Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
why does wikipedia cost so much to maintain if most of the people work for free editing the pages?	The Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia, employs a lot of people to maintain the site and the hosting. That isn't free.	[ "In an October 2012 \"Salon\" story, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales stated that he was against the practice of paid editing of Wikipedia, as are a number long-time members of Wikipedia's community. Nonetheless, a number of organizations do pay employees to edit Wikipedia articles, with one writer, Soraya Field Fi...
why do certain grapes make your mouth dry when you bite into them?	Because they have [tannin](_URL_1_) in them. Tannin is an [astringent](_URL_0_) compound, which means it binds to certain proteins in your mouth and tends to shrink and constrict body tissue.	[ "Ingestion of apple cider vinegar in tablet form poses a risk of injury to soft tissues of the mouth, throat, stomach, and kidneys. Irritation and redness are common when the eyes come into contact with vinegar, and corneal injury can occur. Using vinegar as a topical medication, ear cleaning solution, or eye wash,...
what goes into a whiteboard paint that makes it finish like a dry erase board and not a normal paint?	Dry/wet erase markers are basically just an ink that dries into something that doesn't stick well to a surface - dry erase forms a film, wet erase is water soluble. This works on any surface, in theory - you could use dry erase on rough wood, except that it would seep into pores and cracks and other rough spots befor...	[ "BULLET::::- steel or aluminum: Painted steel and aluminum dry erase also have a wide range of quality. Painted surfaces tend to be smoother, which leads to better methods of erasing. The painted surface is generally a multiple layer of coatings made up of a base coat in color (most commonly white) and a clear perf...
government encouraging marriage	It's not so much marriage that they're encouraging as being a stay-at-home spouse. There's only really a tax benefit if one person is making most of the money. If the two people make even close to the same amount of money, they pay less in taxes by filling separately.	[ "\"Although promoting marriage is undeniably a laudable aim, whether government programs can effectively promote marriage is far from certain. Government has virtually no track record on this issue. Moreover, before Congress commits to making significant investments in an unproven arena, policy makers must address ...
why are music apps like spotify so much more ad intensive on phones than their computer counter parts?	It's rather simple really. Consider a billboard on the side of a road. If the road is a highway with many cars driving past, the billboard will be much more effective than a billboard next to a small farm road. The internet is the same, people tend to advertise where the most users are. Advertisers have tools that tell...	[ "In November 2011, Spotify introduced a Spotify Apps service that made it possible for third-party developers to design applications that could be hosted within the Spotify computer software. The applications provided features such as synchronised lyrics, music reviews, and song recommendations. In June 2012, Sound...
why are there so many more 'simple' medical procedures available for humans than there are for animals?	Mostly it's money. Most people simply can't afford to spend multiple thousands of dollars on a pet. The other big problems is that animals cannot take care of themselves. You can't prescribe a horse bed rest, because it's a horse and it isn't going to rest unless you keep it doped to the gills. Seriously injured anima...	[ "Because animals cannot voice their symptoms as easily as humans, exploratory surgery is more common in animals. Exploratory surgery is done when looking for a foreign body that may be lodged in the animal's body, when looking for cancer, or when looking for various other gastrointestinal problems. It is a fairly r...
what is the difference between fat, saturated fat and trans fat? and what is the sudden big deal about trans fat?	Fats are a type of carbon-chain that your body uses for energy. Carbon atoms are able to form up to four bonds with other atoms. So a saturated fat is where the carbon chain is entirely single-bonded. The 'saturated' part comes in because most of those carbon bonds are bonded to hydrogen atoms; in fact, the most numbe...	[ "Although trans fats are edible, consuming trans fats has been shown to increase the risk of coronary artery disease in part by raising levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL, often termed \"bad cholesterol\"), lowering levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL, often termed \"good cholesterol\"), increasing triglyce...
How does human saliva composition differ from that of cats and dogs?	saliva is for: * keep the mucosa wet * lubricate food with water (or it may be too dry) * dissolve taste vector molecules inside food (very important because it's like a fast chemical analysis on the food and may help to decide if that thing can be eaten) * start to digest food * keep a microorganism-free environment ...	[ "Dogs have an olfactory sense 40 times more sensitive than a human's and they commence their lives operating almost exclusively on smell and touch. The special scents that dogs use for communication are called pheromones. Different hormones are secreted when a dog is angry, fearful or confident, and some chemical s...
How would 17th century sailing companies, navies, and pirates deal with men who fell overboard?	It's from the 19th century and not the 17th, but Herman Melville talked about the subject a little in his novel [White Jacket](_URL_0_) (in which he describes life aboard a Man-o-War). Here one passage I found: > In men-of-war, night and day, week in and week out, two life-buoys are kept depending from the stern; a...	[ "Some crews were treated as harshly as naval crews of the time, while others followed the comparatively relaxed rules of merchant ships. Some crews were made up of professional merchant seamen, others of pirates, debtors, and convicts. Some privateers ended up becoming pirates, not just in the eyes of their enemies...
How can I identify who the people buried at the grave site I found on my families texas red river ranch are?	Texas counties will typically have a Tax Assessor-Collector and a County Clerk. The Clerk keeps records of birth and death, amongst others. Their records may well have been co-located and both lost in the same fire, but you never know. If by "tax office" you didn't mean the County Clerk, you may want to check with the...	[ "This historic cemetery is the final resting place of a number of individuals who were citizens of the short-lived Republic of Texas. The grave sites of those individuals have been designated with metal markers and are frequently decorated with the flag of the Republic and State of Texas. Charlotte Baldwin Allen, w...
what sound properties do different musical instruments have different from each other?	This has a lot to do with overtones and resonance. Resonance is pretty self-explanatory: how well something (in the case an instrument) resonates throughout a room or building due to the sound waves bouncing and amplifying for a short period of time. Overtones are what make a sound "thick." When an instrument plays...	[ "Each type of musical instrument has a characteristic sound quality that is largely independent of pitch or loudness. Some instruments have more than one timbre, e.g. the sound of a plucked violin is different from the sound of a bowed violin. Some instruments employ multiple manual or embouchure techniques to achi...
does heat affect the energy absorbed by a solar panel?	[Wiki section](_URL_0_) So your run of the mill solar panel works because the electrons in the silicon are separated into two layers. There is a bottom layer of electrons with the silicon itself (the valence band), a layer of no electrons (band gap) and a top layer of electrons that move around (conduction band). A ph...	[ "An increase in solar cell temperature of approximately 1 °C causes an efficiency decrease of about 0.45%. To prevent this, a transparent silica crystal layer can be applied to solar panels. The silica layer acts as a thermal black body which emits heat as infrared radiation into space, cooling the cell up to 13 °C...
why do most countries use the same calendar?	Most countries in Europe came to use the Julian calendar (developed by the Romans), with some revisions endorsed by the Catholic Church, which we call the Gregorian calendar. The power of European colonization, trade, missionary work and military might spread it across the globe, and the last holdouts eventually bowed ...	[ "Some countries use other calendars alongside the Gregorian calendar, including India (Indian national calendar), Bangladesh (Bengali calendar), Nepal (Vikram Samvat), Pakistan (Islamic calendar), Israel (Hebrew calendar) and Myanmar (Burmese calendar), and other countries use a modified version of the Gregorian ca...
Is dandruff really related to your water and how hard/soft it is?	Well there are lots of causes for dandruff actually. _URL_0_ Now this only lists medical reasons for dandruff, but we can already see it is a complex problem. We know hard water is caused by a high amount of minerals dissolved into the water. We can see this by placing water on a black plate and allowing it to evapo...	[ "Dandruff is a skin condition that mainly affects the scalp. Symptoms include flaking and sometimes mild itchiness. It can result in social or self-esteem problems. A more severe form of the condition, which includes inflammation of the skin, is known as seborrhoeic dermatitis.\n", "A project in 2007 has sequence...
What causes that sound my laptop makes when I am loading something?	It's most likely the hard disk drive you're referring to. It contains a metallic disc that rotates very quickly, and a magnetic head retrieves and writes data to it. They contain a small motor to drive the disc and the process causes some noise (a clicking or crunching sound).	[ "Current web browsers like Chrome write regularly small chunks when browsing in order not to lose any important data when the application crashes. However, this lets the disk spin very often as the drive repeatedly needs to unleash and then park its heads. The generated noises can be thus regarded as distracting by...
what does 'dry' mean in alcohol	Yo! After panning through the replies, I figured I'd drop some thoughts here. Source: I am a Certified (edit: now Advanced!) Sommelier and a Certified Specialist of Spirits. Dry, as some have mentioned, is the word used to describe the opposite of sweet. I will reference a few laws below that use this definition i...	[ "Dryness is a property of beverages that describes the lack of a sweet taste. This may be due to a lack of sugars, the presence of some other taste that masks sweetness, or an underabundance of simple carbohydrates that can be converted to sugar by enzymes in the mouth (amylase in particular). The term \"dry\" may ...
How did currency work in the Soviet economy if it was a command economy?	Under a price fixing system you didn't have to deal with inflation you don't want because you (the government) set the price, thus by definition you didn't have inflation (outside of the black market anyway) if you don't increase prices. Instead, the problem you had to deal with were shortages (as the Soviet Union actu...	[ "Economic analysts have argued that the economy of the former Soviet Union actually represented an administrative or command economy as opposed to a planned economy because planning did not play an operational role in the allocation of resources among productive units in the economy since in actuality the main allo...
With Scotland's rejection of independence is there any other British territory/colony that did the same in history?	Newfoundland was offered the opportunity to become a dominion with the Statute of Westminster 1931. This would have given it free self-rule in its domestic matters, basically just leaving it allied and in a privileged trading position with the United Kingdom and the other dominions, which included Canada, Australia, Ne...	[ "By the end of the campaign, Scotland was independent and remained thus, until the unification of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland to create the single Kingdom of Great Britain was completed in the Treaty of Union of 1707.\n", "Today, the independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom remains ...
How many times can a piece of plastic be recycled?	This is highly dependent on how you want to recycle the plastic and the plastic material itself. A thermoset plastic is a non-reversible process, so it can't be used as re-grind in an injection molding process, whereas a thermoplastic may be able to be used depending on the performance required. Each time to process a...	[ "The percentage of plastic that can be fully recycled, rather than downcycled or go to waste, can be increased when manufacturers of packaged goods minimize mixing of packaging materials and eliminate contaminants. The Association of Plastics Recyclers have issued a \"Design Guide for Recyclability\".\n", "The fi...
when igniting a flammable substance from a gas canister, why doesn't the flame travel inwards towards the source and blow up the gas canister	you need oxygen/fuel at a minimum ratio to combust. There is little or no oxygen in the gas canister.	[ "Combustion consists of various radical chain reactions that the singlet radical can initiate. The flammability of a given material strongly depends on the concentration of radicals that must be obtained before initiation and propagation reactions dominate leading to combustion of the material. Once the combustible...
Was there a sort of international court dialect used between European monarchs in medieval times, or were there just a lot of translators	Okay, there were a couple of different things going on here. In the first place, we need to remember that monolingual inhabitants of monolingual nation-states is a comparatively recent notion. Medieval Europe was a giant quilt of different competing dialects, pidgins, creoles, and languages. As a result, aristocrats es...	[ "During the 12th century, development of the administrative and judicial institutions took place. Because the king and the lawyers at the time normally used French, it also became the language of these institutions. From the 12th century until the 15th century, the courts used three languages: Latin for writing, Fr...
- are speed bumps designed to damage your car if you go over them too fast?	Speed bumps are intended to force drivers to slow their speed. Most are designed in such a way to make it uncomfortable for the driver to take them too fast, but are not intended to damage their vehicle. Others are poorly designed and will damage the vehicle, even at a reasonable speed. Even properly designed spee...	[ "Research has shown that reducing driver speeds in built-up areas reduce injuries for all road users, including motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians. The link between vehicle speed and pedestrian crash severity has been established by research studies, with crash severity increasing as a function of motor vehicle...
the purpose of the recent orion flight and what it means for both future space exploration as well as nasa itself?	It was to first test out if the Orion was safe for human Flight. If something went wrong with the capsule, they could use the data to avoid astronauts being killed. As far as the future is concerned, this can really mean anything. NASA is currently planning to use this series of vehicle to transport humans to mars, an...	[ "NASA brought the Orion MPCV back to life from the defunct Constellation Program and successfully test launched the first capsule on December 5, 2014 aboard EFT-1. After a near perfect flight traveling 3600 miles above Earth, the spacecraft was recovered for study. NASA plans to use the Orion crew vehicle to send h...
Any good sources on the illegal smuggling of slaves into the US in the 19th Century?	You could look into the De Wolfe family, of Rhode Island. Slavers, congressmen, financiers of the Episcopal church in RI. The New York Times just came out with an article on Rhode Island's role in the illegal slave trade: _URL_0_ There is a great documentary from a few years back, which won awards and I'm pretty sur...	[ "While there are no exact figures known, historians estimate that up to 50,000 slaves were illegally imported into the United States after 1808, mostly through Spanish Florida and Texas, before those states were admitted to the Union.\n", "In April 1818, the United States passed a law prohibiting the import of sl...
Is it true heavier people require more alcohol to get drunk.	It has to do with body weight, stomach content, gender and genetics. reducing your body weight could have an effect, but it would be easier to just start drinking on an empty stomach if you were trying to get intoxicated, and eat beforehand if you were trying to avoid it. But yes, if you lost Lot of weight, it could ...	[ "BULLET::::- Alcohol: beer, wine, hard spirits and other alcoholic beverages. While moderate amounts can lead to weight gain, chronic consumption of large amounts of alcohol can lead to weight loss because alcoholic liver disease is characterized by an increased metabolic rate and impaired muscle protein synthesis,...
The new kilogram definition seems complex. Why not define it in terms of the mass of a proton?	It is not possible to precisely collect X protons under conditions that it could be used for a standard of mass. You could try for example saying that a kilogram is the mass of (0.1 m)^3 of water, but then you'd have to control precisely for temperature, pressure, isotopic composition, etc in a way that is precise to 1...	[ "The definition of the kilogram changed fundamentally; the previous definition defined the kilogram as the mass of the international prototype kilogram, which is an artefact rather than a constant of nature. The new definition relates the kilogram to, amongst things, the equivalent mass of the energy of a photon gi...
How do millipedes walk?	First question: it was not your imagination, that's about how it works indeed. They have a segmented body, and each segment has a pair of neural ganglia that contain a [Central Pattern Generator](_URL_5_), or CPG. This thing most probably is able to maintain the cycle of activity on its own, even if you isolate it from...	[ "Centipedes and millipedes have many sets of legs that move in metachronal rhythm. Some echinoderms locomote using the many tube feet on the underside of their arms. Although the tube feet resemble suction cups in appearance, the gripping action is a function of adhesive chemicals rather than suction. Other chemica...
How did this mountain ridge form? pic inside	What you have there is an anticline structure - Imagine a fold in the rocks running NE-SW. MAybe 5-10 degrees dip on either side, but with the NW corner dipping down toward the NW, and the SE Corner dipping SE. These kind of large scale folds are very common in geology. Once the fold is excavated to the surface differ...	[ "The Utrecht Hill Ridge was created 150.000 years ago as a push moraine in the Wolstonian Stage, a middle Pleistocene glacial period. Before that time the rivers Rhine and Meuse flowed more north, and created deposits of sand. The glaciers pushed these deposits in a southern and western direction.\n", "The ridge ...
why dont oasis in deserts get filled by nearby sand over time	An Oasis gets its water from underground aquifers. So the water would just push any sand away. Also the presence of plant life around it helps keep the terrain stable, reducing the amount of stuff that'd disrupt things.	[ "The geographical position of the oasis was the main factor in its success and wealth. To its north is one of the most arid and desolate desert climates on the earth, the Taklamakan Desert, and to its south the largely uninhabited Kunlun Mountains (Qurum). To the east there were few oasis beyond Niya making travel ...
what dictates a wonder of the world?	There is no particular standard, only tradition. The Greeks made lists of amazing things from around the Mediterranean world familiar to them. Most of these lists made 7 choices because the number was (and often still is) considered lucky; counting the sun and moon, they knew of seven planets. Antipater of Sidon made ...	[ "Worlds of Wonder is a collection of three science fiction works by Olaf Stapledon: a short novel, a novella and a short story. It was published in 1949 by Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. in an edition of 500 copies. All of the stories had originally been published in the United Kingdom.\n", "Seven Wonders of th...
inflation & deflation	Inflation & Deflation aren't about currency rate, they are about price level in a country. Despite the reason inflation makes some products more expensive, or you can buy lesser with money you have. You can't increase salaries at the same time because it will cause futher increasing of the prices (it is actually one ...	[ "In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate). Inflation reduces the value of currency over time, but deflation increases it. This allows more goods and services to be bought than before wi...
how do snails not lose all of their body mass as slime left on the floor while travelling?	Imagine it like sweating. You can sweat and sweat, liquid comes out of you, but your body mass stays more or less the same.	[ "Land snails move by gliding along on their muscular foot, which is lubricated with mucus and covered with epithelial cilia. This motion is powered by succeeding waves of muscular contractions that move down the ventral of the foot. This muscular action is clearly visible when a snail is crawling on the glass of a ...
What were Aztec shield fringes made of?	You are correct that fringes are made out of feathers. In section "Defensive Weapons" in Ross Hassig's book Aztec Warfare (1988: 85-88), he covers the topic of shields. While Hassig describes different construction material and methods for shields, he does not describe the fringe as anything but feathers. However, Ha...	[ "Whittaker said the stone-tipped projectiles from the Aztec atlatl were not powerful enough to penetrate Spanish steel plate armor, but they were strong enough to penetrate the mail, leather and cotton armor that most Spanish soldiers wore. Whittaker said the Aztecs started their battles with atlatl darts followed ...
Did creatures such as terrestrial hermit crabs make it onto land before the ancestors of modern reptiles and mammals?	There were terrestrial arthropods before there were terrestrial vertebrates. Terrestrial scorpions and millipedes predate early terrestrial bony fish. See the Wikipedia article on the [devonian](_URL_0_) for a brief discussion of these early terrestrial arthropods.	[ "A number of lineages of crabs have evolved to live predominantly on land. Examples of terrestrial crabs are found in the families Gecarcinidae and Gecarcinucidae, as well as in selected genera from other families, such as \"Sesarma\", although the term \"land crab\" is often used to mean solely the family Gecarcin...
why was there a theory that nothing can go faster then light?	The relativity theory is very much valid. I can try to explain a bit, but it's probably better explained by minute physics. First watch this: _URL_2_ and then watch this: _URL_1_ It's a great youtube channel in general, so if you're not bored yet, go here: _URL_0_	[ "This is not to say that \"all\" faster than light speeds are impossible. Various trivial situations can be described where some \"things\" (not actual matter or energy) move faster than light. For example, the location where the beam of a search light hits the bottom of a cloud can move faster than light when the ...
why aren't news stations (local, national, international) required to cite sources?	One reason that news reporters (be they text or video) are not required to cite sources is that doing so can result in the firing, the arrest, or even the execution of the people who are their sources. Journalists take protecting these sources very seriously.	[ "Some news sites in the Territory allow a great deal of latitude to the public to comment anonymously upon articles (referred to, slightly misleadingly, as \"blogs\" locally). In a community as small as the British Virgin Islands anonymous comments often indicate inside knowledge in relation to news items, or serve...
What do sunglasses protect the eyes from?	> UV radiation comes to mind first. [WHO - Effect of UV on Eyes](_URL_0_) TL;DR: UV is bad for your eyes. > * Do all glass lenses fully absorb UV? What about plastics? No and no. [Sunglasses/protection (wikipedia)](_URL_1_) Never wear sunglasses that don't offer good UV protection. Dark lenses reduce th...	[ "Sunglasses provide more comfort and protection against bright light and often against ultraviolet (UV) light. To properly protect the eyes from the dangers of UV light, sunglasses should have UV-400 blocker to provide good coverage against the entire light spectrum that poses a danger. Photochromic lenses, which a...
how are sentences by judges that are aimed at making an example out guilty parties not a violation of "equal justice under law", and therefore unconstitutional?	Each type of crime has a valid minimum and maximum sentence. As long as the judge stays within these guidelines, it is 100% legal.	[ "Arguments that have been raised against sentencing by jury are that juries are not as accountable as judges; that putting them in charge of determining both guilt and the sentence concentrates too much power in one body; and that different juries may differ widely in the sentences they impose. Counterarguments are...
why don't tv shows/movies show real websites like google and facebook? why use fake websites that look like them?	Because you gotta call them, ask for permission, sometimes they ask for a certain fee, have their PR people see if their product is being used in good faith, all that paperwork and time just isn't worth the trouble. You can literally have a mock up site with basic functions working in one or two days and pay the guy 20...	[ "Legal fakes are possible because they take advantage of the ‘uninformed’ consumer who can be easily deceived and influenced by the latest trends promoted through celebrities endorsement and social networks or digital platforms.\n", "Fake news websites often have article titles that are incredible, prompting the ...
why do old games running on new hardware still have technical issues?	The XBox is emulating NES hardware and running the emulation at a set speed. If it ran it at as fast as possible, then it would be several times faster than the original NES game and would be unplayable. I can't speak for Mega Man exactly, but older games tended to run on a cycle locked to the screen refresh which was ...	[ "In comparison to PC and mobile games, console game developers must consider the limitations of the hardware their game is being developed as it is unlikely to have any major changes. PC and mobile technology progresses quickly and there are many different configurations of their hardware and software. This is bene...
Does an eagle see things that are say, 2 feet away in microscopic detail, blurry (like looking through binoculars) or simply as we would see them?	They can actually change the focal length of their eyes by deforming them with muscles. That said, the optics of a microscope and a telescope are very different. If they had their eyes in "far away mode", everything would be blurry, like looking at a bug through binoculars. If they were in "normal mode", their vision ...	[ "BULLET::::- \"Seeing Sense\": A vulture can spot a carcass from a great distance, the four-eyed fish can see above and below water simultaneously, a fly’s multi-faceted eye sees a very different world than a human eye, while other insects can see into ultra-violet light. And lions have an area on the retina which ...
when a court tries to discover whether someone is guilty or innocent, does their lawyer know the truth?	All parties involved have access to all the evidence available. It's not like "the truth" suddenly manifests itself in the courtroom to the surprise of everyone present. Nor does it matter. The defending lawyer isn't there to prove innocence. He's there to ensure that his client receives a fair trial, that the prosecu...	[ "The ruling protects prosecutors who withhold \"substantial exculpatory evidence\" in order to obtain an indictment, as the role of the grand jury is not to determine guilt, but rather to decide whether there is enough evidence of a crime; exculpatory evidence can be presented at trial. Justice Stevens' dissent foc...
is a fat muffin top at your belly caused because humans wear clothes around their waistline?	Yes, but not by much. Your fat stores are all located in/around your hips/pelvic region, they swell and become distended due to an increase in volume of fat storage. Squeezing into tighter clothing does cause certain shapes (i.e. muffin top) to form, but it has no impact on the overall volume. So if you are carrying ...	[ "A muffin-top (or \"muffin top\") is a slang term typically used to describe a man or woman's skin or body fat that is visible above the waistline of pants or skirts because of tight clothing. The term is a reference to the way a muffin appears when it has been baked in a muffin tin, so that the top of the muffin i...
Why aren't archaea human pathogens?	That is an EXCELLENT question, and unfortunately there is not a very good answer yet. It's not fully known, but there are some ideas. It has been proposed that because Archaea use different cofactors in their metabolism, eukaryotes don't provide a good "food source." But this isn't completely satisfactory, as they do ...	[ "The well-characterized interactions between archaea and other organisms are either mutual or commensal. There are no clear examples of known archaeal pathogens or parasites, but some species of methanogens have been suggested to be involved in infections in the mouth, and \"Nanoarchaeum equitans\" may be a parasit...
How long does a lobster live?	It's hypothesized that they have the biological capacity to live somewhat indefinitely, barring bodily damage, predation, or disease. This is due to something called having a negligible rate of senescence, which is essentially aging. They're placed in the same league as tortoises, rockfish, Quahog clam, and bristlecone...	[ "Female California spiny lobsters reach sexual maturity at a length of , which is typically at an age of 5–9 years; males are sexually mature after 3–6 years. Because all the hard parts are lost at each molt, the life span of mature spiny lobsters is uncertain; they are thought to live for 50 years or more.\n", "...
our defense system in the united states if nuclear missiles were to be launched at us by another country	Honestly? Not super great. We have some [missile intercept systems](_URL_0_) but mostly the US relies on its ability to say "If you don't terminate your missile right now... we'll fucking destroy your entire country in one swing".	[ "The argument for a national missile defense system in the United States was traditionally to protect the country from a Soviet missile attack. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, proponents of a missile defense shield began instead to focus on the risk posed by rogue states developing ballistic missiles cap...
Is there an upper limit of rotation for a pulsar? Also, is that upper limit uniform across all objects?	> Is there a limit to how fast something can spin, or does it just work on the same priciple as movement through space? If you are talking about the relativistic limit, this is [Ehrenfest's paradox](_URL_0_).	[ "The shapes of a subcollection of only \"D\" summand-sets determine the bound on the distance between the \"average set\" and its convex hull; thus, as the number of summands increases to infinity, the bound decreases to zero (for summand-sets of uniformly bounded size). In fact, Starr's bound on the non-convexity ...
why do storm troopers wear armor if it doesn't actually protect them from anything? it also apparently interferes with their ability to shoot accurately.	Psychological edge. A phalanx of faceless, white-clad, cold, armored soldiers advancing will make you shit yourself. It's a powerful image.	[ "Most military vehicles, ships, and fighters are equipped with invisible energy shields. They deflect incoming attacks, though their protection is based on their flicker rate. Shields cannot run continuously, so instead they cycle on and off many times a second. A fixed percentage of attacks are rendered harmless d...
Is the water ice present in the solar system the same as ice on earth, just much colder, or is it in a different phase?	The short answer is that they aren't quite sure. Depending on the formation mechanism they have different predictions for which of the ice phases it might be in, not all of which are kinetically accessible. It turns out that theres a good chance that depending on how the water got there, rather than being crystalline i...	[ "Water has a much lower condensation temperature than other materials that compose the terrestrial planets in the Solar System, such as iron and silicates. The region of the protoplanetary disk closest to the Sun was very hot early in the history of the Solar System, and it is not feasible that oceans of water cond...
Why is the DNA replication process imperfect?	Because of the complexity of the protein engines at work. All told, there are a considerable number of steps necessary to correctly replicate DNA, and the process is different for the leading and lagging strands. However, I think on average there's only one error for every 10,000 replications. Most of these "mutatio...	[ "DNA replication past an un-repaired damage can give rise to a mutation because of inaccurate translesion synthesis. In addition, during repair of DNA double-strand breaks, or repair of other DNA damages, incompletely cleared sites of repair can lead to epigenetic gene silencing.\n", "DNA replication is a natural...
how did we find out that there are 365.25 days in a year?	Observation, and knowing when the sun should be where through relative position. When you chart the sun’s course every day of the year a pattern emerges (Note the position and degree of the light at the exact same time every day). That pattern is slightly off by a few degrees the following year, on a four your cyclica...	[ "The Hindu cosmological time cycles explained in the \"Surya Siddhanta\", give the average length of the sidereal year (the length of the Earth's revolution around the Sun) as 365.2563627 days, which is only 1.4 seconds longer than the modern value of 365.256363004 days. This remains the most accurate estimate for ...
3 days underwater.	In short, they haven't come up with a good answer yet. The key problem more than anything is hypothermia. He was trapped in freezing water, and found naked and alert. After three days in freezing water you'd expect someone to have drowned, let alone be naked and able to determine that someone was rescuing them. The o...	[ "Diversnight is a gathering of Scuba divers and those interested in diving, and is made possible thanks to voluntary work and helpful sponsors. As the name implies, this event occurs after dark. The festival attempts to get as many divers as possible in the water at the same time, all over the world. The record fro...
Why are there bubbles in prince Rupert's drops?	First off, you really don't need a turkey fryer oil quench make PRD. The whole point of the drops is that they are skin stress resistant, and should hold up to a fast quench. Most people make them in a tub of lukewarm water. The bubbles are most likely trapped atmospheric gasses during the melting proceedure. This ...	[ "Prince Rupert's drops (also known as Dutch or Batavian tears) are toughened glass beads created by dripping molten glass into cold water, which causes it to solidify into a tadpole-shaped droplet with a long, thin tail. These droplets are characterized internally by very high residual stresses, which give rise to ...
why does fruit taste different after its dried?	the flavor is concentrated since there is less water, it would be like making a cup of coffee with just a little bit of water so you had a thick mud... it would taste different.	[ "Dried fruits have been consumed historically due to their high sugar content and sweet taste, and a longer shelf-life from drying. Fruits may be used differently when dried. The plum becomes a prune, the grape a raisin. Figs and dates may be transformed into different products that can either be eaten as they are,...
exactly how are manual eye exams conducted (without modern digital equipment) and how can a doctor measure your eyesight through looking at your eye?	Before the fancy digital eye scanner... They had you look through lens and ask if it was better or worse....	[ "The doctor will perform a neurological examination to assess nerve function and motor and sensory skills. The tests are designed to determine any functional limitations, such as difficulty with handwriting or the ability to hold a utensil or cup. The patient may be asked to place a finger on the tip of her or his ...
Why was the USSR so interested in space flight? What started the USSR space program? Was NASA created only as an answer to Sputnik, or was it already in the works before hand?	The sputnik programme was introduced by Koroliov (previously doing rocketry) due to fears his team would "lose the priority" if the USA launched an artificial sattelite first (as they were planning to do for the international geophysical year). source: [S.P.Korolëv quoted on _URL_1_](_URL_0_).	[ "After the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957, the U.S. was in a panic over how to quickly catch up with the Soviets in what appeared to be a \"Space Race\". One idea quickly gained currency – the formation of a civilian space agency that would evolve into NASA. The Army had already lost interest in the developmen...
when and why did we switch from saying liberal/conservative to progressive/regressive in us politics?	A lot of politics comes down to terminology. Communists were difficult to argue with because they came up with they own bourgeois/proletariat jargon, giving them a home field advantage in any discussion. In the 1980s, Republicans were successful in making liberal into a bad word, making Democrats shy away from it and...	[ "Although much has changed in American politics since 1970, especially the meanings of important (but constantly changing) terms like \"conservative\" and \"liberal\", his book on that ideologically-charged subject remains a classic articulation (along with Louis Hartz's \"The Liberal Tradition in America\") of the...
Epigenetics, Methyl Groups, and Expression	I watched some of the video, but it was too long to finish, so please ask more questions if I've missed anything. I wouldn't say that a "nature/nurture debate" really exists anymore. It's now more like a "nature-nurture interaction exploration", because (as you've seen) both the fluctuating environment and the static...	[ "Epigenetics is the study of the regulation of gene expression through chemical, non-mutational changes in DNA structure. The theory of epigenetics in cancer pathogenesis is that non-mutational changes to DNA can lead to alterations in gene expression. Normally, oncogenes are silent, for example, because of DNA met...
sunk costs	A sunk cost is a past cost that is not recoverable and specifically should not influence future decisions. For example if a company spends money on a consultant then that money would be sunk. Also money spent on employee training is a sunk cost. In contrast to money spent on a truck or a computer of which some mon...	[ "Sunk costs may cause cost overrun. In business, an example of sunk costs may be investment into a factory or research that now has a lower value or no value whatsoever. For example, $20 million has been spent on building a power plant; the value at present is zero because it is incomplete (and no sale or recovery ...
why do some people silently mouth the words you're speaking along with you as you talk to them?	Probably improves understanding. At least you know they're paying attention to what you're saying. Some people have a hard time focusing, their minds wander.	[ "BULLET::::6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking. People do not like listening to us boast, they enjoy doing the talking themselves. Let them rationalize and talk about the idea, because it will taste much sweeter to them in their own mouth.\n", "In a crowded room, people find it easy to focus on...
What is the latest known instance of serfdom in Western Europe?	Define Western Europe.	[ "In Eastern Europe the institution persisted until the mid-19th century. In the Austrian Empire serfdom was abolished by the 1781 Serfdom Patent; corvée continued to exist until 1848. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in the 1860s. In Finland, Norway and Sweden, feudalism was never fully established, and serfdom did ...
why does everything computerised need regular software updates now opposed to older models? e.g. my xbox one needs to update monthly(ish) while my xbox original never did (or could).	Security is taken more seriously than it used to, particularly on consoles that are now much more online than they used to be (online multiplayer was a much newer thing for consoles during the xbox classic generation of consoles), and that are much closer to the computers we use every day. It was unlikely that your xbo...	[ "While System Software updates can be used with consoles from any region, Sony recommends only downloading updates released for the model's region. System Software updates have added many features, including a web browser, Adobe Flash support, additional codecs for various media, PlayStation 3 (PS3) connectivity, a...
What will happen when Pope Benedict when he dies, since he will not be Pope at the time?	The way you've phrased the question, it's about current events/the future, which isn't appropriate for this subreddit. I'll have to delete this one, but you could resubmit with something like "What happened to Popes who didn't die in office?"	[ "Benedict responded by asking: “If I have sinned, have mercy on me”. The council then proceeded to confirm Leo as the true canonically appointed pope, and announced that Benedict was deposed as pope. On this sentence, Leo cut Benedict’s pallium into two pieces and broke his pastoral staff, before tearing off his po...
how can bernie sanders an independent be the democrats presidential nominee?	He's not. He's seeking to be democratic presidential nominee. ELyou're5: he's hoping democrats will let him be leader of their club.	[ "In the 2016 presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders sought the Democratic Party's nomination in a field of six major candidates and was the runner up with 46% of the pledged delegates behind Hillary Clinton, who won the contest with 54%. Sanders, the junior United States Senator and former Representative from Vermon...
how do screenshots work from a software perspective?	The software just saves the state of all the pixels that the hardware is sending to the display and puts it into a standard image format that other programs can then open. How the software actually gets the pixel data is platform dependent.	[ "Screenshot is an application for capturing screenshots of the screen. Although this can be done manually by pressing (the Print Screen key), by using the screenshot application the user can take advantage of other features that are unavailable when only using the key method. With the application the user may choos...
Why do boats often leave paths of calm water (wakes) behind them?	Waves on water surface are dependent on both wind speed and the amount of exposure the water has had to the wind (IIRC this is called 'fetch'). Essentially, even a fairly strong wind needs a pretty good amount of distance acting on the water to kick up waves on the surface. This is one reason why waves are bigger in th...	[ "Parts of the pattern may be obscured by the effects of propeller wash, and tail eddies behind the boat's stern, and by the boat being a large object and not a point source. The water need not be stationary, but may be moving as in a large river, and the important consideration then is the velocity of the water rel...
How come when you and a friend get out of a loud venue such as a concert and you can't hear as well your friend and you yell at each other when talking, instead of talking in your normal voice. ?	Your ears have a mechanism to [temporarily lower their sensitivity](_URL_0_) in response to loud sounds. In that paper, they showed that if you knock out the gene responsible for this in mice, they exhibit less temporary hearing loss but more long term hearing loss. So it seems to be a mechanism to protect your hearing...	[ "To place this problem in more common terms, imagine you are talking to someone 6 meters away. If the two of you are in a quiet, empty room then a conversation is quite easy to hold at normal voice levels. In a loud, crowded bar, it would be impossible to hear the same voice level, and the only solution (for that d...
Do we know anything about a planet past Pluto?	Better calculations have removed the disparity. But that's a boring answer. There certainly are more dwarf planets past Pluto in the Kuiper belt. Makemake is of significant size, about 2/3 as big as Pluto. Eris, even farther out, is roughly the same size as Pluto. Here's a great diagram of their crazy orbits. _URL_1_...	[ "BULLET::::- The planets of the solar system and their moons were closely observed via numerous space probes. Pluto was discovered in 1930 on the edge of the solar system, although in the early 21st century, it was reclassified as a plutoid instead of a planet proper, leaving eight planets.\n", "BULLET::::- The p...
How was Italy governed by the Roman Empire? Was it treated like a province with its own proconsul?	I'm working on this right now, so this won't be a complete answer because I haven't finished my research yet, but I can get things started (and maybe learn something from other contributors!). First thing to ask is what the hell is "Italy"? In early Greek sources Italy seems to mean the Greek-inhabited southern coast...	[ "At the beginning of the Roman imperial era, Italy was a collection of territories with different political statuses. Some cities, called \"municipia\", had some independence from Rome, while others, the \"coloniae\", were founded by the Romans themselves. Around 7 BC, Augustus divided Italy into eleven \"regiones\...
why are black holes invisible.	We can't see black holes for a number of reasons. They each by definition have an event horizon around them, trapping all light inside from ever escaping and making them black in appearance. But as you pointed out, space isn't black. One problem with seeing black holes is their distance. The nearest black hole is the...	[ "Black holes are talked about in this chapter. Black holes are stars that have collapsed into one very small point. This small point is called a \"singularity\". Black holes suck things into their center because they have very strong gravity. Some of the things it can suck in are light and stars. Only very large st...
In warfare through history, why isn't there a severity of causalities compared to the unit size deployed?	This is a big question, so I can only really answer in generalities. Still, I'll do what I can. > Or is the "fight to the death" mentality not really true. Armies are big, expensive things, to say nothing of the human cost of combat. To fully commit to attacking or defending a place means that the outcome of that ...	[ "\"Many collective human activities, including violence, have been shown to exhibit universal patterns. The size distributions of casualties both in whole wars from 1816 to 1980 and terrorist attacks have separately been shown to follow approximate power-law distributions. However, the possibility of universal patt...
what causes people to hallucinate when they get a very high fever, and is it the body trying to protect itself in some way?	when you have a high fever, enzymatic action all over your body begins to slow and in the brain, this causes an unbalanced level of certain neurotransmitters and other psychoactive compounds. when this occurs, hallucinations, stroke, and other odd feelings begin to surface	[ "In addition, some people may, in conjunction with a high fever, experience more intense and overt hallucinations, seeing things that are not there and misinterpreting events and situations. Less frequent symptoms sometimes described in Alice in Wonderland syndrome patients include loss of limb control and dis-coor...
after suffering an injury, why are we told to elevate that part of our body over our heart? doesn't blood help heal the injured area and bring cells that heal it?	Depends on how much blood we are talking about. Elevating the injury basically uses gravity to help overcome the blood pressure of that area, decreasing blood loss. I recall the story of a woman who cut her big toe - not a really horrible cut, but enough to produce a good amount of bleeding. Fearing the staining on ...	[ "Various organ systems respond to injury to restore homeostasis by maintaining perfusion to the heart and brain. Inflammation after injury occurs to protect against further damage and starts the healing process. Prolonged inflammation may cause multiple organ dysfunction syndrome or systemic inflammatory response s...
Alexander the Great founded dozens of cities and towns over his life. How was a town just "founded?"	Hi, not discouraging other contributors, but meanwhile, check these out * /u/ikahjalmr in [In ancient times I've heard that historical figures "built cities" like Alexander did at Bucephala in honor of his horse. How did a ruler in Greco times go about establishing a city? What did that at a minimum constitute?](_URL_...	[ "The city was established by Alexander the Great in 324, replacing a small Persian settlement, Durine. This was one of Alexander's last cities before his death in 323 BC. Here he established a quarter (dēmē) of the port called Pella, named after Alexander’s own town of birth, where he settled Macedonian veterans.\n...
Are we made more of microbes than our own cells, or does the smaller size of bacteria mean that by mass, we're larger?	Here's some images that can give you a comparison between the size of human / animal cells vs. bacteria. * [The yellow rods are bacteria](_URL_0_) and the green blob is a whole cell * [The smaller spheres are bacteria](_URL_1_) compared to a red and white blood cell * [Here's a chart showing the relative sizes of thin...	[ "A workshop on the limitations of size of microbes in 1999 found that though modern nanobacteria can't be smaller in volume than the interior of a sphere of diameter 250 ± 50 nm, primitive microorganisms based on a single-polymer system could be. They cite the example of RNA based life, with ribozymes (catalytic RN...
If we upgraded Hubble with modern tech/optics, how much better would it get?	That is the plan, the James Webb Space Telescope is about six times the size of Hubble and should go up in about three years.	[ "The completion of all the major objectives, as well as some that were not considered vital, upgraded the telescope to its most technologically advanced state since its launch nineteen years ago, and made it more powerful than ever. The upgrades will also help Hubble to see deeper into the universe, and farther int...
What do wild animals do in inclement weather?	Get wet. Feel miserable. Start to smell. Possibly be injured and/or die if they can't find shelter and the storm is really bad, just like you would without your house.	[ "These animals are found in coniferous, deciduous, and mixed forests, often near wetlands. They use runways through the surface growth in warm weather and tunnel through the snow in winter. They are omnivorous feeding on green plants, underground fungi, seeds, nuts, roots, also insects, snails, and berries. They st...
usa mcdonald's franchise owners, operators or managers: what is the purpose of two drive through ordering points for one drive though window?	Data proves you wrong. Typically the slowest part of the average drive-thru is the ordering process. Customers unsure of what they want, large orders, etc. Years worth of data taken has proven this, that's why they have multiple ordering lanes. It's all about the number of cars they can get through, and having a ba...	[ "Most standalone McDonald's restaurants offer both counter service and drive-through service, with indoor and sometimes outdoor seating. Drive-Thru, Auto-Mac, Pay and Drive, or \"McDrive\" as it is known in many countries, often has separate stations for placing, paying for, and picking up orders, though the latter...
Would taking cooked meat out of the fridge, warming it, and then putting it immediately back in the fridge make it go bad?	Meat in your fridge contains pathogenic microorganisms. They divide very slowly (if at all) in the cold fridge, but much more rapidly at room temperature. Air in your kitchen also contains pathogenic microorganisms, some of which would grow rapidly on nutrients they can extract from meat. These pathogenic microorgani...	[ "In general, in either case, the meat is removed from the heat before it has finished cooking and left to sit for a few minutes, while the inside cooks further from the residual heat content, known as carry over cooking.\n", "Untreated meat decomposes rapidly if it is not preserved, at a speed that depends on sev...
By 1571 how secure was Elizabeth I's hold on the throne?	Not a historian, but I'll give this my best shot * Strong hold on government and country, she still commanded respect of her council and country * One could argue that her moderate religious settlements, "pacified" the extreme catholics (many preachers were arrested/executed) * The pope issued a papal bull much late...	[ "After the death of her husband in 1483, Elizabeth remained politically influential even after her son, briefly proclaimed King Edward V of England, was deposed by her brother-in-law, Richard III. Edward and his younger brother Richard both disappeared soon afterwards and are presumed to have been murdered on Richa...
when you're trying to sleep and you hear something, a flash or some tick in your eye that goes with the sound?	Chances are you were transitioning into sleep. During this time, many people are prone to a phenomenon called "hypnogogia". This can range anywhere from auditory hallucinations such as hearing voices or phones ringing, to visual hallucinations involving dancing blobs or waves of color to seemingly bright flashes. If y...	[ "The deaf and hard of hearing are often unable to perceive auditory alarms when asleep. They may use specialized alarms, including alarms with flashing lights instead of or in addition to noise. Alarms which can connect to vibrating devices (small ones inserted into pillows, or larger ones placed under bedposts to ...
the barn-pole relativity paradox	Lorentz contraction is always "real", but the point is that it's relative. The farmer sees the entire pole in the barn, while the runner doesn't (how could he, since for him it's the barn that's contacting). The resolution of the "paradox" comes from carefully considering what we mean when we say "the pole fits in...	[ "This apparent paradox results from the mistaken assumption of absolute simultaneity. The ladder is said to fit into the garage if both of its ends can be made to be simultaneously inside the garage. The paradox is resolved when it is considered that in relativity, simultaneity is relative to each observer, making ...
Do humans have a vestigial tail wagging response? Is it detectable?	Not really, no. Animals wag their tails for a variety of reasons, but the happy=tail wagging response in dogs is unique to them. (Interestingly, foxes that were domesticated as part of an experiment also began [wagging their tails in greeting](_URL_0_) after several generations of breeding for tameness. So the potentia...	[ "The tail flick assay or tail flick test uses a high-intensity beam of light aimed at a rodent's tail to detect nociception. In normal rodents, the noxious heat sensation induced by the beam of light causes a prototypical movement of the tail via the flexor withdrawal reflex. An investigator normally measures the t...
How, when and why was the label "made in [country]" invented? When was it first used and to what purpose?	[Made in Germany](_URL_0_), introduced by the British to mark the inferior quality and plagiarising German goods being imported. Quickly turned out to be a boon to Germany instead of a hindrance as originally intended.	[ "The label was originally introduced in Britain by the \"Merchandise Marks Act 1887\", to mark foreign produce more obviously, as foreign manufactures had been falsely marking inferior goods with the marks of renowned British manufacturing companies and importing them into the United Kingdom. Most of these were fou...
did the musical notes we all know (d,f,g,f-sharp etc.) basically have to be or was this just one person's selection that ended up working well?	Sound is vibrations and we attribute the frequency of those vibrations a pitch. When certain combinations of frequencies are combined, they may blend together well or not. For example, if you have a note with vibration of 256 Hz, and you play a 2nd note with a frequency of 512 Hz, then you get a 1:2 ratio of vibration...	[ "In everyday language, these notes are located between two semitones and they are essentially heard in Arab and Greek music throughout Europe and Eastern countries, in Turkey, Persia, as well as in Africa and in Asia. They were also used in tempered scales by certain European microtonal composers during the 19th ce...
Is it possible to harvest gravity (or, more correctly, gravitational waves)?	Without reading the article I can assure you that hydroelectric power is a much more efficient way of harvesting gravity.	[ "Direct observation of gravitational waves was not possible for the many decades after they were predicted due to the minuscule effect that would need to be detected and separated from the background of vibrations present everywhere on Earth. A technique called interferometry was suggested in the 1960s and eventual...
Artificial sun by throwing fusion bomb in hydrogen cloud?	To sustain a fusion reaction, the combination of temperature and pressure need to be sufficiently high. That's why there is fusion in the sun, but not in Jupiter, which, like the sun, consists of largely hydrogen and helium. When an object like Jupiter doesn't have sufficient density for fusion to sustain itself, a hy...	[ "This is discussed below. It is notable that although most stars, including the Sun, generate energy over most of their lives by fusing hydrogen into heavier elements, such fusion of light hydrogen (protium) has never been successful in the conditions attainable on Earth. Thus, all artificial fusion, including the ...
why is direct democracy not a viable system as opposed to what we have? would it result in massive indecisiveness, if implemented?	Two main problems with direct democracy I can think of off the top of my head: - stability: the will of the masses tends to change quickly. News report on minor being raped and killed? Let's introduce death penalty. Mass shooting? Let's forbid guns. Note I'm not taking a stand towards either death penalty nor gun cont...	[ "Democracy has taken a number of forms, both in theory and practice. Some varieties of democracy provide better representation and more freedom for their citizens than others. However, if any democracy is not structured so as to prohibit the government from excluding the people from the legislative process, or any ...
Why does fission happen randomly?	Spontaneous fission is a quantum tunneling process. You have two (or more) "lobes" of nuclear matter, bound by a mutually attracting potential. In order for fission to occur, they must tunnel out of their attractive wells. Depending on how strongly deformed the nucleus is, this could be very easy (meaning small lifetim...	[ "Fission is the process through which a nucleus splits into (typically two) smaller atoms. If fission is occurring, it is often of interest to know the asymptotic behavior of the system. A reactor is called “critical” if the chain reaction is self-sustaining and time-independent. If the system is not in equilibrium...
How humans reached islands like Japan during the Paleolithic?	Hi! While pre-history questions are fine here, it would be worth also x-posting this one to /r/AskAnthropology	[ "The island of Timor was populated as part of the human migrations that have shaped Australasia more generally. As of 2019, the oldest traces of human settlement are 43,000 to 44,000 years old, and were found in the Laili cave in Manatuto Municipality. These early settlers had high-level maritime skills, and by imp...
Why did Bowing die out in Europe, but persist in East Asia?	Just for some clarification do you mean archery? Or just making the bows? Edit: I may have misread that, did you mean bowing as in the gesture? If so I appoligize.	[ "Following the collapse of the Church of the East's hierarchy in most of Asia in the 14th century, India was effectively cut off from the church's heartland in Mesopotamia and formal contact was severed. By the late 15th century India had had no metropolitan for several generations, and the authority traditionally ...
How was Malta able to withstand the Malta blitz?	Largely this was due to bombing being much less accurate than you might think. During WWII the percentage of bombs that hit anywhere near their targets was in the single digits--at least when it came to high level strategic bombing. Tactical bombers, such as the (in)famous Stuka dive bomber, could be much more accura...	[ "The siege of Malta in the Second World War concluded in November 1942. During this time, Malta experienced a total of 3,000 bombing raids over a period of two years in an effort to destroy Royal Air Force defences and the ports. For enduring this, King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the George Cross to th...
Suppose I visited Oregon in 1000BCE and then again in AD1000. (Without asking someone) How could I tell which was which?	Note to Moderators: if I've made some mistake in the rules please let me know and I'll make an adjustment. I mostly lurk here, but I understand you're quite strict and I'd hate to have this all deleted. Hey there, Go ahead and cross post this to /r/askanthropology because they will have the experts you need. Second,...	[ "Most scholarship ascribes the earliest known use of the name \"Oregon\" to a 1765 petition by Major Robert Rogers to the Kingdom of Great Britain, seeking money to finance an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. The petition read \"the rout... is from the Great Lakes towards the Head of the Mississippi, ...
how can the us government tack on extra laws to bills?	People in the US don't vote on every bill that is to/might become law. It is a Representstive Democracy so they vote for Senators and Congresmen/women who will they represent them. It is these people who then vote on the bills which are put before them. If the bill passes in both the Senate and the House of Represen...	[ " provides that whenever a bill becomes law or takes effect, it will be received by the Archivist of the United States from the President. This allows the National Archives and Records Administration to maintain records of and publish the enacted laws.\n", "Congress may both authorize and appropriate in the same ...
how does recycling paper work and why does it seem like every recycled paper bag is brown?	Paper is recycled by chopping it up and then cooking the bits in warm water, then mashing them back into sheets and drying it again. Usually they bleach it, so most recycled paper is white. If they don't bleach it, the natural color is gray or brown depending on the materials. (Brown if made of cardboard boxes, gray i...	[ "Bales of recycled paper (normally old corrugated containers) for unbleached (brown) packaging grades may be simply pulped, screened and cleaned. Recycling to make white papers is usually done in a deinking plant, which employs screening, cleaning, washing, bleaching and flotation. Deinked pulp is used in printing ...
why will a whole flock of birds sit in a tree and caw/chirp/exclaim at seemingly nothing?	Birds do four very basic things: Eat, sleep, shit and fuck. If the birds have eaten and got enough rest there is nothing left for them to do but try to get with the lady birds. Birds hang out in trees and chirp and sing to show that they have done all the important things and they would be a good choice for a marathon ...	[ "This bird feeds on fruit in the tree canopy, sometimes visiting forest verges (at which times it is easier to observe), but more often remaining elusive in the woodland interior. It is a lethargic bird usually seen singly or in pairs, but sometimes forming part of mixed flocks of fruiteaters. The fruits on which i...
What are the horizontal bands of clouds that form during a nuclear detonation, and why do they form at those intervals?	It's called a condensation cloud, or a Wilson cloud. It only occurs in humid air. With an explosion of significant size, a shock wave develops which leaves a a low-pressure zone behind it. This leads to large-scale adiabatic cooling. This cooling of the air below the dew point allows the moisture to condense into cloud...	[ "Mushroom clouds are formed by many sorts of large explosions under earth's gravity, but they are best known for their appearance after nuclear detonations. Without gravity, the explosive's by-product gases would remain spherical. Nuclear weapons are usually detonated above the ground (not upon impact, because some...
When did brothels start using red lights as a sign of their presence? Why red?	Ooo!.Ooo! I know! At least, what they claim in Brass Checks and Red Lights, a brief study of prostitution in the late West, and some of the background of sportin' houses. They said it originally came from railroad men hanging their red-glassed lanterns outside the one-whore cribs. However, I have long wondered just h...	[ "Red is still commonly associated with prostitution. Prostitutes in many cities were required to wear red to announce their profession, and houses of prostitution displayed a red light. Beginning in the early 20th century, houses of prostitution were allowed only in certain specified neighborhoods, which became kno...
During the middle ages in Europe, how would soldiers treat and transport their weapons and armor from battle to battle?	I only feel qualified to answer one of your questions. It's not much, but I hope it helps somewhat. Knights would typically not be armored when not expecting battle. As anyone who has walked around in chainmail can attest; that stuff is very heavy. Add plate and it gets even worse. With training, it's well possible t...	[ "BULLET::::- The plate armor of European soldiers did not stop soldiers from moving around or necessitate a crane to get them into a saddle. They would as a matter of course fight on foot and could mount and dismount without help. In fact, soldiers equipped with plate armor were more mobile than those with mail arm...
why are there leaked pictures of almost all new non-released products? how do they get them?	1. an insider (employee, someone in the production line / supply-chain line) sells the information to a publisher. 2. the company itself tries to mimic the hype of "leaks" by willfully creating the above for the purpose of marketing.	[ "There is a vast body of photographs, including but not limited to publicity stills, that have no notice as to who may have created them... Without knowing where the photos came from, or what long lost parent may appear and claim the 'orphaned work,' licensing the work becomes risky business. For publishers, museum...

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