question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Is it true that you are unable to learn second language as proficiently as a native speaker when you are in your mid twenties? | It is very clear from a wide number of experimental investigations that there is a very big difference between people learning a language as a child and learning a language as an adult. Some of these are things caused by developmental differences, as predicted by the [Critical Period Hypothesis](_URL_1_), but others ar... | [
"It is commonly believed that children are better suited to learning a second language than are adults. However, general second-language research has failed to support the critical period hypothesis in its strong form (i.e., the claim that full language acquisition is impossible beyond a certain age).\n",
"Howeve... |
why don't meteorologists routinely report dew point rather than relative humidity? | Most people have a very limited understanding of the weather, and aren't interested in the details. The vast majority of the people want to know, is it warm? cold? sunny or cloudy? and is it going to rain?
People who have different work related need for more detailed information such as pilots, farmers, sailors, get ... | [
"To left of center in the station model, the temperature and dew point are plotted. Within the United States on surface weather maps, they are still plotted in degrees Fahrenheit. Otherwise, they will be in units of degrees Celsius. This knowledge is important to meteorologists because when this data is plotted on ... |
is 'new' dirt ever created? why or why not? | Yes. Dirt is made up of three parts: sand, clay, and loam. The first two are basically just rocks, only broken down into really small grains. The distinction between “sand” grains (tiny) and “clay” grains (really really tiny) is kinda arbitrary but it makes a lot of difference for how the soil handles water, and what t... | [
"Soil fossils, whether buried or exposed, suffer from alteration. This occurs largely because almost all past soils have lost their former vegetative covering and the organic matter they once supported has been used up by plants since the soil was buried. However, if remains of plants can be found, the nature of th... |
How did Cornwall get incorporated into England? | In the Ninth Century, Cornwall was annexed into the Kingdom of Wessex by King Egbert. This was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is one of best primary sources for early medieval England (though it does have its flaws, particularly with dating.)
Here are the two excerpts from the Chronicle that are releva... | [
"The chronology of English expansion into Cornwall is unclear, but it had been absorbed into England by the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), when it apparently formed part of Godwin's and later Harold's earldom of Wessex. The records of Domesday Book show that by this time the native Cornish landowning cl... |
why can't i just brush my teeth with mouthwash? | They say it does, and it does definitely help, but brushing will always be slightly more effective for the reason you mentioned, it dislodges material from the teeth. Brushing itself isn't even enough, really. My teeth look great but I used to have irritated gums despite brushing every day. Flossing cleans your gumline... | [
"It is beneficial, when using a straight bristled brush, not to scrub horizontally over the necks of teeth, not to press the brush too hard against the teeth, to choose a toothpaste that is not too abrasive, and to wait at least 30 minutes after consumption of acidic food or drinks before brushing.\n",
"Mouthwash... |
the tv show cosmos seems to have caused a big stir in the us. why is this? | It is a remake of a groundbreaking science documentary series from 1980. Many people have very fond memories of Carl Sagan's original series, and it quite literally inspired many children to become the scientists of today.
While we also have no shortage of science documentary shows, we haven't had anything with remote... | [
"Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is a 2014 American science documentary television series. The show is a follow-up to the 1980 television series \"\", which was presented by Carl Sagan on the Public Broadcasting Service and is considered a milestone for scientific documentaries. This series was developed to bring back ... |
a lot of the illustrations I've seen of New England Native Americans depicted them wearing just loin cloths or kilt like garments. is that accurate to how they dressed in day to day life? if "yes" why did (culturally) evolve to wear so much less than Europeans at similar latitudes? | As a parallel question, how true is the premise of the OP? I know that I and my fellow Americans tend to misunderstand the relative latitudes involved (looking at a map right now, I see that London is farther north than the northernmost point of the United States, for example; Boston is at about the same latitude as R... | [
"Like other native towns that they had visited, the Maudslay reported that the clothing the people used was all handcrafted and made in their own homes using primitive systems, similar to those pictured in the \"Codex Mendoza\", who Alfred Maudslay had seen back in England.\n",
"Because European carvers had never... |
Sleeping positions | Sleeping on either side can be beneficial over sleeping on your back if you suffer from sleep apnea, which is where the airway gets blocked while you are sleeping causing you to not get enough oxygen.
Sleeping on your back, especially on stiffer surfaces, can help with certain types of back pain, but I'm not sure if ... | [
"Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a form of sleep apnea that occurs more frequently and is most severe when individuals are sleeping in the supine position. Studies and evidence show that OSA related to sleeping in the supine position is related to the airway positioning, reduced lung volume, and the inability of a... |
Ancient Warfare, How was it possible one side loses Tens of Thousands while the other only dozens? Ex- Battle of Carrhae. | Don't know if this is enough for a primary response,
& #x200B;
Other than the most obvious answer of incorrect records, most pre industrial battles had very lopsided casualties due to the nature of warfare. The goal is to break and rout your enemy, a fight to the last man would be prohibitively costly even for the ... | [
"The battle has frequently been compared to the Battle of Thermopylae, where a small Greek force faced a large Persian army under Xerxes I in 480 BC. In both cases, a small defending force faced overwhelming odds, fighting to the last man and inflicting an extremely disproportionate number of fatalities on the atta... |
Were gangland killings in Atlantic City and the surrounding areas during prohibition as brutal and regular as depicted in Boardwalk Empire? | I don't know about local New Jersey history but the [St. Valentine's Massacre](_URL_0_) in Chicago is probably the most well known instance of mass violence during prohibition. Because it was also a key hub for liquor distribution, we can speculate that AC probably saw similar gang killings. Since politicians and law... | [
"Bootleggers and gangs were active in the Bronx during Prohibition (1920–33). Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Polish gangs smuggled in most of the illegal whiskey, and the oldest sections of the borough became poverty-stricken.\n",
"Under Nucky Johnson, Atlantic City was one of the leading ports for importing bootleg... |
apparently, the smell of freshly mowed grass is actually chemicals that grass releases to warn other grass of the oncoming danger. why would this be a thing since there's literally nothing grass can do to avoid the oncoming danger? | They aren't warning other grass.
The chemicals being released do a couple things.
They help heal the grass, help seal the grass so that it's a bit more resistant to dmg (doesn't do shit against a steel blade, but helps against a caterpillar).
And it can help to call certain bugs that feed on the bugs that feed on th... | [
"Herbicide volatilisation or spray drift may result in herbicide affecting neighboring fields or plants, particularly in windy conditions. Sometimes, the wrong field or plants may be sprayed due to error.\n",
"Plants may cause harm to animals, including people. Plants that produce windblown pollen invoke allergic... |
why does molasses spoil while honey doesn't? | It's a threshold issue: A fluid compound need 20% water to support bacterial growth. Molasses is about 25% water whereas honey is about 17-18% water. That's is why Molasses will 'go bad' but honey will not. | [
"The honey from stingless bees has a lighter color and a higher water content, from 25% to 35%, compared to the honey from the genus \"Apis\". This contributes to its less cloying taste but also causes it to spoil more easily. Thus, for marketing, this honey needs to be processed through desiccation or pasteurizati... |
hypothetically, if the rotation speed of earth started to accelerate, is there a speed at which we would be thrown into space? | I highly recommend this: _URL_0_ | [
"The tangential speed of Earth's rotation at a point on Earth can be approximated by multiplying the speed at the equator by the cosine of the latitude. For example, the Kennedy Space Center is located at latitude 28.59° N, which yields a speed of: cos 28.59° × 1674.4 km/h = 1470.2 km/h.\n",
"If the speed is high... |
Is it possible to produce a cigarette without any of the harmful ingredients? | Think of a real peach and a fuzzy peach candy (which is modeled to resembled the taste of a peach). It is possible to do the same thing with tobacco.
Now tobacco also contains nicotine which can be isolated and prepared in an inhalation spray, and it is possible to mostly recreate the taste. Any inhalation spray wil... | [
"In October 2012, the World Medical Association released a statement which stated, \"Due to the lack of rigorous chemical and animal studies, as well as clinical trials on commercially available e-cigarettes, neither their value as therapeutic aids for smoking cessation nor their safety as cigarette replacements is... |
If you were light leaving a star and you were able to turn around, what would you see? | This question has some pseudo-scientific implications because, as you probably know, we can't move at the speed of light.
So let's say we're moving at 99.9999% the speed of light away from the Sun. If we look back at the Sun, what do we see? Well, first of all you probably wouldn't seem much because the light from th... | [
"If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and in its place is a girl.\n",
"Taqī al-Dīn tried to disp... |
Has any candidate won their primary election for their respective party and then been turned down by the party? | Hubert Humphrey lost the majority of the primaries for the Democratic party in 1968, but clinched the nomination after the assassination of Robert Kennedy and some political wheeling and dealing at the Chicago convention. It's a really fascinating affair and the repercussions of it shaped a lot of how the parties selec... | [
"The candidates who will run in an open primary will be declared at the national convention, which will take place on 30 April. Voters will also elect the national assembly of the party and the regional secretaries and assemblies. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, a run-off between the two candidates ... |
[Biology] I've been reading about down's syndrome, and I can't find an explanation for why the cell division leaves an extra chromosome 21. Why does this happen? | Cell division isn't perfect. The reason you mostly see an extra chromosome 21 isn't that it's more common. It's just that it's the least deadly trisomy (except probably the trisomies of the sex chromosomes, which can easily go unnoticed). It's sort of like airplanes returning full of bulletholes on areas that don't mat... | [
"BULLET::::- In a small percentage of cases, Down syndrome is caused by a rearrangement of chromosomal material between chromosome 21 and another chromosome. As a result, a person has the usual two copies of chromosome 21, plus extra material from chromosome 21 attached to another chromosome. These cases are called... |
if an independent game studio goes under, who/which company owns the intellectual properties? | When a company shuts down, it generally sells all its assets off to recoup as much money as possible. That includes whatever copyrights and other intellectual property it might own. So the rights are owned by whoever bought them when the company shut down. This is how you get things like the Atari brand being owned ... | [
"The series' intellectual property is currently owned by Microsoft Game Studios (MGS). Weisman's former company, Smith & Tinker Inc., had announced in 2007 that it had licensed the electronic entertainment rights to the franchise, but no new titles were developed.\n",
"In September 2016, Interplay Entertainment p... |
What Would Happen if Someone Cheated in a Duel? | Hiya,
I am sure he will come in and tell you some more about it, but safe to say, /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov has already written [a whole bunch on dueling](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_1_) he addressses your question quite directly. Hope that helps in the meantime! | [
"Duels had been tacitly assumed illegal since a 1614 edict by James I, but often a blind eye was turned. However, prosecution for duelling was a possibility, especially if no seconds or witnesses were present to assure fair play. Adam Nicolson in his book \"Gentry: Six Hundred Years of a Peculiarly English Class\" ... |
What would it be like to move through a superfluid with zero viscosity? | [Here's a 1966 PhD thesis studying exactly that.](_URL_0_) Experimental findings have shown that at low velocity, you do get 0 drag to within experimental error, and the flow looks identical to potential flow.
Weirder stuff starts happening as you accelerate the flow, and you do get drag. There are suggestions that qu... | [
"Viscosity may be added back by using Langevin dynamics instead of Hamiltonian mechanics and choosing an appropriate damping constant for the particular solvent. In practical bimolecular simulations one can often speed-up conformational search significantly (up to 100 times in some cases) by using much lower collis... |
Can a human or other organism be born with so many genetic mutations they aren't genetically a member of the same species as their parents? | Sort of. Species are a nebulous concept at best, but the most common way of defining them is as a group of individuals who are capable of reproducing with each other and not other species. So even a tiny mutation that causes reproductive isolation will, in effect, cause a new species to form. Now there's lots of h... | [
"In heredity the genes of the parents are passed on to their offspring unchanged. That is why the organisms which carry the same genotype should be identical in every feature. However, this is not the case. Due to environmental conditions they can vary from each other up to a certain point. There are two types of m... |
why don't smartphones (or any cell phones for that matter), when using its autofill/autocorrect feature while you're texting, detect over time which words you use more often and stop prompting is to correct the words we never use? | In some cases, they do. For example, the SwiftKey keyboard for Android analyzes not only the way you use it, but also your most commonly used words and phrases in your emails and social networks.
However, in general, it's better to base predictions off the population of word usage as a whole, rather than trying to opt... | [
"In recent years, location-based technologies that detect potential texting while driving situations have been developed for both the Android operating system and the iPhone operating system (iOS). Other technologies have been developed for law enforcement. A search for \"no texting while driving\" in Google Play o... |
Is WWII directly responsible for pulling the US out if the depression? If so, can modern wars do the same? Why haven't they pulled us out of a recession? | AFAIK, there is no objectively accepted answer to this question. Economists still disagree strongly on the effect government spending has on the economy, and whether stimulus during WWII helped the economy.
Anyone who tries to tell you the "right" answer to this without acknowledging the complex disagreements on the i... | [
"He cites the growth of government spending and economic regulations as the U.S. began in its involvement in World War II as key evidence for his argument. He writes, \"As military spending created jobs and family incomes rose, consumer spending also picked up (it would eventually be restrained by rationing, but th... |
Can I spin a ball on two axes? | No. You're really only rotating about one axis. If you express the rotations as matrices, you can see more easily that doing two rations at once is the same as doing the rotation that corresponds to the product of the two rotation matrices. | [
"To achieve spin, the machine should be tilted to one side, and the wheels set to different speeds as per swing bowling. It will also probably be necessary to make the machine bowl significantly more slowly. The combined action of the spin imparted by the wheels, and the non-perpendicular axis of that spin will cau... |
Economic Histories (tulips and other bubbles) | Good questions. Unfortunately I don't have time to write an exhaustive answer right now, so I'll have to limit myself to some general observations and pointers.
Charles Mackay's book was originally published in 1841, and the current popular perception of the Dutch tulip mania stems largely from that one work. Its endu... | [
"BULLET::::- 1636–1637: Tulip mania, generally considered to be the first recorded economic bubble (or speculative bubble) in history. Early stock market bubbles and crashes also have their roots in financial activities of the Dutch East India Company and Dutch Republic.\n",
"Asset bubbles are now widely regarded... |
why do some people understand different accents better than others? | From my understanding it could be like this.
Imagine our hypothetical country Hyborea is split with a border north to south with an eastern state and western state. For a few years they're separated because the roads over the border are ruined by a drunk tractor driver with his plow.
In the east they speak the trad... | [
"It can be noted that use of language such as certain accents may result in an individual experiencing prejudice. For example, some accents hold more prestige than others depending on the cultural context. However, with so many dialects, it can be difficult to determine which is the most preferable. The best answer... |
how are made-up languages, such as those in tv and film, made up? what techniques are used to get a solid and flowing speech rather than grouped sounds? | Basically, they just take a bunch of common words and "translate" them to a group of sounds. Then, they make up the grammar. For example, the Dragonborn language has the same grammar as English. | [
"Speech synthesis techniques are also used in entertainment productions such as games and animations. In 2007, Animo Limited announced the development of a software application package based on its speech synthesis software FineSpeech, explicitly geared towards customers in the entertainment industries, able to gen... |
What determines it a food is good or not? | Most of that is based on previous psychological experience, that is for personal tastes. When it comes to things that are (almost) universally "good" or "bad" to people, it largely has to do with how it interacts with different types of taste buds (sweet, sour, salty, etc.). Then as we live our lives, psychological e... | [
"On a biological scale, nutritive value of food may vary for different health conditions (leading to dietary recommendations and particular diet foods), seasonal differences, age and sexual differences, and interspecies or greater taxonomic differences. An absolute scale with fixed ratings even for humans only is q... |
How can atoms that are bosons occupy the same state in a Bose-Einstein condensate if they are made of fermions which can't be in the same states as each other? | If you have a Bose-Einstein condensate of Cooper-paired fermions (I'll just call this a superconductor), and write the wave function in terms of the underlying fermions, you'll find the the Pauli exclusion principle still holds for all of them.
I'll come up with an example of how this works using the simplest model of... | [
"BULLET::::- Fermionic condensate: Similar to the Bose–Einstein condensate but composed of fermions, also known as Fermi-Dirac condensate. The Pauli exclusion principle prevents fermions from entering the same quantum state, but a pair of fermions can behave as a boson, and multiple such pairs can then enter the sa... |
the charlie hebdo shooting | For those unfamiliar with what happened:
2 masked gunmen entered Charlie Hebdo's headquarters, armed with AK rifles, shotguns, and an RPG. They entered by forcing a cartoonist at gunpoint to enter in the passcode to the building. They shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" and then open fired.
They shot and killed 12 people, and w... | [
"On June 13, 2015, James Boulware shot at the Dallas Police Department from an armored van with what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon. The shooting occurred at the department's headquarters in the Cedars neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. He then led the police in a chase to nearby Hutchins, where he remained in ... |
how does wind actually work? why are places like co/wy so incredibly windy all the time? | Wind is the result of temperature and pressure differences across the world attempting to balance themselves. It has more to do with the sun than the tides, as the sun is constantly adding heat to different parts of the globe as the world spins. Mountainous regions, such as in parts of CO, have the added factor that th... | [
"Wind speeds are often lower in cities than the countryside because the buildings act as barriers (wind breaks). On the other hand, long streets with tall buildings can act as wind tunnels – winds funnelled down the street – and can be gusty as winds are channelled round buildings (eddying).\n",
"Direction of the... |
may sound silly, but what are those intense stomach pains i sometimes get when i really need to poop? | Labor pains for your shit babies. | [
"A common gastrointestinal problem is constipation—infrequent bowel movements, hard stools, or strain during the movements—which causes serious cases of bloating. Since most cases of constipation are temporary, simple lifestyle changes, such as getting more exercise and increasing one's intake of fiber, can go a lo... |
if matter can’t be destroyed, what happens to an object when it is vaporized? | A vapor is still matter. So are the people who were "vaporized" in the atomic blasts in Japan; they were simply broken down into much smaller component parts, probably gas, ashes and dust.
However, before they were vaporized, some of those poor people blocked the initial gamma ray burst and some part of the heat and ... | [
"Although mass cannot be converted to energy, in some reactions matter particles (which contain a form of rest energy) can be destroyed and the energy released can be converted to other types of energy that are more usable and obvious as forms of energy—such as light and energy of motion (heat, etc.). However, the ... |
How racist was America really in the last century? | I haven't seen Boardwalk Empire, so I couldn't say for certain, but that sounds very much like the Cafe Society (_URL_1_). It was the first racially integrated club in the country, and caused quite a scandal when it opened. It had black and white performers and the owners made a point of treating all their customers eq... | [
"Racism in the United States has been a major issue ever since colonialism and slavery. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans, Americans from lesser developed parts of Europe, an Asian Americans. European Americans were privileged by law in matters... |
Do snakes live together? (Garter snakes) | Garter snakes in particular are communal. I know they can have quite a few snakes living in burrow together. They all kinda keep other warm during brumation.
It's likely there is many other snakes that live in that hole as well. | [
"The snakes hibernate during the winter underground or in deep crevices. They may congregate in the same dens with other species of snakes, such as copperheads (\"Agkistrodon contortrix\"), eastern racers (\"Coluber constrictor\") and timber rattlesnakes (\"Crotalus horridus\"). In Northern climes, the snakes are a... |
why dogecoin is such a big deal | There are a lot of theories, but nothing concrete.
As for what it actually is, Dogecoin at its core is essentially a copy of Litecoin, a cryptocurrency that itself was based on Bitcoin except using a different hashing algorithm (scrypt) designed to be better suited for GPU mining than mining using dedicated circuits (... | [
"Dogecoin was created by programmer Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon, who hoped to create a fun cryptocurrency that could reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin. In addition, he wanted to distance it from the controversial history of other coins. At the same time, Jackson Palmer, a member of Adobe Systems' mark... |
why can't we use immunity from one person to help heal the other that don't have it? | We do...sort of. That's why horses used to be used to make anti-toxins for various snake venom. You inject the horse with the venom and collect it's blood and separate it's the anti-toxins from their blood. It's also how we come up with most flu vaccines and why they always ask you if you're allergic to eggs. They ... | [
"Levels and extent of immunity varies from disease to disease. For smallpox and measles for example, those who survive are equipped with the cellular immunity to combat the disease for the rest of their life in that they cannot contract the disease again. There are also diseases in which immunity does not guarantee... |
why doesn't salt explode when we eat it? | Table salt is Sodium Chloride, and it breaks down into a Sodium *ion* and a Chlorine *ion*. These are a little different than elemental, non-ion versions.
Yes, Sodium is crazy reactive, because it has one "loose" elecron in it's outer orbit that "wants" to react with something. The Sodium ion in salt **already reacted... | [
"Because sugars burn easily when exposed to flame, the handling of sugars risks dust explosion. The risk of explosion is higher when the sugar has been milled to superfine texture, such as for use in chewing gum. The 2008 Georgia sugar refinery explosion, which killed 14 people and injured 40, and destroyed most of... |
How does hand-eye coordination work? | From these videos I gather that the answer is largely unknown. This one comes foremost to me:
_URL_1_
And here's something on Grid Cells.
_URL_0_ | [
"Eye hand coordination (also known as hand–eye coordination) is the coordinated control of eye movement with hand movement and the processing of visual input to guide reaching and grasping along with the use of proprioception of the hands to guide the eyes. Eye–hand coordination has been studied in activities as di... |
if the tor network was funded by government, how is it guaranteed to be secure? | Plenty of people have actually done this research: the implementation know as Tor is open-source, it's plain to see what code is used for each Tor node and each Tor client. | [
"Even stronger anonymity can be gained by using Tor. Tor is not merely a proxy chain, but an onion router, which means that routing information (as well as message content) is encrypted in such a way as to prevent linking the origin and destination. Like all anonymity networks, Tor cannot end-to-end encrypt message... |
How does virtual surround sound work with only 2 speakers? | Well, we humans have only one input (ear) per side, which would basically only allow us to distinguish right/left and not front/back.
But we have [pinnea](_URL_0_), which make sound from the front and from the back take very different routes to the ear. This results in complex changes in the sound that enable our brai... | [
"Virtual surround is an audio system that attempts to create the perception that there are many more sources of sound than are actually present. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to devise some means of tricking the human auditory system into thinking that a sound is coming from somewhere that it is not. Mo... |
why do the insides of your ears hurt so much after being outside in the cold for a while? | Not sure but it happens to me too. Hurts bad. I stuff napkin, tp, cotton balls, earbuds in to help. I always thought it had to do with expansion from cold or something. Not sure it's a medical thing, my ears are fine all other times. | [
"Irritation from cold wind and water exposure causes the bone surrounding the ear canal to develop lumps of new bony growth which constrict the ear canal. Where the ear canal is actually blocked by this condition, water and wax can become trapped and give rise to infection. The condition is so named due to its prev... |
the difference between a cold and a flu | They're different viruses, but they are similar in certain ways: they both mutate rapidly and both tend to make people sick during "flu season," which is late fall through winter. Because they mutate so quickly, you can get sick by them again and again. That's why people might catch a cold every year and the flu every ... | [
"Influenza, commonly known as flu, is an infectious disease from a viral pathogen different from the one that produces the common cold. Symptoms of influenza, which are much more severe than the common cold, include fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort. Influe... |
What happened to people in Germany who were "De-Housed" during Allied bombing? | Always scope for more, but as a starting point there's a previous question: [What happened to German civilians who lost their homes due to Allied bombings? what forms of recourse did they have from the Nazi government?](_URL_0_) | [
"In World War II, civilian homes were deliberately destroyed on a massive scale, particularly on the Eastern Front following the orders of Soviet premier Joseph Stalin to raze houses, farms and fields to deny their use to the advancing forces of Nazi Germany. Belarus was one of the worst affected regions, suffering... |
how do some chickens live with their heads cut off like mike the headless chicken, but other animals like us humans can't? | Technically we can too. Babies born with Anencephaly have no higher brain function, just mainly the stem. Which is how mike the headless chicken survived. | [
"Mike the Headless Chicken was an inspiration for the poultry-themed comedy punk band The Radioactive Chicken Heads, serving as the subject of their 2008 song \"Headless Mike\", for which a music video was filmed. The band also features a Headless Mike puppet which is frequently used in their live shows.\n",
"Sam... |
is feminism a struggle for equality with men, or a struggle for liberation from men? or something else entirely? | Well, feminism isn't one single unified movement, it's a bunch of different schools of thought that share a core interest in issues surrounding gender but may have different end goals or different beliefs about how to reach those goals. Some feminists will say it's more about equality and others will say it's more abou... | [
"However, equality, while supported by most feminists, is not universally seen as the required result of the feminist movement, even by feminists. Some consider it feminist to increase the rights of women from an origin that is less than man's without obtaining full equality. Their premise is that some gain of powe... |
Otto I or Charlemagne as First Holy Roman Emperor? | As for their ethnicities: both were Germans (speaking an old German dialect; the term "German"/"deutsch" was developed in the 10th and 11th century). Charlemagne was a Frank, Otto a Saxon. Both were crowned "Frankish kings". When Otto invaded Italy he also took on the same title as Charlemagne "Rex Francorum et Langoba... | [
"For this reason, Charlemagne, the King of the Franks and King of Italy, was crowned Emperor of the Romans (\"Imperator Romanorum\") by Pope Leo III, as the successor of Constantine VI as Roman Emperor under the concept of \"translatio imperii\". The Eastern Empire eventually relented to recognizing Charlemagne and... |
how come in islam their prophet's name is prevelant among muslims yet in christianity it's almost unheard of? (excluding jesús) | Christianity regards Jesus not as a prophet but as an aspect of God himself. As such, naming your child Jesus is much more akin to naming your child Allah than naming him Mohamed. A better parallel is the prevalence of Abraham and Isacc in Jewish naming and the frequency of Peter, Paul, Matthew, Mary, John and Luke i... | [
"Muslims consider Jesus a prophet of God. The Qur'an also speaks of Jesus's disciples but does not mention their names, instead referring to them as \"helpers to the prophet of God\". Muslim exegesis and Qur'an commentary, however, names them and includes Peter among the disciples. An old tradition, which involves ... |
Why did the Anglo-Saxons build a new city next to Londinium, instead of taking over from the Romans? | One of the major architectural elements of Alfred's reoccupation of London in the late 9th Century is a significant remapping and reconstruction of the road network, in particular the clearing of areas around the river. What this suggests is that by the time of significant early Anglo-Saxon occupation, the Roman docks ... | [
"Although Londinium remained important for the rest of the Roman period, no further expansion resulted. Londinium supported a smaller but stable settlement population as archaeologists have found that much of the city after this date was covered in dark earth—the by-product of urban household waste, manure, ceramic... |
what is the difference between a genuine psychopath and someone who just acts like one? | I'm not quite sure what you mean by this question. Someone who acts like a psychopath and someone who is a psychopath would be indistinguishable to outsiders. Clinical psychopathy is distinguished by a total lack of empathy. Where you or I would feel bad to watch someone in agony, or to be causing that agony, psychopat... | [
"Psychopathic individuals are best known for their flagrant disregard for social and moral norms. Psychopaths have dysfunctional personal relationships, characterized by violence, exploitation, and philandering. Emotionally, they are incapable of feeling guilt or empathy, they respond abnormally to fear and pain, a... |
why do turbojets not need compressors at a mach 1? | It's more an issue that turbojet compressors can't stand the forces at play when the air is supersonic in relation to the engine, unless the engine is designed to slow the passage of the air at the inlet (Those big spikes on the SR-71 are an obvious example). If you want to operate without any compression from within t... | [
"By way of comparison, a turbojet uses a gas turbine-driven fan to compress the air further. This gives greater compression and efficiency and far more power at low speeds (where the ram effect is weak), but is more complex, heavier, expensive, and the temperature limits of the turbine section limit the top speed a... |
what is "being triggered" by something? when should i be worried about triggering people? | Basically it pulls repressed memories. If someone was a rape victim, talk about rape or anything close to the subject would "trigger" them. The alarming amount of bull people claim triggers them and want discussion to cease has grown absurd though. | [
"Triggers are reminders that may be explicit or implicit about the performance of a behavior. Examples of triggers can be alarms, text messages or advertisement, triggers are usually perceptual in nature but may also be intrinsic. One of the most important aspects of a trigger is timing as only certain times are be... |
Could I use a diamond to break a car window? | You don't necessarily need it to be harder than the glass, you just need to concentrate your force, its just a matter of pressure!
The glass in a car window is super tempered which makes it really strong, but really brittle, so all you need to do is generate a small crack in it and it will explode. Most tools designe... | [
"Once inside Ciarrocchi started throwing smoke bombs and Cockram attempted to break the glass, where the diamonds were stored. Inside the Dome, Cockram knew that the glass could resist the force of a 60-ton ram raid, but his plan was to weaken the glass with three shots from a powerful Hilti nailgun and then anothe... |
Could someone explain how Thomas Jefferson was such a pusher for human right yet still was a major slave holder? | According to [this response to a similar question](_URL_0_) by u/cjt09 , he states that Jefferson believed in a gradual abolition of slavery and explains much more his perspective on the issue. | [
"Important 20th-century Jefferson biographers including Merrill Peterson support the view that Jefferson was strongly opposed to slavery; Peterson said that Jefferson's ownership of slaves \"all his adult life has placed him at odds with his moral and political principles. Yet there can be no question of his genuin... |
We always hear the phrase "97% of scientists back climate change" So what is the argument against it from the 3%? | The exact arguments against from the '3%' are varied, but they suffer from serious methodological or logical flaws, e.g. extreme cherry-picking, incorrect statistical methods, etc. This [paper from Benestad et al 2015](_URL_0_) presents a review of some of the common issues, which, while not exhaustive (i.e. they do no... | [
"Climate Feedback, a fact-checking website on media coverage of climate science, has assessed that multiple opinion articles range between \"low\" and \"very low\" in terms of scientific credibility. The \"Journal\" has been accused of refusing to publish opinions of scientists which present the mainstream view on ... |
How did Japan come to be omnivorous? | During the Meiji period, the Westernizing forces in the government encouraged meat eating to make Japanese people more like Europeans in terms of size (and strength, for building a military). Initially, in worked very well, and the average height of the Japanese born in the Meiji period increased from that of previous ... | [
"In 675, the use of livestock and the consumption of some wild animals (horse, cattle, dogs, monkeys, birds) was banned in Japan by Emperor Tenmu, due to the influence of Buddhism. Subsequently, in the year 737 of the Nara period, the Emperor Seimu approved the eating of fish and shellfish. During the twelve hundre... |
how did a successful brand like gucci get to its level and keep its balance of a higher brand. | This is better in r/answers. | [
"Gucci has created strong partnerships with Hollywood celebrities and social media influencers, working closely with these individuals to reach more demographics and re-establish its identity as a new, modern brand; despite the fact that it has been around for a while. The brand has changed directions in working wi... |
Why and when did Blasphemy cease to become the primary component of English-language swearing? | Swearing is a way to relieve tension. It does this in a few ways, including the actual physical production of the words in your mouth. Consider that there are lots of hard consonants (eg, t, k, f sounds, as opposed to something like h or sh) in English swear words. These sounds require you to put parts of your mouth to... | [
"The Oath of Supremacy, imposed by the Act of Supremacy 1558, provided for any person taking public or church office in England to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Failure to so swear was a crime, although it did not become treason until 1562, when the Supremacy of the C... |
what did president george w. bush do that was good and bad? | Your asking for something that will open up a hornets nest. I'd suggest you just read about him and make up your own mind, 'cuz reditt is a very liberal community and I'm sure most will tear him down.
My opinon is not a bad president not a great one either. He did what America wanted him to do. | [
"Days after the 9/11 attacks, Ailes advised President George W. Bush that the American public would be patient as long as they were convinced that Bush was using the harshest measures possible. The correspondence was revealed in Bob Woodward's book \"Bush at War\". Criticized for giving political advice, Ailes lash... |
Eiffel Tower: Iron or Steel | A short answer: Iron; wrought iron to be exact. But there's a couple of things that have to be addressed here, specifically:
* metallurgy technology
* what can we define as 'steel age', or what sensibly made your teacher suppose it's made of steel
* construction technology
Let's start with basic chemistry and metallu... | [
"The Iron Tower () is a mediaeval tower dating to the early 13th century, and modified in the 15th century, which with the Wood Tower and the Alexander Tower is one of three remaining towers from the city walls of Mainz, Germany. Its name derives from the Iron Market (\"Eisenmarkt\"), which was held in the immediat... |
Why are the front side of microwaves barely see-through. Why wouldn't manufacturers make them entirely see-through? | The metal mesh that obstructs your view is part of what is known as a Faraday cage. This prevents the microwaves from escaping the oven. Not only does this greatly increase the efficiency of the device, but it also prevents the microwave oven from completely rendering your 2.4 GHz WiFi network inoperable whenever it is... | [
"Any metal surface which concentrates a significant fraction of the reflected microwaves at a focus can be used as a dish antenna, at a lower gain. This has led to trash can lids, woks, and other items being used as \"dishes\". Only modern low noise LNBs and the higher transmission power of DTH satellites allows a ... |
Has there ever been an experiment that showed that light can slow down in a vacuum? | There was such an experiment, I saw it on _URL_0_ a few weeks ago. It was a very tiny effect which was actually due to the geometry of their experiment making the path a bit longer that it at first appeared.
As other posters said, gravity can also make light appear to move more slowly in vacuum, which is what causes... | [
"In 1962 J. G. Fox pointed out that all previous experimental tests of the constancy of the speed of light were conducted using light which had passed through stationary material: glass, air, or the incomplete vacuum of deep space. As a result, all were thus subject to the effects of the extinction theorem. This im... |
what actually matters in computers and internet regarding speed and performance? | Okay, imagine your computer like an office cubical. The CPU is the employee, the RAM is the surface of the desk, and the hard drive like filling cabinets. Some programs are like paper work with lots of pages so they take up more desk space, other programs are like harder paper work so it takes more employee engagement.... | [
"Speed, for the purpose of this article, is how quickly a server can deliver an article to the user. The server that the user connects to is typically part of a server farm that has many servers dedicated to multiple tasks. How fast the data can move in this farm is the first thing that affects the speed of deliver... |
why is there restrictions on ways to gather evidence for a criminal case? | Because if you make any methods allowed, you create an incentive for government overreach (violating privacy, etc) and room for corruption ("oh yeah I discovered this by myself and it totally incriminates that guy I don't like") among, I am sure, a host of other problems.
If someone on your street stole something val... | [
"When evidence can be used in court to convict persons of crimes, it must be handled in a scrupulously careful manner to prevent tampering or contamination. The idea behind recording the \"chain of custody\" is to establish that the alleged evidence is in fact related to the alleged crime, rather than having, for e... |
if medical advances are at the point where organ donations and skin grafts are available, why can't women undergoing breast reduction donate breast tissue to, for example, mastectomy patients who need reconstruction? | The reason a lot of women opt out of reconstruction isn't because of a lack of tissue/implant to fill the area, but because of risk associated with the reconstruction. Many women who have had a mastectomy are unwilling to undergo additional surgery and fear that tumors could grow in the reconstructed breasts. These wom... | [
"In surgical praxis, the abdomen is the primary donor-site for harvesting the tissues to create the free flap, because that region of the woman's body usually contain's sufficient (redundant) adipocyte fat and skin -tissues that are biologically compatible and aesthetically adequate for the construction of a substi... |
Is it possible that mass graves from WW2 are still undiscovered? | Absolutely. Not only is it likely, I would go so far as to suggest that it is a near certainty that there are still unknown mass graves stretching across large swaths of Central and Eastern Europe that date from the Second World War.
As a matter of fact, there have been [several](_URL_2_) ... [mass](_URL_0_) ... [gr... | [
"The police took officially over the investigations of the remains after the mass grave was located as there was the possibility that bodies might have been connected to 2nd world war events. Police informed that the dating of the mass grave will be published in end of 2006.\n",
"A single mass grave grave contain... |
why are public school teachers protected by tenure, but not other school employees like the janitors or the nurses? | The goal of tenure was to make sure the teacher would have the freedom to teach, and not have to worry about getting fired for their beliefs. Just because someone has unpopular beliefs doesn't mean that the person was a bad teacher, and that's what tenure was trying to get at. Nurses or janitors don't need tenure becau... | [
"Many argue, among other things, that the job security granted by tenure is necessary to recruit talented individuals into professorships, because in many fields private industry jobs pay significantly more. Tenure also protects teachers from being fired for personal, political, or other non-work related reasons. T... |
How are we able to understand misspelled words? | Having the correct first and last letter of the word seems to be pretty key. Msot pelpoe shluod be albe to raed tihs stencene. Researchers found that with the first and last letters correct the letters in the middle can generally be jumbled. Beyond that, context makes a lot of difference. It's a lot easier to inter... | [
"Recently, research has focused on developing algorithms that are capable of recognizing a misspelled word, even if the word itself is in the vocabulary, based on the context of the surrounding words. Not only does this allow words such as those in the poem above to be caught, but it mitigates the detrimental effec... |
is a ship similar to a star destroyer possible with current technology? | No. Not in the slightest. We have no FTL travel capabilities, no energy weapons or shielding, no massive life support systems, no artificial gravity. The best we can do is stock a space station for a year to keep six to 10 people alive. | [
"BULLET::::- In 2E, the only spaceships that could be built were Cruisers, Carriers, Dreadnoughts, and Fighters. 3E introduced Destroyers (cheaper and weaker than Cruisers, but more mobile than Fighters), and War Suns (expensive and powerful super ships).\n",
"At the start of the 21st century, destroyers are the ... |
As Li-ion batteries age and hold less charge, what actually changes about them chemically? | Hi StarManta, this is an excellent question! I did a little bit of work on cathodic materials early on while getting my PhD, and I recall two major processes that can eventually "kill" the battery.
First, let me explain how they work. The cathode is usually a metal oxide doped with lithium which intercalate into the h... | [
"All Li-ion cells expand at high levels of state of charge (SOC) or over-charge, due to slight vaporisation of the electrolyte. This may result in delamination, and thus bad contact of the internal layers of the cell, which in turn brings diminished reliability and overall cycle life of the cell. This is very notic... |
windmill question. | Efficiency. Adding an extra blade will not raise a 3-blade 3MW turbine to become a 4MW turbine. More likely, a 3.5. It adds weight, it increases the number of things that can go wrong, and increases expense. 3 is an optimum. You can get more power from more blades (up to a point), but with ever diminishing returns, ... | [
"This type of windmill is described as \"\"...a fixed tower surmounted by a movable cap which supported the sails. The windcap was turned into the wind by hand using a fixed pole. The structure, built of local materials, often stone rubble, stood on an artificial mound over a stone-built vaulted chamber or cellar. ... |
The American presidential election of 1800 is often hailed as "the world's first peaceful transfer of power." Is this claim justified? How seriously should it be taken? | Any prior monarchy that has had a sucession without a war, any republic that had an election without bloodshed or any theocracy that got a new leader without any kind of violence would disprove this theory. As such, due to the very large sample of states, republics, monarchies and empires that predate the US, I think i... | [
"The second theme's origination is less precise. A popular expression of America's mission was elaborated by President Abraham Lincoln's description in his December 1, 1862, message to Congress. He described the United States as \"the last, best hope of Earth\". The \"mission\" of the United States was further elab... |
How much of a fingerprint is needed to identify somebody? | Typically to identify someone based on a fingerprint left behind you need an area large enough that contains 8-12 unique print characteristics. This could be a small area or a large area, it just depends on the print and the location. | [
"Since the late nineteenth century, fingerprint identification methods have been used by police agencies around the world to identify suspected criminals as well as the victims of crime. The basis of the traditional fingerprinting technique is simple. The skin on the palmar surface of the hands and feet forms ridge... |
As you disperse the contents of an aerosol can it cools, what is this process called? | The Joule-Thompson effect. | [
"Aerosolization refers to a process of intentionally oxidatively converting and suspending particles or a composition in a moving stream of air for the purpose of delivering the oxidized particles or composition to a particular location.\n",
"Aerosol Impaction is the process in which particles are removed from an... |
why do airport security take sharp objects off you (safety razors, safety pins, nail scissors) and then allow you to buy them at the pharmacy in departures? | The TSA exists mostly as a show of force to dissuade people from trying things in airport security zones. If a clever person really wanted to get something nefarious in, they probably could, but most people simply aren't that dedicated. By making everyone subtly hate the TSA, the mythos that they are unbeatable permeat... | [
"Several airlines do not allow sales of certain sharp objects in-flight due to security risk. Other objects that have sharp parts, such as model airplanes, may be bought in-flight but received at the passengers' home address for the same reason.\n",
"There are places that prohibit people from entering with object... |
do these personality assessment for job applications actually work? | The way they're scored, it's possible to do too good...or at least the one I took years and years ago was.
Basically candidates are supposed to fall somewhere toward the middle of the bell curve. Too far one way, and you're a risk to hire because you're a borderline sociopath. Too far the other and you're a risk to hi... | [
"In the past, the use of Individual psychological assessment has increased and improved within human resources to evaluate and maintain potential candidates for employment in various levels of position in the workforce. The use of this type of assessment has become defined and set criteria have been developed to te... |
Don't wooden utility poles become less strong over the years when exposed to snow and rain compared to concrete poles? | Not an issue, after the tree is stripped of bark it is chemically pressure treated deep into the wood with a long lasting barrier which prevents water from absorbing which would cause rot and expansion from ice and prevents invasive insects such as termites from borrowing into the wood. | [
"Steel utility poles are becoming more prevalent in the United States thanks to improvements in engineering and corrosion prevention coupled with lowered production costs. However, premature failure due to corrosion is a concern when compared to wood. The National Association of Corrosion Engineers or NACE is devel... |
Are arctic mammals cold all of the time? | Those animals which do not migrate in winter and those in areas where weather can get below freezing... so most of Canada, Russia, and parts of USA for example, have special adaptations to deal with freezing temperature, lack of food and lack of fresh water (snow is difficult to eat, and often access to running fresh w... | [
"Many of the species at risk are Arctic and Antarctic fauna such as polar bears and emperor penguins. In the Arctic, the waters of Hudson Bay are ice-free for three weeks longer than they were thirty years ago, affecting polar bears, which prefer to hunt on sea ice. Species that rely on cold weather conditions such... |
Is there any common root to all languages? | We don't know. We have no evidence to say so either way.
At present there is no known common parent language. There have been a bunch of theories over the years, but so far none of the big supergroupings has held up. We just don't have enough information to make that kind of claim.
In fact, we're not certain how huma... | [
"Approximately 600 native word roots are shared by the Finnic and Samic languages, of which approximately 100 lack cognates in the other Uralic languages. The high number of Finnic loanwords in Samic makes exact analysis however difficult, and old loanwords from Samic to Finnic may also be involved, especially in l... |
creatine: what does creatine help out with while lifting? | wow both of the answers here are wrong. like they don't even lift. holy crap.
your muscles (and your entire body) use ATP (adenosine triphosphate - there are 3 phosphates) for energy. when ATP is used, it loses a phosphate group and becomes ADP (adenosine diphosphate - 2 phosphates). creatine, which is phosphocreatine... | [
"Creatine is an organic acid naturally occurring in the body that supplies energy to muscle cells for short bursts of energy (as required in lifting weights) via creatine phosphate replenishment of ATP. A number of scientific studies have shown that creatine can improve strength, energy, muscle mass, and recovery t... |
Who are the descendants of the Parthians living today? | The descendants will be the people living in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The Parthian Empire was an Iranian empire founded by the Arsacid Dynasty, who originated from an Iranian tribe native to the region of Khorasan (an area connecting Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan). Iranian is an identity covering many [... | [
"During the rise of the Parthians, many of the Amerdians were forced into exile to the southern slopes of the Alborz mountains known today as Varamin and Garmsar, and the Tabaris (who were then living somewhere between today's Yaneh Sar to the north and Shahrud to the south) replaced them in the region.\n",
"The ... |
Did The Confederacy Ever Express An Interest In Acquiring More Land/States/Colonies During The War, Or, If They Should Have Won, After The War? | Well, the Confederacy did have a short-lived "Territory of Arizona," which comprised the southern halves of what are now Arizona and New Mexico. Had the Confederacy succeeded in ending the war at the border of California, you can be certain they would have attempted to spark a secession in southern California as well. ... | [
"Once war with the United States began, the Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by Great Britain and France. The Confederates who had believed that \"cotton is king\" – that is, that Britain had to support the Confederacy to obtain cotton – proved mistaken. The British had stocks to l... |
Why were Zheng He's voyages considered wasteful? | The Ming Dynasty, which started and ended these voyages, took over after the violent end of the Mongol Dynasty, which was widely, and correctly, regarded as a foreign imposition. This led the government, over time, to be quite suspicious of foreign influences. There were also dynastic politics at play in this; empero... | [
"Ray (1987) states that the cessation of the Ming treasure voyages primarily happened as traders and bureaucrats, for reasons of economic self-interest and through their connections in Beijing, gradually collapsed the framework supporting the state-controlled maritime enterprise and the strict regulation of the pri... |
What languages do I need to learn to be a really good historian? | Simple: whatever seems relevant for what you want to study. If you are interested in Russian history, then you are well on your way. In grad school you'll acquire languages that you need, and your advisors will advise you on those. There's no point to studying French if you plan to be an historian of Australia, probabl... | [
"Language studies are divided into the following disciplines: Philosophy, Sociology, History, Geography, Letters, Arabic, Russian, Languages and Civilizations, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, German and Linguistics.\n",
"Archaeology; Area Studies; Classics; Comparative literature; English language a... |
why is saffron so expensive? | Saffron comes from the stigmas of a flower called the purple crocus. There's only a few stigmas in each flower. So it takes a lot of flowers and a lot of hard labor to harvest and prepare even a small amount of saffron. I think it's cheaper if you buy saffron threads instead of in ground powder form, though. | [
"The main reason saffron is considered one of the most expensive spices in the world is due to the cultivation process coupled with the amount of produced saffron per Crocus \"(Crocus sativus)\" cultivated\".\" The process of cultivating saffron is so laborious a process because only three red stigma (saffron) are ... |
Why is Croatia shaped like a V? | During the early medieval era, [The Kingdom of Croatia](_URL_0_) span the territories where both the Croats and the Bosnians lived. After a series of wars in the 10th century, they lost the duchy of Bosnia to the Byzantine Empire, resulting in a shape roughly similar to the one of the modern state. In 1102, after a per... | [
"Topography of Croatia is defined through three major geomorphological parts of the country. Those are the Pannonian Basin, the Dinaric Alps, and the Adriatic Basin. The largest part of Croatia consists of lowlands, with elevations of less than above sea level recorded in 53.42% of the country. Bulk of the lowlands... |
How do helicopters do rolls and loops? | _URL_0_ and the follow up videos have a wonderful explanation of how helicopter control surfaces work. It really helps to understand helicopter rotors as spinning wings that can be angled independently from the pitch angle of the helicopter itself. | [
"\"Helicopters\" have a rotor turned by an engine-driven shaft. The rotor pushes air downward to create lift. By tilting the rotor forward, the downward flow is tilted backward, producing thrust for forward flight. Some helicopters have more than one rotor and a few have rotors turned by gas jets at the tips.\n",
... |
Is there any evidence that William Shakespeare was gay or is it just heavily rumoured? | Answering questions like this can always run aground on the fact that ‘gay’ as a category is a fairly recent invention. A homosexual, as in a person with an identity based on being homosexual combining many aspects of a discourse, is widely not thought to have existed before the enlightenment or possibly even before 19... | [
"The sexuality of William Shakespeare has been the subject of recurring debate. It is known from public records that he married Anne Hathaway and that they had three children; scholars have analysed their relationship through these documents, and particularly through the bequests to her in Shakespeare's will. Some ... |
so what to do female olympic athletes, or tennis stars do if they get their periods on the big competition day ? how do they cope? my friends say its a big loss of blood, cramps etc | Two things:
Thing A: Having your period is usually not debilitating. Exercise helps a great deal with cramps, and usually by the time you are an adult if you do happen to be one of the unlucky few with terrible cramps you have probably learned to control them or gotten on medication that helps.
Also, it isn't "bloo... | [
"Romania has fielded a team of five athletes into the table tennis competition at the Games. Ovidiu Ionescu, along with two-time Olympians Elizabeta Samara and Daniela Dodean, were automatically selected among the top 22 eligible players each in their respective singles events based on the ITTF Olympic Rankings. Me... |
how does the whiskey and water trick work? | Density.
The water is more dense than the whisky. So water will weigh more than the whisky. They switch places since they are the same volume. The heavier water fills up the entire bottom glass, leaving the lighter whisky nowhere to go except up into the top glass. | [
"A waterfall bong (or reverse bucket bong) is another method of smoking. It is assembled using a large plastic bottle (preferably about 2 liter), a bung or rubber stopper, a brass cut nozzle to act as a bowl and keep the marijuana (or other herbs) from entering the bottle, and an aerator screen. Once the bottle is ... |
If you compress a gas enough, will it be forced to change state? | There are these things called [supercritical fluids](_URL_0_), which are pretty much what you describe when you say a liquid-like state that is not technically a liquid.
Oxygen does this at about 154 K and 50 atmospheres of pressure. If it is any temperature above that it will just never be a proper liquid.
Liquids ... | [
"To close the system of equations we need an equation of state for the pressure. To do that we assume that the medium is an ideal gas and all acoustic waves compress the medium in an adiabatic and reversible manner. The equation of state can then be expressed in the form of the differential equation:\n",
"The sta... |
what is equity market? | Equity Market usually refers to the stock market, the trading of shares of companies. Equity is an ownership stake in something, and investors, etc. refer to the equity market for stocks, as opposed to the bond market, commodities market, derivatives markets and such | [
"Private equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private equity funds. Sellers of private equity investments sell not only the investments in the fund, but also their remaining unfunded commitments to the funds.\n",
"In finance, the private equity secondary... |
why does microsoft alternate between very popular os's and infamous os's? | My guess is the bad one is supposed to be a large jump with a bunch of new things to test what people like and dislike, then to create a new version combining the elements people liked from the previous two versions. | [
"The two companies had significant differences in culture and vision. Microsoft favored the open hardware system approach that contributed to its success on the PC; IBM sought to use OS/2 to drive sales of its own hardware, including systems that could not support the features Microsoft wanted. Microsoft programmer... |
when does deferring to scientific research become appealing to authority? | It's an appeal to authority (in the fallacy sense) if you defer to a person who, in turn, did not justify his/her statement.
Scientific research, by definition, does real work to justify its claims and conclusions. | [
"Meta-research identifying flaws in scientific practice has begun to inspire reforms in science. These reforms seek to address and fix problems in scientific practice which lead to low-quality or inefficient research.\n",
"One of the report's main concerns is that a growing percentage of recently published resear... |
Early 20th century uniforms | This is a really great question, because the shift from colourful uniforms into dull ones is very over-determined; there are a lot of factors working in on the shift, and everyone is going to add something new and awesome to the discussion. Alas, I can only talk about the shift from a military science perspective, but ... | [
"Lightweight, light-coloured uniforms were worn by European soldiers serving in warm climates from the 19th century and, little altered, throughout World War II. They typically featured epaulettes, pleated pockets, belts and other features later found on safari jackets.\n",
"Early uniforms were often based upon s... |
why so dropped glasses sometimes bounce a few times before shattering? | A lot of glasses are heavy on the bottom. On the way to the floor initially, they have enough time for that heavy bottom to hit the floor first. On the next few bounces, the rotation is more random and the floor hits a more delicate part of the glass. | [
"Glass plates are rather stable dimensionally, but they are also very fragile and brittle. Because glass is brittle, it is highly susceptible to breakage, cracks, and fractures. This can be caused by human error including dropping or bumping the glass plate, or it can be caused by failure of storage equipment, hous... |
how can it be safe to build large office/apartment buildings on top of landfill? | Most Manhattan skyscrapers have foundations resting right on the bedrock. The bedrock under Manhattan is close to the surface downtown, so they may have driven the foundations through the landfill into the bedrock (there's bedrock pretty close to the surface, even under the water). This is nice, but hardly necessary. T... | [
"The EPA removed two structurally unsafe buildings in 2010 but squatters, drugs and graffiti continued to be problem. By 2014, the remaining brick buildings were at risk of immediate collapse due to fires so the city stepped in an demolished them after the removal of asbestos.\n",
"Modern landfills are specifical... |
why is it that one musical note, when continued for a prolonged amount of time, sounds as though it's "vibrating"? | It's because the singer is actually doing it purposefully. As far as I know, singers and string instruments use vibrato. As for organs, I'm not sure, I don't know much about organs work.
A bit of bonus info: Before the romantic era of music, vibrato was only used when asked for. It was more an ornament to music instea... | [
"Any vibrating thing produces vibrations at a number of frequencies above the fundamental pitch. These are called overtones. When the overtones are integer multiples (e.g., 2×, 3× ... 6× ... ) of the fundamental frequency (called harmonics), then - neglecting damping - the oscillation is periodic—i.e., it vibrates ... |
Is Copper more or less malleable than Brass? | Alloys will almost always be stronger than the pure metal, or else we would not make them. [Solid solution strengthening](_URL_0_) is the name of this strategy.
The zinc atoms evenly diffuse into the copper and provide strength due to pinning tiny, moving defects in the metal as it is mechanically stressed.
Pure copp... | [
"Copper’s higher tensile strength (200–250 N/mm annealed) compared to aluminium (100 N/mm for typical conductor alloys) is another reason why copper is used extensively in the building industry. Copper’s high strength resists stretching, neck-down, creep, nicks and breaks, and thereby also prevents failures and ser... |
Why is it that getting things into space just now became cheaper after 50+ years of investment to space. | SpaceX is a private company. It has nothing to do with NASA or the U.S. government. This is precisely why it is so much cheaper and more efficient.
A private company *has* to be profitable and efficient to survive. | [
"The space environment is expected to be beneficial for production of a variety of products. Once the heavy capitalization costs of assembling the mining and manufacturing facilities is paid, the production will need to be economically profitable in order to become self-sustaining and beneficial to society. The mos... |
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