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I know this question is asked a lot in other subreddits, but I want to hear it from here: what's the most interesting, thought provoking fact you know? | The Romans had tacky shot glasses shaped like gladiator helmets. | [
"Once, for example, he strode into our seminar room apparently deep in thought, then turned around and walked back out. We could hear him pacing up and down the hallway. Finally, he returned and apologized. \"I've been struggling to solve a puzzle\", he explained. \"I know it's not our topic for today, but I hope y... |
why does a dishwasher seem to slowly loose the ability to clean over a few years, but a washing machine works the about the same until it breaks? | You’re more likely to have food particles left on plates than you are to have dirt and debris on clothes. The food particles and other stuff likely caused a clogged filter. Your washing machine also has a filter FYI | [
"Washing machines perform several rinses after the main wash to remove most of the detergent. Modern washing machines use less water due to environmental concerns; however, this has led to the problem of poor rinsing on many washing machines on the market, which can be a problem to people who are sensitive to deter... |
How are quantum computers actually implemented? | In superconducting quantum computing one typically uses Josephson junctions (superconducting tunnel junctions) to make anharmonic resonators that act as qubits. Junctions are made by litography like classical CPUs. Such qubits are prepared by microwave pulses that correspond to rotations on the Bloch sphere. Entangleme... | [
"A quantum computer is a computation system that makes direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digi... |
how does sentience arise during gestation? | The fertilized egg has different genetic material than either parent, so at that point it would be considered a different living creature.
Your other questions are more social questions, insofar as the rights of the unborn are concerned, which don't have any objective answer. | [
"Electrical brain activity is first detected between the fifth and sixth week of gestation. It is considered primitive neural activity rather than the beginning of conscious thought. Synapses begin forming at 17 weeks, and begin to multiply quickly at week 28 until 3 to 4 months after birth.\n",
"Fertilization ma... |
why do 3d movies hurt my eyes? why do i have issues when others don't? what's going on with my vision? | I have a similar issue. I asked my eye doctor and was told that the astigmatism is what causes the headaches and such. Something to do with how the eyes shift to focus. I can't go to 3D movies because I get wicked headaches. | [
"There are two primary effects of 3D film that are unnatural for human vision: crosstalk between the eyes, caused by imperfect image separation, and the mismatch between convergence and accommodation, caused by the difference between an object's perceived position in front of or behind the screen and the real origi... |
Is it likely that our current model of fundamental particles is unadvanced? | It will grow; that's a near certainty. Pretty much any extension to the Standard Model includes new particles, and we know that the Standard Model has to be extended.
For one thing, it doesn't include gravity. This isn't a big deal in everyday life, but when energies get high enough - like they were right after the Bi... | [
"The currently accepted theory describing elementary particles and their interactions is known as the standard model of particle physics. This theory provides a unified description of three of the fundamental forces of nature: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Despite its remarkable success i... |
How did the astronauts that have landed on the moon manage the descent to and especially ascent from the surface? | The [command service module](_URL_3_) was inserted into orbit about the Moon, it didn't stay in one place.
The [lunar lander](_URL_1_) was equipped with at least one rocket propulsion system to slow the descent, and more engines were used to produce the thrust necessary to re-enter lunar orbit to rendezvous with the C... | [
"At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion 1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a \"go/no go\" decision, the crew was told... |
what is a luxury tax as it refers to sports teams? how does signing potential free agents possibly impose the tax on a team? | It is a sort of soft cap. A hard cap like football is you can’t spend more than x amount of money on player salary . A luxury tax is a soft because you can spend more than the cap but at a penalty. If you spend more than x amount of money you will have to pay a penalty of a certain percentage for every dollar you go ov... | [
"A luxury tax in professional sports is a surcharge put on the aggregate payroll of a team to the extent to which it exceeds a predetermined guideline level set by the league. The ostensible purpose of this \"tax\" is to prevent teams in major markets with high incomes from signing almost all of the more talented p... |
What would it be like to be on a planet in a Quasar galaxy. | I am in a group that studies quasar host galaxies. That is galaxies with a quasar in them. This is an active field so things are always changing but this answer will be my best guess considering current research.
Lets only consider disk galaxies. In that case most of the emission from the quasar will not get into the ... | [
"BULLET::::- 1991: The novel \"The Singers of Time\" by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson visits a parallel universe totally covered in Dyson Shells, where only the farthest quasars are visible (already covered, but the light from them is still traveling). They were constructed by a formerly biological race that sl... |
why do some martial artists yell in movies and at demonstrations? | There are many reasons. Exhaling tightens the diaphragm and tenses the body, making strikes more powerful and protects the body from counterstrikes. This is why UFC fighters always make that "tsss" sound whenever they throw a strike.
I am also fairly sure that yelling has to do with rituals used by martial artists to ... | [
"Martial arts films contain many characters who are martial artists and these roles are often played by actors who are real martial artists. If not, actors frequently train in preparation for their roles or the action director may rely more on stylized action or film making tricks like camera angles, editing, doubl... |
what do people mean when they blame the "older generation" for ruining housing and the economy? | In general, the baby boomer generation went to college, got married, bought houses and retired from companies they had worked for for many years. Millennials, on the other hand, generally haven't got the earning power to do that. They often graduate college in debt or skip college entirely, generally don't have long-te... | [
"The coming of age of this generation coincide with the economic downturn starting with the collapse of the stock market bubble in 2000. This led to rising unemployment until 2004, the same time this generation was entering the workforce after high school or college graduation. Additionally, in the new economy, whe... |
How does the Foucault Pendulum work if it is within Earth's atmosphere that is rotating along with Earth? | The Foucault pendulum has nothing to do with the atmosphere. The relevant forces are gravity, tension, and the **Coriolis force**.
The Coriolis force is simply due to the fact that the Earth is rotating, so a reference frame fixed with respect to a point on the surface of the Earth is non-inertial.
> then I should b... | [
"When a Foucault pendulum is suspended at the equator, the plane of oscillation remains fixed relative to Earth. At other latitudes, the plane of oscillation precesses relative to Earth, but more slowly than at the pole; the angular speed, \"ω\" (measured in clockwise degrees per sidereal day), is proportional to t... |
why do stripes look wonky on videos? | In real life, spots on a line can be anywhere they want.
In videos (assuming vertical lines on a 1080p video) each spot has only 1080 places it can possibly be. If the line is perfectly straight, they will line up nicely like that, but if not, the recording device will have to choose a spot to put each part of that l... | [
"Zebra patterning (or zebra stripes) is a feature found on some prosumer and most professional video cameras to aid in correct exposure. When enabled, areas of the image over a certain threshold are filled with a striped or cross-hatch pattern to dramatically highlight areas where too much light is falling on the i... |
in videogames, why is the animation of simple things so damn difficult( kissing, drinking water, playing an instrument, etc? | One of the difficulties with some of those things is that human bodies are soft and squishy.
Models in games are made up of lots of triangles. To make part of the model deform means moving and stretching those triangles. You need a lot of triangles to make it look convincing.
This is why there tends to be a lot more ... | [
"The player animations were created using a new animation process called Real Motion Control, which involved motion capture. Game designer Sam Player explained the concept behind this process: \"The reason everything always ends up looking choppy in [most motion capture] games is that the machines can't store all t... |
why don't we have jungle bears with green fur? | Mammals only have 2 types of pigment in fur/hair: eumelanin (black/brown) and pheomelanin (red/orange). Combinations of these pigments give a wide range of colors, from black to light brown to auburn to orange to yellow blonde. Absence of these pigments results in white, and in icy habitats, bears with little or no pig... | [
"The black bear is much smaller than the brown bear. They are found in larger numbers on the mainland of Alaska, but are not found on the islands off of the Gulf of Alaska and the Seward Peninsula. Black bears have been seen in Alaska in a few different shades of colors such as black, brown, cinnamon, and even a ra... |
what does your computer do when it "shuts down"? | Software can often store information in temporary places. When you go through a shutdown/quit/exit process, it's not just stopping that program, it should also be reverting any of those file/directory locks and bringing the 'temporary' information back to a 'permanent' state.
When you just pull the cord out of the ba... | [
"Normally, when the computer is shutting down, every mounted storage will undergo an unmounting process to ensure that all queued data got written, and to preserve integrity of file system structure on the media.\n",
"In Microsoft Windows and ReactOS, a PC or server is shut down by selecting the Shutdown item fro... |
How'd the Dutch rise, colonize, and build one of the biggest navies in the world while they were constantly fighting the Spanish? | And where did most of the wood come from to build their ships? | [
"In the Dutch Golden Age, spanning much of the 17th century, the Dutch Empire grew to become one of the major seafaring and economic powers, alongside Portugal, Spain, France and England. Science, military, and art (especially painting) were among the most acclaimed in the world. By 1650, the Dutch owned 16,000 mer... |
what is newton's concept of absolute space? | You may be having this problem understanding it because you've grown up in a world that has known Newton was totally wrong about this for several generations now. Relativity and quantum mechanics are familiar to you, and the complexities that come with them.
Throw out this complexities and think of the universe like ... | [
"Later scientists pointed out (as did Newton) that the laws of mechanics were the same for all observers that differed only by uniform translation; that is, all observers that differed in motion only by a constant velocity. Hence, \"absolute space\" was not preferred, but only one of a set of frames related by Gali... |
If gravitational waves propagate not instantaneously, but instead at the speed of light, does that mean gravity waves can interact with and influence other gravity waves? | Yeah, sort of. You can get [interference](_URL_1_) of lots of gravitational waves. You won't really get a refraction, explained well in [this post](_URL_0_).
Pulsar timing experiments, among others, are looking to detect, among other things, a stochastic background of gravitational waves, which comes from a superposit... | [
"In general relativity, a gravitational wave is a space-time perturbation which propagates at the speed of light. It then curves slightly the space-time, which changes locally the light path. Mathematically speaking, if formula_1 is the amplitude (assumed to be small) of the incoming gravitational wave and formula_... |
In ancient Rome what was the difference between a freedman and a citizen? | Many scholars argue that part of what made Rome great was its relatively lenient policies regarding manumission, that is, going from slave to freedman (whose children would then be full citizens) was a great motivator for slaves to be quiet, content, and productive. R.H. Barrow in his work, Slavery in the Roman Empire,... | [
"In ancient Rome they were called , a freedman (feminine: \"liberta\") or an emancipated person who acts for and on behalf of its former master, who became his patron (). During the Empire period and after the judgment of a magistrate they were freed from a . Despite being freed by manumission and acquiring the Rom... |
Have people always thought nature is beautiful? | This is going to answer only a small portion of your question, but I can tell you that literary scholars view the Romantic Movement as making definite contributions to Modern European/American understandings of nature as beautiful. Romanticism rose to its peak alongside the industrial revolution and acted as a sort of ... | [
"Beauty in nature has historically been a prevalent theme in art and books, filling large sections of libraries and bookstores. That nature has been depicted and celebrated by so much art, photography, poetry, and other literature shows the strength with which many people associate nature and beauty. Reasons why th... |
tabletop rpgs... | I'm sure everyone's heard of Roleplaying in some form or another. It may be more familiar to you based on my guess of your occupation. Tabletop RPGs are just an extension of that.
Tabletop RPGs are just your regular Roleplaying ("acting as someone else") with some board-game mechanics added in for fun and to serve as... | [
"Tabletop and \"pen-and-paper\" (PnP) RPGs are conducted through discussion in a small social gathering. The GM describes the game world and its inhabitants. The other players describe the intended actions of their characters, and the GM describes the outcomes. Some outcomes are determined by the game system, and s... |
when jumpstarting a car, why is it important to always start with the positive gauge (red) ? | Sometimes, when you make the last connection, a spark jumps from the cable to what ever you're about to clip it to. If you start with the red cable, then the last connection will be made to an unpainted metal part of the car. That way, if a spark occurs, it hits the metal part of the car, rather than the battery, which... | [
"The player's car will jump through the air between sections of each race track, during which stunts can be performed. Stunts are an integral part of the game, as much as racing against the clock. As a car jumps between sections of track, the player can make the car spin around any axis: barrel rolls, end-over-end,... |
How much weight can the human foot support? | I know nothing about biology, but as an interesting lower bound, the heaviest [deadlift](_URL_0_) on record is 1180 lb. Adding the weight of the weightlifter (reported to be 275lb) shows that a (extremely strong) human can hold at least 1455lb on two feet, or 727.5lb per foot. I highly doubt that anyone could walk hold... | [
"The human foot is a strong and complex mechanical structure containing 26 bones, 33 joints (20 of which are actively articulated), and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The joints of the foot are the ankle and subtalar joint and the interphalangeal articulations of the foot. An anthropometric st... |
In movies, oftentimes a command given to archers is “fire!” I saw somewhere that the command wasn’t actually the word “fire”. What would someone say in order to command an group of archers to shoot arrows at a target? | To get the simple things out of the way first, “fire” is generally not considered the proper term for shooting a non-gunpowder weapon. Early gunpowder weapons were triggered by applying a fire source, often a slow-burning wick, into the gunpowder via a hole in the side of the weapon. In the earliest examples this was d... | [
"It is believed to come from the military \"beware before\", which an artilleryman who was about to fire would yell, alerting nearby infantrymen to drop to the ground to avoid the shells overhead. (\"Before\" may mean \"in front of (the gun being fired)\"; \"fore\" may mean \"(look) ahead\".)\n",
"In the context ... |
If cosmic microwave background radiation is traveling to us from a little after the Big Bang, at the speed of light, then how did we get here first? | The big bang wasn't an explosion in space at a point, away from which we're now flying. It was the expansion of *all* of space. For several hundred, thousand years after the initial singularity, the universe was too hot and dense for light to travel. Any time it was produced, it would immediately be absorbed by somethi... | [
"The discovery of microwave cosmic background radiation announced in 1965 finally brought an effective end to the remaining scientific uncertainty over the expanding universe. It was a chance result from work by two teams less than 60 miles apart. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were trying to detect radio ... |
how do you lift 'with your legs' and not with your back | Basically you want to keep your spine, from the small of your back to your neck, as vertical as you can.
Keep your back straight and your head up, bend your knees to lower yourself until your hands can grip the load. Then straighten your legs to stand up again and walk away with the load.
[Some good images](_URL_0_)
... | [
"The pulldown usually uses a weight machine with a seat and brace for the thighs. The starting position involves sitting at the machine with the thighs braced, back straight and feet flat on the floor. The arms are held overhead at full extension, grasping a bar connected to the weight stack. The movement is initia... |
what is political correctness? | In a nutshell, political correctness is a way of speaking, behaving, and expressing oneself that deliberately focuses on having no negative implications towards any one or group of people. It's designed so that no one is offended and to let other people know that you have considered all people and perspectives in what ... | [
"The term political correctness (adjectivally: politically correct; commonly abbreviated PC) is used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. Since the late 1980s, the term has come to refer to a preference for inclusi... |
If quantum computing is a possibility, is there also such a thing as quantum storage? | As for long term storage devices for [entangled states](_URL_1_), none exist. It is ridiculously hard to preserve entangled states for longer than a few seconds. Currently though, the quantum information processing community is working on something called [quantum memory](_URL_0_) that would allow a device called a [qu... | [
"A quantum computer is a device that uses quantum mechanisms for computation. In this device the data are stored as qubits (quantum binary digits). That gives a quantum computer in comparison with a conventional computer the opportunity to solve complicated problems in a short time, e.g. discrete logarithm problem ... |
How different was Mao's communism from Marx's commuism? What about the Russian figureheads like Stalin, Trotsky, or Lenin? | One of the biggest difficulties with this is that Marx is a little light on Revolutionary theory, so much so that philosophers and historians still disagree about whether he advocated violent revolution or not. The Communist Manifesto is a slim thing, about thirty or forty pages, and is decidedly inevitablist in its to... | [
"Mao Zedong famously declared that Stalin was 70% good, 30% bad. Maoists criticised Stalin chiefly regarding his view that bourgeois influence within the Soviet Union was primarily a result of external forces (to the almost complete exclusion of internal forces) and his view that class contradictions ended after th... |
Why does 5 hour energy contain 8000%+ vitamin B? | Since it is water-soluble, it just gets flushed out in your urine pretty quick. The whole process takes about... 5 hours! Which makes me wonder what kind of trickery those "6 hour power" guys are up to.
Fat-soluble vitamins *can* accumulate. Too much of them can lead to [hypervitaminosis](_URL_0_) | [
"The official website lists the active ingredients of 5-hour Energy as: vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin B12, sodium, taurine, glucuronolactone, malic acid and N-Acetyl -tyrosine, -phenylalanine, caffeine, and citicoline. The product is not U.S Food and Drug Administration approved. It contains no sugar, instead pro... |
if the court sides with the defendant, why are they still responsible for lawyer fees ? | Because it would encourage parties to make litigation less efficient. If I have to pay for my defense I'm less likely to want my attorney to file a ton of unnecessary motions. That's assuming the lawsuit is not frivolous. Though they could potentially collect in a suit responding to this one, such as a defamation of ch... | [
"Even though it is possible, it is rare for individuals to fund their own personal injury claims by retaining a lawyer on an hourly basis. In some jurisdictions, if the client's claim is successful, the client will be able to recover attorney fees from the defendant. In jurisdictions that follow the American rule f... |
Good historical movies for ancient/classical times? | Unfortunately, antiquity is very poorly depicted in television and film. I personally cannot think of any film set in antiquity that accurately depicts it’s setting. I do apologize for the short answer, but there really are none. Might I ask why you are looking for films that are “pinpoint historically accurate?” In g... | [
"The film is also notable for its unusual time period: The time following Alexander the Great’s death (323 BC) but before the rise of the Roman empire (27 BC), known as the Hellenistic era. Most sword-and-sandal epics of the 1950s and 1960s were set in either classical Greece or even earlier (\"Hercules,\" \"Ulysse... |
why does it seem that u.s. construction projects, roadwork, etc. take so long to complete while in other countries it appears to be much shorter? | My dad is a project manager for a developer. I asked him this question a few weeks ago. Here's what he said:
I would think it is a combination of a lot of the items the article mentioned plus many other items. There is a current lack of skilled labor which is forcing contractors to work overtime to complete projects. ... | [
"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 created over 12,600 road construction projects, over 10,000 of which were in progress as of 2010. Workers in highway work zones are exposed to a variety of hazards and face risk of injury and death from construction equipment as well as passing motor vehicles. Wor... |
what does is feel like to have a seizure? | There are many different types of seizures, all of which probably feel very different. But, I can tell you about the one I had.
I was sitting at the computer and everything suddenly started tilting and sliding. From my perspective it was like the entire room just suddenly tilted and slid to the right. Looking back lat... | [
"A seizure, formally known as an epileptic seizure, is a period of symptoms due to abnormally excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Outward effects vary from uncontrolled shaking movements involving much of the body with loss of consciousness (tonic-clonic seizure), to shaking movements involving... |
Are the different regions of the brain physiologically different? | The answer would be "both": the cells are different, and the ways they are connected to each other are different.
Even in the cortex (you know, [that wrinkled walnut-looking stuff](_URL_3_) that you first imagine when you think about human brain): even in the cortex, although it looks pretty uniform at the first glanc... | [
"Some of the major anatomical components of the brain are organized as clusters of interconnected nuclei. Notable among these are the thalamus and hypothalamus, each of which contains several dozen distinguishable substructures. The medulla and pons also contain numerous small nuclei with a wide variety of sensory,... |
what does a cyber attack look like? | You don't find out until you notice something's wrong or someone tells you what happened. Two examples. Good malware doesn't let you know you have malware. If you notice something wrong, you take actions to remedy the problem... but if you never notice something logging all your password information and bank data, SSN ... | [
"The attack is spoofed, that is, random fake Internet source addresses are used, which makes it difficult to identify the attacker. The idea of the attack is to either degrade the performance of the attacked computer or make it crash. The attacking program is called Twinge, but the ICMP packets have a particular si... |
how movies like toy story had great graphics in the mid-90s, but video games took much longer to reach the same level of quality | Like MySuperLove said, once movies are rendered they're simply moving images.
Pixar and other production companies have render farms which are just a series of computers designed to render graphics like this. The computers process and render the images, and then the movie is made. It is put to film, and then projector... | [
"Pat Ferguson, a video game industry analyst, called the game's character choices \"the great hook here,\" and stated that Sega \"has combined all the best of 16-bit video games in 'Jurassic Park.' The quality of the graphics is as good as it's going to get, and the sound is the highest quality I can recall in any ... |
out of everything that comes out of our body, what contains dna and what doesn't? | DNA is found in basically all of our body's cells (the major exception being red blood cells, which kick it all out so they can carry more oxygen). Off the top of my head, the main sources of DNA that you could leave behind are skin flakes, blood (in white blood cells), semen (sperm are basically DNA delivery vehicles)... | [
"The human body is made up of billions of cells, each containing the unique genetic information, or DNA, that defines a person. Contained within DNA are instructions for making all the proteins in the human body.\n",
"Natural DNA is a molecule carrying the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, fun... |
what are the anti-eu parties across europe actually objecting to? | The combined currency is for some nations weaker than there own was, the freedom of movement and immigration laws see lots of people from poor eu countries moving into and living off welfare/stealing jobs from rich eu countries, bailing out stupid eu countries for making stupid decisions, the eu leaders for the most pa... | [
"Tensions between the EEU and the European Union (EU) occurred as both have sought to deepen their ties with several former Soviet republics. The EU has signed free trade agreements with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. However, separatists in all three countries back closer ties with Russia. Russia and the EU both pr... |
what does o(log n) mean exactly? | Its [Big O notation](_URL_0_) and tells you how processing time increases with a function of data size.
If something is O(log n) then processing time increases proportionally to the log2 of the size of the data. If you increase your data by a factor of 8 then processing time will quadrouple.
Big O notation is useful... | [
"where \"log\" denotes a logarithm to base 10 or common logarithm, and \"K\" is a stepwise acid dissociation constant. For bases, the base association constant, p\"K\" is used. For any given acid or base the two constants are related by , so p\"K\" can always be used in calculations.\n",
"The noun \"login\" comes... |
how can we freeze molecules to almost absolute 0? | When you decrease the pressure of a gas, it will cool down. If you compress it, it'll heat up. So you can first compress a gas to a really high pressure, let it cool down, and then expand again - and it'll be really cold. Then you compress some of the cold gas again, and cool that down with the remaining cold gas to re... | [
"Freezing is a phase transition where a liquid turns into a solid when its temperature is lowered below its freezing point. In accordance with the internationally established definition, freezing means the solidification phase change of a liquid or the liquid content of a substance, usually due to cooling.\n",
"A... |
in what way am i being fucked by my isp if my internet connection is considerably faster through a vpn connection? | Basically what's going on is your ISP sorts your internet traffic into different categories. Then they throttle back the bandwidth allocated to each category based on how important they think it is. So browsing imgur for example is likely going to be pretty far down on their priority list, and will be throttled back ... | [
"Setting up VPN services on a router requires a deep knowledge of network security and careful installation. Minor misconfiguration of VPN connections can leave the network vulnerable. Performance will vary depending on the Internet service provider (ISP).\n",
"In many cases, an ISP will have both a direct link t... |
What was taught at Oxford University during the first few years after it was founded in 1096? | [Oxford was not founded in 1096.] (_URL_0_)
That said, the basic curriculum for the average, bureaucracy-bound medieval university students in the 13th century consisted of the seven liberal arts, the *trivium* plus the *quadrivium*. The trivium was ~~dialectic~~ grammar, logic, rhetoric (essentially, ways of thinking... | [
"The University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in some form as early as 1096, but it is unclear when a university came into being. It grew quickly from 1167 when English students returned from the University of Paris. The historian Gerald of Wales lectured to such scholars in 118... |
Most plants that live on the Earth's surface die without sunlight. But what happens if they are exposed to constant sunlight? | they grow quicker and bigger if in optimun soil. technically many annuals are tender perrenials and just keep growing. alaska for example has a short growing seasom but the nearly 24 hour sun in summer leads to huge growth | [
"Except for some parasitic plants, all plants need sunlight to survive. However, in general, more sunlight does not always make it easier for plants to survive. In direct sunlight, plants face desiccation and exposure to UV rays, and must expend energy producing pigments to block UV light, and waxy coatings to prev... |
I've heard that Russian tanks were immediately sent from the factory to the battlefield with ammo and men inside during WW2. How true is this? | Ok, so here's the list of main Soviet tank producing centers before the war:
* Moscow - plant №37 (produced light amphibious tanks - **T-37a**, **T-38**, **T-40**, ~4.500 total)
* Leningrad - plant №174 (in 1931-1941 produced light tanks **T-26**, total production ~10.000, and started light tank **T-50** production i... | [
"Beginning from 1941, 1,386 M3 medium tanks were shipped from the USA to the Soviet Union, with 417 lost during shipping (when they went down with their transporting vessels which were lost to German submarine, naval and aerial attacks en route). These were supplied through the American Lend-Lease program between 1... |
Do people with a fast metabolism have more mitochondria or do the reactions happen quicker? | I think you have the idea of metabolism slightly misunderstood. Metabolism, in most peoples understanding, is how much food you can eat and not gain weight. Whereas metabolism, in scientific terms, is the overall production and expenditure of energy through the deconstruction and construction of compounds throughout th... | [
"It is worth noting that there are not many kinetically perfect enzymes. This can be explained in terms of natural selection. An increase in catalytic speed may be favoured as it could confer some advantage to the organism. However, when the catalytic speed outstrips diffusion speed (i.e. substrates entering and le... |
Does masturbation make one sleepy like sex? | Masturbation, or more specifically an orgasm. Is a very energy intensive process for the body, from flooding the body with hormones to producing bloodily fluids, not to mention the raw physical exertion. All these factors add up to make the body more "tired" than before the process. Also endorphin is released which ... | [
"Sleep-related abnormal sexual behavior, \"Sleep sex\", or sexsomnia, is a form of confusional arousal that may overlap with somnambulism. Thereby, a person will engage in sexual acts while still asleep. It can include such acts as masturbation, inappropriate fondling themselves or others, having sex with another p... |
How do investigators determine that an individual was “killed instantly” in an accident? | The brain must be destroyed for someone to actually die instantly. When deprived of oxygen, e.g., from cardiac arrest or even decapitation, the brain may remain conscious for several minutes before unconsciousness sets in. We (I'm a former ER RN) tell everyone their loved one died instantly as a kindness, not because i... | [
"Accident investigation may help to identify the cause of a specific accident. If a pattern can be identified this may inform procedures and legislation to reduce the risk of the same pattern of accident recurring in the future. An investigation may identify shortcomings in training or procedures, or problems with ... |
anisotropic filtering & anti-aliasing | Anisotropic filtering helps textures in video games to be viewed in more detail when they are viewed from an extreme angle [example 1](_URL_0_), [example 2](_URL_1_). Anisotropic filtering also helps to prevent aliasing.
The anti-aliasing method used in video games is officially called supersampling. It's a method for... | [
"An anti-aliasing filter (AAF) is a filter used before a signal sampler to restrict the bandwidth of a signal to approximately or completely satisfy the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem over the band of interest. Since the theorem states that unambiguous reconstruction of the signal from its samples is possible whe... |
mh17 is there a chance someone survived the initial explosion? | _URL_0_
This woman survived a 10k meter fall after a bomb went off on the plane. I'm not sure how different the effect of a bomb vs missile strike is, but in her case, it did break the plane in two. I think she was unconscious for the fall though, so no texting possible.
EDIT: Better explanation | [
"Lethal concentrations of carbon monoxide gas were found to be present. This suggested that the men lost consciousness rapidly and that death occurred within minutes. A public enquiry into the disaster took place, at No 2 Court of Newport Civic Centre, between 19 and 28 September 1960. The Inspector of Mines report... |
why does it sound terrible if two songs play at once on one computer? | A speaker produces sound from a very simple physical movement, and this movement can only contain a finite density of "information". The computer will collect all sound output and sum them together into a single wave pattern that it will instruct the speaker to perform. The wave signal created by the computer is the be... | [
"We haven't lost the song. We played it too much in a certain way that didn't work in my opinion. It didn't feel right. So we need to approach it in a different way, but at the time of \"OK Computer\" it was impossible to get into rearranging it because everyone had fixed ideas on what to play and we'd all just got... |
where did Anglo-Saxon churchmen get the red wine they used for the sacraments? | Actually England had vineyards for quite a long time. The domesday book even noted that there were vineyards in the north. But that wasn't a new thing, they also had vineyards during the roman period. Monasteries, in particular, had a great deal of wine on hand.
Here are a couple of podcast episodes on the Anglo Sax... | [
"In Eastern Christianity, sacramental wine is usually red, to better symbolize its change from wine into the blood of Jesus Christ, as is believed to happen at the Eucharist. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, sacramental wine used in the Divine Liturgy must usually be fermented pure red grape wine, often... |
why are smokers often berated but there is a movement for fat acceptance, basically promoting obesity? | Smoking harms the user.
Obesity harms the user.
Smoking causes damage to unwitting public by proximity.
Obesity does not, except in cases of momentum and gravity.
Smoking is not needed for survival.
Eating is.
Big Tobacco forgot to maintain their political contributions.
Big Food has not. | [
"The obesity paradox has been criticized on the grounds of being an artifact arising from biases in observational studies. Strong confounding by smoking has been noted by several researchers. Since smokers, who are subject to higher mortality rates, also tend to be leaner, inadequate adjustment for smoking would le... |
"the netherlands is the world's second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products, after the united states". how on earth is this possible? | Well, on top of what others have suggested about Rotterdam being one of the larger trade hubs in Europe it's also because growing crops is really a thing in the Netherlands. They do grow a lot of crop. Really. They do. It's a nation well suited for growing things. Easy access to water, and pretty flat ground with mostl... | [
"The Netherlands has, at some time in recent history, supplied one quarter of all of the world's exported tomatoes, and trade of one-third of the world's exports of chilis, tomatoes and cucumbers goes through the country. The Netherlands also exports one-fifteenth of the world's apples.\n",
", the key trading par... |
Several times on Reddit, I've seen claims that Johan de Witt was eaten by a mob of angry Dutch. Is there any support in the primary sources for this claim? | well, there's [this](_URL_0_) contemporary publication of several eye-witness accounts and a letter by a judge. I haven't read the whole thing but it does mention people biting the corpses and cutting off pieces with the intent of eating them (so they said). To say that he was entirely eaten would be exaggeration thoug... | [
"Shortly following the publication of his article, Trevor-Roper began to retreat from these charges. At the time of his article, Kersten had just been nominated by the Dutch government for the Nobel Peace Prize for thwarting a Nazi plan to deport the entire Dutch population, based primarily on Kersten's own claims ... |
what is a gifv, why does it stop background music on ios, and what's wrong with a good ol' gif? | "Gifv" is specific to Imgur. Instead of playing the Gif normally, it converts it (well it's already converted) to WebM, a video format. iOS automatically pauses background audio whenever a video file is played, whether or not the video has audio. | [
"GIFs are another example of remix culture. They are illustrations and small clips from films used for personal expressions in online conversations. GIFs are commonly taken from an online video form such as film, T.V. or YouTube videos. Each clip usually lasts for about 3 seconds and is \"looped, extended and repea... |
After a nuclear detonation, why do rings appear sometimes around the mushroom cloud? | They're called Wilson clouds, and they're caused by the shockwave of the explosion.
The pressure front of an explosion causes a decrease in pressure to occur behind it. This is intuitive to anyone who has ever made a wave in their bathtub: in a closed system like the atmosphere, any increase in density somewhere has t... | [
"Mushroom clouds are formed by many sorts of large explosions under earth's gravity, but they are best known for their appearance after nuclear detonations. Without gravity, the explosive's by-product gases would remain spherical. Nuclear weapons are usually detonated above the ground (not upon impact, because some... |
the state of illinois hasn't had a budget in over two years. what has all of our money been doing during that time since taxes are still being collected? | This is a question I'd love to see answered. My understanding is that there are ongoing operational expenses that are being funded by our taxes--like the necessities of day-to-day state government functions. A huge portion of our taxes go toward paying interest on the enormous debt that the state has.
I would think th... | [
"In December 2015 the state of Illinois had had no budget in place for over five months. On December 9, at the City Club in Chicago, Madigan publicly said he thought the state income tax should increase to \"at least 5 percent to balance the state's out-of-whack finances\".\n",
"In past years, the state of Illino... |
When something is known to "cause cancer," what exactly does that mean? | We rarely talk about things that "cause" cancer outright. Carcinogens cause damage to DNA. Since it takes several independent mutation events to transform a cell from a normal one to a cancerous one, a carcinogen can only increase the *risk* of developing cancer.
Investigating a proposed carcinogen usually starts wi... | [
"When cancer begins, it produces no symptoms. Signs and symptoms appear as the mass grows or ulcerates. The findings that result depend on the cancer's type and location. Few symptoms are specific. Many frequently occur in individuals who have other conditions. Cancer is a \"great imitator\". Thus, it is common for... |
During World War II, did the Allies open the western front to prevent the Soviet Union from conquering western Europe? | > I found this interesting because, if true, it would pretty significantly change my interpretation of the Allied invasion of western Europe. The typical narrative is that the Allies invaded France and Italy in 1944 in order to increase the pressure on the Nazis and to relieve the pressure for the Soviet Union on the ... | [
"In 1942, the Western Allies agreed to open a second front (the Western Front) in Western Europe to take pressure off the beleaguered Red Army in the Soviet Union. While Britain and the United States did not yet possess the resources to mount a full invasion, invasion plans that came to be known as Operation Sledge... |
why do online cable streaming services only show a select 4 or 5 commercials? | Is the ad rate so different than broadcast? I watch a local San Francisco station on-line and they have 4 ads. If I pay for broadcast ad rates why don'tI also get to have my ad showing on-line at the same time? | [
"They exist to allow network television stations to send content to smaller local stations. The shows contain no commercials, just a small gap of blank video to allow the local station to insert their own. The exception for this is for \"barter\" syndicated programming, where only the commercials required to be sho... |
During WW2, were there any naval battles in the Atlantic that involved American warships? | From an [earlier answer of mine](_URL_9_) also look at [/u/fourthmaninaboat's answer to the same question](_URL_10_) for some of the bigger naval actions.
Most of the USN's surface encounters with the European Axis tended to be very small-scale compared to the Pacific battles and often entailed units smaller than des... | [
"The North Atlantic was the site of a large-scale naval battle in 1943 between the United States and the Royal and French Navies, during which aircraft carriers were the principal weapons platform; the surface combatants never saw each other, as in our timeline's Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. won the battle, en... |
How does this "magic" mug work? | The phenomenon is called [thermochromism](_URL_0_). It involves changing the state or the structure of the dye molecule as a response to temperature change.
One way it is done is using a solvent with a high melting point, so when heat is applied the solvent is liquid, dissolving a dye and causing a phase change. Other... | [
"A puzzle mug is a mug which has some trick preventing normal operation. One example is a mug with multiple holes in the rim, making it impossible to drink from it in the normal way. Although it is tempting to grasp the body of the mug covering the visible holes and drink the liquid in the usual manner, this would ... |
why are seemingly "blank" or "simple" pieces of art considered exceptional? | The history of art is a very long one and also one that is very complicated, but I think to appreciate art like this, you should have a little knowledge.
Paintings like the Mona Lisa, which was made in the 16th century, were made in a very different context than this black painting in the picture. 16th century artists... | [
"In the course of the 20th century, nothing has become as distinctive an aesthetic category as “the beautiful”, “the ugly” or \"the absurd\". The artistic examination of the (non) phenomenon \"nothing\" has led artists and critics to question the traditional practices of art production and open up new possibilities... |
are radio waves as fast as the speed of light? then why is it stated that nothing can travel as fast as light, and/or that light (only) is the fastest thing that travels? | Things with mass can't travel at the speed of light. Radio waves *are* light, they're electromagnetic waves just like the light we see, but they have less energy. The same applies to microwaves, infrared, UV, X-rays and gamma rays, although the last three have more energy than visible light. | [
"In all these cases, however, there is no possibility that signals could be carried faster than the speed of light in vacuum, since the high value of does not help to speed up the true motion of the sharp wavefront that would occur at the start of any real signal. Essentially the seemingly superluminal transmission... |
What is the psychology behind using odd numbers as a price point for marketing of a product ? | I'm assuming you're referring to the tendency for items to be priced at something like $19.99 rather than $20.00. The guiding principle here is called left-digit bias. In essence, when we make valuation judgments, we preferentially attend to the leftmost digits (or rightmost, if that's where the most significant figur... | [
"In retail settings, \"psychological pricing\" or \"odd-number pricing\" are both widely used. Psychological pricing which refers to a range of tactics, designed to have a positive psychological impact. For example, price tags using the terminal digit \"9\" (e.g., 9.99, 19.99, or 199.99) can be used to signal price... |
What caused the New England countryside to turn against British authorities in the run up to Lexington and Concord? | As you rightfully point out, the origins of the resistance against the perceived overreach of the British government during the imperial crisis were based in the urban centres of New England where the different acts passed after 1764 had a greater impact. Now, it does need to be said that acts such as the Stamp Act *di... | [
"News of the outbreak of war in Massachusetts, specifically the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, arrived in Argyle in the early summer of 1775. Most of the Argyle Planters were sympathetic to the rebellion; the Rev. John Frost preached a sermon in which he \"expressed his hopes that the British for... |
how is russia able to afford its current modernization program? | The available resource right in mainland and doesnt have to import, Russia with its vast land is very resource rich, so it's more cost-effective to self supplying some of the industries, making the product costs lower comparing to other countries. Furthermore, the cost living in Russia is lower than other western count... | [
"In 2009, former President Dmitry Medvedev launched the Medvedev modernisation programme, which aims to diversify Russia's raw materials and energy-dominated economy, turning it into a modern high-tech economy based on innovation. Following this, Russia's automotive industry has been in the spotlight due to its gre... |
Likelihood of seeing another "observable universe"? | It's better to think of the observable universe as the little geographic territory you presently live in. You know there's more earth beyond the borders of your (city,state,country) even if you can't see them from where you're at this moment. Granted it's a little bit different because it is, in principle, impossible t... | [
"BULLET::::- It is sometimes used, mainly by cosmologists, to mean the uncertainty because we can only observe one realization of all the possible observable universes. For example, we can only observe one Cosmic Microwave Background, so the measured positions of the peaks in the Cosmic Microwave Background spectru... |
How and when did Hinduism start? Does it predate Indus Valley civilization? | In my personal experience, 'Hinduism' is a highly syncretic religion, and you will often see various groups' beliefs represented in a temple. I've seen Mahavir (Jainism), Buddha, Siva and Vishnu all in the same temple.
As far as predating the IVC, the best answer for now is "we don't know". There were some indication... | [
"Hinduism predates recorded history and is thought to have had a beginning over 7,000 - 9,000 B.C to 35,000 B.C, even before the Indus Valley Civilization itself. Exact date of emergence of Hinduism is unknown, But it traced back even before the Pre-historic period. Hinduism has no single founder; rather, it is a d... |
I know a lot of plants and animals have developed toxins as part of a defense strategy, but what about bacteria? | Microbiologist in training here!
Yes , bacteria, as fungi, have also developed chemical defense strategies, that can be a lots of things, like antibiotics, anti tumor or, as you said, toxins, etc..
E.g. Botulism is caused by a neuro toxin called botulinum, from bacteria from the genus clotridium. This ... | [
"Like other bacteriocins, vibriocins are protein toxins. They can kill bacteria beyond the genus Vibrio, including other proteobacteria. They have been used for abortive classification schemes of the vibrio, particularly to type various kinds of cholera, against which they were thought to have potential as antibiot... |
what is the difference between netflix's new releases and recently added? | Recently Added means that the content has only been added to Netflix's library recently but may have aired/been released on other platforms at any time before. New Release means the content has only been released on other platforms recently.
For example, if Netflix added a tv show from the '60s yesterday, it would appe... | [
"Netflix's DVD allocation policy – referred to by many as \"throttling\" – gives priority shipping and selection to customers who rent fewer discs per month. Higher volume renters may see some of their selections delayed, routed elsewhere, or sent out of order. Netflix claims that \"the large majority of our subscr... |
what causes some people to be more "addiction prone" than others? | There are several factors at play, and it seems to vary from individual to individual. The problem of addiction and alcoholism has been around for millennia, and we still don't have something we can point to, and say, "There it is. There's the problem, right there."
Genetics seem to have an influence. It can cause a... | [
"Some claim the existence of “addictive beliefs” in people more likely to develop addictions, such as “I cannot make an impact on my world” or “I am not good enough”, which may lead to developing traits associated with addiction, such as depression and emotional insecurity. People who strongly believe that they con... |
is the us actually at war with any government? | Not right now but we were at war with the Afghanistan government(Taliban) and Iraqi government back in the day until we got them out. | [
"This case is significant because it challenges the legality of being able to operate the military on a \"neutral\" site. This case emphasizes the proper role of the judiciary to refrain from deciding political questions that are for the President and Congress to decide. Congress has declared war only 11 times and ... |
how does the defrost on cars work? | The front or the back?
The front defroster works by blowing hot air on the windshield. The back window defroster works by pumping electricity through thin wires until they heat up. | [
"Resistive-heat defoggers are usually equipped with an automatic timer to operate for a set time period of 10 to 15 minutes before switching off. This is because most defogging is achieved within that timeframe, after which the vehicle's heater has usually brought the interior of the vehicle to a warm enough temper... |
Why did Rome never solve the "Persian Question" or vice versa? | They did. In 63 CE the emperor Nero and shahanshah Vologases after an indecisive war in Armenia hammered out an agreement by which the Parthians would select the king of Armenia and the Romans would crown him. This was an acceptable solution to all, as it maintained the Roman fiction of universal monarchy while tacitly... | [
"Frequent Persian aggression during the 3rd century placed Roman defences under severe strain, but the Romans were eventually successful in warding these off and avoiding any territorial losses. Indeed, they eventually made significant gains towards the end of the century, although these were reversed in the mid-4t... |
why don't reeds work well on brass intruments and brass mouthpeices on woodwinds? | They both make vibration and therefore sound, but in different ways. On a woodwind mouthpiece, you blow air to vibrate the reed, while in a brass mouthpiece your lips are doing the vibrating. Both types of instrument (woodwind and brass) are designed to use the vibrations in different ways. The woodwinds change the pi... | [
"With the woodwinds, aside from the flute, piccolo, and recorder, the sound is generated by a reed and not with the lips. The embouchure is therefore based on sealing the area around the reed and mouthpiece. This serves to prevent air from escaping while simultaneously supporting the reed, allowing it to vibrate, a... |
would greenland be properly inhabitable with fertile soil should all ice melt there? | Greenland has a base of volcanic rock so should have all the required minerals for plant growth, however there is no depth of soil require for plant growth, but eventually that could happen. | [
"The extreme north of Greenland, Peary Land, is not covered by an ice sheet, because the air there is too dry to produce snow, which is essential in the production and maintenance of an ice sheet. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt away completely, the world's sea level would rise by more than .\n",
"Earth m... |
homelessness and skid row in la | Mental illness. Persistently homeless people tend to have mental illnesses and there aren't enough places to treat them, so they end up congregating together on the streets. | [
"Several of the city's homeless and social-service providers (such as Weingart Center Association, Volunteers of America, Frontline Foundation, Midnight Mission, Union Rescue Mission and Downtown Women's Center) are based in Skid Row. Between 2005 and 2007, several local hospitals and suburban law-enforcement agenc... |
when speaking about non-newtonian fluids, what is shear-thinning and shear-thickening? | Imagine having two plates with a fluid between them. When you move the plates there's a resistance put up by the fluid; less than if there were nothing lubricating the plates, most likely, but still some resistance.
In a Newtonian fluid the resistance scales linearly with speed: move twice as fast and you get twice ... | [
"In rheology, shear thinning is the non-Newtonian behavior of fluids whose viscosity decreases under shear strain. It is sometimes considered synonymous for pseudoplastic behaviour, and is usually defined as excluding time-dependent effects, such as thixotropy. Shear-thinning behaviour is generally not seen in pure... |
female voices are higher pitch than male voices, so why can you still hear the difference between a male and female voice when they sing the exact same note for example? | Good question! A tone is composed of more than just the base note. When you hear a tone, it is actually composed of the root note, called the fundamental, plus a bunch of higher frequency notes, called harmonics or overtones. When a man and woman sing the same note, they may produce the same fundamental, but their vo... | [
"The pitch of a male voice is about half as high in males in comparison to females. Even after controlling for body height and volume, the male voice remains lower. Some scientists have suggested that human voice evolved through intersexual sexual selection, via female male choices. Puts (2005) showed that preferen... |
why do some websites say "webpage moved: redirecting in 10 seconds. click here to redirect now." why don't they just redirect immediately? | The actual redirect is being caused by a "tag" that the developer inserts into the code. They can customise it as much as they want, from 0 seconds to 100,000 seconds. But most developers choose 5 or 10 for two reasons:
1. It gives the user time to read the message (if they're interested) so that they *know* what is h... | [
"BULLET::::- If a page redirects too quickly (less than 2-3 seconds), using the \"Back\" button on the next page may cause some browsers to move back to the redirecting page, whereupon the redirect will occur again. This is bad for usability, as this may cause a reader to be \"stuck\" on the last website.\n",
"So... |
why do "aids treatment breakthroughs" keep making it to the front page every week when all of them are nowhere near proven or relevant yet? | Welcome to science journalism. | [
"BULLET::::- Media coverage on AIDS begins to boom: outlets like \"Newsweek\" magazine and other major newspapers nationwide publish over 650 stories between December and April. Coverage included shortfalls of resources for AIDS research and education in NYC, and how the response in San Francisco was more effective... |
What causes ocean waters to rise in temperature? | Sea level rise is caused by the expansion of water itself as it heats up, and the input of water as glaciers and ice sheets melt. The melting of the glaciers and ice sheets are caused by increasing air temperatures. However, the vast majority of the heat is taken up by the oceans as the winds mix and the ocean circulat... | [
"The extreme precipitation will cause the oceans to warm and acidify. The southern ocean will increase the most in temperature. The global mean sea levels will rise due to the extreme precipitation. Near-surface permafrost in high northern latitudes will reduce resulting in sea level rise not being uniform across r... |
if a neighbor blares music, why does only the bass sound pass through walls? | Sound is waves. High sounds are short waves and bass are long waves. It's not so much that bass is better at getting through walls but that high pitched sounds, meaning short waves tend to get more easily scattered.
Imagine a snake moving forward though a bed of rocks. If it slithers shorter the probability of it hitt... | [
"Large bass speakers often take advantage of the surroundings as part of the horn. For example, they can be put in the corners of a room, so the walls act as part of the horn. Even outdoors, the ground can form part of the horn surface, and thus a partial horn can help provide a good impedance match to ground, or o... |
- how does remastering work? if the source material produces a blurry film 25 years ago, how do they make it clear now? | So film is actually very high resolution. Like, the actual material that movie cameras record on. If they can go back to those original high quality sources and then use modern technology to process them, they can get better results because modern tech can preserve more of the resolution that was still on that original... | [
"Remastering is the process of making a new master for an album, film, or any other creation. It tends to refer to the process of porting a recording from an analogue medium to a digital one, but this is not always the case.\n",
"Purchased film content is downloaded onto an editing work station hard drive and thi... |
Arabic in Medieval Europe, how common was it and how did people learn it? | tl;dr - Overall, very rare.
The most important factor to keep in mind is *reason to learn*. For the vast, vast majority of medieval Christians, there was simply no reason to learn Arabic. They might know "pagan" Saracens existed, but that would be about it.
As you mention, OP, there were a few cases where Latin Chris... | [
"During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages, mainly Spanish and to a lesser exte... |
how commodities trading works. | Say you are a farmer who grows wheat, and it's February 2014. You'll be selling that wheat in September of 2014, and right now things are looking pretty decent for your budget, based on what you predict the price of wheat to be at that time. But you're worried, because weather is notoriously unpredictable, and maybe we... | [
"A commodities exchange is an exchange, or market, where various commodities are traded. Most commodity markets around the world trade in agricultural products and other raw materials (like wheat, barley, sugar, maize, cotton, cocoa, coffee, milk products, pork bellies, oil, and metals). Trading includes and variou... |
Did Roman gladiators really promote products from the arena? | I'm not aware of any reference in any ancient source to this sort of thing, although I won't rule it out completely. But let's have a look at where the Wikipedia article on the film Gladiator, which is the linked source to the TIL post, gets its information. Ah yes, that reliable historical source, [IGN](_URL_0_):
> ... | [
"Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered spectators an example of Rome's martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim. They were celebrated in high and low art, and their value as entertainers was commemorated in precious and commonplace objects throughou... |
how do instant fog windows work? | Liquid crystals embedded in the glass are activated by electricity. They then turn and scatter light that tries to pass through them. | [
"Fog is created by pumping one of a variety of different glycol or glycol/water mixtures (referred to as fog fluid) into a heat exchanger (essentially a block of metal with a resistance heating element in it) and heating until the fluid vapourises, creating a thick translucent or opaque cloud. Devices specifically ... |
AITA for leading my people to a new land, and then setting myself and my family up as de facto gentry? | 100% YTA. Just thought you could roll up on someone elses land and claim your in charge eh??! What about the will of the people! At the very least you could have given them a tax breaks. | [
"So devastating was this for the ranks formerly identified as being of the landed gentry that \"Burke's Landed Gentry\" began, in the 20th century, to include families historically in this category who had ceased to own their ancestral lands. The focus of those who remained in this class shifted from the lands or e... |
What is the burden of proof to Identify/classify a new species? | To name a new species you need to publish a species description in a scientific journal. This is a type of scientific paper that explains what your new species looks like, where it is found, how it lives, and how it differs from any similar known species. You don't need a PhD, but you do need a body -- known as a type ... | [
"A name of a new species becomes valid (available in zoological terminology) with the date of publication of its formal scientific description. Once the scientist has performed the necessary research to determine that the discovered organism represents a new species, the scientific results are summarized in a scien... |
what triggers evolution in a species? | There is no real trigger... Evolution is the survival of the individual who is best adapted to surroundings. Let's say a pack of mammoths ends up in the desert. Then the amount of hair determines how well a mammoth regulates its body temperature. The overheating mammoth dies, giving the rest of the mammoths more chance... | [
"As we learn with many species, evolution can be driven by a variety of factors. For some, it is competition of various types, and for others, it is a matter of adapting to the changing climate. We learn in the case of \"E. carletoni\" that a bottleneck event occurred between 18,750 and 7,500 years ago, mainly due ... |
how can the human body still have organs that are useless after so many years of evolution? | Evolution is not meant to be perfect, it is meant to make you survive until you reproduce. If an organ is useless, but not hurting enough humans to threaten the species, there is no point in removing it. | [
"Extensive research is required to determine whether animal organs can replace the physiological functions of human organs. Many issues include size – differences in organ size limit the range of potential recipients of xenotransplants; longevity – The lifespan of most pigs is roughly 15 years, currently it is unkn... |
sometimes i have to enter my debit card pin and sometimes i don’t. why? | You can run a debit card as credit, so you won’t have to enter a pin (but you should have to sign for large purchases).
Some merchants run cards as credit for convenience sake (fast food) | [
"Because the customers have to use a PIN code in the BankAxept system, but not with many other systems, it is also much more frequent that stolen debit cards are abused in card fraud with merchants that only have an agreement with the international payment systems and online.\n",
"Some consumers prefer \"credit\"... |
if one person runs 10 miles at a 7 minute pace and another runs 10 miles at at 10 minute pace, who burns more calories? | There is no way to determine that from the information provided. The person running the 10 minute pace might weigh 250 pounds while the 7 minute pace person weighs 100 pounds. All else being equal the movement of a given weight over a set distance requires more power when done faster, but as you pointed out there is si... | [
"The situation becomes slightly more complex when preferred walking speed is introduced. The faster the pace, the more calories burned if weight loss is a goal. Maximum heart rate for exercise (220 minus age), when compared to charts of \"fat burning goals\" support many of the references that give the average of 1... |
how does patient zero get sick? | Few options.
Then can be the person in which there was a mutation that allowed the disease to evade the community's immunity. Or they can be the person who brought the disease from a foreign country, or caught it from an animal. | [
"Patient Zero is a 2018 action horror film directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky and written by Mike Le. The film stars Matt Smith, Natalie Dormer, Stanley Tucci, Agyness Deyn, and Clive Standen. The plot involves a group of survivors who set out to find an antidote for a highly contagious virus that turns the infected int... |
what is the us6506148b2 patent? what does it do exactly? how does it work? | The patent claims that by pulsing the image or an electric field at a specific frequency, it can elicit a certain emotional and/or physical response. The patent covers the use of this technology within a television
There does exist transcranial magnetic stimulation, which more or less can do this, but it is targeted b... | [
"The law switched the U.S. rights to a patent from the previous \"first-to-invent\" system to a \"first inventor-to-file\" system for patent applications filed on or after March 16, 2013. The law also expanded the definition of prior art used in determining patentability. Actions and prior art that bar patentabilit... |
what is flops and is it a meaningful way to measure a computer's performance? | FLOPS = Floating Point Operations Per Second
It is a meaningful way to measure performance in CPU intensive operations, like computational fluid dynamics. It's still used some in the super-computing benchmark arena.
It's not a meaningful measure of personal computing performance because most operations in your PC ar... | [
"FLOPS and MIPS are units of measure for the numerical computing performance of a computer. Floating-point operations are typically used in fields such as scientific computational research. The unit MIPS measures integer performance of a computer. Examples of integer operation include data movement (A to B) or valu... |
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