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types of government and their pros/cons | To start, of the 6 examples you gave, three aren't types of government, two are basically the same thing, and one is more of a class of government. But I shall press on.
**Types of government**
* Anarchy [No government. Marxist communism falls here] Pros: The pros are mostly ideological, individualism taken to it's extreme.
Cons- Nothing preventing any crime, impossible to organize more than 20 people toward a common goal
* Direct Democracy [Each citizen votes directly on every issue] - Pros: Everyone gets a voice in the government, which keeps people happy. No leaders to screw over the common man for their own gain.
Cons: Wildly impractical on any relevant scale; people are stupid and might vote for stupid things, 51% of the population can vote to screw over the other 49% however they like.
* Republicanism [Citizens vote for representatives who then in turn vote on issues] - Pros: More conservative, unlikely to take any radical action, Career politicians can make nuances decisions, people can still hold their representatives accountable.
Cons: Career politicians get less accountable the longer they're in office, often unresponsive to change, politics becomes massively convoluted thus requiring career politicians
* Aristocracy/Oligarchy [Small group of people in charge of everything] - Pros: Politicians (Aristocrats) have deep personal interest in the land they rule over, politicians careers not in jeopardy over a single gaffe, politicians can focus on doing what they believe is best rather than what the people want, Politicians can be trained from birth for their job.
Cons: Unavoidable and unalterable class system, Aristocrats can do whatever they want to the lower classes, aristocrats generally don't care about the workers, inevitable and purposeful wealth inequality
* Dictatorship [One person in charge of everything] - Dictator deep personal interest in the land they rule over, dictator can focus on doing what they believe is best rather than what the people want, Dictator can be trained from birth for their job.
Cons: Unavoidable and unalterable class system, Dictator can do whatever he/she wants, dictators generally don't care about the workers, inevitable and purposeful wealth inequality, Generally unhappy people
* Fascism [Very poorly defined. Generally means industries/corporations control government. Nazism was a form of fascism] - Pros: Strong economies
Cons: Stratified class system, usually nationalistic, usually militaristic, usually a police state, usually a dictator
| [
"A government trifecta is a type of government in which the same political party controls both the executive and legislative branch. The situation occurs in governance systems that follow the separation of powers model. Under said model, the state is divided into different branches. Each branch has separate and ind... |
Is ADD a real thing? Is that disorder questionable? Why do so many laymen roll their eyes about ADD? | Yes. It's probably overdiagnosed due to the difficulty of differentiating child behavioral problems (often related to family problems), childhood onset bipolar disorder, and ADHD, as well as a whole slew of other learning disorders like auditory processing problems. Exacerbated by the fact that it is often initially diagnosed and treated by primary care physicians instead of specialists, but it is a real thing. | [
"Throughout human history, food, drinks, and behaviors have had a reputation for making sex more attainable and/or pleasurable. However, from a historical and scientific standpoint, the alleged results may have been mainly due to mere belief by their users that they would be effective (placebo effect). Likewise, ma... |
how can someone physically consume 74 hot dogs and what is the "aftermath" like? | It’s a process of gradually eating more and more food to help expand your stomach. Also being able to chew and break up the food is important as well. Smaller pieces of food will pack inside a stomach a lot more efficiently. Having strong monster jaws helps a lot.
All competitive eaters purge after these competitions. That’s the aftermath, lots of puke.
Edit: most competitions don’t let you puke or make you hold it in for a certain amount of time. During training they will puke a lot. | [
"BULLET::::- She had difficulty eating a hot dog in less than a minute when she first started training for her first contest, the 2003 Nathan's qualifier. After practicing, she was able to consume 18 hot dogs in 12 minutes.\n",
"On May 16, 2009, Janus became the third person in the history of the world to eat 50 ... |
why does ac´s have hot and cold mode, if it lets you select the temperature? | When you select a temperature, you're not setting what temperature the air coming out of the AC is. The AC can only produce two temperatures of air: warm and cold.
The temperature setting is called a "setpoint". It's the temperature than the thermostat needs to move past before the AC turns on, and whether the AC turns on when moving above or below the temperature is determined by whether you select "heat" or "cool".
For example, you set the AC to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and set it to cool. If the temperature of the air near the thermostat raises above 70 degrees, the AC will start blowing cold air until the temperature falls back below 70 degrees, and then it will shut off.
If you set the AC to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and set it to *heat*, the AC will turn on if the temperature in the house falls *below* 70 degrees, and will blow warm air until the temperature rises back up to 70. | [
"Inverters convert low frequency main AC power to higher frequency for use in induction heating. To do this, AC power is first rectified to provide DC power. The inverter then changes the DC power to high frequency AC power. Due to the reduction in the number of DC sources employed, the structure becomes more relia... |
Are there any documented battles between Greek style Hoplite Armies (or something resembling them) and Roman javelin and sword type armies? | It depends how close to hoplite army you want to be
The [Hoplite period](_URL_3_) of Greece ended shortly after the end of the Peloponnesian War, between 400 and 350, when there was an increased reliance on mercenaries, a less hierarchical formation, and less formality in conflict (i.e., more sacking of cities, and noncombatant involvement, less ransom and mercy).
Skip forward to 191 BCE, when the Achaean League incorporates Sparta and Messene, covering the whole region of Achaea (generally the lower half of Greece as we know it today). In Second and First centuries the Achaean army was primarily mercenary light infantry and cavalry. The portion of the army that was conscripted from the citizens of each of the cities mainly consisted of light infantry, which may have been partly javelin or spear throwers, and cavalry. There were also conscripts of heavy infantry called hoplites, but were a small portion of the army and were similar to the Classical hoplites in name only.
Second century Rome is in the middle republic. Around 160 Polybius wrote Histories, part of which details the middle republican [army.](_URL_1_)
> The second rank, the Hastati, are ordered to have the
complete panoply. This to a Roman means, first, a large shield (scutum), the surface of which is curved outwards, its breadth two and a half feet, its length four feet,—though there is also an extra sized shield in which these measures are increased by a palm's breadth. It consists of two layers of wood fastened together with bull's-hide glue; the outer surface of which is first covered with canvas, then with calf's skin, on the upper and lower edges it is bound with iron to resist the downward strokes of the sword, and the wear of resting upon the ground. Upon it also is fixed an iron boss (umbo), to resist the more formidable blows of stones and pikes, and of heavy missiles generally. With the shield they also carry a sword (gladius） hanging down by their right thigh, which is called a Spanish sword. It has an excellent point, and can deal a formidable blow with either edge, because its blade is stout and unbending. In addition to these they have two pila, a brass helmet, and greaves (ocreae). Some of the pila are thick, some fine. Of the thicker, some are round with the diameter of a palm's length, others are a palm square. The fine pila are like moderate sized hunting spears, and they are carried along with the former sort. The wooden haft of them all is about three cubits long; and the iron head fixed to each half is barbed, and of the same length as the haft. They take extraordinary pains to attach the head to the haft firmly; they make the fastening of the one to the other so secure for use by binding it half way up the wood, and riveting it with a series of clasps, that the iron breaks sooner than this fastening comes loose, although its thickness at the socket and where it is fastened to the wood is a finger and a half's breadth. Besides these each man is decorated with a plume of feathers, with three purple or black feathers standing upright, about a cubit long. The effect of these being placed on the helmet, combined with the rest of the armour, is to give the man the appearance of being twice his real height, and to give him a noble aspect calculated to strike terror into the enemy. The common soldiers also receive a brass plate, a span square, which they put upon their breast and call a breastpiece (pectorale), and so complete their panoply. Those who are rated above a hundred thousand asses, instead of these breastpieces wear, with the rest of their armour, coats of mail (loricae). The Principes and Triarii are armed in the same way as the Hastati, except that instead of pila they carry long spears (hastae).
Rome took Corinth, the last holdout polis of the Achaeans, in 146, effectively taking Greece until Mithridates and the [Mithridatic Wars.](_URL_4_)
Polybius wrote a lot about middle republican armies, and Livy wrote about the Mithridatic Wars in Ad Urbe Condita starting around Book [70.](_URL_0_)
Other sources
[Timeline of Greece and Rome for references](_URL_6_)
[A nice paper on the Achaean League and its politics](_URL_7_)
[Military history of Middle to Late Republican Rome](_URL_5_)
[More on the Achaean League](_URL_2_)
| [
"During the Archaic period many artists began to depict the hoplite formation in art. Representations of the hoplite phalanx give historians a look into how the Greeks used this style of warfare in battle. Hoplites can be identified by their spear and their shield as well as their position next to other soldiers. O... |
why do manufacturers have english and metric nuts and bolts in the same system? isn't is cheaper to be consistent? | This happens when an American company uses European suppliers or even is jointly owned along with a European sister company and they share parts.
| [
"A wide variety of nuts exists, from household hardware versions to specialized industry-specific designs that are engineered to meet various technical standards. Fasteners used in automotive, engineering, and industrial applications usually need to be tightened to a specific torque setting, using a torque wrench. ... |
why do presidents wait until the very last week of their presidency to pardon convicted inmates, rather than doing it earlier on? | Pardons are the most politically controversial thing a president can do. He's probably doing them for the right reason, but it would've made his re-election/presidency far more complicated if he'd done the pardons earlier.
Also, tradition. | [
"Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was criticized for some of his pardons and acts of executive clemency. Pardoning or commuting sentences is a power granted by the U.S. Constitution to all sitting U.S. Presidents.\n",
"Until 2006, a life sentence could be pardoned only by the president. However, since the 1960s... |
Is there any documentation of the death of Jesus in Rome at the time of his crucifixion? Or was he considered a petty criminal? | Supporters of the [mythical Jesus theory](_URL_0_) point out that we don't know of any non-biblical corroboration of his existence. We have a mention in currently known transcriptions of Flavius Josephus' history book, but there are very good reasons to think that those were added much later by a copist.
Keep in mind that most ancient texts have only survived through milleniums in a very limited number of copies, and even then, mostly as fragments, palimpsests, or quotations. In this case, it looks like all the modern copies are descendants of a single copy made by a monk in one monastery. Imagine that monk, a fervent believer, ... how could a text of that era not mention our Lord, Jesus Christ! Surely, it must have been a mistake ... well you get the idea.
| [
"The primary sources of details about Jesus are the Gospels. Roman records are spottier - there is no extant contemporary record of the execution of Jesus, for example, not that such a thing would be expected, and thus no details about what was done with the body afterward. As such, accounts of the days between Jes... |
why do blood drives collect all types of blood, instead of prioritizing o- and o+ donors? | If there were an unlimited supply, it would make sense to prioritize the donors whose blood is the most compatible. But that's not the case; donations generally keep pace with the demand for blood but in the United States, there's not a large surplus. So it's more practical to collect and use blood of the same type when possible, and to save the most compatible blood for when no other match is available. Why turn away a willing and eligible blood donor? | [
"In blood banking terminology, autologous blood donation refers to a blood donation marked for use by the donor, typically for a scheduled surgery. (Generally, the notion of \"donation\" does not refer to giving to oneself, though in this context it has become somewhat acceptably idiomatic.) They are commonly calle... |
What was Hamiltonianism and what did it become between 1790-1850? | Hamiltonanism was a political/economic belief in a Strong central government, encouragment of national industries and commercial economy and a distrust of the common man. The ideas of it still have no left us according to Michael Lind. It has been a persistent battle between Jeffersonian agriculturalists vs Hamiltonian commercialists. Its platform was carried by prominent politicans like Henry Clay in the 1830s and was somewhat carried out by the Presidency of John Quincy Adams.
_URL_0_
Michael Lind: *Land of Promise: An economic history of the United States* | [
"Hamilton has been portrayed as the \"patron saint\" of the American School of economic philosophy that, according to one historian, dominated economic policy after 1861. He firmly supported government intervention in favor of business, after the manner of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, as early as the fall of 1781. Hami... |
I've heard Islam and the Arab Caliphates were heavily influenced by Persian culture and traditions. Why is that and what are some examples? | I'll speak mainly within the purview of Al-Tabari's texts and the Abbasid Dynasty as that is within my.area of familiarity.
To understand why the Persians had such an influence on the Abbasids we can start at the placement of the new capital of the Caliphate in Baghdad. Given its close proximity near the former Sassanid capital, this hints that at least geographically, the Abbasids had grown to rely on Persian bureaucracy and governance as a model. Furthermore, some theorize (though Al-Tabari highly suggests this) that the Abbasid connection to Persian rule was a way to cement legitimacy beyond the immediate area. Notably we see a large sponsorship of scientific and literary works from the Abbasids that were not written or translated to not only Arabic, but also Persian. Similar to the Byzantines at the time who continued the tradition of writing and producing literature in Greek, its possible that much of the Persian influence that the Abbasids borrowed from were products of a teleological justification.
Literary continuity commentaries aside, quite a lot of works that comes from the Abbasid Caliphate ended up being written in Persian and Arabic and the large projects translation of Greek and Roman philosophical works resulted in both Arabic and Persian transcriptions. Perhaps more pertinently, the political rise of the Abbasids depended on cooperation of the Persians against the Umayyads and though there was political friction afterwards, the prevalence of Persian political figures and people within the Abbasid Caliphate resulted in a much more inclusive rule.
I'm fairly certain there are many aspects I've missed, so if anyone has any addons, feel free to add addendums. | [
"After the Muslim conquest of Persia, Middle Persian, the language of Sassanids, continued in wide use well into the second Islamic century (eighth century) as a medium of administration in the eastern lands of the Caliphate. Despite Arabization of public affairs, the peoples retained much of their pre-Islamic outl... |
How did Japan end up calling itself by China's name for the country: "Land of the Rising Sun"? | No, "Ni-hon" (日本, sun origin, or sun root) was not China's original name for Japan. In the early Chinese dynastic histories, the Japanese islands and the people there were reffered to as "Wa" (倭), which means "land of the dwarves" or "land of the stunted rice plants". How the name changed, so to speak, is somewhat confusing.
The following is a passage from the New Tang History:
"In the first year of Hsien-heng [670] an embassy came to the court from Japan to offer congratulations upon the conquest of Koguryo. About this time, the Japanese who had studied Chinese came to dislike the name Wa and changed it to Nippon. According to the words of the Japanese envoy himself, that name was chosen because the country was so close to where the sun rises. Some say... that Nippon was a small country which had been subjugated by the Wa, and that the latter took over its name. As this envoy was not truthful, doubt still remains."
This passage raises some questions - who were the Wa, then? And who are these people who suddenly conquered a territory from the Wa? Nevermind that we're looking through the distorted lens of the Tang dynastic histories, with its Sinocentric perspective.
There's another interesting exchange between China (more specifically, the Sui) and the Japanese court at Yamato. The Japanese sent a diplomatic message to the Sui which read, "The Son of Heaven of the land where the sun rises sends this letter to the Son of Heaven of the land where the sun sets. [I] wish you well." Wang Zhenping argues that the Sui court accidentally accepted this message from Japan, inadvertently legitimizing Japan's claims of sovereignty and equality with the Sui emperor. This isn't covered in the Tang histories and seems relevant as well in the "approval" of Japan's new, less diminutive moniker. | [
"The flag of Japan and the rising sun had symbolic meaning since the early 7th century in the Asuka period (538–710 CE). The Japanese archipelago is east of the Asian mainland, and is thus where the sun \"rises\". In 607 CE, an official correspondence that began with \"from the Emperor of the rising sun\" was sent ... |
why am i only bald on the top of my head and not the sides? | There's a lot of great articles online that go into the exact science behind it if you'd like to read up on it, but the basic version goes like this:
1) The hair on the top of your head is genetically slightly different to the hair on the sides of your head. The hair on the sides of your head are "closer" to pubic hair - this is also the reason male pattern baldness (MPB)doesn't generally occur in the armpits / genital region / back / chest etc.
2) The actual hair loss issue is when a hormone testosterone changes into another molecule dihydrotesterone (DHT) which "attacks" the hair follicles on the top of your head, causing them to gradually shrink then disappear.
Sidebar: Typically MPB is treated by two methods - orally taking a pill of finasteride (marketed as Propecia) which acts to "disable" the formation of DHT, combined with topically applied lotions of Minoxodil (marketed as Regaine or the like) which helps stop DHT from attacking the hair follicles directly.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and you should definitely have a chat to your local GP if you're having issues with MPB - they can save you a fortune you would spend with any of those hair clinics!!
| [
"The top of the head usually has two black elongated blotches that form a large dark open V marking, but without an apex. The arms of the V end on the neck. There is usually a dark stripe that runs from the corner of the eye to the angle of the mouth.\n",
"Plagiocephaly, also known as flat head syndrome, is a con... |
What would happen if someone were to take a glass container out into space, close it, seal it, then take it back onto earth? | If the container was strong enough, you'd have a glass container with a vacuum inside. If not, the container would implode when it returned to normal atmospheric pressure. The pressure of the atmosphere outside would push the walls of the container in, and there'd be nothing inside to push back. | [
"Once on Earth, any volatile substance will be collected before the sealed containers are opened. The samples will be curated and analyzed at JAXA's Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center, where international scientists can request a small portion of the samples.\n",
"Portholes on spacecraft must be made from gl... |
What were relations between Pinochet's Chile and the military regime of Argentina like? | I don't know the specifics of this question and it was one that I would like to explore myself when I have a bit more free time. Both were brutal regimes and cooperated with each other (along with other nations of the Southern Cone) in Operation Condor, which was essentially a transnational repressive campaign against "subversives." For more on Operation Condor, see John Dinges *[The Condor Years](_URL_1_).* One specific incident was the assassination of General Carlos Prats, who was a Chilean general who went into exile after the coup and was later killed in a car bombing in Argentina. Another interesting chapter was the Malvinas/Falklands War. Pinochet was a big supporter and admirer of Margaret Thatcher and allowed British planes to refuel in Chile, which didn't sit well with Argentina. I don't know of one specific book that explains this deeper, but it is mentioned (I believe) in Mary Helen Spooner's *[The General's Slow Retreat](_URL_0_),* which I highly recommend! I really enjoyed it, Spooner is a journalist and also has another book called *Soldiers in a Narrow Land.* The latter explains the Pinochet regime, while the former is what happened after Pinochet was out of power through Michele Bachelet's first presidency. I hope this helped! | [
"Argentina and Chile were both ruled by military governments at the time of the negotiations. The Chilean and Argentine governments shared common interests: internal war against subversion, annihilating the opposition; external war against communism, remaining nonetheless part of the non-aligned movement; modernisa... |
Communications (post, radio, red cross etc) between allies and axis during WW2? | For the general situation of post and parcels, from a [previous answer of mine](_URL_4_):
For signatories of the 1929 Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, [Article 77](_URL_6_) stated:
"At the commencement of hostilities, each of the belligerent Powers and the neutral Powers who have belligerents in their care, shall institute an official bureau to give information about the prisoners of war in their territory.
Each of the belligerent Powers shall inform its Information Bureau as soon as possible of all captures of prisoners effected by its armed forces, furnishing them with all particulars of identity at its disposal to enable the families concerned to be quickly notified, and stating the official addresses to which families may write to the prisoners."
The official bureau was the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, who worked in conjunction with a Protecting Power (for British prisoners the United States, until their declaration of war when Switzerland became the Protecting Power), various national organisations (the American Red Cross, Australian Red Cross, British Red Cross Society and Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, etc.), and government bodies who held e.g. next-of-kin information. Families would typically be informed by the military that their relatives were missing, then prisoners of war once that information was confirmed; the Red Cross would also contact the family with information on how to send letters and parcels. A Red Cross card, often pre-printed, might also be sent by the prisoners themselves shortly after capture where available, to let their family know they were alive and safe; the Germans used a bogus form (initially labelled "Red Cross", later changed to not specifically name the Red Cross but marked "Printed in Geneva"), telling prisoners that if they completed it then it would greatly speed up the process of contacting their family. It asked for much more information than the standard name, rank and serial number (e.g. names of units, objectives, comrades etc.), and once word filtered back Allied personnel were warned not to complete it.
Some idea of the scale of the undertaking can be seen in this [picture of records at the Central Prisoners of War Agency, Geneva](_URL_7_), from a University of Melbourne [blog post](_URL_3_) about their holding of Australian Red Cross cards relating to Missing, Wounded and Prisoner of War Enquiries.
There was no particular difference in sending packages to different branches of the services, but the circumstances were quite different between prisoners of Germany and those of Japan. There are some example online of family members who have published the various telegrams, letters etc. connected with a prisoner of war such as [Ken Fenton](_URL_2_), a Britsh airman held by Germany, and [Frank Larkin](_URL_5_), an Australian held by the Japanese. They both include Red Cross documents with guidance on how to send letters and parcels to prisoners. Guidance could also be found in Red Cross magazines that were published and sent to relatives of prisoners such as ["Prisoners of War Bulletin"](_URL_1_) in the US and "The Prisoner of War" in the UK, and the Great Britain Philatelic Society also has Post Office leaflets on communications with prisoners of war in [Europe](_URL_8_) and [Japan](_URL_0_).
*****
In terms of Bader’s leg, the British were notified by radio. The radio station at North Foreland received a clear text message stating that Bader had lost his right leg and requested a new one, and granted permission for a leg to be dropped with the day and time to be communicated by radio. The RAF felt that such an arrangement would be used as a public relations opportunity by the Germans, though, so did not arrange safe passage, but rather dropped a replacement leg as part of Circus 81, a standard bombing operation. Andy Saunders’ *Bader’s Last Flight* has details of the operation, including a reproduction of the original telegram to Fighter Command HQ from North Foreland. | [
"Early in World War II communications interoperability between Allied forces was poor. During March 1941 the first high-level proposals to formally structure combined operations between the United States and the United Kingdom were considered; these discussions were the genesis of the current Combined Communication... |
Why haven't we discovered prehistoric art as well rendered as some of today's modern art? | We have. "After [Chauvet](_URL_0_)" said Picasso, "all is decadence." | [
"The ability to study prehistoric art is dependent on surviving artifacts. Art created in mediums such as sand, bark, hides and textiles has not normally endured, while less-perishable materials, such as rock, stone, bone, ivory (and to a lesser extent wood), later pottery and metal, are more likely to be extant. W... |
What is the "ceiling" for perceivable video resolution? | Apple's marketing team makes the claim that the "Retina Display" for their new iPad has such a high pixel density that further improvements wouldn't result in a higher perceived resolution (at normal viewing distances).
However: "For raster graphics, Apple Inc asserts that a display of approximately 300 ppi at a distance of 12 inches (305 mm) from one's eye, or 57 arcseconds per pixel[9] is the maximum amount of detail that the human retina can perceive.[10] Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate Technologies, however, stated that the resolution of the human retina is higher than claimed by Apple, working out to 477 ppi at 12 inches (305 mm) or 36 arcseconds per pixel.[11]"
_URL_0_ | [
"Volumetric video is a video technique that captures a three-dimensional space, such as a location or performance. This type of videography acquires data that can be viewed on flat screens as well as using 3D Displays and VR goggles. Consumer-facing formats are numerous and the required motion capture techniques le... |
what is the tl;dr of terms and conditions that i always i agree to? | This is our stuff. You have to use our stuff the way we say. If our stuff breaks your stuff, it's not our fault. You can't give other people this stuff unless we say you can. That's the basics. There are some other nuances, but not many. I would highly recommend reading through one T & C all the way. Following that you can skim and look for anything fishy with relative ease. | [
"There is a distinction, then, between South African and English law, where terms and conditions are synonymous, and where they are used interchangeably. In South Africa, a condition is a very special type of contractual term, operating in a specific way; for example, ‘I will pay you R3,000 if you climb Table Mount... |
Does Splenda have an effect on the teeth similar to other forms of dietary sugar? | Simply, no.
Dietary sugars are very dangerous simply because of their very high energy density, and persistence in the mouth (stickiness).
Bacteria metabolise these sugars into instant energy for themselves, but also secrete oligosaccharide chains (sugar molecules around 10 units long called *dextrans* units) in order to achieve a number of things:
1. Aid adhesion to the tooth surface for themselves
2. Store energy extraneously for other bacteria and itself to use when more sugar molecules are not readily available
3. Aid other bacteria to stick to the tooth surface, thickening the plaque layer
4. To create an oxygen-sparse "anaerobic zone" close to the tooth surface where more virulent strains can populate and breed
5. To create an isolated environment on the surface of the tooth that increases the acidity on the tooth surface, and protects the bacteria from salivary products that inhibit them (e.g. carbonate, antibodies, etc.)
Sucrose (refined sugar, a joined glucose/fructose disaccharide) is the most dangerous sugar we know of, simply because of its potential energy being even higher than the seperate units of fructose and glucose combined - the bond between the units is also energy available to the bacteria for harvest!
The molecules in sweeteners are far, far more difficult for bacteria to metabolise, and they cannot easily create these dextrans chains. Sweeteners are chemically distinct molecules! Usually aspartame is the main ingredient, which I believe is simply 2 amino acids joined together. Interestingly this binds to our "sweet" receptors about 1000 times stronger than sucrose does. Sucrose solution is surprisingly bitter! (Glucose syrup tastes *horrid*)
On an interesting aside, the sugar *xylitol* is literally glucose with one of the molecule combinations around a carbon atom flipped. Bacteria can't metabolise this at all! It inhibits bacterial growth because they *try* to metabolise it, and internalise it, but they can't! Amazing stuff. Chewing gum has loads of xylitol. | [
"Sugars are commonly associated with dental cavities. Other carbohydrates, especially cooked starches, e.g. crisps/potato chips, may also damage teeth, although to a lesser degree (and indirectly) since starch has to be converted to glucose by salivary amylase (an enzyme in the saliva) first. Sugars that are higher... |
Can you harvest the spin energy of an object? Can objects be spun up in 0 gravity to serve as batteries? | What you're proposing is called a [flywheel](_URL_0_) and currently exists. | [
"To levitate the top, a plastic plate is placed on top of the magnetic base, and the top is spun on the plate at between 25-50 rotations per second (1500-3000 rpm). If too slow, the top falls over and slides off sideways; if too fast it does not orient itself to follow magnetic flux as it moves, and slides off. Sin... |
why do stop lights make you press the walk sign button? | If no-one needs to cross the road, it would be pointless to stop the traffic. By requiring pedestrians to press the button you can keep the traffic interruptions to a minimum and only when there is actually someone who needs to cross. | [
"In some states in the United States, at some busy intersections, buttons will make a beeping sound for blind people. When the light changes, a speaker built into the button will play a recording to notify blind people that it is safe to cross. When the signal flashes red, the recording will start to count down wit... |
If evolution has emotionally rewarded beneficial actions, such as sex feeling good, why do I hate exercising? | You should keep in mind that our modern society is not at all a reflection of how humans have lived for the majority of our history. | [
"Such explanations do not imply that humans are always consciously calculating how to increase their inclusive fitness when they are doing altruistic acts. Instead, evolution has shaped psychological mechanisms, such as emotions, that promote altruistic behaviors.\n",
"One such phenomenon is known as biological a... |
How did early humans deal with Neanderthals? | This question is better asked of /r/askanthropology since it is clearly pre-history. Emerging genetic [data](_URL_0_) indicates that there was some contact that involved the exchange of genetic information, but the nature (and relative enthusiasm) of that exchange is lost to a time before records. [Breaking news](_URL_1_) indicate that the exchange of genetic information between archaic species and our direct lineage goes back for some time. But you didn't get any of these insights here since this is restricted to historical periods. Go to /r/askanthropology. | [
"Neanderthals evolved from a branch of \"Homo heidelbergensis\" that migrated to Europe during the Middle Pleistocene. Neanderthal populations date back at least as far as 400,000 years ago in the Atapuerca Mountains, Spain. While lacking the robustness attributed to west European Neanderthal morphology, other popu... |
what credit rating actually is | The most important thing to remember about your credit rating is that it is **not** for your benefit. It is for the benefit of those you want to borrow money from.
Your credit rating is a conventient way for money lenders to know what kind of risk is associated with lending you money. Basically, how likely are you to pay back the debt you owe? That's why you can't build a good credit score by paying for things out of a bank account: you're not borrowing money, so they have no way to know how you'll handle that.
It's also important to know that your credit is not adjusted manually by someone looking at your actions. It's handled by a complex, mostly secret algorithm. It has nothing to do with what your intentions are or what they think your intentions are, it just has to do with what the actions you take are associated with statistically. That's why, for instance, checking your credit score lowers your score. Statistically, people who check their score do so because they are about to take out a big loan, to buy a car or a house, and they need to know how much they can afford. Taking out one loan means you're less likely to pay someone *else* back back you already owe money to the first person. | [
"A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government), predicting their ability to pay back the debt, and an implicit forecast of the likelihood of the debtor defaulting.\n",
"Credit ratings can address a corporation's financial instrumen... |
Are measurements of an object's radioactivity affected by background levels in the environment? | > Are measurements of an object's radioactivity affected by background levels in the environment?
Sure, but this is the first thing you correct for. At work I measure the output of a radiation treatment device for cancer. The first thing I do is just take a measurement with the treatment device off, and measure the level of ambient radiation. Then when I do a measurement with the machine on, I subtract the background out of the measurement. | [
"The term \"radiophobia\" is also sometimes used in the arguments against proponents of the conservative LNT concept (Linear no-threshold response model for ionizing radiation) of radiation security proposed by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) in 1949. The \"no-threshold\" p... |
A Song of Ice and Fire depicts medieval warfare as devastating the countryside, crop harvests, and peasant population with widespread abuses of non-combatants. Is this accurate of what warfare was really like during the War of Roses time period? | Yes, and for a much longer period than just the Wars of the Roses (ie. mid-to-late fifteenth-century). The encastellation of Europe in the eleventh- and twelfth-centuries made violent marches through enemy territory, known as [the chevauchée](_URL_3_), a highly popular and essential military tactic. The purpose of this form of warfare was to damage your opponent's financial income and their reputation - since one of the features of good lordship was the ability to protect and nothing demonstrated bad lordship like hiding in a castle while your land was ravaged. The treatment of non-combatants is [a central topic to the study of chivalry](_URL_0_) (side-note: Gillingham has several fantastic papers available through _URL_1_, I highly recommend taking advantage of this and his other freely available articles), often romantacised by the idyllic imagination that noble warriors would spare those not explicitly involved in the combat, has been comprehensively demonstrated as untrue, [see this post for more information](_URL_2_).
In this Martin is accurate, but this does not mean, of course, that all knights were bloody sadistic torturers (ie. they were not all Mountains that Ride or the Bloody Mummers) but that such actions were a widely accepted part of warfare and only condemned within certain moral contexts or because they might contravene accepted norms or desired (quasi-idealised) standards but usually not explicit legal structures.
However, even the standards of chivalric conduct have been noted as being thrown out the window during periods of civil conflict. As Philip de Commynes, writing about the Battle of Towton (1461), noted King Edward 'shouted to his men that they must spare the common soldiers and kill the lords, of which none or few escaped'. As demonstrated by the violence of the Anarchy of the mid twelfth-century; the Baronial Movements of the thirteenth-century; the deposing of Edward II in the fourteenth-century; and the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth-century, it is clear that chivalric conduct often did not withstand the force of civil strife (and these examples just restricting us to England and Normandy).
Traditional non-combatants usually lacked even this thin veil of protection, and when the aim was to better yourself at the expense of your enemy (and doubly so when you knew you would be unlikely to keep hold of any territory you might ride through) it was a fairly vicious time to not have a set of walls to hide behind. | [
"\"Cry Havoc\" is a wargame with a medieval setting. Several scenarios are included in the game that set up a variety of combatants on each side, including peasants, sergeants, billmen, men-at-arms, knights and various other \"character\" classes. For example, in the scenario called \"Peasant Revolt\", 11 peasants,... |
Were cannonballs considered "reusable" after being fired? or would they be deformed/ damaged after impacting a target. | **Occasionally, but typically under only specific circumstances.**
In the first centuries after the development of the cannon, stone shot was used in most cases. Stone is frangible; it tends to shatter upon impact, and even if a stone cannonball did not shatter, it was easily converted to peaceful use as building material. Both of these factors tended to work against the recovery and re-use of stone cannonballs. During [excavations at Edinburgh Castle between 1988 and 1991](_URL_1_) archaeologists discovered a handful of never-fired stone cannonballs and fragments from rounds that had clearly been used and shattered.
The use of iron shot began to take off in the 16th century and by the 17th century, they were almost ubiquitous. The issue here, as with stone, is that poor-quality iron (endemic in this period) is brittle and will shatter upon impact just as stone will. Given that cannon shot were designed to be destroyed, they were typically constructed of the cheapest iron possible, which increased the likelihood that they would fracture or deform.
Now, allow me to divert you into the question of **why** and **when** solid shot would be recovered. Solid cannon shot, whether iron or stone, tends to be *extraordinarily* heavy for its size and is difficult to handle because of its shape. You have to have a *reason* to go through the effort of recovering a particular solid shot. It is much easier to get new shot from your logistical train than to go through the effort of recovering shot. Large-scale shot recovery only makes sense if your own supplies are limited.
You might need a block and tackle setup to lift the shot. You'll need wagons and horses to carry the shot away. All this is expensive in both time and labor, which means you typically see shot recovery take place only where large concentrations of artillery have fought in a confined area. The effort of mustering a shot-recovery detail is offset by the ability to collect large amounts of shot.
Remember, too, that you have to cope with matching the shot's caliber ─ something not always easy if both sides in a battle aren't using compatible ammunition.
So to recap: In order for shot-recovery to be feasible, you need to have a shortage of ammunition that forces you to recover shot. You need to have the manpower to be able to recover the shot. You need to be fighting between approximately 1500 and 1870. You need to be at a place where large amounts of artillery were used in a confined area.
This checklist limits how often cannon shot was reused, but it did happen time and again. Stephen Bull, in his book *The Furie of the Ordnance* about artillery in the English civil wars, writes, "It is likely that the largest number (of 17th century cannon shot) were picked up and reused, or scrapped, within a relatively short period of the time they were fired or lost. Shot are recorded as having been removed from many of the major battlefields, notably Marston Moor and Naesby, over a very long period of time."
Mark Thomson's book, *Wellington's Engineers* about military engineering during the Peninsular War, references an account from Alexander Dickson: "the soldiers were offered a bounty for every roundshot they could recover for re-use and so as not to discourage them, even roundshot of calibres which were of no use were paid for."
During the Crimean War, when vast amounts of artillery were leveled against the Russian defenders along the Black Sea, the practice of round shot recovery [was captured on camera](_URL_0_), with the cannonballs in the ditch having been rolled down a hill by soldiers seeking to collect them.
Finally, during the American Civil War, the logistically-strapped Confederacy's quartermaster department [mined the Seven Days battlefields for almost a year afterward](_URL_2_), recovering supplies and spent cannon shot to be used in the war effort. At isolated places like Ship Island, in Texas, and elsewhere, Confederate artillerymen recovered Union-fired round shot in order to keep their guns fed.
The development of exploding shot and artillery shells brought an end to the era of recovering round shot. Even by the time of the American Civil War, round shot was on the way out of circulation.
| [
"The cannon is destroyed by collision with balloons or their shots, but is replaced after a brief delay with no effect on the number of remaining lives. One life is lost whenever a balloon carries the King off the top of the screen; the game ends when all lives are lost.\n",
"The cannon is fired as planned, and t... |
What effect does the arctic summer sun have on plant life? | In theory, it would certainly help plants grow. In reality, though, it has very little effect, because the limiting factor of plants in the arctic is nutrient availability. The soil there has a layer of permafrost that prevents anything big and vascular from growing. It's why most plants in the arctic are low-growing shrubs and mosses | [
"Both fauna and flora are affected by the cold temperatures and the extreme light conditions. Activity is at a stand-still during the polar night, which lasts for many months. During the summer, months of midnight sun help accelerate the natural processes. The nature in the area is especially susceptible to global ... |
How accurate are the common pronunciations of Biblical names (i.e. Daniel)? Are they dead on, or have the pronunciations evolved? Are the names even original? | hi.. you might get something out of these related posts
* [Luke is short for Lucas. Why does the bible Luke only have the short form?](_URL_3_) - /u/vhcngh traces John, Jonathan, Luke, Mark and Matthew from English to Latin to Greek
* [Which came first, the name 'John' or 'Johnathan' (or similar spellings?) Were the Johns of biblical times simply called John or were they less famously named Johnathan? If John came first, how did it evolve to become the short version of Johnathan?](_URL_1_) - various respondents provide the original Hebrew names for John, Jonathan, Adam, Matthew and Paul
* [Was Jesus a common name when the biblical Jesus was alive?](_URL_0_) - lots of comments and links to other posts discussing the Hebrew name for Jesus
* [Biblical names like John,Paul,Gabriel or Peter have different pronunciations in other languages like Juan (John ,Spanish) or Paolo ( Paul, Italian). How were these names pronounced during biblical times?](_URL_2_) - very scanty information here, but a few more names are given | [
"Aramaic and Classical Syriac render the pronunciation of the same letters as ' ' and ' ' . The Aramaic Bibles and the Peshitta Syriac preserve these same spellings. Current scholarly consensus posits that the NT texts were translated from the Greek, but this theory is not supported directly at least by the name fo... |
how do tv shows with multiple writers avoid the "too many cooks spoil the broth" syndrome? | The simple answer is that they each work on separate chunks of the show, and work as a team to stay co-ordinated across chunks.
The situation varies show to show and is obviously more complicated with something like Lost or Breaking Bad (where a continuous story has to progress episode to episode) than with something like The Simpsons (where virtually every episode is completely and totally unrelated to others).
The most typical situation is to have a writers' room headed by someone informally called the showrunner. The showrunner is an executive producer and the highest-ranking member of the crew. The roster of permanent writers, which can be anywhere from 3 to 15, sit around a table together and take turns giving 'pitches' for story ideas. These can be as little as one-sentence concepts ("What if Homer became an astronaut?") but are usually 2 or 3 paragraphs outlining a story and maybe some key scenes. The other writers then give their feedback on it, criticise it, suggest improvements. If everyone likes the idea as it develops, it goes on the board. This goes on until there are a decent number of outlines on the board, then those outlines are assigned to specific writers (sometimes in pairs) to turn into episode scripts, and everyone goes off to work. After a period they return to the writer's room and read out their scripts; at this point, all the other writers will start brainstorming jokes and one-liners and funny situations that can be added. They're incorporated into the draft and then the episode is performed at a 'table read' where the voice actors sit at the table with the script and perform it out loud to get an idea of how the episode will go. Then the writer of the script might go and tighten the episode, remove stuff that fell flat, write in jokes people improvised during the reading, etc, before turning it in as complete. You'll notice that even though episodes are attributed to one or two writers, they actually involve the work of the full team: this is just a necessity of the system, and if you tune into any DVD commentary for The Simpsons, Futurama, Seinfeld, or any other show like this, the writers will always point out details that the other writers added and contributed, thank whoever provided the idea for the episode they wrote, etc. There were writers on staff who pitched thousands of jokes but rarely sat down to write scripts, so there wasn't really a good way to credit them. It's messy.
That's the simplest scenario. It works for The Simpsons because there doesn't have to be any coordination between different episodes, for the most part the episodes can come in any random order and be fine. The Simpsons writers weren't very cross-coordinated between these meetings; the most prolific writer the show ever had, John Swartzwelder, famously started working from home so he could chainsmoke and drink while working, and would just drive up, leave his script with the receptionist while the car was still running, and go home. (This guy was basically Ron Swanson in real life, they call him at home in the DVD commentary for one episode and he is tipsy and cooking steaks at 9AM.)
Shows with continuous stories are where the showrunner becomes vital and force the writers to communicate more.
With shows like The Office or Arrested Development, where there's some level of continuation between episodes, more attention paid to character development and story arcs, etc, the episodes have to be in a specific order and have to be co-ordinated. That's what the showrunner handles. They will often personally draft the story arc for the season (sometimes with the help of the other writers, sometimes alone), and then sit down with the writers in the writers' room to hear their story pitches. The difference is that all those pitches must fit into the showrunner's dictated arc: episode 5 must end with Jenny having a heart attack, episode 8 must feature a breakup, the season finale must end with Jack's car exploding and the police finding the recording device. When the ideas for individual episodes accumulate, the showrunner puts them into a specific order and orders changes to them to make them fit better together.
Shows with *very* continuous stories, like Lost, have the showrunners acting as total dictators. With Lost and with Dexter and other shows in that style, the showrunner(s, Lost had two) would write out episode summaries for almost every single episode. Specific writers were hired to flesh them out, add side stories, write the dialogue, etc -- but the actual plot was all laid out by the showrunner and the episode writers didn't have much freedom to actually change the story. Meetings between the various writers were relatively rare and writers *could* pitch, but they didn't hold pitch meetings like The Simpsons did. This style of writing is closer to the British and Australian styles (where TV shows are often entirely written by one person or partnership) and was historically very unusual in the US, but became popular starting in the early 2000s with the success of The Sopranos (run and dictated by David Chase), The Wire (David Simon), Oz (Tom Fontana), Lost (Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse) and The Shield (Shawn Ryan). Shows that use this model often have coherent serialised stories at the expense of shorter runs (rarely more than 12 episodes a year), because an American 'full season order' (24-25 episodes) is too much for one person to do. | [
"A chef who's usually seen in a televised cooking show. His show nearly got canceled because most people find it tedious, though its ratings improved when a cake monster invaded the studio. He opened a theme park made of cheese which wasn't well-liked. He once became violent and used a rolling pin in an attempt to ... |
What did escapees from East Germany have to go through upon arrival in West Germany? | I can answer the follow-up question: They were imprisoned according to paragraph 213 of the GDR criminal code. | [
"Their motives for escaping evolved over time. Those who fled in the years shortly after the Wall was built had experienced the formerly open border first-hand and often had relatives in the West or had traveled there. By contrast, later escapees had grown up with the closed border, desired greater freedom and were... |
if life were such a probable event, we don’t have evidence of multiple origins? | There could have originally been many potential self-replicating molecules or molecular systems, but likely one type was better at replication than others and there was a molecular form of natural selection. It is thought that RNA preceded DNA, and that the first life was RNA-based. RNA is simpler and capable of storing genetic information just like DNA. However, we don't see any RNA based life (although there are some RNA viruses), probably because DNA is more stable, and was a better mechanism for encoding genetic information. All RNA based life would have gone extinct because it couldn't compete with DNA (or RNA could've formed symbiotic relationships with DNA, but cease to exist as its own life form).
We have no idea how many forms of life existed, we just know that the "LUCA" (last universal common ancestor) had a DNA structure resembling all current life. The LUCA however is in no way considered to be the first living thing... It's just the first living thing to produce a lineage that is not extinct. | [
"There is a single concestor of all surviving life forms and its evidence is that all that have ever been examined share the same genetic code and the genetic code is too complex to have been invented twice. There is no sign of other independent origins of life and if new ones arise, they would probably be eaten by... |
why are you required to wear specialized eyewear when welding, and in what way the light emitted differs from another light source? | The brightness of the arc form an arc welder is bright enough to cause damage to your retina if you looked directly at it. How it differs from other light sources, is intensity. Like the sun, the brightness is so intense that direct exposure will damage your vision. In fact, arc welders are brighter than the light from the sun entering your eye (of course it's travelling much shorter distance, and not through miles of atmosphere).
Exposure to the brightness of the weld area leads to a condition called arc eye in which ultraviolet light causes inflammation of the cornea and can burn the retinas of the eyes. Welding goggles and helmets with dark face plates—much darker than those in sunglasses or oxy-fuel goggles—are worn to prevent this exposure. | [
"Welders wear protective clothing, including light and thin leather gloves and protective long sleeve shirts with high collars, to avoid exposure to strong ultraviolet light. Due to the absence of smoke in GTAW, the electric arc light is not covered by fumes and particulate matter as in stick welding or shielded me... |
how will the upcoming hospital pricing requirements help consumers? | It'll be helpful for a few different reasons.
First, it brings transparency to the process. You'll know *before* you get the bill what everything will cost.
Secondly, it will help to regulate healthcare costs. When Hospital A sees less business because Hospital B is 30% cheaper, Hospital A will have to adjust. That does raise the issue of corner cutting, but we'll see about that when it happens.
Transparency almost *always* helps the consumer. | [
"Recently, some insurance companies have announced their intention to begin disclosing provider pricing as a way to encourage cost reduction. Other services exist to assist physicians and their patients, such as Healthcare Out Of Pocket, Accuro Healthcare Solutions, with its CarePricer software. Similarly, medical ... |
What is Einstein Tensor, and how it is implemented in Physics? | The Einstein tensor **G** is a tensor that quantifies the curvature of spacetime. It is a function of the metric tensor **g** and partial derivatives of the metric tensor and in fact the only tensor-function of **g** to be divergenceless. It appears on the left-hand side of the Einstein field equations
**G** \+ Λ**g** = 8**π**T,
where **G** = **R** \- 1/2**g**R. The above equation may be read as curvature + expansion = energy, mass, momentum.
I wouldn't say it had any special meaning and that more fundamental tensors such as **R** and scalars such as R are more useful to understand a spacetime's properties. | [
"Tensors are important in physics because they provide a concise mathematical framework for formulating and solving physics problems in areas such as mechanics (stress, elasticity, fluid mechanics, moment of inertia, ...), electrodynamics (electromagnetic tensor, Maxwell tensor, permittivity, magnetic susceptibilit... |
why does everybody know the phrase "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell?" | It's simply a statement to remember what it does and people find it to be effective in teaching. Kinda like how Roy G Biv and Please excuse my dear aunt sally. | [
"Mitochondria are thought to be organelles that developed from endocytosed bacteria which learned to coexist inside our cells. These bacteria maintained their own DNA, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which codes for components of the electron transport chain (ETC). The ETC is found in the inner mitochondrial membran... |
Is the sea level "flat" across the oceans? Or are there water "mountains"? | Sea level is generally split into "mass" and "steric" terms. Mass is the amount of water molecules, and geographical variations in mass are influenced by gravitational variations as others have said.
"Steric" is about the density that water molecules are packed together, and is further split into "halosteric" - more salt content increases density - and "thermosteric" - warmer water reduces density - terms. Generally speaking I think the deeper oceans below a few hundred meters are fairly well mixed so there is less influence on the base state height distribution than from mass and gravity. However, the upper few hundred meters have a close relationship with what's going on at the surface so variability there can cause fairly significant high frequency steric sea level variations.
For example, during a strong El Nino event the Western tropical Pacific cools sharply and sea level there drops by about 25cm over the course of a year while the Eastern tropical Pacific warms and sea level there rises by about 25cm. | [
"The highest mountains above sea level are also not those with peaks farthest from the centre of the Earth, because the figure of the Earth is not spherical. Sea level closer to the equator is several miles farther from the centre of the Earth. The summit of Chimborazo, Ecuador's tallest mountain, is usually consid... |
When pollen reaches the stigma, how does it get to the ovules? | One of the most interesting details of plant biology is the fact that they have life cycles which involve [alternation of generations](_URL_4_). Unlike humans and most other animals, which are multicellular diploids for our entire lives (with the exception of an extremely brief unicellular bottleneck at fertilization), plants go through [multicellular diploid and haploid phases](_URL_0_). The haploid gametophyte phase produces gametes through mitosis, while the diploid sporophyte produces spores through meiosis. To make an analogy, is sort of like if humans gave birth to testes and ovaries that became self-sufficient entities rather than parts of our bodies, and then these went on to make new humans by themselves. In the earliest plants that colonized land, like mosses, the haploid gametophyte phase dominates the life cycle, with the [sporophyte depending on it](_URL_6_) for nutrients. Later plants like ferns developed separate [gametophytes](_URL_3_) and [sporophytes](_URL_7_ that are both more self-sufficient, and this became a general [trend towards increasing dominance of the diploid sporophyte](_URL_5_) stage in more derived groups of plants. Ultimately, this trend has reached a peak with angiosperms (flowering plants), in which the pollen produced in male flowers is actually a large number of extremely reduced and simplified gametophytes that are incapable of surviving on their own.
That probably seems like a lot of build-up before getting to your actual question, but it's an interesting topic and I wanted to provide some background. The point of everything I just explained is that pollen is *not* actually a plant's gametes (which would make it equivalent to sperm), but is in fact more accurately thought of as a multicellular (though very small) individual plant which *produces* gametes. So, just like any larger plant, pollen is capable of germinating and growing in a way that a single-celled gamete like sperm cannot, and this is exactly what it does upon reaching the stigma of a compatible plant of the same species. It grows a [pollen tube](_URL_1_) which travels down the stigma to the ovule and connects with it. Then, the pollen releases not one but *two* individual male gametes down this tube, in a process called [double fertilization](_URL_9_). One of the male gametes [fertilizes the female gamete](_URL_2_) to produce a diploid zygote that will grow into an embryo, while the other one merges with two additional haploid cells to make a *triploid* cell that develops into the endosperm. The endosperm is basically the equivalent of a yolk that sustains the embryo while it develops, and for many plants with edible seeds (e.g., cereal crops like corn, wheat, rice, etc.), this is actually the [main part that is consumed](_URL_8_). | [
"In seed plants, after pollination, a pollen grain germinates, and a pollen tube grows and penetrates the ovule through a tiny pore called a micropyle.The sperm are transferred from the pollen through the pollen tube to the ovule.\n",
"In angiosperms, after the pollen grain has landed on the stigma, it develops a... |
How does ice actually form from liquid water? Need a physics explanation! | Its not magic, its thermodynamics! Any system that is not in equilibrium will tend to minimize its total energy. Specifically, for crystallization, there are two steps.
Step 1: Density fluctuations in an unstable system lead to a nucleus. If these fluctuations result in a cluster of a critical size, then the nucleus grows. If the fluctuations result in a cluster that is smaller than the critical nucleus then the cluster shrinks. The critical size is dictated by the surface energy of the cluster, which acts to negate cluster formation, and the energetic gain by a the formation of a new phase. When these two effects are equal (the energetic cost by forming an interface=energetic gain by phase separation), the cluster is said to be of critical size. For clusters greater than this size, the energetic gain by phase separation (cluster growth) outweighs the energetic cost of forming an interface. For clusters smaller than the critical size, the energetic cost of forming an interface prohibits growth and the cluster shrinks.
Step 2: Growth. The nucleates grow by addition of water to one of the faces of the crystal.
Overall, the system's energy is minimized by the phase change. In these types of systems (unstable liquid phases) the crystalline structure is lowest energy state and thus favored. | [
"Water ice can form clathrate compounds, known as clathrate hydrates, with a variety of small molecules that can be embedded in its spacious crystal lattice. The most notable of these is methane clathrate, 4 , naturally found in large quantities on the ocean floor.\n",
"There are phenomena like supercooling, in w... |
Everything in space spins it seems, so how could an enormous cloud of spinning dust and gas ever condense to form a star? | You're right, some gas clouds don't collapse! But others clearly do, and *exactly* how that happens and why is a topic of much research. First off, though, the main thing preventing collapse is the cloud's *temperature*, not its spin, though that also is very important to the process. Whereas **viscosity** can serve to remove angular momentum by placing most of it in a fairly small portion of the material, the cloud has to either remove it's thermal energy (an aggregated microscopic version of kinetic energy) by radiation, which is quite slow, or bring together enough mass into a small enough space for the gravitational forces inward to become stronger than the thermal pressure outward (e.g. by turbulence). The amount of mass you need to concentrate to start this collapse happening is called the "[Jeans Mass](_URL_0_)". This is still something of an oversimplification, since the gas cloud can *also* be supported by magnetic fields lacing the gas and dust, but it's a close enough picture to get on with, and anyway the exact relative importance of turbulence vs magnetic support is not really settled (you can google "hierarchical" vs "competitive accretion" star formation if you feel like falling in a rabbit hole). | [
"When they are formed, neutron stars rotate in space. As they compress and shrink, this spinning speeds up because of the conservation of angular momentum—the same principle that causes a spinning skater to speed up when she pulls in her arms.\n",
"As noted above, a mass distribution will emit gravitational radia... |
I recently read in my anatomy textbook that recent studies have found that there is no correlation between cholesterol in the diet and serum cholesterol levels. How did we get this wrong for so many years and what causes high serum cholesterol then? | How did we get this wrong? Time for a history lesson.
_URL_0_
You can look up more details about this. But in short, major sugar companies had funded research in order to move the blame for the rise of heart diseas from the correlated and increased sugar intake to the fat and cholesterol consumption, either by cherry picking data, or by publishing research focusing solely on the effect of fat intake and increased cholesterol levels and their relation with heart disease.
As for what causes high serum cholesterol levels, first. Plaque buildup. We don't know how plaque builds up in arteries but we have some clues that it is caused by inflamation of the arterial walls. (We don't know exactly what causes such inflamation. But the main risk indicators currently are high LDL levels, high blood pressure and increased waste products in the blood) Such inflamation that the body tries to contain by covering it with fat, cholesterol, fibrin, ane calcium.
The point here is cholesterol. Cholesterol isn't the cause but is merely the result. The body's natural response to contain the inflamation for a short enough notice so that the body is able to find the cause, in the case of continous inflamation the body then proceeds to cover plaque buildup with calcium. Which is why coronary calcium scans are the most reliable in detection of heart desease. Rather than cholesterol which can be in high levels due to an increased intake or due to increase in hormones or cell production. | [
"An early incarnation of the lipid hypothesis which focused on hypercholesterolemia lead to the suggestion that mortality from CHD might be reduced by controlling dietary input of cholesterol. Studies have demonstrated that increasing dietary cholesterol leads to an increase in both total cholesterol (TC) and LDL C... |
This was posted in R/Conspiracy earlier. My BS meter went through the roof. Can AskScience provide some arguments for/against this please? | > Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved \’feelers\’ or \’antennae\’ that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brainstem, the limbic system, and the neocortex.
This has enough grounding in truth to be good at confusing people. Hairs allow small motions to be detected easily. Things like insects crawling on your arm. But they don't directly transmit any information. Instead, the nerve cells at the base of the hair respond when the hair is physically moved.
> hair also emits energy, the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment
This is just completely ridiculous.
> This has been seen in Kirlian photography
Kirlian photography involves applying a voltage to an object. So applying voltage to hair causes the resulting electrical discharge to expose a photographic plate? Nothing surprising or supernatural about that at all.
> When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment are greatly hampered.
What transmissions? What precise EM frequency do they use? What is the mechanism for their transmission and reception? These things can (and should, if they're serious about their claims) be measured. | [
"Roof's trial began on December 7, 2016; witnesses gave testimony describing the shooting in graphic detail. On December 15, 2016, Roof was found guilty of all 33 federal charges against him. For the sentencing phase of the federal trial, Roof dismissed his attorneys and insisted on representing himself. In a state... |
why am i able to listen to any song i want on spotify for free as many times as i want but can only skip 5 songs on pandora | Because they're different companies that operate under different business models. | [
"The main feature of the site was for streaming full tracks without requiring registration. However as of 2011, users have to register for free to listen to a song, otherwise just a 30-second preview is provided. Registration is also required for advanced features such as making playlists, and purchasing music. Due... |
how can nuclear launches be detected and identified? | Between satellites and radar, it is pretty easy to track anything that flies like a rocket. Rocket exhaust is really hot, and infrared cameras in space can spot them launching. Once it is airborne, an ICBM flies up to the edge of space and then flies unpowered over to its target. During this phase, it is a large metal object sitting in the middle of a big empty area, and radar has no trouble spotting it. From here, we can extrapolate its target based on its current path, since its engine has turned off. It is difficult to figure out if the payload is nuclear or not, but usually if an ICBM is launched at anything other than a military base, it is probably going to be nuclear. | [
"There are many different ways to detect a nuclear detonation, these include seismic, hydroacoustic, and infrasound detection, air sampling, and satellites. Each have been used separately but at present the best results occur when data is used in tandem, since the energy caused by an explosion will transfer over to... |
why do my pubes itch after i shave them? | Because the ends of the hairs are sharper than they were before you shaved, the hair curls around and irritates your skin. | [
"BULLET::::- Sycosis vulgaris, Sycosis barbae or Barber's itch is a staphylococcus infection of the hair follicles in the bearded area of the face, usually the upper lip. Shaving aggravates the condition.\n",
"Another cause of irritation in women is post menopausal vaginitis. The decline in the female sex hormone... |
What did East Germany do well and West Germany do poorly? | Well, between 1968 and 1988, East German athletes won a total of 409 Olympic medals at the Summer Games and 110 at the Winter Games. West Germany won 204 Summer Games medals and 39 Winter Games medals. Twice the medal count, when West Germany had four times the population.
The answer that springs immediately to mind for many is doping, and the East Germans absolutely relied heavily on a [systematic doping regime for its athletes](_URL_0_). This was just part of the regime's focus on sport as a cost-effective way to gain prestige and cement a separate East German identity. (The entangled questions of East German acceptance of nudism and how all of this descends from Nazi ideas of the physical ideal, I'll leave to a specialist.) Physical fitness was a large part of the curriculum in East Germany, which started with compulsory (and heavily ideological) preschool. Students were regularly assessed for athletic potential, and promising children were pulled out of school at an early age for rigorous training. (Another question I'll leave for a specialist is the parallel between this and the other various Communist sports programs, as well as how this model has evolved in modern-day Russia and China.) | [
"While official statistics painted a relatively rosy picture, the East German economy had eroded because of increased central planning, economic autarky, the use of coal over oil, investment concentration in a few selected technology-intensive areas and labor market regulation. As a result, a large productivity gap... |
Are swimming pools breeding chlorine-resistant organisms? | If you think of microbial resistance in human terms, it makes more sense. If you send out a plague that kills a lot of people, some will survive and will likely be more resistant. The plague is a very specific, complicated way of killing an individual. Now if instead, you threw every human in lava, nobody would survive to develop resistance. Lava is simple and direct, and you can't have a "lava doesn't kill me" gene.
Think of antibiotics (specific, complicated, potentially survivable) as the plague, and the chlorine as lava (non-specific, simple, very difficult to survive). | [
"The pools are an oligotrophic environment with little available phosphate, leading one local bacterial species, \"Bacillus coahuilensis\", to acquire the genes necessary to partially replace its membrane phospholipids with sulfolipids through horizontal gene transfer.\n",
"\"Chlorella\" can create green and opaq... |
morals and values | > Why do people feel the need to push their own values and morals onto other people?
Why do you?
If you see someone murdering someone else in front of you, surely you are going to stop him and tell him this is *wrong*. So, why are you trying to push your morals onto other people?
Yes, most often their morals are not welcomed and you wish they kept it for themselves. But this is the general logic as to WHY people feel the need to push their moral to other people. Because they truly believe that they are right and that they are helping. | [
"Values are the ideas and behaviors that shape ethical ideals. Personal values are things that are important to individuals that are shaped by one's specific upbringing, religious beliefs, cultural background, and personal experiences. Societal values are things that are comprehensively held by a broader number of ... |
During the American War of Independence, what were the main religious differences between the Americans and the British? | This is a big question, I won't be able to do it justice, but here's a start. In short, yes, there are significant differences in religious life between England and the N. American colonies and these differences come into play during the Revolutionary War. To this day Queen Elizabeth II is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith whereas the United States famously affirms the First Amendment.
The main difference you need to appreciate is between the Church of England and dissenting Christians. If we go way back to Henry VIII's Reformation we can see that initially he didn't change theology from the Catholic beliefs, for instance in the 1530s transubstantiation is affirmed, but he replaced the primacy of the Pope with himself. Reformed theologies are spreading in England throughout the reign of Edward VI, then Mary's Catholic repression martyrs Protestants and confirms Protestant theology within Anglicanism. When Elizabeth becomes Queen she's confronted with the problem of reforming the Anglican church to fully establish its Protestant character, like Protestantism itself this is a matter of great controversy, and some conferences of scholars are called to produce what's known as the ["Elizabethan settlement."](_URL_0_) The settlement makes some Protestant liturgical reforms but claims for Anglicanism a magisterial/state authority similar to Catholicism. The Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer are legally mandated, there's no freedom of conscience for someone who is more radically Protestant than the C of E.
And over the course of Elizabeth's reign the ranks of those radical Protestants are swelling! Called Puritans in England, these are people who refuse to attend the Anglican Church and who acknowledge no authority above the Scripture interpreted with aid of Grace. I've written some [big comments on Puritanism](_URL_1_) if you're interested.
Between 1600-1650 there is growing conflict between these dissenting Protestants and the Anglican Church, many emigrate to the New World in search of greater freedom to govern their religious affairs. It's important to note that these groups want to *govern*, they want not only freedom from persecution but the freedom to persecute! In the 1640s England has a Civil War between Parliament and King, Parliament being dominated completely by dissenters. Oliver Cromwell is himself a (relatively mild) religious independent.
So from the beginning of settlement the American colonies have significant religious diversity and this is one of the factors encouraging emigration. It varies regionally, but some areas are quite mixed, there's plenty of conflict. In 1689 there's even an anti-Catholic coup in Maryland.
Dissenters remain in Britain too, of course, but they are henceforth always a minority.
About Congregationalism more specifically. Some radical Protestant theologies are associated, fairly or unfairly, with specific political ideas. Cromwell's revolution had a religious character, they killed a King, and there's a persistent tradition of anti-authoritarianism in some of these groups. Quakers would be the best example. "Congregational" refers to a mode of Church government different from the CoE and implictly Calvinist. Indeed the historic Congregational churches were strongly Calvinist. In 1776 a British person would connote Congregationalism with anti-Monarchical ideas/sentiment, since the Revolutionary War was framed by loyalists as being about loyalty to a legitimate King you can imagine why a Congregational church would attract abuse. | [
"Historians have debated the implications of the religious rivalries for the American Revolution. The struggle for religious toleration was played out during the American Revolution, as the Baptists, in alliance with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, worked successfully to disestablish the Anglican church. After ... |
what are the main differences between machines and robots? | Robots are a kind of machine.
Generally when people speak of robots in a layman's colloquial sense, they mean the popular culture sort of humanoid, advanced AI machine.
There are lots of industries, though, that use machines that they call robots. It's usually because they have some sort of ability to make decisions/adjustments based on environmental input. So instead of just being a machine that makes the same movement over and over, or a machine controlled exclusively by a human's touch, it's an arm or something that can adjust to the location of whatever it has to pick up/move/assemble or whatever. | [
"Robots can be classified by their specificity of purpose. A robot might be designed to perform one particular task extremely well, or a range of tasks less well. All robots by their nature can be re-programmed to behave differently, but some are limited by their physical form. For example, a factory robot arm can ... |
What happens to electricity in space? | Without a gas to super heat it will not look like a lightning bolt.
lightning is the result of a discharge of electrons from a high potential source, like a storm cloud, and a source of electrical ground (like the ground) when that voltage potential exceeds the beakdown voltage of the insulating material (air)
Without any material between source of voltage and source of ground the only way to have the same transfer is to eject an actual stream of electrons through the vacuum of space. I imagine with a large enough electron gun you could perform a similar transfer of current, but I doubt it would be visible. | [
"Space has an abundance of light produced from the Sun. In Earth orbit, this amounts to 1400 watts of power per square meter. This energy can be used to produce electricity from solar cells or heat engine based power stations, process ores, provide light for plants to grow and to warm space colonies.\n",
"The pro... |
Would an object falling from infinity to the surface of the earth reach escape velocity before it makes impact? | Under standard assumptions (falling radially, no atmosphere, etc.), an object that falls from infinity reaches *exactly* escape velocity at the surface of Earth just before impact. Indeed, this is an equivalent definition of escape velocity. | [
"The escape velocity from Earth is about at the surface. More generally, escape velocity is the speed at which the sum of an object's kinetic energy and its gravitational potential energy is equal to zero; an object which has achieved escape velocity is neither on the surface, nor in a closed orbit (of any radius).... |
How are city tram power-lines powered? | "Keep the lines hot" is a misunderstanding
Power, in the electrical sense, is when current flows from a high voltage conductor to a low voltage conductor. Keeping them separated does not require any power. Air is a pretty good electrical insulator, so very little current flows from the power lines to the rails, and very little power is used. Only when the train is there, and is connecting the lines, does electricity get used (to turn the train motors). When there is no train, the power required to maintain a high voltage line that is insulated with air and glass/ceramic insulators (those ridged white or grey cylinders) is minimal.
It's the same way that all the pipes in your house are full of water, but no water is actually used until you turn on the sink, flush the toilet, etc. | [
"Ground-level power supply, also known as surface current collection and Alimentation Par le Sol (APS, which literally means \"feeding via the ground\"), is a modern method of third-rail electrical pick-up for street trams instead of more common overhead lines, thus it is one of the methods that could allow constru... |
solid state batteries, why are they the future? | The main reason is li-ion is unstable and highly flammable, there have been numerous cases of laptops and phones suffering near explosive combustion due to the li-ion battery.
There was even a cargo plan that was brought down by a fire in the hold due to li-ion batteries | [
"A solid-state battery is a battery technology that uses solid electrodes and a solid electrolyte, instead of the liquid or polymer gel electrolytes found in lithium-ion or lithium polymer batteries. Materials proposed for use as solid electrolytes in solid-state batteries include ceramics (e.g. oxides, sulfides, p... |
why can heavy menstrual bleeding sometimes contribute to anemia? | Having anemia means you don't have enough red blood cells to carry oxygen effectively. If you regularly bleed heavily, its a much harder burden on your body to replace the blood, which can lead to not having enough blood | [
"The most common cause of iron deficiency anemia in men and post-menopausal women is gastrointestinal bleeding. There are many sources of gastrointestinal tract bleeding including the stomach, esophagus, small intestine, and the large intestine(colon).Gastrointestinal bleeding can result from regular use of some gr... |
how does the paint that changes color by temperature work? | Omg. I was at the science festival in sf last week and they were passing out rulers that did this... The kids passing them out had no idea how they work other than to say there are two layers of paint and the top layer becomes transparent with heat.
| [
"Color-changing paints can also be made by adding halochrome compounds or other organic pigments. One patent cites use of these indicators for wall coating applications for light colored paints. When the paint is wet it is pink in color but upon drying it regains its original white color. As cited in patent, this p... |
If the universe is expanding, are we able to see stars going backwards in time? | No. That would require light from later in the star's life to catch up to and pass the earlier light, which isn't possible. | [
"To determine if the expansion rate of the universe is speeding up or slowing down over time, cosmologists make use of the finite velocity of light. It takes billions of years for light from a distant galaxy to reach the Earth. Since the universe is expanding, the universe was smaller (galaxies were closer together... |
why are cows so sacred in india that they cannot be slaughtered and beef cannot be eaten there | It's part of Hindu culture, not Indian. Muslims eat beef.
You don't find cow temples or anything, people do not pray to cows nor are cows given a pimped out life.
It is simply considered bad to kill or harm a cow. It has a lot to do with them providing milk.
It's similar to how the USA treats bald eagles. | [
"Due to the religious importance of cows in India and Nepal, there is a need to differentiate buffalo meat from beef. In countries like India, for religious reasons, a considerable part of the population does not eat beef (meat from cows). In a large number of the Indian states and in Nepal, slaughtering cattle is ... |
What happens to blood cells if you invest them? | Saliva or stomach acid would likely kill them. If blood cells aren't in a liquid with the same concentration as blood they will basically pop due to water entering the cell or shrivel up due to water leaving the cell. Absorbing whole cells would risk having bacteria enter the bloodstream too easily, so things are broken up in the stomach and absorbed by the cells lining the stomach and intestines before being transferred to the bloodstream. The fragments of the red blood cells might be recycled though, as well as any other minerals and nutrients in the blood. | [
"The partial loss of or loss of function of any white blood cell type is a serious health matter and lymphopoiesis is absolutely necessary for life. Mature lymphocytes are a critical part of the immune system that (with the exception of memory B and T cells) have short lives measured in days or weeks and must be co... |
why does the uk still have a -house of lords? | Most people in the Lords will be former civil servants/ politicians or people with long careers in public service. The experience they can bring into scrutinising legislation can be invaluable.
However everything the Lords do can be overridden by the House of Commons so they have no real power, and a democratically elected second house could take away power from the commons or be more obstructionist, resulting in the kind of gridlock seen in the US congress | [
"The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom however it is an unelected chamber with all members to the House of Lords being appointed. As of August 2018, there are currently 793 members known as \"Peers\". The House of Lords no longer has the same powers as the House of Commons un... |
What leads to different colors of marble? | from the wiki
Pure white marble is the result of metamorphism of a very pure (silicate-poor) limestone or dolomite protolith. The characteristic swirls and veins of many colored marble varieties are usually due to various mineral impurities such as clay, silt, sand, iron oxides, or chert which were originally present as grains or layers in the limestone. Green coloration is often due to serpentine resulting from originally high magnesium limestone or dolostone with silica impurities. These various impurities have been mobilized and recrystallized by the intense pressure and heat of the metamorphism
I would think that the yellows and browns would also be caused by sulfur. | [
"Pure white marble is the result of metamorphism of a very pure (silicate-poor) limestone or dolomite protolith. The characteristic swirls and veins of many colored marble varieties are usually due to various mineral impurities such as clay, silt, sand, iron oxides, or chert which were originally present as grains ... |
why is it illegal to share movies, music, etc; but completely legal to borrow books, movies, music, etc from the library? | It is not illegal to share a movie or music on the original media. For example, you can legally loan or give your friend a DVD or CD that you bought from the store.
But it is illegal to copy that and give it away, just like it's illegal to photocopy a book and give that away. | [
"Some movies, e.g. \"Braindead\", are completely banned in Germany (mostly for glamorizing violence), as it is illegal even to sell them to adults. These movies are \"indiziert\" as well as \"beschlagnahmt\" (\"judicially confiscated\"). While selling these kinds of media is strictly prohibited, it is legal to buy ... |
How was Art Deco architecture viewed and judged when it was built? | Art Deco was very popular at the time, and influenced buildings around the world. It was associated with luxury and progress, and was widely embraced by all levels of society, while [contemporary modernist and expressionist architecture were more intellectual/elitist.](_URL_0_)
Rebuilding a town on a large scale offers unique possibilities for architecture, as Napier shows. An earlier example is the town of [Ålesund](_URL_2_) in Norway, destroyed by [fire in 1905](_URL_1_), was completely rebuild in Art Nouveau/Jugendstil. The town has an unusually consistent architecture, most of the buildings having been built between 1904 and 1907. It's been argue that it was a boon for the town and it has become a tourist attraction. | [
"Two distinct architectural styles are visible in the building: the late neo-classical period of Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco or \"Zigzag Moderne\". While the fenestration and ornamentation are strictly symmetrical, typical of Beaux-Arts design, the terracotta panels all contain Art Deco motifs. Following with Art Deco... |
why any person in front of a judge must take an oath regarding god ( "so help me god" ) irrelevant of religion | Many venues give an option to make an [*affirmation*](_URL_0_) instead (that you will affirm that all of the statements you're making are the truth).
| [
"Judges and magistrates on being sworn in, are required by various statutes to take two oaths: the oath of allegiance and the judicial oath, (collectively; the judicial oath). Judges of Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh religions can omit the words \"I swear by Almighty God\" and replace it with an acceptable alternat... |
so veritasium explains in his video that trees gain their mass mainly from the air, better said from carbon dioxide. how exactly does it work? | photosynthesis is extracts CO2 from the atmosphere along with water from the tree's roots. It uses energy from sunlight to split the molecules and recombine them to make sugar; the bulk of most plant's mass is cellulose which is a type of sugar. | [
"The principle of PyCCS is that the biomass (e.g. trees) removes CO from the atmosphere during its growth via photosynthesis. This biomass is then harvested and pyrolyzed (see below), with a portion of the carbon dioxide bound in the biomass being captured in the ground, after being reduced to carbon and viscous co... |
if singapore encourages learning standard mandarin and english over dialects, and taiwan encourages standard mandarin, why don't hong kong and macau continue to promote only cantonese? | It's partly an issue of identity, nobody likes to feel like they're becoming obsolete.
Also re-education is very expensive and time consuming and would require infrastructure changes on many levels. think about it, it's not just teaching kids, it's teaching adults who could be spending their time doing more productive things. It would also mean changing road signs and reprinting millions of books whose earlier editions are now worthless. The effects are huge reaching.
There has to be a pretty huge incentive for a nation or a jurisdiction to change their languages and acceptance and integration would have to be pretty rewarding to be worth it.
Simplified characters are found often in places where trade and travel are common, however I know they exist elsewhere and i'm not sure why so can't help you there, would like to know though. | [
"The use of Chinese varieties other than Mandarin in Singapore media is restricted by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA). The rationale given for the resistance towards nonstandard Chinese varieties was that their presence would hinder language learning of English and Mandarin. However,... |
Is there any truth to the idea that inter racial breeding among humans decreases mutations? For example, is the offspring of a white and asian person more likely to be healthy than two whites or two asians? | There is a concept called[ heterosis, or hybrid vigor](_URL_1_), which states that **on average** the offspring of genetically dissimilar parents would be "superior" to the offspring of genetically similar parents.
However, this effect is extremely small when considering the mixing of human races, because there is more[ genetic variation within a race than between races](_URL_0_). Humans differ from one another by about 1 in 1000 base pairs of DNA. Racial differences account for only about 10% of that variation.
| [
"Another study cited by , and by , was study which found that adopted mixed-race children's has test scores identical to children with two black parents—receiving no apparent \"benefit\" from their white ancestry. Rushton and Jensen find admixture studies to have provided overall support for a genetic explanation t... |
How much air speed does a modern fighter jet lose by firing a salvo of bullets at an enemy plane? | You need to conserve momentum. Assuming an M61 Vulcan cannon firing 100g rounds at 1000 m/s and a burst of 1 second (~100 rounds), a half loaded F-22 Raptor (~25000kg) would lose 0.4 m/s. Even with some fudge factors for the accelerated air, you wouldn't lose more than 1 m/s. | [
"BULLET::::- The XB-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber became the first vehicle to hold a sustained (more than half an hour) in excess of Mach 3. Literally moving faster than a speeding bullet, at three times the speed of sound, the six-engine jet aircraft was flown at its \"triplesonic\" speed of more than 2,000 miles p... |
is a mobius strip actually a 2-dimensional object, or is it a representation? | The confusion here comes from the confusion of "infinite length" with "no end". The Mobius strip does not have infinite length, any more than does a circle.
Mathematically speaking, the Mobius strip is a 2D manifold, which basically means if you zoom in enough it looks like a plane. | [
"The Möbius strip is a two-dimensional compact manifold (i.e. a surface) with boundary. It is a standard example of a surface that is not orientable. In fact, the Möbius strip is the epitome of the topological phenomenon of nonorientability. This is because two-dimensional shapes (surfaces) are the lowest-dimension... |
why hasn't the us signed the geneva convention? | It doesn't want to be held to international law. | [
"The Geneva Conventions are four related treaties adopted and continuously expanded from 1864 to 1949 that represent a legal basis and framework for the conduct of war under international law. Every single member state of the United Nations has currently ratified the conventions, which are universally accepted as c... |
How accurate is the show How Booze Built America? | People certainly drank a lot, about three times as much as we do today and they tended to drink hard stuff while we mostly drink beer and wine( mid 19th century United States). I haven't seen the show, but it certainly sounds like an exaggeration. | [
"How Booze Built America is an American reality-documentary Miniseries starring Mike Rowe. The miniseries premiered on the Discovery Channel on September 19, 2012. In each episode, Rowe travels around the United States discussing how alcoholic beverages affected periods throughout American history.\n",
"The shows... |
why is there a delay with connecting a bluetooth device to a different device? | When a device changes Bluetooth association like you describe, two things are happening. It's terminating the connection to the first device, and performing the handshaking protocols to connect to the new one. If it isn't actively connected to a different device, there's nothing to disconnect from. | [
"Because the Bluetooth system hops over 79 channels, the probability of interfering with another Bluetooth system is less than 1.5%. This allows several Bluetooth piconets to operate in the same area at the same time with minimal interference.\n",
"Bluetooth v2.1 – finalized in 2007 with consumer devices first ap... |
How deep can insects live in the ground? | Not quite insects but nematodes have been found 3.6km underground.
[Nematoda from the terrestrial deep subsurface of South Africa](_URL_0_)
| [
"Insects can fly and kite at very high altitude. In 2008, a colony of bumble bees was discovered on Mount Everest at more than above sea level, the highest known altitude for an insect. In subsequent tests some of the bees were still able to fly in a flight chamber which recreated the thinner air of .\n",
"Up to ... |
why are some colds way worse than others? if i have a bad cold and transfer it to someone else, is it guaranteed to be bad for him/her? | It depends on your immune response.
Inflammation, fever, coughing and runny nose are mostly caused by your immune system fighting the virus.
Depending on the effectiveness of the immune system it might be a single day of hell or a week of minor problems.
Not to mention that a "bad cold" is subjective. | [
"The common cold is the most common human disease and affects people all over the globe. Adults typically have two to three infections annually, and children may have six to ten colds a year (and up to twelve colds a year for school children). Rates of symptomatic infections increase in the elderly due to declining... |
After The Civil War, Did Some Ex-Confederates Just Leave the United States Entirely? | More can always be added, but /u/sowser wrote [this post](_URL_0_) in this sub about the Confederados who went to Brazil. | [
"In 1865 a substantial number of former Confederates fled to Mexico from the defeated Confederate States of America. They set up the New Virginia Colony. However, many of the ex-Confederates left the country once Emperor Maxmilian I was overthrown.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Texas v. White\", The states that formed the C... |
If speed depends of the spacial reference system chosen, wouldn't kinetic energy depends too? If so kinetic energy is defined by the object chosen by the observer? | Yes, kinetic energy depends on your reference frame. | [
"Correspondingly the kinetic energy of an object, and even the change in this energy due to a change in velocity, depends on the inertial frame of reference. The total kinetic energy of an isolated system also depends on the inertial frame of reference: it is the sum of the total kinetic energy in a center of momen... |
Looking back at past early presidential elections, there were never any popular or county results for South Carolina, Why is this? How did they vote for president? | That's a good catch. I don't know offhand when it changed, but during the antebellum period a lot of political power was routed through the SC General Assembly. Eligible white male voters could vote for their state representatives, but the legislature would then choose the governor and other prominent state positions, US senators and representatives, and vote on the state's behalf for President.
What's fascinating is how this reflects upon South Carolina's (though the South was indeed diverse, SC wasn't singular in its beliefs either) interpretations of American notions of liberty and republican government. They were adamant in their support of these ideas but were also forced to reconcile them with their wider cultural beliefs which espoused the existence of naturally elite men (and they were men) who were uniquely suited to lead the rest of society. These men distinguished themselves through social, personal, and economic independence as demonstrated through ownership of land and slaves as well as absolute control of their business (plantation) and family lives. They achieved economic independence via prosperous plantations and demonstrated leadership through the control of dependents (wives, children, slaves). Theoretically any white man could enter this class but SC's commitment to this ideal also meant that state government was highly insular and restrictive. A small elite group kept a firm grip on nearly all state government affairs.
Readings:
Stephanie McCurry, *Masters of Small Worlds*
Drew Faust, *James Henry Hammond and the Old South* | [
"The 1852 United States presidential election in South Carolina took place on November 2, 1852, as part of the 1852 United States presidential election. The state legislature chose nine representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice President.\n",
"The presidential electio... |
how are small cell services like boost so much cheaper than large ones like verizon? | The two biggest reasons are lower risk and no subsidized phones.
Risk - They don't maintain towers, just purchase bandwidth from from the big guys. Don't have to worry about building towers, don't have any actual assets (with the exception of some tech support and a billing department).
Subsidized phones - for whatever reason, in the american market consumers don't like to front the ~$600 cost of a phone up front (like pretty much the rest of the world does). So retailers decided to just cut off about 400 of that cost and tack on another 20/month to your plan, and force you into a two year contract (also notice that 20*24 /= 400).
My wife and I switched from verizon (probably around 150+ a month) to net10 (85 a month). Net10 runs on At & t and Tmobile, so it's not quite as good of service, but it's nearly half the cost. And I can use a nexus 5. | [
"This cut to the Lifeline program prevents other smaller companies known as resellers from \"buying network capacity from big telecom providers and then selling it back to low-income consumers at cheaper rates.\" This is problematic for the majority of Lifeline customers who rely on those cheaper rates.\n",
"Reve... |
How is the double slit experiment with single particle done practically ? | You can make sensors sensitive to single electrons, shoot electrons with a low average rate and discard events where more than one electron came close together. In principle you could also make a source that can release individual electrons.
[Single-photon sources](_URL_0_) are a standard research tool. You create exactly two photons, the detection of one of them shows that there is a single other photon on the way to your experiment.
> How do they make thin enough slit?
It doesn't have to be that thin.
> How do they detect a photon without absorbing it, since it has to pursue its trajectory?
You absorb it in the detection - behind the double slit.
> How do they pump out matter so that the single-particle could propagate in void space?
With good vacuum pumps, where needed. You don't need it for the double slit experiment with light, as light doesn't interact often with air. | [
"In 2012, Stefano Frabboni and co-workers eventually performed the double-slit experiment with electrons and real slits, following the original scheme proposed by Feynman. They sent single electrons onto nanofabricated slits (about 100 nm wide) and, by collecting the transmitted electrons with a single-electron det... |
What practical purpose did the comfort women under Japanese occupation serve? Were there cases where the same purpose was fulfilled without resorting to comfort women in history? | To put it in a bit of perspective:
In ancient times, when armies went to war and conquered a city, poor discipline could lead to the army going on rampage and burning, looting, and raping their way through the conquered city. This was called a sack. While large-scale sacks mostly died out after the 1800s (for instance in the wake of the Sepoy Mutiny), it was still a major concern for the public images of many governments, not the least of which was the Japanese. The Japanese had already had their image tarnished in the First Sino-Japanese War, when Japanese troops massacred Chinese civilians after sieging Port Arthur.
To combat this, the administration had the "bright" idea of setting up government mandated prostitution for the troops. The idea was that by giving the troops a legal, government-controlled avenue to vent their sexual frustration, this would minimize their need to go around raping and killing innocent civilians. Meanwhile, the prostitutes would be able to earn money to pump back into the Japanese economy. Win-win, right?
The problem was that, as with most things run by the Japanese government at the time, the management of the comfort women program-not least due to the socially conservative views of the ruling government-was at an arms distance and more or less uncontrolled. A very small amount of actual volunteers for the program led to coercion, informal "selling" of daughters, and outright kidnapping and trafficking. In the conquered territories, Chinese and Korean women were often impressed into the service, or lied to, saying it was a factory that needed workers or the like. There were many more Chinese and Korean women serving as comfort women than Japanese women: this partly contributed to a Japanese comfort woman being more expensive than Chinese or Korean ones.
After the war ended, in preparation for the American occupation, the Japanese government, fearful of American soldiers running around raping Japanese women (especially their blue-blood, aristocratic daughters), organized a similar institution, the Recreation and Amusement Association, this time recruiting primarily poorer Japanese women with the promise of food, money, and shelter, as well as with Yakuza intimidation tactics and the aforementioned lying and kidnapping. This association was shut down within the year, but it should be noted that after the association was shut down, the number of rapes under Allied occupation increased significantly. | [
"The experiences of survivors of the comfort women program were largely ignored for decades in post-war Asia. The issue finally emerged into the public sphere during the 1980s, when a group of survivors in neighboring South Korea filed several lawsuits against the Japanese government. Documents were uncovered in 19... |
why are so many famous songs targeted at pre-teen girls? | Preteen girls are a very important demographic. They are considered more responsible than boys the same age, and therefore generally have more spending money; but that conception of them is utterly wrong, because they impulse-buy at a greater rate than any other demographic.
**TL;DR** Pissing away Daddy's money like tomorrow will never come. | [
"An especially prevalent theme was adolescence. Since most of the girl groups were composed of young singers, often still in high school, songs mentioned parents in many cases. Adolescence was also a popular subject because of an emerging audience of young girls listening to and buying records. Adolescence was also... |
when a plane banks left or right, why doesn't everyone's drinks fall off the trays. surely gravity is still in effect? | Gravity is balanced by the (imaginary) centrifugal force.
Centrifugal force is a perception that, when you go around a corner, you're thrown to the outside of the corner. In fact, what's happening is your body just wants to go in a straight line, instead of around the corner, but from your position it seems like you're being pushed out of the corner.
When an aircraft turns left, it banks left, and gravity makes you want to move to the left of the aircraft. But centrifugal force makes you want to move to the right. These two forces balance out.
When a pilot flies a turn so that these forces are balanced, we call it a "balanced turn", and we describe the aircraft as "in balance". Pilots nearly always fly balanced turns, because they are more efficient than flying out of balance. | [
"There are many different designs for drink carriers, but they commonly include relatively deep indentations, holes, or compartments into which the cups are placed. This keeps the drinks from falling over during transport, and distinguishes drink carriers from cafeteria trays, though both may be used to carry both ... |
how does a massive government like china just deny that an event like the tiananmen square massacre didn't happen? | China has a massive power called, “controlling education.” they disposed of all evidence that it happened and not put it in the education. just like what happened to the Tank Man incident. they also did it through propaganda. | [
"The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests were a series of pro-democracy demonstrations that were put down violently on June 4, 1989, by the Chinese government via the People's Liberation Army, resulting in estimated casualty of over 10,000 deaths and 40,000 injured, obtained via later declassified documents., whereas th... |
What is the oldest event, figure, law, etc. that you can think of that still has some influence on society today? | Law- the Code of Hammurabi (1772 BCE) is the earliest I can think of that has had consistent sway on law ever since. Essentially the notion of reciprocal (if in this case draconian) justice. If not that, Lycurgus' (Aprox. 780 BCE) mixed constitution of Sparta is essentially the system of American politics today. | [
"The oldest known codified law is the Code of Hammurabi, dating back to about 1754 BC. The preface directly credits the laws to the code of hammurabi of Ur. In different parts of the world, law could be established by philosophers or religion. In the modern world, laws are typically created and enforced by governme... |
when movies make horses fall, is it real, and if not, then how do they do it? | In the past, a device known as the "running W" was used to trip horses at a specific point, but it is now illegal. It is possible to train a horse to fall over on command in such a way that neither it not the rider are in much danger, and this method is used currently. As with any trick, teaching the horse to do this requires practice and the correct incentives. There may be other ways of getting a horse to fall over, but I'm not aware of them. | [
"Said stuntman Joe Canutt: \"You can get great falls a lot of times out of horses, but when you're attacking the Alamo, for example, and you've got bombs and cannons going off ... some of them don't work at all. That mare [Coco] consistently got spectacular falls.\" But beyond doing the falling-horse stunt, Hoy sai... |
In an atom, can an electron ever collide/w or touch the nucleus of the atom it is apart of? | Yeah, sometimes a proton captures on electron and causes a nuclear decay. It's called [electron capture](_URL_0_). | [
"Often, as an electron precipitates, it is directed into the upper atmosphere where it may collide with neutral particles, thus depleting the electron's energy. If an electron makes it through the upper atmosphere, it will continue into the ionosphere. Groups of precipitated electrons can change the shape and condu... |
direct x | DirectX is the way that your game communicates with your graphics card. Microsoft takes requests from game developers and makes a list of features that game developers want, but can't do right now.
Microsoft then goes to AMD and NVIDIA, and says, "Hey, these are some things that game developers want to be able to do. We're going to expose these commands to those games, and here's what we're telling them to expect. You can build these commands into your graphics cards however you want, as long as you make them accessible to games in a particular way- and we'll call the group of these commands, brought together, DirectX.
Basically, if game developers had to write games at the level of the computer's base hardware, it'd take forever, and certain games would only work on certain graphics cards. DirectX is a layer in between. It lets games make specific, predetermined commands, and then uses a driver made by the graphics card's vendor to convert those into commands that the graphics card can understand. | [
"Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and ... |
Would we be able to notice a difference in the earth's speed if we were part of a different galaxy that rotated faster/slower? | Not through any physical sensation that we would notice with our bodies, but we'd certainly be able to measure the solar system's orbital velocity around the galaxy in the same ways that we do now: high-resolution measurements of the proper motion of the center of the galaxy, and measurements of the relative redshifts of stars throughout our area of the galaxy. | [
"Thus, for example, if we wonder how rapidly our galaxy is rotating, we can make a model of the galaxy in which its rotation plays a part. The rate of rotation in this model that makes the observations of (for example) the flatness of the galaxy agree best with physical laws as we know them is the best estimate of ... |
Do passing asteroids have an effect on for example the tides? | What's interesting about gravity is that it has an infinite range, which is not true for the other 3 forces (strong, weak nuclear and magnetism). Because of this, you could say that every atom of matter in the universe has an effect on the tides of our oceans, this includes you! You walking around has an effect on tides, that's pretty crazy.
A better question is "do passing asteroids have a perceptible effect on the tides" and the answer to that is leaning very heavily to the no side. The moon weighs 1.2% of the entire earth which is still like a bajillion tonnes (or something) so its affect on the oceans is quite great. Asteroids usually have a mass in the few thousands of tonnes, which is like a speck of dust compared to the moon, the gravitational affect of this is negligible. | [
"Like other slowly-rotating asteroids such as 912 Maritima, it is possible that the extremely long period of this asteroid is caused by YORP radiation pressure slowing down the asteroid's rotation. This is especially likely considering that has a very low albedo, which would allow it to absorb more radiant energy f... |
How do spider populations survive the winter? | Many spiders go into diapause (similar to hibernation) over the winter ([Source]( _URL_1_)). They decrease their oxygen consumption and activity level. They will bury themselves in leaf litter (or similar) for warmth. The life cycle stage (egg, juvenile, or adult) that diapause occurs during is species-specific ([Source]( _URL_3_)). Some spiders remain active in the winter in caves, under leaf litter, or under snow. Spiders can even be found on the snow surface when temperatures are above 0 C ([Source]( _URL_2_)). In all cases, a spider can only survive if it can prevent its hemolymph (blood) from freezing. In very cold climates, this is sometimes accomplished by using antifreeze proteins ([Source]( _URL_0_)). | [
"These spiders are very sedentary, usually only sitting in their burrows waiting for a passing victim. They operate in a constant low temperature because they are underground, and they live for about 20 years. With these factors we can assume \"Cantuaria\" might have a low metabolic rate. With a low metabolic rate ... |
why don't states ever try to secede from the us, opting to keep their tax money and run things exactly as they would like? | A bunch of states tried that back in the 1800's. It didn't turn out so pretty good. | [
"In effect, this states that \"other\" states (i.e., third parties), may not encourage secession in a state. This does not make any statement as regards persons within a state electing to secede of their own accord.\n",
"The states did not just share sovereignty with the national government; they obtained the fin... |
why do we more commonly associate bad memories with songs? | Any highly emotional state will induce powerful memories of associated sounds, smells and other senses. Evolution probably coded this into us in order to ensure we would remember both dangerous situations and opportunities to thrive. This would be especially important for mating rituals in young adulthood because the propagation of the species is biologically crucial. Hence the common experience of remembering songs we associate with early love, both happy and sad. | [
"Research suggests we listen to the same songs repeatedly because of musical nostalgia. One major study, published in the journal Memory & Cognition, found that music enables the mind to evoke memories of the past.\n",
"If an individual diagnosed with PTSD associates a certain song with a traumatic memory, it typ... |
how do ad networks work? | Ad networks generally have agreements with a lot of popular websites. The ad network pays the sites to place their ads, and vendors pay the ad networks to display their ads in those spots.
When / if you click on one of those ads it brings you to the vendor's website. The ad network tracks where you saw the ad, when you clicked on it, and where you went. If you actually purchase a product after that, it is called a "conversion".
Ad networks often use a "pay per click" business model as well, where the vendor will pay the ad network for every ad click. In other words, they are paying the ad network just to get people to click on the ads... thereby visiting the vendor's site. More traffic to the site means more chances for sales to be made. | [
"Advertising networks use behavioral targeting in a different way than individual sites. Since they serve many advertisements across many different sites, they are able to build up a picture of the likely demographic makeup of internet users.\n",
"An online advertising network or ad network is a company that conn... |
why is st. louis not as important in the united states as it once was? is it likely to continue shrinking? | It was very important when the Mississippi was a big hub for transferring industrial products out of the Midwest. The small arms factory my grandmother worked at during WWII in Davenport, IA shipped through St. Louis, for example.
As Midwestern industry declined, so did the shipping of those products out along the Mississippi.
That said, the shrinking of St. Louis is exacerbated in the statistics. While other cities expanded their borders as their populations sprawled, St. Louis couldn't because it was not part of any of the neighboring counties. Chicago, today, makes up something like 80% of Cook County. St. Louis couldn't expand in a similar way because it couldn't take land from a county it didn't belong to. | [
"St. Louis has lost 64.0% of its population since the 1950 United States Census, the highest percent of any city that had a population of 100,000 or more at the time of the 1950 Census. Detroit, Michigan, and Youngstown, Ohio, are the only other cities that have had population declines of at least 60% in the same t... |
why do different countries have different electrical outlet layouts and voltages whereas (almost all) cars/trucks are standardized at 12v and the little round outlet (cigar lighter)? | Cars wear out and get replaced, so over a period of two decades 99% of all cars on the road will be replaced with new ones. The last several decades in the auto industry have been ones of consolidation into a few enormous multinational companies that sell cars in dozens of countries around the world. So they've standardized, and that standard can be seen in every vehicle you're likely to enter. There are still the odd 6V and 24V vehicles out there, just not many. Same thing with computer/phone connectors: a few standards take hold and spread worldwide.
On the other hand, electrical outlets installed in the 1920s—when even different parts of the same country might have different standards—are still in use in millions of homes. The cost and difficulty of retrofitting is not inconsequential, nor is there much need to, so long as appliances are imported country by country. | [
"Mains electricity by country includes a list of countries and territories, with the plugs, voltages and frequencies they commonly use for providing electrical power to appliances, equipment, and lighting typically found in homes and offices. (For industrial machinery, see Industrial and multiphase power plugs and ... |
How exactly does one ionize xenon, such as in ion propulsion? | In Ion Propulsion drives, Xenon is ionized by shooting it with electrons. Xenon has a pretty low ionization energy, so it doesn't take much to steal an electron off of it! Once you have a nice Xe+ ion, you shoot it out the back by electrostatically accelerating it through a set of charged grids and into space, giving you a tiny bit of acceleration.
Xenon is used both due to the low ionization energy I mentioned before and it's ability to be relatively easily stored as a liquid at room temperatures and high pressures. | [
"The xenon ions are then accelerated by the electric field between the anode and the cathode. For discharge voltages of 300 V, the ions reach speeds of around 15 km/s (9.3 mps) for a specific impulse of 1,500 seconds (15 kN·s/kg). Upon exiting, however, the ions pull an equal number of electrons with them, creating... |
whatever happened to piracy? | It's still very much a thing, although it has slacked off a bit. There was a huge surge in piracy around the Horn of Africa/Gulf of Aden/Indian Ocean region a few years back. Most of the pirates were based out of Somalia.
Since then there has been a large multinational effort ongoing to interdict pirate ships and protect merchant shipping in the region. The US has also conducted a number of strikes against suspected pirate headquarters ashore.
Somalia's situation has also improved a bit in the last few years which helps to divert people away from piracy which was a really last-ditch option for many.
What killed historical large-scale piracy was the advance of effective government into the New World. (North and South America). Pirates need places to repair and refit their ships and markets on which to sell their stolen goods. Once the colonial governments in the Americas became strong enough to control their territory pirates ran out of safe havens. This also coincided with the major powers in the Caribbean having a prolonged period of peacefulness and thus no incentive to support pirates.
Privateering continued through to the end of the 19th century when the Declaration of Paris laid out a framework for international maritime law that forbade signatories from engaging in privateering.
Small-scale piracy is still incredibly common in places like the Gulf of Aden and Straits of Malacca but is cracked down on pretty hard due to it's detrimental effects on trade and commodity costs. | [
"The acts of piracy, as defined in article 101, committed by a warship, government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutinied and taken control of the ship or aircraft are assimilated to acts committed by a private ship or aircraft.\n",
"The acts of piracy, as defined in article 101, committed by a warsh... |
Why did big game hunting become so popular during the Victorian era? | Questions of popularity are not going to be easy to nail down (why did everyone suddenly get interested in zombies?) But it's not that actually doing big game hunting was popular ( it was, after all, rather hard for most Victorians to do it) as much as reading about it. That's rather obvious: reading about hunting large dangerous animals that can kill you can be thrilling, the difference between watching a bass fishing competition and seeing *Jaws*.
As to why some people ( yes, mostly men) in the 19th c. were shooting giant beautiful animals and putting their heads on their walls, it could be summarized best perhaps as an animal-rights activist might summarize it, as a crime: with motive, means, and opportunity.
Motive: the stereotypical big game hunter in a pith helmet in Africa or India was English. [Sport hunting had long been a hobby of the landed classes in England](_URL_0_) .For one thing, they owned the gamelands. Unlike poachers on their lands, they didn't necessarily need to eat what they hunted ( though they did have staff to clean and skin or pluck them) so it was easy for them to get into trophy hunting. Also, hunting the wildlife to keep it away from the crops was thought useful.
Opportunity: When England got an Empire, those upper-class sportsmen were able to simply begin doing the same sport hunting in the new dominions: they were in positions of power and could do so. Also, there was a good bit of game habitat,and the more primitive shorter-range weapons in the hands of the native populations had not reduced the numbers of large dangerous game. So, excitingly large numbers of lions, tigers, cape buffalo, gnus etc. could be found.
Means: though the English wouldn't be limited to spears and arrows, their own gunmakers in the 18th c. had produced rifles and shotguns for small game, birds, and deer. Bringing down rhinos, elephants and buffalo required much more powerful firearms, and by mid-century makers like Westley Richards and Gibbs were producing big game rifles that were at last satisfying the blood-lust of hunters like Sir Samuel Baker, firing belted lead balls weighing as much as two ounces on heavy loads of black powder. These would batter the hunter almost as much as they battered the animals, but as firearms modernized, range and effectiveness did as well. With less punishing rifles to shoot, by the turn of the century, there could be women in pith helmets as well as men, bringing down large animals that they could then pose with for photos. | [
"Big-game hunting is also a sport, pursued to collect specimens for museums, recreation, and as a hobby. Sharply rising in popularity during the Victorian Era, it peaked during the 20th century, and includes many famous big game hunters. Among them are Philip Percival, who guided Theodore Roosevelt and Ernest Hemin... |
Did The Celts participate in Human / Animal Sacrifice? | Yes, some Iron Age inhabitants of modern France did sacrifice people. In Ribemont-sur-Ancre, we found a heap of bones, reconstructed as basically something that looks like a barbecue rack, or something like a fish-smoking construction (but with no burning or anything), with decapitated people in uniform with their weapons and shields. They also found a kind of 'building' made of human bones. Lots of them had cutmarks, indicating that these people were killed. But that's the only definite proof I know of; otherwise, there's Caesar's accounts of course, but I don't think they are very reliable because he would have wanted to depict his conquered people as more ferocious and barbaric. Other than that, there's widespread evidence for human sacrifice in Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands in the form of the bog bodies, most of them from the Iron Age. New C14 dates suggest most of them were killed around 160 BC, but I've yet to see the definite report on that. These were probably individual human sacrifices, but whether these people were 'Celtic' is debatable. Same for the large-scale human sacrifices of Denmark and Sweden, of which we also have an account from the Cimbric wars around 100 BC in southern France.
Animal sacrifice I really take for granted in Iron Age communities. | [
"Animal Sacrifice of a buffalo or goat, particularly during smallpox epidemics, has been practiced in parts of South India. The sacrificed animal is dedicated to a Goddess, and is probably related to the myth of Goddess Kali in Andhra Pradesh, but in Karnataka, the typical Goddess is Renuka. According to Alf Hilteb... |
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