question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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what is the significance of coughing during a rectal exam? | > what is it about coughing that gives the observer a better look?
It doesn't, but it increases abdominal pressure and may act to knock things loose which were stored "up there". More commonly the exam for a hernia involves coughing as the increased abdominal pressure would act to push organs out a tear in the abdom... | [
"While traditional intervention for an acute episode has been to have the patient breathe into a paper bag, causing rebreathing and restoration of CO₂ levels, this is not advised. The same benefits can be obtained more safely from deliberately slowing down the breathing rate by counting or looking at the second han... |
the difference between string theory and quantum mechanics | Quantum mechanics explains odd phenomena found in nature. It allows us to precisely model how particles and systems of particles behave.
Key points to QM:
Particles act like waves (or probability distributions).
Particles are only allowed certain energy levels in certain situations.
String theory is a mathematical... | [
"String theory is a theoretical framework that attempts to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. In string theory, the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how strings propagate through space and interact with each other. In a gi... |
why do people in some countries get punish for being raped? | Religion-based governments consider sex outside of wedlock illegal. They don't accommodate for common sense. | [
"Prisoners have two overarching reasons to rape a victim, one is to satisfy their overt sexual and need based desires that self pleasure can not. The second is to use the assault as a sort of intimidation factor to grant the rapist power in a place where these actions generally go unpunished. In prison, the phrase ... |
When condoms are listed as 99% effective, is that per use? How is that number determined? | This questions comes from a misinterpretation of that statistic. It isn't that there is a 1 in 100 chance each time you use a condom that it might fail. Instead, it's something much weirder than that, but eventually I'll explain why it's really the only way we can measure this.
That 2/100 number (actually not 1/100) r... | [
"The effectiveness of condoms, as of most forms of contraception, can be assessed two ways. \"Perfect use\" or \"method\" effectiveness rates only include people who use condoms properly and consistently. \"Actual use\", or \"typical use\" effectiveness rates are of all condom users, including those who use condoms... |
why is it bad to eat the ground up bones/eyes/skin etc., that is present in things like chicken nuggets? | Chicken nuggets don't contain eyes are bones. At least in the USA. They have meat from the breast. Some also have meat from the ribs, thighs and legs.
The heads are cut off and thrown out or shipped to other parts of the world where people aren't so squeamish about such things. | [
"Eating deteriorated food could not be considered safe due to mycotoxins or microbial wastes. Some pathogenic bacteria, such as \"Clostridium perfringens\" and \"Bacillus cereus\", are capable of causing spoilage.\n",
"BULLET::::1. A rejection of potentially offensive food We are unlikely to touch foods that elic... |
why doesn’t hot weather cause more rain? | Air has many things in it. H2o in the form of vapor, O2, Nitrogen, C02 etc...
When that air is warm, the molecules move faster and push each other further apart.
When they are furthur apart, there is more space for H20 in Vapor form
When that same quantity of air cools, the molecules move closer together.
At one ... | [
"The hot, dry season is caused by a vast low pressure area which extends over a large part of the Indian Ocean and Central Africa. This low pressure favours gusty winds and cyclones. The last cyclone was \"Gafilo\" which passed close to the Comoros on 5 March 2004 causing great material damage. During the hot and h... |
is a fruit or vegetable 'ripe' when humans deem it fit for consumption, or is it a biological state for the plant? | We eat most fruits when they're biologically ripe. We eat most vegetables early. Broccoli and cauliflower we eat the unopened buds of their flowers; cabbages, lettuces and mustards we eat the leaves before the plant buds. We eat peas young, but most beans we let mature. | [
"They allow many fruits to be picked prior to full ripening, which is useful, since ripened fruits do not ship well. For example, bananas are picked when green and artificially ripened after shipment by being gassed with ethylene.\n",
"There are two patterns of fruit ripening: climacteric that is induced by ethyl... |
Why does fat distribution seem to change as people get older? | Fat cells stored lipids as triglycerides and can't release them unless the enzymes necessary are present and active. If the cell loses its hormone receptors that normally trigger lipolysis, the fat stays there. So, fat accumulates in regions where lipocytes have been 'down regulated' for lipolytic hormones such as epin... | [
"The economic effects of an aging population are considerable. Older people have higher accumulated savings per head than younger people, but spend less on consumer goods. Depending on the age ranges at which the changes occur, an aging population may thus result in lower interest rates and the economic benefits of... |
Can bleach expire/'go bad'? | Bleach is usually NaOCl, which is a relatively stable compound, but it does interact with air a bit, and this volatility is what gives it its strong smell of chlorine. If the lid is kept on and is hermetically sealed, the bleach inside will stay at a steady state indefinitely. The only way it can "expire" is through no... | [
"The safety of bleaches depends on the compounds present, and their concentration. Generally speaking, ingestion of bleaches will cause damage to the esophagus and stomach, possibly leading to death. On contact with the skin or eyes, it causes irritation, drying, and potentially burns. Inhalation of bleach fumes ca... |
is the amount of caffeine absorbed into the bloodstream dependant on the same variations that alcohol absorption is based upon? | Well, it's dependent on the same mechanisms in your GI tract. So all chemicals from food and drink end up in your blood stream the same way. There are a few differences specifically between caffeine and alcohol that I'll mention, but everything is a little different.
What you are ultimately talking about is something ... | [
"During the initial absorption phase, arterial blood alcohol concentrations are higher than venous. After absorption, venous blood is higher. This is especially true with bolus dosing (Canadian term). With additional doses of alcohol, the body can reach a sustained equilibrium when absorption and elimination are pr... |
what makes the noise inside a can of guinness and what is it's purpose? | It's called a 'Widget', and it's job is to foam up the Guinness. It contains pressurized nitrogen and skims the top to make a head. | [
"The term likely dates from the late 19th century when fresh beer was carried from the local pub to one's home by means of a small galvanized pail. It is claimed the sound that the carbon dioxide made when it escaped from the lid as the beer sloshed around sounded like a growl.\n",
"When Guinness is poured, the g... |
why is it that when i look, for example, from the top of one hill to another in the distance the area between my location and the far point shifts from it's normal colour to a faded blue? | What you're seeing is sunlight scattered by the atmosphere. Blue light is scattered more than red light. Red light can pass through the atmosphere in a relatively straight line from the sun, but the blue light bounces around and hits your eye. It's also why the sun looks orange/red from earth but white from space. | [
"When viewed from the east or west, this mountain has the appearance of a (quite elongated) human profile, with distinct forehead, nose, lips, chin, and Adam's apple. These features are most distinct when viewed from the east; unlike most human faces, the chin is the highest point.\n",
"As a result of the accumul... |
I stand on Earth so that Sun is behind me and Moon is in front of me at the same time. How can it be that the Moon is NOT full? | Unless it's a lunar eclipse there is no way the moon can't be full if you are in line between the sun and the moon.
Humans are pretty bad at judging elevation, so if you have seen something like what you describe the chance is that the sun and/or the moon were higher in the sky than what you thought. | [
"When standing on the Earth looking up at the sky, it would appear that the Moon travels from east to west, just as the Sun and the stars do. In actual fact, the Moon orbits the Earth from west to east, as do the vast majority of manmade satellites such as the International Space Station. The apparent westward moti... |
why does netflix have so many great tv shows but has a poor selection of movies? | It's primarily due to licensing fees | [
"Netflix has been called out by some media organizations and competitors for only rarely and selectively releasing its ratings and viewer numbers. A notable instance of this involves the film \"Bird Box\". A week after its release, Netflix claimed that it had the biggest seven-day viewing record of any of its origi... |
could causality theoretically predict the future? | In classical physics, yes: a complete knowledge of the state of a system provides complete knowledge of all its future states. Once quantum effects come into play, our best current answer is "no": there appear to be truly random processes at play there. | [
"Prediction is similar to forecasting but is used more generally, for instance, to also include baseless claims on the future. Organized efforts to predict the future began with practices like astrology, haruspicy, and augury. These are all considered to be pseudoscience today, evolving from the human desire to kno... |
What is the most comprehensive, unbiased world history textbook you know of? | While I'm interested to see what people recommend, you should recognize the challenges of the terms "comprehensive" and "unbiased" when it comes to something as massive as world history. Contrary to how many people think about history, it is not a list of sequential events liked by a web of cause-and-effect connections... | [
"Thus, the book presents an overview of the themes and lessons observed from 5,000 years of world history, examined from 12 perspectives: geography, biology, race, character, morals, religion, economics, socialism, government, war, growth and decay, and progress.\n",
"The Guide to Modern World Literature is a ref... |
How well and what style of swimming did Europeans have in the Medieval periods? | This is tangential, but it is clear from a copy of Bellisfortis included in Hans Talhoffer's 1459 manuscript on combat arts that human bouyancy was a subject of study; _URL_0_ Notably, an inner tube of stitched leather filled with air. | [
"In classical antiquity and in most cultures, swimming was either in the nude or the swimmer would merely strip to their underwear. In the Renaissance, swimming was strongly discouraged, and into the 18th century swimming was regarded as of doubtful morality, and had to be justified on health grounds. In the Victor... |
why is it so hard for veterans to find jobs? | Veterans like to write about the things they did in the army in their applications. They write about the planes they flew and the time they spent with their fellow soldiers and all the medals they got.
However, when a potential boss looks at that application, unless he was in the army or likes reading about the army, ... | [
"The agency provides an important resources for veterans returning from war as well as retired military members who need health or other services that are provided by the government for their service to the state.\n",
"The veterans are also entitled to assistance with regards to finding employment and business op... |
If the atmosphere of Mars is less than 1% the density of Earth, why are there large dust devils and sand dunes? | Two factors are involved there. First, windblown sand is not like beach sand, it's much finer, almost like talcum powder. Desert sand dunes are not much like beach sand dunes, which is a very common mistake people make, as most people are more familiar with the latter rather than the former.
Second, since the grains... | [
"On Mars, the near-surface wind is not only emitting dust but also modifying the geomorphology of Mars at large time scale. Although it was thought that the atmosphere of Mars is too thin for mobilizing the sandy features, observations made by HiRSE showed that the migration of dunes is not rare on Mars. The global... |
What's going on, at the chemical level, when you let a wine bottle "breathe"? What exactly is being oxidized, and how does it affect the taste of wine? | The conversion of ethanol to acetaldehyde is only the final step of wine oxidation, and it's actually phenolic compounds or "tannins" that are oxidized during intermediate reactions. These reactions cause them to combine with each other or with other wine constituents, e.g. thiols, consequently changing wine's flavor a... | [
"If the wine is completely on its side then this action will eject some wine through the cork. Through this \"breathing\" which can result from variations in temperature, oxygen may be repeatedly introduced into the bottle and as a result, can react with the wine. An appropriate and constant temperature is therefor... |
Why does WWII combat footage seem “tame” compared to reality? | The first thing I'd point out is that "compared to reality" is something of a strange baseline to make. I doubt that you are a World War II veteran, and neither am I, as you might suspect, but nevertheless, I would note that technically speaking, *actual* combat footage *is* reality, while "Saving Private Ryan" isn't. ... | [
"War journalism, combat films, and footage of World War II combat influenced the documentary-style camera work of the Battle of Geonosis, even to the point that hand-held shakes were digitally added to computer-generated sequences.\n",
"Kubrick’s vision of war was far bleaker than that of some other films of the ... |
What are the real world obstacles to tackling megafauna extinction through poaching by genetically modifying elephants/rhinos not to produce ivory? | I remember reading about a national park or some such in Africa where they removed the horns from some rhinos (or possibly de-tusked elephants) manually in an attempt to hinder poaching.
The poachers, presumably pissed off after spending a long time tracking down a rhino only to find it had no horn, shot and killed it... | [
"Illegal poaching for African elephants has increased noticeably in 2008 and correlates with an increase in price for local black market ivory and with increased findings of illegal ivory headed to China. There is a probable species reduction of ~3% in 2011 alone. Estimates of over 25,000 to 35,000 African elephant... |
How do the different ways of medicine delivery (oral, nasal, IV, etc) affect treatment/symptom relief? | The most impactful mechanism is the first-pass effect. When you take drugs orally they eventually reach the liver which has a very diverse set of enzymes. The most important ones for the first pass effect are the cyp450 family of enzymes. They metabolize the drug and in most cases significantly reduce its subsequent bi... | [
"Oral administration is a route of administration where a substance is taken through the mouth. Per os (P.O.) is sometimes used as an abbreviation for medication to be taken orally. Many medications are taken orally because they are intended to have a systemic effect, reaching different parts of the body via the bl... |
what are programming design patterns? | They are one of the reasons why some people drop out of CS programs in college, for one.
On a slightly more serious note: a design pattern is basically a sort of recipe to solve a common problem -- only it's a partial recipe. These problems aren't anything "big" like "write an application to do my taxes", but they are... | [
"In software engineering, a software design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design. It is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into source or machine code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can... |
Why does cloning (extinct / prehistoric animals) require live cells? | DNA is a very complex molecule, and as you most likely known, it can be easily damaged or destroyed by ionizing radiation, various toxins or free radicals, even a sunburn damages your DNA. A living cell has many mechanism of reproducing new DNA and repairing the older DNA. Once these processes stop, the DNA will begin ... | [
"Cloning may have uses in preserving endangered species and may become a viable tool for reviving extinct species. In January 2009, scientists from the Centre of Food Technology and Research of Aragon, in northern Spain announced the cloning of the Pyrenean ibex, a form of wild mountain goat, which was officially d... |
why does canada suck at cricket, unlike most other former british colonies? | There's no answer other than it's just not very popular here. I live in Vancouver and as far as I'm aware there are only two cricket pitches here. I live several blocks away from one of them and I've only ever seen people playing on it once. I think we're more occupied with hockey, football, and American football. Even... | [
"Cricket is a minor sport in Canada. Canada is unusual among the former Dominions of the British Empire in not having adopted cricket as a major sport—in contrast with Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa.\n",
"Cricket has an equally strong influence on the culture of many nations, ... |
What was Byzantine Iconoclasm and what was it's effect on the Orthodox church? | Byzantine Iconoclasm was a period in the 8th and 9th centuries when intellectual discourse and political intrigue in the highest ecclesiastical and imperial circles was dominated by debate over whether icons (depictions of biblical scenes and figures that were meant to be venerated) and religious imagery in other artis... | [
"The Iconoclasm (730–787 and 813–843) was a movement within the Byzantine church to establish that the Christian culture of portraits (see icon) of the family of Christ and subsequent Christians and biblical scenes were not of a Christian origin and therefore heretical. The group destroyed much of the Christian chu... |
why aren't there stricter physical requirements for police officers? they have to be prepared to chase down and/or apprehend criminals daily, but few seem like they're in good shape. | At least where I'm from in Canada Police are required to meet physical fitness requriements when they are first hired which are pretty strict. Once you are hired on it's difficult to fire someone because of the Unions. The police do encourage physical fitness though with reward and acomidation programs, free gyms and... | [
"Police officers are more likely to cover up certain kinds of crimes by their colleagues. One study showed that excessive use of force was the crime most commonly shielded by the code. Two studies suggest that some police feel that the code is applicable in cases of \"illegal brutality or bending of the rules in or... |
What was the FBI’s plan when they sent a letter to Martin Luther King Jr instructing him to commit suicide? Did they honestly believe he’d do it. | It's not every day that I get to answer two questions, one about Israel and the other about MLK, but it turns out I have the sources on this at hand.
The FBI's main goal was to discredit and shame him, something they had been trying to do for some time. J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, had sought to discredit King fo... | [
"The FBI–King suicide letter or blackmail package was an anonymous 1964 letter and package by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) meant to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. The phrase \"You Are Done\" is a noted warning from the letter.\n",
"The FBI frequently investigated Martin Luther King, Jr. In the mid-... |
In Game of Thrones, everyone knows The Bear and the maiden fair. Were there any universally popular songs in medieval England? | In the Continuation of John Fordun's *Scotichronicon* (c. 1440), [Walter Bowers](_URL_0_) notes the popularity of Robin Hood stories among the masses; he may or may not be referring to the rich tradition of Robin Hood ballads in Britain, some of which still survived in oral tradition [last century](_URL_1_).
There ma... | [
"\"The Bear and the Maiden Fair\" is a folk song in \"A Song of Ice and Fire\", and it is sung in the television series adaptation \"Game of Thrones\". The lyrics are provided by George R. R. Martin in the original novel; Ramin Djawadi composed the tune's music in 2012, at the request of the series creators David B... |
why do people code desktop apps in java when very few end users like it? | If you write in Java, your program will run on any system that is capable of running Java, which is basically every computer. Java certainly has its many flaws, but the ability to write a program that is guaranteed to be able to be run on anything is reason enough to overlook the flaws in many cases. | [
"A programmer could develop code on a PC and expect it to run on Java-enabled mobile phones, as well as on routers and mainframes equipped with Java, without any adjustments. This was intended to save software developers the effort of writing a different version of their software for each platform or operating syst... |
The surface of Venus sounds like hell. How comparable is it to the Hadean eon of Earth? | They both had/have lots of volcanos and an atmosphere rich in CO2 and water (both with a lot of pressure, 90 and 100x modern Earth, respectively). Both hot, but Venus is all the way at 462°C (we use temperatures lower than that for sterilization) and Earth only made it to 230 °C (and Venus is near that temperture const... | [
"Without seismic data or knowledge of its moment of inertia, little direct information is available about the internal structure and geochemistry of Venus. The similarity in size and density between Venus and Earth suggests they share a similar internal structure: a core, mantle, and crust. Like that of Earth, the ... |
how would/does north carolina go about enforcing their gay rights laws? | It would be after the fact. Basically someone who uses the same restroom as you accuses you of being the wrong gender for the bathroom, calls the police, you get arrested and then it's hashed out in court. | [
"In April 2017 Representative Speciale along with Representatives Larry Pittman and Carl Ford filed a bill in the N.C. General Assembly that says gay marriage is not valid in North Carolina. The bill, H.B. 780, claimed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows gay marriage is not valid in North Carolina. The bill s... |
at which point does something move? | Motion is a change in position, so an object will move as soon as its position changes.
Mathematically, Zeno's Paradox is interesting history but not particularly useful. If you have one liter of water, and divide it into two halves, you will still have one liter of water. If you split the halves, you will still have ... | [
"A motion move is when a player moves one of their pieces vertically, horizontally, or diagonally along the lines of the board and into an unoccupied space. However, a piece’s move is limited by the direction(s) its indicator(s) are pointed, as well as the type of piece. A player may not move more than one piece on... |
why do scraps of paper stick to our fingers temporarily if we press hard? | Everything sticks to your fingers a little bit. When you press down your skin flattens and the surface area of your skin that's touching the paper increases. With more surface area there's more force holding the paper in place. After a bit your skin stretches back to normal and the paper falls off. | [
"Paper contrasts with papyrus in that the plant material is broken down through maceration or disintegration before the paper is pressed. This produces a much more even surface, and no natural weak direction in the material which falls apart over time.\n",
"One characteristic of machine-made paper is that it crea... |
why does a fan/cool air help in reducing motion sickness? | The nausea is caused by a disagreement between the inner ear, which detects movement, and the eyes, which see movement. If you watch a 3D movie you can get the visual sense of motion but the inner ear disagrees.
Due to an evolutionary trait most humans have, your body treats disagreements between those two sensory or... | [
"On human skin, the airflow from handfans increases evaporation which has a cooling effect due to the latent heat of evaporation of water. It also increases heat convection by displacing the warmer air produced by body heat that surrounds the skin. Fans are convenient to carry around, especially folding fans.\n",
... |
Did the Milky Way ever have a quasar at its center? | I'll start with the second question. I [did some calculations](_URL_1_) and a quazar would be about 1000 times brighter than jupiter. This question seems to keep popping up, so if there is an error, I'm sure someone will notice ([Lq](_URL_0_) [Lj](_URL_2_)). I'm not really seeing how it could disrupt life on earth.... | [
"The center of the Milky Way had long puzzled astronomers, and thick dust obscures the view of it in visible light. During the mid to late 1970s, Townes together with Eric Wollman, John Lacy, Thomas Geballe and Fred Baas studied Sagittarius A, the H II region at the galactic center, at infrared wavelengths. They ob... |
Why does Earth's orbit sync up with its rotational tilt? | This [video](_URL_0_) may help you understand the mechanics a bit better. The north pole and south pole remain pointed at fixed points in space year round, while the planet circles the sun on a different plane. This means the orbit naturally creates the same seasons year round.
If the poles were pointing directly perp... | [
"Orbitals spin to mimic the effects of gravity and are sized so that the rate of rotation necessary to produce a comfortable gravity level is approximately equal to one day. In the case of the standard Culture day and gravity, this diameter is around three million kilometres. For such an orbital to reproduce the eq... |
why we can´t "see" atoms or small particles using some kind of microoscope. | Ultimately to see something you have to bounce something off of it. For big things this is easy—we can bounce photons (i.e. light) off of it and detect where those photons land.
However, a typical red photon may be 430 nanometers, while a hydrogen atom is about 1.1 Angstroms (about 4,000 times smaller). "Seeing" a h... | [
"BULLET::::- Optical tweezers use light to manipulate microscopic objects as small as a single atom. The momentum transfer from a focused laser beam is able to trap small particles. In the biological sciences, these instruments have been used to apply forces in the pico Newton range and to measure displacements in ... |
Are there planets with mountains so high they extend past the atmosphere so you could literally climb your way into zero gravity looking over the curvature of the entire planet? | Atmosphere and gravity are two different things!
In terms of atmosphere, there isn't a hard cut-off where the gas just disappears - it slowly gets less and less dense as you go up. The International Space Station actually feels drag from the atmosphere and has to boost itself a little bit every now and again, or else ... | [
"\"This Mortal Mountain\" is also about future extreme sports, concerning mountain climbing on an asymmetric planet with a mountain tens of kilometers high, extending far beyond any breathable atmosphere.\n",
"They visit a high gravity planet, where they encounter many insect-like aliens who have adapted to 1.5 t... |
what do professional painting restorers do beyond being good painters and having an eye for color? | They paint pictures in the same way the original artist did and they have a good eye for colour.
Can you do that? if so, go get a job as a painting restorer | [
"The conservation of paintings varies for the different types of oil, acrylic and fresco paintings. These techniques include cleaning, removal and replacement of degraded varnish and the restoration of paint losses. The Tate Museum described that \"Cleaning is a particularly delicate and demanding part of conservin... |
Why don't we send satellites upwards out of the solar system? Why always through the planetary pathway? | Another point is that since the solar system lies mostly in a plane, it's more interesting to send probes along it instead of out of it. Even if we somehow managed to set something on an escape trajectory perpendicular to the solar system plane, it would be a long time before it ran into anything else. | [
"All other planetary bodies in the Solar System also appear to periodically switch direction as they cross Earth's sky. Though all stars and planets appear to move from east to west on a nightly basis in response to the rotation of Earth, the outer planets generally drift slowly eastward relative to the stars. Aste... |
why are marshmallows white? | Gelatin is almost nothing but protein, that's why it's sticky and behaves the way it does.
So yes, it's the proteins changing after heating then cooling that cause it to turn white. | [
"Marshmallows (, ) are a type of confectionery which is typically made from sugar, water and gelatin whipped to a squishy consistency, molded into small cylindrical pieces, and coated with corn starch. Some marshmallow recipes call for eggs. This is the modern version of a medicinal confection made from \"Althaea o... |
Can jet engines function underwater? | An airplane engine will not work under water. Jet, piston, it doesn’t matter. The entire design is based around use in air and it has no way of producing power without air.
However, if you look at the engines that are usually called “jets” nowadays you’ll find they are most often “turbofans”. That means turbine powere... | [
"Water jet- Essentially a waterjet drive is like an aircraft turbojet with the difference that the operating fluid is water instead of air. Water jets are best suited to fast vessels and are thus used often by the military. Water jet propulsion has many advantages over other forms of marine propulsion, such as ster... |
how important are the visual chart questions when you're having an eye exam? | Which line you start to have trouble on gives them a good idea of the range they're shooting for -- and don't assume that one option is obviously better than another. Sometimes, there's intentionally little or no difference just to keep the patient honest. But... the doctor already knows where you're going to stumble b... | [
"An eye chart is a chart used to measure visual acuity. Eye charts are often used by health care professionals, such as optometrists, physicians or nurses, to screen persons for vision impairment. Ophthalmologists, physicians who specialize in the eye, also use eye charts to monitor the visual acuity of their patie... |
why is appearing "desperate" socially unacceptable? | If you're desperate, it's because you have few, or no, options. If you have no options, it's because nobody wants you. If nobody wants you, you are not very desirable. | [
"BULLET::::- The Elite-Engineered Model explains that social panics are exaggerated or invented problems created by elites or people who are considered higher among others in society. These type of people produce fear among the other classes over an issue that is not considered dangerous to the society. The reason ... |
How does an internet server know at what speed to transmit you data? | > Is that extra data lost and resent?
This depends on the size of the buffer. When data is incoming at a higher rate than outgoing it must be buffered and those buffers are not infinite. If the buffer overflows, data is silently discarded. When the original sender (the server) does not receive an acknowledgement fro... | [
"One process sending data primarily in the downstream direction is downloading. However, the overall download speed depends on the downstream speed of the user, the upstream speed of the server, and the network between them.\n",
"Speed, for the purpose of this article, is how quickly a server can deliver an artic... |
What is exactly happening at the molecular level and in terms of thermodynamics when acid is added to water that make it safer than doing the reverse? | The reasoning isn't based on molecular or thermodynamic effects per se. If you combine too much water and acid and the resulting exothermic reaction causes boiling and spraying, would you rather be covered with (1) a solution of water with a little acid added or (2) a solution of acid with a little water added?
(Incid... | [
"Preparation of the diluted acid can be dangerous due to the heat released in the dilution process. To avoid splattering, the concentrated acid is usually added to water and not the other way around. Water has a higher heat capacity than the acid, and so a vessel of cold water will absorb heat as acid is added.\n",... |
why are corporations, especially the larger ones already worth billions, always so concerned with growth? | Because you grow or die.
Consider a CEOs position, he is beholden to the share holders of the company and the board of directors. The share price at any point in time factors in future growth, if the company falls short is these, the share price drops and the share holders lose money. People who lose money generally a... | [
"Companies range from the very small to the very large. There are no very large businesses which are not companies. (Even the John Lewis Partnership in the United Kingdom, which promotes itself as \"the world's largest partnership,\" is in fact a company.) Part of what allows companies to become so much bigger than... |
the difference between advertisement and propaganda. | advertisement sells a product/service. propaganda *'sells'* an ideal.
can't be put simpler than that.
**Note** that the *'sells'* in propaganda is just a term used to equate the two; you're not actually sold anything but theoretically you can 'buy' into it.
Examples: a poster for CocaCola is an advertisement. A poste... | [
"Propaganda is a form of persuasion that is often used in media to further some sort of agenda, such as a personal, political, or business agenda, by evoking an emotional or obligable response from the audience. It includes the deliberate sharing of realities, views, and philosophies intended to alter behavior and ... |
how are trickshots filmed? | There is 3 ways to go about making a “trick shot” video is 3 methods
Extreme practice, this is the most grueling way to make this genre of videos, but it is possible, for example the popular channel “dude perfect” is a group of people who whole career is dedicated to making these videos, they have practiced for years ... | [
"Trickjumps are video game techniques that are used to enhance the mobility of the player when jumping. These methods are sometimes unforeseen by the creator of the game. However, they can also be placed in the game on purpose, often to reward players who practice more.\n",
"Trick shots appear frequently in films... |
do we age faster if we don't sleep as much? | There's a couple of things that need to be separated:
1. Pulling an allnighter occasionally shouldn't be much of a problem if you catch up a bit soon after. But structurally skipping sleep is very unhealthy. Your brain needs sleep to process information and "get rested". If you don't do that, it will function sub-opti... | [
"They are present in the sleep of 5-month-old infants, and develop with age. Between 3 and 5 years of age a faster negative component appears and continues to increase until adolescence. Another change occurs in adults: before 30 years of age their frequency and amplitude is higher than in older people particularly... |
How much power did the Queens and Kings in Europe have in the 18th and 19th century when Parliaments were gaining strength? | In England, it varied, really. The story of the 18th century in England is the decline of the powers of the House of Lords and the monarch, but George III took an active interest in playing parliamentary politics and, I think, halted (or at least slowed) said decline for a few decades.
George III was ultimately, a co... | [
"The influence of the Crown was increased by the civil wars of the late fifteenth century, which destroyed the power of the great noblemen. Both houses of Parliament held little power during the ensuing years, and the absolute supremacy of the Sovereign was restored. The domination of the monarch grew further under... |
Why were Charlemagne and the Abbasids able to command huge armies compared to later feudal states in Europe? | Not really an answer, but I'm just wondering where you've got the idea of 'huge' Carolingian armies from? Almost all of what I've read on Carolingian warfare suggests very small army sizes, certainly never really going over 5 figures in terms of manpower. The only scholar who seems to take a different direction is Bern... | [
"In the feudal system, new princes and kings arose, the most powerful of which was arguably the Frankish ruler Charlemagne. In 800, Charlemagne, reinforced by his massive territorial conquests, was crowned Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) by Pope Leo III, effectively solidifying his power in western Euro... |
What limits the amount of ram a computer supports? | There are a number of limits. They come in, for x86, a few levels: software, architecture, cpu, motherboard.
Software limits should be obvious. You need an operating system that supports the amount of RAM you're using. This is why you are recommended a 64-bit operating system if you have more than ~3GB of RAM - most 3... | [
"While not a RAM-based storage system, a CDBMS is designed to use as much RAM as the operating system can provide. For large databases, additional RAM improves performance. Generally, 4GB of RAM will provide optimized access times up to about 100 million records. 8GB of RAM is adequate for databases up to 10 times ... |
Can someone explain what a "Memresistor" does in a circuit? | Assuming you are asking about a *memristor*, this started out as a theoretical concept: if resistors impose a relationship between voltage and current, capacitors impose a relationship between voltage and charge (charge being the integral of current), and inductors impose a relationship between current and flux linkag... | [
"An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic, oscillating electronic signal, often a sine wave or a square wave. Oscillators convert direct current (DC) from a power supply to an alternating current signal. They are widely used in many electronic devices. Common examples of signals ge... |
How exactly does a microscopic organism become airborne? | I have a two part answer:
The general spirit of the factoid is true: If you have water that has bacteria in it, they will stay in the liquid water as the water vapor escapes. This is because evaporation is a molecular process: molecules leave essentially one at a time. And you must realize that, while we thing that bo... | [
"Sessile organisms can move via external forces (such as water currents), but are usually permanently attached to something. Organisms such as corals lay down their own substrate from which they grow. Other sessile organisms grow from a solid such as a rock, dead tree trunk, or a manmade object such as a buoy or sh... |
When and why did New England Puritanism fall out of fashion? | It was basically driven out of control by commerce and trade. The Pilgrims landed in the New World and immediately decided to set things up how they wanted. They tried to control things with their laws, starting immediately with the Mayflower Compact. For example you had to be a member of their church to be a citizen o... | [
"While Puritans were consolidating their domination of religious, political and intellectual life in New England, elsewhere in America, during the period immediately before the American Revolution, many newly arrived settlers became dissatisfied with theology, preaching, liturgy, and ecclesiology inherited from Eur... |
how exactly does someone code an app such as 'shazam'? | I do not know the specifics, but am pretty sure the app uses a centralized server that houses all of the music and relates that information back to the app. If my thoughts are true, then the app doesn't actually figure out what the song is.
Think of it this way: Just like when we google something, that's what the app... | [
"Shazam is an application owned and developed by Apple Inc. The application can identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, based on a short sample played and using the microphone on the device. The software is available for Android, macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Windows. \n",
"BULLET::::- Shazam ... |
deliberate homelessness - just why? | It's hard to have a definite answer as it's obviously a complicated situation. My guess would be some degree of mental illness (severe clinical depression, bipolar disorder, etc.). Maybe he feels like a complete failure for failing out if university. I know people who under-performed and was penalized for it and ended ... | [
"The criminalization of homelessness can be defined as the passage of laws or ordinances that prohibit sitting, sleeping, panhandling, sharing food, or religious practice in public spaces. Over half a million people are homeless on any given night in the United States, and a third of them are unsheltered. The growi... |
how game devs avoid people stealing their games. | They don't really care, the people buying games is more than enough. Video games are worth more and more each year. Games now make more per year than movies, the profits are going up and up, there is insane growth year on year, even with piracy, for indie and big studio alike. if anything having your games be popular s... | [
"In defense of these behaviors are arguments that the rules of the game allow it and that players might not know they are behaving against the designer's intention. So-called exploits, in this view, are not cheats because they do not change the game in any way and therefore could be accessible to all players if the... |
Why didn't Hitler invade Iran for Oil instead of the Soviet Union? | The short answer would be that the oilfields of Grosny and Maikop, later on Baku were easier accessable than Irans. For this there are two reasons, logistical prakticality and availibilty.
On the one side the it is the logistical side. We can see in the North African campaign that the Germans were already running on ... | [
"Albert Speer said that oil had been a major factor in the decision to invade the Soviet Union. Hitler believed that Bakus oil resources were essential for the survival of the Third Reich, as a dearth of oil resources was a vulnerability for Germany's military.\n",
"Following Germany's invasion of the USSR in Jun... |
why is it okay to eat sushi at a sushi restaurant, but it's bad to go to the store and get raw fish to eat? | In the US, the FDA guidelines for fish intended for raw consumption are that it "must be frozen and stored at a temperature of -20°C (-4°F) or below for a minimum of 168 hours (7 days)”.
If you do intend to buy and freeze your own fish for raw consumption, just be sure that when defrosting you keep it free of other po... | [
"Per Food and Drug Administration regulations, raw fish served in the United States must be frozen prior to serving in order to kill parasites. Because of this and the relative difficulty of acquiring fresh seafood compared to Japan, raw seafood (e.g., sashimi) is not as prevalent a component in American-style sush... |
Is “like dissolves like” always true? | "Like dissolves like" is generally true, but a broad oversimplification. What dissolves/mixes with what depends on how the chemical/functional groups present in each compound interact.
Polar and non-polar are generalized terms to describe how evenly electrons are distributed between different parts of a given molecul... | [
"Many substances dissolve congruently; i.e., the composition of the solid and the dissolved solute stoichiometrically match. However, some substances may dissolve incongruently, whereby the composition of the solute in solution does not match that of the solid. This solubilization is accompanied by alteration of th... |
How can beta particles travel faster than the speed of light? | Rounding to 300,000,000 m/s is very commonly done with the speed of light, since you rarely need to be exact enough for the rounding to matter, and 3x10^8 is a lot more elegant than 299,792,458 m/s.
Beta rays do not travel faster than light. Having mass, they travel slower than it (an initial speed of about .6C to .9... | [
"Shengwang Du claims in a peer-reviewed journal to have observed single photons' precursors, saying that they travel no faster than \"c\" in a vacuum. His experiment involved slow light as well as passing light through a vacuum. He generated two single photons, passing one through rubidium atoms that had been coole... |
Why does it seem that skin is the only human organ unable to adapt to weight loss? | Skin does adapt. You're much larger/heavier when you're 20 years old than when you were 2 years old. If you *rapidly* gain weight you exceed the elastic limit of your skin (stretch marks).
If you *rapidly* lose weight, you will end up with extra skin. If you lose 10 pounds in a year, you won't have a problem. Lose 50... | [
"As the body is unable to store fat correctly this leads to fat around all the vital organs and in the blood (triglycerides). This results in heart problems, cirrhosis of the liver, lipoatrophic diabetes, and pancreatitis, along with various other complications.\n",
"Serious weight loss may reduce quality of life... |
reactive hypoglycemia | Hypoglycemia means low blood sugar so you don't have any immediately available energy to do things.
A very simplified version of that article suggests that it happens after eating a lot of sugar or sugar-producing food. The body produces a lot of insulin to use or store the energy from the sugar but overdoes it, leav... | [
"Reactive hypoglycemia, postprandial hypoglycemia, or sugar crash is a term describing recurrent episodes of symptomatic hypoglycemia occurring within four hours after a high carbohydrate meal in people with and without diabetes. The term is not necessarily a diagnosis since it requires an evaluation to determine t... |
where does all the rock salt for keeping the roads clear go? why haven't so many areas near roads become too salty for grass, trees etc. ? | You're on the right track of thinking.
The reason areas near roads don't become too salty right away is because when it rains most of that water enters a drainage system and makes its way towards rivers and lakes. That's where the biggest issues occur as you often see fish, algae, pretty much any aquatic organism get... | [
"As a result of Canada's icy winters, salt is needed in order to deice slippery roads. The primary ingredient of road salt is sodium chloride. Road salt, while helping cars and people to gain traction in the winter, can have serious consequences for soil. As National Geographic found, \"Road salt can pollute soil a... |
- what people mean when they claim the civil war was not about slavery. | As the north became more industrialized the south became more and more a one crop economy-cotton- which depended heavily on slave labor to be popular. Balancing the needs of two such different economic systems became almost impossible especially as most of the newer states were free states. So yes, it was about slave... | [
"\"Slavery and States' Rights\" was a speech given by former Confederate States Army general Joseph Wheeler on July 31, 1894. The speech deals with the American Civil War and is considered to be a \"Lost Cause\" view at the war's causation. It is generally understood to argue that the Union (or the North) was to bl... |
How much do sports affect our physical structure? | Veins and nerves already come adapted to these issues. Veins and arteries are very elastic and stand up to compressive forces very well. They may collapse briefly but the collagen and elastin they are composed of will not be destroyed by compressive force. If a person is hit hard enough with a stiff enough object... | [
"Sports injuries are often the result of overuse or trauma to a part of the body. An issue unique to youth athletics is that the participants’ bones are still growing, making them especially at risk for injury. Around 8,000 children are rushed to the emergency room daily because of sports injuries. High school athl... |
why is it so socially acceptable to refer to someone as 'white' or 'black', but never 'yellow' or 'red'? | Because white and black have become socially acceptable identifiers.
Yellow or Red have not. Those people say I'm asian [insert particular country/region] or I'm native american [insert particular tribe]
It's just a thing about the vernacular. Not unlike how 'gay' is an acceptable descriptor, but 'faggot' is not. It'... | [
"The term \"coloured\" was generally used in preference to \"black\" as anyone who was of wholly European ancestry (at least Northern European) was defined as white, leaving everyone else as coloured. This included the multi-racial descendants of the previous minority demographic groups (Black, Irish and Native Ame... |
what exactly is a "share" / "share price"? | > Why can one buy/sell "share" from companies?
They are referred to as "shares" in plural but someone can buy a share or more *of* a company or *from* a company under different circumstances. Usually when purchasing a share of a company it is from other people who own said shares, and it is just what it sounds like:... | [
"In financial markets, a share is a unit used as mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. The owner of shares in the corporation/company is a shareholder (or stockholder) of the corporation. A share is an indivisible unit of capital, expressing the ownership relationship between the co... |
when there was a constitutional disagreement in early u.s. history, were the writers of the constitution, like james madison, constantly consulted what they meant by a certain clause given they were still alive? if they weren't, why not? | Yes and no. During the debates about ratification, for example, they traveled to their home states as well as neighbors to make the case for ratification. They expounded on the proper interpretation of the clauses as they understood them, so the states would not misunderstand. Records of these debates are a very common... | [
"James Madison, principal author of the U.S. Constitution and often called the \"Father of the Constitution,\" said this in argument for original intent and against changing the Constitution by evolving language:\n",
"The first written U.S. constitution was the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles, Virgi... |
why is that although lakes/ponds freeze on the surface first, they melt off the surface last? or does it just appear this way because water leaks around and back to below the ice? | You've basically got it. Water is weird in that its solid form is less dense then its liquid one. Which is why ice floats. Now when ice starts to melt the water will start to pool on the the ice and depending how thick the ice is, it will either continue to pool until it melts through to the water or if the ice is thin... | [
"When meltwater pools on the surface rather than flowing, it forms melt ponds. As the weather gets colder meltwater will often re-freeze. Meltwater can collect or melt under the ice's surface. These pools of water, known as subglacial lakes can form due to geothermal heat and friction.\n",
"When the water surface... |
Would it be fair to call the Albigensian crusade a genocide? | From a historian's point of view, 'The Perfect Heresy' by Sean O'Shea is considered popular history - and I can see how from that book's spin one could get the idea that the Albigensian Crusade was a genocide. But the Crusade really doesn't meet even the loosest definition of the term; it was a war of Christians on oth... | [
"Raphael Lemkin, who in the 20th century coined the word \"genocide\", referred to the Albigensian Crusade as \"one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history\". Mark Gregory Pegg writes that \"The Albigensian Crusade ushered genocide into the West by linking divine salvation to mass murder, by m... |
Why is the letter "S" so drastically different in 16th and 17th century English? Also, why is there still the "normal" s in some words, but the old alteration in others? | Linguistically speaking, there is an, albeit small, difference between the two different forms of the minuscule S. The long S, 'ſ' is an allographic variant of the grapheme < s > , which can also be represented as 'S', 's' and so on, depending on language, position and the type of the word. Practically, this makes lit... | [
"The use of the letters I and V for both consonants and vowels proved inconvenient as the Latin alphabet was adapted to Germanic and Romance languages. W originated as a doubled V (VV) used to represent the sound found in Old English as early as the 7th century. It came into common use in the later 11th century, re... |
how does kinetic energy play a role in chemical reactions? | When molecules collide with each other they may react with each other. So if you increase the kinetic energy of the molecules, you increase the number of collisions that occur in a given time interval. So you are increasing the rate of the overall reaction. | [
"Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in which a process occurs but in itself tells nothing about its rate. Chemical kin... |
what does the "e-i-e-i-o"stand for in the old macdonald song? | It doesn't mean anything. It's like "Rama Lama Ding-Dong" or "Give Peace a Chance."
--Homer Simpson
| [
"\"Ë\" is a phonetic symbol also used in the transcription of Abruzzese dialects and in the Province of Ascoli Piceno (the ascolano dialect). It is called \"mute E\" and sounds like a hummed \"é\". It is important for the prosody of the dialect itself.\n",
"Ẽ, ẽ is a letter in which the tilde indicates a nasal vo... |
difference between references and bibliography | References are specific citations, whereas a biblography covers works that were read as part of generalized research.
That's it, pretty much. | [
"A bibliography may be arranged by author, topic, or some other scheme. Annotated bibliographies give descriptions about how each source is useful to an author in constructing a paper or argument. These descriptions, usually a few sentences long, provide a summary of the source and describe its relevance. Reference... |
why is torture not an effective tool for information extraction? | The victim is not rewarded for telling the truth, because the torturer doesn't know the truth - instead the victim is rewarded for saying things that make the torturer feel vindicated. So basically it's a process of a torturer forcing someone to say what they have already decided is true.
That's why it's used by terr... | [
"FM 34-52 Intelligence Interrogation, the United States Army field manual, explains that torture \"is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.\" Not only is torture ineffective at gather... |
what exactly is cobalt used for in lithium batteries and why can't we use more abundant materials instead? | In lithium ion batteries, part of the process is chemically moving the Lithium ions from one end, to the other (cathode and anode). That means you need to physically "fit" those Lithium ions somewhere.
Cobalt oxide happens to have a crystal structure that handles those ions well. Not many materials can handle having s... | [
"Lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO) is widely used in lithium-ion battery cathodes. The material is composed of cobalt oxide layers with the lithium intercalated. During discharge, the lithium is released as lithium ions. Nickel-cadmium (NiCd) and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries also include cobalt to improve the o... |
Why is the grade school teacher traditionally a male profession in the UK, and a female one in America? | I don't think the British half of the premise is true either. At least not for decades. Not one of my primary school teachers was a man, and I think it's fair to see teaching in general is seen a more female than male profession in the UK today (to the extent that these type of stereotypes still have any currency). | [
"A male teacher should take heed that he does not become overly familiar with the girls. A male teacher who is single should not teach young children of either sex, since he may associate with their mothers when they come and pick up their children. In schools with many staff members, however, one may be lenient, a... |
Is it truth that Kuomintang did majority of fighting against Japanese forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War? | The Kuomintang did the majority of the conventional fighting against the Japanese, whereas the Communists were far more interested in guerilla warfare. One of the main complaints of the US representative in China, general Joseph Stilwell, was that the Kuomintang was actually less enthusiastic about fighting the Japanes... | [
"The Kuomintang official history of the Second Sino-Japanese War deals with it in a sentence, without any credit to the communists. Communist accounts, on the other hand, describe Pingxingguan as a typical example of \"Red\" guerrilla tactics, inspired by Mao Zedong's conceptualization of \"People's war\". Japanese... |
what is the deal with games over 60 fps? is there a difference between 60 and 300 fps. and what does interlacing and tearing have to do with this? | 60 fps is usually the standard that people aim for when it comes to frames per second in games. 60 is the standard because most common monitors are 60 hertz, meaning they refresh 60 times per second. They display 60 different images in a second. 60 fps also feels very smooth.
30 fps is generally seen as acceptable, bu... | [
"It is clear that a fast response time and high refresh rate is desired in order to display smooth motion. A framerate of 60 frames per second (FPS) is generally the minimum acceptable framerate in a video game for enthusiasts, with some enthusiasts preferring 144 FPS or even 165 FPS, to match the refresh rate of t... |
Shortages and Use of Resources during WWII | Hey there -- while our historians here may be able to offer some more suggestions, *A World at Arms* and *Why the Allies Won* jump out to me from our [WWII books list](_URL_0_). | [
"During the Second World War, by 1943, shortages in food and resources begin to affect all warring nations. In Nazi Germany, conditions harken back to the desperate years in the First World War and shortly after, when ordinary citizens were impoverished and forced to severely curtail their food intake. In Russia, f... |
Is there any way to build up an immunity to commonly used murderous poisons like strychnine or arsenic? | You are misusing the word 'immunity', I think you mean something like 'tolerance'.
This would be very complicated to answer and would need to be looked at case by case.
The body can break down or excrete some 'bad substances' and can even adapt and get better at breaking them down into less harmful chemicals, or exc... | [
"These methods do not work for all non-biological poisons. Exposure to certain toxic substances, such as hydrofluoric acid and heavy metals, is either lethal or has little to no effect, and thus cannot be used in this way at all. Arsenic is a notable exception with some people actually having a genetic adaptation g... |
What happens if your eye lids are removed? | Not an ophthalmologist, so I may be wrong:
If the surface of the eye dries out, it will be extremely difficult and painful, if not downright impossible, for the eye to move in the socket.
Yes, you could lubricate with saline solution or some other artificial tears.
Bright light and dust would be major issues; tinted... | [
"Iatrogenic injury of the eyelids is also common. Bruising (frequently) and tearing (rarely) of the eyelid can occur when the adhesive dressing used to hold the eye closed is removed. Removal of eyelashes can also occur.\n",
"If they continue to enlarge or fail to settle within a few months, smaller lesions may b... |
the photoelectric effect, and how light can behave both as a wave and as a particle | Light behaving like both a wave and a particle is because it is neither of those things. In our macroscopic lives, we can observe waves and particles, but in the very small quantum world things are not exactly like either. They act somewhat like both.
The photoelectric effect occurs when light is absorbed by an a... | [
"The photoelectric effect helped to propel the then-emerging concept of wave–particle duality in the nature of light. Light simultaneously possesses the characteristics of both waves and particles, each being manifested according to the circumstances. The effect was impossible to understand in terms of the classica... |
What does Hollywood get wrong about Historical melee battles. | Sorry, we don't allow [throughout history questions](_URL_0_). These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your quest... | [
"CNN.com put the battle on a list of best and worst battle scenes in film, where it appeared twice: one of the best before the Army of the Dead arrives, and one of the worst after that, dubbing the battle's climax an \"oversimplified cop out\" as a result of their involvement.\n",
"Movies often give wrongful depi... |
Yeah, yeah, yeah, humans received AIDs from monkeys. Do species other than humans have sexually transmitted diseases? | Yes, [koalas for example have a terrible problem with chlamydia](_URL_0_) which is having severe negative effects on the population in the wild. The disease is transmitted not just in male-to-female sexual activity but indirectly as well (such as from nursing mothers to their children), and some koalas engage in homose... | [
"While HIV is most likely a mutated form of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a disease present only in chimpanzees and African monkeys, highly plausible explanations for the transfer of the disease between species (zoonosis) exist not involving sexual intercourse. In particular, the African chimpanzees and monk... |
When did Globalisation REALLY start? | Well, the problem with treating globalization as starting before 1492 is that any system of international trade is necessarily going to be limited to either Africa+Eurasia or the Americas. So "Global" is a bit of a misnomer. | [
"The modern form of globalization began to take form during the 19th century. The evolving beginnings of this period were largely responsible for the expansion of the West, capitalism and imperialism backed up by the nation-state and industrial technology. This began to emerge during the 1500s, continuing to expand... |
what's up with those "buy gold" ads you see all over conservative media? | An older audience that is distrustful of the government and the currency backed by that government? People that can remember when the dollar came off the gold standard? Extremely conservative people that want a return to the good old days? People that scare easily?
**Perfect** targets for these commercials. The comme... | [
"Gold (stylised as WIN GOLD) is an Australian advertorial datacasting channel that launched on 1 May 2012 by the WIN Corporation. It is available to homes in most regional WIN Television viewing areas on LCN 85. The channel broadcasts mostly infomercials, as well as education, lifestyle, community programming as we... |
Have stories from Greek mythology been directly connected to or metaphorically connected to actual happenings? | Warning: long answer coming up. The TL;DR is: sort of, but not the ones you're probably thinking of I'm afraid.
First up, myths about the gods. As long ago as the 4th century BCE people started having the idea that the gods of story were heavily mythologised versions of kings of the distant past. The figure who came u... | [
"Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks. These stories concern the origin and the nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars s... |
Can/is there a green or black star? | The Sun actually [emits more light in the green than in any other part of the spectrum](_URL_0_), but the net result of this to the human eye is that the colors mix to look white (and then our atmosphere scatters some of that light, making it look yellow). So no, even a star that peaks at green wavelengths will not loo... | [
"In astronomy, a green star is a white or blue star that appears green due to an optical illusion. There are no truly green stars, because the color of a star is more or less given by a black-body spectrum and this never looks green. However, there are a few stars that appear green to some observers. This is usuall... |
why are big companies (like google, yahoo, facebook) buying small ones for a fortune, even if they could develop the whole service themselves? | They get rid of the competition and acquire the user base all in one move instead of the development time and building a base of people to actually use/buy the services while competing with the original company they are trying to oust. | [
"Companies range from the very small to the very large. There are no very large businesses which are not companies. (Even the John Lewis Partnership in the United Kingdom, which promotes itself as \"the world's largest partnership,\" is in fact a company.) Part of what allows companies to become so much bigger than... |
How can a guitar amplifier pick up radio waves and play them? | This isn't all that uncommon. It used to happen to me quite a lot when I had my old Marshall JMP out on tour. It has something to do with the broadcast being picked up in the internal wiring of the amplifier. Think of the wires inside as an antenna. After the antenna picks up the signal, the amp simply does it's job. I... | [
"A radio pack is mainly used for musicians such as guitarists and singers for live performances. It is a small radio transmitter that is either placed in the strap or in the pocket. The receiver is connected to an amp or PA system and the user simply connects the transmitter into the instrument. This means that the... |
Nutrition and Diet "science" seems so confusing and filled with contradiction or bias. What are some cold hard facts that you have learned about diets and food in general. | If you want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat. | [
"Ben Goldacre wrote that nutritionism, or its attribution to scientists, is the \"bollocks du jour\", and that it is \"driven by a set of first year undergraduate errors in interpreting scientific data.\" In his opinion, professional researchers and medical experts bear some blame for nutritionism because they at t... |
What would happen if the global production of oil stopped today? | 90% road vehicles out of service;
10-100% trains out of service (depending on region);
100% of air travel compromised;
99% of sea travel compromised (nuke powered civilian transport could pick up fairly early);
10-100% power generation compromised (depending on region);
Industrial production disrupted due to lack or oi... | [
"CERA does not believe there will be an endless abundance of oil, but instead believes that global production will eventually follow an \"undulating plateau\" for one or more decades before declining slowly, and that production will reach 40 Mb/d by 2015.\n",
"According to the Hirsch report prepared for the U.S. ... |
Are there galaxies that form spherically around a black hole? | Elliptical galaxies like [M105](_URL_1_) or [M87](_URL_0_) can be close to spherical, and have quite large black holes at the center. It's probably more accurate to say that they form *with* the black hole instead of *around* the black hole, though - the gravity of the black hole is a small thing compared to the gravit... | [
"A black hole, surrounded by a ring of dust, is thought to exist at the heart of the spiral. The dust ring stands almost perpendicular to the relatively flat spiral nebula. A secondary ring crosses the primary ring on a different axis, a phenomenon that is contrary to expectations. A pair of ionization cones extend... |
the difference between eukaryotes and prokaryotes. | Eukaryotes - which include animals and plants - have cells that have a lot of internal structure. In particular, they have "organs" that are sealed off from the rest of the environment of the cell by membranes similar to the one that contains the cell itself. The nucleus (which contains the cell's genetic material) is ... | [
"The division between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is usually considered the most important distinction or difference among organisms. The distinction is that eukaryotic cells have a \"true\" nucleus containing their DNA, whereas prokaryotic cells do not have a nucleus. Both eukaryotes and prokaryotes contain large R... |
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