Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
instead of melting, why do objects, such as paper, trees, and human bodies, turn to ash instead when lit on fire?	Melting is a physical process. It's when a substance is sufficiently heated that it transforms from a solid to liquid state. It's physically changing, but it's chemically the same substance. Burning/combustion is a chemical reaction. Specifically, you're adding enough heat to that substance that it begins reacti...	[ "Ash or ashes are the solid remains of fires. Specifically, it refers to all non-aqueous, non-gaseous residues that remain after something is burned. In analytical chemistry, in order to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash is the non-gaseous, non-liquid residue after a complete combustion...
how do we learn our first language?	The TLDR explanation for this is that babies are really, really good at learning their first language. Babies learn words through some pretty intense statistical analysis. Basically, they realize that certain words tend to be used around certain objects or in situation, and decide that's what they must mean. If the b...	[ "Learning a first language is not rapid for children. Children spend years learning their mother tongue, and the process continues well into their school years. At seven years old, for example, many children have difficulties creating passive-voice sentences.\n", "It is believed that children acquiring their lang...
why doesn't russia want to be part of the eu?	Russia has a long history of being the head of empires, not being subjects of other nations. Taking back seat to other countries is not in their nature. Russia joining the EU as a member would go over about as well as having the US join a union of Canada, the US and Mexio that gave Canada and Mexico votes equal to th...	[ "Russia has chosen not to participate in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), as it aspires to be an \"equal partner\" of the EU (as opposed to the \"junior partnership\" that Russia sees in the ENP). Consequently, Russia and the European Union agreed to create four Common Spaces for cooperatio...
Objectively speaking, was the Roman civilization on a whole more advanced than the various Celtic civilizations?	What does advanced mean objectively? Or to you?	[ "At that time, the Etruscans were the most advanced civilization in the region, and the ancient Romans themselves admitted that they inherited much of their knowledge and customs from them. Rome was located next to the southern edge of the Etruscan domain, which covered a large part of north-central Italy. Besides ...
india's new gst-tax	It's a "value add tax" similar to the GST in Canada or the VAT in the UK. Many countries have a tax system like this because it's fairly simple to implement and compliance can be easy audited. The easiest way to explain a VAT is to contrast it against a traditional sales tax. With a normal sales tax, an additional ...	[ "Introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a significant step in the reform of indirect taxation in India. Amalgamating several Central and State taxes into a single tax would mitigate cascading or double taxation, facilitating a common national market. The simplicity of the tax should lead to easier administ...
what causes the pressure in our chest when we hold our breath?	The pressure doesn't actually increase as you hold your breath. What you are feeling is the psychological manifestation of your need to breathe. And what is ultimately driving that is increased carbonic acid in your blood. Carbon dioxide is a bit different from other gases in that it doesn't really dissolve in water, ...	[ "During inhalation, the intra-thoracic pressure lowers due to the contraction and downward movement of the diaphragm and the expansion of the chest cavity. Atrial pressure is also lowered as a result, causing increased blood flow to the heart, which in turn triggers baroreceptors which act to diminish vagal tone. T...
why doesn't a slinky expand like normal springs do?	Springs are just coils of metal that try really hard to return back to their original shape. If you stretch a "normal" spring in your hands, it'll try to pull back to it's original shape just the same as it pushes against you when you compress it. Slinkies are just springs that are wound to be completely compressed...	[ "Extension garter springs are on the opposite side of the spring spectrum. Although they are also a type of coiled spring, extension garter springs exert inward radial forces that move toward the center. Extension springs store potential energy in their extended form and want to contract. Thinner wire and a greater...
why do people continue posting threads here when 99% of the questions can be answered w/ a simple google search?	Your question itself is very common here, a Reddit search would have turned up many examples. Anyway, if you search on your own, you have to read through shit and come to your own conclusion. If you ask here, you'll get a couple paragraph summary and you don't have to think.	[ "In 2007, a group of researchers observed a tendency for users to rely on Google Search exclusively for finding information, writing that \"With the Google interface the user gets the impression that the search results imply a kind of totality. ... In fact, one only sees a small part of what one could see if one al...
What is some of the oldest primary source documents from Northern Europe?	Do you want first person accounts or the oldest accounts? I doubt those two are going to be the same. Some of the oldest sources will be saints' lives, usually written by biographers/hagiographers long after the saints were dead. See for example Adamnan's Life of St. Columba for Scotland: _URL_0_	[ "The oldest document in the National Archives (listed in 2005) is a parchment from a missal, written in England in the late 10th century. The document came to Sweden via the British Christian missionary in Norway. Under King Gustav Vasa in the 16th century, archiving expanded and national registry and chamber books...
branch davidians and the waco siege	The branch Davidians, an Adventist sect focused around David Koresh lived in a compound in Texas were stockpiling illegal weapons. The ATF got a warrant to investigate and approached the compound armed. The Davidians didn't take too kindly to this so fended them off. Siege ensues. ATF have no understanding and traini...	[ "The Waco siege was the siege of a compound belonging to the religious sect Branch Davidians, carried out by American federal and Texas state law enforcement, as well as the U.S. military, between February 28 and April 19, 1993. The Branch Davidians were led by David Koresh and were headquartered at Mount Carmel Ce...
why can motorbike batteries sit on a shelf unused without losing charge but when sitting inside a motorbike for a few weeks that hasn't been turned on, go dead?	When its on the shelf, there no where for the energy to go. In a motorbike, the battery is slowly and passively discharging. even if nothing is on. This is because the electrons in the battert have another place to go, the motor bike electrical system	[ "Battery users may attempt to avoid the memory effect proper by fully discharging their battery packs. This practice is likely to cause more damage as one of the cells will be deep discharged. The damage is focused on the weakest cell, so that each additional full discharge will cause more and more damage to that c...
why do some airports make transit passengers go through security again and others don’t?	As /u/TehWildMan_ said, international flights can force you to go through security again. But, even within the same country you might have to pass through security when connecting between flights. The common reason for this is that many airports have multiple terminals which are physically separate buildings. Those ter...	[ "Passengers had to wait for hours to disembark because Transport Canada was on high-security alert. The RCMP deployed extra personnel to airports so that they could perform a security sweep of each aircraft, lined up on closed runways at most airports. They also increased their presence in the airport terminals.\n"...
why is yellow visually/functionally the least strong color?	So there are a few things going on here. First... > it seems odd that one of the three primary colors seems so submissive to the others. Yellow is not a primary color, at least not in the way you're thinking of it in. In additive color (e.g. adding light together) normally it's red, green, and blue (RGB), which ro...	[ "The color was chosen because it attracts attention and is noticed quickly in peripheral vision, faster than any other color. Scientists describe this as follows: \"Lateral peripheral vision for detecting yellows is 1.24 times greater than for red.\"\n", "Black and white have long been known to combine well with ...
Why did the Ustaše initially recognize Islam and "Muslim Serbs" as more Croatian than Orthodoxy and Orthodox Serbs?	There is a strong connection, almost complete correspondence in fact, between religion and nationality in Bosnia (and Croatia, Serbia, etc.). Usually nations were defined not so much by what they have in common, as by how they are different than others. In this case, language couldn't be the differentiation factor, so ...	[ "The Ustaše recognized both Roman Catholicism and Islam as the national religions of the Croatian people while rejecting Orthodox Christianity as incompatible with their objectives (with the exception of the Croatian Orthodox Church intended mainly to assimilate the Serb minority). Though the Ustaše emphasized reli...
What would the treatment of an RAF pilot at a German POW camp in WWII have been like?	> How would they have travelled to Germany? Potentially by train; the Luftwaffe wanted to get prisoners to their Dulag Luft interrogation centre at Oberusel rapidly to extract information so captured airmen would often travel under guard on civilian trains. Around the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, though, when la...	[ "The camp's 800 Luftwaffe guards were either too old for combat duty or young men convalescing after long tours of duty or from wounds. Because the guards were Luftwaffe personnel, the prisoners were accorded far better treatment than that granted to other POWs in Germany. Deputy Commandant Major Gustav Simoleit, a...
What would happen if one face of the Earth faced the sun year round, for ever?	Here's a better answer: _URL_0_	[ "The following phenomena would occur if Earth is a perfect sphere, in a circular orbit around the Sun, and if its axis is tilted 90°, so that the axis itself is on the orbital plane (similar to Uranus). At one date in the year, the Sun would be directly overhead at the North Pole, so its declination would be +90°. ...
how does a flute produce sound?	It helps to think of the air in the flute and around the mouthpiece as a squishy fluid, like Jello or jam. We usually think of air as flowing like water, but you can compress air (squish), and compressed air will push back, like when you squeeze a bike tire. When you blow over the flute, you have to hit just he right ...	[ "The flute is a transverse (or side-blown) woodwind instrument that is closed at the blown end. It is played by blowing a stream of air over the \"embouchure hole\". The pitch is changed by opening or closing keys that cover circular tone holes (there are typically 16 tone holes). Opening and closing the holes prod...
Is it possible to cause light to travel in an "orbit"?	This happens at 1.5 times the Schwarzschild radius outside a stationary black hole.	[ "Rather than exceeding the speed of light within a local reference frame, a spacecraft would traverse distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, resulting in effective faster-than-light travel. Objects cannot accelerate to the speed of light within normal spacetime; instead, the Al...
how does intuition or instinct work?	We have senses, you are normally taught about the 5 cardinal senses, taste, touch, sight, sound and smell. But in truth, depending on the definition, we have more. Including the sense of direction, the sense of pain, your sense of balance, and the sense that allows you to know where you limbs are without seeing them (...	[ "Intuition is an assumed truth with an unknown, or possibly unexamined, source. It is a judgment that is not dependent on a rational examination of the facts. It is usually experienced as a sudden sensation and/or rush of thoughts that feel \"right\". Many persons experience intuitive epiphanies which later prove t...
is it possible to manipulate your voice? such as make it raspier, more hoarse or deeper?	Permanently? Not without outside help.	[ "Voice teachers teach different techniques, but long-term use will still take its toll if done incorrectly – these techniques are designed to reduce rather than eliminate harm. However it has been shown by many vocalists (ex. Christian Älvestam) that long-term use of these techniques can occur without causing harm ...
Was there a moment that was agreed upon to be the basis for clocks moving forward?	The globally agreed upon standard for time is called [Coordinated Universal Time or UTC.](_URL_1_) The wiki has plenty of information on the standard, but basically in 1960 a bunch of national labs (e.g. _URL_0_ from NIST in the US) agreed upon the standard. Prior to this (and importantly prior to the invention of the ...	[ "The clock was officially set in motion on 30 August 1905, by Joseph Carruthers, the Premier of New South Wales, who noted that he \"thought that the day on which peace had been declared between Russia and Japan was a fitting time to set it in motion\" and that \"he hoped there would be peace and goodwill on earth ...
indians: what is the deal with the train system in india?	South Indian here. In my 22 years of life I have never seen anyone sit on top of the train. But have seen people hanging on train and bus. Even I have hanged on to the door sometimes during some short distance bus travel. I never had fear of falling down. Its more like a positive attitude that I won't fall off the bus....	[ "The Indian Railways are broadly organised from functional groups within the Indian Railway Service. India's rail system is managed at a regional level since Indian Railways have divided themselves into eighteen zonal railways. Each zone, headed by a General Manager, is semi-autonomous and this creates a matrix org...
Explain the application of Five Sigma for me?	Let's define a few terms first: Sigma (σ) in this case represents standard deviation. Standard deviation is the mean distance of values from the mean (μ) of the set of values. A normal (or Gaussian) distribution is probably the most common probability density function. It's some function like e^-(x-μ)^(2)/2σ^2 and gi...	[ "According to an article by John Dodge, editor in chief of \"Design News\", use of Six Sigma is inappropriate in a research environment. Dodge states \"excessive metrics, steps, measurements and Six Sigma's intense focus on reducing variability water down the discovery process. Under Six Sigma, the free-wheeling na...
Were their any internal anti-imperialist movements at any time during ancient Romes existence?	I don't really know about any internal rebellions against the Imperial system, rather than an individual emperor, but I'll try to answer your question. (Note that I'm in no way a historian.) Rome was first ruled by Kings. Romulus is fabled to have founded Rome and was her first King. It had several kings until [Tarqui...	[ "Edward Gibbon suggested that the increasing use of Oriental-style despotism by the Roman emperors was a major factor in the fall of the Roman Empire, particularly from the reign of Elagabalus: As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious p...
The Science behind HAARP?	[Searched](_URL_4_) Relevant [discussion](_URL_6_) Original question by [permanentmarker](_URL_2_) > [the comment in question](_URL_9_) > Above is a link to the top rated comment on a post about the atmosphere above Japan heating rapidly before the March 11 earthquake. > I have heard one person on reddit go of...	[ "HEPEX was founded in 2004 with NOAA and ECMWF as co-chairs. It is an international research initiative with the aim to \"\"demonstrate the added value of hydrological ensemble predictions (HEPS) for emergency management and water resources sectors to make decisions that have important consequences for economy, pub...
how do sinks work?	I think you mean how do _faucets_ work, or _water pipes_. Pressure. The utility supplier pumps potable water into the top of the system. Boost pumps along the system keep the pressure up throughout the underground mains. This supplies the pressure to your house. When you open a faucet you are creating a point for ...	[ "A sink — also known by other names including sinker, washbowl, hand basin and wash basin—is a bowl-shaped plumbing fixture used for washing hands, dishwashing, and other purposes. Sinks have taps (faucets) that supply hot and cold water and may include a spray feature to be used for faster rinsing. They also inclu...
What happens to the body when it falls into lava?	Probably not. The average density of human flesh is far lower than that of lava, so you wouldn't so much as fall into it as you would just fall onto the top of the lava. It would be similar to falling onto a frozen lake, instead of into the water. Except you'd be seared and burned horribly at first. Your clothes wo...	[ "The floor is lava (also known as hot lava) is a game in which players pretend that the floor or ground is made of lava (or any other lethal substance, such as acid or quicksand), and thus must avoid touching the ground, as touching the ground would \"kill\" the player who did so. The players stay off the floor by ...
what is bearing in navigation and how is it different from heading?	Bearing is the direction to any given point or object. Heading is the direction you are travelling in.	[ "BULLET::::1. In land navigation, a 'bearing' is ordinarily calculated in a clockwise direction starting from a reference direction of 0° and increasing to 359.9 degrees. Measured in this way, a bearing is referred to as an \"azimuth\" by the US Army but not by armies in other English speaking nations, which use th...
How can potential energy be relative?	Voltage is not potential energy, it is potential. A charge has to be introduced into the potential in order for there to be "potential energy", and it is the charge that contains the potential energy, not the potential itself. > However, if you can do that, why can you not just test 2 points that are infinitely far a...	[ "Potential energy is closely linked with forces. If the work done by a force on a body that moves from \"A\" to \"B\" does not depend on the path between these points, then the work of this force measured from \"A\" assigns a scalar value to every other point in space and defines a scalar potential field. In this c...
why is it preferable to keep apps running on android lollipop instead of closing them frequently?	The phone is a high tech piece of equipment that is better at deciding at what to keep open and not in order to maximize battery life and performance. The app is not actually running when it appears in the recent app list. It might not even be in the phones memory. The recent app list is there as a convenience featur...	[ "\" Xiaomi seems to be running an overly aggressive background app killing setting that'll close most apps running in the background if they've not been used for a while. It's difficult to assess exactly how long this time period has to be, but I found common apps like GroupMe and Hangouts, among plenty of others, ...
how can different operating systems able to read programs written in different programming languages.	When you write a program in some programming language, you can't just run it. You need to pass the code through a compiler, a program that translates the code into binary code that the processor can understand. Even then, the executable binary code is platform specific. You can't run a program compiled for Windows o...	[ "Under Linux and other Unix-like systems, a program easily accommodates to any of the three cases because the same interface (namely, standard streams) controls the display and keyboard. Also, specialized programming libraries help to output the text in a way appropriate to the given display device and interface to...
how come when i use "end task" programs that aren't responding close instantly but when i "x" out of them it takes a while	Analogy: Pressing the X is telling the program that it's fired and kindly ask it on clear its desk and be out of the building by close of business hours. Using "End Task" is calling building security and having them tossed out immediately.	[ "The \"end\" case is a very simple case that works to simply delay the program to allow the user enough time to check that they have received their change and picked up their item. After 5000 milliseconds (5 seconds) the wait timer is used, up and the program continues back to the start page to wait for another use...
why do me teeth feel loose? are they really loose, temporarily, or is my brain just playing tricks on me?	Your teeth do move very slightly over time (they tend to crowd as wisdom teeth come in, for example), but they shouldn't be loose. If you tap on them while looking in the mirror, do you see any motion? Or is it just a feeling? If it's the former, see a dentist immediately, that shouldn't ever happen. If it's the latt...	[ "Clinically, because of its reflex function, the mesencephalic nucleus can be tested with the jaw jerk reflex. Because of its function in oral proprioception, lesions of the trigeminal mesencephalic nucleus cause effects on feeding. The mesencephalic nucleus can be thought of simply as the \"nucleus that keeps your...
Cutting someone in half and they still live for a few seconds?	Yes, it is possible, and during the French Revolution, there were some doctors that were experimenting to see if the brain was still functional after decapitation by guillotine [[1]](_URL_0_)	[ "Nevertheless, physical altercation resulting from cutting is rare. It was reported that an 18-year-old National Serviceman in Malaysia was bludgeoned to death after he attempted to jump the queue at a food counter. Another notable incident occurred in New York City at The Halal Guys food cart, resulting in the dea...
What will happen to the Voyager spacecraft if they never come into contact with anything?	It has a pretty good chance (well north of 50%) of outliving the Sun, at least in some sort of semi-recognizable form. After trillions or quadrillions of years, I'm not sure, it will eventually essentially completely evaporate (even metals have vapor pressure). Although it'll cool down to the temperature of the CMB eve...	[ "Meanwhile, the crew of the \"Voyager\" finds the gravimetric distortion that the away team's shuttle went into. A probe is launched to determine if contact could be made, however the situation is complicated by the arrival of an alien salvage team bent on closing the distortion, an action which would crush everyth...
What exactly is happening when a cyclist rides hand-free?	[Trail on Wikipedia](_URL_0_) If you draw a line representing the steering axis, through the headtube, down to the ground, where that line hits the ground will be in front of where the tire touches the ground. When the ground exerts force on the tire, because that force is pulling the wheel back from a place behind th...	[ "Freeride is a discipline of the sport longboarding. Freeride is the compound word referring to the act of descending a riding surface interspersed with various maneuvers such as semi-perpendicular slides by breaking traction and carving (riding in an 'S' shaped path). Riders often change their riding stance as a r...
how did fungi develop antibiotics fast enough to kill bacteria? and why couldn't bacteria just develop faster to overcome the antibiotics fungi made, therefore becoming resistant?	Many bacteria HAVE evolved to become resistant to penicillin due to its widespread use as an antibiotic when it was first discovered. From what I understand, it might be opposite of what you think. Bacteria have poor DNA repair mechanisms due to their rapid generation time, so they often accumulate mutations. A rando...	[ "Development of fungal resistance can be prevented by not using cyproconazole \"repeatedly alone in the same season\" or by not using it late in the infection, that is, curatively. Fungi can develop resistance if the same fungicide is used repeatedly or when fungicides with the same mode of action are repeatedly.(p...
why do truckers always pass other cars/truckers when going uphill? i seem to notice this mostly on the interstates and it always results (obviously) in the “fast lane” getting backed up.	They don't always pass when going uphill. Sometimes they pass going downhill and sometimes they pass on the level (source: I've seen them do it many times). You probably notice it more when they do it going uphill because it inconveniences you most then. It's OK though: in all the jurisdictions I'm aware of, trucks ...	[ "Despite the conjecture, there is reduced chance of pedestrians using the truck apron as a sidewalk if there is a large vehicle approaching. Even when a truck apron is not present, most pedestrians will step back from the edge of the road when there is a large vehicle or semi-truck approaching for two reasons: to a...
how is it that although we don't know all of the words in the dictionary by heart, we can easily spot when something is not a word?	1. Recognition is easier than recall, so if you see a real world you usually recognize it, even if it's not one you use. 2. In a specific language, certain letter combinations are rare or completely unused. Here are some realistic non-words: famp, droom, pank. Here are some plainly unrealistic ones: qqaq, eoao, thethit...	[ "To properly identify senses of words one must know common sense facts. Moreover, sometimes the common sense is needed to disambiguate such words like pronouns in case of having anaphoras or cataphoras in the text.\n", "A common strategy for finding all the words is to go through the puzzle left to right (or vice...
why black holes cause infinite curvature?	Black holes are only infinite right in the center. The curvature at the event horizon is "curved so much that not even light can escape", but that isn't infinite. You don't need infinite anything to stop light from escaping.	[ "BULLET::::2. The singularity at the heart of the black hole, where conventional black hole theory says there is infinite spacetime curvature due to an infinitely intense gravitational field from a region of zero volume. Modern physics breaks down when such parameters are infinite and zero.\n", "With classical-mo...
why do charley horses (the type of painful muscle cramp) seem to mostly happen while you're asleep?	Because you sleep in weird positions and your muscles can't properly relax, or it's too cold and your body won't bother shivering, but the muscle still has to warm itself up,so it stays active and pulsates,and eventually it gets stuck	[ "Charlie horse (or charley horse) is a popular colloquial term in Canada and the United States for painful involuntary spasms or cramps in the leg muscles, typically lasting anywhere from a few seconds to about a day. It is less likely to refer to a bruise on an arm or leg and a bruising of the quadriceps muscle of...
Would a gladiator beat a trained soldier in combat?	Well, to be fair, the terms "gladiator" and "soldier" are really meaningless terms and describe a very wide variety of persons. For instance, the majority of "gladiators" if we are referring to people that fought in the gladiator games, were just slaves that were sold to whomever happened to be putting on the festiviti...	[ "Combats between experienced, well trained gladiators demonstrated a considerable degree of stagecraft. Among the cognoscenti, bravado and skill in combat were esteemed over mere hacking and bloodshed; some gladiators made their careers and reputation from bloodless victories. Suetonius describes an exceptional \"m...
When people were put in stocks as punishment back in colonial times, was it just a given that they'd be raped?	Hi, not to discourage further discussion, but you may be interested in this answer from a past question that deals directly with your question! _URL_0_	[ "Colonial forces arrested seventy blacks and jailed them. Six are reported to have committed suicide. Twenty-seven were put on trial, 21 of whom were convicted and sentenced to death. Twenty were burned to death and one was executed on a breaking wheel. This was a form of punishment no longer used on whites at the ...
If two planets were of the same gravitational pull(earth's for example) and were close to each other what would happen if an object(or human) was directly in the middle of it?	If the object was perfectly placed in the center, it would remain there, since the force of gravity from the planets would be equal in magnitude but in opposite direction. However, this would not be stable. Any minor change in the system would cause it to accelerate one way or another. All it would take would be for ...	[ "It can be said that two objects in space orbiting each other in the absence of other forces are in free fall around each other, e.g. that the Moon or an artificial satellite \"falls around\" the Earth, or a planet \"falls around\" the Sun. Assuming spherical objects means that the equation of motion is governed by...
why do gas stations offer mid grade gas	In my state (Montana) premium gas is 91 octane, but regular gas is 85.5 octane. From what I understand the low-octane gas is acceptable because of the altitude, at least for older cars without engine-management computers. So the mid-grade gas is 87 octane, which is what my engine requires. Thus, I buy mid-grade gas bec...	[ "Convenience stores located within many petrol/gas stations sell pre-packaged sandwiches, doughnuts, and hot food. Many gas stations in the United States and Europe also sell frozen foods, and have microwave ovens on the premises in which to prepare them. Petrol Stations in Australia sell foods such as hot pies, sa...
when people sing in a tonal language (like chinese), how do they keep the tones in their voice?	The short answer is, they don't. You can't really tell the tones when listening to a song. The meaning is usually pretty clear from context. The tones are basically lost when whispering Chinese too. It's still understandable.	[ "All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch acc...
Has mercury been successfully employed to treat anything?	Mercury is an ingredient in many vaccines, albeit not as the element purely. It's a component of the preservatives, and this is declining as well. I can't find anything in my journal access offhand, nor am I specifically aware of anything of this sort. That said, there are plenty of elements that we don't use, and u...	[ "Today, the use of mercury in medicine has greatly declined in all respects, especially in developed countries. Thermometers and sphygmomanometers containing mercury were invented in the early 18th and late 19th centuries, respectively. In the early 21st century, their use is declining and has been banned in some c...
how can tv shows like south park and family guy still use the “all persons fictitious” disclaimer when they are clearly making fun of an actual person/celebrity?	That disclaimer isn't protecting them from a celebrity suing them. What is protecting them from a celebrity suing them is the fact that the 1st Amendment has been held to allow you to use someone's name and likeness in certain limited ways when that person is a "subject of public interest." The short of it is that ...	[ "On Day 70, there was a controversial Head of Household competition where the HouseGuests were to determine if certain statements were \"fact\" or \"fiction.\" Many fans of the show, including \"\" co-host Dick Donato, were displeased with the final \"fact or fiction\" statement, which dealt with how many preexisti...
how rainbow tables work and how they're used for password cracking.	Passwords are stored by "hashing" -- to explain this intuitively, think of it like you give me your password, I run it through a machine, and the machine gives me an output that I store. The main point of this machine is 1. The only thing that can cause the it to output what it just did is your password -- any other p...	[ "A rainbow table is a precomputed table for reversing cryptographic hash functions, usually for cracking password hashes. Tables are usually used in recovering a password (or credit card numbers, etc.) up to a certain length consisting of a limited set of characters. It is a practical example of a space–time tradeo...
Is it possible to set something on fire by pouring boiling water on it?	yes, if it is a water reactive substance like calcium carbide water will react exothermically and ignite the gases produced	[ "Using water is one common method to extinguish a fire. Water extinguishes a fire by cooling, which removes heat because of water’s ability to absorb massive amounts of heat as it converts to water vapor. Without heat, the fuel cannot keep the oxidizer from reducing the fuel in order to sustain the fire. Water also...
how does a cvt(continuously variable transmission) work?	A normal geared transmission switches between larger and smaller gears to change speed to power or power to speed. A CVT uses pulleys that can move apart or back together. The inside of the pulley is inclined, so as it moves apart, the diameter that the belt rides on gets smaller, and then larger again as it moves bac...	[ "The continuously variable transmission (CVT) is a transmission in which the ratio of the rotational speeds of two shafts, as the input shaft and output shaft of a vehicle or other machine, can be varied continuously within a given range, providing an infinite number of possible ratios. The CVT allows the driver or...
Recently I read that recombination (the coupling of electrons and protons to form atoms) happened 378,000 years after the Big Bang. How can this estimate be so precise?	The answer is that there is a direct relationship between the age of an object and the redshift of an object. This comes out of the [ΛCDM model](_URL_0_) of the universe, which basically just says we trust that general relativity keeps working on really large scales. If the current distance between you and another poi...	[ "In cosmology, recombination refers to the epoch at which charged electrons and protons first became bound to form electrically neutral hydrogen atoms. Recombination occurred about 379,000 years after the Big Bang (at a redshift of \"z\" = ). The word \"recombination\" is misleading, since the big bang theory doesn...
how does a single firework explode more than once and every explosion all at once.	The first is just a rocket pretty much. it explodes and a bunch of shells are released ("shells". they're not hard like artillery ones.) with a fuse, of a very specific length and material that is lit by the initial one. this process repeats with the last ones. We've been making these things for thousands of years. We...	[ "The explosion manifested itself in a volume of flame and dust at the number two or downcast shaft, followed seconds later by a volume of flame from the upcast or number one shaft which set fire to the wooden sheds or headings above it.\n", "In fireworks, a burst charge is a pyrotechnic mixture placed in a shell ...
how does voluntary/involuntary breathing work?	From what I understand the nervous system doesn't really do anything differently per se. I think it's more a matter of which part/parts of the brain are sending the signal. I believe the Medulla is what normally controls things like breathing, but once you start doing it consciously, it may be that more frontal lobe pa...	[ "Breathing (or ventilation) is the process of moving air into and out of the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the internal environment, mostly by bringing in oxygen and flushing out carbon dioxide.\n", "Breathing is the repetitive process of bringing air into the lungs and taking waste products out. The oxyg...
how does fast charging work?	A lot of wrong answers here. Quickcharging happens when the charging adapter communicates with the power management chip (pmic) about the current state of the battery. You see when a battery is empty its chemical state can absorb a lot more current than when the battery is almost full. Quick charging optimizes the elec...	[ "A typical intelligent charger fast-charges a battery up to about 85% of its maximum capacity in less than an hour, then switches to trickle charging, which takes several hours to top off the battery to its full capacity.\n", "Quick Charge is a technology found in Qualcomm SoCs, used in devices such as mobile pho...
How did the Practice of buying and selling an Officer's Commission become so widespread in the British military, and did having incompetent rich officers contribute to the decline in their military power?	I don't see how the sale of commissions could be related to the decline of British military power: purchase of commissions was abolished in 1871 by William Gladstone's Liberal government under the Cardwell Reforms, largely as a response to the debacles of the Crimean War (in particular the Charge of the Light Brigade)....	[ "The purchase of officer commissions in the British Army was the practice of paying money to be made an officer in the cavalry and infantry regiments of the English and later British Army. By payment, a commission as an officer could be secured, avoiding the need to wait to be promoted for merit or seniority. This ...
"live within your means" as the saying goes. but why is austerity not a good thing when you are a debt stricken country in a deep recession?	The reason it's good for you to save money as an individual is because you may need the safety net and because one day you may like to keep existing without working for an income. Saving, for an individual, is selfish but necessary. But for an economy, everyone saving money is a bad deal, because borrowing makes grow...	[ "Paul Krugman wrote in July 2014: \"The logic of a balance sheet recession is straightforward. Imagine that for whatever reason people have grown careless about both borrowing and lending, so that many families and/or firms have taken on high levels of debt. And suppose that at some point people more or less sudden...
why does rolling he windows down help car sickness, but the vent / air conditioner doesn't?	I have found that breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth helps with car sickness, is there a reason why?	[ "Air-conditioning for automobiles came into wide use from the late twentieth century. Although air conditioners use significant power, the drag of a car with closed windows is less than if the windows are open to cool the occupants. There has been much debate on the effect of air conditioning on the fuel efficiency...
what is the difference (if any) between medical grade nitroglycerin (like for angina) and "omg explosion" grade nitroglycerin?	They are exactly the same thing, except the medical grade is in the range of milligrans, while you need at least a few grams of the stuff to create any kind of noticeable explosion. The medical grade is also very pure due to the fact that you're putting it in your body, a constraint that the explosive doesn't need.	[ "Nitroglycerin (NG), also known as nitroglycerine, trinitroglycerin (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by nitrating glycerol with white fuming nitric acid under conditions appropriate to the formation of the nitri...
Why was Jesus poor as a Child?	I can not answer for the Jesus of Christianity, /u/husky54 or /u/koine_lingua might be able to help with that part and their answers should (hopefully) at least to some degree correspond with what I can tell you about the historical Jesus. Jesus is usually said to have been a carpenter and the son of a carpenter, thi...	[ "BULLET::::- \"Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor\": From having the fullness of the Godhead in Him, for the sake of human being, Jesus had become human and was exposed to outward poverty, born of poor parents, had no place to lay His head, was ministered to by others, had nothing to bequeath His...
how do airport codes work when there are 17,678 commercial airports but only 17,576 possible combinations of letters?	IATA codes are only used for airports that have scheduled passenger service. Pilots use ICAO codes for airports. Ticket booking and baggage systems use IATA codes and there are only about 3000 airports that need those.	[ "For many reasons, some airport codes do not fit the normal scheme described above. Some airports, for example, cross several municipalities or regions, and therefore, use codes derived from some of their letters, resulting in DFW for Dallas/Fort Worth, DTW for Detroit–Wayne County, LBA for Leeds–Bradford (Airport)...
Why don't strong magnetic fields disrupt the normal electrical activity of cells?	So most magnetic fields only very weakly effect the eletrons in your body, and generally not enough to displace them from the nucleus of the atom. Basically the local forces tend to dominate the energetic landscape compared to the external field. Now you can have Zeeman splitting, where electrons of different spins wil...	[ "A strong changing magnetic field can induce electrical currents in conductive tissue such as the brain. Since the magnetic field penetrates tissue, it can be generated outside of the head to induce currents within, causing transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). These currents depolarize neurons in a selected par...
How popular was jesus by the time of his death?	This is truly an excellent question. One that could actually take pages and chapters to answer (which many have done and I will cite below) but I will do my best to try and help answer it briefly. I have also answered similar questions to this in the past, so I hope you don’t mind if I copy and paste some of my past ...	[ "In his book \"Did Jesus Exist?\", Bart Ehrman surveys the arguments \"mythicists\" have made against the existence of Jesus since the idea was first mooted at the end of the 18th century. As for the lack of contemporaneous records for Jesus, Ehrman notes no comparable Jewish figure is mentioned in contemporary rec...
the entire plot of bioshock infinite. still haven't figured it out completley.	Spoilers obviously. Booker DeWitt fought in the battle at wounded knee, which was a very bad thing if you weren't aware. Afterwords he felt strong remorse for what he did and considered going to a baptism to try and absolve himself of his sins. Now in the universe of Bioshock there are an infinite amount of alternate...	[ "The book ends with Jordan declaring that he will clear the No Go Zone, after Hayden runs back to the Tower and informs him of Ed's trip through London. We read reflections from Nicola, David, Jordan, Ed, and St. George himself about how things are beginning to change. Ed and The Kid believe that Wormwood may be th...
if you melt a penny or rip up a dollar, are you combating inflation, since that cash is no longer in circulation? or is inflation less straightforward?	Yes, you are combatting inflation, but the amount of new currency that is added to the economy everyday is so massive that unless you were to orchestrate a huge money burn, you couldn’t make any sort of difference	[ "Some have proposed a \"reduced cash\" system, where small bills and coins are available for anonymous, everyday transactions, but high-denomination notes are eliminated. This would make the amount of cash needed to move large amounts of value physically awkward and easier to detect. Large notes are also the most v...
How far from the Earth would an asteroid big enough to destroy all life be visible?	Visible to the best astronomical tools luckily pointed in the right direction, visible to back yard telescopes, visible like a star, or visible like the impending doom of a rapidly growing fireball?	[ "Data shows asteroid to have a diameter of about . Scientists think that could be the exposed core of an early planet that could have been as large as Mars and lost its surface in a series of violent collisions.\n", "For larger asteroids ( 100m to 1 km across), prediction is based on cataloging the asteroid, year...
why do phone companies, like the iphone, focus on making smartphones thinner rather than putting in a bigger battery?	Look at sales. There have been quite a few smart phones that have focused on battery life being the number 1 priority. The problem was that they didn't sell as well as the new phone that's 1 mm thinner.	[ "There has been an industry shift from feature phones (including low-end smartphones), which rely mainly on volume sales, to high-end flagship smartphones which also enjoy higher margins, thus manufacturers find high-end smartphones much more lucrative than feature phones. \n", "It is high, wide, and deep, compar...
what really happens when you re-enter earth's atmosphere in a space shuttle (gravity wise)?	Nothing happens gravity wise. Gravity is the force that pulls 2 objects to each other. A space shuttle is pulled towards the earth, the closer it get's the harder the pull. But nothing significant happens gravity wise when it enters the atmosphere.	[ "The reentry capsule and the spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere on 13 June 2010 at 13:51 UTC (23:21 local). The heat-shielded capsule made a parachute landing in the South Australian outback while the spacecraft broke up and incinerated in a large fireball.\n", "Since the reaction control system no longer fu...
are musicians brains "wired" differently than non-musicians?	A well-trained musician can hear notes and different types of instruments in pieces. They study music and can decipher music regularly. I would say anyone can learn music and be able to create a song if you learn the foundations of music.	[ "Studies have shown that the human brain has an implicit musical ability. Koelsch, Gunter, Friederici and Schoger (2000) investigated the influence of preceding musical context, task relevance of unexpected chords and the degree of probability of violation on music processing in both musicians and non-musicians. Fi...
why cant i smell or taste when i catch a cold?	When you have a cold, phlegm blocks the passages to the olfactory receptors at the top of the nose meaning that less air is going to pass over them. Thus, fewer molecules are reaching the olfactory cells because they are being blocked by the phlegm. The taste of food is determined more by smell than taste, so the rea...	[ "The experience of eating favored foods with a cold often disappoints. This is because congestion blocks nasal passageways through which air and flavor molecules enter and exit, thus temporarily reducing retronasal smell capacity.\n", "Odors that a person is used to, such as their own body odor, are less noticeab...
Viking height and build.	Hi there! The thing to keep in mind about your question is that, properly used, the term "Viking" refers to an occupation, not an ethnic group or proto-nation or whatever. That is, "vikings" were people who participated in viking activity: seafaring raiding, banditry and piracy along the coasts and even far inland in...	[ "Viking Heights is a prominent flat-topped mountain, 2,960 m, between Tanngarden Peaks and Mount Wideroe in the Sor Rondane Mountains, Antarctica. Mapped by Norwegian cartographers in 1957 from air photos taken by U.S. Navy Operation Highjump, 1946–47, and named Vikinghogda (the Viking height).\n", "The early vik...
how my neighbor's radon exhaust pipe is not a health concern for me.	To dilute your neighbor's exhaust to safe levels, you need 500L of air for every L of exhaust. If you have 5m between your houses, and your houses are 10m tall, and the pipe is 10cm (3") wide, then you have 5000L of air in the slice of air between your houses that's as wide as the pipe. If you have a breeze of 10% th...	[ "According to the EPA's \"A Citizen's Guide to Radon\", the method to reduce radon \"primarily used is a vent pipe system and fan, which pulls radon from beneath the house and vents it to the outside\", which is also called sub-slab depressurization, soil suction, or active soil depressurization (ASD). Generally in...
why do homeless peoples dogs always seem so immaculately well trained?	I think it's a combination of several things: 1. They probably aren't fed well, so they may lack the energy to be as excitable as house-bred dogs. 2. They're out in the open all day with a constant companion. This isn't a dog stuck inside a house while their master is at work all day. Nor is it a dog that is chained...	[ "In contrast to service dogs who assist disabled people with physical tasks, comfort dogs are not trained in skilled tasks, but serve as constant companions with a keen sense for someone feeling down. They can provide a way for people who are distressed to find sanctuary.\n", "Among the general human population, ...
How would a tyrannosaurus rex have laid down to rest, and then get back up? It seems with such small arms, lying down and righting-oneself up would be a disadvantage.	Birds do not sleep on their sides, they bend their legs (and usually tuck their head under their wings) There is speculation that this is how a Dinosaur such as a T-rex would rest. Although obviously without the wing. Mei, a dinosaur related to T-rex but much smaller has been found fossilised in this position. _U...	[ "Though \"Kentrosaurus\" likely stood with forelimbs erect like in other dinosaurs, it is hypothesised that the animal adopted a sprawling posture when defending itself. Its neck was flexible enough to allow it to keep sight of predators, as it could reach the sides of its body with its snout and look over the back...
what the hell is windows updating all the time?	You know how your computer isn't constantly becoming part of a botnet? You're welcome.	[ "In October 2015, Windows 10 began to appear as an \"Optional\" update in the Windows Update interface, but pre-selected for installation on some systems. A Microsoft spokesperson said that this was a mistake, and that the download would no longer be pre-selected by default. However, on October 29, 2015, Microsoft ...
Can small multicelled organisms sense or detect single celled organisms?	This question is too broad to answer - considering that many of these small organisms prey or live symbiotically with each other, there is not one, but thousands of ways that they detect each other or communicate. If you consider 959 cells to be a small multicelled organism, than C. elegans can detect E. coli as it is ...	[ "\"Pluripotent\" cells, which can differentiate into other cell types, have not yet been demonstrated unambiguously in \"T. adhaerens\", in contrast to the case of the Eumetazoa. The conventional view is that dorsal and ventral epithelium cells arise only from their own kind. \n", "Parakaryon myojinensis is a sin...
would inflation exist if our money were backed by something?	Sure it would--but inflation would then be tied to the supply of the backing, rather than just the supply of notes themselves. For example, the Spanish imported so much gold from the New World that they experienced dreadful inflation that was really damaging to their economy. That's the downside of the gold standard--i...	[ "The effect of money on inflation is most obvious when governments finance spending in a crisis, such as a civil war, by printing money excessively. This sometimes leads to hyperinflation, a condition where prices can double in a month or less. The money supply is also thought to play a major role in determining mo...
how can there be so many different interpretations of a single religious text?	Because try as we might, words can be very imprecise. Even nonreligious, everyday phrases can be interpreted in many different ways. And then add to that the fact that it's been translated from language to language to language, then the original meanings can be lost very easily. As an experiment, take a sentence fr...	[ "Religious texts or scriptures are the texts which various religious traditions consider to be sacred, or of central importance to their religious tradition. Some religions and spiritual movements believe that their sacred texts are divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired, while others have individual autho...
how are new variations of plants and fruits created?	A mating partner IS selected. Nowadays, it's all done in sterile labs, where a biologist can take pollen from one plant and purposefully fertilize another plant with it. Assuming there were two different varieties to begin with, this creates a third variety. As already mentioned, direct gene editing is also sometimes u...	[ "There is a wide variety in the structures of fruit across the different species of plants. Evolution has selected for certain traits in plants that would increase their fitness. This diversity arose through the selection of advantageous methods for seed protection and dispersal in different environments. It is kno...
How were Latinos/Hispanics treated in pro-Slavery America?	You may be interested in some of the past questions collected in our section on [How were other minorities treated during the period of racial segregation in America?](_URL_0_)	[ "In 1984, the media portrayed Latinos as illegal aliens that were on the run. This wasn't an accurate representation of who they really were and the lifestyles they lived in reality (doctors, lawyers, husbands, wives, etc.). The study \"Latinwood and TV\" 2000 restated that Latino Americans were not accurately pres...
why dont my stomach acids dissolve me from the inside?	Gastric mucosa. The inner surface of the stomach is lined by a mucous membrane known as the gastric mucosa. The mucosa is always covered by a layer of thick mucus that is secreted by tall columnar epithelial cells and protects the stomach itself from the acids contained within.	[ "The highly acidic environment in the stomach lumen causes proteins from food to lose their characteristic folded structure (or denature). This exposes the protein's peptide bonds. The gastric chief cells of the stomach secrete enzymes for protein breakdown (inactive pepsinogen, and in infancy rennin). Hydrochloric...
why does the charge in fully charged rechargeable batteries go down even if i don't use the batteries?	it's a property called self discharge. depending on the chemistry and purity of the electrolyte, it can vary from several years to a few % of total charge a month to as high as 30% a month.	[ "If a battery is connected to a significant load during charging, the end of the Uo-phase may never be reached and the battery will gas and be damaged, depending on the charge current relative to the battery capacity.\n", "Batteries that are stored for a long period or that are discharged at a small fraction of t...
How do these flash drives do this?	Based on the image I would assume those screens use e-ink/e-paper similar to kindle readers in that the last image on the screen is able to persist without power. So while plugged into a USB port it checks the memory usage in the device and sets the screen to correspond to that, then when unplugged the image stays due...	[ "A flash drive consists of a small printed circuit board carrying the circuit elements and a USB connector, insulated electrically and protected inside a plastic, metal, or rubberized case, which can be carried in a pocket or on a key chain, for example. The USB connector may be protected by a removable cap or by r...
Since red blood cells contain no nucleus how is dna obtained from blood?	There are plenty of white blood cells, for instance, these contain DNA (I'm not sure if this is where DNA is best extracted from, but I've shown you existence). As an aside, blood type can help to narrow people down.	[ "The formation of red blood cells is commonly known as hematopoiesis. Up to the first 60 days of life, the yolk sac is the main source of hematopoiesis. The liver is then used as the main hematopoietic organ of the embryo until near birth, where it is then taken over by the bone marrow. Most red blood cells are rel...
During the mid to late middle ages did heavily armored knights play much of a role in patrolling, raiding, chevauchee, etc. or were those mainly limited to lighter troops? Did knights ever opt to wear lighter armor or adopt a more flexible weapon than a couched lance for these sorts of duties?	You might find [this post](_URL_0_) I made a few weeks ago useful. To expand on it, I do think there's too much distinction made between heavy and light cavalry within a western European context, and indeed between infantry and cavalry. Reality was messier than that. Let's start with a brief primer on what John Gilli...	[ "However, during the initial Mongol invasion and the subsequent raids afterwards, heavily armored knights and cavalry proved more effective at fighting the Mongols than their light-armored counterparts. During the Battle of Mohi for example, while the Hungarian light cavalry and infantry were decimated by Mongol fo...
Why does the sun shine in a "star" shape?	This is caused by the movable aperture blades in a camera lens. _URL_0_	[ "Due to their great distance from the Earth, all stars except the Sun appear to the unaided eye as shining points in the night sky that twinkle because of the effect of the Earth's atmosphere. The Sun is also a star, but it is close enough to the Earth to appear as a disk instead, and to provide daylight. Other tha...
Why do you see double when drinking or sometimes experience the situation where you need to close one eye to concentrate on written text? More specifically, what mechanisms in the brain create the situation where hemispheres of the brain might not communicate correctly in this situation?	Thank you for this question, there is some fascinating work in the brain going on here. Alcohol is a "depressant". This means that it slows down the brain. When we are intoxicated with alcohol our eye tracking slows down (along with a lot of other brain processes). Eye tracking is what makes both of our eyes look at ...	[ "Most speed reading courses claim that the peripheral vision can be used to read text. This has been suggested impossible because the text is blurred out through lack of visual resolution. At best the human brain can only \"guess\" at the content of text outside the macular region. There simply are not enough cone ...
what's the difference between looney tunes and merrie melodies?	Silly Symphonies was Disney Looney Toons was Warner Brothers Merry Melodies was made by an independent studio until being purchased by Warner Brothers in 1944	[ "More \"Looney Tunes\" characters were created (most of which first appeared in \"Merrie Melodies\" cartoons) such as Tweety (debuted in 1942's \"A Tale of Two Kitties\"), Sylvester (debuted in 1945's \"Life with Feathers\"), Yosemite Sam (debuted in 1945's \"Hare Trigger\"), Pepé Le Pew (debuted in 1945's \"Odor-a...
is gravity the only measure of mass?	Mass is a property, gravitational force is a force. Forces and masses are not the same thing, though there is a relationship between them: F=ma. The problem is that many people think that weight is the same thing as mass, especially due to conversions from imperial (lb) to metric (kg), as if these quantities were equa...	[ "The distinction between mass and weight is unimportant for many practical purposes because the strength of gravity does not vary too much on the surface of the Earth. In a uniform gravitational field, the gravitational force exerted on an object (its weight) is directly proportional to its mass. For example, objec...
How historically accurate is the architecture in the Asassin's Creed series?	I wrote this historical analysis of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flags if that will help: _URL_0_	[ "Former director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and art historian Wilbur Peat described the building's architecture as a Neo-Jacobean style, which is characterized by an irregular-shaped floor plan, projecting wall sections and bays, a hipped roof, expansive veranda, multiple gables, and prominent chimneys. The ...
why did vhs tapes show a blue screen on the tv when they started up?	That was the VCR, not the tape itself. It's the precursor to the HDMI no signal screen. Used to be blue.	[ "While VHS and Beta tapes have a break-off tab to protect recordings from erasure (as in audio Compact Cassettes and, once broken, the cavity left by the missing tab must be covered or filled before the tape can be reused), VCCs employ a reversible solution: a switch on the tape edge can be turned to red/orange to ...
why do events that have a negative effect on oil production cause immediate rises in prices of gas but when production is back to normal prices don't plummet back to where they started?	The underlying factors behind the consumer price and the wholesale price for gasoline are very different. The gasoline sitting at the pumps in your service station was paid for months ago. While the service station has to eventually average out its costs/expenses, the consumer price it charges isn't actually linked t...	[ "During the significant oil price rise through 2007, a theme among several industry observers was that the price rise was only partially due to a limit in crude oil availability (peak oil). For example, an article by Jad Mouawad cited an unusual number of fires and other outages among U.S. refineries in the summer ...
What are the long-term physiological effects of heavy body building in pre-teen years?	[Here](_URL_1_), with plenty of citations if you want to look into it further. The important part > Epiphyseal plate (growth plate) fractures may be the key concern in this controversy. Damage to these plates induced by weight training is frequently cited as a reason for avoiding weight training in children. The ex...	[ "The early physical effects of obesity in adolescence include, almost all of the child's organs being affected, gallstones, hepatitis, sleep apnoea and increased intracranial pressure. Overweight children are also more likely to grow up to be overweight adults. Obesity during adolescence has been found to increase ...
In massed infantry warfare (pikes, Roman legions, muskets, ect.) were casualties higher for soldiers in the front row? How did they convince anyone to be in front?	There is always more to be said, but you may be interested in this answer by /u/iphikrates: [Did the people in the front lines of ancient armies basically know they are going to die?](_URL_0_)	[ "The pike and shot infantry had by this time adopted a system in which arquebusiers and pikemen were intermingled in combined units; both the French and the Imperial infantry contained men with firearms interspersed in the larger columns of pikemen. This combination of pikes and small arms made close-quarters fight...
can "playing dead" really trick bears? whats the reasoning behind this? bears dont eat/kill seemingly dead things?	Playing dead is only suggested for Brown and Polar Bears and it does two things. 1 - It makes them think you're not something they would want to eat, bears aren't usually scavengers. 2 - It makes them think you're not a threat and therefore they don't want to fight you.	[ "The Bears met first and decided that they would make their own weapons like the humans, but this only led to further chaos. Next the Deer gathered to discuss their plan of action and they came to the conclusion that if a hunter was to kill a Deer, they would develop a disease. The only way to avoid this disease wa...
why do people's voices generally get higher when attempting to sound polite?	A low voice sounds big and intimidating. A high voice sounds like a harmless little child. So it implies "no offense intended!" instead of "hey get out of my way".	[ "In London, Professor Henry Higgins, a scholar of phonetics, believes that the accent and tone of one's voice determines a person's prospects in society (\"Why Can't the English?\"). At Covent Garden one evening, he meets Colonel Hugh Pickering, himself a phonetics expert who had come all the way from India to see ...
Question about alaska	The concept that it's just a lease appears to have originated as a plot element in the novel A Matter of Honour by Jefffrey Archer. This theory has no basis in reality and the Alaska purchase of 1867 was just that - a purchase.	[ "Alaska is a populated place in Cibola County, New Mexico, United States. The name was collected by the United States Geological Survey between 1976 and 1980, and entered into the Geographic Names Information System on November 13, 1980.\n", "The name \"Alaska\" () was introduced in the Russian colonial period wh...
why do we do things, which we know are dangerous or bad for us long term?	Some reasons: It's easier. The short term benefits outweigh the long term risks. (For example, drinking coffee to keep you awake and alert for work.) It's common behavior for your culture/environment. Lack of better options. (For example, cars in the US are reliant on fossil fuels. If you want to get arou...	[ "People may rely on their fear and hesitation to keep them out of the most profoundly unknown circumstances. Fear is a response to perceived danger. Risk could be said to be the way we collectively measure and share this \"true fear\"—a fusion of rational doubt, irrational fear, and a set of unquantified biases fro...
Why does North Korea have a poor record launching ICBMs	Developing ICBMs is very complex. They are not simple things to design and manufacture. The US had plenty blow up in the process of coming up with ones that worked. Thing is the US could afford to test many rockets till they got it right. North Korea is very poor and very isolated so they cannot build lots and lots...	[ "The Chinese expert in the video has estimated that North Korea can have a true ICBM within range of the US mainland between 2021 and 2026 if they can successfully master their Hwasong-10 missile. He stated that the technology and the theory behind an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile is exactly the same as an I...
why is the "black lives matter" toted towards police when statistically they seem to matter least to other black lives?	Because the police aren't actually supposed to be killing people, perhaps? Besides, statistically, white people kill mainly white people, and the same for the other ethnic groups. They're angry that a group who are supposed to avoid killing are not only killing anyway, but keep getting videotaped killing in situati...	[ "\"Black Lives Matter doesn't care about black people, they just want to cause trouble and hate white people. If they truly cared they'd be in the ghettos of America trying to help there instead of screaming about white America. That's where the murders of black people are happening, but according to BLM it's all w...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

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