Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
What are the most important factors in determining how an adolescent's personality develops?	As with most psychology, there are different perspectives, particularly when you ask about the "most important" factors. Nature and nurture interaction is an obvious answer: some factors in personality traits will be inherited physically, others will be fostered through development and might be mimicked from parents, s...	[ "Adult personality traits are believed to have a basis in infant temperament, meaning that individual differences in disposition and behavior appear early in life, possibly even before language or conscious self-representation develop. The Five Factor Model of personality has been found to map onto dimensions of ch...
History Blogs	[Hardcore History](_URL_0_) In "Hardcore History" the unconventional Dan Carlin takes his "Martian", outside-the-box way of thinking and applies it to the past.	[ "Military blogs emerged with the Iraq War in 2003. Initially named \"warblogs\" as well, they became popular under the name \"milblogging\"in 2004. In October 2005, a U.S. soldier named Jean-Paul Borda launched the blog aggregator Milblogging.com. A milblog is primarily focused on the events of the military, writte...
Were medieval European Jewish people illiterate?	It's not entirely clear. First of all, this question is confounded by literacy but being a literacy/illiteracy binary choice, but a continuum. Especially in the past, people could often read but not write. Still today, people might be able to read a menu or a sign, but have trouble reading a novel or a transcript of...	[ "Jews were subject to a wide range of legal disabilities and restrictions in Medieval Europe. Jews were excluded from many trades, the occupations varying with place and time, and determined by the influence of various non-Jewish competing interests. Often Jews were barred from all occupations but money-lending and...
how does icloud and cloud file saving work?	The cloud is a terribly ambiguous term that most IT personnel hate. Essentially what companies are calling the cloud is just a datacenter with elastic storage capabilities. But the cloud could also be storage that you have at your house that you access over the internet. There isn't just one "cloud". Amaozon has a clo...	[ "CloudBerry Backup and Managed Backup are solutions to automate the backup and recovery of files, folders, and system images. CloudBerry Backup is a standalone solution, while Managed Backup, a subscription SaaS offering for managed service providers and businesses, adds centralized administration, management, and ...
When did shushing people become an acceptable way to tell others to be quiet?	Your question really is more of a linguistics question than a historical one. There is a broad pattern across a large number of the world's languages to have an interjection signaling for someone to be quiet, and typically it follows a similar pattern. These sounds tend to come from a class called sibilants, which are ...	[ "McCullagh was not the pioneer of the 'Two Minutes Silence', as Newtownabbey author Bob Armstrong claimed in his publication \"Through The Ages To Newtownabbey\". According to \"The Belfast Telegraph\" at the time Sir Crawford called for a 'Five Minutes Silence' on 11 July 1916, following receiving news of the deat...
If all the energy that exists was all in one space at the moment of the big bang, wouldn't this create a bigass blackhole?	The Big Bang was not an explosion from a single point. It was an expansion of space itself. It helps to visualize the big bang not as an explosion from a single point, but an expansion of an already spatially infinite universe. You imagine black holes as being inescapable, but this is because you're not dealing with b...	[ "Initially, the explanation is easy. The black holes transfer energy to gas and stars between them, ejecting matter at high speed via a gravitational slingshot and thereby losing energy. However, the volume of space subject to this effect shrinks as the orbits do, and when the black holes reach a separation of abou...
Why are countries generally split politically, economically, socially, etc. along North-South lines?	Is this really the case, or is it just chance that a few major examples you're aware of are this way? Could any historians shed some light on whether this phenomenon actually exists?	[ "The accuracy of the North–South divide has been challenged on a number of grounds. Firstly, differences in the political, economic and demographic make-up of countries tend to complicate the idea of a monolithic South. Globalization has also challenged the notion of two distinct economic spheres. Following the lib...
i heard diet soda with zero calories can still lead to weight gain. how?	This is an open question that has been puzzling researchers for 40-50 years. In very tightly controlled studies, in which measured portions of food are consumed, diet drinks are in fact associated with lower weight than sugar sweetened drinks. But only in the lab. As soon as you open the doors and let the subjects out ...	[ "Taxing soda can lead to a reduction in overall consumption, according to a scientific study published in the \"Archives of Internal Medicine\" in March 2010. The study found that a 10 percent tax on soda led to a 7 percent reduction in calories from soft drinks. These researchers believe that an 18 percent tax on ...
What was a common medieval peasant's relationship with the Church?	The Lateran IV council in 1215 mentioned in the first post /u/searocksandtrees provided is one of the more solid points we have in terms of providing information on church attendance among the poor, particularly the rural poor. The mandate of yearly attendance, confession, and eucharist probably means that most people ...	[ "One of the functions of churches from the Middle Ages was to register marriages, which was not obligatory. There was no state involvement in marriage and personal status, with these issues being adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts. During the Middle Ages marriages were arranged, sometimes as early as birth, and t...
What events lead to the transition of Britain from an absolute monarchy to the more democratic state we know today?	The most important point to understand about democracy in the United Kingdom is that it was granted rather than taken, but not in the way you might expect. The seemingly obvious answer is that kings gave power over to the people, but this is, as any British historian will tell you, not really correct. Rather, it was Pa...	[ "The twentieth century saw the abolition of several monarchies - some constitutionally or violently overthrown by revolution or by war, some disappearing as part of the process of decolonisation. By contrast, the restoration of monarchies has occurred rarely in modern times:\n", "An early example of the abolition...
are most natural remedies for everyday ailments placebo? do random roots or spices actually have powerful healing properties?	A good rule of thumb: If alternative medicine was proven to work, it would simply be called "medicine." For very minor aches and pains, it's possible some some herbal remedies are very, very mildly effective. For the most part, it's a combination of placebo and very mild positive effects.	[ "While herbal remedies are commonly used, a 2016 review found them to be no better than placebo. Saw palmetto extract from \"Serenoa repens\", while one of the most commonly used, is no better than placebo in both symptom relief and decreasing prostate size. Other herbal medicines include beta-sitosterol from \"Hyp...
Does heat from a spaceships engine radiate away in space?	Two of the important ways to shed heat in our atmosphere (conduction and convection) don't work in space. This leaves just a single heat transfer method: radiation. All objects emit electromagnetic radiation, with the amount (and wavelength) depending on the temperature of the object. So your spaceship does have a way...	[ "Spacecraft waste heat is ultimately rejected to space by radiator surfaces. Radiators can be of different forms, such as spacecraft structural panels, flat-plate radiators mounted to the side of the spacecraft, panels deployed after the spacecraft is on orbit, and droplets. \n", "Intentional aerobraking is achie...
Is an electrocardiogram sensing actual current or an electromagnetic field?	Dunno specifics about ECG, but a changing EM field will drive the electrons already present in a conductor to move. This is pretty much how anything wireless works, like Radio, etc. The next step is to amplify it and then filter the raw current into the specific signal range you want to 'hear'.	[ "In comparison to the electric signals, which are influenced by the differently conductive tissue of the body and varying resistance of the skin before they can be recorded, the magnetic signals travel through the body almost without disturbance. The differences in the electric potentials, that are recorded by the ...
if i was traveling towards a star at a really high speed, would i see it's history unfold before my eyes?	Les say you travel to a star 100 light years away. When you launch your space ship, the light you see is 100 years old so you’re looking g at the star as it was 100 years ago. Let’s call that T zero for reference. So you’re launching at T 100 Let’s say you travel at 50% the speed of light. After 100 years, at T 200, y...	[ "The problems involved are not always so trivial. Special relativity predicts that an observer in an inertial reference frame doesn't see objects he would describe as moving faster than the speed of light. However, in the non-inertial reference frame of Earth, treating a spot on the Earth as a fixed point, the star...
why are airplane seats and the space between them so small and getting smaller. are there regulations the cover this?	Not really. The two driving factors are the airlines wanting more and more seats, and passengers refusing to fly if it becomes too uncomfortable. People still fly even if they complain about it to everyone, or they will pay for larger, business class/exit row seating.	[ "Depending on how the airline configures the aircraft, the size and seat pitch of the airline seats will vary significantly. For example, aircraft scheduled for shorter flights are often configured at a higher seat density than long-haul aircraft. Due to current economic pressures on the airline industry, high seat...
Has there ever been a republican or democratic nomination that was decided by super delegates that went AGAINST the popular vote?	The biggest reason we have the current system of binding primaries and caucuses is because the 1968 Democratic nomination process was a total balagan. We have a sitting Democratic president running for reelection--one who's even done quite good stuff in his Great Society Program and on the Civil Rights front, but whos...	[ "In the first close presidential election since the 1812 election, four major candidates ran, all of whom were members of the Democratic-Republican Party. The Democratic-Republicans had largely been successful in fielding only one presidential candidate in previous elections (except in 1812), but the breakdown of t...
car related terms such as...	Liter is a unit of volume, like a gallon. The more liters an engine has the bigger it is, which means it has more power, but uses more gas. Torque is a unit of force. You can think of it as like the strength of car. A high torque vehicle, like a strong person, can carry a lot of weight without straining. Horsepower i...	[ "The word \"automobile\" is a classical compound derived from the Ancient Greek word \"autós\" (αὐτός), meaning \"self\", and the Latin word \"mobilis\", meaning \"movable\". It entered the English language from French, and was first adopted by the Automobile Club of Great Britain in 1897. Over time, the word \"aut...
How does grass provide enough nutrients for grazing animals, especially larger ones (like horses)?	> Why do herbivorous animals not meet these problems? The size of grazing animals is actually partly related to how low in nutrient content their diet is. They need a larger digestive system to effectively extract nutrients from it. Grazing animals and herbivores rely on certain bacteria, fungi, and protists in the...	[ "This grass provides a good graze for cattle and horses throughout most of the year. It does not tolerate overgrazing. Deer also graze the plant and the seed provides food for birds. The plant is also used for revegetation efforts on disturbed land such as mine spoils and roadsides. It is best grown in moist to wet...
how are we able to 'tune out' smells and sounds?	Your brain deems it unimportant. For example, your nose is always in your vision.	[ "Interesting sounds must have a fluidity and changeability that allows them to remain fresh to the ear. In computer music this subtle ingredient is bought at a high computational cost, both in terms of the number of items requiring detail in a score and in the amount of interpretive work the instruments must produc...
What is meant by the Quote "whilst most states have an army the prussian army has a state"?	The phrase is an observation that most of the kingdom's subjects either served in the army or fulfilled a role in maintaining it. The Prussian kingdom became highly militarized under the rule of Fredrick I and particularly his successor Fredrick II. During their reign, the Prussian army grew to number 200000 men out o...	[ "While the states issued their own decorations and some had their own armies, the military forces of the smaller ones were put under Prussian control. Those of the larger states, such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony, were coordinated along Prussian principles and would in wartime be controlled by the federal ...
what are nootropics doing to your brain when you take them? what happens if you start to take them routinely?	> What are nootropics doing to your brain when you take them? What happens if you start to take them routinely? Good questions, the main problem is that there are no solid answers to those questions. First of course it is overly broad; there are tons of different substances marketed as nootropics which likely have m...	[ "Neuroimaging has contributed to the identification of the neural components involved in drug reinstatement as well as drug-taking determinants such as the pharmokinetics, neurochemistry, and dose of the drug. The neuroimaging techniques used in non-human primates include positron emission tomography (PET), which u...
What did the english that peasants spoke in England around 1300/1400 sound like? I'm assuming most of the information historians have on language from that time comes from written documents, and it was mostly rich people who were able to write. Also spoken language is very different than written lan	Hi OP, English spoken during 1300/1400 is known as [Middle English](_URL_3_); prominent literary examples include [Sir Gawain and the Green Knight](_URL_5_), and [The Canterbury Tales](_URL_2_) by [Geoffrey Chaucer](_URL_4_) (1343–1400). Here are few posts discussing Middle English. I've indicated the ones tha...	[ "In 1603, George Owen provided a snapshot description of the language boundary and 'Little England beyond Wales', and provided an antiquarian account of the settlement of English speakers in southwest Wales. This provides the “traditional” view: that the area was cleared of native Welsh by the Norman invaders in th...
What was the importance of the Mexican dollar in international economics during the early 20th century?	They're actually referring to the Spanish dollar, which was a standard currency in many countries during the empire. Spain's American colonies produced upwards of 70% of the world silver supply for a long period in the 16th and 17th centuries, so this was a fairly sensible standard. After Mexican independence, Spain's ...	[ "Since 1954 and until 1971 the Mexican economy performed very consistently, averanging 6% GDP growth each year and 3% inflation rate, allowing the country to sustain an exchange rate of 12.50 pesos per US dollar for 22 years (1954-1976). This period, called the \"Mexican Economic Miracle\" and \"Stabilizing Develop...
If a monarch had an heir who died and that heir has a son and a brother - who has claim to the throne?	the son. the type of succession for european monarchies you have a target image of in your head is one where the legal right is traced by direct lineage (grandfather to father to son). There are exceptions to this rule (say the early history of the British isles) but those exceptions are outside of the target image y...	[ "Depending on the rules of the monarchy the heir presumptive might be the daughter of a monarch (if males take priority over females and the monarch has no sons), or the senior member of a collateral line (if the monarch is childless); the birth of a legitimate child to the monarch will displace the former heir pre...
Why did Europe colonize the Americas centuries before most of Africa, despite the latter being so much nearer?	To start I'd answer your question with another question. What is meant by "colonize". If we are refering to the deep and direct colonization of the Americas, then yes Europe did not colonize Africa in the same direct manner (at least initially). But if we refer to simply owning small plots of land and trading then Euro...	[ "The European colonization of the Americas by Christopher Columbus did not occur until 1492. However, two Papal bulls announced several decades before that event were designed to help ward off increasing Muslim invasions into Europe, which they believed would have an effect on the New World.\n", "In the Americas,...
what is the difference between an allele, a trait, and a variation?	There are certain regions on your DNA that code for proteins (and other stuff). These regions are called genes and have a specific location (the "locus") on the DNA. When the base sequence varies, these variations are called different alleles of that gene. A trait is just something that you observe in an Individual. It...	[ "An allele () is a variant form of a given gene. Sometimes, different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation. A notable example of this trait of color variation is Gregor Mendel's discovery that the white and purple flower colors in pea plants were the result of...
why is covid-19 so highly feared with 2,900 deaths, but not the flu which kills sometimes hundreds of thousands worldwide each year?	The flu kills about 1 in every 10,000 people that get it. COVID-19 kills 200 in every 10,000 it infects. People compare the general death tolls without putting it into context of how many got it. Also we are not done with this virus yet, it will spread and kill a lot more. There are strains of the flu that do kill ...	[ "The 2016 GTI report found a ten per cent decrease in the number of deaths from terrorism in 2015 resulted in 3,389 fewer deaths than 2014, a global total of 29,376 deaths made 2015 the second deadliest year on record.\n", "As of January 11, 2010, at least 13,837 deaths were attributed to the virus worldwide, and...
How realistic would it be to expect widespread wireless power transfer technology over the next several years?	If you want to hear a "yes this will definitely happen!" head over to r/singularity. But they don't have the same standards askscience does : )	[ "Also very long distance projects have already been realized with technological cooperation from ABB and Siemens – both shareholders of Dii; namely the 800 kV HVDC Xiangjiaba-Shanghai transmission system, which was commissioned by State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) in June 2010. The HVDC link is the most powerf...
Why do tank armaments have such unusual calibers?	While the USSR didn't use imperial measurements, its predecessor, the Russian Empire, did. In addition, the Empire often purchased weapons from abroad, which meant that the USSR ended up with a whole hodge-podge of old weapons and the tools to make them. For example, the T-34's F-34 gun can trace its lineage all the w...	[ "Modern main battle tanks or \"universal tanks\" incorporate recent advances in automotive, artillery, armour, and electronic technology to combine the best characteristics of the historic medium and heavy tanks into a single, all around type. They are also the most expensive to mass-produce. A main battle tank is ...
What actually happened to cause the Bosnian War, and what were some of the main events during the conflict?	The Bosnian War was part of a larger series of wars surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia, which included relatively large wars in Croatia and Kosovo, and smaller ones in Slovenia and Macedonia. The war in Bosnia actually didn't start until almost a year after the outbreak of war in Croatia, so it's necessary to look a...	[ "The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1 April 1992 and 14 December 1995. After popular pressure, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was asked by the United Nations to intervene in the Bosnian War after allegations of war crimes against civi...
how do our cheap electronic clocks automatically change time when it’s spring forward?	Did it automatically set its time? There are radio stations that broadcast the time is a format that can be easily deciphered by electronics. This allows clocks to automatically set the time and change to DST.	[ "A problem throughout the history of spring-driven clocks and watches is that the force (torque) provided by a spring is not constant, but diminishes as the spring unwinds (see graph). However, timepieces have to run at a constant rate in order to keep accurate time. Timekeeping mechanisms are never perfectly isoch...
I am a soldier who dies while on Crusade. How does my family find out?	> “He is dead, dead, and the world and everything that is sweet in the world is dead to me!” This was the reaction of St. Elisabeth of Thuringia when her husband, Ludwig IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, died during Emperor Frederick II’s crusade in 1227. In this case he didn’t actually die on the crusade, he died in Ital...	[ "After that battle the Prophet of God, asked his companions to go and to see if anyone was missing from their family's and clans. Each one returned accounting for all his family members. Then the Prophet spoke with tears in his eyes he said \"But I have lost my Beloved Julaybib, go and find him.\" They found his di...
why is the freeze response often under recognized when it comes to fight or flight?	People tend to think of "either/or" in situations. Programmers know about the "if/then/else" way of processing a situation. Freezing may be the "else". Thinking about sexual assault crimes makes me wonder if the "freeze" reaction is a form of mental flight. Imagine being in a situation where you cannot flee, and fighti...	[ "The fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS) was expanded to include all aversive/punishment stimuli, conditioned and unconditioned. Similarly, the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) was expanded to include all appetitive/reward stimuli. The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) was defined as a conflict system activated wh...
Why can't camera manufactures make a camera with the equivalent dynamic range of the human eye?	As others have said, there is a lot of awesome things our visual processing system does beyond our eyes, and processing algorithms have a long way to go. In fact, the image quality from just our eyes is relatively low compared to our larger sensor camera systems, limited in resolution by around 1 arcminute or [2800 LW...	[ "Few subminiature cameras have interchangeable lenses, which reduce the advantages of a small size system. Telephoto lenses for such small formats essentially do not exist, except for Steky and Gami. There have been attachments to allow cameras (generally Minox) to attach to telescopes or binoculars, but these give...
why has no one claimed the piece of unclaimed territory between egypt and sudan?	Because it's basically wasteland desert.	[ "Although both countries continued to lay claim to the land, joint control of the area remained in effect until 1992, when Egypt objected to Sudan’s granting of exploration rights for the waters off the Triangle to a Canadian oil company. Negotiations began, but the company pulled out of the deal until sovereignty ...
How was the idea of a black hole derived?	Way before Einstein was even born, Mitchell and Laplace independently proposed solutions for what we would call a Newtonian black hole. _URL_0_ Really you can find the solution for this type of black hole quite easily. Kinetic + Potential = 0 (1/2)mv^2 - GMm/R = 0 Solve for R = 2GM/v^2 is the escape velocity eq...	[ "Hawking had earlier speculated that the singularity at the centre of a black hole could form a bridge to a \"baby universe\", into which the lost information could pass; such theories have been very popular in science fiction. But according to Hawking's new idea, presented at the 17th International Conference on G...
Has any nation ever peacefully transitioned from authoritarian to democratic rule?	I would call the transition of many former Eastern Bloc countries a peaceful transition from authoritarian to democratic rule. Poland in particular comes to mind, as Poland is very much democratic and successful in the decades since the collapse of the USSR, despite having formerly been under one despotic state or anot...	[ "Following the death of military dictator and \"de facto\" ruler of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha in 1998, his successor General Abdusalami Abubakar initiated the transition which heralded Nigeria's return to democratic rule in 1999. The ban on political activities was lifted, and political prisoners were released f...
In WWII, what was the difference between joining the United States Navy vs the United States Naval Reserve?	Mostly for your purposes the distinction is from the commissioning source. By and large with a few exceptions all those ROTC, V-12 and earlier V-7 College Program, and V-5 Aviation Cadet programs were producing Ensigns with Reserve commissions. It was understood that the Navy wouldnt need this many officers forever a...	[ "After the end of World War II, the organization of the United States armed forces was reviewed with a view toward reorganization after the turbulent war years. On December 1, 1947, under a reorganization act of the armed forces approved by Congress, the unified combatant command, United States Atlantic Command, wa...
Why weren't shields used during the musket era?	Those early guns were usually very heavy and were definitely two-hand weapons. The idea of the shield wall only works if you have a free hand for the shield and then a free hand for a sword or a spear. So you'd have to have a big heavy gun, all of your paper, powder, reloading tools, probably a little knife or other ...	[ "Often shields were decorated with a painted pattern or an animal representation to show their army or clan. These designs developed into systematized heraldic devices during the High Middle Ages for purposes of battlefield identification. Even after the introduction of gunpowder and firearms to the battlefield, sh...
Why were all of the Arab states caught so off guard by Israel during the 6 Day War?	As is often the case in these situations, a number of small factors compounded into an astonishing result. Therefore, I need to note that the order in which I discuss them does not necessarily reflect their order of importance. First of all, it needs to be said that the Israelis worked very hard for their success. Pre...	[ "Jordan signed a military pact with Egypt just before Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egypt to begin the Six-Day War in June 1967, where Jordan and Syria joined the war. The Arab states were defeated and Jordan lost control of the West Bank to Israel. The War of Attrition with Israel followed, which included...
what is the whole story with the syrian refugees in the news?	Basically, due to the Syrian civil war nearly 11 milion people have been displaced. Many of those settled in neighboring countries like Turkey, Egypt and Libya. The problem is that those countries have become unsafe for refugees. The new Egyptian government is hostile to the refugees and is forcing them on to Libya, h...	[ "In mid 2012, when the peace plan failed and the UN for the first time officially proclaimed Syria to be in a state of civil war, the number of registered refugees increased to more than 110,000. Over 2 days in July, 19,000 Syrians fled from Damascus into Lebanon, as violence inside the city escalated. The first Sy...
Is it Anglo-centric to call Richard the Lionheart, English and not French, since he held titles in both countries, but lived almost all of his life in France?	This is a tricky question, precisely because questions of identity are difficult to tackle, and how we label individuals in hindsight often clashes with how that same person might have understood themselves in the context in which they lived. Honestly, I am not convinced that Richard would have called himself a French...	[ "Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter), King of England, is taken captive in 1191 by Leopold V, Duke of Austria while returning from the Holy Land. Richard’s treacherous brother Prince John (Claude Rains) usurps the throne and proceeds to oppress the Saxons, raising taxes to secure his own position.\n", "Richard the...
why do some of my mosquito bites only last a day while others become huge and last for a week?	If you want to get rid of the itchiness, I'd make a nail mark on the bite and put some water over it. It does help with the tiny moderate ones, but big ones....not really.	[ "A mosquito's period of feeding is often undetected; the bite only becomes apparent because of the immune reaction it provokes. When a mosquito bites a human, it injects saliva and anti-coagulants. For any given individual, with the initial bite there is no reaction but with subsequent bites the body's immune syste...
Can an ion be covalently bonded?	A bond is a bond. It's a mutual attraction of nuclei based on a combination of electrostatic attraction (positive and negative want to kiss and play) and electron-sharing (covalency) to satisfy quantum mechanical principles (Pauli exclusion principle, the octet rule, etc.) that want electrons occupying low-energy orbit...	[ "In a polar covalent bond, one or more electrons are unequally shared between two nuclei. Covalent bonds often result in the formation of small collections of better-connected atoms called molecules, which in solids and liquids are bound to other molecules by forces that are often much weaker than the covalent bond...
If substances are metabolized based on a half-life, do they ever leave our system after we ingest them?	Yes, because you can't "halve" forever. Eventually you get down to a handlful of molecules, and then things become stochastic. e.g. when you have one molecule left in your blood stream, you either excrete/metabolize it, or you don't.	[ "BULLET::::- Pharmacology and toxicology: It is found that many administered substances are distributed and metabolized (see \"clearance\") according to exponential decay patterns. The biological half-lives \"alpha half-life\" and \"beta half-life\" of a substance measure how quickly a substance is distributed and ...
Was the US school system designed specifically to produce semi-skilled laborers?	I apologize as this is not a historical analysis of the education system. However, I believe the assertion, "The US school system was designed to churn out factory workers," is most likely referencing [John Gatto](_URL_1_)'s [The Underground History of American Education](_URL_2_). If I recall correctly (and it has b...	[ "Many manual labor colleges were established in the 1830s, and several served African-American students. Publicly-funded schools (public schools) above the elementary level generally came decades later.\n", "Adult education institutions in the early 1990s included \"factory colleges\", which teach workers new ski...
why in the christmas song "it's the most wonderful time of the year" do they talk about telling " scary ghost stories?"	I'm not too sure but maybe it is because of the famous novel by Charles Dickens; A Christmas Carol, in which the main character Ebaneezar Scrooge is haunted by 3 ghosts. These ghost show him the error of his ways and how he should be kind on Christmas	[ "A number of reviewers had a problem with \"Do They Know It's Christmas?\" being set in a homeless shelter; both Hyman and West called it an \"odd choice\", and Slezak said he \"struggled\" with the location. Chaney called the lyrics \"condescending\", and found the juxtaposition of the singers' smiling faces and t...
when my ears ring, what am i actually hearing?	We have 2 types of hair cells in our ear. One is in the inner ear's liquid, and the other is in the "outer" ear touching the air. Now only the hair cells that are touching the air directly are capable of producing vibrations. Our ear isn't always perfect, so sometimes the sensitivity of the hair cells is amplified and ...	[ "In an interview with Los Angeles magazine, he revealed, \"I’m 80 percent deaf in my left ear. People trip out on that. I was born that way, so I just roll with it. But if you listen to the records in your headphones or your car stereo, I tend to pan my favorite instruments to the right because that’s what I can he...
what did bill gates actually do for computers/computing?	Microsoft didn't exactly make something groundbreaking, they made something adequate which was at the right place at the right time and was promoted very effectively. MSDOS and later Windows rode the coat-tails of the adoption of IBM-compatible PCs. When IBM allowed multiple producers to license their technology to ma...	[ "In December 1974 Bill Gates was a student at Harvard University and Paul Allen worked for Honeywell in Boston. They saw the Altair 8800 computer in the January 1975 issue of \"Popular Electronics\" and knew it was powerful enough to support a BASIC interpreter. They wanted to be the first to offer BASIC for the Al...
If Cancer is just the overgrowth of cells, what is it that is so deadly about it?	It depends on what type of cancer it is. Mainly the cancer is non-functional cells that spread and takes over the space of normal functioning cells. Also, it can secrete hormones that can cause problems. Basically without our normal functioning cells that get taken over by the cancer cells, we can't live. Cancer ca...	[ "Cancer can be seen as a disturbance in the homeostatic balance between cell growth and cell death. Over-expression of anti-apoptotic genes, and under-expression of pro-apoptotic genes, can result in the lack of cell death that is characteristic of cancer. An example can be seen in lymphomas. The over-expression of...
how can i hear the sound that woke me up?	Your brain is processing sound while you sleep, that's why sound can wake you up. Doesn't matter if you're conscious of it or not, playing back sensory input on a delay is something your brain does automatically whenever you look around or watch a video (we never actually figured out how to sync audio and video)	[ "At 1:00 a.m., Jennie was again awakened by a sound of an object hitting the house's roof with a loud bang, then a rolling noise. After hearing nothing further, she went back to sleep. After another half hour she woke up again, smelling smoke. When she got up again she found that the room George used for his office...
You always hear of negative mutations in genes that can make people disfigured or can be otherwise fatal; Are there any positive mutations a person can have?	Absolutely. One of the most well-studied beneficial human mutations is a mutation in a region upstream of the human LCT gene. The LCT gene encodes the enzyme lactase which is responsible for breaking down lactose, the sugar found in milk. For most of human history, we made lactase for the first few years of life (...	[ "Although a single dose of any gene may not cause substantial harm to the individual, the genetic imbalance resulting from a single dose of many genes at the same time can be lethal. Humans, for example, cannot survive, even as heterozygotes, with deletions that remove more than about 3% of any part of their haploi...
why does quitting smoking make you irritable?	When you smoke, you get a burst of energy and relaxing chemicals because of the nicotine (the big part of cigarettes). Your body gets used to it, so it stops making extra things that give you extra energy or relaxing chemicals. It thinks that, like food and water and oxygen, you're going to keep giving it the nicotine,...	[ "His contention was that fear of \"giving up\" is what causes the majority of smokers to continue smoking, thereby necessitating the smoker's perpetuation of the illusion of genuine enjoyment as a moral justification of the inherent absurdity of smoking in the face of overwhelming medical and scientific evidence of...
why do computers start to slow down when they run out of hard drive storage?	Because they write to the hard drive when processing data. When space on the drive becomes harder to find, the disk has to spin more, and that takes longer. Which is why this doesn't happen so much with solid state drives	[ "It was eventually determined that these size limitations could be overridden with a tiny program loaded at startup from a hard drive's boot sector. Some hard drive manufacturers, such as Western Digital, started including these override utilities with new large hard drives to help overcome these problems. However,...
Did mainstream audiences in the 70s & 80s really not know Freddie Mercury was gay (/bi)?	Broadly speaking, the English press played a big role in creating early perceptions of Queen, and they saw Queen as copyists trying to follow Led Zeppelin's path (both musically and career-wise), who seemed to have a lot of financial backing. Said Nick Kent in a scathing 1974 review of their self-titled album: > ......	[ "Freddie Mercury, the lead vocalist of Queen, was widely considered a gay icon, with his LGBT fanbase growing by the 1980s. Although Freddie Mercury never revealed his sexuality publicly (even when events made it seem inevitable), he often \"playfully alluded to his queerness with his flamboyant, high-camp stage an...
why are weddings so expensive?	Weddings cost a ton. You can keep it under five grand depending on the size of the wedding and what you're including in the festivities, but here's a list of things to spend money on... * Renting the venue * Catering (usually a HUGE chunk of change) * Alchohol * Music * Photographer(s) * Limousine(s) * Flowers/Deco...	[ "Wedding receptions are often the time when couples want to ensure their family and guests will be entertained, and a variety of options such as disc jockeys, live bands, professional dancers such as ballroom dancers or belly dancers, fire artists and even comedians are brought in to heighten the festivities and ma...
Can we estimate what the highest surface air temperature could have been during the historically warmer periods, e.g. during Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum?	I would like to know what to expect in the coming years, when the average global temperature goes up by 1-1.5°C or more...	[ "The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was on July 10, 1913, at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek), which is the highest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth. A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate. During the heat...
How interested were 8-10th century English kings in the Roman ruins and leftovers that were still there?	This question has been asked before but never got any responses from an expert on the period. My own knowledge ends around ~700, but I think it will be still be relevant, since in the seventh century anyone who was anyone knew about the Romans - I see no reason why this would change later, especially as contact with th...	[ "The site listing in Historic England notes that excavations in the 19th century and in 1975 revealed the remains of a Roman occupation dating to the fourth century AD, underlying the motte. Driffield 19th century archaeologist John Robert Mortimer noted fragments of medieval swords, spears and silver coins. A refe...
How did medieval authorities investigate crimes in large cities?	You need to be specific. The middle ages lasted for roughly 1000 years and Europe is a big place with a LOT of differences in culture throughout its regions.	[ "The criminal Lords of the Night courts are mentioned as early as the 12th century, first as two, finally as six nobles, one for each district (\"sestiere\") of Venice since 1260. Their name is derived from the initial responsibility of monitoring what was happening throughout the city during the night. In short, t...
is 'race' a scientifically accurate term to use, given humans have only one species and there are no taxonomic differences amongst them?	The answer is no. Race is a social construct which doesn't exist in the physical world. The idea of race as more than a cultural concept is pretty much rejected scientifically. Here's the American Anthropological Association's [statement on race](_URL_2_). America's last President had a "white" mother and a "black" fa...	[ "The term \"race\" in biology is used with caution because it can be ambiguous. Generally, when it is used it is effectively a synonym of \"subspecies\". (For animals, the only taxonomic unit below the species level is usually the subspecies; there are narrower infraspecific ranks in botany, and \"race\" does not c...
How did the apparent US interengration of religious conservatism and economic conservatism come about?	Part 1 Just at the start, I am biased towards the free-market perspective. I'm going to try to give an account of both sides, though what I say on the socialist side is biased towards what I think the strongest arguments are. I'm then going to give an account of some influential American economist views on this. B...	[ "Prior to the emergence of the theory of religious economy some scholars of religion, such as Steve Bruce, believed that modernization would lead inevitably to the erosion of religiosity. These sociologists have predicted the disappearance of religion from Earth, based on the decline in religious belief and observa...
[Early 20thC] The Failure of American Socialism	There is no simple answer here. Many will argue that simple state repression, in the form of strike breaking, red scares, and similar tactics had the effect of marginalizing the left. They are correct. Many still will argue that programs like unemployment insurance, worker's compensation, and most of the New Deal p...	[ "The coming of the Great Depression ushered in radically different ideas of social engineering, culminating in reforms introduced by the New Deal. By late 1932, various groups across the United States were calling themselves \"technocrats\" and proposing reforms.\n", "Between 1933 and 1939, federal expenditure tr...
How does distillation work?	Distillation is a process where liquids can be separated depending on their boiling points. In a generic distillation setup you have a flask to hold your mixture of liquids over some heating source (often I use a round bottom flask in a heating block placed on a electric heat plate). Attached to this is your distillati...	[ "Distillation is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation. Distillation may result in essentially complete separation (nearly pure components), or it may be a partial separation that increases the concentration of selected components in...
If Rayleigh scattering is responsible for the sky being blue, why is the atmosphere as seen from space still blue?	They get scattered at much lower angles. In particular, they make the sun look yellow/orange/red when it is actually white, because the blue gets scattered away (covering the rest of the sky) and the reddish hues do not. The non blue photons do survive, but because they didn't get scattered at large angles they don'...	[ "When radiation is scattered (the phenomena that makes the sky appear blue) or when the fraction of molecules in an excited state is not determined by the Boltzmann distribution (and LTE doesn't exist), more complicated equations are required. For example, scattering from clear skies reflects about 32 W/m (about 13...
why is female ejaculation banned in porn in the uk? (maybe nsfw)	Because they deny its existence. They argue it is in reality women urinating (why that would be banned is another good question). It's pure bullshit.	[ "Starting in January 2010, customs officials have been directed by Australian federal government censors to confiscate any porn depicting female ejaculation. Such content has been deemed to be \"golden showers\" (an act of urinating on one's partner). However Fiona Patten, leader of the Australian Sex Party has sta...
why can websites not track my location better?	Pretty much the only thing the site knows about where you're connecting from is your IP address. That tells them which company is your ISP, which will often narrow it down to the right city for a broadband connection. For a mobile you could be pretty much anywhere in the country. It's possible for the site to ask your...	[ "The \"Frequent Locations\" feature found in \"Settings\" under \"Location Services\" stores commonly visited locations locally on the device. This feature is said to help the accuracy of the GPS and Apple Maps since it can log information about the locations the user has frequently visited. However, this feature a...
It seems like many, if not most, religions in history revere the sun in some fashion. Were there ever any cultures, perhaps in hot climates, that viewed the sun as an enemy?	This may be a question better suited for /r/askanthropology	[ "The Sun has been an object of veneration in many cultures throughout human history. Humanity's most fundamental understanding of the Sun is as the luminous disk in the sky, whose presence above the horizon creates day and whose absence causes night. In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Sun was thought to ...
how come spinning objects appear to change direction if you look at them for a long time?	I'm assuming you mean gifs like [this](_URL_1_), which is referred to as bistable perception. The human visual system has evolved to construct a reasonable mental image of the world with a limited amount of information, and it uses a huge array of assumptions to do so. Normally, these assumptions are valid, and the...	[ "The same effect occurs if the object is viewed at 59 flashes per second, except that each flash illuminates it a little later in its rotational cycle and so, the object will seem to be rotating forwards.\n", "If the same rotating object is viewed at 61 flashes per second, each flash will illuminate it at a sligh...
How was suicide perceived among members of Europe's Royal Families?	I don't know much about the subject, but here's an incident which might be of your interest. _URL_0_ Basically, the son and heir of the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, called Rudolph, killed himself after he and his father got into a fight about Rudolph's mistress. They first told the world he had had a hea...	[ "By the 19th-century, the act of suicide had shifted from being viewed as caused by sin to being caused by insanity in Europe. Although suicide remained illegal during this period, it increasingly became the target of satirical comments, such as the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera \"The Mikado\" that satirized the...
Why is the extinction of the dodo so famous?	The dodo was limited to one small island in the Indian Ocean. It essentially demonstrated how birds and other animals will evolve to suit their surroundings. The dodo was enormous and a great source of food, but it had no natural predators on Mauritius. A turkey, by comparison, has a lot of predators, so it learns habi...	[ "The dodo, and its extinction, was more typical of the extinctions of pigeons in the past. Like many species that colonise remote islands with few predators, it lost much of its predator avoidance behaviour, along with its ability to fly. The arrival of people, along with a suite of other introduced species such as...
why are heterosexual females more attracted to their own sex than heterosexual males are attracted to theirs?	Well hello there ELI5 question that a little bit of ART HISTORY and good old fashion TIME can answer! Also it's just a bit of a theory, but check it out-- Back in the day, rich people loved oil paintings. They were a sign of wealth, which they loved to remind everyone they had. But having an oil painting of some every...	[ "Several studies comparing bisexuals with hetero- or homosexuals have indicated that bisexuals have higher rates of sexual activity, fantasy or erotic interest. Van Wyk and Geist found that male and female bisexuals had more sexual fantasy than heterosexuals. Dixon found that bisexual men had more sexual activities...
A while back on NPR I heard that there are different Capsaicinoids that give different heat profiles to hot peppers. Could someone elaborate on this?	Chillies synthesise a number capsaicinoid chemicals, 5 of which are naturally occurring. Largely they differ by the length of the aliphatic tail. Capsaicin is the most abundant with a Scoville rating of around 16 million and Homocapsaicin is the least abundant with a Scoville rating about half that of Capsaicin. _URL_...	[ "Capsinoids, which include capsiate, dihydrocapsiate, and nordihydrocapsiate, are substances naturally present in chili peppers. Although they are structurally similar to capsaicin, the substance that causes pungency in hot peppers, they largely lack that characteristic. Capsinoids have an estimated \"hot taste thr...
why does heat make objects shrink?	Heat technically makes most things (especially gasses and most metals) expand. There is a lot of complicated physics that go into thermoplasticity and why things move and change shape when heated (some larger some smaller). Most commonly its because it forces out the water (like when cooking) which makes things sort o...	[ "Most materials expand when heated and shrink when cooled. Enveloping parts are heated (e.g., with torches or gas ovens) and assembled into position while hot, then allowed to cool and contract back to their former size, except for the compression that results from each interfering with the other. This is also refe...
why do lawn mowers need metal blades to cut through grass when most weed eaters use plastic wire?	Keep in mind that the little plastic things on a weed whacker don't last that long & need to be replaced. It would be much harder to replace the blades on a lawn mower. Longevity is most likely the reason. Lawn mower blades span the life of the mower. Plus they'd probably say that you have a better chance of hitt...	[ "Special mulching blades are available for rotary mowers. The blade is designed to keep the clippings circulating underneath the mower until the clippings are chopped quite small. Other designs have twin blades to mulch the clippings to small pieces. This function has the advantages of forgoing the additional work ...
In what ways did Marx and Engels not agree?	Marx and Engels were collaborators, but many phrases and key Marxian terminology that are wrongly attributed to Marx were actually coined by Engels, such as the infamous phrase "dialectical materialism", particularly in his work Dialectics of Nature from 1883. (The actual term employed by Engels is materialist dialec...	[ "But Marx and Engels would become well known for their fickle and pugnacious approach to fellow socialists who showed insufficient agreement with their own form of socialism. By the late 1840s, they had fallen out with Hess. They mocked him, first behind his back and later openly. The work of Hess was also criticiz...
how does camouflage actually work at the cellular level?	The cell doesnt change chemistry. It changes shape. There's cells of various colors, and certain muscle groups that push cells of the same color groups to the surface of the skin. Push red ones closer to translucent skin and you'll appear more red. Push yellow ones and you'll be more yellow.	[ "\"Active camouflage\" (or \"adaptive camouflage\") is a group of camouflage technologies which would allow an object (usually military in nature) to blend into its surroundings by use of panels or coatings capable of changing color or luminosity. Active camouflage can be seen as having the potential to become the ...
how does 'doping' improve performance in sports ?	Doping like allows for high performance from a variety of factors. 1) he increased the amount of red blood cells in his body. This allows for more oxygen to be delivered the the muscles. This prevents the build up of lactic acid as well as improves recovery time. 2)when people use things like HGH it allows them t...	[ "Much research in sports psychology and sports medicine is motivated by the needs of elite rather than mass athletes. Doping in sport is more common at elite levels, and research into performance-enhancing substances has been fuelled by the drive for success.\n", "The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport h...
why is it that for some people using the same deodorant after a while it stops being effective?	The cause for odor from your armpits has more to do with the bacteria living there than your own body. If the fauna in your pits change, you may have to change your deodorant as well. I had to change deodorants around puberty, but it was because my skin under my arms became very sensitive and now I have to use hypoal...	[ "A deodorant is a substance applied to the body to prevent or mask (hide) body odor due to bacterial breakdown of perspiration in the armpits, groin, and feet, and in some cases vaginal secretions. A subclass of deodorants, called antiperspirants, prevents sweating itself, typically by blocking sweat glands. Antipe...
Is there evidence for a pre-historic European cult of the bear?	The idea of a circumpolar bear cult was given early expression by Irving Hallowell, Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere. American Anthropologist 28, 1926. See [this site](_URL_0_), for example. One needs to be careful about interpreting nineteenth-century and twentieth-century ethnographic evidence of an expa...	[ "The existence of an ancient bear cult among Neanderthals in the Middle Paleolithic period has been a topic of discussion spurred by archaeological findings (Wunn, 2000, p. 434-435). Ancient bear bones have been discovered in several different caves and their peculiar arrangement are believed by some archaeologists...
why does bothering teeth/ gum soreness make it hurt so good and feel "better"	When in pain, you brain releases endorphins to make it feel a bit better. That's why you feel a mix of pain and pleasure.	[ "The teeth and gums exhibit normal sensations in health. Such sensations are generally sharp, lasting as long as the stimulus. There is a continuous spectrum from physiologic sensation to pain in disease. Pain is an unpleasant sensation caused by intense or damaging events. In a toothache, nerves are stimulated by ...
So there is a giant frozen area on Pluto, does that mean there is water?	You can see what we know about Pluto's geology so far [here](_URL_0_). Basically the outer surface of Pluto is almost entirely frozen nitrogen with some frozen methane and frozen carbon monoxide. We believe that there is a significant layer of frozen water ice inside Pluto. Of course, the data from New Horizons wi...	[ "The ice composing the basin is thought to consist primarily of nitrogen ice, with smaller fractions of carbon monoxide and methane ice, although relative proportions are uncertain. At Pluto's ambient temperature of , nitrogen and carbon monoxide ices are denser and much less rigid than water ice, making glacial-li...
Pyramids of Giza	There is no solid evidence that I've ever come across while studying history that shows that any slaves were responsible for any large egyptian project, including the pyramids. Slaves were mostly kept in Egypt for more servantile tasks; building great constructs was mostly seen as an honor and done by precisely skille...	[ "The Pyramids are three pyramid-shaped office buildings that are part of a commercial development in College Park, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. The structures occupy of land situated next to a lake. They were constructed between 1967 and 1972 by the College Life Insurance Company (now part of Americo Life, Inc.) usi...
the eucharist	There isn't a belief that the wine is becoming a different substance, but rather that the wine becomes the essence of Jesus' blood. That is, it literally becomes the blood of Christ, but does not change in appearance or any other physical property. This is why it's transubstantiation and not transmutation. The *substan...	[ "The Eucharist is at the center of Orthodox Christianity. In practice, it is the partaking of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the midst of the Divine Liturgy with the rest of the church. The bread and wine are believed to become the genuine Body and Blood of the Christ Jesus through the operation of the Holy ...
. how often do we really need to shower?	Twice a week. Also on days with intense exercise or if someone is going near your fun bits. Everyday is just silly.	[ "Shower usage in the latter half of the 20th century skyrocketed. Personal hygiene became a primary concern, and bathing every day or multiple times a day is common among Western cultures. Showering is generally faster than bathing and can use less water. In an average home, showers are typically the third largest ...
in bars and restaurants, tvs that are playing the same thing, how are some timed perfectly while others playing the same thing could be as much as like 7 seconds delayed.	Digital TVs have to decode a digital signal and then render it for the screen/speakers. Some TVs process faster than others.	[ "In the first three episodes, Fast Play was played in two halves, with the school bell ringing twice. In the first half answers were worth one point and doubled after the bell rang the first time. Also, if a contestant buzzed in with an incorrect guess the opponent got to see the entire clip from the beginning agai...
why do laptops use mwh instead of mah?	All phones use single 3.7V lithium ion cells. Laptops often use multiple cells in series so they can have voltages other than just 3.7V. Listing in mAh for phones is fair since everything runs at the same voltage but listing in mAh for laptops would have deceptive results. Which is better a 15000 mAh battery or an 1...	[ "Despite criticisms, the Carmel platform won quick acceptance among OEMs and consumers. Carmel could attain or exceed the performance of older Pentium 4-M platforms, while allowing for laptops to operate for 4 to 5 hours on a 48 W-h battery. Carmel also allowed laptop manufacturers to create thinner and lighter lap...
how do accountancy firms (like kpmg, ey, pwc & deloitte) work?	Most of those large firms have 3 core businesses. Audit, consulting and tax. Consulting is about looking at businesses problems in companies and helping those companies fix those problems. Setting up payroll for 5,000 employees, consulting can help with that. Need to decide if it makes sense to expand to a new terr...	[ "Habif Arogeti and Wynne LLP (also known as HA&W) is the largest accountancy firm in Georgia and one of the 100 biggest accounting firms in the United States. Isaac Habif and Jimmy Arogeti created the firm in 1952, later joined by Merrill Wynne. The company specializes in asset management, employee benefits, financ...
how is road data stored in a gps? whats the database structure?	I'm no expert on GPS databases particularly, but I have studied computational data structures so I can probably give a slightly helpful answer. I suspect that the roads and intersections in GPS systems are represented as a data structure called a graph. This isn't like a graph where you plot a line or something, but in...	[ "A map database represents a road network along with associated features. Map providers can choose various models of a road network as a basis to formulate a database. Commonly, such a model comprises basic elements (nodes, links and areas) of the road network and properties of those elements (location coordinates,...
why do romanizations of languages with non-latin alphabets include things like silent letters that make the pronunciation kind of cryptic?	What do you mean by this? Most languages are written far more phonetically than English, English is one of the least consistent with regards to how spelling maps to pronunciation. But there are many, many sounds in language, and no one language contains them all. For example, there are some sounds that exist in Chi...	[ "Whilst the Romanization of such languages is used mostly at unofficial levels, it has been especially prominent in computer messaging where only the limited 7-bit ASCII code is available on older systems. However, with the introduction of Unicode, Romanization is now becoming less necessary. Note that keyboards us...
regression analysis	Let me whip out my textbook. Took this last spring semester but I don't remember much specifically. 1. Regression Analysis is used for correlation between two sets of data. In ELI5 terms it's like an experiment to see if one occurrence could be related to another. The example my book uses is sales calls and copiers...	[ "The regression analysis approach is based on estimations through extrapolation or interpolation where there is a cause-and-effect relationship found by data fitting. These trends tend to be phenomenological.\n", "Regression analysis may be used when the analyst is trying to determine the extent to which independ...
if you ate two pounds of food, but that two pounds was only a thousand calories, why or why wouldn't you gain two pounds?	You would gain that weight temporarily, for sure, just because of the mass of the food you ate. Over the next couple days, though, as the mass was excreted, you'd lose the couple of pounds and probably a bit more since you only ate a thousand calories. The calories are what gets stored, not the non-nutritive mass of th...	[ "A commonly asserted \"rule\" for weight gain or loss is based on the assumption that one pound of human fat tissue contains about 3,500 kilocalories (often simply called \"calories\" in the field of nutrition). Thus, eating 500 fewer calories than one needs per day should result in a loss of about a pound per week...
What happened to Napoleon's aristocracy after he fell? Was there a clash between Napoleon's aristocracy and the old aristocracy when Louis the 18th came to power?	Although the Bourbon Restoration engaged in a degree of purging and score settling, the Napoleonic nobility emerged out 1815 largely intact, albeit often demoted in status. Most of the Bourbon’s ire was directed at the apex of the Napoleonic aristocracy, the Princes and Dukes of the Empire. As with the Napoleonic nobi...	[ "Ultimately, Napoleon was forced to abdicate in 1870 during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War. He was also the last Monarch of France until King Charles XI under the Action Francaise party restored the monarchy around 1930.\n", "When Napoléon I was deposed in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo, the House of Bourb...
How Were Elves Depicted Before Lord of the Rings?	Okay, in Scandinavian contexts, we don't have many depictions of álfar in manuscript illuminations, nor do we have many in textual remnants that are not Christianized quite a bit. Specifically, the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturlusson is our primary source for what we consider to be the 'classical' depiction of elves in I...	[ "The Three Rings were made by Celebrimbor after Sauron, in the guise of \"Annatar\", had left Eregion. These were free of Sauron's influence, as he did not have a hand in their making. However, they were still forged by Celebrimbor with the arts taught to him by Sauron and thus were still bound to the One Ring. Upo...
An article on an ancient penguin noted that the penguin weighed in at 223 lbs, how do scientists weigh ancient creatures like this?	It is based on scaling from the relationship between femur length and body mass in living penguins. > Based on published allometric equations (Table 1 in ref. 11) and a femur length of 161 mm, we calculate a weight of 101 kg and a body length of 1.77 m for K. biceae. [[Mayr et al. (2017)]](_URL_1_) The referen...	[ "With a height of 140 to 160 cm (about 5 ft) and weighing around 80 to possibly over 100 kg, it was the second-tallest penguin ever, surpassed only by \"Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi\" in height, but probably not in weight.\n", "The largest-known penguin of all time was \"Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi\" of New Zealan...
Has the US really been at war 222 out of 239 years since 1776?	Technically we haven't been at war since (WWII?). Only congress can declare war.	[ "Events from the year 1815 in the United States. As news slowly spread of the Treaty of Ghent (1814) ending the War of 1812, battles between American and British forces continued in the early months of the year.\n", "The official end to the American Revolutionary War did not occur until 1783 when the Treaty of Pa...
Did crabs and turtles/tortoise ever share a common ancestor?	If you go far enough back, all life had a common ancestor. In this case though, you have to go pretty darn far back. They're not even in the same phylum, so really the to get less you'd have to be looking at plants, fungi, mold, etc	[ "Initially considered to be an ancestral turtle due to its testudine-like head and large, bifurcated carapace. However further investigation resulted in its reclassification as a placodont, and it is closely related to other turtle-like reptiles of the Triassic period such as \"Henodus\" and \"Psephoderma\". Simila...
the differences between the various specialties within engineering.	They apply engineering processes to different parts of the system's design. Computer = processing hardware Software = code Mechanical = moving parts Electrical = circuits Civil = built structures Environmental = natural structures	[ "Some of engineering specialties are completely traditional, such as machine building, computer and software engineering, automation, electrical engineering, electronics. Newer specialties are engineering design, mechatronics, aviation engineering, industrial engineering.\n", "Most engineers specialize in one or ...
In the British army of the 18th and 19th centuries, could an officer be promoted on merit or did all promotions have to be purchased?	Hello! This is one of my PhD research questions so I am obliged to comment! Although purchasing commissions were very common in the 18th century in particular, what would also happen is a system of recommendations would be used whereby regimental commanders would look at the gaps in the ranks due to injury, peacet...	[ "Officers of the British army prior to the late 18th century were mainly recruited from a narrow segment of society, with a majority coming from the landed gentry and the aristocracy or often officers were from families with a military tradition. (This contrasted with the Navy, whose officers were more often from a...
How fair is it to hold historical figures to modern ethical standards?	We had a [recent thread about this](_URL_0_) and in my opinion what is mixed up here is the question of historical assessment and the question of which figures a contemporary society chooses to celebrate. As I wrote in that other thread concerning Dr. Seuss,wWhat I mean – and this is very much colored by my own sub ar...	[ "The Post-ethical Level: At this level, questions arise about one's view of the world and human nature, how we know anything to be true, and the meaning of life. Here there is a philosophical examination as to why ethical standards are important and relevant to the individual.\n", "His full ethical position was d...
why when i'm hungover do i not seem to want water/food even though i need it and will make me feel better?	To specifically address the lack of appetite, it's usually inflammation-related. Alcohol irritates the lining of the stomach and intestine. The brain takes those sensory signals and says "something's not right in the GI tract, let's not put anything else in there until we're sure everything is ok". Alcohol also affe...	[ "Meanwhile, the player must also cater to various survival game aspects as balancing hunger, thirst and fatigue, but also unusual ones such as urine and dirtiness. For nutrition, the player can buy food and can drink beverages from the store, drink water directly from faucets, fatigue can be restored by sleeping or...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.