Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
Why is hot metal softer?	This is somewhat tricky to answer because metals have many different structures and atomic arrangements, depending on the material. In an ideal metal, the atoms are held together by a metallic bond in a perfect, repeating crystallized structure. In an actual metal, these crystallized structures still exist, but they ar...	[ "Other than to increase its malleability, another reason for heating the metal is for heat treatment purposes. The metal can be hardened, tempered, normalized, annealed, case hardened and subject to other process that changes the crystalline structure of the steel to give it specific characteristics required for di...
Are there any entirely fictional people commonly taught in history classes in North America?	Do you mean as a way of illustrating an "average" person? It's a common thing to 'create' people in order to help children understand more complex ideas from a relatable viewpoint. For instance life in a 13th century English manor-village is more easily understandable if you create a villager who's life the children ca...	[ "This is the list of fictional Native Americans from notable works of fiction (literatures, films, television shows, video games, etc.). It is organized by the examples of the fictional characters that are based on the indigenous people of the United States.\n", "My America is a series of fictional diaries of chi...
what are and how effective are sabermetrics, and can they be applied to other sports?	Sabermetrics in baseball is a statistical analysis of performance. The idea is to shift away from aggregate measures like "hits per at bat" which have tactical dependencies that consider who's on which base and the overall state of the game. Instead, statisticians look at measures like OPS+ (runs per out relative to ...	[ "Sabermetrics was created in an attempt for baseball fans to learn about the sport through objective evidence. This is performed by evaluating players in every aspect of the game, specifically batting, pitching, and fielding. These evaluation measures are usually phrased in terms of either runs or team wins as olde...
How was marriage viewed in the 1800s - early 1900s as opposed to now?	For much of Korean history, marriage for most was quite like a business arrangement between families. Women as well as men worked in the fields or in craft industries - men and woman with strength and skills were valued. Family leaders looked to marry their sons and daughters to people who could contribute to the wel...	[ "By the mid-18th century, the values of the American Enlightenment became established and weakened the view that husbands were natural \"rulers\" over their wives. There was a new sense of shared marriage. Legally, husbands took control of wives' property when marrying. Divorce was almost impossible until the late ...
what are the financial advantages for video game developers to make their game for one system only?	Generally, they get a bucketload of money from some platform's parent company to release exclusively on that platform for some period of time, then they use that time to develop the versions for the other platforms.	[ "A common exit strategy for a successful video-game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in the design and content of a game compared to third-party developers. One reason is that since the developers are employees of t...
what's the deal with those tar pits in the usa?	[The La Brea tar pits](_URL_0_) are natural, and pre-date current estimates of human colonization of North America. Tar pits happen when oil leaks to the surface. Gases and lighter hydrocarbons evaporate, leaving the heavier oily and tar-like fractions. Being thick and sticky, over the millennia they've trapped carele...	[ "A tar pit, or more accurately an asphalt pit or asphalt lake, is the result of a type of petroleum seep where subterranean bitumen leaks to the surface, creating a large area of natural asphalt. This happens because, after the material reaches the surface, its lighter components vaporize, leaving only the thick as...
"Under God" was added to the US Pledge of Allegiance in 1954; what was the background behind this change? Was there any controversy accompanying it at the time?	The change to the pledge was part of a broader movement over the past decade in the United States to distinguish Americans from "godless Communists" during the Cold War. There was a rise of civil religion—church attendance and profession of belief in general Christian principles tied closely to one's American identity....	[ "Critics of the American Pledge of Allegiance have argued that the use of the phrase \"under God\" violates the separation of church and state. While the pledge was created by Francis Bellamy in 1891, in 1954, the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization, campaigned with other groups to have the words \"under G...
why are brass, copper, and bronze used in pluming?	They're very corrosion resistant, considering the constant exposure to water. They're also very malleable (meaning they're easily shaped into tube and pipe) and not toxic, plus it is easy enough to be bent by hand rather than having to fabricate exact curves and lengths. In addition, the three metals are also resistant...	[ "During the Roman period a new process of metalworking started, cementation, used in the production of brass. This process involves the combination of a metal and a gas to produce an alloy (Zwicker et al. 1985: p107). Brass is made by mixing solid copper metal with zinc oxide or carbonate which comes in the form of...
what happens to a file when it is uninstalled from a computer?	We tend to say the file is deleted. The computer has a disk that acts like a like a filing cabinet. The computer keeps a list or table that tells it where the files is stored on the disk - similar to which draw on hanger in the filing cabinet. So the table might say - file1 is stored at address 100 and is 40 pages l...	[ "When a file is said to be corrupted, it is because its contents have been saved to the computer in such a way that they can't be properly read, either by a human or by software. Depending on the extension of the damage, the original file can sometimes be recovered, or at least partially understood. A file may be c...
what are moments, skewness and kurtosis in statistics? ;-;	Did you find this [article](_URL_0_) ?	[ "In statistics, L-moments are a sequence of statistics used to summarize the shape of a probability distribution. They are linear combinations of order statistics (L-statistics) analogous to conventional moments, and can be used to calculate quantities analogous to standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis, termed ...
What was the decision making process behind choosing Normandy as a target for invasion as opposed to Calais, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, etc?	Choosing a landing site required finding a compromise on a number of factors. The chosen site had to be within aircraft range of the UK, so the beachhead could receive fighter cover and air support. The closer it was to the UK, the better, as less shipping would be needed, and it would be less exposed to attack by U-bo...	[ "Having succeeded in opening up an offensive front in southern Europe, gaining valuable experience in amphibious assaults and inland fighting, Allied planners returned to the plans to invade Northern France. Now scheduled for 5 June 1944, the beaches of Normandy were selected as landing sites, with a zone of operat...
How would I go about testing and documenting a theory/hypothosis without being a scientist?	One option is to contact a research centre at a local university/hospital/etc that performs research in the particular field, and attempt to get them on board. Unless it is blindingly obvious that your study would be beneficial, you will want to be extremely well prepared to have any chance of convincing them. Visit li...	[ "The hypothetico-deductive model or method is a proposed description of scientific method. According to it, scientific inquiry proceeds by formulating a hypothesis in a form that can be falsifiable, using a test on observable data where the outcome is not yet known. A test outcome that could have and does run contr...
Is there a material so dense that smells can't get through?	That's not a hard requirement. Depending on the size of the molecule just a thin sheet of plastic wrap could stop smells. The steel of a gas bottle certainly stops the diffusion of gas.	[ "Some storing materials can be harmful to ceramic objects. Wool felt attracts and harbors insects including moths and silverfish which can be potentially very harmful to other collection material types. Polyurethane foam deteriorates over time which leaves a by-product that are sticky and acidic.\n", "In 2012, di...
Did the confederacy during the civil war ever make any music? Like a confederate "Hail to the chief"?	[This older answer of mine](_URL_0_) focuses on one of the most popular songs of the Confederacy.	[ "The song plays a prominent role in Michael Shaara's American Civil War historical novel \"The Killer Angels\" and its film adaptation \"Gettysburg\". Confederate Brigadier General Lewis A. Armistead recalls a dinner at the marital home of his best friend—the now-Union Major General Winfield Scott Hancock—at the U....
Why do people use "old timey voice" when mimicking historical people from the past 150 years?	Public speakers, leaders, and entertainers in the 19th century were almost always trained in elocution. It was an important part of education - search for elocution in this 1857 [McGuffey's Reader](_URL_0_) for an example, and in passing to marvel at what was expected of 19th century schoolchildren. Speakers were expe...	[ "\"Voices of Old People\" is a sound collage, and was recorded on tape by Garfunkel at the United Home for Aged Hebrews and the California Home for the Aged at Reseda. The collection of audio recordings of the elderly find them musing on treasured photographs, illness and living conditions. In \"Old Friends\", the ...
stud finders / stud sensors	They are mini metal detectors. They don't have a long range and are usually fairly accurate unless the stud is buried deep or there's some other piece of metal that distracts it.	[ "Electronic stud finders rely on sensors that detect changes in the dielectric constant of the wall. The dielectric constant changes when the sensor is over a stud. The lower reading indicates the presence of a stud in the wall. Internal capacitor stud finders can also come with other features that locate metal and...
How do they polarize glass?	There are many different ways, one is simply placing a PVA (poly vinyl acetate) foil on the glass. This material approximately has the consistency and thickness of plastic wrap. The manufacturing process begins by heating and stretching PVA to five times its natural length, making it even thinner. This lengthens PVA's ...	[ "Circular polarizers can also be used to selectively absorb or pass right-handed or left-handed circularly polarized light. It is this feature which is utilized by the 3D glasses in stereoscopic cinemas such as RealD Cinema. A given polarizer which creates one of the two polarizations of light will pass that same p...
Are taste buds (human and animal) programmed from birth to 'like' or 'dislike' certain flavours?	Can't answer your question entirely, but the sense of smell comes from chemical receptors, which are genetically programmed. However, it's a receptor, and it doesn't indicate that you like or hate something, necessarily. For instance, Durian fruit: Most people who've grown up without tasting it find it to be one of ...	[ "Kent Berridge, a researcher in affective neuroscience, found that sweet (\"liked\" ) and bitter (\"disliked\" ) tastes produced distinct orofacial expressions, and these expressions were similarly displayed by human newborns, orangutans, and rats. This was evidence that pleasure (specifically, \"liking\") has obje...
wittgenstein	I agree with the above post - you'd have to narrow down what you want to know about Wittgenstein. However, you're in luck! As there exists a comic book which explains various bits of Wittgenstein in a very simplified manner which I've copied below. Hooray! _URL_0_ It's mainly about Russell, but there's loads of stuff...	[ "The New Wittgenstein (2000) is a book containing a family of interpretations of the work of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In particular, those associated with this interpretation, such as Cora Diamond, Alice Crary, and James F. Conant, understand Wittgenstein to have avoided putting forth a \"positive\" metaphy...
how is it possible that our brain is able to calculate trajectory (e.g. throwing an object at something) so easily (especially if i'm so bad at math)?	what you are doing is what most physicists do when looking into new equations or formulas - "first approximation" you aren't predicting the trajectory with a high degree of accuracy so the actual path it takes is always "close enough" for you to think you are getting it right being good at maths is more about getting...	[ "For simple dynamical systems, knowing the trajectory is often sufficient, but most dynamical systems are too complicated to be understood in terms of individual trajectories. The difficulties arise because:\n", "The premise of the method is that the human brain thinks in a number of distinct ways which can be de...
What is required for a car to hydroplane?	You can hydroplane on very little water, all you need is enough to coat the surface of the road. What keeps you from hydroplaning is the tread on your tire. At speed the treads act like a high speed pump, channeling water into the tread pattern where it is expelled by the spinning of the tire. As the contact pattern ...	[ "A hydroplane (or \"hydro\", or \"thunderboat\") is a very specific type of motorboat used exclusively for racing. One of the unique characteristics about hydroplanes is that they only use the water they're on for propulsion and steering (not for flotation) - when going at full speed they are primarily held aloft b...
Silk Road Reading	Also, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road is a really fascinating and engaging look at history of excavation of the Silk Road.	[ "In 2012, Hansen wrote the book, \"The Silk Road: A New History\", which weighs archeologically excavated documents and artifacts to argue that the Silk Road trade was small-scale and usually involved local goods. The book received positive reviews from critics with Library Journal writing that it is “an impressive...
why do we get that strange feeling in our head when something sharp and long is pointing right between our eyes?	Doesn't work for me. Maybe it's because I don't use my left eye? Maybe it's related to the Ajna chakra point (third eye) and I mediate almost daily? Can you explain the sensation.	[ "When following the letters on the spine of a book with our eyes, our gaze moves in a vertical direction. One famous interpretative model holds that this movement stimulates the defecation urge.[ウェブページ：“本屋で便意を催す理由”][ウェブページ：“本屋に行くとお腹が痛くなる理由”] According to those who have experienced the phenomenon, it is to do with t...
In protracted conflicts and wars, especially where soldiers were conscripted, does the 'quality' of soldier decrease as the war goes on?	It would rather depend on the nature of the state and its army at the time. In Britain, there is no indication of a deterioration in the quality of the army as the Napoleonic wars went on, and I have read at least one suggestion that the turnover in officers was beneficial to the purchase system (The Reason Why by C. ...	[ "In 2016 the Army was struggling to recruit conscript servicemen, due to significant evasion of conscription, to replace demobilising soldiers including volunteers. This followed negative publicity about nutrition and equipment deficiencies in the conflict zone. By mid-April 2016, 127,363 soldiers and volunteers ha...
color wheel versus visible light spectrum	With visible light, red doesn't come after/before violet and violet doesn't come after/before red. On the color wheel it does because it makes finding relationships between colors easier than a straight line. Green being the opposite of red has everything to do with color theory in art and nothing to do with the wavele...	[ "A color wheel or other switch for changing a projected hue (e.g., for an optical display) is a device that uses different optics filters within a light beam. Common usage includes continuously-rotating wheels for seasonal home displays (e.g., at Christmas) and controllable color wheels for a particular instrument ...
How fast are the particles in the LHC moving relative to each other?	The last c in your equation should also be squared and then you get 2vc/(1-v^2 )=0.99999999999999999999999999999988c Anyhoo, From the view of the LHC the relative velocity of the particles is just 2v*c The velocity addition comes into play when assessing the velocities from the refernce system of the particles the...	[ "Imagine two fast-moving particles approaching each other from opposite sides of a particle accelerator of the collider type. The closing speed would be the rate at which the distance between the two particles is decreasing. From the point of view of an observer standing at rest relative to the accelerator, this ra...
class warfare	Class warfare is the idea that one class of people, usually the rich or well-to-do, either take action to prevent the poor from "rising above their station", or support policies which help suppress the poor, or are otherwise implicitly assisting in the suppression of those of a lower class, or are least complicit in it...	[ "Class conflict, frequently referred to as \"class warfare\" or \"class struggle\", is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests and desires between people of different classes.\n", "The forms of class conflict include direct violence, such as wars for resources an...
what is self-healing plastic and how does it work?	I'm not an expert but I believe that self-healing plastic is a typical long-chain polymer material that contains pockets of liquid plastic. When the material is broken, these pockets of liquid plastic get broken open and the liquid fills the gap created. The liquid then solidifies to heal the plastic.	[ "Self-healing materials are materials in which repair, or “heal”, themselves upon damage from an external force through the use of living polymers. For example, if a crack forms in the material, it proceeds to repair the crack and restore itself to its original, undamaged form. It achieves this by incorporating mon...
Religious relic?	I agree with Bodrk43: it looks like a benchmark or surveyor's mark of some sort. If it's a US Geological Survey benchmark, then destroying it is a crime. If it was set by some other agency or a private party, I don't know what the law says but I would be hesitant about destroying it. I'm a member of the Geocaching ho...	[ "In religion, a relic usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Shamanism, and many other religions...
Have there been female rulers with harems?	Follow up question: the Ottoman and various chinese dynasties had harems where concubines competed for political influence, and occasionally one concubine rose to the top of the entire governemnt, fir example Wu Zetian. What happened to the institution of the harem during the these periods? Were all the other concubin...	[ "The administration of the royal harem constituted an independent branch of the court, staffed mainly by eunuchs. These were initially black eunuchs, but white eunuchs from Georgia also began to be employed from the time of Abbas I. The mothers of rival princes together with eunuchs engaged in palace intrigues in a...
what really happens when people die of "old age" or "natural causes" ?	what happens is the family and doctors agree it is not worth determining what the actual cause of death was. actual cause is often heart failure, but frankly could be almost anything that isn't blatantly obvious from an external inspection. edit: stroke is another common cause. may actually be even more common that h...	[ "A death by natural causes results from an illness or an internal malfunction of the body not directly caused by external forces. For example, a person dying from complications from influenza (an infection), a heart attack (an internal body malfunction), or sudden heart failure would most likely be listed as having...
Western texts talk at length about Eastern goods received from the Silk Road such as spices and silk. What Western goods went east through the Silk Road of Antiquity that were in high demand for Eastern traders?	With respect to the Roman period, we have a few clues. The History of the Later Han Dynasty (Hou Hanshu), compiled in the fifth century, contains a brief passage on trade goods from Da Qin (The Roman Empire): "This country produces plenty of gold, silver, and precious jewels, luminous jade, bright moon pearls, fig...	[ "The Silk Road was the great overland trade route of the Ancient World, carrying goods including silks from China to the Mediterranean. By the 6th century C.E., tensions between Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire disrupted trade along the traditional route. Central Asian merchants developed a new route to Byzantium,...
how things such as albums and photos are leaked onto the internet.	It's a good real world example of how a secret is something you tell NOONE. Once you tell anyone, it has a very good chance of not being a secret for long. An imaginary scenario would be something like the chapter of a book sent to a lot of people during the process of publishing. If one of those just tells 2 close ...	[ "\"A person who either downloads images on to disc or who prints them off is making them. The Act is not only concerned with the original creation of images, but also their proliferation. Photographs or pseudo-photographs found on the Internet may have originated from outside the United Kingdom; to download or prin...
pluto's orbit	Pluto isn't actually an oddball. Most dwarf planets have highly eliptical, angled orbits. [see this side-view image of the solar system with several dwarf planets and kuiper belt objects highlighted](_URL_0_)	[ "Pluto's four small moons orbit Pluto at two to four times the distance of Charon, ranging from Styx at 42,700 kilometres to Hydra at 64,800 kilometres from the barycenter of the system. They have nearly circular prograde orbits in the same orbital plane as Charon.\n", "Observations indicate a circular, equatoria...
why such widespread poverty still exists in the 21st century.	It has become institutionally acceptable for American Corporations to lay off literally millions of people and then ship those jobs overseas while paying maybe $3 a day. The reason other countries accept these jobs goes back to the complicatd post ww2 cold war era of decolonization and subsequent neocolonizati...	[ "Poverty has been historically accepted in some parts of the world as inevitable as non-industrialized economies produced very little, while populations grew almost as fast, making wealth scarce. Geoffrey Parker wrote that Poverty reduction occurs largely as a result of overall economic growth. Food shortages were ...
When two photons interfere, what happens to their energy?	Every destructive minimum has a corresponding constructive maximum.	[ "Photons traveling in this loop will also interfere with each other. The well defined cavity length (1–10 μm) will ensure that the interference is constructive and will allow certain modes to oscillate. The competition for gain permits one mode to oscillate once the lasing threshold has been reached.\n", "Several...
what philosophical assumptions does science make? what are the 'beliefs' inherent in scientific inquiry?	One of the bigger things is that we can never be sure of our observations 100%. If I flip a coin 4 times and it lands on heads all of those times, I would be wrong to say that it's always going to land on heads. I may have just been very lucky! If you think about this, there's no reason this doesn't apply to 10 consecu...	[ "Perhaps the most basic assumption of science is that factual statements about the world must ultimately be based on observations of the world. This notion of empiricism requires that hypotheses and theories be tested against observations of the natural world rather than on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelat...
Would the Third Reich have supported the creation of Israel?	I think this is a fair question to ask, given that much of the groundwork of the Jewish state was well in motion by the time of Nazi Germany (Third Reich is a propaganda term they themselves coined). Your recollection is correct. From the beginning of the mass murder of Jewish people in what became the Holocaust, it w...	[ "The Biblical concept of Eretz Israel, and its re-establishment as a state in the modern era, was a basic tenet of the original Zionist program. This program however, saw little success until the British commitment to \"the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people\" in the Balfour Declara...
warts.	You can have the virus (HPV) on your body without necessarily having any visible effects of the virus. Not only that, but there are many different types of HPV that only affect certain parts of the body, so it's possible that your finger wart may have come from a different surface of your skin, where it was relatively...	[ "WarFriends is a 2017 third-person shooter video game developed by About Fun. It is played by third-person perspective with elements of real-time strategy. It was originally released on 7 October 2016 as early access. The full version was released on 17 January 2017.\n", "\"The War Game\" depicts the prelude to, ...
how can a single strand dna hold almost a zettabyte of digital storage?	i hate to sound flippant but the answer is that our current technology has storage density limitations that prevent us from doing the same thing our DNA does. Data does not inherently take any space really. at least, not any more space than the synapses firing creating the idea. Chemical storage is something we're ...	[ "As an alternative to the storage in direct DNA sequence, the data can also be stored in DNA nanostructures. On December 26, 2018, researchers from Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge published a paper in Nano Letters (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b04715) to show the possibility of e...
why do we still have single cell/simple organisms?	Bacteria is the most successful thing on this planet with about 5*10^30 individuals. Some scientists estimate the total weight of bacteria exceeds that of both plants and animals. So a better question to ask would be why we are even here? You have to keep in mind that evolution is not a straight line. It is a branchin...	[ "Multicellular organisms may have first evolved through the formation of colonies of identical cells. These cells can form group organisms through cell adhesion. The individual members of a colony are capable of surviving on their own, whereas the members of a true multi-cellular organism have developed specializat...
Why are most psychedelic plants native to Latin American countries?	There are many psychedelic plants native to temperate and even artic countries. I think the reason so many come from the tropics (where most Latin American countries lie) is because the tropics have the highest level of biodiversity of any ecosystem. Probably as a result of moderate year round temperatures and maximu...	[ "The Native Americans of Mexico are known to have long used the seeds of species of \"Ipomoea\" for preparing psychedelic infusions; several scientific studies indicate they contain several ergoline alkaloids with effects somewhat similar to, but weaker than, those of LSD It is possible that some of these studies m...
Does one have greater sense if the sensory organ (nose, mouth, eyes) in particular is larger than normal?	No. Perception is based on the amount of receptors. While you could potentially link the size of the sensory organ to the number of receptors, I haven't seen that it makes a difference. Example: A dog nose is thousands of times more powerful than a humans, yet not much larger. This is because they have far more recep...	[ "Scientists who study perception and sensation have long understood the human senses as adaptations to their surrounding worlds. Depth perception consists of processing over half a dozen visual cues, each of which is based on a regularity of the physical world. Vision evolved to respond to the narrow range of elect...
How do black holes combine?	Scientists have never observed black holes merging, but it is possible. Almost every galaxy contains a black hole at it's center, so scientists have said it is most likely to happen when two galaxies collide and their supermassive black holes at the center collide. A black hole forms when a large star, one much large...	[ "A binary black hole (BBH) is a system consisting of two black holes in close orbit around each other. Like black holes themselves, binary black holes are often divided into stellar binary black holes, formed either as remnants of high-mass binary star systems or by dynamic processes and mutual capture, and binary ...
How were battles fought during the Flowery Wars involving the Aztecs, in terms of tactics, weaponry, etc.?	According to Ross Hassig, flower wars were pretty much the same as other conflicts. The exception being is that armies would not make use of projectiles. Part of this reason is that projectiles can easily kill a person, but projectiles are also impersonal in that you cannot easily make claim to a captive. Instead they ...	[ "There appear to be a variety of reasons that the Aztecs engaged in flower wars. Historians have thought that flower wars were fought for purposes including combat training and capturing humans for religious sacrifice. Historians note evidence of the sacrifice motive: one of Cortez's captains, Andres de Tapia, once...
why netflix's "recently added" column has all the newest releases, while it's "new releases" contains mostly movies that have been on netflix for months-years.	It's based off of your recommended shows/movies so if you have a specific taste, the newest movie in that category might be a year old.	[ "As of June 2019, Vudu's selection contains over 24,000 titles in their catalog and over 8,000 television shows, making them one of the largest streaming providers of its kind. Titles range from major motion pictures, independent films, documentaries, children's programming, anime, musicals, recorded musical perfor...
Why is beer foam white, and not the same colour as the beer?	the light is scattered through the thin film of the bubbles, causing it to look like a homogeneous white.	[ "Many beers are transparent, but some beers, such as hefeweizen, may be cloudy due to the presence of yeast making them translucent. A third variety is the opaque or near-opaque colour that exists with stouts, porters, schwarzbiers (black beer) and other deeply coloured styles. Thickness and retention of the head a...
with the epa allowing asbestos again, what exactly is it, what are those commercials saying, should i be scared, and if so what can i do to prevent harm?	Although this doesn't get to your question - the EPA isn't allowing asbestos again. In 2016 Congress passed a revised version of the Toxic Substances Control Act which requires the EPA to periodically review certain substances to see if they should be banned or if existing restrictions on their use should be lessened....	[ "Asbestos regulation critics include the asbestos industry and JunkScience.com owner Steven Milloy. Critics argue that the outright banning of dangerous products by government regulation is inferior to keeping the products while innovating ways to prevent the lethal effects. They argue that the product benefits are...
In Ontario, Canada. Why are there two towns/cities named "London" and "Paris"? Did the names have any influence from the much larger, famous European counterparts?	I have a great book called ["Ontario Place Names" by David E. Scott](_URL_0_). He has tracked the history and meaning of the name for pretty much every hamlet/village/town/city in Ontario. Some are quite brief and he cannot determine the meaning of the name, but he usually goes into more detail for the larger towns and...	[ "Like another ten cities in the world, this London was named after the British capital of London by John Graves Simcoe, who also named the local river the Thames, in 1793. That was understandable since John Graves Simcoe and many of the original settlers were from Britain. Simcoe had intended London to be the capit...
Can zygotes fully develop to term in vitro/without a mother?	Impossible at this time. Typically right now IVF embryo transfers occur at about day 5 or 6 after conception when the embryo is about 60-100 cells in the blastocyst form. On their own they start dying more rapidly if left to grow after that. Ultimately for them to survive with current technology, they need a uterus.	[ "The zygote contains a full complement of genetic material, with all the biological characteristics of a single and unrepeatable human being, and develops into the embryo. Briefly, embryonic development have four stages: the morula stage, the blastula stage, the gastrula stage, and the neurula stage. Prior to impla...
when driving does a change in air pressure determine how much fuel you use (mpg) etc..	Yes...but not very much. Also, fuel gauges aren't all that accurate. Probably the most noticeable effect on MPG, for the same trip at the same speed, is wind. Headwind or crosswind will decrease it, tailwind will increase it. Many other things affect MPG: Cargo/passenger in your car (more weight). Air pressure in...	[ "To decide how much fuel needs to be injected into each intake runner the ECU calculates the air mass that had been drawn into the cylinder. The calculation makes use of the cylinder volume (the B204 engine has a displacement of 0.5 litres per cylinder). That cylinder volume holds equal amount of air which has a de...
what does it mean when someone "itemizes" their taxes? also is this somehow related to deductions. actually, eli5 deductions as well.	When figuring out your taxes, there are certain things that the government has decided you don't have to pay taxes (or can pay less taxes) on. Because you're deducting them from the amount you have to pay, they're called deductions. They are for things like raising children or business expenses if you're self-employed ...	[ "Under United States tax law, the standard deduction is a dollar amount that non-itemizers may subtract from their income before income tax (but not other kinds of tax, such as payroll tax) is applied. Taxpayers may choose either itemized deductions or the standard deduction, but usually choose whichever results in...
Were there any Confederate generals who were anti-slavery? On the other side of that coin were there any Union generals who were pro-slavery?	I do not believe there were any Confederate Generals who were anti-slavery. In 1861 it was actually quite dangerous for any American citizen to express anti-slavery views while in the South. You will see quotes from men such as Lee which indicate slavery is an evil but Lee is also recorded as voicing the predominant ...	[ "Prominent Confederates such as R. M. T. Hunter and Georgian Democrat Howell Cobb opposed arming slaves, saying that it was \"suicidal\" and would run contrary to the Confederacy's ideology. Opposing such a move, Cobb stated that African Americans were untrustworthy and innately lacked the qualities to make good so...
AITA for asking some maroon friends to help me steal from the Spanish only to accidentally spark a four-year-long scorched earth campaign against my allies?	ESH. Well, everyone but the slaves. The Spanish sound just terrible, you're in this for your own selfish reasons, and you caused a scorched earth war? What the hell!	[ "The Spanish freed their slaves, who became Jamaican Maroons in the mountainous interior, and they fought on the side of the Spanish against the English invaders. There were two separate bands of Maroons, led by Juan de Bolas and Juan de Serras respectively, and they effectively repelled any attempts by the English...
Why are there so many things named "Columbia" in the United States. Does it have any relation to Columbia the country?	Only insofar as they have the same source: the name of Christopher Columbus. "America" is kind of an odd name, taken from cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. But it caught on, the way things that are kind of counterintuitive will sometimes. This left a kind of unsatisfied urge to name it for Columbus, it seems. In 1776, a...	[ "Columbia is a poetic name for the Americas and the feminine personification of the United States of America, made famous by African-American poet Phillis Wheatley during the American Revolutionary War in 1776. It has inspired the names of many persons, places, objects, institutions, and companies in the Western He...
helpful maps	Could always try /r/mapporn there is loads of useful images there.	[ "General-purpose maps provide many types of information on one map. Most atlas maps, wall maps, and road maps fall into this category. The following are some features that might be shown on general-purpose maps: bodies of water, roads, railway lines, parks, elevations, towns and cities, political boundaries, latitu...
Does chemotherapy affect the health of a male's future offspring, conceived years after treatment?	Be careful answering this post, as it borders on asking for medical advice. Linking to relevant papers is probably okay, but telling OP whether or not he should have kids wouldn't be... Obviously it's up to the mods to define the line of what's acceptable.	[ "Female infertility by chemotherapy appears to be secondary to premature ovarian failure by loss of primordial follicles. This loss is not necessarily a direct effect of the chemotherapeutic agents, but could be due to an increased rate of growth initiation to replace damaged developing follicles. Antral follicle c...
If there really was another planet orbiting the sun opposite the earth as some people claim, how would we know?	Yes, it would affect the orbits of other planets. Also, other planets would affect its orbit, so it would be hard put to stay exactly on the opposite side. There is an [equilibrium point, L3](_URL_0_) on the opposite side, but it's not stable. Instead of being like a valley, it's like the top of a hill. So if somethin...	[ "A planet orbiting the Sun so that it was always on the other side of the Sun from Earth could (in theory) have such an orbit because it was the same distance from the Sun and had the same mass as Earth. Thus, what would make it undetectable to astronomers (or any other human beings) on Earth would also make it hab...
[Meta] New r/askhistorians official policies.	If I could suggest one addition: downvotes are for bad responces, not for responces you disagree with/that challenge your view of things but are otherwise excellent.	[ "An acceptable use policy (AUP), acceptable usage policy or fair use policy, is a set of rules applied by the owner, creator or administrator of a network, website, or service, that restrict the ways in which the network, website or system may be used and sets guidelines as to how it should be used. AUP documents a...
why do next gen video games all require downloading new content immediately after purchase? why can't they sell complete games out of the box anymore?	Printing discs, boxing and shipping take a while to do, and because games have to be shipped to retails days before the release in order to ensure that they have them available for purchase that day, this packaging process has to start early. Yet the development of a game doesn't stop the moment they start packaging. ...	[ "Users who pre-order upcoming games through Access are able download special limited versions of the games, released five days prior to the retail launch. EA described these early-release versions as not being more traditional demos, but instead full-featured but time-limited versions, with the exact extent of cont...
why small businesses are considered "good"	Keeping money flowing is what creates a good economy and the most direct way of doing that is by making sure the money you are giving out doesn't get stockpiled in some giant vault or sent out the country. If you spend $100 at a local butcher that money is probably going to get spent elsewhere in the area. Your butche...	[ "“Small businesses tend to have just one or two key products that they sell to government as their discriminator. And a lot of initial profits go into keeping talent at the company, rather than investing in the next big development. For all of industry, this requirement will force some business decisions to be made...
Couple questions about planetary orbit.	Tidal Locking. _URL_0_ The moon is tidally locked with the Earth, it is slowly getting farther and farther away and is in fact slowing down our days. It does spin on its own axis once per month. But since it revolves around us at the same rate, we are only seeing one side.	[ "The only parameters of the planet's orbit that are currently available are its orbital period, which is about , and its inclination, which is approximately 90°. From Earth, the planet appears to make a transit across the disk of its host star. It has an eccentricity of 0, meaning its orbit is circular.\n", "Unde...
how do they declare certain aquatic organisms as extinct, when we haven't explored a huge majority of the oceans?	The same way we do on land, really. It is basically the reasoning of 'if we haven't seen any trace of species X in a good number of years, most likely they are extinct.' Sometimes those assumptions are correct. sometimes they are very false. (Like with coelacanths) Though note that unexplored parts of the ocean don't...	[ "A species is declared extinct after exhaustive surveys of all potential habitats eliminate all reasonable doubt that the last individual of a species, whether in the wild or in captivity, has died. Recently extinct species are defined by the IUCN as going extinct after 1500 C. E.\n", "This page features lists of...
How does it happen that an entire volume of data can become corrupt when the writing of only a small portion of it is interrupted?	In your case it seems was damaged the File Allocation Table (FAT). This file system can be read and written by a wide range of devices, but it is very fragile because of how data is arranged logically. In most cases you can fix the problem with a specialized application, like chkdsk under Windows. If you are using it ...	[ "In general, when data corruption occurs a file containing that data will produce unexpected results when accessed by the system or the related application. Results could range from a minor loss of data to a system crash. For example, if a document file is corrupted, when a person tries to open that file with a doc...
how would half the gravity on earth, and in another scenario double the gravity on earth affect us in everyday life? also, could we survive without any gravity at all?	Not exactly an expert, but I'm an undergraduate Physics major: Assuming that Earth has ALWAYS had the gravitational attraction of Mars or Jupiter, it would affect us very little. Our bodies would have evolved along with all other life on Earth to match whatever the gravitation of Earth is. However, if Earth's gravitat...	[ "BULLET::::- Some microbes can survive gravity more than 400,000 times that felt on Earth, a new study says. By contrast, most humans can tolerate three to five times Earth's surface gravity before losing consciousness. (\"National Geographic\")\n", "The difference in gravity would negatively affect human health ...
Why is there virtually no outside sources for the Kingdom of Israel during the time of David & Solomon?	Part of the answer is that most people stopped being interested in the area. The Egyptians gave up campaigns in the Levant around 1175 until Shoshenq around the early 900s (who is mentioned in 1 Kings 14 although some dispute this), and New Kingdom pharaohs didn't name their adversaries (certainly Shoshenq didn't). T...	[ "Although the Book of Samuel and initial parts of the Books of Kings, portray Saul, David and Solomon ruling in succession over a powerful and cosmopolitan united kingdom of Israel and Judah, Finkelstein and Silberman regard modern archaeological evidence as showing that this may not be true. Archaeology instead sh...
if networks cancel a show mid-season and have filmed the rest of the season, why aren't the rest of the episodes released online?	Well sometimes they are, so there is no rule/law against it. However the show makers often do not have the license / copyright to their own shows. So it´s not up to them to release the episodes however they want. The network on the other hand who does have the rights, doesn´t really have an interest in releasing the ...	[ "Eight episodes of the program were ordered, however only five have been broadcast in America. In May 2015, A&E announced it was removing the program from its schedule following controversy surrounding the series, and the network isn't planning to air the remaining three episodes, effectively cancelling the series....
Was homosexuality seen as normal in the middle east prior to 1885?	...kind of. Not "homosexuality" as we think of it today, though. That is to say, an outright sexual relationship between two adult men would not have been regarded as acceptable behavior. However, under certain limited circumstances same-gender love and (depending on whom one asked) even same-gender sexual relations c...	[ "The attitudes toward homosexuality in the Ottoman empire underwent a dramatic change during the 19th century. Before that time, Ottoman societal norms accepted homoerotic relations as normal, despite condemnation of homosexuality by religious scholars. The Ottoman Sultanic law (\"qanun\") tended to equalize the tr...
why was synth used so much in 80s music?	Synthesizers became popular very quickly due to their marketed ability to 'create the sounds of any instrument imaginable'. Up to a certain extent this is true. A synthesizer is one big piece of math hooked up to the most accessible musical interface at the time: a keyboard. A synth is programmable by tweaking faders,...	[ "The definition of MIDI and the development of digital audio made the creation of purely electronic sounds much easier. This led to the growth of synthpop, by which, particularly through their adoption by the New Romantic movement, synthesizers came to dominate the pop and rock music of the early 80s. The early sou...
How do colony species like ants and bees evolve to their present states?	This is no small question. This is THE question as regards ant colonies. Until only a few years ago the predominant theory claimed that a quirk of the chromosome structure led to increased "inclusive fitness". The quirk, [haplodiploidy](_URL_5_). In haplodiploidy a fertilized egg goes female and unfertilized eggs go...	[ "In eusocial insects, new colonies are usually formed by a solitary queen; however this is not always the case. Dependent colony formation, when new colonies are formed by more than one individual, has evolved recurrently multiple times in ants, bees, and wasps.\n", "Usually new colonies are formed by older indiv...
why is the us police force becoming more militarized and more powerful? or is this a misconception?	I'm a cop. Its hard to argue that police isn't becoming more miltarized but I think its vastly over rated. Two agencies in my county have a bearcat (like a tank with no big gun) but it it rarely used and all the agencies borrow it when needed. Aside from a taser, I have received no new weapons since I started 15 year...	[ "The war model of policing has been offered as a reason for why police brutality occurs. Through this model, police brutality is more likely to occur because police see crime as a war and have people who are their enemies. Police who have been exposed to war have more than a 50% higher rate of excessive force compl...
why does the us model of the samsung galaxy s8 have a different processor than the global model?	Qualcomm owns many many patents in the US basically forcing any company to use Qualcomm's modem to connect to wireless signals. Companies are free to use any SoC (System on a Chip) they want, the Galaxy S6 used the global SoC version but used a Qualcomm modem. The big issue is Qualcomm prices things in such a way that...	[ "Galaxy S4 models use one of two processors, depending on the region and network compatibility. The S4 version for North America, most of Europe, parts of Asia, and other countries contains Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 system-on-chip, containing a quad-core 1.9 GHz Krait 300 CPU and an Adreno 320 GPU. The chip also co...
how exactly does the us "cut someone off from the dollar market" with sanctions?	The US tells banks that they cannot do business with "someone" if they want to do business with US regulated banks or the electronic funds transfer network. This doesn't exactly prevent them from spending dollars, but they have to do it with bundles of currency. As many a drug cartel discovered, Dollars are not compa...	[ "The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, \"CAATSA\" (, ), is a United States federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The bill was passed on July 27, 2017, 98–2 in the Senate, after having passed the House 419–3. On August 2, 2017, President Donald Trump signed it int...
animals with rabies live normally but infected people die in a week?	Animals with rabies typically don't live normally. It is generally a disease with rapid deterioration and usually fatal.	[ "BULLET::::- Rabies, a fatal neurologic disease in animals and people, is caused by a virus. Animals and people are most commonly infected through bites from rabid animals. Infected cats may have a variety of signs, but most often have sudden behavioral changes and progressive paralysis.\n", "Rabies is rare in ca...
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the most famous works to come out of China, however it is not historically accurate. What is a historical description of Cao Cao, Liu Bei, et al.?	Add on-- which (if any) of the central generals that are not real. I.e. Did Lu Bu exist? Guan Yu? Zhang Fei? Sima Yi?	[ "\"Romance of the Three Kingdoms\" is acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature; it has a total of 800,000 words and nearly a thousand dramatic characters (mostly historical) in 120 chapters. The novel is among the most beloved works of literature in East Asia, and its literary influ...
how does the acid in lead acid batteries not consume the lead?	It does- in fact, that's how it works. It turns it into lead sulfate, and when all the lead has been so turned, the battery is dead. Charging a battery gradually turns the lead sulfate and water back into lead oxide and sulfuric acid.	[ "Conventional lead–acid batteries consist of a number of plates of lead and lead dioxide suspended in a cell filled with weak sulfuric acid. Lead oxide reacts with the sulfur and oxygen in the acid to give up an electron, leaving the plate positively charged and producing lead sulfate. Lead reacts with the acid by ...
Do historians in the US/Europe study the south american independence wars and consequences?	Speaking as an American historian, yes, they do study it, but Latin American history is a reasonably small sub-discipline in the US (at least compared to US and European history). It could be that there are not many specialists in late colonial early national South America who are redditors. The other issue is that Lat...	[ "BULLET::::- \"Based in the American Studies Department at the University of Sussex, the Cunliffe Centre offers a concentration of scholars of the history of the South unparalleled anywhere outside the United States. The principal purpose of the Cunliffe Centre is to build upon this strength by enhancing research n...
how come people say "drinking the kool-aid"when referring to cults?	The Jonestown Mass "Suicide" where over 900 members of the Peoples Temple (a cult) drank cyanide laced kool-aid. I take the term to represent how people involved in cults are willing to do anything and believe everything the leaders tell them. Jim Jones told the members to drink to kool-aid and nearly 1000 people dran...	[ "This phrase, \"drinking the Kool-Aid\" has a particular significance, meaning to accept an argument or philosophy completely or blindly. The term originated from the Jonestown Massacre, in which 913 People's Temple cultists committed mass suicide by drinking potassium cyanide laced Flavor Aid, a product similar to...
To what extent is the body able to heal deep lacerations and non-lethal bullet wounds?	If the damage is too severe, then fibrosis is the mechanism of repair. And example is a muscle tear, usually called a strain. This is where muscle cells are torn apart, or there may be damage from a cut. In this case the body has to fill in the open space of missing tissue with scar tissue, this is called fibrosis. Aft...	[ "Most penetration wounds require immediate treatment and are not as easy to repair. For example, a deep knife wound to the brachial plexus could damage and/or sever the nerve. According to where the cut was made, it could inhibit action potentials needed to innervate that nerve's specific muscle or muscles.\n", "...
atlas shrugged	Reply stolen from Hapax_Legoman in [this post](_URL_0_). The basic plot of the book is actually in the title. Atlas (yeah, like the book full of maps) is a figure from Greek mythology. He's what's called a Titan, a race of very old, very powerful god-like figures. They gave birth to another generation of god-figures c...	[ "\"Atlas Shrugged\", published in 1957, was considered Rand's \"magnum opus\". Rand described the theme of the novel as \"the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest\". It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philoso...
If I was standing on Phobos or Deimos, could I throw a ball fast enough to make it goes into orbit around the moon itself?	Phobos and Deimos have escape velocities of about 40 km/h and 20 km/h, respectively. The speed required for a circular orbit at surface level is (escape velocity)/sqrt(2), so 28 km/h and 14 km/h. That's well below the typical speed of a pitched baseball. However, both Phobos and Deimos are so small and so close to Mar...	[ "The player picks his/her ball up from the ground from between his/her feet and throws it where he/she stands. Contrary to normal pétanque, it is allowed to jump during the throw, provided that the player lands on the same spot where he/she started from. The ball must travel in the air at least 10 cm.\n", "The ba...
why is it cold during summer further up north if over there the sunlight lasts longer?	The reason it's cold in the north, even in summer, is about the angle that the sunlight hits the earth. Far north the sun is in the sky for a long time but it never gets very high in the sky. In the far north the sun barely gets up over the horizon for much of the day. The sunlight is shining on the earth there sidew...	[ "In September and October the days get rapidly shorter, and in northern areas the sun disappears from the sky entirely. As the amount of solar radiation available to the surface rapidly decreases, the temperatures follow suit. The sea ice begins to refreeze, and eventually gets a fresh snow cover, causing it to ref...
Why was the Black Sea historically a freshwater body?	The base level and salinity history of the Paratethyan basins (i.e. the Dacian Basin, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea) is complicated to say the least. One flaw in the logic regarding these basins is the assumption that they are completely endorheic, in reality they have a complicated history of both one and two w...	[ "Originally a land-locked fresh water lake, the Black Sea was flooded with salt water from the Mediterranean Sea during the Holocene. The influx of salt water essentially smothered the fresh water below it because a lack of internal motion and mixing meant that no fresh oxygen reached the deep waters, creating a me...
Can smells evolve over time? For example, do we know that a pineapple or our body odor has always smelled the same way?	Both your examples almost certainly have changed over time. Body odour for sure - different countries have different body odours due to diet and what comes out in sweat so that will definitely have changed as human diets changed. The smell of pineapple is linked to the chemicals in it. As they've evolved and the chem...	[ "The idea that sounds and scents may be linked in the brain was suggested in 1862 by G. W. Septimus Piesse, who said, \"Scents, like sounds, appear to influence the olfactory nerve in certain definite degrees.\" Piesse also suggested that there may be an octave of odour.\n", "\"The Art of Perfumery\" is also nota...
From the beginnings of the Republic until the fall of the Western Roman Empire, did Roman architecture change significantly and, if so, how?	Roman architecture is a HUGE topic - they tended to borrow bits and pieces from here and there (Etruscan arches, Greek columns...), and adapted their architecture depending on where in the Empire it was. There's actually a really good online course here: _URL_0_ which may be worth a look if you are very interested in...	[ "BULLET::::- Western Roman Empire – In 285, Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305) divided the Roman Empire's administration into western and eastern halves. In 293, Rome lost its capital status, and Milan became the capital.\n", "The decline of the Roman Empire is one of the events traditionally marking the end of Clas...
would an oil heating system use more oil keeping a house a constant temperature all day or turning it off and bringing it back up to temperature?	A lot depends on your home. The size, type of heating system, amount of insulation, how tight the house is all play a factor. With that being said, I can't ELI5 but I have a lot of experience in home building/home performance. It's what I do. I typically recommend setting your away at work tstat temp no more than 5...	[ "In a cool, dry place, oils have greater stability, but may thicken, although they will soon return to liquid form if they are left at room temperature. To minimize the degrading effects of heat and light, oils should be removed from cold storage just long enough for use.\n", "Bruzio oil has to be preserved in dr...
When did supermarkets first appear?	Various elements of the modern supermarket arose in different places, mostly in the 1920s. The first self-service grocery store is thought to have been a Memphis Piggly Wiggly opened in 1916. The concept was patented and franchised to other operators. Customers entered through a turnstile and made their way through ...	[ "In the 20th century, supermarkets were born. Supermarkets brought with them a self service approach to shopping using shopping carts, and were able to offer quality food at lower cost through economies of scale and reduced staffing costs. In the latter part of the 20th century, this has been further revolutionized...
Was there a strong national identity for Israel before it was formed in 1947?	First of all Israel officially came into existence in 1948 when David Ben Gurion declared the birth of the country. Now to actually address your question. It is hard to get a perfect answer when it comes to this as the idea of an Israeli national identity is closely tied to the idea of a Jewish identity. The belief t...	[ "The Land of Israel, which is considered by Jews to be the Promised Land, was the place where Jewish identity was formed, although this identity was formed gradually reaching much of its current form in the Exilic and post-Exilic period. By the Hellenistic period (after 332 BCE) the Jews had become a self-conscious...
How does the human body remain stable as we walk?	Walking is surprisingly an extremely complicated process when you look at all the system involved. Let me give you a brief walkthrough of the process. So first you have your inputs: places where you body gets information before actually walking. The major ones are the vestibular and visual systems. The vestibular sys...	[ "In case of leg muscles, where circulation is substantially dependent on their cyclical contraction when the body is upright, a small but useful degree of initial up-regulation of the citric acid cycle may be achieved just by standing still for a few minutes. It is most useful when a long period of rest, or sitting...
i thought jordan had a constitutional monarchy, yet it appears that democratic movements have flaired up in the region. eli5	Good question. If you don't receive an adequate answer here in ELI5, you might try /r/middleeastnews or even /r/islam	[ "As a developing constitutional monarchy, Jordan has survived the trials and tribulations of Middle Eastern politics. The Jordanian public has experienced limited democracy since gaining independence in 1946 however the population has not suffered as others have under dictatorships imposed by some Arab regimes. The...
Will you help me identify a snake? Pictures in comments.	It's neither a boa nor a viper based on the head shape (too narrow/not triangle-shaped). That leaves the elapids and colubrids. I can't do much research on my phone, but the Lyre Snake (Trimorphodon) looks like the one. I'm guessing it's about 40cm? Not quite an adult. They are venomous, but rear-fanged and thus unlike...	[ "The Plains garter snake (\"Thamnophis radix\") is a species of garter snake native to most of the central United States as far north as Canada and as far south as Texas. It has a distinctive orange or yellow stripe from its head to tail, and the rest of its body is mainly a gray-green color. The snake is commonly ...
why do i drive down the road and sometimes people flash their headlights once or twice before we pass?	Either your driving like a loonatic or more likely its just a slight bump in the road. Dimmed headlight point down and if the car moves up slightly theyre pointing straight ahead, so it looks like they're flashing you but they're not :P	[ "BULLET::::- A common experience while travelling on state highways is being 'flashed' by oncoming vehicles. This is when an oncoming vehicle flicks its high beam headlights quickly but noticeably (day or night), and serves to warn drivers they are approaching a hazard: a speed camera or Police vehicle/Radar/Random...
how does slag glass form?	Slag is a byproduct of metal refining. It's essentially impurities in the metal that are removed and is often kinda glassy. Originally slag glass had slag mixed into the glass to give it the appearance. However, later multiple colors of molten glass were mixed together to get a similar effect.	[ "glass is melted and formed by typical glassworking techniques into the desired shape. This is heat-treated, which causes the material to separate into two intermingled \"phases\" with distinct chemical compositions. One phase is rich in alkali and boric oxide and can be easily dissolved in acid. The other phase is...
how do you build synthetic molecules?	The best way I can explain it is to think of going on a road trip. To get from A to B, there are several routes you could take. You want to stop at a particular tourist attraction on the way, so that eliminates some of the possibilities. Another route is notorious for constant traffic jams, so that's out. Eventually, y...	[ "Modern synthetic chemistry has reached the point where it is possible to prepare small molecules to almost any structure. These methods are used today to manufacture a wide variety of useful chemicals such as pharmaceuticals or commercial polymers. This ability raises the question of extending this kind of control...
landfill. surely it's a really really bad idea to fill holes with a partly rotting, gassy, mix of crap? won't we run out of places to put it?	Generally speaking no. Landfills are actually quite small even for large cities. I mean yes, eventually if we did nothing to recycle or reclaim things I guess we'll fill the planet with trash ... but at our current rates no. In parts of the world (re: asia) where you see garbage line the streets it's more a question...	[ "There are no established landfill facilities or recycling programs established, except for the use of glass bottles. Because of the lacking structured garbage system, garbage can be found anywhere and everywhere in the town. These areas include the beaches, the water, and the streets.\n", "Landfills can be regar...
linear alegbra: what the difference between linear independence and linear dependence is.	Let's say I give you a set of vectors. If any one of those vectors can be constructed as a combination of any of the others, then the set is said to be "linearly dependent". If the set isn't linearly dependent, we call it "linearly independent". One way to check for linear independence is to write down a matrix where ...	[ "Here (\"v\") denotes a family of vectors. The \"i\"-th vector \"v\" only makes sense with respect to this family, as sets are unordered and there is no \"i\"-th vector of a set. Furthermore, linear independence is only defined as the property of a collection; it therefore is important if those vectors are linearly...
what is mega doing? why do i have to wait forever twice?	A lot of complicated encryption. Remember Megaupload? It was a site for hosting files on for download, based in New Zealand, much like Mega, but it was quicker. Unfortunately for them, US law deemed it illegal because it had lots of copyright-infringing files on it, and had the New Zealand police go shut them down. T...	[ "Mega is known for its security feature where all files are end-to-end encrypted locally before they are uploaded. This prevents anyone (including employees of Mega Limited) from accessing the files without knowledge of the pass key used for encryption. The service was previously noted for a large 50 GB storage all...
why do the skeletons of people that died hundreds of years ago have perfect white teeth but mine will yellow within days without brushing?	You are alive. You are constantly exposing your teeth to food and other habits that can stain them, and you are providing a nice, warm, wet environment perfect for bacteria growth which can lead to plaque and cavities. Skeletons are, well, dead. They are not constantly eating. Their mouth is not a nice warm wet enviro...	[ "\"All are very careful of their teeth, which from a very early age they file and render even, with stones and iron. They dye them a black color, which is lasting, and which preserves their teeth until they are very old, although it is ugly to look at.\"\n", "Maiko who are in their last stage of training sometime...
Penrose diagrams for evaporating black holes?	In Penrose diagrams, the horizontal coordinate is normally radial, so it goes from zero to infinity. The vertical axis is time, and each point corresponds to a spatial two-sphere at that given radius and time. For a given time, the left-most boundary is r = 0, the center of the spacetime (which you'll notice does s...	[ "Penrose diagrams are frequently used to illustrate the causal structure of spacetimes containing black holes. Singularities are denoted by a spacelike boundary, unlike the timelike boundary found on conventional space-time diagrams. This is due to the interchanging of timelike and spacelike coordinates within the ...
why doesn't america join russia fighting isis in syria on the ground?	* Russia is not fighting on the ground, they are providing arms and support and are starting to fly air sorties. * The US does not want to support the Assad regime, which is what Russian action is really all about, not fighting ISIS in particular. Western governments maintain that Assad must step down and refuse to w...	[ "BULLET::::- The US-led coalition that is launching its own air strikes against ISIS demanded that Russia stop attacking targets other than ISIS. \"We call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and to focus its efforts on fighting ISIL,\" said the US-led c...

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