Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
how do scientists/anthropologists explain the seemingly quick ascent of the human species?	[Punctuated Equilibrium, my man. Evolution of species or ideas shouldn't be be viewed as a gradual and constant change but as a series of leaps and bounds interspersed with periods of stability.](_URL_0_)	[ "Overwhelmingly, the idea of a \"first ascent\" is a modern one, especially in places such as Africa and the Americas with a history of colonialism. There may be little or no physical evidence or documentation about the climbing activities of indigenous peoples living near the mountain. For example, the volcano Llu...
Is it possible to tack into the solar wind the same way we can sail into the wind on earth?	If you mean sailing in the opposite direction as the wind (i.e. to the Sun) then yes, it is possible, though not in the same way nor for the same reasons. Orbital dynamics are crazy and amazing :) You can use [radiation pressure](_URL_0_) with a solar sail or the solar wind with an [electric sail](_URL_1_). In the res...	[ "Robert L. Forward has commented that a solar sail could be used to modify the orbit of a satellite about the Earth. In the limit, a sail could be used to \"hover\" a satellite above one pole of the Earth. Spacecraft fitted with solar sails could also be placed in close orbits such that they are stationary with res...
why do boobs in classical artworks look so different from those sported by today's models? [nsfw]	The models have all had surgery, or are naturally big-breasted. In antiquity, it was considered more attractive to have smaller breasts, so the artists chose smaller-breasted women.	[ "Slides are well known for their sporty look because of the impact Adidas has left. They are very functional so they are great for casual outfits. For example going out to the beach, walking in parks, summer barbecues. However, high fashion designers such as Prada, Gucci, Burberry, and Marc Jacobs have included the...
why was the race to the moon more important than the race to the first man in space?	They know him in Russia. Because the Soviets sent a man into space first, the achievement was downplayed in the West, and then the Moon Race was really hyped up to compensate.	[ "According to US sources, the \"race\" peaked with the July 20, 1969, US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. Most US sources will point to the Apollo 11 lunar landing as a singular achievement far outweighing any combination of Soviet achievements. In any case the USSR attempted several crewed l...
how was the bureau of census measuring population before sampling?	The census counts every person, or at least tries to, every ten years. He is talking about people using the data collected - some of them insisted on using everything which, before modern computers could be a monumental task.	[ "Between 1790 and 1840, the census was taken by marshals of the judicial districts. The Census Act of 1840 established a central office which became known as the Census Office. Several acts followed that revised and authorized new censuses, typically at the 10-year intervals. In 1902, the temporary Census Office wa...
how is airport security regulated and kept consistent around the world	It is not. Every single country sets up their own rules and regulations, as well as how they enforce these rules and regulations. There are some countries who have treaties with others that set certain requirements for flights between said countries, but these are not always well enforced.	[ "Airport security attempts to prevent any threats or potentially dangerous situations from arising or entering the country. If airport security does succeed then the chances of any dangerous situation, illegal items or threats entering into an aircraft, country or airport are greatly reduced. As such, airport secur...
What happens to the parts of the brain which control amputated body parts?	They exist, and can even be "tricked" into thinking an arm is still there which is basically phantom limb syndrome; it's also the basis for some robotic prosthesis which wouldnt work if the brain didnt retain those faculties; there are some local neurons that likely need to be developed, but the brain remains entirely ...	[ "Upper motor neurons in the primary motor cortex send their axons to the brainstem and spinal cord to synapse on the lower motor neurons, which innervate the muscles. Damage to motor areas by chance of cortex can lead to certain types of motor neuron disease. This kind of damage results in loss of muscular power an...
what is the benefit of a water-cooled pc?	Generally superior cooling due to both heat absorption of liquid and a lack of stale warm air in the case. Also quieter	[ "Liquid cooling is a highly effective method of removing excess heat, with the most common heat transfer fluid in desktop PCs being (distilled) water. The advantages of water cooling over air cooling include water's higher specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity.\n", "Apple's Power Mac G5 was the first ma...
why group mentality is so powerful	Human nature to belong and conform to social groups, empathy, and natural fear of exclusion. It's kind of instinctual, that's why the weak minded are susceptible to group mentality. Case in point: Reddit.	[ "It has been thought that groups with the strong ability to work together will be able to solve dilemmas in a quicker and more efficient fashion than an individual. Groups have a greater amount of resources which lead them to be able to store and retrieve information more readily and come up with more alternative s...
Are protons in nuclei wiggled by electrons "flying" around them?	This is better answered by answering each sub-question. > Are protons in nuclei wiggled by electrons "flying" around them? Yes, in the system both motions contribute to the actual state. But, the nucleus is very much heavier than the electron, so it's the electron that does most of the moving. Analogously, a swing w...	[ "In real molecules protons are surrounded by a cloud of charge due to adjacent bonds and atoms. In an applied magnetic field () electrons circulate and produce an induced field () which opposes the applied field. The effective field at the nucleus will be . The nucleus is said to be experiencing a diamagnetic shiel...
how is the milk of a cow so beneficial to humans?	It's not just cows. Milk of many mammals is as beneficial to humans (and, on a side-note, that benefit is debatable, and many humans are, in fact, not able to process it). Cows are just the animal we domesticated and started using for milk in a way that is ubiquitous in Western culture. In other cultures, other a...	[ "Although all mammals produce milk to nourish their young, the cow is predominantly used throughout the world to produce milk and milk products for human consumption. Other animals used to a lesser extent for this purpose include sheep, goats, camels, buffaloes, yaks, reindeer, horses and donkeys.\n", "The female...
Was the Indo-Aryan migration truth or fiction?	The Indo-Aryan migration is absolutely true, insofar as Indo-Aryan - a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, which itself is a branch of the Indo-European family, which originated somewhere in the Pontic Steppe (around modern Ukraine, Crimea, and southern Russia) - is not indigenous to India. Anyone who claims th...	[ "Some writers and archaeologists have opposed the notion of a migration of Indo-Aryans into India. Edwin Bryant and Laurie Patton used the term \"Indo-Aryan Controversy\" for an oversight of the Indo-Aryan Migration theory, and some of its opponents. These ideas are outside the academic mainstream. Mallory and Adam...
If photons are smaller than atoms, why don't they pass through solid matter?	The closest thing to "size" for a photon is its wavelength. Different types of light have different wavelengths: x-rays have really short wavelengths, while radio waves have really long wavelengths. Visible light is somewhere in the middle. If the wavelength is small compared to whatever we're dealing with, then you c...	[ "Because the wavelength for even the smallest of macroscopic objects is extremely small, diffraction of matter waves is only visible for small particles, like electrons, neutrons, atoms and small molecules. The short wavelength of these matter waves makes them ideally suited to study the atomic crystal structure of...
Did the concept of mutually assured destruction prevent the Cold War from going hot?	We really can't know the answer to complex hypotheticals like that. Smaller "What ifs" can sometimes be productive. But "what if the strategic situation of the world was totally different?" isn't something that historians can readily answer. What they can do is point out that, 1) the Cold War was plenty "hot" if you l...	[ "In embryo, Waltz argues that the logic of mutually assured destruction (MAD) should work in all security environments, regardless of historical tensions or recent hostility. He sees the Cold War as the ultimate proof of MAD logicthe only occasion when enmity between two Great Powers did not result in military conf...
How does pollution from mostly unregulated countries like China affect the rest of the world?	Long-range transport of air pollutants, including metals and pops, and is well-documented with ongoing research. While your last question seems mostly policy related, a large proportion of, but not all, nations decreasing use/production/emission of toxic chemicals does have significant effects in decreasing levels (so...	[ "In recent decades, China has suffered from severe environmental deterioration and pollution. While regulations such as the 1979 Environmental Protection Law are fairly stringent, they are poorly enforced, as they are frequently disregarded by local communities and government officials in favor of rapid economic de...
Do I weigh less at midday than at midnight?	A point of clarification: Mass is how much matter makes something up, so it won't change mass. The position of the sun will change your weight, but only very, very slightly. It's only a very small fraction of the influence from the earth, so all other things being equal, there should be a very slight difference, somet...	[ "The terms \"heavy-weight\" and \"light-weight\" are often used to describe buildings with different thermal mass strategies, and affects the choice of numerical factors used in subsequent calculations to describe their thermal response to heating and cooling.\n", "Weight lifting can effectively demonstrate the e...
why does standing on a train tire me out?	It's the same thing as being in a car for an extended period of time. While you aren't really making a lot of big movements, you are making a very very large amount of tiny movements. Every second you're adjusting, balancing, making sure things are going smoothly, watching all of the people, etc - so while you a...	[ "Prior to the accident, some passengers became concerned about their safety. Regular travellers were aware that the train was travelling at excessive speed and one who had moved from his seat to stand with friends in another carriage was forced to return to his seat as the movement of the train made it uncomfortabl...
When a star collapses into a black hole, does the density of the singularity continue to increase forever?	It doesn't really make sense to consider the density of the singularity. You can consider the mean density of the entire black hole within the event horizon, which actually decreases as the black hole gets bigger. If you treat the center as a singularity, it has infinite density, like an electron has infinite charge de...	[ "One hypothesis is that the core of the star collapsed to form a black hole. The collapsing matter formed a burst of neutrinos that lowered the total mass of the star by a fraction of a percent. This caused a shock wave that blasted out the star's envelope to make it brighter. After the idea that a black holes are ...
LEDs vs Normal Bulbs - Environmental Impact Outweighs Benefits?	I work with LEDs all the time. If you live in the US, the "Prius Conundrum" could be applied to any imported product. As far as [luminous efficacy](_URL_5_), the LED lights that you can buy right now at Home Depot etc are about the same as compact fluorescent lighting (CFL). What's inside a white LED (blue LEDs are ...	[ "Objections to banning the use of incandescent light bulbs include the higher initial cost of alternatives and lower quality of light of fluorescent lamps. Some people have concerns about the health effects of fluorescent lamps. However, even though they contain mercury, the environmental performance of CFLs is muc...
Is their a chemical or other additive(like what I do not know, perhaps one that reacts with water) that could make paint dry faster?	Many of the paints in use now take advantage of chemical driers or other systems to accelerate 'drying.' Firstly, not all paints are water-based. In the case of oil-based paints, 'drying' is actually not related to the evaporation of water, but instead to the slow chemical reaction of the oil to oxygen in the air that...	[ "In recent years, water miscible oil paint has become available. Water-soluble paints are either engineered or an emulsifier has been added that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows, when sufficiently diluted, very fast drying times (1–3 days) when compared with traditional oil...
When did the Byzantines stop wearing togas and other classical Greco-Roman garments?	They probably rarely wore togae in the first place. Togae were notoriously uncomfortable to wear, let alone in the stifling heat of the Eastern Roman Empire. Martial refers to work done during the day wearing the toga as 'toga work' (_opera togata_) and 'never ending' being such a pain. They would have official places,...	[ "The Byzantines made and exported very richly patterned cloth, woven and embroidered for the upper classes, and resist-dyed and printed for the lower. By Justinian's time the Roman toga had been replaced by the tunica, or long \"chiton\", for both sexes, over which the upper classes wore various other garments, lik...
Was it commonplace for Royals of old to be highly learned and respected in Academia?	It was generally not common. Certainly there were some monarchs who did have some scholarly abilities. Queen Elizabeth I translated Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. But the amount of training in languages and literature necessary to be a truly accomplished scholar was tough for a monarch to achieve. They tended t...	[ "Later, in the Georgian and Victorian eras, royal education followed the French model, with governors overseeing the child's discipline and moral development, and preceptors conducting academic instruction. In the modern era, members of the House of Windsor have had varying degrees of education. The first heir to t...
why is gold so expensive?	_URL_0_ > Gold emerged as a sort of inevitable global currency, before people even thought of it as currency. It is rare, portable, easy to identify, can easily be made into jewelry, and can be easily quantified (unlike, say, jewels or seashells, which are harder to treat as a "substance"). Once word got around that ...	[ "Gold has been used as money for many reasons. It is fungible, with a low spread between the prices to buy and sell. Gold is also easily transportable, as it has a high value to weight ratio, compared to other commodities, such as silver. Gold can be re-coined, divided into smaller units, or re-melted into larger u...
how do options and shorts work for investments?	For shorts, its better to think about what you're expecting to happen when you do it than how its actually executed in the market (which is more complicated, but ultimately unimportant to you, the trader). When you buy a stock, the only reason to buy it is that in the future you expect it to be higher than when you ...	[ "This type of option is best used when the investor would like to generate income off a long position while the market is moving sideways. It allows an investor/writer to continue a buy-and-hold strategy to make money off a stock which is currently inactive in gains. The investor/writer must correctly guess that th...
Why is tungsten at room temperature so brittle? Since super cooled metals are more brittle, is this the same phenomenon but just at a much lower temperature because tungstens melting point is so high? Or is it something entirely different?	Basic answer is that tungsten is Body Centered Cubic (BCC) and therefore will go through a ductile to brittle transformation at certain temperatures. DBTT (Ductile to Brittle Transition Temperature) of tungsten is quite high, around 400K. Room temperature, or 273K, is way below this transition temperature, so the tun...	[ "Of all metals in pure form, tungsten has the highest melting point (3422 °C, 6192 °F), lowest vapor pressure (at temperatures above 1650 °C, 3000 °F), and the highest tensile strength. Although carbon remains solid at higher temperatures than tungsten, carbon sublimes at atmospheric pressure instead of melting, so...
can someone explain to me the pros and cons of capitalism?	Capitalism: An economic system under which capital is controlled by private individuals. Capital: Productive property such as factories, farms, financial institutions, or other systems which create wealth. Pros: In theory, it allocates capital to the areas in society where they are most useful. For instance, let's su...	[ "A closely related conception is that of raw or pure capitalism, or unrestrained capitalism, that refers to capitalism free of social regulations, with low, minimal or no government and operating almost entirely on the profit motive. Other than \"laissez-faire\" economics and anarcho-capitalism, it is not associate...
What is the final form of energy?	Heat (thermal energy) would be the closest to the answer you are looking for. _URL_0_	[ "In biology, energy is an attribute of all biological systems from the biosphere to the smallest living organism. Within an organism it is responsible for growth and development of a biological cell or an organelle of a biological organism. Energy is thus often said to be stored by cells in the structures of molecu...
how does apple own the beatles?	[The Beatles sold the rights to their catalog of music back in the 1960s.](_URL_1_) It's been owned by many people, most famously by Michael Jackson, who made almost as much money on Beatles royalties as on his own music. I don't know if Apple Computer has any ownership in Beatles music, but you might be confused by [...	[ "After Klein's departure, Apple was managed by Neil Aspinall on behalf of the four Beatles and their heirs. Apple Records' distribution contract with EMI expired in 1976, when control of the Beatles' catalogue—including solo recordings to date by George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr—reverted to EMI (Paul Mc...
if in the vacuum of space there are no exterior forces acing on a spacecraft, why can't we continuously speed up the craft to light speed with constant thrust?	It takes more and more energy to constantly accelerate a spacecraft. This means that as you approach C the amount of energy that you need to go faster approaches infinity. Sadly humans do not have access to infinite energy so we can never actually reach C.	[ "A related issue is drag. If the near light-speed space craft is interacting with matter or energy that is moving slowly in the planetary reference frame—solar wind, magnetic fields, cosmic microwave background radiation—this will cause drag which will bleed off a portion of the engine's acceleration.\n", "Ion th...
Hebrew language revival	It was about the national identity, not religious reasons. More religious segments of Judaism were historically (and often still are) skeptical of Zionism in general, of which the Hebrew revival was a part. First, some linguistic background. Hebrew went extinct by the 2nd century. But it remained in use in Jewish c...	[ "The revival of the Hebrew language in Israel is the only example of a language's acquiring new first language speakers after it became extinct in everyday use for an extended period, being used only as a liturgical language. Even in the case of Hebrew, there is a theory that argues that \"the Hebrew revivalists wh...
What was the source of gunpowder for the colonial militias during the American Revolution?	The American colonists had very limited supplies of gunpowder and very limited capacity for manufacturing more of it (precise figures are in the link.) Had there not been a foreign source of gunpowder it is very doubtful that they could have been successful in their revolution. Who was this crucial benefactor? [Why ...	[ "Prior to the American Revolutionary War very little gunpowder had been made in the colonies, and most was imported from Britain. In October 1777, the British Parliament banned the importation of gunpowder into the American colonies. In preparation for the overmountain march, five hundred pounds of black powder was...
when cops and dea agents perform undercover drugs busts where do they obtain said drugs?	I think most of the time they act as the buyers, not the sellers. They are trying to work their way UP the ladder, not down, so they want the dealers, not the end users. So they just make multiple buys from a small dealer, then bust him, and try to flip him to be a double agent in exchange for less jail time. ...	[ "A narcotics agent convinces a convict he helped send to Alcatraz go undercover with him to help expose a heroin drug smuggling ring. The unlikely pair travels from San Francisco to Vancouver and finally to a dude ranch in Tucson which is run by mob bosses. They end up getting help breaking the case from the gang l...
what happens to clothing that isn't sold?	What you're asking about is the retail chain. For most products, it works like this: Manufacturer makes a product, and markets it to retailers, who place orders in various quantities. They ship the orders, and the retailers sell it in line with their contract with the manufacturer. Using your example, Levi doesn't ...	[ "Clothing has been made from a very wide variety of materials, ranging from leather and furs to woven fabrics to elaborate and exotic natural and synthetic fabrics. Not all body coverings are regarded as clothing. Articles carried rather than worn (such as purses), worn on a single part of the body and easily remov...
how is a single injection of a drug able to provide months of therapy?	Esterification of an injectable steroid basically accomplishes one thing, it slows the release of the parent steroid from the site of injection. This happens because the ester will notably lower the water solubility of the steroid, and increase its lipid (fat) solubility. This will cause the drug to form a deposit in ...	[ "Alternatively, a single-dose therapy is used for instance if there are concerns regarding the patient's compliance. The single-dose therapy can be given as an injection, but is normally given in form of an oral medication.\n", "Infusion therapy involves the administration of medication through a needle or cathet...
How does amputation early in life affect growth of the amputated limb?	Typically amputated limbs do not grow.	[ "If extensive necrosis and gangrene has set in an arm or leg, the limb may have to be amputated. Limb amputation is in itself usually remarkably well tolerated, but is associated with a substantial mortality (~50%), primarily because of the severity of the diseases in patients where it is indicated.\n", "As many ...
Were legendary swords actually a thing?	Heya guys, just popping in here to issue a quick reminder as to the [standards we uphold in this subreddit.](_URL_0_) Not a single one of the answers so far has measured up to those standards, including posts along the lines of: * "I don't know a great deal about this but as there are no other replies I'll have a go" ...	[ "Various famous swords may be encountered Chinese legend or mythology. Some of these swords also appear in literary fiction; or, various other media, including comics and video games. There are two main types of sword: \"jian\" and \"dao\". Swords with estimated or presumed magical powers (or, that were especially ...
how quartz crystal resonators work?	They rely on a piezo crystal. These crystals have the useful property that they generate a voltage if you squeeze them, and expand or contract if you apply a voltage. They are commonly used in lighters (squeezing them generates a high voltage, which causes a spark), speakers and ultra sound transducers(a rapidly oscill...	[ "A crystal oscillator is an electronic oscillator circuit that uses the mechanical resonance of a vibrating crystal of piezoelectric material to create an electrical signal with a precise frequency. This frequency is often used to keep track of time, as in quartz wristwatches, to provide a stable clock signal for d...
What are the best examples of forgiveness and philanthropy and self-sacrifice from history?	Sorry, we don't allow ["example seeking" questions](_URL_1_). It's not that your question was bad; it's that these kinds of questions tend to produce threads that are collections of disjointed, partial, inadequate responses. If you have a question about a specific historical event, period, or person, feel free to rewri...	[ "Forgiveness as a tool has been extensively used in restorative justice programs, after the abolition of apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa), run for victims and perpetrators of Rwandan genocide, the violence in Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and Northern Ireland conflict, which has also bee...
how does the 100 year old light bulb work?	It's actually nowhere near as exceptional as you think. A huge proportion of the wear on light bulb filaments is to to thermal expansion and contraction from being turned on/off (this is why bulbs only ever to fail when you first turn them on). These very old bulbs are bulbs that have been left on continuously, so they...	[ "The Centennial Light is the world's longest-lasting light bulb, burning since 1901, and almost never switched off. It is at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California, and maintained by the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department. Due to its longevity, the bulb has been noted by \"The Guinness Book of World Records\", \...
Why aren't you still contagious after you recover from a viral infection?	It is absolutely not true that viruses remain in your body forever. There are a small subset of viruses that do that, but the vast, vast majority of viruses are completely eliminated from your body by the immune system.	[ "A latent infection may become productive in response to changes in the host's environmental conditions or health; the provirus may be activated and begin transcription of its viral genome. This can result in the destruction of its host cell because the cell's protein synthesis machinery is hijacked to produce more...
Are there any magnets available commercially that will adhere to aluminum?	Magnetic effects generally arise from the interactions of unpaired electrons. Typically, magnetic materials (such as iron) are ferromagnets, which means that the the unpaired electrons the d-orbitals can spin-align under certain conditions. Aluminum only has s and p orbitals, and therefore no d electrons are available ...	[ "The most suitable materials for magnet wire applications are unalloyed pure metals, particularly copper. When factors such as chemical, physical, and mechanical property requirements are considered, copper is considered the first choice conductor for magnet wire.\n", "Ceramic, or ferrite, magnets are made of a s...
how does a fast charging plug charge faster when the socket has the same output when there's a regular plug?	The "fast charge" socket does not have the same output. The voltage is the same, but the current available at that voltage is higher. This must be taken into account when choosing cables and connectors.	[ "Note that the less resistance there is between the capacitor and the charging power supply, the faster it will charge. Thus, in this design, those closer to the power supply will charge quicker than those farther away. If the generator is allowed to charge long enough, all capacitors will attain the same voltage.\...
Generating electricity and rotating magnets	You could, but it wouldn't be beneficial. Any energy being used to cause rotation of the smaller magnets is not going in to generating electricity. You could be better off using your super magnet to generate electricity directly.	[ "Electric generators transform kinetic energy into electricity. This is the most used form for generating electricity and is based on Faraday's law. It can be seen experimentally by rotating a magnet within closed loops of conducting material (e.g. copper wire). Almost all commercial electrical generation is done u...
In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan is sometimes read as the protagonist. While Milton obviously didn't intend this, did any of his contemporaries believe this?	[Yes.](_URL_0_) As the source describes, Milton was a republican in the historical sense. It was during his lifetime that Oliver Cromwell, still a divisive figure in English history, rose to power after overthrowing Charles I. Milton supported this. Charles I was deposed, but after returning and making war throughout ...	[ "John Milton's epic poem \"Paradise Lost\" features Satan as its main protagonist. Milton portrays Satan as a tragic antihero destroyed by his own hubris. The poem, which draws extensive inspiration from Greek tragedy, recreates Satan as a complex literary character, who dares to rebel against the \"tyranny\" of Go...
after their extinction, why did dinosaur type creatures not evolve all over again?	The ecological niches formerly occupied by dinosaurs were taken over by the creatures that survived the mass extinction. So now instead of big dinosaur carnivores like t-rex, we have big mammalian carnivores like lions, tigers, polar bears, killer whales, and fish like great white and bull sharks. If all mammals becam...	[ "After yet another, the most severe extinction of the period (251~250 Ma), around 230 Ma, dinosaurs split off from their reptilian ancestors. The Triassic–Jurassic extinction event at 200 Ma spared many of the dinosaurs, and they soon became dominant among the vertebrates. Though some mammalian lines began to separ...
I know of absolute zero at -273.15°C, but is there an absolute hot?	We don't know if there's a maximum temperature. In certain models -- string theory is one of them -- there is a maximum temperature called the Hagedorn temperature. This arises because the number of possible high energy states increases sufficiently fast that as you put more energy into the system, it gets spread o...	[ "BULLET::::- In January 2013, physicist Ulrich Schneider of the University of Munich in Germany reported to have achieved temperatures formally below absolute zero (\"negative temperature\") in gases. The gas is artificially forced out of equilibrium into a high potential energy state, which is however cold. When i...
programming and writing computer code (if it can be explained to a 5 year old) elim	If you have a lot of time, I think a wonderful and engaging introduction is Harvard's [CS50](_URL_0_) course, and it leads you step-by-step through many of the questions you have.	[ "BULLET::::- May 1 – At 4:00 a.m., John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz run the first computer program written in BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), an easy to learn high level programming language which they have created. BASIC is eventually included on many computers and even some gam...
how can google get fined by eu for practically promoting their own products/brand(google search engine & android/google search engine on android devices)	How can they? The EU can impose a fine and refuse to let them operate in the EU until it is paid. Why would they? Because it can be considered a breach in monopoly laws. Microsoft was indicted on the grounds of monopolization for bundling internet explorer with their OS. I may be a bit out of the loop but are you as...	[ "On 19 July 2018, EU has fined Google (about ). Google responded it would appeal the fine, which it did in October 2018. According to company spokesperson Al Verney \"Android has created more choice for everyone, not less\". To date, this fine is the biggest ever imposed by European Union on a company for anti-comp...
What was US espionage like from the Revolutionary War period through the Civil War? What sort of information was targeted and how was it collected?	In the intelligence community Nathan Hale is often called "America's first spy". He was captured by the British in 1776 and executed, famously stating "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Hale's mission was to go behind the British lines and report on their movements. This was the same f...	[ "American Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War was essentially monitored and sanctioned by the Continental Congress to provide military intelligence to the Continental Army to aid them in fighting the British during the American Revolutionary War. Congress created a Secret Committee for domestic intellige...
computer shellcode (shell code)	If you're not a programmer, the only thing you can really do is make sure that you consistently update your software, especially when it says it's for security reasons. If you are a programmer, you should be aware that one of the most common types of security vulnerability is a buffer overflow. What this means is that...	[ "In hacking, a shellcode is a small piece of code used as the payload in the exploitation of a software vulnerability. It is called \"shellcode\" because it typically starts a command shell from which the attacker can control the compromised machine, but any piece of code that performs a similar task can be called ...
How does a king or queen end up with a epithet...such as Alfred the Great, Æthelred the Unready, Edward the Confessor, etc?	A couple ways. 1. They give it to themselves. Every Joseon Korean King styled himself "the Great" 2. Others give it to them. Kings in Europe took their epithets personally and knew what they were in many cases. They all wanted a name like "the Bold", "the Good", "the Brave", or "the Great", or in rare cases "the Li...	[ "In some contemporary as well as later sources, Ælfric (a common Old English name) is distinguished by his cognomen \"Cild\". Literally meaning \"child\", it is an Old English title borne by some Anglo-Saxon nobles and typically denotes a man of high rank. Ælfric appears to have been a wealthy landowner in Huntingd...
Why do English translations of WWII German always leave the words "Reich" and "Führer" in German?	These words have entered the consciousness of English-speakers (and speakers of other languages) as having a specific connection to a certain object. There are dozens of German leaders, there is only one Fuhrer. This is the same with, say, Czar or Chief. Similarly, sometimes words get extra meanings that are lost in t...	[ "The word \"Führer\" in the sense of \"guide\" remains common in German, and it is used in numerous compound words such as \"Oppositionsführer\" (Leader of the Opposition). However, because of its strong association with Hitler, the isolated word usually has negative connotations when used with the meaning of \"lea...
how far ahead we are in achieving unified field theory ?	Not very far unfortunately. Without going into the details (which I'd be crap at explaining anyway), string theory seems to be the most promising avenue. However, there seem to be virtually an infinite number of configurations of the math that leads to a consistent universe which makes it practically impossible to fi...	[ "Presently, effective field theories are discussed in the context of the renormalization group (RG) where the process of \"integrating out\" short distance degrees of freedom is made systematic. Although this method is not sufficiently concrete to allow the actual construction of effective field theories, the gross...
Were there ground public transportation options before the advent of the automobile and the locomotive?	One of the best known ground public transport options was stage coaches, so-called because they regularly changed horses with each stretch between changes being called a "stage". In Australia the best known and remembered of these is "Cobb & Co" although there were many other companies running coaches. _URL_0_	[ "The proposed Liverpool and Manchester Railway was to be one of the earliest land-based public transport systems not using animal traction power. Before then, public railways had been horse-drawn, including the Lake Lock Rail Road (1796), Surrey Iron Railway (1801) and the Oystermouth Railway near Swansea (1807).\n...
how do generic brands work and why are they cheaper than their name brand cournterparts?	Typically the main difference is the amount of marketing the company puts in. Large brands put in millions of dollars into marketing while off brand counterparts usually advertise not at all. Sometimes they may even made in the same place as brand name products but it comes down to the advertising costs.	[ "Branded products carried include HARIBO in Germany, Knoppers in Belgium and France, Marmite and Branston Pickle in Great Britain; and Vegemite and Milo in Australia. This is usually very strongly branded items, that in the past they have had difficulty in creating a generic version of the product. In the United St...
what is a runny nose supposed to accomplish? it seems so counterproductive	Your "internal snot chutes" empty into the stomach. The snot, along with anything that happens to get stuck in it, gets destroyed by stomach acid. So sniffing it back in, and then down into your throat, is the entire point.	[ "Mucophagy, despite its benefits on one's immunity, comes with some health risks due to the potential physical aggravation resulting from the action of nose picking, and the germs on fingers and in mucus. Picking one's nose can cause upper airway irritation as well as other injuries including nasal septal perforati...
how can we know the size of the observable universe of we only just escaped the solar system?	_URL_0_ light travels fast, but not infinitely fast. a very short time after the big bang light was first able to travel in straight lines relatively unobstructed. we can only see as far away from our vantage point as the light gets to us. so if the universe is 13 billion years old, you would only expect to be able...	[ "If the observable universe encompasses the entire universe, we may be able to determine the structure of the entire universe by observation. However, if the observable universe is smaller than the entire universe, our observations will be limited to only a part of the whole, and we may not be able to determine its...
why in germany or the netherlands the youth unemployment rate is under 9% while in countries such as greece, spain and portugal the same rate ranges from a 40% to 60%?	It is often a statistical illusion (but not always). Employment is calculated as "number of people employed" divided by "ACTIVE population" which is the population looking for a job. In order to have high figure of employment (ie a low for UNemployment), you can either have a high number of people employed AND/OR a LO...	[ "Due to the great recession in Europe, in 2009, only 15 per cent of males and 10 per cent of females between ages 16–19 in were employed full-time. The youth employment rate in the European Union reached an all-time low of 32.9 percent in the first half of 2011. Of the countries in the European Union Germany sticks...
Why is the way in which colonial powers took over North America viewed today as "stealing", when similar scenarios are often seen as "occupying" or "invading" and then largely forgotten?	Can you give some examples, please? That would help.	[ "Settler colonialism is the act of newcomers/colonizers coming into a place, claiming it as their own and taking great measures to disappear the Indigenous peoples who live their in order to take and exploit the land and resources that yield value. Additionally, settler colonialism is designed to seem inevitable an...
why is it harder to find veins for injection on someone who's feeling nervous about it ?	So, from a theoretical perspective: Your body goes through something called sympathetic stimulus during stressful situations - it is colloquially called a "fight or flight" reaction. The body does several things with this, it reduces blood flow to your gut (don't need to be digesting things when running from a tiger),...	[ "Disadvantages of injections include potential pain or discomfort for the patient and the requirement of trained staff using aseptic techniques for administration. However, in some cases, patients are taught to self-inject, such as SC injection of insulin in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. As the...
how come when i dream something relevant happens in real world?	You dream many things per night and some of them are relevant. Or maybe they are not all that relevant, but can be interpreted in a strange way to make sense to you. Like in your example, it could have been your brother, your father, anyone calling, anyone on the TV etc. you just want it to fit, so it does. This will...	[ "Dreaming provides a springboard for those who question whether our own reality may be an illusion. The ability of the mind to be tricked into believing a mentally generated world is the \"real world\" means at least one variety of simulated reality is a common, even nightly event.\n", "When asked whether the man...
explain me stocks (what i should look for, what types are there).	Honestly, this is your best shot at learning about [stocks](_URL_2_) There is no easy answer to any of the things you asked. Stop spending money as if it grows on trees. also here are some important links that you might want to take a look at _URL_0_ _URL_3_ _URL_1_	[ "Traditionally, stocks are made from wood, generally a durable hardwood such as walnut. A growing option is the laminated wood stock, consisting of many thin layers of wood bonded together at high pressures with epoxy, resulting in a dense, stable composite.\n", "Stocks are an external framework in a shipyard use...
how did people used to find their penpal, back in the day?	I found some in the back of a magazine called Stickers, for sticker collectors, back in the 80's. It was in the classified section where people could advertise that they wanted pen pals to write to them about the hobby.	[ "\"Penpal\" is told via a series of non-linear recollections by an anonymous narrator trying to make sense of mysterious events that happened to him during his childhood, the truth of which was kept from him by his mother all his life.\n", "Penpal is a 2012 self-published horror/thriller novel and the debut novel...
why do police always show up to places with their sirens on?	If police are doing something sneaky, like a sting, then they won't use a siren. But the siren gets them through traffic, instructs the public to clear away, and can intimidate criminals (or potential criminals) to dissuade any further crimes. You might think twice about shooting a hostage if you know there are guys ...	[ "A siren is a loud noise-making device. Civil defense sirens are mounted in fixed locations and used to warn of natural disasters or attacks. Sirens are used on emergency service vehicles such as ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks. There are two general types: pneumatic and electronic.\n", "Sirens attached ...
why does "populism" have a negative connotation within democratic societies?	Wiki has this definition: > Populism is a doctrine that appeals to the interests and conceptions (such as hopes and fears) of the general population, especially when contrasting any new collective consciousness push against the prevailing status quo interests of any predominant political sector. Basically it's demag...	[ "Populism can serve as a democratic corrective by contributing to the mobilization of social groups who feel excluded from political decision making. It can also raise awareness among the socio-political elites of popular concerns in society, even if it makes the former uncomfortable. When some populists have taken...
why do wifi routers need to be power cycled periodically? are there any that don't?	Routers do NOT need to be reset periodically. If you set it up correctly and installed its firmware then you shouldn’t even be touching it for months or years. If you have an older modem then it could possibly be set on DoD and you’ll need to figure out how to make it a permanent connection.	[ "Each time a router receives a packet, it modifies the packet, decrementing the time to live (TTL). The router discards any packets received with a zero TTL value. This prevents packets from endlessly bouncing around the network in the event of routing errors. Routers are capable of managing hop counts, but other t...
why do towels have a band without fuzz on each end?	It is there so the towel does not fall apart over time. There are two reasons for using this stitch over the regular "fold-and-stitch" version: * the fabric is very thick so it would give a very fat fold at the end which does not look appealing * the frothing does not make it very easy to handle * as there is no front...	[ "BULLET::::- A \"beach towel\" is usually a little bit larger than a bath towel. Although it is often used for drying off after being in the water, its chief purpose is to provide a surface on which to lie. They are also worn for privacy while changing clothes in a public area, and for wiping sand from the body or ...
If we know all the naturally occurring elements and how they combine, is there a finite number of compounds? Do we know them all? Have we synthesized all or most of them??	It's quite likely we know all naturally occurring elements, as all the ones heavier than those we know are naturally occurring are quite short-lived, and AFAIK it's not believed any more stable elements exist (even if an 'island of stability' may exist higher up, but then they mean _relative_ stability - they'd still b...	[ "All elements with atomic numbers 1 through 94 occur naturally at least in trace quantities, but the following elements are often produced through synthesis. Technetium, promethium, astatine, neptunium, and plutonium were discovered through synthesis before being found in nature.\n", "The elements from atomic num...
Why do positron-electron pair not annihilate each other?	To answer the question in the title: electrons and positrons do annihilate eachother. To address the [different] question in the body of the post: the matter–antimatter asymmetry of the universe is an unsolved problem. Perhaps there are processes that violate lepton number or baryon number (key ingredients in generati...	[ "The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. When a low-energy positron collides with a low-energy electron, annihilation occurs, resulting in their conversion into the energy of two or more gamma ray photons (see electron–positron annihilation).\n", "The positr...
what are pilots checking during pre/post flight?	Not everything on the checklist will ground the plane, but some things can. For example, during flight a bird might have damaged a [pitot tube](_URL_0_). That wouldn't ground a plane by itself (unless all of them were damaged by a flock of birds), but you'd need to clean them out at the very least, and certify they w...	[ "In aviation, a preflight checklist is a list of tasks that should be performed by pilots and aircrew prior to takeoff. Its purpose is to improve flight safety by ensuring that no important tasks are forgotten. Failure to correctly conduct a preflight check using a checklist is a major contributing factor to aircra...
why does yawning temporarily make a headache go away?	Headaches are mostly caused by misfiring nerves in your brain (migraines) or "heartbeat"/pressure headaches in the nerves/vessels/muscle that surround your brain. Yawning causes a few things to happen in your body: it increases oxygen in your blood stream, increases blood flow around your jaw as you use the muscles (w...	[ "Still another hypothesis suggests yawns are caused by the same chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain that affect emotions, mood, appetite, and other phenomena. These chemicals include serotonin, dopamine, glutamic acid, and nitric oxide. As more (or fewer) of these compounds are activated in the brain, the fr...
Is there a name for the feeling you get when you see something that makes you cringe?	[Might not be what you're looking for exactly, but this site has a plethora of definitions that haven't been captured by words by an official dictionary yet. You might find a word that means that here](_URL_0_)	[ "Observing video clips that displayed facial expression of feeling disgust activated the neural networks typical of direct experience of disgust. Similar results have been found in the case of touch. Watching movies that someone touched legs or faces activated the somatosensory cortex for direct feeling of the touc...
How did Gen James Longstreet go from Lee's right-hand man to pro-Reconstruction Republican?	In a word, Longstreet was a realist. He accepted that the South has lost, and was looking for the best way for her to bounce back. But while he wasn't alone in the former officer corps in his caution "to accept the terms that are now offered by the conquerors" following the implementation of Reconstruction in 1867, he ...	[ "Longstreet was one of a small group of former Confederate generals, including James L. Alcorn and William Mahone, to join or ally with the nationally dominant Republican Party during the Reconstruction era. He endorsed Grant for president in the election of 1868, attended his inauguration ceremonies in Washington,...
hasidic judaism (or jewish mysticism)	Alright, first of all, not all Chasidim (-im generally means plural people in Hebrew) are mystics, nor are all mystics Chasidim. But you will usually find more Chasidic Kabbalah scholars than you will Reform. (Anecdotal evidence: I knew a Chabadnik who started Reform and eventually became Chabad.) Chasidim (and especi...	[ "Thus, although there is an esoteric tradition in Judaism (Kabbalah), Rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin has characterized normative Judaism as \"normal mysticism\", because it involves everyday personal experiences of God through ways or modes that are common to all Jews. This is played out through the observance of th...
How do sun rays affect clouds and their changes?	Well, sun is the energy source in the formation of clouds. Actually, sun is the main energy source of all atmospheric movements. But I assume that wasn't your question (if it was, let me know.) Once the clouds are formed, sun rays don't affect them directly because clouds are poor absorbers of short-wave radiation...	[ "In addition to their direct effect by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, aerosols have indirect effects on the Earth's radiation budget. Sulfate aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei and thus lead to clouds that have more and smaller cloud droplets. These clouds reflect solar radiation more efficiently ...
Do wolves panic during thunderstorms the way domesticated dogs sometimes do?	Dogs panicking during thunderstorms only primarily happens because they aren’t conditioned to the sound before formative development in the brain stops. Dog trainers can suggest playing different sounds—cars honking, trains, thunderstorms, alarms, etc.—while puppies are young so they get used to the sounds and don’t pa...	[ "Wolves kill dogs on occasion, with some wolf populations relying on dogs as an important food source. In Croatia, wolves kill more dogs than sheep, and wolves in Russia appear to limit stray dog populations. Wolves may display unusually bold behavior when attacking dogs accompanied by people, sometimes ignoring ne...
why is the ph of water important for plants but not animals?	My tomato plants that I'm growing hydroponically (i.e. in water) grow within a pH range of about 5.5-7.0 My fish grow in a range of about 6.5 - 7.0. So I think pH of water is important for both plants and animals, and probably even more important for animals? But it probably depends a lot on which plants and which an...	[ "Soil pH is considered a master variable in soils as it affects many chemical processes. It specifically affects plant nutrient availability by controlling the chemical forms of the different nutrients and influencing the chemical reactions they undergo. The optimum pH range for most plants is between 5.5 and 7.5; ...
why do tomato based foods stain tupperware?	Tomatoes contain a compound called lycopene that reflects light strongly in the red portion of the visible spectrum. The lycopene binds to the plastic in the container causing it to take on a reddish tint.	[ "Lycopene is the pigment in tomato-containing sauces, turning plastic cookware orange, and is insoluble in water. It can be dissolved only in organic solvents and oils. Because of its nonpolarity, lycopene in food preparations will stain any sufficiently porous material, including most plastics. To remove this stai...
dust	Dust is made of a collection of things: dead skin, dust mites, dust mite feces, pollen, smoke, soil, hair, and other materials. Dust particles are very small and light so they get blown around easily in the air. They spread out to fill a room top-to-bottom like a [cloud in a bottle](_URL_0_) but for your whole house. ...	[ "Dust is made of fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil, dust lifted by wind (an aeolian process), volcanic eruptions, and pollution. Dust in homes, offices, and other human environments contains small amounts of pla...
Before the arrival of the Magyars, who lived in Hungary?	The Iazyges were a nomadic Sarmatian tribe located in around where Romania, Ukraine, and Hungary meet today. They were a constant thorn in the side of the Roman Empire from the 1st Century BCE. They constantly resisted assimiliation and were among the last of the Dacian peoples to be quelled. In the late 1st Century CE...	[ "Hungarians have had a thousand year old, and still living tradition about the Asian origins of Magyars. This tradition was preserved in medieval chronicles (such as Gesta Hungarorum and Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum) as early as the 13th century. This tradition served as starting point for the scientific research o...
Does the total volume of precipitation in the sky vary? If so, by how much?	Unsure what you are asking. Are you asking if the amount of water vapor varies? If so, it clearly does because humidity varies widely over the Earth.	[ "Precipitation is distributed fairly evenly over all months of the year, and mostly originates from a westerly airflow. There is significant variation in precipitation with altitude. For example, Chamonix has an elevation of approximately and receives around of annual precipitation, whilst the Col du Midi, which is...
Before photo ID's how did people prove their identity? How would you get a check cashed?	More of a legal history perspective, but contracts historically were based on trust. Basically you could cash a check because you said you were the person on the account. You would only need to prove your identity if there was something wrong with the transaction (someone else claimed it, the check was returned, etc.)....	[ "For financial transactions, ID cards and passports are almost always accepted as proof of identity. Due to possible forgery, driver's licenses are sometimes refused. For transactions by cheque involving a larger sum, two different ID documents are frequently requested by merchants.\n", "Photographic identificati...
Why is Australia so hot even though it is so far south of the equator?	Australia isn't that far south - depending on whether you're talking Darwin or Tasmania, you're roughly looking at the same latitudes as northern hemisphere locales such as Syria, Iraq, Spain and Mexico - all fairly warm in their own right. Australia's also affected by a strong warm-water current, the Eastern Australi...	[ "Australia's tropical/subtropical location and cold waters off the western coast make most of western Australia a hot desert with aridity, a marked feature of the greater part of the continent. These cold waters produce little moisture needed on the mainland. A 2005 study by Australian and American researchers inve...
why is murder always the most severely punishable crime?	Imagine a society where there are only two capital crimes: murder and robbery. For the sake of argument let us say any crime with a surviving victim has a 75% chance of being "solved" and any crime with a dead victim has a 45% chance of being "solved." If you murder someone, there is a 45% chance you will be caught, t...	[ "Most societies consider murder to be an extremely serious crime, and thus believe that the person charged should receive harsh punishments for the purposes of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation. In most countries, a person convicted of murder generally faces a long-term prison sentence, pos...
airplane formations	Different formations serve different purposes. Some just look good for display, and some are designed to maximize the aircraft's effectiveness in combat. Especially in the pre-missile-and-radar days it was important for combat aircraft to fly in mutually supporting formations. Bombers flew in tight box formations to ...	[ "Several variants of the formation are seen. The formation most commonly used in the United States is based on the “finger-four” aircraft combat formation composed of two pairs of aircraft. The aircraft fly in a V-shape with the flight leader at the point and his wingman on his left. The second element leader and h...
Are there any well written/ researched historical books specifically about the America atomic dread and how it influenced culture and art?	Indeed, there are! My favorite, for its breath and scope, is Spencer Weart's _Nuclear Fear: A History of Images_ (1988). There is a revised/updated edition out recently as well, though I prefer the original. It covers public attitudes (in a number of countries) about radioactivity and nuclear energy from the 19th cent...	[ "\"The Atomic Cafe\" was released at the height of nostalgia and cynicism in America. By 1982, Americans lost much of their faith in their government following the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the seemingly never-ending arms race with the Soviet Union. \"The Atomic Cafe\" reflects and reinforces this ide...
How did Jefferson Davis get out of treason charges?	The short answer is there are a variety of reasons. This actually goes into law a little bit so I will be in uncharted territory. So Davis was indicted for treason. But when he went before the judge his team argued that due to the 14th Amendment he was already punished for insurrection against the US, as under the 14t...	[ "Davis was indicted for treason but never tried; he was released from prison on bail in May 1867. The amnesty of December 25, 1868, by President Johnson eliminated any possibility of Jefferson Davis (or anyone else associated with the Confederacy) standing trial for treason.\n", "Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at...
why does light only penetrate 1000 meters of the ocean and not the entire ocean?	No one seems to be answering your question with photons: Think about light from the sun as a hail of lots of photons. Each photon travels until it hits something. Some things can “bounce” photons off them, some things just suck in the photon. Lots of photons from the sun make it through the air and start travelling ...	[ "The amount of light that penetrates the sea depends on the angle of the sun, the weather conditions and the turbidity of the water. Much light gets reflected at the surface, and red light gets absorbed in the top few metres. Yellow and green light reach greater depths, and blue and violet light may penetrate as de...
If you have an addiction, and suddenly get amnesia, will you know what you crave, even if you can't remember it consciously?	Amnesia, to my knowledge, only affects conscious memory, so you will still have the cravings but you most likely will not remember what you are craving.	[ "Drug-induced amnesia is the idea of selectively losing or inhibiting the creation of memories using drugs. Amnesia can be used as a treatment for patients who have experienced psychological trauma or for medical procedures where full anesthesia is not an option. Drug-induced amnesia is also a side-effect of other ...
doing x in your life decreases/increases your risk of getting y cancer by z%. how do they determine the percent risk?	They look at a sample of the population, made up of varying groups within that sample, and they look at their habits and the outcomes. If they notice that some men are not getting cancer while others are, or some men are being hospitalized for similar reasons while others aren't, they then look at the similarities bet...	[ "For example, when studying risk factors of cancer, the cancer process may have been triggered long before actual diagnosis of cancer, and that therefore any exposure to risk factors in the \"lag\" time between may be unimportant.\n", "The ICPR 65 model follows the same approach, and estimates the relative lifelo...
baby boomers and the animosity towards them	Copy-Pasta of my comment from [this thread](_URL_0_). > When the US had crushing debt after WWII, the top marginal tax rate was raised to over 90%(!!!). Our debt was far worse than today and the WWII generation was not willing to pass that debt on to their children. This WWII debt was paid off relatively quickly and ...	[ "Baby Boomers, born approximately between 1946 and 1964 were brought up in a healthy post war economy and saw the world revolving around them as the largest generation of the century. Their lifestyle is to live for work and they often expect the same level of dedication and work ethics from the next generations. Th...
Do bent space-time and gravitons both cause objects in space to attract one another?	They are different descriptions of the same thing. Changes in the gravitational field propagate as gravitational radiation, and quanta of gravitational radiation are called gravitons. The classical limit of a spin-2 massless (graviton) quantum field theory is general relativity.	[ "This is because gravitation is an attractive force, but if there is an underdense region it apparently acts as a gravitational repeller, based on the concept that there may be less attraction in the direction of the underdensity, and the greater attraction due to the higher density in other directions acts to pull...
what is the purpose of the black paint under the eyes?	It reduces glare (reflection off your upper cheekbones) from the sun/lights and makes it so that you do not have to squint as much. Besides being used in many sports, it is also used by hunters and military/ warring peoples. As for historical context, it's been done for a very long time because it's copied from nature ...	[ "The two main forms of eye makeup were grepond eye paint and black kohl. The green eye paint was made of malachite, a copper carbonate pigment, and the black kohl was made from galena, a dark grey ore. Crushed charcoal was also used in this process. Mesdemet or Kohl was used for lining the eyes and were revealed to...
Why can an inner ear infection cause temporary taste loss?	Oh so this is SUPER cool. Sorry, probably not for you, but I'm a huge dork. There's a nerve called the chorda tympani which passes through the middle ear, and I'm making an assumption here that you actually had a middle ear infection, as they are far more common. It is one of three nerves that carry taste sensation fr...	[ "Lesions to the olfactory nerve can occur because of \"blunt trauma\", such as coup-contrecoup damage, meningitis, and tumors of the frontal lobe of the brain. These injuries often lead to a reduced ability to taste and smell. Lesions of the olfactory nerve do not lead to a reduced ability to sense pain from the na...
Is an insect that lives for 1 hour much faster evolving than humans who reproduce every 657 000 hours? (30 years)	My brain is foggy, but there were many studies that get done on fruit flies for mutations because of their quick life span and how many offspring each can create. EDIT: Here is an example that goes into more details than I could ever remember: _URL_0_ To quote the article for the lazy: "Since the early 1900s, mult...	[ "The mite has been recorded at a speed of 322 body lengths per second (). This is far in excess of the previous record holder, the Australian tiger beetle \"Cicindela eburneola\", the fastest insect in the world relative to body size, which has been recorded at or 171 body lengths per second. The cheetah, the faste...
how are people able to salvage data that has been deleted?	Data isn't actually deleted when you hit "delete". When you hit "delete", you're telling the Operating System that it is OK to overwrite the area the data is taking up. If you delete something by mistake, and you don't write anything to the disk, the data is still there, and you can recover the data.	[ "Recovery experts do not always need to have physical access to the damaged hardware. When the lost data can be recovered by software techniques, they can often perform the recovery using remote access software over the Internet, LAN or other connection to the physical location of the damaged media. The process is ...
After WW2, Hirohito was allowed to remain as a symbolic head, Why?	/u/restricteddata previously answered [Why was Emperor Hirohito allowed to keep the throne after Japan's unconditional surrender in WWII?](_URL_1_) /u/vinco_et_praevaleo previously answered [How did Emperor Hirohito escape trial and death following the Second World War?](_URL_0_) EDIT: fixed typo	[ "After Japan's defeat in World War II, there were suggestions to legislate the \"hinomaru\" and \"Kimigayo\" as the official symbols of Japan. However, a law to establish the \"hinomaru\" and \"Kimigayo\" as official in 1974 failed in the Diet, due to the opposition of the Japan Teachers Union that insists they hav...
why do some batteries puff up?	A swollen battery is the result of progressive degradation of the chemicals that generate power. The reaction that pushes electrons through the circuit can't work the way they were designed to, and part of that failure involves outgassing, or the creation of gases and vapors where they're not intended. This swells th...	[ "If the battery is over-filled with water and electrolyte, thermal expansion can force some of the liquid out of the battery vents onto the top of the battery. This solution can then react with the lead and other metals in the battery connector and cause corrosion.\n", "Voltage depression is caused by repeated ov...
Is there a certain configuration for a wifi router's antennas to give better reception?	You want to set up antennas perpendicular to the direction of motion of the signal. So, if you're in the room next door, you would want the antenna to be vertical. If your router was in the basement and you wanted signal directly above it on the roof, you would want the antenna to be perfectly horizontal.	[ "Fixed wireless services typically use a directional radio antenna on each end of the signal (e.g., on each building). These antennas are generally larger than those seen in Wi-Fi setups and are designed for outdoor use. Several types of radio antennas are available that accommodate various weather conditions, sign...
How does sound pass though objects, but light (mostly) cant?	Sound waves are a series of uncompressed and compressed molecules. When you slam your book on your table, the molecules of the book pushes the table surface molecules down, which gets them pretty close to the next set of molecules. The first group then retracts since they don't want to be so close to the other molecule...	[ "However, if the object has a diameter greater than the acoustic wavelength, a 'sound shadow' is cast behind the object where the sound is inaudible. (Note: some sound may be propagated through the object depending on material).\n", "The mechanical vibrations that can be interpreted as sound can travel through al...

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