to the Bohemians / Czechs when the German Empire was formed (1871)? | Summary: Bohemians were seen mainly as a Slav ethnic group, although a large minority of Bohemians were Germans or Czechs preferring the German language in official business or high society contact.
The idea of bringing the Lands of the Bohemian Crown into the future unified Germany was considered around 1866 but reje... | [
"German Bohemians, later known as the Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of the state of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, Czechoslovakia was inhabited by over three million such German Bohemians, comprising about 23 percent of the populati... |
If a huge volcano violently erupted, would it 'thrust' earth off its orbit? Is that possible? :O | For the Earth's momentum to change, the ejecta of the volcano would need to leave the Earth's gravity well and carry some of it away. Since volcanoes cannot do this, the answer is no. At most, there would be a momentary slowdown or speed up as some momentum were carried away, before it was returned to the Earth as it f... | [
"If it does happen, then material reaching the bottom of the convective thrust region can no longer be adequately supported by convection and will fall under gravity, forming a pyroclastic flow or surge which can travel down the slopes of a volcano at speeds of over . Column collapse is one of the most common and d... |
What is the difference between a hyperbolic and a parabolic orbit? | A hyperbolic orbit is a type of orbit which is not bound, that is, the body orbiting has more than enough total (kinetic+potential) energy to escape to infinity. This is in contrast to elliptic orbits, in which the body hasn't enough energy to escape and thus remains bound in a periodic orbit.
A parabolic orbit is jus... | [
"In mathematics, a hyperbolic space is a homogeneous space that has a constant negative curvature, where in this case the curvature is the sectional curvature. It is hyperbolic geometry in more than 2 dimensions, and is distinguished from Euclidean spaces with zero curvature that define the Euclidean geometry, and ... |
Do we know of any ancient Greek jokes? (or other cultures) | This excerpt from my draft Introduction to Folklore may be of help for older forms of jokes in general:
The joke is a widespread genre with old roots. European peasantry told numskull stories and other humorous tales for centuries. Other traditional jokes make fun of wives or parsons. These stories appear in Aarne and... | [
"Various kinds of jokes have been identified in ancient pre-classical texts. The oldest identified joke is an ancient Sumerian proverb from 1900 BC containing toilet humour: \"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.\" Its records were dated to the O... |
the flat earth society | its more or less a joke. There are some conspiracy theorists who still believe that the earth is flat, and that the government/NASA is lying to them, but so much of their community are people just trying to have a laugh that it invalidates everything. I mean, invalidates it more than their ridiculous theories anyway | [
"Modern flat Earth societies are organizations that promote the misconception that the Earth is flat rather than a globe. Such groups date from the middle of the 20th century; some adherents are serious and some are not. Those who are serious are often motivated by pseudoscience or Biblical literalism.\n",
"BULLE... |
the painful shuddering hearing nails running on metal or chalkboards | The sound created by nails running on a chalkboard has a frequency in the 2000Hz - 4000Hz. Our ear canal tends to enter a state of resonance at those frequencies, which means these sounds are amplified. Furthermore, we have a mechanism in our ear called the acoustic reflex (or stapedius reflex), which contracts our ear... | [
"The scratching of fingernails on a blackboard, as well as other pointed, especially metal objects against blackboards, produces a sound that is well known for being extremely irritating to most people. According to a study run by Michael Oehler, a professor at the University of Media and Communication in Cologne, ... |
Have there been any species once believed to be two distinct species but later proven that one is the juvenile form of another? | Some paleontologists believe that Dracorex, Stygimoloch, and Pachycephalosaurus are all different stages of the same species. Nanotyrannus is also believed to be a young Tyrannosaurs. These interpretations can be hard to prove, though. An earlier theory that Triceratops is a young Torosaurus has been largely abandoned. | [
"The two described species are sometimes further split into two species each (i.e., resulting in a total of four species). Additionally, a possibly undescribed species is found in the Orinoco Basin in Venezuela.\n",
"In addition, two new forms were recognised in later studies, but these two forms were not given a... |
Are There Any Recorded Civilizations That Pre-dated the Sumerians? | When you say civilization, do you mean other cultures/peoples or do you mean something more specific? If the former, one of the earliest group of people were [the Natufians](_URL_1_). [Here's a great Australian documentary](_URL_0_) about Natufian culture and the peoples that came after them, about 10k years ago. | [
"It is generally agreed that Sumerian civilization began at some point between c. 4500 and 4000 BC, but the earliest historical records only date to around 2900 BC. The Sumerians originally practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world. The... |
How does agriculture release so much greenhouse gas? | One underlying reason for agricultural GHG emissions is the ammonia fertilizer industry which [uses 1.2% of world energy consumption](_URL_1_) just to manufacture nitrogen fertilizers. Their plants annual methane emissions of [28 gigagrams which is 100 times higher than the fertilizer industry’s self-reported estimate]... | [
"Numerous studies have shown that locally and sustainably grown foods actually release more greenhouse gases than food made in factory farms. The \"Land Degradation\" section of the United Nations report \"Livestock's Long Shadow\" concludes that \"Intensification - in terms of increased productivity both in livest... |
why is it so frowned upon to go to sleep late even if you get 8 hours of sleep in total? | Your body has something called a [circadian rhythm](_URL_0_), which is a 24 hour sleep / wake cycle that is attuned to the day night cycle of the planet, you naturally sleep better at some times during this cycle than at others. | [
"\"National Geographic Magazine\" has reported that the demands of work, social activities, and the availability of 24-hour home entertainment and Internet access have caused people to sleep less now than in premodern times. \"USA Today\" reported in 2007 that most adults in the USA get about an hour less than the ... |
why do we see off-brand shoes, clothes, etc. but not off-brand cars, motorcycles, etc.? | Because it's incredibly expensive to even to *start* to make a car or motorcycle. It's relatively inexpensive to make clothes. | [
"Branding goes beyond having a logo; it is how businesses communicate on behalf of their company, verbally and visually. A brand is a conversation it is how people talk about your company when you are not in the room. Consumers are constantly interacting and meeting with brands. This can be through television or ot... |
if jesus died for our sins so people can go to heaven, did all people go to hell before jesus lived and died? | It doesn't sound stupid at all, i am religious and i havent even thought about this. But still, here's my answer, agree with it or not.
Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell"— Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek—because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Suc... | [
"Protestants believe that the deceased leave their bodies and their spirit faces judgement for sin by God. Since all humans sin, the only way into Heaven is faith in Jesus Christ, who is both God's Son and God in human form. Good deeds in this life store up treasures in heaven – entering into Heaven (the true life)... |
If the moon formed from Earth due to a huge impact shaving off a large piece of rock and then coalescing, how did moons form around gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn? | The [Wikipedia](_URL_1_) page does a pretty solid job summarizing the current theories. But some extra details and a technical description can be found in [Alibert et al. \(2005\)](_URL_2_).
When large gas giants form out of the proto-planetary disk, they get massive enough that they [clear out a gap in the disk](_URL... | [
"The Moon has an outer shell of low-density crystalline rock that is a few hundred kilometers thick, which formed due to a rapid creation. The craters of the Moon have been well preserved through time and were once thought to have been the result of extreme volcanic activity, but actually were formed by meteorites,... |
why are penis vein patterns so different from penis to penis? | Everybody's veins are a little bit different. The same can be said for iris and retina patterns, and for prints from the nose, lips, tongue, and ears besides fingers and feet. | [
"The shaft of the penis consists of three cylindrical bodies of spongy tissue filled with blood vessels along its length. Two of these bodies lie side-by-side in the upper portion of the penis called corpora cavernosa. The third, called the corpus spongiosum, is a tube that lies centrally beneath the others and exp... |
If gravitons exist, would that imply that every particle in the universe is dynamically interacting with every other particle in the universe? | Yes, if they are causally connected. This is true even without gravitons.
Treating fields as an exchange of particles makes sense when you're considering objects scattering off each other, but it isn't really useful to consider static fields in this way.
Charged objects aren't constantly shooting photons at each othe... | [
"These quarks and leptons interact through four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. The Standard Model of particle physics is currently the best explanation for all of physics, but despite decades of efforts, gravity cannot yet be accounted for at the quantum l... |
Need help: The Nazis tried to link Jews to Communism, especially after Barbarossa. How strong was this link in convincing other populaces to kill? | To add to /u/Jan_van_Bergen information previous response:
Firstly, the idea of the link between Jews and Bolshevism does have a certain historic basis. Secular Jews often joined socialist and social democratic parties during the 19th century because they were the only ones that would have them. Conservative and other... | [
"Hitler often said why he wished to remove and kill the Jews. His explanation is a complicated and structurally logical construct that can be reproduced in great detail. A rat cage, the murders committed by the Bolsheviks, or a special fear of these are not mentioned. On the contrary, Hitler was always convinced th... |
Why is mercury considered safe as a tooth filling material but too unsafe for nearly all other human uses? | Elemental mercury, or mercury used in amalgam is not as bad as you might think. When you hear about mercury poisoning from things like fish, they are talking about methylmercury, which is a single mercy atom with a methyl group (CH3) bound to it. This makes it so it can interfere with an orgasm's biochemistry a lot mor... | [
"The use of mercury in dental fillings is considered safe and effective in all countries practicing modern dentistry (see below). There are currently two countries, Norway and Sweden, that have introduced legislation to prohibit or restrict use of amalgam fillings; however, in both cases amalgam is part of a larger... |
when in time did people start overeating and becoming overweight? was it a sudden change or gradual shift? | Food became cheap and abundant at the same time fewer people had jobs that required physical exertion.
Eating more + moving less = gaining weight | [
"From 1977 to 2000, children malnutrition for those aged five and younger had moments of improvement and backtrack. The prevalence of children being underweight, having stunted growth or being weak has improved. More specifically, in 2000 it was 8.9% less common for a child to be underweight compared to rates in th... |
Textbooks or other good reads on classical martial arts? | No such textbooks exist. Nothing is known about the particulars of *hoplomachia*. This is no exaggeration; modern scholars continue to argue even over such basic details as the way the shield was held, and whether the spear was used for overhand or underhand thrusting, because there is no ancient source giving us unamb... | [
"The manuscript contains instruction of martial techniques and is one of three extant sources on martial techniques in Middle English, the other two being Cotton MS Titus A XXV folio. 105 and Additional MS 39564.\n",
"Draeger wrote dozens of books and articles about the Asian martial arts. His most influential bo... |
If a chihuahua gets impregnated by a great dane, what keeps the puppies from growing too large inside of her? Is the female gene for size dominant over the male's? | Vet here - It's actually somewhat common for small breed dogs to have fetuses that are too large and cause considerable problems. This is especially true when there is only one fetus, and the body puts all of its resources into the one, making it too large. These puppies usually cannot be delivered naturally, and requi... | [
"This does not mean that they are not purebred Chihuahuas; they just do not meet the requirements to enter a conformation show. Oversized Chihuahuas are seen in some of the best, and worst, bloodlines. Chihuahuas do not breed true for size, and puppies from the same litter can mature in drastically different sizes ... |
if there is no drag in space, would i need to keep my spaceship engines on constant burn to get anywhere in space? or can i just maybe start the engine for several minutes to give my ship initial thrust, turn the engine off and still be able to maintain speed? | In space's vacuum, you are right. There is no drag, and an object will maintain velocity indefinitely. A burn is only needed to accelerate.
Many games that simulate space, simulate this as well. Kerbal Space Program pops into mind, but even Asteroids has your little craft float at the same speed unless it hits somethi... | [
"A related issue is drag. If the near light-speed space craft is interacting with matter or energy that is moving slowly in the planetary reference frame—solar wind, magnetic fields, cosmic microwave background radiation—this will cause drag which will bleed off a portion of the engine's acceleration.\n",
"Anothe... |
How do cockroaches affect our ecosystem? | Not that I can answer the question, but what do you mean by "our ecosystem"? Do you mean to ask what ecological role cockroaches play in urban environments? Or are you asking about their ecological niche in natural habitats? | [
"Because of their ease of rearing and resilience, cockroaches have been used as insect models in the laboratory, particularly in the fields of neurobiology, reproductive physiology and social behavior. The cockroach is a convenient insect to study as it is large and simple to raise in a laboratory environment. This... |
Why do people need immunosuppressant drugs when they have an organ transplant, but when we give people blood transfusions we don't? Doesn't the fact that you're introducing foreign blood to a patient mean they would require the same drugs? | All nucleated cells express a type of molecule called MHC (major histocompatibility complex), also called HLA (human leukocyte antigen) in transplant world. Their major role is in activating immune cells when there's an invasion of pathogens or foreign tissues. They are extremely variable among individuals and that is... | [
"In general, deliberately induced immunosuppression is performed to prevent the body from rejecting an organ transplant. Additionally, it is used for treating graft-versus-host disease after a bone marrow transplant, or for the treatment of auto-immune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthr... |
How do Cooper pairs stay together? | You're thinking of electrons as objects with both definite positions and definite momenta. By the uncertainty principle, this is impossible. Electrons with a definite wave vector are delocalized, that is, they have nonzero probability to be in every unit cell of your lattice (not sure your background - if you don't kno... | [
"In doubles curling each two person team plays with six stones, one of which is positioned in play before the start of the end. One stone is placed on the center line in the 4-foot circle of the house such that the back edge of the stone is aligned with the back edge of the circle. The other positioned stone is pla... |
can a person who stutters who later in life becomes deaf stutter their sign language? | No. Stuttering is a problem people have translating their thoughts into the complex tongue and mouth movements needed to create speech.
Stuttering is different however from stumbling on your words, like when you don't know what to say or you forget the word you're looking for or you say the wrong word. Deaf people usi... | [
"Stuttering is generally not a problem with the physical production of speech sounds or putting thoughts into words. Acute nervousness and stress are not thought to cause stuttering, but they can trigger stuttering in people who have the speech disorder, and living with a stigmatized disability can result in anxiet... |
can we manually keep a person alive forever? | No. Cells are programed to die, each time new cells are created to replenish the dying cells mutations occur in the DNA, once enough mutations occur the cell is unable to preform as it should. | [
"3. Most people want to be kept \"alive\" by machines. Most people don't want to drain their family's funds to keep them alive especially when they are in a persistent vegetative state with no possible chance for recovery. In these cases, it is often weighing the risks and benefits of keeping the patient breathing,... |
whats the difference between electromagnetism and gravity? | #Electromagnetism:
According to the [Standard Model of Particles](_URL_3_), electromagnetism is one of the fundamental forces, along with the strong force, the weak force and gravity, sort of.
The strong force and the weak force are only relevant on sub-atomic scales, so we don't accouter them in our daily lives. El... | [
"Electromagnetism is a branch of physics involving the study of the electromagnetic force, a type of physical interaction that occurs between electrically charged particles. The electromagnetic force is carried by electromagnetic fields composed of electric fields and magnetic fields, is responsible for electromagn... |
The sun is capable of producing all the clean power we potentially need here on earth - Why are we still harvesting dirty power from oil and coal? | Because while the sun may produce sufficient energy, capturing, transferring, and storing said energy is~~n't~~ really hard.
At this time solar technology isn't cheap, it isn't efficient; unlike fossil fuels which are cheap and pretty efficient when compared to alternatives.
I don't think anyone disagrees... | [
"BULLET::::- To realistically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels as a source of power, we have to utilize clean sources of energy. Solar energy is a sustainable source of energy with incredible potential for expansion and opportunity to develop on both the individual level and the commercial scale.\n",
"Sunlight... |
what would happen if a light-emitting object moved at or above the speed of light? would it produce a light "shockwave"? | Since the physics of our universe prevents any massive object to move at or above the speed of light, there is no way to answer this question within the framework of our universe. If you break the fundamental laws of physics, it is meaningless to apply the very same laws to the problem.
That being said, there is sort... | [
"Analogous phenomena are known outside fluid mechanics. For example, particles accelerated beyond the speed of light in a refractive medium (where the speed of light is less than that in a vacuum, such as water) create visible shock effects, a phenomenon known as Cherenkov radiation.\n",
"Proceeding at a slower s... |
Why do cysts form and why is the body unable to remove / heal / rid itself of said cysts? | Cysts are more typically seen as fluid filled growths as opposed to a granuloma or abscess which is more likely to refer to a "walled off" infection of typically bacteria. One reason why they form is the body does it on purpose, if the immune system "thinks" it can't handle the disease (best example is TB) it will wall... | [
"Some complications of arachnoid cysts can occur when a cyst is damaged because of minor head trauma. Trauma can cause the fluid within a cyst to leak into other areas (e.g., subarachnoid space). Blood vessels on the surface of a cyst may tear and bleed into the cyst (intracystic hemorrhage), increasing its size. I... |
why can schools impose affirmative action policies, but don't have to apply them to their athletic programs? | There is but it's for males vs females
Title IX | [
"Some opponents of affirmative action argue that it is a form of reverse racism, that any effort to cure discrimination through affirmative action is wrong because it, in turn, is another form of discrimination. Some critics claim that court cases such as \"Fisher v. University of Texas\", which held that colleges ... |
Is there a mid-term / medium-term memory? | Everything you remember is long-term memory. There is only a long-term and a short-term memory. Long-term memory kicks in earlier then many people expect: when you try to keep a phone number, it's already your long-term working hard.
Why you can't remember stuff like your yesterday parking lot? If you don't access th... | [
"Long-term memory (LTM) is the stage of the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model where informative knowledge is held indefinitely. It is defined in contrast to short-term and working memory, which persist for only about 18 to 30 seconds. Long-term memory is commonly labelled as explicit memory (declarative), as well as e... |
Good Peloponnesian War online sources/forums? | There are some older answers [on my flair profile](_URL_3_) that you might find interesting! I also did an [AMA about the Peloponnesian War](_URL_1_) last year.
I don't know of any online communities specifically devoted to this conflict, but in any case it's hard to trust the information you get on such forums (he sa... | [
"The History of the Peloponnesian War (, \"Histories\") is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), which was fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and the Delian League (led by Athens). It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian historian who also happened to serve as an Athenia... |
How were the tiny parts in mechanical watches machined and made with such precision at a small size in the era between the 1500s and the early 1800s? | The simple answer is that they were machined on small bow-driven lathes like [this](_URL_0_), and the gear teeth made on hand-cranked "wheel cutting engines" sort of like [this](_URL_3_) or [this](_URL_1_). The trade was similar to the making of navigational instruments like sextants, scientific ones like astrolabes.... | [
"Until the quartz revolution of the 1970s, all watches were mechanical. Early watches were terribly imprecise; a good one could vary as much as 15 minutes in a day. Modern precision (a few seconds per day) was not attained by any watch until 1760, when John Harrison created his marine chronometers. Precision was at... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.