question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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exactly how scripted is professional wrestling? do the champions actually have more wrestling skill than others? | Everything is scripted. Even the champions. | [
"Best in the World featured twelve professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of mat... |
What, if any, information can be gleaned from this civil war photo? I know relatively nothing. Link in comments. | If you know his full name the [Soldiers and Sailors Database](_URL_0_) may be able to get you his war records. That can tell you what regiment he fought with and from there you can determine what he did. | [
"As the story ends, Alafair is looking through a book on the Civil War when she comes across a photograph of General Hood and his soldiers. We see a close-up of the photo; standing in the back, among the Confederate soldiers, is Dave Robicheaux. It is the photo taken during what Dave had supposed was a vision.\n",
... |
Why is the standard nominal voltage of most batteries ~3.6- 4.2V? | They don't have the same voltage. The voltage is determined by the chemistry of the battery.
Zinc air 1.4
Zinc carbon 1.5
Alkaline 1.5V
Lead acid cells are 2V (or 2.1V)
Primary(non rechargeable) lithium button cells are 3V
Lithium iron disulfide (Li-FeS2) 1.5V
NiCd 1.2V
NiMH 1.5V
LiFePO4 3.3V
Lithium ion 3.6... | [
"The voltage and capacity of a 'C'-size battery depends on the battery chemistry and discharge conditions. The nominal voltage is 1.5V. Alkaline 'C' batteries can hold up to 8,000 mAh, rechargeable NiMH 'C' batteries can hold up to 6,000 mAh, and zinc-carbon 'C' batteries usually hold up to 3,800 mAh.\n",
"The mo... |
How much stronger would gravity be on a planet 7 times the mass of earth? | It depends on the density. If it was the same density then it would be 91% stronger. | [
"Although Jupiter is very massive, it is also very far away. When at its closest distance to Earth of about 600 million kilometers, Jupiter has a gravitational pull of 0.00013 newtons on a person with a mass of 100 kg, according to Newton's law of gravity. About 7.5 million times weaker than the Earth's gravity, th... |
Why was blinding/maiming potential threats to the Emperor/Royal Succession so prevalent in the Byzantine Empire? | One possible explanation is that, simply put, mutilation is a lot less permanent than death. If the emperor has someone executed, even for something like treason, this can pretty quickly degenerate into a kind of vendetta situation. Family members of the deceased rising up to take revenge for their family member cause... | [
"Apart from all of his external enemies, a host of rebels also sought to overthrow Alexios from the imperial throne, thereby posing another major threat to his reign. Due to the troubled times the empire was enduring, he had by far the greatest number of rebellions against him of all the Byzantine emperors. These i... |
If inflammation is bad for you, why are spices and foods based in Capsaicin (which causes an inflammatory response) good for you? | Inflammation is the bodies main repair mechanism. It is part of your innate immunity (fast acting, but without specificity/memory). Without it we would have serious problems dealing with various antigens. Innate immunity is also key for setting up the environment for the adaptive immune response which allows for memory... | [
"Because of the burning sensation caused by capsaicin when it comes in contact with mucous membranes, it is commonly used in food products to provide added spice or \"heat\" (piquancy), usually in the form of spices such as chili powder and paprika. In high concentrations, capsaicin will also cause a burning effect... |
Is there ever a case of a legitimate heir being born before the coronation of a new king/duke/count after the death of the old one? And would this change anything? | In the case of England and France specifically in the Early-Modern period: The new King does not come to power at his coronation, he comes to power at the death of the previous monarch. The coronation is merely a ceremony. The power of the office of Monarchy is in the blood of the individual, and immediately declared o... | [
"If the King were to die without a male Heir his wife not being pregnant, or if she were pregnant but the pregnancy was not to result in an Heir to the Throne, then the Crown would be retained by His Royal Highness Prince Al-Hassan Al-Rida who would become the origin of future successions to continue through His li... |
when discussing a cars performance, why are 0-62 times sometimes used rather than 0-60 times? | 62 mp/h = 100 km/h | [
"Performance numbers vary from publication to publication. Testing from \"Car and Driver\", \"Road & Track\" and \"Motor Trend\" has produced 0–60 mph (97 km/h) times as fast as 4.8 seconds and as slow as 5.5 seconds. It runs the quarter-mile anywhere from 13.6 sec at to 14.0 sec at . (CVT-equipped WRXs are about a... |
Is there a science behind the way glass breaks? Is it possible to predict the pattern that it breaks? | I remember learning in chemistry that crystals and other materials (like graphite, I think) that break in more uniform pieces have lattice structures, but glass lacks this because it's an uneven mix of minerals. Therefore, it breaks in non predictable shapes.
I don't know if that's for every type of glass though. | [
"Glass plates are rather stable dimensionally, but they are also very fragile and brittle. Because glass is brittle, it is highly susceptible to breakage, cracks, and fractures. This can be caused by human error including dropping or bumping the glass plate, or it can be caused by failure of storage equipment, hous... |
lsd micro-dosing | Check out r/microdosing but it's essentially taking a small amount of lsd, below the threshold where the chemical becomes a "trip". The goal is to have a mental advantage, better creative thinking, as well as a boost of energy, without having to deal with the visuals and wild headspace that comes with an actual trip. W... | [
"James Fadiman is currently conducting a study on psychedelic micro-dosing for improving normal functioning. Micro-dosing (or sub-perceptual dosing) means taking sub-threshold dose, which for LSD is 10-20 micrograms. The purpose of micro-dosing is not intoxication but enhancement of normal functionality (see nootro... |
What color is the dress? And why? | [Here's](_URL_0_) an article from _URL_1_ where they try to debunk the issue. provides som context to OP's post.
I can't see how anyone would aknowledge it as white and gold but then again, we are all different and perceive things differently.
_______________________________
[link to buying the dress in ques... | [
"\"The dress\" is a photograph that became a viral internet sensation on 26 February 2015, when viewers disagreed over whether the dress pictured was coloured blue and black, or white and gold. The phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception, which have been the subject of ongoing scientific investig... |
how an organ (instrument) works | In earlier instruments there was a physical, mechanical connection between the keyboards, or 'manuals' as they're known, and the wind chest, which is the unit that delivers air to the pipes via valves. There is a set of controls in the middle called the Stops, they determine what sets of pipes (or 'ranks') are sounded ... | [
"In music, the organ (from Greek ὄργανον \"organon\", \"organ, instrument, tool\") is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means for producing tones, each played with its own keyboard, played either with the hands on a keyboard or with the feet using pedals. The organ is a relatively old mus... |
how reddit manage to update, store and manage all gazillions of posts/users/uploads/updates every second and best of all, in real time? | Reddit uses Amazon Web Services as the back end hosting. There's lots of servers to let the system scale up, replicated databases to increase response time. And it's all running in big data centers with really really fast internet connections. | [
"Similar to Tumblr's interface, it lets users access the site on two different levels. On the one hand, a site-wide level, which includes a \"Dashboard\" feed of items posted by BookLikes and updates from users the user chooses to follow. It also shows the features and services provided directly by BookLikes, such ... |
why do foreign objects sometimes get pushed out, and other times your body just seems to shrug and be like, 'this is our life now.'? | I believe it has to do with the material, the bacteria is brought with it, and how deeply embedded it was.
The body can’t break down wood, so splinters usually stay whole and lodged in your skin. Same with metal splinters. But some materials can be dissolved or displaced more easily.
Usually splinters bring bacteria ... | [
"Both children and adults experience problems caused by foreign objects getting stuck in their bodies. Young children, in particular, are naturally curious and may intentionally put shiny objects, such as coins or button batteries, into their mouths. They also like to stick things in their ears and up their noses. ... |
when did we really start recording the years? | > When did everyone get on the same page
It was gradual, but it caught on in Western Europe between the 11th and 14th centuries.
_URL_1_
> And why is After Death and Before Christ so widely used?
First, AD stands for Anno Domini which means "in the year of the Lord" and refers to the years after Jesus' supposed b... | [
"Recording sessions (which began in September 1978) yielded eleven songs for inclusion on an album. Two of the songs - \"On Saturday Afternoons in 1963\" and \"After Hours\" - were recorded live on December 22, 1978.\n",
"The first recording session was in October 1981, a half year after the band first played the... |
with the vast increase of women entering the labour force over the last century, and the introduction of technology which has drastically increased the efficiency of many jobs (office jobs in particular), why has there not been a drastic decrease in the amount of time we work each week? | Accourding to [this graph](_URL_0_) the average work time has drastically decreased over the last century. So I don't see how you get to your conclusion that it has not. | [
"More generally, why is any type of technological progress important? Technological change has made our lives easier. Because of technological progress, people can work less, make more money and enjoy more leisure time (Greenwood & Vandenbroucke 2006). Women have been able to break away from the traditional \"house... |
How large does a body of water have to be before it becomes tidal? | All bodies are affected, the minimum volume depends on how do you define 'noticeable'. | [
"The typical tidal range in the open ocean is about . Closer to the coast, this range is much greater. Coastal tidal ranges vary globally and can differ anywhere from near zero to over 16 metres. The exact range depends on the volume of water adjacent to the coast, and the geography of the basin the water sits in. ... |
If you brew a cup of coffee, and then let it sit undisturbed, will it ever settle back to being just pure coffee and pure water? | For a typical pot of brewed coffee, the answer is going to be no. The reason is that when we drink coffee, we are not drinking coffee beans suspended in water, as with orange juice with pulp for example (where the pulp will settle to the bottom). Brewed coffee is really a temperature based extraction of essential oil... | [
"It is believed that the optimum time for brewing the coffee is around four minutes, and some consider the coffee spoiled after about 20 minutes. Other approaches, such as cold brewing, require several hours of contact between the water and the grounds to achieve the desired extraction.\n",
"When the lower chambe... |
how do doctors tell if someone died without any pain. | They say that to make the family of the deceased feel better. | [
"They can apparently cause major problems for people undergoing medical operations, as \"pain, an anaesthetic or a serious accident cause him to change to the other area with a shocking impact on the other body. The other body quite commonly dies or is deranged by the sudden impact\". This gives the patient a repre... |
Low frequency, high frequency and WiFi ? | > Q1. Do lower frequencies pass through matter better than higher frequencies
Radio waves go through matter, and that does get better as the wavelengths get longer (but the amount of information you can transmit per unit of time gets smaller, and your antennas get bigger). But very very short waves, gamma radiation... | [
"Lower frequency radio waves, below 3 MHz, travel efficiently as ground waves. In ITU nomenclature, this includes (in order): medium frequency (MF), low frequency (LF), very low frequency (VLF), ultra low frequency (ULF), super low frequency (SLF), extremely low frequency (ELF) waves.\n",
"The frequencies are usu... |
How many US citizens of German descent fought for Germany in WW2? Thinking of this scene in Band of Brothers where the American soldiers meet a German POW... who speaks perfect English. | I just want to preface before answering this question, that this is a very difficult question for me to answer, in that my research of the subject (and it's something I've been curious about/researching since seeing that scene you mention originally air 13 years ago) has turned up very little about any hard numbers of ... | [
"Records indicate that one American was kept as a POW at Camp Ruston. Ludwig Staudinger, Jr. was born in Germany in 1921. His family left Germany and immigrated to the west coast of the US near Yakima, Washington. As the war in Europe began, the young German American's allegiance to his mother country drew him into... |
would gears on an electric motor in a car help in any way? | Gears have their own losses. Adding them takes away energy from driving. Electric motors can be designed to run optimally at various speeds. | [
"It has been widely anticipated that for electric vehicles (EVs), clutches and multi-speed gearboxes would not be required, as electric motors can drive the vehicle both forward and reverse from zero speed and typically operate over a wider speed range than combustion engines. Elimination of the gearbox represents ... |
why is it socially acceptable to eat donuts for breast, but not, for example, cake or pie? | Coffee cake? Apple strudel is kinda like pie... Danishes are another sweet pastry. Muffins are pretty much cake without icing. . .
There are loads of sweets that are considered socially acceptable to eat for breakfast even though they have little nutritional value other than providing you calories. | [
"A nunt is a pastry originating from Jewish cuisine and vaguely resembles nougat. The pastry is predominantly served at the Jewish celebration of Purim, where self-made sweets are customarily given to neighbours and friends. Nunt is traditionally made from dark forest honey, which is cooked along with sugar and the... |
the recycling system in the us | That's pretty terrible logic TBH. Just because something is done poorly but still has a positive effect, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done at all.
& #x200B;
That being said. A lot of the recycling in the US is based on what money can be made off it. Many things are (used to be) shipped to China, and they would buy i... | [
"There is no national law in the United States that mandates recycling, and state and local governments often introduce their own recycling requirements. In 2014, the recycling/composting rate for municipal solid waste in the US was 34.6%. A number of U.S. states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii... |
50s voices. | In the 40s and 50s many radio and television performers had voice training and affected a "midatlantic" accent. This is the upper class sounding accent you're used to hearing in old film and television.
At the time that accent was common among the upper class of the New York/Philadelphia region. Most major radio netw... | [
"50 great voices is a NPR yearlong series of 2010 to 2011 to profile 50 singers who have made their mark internationally and across recorded history revealing the selected voices one by one about weekly.\n",
"Some historians and traditionalists prefer not to bestow Collins' successors with the prestigious title o... |
What was hygene really like in Europe between, say, the End of the Roman Empire in 500 A.D and 1850 A.D? Most interested in 1000 A.D and 1600 A.D | Hiya guys! Just a pre-emptive, friendly heads-up from the mod team :)
While this question certainly does have a very high count of upvotes and such, that doesn't relax our [rules](_URL_1_) and [standards for answers at all.](_URL_0_) If you've got something on the tip of your tongue that you read in a National Geogra... | [
"After more than 100,000 years of uniformity, around 45,000 years BP the Neanderthal fossil record changed abruptly. The Mousterian had quickly become more versatile and was named the Chatelperronian culture and thereby signifies the diffusion of Aurignacian elements into Neanderthal culture. Although debated, this... |
how did they confirm that osama bin laden was dead? | Comparing DNA with family members who are not as dastardly, I think. | [
"The reports of bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011, are not universally accepted despite unreleased DNA testing confirming his identity, bin Laden's twelve-year-old daughter witnessing his death, and a May 6, 2011, al-Qaeda statement confirming his death. The swift burial of bin Laden's body at sea, the speed of the ... |
how do base 2 and base 16 number systems relate to each other? | Edit one point that I've remembered having trouble with when I first learned this stuff *many* moons ago: all of this is only about how we write a number down. It makes no difference at all to the value of the number. six plus one is seven regardless of whether you write is in base 10 as 6+1=7 or in binary as 110+1=111... | [
"The duodecimal system (also known as base 12, dozenal, or rarely uncial) is a positional notation numeral system using twelve as its base. The number twelve (that is, the number written as \"12\" in the base ten numerical system) is instead written as \"10\" in duodecimal (meaning \"1 dozen and 0 units\", instead ... |
How can blood chimeras exist with multiple blood types? | It's possible because the immune system learns the distinction between self and non-self by examining the proteins that are actually expressed by the individual -- immune recognition is experience-based rather than hard-coded.
So there's no fundamental incompatability between the two different types of cells, as the i... | [
"All the common blood types, such as the ABO blood group system, are genetic polymorphisms. Here we see a system where there are more than two morphs: the phenotypes A, B, AB and O are present in all human populations, but vary in proportion in different parts of the world. The phenotypes are controlled by multiple... |
Why is it easier to focus on sounds coming from a certain direction while also focusing your vision in that same direction? | Two aspects.
If you turn your head your earlobes act as a sort of cone that concentrates the noise from in front of you. Try cupping your hands around your ears, open at the front. Notice noises become more pronounced? Same effect on a more minor scale.
The other aspect is noticing the direction of a cause of noise, pi... | [
"The auditory system also works in tandem with the neural system so that the listener is capable of spatially locating the direction from which a sound source originated. This is known as the Haas or Precedence effect and is possible due to the nature of having two ears, or auditory receptors. The difference in tim... |
How long has alphabetical order been a standard for cataloging? How do character-based languages organize data? | Nowadays, a lot of Chinese data is arranged by alphabetical order of the Pinyin transliteration system, 阿 *a* before 本 *ben* before 才 *cai*, etc. Dictionaries, for instance, are almost all arranged that way, Chinese people all know the transliteration system as that's how they teach students the pronunciation of new ch... | [
"Alphabetical order is the basis for many systems of collation where items of information are identified by strings consisting principally of letters from an alphabet. The ordering of the strings relies on the existence of a standard ordering for the letters of the alphabet in question. (The system is not limited t... |
Will de-ionized water still heat up in the microwave? | Yes. The [mechanism for microwaves passing energy to water](_URL_1_) ([dielectric heating](_URL_2_)) does not depend on the ionic strength (salt content) of the water. Salt water or low [TDS](_URL_0_) water will heat up in a similar fashion. | [
"Microwave disinfection can also be employed for treatment of Biomedical wastes. Microwave irradiation is a type of non-contact heating technologies for disinfection. Microwave chemistry is based on efficient heating of materials by microwave dielectric heating effects. When exposed to microwave frequencies, the di... |
If you coated the bottom of a boat in NeverWet, would it travel faster through the water? | To an extent.
Hydrophobic surfaces (NeverWet is a superhydrophobic coating) reduce drag because an air layer between the surface and the fluid causes [slip](_URL_1_) through [two-phase flow](_URL_3_), allowing the surface to *slip* past the water. This is in contrast to a no-slip surface (which, simply put, means that... | [
"Sailing craft with lower resistance across the surface (multihulls, land yachts, ice boats) than most displacement monohulls have through the water can improve their velocity made good (VMG) downwind by sailing on a broad reach and jibing, as necessary to reach a destination.\n",
"He also introduced the major ad... |
Does milk actually sap calcium from your bones through acidification and pH? | > milk acidifies the body pH
Blood is what's called a "buffer" in chemistry. Buffers resist (large) changes in pH, so your blood doesn't vary wildly in pH. | [
"Milk as a calcium source has been questioned in media, but scientific research is lacking to support the hypothesis of acidosis induced by milk. The hypothesis in question being that acidosis would lead to leaching of calcium storages in bones to neutralize pH levels (also known as acid-ash hypothesis).\n",
"Cal... |
how are boneless chicken wings made? | Boneless chicken wings are simply breaded pieces of chicken breast. | [
"A Buffalo wing, in the cuisine of the United States, is an unbreaded chicken wing section (flat or drumette) that is generally deep-fried then coated or dipped in a sauce consisting of a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and melted butter prior to serving. The Buffalo wing was allegedly invented in 1964 at An... |
why does the whole world seem to show more sympathy for 9/11 than other tragedies that have happened? | Undoubtedly, 9/11 has resonated so widely and so enduringly because it was as impactful *metaphorically* as it was physically.
The terrorist attacks 14 years ago were a deliberate affront to the idealism of the western world. People in the west implicitly believed that the space they occupied was safe stable and held... | [
"Although we can probably credit nothing more spiritual than saturation-level television coverage for its visceral impact, 9/11 remains the single most resonant event in recent world history for many people, igniting so many thoughts, fears and conflicts within the minds of those who witnessed it that, even today, ... |
Considering Master's Degree in History for fun | Hi hlb_7; Your story is extremely similar to mine (econ undergrad, work in insurance and was considering this). It's nice to know I have a comrade out there! | [
"BULLET::::- The Renaissance Institute is a voluntary association of women and men age 50 and older who pursue study of a variety of topics on a not-for-credit basis. Courses have included: literature, public affairs, writing, history, philosophy, music, art, languages, t'ai chi, film, science, computers, travel, s... |
in the days before photo and video and widespread communications, how did people know who was royalty/wanted by the law?? | Kingdoms were much smaller than they are today. But many subjects would not have recognized their monarch without their standards and entourage. Today is very different, the Queen of Canada is known throughout the world and addresses Canada and the other parts of the Commonwealth in a Christmas address | [
"British Radio Jockey Sara Cox's case against \"The People\" newspaper was one of the first celebrity privacy cases. The media referred to the case as a \"watershed\". The disc jockey sued after the newspaper printed nude photographs of her taken while on her honeymoon. However the case was settled out of court and... |
Was Napoleon really that evil? Like did he really do anything that was on the scale of Hitler or Stalin? | No, Napoleon really was not "evil" in the way that Hitler or Stalin were. Napoleon's methods of imperial rule were far more ambiguous than that of Hitler's. Many Europeans under French rule sought to work with the Imperial system, whereas it was readily apparent as early as 1940 that German suzerainty meant a loss of ... | [
"In the political realm, historians debate whether Napoleon was \"an enlightened despot who laid the foundations of modern Europe\" or \"a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler\". Many historians have concluded that he had grandiose foreign policy ambitions. The Continenta... |
Why didn't Gengis or Ogedai Khan conquer the Song Dynasty? | Let's take Ghenghis first:
His focus was on northern China, and central Eurasia. His primary focus was central Eurasia. He led the conquest through what is now Khazakhstan and Uzbekistan and then down into the Kush of Afghanistan. He left much of the work in northern China to subsidiary forces. His last military acti... | [
"Before the rule of Kublai Khan, the Mongols had launched military campaigns as far as Eastern Europe, and had conquered Russia, Siberia, Tibet, Korea, North China, Yunnan, Iraq, Anatolia and Iran. However, the Song dynasty was difficult to conquer because of the strategic location of Xiangyang, which became a vita... |
why do drugs/sugar etc have highs and comedowns/withdrawal, but orgasms just level out? | Your body has evolved so that sex doesn't decrease functioning. It's a *good* thing, especially if you're a male. The more and with more mates, the better, since it means more babies. What doesn't mean more sex and babies is getting killed by a predator while you're recovering from being depressed after sex. So there's... | [
"Orgasm, or sexual climax, is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual tension during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic muscular contractions in the pelvic region characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure. Women commonly find it difficult to experience orgasms during vaginal intercourse. Ma... |
how do shows like the daily show pull clips that may be several years old to make very specific points? | This has been asked before and iirc, the answer was that there are companies with the sole purpose of recording TV and categorizing it on servers that shows like the daily show can pay to search through. | [
"\"I would always kind of obsessively watch TV to look for the most interesting decisions people made while in front of a camera. In TV Carnage I try and make a weird story out of the clips that I put together. I’m a frustrated animator in a way. Every clip for me is like a frame ya know. So I started collecting al... |
what the hell is going on in baltimore?? | A black man was arrested on charges of running from the cops. 30 minutes later, his spine was *somehow* nearly severed, and he died shortly later. The police won't say what happened to him. The protests/riots are because black people in this country are tired of being randomly killed by police claiming self defense.
E... | [
"The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland, United States on Sunday, February 7 and Monday, February 8, 1904. 1,231 firefighters helped bring the blaze under control, both professional paid Truck and Engine companies from the Baltimore City Fire Department (B.C.F.D.) and volunteers from the surrounding ... |
roswell ufo incident | It's important to understand that the modern version of the Roswell story was invented pretty much out of whole cloth in the 80s-90s. What ACTUALLY happened wasn't nearly as dramatic.
What happened *at the time* is this. A ranch foreman named Mac Brazel was riding the ranch and came across a scattering of debris, some... | [
"The Aurora, Texas, UFO incident reportedly occurred on April 17, 1897 when, according to locals, a UFO crashed on a farm near Aurora, Texas. The incident (similar to the more famous Roswell UFO incident 50 years later) is claimed to have resulted in a fatality from the crash and the alleged alien body is to have b... |
Do people that speak different languages get different located wrinkles? | Although possible, wrinkles dont nessecarily form due to repeated flexing of skin at the same point. Instead, wrinkles are normally formed either habitually due to muscle developments, or more often due to specific weakening of the collagen present in the skin at that point. | [
"Marionette lines and wrinkles are two different types of folds or fine lines, yes both of them are a result of the aging process, both make your face look older, but the one major difference is that marionette lines give you that unhappy or mad expression where some people may misunderstand your face expressions j... |
how cassette tapes produce sound | Let's start with a simplifed description of how the sound is recorded.... a microphone is a membrane with a magnet attached to it close to a wire coil. As sound waves hit the membrane, the magnet moves back and forth, this makes electrons move in a wire, creating a changing electrical current - the pattern of the curr... | [
"An audio tape recorder, tape deck, or tape machine is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records a fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape ... |
what's the difference between a musical and an opera? | In an opera, every single line in sung.
In a musical, it is a mix of spoken and sung lines. | [
"Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as \"Die Zauberflö... |
different dimensions | This video does the best job:
_URL_0_ | [
"In a technical drawing, a basic dimension is a theoretically exact dimension, given from a datum to a feature of interest. In Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, basic dimensions are defined as a numerical value used to describe the theoretically exact size, profile, orientation or location of a feature or dat... |
why are dump-trucks exempt from damage because of a sticker that says they are exempt from damage? | They are not exempt. Highway truck operators are required by law to secure the entire load.
This sticker is designed to do two things.
1. Make you conscious of the possibility of flying debris.
2. Make you blame yourself so you don't blame the person really at fault. | [
"In Sydney, it is illegal to carry spray cans or permanent markers on board public transport, as they can be used to cause vandalism to the vehicles and stations. This rule also applies to sharp instruments that could damage on the train; such as screwdrivers that could be used to make \"scratchitti\", a form of va... |
What are some of the worst collapses in US presidential campaign history? | Sorry, we don't allow ["example seeking" questions](_URL_0_). It's not that your question was bad; it's that these kinds of questions tend to produce threads that are collections of disjointed, partial, inadequate responses. If you have a question about a specific historical event, period, or person, feel free to rewri... | [
"In October 1998, President Bill Clinton declared this slide a federal disaster. It was the second worst landslide disaster (in cost) in the United States, following the 1956 Portuguese Bend Landslide on Palos Verdes Hills in Southern California. This disaster at Aldercrest led to stricter city zoning ordinances an... |
How do tree cells know to divide primarily upward and only a little bit outward? | Plants indeed do have a sense of gravitational direction, called [gravitropism](_URL_4_), in which individual cells sense gravity using dense materials that precipitate downward in the cytoplasm. This allows plants to grow in particular directions, namely upward. However, the upward and outward growth you see in trees ... | [
"Some cells divide asymmetrically by budding, for example \"Saccharomyces cerevisiae\", the yeast species used in baking and brewing. This process results in a 'mother' cell and a smaller 'daughter' cell. Cryo-electron tomography recently revealed that mitochondria in cells divide by budding.\n",
"The first scien... |
Do octopuses had a special way to release their suction cups or do they just use brute force? | They actually have complex muscles that control the shape, and pressure (suction) of each individual sucker. When they grip a surface or object, they contract muscle groups to generate negative pressure inside the cup to have more suction, and relax to release.
These suckers are even more complex in that they contain ... | [
"A benthic (bottom-dwelling) octopus typically moves among the rocks and feels through the crevices. The creature may make a jet-propelled pounce on prey and pull it towards the mouth with its arms, the suckers restraining it. Small prey may be completely trapped by the webbed structure. Octopuses usually inject cr... |
why is it that if i move my indoor tv aerial (digital) just 6 inches, the picture can degrade massively, or even lose it completely? | There's something that when you move your antenna, affects the "line of sight" of the radio waves. Like some electronic wiring, plumbing, even telephone wire and quite possibly some nail studs.
On the flip side, it is possible that said plumbing helps to amplify the signal that you are trying to get. I can't imagi... | [
"Motion interpolation on certain brands of TVs is sometimes accompanied by visual anomalies in the picture, described by CNET's David Carnoy as a \"little tear or glitch\" in the picture, appearing for a fraction of a second. He adds that the effect is most noticeable when the technology suddenly kicks in during a ... |
Can the peripherals of our vision pick up on things that the main focus of our sight cannot? | The periphery of our vision is very sensitive to movement. This is an evolutionary advantage when avoiding predatos, and trying to find a prey. Also, you must have noticed that when trying to get attention from a waiter at a restaurant, a waving hand is usually the most visible you can get.
Also, the periphery is a bi... | [
"Peripheral vision is weak in humans, especially at distinguishing detail, color, and shape. This is because the density of receptor and ganglion cells in the retina is greater at the center and lowest at the edges, and, moreover, the representation in the visual cortex is much smaller than that of the fovea (see v... |
Did the Roman Empire, at any Point have knowledge of the continent of North America? | Laymen here, from what I understand that Romans in the common sense did not know about the Americas.
However; you should define roman. The Byzantine Empire and it's people considered themselves Roman. The holy roman empire considered itself to be Roman as well. Or you could be talking about people who live in Rome c... | [
"In \"L' America dimenticata\", Russo suggests that the Americas were known to some European civilizations in ancient times, probably discovered by the Phoenicians or the Carthaginians, but that the knowledge was lost under Roman expansion in the 2nd century BCE.\n",
"The exploration of North America by non-... |
Why do artificial sweeteners have virtually no calories? | The way things are metabolized and the way they taste are simply two independent things.
Starch doesn't taste sweet (except insofar it's broken down into glucose by your saliva), but it's made out of glucose. So is cellulose, but that has neither taste nor nutritional value.
| [
"One study suggests that artificial sweeteners may not fully activate the brain's \"food reward pathways\" as sugar does, stating that, because sweetener does not provide full satisfaction, the user may search for, and then eat, additional high-calorie foods leading to weight gain.\n",
"The world's most commonly ... |
How OP were horse archers, exactly? | Horse archers were never very dominant on a battlefield. The reason they are often considered so is simply confirmation bias: Most people who know a little bit about history know that the Parthians, who were horse archers, critically defeated the Romans at Carrhae. They often forget that this was a pretty rare reversal... | [
"The Roman Empire and its military also had an extensive use of horse archers after their conflict with eastern armies that relied heavily on mounted archery in the 1st century BC. They had regiments such as the Equites Sagittarii, who acted as Rome's horse archers in combat. The Crusaders used conscripted cavalry ... |
why do they put signs up that say no turns in places where there are obviously no turns (like a freeway acceleration ramp)? | Because someone tried it at least once | [
"At many unregulated intersections the practice is to yield to traffic on-coming from the right, unless there is a “yield” or \"give way” sign posted for the right on-coming traffic. This can be a problem on some streets since these signs are not always visible to traffic that does not have to yield. Therefore, unl... |
why is certain physical movement (pacing back and forth, snapping your fingers, rubbing your chin, etc.) associated with thinking hard or trying to remember something? | Think of it as if you have three centers: moving, intellectual, and emotional. If the moving center is distracted with motion, your intellectual center is freed up to pursue its goal. That sounds kind of new agey but I think for me it helps explain why I can more easily solve problems or write song lyrics while driving... | [
"Physical movement stimulates long-term memory and recall because it has been associated in the human brain with survival and this is supported by brain imaging studies. This is confirmed by findings such as the studies that show exercise shapes muscles along with the strengthening of some areas of the brain, growi... |
how are elections results verified? like what prevents a government (including the usa) from just saying "hey this guy won and here are some numbers that we made up to prove it" | Elections are conducted on a state- and local level, so the US government wouldn't really have a way to announce the results, or rig them generally without getting hundreds of precincts in on it, even for a low-level race.
There are usually audits and various other ways to confirm the official vote count, and typicall... | [
"To prevent fraud in central tabulation, there has to be a public list of the results from every single polling place. This is the only way for voters to prove that the results they witnessed in their election office are correctly incorporated into the totals.\n",
"the polling stations and the final results that ... |
why is old frozen meats from the freezer considered bad? what happens to the meat? | 1. Aging,
2. Bacteria,
3. Water crystals,
4. Freezer burn
*1. Freezing doesn't stop bacterial growth or meat "aging" completely. Enzymatic reactions are still happening, albeit at a much slower rate, this causes many of the proteins inside to change properties which confer flavor and texture, thus giving meat that "o... | [
"Under hygienic conditions and without other treatment, meat can be stored at above its freezing point (–1.5 °C) for about six weeks without spoilage, during which time it undergoes an aging process that increases its tenderness and flavor.\n",
"Untreated meat decomposes rapidly if it is not preserved, at a speed... |
Besides the Aztec and Mayan script, where there any other forms of writing, or recording information in Pre-Colombian North and South America? And if so, are there any collections of these works that tell us about Pre-Colombian America? | There are a few other scripts we know about from Mesoamerica, in no particular order:
* **Zapotec**: The Zapotec inscriptions from Oaxaca appear to use some idea of written glyphs. You can find a collection of images of them [here](_URL_3_). As seen in figs 1.3 and 1.18, much of our knowledge of Zapotec glyphs comes f... | [
"A small number of artifacts found in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec show examples of another early Mesoamerican writing system. They can be seen to contain calendric information but are otherwise undeciphered. The longest of these texts are on La Mojarra Stela 1 and the Tuxtla Statuette. The writing system used is ver... |
how is it that babies have more bones then adults? | As we grow our bones fuse together. All of the ones from when you were a baby can probably still be identified with a Keen eye in your adult skeleton. It's also why babies don't have kneecaps until a few months. | [
"There are differences in the bone structure of a child and an adult. These differences are important for the correct evaluation and treatment of the fractures. A child's bones heal faster than an adult's because a thicker, stronger, and more active dense fibrous membrane (periosteum) covers the surface of their bo... |
Comprehensive book/s on history of Roman Catholic church | There is no good history of the Church as a whole that I know of, but
* Duffy, Eamon. Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes. 3rd ed. New Haven [Conn.] ; London: Yale Nota Bene/Yale University Press, 2006.
is a great start. Be aware that many things Duffy (or anyone writing this sort of overview) asserts as fact... | [
"The book is an account of the history of the Roman Catholic Church progressing from the earliest beginnings tand Roman Emperor Constantine the Great's relationship with the church during the reign of Pope Silvester I up through the post Vatican II popes and Pope John Paul II.\n",
"A learned documentary work is t... |
what causes the shower to make that high pitched screech when you turn up the heat a bunch? | Bernoullie's principle states that a faster moving fluid is at a lower pressure than a slower moving one, so the speed of the water through the pipes lowers pressure enough for the hot temperatures you're requesting with the shower knob to turn some of the water to steam which is then heard as a screech. | [
"Also called Chimney effect or Stack effect, observes that warm air (from the hot shower) rises out over the shower curtain as cooler air (near the floor) pushes in under the curtain to replace the rising air. By pushing the curtain in towards the shower, the (short range) vortex and Coandă effects become more sign... |
Fire requires Oxygen: So what would happen if wood or another flammable material slowly drifted towards a star in space? | The wood becomes carbon eg charcoal.
see:
_URL_0_ | [
"Highly concentrated sources of oxygen promote rapid combustion. Oxygen itself is not flammable, but the addition of concentrated oxygen to a fire greatly increases its intensity, and can aid the combustion of materials (such as metals) which are relatively inert under normal conditions. Fire and explosion hazards ... |
Why do protons not react with cell plasma membranes and various proteins on cell surface membranes when maintaining proton gradients? | They do. Everything is in protonation equilibrium. | [
"Bound protons are associated with proteins and as they have a very short T2 decay they do not normally contribute to image contrast. However, because these protons have a broad resonance peak they can be excited by a radiofrequency pulse that has no effect on free protons. Their excitation increases image contrast... |
respectability politics | So respectability politics tends to come up in activist circles around the issues of racism and homophobia.
When someone says "respectability politics" they're talking about efforts by people of color, or by LGBT people, to portray themselves to the dominant group in society (white people and straight people) as "norm... | [
"Respectability politics or the politics of respectability refers to attempts by marginalized groups to police their own members and show their social values as being continuous and compatible with dominant values rather than challenging the mainstream for what they see as its failure to accept difference. The conc... |
How censored are US World War 2 battle film and photos ? | I want to clarify, are you asking if films or photos released to the public in movies or newspapers at the time of the war are censored? Or what we as historians have available to us now in terms of materials filmed or photographed? | [
"While there were heavy regulations placed on the press releases, no uniform rules existed for the censorship of picture. During the course of the First World War, censors which were enacted newly also placed a ban on the movies that had been approved for production already as they were deemed unsuitable for the wa... |
why does brightness and staring too much at a screen produce eye fatigue and headaches? | This is what's known as computer vision syndrome.
When you're staring at the computer screen for hours at a time, your eyes have to stay focused on it. The muscles that focus and move your eyes are fast-twitch muscles, and aren't really designed to focus the way we do on computer screens.
IIRC, when using a monitor... | [
"Ergonomic studies had shown that prolonged work in the office environment with the presence of discomforting glares and disturbances from light reflections on the screen can be a cause of mild to severe adverse health effects, ranging from eye strain and headaches to photosensitive epileptic episodes. These effect... |
This might be silly, but how much truth is there to the Assassins Creed series? | I would not go around quoting facts that you've learned in Assassins Creed, the same way I would not describe Pearl Harbor from the movie. There are some real facts in there, like places, people and events. But there is much, much more creative license taken to fit the story, and even just to make the game more aesthet... | [
"The \"Assassin's Creed\" series have received mainly positive reviews from critics, many of whom have called \"Assassin's Creed\" \"...the standout series on [the seventh generation] of consoles\". It has been praised for its ambitious game design, visuals, and narratives, but criticized for its technical issues a... |
why a certain kind of music is "sad" or "happy" or any other emotions, regardless of the lyrics ? | Chords usually have to do with it. Usually, minor chords, especially minor thirds, are associated with sadness.
[Curtis et al](_URL_0_) posited that a minor third mirrors human speech patterns expressing sadness.
The abstract: (emphasis mine)
> There is a long history of attempts to explain why music is perceive... | [
"Niedenthal and Setterlund found that music can induce happy or sad moods. They also found that when in a happy mood, participants were quicker at identifying happy words than sad words. Such findings are in line with the emotion-congruence thesis. This research also makes the conclusion that our existing moods and... |
why does the skin tone of a butt darken towards the butt crack ? | It looks like this was answered on this sub [here](_URL_0_) in December 2014 | [
"In adult females, irritation of the area may be caused by wearing too-tight underwear (especially where wider inner labia protrude in the pudendal cleft); while G-strings, which rub against the labia during body movements, may cause irritation or lead to infection from bacteria transferred from either the external... |
why can’t we digitally store our memories and see a visual representation of some sorts? | Science hasnt really caught up to that. We dont really know exactly where and how memories are stored. If we did we would be able to cure dementia. I've often wanted something similar but yeah until we understand the brain it wont happen. | [
"By contrast, photographic memory may be defined as the ability to recall pages of text, numbers, or similar, in great detail, without the visualization that comes with eidetic memory. It may be described as the ability to briefly look at a page of information and then recite it perfectly from memory. This type of ... |
How many Angles/Saxons/Jutes actually invaded Britain in comparison to the indigenous population? | Good question, and one for which there is no general consensus - it's actually a hotly debated topic. Broadly, there are two opposing viewpoints. One position is that there was a mass folk migration of Anglo-Saxons by which most Britons were displaced or enslaved. The other is that a much smaller number, a warrior elit... | [
"The Jutes, along with some Angles, Saxons and Frisians, sailed across the North Sea to raid and eventually invade Great Britain from the late 4th century onwards, either displacing, absorbing, or destroying the native peoples there. \n",
"Migration of Germanic peoples to Britain from what is now northern Germany... |
Why animals were put on trial in the middle ages in Europe ? | Hi, not discouraging anyone else from contributing more on this, but fyi here's an answer from /u/Whoosier
* [Why were animals put on trial?](_URL_0_) | [
"In legal history, an animal trial was the criminal trial of a non-human animal. Such trials are recorded as having taken place in Europe from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth. In modern times, it is considered in most criminal justice systems that non-human creatures lack moral agency and so cannot be h... |
Does your body have an electric field? | As iorgfeflkd says, anything that's charged has an electrical field. Your body has lots of electrical fields, because there are a lot of places where you have a separation of electrical charges. E.g. between neurons in the brain and across the inner membrane of cellular mitochondria.
Our muscles for instance, do have ... | [
"How cells sense such minute extracellular electric fields remains largely elusive. Recent research has started to identify some genetic, signaling and structural elements underlying how cells sense and respond to small physiological electric fields. These include ion channels, intracellular signaling pathways, mem... |
why did it take so long for natives to become us citizens ? | This question is too big to really answer, not only because of the localized variance in the exercise of citizenship rights by indigenous people, and the push and pull thereof throughout time, but because semantically “citizenship” is a difficult term to pin down (i.e. state, tribal, or federal, and de facto or de jure... | [
"Native Americans were not granted full US citizenship until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. However, even well into the 1960s some state laws prevented Native Americans from exercising their full rights as citizens, such as the right to vote. In 1962, New Mexico became the last state to enfranch... |
video and audio codecs | A file format, or a codec exists so that computers know how to read a file. Think of it as a book. The general idea is that the file format tells the computer how to read the book, using a specific language. Just like with languages, they are used because many have sprung up over the ages, and people tend to pick certa... | [
"An audio codec converts analog audio signals into digital signals for transmission or encodes them for storage. A receiving device converts the digital signals back to analog form using an audio decoder for playback. An example of this are the codecs used in the sound cards of personal computers. A video codec acc... |
[meta] a note about the moderation policy | Well put Amarkov. One thing we are going to have to do is be a little more liberal with the ban hammer, and then ask the questions after we filter out the negativity. Don't even put us on your radar. Be nice.
One other important thing to remember is that **this is a community effort.** Reporting things that violate th... | [
"An acceptable use policy (AUP), acceptable usage policy or fair use policy, is a set of rules applied by the owner, creator or administrator of a network, website, or service, that restrict the ways in which the network, website or system may be used and sets guidelines as to how it should be used. AUP documents a... |
Why isn't toilet paper curly when you unroll it? | Because toilet paper has shorter-length fibers in it, which makes it softer, more pliable and helps it fall apart when it gets wet - all desired desired properties for toilet paper. For ordinary paper you want greater strength and more stiffness, so it contains longer fibers to a much greater extent.
| [
"Children and cats have taken to unrolling an entire roll of toilet paper by spinning it until it completely unravels on the floor, or as a game by children wadding up one end, putting it in the toilet bowl without tearing it and then using the flushing of the toilet to pull new paper into the toilet, with the obje... |
what determines the order of elements in the name of a compound? e.g. why is carbon monoxide not oxygen carbonate? | To answer the question directly Carbon Monoxide is one Carbon Atom and one Oxygen Atom.
Oxygen Carbonate is one Oxygen atom (i think, technically i dont think you can actually have oxygen carbonate) and one carbonate molecule, which is Carbon and three oxygens.
So they're different.
Naming stuff in chemistry is part ... | [
"The formula of monomeric oxyanions, , is dictated by the oxidation state of the element A and its position in the periodic table. Elements of the first row are limited to a maximum coordination number of 4. However, none of the first row elements has a monomeric oxyanion with that coordination number. Instead, car... |
how do cells know where to stop being liver/lung/etc and start being skin/bone/etc? | They express certain genes that will exhibit the functions of whatever cell they are to become. Not every cell is going to express the same genes, even though they will all host the same genes. Every tissue type hosts a few types of cells that make it up. What genes are expressed cause them to be formed into their fina... | [
"The liver has transaminases to synthesize and break down amino acids and to convert energy storage molecules. The concentrations of these transaminases in the serum (the non-cellular portion of blood) are normally low. However, if the liver is damaged, the liver cell (hepatocyte) membrane becomes more permeable an... |
why are wall clouds/hail clouds green? | Have you noticed how the color of sunlight seems to change throughout the day. The sun doesn’t change, it’s how much of the Earth’s atmosphere the light from the Sun has to travel before hitting your eye. The atmosphere is very very thin compared to the size of the Earth. At noon the Sun is brightest white/blue becaus... | [
"Green walls provide an additional layer of insulation that can protect buildings from heavy rainwater which leads to management of heavy storm water and provides thermal mass. They also help reduce the temperature of a building because vegetation absorbs large amounts of solar radiation. This can reduce energy dem... |
raid configurations | I'll give it a shot, since the last one was a bit complicated.
Imagine that your hard drives are 3-ring binders, and the different pieces of data that you want are printed on individual sheets within that binder. For this example, you need the information that's on pages 5-10 of this binder, and a page takes a negligi... | [
"In what was originally termed \"hybrid RAID\", many storage controllers allow RAID levels to be nested. The elements of a \"RAID\" may be either individual drives or arrays themselves. Arrays are rarely nested more than one level deep.\n",
"RAIDRS will be a family of systems being designed to detect, report, ide... |
why is it okay to re-use your drink cup at a buffet but not your plate? | Serving utensils can touch the plate and transfer contamination back into the food source. Not so with drinks. | [
"Guests are seated according to their place cards and immediately remove their napkins and place them in their laps. Another view maintains that the napkin is only removed after the host has removed his or hers. (In the same manner, the host is first to begin eating, and guests follow.) The oyster plate is placed a... |
Lower-class urban lethal weapons for self-defense in medieval Europe (especially in seaports) | "Self defense" is perhaps a bit of a loaded term, but there is plenty of evidence that non-aristocratic medieval Europeans often owned/used weapons. I cited some examples of laws and incidents in [this](_URL_0_) comment here. In general, laws restricting weapons were more focused on what was being done with weapons rat... | [
"By the 15th century most Mediterranean powers were utilising heavy cannon mounted on the bow or stern of a vessel and designed to bombard fortresses on shore. By mid-century some vessels also carried smaller broadside cannons for bombarding other vessels immediately prior to an attempted boarding. These small guns... |
how do medical examiners know that a victim was still alive when cuts/bruises etc occured? | Because cuts and bruises will look different depending on whether or not blood was flowing to them. If you're dead than your heart has stopped beating which means blood is no longer being pumped around your body which means any cuts or blows will look very different. | [
"Assessment can be difficult because much of the damage is often internal and not visible. The patient is thoroughly examined. X-ray and CT scanning may be used to identify the type and location of potentially lethal injuries. Sometimes before an X-ray is performed on a person with penetrating trauma from a project... |
what causes the urge to fidget? | Its a natural reaction through your nervous system little impulses and such almost like putting electricity through say a wet noodle, makes it move about.
There's also a biological and evolutionary method, basically if you sit still for too long blood begins to pool, veins and arteries are cramped and clenched... So t... | [
"Fidgeting may be a result of nervousness, frustration, agitation, boredom, ADHD, excitement or a combination of these. When interested in a task, a seated person will suppress their fidgeting, a process described as Non-Instrumental Movement Inhibition. Some education researchers consider fidgeting along with nois... |
Quantum mechanics / decoherence question | You're right, it should lead to decoherence. It's an unobservably small amount of decoherence, however | [
"Quantum decoherence implies that irreversible macroscopic phenomena (hence, all classical measurements) render histories automatically consistent, which allows one to recover classical reasoning and \"common sense\" when applied to the outcomes of these measurements. More precise analysis of decoherence allows (in... |
why is there no other color for pee? | There actually are a lot of different colours for pee (but they are usually because the person is sick):
reds if they're bleeding (or have eaten beetroot), dark orange/yellow if dehydrated, black/dark brown if severely dehydrated/contains bile, (or past heavily bleeding), other colours of brown if mixed with faeces (t... | [
"The causation or contributing factors of the urine color change to green or blue are those artificial colors seen in foods and drugs, or bilirubin medicines such as methylene blue, and urinary tract infections.\n",
"In case the urine looks in pink, red, or lighter brown is generally caused by beets, blackberries... |
Why is the water colour in Flint discoloured? | Anytime I see a yellow/brown colored water I immediately think iron ions in the water. Iron is harmless so if you drink it, there won't be adverse effects. Of course the taste will probably be terrible and if there is iron leaching into the water, who knows what other things are also leaching in there. | [
"The shallow lake is moderately rich in nutrients and virtually unaffected by pollution. Additionally, it is rich in humus which gives the water its dark brown colour. With a pH of 7,3, the lake is unlikely to acidified.\n",
"Almost uniquely, five different types of mineral waters are found at Red Boiling Springs... |
what exactly happens in our brains when we get bored? | This is a great question. I would also like to know. I suspect we dont know and its an area of ongoing research. I did see a study where people were given the choice between boredom and small levels of self harm. People chose self harm over boredom. I'll try to find it and post it | [
"Relief from boredom is an obvious and adaptive function of daydreaming. When people are doing boring tasks, daydreaming allows their thoughts to detach from current external tasks to relieve boredom. At the same time, this temporary detachment will not stop external activities completely when these activities are ... |
Do the planets really orbit the Sun in such a coplanar way, like dust in the rings of Saturn? | > Do the planets really orbit the Sun in such a coplanar way
Yes. Now... WHY? Because when our solar system was young, it was just a collection of hydrogen and supernovae remnants. Just a bunch of diffuse dust and gas really. And then gravity caused all this dust and gas to collapse upon itself. But initially, this ... | [
"Like most of Saturn's larger satellites, Enceladus rotates synchronously with its orbital period, keeping one face pointed toward Saturn. Unlike Earth's Moon, Enceladus does not appear to librate more than 1.5° about its spin axis. However, analysis of the shape of Enceladus suggests that at some point it was in a... |
how exactly does a preservative preserve food and what exactly is a preservative? | Echoing what the others say, it's all about "available water".
Salt and sugar does the same thing - draw water away, or make the water too salty/sugary for bacteria to live in it.
Things that change the acidity kind of does the same thing - they make the water inhospitable, so the bacteria can't live in it.
You can ... | [
"A preservative is a substance or a chemical that is added to products such as food, beverages, pharmaceutical drugs, paints, biological samples, cosmetics, wood, and many other products to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or by undesirable chemical changes. In general, preservation is implemented in two m... |
difference between fm and dab radios | Basically FM radio is a more conventional radio technology that uses Frequency Modulation techniques to carry sound information to the radio receiver in analog form.
DAB radios, which are mostly only used in Europe and Australia, carry radio transmissions in digital form using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexin... | [
"The first generation DAB uses the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2) audio codec, which has less efficient compression than newer codecs. The typical bitrate for DAB stereo programs is only 128 kbit/s or less, and as a result, most radio stations on DAB have a lower sound quality than FM, prompting a number of complaints... |
Why is methane plumes in the arctic significant? | I believe that the methane is stored in frozen methane hydrates on the seashore. It is speculated that a warm tendril of water destabilised the methane on the arctic slope and so it is rising. Regardless of the cause they are measuring around 10 times the concentration of methane compared to normal ocean conditions. Th... | [
"Even with existing levels of warming and melting of the Arctic region, submarine methane releases linked to clathrate breakdown have been discovered, and demonstrated to be leaking into the atmosphere. A 2011 Russian survey off the East Siberian coast found plumes wider than one kilometer releasing methane directl... |
The Flouride Debate: Toxic poison or dental health necessity | There's not really a debate in the real sense - the "con" side is mostly populated by conspiracy theorists, while the "pro" side has organizations such as the American Dental Association and the Centers for Disease Control. There are many ways to go about arguing this, but consider the following:
The US has been addi... | [
"Dental amalgam is a possible cause of low-level mercury poisoning due to its use in dental fillings. Discussion on the topic includes debates on whether amalgam should be used, with critics arguing that its toxic effects make it unsafe.\n",
"This discussion of the dental amalgam controversy outlines the debate o... |
why do we like to raise two fingers (aka the "peace sign") when posing for a picture? | Because people don't know what to do with their hands. They choose to "strike a pose" instead of perhaps appearing awkward.
EDIT: The peace sign is just an example. People the world over use a variety of different signs but for the same purpose. | [
"The hands-up pose had been widely adopted by protesters throughout the weekend. The gesture was often paired with the phrase \"Don't shoot me\" or \"Don't shoot us.\" During the demonstrations on Monday, the media first documented the posture and the phrase being combined into the slogan \"Hands Up, Don't Shoot.\"... |
Angkor was one of the most populous cities in history. What would it have looked like? Was it more of a sprawl, or was it urbanized? | Angkor was the center of administration for the Khmer Empire. It had reservoirs, temples and palaces. As Zhou Daguan described it was one of the greatest cities ever built, he mentioned three specific buildings such as the the Bayon;Baphuon and the royal palace. So it surely was such urbanized as many metropolis of th... | [
"Angkor ( , \"capital city\") was the capital city of the Khmer Empire, also known as Yasodharapura (Khmer: យសោធរបុរៈ; ) and flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. Angkor was a megacity, supporting at least 0.1% of the global population during 1010–1220. The city houses the magnificent Angkor Wat,... |
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