question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Are satellites sending data back to earth affected by the Doppler effect? | Yes, it's not small enough to interfere with communications, but it's large enough to be able to measure the speed of the spacecraft. If Rosetta is traveling at 15 km/s relative to Earth, then the change in wavelength will be 0.005%, from the formula:
lambda^obs = lambda^emit \* (1 + v/c)
(sucks that markdown can't do subscripts) | [
"Some satellites in polar orbits lost control for several hours. GOES weather satellite communications were interrupted, causing weather images to be lost. NASA's TDRS-1 communication satellite recorded over 250 anomalies caused by the increased particles flowing into its sensitive electronics. The Space Shuttle \"... |
Why would it be fatal if someone had too much fat removed through liposuction? | It's not just fat, fat isn't stored like cream cheese packed under our skin. Fat is stored inside specialized cells called adipocytes, liposuction removes many of these cells from adipose tissue depots. Like any other tissue, adipose requires blood flow, meaning it is vascularized. Removing large amounts of any type of tissue leaves a lot of open blood vessels and can lead to dangerous levels of blood loss. Adipose tissue also acts as an exocrine gland, removing a significant amount of mass can changes the levels of circulating adipokines and hormones so drastically and in such a short amount t of time it can have negative be health consequences. | [
"There is also a possibility of fat embolism \"associated with liposuction and autologous fat transfer, a procedure where fat from liposuction is injected back into the same patient’s face, breast, buttocks or penis\".\n",
"Liposuction is a medical procedure used to remove fat from the body, common areas being ar... |
Why don't solids merge when pushed against each other? | That's a good question.
Most crystal surfaces have an atomic-scale reconstruction, though -- that is, the atoms in the few layers closest to the surface rearrange themselves due to the presence of the surface. Take diamond, for instance. Do you think that all the surface atoms are just sitting there with two unsatisfied covalent bonds? Hell no, they join up with their neighbours and form a stable reconstructed surface that's mostly chemically satisfied. If you smoosh two reconstructed surfaces together then there's a huge energy barrier which would need to be overcome for them to both un-reconstruct and re-form a perfect crystal.
That's for pure substances. As iorgfeflkd (I hope I typed that in right) says many substances in air will form an oxide layer as well. That'll make life harder. And finally we have the issue that your perfect-looking crystals are generally not atomically flat -- they have raised portions and lower portions, which means the surfaces aren't going to line up perfectly.
While googling for images to illustrate surface reconstruction I found this page which you might be interested in, doing simulations on what *does* happen if you smoosh two (unoxidized) pure silicon surfaces together: _URL_0_ | [
"Some materials may merge at the joint by diffusion. This may occur when the molecules of both materials are mobile and soluble in each other. This would be particularly effective with polymer chains where one end of the molecule diffuses into the other material. It is also the mechanism involved in sintering. When... |
would curing cancer ultimately be a good thing? | You don't need cancer, starvation, or anything else like that to control population. All you need is prosperity.
The more prosperous a country is, the fewer children it has. For example, in the US, the average couple has fewer than two children. The US population would actually be shrinking if it weren't for immigration.
The reason the world population is still growing is that there are still big areas that are not prosperous. Solve that, and you solve the population issue.
All that *without* resorting to brutal, pointless methods like disease and starvation.
Besides - even if that weren't true, I would prefer a law that caps the number of kids you can have at 2, to a law that says "if you get cancer, you're not allowed to get cured."
| [
"Steven Novella writes, in Skepticblog, about the general misunderstanding and sensationalizing of cancer research that typically accompanies a conspiratorial mindset. He points out that cures for cancer, rather than being hidden, are not the cures they are initially touted to be by the media and either result in a... |
who are the people peer reviewing statistics and scientific findings | Are you seeing actual studies, abstracts or articles about studies? All those are different and only proper journal studies are peer reviewed.
Basically it gets sent to a random selection of experts in the field, who comb through the paper and the report to are if the findings are reasonable.
It depends very much of the field how specific the circumstances for reproduction are.
Do you have any examples or a particular area? | [
"Evaluating scientific research is extremely complex. The process can by greatly simplified with the use of a heuristic that ranks the relative strengths of results obtained from scientific research called a hierarchy of evidence. The design of the study and the endpoints measured (such as survival or quality of li... |
Why did telegrams fall from popular use? | They were overtaken by technology - telephones became more widespread in private residences and some point fax machines came along, then cellphones with the ability to send text messages and then a little later the internet and widespread use of email, which in some cases is being replaced by social media (facebook, twitter etc).
| [
"Telegrams became a popular means of sending messages once telegraph prices had fallen sufficiently. Traffic became high enough to spur the development of automated systems—teleprinters and punched tape transmission. These systems led to new telegraph codes, starting with the Baudot code. However, telegrams were ne... |
When bright light reflects off a coloured or black surface and the reflection is white (IE from the sun), what is happening? | The problem has to do with the way you're defining a "pure blue surface". RuleOfMildlyIntrstng answers the question in passing, and addresses the possibility of a perceptual effect. But like you say, you're not talking about the perceptual effect.
Surfaces have two macroscopic reflective behaviors under illumination: specular and diffuse (or Lambertian) reflection. Specular reflection is the image of the background that you see reflected on the hood of that Mustang. In physical terms it is the 'coherent' portion of the reflection; the lack of wavefront distortion is why you can see trees and the sun. The fact that you're seeing a 'white' or spectrally unmodified reflection is an intrinsic property of whatever part of the surface is causing the specularity. As ROMI points out, this is because of the first-surface index-change reflection on the clear coat of the car, which has no color sensitivity. The diffuse reflection of the pigment beneath is what provides the color, through selective absorption of different wavelengths. That's not a super satisfying answer, because I haven't asserted any cause and certainly not every apparently colored specular surface (like, say, the surface of colored acrylic) has multiple layers. For that answer we have to go back to the coherence part of our explanation.
When a wavefront hits a surface, the photon-material interaction doesn't happen immediately at the surface, except in metals and some other materials*, but rather in a few wavelengths or (often, much) more. The interaction can be divided into coherent and incoherent scattering phenomena; simply, the coherent scattering is characterized by very little photon-material interaction: just refractive effects from the change of index: remember, as the light is actually penetrating a nonzero amount of distance into the material, even apparently opaque dielectrics will have some apparent index of refraction. As long as that index is roughly constant across the visible spectrum, you'll perceive a "white" reflection. The noncoherent scattering is potentially much more complicated and strongly material dependent, likely involving color-sensitive absorption and reemission of photons, some back in the direction of your eye. Because these "colorful" interactions have taken place over several wavelengths or more, as well as unknown delays from propagation and reemission times, the emitted photons, even those very close to each other "know nothing" about (are weakly or not correlated to) each other and are unable to be formed into an image of the light source.
The effect doesn't depend on however rough *you* think the surface is, because the degree of specular vs diffuse reflection (coherent vs incoherent) reflection can only be modified by changing the surface roughness on the scale of the wavelength of the light. So if you take a piece of glossy colored acrylic and sand it, you're not changing the fraction of specularly-reflected light (so the reflected light will still have a "white" component), you're just making the reflecting facets smaller (akin to why breaking a mirror does not change its color).
With rare exception (some "dichroic" materials, which have highly wavelength-sensitive indices of refraction on their surface) specular/coherent reflection is quite broadband. Incoherent scattering phenomena on a variety of scales can be broadband (white) or provide color, depending on their mechanism. Thus, images that you observe on surfaces will tend to be significantly less colorful than the bulk color of a surface.
*this is why specular reflections from apparently-colored metals like gold and copper share the same spectral sensitivity as the "diffuse" reflection. | [
"c. P.I.L. description of the objects sighted as \"circular, bluish-white\" in color would be expected in cases of specular reflections of sunlight from convex surfaces where the brilliance of the reflection would obscure other portions of the object.\n",
"Up to this point white objects have been discussed, which... |
what are the biases of main us news networks? which us news network is considered the must unbiased? | None of the cable news networks are unbiased.
MSNBC is probably the most biased, with a far left slant.
CNN is about as far left as Fox is right, both with a moderate to heavy slant.
NBC, CBS, and ABC (the old three networks from before cable) all have left leaning slants of varying degrees.
Fox has the highest ratings of any US cable news, mainly due to being the only one without a left leaning slant, so they get the 50% of the population that is right of center politically. | [
"The apparent bias of media is not always specifically political in nature. The news media tend to appeal to a specific audience, which means that stories that affect a large number of people on a global scale often receive less coverage in some markets than local stories, such as a public school shooting, a celebr... |
how do animals without parental training know how to be the animals they are? | First, if I were to cut your skull vertically and take a look at a cross-section of your brain, I'd be able to divide it into what you normally think of as the brain (the noodlely bits) and the brain-stem.
Most of your instinctual functions, such as curling away from heat, your fight or flight instincts, reflex to swallow things put in your mouth, etc. are all handled by the brain-stem.
Animals that don't require parental nurture often have their behavior programmed into them. They're extremely complex chemical reactions at the end of the day. | [
"An obedience school is an institution that trains pets (particularly dogs) how to behave properly. When puppies are young and in the first stages of training, they are often taken by their owners to obedience schools. Training usually takes place in small groups. In addition to training pets themselves, obedience ... |
Microwave Ovens: What is the relationship between the power level selected and the cooking time? | There are a variety of factors to take care of, so I'll try my best to explain:
Admitting your microwave has a power of 1'000 W (watts). It means it delivers 1'000 j/s (joules/seconds) at 100% power setting. For the sake of explanation we'll assume every joule is used to heat whatever is in.
So, if you have water, say a quarter litter, which happens to be one quarter of a kg (more or less), it would need about 1000 J (1046 to be more precise but we'll approximate to make things easy) to heat up 1 degree Celsius (or Kelvin, doesn't matter). If you have water at 20° and want it to boil (say to prepare coffee) it would need to heat up 80° so gain 80'000 J. Now remember, your microwave output is 1000 J/s, so in 80 seconds, a but less than a minute and a half, your water would be at the wanted temperature.
BUT, and that's where it gets complicated, there are phenomenon like convection that take time, so energy that is not uniformly released in the water does not heat all the water, it takes some time for the temperature to equalise, imagine adding hot water in a bath, the water already there doesn't heat instantaneously, even if you mix it.
So, to go against this, you may put your microwave to say 50%, double time so that in the end the energy released is the same but water has had time to homogenise.
Water being a fairly "easy" and uniformous matter already having "problems" you can imagine why it would be hard to fully see how it works on meat or a meal containing different things (say a soup with vegetables).
TL;DR to heat in an more homogenous way, heat with less power more time so that heat can travel in the matter and equalise.
Source: studying chemical engineering.
Ps if I said anything wrong, please correct. Sorry for formatting, I'm on a mobile device. | [
"In electric cookers, continuously variable power is applied to the heating elements such as the hob or the grill using a device known as a simmerstat. This consists of a thermal oscillator running at approximately two cycles per minute and the mechanism varies the duty cycle according to the knob setting. The ther... |
How do we know how fast a galaxy was moving away from us at the time the light we can see left it. | The red shift tells us how fast it was moving, the distance is figured from a chain of observations and assumptions. | [
"The \"distance\" of a far away galaxy depends on what distance measurement you use. With a redshift of 3.77, light from this active galaxy is estimated to have taken around 11.7 billion years to reach us. But since this galaxy is receding from Earth at an estimated rate of 274,681 km/s (the speed of light is 299,7... |
/r/subredditsimulator | The subreddit is filled with bots that randomly generate posts and comments, based on existing reddit content. For example /u/AskHistorians_SS generates comments from the content of /r/AskHistorians.
The sticky post explains how the comments are generated:
> The text for titles/comments/text-posts are generated using "markov chains", a random process that's "trained" from looking at real data. If you've ever used a keyboard on your phone that tries to predict which word you'll type next, those are often built using something similar.
> Basically, you feed in a bunch of sentences, and even though it has no understanding of the meaning of the text, it picks up on patterns like "word A is often followed by word B". Then when you want to generate a new sentence, it "walks" its way through from the start of a sentence to the end of one, picking sequences of words that it knows are valid based on that initial analysis. So generally short sequences of words in the generated sentences will make sense, but often not the whole thing.
For example, lets say the only things I ever wrote are "I am the Walrus" and "I am the one who knocks". The algorithm will therefore determine that the phrase "I am the" is always followed by the word "Walrus" or the word "one", so it will randomly choose between one of them.
Now, if I also wrote "the one I love" then the algorithm might conclude that "the one" is sometimes followed by the word "I". So after writing the phrase "I am the one", it might decide to randomly pick the word "I", which will create the phrase "I am the one I love" - a phrase that I had never written, but is comprised of fractions of sentences that I have. Of course, the more content there is to draw from, the more possibilities there are for new sentences to be generated. | [
"r/TheRedPill is a misogynistic subreddit which promotes male supremacy. It was profiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It has been associated with several right-wing movements and the alt-right because of its attacks on feminism and mockery of rape.\n",
"Using latent semantic analysis, FiveThirtyEight analy... |
Arguments that the Counter Reformation was a success? | Well, they restricted the Reformation to the fringes of Europe, kept Spain & France in particular in the fold, so that'd be where I'd start. | [
"The Counter-Reformation, or Catholic Reformation, was the response of the Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation. The essence of the Counter-Reformation was a renewed conviction in traditional practices and the upholding of Catholic doctrine as the source of ecclesiastic and moral reform, and the answer to ... |
What are the products of the regeneration of a diesel particulate filter? | I did a study for some US-Mexico transport agencies which focused on the reduction of Particulate Matter using these sorts of technologies in trucks, so i will mostly address trucks.
These filters are aimed at reducing the amount of particulate matter in vehicle emissions, but can reduce other contaminants which contain nitrogen and sulfur.
Releasing particulate matter would be a bad idea because it has serious health effects depending on concentration in the air. Thats one of the reasons some european cities are developing Low Emission Zones, London and Germany are good examples.
These are EPA´s assessment of what particulate matter can do:
_URL_0_
And they are using programs and tools like this to calculate what is the overall heatlh benefit of these technologies.
_URL_1_
_URL_2_
Im on my phone ill try to format this and add more information later.
| [
"DPF filters go through a regeneration process which removes this soot and lowers the filter pressure. There are three types of regeneration: passive, active, and forced. Passive regeneration takes place normally while driving, when engine load and vehicle drive-cycle create temperatures that are high enough to reg... |
How come when Europeans came to north America, they made the natives a minority, but in south America, the descendants of the natives at lest make up the majority? Or are they not native, but from elsewhere? (Spain?) | Remember, South america was far more populated than North America. The reason for this was because South America held the most favorable conditions for farming which led to cities which led to civilizations arising like the Aztecs and the Inca. Of course many North American peoples settled into farming like the Hadanasuanee (or Iroqouis) but due to the snow and the seasons these nations could not farm as much as the Southerners leading to less population growth. And because the various European Plagues wiped out the natives in the Americas both North and south dropped dramatically. But due to the southerners common use of farming they were able to adapt to european systems easier andcould thus grow their pops more. Whereas the Northerners wern't used to farming and thus could not grow like the southerenres.
Also the British colonization policy was to send britishers to the New world to set up the colonies there. Due to this the areas were flooded with British folk far outnumbering the natives. This was partly due to the inability to get native workers early on as all the tribes ran somewhere else when the British tried to capture them. There simply wasn't a native society in North America that could be "conquered" because there were no lands or borders in N. America, just tribal claims and tepees(and other moveable houses) that could be moved and changed easily. These many reasons created a british policy of immagration to the new world.
Whereas the land the spainish conquered coupd be conquered. They had kings, nobility, clergy and peasents. When the spainish defeated these kings, the people plegded loyalty to them because the natives were defeated. And because they had built cities and feudalism they couldn't just run away. After the spainish conquered the New world they decided that they only needed a spainsh minority in powr that could use cheap "encomienda's"(or slaves) to run their colonies. This led to the natives outnumbering the natives and because the natives were used to the farming system they could use the surplus food to grow their population.
Also the british had less useful land, like Spainsh America had gold, silver and plantations whereas British America had littleof that until the 1800's. This led to the british colonies being mire based of the people and their producing powere with a heavy influence on trade. Whereas the Spainish realized the most effective way to gain wealth was exploiting slaves and encomienda's to work the fields and the silver mines to make Spain so rich it had a inflation crisis. But the side effect was that societies cannot be built off pure extraction of resources which was a factor in todays poverty in south america.
But when the Former spainsh colonies declared independance(lets go Simon Bolivar) they realized that there was a major gap between the spainsh born, the spainsh New world born and the natives. To fix this issue the instatuited a policy of intermarrige that would join the 3(and more) communities into one. This was remarkably succesfull and united the different races and decreased racism(though it still exists). And on top of that the fact that most of the people were mixed race people were more willing to claim their Indeginous ancestry leading to a larger overall population of native-ish people.
| [
"In the Americas, it seems that only the most remote peoples managed to stave off complete assimilation by Western and Western-fashioned governments. These include some of the northern peoples (i.e., Inuit), some peoples in the Yucatán, Amazonian forest dwellers, and various Andean groups. Of these, the Quechua peo... |
Is it possible for 0% humidity to ever occur on Earth? How would the human body react? | I work in a [dry room](_URL_1_). The humidity gets pretty close to 0% (true 0% is pretty much impossible, the same way 100% purity is basically impossible). You can work all day in the dry room and not feel uncomfortable (it is maintained at a nice 70 degrees with excellent air circulation). The main effect is that when you come out of the dry room, everything feels "wet."
Now, the dry room is kept at around 1% humidity. This is actually comparable with the 1% relative humidity which seems to be the lowest reported outside of a lab ([here](_URL_0_)). Those who experienced it said their mouths dried out quickly. Why did their mouths dry out quickly, but mine does not in a dry room?
The answer lies in [evaporation rates](_URL_2_). The lowest humidity was reported at Death Valley, where the temperature often reaches over 100 degrees. This elevated temperature is doubly bad for dehydrating humans. First of all, the higher temperature makes water evaporate much more quickly. Second, your body will sweat to keep itself cool, causing you to lose even more water. In a humid environment you would get some of that water back as water condenses on your skin, but in a dry environment you will just lose all your water very quickly.
In contrast, the evaporation rate in my lab at 70 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty slow. The nice cool temperature does not prompt sweating, so you can easily work in there for hours and not feel a thing.
Edit: I should mention that we often wear masks in the dry room. This isn't really to keep ourselves humid, but more to prevent the water in our breath from adding humidity to the air. | [
"Surface level humidity is less than 0.1%. Venus's sulfuric acid rain never reaches the ground, but is evaporated by the heat before reaching the surface in a phenomenon known as virga. It is theorized that early volcanic activity released sulfur into the atmosphere and the high temperatures prevented it from being... |
if we manage to get fusion, is that really unlimited energy and how does it compare to current energy sources? | Not exactly - the fuel of a fusion reactor is deuterium, which is present in seawater. Approximately 1 out of every 6500 atoms of ocean hydrogen is deuterium.
Fusion power is non-renewable, and not unlimited. However, the amount of power that can be produced from a very small amount is tremendous and far outpaces any other known energy source. On top of that, the amount of fuel necessary is tiny and burns only in precise conditions. Even in a "meltdown", without being actively and constantly refueled it will burn itself out in seconds. In addition, the waste produced, while highly radioactive, has a much shorter half-life and the danger decreases sharply over 50-100 years. Compare this to fission nuclear reactors whose waste can remain radioactive for thousands of years. | [
"Fusion power would provide more energy for a given weight of fuel than any fuel-consuming energy source currently in use, and the fuel itself (primarily deuterium) exists abundantly in the Earth's ocean: about 1 in 6500 hydrogen atoms in seawater is deuterium. Although this may seem a low proportion (about 0.015%)... |
How often did medieval Christian priests fight in battles? Was the mace their weapon of choice? | Priests are, as this myth rightly says, prohibited from the shedding of blood. However, there are quite a few Church canons specifically prohibiting clerical participation in warfare.
This is not to say it didn't happen - *La Chanson de Roland* has Bishop Turpin in full armor, and the frequent repetition of canonical decrees is usually inferred to mean the existing rules are probably being disobeyed - but in that case there would be no particular need to restrict oneself to a mace.
So yeah, just another medievalism. | [
"It is popularly believed that maces were employed by the clergy in warfare to avoid shedding blood (\"sine effusione sanguinis\"). The evidence for this is sparse and appears to derive almost entirely from the depiction of Bishop Odo of Bayeux wielding a club-like mace at the Battle of Hastings in the Bayeux Tapes... |
why does the human body get used to things? for example: smells, the way a room looks, routine | because it is the *unusual* sound, smell or object which may offer the unique opportunity or be an immediate danger.
regular stuff... becomes unimportant. | [
"In 2012, research from the Weizmann Institute of Science indicated that classical conditioning can occur during sleep by using odor recognition. \"During sleep, humans can strengthen previously acquired memories, but whether they can acquire entirely new information remains unknown. The nonverbal nature of the olf... |
What a ischaemic heart disease really is and what happens to the heart? | Ischemia means reduce blood supply.
Thus in ischemic heart disease the blood supply to the heart is reduced or blocked fully due to atherosclerosis and causing conditions like myocardial infarction, angina and cardiac death. | [
"Cardiac ischemia may be asymptomatic or may cause chest pain, known as angina pectoris. It occurs when the heart muscle, or myocardium, receives insufficient blood flow. This most frequently results from atherosclerosis, which is the long-term accumulation of cholesterol-rich plaques in the coronary arteries. Isch... |
In space, can magnetic material orbit a magnet using magnetism the same way mass orbits each other using gravity? | No it can't, for ways that are difficult to explain without math. Basically, there are only two types of forces that lead to stable orbits: Coulomb/Newton forces that obey an inverse square law, and harmonic/elastic/spring forces that obey a linear force law. This is proven as [Bertrand's theorem](_URL_1_)
Forces between magnets are not like these, they are complicated and generally fall off as higher inverse powers of distance. _URL_0_ | [
"Magnetic materials and systems are able to attract or press each other apart or together with a force dependent on the magnetic field and the area of the magnets. For example, the simplest example of lift would be a simple dipole magnet positioned in the magnetic fields of another dipole magnet, oriented with like... |
how do plastic bags help preserve food? | It limits the amount of bacteria that can find its way to the item.
While it won't remove any that's already on the item, it will prevent new bacteria from happening to land on it.
In addition, it helps the item retain its moisture instead of drying out, or keep it dry instead of absorbing moisture from the air, depending on whether it started out moister or dryer than air.
It also prevents cross-contamination with other items. If your fridge was full of open jars and loose items, the smells from each would float around and sink into each other, and soon you would have pickle-flavoured cake and milk that tastes like boiled eggs.
It also helps prevent live organisms from interfering with the food, such as flies that would otherwise land on it and potentially lay eggs in it. | [
"Some modern bags are made of vegetable-based bioplastics, which can decay organically and prevent a build-up of toxic plastic bags in landfills and the natural environment. Bags can also be made from degradable polyethylene film or from polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable polymer derived from lactic acid. Howev... |
where is non-physical government money stored? | A large majority of money in the world is non-physical. It’s just 1s and 0s in a computer system somewhere. | [
"Historically, the use of representative money predates the invention of coinage. In the ancient empires of Egypt, Babylon, India and China, the temples and palaces often had commodity warehouses which issued certificates of deposit as evidence of a claim upon a portion of the goods stored in the warehouses, a form... |
What actually happens during the combustion of hydrocarbons? | Here is a paper from 1992 that gives a "simplified" mechanism.
_URL_0_
In short, radicals are formed and then the reaction proceeds very quickly. There can be a large number of different species that take part in the reaction so it is a very complicated thing to describe kinetically. Reactions that may initiate combustion are:
CH4 = > CH3(radical)+H(radical)
H(radical)+O2 = > HOO(radical)
This continues and more and more different radicals are formed that propagate the reaction. | [
"Combustion of hydrocarbons is thought to be initiated by hydrogen atom abstraction (not proton abstraction) from the fuel to oxygen, to give a hydroperoxide radical (HOO). This reacts further to give hydroperoxides, which break up to give hydroxyl radicals. There are a great variety of these processes that produce... |
How far would various groups of people travel in a days time in Roman times | Historians at the University of Stanford have made an excellent interactive map which answers all of your quesions and then some:
_URL_0_ | [
"Now all you needed to do was say a days journey was 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds. A century was 100 years of 365.34 days journey. The number of seconds was twice the distance in inches. The circumference of the earth was 24902.72727 miles making a degree 4382880\" or 365,240 feet. A days march by the Roman r... |
What would be the result if we somehow trap photons in closed metallic sphere that is as reflective as a mirror on the inside? | As others have stated, it's impossible to have a material with a 100% reflectivity and making a closed box with photons going back and forth would be experimentally difficult.
It's however possible to trap light between two mirrors and one of the 2012 physics Nobel prize recipients does just that: he and his team made a cavity with [two mirrors](_URL_0_) in which photons can get trapped. Due to absorption though, the photons could survive only for an average of 0.1s (which is still sufficient for the photons to travel 40.000km between the mirrors before absorption!).
One of the really cool things this team used was an experimental setup which allowed them to figure out how many photons were bouncing between the mirrors at a given time without needing to absorb the photons to detect them (like you would with a camera or light sensors in general). To do this, they used excited atoms in which the electrons were going around the nucleus in a very elongated orbit and made them pass through the cavity. If there were photons in the cavity, the electric field would rotate the axis of the elongated orbit without any photon being absorbed, and they measured this rotation to infer how many photons were between the mirrors.
If you want to learn more, Serge Haroche's [Nobel acceptance speech](_URL_1_) is really interesting and goes over how they used this experiment for studying quantum mechanics.
| [
"Mirror matter could have been diluted to unobservably low densities during the inflation epoch. Sheldon Glashow has shown that if at some high energy scale particles exist which interact strongly with both ordinary and mirror particles, radiative corrections will lead to a mixing between photons and mirror photons... |
why do people prefer "natural" diamonds. are there real differences? | It's all about marketing creating the public perception that "real" diamonds are superior to artificial ones. All it takes is one salesman to say "well, if you don't really love her *that* much, we've got these synthetics over here" and most customers are going to jump right back into the natural diamonds. | [
"Fancy diamonds are valued using different criteria than those used for regular diamonds. When the color is rare, the more intensely colored a diamond is, the more valuable it becomes. Another factor that affects the value of Fancy-Colored diamonds is fashion trends. For example, pink diamonds fetched higher prices... |
Why does smoke leave a smell? | Some chemical components of smoke will physisorb on surfaces. This means that the molecules land on and very weakly bond with surface. They will sit there for a while. At some point they will leave the surface by desorbing. This is one reason why the smell will persist for a length of time. The surface will act as a temporary reservoir for these molecules. | [
"The name \"Smoky\" comes from the natural fog that often hangs over the range and presents as large smoke plumes from a distance. This fog is caused by the vegetation exhaling volatile organic compounds, chemicals that have a high vapor pressure and easily form vapors at normal temperature and pressure.\n",
"Whe... |
the growth rate of real gdp per capita is usually lower than the growth rate of real gdp | Per capita GDP growth is lower than real GDP because of population growth. If GDP per capita is $100 and the population is 100 then GDP is $10,000. If GDP per capita grows to $110, that's a 10% increase per capita. And if population grows to 102, then real GDP would have grown by 11.2% | [
"Real GDP per capita (measured in 2009 dollars) was $52,444 in 2017 and has been growing each year since 2010. It grew 3.0% per year on average in the 1960s, 2.1% in the 1970s, 2.4% in the 1980s, 2.2% in the 1990s, 0.7% in the 2000s, and 0.9% from 2010 to 2017. Reasons for slower growth since 2000 are debated by ec... |
What causes people to create and believe in truly outlandish conspiracy theories? | There tend to be several reasons people tend to believe in conspiracies. People are often initially drawn to these theories as a search for meaning. this can be readily seen in the aftermath of a tragedy like 9/11, when the enormity of the event lead some people to seek alternate explanations. Once the idea has formed it tends to be reinforced by confirmation bias and attempts to avoid cognitive dissonance. There may also be social effects such as communal reinforcement and group polarization that reinforce the belief as well. Besides these reinforcers, I know of no other means by which conspiracy theories are reinforced.
Also, I am not sure the example you provided qualifies as a conspiracy theory.
From Wikipedia:
> A conspiracy theory is an explanatory proposition that accuses a person, group or organization of having caused or covered up an event or phenomenon of great social, political, or economic impact.
Unless there was a coverup somewhere in this story, I don't believe it qualifies as a conspiracy theory. | [
"People formulate conspiracy theories to explain, for example, power relations in social groups and the perceived existence of evil forces. Proposed psychological origins of conspiracy theorising include projection; the personal need to explain \"a significant event [with] a significant cause;\" and the product of ... |
What do all languages have in common? | This is a question of typology, and the answer is: not a whole lot.
*Perhaps* every language has a distinction between nouns and verbs, but some Native American languages (e.g. Salishan) might not have many tests to distinguish them (and perhaps no tests at all). [There's some excellent discussion of this issue over at StackExchange](_URL_1_).
There *might* be a universal category of subject, (as in English "**I** run", "**He** hits me"), but it's problematic for ergative languages, which pattern the single argument of the intransitive verb ("**I** run") with the less agentive argument of the transitive verb ("He hits **me**"). See [here](_URL_0_) for examples of what this *might* look like in English. The category of subject is also problematic for languages that have 'direct-inverse' systems, where a morpheme or combination of morphemes tells you what persons are involved in a given act, and who did what to who is resolved by a 'hierarchy' and the presence or absence of an 'inverse' morpheme. | [
"The world's languages can be grouped into language families consisting of languages that can be shown to have common ancestry. Linguists recognize many hundreds of language families, although some of them can possibly be grouped into larger units as more evidence becomes available and in-depth studies are carried ... |
Is it possible to 'paint' a target with a proton beam to make it more attractive to a tesla coil? | I think that the number of protons you'd need to fire at a target to get it to achieve a significant net positive charge would be prohibitively high. This is in part because the protons would collide with molecules in the air, scattering them.
However, the concept of tagging a target for electrical discharge has been considered: _URL_0_
It sounds like a reasonable concept; by ionizing the air along a path, you're making a much lower-energy channel for electrical discharge. The plausibility of such a technology depends a lot on things like the availability of large power supplies, I suppose. | [
"The SARAF high-intensity superconducting linear particle accelerator for light ions belongs to a new generation of particle accelerators. The high ion current generates an unprecedented amount of fast neutrons and radioactive nuclei, that may be used to explore rare nuclear reactions, produce new types of radiopha... |
When fighter jets break the sound barrier, is it loud in the cockpit? | The thing is the jet never breaks through anything.
Aircraft engines are pretty loud. So you create sound that spreads from the plane in all directions. If the aircraft is slower than the sound waves, they fly ahead of the aircraft unhindered. But if the aircraft moves faster than the sound it produces, it pushes the sound in front of it, so to speak. The sound waves can not dodge so fast. They are squeezed, thickened and pile up. This is the so-called sound barrier. Behind the plane, the sound waves are cone-shaped - you can imagine that like a ship, the water accumulates in front of him at the bow and produces water waves behind him.
So you would hear a bang every time the jet passes over you. | [
"In aerodynamics, the sound barrier usually refers to the point at which an aircraft moves from transonic to supersonic speed. On October 14, 1947, just under a month after the United States Air Force had been created as a separate service, tests culminated in the first manned supersonic flight where the sound barr... |
19th-20th century American schools | Perhaps your trouble to find responses comes from the fact that there is no question in the title. From the [subreddit rules](_URL_0_),
> Please put your question in the post title | [
"The first public schools in America were established by the Puritans in New England during the 17th century. Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is the oldest public school in the United States.\n",
"The first American schools in the thirteen original colonies opened in the 17th century. Boston Latin Sch... |
Why do rowing teams need to be synchronized? | That way they don't bang their oars into each other. | [
"Single sculls are also used for the training of team rowers, serving primarily to enhance the rowers' technique. The main reason for this is that in a single scull a single person in the boat is responsible for all movement in the boat and therefore has direct feedback on the effect of their movements on balance a... |
why is copper such a good conductor? | Copper has only one electron in its outermost electron orbit, which makes it easy to steal away the electron or add it back. Electricity, (the movement of electrons) takes advantage of that lone electron.
Other metals with one electron in their outermost orbit are Platinum, Silver, and Gold; each of which, predictably, are outstanding electrical conductors. | [
"Copper is one of nature's most efficient thermal and electrical conductors, which helps to conserve energy. Because of its high thermal conductivity, it is used extensively in building heating systems, direct exchange heat pumps, and solar power and hot water equipment. Its high electrical conductivity increases t... |
how were the first perfect objects manufactured? first straight piece, first perfect circle, first perfect sphere, first perfectly straight sword, etc.? | There's no such thing as a "perfect object."
In fact, we use a concept called "significant figures" to tell you how confident we are about a measurement.
For example, if I say something is 100.00 meters long. That actually means that object is 100.00 +/- 0.01 meters long. So it could be 99.99 m to even 100.01 m.
A perfect object would have an infinite amount of significant figures. This is completely impossible, absolutely everything we will have some estimation to it. Even with modern technology, your measurements aren't perfect. They are so good it doesn't really matter, but they aren't perfect.
| [
"On December 19, 1902, Martin F. Christensen filed U.S. Patent No. 802495A, for a machine that made spherical bodies or balls. The patent was published on October 24, 1905. The first machine-made marbles were created in a barn behind Christensen's house, which led to a manufacturing facility. This machine could onl... |
What happened with prisoners in the German Democratic Republic after reunification? | The GDR didn't cease to exist, it joined the Federal Republic instead. The Federal Republic thus is the successor state to the GDR, inheriting its debts and obligations, like both were to the German Empire.
The reunification itself is governed by the *Einigungsvertrag* (Unification treaty) in conjunction with the *Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany* (for some reason better known as 2+4-treaty). The unification treaty makes a rather long and boring read. It includes hundreds of specific regulations, but also some general ones which help answer your question:
> (1) Vor dem Wirksamwerden des Beitritts ergangene Entscheidungen der Gerichte der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik bleiben wirksam (…).
[Einigungsvertrag, Art. 18](_URL_0_)
> (1) Rulings made by courts of the German Democratic Republic issued prior to the admission [of the GDR to the Federal Republic] remain effective.
(My own crude translation.)
The treaty also specifies that political prisoners were to be released and that all rulings were up to review under the treaty, but within the court system.
As to the continuation of the prisons: in principle, they were continued as before. Same staff, same prisoners, same regulations. In the wake of unification, I'm sure however that staffers who were too obedient or affiliated with the Stasi were quickly replaced.
Prisons run by the Stasi, on that note, were already closed (or rather, opened?) prior to reunification, when the first and only democratic government of the GDR disbanded Stasi. | [
"The practice ended in October 1989 when remaining political prisoners began to be released in the context of the Peaceful Revolution and the rapid succession of changes that led, formally in October 1990, to German reunification. Between 1964 and October 1989 it is believed that 33,755 political prisoners had thei... |
how does a virus such a ebola stay unheard of for so long and then have massive outbreaks? are there still a few cases between outbreaks? or is it truly non-existent in humans in the time between outbreaks? | It's actually been around for a very long time, yet it's remained mainly in parts of Africa. Which means that unless its on Facebook, nobody here in America really cares for more than a week or two. But of course once it reaches America we actually care about it when media says its become a massive outbreak | [
"Transmission of the ebolaviruses between natural reservoirs and humans is rare, and outbreaks of Ebola virus disease are often traceable to a single case where an individual has handled the carcass of a gorilla, chimpanzee or duiker. The virus then spreads person-to-person, especially within families, hospitals an... |
[physics] When I turn off my oven but leave the door closed how does the temperature cool? | The oven is not perfectly insulated, so the heat inside the oven will gradually be conducted to the things surrounding it (other parts of the kitchen, air, etc...).
In addition, many ovens will keep running the fan for some time after the oven was turned off. By cycling air through the oven, the cooling down process is sped up. | [
"A self-cleaning oven is designed to stay locked until the high temperature process is completed. A mechanical interlock is used to keep the oven door locked and closed during and immediately after the high-temperature cleaning cycle, which lasts approximately three hours, to prevent possible burn injuries. Usually... |
why "trap music" has such a distinguishable beat. what about the beat is different? | Trap music usually follows a formula of simple crisp snares and hats, often in 16th and 32nd notes. That mixed with an 808 and a few synths gives you a basic trap beat. Its different because most trap is very simple and alot of it sounds similar compared to alot of other hip hop and rap. | [
"Trap music employs multilayered thin- or thick-textured monophonic drones with sometimes a melodic accompaniment expressed with synthesizers; crisp, grimy, and rhythmic snares, deep 808 kick drums, double-time, triple-time, and similarly divided hi hats, and a cinematic and symphonic use of string, brass, woodwind... |
Why did the German Army stop using paratroopers in WW2? | First off, paratroopers themselves were still used until the bitter end. They just stopped airborne assaults at a divisional level.
The battle of Crete can be credited to this decision. The horrendous casualties sustained by paratroopers, which for some units ran as high as 90%, traumatized Hitler and Goring and they wouldn't authorize major airborne ops in the future. By 1943 Germany had lost air superiority on every front, so the option was pretty much off the table even if they wanted.
As for why Crete was such a struggle for the Germans, airborne troops were still a new innovation by 1941 and the Germans made a number of operational errors. They would land directly on top of ANZAC units and were more or less torn to shreds initially. Later on they won the day through sheer perseverance, amphibious landings for support, and more use of gliders (which could land more accurately). | [
"The first extensive use of paratroopers (\"Fallschirmjäger\") was by the Germans during World War II. Later in the conflict paratroopers were used extensively by the Allied Forces. Cargo aircraft of the period (for example the German Ju 52 and the American C-47) being small, they rarely, if ever, jumped in groups ... |
how could two shapes or places that have same the perimeter, have different area? | Take a loop of string to represent your fixed perimeter, and try arranging it on the table to make different shapes which have that perimeter. You can make it into a circle and have lots of area inside the string, or you can stretch it out until it's almost just two lines side by side, and there's hardly any area inside. | [
"Appearing as a circle but actually a duodecagon this is the largest and grandest space within the plan. Technically it is symmetrical around its northwest/southeast axis, but the scale of the form and central gardens makes this impossible to interpret on the ground, and this is only visible from above. Although re... |
rim lost its dominant position in the smartphone market,and nokia its dominant position in mobile handsets general market. | Apple leapfrogged them with the iPhone, which was far better and far easier to use than the BlackBerry. Google copied Apple with a good enough copy and gave it away free to cell phone manufacturers around the world. Between the two companies, iOS and Android took over 90% of the smartphone market in a few years and RIM couldn't adapt quickly enough. Tech is fast changing and brutal. Apple almost died a RIM style death a decade or two ago and was fortunately saved by Microsoft.
Nokia didn't really die, they just never got competitive in the smartphone arena. Microsoft bought them for talent and patents and made a good Windows Phone 10 system, but it was far too late and they ran into a chicken and egg situation in which nobody (customers or app developers) wanted a a Windows phone, so nobody much bothered to make a Windows phone ecosystem for that nonexistant market.
Microsoft, Nokia, and RIM were all big companies too slow to react to sudden changes in their industry. Apple was dying and had nothing to lose and hit it big with the iPod and then iPad and iPhone. Google had enough money from advertising that it was able to make and give away early Android as a loss leader just to prevent complete market dominance by Apple. The other companies just didn't effectively fight this battle until it was too late. | [
"From 1998 to 2012, Nokia was the largest vendor of mobile phones in the world, which included early smartphones built on its Symbian platform. However, in recent years, its market share declined as a result of the growing use of touchscreen smartphones from other vendors, such as Apple's iPhone line and Android-ba... |
the physical process of death |
The loss of blood in the capillaries happens rapidly, within minutes of death.
Algor mortis is when the body begins to cool. Within the first hour, the body will lose two degrees in temperature. Then, every hour afterward, it will lose one more degree of temperature until it is the temperature of the environment it is in.
Rigor mortis is the stage most people are familiar with, if they know their CSI. It is when a dead person becomes stiff. It begins after three hours of death, reaching full stiffness after 12 hours. Then, three days after death, the body becomes soft again as it slowly decomposes.
Livor mortis is the next stage, when the blood begins to pool to the lowest part of the body. Since the body no longer combats gravity by pushing the blood around, the blood just resorts to falling down to the lowest level.
Decomposition and putrefaction occurs, marked by the production of vapors. The body’s cells are rupturing and breaking apart. The intestines push out and fall prey to distension. The skin breaks apart often and the insides purge out. Insect activity begins to take shape.
Decay is marked by the breaking down of the body. Bacteria, fungi, and protozoa begin to move in, as insect and possibly animal activity begins to become more rampant. The darker the color of the body, the longer the person has been dead. Also evident are blisters or skin slippage.
Skeletonization or diagenesis is the final stage. The moisture in the body is lost. The bones are visually evident. Two years is typical in moderate temperature, whereas in hot climates like Africa, skeletonization may occur as quickly as in two weeks.
Bones, in the first year of death begin to bleach and moss or algae may grow on them. After a decade, big cracks will form.
The End.
| [
"Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include aging, predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, and accidents or major trauma resulting in terminal injury. In most cases, bodies of l... |
When you diet and exercise, where does the fat you burn physically go and how? | We actually breathe it out. Their results, published in the British Medical Journal, reveal that 22 pounds (10 kg) of fat turns into 18.5 pounds (8.4 kg) of carbon dioxide, which is exhaled when we breathe, and 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of water, which we then excrete through our urine, tears, sweat and other bodily fluids. | [
"Over time it has become clear to trainers and health professionals that the idea of working out certain muscle groups, in order to burn fat in that specific area, is not possible. Advertisements, magazines, internet trainers, and social media continue to push the idea that through exercising small isolated muscles... |
Was the "Battle of the Bulge" really the "greatest single defeat in American military history"? | The Bulge was the greatest single land battle the US Army ever participated in. It was not a defeat, however. The American units in the center were pushed back significantly and a large German salient developed, but the Germans were never in serious reach of their overall goals (Seize Antwerp). The German thrust lost momentum due to a combination of poor operational planning, the denial of communications routes in the center of the Salient, and the brilliant 90 degree turns of the XII (Advancing South-North) and the VII corps (Advancing North-South) at either end of the Salient.
It ended in a German operational failure and largely broke the Panzerwaffe's back, ruining what few intact armored forces remained in the West. Furthermore, it actually resulted in disproportionate casualties among what few veteran German divisions remained. | [
"THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE OPENED ON DECEMBER 16, 1944 WITH AN ATTACK BY THE GERMAN ENEMY WHICH BROKE THE AMERICAN FRONT, ENVELOPED THE ARDENNES COUNTRY AND AT ITS EXTREMITIES, REACHED ALMOST TO THE RIVER MEUSE, IT CLOSED IN THE FINAL WEEK OF JANUARY 1945. THE FAR OBJECT OF THE GERMAN ENEMY WAS TO BE THE PORT OF ANTW... |
how do websites which ask for the x, y and zth letter of my password avoid storing it in plain text? | There’s no guarantee that they aren’t. They very well might be. It only takes one lazy programmer or someone on an “off” day to set to store in plain text. | [
"Alay text may have originated from the method of making strong passwords for internet accounts, which requires combinations of small and capital letters, numbers, as well as special characters. Normally, to keep the password meaningful and easy to remember, the password would consist of normal words, where some le... |
Do we have texts of Asian countries exploration of the Middle East and Europe pre 1600's? If so, how did they discribe people from the Middle East and Europe? | Yes and no. Most of China's exploration was centered either in the 'Western Regions' in Central Asia or in India. Something really important to remember is that before the later dynasties, the official Chinese "empires" only controlled segments of what is modern day China, so much of their exploration was either west over the Tibetan highlands or skirting the coast to India, Southeast Asia, and, yes, even the Arabian Peninsula.
However! We do have records of Chinese explorers skirting the coasts of Africa, stopping in Ethiopia, Egypt, Iraq, and even Morocco as even farther back as the Song Dynasty (Bowman 104-105).
One notable work by Jia Dan, a military official, *Route between Guangzhou and the Barbarian Sea* was lost, but we do know that it included details on sea routes to East Africa and the minarets of the Persian Gulf.
A few other explorers described ivory, slave, and whale hunting in Africa. (Levathes 38). Guangzhou, in later centuries, became arguably the most diverse city in the world.
However, by the 1500s, China had receded back behind its borders, with it actually becoming a capital offense to build large ocean going ships.
##Sources
Bowman, John S. (2000). Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press
Levathes (1994). When China Ruled the Seas. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-70158-4. | [
"One of the oldest sources for Central Asia are the memoirs of travelers who passed through Central Asia. Some of the earliest extant examples were left by Arab geographers who passed through the region. In the 19th centuries numerous European and American published their travelogues of Central Asia. This includes ... |
how is circumcision acceptable in cultures or religions that don't accept body piercings or enhancement surgerys? | They consider it to be separate from and different than body piercings or enhancement surgeries. It's considered a different thing entirely. It's a bit like asking, "If Muslims and Jews don't eat pork, why is it acceptable to eat beef?" The answer is "Because beef isn't pork." | [
"In some societies, such as the United States, circumcision is practiced on a majority of males, as well as sex reassignment on intersex infants, with substantial emphasis on cultural and religious norms. Circumcision is highly controversial because although it offers health benefits, such as less chance of urinary... |
if wavelength of light emitted by a heated metal is supposed to keep on going down as temperature goes up then why does a metal never glow purple? | The spectrum of thermal radiation is a continuous function over all frequencies. When the peak of the distribution first goes into the visible range, you see it as red because red is the only visible color where the distribution is relatively high.
When you get hotter than that, the peak of the distribution eventually reaches blue and violet, but the distribution is relatively high across the entire visible range.
So it’s not *just* blue, it’s *every* color. So when you look at it, it’s just looks like a saturated white glow because it’s the sum of all visible frequencies (some a little more than others). | [
"The wavelength at which the radiation is strongest is given by Wien's displacement law, and the overall power emitted per unit area is given by the Stefan–Boltzmann law. So, as temperature increases, the glow color changes from red to yellow to white to blue. Even as the peak wavelength moves into the ultra-violet... |
[Psychology] Does working with people with mental illnesses increase your chances of developing a mental illness yourself? | a mental illness is a mental condition usually caused by genetic and environmental factors. working with someone with a mental condition does not make it any more likely that an unaffected person would start to exhibit symptoms. however, human beings are social creatures and tend to puck up traits and habits from others that help us fit into the social or cultural group we want to belong to. in that way, it is possible to pick up traits of someone with a mental illness but not the illness itself
| [
"Mental health problems are common in the community, so members of the public are likely to have close contact with people affected. However, many people are not well informed about how to recognize mental health problems, how to provide support and what are the best treatments and services available. Furthermore, ... |
what is the difference between dna and rna, and how do the work in biology? | DNA is like a book in the reserve section of the library. It’s the full complete section of your entire genetic information that can’t leave the nucleus.
RNA are the photocopies/notes of the book. You can take those anywhere and use them to study, and they are only going to be the pages that you actually need at that moment.
Edit: Thanks everybody for the gold and the karma. | [
"Both DNA and RNA are polymers, consisting of long, linear molecules assembled by polymerase enzymes from repeating structural units, or monomers, of mononucleotides. DNA uses the deoxynucleotides C, G, A, and T, while RNA uses the ribonucleotides (which have an extra hydroxyl(OH) group on the pentose ring) C, G, A... |
why can't we send someone with a piece of paper and a pencil to map the paris catacombs? | Because he would end up dead in few minutes of course.
Seriously, there are maps of Paris catacombs (official and not public or unofficial and public), they could be incomplete because things can change and (I guess) nobody cares about extra dead-ends. | [
"The Catacombs of Paris ( \"Catacombes de Paris\", ) are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris' ancient stone mines. Extending south from the Barrière d'Enfer (\"Gate of Hell\") former city gate, ... |
Why is it significant that the East India Company was a company that colonized India, and not the British government? | It's important because it shows how de-centralised the process of colonisation and empire-building was.
Colonisation was not an initiative launched by the Crown, or a formal government policy, it was private enterprise solely for the purposes of profit - which is bad news for the natives. Indeed [in the Marxist worldview](_URL_0_), imperialism is the 'highest stage' of capitalism and you can quite easily see how Marxist thinkers came to that conclusion.
So it's significant to note because without understanding that key element of how imperialism works you might end up with the wrong impression - of some moustache-twirling monarch pointing to a big blank space on the map for his cowering subjects to go and exploit and annex For The Glory of The King. (I wouldn't advocate writing that in a test, but I hope you see my point).
It's vital to understanding the dynamics of how colonialism developed. | [
"The East India Company obtained a foothold in India in 1695 and from that start expanded the territory it controlled until it was the primary power in the subcontinent. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the British Government nationalised the Company creating the British Raj. The Company lost all its administrati... |
youtube top comments | It's a mess and YouTube hasn't been very forthcoming about the algorithm in play.
Some videos don't even have top rated comments despite having comments with over 100 thumbs up. Even if the thumbs down of highest rated comment is taken into account, the math still doesn't add up. | [
"In September 2008, \"The Daily Telegraph\" commented that YouTube was \"notorious\" for \"some of the most confrontational and ill-formed comment exchanges on the internet\", and reported on YouTube Comment Snob, \"a new piece of software that blocks rude and illiterate posts\". \"The Huffington Post\" noted in Ap... |
how does a website like facebook or google handle millions of requests a minute? | There are many different ways to handle load balancing. Here are just two examples:
1) It's possible to create DNS records for your domain that effectively point users to different servers (by IP address) by presenting the user's computer with a list of server IP addresses associated with the domain in a randomized order and then the users' computers will typically just submit their requests to the first server on the (randomized) IP list they receive.
2) It's possible to have a specialized load-balancing appliance that sits in front of many servers. This appliance is designed to handle extremely high loads of traffic, but the only function it can serve is to hand-off the traffic to another server for processing. So the load-balancer itself uses up very few CPU resources per request because all it has to do is assign and redirect the traffic to another server to handle and then it's up to that server to actually generate the page/content the user is requesting which is a much more computationally expensive operation. | [
"Ask.com now reaches 100 million global users per month through its website with more than 2 million downloads of its flagship mobile app. The company has also released additional apps spun out of its Q&A experience, including Ask Around in 2011 and PollRoll in 2012.\n",
"Request packets are numbered sequentially... |
if i was an employer, would i be allowed to fire whoever i wanted for no reason? | That's highly dependent on your location.
The US is *generally* "at will" employment - meaning you can quit or be fired at any time for any reason, as long as that reason doesn't amount to discrimination based on protected attributes (gender, race, religion, etc). Some jobs - particularly city workers - are unionized / tenured, and their contracts with the employer require them to prove and document valid reasons for termination.
Europe as a whole (but there is quite a bit of variation between the nations) requires reason and has pretty powerful workers rights laws. | [
"Another reason that bosses do not fire some problem employees is from a fear of retaliation. Sometimes the employer must be concerned about various types of action the former employee may take against the company, such as filing a wrongful termination suit: The terminated employee may take legal action in response... |
why do we wake up to alarms even if we seem oblivious to background noise while asleep? | There are two forces in play:
The sound of an alarm is annoying. While the radio or TV can be annoying, it's not annoying enough. For example, I often fall asleep during a radio program, but I get woken up at the hourly beeps before the news.
Training: Your brain learns to recognize the alarm sound and the requested action with it: Waking up. | [
"The deaf and hard of hearing are often unable to perceive auditory alarms when asleep. They may use specialized alarms, including alarms with flashing lights instead of or in addition to noise. Alarms which can connect to vibrating devices (small ones inserted into pillows, or larger ones placed under bedposts to ... |
Why was Italy and the City of Rome so dependent on Egyptian and North African grain shipments? | Italy could have certainly fed to population of Rome with relative ease, but it could not feed Rome and the rest of the urban population. Italy was heavily urbanized, with standard estimates giving it roughly 30% urbanization, which is comparable to many regions during the Industrial Revolution. Each region had its own major cities, all of which consumed the produce of its immediate hinterland.
Furthermore, the sheer size of Rome--a million or more--was completely unsupportable in a pre modern economy without an imperial hinterland. That is why there was not another city of a million in Europe until London during the Industrial Revolution. The only cities of comparable size before 1800, like Tang Dynasty Chang'an, could only survive due to an imperial agricultural regime not unlike Rome's. | [
"By the late 200s BCE, grain was being shipped to the city of Rome from Sicily and Sardinia. In the first century BCE, the three major sources of wheat were Sardinia, Sicily, and North Africa, i.e. the region centered on the ancient city of Carthage, present day Tunisia. With the incorporation of Egypt into the Rom... |
when doing a multiple choice test, is it better to choose 1 answer for when you have no clue, or to make your guesses random? | assuming no knowledge of the test, it does not matter. | [
"Another disadvantage of multiple choice examinations is that a student who is incapable of answering a particular question can simply select a random answer and still have a chance of receiving a mark for it. If randomly guessing an answer, there is usually a 25 percent chance of getting it correct on a four-answe... |
What was Taiwan's role in World War 2? | Firstly, a couple of points. Taiwan was formally ceded by the Qing Dynasty to the Japanese in 1895, so while it was not technically "occupied" having been "lawfully ceded by treaty," some people still considered it an occupation. Secondly, the PRC was not established until 1949. China was ruled by the Republic of China (ROC) until their defeat in the Chinese Civil War which forced the ROC to evacuate to Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP, or CPC) then established the People's Republic of China thereafter. As such, the main belligerents in WW2 in the China theater were the ROC and the Japanese Empire.
Now that we got that bit out of the way, we can focus on your question. As part of Japan's changing colonial policy, the Taiwanese (known as Takasago) were given strong incentives if not outright pressure to assimilate to becoming Japanese. Adapting a Japanese name in Taiwan was rewarded with increased rations and benefits, more so if a member of the household enlisted in the military. Many also volunteered for military duty out of a sense of Japanese patriotism, although the improved familial rations were also a key factor in this. In the later stages of the war, the Japanese introduced full conscription in both Korea and Taiwan, so as a result, hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military, although for the most part they served in garrison duties on Taiwan itself. A significant amount served overseas as well, either in Japan or in front-line duties.
A notable Taiwanese unit was the Takasago volunteers, which were Taiwanese aborigines specifically cultivated as commandos because of the Japanese belief that they were skilled at jungle warfare, which would be necessary for their later operations in the Dutch East Indies.
The Taiwanese did not conduct any major resistance against the Japanese during WWII. This was due to the Japanese policy which carefully manipulated existing ethnic tensions (between Han Chinese and the aboriginal Taiwanese, for example) against each other and away from the Japanese. While the assimilation policy was of questionable effectiveness it was successful in staving off dissent. The Japanese had been somewhat more liberal in their inclusion of Taiwan than in Korea and so there was some limited autonomy on the part of the Taiwanese, including some representation in the Diet. Many Japanese also had settled in Taiwan, although they typically did so in separate towns segregated from the rest of the populace.
In the opening stages of WWII, Taiwan was used as a Japanese airbase to support attacks on the Phillipines. The 11th Air Fleet of the Japanese Navy had several squadrons based in Tainan and Kaoshiung, for instance, and was responsible for the initial assault on Clark Field. These air groups migrated south to support assaults on Malaysia, Indonesia and later the Guadalcanal campaign. However, Taiwan's strategic location along the logistics route between the resources of Indonesia and the Japanese home islands made it an active military location to scout for submarines and to support the war effort in China.
During the later stages of the war, while Taiwan was heavily bombed by Allied aircraft, it still remained a massive fighter base and could have potentially sent aircraft to interfere in the US invasion of the Philippines in 1944. As a result the US raided the island to suppress and destroy the aircraft capacity in a massive aerial battle that decimated the air corps of the area and left them in no position to participate in the battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese had been anticipating an invasion of Taiwan and had prepared a large amount of aircraft in Taiwan and Okinawa to intercept and destroy the Allied invasion fleet. However there was no invasion, and at this point the Japanese aircraft were inferior in both quality and quantity, and the end result was to be expected.
The last event of note was a large bombing raid on Taipei itself, which was virtually unopposed and did significant damage to both industrial, military, and civilian areas. Taiwan's airbases were essentially suppressed at this point and would not pose a threat to Allied forces in the region for the remainder of the war.
After the war, Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China. The Japanese were expelled from the island and many of the Taiwanese who had served in the Japanese army were considered traitors. A famine caused by the Japanese departure combined with corrupt and mishandled Taiwanese administration contributed to the 2-28 incident, which were bloody riots and suppression caused by the resulting tension, and led to the White Terror of KMT agents imprisoning or executing suspected dissidents, of which former-Japanese troops were a large factor. | [
"Taiwan held strategic wartime importance as Imperial Japanese military campaigns first expanded and then contracted over the course of World War II. The \"South Strike Group\" was based at the Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei. During World War II, tens of thousands of Taiwanese served in the Japanese military... |
How exactly does one prove the existence of a new species? | With sexual organisms, you can always just try pairing them up with closely related organisms and see what happens (in fact, some species have been discovered when people found out that two organisms that appeared to be the same species couldn't breed; these are called "cryptospecies").
With asexual organisms (and sexual organisms to a lesser extent), the term "species" is really just a kludge that divides organisms into populations that are of a manageable size. | [
"A name of a new species becomes valid (available in zoological terminology) with the date of publication of its formal scientific description. Once the scientist has performed the necessary research to determine that the discovered organism represents a new species, the scientific results are summarized in a scien... |
the difference between object oriented programming and structured programming in computer science? | Structured programming was invented in the 1950's as people started writing the first programs that were thousands of lines long. It basically means to organize your program into pieces and use functions and loops, rather than "go to".
Object-oriented programming was invented in the 1970's as people started writing the first programs that were millions of lines long. The idea is to encapsulate both pieces of data, and the code that operates on that data, together.
One of the most important things to understand is that neither structured programming or object-oriented programming make it possible for computer programs to do anything they couldn't do before. Rather, they're tools to allow programmers to work with larger and more complex programs without getting hopelessly lost trying to understand it all at once.
Neither of these are new or controversial ideas anymore. They're taught in the very first introductory programming class at every university and in one of the first few chapters of virtually every book on programming.
| [
"Object-oriented programming is an approach to designing modular reusable software systems. The object-oriented approach is an evolution of good design practices that go back to the very beginning of computer programming. Object-orientation is simply the logical extension of older techniques such as structured prog... |
What could be considered "History's most awkward moment?" | Removed. See our rules against poll questions. | [
"It is no secret that there have been some difficult episodes in our past – Jallianwala Bagh, which I shall visit tomorrow, is a distressing example. But history cannot be rewritten, however much we might sometimes wish otherwise. It has its moments of sadness, as well as gladness. We must learn from the sadness an... |
Rules Roundtable III: No Example Seeking or Poll-Type Questions | If you ever have a burning question but just can't figure out phrasing, feel free to shoot us a message asking for help. We can offer some advice on wording the question to fit, perhaps be more attractive to experts, and help you stay on the right track.
Also really feel free to take advantage of the Friday Free For All threads! That's a great place for some more casual questions. Not that long ago we had a chat about Epic Rap Battles of History, or other fun topics. | [
"The participants of the survey are divided into two groups at random. One group (the control group) is given a few harmless questions, while the other group gets one additional question (hence the name \"unmatched count\"), the one about the property of interest. The respondents are to reveal only the \"number\" o... |
Do you burn more calories than normal in the days subsequent to a heavy workout? | Yes - there is a process called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Your body is consuming more oxygen than it otherwise would to restore your body's homeostasis, such as building up reserves of ATP, repairing damaged muscles through protein synthesis and removing metabolic waste product buildups (eg lactate). These processes all consume ATP (your body's main energy currency), which is most efficiently produced in the oxygen-consuming process of aerobic respiration (the major input is carbohydrates). So elevated oxygen consumption post-exercise is indicative of increased usage of "calories" to produce energy for tissue repair. | [
"BULLET::::- Higher intensity exercise, such as High-intensity interval training (HIIT), increases the resting metabolic rate (RMR) in the 24 hours following high intensity exercise, ultimately burning more calories than lower intensity exercise; low intensity exercise burns more calories during the exercise, due t... |
How much, in modern dollars, did it cost for Columbus' first expedition? How did it compare to the costs for the Moon landing? | Since I have it on my desk, I will point to Phillips and Phillips, *The Worlds of Christopher Columbus* pg 134. In summary, the voyage cost 2 million maravedis in total. Columbus brought a quarter of that to the table. He borrowed it from financiers outside of Spain. The monarchs put up 1.14 million and the town of Palos covered the rest. This does not count the various loans and grants awarded to Columbus by the Spanish monarchs and other institutions to develop a plan of action and acquire specialized personnel. Since the Spanish monarchs were forced to pay 24 million maravedis to the Moors in order to get them to leave Granada, the treasury was not doing so well.
There is an excellent article on this: Look for Satava, "Columbus's First Voyage: Profit or Loss From a Historical Accountant's Perspective" in *The Journal of Applied Business Research* Vol 23, Number 4, 2007.
Sorry if I didnt answer your question completely, but it is difficult to convert this into modern dollars. It might be better to think of it as a percentage of budget. If you go that route, then the cost was moderate but there was the expectation of returns on it as an investment. | [
"The total cost of this scientific exploration mission was about US$3.26 billion, including $1.4 billion for pre-launch development, $704 million for mission operations, $54 million for tracking and $422 million for the launch vehicle. The United States contributed $2.6 billion (80%), the ESA $500 million (15%), an... |
Is there a possibility of Ancient structures/lost civilizations lost to the advancement of the Sahara Desert | There is already evidence of some relatively extensive cultures that existed (or continue to exist) in the Sahara. The [Garamantes](_URL_0_) were an urban culture located in modern day Libya that existed around 500 BCE. There is also the Berbers (they still exist as a cultural group) who have a very long history, although not very well documented compared to Egypt. There has been some [speculation](_URL_1_) about a supposedly 15,000 year old Berber town found in Morocco. Whether that is actually the case or not, it does illustrate how little we know about the deep past of the region. In fact we know very little about many much more modern African Empires and civilizations. So in other words, there is a possibility. However, I would guess nothing quite on the scale of Egypt because someone would have written about it (in trade or tax records somewhere at least, accountants are a blessing to historians).
As for the technology to scan under the sand dunes, and probably deeper than that as the dunes are constantly moving, yes we can do that. In fact that is how some paleontologists and probably archaeologists do initial work at some digs. However it is cost prohibitive and time consuming. So you kind of have to know roughly where you want to dig first. | [
"The Mediterranean and its transition zones to the deserts are characterized by impressive Roman and Byzantine ruins, which are subject of discussion as to how these magnificent cities came to be deserted. It was assumed that population growth or conquest by nomadic tribes led to over-exploitation of the land, lead... |
"The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan... Stalin Did" - Opinions on this article ? | So the argument that the Soviet invasion was more important than the bombs originally* comes from another scholar, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose book, _[Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan](_URL_7_)_, was published in 2005. So it's new but not _so_ new. I'm kind of perplexed that Wilson doesn't give Hasegawa at least a name-drop in this article; even if he did come to this conclusion completely independently, Hasegawa's work is _not_ obscure amongst historians of the bomb, even if this particular historical argument (like so many) has not penetrated much into the general public.
Hasegawa's book is very well done. He has managed for the first time to really put together a cohesive, persuasive argument about the end-game machinations in Japan, the United States, and Soviet Union. The other historians of the bomb I know are pretty convinced at least to the point that the Soviet invasion was more influential on the Japanese than the bombs. Not all of them think the bomb was of no influence, or that it would have ended without using them, though Hasegawa himself is apparently convinced of this, from what I've read.
(Personally, I am on the fence to the degree that I just don't see how we can disentangle the atomic bombs from the Soviet invasion as fully as would be necessary to say this with authority, but I am convinced that the Soviet invasion mattered at least as much, if not more, than the atomic bombs.)
So that's your place to look for facts and sources. Hasegawa bases his work on Soviet, Japanese, and American sources, including American intercepts regarding Japanese communications to their ambassador in Moscow. It is thoroughly cited and carefully done.
Note that the question of whether the bombs "worked" or not is a completely separate one from whether the people who used them were justified in doing so according to what they knew at the time. People tend to think that the former implies a moral argument about the latter, but it is an entirely separate issue regarding motivation and "the decision." (Note that even characterizing the use of the bomb as being the result of some large moral deliberation, or some sort of invasion vs. bombing tradeoff, [is kind of anachronistic](_URL_3_).)
As for the question of whether Japan thinking we had more matters — I'm not sure there's any reason to suspect that was a major role. They had already had similar damage done [to 67 other cities due to firebombing](_URL_5_). Having big chunks tore out of their cities was not a new thing; they already could not depend against fleets of B-29s so the "only one plane" aspect is, if anything, just a psychological aspect rather than a practical one. Note also that the US probably _would_ have kept atomic bombing, and firebombing, up until a possible invasion of the Japanese mainland (scheduled for November 1945); it was a bluff, of a sort, to claim they had more, but not _so_ much of a bluff (they'd have had another by the end of August 1945, and [a production system that was slated to produce three more bombs per month](_URL_6_)).
As for the rest of it, I need to go over it more closely than I have so far. I think the argument at the end and in the subhead, that US nuclear policy is based on a misunderstanding about Hiroshima and Nagasaki is sort of silly. And I'm not sure what it gets you — is the argument that people should have thought nuclear weapons were less important than they were? How does that _not_ increase the chance of their use? American nuclear strategy and nuclear thinking has always been more complicated than the legacy of WWII, and the weapons themselves _rapidly_ evolved since then. (Consider that in less than a decade after the end of World War II, the US was testing weapons that were [750 times more explosive than the Nagasaki bomb](_URL_2_), and capable of [radiologically contaminating many thousands of square miles of land](_URL_0_) in one go.)
(For the history of nuclear strategic thinking in the US, the standard text is Lawrence Freedman's [_The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy_](_URL_4_).)
*I feel a little compelled to point out, as an edit, that the argument was also made very early on by the Strategic Bombing Survey in 1946 (["Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."](_URL_1_)). However their argument has been more or less discounted by historians; there was a lot of politics behind their making it. Hasegawa is the first person to put it on very strong grounds. | [
"The \"Daily Worker\" welcomed the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, editorialising \"The employment of the new weapon on a substantial scale should expedite the surrender of Japan\". The paper also applauded the bombing of Nagasaki, and called for the use of additional atomic bombs against the Japanese.\n"... |
elvis presley, particularly why he was so influential and significant | Well, he made black music accessible to white people, and got rich and famous by doing so. That's about it. | [
"Presley's name, image, and voice are instantly recognizable around the globe. He has inspired a legion of impersonators. In polls and surveys, he is recognized as one of the most important popular music artists and influential Americans. \"Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century\", sa... |
- what is a “bus” (or what is “bussing”) in audio and how is it utilized in live vs studio audio? | I was a live sound engineer a while ago, we used sends instead of busses but it is basically the same thing.
You can send a signal along a bus and it is basically a copy from when you send it.
So audiosignal comes in and you send it and audiosignal keeps going to where it is going, but you can send audiosignal_a somewhere else and do different things to it without affecting audiosignal.
Like making a copy of a document then editing the copy.
Never worked in a studio so I can't say what they use it for but in a live situation the mix out the front is equalised and has effects added so it sounds good out the front, and the bussed or auxilliary signal is sent back to the stage with a different set of processing so the band can hear themselves and it doesn't feedback in the monitors (screech).
Hope that helps, this is my first ELI5 and I haven't worked in the industry for more than 10 years.
James | [
"In audio engineering, a bus (alternate spelling buss, plural busses) is a signal path which can be used to combine (sum) individual audio signal paths together. It is used typically to group several individual audio tracks which can be then manipulated, as a group, like another track. This can be achieved by routi... |
Why do antibiotics like doxicillin work against acne? | Pimples aren't just pores with oils. They are caused by bacteria. Pores with oils are great growing places for them. Antibiotics attack/kill the bacteria so the pimples will vanish.
The puss that comes out if pimples are dead white blood cells, they died because they attacked the bacteria. The bacteria responsible for acne is Propionibacterium acnes. | [
"Antibiotics are frequently applied to the skin or taken orally to treat acne and are thought to work due to their antimicrobial activity against \"C. acnes\" and their ability to reduce inflammation. With the widespread use of antibiotics for acne and an increased frequency of antibiotic-resistant \"C. acnes\" wor... |
After the advent of massed gunpowder weapons, what was the first example we have of bulletproof armour? When was it developed? | Pretty much immediately; while gunpowder weapons were an advantage against armored opponents, within decades of their introduction armorers would test their work by firing a pistol against the breastplate to 'proof' it; this is the source of the word 'bulletproof'. Armor and gunpowder weapons existed side by side for about 300 years; the arquebus was introduced in the mid 15th century, and infantry were wearing mass produced metal armor 200 years later in the 30 Years War, and heavy cavalry continued to wear cuirasses after the Napoleonic Wars. | [
"In 1538, Francesco Maria della Rovere commissioned Filippo Negroli to create a bulletproof vest. In 1561, Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor is recorded as testing his armor against gun-fire. Similarly, in 1590 Sir Henry Lee expected his Greenwich armor to be \"pistol proof\". Its actual effectiveness was controver... |
Could electrolysis of water efficiently provide fuel for a hydrogen fuel cell? | Yes, that's the first law of thermodynamics. The reaction of H2 and O2 to water takes the same amount of energy in both directions. But due to heat losses/the second law of thermodynamics, neither the fuel cell or electrolysis cells would ever be 100% efficient.
So there's little point in using electrolysis in producing hydrogen to put into a fuel cell, where your end goal is getting electrical power. But fuel cells can still be useful if you produce your hydrogen by some other means (for instance, directly from sunlight using clever chemical catalysts that we're currently doing a lot of research into).
The point here is that chemical compounds serve as very good forms of energy storage, and that fuel cells have the ability - in principle at least - to produce electrical energy much more efficiently from them than combustion does.
| [
"The water fuel cell purportedly split water into its component elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen gas was then burned to generate energy, a process that reconstituted the water molecules. According to Meyer, the device required less energy to perform electrolysis than the minimum energy requirement predic... |
Are there any diseases that are more common in one sex than the other that aren’t genetic or genital related? | There are a LOT of examples of sexual and racial discrimination in diseases.
Take rheumatic arthritis, an autoimmune disease (be it with a genetic compound, but definitly not a genetic disease like i.e. chorea huntington). Females are 3x more often affected then males.
Another example would be the endemic burkitt lymphoma, which primarily affects young african children with a 2:1 prevalence in males. EBV (eppstein-barr-virus) (and malaria) are risk-factors for this tumor.
Very often you will see risk-factors for certain infections/diseases include sex/age/ethnicity. | [
"Certain diseases and conditions are clearly sex related in that they are caused by the same chromosomes that regulate sex differentiation. Some conditions are X-linked recessive, in that the gene is carried on the X chromosome. Genetic females (XX) will show symptoms of the disease only if both their X chromosomes... |
Do all people absorb the same amount/ratio of calories from an identical food source? | [This](_URL_0_) is a decent article on the topic.
> Even if two people were to somehow eat the same sweet potato cooked the same way they would not get the same number of calories. Carmody and colleagues studied a single strain of heavily inbred lab mice such that their mice were as similar to each other as possible. Yet the mice still varied in terms of how much they grew or shrank on a given diet, thanks presumably to subtle differences in their behavior or bodies
> ...
> We also vary in terms of how much of particular enzymes we produce; the descendents of peoples who consumed lots of starchy food tend to produce more amylase, the enzyme that breaks down starch. Then there is the enzyme our bodies use to digest the lactose in milk, lactase.
> ...
> Each of us gets a different number of calories out of identical foods because of who we are and who our ancestors were.
| [
"The tautological phrase means that regardless of the form of food calorie a person consumes (whether a carbohydrate, protein or fat calorie) the energetic value of such a calorie, is identical to any other. One dietary calorie contains 4,184 joules of energy. With this knowledge, it is easy to assume that all calo... |
How were poisoned arrows made? | Poisoned arrows depend on multiple factors: bow and arrow construction, toxicological knowledge, access to resources, etc. Poisoned ranged weapons from antiquity were very different than what Native Americans used. It's also impossible to pinpoint the "first" poison since a lot has been lost to time, and there were probably tribes who used all sorts of methods that went unrecorded. However, thanks to a project I recently finished I have some knowledge of arrow poisons spanning early history in different parts of the world.
Perhaps one of the first, most wide-spread source of arrow poison comes from snakes. Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean had a myriad of poisonous snakes and vipers which Greco-Roman writers noted were in use by a variety of groups including the Gauls, Persians, Getae, Slavs, Armenians, Parthians, and Dalmations. The famous Greek geographer Strabo wrote about a poison from the Soanes of Caucasus so volatile that the fumes were toxic, and Silius Italicus listed various groups in modern Northern Africa that use 'em. Early serpent poisons were made by dipping the arrowhead in the venoms, which were sometimes heated together with secondary components. One of these secondary components was strychnos, a poisonous tropical plant that grew in Africa.
In China, the ancient poison of choice was Gu, a process that was less than scientific: a whole bunch of venomous animals were dumped together into a pot, uncooked. The animals ranged from scorpions to snakes to frogs to spiders. Then they'd open the pot after a day or so, and whatever animal was left alive last was considered the most lethal. Often the remaining animal had eaten some/all of the rest, so it had a myriad of poisons in its body. Then it would be processed into usable poison. This also required dipping darts and arrowheads into the solution.
Not all poisons were dipped, however. Poisons around Assam / Burma in East Asia used a variety of plants like antiaris, strychnos, and strophanthus with other berries and clays to make a smearable paste. This paste was then applied *behind* the arrowhead, instead of coated all over and dried. These toxins were exceptionally lethal and had a long shelf life—the Pitt Rivers Museum discovered a poison used in Burma against the Karen tribe as lasting up to 1300 years.
Another famous poison is "curare." Basic internet searches will try to give curare a singular definition, but it is in fact a catchall term for poison that was misunderstood for centuries by Spanish Conquistadores during their campaigns in South America. Curare meant *any* poison from that region, but there were in fact dozens of different kinds. Pinpointing with accuracy is difficult, as stuff published by the Spanish (eg. Raleigh's *Discovery of the Large Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guiana*) is often fraught with self-aggrandizement and outright fiction. However, other explorers that came later managed to find subdivisions in curare, like E Bancroft who wrote "Essay on the Natural History of Guiana and South America" in 1747. In it, he details the Woorara poison made by the Ticuna tribe:
* Bark of Woorara (6 parts)
* Bark of Warracouba Coura (2 parts)
* Bark of Couranabi (1 part)
* Bark of Baketi (1 part)
* Bark of Hatchy Baly (1 part)
These raw materials were mixed together over an open fire into a pitch. The tribe used palm leaves to scoop up the mixture and smear it on arrow and spearheads. As time went on, the term took on more specificity, but even Rudolf Boehm's attempt to define the term in 1895 led to three major categories: bamboo curare, calabash, and pot.
Finally, William McKnight detailed a Native American process for making poison arrows. They would leave out animal livers to decompose, then fill the rotting pouch with rattlesnake venom. The decomposing animal organ would add bacteria and the venom added the poison. I don't know the symbolism by using livers specifically, because McKnight doesn't elaborate.
Maybe someone else can shed insight on *when* the arrows were made. I don't know if they were made the night before, weeks in advance, or hours before conflict. I'm sure that varied by region and place in history's timeline, too.
& #x200B;
tl;dr
Most poisoned arrows were dipped into toxic solutions made by whatever poisonous plants or animals populated the nearby area. Pastes were less common, but they did exist (and weren't specific to East Asia). The term curare doesn't refer to a single poison.
& #x200B;
Sources:
Gray, TC. "The Use of D-Turbocurarine Chloride in Anaesthesia." (1947). *Ann R Coll Surg Engl*. 191-203.
Bancroft, E. *Essay on the Natural History of Guiana and South America* 1769, pg 281.
"Poisoned Arrows from Assam and Burma" *Victoria and Albert Museum*. Web. [_URL_2_](_URL_2_)
Leafloor, Liz. "Poison: The Good, the Bad, and the Deadly" *Ancient Origins*. 4 Oct 2014. [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)
Mayor, Adrienne. "Chemical and Biological Warfare in Antiquity." *Science Direct*. Republished from "History of Toxicology and Environmental Health" 2015. Web. [_URL_1_](_URL_1_)
McKnight, James W. *Jefferson County Pennsylvania, Her Pioneers and People 1800-1915*. J.H. Beers and Company, 1917. | [
"Poison arrows were used by real peoples in the ancient world, including the Gauls, ancient Romans, and the nomadic Scythians and Soanes. Ancient Greek and Roman historians describe recipes for poisoning projectiles and historical battles in which poison arrows were used. Alexander the Great encountered poisoned pr... |
how can someone be lost at sea with all of the technology and satellites we have now? | > ...pick them up on a satellite...
Satellites don't have any special abilities to "sense" where people are.
Most satellites aren't cameras, those that *are* cameras are in use by spying agencies and they cost a trillion dollars.
If those lost people were floating around the Indian Ocean spotting them with a spy satellite would be like spotting a tick on a dog from a mile away.
Compounding that, the ocean is full of floating garbage. Miles and miles of it.
Its not a matter of technology, but scale. | [
"In addition to the atmospheric effects there are effects on the near-Earth space environment. There is the possibility that orbit could become inaccessible for generations due to exponentially increasing space debris caused by spalling of satellites and vehicles (Kessler syndrome). Many launched vehicles today are... |
What would Earth be like if life never got started? | Some rock types just would not exist or be radically less abundant, notably carbonates and phosphorites. Hydrocarbons wouldn't be there either. A lot of ore deposits wouldn't be there either (VHMS for instance), or be greatly reduced (the incipient formation of these sulphide deposits seems to depend on turbulence induced by a bacterially-controlled growth of sulphate creating a venturi effect).
But the greatest change would be the erosion rates, which would be far greater. This would in turn fiddle with the sediment supply rate of fluvial systems (hence less meandering systems and more braided ones). It would also affect the topography and surface geology, as greater erosion of mountain belts would be isostatically compensated by increased uplift and exposure of deeper rocks. Also, there would probably be less emerging land as most of the smaller islands (I'm looking at *you* Polynesia) and Atolls would simply be eroded away.
The atmosphere would be completely different as well, with almost none of that sweet. sweet free 02, and a different mix of gasses (water, CO2, nitrogen, traces methane, sulphate ans possibly others). I'm pretty sure that would have implications for surface temperature (hence glacial processes and glacial erosion and peneplanation), but I'm not sure which way it would go - might be a runaway iceworld, might be a runaway hothouse, might be close to current temps...
| [
"Many of the same existential risks to humanity would destroy parts or all of Earth's biosphere as well. And although many have speculated about life and intelligence existing in other parts of space, Earth is the only place in the universe known to harbor life. Eventually the Earth will be uninhabitable, at the la... |
how did 9/11 change the world ? | 9/11 created the War on Terror. Without the War on Terror, the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq wouldn't have happened. The Patriot Act wouldn't have happened. The NSA's PRISM program wouldn't have happened. ISIS wouldn't have happened. | [
"Although we can probably credit nothing more spiritual than saturation-level television coverage for its visceral impact, 9/11 remains the single most resonant event in recent world history for many people, igniting so many thoughts, fears and conflicts within the minds of those who witnessed it that, even today, ... |
why some sites such as cracked split all their articles into 2 pages instead of just putting everything on one page | Every little ad that shows up on your screen earns sites like _URL_0_ money - it's their way of making money off of writing all of these articles that are completely free for you to read. By giving a little bit of your screen space to these advertisements, Cracked makes money in return for giving you content to read.
Every time one of those shiny little advertisements appears on your screen, Cracked makes a tiny amount of money. If three ads show up on your screen, Cracked makes three times as much money off of that pageview. If an article has, say, three pages, and each page has three ads, Cracked makes nine times as much off of that single article as they would if they only showed you one ad on one page.
This is also the reason Cracked has the three 'relevant articles' at the bottom of any article you read. If you get drawn in to another article, that's more revenue from a single user.
So, while you enjoy all of these lists of assorted facts and stories that the Cracked authors wrote and put up on their website, they make a living. All the while, you never have to pay with your own money - you just have to let these moving pictures (which you're welcome to ignore) sit around on your screen. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. | [
"Cracked.com is an American humor website founded in 2005 by Jack O’Brien and currently owned by E. W. Scripps. It is descended from \"Cracked\" magazine, which dates back to 1958. In 2007, Cracked had a couple hundred thousand unique users per month and 3 or 4 million page views. In June 2011, it reached 27 millio... |
How was the nuclear binding energy measured? | Nuclear binding energy is not “separate from the Coulomb” energy. Coulomb repulsion makes a negative contribution to the binding energy of the nucleus.
Binding energies are measured by measuring masses and taking differences between them. The binding energy of a nucleus (Z,N) is the difference between the mass of Z free protons plus N free neutrons, and the bound nucleus. | [
"With the discovery of the neutron, scientists could at last calculate what fraction of binding energy each nucleus had, by comparing the nuclear mass with that of the protons and neutrons which composed it. Differences between nuclear masses were calculated in this way. When nuclear reactions were measured, these ... |
why are panty lines taboo? | It's simply a style/fashion thing, like wearing maroon and red together. Yuck. In this case, yuck, you're showing your underwear. You either want to go stylishly modest or stylishly sexy. Showing panty lines is neither.
Stylishly modest: The clothing over your underwear is thick enough or loose enough to not show your panty lines through it.
Stylishly sexy: If you're wearing something that is tight enough to show your underwear through it, then you still dont want to "show off your underwear". You want to show off your butt instead, so you go buy a "no panty lines" style of underwear (thong, or the really flat seam kind). | [
"A man who likes to wear pantyhose may be deeply anxious and worried about being associated with homosexuality or transvestism, and as such most will endeavour to keep the fetish private, commonly hiding it from their wives or partners (though some do have the ultimate trust and understanding of their partners) due... |
if college education at public institutions became free of charge (to students) what happens to private institutions? | Realistically, not much.
Cost to attend is rarely the barrier that prevents people from going to college; student loans are easy to get (though the true "cost" of these is an entirely different discussion). Moreover, in-state tuition for most public universities is very low - [UT Austin is only $10k a year in-state](_URL_0_) - making cost even less of an issue.
Private institutions have always justified their higher price tags with their prestige and alumni networks. That doesn't get devalued if state schools are suddenly free. | [
"Students must pay for college before taking classes. Some borrow the money via loans, and some students fund their educations with cash, scholarships, or grants, or some combination of any two or more of those payment methods. In 2011, the state or federal government subsidized $8,000 to $100,000 for each undergra... |
Books on Ancient Societies' Political, Social, & Economic Structures | Well, social and economic history are kind of my thing :) I can't speak for dynastic Egypt, India, or China, but I can give you a start on some scholarship for ancient Middle Eastern studies, Greece, and Rome.
Before I start, I'd like to put in a quick note. Many scholarly books, especially those on understudied areas (such as the Ancient Near East), are subject to extreme price gouging. The major publishers, such as Cambridge and Routledge, put out their books for academic use, and as such, price them as if they're going to be sold exclusively to libraries. Which is dumb, in my personal, not-so-humble opinion, especially since the authours don't get a significant cut. **For this and other reasons, I highly recommend your local library**. Not only are librarians some of the most amazing people to ever walk the planet, but they'll often go out of their way to help you to find things. If you're in a town/city with access to an academic library (local public research libraries or universities), check them out as well. If the book isn't available locally, those libraries can usually ILL things for a reasonable price - free, if you're a student. Recommending things that are specialized/rigorous and cheap is can be....difficult, so I've taken the liberty of addressing price points in each of these notes.
Possibly one of the most influential Eastern (When I say this, I mean Middle Eastern, from the Eastern edge of the Mediterranean to the Tigris and Euphrates) scholars today is Amelie Kuhrt, who helped to pioneer a radical shift in studies of the area (for her, especially the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires). She's part of a group of scholars who began to focus their studies of Eastern history on the local evidence first and foremost, rather than the traditional method of relying on Greek sources. While that might sound obvious, there's a weird dichotomy of "painfully little" and "literal warehouses overflowing with cuneiform tablets." Not many people can translate cuneiform, and those people aren't particularly keen on translating thousands upon thousands of what amount to nothing more than business transactions (X sold two sheep to Y for Z). For an example, [here's a small sample of the British Museum's collection](_URL_0_) that have been identified as "Administrative texts." Note how many of them have actually been translated. The Greek sources are easily accessible for any Classics scholar, are quite narrative, and were long deemed to be rather authoritative on the topic.
Anyway, so for book recommendations - Kuhrt's written a bunch, but her *The ancient Near East: c. 3000-330 BC* is quite good. It's two volumes, and isn't *absurdly* overpriced on Amazon (though it's a bit of a textbook). It covers an actually ridiculous amount of information, covering the Akkadians, Arameans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians, Israelites, Persians, Phoenicians, Sumerians, and Urartia in particular, and gives an overview of each of them over the stated time period. It's impossible for any one scholar to be an expert in all of these areas, but, perhaps most admirably, Kuhrt provides a readily mineable bibliography which is *very* impressive, and can take you on further rabbit holes (kind of like getting lost while reading Wikipedia - it's often how academics do their research).
For some other books, I'd highly recommend *The World of Achaemenid Persia: History, Art, and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East.* This one's sadly another one that suffers from "academic pricing," so see my note at the top. It's also an absolutely incredible book, with deep, much more specific discussion than the above, provides *thorough* bibliographies, and is surprisingly readable. While not necessarily recommending buying it, I would absolutely recommend the book itself.
For reading on the Seleucid Empire (again, go to your library for this one), Sherwin-White and Kuhrt have put out a book called *From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire*. It's a solid, modern discussion of the Empire, that covers the wide range of different cultures within, even going so far as to discuss the cuneiform that was produced in the Hellenistic age. It contains some really fascinating info about how local polities regarded the overarching empire, down to the astronomical diaries of the Babylonians.
Finally, for an actual affordable (haha) source (albeit one that's much more focused on economics), check out *The economy of Late Achaemenid and Seleucid Babylonia*. While it's a specialized book, the price point isn't terrifically awful, and it's got some solid info. [Here's the table of contents](_URL_1_) for an idea.
If you're interested in more Classical stuff, I'd be happy to recommend sources on Rome for you, but that wasn't on your list of interests and I'm trying to stick (at least ostensibly) to your list above. Hope this helps! :)
(And again - ignore Leslie Knope and use your local library. It's one of the best places in the world.) | [
"The Ancient Economy is a book about the economic system of classical antiquity written by the classicist Moses I. Finley. It was originally published in 1973. Finley interprets the economy from 1000 BC to 500 AD sociologically, instead of using economic models (like for example Michael Rostovtzeff). Finley attempt... |
what is ip routing? | Routing - by definition - works with IP addresses. Some routers use fiber cable, and some use copper cables, but they generally do the same things. The differences between routers like you have at home and those super expensive cisco ones is the amount of stuff they can do aside from juggling IP addresses. There are \*a lot\* of these things, so to make it short, these IP routing capable ones you were thinking of are basically for any application that goes above "one household wants to google cat videos".
As for IPs and routing itself, it works almost exactly like postal addresses. You have an address and a zip code and the mail company has a database where all these addresses are noted down so the mailman knows where the mail has to go. And if you think about various postal offices and logistics centers communicating with each other to make sure each item is delivered to the right address, this is basically what routers ultimately do too. | [
"IP routing is the field of routing methodologies of Internet Protocol (IP) packets within and across IP networks. This involves not only protocols and technologies, but includes the policies of the worldwide organization and configuration of Internet infrastructure. In each IP network node, IP routing involves the... |
how is supporting research for children's cancer different from supporting any other sort of cancer research? | There are many different types of cancer, and in some respects every single individual case of cancer is specific and unique, although there are likely to be some broad similarities. The types of cancers that are common in children are different from the types of cancers that are common in adults. Childhood cancers are also more rare than other types of cancer. There is selective pressure against mutations that cause childhood cancer because childhood cancer would prevent an individual from reproducing and passing on their genes, whereas genes that cause cancers that onset after reproductive age will not be selected against. | [
"Children's Cancer Institute is an Australian medical research institute wholly dedicated to the prevention and treatment of childhood cancer. Established in 1976, the Institute is affililiated with both the University of New South Wales and Sydney Children's Hospital and is located in , Sydney, New South Wales.\n"... |
Remotes use infra red light, right? How come I could point the remote upwards on my old TV and it would still work? | First, you can not claim that the ceiling was not reflective because you have no way to prove that it was, or was not, reflective in the IR spectrum (in fact, you pretty much proved that it was reflective).
Basically, the IR LED in the remote is not coherent (it is not a laser) so just like a light bulb, the light cone grows in size.
Then you have reflection - many things that are not reflective in the visible spectrum are reflective in the IR spectrum.
So basically, it was a nice powerful IR LED and your TV received the reflection from various objects in the room.
Keep in mind that the LED produces a cone of light - so all you need is a small portion of that hitting something that reflects, and reflects, and reflects, until it hit the TV.
Edit: If you ever watch those ghost hunting shows on Sci-Fi channel - and you see them using IR pyrometers to find 'ghosts'... and they point it at something and say "WOW, look how the temperature drops at that point" - guess what, they found an IR black body - some paint or other surface that is absorbing the IR light - rather than a ghost. That gives you an idea as to just how reflective most things are to IR light. | [
"Unlike a light gun that senses light from a television screen, the Wii Remote senses light from the console's Sensor Bar (RVL-014), which allows consistent usage not influenced by the screen used. The Sensor Bar is about long and has ten infrared LEDs, five at each end of the bar. The LEDs furthest from the center... |
Best or Most accurate Civil War memoirs. | I recommend What this Cruel War was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War by Chandra Manning. It’s not a memoir but it is filled with various letters and newspapers from lowly Civil War combatants which really paints a picture of how the common people felt. | [
"The following list is a Bibliography of American Civil War Confederate military unit histories and are generally available through inter-library loan. More details on each book are available at Worldcat. For an overall national view, see Bibliography of the American Civil War. For histories of the Union, see Bibli... |
"citizens united" court case ruled corporations as "people", so how come they can avoid taxes on income made in other countries while us citizens living abroad have to pay taxes on all income made abroad? | There's a flaw in your question. Citizens United vs FEC did *not* rule that "corporations are people." This is a gross oversimplification that the media made (call it their ELP2 [explain like the public is 2 years old]).
The First Amendment has always been construed to provide individual rights to free speech. Citizens United said, basically, "hey court - a corporation is nothing more than a group of citizens" (more subtle than that, this is the ELI5 version)..."why can the court deny the right of free speech for a group of individuals who happen to be united around a political and/or a business issue?" The court said that, with respect to free speech rights, an association of individuals should have the same rights as individuals.
One other quick point - tax laws for corporations are different than for individuals. The unintended consequence of the corporate tax law as it stands is that companies are pretty much encouraged to make/keep their money overseas because they're not taxed on it. Corporations, and their boards of directors and officers, have a legal responsibility to their investors to do *what is best for the investors*. Being patriotic and supporting American jobs is all well and good - but if my company has $10M in profit in the US, it will get taxed whereas money earned overseas won't.
If we really want American companies to keep jobs at home, then let's give them a financial incentive to do so. | [
"Before 1981, foreign people (nonresident, non citizen individuals, and non-U.S. corporations) often were exempt from U.S. tax on sale of real estate in the nation. Congress passed FIRPTA to require all foreign people to pay tax on dispositions of any interests in U.S. real estate. The law specifically provided tha... |
how is the data in an mp3 file translated into the sound coming through my headphones? | First let's talk about a .wav file. Take a sound and capture it with a microphone (or a bunch of them, or their equivalent input devices). The microphone converts the sound (vibrations of the air) into [electrical voltages](_URL_1_) that vary (quite quickly) with time. Use an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) circuit to convert that time-varying voltage waveform into a series of numbers. For example, 0000 could represent 0 volts; 0001 could represent +5 millivolts, 0010 could represent +10 mV, etc. Stick that series of numbers into a computer file and you've pretty much got a .wav file. (Not exactly, but close.)
Depending on how often your ADC [sampled](_URL_0_) the waveform and how fine the voltage steps are (the "number of bits of resolution"), your .wav file could get kind of large. So you use some special techniques to compress the file and make it smaller. One major technique is to analyze the sounds and remove high frequency components that humans can hardly hear. The mp3 algorithm applies a bunch of tricks like that to make the computer file quite a bit smaller. (It also degrades the quality of the sound somewhat in the process...mp3 compression is "lossy", meaning that when you reverse the process, the file you get back isn't quite the same as the one you converted in the first place.)
To turn an mp3 file back into sound, reverse the process. Reverse the mp3 techniques to create a .wav -type file, send those numbers to a Digital to Analog Converter chip (DAC), and send the resulting voltage waveform to a speaker (probably using an amplifier first to make it louder). Voila! | [
"The MP3 music files are then converted back into audio signal by the network music player and played. As the MP3 music files are organized by the music server on the computer, the information is also sent to the network music player where the user can see all of the music track information.\n",
"The MP3 music fi... |
How much do we really know about the Roman Kingdom (and the founding of the city)? | EDIT: [Much more detailed response](_URL_0_).
This is very much an open question. Twenty years ago, at least in English language scholarship, the answer would have been practically nothing, or at least nothing worth mentioning. However, my understanding is that in the past decades scholars such as TJ Cornell in his *Beginnings of Rome* have done a great deal to argue that legitimate historical information could have been passed down to the Republican annalists, and thus to Livy, through oral tradition, temple records, dedicatory inscriptions and the like, and focusing on institutional development. The argument is academic in the most mind numbingly literal sense of the word, and I may as well note that I lean skeptical.
Archaeology can fill some gaps but it asks and answers fundamentally different questions than history. The sixth century sees a great development in urbanization and extra-communal exchange, including a great deal of Hellenic material. Rome's introduction to Greece is often given to the mid Republic, but in reality it was part of Italy and thus part of its emerging interconnectedness with the wider Mediterranean. But absent an inscription saying TARQUIN WUZ HERE it is unlikely your questions will get definitive answers. | [
"Little is certain about the history of the Roman Kingdom, as nearly no written records from that time survive, and the histories about it that were written during the Republic and Empire are largely based on legends. However, the history of the Roman Kingdom began with the city's founding, traditionally dated to 7... |
- what essentially is going on with the nba lockout? | players want 54 percent I believe, owners only want them to have 50. Fuck both of them they make too much money to be bitching anyway. I'm from Chicago and as soon as we start to have a championship caliber team the NBA goes outta fucking business. fuck that. | [
"The 2011 NBA lockout was the fourth lockout in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The owners began the work stoppage upon expiration of the 2005 collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The 161-day lockout began on July 1, 2011 and ended on December 8, 2011. It delayed the start of the from No... |
and new to reddit, what is circle jerk? | A circle jerk is when a group of guys get together in a circle, and jerk off the guy next to/in front of them. Everyone is jerking someone else off.
A reddit circle jerk would be a sub-reddit where members post the same tired un-original content but everyone upvotes everything. Everyone jerks each other off by passing karma around even though it is often lacking content.
Many people would say /r/atheism is a prime example. | [
"A circle jerk is a sexual practice in which a group of men or boys form a circle and masturbate themselves or each other. In the metaphorical sense, the term is used to refer to self-congratulatory behavior or discussion among a group of people, usually in reference to a \"boring or time-wasting meeting or other e... |
Does anybody know what kind of military jacket this is? | That’s a German military uniform jacket, circa 1900. There’s a [reference](_URL_0_) to it being specifically for a Württemberg military court counsel. | [
"BULLET::::- Work Jacket – Issued as personal item. Intended to be used in cold seasons over the work uniform. Consists of two chest pockets and two lower pockets (with flaps without closures). Despite of the fact that the item is a cold-weather jacket, the camo version somehow contains hemp fabric, and is hoodless... |
Not including today, where and when would be the best place to live historically in terms of living conditions and general well-being? | Any European court during the mid 1700s was extremely comfortable, especially Versailles. If you were born c. 1700 then Versailles was guaranteed to offer a full life of worry-free spending, gambling, partying and generally being cut off from the peasantry. That, and the fact the Enlightenment had a lot of sway and you could easily be conversing with philosophers whenever you wanted. | [
"Haynes has written a non-fiction book, \"The Ancient Guide To Modern Life\", on the subject of how living well in the present requires some recourse to the ancient world. It was published by Profile Books in November 2010.\n",
"In 2013, Farmer's Insurance named the Holland/Grand Haven Area the most secure mid-si... |
why do video's filmed in 720p looks so much better viewed in 360p than video's filmed at 360p do at the same resolution? | It's called oversampling. Basically, if you capture way more digital data than you need, then throw most of it away with math, you end up with a much nicer result than if you only captured as much data as you intend to keep in the first place. | [
"Non-cinematic HDTV video recordings are recorded in either the 720p or the 1080i format. The format used is set by the broadcaster (if for television broadcast). In general, 720p is more accurate with fast action, because it progressively scans frames, instead of the 1080i, which uses interlaced fields and thus mi... |
we can inject fat and silicon into body parts like lips, boobs, and butts to make them bigger and fuller; why can’t we do the same for penises? | Boobs are mostly fat, not functional tissue. The actual milk producing parts don't make up much of the overall size so when you want to add size, you just add filler. Butts are the same way, it's mostly muscle and fat so just add more filler.
The penis however is mostly blood. The reason a penis gets hard is because your body pumps blood to it and then regulates how easy it is for the blood to leave, thus swelling up. Because the majority of the penis is this type of tissue (the spongy body and the cavernous bodies) you can't just add filler to make it bigger.
If the penis was mostly fat with the urethra in the middle we could do exactly what you're saying, but in that case it couldn't ever get hard, it'd just be the consistency of boobs. | [
"Females often have fuller lips than males, so lip filling is often used in feminization. Injectable fillers are low-risk but tend to be absorbed after six months or so, and many implants have higher complication rates like infection or rejection. Use of fat harvested from the person can result in lumps and doesn't... |
Did anyone challenge Henry Tudor for the Lancastrian claim to the English throne? | The answer is a pretty straight forward no. By the time that Henry Tudor was making his play to take the throne from Richard, he was the senior legitimate claimant from the House of Lancaster following the death of Henry VI and his children, was invested in the conflict, and was backed by France and most of the remaining Lancastrians both in exile and in England. Simply put, there was really no one else for Lancastrians to rally behind anyone else. Though technically the claims from the House of Aviz or the House of Trastamara (Castile) were stronger, neither of them were in any position to make good on those claims when Henry did. Portugal and Castile had engaged in a war in the latter half of the 1470s and Isabella of Castile was far more focused on consolidating her throne, reforming her kingdom, and completing the Reconquista than pursuing potential conquests in England. She was also already married, leaving her without the prospect of a marriage to a British noble to further secure any potential control over the throne in the event of a military conquest. Similarly, John II of Portugal was too concerned with bringing his own nobility in line and expanding the overseas holdings of Portugal in Africa to turn around and attempt to make good on the English throne. Its doubtful John II would'v even had the necessary resources and/or clout to rally the Lancastrians and follow through with an attempt at conquest without seriously jeopardizing the position of Portugal. Not to mention that neither Isabella or John were actually English, which would've made it even harder for them to rally the Lancastrians, especially when someone like Henry Tudor still existed.
Sources:
**Henry VII; The Maligned Tudor King** \- Terry Breverton
**Elizabeth of York; The First Tudor Queen** \- Alison Weir
**A Short History of Henry the Seventh** \- James Gairdner | [
"Henry VII Tudor had risen to the throne of England with his victory over Richard III Plantagenet at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry's claim to the throne of England lacked almost all validity by heredity; his possession of the crown was primarily by right of conquest, and he faced a host of claimants still ali... |
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