Split (2)

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question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
how did the anime-craze start and evolve in america?	The answer is very multifaceted. Back when anime started to trickle into american television for the first time, one of the things it did was fulfill the rather common need for youth to find media that is (generally) outside the realm of their parent's enjoyments/understanding. In short, kids were attracted to it. Com...	[ "Anime culture in the United States began as a niche community that had a grassroots foundation built by groups of fans on the local level. Some of the earliest televised anime to air in the United States were \"Astro Boy\", \"Speed Racer\", and \"Gigantor\", which gained popularity with many American audiences dur...
In The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, a character mislabels a union army because of dust on their uniform making him believe they are confederates. Did this ever happen in real life?	Misidentification wasn't uncommon, especially during the early days of the war when many units had different-colored uniforms. Notably, during the First Battle of Bull Run (July 1861), one of the turning points came when the 33rd Virginia (Confederate) regiment was mistaken for a Union unit. They were able to get close...	[ "In October 1863, Clem was captured in Georgia by Confederate cavalrymen while detailed as a train guard. The Confederates confiscated his U.S. uniform which reportedly upset him terribly—including his cap which had three bullet holes in it. He was included in a prisoner exchange a short time later, but the Confede...
why does eating a lot of rich food cause a headache ?	It could easily be the ingestion of large amounts of salt and/or sugar (which are often heavily used in rich foods) causing dehydration. It could also be elevated levels of insulin being released into the body as the food is processed, or your body rejecting an ingredient in some way. Lots of intolerances can be very m...	[ "Many physicians also recommend changes in diet to treat chronic headaches. Many chronic headache sufferers fail to recognize foods or beverages as headache factors, because the consumption may not consistently cause headaches or the headaches may be delayed. Many of the chemicals in certain foods can cause chronic...
How were WWI era reparation payments handled during the post-WWII separation of Germany?	Fortunately for post-war Germany they didn't have to pay any reparations from the First World War as the payment had ceased in 1932. Reparations had always been a thorny political issue in Germany, even from the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. In the Treaty itself, Germany was not given a definite figure to repay;...	[ "World War I reparations owed by Germany were stated in gold marks in 1921, 1929 and 1931; this was the victorious Allies' response to their fear that vanquished Germany might try to pay off the obligation in paper marks. The actual amount of reparations that Germany was obliged to pay out was not the 132 billion m...
bone density after elongated periods of time in space.	Gravity constantly pulls on your body and your bones have to be strong enough to hold your weight, so your body streghthens them to withstand that weight. In space, you have no weight, so your body redirects your resources elsewhere. Your bones don't need to be dense, because of that, so the body weakens them so it c...	[ "Spaceflight osteopenia is the bone loss associated with human spaceflight. After a 3–4 month trip into space, it takes about 2–3 years to regain lost bone density. New techniques are being developed to help astronauts recover faster. Research in the following areas holds the potential to aid the process of growing...
would a person on earth notice the andromeda galaxy merging with it?	Yes, if Andromeda merged with Earth it would get crowded. If Andromeda were to merge with the Milky Way, no, as long as you stayed away from news, internet and large telescopes.	[ "Current measurements suggest the Andromeda Galaxy is approaching us at . In 3 to 4 billion years, there may be an Andromeda–Milky Way collision, depending on the importance of unknown lateral components to the galaxies' relative motion. If they collide, the chance of individual stars colliding with each other is e...
why do some large retail chains (e.g. blockbusters, border's books, circuit city) grow and expand successfully til they are in every city but then go out of business suddenly without instead just scaling back down as needed?	Because the very nature of the business they provide becomes obsolete and scaling back does not provide a way toward regaining profitability. For example, let's take a retail chain that is hugely successful and everywhere today - Starbucks. They provide coffee to order ready to consume to the public. Let's now take ...	[ "A key drawback to supplier convergence is that one of the main concepts of it is to force smaller companies into mergers or out of business by replacing or threatening to replace them with one large company offering different products or services. Wal-Mart and Borders, two of the superstores cited above, have rece...
What slang did German soldiers use to describe soldiers from various nations during WWII?	/u/LBo87 gave a good answer in an [old thread](_URL_0_). There is /u/Astrogator's [answer](_URL_1_) as well, which adds one more term. See the last bullet point.	[ "One significant source of slang were the prisoner of war camps run by the Japanese, where Diggers sometimes ended up. These were the sources of many particularly strong expressions, such as \"white nip\" for a prisoner who collaborated with the Japanese, and \"japs\", \"nips\", \"jeeps\", \"little yellow men\", an...
how does a phone battery hold a charge? what is flowing from the charging cord, where does it go into, and how is the phone able to use that charge?	Phone batteries use an chemical reaction something like Li - > Li+ + e- Mg+ + e- - > Mg This means the the electron travels from the lithium electrode to the magnesium electrode creating electron flow and therefore energy. In all chemical reactions u can push/reverse the reaction by adding energy to the aystem....	[ "The port can charge the battery and power the phone while it is connected to, for example, a hands-free solution in a car. The FastPort became the only way to get external power to the phones. Chargers comes in several varieties, from 12/24 volt DC to use in cars, to 100-250 volt AC to use elsewhere. Some charger-...
deli meat vs packages sliced meat	Yes. Freshly sliced meat that you get at the grocery store is, well, fresh. Prepackaged meat has to go to through the middle man, who slices and packages it before it's sent to the store. Getting the meat sliced at the deli means it skips the middle man and gets to you, more fresh than the prepackaged stuff.	[ "A meat slicer, also called a slicing machine, deli slicer or simply a slicer, is a tool used in butcher shops and delicatessens to slice meats, sausages, cheeses and other deli products. Older models of meat slicer may be operated by crank, while newer ones generally use an electric motor. While the slicer is trad...
what was it about the catholic church that allowed it to become the most prominent religion in the world ?	Quite simply, the Catholic Church happened to gain a foothold in the most powerful countries in the world. Spain, Portugal, France, etc. Those countries then spread their faith through their conquests. This of course came from the apostles of Christ spreading the gospel throughout Europe starting in Greece and Turkey.	[ "Christianity had a significant impact on education and science and medicine as the church created the bases of the Western system of education, and was the sponsor of founding universities in the Western world as the university is generally regarded as an institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian s...
What about Amsterdam has made it such a popular refuge for radical, creative thinkers, and how did they contribute to the Dutch golden age of the late 16th and 17th century?	During that time The Netherlands was fighting a war of independence, the 80 year war. While it basically stared as a revolt against the Spanish because of infringements of privileges like protection against unreasonable taxes etc.. It soon became also a religious based war between Protestants (Netherlands) and Catholi...	[ "As the centre of trade gravitated towards Amsterdam, Haarlem declined in the 18th century. The Golden age had created a large upper middle class of merchants and well-to-do small business owners. Taking advantage of the reliability of the trekschuit connection between Amsterdam and Haarlem, many people had a busin...
I've a Ni-MH recharger. Does it matter if I constantly recharge certain batteries even though they're already full?	NiMH chemistry is much more forgiving to overcharging than other types of battery chemistry, but it's really not good for the cell. Get some extra cells, and only charge ones that have been (mostly) used.	[ "Manufacturers do not support recharging of disposable alkaline batteries, and warn that it may be dangerous. Despite this advice, alkaline batteries have been recharged, and chargers have been available. The capacity of a recharged alkaline battery declines with number of recharges, until it becomes unusable after...
what will keep certain isps from providing "neutral internet" and completely destroying their competitors who don't?	To start an ISP you need to invest in a lot of infrastructure. Most ISPs is therefore limited to a small geographical area. And if there are two providers who need the infrastructure to every house then the service will be twice as expensive for everyone. Just imagine if there were two main water lines running to each ...	[ "The comedian says that Pai has also proposed \"laughably lacking\" alternatives to net neutrality. One alternative stipulated that ISPs simply include a voluntary statement in their terms of service indicating that they would not throttle or block content, which Oliver says would \"make net neutrality as binding a...
Didn't the Zimmerman telegram serve its purpose?	No, the main aim of the Zimmerman telegram wasn't to bring the US into WW1. It was intended as insurance against the likelihood that the US would join WW1 anyway over Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. This is the full text of the Zimmerman telegram, sent from the German foreign ministry to the Ge...	[ "The Zimmermann Telegram was part of an effort carried out by the Germans to postpone the transportation of supplies and other war materials from the United States to the Allied Powers that were at war with Germany. The main purpose of the telegram was to make the Mexican government declare war on the United States...
When photographing a light, why do streaks show up in regular angular positions around the light?	That's the shape of the camera's aperture, and the effect is called [bokeh](_URL_0_).	[ "Dark slope streaks are albedo features. They appear to the eye as a brightness difference between the streak and the lighter-toned background slope. Usually no topographic relief is visible to distinguish the streak from its surroundings, except in the very highest resolution (<1 m/pixel) images. In many cases, th...
When the Sun's red giant phase ends it'll lose roughly 50% of its mass to space, does this excess surface hydrogen have enough mass to create a red dwarf?	Red dwarfs are main sequence stars just like the Sun, except they only contain about 8-50% as much mass. As a consequence, the fusion in their cores proceeds slower, their surface temps are cooler, and their life spans are much longer. During its Red Giant phase, the Sun will gradually lose much of its upper atmosp...	[ "The evolved red giant star is losing mass, since radiation pressure overcomes the low gravity on the surface. The outflow of matter is captured by the gravitational field of the white dwarf and falls on its surface in the end. At least during the active phase an accretion disk forms around the white dwarf.\n", "...
what is a constituent country and how does it differ from units like state or provinces?	Functionally they are almost identical to US State or Canadian Province. They do not have their own militaries, do not have their own passports, do not have their own treaties and trade agreements, but they do have some of their own laws and self governance. Puerto Rico is a territory. They are partially subject to t...	[ "A constituent state is a state entity that constitutes a part of a sovereign state. A constituent state holds regional jurisdiction over a defined administrative territory, within a sovereign state. Government of a constituent state is a form of regional government. Throughout history, and also in modern political...
How important have aircraft carriers been to winning superpower-on-superpower warfare?	So limiting this to the 20 year rule, and thus 1997 first off with only brief references to events and trends past it. We can actually though talk a good deal about Soviet carrier efforts, which obviously play a huge part in how Russian and PLAN Naval Aviation evolved. Simply put, from their origins to today an aircr...	[ "The significance of air power grew between the wars, driven by the increased range, carrying power, and effectiveness of carrier-launched aircraft, until it became impossible to disregard its importance during World War II, following the loss of many warships to aircraft, including the sinking of \"Prince of Wales...
Did the Russians really train their troops with broomsticks instead of guns during WW1?	In 1941 the British troops retreating from Greece to Crete were forced to leave their heavy artillery behind. In an attempt to prevent the Germans from making use of those guns, the British artillerymen took the gun sights with them to Crete. When the Germans invaded Crete those artillerymen were left with sights for n...	[ "The Imperial Russian Army had hunter-commando units, formed by a decree of Emperor Alexander III in 1886, which saw action in World War I prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Also during World War I, General Aleksei Brusilov became one of the first senior commanders to utilize the tactics of fast-action shock ...
How long ago did the modern chicken lose its ability to fly?	Technically, modern domesticated chickens can still fly. Sort of. Not well. But... for short distances and not terribly gracefully^1. They are not flightless. However, their poor flying abilities are the result of domestication, and selective breeding by farmers and the commercial poultry industry (1950s-now)^2 to be ...	[ "Many domesticated birds, such as the domestic chicken and domestic duck, have lost the ability to fly for extended periods, although their ancestral species, the red junglefowl and mallard, respectively, are capable of extended flight. A few particularly bred birds, such as the Broad Breasted White turkey, have be...
what are city states and how do they operate?	Are you asking how the mechanics of city states works in the context of Civ 5? Or are you asking what city states in real life are? Two really different questions.	[ "In California, the words \"town\" and \"city\" are synonymous by law (see Cal. Govt. Code Secs. 34500–34504). There are two types of cities in California: charter and general law. Cities organized as charter cities derive their authority from a charter that they draft and file with the state, and which, among othe...
Was it common for non-Abrahamic religions to have a "bible" of sorts?	There are actually several. The thing is, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all emphasize a "closed canon". Buddhism, for example, has a canon (though its often more of a library than a single book). But then again, Jews don't have a single book ("Torah is only understandable with Talmud") and Islam emphasizes generally...	[ "In the study of comparative religion, the category of Abrahamic religions consists of the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which claim Abraham (Hebrew \"Avraham\" אַבְרָהָם; Arabic \"Ibrahim\" إبراهيم ) as a part of their sacred history. Smaller religions such as Bahá'í Faith that fit...
Does the recipient of a heart transplant inherit the resting heart rate of the donor?	Only sort of. After a transplant, the heart is generally not connected to the nerves that regulate rate. But cardiac muscle is not like skeletal muscle, in that the nerves do not directly initiate contraction, they just speed it up or slow it down. The heart itself has autorhythmicity. Not connected to those nerves...	[ "Full recovery of donor heart function often takes place over hours or days, during which time considerable damage can occur. Other deaths to patients can occur from preexisting conditions. For example, in pulmonary hypertension the patient's right ventricle has often adapted to the higher pressure over time and, a...
what would be the effect, both positive and negative, if nobody on the planet had kids for 2 years.	Anyone working in childcare or childbirth would need to find new jobs for a while.	[ "There is also the question as to whether having children really is such a positive contribution to the world in an age when there are many concerns about overpopulation, pollution and depletion of non-renewable resources. Some critics counter that such analyses of having children may understate its potential benef...
how does red dot sights work?	The dot in a red or green dot sight is not actually a coloured point that's hovering in a fix spot in the air like an iron sight does. Instead, the red dot you see is a reflection of a little red lamp that falls onto a spherical mirror which filters out only the red (or green) spectrum. This mirror is installed in a w...	[ "A red dot sight is a common classification for a type of non-magnifying reflector (or reflex) sight for firearms, and other devices that require aiming, that gives the user an aimpoint in the form of an illuminated red dot. A standard design uses a red light-emitting diode (LED) at the focus of collimating optics ...
What kind of tasks would fill the day of someone running a medieval castle for his lord?	Are you referring to somebody such as, say, a steward? Somebody who would manage the daily affairs of the estate while the lord was away? I'm going to base this on the holdings of a knight such a sub fief beneath a baron. A lord with one castle/stronghouse, and some moderate to small land holdings. There would have b...	[ "Early on, manning a castle was a feudal duty of vassals to their magnates, and magnates to their kings, however this was later replaced with paid forces. A garrison was usually commanded by a constable whose peacetime role would have been looking after the castle in the owner's absence. Under him would have been k...
stem cell life science research	I'd love to answer your question if you could be more specific as to what it is you're asking.	[ "Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology—studies cell fate and tissue development. It examines various types of stem cells to generate neurological disease models, to discover and test drugs, and to develop replacement therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and disorders.\n", "More specifically the way that stem cell r...
What happened to the House of Kalākaua or the Hawaiian royal family after their overthrow? Were there ever pretenders to that throne or anyone who tried to stir up political trouble afterwards?	Queen Liliʻuokalani continued to resist the overthrow with political, PR and judiciary actions for many years. The royalist rebellion of 1895 had participants from the Hawaiian Royal Family, most notably Prince Kuhio. As an interesting side note, Kuhio defeated the leader of the rebellion, Wilcox in an election fo...	[ "It served as the official residence of the Hawaiian monarch until the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Therein not only Liliuokalani, but, Queen Kapiolani and other royal retainers were evicted from the palace after the overthrow.\n", "After Kalākaua's death and the accession of Queen Liliʻuokalani, Iauk...
Did the Romans ever used pikes?	Pike phalanxes were not standard infantry, but were adopted numerous times, often when fighting cavalry-heavy armies from the east. In preparation for his Parthian campaign Caracalla ordered 16,000 men to be trained in Macedonian drill and fight in a phalanx. Severus Alexander also had elements of six legions formed i...	[ "The pike was a long weapon, varying considerably in size, from long. It was approximately in weight, with sixteenth-century military writer Sir John Smythe recommending lighter rather than heavier pikes. It had a wooden shaft with an iron or steel spearhead affixed. The shaft near the head was often reinforced wit...
what exactly does shifting my car into d3 do?	It's for driving in the mountains. D will allow your car to go into the highest gear... your car may not have enough power to maintain a consistent speed in this gear, so it will drop into a lower gear to get back up to speed. This cycle can be annoying. D3 prevents you from going to the highest gear. Additionally,...	[ "With the DVC system, the car’s bodywork moves independently from the wheels and engine. The DVC system automatically adjusts the tilt angle of the vehicle to the speed and acceleration of the vehicle in such a way that it always is in balance. It was designed as a proactive instead of a reactive system, meaning a ...
can sports at an early age effect testosterone levels and how does this effect the physical appearance of someone who didn't play sports at all?	The different sports will cause different things to happen in your body while you're growing up. Yea you're genetics make you predisposed to doing well in sports or not but the type of sport will definitely effect you. The more heavy lifting and explosive workouts you do the more testosterone you will develop and the...	[ "While a high level of testosterone is often associated with an increase in aggression, this is not a noticeable effect in most trans men. HRT doses of testosterone are much lower than the typical doses taken by steroid-using athletes, and create testosterone levels comparable to those of most cisgender men. These ...
What happens when we overdose?	Heroin overdose is similar to any opiate overdose. Opiates depress the central nervous system causing a relaxed, "euphoric" sensation. After the initial rush, breathing becomes more shallow, decreasing oxygen to the brain and rest of the body. Without oxygen, the brain will start shutting down systems, including the ne...	[ "Overdose is a method of suicide which involves taking medication in doses greater than the indicated levels, or in a combination that will interact either to cause harmful effects or increase the potency of one or other of the substances.\n", "A drug overdose (or simply overdose or OD) is the ingestion or applic...
In the Ku Klux Klan's heyday, did people see it more as a social club with networking opportunities, or truly as an organization that defending white American interests?	If you're referring to the Second Klan (1915-1930's), it was certainly both. William Joseph Simmons Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan was a religious, political, business and fraternal organization. Created during the Golden Age of Fraternal Orders, it was modeled on the multitude of existing fraternal orders like...	[ "Initially the KKK presented itself as another fraternal organization devoted to betterment of its members. The KKK's revival was inspired in part by the movie \"Birth of a Nation\", which glorified the earlier Klan and dramatized the racist stereotypes concerning blacks of that era. The Klan focused on political m...
why some of websites is not available in some countries?	It has nothing to do with the websites, but rather, the service that the website provides. Netflix can't just take people movies and make them available for everybody to watch, that's illegal copyright infringement. They need to purchase the rights to distribute them, and most distribution agreements come with a partic...	[ "Some governments, such as those of Burma, Iran, North Korea, the Mainland China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates restrict access to content on the Internet within their territories, especially to political and religious content, with domain name and keyword filters.\n", "The international channels and ...
Was it because of a change in technology or a change in tactics, that machine guns no longer need to change barrels or be watercooled?	All general purpose machine guns (GPMGs) that I am aware of retain the interchangeable barrel function - a GPMG being a roughly 7.62mm belt-fed platoon- or company-level machine gun capable of laying down large volumes of fire. The M240 and MG3, the most common GPMGs in the western world, certainly have changeable barr...	[ "Machineguns used in fixed defensive positions sometimes use water cooling to extend barrel life through periods of rapid fire, but the weight of the water and pumping system significantly reduces the portability of water-cooled firearms.\n", "The use of guns using blank cartridges to eject water from the barrel ...
Are quarks shaped differently or are they all spheres?	As far as we know, they are all pointlike. This could understanding could one day be improved upon.	[ "Quarks are very small things that make up everything we see (matter). There are six different \"flavors\" of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top. Quarks also have three \"colors\": red, green, and blue. There are also antiquarks, which are the opposite of the regular quarks. In total, there are 18 di...
why do blue laws still exist?	Many people are still religious and support such laws, so they remain. It is legal to make a religiously motivated law, just not to establish mandatory religion.	[ "In the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court has held blue laws as constitutional numerous times, citing secular bases such as securing a day of rest for mail carriers, as well as protecting workers and families, in turn contributing to societal stability and guaranteeing the free exercise of religion. The origin ...
the symptoms of a common cold	A common cold has not much to do with actual temperature. It is an infection, mostly by viruses. There are dozens if not more viruses known that can lead to the symptoms commonly associated with a cold. Now, how does a virus infect us? Normally your skin is pretty tight and prevents any pathogen (something that will ...	[ "The common cold, also known simply as a cold, is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory tract that primarily affects the nose. The throat, sinuses, and larynx may also be affected. Signs and symptoms may appear less than two days after exposure to the virus. These may include coughing, sore throat, ru...
nasdaq, dow jones, etc.	They are stock indexes. Basically they are each used as a measure of a certain "basket" of stocks. There are thousands of different indexes used to track different market sectors. The Dow, Nasdaq and S & P 500 are the three most well know in US	[ "The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index that indicates the value of 30 large, publicly owned companies based in the United States, and how they have traded in the stock market during various periods of time.\n", "The NASDAQ is an electronic exchange, where all of th...
Were soldiers traumatized or "shell-shocked" after the Napoleonic Wars or other earlier wars? How were returning soldiers treated by the public? Were they treated for their condition?	Diagnosing mental illness retrospectively is a minefield. With respect to soldiers in history and their relationship with PTSD, I would refer you to the FAQ or past threads like [this](_URL_0_). Paging /u/Iphikrates to comply with the rules on linking past threads.	[ "There were so many officers and men suffering from shell shock that 19 British military hospitals were wholly devoted to the treatment of cases. Ten years after the war, 65,000 veterans of the war were still receiving treatment for it in Britain. In France it was possible to visit aged shell shock victims in hospi...
What were the relationships of the various intelligence services of the Eastern Bloc with the KGB/Moscow?	There wasn't a formal hierarchy, but the KGB loomed large over all of the Warsaw Pact intelligence services, and its primacy was undisputed. Soviet intelligence personnel had a hand in creating all of the Eastern Bloc secret services, and KGB liaison officers were a constant and powerful presence in those agencies' aff...	[ "The KGB was not the only intelligence agency that Russia used to gain information around the globe. The Soviet Union formed two other well known agencies: GRU (The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) and SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service). \n", "All sides in the C...
How does genetic testing work (in order to test for genetic diseases)?	A person with a genetic disease has a particular gene that differs from the normal, unaffected population. When a genetic disease is identified that can be tested for, the discoverers known what and where the gene is and what makes it different from the normal population. That difference is called a mutation. Mutati...	[ "Genetic testing identifies changes in chromosomes, genes, or proteins. Usually, testing is used to find changes that are associated with inherited disorders. The results of a genetic test can confirm or rule out a suspected genetic condition or help determine a person's chance of developing or passing on a genetic...
What varieties of memory are there and how do they work?	Very detailed question, but i'll take a stab at it. I majored in Neuroscience and am now a first year medical student so I know a fair bit about this but I'm no expert. 1. The cerebellum helps to coordinate movement and accounts for one type of memory. This structure has an extraordinarily repetitive/simple neuronal s...	[ "Several memory models have been proposed to account for different types of recall processes, including cued recall, free recall, and serial recall. However, to explain the recall process, the memory model must identify how an encoded memory can reside in the memory storage for a prolonged period until the memory i...
Why does bird poo look how it does?	Birds actually urinate and defecate at the same time - their urine is viscous and highly concentrated (I believe it has a lot of ammonia in it, which is the characteristic smell). The white liquid/paste is the concentrated urine and the black pellets are the feces. Hope this enlightens you! Classic example: _URL_0_	[ "It is a well camouflaged bird, it is usually shy and conceals itself close to ground vegetation and flushes only when approached closely. When flushed, they utter a sharp note that sounds like \"scape, scape\" and fly off in a series of aerial zig-zags to confuse predators. They forage in soft mud, probing or pick...
Is there a way to determine the radius of a black hole, or would anything of the sort be a guess?	The radius of the event horizon can be calculated from analyzing the orbits of nearby stars or planets. From the way it interacts gravitationally with its surroundings you can find mass, and thus the radius of its event horizon.	[ "Any object whose radius is smaller than its Schwarzschild radius is called a black hole. The surface at the Schwarzschild radius acts as an event horizon in a non-rotating body (a rotating black hole operates slightly differently). Neither light nor particles can escape through this surface from the region inside,...
if everyone on earth infected with a common cold got better at this exact second, would anyone else get sick? if so how would it be transmitted considering there aren't any carriers of the virus?	Viruses can survive for limited times on various surfaces which would allow reinfection.	[ "The common cold is the most common human disease and affects people all over the globe. Adults typically have two to three infections annually, and children may have six to ten colds a year (and up to twelve colds a year for school children). Rates of symptomatic infections increase in the elderly due to declining...
Why does a log burn longer than the same amount of wood chopped up?	If you cut a cylindrical log in two, you increase the surface area significantly. This means more of the log can burn at once, and so it is consumed faster. This is not the only effect. If you put logs in close proximity, part of the radiant heat given off by one can be caught by the other, and structuring the wood ma...	[ "Decomposition speed of organic material depends on the carbon to nitrogen ratio of the material, among other factors. Wood breaks down relatively slowly because it has one of the highest carbon to nitrogen ratios of all organic matter that is used in composting. If the wood is not processed into smaller pieces wit...
where does white zit pus eventually go if you don't pop the zit?	It is consumed and carried away by amoeba-like leukocytes in your body called macrophages. Here's a video of macrophages doing their thing: _URL_0_	[ "Purulent sputum contains pus, composed of white blood cells, cellular debris, dead tissue, serous fluid, and viscous liquid (mucus). Purulent sputum is typically yellow or green. It is seen in cases of bronchiectasis, lung abscess, an advanced stage of bronchitis, or acute upper respiratory tract infection (common...
In general, how accurate do you find the CaspianReport's 'History of Islam' series?	> The thing is, Islam emerged in literate times. Historians were writing journals. Scholars were writing diaries and letters. Jurists were writing bureaucratic articles. So from the 7th century onward there was a rich record of documents, and that's why we know so many historical details. Noooooooooooooooooo... No...	[ "The series tells the full biography of the four imams of the Muslims from the Sunnis and the community Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the events that took place from the beginning of his family and social life and even began his scientific life in the request of forensic science from Muhammad and the Quran until his death, ...
How did the American Forces learn to defeat the Japanese during the Guadalcanal Campaign in WWII?	In the air, the Cactus Air Force was tying out new tactics to combat the agile Japanese Zero. "Cactus Air Force" is a nickname for the pilots of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal--codenamed Cactus. These pilots used a mix of aircraft, most notably the Grumman F4F Wildcats (there were some P-39's as well, and some dive b...	[ "In hindsight, historians have faulted the Americans, especially Patch and Halsey, for not taking advantage of their ground, aerial, and naval superiority to prevent the successful Japanese evacuation of most of their surviving forces from Guadalcanal. Said Chester Nimitz, commander of Allied forces in the Pacific,...
why do most current-gen games on consoles require you to wait until it's fully installed, while last-gen games could be played immediately?	At a guess I would say that new games are bigger then a disc can hold, my battlefield 1 digital game was 43 GB (rip my data cap :( ). Im willing to bet that if everything has to be read off the discs the load screens would be all over the place and, with all the massive open worlds lately, that would be a game killer...	[ "Some consoles lack the ability to play games from previous generations which allow a developer to release older games again but on the new consoles. The re-released game may be unchanged and simply be the same game but run on the new technology or it can be changed by the developer to have improved graphics, sound...
Why is it easier to remember a phrase or image than a single word?	The use of mnemonics such at those you describe are likely to work at a number of different levels. Firstly, when thinking about memory and learning, it is important to emphasise the role of attention. That is, when you personally create a mnemonic, you are assigning more attention to it which makes it more likely th...	[ "An experiment from 1966 showed that people remember a group of words better if they are within the same theme category. Such words that generate recall by association are known as \"semantic cues\". If the sound of the word is emphasized during the encoding process, a cue that could be used could also put emphasis...
the three scripts of the japanese language and their usage.	Hiragana ひらがな　is like the standard Japanese alphabet. Katakana カタカナ is used for words of foreign origin. Kanji 漢字 is that impossible to read shit that was imported from China. Now, why don't they just get rid of Kanji, since they are such a pain in the ass? They had this debate after WW2, and felt that kanji was pa...	[ "Japanese is written with a combination of three scripts: hiragana, derived from the Chinese cursive script, katakana, derived as a shorthand from Chinese characters, and kanji, imported from China. The Latin alphabet, rōmaji, is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertisin...
what are computer glitches and why do they occur?	In really simple terms, it's when you do something the program has no idea how to respond to. In a perfect program this would never happen, but no program is perfect. So for example if you glitch through the wall in a game, the game doesn't really know that you shouldn't be able to do that because maybe you did it in a...	[ "It frequently refers to an error which is not detected at the time it occurs but shows up later in data errors or incorrect human decisions. Situations which are frequently called computer glitches are incorrectly written software (software bugs), incorrect instructions given by the operator (operator errors, and ...
how do companies calculate and quantify the value of a new sponsorship?	Essentially, they guess. It's an educated guess based on past experiences, but a guess none the less. They know the size of their current market, and what portion of that they own. They make an educated guess on how much incremental revenue they will gain from being sponsored by whomever and then offer a deal that...	[ "Various investor classes look to the financial sponsor to generate value in a company as much as the management or operations of the company. In particular, debt providers are willing to extend credit in the form of bank loans, high-yield debt and mezzanine capital based in part on the reputation of and relationsh...
how does googles new ai work?	It is called machine learning and is quite complex. What it boils down to is that you break a problem into discreet parts, or steps. You show the machine all the different steps it can do. Then you tell the machine what the desired "win" condition is. It goes and compares all the different steps and series of steps ...	[ "Google bought the company in September 2016 and was initially known as API.AI; it provides tools to developers building apps (\"Actions\") for the Google Assistant virtual assistant. It was renamed on 10 October 2017 as Dialogflow.\n", "Founded in 2014, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2)'s mai...
how would people, before television or radio decide who to vote for?	Newspapers were the major way information was spread before radio. Political candidates also did a lot more public speaking. They did "whistle-stop tours" where they basically road trains and stopped in every town and gave a speech. Local politicians would also speak in favor of their party in more remote areas.	[ "Historically, a country's votes were decided by an internal jury, but in 1997 five countries (Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom) experimented with televoting, giving members of the public in those countries the opportunity to vote \"en masse\" for their favourite songs. The experiment wa...
Why exactly does spinning rapidly throw off our equilibrium.	This is not my area of expertise. But just in case you don't get a more detailed answer. I'm faily certain what you are looking for is the [Vestibular System](_URL_0_) of the inner ear. It contains a fluid which moves with your head/body and helps your brain understand/maintain your balance. When you spin very rapidl...	[ "where \"θ\" is the angle between the vectors Ω and L. Thus, if the top's spin slows down (for example, due to friction), its angular momentum decreases and so the rate of precession increases. This continues until the device is unable to rotate fast enough to support its own weight, when it stops precessing and fa...
what makes an everyday expense/activity tax deductable?	My dad's an accountant. Short answer is, you have to have a business or at least individual income to deduct business expenses. If you're an employee somewhere that doesn't count. If you don't file schedule C there are not many deductions you can take like what you're taking about. If you do, but the deductions are a...	[ "Similarly, the U.S. federal income tax law does not tax the imputed income consisting of the benefit one obtains from leisure. Professor Andrews wrote: \"It would undoubtedly be impractical to try to reflect either the value of leisure or the cost of its sacrifice directly in taxable income.\"\n", "William Nordh...
Natural sleeping position without a pillow	This is kind of an impossible question to answer from an archaeological perspective. Anything early humans/hominids would have used as a pillow would have been made from perishable materials that do not survive in archaeological contexts. Anything from furs to piles of leaves could have been used by early hominids as p...	[ "The choice of bed pillow depends to some extent upon sleeping positions: one manufacturer recommends a thinner and softer pillow for sleeping face down, medium support for sleeping on one's back, and a thicker and firmer pillow for sleeping on the side.\n", "A pillow is a support of the body at rest for comfort,...
Why was the Revolutionary War over after the battle of Yorktown? I never understood why the rest of the British forces didn't keep fighting, especially if they still had significant forces based in New York City, and if Cornwallis wasn't even the commander of British forces in the states.	Cornwallis had one of the armies in the South with Alexander Stewart commanding another in South Carolina around Charleston. The lack of a foothold in the states and resilience of the American army helped push the British surrender and evacuation. British forces held New York City, Charleston, Georgia, and other places...	[ "New York City remained in British hands until the end of the war, behind the protection of its large garrison and the Royal Navy. However, the inability of British commanders to defeat the Revolution led the war to drag on for eight years, resulting in the Continental Army's capture of two major British armies (\"...
If we could cause nuclear fusion on Earth (in a reactor, of course), could we use the products for fission?	It would be an unlimited source of energy the same way having a water turbine run on water that we can then pump back up. Law no.1: If it gave out energy, you need to provide energy in order to reverse it and vice versa. Iron is the bottom of nucleus potential energy. Fusion of lighter than iron nuclei with a lighter ...	[ "All current thermonuclear weapons use a fission bomb as a first stage to create the high temperatures and pressures necessary to start a fusion reaction between deuterium and tritium in a second stage. For many years, nuclear weapon designers have researched whether it is possible to create high enough temperature...
Why do we have organisms on Earth that can survive in the vacuum of space?	Why not? It is a side effect of having a form to survive harsh conditions on Earth, such as drought.	[ "Curiously, for as little life as there \"exists\" in the Negative Zone, it is very \"capable\" of supporting life. There, outer space itself is permeated with an oxygen-rich atmosphere, closely approximating Earth's. Consequently, humans can exist peacefully in space without the need for cumbersome pressure suits ...
Did the Greeks and Romans read the "classics"	> Did the Greeks and Romans read the "classics"? Absolutely. I'm much more familiar with the Romans than the Greeks, so I can only speak as to them - though I can't think of any reason that the Greeks would be different - but today's great Latin literature was definitely important back then as well. For example, *T...	[ "Through the Roman Empire, Greek literature also continued to make an impact in Europe long after the Empire's fall, especially after the recovery of Greek texts from the East during the high Middle Ages and the resurgence of Greek literacy during the Renaissance. Plutarch's \"Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans\"...
Are there any ancient civilizations that did not build stairs?	The wheel is something that would need to be invented in order to be used, wheras stairs and steps can form naturally, so this question would be incredibly hard to answer whilst sticking to the AskHistorians top answer guidelines. The wheel was an invention. Somebody wanted to find a way to reduce the amount of force n...	[ "It is believed the stairs were built some time before the rule of Tiberius (14–37), as they were not mentioned by name in any ancient texts that predate this period. Their first use as a place of execution is primarily associated with the paranoid excesses of Tiberius' later reign.\n", "Only a minority of the ho...
Why didn't the destroyed cities of Europe change their city layouts after World War II?	Some of it has to do with the internal geography (or metageography) that the residents carried. After a war where the familiar has been smashed, people very often wanted to hold on to some of that familiarity, and spatial arrangements were an important part of social interaction. Besides, what was below the ground ...	[ "Many eastern European countries had suffered physical damage during World War II and their economies were in a very poor state. There was a need to reconstruct cities which had been severely damaged due to the war. For example, Warsaw, Poland had been practically razed to the ground under the planned destruction o...
f-stop and aperture	Aperture is one of the things that determines how much light reaches the sensor on your camera. Think of it as a hole in a box. Inside the box is a kid drawing with crayons. (Don't worry, he's being fed.) The bigger the hole (the larger the aperture), the more light that gets in, the more the kid can see his paper t...	[ "In some contexts, especially in photography and astronomy, \"aperture\" refers to the \"diameter\" of the aperture stop rather than the physical stop or the opening itself. For example, in a telescope, the aperture stop is typically the edges of the objective lens or mirror (or of the mount that holds it). One the...
how does soap help remove body odor im comparison to plain water?	A lot of the stuff that makes us dirty and smelly is accumulated on our body because of oil. Oil traps in dirt and odors. And if you know anything about oil, you should know that it doesn't mix or dissolve in water. So while rubbing with just water might get rid of some surface oils, we use soap, which breaks down t...	[ "In chemistry, a soap is a salt of a fatty acid. Household uses for soaps include washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping, where soaps act as surfactants, emulsifying oils to enable them to be carried away by water.\n", "The salting-out process used in the manufacture of soaps benefits from the common-i...
How do we know this is really 2014?	The most definite way is by old astronomical records. We know down to the minute when all the eclipses, periodic comets, etc of history took place, so if there was an eclipse on a certain day of the reign of the emperor Claudius, we know what year that was. Thus we know that there are some years we don't know much abou...	[ "The setting of XXVC is a possible future of the real universe that we live in. In the year 1999, the Soviet Union and the United States are involved in the \"Last Gasp War.\" This is the world's first nuclear war.\n", "The story takes place in the year 2031, after a series of worldwide crises called the Year of ...
How and when was it discovered the Mayans hadn't used wheels? Are their other questionable decisions that Mayans were 'blind' to?	The wheeled vehicle is not as intuitive an invention as most people seem to think. In fact, as /u/Daeres explains in [this submission](_URL_0_), it was only ever invented twice and possibly even only once, in the entire history of mankind. The reason the wheeled vehicle did not reach the Americas before Columbus is tha...	[ "The interpretation of Maya hieroglyphs was lost as a result of the Spanish Conquest of Central America. However, recent work by Maya epigraphers and linguists has yielded a considerable amount of information on this complex writing system.\n", "Critics argue that there is no archaeological evidence to support th...
how (in north america) social conservative values became aligned with economic conservatism	So there is this thing called [Duverger's Law](_URL_0_) which basically states that our electoral system will cause USA to have two dominant political parties which will effectively shut out all but the remote possibility of a third party candidate being elected. Because politicians want to be successful, they will be...	[ "The extent to which conservative ideology was embedded in 19th and 20th century Canadian society is evidenced by the power and influence of Tory factions in pre-Confederation Canada, such as the Family Compact and the Chateau Clique, the prominence of the Conservative Party of Canada after Confederation and the pr...
how do they make sure that low level employees at the white house (custodians, chefs, etc) aren't going to try to kill the president?	The same way that determine that the high level employees won't do it -- very, very thorough background checks.	[ "While the President may block certain appointments to the Council, he cannot remove a permanent member from his seat. In fact, it does not appear that any person has the power to do so. The door may be open for potential abuse with appointments based on some political agenda rather than merit. The counterpoint is ...
Does a colony of penguins stand s chance in the north pole? What about a polar bear in antacrtica?	Unfortunately not open access, but [this article](_URL_0_) is about those exact questions. Two answers to your questions, from that article: > If polar bears were transferred to Antarctica could they survive? And would penguins survive in the Arctic? > Polar bears would probably survive in the Antarctic, and the S...	[ "Although almost all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin actually live so far south. Several species live in the temperate zone; one, the Galápagos penguin, lives as far north as the Galápagos Isl...
How are primers made for PCR chosen?	If the genome of the species you are trying to make primers for is well-characterised then the job of designing primers is not hard. In humans, while there is a lot of variation between people, the vast majority of a person's DNA is identical to the known human consensus sequence. So if you design a primer to be comp...	[ "Tetra-primer amplification refractory mutation system PCR, or ARMS-PCR, employs two pairs of primers to amplify two alleles in one PCR reaction. The primers are designed such that the two primer pairs overlap at a SNP location but each match perfectly to only one of the possible SNPs. The basis of the invention is...
what will happen to mickey mouse when he becomes public domain in 2023?	He won't become public domain. In 2022 they'll extend how long copyright lasts after the creator's death, just like the last two times.	[ "There have been multiple attempts to argue that certain versions of Mickey Mouse are in fact in the public domain. In the 1980s, archivist George S. Brown attempted to recreate and sell cels from the 1933 short \"The Mad Doctor\", on the theory that they were in the public domain because Disney had failed to renew...
why do we accept that all the world's diverse species have a common ancestor while human beings are considered to be too complex for having only one paternal and maternal ancestors?	> while human beings are considered to be too complex That has been debunked and is only believed by people who either don't understand evolution or refuse to accept that evolution is a fact.	[ "Biologists reason that all living organisms on Earth must share a single last universal ancestor, because it would be virtually impossible that two or more separate lineages could have independently developed the many complex biochemical mechanisms common to all living organisms.\n", "Assuming that all of an ind...
what is sdk?what is api?	When you walk into McDonalds, you can order a happy meal & get a nice pre-packaged meal (Burger, fries, toy, etc). But say you wanted to walk into the kitchen and make your own meal - you'd still have to use the ingredients the store has. You can't walk into McD & make a Taco Supreme as part of your meal - it does...	[ "An SDK can take the form of a simple implementation of one or more application programming interfaces (APIs) in the form of on-device libraries to interface to a particular programming language, or it may be as complex as hardware-specific tools that can communicate with a particular embedded system. Common tools ...
why can humans not digest fiber?	There are actually almost no animals that can digest fibers! Almost all animals who live off stuff like leaves and grass break them down with the help of symbiotic bacteria that live in their intestines. Humans only have a tiny number of bacteria than can break down cellulose, and they only break down enough of it to f...	[ "Whole grains, beans and other legumes, fruits (especially plums, prunes, and figs), and vegetables are good sources of dietary fiber. Fiber is important to digestive health and is thought to reduce the risk of colon cancer. For mechanical reasons, fiber can help in alleviating both constipation and diarrhea. Fiber...
why couldn't t-rex have been both predatory and scavenging?	Language like this is usually used for disambiguation. It can lead to confusion in the process, but mostly it's to try and avoid it. There's often some overlap between behaviour. In fact, most carnivores will scavenge when given the chance. There just wasn't much hard evidence of this specifically existing for...	[ "Obligate scavenging is rare among vertebrates, due to the difficulty of finding enough carrion without expending too much energy. In vertebrates, only vultures and possibly some pterosaurs are obligate scavengers, as terrestrial soaring flyers are the only animals able to find enough carrion.\n", "Most scavengin...
Inspired by Interstellar: What happens to the rotation of a large planet orbiting a black hole?	The reason for the time dilation that happens isn't directly due to the black hole itself, it is more to do with how fast the planet needs to orbit the black hole to maintain a stable orbit. If the planet is moving too slow it would just get sucked into the black hole. So for a stable orbit near a black hole that woul...	[ "In the case of stars orbiting close to a spinning, supermassive black hole, frame dragging should cause the star's orbital plane to precess about the black hole spin axis. This effect should be detectable within the next few years via astrometric monitoring of stars at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.\n", "BU...
When splitting water molecules by electrolysis, how would sperate the hydrogen and oxygen?	What? If I’m interpreting your question right, the two gasses will collect at the positive and negative poles in the circuit. Putting a test tube or some other container in the water over each pole will collect the gases as they bubble up.	[ "Liquid water can be split into the elements hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electric current through it—a process called electrolysis. The decomposition requires more energy input than the heat released by the inverse process (285.8 kJ/mol, or 15.9 MJ/kg).\n", "Water can be converted to its component elemental...
Why is it that every copy of the Bible that I've ever seen has two columns on each page?	According to the Bible publisher Crossway (publishers of the English Standard Version), the reasons are threefold: Printing in a single column increases the page count by 10 to 25%, which increases how expensive it it to produce. For the typical font size, the two columns increases readability (9-12 words per line is...	[ "Since the list of line totals [of the books in the Bible available] in the city of Rome is not reliable, and elsewhere because of greed is not complete, I have gone through each individual book, counting 16 syllables to the line (as used in Virgil), and recorded the number for each book in all of them. \n", "The...
Were the mentally ill revered and allowed to roam freely throughout the middle ages?	Well you probably don't consider Syria to be western Europe, but I happen to have a source that suggests this was the case in medieval Muslim Syria. The book is a discussion of Medieval Syrian Saints: "Certain men outwardly defied the ideals of Muslim piety by living in a state of ritual impurity, wearing filthy garme...	[ "In 1349 a church honouring Dymphna was built in Geel. By 1480, so many pilgrims were coming from all over Europe, seeking treatment for the mentally ill, that the church housing for them was expanded. Soon the sanctuary for the mad was again full to overflowing, and the townspeople began taking them into their own...
Gluon are reponsible for the mass of a proton but the higg boson are the responsible for the mass of a gluon?	Gluons are massless. Protons and neutrons get a percent or so of their mass from the Higgs effect (which gives a small mass to the up and down quarks), and the rest of their mass from the strong force fields (primarily) that bind those quarks together (and the strong force field is made of gluons). Finally: the Higgs...	[ "In quantum chromodynamics, the modern theory of the nuclear force, most of the mass of protons and neutrons is explained by special relativity. The mass of a proton is about 80–100 times greater than the sum of the rest masses of the quarks that make it up, while the gluons have zero rest mass. The extra energy of...
Does a star always have to be at the center of a solar system?	It's a misconception that stars are in the center of a stellar system. In such systems, all objects are orbiting around a common center of mass, the so called barycenter. Is the system a planetary system like ours, the barycenter is inside or close to the mother star, not because "it has to be like that", but because...	[ "Each star in the system has about eighty times the mass of the Sun. It is not clear why this system is located away from the center of the cluster. It is possible that the system was formed in the core, but that it was ejected by dynamical interactions.\n", "If the Sun were to be observed from the Alpha Centauri...
Before there was Rock 'n' Roll, what music did the rebellious teens of a decade such as the 1930's (and the surrounding years) listen to?	There was a time when Jazz was not fancy, there was a time when it was considered a corrupting influence. It was linked to crime, drugs, insanity, promiscuity... Check [this article](_URL_0_) published in Ladies Home Journal, August 1921. Racism was obviously a component in the prejudice against that music (and som...	[ "By the end of the 1960s, the American and British counterculture and hippie movement had moved rock towards psychedelic rock, heavy metal, progressive rock and other styles (from which Scorpions rose to prominence), incorporating, for the first time in popular music, socially and politically incisive lyrics. The 1...
When were governments first expected to create jobs?	I'll take your more specific question. The sources I've read about the creation of parks in cities (specifically Central Park, which I'll look through my house to find) shows that during the 19th Century there was some municipally centered demands to create jobs, but this was not to create jobs in and of itself, but ...	[ "In around 1890, both the United States and European governments created government-funded employment offices to provide work for unemployed unskilled laborers. These services proved to be unsuccessful. In 1933 during the Great Depression, with the Wagner-Peyser Act, the USES was reinstated “to set minimum standard...
When and how did child marriage start to be seen as inappropriate in the Western culture?	Child marriage was never really "appropriate" in Western culture; it barely happened. According to parish records, the average age for marriage was between 17 and 25 across much of Europe in the middle ages. The average age for women was 20 to 26 in Elizabethan England, and many writers of the time condemned child marr...	[ "The marriage decisions in pre-modern China traditionally were made by parents with the help of matchmakers, and the fate of the children were determined at an early age. Since the reforms in the twentieth century, and the implementation of the marriage law, such practices have been outlawed. Legally the decision t...
why do artists upload their full album to their youtube channel for free?	From an economic standpoint, there is a theory that this will actually increase album sales. It is based on the idea that psychologically, you want to do something for someone who gives you something. So, naturally, the thing to do in this situation is to buy the album, even if you can listen to it for free. Addition...	[ "They are yet to release a full-length album, because they prefer giving out their music for free. They have had millions of downloads from their site and other related pages. They did release a free multimedia CD of their singles and videos in 2001. The band does not have any policies against their music being cop...
What happened to the armies immediately after a battle in Medieval Europe?	This is a vague question and has many different points that can and should be considered. But in all, I will do my best to provide an answer to a general battle during the early Medieval period. First and foremost, open battles happened quite infrequently. I mean, very rarely did to opposing forces march to an open ...	[ "After 4 years (907-910) of heavy defeats (Pressburg, Eisenach, Augsburg, Rednitz) from the hands of the Hungarian mounted archers, every of which resulting with the annihilation of the armies (this causing a \"shortage\" in soldiers to the Germans), and the deaths of the German commanders (among them princes, duke...
Why does the sun change the color of my hair? Picture in comment	Did you dye it brown? When you lighten hair with a bleach, it does damage it and makes it more vulnerable to harsh chemicals (shampoos) radiation (the sun), wind and any other stress. Also if you dyed it brown, the dye would likely fade off revealing the bleached hair underneath. Most dark hair has some red/gold/coppe...	[ "Light encountering a painted surface can either alter or break the chemical bonds of the pigment, causing the colors to bleach or change in a process known as photodegradation. Materials that resist this effect are said to be lightfast. The electromagnetic spectrum of the sun contains wavelengths from gamma waves ...
How long did slaves in America retain their specific tribal identities/religions/languages?	Many of the customs survived. If you go by John Thornton's Africans and the Making of the Atlantic World, many of the Slaves, though coming from different kingdoms had many language and religious similarities. So when new Africans arrived in the United States there was little trouble in recreating a society they knew...	[ "While numerous tribes used captive enemies as servants and slaves, they also often adopted younger captives into their tribes to replace members who had died. In the Southeast, a few Native American tribes began to adopt a slavery system similar to that of the American colonists, buying African American slaves, es...
how is there a slow lane and a fast lane on the highway if the speed limit never changes?	Some people drive faster than others. Passing on the driver's side is usually safer, which usually means passing on the left. All the people merging in and out tend to slow down the outside lanes a bit, too.	[ "A 65 mph left lane minimum speed limit is sometimes indicated on 75 mph roads with steep grades, \"slower traffic keep right\" is also in effect. On one-way roadways state law reserves the left and center lanes of two or more lanes for passing. There are reduced advisory speed limits for some roads during poor wea...
how can a solution to a problem suddenly pop up?	Subconscious mind solves it for you with all of the acquired knowledge and experience. This won't happen if you've no knowledge.	[ "BULLET::::- Pop : When, during a solve, one or more cubies come out of contact with the puzzle, usually causing the puzzle to be unstable, in which, upon turning, more pieces may become loose and possibly pop out too.\n", "In a \"fixes that fail\" scenario the encounter of a problem is faced by a corrective acti...
If a king was presumed dead and an heir took the throne, what happens when the old king returns?	A slightly different scene. The Ottoman emperor Murad II abdicated his throne in favour of his son Mehmed II (aged 12). Murad wanted to pursue the beauty of the life, poetry and was fed up with government work. But when his son Mehmed II took over, there was an imminent danger of a crusade (christian coalition) to take...	[ "When a monarch dies without a clear successor, a succession crisis often results. For example, when King Charles IV of France died, the Hundred Years War erupted between Charles' cousin, Philip VI of France, and Charles' nephew, Edward III of England, to determine who would succeed Charles as the King of France. W...
Does muscle repair faster when asleep, rather than lying completely motionless?	Sleep involves increased secretion of growth hormone, which does stimulate increased protein synthesis in skeletal muscle. _URL_0_	[ "In addition, as a result of continuous muscular activity without proper rest time, effects such as cramping are much more frequent in sleep-deprived individuals. Extreme cases of sleep deprivation have been reported to be associated with hernias, muscle fascia tears, and other such problems commonly associated wit...
Were Gun Control Laws in the USA originally motivated by racism/Jim Crow?	The bottom line is, yes, there was definitely a racist root to much of it. One of the concerns of the Supreme Court in the infamous Dredd Scott case was that if blacks were citizens, then it would give, horror of horrors, "to persons of the negro race ... the full liberty of speech ...; to hold public meetings upon pol...	[ "Jim Crow laws arose directly from a Supreme Court ruling which validated a \"states' rights\" notion that blacks and whites could be equally well served using separate but equal public facilities. With \"Plessy v. Ferguson\" (USSC 1896) the United States Supreme Court confirmed the right of state legislatures to e...
What is the correllation between the name of chinese currency yuan and the dynasty?	They use the same character, 元. That's it. It's a common character, meaning "round" or "round coin". To elaborate, the Yuan dynasty was a period of Mongol rule over China, from c. 1260 (de facto, 1271 officially) to 1368 (1380 if you count the Northern Yuan dynasty when the Mongols retreated to Mongolia after Kublai K...	[ "The first Chinese yuan coins had the same specification as a Spanish dollar, leading to a continuing equivalence in some respects between the names \"yuan\" and \"dollar\" in the Chinese language. Other currencies also derived from the dollar include the Japanese yen, Korean won, Philippine peso and the Malaysian ...
Why are trees in the Sahara flat and wide?	More sunlight is a good thing for the tree, as long as it can get enough water. Other trees don't spread out so much because the competition makes it a wasted effort, but in the Savannah the chance of two trees thriving right next to each other is lower. It's easier for a single tree to reach deep enough with its roots...	[ "A possibility causing the variation is the Sahel, a strip of semi-arid land on the southern border of the Sahara. When rain amounts in the Sahel are higher, the volume of dust is lower. The higher rainfall could make more vegetation grow in the Sahel, leaving less sand exposed to winds to blow away.\n", "The Med...

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