Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
Can all of chemistry be explained/modeled by physics?	Yes, that's true. All theoretical chemistry is based off physics, and has been since around the 1920's. Virtually all the models and descriptions and 'rules' you learn in chemistry have rigorous physical justifications, even if chemists themselves don't necessarily know about them. The first description of chemical b...	[ "Chemistry focuses on how substances interact with each other and with energy (for example heat and light). The study of change of matter (chemical reactions) and synthesis lies at the heart of chemistry, and gives rise to concepts such as organic functional groups and rate laws for chemical reactions. Chemistry al...
In Ancient Rome, did Gladiators pick on Scholars and call them a Roman equivalent of 'nerds'?	No, for most of the empire the nerds held the political power. Success in Roman politics depended upon education and connections. You had to know the right people, and you met them while attending elite schools that trained you in the rhetorical skills, philosophical knowledge, and deportment necessary to move in elit...	[ "\"Scultimidonus\" (\"asshole-bestower\") was rare and \"florid\" slang that appears in a fragment from the early Roman satirist Lucilius. It is glossed as \"Those who bestow for free their \"scultima\", that is, their anal orifice, which is called the \"scultima\" as if from the inner parts of whores\" (\"scortoru...
Do dogs know our faces or do they use our scent to differentiate between us?	Disclaimer: My research is at the undergraduate level, and has to do with materials science and crystallography, and I had like, two biology and two biochem classes, so this is very, very, very much not my field at all. [Discrimination of human and dog faces and inversion responses in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)....	[ "Primarily, dogs use their sense of smell, to find and follow a track. Dogs have a highly sensitive olfactory system superior to humans, and are able to discriminate between different humans' scents. Moreover, dogs are also able to use visual cues to follow a track.\n", "Dogs have an olfactory sense 40 times more...
the difference between a url, urn, and uri	The simplest explanation starts by categorizing: The first thing you should know is that an URL or a URN are both URIs. An [URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)](_URL_3_), is a way to identify some type of resource on the Internet, they are handled by browsers and other network capable applications. So the two t...	[ "Ura contains extensive use of morphemes in terms of pluralizing nouns and pronouns, producing prefixes which derive nouns from verbs, setting locations for nouns, portraying positive or negative connotations, and compounding nouns with other nouns, adjective, or verbs. For example, attaching the suffix ‘’-ye’’ to ...
What DID "Game of Thrones" get right?	Game of Thrones is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. If you have a question about the historical accuracy of historical fiction (e.g. 'How accurate is the Sharpe series of books?' 'How accurate is Stanley Kubrick's portrayal of 18th century Ireland in 'Barry Lyndon'?') you are more than welcome to ask....	[ "\"Game of Thrones\" is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. The series is based on George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, \"A Song of Ice and Fire\". The series takes place on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos, and chronicles the power struggle...
credit default swaps	So ShittyBank offers loans to people buying homes (mortgages.) The bank writes you a mortgage, buys your home for you and lets you live there as long as you make monthly payments to pay off the loan. ShittyBank does this hundreds of thousands of times all over the country. Now ShittyBank turns around and says "hey, we...	[ "Credit defaults swaps (CDS) are insurance contracts, typically used to protect bondholders from the risk of default, called credit risk. As the financial health of banks and other institutions deteriorated due to losses related to mortgages, the likelihood that those providing the insurance would have to pay their...
Were there major tensions between the different Jewish groups that came to Israel?	Yes, from what I gather after talking to my Hebrew teacher and my Grandfather there was a lot of tension (and there still is) between European Jews how see Israel as a European State in the Mid-east and the Jews from the Levant, North Africa and Persia who see Israel as a modern Middle Eastern state. It comes out in li...	[ "During the first decades of Israel as a state, strong cultural conflict was going on between Mizrahi, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (mainly east European Ashkenazim). The roots of this conflict, which still exists to a much smaller extent in present-day Israeli society, stems from the many cultural differences betw...
what factors contribute to cultures advancing at different rates?	Cultures advance for two reasons, because they have to and because they can. Cultures have to advance when they are facing a threat. Common threats include another nation attacking you, a new disease, or localized climate change. Cultures can advance when they can spend time doing thing other than just surviving. Thi...	[ "Cultural context can also shift and evolve. For instance, a study has argued that both Japan and Finland (high-context cultures) are becoming lower-context with the increased influence of Western European and United States culture.\n", "Yu Xintian noted two contrary trends in culture due to economic globalizatio...
How come the Iberia in the caucuses and the Iberian peninsula share the same name in spite of being thousands of miles apart at opposite ends of the Roman empire?	Follow up question: I often see other names refer to different areas, such as Albania (modern Albania, and Caucasian Albania) and Galicia (Easter Europe and Iberian), Is there a reason to name those areas with similar names?	[ "After the conquest of the peninsula (25–20 BCE), Augustus divided it into the southwestern Hispania Baetica and the western Hispania Lusitania, the latter including the territories of the Celtic tribes known as the Astures (in Asturia) and the Gallaeci (in Gallaecia). In 27 BCE, the Emperor Augustus made a smaller...
why do scientists think hubble constant (a characteristic of the universe expansion rate) is actually a constant?	When you look farther away you also look back in time, so when you detect light that has been travelling for 10 billion years from a distant quasar you're also detecting the results of whatever happened to it during that time. The amount of redshift (energy loss due to the expansion of space while it was in flight) we...	[ "The Hubble parameter is not thought to be constant through time. There are dynamical forces acting on the particles in the universe which affect the expansion rate. It was earlier expected that the Hubble parameter would be decreasing as time went on due to the influence of gravitational interactions in the univer...
how was nyc able to build and afford their entire subway system over the past 100+ years, but the 2nd ave line keeps running into budget issues and delays?	I would say the construction costs have soared. Wages are high for construction workers compared to the past. An immigrant was willing to work for low wages. Now there are unions, OSHA, overtime rules, etc.	[ "Since the late 20th century, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has started several projects to maintain and improve the New York City Subway. Some of these projects, such as subway line automation, proposed platform screen doors, the FASTRACK maintenance program, and infrastructural improvements proposed i...
Fiction makes such a big deal of British, US and Soviet spies. In the end, how important were they really in ending (or surviving) the Cold War?	No replies yet so I'll try to offer something. There is a lot of uncertainty when exploring what-if scenarios. You can't be sure what may have happened without the efforts of the spies involved. The best example I can give of spies potentially contributing to the peaceful resolution of the Cold War might be the Sovi...	[ "Much spy fiction was adapted as spy films in the 1960s, ranging from the fantastical James Bond series to the realistic \"The Spy Who Came in from the Cold\" (1965), and the hybrid \"The Quiller Memorandum\" (1966). While Hamilton's Matt Helm novels were adult and well written, their cinematic interpretations were...
how do marketers get so much data on me?	They check the listings in the county tax assessors office, which lists dates of sales, as well as amounts and names. It's also more than possible that the realtor sold your data.	[ "BULLET::::5. Market data and miscellany — From market research, who would in most cases act as a source for this information. His sources of data, however, assume the resources of a very large organization. In most organizations they would be obtained from a much smaller set of people (and not a few of them would ...
how do mom porcupines and hedgehogs give birth without the babies' spines causing any harm to the mother's insides?	A porcupine's quills are hair, not stiff rods. When they give birth, the quills are soft and wet. That is also why the quills can be replaced constantly.	[ "Gestation lasts thirty to forty days, and the mother gives birth in a well-lined nest cavity, such as an abandoned rodent burrow. The young are covered in a thin membrane to protect the mother from their already present spines, though it takes them some time to gain control over the muscles that move them. At birt...
How excentric is the solar system's orbit around the gravitational center of the milky way?	The words you are looking for are apogalacticon and perigalaticon. The eccentricity of the sun's orbit about Sagittarius A\\\*, (the center of the Milky Way galaxy) is 1.07, which leads to a difference of about 15% between apo- and peri- galacticon. This leads to the two points being about 27,0000 and 31,0000 lig...	[ "However, there are a number of complications. The simple derivation above assumed that both the Sun and the object in question are traveling on circular orbits about the Galactic center. This is not true for the Sun (the Sun's velocity relative to the local standard of rest is approximately 13.4 km/s), and not nec...
the oil business	Let's say you have a lemonade stand. You charge a thousand dollars per lemonade, and since it's really hot, you make a million dollars a day. Well, obviously, that can't last. Someone else will open up a lemonade stand and try to take your business away by only charging $750. Pretty soon there are so many lemonade sta...	[ "OIL is engaged in the business of exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas, transportation of crude oil and production of liquid petroleum gas. The company's history spans the discovery of crude oil in the far east of India at Digboi, Assam in 1889 to its present status as a fully integ...
why is it that bands/singers can have wildly successful careers sometimes spanning decades, dozens of albums, and countless recorded tracks, yet only have those 3 or 4 songs that really get any airplay/recognition?	Short answer, program managers are lazy. It's easy to stick with the 'classics'. It's safe. Also if a band is around long enough they may not fit the style of the station with their new/old stuff. Classic rock stations are going to play the hell out of 60/70 era Rolling Stones, but wont touch anything they have r...	[ "BULLET::::- There are several well-known bands that have endured for decades – bands that are promoted and perceived to be continuations of the original. These types of bands are analogous to franchises, except, instead of multiple bands touring under the same name, only one band performs, but with a turnover of m...
how does bracing yourself for an impact actually make the impact worse?	Because your muscles tense up and become rigid and have no "give" at that point. If you don't know it's coming, you will be loose and more flexible which would help with NOT further jarring the flexed muscle.	[ "To assume a brace or crash position is an instruction that can be given to prepare for a crash, such as on an aircraft; the instruction to 'brace for impact!' or 'brace! brace!' is often given if the aircraft must make an emergency landing on land or water. There are many different ways to adopt the brace position...
Is there a speed a cell phone can go to not receive wifi or cell signal anymore?	The frequency bands for both Wi-Fi and LTE are both reasonably narrow, so you will hit a point where the waves for the node you are trying to connect to are red or blue shifted to the point where your device will not be able to communicate on them A long time before you get to that point, you will not be in range of t...	[ "Dial-up connections usually have latency as high as 150 ms or even more; this is longer than for many forms of broadband, such as cable or DSL, but typically less than satellite connections. Longer latency can make video conferencing and online gaming difficult, if not impossible. An increasing amount of Internet ...
Is there any point during Operation Barbarossa that Axis victory over the USSR was obtainable?	Not really, no. The only way the Germans could have scored a victory was to have Russia negotiate for peace after taking Moscow, which the Soviet regime had little intention of doing as it was a fight for the very survival of the Russian nation and Stalin did not want to appear so weak abroad. There was still a massive...	[ "On 22 June 1941, contravening the Hitler–Stalin Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, over 3 million Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union. This offensive (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers. The invas...
Do animals actually understand each other's calls like humans understand speech?	Like humans? Yes, maybe. We think dolphins actually have a complex language with syntax. There is evidence that they even each have individual names that they get from their mother's name. But we haven't made much headway in learning their language if it's there. Other animals certainly recognize conspecific...	[ "If these animals have a language it is restricted to a very few sounds of a general emotional signification. Articulate speech they have none and communication with one another is accomplished by vocal sounds to no greater extent than it is by dogs, with a growl, a whine, or a bark. They are, however, capable to a...
Is there any credence to the marketing claim that a better bed provides a "better night's sleep"?	I think you partly answered your own question with the "springs" comment. Better just means that you are able to experience enough deep sleep at night. Things that are uncomfortable, painful, noisy, etc rouse you from this deep sleep. Since there are distinct stages of sleep, you spend more time getting back into deep ...	[ "Numerous studies have also shown that media consumption has a significant association with poor sleep quality. Television and computer game exposure affect children's sleep and deteriorate verbal cognitive performance.\n", "Relyon are a bed and mattress company claiming to have 'the best beds in the world'. Orig...
how does the u.s. government owe money to itself?	The Federal Government "borrows" money from the people by issuing Federal Bonds and printing more cash, which devalues whatever money you have in your pocket. Hypothetical situation. 2017 budget rolls around, we have a $1 trillion deficit. The Fed issues $1 trillion in bonds and prints that much in cash. If there's $...	[ "The national debt fell into three categories after the American Revolution. The first was the $12 million owed to foreigners, mostly money borrowed from France. There was general agreement to pay the foreign debts at full value. The national government owed $40 million and state governments owed $25 million to Ame...
the sufi sect of islam.	I won't be able to go into much detail on account of illiteracy, but just for starters: Sufiism is not as much a 'sect' of Islam as a way of thinking. It is kind of an 'approach' to how to treat the philosophies of your sect (be it sunni or shia or whatever). That said, it is very distinct and 'almost' a sect because ...	[ "Sufism is Islam's mystical-ascetic dimension and is represented by schools or orders known as \"Tasawwufī-Ṭarīqah.\" It is seen as that aspect of Islamic teaching that deals with the purification of inner self. By focusing on the more spiritual aspects of religion, Sufis strive to obtain direct experience of God b...
Is the common cold or flu transmissible through contact with the infected person's blood?	Think this came up in one of my lectures the other week; I believe it would be possible but unlikely since the virus only replicates in certain cells (in the case of influenza in the cells of the upper respiratory tract, particularly the nose), and is therefore only present in large quantities at those locations. It ...	[ "Direct human-to-human transmission initially was believed to be caused only by occupational exposure, such as in a laboratory setting, or conjunctive exposure to infected blood. The US outbreak identified additional transmission methods through blood transfusion, organ transplant, intrauterine exposure, and breast...
how/why does our brain mishear lyrics?	Because rappers need to demonstrate better diction! Dammnit, i love hip hop but if i hear another rapper garble nonsense into my headphones im gonna lose it.	[ "Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of \"Musicophilia: Tales of music and the Brain\", studied neurological oddities in people, trying to understand how the brain works. He concluded that people with some type of frontal lobe damage often “produced not only severe difficulties with expressive language (aphasia) but a...
what is first run syndication, how does it work, and how is it different from standard broadcast syndication	A first-run syndication show is one that is sold to individual local TV stations instead of to a national network. The show won't be available in all regions and will play at different times in different cities. A TV station has certain hours of the day when they decide locally what programs to air, and certain hours ...	[ "In first-run syndication, a program is broadcast for the first time as a syndicated show and is made specifically to sell directly into syndication (not any one particular network), or at least first so offered in a given country (programs originally created and broadcast outside the US, first presented on a netwo...
how those little baby doll toy bottles work where you hold it upside down and the liquid seems to appear like he drank it, but when you hold it right side up, it refills...?	The bottle is actually two containers (one inside the other). There is a thin gap between the two which is filled with liquid. This allows a very small amount of liquid to appear to fill the entire bottle. When you tip it, the liquid flows through the gap and down into a resevoir in the top, making it appear empty.	[ "BULLET::::- Baby All Gone: a doll who is fed \"bananas\" on a magnetic spoon and makes them \"disappear\", although the food and drinks do not move through to minimise mess caused by doll food moving through. They seem to go into the doll's mouth when they are mechanically retracted back into the spoon. Also, she ...
why is it considered immoral to outsource labor to workers in countries willing to work for very little money?	Usually it's the working conditions that people are protesting. Factories in developing countries with little regulation and workers' rights can be downright abysmal to work in. They're not called "sweatshops" for nothing. In addition to poor working conditions is also worker safety. A man might lose an arm operating ...	[ "Indirect economic oppression is exemplified when individuals work abroad to support their families. Outsourced employees, working abroad generally little to no bargaining power not only with their employers, but with immigration authorities as well. They could be forced to accept low wages and work in poor living ...
how does standard bar soap clean your hands if it does not have any antibacterial additives? especially when the soap uses animal fat as a base component.	The reason regular non-antibacterial soap still works at _removing_ - not killing - bacteria and virus carrying stuff, is because thats what soap does: soap molecules have a water loving (philic) end and a carbon chain (oils etc.) end. When you wash your hands with soap, oil and other gunk is on your hands. The soap mo...	[ "Ordinary soap is a salt of a fatty acid. Soaps are mainly used as surfactants for washing, bathing, and cleaning. Soaps for cleansing are made by treating vegetable or animal oils and fats with a strongly alkaline solution. Fats and oils are composed of triglycerides; three molecules of fatty acids are attached to...
why is the vatican and the pope in italy? wouldn't it be more logical for the head of the church to be in the country jesus was active in?	Christianity wasnt popular in Israel, never rising above the status of a sect or cult - it was only its adoption by the roman emporer constantine which raised it's status and propelled it to becoming a world religion	[ "In later years, particularly after the establishment of the Vatican City had reassured the papacy of its place within Italy, non-Catholic politicians would complain that the Holy See made too many recommendations to the Italian voters.\n", "Due to the size of the Vatican City State, embassies accredited to the H...
A solid argument against the earth being billions of years old?	I'll disprove all of the geology ones here: > 12: Scarcity of plant fossils in many formations containing abundant animal / herbivore fossils. : It is incredibly hard to preserve plant fossils, and it only happens under the most favorable circumstances, which don't happen very often. If you wonder where all of the ...	[ "In May 2014, Robertson responded to a caller regarding the age of the earth: \"You have to be deaf, dumb and blind to think that this Earth that we live in only has 6,000 years of existence, it just doesn't, I'm sorry ... To deny the clear record that's there before us makes us looks silly ... There's no way that ...
So I was told today by a professor (not a science professor) that the Theory of Gravity is not actually proven and that we don't actually know how it works. Is this true?	See [Tests of General Relativity](_URL_0_) for an overview. Rlee89 is right -- we can only disprove theories. See [The Logic of Scientific Discovery](_URL_1_) by Karl Popper. Summary: Newton's theory of gravitation put a man on the moon, and that ain't bad. As you know, Einstein's general theory superseded Newton'...	[ "These mechanical explanations for gravity never gained widespread acceptance, although such ideas continued to be studied occasionally by physicists until the beginning of the twentieth century, by which time it was generally considered to be conclusively discredited. However, some researchers outside the scientif...
Do Brita filters need to be replaced as often as suggested? Or is Brita just capitalizing on replacement filters?	The activated carbon does get saturated at some point, but don't buy a whole new filter: _URL_0_	[ "An inexpensive, homemade alternative to professional ND filters can be made from a piece of welder's glass. Depending on the rating of the welder's glass, this can have the effect of a 10-stop filter.\n", "Ross Fitzgerald of \"The Australian\" believes that the filter was not introduced in 2010 to defuse it as a...
why do raised areas of the body (collarbone/cheekbone etc) get more severely affected by sunburn than the surrounding area?	Because natural shadows occurs when these raised areas “intercept” sun rays thereby blocking the lower lying areas from absorbing light. Inversely there is nothing shadowing your most protruding body bits hence why they are likelier to burn. But rest assured if you lay perfectly still at a perpendicular angle to the su...	[ "Suntan and sunburn are familiar effects of over-exposure of the skin to UV, along with higher risk of skin cancer. Living things on dry land would be severely damaged by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun if most of it were not filtered out by the Earth's atmosphere. More energetic, shorter-wavelength \"extreme\" ...
Why did bread never become a big part of the Chinese diet?	It did! It's just more traditionally confined to the North. There's not just one Chinese cuisine. Rice cultivation wasn't actually a part of the early Chinese diet at all. There's no word in Sinotibetan languages for rice that isn't a loan. In Tibetoburman they borrowed the vocabulary from Tai languages much later (e....	[ "At first there was only a small market for bread, both because the initial products were poor, and the indigenous would not eat bread at first. However, as quality improved and the Spanish and mestizo population grew, so did the market for bread. Although the consumption of wheat never surpassed that of corn, brea...
What is the importance of irrational numbers?	even the square roots of certain numbers (like 2) are irrational. pi and e are in a sense even more.. let's say you need to put in more work to describe them. the roots are zeros of polynomials with rational coefficients. pi and e aren't. when you start out with rational numbers (ie fractions of integers ) and con...	[ "Because the algebraic numbers form a subfield of the real numbers, many irrational real numbers can be constructed by combining transcendental and algebraic numbers. For example, 3 + 2, + and \"e\" are irrational (and even transcendental).\n", " is an irrational number, meaning that it cannot be written as the...
how do forex brokers work?	Brokers in general provide access to markets, and clearing and settlement facilities. So when you buy some euros, they handle all the details of actually getting those euros into your account (including routing your order to the proper market and getting it executed). I am not sure what you mean by "their" money. The...	[ "However some countries do regulate forex brokers through governmental and independent supervisory bodies, for example the National Futures Association and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the US, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in Australia and the Financial Conduct Authority in the...
Was Shay's Rebellion Really a Result of a Weak Central Government?	A Shays' Rebellion question! My favorite! The primary weakness of the existing governmental structure that the rebellion exposed was the inability for the Massachusetts Governor to quickly raise the troops necessary to fight off the rebels. You mention that the rebels were fairly easily dispersed once a formidable fi...	[ "In 1787, Shays' rebels marched on the United States' Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The federal government found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion, and it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State militia and a pr...
how do car horns project so well?	So usually cars have two horns in the front of the car, a high pitch and a low pitch. So a standard electric car horn does have a diaphragm just like a speaker. Inside there’s basically a plunger connected to the center of the diaphragm and on the other side of the plunger is an electromagnet. When you hit the horn but...	[ "A horn loudspeaker is a speaker system using a horn to match the driver cone to the air. The horn structure itself does not amplify, but rather improves the coupling between the speaker driver and the air. Properly designed horns have the effect of making the speaker cone transfer more of the electrical energy in ...
How did Fascists deal with healthcare?	Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were concerned with healthcare and promoting health in general, for a couple reasons. Firstly, for reasons of natalism. Militarist-expansionist states need a growing population to make up for deaths in war and settle conquered territory, so both the Nazis and the Fascists were keen t...	[ "It is still debated whether Italian Fascism was originally anti-Semitic. Mussolini originally distinguished his position Hitler's fanatical racism while affirming he himself was a Zionist. More broadly, he even proposed building a mosque in Rome as a sign that Italy was the Protector of Islam, a move blocked by a ...
What types of plants played the role grasses before grass evolved?	The short answer is [pretty weird](_URL_0_) with a lot of [seriously alien-looking wtf plants](_URL_1_). Most plants you see today are vascular plants; they have xylem and phloem (picture little pipes running from roots to leaves) to carry water up to the leaves and sugar down to the roots respectively. They also cont...	[ "Grasses probably originated in the understory of tropical rainforests in the Late Cretaceous, but have since come to occupy a wide range of different habitats. Notably, they are the dominant species in grasslands, open habitats that cover around one fifth of the earth's terrestrial surface. The C photosynthetic pa...
how the gunslingers in western films shoot so perfectly from the hip?	Because it's fiction. In real life, no one actually fought like that. Gun slinger fights in the wild west were messy, and usually involved many combatants, not 2 doing a stand off. It was no different than modern gang shoot outs, except their guns were far less accurate, and shooters would typically ambush opponents ...	[ "Quick draw and hip shooting was a rare skill in the West, and only a handful of historically known gunslingers were known to be fast, such as Luke Short, John Wesley Hardin, and Wild Bill Hickok. Shooting a pistol with one hand is normally associated with gunslingers, and is also a standard for them of the era to ...
what exactly makes the popping sounds when popping/cracking your muscles?	Could be wrong here, but I've heard that gas bubbles form throughout your body. When you pop a joint, the bubble that formed in there collapses and is re-absorbed into the blood?	[ "In the thoracic spine the facet joints function to restrain the amount of flexion and anterior translation of the corresponding vertebral segment and function to facilitate rotation. Cavitation of the synovial fluid within the facet joints is responsible for the popping sound (crepitus) associated with manual spin...
does the earth travel the exact same orbit every year or does it change slightly?	The orbit definitely changes, but by how much? With Newton's law of universal gravitation (F=GmM/d^2 ), the force of gravity is dependent on the square of the distance between two objects. The force between two objects can literally never be 0, but it will get really small. That means every object in the universe pulls...	[ "The Earth is rotating or spinning around its axis. This is evidenced by day and night, at the equator the earth has an eastward velocity of . The Earth is also orbiting around the Sun in an orbital revolution. A complete orbit around the sun takes one year, or about 365 days; it averages a speed of about .\n", "...
how many days of fasting does it take for your metabolism to slow down?	This isn't as simple as how many days. A person's metabolism is based on multiple factors, such as age, gender, genetics, etc. As far as fasting if you mean eating smaller meals then it won't have much of an effect. If you mean more a person that doesn't eat for a day and is barely eating then they are dealing with big...	[ "After 2 or 3 days of fasting, the liver begins to synthesize ketone bodies from precursors obtained from fatty acid breakdown. The brain uses these ketone bodies as fuel, thus cutting its requirement for glucose. After fasting for 3 days, the brain gets 30% of its energy from ketone bodies. After 4 days, this goes...
why does rubbing a coin on a metal surface make a vending machine accept it?	There are finite ways how a vending machine checks the coin, and none of them can be affected by rubbing it beforehand. So why does it work then? It doesn't. It seems to work because confirmation bias. See: _URL_0_	[ "Normal circulation coins eventually collect microscopic particles of dirt, dust, oil and grease from people's fingers. When a coin acceptor is used for a long time, thousands of coins rolling along a track will leave enough dirt, dust, oil and grease to be visible. As a consequence of this, the coin acceptor must ...
just watched "the big short" someone please explain exactly how the main characters made money.	To address your questions; Bonds (groups of mortgages, with bad mortgages mixed in) were bought and sold. They had variable rates and terms that made it very easy to obtain a mortgage regardless if someone was qualified or not. Their "bets" did not really effect the economy. They had caught onto a snowball sequence...	[ "Eventually, all the new millionaires go to Scrooge's farm to buy food and perhaps get a job. Due to Scrooge and the nephews being the only producers of food, the prices having drastically increased — an egg now costs one million dollars, as does a ham, a cabbage costs two million, and a peck of corn costs four mil...
how does electrical grounding work for ships? why is it so complicated?	It's not about electrical safety directly. If you use a metal hull as ground, especially in salt water, electrolysis can cause corrosion.	[ "Ship grounding is a type of marine accident that involves the impact of a ship on the seabed, resulting in damage of the submerged part of her hull and in particularly the bottom structure, potentially leading to water ingress and compromise of the ship's structural integrity and stability. Grounding induces extre...
why after months of making no noise does my fan catch something in it to start making a rattling noise.	Spinning and vibrations can loosen screws. Loose screws cause pieces to knock against eachother. It should be an easy fix unless something is actually broken.	[ "Fans installed in a PC case can produce noise levels of up to 70 dB. Since fan noise increases with the fifth power of the fan rotation speed, reducing rotations per minute (RPM) by a small amount potentially means a large reduction in fan noise. This must be done cautiously, as excessive reduction in speed may ca...
how nyc is able to implement "stop and frisk".	Bloomberg prefers asking forgiveness rather than permission. The city will be sued at some point, but by that time Bloomberg hopes to have something to show for this very questionable policy. He did it with the park smoking ban, too. Make bold laws, let someone else work to get rid of it. That being said, I've seen...	[ "Notify NYC is the City of New York’s official source for information about emergency events and important City services. It is a free service launched by the NYC Emergency Management and New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT)] in 2007, allowing users to receive alerts thr...
What are some causes of the tank in WWI?	Designs for tanks actually predate WW1. There were various designs floating around before the war. An Australian (Mole?) had submitted a design for a tank (obviously not called a tank) before WW1 to the British War Department. They told him there was no use for it. Some of these designers were paid royalties after WW...	[ "During World War I, the stalemate of trench warfare during on the Western Front spurred the development of the tank. It was envisioned as an armoured machine that could advance under fire from enemy rifles and machine guns, and respond with its own heavy guns. It utilized caterpillar tracks to cross ground broken ...
statutory rape?	The idea behind statutory rape laws is that young people are much easier to manipulate, are frequently placed in situations where adults have considerable power over them, and haven't developed enough judgement to make potentially large decisions. Those factors combine to make any potential actual consent very hard ...	[ "In some common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is sexual activity in which one person is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior. Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sex with minors under the age of consent, it is a generic term, and very few jurisdictions use the actual term \"sta...
Seriously: What came first, the egg or the chicken?	In terms of timeline, the dinosaurs were laying eggs before birds had even become a separate biological class, so the very first animal that could even possibly have been designated as a type of fowl would have come long after the first egg.	[ "If the question refers to \"chicken\" eggs specifically, the answer is still the egg, but the explanation is more complicated. The process by which the chicken arose through the interbreeding and domestication of multiple species of wild jungle fowl is poorly understood, and the point at which this evolving organi...
why is push-back from power utilities against solar power such a big deal?	Interestingly, current power prices have a low fixed rate plus the variable rate based on usage. If you generate more power than you use, it credits back. That fixed rate is supposed to account for grid maintenance and such, but the pricing used by most American utility systems doesn't charge enough in the fixed rat...	[ "Along with other state utilities, FPL has been criticized for using its influence with state politicians and political organizations to reject laws which would make it easier for home and business owners to adopt rooftop solar. According to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, several of the top utility...
why in the usa do black people typically vote for the democratic party when the gop is the party of emancipation and used to have the so-called "black" vote? when did it change?	The New Deal (1930s) started the change in voting patterns, and Truman's desegregation of the military (1948) also shifted the partisan identification of blacks in the US towards Democrats, but the overwhelming margins today stem from the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1965, which were two land...	[ "On September 16, 1964, Senator Strom Thurmond announced to a statewide television audience that he had switched parties from the Democrats to the Republicans, saying the Democratic \"party of our fathers is dead.\" He said it had \"forsaken the people to become the party of minority groups, power-hungry union lead...
why do we like listening to sad music and watching scary movies when sadness and fear are negative emotions?	It's not the feelings of being sad and scared that are so enjoyable, its the psychological notion that you are in control of those experiences and that you are actually safe and sound. There is also the release of adrenaline with the fear response.	[ "People shown extracts from films known to induce fear often overestimated the elapsed time of a subsequently presented visual stimulus, whereas people shown emotionally neutral clips (weather forecasts and stock market updates) or those known to evoke feelings of sadness showed no difference. It is argued that fea...
facebook bought whatsapp for $22 billion a while back. they just updated their app and claim that nobody, not even themselves can read the messages and calls now. whatsapp has close to zero revenue. what's in it for facebook?	One of the things that particularly american audiences don't understand is that for chat services like Whatsapp, chat is just one of many things that the service could offer. Download WeChat or Line or Cacao. These are chat services that operate in China, South Korea and Japan. These places act as MARKETPLACES! Peo...	[ "On May 18, 2017, it was reported that the European Commission would fine Facebook €110 million for \"misleading\" it during the 2014 takeover of WhatsApp. The Commission alleged that in 2014, when Facebook acquired the messaging app, it \"falsely claimed it was technically impossible to automatically combine user ...
why does toothpaste with the colours of red white and blue never mix up	The gel compartments are near the nozzle of the toothpaste tube. Most of the tube has white toothpaste. As the toothpaste is squeezed through the nozzle, it passes the gel compartments and gains the characteristic stripes. They are not mixed until the very end of the tube. Edit: [Here is a youtube video showing it](_U...	[ "Whitening toothpastes are different to regular toothpastes in that they contain higher amounts of abrasives and detergents to be more effective at removing tougher stains. Some whitening toothpastes contain low concentrations of carbamide peroxide or hydrogen peroxide which help lighten tooth colour however they d...
if i'm driving at a constant speed of 60mph and get rear-ended by a vehicle which is moving at a constant 80mph, would the force of impact be the same as if i were sitting at 0mph and got rear ended by someone driving 20mph?	yes, the impact would have the same amount of force. The big difference would be the whole spinning out of control at 60 mph would be much more dangerous than at 0 mph.	[ "BULLET::::1. Figure 1 (center panel). To an observer at rest on an inertial reference frame (like the ground), the car will seem to accelerate. In order for the passenger to stay inside the car, a force must be exerted on the passenger. This force is exerted by the seat, which has started to move forward with the ...
In Medievel Europe, Were Jewish People More Literate than Average?	It is pretty much impossible to know for sure, because, like you said, they didn't have comprehensive population surveys, and we have no records about most people's lives. In particular, we have almost no records of people who couldn't write, because they didn't write anything. So even if we have loads of records of pe...	[ "From the beginning of the 20th century, the literacy rate among the Jewish minority was significantly higher than the Muslim masses. In 1945 about 80 percent of the Jewish population were literate, whereas most Muslims could not read and write. In 1968 only 30 percent of Muslims were literate, whereas this figure ...
What were the difference in the military physical qualifications during WW2 between the various powers?	As a follow up, were there differences in mental or educational qualifications as well? I know from [this excellent answer](_URL_0_) by /u/the_howling_cow that the US military often rejected recruits for not meeting literacy qualifications. But I assume that the Soviets, Japanese and even Germans had lower literacy ...	[ "World War II brought renewed interest in ability testing (to accurately place recruits in new technologically advanced military jobs), the introduction of the assessment center, and concern with morale and fatigue in war industry workers.\n", "Some soldiers had received training through the compulsory training s...
How does being born blind or deaf influence the way you think?	DeafBlind people learn tactile sign language. So they think in that language. If you're interested in something more deeper, there have been studies that show hearing people are able to memorize 7 short bits of information (like a phone number) in only one direction, while Deaf people are able to memorize 5 more co...	[ "When a person has become blind, in order to “see” the world, their other senses become heightened. An important sense for the blind is their sense of touch, which becomes more frequently used to help them perceive the world. People that are blind have displayed that their visual cortices become more responsive to ...
Did WW1 really have a reason?	You can point to some widespread elements that contributed to the war. Social Darwinism, nationalism, militarism may have, to debatable degrees, made the leadership and population of Europe more accepting of the idea of a general conflict. There was likely also an lack of appreciation for the risk of a drawn out exha...	[ "Another cause of World War I was growing militarism which led to an arms race between the powers. As a result of the arms race, all European powers were ready for war and had time tables that would send millions of reserves into combat in a matter of days.\n", "BULLET::::- Rising nationalism and increasing natio...
why do 2 minute offenses in the nfl seem to be more efficient than the normal offense?	the 2-minute offense, also known as the "hurry up", seeks to play as many downs as possible in the quickest time. A defense usually puts new guys in during the game (i.e. bigger dudes on 3rd and short to stop the run). The hurry-up prevents this, by not giving the defense enough time to swap personnel before the next...	[ "During the 2011 season, the three teams with the best offenses (New England, Green Bay and New Orleans) also had the worst defenses, which explains why none of those teams were happy to run out the clock, instead always pressuring for points. The current salary cap rules mean that it is nearly impossible for a tea...
how do these websites that buy gift cards from consumers work?	They re-sell your gift card. If you browse around the site you'll usually also find gift cards for sale, those are the cards they bought. They make money by selling them for a few bucks more than they bought them, they aren't using the cards or anything like that.	[ "GiftCards.com offers gift cards from around 500,000 different large and small businesses throughout the United States. Major gift card providers include Best Buy, Sephora, Yankee Candle, Amazon.com, Pottery Barn, Starbucks, The Cheesecake Factory, Gap, Macy's, and Bloomingdale's among many others. The company also...
Did the Confederate troops that accidentally shot Stonewall Jackson suffer any repercussions for their actions?	The commander of the 18th NC, Major then Col John Barry retained hi s command till the end of the war and was both wounded and served as acting Brigadier General in the Overland Campaign. He died soon after the war and supposedly continuously expressed remorse. The Brigade commander General James Lane was actually one...	[ "General Stonewall Jackson was shot and mortally wounded by friendly fire in Spotsylvania County during the Battle of Chancellorsville. A group of Confederate soldiers from North Carolina were in the woods and heard General Jackson's party returning from reconnoitering the Union lines. They mistook them for a Feder...
gearing/leverage (finance)	Gearing and leverage refer to the level of debt a company or financial venture has taken on. To see why it's called leverage, let's look at a simple example. Let's say I have a business venture that can always earn a 10% return on capital investment. That means, every time you give me $100 to buy machinery (or whateve...	[ "In finance, leverage (sometimes referred to as gearing in the United Kingdom and Australia) is any technique involving the use of debt (borrowed funds) rather than fresh equity in the purchase of an asset, with the expectation that the after-tax profit to equity holders from the transaction will exceed the borrowi...
if the fec restricts individual contributions to a federal election to $2500, how can celebrities and the super wealthy hold $40,000 a plate fundraisers?	$2500 is the limit for individual candidates, you can also give $30k to the national parties, and $5000 to PACs. So that $40k will get split up in some legal way, but in general the candidates will have direct or indirect access to those funds.	[ "Simmons, a longtime Republican donor, gave the maximum $2,300 contributions to Senator John McCain, as well as to fellow Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. He was listed as a \"bundler\" for the McCain campaign on McCain's website, which meant that he had raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for t...
How long is the delay between the stimulus and response for any sensory organ in the body?	You are aware of a delay when someone touches you? Most people are not normally aware of anything coming between ourselves and what we see/hear/touch (we aren't aware of the various pathways the signal travels in our body or our brain interpreting the signals). Also perceptual experience is seemingly instantaneous in t...	[ "The kappa effect or perceptual time dilation is a temporal perceptual illusion that can arise when observers judge the elapsed time between sensory stimuli applied sequentially at different locations. In perceiving a sequence of consecutive stimuli, subjects tend to overestimate the elapsed time between two succes...
What qualities did furs from North America have that made them so desirable to Europeans? Were commonly worn clothes prior to the Fur Trade really much worse, or was it primarily an aesthetic/fashion/status thing?	One of the biggest qualities North American furs had was a simple one: they were there to use in the first place. One of the largest sources of supply for European furs before 1492 was in northern Russia, flowing into Western Europe primarily via Novgorodian and later Russian traders through the Baltic. This region h...	[ "The European discovery of North America, with its vast forests and wildlife, particularly the beaver, led to the continent becoming a major supplier in the 17th century of fur pelts for the fur felt hat and fur trimming and garment trades of Europe. Fur was relied on to make warm clothing, a critical consideration...
Is it possible to have a non-gaseous planet with permanent storms like Jupiter? And what would the conditions have to be for that to happen?	It would have to be covered in some sort of fluid atmosphere in order for the storms to have a media to propogate in. For example a liquid covered planet with oceans over the entire surface several kilometres deep at a minimum would be covered in constant ongoing chaotic weather systems which could be described as 'sto...	[ "Storms such as this are common within the turbulent atmospheres of giant planets. Jupiter also has white ovals and brown ovals, which are lesser unnamed storms. White ovals tend to consist of relatively cool clouds within the upper atmosphere. Brown ovals are warmer and located within the \"normal cloud layer\". S...
why do so many asian demonyms end with "ese"? (chinese, vietnamese, japanese, burmese)	From [this source](_URL_0_): > The -an, -ian, and -ese suffixes all stem from the Latin adjectival naming system: > -ian or -an, from Latin, –ianus, meaning "native of", "relating to", or "belonging to" > -ese, from the Latin, -ensis, meaning "originating in" They all save similar meanings, and the assignments ...	[ "In East Asia, tone is typically lexical. This is characteristic of heavily tonal languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Hmong. That is, tone is used to distinguish words which would otherwise be homonyms, rather than in the grammar, but some Yue Chinese dialects have minimal grammatical use of tone.\n", ...
why are saudi arabia and iran are having a war in yemen?	Yemen has only been a single country for 25 years and fought a civil war in the 1980's. The central government is weak, the economy weak, an active al-Qaeda branch causes problems, and the various tribes follow different religions. The current unrest is a new civil war supported in part by outside parties. Saudi Arab...	[ "The Saudi conflict of Shia and Sunni extends beyond the borders of the kingdom because of international Saudi \"Petro-Islam\" influence. Saudi Arabia backed Iraq in the 1980–1988 war with Iran and sponsored militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan who—though primarily targeting the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afg...
the "planet x" conspiracy	This might be a bit long winded as there's a bit of background to get through. Ok, before we really could see well to Pluto and beyond, we knew that funny things were influencing Neptune and Pluto's orbits. A lot of explanations were put forth, and one of them was that there was a relatively large, 10th planet, beyond...	[ "Conspiracy X is a role-playing game (RPG) originally released by New Millennium Entertainment in 1996, and since revised and released by several publishers including Steve Jackson Games and Eden Studios, Inc. In all versions, the setting posits that aliens are insiduously taking over the world, reminiscent of \"Th...
Why do vaccines cause fever and flu-like symptoms in some people?	Would it make things clearer if I pointed out that fevers are (in many cases) not caused by the flu? Your own body is what causes the fever when you have the flu; it's an immune response. When the vaccine is introduced, an immune response is triggered, and it's the immune response itself that makes you feel shitt...	[ "Vaccines can cause the immune system to react as if the body were actually being infected, and general infection symptoms (many cold and flu symptoms are just general infection symptoms) can appear, though these symptoms are usually not as severe or long-lasting as influenza. The most dangerous adverse effect is a...
the difference between existentialism, nihilism and absurdism	Nihilism - nothing has inherent meaning, and it never will. Existentialism - nothing has inherent meaning, but maybe you can make your own meaning. Absurdism - nothing has inherent meaning. Haha, that's pretty weird right? Go do something that makes you happy.	[ "Nihilism is the philosophy that believes that there is no purpose in the universe, and that \"every\" choice is arbitrary. According to nihilism, the universe contains no value and is essentially meaningless. Because the universe and all of its constituents contain no higher goal for us to make subgoals from, all ...
how do car key-fobs work and why do we not see machines that can mass-spoof unlock signals like computer passwords?	The fob sends a very large number very slowly. It takes about 25ms to send the number, so that's only 40 per second, max. Most cars require 50ms of no signal to restart their receivers. That's about 13 guesses per second. It takes a long darn time to send a trillion numbers at 13 guesses per second.	[ "Remote keyless entry fobs emit a radio frequency with a designated, distinct digital identity code. Inasmuch as \"programming\" fobs is a proprietary technical process, it is typically performed by the automobile manufacturer. In general, the procedure is to put the car computer in 'programming mode'. This usually...
how did all(or most) countries in the world decided to bring in same laws/rules to living, eg; lights on street red+amber+green or sirens on police being red and blue and many others?	Unofficial conventions to begin with, international agreements and the UN later. This [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) is a good start, but there is a myriad of different local, regional and national agreements and standards bodies that regulate these things. I can't speak to emergency vehicles in general worldwide, but ...	[ "The law used to allow only the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía, Guardia Civil, Policía Local and autonomous law-enforcement agencies to use blue lights, so in contrast with convention in Europe, civil defense, ambulances (Ambulancia) and fire engines (Bomberos) had to use yellow/amber lights (the only other color autho...
If fusion power was as widespread as fission today, what would the worst case "meltdown" scenario be and how bad would it be compared to fission meltdowns?	Since fusion reactions take place only under very specific conditions (very high temperature and pressure), any disruption in the operation of the reactor would cause the necessary conditions for fusion to disappear, which would halt the reaction. Unlike nuclear fission, which in many cases can be self-sustaining and ...	[ "A nuclear meltdown may be part of a chain of disasters. For example, in the Chernobyl accident, by the time the core melted, there had already been a large steam explosion and graphite fire, and a major release of radioactive contamination. Prior to a meltdown, operators may reduce pressure in the reactor by relea...
what would happen if hackers stole all the digital money from all the countries and corporations?	Digital money doesn't actually exist, it is just a system that you gave the bank money, now they owe you that money and you can ask for it when you wish. You cannot steal what does exist.	[ "The hackers then used this information to take over the victims’ bank accounts and make unauthorized transfers of thousands of dollars at a time, often routing the funds to other accounts controlled by a network of money mules, paid a commission. Many of the U.S. money mules were recruited from overseas. They crea...
how does a car shutting down automatically at a stop light/sign help with gas consumption?	The amount of fuel spent idling at an intersection, keeping the engine rotating are a slow speed with a light load, far exceeds the amount needed to restart the engine. Modern car engines start up very quickly.	[ "BULLET::::- Idle stop - when stopped at traffic light, the engine shuts off automatically, then restarts immediately when the driver takes their foot off the brake, contributing to both greater fuel efficiency and lower emissions.\n", "When the vehicle is stopped the ICE is switched off without idling, while the...
Did the Andean countries ever get into conflict with the mayans or the aztecs?	No, they have absolutely no known direct contact.	[ "The last battle between the Aztecs and the Zapotecs occurred between 1497 and 1502, under the Aztec ruler Ahuizotl. At the time of Spanish conquest of Mexico, when news arrived that the Aztecs were defeated by the Spaniards, King Cosijoeza ordered his people not to confront the Spaniards so they would avoid the sa...
Which of the basic forces of nature is the strongest?	Yes, your teacher is correct. The reason why gravity seems to be the strongest over large length scales is that the strong and weak forces have very short ranges (~ 10^(-15) and 10^(-18) meters, respectively), and electrostatic forces tend to cancel each other out when you have material that is macroscopically neutral...	[ "All of the known forces of the universe are classified into four fundamental interactions. The strong and the weak forces are nuclear forces that act only at very short distances, and are responsible for the interactions between subatomic particles, including nucleons and compound nuclei. The electromagnetic force...
what exactly does it mean to "hedge" against something?	In essence, a "hedge" is an investment designed to offset substantial losses (or gains) made by an individual or organization.	[ "The word \"hedge\", meaning a line of bushes around the perimeter of a field, has long been used as a metaphor for placing limits on risk. Early hedge funds sought to hedge specific investments against general market fluctuations by shorting the market, hence the name. Nowadays, however, many different investment ...
Are there organisms with more than two functional sexes?	Yes, but it doesn't work the way you think. Slime molds have quite a few sexes ([13](_URL_0_) or [over 500](_URL_1_), depending on how you count), but any two can breed, as long as they're different sexes. So yes, there are multiple sexes, but it only takes two to tango.	[ "Joan Roughgarden argues that some non-human animal species also have more than two genders, in that there might be multiple templates for behavior available to individual organisms with a given biological sex.\n", "The sex of a particular organism may be determined by a number of factors. These may be genetic or...
Transgenic engineering: when a gene from an original organism is completely foreign to the new host organism, how do we know where to insert it in the host genotype?	Foreign genes inserted into a host genome need to have some type of regulatory DNA (called a "promoter") in order to be transcribed and translated ("made into protein"). There are two ways to do this, generally: 1) include a promoter region just before the foreign gene such that the inserted DNA is actually promoter+ge...	[ "Once the gene is constructed it must be stably integrated into the target organisms genome or exist as extrachromosomal DNA. There are a number of techniques available for inserting the gene into the host genome and they vary depending on the type of organism targeted. In multicellular eukaryotes, if the transgene...
Why does language become more difficult to read as it gets tilted sideways and then upside-down? Can't our brains compensate?	They can, that's why it just gets more difficult but not completely impossible. Most people learn to read(and practice reading) on things that aren't tilted or upside down. As you learn to read, your brain physically reconfigures itself to handle the task of translating squiggles on a page into language more efficien...	[ "When resecting the left hemisphere, evidence indicates that some advanced language functions (\"e.g.,\" higher order grammar) cannot be entirely assumed by the right side. The extent of advanced language loss is often dependent on the patient's age at the time of surgery. One study following the cognitive developm...
the difference between being asleep, being unconscious and being put asleep with anestesia.	sleep is the body doing repair work on the brain - it's very easy to wake up a sleeping person unconsciousness is an emergency shutoff, usually due to trauma - low blood pressure and brain swelling are the usual candidates. - It's (near) impossible to wake up an unconscious person (and usually it's pretty dangerous to...	[ "Catathrenia typically, sometimes even exclusively, occurs during REM sleep, although it may also occur to a lesser degree during NREM sleep. Catathrenia begins with a deep inspiration. The person with catathrenia holds her or his breath against a closed glottis, similar to the Valsalva maneuver. Expiration can be ...
How Nazis Evaluated The French Revolution?	I haven't read much of it so far but "Inhumanities: Nazi Interpretations of Western Culture" by David B Dennis seems to be the place to go for queries of this kind. It shows how the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter reappropriated figures of Western culture such as Socrates, Da Vince, Beethoven etc and placed them i...	[ "The French Revolution and its political legacy had a major influence upon the development of fascism. Fascists view the French Revolution as a largely negative event that resulted in the entrenchment of liberal ideas such as liberal democracy, anticlericalism and rationalism. Opponents of the French Revolution ini...
space coordinates?	There are several astronomical coordinate systems: Horizontal (AltAzimuth), Equatorial, Ecliptic, and Galactic are four commonly used, and each has it's own purpose. The choice of which coordinate system you use depends on what you're looking at, what kind of instrument you're using, and who you're talking to when you ...	[ "In mathematics, a coordinate space is a space in which an ordered list of coordinates, each from a set (not necessarily the same set), collectively determine an element (or point) of the space – in short, a space with a coordinate system.\n", "Coordinates systems are often used to specify the position of a point...
Is there any single cell in my body that would have any effect if it suddenly ceased to be?	There is a theory in neuroscience that distinct faces activate single subsets of neurons, or even a single neuron. This is referred to as the grandmother neuron, Halle berry neuron, or Marilyn Monroe neuron hypothesis. As few as one neuron lights up when shown a picture of a famous celebrity. Presumably, removal of tha...	[ "Cell viability can be assessed based on the integrity of plasma membrane: the living cells have intact plasma membranes whereas membranes of dead cells are broken. When a cell is exposed to a low voltage field, the electric current cannot go through the intact membrane, which is an electric insulator, if it is via...
Were Oktoberfest celebrations held in the German Democratic Republic?	The short answer is no, but that would be a bit untruthful since I think what you mean is something else (if not, I apologize): Oktoberfest is not a pan-German phenomenon, it isn't even a pan-Bavarian (whose culture seems to be often associated with Germany in General abroad) one. Oktoberfest is a Munich tradition, it...	[ "Celebrations were held annually on 18 January. At centralised and local events, patriotic speeches were held and songs such as \"Heil dir im Siegerkranz\", the unofficial anthem of the empire were sung. Celebrations also took place publicly during the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) and with the participation of high ...
How did Spanish theologians try to legitimise Spanish overseas expansion in the 16th century, and the treatment of the native people that they 'acquired?'	People in this thread are kind of dancing around it, but the Carlos I of Spain appealed to the pope for religious justification of conquests in the New World. The previous wars Spain had fought against the Muslims were justified by the Catholic faith because the Muslims were "heretics" who had heard the "Word of God" a...	[ "The task of incorporating eastern Honduras into the Spanish Empire fell to the evangelising efforts of Spanish missionary orders. The earliest Franciscan missionaries, at the beginning of the 17th century, attempted to convert the natives in their own settlements. It soon became obvious that this was impractical, ...
what exactly does oil have to do with the wars in afghanistan and iraq?	oil doesnt have really anything to do with either conflict. iraq does have the worlds 4 largest reserves, but the us doesnt even have access to them. they let the iraqi's bid them out and now china's gas company, BP, Total Sa, and Sidanco are the owners of the oil extraction. theres no oil in afghanistan.	[ "Oil, as a natural resource and a commodity, can be identified as a contributor to war. In the Gulf and Iraq Wars, oil and its flow to other countries were factors considered by Iraq and the other countries involved in the conflict. Although political changes, economic sanctions, and war created instability in Iraq...
why don't device manufacturers provide higher rate chargers with the device?	I'm a radio control hobbiest. I have learned quite a bit about batteries and one thing I have learned is that the faster you charge these batteries the less time the charge will last. So in a cellphone situation where a big selling point is battery run time and life they are gonna want you to charge it as slow as possi...	[ "Newer approaches reduce transfer losses through the use of ultra thin coils, higher frequencies, and optimized drive electronics. This results in more efficient and compact chargers and receivers, facilitating their integration into mobile devices or batteries with minimal changes required. These technologies prov...
Why are energy levels of electrons quantized?	> I've read on Yahoo answers that these quantized energy levels are harmonic solutions to Schrödinger's equation and that just like there are some harmonic frequencies that a bell rings at, there are certain harmonic solutions to the equation. In which case my question would be that is this due to the fact that there'...	[ "Quantized energy levels result from the relation between a particle's energy and its wavelength. For a confined particle such as an electron in an atom, the wave function has the form of standing waves. Only stationary states with energies corresponding to integral numbers of wavelengths can exist; for other state...
custom feeds. how are they, how do they work, how do you edit them?	A multireddit, now renamed to “custom feed”, is a group of two or more subreddits. Think of it as a folder in your bookmarks. Instead of seeing everything in your home feed, you will see just the ones in that folder. This is the main way I use Reddit. I have all of my subs grouped into topics look at one topic at a tim...	[ "Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a website. To provide a web feed, the site owner may use specialized software (such as a content management system) that publishes a list (or \"feed\") of recent articles or content in a standardized, machine-readable format. The feed can then be ...
if our field of vision is limited, why can we not see or imagine "nothing" on the outer edges of our vision, or "black" like the top/bottom edges of movies	Your brain already "erases" information you see but you don't need, as well as "fills in the blanks" for information that's missing or assumed. you have a blindspot in each eye but if you look at a wall, you don't see two black circles, your visual center just automatically paints in the blindspots, because you don't ...	[ "Another criticism comes from investigation into the human visual system. Although both eyes each have a blind spot, conscious visual experience does not subjectively seem to have any holes in it. Some scientists and philosophers had argued, based on subjective reports, that perhaps the brain somehow \"fills in\" t...
why does yellow highlighter not show up when you copy it? and why can't you copy red pages?	It's just a matter of contrast. Most copy machines only print black and white; they can't even produce gray except with [dithering](_URL_0_). So every color on the page has to be converted to either black or white. Yellow is very close to white, so it disappears. Red is sort of a half-dark color, so in some areas i...	[ "Many highlighters come in bright, often fluorescent and vibrant colors. Being fluorescent, highlighter ink glows under black light. The most common color for highlighters is yellow, but they are also found in orange, red, pink, purple, blue, and green varieties. Some yellow highlighters may look greenish in colour...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.