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Why do some Greek and Roman names end in "y" in English?	The ones you mention are all englishifications of an -ius ending or something phonetically equivalent -- not just Antony and Pliny. Antony < Antonius Pliny < Plinius Ptolemy < Ptolemeus ( < Ptolemaeus < Ptolemaios) Pompey < Pompeius Here's a few more; you can also ...	[ "BULLET::::- Because of a severe decline in the knowledge of Greek, in loanwords and foreign names from or transmitted through Greek, \"y\" and \"i\" might be used more or less interchangeably: \"Ysidorus\", \"Egiptus\", from \"Isidorus\", \"Aegyptus\". This is also found in pure Latin words: \"ocius\" (\"more swif...
why do most us states and almost all countries around the world have a minimum age limit to purchase cigarettes but not a minimum age limit to smoke them?	You can't go after the kid so you go after the people providing it to the kid. You can't go after the parents either if they got it from an establishment that sell them. So you go for the adult that provided the goods. It all has to come from somewhere.	[ "Many countries have a smoking age. In many countries, including the United States, most European Union member states, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Israel, India, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Australia, it is illegal to sell tobacco products to minors and in the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Sou...
why does wood get hard when burned for a short while, but get brittle if it is burned for too long?	As you probably know, wood is made of a load of atoms, mainly carbon. All of these atoms are joined together by covalent bonds, which are pretty strong, but not unbreakable. To break these bonds, you need to reach this thing called an "activation energy," which breaks the bonds, and makes the wood brittle, as it is not...	[ "Wood does not deteriorate simply because it gets wet. When wood breaks down, it is because an organism is eating it. Preservatives work by making the food source inedible to these organisms. Properly preservative-treated wood can have 5 to 10 times the service life of untreated wood. Preserved wood is used most of...
What happens to the gas inside a car's tires when it starts moving, while it's going, and when it stops after already moving? Does it stay stationary, or spin with the tire?	Since air is a fluid, it would do the same thing that water would do if the tire were filled with that instead, just to a lesser extent to the point that you don't notice it. So when you start moving, inertia keeps the gas stationary until friction with the sides of the moving walls causes the gas to start moving alo...	[ "Once the vehicle is rotating sufficiently rapidly, its angular momentum of rotation can overcome the stabilizing influence of the tires (either braking or skidding), and the rotation will continue even if the wheels are centered or past the point that the vehicle is controlled. This can be caused by some tires loc...
What were the consequences of King John of England's breaking of the Magna Carta?	John was a king and was regarded as such, unpopularity aside; doing anything to the body other than burying it would have been a religious sin in addition to any other stigma attached (and he still had supporters after he died, after all). It's difficult to discuss the consequences of John breaking the terms of the M...	[ "Magna Carta carries little legal weight in modern Britain, as most of its clauses have been repealed and relevant rights ensured by other statutes, but the historian James Holt remarks that the survival of the 1215 charter in national life is a \"reflexion of the continuous development of English law and administr...
what's the deal with google inc and alphabet inc? why a holding company?	It breaks up the financial burdens and responsibilites of the company making it possible for the company to engage in outside endeavours without endangering its core products. Google is Google. However Google is becoming so big, that they can't manage everything under the Google branding without some level of addition...	[ "While many companies or divisions formerly a part of Google became subsidiaries of Alphabet, Google remains the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet-related businesses. These include widely used products and services long associated with Google, such as the Android mobile operating system, YouTube, and Google ...
In English, some common last names, like Smith and Cooper, stem from historic professions. Is this the case in other languages?	This was asked here 8 days ago: [A large portion of modern English last names are derived from medieval guilds - the candlemaker's guild for 'chandler,' or the saddlemaker's guild for 'Saddler.' Does this also hold true for last names in other cultures? Was last-naming by guild/occupation a thing in France, China, Russ...	[ "The Old English name derives from an occupational surname for a civil guard/keeper of the watch, or alternately as a topographical surname from the word \"werd\" (\"marsh\"). The Old Gaelic surname derives from \"Mac an Bháird \"(“son of the Bard”), a \"bárd \"being a storyteller or poet. The two names are complet...
Can anyone explain the changes to the British military after WWII?	In 1957 Defence Minister Duncan Sandys had a White Paper on the Ministry of Defence written up that called for major restructuring of the Armed Forces due to the fiscal realities of the nation, changes in Britain's position in relation to the rest of the world (loss of hegemony punctuated by the Suez Crisis a few years...	[ "After the Second World War the British Army was significantly reduced in size, although National Service continued until 1960. This period saw decolonisation begin with the partition and independence of India and Pakistan, followed by the independence of British colonies in Africa and Asia. Although the British Ar...
how can i watch hd youtube videos with no buffering, while imgur images takes forever to load?	YouTube is owned by Google, Google has a ton of large servers and a ton of small severe places locally, with large amounts of bandwidth. Imgur in contrast is much smaller, meaning they don't have enough bandwidth to handle peak usage, which means every user gets a slow connection, even if you have a Gigabit internet co...	[ "All videos on sevenload get saved in the Flash Video and H.264 formats (file extensions: .flv, .mp4). The videos can be replayed online as a stream in any web browser. To watch the videos in a web browser the Adobe Flash plug-ins must be installed. Videos can be uploaded up to a size of 1,5 GB in all current forma...
how sailing works... tacking, luffing, points of sail, etc..	It's like an airplane, but moving forward instead of up. The point of sail comes from where the wind is coming from, and how you set the sail in order to create the speed of the boat. The keel (heavy fin looking thing at the bottom of the boat) keeps the boat moving in a forward motion, instead of a sideways motion in ...	[ "Tacking or coming about is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing vessel, whose desired course is into the wind, turns its bow toward the wind so that the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side to the other, allowing progress in the desired direction. The opposite maneuver to tacking is called ji...
why do some people (like me) have to invert the y-axis when playing 3d video games?	My friend says he does it because he would always play Kingdom Hearts as a kid which he said came with inverted controls.	[ "Early first-person shooters used ray casting as a technique to create a 3D effect from a 2D world. While the world appears 3D, the player cannot look up or down, nor actually move on the \"y\"-axis, because the playing field is 2D.\n", "The reason for using pseudo-3D instead of \"real\" 3D computer graphics is t...
what is a 'superseding indictment'?	It replaces (supersedes) a previous indictment. > Like are the charges against Gates all dropped because of his guilty plea? Gates has pleaded guilty to certain charges -- as part of his plea some of the other charges against him may have been dropped. He will nevertheless still have to be sentenced on the charges ...	[ "About a month later, on June 18, 2018, the grand jury issued a superseding indictment, adding ten more counts to the original three: illegal gathering of national defense information, illegal transmission of lawfully possessed national defense information, illegal transmission of unlawfully possessed national defe...
In The Treaty of Versailles why were empires like the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire split apart, while The German Empire remained largely intact.	> Would this assumption be correct or were there other factors involved? That was part of it, but it had more to do with the fact that these empires were in the process of collapsing/coming apart when the war ended. In this sense, the Treaties of St. Germain and Trianon with Austria and Hungary, and the Treaty of La...	[ "The treaties which ended the war, including the famous Versailles Treaty dealt harshly with Germany and its former allies. The Austro-Hungarian Empire were completely abolished and Germany was greatly reduced in size. Many nations regained their independence, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. The l...
how a computer can execute a program but not allow the source code to be viewed	Computers run machine code, which includes a very specific set of instructions. Source code is an abstraction of machine code, which is meant to be human readable. Computers can't natively run the source code - instead, a program called a compiler converts the source code into machine code. You can definitely read th...	[ "A computer program in the form of a human-readable, computer programming language is called source code. Source code may be converted into an executable image by a compiler or assembler, or executed immediately with the aid of an interpreter.\n", "In this way, files of any structure from any source can be access...
Are there any mammals with milk that isn't white?	The composition of different mammals' milk does differ, with regards to fat and lactose (and other components). [Chart with milk compositions of various mammals](_URL_1_). IIRC from a museum visit, the very fatty milks (e.g. seal milk, at around 60% fat) do appear yellowish/off-white - "butter-coloured"?. Alternativ...	[ "All mammalian milk contains water, sugar, fat, vitamins and protein with the variation within and between species and individuals differing mainly in the amount of these components. Other than the variation in quantity of these components, not a lot is known about bio-active or immune-modulating factors in many ma...
I've read here and there that for as friendly and communal the Iroquois were to their in-group, they were known to torture, enslave, and kill men, women and even children captured in war. Is this true? Or is this just another bout of propaganda by Europeans, spread to justify them "civilizing" them?	There's an element of truth to this. Iroquoian warfare often called for the capture of enemy populations as a primary goal. This was especially true during the Beaver Wars (1629 - 1701) when the Iroquoian war machine was at its peak. I go into much more detail about the fate of such captives in [this post](_URL_0_), bu...	[ "The Iroquois nations had earlier formed a decentralized political and diplomatic Iroquois Confederacy. Allied as one of the most powerful Indian confederacies during colonial times, the Iroquois prevented most European colonization west of the middle of the Mohawk Valley and in the Finger Lakes region for nearly t...
Is it possible that there is another planet in our solar system that we can't see?	Yes! Theres an area just outside of Pluto's orbit ("just outside being very relative" called the Oort cloud that used to be considered empty! Turns out theres a dwarf plant a little smaller than Pluto recently discovered there, and patterns of light diffraction suggest there may be thousands of planets from the size of...	[ "A hypothetical Solar System object is a planet, natural satellite, moonmoon or similar body in the Solar System whose existence is not known, but has been inferred from observational scientific evidence. Over the years a number of hypothetical planets have been proposed, and many have been disproved. However, even...
how come the visual quality of a youtube video decreases as time go by?	The visual quality did not go down. Most likely, the average quality of videos has gone up, and now that you have other videos to compare the old ones to, you will notice the flaws of the earlies ones. You should be prepared to experience that again and again. I'm 34, and if look at the video games I used to play as ...	[ "Devices like Apple TV or Netgear's Digital Entertainer, capable of transferring video files from the Internet to the television screen, will cause an increase in the length of the size of videos, both in definition and duration.\n", "In 2011 researchers from UC Berkeley published a study reporting second-by-seco...
. how did st. patrick's day turn into the get drunk holiday?	Because the Lent restrictions on drinking alcohol were historically lifted on March 17 in Ireland. It's a Catholic holiday, they were a Catholic country. So it became the day during Lent that you could drink.	[ "The consumption of alcohol is seen as an integral part of St. Patrick's Day celebrations held annually on March 17. The day following Bringloe's arrest, the usual St. Patrick's Day crowd of celebrating owners and others at the Havre de Grace Racetrack stable area had little to cheer about even though Boniface won ...
Does the black hole at the center of the Milkyway have a quasar?	The black hole at the center of our galaxy is currently not what we call active. That is, it isn't currently consuming a large amount of matter. When a black hole is consuming large amounts of matter they form an acretion disk and this disk can emit incredible amounts of energy as well as expel vast streams of mate...	[ "Donald Lynden-Bell and Martin Rees hypothesized in 1971 that the center of the Milky Way galaxy would contain a massive black hole. Sagittarius A* was discovered and named on February 13 and 15, 1974, by astronomers Bruce Balick and Robert Brown using the Green Bank Interferometer of the National Radio Astronomy O...
why do we see full trailers for a movie now, but the movie is scheduled to come out 1 year later?	It's actually really flawed marketing and it's starting to change. If you look closely, you'll start to see a shift where now (especially in music) creators announce their projects a couple weeks (in movies sometimes a couple months, but still shorter than before) before they come out so the hype and excitement doesn't...	[ "The first teaser trailer was released online in February 2011. The first full trailer was released in April 2011. Later in the same month Warner Bros. pulled the trailer from theaters for violating an MPAA rule stating that films can only trailer before similarly rated movies. The trailer for the R-rated comedy wa...
How did Italians "become white"?	In order to avoid unwarranted assumptions, by "becoming white" you really mean how Italians came to be accepted into mainstream American society, right? I am asking because the wording of your question is somewhat ambiguous.	[ "Although much of the scholarship on studies of whiteness argues that Southern and Eastern Europeans were treated as nonwhite by earlier immigrants, there is also a substantial body of scholarship countering this narrative, most notably \"White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945\" by...
How do the creation of reservoirs effect the local ecology?	There are a lot of small effects on local populations. Obviously there's a loss of space and some population fragmentation. This will effect species with lower mobility more significantly. It will also alter water availability significantly, meaning that entirely other forms of vegetation may be able to take advantage...	[ "The environmental impact of reservoirs is coming under ever increasing scrutiny as the world demand for water and energy increases and the number and size of reservoirs increases. Dams and the reservoirs can be used to supply drinking water, generate hydroelectric power, increasing the water supply for irrigation,...
Why does wetting hair allow us to easily "shape" it?	In short, Hydrogen bonds form between sulphur that is in keratin in your hair and the water molecules. They're relatively strong bonds so they can retain shape. Also, this is used when getting a 'perm' - they add ammonium thioglycolate (afaik - might be any generic reducing agent) to your hair which react with the ke...	[ "As a versatile hair styling product, hair mousse is a popular choice for both short and long hairstyles. When hair mousse is applied to wet hair that is allowed to air dry, the hair is often left with a \"wet\" look that can be \"crunchy\" feeling, but unlike hair gel, hair mousse combs out easily for a softer loo...
if a teenager can be charged with child pornography for having pictures of themselves, why can't they be charged with sexual assault when they masturbate?	Are thinking about turning yourself in?	[ "If the video or images in question are of individuals who are minors, including material created by the subject (ex. selfies, etc.), investigation by law enforcement can lead to charges for child pornography as has happened in cases involving sexting.\n", "A Swiss study reviewing the criminal record of 231 men w...
Is every trait of every animal a result of evolution?	Technically, yes - every trait of every animal is a "result" of evolution. Every lineage of organisms has been evolving for about 3.5 billion years. - The characteristics of human beings are the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution. (Of that species and its ancestors.) - The characteristic...	[ "An evolutionary perspective, based primarily on the evolutionary process of natural selection, has been proposed to explain variations in human personality and individuality. From this perspective, evolution introduced variations of the human mind and natural selection acted on these by choosing which were the mos...
why do japanese cartoons change their opening/ending so often (10-20 episodes) compared to western cartoons, that keep the same opening for many seasons (south park, the simpsons, family guy)?	Funny you should mention South park. Although they keep the song, they change the scenes from season to season. Also the Simpsons, which has a different couch scene, billboard, and chalkboard every episode. The walking dead changes openings every season, sorta, because of the ... character changes. It all comes dow...	[ "The Japanese episodes were seen as \"special\" episodes, hence the unconventional opening. However, it was dubbed as a completely new series, so a musical opening was required. While the openings from the main series interlink scenes from the related Japanese opening with scenes from the episodes, there was no Jap...
How did Roman Emperors govern the empire when they spent so much time leading armies?	I'm going to let someone with more specific knowledge step in, but I think it's worth noting that not every emperor led armies into battle. For example, Antoninus Pius (r. 138-161 AD) never set foot outside the Italian peninsula during his reign. Instead, he appointed governors and generals and would manage the empire ...	[ "All the Barracks Emperors based their power on the military and on the soldiers of the field armies, not on the Praetorians in Rome. Thus, Rome lost its role as the political center of the empire during the third century, although it remained ideologically important. In order to legitimize and secure their rule, t...
What's the difference between the bandwidth going into a TV from a cable or satalite provider as compared to a computer from an Internet provider. Is it possible to one day get cable TV speeds online?	It's because TV's are highly specialized to do one thing; receive and display pictures really fast. Your computer on the other hand uses protocols designed to handle a gamut of different information types. Because of this they have to do more work for the same output. On the same token though, this is what allows you...	[ "Digital television transports vary in the number of channels that can be transmitted, based on the bandwidth of the multiplex and the broadcast quality specified for each channel. Digital terrestrial offers the least, digital cable and satellite the most bandwidth. \n", "Analog television channels, whether terre...
How do different earth materials and their seismic velocities affect the intensity of an earthquake?	Definitely, you're spot on with this assumption. What you're looking for is the principle of material amplification. Amplication of seismic waves in any sort of medium is dictated by the composition of the medium, surface topography, and internal geometry. This makes things like overburden level, softness of rock, poro...	[ "Peak ground acceleration provides a measurement of \"instrumental intensity\", that is, ground shaking recorded by seismic instruments. Other intensity scales measure \"felt intensity\", based on eyewitness reports, felt shaking, and observed damage. There is correlation between these scales, but not always absolu...
Belarus seems like a living relic of the Soviet Union. Begs the question, why did they ever leave during the dissolution?	These cases are not the same. In terms of the hierarchy of republics in the Soviet Union, Belarus was on the same level as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and so on. All these "first-level" republics became independent without exception. Russia, however, was unique because it was a "Federative Soviet ...	[ "In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian People's Republic, which was conquered by Soviet Russia. The Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Social...
are modern humans pure homo-sapiens?	If you can trace your ancestry to somewhere other than Africa, you have trace Neanderthal DNA, up to 4% by conservative estimates and 10% by more extreme ones. We interbred with them after we left Africa, so therefore people who can trace themselves back to that continent would lack this admixture. You also mentioned D...	[ "\"Homo sapiens\", the only living species in the genus \"Homo\", originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago. As compared to their predecessors, \"Homo sapiens\" had greater mental capability and ability to walk erect, which provided freed hands for manipulating objects and far greater use of tools. There was art...
In the movie "Fury", American soldiers learn that one of their SS captives had massacred children. They drag him aside, say "Auf Wiedersehen, asshole" and machine-gun him on the spot. Was such summary punishment typical during the end of WWII?	The short answer is. Yes, killing of axis soldiers as well as other forms of punishment toward Germans such as public ridicule, rape, robbery, starvation or dehydration various forms of violence and exposure to the elements were relatively common at the end of WWII. Troops from the US, UK and various commonwealth ter...	[ "When Dodd and the POWs disembarked they noticed dozens of bundles of clothing that had just been left by the rail tracks. As they were marched to the concentration camp and factory where they would be working, Dodd tells of a teenage Jewish girl, stripped to the waist, who he says was being savagely whipped by an ...
How are some bacteria able to survive in the upper troposphere?	Many organisms can survive extremely harsh conditions. Basically, their metabolism slows down and they go into a type of stasis. In fact, in the lab, we frequently store bacteria like e. coli at -80 degrees celsius for long term storage. Take the bacteria out, let them warm up, and they divide just fine. Even some...	[ "Unlike other bioaerosols, bacteria are able to complete full reproductive cycles within the days or weeks that they survive in the atmosphere, making them a major component of the air biota ecosystem. These reproductive cycles support a currently unproven theory that bacteria bioaerosols form communities in an atm...
why do i get sick (sore throat, phlegmy lungs, stuffed up nose) when i smoke a pack of cigarettes of another brand? even lights of my brand to lights of another brand.	Different brands have different moderation of tar and nicotine. So, even though all brands have a type of light, one might contain more tar than the one you're used to. When you smoke, your body produces more mucus in an attempt to protect your throat from damage. So I assume that smoking another brand sets off a diff...	[ "Smoking is a generalized risk factor for generalized forms of aggressive periodontitis. Studies found that smokers have more affected teeth than non-smokers and high levels of attachment loss. This is due to the suppression of serum IgG2 and antibody against \"Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans\" found in smoke...
How does the area of a black hole's event horizon change with respect to its mass increase?	The area of the event horizon scales with the square of the mass of the black hole. In fact, this is how the Schwarzschild radius is defined to begin with. If the area of the horizon is A (which is well-defined and observer-independent), then the "radius" is defined to be the number R such that A = 4\pi\R^(2). It is...	[ "The size of the ergosphere, the distance between the ergosurface and the event horizon, is not necessarily proportional to the radius of the event horizon, but rather to the black hole's gravity and its angular momentum. A point at the poles does not move, and thus has no angular momentum, while at the equator a p...
Did poor farmers really work naked in ancient times, due to having so little clothes it was considered important not to wear them out?	this claim does not make much sense. First of: the paintings and sculptures depicting ancient peoples are symbolic and do not describe actual reality of their work. The Nudity here is exaggerated for effect. Two: the ancient civilisation you described inhabited a very hot and sunny part of the world. While it may ...	[ "The worn-out fabric of old clothing was used for baby clothes because soft cloth was good for the skin of babies and worn-out material protected babies from gods of illness and demons due to these gods' abhorrence of dirty things. Before a baby was breast-fed, he/she was given a decoction of the endodermis of alde...
why do people even protest?	It brings awareness to the case (or cause) and awareness influences others in their actions. For example Amnesty International campaigns for a political prisoner in a foreign countries far away. The raising of awareness brings people to think and talk about, which brings people in power to state their opinion about it...	[ "A protest (also called a remonstrance, remonstration or demonstration) is an expression of bearing witness on behalf of an express cause by words or actions with regard to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations. Protester...
I recently read a line in a book stating that Communists have never taken over in a free democracy. Is this true, or are there examples of free democratic countries who have been taken over by Communism?	The Czechoslovaks voted into power a Communist-led government in 1946, giving Czechoslovakia the distinction of being the only nation within the Eastern Bloc to bring to power a Communist head of government through free and fair elections. Communism, the Soviet Union, and Stalin himself all found favor in Czechoslo...	[ "In the most common Western view, the perfect example of a right-wing dictatorship is any of those that once ruled in South America. Those regimes were predominantly military juntas and most of them collapsed in the 1980s. Communist countries, which were very cautious about not revealing their authoritarian methods...
How was the Yom Kippur War from the Syrian perspective?	Bashar al-Assad was eight in 1973. Do you perhaps mean Hafez al-Assad, his father?	[ "In 1973 The Syrian and Egyptian armies launched the Yom Kippur War, a well-planned surprise attack against Israel. The Egyptians and Syrians advanced during the first 24–48 hours, after which momentum began to swing in Israel's favor. Eventually a Disengagement of Forces agreement was signed between the parties an...
where does societal pressure for women to shave come from?	It is important to note that shaving (what you shave, who shaves, how often you shave etc) varies from culture to culture and through time. My answers will focus on contemporary shaving practices of "western" cultures. But this will not apply to all cultures at this time. [This article on the history of shaving seems ...	[ "Today in much of the world, it is common for women to regularly shave their underarm hair. The prevalence of this practice varies widely, though. The practice became popular for cosmetic reasons around 1915 in the United States and United Kingdom, when one or more magazines showed a woman in a dress with shaved un...
can a president in the us run twice if they weren't elected the first time?	It's not about how many times you have run, it is about how many terms you have served. You can only serve two terms as president, and in the case of succession, like an assassination, the cutoff for deciding whether or not a term has been completed is two years. If the VP becomes president the day after halfway throug...	[ "Under the 2005 constitutional reform, the President serves for four years without the possibility of immediate reelection for one more term. A former president may run for office once again after serving their initial term, but only in an election following their successor, as it is not allowed to run for consecut...
Were feminist groups an important part of 20th century revolutionary or guerrilla movements?	Alexandra Kollontay was the minister for family affairs under Lenin. Her main intent was ridding the world of the whore and the mother badge; she was a noble; she was not originally a socialist. She introduced daycare centers where the state would come up for children's clothing and food. A lady's hygiene would be prov...	[ "The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women which was founded by Léon and her colleague Claire Lacombe on May 10, 1793. The goal of the club was \"to deliberate on the means of frustrating the projects of the enemies of the Republic.\" Up to 180 women ...
— why is the christian year (2012) used by everyone around the world, including jews and hindus and muslims?	In short, because of Western-European cultural imperialism and dominance. In what we now call the year 525, a Christian monk named Dennis the Short (Dionysius Exiguus) devised an era system based from the birth of Jesus, and deemed (erroneously) that Jesus was born five hundred and twenty-five years ago from that stan...	[ "[T]he Christian calendar no longer belongs exclusively to Christians. People of all faiths have taken to using it simply as a matter of convenience. There is so much interaction between people of different faiths and cultures – different civilizations, if you like – that some shared way of reckoning time is a nece...
Books for Research	There aren't really very many books that cover 15th century England in those areas. Most, such as the Gies, focus on the 13th century and those who look at the later middle ages generally are more interested in the 14th century than the 15th. My recommendation is to start with Jeffrey L. Singman's *The Middle Ages : ...	[ "Research for the book began sometime in 2004, including conducting interviews with authors who had written books many years prior such as Alan Dean Foster, J. A. Lawrence, and writing partners Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. Making contact with many of the past authors required assistance from others in the in...
Why can you sharpen a straight razor with just a leather strap?	A razor strop is a flexible strip of leather or canvas used to straighten and polish the blade of a straight razor, a knife, or a woodworking tool like a chisel. Unlike honing or sharpening a blade, in which a whetstone removes metal bent out of alignment from the blade's edge, stropping the blade re-aligns the indenta...	[ "To sharpen or finish the blade using a suspended strop, the razor is pushed toward the suspension ring while both the back and the cutting edge lie flat on the strop and with the back of the blade. No pressure should be applied on the cutting edge. A strop may be two sided with leather on one side and cloth on the...
Defibrillators almost always work in the movies. How likely is it to actually work when your heart stops in real life?	Paramedic here: The chance of a defibrillator working is directly proportional to amount of of time that elapsed since the heart has gone into fibrillation. Defibrillators are not used in Asystole (flatline) but in Ventricular Fibrillation (heart still quivering), and Ventricular Tachycardia (fast ventricular rhythm)...	[ "As devices that can quickly produce dramatic improvements in patient health, defibrillators are often depicted in movies, television, video games and other fictional media. Their function, however, is often exaggerated, with the defibrillator inducing a sudden, violent jerk or convulsion by the patient; in reality...
How did non-German SS troops react to the atrocities of the Eastern Front?	I think you have to draw a distinction between those non Germans who volunteered for the SS and those who were conscripted. For the latter although they were involved in SS activities they were being compelled to do so so were not in my opinion complicit with the Nazi atrocities. On the other hand non Germans who volu...	[ "By this time, on both the Eastern and Western Front, the activities of the SS were becoming clear to the Allies, as the concentration and extermination camps were being overrun. Allied troops were filled with disbelief and repugnance at the evidence of Nazi brutality in the camps.\n", "It was particularly diffic...
why are most popular websites created by americans?	English, plus the largest portion of internet traffic is American, so anyone who can appeal to the American market will find it easier to make a popular website.	[ "America Online was headquartered in Northern Virginia during the company's Internet service provider heyday in the 1990s. In the 2000s several Fortune 500 companies relocated from California to Northern Virginia, including Computer Sciences Corporation, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Northrop Grumman, and Science Appl...
How did U.S. audiences during slavery and Jim Crow react to operas and plays with interracial relationships (Othello, Madam Butterfly, L'Africaine)?	A number of authors have written about the reception of Othello in 18th- and 19th-century America. Tilden G. Edelstein, in a 1982 article reproduced in [this book](_URL_0_), argued that in the 18th century audiences tended to view it as a play about morality and social class rather than about interracial relationships ...	[ "Most musicians witnessed and experienced a wide variety of Jim Crow practices, from city to city and region to region. One common present-day misconception is that Jim Crow practices were more prevalent in the South. The practices were prevalent everywhere, especially in New York City and the Midwest. The bands th...
Can I recover my grandfather's WW2 records?	Start at [ancestry](_URL_0_). You can register for a free trial and cancel it before you're billed if you aren't happy, but the site may well have documents retaining to his earlier life (such as his birth certificate or any travel documents) or possibly documents regarding the war. The 29th Infantry Division were ind...	[ "BULLET::::- Locating Old Soldiers Home Records in the United States before World War II, showing the name of each home, years of operation, some Internet links to related sites, and in some cases the known manuscript collections of their records.\n", "After a German air raid in September 1940, most of the servic...
why does copying and pasting large amounts of text lag computers when the actual transfer of files is so low?	Displaying the file (on your text editor) is different from just simply copying the file directly. The resource intensive operation is drawing each letter, formatting etc.	[ "speeding up the download time, especially for users with faster download than upload speeds. Thus, the more popular a file is, the faster a user will be able to download it, since many people will be downloading it at the same time, and these people will also be uploading the data to other users.\n", "Because so...
; why is it that we can sense people looking at us sometimes when we are sleeping/dozing?	You cannot, short of seeing them looking at you. You can sense people through a variety of senses, whether they are making sound, visible, vibrations, feeling them, or noticing the same as they disturb their environment. And it is not at all unlikely that, upon being disturbed and going to look at said person, they m...	[ "In 1973 in the introduction to his book \"Thought\", Gilbert Harman said, \"it might be suggested that you have not the slightest reason to believe that you are in the surroundings you suppose you are in ... various hypotheses could explain how things look and feel. You might be sound asleep and dreaming or a play...
How can you tell what electric charge an object has?	The definition of positive and negative charge is arbitrary. At some point, someone decided to name it this way around and that was that. We could swap the terms "positive" and "negative" around and nothing would change (we'd just have to update a lot of text books, manuals and other things). So ultimately, you can on...	[ "Objects may possess a property known as electric charge and an electric field exerts a force on charged objects. If the charged object has a positive charge the force will be in the direction of the electric field vector at that point while if the charge is negative the force will be in the opposite direction. The...
Is it possible to detect a laser if it is not pointing directly at you (in vacuum)?	Unless lights bounces off of something for you to see it, you don't see it. Think about all the light passing between distant stars out there. We don't see any of that light, because it doesn't reflect off of anything. Sometimes, there are clouds of gas and dust like nebulae that we do see, where light has scattered ...	[ "By directing the sampled light in the higher order(s) onto a detector, it is possible to monitor, in real time, not only the power levels of a laser beam, but also its profile, and other laser characteristics.\n", "The small width of the beam and low power of typical laser pointers make the beam itself invisible...
how do certain drinks help potentiate certain medications?	Grapefruit juice potentiates certain opiates because it is a CYP3A4 inhibitor. In other words, it blocks the metabolic pathway your liver uses to break down many opiates, leading to increased drug concentration in your blood. Alcohol should not be mixed with opiates (or benzodiazepines or barbiturates) because they are...	[ "Covert administration of medication typically involves mixing the medication with food or drink. This can have an impact on the absorption of the drug. Absorption of some medicines, such as antibiotics, can be reduced when mixed with food, particularly dairy products. Some medicines are incompatible with various m...
1880s Texas - How did bail work?	Good question. Bail in the 1880s in Texas would have been governed by various portions of the Code of Criminal Procedure as adopted by the 16th Texas Legislature in 1879. While Chapter IV of the above mentioned statute (available on the Texas State Law Library website) mainly governs bail, it is scattered throughout...	[ "During Austin's imprisonment, the government addressed several more of the convention's proposals. At Santa Anna's urging, the Coahuila y Tejas legislature enacted several measures to placate the Texians. In early 1834, Texas gained an additional seat in the state legislature. An American immigrant was named state...
why do people choose to follow religion while no one is truly certain of their true existence?	There's actually a reddit for "why do people?" questions: /r/WDP ;-)	[ "Fewer and fewer people believe nowadays. It's possible that in a generation, there simply won’t be religion across Europe and large sections of North America, Australia, and Asia. That's not necessarily a problem. However, it is worth thinking about why people made up religion in the first place, and what we’re do...
Were medieval European Christians familiar with the stories of the Bible, even though Mass was spoken in Latin, and most people were illiterate?	So the thing to keep in mind is that while the liturgy was in Latin, sermons would have been in the vernacular and would have been the ideal time to teach and tell stories to the congregation. Moreover, priests and also godparents were instructed to teach children the basics of the Christian faith as part of every...	[ "However the surviving citations from Jewish-Christian Gospels (namely Gospel of the Nazarenes, Gospel of the Ebionites and Gospel of the Hebrews) preserved in the writings of Jerome, Epiphanius and others, lead critical scholars to conclude that those Gospels themselves either were Greek or were translated from Gr...
if i got millions of venezuelan dollars couldn't i just hold on to it until the value went back up?	It is almost certain to be a constant fall until the currency is redenominated or replaced by a different currency altogether. If this happens with the current dictator or after a revolution is still to be seen, but there is practically no chance of the current currency recovering.	[ "Venezuela had enacted strict foreign currency controls in 2003. CADIVI, the commission established by the Venezuelan government to regulate currency, prohibits taking more than US$10,000 in cash out of the country without declaring the money. Individual Venezuelans could only take US$500 or €400 cash out of the co...
why is "zero excuses" plural?	Why is "no excuse" singular?	[ "Because zero is neither positive nor negative, the term nonnegative is sometimes used to refer to a number that is either positive or zero, while nonpositive is used to refer to a number that is either negative or zero. Zero is a neutral number.\n", "The \"tu quoque\" fallacy is a specific type of \"two wrongs m...
As far as the brain's concerned, are memory and fantasy the same?	hmmm. Well firstly, memory is notoriously unreliable. A google scholar search on [eyewitness memory](_URL_0_) can highlight this. If we were under stress or a great deal of time has passed, memories become increasingly less reliable - more details will fade away and you will be left with a "gist" of the event. If you ...	[ "In line with the salience hypothesis, there is considerable evidence that people who have more vivid, intense or unusual dreams show better recall. There is evidence that continuity of consciousness is related to recall. Specifically, people who have vivid and unusual experiences during the day tend to have more m...
how does flea and tick treatment "prevent" or "kill" them for a long time period on cats and dogs? why are these treatments not used on people when you say, go hiking for example?	The treatment chemically sterilizes (they can't have babies) the creatures or their eggs by the chemical being present in the skin, hair, or even blood of the animal, so if they land on the animal they cannot reproduce and die off. As far as people, the treatments often have side effects on the animals which people wo...	[ "Removing fleas from the pets is not a difficult task considering the advent of products which are designed not only to kill fleas, but also to offer protection from further infestations. Flea-control products are available in once-a-month topicals, dog collars, sprays, dips, powders, shampoos, and injectable and o...
what is the difference between apa and mla? why do we use apa at times and for others we use mla?	APA stands for the American Psychology Association (I believe) and provides citation information that includes the dates of relevant information, such as research and case studies. This style is most often use in the fields of medicine or any research-based field where the date of the research/information affects the ...	[ "The APA applies to both the federal executive departments and the independent agencies. U.S. Senator Pat McCarran called the APA \"a bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated\" by federal government agencies. The text of the APA can be found under Title 5 o...
what all this amy's bakery drama is about?	Amy's Baking Company was featured on Kitchen Nightmares, a show in which Chef Gordon Ramsay visits failing restaurants and whips them into shape with his culinary and business acumen to rescue them from closing. He visited Amy's Baking Company, a spot in Arizona owned by a husband and wife duo who were convinced that ...	[ "The company hired a local public relations firm, and a second Facebook page was eventually taken down as well, while another one called “I support Amy's Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro 100 percent” appeared on May 15. A press release announced that they would be holding a “Grand Re-Opening” on May 21, 2013...
Did anybody ever try to create an inter-tribe native american nation state somewhere in what is now the United States?	The Iroquois League was established between a bunch of tribes with a common historical and cultural background around what is now the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada by the 17th century (probably quite a bit earlier, although a more precise figure is up for debate) and was definitely in place before ...	[ "While Congress passed several Organic Acts that provided a path for statehood for much of the original Indian Country, Congress never passed an Organic Act for the Indian Territory. Indian Territory was never an organized incorporated territory of the United States. In general, tribes could not sell land to non-In...
What is Oxytocin? How does it affect the different genders?	What did the post say that you're calling in to question? Explaining all of the effects of oxytocin is a multi-hour lecture. [The wiki](_URL_0_) may not be a bad place for you to start.	[ "Oxytocin (Oxt) is a peptide hormone and neuropeptide. Oxytocin is normally produced in the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary. It plays a role in social bonding, sexual reproduction, childbirth, and the period after childbirth. Oxytocin is released into the bloodstream as a hormone in response to...
how are we able to see other planets like we see stars?	Because of the Sun. The Sun gives off light and the planets reflect it.	[ "Planets are usually observed with the aid of a telescope or binoculars. Venus is likely the easiest planet to observe without the aid of any instruments, as it is very bright, and can even be seen in daylight. However, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn can also be seen without the aid of telescopes or binoculars.\n", "T...
why can you just right click on a picture and save it but when you want to save a video you have to open a separate webpage that allows you to download the video, enter in the url and hit download?	Because you aren't using a browser that lets you do that. Or because you are using a website that has written some script to prevent you from doing it, because the site wants to make it difficult for you to save its videos, and you haven't overridden the script with your browser.	[ "In many applications, a notable exception being YouTube, playing videos can be shrunk down into a picture-in-picture window so the user can continue watching it while using other apps. This window containing the video can be resized by pinching and spreading and can be docked to any of the four corners of the scre...
Can an MRI machine protect against radiation like the earths magnetic field can? If so how much protection?	Not really. * As the other comment pointed out already: It doesn't help at all against radioactive contamination. That is the way people got exposed to radiation after Chernobyl. * Earth's magnetic field shields us a bit against cosmic rays. The largest momentum where the deflection is effective is proportional to t...	[ "MRI uses powerful magnets and can therefore cause magnetic materials to move at great speeds posing risk. Deaths have occurred. However, as millions of MRIs are performed globally each year, fatalities are extremely rare.\n", "There is no proven risk of biological harm from even very powerful static magnetic fie...
what prozac (or fluoxetine) is really made of.	The active ingredient is almost certainly synthesized in a lab. It will take more digging than I have the time for to find the actual publication explaining how it is synthesized. This is the oldest article on PubMed that comes up regarding fluoxetine synthesis: _URL_0_ The majority of the inactive ingredients are inc...	[ "Tosufloxacin is a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. It has a controversial safety profile in relation to other fluoroquinolones. It is associated with severe thrombocytopenia and nephritis, and hepatotoxicity. It is sold in Japan under the brand name Ozex.\n", "Fluoxetine, sold under the brand names Prozac and Sarafem...
Why doesn't Extracellular Matrix (ECM) Regeneration last throughout our lives?	Ah! An excellent, excellent, EXCELLENT question! Here's the answer. WE HAVE NO IDEA. In fact, this is a field I am moving into from the angle of collagen IV and basement membranes and what exactly is going on with collagen IV (which acts as a structural entity) in the basement membrane (which effectively holds ce...	[ "Formation of the extracellular matrix is essential for processes like growth, wound healing, and fibrosis. An understanding of ECM structure and composition also helps in comprehending the complex dynamics of tumor invasion and metastasis in cancer biology as metastasis often involves the destruction of extracellu...
why is australia so regressive on the issue of climate change	Coal exports are Australia's second-largest source of export income, after iron ore exports. When you're selling coal, it's hard to say "Climate change is really important." You don't want carbon taxes, then people won't buy your carbon!	[ "Climate change in Australia has been a critical issue since the beginning of the 21st century. In 2013, the CSIRO released a report stating that Australia is becoming hotter, and that it will experience more extreme heat and longer fire seasons because of climate change. In 2014, the Bureau of Meteorology released...
Why do some bacteria pose no threat to our body, but some cause us to get sick? What are the differences between the two?	Generally, it's stuff that can effectively evade or fight our immune systems. And there are TONS of ways this can be done. Some bacteria can't live at our body's pH, some can't live at the levels of oxygen found in our bodies, some can't compete with our body's normal flora, some can't get through or live on the skin....	[ "We treat bacteria as an ever-present enemy even though there are only a small number that actually cause disease, and by accident in most cases. Bacteria normally do not gain anything by causing illness or death in their hosts. Our illness is mostly caused by our immune system doing too great of a job in response ...
how are superdelegates justified in a democracy?	It's important to remember that the Republican and Democratic parties are not part of the government. They are private institutions, free to run their internal primaries however they like. That's all this whole primary season is, each party selecting a candidate internally. This means that they can use whatever method ...	[ "The term \"superdelegate\" itself was used originally as a criticism of unpledged delegates. Political commentator Susan Estrich argued in 1981 that these delegates, who at the time were predominantly white and male, had more power than other delegates because of their greater freedom to vote as they wish. The Dem...
why don't professors just use the older editions of textbooks to keep the costs down?	The textbook companies won't sell older editions, and there aren't enough used copies in good condition to go around. When you sell textbooks back, it is frequently for them to be destroyed, so that they can't be used again.	[ "Some students save money by buying used copies of textbooks, which tend to be less expensive, and are available from many college bookstores in the USA, who buy them back from students at the end of a term. Books that are not being re-used at the school are often purchased by an off-campus wholesaler for 0-30% of ...
a good way to improve my laptops performance.	Assuming your laptop runs Windows, get [CCleaner](_URL_3_) and use its tools, especially the Registry Cleaner. Defrag your hard drive and then [use Scheduled Tasks](_URL_1_) to defrag it automatically. Check your [system tray](_URL_2_) and your [task manager](_URL_0_) (right-click the taskbar, choose Task Manager...	[ "However, university students do not generally benefit from technology. The results of one study showed no benefits to using laptops in improving student GPA in comparison to students who did not use laptops.\n", "For Internet browsing and typical office applications, where the computer spends the majority of its...
why has been there no massive multi-national effort to end global hunger?	The food isn't the hard part, it's the distribution. Many of the poorest nations are run by war lords and they often demand that they control the distribution. They take the food aid and often horde it for themselves, use it as leverage to force people to submit to their authority, force them into slavery, etc. To stop...	[ "The fight against hunger has also been joined by an increased number of regular people. While folk throughout the world had long contributed to efforts to alleviate hunger in the developing world, there has recently been a rapid increase in the numbers involved in tackling domestic hunger even within the economica...
During the American Revolution, was there anyone of non european/african descent that fought for the colonists?	All you have left are Asians. I have never seen a reference to any Asians fighting in the revolution. There probably were a few though, most likely serving on Royal Navy warships.	[ "In 1779, more than 500 recruits from Saint-Domingue (the French colony which later became Haiti), under the overall command of French nobleman Charles Hector, Comte d'Estaing, fought alongside American colonial troops against the British Army during the siege of Savannah. This was one of the most significant, fore...
how can valve get away with cutting prices as much as 70% on steam for mostly games they didn't even make? are external game companies not getting really pissed off from missed profits?	Valve has to clear such sales with the publishers who are making the money from those sales. If your wondering how these sales work: Game X costs $10 but only sells 5 copies a week. I cut the price to $2 and now it sells 50 copies a week. I am going to make more money despite the price being lower. Valve knows this ...	[ "Steam has been criticized for its 30% cut on revenue from game sales, a value that was similar to what other digital storefronts charged at the time of Steam's launch, but nearly a decade later no longer scaled with cheaper costs of serving data. Epic Games' Tim Sweeney postulated that Valve could reduce its cut t...
why does alcohol not make us full like water does?	Alcohol has a lot of water, but it also has alcohol. Alcohol has an interesting effect of blocking a hormone called vasopressin (also called antidiuretic hormone). Vasopressin is responsible for telling your kidneys to keep water in your body and keep your urine as concentrated with garbage as possible. When you block...	[ "Ethanol has a dehydrating effect by causing increased urine production (diuresis), which could cause thirst, dry mouth, dizziness and may lead to an electrolyte imbalance. Studies suggest that electrolyte changes play only a minor role in the genesis of the alcohol hangover and are caused by dehydration effects. D...
how do fish survive at the bottom of the deep ocean?	Fish don’t have air cavities like us. Their bodies compress and expand with depth changes just like the water around them (relatively little). Deep water species do mostly die if brought to the surface but, lacking air inside, they don’t spectacularly explode.	[ "At great depths, food scarcity and extreme pressure limits the ability of fish to survive. The deepest point of the ocean is about 11,000 metres. Bathypelagic fishes are not normally found below 3,000 metres. It may be that extreme pressures interfere with essential enzyme functions.\n", "At great depths, food s...
why is arizona so damn hot?	Well, she's at the gym every morning working on cardio and toning. She also follows a strict skin regime which has really paid off. Probably the biggest reason though is that Arizona can work that pole like a champ. Every time I hear "pour some sugar on me" I can't stop dreaming of her.	[ "Arizona is well known for its desert Basin and Range region in the state's southern portions, which is rich in a landscape of xerophyte plants such as the cactus. This region's topography was shaped by prehistoric volcanism, followed by the cooling-off and related subsidence. Its climate has exceptionally hot summ...
why is fictional writing included in education even for non-english majors?	For the same reason that writing English papers is included for non-English majors. Writing practice is writing practice, and creative thinking is creative thinking, regardless of which field you'll end up in.	[ "Nowadays, nearly all EFL coursebooks compete to include the most up-to-date and interesting texts for the target age group, while on the other hand the fiction literature has a treasure of themes which, relate more to our everyday lives. All this goes against what most English language learners and many English te...
how did sleep deprivation/lack of proper sleep leads to face acne or pimple?	The only reason that lack of sleep could be connected to pimples is from stress. Stress can cause a person not to sleep, and it can increase breakouts. They are both symptoms of the stress.	[ "The uvula can also contribute to snoring or heavy breathing during sleep; having an elongated uvula can cause vibrations that lead to snoring. In some cases this can lead to sleep apnea, which may be treated by removal of the uvula or part of it if necessary, an operation known as uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (common...
What is the largest (and/or most massive) known solid/liquid body?	Check out the [Sloan Great Wall](_URL_0_). It's 1.37 billion light years in size, or about 1/60 of the size of the Universe. Though that may not quantify as the largest 'body', it is indeed the largest known system.	[ "At 400,000 km², Kraken Mare is thought to be the largest body of liquid in Titan's north polar region. The maximum depth appears to be 160 meters and shallow capillary waves 1.5 centimeters high moving at 0.7 meters per second have been detected. Its status as a sea of hydrocarbons (mainly liquid methane) was iden...
What's the difference between Hebrew and Aramaic?	They are closely related, different languages in the same way that English and German, or Spanish and Portuguese are closely related, different languages. Check out this cool [map](_URL_0_), which shows the distribution and relationship between the Semitic languages (that's the language family Aramaic and Hebrew belon...	[ "Aramaic is a Semitic language subfamily. Specific varieties of Aramaic are identified as \"Jewish languages\" since they are the languages of major Jewish texts such as the Talmud and \"Zohar\", and many ritual recitations such as the Kaddish. Traditionally, Aramaic has been a language of Talmudic debate in yeshiv...
Why is the mass divided by 2 when calculating the kinetic energy of a particle yet, Einsteins equation for calculating energy does not do that?	Einstein's equation is E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4 where p is momentum, so E = √(p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4 ) = m c^2 √(1 + (p/mc)^2 ) where we've just factorized out the m c^2 . Now, we can write down the [Taylor series](_URL_0_) of the square root. In case you don't know, a Taylor series is a way of taking a function and w...	[ "The kinetic energy of such particles and the potential energy of the force fields increase the total energy above the sum of the particle rest masses, and both terms contribute to the invariant mass of the system. The sum of the particle kinetic energies as calculated by an observer is smallest in the center of mo...
Is the WOW signal just some space noise, or is there some legitimate source behind the frequency and signal that we discovered?	Here's an article written by Jerry Ehman, the astronomer to detect it, 20 years after, _URL_0_ He discusses error analysis and various hypotheses including Earth based signals, aircraft, detector noise, natural phenomenon and others. Here's a quote towards the end discussing the possibility of an extra terrestrial...	[ "The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal received on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeared to come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and bore the ...
Girlfriend is "new" to history - Are there any good online world history courses?	I enjoy the Great Courses history series. They are college level lecture series on a topic, done by college professors. They are broken up into 30 minute lectures, usually 24 or 36 per course. Very informative and well done. I get them through Audible.	[ "HistoryWorld is an interactive online history encyclopaedia that seeks to make world history more easily accessible through interactive narratives and timelines. It was established by Bamber Gascoigne who has been developing it since 1994. It went online in June 2001 and in 2002 it won the \"New Statesman\" New Me...
Could any artifacts of an ancient civilization survive on Venus?	What a very interesting question, to answer it we have to consider several things; firstly any life that may have existed on Venus would have most likely existed several billion years ago when we suspect there may have been liquid water on the planet so we are talking about a huge length of time between any existence o...	[ "The probe provided information about the surface of Venus, which could not be seen through a thick veil of atmosphere. The spacecraft definitively confirmed that humans cannot survive on the surface of Venus, and excluded the possibility that there is any liquid water on Venus.\n", "It turns out that Venus was i...
why does eating certain foods make your cheeks stick out on the inside and and then you can’t stop biting them?	Food allergy? And I have the same issue but it is from anxiety. My dentist told me I have to stop or it can cause cancer	[ "Eating hard foods (e.g., crisps) can damage the lining of the mouth. Some people cause damage inside their mouths themselves, either through an absentminded habit or as a type of deliberate self-harm (factitious ulceration). Examples include biting the cheek, tongue, or lips, or rubbing a fingernail, pen, or tooth...
Late bronze age currencies?	Coins weren't in use, actually! Coinage wasn't invented until the 6th century BCE, in the Lydian Empire in western Anatolia. Prior to that, exchange worked in a variety of ways depending on the culture you're talking about. Barter was presumably not uncommon. Exchange in return for a future obligation was a standar...	[ "The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system. In this system, it follows the Neolithic Age in some areas of the world. In the 24th century BC, the Akkadian Empire was founded. The First Intermediate Period of Egypt (c. 22nd century BC) was followed by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt between the 21st to 17th centu...
Can the eyes rotate around their own axis?	Yes, and they make this motion regularly. It is called torsion, and is triggered by head rolls that move the ear towards the shoulder. The vestibular organ, located in the middle ear, sends commands that reach the superior and inferior oblique muscles of the eye. The origin of torsional eye movement traces back to f...	[ "Movements of the eye are kinematically complex and can be described as a combination of rotations about changing rotation centers. But even when ocular mechanics are simplified to pure rotations about a head-fixed rotation center, their noncommutative property makes them difficult to visualize. Ruete, Listing, Don...
why do you get that weird feeling in your genital region when you look over the edge of a cliff/building?	It’s your adrenal glands firing. Adrenaline as a hormone is secreted from two glands that sit directly above your kidneys. They act as a stimulant in your nervous system. Since a good amount of the adrenaline ends up interacting with your renal system (kidneys) as it enters through the renal arteries, it stimulates the...	[ "Recent experiments have demonstrated the possibility that stimulation of the right angular gyrus is the cause of out-of-body experiences. Stimulation of the left angular gyrus in one experiment caused a woman to perceive a shadowy person lurking behind her. The shadowy figure is actually a perceived double of the ...
tides...	I think the best way to describe tides is simply with a visual... [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)	[ "Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of gravitational forces exerted by the Moon, Sun, and rotation of the Earth. In 1867 the United States Coast Survey started printing annual tide tables to support safe and effective maritime, coastal, and defense activities. Before long, thes...
The Gulf War is known for having been incredibly one-sided and quick. But did the coalition actually expect to win so easily? Why did they overestimate the capacity of the Iraqi military?	Military history stands in an odd place within history. Many factors, such as the economy, military size, diplomacy, and politics contribute differently to the outcome. Wars are studied not as a single event but from different perspectives, with objectivity being one of the main criteria. The obvious military superiori...	[ "That said, the war plan for the Iraq War led to a quick and decisive victory over one of the region's largest and best equipped military forces. Using tactics honed from those used during first Gulf War, the Balkans and Afghanistan, the U.S. led coalition's integrated forces strategy overwhelmed the Iraqi defenses...
- > big o notation	Let's try an intuitive, rather than mathematical explanation. Generalizations, sweeping statements and oversimplifications will be made: Imagine you want to alphabetize your baseball card collection. It should be easy to see that if you only have 3 cards, you can solve this problem a lot quicker than if you have 3000 ...	[ "Big O notation is a mathematical notation that describes the limiting behavior of a function when the argument tends towards a particular value or infinity. It is a member of a family of notations invented by Paul Bachmann, Edmund Landau, and others, collectively called Bachmann–Landau notation or asymptotic notat...
What am I seeing when my eyes are closed? My inner eye? I can't describe the colours either...	There are two things at work here. If the space you are in has light, you are viewing the light passing through your eyelids/blood vessels/etc. If you are in a dark room, your eyes will see what is called a [phosphene](_URL_1_) It is basically seeing without light entering your eye. The specific color your eye sees act...	[ "This can be seen when the eyes are closed and looking at the back of the eyelids. In a bright room, a dark red can be seen, owing to a small amount of light penetrating the eyelids and taking on the color of the blood it has passed through. In a dark room, blackness can be seen or the object can be more colourful....
Why did Julius Caesar decide to invade Britain-- virtually unknown island on the edge of the world at that time-- after years of campaigning in Gaul?	Caesar himself explains part of his thinking. One reason is that his enemies in Gaul received help from Britain, so his first invasion was a warning and a retaliatory expedition. Also, he didn’t know a lot about Britain. Much of his information came from traders, but they only knew about the seacoast. Caesar wanted t...	[ "In the course of his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar invaded Britain twice: in 55 and 54 BC. On the first occasion Caesar took with him only two legions, and effected little beyond a landing on the coast of Kent. The second invasion consisted of 628 ships, five legions and 2,000 cavalry. The force was so imposing that ...

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