Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
How accurate are Rick Riordan's novels in portraying ancient mythology?	The short, simple answer: the books are very well researched, they represent the mythological characters reasonably faithfully, and they draw on a large range of tropes that are also found in ancient myths. They don't represent stories faithfully, because they're not telling the ancient stories: they're telling new s...	[ "Cobb's direction for the sets was to \"undo history\", \"to invent [their] own fantasy history\", and yet maintain a \"realistic, historical look\". Eschewing the Greco-Roman imagery used heavily in the sword-and-sandal films of the 1960s, he realized a world that was an amalgamation of Dark Age cultures, such as ...
How did the fourth crusade bypass Byzantium's defenses?	The short answer is that after the death of Manuel I Komnenos in 1180, the Empire endured a long string of incompetent (or in the case of Andronikos I, deranged) rulers that severely undermined Byzantium's position as the first-rate superpower of the Mediterranean and the Near East. In the last years of Emperor Manuel'...	[ "The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was initially intended to invade Muslim-controlled areas; instead, the Crusaders attacked the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, resulting in the temporary dissolution of the empire and the sack of its capital. As Venice was one of the participants in the Crusade its re...
Need help with history writing prompt	You might have better luck over at /r/HomeworkHelp.	[ "Peter Seixas, Professor Emeritus from the University of British Columbia and creator of The Historical Thinking Project, outlines six benchmarks for historical thinking literacies in students. The benchmarks focus on developing the skills necessary for students to create an account of the past using primary source...
el15: the european royal families	Why were the royal families of so many countries related? Simple, royalty marries royalty. When there is nobody to marry in your own country you go looking abroad. In the past there was also a lot of politics involved.	[ "In modern times, King Felipe VI of Spain is a member of this family, while Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg is of relation to the family by agnatic kinship; both through the Bourbon branch of the dynasty. Along with the House of Habsburg, it was one of the two most powerful continental European royal families, domin...
Jerusalem during Middle Ages (500-1500)	In 500AD Jerusalem was still under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire and believe it or not there were fairly few Jews living in the city or its environs. The city was populated mostly by Christians from all over Europe and Asia who came as pilgrims. This was a time when Jerusalem was beginning to take it's centra...	[ "The history of Jerusalem during the Middle Ages is generally one of decline; beginning as a major city in the Byzantine Empire, Jerusalem prospered during the early centuries of Muslim control (640–969), but under the rule of the Fatimid caliphate (late 10th to 11th centuries) its population declined from about 20...
Did divorce exist in Meiji Japan? What was involved?	Indeed, divorce did exist in Meiji Japan and well before it as well. It's important to note that marriage was often a family based deal, much like it was in other parts of the world. Marriage was very much about two families joining and for people of status, wealth, or prestige, marriage might be decided by people ...	[ "Under the Meiji system, however, the law limited grounds for divorce to seven events: sterility, adultery, disobedience to the parents-in-law, loquacity, larceny, jealousy, and disease. However, the law offered a protection for divorcees by guaranteeing a wife could not be sent away if she had nowhere else to go. ...
why modern parking lots seem to be configured in confusing and maze-like fashions through the placement of seemingly random medians?	Many factors at play. One concern is drainage. you need to dispose of water, and it can only flow down hill. SO you need gutters (and medians) to intercept, channel and dispose of the water. You also need to consider turning movement for large vehicles. If a semi or something has to do a reverse turn through the midd...	[ "Angle parking is very common in car parking lots. It may also be used in streetside car parking in the U.S. when there is more width available for car parking than would be needed for parallel parking of cars, as it creates a larger number of parking spaces. Some cities have utilized angled parking on-street (as c...
in a deck of cards why is the card called a jack and not a prince?	Because it represents a knave (or jack), not a prince. _URL_0_ > As early as the mid-16th century the card was known in England as the knave (meaning a male servant of royalty).	[ "The jack, traditionally the lowest face card, has often been promoted to a higher or the highest position in the traditional ranking of cards, where the ace or king generally occupied the first rank. This is seen in the earliest known European card games, such as Karnöffel, as well as in more recent ones such as E...
how phone sim locks work	A carrier, has specific codes on each sim, so that they can identify which is their own sim. When you insert a sim, it sends a signla to tower near by and ask to identify itself ( tower after realying to Cell providers) tells sim, you are on ATT, so when you insert T mobile sim, Tower tells SIM you are Tmobile sim on ...	[ "A SIM lock, simlock, network lock, carrier lock or (master) subsidy lock is a technical restriction built into GSM and CDMA mobile phones by mobile phone manufacturers for use by service providers to restrict the use of these phones to specific countries and/or networks. This is in contrast to a phone (retrospecti...
In the human body, does being in (great) pain = damage?	No. Your sensory system can be mistaken. (e.g. [allodynia](_URL_0_))	[ "Total pain is all the pain you have and understands how a person's physical pain cannot be separated by other problems in their life such as non-pain symptoms like vomiting, incontinence or mobility issues, as well as emotional problems related either to the drugs or treatments they are undergoing or the fact that...
can a woman get pregnant by multiple men and have all of their babies ala triplets/twins/etc? (for example multiple ethnicities)	Very unlikely but possible. Female must have released 2 separate eggs at the same time, thrn have them both fertilized by sperm from two different males	[ "Among dizygotic twins, in rare cases, the eggs are fertilized at different times with two or more acts of sexual intercourse, either within one menstrual cycle (superfecundation) or, even more rarely, later on in the pregnancy (superfetation). This can lead to the possibility of a woman carrying fraternal twins wi...
what does the foam/bubbles in shampoo do?	Not much actually. Look up Sodium Laureth Sulphate. Nearly all soaps have some form of this chemical. It is sometimes listed by different names. It slightly increases the products ability to dissolve oils, but its main purpose is a "foaming agent". It's added simply because people expect soap to make foam and bubbles. ...	[ "In lower concentrations, it is found in toothpastes, shampoos, shaving creams, and bubble bath formulations, for its ability to create a foam (lather), for its surfactant properties, and in part for its thickening effect.\n", "Some types of shampoo contain sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) as a foaming agent. Also in ...
Founding of Rome: What other legends are there besides the Romulus tale.	The founding of Rome by the twins Romulus/Remus is but one part of the legend, the other being the prehistory of the founding of Rome under Aeneas. The story of the founding can thus be divided into three parts: the coming of Aeneas to Latium after the fall of Troy, founding a settlement called Lavinum; the founding of...	[ "The tale of the Founding of Rome is recounted in traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves as the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth. The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous of all Roman myths, is the story of Romulus and Remus, twins who were su...
Was the U.S. the first country with Public Schooling?	To make sure I'm answering your question correctly, can you say more about what you mean by "public schooling"?	[ "In 1787, the United States Constitution was signed with nary a mention of public education, suggesting that the Founding Fathers of the United States would not have approved of state intervention in their children's schooling. But, once again, support for public schooling rose throughout the end of the 18th centur...
What's stopping the NSA from monitoring and/or controlling the Tor network?	[Diagram of how tor works](_URL_0_) Tor uses [onion routing](_URL_1_). The sender builds a curcuit of nodes. Each node is only aware of the previous and next node. To compromise the circuit and find who is sending to where, you need to own/operate every node in that circuit. The sender alice needs to build a circu...	[ "On October 4, 2013, \"The Washington Post\" and \"The Guardian\" jointly reported that the NSA and the GCHQ have made repeated attempts to spy on anonymous Internet users who have been communicating in secret via the anonymity network Tor. Several of these surveillance operations involve the implantation of malici...
unless you're a genius mathematician, whats the point of being a mathematician?	Most people that have a degree in Math enter graduate school. It can be applied to an type of engineering or finance. Or they could continue in academia.	[ "Abstract mathematical problems arise in all fields of mathematics. While mathematicians usually study them for their own sake, by doing so results may be obtained that find application outside the realm of mathematics. Theoretical physics has historically been, and remains, a rich source of inspiration.\n", "Som...
Is birth order romantic compatibility pseudo-science?	You can rest assured that there is no science to this. It is one step away from horoscopes and numerology.	[ "The evolutionary theory of human interpersonal attraction states that opposite-sex attraction most often occurs when someone has physical features indicating that he or she is very fertile. Considering that one primary purpose of conjugal/romantic relationships is reproduction, it would follow that people invest i...
why is amy schumer hated by everyone?	Not everyone thinks she is funny. Perhaps that's her choice of comic topics, or her coarse language, or maybe she's not funny.	[ "Cherie Blair told Bryer that the press attention on her life in Downing Street had been 'hurtful' at times and that it was naive not to give any interviews when her husband first came into office. She thought, \"Why would anyone necessarily be interested in other things? ... But because people were interested and ...
how electrical impulses work between neurons and can they jump the dendrites or does it all work through synapses only?	Think about neuron-to-neuron communication as going like this: Electrical - > chemical - > electrical - > chemical ...and so on. Of course, at such a tiny scale, it gets real obvious that electrical is chemical. I'm not sure what you mean by "jump the dendrite," but I can give you a general ELI5 account like th...	[ "Neurons are interconnected in complex arrangements, and use electrochemical signals and neurotransmitter chemicals to transmit impulses from one neuron to the next; axon terminals are separated from neighboring neurons by a small gap called a synapse, across which impulses are sent. The axon terminal, and the neur...
how does water pressure work?	If you're washing people away by flooding, like water washing through streets or something, it's all going to be at atmospheric pressure anyway. You would need to worry more about volume. A given volume can be driven through a given size hole at a given pressure, or a smaller hole at a higher pressure.	[ "The perception of water pressure is actually the speed of the water as it hits a surface, (the hands, in the case of hand washing). When an aerator is added to the faucet (or fluid stream), there is a region of high pressure created behind the aerator. Because of the higher pressure behind the aerator and the low ...
the word "jihad".	Jihad is the last of the seven pillars of Islam. To answer your question simply, it's both fighting a war to protect the religion and fighting off Shaitan (Satan) in one's own struggle to remain true to the religion. The first part was really only applicable a long long time ago in history when enemies of Islam (peopl...	[ "Jihad () is an Islamic term referring to the religious duty of Muslims to maintain the religion. In Arabic, the word \"jihād\" is a noun meaning \"to strive, to apply oneself, to struggle, to persevere\". A person engaged in jihad is called a \"mujahid\", the plural of which is \"mujahideen\" (). The word \"jihad\...
how does meditation physically alter the brain's structure?	This is one of those things that's true but completely overblown. Look, everything physically changes the brain's structure. Reading this very sentence has altered your brain's structure. That's how our brain works. If our brain couldn't change, we'd never experience anything, because synaptic connections is how t...	[ "Meditation, a form of mental training to focus attention, has been shown to increase the control over brain resource distribution, improving both attention and self-regulation. The changes are potentially long-lasting as meditation may have the ability to strengthen neuronal circuits as selective attentional proce...
How does having multiple cores solve the CPU heat barrier?	Given a constant chip size (and fab process, voltage, etc.), having one core vs. multi-core doesn't necessarily change the amount of performance in an ideal situation. You keep every circuit on both running at some utilization level (let's say 80%) and you get the same amount of information processing done. And the s...	[ "Mass-produced CPU heat spreaders and heatsink bases are never perfectly flat or smooth; if these surfaces are placed in the best contact possible, there will be air gaps which reduce heat conduction. This can easily be mitigated by the use of thermal compound, but for the best possible results surfaces must be as ...
What did the T-Rex actually look like? Is there any consensus among paleontologists?	Are you asking about their looks at a surface skin level, or the actual dimensions of it's structure? Bone records help with the height and weight estimations, but skin is harder to theorize since it's a protein - and within fossilized records it is typically believed that skin dissolves within those first million yea...	[ "Tyrannosaurus, a bipedal carnivore, is a genus of theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex, commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other tyrannosaurids. Fossils are found in a variety of rock forma...
What do we know of Sir William Marshall as a knight and a warrior?	[Here are a couple of posts](_URL_0_) on Marshal. He was a phenomenal tournament knight, he supposedly captured 500 men during his career, respected warrior, defeating Richard the Lionheart, and died regent of England for Henry III. Aside from his political achievements Marshal is so well known due to a biography commi...	[ "Sir William was thought by antiquarians to have fought at the battle of Battle of Agincourt and Joseph Edmondson (died 1786) states that Sir William was made knight banneret on the battlefield by Henry V. More recent research of the rolls, however, of those who went to France has failed to reveal his name. and a p...
In many historical war films, enemy kings or generals often ride out to confront each other before battle. Did this sort of thing really happen?	[We know from Polybius](_URL_0_) that Scipio may have met with Hannibal before the battle of Zama, and talked a bit about the causes of the war, and each tried to claim that they were fighting a just war against an aggressor.	[ "Battle Nations also has a few major storylines as well as many smaller storylines (most of which were for limited edition events). Some major plot points include defeating Warlord Gantas (the antagonist boss of the Raiders), Attacking Rebel Forces (after they successfully take down the Imperial Forces), and confro...
So, Redditors of NASA, JPL, and related researchers... what have we learned from this important off-planet mission?	I work for neither of those three, but we have just discovered a new, viable landing system for larger payloads =0	[ "Current campaigns include studying black holes, planets, search for extraterrestrial life (SETI) and helping monitor the health of a space probes such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Cassini-Huygens space probe and the Juno space probe. This provides an opportunity for students to experience real science, to ...
why is plastic surgery for hands so ineffectve? we see many ageing celebrities with young-looking faces, but their hands always give away their true age. there's surely a market for it, so what's holding it back?	You ever notice how people with a lot of work done on their faces can't be very expressive because their faces don't move as much? Now imagine the mobility in your hands is that limited. People are willing to sacrifice some ability to move their faces (which everyone will see and notice) more than dexterity in their ha...	[ "Some sufferers are more likely to seek plastic surgery to cut and stretch wrinkles to make them look more youthful while the main concern of many other sufferers is the internal, biological long-term damage caused by the aging process.\n", "BULLET::::- Plastic Surgeons' Wives (Julie Eckersley, Julia Zemiro)- Cam...
the dangers of looking at someone welding/soldering stuff	Welding often emits ultraviolet radiation, which can harm your eyes- the same reason you shouldn't stare at the sun. I don't know about soldering though- as far as I know there's no reason why you can't look at a soldering iron at work.	[ "Welding and cutting processes, including arc welding and cutting, as well as brazing produce intense ultraviolet (UV), infrared (IR) and visible light wavelengths. The UV and IR wavelengths cannot be seen and can produce eye injury without the victim realizing it immediately. Extremely dark filters of the proper s...
human ancestries.. have males always been generally the more dominate sex?	Human males have historically been the more dominate sex. In humans, the male is large and physically stronger which makes them better at hunting, gathering, and defending the tribe. Added on to this is the long gestation period that makes females less physically capable for periods of time. The result of this is male...	[ "Human female sexual selection can be examined by looking at ways in which males and females are sexually dimorphic, especially in traits that serve little other evolutionary purpose. For example, male traits such as the presence of beards, overall lower voice pitch, and average greater height are thought to be sex...
what does the silica packets in boxes of shoes do and why?	Silica is highly hygroscopic, meaning that it absorbs water from the atmosphere. It is present in shoe boxes (and in certain dry foods, and other items) in order to ensure the enclosed environment remains as dry as possible, so that the product does not degrade, mould or swell.	[ "In conventional pointe shoes, the box is typically made from tightly packed layers of paper and fabric that have been glued together and then shaped into an enclosure. When the glue dries, it becomes hard and provides the required stiffness. In some newer pointe shoes, the box may be made from plastic and rubber, ...
Was there a "retirement plan" for old slaves in America? How often would slaves reach old age, anyways?	This is a really interesting question and one that can be approached in many ways depending on region, state, or years of interest. For the sake of time, I'll answer this from a more general perspective, and use specifics when I can. I'll use the perspective of those who were enslaved primarily in the Revolutionary Er...	[ "BULLET::::- 1884: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad establishes the first pension plan by a major employer, allowing workers at age 65 who had worked for the railroad for at least 10 years to retire and receive benefits ranging from 20 to 35% of wages.\n", "Life for the average Dutchman became slower and more relaxed ...
Book Recommendations on the History of Medicine?	For the history of medicine, you can't beat the [Clio Medica](_URL_2_) series. They're focused primarily on the period 1600-1900, though, which is probably not what you're looking for. Each volume contains a series of essays which take on a theme from multiple angles (I'm particularly fond of "British Military and Na...	[ "He wrote the first treatise of Internal Medicine in Spain, along with Doctor Hernando, and his book Manual of etiologic diagnostic (1946) was one of the most widespread medicine books in the world because of its new focus on the study of diseases and its endless and unprecedented clinical contributions.\n", "A H...
During the US-Soviet space race, what were other country's space programs doing during this time period?	My reply will probably be incomplete and I'm sorry, but I hope it will respect the guidelines. There weren't countries that participated in the space war in the same extent of USA and ~~URSS~~ USSR I can speak for my country, Italy, that cooperated with the NASA and sent a satellite the San Marco 1 in orbit during t...	[ "The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two Cold War superpowers, began just before the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Both countries wanted to develop spaceflight technology quickly, particularly by launching the first successful human ...
Why was Britannia's economy so dependent on the rest of the empire? And what exactly happened after the Romans left?	Roman Britain tended to be a fairly peripheral western province during its existence : its conquest was less motivated by its relative or potential prosperity, and more by political gains (essentially prestige operations and ensuring regional stability at the benefit of Rome) and Britain was fairly importantly militari...	[ "During the middle of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was convulsed by barbarian invasions, rebellions and new imperial pretenders. Britannia apparently avoided these troubles, but increasing inflation had its economic effect. In 259 a so-called Gallic Empire was established when Postumus rebelled against Gallien...
why are the people planting lots of trees not worried about the impact on the nutrients in the soil?	As others have touched on, a forest is far more than just trees. Once trees are planted there, the land will stop being used for other purposes, and the natural life cycles of plants and animals that move into the area will replenish the soil.	[ "Nutrient deficiencies or imbalances in the soil have been linked to increased susceptibility. An excess of nitrogen and a calcium deficiency may weaken an olive tree's defenses. However, attempts to fix this with foliar nutrients and compost tea have not proven effective.\n", "Other plants can also be damaged by...
how can you have two electrical switches that perform the same role independent of the other switch?	It's called a three-way switch. The two light switches are wired up to each other, and also to the light. There's an extra piece of wire connecting the two switches to each other. When both switches are on, the light goes on. When both switches are off, the light goes on. If one switch is off and the other switch is o...	[ "Ideal switches are considered as having only two exclusive states, for example, open or closed. In some analysis, the state of a switch can be considered to have no influence on the output of the system and is designated as a \"don't care\" state. In complex networks it is necessary to also account for the finite ...
how does an induction stove boil water so quickly and not burn your hand?	Because magnetic fields. Induction stoves require special pots — the pots have been "tuned" to respond to the alternating magnetic field put out by the stovetop, and it is the pot itself that heats up. Your hand — and the jewelry you wear on it — are not able to have a current induced in them that would be resisted ...	[ "Cooking methods that use flames or hot heating elements have a significantly higher loss to the ambient; induction heating directly heats the pot. Because the induction effect does not directly heat the air around the vessel, induction cooking results in further energy efficiencies. Cooling air is blown through th...
; why do cable companies block out certain programs like sporting events even though i pay for the service?	The local channels are airing it and don't want their viewers stolen by the cable/satellite provider. So the MLB (or other org) forces the cable/sat providers to block it out. tl;dr: follow the money.	[ "In the end of the 1960s the public and the government raised concerns that cable operators can outbid free-to-air channels and \"siphon\" popular content, first of all sports, off the free air. Specific events like the Super Bowl were deemed particularly vulnerable due to greater inelasticity of demand.\n", "In ...
how do dogs know the difference between the road and the sidewalk?	Mostly in the same way you know the difference. Dogs can see the different shape/size, different texture, different markings, cars drive only on roads, people walk on sidewalks, they probably do smell different, etc. Each dog may figure it out through a different combination of these clues, or not figure it out at all,...	[ "Some of the stray dogs in Bucharest are seen crossing the large streets at pedestrian crosswalks. The dogs have probably noticed that when humans cross streets at such markings, cars tend to stop. The dogs have accustomed themselves to the flow of pedestrian and automobile traffic; they sit patiently with the peop...
What effects does the Gulf stream have on Europe's climate?	Your first set of sources is correct: the warming effect of the Gulf Stream on Europe is vastly overrated by popular science and textbooks. It's not zero, but it's quite small. The author of your first source is one of the definitive experts on the subject. The first reason Europe is warmer in the winter than North A...	[ "Europe lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies. The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is nicknamed \"Europe's central heating\", because it makes Europe's climate...
why and how do some users moderate 300+ subreddits? obviously they can't do it all, so why are they a mod?	Many who mod that much founded most of those subreddits. They often put other mods in place to do the job and they just are the top of the chain in case they want to change the community in some way, or the mods go overboard and they have to remove them. On reddit subreddits are first come first serve, but there isn'...	[ "Mods (short for modifications) are an optional upgrade for characters within the game. Once the player's account reaches level 50, Mods become available to any of their characters that are level 50 or above. There are different categories of mods, each of which yields a different primary effect on the stats of the...
why do people feel afraid or like they're being watched when they're alone?	the fear of the unknown. you really don't know for sure what's up those stairs and that makes us feel uncomfortable	[ "\"People differ in how they focus their attention. What you pay attention to plays an important role in how safe or unsafe you feel. If you tend to focus your attention on negative aspects of a situation or cues that might signal danger, you will be more likely to become excessively anxious. Also, the more you loo...
What was the American condiment landscape like before Heinz ketchup came to have a dominant market share?	I'm not sure if this exactly answers your question, but Malcolm Gladwell did an article back in 2004 about the history of ketchup and mustard, specifically focusing on how no one has been able to create a successful challenger to Heinz, but he does talk a little bit about the ketchup market before Heinz, and the circum...	[ "First introduced in 1876 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Heinz Tomato Ketchup remains the best selling brand of ketchup. From 1906 it was produced without preservatives. In 1907, Heinz started producing 13 million bottles of ketchup per year, exporting ketchup all over the world, including India, Australia, Israel, S...
Why did Castilian become the default "Spanish" language, instead of the Aragonese language, after Castile and Aragon were united as Spain?	/u/LateNightPhiloshopher Aragon and Castile were not united as Spain when Isabella and Ferdinand married and ascended to their respective king/queen-ships, rather they were put into a personal union. Navarra was joined into personal union only after the death of Isabella. The rise of Castilian as the language of Emp...	[ "Castilian (or Spanish) is the dominant language in Spain, and therefore was the language that was brought by the New World Conquistadores during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Due to this gradual process, the Hispanophone world was created. As Castilian was the language of the Crown, it became the offic...
why is that american music/albums are sold in foreign countries but foreign music/albums aren't sold in america?	Lots of foreign bands sell music in America. Look up your favorite bands and see where they come from. For example, Justin Bieber is Canadian. The Beatles were British. They sign music deals with American companies so they can utilize their massive resources and easily sell their music here. I think you've vastly under...	[ "Especially the music industry in the United States, the United States hold the biggest music industry in the world, the total sales of about 4.9 billion dollars in 2014. Because the United States is a pluralistic country, the music style of the United States is varied. The music style of the United States influenc...
Genghis Khan and his army shot composite Mongolian bows, but what kind?	Right – so a cursory Wikipedia search (bear with me here) mentions that it is a “recurved composite bow”, which, whilst specific to some degree, is still quite broad. Similarly, a quick look over that tells us almost nothing that can be verified (the sources themselves are quite iffy), but that doesn’t make it wrong. ...	[ "The bows that were used during the rule of Genghis Khan were smaller than the modern Manchu derived weapons used at most Naadam. Paintings as well as at least one surviving example of a 13th-century Mongol bow from Cagaan Chad demonstrate that the medieval Mongolian bows had smaller siyahs and much less prominent ...
why are milk advertisements for milk in general rather than a specific brand?	In 1993, Californian dairies agreed to put three cents from every gallon sold towards an overall marketing campaign to promote milk. Since they are all contributing, the ads don't favor one brand over another.	[ "These organizations are responsible for familiar American advertising campaigns, including \"Milk Does a Body Good,\" the Got Milk? milk moustache series, \"Pork. The Other White Meat\", \"The Incredible, Edible Egg\", and \".\"\n", "The most recognised brand is the Black and White brand milk and there are six r...
Does the English name for the Hungarian people come from contemporary Europeans erroneously thinking that the invading Magyar were the return of the Huns?	Actually no, the name comes from UNGARI which in turn comes from Ugor (Ουγγαροί, Ogór, ) which means "tribe" in ancient pre-Hungarian tongue of the Bulgarian-Magyar peoples. Various languages added different consonants tot he begining of this word to make it roll off the tongue easier. For example (H)UNGAR(ians) - i...	[ "The earliest record of the Magyars (or Hungarians) is connected to their alliance with the Bulgars against a group of Byzantine prisoners who were planning to cross the Lower Danube in an attempt to return to their homeland around 837 AD. They dwelled in the steppes north and northwest of the Black Sea. A group of...
Was the 1950s largely middle class, american dream portrayed in modern media a reality in its time?	The pictures/images you paint are consistent with the dominant ideal of what "the good life" was supposed to be like in the 1950s. These images weren't just Cold War propaganda, they were also replicated and idealized in advertisements, in film and on TV, and in advice literature as well. Many factors went into m...	[ "With the difficulties of World War II now in the past, the decade also gave birth to what might be referred to as \"the suburban dream\" (the typical 1950s housewife would eventually become a universally recognised stereotype). Reflecting this were films such as the melodramas by director Douglas Sirk; \"All That ...
Why do living things want to survive?	Because all the ones that didn't want to survive didn't.	[ "Survival, or self-preservation, is behavior that ensures the survival of an organism. It is almost universal among living organisms. Humans differ from other animals in that they use technology extensively to improve chances of survival and increase life expectancy.\n", "Most fundamentally, Survival believes tha...
What causes our palm creases, and what affects their length, boldness, etc.?	Its just how your skin folds upon itself when you open/close your palm, and you do that alot so the creases appear with time. Some paralysed people lose their creases over time (years) due to not being able to move the bodypart where the creases are.	[ "Sometimes a callus occurs where there is no rubbing or pressure. These hyperkeratoses can have a variety of causes. Some toxic materials, such as arsenic, can cause thick palms and soles. Some diseases, such as syphilis, can cause thickening of the palms and soles as well as pinpoint hyperkeratoses. There is a ben...
why do a lot of businesses start their day at 8am?	'In larger cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles the problem comes from traffic and parking. By coming in earlier the traffic is thinned somewhat. Some states give companies a tax break for helping out with traffic congestion. Time differences across the nation can be another factor. If you have children it's...	[ "It was also part of their initial ethos to be late-opening, with most stores opening until eight or ten o'clock in the evening and a good number remaining open until midnight, subject to local licensing conditions.\n", "For many years, it was common for retailers to open at 6:00 a.m., but in the late 2000s many ...
When the telephone was invented, would it just ring forever since there were no answering machines?	To properly answer this we need to understand a bit about the history of how telephone calls were completed in the early days. While in theory you could just run a line between two stations (a private line), this isn't very useful because a) you might want to talk to more than one station and b) it quickly becomes over...	[ "The world's first telephone box called \"Fernsprechkiosk\", was opened on 12 January 1881 at Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. To use it, one had to buy paper tickets called Telefonbillet which allowed for a few minutes of talking time. In 1899, it was replaced by a coin-operated telephone.\n", "Most 20th century answeri...
Why does Xenon form covalent bonds with atoms like Fluorine?	Xenon is a (relatively) massive element which means that those outer electrons are easy to take away. Fluorine is a relatively small element with an incredibly high electronegativity (which is why HF is so bad), which makes it easy to steal electrons from Xenon (or most other elements for that matter). As to the covale...	[ "Fluorine forms a great variety of chemical compounds, within which it always adopts an oxidation state of −1. With other atoms, fluorine forms either polar covalent bonds or ionic bonds. Most frequently, covalent bonds involving fluorine atoms are single bonds, although at least two examples of a higher order bond...
How can an electron be permanently orbiting an atom if it can be everywhere and anywhere in the universe at the same time?	Quantum objects do not behave the same way as objects with which we are normally familiar. To say that an electron is orbiting a nucleus is not a wholly accurate image. A single electron "in orbit" around a Hydrogen nucleus can be thought of as a probability cloud, rather than the nice elliptical orbits of planets arou...	[ "Bohr's model of the atom was essentially a planetary one, with the electrons orbiting around the nuclear \"sun\". However, the uncertainty principle states that an electron cannot simultaneously have an exact location and velocity in the way that a planet does. Instead of classical orbits, electrons are said to in...
Are there a lot of gasses floating around in outerspace? Which ones, and in what quantities?	In outerspace, it's composition is predominately hydrogen and helium in concentrations of about 1 atom per (edit)~~square~~ cubic meter. Any other gases or elements are in too low concentrations to be measurable.	[ "The planet is a gas giant that is about in diameter. Like most gas giants, it has a solid core that consists of metal followed by layers of metallic gases. Many of the layers of gas are poisonous, and the pressure and temperature are far above what a human could tolerate. But from approximately down from outer spa...
why do women crave sweets (specifically chocolate) during "that time of the month"	> A craving for chocolate during the early menstrual cycle is often because of higher levels of hormones that are triggered as insulin increases. This causes low blood sugar. When blood sugar is low, the brain sends signals to the body that it needs more fuel, which is often a misguided message to eat chocolate and ot...	[ "Chocolate is seen as a sweet that is desired more by women than by men. Studies conducted in the UK and US and Canada have concluded that women indeed crave chocolate more than men. Also this chocolate craving seems to occur more perimenstrually. However a biological explanation has not been scientifically proven....
what is the point of "late fees"? if people couldn't pay a bill on time in the first place, how are they supposed to pay more than the missing bill?	A lot of late payment is because people forget to pay their bills or even tries to pay the bills late intentionally so they can collect interest on it. The late fees is both to cover the lost interest, the cost of reissuing the bill and as a penalty to make people pay on time. If people do not have the money to pay the...	[ "A late fee, also known as an \"overdue fine\", \"late fine\", or \"past due fee\", is a charge fined against a client by a company or organization for not paying a bill or returning a rented or borrowed item by its due date. Its use is most commonly associated with businesses like creditors, video rental outlets a...
why are credit/debit cards not coded with the card type?	It seems you misunderstood. It's not that the terminal is stupid, it's because the terminal is smart. The reason some payment terminals ask you the type is because your card is of both. It has credit side which means your bank pays for you and then sends you a bill later, and debit side which is attached to an accoun...	[ "All debit cards now have a magnetic stripe on which is encoded the card's service codes, consisting of three-digit values. These codes are used to convey instructions to merchant terminals on how a card should be processed. The first digit indicates if a card can be used internationally or is valid for domestic us...
Book on America's various regional subcultures?	Woodard openly credits Garreau's work as one of the foundations of his own book, so he would say American Nations represents a refinement or update of the same principles. I have read Woodard but not Garreau. Woodard's book is extensively endnoted but I cannot say I've researched any of his sources. But while his so...	[ "BULLET::::- Slade, Joseph W. and Judith Lee. \"The Midwest: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures\" (2004); architecture, art, fashion, folklore, food, language, literature, music, religion, and sports\n", "\"America in Theory\" (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988) with Denis Donoghue and...
why hasn't wikipedia gone to an ad based model yet if they are losing money?	Because they really don't want to. Wikipedia has always been ad free and user supported. People donate year round, not just at the donation drive. They start the donation drive when money gets thin. So far, its always worked. As long as they only have to pester you for a short time out of the year, they see that as far...	[ "Heated debate resulted after the revelation over whether such practices called Wikipedia's credibility into question. In response to the incident, Jimmy Wales said paying for edits to Wikipedia was against the encyclopedia's spirit. Wales said the better, more transparent choice would have been for Microsoft to pr...
when using microsoft word, why can't you save a file title that has a colon, semicolon or quotation marks?	Those are reserved characters for file paths, or they are command operators. If you could use them in filenames, it would create ambiguous paths or commands. Here's a list of characters you can't use in Windows filenames: < (less than) > (greater than) : (colon) " (double quote) / (forward sl...	[ "Systems that don't allow colons in filenames (This includes Microsoft Windows and some configurations of Novell Storage Services.) can use an alternative separator, such as \";\", or \"-\". It is often trivial to patch free and open source software to use a different separator.\n", "For example, Microsoft Office...
Why does India have so many languages while next door China which is much bigger in size not so many?	Nooooo. A dagger to my heart! Sinitic languages alone number around a dozen, arguably more. There's Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Min, Hakka, Pinghua, Hui, Waxiang, Jin, Xiang, Gan... But then within a few of those, Min for example, they can be broken down into 5 or more mutually unintelligible dialect groups which are lan...	[ "The major languages of the Indian subcontinent have numbers of speakers comparable to those of major world languages primarily due to the large population in the region rather than a supra-regional use of these languages, although Hindustani (including all Hindi dialects, and Urdu), Bengali and Tamil may fulfill t...
How much of my ancestors' genetic material do I really have?	No, you would need to have a sample of there DNA. It's almost certain that your ancestors shared alleles or were related (hopefully distant relatives). Also, not all DNA is crosslinks the same, so this would further complicate things. Mitochondrial DNA AND Y chromosome DNA have haplogroups that are directly inherited....	[ "Without a DNA sample, it is not possible to reconstruct the complete genetic makeup (genome) of any individual who died very long ago. By analysing descendants' DNA, however, parts of ancestral genomes are estimated by scientists. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome DNA are commonly used to trace ancestry i...
Oceanographers: What is on the bottom of the majority of the Pacific Ocean?	The pacific plate is composed primarily of [basalt](_URL_8_) basement. To varying degrees, based on age, depth, and over-lying productivity, this is covered with sediment; [calcareous ooze, silicious ooze, and clay](_URL_2_). Benthic life is concentrated under the areas of highest primary productivity at the surface....	[ "The Pacific Ocean seafloor is characterized by a striking contrast between the relatively flat floor of the Eastern Pacific and the Western Pacific whose seafloor is dotted by oceanic plateaus and seamounts. These structures may have formed on top of large Cretaceous uplift episodes, moving hotspots, mid-ocean rid...
how was the colosseum built?	The Romans were good builders, but Damm near legendary engineers. Plus it wasn't their first arena they had built. Gladiator combat and shows were popular throughout Roman history, they just upped the scale. Combine quality concrete, large amounts of both slave and plebian labor, and a bunch of money they wanted to bl...	[ "The Colosseum or Coliseum ( ), also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: \"Amphitheatrum Flavium\"; Italian: \"Anfiteatro Flavio\" or \"Colosseo\" ), is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. Built of travertine limestone, tuff (volcanic rock) , and brick-faced concrete, it was the lar...
In the time of Cleopatra were the Pyramids still being worshipped and kept in repair?	More of a clarifying question, but were the pyramids themselves worshipped? Were old pharaohs buried in them still worshipped ?	[ "The pyramid was excavated at the beginning of the 20th century by two different teams who reported conflicting estimates regarding its size and number of subterranean chambers. No artefacts were found over the course of the excavations, and no trace of a burial could be found. For this reason, it is unclear whethe...
Accounts of WWII shipbuilding?	Congrats! Not many folks will have had such a unique, historic experience. If you're looking for a book about the firsthand experience, you might consider Augusta Clawson's The Shipyard Diary of a Woman Welder, which was a bestseller when it was released in 1944. Clawson, a writer from New York, traveled west to wo...	[ "BULLET::::- \"Ships for victory : a history of shipbuilding under the U.S. Maritime Commission in World War II\" by Frederic C. Lane ; with the collaboration of Blanche D. Coll, Gerald J. Fischer, David B. Tyler; charts by Joseph T. Reynolds (1951; with a new preface by Arthur Donovan, 2001).\n", "From 1939 thro...
Did Ancient Rome have copyrite and trademarks?	J.A. Crook's Law and Life of Ancient Rome says that one of the generalizations concerning Roman commercial law is that "[t]here was no law of patent or copyright, [and] no protection for property in ideas." Rome didn't have modern technologies to speed book copying along, so most copies were made by booksellers using l...	[ "A number of archaeological research studies have found extensive evidence of branding, packaging and labelling in antiquity. Archaeologists have identified some 1,000 different Roman potters' marks of the early Roman Empire, suggesting that branding was a relatively widespread practice.\n", "In trademark treatis...
why are some people paid salary and others hourly? wouldn't it be easier just to pay every employee a salary?	Being salaried generally implies that you are working a set number of hours every week, being hourly generally implies you work a variable schedule.	[ "Some employees are paid more for they are presenting that they are worth a greater amount since they can perform more than one job function and thus makes a higher incentive for more employees to be able to perform better in the workplace. \n", "The reason that employees are often paid according to hours of work...
if all ingested carbohydrates are just reduced to glucose anyway, what makes "simple" carbs (soda, pastry, wonder bread) different compared to "complex" carbs (whole wheat, rice)?	Simple carbs are broken down very quickly, while complex ones are broken down much more slowly. Complex ones offer a more stable source of energy. You'd have to eat a lot more of simple ones to get the same result. Complex ones also have other compounds in them that are helpful to metabolism in general.	[ "Carbohydrates may be classified as monosaccharides, disaccharides or polysaccharides depending on the number of monomer (sugar) units they contain. They are a diverse group of substances, with a range of chemical, physical and physiological properties. They make up a large part of foods such as rice, noodles, brea...
Why didn't Nixon immediately destroy his recordings once reporters first started investigating Watergate?	Wonderful question! It's [something that still comes up today](_URL_0_), and there's no certain answer unless you've got a telepathic time traveler handy. That said, **we do know that Nixon considered destroying the White House tapes at least twice, but he decided against doing so because he was convinced they were pro...	[ "On August 5, 1974, the White House released a previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented the initial stages of the cover-up: it revealed Nixon and Haldeman had conducted a meeting in the Oval Office where they discussed how to stop the FBI from cont...
if we could harpoon the moon with a set amount of rockets, could we drag/move the moon closer to the earth?	Harpooning it with rockets and tugging on an attached cable wouldn't work terribly well. (It would work horribly.) However, mounting a rocket motor on the Moon's equator, and firing that motor when its exhaust is pointing in the same direction as its orbit around the earth, you could lower its closest point to the E...	[ "Lithobraking as a method for de-orbiting a spacecraft has not been used due to the extremely high orbital velocities of most bodies (e.g. for the Moon it is over 7000 km/h). However, some small moons and asteroids have very low gravity and it could conceivably be used there (e.g. Phobos has an \"escape velocity\" ...
why is there a separate security code on credit cards? if the three extra digits make it that much more secure, why not just make the number three digits longer?	In the olden days, credit cards were often not scanned with the mag strip, because the equipment was still too expensive for smaller retailers. What they did instead was use a carbon paper and a roller machine to take an imprint of the front of the credit card with the numbers. This was commonly part of the receipt, a...	[ "The international standard for financial services PIN management, ISO 9564-1, allows for PINs from four up to twelve digits, but recommends that for usability reasons the card issuer not assign a PIN longer than six digits. The inventor of the ATM, John Shepherd-Barron, had at first envisioned a six-digit numeric ...
How does the brains of conjoined twins process sensation?	It depends on where and how they are conjoined. If they're conjoined at the hip through a very narrow bit of tissue they will have fully independent nervous systems. If they're conjoined at the chest they might each control an arm and share what's below since their spine is fused below a certain point. There's even a p...	[ "Each twin manages one side of their conjoined body. The sense of touch of each is restricted to her body half; this shades off at the midsagittal plane such that there is a small amount of overlap at the midline. Stomach aches, however, are felt by only the twin on the opposite side. \n", "At birth, Chang and En...
can private military companies be used to fight is?	Can they - yes. Could the US afford to pay them to do it - also yes Are they willing to do it - probably not Will they make a total hash of it - probably yes	[ "A private military company (PMC) is a private company providing armed combat or security services for financial gain. PMCs refer to their staff as \"security contractors\" or \"private military contractors\". Private military companies refer to their business generally as the \"private military industry\" or \"The...
we did baseball; how about explaining cricket like i'm five (and american)?	[Asked and answered](_URL_0_)	[ "References to a game actually called \"\"cricket\"\" appeared around 1550. It is believed that the word \"cricket\" is based either on the word \"cric\", meaning a crooked stick possibly a shepherd's crook (early forms of cricket used a curved bat somewhat like a hockey stick), or on a Middle Dutch phrase for hock...
Were the Germans allowed to execute resistance members by the geneva convention?	Technically, the captured members of the resistance were not considered as POWs by the Geneva Conventions. This is because the French resistance, for example, did not wear uniforms or identifying marks visible at a distance, nor did they carry arms openly. This is a difficult issue, since they also do not fall into a...	[ "Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, collective punishment is a war crime. By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of World War I and World War II. In the First World War, the Germans executed Belgian villagers in mass retribution for resistance activity dur...
What was the Belgian involvement in the Algerian war of Independence?	The nation of Belgium and its armed forces was not involved in the Algerian War. There are no existing records or sources that reference any involvement of the Belgium armed forces for the French cause. Are you certain that this fellow you ran into said that he fought under the Belgian flag? There is of course the poss...	[ "The Algerian War of Independence was a series of uprisings and guerilla warfare by Algerian Nationalists against the French administration and army, the pied-noir community of European descent, and pro-French Muslim militias (Harkis). During the war the French Fourth Republic collapsed and Charles de Gaulle establ...
how would my call be directed to the nearest police station if i were to call 911 on a random highway?	The most common answer is that your cellular company can tell where (in general) you are by looking at what cell tower your phone is attached to, and (in specific) by looking at the E911 data your cellphone is sending, which usually includes GPS coordinated. traditional phone systems used to have a subscriber address...	[ "Sometimes police patrols drive directly from the communications centre to the location where someone requested assistance. This can be a simple case of someone locking their keys inside their car, a complaint about litter or an incoveniently parked car. There are also more serious calls that need direct attention,...
What was the difference between COMINCH and CNO of the US Navy during WW2?	King's savior and resurgence of his career was in part the coming together of 3 different factors meeting the world events of late 1940-1942 and the need for high energy in naval high command. 1. Was his eventually close relationship with FDR, and Secretary Knox. 2. His greatness as a naval officer eventually overrod...	[ "The CCS was constituted from the British Chiefs of Staff Committee and the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, The American unit was created in part to present a common front to the British Chiefs of Staff. It held its first formal meeting on 9 February 1942 to coordinate U.S. military operations between War and Navy ...
What good sources (books, documentaries, etc) exists about the christianisation of Scandinavia?	Anders Winroth, _The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe_, Yale University Press, 2014 Nora Berend (ed), _Christianization and the rise of Christian Monarchy - Scandinavia, Central Europe and the Rus', c900-1200_, Cambridge University Press, 2007 Jón Viða...	[ "BULLET::::- Vretemark, Maria and Axelsson, Tony (2008), 'The Varnhem Archaeological Research Project - a new insight into the Christianisation of Västergötland', Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 4, pp. 209 – 219.\n", "\"Part XIX: The History of Scandinavia\" states that it is based chiefly upon the following auth...
how can certain presidents serve almost entire terms without vice presidents (ford, jackson, roosevelt), who takes over the vps duties and why isn't a new vice president chosen?	Because at that time there was no provision for filling the vacancy of a vice president. It was only added with the [25th Amendment](_URL_1_) in 1967. Otherwise the Vice-President doesn't actually do a whole lot of real functions, just look at what Biden has done this entire time. If a new president got kille...	[ "The vice president of the United States (informally referred to as VP, or veep) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice president is also an officer in the legisl...
How did Mesoamerican rulers rule without written language?	They did have writing systems. [Several of them](_URL_0_) in fact. Some, like Mayan and Epi-Olmec, represented every sound in the spoken language (e: probably. Epi-Olmec hasn't been deciphered yet.). Others, like the Aztec and Mixtec scripts, were mostly pictographic and only loosely tied to the spoken language. But ...	[ "Another candidate for earliest writing system in Mesoamerica is the writing system of the Zapotec culture. Rising in the late Pre-Classic era after the decline of the Olmec civilization, the Zapotecs of present-day Oaxaca built an empire around Monte Alban. On a few monuments at this archaeological site, archaeolo...
how is obama getting the iran deal passed?	Technically, the deal does not need to be "passed". He just needs to make sure it does not get vetoed by the Senate. A veto needs 2/3 of the votes, or 67 votes. As long as there are 34 senators who approve of it, it can't get vetoed so it goes through. Currently there are at least 34 who won't vote to veto, so no actio...	[ "In November 2013, the Obama administration opened negotiations with Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, which included an interim agreement. Negotiations took two years with numerous delays, with a deal being announced July 14, 2015. The deal, titled the \"Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action\", saw t...
does your depth perception change as you grow up and your eyes get farther apart?	Your brain and your eyes are constantly adjusting. That little change over years are easily accommodated by accommodation.	[ "To perceive depth, infants as well as adults rely on several signals such as distances and kinetics. For instance, the fact that objects closer to the observer fill more space in our visual field than farther objects provides some cues into depth perception for infants. Evidence has shown that newborns' eyes do no...
how do the snapchat "hack" apps work without a snapchat api?	They are jailbroken devices, with full file system access.	[ "Snapchat is a popular messaging and picture exchanging application that was created in 2011 by three students at Stanford University named Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. The application was first developed to allow users to message back and forth and to also send photographs that are only available ...
why do dogs always seem hungry?	Dogs evolved from wolves whose food supply was unreliable -- thus they would eat at any opportunity, because it was never certain where their next meal would come from. Also, they evolved to live in packs, where if you didn't eat something right away, one of your mates would eat it.	[ "Dogs are one of the most common species to produce allelomimetic behavior and have it go noticed by humans. Studies have been conducted across several breeds of dog regarding eating habits and stress vocalization when alone or with litter-mates. Many results have shown that most dogs will eat more when they are in...
- how does one cash in on stock market crashes, rescissions and depressions?	I'm assuming he's talking about shorting stock. When you short a stock you borrow the stock from someone else and you sell it. After a (short) period of time, you buy the stock at the current market price and give it back to him. This way if you think the stock is going to go down, you sold it high and bought it back l...	[ "When the stock price declines because of some bad news, the company's next report will have to measure, not only the financial results of the bad news, but also the increase in the dilution percentage. This exacerbates the problem and increases the downward pressure on the stock, increasing dilution. Some financin...
how is it possible for the universe to stop expanding?	In actuality, the Universe isn't actually expanding. It's actually making more space within itself. Think about it like this. A room with four walls and the space inside the room is getting bigger, there's nothing on the outside pushing on the walls, it's unlimited. To say the Universe is expanding wouldn't make sense ...	[ "universe will expand forever. Contrary to this he shows that if Ω is a number greater than 1 then the universe will eventually collapse into itself in a \"big crunch\", the opposite of the Big Bang. Ferris then shows, in a third possibility, that the universe is hanging in the balance in a \"critical density\" tha...
Any recommendations for books on mythology?	Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" is always a good place to start for Greek and Roman, and a little Norse. Others may be able to recommend for other cultures, my main experience is with Greece and Rome.	[ "Classical books of mythology include the \"Classic of Mountains and Seas\" (山海經 \"Shānhǎijīng\"), the \"Record of Heretofore Lost Works\" (拾遺記 \"Shíyíjì\"), \"The Peach Blossom Spring\" (桃花源記 \"Táohuāyuánjì\"), the \"Investiture of the Gods\" (封神演義 \"Fēngshén yǎnyì\"), and the \"Journey to the West\" (西遊記 \"Xīyóuj...
When did the first male / female ancestor appear in the history of life?	According to Wikipedia: The first fossilized evidence of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes is from the Stenian period, about 1 to 1.2 billion years ago. _URL_0_ . It's a fair bet that there were several starts to sexual reproduction, but we probably evolved from one of these lines.	[ "All human men descend in the paternal line from a single man dubbed Y-chromosomal Adam, who lived probably between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago. A 'family tree' can be drawn showing how men today descend from him. Different branches of this tree are different haplogroups. Most haplogroups can be further subdivide...
If the universe is infinite, why is the night sky black?	"Olbers' Paradox is pretty simple: if the universe is infinite, and is filled with an infinite number of stars, then when the sun goes down, all we should see is a sky full of light. There shouldn't be any black background for stars to twinkle against, or night vision, or shadowy alleyways full of criminals to give sup...	[ "The fact that outer space is black is sometimes called Olbers' paradox. In theory, because the universe is full of stars, and is believed to be infinitely large, it would be expected that the light of an infinite number of stars would be enough to brilliantly light the whole universe all the time. However, the bac...
What did people think of the anatomical and cognitive similarities between humans and apes before before evolution?	Hanno the Navigator thought that gorillas, at least, were people: > On the third day after our departure thence, having sailed by those streams of fire, we arrived at a bay called the Southern Horn[11]; at the bottom of which lay an island like the former, having a lake, and in this lake another island, full of savag...	[ "Third, despite accepting that modern humans had emerged by evolution, many anthropologists believed that the genus \"Homo\" had split from the great apes as long as 30 million years ago and so felt uneasy about accepting that humans had a small-brained, ape-like ancestor, like \"Australopithecus africanus\", only ...
why bolt action shotguns and pump actions rifle stopped being a thing?	The reason the bolt action shotgun fell out of favor is because a rifle action on a shotgun is non-intuitive. Shotguns are typically used for waterfowl or upland hunting, where snap shots are common, and reloads need to be rapid. A pump allows you to keep both hands in position and keep the shotgun shouldered. Bolt ac...	[ "Popular on bolt, pump and lever-action firearms such as shotguns and rifles, a bolt interlock disengages or blocks the trigger if, for any reason, the bolt/breech is not in its fully closed, ready position. A variation is the trigger disconnect which prevents the gun from firing until the gun has not only been ful...
In the 11th century, why were Flanders, Toulouse, and Vermandois ruled by counts rather than dukes?	The suggestion that 'dukes' and 'counts' are some sort of neat hierarchy of rank is a post-medieval invention, a desire to map a modern fictional 'feudal pyramid' onto the medieval period. In fact, we don't know why all ducal and comital territories were known as such: some disappear into the fog of the Merovingian cen...	[ "Once a part of ancient and medieval Francia since the inception of the Frankish kingdom (descended from the Empire of Charlemagne) under the Merovingian monarchs such as Clovis I, who was crowned at Tournai, Flanders gradually fell under the control of the English and then Spanish, becoming part of the Spanish Net...
Is Woodstock given too much credit as a society changing event? Is it being remembered nostalgically by the media & aged hippies as more than it really was? Or was it real turning point in the way of thinking at the time?	Well, it may have popularized [the phenomenon of holding lit cigarette lighters at rock concerts.](_URL_0_) It was pouring rain in Bethel, New York on Friday, Aug. 15, 1969. A thunderstorm had moved into the area, drenching 400,000 people at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. As [folk musician Melanie Safka took the s...	[ "Yet, in tune with the idealistic hopes of the 1960s, Woodstock satisfied most attendees. There was a sense of social harmony, which, with the quality of music, and the overwhelming mass of people, many sporting bohemian dress, behavior, and attitudes, helped to make it one of the enduring events of the century.\n"...
unitary executive theory	It's the idea that the president of the United States has unlimited or nearly unlimited powers to control the executive branch of the federal government. There are different interpretations as to how far this power actually goes. The most extreme interpretation give the president near dictatorial power, especially in t...	[ "The unitary executive theory is a theory of US constitutional law holding that the US president possesses the power to control the entire executive branch. The doctrine is rooted in Article Two of the United States Constitution, which vests \"the executive power\" of the United States in the President.\n", "Acco...
Do you believe in the land bridge theory? Why?	Could you elaborate on what you mean exactly? The most common uses (without further context) of "land bridge theory" and "continental drift theory" describe two different things. (The former how the Americas were populated, the latter how the continents got to be where they are now; these events happened on vastly diff...	[ "Descartes argues that this representational theory disconnects the world from the mind, leading to the need for some sort of bridge to span the separation and provide \"good reasons\" to believe that the ideas accurately represent the outside world. The first plank he uses in constructing this bridge can be found ...

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