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In what ways did culture of the time influence Buddhist beliefs and practices?	Stephen Batchelor, a former monk in both the Tibetan and Zen traditions, wrote [Buddhism Without Beliefs](_URL_1_), an explicit attempt to separate the baby from the cultural bathwater in Buddhism. It's been ages since I read it, but if memory serves I believe Batchelor argues that Buddhism is a matter of practice and ...	[ "Buddhism played an important role in the development of Japanese art between the 6th and the 16th centuries. Buddhist art and Buddhist religious thought came to Japan from China through Korea. Buddhist art was encouraged by Crown Prince Shōtoku in the Suiko period in the sixth century, and by Emperor Shōmu in the ...
During World War II did merchant ships have insurance against being sunk by the enemy? Did the national governments offer compensation?	They were insured against loss. The precise details likely varied from ship to ship. I'm not sure where you would find the precise details of the amount any given vessel was insured for off hand. Lloyds and the American Bureau of Shipping did issue annual registers of insured vessels though. You won't find most of that...	[ "In the second half of the 19th century, the number of claims greatly increased due to the number of passengers emigrating to North America and Australia. Shipowners became aware of their insurers' compensation limits, especially when it came to damages caused by ship collisions. While the UK Merchant Shipping Act ...
During WWII what was the average distance that tanks fought other tanks?	Coox and Naisawald's 1954 study Survey of Allied Tank Casualties in World War II gives several statistics that attempt to determine this. > A study of 800 U.S., British, and Canadian tank casualties in Western Europe, the Mediterranean Theater, and North Africa disclosed that the average range at which tanks were ...	[ "America's first tank versus tank battle of World War II occurred when Type 95 light tanks of the IJA 4th Tank Regiment engaged a US Army tank platoon, consisting of five brand new M3 Stuart light tanks from \"B\" company, 192nd Tank Battalion, on 22 December 1941, north of Damortis during the retreat to the Bataan...
if the only way you can get an std, sti, and hiv is if you sleep with someone who's infected then how is it stds, sti's and hiv exist to begin with?	The question you really want an answer to isn't really explained in the post. First, you're making a pretty big assumption that the first humans were "clean" as it were. Life started simple and got more complex from there, so bacteria, viruses, etc were around long before humans were. Microscopic organisms were ar...	[ "Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are bacteria, viruses or parasites that are spread by sexual contact, especially vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse, or unprotected sex. Oral sex is less risky than vaginal or anal intercourse. Many times, STIs initially do not cause symptoms, increasing the risk of unknowing...
why do bottles of antibiotics and vitamins smell bad?	Not all antibiotics have that rotten egg smell, but those that do typically contain a Sulfur compound in the form of hydrogen sulfide that gives it that rancid smell.	[ "Reusable bottles can hold bacteria. Drinking from a reusable bottle can transfer bacteria from a person's mouth to the beverage it contains, which can contaminate both bottle and water. Contamination can cause bacterial or fungal growth in the liquid while it's stored. It is recommend that users clean reusable dri...
how do we know counting rings in a tree is a definitive "1 year"?	In places with seasons, trees go through a predictable growth-dormant cycle that produces the distinctive ring pattern. Since most of these seasonal trees go dormant regardless of what the actual winter temperature was that year (they're timing the day lengths, not responding to unpredictable temperature swings) a rin...	[ "Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree rings, also known as growth rings. Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year. \n", "Currey originally estimated the tree wa...
Whale sounds/songs can reach up to 190dB. Is this not dangerous for humans taking a swim nearby?	Simply put, the gap between water and air is too difficult to cross for a number of reasons. First, the speed of pressure waves in water is much, much greater than the speed of pressure waves in air. This means that to someone near the water surface, it may not even become a recognizable sound wave. Second, sound w...	[ "Estimates made by Cummings and Thompson (1971) suggest the source level of sounds made by blue whales are between 155 and 188 decibels when measured relative to a reference pressure of one micropascal at one metre. All blue whale groups make calls at a fundamental frequency between 10 and 40 Hz; the lowest frequen...
what exactly is a galaxy?	A massive collection of stars, all orbiting a central point, usually a supermassive black hole. Basically,from what we can tell, they form much the same way individual star systems form. A cloud of gas (mainly hydrogen) condensed due to gravity, the center becomes a Star, and the eddys of the cloud help condense oth...	[ "A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek \"\" (), literally \"milky\", a reference to the Milky Way. Galaxies range in size from dwarfs with just a few hundred million () stars to giants with one hundre...
what happens when a country 'condemns' something?	That's pretty much it - just expressing disapproval. A lot of times there's not a good/politically palatable solution to problems, so all a politician can do is talk about it.	[ "Pure political betrayal trauma can be caused by situations such as wrongful arrest and conviction by the legal system of a western democracy; or by discrimination, bullying or other serious mistreatment by a state institution or powerful figure within the state.\n", "Nonviolence is the personal practice of being...
as someone who doesnt follow sports and social trends or have a twitter or instagram, why are people burning their nike clothes?	It's an extention of the kneeling during national anthem thing. The football player who started the kneeling protest did an ad with Nike. Now people who disliked the kneeling protest are burning thier Nike stuff to show they hate Nike now.	[ "Because the Nike+ web community profile can be linked to both Facebook and Twitter, users can now share their results and accomplishments with their friends. This has the ability to lead to a greater chance for positive results because interaction and motivation from friends has proven to benefit workout habits. \...
asian flush syndrome	Are you asking what causes it? It's caused by the buildup of a chemical called acetaldehyde, which is a natural product of the metabolism of alcohol. It's genetic, and fairly common among people of Asian decent. There are a couple of genes responsible. One gene is responsible for producing a chemical called alcohol deh...	[ "Alcohol flush reaction is a condition in which an individual's face or body experiences flushes or blotches as a result of an accumulation of acetaldehyde, a metabolic byproduct of the catabolic metabolism of alcohol. It is best known as a condition that is experienced by people of Asian descent. According to the ...
why does white noise calm people down?	When it's quiet, your body reacts to every noise with a "what's that?" response which makes you perk up and be alert. By drowning out the sounds with white noise, you don't have that effect as often and your body has a chance to relax.	[ "The effects of white noise upon cognitive function are mixed. Recently, a small study found that white noise background stimulation improves cognitive functioning among secondary students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), while decreasing performance of non-ADHD students. Other work indicates i...
If coats are just good insulators, why can't we wear them in the summer to keep cool?	Something not already mentioned yet: Your body produces heat. If you insulated your body during the summer, you would quickly overheat because your body would produce more heat than you could comfortably stand, with the coat keeping that heat locked in. In the Winter, the cold and wind draw heat off of the coat at a...	[ "One type of coating (low-e coatings) reduces the emission of radiant infrared energy, thus tending to keep heat on the side of the glass where it originated, while letting visible light pass. This results in glazing with better control of energy - heat originating from indoors in winter remains inside (the warm si...
Why is there a maximum speed for light? What is "braking" it?	The speed of light is set by two fundamental constants known as the permeability and permittivity of free space. A classical analogy for these constants would be "stiffness", ie empty space has a stiffness and this leads to the speed of wave travel. There are plenty of near light speed particles that were accelerated...	[ "Since kinetic energy increases quadratically with velocity (formula_1), an object moving at 10 m/s has 100 times as much energy as one of the same mass moving at 1 m/s, and consequently the theoretical braking distance, when braking at the traction limit, is 100 times as long. In practice, fast vehicles usually ha...
how can the quietest room in the world be -9 decibels?	Decibels are a logarithmic scale. 0 isn't no sound, it's just the lower-limit of what a human can typically hear. So -9 isn't no sound at all, it's just quieter than the quietest sound a human can detect, by a factor about the same as the factor between 0 decibels and 10.	[ "BULLET::::- World's quietest room, located at Orfield Labs in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Orfield Labs chamber was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005 as the quietest room on Earth.\n", "The Murray Hill anechoic chamber, built in 1940, is the world's oldest wedge-based anechoic chamber. The i...
does “burning in” brand new audio gears such as headphones and speakers actually work?	First: The word 'gear' in this context is already plural. It's a group noun, like 'news' and 'furniture'. Second: No. That idea comes from decades ago, when magnets were weaker and materials were worse. Even then, it had almost no impact on the sound. Only hard core audiophiles purported to hear a difference in sound...	[ "Initial sales were slow, because at the time electronics retailers provided low-cost lamp cords to consumers for free or at low prices and audiophiles didn't believe audio cables made a difference in the sound. Monster is credited with creating the market for high-end audio cables in the 1980s through Lee's \"mark...
Is there any credible evidence for any kind of Giant humans existing?	I wouldn't say it is propaganda (that's a strong word!), but these entities, common in many people's folklore, have no basis in fact. You can ask /r/Askanthropology about things like the "giganthropus" fossil evidence, but whatever that represents, it is hardly evidence of giants, and it would be an incredulous stretch...	[ "Giant tortoises of the genera \"Geochelone\", \"Meiolania\", and others were relatively widely distributed around the world into prehistoric times, and are known to have existed in North and South America, Australia, and Africa. They became extinct at the same time as the appearance of man, and it is assumed human...
how come no one has registered trademark using internet memes? are there any policies related to that?	To register a phrase as trademark, you have to prove that people recognize your company's products because you use the phrase. That's never going to be true for an internet meme.	[ "Some countries have specific laws against cybersquatting beyond the normal rules of trademark law. The United States, for example, has the U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999. This expansion of the Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) is intended to provide protection against cybersquattin...
"If there is no biological basis for race, how can forensic anthropologists distinguish the remains of a person of one race from those of another?"	The concept of race exists in biology, but there is only one human race. There are genetic differences between human populations based on geography but they are gradual and increase slowly with distance, there is no abrupt change or non-overlapping of genetic make-up as would be required to define a distinct race. _URL...	[ "Similarly, forensic anthropologists draw on highly heritable morphological features of human remains (e.g. cranial measurements) to aid in the identification of the body, including in terms of race. In a 1992 article, anthropologist Norman Sauer noted that anthropologists had generally abandoned the concept of rac...
the cable companies arguement to "data cap" my monthly internet usage is to prevent congestion of the system during peak hours. can it really be congested?	Yes, it's true. Netflix's servers are sending you the video, but it still travels down your ISP's internet connection to get to you. There is a limited amount of bandwidth from your ISP out to the Internet for you and every other customer to share. What's different with cable TV is that the TV signals come in via sate...	[ "Most \"Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification\" (DOCSIS) cable modems restrict upload and download rates, with customizable limits. These limits are set in configuration files which are downloaded to the modem using the Trivial File Transfer Protocol, when the modem first establishes a connection to the p...
bandwidth vs ping vs latency	Latency is a measure in milliseconds of how long it takes for another device to respond to your request for a response. Ping is the most common tool for measuring latency. It sends a small packet out and measures how long it takes to get the reply. Bandwidth is how much data you can send/receive at the same time. ...	[ "Latency (commonly referred to as \"ping time\") is the delay between requesting data and the receipt of a response, or in the case of one-way communication, between the actual moment of a signal's broadcast and the time it is received at its destination.\n", "\"Ping\" refers to the network latency between a play...
Why does nature sometimes prefer right or left? Example: Lorentz force	I see where you are coming from here: If you have a vertical wire, with a current going up, then the magnetic field wraps around the wire according to a right-hand rule - counterclockwise when viewed from above. If I look at this wire in a mirror, the magnetic field is going in the other direction - clockwise when vie...	[ "Left-right asymmetry (LR asymmetry) refers to differences in structure (symmetry breaking) across the mediolateral (left and right) plane in animals. This plane is defined with respect to the anteroposterior and dorsoventral axes and is perpendicular to both. Because the left-right plane is not strictly an axis (a...
What was the Nazi opinion on the Chinese? What was the Japanese opinion on the Jews?	The Japanese actually have a unique history of opinion towards the Jews. While fighting the Russians in (iirc) the Russo-Japanese War at the turn of the century, they stumbled across a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This anti-semitic literature was filled with the usual: the Jews control everything,...	[ "At the time of World War II, both Nazi Germany and Japanese Empire started its long persecution against ethnic Chinese in each countries, as well as Japanese territorial control in mainland China. Anti-Chinese massacres like Nanking Massacre that would have been the remaining key reason for the issues remaining be...
why the winter war happened	Relations between Russia and Finland had been strained since WWI. Russia felt that Finland was weak, and that they would be able to easily seize a decent chunk of territory. Most of the rest of Europe was distracted by Germany gearing up to start WWII, and so the Russians felt that nobody else would really do much to...	[ "The timeline of the Winter War is a chronology of events leading up to, culminating in, and resulting from the Winter War. The war began when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 and it ended 13 March 1940.\n", "The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union (USSR) and Finland. ...
How does a vaccine with inactivated virus work?	Imagine you're playing CTF and you're on the Red team, but you don't know what the enemy team looks like. Turns out they're Blue. You can learn this when they attack you, but that's bad because they have guns and will kill your dudes while you learn this piece of information and move to repel their attack. A vaccine i...	[ "For the inactivated vaccines, the virus is grown by injecting it, along with some antibiotics, into fertilized chicken eggs. About one to two eggs are needed to make each dose of vaccine. The virus replicates within the allantois of the embryo, which is the equivalent of the placenta in mammals. The fluid in this ...
Western Intensification: Why are currents much stronger on the western than eastern side of ocean basins?	Ok, this is both a fundamental tenant of oceanography but also very difficult to explain in a short space. The classic paper is Henry Stommel's 1948 [The Westward Intensification of Wind-Driven Ocean Currents (PDF)](_URL_0_). In this paper Stommel works through a simple mathematical model of wind-driven circulation...	[ "Due to persistent winds from west to east on the poleward sides of the subtropical ridges located in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, ocean currents are driven in a similar manner in both hemispheres. The currents in the Northern Hemisphere are weaker than those in the Southern Hemisphere due to the differences in...
Does anybody know if there were any drugs developed or important medical discoveries made within the Soviet Union?	[Phage Therapy](_URL_1_) is the what immediately springs to mind. While not technically "invented" in the USSR (British and French scientists independently discovered bacteriophagic viruses in early 20th century and), the Soviet Union was where the technique was refined, expanded, and put into broad use. Georgia, in pa...	[ "The drug is almost unknown in the western world and is neither used in medicine or studied scientifically to any great extent outside Russia and other countries in the former Soviet Union. It has however been added to the list of drugs under international control and is a scheduled substance in most countries, des...
When did Europe begin its shift away from religion? Why?	During the Middle Ages, religion played a hugely important role in life, since the Church was one of the few institutions that spread across the variety of feudal boundaries in Europe. As Europe transitioned out of feudalism and towards states (lead by monarchs), the Church in Rome lost power, but religion remained a t...	[ "The modern age brought technological and organizational changes to Europe while the Islamic region continued the patterns of earlier centuries. The European powers, and especially Britain and France, globalized economically and colonized much of the region.\n", "Following the religious wars of the 16th to 17th c...
How did Luxembourg survive?	> annexed by the Netherlands because of its political ties? Actually, Luxembourg has been absorbed into other countries through history, and the current Luxembourg is nowhere near as large as the historical Duchy of Luxembourg. See [this map](_URL_0_). It came into the possession of Philip the Good of Burgundy, alo...	[ "During World War II, from 1940 to 1944 under German occupation of Luxembourg, the Chamber was dissolved by the Nazis and the country annexed under the name \"Gau Moselland\". The Grand Ducal family and the Luxembourgish government went into exile (at first to the United Kingdom, then to Canada and the United State...
why did we, as a species, develop a taste for art?	There will never be any one, completely satisfying answer to question like this. But, as far as we can tell, most of the higher-level mental attributes of humans are simply byproducts of having large, advanced brains. That is to say, we didn't evolve to appreciate art, we appreciate art because our brains evolved to ...	[ "In her book \"Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why\" (first printed in 1992), Dissanayake argues that art was central to the emergence, adaptation and survival of the human species, that aesthetic ability is innate in every human being, and that art is a need as fundamental to our species as food, warmth...
if our blood contains iron, why is it not orange or rust colored?	The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in our blood is what makes it red in the first place. There are other animals (horseshoe crabs are well known for this) that don't use iron to bind to oxygen, and instead use metals like copper in their blood. As a result, their blood is greenish blue.	[ "Historically, an association between the color of blood and rust occurs in the association of the planet Mars, with the Roman god of war, since the planet is an orange-red, which reminded the ancients of blood. Although the color of the planet is due to iron compounds in combination with oxygen in the Martian soil...
why can extreme stress cause a psychotic episode?	Everyone will break, it's a matter of time and level of perceived stress and bodily fatigue they are going through at the time. My first 48 hour shift at the hospital did something similar to me. After finally going home I fell asleep only to wake up in a cold shower, and having my parents (whom I lived with) tell me...	[ "Stress is known to contribute to and trigger psychotic states. A history of psychologically traumatic events, and the recent experience of a stressful event, can both contribute to the development of psychosis. Short-lived psychosis triggered by stress is known as brief reactive psychosis, and patients may spontan...
What was so special about the Paris commune uprising that it seems to hold the imagination of communists greater than that of say the French revolution?	The Paris Commune was one of the first explicitly communist political actions. The 1848 revolutions happened before Marx had written the bulk of his work (and indeed, they both informed his writing). The French Revolution, much like the American revolution, is usually termed by communist academics as a 'bourgeois revol...	[ "The Commune resulted in part from growing discontent among the Paris workers. This discontent can be traced to the first worker uprisings, the Canut revolts, in Lyon and Paris in the 1830s (a \"canut\" was a Lyonnais silk worker, often working on Jacquard looms). Many Parisians, especially workers and the lower-mi...
Why do healthy young athletes die suddenly from cardiac arrest?	When young athletes die of cardiac arrest it is almost always due due to a heart disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. In fact, it is the leading cause of death of young athletes in America. This is a thickening and stiffness of the heat muscle that causes numerous problems during vigorous exercise that lead to c...	[ "Because several well-known and high-profile cases of athletes experiencing sudden unexpected death due to cardiac arrest, such as Reggie White and Marc-Vivien Foé, a growing movement is making an effort to have both professional and school-based athletes screened for cardiac and other related conditions, usually t...
how do phones send texts?	In much the same way as they send voice to the tower when you talk on the phone. They have circuitry to create a signal, and send one that is the style the tower recognizes as text. They've decided certain bit patterns mean certain characters, and send a combination of address information and the text content as, essen...	[ "Text messaging is most often used between private mobile phone users, as a substitute for voice calls in situations where voice communication is impossible or undesirable (e.g., during a school class or a work meeting). Texting is also used to communicate very brief messages, such as informing someone that you wil...
how this battery train experiment works?	[This](_URL_1_) should help you out...people on a physics forum explaining it pretty simply EDIT: Aww hell, I guess I'll copy/paste the answer here... > If you run a current through a coil; it generates an magnetic field inside the coil [like this](_URL_0_) > If the field lines are exactly parallel a bar magnet ...	[ "Safety tests are performed daily to ensure that the MAPO system is working properly on each train. At the direction of the monorail station conducting the test, each train will intentionally overrun a hold point to verify that a red MAPO occurs and that the emergency brakes activate. Pilots perform tests in forwar...
Can 'one' photon technically be divided into anything?	Read up on [spontaneous parametric down-conversion](_URL_0_). _URL_1_ _URL_2_	[ "A photon is massless, has no electric charge, and is a stable particle. A photon has two possible polarization states. In the momentum representation of the photon, which is preferred in quantum field theory, a photon is described by its wave vector, which determines its wavelength \"λ\" and its direction of propa...
what is wikileaks? what is the current situation with them?	Wikileaks is a website that originated by civil libertarians who intended to promote transparency by publishing leaks of sensitive information about governments and large corporations, given to them in secret by whistleblowers. They rose to fame in 2010 with the publication of a huge number of military records and dipl...	[ "WikiLeaks has drawn criticism for its alleged absence of whistleblowing on or criticism of Russia, and for criticising the Panama Papers' exposé of businesses and individuals with offshore bank accounts. The organization has additionally been criticised for inadequately curating its content and violating the perso...
how are the us still allowed to use drone strikes when the civilian casualty rate is so high?	Who is going to stop us.	[ "In recent years, the U.S. has increased its use of drone strikes against targets in foreign countries and elsewhere as part of the War on Terror. In January 2014, it was estimated that 2,400 people have died from U.S. drone strikes in five years. In June 2015 the total death toll of U.S. drone strikes was estimate...
Why dose the Ussr anthem mention Russia	Here's the lyrics for the Anthem of the SSSR that were used from from 44-56 - the first stanza is the relevant one: > Союз нерушимый республик свободных Сплотила навеки Великая Русь. Да здравствует созданный волей народов Единый, могучий Советский Союз! Roughly this translates as follows (correct me if I'm wrong): ...	[ "The \"State Anthem of the Russian Federation\" () is the name of the official national anthem of Russia. It uses the same melody as the \"State Anthem of the Soviet Union\", composed by Alexander Alexandrov, and new lyrics by Sergey Mikhalkov, who had collaborated with Gabriel El-Registan on the original anthem. F...
Was the American Western Frontier as deadly as media portrays it? With gun battles, shootings, tons of diseases, etc.? If not, how did we get this impression?	Disease was certainly a problem, especially for Native Americans who didn't have the same heritable immunities as people of European descent. But the violence of the American West has been dramatized quite a lot. You're statistically more likely to be shot Chicago today than you were to get shot in a place like Abeli...	[ "The image of a Wild West filled with countless gunfights was a myth generated primarily by dime-novel authors in the late 19th century. An estimate of 20,000 men in the American West were killed by gunshot between 1866 and 1900, and over 21,586 total casualties during the American Indian Wars from 1850 to 1890. Th...
is it possible to move an object in circular motion using magnets?	Absolutely, this is how most electric motors work. They have a coil of wire around the magnet, and adding a current makes the magnet attract or repel other magnets on a part that spins freely. (unless i misunderstood your question!)	[ "Relative motion between the magnetic/abrasive particle mixture and the workpiece is essential for material removal. There are several options for achieving the necessary motion. A common setup is the rotation of the magnetic pole tip. This is done by either rotating the entire permanent magnet setup or by rotating...
how do doctors perform 20+ hour surgeries? don't they get mentally and physically exhausted?	Most surgeries (when things go to plan) take around 30 min-2 hours. Some major surgeries e.g. a liver transplant might take ~6-8 hours. 20+ hour surgeries would be exceptional e.g. conjoined twin separations where you actually need multiple different teams e.g. plastic surgeons, neurosurgeons etc. Usually surgery is...	[ "The surgery itself along with recovery time depends on the patient. Robotic surgery can take approximately 6-12 hours. A patient's time in the hospital can take 7–10 days if no complications present themselves. Depending on the type of surgery the abdominal incision for this surgery may be up to eight inches in le...
in special relativity, how is it determined which reference point will have time slowed down?	> Person B gets in a super space ship that launches up and then accelerates to 0.75 times the speed of light and travels for 1 year, then turns around, comes back, and lands on Earth. Is time slower for one than the other? Actually, once the traveler lands, he and the person that stayed on earth will experience time ...	[ "Special relativity indicates that, for an observer in an inertial frame of reference, a clock that is moving relative to him will be measured to tick slower than a clock that is at rest in his frame of reference. This case is sometimes called special relativistic time dilation. The faster the relative velocity, th...
what is asmr exactly and how is it supposedly pleasant to the ears?	This is the best answer I've ever found. _URL_0_ Plus it comes from a great comic to read.	[ "In addition to the effectiveness of specific auditory stimuli, many subjects report that ASMR is triggered by the receipt of tender personal attention, often comprising combined physical touch and vocal expression, such as when having their hair cut, nails painted, ears cleaned, or back massaged, whilst the servic...
How quickly did prejudice towards Japanese-Americans by the general American population end after WW2?	There's a great book about this topic called "America's Geisha Ally: Reimagining the Japense Enemy" by Naoko Shibusawa. It goes into great detail about the United States government entering into the "reverse course" following WWII. What this basically means is that during and directly after the war, the general consens...	[ "The record of the Japanese Americans serving in the 442nd and in the Military Intelligence Service (U.S. Pacific Theater forces in World War II) helped change the minds of anti-Japanese American critics in the U.S. and resulted in easing of restrictions and the eventual release of the 120,000-strong community well...
When and why did the US stop allowing (literal) boatloads of immigrants to just show up at a port and begin living in the US?	It wasn't just one single law but rather a series of laws. The first was the Page Act of 1875 that primarily targeted Asians, particularly Chinese people, that were immigrating to the western United States to work menial jobs like railroads. Just like we see in the debates today about Hispanic people coming to the Unit...	[ "Changes in immigration laws in the United States in the 1920s greatly restricted the number of immigrants allowed to enter. The law limited the number of immigrants to about 160,000 per year in 1924. This led to a major reduction in the immigrant trade for the shipping lines, forcing them to cater to the tourist t...
Does quantum mechanics apply to energy?	That's not really what quantum mechanics is about. Energy is conserved in quantum systems unless there is an external reason for it not to be.	[ "Quantum mechanics is the science of the very small. It explains the behavior of matter and its interactions with energy on the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. By contrast, classical physics explains matter and energy only on a scale familiar to human experience, including the behavior of astronomical bodie...
What terms did people use to describe rotation before clocks were common?	In Northern Europe, people would refer to the direction of the sun - indicating a direction was either "sunwise" or "against the sun": In the north, if one faces south to watch the path the sun takes, it moves in an arc that moves from the left to the right - "sunwise" or in today's term "clockwise." Clocks moved in th...	[ "Before clocks were commonplace, the terms \"sunwise\" and \"deasil\", \"deiseil\" and even \"deocil\" from the Scottish Gaelic language and from the same root as the Latin \"dexter\" (\"right\") were used for clockwise. \"Widdershins\" or \"withershins\" (from Middle Low German \"weddersinnes\", \"opposite course\...
how do we know cold is the absence of heat and not the other way around?	Temperature is a measurement of energy, specifically kinetic energy on a molecular scale with warmer things having more of this energy than colder things. Because we warm something up by adding energy we define warm/hot as the presence of this energy. Since there is nothing that we can "add" to make an object colder, c...	[ "Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. This corresponds to on the Celsius scale, on the Fahrenhei...
what does being turing complete means?	Turing described a minimal, hypothetical computer which he used to mathematically prove results, known as a Turing Machine. It wasn't intended as a practical device, but rather to be as simple as possible to make proofs easier. A computing device that is capable of doing everything that a Turing Machine can is Turing...	[ "Turing completeness is the ability for a system of instructions to simulate a Turing machine. A programming language that is Turing complete is theoretically capable of expressing all tasks accomplishable by computers; nearly all programming languages are Turing complete if the limitations of finite memory are ign...
If the Great Depression didn't truly end until the start of WWII, how come the US economy didn't dip in the post war years?	There was a recession in 1945. GDP fell by 12.7% in that recession. By comparison, the recession of 2007 lowered GDP by 4.3%.	[ "By 1940 the Great Depression was finally over. A remarkable burst of economic activity and full employment came during the war years (1941–45). Fears of a postwar depression were widespread since the massive military spending was ending, the war plants were shutting down, and 12 million soldiers were coming home. ...
What "generation" star is our Sun?	The Sun is a Population I star, meaning it contains metals from previous generations of stars. By measuring the spectral characteristics of stars, we can observe the ratios of metals to hydrogen or helium, and from this, we can determine how many generations of "ancestors" the star has had. > Stars may be classified...	[ "The Sun is a population I star; it has a higher abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium (\"metals\" in astronomical parlance) than the older population II stars. Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were formed in the cores of ancient and exploding stars, so the first generation of stars had to...
why do we have sports commentators on television that talk non stop during the games?	Probably carry over from before people could watch games on their television. The commentators would give a play by play to those listening on the radio. And now it is tradition. Though they're supposed to be "analyzing" the game as well. Or telling people things they might have missed	[ "In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer, sportscaster or play-by-play announcer) gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was the first medium for sports broadcast...
How do we perceive things through light bouncing off of the objects we see and entering our eyes?	The secret to the eye being able to resolve things is the fact that the pupil is really small. [Look at this image](_URL_0_) of how a pinhole camera works. Your eye is much the same- replacing the pinhole with pupil. Imagine a red light up above you, and a blue light down below. The red light shines light in every di...	[ "Our minds and bodies are bombarded by relevant and irrelevant knowledge and experiences every day. We will tune into salient ones (crane the ears to more fully hear enjoyable music) and tune-out non-salient ones (cover our ears from jackhammer noise). There is difference between seeing something and looking at it....
What is e in regards to natural logarithms?	Oh this is such a fun question! The number's importance starts with one key observation. Let a > 0 be a real number, we can define a function f(x)=a^x What is the derivative of this function? If we look at the limit definition of the derivative we get f'(x) = lim h- > 0 ( a^(x+h) - a^x )/h = lim h- > 0 a^x (a^h...	[ "The natural logarithm allows simple integration of functions of the form \"g\"(\"x\") = \"f\" '(\"x\")/\"f\"(\"x\"): an antiderivative of \"g\"(\"x\") is given by ln(\|\"f\"(\"x\")\|). This is the case because of the chain rule and the following fact:\n", "The natural logarithm of \"x\" is the power to which \"e\"...
How did most Medieval kings die?	Most medieval kings died of old age, illness, or some other "natural cause." If a king died from something more nefarious, it usually stands out in the historical record. Take the English monarchs, of which there have been about 50 if we count liberally between Alfred the Great and Charles I (by liberally I mean includ...	[ "The king was mortally wounded during the suppression of a revolt by Viscount Aimar V of Limoges in 1199, and died without legitimate heirs. The chronicler Roger of Howden claimed that later that same year,\n", "In some cases, kings have personally murdered people. In 1568, King Eric XIV beat his secretary Martin...
Is the Mandate of Heaven directly responsible for the technological and philosophical advances in the early history of dynastic China?	I think you have elevated the mandate to a height that it doesn't deserve. Innovations in China did not depend at all on unification. Some examples: The great advances in military tactics, poetry, and paper all occurred in the six dynasties period, that which lies between the Han and sui/tang. The next great innovat...	[ "The concept of the Mandate of Heaven was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE), and legitimize their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty (1600–1069 BCE). It was used throughout the history of China to legitimize the successful overthrow and installation of new emperors, ...
Is there an increased risk of lung cancer by just being in a room that smells like cigarette smoke with no one actually smoking in it?	Yes it appears so; " Researchers now know that residual tobacco smoke, dubbed thirdhand smoke, combines with indoor pollutants such as ozone and nitrous acid to create new compounds. Thirdhand smoke mixes and settles with dust, drifts down to carpeting and furniture surfaces, and makes its way deep into the porous m...	[ "Results from epidemiological studies indicate that the risk of lung cancer increases with exposure to residential radon. A well-known example of source of error is smoking, the main risk factor for lung cancer. In the West, tobacco smoke is estimated to cause about 90% of all lung cancers. \n", "The risk of lung...
how did children from completely different parts of the world come up with the exact-same schoolyard games?	Think you are underestimating both the time these games have been around for and the extent to which families move around.	[ "Children's games during the Middle Ages and earlier are something of a mystery, since the rules of the games were passed from generation to generation orally. In rare cases, the games survived long enough to be recorded in later centuries. Pieter Bruegel's painting \"Children's Games\" (1560) depicts many games po...
Why are there only 4 "letters" of DNA?	The interesting thing is that the Adenosine, Thymine (Uracil for RNA), Cytosine and Guanine are NOT the only nucleotides that are present in nature. There is also xanthine, hypoxanthine, and inosine. Also, the traditional Watson-Crick bases that are said to be present in RNA are NOT the ONLY bases that can ...	[ "The possible letters are \"A\", \"C\", \"G\", and \"T\", representing the four nucleotide bases of a DNA strand — adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine — covalently linked to a phosphodiester backbone. In the typical case, the sequences are printed abutting one another without gaps, as in the sequence AAAGTCTGAC, re...
If you were placed in a room with 30% oxygen and 70% helium, would you be able to breathe normally?	Yes; you can breathe this just fine. Deep sea divers utilize HeliOx to avoid nitrogen narcosis. You would take funny, but could breathe it just fine at least short term. This assumes that you're breathing this at a normal pressure. If you were actually diving or in a compression chamber, you have to consider the parti...	[ "Inhaling helium can be dangerous if done to excess, since helium is a simple asphyxiant and so displaces oxygen needed for normal respiration. Fatalities have been recorded, including a youth who suffocated in Vancouver in 2003 and two adults who suffocated in South Florida in 2006. In 1998, an Australian girl (he...
What parts of WW2 fighter aircraft were armored?	For the most part there was very little armor included in fighter aircraft of WWII. The Japanese Ki-43-II only had a single 13mm steel plate behind the pilot. Even planes renowned for their ruggedness such as the P-47 had only minor armor. The P-47D had a 10mm plate behind the pilot and a small plate in front of the pi...	[ "The Spitfire, from about mid-1940, had 73 pounds (33 kg) of armoured steel plating in the form of head (of 6.5 mm thickness) and back protection on the seat bulkhead (4.5 mm), and covering the forward face of the glycol header tank. The Hurricane had a similar armour layout to the Spitfire, and was the toughest an...
Why is a lump of coal black, but a diamond is clear?	Coal is a sedimentary rock composed of many minerals. Diamond is a mineral composed of a carbon-based crystal structure. If impurities are present in that structure, the clarity of diamond (or any mineral) can be altered. That is why we see varying colors of diamonds. A better question would ask why graphite (also a c...	[ "The researchers discovered that all blue diamonds show red and green peaks in their phosphorescence spectrum, due to the presence of nitrogen and boron in the stones. The intensity and rate of decay of the spectrum varies from diamond to diamond. \n", "BULLET::::- Type Ia diamonds make up about 95% of all natura...
Why was the SA and SS allowed/accepted in Germany before Hitler ultimately took power in 1933?	The Republic did have the legal power to ban both of these organizations as early as 1922. The Republikschutzgesetz (Law for the Protection of the Republic) gave both the Land and central governments broad authority to suppress organizations deemed a threat to the Republic. These laws allowed for the temporary bans...	[ "On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Reichs Chancellor. The AWO continued to function for a few more months, but after the Reichstag fire at the end of February and the Reichstag election of 5 March 1933, political parties found themselves banned, with the SPD, second only to the Nazi party in the March e...
credit score lookup. why does it impede your credit score? seems like a basic, no hassle thing to find like checking your bank account.	It's like asking "am I cool?". Asking the question automatically makes you less cool.	[ "Credit scores are compiled from information sources relating to credit, such as number of credit accounts held, balances on each account, dates of collection activity, and so on. Credit scores do not measure any financial or personal activity that is not related to credit, and identity fraud that does not involve ...
How , and how often, did American GIs clean their rifles in WWII?	You might be best served by posting this in r/guns.	[ "Before and during World War II, stored rifles were reconditioned for use as reserve, training and Lend-Lease weapons; these rifles are identified by having refinished metal (sandblasted and Parkerized) and sometimes replacement wood (often birch). Some of these rifles were reconditioned with new bolts manufactured...
how are car batteries able to be charged up with a jump start, if car batteries use chemicals for energy?	The jump start doesn't charge the battery, it just starts the car. When the car is running, it charges the battery.	[ "Car batteries are most likely to explode when a short-circuit generates very large currents. Such batteries produce hydrogen, which is very explosive, when they are overcharged (because of electrolysis of the water in the electrolyte). During normal use, the amount of overcharging is usually very small and generat...
Are there any organisms that live their entire existence in the air?	There are living bacteria in clouds. I don't think any are native to clouds, but I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number spend an entire generation (the duration of a bacteria's "life" is a bit hard to define) suspended in the air.	[ "Besides providing locomotion opportunities for winged animals and a conduit for the dispersal of pollen grains, spores and seeds, the atmosphere can be considered to be a habitat in its own right. There are metabolically active microbes present that actively reproduce and spend their whole existence airborne, with...
lightspeed	The absolute speed limit of the universe, very close to 300,000,000 meters per secend. It is the most accurately known physical constant.	[ "Litespeed uses 6/4 titanium, which is an alloy of titanium with 6 percent aluminum and 4 percent vanadium, instead of the more-common 3/2.5 titanium. It is more difficult to work with, but has a better strength to weight ratio than other available alloys. It was initially not available as tubes, so Litespeed bough...
Where does (more) space come from?	Its more like the space we have is stretching than more space is being added.	[ "BULLET::::- \"Ākāśa\" (Space) – Space is a substance that accommodates the living souls, the matter, the principle of motion, the principle of rest and time. It is all-pervading, infinite and made of infinite space-points.\n", "Space is any conducive area that an artist provides for a particular purpose. Space i...
I mostly know the "Magic Bullet" theory of the JFK assassination from the Seinfeld parody. What is the conspiracy theorists' claim, and why is it wrong?	The magic bullet theory is, indeed, the claim that the trajectory of the bullet was impossible, requiring several turns in mid air, and thus that there was a second gunman. In reality the magic bullet theory is based on some false premises, and itself ignores some of the critical evidence. As in, if the magic bulle...	[ "According to author John C. McAdams, \"[t]he greatest and grandest of all conspiracy theories is the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory.\" Others have often referred to it as \"the mother of all conspiracies\". The number of books written about the assassination of Kennedy has been estimated to be between 1,0...
renouncing citizenship	1. It sometimes has benefits. Some countries don't allow for dual citizenship, so you must renounce your old one to get a new one. In some cases having a foreign citizenship can bar you from certain jobs, especially dealing with secret government information. 2. Usually yes. Most countries won't allow you to become a ...	[ "San Francisco attorney Wayne M. Collins helped many people who had renounced citizenship under the provisions of the 1944 Act to have the government's recognition of their renunciations reversed. On Independence Day in 1967, the Department of Justice promulgated regulations which would make it unnecessary for renu...
i was recently diagnosed with coeliac (gluten allergy) and of course need to change my diet. how does this come about when for the last 30 years or so i was fine?	Celiac is an autoimmune disorder. It is not an allergy. You absorb gluten as well as nutrients through villi in your intestines. Because your immune system immune system thinks that gluten is a foreign invader, it will try to destroy it. In the process, it will actually destroy your villi, meaning eventually you not o...	[ "Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is described as a condition of multiple symptoms that improves when switching to a gluten-free diet, after coeliac disease and wheat allergy are excluded. People with NCGS may develop gastrointestinal symptoms, which resemble those of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or a variet...
What would the world be like if the Planck Constant were large enough to experience "quantum weirdness" at a macroscopic scale?	Two points: It may sound pendantic, but you cannot imagine changing fundamental dimensionful constants, like hbar or c. Their value is meaningless, being just a property of your system of units. All speeds in the universe are proportional to c, and all quantities with units of angular momentum are proportional to hbar...	[ "Macroscopic quantum phenomena refer to processes showing quantum behavior at the macroscopic scale, rather than at the atomic scale where quantum effects are prevalent. The best-known examples of macroscopic quantum phenomena are superfluidity and superconductivity; other examples include the quantum Hall effect. ...
Does the sun get uniformly dense as we get closer to the core?	The main effect is that it has to achieve balance between outward pressure and inward pointing gravity. If you go through the math, you get that it will be most dense at the center. If you want an image, NASA has a nice one [here](_URL_0_). Note that this model involves more than what I just said above, but that's sort...	[ "The core of the Sun extends from the center to about 20–25% of the solar radius. It has a density of up to (about 150 times the density of water) and a temperature of close to 15.7 million kelvins (K). By contrast, the Sun's surface temperature is approximately 5,800 K. Recent analysis of SOHO mission data favors ...
Does a massless particle traveling through a medium experience the passage of time?	Photons don't exist outside of time! They don't have a reference frame, which is more an artifact of the way we define reference frames against c. It's sort of a vacuous statement anyway-- one moment is like any other for a photon, a fluctuation of the electric and magnetic fields that continues from when emitted to wh...	[ "Aspects of modern physics, such as the hypothetical tachyon particle and certain time-independent aspects of quantum mechanics, may allow particles or information to travel backward in time. Logical objections to macroscopic time travel may not necessarily prevent retrocausality at other scales of interaction. Eve...
Are there other historical instances of the "model minority" phenomenon?	Oddly enough, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were considered the model Christian minority prior to the emergence of the Armenian Question in the late 19th century. They even earned the epithet of millet-i sadıka, "the loyal millet", millet here is an ottoman term used to denote an ethnic and religious community. Th...	[ "The concept of \"model minority\" is heavily associated with U.S. culture and is not extensively used outside the U.S., though many European countries have concepts of classism that stereotype ethnic groups in a similar manner to model minority.\n", "Some have described the creation of the model minority theory ...
During the fall of Germany, was there a population flight from places likely to be taken by the Red Army to places likely to be taken by the Anglo-Americans?	After the death of Hitler the new Reichspraesident Doentiz, actively moved soldiers from the Eastern Front to the Western Front so that they could surrender to the Western Allies. However, civilians were largely left to fend for themselves. Doentiz kept the war going with holding actions to allow as many soldiers to ...	[ "The first exodus of German civilians from the eastern territories was composed of both spontaneous flight and organised evacuation, starting in mid-1944 and continuing until early 1945. Conditions turned chaotic during the winter, when kilometres-long queues of refugees pushed their carts through the snow trying t...
how does self-disappearing ink work?	Disappearing ink is usually reacting to carbon dioxide in the air around us, creating carbonic acid through an interaction with an agent in the ink, which causes it to "disappear" as sodium carbonate. Sometimes, the ink is photosensitive instead, which will cause it to disappear due to exposure to light.	[ "Inks that are visible for a period of time without the intention of being made visible again are called disappearing inks. Disappearing inks typically rely on the chemical reaction between thymolphthalein and a basic substance such as sodium hydroxide. Thymolphthalein, which is normally colorless, turns blue in so...
competitive eating. how can people eat so much in one sitting? what happens to their stomachs and bodies after eating so much? and why does it seem that so many competitive eaters are very skinny?	They are able to eat so much because they prepare. They stretch their stomachs, they practice techniques for speed, etc. After a competition, it's not unlike how you feel after Thanksgiving. Full, sluggish, tired, maybe even a little nauseous. Just to a greater degree. Most of these people don't vomit after competiti...	[ "The argument that competitive eating can cause weight gain, which may lead to obesity and elevated cholesterol and blood pressure, is common. The potential damage that competitive eating can cause to the human digestive system was the subject of a 2007 study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Th...
abortion as a costitutional right	Supreme court opinions walk through the logic of how a principle outlined in the constitution applies to a specific case. Roe v. Wade's opinions are [here](_URL_0_). The path they take is as follows: The constitution contains no explicit right to privacy, but it does contain enough restrictions to protect citizens p...	[ "The Christian right opposes abortion, believing that life begins at conception and that abortion is murder. Therefore, those in the movement have worked toward the overturning of \"Roe v. Wade\", and have also supported incremental steps to make abortion less available. Such efforts include bans on late-term abort...
if i didn't know something was illegal, how could i get in trouble for it?	Not knowing the law is not, in itself, a defense. This is a pretty important legal principle, important enough to [have its own Latin phrase](_URL_0_). I'm not quite sure what you're asking, since there's no particular reason you wouldn't get in trouble for it.	[ "Illegality in English law is a potential ground in English contract law, tort, trusts or UK company law for a court to refuse to enforce an obligation. The illegality of a transaction, either because of public policy under the common law, or because of legislation, potentially means no action directly concerning t...
how much of the currency in films and tv shows is real?	Very little, probably. Maybe a few bucks changes hands in this scene or that, but when you see a briefcase full of money it's prop currency that's been specially created not to run afoul of counterfeiting laws.	[ "Over $1,000,000 of real United States currency was used in the movie, but was carefully watched by armed guards. Most of the currency shown being printed was larger by half of actual United States currency and had obvious printing errors, so there was no chance the money could be passed as genuine.\n", "The film...
What was the extent of Persian influence on the Deccan Sultanates?	Persian as in the culture? If so it was huge, not only was it the court language and culture, it was also the language of the arts and sciences, thanks in part to a massive influx of Persian immigrants (brain drain?) that migrated there 1500s. If you meant Persian, as in the Safavids, then that was also considerabl...	[ "Persian was the official language of the Delhi Sultanate, the Bengal Sultanate, the Bahamani Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and their successor states, as well as the cultured language of poetry and literature. Many of the Sultans and nobility in the Sultanate period were Persianised Turks from Central Asia who spo...
How common would water-borne diseases such as Cholera have been in cities that used aqueducts such as Rome? Would the drinking water have been that much safer compared to other cities?	History enthusiast here. Other cities as in other Roman cities? To answer your question, considering that the aqueducts were fed by springs quite far away from Rome itself, the possibility of a waterborne illness is quite unlikely. To entertain the possibility would call for some infected body (human, fish, vegetable...	[ "In the 19th century numerous American cities were afflicted with major outbreaks of disease, including cholera in 1832, 1849 and 1866 and typhoid in 1848. The fast-growing cities did not have sewers and relied on contaminated wells within the city confines for drinking water supply. In the mid-19th century many ci...
Many facets of American social culture appear to have gotten less "formal" over the course of the last 100 years (male/female dress, reverence for elders etc). Are there any noticeable examples of American society becoming more formal over this time period?	It's more like 150 years, but weddings have gotten much more formal and formalized in that timeframe. Of course, plenty of people have informal/courthouse/Vegas weddings, but the idea of a wedding has changed from a small gathering of family and close friends in the home of the bride's or groom's parents to a large, fa...	[ "According to Thomas Keith in \"Masculinities in Contemporary American Culture\", the longstanding cultural assumption that male–female dualities are \"natural and immutable\" partly explains the persistence of systems of patriarchy and male privilege in modern society.\n", "The increasing acceptance with which m...
why don't we put msg in everything?	People are stupid and still think it is bad for you. A lot of store bought soups and stocks will still label their product as msg free, even though there is no need to be msg free. Personally I do put it on everything. You can get a huge thing from amazon for like 15 bucks	[ "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given MSG its generally recognized as safe (GRAS) designation. A popular misconception is that MSG can cause headaches and other feelings of discomfort, known as \"Chinese restaurant syndrome,\" but blinded studies fail to find evidence of such a reaction. However, some ne...
The nearest star is a little over 4 light years away. Do we know of any solar systems with neighbors that are very close to each other (relative to our proximity with Proxima Centauri)?	The density of stars near the galactic center will be higher. [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) puts it at 2 stars per cubic light year compared to the 0.004 stars per cubic light year near the sun. This corresponds to an average separation of ~0.8 light years between stars near the galactic center vs the ~6.3 light years between s...	[ "The nearest star to the Earth, apart from the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, which is 39.9 trillion kilometres, or 4.2 light-years. Travelling at the orbital speed of the Space Shuttle (8 kilometres per second—almost 30,000 kilometres per hour), it would take about 150,000 years to arrive. This is typical of stellar se...
why do athletes look so much faster on tv compared to live (in-person)?	Most likely because of the camera movement. & #x200B; on TV the camera focuses on the player and the rest moves around them. in person, you are already far and you point of view is the whole stadium.	[ "The increasing broadcasting of sports events, along with media reporting can affect the number of people attending sports due to the ability to experience the sport without the need to physically attend and sometimes an increasingly enhanced experience including highlights, replays, commentary, statistics and anal...
what is the largest known individual object in the universe and how you can understand it's true scale?	_URL_0_ Here's a good gif to understand scale. Thank me later	[ "The smallest known near-Earth asteroid is with an absolute magnitude of 33.2, corresponding to a diameter of about . The largest such object is 1036 Ganymed, with an absolute magnitude of 9.45 and a diameter of about .\n", "BULLET::::- The largest structures in the universe are larger than expected. Current cosm...
why are motorcycle engines capable of running at such higher rpm than car engines?	They are smaller and don't have as much metal to sling around. Since they have less mass in order to create the forces required to move it has to have higher RPM's. When you get up to the larger high speed diesel engines 1300RPM - 1500RPM is usually a max rating. Then the even larger medium speeds will typically max ar...	[ "Modern motorcycle engines are often available with higher specific outputs than car engines, which provides a performance advantage in a lightweight car. The motorcycle's sequential gearbox is often fitted with the engine, allowing for fast gearshifts. \n", "This motorcycle's engine performance is not very inspi...
how exactly was russia allegedly involved with the presidential election and what did they do?	The allegations claim that hackers working for two Russian intelligence agencies broke into email systems belonging to the Democratic National Committee as well as email accounts of other Democratic figures, such as Hilary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta. The emails they found were then released through Wikile...	[ "According to Russia Today, many in the Western media portrayed Russia's presidential election as nothing but a farce. It reported that the claims of rigging the election were not supported by the various international election monitoring organizations in attendance.\n", "According to \"Russia Today\", many in th...
Why can some people flex certain muscles and others can't?	Training builds and strengthens neuromuscular connections. If you workout your chest consistently then you should be able to move your pecs.	[ "Muscle contractures can occur for many reasons, such as paralysis, muscular atrophy, and forms of muscular dystrophy. Fundamentally, the muscle and its tendons shorten, resulting in reduced flexibility.\n", "Stretching prior to strenuous physical activity has been thought to increase muscular performance by exte...
How much autonomy did each State in the Holy Roman Empire have with respect to the military?	As for your first question, it depends on the era you're talking about. Prior to the Thirty Years War, most states did not have a standing army, but rather formed/hired an army as needed. However, this was not particularly unique within the HRE, given that standing armies were very expensive, and most states did not ha...	[ "The Imperial Military Constitution (, also called the \"Reichskriegsverfassung\") of the Holy Roman Empire, like the rest of the imperial constitution, grew out of various laws and governed the establishment of military forces within the Empire. It was the basis for the establishment of the Army of the Holy Roman ...
What exactly happened when you got the letter that you were drafted in WWII?	I answered a question similar to this [here](_URL_0_), but I'll repost it below.	[ "BULLET::::- \"Why I Refused to Register in the October 1940 Draft and a Little of What It Led To\" (1999), from Gara, Larry and Lenna Mae Gara, eds., \"A Few Small Candles: War Resistors of World War II Tell Their Stories\". Kent, Ohio. Kent State University Press. .\n", "During World War II, families with sons ...
why do some communities trick-or-treat on the day before halloween?	For safety mostly. If you get a lot of people to Trick-or-Treat the day before you end splitting the number of people up over two days instead of everyone trying to do it all at once. Also, it allows parent's to take really young kids out without having to worry about asshole teenagers because most of them will be ou...	[ "Trick-or-treating is a Halloween ritual custom for children and adults in many countries. Children in costumes travel from house to house, asking for treats with the phrase \"Trick or treat\". The \"treat\" is usually some form of candy, although in some cultures money is used instead. The \"trick\" refers to a th...
the mechanisms of voting in the us and the controversy about requiring government id in order to vote	You have to register to vote a month or 2 before the actual election is to take place. You then get a voter ID card but your name goes on a list. Your local voting station gets a list that contains your name (and others who registered). You then tell the voting station your name, they cross you off a list and go to vot...	[ "In 2011, several state legislatures passed new voting laws, especially pertaining to voter identification, with the stated purpose of combating voter fraud; the laws were attacked, however, by the Democratic Party as attempts to suppress voting among its supporters and to improve the Republican Party's presidentia...
why do we have a more intense "falling feeling" in amusement park rides than we do when we are actually free falling like in skydiving or high dives?	That feeling is the experience of G-force. Simply put, once out of the plane, you will eventually achieve terminal velocity. That's the speed at which you stop accelerating. When you're not accelerating, you're G-force is zero. Roller coasters are designed, essentially, to basically never achieve terminal velocity. O...	[ "Marcus Leshock of WGN-TV commended the uniqueness of the zero-g stall element, stating \"it's something I've never really felt on a coaster before\". He describes hanging upside down as a \"really nice, fun, exhilarating feeling\" without feeling disorientated.\n", "As well as rollercoasters, drop towers can pro...
Is the smell of cooking food appetizing to babies too young to eat solids?	Babies can determine the difference between breast milk and baby formula by smell. They can actually find their way to a nipple to feed on even when they're at a small distance because of the smell. I know this isn't exactly the answer you are looking for but it's still interesting. [There are actually plenty of bab...	[ "The process of acquiring a taste can involve developmental maturation, genetics (of both taste sensitivity and personality), family example, and biochemical reward properties of foods. Infants are born preferring sweet foods and rejecting sour and bitter tastes, and they develop a preference for salt at approximat...

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