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question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
Why are there so many books on Rome, Greece, and Egypt, but hardly anything on Persia?	Part of this is simply what we find in popular literature. Because the classical past is very prominent in western memory and is a "prestige" topic it is easier to sell and publish books on the topic; in addition there are simply more people out there with the background needed to write on Greece and Rome. Egypt is les...	[ "Western art, no less than history and theology, bear testimony to the ubiquity of the Persian presence in antiquity. Of all the extant works of Greek tragedy, for example, the only one that is about a non-Greek subject is Aeschylus' play \"The Persians\".\n", "The non-Iranian sources are mainly Greek. The most i...
How does the heat from the sun reaches the earth? Are the rays of light emited by the sun hot?	Yes the rays are hot as in they carry a lot of energy. This energy is in the end what is captured by the earth and the plants and the solar cells to turn into other forms of energy. There are two reasons why the temperature in the Himalayas is still lower: * First of all the energy of this beam does not really depend ...	[ "Very hot objects emit UV radiation (see black-body radiation). The Sun emits ultraviolet radiation at all wavelengths, including the extreme ultraviolet where it crosses into X-rays at 10 nm. Extremely hot stars emit proportionally more UV radiation than the Sun. Sunlight in space at the top of Earth's atmosphere ...
What would happen if you tried to manipulate a rod of material that was a lightyear in length?	Just _some_ of the times the same question has been asked before: [If I pushed a button 10 light years away with a stick that was 10 light years long, how long would it take for the button to be pushed?](_URL_5_) [If I have a theoretical rod that is 1 light-year long and I have the ability to pull it one meter toward...	[ "It follows that if a rod is accelerated by some external force applied anywhere along its length, the elements of matter in various different places in the rod cannot all feel the same magnitude of acceleration if the rod is not to extend without bound and ultimately break. In other words, an accelerated rod which...
how much luck is involved when something goes viral on social media? besides the merits of the content itself, what other factors contribute to it?	You normally need a key person to comment or forward it. Someone who is followed or read by lots of other people to start a kind of cascade effect. A single comment by someone like George Takei will send an ordinary item into a potentially viral one	[ "BULLET::::- Network Analysis: social data is also interesting in that it migrates, grows (or dies) based on how the data is propagated throughout the network. It's how viral activity starts—and spreads.\n", "The growth of social networks significantly contributed to the effectiveness of viral marketing. As of 20...
would we still get hungry if everything our body needs is directly pumped into our bloodstream?	There is TPN, total parenteral nutrition. It is expensive. Everything you need is pumped into the bloodstream. They are very prone to getting infections. It is a big catheter. Patients getting getting TPN are generally very sick. They do not complain about being hungry. But it could be that they are sick.	[ "Although the passage of food into the gastrointestinal tract results in increased blood flow to the stomach and intestines, this is achieved by diversion of blood primarily from skeletal muscle tissue and by increasing the volume of blood pumped forward by the heart each minute. The flow of oxygen and blood to the...
if it is illegal to hire someone base on race, why does job applications still have you choose what is your race, why does it matter?	Background information is used by HR departments for tracking purposes internally and isn't used for hiring. Legally any racial/personal information must be removed from the application before being forwarded to hiring officials. Also, offering that information is purely voluntary and can't be held against if you cho...	[ "Race not only plays an important role in the way that employees act with each other, but also how employees act toward customers based on what race they are associated with. People expect others to behave in a certain manner due to what race they identify or associate with. Race influences and changes the way we s...
1 out of 10 men are direct descendants of genghis khan. why men specifically? is it impossible for women to be direct descendants?	Male descendants are just much easier to trace, because it has to be the same Y chromosome.	[ "There are no living males known to descend directly from Genghis Khan, or any of his nearest male relatives. Many researchers have attempted to infer his Y-DNA haplogroup, according to various criteria, from those now prominent in Mongolia and other areas formerly part of the Mongol Empire.\n", "Khan had four wi...
in southern countries, was north originally considered south?	[it's arbitrary. ](_URL_0_) There are historical occurrences of maps that are "upside down". So even though "north" meaning toward the North Star or magnetic north is always the same direction the way you choose to draw it on a map is up to you. It could just have easily been on the left or right side of the map instea...	[ "The visible rotation of the night sky around the visible celestial pole provides a vivid metaphor of that direction corresponding to up. Thus the choice of the north as corresponding to up in the northern hemisphere, or of south in that role in the southern, is, prior to worldwide communication, anything but an ar...
Are cancerous cells ever observed in non-animal organisms such as plants, fungi, etc...?	Yes, plants can form tumors, but in general it is thought they are not as harmful as in animals because plant cells have cell walls while animal cells don't. Similar pathways lead to plant tumors as in animal tumors (ie they develop from stem cell niches). But, one of the key steps in cancer metastasis in animals is th...	[ "Multicellular organisms, especially long-living animals, face the challenge of cancer, which occurs when cells fail to regulate their growth within the normal program of development. Changes in tissue morphology can be observed during this process. Cancer in animals (metazoans) has often been described as a loss o...
What are the earliest examples of a North/South divide in England?	This cultural / administrative divide can be traced back at least as far as 11th Century. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Northumbria was regarded as a bit of a wild backwater and was never visited by Edward in his entire reign. Indeed, their own Earl Tostig Godwinson spent a large part of his time in Southern ...	[ "Potential historical reasons for the divide include the influence of Scandinavian rule in the latter centuries of the first millennium CE, with much of the cultural differences of the north-south divide coinciding with the borders of the Danelaw. The Economist proposed in a 2017 article that the origins of the Nor...
What was the effect of marijuana on the ancient world?	I don't actually know if they criminalised the drug or not, but the origin of our word cannabis is from the Akkadian word qunubu, meaning that in the Near East at least they had been aware of cannabis for a very long time. At least in a religious ritual context, it's clear that the Assyrians and Babylonians used cann...	[ "Prior to the introduction of opium to ancient India and China, these civilizations pioneered the use of cannabis incense and aconitum. c. 400 BC, the Sushruta Samhita (a text from the Indian subcontinent on ayurvedic medicine and surgery) advocates the use of wine with incense of cannabis for anesthesia. By the 8t...
herding dogs. how do they know where the livestock needs to go? how much is instinct, and how much is training?	Where to take the animal is training, whatever method they use to do it is the genetics. Aussies will body block, nip heels, bark (very loud) and strafe. Other dogs like the Catahoula will be much more aggressive with the nipping, and I think Healers to some degree. A herding (or stock) dog will direct, a shepherd w...	[ "Herding instincts and trainability can be measured when introducing a dog to livestock or at noncompetitive herding tests. Individuals exhibiting basic herding instincts can be trained to compete in herding trials.\n", "Some animals instinctively gather together as a herd. A group of animals fleeing a predator w...
why is the us media overly sexualized, but then people are shamed for sexualization?	> The FCC is so sensitive about some things (language, no nudity) on television/in media, but yet, the media still finds a way around that. ... > why is there such restraint over sexuality when it is blatantly obvious that people find ways around it? Your question has a built-in presumption that the FCC is ti...	[ "Most studies consistently show that after exposure to pornography and other forms of misogynistic media depicting degradation of women and rape, including hip hop and rap, viewers show attitudes that are less sympathetic to rape victims and more tolerant and accepting of violence toward women – in effect, such beh...
why does jello pudding mix only work with dairy milk?	They make ones that will work with non dairy milks. The proteins and fats and sugars in milk are pretty unique which is why they can make cheese. You cant make almond cheese or coconut cheese, and you cant make dairy pudding with them either. Maybe someone can explain the science behind the interactions with the casein...	[ "A dairy mix is the blend of milk, cream, sugar, stabilizers, and vanilla packaged by a dairy for commercial use. This mix can either be made directly into ice cream or placed into containers for the use in soft serve, frozen custard, or ice cream machines. Dairy mix used in restaurants can be also used to make fro...
When did owning swimming pools become fashionable?	In Rome and Greece, swimming was part of the education of elementary age boys and the Romans built the first swimming pools (separate from bathing pools). The first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the first century BC. Gaius Maecenas was a rich Roman lord and considered one of the first patr...	[ "Swimming pools became popular in Britain in the mid-19th century. As early as 1837, six indoor pools with diving boards existed in London, England. The Maidstone Swimming Club in Maidstone, Kent is believed to be the oldest surviving swimming club in Britain. It was formed in 1844, in response to concerns over dro...
What happens to disease immunity from vaccinations if you're HIV positive?	The body does still produce an effect but it is significantly reduced with a low CD4 count. Think of T helper (CD4) cells as basically the [bugles](_URL_1_) calling in the cavalry of the immune system; once an antigen presenting cell (APC) hands them some info and gives the T helper the secret handshake, they rally and...	[ "The type of vaccination for this disease is called artificial active immunity. This type of immunity is generated when a dead or weakened version of the disease enters the body causing an immune response which includes the production of antibodies. This is beneficial to the body because this means that if the dise...
is there a difference between a racist and a bigot, and if so, what is it?	A racist is intolerant towards people of other races. A bigot is intolerant of other people's opinions. But bigot can sometimes be someone who's prejudiced because of another person's identity (be it their sexuality, class, gender, disability, etc).	[ "An example of Peattie's views that can be construed as racist is the following, from \"An Almanac for Moderns\": \"Every species of ant has its racial characteristics. This one seems to me to be the negro of ants, and not alone from the circumstance that he is all black, but because he is the commonest victim of s...
Questions about aspirin...	1. I synthesized aspirin in my undergraduate organic chemistry class. We dissolved it in 100% ethanol, then added water for recrystallization. The aspirin dissolves completely in EtOH, but is not as soluble in the water/EtOH solution. So, I would go with ethanol. Edit: [this paper](_URL_0_) describes solubility of ...	[ "Aspirin is used in the treatment of a number of conditions, including fever, pain, rheumatic fever, and inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, pericarditis, and Kawasaki disease. Lower doses of aspirin have also been shown to reduce the risk of death from a heart attack, or the risk of stroke in pe...
what is today's news on google forking webkit and launching blink mean?	Webkit is a web page rendering engine that Google chrome has been using for a while now because its lightweight and fast. Its also used in other browsers and is open source, meaning everyone can see how it works and more easily find flaws with it. Because its open its used in many other browsers on many different pla...	[ "On April 3, 2013, Google announced that it would produce a fork of WebKit's WebCore component, to be named Blink. Chrome's developers decided on the fork to allow greater freedom in implementing WebCore's features in the browser without causing conflicts upstream, and to allow simplifying its codebase by removing ...
If I were to accelerate a pebble to 99% the speed of light aimed at the center of the earth....what would happen?	A 10g pebble moving at 99% of the speed of light, hitting a solid surface, would release about 5.5*10^15 J of energy. This is similar to the energy of a 1-megaton nuclear bomb (by comparison, the Little Boy was about 1.5% as much and the Tsar Bomba 5000% as much).	[ "Moving at a speed close to the speed of light and encountering even a tiny stationary object like a grain of sand will have fatal consequences. For example, a gram of matter moving at 90% of the speed of light contains a kinetic energy corresponding to a small nuclear bomb (around 30kt TNT).\n", "Based on these ...
amanda knox trial	Since this is a dupe, I'll repost my comment from [here](_URL_0_): --- Amanda Knox was an American studying in Italy. She lived with a British roommate, Meredith Kercher, and was dating an Italian man, Raffaele Sollecito. In November 2007, while Knox and Sollecito were out together, a man named Rudy Guede broke into ...	[ "Featuring interviews with Amanda Knox, her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, and others involved in the case, the documentary chronicles the murder of Knox's roommate Meredith Kercher and the subsequent investigation, trials and appeals. Her notoriety bolstered by tabloid journa...
could australia use seawater to put out the fires, or is fresh water required, so as not to add a bunch of salt to the soil?	We could, but it would have the consequence you mentioned. Also, transporting water inland is a very expensive thing to do.	[ "As a result of the water supply crisis during the severe 1997–2009 drought State governments around Australia began building desalination plants that purify seawater using reverse osmosis technology. Many of these plants have included in their overall cost the building of renewable energy sources such as wind farm...
what is an integrated circuit, what does it do, and how does it do it?	An integrated circuit is another word for s silicon chip where many components (transistors, resistors) are integrated on the same chip. Prior to the invention of the integrated circuit, all the individual resistors, transistors, diodes, and capacitors had to be wired into and soldered onto a breadboard. The advanta...	[ "(i) 'integrated circuit' means a product, in its final form or an intermediate form, in which the elements, at least one of which is an active element, and some or all of the inter-connections are integrally formed in and/or on a piece of material and which is intended to perform an electronic function,\n", "An ...
why do storage devices have capacities that are multiples of 8?	storage is a collection of 1's and 0's (bits) and 8 bits form a byte. all the information about your files, programs and anything else is stored in this binary form. lets just call this the data. however just storing the data isn't enough. you have to be able to manage all this data, and how to find it all. that way ...	[ "The most commonly used units of data storage capacity are the bit, the capacity of a system that has only two states, and the byte (or octet), which is equivalent to eight bits. Multiples of these units can be formed from these with the SI prefixes (power-of-ten prefixes) or the newer IEC binary prefixes (power-of...
how can a butcher "age" beef for a large period of time (21 days etc.) yet if you were to take the same cut of meat not aged and leave it in the fridge for a time after its expiry it would turn rancid and have to be thrown out?	It has a lot to do with conditions and surface area. A butcher hangs meat in all one piece in a cold room, such as a full "side" of a cow, and that side of beef isn't touching anything besides the hook it hangs from, and generally is not handled while it hangs. No flies are allowed in the area thanks to multiple plast...	[ "Dry-aged beef is beef that has been hung or placed on a rack to dry for several weeks. After the animal is slaughtered and cleaned, it is hung as a full or half carcass. Primal (large distinct sections) or sub primal cuts, such as strip loins, rib eyes, and sirloin, are placed in a refrigerator unit, also known as...
Why did Hitler declare war on the US?	Modified from an [earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_) Although it was in many respects a foolish blunder in hindsight, there was a lot of strategic calculation that went into German declaration of war on the United States. Hitler and the Germans did not so much see the declaration of war as the start of a quid quo pro ...	[ "In fact, Hitler's declaration of war came as a great relief to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who feared the possibility of two parallel but disconnected wars – the UK and Soviet Union versus Germany in Europe, and the US and the British Empire versus Japan in the Far East and the Pacific. With Nazi Ger...
What was Damascus steel?	Truthfully, we are still trying to understand the process of Damascus steel! We still don't know how the ancients did it. It's widely believed to be the process of tempering steel to make it stronger, studies have shown Damascus steel to contains nano-fibres which greatly increased it's strength and durability compare...	[ "The steel is named after Damascus, the capital city of Syria and one of the largest cities in the ancient Levant. It may either refer to swords made or sold in Damascus directly, or it may just refer to the aspect of the typical patterns, by comparison with Damask fabrics (which are themselves named after Damascus...
How Did DNA Evolve?	Based on your previous comments, it sounds like your main question is something like "how did DNA evolve in the first place when we now know that many different proteins are required for its function and propagation?" If that's an accurate representation, I would point you to the [RNA world hypothesis](_URL_0_). This ...	[ "DNA contains the genetic information that allows all forms of life to function, grow and reproduce. However, it is unclear how long in the 4-billion-year history of life DNA has performed this function, as it has been proposed that the earliest forms of life may have used RNA as their genetic material. RNA may hav...
why don't baseball pitchers wear a protective helmet if a line drive could cause permanent brain damage among other things?	Simply put, pitchers don't want to wear them. It's as simple as that. As far as I know, it's perfectly legal for players to wear helmets in the field and it has been done before (by first baseman John Olerud). Here are the reasons I've read about that account for the resistance to pitchers' helmets: 1) While the ef...	[ "Serious injuries may result from being hit by a pitch, even when wearing a batting helmet. On August 18, 1967, Red Sox batter Tony Conigliaro was hit almost directly in the left eye by a fastball thrown by Jack Hamilton of the California Angels. His cheekbone was shattered; he nearly lost the sight of the eye, was...
How do we know the electron is a fundamental particle and not composed of something smaller?	Theories that suggest a composite electron just aren't as effective or accurate as the ones that assume it to be an elementary particle (Namely the [standard model](_URL_0_)). Furthermore, high-energy scattering experiments have revealed that it has a very tiny, nearly spherical charge distribution while also being ve...	[ "The electron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , whose electric charge is negative one elementary charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron has a mass that...
when having diarrhea, why is it i can sit there for 20-30 minutes after going and nothing comes out. but when i get up, i immediately have to go again?	You can get the sensation of excrement entering your anus without it actually being there. You technically feel like you have to go even while sitting down but that's only because you're actually contracting your "poo muscles." When your body doesn't feel itself trying to "go" any more, it tells your brain "hey, dude t...	[ "Symptoms include chronic constipation. There can be fecal incontinence and paradoxical or overflow diarrhea (encopresis) as liquid stool passes around the obstruction. Complications may include necrosis and ulcers of the rectal tissue. Abdominal pain and bloating could also be present depending on the severity of ...
Do insects, particularly cockroaches, use acid in their digestive system?	It really depends on the insect. Mosquitoes, black flies and some lepidopterans actually have a basic stomach pH. However I did find a study on cockroaches that suggested that they seem to have an acidic stomach pH from around 6-2. If you're interested here is the link _URL_0_	[ "Cockroaches are generally omnivorous; the American cockroach (\"Periplaneta americana\"), for example, feeds on a great variety of foodstuffs including bread, fruit, leather, starch in book bindings, paper, glue, skin flakes, hair, dead insects and soiled clothing. Many species of cockroach harbor in their gut sym...
How legitimate are China's claims in the South China Sea?	Disclaimer: I am a Filipino poster, but I am of Chinese ethnicity. I'm just calling it as I see it based on my knowledge of international law. If we're going to go by the Nine-Dash Claim then quite frankly the claims are a whole bunch of nonsense. First of all, territorial waters are only supposed to extend 12 nautic...	[ "China has staked its territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea with the Nine-Dash Line. Its claims are disputed by other countries. The contested area in the South China Sea includes the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands, and various other areas including the Pratas Islands, the Macclesfield Bank and t...
why does holding hands with your so feel nice?	Because physical contact releases dopamine in your brain which is a feel good chemical. Lots of recreational drugs have a similar effects.	[ "A handshake is a globally widespread, brief greeting or parting tradition in which two people grasp one of each other's like hands, in most cases accompanied by a brief up-and-down movement of the grasped hands. Handshakes are sometimes used to signify romantic relationships.\n", "Using the right hand is general...
Why aren’t underwater windmills more of a thing?	A few reasons, 1. Maintenance. It's very costly to maintain underwater infrastructure. 2. Corrosion is a big problem in salt water environments. Meaning more maintenance is needed. 3. Biological buildup. Again in saltwater, the blades are going to end up getting fouled by barnacles and other aquatic life making ...	[ "Several types can be made; these include windmill-only ships as well as hybrid ships which store wind power from the windmill when the ship does not need to be propelled. To reduce the energy required to propel the boat, windmill ships are often equipped with low-friction hull designs, such as multihulls, or they ...
What did people in ancient times think of dreams?	Well, at least in ancient Egypt, eating feces in your dream meant you were going to become wealthy. B. E. Shafer, ed., Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). In Mesopotamia, dreams were usually matters of interpretation. Some advanced scribes who had e...	[ "In ancient Egypt, as far back as 2000 BC, the Egyptians wrote down their dreams on papyrus. People with vivid and significant dreams were thought blessed and were considered special. Ancient Egyptians believed that dreams were like oracles, bringing messages from the gods. They thought that the best way to receive...
Why does the elephant have such a big brain? Is most of it dedicated to controlling a massive body?	At its heart this is an Encephalisation Quotient (EQ) question, so we should start there. Most psychometric texts will talk of [encephalisation quotient](_URL_0_) (EQ) as a better predictor of intelligence than brain size. So many texts state this that that most assume they must be correct. There is only only one smal...	[ "Elephants have the largest brains of all land animals, and ever since the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, have been renowned for their cognitive skills, with behavioural patterns shared with humans. Pliny the Elder described the animal as being closest to a human in sensibilities. They also have a lon...
Do some plants legitimately have medicinal properties?	Your question sort of has two sub-questions that are non-trivially distinct: 1. Do plants (used as a plant or plant extract) have medicinal properties? 2. Do plants (any component thereof) have medicinal properties? As to the first, the court is still out on the vast majority of candidates, save a few known examples...	[ "A lot of plant species are used in today's studies and have been exhaustively studied for their potential value as source of drugs. It is possible that some plant species may be a source of drugs against high blood pressure, AIDS or heart troubles.\n", "Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been di...
how does mazda's rotary engines work?	_URL_0_ Anyone who has owned an RX7 will get this.	[ "Mazda is noted for its use of rotary engines, beginning in 1967 with the Mazda Cosmo. The Cosmo was a two-seat coupe with a rotary engine producing up to . Mazda continued to produce sports cars with rotary engines (sometimes turbocharged) until the Mazda RX-8 ended production in 2012.\n", "Mazda has undertaken ...
When the Titanic sunk due to hitting an iceberg, how iceberg filled was that part of the ocean?	The Titanic had taken a somewhat more northerly route than most liners normally had, and it was also sailing into an area (near the Grand Banks) where it had received warnings of floating bergs. At the time, no large ship had been lost to an iceberg, and it was thought that bergs did not pose a large danger to contempo...	[ "The \"Titanic\"'s collision with the iceberg at 11:40 pm on April 14 woke Anton and his brother and the two ran to the ship's welldeck where they clearly saw the iceberg. They returned to their cabin and dressed, barely finishing before water began to pour into their cabin. Anton ran to his wife's cabin and woke i...
Any studies of the changing preferences for androgyny vs. polarized masculinity and femininity through history?	if the topic is overly vague: specifically I’m interested in any correlations between a timeline of these trends and the corresponding social moment, especially in terms of the political economy	[ "In addition to the expansion to include sexuality studies, under the influence of post-modernism gender studies has also turned its lens toward masculinity studies, due to the work of sociologists and theorists such as R. W. Connell, Michael Kimmel, and E. Anthony Rotundo.\n", "Since the 2000s, Peter Hennen's cu...
how does netflix stream movies in high quality smoothly while youtube can't even stream a minute long video without buffering?	You pay for netflix	[ "Unlike analogue video streams in which only serial access is possible, digital video allows for random access to the media, which raises the possibility of alternative fast forwarding algorithms and visualizations. In video streaming formats, such as H.264, fast forward algorithms use the I-frames to sample the vi...
What does intergalactic space look like?	Disclaimer: I am a layperson. The sky would be different--it would be completely black to the naked eye if you were at the center of the Boötes Void. At 250 million light years in diameter, if you were in the center, the closest galaxy would be 125 million light years away. The Andromeda Galaxy is our closest non...	[ "Intergalactic travel involves spaceflight between galaxies, and is considered much more technologically demanding than even interstellar travel and, by current engineering terms, is considered science fiction.\n", "Intergalactic space is the physical space between galaxies. Studies of the large scale distributio...
Collapse of the Tatars	I wrote an [answer](_URL_0_) on the history and idea of Tatars a few months ago, that might be of interest. The rough idea is that a Chingissid state called the "Golden Horde" , which in turn broke up into a number of successor states, that were conquered by Muscovy/Russia in the 16th-18th centuries. But Tatar people...	[ "After the establishment of the Mongol Empire, the Tatars were subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, driving with them many of the Turkic peoples toward the plains of Russia in the Turkic migrations.\n", "The end of absolute Tatar...
The Goonies got me to wondering -- was there ever any actual piracy along America's Pacific coast? If so, what was it like?	Most of the piracy along the America's Pacific Coasts were privateers, not piracy, and were limited to the South American Coast. It tended to not be as blood thirsty and prisoners were routinely released. And it was nowhere near as common as it was in the Atlantic, Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico and African coasts. Keep in...	[ "The Pirate Bay is considered part of an international anti-copyright movement. The documentary \"Steal This Film\" was produced and distributed (via BitTorrent) in the months following the raid. In the words of its speakers, it aimed to present the other side of the debate, until that time dominated by the media i...
how will autonomous cars handle not being able to see the road, ie snow	It certainly will be harder for an autonomous car to do this than normal driving. Early autonomous cars will likely have a failsafe mode, where if they can't handle the road conditions, they will pull over and return control to the driver. Also remember that these cars will have a lot of advantages, like 360^o visi...	[ "Also part of the field of autonomous vehicles and automated driving is the Live Roads technology. Here is currently developing such a technology that will be able to alert drivers of conditions such as weather to alert other drivers of possible hazards, or to avoid a particular area whilst driving. An example is t...
What was religion like in the Palmyrene Empire?	Like other religions of the Near East of the time. The polytheist religion of Palmyra worshiped a number of gods and goddesses. There was the triad of Beelshamem, Aglibol, and Yarhibol- who represent storm god, moon god, and sun god. Other gods worshiped there include Baal Hammon, Manat, El, Allat, Poseidon, Shamash...	[ "Palmyra was an autonomous city subordinate to Rome and part of the province of Syria Phoenice. Odaenathus descended from an aristocratic family, albeit not a royal one as the city was ruled by a council and had no tradition of hereditary monarchy. For most of its existence, the Palmyrene army was decentralized und...
What would be the consequences for the neighbouring areas of the Atucha Power Plant in Argentina if it underwent something similar to other known nuclear disasters?	Just some context: the [plant](_URL_0_) is by a river, some 100 km upstream from Buenos Aires. What would be the risk to the city?	[ "At 7:07 a.m. (UTC-3) on 16 June 2019, Argentina's power grid \"collapsed\", according to Gustavo Lopetegui, the country's Energy Secretary. The failure occurred in the Argentine Interconnection System. In total, an estimated 48 million people lost power. The blackout affected most of Argentina (Tierra del Fuego in...
why is texture so important in our enjoyment of a food?	Texture is a major indicator of food quality. A carrot that's mushy isn't good. We develop expectations for what foods are supposed to be like texture-wise and deviation in these expectations set off our reptile brain alarms	[ "Texture plays a crucial role in the enjoyment of eating foods. Contrasts in textures, such as something crunchy in an otherwise smooth dish, may increase the appeal of eating it. Common examples include adding granola to yogurt, adding croutons to a salad or soup, and toasting bread to enhance its crunchiness for ...
skylanders. specific questions about what things are.	1. The series 1 and series 2 are the same thing/interchangeable/etc, as far as I know, but the series 3 portal is different due to the swappable characters in Swap Force. As for the portals connectivity to the different consoles, so far that I've seen from various comments, only the Xbox One doesn't register other sys...	[ "The Skylanders and Flynn track Wolfgang to Time Town, where they get help from the stereotypical Italian-speaking Mabu Da Pinchy. Fighting their way through town, they arrive too late as Wolfgang has already headed to the far future. Arriving in that time period, they discover that Wolfgang has completely taken ov...
Were civilians able to cross "borders" during the US Civil War?	It was definitely possible, though it wouldn't have been without considerable hassles, and a few favors cashed in along the way. So, I assume by the way OP phrased the question that they are referring to sanctioned crossings through enemy lines (and not stealth missions where permission wasn't granted). In this case, y...	[ "The Army of the Border was a Union army during the American Civil War. It was created from units in the Department of Kansas to oppose Sterling Price's Raid in 1864. Samuel R. Curtis was in command of the army throughout its duration.\n", "During the American Civil War, the Blackwater River was for a time the di...
how does image compression like .jpg work? a 500x500 pixel image can vary massively in filesize depending on 'detail' and file extention	Compression, in general, aims to remove redundant information. Some forms of compression, such as a zip file, do this without much special knowledge of what it is compressing, and also has to make sure it can get back the exact data before it was compressed (ie be lossless). Other types of compression are specialised...	[ "The size of raster image files is positively correlated with the number of pixels in the image and the color depth (bits per pixel). Images can be compressed in various ways, however. A compression algorithm stores either an exact representation or an approximation of the original image in a smaller number of byte...
why do pc's become slow and "aggravating" to use after little time, but macs seem to stay at top performace for a long time?	IT professional here: Can you please define "slow"? This word is thrown around often when it comes to computer complaints but details matter. Is it taking a long time to boot up? Is netflix choppy? Is it slow when you open a third powerpoint deck? Those can help me answer you better. The shorter answer is RAM, that ...	[ "The major problem of using the above scheme is that fast CPUs compute much faster than slow CPUs. Further, higher-end computer systems also have sophisticated pipelines and other advantageous features that facilitate computations. As a result, a spammer with a state-of-the-art system will hardly be affected by suc...
why are there different levels of sunscreen? wouldn't someone want to use the highest level that is most effective against sunburns?	Because SPF 100 sounds way more awesome than SPF 15 and people might pay more money for it. The difference between sunscreens above SPF 50 is basically negligible. SPF 15 blocks about 93% of the harmful UV features from the sun. SPF 30 about 97% and SPF 50 blocks 99%. Any higher and you're just adding fractions of ...	[ "Sunscreen appears to be effective in preventing melanoma. In the past, use of sunscreens with a sun protection factor (SPF) rating of 50 or higher on exposed areas were recommended; as older sunscreens more effectively blocked UVA with higher SPF. Currently, newer sunscreen ingredients (avobenzone, zinc oxide, and...
how are large, intricate corn maze designs made?	Using a board with strings attached to each end, the artist holds a string in each hand and keeps the board under foot pushing the cornstalks down with the board and using the strings to pull the board back up. The board is used to keep a uniform width of the lines in the corn, and the motion of kicking down and then p...	[ "A corn maze or maize maze is a maze cut out of a corn field. The first corn maze was in Annville, Pennsylvania. Corn mazes have become popular tourist attractions in North America, and are a way for farms to generate tourist income. Many are based on artistic designs such as characters from movies. Corn mazes appe...
when companies like facebook track their user's activity to sell it, who do they sell it to? and what do the buyers do with the data?	Have you ever used Hulu, and seen one of those ads that asks you to pick the one that is most relevant to you? Basically, companies like Facebook are selling user data so that marketing companies can do this without additional input and target ads to you.	[ "Through data mining, companies are able to improve their sales and profitability. With this data, companies create customer profiles that contain customer demographics and online behavior. A recent strategy has been the purchase and production of \"network analysis software\". This software is able to sort out thr...
Can anyone recommend a good book of world maps with political borders from various periods throughout history?	I can't give you any advice on the pre-USSR map specifically, but one I can personally vouch for is [this book](_URL_1_) called Great City Maps. It's a full-color collection of various surviving maps of great cities dating from Roman times up until about 1900. There are a couple of maps of Moscow and a couple of maps...	[ "This map covers areas which today are countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, and the republic of Azerbaijan. The map also contains parts of today’s Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Arabian Peninsula. In the map Gilom has also drawn m...
How did the Romans brush their teeth	The Natural History by Pliny the Elder is a very good source for this. A substance called dentifricium which was quite similar to our toothpaste was produced from powdered pumice [Plin. HN 36.42](_URL_1_) ("Considered medicinally, pumice is of a resolvent and desiccative nature; for which purpose it is submitted to ...	[ "The predecessor of the toothbrush is the chew stick. Chew sticks were twigs with frayed ends used to brush the teeth while the other end was used as a toothpick. The earliest chew sticks were discovered in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia in 3500 BC, an Egyptian tomb dating from 3000 BC, and mentioned in Chinese reco...
When did rhyming in poetry start? What culture implemented it, and how did it get passed on to the way we view rhyming poetry today?	I will presume you're thinking of European poetry of Dante, Cavalcanti and Petrarca in particular as rhyme is found across the world, [including pre-Columbian America](_URL_0_) and [Ancient China](_URL_1_). Until a better answer comes around I'll discuss the academic opinions known to the modernist poet Ezra Pound way...	[ "The earliest surviving evidence of rhyming is the Chinese Shi Jing (ca. 10th century BC). Rhyme is also occasionally used in the Bible. Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not usually rhyme, but rhyme was used very occasionally. For instance, Catullus includes partial rhymes in the poem \"Cui dono lepidum novum l...
Does World War I actually deserve the title of World War?	The UK in 1914 was a world power having bases and territory directly and indirectly under its control on every continent. Germany also had land (though much smaller then the UK) on several continents. There where battles that took place outside of the trenches and the middle east. For example the [Siege of Tsingtao]...	[ "The term \"World War I\" was coined by \"Time\" magazine on page 28b of its June 12, 1939 issue. In the same article, on page 32, the term \"World War II\" was first used speculatively to describe the upcoming war. The first use for the actual war came in its issue of September 11, 1939. One week earlier, on Septe...
How did the lion, an African animal, come to be so prominent in Chinese art and sculpture?	> an African animal I can't comment on why Chinese culture focuses on lions, but it's worth pointing out that lions once ranged throughout much of Asia as well. Although by now the only Asian lions left are in the Gir forest in India. Considering their [historic range]( _URL_0_), it's not surprising that they coul...	[ "The lion is a common motif in Chinese art; it was first used in art during the late Spring and Autumn period (fifth or sixth century BC) and became more popular during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 220) when imperial guardian lions started to be placed in front of imperial palaces for protection. Because lions have...
how do spiders make noises?	A couple ways. First, they have bristles all around their body that can be rubbed to make purring or buzzing noises. Second, some types can force air out of their breathing holes (spiders don't breath through their mouths!) to create hissing or screaming noises (think, like a kettle with air being forced out of it --...	[ "Males of \"Heteropoda venatoria\", one of the huntsman spiders that seems to easily find its way around the world, have recently been found to deliberately make a substrate-borne sound when they detect a chemical (pheromone) left by a nearby female of their species. The males anchor themselves firmly to the surfac...
Old paintings and portraits	Could you specify what you mean by "weird"?	[ "Portrait paintings are representations of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. The art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and...
how do billboards work?	> Who owns them? Most billboards will have a small sign on them that states who owns it. Most in my area are owned by VIACOM. That might be true everyware or not, I assume it depends on area. > Who regulates them and determines how many billboards can appear in a certain area? Some city's would have rules wh...	[ "A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers. Typically showing witty slogan...
Are there other theoretical dimensions that are not spatial or temporal?	In relativity, the difference between a spacial and temporal dimension is how we measure distances. If two events are separated only by time (say you now and you still sitting on your chair in 5 minutes), the distance between these two events is negative (or positive, in the other convention). In the case where the dis...	[ "It is therefore common (though not universal), for B-theorists to be four-dimensionalists, that is, to believe that objects are extended in time as well as in space and therefore have temporal as well as spatial parts. This is sometimes called a time-slice ontology.\n", "Unlike the four dimensionalist, the three...
how can it been cheaper to buy something new than to repair it?	Two answers you were given so far reference something called [economies of scale](_URL_0_) which means that making a whole lot of something means each one by itself can be made cheaper than by not making a lot of something. And that's not a wrong answer to your question. But it's also not the only answer to your quest...	[ "BULLET::::- The first, obvious advantage is having the item available again, which aides in the restoration of a vehicle to the correct, factory specifications. It also cancels the need to find a good used part otherwise not available new, or the sourcing out of NOS parts (New Old Stock) which can be a difficult, ...
Does air quality get better after a storm passed through an area?	Yes for a time air quality improves after a storm passes through. The mechanism is called "precipitation scavenging" in which droplets of rain will absorb particulate matter as they fall towards the ground. This is the primary mechanism - removal of PM in the air. There is no Wikipedia page I could find specifically...	[ "Considering that North Americans spend a large proportion of their lives indoors, it’s clear why this is a key issue in designing healthy spaces. Additionally, air quality is not a stand-alone problem; rather, every other component of the home can affect air quality. Air quality can be compromised by off-gassing f...
Can a deaf person become bilingual?	You're asking a few different questions here. First off, the deaf person in your example is already bilingual in English and a signed language. There are many different signed languages in the world, and they are not based on spoken languages. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are very diff...	[ "To be defined as bilingual, an individual need not have perfect fluency or equal skill in both languages. Bimodal bilinguals, like oral-language bilinguals, exhibit a wide range of language competency in their first and second languages. For Deaf people (the majority of bimodal bilinguals in the U.S.), level of co...
how did the u.s., a country only a few centuries old, become the world's largest economy so quickly?	You've been somewhat misinformed. [The US is the worlds third largest producer of oil, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia](_URL_5_), as well as the second largest producer of coal and natural gas. The US auto industry has been the largest in the world since the invention of the car, and it's only fairly recently that c...	[ "This historical list of the ten largest countries by GDP according to the World Bank shows how the membership and rankings of the world's ten largest economies has changed. Historically, the United States was consistently year after year the world's largest economy since the early twentieth century. However, the r...
why does honey form small coils when it's being poured?	Destin from Smarter Every Day has a video on this: _URL_0_	[ "According to the traditional methods of preparation, honeycombs are crushed, and the balls of wax containing 20-30% of honey are collected in generic containers. In the days immediately after all the honey extract has settled, the remaining combs containing honey and pollen are dipped in hot water (~ 50 °C), so th...
Is there anything saltier than table salt?	Well, how strongly you taste something is mostly determined by how "well-fitting" molecules of the substance are to your tastebud receptors. For sodium, there are specific receptors that have evolved to strongly fit Na+, termed ENaC. Though there are other receptors that are taste ions from salt more broadly (K+, NH4+,...	[ "Table salt is made up of just under 40% sodium by weight, so a 6g serving (1teaspoon) contains about 2,300mg of sodium. Sodium serves a vital purpose in the human body: via its role as an electrolyte, it helps nerves and muscles to function correctly, and it is one factor involved in the osmotic regulation of wate...
What did being wealthy look like in the bronze age?	This is a pretty broad question both geographically and chronologically, so I'll limit my answer to Middle and New Kingdom Egypt and can provide comparisons with other regions and time periods if necessary. Turning first to houses, the site of Lahun provides examples of houses of different sizes and levels of complexi...	[ "The 8th century BC saw a marked increase of wealth in Cyprus. Communications to the east and west were on the ascent and this created a prosperous society. Testifying to this wealth are the so-called royal tombs of Salamis, which, although plundered, produced a truly royal abundance of wealth. Sacrifices of horses...
why is plastic surgery "plastic"?	"Plastic" means "capable of being molded or shaped into forms". The substance called "plastic" was named after this property, and the surgery term uses the first meaning.	[ "Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two categories. The first is reconstructive surgery which includes craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. The other is cosmetic or aesthe...
Is Carl Jung's work relevant?	The psychiatrists I know don't think much of Jung (YMMV). However, I would point you to [Joseph Campbell](_URL_0_). His work is heavily derived from Jung's and is considered quite relevant in fields like cultural anthropology. In fact more people learn about Jung's ideas from exposure to Campbell than from reading Jung...	[ "Jung's writings have been studied by people of many backgrounds and interests, including theologians, people from the humanities, and mythologists. Jung often seemed to seek to make contributions to various fields, but he was mostly a practicing psychiatrist, involved during his whole career in treating patients. ...
AskHistorians Podcast 115 - The Friends They Loathed - Quaker Religion and Persecution in the American Revolution	Thank you as always to the incredible podcast team and all of you who participate on it! Looking forward to sitting down and having a listen.	[ "Engardio's documentary film \"Knocking\" explored how the unpopular religion of Jehovah's Witnesses played a major role in First Amendment history, setting Supreme Court precedents that expanded individual liberties for all Americans. In interviews, Engardio said \"Knocking\" is not about the theology of Jehovah's...
A couple questions about redshift and relativity.	I don't know if I follow your first scenario very well, but I will try my best to answer what I can. First off, there is no system which can "measure redshift." All you can do is measure the frequency. Now, there are times you can use that frequency and determine the amount of red shift if you know what frequencies o...	[ "At the time of discovery and development of Hubble's law, it was acceptable to explain redshift phenomenon as a Doppler shift in the context of special relativity, and use the Doppler formula to associate redshift \"z\" with velocity. Today, in the context of general relativity, velocity between distant objects de...
how do you train messenger birds?	Messenger birds can't deliver messages to arbitrary locations. They're birds (generally pigeons) that have a homing instinct that helps them return to their roost over long distances. So you raise one at your location, release them from further and further away from their roost to help them learn the area, and then g...	[ "Birds use contact calls in flight to establish location and to keep aware of each other's presence while flying and feeding. For some species, this call consists of a short, high-pitched sound, recognized and duplicated exactly by mates. Some fowl, such as geese,\"honk\" while in migration to communicate location ...
why is it illegal to record a phone call without the person's consent?	You are mistaken. Michigan courts have said it is eavesdropping for anyone not a part of the conversation to record the call. Federal law requires only one party on the call know that it is being recorded. Back in the old days, there were multi-party phone lines, which made it cheaper for people living in rural areas ...	[ "Call recording laws in some U.S. states require only one party to be aware of the recording, while other states require both parties to be aware. Several states require that all parties consent when one party wants to record a telephone conversation. Telephone scammers and others intentionally violating the federa...
Did Ancient Greece ever have sectarian conflicts? What were the major religious lines of division?	By Sectarian, I’m taking from your question that you mean religious and not territorial sectarian violence. Because the Greeks had a whole lot of territorial violence that could be defined as Sectarian. Religions could be used as a spark for a conflict but there wasn’t constant sectarian religious warfare like the Cath...	[ "There is, however, no reason to suppose that there was a decline in the traditional religion. There is plenty of documentary evidence that the Greeks continued to worship the same gods with the same sacrifices, dedications, and festivals as in the classical period. New religions did appear in this period, but not ...
How did scientists figure out that the mantis shrimp can see 12 different wavelengths if humans can only see three?	They extracted the proteins from the retina of the Mantis Shrimp. We have three types of cone cells in our eyes that are activated when differing wavelengths of light hit them. The mantis shrimp is the same, except they found up to 12 different types of detectors; each for a slightly different wavelength. The real que...	[ "Mantis shrimp can perceive wavelengths of light ranging from deep ultraviolet (UVB) to far-red (300 to 720 nm) and polarized light. In mantis shrimp in the superfamilies Gonodactyloidea, Lysiosquilloidea, and Hemisquilloidea, the midband is made up of six omatodial rows. Rows 1 to 4 process colours, while rows 5 a...
can we pump greenhouse gases into space?	No. None of us have the money, very few of us have the technology. Problem #1: Sorting out the "bad gases" from the "good gases". It's easy to verify those gases are present, but difficult to collect amounts of just that gas from the atmosphere in any reasonable amount. Most production of greenhouse gases for indu...	[ "Because long-term climate stability would be required for sustaining a human population, the use of especially powerful fluorine-bearing greenhouse gases, possibly including sulfur hexafluoride or halocarbons such as chlorofluorocarbons (or CFCs) and perfluorocarbons (or PFCs), has been suggested. These gases are ...
If you're breed into a war driven society like the Spartans, Mongols, Romans, etc. Is it a highly likely chance the soldiers still experience PTSD.	Insofar as PTSD is the result of neurological changes due to overexposure to traumatic situations, there is no reason why conditioning and training should make anyone less susceptible to it. Arguably the training itself, depending on the methods used, could become a cause of PTSD in itself. In any case, I'm not sure t...	[ "Since the \"Machel Report\" further research has shown that child recruits who survive armed conflict face a markedly elevated risk of debilitating psychiatric illness, poor literacy and numeracy, and behavioural problems. Research in Palestine and Uganda, for example, has found that more than half of former child...
dry shampoo	Dry shampoo is basically a powder that absorbs hair oils. No, it's not just laziness. Washing hair every day can be bad for your scalp (not only does it remove oil, as you mentioned, but shampoo ingredients can be incredibly harsh. Styling hair can also be incredibly damaging. If your hair gets wet, it needs to be rest...	[ "Shampoo () is a hair care product, typically in the form of a viscous liquid, that is used for cleaning hair. Less commonly, shampoo is available in bar form, like a bar of soap. Shampoo is used by applying it to wet hair, massaging the product into the hair, and then rinsing it out. Some users may follow a shampo...
Why is belly fat different from other fat?	abdominal fat is more correlated with insulin resistance. We don't know if the belly fat causes insulin resistance or if insulin resistance makes you more likely to store belly fat. _URL_0_	[ "Visceral fat or abdominal fat (also known as organ fat or intra-abdominal fat) is located inside the abdominal cavity, packed between the organs (stomach, liver, intestines, kidneys, etc.). Visceral fat is different from subcutaneous fat underneath the skin, and intramuscular fat interspersed in skeletal muscles. ...
Is it possible that Earth has had moons in the past and they were destroyed?	Not only is it possible, but there is actually evidence suggesting the Earth did in fact used to have two moons: _URL_0_	[ "Claims of the existence of other moons of Earth—that is, of one or more natural satellites that orbit Earth, other than the Moon (Luna)—have existed for some time. Several candidates have been proposed, but none has been confirmed. Since the 19th century, scientists have made genuine searches for more moons, but t...
Power Transformer explosions in Ft. Worth, TX. What could cause this?	I actually just saw a lecture about this. The explosions are caused when the oil used as a coolant ignites. The thing has to fail prior to this happening, for instance by a component melting.	[ "However, Con Edison later said that the power failure originated at a substation on West 49th Street. Gov. Cuomo further specified that an explosion and resulting fire at the substation caused damage to other substations. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio initially said via Twitter that a \"manhole fire\" was the caus...
When PTSD was officially recognized as mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, were there a substantial amount of people that denied PTSD's existence/credibility? and why?	The profession of clinical psychology in America actually came into being specifically because of soldiers suffering psychological distress as a result of their wartime experiences in World War II. In America during World War II, psychologists were seen as valuable by the U.S. military; of the ~4000 psychologists in a ...	[ "Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was included in the DSM-III (1980), mainly due to the relatively large numbers of American combat veterans of the Vietnam War who were seeking treatment for the lingering effects of combat stress. In the 1980s, various researchers and clinicians suggested that PTSD might also ...
Have we ever found a species which does no fit into the genetic "tree of life"?	The short answer to this is no. All living things (I am excluding viruses from this discussion) are composed of cells surrounded by a membrane. They also all use DNA to store the instructions necessary to create proteins. Given these similarities, scientists have concluded that all life on Earth shares a common ance...	[ "When an analysis of real biological data is performed, there is generally no access to the sequences of ancestral species, only to the present-day species. However, when a model is time-reversible, which species was the ancestral species is irrelevant. Instead, the phylogenetic tree can be rooted using any of the ...
Does global warming on Earth affect the solar system at all?	The Earth is part of the solar system. Apart from that there is no relevant effect. The emission spectrum of the Earth shifts a tiny bit towards shorter wavelengths but that doesn't matter outside of Earth.	[ "BULLET::::- A NASA study reports that changes in solar activity cannot be responsible for the current period of global warming. The sun's total solar irradiance has in recent years dipped to the lowest levels recorded during the satellite era. (ScienceDaily)\n", "Scientists opposing the mainstream scientific ass...
why won't flies and other insects react on sudden movements on the tv or computer monitors?	I'm not sure about this, but I think flies and other insects move because of air moving around. As screens don't make air move, they ignore it. Kind of relevant: _URL_0_	[ "Insect eyes are unable to move independently of the head. In order for flies to stabilize their visual fields, they must adjust the position of their entire head. Sensory inputs detected by halteres not only determine the position of the body, but also, the position of the head, which can move independently from t...
why do wireless headphones produce a less quality sound than wired ones?	Well to ELI5 (im sure someone will add a better technical information).....blue tooth technology used for wireless headphones simply transmits less information than wires. An analogy would be similar to comparing mp3 to cd quality audio.....mp3 simply has less of the information about the audio than CD which means s...	[ "Headphones are made in a range of different audio reproduction quality capabilities. Headsets designed for telephone use typically cannot reproduce sound with the high fidelity of expensive units designed for music listening by audiophiles. Headphones that use cables typically have either a 1/4 inch (6.35mm) or 1/...
Are all solar systems formed within nebulae?	The largest stars (O and B type) form inside H II regions. Well, this might be the wrong way to think about it. It's the largest stars that actually create H II regions. Here's how it goes: 1. Big cloud of (mostly) neutral hydrogen molecules 2. Gravitational collapse 3a. If the gas gets dense enough, the cloud cor...	[ "The Solar System has its own interplanetary dust cloud, as do extrasolar systems. There are different types of nebulae with different physical causes and processes: diffuse nebula, infrared (IR) reflection nebula, supernova remnant, molecular cloud, HII regions, photodissociation regions, and dark nebula.\n", "T...
why are the republican/democrat debates called debates? there's hardly any debating going on.	They're mostly called debates to lend some gravitas to the situation. What they are these days, however, is joint press conferences. It would be nice to have actual debates, but that would require politicians who are willing and able to think on their feet, and argue in defense of a position, rather than requiring an...	[ "Debate has been common in recent elections in regards to the election of the President of the United States via the electoral college. The debate stems from the fact that the electoral college is a malapportioned body., and thus provides for a scenario whereby a candidate may win the election via the electoral col...
Adult adoption seems to have been very common by the late Roman Republic; was this a political development, driven by social forces, or interpersonal ones (or something else)? Was it particular to the aristocratic class or common in general? Do we know how it developed?	On his 62nd birthday, the emperor Hadrian - tormented by an illness that had crippled him and left him subject to bouts of murderous rage - convened a council of advisers at his bedside. Painfully shifting his dropsy-stiffened limbs, he delivered a short address about his succession plans. The historian Cassius Dio (wh...	[ "Markedly different from the modern period, ancient adoption practices put emphasis on the political and economic interests of the adopter, providing a legal tool that strengthened political ties between wealthy families and created male heirs to manage estates. The use of adoption by the aristocracy is well docume...
Is gravity the strongest at the surface of the earth?	That would be true if the Earth was a sphere of uniform density, but since the core is much denser than the mantle and crust, gravity peaks at the barrier between the mantle and the outer core. [Graphs for comparison.](_URL_0_) You can think of this as the amount of less dense "stuff" that the mantle/crust adds doesn'...	[ "Gravity on the Earth's surface varies by around 0.7%, from 9.7639 m/s on the Nevado Huascarán mountain in Peru to 9.8337 m/s at the surface of the Arctic Ocean. In large cities, it ranges from 9.7760 in Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City, and Singapore to 9.825 in Oslo and Helsinki.\n", "The gravitational field of the ea...
why does nintendo create "artificial demand"	There is no evidence they have ACTUALLY created fake shortages, this story pops up with virtually every console launch (I remember it for the Playstation 2) but the economics behind it don't work. Nintendo would not make more money by having people fight over a limited set of existing devices. You're right, it onl...	[ "Nintendo is one of the world's biggest video game development companies, having created several successful franchises. Because of its storied history, the developer employs a methodical system of software and hardware development that is mainly centralized within its offices in Kyoto and Tokyo, in cooperation with...
How would a Medieval castle's garrison (say, 1300's) work? How would one join it and how many would be employed at peace?	Most castles did not have "garrisons" per se. The average castle in Europe was the home of a knight. The "garrison" would be the knight, any of his family (sons or brothers) who still lived at home and were of fighting age, and his servants and retainers (cooks, grooms, falconer, huntsman, etc.) who could be armed in...	[ "As a static structure, castles could often be avoided. Their immediate area of influence was about and their weapons had a short range even early in the age of artillery. However, leaving an enemy behind would allow them to interfere with communications and make raids. Garrisons were expensive and as a result ofte...
how come songs/music these days have so many writers yet they only last 3 minutes tops?	3 minutes is the standard pop song length. Now why are there so many writers? The answer is usually "samples". Here's one of my favourite examples: The Kanye West song "Stronger", which samples Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger" which in turn sampled Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby" resulting in Kanye's son...	[ "For each year, Miller wrote about ten or more of his favorite songs, providing analytical insights and placing the songs in context in the musical world of their era. Miller had kept annual countdown lists of his favorite records throughout his life, and his personal project of compiling those lists onto CDs evolv...
Looking for a couple of good books for two exams I have coming up. British society 1900-1950 ish	I'd recommend Peter Clarke's Hope and Glory (2nd ed, 2004) as a good overview of social, political and economic history of Britain during the 20th century. Based on your interest in sufferage and the impact of the Great War, Id also recommend Nicoletta Gullace's The Blood of Our Sons (2002) which looks at how the w...	[ "BULLET::::- In July 1998, students of the Radcliffe Publishing Course, at the request of the Modern Library editorial board, compiled their own list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, and the book was ranked 84th.\n", "The history of the book in the United Kingdom has been studied from ...
Why does physics assume the existence of elementary particles?	Physics does not assume the existence of elementary particles. Rather, we construct models, see if they work, and it turns out that models that predict the existence of elementary particles work very well. When you smash particles together, you are not breaking them apart. You are taking them and all their energy ...	[ "Around 1980, an elementary particle's status as indeed elementary—an \"ultimate constituent\" of substance—was mostly discarded for a more practical outlook, embodied in particle physics' Standard Model, what's known as science's most experimentally successful theory. Many elaborations upon and theories beyond the...

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