question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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What's the current scientific consensus on the effect of dietary fat on heart disease? | The original saturated fat hypothesis for heart disease was incredibly poorly supported. It was using comparisons between only a few countries that didn't adequately segregate between all possible variables. That's why you got things like the so-called "French Paradox". France ate 3x the saturated fat as America, but got less heart disease. It was only a paradox if you assumed that saturated fat caused heart disease. It's clear that it cannot be the case, as there are native american and african populations that eat/ate nothing but animal products and have almost no heart disease. Diet is very complicated, and almost impossible to do the correct studies with proper controls (allowing a human to only eat a defined diet for 50+ years). While there isn't a scientific consensus, I think it's much more likely at this point that sugar is actually the culprit for heart disease. | [
"Similarly, the authors of a 2009 review of dietary studies concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish a causal link between consumption of saturated fats and coronary heart disease risk.\n",
"Controversy continues about the study itself, and about the strength and causality of the association be... |
How did lords control their land? | Lords were frequently not able to control their vassals. The problem of an "over-mighty vassal" is most apparent with the troublesome Duchy of Normandy, whose rulers eventually became kings of England, even though they were technically vassals of the crown of France. This eventually resulted in the Hundred Years War. So it wasn't the case that vassals never rebelled against their lord's authority.
However, in general, your question should be "what motivation would the average vassal have to rebel in the first place" rather than "why didn't they rebel all the time." There's little practical benefit in doing so. If a vassal abandons his feudal obligations, then the lord would raise his banners and go to war against him. Unless all of his other vassals joined your rebellion, then one man's landholdings would not be able to hold out against a much larger force. Of course, this depends on the lord in question being able to raise such a force. A weak king might see his realm disentegrate around him as his barons left his service.
Though sometimes it's the fashion among students to ignore the cultural factors in favor of more "practical" concerns, the fear of God was also a part of it. An oath of fealty was both political and religious, a promise before both man and God. By directly violating your feudal oaths, you completely abandoned your honor and became fair game in the eyes of the Church. William of Normandy justified his invasion of England in 1066 by claiming that Harold Godwinson had sworn oaths to him over religious artifacts. The Pope believed him and so gave him Papal blessing for his conquest.
As to your final question, the primary responsibility of a vassal to his lord was military service. By swearing an oath to a lord and recieving lands for it, a vassal made an agreement to serve in war when his lord required. In addition to personal arms for himself, vassals would have been contracted, for lack of a better term, to bring X number of men-at-arms and archers along with him. I believe that the term of service was usually limited to a little more than a month per year, but of course, this would vary depending on the specific lord and vassal involved.
Keep in mind that I'm speaking in generalities about the overall feudal system, and that there is an enormous debate between people way smarter than me about the specific nature of feudalism. But I think this will suffice for a broad understanding of the basic concepts. | [
"Established in 1627 in New France and abolished in 1854, the feudal system allowed the state to divide the territory into fiefs and lordships to sustain the momentum of colonization. This stately institution allowed the distribution and land use by controlling the development. In each fiefs or manors, lords attrib... |
how do doctors know the type of cancer someone has when it's metastatic? | Sometimes they don't. There are ways to tell, taking biopsy and examining the cells from the secondary tumours but often it's not practical or helpful and it depends on the individual case.
My father was diagnosed with liver and lung cancer but we were told that they didn't know where the primary tumour had came from.
In such cases it's often referred to as [cancer of unknown primary] (_URL_0_).
As with your own dad, my dad almost certainly had a primary that was colorectal. It was never confirmed officially though but from the information we have it seems the most logical. I'm not a clilnician but I worked for the hospital at the time and was given advice and information by the Consultants and Professors that I worked for.
I'm very sorry to hear that your father had metastatic colon cancer.
Sometimes it isn't practical to look for the primary. It depends upon a lot of factors and every case is different.
| [
"The cells in a metastatic tumor resemble those in the primary tumor. Once the cancerous tissue is examined under a microscope to determine the cell type, a doctor can usually tell whether that type of cell is normally found in the part of the body from which the tissue sample was taken.\n",
"Presence of metastas... |
At the end of Fight Club, the main character shoots himself in the head with a gun in his mouth and just ends up with a hole in his neck. Is this possible, improbable or just outright ridiculous? | Surprisingly yes. [Here](_URL_2_)
[Another](_URL_0_)
[Last one for now](_URL_1_)
It's still quite rare for most psychiatric patients to attempt a self-inflicted gunshot wound, pills are a far more common choice, but even a gunshot to the head is not a guaranteed death by any means. | [
"After both men have fallen to the ground from their separate shootings, another man, Eric (Shia LaBeouf), enters looking for them (saying he's \"just thought of the funniest thing\"). Dave comes back to life to shoot Eric in the stomach, who collapses, once again to the same music. The sister herself (Kristen Wiig... |
are you good with css? | CSS is very easy coding wise. The only difficult area I might see is finding what you want or you're looking for in clarity of the links.
_URL_0_ - this page is what you're going after correct link wise?
| [
"CSS-in-JS is a styling technique where JavaScript is used to style components. When this JavaScript is parsed, CSS is generated (usually as a style element) and attached into the DOM. It allows you to abstract CSS to the component level itself, using JavaScript to describe styles in a declarative and maintainable ... |
what was the justification for the chinese government selecting the last panchen lama? | The way I understand it is China had a pretty good relationship with the Tibetan buddhists and for hundreds of years there was an understanding between the two. The Chinese respected the choices made by the Panchen for finding the next Dalai Lama.
Fast forward to the current Dalai Lama and the friction between them. After they snubbed Tibet's choice of new Panchen Lama and selecting their own the Chinese now essentially get to choose the next Dalai Lama after the current one dies and remove Tibet from the equation altogether. It is a devastating blow to the Tibetan buddhists and that's why he's saying after he dies its pretty much game over. | [
"In 1995, the Dalai Lama chose to proceed with the selection of the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama without the use of the Golden Urn, while the Chinese government insisted that it must be used. This has led to two rival Panchen Lamas: Gyaincain Norbu as chosen by the Chinese government's process, and Gedhun... |
When one washes the dishes, is the soap foam a good 'practical' indicator about how dirty is the water? | It is a good indicator about how much soap is left to clean off your dishes.
Soaps don't truly react with anything, but they do surround fats and oils and "pull it off" the dirty surfaces. So if the soap is being used to surround a glob of oil, it can't make foam (which is basically air surrounded by soap).
Now the interesting part is that different soaps generate different amounts of foam. In terms of cleaning ability they may be very similar, but not similar in foaming ability. So most dish detergent contains stuff that makes a lot of foam so it looks very effective.
On the other hand, car wash soap contains (or should contain) less foaming agent because who wants to spend the time and water removing all that foam. | [
"Solid soap, because of its reusable nature, may hold bacteria acquired from previous uses. A small number of studies which have looked at the bacterial transfer from contaminated solid soap have concluded transfer is unlikely as the bacteria are rinsed off with the foam. The CDC still states \"liquid soap with han... |
why do google captchas make you click street signs? | They're used to train their image recognition software so that they can read street signs more accurately. | [
"In 2012, reCAPTCHA began using photographs taken from Google Street View project, in addition to scanned words. As for 2019 image identification captchas - such as store fronts, buses, cross-walks, traffic lights - became the only type of captcha offered by the system.\n",
"Google's AdWords program enables adver... |
how is nintendo able to demand ad revenue for related youtube videos? | Fair Use doesn't technically apply to Let's Play content so Nintendo is under no legal obligation to allow that content to remain on YouTube, so they can hold it to ransom all it likes.
Fair Use mostly applies to Review content (which Nintendo have been striking off YouTube too, because they're crazy) | [
"Much of YouTube's revenue goes to the copyright holders of the videos. In 2010, it was reported that nearly a third of the videos with advertisements were uploaded without permission of the copyright holders. YouTube gives an option for copyright holders to locate and remove their videos or to have them continue r... |
after a band breaks up or a musician dies, who profits from the sale of their merchandise and music? | It really varies a lot based on the legal structure of the group (e.g., incorporated or not) and their agreements with the record label. In general, copyright is treated like any other property, and may be sold, transferred by a will, and so on.
For example, if the artist assigns the copyright to the band's corporation, and the artist dies, that copyright just remains with the corporation--but the heirs of the artist can inherit the artist's share in the corporation and thus a right to the profits. If the artists retains the copyright themselves, it becomes part of the estate and will go to the artist's heirs (or creditors). Some rights will often be transferred to a record label, but sometimes only temporarily or reverting on death. | [
"This is going to happen whether they like it or not. It's got too much momentum, it's too big to stop now. It will be like Moomba with a message. Whenever a natural disaster happens, musicians are the first to put their hand up and offer support. Now it's time for the public, who get music free online and hear it ... |
Non-combustive exothermic reactions? | Unless you mean exothermic without oxidizing (Combustion is just a faster oxidizing reaction) I'd vote for:
* Potassium Permanganate and Glycerol or Ethylene glycol
* Cyanoacrylate and cotton
One problem is they both eventually burst into flame, but only because they're reaching the ignition temperature for either Glyceral, Ethylene glycol, or cotton.
* Magnesium + water works if you don't want a reaction that eventually bursts into flame. However, there is a little problem with Hydrogen gas. | [
"A reaction is said to be exergonic if the final state is lower on the energy scale than the initial state; in the case of endergonic reactions the situation is the reverse. A reaction is said to be exothermic if the reaction releases heat to the surroundings; in the case of endothermic reactions, the reaction abso... |
How would I go about making a superconducting magnetic train? | > You have to make a superconductor by cooling strong magnets with liquid nitrogen.
No, that's not how superconductors work, you need to have something made specifically from a superconductive material.
> What kind of magnets do I use? What strength?
Ordinary neodymium magnets would be fine.
> How much liquid nitrogen do I need?
Depends on how many demonstrations you plan on doing.
> What temperature do the magnets need to be?
Room temperature. | [
"Superconducting magnets on a train above a track made out of a permanent magnet lock the train into its lateral position. It can move linearly along the track, but not off the track. This is due to the Meissner effect and flux pinning.\n",
"An alternate operating mode used by most superconducting magnets is to s... |
At what age does human hearing fully mature? | Hearing in infancy is much less sensitive (to quiet, high, and low sounds) than in adulthood. An informative paragraph from a review of the topic (pdf: [Mattock, Amitay, & Moore, 2010](_URL_0_)):
"It is not entirely clear when human hearing begins, but behavioural indices, such as fetal movements in response to external sound, suggest that it is around the 25th week of gestation (Lecanuet et al., 1995). However, this ‘onset of hearing’ marks but one significant event in a developmental sequence that begins at conception and continues, according to a recent cortical evoked-potential study (Poulsen et al., 2007), to somewhere beyond 40 years of age. Despite this widely protracted period of development, it is clear that most major changes in auditory perception occur relatively early in a child’s life. Newborn infants have tone-detection thresholds that are 30–70 dB higher than adults. Sensitivity then improves dramatically, so that, by 6 months, it is possible to observe thresholds for high-frequency sounds that are only 10 dB or so higher than those of young adults. But, while high-frequency sensitivity matures early (by around 2 years), lowfrequency sensitivity continues to develop until about 10 years of age." | [
"Usually occurs after age 50, but deterioration in hearing has been found to start very early, from about the age of 18 years. The ISO standard 7029 shows expected threshold changes due purely to age for carefully screened populations (i.e. excluding those with ear disease, noise exposure etc.), based on a meta-ana... |
why does a gyroscope resist being rotated | This video is far greater than any words I can possibly convey: _URL_0_ | [
"A gyroscope, not to be confused with gyrocompass, is a spinning wheel mounted on a set of gimbals so that its axis is free to orient itself in any way. When it is spun up to speed with its axis pointing in some direction, due to the law of conservation of angular momentum, such a wheel will normally maintain its o... |
why can you cook some things from frozen but not others? | You *can't* cook originally fresh chicken from frozen??
Uh oh... | [
"Frozen products do not require any added preservatives because microorganisms do not grow when the temperature of the food is below , which is sufficient on its own in preventing food spoilage. Long-term preservation of food may call for food storage at even lower temperatures. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), a tast... |
how does the https transfer the key to decrypt the data without compromising the contents of said data? | If data could be encrypted with a paint colour, then...
If I wanted to send you encrypted data, first I would send you some random colour paint.
Next, you and I would independently choose a second secret random colour paint (both different) and mix it with the first colour I just sent you. We would come up with two new colours.
We then send each other our new paint colours, and mix in our own second secret random colour with each other's new colour. The result is that we both come up with the same final colour (the final colour each being a total mix of the three colours: the original, your secret colour, and my secret colour).
I can now use this final colour to encrypt the data, knowing that you will have independently come up with the exact same colour.
If someone else were watching us send these colours, they would get the first colour and the third pair of colours that were produced, but it would be very difficult for them to figure out what each of our secret colours were; it would be difficult for them to un-mix the third colour back to the first colour and whatever secret colour we each chose, so they would not be able to produce their own final colour.
HTTPS uses mathematics that have similar properties, easy to compute one way, difficult to reverse. | [
"After connecting to the C2 server, it will retrieve the encryption key, then start the process. It will first encrypt the \"/Users\" folder, then after that \"/Volumes\" There are also 300 file extensions that are encrypted, such as:\n",
"The rest of the communication then proceeds using the new (disposable) sym... |
What would happen to the children of prostitutes in Roman society? | In Roman society, children weren't seen as full people. If a parent possessed a child that was unwanted they would abandon them until they either were adopted by somebody that did want them, or succumbed to exposure. It would come to no surprise then, that this was a common practice among prostitutes in Roman society. (Not to discourage a more comprehensive answer, if there was something special about the children of prostitutes then I'd be very interested in hearing it) | [
"Athenian prostitutes probably committed infanticide more frequently than married citizen women; Sarah Pomeroy suggests that they would have preferred daughters – who could become prostitutes – to sons. Some prostitutes also bought slaves, and trained abandoned children to work in the profession.\n",
"Prostitutes... |
Was there a peaceful coexistence between the early Christian groups? | I can come up with a couple examples:
> And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.
When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.
That would be Acts 15:1-2. That would be an account of Paul having a dispute with "Judaizers".
In another example, we can see Paul encouraging coexistence
> For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is rquarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that seach one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
It seems that at least with that one issue of "Do you have to be circumcised?", Paul would be willing to go to war. But while we have no specific examples of how Paul, Apollos and Cephas differ, it must have not been that big of a deal to Paul.
Those were examples of Paul interacting with Jewish Christians. What follows would be examples of Paul interacting with Gnostic Christioans
> But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
or alternatively
> For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
Paul said both of these things, but he said the opposite thing to different groups.
Conclusions:
It seems to me that pretty much all blanket statements become tropes because for every postulate, one can find counterexamples. But I think your three categories are spot on I think you would find people who retain their Jewish thinking, people who retain their Greek thinking, and people for whom Christianity becomes a new paradigm.
| [
"The second and more prominent cause of these rivalries started when the Christian missionaries arrived. Two groups showed up in the pre-colonial period: the Protestant English missionaries under the African inland mission and the Catholic Irish missionaries. These two groups brought their animosities with them fro... |
how the casino know where we put our bets on the roulette and how do they avoid us lying that we won the bet? | Each player has different colored chips. There is a big table with all the possible options that you can bet on. There's a space for each number, for black, for red, for odd numbers, etc. You have to put your chips on the table before the dealer waves and says no more bets. There is a camera right above it. Then the ball lands on a particular color. If your bet wins, the dealer puts the correct amount of money on top. | [
"Players place their bets on certain areas of the table as shown in the picture above. The dealer then picks up a small chest containing the dice, which he/she closes and shakes. Finally the dealer opens the chest to reveal the combination.\n",
"Each casino may set which bets are offered and different payouts for... |
How did France's Revolutionary Army equip itself? How could it supply almost a million men? | The French Revolutionary army was an odd animal. Hodgepodge and haphazard, the Revolutionary army was very different than the previous armies of France. Rather than the restrained, well kept armies dressed in white, the French Revolutionary army was funded and equipped with what they found or given.
The French Revolution and the declaration of the Republic pulled power from the King and placed it in the hands of the people, this included the rights and ability to produce arms. Almost right away, the French Assembly started setting up more foundries and manufactures to produce armaments. Rather than the famed Charleville factory, which made muskets, factories were set up all throughout France to produce hundreds of thousands of muskets
Of course, not all soldiers carried or wore French items. War was the best supplier of arms for the French as they would often take abandoned muskets and artillery guns as well as taking the clothes of the dead or from prisoners. Since the .69 calibre musket was generally the smallest calibre used by European armies, the French didn't need to worry about using different ammunition and often used captured enemy cartridges.
Other units such as members of the national guard would wear their own clothes, being required a blue jacket of a certain style and given a pike if muskets were not available. | [
"The creation of the French Revolutionary Army was largely due to his powers of organization and enforcing discipline. In order to raise more troops for the war, Carnot introduced conscription: the \"levée en masse\" approved by the National Convention was able to raise France’s army from 645,000 troops in mid-1793... |
why does playing a game at higher frames than originally intended (e.g. 60fps instead of 30fps) often cause glitches with the physics? | These games run the FPS and the physics engine in the same loop, and make some assumptions about the speed. They don't calculate physics that would have happened since the last calculation, they just calculate another 1/30 of a second of physics. So, by increasing the FPS, you increase the number of physics calculations but not the time its calculated for, resulting in 'faster' physics. | [
"\"Maximum\" thoroughly panned this version for its lack of PAL optimization, large borders, choppy frame rate even on the smallest possible screen size, bland color palette, music which is lacking in atmosphere, and load times. They added that the frame rate and slowdown make the game too easy: \"When large amount... |
What are the properties of plasma formed at reentry in the atmosphere? | Oxygen glows blue due to [glow discharge](_URL_0_) while re-entry plasma is basically a [black body](_URL_2_) and its color depends on its temperature.
According to [NASA](_URL_3_) the space shuttle reaches 3000 Farenheit, which is 1900 Kelvin which corresponds to orange-red black body radiation.
EDIT: Here is a [Temperature chart](_URL_1_). | [
"Plasma recombination is a process by which positive ions of a plasma capture a free (energetic) electron and combine with electrons or negative ions to form new neutral atoms (gas). Recombination is an exothermic reaction, meaning heat releasing reaction.\n",
"In 2013, a group of materials scientists reported th... |
what difference does the wheel size make, specifically in regards to winter tires? | You want narrow tires for snow/ice. 245/45R18 aren't that narrow.
Usually what people do is buy a cheap set of steel rims in a size common on econoboxes, so they cay buy cheap, tall, narrow econobox winter tires to put on them. Also because you can slide around into curbs and only mess up your cheap steel rims and not your nice alloy ones.
That said, your plan will work fine - especially since you live in Calgary and chinooks melt most of the snow. I never changed to winter tires when I lived in S Alberta. | [
"Snow tires or Winter tires are tires designed for use in colder weather, snow and ice. To improve traction, they are made of different rubber and have a different tread pattern from regular street tires.\n",
"Snow tires—also called winter tires—are tires designed for use on snow and ice. Snow tires have a tread ... |
why i get so many nose bleeds in the winter and other people don't | Cold air is dry air. You may be able to make the nosebleeds stop by getting a humidifier for your home, or at least for your bedroom. | [
"It is possible that the nasal cycle may exacerbate the nasal congestion caused by the common cold, as the lack of motility of the cilia in one half of the nose may lead to an uncomfortable sensation of not being able to shift mucus by blowing the nose.\n",
"Nosebleeds can occur due to a variety of reasons. Some ... |
the amazon web services | The basic idea is that Amazon has *shitloads* of computers, all set up so that if one goes down, nobody will ever notice. They've designed their system to handle massive spikes of customers so they can handle the holiday rush. Once they had all this figured out, they realized they could rent out server space/time.
EC2 gives you a virtual server that you can use for whatever you want - most people use them for web servers but that's not a requirement. You can create & destroy them on the fly from software, depending on the load. It's easy to clone fully-configured servers, rather than having to set each one up by hand.
S3 is a way to store files for your website and redistribute them. You don't have to worry about buying new hard drives when you run out of space, doing back ups or even making sure you have enough bandwidth. Like EC2, you can easily manipulate things automatically with software.
One of the downsides to EC2 is that, while you can create and destroy servers automatically, you can't store much on them. If you wanted to run a database, for example, where you needed a lot of fast, reliable storage space it just wouldn't work. EBS gives you 'drives' you can attach to your EC2 instances.
For data that you want to keep around, but don't plan on using, there's Glacier. You 'pack it away' and can get to it if you need it, but it might take a while to get. If you want to keep data going back a few years to be safe, but never actually read anything older than 3 months - this is where you put it. It's a lot cheaper than the other storage services.
The RDS is (big surprise) a database. Once your server load gets past a certain point, it's hard to just add another database - RDS hides all the complexity of that from you and handles scaling and sharding and all the stuff you need when a site gets huge.
There's a bunch more services that tie in to these things. Some things, like the queuing service, start to make sense when your system is running on hundreds of servers at once. | [
"Amazon Webstore allowed businesses to create custom e-commerce online stores using Amazon technology. Sellers selected the category for their business, and paid a commission of 1-2%, plus credit-card processing fees and fraud protection, and a subscription fee depending on the bundle option for an unlimited number... |
How centralized was the Sassanid Empire? | Honestly, it's hard to say. By the time of the Arab invasion, the Sasanian monarchy had by and large collapsed, and Khusrau Anushirwan's decision to split the empire into four administrative regions exacerbated this, turning it into, effectively, a series of principalities governed by the powerful nobility.
I've expanded a bit on this [here](_URL_0_). | [
"The Sassanid Empire is the name used for the fourth Iranian dynasty, and the second Persian Empire (226–651). The empire's territory encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Afghanistan, eastern parts of Turkey, and parts of Syria, Pakistan, and large parts of Caucasia, Central Asia and Arabia. During Khosr... |
How did the jellyfish lifecycle evolve? | just a highschool student, so this might be wrong, please correct me if i am: the polyp phase is adapted to sitting at the sea floor and getting food there, having is tentacles pointing upwards and its mouth adapted to eat stuff that it finds there. after it gets enough time to grow and mature, the adult jellyfish we're used to seeing has a shape that's adapted to swimming and can go find food in the open sea without competing with the younger ones, while also getting to reproduce wherever it happens to go, spreading the population over a larger area. | [
"Most jellyfish species have a relatively fixed life-span, which varies by species from hours to many months (long-lived mature jellyfish spawn every day or night; the time is also fairly fixed and species-specific). The medusa of \"Turritopsis dohrnii\" is the only form known to have developed the ability to retur... |
How do our bodies stay together? | Big question my friend.
Covalent Bonds: Atoms form together to form molecules. I am not a quantum physicist, so I can not explain this process perfectly, but simply put, atoms join together because that is what they do. That is the nature of out universe. By sharing electrons, they form a lower energy state, and they like to have low energy. This is a very strong bond. Thus, water, tends to stay as water, rather than breaking down into hydrogen and oxygen. So, first we need to think of the various types of big molecules that make up your body. Remembering, that generally speaking, molecules are stable, and wont break down unless acted on. And they are stable because of covalent bonds, the sharing of electrons that atoms like to do.
Fats: Fats... you know what they are. But on a molecular level, they are long changes of carbon atoms hung together, with some hydrogen atoms. Different fats have different lengths of carbon, hung together in slightly different ways. This is what makes some fats liquid at room temperature, and some solid.
Proteins: Proteins are where you body gets exciting. These are made from little molecular building blocks called "amino acids" There are 21 different amino acids that your body uses. And each one is a group of 10-40 atoms joined together via those covalent bonds. The body knows what to do with these amino acids through various complex systems. Think of them like lego blocks. They all have slightly different shapes and properties, but they all join together,
DNA: DNA (and other nucleic acid) is also made building blocks, 4 or 5 different types. This is (generally) the information store for your cells. Think of it like a book, but instead of having hundreds of thousands of different words, DNA has 4. The order of those words tell the story. In this case, DNA tells the body how to make protein.
Carbohydrates. Sugars, starches. Again, we have building blocks. You may have heard of glucose? Well that is your sugar buidling block. This can get joined with other similar things, to make long chain sugars, that your body stores for energy (along with fats, which are also energy stores).
Now you know what makes up a cell, lets build one. Your body is made up of millions of cells. About a 10th the width of a human hair. They are little bags, The wall of the bag is made up of those fats we talked about. Slightly modified, so that they like to disolve in water at one end, and hide from water in the other. If you get enough of these fats together, the spontaneously form into little bags, much like how soapy water will spontaneously form bubbles. Inside the bag, i.e. the cell, smaller little bags of fats are made, where different reactions happen. What kind of reactions? Well this is where protein comes in.
Proteins can be made to do huge amounts of amazing things, just like lego. With a few buidling blocks, you can make almost anything.
Look at this video
_URL_0_
This is a protein in action. They have many truly amazing actions. Muscle contration is because of long fibres of proteins in your muscles pulling on each other. You see because of light sensitive proteins in your retina. You name it, proteins are doing it. The other amazing thing they can do, is force chemical reactions. Here they are called "enzymes". They can act in various ways, but just think about it like the protein grabbing one molecule, and another, and then forcing them together. They force them together in such a perfect way, that the form new covalent bonds. Your enzymes produce a lot of the raw material for your body by forcing molecules together, or breaking them apart (there are a few things we can't make, and hence we need to eat them, like vitamins).
So, now we have cells, bags of fat, with proteins working inside.
Finally, on those cells, other proteins can sit; trapped in the fats. These proteins can be used to make your cells rigid (otherwise they would just be floppy bags). And they can also join together with the proteins on other cells. Linking all the cells together to form organs.
SO there you go
Atoms go with other atoms via covalent bonds, which are very strong, to form molecules. Molecules get joined up (also via covalent bonds) to make fats, DNA, protein and carbohydrates.
Modified fats make the cell wall, and proteins inside the bags do the molecular work, including making new things, and fixing old things. Proteins of the surfaces of the cells, make the cells rigid, and join cells together to make tissues. | [
"This system describes how bones are connected to other bones and muscle fibers via connective tissue such as tendons and ligaments. The bones provide stability to the body. Muscles keep bones in place and also play a role in the movement of bones. To allow motion, different bones are connected by joints. Cartilage... |
Why would an asteroid impact produce more than a hole in the ground? | Keep in mind that meteors impact really, really fast. The meteorite that produced [Meteor Crater](_URL_0_) is theorized to have impacted at 12.8km/s. At that speed, it doesn't just leave a hole in the ground: The meteor is heated by the extreme deformation, and most or all of it is immediately vaporized in a large explosion. The pressure wave and heat emitted in this explosion are what causes all the damage. This pressure and heat are basically the same way that nuclear bombs cause so much damage. In the case of that meteor in 1908, friction from the atmosphere alone was enough to heat it to the point of exploding, so it was much more destructive over a wide area than it would be if it had hit the ground. Nuclear bombs are also deployed in this manner; they detonate in the air to damage a much wider area. | [
"An impact by a asteroid on the Earth has historically caused an extinction-level event due to catastrophic damage to the biosphere. There is also the threat from comets entering the inner Solar System. The impact speed of a long-period comet would likely be several times greater than that of a near-Earth asteroid,... |
Are there problems in computer science that no algorithm can solve for all inputs? | Are you familiar with Undecidable problems:
_URL_1_
and specifically the Halting problem?:
_URL_0_
Also an important excerpt:
> Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm running on a Turing machine that solves the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs necessarily cannot exist. | [
"Physical limitations of computer hardware aside, in principle it is possible to solve any game under the condition that the complete state is known and there is no random chance. Strong solutions, i.e. algorithms that can produce perfect play from any position, are known for some simple games such as Tic Tac Toe/N... |
do all software have bugs in their code or can there be bug-free software? | As software becomes more complex, the likelihood that it will be used in unforseen ways increases exponentially.
There are tons of bug-free software. Have you ever seen a 4-function calculator crash? Probably not.
But, realistically, the chances of having something as complex as Windows or MacOS or a modern day video-game not have any bugs is zero. There's just too much going on. | [
"It is common practice to release software with known, low-priority bugs. Most big software projects maintain two lists of \"known bugs\" – those known to the software team, and those to be told to users. The second list informs users about bugs that are not fixed in a specific release and workarounds may be offere... |
Did Martin Luther condemn peasants because he truly believed that they were acting like savages, or was he trying to look good for the political leaders that the peasants went against? | My estimation is that Luther meant what he wrote concerning the 1525 Peasants' Rebellion. More broadly, he wasn't politically ignorant, but he was also not really known for flattering those in authority or trying to look good for political leaders against his own views. He knew how to say things in a persuasive way, but I have a great deal of trouble believing he'd go to such lengths to please the princes against his better judgment.
In looking at his writings concerning the events, I think this holds true, that's he did believe what he wrote. There's three important documents here: *Admonition to Peace*, a reply to the 12 Articles of the Swabian Peasants; *Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants*; and *An Open Letter on the Harsh Book Against the Peasants*. All are from 1525, at different stages of the events - the first is fairly moderate; the second, much more extreme; and the third, a response to the criticism he received for the second.
In the first, the *Admonition*, Luther acknowledged that the peasants had some just cause to be upset; he addressed the rulers:
> As temporal rulers you do nothing but cheat and rob the people so that you may lead a life of luxury and extravagance. The poor common people cannot bear it any longer... Since you are the cause of this wrath of God, it will undoubtedly come upon you, unless you mend your ways in time.
To the peasants in the same *Admonition* he wrote:
> You, too, must be careful that you take up your cause justly and with a good conscience... But if you act unjustly and have a bad conscience, you will be defeated.
He continues:
> The fact that the rulers are wicked and unjust does not excuse disorder and rebellion, for the punishing of wickedness is not the responsibility of everyone, but of the worldly rulers who bear the sword. Thus Paul says in Romans 13 and Peter, in 1 Peter 3, that the rulers are instituted by God for the punishment of the wicked.
> The rulers unjustly take your property; that is the one side. On the other hand, you take from them their authority, in which their whole property and life and being consist. Therefore you are the far greater robbers than they, and you intend to do worse things than they have done.
He goes on to describe and condemn any breakdown of law and order and mob rule, and concluding:
> In saying this it is not my intention to justify or defend the rulers in the intolerable injustices which you suffer from them. They are unjust, and commit heinous wrongs against you; that I admit. If, however, neither side accepts instruction and you start to fight with each other - may God prevent it! - I hope that neither side will be called Christian.
Remember, this is from the first of those three writings, the *Admonition*, which is the more moderate and earliest of them. It was only when this preaching failed and the violence escalated that he then advocated for the princes' use of force to crush the rebellion and restore civil order.
Luther was consistent throughout his career in respecting civil order and had a strong aversion to any civil rebellion, chaos, mob rule, etc. It's easy to mistake him at first glance, assuming in his opposition to the authority of the papacy he cared little for such things, but it's quite the opposite. He valued authority highly indeed; his opposition to papal authority was because he was concerned with higher authority of God and Scripture. His political philosophy was broadly defined by his perspective of the Two Kingdoms - the right-hand kingdom is defined by the Gospel of God's grace and salvation by faith in Christ alone, while the left-hand kingdom is concerned with matters of this world and included (but was not necessarily limited to) civil government and earthly rulers. It's important to note that this is not a distinction between church and state; both the right-hand and left-hand kingdoms are ultimately ruled by God for the good of His people, but one is characterized by Law and one by Gospel.
Primary source: *Luther: Selected Political Writings*, edited by J. M. Porter | [
"Martin Luther, the dominant leader of the Reformation in Germany, took a middle course in the Peasants' War. He criticized both the injustices imposed on the peasants, and the rashness of the peasants in fighting back. He also tended to support the centralization and urbanization of the economy. This position alie... |
why do more razor blades = a closer shave and more razor burn? | Each item on a razor blade pulls the skin tighter and tighter as it passes over the skin. A 5 blade razor will pull from the back of the head, and then each blade which will slice closer and closer to the stretched skin. Since your skin isn’t perfectly smooth you end up ‘shaving’ a little bit of your skin off which causes irritation and inflammation, aka razor burn.
If you suffer from this, use a single blade safety razor. | [
"Still others argue that straight razors provide a superior shave through a larger blade and greater control of the blade, including the blade angle. Straight razors cover a much greater area per shaving stroke, because their cutting edge is much longer than any of the multi-blade razors.\n",
"Double-edge razors ... |
why are rear wheel drive cars better for racing than front wheel drive cars | Mostly because 1) when a car accelerates, weight is shifted to the rear. More weight = more traction. By the same token, less weight in the front means less traction. 2) Steering is easier because in a FWD car, the front wheels have to move the vehicle AND steer. You can get a lot of negative side-effects like torque-steer and understeer. RWD cars propel from the rear and allow the front wheels to just steer. Pretty oversimpified, tho.
edit: words | [
"A computer-controlled four-wheel-drive differential system allows a car to both accelerate and corner more quickly, since it can vary the amount of torque going to the front and rear wheels, and therefore vary how much the car behaves like a front- or rear-wheel-drive car. This means that through a fast corner the... |
If the Moon is slowly moving away from us, what will happen to the Earth when this actually happens? | The Moon will never leave orbit. Its track widens at a rate of only a few centimeters per year, and given current rates of change, the Earth will become tidally locked with the Moon (keeping the same face constantly toward each other) long before it can to leave orbit. At that point its orbit will stop expanding, so we'll still have the Moon when the Sun expands into a red giant and engulfs us in its last days. | [
"Currently, the Moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 4 cm (1.5 inches) per year. In 50 billion years, if the Earth and Moon are not engulfed by the Sun, they will become tidelocked into a larger, stable orbit, with each showing only one face to the other. Thereafter, the tidal action of the Sun will extract ... |
what is that strange feeling of numbness we get when we wake up in the middle of the night? | Yer probably describin' the physical consequences of *sleep paralysis.*
Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:
1. [ELI5: Sleep Paralysis ](_URL_7_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep paralysis and why it happens. ](_URL_0_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep Paralysis ](_URL_2_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep paralysis? ](_URL_1_)
1. [ELI5: How does sleep paralysis work and why does it happen? ](_URL_3_)
1. [ELI5: Sleep paralysis ](_URL_6_)
1. [ELI5: What happens during sleep paralysis? ](_URL_4_)
1. [ELI5: What does Sleep paralysis feel like? What happens during it? ](_URL_5_)
| [
"Putnam has given his name to Putnam’s acroparaesthesia, a condition characterized by numbness, tingling, anaesthesia and discolouration of the hands on waking in the morning. Together with Charles L. Dana M.D. (1852–1935) he also described the Putnam-Dana syndrome which is a form of generalized subacute neurologic... |
how come only the skin on the palm of our hands and at the bottom of our feet get 'soggy' when we are in water for too long? why not our arms or legs etc? | Nobody knows. However [some scientists believe](_URL_0_) it is to give our ancestors better grip on wet/slippery objects, and it is a nervous reaction. | [
"Sometimes a callus occurs where there is no rubbing or pressure. These hyperkeratoses can have a variety of causes. Some toxic materials, such as arsenic, can cause thick palms and soles. Some diseases, such as syphilis, can cause thickening of the palms and soles as well as pinpoint hyperkeratoses. There is a ben... |
why and how is bottling up your feelings bad for your health | It'll make you neurotic. If you can't process and come to acceptance of your emotions, it can lead to anxiety, depression, bouts of anger, unhealthy impulses, and self destructive coping mechanisms. | [
"Good emotional health leads to better physical health, prevents diseases, and makes it possible to enjoy life and be happier. In this way one can become a \"medicine person\" through mirror neurons, those that lead to empathy and fire to imitate the emotions of others. Mirror neurons are what make people feel good... |
what is the laplacian operator (in both scalar and vector forms) in vector calculus? | The Laplacian can be thought of as the "curvature" of a function. To grossly simplify it, you could say it takes the average of the gradients of a function. For example, a flat surface will have no curvature and thus has a Laplacian of 0. | [
"In mathematics and physics, the vector Laplace operator, denoted by formula_1, named after Pierre-Simon Laplace, is a differential operator defined over a vector field. The vector Laplacian is similar to the scalar Laplacian. Whereas the scalar Laplacian applies to a scalar field and returns a scalar quantity, the... |
How historically accurate are Shakespeare's histories? | As Bill Bryson Notes in his edition of the Eminent Lives series, the history plays were highly reflective of the mood and political movements of the time and always looking to curry favour with the Monarch as well as provide entertainment for Londoners of all classes. This, it is believed, is where we get the warped interpretation of King Richard the 3rd as a person and ruler - as Shakespeare was almost demonising the last Plantagenet King who was superseded through war by the Tudor Dynasty, to which Elizabeth belonged.
This point would naturally provide inaccuracies in terms of character and actual legacy of the historical figures - but also, there are some hard-factual inaccuracies too. For example, as Bryson puts it,
> "Whether by design or or from ignorance, he could be
breathtakingly casual with facts...In Henry VI part I, for example, he dispatches Lord Talbot twenty-two years early, conveniently
allowing him to predecease Joan of Arc.
Also, again either through ignorance or poetic license, there are Geographical and seemingly obvious inaccuracies in his comedies and tragedies. A glaring example is,
> "...In the Tempest and Two Gentlemen of Verona he has Prospero and Valentine set sail from, respectively, Milan and Verona, even though both cities are a good two days' travel from salt water.
So although Shakespeare it is believed had a good education in Stratford, his plays [history, comedy and tragedy alike] abound with factual errors, embellishments and misplacements. Whether this was through ignorance, poetic license, fear of arrest for outraging the nobility/monarch is a matter of speculation. His more worldly audience (such as merchants and the nobility) would have known to a certain extent, whether the common audience would have cared is unknown, but royal and aristocratic patrons definitely would have cared if the history plays showed them and their ilk in a less than positive light.
Edit: At present, my only quotable source is this book by Bill Bryson, as I have literally just finished reading it and am away from my bookcase. I will add further citations from other works if people request, but it won't be for a good few days!
| [
"Mainstream Shakespeare scholars maintain that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable for attributing authorship, and that the convergence of documentary evidence for Shakespeare’s authorship—title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians and official records—is the same as tha... |
What happens when hadrons collide in a particle accelerator? | Yes, energy and momentum are conserved. There are many different processes which can occur when particles collide, depending on the types of particles and the collision energy. But the total energy and momentum are always conserved. | [
"particle collider was ADONE, which began operations in 1968. This device accelerated electrons and positrons in opposite directions, effectively doubling the energy of their collision when compared to striking a static target with an electron. The Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) at CERN, which was operation... |
Celebrations in liberated countries WW2 | Although it is common to see flag-waving and bouquet-throwing civilians greeting Allied troops, this is not always representative of experiences across Europe. It is important to note that in many places in Europe, some of which were flattened by preliminary bombing operations or artillery shelling, displayed neither euphoria nor gratitude to Allied troops. Additionally, the liberations of Europe came unevenly in rural and urban regions, an important dynamic many fail to appreciate.
One example to illustrate this is the battle for the Schelde in the southern Netherlands between October and November 1944. As a way to open the port of Antwerp, First Canadian Army was given the task to clear the islands of the Dutch province of Zeeland, which protrude into the North Sea and overlook the route into the port. Given the resource and personnel shortages of First Canadian Army, Lt.-Gen. Guy Simmonds and British Admiral Bertram Ramsay proposed to bomb the dykes of Walcheren island, which was well below sea level, and flood the island. Beginning on 3 October 1944, over 10,000 tons of ordnance were dropped on the island (and elsewhere) to flood optimal German defensive positions prior to executing amphibious attacks. By 28 October 1944, thousands of hectares of the province were flooded with saltwater. For the sake brevity, I will say that the Allied action killed about 10 percent of Westkapelle on the first day of the operation and we know that villages elsewhere experienced similar casualties.
In the end, many towns and villages in Zeeland have a very different understanding and memory of the Second World War. "Liberation" in autumn 1944 made houses uninhabitable, flooded arable land with saltwater, and ensured that the war would be synonymous with inundation. The *Bevrijdingsdag* (Liberation Day) celebrated in May in the northern provinces is inapplicable to this province.
In places where Allies were greeted joyously by Dutch civilians, some of the gatherings were spontaneous and others were permitted by SHAEF Civil Affairs units or hitherto "illegal" resistance groups like the *Ordedienst*, which, depending on the region in the Netherlands, acted as translators and guides for some Canadian units. The photos you mention above typically belie the anger and frustration many civilians sought to express to local authorities and Allied troops. In at least one case, elements of 2 Canadian Corp needed to protect members of the NSB/Nazi sympathizers from Dutch civilians, and ensure they were turned over to the correct authorities for interrogation. Civilians sought first and foremost justice rather than jubilation. In general, and I must emphasize the generality of this statement, the euphoria of civilians depicted in the media is often taken from towns or regions which were not devastated by "mopping up" operations or large-scale aerial bombardment.
For more on Belgium, see Peter Schrijvers' *Liberators: Allies and Belgian Society* (Cambridge University Press, 2009). For the above example, see [one of my articles](_URL_0_). I hope this helps. | [
"In 1996, the Dade Battlefield State Historic Site hosted the first annual World War II Commemorative Day. Since the first event, the commemoration has grown to include reenactors representing both the Allies and the Axis, vendors, music, encampments, vehicles, and food.\n",
"In April 1995, Kentwell Hall presente... |
Are there any examples of prophecies that have led to war? | Apparently not haha | [
"\"Falsehood in War-time\" identifies the role propaganda played in World War I, in general and specific terms and lists more than 20 falsehoods that were circulated during the First World War. Ponsonby regards these falsehoods as a fundamental part of the way the war effort was created and sustained, claiming that... |
why do some humans become depressed/anxious when all alone and other humans don't? | I don't believe there's a single person who wouldn't get depressed when left alone too long. We're a social species and there are many cases where extended isolation has severely damaged people's mental well-being.
Now I think there are definitely people who get depressed faster than the others. Every person is different and it's not really a symptom of anything more than your personality.
I generally am good left to my own devices. But, in a case like this where I'm left alone too long I feel an itch to see people. I miss the company of others even if I don't relish actually speaking to them.
There's loads of things nowadays online about "introverts" and "extroverts" and people are very quick to say they are one or the other but psychology is not as simple as "you exhibit one behaviour. You are X". Everyone is different and needs their own levels of social interaction to keep sane and I think that may just be human nature.
There's nothing wrong with you for preferring your own company and there's nothing wrong with wanting to be around people as long as you're not doing harm to yourself and those around you. It's all about knowing yourself and your needs. | [
"People with depression often view themselves as unlovable, helpless, doomed or deficient. They tend to attribute their unpleasant experiences to their presumed physical, mental, and/or moral deficits. They tend to feel excessively guilty, believing that they are worthless, blameworthy, and rejected by self and oth... |
if keeping your heart rate up is good for you during exercise, is the same true of watching scary movies, playing video games, or other passive heart rate boosters? | Heart rate increases due to exercise are healthier than heart rate increases due to terror (eg. watching a scary movie). Terror-based heart rate increases are accompanied by a spike in adrenaline, which can be damaging to your heart over time. | [
"But high-intensity exercise would drive the body to excessive coldness, weakness, getting blue face or lips after exercise; moreover after heavy exercise heart rate would take much longer to return to base which is not healthy.\n",
"The intensity at which we exercise is key, and light activity such as strolling ... |
What exactly caused Europeans to be seen as barbarians by the Chinese? | I believe your question stems from debate regarding the precise definition of the Chinese term 夷 (*yi*) which appears to have arisen in the mid-19th century. This term was variously translated as 'foreigner' or 'barbarian' - the latter use promulgated by a Pomeranian missionary-cum-translator in China in the early 19th century, the former championed by Waley (1889-1966) and earlier documentation provided by individuals ranging from Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) to British envoy George Macartney (1737-1806) - which made no note of *yi* as a perjorative.
Additionally the Qing Chinese stressed that *yi* merely designated foreigners deemed as 'easterners' (the British most regularly visited Eastern ports), with *man* designating southern foreigners, *rong* northerners, and so forth. The British interpreted the term as highly offensive and showing of contempt - and indeed the term did have currency as a frequent distinguisher of Chinese culture from outsiders - the extent of distaste it showed for the latter being the subject of bitter discourse.
Indeed the issue of *yi* coloured relations between Britain and Qing China to such a degree that article 51 of the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Tianjin (1858) specifically addresses its use, prohibiting its official use in reference to the British government (with a translation of the article [here](_URL_0_)). Historian Lydia Liu writes "Never has a lone word among the myriad languages of humanity made so much history as the Chinese character *yi*." There is certainly an argument that the supposition of *yi* as a strict pejorative by the British served as perfect reasoning for diplomatic aggression British policymaking showed in the country at the time.
Qing attitudes towards foreigners in reality were much more varied. Initial official opinion of Europeans was born of naivety - they were not seen as any more powerful or influential prior to the 19th century than traders who had been visting China for over a millennium. Their customs and produce were mere curiosities at best to the emperors of the late Ming and early Qing and not considered dangerous or influential with regards to imperial authority. Contrary to popular opinion, Chinese opinion was not cemented in opposition to European aggression even after the Second Opium War (1856-1860) - a marked negative trend in Chinese attitudes towards Europeans was only really noticeable in the period surrounding and subsequent to the Sino-French War of 1884-1845 by which point Western intentions became clear for all to see and the dynasty was seen as in peril.
Even at this point amongst opposition there was an ingrained psychological phenomenon in Chinese society which pinned much blame on the Qing for the inability to successfully govern and modernise at the rise of European imperialism - providing a fatal weakness that it would be natural for foreigners to exploit. Whilst some by this point proclaimed of "selling my soul to the foreign devil" (Lu Xun, 1890s), others equally became open critics of the Qing regime in a brazenness rarely seen prior. Whilst the last Qing emperors placed great importance on the understanding of foreign society and technology, openly praising Western methods became taboo and individuals such as the pro-Western Qing ambassador to London of the late 19th century was physically assaulted, impeached and finally dismissed for his opinions. "He cannot serve human beings / So how can he serve demons?" read one proclamation.
The zenith of anti-European sentiment in China would be reached with the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901 - a nationalist movement strongly opposed to Western imperialism and the strangehold the West had on China by this point - and unofficially supported by the Qing regime. The arrival of troops of the [Eight-Nation alliance](_URL_1_) under a humanitarian guise and the effective complete subjugation of imperial power it resulted in imprinted a lasting stigma in Chinese sentiment towards the West which continued to exist to a greater or lesser extent throughout the 20th century. Whilst it would be unreasonable to surmise that the Chinese showed no contempt for Westerners prior to imperialistic designs on the Qing empire [indeed the superiority of Chinese culture generally had been a core tenant of dynasties of past], there is certainly a strong argument that this merely served as justification for otherwise what was clearly Western expansionist aggression towards Qing China beginning with policy-making leading up to the First Opium War (1839-1842) and arguably only ending with the dissolution of the empire in 1912 - throughout which anti-Western sentiment amongst the populace of Qing China would *truly* root itself.
**Sources:**
*The Opium War* - Julia Lovell
*The Clash of Empires* - Lydia Liu
*China: A History* - John Keay | [
"In Asia, ancient Indians considered all foreigners barbarians. The Muslim scholar Al-Biruni wrote that the Indians called foreigners impure. A few centuries later, Dubois observes that \"Hindus look upon Europeans as barbarians totally ignorant of all principles of honour and good breeding... In the eyes of a Hind... |
What were/are historians' responses to Max Weber's theories? | As a related question, am I wrong in thinking that Weber's definition of the minimal requirement for a state (monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a limited and defined area) is still pretty damn useful? | [
"Weber has influenced many later social theorists, such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, György Lukács and Jürgen Habermas. Different elements of his thought were emphasised by Carl Schmitt, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig Lachmann, Leo Strauss, Hans Morgenthau, and Raymond Aron. According to the Austrian economist Lud... |
why is a two-state solution for palestine/israel so difficult? it seems like a no-brainer. | It's because the situation is an endlessly spiralling disaster. The Jewish people have been persecuted so much throughout history up to and including the Holocaust that they felt the only way they would ever be safe would be to create a Jewish State. They had also been forcibly expelled from numerous other nations throughout history. In 1922, the League of Nations gave control of the region to Britain, who basically allowed numerous Jews to move in so that they'd stop immigrating to Britain. Now this is all well and good, since the region was a No Man's Land.
..Except there were people living there. It's pretty much right out of Eddie Izzard's 'But Do You Have a Flag?'. The people we now know as Palestinians rioted about it, were denounced as violent. Militant groups sprang up, terrorist acts were done, military responses followed.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the people known now as Palestinians weren't united before all of this, and even today, you have competing groups claiming to be the sole legitimate government of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. So even if you want to negotiate, who with? There's an endless debate about legitimacy and actual regional control before you even get to the table.
So the discussion goes
"Your people are antisemitic terrorists"
"You stole our land and displaced us"
"Your people and many others in the world displaced us first and wanted to kill us."
"That doesn't give you any right to take our home. And you keep firing missiles at us."
"Because you keep launching terrorist attacks against us"
"That's not us, it's the other guys"
"If you're the government, control them."
And on, and on, and on, and on. The conflict's roots are ancient, and everybody's a little guilty, and everybody's got a bit of a point.
Bear in mind that this is also the my-first-foreign-policy version. The real situation is much more complex.
Oh, and this is before you even get started with the complexities of the religious conflict and how both groups believe God wants them to rule over the same place. | [
"Many attempts have been made to broker a two-state solution, involving the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel (after Israel's establishment in 1948). In 2007, the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians, according to a number of polls, preferred the two-state solution ove... |
how does using a throwaway account protect your identity on reddit? | Well OP, a quick look through your Reddit history, I see several pictures of the same cat which I can presume belongs to you or your family, I see you've posted some marijuana purchases, and I see that you have been active on /r/NoFap.
Maybe you can imagine wanting to post a *really* embarrassing secret to Reddit. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to post that to the same account where you posted pictures of your face. Someone could look at your post history and they might know who you are in real life!
That's the kind of situation where some people might make a throwaway account. They can still reveal the secret, and there's no worry that an outsider might look at their post history and be able to identify them.
That being said, a throwaway account likely still logs IP access. In theory, any admin of Reddit could easily correlate a throwaway with a main account if accessed through the same IP address. You could work around this by using a different network, perhaps a cafe with wifi; or you could use Tor. | [
"A person's personal information may be surreptitiously obtained, commonly described as identity theft, in a variety of ways. A fraudster may use another person's basic personal details (such as name, address, username and PIN) to access the victim's online accounts, including banking accounts, email, and social me... |
the process of brewing | Yeast eats sugar and excretes ethanol and carbon dioxide as a waste products. Eventually there is so much alcohol in the solution the yeast dies off and you have an alcoholic beverage.
For beer, the sugar typically comes form a specially prepared malted barely. Most homebrewers start with a kit that has all the grains prepared. You basically mix everything together and put it in a large bottle that lets the CO2 escape, and let it set for days or even weeks until all the yeast dies. If everything went right, now you have beer. Yay, beer! | [
"Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, at home by a homebrewer, or by a variety of traditional methods such as comm... |
why does screaming relieve physical pain to an extent? | The theory is that the the part of the brain used for pain and the part of the brain we use for talking or yelling kind of “overlap,” so we can’t really use both at the same time. The brain is quite interesting, but sometimes it really sucks at multitasking, so we’re able to use one part or the other, but not at the same time. Screaming can even be used for pain management, although others around you may not appreciate it very much. It’s an interesting area that’s still being studied. | [
"Elaine Scarry, writer and literature professor, talks about language in connection to pain and she thinks that pain almost destroys the language because it brings people back into a state where sounds and screams are dominating as they were their means of communication before they learned how to speak. Pain cannot... |
what makes something “music”? | It's a bit like asking what makes something art. There's no one definition that everyone agrees on. Personally I believe something is art when it is called art by its creator. By extension, something is music when it is art (by the definition above) and it is sonic in nature.
People who say you don't make music are elitist dickholes, don't pay any attention to them. | [
"Music is an art form which combines pitch, rhythm, and dynamic in order to create sound. It can be performed using a variety of instruments and styles and is divided into genres such as folk, jazz, hip hop, pop, and rock, etc. As an art form, music can occur in live or recorded formats, and can be planned or impro... |
why don't refugees, if they have to pay up to 1000 dollars in order to get crammed on a sketchy boat, use that money to arrange their own, less sketchy boat with fewer people? | This is a classic economic question, I suppose.
1) Information. Refugees might not know how much it would cost to pool these resources themselves. They might not be able to find a boat or captain themselves. They might need help when they get there.
2) Would it really be cheaper to do it that way? What would the refugees do when they get their? Sell the boat? To who? Well the smugglers don't have to buy a new boat or hire a new captain every time. So that saves money.
3) Is this some sort of strange victim blaming?
EDIT: grammar and typos | [
"However, refugee hosting countries do not usually follow this policy and instead do not allow refugees to work legally. In many countries the only option is either to work for a small incentive (with NGOs based in the camp) or to work illegally with no rights and often bad conditions. In some camps it is accepted ... |
Cows have bacteria in their stomachs to help break down cellulose in grass in order to digest it. Could a human be inoculated with these bacteria, and then be able to eat grass? | The bacteria are part of it, but remember that ruminants like cows have a four compartment stomach. First, the plant material enters the rumen and is separated into solid and liquid layers. The solid is regurgitated as the cud, which is masticated further and swallowed again. So, even if we innoculate ourselves with the stomach flora of bovine, have them survive the human stomach and have the human survive as well, we would encounter the rough task of heaving up our grassy lunch, chewing up the vomitus and swallowing it. Then there is the possibility that not enough nutrients may be extracted from the plant matter. Based on that, I'd say it isn't feasible. | [
"Bacteria living in the gut of cattle, horses and other herbivores, for example \"Ruminococcus\" spp., help digest the cellulose component of their diet by secreting the enzyme cellulase. Cellulose is the major source of energy for these animals. \n",
"Ruminant animals, particularly cows and sheep, contain bacter... |
How do we know that the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years away from Earth if it takes 2.5 million years for light to get there in the first place? | Andromeda is billions of years old so we have plenty of old light hitting us. The light being 2.5 million years old is of little concern. Measuring cosmic distance is actually pretty hard to do and requires being clever. [Here's my favorite lecture on the topic](_URL_0_), it's by Fields Medalist Terrance Tao and is very accessible and well explained.
There are several ways to measure the distance to Andromeda, but the basic idea is that if you know how bright a star is supposed to be, and you see the same type of star far away, then the apparent brightness will be related to the distance. [Cepheid variables](_URL_1_) are one type of star you can do this with. | [
"BULLET::::- The Andromeda Galaxy is claimed to be \"almost one million\" light years away, repeating the understandings of the 1920s, but the galaxy is now understood to be 2.5 million light years away.\n",
"The \"distance\" of a far away galaxy depends on how it is measured. With a redshift of 1, light from thi... |
Were gladiators assigned to a single gladiator type, or did they change fighting styles from fight to fight? | To the best of my knowledge gladiators were assigned a single 'style' and trained in that area. The reason for this is actually quite simple, some styles (i.e. Retiarius) took a large amount of skill to preform well. A lanista would not want to invest a large amount of time and money into training a slave as a gladiator only to have him die in the arena as a result of lack of skill. Switching styles would be a huge disadvantage to the gladiator, he will not be as skilled, and to the lanista, who will have to invest even more money and time into training him.
If we think of a typical ludus, the number of gladiators could range from a handful to a large number, the exact number of gladiators within a typical ludus is unknown to me but you wouldn't want too many for fear of a revolt, especially considering you were training these men to fight. The fact that a lanista had the ability to chose from different gladiators means that he could train different men in different styles, therefore having a wide array of skilled men at his disposal.
It should also be noted that to be considered a 'good' gladiatorial match, the fight could not be over too quickly. To prolong a fight and strike in the right places (i.e. not immediately lethal or crippling) required an enormous amount of skill and good experience and knowledge of ones weapons and equipment, another reason to keep your gladiator in a single style.
| [
"There were many different types of gladiators in ancient Rome. Some of the first gladiators had been prisoners-of-war, and so some of the earliest types of gladiators were experienced fighters; Gauls, Samnites, and \"Thraeces\" (Thracians) used their native weapons and armor. Different gladiator types specialized ... |
why are divorce rates so high in america where people can choose their spouse but low in india where it's arranged? | Research shows that "love marriages" and "arranged marriages" end up with similar levels of happiness.
So the difference in divorce rate can't be attributed to differences in happiness.
Divorce became common in the USA in the last 50 years because (1) the social taboo against it faded, (2) women gained greater rights, and (3) women gained greater career prospects so they could more easily live without a husband. | [
"In India, marriage is thought to be for life, and the divorce rate is extremely low. Only 1.1% of marriages in India result in a divorce compared with over 45.8% in the United States, though the Indian figure appears to be rising. Opinion is mixed on the implications of this change: \"for traditionalists the risin... |
why do (uk) car insurance prices vary from week to week/month to month? | Insurance companies try to get the very best price that you (or people like you) are will to pay. This involves the company using data analytics to find the perfect price point for every kind of customer.
Source: I work in the industry. I build the rules that optimise prices. | [
"In France, the prices of insurance are calculated as function of the car type, subscribed insurance options, and also Bonus/Malus value (%), stating how many years the driver used the car without any accident or another event relevant to the insurance. It means, that the bonus/malus is assigned to the insured pers... |
What would a person experience if they took a dose of LSD while in a Sensory Deprivation chamber? | If you are not opposed to some Googling, searching for John C Lilly might bring some answers for you. Sorry I cannot provide more information. r/drugs might also be able to prove some insight. | [
"In the psychedelic studies, subjects had the choice of staying in an individual room or mingling with other subjects in a common area. Observations and measurements were taken before the substance of interest was ingested, and hourly thereafter (following a 10-minute rest in bed). Physical measurements included pu... |
how is it that the us pay more taxes towards healthcare than most countries with universal healthcare, but majority of the citizens don't receive the benefits? where does all of the tax money go? | One major factor in the UK's health system being relatively [cost-efficient per capita](_URL_0_) compared to the rest of the world is that NHS attempts to standardize purchase costs for medical items across all their hospitals, with the overall volume of orders being so large that there is significant leverage available for pricing negotiations.
Secondly, the fact that the healthcare system is government funded means that there is a direct link between drug prices and the cost of funding, which gives the government a great incentive to keep the prices down.
In the US (as I understand it) there's a disconnect all the way along the chain. Looking just at medicine, drug companies sell drugs to healthcare providers. Healthcare providers "sell" them to patients, but healthcare insurers are often paying the bills.
As the healthcare provider is effectively a middle-man, the financial distress in this system is born by the healthcare insurers (ignoring people going bankrupt over medical bills, which is another entirely disgusting matter). The healthcare provider has no real reason to make the effort to decrease their bills for consumable items, as the cost is shunted on to the next party in any event.
The healthcare insurers have two options: press for lower prices to be provided by medical providers, or increase premiums. One of these is difficult to do as they're not party to purchasing contracts, and I'm unsure if they'd ever intervene in this way. The other involves passing cost along to a semi-captive market making a distress purchase. | [
"The United States pays more in healthcare expenditure per capita than any other country. Healthcare expenditures the United States accounts for approximately 16% of the country's gross domestic product and per capita spending on healthcare is more than twice that of other developed nations. Given these statistics,... |
how is lizard squad hacking xbox live? | Lizard squad is using a technique called a "Distributed Denial of Service." This isn't a hack or an act of "breaking into" a computer-network system. Instead the goal is to clog up the bandwidth available to people to access the system.
You can think of it as a public pool on a hot summer day. The pool is a service with a maximum number of people who can be in and swimming at one time. On most days it has a fair number of people who are in swimming around and on others it may have fewer. Sometimes it is closed for maintenance.
Then there's that day when too many people are there. You're in the queue to get in but it's hard to establish any kind of order. People are pushing and shoving to get through first and many are frustrated when they do get in because the pool is already full. As soon as one person gets out another two or three fight over the spot. And what's worse is a lot of the people in the pool aren't even doing anything but standing around.
**A DDoS takes a large volume of computers and other devices that can access the internet and continuously sends requests towards a target.** Xbox Live is a service with many servers in many locations, implying that an attack like this has taken some time to prepare and execute. The computers in the DDoS only have to send as many "requests" as they can each second. They don't have to wait for responses from the Xbox Live servers, **they just have to send so many requests that the servers cannot keep up, effectively preventing others from accessing this service.** | [
"BULLET::::- In the Super NES and Genesis video game \"Spider-Man Animated Series\", Lizard is a boss of the sewers in every stage in the game (except the Brooklyn Bridge and Ravencroft Prison). He is optional and can be avoided to escape the sewers. When he is defeated, he transforms back into Dr. Connors, but an ... |
What did British military recruitment look like in the Scottish highlands in the 18th century? Specifically, how did the consequences of Jacobite Rebellions impact highlander's willingness to serve/the British ability to garner interest in military service? | This is a very insightful barrage of questions, and while I am tempted to try to answer them in detail, I would instead like to recommend a handful of top-notch works that comprehensively address these issues far better than I could hope to do. I would consider all of these absolutely indispensable for the purposes of your interest as stated above:
* Allan Macinnes, *C**lanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788*
* Christopher Whatley, *Scottish Society 1707-1830: Beyond Jacobitism, Towards Industrialisation*
* A.J. Youngson, *After the Forty-Five: The Economic Impact on the Scottish Highlands*
* Andrew Mackillop, *More Fruitful than the Soil: Army, Empire and the Scottish Highlands 1715-1815*
* Robert Clyde, *From Rebel to Hero: The Image of the Highlander 1745-1830*
* Victoria Henshaw, *Scotland and the British Army, 1700-1750: Defending the Union*
You might also wish to have a look at forthcoming work by Nicola Martin on British imperialism in the Scottish Highlands and North America after Culloden.
& #x200B;
A couple of thoughts in addendum:
* Have a close look at the words of the 1746 Dress Act. There has been some recent work done by Jenn Scott and others analyzing both the wording and ramifications of that temporary law. Other recent articles of interest on the subject are from the [Scottish Tartans Authority](_URL_2_) and [Jo Watson](_URL_3_).
* We must consider if the Clearances (which happened both within and outwith the Highlands) were the primary cause of 'cultural collapse' or whether the clan system was already threatened earlier in the eighteenth century between Jacobite risings. A good trawl through both Macinnes and Mackillop above should collectively address that question pretty thoroughly, or at least offer some insights. Some say it was the cultural 'genocide' aimed at the Highlands after Culloden that did the most damage, bolstered by widespread forfeitures and the abolition of heritable jurisdictions. Others lean toward it being caused by the natural modernization and improvement toward which some chiefs and other landowners were already headed (Cameron of Lochiel, for example).
* A very important point (and complex irony) which emerges from your questions is how Britain implemented Highland regiments into their cause of empire even directly after Culloden, while at the same time 'civilizing' what was considered by many to be a rogue element in British society. Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, is often served up as a prime example of how tepid Jacobitism could be transmogrified into heroic nationalism – especially with so many opportunities for military engagement in the New World and on the Continent.
* It is also worth weighing whether the British government in the eighteenth century necessarily equated Highlanders with Jacobitism, despite the national and international composition of the rebel army in 1745-6 and its attempts to unify under a 'tartan mask'. After all, powerful elites like Duncan Forbes of Culloden and John Campbell, Lord Loudoun, were ultra-patriotic Highlanders who distinguished themselves as heroes of the British nation both during and well after the Forty-five. What does this also tell us about the variability or even speciousness of Jacobitism-as-nationalism in the eighteenth century? Were Whig and Hanoverian lawmakers in favor of the Union any less patriotic than the conservative Jacobite supporters of an ancient, Divine Right monarchy? Was dissolution of the Union really a priority for most Jacobites in 1745 as opposed to 1715, when it was still a very fresh issue?
* You will read much more from Mackillop, but the issue of recruiting on both sides was a fascinating one in the middle of the century. Many communities in the Highlands were quite reluctant to send men into battle and thereby away from farms and crops, regardless of for whom they were fighting. The Jacobite army, which had the relative luxury of spending most of its time on 'familiar' ground, faced massive waves of desertion after significant battles due to men bearing off to attend their homesteads. Some scholars suggest they would always come back, but my own opinion is that it was an uphill battle all the way just to keep men in ranks – and their increasingly draconian recruitment tactics bear this out. I will spare you further analysis here, but you would be welcome to read my [doctoral thesis](_URL_0_) for more on the motivation and the constituency of the Jacobite army.
& #x200B;
Wishing you continued luck in your historical search!
& #x200B;
With best wishes,
Dr Darren S. Layne
Creator and Curator, [The Jacobite Database of 1745](_URL_1_)
(recently of the Institute for Scottish Historical Research, University of St Andrews) | [
"The original Highland regiments were raised in the 18th century with the object of recruiting rank and file solely from the Scottish Highlands. However, due to the Highlands becoming extensively depopulated through the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Highland regiments of the British Army have witnessed... |
Ancient Greek Capitalism | I cannot directly address the question, beyond saying "it depends on your source." But if you'd like context...
& #x200B;
Marx was not alone in the characterization. Adam Smith also maintained that there was a definitive change in the economic system. He did not go back to Ancient Greece, but he goes back to what we may call the end of Mercantilism. What I'm hoping is read into this is that a change did occur that Smith is attempting to explain. The merchants, in this case, are looking to get themselves rich. In his narrative they don't really understand the full economics, except that by pressuring their monarchs to alter the economic system they'll be rich. This happens to generally work out. [Adam Smith](_URL_0_):
& #x200B;
> The different progress of opulence in different ages and nations has given occasion to two different systems of political œconomy with regard to enriching the people. The one may be called the system of commerce, the other that of agriculture. I shall endeavour to explain both as fully and distinctly as I can, and shall begin with the system of commerce. It is the modern system, and is best understood in our own country and in our own times.
...When those countries became commercial, the merchants found this prohibition \[upon trading precious medals as capital\], upon many occasions, extremely inconvenient. They could frequently buy more advantageously with gold and silver than with any other commodity the foreign goods which they wanted, either to import into their own, or to carry to some other foreign country. They remonstrated, therefore, against this prohibition as hurtful to trade.
>
> They \[the merchants\] represented, first, that the exportation of gold and silver in order to purchase foreign goods, did not always diminish the quantity of those metals in the kingdom. That, on the contrary, it might frequently increase that quantity; because, if the consumption of foreign goods was not thereby increased in the country, those goods might be re-exported to foreign countries, and, being there sold for a large profit, might bring back much more treasure than was originally sent out to purchase them. Mr. Mun compares this operation of foreign trade to the seed-time and harvest of agriculture.
>
> If we only behold, \[says he\] the actions of the husbandman in the seed-time, when he casteth away much good corn into the ground, we shall account him rather a madman than a husbandman. But when we consider his labours in the harvest, which is the end of his endeavours, we shall find the worth and plentiful increase of his action.
...Such as they were, however, those arguments convinced the people to whom they were addressed. They were addressed by merchants to parliaments and to the councils of princes, to nobles and to country gentlemen, by those who were supposed to understand trade to those who were conscious to themselves that they knew nothing about the matter. That foreign trade enriched the country, experience demonstrated to the nobles and country gentlemen as well as to the merchants; but how, or in what manner, none of them well knew. The merchants knew perfectly in what manner it enriched themselves. It was their business to know it. But to know in what manner it enriched the country was no part of their business.
It would be inaccurate to say that Marx just lifted Smith wholesale, but there is a certain parity that can be made. For instance, the Manifesto by [Marx](_URL_1_) essentially explains the process similarly:
& #x200B;
> The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.
>
> The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.
>
> Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
>
> Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.
>
> We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.
Marx was interested in this process, how this occurred. Feudalism came from somewhere, and it was probably a similar process, so it's applied further out.
& #x200B;
It seems to me that the position that Ancient Greece was simply a capitalist country is less historical than overtly political. If one can say that capitalism is the natural state of existence that everyone practiced and Marx perverted it, then you can score a propaganda point. However, nothing we know about ancient Athens concerns fiat systems, and Adam Smith himself notes a transition.
& #x200B;
So while I cannot say with certainty that there is no historian out there that claims that Ancient Athens was a capitalist country, it seems problematic. | [
"The \"oikos\" was the primary unit of economic organization within the ancient Greek world. Genuine urban commercial centers were relatively uncommon and sparse. Additionally, lack of trust between members of an \"oikos\" and nonmembers usually prevented larger businesses not associated with an \"oikos\" from form... |
why would putin admit he ordered the annexation of crimea? | I think mostly to show that he can. He is demonstrating his power. Opposing Putin tends to have it's downsides as well.... | [
"The ousting of Yanukovych prompted Vladimir Putin to begin preparations to annex Crimea on 23 February 2014. Using the Russian naval base at Sevastopol as cover, Putin directed Russian troops and intelligence agents to disarm Ukrainian forces and take control of Crimea. After the troops entered Crimea, a controver... |
During the Second World War, were there any Red Army units deployed, say, deep within Siberia or the -Stan countries, that were never sent to fight against Germany? | Yes, since after all, throughout the war the USSR maintained a border with the Japanese controlled regions of China, and Japan wasn't exactly a friend, but it was not a particularly strong force.
To start, just prior to the outbreak of World War II the two powers had been involved in low level clashes, most notably Khalkhin Gol in the spring and summer of 1939. This tension aside however, once Germany launched Barbarossa in 1941, Japan and the USSR remained at peace, honoring their neutrality pact, until the very last moments of the war when the USSR invaded Manchuria as per agreement with the Wwestern Allies. Although the two Axis powers were nominally in a military alliance, Japan was not obligated to join in the conflict with the Soviets, and spurned German requests to join them unless certain conditions were met - which never were.
That fall the Soviets began moving large numbers of troops from the Far East to their fight in the west, which through September had been minimal, but in October became a torrent. From June through September, only seven divisions were moved, while October-November alone saw 12 Divisions, plus 12 naval rifle brigades. Although the impact of Richard Zorge, a spy working in Japan who reported on Japanese unwillingness to do anything less than back a clear winner and help with the clean up, should be noted, just how important Zorge was is a matter of debate - there is no question that it helped solidify the correctness of the decision in Stalin's mind, but the pressing threat from the Germans was enough that even without such assurances, the Soviets were faced with little choice, it was simply a gamble they couldn't afford not to take. Additionally, while the movement of 19 Divisions is by no means insignificant, due to increasing numbers of call-ups, the strength of the Soviet forces in the Far East was actually increased following the transfers, having averaged between 43 to 48 Divisions during the period they were occurring, but 51 to 53 by early 1942. By no means was that a full-throated military force, in comparison to what was being fielded against Germany, but it was hardly something to dismiss.
After Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese threat was greatly reduced. Not only had the immediate chance of Japanese intervention dissipated with the failure to take Moscow and speedily bring the USSR to its knees, but Japan entering conflict with the western Allies following Pearl Harbor meant that her eyes were focused elsewhere. Despite this, the Soviets hardly neglected the Far East, continuing to raise divisions stationed there, which reached 65 by mid-1942. In the face of Operation Blau, although it did slightly raise fears again of Japanese intervention, 10 divisions were sent to the Stalingrad Front.
Following victory at Stalingrad, the concerns with Japan were less that she might join Germany her war against the Soviets, but now quite the reverse, when and how the Soviets would join the Western Allies in *their* war against Japan. Although in no rush, Stalin was looking ahead, beginning construction of additional rail capacity for the eventual transfer of forces east, and committing, in late 1943, to joining the Pacific War once Germany was defeated. By the fall of 1944, the General Staff had began work on initial preparations for conflict in the Far East, and the General Staff's recommendations were officially accepted in June, 1945, with orders sent out to the commanders of the Far Eastern and Transbaikal to be prepared within a month for operations to commence. Offensive operations were launched at midnight, August 9th immediately following the delivery of news to the Japanese ambassador that war had begun. By this point, the Soviets had built up a force of roughly 1.5 million men who utterly overwhelmed the poor quality and understrength Japanese forces in Manchuria, who made considerable gains before JApan's unconditional surrender less than a week later (although operations would continue for several days beyond that).
David M. Glantz (2017) The Impact of Intelligence Provided to the Soviet Union by Richard Zorge on Soviet Force Deployments from the Far East to the West in 1941 and 1942, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 30:3, 453-481
HASEGAWA, TSUYOSHI. "SOVIET POLICY TOWARD JAPAN DURING WORLD WAR II." Cahiers Du Monde Russe 52, no. 2/3 (2011): 245-71. | [
"During World War II, most units of the NKVD Internal Troops were engaged alongside Red Army forces against Axis troops. They participated in the defense of Moscow, Leningrad, the Brest Fortress, Kiev, Odessa, Voronezh, Stalingrad, the North Caucasus and were heavily engaged during the Battle of Kursk.\n",
"Durin... |
fifo & lifo (accounting) | Let's say you buy 10 widgets at $1 a piece, then later you buy 10 more at $1.10. You then sell 5 of them. How much are the remaining 15 widgets worth? FIFO means first-in-first-out, LIFO means last-in-first-out, meaning do you count those 5 you sold out of the first batch you bought (the $1 ones), or the last batch you bought (the $1.10 ones). | [
"FIFO and LIFO accounting are methods used in managing inventory and financial matters involving the amount of money a company has to have tied up within inventory of produced goods, raw materials, parts, components, or feedstocks. They are used to manage assumptions of costs related to inventory, stock repurchases... |
why are guns legal but switch blade knives are illegal? | Because laws are not necessarily logical or moral, and in fact are often very arbitrary. I have no idea why people don't understand this. | [
"In addition to federal law, some U.S. states have laws restricting or prohibiting automatic knives or switchblades, sometimes as part of a catchall category of \"deadly weapons\" or \"prohibited weapons\". A number of states prohibit or severely restrict ownership or possession of automatic knives or switchblades ... |
What are meteorites made from? | In the broad sense Meteorites are for the most part made of the same minerals Earth is made of (there may also be volatile species [ice, CO2, and rarely organic molecules, etc.], those burn up on rentry for the most part and I'll leave their discussion to others if they feel like joining in). That being said, it is the combinations of these minerals, it is the ways they relate to one another and their isotopic ratios which are mostly of interest.
The most common minerals are iron & nickel sulphides, iron oxydes, olivine, various silicates. [There are various elaborate classification schemes](_URL_0_), and the basic fundamental distinction reflects the relative proportion of silicates and non-silicate materials, ranging from stony, stony-iron and iron meteorites. Each has several sub categories.
In terms of relating these compositions to terrestrial materials, what meteorites most look like is what is termed "unevolved mafic to ultramafic igneous rocks" (although there are several minor and subtle chemical differences). These are rocks derived from primary melting of the mantle, and whose composition is close to that of the resulting primary melt. They are rocks you might find in the lower part of the ocean floor, or in some kinds of igneous intrusions called [Mafic/ultramafic layered complexes](_URL_2_). They are typically undersaturated in silica, and consist mostly in olivine and pyroxene, with locally variable amounts of oxyde or sulphide minerals settling along the bottom. Some comparable (but not identical) rock types in these environments you could look at to have a gross first approximation of meteorite mineralogy might be [peridotites](_URL_3_), magnetite cumulates and magmatic segregation copper-nickel ores [(see slide 22)](_URL_1_), as well as some basalts/gabbros. Mostly dark and dense stuff.
Granite is a quite evolved igneous rock, which is supersaturated in silica (hence all the quartz). It is quite unlike most meteoritic material. | [
"A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical in... |
does cancelling my credit card hurt my credit? or is it better to keep it and not use it? | Banks look at the total of all your credit lines, and the total of all of your debt. What they want to see is your debt to be a relatively low percentage of your total credit line. As the percentage of total debt goes up in relation to the total credit line, your credit rating goes down.
When you cancel a credit card you reduce your total credit line by x amount (whatever credit line that card had). That will cause any debt you still have to now be a larger percentage of your total credit line, which can harm your credit.
If you have no other debt, it may not matter much if you cancel the card. But it's also useful to just keep the credit line open and not use it. That keeps your total credit line larger, and your debt percentage lower which helps your credit rating. | [
"A simple solution to this problem is to call the credit card company, request a new card with a different account number, and cancel the previous account. They will transfer the debt amount from the old account to the new account. This makes companies that have the credit card information unable to continue chargi... |
how do massive cold fronts, like the one being experienced in america right now, occur? | The cold front that is being experienced by the United States and Canada right now is known as a polar vortex. Polar vortexes are strong winds found in the upper level of the atmosphere that normally stay over the north pole. On occasion the vortex can be distorted, causing cold air to spill to the south.
[Source](_URL_0_) | [
"On December 1, 2013, the weakening of the polar vortex led to the beginning of an abnormally cold trend in the Eastern and Central United States. On December 6, the continued deterioration of the polar vortex led to the jet stream pushing southward, bringing record cold temperatures across the Eastern U.S. During ... |
why is it so difficult to not flinch when something jumps out at you on a screen(like a scary movie for example) even though our brain registers that it is fake and expected? | Reflexes occur *much* faster than rational thought. It's been shown that people reacting to painful stimuli move away from the stimuli before the rational centers of the brain are even activated. This means that your rational brain is not even involved when you flinch - you know it's fake, but that knowledge isn't relevant to the reflexes. | [
"He also proposes a natural 'motor' response to seeing the actions of others: If we see a knife hacking off a person's leg we wince away, if we see someone dance we move in the same ways, we feel the injuries of others as if we had them ourselves.\n",
"The resolution on animation can also cause users to experienc... |
How does the cosmic microwave background persist? Why hasn't it been distorted and destroyed by new sources of energy pumping into space? | The universe is largely transparent. Sure, some parts of the radiation have been absorbed, and there is a bit of new emission at this wavelength range, but overall it is not a large effect and it can be taken into account. | [
"The structure of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies is principally determined by two effects: acoustic oscillations and diffusion damping (also called collisionless damping or Silk damping). The acoustic oscillations arise because of a conflict in the photon–baryon plasma in the early universe. The press... |
If someone paralyzed from the waist down breaks their leg, will their body still know and be able to repair it? | Paralysis is a result of nervous system dysfunction. If a limb is still viably attached to a person, though paralyzed, then lots of usual processes can still occur. A fracture will cause bleeding and inflammation. Chemical signals will be emitted which travel through the blood and attract white blood cells. Platelets will adhere and form clots. Approximated bone fragments can knit together as the initial fibrinous callus made of clot, inflammatory material, and other things is infiltrated with collagen fibers and then mineralized by osteoblasts. All through chemical signals.
Your nervous system has very little input into many body processes like these. | [
"Another of the most common sources of serious injury is an attempt to perform somersaults without proper training. In some cases, people land on their neck or head, which can cause paralysis or even death. In an infamous incident in the 1960s, pole-vaulting champion Brian Sternberg became paralyzed from the neck d... |
Buddhism originated in India but today, most of India is either Hindu or Muslim. Conversely, Buddhism is very common in East Asian countries such as Japan. What were some of the key factors that lead to the decline of Buddhism in India and its rise in East Asia? | One of the interesting things about the spread of Buddhism is that it took a very roundabout route through the northwest of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia (what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan) into East Asia along the Silk Road routes -- so the form it reached China in (Mahayana) was a bit separated from the credo of the original Buddha.
The 'golden age' of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent coincided with its institutionalization by the Mauryan Empire, especially during the reign of Asoka. In fact, [he issued a series of multilingual (some are in Greek and Aramaic) edicts](_URL_0_) throughout the empire advertising the non-violent morals of Buddhism, that he had converted various peoples in his empire (including Greeks), and that he had sent missionaries as far away as Sri Lanka and the Hellenistic kingdoms of the west. Stupas and Buddhist seminaries were sponsored en masse -- though these were institutions that ultimately relied on imperial or communal support and funding. While Buddhism became entrenched in a few places, such as Gandhara (a region that now straddles Afghanistan and Pakistan, [known for Graeco-Buddhist art](_URL_4_)), it largely petered out outside of a select few pilgrimage points, universities and monasteries. It just wasn't endearing enough to the common imagination, nor did it attract much imperial support in the bulk of the subcontinent. So Buddhism went on a steady decline in the subcontinent, coinciding with the emergence of Hinduism and Islam.
Back to Gandhara and the northwest frontier, however: Buddhism flourished thanks to the capture of the region by Graeco-Bactrians and Kushans, who again institutionalized the religion through stupa-construction and funding of Buddhist monasteries and scholars. Mahayana Buddhism also emerged here, especially through humanistic depictions of the Buddha (whereas Buddhism was originally aniconic) and the concept of *boddhisattvas*. One of the principal *vajrapanis* (or protectors of the Buddha) in Graeco-Buddhist art is Hercules, for example, while Gandharan Buddhas aesthetically resemble depictions of the Hellenistic god Apollo. This is also evident from the travel accounts of Chinese traveller [Fa-hsien](_URL_3_), who travelled to the region during Hephthalite rule (better known as the Huns). He mentions the Buddhist mythology endemic to the region (such as fables that the Buddha had slain dragons there) and stupas built by the Kushan emperor [Kanishka I](_URL_6_), whose reign also saw the flourishing of Graeco-Buddhist art and Silk Road trade with Han and Tang-dynasty China.
Also during this period was the [migration of many Gandharans and the Gandharan language into what is now Xinjiang in western China](_URL_5_). The Gandharan language was a Sanskritic one written in either Greek or Aramaic script at various points in history, but in China, it was principally the language of Buddhism. Through the many Gandhari-language scrolls peppered throughout Silk Road oases and Buddhist monasteries, it is evident that Gandharan Buddhism -- with its heavy Hellenistic and Iranian influence -- was the medium by which Buddhism spread to China. There were even some prolific figures like the Kashmiri monk [Kumarajiva](_URL_1_) who translated works like the Diamond Sutra directly from Sanskrit to Chinese, introducing tens of thousands of Sanskritic loanwords into the Chinese language. Important also were an Iranian people called the Sogdians, who left Buddhist inscriptions all over the Hindu Kush and the Hunza Valley of northern Pakistan -- they were primarily Zoroastrian and eventually Muslim, but the artwork Sogdians constructed in China and along the Silk Road often blends Iranian, Chinese, Hellenistic and Buddhistic motifs and elements.
Finally, it's important to note that the period of greatest incursion of Buddhism was during the Tang-dynasty period; that dynasty is known widely for its cosmopolitanism, and was deeply engaged with the geo-political affairs of Central Asia, Iran and the Tibetan plateau. Their capital at Chang'an (modern Xi'an), for example, hosted great shrines, temples and monasteries of various 'Western' religions, such as Nestorian Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Islam, and a very multi-ethnic population that still characterizes western China today. Buddhist monasteries were sponsored by the state, and members of the royal family even converted to Buddhism during this period. The famous Buddhist monk [Xuanzang](_URL_2_) even travelled throughout Central Asia and India to collect Sanskrit texts during this period, and was accordingly celebrated by the contemporary Tang emperor.
That cosmopolitanism ended with the devastating An Lushan Rebellion, which led to increasing xenophobia and the persecution of 'non-native' religions like Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Manichaeism and Islam. Although Buddhism did not escape repression, it was endearing enough to establish long-standing monasteries and seminaries and thus survived until the decentralization of the Tang dynasty, by which point it flourished with native Chinese artistic and mythological elements. What was different about Buddhism, as compared to Zoroastrianism, Nestorian Christianity, Islam and Manichaeism, was that it had very little backing among the Central Asian foes of the Tang dynasty; Manichaeism, for example, was sponsored by a Uighur khanate that had opposed the Tang, and Zoroastrianism was the principal religion of the Sogdians, who constituted a considerable antagonistic faction during the An Lushan rebellion. Christianity and Islam, likewise, was endearing to various Turkic tribes.
Sources:
*The Silk Road: A New History* by Valerie Hansen | [
"Buddhism attained prominence in the Indian subcontinent as it was supported by royal courts, but started to decline after the Gupta era and virtually disappeared from India in the 11th century CE, except in some pockets of India. It has continued to exist outside of India and has become the major religion in sever... |
stop-motion animation | Conceptually, there's not much to it.
1. Set your camera on a tripod or other device to ensure it stays in exactly the same place
2. pose your clay figure/doll/paper cutout/clothes
3. take a photograph.
4. SLIIIIIIGHTLY move your figure towards it's next position.
5. Take another pic.
6. Repeat *thousands* of times.
7. Take your photographs and play them back at 30 pictures a second. Tada! Motion!
8. Add in sound effects and music via video editing software, just like you can for a "regular" movie clip.
The secret sauce that makes it look so good is practice and patience. | [
"Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation. Comp... |
How were ancient open-field battles organised? | I can only answer this for Classical Greece, but I'm sure some of our resident experts will be willing to add the Roman perspective.
Simply put, Greek armies were usually able to find one another because it was all but impossible for an army to move without being noticed. Armies are large masses of men, often wearing shiny metal armour and weapons, accompanied by countless servants and camp-followers, wagons carrying equipment and supplies, horses for cavalry, oxen to draw carts, and sheep and goats for sacrificing. The movement of armies was slow and noisy. It threw up vast clouds of dust and frightened flocks of birds. When encamped, an army betrayed itself through the light and smoke of its many fires; when on the move, it tended to be preceded by throngs of refugees. Even without scouts, it was often hard to miss an advancing army.
These general characteristics were made worse by the terrain of mainland Greece (and indeed most of the Greek world). About 80% of the peninsula is covered in mountains; most city-states occupied isolated valleys or coastal plains, accessible over land only through a few mountain passes. The routes of invading armies tended to be very predictable, and a simple watchtower or border fort with a small garrison would provide a city under attack with ample notice that an enemy was approaching. Some of the most admired achievements of Classical Greek generals were deceiving the enemy about campaign targets or stealing a march, so that land could be seized and ravaged before the enemy had time to organise its defence. Most of the time, if an invasion was imminent, its exact path into friendly territory was known before the enemy had set a foot beyond their borders.
As a result, the defender's choice whether or not to fight a pitched battle was usually an informed decision. They knew where the enemy was and how many men they had with them. They also knew the lay of the land and the extent to which it could be used to their advantage. If they felt they would be at a disadvantage, they might hide within their city walls and allow the enemy to put the countryside to the torch. If they felt they had a decent chance of winning, they would march out to fight.
Even so, the aim of Greek generals was always to skew the odds in their favour as much as they possibly could. Sometimes two armies would shadow each other for days, looking for an opportunity to strike. Aineias the Tactician actually advises a defending city to allow its enemies to plunder, to wait until they are weighed down with loot and drunk with victory, and then to attack with fresh troops from all sides. Advantage was the watchword:
> Contrive (…) to catch the enemy in disorder with your side in formation, to catch them unarmed while fully armed, to catch them asleep while wide awake, when they are visible to you but you are invisible to them, and face them when they find themselves in poor ground while you are in a strong position.
-- Xenophon, *Education of Kyros* 1.6.35
Since the defender knew his own land well, the invader had to be always on his guard against possible traps or ambushes. Large armies moved slowly, but surprise attacks could be launched by lean task forces carrying no baggage, ideally consisting of nimble and flexible troops (light infantry and cavalry), operating at a short distance from a city or fortified base. Nowhere was safe; marching columns had to be carefully protected against all eventualities. Sometimes local guides or hostages could be used to gain more intelligence, and horsemen and light infantry could act as scouts to prevent nasty surprises. Xenophon's ideal general is one who never lets his guard down:
> On the march, whenever he knew that the enemy could fight him if they chose, he would lead his army in such a formation that he could most easily defend himself, moving on as quietly as the most modest girl, believing that this was the best way to keep calm and least vulnerable to panic, confusion, and blunders, and safest from surprise attack.
-- Xenophon, *Agesilaos* 6.7
Safest of all was to have the enemy in plain sight. If both sides were willing to fight a pitched battle, they would often end up encamped across from one another, waiting for the opportune moment. Greek armies tended to encamp on hills, to make sure they would have the advantage if they were to be suddenly attacked - but Greek commanders were smart enough not to attack an enemy in a strong position. The result was an awkward standoff. Neither side would be keen to give up its advantage, but there could be no decision without a battle, and militia armies couldn't afford to stay in the field forever. There were only two solutions. Either one side or the other would give up, break camp, and go home - or both sides would march down into the plain and fight it out.
The mutual decision to go down to level ground for a pitched battle has often been interpreted as a 'battle by agreement'. Indeed, Herodotos makes the Persian general Mardonios mock the Greeks for finding "the best, most level piece of ground" for their engagements; Polybios, who wrote in the 2nd century BC, argued that "the ancients" used to fight only on a place and time that had been agreed upon by both sides. However, Polybios' claim is clearly a nostalgic fantasy. He is in fact the earliest source ever to use the term *machê ex homologou* (battle by mutual consent); no Classical author knew this term. The record of Classical Greek battles proves that commanders of the period, far from announcing their moves in advance, always preferred to take the enemy by surprise - even when the time and place where the battle would be fought was clear. They tried to hide their deployment behind hills or tall grass; they tried to start their attack before the enemy was ready; sometimes they tried to decieve the enemy into thinking there would be no battle that day, only to charge when they turned away to make dinner. They frequently tried to hide key forces out of sight or to orchestrate attacks from unseen directions once the main force was already engaged. In short, they did everything they could to make sure that even a battle in the open plain was as little like a 'battle by agreement' as they could make it.
So where does Polybios' idea come from? It seems likely that he is referring to the one sole exception to the rule that Greeks did not arrange the conditions of battle beforehand. This exception is the so-called Battle of the Champions, fought between Argos and Sparta around 550 BC. To make sure the engagement was fair, the two city-states agreed that only 300 warriors on each side could take part, and that the rest would retreat to a distance where they could not be tempted to influence the outcome. The result is the only battle in Greek history that was fought fairly at an agreed-upon place and time.
The only trouble was that the two sides couldn't agree about the outcome. At the end of a long day's fighting, only 2 Argives and 1 Spartan were left standing; the Argives, confident in their numerical superiority, declared themselves victorious and went home. The one surviving Spartan, noting that there was no one else left on the battlefield, declared himself the winner, stripped the enemy dead and went home. Both Argos and Sparta claimed the victory; their disagreement turned violent; and in the end the matter was resolved in an all-out battle between the full armies of both sides. The attempt to fight a battle by mutual consent and under specific limitations proved a complete failure.
After this debacle, no Greek conflict was ever again resolved by organising a battle at a predetermined time and place. The Greeks settled instead on committing massive violence on a preferrably unprepared enemy, knowing that armies were slow and cumbersome, men were easily frightened, and there was nothing better than to destroy the enemy at minimal risk to their own side. Open battles were only fought rarely, reluctantly, and at a bitter price. | [
"In open-field battles, quarreling sides met on either side of the field, generally after sunrise. Intimidation tactics such as profuse chanting, singing, dancing, sudden advancements, and yelling profane insults were commonly used. The standard battle formation of a group normally had a defensive front line of men... |
why did google let microsoft use chromium on edge? | [Google is an advertising company, first and foremost](_URL_0_). Everything that they do, they do to further the goal of selling more ads.
Chrome, Drive, their MS Office knock-offs: their only purpose is to get people to use them and sink ever deeper into the Google ecosystem. That is why they are "free". | [
"On December 6, 2018, Microsoft announced its intent to base Edge on the Chromium source code, using the same rendering engine as Google Chrome but with enhancements developed by Microsoft. It was also announced that there will be versions of Edge available for Windows 7, Windows 8, and macOS, and that all versions... |
In evolution if mutations are random, how does bacteria learn to use the mutations correctly? Does the behavior mutate randomly too? | Bacteria don't know anything because they aren't conscious. Physics drives their chemistry to happen and that is what causes them to function and react to their environment. Compounds and molecules are just bumping in to each other and reacting according to the laws of physics and chemistry, and this causes everything that happens inside the bacteria to take place.
Say, for instance, a new protein evolves that helps a bacterium stick to something. Well that protein would most likely be something that is expressed in the outer membrane so that it can grab on to something. In this proteins previous form, it didn't cause the cell to stick to something at all, or it was somewhat sticky but not enough to stick permanently. Now that the protein has changed, it just causes the bacterium to stick automatically. There is no conscious thought about it, it just sticks. If that new protein leads to the increased survivability of that bacterium then it will reproduce more than other bacteria in that specific area where being sticky is advantageous and the new protein will spread. | [
"One advantage of directed evolution is that the mutations do not have to be completely random; instead they can be random enough to discover unexplored potential, but not so random as to be inefficient. The number of possible mutation combinations is astronomical, but instead of just randomly trying to test as man... |
Why didn't Germany go through Luxembourg instead of Belgium in WWI? | The Germans **DID** go through Luxembourg, they just went through Luxembourg **and** Belgium. The problem with just going through Luxembourg, is that it creates an incredibly cramped 'battlespace' if you will, with not a lot of room for the massive German Armies (970 000 men alone advanced through Belgium) to maneuver. This complicates maneuver, logistics, and it would force the Germans to reduce the actual forces involved in the attack, resulting in a large reserve, but in a smaller invasion, one that is advancing through difficult terrain in the Ardennes/Schnee Eiffel area, and into the area of the northernmost segments of the French fortress line. This gives the French an immense advantage, even greater because the German invasion would essentially be playing out as **they** had expected it to, with a German thrust through southern Belgium, Luxembourg, and Northern Lorraine, and with German reserve divisions uncommitted.
> then Britain wouldn't have been dragged into the war, meaning the Germans wouldn't be halted after the Marne.
For one thing, the Germans are invading France, and still invading a neutral country, both countries of which have made no aggressive moves against them. This is still a violation of the international laws, treaties, and customs that the British and others had worked so hard to make part of the European state system; it still constitutes a threat to the Balance of Power in Europe. In late July, there **was** talk of Germany only invading 'a corner of Belgium', and while this may make intervention more difficult, it is still unlikely to prevent the British from intervening.
Moreover, the BEF played only a small role in the Marne; the bulk of the fighting and the crucial delaying actions which took place before hand was/were done by the French and Belgians respectively. As has been noted, this German invasion is now undertaken in circumstances less advantageous than in August 1914, so there's every possibility that the French counter-offensives and offensives at the Frontiers would succeed, though this is speculation.
Other answers:
* [Why didn't Germany just go around Belgium in the invasion of France?] (_URL_0_)
* [Why was invading Belgium a bad move by Germany?] (_URL_1_) | [
"The Belgians much preferred an alliance with the United Kingdom. The British had entered the First World War in response to the German violation of Belgian neutrality. The Belgian Channel ports had offered the German Imperial Navy valuable bases, and such an attack would offer the German \"Kriegsmarine\" and the \... |
how are doctors so sure a person can't regain consciousness once their vitals shuts down? | I'm going to assume that by "vitals" you mean the two vital organs heart and lungs.
The truth is we don't know on an individual basis who is going to survive what period of cardiac arrest (which is when the heart stops), but data from group studies enable us to give educated opinions based on systematic experience.
There are a few key facts to consider: the airways and lungs supply oxygen to the blood, and the heart takes that oxygen-filled blood and pumps it around to the body. Together these two organs keep the body well supplied with oxygen, which is crucial for cells to extract energy from the food we eat.
Some cells can survive longer without oxygen by burning the food in an alternative way, but they sacrifice a lot of energy for this. Our brain cells can't do this because they need maximum energy output 24/7 because they're working so hard.
Our brain is really what we "are" - it is where our personality, our consciousness and our memories reside, it is what we use to feel love, joy and all other emotions. Therefore, as soon as the brain dies, we are dead, no matter if the heart is beating or not. The heart is nothing more than a special muscle.
This means that if we stop breathing, or our heart stops beating, the single-most important organ for survival *is the same organ that is worst equipped to cope with a lack of oxygen*. The brain burns through oxygen so quickly that if it doesn't get a constant supply of it, it will start to die within minutes. And, crucially, brain tissue doesn't regenerate like skin or bone.
That's why if a heart stops for many minutes, and no one is doing CPR, it is highly likely that even if you can get the heart beating again, the person will never wake up again because too much brain tissue has already died.
There is a lot of data where scientists have looked at the time between when the heart stops, and when the heart started beating again. For every minute with no heart beat (and no CPR) the chance of a successful recovery decreases about 10 percetage points (meaning that after 10 minutes the chances of recovery are practically zero). Experiments with animals and single cells in laboratories show similar results.
**TL;DR: The heart and lungs supply oxygen to the brain. The brain can't handle oxygen deprivation, which is what happens when "the vitals shut down". If the brain is dead, there is no chance of regaining consciousness**. | [
"In death with dignity situations where a patient is incapable of communicating his wishes, a doctor may be relieved of his duty, as the House of Lords recognised in \"Airedale National Health Service Trust v Bland\" (1993) AC 789. Here a patient who had survived for three years in a persistent vegetative state aft... |
What is the Origin of Yahweh? | In general, however, it seems that the Tetragrammaton (the ineffable four letter name of G-d) is associated with the South, particularly the southern wastes (the Negev Desert and similar places). If He does have a geographical origin outside of the land of Israel, it is likely somewhere to the South. One of the main problems is we have no historical record of Israelites outside of the biblical account in the earliest periods, the archeological evidence doesn't point unambiguously to any one clear origin, all the Biblical texts are undated. The G-d of Israel, being aniconic, is particularly hard to trace. You'll have a cultic stand with a blank space on it, and archeologists will ask, "Is this an attempt to iconically represent the Tetragrammaton, which resists iconic representation?"
There's also a theory that YHVH is the causative form of the Hebrew root meaning "to be", meaning roughly "He who caused to Be", so when we see the name translated as "LORD of the Hosts", it could be reparsed as "He who caused the heavenly host to be". This is fairly convincing, especially in light of G-d's answer to Moses, "I am who I am" or "I am I am" (Exodus 3:14). This would point to the name being a title, rather than a proper name originally.
G-d's other common name in the Hebrew Bible is "El" or "Elohim". This relates to the West Semitic word meaning "god" and also the name of the chief of Caanite pantheon. Arabic is a South Semitic language, but Allah comes from the exact same origin. See more about [El in Ugaritic myth](_URL_0_) (Ugarit is the best preserved source of pre-Israelite documents from the Land of Canaan). Particularly convincing is some presumably early texts seem to imply that people think G-d had a consort, [Asherah](_URL_1_). It's confusing because in the Hebrew Bible there's also references to Asherah as a sacred pole or maybe a sacred grove associated with cultic sites, so it's unclear in the text whether Asherah represents a diety or an object or a place.
You can point to many points of similarity between Israelite religious practices and those of other Ancient Near Eastern peoples, but there are clear differences. It's ultimately unclear exactly how Israelite monotheism emerged, and what its exact relationship was to other traditions. Some argue that strict monotheism dates to the earliest stratum of Israelite history but country folk ('am ha'eretz) continued to conduct religious rituals to other gods. Others argue that strict monotheism wasn't consolidated until the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah, just before the Babylonian Exile. The exact origins of the Tetragrammaton and the monotheistic thought associated with it will never be fully clear. | [
"Yahweh, he argues, originated in Edom/Midian/Teman as a warrior-god and was subsequently assimilated into the highland pantheon headed by El and his consort, Asherah and populated by Baal and other deities.\n",
"There is almost no agreement on the origins of Yahweh. His name is not attested other than among the ... |
If the Alsace-Lorriane region had not been taken away from France after the Franco-Prussian War would it have any effect on politics of Europe? | That depends.
Alsace-Lorraine was certainly a very serious problem between France and Germany, but so was crowning the Emperor in Versailles and a number of other slights during the Franco-Prussian war.
IMO, if they had left Alsace-Lorraine with France, they could have patched things up. Also IMO, I don't think there's any way for Germany to *not* take Alsace-Lorraine given the nationalist momentum at play. | [
"The loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Prussia in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War, led to pressure on the French government to make new land available in Algeria for about 5,000 Alsatian and Lorrainer refugees who were resettled there. During the 1870s, both the amount of European-owned land and the number of settlers ... |
Other than the Doolittle Raid did Jimmy Doolittle do anything with a major impact on WWII? | Doolittle's main impact on the war actually came before the hostilities. When he was working for Shell, he convinced the company to invest in the property/plant/equipment to refine 100-octane gasoline before there was a market for it. He correctly predicted that engine technology would evolve to suit the new fuel when it was available, and that current engines could run better than on the 87-octane standard avgas of the time.
The innovation was rather timely for the war, as the first bulk shipments of the product to Britain arrived shortly after the Fall of France. Where the RAF was outperformed over France, they suddenly had a boost which helped them defeat the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.
Beyond the raid which bears his name, Doolittle was also instrumental in turning the tide of the air war before the Normandy landings. As the newly minted head of the eight airforce, he reversed the policy of close fighter escort. Under him, fighter pilots were instructed to chase down fleeing German fighters to shoot them down, and approved a wider range of fighter sweeps which caught many of the Germans on the ground. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Doolittle's Tokyo Raiders\", by C. V. Glines (1964) – tells the complete story of the raid, including the unique experiences of each B-25 crew. A quarter century later he followed up with a second account, \"The Doolittle Raid: America's daring first strike against Japan\" (1988), incorporating infor... |
What would happen if a celestial body like the moon or small planet were to pass by us close enough to enter our atmosphere? | I want to start to answer this question by helping you understand just how unlikely this scenario is. The height of our atmosphere is on the order of 100km. To help you picture how thin our atmosphere is, this is basically [equivalent](_URL_0_) to the thickness (not the radius) of a penny compared to an NBA basketball.
So this is the setup. You have a full size basketball with a penny sitting on top representing our atmosphere. Now you want a moon or small planet to skim our atmosphere without hitting the planet. You can represent this by a baseball or ping pong ball or whatever. I challenge you to throw the baseball at the basketball and knock the penny off without actually hitting the basketball. The odds are just exceptionally small.
The overwhelmingly likely outcome is either the object misses the Earth entirely and nothing too important happens (except maybe disturbing the orbit of our own moon slightly) or else a collision with the surface of the Earth, killing all life and generating so much heat that the entire surface of the planet could be molten for a while.
In the event that something large *does* manage to skim through our atmosphere despite the crazy small odds, I don't know enough to give you a detailed answer, but maybe a planetary scientist could stop by and speculate. I suspect that it would do enough damage to eject a portion of our atmosphere and heat the rest of it up, almost stirring things up like a rock skipping over water. There would likely be global weather and climate changes, but I don't know what they would be. | [
"The object's Earth orbital paths occasionally take it within the radius of the Moon's orbit, and could result in eventual entry into Earth's atmosphere, or collision with the Moon. The Apollo 12 empty S-IVB, Instrument Unit, and spacecraft adapter base, had a mass of about . This is less than one-fifth of the mass... |
Why do my stationary eyes fade to black in a little to no light environment? | I have never experienced this "fade to black". Honestly, it doesn't sound like something that should be happening. If there is enough light in the room for your eyes to see around you, your vision should not fade at all due to a lack of motion. It might be a good idea to mention this to your doc. | [
"BULLET::::- As a result of the Purkinje effect, the dark-adapted human eye is very sensitive to blue and green light that LED street lights emit in large amounts, as compared to the yellow and orange high-pressure sodium lights that are typically being replaced. This magnifies the effect of light pollution - parti... |
Physics Question: Driving in the rain. Does more rain hit your windshield as you go faster? | > Does your front windshield strike twice as many drops per unit time if you go twice as fast?
Close to it. The rate of water hitting your windscreen is equal to the density of raindrops, multiplied by the relative velocity of the rain, multiplied by the cross-sectional area of the windscreen in their relative direction of motion.
The density of raindrops does not increase with your speed, so that's simple.
The relative velocity does increase - but it doesn't double when you double your speed. The rain already has a downwards component of velocity (and some horizontal velocity from wind), and you are effectively giving it a boost in its horizontal velocity. You add these together (vector addition!) to get the rain's velocity. So because the rain already has some velocity, doubling the contribution from your car's motion does not double the entire thing. But it *will* increase its velocity and the rate of water impacting your windscreen. However, rain drops fairly quickly, so you have to be going at a decent rate for this to be noticeable - i.e. you'd see the rain falling more "backwards" than "downwards".
The third effect is that if the rain is going straight down, its target the cross-sectional area of your windscreen as seen from above. It's not hitting your windscreen at exactly 90°, it's seeing it "side on" and has a smaller target. But as you accelerate, this will change - the "target" gets bigger until the rain is hitter your windscreen at right angles to the surface. At this point, the apparent cross-sectional area of your wind-screen is maximised, and you get more water on your screen.
**tl;dr:** Accelerating increases the drops per unit time, but it's not just proportional to your speed. | [
"The windshield phenomenon (or windscreen phenomenon) is a term given to the anecdotal observation that people tend to find fewer insects smashed on the windscreens of their cars now compared to a decade or several decades ago. This effect has been ascribed to major global declines in insect abundance. \n",
"BULL... |
why are we able to speak well over 6,000 languages, and yet are unable to effectively communicate with our domesticated brethren? | As far as we know humans are the only animal to use language.
The sounds other animals make would be more analogous to human body language than to speech. | [
"However, the lack of language separation by person does not necessarily lead to failure to communicate effectively in two languages. Further studies have shown that a \"one person, one language\" approach may not be necessary for the early separation of language systems to occur. Children appear to be able to dise... |
how do clocks compensate for the fact that a day isn't a full 24 hours? | A day *is* a full 24 hours, give or take a leap second every year or two. Until we invented atomic clocks, a day was exactly 24 hours by definition.
Leap years are a separate issue, they correct for the fact that there aren't exactly 365 24-hour days in a year. | [
"Also, the very short section of the foliot that allows weight adjustment makes it clear that this clock was never used for unequal hours (12 hours from sunrise to sunset, making hours shorter in winter and longer in summer), but was always used to measure equal hours and probably run 24 hours per day. The shortnes... |
is google licensing its fiber optics? | Google isn't licensing their fiber optics. What's happening is that Google is succeeding in their goal to force ISPs to step up their game. Google believes fast, affordable internet should be available to everyone. The current market is happy for a single ISP to have a monopoly over each area. Google is breaking that pattern by building their own fiber optic network, offering blistering speeds for a relatively low price. This is spurring the competition to make changes to stay competitive, so companies like AT & T are building their own fiber optic networks to compete with Google's. | [
"Google Fiber offers an IPTV service in various US cities which includes up to 1 Gigabit-speed internet and over 290 channels depending on package via the fiber optic network being built out in Kansas City Kansas and Kansas City Missouri.\n",
"In June 2016, Google Fiber acquired Webpass to boost its effort in its... |
blue light from screens reduces melatonin, but doesn’t that mean more serotonin? | No, it doesnt work that way. Oddly enough dopamine and melatonin are inversely linked (one goes up and the other goes down). But contrary to popular belief that has more of an effect on movement than on mood. But it is thought to be related to why people can get a bit addicted to screen time. | [
"Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) is a monoamine neurotransmitter that plays a role in mood, eating, sleeping, arousal and potentially visual orientation processing. To investigate its function in visual orientation, researchers have utilised MDMA, or as it is commonly referred to, Ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamp... |
why don't girls ask guys out? | Because our culture has long been focused on men being in a dominant role. Asking someone out is a dominant action and not expected of girls.
Not that hard really. | [
"Throughout the series, the female contestants participate in competitions and are selected by the men for dates, with some of the contestants being eliminated at various intervals. Each woman receives a text message of \"yes\" if any of the men want to keep her in contention or \"no\" if none of them want to keep ... |
why can't dc be transformed as easily as ac | When you switch a DC signal on and off, you're turning it into an AC signal.
It's easier to manipulate the voltage and current of AC signals, because with AC we are able to use magnetic coupling as another degree of freedom. Magnetic fields can only create electric fields when they are changing, which requires a changing electric field, which is what AC signals are.
We *can* do voltage and current manipulation on DC signals themselves using semiconductors. This ends up being less common for high power scenarios.
Using magnetic coupling on DC signals which switch on and off rapidly is wasteful, because magnetic coupling is most efficient when the signal is a pure sinewave. Otherwise, energy can get lost in all the little non-primary constituent frequencies. | [
"The electric power is generally DC rather than AC, even though this requires large rectifiers. DC motors were formerly more efficient for railway applications, and once a DC system is in place, converting it to AC is generally considered infeasible.\n",
"Inexpensive inverters can convert DC power to AC by simply... |
if it takes about 8 minutes for sunlight to reach earth doesn’t that mean that it’s true position in the sky is 8 minutes ahead? | EDIT: sorry, the first thing you said is not entirely true. The second is fine.
The sun's position in the sky is due to the rotation of the earth, much more than the orbit around the sun + difference from the speed of light. If the light reached us instantly, the sun would be an imperceptible fraction further forward or back (not sure which, need someone smarter). But it wouldn't be 8 minutes worth of rotation ahead in the sky.
The other thing you said is still true, yes some or even all of the stars we see could be dead and we won't know about it until the light gets here. The sun could disappear right now and you wouldn't know for 8 minutes. | [
"From a point on the ground at this latitude, the sun is above the horizon for 16 hours, 12 minutes during the summer solstice and 8 hours, 14 minutes during the winter solstice This latitude also roughly corresponds to the minimum latitude in which astronomical twilight can last all night near the summer solstice.... |
what are they talking about when they say a room or building has 'great acoustics'? how do you determine if a room has great acoustics? | When someone makes noise, a sound wave travels from them to your ear, and that's how you hear it.
Maybe you're picturing a laser-beam type wave, shooting from the sound source to your ear. If you could see it though, it would actually look more like a ripple on a lake, traveling outward in every direction from the source.
Did you ever wonder how come you can hear a noise even if you can't see what made it? Sound can travel around corners and such, can't it? That's because sound waves can bounce almost every surface - especially hard ones - and go in new directions.
So now imagine you're in a room with another person and they make noise. This will all happen very fast - too fast maybe to consciously hear - but first you will hear that part of the ripple that happened to be in line with your ear. Then you'll hear the reflections of the parts of the ripple that hit the wall behind you or to your sides and are coming back your direction now. (And if you're closer to, say, the back wall, that reflection will reach your ear \*just\* before the side wall reflections). Then you'll hear further and fainter reflections, maybe a few that bounced off three or four surfaces before reaching your ear.
This all happens super-fast. But the overall effect is called "reverberation" and it can vary a lot.
Let's imagine you're in a tiny tiled room, like a bathroom. If someone makes a loud noise there'll be a LOT of reflections coming at your ear very quickly after the source sound happenes. The reverberation you'll get will be ringy and harsh.
Or let's imagine you're in a big cathedral. The source noise will be far away and by the time it reaches you will be blended with its own reflections, but also some other reflections will only reach you after a long bouncing journey. The reverberation will be blurry and booming.
'Great acoustics' is when the sensation you get is clarity and pleasantness. There's minimal interference and the reverberation has a unique and warm effect on the raw source sound. Room shape, material surfaces, and the position of the source sound (and the listener's ear - that's why some seats cost more in fancy concert halls) all make a big difference to the sound. | [
"Architectural acoustics (also known as room acoustics and building acoustics) is the science and engineering of achieving a good sound within a building and is a branch of acoustical engineering. The first application of modern scientific methods to architectural acoustics was carried out by Wallace Sabine in the ... |
Did FDR let Pearl Harbor happen? Was there knowledge that A, the attack was going to happen, and B, when? | Hey there this has come up before!
Would point you towards 2 of my previous answers on the subject: _URL_1_
_URL_0_
It boils down to a combination of things people looking back to say "conspiracy!".
The big one is that it is much easier to say it was all planned, then that 50 years of rising geopolitical and racial tensions set into motion giant nations and bureaucracies whose eventual inevitable conclusion would be conflict in some sort. Frankly it is a testament to diplomacy that the war was held off as long as it was, because professionals on both sides of the ocean knew it was coming, and both navies had trained for generations to fight it, and according to some interpretations geopolitcs of the region made it a foregone conclusion base don both nation's goals.
But one major point I would use to say it is ridiculous that FDR had such advance knowledge of the attack and was of a mind to let it happen is he was doing the most damage he could to the Pacific Fleet. It was sheer coincidence that bad weather delayed *Enterprise* in returning or you could have added a carrier and a gaggle of escorts to the toll.
But the Battle Line was the real kicker. FDR was a Navy man at heart, had been Assistant Secretary in WW1, LOVED the Navy with all his heart, and also knew how it was planned on fighting Japan, with the battleships then settling into the mud of Pearl Harbor.
Itd be like going looking for a fight and then intentionally letting the first punch break your arm, you just lost the tool you planned on using to hit back with! | [
"During a televised interview, Duško Popov related having informed the FBI on 12 August, 1941, of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. Either the FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover did not report this fact to his superiors, or they, for reasons of their own, took no action. \n",
"BULLET::::- \"Betrayal at Pearl Harbor:\"... |
rutherford's nuclear atom | I can't summarize it better than the Wikipedia article, but I'd be happy to answer any more *specific* questions you have. | [
"Rutherford presented his own physical model for subatomic structure, as an interpretation for the unexpected experimental results. In it, the atom is made up of a central charge (this is the modern atomic nucleus, though Rutherford did not use the term \"nucleus\" in his paper) surrounded by a cloud of (presumably... |
why do we not use airships nowadays? shouldn't there be a solution to the explosive problem by now? | They'd be pretty slow compared to airplanes, cars, trains, basically any other modern method of travel. It would be such a novelty/niche market that it'd probably be hard to turn a profit. | [
"The Zeppelin NT, being designed more than 60 years after the last generation of Zeppelins were built as well as making use of advances in material science and computer-aided design, has been claimed to overcome some of the typical disadvantages of airships, such as maneuverability, safety, and economics. In partic... |
In the US during the 1800s, was it common for slaves to go insane? | There was just a thread discussing this a couple of weeks ago, hopefully you can find some answers here:
_URL_0_ | [
"During the 16th and 17th centuries, a widespread moral panic took place across Europe and the American colonies. The social and political turmoil following periods of widespread crop failure, war, and disease, led to numerous men and women being accused of practicing malevolant witchcraft, which resulted in the wi... |
How does the smoke, heat and debris from wildfires affect cloud and weather systems? | Most areas have regular wind patterns that are determined by the heating of air. Hot air rises, and cold air sinks. Air, like most other things, likes to move from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. When hot air rises, the pressure beneath that air decreases, so surrounding air masses that are under pressure move into these areas. That’s how you get wind. A wildfire produces a lot of heat, which causes the air around it to rise. This can disrupt the regular wind patterns in an area and as a result makes predicting the movement of a wildfire incredibly difficult. It’s one of the reasons the current wildfire in California is so hard to deal with.
Wildfires also have the ability to affect cloud formation. More specifically, because of the heat’s effect on the water capacity of the air, and the emission of smoke/debris, wildfires can cause clouds to form. Hot air can hold more water than cold air, so when a wildfire burns it increases the air’s ability to hold water. Also because of the heat, water is more likely to evaporate from the ground and the plants near the fire. So the wildfire is putting more water into the air, which is needed to form clouds. Another thing that you need to form clouds is matter. Water droplets can’t form without something for water vapor to condense onto. They need some kind of material like, in the case of wildfires, smoke and debris. Wildfires produce a ton of matter that is perfect for water to condense onto. Since wildfires put a lot of water and debris into the air, this can lead to cloud formation. In some cases, the clouds can become large and heavy enough to rain, which can extinguish the fire.
I hope this helps! I would be happy to answer any other questions if you have them. :) | [
"Weather forecasting of wind, precipitations and humidity is essential for preventing and controlling wildfires. Different indices, like the \"Forest fire weather index\" and the \"Haines Index\", have been developed to predict the areas more at risk to experience fire from natural or human causes. Conditions for t... |
why do we refer the secretary of state as mr. secretary, but never the ceo of microsoft as mr. ceo? | Because of tradition which was developed to divide society into classes dating centuries back and how that contrasted with the bourgeois revolution in the XVIII century. The titles mean to convey someone's social position and indicate whether the interlocutor is positioned above or beneath in social rank.
Ask yourself why we call monarchs "your highness", bishops and ambassadors "your excellency" and judges "your honor". It is all to do with the notion that position or birth makes someone stand higher or lower on the social ladder. Since republican governments inherited a lot from their monarchical predecessors the notion that state officials get honorary titles was understood as sign of prestige. Consider the famous anecdote about what title the US president was supposed to initially have. That however applies only to officials with a position. Note again that your regular clerk in the local government branch isn't Mr. Government Worker - although in some countries even entry-level staff get titles.
CEO of companies are purely functional titles which describe their role i the company. They are in effect job descriptions and not position titles and as such differ in absolutely nothing from your entry level "sales assistants" or "assistant regional managers". There is some use for a honorary title during a board meeting: "chairman" and "the board" and some older companies - especially in Europe - had a "president". Modern high-tech companies are *yet* too formally egalitarian to do something like that regardless of the earnings and actual practical hierarchy. Notice I said *yet*.
Those old European companies used to start as little manufacturing plants or shops where a bunch of "burgers" (middle-class town dwellers) would set up a company to earn some money. They would go into partnerships with nobles (people with titles) and since they couldn't own titles themselves and most of the were too poor or uninfluential to buy one or marry into a family they insisted on an egalitarian approach. That changed in the late XIX century when after 100 years of capitalist/industrial revolution the balance of power shifted in their favour but the language was already conditioned to the new title-less approach.
However that also depended on the society in which the new institution developed. In Germany and Britain where social class was still strong and entrenched the language and social structure was less formal because it still operated in parallel to the old social class system. In Germany the nobility was eliminated from the primary role in society only after WW1 and in Britain only after WW2. In France where the French revolution wiped out most of the nobility by the end of XVIII century the industrialists had greater social and cultural influence and therefore the traditional language and code of conduct in French companies was much more hierarchical because they were filling a void. That's the result of a 100 years of living with or without nobles.
Note also that artisan guilds in the medieval era did have titles for example - again to denote structure.
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TL;DR: Because of how power used to divide people into social classes. Most state positions were linked with social status and as such were reserved for the nobility or the church. No titles were allowed for the middle-class other than functional titles within the government of towns (mayor, councilor, alderman) and definitely no titles were allowed for functions involved with trade which was considered a disgraceful profession. So it was a formal ban on titles in business that shaped the language for the first few centuries and it carried on to this day.
| [
"In a similar vein to the COO the title of corporate President as a separate position (as opposed to being combined with a \"C-Suite\" designation, such as \"President and CEO\" or \"President and COO\") is also loosely defined. The President is usually the legally recognized highest rank of corporate officer, rank... |
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