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how did groundhogs day become a thing, and why do we still celebrate it to its extent?	Superstition is the obvious answer for how it became a thing. I'm sure someone will quote wikipedia history soon. Why it's still a thing: tourism.	[ "The common American holiday Groundhog Day originated in Ancient Rome as Hedgehog Day and is still celebrated as such through much of the world. There are no native hedgehogs in the United States, so the early settlers chose the groundhog as a substitute. \n", "The first reported news of a Groundhog Day observanc...
In light of the Miami face eating story I started to wonder... Is there any scientific possibility of a virus mimicking a zombie apocalypse style virus?	Parasites can affect behavior, so that's at least partially plausible. The main unscientific thing with zombies is how tough they are. You walk around rotting like that and you'll pretty much fall apart completely soon. I mean, you could theoretically lose all ability to respond to pain and keep coming after being s...	[ "BULLET::::- In Max Brooks' post-apocalyptic horror novel, \"\" (2006), the virus that turns people into zombies is at first thought to be a mutated strain of rabies, and is called \"African rabies\" throughout the earlier chapters.\n", "Virus is a 1999 American science fiction horror film directed by visual effe...
how does the hand washing function work on washers?	Very gentle wash. The drum hardly ever rotates. It mostly just lets the clothes soak in the water. And it spins very slowly.	[ "Hand washing (or handwashing), also known as hand hygiene, is the act of cleaning hands for the purpose of removing soil, dirt, and microorganisms. If water and soap is not available, hands can be cleaned with ash instead. \n", "Hand dryers are electric machines found in public bathrooms. They may either operate...
why is it with all the police brutality we still allow them to investigate themselves instead of an impartial 3rd party and what can we do to fix this	In some countries (most of the Western world i'd say), there is a police investigating both supposedly corrupt policemen and every event where a policeman had to fire its weapon, even if there was no casualty. In France, they are jokingly called the "Bœuf-carottes" (beef-carrot) because once you're on the grill, they'...	[ "The police lack equipment and are incapable of doing proper investigations or controlling riots. Police corruption is a major challenge, with officers dropping charges or making false arrests in return for payments, and demanding bribes at checkpoints on roads. Police brutality has declined, however, and so has im...
Was there an agreed upon definition of fascism back in its heyday?	George Orwell contributes an apt quote on the differing and contradicting definitions of Fascism: > ...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunt...	[ "Fascism's origins, however, are complex and include many seemingly contradictory viewpoints, ultimately centered around a myth of national rebirth from decadence. Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon both left-wing organizational tactics and right-wing political vie...
Is there any type of plant, fungus, or anything that we could send to Mars that could potentially survive?	Well, one thing is for certain, it would have to be some kind of photosynthetic organism. There simply isn't anything else to eat up there. It would also require a rigid cell wall, as is found in plants and bacteria, due to the low pressure of mars's atmosphere, which would cause the cells to burst if it didn't have s...	[ "BULLET::::- Although there are some extremophile organisms that survive in hostile conditions on Earth, including simulations that approximate Mars, plants and animals generally cannot survive the ambient conditions present on the surface of Mars.\n", "The DLR found that some lichen and bacteria could survive in...
If weightlifting was a modern construct, how did men get muscular before the 20th century?	Since it looks like this will go unanswered by an actual historian, I'll point out that weightlifting is not a modern invention. The classical Greeks were famous for weight training, and we do have some artifacts from them, but they were dar from the only ones. [This](_URL_0_) is a good (non academic) overview. If y...	[ "The origins of weight lifting traces back to ancient history, most notably Ancient Greece. Modern weightlifting, however, is relatively new and was mainly organized and institutionalized in Europe and North America in the late 19th century. The current International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) was established i...
Is it really true that the Mayans never invented the wheel?	The Mayans never invented the wheel and axle this is true, they did however use wooden/stone rollers to transport. [This] (_URL_1_) discusses the fact that while they did build roads or causeways that used stone rollers to compact the road they did not use a wheeled vehicle to transport across it. From what I remember ...	[ "The peoples of Mesopotamia (Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians) have been credited with the invention of the wheel, but this is no longer certain. They lived in cities from c. 4000 BC, and developed a sophisticated architecture in mud-brick and stone, including the use of the true arch. The walls of ...
difference between republicians and democrats	[Here is a color coded chart](_URL_0_) with all the differences	[ "However, the term republic is not synonymous with the republican form. The republican form is defined as one in which the powers of sovereignty are vested in the people and are exercised by the people, either directly, or through representatives chosen by the people, to whom those powers are specially delegated.\n...
how do zippers keep out water?	They don't, in my experience. Maybe that's why your internet search has been fruitless? Can you point to a product or item that makes this claim?	[ "Metal toothed watertight zippers rely on pressure between the two rubberized contact surfaces of the zipper tapes alongside the teeth for sealing. To get this pressure, the slider needs to press the two faces together while closing, and this increases friction between the slider and the teeth, so the zipper requir...
how exactly do anti missle defense systems work??	Depends on the type of system. Most use radar to identify incoming missiles and the launch a missile to intercept it. Modern interceptor missiles are generally kinetic kill vehicles. Which means they carry no explosives and rely on precision targeting and pure kinetic energy to kill the incoming missile. Older system...	[ "Zone blocking is a technique that is a simple and effective scheme for creating lanes for running plays. In a zone blocking scheme, fleet-footedness and athletic ability trump size as desirable qualities in offensive linemen. Coordination and technique matter more than muscle in implementing a successful scheme be...
Why is there a separation between our brain's decision making abilities at a conscious level and decision making at a level which we cannot control - i.e. why can't we "tell" our bodies to go to sleep, to NOT reject organ transplants, to increase or decrease heart rate, etc.	"Consciousness," as present in humans and other complex animals, is a relatively recent evolutionary development. For plants, bacteria, and arguably insects and crustaceans, there is no real decision making happening. The actions of these organisms generally result from a combination of outside stimuli and internal bio...	[ "The role of the unconscious mind on decision making is a topic greatly debated by neuroscientists, linguists and psychologists around the world. Though the actual level of involvement of the unconscious brain during a cognitive process might still be a matter of differential opinion, the fact that the unconscious ...
Why is Paris Peace Conference (1919) important as event and what is its greatest achievement?	The Paris Peace Conference essentially shaped the stage for World War II to happen through two means. The first was the War Guilt Clause that placed the brunt of the blame of WWI on Germany for giving Austria-Hungary the "Blank Check" to wage total war. This would cause the feeling of isolation that would lead the Germ...	[ "The First World War was a turning point in Western attitudes to war. At the 1919 Peace of Paris—where the leaders of France, Britain, and the United States, led by Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson respectively, met to decide the future of Europe—Wilson proposed his famous Fourteen Points ...
Is there an explanation for the popularity of the name " Thomas" in early 16th century England?	Yes, popular names in the later Middle Ages really tended to cluster. Consider that 50% of Henry VIII's wives were named a variety of Catherine and 33% of them Anne. (And Anne Boleyn's father and maternal grandfather, in addition to the uncle you name, were both Thomas). In some cases it's simple generational transf...	[ "Thomas was a popular name throughout medieval Europe. In Britain the name was rare prior to the Norman Conquest (11th century CE), but by the 13th and 14th centuries it had become common. In 2017 it ranked 13th in popularity in the United Kingdom with 3,246 babies given the name.\n", "The first name Thomas was c...
if someone was in space, travelling at such a high speed that a noticeable amount of time dilation affected them, what would determine their age legally?	Our laws arent equipped to handle this so it would simply go by his legal birthdate regardless of any dilation he experienced.	[ "With current technology severely limiting the velocity of space travel, however, the differences experienced in practice are minuscule: after 6 months on the International Space Station (ISS) (which orbits Earth at a speed of about 7,700 m/s) an astronaut would have aged about 0.005 seconds less than those on Eart...
- why does getting nervous make us more likely to drop things or mis-speak?	One reason may be that you are focusing more on your nervousness rather than what you are doing. Your brainpower is being devoted to your emotional response rather than task execution.	[ "Audience anxiety is when a specific individual or group of people creates a problem on communication, or a reverse reaction. For some people, anxiety can be caused by familiar peers, while for others it can be caused by unfamiliar faces. At the beginning of a speech class, the students tend to be fearful since the...
why do youtube videoes uploaded at 1080p and and downgraded to 480p look much better than those shot at a native 480p?	At the core of this is what is known as over sampling. Over sampling refers to any sort of data collection where you need say 100 data points, but instead collect 200 and downscale. Let's look at a still picture (since this is what I know much better than video). Let's say you want a picture with 1920x1080 pixels. Wel...	[ "A 720p60 (720p at 59.94 Hz) video has advantage over 480i and 1080i60 (29.97/30 frame/s, 59.94/60 Hz) in that it comparably reduces the number of 3:2 artifacts introduced during transfer from 24 frame/s film. However, 576i and 1080i50 (25 frame/s, 50 Hz), which are common in Europe, generally do not suffer from pu...
Did farming practices not change for over a millennium between about 0 AD and the 17th Century?	Farming practices indeed changed a lot as well as tools and practices. Three-field rotation, mouldboard ploughs, the widespread use of horse shoes, improved horse harnesses, windmills and the achievements of the Arab Agricultural Revolution etc. Of course, the difference between farming in the Roman era and in the 17...	[ "Before the 16th and 17th centuries, farmlands had mostly been founded on the idea of simple alternations of tilling and fallowing during different seasons over several years. However, as livestock became an increasing staple in the lives of farmers and society alike in the midlands, the \"rising population…density...
In what form is energy stored in fossil fuels?	[Chemical energy](_URL_0_), for example in the combustion of carbon in oxygen, there is potential energy between the C and O2 such that energy is released when they "snap together" due to the attractive force between them.	[ "BULLET::::- fossil fuel - any hydrocarbon deposit that can be burned for heat or power, such as coal, oil and natural gas (produces carbon dioxide when burnt); fuels formed from once-living organisms that have become fossilized over geological time.\n", "Fossil fuel (\"primary non-renewable fossil\") sources bur...
why does compressing video or audio sacrifice quality?	Because it uses a technique called lossy compression. Imagine you had a book, and took out all the vowels. It would wind up shorter, bt y cld prbbl stll rd t. It would be harder to read, and there might be places where it is ambiguous, but you could probably still puzzle out the meaning. Lossy video and audio compr...	[ "Since it only searches for the highest level, peak normalization alone does not account for the apparent loudness of the content. As such, peak normalization is generally used to change the volume in such a way to ensure optimal use of available dynamic range during the mastering stage of a digital recording. When...
how can a car manufacturer offer 75 months with 0%apr? wouldn't they not make any money if you paid it off in that time?	You are still buying the car from them. The same reason some give you "$5000 cash back!" They still turn a profit, and are a big enough company that they can eat the lost time value of that loan in order to increase sales. Plus, the kind of person with good enough credit to qualify for that probably jas a decent job,...	[ "In addition the APR takes costs into account. Suppose for instance that $100,000 is borrowed with $1000 one-time fees paid in advance. If, in the second case, equal monthly payments are made of $946.01 against 9.569% compounded monthly then it takes 240 months to pay the loan back. If the $1000 one-time fees are t...
the difference between single-payer healthcare and medicare for all	Single Payer Healthcare means all health care costs are paid by one entity, like the provincial (state) government in Canada. That entity may get its money from other sources (in Canada the Federal government and a health care tax all working Canadians pay). It doesn't have to be the provincial government, it could b...	[ "Medicare in the United States is a single-payer healthcare system, but is restricted to persons over the age of 65, people under 65 who have specific disabilities, and anyone with End-Stage Renal Disease.\n", "Medicare and Medicaid are forms of publicly funded health care, which fits the looser definition of soc...
why do football (soccer) pitches have patterns on them and how are they made?	It's called grass striping. No use other than to look good. They are made by adding a heavy roller behind your lawn mower. The roller smushes the grass as it rolls over it. If you smush grass in a line, it makes that line look darker in one direction and lighter in the other direction. If the grass is bent away from yo...	[ "A football pitch (also known as a football field or soccer field) is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game, \"The Field of Play\". The surface can either be natural or artificial. Artificial surfaces must be green in colou...
why/how are time and space interchangeable?	They're not exactly interchangeable; we can move through space in any direction we choose while we can't control how we move through time very much. However, a lot of physics turns out to work better if we consider time like another dimension, like space. So, instead of having a path in space that you move along as tim...	[ "One rationale behind the connection between time and space is that space is an easier concept to understand than time. Space is three dimensional and can be perceived directly using visual sensors, that is, we can physically see a space. In contrast time is one dimensional and can only be perceived indirectly, for...
why do only 30% of americans hold bachelor's degrees?	First off, the online higher education is a new shift in education... virtually nobody was getting an online degree before the past 10 years or so. And even with that, there is still the huge costs involved. So people who already are working, have a family to support, etc. don't have the time or money to finally get a ...	[ "Bachelor's degree or higher is a commonly used term by the United States Census Bureau and other U.S. government agencies on the federal as well as state and local level. The term describes the portion of the population that has either a bachelor's degree or a higher degree such as a master's or doctorate degree. ...
Japanese immune to European disease?	Sorry my dates are off, I meant the 1542 arrival of the Portuguese.	[ "The first non-Asian countries to have extensive contact with Japan were Portugal and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Japanese has several loanwords from Portuguese and Dutch, many of which are still used. The interaction between Japan and Portugal lasted from the late middle age until the early...
When the Romans flooded the colosseum for mock sea battles how did they get the water in and out?	We don't really know. It must have been done by aqueducts, and we know which ones fed the area, but the site of the Flavian Amphitheater was completely renovated at and under ground level under Domitian, and as far as I am aware no archaeological evidence of the actual means of how the site was flooded remains. We know...	[ "It appears it would have been difficult to flood the amphitheatre, but, because few records survive on the operation of the Colosseum, it is impossible to say for certain where the naval battles took place. Suetonius writes that Titus' brother and successor, Domitian, staged sea-fights in the amphitheatre, but he ...
the difference between opium, heroin, and morphine	Opium is a liquid substance produced by the opium poppy. Opium contains morphine, as well as similar chemicals like codeine. These chemicals are known as opiates. Morphine can be extracted from opium & through a chemical reaction, turned into heroin. This is the chemical structure of [Heroin](_URL_0_) & this is [m...	[ "Heroin is one of several semi-synthetic opioids derived from the morphine. Although sometimes not considered opiates, as they are not directly derived from natural opium, they are commonly referred to as opiates. Heroin (diacetylmorphine) is a morphine prodrug; it is metabolized by the liver into morphine after ad...
How extensive was the industrialization of Manchukuo during Japanese rule?	Under the Manchukuo 5 years development plan(満州産業開発五カ年計画), group of bureaucracy and military person "Niki Sansuke(弐キ参スケ)" including [Nobusuke Kishi] (_URL_0_) managemented to puppet country. Common belief said the target of the plan could not be achieved cause priority to the food demand due to the war in China.Then...	[ "During the early years of Japanese control, Manchukuo represented 14.3% of total industrial production in China, including 12% of its industrial work force. From 1913 to 1930, farm production grew by 70%; its railways represented 30% of all Chinese railways.\n", "During the 1930s the Japanese colonised Manchukuo...
the transition from ancient egyptian culture to modern arab egyptian culture.	"Ancient" Egypt should not be thought of as a monolithic state. An often used interesting fact is that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the moon landing than to the building of the pyramids, and it is correct. Excluding even the conquering of Egypt by the Greeks and Romans, the time of pagan egypt was over 3000-some...	[ "The Renaissance of Arab culture or \"al-Nahda\" was a cultural renaissance that began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it began in the wake of the exit of Muhammad Ali of Egypt from the Levant in 1840. Beirut, Cairo, Damascus and Aleppo were the main centers of the renaissance and this led to the establi...
What sources do historians use to verify Stalin's supposed killings and deadly purges?	As others have pointed out, your problem is that you cite research from the 80s when Russian archives were very hard to impossible to get into for Western scholars. Now that the archives are open, we can utilize sources on the purges and the Stalinist killings that were not available to us as historians in the 80s. J...	[ "Evidence and the results of research began to appear after Stalin's death. This revealed the full enormity of the Purges. The first of these sources were the revelations of Nikita Khrushchev, which particularly affected the American editors of the Communist Party USA newspaper, the \"Daily Worker\", who, following...
free speech laws in the uk and the differences between the uk and american free speech	Freedom of speech is protected under the European Convention of Human rights, enshrined in U.K. law in the 1998 Human Rights act. _URL_1_ Specifically, articles 9, 10, and 11 are most relevant. Article 9 Freedom of thought, conscience and religion * Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and ...	[ "Australia does not have explicit freedom of speech in any constitutional or statutory declaration of rights, with the exception of political speech which is protected from criminal prosecution at common law per \"Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth\". There is however an implied freedom of speech ...
face blindness.	There is a certain part of your brain, specifically a fold called the [right fusiform gyrus](_URL_0_) that is in charge of processing facial information. This is something that humans evolved as part of our greater evolution as social animals: the ability to recognize a human face (and mimic human facial expressions) i...	[ "Prosopagnosia (or \"face blindness\") is a category-specific visual object agnosia, specifically, impairment in visual recognition of familiar faces, such as close friends, family, husbands, wives, and sometimes even their own faces. Individuals are often able to identify others through alternate characteristics, ...
what advantages to companies gain from removing well liked features?	Depending on what features you're talking about, it's usually to improve the efficiency of the product or service. It may be an unpopular move to remove a feature, but the company weighs that against say, the bandwidth costs of that feature, and decides it's better to remove it.	[ "They are particularly valuable in resource-based view because they give companies advantages in using resources. For example, patents make it impossible for other firms to use their resources in the same way and brand might be the only thing differentiating the product from the competitor’s.\n", "Competitive adv...
why are guitarists like eddie van halen, jimi hendrix, etc. considered the "best" in their genres?	You answered your own question. It's because they were breaking ground and playing in ways that weren't really the norm for their respective times. True there will always be somebody out there who was better, but Eddie and Jimi had the good fortune to have music that made its way to popularity and had the whole world w...	[ "\"Rolling Stone\" ranks Hendrix as the greatest guitarist of all time. Kramer specifically cites his strong individuality, powerful message, and expansion of the sonic vocabulary of electric guitar, including its potentials for controlled feedback and distortion. In the words of master musician Les Paul, for whom ...
if earwax is meant to protect our inner ear, why do we remove it?	You're not supposed to routinely remove earwax for exactly that reason. When it is done, it's becasue excess earwax hasn't been able to leave your ears and has started to build up or even become impacted. Such a build up can cause hearing problems or even infections, and are best removed.	[ "Earwax, also known as cerumen, is a yellowish, waxy substance secreted in the ear canals. It plays an important role in the human ear canal, assisting in cleaning and lubrication, and also provides some protection from bacteria, fungi, and insects. Excess or impacted cerumen can press against the eardrum and/or oc...
How electrons and holes in diodes separate from each other?	If the electronic system is connected to a thermal bath at non-zero temperature (and in equilibrium with it), there is a non-trivial population of electrons with energies above the band-gap (dictated by Fermi-Dirac distribution), so they'll have to occupy those states, leaving a hole in the place, where they would be a...	[ "The electron–hole pair is the fundamental unit of generation and recombination in inorganic semiconductors, corresponding to an electron transitioning between the valence band and the conduction band where generation of electron is a transition from the valence band to the conduction band and recombination leads t...
how is it that you are able to see/perceieve light or flashes of light when you're eyes are closed in a completely dark room ?	Those flashes are called phosphenes. They're often induced by pressure or other stimulus applied to the eyes, including magnetic, electrical, and radiological. The colors you see in the dark or with closed eyes are often referred to as "Prisoner's Cinema." Its got a very well written wikipedia article if you'd like to ...	[ "The eye is able to detect a visual stimulus when the photons (light packets) cause a photopigment molecule, primarily rhodopsin, to come apart. Rhodopsin, which is usually pink, becomes bleached in the process. At high levels of light, photopigments are broken apart faster than can be regenerated. Because a low nu...
why do pharmacies take forever with your prescription?	You come to the counter. I am on the phone with a drunk dude who wants the phone number to the grocery store next door. After I instruct him on the virtues of 411, you tell me your doctor was to phone in your prescription to me. Your doctor hasn't, and you're unwilling to wait until he does. Being in a generous mood, I...	[ "This is the reason why organizations like \"Worst Pill, Best Pill\" recommend not to use/prescribe new medications before being in the market for at least ten years (except in the case of important new drugs that treat previously unsolved problems).\n", "Large US retailers that operate pharmacies and pharmacy ch...
Why do subatomic particles have poles? what is spin?	Any particle with charge and spin will have an intrinsic magnetic moment, and act like a small magnetic dipole. Spin is intrinsic angular momentum. It's angular momentum that the particle has regardless of how it may be moving through space.	[ "Spin is an intrinsic property of elementary particles, and its direction is an important degree of freedom. It is sometimes visualized as the rotation of an object around its own axis (hence the name \"\"), though this notion is somewhat misguided at subatomic scales because elementary particles are believed to be...
How do Virologist decide the genetic code of a virus, like the new Coronavirus?	It’s not that scientists “decide” the genetic code of a virus. Rather they use techniques for DNA or RNA profiling (depending on the virus), known as DNA or RNA sequencing. Article about [RNA sequencing](_URL_1_) and one about [DNA sequencing](_URL_0_). Very simply (and hopefully my simplification doesn’t lead to hug...	[ "The entire genomic sequence of SNV has subsequently been determined by using RNA extracted from autopsy material as well as RNA extracted from cell culture-adapted virus. The L RNA is 6562 nucleotides (nt) in length; the M RNA is 3696 nt long; and the S RNA is 2059 to 2060 nt long. When the prototype sequence (NMH...
So...Several friends are going nuts about chemtrails and how they are part of some kind of conspiration. What's the simplest, most undebatable proof I can show them that it's a dumb idea?	Airplanes produce water vapor, as a by product of burning fuel, so does your car. This water vapor enters the air saturating the air to a high humidity, the water condenses out as droplets which scatter light making them visible. They are literally little clouds. This is why they appear as being generated from the engi...	[ "A 2014 review of 20 chemtrail websites found that believers appeal to science in some of their arguments, but do not believe what academic or government-employed scientists say; scientists and federal agencies have consistently denied that chemtrails exist, explaining the sky tracks are simply persistent contrails...
what's the difference between a decimal and a float?	First of all, the names are misleading. Both float and decimal are floating-point types. Float has floating precision, so depending on the size of the number, the precision varies. Decimal (or Numeric, which are the same thing) has to have a pre-defined precision. Decimal is useful for things like money, where you...	[ "In computing, fixed float describes a method of representing real numbers in a way that number and decimal point value is stored at different location or bytes in a memory allocated to variable unlike floating point. In a typical 4 byte (on little endian platform) fixed float number lower(lsb) 2 bytes are used to ...
Seems like a stupid question but it was never explained to me. What is the PH level of DNA?	You can't really say that a molecule like DNA has a pH because pH is a macroscopic property of solutions. We refer to an individual molecule's pKa value, which relates to its propensity for giving off or adhering to protons in solution (lower numbers mean it gives away protons more readily). As for your other questi...	[ "Based on nuclease studies from the 1980s, the pH is usually adjusted to 7.5 for RNA and 8.0 for DNA. The respective DNA and RNA nucleases are supposed to be less active at these pH values, but pH 8.0 can safely be used for storage of both DNA and RNA .\n", "PH is a trigonal pyramidal molecule with \"C\" molecula...
why does squeezing my toe after smashing it on the coffee table make it feel better?	I would assume its not to do with blood but to do with nerves. By applying pressure to the nerves sending pain signals you are disrupting that constant stream of pain signals or adding new signals from surrounding nerves from the area.	[ "BULLET::::- An old saying that you never have to put a lid on a bucket of crabs (because when one gets near the top, another will inevitably pull it down) is often used as a metaphor for group situations where an individual feels held back by others.\n", "One criticism is that because the pointing stick depends ...
gray matter	Gray matter refers to the cell bodies of neurons in your brain. White matter is the myelinated (insulated) "wires" (axons) extending from one neuron cell body to another. Dendrites are the tree like branches that are information receiving components of these neuronal bodies. The dendrites receive signals at the neuron ...	[ "Grey matter (or gray matter) is a major component of the central nervous system, consisting of neuronal cell bodies, neuropil (dendrites and myelinated as well as unmyelinated axons), glial cells (astrocytes and oligodendrocytes), synapses, and capillaries. Grey matter is distinguished from white matter in that it...
What causes the cyclical temperature variation over the holocene?	I'd like to add to /u/zorbaxdcat's post. Firstly, you're looking at the Pleistocene not the Holocene! The Holocene is only the past ~11,700 years, since the end of the last glaciation. Generally for the past ~800,000 years, it has been orbital eccentricity that has dominated the climate signal. This is essentially how...	[ "During the Miocene, the atmosphere and climate were relatively stable. If anything, increased gradually from before settling down to concentrations similar to the Holocene. This suggests that it did not have a key role in invoking C evolution. Grasses themselves (the group which would give rise to the most occurre...
What do I have to do to be able to call myself a scientist?	I think I may have some people disagree with me, but I would say "do it as a career". If your day job is doing science, then you're a scientist. I like to write stories. I even have bits & pieces of a novel on my hard drive, but I don't consider myself an author. It's just for fun, it's not my profession.	[ "Scientists are individuals who conduct scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of interest. The term \"scientist\" was coined by William Whewell in 1833. In modern times, many professional scientists are trained in an academic setting and upon completion, attain an academic degree, with the highest deg...
when an ant bites me, is it because it's constantly biting every surface it walks on, or does it know that it's on a living thing?	Ants bite because they feel intimidated or that the nest is in danger, even if it's not in danger in YOUR mind, the ant doesn't know that you're not a threat, and will bite and sting in defense. The ant does know that you're a living thing, but it doesn't know that you're not a threat.	[ "\"Myrmecia\" ants are frequently encountered by humans, and avoiding them is difficult. Wearing closed footwear such as boots and shoes can reduce the risk of getting stung; these ants are capable of stinging through fabric, however. A risk of being stung while gardening also exists; most stings occur when someone...
why do we move around so awkwardly when giving a presentation/oral in front of a crowd/group?	It's due to anxiety and stress. Good public speakers learn to overcome the anxiety and train their mannerisms to get over the anxiety/stress responses. But, most people have some stress when they present to large groups of people. The more practice you have with it and the more confidence you have the easier it is t...	[ "In a crowded room, people find it easy to focus on the person they are speaking to and effectively ignore other conversations. Conversely, a person can try to get the attention of someone down the street by cupping their hands around their mouth, which directs their voice to improve the odds of being heard and und...
Why does a relaxed body float easily in water, but a tense body sinks?	Muscle does not decrease in volume when flexed. Muscle is isovolumetric. The reduction in length is accomplished by an increase in width. First, I'm not sure it's an actual rule that a tense body sinks & a relaxed body floats. Second, floating depends all on density, and easily the way you can most profoundly ...	[ "While a body floats on a liquid surface it still encounters the force of gravity pushing down on it. In order to stay afloat and avoid sinking there is an opposed force acting against the body known as the hydrostatic pressures. The forces acting on the body must be of the same magnitude and same line of motion in...
Why did Akkadian come to replace Sumerian as the dominant language in Mesopotamia?	Scholars used to believe in a linear model of linguistic development in ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians migrated into the region, founded the first cities, and were conquered by Sargon and the Akkadians, who replaced the Sumerian language with their own, Semitic, language. Today we have a much more nuanced and compl...	[ "The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and \"vice versa\") is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a \"Sprachbund\". Sumer was conquered by...
What archaeologically-interesting sites should headline a trip to Italy today?	While I don't think you should pass up Pompeii just because it's well known, Herculaneum is supposedly really neat. Also, don't pass up the chance to look around the hilariously filthy city that is Naples (and get pizza somewhere small and off the beaten path). The Castel Nuovo was basically empty when I went there to ...	[ "From Venice the traveller went to Rome to study the ancient ruins and the masterpieces of painting, sculpture, and architecture of Rome's Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. Some travellers also visited Naples to study music, and (after the mid-18th century) to appreciate the recently discovered archaeolog...
Are there any surviving epics or sagas from the Hittites?	Yes, certainly, though the surviving remains aren't nearly as substantial as the other examples you mention, and they're much more fragmentary. [Here's a good anthology.](_URL_0_) The most substantial ones, and probably the most interesting, are the Hurro-Hittite "Kumarbi cycle" and "song of Ullikummi", both of which ...	[ "A legendary saga or fornaldarsaga (literally, \"story/history of the ancient era\") is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the colonization of Iceland. There are some exceptions, such as \"Yngvars saga víðförla\", which takes place in the 11th century. The sagas were probably all wr...
why do humans think they are higher on the evolutionary chain than other animals?	I imagine its the same principle as the thought process that goes on in the minds of people who are racist. If you go back a century earlier there used to be/still is but to a reasonably smaller degree people who believed white people were higher on the evolutionary chain and if you go a few hundred years ago people th...	[ "Animals often portray many similar characteristics displayed by humans. There looms large belief that while both humans and animals evolve simultaneously, domesticated animals have benefitted the most from human-animal relationships because they have increased in population much further than they ever would have i...
what would happen if someone had purely rem sleep?	You would have problems with memory and learning. Different kinds of memory consolidation, processing, and development happen during non-REM sleep. For example, you need slow-wave sleep (N3) to process factual memories. The problem is that spending a lot of time in REM sleep means that something isn't quite right. Pe...	[ "Lack of REM atonia causes REM behavior disorder, sufferers of which physically act out their dreams, or conversely \"dream out their acts\", under an alternative theory on the relationship between muscle impulses during REM and associated mental imagery (which would also apply to people without the condition, exce...
what happens to your muscles during and after a massage?	Your muscles can get stuck "on" from overuse or say poor posture, a massage therapist will work to find the off buttons to turn them back "off" again. Going further, your muscles have a layer in between your skin and your muscle that gets bunched up over time, like a bed sheet under a blanket. A good massage therap...	[ "Peer-reviewed medical research has shown that the benefits of massage include pain relief, reduced trait anxiety and depression, and temporarily reduced blood pressure, heart rate, and state of anxiety. Additional testing has shown an immediate increase and expedited recovery periods for muscle performance. Theori...
how do restaurant/bar atms work in terms of profit?	I have ATM's in my bars and restaurant. You can choose to lease or buy a machine. I always choose to buy as the return is better. I go through a company that manages the transactions which is supplied by the guy which provided the ATM. We charge 2.75 a transaction and they take .25¢ of every transaction. I fill the mac...	[ "ATMs can be placed at any location but are most often placed near or inside banks, shopping centers/malls, airports, railway stations, metro stations, grocery stores, petrol/gas stations, restaurants, and other locations. ATMs are also found on cruise ships and on some US Navy ships, where sailors can draw out the...
why are there such long layover times in-between flights? is it poor time management? insufficient number of planes?	It's traffic optimization. With a smaller layover, a few more people might fly. However, shortening that connection by 20 minutes might make some people not be able to make the connection, which means they would not fly. It's a delicate balancing act, where more convenience is only important if it leads to more flye...	[ "Aircraft are becoming increasingly automated, often resulting in the flight crew becoming complacent because of less direct involvement especially during the cruise phases of a long haul flight. Long legs in cruise may cause pilots to become bored, thus incrementing the prevalence of risk because it will take a pi...
i need a very 5 year old explanation of what happens when normal poor people file bankruptcy.	Most poor people will file what is called a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. First, you list all of the debts you owe and who you owe them to. The fact that you're applying for bankruptcy is published, so any creditors who were unaware can come forward. First, the court stops everyone from being able to sue you or otherwise tryin...	[ "Deep debt may lead to bankruptcy and researchers Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi found a fivefold increase in the number of families filing for bankruptcy between 1980 and 2005. The bankruptcies came not from increased spending \"on luxuries\", but from an \"increased spending on housing, largely driven b...
As an average soldier, in any time period, what are my chances of survival being on the losing side of a battle?	I am going to start with Rome, just because this question is so vauge that if I went any earlier, I would be typing for hours. Rome had one of the most effective foriegn policies I have ever known about. It could be extremely harsh, or it could be quite merciful. If you went up against a Roman Legion in battle, you...	[ "The raw numbers of troops available do not indicate how effectively they would fight. The war was already winding down, and assertions were made that the morale of the soldiers was bad. The judgment is hard to quantify, but it would explain at least in part the poor performance of the defenders.\n", "After all e...
Did houses really use to be built with a larger upper floor to cheat attempts to tax property by its ground floor's surface area?	I can't answer your question, but I have a related one: When I visited the Old Fort of Galle in Sri Lanka (colonial Ceylon), I remember touring some colonial-era buildings that were extremely narrow but quite deep, sometimes IIRC opening up in the rear. The tour guide claimed it was because houses were taxed in coloni...	[ "Many building owners were not adequately compensated for their property. Due to city law, as soon as tenement buildings were condemned by the BRA, the city became the legal owner. This meant that building owners had no income as rent was paid directly to the city. Soon owners became desperate to sell their propert...
If the quantum world is actually discrete (albeit nearly infinitesimal in comparison to the macro world), are the physical locations that wave-particles occupy within the fabric of spacetime also discrete?	It is not clear that "the quantum world is actually discrete". If space-time was discrete, than there would be discrete features of the spatial components of particles, yes.	[ "As in that classical example, the term is most often used when the range of values of a physical quantity may have both a continuous and a discrete part, whether at the same time or in different situations. In quantum systems, continuous spectra (as in bremsstrahlung and thermal radiation) are usually associated w...
why do we feel dizzy when we look up on a tall building?	For the same reason we feel dizzy when we're in that tall building looking down at the ground. Humans naturally have a fear of heights, if you think about it, it's pretty reasonable. Being high up is dangerous, there's a chance of falling which can lead to injury or death. When you're looking up at a building, you're ...	[ "Vertigo is a type of dizziness where a person feels as if they or the objects around them are moving when they are not. Common causes of vertigo include looking down from a great height and persistent movement, hence it contributing to a phobia of riding rollercoasters. \n", "Vertigo itself is caused by a destab...
electronic testing in condoms	Uh well correct me if I'm wrong but usually condoms go into a dildo like apparatus before packaging. The "dildo" goes inside the condom and then fits inside a electrically charged hole, and then if the current passes through then that means there is a hole somewhere.	[ "A condom machine is a vending machine for the sale of condoms. Condom machines are often placed in public toilets, subway stations, railway stations and airports as a public health measure to promote safe sex. Many pharmacies also keep one outside, for after-hours access. Rare examples exist that dispense female c...
what is the scp foundation? i know it’s fake but i just can’t find an explanation about it.	Basically, it's a collaborative fiction project about a secret government organization that captures, tracks and studies strange phenomena and creatures, mostly written in the format of reports about the various strange, generally frightening monsters. Many people from all over the world contribute reports and writings...	[ "The SCP Foundation is a fictional organization documented by the web-based collaborative-fiction project of the same name. Within the website's fictional setting, the SCP Foundation is responsible for locating and containing individuals, entities, locations, and objects that violate natural law (referred to as SCP...
Why do ellipsoids balance on end when spinning?	It stays vertical due to conservation of angular momentum. The vertical state provides the lowest moment of inertia about the spinning axis while maintaining angular momentum. Also don't know what an egg would be called. First thing that comes to mind is an oblate spheroid, but that's unlikely to be the technical term...	[ "The Jacobi and Dedekind ellipsoids are both equilibrium figures for a body of rotating homogeneous self-gravitating fluid. However, while the Jacobi ellipsoid spins bodily, with no internal flow of the fluid in the rotating frame, the Dedekind ellipsoid maintains a fixed orientation, with the constituent fluid cir...
why do people hold their hand on a bible when making an oath? what if the person isn't christian?	The "hand on the bible" gesture is purely symbolic. Meant to express that your words are all honest. If you are not Christian, you can ask for another religious text or governmentally binding, secular text where you will be asked to perform the same gesture.	[ "The clerk then calls each juror individually to either affirm or to take the oath, reading from a printed card whilst, if taking an oath, holding a holy book in his right hand (New Testament for those Christians who will swear an oath; Old Testament for Jews; or Qur'an for Muslims). Some Christians (notably Quaker...
When the sun eventually expands and consumer Earth, will it expand all at once in the blink of an eye or be a gradual expansion over a long period of time?	Gradual process. Has to do with the expenditure of its fuel causing it to progressively expand until it collapses under its own weight. We happen to live within its potential expansion area, but the radiation, heat, and solar flares will bake the planet dry ( literally) well before we fall into its surface. We will b...	[ "The most rapid part of the Sun's expansion into a red giant will occur during the final stages, when the Sun will be about 12 billion years old. It is likely to expand to swallow both Mercury and Venus, reaching a maximum radius of . The Earth will interact tidally with the Sun's outer atmosphere, which would serv...
Is there absolutely no way to create unlimited energy?	It's not a stupid question, energy is a difficult concept to grasp. Think of energy like indestructible money.^(Note) When you buy something with money, you give that money to someone else and now they can spend that money. When I hit a baseball, kinetic energy from the baseball bat goes into the baseball. When you sp...	[ "Nevertheless, the allure of free energy has motivated such research, usually falling in the category of fringe science. As long ago as 1889 (before quantum theory or discovery of the zero point energy) Nikola Tesla proposed that useful energy could be obtained from free space, or what was assumed at that time to b...
the issues in africa	The problems in Africa can mostly be boiled down to two words: Resources and politics. See, there are a lot of metals and liquids and so forth in Africa that other countries would like to have. Those things are resources. But things like food and medicine are also resources, and Africans don't have a lot of those. In p...	[ "Africa is often the posterchild for post-colonial societal collapse where retreating empires and corporate wars for resources have left behind nations unable to maintain their current trajectory of development or even their current state of affairs. Many conflicts currently playing out in Africa, similar to the Mi...
How the heck was modern China able to stay unified after WW2 ?	Well there’s a lot to unpack here, but I think the central point to note is that China didn’t really stay unified after the Second World War, in fact it fought an incredibly bloody, brutal, and divisive civil war between the 1945-1949. Historically speaking to give a brief rundown of modern Chinese history, the CCP did...	[ "One of the victorious Allies of the Second World War (locally known as the Second Sino-Japanese War), the Republic of China (ROC) joined the UN upon its founding in 1945. The subsequent resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Nearly all of Chine...
When we have our eyes open, but see an image when we imagine something, are we manually (re?)activating some part of our brain that processes visual images and plays them?	This is called "mental imagery". Although we don't exactly know how this imagery comes about, we do know something about the neural circuits involved. For e.g. _URL_0_ this study claims that in visual perception and in visual imagery, similar areas are activated, but the spatial overlap is more in the frontal regions r...	[ "The visual system in the brain is too slow to process that information if the images are slipping across the retina at more than a few degrees per second. Thus, to be able to see while we are moving, the brain must compensate for the motion of the head by turning the eyes. Another specialisation of visual system i...
the process for acquiring a passport in the united states of america, and what countries require a passport?	Your first instinct was correct, you need to google it. Passports are issued by the State Department of the federal government and their website will have all the info you need. ~~Also, it is almost impossible that you visited Mexico without a passport and definitely impossible that you got back in to the US without a...	[ "United States passports are passports issued to citizens and nationals of the United States of America. They are issued exclusively by the U.S. Department of State. Besides passports (in booklet form), limited use passport cards are issued by the same government agency subject to the same requirements. It is unlaw...
Why was .08 chosen as the legal limit for alcohol when driving, and has that amount changed over time?	In which country or state or province or territory? Here in Australia, the blood alcohol limit is 0.05% for fully licensed drivers in all states and territories, zero for probationary drivers and drivers of commercial vehicles (with some other state-by-state variations). And, according to [this Australian website](_UR...	[ "On May 14, 2013, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all 50 states lower the benchmark for determining when a driver is legally drunk from 0.08 blood-alcohol content to 0.05. The idea is part of an initiative to eliminate drunk driving, which accounts for about a third of all road deaths. In ...
Is the Battlefield 1 trailer an accurate depiction of WW1 combat?	Not to discourage further discussion but there is a [thread about this](_URL_0_) on our mainpage right now.	[ "Battlefield is an American documentary series that debuted in 1994 on PBS that explores the most important battles fought primarily during the Second World War and the Vietnam War. The series employs a novel approach in which history is described by detailed accounts of major battles together with background and c...
why aren't there any "good" viruses? like instead of catching a cold, you catch something that makes you feel happy, and increases your strength momentarily?	No. Technically the virus isn't "bad" (some actually are) but what makes you feel terrible is your body's response to the virus. Body finds virus and wants it out because it's taking resources. Body attacks itself to also kill the virus. Very eli5 ish but you get the point.	[ "Common human diseases caused by viruses include the common cold, the flu, chickenpox and cold sores. Serious diseases such as Ebola and AIDS are also caused by viruses. Many viruses cause little or no disease and are said to be \"benign\". The more harmful viruses are described as virulent.\n", "One main motivat...
What are the technologies and inventions that are likely to see the LEAST improvement over time?	My area of expertise is cameras and I would say that while it's a very hard problem there is huge theoretical room for improvement in the camera lenses, and I expect to see improvements in the future. Digital camera sensors in terms of light sensitivity, not so much. A lot of sensors are already above 50% efficiency ...	[ "Technological progress can create new public goods. The most simple examples are street lights, which are relatively recent inventions (by historical standards). One person's enjoyment of them does not detract from other persons' enjoyment, and it currently would be prohibitively expensive to charge individuals se...
why are recordings of significant broadway productions not publicly released for sale?	Part of it is that they strongly believe that sales for tickets on Broadway will plummet if people can just watch a DVD. Which means that the performers and technicians earning a living might lose their jobs because there will be less of an incentive to watch the show live.	[ "The show's poor reviews and quick closing meant that any hope of a Broadway transfer was abandoned. The original London cast album was released on LP and CD, but quickly went out of print. The CD release was marred by manufacturing defects that caused most of the discs to \"bronze\", becoming unplayable. Consequen...
In everyday language we often use "Soviet" and "Russian" interchangeably. Is this legitimate?	Not really (although you could argue that common usage and ubiquity makes it essentially fine to get away with). The USSR, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was founded in 1922, combining several states which existed under the control of the Communists as a result of the Russian Civil War. The largest of these w...	[ "\"Soviet\" is derived from a Russian word signifying council, assembly, advice, harmony, concord, and all ultimately deriving from the Proto-Slavic verbal stem of *vět-iti \"to inform\", related to Slavic \"věst\" (\"news\"), English \"wise\", the root in \"ad-vis-or\" (which came to English through French), or th...
why most rappers have the urge to say their name in their music?	Educated guess here but in hip-hop it's very common to feature other artists on a track so it helps the artist gain exposure and let's the listener know who's verse or was when they like it. Also worth mentioning that alot of artists (Kanye and travis scott particularly) don't put the feature artists name on the track....	[ "\"The few rappers I met [initially] were rapping in English. I’d say, ‘Let me hear you rap’, and they’d just do a karaoke thing, repeating a few lines of Eminem or Naughty by Nature. As an American that was so odd for me; you can’t say anyone else’s rhymes, you just don’t do that. But it’s the culture here. They l...
why do bees make honey, and why are they not angry that we are "stealing" it?	Honey bees convert the sweet nectar they gather from flowers into honey. The nectar is stored in honeycombs. The nectar they are storing starts to concentrate (this means the water content is reduced). This process prevents bacteria and other nasties from forming in the honeycomb, because bacteria and fungi cannot ...	[ "Honey bees are used commercially to produce honey. They also produce some substances used as dietary supplements with possible health benefits, pollen, propolis, and royal jelly, though all of these can also cause allergic reactions.\n", "Honey is concentrated nectar and honeydew which has been regurgitated by b...
why do most people prefer to play racing video games in a third person view and shooting games in first person.	In racing games, half the fun is how your car looks. Not to mention it gives you a greater view of the track so it's easier to see bends and other racers coming up behind you. In shooting games you don't really care about how you look, and it's easier to aim in First Person View because then you just needs to get peop...	[ "In 2010, researchers at Leiden University showed that playing first-person shooter video games is associated with superior mental flexibility. Compared to non-players, players of such games were found to require a significantly shorter reaction time while switching between complex tasks, possibly because they are ...
What historically has caused the sheer number of assassination attempts on the US President?	I would propose that prime ministers just aren't that important. They don't symbolize a country in the same way a president does. The American presidency is a cultural history subject on its own, whereas in Britain there isn't really a PM cultural history to the same degree. This is probably because there's a royal fam...	[ "Assassination attempts and plots on the president of the United States have been numerous, ranging from the early 19th century to the 2010s. More than 30 attempts to kill an incumbent or former president, or a president-elect have been made since the early 19th century. Four sitting presidents have been killed, al...
What is a "Day in the Life" of Hitler during the war like?	Hitler's average day varied greatly from the beginning to the end of the war. I can only tell you most accurately about the end of the war however. At the end of the war he spent much of his time in his underground bunker along with the top Nazi leaders (many of which fled Germany as they realized the war was lost and ...	[ "\"Hitler Lives\" is based on the film \"Your Job in Germany\", which was produced shortly before the end of the Second World War. \"Your Job in Germany\" was written by Theodor Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss).\n", "BULLET::::- Hitler - Constantly frustrated and depressed following his defeat in World War II, ...
what would happen if you didn't take a thorn/splinter out?	When I was a kid I had a big piece of splinter stuck in my foot. I ignored it for several months until a family friend who was a doctor noticed it was infected, and I had to get it removed surgically. For small splinters, it is possible that your immune system will just break it up and deal with it.	[ "Generally, a splinter causes an initial feeling of pain as the sharp object makes its initial penetration through the body. Through this penetration, the object cuts through the cutaneous layer of the skin, and settles in the subcutaneous layer of the skin, and can even penetrate further down, breaking the sub-cut...
Can you explain this bit of light reflection that's always bothered me?	[Angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection](_URL_0_). That's how it works.	[ "The 3D illusion mirror effect is produced whenever there are two parallel reflective surfaces which can bounce a beam of light back and forth an indefinite (theoretically infinite) number of times. The reflections appear to recede into the distance because the light actually is traversing the distance it appears t...
What was the English contribution to the Pacific Theater in late 1944 & 1945?	Britain made two major contributions to the war against Japan in 1944-45. The first was the Burmese campaign, which had been Britain's main contribution since 1941, while the second was the British Pacific Fleet, which are the carriers you mention. Until 1945, the Royal Navy confined its operations to the Indian Ocean...	[ "During the Second World War, Russian, German, British, and Italian international broadcasting services expanded. In 1942, the United States initiated its international broadcasting service, the Voice of America. In the Pacific theater, General Douglas MacArthur used shortwave radio to keep in touch with the citize...
would using an obsolete operating system on a new computer dramatically increase os performance? why (not)?	tl;dr - maybe, maybe not Using the oldest OS that can _make use of_ the newer computer's hardware, then yes. It should smoke. as in fast, not fried GPU. The problem arises when it comes to device support. Lets put Windows XP onto a brand new Alienware i7 laptop for example. It has a 1 TB SSD drive, brand new nVidia 7...	[ "Sometimes, older operating systems such as DOS are reused for computing roles that don't demand lots of computing power. However, the widespread of availability of secondhand Windows XP computers at extreme low prices has largely supplanted immediate opportunities for using DOS on some repurposing applications, es...
Are there any downsides to Fusion energy research? If not with the reactors themselves, then weapons they would enable?	The biggest issue is, that we simply don't know (yet). But I wouldn't be that quick in glorifying fission, at least in the way you do. Uncontrolled meltdowns are improbable (as it requires power input to output any energy), fuels (typically deuterium and tritium) aren't much more prolific than uranium and there are...	[ "Of course, these natural processes of astrophysics are not examples of nuclear \"technology\". Because of the very strong repulsion of nuclei, fusion is difficult to achieve in a controlled fashion. Hydrogen bombs obtain their enormous destructive power from fusion, but their energy cannot be controlled. Controlle...
why does america use a comma to indicate a thousand instead of a dot?	It's not just the US, plenty of countries use a period for the decimal mark and a comma for digit grouping, and others use it the other way around. Typically English speaking countries and countries influenced by them use a period for the decimal mark. [Here's a list of this division](_URL_0_).	[ "Most calculators and many computer programs present very large and very small results in scientific notation, typically invoked by a key labelled (for \"exponent\"), (for \"enter exponent\"), , , , or depending on vendor and model. Because superscripted exponents like 10 cannot always be conveniently displayed, th...
How much of the observable universe is visible to the naked eye under optimal conditions?	Not much at all. You're pretty much limited to looking at stars within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and of those, I keep hearing that V762 in Cassiopeia is the farthest visible star, at about 15,000 lightyears away. Most of the ones you can see are less than 4,000 lightyears away. However, the [Andromeda galaxy](_...	[ "The limiting magnitude for naked eye visibility refers to the faintest stars that can be seen with the unaided eye near the zenith on clear moonless nights. The quantity is most often used as an overall indicator of sky brightness, in that light polluted and humid areas generally have brighter limiting magnitudes ...
what is the advantage of on screen signers for deaf people over subtitles?	American Sign Language and English are like two different languages. (ASL isn't just a signed version of the spoken language.) Sign is often the first language/more fluent language than written English for some members of the Deaf community.	[ "Although same-language subtitles and captions are produced primarily with the deaf and hard of hearing in mind, they may also be used to ensure understanding of dialogue (such as those spoken quietly or mixed in with sound effects, by those with accents unfamiliar to the intended audience, or supportive dialogue f...
what happens to a notebook when you never shut it down completely?	The simple answer is that the longer your computer runs, the more time there is for glitches in the system to happen. One glitch usually isn't a problem, but when you have 10 or 100 at the same time, it can be enough to cause some issues. When you restart a computer, you're clearing away all the loaded memory (RAM), a...	[ "The right side hinge will fail - it is not a question of if but when, but it is not difficult or expensive to replace it as long as no other damage occurred when it broke. You will hear a slight crack sound while closing the lid when it fails. If you stop using the laptop immediately until you replace the broken h...
how do your bones know when to stop growing?	ELI5: it's programmed into your DNA A little more in depth: Your DNA tells your bones what basic shape they should be in, as well as the rough size they should be. Human growth hormone(HGH) is a hormone released by your brain from the pituitary gland, and is basically the "switch" that turns growth on/off. HGH is pro...	[ "During childhood, the growth plate contains the connecting cartilage enabling the bone to grow; at adulthood (between the ages of 18 to 25 years), the components of the growth plate stop growing altogether and completely ossify into solid bone. In an adult, the metaphysis functions to transfer loads from weight-be...
Why are angels often portrayed as infants in Christian paintings?	Is it possible you are thinking of [putti?](_URL_0_) Putti are not angels in the traditional sense, although they are often confused with cherubim which were a kind of second class of angel. Putti are interesting fellows-they began as a non-secular symbol, and still represent worldly love, as opposed to god's love.	[ "The earliest known Christian image of an angel, in the \"Cubicolo dell'Annunziazione\" in the Catacomb of Priscilla, which is dated to the middle of the third century, is a depiction of the Annunciation in which Gabriel is portrayed without wings. Representations of angels on sarcophagi and on objects such as lamp...
What is the history of homework?	I did some research on the topic but I couldn't pinpoint the beginning of the idea. The sources are ranging between Old Greek Culture and 19th Century. Most sources agree that homework was frowned upon when the modern school system came up in the 16th Century. As you said correctly, homework was frowned upon because t...	[ "Homework research dates back to the early 1900s. However, no consensus exists on the general effectiveness on homework. Results of homework studies vary based on multiple factors, such as the age group of those studied and the measure of academic performance.\n", "Homework can be a meaningful part of the indepen...
why don't gas stations undercut each other?	tl;dr - because they make pennies on the dollar per gallon of gas. ok now that that is out of the way. I will say this, I am no expert, but worked at a gas station for a while and learned some of the in's and out's. 1) Gas stations purchase gas in bulk at a certain price this price is more or less a standard across ...	[ "Due to heavy fluctuations of gasoline price in the United States, some gas stations offer their customers the option to buy and store gas for future uses, such as the service provided by First Fuel Bank.\n", "In the United States, gas jockeys were often tipped for their services, but this is now rare as full-ser...
why do even videos from the 2000's appear to be very old/low quality when we remember viewing them in higher resolution.	You said it, higher resolution. They'd look just fine if you were viewing them in 800x600 or 1024x768, but you're not. You're viewing them in 1920x1080 or higher, stretching the video onto an area several times bigger than intended.	[ "Remastering a video game is more difficult than remastering a film or music because the video game's graphics show their age. This can be due to a number of factors. For example, modern televisions tend to have higher display resolutions than the televisions available when the video game was released.\n", "For t...
if someone is born color blind, how do they know they are?	A lot of times they don't know until they happen to see one of those color blind tests. That's how my brother found out he was. He saw one at the beginning of a movie and didn't get why there were a bunch of dots. And I told him it was a color blind test and that there are two or three different colors in the circle	[ "While both sighted and blind people are diagnosed with non-24, the disorder is believed to affect up to 70% of totally blind individuals. It is estimated by researchers that of the 1.3 million blind people in the U.S., 10% have no light perception at all. Of that group, it is estimated that approximately half to t...

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