question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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how do our bodies break down over time? | Your cell's DNA is like a paper manual for what it needs to do. Every time that cell divides, it photocopies the manual and gives a copy to the new cell.
However, every photocopy can only be as good as the original copy and may also result in a lower quality. The original copy may also get some wear as you flip throug... | [
"During advanced decay, most of the remains have discolored and often blackened. Putrefaction, in which tissues and cells break down and liquidize as the body decays, will be almost complete. A decomposing human body in the earth will eventually release 32g of nitrogen, 10g of phosphorus, 4g of potassium, and 1g of... |
how does ad revenue keep so many websites alive when so few people actually respond to ads? | Just because you don't does not mean everyone does not click on them. If you use chrome or search using Google, the ads you see relate to your searches. So if you are interested in buying product X, the ad will show product X and similar products. Website also don't need every person to click the ad, for every certain... | [
"BULLET::::2. Because only a small portion of users pay for storage, the business is dependent upon advertising. Adverts are primarily viewed when files are downloaded and the business model is therefore not based upon storage but upon maximising downloads. (items 7 – 8)\n",
"BULLET::::2. Because only a small por... |
Happy 8th Birthday to /r/AskHistorians! Join us in the party thread to crack a joke, share a personal anecdote, ask a poll-type question, or just celebrate the amazing community that continues to grow here! | Once I posted here. It got two upvotes (including mine). But it was not deleted. And I felt like such a badass. | [
"The birthday party was a huge success, and all of Miss Foozie's friends had a great time. Miss Foozie was never the same again, having found something that made her happy, and she had found something truly special that made people laugh.\n",
"As his birthday came up, there was a new bar opening on North Halsted ... |
what is "nofap" and why do people do it? | As others have said, it's where guys stop masturbating. The effects are debated.
One of the issues with trying to tell what the effects are is that many people who mention their success don't also state where they started from.
Consider someone who talks about how great giving up alcohol is. He tells you he lost 30lb... | [
"NoFap is a website and community forum that serves as a support group for those who wish to avoid pornography and masturbation. Its name comes from the slang term \"fap\", referring to male masturbation.\n",
"Snip.it was a social platform for creating collections of articles, videos, and images on the web. Users... |
why do governments require private corporations for natural resource extraction? can't they extract it all by themselves? | One word: *specialization*, the key invention behind the efficiency of the modern era. | [
"Local communities officially control their own natural resources, but are not protected from federal intervention, and are susceptible to corruption by government agencies or corporations. Citizens' constitutional right of access to financial information about extractive industries is not always respected.\n",
"... |
what did foucault mean by "power is everywhere"? | It's a different way of looking at society. This philosophy believes that power rests in every part of society, that groups that we normally look at as the most powerful are also subject to the power that everyone else has. Its a very meta thing to talk about, it's basically saying that society has gotten to the point ... | [
"In physics, power is the rate of doing work or of transferring heat, i.e. the amount of energy transferred or converted per unit time. Having no direction, it is a scalar quantity. In the International System of Units, the unit of power is the joule per second (J/s), known as the watt in honour of James Watt, the ... |
Do electric cars use electrical energy from the battery more efficiently than gasoline/diesel cars use heat energy from their fuel? | Yes. By a very large margin.
A heat engine like a gas engine converts between 20-30% of its thermal energy into kinetic motion at the crankshaft.
An electrical motor can convert over 90% of the energy within a battery into kinetic motion given the right motor sizing.
So if we have 1000KJ within a battery vs 1000KJ ... | [
"An electric car has a higher embodied energy than a combustion engine one, owing to the battery and electronics. According to Science & Vie, the embodied energy of batteries is so high that rechargeable hybrid cars constitute the most appropriate solution, with their batteries smaller than those of an all-electric... |
Does cold (Air/Liquid) increase the likelihood of getting or precipitate the effects of a cold/flu? | The 'common cold' is usually caused by a rhinovirus. Cold temperature itself does not cause illness. [However, temperature effects may facilitate viral infection:](_URL_0_)
> Although not all studies agree, most of the available evidence from laboratory and clinical studies suggests that inhaled cold air, cooling of... | [
"There is little evidence to support that Cold-fx is effective in the common cold. All trials have been done by the manufacturer and there has been poor data reporting. According to Health Canada's Natural Health Product Directorate records, the company claims that it may \"help reduce the frequency, severity and d... |
how does medication like imodium stop diarrhea? | The intestines have a special nervous system called the 'enteric nervous system' which is made up of two parts called the submucosal plexus and the myenteric plexus. The word "myenteric" means that it is situated between two groups of muscles in the intestines. What this all means is that when the enteric nervous syste... | [
"Antimotility drugs such as loperamide and diphenoxylate reduce the symptoms of diarrhea by slowing transit time in the gut. They may be taken to slow the frequency of stools, but not enough to stop bowel movements completely, which delays expulsion of the causative organisms from the intestines. They should be avo... |
Could it have been possible for Hitler to have been successful in invading Russia, or was it doomed from the start? What decisions could the German Army have made that would have possibly lead to victory? | This is a complicated question that will probably never be answered since it goes too much into "what-if" history. In my view, Germany's biggest mistake wasn't in any operational decision (attack city X instead of attacking city Y, etc) but their incorrect assessment of the Soviet Union and its capabilities. Hitler bel... | [
"Hitler made the fateful decision to invade Russia in early 1941, but was delayed by the need to take control of the Balkans. Europe was not big enough for both Hitler and Stalin, and Hitler realized the sooner he moved the less risk of American involvement. Stalin thought he had a long-term partnership and rejecte... |
If a spaceship uses a planet's gravity to gain speed flying in why don't they lose the same amount flying out? | A reasonable earthbound analogy would be throwing a rubber ball from the train platform at an oncoming train. If the train approaches at 60kph and they throw the ball at 40kph, the train driver sees the ball approach at 100kph, hit the train, and then bounce away at 100kph. The person on the platform, however, will s... | [
"This maneuver can be approximated by an elastic collision at large distances, though the flyby does not involve any physical contact. Due to Newton's Third Law (equal and opposite reaction), any momentum gained by a spacecraft must be lost by the planet, or vice versa. However, because the planet is much, much mor... |
how is depression "cured"? | It is not cured, it is "managed''. | [
"Depression is a treatable illness. Treatments for a major depressive episode may be provided by mental health specialists (i.e. psychologist, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, etc.), mental health centers or organizations, hospitals, outpatient clinics, social service agencies, private clinics, peer suppo... |
how do 2 factor authentication apps or rsa tokens work? | They have a clock, and a secret encryption key inside. They encrypt the time, using the key. You type the answer in, and the computer at the other end (which also has the key {remember that QR code you scanned}) does the same thing. If the answers are right, you're approved. | [
"Two-factor authentication is an option in iOS to ensure that even if an unauthorized person knows an Apple ID and password combination, they cannot gain access to the account. It works by requiring not only the Apple ID and password, but also a verification code that is sent to a device that is already known to be... |
How does one come up with a good history essay topic? | I have virtually no knowledge about your class, so my post probably won't help you find a specific topic. But as an undergraduate, I always thought finding a topic was the hardest part of writing! So don't feel discouraged! It can be a real challenge, especially when the topics are broad and open-ended!
I found t... | [
"Initially published in \"Policy Review\" magazine, the essay was widely read and the subject of extensive debate and commentary in both America and Europe. In terms of its impact, it was compared by reviewers to Francis Fukuyama's \"The End of History and the Last Man\", Samuel P. Huntington's \"The Clash of Civil... |
how does a fly have so much energy to use it's wings for as long as it does? | Super adapted muscles/metabolism for flight. The flight muscles in insects can be up to 1/5th of their body mass. But it's really all about efficiency. Your cells can use aerobic or anaerobic metabolism to produce ATP from glucose (and sometimes lipids and other stuff). During aerobic metabolism - when oxygen is availa... | [
"In the calculation of the power used in hovering, the examples used neglected the kinetic energy of the moving wings. The wings of insects, light as they are, have a finite mass; therefore, as they move they possess kinetic energy. Because the wings are in rotary motion, the maximum kinetic energy during each wing... |
why did unlimited data for cellphones/etc.. stop being a thing and data caps are now enforced? | Most people use like 1-2GB of data/month. Hardcore users might us 5-10GB/month. This is all good and carriers are fine with that.
However, when they offer totally unlimited plans, so A-hole decides he's going to cancel his home internet and do EVERYTHING over his mobile connection. So he's torrenting 100GB of porn ... | [
"Before 2010 there was a trend of providing unlimited data without bandwidth throttling. In the United States the Federal Communication Commission has fined service providers for offering unlimited data in a way that misled consumers. In June 2015, the FCC fined AT&T Mobility for misleading consumers. In October 20... |
why do parts of the world use cdma and others use gma | I assume GMA should be GSM, GSM is a TDMA system. CDMA and TDMA is whay to share a radio channel between multiple uses
The simple explanation is that when digital 2G mobile phone system development started in the 1980 different companies had indifferent ideas how it should be done. The Europén GSM become dominant and... | [
"CD+G (also known as CD-G, CD+Graphics and TV-Graphics) is an extension of the compact disc standard that can present low-resolution graphics alongside the audio data on the disc when played on a compatible device. CD+G discs are often used for karaoke machines, which use this functionality to present on-screen lyr... |
why does tricare not follow with the affordable health care act rule of being under parent's insurance until your 26? | Because TriCare is not health insurance, and the ACA applies only to health insurance plans.
From this [page](_URL_0_):
> TRICARE is not health insurance; it is a federal health care entitlement program only for eligible uniformed service members, retirees and their families.
| [
"The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provided additional access to maternity care by expanding opportunities to obtain health insurance for the uninsured and mandating that certain health benefits have coverage. It also expanded the coverage for women who have private insurance. This expansion allowed them better access ... |
Where does carbon 14 come from? | It's mostly created on Earth in the upper atmosphere due to bombardment of cosmic rays and nitrogen.
This is why it's such a good dating tool, stuff sealed from the atmosphere won't get exposed to any more and the amount of nitrogen and the cosmic bombardment rate is roughly fixed and insensitive to anything going on ... | [
"Carbon-14 (C) is a naturally occurring radioisotope, created in the upper atmosphere (lower stratosphere and upper troposphere) by interaction of nitrogen with cosmic rays. It is found in trace amounts on Earth of 1 part per trillion (0.0000000001%) or more, mostly confined to the atmosphere and superficial deposi... |
What happened to a Roman emperor's wealth after he died or passed on the throne? | It is hard to give some specific evidence for you, but it would seem that the wealth of Emperors was passed on to the next emperor, in that the finances of the emperor was de facto the same as the wealth of the empire. However, we must remember the circumstances - only 2 emperors (Diocletian in 305 CE and Romulus Augus... | [
"Following his death, he became a legendary figure in Greek folklore as the \"Marble Emperor\" who would awaken and recover the Empire and Constantinople from the Ottomans. His death marked the end of the Roman Empire. It had continued in the East as the Byzantine Empire for 977 years after the fall of the Western ... |
What gives sea creatures their fishy taste? | Fish need to maintain osmotic balance in a saline environment, and one of their strategies to manage this is to load up their tissues with Trimethylamine Oxide (TMAO). This is odorless and not offensive, but when the fish dies bacteria rapidly begin to break the TMAO down into the very nasty, very fishy smelling Trime... | [
"Seafood, however, would logically have a more distinctive flavor. (The extent of its divergence is not consistent; tuna was said to taste enough like chicken that a prominent tuna canner named its product Chicken of the Sea.) Also, although mammals are tetrapods, very few mammals taste like chicken, which implies ... |
if a black hole is a singular, super-dense, zero-dimensional point in space, then how do they possess mass and diameter? | Well, the diameter you're referring to isn't really the diameter of the super dense point, it's the diameter of the sphere within which things can't escape. It's more like the ring around a chained up dog. The dog might not be 30 feet across but we consider anything within that circle to be "dangerous" and part of ... | [
"Samir D. Mathur of The Ohio State University, with postdoctoral researcher Oleg Lunin, proposed via two papers in 2002 that black holes are actually spheres of strings with a definite volume; they are not a singularity, which the classic view holds to be a zero-dimensional, zero-volume point into which a black hol... |
How exactly do Holograms work? How does the light emitted from the machine stop mid-air to create the images? | The image in that video is not a hologram, it's just a video displayed on a "screen" made of a rotating blade so the background is mostly transparent and the image appears to be in midair, like this [LED fan clock](_URL_1_) but higher resolution. The video is of a rotating object, but if you were to move around that im... | [
"A simple hologram can be made by superimposing two plane waves from the same light source on a holographic recording medium. The two waves interfere, giving a straight-line fringe pattern whose intensity varies sinusoidally across the medium. The spacing of the fringe pattern is determined by the angle between the... |
what causes you to wake up when you (make yourself) fall in a dream? | The jolt you experience is called a hypnic jerk. It is an involuntary twitch your body makes. We're still not sure what causes it, but scientists think it is a leftover from when we slept in trees. The jerk wakes us up if we're about to fall. Other animals experience this. | [
"A dream is something that comes into contact with the mind; an external event is something that impinges on the body. Hence our feelings by day and our dreams by night are the result of contacts made by mind or body. it follows that if we can concentrate the maid in abstraction, our feelings and our dreams will va... |
why do we need to install a program/videogame on our computer instead of just opening it. | It's a couple of things, and it's all in the name of efficiency.
First, to make programs take up less space on the CD or be easier to download, a lot of them are compressed. This is good for space, but it's very slow to uncompress something, so they can't run like that. The installer has to uncompress everything to ... | [
"The software uses an online database of installers (called scripts) that are applied to different applications that need special configuration. The scripts act as installers for the desired software. If the game or software is not in the database, a manual installation can be performed but the result cannot be gua... |
how are roundabouts safer? | You can't run a roundabout. You can run a red light.
Or
The thruput of cars in a traffic light intersection is intermittent. The thruput of cars in a roundabout intersection is constant. The constant movement of cars through an intersection is safer because of physics (the force of impact is greater when the differe... | [
"Although expensive to implement, roundabouts are an effective way of reducing the speed of traffic at intersections and dramatically reducing the likelihood of high speed right-angle collisions. Clear road markings and signing are low cost methods of improving safety at intersections.\n",
"Roundabouts are an alt... |
Does time change for things big or small? | There is no difference in time for individual objects, only between different reference frames (as described by special relativity). But maybe you are asking about the [perception of time](_URL_0_) between different people, which doesn't map directly to the actual time that has passed. We know that young people perceiv... | [
"The other case leads to processes such as those \"represented by diffusion and by Brownian motion; there it is certain that some change will occur in any time interval, however small; only, here it is certain that the changes during small time intervals will be also small\".\n",
"Time has a multitude of differen... |
Why isnt there much research regarding this mysteries underwater monument, which might indicate a Lost Atlantis? | Because it is a natural feature. Conspiracy theorists and pseudo-archaeologists seem to be really fond of it though. | [
"Atlantis: The Lost Continent Revealed is a pseudohistorical book by Charles Berlitz. He lists several alternative theories on where the possible mythical Atlantis may have been situated, and cites different legends and stories that may support the different theories. All areas and theories are covered starting wit... |
What did Ethiopia and Thailand have in common? | In the case of Thailand, European powers such as the British and the French jockeyed for power around Thailand. For instance, the British conquered Burma and the French conquered Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) but decided to keep a "balance of power" in the region required an independent Thailand free from Euro... | [
"Thailand was always subordinate to China as a vassal or a tributary state from the Sui dynasty until the Taiping Rebellion of the late Qing dynasty in the mid-19th century. The Sukhothai Kingdom established official relations with the Yuan dynasty during the reign of King Ram Khamhaeng. Wei Yuan, the 19th century ... |
; what exactly is snot? | So, what is "snot"? Snot is a euphemism for mucus and mucus itself is made up of mucin (a protein), skin cells, water and inorganic salts and during illness it will also contain bacteria and/or viruses and dead white cells. It provides a protective lubricating layer. It moisturizes the air we breathe, it prevents tissu... | [
"Snotman is a character from the \"Wild Cards\" book series. He was originally a Joker derelict who oozed a snot-like mucus from every pore of his body. However, in \"Wild Cards volume V: Down and Dirty\", he had an encounter with Croyd Crenson, better known as The Sleeper, during a time when Crenson's current muta... |
why does cheap ice-tea have this weird dry feeling after you drink it? | Green tea and some other preparation methods tend to result in an [astringent](_URL_0_) brew. Sounds like those astringent tannins reacting with your saliva is what you actually dislike. | [
"It is a common stereotype of the Southeastern United States that, due to the popularity of sweet iced tea in the region, unsweetened iced tea is not available or is frowned upon. It is often the case, however, that the term \"iced tea\" is assumed by default to mean sweetened iced tea in that region.\n",
"In res... |
why is pizza so universally liked? | Probably because Pizza is a very versatile dish. It's flat bread with some kind of sauce and more often then not cheese, everything else is optional in the grand scheme of things. (Im a deep dish pepperoni with BBQ sauce guy) | [
"The pizza is subject to a lot of humorous debate, and is unquestionably a piece of modern culture, loathed and loved by Norwegians. It has been called the \"modern national dish\" by some, others claim it is \"a piece of cardboard\", \"laziness in a box\" and even \"refrigerated evil\".\n",
"The term \"pizza\" w... |
how anxiety and stress cause physical symptoms (specifically tinnitus, dizziness, headaches, numbness) | Stress causes your blood pressure to rise and this causes the headache and numbness. Higher blood pressure also makes it easier for your blood to transfer oxygen therefore increasing your stamina. This helps if you are being chased by a lion but is bad for your health if you are always stressed out. Check with your doc... | [
"Common triggers quoted are stress, hunger, and fatigue (these equally contribute to tension headaches). Psychological stress has been reported as a factor by 50 to 80% of people. Migraines have also been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and abuse. Migraines are more likely to occur around menstruatio... |
how do surgeons control bleeding once they cut a person open? | Tying off, clamps, electrocautery, chemical coagulates, to name a few. | [
"An incision is made to access the surgical site. Blood vessels may be clamped or cauterized to prevent bleeding, and retractors may be used to expose the site or keep the incision open. The approach to the surgical site may involve several layers of incision and dissection, as in abdominal surgery, where the incis... |
What do we know about the historicity of the Buddha? | I assume you are talking about whether or not the Buddha was a real person. While I'm not a scholar, historian, or Buddhist. I am keenly interested in this subject and can, at the very least, give some context.
The traditional Buddhist narrative tells us that the Buddha (which means something like Enlightened or Awa... | [
"Some scholars of later Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism say that little or nothing goes back to the Buddha. Ronald Davidson has little confidence that much, if any, of surviving Buddhist scripture is actually the word of the historical Buddha. Geoffrey Samuel says the Pali Canon largely derives from the work o... |
Does shutting down a PC/laptop consume more power than keeping it on? | I can only guess the reasoning comes from the idea that shutting a computer down and starting it back up is a power-intensive process. That claim is absolutely false. Shutting it down and keeping it off saves much more power.
There are two main factors when it comes to computer power consumption: idle power draw, when... | [
"To shut down or power off a computer is to remove power from a computer's main components in a controlled way. After a computer is shut down, main components such as CPUs, RAM modules and hard disk drives are powered down, although some internal components, such as an internal clock, may retain power.\n",
"While... |
Is it possible for there to be a room whose walls reflect no light? So that even if we shone a light the walls reflect nothing and it appears that there is nothing but darkness? | Theoretically, yes. However, there are no materials known to man which have a optical absorptivity of 1.0. Now you have to ask yourself what you mean when you say "no light" - do you mean "No light that I can see" or "no electromagnetic radiation at all"?
If you mean "no light that I can see", then yes. You could... | [
"The illumination problem is a resolved mathematical problem attributed to Ernst Straus in the 1950s. Straus asked if a room with mirrored walls can always be illuminated by a single point light source, allowing for repeated reflection of light off the mirrored walls. Alternatively, the question can be stated as as... |
AskScience AMA Series: I'm Paul Sutter, astrophysicist, amateur cheese enthusiast, and science advisor for the upcoming film UFO. Ask Me Anything! | What has prevented you from taking that step up from amateur cheese enthusiast to professional cheese enthusiast? Is it giving up the glitz and glamor of the astrophysics world or do you secretly think you might not have what it takes to compete in the high stakes world of cheese enthusiasm? | [
"Called the \"world's top expert on the subject of unidentified flying objects and claims of extraterrestrials\" by paranormal investigator Ben Radford in a review of Sheaffer's book \"Bad UFOs: Critical Thinking About UFO Claims\". Radford states that Sheaffer has \"encyclopedic knowledge\" on \"diverse topics\" a... |
why do we often struggle to recall which letters are before or after other letters, without going through the alphabet in our heads, but don't have this problem with numbers, even though we learn the letters in order & off by heart as children, just like the numbers? | > What's the letter *before* L?
> > H, I, J, K, L... K!
> What's *after* the letter L?
> > M, because L-M-N-O-P!
So, letters are remembered by grouping small clusters together
ABCD-EFG-HIJK-LMNOP-QRS-TUV-WXYZ, because we're taught primarily through the ABC song. In psychology that's part of pattern recogniti... | [
"The memory system suffers from inhibition. This is why it is difficult to hold two different phone numbers in working memory at the same time. Although it may seem that inhibition impedes our memory system, it allows humans to focus on the relevant details and ignore irrelevant ones when required to make quick dec... |
why is there so many boxing world champions in the same divisions? | Money is the main reason, more champions equals more fights more money, then when they box each other even more money, plus they have to pay the federations also so more federations equal more money. | [
"Three world champions won world titles in three different divisions, a feat no single fighter had accomplished since 1903; Tony Canzoneri, Barney Ross and Henry Armstrong cemented their place in boxing history by achieving this feat; Armstrong was the first, and will be the only, world champion to reign in three d... |
Why does the Grand Unified Theory Predict that protons and neutrons will eventually decay? | Grand unified theories (GUTs) are usually built around group symmetries that include the ones we know of - U(1), SU(2), and SU(3) - as subgroups. Putting them in one symmetry group links (unifies) their properties.
A GUT symmetry group contains as additional "photon-like" particles (ie, more forces) besides the photo... | [
"Many Grand Unified Theories (but not Pati–Salam) predict that the proton can decay, and if this were to be seen, details of the decay products could give hints at more aspects of the Grand Unified Theory. It is at present unknown if the proton can decay, although experiments have determined a lower bound of 10 yea... |
How would the boundary between the liquid and solid core of a planet look? | You seem to picture an abrupt, static transitional layer. This is somewhat inaccurate.
First, let us imagine approaching this interface from above (i.e. the liquid region). From a long ways up, it's just liquid. As we get closer, we observe small, transient liquid regions. These become larger and exist longer as we a... | [
"The core–mantle boundary (CMB in the parlance of solid earth geophysicists) of the Earth lies between the planet's silicate mantle and its liquid iron-nickel outer core. This boundary is located at approximately 2891 km (1796 mi) depth beneath the Earth's surface. The boundary is observed via the discontinuity in ... |
What is the smallest 'thing' that can have a temperature? | The smallest "thing" that can have a temperature is a single particle that carries with it a kinetic energy. To see this imagine that we have a one particle system where the particle is at a high kinetic energy (equal to its average kinetic energy since there is only one particle in our system), and we place it in cont... | [
"Temperature is a physical quantity expressing hot and cold. It is measured with a thermometer calibrated in one or more temperature scales. The most commonly used scales are the Celsius scale (formerly called \"centigrade\") (denoted °C), Fahrenheit scale (denoted °F), and Kelvin scale (denoted K). The kelvin (the... |
How did native Central and South Americans process their first encounter with conquistadors' ships? | It's a bogus claim; the psuedoscience documentary *What the bleep do we know?* popularized it in recent years. There are several websites and videos debunking that movie, but for quick refenence, [here](_URL_1_)'s a short video discussing the relevant clips.
I've heard that the story is a misrepresentation of a Cook's... | [
"In 1526, a Spanish ship captained by Bartolomé Ruiz ventured southward down the west coast of South America, the first Old World ship known to have explored this coastline. Off the coast of Ecuador, Ruiz encountered a Native American raft, being the first encounter between Spanish and Inca's vassals. A contemporar... |
How are the accurate/semi-accurate models of the Earth in the past created? Ie. What Pangaea looked like. | Some of the most convincing models of these types are created using paleomagnetic records. The Earth's magnetic field has shifted positions quite a lot since the planet formed, though not in a strictly periodic way. This pattern of reversals can therefore be used as a sort of map of the planet's history - both to deter... | [
"Paleomaps are maps of continents and mountain ranges in the past based on plate reconstructions. Until the 1960s, paleomaps were not very satisfactory, since it was difficult to understand many quite distinctive features. For example, huge river deltas seemed to be associated with what must have been rather small ... |
Did Caligula throw a party and have his guests thrown into the sea by his guards? | So, perhaps I'm just blind, but I can't find the passage that Stevenson is refering to here. According to the essay, Tacitus would have been the one who described this event, which in itself is suspicious, but I can't even find a reference to Baiae in Tacitus. Suetonius does mention the mention the bridge itself and ho... | [
"In March 1766, the Walloon Guard was amongst the troops defending Charles III of Spain during the Esquilache Riots, and shots fired by a detachment of the regiment killed a woman, intensifying the crowd's anger. Demands made by the rioters to the king included the disbanding of the Walloon Guards, several of whom ... |
how does dandruff form? why does it itch? and how do you prevent from ever getting it if possible? | dead skin flakes
irritates the skin
[head and shoulders](_URL_0_), bitch | [
"It may appear as thickened, scaly, and sometimes boggy swellings, or as expanding raised red rings (ringworm). Common symptoms are severe itching of the scalp, dandruff, and bald patches where the fungus has rooted itself in the skin. It often presents identically to dandruff or seborrheic dermatitis. The highest ... |
What are the oldest recorded dreams? | This is a difficult question to answer, because once you go back far enough distinguishing between dreams that actually happened and dreams that were just added into the story for dramatic effect is quite difficult. Herodotus has Xerxes dreaming of a 'tall and goodly man' standing over him and telling him not to invade... | [
"Ancient Dreams is the third album of Swedish doom metal band Candlemass, released in 1988 and reissued in 2001 by Powerline Records with bonus CD. The cover art of the album is a painting made by Thomas Cole, second in his series, \"The Voyage of Life\", entitled \"Youth\". \"Ancient Dreams\" was the first Candlem... |
How well did the Japanese accept baseball in post-WWII occupied Japan? | Sport is one of my main interests although unfortunately I lean towards soccer. However, I remembered that I had read two articles about baseball and Japan a few years ago. The first was about Japanese-American relations through baseball and the second was about baseball in Taiwan under Japanese occupation.
The author... | [
"In October 1940, responding to rising hostility toward the West due to World War II, the league outlawed the use of English in Japanese baseball. Pitcher Tadashi Wakabayashi renounced his American citizenship in 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (so his achievements as the Japanese Baseball Leagu... |
Why is an accretion disk formed around a black hole instead of all the matter getting absorbed by the black hole instantaneously? Does this mean that black holes have a limit for rate at which matter can be absorbed? | [Conservation of angular momentum](_URL_0_). The material in the accretion disk is in orbit around the black hole. The challenging part is actually explaining how it *does* fall into the black hole. Something has to rob it of angular momentum before it will fall inward. The disk exists for the same reason that planets ... | [
"Black holes give off radiation because matter falling into them loses gravitational energy which may result in the emission of radiation before the matter falls into the event horizon. The infalling matter has angular momentum, which means that the material cannot fall in directly, but spins around the black hole.... |
Nelson is venerated in England as being a legendary commander. No other admiral or captain from his era gets such praise (to my knowledge). How much was England's Napoleonic era naval superiority down to Nelson alone? | I've written about Nelson here a few times before, and about the British navy more generally several more times besides that.
I would say that a short answer to your question is that Nelson's example was important to the British navy during the Napoleonic period -- after all, the war dragged on for 10 more years afte... | [
"Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was one of the leading British flag officers in the Royal Navy of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, responsible for several important victories over the French and Spanish navies during a time of crisis for t... |
Any good documentaries/resources on the Second Mafia War in Italy? | John Dickie's *Cosa Nostra* is a good, accessible, reliable history of the Mafia from its earliest days which nonetheless has a strong focus on the period you are interested in.
Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College London and so has a firm grasp of the Italian sources and their contexts, unlik... | [
"The State-Mafia Pact (original title: La trattativa) is a 2014 Italian documentary film written and directed by Sabina Guzzanti, who also starred in the film. The storyline is about the State-Mafia Pact, the negotiation between Italian State and Cosa Nostra, that is supposed to be occurred after the '92-'93 bombin... |
Heat death of the universe seems like a bleak future. Are there other, although maybe less plausible, alternatives that are more "optimistic"? | A cyclic universe is not out of the question, in which some process in the far future creates a new big bang. There are various models. On the other hand most of these involve either a destructive crunch or take place after a heat death or big rip scenario. So "optimistic", your mileage may vary. | [
"The heat death of the universe, also known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze, is a conjecture on the ultimate fate of the universe, which suggests the universe would evolve to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and would therefore be unable to sustain processes that increase entropy. Heat death does not imply an... |
Did the Japanese make racist caricatures & propaganda of Americans during WWII? | Yes they did! Japanese propaganda didn't focus nearly as much (at least not as much as the Americans) on as portraying their enemies as subhuman animals. Rather Japanese propaganda focused heavily on talking up the Japanese soldiers' role as a liberator who would free Asia from the clutches of Imperialists. Pamphlets h... | [
"BULLET::::- During World War II, several American newspapers and major animated studios put out cartoons and films depicting the Japanese with exaggerated Asian features and as being untrustworthy or trickster figures, echoing the anti-Japanese racist sentiments common during the war period.\n",
"Much as America... |
scientists know what the human body and immune system do to fight off colds and flus. why can’t they create a medicine that does that, only faster? | the issue with flu is that there are so many causes of it that it's nigh impossible to create one medicine that helps fighting flu
why is this? because the body reacts to diseases in a very specific way. The reason we can have medicine for other diseases is because the body reacts to them in roughly similar ways, with... | [
"The only useful ways to reduce the spread of cold viruses are physical measures such as hand washing and face masks; in the healthcare environment, gowns and disposable gloves are also used. Isolation or quarantine is not used as the disease is so widespread and symptoms are non-specific. Vaccination has proved di... |
if tigers and lions are big cats, would their roaring sound like meows if we were giants? | Sound from a cat/human/lion or anything else with a 'voice' is produced from vocal cords, literally bands of flesh that when tightened by your throat muscles, vibrate when your breath blows over them proportional to the tension and weight of the cords. Hearing is different, while it would be true that the ear canal and... | [
"Felines such as leopards and tigers also growl to signal territorial aggression, eliciting anti-predator responses from animals such as elephants. Similar to human interpretation of growling, elephants are able to distinguish the threat level based on the individual growl and will respond accordingly; elephants wi... |
how are 3d graphics rendered and translated to a video signal? | To try and be simple:
When a game loads a graphic, it's loaded from the HDD to RAM. Then, through DirectX or OpenGL (or whatever else methods are available), a request to render the graphic, along with a slew of parameters (x, y, z coordinates, color filters, rotations, veiwports, etc). The Graphics Card stores all ... | [
"The main function of signaling for frame compatible 3DTV is to signal the presence of a 3D or 2D video stream. It must be also possible to include in the broadcast signal information about the pixel arrangement used to decimate the master HDTV full samples/line pictures to create the anamorphic version, if 3D is a... |
Are there any major biological differences between different types of fruits once they are metabolized? | > Or is fructose simply fructose in the end?
Fructose is fructose and won't change between fruits.
Though different fruits may have different amounts of fructose, and the amount of fiber in the fruit will change its digestion.
> So, are there any major biological differences between fruits after being broken down?... | [
"Plant scientists have grouped fruits into three main groups, simple fruits, aggregate fruits, and composite or multiple fruits. The groupings are not evolutionarily relevant, since many diverse plant taxa may be in the same group, but reflect how the flower organs are arranged and how the fruits develop.\n",
"Fi... |
the difference between feelings and emotions. | Are we certain there is a difference? I believe the terms are sufficiently synonymous to be used interchangably. | [
"Emotions are complex and involve a variety of physical and cognitive responses, many of which are not well understood. The general purpose of emotions is to produce a specific response to a stimulus. Feelings are the conscious perception of emotions, and when an emotion occurs frequently or continuously this is ca... |
why does it feel good to tilt back and balance on a chair? | A combination of fun, comfort, and exhilaration. Who could resist? | [
"A balancing tilt is highly advantageous since the user automatically controls the tilting movements of the chair without having to think about it. The user can concentrate on his/her activities and does not have to bother with mechanical regulation of the chair. The chair follows the natural inclinations of the bo... |
how do we see the "oldest light in the universe"? | The farthest confirmed galaxy we can see today is GN-Z11. The light from that galaxy took 13.4 billions years to reach us, so right now we see this galaxy as 13.4 billions light years away from us. But that's not true. The reality is that the light from that galaxy took 13.4 billions light years to reach each, that's a... | [
"One of the oldest stars yet identified (oldest not most distant in this case) was identified in 2014, the star SMSS J031300.36−670839.3 was determined to be 6000 light years away but date to 13.8 billion years ago. The starlight shining on Earth would include this star.\n",
"Johannes Schedler's project has ident... |
why does exercise such as running or cycling feel much more strenuous during the first couple of minutes? | Blood is constantly pumped all around our body to supply oxygen to all our muscles. In the case of running and cycling, we predominantly use our legs, but seeing as though we still have a regular blood circulation, our muscles find it difficult to work comfortably due to the lack of oxygen for the task they are perform... | [
"Running is an effective way to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and tension. It helps people who struggle with seasonal affective disorder by being more outside running when it's sunny and warm. Running can improve mental alertness and also improve sleep which is needed for good mental health. Both research and... |
female- and male reproductive organs and it's development. | It's not exactly correct no. There is a significant difference in the reproductive organs as far as individual functions and physiology go.
But they're analogous to each other. Meaning, you have cells within each organ that perform similar function.
The first thing you need to know is that when developing in the womb... | [
"The male sex organs are part of a man's reproductive system, consisting of the penis, testicles, vas deferens, and the prostate gland. The male reproductive system's function is to produce semen, which carries sperm and thus genetic information that can unite with an egg within a woman. Since sperm that enters a w... |
How was piracy in the Caribbean stopped? | I assume you’re referring to the Golden Age of Piracy, since worldwide piracy never really ended, only changed. The Golden Age lasted approximately from the mid-1600s to about the 1720s, during which time piracy was so common that many of its most prominent figures became celebrities, and still are to some degree—Black... | [
"Piracy in the Caribbean sea was also a major problem, and between 1815 and 1822 an estimated 3,000 ships were captured by pirates. In 1819, Congress authorized President James Madison to deal with this threat, and since many of the pirates were privateers of the newly independent states of Latin America, he decide... |
if babies get antibodies from mothers milk, why then do they get afflicted with diseases the mother has gone through like chicken pox | Babies grow and change so fast the immunuty wears off and needs to be replenished through immunisation programs. Thats why there are usually courses of vaccinations not just one. | [
"Newborn infants have no prior exposure to microbes and are particularly vulnerable to infection. Several layers of passive protection are provided by the mother. During pregnancy, a particular type of antibody, called IgG, is transported from mother to baby directly through the placenta, so human babies have high ... |
Martin Luther (Protestant Reformation) trial | If you haven't already, you really need to read Luther's [95 Theses](_URL_0_) that he nailed to the door of the Catholic Church. The accusations he makes there are where you are going to find good religious evidence against the Pope. I draw specific attention to 42 & 43--the Catholic Church required you to pay for yo... | [
"The early Reformation in Germany mostly concerns the life of Martin Luther until he was excommunicated by Pope Leo X on 3 January 1521, in the bull \"Decet Romanum Pontificem\". The exact moment Martin Luther realized the key doctrine of Justification by Faith is described in German as the \"Turmerlebnis\". In Tab... |
why are microtransactions considered bad in games? | First off, those free games are only free for a couple of levels then they tend to take weeks to progress unless you spend money. Also, whoever has more money to waste than you will always have the advantage over you.
Then there's the quick and easy perk me ups for 99cents, $1.99 super cheap until you realize you'v... | [
"Microtransactions have become increasingly common in many types of video games. Smartphone, console, and PC games all have conformed to the use of microtransactions due to its high profitability. Many companies and games, especially smartphone games, have taken on a business model that offer their games for free a... |
why does cocaine and amphetamine makes you feel sober? | Both of these drugs are strong stimulants. While they don't work on the same pathways, the stimulating effect of these drugs counteracts the depressant (slowing down, not necessarily 'sad') effects brought on by alcohol.
Basically, if you've been slowing your brain down with drink after drink all night, any strong sti... | [
"Cocaine is addictive due to its effect on the reward pathway in the brain. After a short period of use, there is a high risk that dependence will occur. Its use also increases the risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, lung problems in those who smoke it, blood infections, and sudden cardiac death. Cocaine sold on... |
How did large communities of African-Americans wind up in California? | Most African-American migration to California was during World War II, lured by employment opportunities in the shipyards and related defense plants. It's sometimes called [The Second Great Migration,](_URL_0_) by comparison with The Great Migration to northern industrial cities that began during the First World War. ... | [
"Beginning in the late 1940s, parts of Pacoima started becoming a place where Southern Californians escaping poverty in rural areas settled. In the post-World War II era, many African Americans settled in Pacoima after arriving in the area during the second wave of the Great Migration since they had been excluded f... |
will an electrical motor take damage from being overburdened? and if so, why? | It depends on the motor.
Most electrical motors cannot handle being stalled for too long (more than a few seconds in many cases). They'll over heat and burn the windings. Some motors can handle it, but it mostly depends on the controller driving the motor.
Gas engines can't run when stalled, they turn off. | [
"Loss of electrical power can occur suddenly and can damage or undermine equipment. To prevent damage, motor-generators can be tied to flywheels that can provide uninterrupted electrical power to equipment for a brief period. Often they are used to provide electrical power until the plant electrical supply can be s... |
if you held a pair of prescription glasses in front of a camera and recorded something, how would it appear when playing it back? would some people see it blurry and others see it clear? | No, because the camera sensor becomes the "eye", and the lens is the optic in front of it. If you put another optic in front of it, you're only changing the light hitting the sensor. You cannot change the optics in front of the eyes of the person watching the screen. Take a quick look at what [circles of confusion](_UR... | [
"Due to the employee's alleged rough handling of the device, which Mann claimed was soundly attached to his head, the temporary storage buffer in the computer system could no longer be overwritten by new images, the damage to the system thus causing photos of these persons to remain stored in the glass memory. Thes... |
Does one experience "lag time" when viewing a black hole? | > For Example: When B draws near the black hole, as time slows and the light blink longer and slower, wouldn't the light emitted grow dimmer, longer lasting, and slower to occur to A?
This is spot on! The quick answer is that as we watch an object approach the event horizon of a black hole, we will see it 1) move eve... | [
"There are real phenomena that cause time dilation similar that of a stasis field. Extremely high velocities approaching light speed or immensely powerful gravitational fields such as those existing near the event horizons of black holes will cause time to progress more slowly. However, there is no known theoretica... |
Why did land-based life forms lose gills through evolution? | The areas that external gill type respiration works are the areas that amphibians can be found today - E.G. swamps/marshes. If as a species you can survive away from such an environment for longer you open the potential area to exploit for resources significantly and reduce your competition with other swamp dwelling an... | [
"Rising oxygen concentrations have been cited as one of several drivers for evolutionary diversification, although the physiological arguments behind such arguments are questionable, and a consistent pattern between oxygen concentrations and the rate of evolution is not clearly evident. The most celebrated link bet... |
why do men snore more and louder as they age? | Generally due to being heavier, and/or less muscle tone. Basically your airway is becoming obstructed. The heavier you are the more pressure you have pushing on your airway. And to compound matters muscle tone decreases with age, and now you have less muscles power trying to hold back more weight and voila, snoring.... | [
"There is an interplay of sex and age differences associated with dysphonia. The point prevalence of dysphonia in adults under the age of 65 is 6.6%. Dysphonia is more common in adult females than males, possibly due to sex-related anatomical differences of the vocal mechanism. In childhood, however, dysphonia is m... |
In what order did our senses evolve? | A worthy read:
_URL_0_
TLDR; there are two main sensory types - chemoreceptors that evolved into detectors of a chemical nature (sight, taste, and smell), and mechanoreceptors that evolved to sense physical disturbances (sound/vibration, touch, heat, balance).
... Both can be traced back to the era of primitive mic... | [
"Early in the history of sensory neurobiology, physiologists favored the idea that the nervous system detected specific features of stimuli, rather than faithful copying of the sensory world onto a sensory map in the brain. For example, in the visual system, they favored the idea of detecting specific visual featur... |
Do butterflys try to fly straight? | Insects do make saccadic movements which has something to do with the vision. In the [wikipedia article on saccades](_URL_0_) it is stated that the movements occur to prevent blurring. I think that the movements also induce optic flow that helps the insect to orient in space. | [
"The butterfly though tiny, flies extraordinarily fast but in an erratic and jerky fashion. Though the flight seems jerky and erratic, the butterfly lands smoothly on the substratum, and that too suddenly. It fight is always close to the ground and has the habit of sometimes returning to the same spot for perching.... |
if i compress an audio file down to 128kbps and then convert it up to 320kbps we know the quality can't increase but the file size grows. what is this extra information that makes the file size grow and why does it do this? | This is easier to visualize with photographs but works in much the same way.
Photographs at a very basic level use tons of small dots of different colors to build a picture. If I lower the resolution I reduce the number of dots used to draw the picture. So if I reduce the quality by a factor of 10 that means where I... | [
"Audio sources encoded to FLAC are typically reduced to 50–70% of their original size, similar to other lossless formats, though the final size depends on the density and volume of the music being compressed, and, with some music, file size can be reduced by as much as 80%.\n",
"The acceptable trade-off between l... |
what is the difference between the concepts "cause and effect" and "action & reaction"? | If you think about it a cause and effect is exactly that, pouring hot coffee on your lap is a cause for pain and burns as the effect, action would be the spilling of the coffee however your reaction would be to the pain and burns themselves. | [
"The terms 'action' and 'reaction' have the misleading suggestion of causality, as if the 'action' is the cause and 'reaction' is the effect. It is therefore easy to think of the second force as being there because of the first, and even happening some time after the first. This is incorrect; the forces are perfect... |
how do nonprofits not run out of money | They still raise/make money. The difference is that all that they raise goes to operating cost, what cause they support, marketing, etc. They have to spend what money they have, so they don't make a profit. It's more complicated than that but that's the general idea. | [
"Nonprofits are not driven by generating profit, but they must bring in enough income to pursue their social goals. Nonprofits are able to raise money in different ways. This includes income from donations from individual donors or foundations; sponsorships from corporations; government funding; programs, services ... |
Why did Robespierre oppose the Enragés, the ultra-left faction demanding price controls for bread? Wasn't he, among the Jacobins, one of the least concerned with private property? | While we could classify the Jacobins, Montagnards, and Cordeliers as "leftist" in today's terminology, the reality is that there was intense conflict among those groups to legitimize their vision of the Revolution. After the execution of Louis, these were rivals, not like-minded groups working towards a common vision.... | [
"The Enragés formed in response to the Jacobin's reluctance to restrain the capitalist bourgeois. Many Parisians feared that the National Convention protected merchants and shopkeepers at the expense of the sans-culottes. The Enragés, though not a cohesive body, offered the working poor a platform to express their ... |
how does activated carbon work and why it's in every cleansing product now a days? | Activated carbon is just regular carbon, but with a very fine poreous structure which creates a huge surface area for adsorption of all kind. It's widely used as a filtering material in chemical processes or agriculture.
The sudden rise of its appearance in dermatological products is mainly a big marketing trend. Its... | [
"Activated carbon works via a process called adsorption, whereby pollutant molecules in the fluid to be treated are trapped inside the pore structure of the carbon substrate. Carbon filtering is commonly used for water purification, air filtering and industrial gas processing, for example the removal of siloxanes a... |
why can peppers cause blisters without being temperature hot? | > So why does this happen?
The "heat" in peppers is a chemical called capsaicin. Capsaicin is a chemical irritant (plants use it to deter mammals from eating their fruit) and it can cause contact dermatitis in some people which can present as small painful blisters.
It can also penetrate through the skin with prolo... | [
"It is anecdotally said that hot peppers help people in the tropics “cool off.” This theory is consistent with the peripheral vasodilatory effect of capsaicin that has been shown to lower skin temperature in humans exposed to a hot environment. Capsaicin feels hot in the mouth because it activates sensory receptors... |
the "pre-med"/med school process | The first step of the process is the post your "Primary Application". Typically this is done through a service known as AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service). This serves as a type of common application that many medical schools use as their first screen to filter out students. It entails filling out ... | [
"Pre-medical (often referred to as pre-med) is an educational track that undergraduate students in the United States and Canada pursue prior to becoming medical students. It involves activities that prepare a student for medical school, such as pre-med coursework, volunteer activities, clinical experience, research... |
My son wants to know why we can record visuals and sound but not smell. Will "smell cameras," as he says, exist one day? | Light and sound propagate via waves that we can reproduce fairly well, although there are colours that cannot be accurately represented by the limited capacities of TVs and monitors and such, and not all sounds are recorded or reproduced even in high-quality recordings. Still, it's relatively easy to recreate a picture... | [
"Called the Madeleine, after the Marcel Proust episode from \"Remembrance of Things Past\", the device is a working prototype of a new kind of camera to record smell. It consists of a funnel to be placed over the object with the scent you wish to capture. This is attached to a pump that draws air into an odor trap ... |
what makes a pub different from other bars. | A pub is somewhere you should feel comfortable to spend the whole day and even take children during earlier hours. It should be a cosy place, decorated in a friendly and welcoming manner, if a little naff. There should be games available such as pool, darts and a quiz machine. The better ones will even have dominoes, c... | [
"'Bar' also designates a separate drinking area within a pub. Until recent years most pubs had two or more bars – very often the Public bar or Tap room, and the Saloon Bar or Lounge, where the decor was better and prices were sometimes higher. The designations of the bars varied regionally. In the last two decades,... |
does cold water reduce the effectiveness of soap? | The foam in soap and toothpaste doesn't have any relation to how well it cleans.
An additive is put in to make it foam, because consumers naturally equate foaming to mean its working | [
"Sea, brackish and other waters that contain appreciable amount of sodium ions (Na) interfere with the normal behavior of soap because of common-ion effect. In the presence of excess Na, the solubility of soap salts is reduced, making the soap less effective.\n",
"Consider again the example of water with a bit of... |
Would a computer run better in a vacuum? | No, the lightbulb burns out in air right away because the filament oxidizes, but nothing inside a computer is going to oxidize that quickly.
In fact it would perform worse, because the components (especially the cpu) need airflow to keep cool. Computers on satellites do run in a vacuum, and it's a real problem to sink... | [
"The Atanasoff–Berry computer, a prototype of which was first demonstrated in 1939, is now credited as the first vacuum tube computer. However it was not a general-purpose computer being able to only solve a system of linear equations and it was also not very reliable. \n",
"A vacuum tube computer, now termed a f... |
drinking water | The answer is simple. The main reason you feel water moving is because it is. You notice it more if the temp is allot different from your body. | [
"Drinking water is water that is of sufficiently high quality so that it can be consumed or used without risk of immediate or long term harm. Such water is commonly called potable water. In most developed countries, the water supplied to domestic, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard even though ... |
why does my pc installs the same usb device every time i plug it in? | Does it happen with one particular device? | [
"The USB 2.0 socket allows files to be transported both ways between the device and a computer running transfer software written for this purpose. Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and some versions of Linux/Unix are supported. Files of any kind can be moved in both directions but the feature is mainly used\n",
"USB c... |
what happens physically/chemically when a liquid like water is either absorbed by another substance, or rolls off something, but absorbed by something else? | I'm not sure, but it's probably about dissolving stuff, like dirt, and not being able to dissolve stuff like glass. Maybe more along the lines of if there are minute surface cracks for the water to get into. Glass is more or less a solid and dirt is a bunch of round pieces of worm poop an sand, which allows water into ... | [
"The word liquid in the name comes from the analogy drawn to dropping a stone into a still body of water or other liquid. The falling stone will generate ripples in the liquid. The input (motion of the falling stone) has been converted into a spatio-temporal pattern of liquid displacement (ripples).\n",
"The phys... |
Toxicity of CO2? | CO2 causes suffocation. It does by replacing oxygen in your red blood cells. Hemoglobin, the protein that makes up the majority of your red blood cells (giving them the red color because of the iron it contains) is charged with transporting oxygen throughout your body and collecting CO2. It preferentially binds CO2, an... | [
"CO is a colorless, tasteless and odorless compound produced by incomplete combustion of carbon-containing materials. It is often referred to as the \"silent killer\" because it is virtually undetectable by humans without using detection technology and, in a study by Underwriters Laboratories, \"Sixty percent of Am... |
What makes a black hole hungry? | Black holes don't have 'hunger'. What they do, is draw in any nearby matter. Sometimes the surrounding matter is absorbed in 'chunks' .. and those cycles are called 'feeding' and 'resting'. It's not real though. | [
"Black holes are a major source of energy for the Eight Worlds' society. They are quite rare but can be found - if one is persistent enough \"and\" lucky - in the space beyond Pluto. A single black hole, when dragged back into the system and installed in a power station, would be enough for a prospector to live in ... |
is there any way to permanently grow taller after pubescence? | Yes. They screw 8 bolts into a bone, 2 sets of 4. Connect them together and put a bunch of threaded rods together between the two sets.
Then they break the bone between the two sets.
Every few days they turn a key to spread the break farther apart.
This process is generally used as corrective surgery for people wit... | [
"Growth retardation may occur, as height gain may slow and can stop completely with severe weight loss or chronic malnutrition. In such cases, provided that growth potential is preserved, height increase can resume and reach full potential after normal intake is resumed. Height potential is normally preserved if th... |
What are some simple but stunning science experiments or demonstrations that you know of? I am teaching Science in a developing country and really want to spark the students' interest. | I've always liked seeing a [magnet fall slowly down an aluminum tube](_URL_0_).
Wonderfully counter-intuitive and opens up a lot of discussion about something that is hard to visualize. | [
"The Experiment is the flagship program of World Learning, a thriving global nonprofit organization with education, sustainable, development, and exchange programs in more than 150 countries. World Learning is part of the World Learning Inc. family, which also includes the School for International Training (SIT), a... |
Why did all three of the great independent empires to have existed in India (Mughal, Gupta and Maurya) fail to conquer the southern tip of the Subcontinent? | Hello! I asked this question a few years ago and got [some terrific responses!](_URL_0_) | [
"The Mughal Empire founded by Babur, a direct descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, was able to conquer almost the entire South Asia. Although extreme religious tolerance was seen during the rule of emperor Akbar's, the reign under emperor Aurangzeb witnessed the full establishment of Islamic sharia and the re-intr... |
I've read somewhere that ancient China and Rome were each aware of the other's existence. Is that true? | Yes, there are many historical records and strong evidence on both sides that verify this. But they were not just aware of each other, they in fact sought to actively trade with one another, which is how the Silk Road came about. The vast distance between the Romans and the Chinese meant direct trade was impossible, so... | [
"Following the opening of the Silk Road in the 2nd century BC, the Chinese thought of the Roman Empire as a civilized counterpart to the Chinese Empire. The Romans occupied one extreme position on the trade route, with the Chinese located on the other.\n",
"In classical sources, the problem of identifying referen... |
at which distance is electricity essentially slowed? | The electromagnetic force, like all forces, travels at the speed of light.
So to experience a second delay, it would have to be placed a light second away (186282 miles)
| [
"In 1998, Danish physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau led a combined team from Harvard University and the Rowland Institute for Science which succeeded in slowing a beam of light to about 17 meters per second, and researchers at UC Berkeley slowed the speed of light traveling through a semiconductor to 9.7 kilometers per... |
Practical applications of the particle accelerator at Berkeley? | **Semi-conductors**: The semi-conductor
industry relies on accelerator technology to
implant ions in silicon chips, making them
more effective in consumer electronic
products such as computers, smart phones
and MP3 players.
**Clean air and water**: Studies show that blasts
of electrons from a particle accelerator are... | [
"From the 1950s through the present, Berkeley Lab has maintained its status as a major international center for physics research, and has also diversified its research program into almost every realm of scientific investigation. Its mission is to solve the most pressing and profound scientific problems facing manki... |
why does stretching certain muscles feel good yet others remain painful even as i gain flexibility? | So flexibility is a a little complicated. You have muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and all three have flexibility. Tendons attach muscle to bone, while ligaments attach bone to bone.
If you try and touch your toes with straight legs, you'll probably feel a tightness behind your knees. This is mostly your 'posterior c... | [
"Flexibility is improved by stretching. Stretching should only be started when muscles are warm and the body temperature is raised. To be effective while stretching, force applied to the body must be held just beyond a feeling of pain and needs to be held for at least ten seconds. Increasing the range of motion cre... |
Were societies such as the Roman Empire, the Prussians, etc. matriarchal at some point, thus leading to their decline? Matriarchal in this context refers to female-dominated. | I suggest crossposting that thread to /r/badhistory.
(Edit: never mind, [it's already there](_URL_4_).)
(Double edit: [it's so bad it has two different threads there](_URL_1_).)
The short answer: no.
The slightly longer answer: certain mens' rights pseudohistorians (Warren Farrell being the prime mover here) ... | [
"Roman society had multiple, overlapping social hierarchies that modern concepts of \"class\" in English may not represent accurately. The two decades of civil war from which Augustus rose to sole power left traditional society in Rome in a state of confusion and upheaval, but did not affect an immediate redistribu... |
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