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Did the USSR have any kind of attempt to appeal to the youth similar to how Captain America got big in the US? | The kinds of figures that were lauded by Soviet propaganda were "everymen" who, because of their love of their country etc. etc., rose to do incredible things. The case in point here is Alexey Stakhanov, of the Stakhanovite movement. It would have been at odds with Soviet ideology for science-manufactured supermen to be the heroes.
To elaborate a little more: Stakhanov was a coal miner who supposedly performed way over his quota limit in the Stalin era. The Soviet propaganda organs manufactured a "movement" out of his feat, encouraging all workers to perform well above their (often unrealistic in the first place) quotas.
Another who fits this description is Trofim Lysenko, a "barefoot agronomist" who had some rather loopy ideas about how to improve crop yields (under collectivism) that were at odds with Western genetics. Lysenko's essentially peasant status was one of the things that made him appealing for the propaganda organs, and it led to denouncements of more stereotypically elite scientists as bourgeois.
My generalization is primarily for the Stalin era (1928-1953). I don't know how much flexibility there was under later Soviet premiers in their heroic archetypes. Under Stalin one of the most popular plots for films was a variation on "boy meets tractor," just to give you an indication of what Socialist Realism meant for various types of media. It does not involve space aliens who can fly, fight for peace, justice, and the Soviet way, etc., or mutants (god forbid), or science-augmented men, or anything like that. These are _deus ex machinas_ and as we know there is know _deus_ other than the hard-working "new Soviet man" under Marxist-Leninism! | [
"As the Cold War flared up in the 1950s, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev realized that the Soviet Union needed its own equivalent to Captain America. Khrushchev chose Alexi Shostakov over Yuri Gagarin who would later become the first man in space. The KGB faked his death and trained him in secret, keeping his surv... |
why animals naturally know how and when to mate, where as we are educated or we learn about it from external sources? | We don't really get taught about the mechanics of sex in our education/external source learning. But it's not a very difficult concept to figure out once you're ready for the moment.
Animals don't have to worry about things like consent, unwanted pregnancies causing a financial burden, or the long upbringing of a child due to the way they birth their young (more or less fully formed and able to do many things independently). We add a lot of that on from the complex social structure we have.
Other animals with complex mating structures do have to learn what is and isn't acceptable about sex through group pressures (ex; a young male lion getting attacked by the male of the pride for trying to mate with one of that male's mates), and it isn't conclusively proven, as far as I know, that animals don't learn how mating works through seeing it happen to the adults in their herd. | [
"Some animals engage in matutinal searching flights to find mates early in the morning. It is thought that this is adaptive because it increases the chance of finding mates, and reduces competition for mates (i.e., by flying directly to a potential mate before it has a chance to find other mates). This is supported... |
does your blood temperature actually increase when you get mad or hot(old people saying "makes my blood boil")? | A lot of times when you get angry it's because you feel a psychological threat, like the threat of embarrassment or losing status somehow. Your body can go into 'fight or flight' mode, which increases your adrenaline and your blood pressure.
So, people that are real angry feel their heart pounding, they get flushed, they have a lot of energy - they feel almost as if "their blood was boiling". | [
"Fever, also known as pyrexia and febrile response, is defined as having a temperature above the normal range due to an increase in the body's temperature set point. There is not a single agreed-upon upper limit for normal temperature with sources using values between . The increase in set point triggers increased ... |
The Byzantines favored blinding to remove a potential rival from politics. How did the act of blinding take place? What was the favored method for blinding someone? What tools were used? | Two points to make here; Mutilation was a particularly gruesome tool used by the Byzantine (and lots of others), and they used blinding to far greater scope and effect than purely as a way to eliminate potential rivals.
There is an inherent second level to this question that greatly effects the outcome; what was the reason for the blinding?
Sometimes they were done to instill fear in a conquered people, sometimes mutilation happened to eliminate a rival from making a move on the throne (Castrated men could not be Emperor), sometimes it was done to punish criminals. The list goes on and on.
There is evidence that this was a special skill of executioners (even if it didn't result in death) or that they at least had people who explicitly focused on this method of mutilation, as the Byzantine Emperor Diogenes was overthrown and as a punishment, he was explicitly blinded by someone who had no practice, resulting in his death by infection (probably sepsis) several days later.
The Byzantine did develop eye-scoops, but there were a variety of tools this could be done with. Daggers, knives, tent pegs, sometimes burning coals, and heated metal bowls.
I am not aware of any material that explicitly describes the method, however I was able to find depiction of the blinding of Leo of Phokas, that suggests they basically just held the guy down by sitting on his legs and pinning his arms behind his back, and gouged his eyes. I cannot tell you if this was "normal", or particularly personal, however Leo Phokas (Leo the Younger) lived in the 10th century, so this was still 'sort of early' in the perfection of this gruesome technique.
*I have come across articles that suggest boiling vinegar was used. Other, similar articles have suggested that Byzantine would explicitly "fake" blinding on certain people, in an act of cruelty and punishment, or even force them to blind themselves by putting cloth over their eyes and being unable to take it off. However I have been unable to satisfactorily substantiate either of these. I included them merely as a frame of reference to the depth and breadth in which mutilation could be used.*
**EDIT** [Link to Leo Phokas image](_URL_0_) | [
"In the Middle Ages, blinding was used as a penalty for treason or as a means of rendering a political opponent unable to rule and lead an army in war. Byzantine general Belisarius ( - 565) is said to have been blinded at the order of the Emperor Justinian. Vazul (before 997 – 1031/1032) of the Hungarian royal Hous... |
How big of a part did the navy play during Ancient Rome? What were some of the largest and/or most important naval battles? | Rome's navy was actually very important when it had to undergo the Punic Wars against Carthage. Being that Carthage was on the other side of the Mediterranean, sea dominance was critical at the time. Since Hannibal had to march his army across Gaul and Hispania (modern day France & Spain) and while he did manage to keep Rome on its toes for a while he simply didn't have the forces to take on Rome's defenses. Critically, if he had the sea power necessary to bring over more units consistently and quickly, Rome may have fell. However, skilful Scipio Africanus managed to land a sizable force at the doorstep of Carthage in North Africa and his key victory in numerous skirmishes near the city caused the Carthaginian's to capitulate to an Armistace. However, afterwards, even during civil wars and conflicts with outsiders; their Mediterranean dominance wouldn't be challenged until the fall of the Empire because most enemies of Rome in the Mediterranean had been subdued. Another potential candidate is the Macedonian Wars in which the Roman's subjugated Greece but from what I've read the naval battles were skirmishes and mostly blockading on the Roman's part. Another major engagement of the Roman Empire was during Antony's Civil War but this was an exception to the peaceful "Roman Lake" that was the Mediterranean.
Some key Battles were the Battle of Actium (Antony's Civil War) & the Battle of Lilybaeum where Rome crushed the Carthaginian Navy and asserted naval dominance.
Rome's navy would be challenged during it's collapse when outside groups like the Goths, Arabs & Vandals (who rose a navy and engaged Rome's) but ultimately the western half was in such a decline that the navy didn't do much to impede them.
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"Although the first sea engagement of the war, the Battle of the Lipari Islands in 260 BC, was a defeat for Rome, the forces involved were relatively small. Through the use of the \"corvus\", the fledgling Roman navy under Gaius Duilius won its first major engagement later that year at the Battle of Mylae. During t... |
When does the body produce Melanin? | Let's limit the question to production and release of eumelanin (="true melanin") in human skin; melanin can be found in other odd places and in different forms.
Eumelanin production is stimulated by UV-B-caused DNA damage in the form of pyrimidine dimers in melanocytes, a type of cell dispersed in the bottom layer of the epidermis. Depending on skin color (race) there will also be some basic level of production independent of UV exposure.
The melanin is packed into melanosomes, which the melanocytes then transfer to neighboring epithelial cells, to protect their cell nuclei and the layers below the epidermis (the bottom layer of the epidermis is where cell growth happens, the cells just pile up and differentiate as they get into the higher layers).
I'm not aware of this process being limited to any particular time, beyond the stimulation following UV exposure (which would usually happen in the middle of the day, but you never know). | [
"Melanin is a natural pigment produced by cells called melanocytes in a process called melanogenesis. Melanocytes produce two types of melanin: pheomelanin (red) and eumelanin (very dark brown). Melanin protects the body by absorbing ultraviolet radiation. Excessive UV radiation causes sunburn along with other dire... |
why our vision appears to be "green" after closing the eyes for some time? | Your eyes when closed still allow some light which is coming through your eyelids. This gives it a reddish hue. When eyes are exposed to this color this much then they adjust which results in lack of red when you open your eyes. | [
"Human eyes have color receptors known as cone cells, of which there are three types. In some cases, one is missing or faulty, which can cause color blindness, including the common inability to distinguish red and yellow from green, known as deuteranopia or redgreen color blindness. Green is restful to the eye. Stu... |
why can’t a patient’s blood be reused in cases of internal bleeding? | Yes. It's called a cell saver. The blood is suctioned out of the surgical field; washed, filtered, and centrifuged; then transfused back to the patient. It takes some time to set up, but it can save you using a few units of blood. | [
"In surgery, control of bleeding is achieved with the use of laser or sonic scalpels, minimally invasive surgical techniques, electrosurgery and electrocautery, low central venous pressure anesthesia (for select cases), or suture ligation of vessels. Other methods include the use of blood substitutes, which at pres... |
why do aa and aaa batteries not shock us when touching opposite ends with wet fingers, but licking a 9 volt battery does? | First of all, your saliva is much more conductive than your skin.
Secondly, 9 volts is times stronger than 1.5 volts. | [
"Most battery voltage testers and chargers that can also test nine-volt need another snap clip to hold the battery, while cylindrical batteries often share a holder that may be adjustable in size. Because of the proximity of the positive and negative terminals at the top of the battery and relatively low current of... |
why does antipsychotic medication mess with motor function and cause the body to tense up? | Super simplified laymans knowledge version: psych drugs affect various neurotransmitters in the brain (dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, etc), these neurotransmitters are multipurpose and some regulate motor function in addition to mood. | [
"Automatism, in toxicology, refers to a tendency to take a drug over and over again, forgetting each time that one has already taken the dose. This can lead to a cumulative overdose. A particular example is barbiturates which were once commonly used as hypnotic (sleep inducing) drugs. Among the current hypnotics, b... |
Why did Benjamin Franklin not discuss the Revolution in his autobiography? | The answer for this is fairly simply, apologies therefore if this seems rather sparse for a top-level post.
Franklin does not discuss the Revolution, because he died before finishing the autobiography. | [
"In both the play and the film, John Adams sarcastically predicts that Benjamin Franklin will receive from posterity too great a share of credit for the Revolution. \"Franklin smote the ground and out sprang—George Washington. Fully grown, and on his horse. Franklin then electrified them with his magnificent lightn... |
why does the education system favours memory retention over imagination? | Because most of us are not going to be in a situation where we need crazy outside the box imaginations. Most of us are going to have jobs where we’ll need the knowledge and competence in that particular field, and would only need a limited imagination to problem solve within the scope of our position. | [
"Another method for improving memory and retention is imaginative and abstract thinking. Using imagination and thinking abstractly when learning new things are effective ways of improving memory and enabling a great amount of material to be effectively retained. Imagination creates stronger visuals and connections,... |
Does uranium actually glow green as it's often depicted? If so, why? | [Uranium glass glows green under UV](_URL_0_) and was pretty popular in the mid-20th century. However it's not the radioactivity making things glow, it's a regular atomic transition. Radium was also used as a glowing paint before it was realized how horribly dangerous that is, and tritium is occasionally used for that now. In those cases, the radioactive decays are initiating an atomic transition. | [
"The resulting , a white solid, is highly reactive (by fluorination), easily sublimes (emitting a vapor that behaves as a nearly ideal gas), and is the most volatile compound of uranium known to exist.\n",
"Uranium borohydride is the inorganic compound with the empirical formula U(BH). Two polymeric forms are kno... |
when you're reviewing your research, how the hell do you find the null hypothesis? | The nullhypothesis is a statistical question.
It is the question you ask in order to disprove your hypothesis.
If you cannot disprove it with the data you collect, then the hypothesis must be correct.
(Well, most likely correct.)
| [
"In inferential statistics, the null hypothesis is a general statement or default position that there is nothing new happening, like there is no relationship between two measured phenomena, or no association among groups. Testing (accepting, approving, rejecting, or disproving) the null hypothesis—and thus concludi... |
What happens to satellites and other objects orbiting our planet when they are outdated or no longer work? | Ideally, low earth orbit satellites would be de-orbited intentionally when they are no longer needed. Then they'll just "burn" in re-entry. Or the satellites will de-orbit themselves eventually due to small atmospheric drag.
For geostationary satellites, the propellant needed to de-orbit them is much more than a satellite is likely to have and de-orbiting naturally wouldn't happen in a long long time. So instead they use their last bits of propellant to boost themselves into a higher [graveyard orbit](_URL_0_). That's just an orbit above geostationary orbit where they can then remain without being in the way of operational satellites. At least that's how it should work, apparently often satellite operators are unable to do that. | [
"Due to a failure in a spacecraft system, the ground team was unable to actively command the satellite and spacecraft became just a passive object in Earth orbit by which some passive drag characteristics might be deduced.\n",
"Although the ITU now requires proof a satellite can be moved out of its orbital slot a... |
Is a child born via egg donor related to the birth giver? How much so? | If you mean does the surrogate influence the foetus it grows in any way then yes. While not all that common, it is possible for the foetus to take on the mitochondrial DNA of the surrogate mother, whilst still retain the egg and sperm donors DNA within the rest of their genetic make up.
Here is an article about it, there are many more you can read if you're interested.
_URL_0_ | [
"For most sperm or egg recipients, the choice between anonymous sperm or egg donor and a non-anonymous one is generally not of major importance. For some donor conceived children, on the other hand, it may be psychologically burdensome not having the possibility of contacting or knowing almost nothing about the don... |
what does "support/maintenance" for software mean? what is part of it, why do companies pay money for it instead of foregoing it to save money? | It's like buying a really nice warranty for your phone.
If your phone breaks, and you don't have the warranty, then you better hope you know how to fix it.
But, if you bought the nice warranty, then you get 24/7 support from the manufacturer who will answer any questions you have, will fly a guy over to your house to fix it for you, and will check on your phone regularly to make sure its working right. | [
"Computer-aided maintenance (not to be confused with CAM which usually stands for Computer Aided Manufacturing) refers to systems that utilize software to organize planning, scheduling and support of maintenance and repair. A common application of such systems is the maintenance of computers, either hardware or sof... |
Was being a frontline, front rank, musket-carrying infantryman in conflicts like the Seven Years War a death sentence? | These types of questions have been brought up a lot around here so I will try to sum them up and then post ones I am referring to later (bed time).
One post talks about how men in these battles would actually be pretty bad at aiming and only be drilled in firing and reloading, some never said "aim", only "level". Also, and I think this is the stronger of the two points; the bayonet was the one who did the damage in these days. Charges en masse to take a certain position or route the enemy were how you took the field in that era, it wasn't as if they stood there and shot at one another for hours without moving or flanking or what have you. Muskets certainly killed people, but they were inaccurate, often clogged or malfunctioned and were heavy.
As a side note, I remember reading something about how men in sieges who were first in were paid to do so. I have no source but perhaps someone could back me up on this. If not, I'll just scratch it out. | [
"Raynal Cawthorne Bolling (September 1, 1877 – March 26, 1918) was the first high-ranking officer of the United States Army to be killed in combat in World War I. A corporate lawyer by vocation, he became an early Army aviator and the organizer of both of the first units in what ultimately became the Air National G... |
Why do I talk louder when I can't hear my voice as well? | [Speakers rely on auditory feedback of their own voices when speaking.](_URL_1_) I'm not sure if that article is open-access or not.
A pretty cool demonstration of how much hearing your own voice can disrupt your speech is [delayed auditory feedback](_URL_0_). If you've ever spoken in a room with an echo/reverb or been able to hear your own voice during a phone/Skype call, you may have experienced this effect.
If you have a headset / smartphone, you can check out some free Delayed Auditory Feedback software/apps and try to speak normally with different delays, it's a real trip.
| [
"BULLET::::- Speak in a normal, clear, calm voice. Talking loudly or shouting does not increase the volume of your voice at the receiving radios, but will distort the audio, because loud sounds result in over-modulation, which directly causes distortion.\n",
"Some patients with this condition are disturbed by the... |
How did humans end up in the Americas before it got ‘discovered’ by Europeans? | I would suggest cross posting this question at r/AskAnthropology. They even have an entry in their faq regarding this subject. | [
"The long-held theory that the first human beings in the Americas arrived by land through an ice-free corridor in western Canada has been called into question by archaeological discoveries along the Pacific coastlines of North and South America. Many scientists now believe that the earliest inhabitants arrived by b... |
how can we edit dna if it’s so small!? | We use really small tools!
& #x200B;
Keep in mind that eventhough DNA is very small, it is absolutely necessary for an organism to have a full access to it and to manipulate it with critical accuracy. A single mistake, and the whole cell can become cancerous! (it usually commits suicide before that happens, it's called apoptosis). To do so, cells have specialized "tools" (tool=protein) that can unzip/dupicate/fix DNA with an amazing precision.
Most of these "tools" don't really EDIT your genome, since it remains untouched during the lifetime of most cells. But some organisms developped tools that can actually cut, add or delete bits of your DNA (most common examples: transposons which are basically parasitic genes, retroviruses/retrovirii/whatever you want to call them...). By using these tools in a clever way, we can edit the DNA of any living organism in any way we want.
There are limitations, but they keep being pushed back as we discover new tools. Have you heard of CRISPR-Cas9? | [
"RNA editing is a molecular process through which some cells can make discrete changes to specific nucleotide sequences within an RNA molecule after it has been generated by RNA polymerase. RNA editing may include the insertion, deletion, and base substitution of nucleotides within the RNA molecule. RNA editing is ... |
Why does an atom that gains neutrons become radioactive? | Due to the Pauli exclusion principle, you can't have have all the electrons in the same orbital, so you have electron shells and valance electrons and all that. The same applies to protons and neutrons. The important thing here is that it applies to them separately. As you add neutrons onto an atom, they have to have more and more energy. If there energy of the last neutron is more than the energy of the last proton, then the neutron might decay into a proton, electron, and anti-neutrino so that it can go into a lower energy state. Or it could do another kind of nuclear decay. | [
"Neutrons are the only type of ionizing radiation that can make other objects, or material, radioactive. This process, called neutron activation, is the primary method used to produce radioactive sources for use in medical, academic, and industrial applications. Even comparatively low speed thermal neutrons cause n... |
How does the brain "store" vision? | Edit: Note I'm talking about image storage, which I think is specifically what you're asking about. There is a related but separate area of the brain that just collects raw sensory data (eyes > optic nerve > lateral geniculate nucleus > occipital lobe > secondary association areas like dorsal and ventral stream > rest of brain) but this would be akin to describing the camera, rather than the film, I believe. Onto the film:
**Encoding**(general)
Vision isn't "stored" in the brain in the data-encoding-retrieval sense. I know what my car looks like, for example, but within my neurons we won't find a neural-binary equivalent of a jpeg. This is because what we call "vision" encompasses much much more than pixel colours.
When you're "encoding" something your brain is actually quite bad at storing it exactly as it is seen. What happens is that as your visual stream is running, there's a lot of interpretation happening. You remember a particular spatial arrangement, a particular feature or focal point, a particular cognitive impression that connects the visual field to a mental schema, at least four discrete spatial relationships (1. for the visual field relative to the object, 2. for the field objects within arms reach, 3. for the field objects outside of arms reach but relative to you, 4. your overall geographic location).
Each of *these* things I've listed is further interpreted with any emotional or physiological responses you are feeling prior to encoding and as a reflection of encoding. Even if the data attached to it is that the stimulus / emotion / physiology is "unremarkable".
Lastly (for simplicity) you've got fear learning centers and reward centers that encode particular patterns that ultimately have to do with behavioural responses to visual stimuli.
Lastly (because I just thought of another big one) you've got more specialized regions that interpret, store, and retrieve visual data related to language.
**Where is it encoded?**(specific)
The short answer is almost everywhere. If I say "envision your parents" you're not retrieving a face, you're retrieving an entire file while simultaneously interpreting the retrieval of that file. If you're in a good mood, or you're tired, or you just saw something that reminded you of something else - all of these will affect whatever it is that you retrieve. Actually these things will also affect how you initially stored it as well.
So when you retrieve visual information what are you doing? You're making yourself aware of these files and then interacting with them dynamically. That being said, specific memory recall will be associated with brain regions that are involved in the experience that encapsulated the encoding of that memory.
Fear learning, anxiety, stressful situations.
- "Envision something associated with that horrible experience from your past."
- You'll see the amygdala (fear center) light up as well as other limbic (emotional centers) structures.
Navigation and spatial processing.
- "Envision walking through your house."
- You'll see your hippocampus (spatial processing, skill learning) light up.
- [London Taxi Drivers and Bus Drivers: A Structural MRI
and Neuropsychological Analysis](_URL_1_) - a few studies have shown cab drivers hippocampi light up more as they become better at recalling visual clues, routes, spatial arrangements related to driving around a complex city, etc.
Activities / Behavioural
- "Envision playing sports"
- You'll see your premotor cortex and your motor cortex light up.
[Dr. Adrian Owen](_URL_0_) actually used these areas as binary "yes" and "no" centers to establish that patients in vegetative states sometimes maintained awareness. "If your dad's name is Tim think of tennis, if it's Randy think of your house". They then use fMRI to look at the brain region that lights up. Some patients scored 100% despite being in vegetative states for decades.
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"Various areas of the brain work together in a multitude of ways in order to produce the images that we see with our eyes and that are encoded by our brains. The basis of this work takes place in the visual cortex of the brain. The visual cortex is located in the occipital lobe of the brain and harbors many other s... |
why do some people get so effin' angry over repetitive noises? | My answer has no scientific basis, and is pretty much just my own experience, but I think when we are concentrating on certain tasks (in this instance playing LoL) and we hear things that not only distract us, but also annoy us, it either makes us want to try even harder to tune them out and continue doing what we are doing, or stop doing our activity and either politely/cruelly ask/tell them to quiet down. Neither option being a win-win type of deal, especially if you know the person won't care what you say. Like a toddler that isn't even yours.
Some people handle this better than others and have a better tolerance, but I think it's just human nature to not want to hear something unnecessary and annoying for a prolonged period of time. | [
"For example, those who suffer from misophonia often report that specific human sounds, including those made by eating, breathing, whispering, or repetitive tapping noises, can precipitate feelings of anger and disgust, in the absence of any previously learned associations that might otherwise explain those reactio... |
Pretty sure most of these photos are from WW1... what can you all tell me about them? (OC xpost from r/pics) | The first four are of American troops during WWI. No patches, distinctive hats, puttees (like an ace bandage wrapped around the shoe tops and lower leg).
Tho others are from WWII, one of an infantry division (91st?) corporal/technician on a what looks to be a plow horse (the 91st had a tough time). Another is an ambulance crew wearing "dungarees" (cotton fatigues), black boots, and patrol caps, which looks to me like post-WWII stateside training. The ambulance is one of the standard types, and vehicle had their USA serial number prominently displayed back then. The tourist on the balcony is wearing the Service Forces patch, so the war is probably nearly over; he looks to be in Italy or on the Riviera. The last two are P-38 fighters being unloaded by British workers, judging by their clothes. | [
"The first color photographic cover on the Saturday Evening Post magazine (May 29, 1937)was by Dmitri, a photo of an Automobile racing driver seated in his race car. Another SEP cover, May 16, 1944, was a photo of General 'Hap' Arnold, with B-17's flying overhead, with a B-17 crew planning a flight. This cover was ... |
Did the US *have* to nuke Japan in WWII? | You might be interested in some threads from the WWII FAQ section on "[The atomic bombs](_URL_2_)" as well as from a recent search:
**Overview of the Atomic Bombings**
* [Could America have used the atomic bomb on a purely military target or some other more ethical way to force Japan's hand into peace?](_URL_4_) - 118 comments, over 2 years old.
* The commenters here lay out the issues as considered by US officials at the time.
* [Why was an invasion of Japan or the dropping of the atomic bombs argued to be necessary for Japanese surrender in World War 2?](_URL_7_) - 25 comments, over 9 months old.
* A user flaired for the subject matter weighs in with an overview of the strategic situation and comments afterwards discuss various recommended books giving contrasting views on the subject as well as the importance of the *unconditional* surrender that had been demanded by the Allies.
* [Why didn't Japan surrender after the first atomic bomb?](_URL_9_) - 500 comments, over 2 years old.
* The topmost commenter gives a big overview of the issue, talking about both the decision to use the atomic bombs and the Japanese reactions as well historiographical debate on the bombings' motive and importance.
* [Would the Japanese have likely agreed to total unconditional surrender after just a "warning shot" pf the atomic bomb?](_URL_0_) - 36 comments, over 2 years old.
* The commenters in this thread address the mentality of the Japanese high command in the days just before the atomic bombings.
* [How did military leaders first describe the capabilities of the atomic bomb to US President Harry Truman?](_URL_1_) - 2 comments, over 9 months old.
* A flaired user links to copies of the documents that were eventually relayed to Truman and used in his decision to use the atomic weapons.
* [Would it have been worse if America hadn't nuke Japan?](_URL_6_) - 36 comments, over 2 years old.
* The commenters in this thread dive into American memory of the bombings and counterfactuals involving all the myriad of ways things may have gone differently without the bombings.
**Did Atomic Bombings or the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria make Japan surrender?**
* [There has been some controversy on the true effect of the atomic bombing of Japan. Was it the bomb, or the Soviet declaration of war that ended WWII?](_URL_8_) - 19 comments, over 2 years old.
* The commenters in this thread showcase the arguments made by in favor of the Soviet influence on the Japanese surrender using diary entries of the Japanese officials and other records that previously had not been looked over in analysis of the issue.
* [Why did Japan surrender?](_URL_5_) - 33 comments, over 2 years old.
* This thread goes into several criticisms of Hasegawa's conclusions regarding the Japanese surrender.
* [Are Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's conclusions about the Soviet's influence in triggering the Japanese surrender of WWII widely accepted or are they in dispute? If he got it wrong, how did he get it wrong?](_URL_3_) - 27 comments, over 2 years old.
* This thread not only gives further criticism of Hasegawa but details how he has been received in the historical community.
I'd love it if /u/restricteddata could chime in on this question since he is a flaired user that is very well read on this topic, is involved in the matter at an academic level, and has given more high quality answers on all of its facets than I could link to in any single comment. | [
"Faced with a planned invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin on 1 November 1945 and with Japan not surrendering, President Harry S. Truman ordered the atomic raids on Japan. On 6 August 1945, the U.S. detonated a uranium-gun design bomb, Little Boy, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an ener... |
why does it always come down to "drink lots of fluids" when you tell the doc you gave the flu? | There's no cure for influenza once you're sick. It's a self-limiting and mild infection that your immune system will fight off, all you have to do is keep your body working long enough for it to do so. That means sleep and fluids. | [
"People with the flu are advised to get plenty of rest, drink plenty of liquids, avoid using alcohol and tobacco and, if necessary, take medications such as acetaminophen (paracetamol) to relieve the fever and muscle aches associated with the flu. In contrast, there is no enough evidence to support corticosteroids ... |
when we sleep on our arms or legs in a weird way, why does the resulting muscle ache only seem to go away after we sleep again? | I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that sleep helps the body heal from a lot of different things, including this.
The 5-year-old version is that while asleep, your body can put all of its focus on maintenance instead of giving you energy to do stuff. This includes healing wounds and injuries. It would make sense that damage from muscle tension after sleeping on them funny would also be easier to heal while the body is fully focused on healing. | [
"Painful erections appear only during the sleep. This condition is present during the REM sleep. Sexual activity doesn’t produce any pain. There isn’t any lesion or physical damage but an hypertonia of the pelvic floor could be one cause. It affects men of all ages but especially from the middle-age. Some pharmacol... |
Was the Propaganda leaflets dropped over japan effective? | Contrary to a lot of internet confusion, no leaflets warning about the atomic bomb were dropped on Japanese cities prior to the bombing of Nagasaki. Certainly none indicated any actual possible targets. You can read the whole story [here](_URL_0_), as well as read the official report on the leaflet operation which is linked to there. The long and short of it is that because of difficulties in producing the leaflets, and a desire to change them to reflect the Soviet entrance to the war, they were not dropped until after the Nagasaki attack. Nagasaki, in fact, got leaflets dropped on it a day _after_ it had been bombed, because the leaflet campaign was not at all coordinated with the bombing plans. There is no way anyone in Nagasaki would have known it was a potential atomic bomb target (and in any case, it was the fall-back target — Kokura was the actual city that was planned to be bombed, originally). | [
"The use of propaganda in World War II was extensive and far reaching but possibly the most effective form of propaganda used by the Japanese government was film. Japanese films were produced for a far wider range of audiences than American films of the same period. From the 1920s onward, Japanese film studios prod... |
What was J.S. Bach's personality like? | I am not a Bach scholar, so take this with caution.
My understanding is that we don't have much to know about his private life. There aren't many personal documents of his... For other composers we have many letters, and even fragments of conversations. We have many accounts of them because they were celebrities in the big fashionable cities, in a time in which artists were deemed important, but this was not the case at all for Bach.
What you describe ("fairly religious and perfectionist," "kind of secretly wild and temperamental," "a fatherly if dull figure") are indeed not very descriptive, rather stereotypical, ways to describe the life of a person. As you say, there is a very romanticized view of him, created in the time of [Great Man theory](_URL_0_).
| [
"He was particularly renowned for his Bach interpretations, and he recorded several albums, most notably the complete Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach for Nonesuch, and Bach's French Suites for Hanssler Classics. He taught at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and at the Mannes College of Music in New York ... |
how can a country survive without government? | They can't... or at least... not on a scale that we would recognize as a country.
A country without a government would just be a bunch of people living in a geographic area... with none of the connections, services, or bonds that would give them any real semblance of identity on an international scale.
As soon as you start creating institutions, to provide things like roads or police... you've created a government. | [
"The government system in many countries is divided into the legislative, executive and judiciary branches in an attempt to provide independent services that are less subject to grand corruption due to their independence from one another.\n",
"Governments sometimes have a narrow base of support, built upon cronyi... |
A question regarding language... | Some groups of humans separated at least fifty-thousand years ago. Just look how different some dialects are in the US although they only had about 250 years to form and English is a pretty established language and you don't find new things you need new words for twice a day.
| [
"Language is a system used to represent thoughts and ideas. Language is made up of several rules that explain what words mean, how to make new words, and how to put words together to form sentences. A community must share the same language in order to attach meaning to utterances. The method of delivery of language... |
why do streams need to buffer although the bar shows that it has many minutes preloaded already? | I know YouTube stopped doing this as many people were not watching all the way through, so they now only pre-load in segments, say 30sec intervals. What may what happened to you is the player is incorrectly showing the buffer. | [
"Having a big and constantly full buffer which causes increased transmission delays and reduced interactivity, especially when looking at two or more simultaneous transmissions over the same channel, is called bufferbloat. Available channel bandwidth can also end up being unused, as some fast destinations may not b... |
Is it possible to slow down radioactive decay through cooling? | To the best knowledge we have at present, radioactive decay is not perceptibly affected by any external conditions such as temperature or pressure.
Chemical composition of the substance slightly affects some forms (electron capture, internal conversion) of radioactive decay for some substances, but this is related to the availability of electrons in specific shells of these substances. | [
"The mathematics of radioactive decay depend on a key assumption that a nucleus of a radionuclide has no \"memory\" or way of translating its history into its present behavior. A nucleus does not \"age\" with the passage of time. Thus, the probability of its breaking down does not increase with time, but stays cons... |
How do distant neurons know to connect with each other to create new pathways? | Most synapses are formed during development and the number of synapses in humans peaks in early development. This process is largely governed genetically during development. This synaptic maximum is followed by a period of synaptic pruning that ends in adolescence. A lot less neurogenesis or synaptogenesis is taking place in the adult brain. Recent studies have shown that some does occur, in contrast to long-standing ideas that there was no neurogenesis in the adult brain. Synaptic pruning is associated with learning as is synaptic plasticity, which is the strengthening or weakening or synaptic connections, but I don't think that synaptogenesis has been associated with learning in the way that you are imagining.
TL:DNR: The vast majority of synaptogenesis is developmentally patterned based on a genetic program and then from there synapses are pruned in childhood. | [
"Most neurons receive signals via the dendrites and soma and send out signals down the axon. At the majority of synapses, signals cross from the axon of one neuron to a dendrite of another. However, synapses can connect an axon to another axon or a dendrite to another dendrite.\n",
"Neurons form complex biologica... |
how did it come to be that michael jackson owned the beatles’ songs? | Songwriters often contract with a publishing company to market their songs for commercial purposes. That means they sell the rights to commercial use to the company, and the company pays them royalties (either a flat dee or a percentage every time the song is used). This is a benefit to the songwriter in many cases because they do not have the time or the expertise to promote their work commercially. So they focus on writing, and let the publisher do the selling.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney actually formed their own publishing company, called Northern Songs. They sold shares in the company, and eventually another company called Associated TeleVision bought enough shares to affect a takeover. Lennon and McCartney then sold the rest of their shares, and entered new deals for Beatles songs after 1969.
In 1985 Associated TeleVision sold off it's music publishing business, and Michael Jackson bought the company's publishing rights to Beatles songs. That gave Jackson the right to market those songs for commercial use, which made him a substantial amount of money. | [
"Three years later, Michael Jackson purchased ATV for a reported $47.5 million. The acquisition gave him control over the publishing rights to more than 200 Beatles songs, as well as 40,000 other copyrights. In 1995, in a deal that earned him a reported $110 million, Jackson merged his music publishing business wit... |
If we can "freeze" light for a minute, does that mean that we can "freeze" time? | No. The freezing of light actually involves absorbing light in a very cold gas. It's so cold that the atoms have an "absorbed" state that lasts a very long time before re-emitting the light in its former trajectory. Not directly related to relativity or anything like that. | [
"When we freeze time we can only see a part of the perdurant. Perdurants are often what we know as processes, for example: \"running\". If we freeze time then we only see a part of the running, without any previous knowledge one might not even be able to determine the actual process as being a process of running. O... |
why are we less likely to fancy new stuff (especially music, art, cartoons, etc) when we get older? why does it always seem that only children and teenagers pick up on the latest crazes? | As we get older, we recognize a craze is just that--a craze. Why invest time and money in something that won't be around six months to a year from now? | [
"Age is another strong factor that contributes to musical preference. Evidence is available that shows that music preference can change as one gets older. A Canadian study showed that adolescents show greater interest in pop music artists while adults and the elderly population prefer classic genres such as Rock, O... |
Humans are one species, but we speak different languages in different parts of the world, which means not every human could communicate with every other human. Are any other species like this? | There is some evidence to suggest that orcas (killer whales) exhibit this kind of phenomenon. The species has a huge geographical distribution, and different populations feed on a wide variety of food and tend to specialise in one type of hunting. Some hunt fish, and others mammals like seals, which makes some populations much more likely to attack humans. This specialised hunting behaviour has led to the development of unique vocalisations known as dialects, which are different for different groups of orcas. This leads to the suggestion that communication and cooperation between two normally disparate pods woould be difficult, if not impossible. There is a little about the topic on Wikipedia, which is a good start if you are interested.
_URL_0_ | [
"The capacity to acquire and use language is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from other beings. Although it is difficult to pin down what aspects of language are uniquely human, there are a few design features that can be found in all known forms of human language, but that are missing from forms of animal c... |
what would the u.s. government have to do in order to make college free in the states? | I'll assume that we're trying for a Swedish style system because, hey, that's worked. I'm on mobile, so I won't pull sources unless you guys need them.
Over there, they spend about 4% of their GNP on education and research, one of the highest rates in the world. This would amount to about 640 billion dollars in national education costs if we spent at 4%, which is 10 times the Department of Education's budget. The issue would become raising the extra 580 or so billion dollars annually to fund this. Some ways to accomplish this might be to raise taxes or to skim some money off of the military budget, but we're never going to get 580 billion from that.
While this calculating certainly involved plenty of hand waving and assuming, it demonstrates the need to have a certain amount of payment from the students in a country as large as the US. The way that we should go about fixing the education issue isn't to go the opposite way the country is now, but to find some reasonable ways to calculate the costs per student. | [
"The United States has school choice at the university level. College students can get subsidized tuition by attending \"any\" public college or university within their state of residence. Furthermore, the U.S. federal government provides tuition assistance for both public and private colleges via the G.I. Bill and... |
flashing headlights at oncoming traffic | Having lived in the UK and Australia I can say that in these places at least this usually means that there is a speed camera stationed up ahead and the other driver is warning you. | [
"In Ohio, courts have held that the act of flashing one's headlights so as to alert oncoming drivers of a radar trap does not constitute the offense of obstructing a police officer in the performance of his duties, where there was no proof that the warned vehicles were speeding prior to the warning. In another case... |
What substance (if any) is there to claims of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact by the Arab or Muslim sailors? | There's always room for discussion but perhaps the section [Travel and contact across the Atlantic before Columbus](_URL_0_) from our FAQ will answer your inquiry. | [
"There is evidence of pre-Contact trade in the circum-Caribbean region, with an early European report by Peter Martyr noting canoes filled with trade goods, including cotton cloth, copper bells and copper axes (likely from Michoacan), stone knives and cleavers, ceramics, and cacao beans, used for money. Small gold ... |
Could somebody who specialises in American history assess the historical accuracy of the article "Southern Slavery As It Was" written by two American pastors with Confederate sympathies? | Accuracy: Little to none.
To begin with, it isn't even entirely by those two pastors, as it seems to have [heavily plagiarized](_URL_0_) another work from two decades prior.
The publishing house, [Canon Press](_URL_2_) of Moscow, Idaho, seems to specialize in publishing Evangelical tracts on topics such religiously inspired fiction by the likes of Kirk Cameron to convince people of creationism or a DVD on the death of freedom of speech whose cover is an LGBT activist painted in ominous red and black, carrying a chain-saw (with interviews with Ted Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson, and others). In other words they seem to be publishing non-specialist propaganda for the fringe of the Evangelical community. Not a serious publishing house.
Second, the two essential pillars of the piece are refuted, in one case, and irrelevant to most people, in the other.
The first pillar is that Southerners should take pride in the Civil War because slavery wasn't the cause at the heart of the conflict and because criticisms of slavery are largely exaggerated. [Here](_URL_1_) is a great post by a mod refuting that argument in great detail.
The other pillar of their case is that:
> The truth is, Southern slavery is open to criticism because it did not follow the biblical pattern at every point. Some of the state laws regulating slavery could not be defended biblically (the laws forbidding the teaching of reading and writing, for example). One cannot defend the abuse some slaves had to endure. None can excuse the immorality some masters and overseers indulged in with some slave women. The separation of families that sometimes occurred was deplorable. These were sad realities in the Southern system.
In other words, the primary mistake made was not following biblical slavery, which implicitly seems to be fine by the authors. If you believe the bible literally, maybe their detailed justification of a certain kind of slavery would be interesting or even pertinent. If you don't believe it literally (or just aren't Christian at all) their arguments on this point are completely irrelevant.
Both successfully sidestep testimony from slaves, as well as non-slave sources such as countless newspaper adds referring to scars from lashes, which contradict the version of history they want to spin: That abuses were isolated cases of bad apples. They cite whatever backs that up and ignore whatever contradicts it.
In short, there are surely more serious historical revisionists to read for 'the other side of the debate' than these two. | [
"Albert Taylor Bledsoe (November 9, 1809 – December 8, 1877) was an American Episcopal priest, attorney, professor of mathematics, and officer in the Confederate army and was best known as a staunch defender of slavery and, after the South lost the American Civil War, an architect of the Lost Cause. He was the auth... |
how was professional cooking and baking handled hundreds of years ago in the hot seasons with no refrigeration? | A combination of fresh food and storage methods that didn't require cooling.
Smoking, air drying, salt curing, pickling, fermenting, and canning can preserve foods in hot weather. Foods like cheese and some sausages are preserved by being covered in a layer of beneficial mold to prevent other bacteria that would cause spoilage.
Another common method was the use of a root cellar, a (usually) unfinished room dug into the earth and lined with shelves for keeping fruit and vegetables. They'd be quite a bit cooler than above ground. The house I grew up in was built in the late 19th century and had a root cellar that was consistently around 60 degrees regardless of how hot the summer was. | [
"The cooking technique flourished because of its role in preserving meat in a tropical climate. Prior to refrigeration technology, this style of cooking enabled preservation of the large amount of meat.\n",
"The beehive oven typically took two to three hours to heat, occasionally even four hours in the winter. Br... |
Roman, Merovingian, and Carolingian political organization: what was the relationship between them? | I can tell you about the Carolingian organization and the birth of feudalism
Carolingian administration was in some aspects a direct inheritor of Roman tradition, attemtping a centralized imperial administration, where important regional powers were actually functionaries of the empire, so their authority was derived of their posting by the emperor. In this way, you had regional administrators, which were submitted to the vigilance of *comes*, a title of Roman origin. These *comes* were in charge of traveling the empire through the seasons, visiting landlords who were far away from their own jurisdictions, in order to verify that they were properly fulfilling their functions. In this sense, the person charged with performing a task, received *honorum*, which was the appointment to office, and *beneficium*, which was the benefit given together with *honorum* as payment.
In principle, *honorum* was easily revokable, and was not to be inherited by the holder's offspring, but in reality, the office was almost never revoked, and was most often passed directly from father to son. This tendency was intensified as the functionaries gained more and more gravitas, to a point when revocation became not only something that the emperor didn't want to do (in most cases), but also something he **couldn't** do, even if he wanted.
This privatization of charges came with a confusion of the concepts of *honorum* and *beneficium*, becoming one and the same, and hence feudalism was born.
Regarding the economic administration, the Carolingian Empire kickstarted the confusion of *Res Publica* and private business that characterized medieval politics (to some extent) and particularly, medieval treasury and economic policy.
In the matter of warfare, Carolingian forces were highly centralized, which made the military much less flexible, and given that flexibility was needed to confront the menace posed by the non-Latin Christian peoples (vikings, muslim raiders and Slavic invaders), this centralized scheme of military structure was replaced by a highly decentralized one, where regional authorities took direct charge of local forces to react quickly to threats. This capacity of the local powers to better protect their people, further helped them to consolidate and legitimate their **authority of autonomous origin**.
My sources are
Donado Vara, Julián, *La Edad Media. Siglos V-XII*
Rosamond McKitterick, *Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity*
and others that I don't have at hand to quote.
EDIT: to correct some typos. | [
"The unification achieved by the Merovingians ensured the continuation of what has become known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The Carolingian Empire was beset by internecine warfare, but the combination of Frankish rule and Roman Christianity ensured that it was fundamentally united. Frankish government and cultu... |
what happens with all the profits the fortune 500 companies make? | Like any other companies's profits. It goes into bank account and used to pay for things later.
Maybe later next year we build a new factory. Maybe we buy new machines. Maybe we get big bonus.
Or maybe be put it into an investment account until we find a use for it. | [
"As of 2019, the Fortune 500 companies represent approximately two-thirds of the United States's Gross Domestic Product with approximately $13.7 trillion in revenue, $1.1 trillion in profits, and $22.6 trillion in total market value. These numbers also account for approximately 17% of the gross world product. The c... |
Has there ever been a country that **de**industrialized for self-sustainability purpose? | I personally have no knowledge of any in modern times that did this on their own accord, though Germany post WWII was forced to deindustrialize. The [Morgenthau Plan](_URL_1_) was proposed by [Hengry Morgenthau](_URL_0_.) who was the United States Secretary of the Treasury. Post WWII no one in the world wished for Germany to be able to rebuild its military in the way it had, and the plan was to deindustrialize it to the point of it becoming an agricultural society. The German heavy industry was meant to be lowered to 50% of its power as it was in 1938.^1 Many other more exact restrictions were implemented for efficiency, steel production was reduced to 25% of its previous capacity being limited to 5,800,000 tons of steel every year.^2
Dating back to post war Berlin, many plans were being made for deindustrialization. On February 2, 1946 a dispatch directly from Berlin read:
"Some progress has been made in converting Germany to an agricultural and light industry economy, said Brigadier General William Henry Draper Jr., chief of the American Economics Division, who emphasized that there was general agreement on that plan.
He explained that Germany’s future industrial and economic pattern was being drawn for a population of 66,500,000. On that basis, he said, the nation will need large imports of food and raw materials to maintain a minimum standard of living.
General agreement, he continued, had been reached on the types of German exports — coal, coke, electrical equipment, leather goods, beer, wines, spirits, toys, musical instruments, textiles and apparel — to take the place of the heavy industrial products which formed most of Germany's pre-war exports."^3
Of course as a result of all of this, major economic faults ensued throughout Germany killing their economic state on a global scale. Many reprimands were taken from their country by other superpowers post-war. And the German industry would have to be rebuilt from the ground up for many years to come.
If you have any further questions or want to know more. Feel free to ask.
Citation:
1. Henry C. Wallich. Mainsprings of the German Revival (1955) pg. 348.
2. "Cornerstone of Steel", Time Magazine, January 21, 1946
3. James Stewart Martin. All Honorable Men (1950) pg. 191. | [
"C2C suggests that industry must protect and enrich ecosystems and nature's biological metabolism while also maintaining a safe, productive technical metabolism for the high-quality use and circulation of organic and technical nutrients. It is a holistic, economic, industrial and social framework that seeks to crea... |
hand sanitizer kills the germs, but the germs still remains on our hands. so its not clean right? | What is your definition of "clean"? If dead bacteria are unclean, when why aren't dead skin cells? | [
"If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol (check the product label to be sure). Hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol is effective in killing Cronobacter germs. But use soap and water as soon as possible afterward because hand sanitizer does not kill all ... |
What would a spaceship moving at 0.9c firing lasers both in front of it and behind it look like to an external reference frame? | An observer who sees the spaceship moving at speed 0.9*c*, will see both light signals moving at speed *c*. The distance between the ship and the front signal increases at a rate of 0.1*c*. The distance between the ship and the back signal increases at a rate of 1.9*c*. The distance between the two signals increases at a rate of 2*c*. | [
"BULLET::::- Daifighter: Daitarn's plane/spaceship form. Can reach speeds of near light speed while in space. Armed with rockets from the wings, a pair of missile launchers, twin lasers, and a powerful laser on the front called the Daitarn Laser. Length: 80 meters. Width: 50 meters. Max Speed: Mach 20.\n",
"The p... |
why do they launch boats sideways instead of forward when first launching them? | Boats are designed to have their weight supported for the entirety of the keel length.
If you tried to launch long boat pointy bit first, you'd have a time when the front is in the water, the back is still on the dock and the middle is unsupported. This (potentially) kills the boat.
And there's no real need to slow one down, since they're designed to withstand many assloads of force, at least in the directions they're designed to handle force. | [
"Normally, ways are arranged perpendicular to the shore line (or as nearly so as the water and maximum length of vessel allows) and the ship is built with its stern facing the water. Where the launch takes place into a narrow river, the building slips may be at a shallow angle rather than perpendicular, even though... |
why does insulation work? | It's not so much that it *takes longer* for heat to travel through the insulation (although it does). The useful thing is that less heat travels through the insulation *per unit time*.
Intuitively, you can think of heat in the 18th-century way, like [an invisible fluid](_URL_2_) that leaks from place to place. Hot things contain more of this "fluid" and cold things contain less. If your house were perfectly insulated, like a thermos, you could just heat it up and turn off the furnace and it would stay warm indefinitely no matter how cold it is outside. If your house is really poorly insulated, you have the furnace on full blast but most of the heat escapes immediately, like trying to fill a wicker basket with water. Insulation slows the escaping heat to a trickle so the furnace only has to make up the loss.
> Why is it not cheaper in the long run to buy lots of good insulation
It absolutely is cheaper in the long run! But insulating your house costs a bunch of money *today* and heating a drafty house costs a little money today and a little tomorrow and… it adds up to even more money after a while but you don't have to pay it all at once. Some people don't think about it and just do the expensive thing by default; other people would like to insulate better but simply don't have the cash *right now* to do it properly. (This is a general problem: being poor is expensive. [ELI5](_URL_1_), or [ELI25](_URL_0_).) Many local governments do have programs to help people get over this hump, though. | [
"Insulation may be categorized by its composition (natural or synthetic materials), form (batts, blankets, loose-fill, spray foam, and panels), structural contribution (insulating concrete forms, structured panels, and straw bales), functional mode (conductive, radiative, convective), resistance to heat transfer, e... |
What were relations like between Pirates and Native Americans? | Mixed.
Some pirates utilized them to great ability, if your definition of "pirate" encompases privateers, buccaneers, corsairs, and freebooters. For simplicities sake, I'll use the term "pirate" as a catch all term for non-traditional non-governmental forces though including those groups that were *sanctioned* such as privateers.
Some pirates used them as guides against the Spanish. For example Sir Francis Drake used Cimmaron Indians as a guides to ambush the Spanish "Silver Train" in 1573. Morgan used them in his sack on Panama and Portobello.
A particular tribe called the Mosquito often were hired by buccaneer and privateers to be hunters, fishermen and "light infantry" scouts in raids on towns. These men were known as "strikers" amongst the Europeans.
At the same time, they were not altogether friendly. Many treated the Natives poorly. They would raid their villages, sell them into slavery, and other various evil acts. In fact, Francois l'Ononnais was so notoriously cruel that he was captured by the Kuna tribe and eaten alive. According to Exquemelin:
> tore him in pieces alive, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire and his ashes into the air; to the intent no trace nor memory might remain of such an infamous, inhuman creature.
But then again, l'Olonnais was reputed to be one of the most evil bastards to sail the Caribbean. And that's saying a lot. | [
"Contrary to popular belief, there is no documentary evidence of pirates using the area as a base of operations. Piracy was rampant in the Gulf of Mexico from pirates working out of Hispaniola, the Caribbean, and the Florida Keys. Notable raids occurred in 1683 and 1687 against the Spanish fort at San Marcos de Apa... |
Why are the major producing oil fields located where they are? | Oil fields are where they are as a due to the location of ancient organic-rich basins. Why were the organic-rich basins there? Tectonics, they generally drive the placement of landmasses.
For oil to be extracted, it needs:
- a source rock: often these are shales with high carbon content, the remains of ancient accumulations of algae and other bio-material
- a heat source: the rock needs to be "cooked" to chemically transform the bio-material into the gases and liquids that make up natural gas and crude oil. This can only occur in a narrow range of elevated subsurface temperature. Too high and you'll burn the organic matter, too low and it won't transform into high-quality petroleum.
- a "storage" rock: the oil needs to be held within a porous media so that it can easily be extracted, and so that the yield in a given field is high.
- a cap rock: usually the transformed liquids and gasses are imiscible fluids that don't combine well with one another or water. Since petroleum is less dense than water, it wants to float to the surface (where it would quickly degrade). To keep the oil stored in one place, it needs some kind of "pocket" to be trapped in. These are usually low permeability antiforms or salt diapirs.
In summary, oil fields are in places that were once basins with lots of biological activity. The basins had to be turned into rock, cooked, stored, and capped in order to create petroleum and prevent it from degrading. Furthermore, if a field has experienced these geologic phenomena, it still needs to be economically extractable, which is dependent on proximity to the surface, engineering, infrastructure, politics, cost of crude, etc. | [
"Major oil fields are found in southeast Alberta (Brooks, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge), northwest (Grande Prairie, High Level, Rainbow Lake, Zama), central (Caroline, Red Deer), and northeast (heavy crude oil found adjacent to the oil sands.)\n",
"The Mid-continent oil field is a broad area containing hundreds of oi... |
how do caterpillars know when to spin a cocoon? | How do you know when to go to the bathroom or shield your eyes from the sun with your hand?
Okay it's not exactly the same, but we can all explain how it's because of chemical signals and hormones that indicate to the organism to change their behavior, but ultimately to really know what it's like to be a caterpillar is a subjective experience that they're not very open about, unfortunately. I'm meeting with the head of caterpillar state in my backyard again tomorrow, we tabled the topic at our last meeting but I'll try and raise it again. | [
"When the caterpillar is fully mature it spins a dark brown silken cocoon on a branch which usually has a leaf to protect it with. When spinning is complete, the caterpillar sheds its final skin and takes the form of its pupall life stage. Within a day of spinning completion, the cocoon sets to a hard waterproof sh... |
I heard the Human body holds many more bacterial cells than it has Human cells. Hypothetically speaking, if all the bacterial cells could be removed from an average human, would that translate to a significant loss in weight? | Not particularly. The vast majority are in your large intestine and appear to be feces in training. Each individual bacterial cell is much smaller than the average human cell, thus the difference. | [
"The famous notion that bacterial cells in the human body outnumber human cells by a factor of 10:1 has been debunked. There are approximately 39 trillion bacterial cells in the human microbiota as personified by a \"reference\" 70 kg male 170 cm tall, whereas there are 30 trillion human cells in the body. This mea... |
why do closed rooms have a particular "smell" to them? | the smell (in general) is because of the molecules carried by the air like salt in the sea. That means that when you're smelling, let's say an orange, you absorb orange molecules that carries the smell.
When air is stagnant, you get something like the dead Sea (to continue the metaphor) where because the water never changes, it becomes heavily charged with salt. Here the air is charged with odorant molecules because it's not moving. It's the same smell for a lot of cases because all rooms are quite similar, they all get dusty, they have walls, paint, etc... These dust particules and other objects and materials emit odorant molecules that mix in the stagnant air of the room giving its particular smell.
I hope the answer satisfies you.
| [
"In early 18th-century house descriptions, the area was usually called the \"airy\", which suggests that its primary function was ventilation, needed to prevent cooking smells from percolating upstairs to the rooms above. This implies that the term \"area\" was a corruption of \"airey\" rather than vice versa.\n",
... |
how does yelp manipulate reviews? | Yelp was accused of manipulating reviews, almost in a Mafia-like fashion. Business owners would get calls from Yelp asking if they wanted to purchase advertising (Yelp's main source of revenue). If they said no, some noticed their positive reviews disappear. No definitive statistics exist on this. But Yelp did go to trial and was acquitted. | [
"As Yelp became more influential, the phenomenon of business owners and competitors writing fake reviews, known as \"astroturfing\", became more prevalent. A study from Harvard professor Michael Luca analyzed 316,415 reviews in Boston and found that fake reviews rose from 6% of the site's reviews in 2006 to 20% in ... |
Why did people think Anastasia survived/escaped the Romanov execution? | There were rumors of each of them being the sibling to have survived, actually - and bear in mind that the full story we know of the Romanovs being executed in the House of Special Purpose was not publicly known at the time. People weren't even really sure that Nikolai and Alexandra were dead, let alone that their children had also been put to death in a basement in Ekaterinburg. (Note [this excellent discussion about Larissa Tudor](_URL_0_), said to be Tatiana, by /u/mikedash.) There were actually quite a few men who claimed to be Alexei! It's hard to imagine this, as a Millennial or younger and having grown up with a) all of this in the past, since none of them would have lived beyond the 1980s given their birth dates, and b) a number of fictional representations of the matter, especially the Ahrens-Flaherty musical animated film and Broadway show, but for many years it seemed quite plausible that one of the group had managed to survive and was out there, able to be found and to give evidence of the tragedy.
The main reason Anastasia is thought of as "the one" is that a woman named Anna Anderson claimed to be her through much of the twentieth century (from 1921 to her death in 1984). She was found in a Berlin canal in 1920, having jumped in in a suicide attempt; she wouldn't identify herself, had a few scars as evidence of some past injury, and was obviously mentally disturbed. As "Fraulein Unbekannt", she remained in a mental hospital for more than a year, hardly speaking, but behaving in a "ladylike" way that made the nurses curious. She also requested and read books in French and English, and spoke Russian as well as German, according to one witness. The first Romanov connection came up a year later, when she was shown a copy of the magazine *Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung* with the grand duchesses on it and a headline about a potential survivor (inside, the speculation was about Anastasia) - her manner changed, and later one she drew a nurse's attention to the resemblance between her and Anastasia. The nurse was reluctant to do so, but when she finally asked her flat-out if she was the Tsar's daughter, the unnamed woman came out with a flood of details about her escape. Word filtered out through a fellow (but short-term) inmate who came to believe she was indeed Anastasia, and reached the Supreme Monarchist Council in Berlin, an antisemitic group that coordinated with aristocratic Russian emigrés. One of the latter briefly recognized her, and then the flood of visitors began. In 1922, she was released into the custody of a minorly aristocratic married couple who'd become very close to her, who kept her in comfort.
At this time, she really didn't work to take the place in society the actual Grand Duchess Anastasia would have been able to have - she just insisted that she was Anastasia when people were brought in to look at her, although she only asked to be called Annie. (I suspect that this is a huge part of the reason why her story was so compelling - a woman who stands up and says, "I'm Anastasia. Money please!" is automatically suspicious, while a woman whose case is only brought to people via supportive third parties and who never asks for anything but her name is seen as having more integrity.) She didn't always recognize the people she was supposed to recognize (and was in turn dismissed by many of the people who came to see if she was the girl they had known), she was very opposed to speaking in Russian, and her escape story was fragmented, contradictory, and uncorroborated by any real evidence; she was also emotionally volatile and, according to the couple's daughter, had no social skills or grasp of refined behavior. Being unable to support herself and a suicide risk, she was passed from supporter to supporter for years. Most importantly, despite her generally obscure situation and the fact that the living people who'd been closest to the royal family dismissed her claim, her story was blowing up across Germany and then the world: tiny scars on her body were represented as the evidence of her having been shot and stabbed, people who'd denied that she was a Romanov were said to have embraced her as a niece or cousin, and many other pieces of "evidence" suddenly appeared in the popular consciousness. Multiple adaptations were made, fictionalizing the already-fictional story she told: *Clothes Make the Woman* (1928), the classic *Anastasia* (1956) and a different German one in the same year, the Broadway show *Anya* (1965) ... Decades later, a thorough investigation was undertaken - as thorough as they could be without being able to test DNA - and the courts declared that she failed to meet the standard of proof for taking back Anastasia Romanov's identity, though the newspapers frequently leaned heavily on her side. And now, of course, we do have DNA evidence that shows that she was not Anastasia, and was most likely a Polish factory worker named Franziska Schanzkowska, as rumors had had it even during her lifetime. | [
"Anastasia's supposed escape and possible survival was one of the most popular historical mysteries of the 20th century, provoking many books and films. At least ten women claimed to be her, offering varying stories as to how she had survived. Anna Anderson, the best known Anastasia impostor, first surfaced publicl... |
why can astronomers see many distant galaxies but they don't know what's on outside of our own solar system? | The Oort cloud isn't actually emitting any light, so there isn't anything for our telescopes to pick up on. Distant galaxies, on the other hand, are composed of countless stars as bright as or brighter than our own. Its the same reason you could see a lighthouse from miles away out at sea, but not your hand in front of your face in a dark room. | [
"The Local Group contains the largest number of visible galaxies with the naked eye. However, its galaxies are not visually grouped together in the sky, except for the two Magellanic Clouds. The IC342/Maffei Group, the nearest galaxy group, would be visible by the naked eye if it were not obscured by the stars and ... |
The Collapse of the Kievan Rus' | Firstly, Moscow was never a large city prior or during Mongol conquest. And it was sacked.
Secondly, Novgorod avoided the fate because it was far enough away to the Mongols to not bother to go there. Novgorod accepted the Mongol rule anyway.
Thirdly, there was no 'powerful Russian state' based out of Kiev prior to the Mongol conquest. While Kiev principality was the richest and most populous of all Russian principalities, it was still relatively small. United Rus ceased to exist more than half a century before Mongols came.
The reason why Kiev never recovered was not even tied to the Mongols. The source of the Kiev wealth and power was trade along Dnieper river from the Baltics through Novgorod and to the Constantinopole and then Levant and further east. But this trade 'dried up' with the decline of Byzantine Empire and because Crusades reestablished alternative trade route with the East through Mediterranean sea.
Because of that Baltics-Volga-Caspian Sea became a main trade route in the Rus lands. Novgorod controlled the Baltic part of the route still but Kiev was now out of the way. Because of that center of power gradually switched to the Vladimir and then to Moscow. It would happen even without Mongol invasion just more slowly.
The sources for the post are various lectures by historian Klim Zhukov (unpublished) and Khrustalev's work "Rus and Mongol invasion" (Хрусталев Д. Г. Русь и монгольское нашествие (20-50 гг. XIII в.). — Спб.: Евразия, 2015) | [
"Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state because of in-fighting between members of the princely family that ruled it collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, Novgorod in the north, and Halych-Volhynia in the south-west. Conquest by the Mongol Golden Horde in... |
Why was Catharism never as succesful as Protestantism? | Hi! You might be interested in this similar thread:
* [How was it that Protestantism spread so far and to so many people in Europe, when previous heresies such as Catharism and Fraticelli were much smaller and more confined?](_URL_0_): A flaired user answers the OP's question plus some follow-ups. | [
"Catharism (; from the Greek: , \"katharoi\", \"the pure [ones]\") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic revival movement that thrived in some areas of Southern Europe, particularly what is now northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. The followers were known as Cathars and are now main... |
Were the plays and poetry made by William Shakespeare considered vulgar, sexually explicit and immoral in his own lifetime, or shortly after his death? Was he considered a great playwright during his lifetime? | Shakespeare was writing for a "common" audience, as well as for a noble one. His plays were ones that everyone could understand, which did mean that there are several that have "low art" in them. Much Ado about Nothing comes to mind, there are several dick jokes in it, as does Romeo and Juliet (the nurse has several humorous lines). He was certainly very popular, but he was seen as a great author, not as the defining voice of that period. After his death his plays were put on, but he was not the most popular playwright then. His popularity really grew in the 18th century into the 19th, and has only grown from there.
Much of how we view Shakespeare today is due to how it's taught in schools, where it is read as "fine literature", when in actuality it was very quick and full of humor and life. Remember, in the prologue to Romeo and Juliet it reads "..is now the two hour mark of our stage". Imagine reading all of R+J in two hours and you get an idea of how fast paced and different these plays were live than read.
TL;DR: Shakespeare never sucked, was often crude in his humor, and the widespread adoration of him really kicked off in the 18th/19th century. | [
"William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright from the 16th century. Through plays like \"Hamlet\" and \"Titus Andronicus\", Shakespeare portrayed the basic characteristics of a revenge tragedy. He presented elements that are quite similar to those from Seneca's tragedies, establishing tragedy as a more w... |
How did one join the Soviet secret police in the 1920's? | Originally, the CHEKA was originally drawn from Petrograd Bolshevik members. As it grew into the 1920's Felix Dzerzhinksy, the man Lenin put in charge of the CHEKA after its initial head, Moses Uritski, was shot and killed, recruited from members of the Bolshevik faction he knew to be trustworthy and not squeamish. Basically, it was an invitation only club, one could not simply join, one was recruited.
EDIT: I forgot to reference your original question, the CHEKA was reorganized in the early 1920's into the Joint State Political Administration (OGPU), basically changing the nameplates on the office doors, Iron Felix was still running the show.
_Ronald Hingley, "The Russian Secret Service: Muscovite, Imperial Russian and Soviet Political Security Operations, 1565-1970". | [
"The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, working in collaboration with local communists, created secret police forces using leadership trained in Moscow. As soon as the Red Army had expelled the Germans, this new secret police arrived to arrest political enemies according to prepared lists. The national Communists then... |
how do news organizations report natural disaster death counts so specifically and so quickly (i.e. "88 people dead as a result of ...")? | When there are major incidents, local emergency workers generally establish a command post-type place where things like fatalities are reported as soon as they're located. When they give the death toll, they give it based off the numbers that have been reported thus far. | [
"The total death toll was calculated originally as 2,209 people, making the disaster the largest loss of civilian life in the United States at the time. This number of deaths was later surpassed by fatalities in the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. However, as pointed out by Da... |
what is *everything* made of? | The 12 particles and 4 forces of the Standard Model. It stops at the elemental particles like quarks, gluons, electrons, photons, neutrinos stuff like that | [
"A material is a chemical substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified based on their physical and chemical properties, or on their geological origin or biological function. Materials science is the study of ... |
how can dogs bark and whine if they don't have a voice box? | > I assume they don't have a voice box, otherwise they'd be able to talk, right?
Not right. Pretty much all amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals have a larynx (aka, "voice box").
To quote Wikipedia:
> computer-modeling techniques have suggested that the species-specific human tongue allows the vocal tract (the airway above the larynx) to assume the shapes necessary to produce speech sounds that enhance the robustness of human speech. . . In contrast, though other species have low larynges their tongues remains anchored in their mouths and their vocal tracts cannot produce the range of speech sounds of humans. | [
"Talking Dog (voiced by Tom Kane in the series and by Paul Mercier in the \"What a Cartoon!\" episodes) is a small white dog with black ears and nose and a black spot on his back, wearing a red collar with a yellow dog tag. When he stays with the girls he is shown to be blunt, abrasive and insulting, though his dem... |
What aspects of Turner's
Frontier thesis are still
accepted by modern
environmental historians? | Forgive me for not directly answering the question, but since there are no responses yet, I'll give a little background on the Turner thesis. You can find the text of the thesis online here (1920 republishing): _URL_0_
The American frontier was officially declared "closed" in 1890, with Turner publishing his thesis in 1893. The big idea here is that the frontier changed Americans, as the Americans changed the frontier. The frontier is postulated as what makes Americans "American," bestowing virtues on its settlers as they struggle against the environment. This quote (from the 11th paragraph of chapter 11) illustrates this point:
> American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not
> carried in the Sarah Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to
> Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new
> strength each time it touched a new frontier. Not the constitution,
> but free land and an abundance of natural resources open to a fit
> people, made the democratic type of society in America for three
> centuries while it occupied its empire.
As years and decades passed, the Turner theory waned in influence, as few people believed that the closing of the frontier had drastically changed the character of America, as Turner believed it would. | [
"From the 1970s the term frontier, and the frontier myth, fell into disrepute due to its failure to include minorities based on race, class, gender and environment. The New Western History has focused on an examination of the problems of expansion; destruction of the environment, indigenous massacres, and the histo... |
How common was violence against peasants in the Middle Ages? Is it exaggerated in novels and films? | First thing to be considered for western europe (old Western Empire) the "peasants" have two origins, slaves and former slaves, or former citizens that fled the cities when plague and invasion struck them. The lords were germanic warriors (Franks and the like) who were given lands in exchange for the fight, and later on became "administrators" for the Merovingiens king and the Carolingiens Dynasty. These administrators were of course "local" bosses, but their function (Count, Duke etc.. derives from administrative-militaristic title of the Roman Empire) became hereditary.
during those era the slaves weren't freed and mostly were kept slaves, somehow it ended.
The violence was in their social status. They weren't "peasant" per se ( depending on the areas) but various social "classes" of under statute that were dependant on an administrator (who later on became a "noble" in the full sense of the term) and owned him various obligations depending *again* on there status. In return this administrator had full right of "justice" (i.e. when a dispute arose he was the one to settle it), "police" (i.e. he was obligated to ensure "safety") and fiscal rights (they preserved the taxes in the name of the ruler).
Some peasants were legally binded to the land they lived on, some were free men (fully owned their lands, rare and hated), some were middle free men (not serfs, but worked the land for nobles).
Depending in the area the common point was that they "owned" to the nobles and the king obligations, services "corvées" , and supported the fiscal burden. The full fiscal burden.
The western-european society was a society of orders, nobles, clergy and third-state. Clergy is to be considered apart as it predated the two other orders. But nobles and third-state weren't the same "race" litteraly. the third-state itself englobed every non peasants like artisan, merchants, "soldiers", clerck etc...
And on that basis they didn't have the same rights and obligations. Nobles had what we called "priveleges" they didn't pay taxes, had their own justice (by their suzerain or their peers) and were limitless in the powers they held onto their lands, with the limits more or less important of their vassals controls (Rights), the Church (who offered a lot of protection to the peasants) and the religion/faith. They had to act as christians. edit : and of course the King.
But the peasants : couldn't in most case leave the land they were born onto without consent of the lord (or a letter authorizing them to), they couldn't marry without the consent of the lord (changed a lot and depended of the areas, mostly when the boy was not a serf), they couldn't hunt, they had to work for their lords' fields before their own subsistance, they had to paid to use the "public" oven, they had to paid for using the water pipe, etc...
They were subject to the Lord's justice and it could be cruel, if they had a conflict with their lord he was judge and party, unless they appealed to the church or the King (which they could do, and sometimes did, but rarely, Louis IX of France is the "icone" of such things, and the full expression of how the kings of France viewed their powers/duty i.e. to be "king of justice" for the Realm subject).
They could be requisitionned to fight if they were seen wandering on roads, they could be requisitionned to construct or clean said roads by the kings' officers or by their Lords without being payed of course. When siege broke out they were requisitionned to build fortifications etc...
Often the partied obligations were written in a "contract" that variated wether the peasants was a free men or a serf. And it made the "laws" of the parties, as far were these contract negotiated ? I don't know. And never studied one. But I know they weren't strict piece of paper, they were "customs" and customary before being a document. The peasant owned certain things to the lord because that was "how it was" for other peasants and since their fathers' father.
They revolted also, and lords killed by their peasants weren't that uncommon AFAIK. But you can imagine what happened if someone killed a senator or a well off citizen now, same things but with medieval punishment.
But that asides, the army were often living "on the land" so in war times the area were pillaged and destroyed by the standing armies. And when two lords wared against each other, if the goal wasn't conquest then the "economic" forces were targeted.
In the penal punishment also, they could be hanged or left to rot on pikes, while nobles were "decapitated" and buried.
Overall their situation was really shitty, at least for those that weren't free or hadn't fled (a reason cities boosted around Bishops in the late middle ages was that they were powerfull enough to create "safe heavens" for fleeing peasants).
It was part of a system more than an exceptionnal furry on the poor ol'peasants. But the myth that a nobles could just go and kill their people isn't true, they needed to have "reasons" (albeit skewed) to kill the workforce. Christiannity was both the prison ("God wills it", as the Crusaders said) and the best protection of the common folks.
And most important this is from my "legal" knowledge for Western Europe (mostly the old carolingien empire). I know viking influenced areas had different rules regarding that. The Hispanic peninsula was also very different, since the kings needed men to fight they gave them lands and rights. (but slaves working for the muslims that weren't killed became serfs for the new masters).
In the East the situation was very different also, in "russian" area, the Kievan Rus used to be very "liberal" (no reference towards US politics, I just don't see another word for it) and the peasantry eventhough separated from the "warriors" had a lot of protective rights with a [code written](_URL_0_), which continued in Novgorod after the Mongol invasion, but changed when [Muscowy took over](_URL_1_). the peasant were becoming scarce so they were more or less turned into legal furnitures (which wasn't the case in the west after the early middle age) by a new code of laws.
I know Magyar peasants had it quite bad also.
**Disclaimer** : I'm a public law jurist, so I know a little about legal history of Europe's public and administrative rules (mostly about Rome/France though), this is a rough protrait that I think is accurate. But if a specialist could add/correct me I would be glad. | [
"At the local level, levels of violence were extremely high by modern standards in medieval and early modern Europe. Typically, small groups would battle their neighbors, using the farm tools at hand such as knives, sickles, hammers and axes. Mayhem and death were deliberate. The vast majority of people lived in ru... |
why exactly do phone carriers sell their cellular devices with all of those unnecessary apps that users can't delete and stay on your phone forever unused? | Somebody is paying them to. Since it's not you, suspicion would have to fall on the app producers, or the data sellers that benefit from the data extracted by the apps. | [
"Customers of Consumer Phone Services number less than a million. In 2007, some 580,000 customers still leased phones through the company. A majority of the customers are elderly who have found convenience in simply leasing the same telephone. Most customers are also leftovers from before the 1984 breakup of AT&T, ... |
as something gets closer and closer to the exact center of a body of mass (say, earth), what happens to the gravitational force from that body of mass? | > So say it was completely possible to drill down to the exact center of the earth. How would gravity change from the surface of earth to the core?
If the Earth were the same density throughout, gravity would drop the further down you went, and would reach zero at the center.
This is because of something called the [shell theorem](_URL_0_), which states that a spherical shell of matter acts like a point mass from a distance, but has zero net gravitational pull at any point inside the shell. As you dive deeper into the Earth, the layers above you behave like the shells described in that theorem.
In reality, since the Earth does not have uniform density, and is actually denser closer to the center, what you'd actually see is a small *increase* in gravity for the first part of your trip, which would peak somewhere in the mantle, and then begin dropping, still reaching zero at the core (ignoring small variation caused by the Earth not being a perfect sphere).
> If, again theoretically, we were able to drill to the exact center of the earth, what would happen when we reach it? Because gravity, from what I understand, is pulling everything towards a center of mass, then at the very center, wouldn't gravity be equally distributed from every single angle around you? So essentially, if you were at the center, would you float, suspended by gravity from all angles?
Yep.
> If the core of the earth was hollow, essentially empty space, how would gravity react? As there is no actually "center of mass" of the planet any more, would an object in the core be "sucked" to the side of the hollow core?
Per the Shell Theorem, there would be no net gravitational force on anything in that hollow space (i.e. you'd be weightless anywhere in the space, and would not be "sucked" to the side). | [
"where is the gravitational constant and is the mass of the body. As long as the total force is nonzero, this equation has a unique solution, and it satisfies the torque requirement. A convenient feature of this definition is that if the body is itself spherically symmetric, then lies at its center of mass. In gene... |
why is it that you can try something for hours and hours, take a break/be done for the day and somehow do it your first time upon retrying? | I just heard a really great interview with sleep expert Matthew Walker. He had a theory about this. The ELI5 version is basically that your brain "practices" what you learned while you sleep, which makes you better at whatever it is you are trying to do. This is one of the reasons why it's important to get at least seven hours of sleep a night.
If you want to hear more, check out the Joe Rogan Experience episode #1109. That's the interview I'm referring to. | [
"During the examination, candidates may take a break after completing a \"testlet\" (either a set of multiple choice questions or a simulation). Once a testlet is completed, however, the candidate is not allowed to return to it, so it is not possible to use the \"break time\" to improve one's score by looking up an... |
Why did the Lorica Segmentata become the foremost armor both before and after the use of chain mail? What was special about the period that favored it? Why did plate not gain prominence again for a thousand years? | [Dan Howard](_URL_2_) tells us that the main reason for adopting the Lorica Segmentata was that it was far cheaper to produce than Hamata. Furthermore, because of the wide coverage provided by a scutum, the most common area of injury for a legionnaire would be the shoulders. Lorica Segmentatas' reinforced shoulder plates make it seem as if it was developed with that in mind.
Vegetius tells us that the main reason for dropping the Lorica Segmentata was because it was too heavy. Supposedly, the legionnaires got soft and couldn't bear to wear it anymore. Vegetius lamented this slothful attitude, because of the Lorica Segmentata's greater protection in comparison to the armor of Late-Antiquity.
However, this is probably not the only reason, nor the main reason for the abandoning of such armor. [This comment](_URL_0_) by [u/bitparity](_URL_1_) tells us that the later emperors required a lighter, more mobile army attached to the emperor(s) that could more quickly respond to internal and external foes throughout the empire and its borders.
Lorica Segmentata also required much more effort to maintain compared to the Lorica Hamata. Rust was a very big problem for the plates. The use of leather under metal in high mobility situations would also lead to quick degradation of the leather, as it would constantly rub up against it during any sort of movement. As the empire's logistics collapsed, it is reasonable to believe that the legions could no longer adequately maintain their platemails and went with the sturdier alternative.
Returning to Dan Howard, he claims that chainmail was actually the preferable alternative in most aspects aside from blunt trauma. It allegedly provided better coveragewith greater mobility, while not requiring the legionnaire to wear additional inner lining. It also was far easier to repair, as you could use a wire of metal. | [
"\"Lorica hamata\" was a type of mail armour used during the Roman Republic continuing throughout the Roman Empire as a standard-issue armour for the primary heavy infantry legionaries and secondary troops (\"auxilia\"). They were mostly manufactured out of iron, though sometimes bronze was used instead. The rings ... |
why do people turn down the music when they're close to locating a street or destination? | I do it because I feel like it helps me focus. The music seems like a distraction, especially if it's loud. | [
"The song \"The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here\" is not literally about not being able to find a person, but about telling a person their preconceived notions about themselves were incorrect - that such a person does not exist. Multiple tracks, including \"Buildings\", allude to abandoned city scenes, which we... |
what is actually happening (inside) when you plug a portable charger into itself? | It's not technically bad, it's just dumb (no offense). All that will happen is the charger will generate heat from the current while slowly losing charge to the resistance of the cable used to plug it into itself. Longer cables will provide more resistance, though most cables for such a thing won't be terribly long.; but ultimately it'll just die. All the while degrading the battery.
To put it in super layman's it's a circular human centipede. Without a raw energy source it'll eventually run itself out and die. | [
"In simple terms, inductive charging works by separating the two halves of an electric transformer with an air gap – one half, the Plugless Power Vehicle Adapter, is installed on the vehicle and the other half, the Plugless Power Parking Pad, is installed on the floor of a garage or in a parking lot. When a car wit... |
why do people in the us work so much? | Average work week in the US is 47 hours a week. Full time is 40 hours. There is no required amount of vacation time in the US, the average number of days of paid vacation a year are 12 (this includes paid federal holidays), The average number of sick days a year are 10 and they are generally non-paid days off.
If you work hourly wages you will seldom get paid time off. So while you may get 12 days of vacation you can seldom afford to take more than one or two days off in a row because taking a week off means you don't get paid for one week of work that month. | [
"In 2000 the average American worked 1,978 hours per year, 500 hours more than the average German, yet 100 hours less than the average Czech. Overall the U.S. labor force is one of the most productive in the world, largely due to its workers working more than those in any other post-industrial country (excluding So... |
all 5 mass extinction of the earth | [From youngest to oldest...](_URL_0_)
0. **[Holocene/Anthropocene Extinction](_URL_4_):** Ongoing. By all accounts, humans are now in the midst of a [6th major extinction](_URL_2_). Only the culprit this time isn't an asteroid or a volcano, its human activities. We are causing rates of extinction to be much much higher than the expected background rates. For example, on average [1 species of mammal is expected to go extinct every million years](_URL_8_). We are currently experiencing rates that are 10x as high as this. The causes are almost always traced back to humans (over-hunting, pollution, habitat destruction...). I think it is very hard for us to conceptualize just how bad its getting, just how many species are at risk of extinction, how many ecosystems are on the brink of collapse. The signs are there, the evidence is mounting - we have time to change this around. We have a lot of positive examples of species and ecosystem recovery, and I think we need to see what we did right in those cases in order to live sustainably on this planet with the other species. **Cause:** Human Activity
1. **[Cretaceous–Paleogene Extinction](_URL_5_):** 66 million years ago. About 17% of all families, 50% of all genera and 75% of all species became extinct In the seas all the ammonites disappeared and the percentage of sessile animals (those unable to move about) was reduced to about 33%. All *non-avian* dinosaurs became extinct during that time (avian dinosaurs survived). The boundary event was severe with a significant amount of variability in the rate of extinction between and among different clades. Mammals and birds, the latter descended from theropod dinosaurs, emerged as dominant large land animals. **Known Cause:** [Asteroid impact](_URL_6_) and aggravated by giant flood basalts called the [Deccan Traps](_URL_1_)
2. **[Triassic–Jurassic Extinction](_URL_10_):** 201.3 Million years ago. About 23% of all families, 48% of all genera (20% of marine families and 55% of marine genera) and 70% to 75% of all species went extinct. Most non-dinosaurian archosaurs, most therapsids, and most of the large amphibians were eliminated, leaving dinosaurs with little terrestrial competition. Non-dinosaurian archosaurs continued to dominate aquatic environments, while non-archosaurian diapsids continued to dominate marine environments. The Temnospondyl lineage of large amphibians also survived until the Cretaceous in Australia (e.g., Koolasuchus). **Possible Causes:** Volcanoes, giant flood basalts, climate change
3. **[Permian–Triassic Extinction](_URL_7_):** 252 million years ago. Earth's largest extinction killed 57% of all families, 83% of all genera and 90% to 96% of all species (53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, about 96% of all marine species and an estimated 70% of land species, including insects). The highly successful marine arthropod, the trilobite became extinct. The evidence of plants is less clear, but new taxa became dominant after the extinction. The "Great Dying" had enormous evolutionary significance: on land, it ended the primacy of mammal-like reptiles. The recovery of vertebrates took 30 million years, but the vacant niches created the opportunity for archosaurs to become ascendant. In the seas, the percentage of animals that were sessile dropped from 67% to 50%. The whole late Permian was a difficult time for at least marine life, even before the "Great Dying". **Possible Causes:** Volcanoes, giant flood basalts, climate change, long term methane release
4. **[Late Devonian Extinction:](_URL_9_)** 375–360 million years ago. At the end of the Frasnian Age in the later part(s) of the Devonian Period, a prolonged series of extinctions eliminated about 19% of all families, 50% of all genera and at least 70% of all species. This extinction event lasted perhaps as long as 20 million years, and there is evidence for a series of extinction pulses within this period. **Possible Causes:** Volcanoes, asteroid
5. **[Ordovician–Silurian Extinction:](_URL_11_)** 450–440 million years ago. Two events occurred that killed off 27% of all families, 57% of all genera and 60% to 70% of all species. Together they are ranked by many scientists as the second largest of the five major extinctions in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct. **Possible Causes**: Continental drift causing global cooling.
**More Information**
* [More on possible causes and their exact mechanisms](_URL_3_).
* Another thing that is worth understanding is that these extinction events did not just happen overnight...while the cause may have been sudden or dramatic (e.g. asteroid) the extinctions and effects lasted thousands to *millions* of years.
Edit: spelling and clarity
| [
"The first of five great mass extinctions was the Ordovician-Silurian extinction. Its possible cause was the intense glaciation of Gondwana, which eventually led to a snowball earth. 60% of marine invertebrates became extinct and 25% of all families.\n",
"The first known mass extinction in earth's history was the... |
why is saudi arabia not diversifying their economy to include solar or wind power? | But they are:
[Source 1](_URL_2_)
[Source 2](_URL_1_)
[Source 3](_URL_0_) | [
"As opposed to overall energy reduction, the government organization Saudi Aramco wishes to create a solar energy sector. Saudi Arabia has a goal to create 41 GW of renewable energy plants, which would place the country as a leading solar energy exporter. Currently, the country is at 17 MW of solar energy and as a ... |
When the US entered WW2, how far did geography determine where a draftee would be deployed? For instance were those from Cali more likely to head into the Pacific, and likewise New Yorkers into Europe/North Africa? Brit here and it's something I've no idea about! | As /u/eleventeenth_beatle and /u/drpinkcream noted, branch of service played a major role in theatre deployment. I'm going to just address the Army in this comment.
My understanding is that deployment was not done by *draftee* but by divisions, which were the primary independent units of the Army (see _URL_1_).
So the next question is, how were divisions assigned geographically, and how was a division's recruitment pool generated?
Per Maurice Matloff's "The 90-Division Gamble," (_URL_2_), the manpower allotted to divisions had to be carefully regulated so that there wasn't too much of a drain on American industrial capability, and there was about a year's worth of training time for a given division before it was deemed combat-worthy. Furthermore, divisions didn't get all their troops at once - it was a piecemeal process as troops trickled in. (John Brown, [*Draftee Division*](_URL_0_), p. 16). The divisions pulled troops in from all over the country - for example, the 88th Division got one shipment largely from the Northeast, and then another from the Midwest and Southwest, dubbed 'Okies.' (Id., p. 17).
So you had divisions 'coming out the door' after a year after drawing troops from all over, and being assigned to one of four areas: Europe, North Africa, Pacific, or reserve within the US. (Matloff). The bulk of the Army's divisions were dedicated to Overlord, since the invasion had to be a massive punch a) to get through, b) to mollify the Soviets who were desperately calling for aid.
| [
"Taking a southerly route to avoid the Japanese Navy, they arrived in southern Australia at Port Adelaide on 14 May 1942, having traveled in 23 days. They were the first American division in World War II to be moved in a single convoy from the United States to the front lines.\n",
"During World War II, the group ... |
why are portraits, any paintings of humans really, almost always left or right-facing instead of directly forward? | People often look less flattering when faced front on. If you’re creating an artwork you most likely want it to look as aesthetically pleasant as possible. This would be much harder if the subject looked ugly.
Also when drawing or painting the (technical) purpose is to create depth. Facing front on would decrease the potential to display this depth and thus make it less realistic or 3 dimensional.
| [
"Self-portraits are usually produced with the help of a mirror, and the finished result is a mirror-image portrait, a reversal of what occurs in a normal portrait when sitter and artist are opposite each other. In a self-portrait, a righted handed artist would appear to be holding a brush in the left hand, unless t... |
Is "Common Ancestor" a Literal Concept of a Single Animal? | In evolutionary terms "common ancestor" is not used to represent an individual. The term defines a species from which two other species diverged. In the classical evolutionary tree schematic used to represent evolutionary history, a common ancestor is a point at which a branch forks. | [
"In biology and genealogy, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA, also last common ancestor (LCA), or concestor) of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all the organisms from such set are directly descended. The term is also used in reference to the ancestry of groups of genes (haplotypes)... |
why does it make a difference in taste, if the water i brew tea with has boiled or not? | It's about temperature and solubility. Coffee is the same way, you're toeing a fine line with certain flavor compounds that come out at certain temps.
For instance, if you boil the water, once it's all mixed in with the tea leaves it'll sit at say 204F (95C), this is hot enough to get all of the good flavors out of black tea, but in mate will draw out bitter compounds, if you use water that hasn't boiled and it's steeping at 190F (87C) then it won't be hot enough to draw all of the desired compounds out of black tea, but will be perfect for mate because it won't draw out the bitter compounds. | [
"The tea can be brewed very differently and there are many combinations that yield interesting results, but it is important to use good mineral water to bring out the sweetness and aroma of the tea and not to over brew or make a bitter and very strong brew.\n",
"Water should be given careful consideration when co... |
In theory (disregarding light pollution), do we see more stars now than our ancestors hundreds of years ago? | Not really, no. The length of time that's passed even over the entire existence of mankind is a very small portion of the universe's age, so the factor by which the observable universe has grown during humanity's existence is very small.
There is a more fundamental reason why we can't see further as time passes, though. As you state in your question, light that travels a greater distance started travelling further into the past. This allows us to look back into the universe's history, but there is a limit. At times earlier than about 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot and dense that it was essentially opaque, with light being unable to travel freely, and so no light will ever reach us from before that time. (Light emitted immediately after the universe became transparent is what we now observe as the [cosmic microwave background](_URL_0_))
There are hopes that one day, astronomy using neutrinos or gravitational waves will allow us to look beyond this boundary, but these techniques are currently in their infancy. In any case, the first stars formed much later, so observing beyond the CMB would not reveal any new ones - instead, it would tell us more about the conditions of the Big Bang, and maybe, what (if anything) existed before it. | [
"The light observed from the star was emitted when the universe was about 30% of its current age of 13.8 billion years. Kelly suggested that similar microlensing discoveries could help them identify the earliest stars in the universe. The star no longer exists as a blue supergiant, given the known lifetime of such ... |
what happens when someone wins a large amount of money (powerball, pch) and why does everyone seem to be broke after? | People go broke mainly because they don't understand that if you are not making money right now, you should not be spending it. They don't invest the money they make in something that will make them money and they spend large amounts of money because they have it right now. They don't think about the future.
Also, another big thing is that once people find out you have money, they all want to be your friend. People you haven't seen for years will suddenly show up. Your dad that you haven't talked to or seen for 20 years will knock on your door. Many people don't know how to say NO. | [
"At each level, the contestants may quit with the money they have accumulated; making a mistake at any point ends the game and nullifies any winnings from it. If a team quits or successfully gives all 15 answers, the money they have achieved is banked and can no longer be lost. There is no limit to the amount of mo... |
Do plants/trees experience wind chill? | Wind chill is simply a way of expressing the enhanced rate of convective heat transfer on surfaces due to convection. This applies for all surfaces, not just human skin. So yes, a tree will have more heat transfer away from its surface when the wind is blowing just like a human would.
However, heat transfer will only occur when the surface is a different temperature than the surroundings. Trees are not warm-blooded, so they will simply the same temperature as the surroundings. The only time they will be different is when there are sudden changes of temperatures, like a sudden cold front, etc. In those cases the trees will cool off faster with the wind than without. | [
"Trees can withstand temperatures of −31 °C (−25 °F) or colder for short periods of time, provided the ground around the roots is insulated with either heavy snow or mulch. Outside its natural range, the foliage can suffer from damaging windburn.\n",
"Plants can sense the wind through the deformation of its tissu... |
How can you separate mixed dna samples? | They always have to do this to separate out the victim's DNA. Adding one extra isn't too tough - if you know there are two perpetrators, they test quite a bit of DNA and can get 3 different results. In a large gang rape, it gets increasingly difficult, but apparently is improving. Here's an interesting article on it:
_URL_0_ | [
"The separated DNA bands are often used for further procedures, and a DNA band may be cut out of the gel as a slice, dissolved and purified. Contaminants however may affect some downstream procedures such as PCR, and low melting point agarose may be preferred in some cases as it contains fewer of the sulphates that... |
What would be found in a WW2 British soldiers rucksack or knapsack | This [YouTube](_URL_0_) link shows some of the items a British solider would have during the Japanese invasion of Singapore. Some canned food, grenades, .303 ammunition, gas masks and a few other items that I can't make out. It also brings up another question for you. Which theater in WWII and which time period during the war.
Equipment would be different for an army regular fighting in France, compared to someone another in North Africa. Logistical facts of war and the area of operation could change it up quite a bit. | [
"A World War II pillbox can be found in the hedgerow along the riverbank. This pillbox and others along the River Medway formed part of the Ironside Line. On 27 May 1944, Prime Minister Winston Churchill put General Sir Edmund Ironside in charge of creating a first line of defence against German invasion forces.\n"... |
Would a fusion reactor be affected by earthquakes? | Fusion reactors are created using super-cooled magnets that sustain the fusion reaction. Unlike a fission reactor that would go into meltdown if enough damage were to be done because the reaction is self-sustaining, a fusion reactor would simply shut down since the reaction cannot sustain itself. | [
"The damage from the earthquake to the Fukushima Daiichi reactor prompted stress tests of the nation's other fifty-four nuclear reactors; the tests were meant to inspect the resilience of the other reactors in case of another earthquake or tsunami. All of the reactors decommissioned for stress tests and safety chec... |
In light of today's Connecticut shooting, are mass shootings a fairly recent occurrence? | Have you ever heard of the expression "running amok"?
It comes from the Malay term *(meng)amuk*, which refers to a type of killing spree. Dating back to premodern times, amok is a type of killing spree in which a sudden perceived mistreatment causes someone to go into a fit of rage and murder several people. Amok usually ends when the perpetrator is killed by bystanders. It is classified as a mental disorder in DSM-IV.
[Some psychologists have compared](_URL_0_) [amok to the modern spree killer.](_URL_1_) (Two links.) So killing sprees do not seem to be a solely modern phenomenon. | [
"On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred on the Strip at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, adjacent to the Mandalay Bay hotel. 58 people were killed and 851 were injured. This incident became the deadliest mass shooting in modern United States history.\n",
"On Sunday, 12 August 2018, a mass shooti... |
When did Europeans in New Zealand start adopting the practice of Haka from the Maori? | hi! Hopefully some of the NZ specialists will drop by to address this question, but meanwhile, you can get a little start here
* [Why has New Zealand embraced indigenous culture more than other former British Colonies?](_URL_1_) - /u/Cenodoxus makes a few comments on adoption of the Haka
.. and if you're interested in New Zealand history with regard to Maori integration more generally, this thread may be useful; it includes links to a few more (including the above post)
* [Why were the Maori so much more successful at resisting colonization than Australian Aborigines or other Pacific Islanders?](_URL_0_) - featuring /u/b1uepenguin
All of the posts have been archived by now, so if you have follow-up questions for any of the commenters, just ask them here and mention their username to notify them | [
"The use of the haka in welcoming ceremonies for members of British royal family helped to improve its standing among Europeans. Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was the first royal to visit New Zealand, in 1869. Upon the Duke's arrival at the wharf in Wellington, he was greeted by a vigorous haka. The \"Welli... |
Physics student with a question on Mathematics. Seeking answers from those who work in a physic's capacity everyday. | I'm afraid it's unavoidable: Sooner or later, you're going to have to wrap your head around group theory. It's as essential to modern physics as calculus was to Newtonian dynamics. | [
"One of the most cited works in this area, Chi et al. (1981), examines how experts (PhD students in physics) and novices (undergraduate students that completed one semester of mechanics) categorize and represent physics problems. They found that novices sort problems into categories based upon surface features (e.g... |
if our feet are naturally arched and used on the flat ground, why do flat shoes ruin arch support? | The ground our feet evolved to have an arch on wasn't really flat. Floors, sidewalks, and other manmade flat surfaces aren't really natural; they're just easier to sweep.
Feet do best on paths with little rocks or gravel, grassy areas, sand, and other rough or uneven surfaces. | [
"Flat feet (also called pes planus or fallen arches) is a postural deformity in which the arches of the foot collapse, with the entire sole of the foot coming into complete or near-complete contact with the ground. An estimated 20–30% of the general population have an arch that simply never develops in one or both ... |
how is it that so many laws and rules are being placed that have their basis rooted in religion, yet the constitution includes the "separation of church and state" ideal? | Separation of church and state doesn't mean that people can't use their religious principles to create laws. It means that the government won't set up a state religion, and you are free to follow any religion you want.
People are going to campaign for laws that fit what they feel is important. If the majority of people in your country is some flavour of religious, then there is a good chance their religion helps form what they find important. | [
"Because of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, no religious tradition can be established as the basis of laws that apply to everyone, including any form of sharia, Christian canon law, Jewish halakha, or rules of dharma from Eastern religions. Laws must be passed in a secular fashion, not b... |
What were the lives of Black people in the United Kingdom like during the World Wars? | side note: did experience differ from Black British and West-Indies/African immigrants? | [
"By World War I, there were about 20,000 black people in Britain. Following disarmament in 1919, surplus of labour and shortage of housing led to dissatisfaction among Britain’s working class, in particular sailors and dock workers. In ports, such as South Shields, Glasgow, London's East End, Liverpool, Cardiff, Ba... |
why is the word "reich" always used in texts about germany, instead of translating it? | Because the word "realm" (the closest translation) is too general. Even German has multiple words for "realm of a king" vs "realm of an emperor" vs "realm of someone else".
By saying "the Nazi realm", what do we mean? Do we mean Germany and Austria, where the Nazis actually ruled directly? Do we mean those two AND all the surrounding countries they conquered, where they held control though puppets?
Whereas if we say "the Reich", we know immediately what was meant. They themselves distinguished between "Reich" and "occupied territories". | [
"Reich (; ) is a German word analogous in meaning to the English word \"realm\". The terms ' (literally \"realm of an emperor\") and ' (literally \"realm of a king\") are used in German to refer to empires and kingdoms respectively. The \"Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary\" indicates that in English usage, th... |
How do vegetables such as onions, potatoes, and garlic sprout long after harvest? | Yep, they're still alive!
A potato, carrot or beetroot is essentially a storage container for the plant. Take the carrot - it's a biannual, meaning it has a two-year life cycle where the plant spends the first year of its life gathering energy and nutrients, and the second year spending its stores on reproduction. All through that first summer, the carrot leaves gather energy from the sun, store it in the form of carbohydrates using carbon it gathered from the air, and send those carbs to its tap root for storage. You ask how it can live away from the main plant, but the fact is that when winter comes, the carrot *is* the plant - the green parts of it have wilted and died. Removing the carrot from the soil doesn't change much, as it's essentially dormant at this stage, waiting for spring - it doesn't need any water or soil nutrients, because it's not metabolically active.
But plop a carrot down in the soil - or, in the case of your pantry, conditions that are close enough to being in spring soil to accidentally trick the carrot that it's time to get going - and it'll start burning all those carbs, making flowers to mate with other carrots and produce seeds. Beets are also biannuals, and work along the same lines.
Potatoes, meanwhile, are perennials, meaning they have multi-year life cycles - each year they'll divide their efforts between making some leaves to gather energy, making some tubers to store energy, and making some flowers to reproduce. You can cut a potato off from its root system and it'll happily grow a new one, because (unlike most animals) their bodies are decentralized. A root can't easily regrow a whole plant - it needs energy from sunlight to do it - and a leaf can't easily regrow a whole plant, because it needs nutrients from a root system. But a tuber is a nice store of everything needed to rebuild a whole plant, including a pack of stored solar energy. | [
"When a vegetable is harvested, it is cut off from its source of water and nourishment. It continues to transpire and loses moisture as it does so, a process most noticeable in the wilting of green leafy crops. Harvesting root vegetables when they are fully mature improves their storage life, but alternatively, the... |
Why did the Catholic Church seem to be opposed to lay people reading the Bible? | Not exactly true. Catholic Church does not opposed lay reading Bible. In fact, reading of the Bible is part of the Mass and regular attendee of the Masses will hear a large portion of both Testaments in span of few years.
Given, that Catholic rites formed in the period of nearly universal illiteracy that alone shows that Church was never against peoples learning the contents of the Bible.
However, Catholic have a different stance on interpreting it. Theologically it's based on 2 Timothy, where Paul gives eponymous Timothy right to *righteously divide the word of truth* and in practice it means that only the Church hierarchs (bishops, approved theologists and such) can properly interpret the Scripture and teach doctrine as spiritual successors of the Apostols.
Hence the problem Church had with the Bible translations was not laymen reading the Scripture, but laymen reading *heretic interpretation* of it.
Case in point- papal bull in 1713 as you name it, commonly known as [Unigenitus](_URL_0_). The bull was targeted against heresy called *Jansenism*, and ascetically against Pasquier Quesnel, one of the main advocates of Jansenism. Who, by the way, spread his teaching by publishing abriged version of Gospel with commentaries (*Abrégé de la morale de l'Evangile*).
*Unigenitus* condemns 101 notions of Quesnel, giving source of condemnation:
> _URL_1_ is useful and necessary at every time, in every place, and for every kind of persons, to study and know the spirit, piety, and mysteries of sacred Scripture.
Pope point to *1 Cor. xiv. 6*:
> Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, **what good will I be to you, unless** I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction?
or the very next Quesnel proposition:
> 80.The reading of sacred Scripture is for all.
Pope replies with the Acts of the Apostles:
> And on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. **“Do you understand what you are reading?”** Philip asked.
In short, Catholic view is that reading the Bible is pointless- or even harmful- if you do not how to interpret and understand the text, and it much better leave it to the properly trained professionals something that is made even mere clear rebuffing statement 85
> To interdict to Christians the reading of sacred Scripture, especially of the Gospel, is to interdict the use of light to the sons of light..
Pope responds pointing the most famous lines of Luke:
> No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.
And that essentially it: Catholic Church is not against lay people reading (or hearing) the Bible, but is very much against theologically-inept Joe's going wild with they own interpretations of it. That's the job for properly trained and educated priests.
It somewhat similar how modern scientists and academics are often opposed to amateur researchers.
P.S. In English speaking world Catholics have image of Bible haters, because of suppression of John Wycliffe, who was proclaimed martyr of reformation. However his work was suppressed not because he dared to translate Scripture to English, but because he views were, in fact, *extra heresy*. He even openly denied authority of the *spiritual liege*!
| [
"In Catholic England, the only Bible available was written in Latin Vulgate, a translation of proper Latin considered holy by the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, only clergy had access to copies of the Bible. Countrymen were dependent on their local priests for the reading of scripture because they could not re... |
what does canada's recession mean, exactly? what makes it different from the economic recession of the usa a few years back, and what does it mean for the average canadian? | I don't know about the average Canadian, but Alberta has been experiencing steady lay-offs since oil dropped, and all forecasts predict more. That said, it's not like the situation is going to affect the other parts of Canada any more than any other region of the world that relies on oil for every-day transportation, industrial, or household use, etc. It's not like any place within Canada outside of Alberta is any more or less oil-dependent than the rest of the world.
The difference between a Canadian recession and a US recession (or crash) is that the US economy is far more central and significant to the rest of the world. The sheer difference in size between the two economies means that any relationship is asymmetrical. If America slows down, the world including Canada slows down. If Canada slows down, no one really notices. Canada's economy was dependent on Alberta's oil. Canada needs to sell oil to be prosperous. Canada is competing with OPEC. Oil-importing countries (including the US) aren't concerned where their oil is coming from as long as they are paying the lowest price. If Canada isn't offering the lowest price, it sucks to be Canada. | [
"The recession brought on in the United States by the collapse of the dot-com bubble beginning in 2000, hurt the Toronto Stock Exchange but has affected Canada only mildly. It is one of the few times Canada has avoided following the United States into a recession.\n",
"Canada was one of the last industrialized na... |
If I were in an astronaut suit and I floated through one of Saturn's rings, what would happen to me? | The rings are actually quite a dense mass of particles so your chance of hitting something massive is very high. If you hit the rings plane at more than (say) ten metres per second you will be in a lot of trouble. | [
"Minutes after the technical failure of her spacecraft, an astronaut finds herself ejected into space. She tries in vain to call for help. She is slowly running out of air. Little by little, fear grabs hold of her, and she faints. After floating adrift for several hours through the immensity of space, she awakens t... |
Do we know if people with depression have a structurally different brain when compared to person without depression. | Great question! There's been a lot of investigation into biological differences related to depression; much of this work (at least that I'm familiar with) is related to hormonal differences. However, you're asking specifically about structural differences, so I'll give you an example from morphometry, though this admittedly is potentially related to hormone dysregulation.
Many studies have shown morphological differences is in the size of the anterior cingulate cortex and amygdala, among some other areas (see meta-analysis _URL_0_). The ACC is involved in affect regulation and motivation, two areas which are impaired in major depressive disorder (MDD). The amygdala is an important area for emotional learning as well as fear and aggression.
The decreased size of these areas may be due to dysregulation of the HPA axis which controls the release of gluccocorticoids, a hormone associated with stress. Past studies have demonstrated a link between early childhood stressors, adult brain morphometry, and the course of MDD (see _URL_1_ and _URL_2_).
It's important to think about the ontology of MDD then not as someone simply having a different brain, though that may be the case. Rather the course of MDD may be dependent on a number of biological (e.g. genetic), developmental, and situational factors which interact to bring about the disorder. One must consider factors like early childhood experiences, genetic predispositions, and recent traumas, which may lead to hormonal dysregulation (say, of the HPA axis), which may culminate in structural differences. | [
"MRI scans of patients with depression have revealed a number of differences in brain structure compared to those who are not depressed. Meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies in major depression reported that, compared to controls, depressed patients had increased volume of the lateral ventricles and adrenal gland ... |
why we can't change our vocal chords to sound exactly like another person, through surgery | it's not just the cords. it's the shape of the voicebox. the throat. the teeth the cheek. and the muscle control | [
"While hormone replacement therapy and gender reassignment surgery can cause a more feminine physical appearance, they do little to alter the pitch or sound of the voice. A number of surgical procedures exist to alter the vocal structure. These can be used in conjunction with voice therapy:\n",
"Due to the proxim... |
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