question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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why sometimes the cloudy sky appears yellowish during the day, and sometimes during the night brownish/redish? | At night, it's because you live in a city. Cities are actually extremely bright, so much so that even on clear nights you can barely see the stars. When the light from the city reflects off the clouds it often takes on an orange-ish color, since that's what the clouds are best at reflecting.
Edit: Forgot to mention, t... | [
"When the daytime sky is overcast, sunlight passes through the turbid layer of the clouds, resulting in scattered, diffuse light on the ground. This exhibits Mie scattering instead of Tyndall scattering because the cloud droplets are larger than the wavelength of the light and scatters all colors approximately equa... |
Why are Vikings portrayed as being alien to the Anglo-Saxons even though they had similar origins? | You may want to look at this answer to a similar question by /u/BRIStoneman
_URL_0_ | [
"However, as archaeologist Julian D. Richards commented, Scandinavians in Anglo-Saxon England \"can be elusive to the archaeologist\" because many of their houses and graves are indistinguishable from those of the other populations living in the country. For this reason, historian Peter Hunter Blair noted that in B... |
why is good quality toilet paper so expensive? | i use the cheapest possible, im one of the rare people in europe who still mainly use water to wash the butt, it cleans much better than toilet paper | [
"Quality is usually determined by the number of plies (stacked sheets), coarseness, and durability. Low grade institutional toilet paper is typically of the lowest grade of paper, has only one or two plies, is very coarse and sometimes contains small amounts of embedded unbleached/unpulped paper. Mid-grade two ply ... |
Why do you heat treat stainless steel? | Sure, heat treatment can dramatically improve the strength of your stainless steel, depending on the type of steel. Austenitics and ferritics aren't heat hardenable, but martensitics are (that's how you get the martensite). There are also austenitic and martensitic grades that can be precipitation-hardened, which is a... | [
"Stainless steel is generally considered to be biologically inert, but some sensitive individuals develop a skin irritation due to a nickel allergy caused by certain alloys. Stainless steel leaches small amounts of nickel and chromium during cooking.\n",
"Stainless steel is rolled into sheets, plates, bars, wire,... |
why is cilantro so offensive to some people? | There is a gene which effects the chemistry of your saliva. Most people have this gene, some do not. The people who are missing this gene are unable to fully break down the Cilantro from it's natural Aldehyde form.
> Flavor chemists have found that cilantro aroma is created by a half-dozen or so substances, and mos... | [
"VX is an extremely toxic synthetic chemical compound in the organophosphorus class, specifically, a thiophosphonate. In the class of nerve agents, it was developed for military use in chemical warfare after translation of earlier discoveries of organophosphate toxicity in pesticide research. In its pure form, VX i... |
Why do different frequencies of light have different angles of refraction? | This is a result of the fact that light of different colors travels at different speed in materials.
The two parameters that govern the speed of light are the electric permittivity (epsilon) and magnetic permeability (mu) of the medium the light is traveling through. *You can loosely think of these two parameters as ... | [
"The refractive index of fibers varies slightly with the frequency of light, and light sources are not perfectly monochromatic. Modulation of the light source to transmit a signal also slightly widens the frequency band of the transmitted light. This has the effect that, over long distances and at high modulation s... |
What exactly is going on in the brain if a patient has "the most aggressive form of brain cancer" that could make them die quickly? How does brain cancer work exactly and how differently does it work when compared to other cancers? | I believe that glioblastoma is composed of multiple cell types and thus may different genes expressed in a healthy person, let alone a cancer patient. These tumors put pressure on various regions of the brain.
Honestly, I think that the reason brain cancer is such a pain in the ass is how important the brain is. If ... | [
"The cause of most brain tumors is unknown. Uncommon risk factors include exposure to vinyl chloride, Epstein–Barr virus, ionizing radiation, and inherited syndromes such as neurofibromatosis, tuberous sclerosis, and von Hippel-Lindau Disease. Studies on mobile phone exposure have not shown a clear risk. The most c... |
why is everyone so angry about the senate passing the resolution to let isps sell our internet history now, rather than years ago? | People are slowly recognizing that individual privacy is being destroyed and that more and more people are figuring out that our laws are way behind in term of internet privacy.
Basically, the erosion of privacy is reaching a ultimate point where the population is starting to be really concerned about it. | [
"With the Republicans in control of all three branches of the U.S. government, lobbyists for Internet service providers (ISPs) and tech firms persuaded lawmakers to dismantle regulations to protect privacy which had been made during the Obama administration. These FCC rules had required ISPs to get \"explicit conse... |
How deep can a dynasty go before people of different branches aren't considered part of the "main" dynasty anymore? | As a side question, what kind of documents did European nobles and rulers in the Middle Ages use to verify their royal/dynastic lineages? | [
"A dynasty (, ) is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. Alternative terms for \"dynasty\" may include \"house\", \"family\" and \"clan\", among others. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is th... |
Is it possible to see a rainbow from space, or from an airplane? Or is it only visible from the ground? | You can see a rainbow from an airplane, and indeed an airplane provides an unusual vantage point that makes it possible to see a rainbow that completes a full circle.
~~[Here](_URL_2_) are some images.~~
Edit: ee58 points out that the images I linked to were glories, not rainbows.
For an actual circular rainbow, I t... | [
"From above the earth such as in an aeroplane, it is sometimes possible to see a rainbow as a full circle. This phenomenon can be confused with the glory phenomenon, but a glory is usually much smaller, covering only 5–20°.\n",
"A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but comes from an ... |
7 different coalitions fought France in the Napoleonic Wars. In modern warfare, is the idea of various coalitions forming to fight the same adversary again and again unique to the Napoleonic Wars? | you've asked two questions here; i'll address the one in the title.
the various coalitions formed against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France are not unique. it is perhaps not surprising that only a century earlier a similar series of alliances were repeatedly formed against the preeminent power in Europe at the time-... | [
"Because it only pertains to wars involving any of the Coalition parties, not all wars counted amongst the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars are considered \"Coalition Wars\". For example, the French invasion of Switzerland (1798, between the First and Second Coalition), the Stecklikrieg (1802, between the S... |
in western music, how was it decided that one octave equals 7 notes? why isn't it 5 or 10 notes? | First thing to note: a full octave actually consists of twelve notes. This is called the chromatic scale.
In Western music, the major and minor scales (used for most songs), use 7 of the 12 available notes in each octave.
Next thing to note is that an octave between two notes means that that higher note resonates at ... | [
"The Western musical convention up to this day divides an octave into twelve different pitches that can be arranged or tempered in different intervals. Carrillo termed his new system Sonido 13, which is Spanish for \"Thirteenth Sound\" or Sound 13, because it enabled musicians to go beyond the twelve notes that com... |
how do mobile companies like verizon and sprint decide on data charges? does using more data really cost them more money? | Yes, carrying more traffic costs them more money. Much of that is in upgrades - e.g. adding more antennas on towers and adding more backhaul capacity from those to the core of their network, upgrading circuits in the core of their network and adding transit and peering capacity.
But they'll charge you whatever they ca... | [
"On December 16, 2014, T-Mobile announced Un-carrier 8.0 as \"Data Stash\". This lets users carry over unused high-speed data usage for up to one year. The feature applies to customers of eligible post-paid plans who purchase qualifying amounts of additional high-speed data. On March 16, 2015, T-Mobile announced th... |
When did the trait of strongly "saving face" and the "Honor culture" fade in the western world and what factors help to phase it out? | Has it faded? I can only claim detailed knowledge about the history of Scandinavian men's culture, but if that's any measure of what's going on in the "West", it's still here - it's just lost much of its prestige and visibility in the field of middle- and upper class public discourse. The honour-motivated crimes of for... | [
"The concept of honour appears to have declined in importance in the modern West; conscience has replaced it in the individual context, and the rule of law (with the rights and duties defined therein) has taken over in a social context. Popular stereotypes would have it surviving more definitively in more tradition... |
Syphilis in the middle ages | Not really.
Syphilis (despite claims to the contrary) was a New World disease that didn't reach Europe until the late 1490s.
The first major outbreak began at the Siege of Naples, where it swept through the French army of Charles VIII. The "French disease," now widely thought to be syphilis, swept through Europe in 1... | [
"The term \"Second Sophistic\" comes from Philostratus. In his \"Lives of the Sophists\", Philostratus traces the beginnings of the movement to the orator Aeschines in the 4th century BC. But its earliest representative was really Nicetes of Smyrna, in the late 1st century AD. Unlike the original Sophistic movement... |
Why did the double-headed eagle become such a common symbol in heraldry? | You might also want to try /r/heraldry if you haven't already. | [
"In heraldry and vexillology, the double-headed eagle is a charge associated with the concept of Empire. Most modern uses of the symbol are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the Roman/East Roman Empire, whose use of it represented the Empire's dominion over the Near East and the West. The symbol is ... |
Are all adult teeth fully formed in a baby's jaw? If so, what happens to the empty cavity? What triggers adult teeth to descend? | A) that is not a babies skull, it is a children's skull (babies are not born with a full set of teeth)
B) The teeth below are not fully formed. Look for example at the incisors, they do not have a root yet. In the process of the milk teeth falling out, the root of the milktooth will be resorbed (milk teeth that fall o... | [
"As the primary (baby) teeth begin to erupt at 6 months of age, the maxillary and mandibular teeth aim to occlude with one another. The erupting teeth are moulded into position by the tongue, the cheeks and lips during development. Upper and lower primary teeth should be correctly occluding and aligned after 2 year... |
how was cheese and yogurt discovered and why did people decide to eat it? | milk went bad,
poor ass peasants said F'it Im not starving
he didnt die...
so they started trying all the different forms of bad milk they knew and most of them were so disgusting they called them cheese. | [
"Earliest proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 BCE, when sheep were first domesticated. Since animal skins and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accid... |
laws and theories behind chemistry? | If I could be general, it would mostly be based around the laws of thermodynamics and calculating the free energy of systems. Chemical reactions proceed in a particular direction based on these laws.
Source: Chemical Engineer | [
"Chemical laws are those laws of nature relevant to chemistry. The most fundamental concept in chemistry is the law of conservation of mass, which states that there is no detectable change in the quantity of matter during an ordinary chemical reaction. Modern physics shows that it is actually energy that is conserv... |
The Guardian just wrote that North Korea was "once one of the most prosperous and industrialised [countries] in the region". Is that true? If so, when? | Quick disclaimer: I'm away from home and don't have access to anything other than my collection of e-books, so this won't be as detailed as I'd like.
**Having just read the article, I think that point (and honestly, most of the paragraph that surrounds it) is a little problematic.** However, in fairness to the writer... | [
"Worsening this already poor situation, the centrally planned economy, which emphasized heavy industry, had reached the limits of its productive potential in North Korea. \"Juche\"s repeated demands that North Koreans learn to build and innovate domestically had run its course as had the ability of North Koreans to... |
Have we seen "Blood Moons" before? How did we know this one was coming? | Yes, they happen all the time. There are several lunar eclipses (so-called 'blood moons') every year, and there will be a total of 230 in the 21st century:
_URL_0_
We know when a lunar eclipse is coming because we understand the laws of gravity and motion which determines where the Moon is going to be at any given ti... | [
"The second meaning of \"blood moon\" has been derived from this apparent coloration by two fundamentalist Christian pastors, Mark Blitz and John Hagee. They claimed that the 2014–15 \"lunar tetrad\" of four lunar eclipses coinciding with the feasts of Passover and Tabernacles matched the \"moon turning to blood\" ... |
does upload & download speed matter in gaming, or is it just ping? | In gaming, it's generally ping. If you're downloading a large amount of data (like a MMO) then the download/upload speed will matter. Download/upload speed is how much you can send/receive per unit of time. But ping/latency is different. Latency is how long it takes a message to get from your computer to the other comp... | [
"Some factors that might affect ping include: communication protocol used, Internet throughput (connection speed), the quality of a user's Internet service provider and the configuration of firewalls. Ping is also affected by geographical location. For instance, if someone is in India, playing on a server located i... |
what exactly is a front (in the context or weather) and where does it come from? | So an "air mass" is a large mass of air where the temperature and humidity are fairly similar throughout. The atmosphere is basically lots of air masses all shift and reforming and pushing each other around all the time.
When an air mass pushes into another air mass, and one is more dense than the other, the less dens... | [
"Fronts in meteorology are the leading edges of air masses that have a density, air temperature, and humidity different from the air mass it is invading. When an air mass passes over an area, it is marked by changes in temperature, moisture, wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure, and often a change in the ... |
Where did WW2 Londoners go if their houses were destroyed during the Blitzkrieg? What options did they have? | Local authorities were ill-prepared for dealing with homelessness at the start of the Blitz. Pre-war estimates predicted appalling devastation and massive numbers of deaths resulting in measures including stockpiling of cardboard coffins, as it turned out there were far fewer casualties than expected but many more peop... | [
"During the Second World War, the blitz had destroyed large urban areas throughout the entire county of London, but particularly the central core. Over 50,000 inner London homes were completely destroyed, while more than 2 million dwellings experienced some form of bomb damage. This presented the London County Coun... |
how are carbs and sugars in fruits and vegetables different than those in other foods like pizza and twinkies? | Super oversimplification, please don't murder me:
The carbs in fruits and vegetables are generally complex carbohydrates (such as starch), which are more difficult (metabolically) to break down. They're also generally accompanied by the massive amounts of micronutrients, so fruits and veggies tend to be recommended as... | [
"BULLET::::- Fruits, sometimes categorized with vegetables, include apples, oranges, bananas, berries and lemons. Fruits contain carbohydrates, mostly in the form of sugar as well as important vitamins and minerals.\n",
"a. Fructose is not the only sugar found in fruits. Glucose and sucrose are also found in vary... |
Ants and houseflies and other pests enter modern dwellings easily - how did medieval or ancient dwellers keep them out? | Thanks to an offhand reference in the biblical Book of Proverbs, medieval Christian preachers just loved using ants as an *exemplum* for their audiences. Ants were models of industriousness, always persevering, never selfish. You can imagine how well this would go over with people returning home from sermon to find ant... | [
"Carpenter ants will damage homes by nesting in them. They will dig out tunnels in wood to expand their living spaces and can lead to structural damage. The infestation in the home usually is a satellite colony, with the main one within a hundred yards or more in a stump or other decayed wood. When colonies start t... |
In the 1980s and 90s, did the Soviet Union have its own HIV and crack epidemics? | First I would say we need to look at the structural factors that might make it difficult for us to have a clear scope of the early HIV epidemic as it pertains to the Soviet Union.
The first structural issue (and this is a fairly obvious one) is that the Soviet Union was particularly good at obfuscating, and little in... | [
"The first officially documented case of HIV in Russia (then the Soviet Union) was diagnosed in March 1987. In 1984, one patient had been diagnosed with HIV by a Soviet doctor, but the record of her case was expunged. Prior to the diagnosis made in 1987, the Soviet Union denied that any HIV infections were occurrin... |
Does putting on sound-canceling headphones decrease the amount of noise my ears, or add it it? | The noise cancelling headphones detect the ambient sound and then emit the exact opposite of that waveform causing [destructive interference](_URL_0_). This reduces the movement of the air in your ear and so decreases the noise, I hope that's the right question I've answered, it was a little confusing. | [
"Active noise-cancelling headphones use a microphone, amplifier, and speaker to pick up, amplify, and play ambient noise in phase-reversed form; this to some extent cancels out unwanted noise from the environment without affecting the desired sound source, which is not picked up and reversed by the microphone. They... |
What are the benefits of a 45.7% increase in serum testosterone levels? | Serum total testosterone is definitely NOT the same as free, bioavailable testosterone. Test is bound to sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) in serum and is not free to affect target tissues. Only the unbound fraction is bioavailable.
I'm not entirely up to date on the regulation of sex hormone secretion, but I'm fai... | [
"While a high level of testosterone is often associated with an increase in aggression, this is not a noticeable effect in most trans men. HRT doses of testosterone are much lower than the typical doses taken by steroid-using athletes, and create testosterone levels comparable to those of most cisgender men. These ... |
what happens to shells (especially crab shells) in the ocean after they are molted? | The shell is actually edible to some animals and microbes, so a lot of them just get picked apart by scavengers (or the crab itself - recycling).
Crab shells are pretty highly mineralized and brittle, so some of them probably do get pulverized into small bits, but they're (carbonate reinforced chitin) chemically disti... | [
"In many aquatic species, once a shell has been removed from the water and has had time to completely dry out, then the periostracum may become brittle and start to flake or peel off of the surface of the shell. \n",
"\"Mictyris longicarpus\" spends much of the time buried in the sand. They emerge to the surface ... |
money laundering and cooking books? not how to do it, but what is it exactly? | In both instances it's concealing your cash flow. Cooking the books is usually referring to making a business seem more profitable than it is, often to entice investors or secure loans. Sometimes a manager might want to make their branch appear profitable to get a bonus. Money laundering is usually used to conceal ille... | [
"The Book Thing of Baltimore is a 501(c) non-profit charity, located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, created in September 1999 for the purpose of giving away books. It was created and is operated by Russel Wattenberg, a former bartender who was inspired to create a system for distributing books to impoverish... |
why are some body parts such as the nose made out of cartilage, and not bones? | Cartilage and bone both provide structure, but where bone provides load bearing strength and body cavity protection (thorax and cranium) necessitating hardness, cartilage is better suited to provide support to moving parts (ie connections between the ribs and the sternum) and is easier to repair than bone so is better ... | [
"Cartilage is a resilient and smooth elastic tissue, a rubber-like padding that covers and protects the ends of long bones at the joints, and is a structural component of the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the bronchial tubes, the intervertebral discs, and many other body components. It is not as hard and rigid as bo... |
nutrition (current consensus) | **tl;dr The consensus is that we don't know. Really.**
There are sides who say carbs are good, sides who say carbs are bad. Same goes for fats. Everyone agrees that either a low or a high amount of proteins is bad for us.
**Carbs** are sugar basically. No matter that you eat a chocolate, bread, pasta or sugar, in yo... | [
"The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, created on December 1, 1994, to improve the health and well-being of Americans by establishing national dietary guidelines based on the best science available. CNPP promotes dietary guidance by linking scientif... |
How large would a steel cube have to be for it's
gravity to collapse it into a sphere? | From the derivation in [this paper](_URL_0_) I calculate that steel forms a sphere when its radius is above 225 km, using values for compressive strength of steel that I found on the google. | [
"There is a man seated at the foot of the building holding an impossible cube. He appears to be constructing it from a diagram of a Necker cube at his feet with the intersecting lines circled. The window next to him is closed with an iron grille that is geometrically valid, but practically impossible to assemble.\n... |
How do earth-observing satellites stay pointed at the earth? | Many different methods with pros and cons to each (note a spacecraft's orientation is called attitude):
-Thrusters: Uses fuel and not good for day-to-day attitude adjustments because of the fuel's weight.
-Momentum Wheels: Accelerate or decelerate a wheel. The change in angular momentum directly causes the spacecraft'... | [
"When observed from the equator, geostationary satellites follow exactly the imaginary line of the Earth's equatorial plane on the celestial sphere (i.e. they follow the celestial equator). But when observed from other latitudes the fact that geostationary satellites are at a fixed altitude of 35,786 km (22,236 mi)... |
if i take a typical window fan, and hold the blades, is it using more or less power? | If a motor is stalled, it is essentially short circuited. It'll heat up very rapidly, and probably blow a thermal fuse to prevent it from bursting into flames.
The reason a motor normally does that is that it acts like a generator when rotating, even while you're using electric power to spin it. This current points in... | [
"Window fans are designed to fit into open windows, and often have expandable side panels to cover the entire window opening. Most units have either one large fan, or two small fans mounted side by side.\n",
"Mechanical revolving blade fans are made in a wide range of designs. They are used on the floor, table, d... |
What would need to be in a batch of "Human Dogfood" for me to survive? | Try this: [Primate O's](_URL_0_) | [
"There are several ways to prevent a \"T. canis\" infection in both dogs and humans. Regular deworming by a veterinarian is important to stop canine re-infections, especially if the dog is frequently outdoors. Removing dog feces from the yard using sealed disposable bags will help control the spread of \"T. canis.\... |
how does the nfl draft work? can players say no or have a say which team they go to? | The way I understand it, the team that drafts them has exclusive rights to their services for a set number of years. The player can sign a contract with the team or ask to be traded. The drafting team is not obliged to trade them and the player is not obliged to sign a contract. But if he does not sign a contract ... | [
"Officially known as the NFL Draft, the event is the NFL's primary mechanism for distributing newly professional players finished with their college football careers to its teams. The draft order is determined based on the previous season's standings; the teams with the worst win–loss records receive the earliest p... |
If someone jumped off of a building, and were tackled at full speed right before they hit the ground, would either party survive? | It would be hard to tackle them in any meaningful way without exerting an upward force. A person falling 100m will only take about 0.03 seconds to travel that last meter. If no upward force occurs, that tackle will be little more than a nudge, which will be of no benefit to them, and little harm to our would be lineb... | [
"Authorities recommend that only one person should be allowed to jump at a time to avoid collisions and people being catapulted in an unexpected direction or higher than they expect. One of the most common sources of injury is when multiple users are bouncing on the trampoline at one time. More often than not, this... |
why are interest rates so low | The Federal Reserve looks at the economy and sees if it has grown, and if its strong enough to raise interest rates. According the BLS only 142,000 jobs were created last month, much lower than the 225,000 jobs economists predicted. While unemployment has slipped to 6.1%, that isn't necessarily a good thing. The Federa... | [
"In general, when interest rates are lowered, more people are able to borrow more money. As well as there being less of an incentive for people to keep money that they were hoarded before due to their being more of a financial yield. This results in consumers dishoarding money that was previously hoarded. This caus... |
why do the planets in the solar system have a mostly circular orbit but far objects like ceres have highly elliptical orbits? | Ceres has an eccentricity of 0.075. That's not much more than Earths eccentricity. I think you are mistaking Ceres for a kuiper belt object, such as Pluto? Ceres is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Anyway it is true that many trans-neptunian objects have quite large eccentricities compared to th... | [
"Most planetary orbits are nearly circular, and careful observation and calculation are required in order to establish that they are not perfectly circular. Calculations of the orbit of Mars indicated an elliptical orbit. From this, Johannes Kepler inferred that other bodies in the Solar System, including those far... |
how does a person forget large portions of the night when they are too drunk, but are still able to drunkenly function and is it the same as being roofied? | The brain loses the ability to form memories. I’m not sure about the similarity to roofies. | [
"BULLET::::- Drunkenness is wrong because it injures one's health, and worse, destroys one's ability to reason, which is fundamental to humans as rational animals (i.e., does not support self-preservation).\n",
"Various studies have also given rise to proof of links between general alcohol consumption and its eff... |
Why didn't the annexation of Manchuria have almost any international consequences for Japan? | The same reasons why the response to Hitler's aggression was tepid. Nobody wanted war, nobody was in a position to make war, and people were hopeful that everything would just somehow work out for the best.
An interesting case study here is the response to the "Mukden Incident". In 1931 a railway line owned by the Jap... | [
"Although Japan occupied parts of Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War following the October Revolution, Japan did not formally annex any of these territories and they were vacated by Japan by the mid-1920s.\n",
"Russia had occupied the Chinese region of Manchuria in the aftermath of the 1900 Boxer Rebe... |
did people in the past really speak as formally as depicted in books from before the 20th century? were educated people then much more adept at english language, or is this just the style of novels written at the time? | Yes and no.
Educated folks would have taken "elocution" classes, and wealthy folks would have been brought up with etiquette and elocution as part of their education as well. Elocution is the art of speaking in a formal manner, and etiquette is the art of behaving formally.
Unedecuated and poorer folks would hav... | [
"When the various modern language departments were introduced into American universities in the 1880s, speakers at the first meeting of the Modern Language Association in 1883 had been concerned to counter the popular perception that \"English literature is a subject for the desultory reader in his leisure hours ra... |
if alcohols and benzodiazepines inhibit the exact same brain gamma-aminobutyric acid receptors, why are benzos used to treat anxiety while alcohols tend to make it worse? | Because that statement is inaccurate and incomplete. Alcohol's affinity for GABA receptors are different then that between benzos and GABA receptors. There are also different subtypes of GABA receptors again each with different affinities to alcohol and benzos. Lastly, GABA receptors are not the only receptors that alc... | [
"Ethanol and benzodiazepines act on the central nervous system by binding to the GABA receptor, increasing the effects of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA (i.e., they act as positive allosteric modulators at these receptors). In chronic alcohol abuse, one of the main mechanisms of tolerance is attributed to GAB... |
Was the Dalai Lama's Tibet a Theorcratic Regime? | Tagging on: what were the castes and how were they enforced? | [
"Historically the Dalai Lamas or their regents held political and religious leadership over Tibet from Lhasa with varying degrees of influence depending on the regions of Tibet and periods of history. This began with the 5th Dalai Lama's rule in 1642 and lasted until the 1950s (except for 1705–1750), during which p... |
what is officially meant by "when observed" when talking about quantum events? | Observation is a term of convenience that can be misleading. Observation is physical interaction. On a macroscopic level it's easy to miss that. When you look at a car photons from ambient light sources are bouncing off of the car and into your eye which is how you see.
On a quantum level, though, the physical in... | [
"In the Copenhagen interpretation, the mathematics of quantum mechanics allows one to predict probabilities for the occurrence of various events. When an event occurs, it becomes part of the definite reality, and alternative possibilities do not. There is no necessity to say anything definite about what is not obse... |
why does brute - force password hacking work | You don't brute-force attack a website's login page, you steal the website's users table and brute-force that. Once you have the users table you can set up any number of processors to attack it potentially millions of times per second. | [
"Brute-force attacks work by calculating every possible combination that could make up a password and testing it to see if it is the correct password. As the password's length increases, the amount of time, on average, to find the correct password increases exponentially.\n",
"In cryptography, a brute-force attac... |
we are all probably glued to a computer screen for way too long each day, whether it be netflix, video games, homework, instagram, whatever. how bad is this for your eyes, and what’s the most healthy way to minimize eye damage? | Once every hour:
Focus your eyes on something far away from you
and
get up and stretch forat least 5 minutes | [
"In many cases, frequent computer users suffer from computer vision syndrome, which is a degenerative eye problem which can result in severely reduced eyesight (Myopia), blurred vision, overall eye tiredness and even Glaucoma. Computer Eye Syndrome is an umbrella term for many problems but the causes of these probl... |
what are freemasons, what do they actually do, and why are they so proud of being freemasons? | Freemason here... It's primarily a social club. There is a ton of charity work and fund raising. A lot of people seem to think our lodge meetings consist of how we're going to take over the world, bit it's really just us voting to pay the bills, with some history lessons thrown in. The pride comes from doing somethin... | [
"The Freemasons drew many of its members from the professional and merchant classes, and did not have an explicit insurance program, leaving them financially better off than most other orders. Their origin and ritual, as their name suggests, likely derives from medieval builders. As a result, during the Golden Age ... |
why do we become fans of sport teams and celebrities when we do not gain anything from it? | You gain excitement and enjoyment, as well as a convenient excuse to get together with a bunch of friends and eat and drink and yell at the TV.
Humans (most of them at least) do lots of things for no other reason than "it'll be fun!". | [
"Given the extensive costs involved in managing and operating a professional team sport, it is beneficial for sports marketers to be conscious of the elements that establish a strong brand and the effect they have on fan loyalty, so they can best cater to their current fans while acquiring new ones. This is because... |
What would happen if a meteor struck a nutron star? | It would be ripped apart by tidal forces, and fall onto the neutron star as a string of material. As it landed, it would emit a very brief flash of X-ray radiation, but much fainter than, for example, an X-ray burst where hydrogen on the surface of the neutron star suddenly ignites and starts fusing to helium, burning ... | [
"Our star will likely not be directly affected by such an event, but the Earth may be easily affected by a nearby collision. Astronomers say that if a stellar collision happens within 100 light years of the Earth, the resulting gamma-ray burst could possibly destroy all life on Earth. This is still very unlikely th... |
Why did the Nazis create the concentration camps if their goal was extemination? What were their goals with forced labor practical or for torture? |
_URL_2_
_URL_1_
these threads on the topic are written on intentionalism vs functionalism debate on nazi policy by /u/commiespaceinvader
I would recommend listening to this episode of the podcast also with /u/commiespaceinvader in the askhistorians podcast where they tall about the idea/theory of intentionalism (... | [
"Initially the camps housed political opponents; over time, undesirable members of German society—criminals, vagrants, deviants—were placed in the camps as well. A Hitler decree issued in December 1937 allowed for the incarceration of anyone deemed by the regime to be an undesirable member of society. This included... |
i throw a handful of sunflower seeds in my mouth. some of them taste salty after i've cracked them open. why? | Sunflowers, when under duress emit a "salty flavor" to discourage predators from eating further seeds. The reason they taste salty cracked open is that it comprises the integrity of the seed and therefore cannot reproduce. Predators that swallow the seed whole can then pass it on later through its feces. | [
"Sunflower seeds, called \"garinim\" (literally, seeds), are eaten everywhere, on outings, at stadiums and at home. They are usually purchased unshelled and are cracked open with the teeth. They can be bought freshly roasted from shops and market stalls that specialize in nuts and seeds as well as packaged in super... |
what's the difference between a legal and illegal monopoly? | Legal monopolies are companies the government has sanctioned to be the only one to provide a certain service in a certain area. This tends to be things like utilities (water, buses, and electricity), although it can be almost anything. These companies can still make a small profit, but are *strictly* regulated.
Illega... | [
"A monopoly is distinguished from a monopsony, in which there is only one \"buyer\" of a product or service; a monopoly may also have monopsony control of a sector of a market. Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from a cartel (a form of oligopoly), in which several providers act together to coordinate ser... |
Why does Turkey deny the Armenian genocide so vehemently when the genocide was done by the Ottomans, not the current Turkish state? | As outlined in Geoffrey Robertson's book *An Inconvenient Genocide*, the core belief behind the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide lies in the *motives* for the killings. Turkish Officials don't deny that Ottoman military personnel killed Armenians; they dispute the amount (they claim 300 000, while the most commo... | [
"In 2005, the International Association of Genocide Scholars affirmed that scholarly evidence revealed the \"Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct kil... |
Is there a way to artificialy change wavelenght of light? | Yes, you can achieve such an effect by taking advantage of a variety of [nonlinear optical effects](_URL_3_). One of the best examples of such an effect is called [frequency doubling](_URL_0_). The idea is that you pass an intense beam through a nonlinear crystal and inside of the crystal pairs of photons will effectiv... | [
"A particularly promising application is optical phase conjugation. It allows the removal of the wavefront distortions a light beam receives when passing through an aberrating medium, by sending it back through the same aberrating medium with a conjugated phase. This is useful, for example, in free-space optical co... |
Can removing fat from the human body via liposuction mitigate some of the negative side effects of being overweight? | Brief answer because I'm on my tablet: no, not really, unless you also decrease your energy intake and increase your energy expenditure. The main problem is that the subcutaneous adipose tissue (body fat) removed during liposuction is a relatively safe place to store fat, and also has roles in maintaining energy homeos... | [
"Liposuction is generally used in an attempt to change the body's shape. Weight loss from liposuction appears to be of a short term nature with little long term effect. After a few months fat typically returns and redistributes. Liposuction does not help obesity related metabolic disorders like insulin resistance.\... |
How did American film and TV end up being so moralistic (or if my premise is wrong, why does it seem so)? | Hmm. This might be a question better directed to /r/AskSocialScience.
Having said that, the premise strikes me as iffy at best, particularly if you don't have the requisite fluency in another language to read/watch untranslated stuff. One of the observations most frequently made by people who spend a lot of time in d... | [
"Exposing abuse or lampooning reform, films in the early 20th century put a human face on social problems and connected with audiences in a new way. Topics include: prohibition, abortion, unions, atheism, the vote for women, organized crime, loan sharking, juvenile justice, homelessness, police corruption, immigrat... |
why do animals in a fight suddenly take frequent, concerted casual breaks? | Animals don't like to get hurt, because unlike humans most of them have shockingly low pain tolerance and can't really heal wounds well. So in most cases they fight briefly to make it clear to the opponent they aren't welcome. They keep it short so they reduce the chance of getting hurt, and will see if the opponent ch... | [
"Actual fighting in contests is rare because of the risk of injury to both participants. It is most likely to occur when individuals are similarly sized, or when the contested resource is essential for reproduction or survival. Even when agonistic behaviour escalates to fighting, restraint may be used. Fish such as... |
if brain does not feel, why do people experience headache when having a stroke? | The brain itself has no pain receptors so it can't feel pain. The arteries, veins, tissues that surround the brain, etc. all do feel pain. They are what hurts when someone has a headache or stroke. | [
"In the brain, AVMs occasionally exert pressure, leading to headaches. They may also increase the risk of seizures, as would any abnormal tissue in the brain. Finally, hemorrhage from an AVM may lead to intracerebral hemorrhage (bleeding into the brain), which causes any of the symptoms of stroke such as weakness i... |
In her heyday, Athenian bread was made from Scythian wheat. Why did the grain trade with the Pontic steppe stop not long after that? | Well, it didn't. The trade from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, of which grain was a crucial component, continued well into the Roman period and beyond. In fact, it was a crucial aspect of Byzantium, and later Constantinople's, success. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Greek colonization continued, and the... | [
"In the ancient world, grain regularly flowed from the hinterlands to the cores of great empires: maize in ancient Mexico, rice in ancient China, and wheat and barley in the ancient Near East. With this came improving technologies for storing and transporting grains; the Hebrew Bible makes frequent mention to ancie... |
the fda just lifted the ban on gay men donating blood as long as they don't have sex for a year. why was the ban just lifted and why did it take so long to lift the ban? | Gay men are several times more likely than straight men to be HIV positive. Getting HIV positive blood from donors is bad. | [
"In July 2006, the General Prosecution recognised that there is nothing in the law which prevents gays from donating their blood. Instead, the law only defines a list of diseases that can prevent the donation of blood. As a result, it asked the Ministry of Health to remove homosexuals from its instruction.\n",
"I... |
How do quadriplegics' brains not lose the ability to control the vital systems? Is there a separate communication system? | They do. If your spinal cord is transected high enough up your neck, you will lose the ability to breathe on your own, for example.
The details of the ways in which various vital systems become disregulated after spinal cord injury vary, depending on which vital system you are talking about, and the location and the e... | [
"The specific mechanisms underlying myoclonus are not yet fully understood. Scientists believe that some types of stimulus-sensitive myoclonus may involve overexcitability of the parts of the brain that control movement. These parts are interconnected in a series of feedback loops called motor pathways. These pathw... |
How do scientists determine where a pathogen originated from ? | It's kinda complicated. When a breakout of a pathogen occurs, a lot of things are taken into account, to the point where the investigation of the source of a pathogen breakout is kinda like detective work. The location, nature of the outbreak, the facility where it occurred, affected patient symptoms, and commonalities... | [
"The discovery of disease-causing pathogens is an important activity in the field of medical science. Many viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi, helminthes and prions are identified as a confirmed or potential pathogen. In the United States, a Centers for Disease Control program, begun in 1995, identified over a hund... |
why can't animated movies/tv shows use the same cgi technology that i see in cut scenes of video games like halo 5 or advanced warfare? | They can. The thing is that the way these are made are optimized for two different processes: one toolset is "use the tools that film animators know how to use in a way that makes it easy for them to tell the story" and the other toolset is "use the tools that the game animators use to build games, but render the infor... | [
"As use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in films has become a major trend, some critics, such as Mark Langer, have discussed the relationship and overlap between live action and animation. New films that use computer-generated special effects can not be compared to live action films using cartoon characters bec... |
- contract theory and why it is so special that the economists it got a noble prize? | So contract threory is really important not just in how we think about microeconomics, but also somewhat obviously where the economy intersects with law. It's very important for us to study because in this case, policy changes can have very direct effects on how an economy functions on a very basic and immediately appa... | [
"Contract theory also utilizes the notion of a complete contract, which is thought of as a contract that specifies the legal consequences of every possible state of the world. More recent developments known as the theory of incomplete contracts, pioneered by Oliver Hart and his coauthors, study the incentive effect... |
kidney stones -- why (dear, god why) and future prevention | You might also want to keep this in mind:
> The chance of having recurring stones are about 70-80 percent once a person suffers their first stone attack. After the first kidney stone attack occurs in a person they have a cumulative 10 percent chance per year of forming another stone (if no other stones are present at ... | [
"The most common renal stone is calcium oxalate and is usually caused by treatable metabolic disorders of hypercalcuria (increased calcium levels in the urine). These stones cause pain with passage and blockage and have been known to recur.\n",
"Although kidney stones do not often occur in children, the incidence... |
Do held in burps become farts? | It should go without saying. Serious answers only to this post and all other posts in AskScience | [
"Gerbilling, also known as gerbil stuffing or gerbil shooting, is a rumoured sexual practice of inserting small live animals (usually gerbils but also mice, hamsters, rats and various other rodents) into the human rectum to obtain stimulation. Some variations of reports suggest that the rodent be covered in a psych... |
how are disney and pixar related/differ? | They used to be separate entities that were separately owned. The same company now owns both of them, but they still operate as separate entities with little to no overlap. | [
"Pixar and Disney originally had a seven film distribution agreement that gave Disney full ownership of Pixar's feature films and characters, as well as sequel rights. With the success of \"Toy Story 2\" in the end of 1999, then Disney CEO Michael Eisner and then owner of Pixar, Steve Jobs, began to disagree on how... |
Did Britain have any interest in continuing its presence in Egypt/Suez Canal after India achieved independance? | Absolutely they did! The British interest in the Suez actually led to continued trouble for British-Egyptian relations, as well as for US-British relations.
The dispute led to negotiations over how to handle the British presence in Egypt. Around 1952, the British sought US agreement on issues relating to their continu... | [
"By 1914 Egypt had been part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 years, remaining under nominal Ottoman suzerainty despite being occupied by the British in 1882, following the Anglo-Egyptian War, and eventually becoming a British protectorate. The Suez Canal was of vital strategic importance to the British, reducing the ... |
Why is rolling a dice or flipping a coin considered random? | There will always by a small [dynamic bias](_URL_1_) (PDF file) with coin flipping.
Randomness and *unpredictability* are different concepts. The roll of a dice may appear random but a [determinists](_URL_0_) would argue that it's just unpredictable.
Randomness gets in to philosophy so you can get a wide variety of ... | [
"Flipism is a normative decision theory in a sense that it prescribes how decisions should be made. In the comic, flipism shows remarkable ability to make right conclusions without any information – but only once in a while. Of course, in real life flipping a coin would only lead to random decisions. However, there... |
What differentiates a breed and a species within the same genus? | Species can (generally) not interbreed. In the cases they can (e.g. mules) the offspring are infertile.
Breeds within a species are genetically similar enough to mate producing viable offspring. Such as with dogs. | [
"A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. Breeds are formed through genetic isolation and either natural adaptation to the environment or selective breed... |
why is sean penn not arrested, charged and/or prosecuted for aiding and abetting?? | Aiding and abetting is defined in [section two of title 18](_URL_0_) in the United States Code (U.S.C.)
Based on the information we have, Sean Penn did not help El Chapo plan out or carry out crimes. He was simply there to interview the guy. Because Penn didn't offer any sort of assistance in El Chapo's commission o... | [
"Penn demonstrated no remorse for his aggressive stance and vowed to keep fighting against the wrongs of the Church and the King. For its part, the Crown continued to confiscate Quaker property and jailed thousands of Quakers. From then on, Penn's religious views effectively exiled him from English society; he was ... |
how is something approved/guaranteed to be a law of science rather than a theory? what sort of process does it go through? | In science, theories and laws describe different things. A theory does not become a law. As LiveScience explains:
> In general, a scientific law is the description of an observed phenomenon. It doesn't explain why the phenomenon exists or what causes it. The explanation of the phenomenon is called a scientific theo... | [
"Scientific laws are typically conclusions based on repeated scientific experiments and observations over many years and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community. A scientific law is \"inferred from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible ... |
Why were full medieval suits of plate armor left exposed at the butt and hamstrings? | There were a few reasons that I know of
- Making plate cover those parts while retaining mobility was actually pretty much impossible. (i'm assuming my hamstrings you mean the back of the knee joint?)
- when you look at plate suits by themselves they often appear to be full of gaps, however men-at-arms wore tunics und... | [
"In medieval weaponry, the breastplate is the front portion of plate armour covering the torso. It has been a military mainstay since ancient times and was usually made of leather, bronze or iron in antiquity. By around 1000 AD, solid plates had fallen out of use in Europe and knights of the period were wearing mai... |
why can't more distressed planes just crash land on water? | The Hudson case was really lucky because well, if I have to break it down, other than the fact that you had an extremely experienced pilot who had military experience (suggesting some mad skillz when it comes to flying under pressure), the altitude and crash site were favourable to survival; this is not often shared wi... | [
"Seaplanes can only take off and land on water with little or no wave action and, like other aircraft, have trouble in extreme weather. The size of waves a given design can withstand depends on, among other factors, the aircraft's size, hull or float design, and its weight, all making for a much more unstable aircr... |
why is it even possible to blow a speaker? | Speakers themselves have no advanced electronics. It is just a wire coiled up to form an electromagnet that pushes and pulls against a permenant magnet.
If you apply too much power it pushes until the paper in the speaker tears.
They could make the magnets weaker, then it wouldn't push as hard and break. But it als... | [
"Blowing a speaker is a significant possibility when using an isolation cabinet. A blown speaker usually has a broken wire in the coil and would need to be reconed. A blown speaker appears as an open or infinite resistance to the tube power amplifier and can \"fry\" expensive components in the amp, such as the outp... |
Why were the German naming conventions for its OOB so weird and senseless? It seems that many divisions corps, army, brigades, etc... had random numbers attached to them instead of just having them in order, e.g. 1. Infanterie-Division, 2. Infanterie-Division... | > Same with the Americans too tbh.
The first conventions which gave the long-lasting and still-somewhat-in effect numbering scheme of U.S. Army units came into being in the summer of 1917, guided by the [National Defense Act of 1916](_URL_0_). To allow for any future expansion, the War Department reserved blocks of ... | [
"In 1915, units that had nicknames or honorific titles lost them by order of the War Ministry. Thereafter units were designated only by number. For instance, the \"k.u.k. Infanterie-Regiment (Hoch und Deutschmeister) Nr. 4\" became \"Infanterie-Regiment No. 4\" (4th Infantry Regiment).\n",
"In 1915 units that had... |
Is the sheer size of the yellowstone magma chamber keeping it from erupting? | Supervolcanoes erupt differently from more conventional volcanoes. In a conventional volcano, the pressure builds until the rock above can't contain it, and it explodes. In a supervolcano, the magma chamber expands like a balloon, until it "pops" and the roof collapses into the chamber. It is almost (but not quite) lik... | [
"According to analysis of earthquake data in 2013, the magma chamber is long and wide. It also has underground volume, of which 6–8% is filled with molten rock. This is about 2.5 times bigger than scientists had previously imagined it to be; however, scientists believe that the proportion of molten rock in the cham... |
when you break a bone, which part hurts? | The periosteum (very thin layer that sits on top of the bone) is rich in nerve fibers that sense pain. When you fracture a bone, it's these fibers that get activated and give you the sensation of pain. | [
"Bone pain (also known medically by several other names) is pain coming from a bone. It occurs as a result of a wide range of diseases and/or physical conditions and may severely impair the quality of life. \n",
"Bone pain belongs to the class of deep somatic pain, often experienced as a dull pain that cannot be ... |
why is it that we're able to connect to the voyager in interstellar space using 20th century technology, and yet it can be rather difficult getting a wifi signal to my room? | Your WiFi signal is coming from a very low power signal (a few milliwatts) through a very small (a few inches) antenna.
Voyager is using a nuclear-powered transmitter through an antenna several feed in diameter to talk to an absolute huge (many tens of meters) antenna here on Earth.
If you had the power and antenna ... | [
"Built with the intent for eventual interstellar travel, \"Voyager 2\" included a large, parabolic, high-gain antenna () to transceive data via the Deep Space Network on the Earth. Communications are conducted over the S-band (about 13 cm wavelength) and X-band (about 3.6 cm wavelength) providing data rates as high... |
Is Earth trajectory around the sun affected by distant galaxies? If so how much? | The tug a galaxy such as Andromeda imparts on the earth's orbit is the **difference** between Andromeda's gravitational field where the sun is and where the earth is. Needless to say, this is ridiculously small. Let's quantify this.
The gravitational field is `[;g = G m_A D^{-2};]` (where D is the galactic distance) s... | [
"As the Sun orbits the Milky Way, wandering stars may approach close enough to have a disruptive influence on the Solar System. A close stellar encounter may cause a significant reduction in the perihelion distances of comets in the Oort cloud—a spherical region of icy bodies orbiting within half a light year of th... |
Was there ever a time where "colonel" was pronounced as it's spelled? | The answer is maybe _URL_0_ (I think!) | [
"Rémy Ranguin chose the military title \"Colonel\" as a tribute and continuing the tradition of great dancehall artists with similar military titles (like Admiral T, Lieutenant, Caporal Nigga, Kporal Maïky and Sergent). The pseudonyme \"Reyel\" is a creole version of French word \"réel\" (real in English).\n",
"I... |
Who were the most incompetent leaders in history? | Charles II King of Spain (1665-1700) would definitely be up there. The Spanish Hapsburg dynasty had not out-bred since around the mid-16th century, and this guy couldn't speak until the age of eight and was completely incapable of ruling. I read a really good quote once along the lines of "He consistently amazed Wester... | [
"The highest-ranking surviving leaders Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Corić, Berislav Pušić were charged with crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and violations of the laws of war.\n",
"He was probably the most hated collaborator with the S... |
why does the screen of the monitor forms a wavy texture when you take a picture with your phone? | This is called a [moiré pattern](_URL_0_) or effect, caused by the fact that the monitor is a regular grid of pixels, and so is the digital camera sensor in your phone. When two such discrete regular grids overlap, they are unlikely to be perfectly aligned, resulting in the creation of the moiré pattern. | [
"When different screens are combined, a number of distracting visual effects can occur, including the edges being overly emphasized, as well as a moiré pattern. This problem can be reduced by rotating the screens in relation to each other. This screen angle is another common measurement used in printing, measured i... |
what is the correlation between china/the chinese gov't and the internet? | The Chinese government heavily censors the internet within the country. Many sites are blocked and many domestic sites are heavily censored. | [
"While China continues to be held responsible for a string of cyber-attacks on a number of public and private institutions in the United States, India, Russia, Canada, and France, the Chinese government denies any involvement in cyber-spying campaigns. The administration maintains the position that China is not the... |
Ball bearings. Yes - ball bearings!! | Ball bearings are really cool, but they weren't new in the 60s. There were ball bearings on tables on the Lake Nemi ships... which belonged to Caligula.
They're really useful, because reducing friction is so helpful for so many applications. So useful, in fact, that bearing factories were a frequent target for bombe... | [
"Ball splines (Ball Spline bearings) are a special type of linear motion bearing that are used to provide nearly frictionless linear motion while allowing the member to transmit torque simultaneously. There are grooves ground along the length of the shaft (thus forming splines) for the recirculating ground balls to... |
What is the theory and mechanism behind the Milwaukee Protocol? | Lyme disease? I can't imagine that any physician or hospital ethics board would let someone be put in a medically-induced coma for Lyme disease...but I could be wrong.
The protocol was designed for Rabies treatment of patients who did not receive the Rabies vaccine in time. Rabies is an awful, awful disease that is n... | [
"The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part one) global warming is occurring and (part two) it is extremely likely that... |
the nhs pension scheme | A proportion of your pensionable pay goes into the pension scheme with a contribution from your employer. The pension will be a lump sum and a regular payment once you retire and will be paid to you or your spouse. _URL_0_ | [
"The NHS Pension Scheme is a pension scheme for people who work for the English NHS and NHS Wales. It is administered by the NHS Business Services Authority, a special health authority of the Department of Health of the United Kingdom. The NHS Pension Scheme was created in 1948. \n",
"The NHS Pension Scheme is a ... |
Is there a physiological difference in the brain between people with exceptional memory and those with average memory? | The best example of this that I know of is the London Taxi Driver Study/studies. There have been at least a couple studies on the topic, with later studies seeking to answer some of the questions raised by earlier studies. Remember, a good study raises more questions than it answers.
What they found is that London tax... | [
"Disorders have been important for the understanding of memory systems. The memory abilities and inhibitions of patients suffering from various diseases played a major role in establishing the distinction that long term memory consists of different types of memory, more specifically declarative memory and procedura... |
why "for sale"/"for rent" signs for real estate usually don't show a price? | The numbers are much bigger, and much more negotiable. Sometimes house flyers have a listing price, but that just invites obsolescence. | [
"Schreiner found that the word \"purchase\" was inconsistent with a mere option to sell, and held that, when there is a serious difficulty in interpreting a contract, and the court is not obliged to decide the matter on exception, it should not do so.\n",
"The term words of purchase is a technical conveyancing ex... |
Before Copernicus, what did people think a year was? | "Year" is ambiguous. In the absence of astronomy, it would simply be a cycle of the seasons. However, with astronomy, we have two differing definitions:
1. The year is the interval between equinoxes/solstices. That is, the time from one Spring equinox to the next Spring equinox, or similarly measured by the other equi... | [
"The publication of Copernicus' model in his book \"De revolutionibus orbium coelestium\" (\"On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres\"), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolut... |
Way to prove the Law of Conservation of mass? | There are a ton of ways to do it experimentally, from the silly like with baking soda and vinegar that you mention, to the pioneering work of some famous French scientists who figured it out, to simple yet rigorous modern methods.
Theoretically its a bit more difficult. Trivially you could invoke conservation of energ... | [
"The law of conservation of mass can only be formulated in classical mechanics when the energy scales associated to an isolated system are much smaller than formula_1, where formula_2 is the mass of a typical object in the system, measured in the frame of reference where the object is at rest, and formula_3 is the ... |
how do planes account for earth's spin on its axis? | They dont, they are spinning with the earth just like everything else. You can essentially ignore the spin just like we do here on the ground. | [
"The z-axis extends through true north, which does not coincide with the instantaneous Earth rotational axis. The slight \"wobbling\" of the rotational axis is known as polar motion. The x-axis intersects the sphere of the earth at 0° latitude (the equator) and 0° longitude (prime meridian in Greenwich). This means... |
When did the Byzantines start to use the name Basileus for their Emperor? | Heraclius.
*"It was Heraclius who decreed that Greek, for long the language of the people and the Church, should henceforth be the official language of the empire.*
*He abolished the ancient Roman titles of imperial dignity. Heretofore, like his predecessors, he had been formally hailed as Imperator Caesar and Aug... | [
"The \"Byzantine\" emperors from Heraclius in 629 and onwards adopted the title of \"basileus\" (), which had originally meant \"king\" in Greek but became a title reserved solely for the Roman emperor and the ruler of the Sasanian Empire. Other kings were then referred to as \"rēgas\".\n",
"By the 4th century ho... |
how do google "index of" websites work? | The "index of" is a feature of the webserver, that is delivering the website. Normally you tell your webserver which file of a directory is the index, or rather which file to deliver by default (i.e. index.html). If the webserver does not find that file it might create an index of all files in the directory on the fly ... | [
"Indexing is a term known in the SEO community when Google sends out its bots to crawl a site and the page is added into their database and will come up when a user types in a certain set of keywords. DigitalGov puts it this way, „If the website is optimized correctly, Google and other search engines will spider an... |
where does the ground that cover the ruins of ancient building is from? | I've actually answered [similar questions before](_URL_4_)
I'm going to copy one of my previous answers and tweak it to your specific questions. Here goes.
There are a lot of reasons why sediment builds up over ancient ruins.
Sediment moves in many different ways. First, you have wind. Wind picks up small particl... | [
"Its complete destruction dates from AD 853. The site of the ancient city is among rapidly shifting sandhills, and the lack of stone in the neighborhood has led to its buildings being used as a quarry even by the inhabitants of Gela, so that nothing is now visible above ground but a small part of the wall of the te... |
how does your phone know where you are tapping the screen through a plastic/glass screen protector? | Phones use something called "capacitance" to detect contact.
Basically, your phone has a weak electrical current running through the screen. When something conductive gets close to the screen (doesn't actually have to make physical contact), some of the current travels through that instead of the screen. The phone ca... | [
"In Windows Phone 8, screenshots can be taken by simultaneously pressing and holding the phone's Power button and the Start button. The screenshots are saved in the phone's native screen resolution under \"screenshots\" in the Photos hub. The screenshot functionality is only available for Windows Phone 8 or later.\... |
light field cameras | Explaining it like your five is difficult on this one. Basically, a plenoptic camera is a camera with a main lens and a bunch of micro lenses. As light passes through, it captures the image at each lens depth. Beside the obvious focusing correction that you mention, this does indeed allow for 3d constructs. The potenti... | [
"A light field camera, also known as plenoptic camera, captures information about the light field emanating from a scene; that is, the intensity of light in a scene, and also the direction that the light rays are traveling in space. This contrasts with a conventional camera, which records only light intensity.\n",
... |
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