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why is it that 8:30-5 or 9-5:30 seem to now be the most common working hours? growing up i was always told 9-5 (thanks dolly). is there a reason for the extra half hour? i work in the u.k. if that helps. | Usually it's that you're entitled to a break by law, but they don't have to pay you for your break. So the shift is 8.5 hrs even though you only get paid for 8. Doing it on 8s is usually easier for HR/payroll to deal with | [
"In many Germanic languages the half-hour is referred to the next hour (\"half to nine\" rather than \"half past eight\"). In colloquial language, this can cause confusion between English and German (and other Germanic languages). In conversational English as spoken in the UK, \"half past eight\" (for 8:30) is ofte... |
why does your body want to keep changing position at night? | Lying in one position for a long time can cause pressure points on certain areas of the body which may then cause the tissue to break down from lack of blood flow. The wounds are called pressure ulcers and you see them frequently in people who are not able to reposition or move around while in bed. I believe your body ... | [
"People with the shift work type of the disorder benefit most from a non-changing work schedule. If rotating or changing shifts are unavoidable, rotations that occur in a clockwise direction, where shifts get progressively later and later, are preferable to those in a counter-clockwise direction. Also, when attempt... |
During the tenure of great composers like Mozart, Bach & Beethoven, would it be common to hear their music played outside their country or did music spread slower? | Mozart traveled [A LOT, even for the standards of our time](_URL_0_). He also published his music, he was known in many countries.
Beethoven's works were also published in different countries. His 9th symphony was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London in 1817. [He was known even across the Atlantic](_URL_... | [
"The great composers of the classical era wrote sparingly if at all for the organ: Haydn wrote for clockwork organs, and wrote several concerti for organ and orchestra. Beethoven and Mozart wrote only a handful of works. Brixli and Wagenseil also wrote organ concerti. All works are restricted to a single manual.\n"... |
Who are the Spanish descended from? | The Iberian Peninsula was inhabited long before the Romans occupied it, and the PaleoHispanic people's had lived in northern and Western Iberia since the Stone Age (35-40,000 BCE). Modern Spanish are descended from a rich mixture of Roman, Visigoth, Vandal, Muslim, Celtic and the PaleoHispanic, but all of these ratios ... | [
"Most of the Spanish settler descendants in present-day Texas, California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona self-identified as Spanish-Americans to differentiate themselves nominally from the population of Mexican-Americans who came after the Mexican Revolution and more often identified as Mestizo, that is mixed n... |
what is a "thinktank" company? | "Thinktanks" are in the business of generating solutions to problems - basically, they are like a consultancy, but admittedly the scope and type of problems they work on can be unusually difficult and very specialized. For instance, whereas consultancies e.g. Aon-Hewitt; Bain's Co, for businesses, may instruct or advis... | [
"The company chose the name \"Think Tank\" because they consider themselves primarily an \"idea producing\" company, focused on solving photographic needs by listening to the suggestions, feedback and complaints from photographers and creating tools to solve their problems.\n",
"Think Tank is a comic book limited... |
In his day was Leopold von Ranke (and his ideas about history being science) as harshly criticised as he is nowerdays by my history department? | My knowledge of this is pure historiography, so maybe a historian of the period can elaborate, but the answer is no. Leopold von Ranke is largely credited with creating the discipline of history itself, so for much of his career he was unassailable. Late in his life there were some critics of his methods, but he was, f... | [
"Friedrich, who was arguably the most knowledgeable scholar in his field (of German Constitutional history) of his time, was endowed with a healthy self-regard. Indeed, some of his colleagues at Harvard regarded him as a \"somewhat hybristic person who was overly confident of his own abilities.\"\n",
"He publishe... |
how do people get stuck inside of fridges and freezers? | The first refrigerators that were produced for home use had actual latches on the door. This was decades ago. People would throw them out and, apparently, kids would climb in and lock themselves inside. But, for the last 40-50 years, refrigerators haven't had the latched doors. It's an old wives tale about kids getting... | [
"Disposal of discarded refrigerators is regulated, often mandating the removal of doors; children playing hide-and-seek have been asphyxiated while hiding inside discarded refrigerators, particularly older models with latching doors. Since 2 August 1956, under U.S. federal law, refrigerator doors are no longer perm... |
why does most graffiti have the same generic style/look that we have come to expect from vandals | Speed, if you take too much time spraying it on the walls you will be caught doing it so speed is essential. | [
"Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example i... |
Is there anywhere that models predict will get nicer to live because of climate change? | First off, "nicer to live" requires individual value judgements because not everyone is the same in what they like. By conventional metrics, most places are going to be losers in climate change but if the mean temperature was a bit warmer there will be some places which will generally be considered more pleasant places... | [
"BULLET::::- A paper by the Carnegie Institution for Science concludes that climate models with the most severe impacts for later this century are likely to be the most accurate, suggesting that the IPCC reports may be underestimating the future trends.\n",
"The crux of the problem is that scientists can run mode... |
why do android phone manufacturers not force carriers to use the same software like on ios? | Because the manufacturers have very little power. If Samsung gives the carriers a hard time, they can immediately switch to HTC or another brand that's quite similar.
By contrast, if Apple gives the carriers a hard time, there is no very similar substitute they can choose, so they tolerate it. | [
"iOS is engineered with security measures including a \"locked bootloader\" to prevent users from modifying the operating system, and to prevent apps from gaining root privileges; jailbreaking an iOS device to defeat all security measures presents a significant technical challenge. It violates Apple's end-user lice... |
explain how 0.999 recurring = 1 (li5.) | All the numbers can be ordered on a very, very big line, like on a gigantic ruler. Now, if two numbers are different, that just means that there is some space on this ruler between them. That space is full of numbers, too. So, for example, 2 is a different number than 4, because (for example) 3 is between them. In fact... | [
"The standard definition of the number 0.999... is the limit of the sequence 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ... A different definition involves what Terry Tao refers to as \"ultralimit\", i.e., the equivalence class [(0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ...)] of this sequence in the ultrapower construction, which is a number that falls short of ... |
Why is CBD's action on the 5HT-1A receptor non psychedelic, compared with e.g. LSD's action on the 5HT-2A? | So to begin, CBD is a partial agonist which is not the same as LSD, which is a full agonist. Partial agonism is jargon in that the drug binds quite well, but only exerts say 40% of an effect compared to a full agonist, which would give 100% of effect.
As well as this, we don't really know why certain drugs like LSD an... | [
"Although only very little pharmacological information about 5F-AMB itself exists, its 4-cyanobutyl analogue (instead of 5-fluoropentyl) has been reported to be a potent agonist for the CB receptor (\"K\" = 0.7 nM).\n",
"Activation of the 5-HT receptor is necessary for the effects of the \"classic\" psychedelics ... |
why do some tennis players grunt loudly whenever they hit the ball? | Tensing the torso allows maximum rigidity and power transfer to the strike. This tends to push air out of the lungs and produce a grunt, and grunting can be a way to focus on maintaining that form. | [
"Louise Deeley, a sports psychologist at Roehampton University, believes that grunting is part of the rhythm for tennis players: \"The timing of when they actually grunt helps them with the rhythm of how they're hitting and how they're pacing things\". She also believes that banning grunting isn't the solution: \"T... |
Could chemoautotrophic bacteria live in the hostile environments of another planet? | The discovery of extremophile organisms like bacteria has certainly broadened our understanding of life, and the sheer strangeness and lengths it can go and survive.
So, the answer is yes. There definitely *could* be organisms on other planets, even those that we might have traditionally thought of as being too hostil... | [
"Another area of investigation in geomicrobiology is the study of extremophile organisms, the microorganisms that thrive in environments normally considered hostile to life. Such environments may include extremely hot (hot springs or mid-ocean ridge black smoker) environments, extremely saline environments, or even... |
Shimmering on roads. | It is caused by the refraction of light when traveling through a density gradient in the air. The air near the surface is being heated by the hot pavement, and therefore expands reducing the pressure, resulting in less density. Light coming in from the sky is bends upwards when traversing from the colder and denser air... | [
"Air temperature variations close to the surface can give rise to other optical phenomena, such as mirages and Fata Morgana. Most commonly, air heated by a hot road on a sunny day deflects light approaching at a shallow angle towards a viewer. This makes the road appear reflecting, giving an illusion of water cover... |
As Historians, how can we utilize novels and literature as research? | Well, certainly you can use period literature to provide evidence for a lot of things -- social norms, changing attitudes, the values and morals of the time, as well as a great source of linguistic data for language evolution.
But if you try to use say, a Mary Renault novel as evidence of Alexander's campaigns, you'r... | [
"A study of cultural history could include fictional sources such as novels or plays. In a broader sense primary sources also include artifacts like photographs, newsreels, coins, paintings or buildings created at the time. Historians may also take archaeological artifacts and oral reports and interviews into consi... |
Why not make smaller turbojet engines instead of a larger turbofan with high bypass ratio? | I think /u/throwhooawayyfoe's answer, while correct, misses the point.
Jet engines, like rocket engines, work by generating negative momentum and putting it onto some propellant, which gets discarded out the back of the vehicle. Since momentum is conserved, the leftover positive momentum remains in the vehicle -- the ... | [
"Low bypass turbofans have a lower exhaust speed than turbojets and are mostly used for high sonic, transonic, and low supersonic speeds. High bypass turbofans are used for subsonic aircraft and are quite efficient and are widely used for airliners.\n",
"Because of these distinctions, turbofan engine designs are ... |
Was Aristotle ever right? | > I'm just talking about hard science facts
This only works if you believe science is an accumulation of facts. Instead, it might be useful to think of science as a project to model nature ([see Thomas Kuhn](_URL_0_)). For instance, Newtonian physics is a model that has retained much of its predictive power even as i... | [
"Aristotle is perhaps, even today, the most influential of all the early Western philosophers. His view is often summarized as 'moderation in all things'. For example, courage is worthy, for too little of it makes one defenseless. But too much courage can result in foolhardiness in the face of danger. To be clear, ... |
what is the point of rooting android products and jailbreaking apple products. | Rooting on Android gives you administer access to the device, letting you install custom software, overclock the hardware, delete built in apps, and allow apps to have functionality they otherwise would be denied.
Jailbreaking on iOS installs a second app store known as Cydia that lets you download and install softwar... | [
"iOS is engineered with security measures including a \"locked bootloader\" to prevent users from modifying the operating system, and to prevent apps from gaining root privileges; jailbreaking an iOS device to defeat all security measures presents a significant technical challenge. It violates Apple's end-user lice... |
Did Shakespeare and His Plays Cause Any Naming Trends? | Probably the most influential names invented by Shakespeare were (and are) Jessica and Olivia. The following is from *The Merchant of Venice* (Arden Shakespeare, 3rd Series) Act 2, Scene 4, Lines 19-20:
> LORENZO:
> Hold here--take this, tell gentle Jessica
> I will not fail her; speak it privately.
What you j... | [
"Shakespeare's authorship was first openly questioned in the pages of Joseph C. Hart's \"The Romance of Yachting\" (1848). Hart argued that the plays contained evidence that many different authors had worked on them. Four years later Dr. Robert W. Jameson anonymously published \"Who Wrote Shakespeare?\" in the \"Ch... |
What does the spin on a bullet do for the pressure wave it creates? Does it change its nature much compared to as if it was not spinning and simply translating? | I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but [here is an image](_URL_0_) of a gun being fired underwater. You can see the cavitation caused by the bullet is twisted because of the bullet's spin. A similar thing should happen in air. | [
"This is because the projectile's longitudinal axis (its axis of rotation) and the direction of the velocity vector of the center of gravity (CG) deviate by a small angle, which is said to be the equilibrium yaw or the yaw of repose. The magnitude of the yaw of repose angle is typically less than 0.5 degree. Since ... |
how are we able to sense where our body parts are in space without actually looking at or feeling them? | That's called proprioception, or kinesthetic awareness. It's also somewhat tied into reflexes, like catching or dodging a ball. You can increase the sensitivity with practice, too. Sadly, though, the “spider sense” is just for comics and movies for now. | [
"Johns-Messenger critically examines the role of the body in space and her primary concern with altering ordinary \"ways of seeing\" began during early childhood, where she spent days sketching, conceptualizing and photographing shapes from ordinary objects.\n",
"In fact, the human body has seven sensory systems ... |
is there any situation in which the mathematical median can be higher than the mean? | The relationship between the mean and median are based on how skewed the data is, and in what direction the skew is. Generally speaking, things that we are familiar with tend to be skewed right, so we get that the mean is greater than the median. But if the data is skewed left, then the median will be greater than the ... | [
"If a distribution is symmetric, then the median is the mean (so long as the latter exists). But, in general, the median and the mean can differ. For instance, with a random variable that has an exponential distribution, any particular sample of this random variable will have roughly a 63% chance of being less than... |
can someone explain whether obesity is only present in humans or other mammals too have this disorder within their species? | I've seen some fat ass cats and dogs. | [
"Animal models have contributed a fair amount to the current understanding of eating disorders and obesity, in different ways and to different extents; one of the main reasons being the difference in pathophysiology of these disorders. The one specific feature of eating disorders not shared with animal behavior, is... |
do/can animals in nature outside of human contact get fat or even mordidly obese? | They don't become obese due to limited food resources. Even if they could eat all they wanted, being fat would slow them down and increase their chance of becoming prey to something bigger and faster. Bears are the only thing I can quickly think of the eat to excess, but that is because they are storing energy for thei... | [
"The appearance and effects of emaciation in animals, both wild and domestic, is like that of humans–severe thinness, loss of fat and muscle, extremely pronounced and protruding bones, and weakness. Starvation and regularly dehydration, brought on by neglect and cruelty from humans, or as a result of illness are th... |
why do i keep getting acne when i have showered every day for 4 years and have a healthy diet/work out? im a 18 year old male | Not a doctor here, but maybe you should see a dermatologist if you haven't already (not that this is strange, but they can really help).
A lot of acne in adolescence is caused by androgens being released in the body, such as testosterone (this is released in *everybody* during puberty, regardless of sex). Sometimes ac... | [
"Oil production in the sebaceous glands increases during puberty, causing comedones and acne to be common in adolescents. Acne is also found premenstrually and in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Smoking may worsen acne.\n",
"In general, it is recommended that people with acne do not wash affected skin mor... |
what exactly the 10nm, 14nm, 22nm, etc nodes mean in semiconductor processing | Well, it's a bit confusing even to people in the industry. The devil's in the details.
In the distant past, the geometry of the "node" meant the size of the smallest transistors. But a while back it started to refer more to the pitch of the tightest metal layer (usually metal 1), where "pitch" means the width of t... | [
"The 14 nanometer (14nm) technology node is the successor to the 22nm/(20nm) node. The 14nm was so named by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). One nanometer (nm) is one billionth of a meter. Until about 2011, the node following 22nm was expected to be 16nm. All 14nm nodes use FinFET (fi... |
Nixon courted southern Democrats with the Southern Strategy. Prior to that, what common cause did these people have with northeastern elites like FDR and Kennedy? | Roosevelt's biggest contribution to American politics was the establishment of the New Deal Coalition. Roosevelt united the traditional Democratic base (conservative Southerners, northern immigrants and Catholics, liberal northerners) along with expanding into traditionally Republican groups (such as blacks and Midwest... | [
"Republican President Richard Nixon adopted a \"Southern Strategy\" for the 1972 election: continue enforcement of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, but be quiet about it, so that offended Southern whites would continue to blame the Democrats, while talking up the Democrats' increasing association with lib... |
When a sufficiently sized star dies and collapses into a black hole, does the gravitational attraction that it yields change? | Either "no" or "it might go down" depending on what you mean.
At large distances, old fashioned classical gravity is accurate for both. The force of gravity is proportional to the mass. So if all the mass is retained, then gravity doesn't change. But in a supernova, a lot of mass is thrown out, so the resulting black ... | [
"The gravitational collapse of a star is a natural process that can produce a black hole. It is inevitable at the end of the life of a star, when all stellar energy sources are exhausted. If the mass of the collapsing part of the star is below the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) limit for neutron-degenerate matter... |
Was Gandhi actually a positive influence on the development of India as a country? | It's complicated; if you're not already aware of it there's a three hour long three part [BBC Documentary on Gandhi](_URL_0_) that covers a lot of his life and legacy. while it doesn't attempt a final judgement it does show various sides to the man and his actions.
| [
"Gandhi's thinking on what we would consider socia-secular issues (he himself saw little distinction between the sacred and its expression in the social world) was influenced by John Ruskin and the American writer Henry David Thoreau. Throughout his life, Gandhi sought to develop ways to fight India's extreme pover... |
what generates the messages in computer errors? | Computer programmers write the error message into their software.
Sometimes they do so for their eyes only as a way of fixing their code.
It's like walking in a forest and making a mark on each tree.
If everything goes right, you will not ever see the mark again.
But if you are lost, you can look for the mark that y... | [
"An error message is information displayed when an unexpected condition occurs, usually on a computer or other device. On modern operating systems with graphical user interfaces, error messages are often displayed using dialog boxes. Error messages are used when user intervention is required, to indicate that a des... |
how did scientists first hypothesise that an meteor killed the dinosaurs? | It was proposed by [Luis Walter Alvarez](_URL_0_) after he noticed a thin layer of clay in the geologic record between the Cretaceous and Tertiary (now called the Paleogene) periods. After further investigation of the composition of the clay (in particular, the high-levels of iridium), Alvarez and his team proposed it ... | [
"65,000,000 years ago, a mountain-sized meteor crashed into the Earth in what is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, with a major chunk of the object landing in Uganda. The impact and resulting ecological catastrophe causes the extinction of the dinosaurs. In present day, wealthy industrialist John Greystoke has b... |
what is going on in your brain when you stare? why are you so focused on one thing you can't look away? | I am not a psychologist, but generally it is because you are seeing something your brain considers valuable or possibly dangerous. If a man stares at a woman with large breasts, then it is because his brain considers it something valuable and wants it. You will focus more easily on something or someone that you find ... | [
"Changes in spatial attention can occur with the eyes moving, overtly, or with the eyes remaining fixated, covertly. Within the human eye only a small part, the fovea, is able to bring objects into sharp focus. However, it is this high visual acuity that is needed to perform actions such as reading words or recogni... |
Who made the bombs for the IRA? | Early on the bombs were mostly homemade using Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser. While the process is simple it does take skill to get it right and there were several people who specialised in it. The explosives were often made in ordinary houses or sheds.
The provision of Semtex from Libya in the 1980s gave the IRA a lot o... | [
"The 1970s saw Irish Industrial Explosives Limited producing annually 6,000 tonnes of Frangex, a commercial gelignite intended for use in mines and quarries. It was produced at Ireland's largest explosives factory in Enfield, County Meath. The Gardaí and the Irish Army patrolled the area, preventing the IRA from ga... |
What can you tell me about pirates? | Pierre Le Grand (_URL_0_ Legendary Pirate who captured a Spanish treasure galleon with 28 men and a leaky boat.
L'Olonnais(_URL_6_) - Allegedly ate a man's beating heart out of his chest to intimidate prisoners.
Du Pointis - _URL_2_ captured 20 million Livres and defeated one of the greatest forts in the Carribean.
... | [
"The Pirates story focuses on the struggle between Captain Brickbeard's crew trying to find a massive amount of treasure & the Imperial Navy led by Governor Broadside with assistance from the Ninja Master & his clan of ninjas, trying to thwart their plans.\n",
"The Pirates! is a series of five comedy books follow... |
why do humans need to be taught about sex while other animals just know what to do? | Humans don't *need* to be taught about sex. In fact, sex education is hardly *at all* about the mechanics of sex. It's about safe sex, and other bodily functions that are peripheral to the actual act.
Some of it is stuff that people *would* figure out on their own, but why not take a short cut and learn about it *bef... | [
"Research has proven that non-human animals can and do have sex for non-reproductive purposes (and for pleasure). In 2006, a Danish Animal Ethics Council report concluded that ethically performed zoosexual activity is capable of providing a positive experience for all participants, and that some non-human animals a... |
Why don't salamanders bleed to death when they lose limbs? | If you chop off a person's limb they don't just fountain blood out of the open wound. At least not initially. The blood vessels constrict during trauma which buys valuable time for treatment. For salamanders I think the process is similar only the surface area of the wound is much smaller and it has time to clot before... | [
"Salamanders use their tails in defence and some are prepared to jettison them to save their lives in a process known as autotomy. Certain species in the Plethodontidae have a weak zone at the base of the tail and use this strategy readily. The tail often continues to twitch after separation which may distract the ... |
When energy is converted into heat and then dissipates, how is energy conserved? | When heat dissipates, it doesn't disappear; it just spreads out. | [
"In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be \"conserved\" over time. This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. For... |
what is ethereum, and how does it have a monetary value? | I can't speak about Ethereum specifically, but I can give you a generalized explanation of bitcoin and hope the information is useful to you. The processing power used to generate a new coin is not *useful* or *practical* to someone in the same way as Folding@Home. The processing requirement to creating new coins is a ... | [
"Ethereum Classic is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality. It provides a decentralized Turing-complete virtual machine, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which can execute scripts using an international network of public nodes. ... |
How far is it between solar systems in a galaxy? What is there in this space between solar systems and planets? | There's also a huge number of rogue planets, comets and asteroids out there that get ejected from their orbits around their host stars and wander the galaxy, [100 billion freely wandering Jupiter-mass planets](_URL_3_) in our galaxy according to a recent study, but your chances of running into one are incredibly slim s... | [
"The distance from the Solar System is probably about 11,000 light years, or approximately half-way from the Sun to the Galactic Center, but a closer distance of ~2800 ly is not ruled out. GRO J1655-40 and its companion are moving through the Milky Way at around 112 km/s (250,000 miles per hour), in a galactic orbi... |
Would Genghis Khan be considered a "bad guy" of history? | Potentially better follow up: Do historians actually view anyone as villains? I had got the impression that the more general sociocultural factors were being considered instead of individuals in good historical work. | [
"Accounts of Genghis Khan's life are marked by claims of a series of betrayals and conspiracies. These include rifts with his early allies such as Jamukha (who also wanted to be a ruler of Mongol tribes) and Wang Khan (his and his father's ally), his son Jochi, and problems with the most important shaman, who alleg... |
Why does a small amount of antenna extension in devices such as portable radios and satellite cellphones make such a big impact on quality of reception? | Old ‘brick’ cell phones used a frequency around 800mhz. The wavelength, ~14 inches, would make a full wave antenna cumbersome. However, a half wave length antenna (that is normally stowed inside the phone) does work pretty well while being compact.
Newer phones use higher frequencies, which combined with lower power ... | [
"Antenna diversity is especially effective at mitigating these multipath propagation situations. This is because multiple antennas afford a receiver several observations of the same signal. Each antenna will experience a different interference environment. Thus, if one antenna is experiencing a deep fade, it is lik... |
What can you tell me about this Roman stone my neighbours dug up? | "AVG SACR" is short for "AUGusto SACRum"; "SILVANO" was a woodland deity. Basically it's dedicated/sacred to Silvanus and Augustus.
Source: Silvanus in Salona p161 _URL_0_ | [
"Excavations in 2003 of the town wall near the west gate showed this had been robbed of building stone in post-Roman times, except for two stones that were found \"in situ\" and the wall's rubble foundations.\n",
"A Roman boundary ditch and posthole has been found just off Nethergate Street; a strap fitting, coin... |
If visible light and radio waves are all forms of electromagnetic waves, can we emit visible light by emitting radio at a different wave length? | As you said, light and radio waves are both electromagnetic waves. They are simply at different frequencies/wavelengths, so are kinda different things. Human eyes can perceive only a small fraction of the different wavelengths that are out there.
Radio waves have a longer wavelength (or lower frequency) than visible l... | [
"Although some radio waves are emitted directly by astronomical objects, a product of thermal emission, most of the radio emission that is observed is the result of synchrotron radiation, which is produced when electrons orbit magnetic fields. Additionally, a number of spectral lines produced by interstellar gas, n... |
Why do you get shocked when you lick a 9 volt but not when you lay your finger across both leads? | Different resistance values between your tongue and your fingers. Electrons can travel easily through your wet tongue from negative to positive but your fingers have a higher resistance hindering the passage of electrons. | [
"Most battery voltage testers and chargers that can also test nine-volt need another snap clip to hold the battery, while cylindrical batteries often share a holder that may be adjustable in size. Because of the proximity of the positive and negative terminals at the top of the battery and relatively low current of... |
How is the Dead Sea the lowest point on Earth ( 400m) if the Grand Canyon has a depth of 1800m? | You are comparing depth with altitude - they are not the same thing.
The Dead sea is the lowest point on Earth at an altitude of -400 m **relative to sea-level**.
The maximum depth of the Grand Canyon is measured from the surface, in the middle of the continent. The actual altitude relative to sea-level of that point... | [
"BULLET::::- Hranice Abyss, Moravia, Czech Republic, is the deepest underwater cave in the world, the lowest confirmed depth (as of 27 September 2016) is 473 m (404 m under the water level), the expected depth is 700–800 m.\n",
"The Challenger Deep, located just outside the Trench Unit, is the deepest point in th... |
Does split brain lead to split consciousness? | A “split brain” is not really 100% split: we use the term to describe patients who, for one reason or another (usually surgery), have lost the functionality of the Corpus Callosum. The Corpus Callisum is a dense bundle of neurons in the middle of the brain that is the primary structure responsible for coordinating and ... | [
"Splits in consciousness (\"normal self\" vs. \"secondary self\") was first described by Pierre Janet in \"De l'Automatisme Psychologique\" (1889). His ideas were extended by Bleuler (who in 1908 coined the word schizofrenia from the Ancient Greek \"skhízō\" and \"phrḗn\" ) and Freud to explain the splitting () of ... |
What was the scientific and cultural legacy of Achaemenid Persia? | > First, I am going to assume that "our culture" refers to western culture. But this is a dangerous assumption to make, so please be sure to avoid such generalizations in the future. This is an important distinction to make because the reception of the Persians in the West is much, much different from the reception of... | [
"The Achaemenid dynasty of the Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, ruled an area from Greece and Turkey to the Indus River and Central Asia during the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. Persian politics included a tolerance for other cultures, a highly centralized government, and significant infrastructure developme... |
Different Base Numbers? | _URL_0_
You may enjoy this. Balanced ternary has many computational benefits over binary. | [
"In the base 10 numeral system, in almost universal use today for mathematical operations, the symbols for natural numbers are written using ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. The radix or base is the number of unique numerical digits, including zero, that a numeral system uses to represent numbers (for ... |
- what makes peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth, and throat? | Peanutbutter is viscous. The viscosity of peanutbutter means that it will take longer to flow than other fluids. Aside from that, peanutbutter is not only viscous, but is able to squish between nooks and crannies in a surface, allowing it to act like a glue. It's a good adhesive.
On top of that, peanutbutter is made mo... | [
"Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground dry roasted peanuts. It often contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners or emulsifiers. Peanut butter is served as a spread on bread, toast or crackers, and used to make sandwiches (notably the peanut butter a... |
Is there any evidence that "sugar rushes" actually occur? | Why are sugar rushes so popular, then, if there's no scientific evidence backing it up?
It seems pretty simple to me. Caffeine is a stimulant and gets you wired...sugar is not a stimulant and exhibits no stimulant effects.
Who got confused and invented 'sugar rushes'? I'd love to know. | [
"Sugar Rush is a British television comedy drama series developed by Shine Limited and broadcast by Channel 4, based on the Julie Burchill novel of the same name. It is centred on the life of a 15-year-old lesbian, Kim Daniels, who has moved from London to Brighton on the south coast of England.\n",
"Sugar Rush i... |
does location determine skin color? | Dark skin protects against ultraviolet radiation from the sun. But solar radiation is also necessary to stimulate production of vitamin D. In the higher latitudes, where there is less solar radiation, there is both less need for protection and more need for the radiation. Accordingly, there is a natural selection press... | [
"Skin colour is a polygenic trait, which means that several different genes are involved in determining a specific phenotype. Many genes work together in complex, additive, and non-additive combinations to determine the skin colour of an individual. The skin colour variations are normally distributed from light to ... |
What drives the molecular change in catalytic enzymes? | > tight conformation the ADP & Pi
That's pretty much the idea. The ADP and Pi are pushed so close together (in just the right conformation) that they can't help but react. | [
"Majority of the enzymes are proteins and they speeds up the rate of biochemical reactions by decreasing the activation energy. During the process enzymes combines with the substrate and convert it into product. Enzymes may have single or multiple substrate binding sites (catalytic site). As substrate concentration... |
Watching Cosmos...questions about light...brain hurts! | 1) All light moves at the same speed in space. Period. The redshift is the change of *wavelength* of light. In the electromagnetic spectrum, light has different frequencies/wavelengths, but not speeds. Maybe someone can elaborate.
2) [Inverse square law](_URL_0_). A certain amount of light is emitted from a star. As ... | [
"The observation of light flashes by the astronauts brought attention to the possible effects of HZE nuclei on brain function. The microlesion concept, which considered the effects of the column of damaged cells surrounding the path of an HZE nucleus traversing critical regions of the brain, originated at this time... |
If you flash freeze water, will it still expand in the same way as 'normal', gradual freezing? | Water will expand regardless of how it is frozen; however, what changes is the size of the average ice crystal. When you slow freeze water it tends to build one giant crystal over time since water can slowly collect and arrange itself to form a unified solid. When you flash freeze each water molecule basically has... | [
"Another case of this phenomenon is the event of super-cooling, where the water is cooled to below freezing temperatures but does not immediately begin to freeze. Under the same conditions as before, the flow is developed. Afterward, the temperature of the right wall is decreased to −10 °C. This causes the water at... |
why is it better to eat actual sources of protein (eggs, fish, meat etc.) than consume protein powder? | It isn't the protein itself that is bad. It is the other stuff that comes with it. You aren't consuming pure protein when using that powder, and a lot of that is things like instant milk which contains oxidized cholesterol, which is very very very bad. And there are many more issues, such as your body requiring cert... | [
"Whole grains and cereals are another source of proteins. However, these tend to be limiting in the amino acid lysine or threonine, which are available in other vegetarian sources and meats. Examples of food staples and cereal sources of protein, each with a concentration greater than 7.0%, are (in no particular or... |
how long does it take to be a professor? | Depends largely on the school, faculty, and discipline.
The typical route is:
- Undergraduate (bachelor's).
- Postgrad (Master's).
- PhD.
- Lecturing and getting published.
- Getting tenure.
- Associate Professor.
- Professor.
Timescales vary - a bachelors and a masters can take anywhere between 5 and 10 year... | [
"Total duration of the course is 4 years + one year compulsory internship during this period the professional examinations that is one at the end of each academic year, are conducted by the university. After passing the final professional examination it is compulsory to undergo one-year rotatory internship, Degree ... |
when a mosquito is sucking blood from my arm, where does its proboscis go after i kill it? | you probably pull it out when you brush the body away. otherwise it's still in there. not a big deal, though. the things are as thin as hair and your body has ways of dealing with stuff like that. | [
"The infective stage called sporozoites released from the salivary glands through the proboscis of the mosquito enter the bloodstream during feeding. The mosquito saliva contains antihemostatic and anti-inflammatory enzymes that disrupt blood clotting and inhibit the pain reaction. Typically, each infected bite con... |
Why do nuclear armed countries need such massive investment in conventional military? | I dabbled in nuclear strategy, tactics, and the general science of nuclear warfare a few years back, so let me try to answer.
I'm going to assume based on your comments and questions that you're exclusively asking about the United States, but this probably applies to most nuclear weapons states with significant conven... | [
"The designing, testing, producing, deploying, and defending against nuclear weapons is one of the largest expenditures for the nations which possess nuclear weapons. In the United States during the Cold War years, between \"one quarter to one third of all military spending since World War II [was] devoted to nucle... |
Chicago Footnote Help | Yikes, those are the tricky ones.
Okay gov't documents, you sort of cite it like any other books, but you usually include the volumes. Let's look at the gov't docs I used for my own research from the Pennsylvania Archives
Pennsylvanian, Commonwealth of. *Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, from the Org... | [
"This is a bibliography of selected publications on the history of Chicago. For most topics, the easiest place to start is Janice L. Reiff, et al. eds. \"The Encyclopedia of Chicago\" (2004), which has thorough coverage by leading scholars in 1120pp of text and many illustrations. It does not include biographies. I... |
the drug enforcement administration (dea) | The DEA is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice tasked with enforcing federal laws (primarily the Controlled Substances Act) on the use, manufacture, and smuggling of drugs in the United States. In some ways like the FBI, the DEA has "special agents" who they employ and who must pass a rigor... | [
"The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) () is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the United States. The DEA is the lead agency for domestic enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, shari... |
How did Taffy 3 actually pull off the defense of the Lette landing force in WWII? | Expanded from [an earlier answer of mine](_URL_3_)
The actions of Kurita at Samar are still somewhat controversial among naval historians. Kurita in theory should have acted with daring given that the *Sho* plan called for a fight to the death, but he vacillated throughout the engagement. On a more tactical level, th... | [
"Taffy 3 came under attack from a much heavier Japanese force under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, provoking the Battle off Samar. Sprague promptly pleaded for assistance from Halsey, who was responsible for protecting the northern approach to the landing site. Halsey had contemplated detaching a battle group, Task For... |
What lies behind the military success of the Ottoman Empire in the period from the 1400s to the 1600s, and would they have fared equally well against western European powers? | A search brought up [this](_URL_0_) post, which mentions the importance of gunpowder and speaks of "superiority of Ottoman weaponry". Could someone elaborate on that? How advanced were the Ottomans in the field of weaponry, how big of a role did that play and why did it not matter at later lost battles like Vienna? | [
"Strengthened by the Peace of Westphalia and the Industrial Revolution, European powers regrouped and challenged Ottoman dominance. Owing largely to poor leadership, archaic political norms, and an inability to keep pace with technological progress in Europe, the Ottoman Empire could not respond effectively to Euro... |
How did tyrannosaurus drink water? | T. rex probably drank like most birds, by bending down and taking a mouthful of water, then tilting its head back to allow the water to run down its throat. Tyrannosaurus also has a ling and heavy tail that can be used as counter weight when it leans forward. | [
"The Tyrannosaurus rex then emerged from a waterfall coming from broken pipes in front of the raft, and lunged down to grab the raft, which escaped by plunging down an drop into a tropical lagoon outside the Environmental Systems Building. A Dilophosaurus made a final attempt to squirt \"venom\" (water) at the pass... |
Does negative mass repel objects?
| Negative mass is *completely* hypothetical. Your question is like asking "do unicorns like to eat carrots?". If unicorns existed there's a chance that they would like carrots, but, unicorns don't exist, so it's not a useful thing to think about. If negative mass existed, then yes it might have the property of repelling... | [
"Bondi pointed out that a negative mass will fall toward (and not away from) \"normal\" matter, since although the gravitational force is repulsive, the negative mass (according to Newton's law, F=ma) responds by accelerating in the opposite of the direction of the force. Normal mass, on the other hand, will fall a... |
What makes salt flat so flat? | Lakes are very low energy environments. So while the hole in the topography they filled will have been irregular, over the long periods (thousands, perhaps even up to millions of years) that the lake is present, fine sediment gets settled out relatively evenly across the basin. The builds up a flat bottom. Once the wat... | [
"The salt flat encompasses , is about long and wide, which makes it the third largest in the world, after Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia (). and Salinas Grandes in Argentina (). Its average elevation is about 2,300 m above sea level. The topography of the core portion of the \"salar\" exhibits a high level of roughness,... |
How is Gavrilo Princip viewed in Serbia today? | Although this question is likely violating the 20 year, the WWI centennial has caused some focus on the expressions of commemorations and historical memory. NPR had a good report, [*The Shifting Legacy Of The Man Who Shot Franz Ferdinand*](_URL_1_) and *Smithsonian* magazine had an article in 2000 ["Searching for Gavri... | [
"In May 2008, then ICTY-imprisoned Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Šešelj compared Jovanović with the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, saying “he would enjoy the same fame and glory that Gavrilo Princip has in Serbian history”.\n",
"Under the Beli Orlovi gather not only the ordinary Serbian fans, but a... |
how would brass instruments be different if they were made from different metals such as steel? | The timbre would be slightly different, and they would be much harder and more expensive to manufacture.
We already have some instruments that are made in different metals - one example that comes to my mind is the flute. Leaving aside wooden types and thinking only of modern flutes with keys and all that, it's very c... | [
"Alternatives to brass include other alloys containing significant amounts of copper or silver. These alloys are biostatic due to the oligodynamic effect, and thus suppress growth of molds, fungi or bacteria. Brass instruments constructed from stainless steel or aluminium have good sound quality but are rapidly col... |
what is the point of unmarked police cars if they are still very easily spotted? | This is a form of confirmation bias sometimes known as the toupée fallacy. Take the following sentence:
> All toupées look fake; I've never seen one that I couldn't tell was fake.
Such a phrase can only be said about bad toupées — ones that look fake — and not actually all toupées. Put simply, if you saw a convincin... | [
"Unmarked vehicles are used primarily for sting operations or apprehending criminals without alerting them to their presence. Some police forces use unmarked or minimally marked cars for traffic law enforcement, since drivers slow down at the sight of marked police vehicles and unmarked vehicles make it easier for ... |
how come man made light (leds, etc) can't really replicate the way the sun or fire lights up stuff? | The Sun and an incandescent bulb both produce light based on the same principle of [thermal radiation](_URL_2_) - the spectrum of thermal radiation depends on the temperature of the object generating it - see for example [here](_URL_0_). The surface of the Sun is at around 5800K, while the tungsten filament in an inca... | [
"Some light painters make their own dedicated devices to create light trails over the photo background; this can include computer-controlled devices like the Pixelstick. These devices are often Arduino-controlled LED arrays that can render images that could not be made by drawing in the air with a single light sour... |
Why 1^∞ is undetermined? Why is it not 1? | It needs to be reminded that infinity isn't directly a number but rather a concept of numbers going on forever, depending on the infinity, 1 can be affected in a different way compared to real numbers. It's like trying to do 2^Pineapple. It's just not going to work because we don't know directly what pineapple is and i... | [
"Similarly, the casual use of 1/0 = ∞ is invalid, since the transfer principle applies to the statement that division by zero is undefined. The rigorous counterpart of such a calculation would be that if ε is a non-zero infinitesimal, then 1/ε is infinite.\n",
"Since the remainders decrease with every step but ca... |
the us system of government | The US Government is best viewed as 3 branches.
The executive branch is in charge of carrying out laws and running the government's operations. The President is the head of the executive branch. He is elected by the people.
The legislative branch is in charge of making laws. Congress (the Senate and the House of R... | [
"State governments of the United States are institutional units in the United States exercising some of the functions of government at a level below that of the federal government. Each state's government holds legislative, executive, and judicial authority over a defined geographic territory. The United States com... |
Does honey contain protease? | "Protease" isn't just one substance - there are many enzymes that can cleave proteins. (They're proteins, too, but generally don't contain sequences that they're vulnerable to themselves!) Honey has very little protein in it, only about 0.5%. I haven't been able to find out if any of that protein is, in fact, any sort ... | [
"Antibacterial properties of honey are the result of the low water activity causing osmosis, hydrogen peroxide effect, and high acidity. The combination of high acidity, hygroscopic, and antibacterial effects have led to honey's reputation as a plausible way to mummify a human cadaver, despite lack of concrete evid... |
when someone asks if i've seen a particular movie or not, most of the time i can answer yes or no with extreme accuracy, so why can i not accurately remember every movie i've ever seen when not prompted with a title? | Psychological term called priming. When you hear something your brain activates or "primes" related topics. Hearing the title of a movie usually activates the memories associated with that movie. | [
"\"What we're competing with here is not the real picture but people's memory of it,\" said George Axelrod. \"Hitchcock's film had some brilliant things in it, but as a whole picture you'd have to admit it's pretty creaky. The four or five things people remember from the original receive a homage in our version - w... |
if women make up near equal percent of gamers, why are more games not being directed at female or neutral gender audience | because these statistics count in people playing farmville, candy crush and the like.
if you leave casual games out the audience is much more male dominated. | [
"Although men and women play roughly the same number of games, there is a stereotype that women are not considered ¨True Gamers¨ because they tend to play more casual games which do not require much skill and dedication. This stereotype exists due to the fact that at a professional level, most of the teams competin... |
if exercising makes your heart stronger why are amphetamines and anxiety bad for your hear? | Increasing you heart rate is like a car going faster: through exercise is like using the gas pedal normally to control the acceleration of the car; amphetamines, anxiety, drugs like cocaine is like your car going off a cliff to go faster. You’re going faster, but you’re probably going to die in the end.
Cheers. | [
"Amphetamine is a stimulant that has been found to improve both physical and cognitive performance. Amphetamine blocks the reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine, which delays the onset of fatigue by increasing the amount of dopamine, despite the concurrent increase in norepinephrine, in the central nervous system... |
Why don’t former Italian colonies, such as Libya and Somalia, speak Italian? | I'm just going to respond regarding Somalia, since I'm not as well read regarding Libya and other Italian colonial territories.
The short answer to your question is that Italy's footprint in Somalia was light for most of its colonial history, and just as the Italians were ramping up assimilation efforts, WWII came alo... | [
"Although Italy also had some colonial possessions before World War II, its language did not remain official after the end of the colonial domination. As a result, Italian outside of Italy and Switzerland is now spoken only as a minority language by immigrant communities in North and South America and Australia. In... |
what does alzheimers do to the brain? if a "cure" was invented would it help current sufferers remember? | As I understand it, Alzheimer's causes proteins to take the wrong shape in the brain. To put this in context the majority of proteins need to be the right shape in order to work.
For instance, enzyme's are used to break down your food much more quickly. Biologists describe the process using either the lock and key mo... | [
"The treatment will depend on the cause of memory loss, but various drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease have been suggested in recent years. There are four drugs currently approved by the FDA for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, and they all act on the cholinergic system: Donepezil, Galantamine, Rivastigmine, and Tacri... |
how does a ship force a submarine to leave an area? | The only thing a submarine has is stealth. It uses the depths, different thermal layers and silent operations to hide in the background ocean noise.
Getting detected means the submarine is pretty much a sitting duck. It reflects either a mistake made by the submarine crew, or the skills of the surface fleet at anti su... | [
"The crew submerges the vessel by opening vents in the top of the ballast tanks and opening valves in the bottom. This lets water flood into the tank as air escapes through the top vents. As air escapes from the tank, the vessel's buoyancy decreases, causing it to sink. For the submarine to surface, the crew shuts ... |
If East Asians invented movable type well before Gutenberg, why didn't it take off as well as it did in Europe? Was it because of the number of characters? Economics? What? | I know there are some excellent 'asia-specialists' on here who can probably answer your question more completely, but I figured I'd just get things started.
I believe the social structure in China prevented the widespread use of the printed word. In China there was a far bigger devision between poor workers/farmers a... | [
"For example,authoritative historians Frances Gies and Joseph Gies claimed that \"The Asian priority of invention movable type is now firmly established, and that Chinese-Korean technique, or a report of it traveled westward is almost certain.\" However, Joseph P.McDermott claimed that \"No text indicates the prese... |
how can a pc game be developed for years? don't the constantly emerging new hardware capabilities far outrun what the game (engine) started out with? | There is a lot to a game besides it's interaction with hardware, essentially everything about game design is independent of hardware, save for things like user interface or graphics.
But you can write an entire game which outputs with blocky models and low resolution textures in a boring 3D world, but then relatively ... | [
"Most modern PC or console games take from one to three years to complete., where as a mobile game can be developed in a few months. The length of development is influenced by a number of factors, such as genre, scale, development platform and number of assets.\n",
"The dawn of the 1990s saw a fundamental shift i... |
what is it that causes cysts/spots to rupture with such force? | The spot is visible because of pressure build up so when you pop the skin the small amount of pressure that there is, forces the gunk out. With toothpaste the only pressure comes from your fingers so it will come out as hard as you squeeze | [
"After a surface is initially affected by cavitation, it tends to erode at an accelerating pace. The cavitation pits increase the turbulence of the fluid flow and create crevices that act as nucleation sites for additional cavitation bubbles. The pits also increase the components' surface area and leave behind resi... |
Good sources for an essay on Pompey? | So this period is the most documented in Roman history. The primary sources are vast. Plutarch's Life of Pompey's already been mentioned, but Pompey comes up in several Lives. Cicero discusses Pompey in numerous letters, and gave several speeches specifically addressing Pompey (De Imperio, for instance). Caesar wro... | [
"Montaigne's \"Essays\" draw extensively on Plutarch's \"Moralia\" and are consciously modelled on the Greek's easygoing and discursive inquiries into science, manners, customs and beliefs. \"Essays\" contains more than 400 references to Plutarch and his works.\n",
"Foucault has frequently been criticized by hist... |
why are people scared by and fascinated with seemingly supernatural occurences? | Basically? Evolution. Back in the day (the era of evolutionary adaptation) our ancestors that heard noises in the dark and assumed the worst (that must be a predator!) outlived the ones that just went back to bed. Long story short, we confuse correlation for causation, and draw connections where there are none. | [
"The cause of the accident is still a mystery and, years later, nobody dares to step a foot in the town for fear of what lies there. There have been numerous reports of strange creatures and a dark, brooding fog within the town. Some locals who believe in the supernatural say that there lurks an ever-present force ... |
why does cheating in a sport, i.e. the biogenesis scandal, deserve a 4 year prison sentence? | It doesn't necessarily. However, falsely posing as a doctor and distributing a controlled substance, in this case testosterone, is a crime. Similarly, winning a game by murdering the entire other team would also likely give you a lengthy prison sentence, but not on account of cheating to win. | [
"Corruption in tennis has been long considered as issue. In 2011, the former world No. 55 Austrian tennis player, Daniel Koellerer, became the first tennis player to be banned for life for attempting to fix matches. The violations were outstanding between October 2009 and July 2010 after The Tennis Integrity Units ... |
how do aircraft stabilizers actually "stabilize" the aircraft? | Aircraft wings create a force perpendicular to the chord of the wing, called Lift. They also create a nose down torque. Both of these change with airspeed.
To keep the wings from rotating forward you can either:
1) apply an upward force ahead of the wings by using a small set of wings called a canard. This was t... | [
"Another role of a horizontal stabilizer is to provide longitudinal static stability. Stability can be defined only when the vehicle is in trim; it refers to the tendency of the aircraft to return to the trimmed condition if it is disturbed. This maintains a constant aircraft attitude, with unchanging pitch angle r... |
Historians, what do you think the North Korean people were told about WWII? | We actually don't have to speculate too much about it. While we don't have access to everything that's been written or published within North Korea, South Korea has a ministry that collects North Korean publications and media, and both Korean and Western scholars have been able to establish what the dominant narrative ... | [
"On September 17, 1996, the \"New York Times\" reported the possible presence of American POWs in North Korea, citing recently declassified documents. The documents showed that the U.S. Defense Department knew in December 1953 that \"more than 900 American troops were alive at the end of the war but were never rele... |
When the astronauts looked at the earth from the moon, could they see the stars as well? | Considering that the Moon's atmosphere is so tenuous that it might as well not exist (as far as this question is concerned), they actually would have been able to see the stars a lot better than we can here on Earth. Most photos from the Moon (well, from anywhere, really) tend to lack stars because the cameras' exposu... | [
"BULLET::::- The Great Wall of China is not, as is claimed, the only human-made object visible from space or from the Moon. None of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing \"any\" specific human-made object from the Moon, and even Earth-orbiting astronauts can see it only with magnification. City lights, however, are... |
Does a photon have to be absorbed in order for it to have been created in the first place? | A little bit about quantum mechanics that's important to understand:
The real physical object is the wave function. A particle is only the manifestation of the wave function when it gets collapsed (when you observe it).
Therefore, the wave function of the photon exists regardless of wheter it is observed or not ( bei... | [
"Photons can also be absorbed by nuclei, atoms or molecules, provoking transitions between their energy levels. A classic example is the molecular transition of retinal (CHO), which is responsible for vision, as discovered in 1958 by Nobel laureate biochemist George Wald and co-workers. The absorption provokes a ci... |
Did ladies really faint all the time in the past? | Well, first of all, we must wave away fiction (as we sadly often have to do...) when it comes to history. The idea of women fainting at the sight of terrible things or even their mention is not as old as history. We have no suggestions (to my knowledge) of medieval French women, ancient Egypt women or Mayan Mesoamerica... | [
"In the Victorian era, a variety of conditions which affected women were referred to as \"a case of the vapours\". Ladies' tight corsets could squeeze their internal organs, including the lungs, and could restrict breathing causing the wearer to feel faint and suffer \"the vapours\".\n",
"The following does not i... |
The higgs boson doesn't actually constitute most of the mass to our bodies, right? | You are partially correct. The electron does owe all of it's mass to the Higg's mechanism. However, protons and neutrons are a little bit different as they are composite objects (they are made of quarks). Quarks also have mass, given to them by the higgs mechanism.
But there is a caveat. The up and down quark have... | [
"The Standard Model does not predict the mass of the Higgs boson. If that mass is between 115 and (consistent with empirical observations of ), then the Standard Model can be valid at energy scales all the way up to the Planck scale (10 GeV). Many theorists expect new physics beyond the Standard Model to emerge at ... |
why does the usa seem so obsessed with race more then other countries? | Because of (1) yes slavery and (2) the USA has a more mixed population, with more immigrants from more countries and backgrounds, than nearly any other country. | [
"The construction of race in Latin America is different from, for example, the model found in the United States, possibly because race mixing has been a common practice since the early colonial period, whereas in the United States it has generally been avoided.\n",
"According to sociologist Rodney Stark, few Amer... |
why is it that every lighting bolt is shaped differently? | A lightning strike is basically an electrical charge in the air trying to reach the ground. Electricity always tries to find what's called the *path of least resistance*, or the easiest way down. That's going to vary based on lots of different factors - air pressure, humidity, finding a nice tree or an unwitting golf... | [
"Grid cell activity does not require visual input, since grid patterns remain unchanged when all the lights in an environment are turned off. When visual cues are present, however, they exert strong control over the alignment of the grids: Rotating a cue card on the wall of a cylinder causes grid patterns to rotate... |
how does decriminalization of drugs reduce drug abuse and crime in the countries that have done it? | Decriminalization or legalisation allows drug sales to be more controlled, meaning you know what is going into the drugs and people are more informed about safe drug use. It also means that drug supply can be more easily controlled, and you can more easily limit how much people get. It makes people more likely to seek ... | [
"There are numerous economic and social impacts of the criminalization of drugs. Prohibition increases crime (theft, violence, corruption) and drug price and increases potency. In many developing countries the production of drugs offers a way to escape poverty. Milton Friedman estimated that over 10,000 deaths a ye... |
why do you continue to try and vomit/dry retch when you have drank to much, even after your stomach contents have completely vacated your body? | The vomiting is your body’s response to an excessive amount of alcohol in your system, not just your digestive tract | [
"Retching (also known as dry heaving) is the reverse movement (retroperistalsis) of the stomach and esophagus without vomiting. It can be caused by bad smell or choking, or by withdrawal from some medications after vomiting stops. Retching can also occur as a result of an emotional response or from stress, which pr... |
do rgb led's have the ability to display a wide range of colors. what causes the color to change, is it the voltage? | An RGB LED is actually 3 LEDs in one package. One each of Red Green and Blue. But changing the intensity of each of the 3 LEDs you get a unique color from the single bulb. The human eye doesn’t see the individual colors but a mix into a single color.
Lots more details: _URL_0_ | [
"RGB or trichromatic white LEDs use multiple LED chips emitting red, green, and blue wavelengths. These three colors combine to produce white light. The color rendering index (CRI) is poor, typically 25 - 65, due to the narrow range of wavelengths emitted. Higher CRI values can be obtained using more than three LED... |
apple airport express shows xbox one speed 270mb, xbox network stats says 30mb. | I'm not sure, but maybe the units are different.
Apple airport express must be showing in Mb(Mega-bits) and Xbox network stats must be using MB(megabytes).
8bits=1byte!
So that explains 30MB=240 Mb.
Left 30Mbs in apple express is just a difference of 3MBs. | [
"On June 10, 2013, Apple unveiled an updated AirPort Extreme, referred to as \"AirPort Extreme 802.11ac (6th Generation)\". The 6th generation AirPort Extreme (and 5th generation AirPort Time Capsule) features three-stream 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology with a maximum data rate of 1.3Gbit/s, which is nearly three times ... |
How often were peasants used in Middle Age battles? How were they trained? How were they equipped? Who paid for their equipment? | Could you clarify what you mean, do you mean in the sense of any peasant class individual participating in a war or do you mean armed mobs with no training at all? | [
"Peasants gather three resources in the game: rice, water and horses. Horses are war units that can be used to combine with other military units i.e riding or can be turned into pack horses when assigned for peasants. Only one type of builder unit is required. Peasants are the only units that can be produced outrig... |
When roman emperors were divinized posthumously, what did that mean to the surviving population? And were the divinized emperors endowed with "powers", like Neptune/Poseidon's power over the sea? | Hi, that's a very interesting question, I have never questioned the 'why' in that way before. The answer goes back to Julius Caesar, the persona and the events around his death.
> "He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked amongst the Gods, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the vulg... | [
"The \"divi\" had some form of precedent in the \"di parentes\", divine ancestors who received ancestral rites as \"manes\" (gods of the underworld) during the Parentalia and other important domestic festivals. Their powers were limited; deceased mortals not normally possess the divine power (\"numen\") of the high... |
In terms of evolution, do beneficial traits often get passed down with irrelevant/negative traits? | What you mean is generally called gentic draft or hitchhiking effect and it can cause all kinds of interspecies (and sometime intraspecies) variation.
As a simple example from [wikipedia](_URL_0_)
> The Y chromosome does not undergo recombination, making it particularly prone to the fixation of deleterious mutations... | [
"Antagonistic pleiotropy has several negative consequences. It results in delayed adaptation, an altered path of evolution, and reduced adaptation of other traits. In addition, the overall benefit of alleles is cut down significantly (by about half) by pleiotropy. Still, antagonistic pleiotropy has some evolutionar... |
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