question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Why does the body burn muscle before using fat reserves? | Because parts of your body like your brain or your blood cells are very very dependent on glucose. Even with induced ketosis (which in itself takes 3 days of not eating - your glycogen reservoir is used up about a couple of hours after your last meal) you still need it. Gluconeogenesis, the process of producing new glucose, can not take fatty acids as their substrate, however almost all amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, can be converted to glucose. Functionally skeletal muscles act as a protein storage - you can lose about 50% of the protein content in the muscle without functional loss of the muscle, and thus during the beginning of starvation you lose muscle mass first, then start losing fat while also losing muscles at a decreased rate because of ketosis, and finally when all your fat is used up you start depleting the rest of your muscles at an increased rate until nothing but the cardiac muscle is there to consume. | [
"Ordinarily, the body responds to reduced energy intake by burning fat reserves and consuming muscle and other tissues. Specifically, the body burns fat after first exhausting the contents of the digestive tract along with glycogen reserves stored in liver cells and after significant protein loss . After prolonged ... |
how come babies and young children can fall asleep so fast? are they chemically different than adults? | Na, they just have no worries like bills, exams, relationships etc. Ignorance is clearly bliss. | [
"In the weeks after a human baby is born, as its nervous system matures, neural patterns in sleep begin to show a rhythm of REM and non-REM sleep. (In faster-developing mammals this process occurs in utero.) Infants spend more time in REM sleep than adults. The proportion of REM sleep then decreases significantly i... |
what is laissez-faire economics? | Thnk of it as hands off economics. The government does as little as possible. Not just free market but the free-est market. The government wouldn't subsidize anything or create regulations or make standards. This is a economic theory that waxes and wanes but never is fully used by any major government. | [
"The \"laissez-faire\" principle expresses a preference for an absence of non-market pressures on prices and wages such as those from discriminatory government taxes, subsidies, tariffs, regulations of purely private behavior, or government-granted or coercive monopolies. In \"The Pure Theory of Capital\", Friedric... |
drm and how it actually stops pirates instead of just making it more difficult for me to play my movies on my many devices, etc... | DRM on movies *is* dumb.
Worst case, people can just record their screen while watching a movie legally.
Best case, people just remove it.
It's only an inconvenience for the legal buyer. Same goes for games (aside from Denuvo, which hasn't been cracked yet and actually has stopped piracy, but it'll be cracked at some point, which even the Denuvo devs admit).
EDIT: I'd like to add there was no big increase in legal sales for Denuvo games. | [
"At the 2012 Game Developers Conference, the CEO of CD Projekt Red, Marcin Iwinski, announced that the company will not use DRM in any of its future releases. Iwinski stated of DRM, \"it's just over-complicating things. We release the game. It's cracked in two hours, it was no time for \"\". What really surprised m... |
How is the "RNA World Hypothesis" generally viewed in the scientific community? | In astrobiology we reference it often and are testing to see if it is viable | [
"The RNA world hypothesis is still under consideration, with chemist Steven A. Benner and physicist Paul Davies supporting it in a chapter of the book \"Frontiers of Astrobiology\" published in 2012 by the Cambridge University Press, in the chapter \"Towards a Theory of Life\"\n",
"The RNA world hypothesis descri... |
what is germany doing differently then america where america is trillions of dollars in debt while germany has a several billion dollar surplus? | In the EU, there is a rule that requires every country to either keep it's debt below 60% of gdp, or actively on decreasing it.
Now, enforcement here has been generally lax, but it tightened up with the financial crisis. Since Germany is above the debt limit (a result of the reunification), they're working on reducing the deficit.
_URL_0_ | [
"The total national debt of the United States in the United States was $18.527 trillion (106% of the GDP) in 2014. The United States has the largest external debt in the world and the 14th largest government debt as a % of GDP in the world.\n",
"The debt-to-GDP ratio of Germany had its peak in 2010 when it stood ... |
how is it possible that military aircraft like the b-52 are still in service? do they just replace all the computers? | There are modernization programs to upgrade avionics, weaponry, etc. One of the most extreme examples is the mig-21 which has been flying for quite some time with occasional upgrades to the electronics. | [
"Only the B-52H model is still active in the Air Force inventory. It is primarily assigned to the Air Force Global Strike Command and the Air Force Reserve Command, with one additional example in the Air Force Materiel Command supporting flight research operations with NASA.\n",
"B-52s are periodically refurbishe... |
Is someone trying to develop electric airplanes? | Unless there is an unprecedented breakthrough in battery technology, electric airplanes replacing regular commercial jets isn't something that's going to happen.
This is due to the fact that fossil fuels have a very high energy density compared to batteries. High end lithium ion batteries clock in at somewhere around the 1 MJ/kg, whereas jet fuel sits around 43 MJ/kg. Even considering the fact that electric engines may be more efficient, this is still a massive difference.
Fuel already makes up a very large part of the weight of an aircraft. The Airbus A320, a common short-haul craft can carry up to about 20,000 kg of fuel and has a maximum take off weight of about 68,000 kg. So fully loaded and fueled up, this aircraft already has about 30% of its weight in fuel. If you had to replace the fuel with batteries, the entire aircraft would be many times heavier (which would require more powerful engines and even more batteries to power them, making the thing even heavier).
So why not use solar panels? That sounds like a decent plan, after all, the Solar Impulse project already demonstrated an aircraft capable of circumnavigating the planet (in multiple stages) powered purely by solar energy.
But the answer is once again: Not enough energy for commercial purposes. The Solar Impulse aircraft had a wingspan comparable to that of the Airbus A380, the largest passenger plane ever built. But while the A380 can seat up to 800 people, the Solar Impulse craft had room for just 1 person. And while the A380 cruises at 900 km/h, the Solar Impulse had to settle for 90 km/h during the day and 60 km/h during the night.
And while the efficiency of solar panels will surely increase with time, this won't be nearly enough to cover the gap.
So right now, battery or solar powered electrical aircraft are simply not feasible as replacement for commercial jets. And this is not a matter of a few years of R & D, but a very fundamental gap between the amount of energy needed and the amount of energy we can get out of either solar panels or batteries. Fossil fuels are simply too good at what we use them for.
A more realistic approach may be found in the creation of artificial fuels. These fuels could be created in a way that extracts carbondioxide from the atmosphere and while upon burning them, the carbondioxide is released back into the atmosphere, the cycle is a whole would be CO2-neutral. However, producing artificial fuels is currently extremely inefficient and requires a large amount of energy. Once our land-based energy is provided exclusively by clean, renewable sources, we can look at funneling any surplus of clean energy into producing artificial fuels. | [
"BULLET::::- Zunum Aero announces that it is working with Boeing HorizonX and JetBlue Technology Ventures to develop electric aircraft that could compete with private automobiles, trains, and buses on trips of up to in terms both of operating costs for airlines and the cost and time of travel for passengers. The co... |
are all neutrinos majorana particles? | We don't know yet if neutrinos are Majorana particles, but if they are, then all of them are, because they are excitations of the same field.
If neutrinos are Majorana, then the lepton number is not conserved. It is easy to see this if you consider a pair production of a neutrino and an antineutrino. Since neutrinos are leptons, they *must* by definition have a lepton number L of 1. But if antineutrinos are the same as neutrinos, they also must have a L of 1, so the total sum is L=2, where previously it was zero! That means that L is not conserved in this case. | [
", it is not known whether neutrinos are Majorana or Dirac particles. It is possible to test this property experimentally. For example, if neutrinos are indeed Majorana particles, then lepton-number violating processes such as neutrinoless double beta decay would be allowed, while they would not if neutrinos are Di... |
would it be possible to change a planet's atmosphere, terrain, etc enough to make it capable of supporting life | The process that you are referring to is called Terra forming. Theoretically it would be possible, though at current times, we struggle just to manage maintaining little national parks. The process of changing another planets atmosphere without drastically changing it too much might be more than we could ever manage. | [
"If this experiment works on Mars, they will propose to build several large and sealed structures called biodomes, to produce and harvest oxygen for a future human mission to Mars life support systems. Being able to create oxygen there would provide considerable cost-savings to NASA and allow for longer human visit... |
why are americans needing to crowdfund disaster relief efforts whenever they occur (katrina, sandy, harvey)? does the us really not have money aside for such things? | America does have disaster relief funds. They cover life saving basics. But yeah, the US has a venomous hatred of social safety nets and lack a ton of services other countries have.
If you are hurt during a disaster you will get free treatment to stop you from bleeding and get you safe, but after that you pay your own. If you lose a house there is usually some disaster relief but the cost of it is mostly private insurance, if you lived in an apartment you are largely just on your own. etc. | [
"Governments of many countries have offered help to the U.S. for disaster relief, including the governments of Canada, France, United Kingdom, Germany and Mexico, with Canada even offering to accept Katrina evacuees. In addition to asking for federal funds, President Bush has enlisted the help of former presidents ... |
why do bathroom scales give incorrect readings when placed on carpet? | bathroom scales us a spring if they're mechanical or a load cell that's basically a spring with a little electronic sensor on it if they're digital. the spring deflects when you stand on it, and the readout is a gauge that measures the deflection of a spring and displays it in units you can understand.
if you place it on carpet, theres a chance that the bottom of the scale, rather than the feet of the scale which are connected to the springs (or which actually are the load cells if you're using digital), could contact the carpet and some of the weight will be distributed to the bottom of the scale rather than directly to the springs. if you're 200 pounds, and you place the scale on carpet, the actual floor of the scale instead of the feet could be soaking up some of the weight because it's resting on the carpet. if the floor of the scale takes 40 pounds, then the other 160 will be transfered through the feet into the springs/load cells and the scale will read out 160 instead of 200. | [
"A ceiling effect is said to occur when a high proportion of subjects in a study have maximum scores on the observed variable. This makes discrimination among subjects among the top end of the scale impossible. For example, an examination paper may lead to, say, 50% of the students scoring 100%. While such a paper ... |
when i want to type an apostrophe, i would hit the key next to the enter key on my keyboard and get this character ' but why does this alternate character ’ show up in text that i have copied off the web? are they meant to be used interchangeably? | The prevailing wisdom is ' should be used for feet or minutes, while the curlier ’ should be used as a quote or apostrophe. | [
"In Microsoft Windows, holding down the Alt key while typing in numbers (often referred to as Alt codes) on the numeric keypad allows the user to type special characters not normally available on the keyboard. For example, holding down Alt while typing 0225 () on the numeric keypad will result in á, the character a... |
what happened at dunkirk, and why are the french held in unfavorable light in regards to it? | The BEF (British Expeditionary Force) was holding its own but the French forces to their south fell back. This put the BEF in danger of being surrounded and cut off so they had to fall back. They fell back to Dunkirk where over 300k British soldiers were rescued, minus their heavy equipment, by a flotilla of navy and civilian ships. The saving of so many troops enabled the UK to remain in the fight but the loss of so much heavy equipment meant that they were a bit more lightly armed than they wanted to be for a while.
Goering, commander of the Luftwaffe (Air Force), stated that his aircraft could destroy the British at Dunkirk, so Hitler ordered the Heer (army) to hold. His Wehrmacht (military) commanders had been worried that the Heer was being overextended and was in danger of being cut off if the French or British launched a counter attack so Goering's boast provided a needed excuse to get the Heer to stop and regroup. The RAF (Royal Air Force) fought the Luftwaffe in the skies over Dunkirk and prevented them from destroying the BEF. However, a lot of the fighting took place in cloud cover and so the soldiers on the ground thought they were being mercilessly attacked by the Luftwaffe and believed that the RAF did nothing to help them. | [
"During the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, a team of German saboteurs assume the identities of dead British soldiers and are transported to England. Their first objective is to cripple British air defences by destroying radar stations. Though the identities and whereabouts of the saboteurs are unknown, a team of Briti... |
how do companies perform background checks on prospective employees? | For most private companies, it is typically a check of your references, your past employers, your criminal convictions, a credit check, and/or a social media search.
For a government job, it can include a thorough criminal check, including criminal records beyond convictions that are not publically available. It can also include an investigator going around interviewing friends, neighbors, and coworkers. | [
"Background checks are often requested by employers on job candidates for employment screening, especially on candidates seeking a position that requires high security or a position of trust, such as in a school, courthouse, hospital, financial institution, airport, and government. These checks are traditionally ad... |
why is tanning viewed as attractive when any kind of tanning is bad for you? | Pale skin used to be fashionable because tans were a sign of being someone who worked outdoors with manual labour, whereas paleness indicated a level of luxury.
Conversely, these days people are typically lumped into office/shop/inside jobs so having a tan implies a life of luxury like going on holiday and such.
It's socially attractive, not hard coded. | [
"Excessive tanning increases the risk of developing certain types of skin cancer. People that are addicted to tanning are dealing with a body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). People with tanorexia dislike the color of their skin but in reality the perceived defect may be only a slight imperfection or non-existent. Common... |
If Jordan is a mostly Sunni country, why is it a big deal that the king can trace his lineage back to the prophet Mohammed, pbuh? | The Shia/Sunni divide was mainly a debate about who should lead the faithful after Muhammad's death (which then lead to further splits on mainly judicial and interpretive issues).
So while the Sunni do not believe that the leader of the faithful must be a descendant of Muhammad, his family does still have a special status in Islam, it's an issue of prestige. The Royal family of Jordan doesn't use it to justify their rulership over Jordan or the Islamic religion, it's a just an aspect of prestige which they use to their advantage to gain respect. | [
"Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein (, \"ʿAbdullāh ath-thānī bin Al-Ḥusayn\", born 30 January 1962) has been King of Jordan since 1999. He belongs to the Hashemite family, who have ruled Jordan since 1921 and claim agnatic descent from Muhammad's daughter Fatimah.\n",
"Sunni Islam is the dominant religion in Jordan. Musl... |
Can anyone help u/nochains identify some Nazi memorabilia? | Those are *Kragenspiegel* (collar patch) from a SS uniform, specifically from [*SS-Totenkopfverbände*](_URL_0_). These were units tasked with the administration of concentration camps.
[SS-Scharführer in Mauthausen](_URL_1_) | [
"Pieces of art looted by the Nazis can still be found in Russian/Soviet and American institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed a list of 393 paintings that have gaps in their provenance during the Nazi Era, the Art Institute of Chicago has posted a listing of more than 500 works \"for which links in the... |
what determined the age groups for ratings on media such as movies, games and tv shows? | This is not a perfect answer, but it paints a picture on how these standards are influenced by social norms, history, politics and so on _URL_0_ | [
"In the following summary, \"rating\" is the percentage of all households with televisions that tuned to the show, and \"share\" is the percentage of all televisions in use at that time that are tuned in. \"18–49\" is the percentage of all adults aged 18–49 tuned into the show. \"Viewers\" is the number of viewers,... |
How do our skin cells stay together so that they form a solid surface? | Skin cells -- formally, [squamous epithelial cells](_URL_0_) -- form [interlocking pieces](_URL_2_), kind of like puzzle pieces, that are held together by protein structures called [desmosomes](_URL_1_) -- sort of intercellular velcro. The surface isn't really all that solid either; it's fairly porous, but many layers of cells deep, so it all holds together. | [
"Cells are held together by special linking proteins. When too many cross-links form between cells in a tissue, the tissue can lose its elasticity and cause problems including arteriosclerosis, presbyopia and weakened skin texture. These are chemical bonds between structures that are part of the body, but not withi... |
Was Martin Luther (the reformist) sexist? | Judging historical figures against modern morality and norms is generally not a good idea. Specifically in regards to sexist ideas, the overwhelming majority of historical figures prior to the mid 20th century would be considered sexist just by adhering to the beliefs of their times. | [
"Luther borrowed from the humanists the sense of individualism, that each man can be his own priest (an attitude likely to find popular support considering the rapid rise of an educated urban middle class in the North), and that the only true authority is the Bible, echoing the reformist zeal of the Conciliar movem... |
Whats known about the pre-Christian religions in Poland? What happened to them? | To add to this question. Lithuania was the last country in Europe to give up Slavic Paganism ~1000AD(?). When did other countries do so and were they official transitions or simply the effects of missionary work?
EDIT: thank you all for the responses! | [
"The Christianization of Poland (Polish: \"chrystianizacja Polski\") refers to the introduction and subsequent spread of Christianity in Poland. The impetus to the process was the Baptism of Poland (), the personal baptism of Mieszko I, the first ruler of the future Polish state, and much of his court. The ceremony... |
why aren’t there drug dealers for insulin? | Insulin is harder to produce. If I remember right it is made with engineered yeast or bacteria. | [
"Since January 2006, all insulins distributed in the U.S. and some other countries are synthetic \"human\" insulins or their analogues. A special FDA importation process is required to obtain bovine or porcine derived insulin for use in the U.S., although there may be some remaining stocks of porcine insulin made b... |
What about black and white film makes it easier than color film? | There are a couple reasons we couldn't really have jumped straight to color film.
One is that early photographic film was sensitive only to blue-green, blue, violet, and ultraviolet - so we had no way of recording red light. We could never make full-color pictures without a dye sensitive to red light.
Another reason is that color photography is really complicated. Before there were one-part color films, you had to take three different photographs, with a different filter and light detector each time, and combine them later on. There were cameras that did this automatically, but fundamentally you still had three copies of each picture that you had to manually combine later on.
Kodachrome, which was the first modern color film, combining all these colors into a single piece of film, required a lot of chemical development. It took a long time for people to figure out how to stack the film. You had to make sure each layer was exposed to its proper type of light, and that it didn't react with the other layers - and then you also had to figure out how to develop the film properly!
The final version of Kodachrome film had six layers: from top to bottom, blue-sensitive (with yellow dye coupler); yellow filter; blue-green sensitive (with magenta dye coupler); blue-red sensitive (with cyan dye coupler); acetate base; antihalation (light-absorbing) backing. And I won't list the processing steps because there were 17 of them. And this is the final, refined version - the original process was even more complicated.
The reason the light-sensitive/dye coupler thing is opposite colors is this: the way color film works is by first creating three black-and-white images and then converting each of those images into dye. The basic way black-and-white film works is that when the silver halide on the film is exposed to light, it is converted into metallic silver, and the amount converted depends on the amount of light it receives. The dye couplers, in the conversion process, use this metallic silver to convert into colored dye - so that particular image, instead of being black-and-white, becomes shades of (e.g.) red. The key thing to remember when we make the original exposure, we're creating a negative.
That should make it clear why the filters are the way they are. Let's look at the top layer: blue-sensitive, with yellow dye coupler. Because the top layer is blue-sensitive, it reacts only with blue light, turning black/creating metallic silver where there's a lot of blue. Because blue and yellow light are opposites, we want our negative to be yellow everywhere where the image is actually blue. So the yellow coupler combines with the metallic silver to make yellow dye where the film detected blue light. That's why we combine opposite light sensitivity in the film with dye colors in the coupler - because we're making a negative image, not a positive image.
Then when we actually print our image, we make another exposure through the negative - and because, as I said before, the film darkens in response to more light, we're back to the real colors we wanted: the negative is very dark where there was a lot of light; so when we project through it onto the print, the print will receive very little light; so the print will stay light, just like the original scene. | [
"Colour films improved, both for print negatives and reversal slides, while black-and-white films offered smoother grain and faster speeds than previously available. Since 35 mm was preferred by both amateur and professional photographers, makers of film stock have long offered the widest range of different film sp... |
4d shapes | There is no reason you need to or should be able to visualize it.
4D shapes are entirely a mathematical construct. Just understand what they are/what properties they have. | [
"In five dimensional geometry, a rectified 5-simplex, is a uniform 5-polytope with 15 vertices, 60 edges, 80 triangular faces, 45 cells (15 tetrahedral, and 30 octahedral), and 12 4-faces (6 5-cell and 6 rectified 5-cells). It is also called 0 for its branching Coxeter-Dynkin diagram, shown as .\n",
"Just as a 3D... |
What were the religious beliefs of the Varangian Guard and how did they interact with the religion of the Byzantine Empire? | The Varangian Guard originated as settlers and emigres from Northern Europe who traveled southwards and sold their services as mercenaries to the wealthy nobles around the Volga River, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea.
Throughout the history of the later Byzantine Empire the emperor became more and more dependent on these recruits from various feudal states in Northern Europe. One example given by M. R. Dawkins (1947):
> In 1195 Alexios III, Angelos, alarmed by the threats of the emperor Henry IV, sent three Varangians with golden bulls to ask help of each of the three Scandinavian kings.
Although the Varangian Guard levied troops from all over Europe, from many different religious traditions, the mercenary-bodyguards swore their service to the emperor. The Byzantine Emperor justified himself as the defender of Christ by claiming that he was the successor the first Christian emperor of Constantinople, Constantine.
So since the role of the Emperor was primarily that of defending Constantinople from rulers who were not the successors to Constantine, or who did not have the defense of the Eastern Orthodox church as their priority, [then his personal army would follow this same Christian constitution](_URL_1_).
The fact that these recruits spoke different languages doesn't necessarily mean that they brought their local traditions to Constantinople, the religious center of the Byzantine Empire. Ecclesiastical figures in Constantinople even translated the Greek liturgy into Danish, Slavonic, English, and Persian so that the Varangians could participate in Byzantine ceremonies (see Dawkins- Later History of the Varangian Guard).
One classic example of a Northern European/viking noble selling his service to the Byzantines is [Harald Hardrada](_URL_0_), who reigned as King of Norway after amassing enough wealth via plunder while commander of the Varangian Guard. Although he was a secular prince who claimed the thrones of Denmark, England, and later Norway, Harald spent ten years as a Byzantine military commander in Sicily and the Holy Land. There, he led the Byzantine assault against the Arabs and helped protect/gain concessions for Christian pilgrims heading towards Jerusalem.
Despite championing the Byzantine Crusader cause, it is argued by byzantinist Halvor Tjønn that once Harald arrived in Kievan Rus after serving the Varangian Guard, he sold military secrets to the Rus regarding the defenses of Constantinople that directly led to the Rus' attack on Constantinople in 1042.
Here you can sort of see how the religion of the Varangian Guard combined two phenomena from the High Middle Ages--the religious military order and the soldier-of-fortune. Scandinavian warriors were being handpicked to serve in the court of the successor of Constantine and fight to prevent the non-Christian domination of the Holy Land, but at the same time they retained their language, could not inherit land in the Byzantine Empire, and often sold their services to other nobles along [the Black Sea/Volga River trade network](_URL_2_).
So to summarize the Varangian Guard (the badass elite Russian-Viking bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperor) adopted the beliefs and liturgical practices of Constantinople because that was where they were employed.
| [
"The Varangian Guard not only provided security for Byzantine emperors but participated in many wars involving Byzantium and often played a crucial role, since it was usually employed at critical moments of battle. By the late 13th century, Varangians were mostly ethnically assimilated by Byzantines, though the gua... |
How would blood react in extreme cold (-40 c or less)? Would it clot up faster, would it flow normally, or would it just freeze? | From my understanding, the blood plasma would freeze, even though it’s freezing point is lower than pure water. The RBCs would rupture die to water forming ice crystals inside of it and expanding. WBCs would act the same.
All of that would happen if it was just exposed to the environment directly.
While still inside you, however, there are still the thermoregulation processes happening. It might take longer for it to freeze inside of the body and death would probably occur due to the brain experiencing hypothermia before the blood freezes so. | [
"The actual cause of death in cold water is usually the bodily reactions to heat loss and to freezing water, rather than hypothermia (loss of core temperature) itself. For example, plunged into freezing seas, around 20% of victims die within two minutes from cold shock (uncontrolled rapid breathing, and gasping, ca... |
Why did the North Koreans not choose to revolt during and after the event of the N.K. Famine? | They blamed others for it ~ specifically they blame the United States. The North Korean propaganda machine is strong and has instilled in the heads of the populace that the American imperialists are out to get North Korea and are responsible for even the smallest things such as lights flickering. The cult of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il was very strong as they saw that they could do no wrong for their country. It's a very sad country. | [
"At the same time, the years of famine were also marked by a dramatic revival of illegal, private market activities. Smuggling across the border boomed, and up to 250,000 North Koreans moved to China. Amartya Sen had mentioned bad governance as one of the structural and economic problems which contributed to the fa... |
How developed are the chicks inside eggs when they're laid? | It takes just a little [over 1 day](_URL_1_) after a chicken's egg has been fertilized (or not) until the egg is laid. At that point, the yolk of a fertilized egg contains a [blastoderm](_URL_2_) of a few dozen cells. It is just enough to tell if an egg [is fertilized or not](_URL_0_) to the naked eye.
| [
"Fertile chicken eggs hatch at the end of the incubation period, about 21 days. Development of the chick starts only when incubation begins, so all chicks hatch within a day or two of each other, despite perhaps being laid over a period of two weeks or so. Before hatching, the hen can hear the chicks peeping inside... |
why is it more difficult for a lefty batter to hit a lefty pitcher, then a right handed batter to hit a right handed pitcher | Practice.
At the end of the day there are far more right handed pitchers to practice against than left handed pitchers.
| [
"In baseball a left-handed batter is about two steps closer to first base than a right-handed batter, one important advantage. Because curveballs and sliders – the most commonly used breaking pitches in the game – curve in the direction of a pitcher's non-throwing hand, a batter who bats opposite the pitcher's thro... |
why does ingesting grapefruit and grapefruit juice interfere with my anti-anxiety medication? | There are a group of enzymes known as CYP450, and are responsible for the breakdown (metabolism) of a lot drugs.
Other drugs and food stuffs can interact with these enzymes, either speeding the metabolism up (by promoting the body to increase the number of a particular enzyme) or slowing down the breakdown / reducing the number enzymes that breakdown a particular drug
This happens because some drugs or food stuffs promote new enzymes to be made. Others damage the current enzyme population rendering them unable to metabolise by damaging the enzyme protein which is known as denaturing an enzyme. This requires your body to make more enzymes to replace the damaged ones which takes time.
Grapefruit juice is an inhibitor of some of these CYP450 enzymes, and as such, less metabolism of drugs can occur. In extreme circumstances, this can lead to overdose as the body does not have the capability to remove drugs from itself.
In ELI5 style - Say the body has some miners within itself (enzymes) that fall ill and can't work if they are given grapefruit juice. These miners are responsible for taking out things the body is given, such as medicine. If there are less miners, less medicine can be removed and so more remains for the body to use. This can harm the body as drugs are developed to be active for only so long, so warning labels are placed on meds.
TL;DR: Grapefruit juice stops the body from breaking down some drugs, potentially to the point of overdose or toxicity. | [
"Under normal circumstances, the grapefruit juice effect is considered to be a negative interaction, and patients are often warned not to consume grapefruit or its juice when taking medication. However, some current research is focused on the potential benefits of cytochrome P450 inhibition. Bergamottin, dihydroxyb... |
For tidal power generation, what is the prime source of energy that is being tapped? Is it the potential energy between the earth and the moon? If so, is tide power slowly pulling the moon into the earth? | Tides are caused by the Earth spinning relative to the Moon. Friction between water and land slows the Earth very slightly. So the energy used is the kinetic energy of the Earth.
We will not move the Moon, instead by dampening the waves (if you will excuse the pun) we are slowing the Earth in its spin very slightly. | [
"Tidal power is the only technology that draws on energy inherent in the orbital characteristics of the Earth–Moon system, and to a lesser extent in the Earth–Sun system. Other natural energies exploited by human technology originate directly or indirectly with the Sun, including fossil fuel, conventional hydroelec... |
how/why putin is not considered a dictator? (or at least the head of an authoritarian regime?) | Putin is indeed considered a dictator in some political circles, and his policies and media utterances are looking a lot like fascism. However, there are diplomatic reasons why politicians use more moderate language. | [
"By western commentators and the Russian opposition, Putin has been described as a dictator. Putin biographer Masha Gessen has stated that \"Putin is a dictator,\" comparing him to Alexander Lukashenko. Former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has described Putin as a \"ruthless dictator\" whose \"days are number... |
Is it possible to program an unbeatable chess algorithm? | There is an algorithm, but it requires monstrous computational resources. Chess is a zero-sum, deterministic, two player, perfect information (i.e no hidden moves/partial observability) game (or a Markov Game if you prefer). You can use the minmax algorithm to solve such games. The minmax algorithm is an implementation of the minmax Solution Concept for 2-player games of perfect information. Effectively, you are continuously trying to "imagine" non-losing futures, while at the same time assuming that your opponent will chose the worst possible move for you.
In theory one could possibly solve the game once (using minmax), and keep a huge database for all positions, alongside the ``value'' of each position. You can do that in Tic-tac-toe.
In practice the state space of chess is massive, which limits the depth of the search tree. Thus, usually, from each state in the game, the minmax algorithm is run, but it terminates prematurely after some "imagined moves" (``plies''). There is an evaluation function at each state, which will basically tell you how good that state is even if it is not an endgame (either through a database or learned using evolution/reinforcement learning)
Because the evaluation functions we have for Chess are superhuman, Game A.I research has moved to GO (for games of perfect information) and poker (for games of imperfect information)
IAMA Game A.I. Ph.d Student
EDIT - spelling
EDIT 2 - Beating your opponent means not losing. Actively trying to win (through for example modelling your opponent) is actually harder for machines.
| [
"Information theorist Claude Shannon argued in 1951 that it is not feasible for any computer to actually solve chess, since it would either need to compare some 10 possible game variations, or have a \"dictionary\" denoting an optimal move for each of the about 10 possible board positions. It is thus theoretically ... |
Does the ovary that releases the egg rotate every month during ovulation? Can an ovary accidentally release multiple eggs? | Which ovary releases the egg per month is [apparently random](_URL_0_). That link describes the process by which this occurs, but if it was **TL;DR:** Hormones stimulate the growth of follicles across both ovaries, but usually one side outpaces the other. Sensitivity to the ongoing hormone release communicates loss of the race to the other follicles, and the "winner" releases an ovum that month.
Multiple eggs are sometimes released; this is one of the causes of twinning. | [
"After being released from the ovary, the egg is swept into the fallopian tube by the fimbria, which is a fringe of tissue at the end of each fallopian tube. After about a day, an unfertilized egg will disintegrate or dissolve in the fallopian tube.\n",
"Usually, ovulation occurs in one of the two ovaries releasi... |
why are there no full bulletproof body armours, or why are they not being used? | You would more or less have to look like this:
_URL_0_
And that's very very heavy, and very very cumbersome. Imagine wearing this suit hours and hours, every day, for years and years. It just can't be done.
Plus, you'd be giving up a whole load of other safety measures, like being able to see properly, run away from a bad situation, pursue suspects through environment, drive properly...
In addition to this, this isn't what most police would want to look like. They want to be humans serving their community, not walled in behind armor which screams 'I am afraid of this neighborhood'. | [
"Modern body armor may combine a ballistic vest with other items of protective clothing, such as a combat helmet. Vests intended for police and military use may also include ballistic shoulder and side protection armor components, and bomb disposal officers wear heavy armor and helmets with face visors and spine pr... |
why do amazon's prices fluctuate so drastically? | Vendor with the cheap price sold out, and it automatically displays the next lowest price from the other vendors | [
"In January 2017, Amazon.ca was required by the Competition Bureau to pay a $1M penalty, plus $100,000 in costs, over pricing practices for failing to provide \"truth in advertising\" according to Josephine Palumbo, the deputy commissioner for deceptive marketing practices. This fine was levied because some product... |
why do almost all police cars have the same wheels/rims? | Most US police forces buy cars specifically made for the police force or buy cars in fleets. This means police generally buy multiple cars of the same car model.
| [
"Traffic police cars, known in the UK as Road Policing Units, are cars designed for the job of enforcing traffic laws, and as such usually have the highest performance of any of the police vehicles, as they must be capable of catching most other vehicles on the road. They may be fitted with special bumpers designed... |
How do physicists prove the existence of subatomic particles? | It really depends on the particle in question. For instance, the existence of the neutrino was first made obvious when it was noticed that in beta decay (a neutron decaying to a proton + electron), the electron emitted could have a range of energies/momenta, whilst the proton remains fairly stationary/with well understood energy. Conservation of energy and momentum is therefore only possible if there's some other almost undetectable particle emitted carrying the rest of it, which turns out to be the neutrino. In this case (as opposed to quarks, see below), experiments first showed the existence of something we didn't understand, opening the way for theory to explain it.
Once a particle type is found to exist, research into how it fits into the mathematical framework may reveal expected properties. Testing these expected properties can show whether or not the particle works as expected, and can verify our understanding of it.
Quarks are an example of coming across the particle by a different method. As I understand it, the idea was originally a mathematical abstraction which helpfully explained various features of the detectable hadrons. There was no consensus as to whether the idea was physically meaningful for a while, but eventually quarks were directly(ish) detected via deep inelastic scattering, essentially firing particles such as electrons extremely fast at hadrons. The scattering patterns for a quark-based hadron and a hadron with no constituents are different, so by measuring the result we were able to see that the mathematical quark abstraction actually directly describes the nuclei. Thus, in this case, theory came first, made predictions, and experiment could verify these to confirm the theory.
In both cases, of course, theories have continued to develop in conjunction with increasingly complex experiments, leading to a more and more detailed understanding of how the particles behave. There are still many questions left unresolved, theorised particles that have not been detected (such as, most famously, the Higgs boson), and detected particles which don't seem to fit the characteristics of particles we already know about (i.e. dark matter, though whether it's actually particles seems to have not reached consensus).
(Disclaimer: I'm not a particle physicist, this post is made of wikipedia + my non-specialist understanding) | [
"This is a timeline of subatomic particle discoveries, including all particles thus far discovered which appear to be elementary (that is, indivisible) given the best available evidence. It also includes the discovery of composite particles and antiparticles that were of particular historical importance.\n",
"Mod... |
Did the Romans discover South America? | The short answer is there is no historical evidence for any sort of substantial or prolonged contact between Rome and the Americas; that is to say, there is no surviving account of an expedition to there and back again, nor any significant, confirmed material evidence of trade or exchange between the two regions prior to the Norse colonization at Vinland in the 10th century. There are some discussions on [Pre-Columbian Contact in the FAQ](_URL_3_), but nothing specifically discussing Romans.
The slightly longer answer is that there has been substantial interest in possible pre-Columbian transatlantic contact between Europe and the Americas for decades, and there are some isolated artifact discoveries which are ambiguous but might suggested one-time or occasional contact. A good example of this kind of thing is the ["Roman figurine" discovered at Calixtlahuaca](_URL_4_) - warning, the page will make your eyes bleed, but the significant point put forward by Dr. Michael E. Smith there is:
> The “Roman figurine” supposedly excavated at Calixtlahuaca was not documented using standard archaeological procedures. Excavator José García Payón did not publish professionally adequate descriptions of any of his excavations at the site. After his death, two posthumous reports were issued (García Payón 1979; 1981), but these contain very little specific information on the excavations or individual contexts. The “Roman figurine” cannot be considered well documented according to the normal standards of archaeological practice. [...] These problems of data reporting affect more than just the “Roman figurine” from Calixtlahuaca. The lack of documentation applies to nearly all of the finds from García Payón’s fieldwork. While these problems do not invalidate the “Roman figurine” as a potentially valid Precolumbian find, their implication is that it is impossible today to reconstruct the archaeological context of the find. It certainly cannot be claimed that this find is “well documented” or that it comes from “a good archaeological context.” The excavation of the “Roman figurine” fails to meet even the minimum standards of archaeological reporting.
This is really more of an archaeological point - identifying artifacts and their proper context *and documenting the process of discovery* can be difficult and frustrating - but it bears repeating here because its exactly the situation we have to deal with when looking at the claims here. Historians have to follow a similar process when they evaluate evidence, trying to trace the provenance of document evidence and evaluating its reliability.
For the "amphorae" discovered in the Bay of Guanabara in Brazil in particular, the best version of the popular account is [Treasure Lost at Sea: Diving to the World's Great Shipwrecks](_URL_1_) by
Robert and Jennifer Marx. Robert F. Marx is well-known as a diver - and also a treasure-hunter who has made several claims about pre-Columbian contact with the Americas, and author or co-author of a number of non-fiction works on the subject. The details of the jars claim, however, are not verifiable - there's been no formal, documented excavation or survey of the underwater site; no published results of independent examination of the artifacts; nor to the best of my knowledge has Marx presented his finds to academic publication - although he did publish ["Romans in Rio?"](_URL_0_) (PDF) in *Oceans* in 1984. [The Fringe of American Archaeology: Transoceanic and Transcontinental Contacts in Prehistoric America](_URL_2_) (PDF) claims at least one account that an attempt by an expert in Roman antiquities to view the jars was denied. Even assuming Marx was operating in good faith - and his moderate claim of a single Roman ship-wreck rather than any sort of ongoing exchange stands out in his father - the lack of documentation of the find, and inability for independent analysis and confirmation of the recovered jars, makes them unreliable as a point of evidence. | [
"In 1768, Romans became principal deputy surveyor for the Southern District (the British Colonies of , North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, East Florida, and West Florida). Starting in 1769, Romans surveyed the coastal waters of East Florida. Later that year, his boat sank in the Manatee River near Tampa Bay. R... |
what do scalpers do with unsold tickets? | They generally don't have unsold tickets. After the event starts they will likely drop the price to get rid of them to any bargain shoppers still hanging around. | [
"Ticket scalpers (or ticket touts in British English) work outside events, often showing up with unsold tickets from brokers' offices on a consignment basis or showing up without tickets and buying extra tickets from fans at or below face value on a speculative basis hoping to resell them at a profit. There are man... |
how do researchers get schedule 1 substances for studies? | From regulated suppliers, for example
_URL_0_ | [
"Medicinal Chemistry: Research in medicinal chemistry involves design, synthesis, structure elucidation, and analysis of synthetic compounds possessing biological (potential drug) activity. Specific research programs include: Synthetic chemistry directed toward neurodegenerative and oncologic diseases, computationa... |
if bank check security features have been developed after decades of check fraud how can we now take pictures of checks to deposit them? | Balance of risk of fraud vs attracting customers. And u can only deposit 1000 max with a photoed check | [
"Before 2004, if someone deposited a check in an account with one bank, the banks would have to physically exchange the paper check to the bank on which the check is drawn before the money would be credited to the account in the deposit bank. Under Check 21, the deposit bank can simply send an image of the check to... |
Are all tetrahedral molecules non polar? | It's more about the symmetry of the charges than the geometry that determine whether something is polar. For example water is bent and it is polar but it's not just the fact that it's bent that let's you say aha its polar. You need to consider electronegativity. Oxygen's electronegativity is much higher than hydrogen's. That means oxygen is partially negative because it schlorps some of the electron density from hydrogen. That leaves the hydrogen's partially positive. Thus when you look at the bent shape you see the ends are positive and the middle bit is negative. If you draw a line through the negative charges and then draw a line through the positive charges you can clearly see the polarity vector goes from one of these to the other. Thus water is polar. | [
"Strictly speaking, a circular core is not required in order to have two degenerate polarization states. Rather, one requires a core whose symmetry group admits a two-dimensional irreducible representation. For example, a square or equilateral-triangle core would also have two equal-speed polarization solutions for... |
what does full development/maturity of the human brain really mean? | Generally it means that the person becomes less impulsive and weighs risks. | [
"The brain grows rapidly for the first five years of human development. At age five, the human brain is 90% of its total size. Then the brain finishes growing gradually until age twenty. From start to finish, the brain increases in size by over 300% from birth. The critical period, defined as the beginning years of... |
why do most perishables expire in exactly 24 hours, one month, one year, etc? is this a coincidence or are they just rounding up/down, and if so then what validates expiration? | Expiration dates are an estimate, on the low side, for legal purposes rather than some kind of hard classification. You can legally sell something like bologna for seven days after the vacuum packing is removed. If you sold it after eight days it would probably still be fine though the taste might be off, and past that it's increasingly likely to be growing mold or bacteria or something. If I get sick off meat I bought that had just been opened by the retailer (who did due diligence checking for problems before they sold it) then it's the manufacturer's fault and they take the heat. If I get sick and it turns out the meat was expired, it's the retailer's ass in the fire. If it was under expiration but the retailer should've known it was bad then it might be their ass anyway.
Expiration dates aren't meant to be scientifically accurate since perishing isn't super predictable, it's not like meat has a half life or something. They're meant to establish a safe maximum threshold past which the meat is too likely to be spoiled for it to be safely sold. Sometimes a loaf of bread will keep for weeks after the expiration no problem. Sometimes it'll have mold on it the day after you open it. | [
"\"Sell by date\" is a less ambiguous term for what is often referred to as an \"expiration date\". Most food is still edible after the expiration date. A product that has passed its shelf life might still be safe, but quality is no longer guaranteed. In most food stores, waste is minimized by using stock rotation,... |
How do we designate stellar areas? | I don't think there's any standard, since there's no need for one yet. All the moons in our solar systems are named, so we can use those, and we can't detect moons of exoplanets yet (we might have one or two, but not enough for much of a naming system, amd certainly none where we know anuthing about surface features). I'd guess that we'll just use normal astronomy names, ie an id number based on the project that detected it once we start finding more. | [
"A stellarium is a three-dimensional map of the stars, typically centered on Earth. They are common fixtures at planetariums, where they illustrate the local deep space out to perhaps 50 light years. Older examples were normally built using small colored balls or lights on support rods (painted black to make them l... |
How bright does the Earth's core glow? | Assuming black-body radiation. Since Earth's core temperature is quite close to Sun's surface temperature (both around 6000 K), imagine standing on the surface of the Sun.
Or to put it into perspective, we can use the brightness data from [the wikipedia page on Sun.](_URL_0_) It says the luminance is about 1.88 gigacandela per square meter. Comparing it with the brightness of smartphone and computer screens (200-400 cd/sq. m), Earth's core is **5-10 million times** brighter than your laptop screen. Just imagine setting your screen brightness to 1 billion%. | [
"The production of energy at the core is the reason stars shine so brightly: every time two or more atomic nuclei fuse together to form a single atomic nucleus of a new heavier element, gamma ray photons are released from the nuclear fusion product. This energy is converted to other forms of electromagnetic energy ... |
Is it possible to bring a dead cell/tissue back to life without using any kind of living cells/tissues? | Exactly what do you mean? On the cellular/molecular level, the definition of "life" gets a bit dodgy.
There are some ways your question could be answered "yes," though. Humans are brought "back from the dead" after brain death.
Things like cells, bacteria, and simple organisms can be cryogenically frozen (which is more or less "dead") and then thawed and brought up to be relatively healthy. | [
"To replace live tissue, either the existing cells of the body are stimulated to regrow the tissue native to the area or bioactive substances inserted in the pulp chamber. These include stem cell therapy, growth factors, morphogens, tissue scaffolds and biologically active delivery systems.\n",
"In cases of non-f... |
difference between angel investors and venture capitalists | Angel Investors generally provide the capital to get a venture off the ground. Legal startup costs, proposals, grants applications and such. Venture capitalists provide the funds necessary to launch and sustain the venture until it can generate revenue by itself.
Angels generally have more risk and get a larger share of the venture, but put up less money then the VC. Venture capitalists provide the lions share of the operating costs, and generally get a good percentage of the company. | [
"Angels typically invest their own funds, unlike venture capitalists who manage the pooled money of others in a professionally managed fund. Although typically reflecting the investment judgment of an individual, the actual entity that provides the funding may be a trust, business, limited liability company, invest... |
if you killed someone on the four corners monument, which state's laws would you be prosecuted with? | [Slightly NSFW.](_URL_0_)
Since it's a serious crime that is inter-state, the federal government will likely step in.
Also, it's a national monument and in Indian Reservation territory, even more reason for it to be the FBI.
Double also, simply searching Google about this ("four corners jurisdiction") brought up an ELI5 post about this as the top result. | [
"Moore said that Thompson, \"fearing that I would not obey his order, decided to threaten other state officials and force them to remove the monument if I did not do so. A threat of heavy fines was his way of coercing obedience to that order,\" an action that Moore saw as a violation of the Eleventh Amendment to th... |
I'm debating with someone about the Big Bang, they are saying it can't be true because of the Law of the Conservation of Angular Momentum. | Nothing about the big bang theory contradicts conservation of angular momentum. Without more explanation of their argument, we can't really give you a better explanation than that. | [
"The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution. Despite its success in explaining many observed features of the universe including galactic redshifts, the relative abundance of light elements such as hydrogen an... |
A question about voyager entering intergalactic space | As HoldingTheFire says, the velocity is basically the vector sum of the earths movement and the movement relative to earth. So, it will indeed be dragged along relative to us, unless it hits something which is unlikely. | [
"In March 2013, it was announced that \"Voyager 1\" might have become the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space, having detected a marked change in the plasma environment on August 25, 2012. However, until September 12, 2013, it was still an open question as to whether the new region was interstellar space o... |
What would happen to you if you were to consume 5lbs of sugar all at once? | Some possibilities:
5 lbs may overwhelm the absorption maxima in the gut leading to watery diarrhea due to an osmotic solute in the large intestine. Depending on the water loss, typical dehydration responses would begin.
Say gut motility halted to a point that all of the sugars were absorbed and dumped into the blood. Huge amounts of glycogen and fatty acids would be synthesized and glucose absorption by cells would increase under the affect of insulin.
If the amount of glucose in the blood overwhelms the absorption maxima in the kidney then glucose would escape in the filtrate and appear in the urine. Urine output would increase due again to an osmotic solute in the filtrate pulling water into the urine.
Basically you would see what would be seen on a daily basis for a poorly controlled diabetic. So we have established that there will probably be a marked increase in water loss. Lets look at some possible acute effects.
Severe dehydration leads to hypotension and probably some other forms of hemodynamic compensation, shunting of blood away from certain organs. Altered consciousness happens due to an abnormal metabolic balance in the body. this abnormal balance results in acidosis in the blood due to the products of glucose metabolism and you will see quick, deep and labored breathing to compensate for this.
tl;dr - same effects of an acute diabetic patient: metabolic acidosis (possibly ketoacidosis), rapid deep breathing, increased urinary output, possible watery diarrhea, altered consciousness. | [
"If a food containing even small but perceivable amount of sugar (simple sugars or disaccharides that can be tasted sweet, or starch that is at least minimally hydrolyzed by salivary amylase, or even some non-sugar sweeteners) is eaten in this state, there may be a period of time after it enters stomach and before ... |
the concept of qualia. | Basically, it's the belief that every person perceives things differently. For example, when we're little, we're taught that a certain color is red. You and I both agree that that color is called red. When we see it at a traffic light, we both know when to stop because we both know that as red. But what if what I see as red and what you see as red are totally different? What if what I see as red is brown to you? [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) describes it as "the way things seem to us," meaning that each of us may perceive red (or maroon in the case of your username) to be something very different. The basis for qualia, unfortunately, is uncertainty - we don't really know if what we perceive is the same or completely different. | [
"In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term \"qualia\" derives from the Latin neuter plural form (\"qualia\") of the Latin adjective \"quālis\" () meaning \"of what sort\" or \"of what kind\" i... |
what is the difference between "all of our servers are busy" and "we took too long to make this page" error pages on reddit? | From our standpoint as users, nothing at all. From Reddit's standpoint, one of them means the backend computers told them "sorry too busy" and the other means that the backend didn't respond at all. | [
"When servers indicate temporary failures, either by explicitly sending a 4xx error or by ending the connection unexpectedly (which must be treated as a 451 error, according to Section 3.8 of the RFC), Section 4.5.4.1 says: \"The sender MUST delay retrying a particular destination after one attempt has failed.\"\n"... |
Why did Israel give back the conquered territories of the six day war? | As for why they won, a few points:
1. Momentum. Israel attacked after Egypt advanced into the Sinai, without waiting for the actual attack. This allowed the IAF to effectively control the air over the Middle East throughout the war, making Arab advances difficult.
* Better planning. This is from memory, but I believe Israel had already mapped out an advance through the Sinai from the Sinai Conflict in the 50s, allowing them to advance quickly and in an unexpected direction.
* Better quality of forces. I can only find the first page of [this report](_URL_0_), but it indicates that Israel's forces were simply better.
Anyway, on to why they gave back territory.
First off, they didn't give back all of them. First, the Sinai. It was returned to Egypt in the 70s as part of a peace agreement with Egypt. The Yom Kippur War showed that Israel wouldn't always be hugely dominant as they had been in '67. Perhaps more importantly, improved international status by ending a major war was a significant foreign relations victory. Israel got the Sinai as a buffer, since it's a DMZ. Any Egyptian advance through it will give Israel plenty of time to react, as they did in 1967, when Egypt kicked out peacekeepers from the DMZ and began to advance through it. The Sinai is big enough to be an effective buffer, and Israel's foreign policy goals made it worth giving up the territory, which was very sparsely inhabited with Israelis.
In the North, Israel didn't give up territories exactly. They pulled back to the ceasefire lines from their positions near Damascus. Doing so ended the war on that front (eventually, the cease-fire took a couple tries to stick), and Israel didn't really lose anything.
The handoff of Gaza and parts of the West Bank is within this subreddit's time limit mostly. It's a rather different phenomenon, since territory isn't being returned to the countries that had it before, but turned over to partial Palestinian sovereignty. | [
"The war resulted in an Israeli victory, with Israel annexing territory beyond the partition borders for a proposed Jewish state and into the borders for a proposed Palestinian Arab state. Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt signed the 1949 Armistice Agreements with Israel. The remaining territories, the Gaza Strip a... |
why don't dogs' paws get extremely cold in the snow? | I've heard that the pads of dogs and cats paws can get frost bitten and extremely dry. So they recommend putting booties on dogs if the temperature is incredibly low and lotion on their paws or something to keep them from getting too chapped | [
"Greyhounds have very thin skin and very short fur. They can be easily harmed by biting or scratching from other dogs or accidentally running into sharp objects. Combined with their low body fat, coats or sweaters are required when outside in cold weather. Some owners also put boots on their Greyhounds in very cold... |
Who were the marine paratroopers? | In May 1940, the acting director of the Division of Plans and Policies, U.S. Marine Corps, issued a memo asking for ideas about the employment of parachute troops. The training of groups of Marines to become paratroopers began in October 1940, and continued at a snail's pace; the 1st Parachute Battalion took nearly a year and a half to constitute its three companies, and was only at 60 percent of its TO & E strength by March 1942. The 2nd Parachute Battalion was formed (as the 2nd Parachute Company, later redesigned Company A, 2nd Parachute Battalion) on March 22, 1941, and the 3rd Battalion on September 16, 1942; the 3rd Battalion reached full strength far quicker than the other two due to improved training, being fully constituted within four months, by the end of December 1942. The three battalions were eventually organized into the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment. The "Paramarines" never actually dropped into combat, (as the Marine Corps lacked the number of transport aircraft needed to do so) but fought as ground troops in operations conducted in 1942 and 1943 at Gavutu, (August 1942) Tanambogo, (Augustt 1942) Guadalcanal, (September 1942) Choiseul, (October 1943) and Bougainville (November 1943) Four parachute operations were planned, but never executed;
* Capturing Villa airfield on Kolombangara Island, planned for July 1943; the island was cut off via naval means and the Japanese evacuated it in September and October 1943
* Capturing Kahili and Kara airfields on Bougainville, planned for September 1943
* Capturing the town of Kavieng on the island of New Britain, planned for April 1944
* Capturing the Japanese seaplane base at Rekata Bay, Santa Isabel island; (in the Solomon Islands) the island was cut off and the Japanese evacuated the base in September 1943
It was eventually decided that Marine special units were not worth the upkeep cost; the Paramarines were disbanded on December 30, 1943, and the other Marine special operations unit, the Marine Raiders, also ceased to exist on February 29, 1944.
Sources:
*U.S. Airborne Units in the Pacific Theater 1942–45*, by Gordon L. Rottman
[*Silk Chutes and Hard Fighting: U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Units in WWII*](_URL_0_), by Lieutenant Colonel Jon. T. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve | [
"The Paramarines (also known as \"Marine paratroopers\") were specialized units that were trained to parachute into combat. The first Paramarines were trained in October 1940. The Parachute battalions have jumped into hostile territory. They lacked heavy mortar and machine gun support due to the amount of equipment... |
why do 3rd party travel sites often list rooms as available at hotels that claim they are fully booked? | Because hotels often sell their vacant rooms to third part distributors for a discounted rate as to forgo the risk of not being able to fill them.
If I have 100 vacant rooms available for next weekend, I know I am unlikely to fill them all, so I sell them at a discount to a third party who will then make them available on popular travel booking sites. | [
"Online hotel reservations are also helpful for making last minute travel arrangements. Hotels may drop the price of a room if some rooms are still available. There are several websites that specialize in searches for deals on rooms.\n",
"An increasing number of hotels are building their own websites to allow the... |
How was (or is) the authenticity of holy relics in the Catholic Church determined? | (N.B. this is my first time posting in this subreddit. I've tried my best to follow the rules, but any advice on improvement would be graciously welcomed, thank you)
First off, I notice you use the past tense, so let me clarify something really quick before jumping into the rest of my answer: the Catholic Church still has relics. In fact, every Catholic Church in the world has at least one, usually two, or sometimes even more contained within the cavity on the Altar. In fact, in order for the consecration of the Altar to be valid, there must be at least one relic from a martyr, and specifically, this relic, as must the others contained within the Altar must be First Class relics (part of the physical body) of the martyr; two martyr's relics, however are ideal.
In the Catholic Church, there are three classes of relics, numbered first through third:
* First Class relics are either directly associated with the life of Christ (True Cross, Lance of Longinus, the Holy Prepuce, etc) or the physical remains of a saint.
* Second Class relics are items that saints wore or frequently used (book, crucifix, rosary, etc). A relic taken from the saint's clothing is referred to as "ex indumentis", literally "from the clothing."
* Third Class relics are items, usually cloth, that have touched a First or a Second Class relic.
Canon Law forbids the selling of sacred relics.
Obviously those relics from the time of Christ are very difficult to verify scientifically, so many are accepted on faith, though they are from time to time, tested when new technology becomes available; the most common example is Shroud of Turin, which while never confirmed by the Church to be a relic, would be a First Class relic if confirmed.
Those relics taken from the body of saints are generally easier to confirm, particularly among modern saints whose graves are more likely to be well marked. In fact, as part of the canonization process, relics are taken during before the person can be named Venerable (One is named a Servant of God, then Venerable, then Blessed, and only then a Saint). Those relics, taken by the Church directly are more likely than not, valid.
Second Class relics are also confirmed with some ease. Upon exhuming the body, any fabric that the person is wearing would automatically be considered a Second Class relic. Items belonging to the person might be more difficult, unless they were buried, say, with their Rosary, but not altogether impossible to verify.
Third-Class relics are the odd duck, as they are not part of, or directly associated with the saint in question, but just something that has touched a relic of the First or Second class, so it would be a bit more difficult to verify the authenticity of these relics. This class of relics are generally the type that a private person may have (personally, I have two on my rosary, one of Saint Thomas More, and one of Saint Benedict).
As to the exact process of authentication, one source I found([American Catholic](_URL_0_)), in order for a relic to be publicly venerated, it must be sealed in a receptacle must be accompanied by a certificate of authentication that is signed by one of the members of the Congregation for Saints or the local bishop of the place where the saint lived. Without this, the relic cannot be used for public veneration.
Suggested Reading on the subject:
Pontificale Romanum for the specifics on relics used in the consecration of an altar.
Code of Canon Law (1981) for legal limitations on the use of relics
For more in-depth theological analysis, I'd recommend checking out /r/Catholicism where the good folks there are always willing to explain matters in depth. | [
"A number of relics are claimed to be associated with Jesus and have been displayed throughout the history of Christianity. While some individuals believe in the authenticity of Jesus relics, others doubt their validity. For instance, the sixteenth-century philosopher Erasmus wrote about the proliferation of relics... |
why is there usually a little 9 next to the gas price? | I'm no expert but I believe that it's a well known rhetoric in social economics that people are naturally attracted to X.99 prices as opposed to X.00 prices. | [
"The price of natural gas varies greatly depending on location and type of consumer. In 2007, a price of $7 per 1000 cubic feet () was typical in the United States. The typical caloric value of natural gas is roughly 1,000 BTU per cubic foot, depending on gas composition. This corresponds to around $7 per million B... |
Why were top loading/side loading machine guns like the Madsen and MP-18 popular for a time then fall out of use? | Top-loading machineguns like the Madsen and the plethora of designs we see in WW2 (ZB.26, Bren, Type 99, FM 24/29, etc) were intended for fire from static positions using the bipod. Being light machineguns, they were crew-served weapons, and doctrine of the time across most armies had the gunner's assistant responsible for magazine changes. Underside-mounted magazines often left the ground in the way and interfered with loading. Top mounted magazines also had the benefit of allowing the gunner to keep a lower profile, as there was no longer a magazine that needed ground clearance. No magazine on the bottom allowed for the bipod to be shorter while still allowing for a decent vertical field of fire.
Side-mounted magazines offered a lot of the benefits of top-mounted, but were more common on submachineguns and other non-crew-served weapons. Here the benefits were very similar - the shooter could have a very high capacity magazine without having it interfere with their ability to go prone. The big problem here often ended up being balance. The weight of the ammunition and magazine hanging off one side of the gun made it awkward to hold, even in submachineguns like the MP-18 and Sten, where the weight of the ammunition and mags was fairly low.
& #x200B;
Ultimately, the shift to underside-mounted magazines was something that didn't really seem to have the same kind of clear, consistent reasoning that influenced a lot of other firearms-related decisions. We'd see top-mounted magazines stick around postwar with many powers for some time. The British stand out in particular, as they opted to update the Bren to the L4 model to accept 7.62 NATO ammunition instead of adopting the L2-model FAL, which was intended to serve the same role. Compared to the L2 in Canadian and Australian service, the L4 Bren was significantly better suited to the role of light machinegun. Another notable case was the Stoner 63 - a Vietnam-era design that included an automatic rifle variant with a vertically-mounted magazine.
& #x200B;
The shift to underside-mounted magazines for machinegun use tended to follow two trends - a shift towards automatic-rifle variants of the standard service rifle (RPK, FALO/L2) and a shift towards belt-fed machineguns for smaller-unit use (FN MAG, PKM, M60) As far as side-mounted magazines for submachineguns go, I'm not familiar enough with them to really give an answer. One thing to note is that submachineguns in general began to fall out of regular use after WW2, and where they remained they tended to fall into very niche roles where the benefits of a side-mounted magazine may not have mattered anymore. | [
"Breech-loading guns seemed to offer important advantages. A breech-loader could be reloaded without moving the gun, a lengthy process particularly if the gun then needed to be re-aimed. The \"Warrior\"s Armstrong guns also had the virtue of being lighter than an equivalent smoothbore and, because of their rifling,... |
“World War II in colour” is amongst the most famous modern documentaries covering the War, but does it have any glaring historical inaccuracies? | I'm going to focus on Episode 2: Lightning War.
I wouldn't say that both of these are 100% false, but they are inaccuracies that play into pretty standard tropes of the war that remove some of the nuance that I think is necessary in studying the conflict.
The episode details what it calls Blitzkrieg doctrine and it is the usual score. Tanks mass in their own formations, combine with air and artillery to strike at vulnerable points in a line, bypass strong points, and encircle formations on an operational level and not just a tactical one. While Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and later campaigns in the USSR certainly called for this, Blitzkrieg was more of a development of the older German "Bewegungskrieg" or "war of movement." Going back to the Prussians and Frederick the Great, the doctrine was to encircle enemies and do concentric attacks. The way popular media, including this documentary portrays the German Army makes it seem like the 1941 Wehrmacht was the 1939 Wehrmacht. Even in 1941, most of the Wehrmacht was powered by horse and not internal combustion. For Poland, Max Hastings gives the number at 400,000 horses and 200,000 overall vehicles in the invasion. Hastings even uses the word "blitzkrieg," and while the new type of fighting was formidable, I really believe it is important to stress that was a doctrine in development and would not reach its full capacity until later.
The second is the nature of Polish cavalry. While detailing the state of the Polish military situation, it shows clips of Polish Uhlans with lances, yes... but notice those rifles slung across their backs and grenades and other modern weapons? Everyone loves the lances and the legend is the legend. This documentary certainly isn’t the only one. Heinz Guderian in his memoirs mentions it and claims that the Polish cavalry had "in ignorance of the nature of our tanks, [the Poles] had charged them with swords and lances and suffered tremendous losses." The same Poles who had the 7TP and multiple tankettes, though they did not mass them in the German manner.
William Shirer claims to have seen the results of the "Horses against tanks, the cavalryman's long lance against the tank's long barrel."
When actually discussing it, the documentary does say "legend has it" that cavalry attacked tanks. That could be worse, I'll give it that. Max Hastings does argue that there are two occasions where Polish cavalry and German Panzers fought, though his account is jumbled. He states that "a squadron hurled itself at full gallop at the village of Kaluszyn, strongly held by the Germans" and that "out of 85 horsemen who attacked, only 33 afterwards rallied."
He finds an account mentioning lances from a distance from a Lance-Corporal Hornes who says "we saw new unfamiliar contours... agile horses with bobbing heads, ridden by Polish Uhlans in their khaki uniforms, long lances held with one end in the stirrup and the other slung from the shoulder... our machine guns opened fire." The film footage shows that this was riding formation and not necessarily attack formation since we can also see the carbines and grenades. It is also from a German account, and while we can't discount those, we have to take it as a grain of salt considering the nature of Nazi views on any Eastern enemies.
So, at best, relying on German sources, there were two times where this happened, and one was a small attack of fewer than 100 men on a town.
The most likely origin of this myth/exaggeration is the famous account of Krojanty on September 1st.
At Krojanty, Polish Uhlans in the number of 250 men were indeed ordered to charge in desperation... against infantry... AND THEY WON. They scattered a German battalion, only to be ambushed by German armored cars as they pursued. The armored cars cut down and scattered the charge, which again, was already in progress and was proving successful. News crews, famously Italian in one case, saw parked mechanized vehicles, dead horses with sabers and lances, and filled in the blanks.
So to sum up, was "blitzkrieg" and the 1939 Wehrmacht impressive for its time... well obviously. It beat Poland in a month! Does the documentary summarize Blitzkrieg into something that is a bit of an exaggeration without making connections to earlier or later developments... I would argue it does.
It isn't the worst source in how it covers Polish cavalry, but "legend says" and then regurgitating an old myth isn't ideal.
Sources:
Max Hastings "Inferno: The World at War"
Heinz Guderian "Panzer Leader"
William Shirer "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"
| [
"World War 1 in Colour is a six-episode television documentary series recounting the major events of World War I narrated by Kenneth Branagh. The first of its six parts aired on 23 July 2003. The series consists of colourised footage, with the colour of the images having been enhanced by computer-aided technology.\... |
why devices like ipods or zunes die quicker depending on how loud they output music | The device needs to make a 'prominent' signal.
Basically, it's converting electricity into sound energy. A louder sound energy needs more energy to produce.
Louder sounds needing more energy is intuitive too. Making things move needs energy since you're affecting the world with physical motions. If you want to make it more faster than you need to affect the world more and so it costs more energy. Sound is the same, you are affecting the world so if you want more of an effect then you need more energy.
Imagine if you were using a trampoline to make squeaky noises. If you wanted a louder or more frequent squeaky noise, all other things equal, you need to either jump harder or jump faster. | [
"iPods have been criticized for alleged short lifespan and fragile hard drives. A 2005 survey conducted on the MacInTouch website found that the iPod line had an average failure rate of 13.7% (although they note that comments from respondents indicate that \"the true iPod failure rate may be lower than it appears\"... |
common forms of democratically electing officials. | The truth is that there's no *best* way to run an election. There's several different ways, but each of them has advantages and disadvantages and many will work for some countries better than they will for others. There's also an argument to be made that we don't always want the government to represent the wishes of the people because sometimes the people want what's bad for them. Some people would argue that instead we want a government that represents the best interests of the people.
The way the US currently uses is called a winner take all, single member district, first past the post system. What that means is that we divide each state up into smaller regions and each region votes on one person who they want to represent their region. (that's the winner take all, single member district part) The winner of the election is whoever gets the most votes at the end of the election. (the first past the post part)
This system has a lot of advantages. It's easy to understand, it's actually pretty easy to predict, and the way we have it set up in the US does a pretty good job of representing the really diverse regional interests the US has.
What may or may not be a downside (depending on who you ask) is that the single member district, first past the post system is that it it's pretty well guaranteed that you'll end up with a two party system. Rather than explain why that happens, I'm going to link you to [a video](_URL_0_) that gives a really good explanation of the mechanics. (I will caution that while his explanation of the mechanics of why a two party system happens is really good, I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions, but that's another post entirely)
The other issue is that it does open up the potential for gerrymandering, which is generally accepted as a bad thing. In order to have districts someone has to decide where the district lines are drawn. In the US, that's up to the state legislatures which will have political agendas they will try to advance by drawing the districts in such a way that their party wins more elections. I would hesitate to call it corruption though, because as long as the districts meet certain requirements, the state legislatures are free to draw them however they want. One way to prevent gerrymandering is to appoint a non-partisan commission to draw district lines and have the legislature just rubber stamp that map.
Since this is already a wall of text, I'll explain the next form of election in a reply to this post. | [
"Unicameral or lower houses are always directly elected, whereas an upper house may be directly elected (e.g. the Senate of Poland); or have a more limited electorate, such as a higher voting age (e.g. the Italian Senate); or indirectly elected, for example, by regional legislatures (e.g. the Federal Council of Aus... |
what is the actual story behind the theory that the us invaded the middle east for oil? | There is no story.
The trade of oil is important to the economy. If it were to stop, there would be chaos. This is why the US has a massive oil storage (so that in the event of a temporary disruption, the economy won't come grinding to a halt).
Instability in the middle east causes threat to the trade of oil. In some cases (I.e. Sadam Hussein lighting Kuwait's oil pumps on fire during the first Gulf War) the threat is pretty direct. In other cases (I.e. ISIS taking over areas of Iraq where oil is produced) the threat is less direct but still noteworthy.
While it's important to realize that this is a factor, stating that this is the sole or primary factor for going to war is usually incorrect, or at least a conclusion drawn too easily. It is, as you said, a cliché, and most people who state this have nothing to back it up other than "well Joe at my office said so, and he's really smart."
There are, after all, easier ways to acquiring and securing oil than going to war. | [
"Conspiracy theorists in the Arab world have advanced rumors that the US is secretly behind the existence and emboldening of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as part of an attempt to further destabilize the Middle East. After such rumors became widespread, the US embassy in Lebanon issued an official state... |
how are tv shows such as "bar rescue", or any of the home renovation/makeover shows able to afford these huge and i would assume expensive renovations? | I'm sure it's like extreme makeover where sure, you get it for free but then they get stuck with the taxes on everything. There's a lot of money made in commercials and endorsements though. Plenty enough to cover the part they pay | [
"Bar Rescue is an American reality television series that premiered on Spike on July 17, 2011rebranded as Paramount Network in 2018. It stars Jon Taffer, a long-time food and beverage industry consultant specializing in nightclubs, bars, and pubs, who offers his professional expertise plus renovations and equipment... |
what's with so many movies/tv shows using the same coffee cups? | [Here's a brief history.](_URL_0_). The cup does have a name.
Simply put, it's recognizable and simple. Movies often include the Wilhelm Scream as well, for no other reason than it's a tradition. Like games have Easter Eggs, so do movies. In fact, if you watch many famous directors' films, you'll find that they constantly fit stuff like this in.
In reality, it also makes it easier. Why design a cup for every different kind of shot? They can't use name brands, even for small chains, because those are trademarked. If a company tries to use a design, like the famous wave cups everyone remembers from the 90s, people make money off those too. It's simpler to stick with one design. Most likely, those shows are all funded by a similar parent company, if not one. It's easier to agree to one cup than multiple.
Edit: It's a famous cup anyway, and practically timeless. If they used a cup from say, Starbucks, you'd be able to date it more easily. | [
"Characters from David Lynch's \"Twin Peaks\" advertised Georgia coffee in a 4-part commercial series in 1991. In PlayStation Home, the PlayStation 3's online community-based service, Coca-Cola has placed a vending machine in Home that takes users to a space called the \"Georgia Break Station\". The vending machine... |
how does google maps know if there is "an accident on i-85 s is causing 30 min delays"? | Google pays for access to official government traffic info, in addition to crowd sourced info like Waze. | [
"Google Maps supplies critical crisis information to the public through search engines. It is used to provide crisis information such as road closure, areas covered in debris, roads which are passable, and resources such as for emergency medical stations. Using the My Map feature, KPBS, a broadcast station, created... |
Economics after the French revolution | Is this a homework question? It says in our rules:
> Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come to us with questions about what you've learned. This is explained further in [this [META] thread](_URL_0_).
You can also consider asking the helpful people at /r/HomeworkHelp. | [
"The French economy was in continual crisis during the Directory. At the beginning, the treasury was empty; the paper money, the Assignat, had fallen to a fraction of its value, and prices soared. The Directory stopped printing assignats and restored the value of the money, but this caused a new crisis; prices and ... |
Why wasn't Hanover incorporated into the UK? | I actually have written about this topic a bit before: _URL_0_
The thing to remember is that there was a personal union, not a political union, although Hanover's foreign policy and government in exile were at different periods run out of London. Hanover was a possession of the crown, but had its own independent existence. The kings of Britain were only also kings of Hanover after 1814; before that they possessed it as electors. | [
"In 1813, George III was restored to his Hanoverian territories, and in October 1814 they were constituted as the independent Kingdom of Hanover at the Congress of Vienna. The personal union with the United Kingdom ended in 1837 on the accession of Queen Victoria because the succession laws in Hanover, based on Sal... |
how do recruitment agencies, such as lucas group, work in terms of finding you a job? do you pay them from your future salary, or are they even legit? | Agencies like this are paid a fee by the company they have been contracted by. They will help you prepare your resume, highlight your skills and send you for interviews they have set-up with the contracted companies. If they say that you have to pay them, or owe them a part of the wage then it’s not legit. | [
"Some third-party recruiters work on their own, while others operate through an agency, acting as direct contacts between client companies and the job candidates they recruit. They can specialize in client relationships only (sales or business development), in finding candidates (recruiting or sourcing), or in both... |
How did people of different religions interact in the ancient world? For example, how did the Roman adherents feel about Egyptian beliefs? Was there religious controversy? | Using Herodotus as a source, the Ancient Greeks seemed to have viewed other polytheistic religions as being pretty much equivalent to their own. Sure, other cultures might worship in a different manner, not worship some gods, but, you know, no big deal. Here's some stuff from Herodotus' Histories, Book 2:
> "It is at Heliopolis that the most learned of the Egyptians are said to be found. I am not anxious to repeat what I was told about the Egyptian religion, apart from the mere names of their deities, for I do not think that any one nation knows much more about such things than any other; whatever I shall mention on the subject will be due simply to the exigencies of my story..." (2.3)
> "They also told me that the Egyptians first brought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks took over from them, and were the first to assign altars and images and temples to the gods, and to carve figures in stone. They proved the truth of most of these assertions..." (2.5)
Tangent on Ethiopia:
> "The inhabitants worship Zeus and Dionysus alone of the gods, holding them in great honour. There is an oracle of Zeus there, and they make war according to its pronouncements, taking from it both the occasion and the object of their various expeditions" (2.29).
Back to Egypt:
> "The statues of Isis show a female figure with cow's horns, like the Greek representations of Io..." (2.41)
> "...Not all Egyptians worship the same gods— the only two to be universally worshipped are Isis and Osiris, who, they say, is Dionysus" (2.42)
> "The Thebans and those who follow them explain the origin of their custom of abstaining from the sacrifice of sheep by a story of Heracles, who, they say, wished above all things to see Zeus. Zeus, however, was unwilling that his wish should be gratified. Heracles persisted, and Zeus had to devise a means of getting out of the difficulty. His plan was to skin a ram and cut off its head; then, holding the head before him and covering himself in the fleece, he showed himself to Heracles. This story explains why the Egyptians represent Zeus with a ram's head— a practice which has extended to the Ammonians... So far as I can see, the Ammonians took their name too from this circumstance; for Amun is the Egyptian name for Zeus." (2.42).
Anyway, I'll keep editing more quotes in, but, as you can see, religion was really not a point of conflict with Egypt at all, at least from a Greek perspective. They could identify common ground and assume that everyone was more or less worshipping the same guys. And then keep in mind that Macedonians had already taken over rule in Egypt by the time the Romans were in power, so, I'm guessing it also wasn't an issue then.
What about other cultures? The Persian Empire actually offered pretty complete religious freedom, which was great, and they're pretty praised in the Judeo-Christian tradition for freeing the Israelites from the rule of the Babylonians. In contrast, the Roman Empire insisted that Jews put up statues of the Emperor in their temples, which they refused, leading to war. But other than that the Romans were pretty inclusive too.
One of the problems with Judaism in the ancient world was just that it became so monotheistic. All these polytheistic cultures, as we saw above, could pretty much find common ground, and nothing in their religions prohibited some other culture from having another new god. But Judaism goes and insists that their god is the *only* god, and everyone else is just wrong. Or, at least, that the Jews should have no other gods before God. So the Old Testament contains stories saying that members of other religions sacrificed children to idols, and contests showing that God's powers are real while everyone else's either don't exist or are weaker. And conversely, the Jewish/Roman historian Josephus wrote an account in the 1st century that tells us that Jews were also being accused of human sacrifice by Egyptians. Human sacrifices [that never really took place] all around! | [
"Native Egyptian religion clearly had at least a somewhat substantial effect on Graeco-Roman polytheism; in Egypt itself, however, native religion probably felt little other effect from the new pagan rulers, until the advent of Christianity. Although Augustus built new temples and repaired existing ones in Egypt, R... |
Did an Ionian Crusade happen? | Do you have any more information about this book? I can't seem to find anything about it, but I imagine it might be in Greek?
In any case, Matteo (or Maio) is a rather enigmatic figure. It's not clear that he was really an Orsini, or where he was from. He may have just been some random irate that took advantage of the Fourth Crusade to seize Cephalonia, Corfu, Ithaka, and Zakynthos. He took the side of whoever would support him, whether Genoa, the pope, or Venice. It's certainly possible that while he was under papal protection, the pope asked him to go on crusade to the Holy Land, but that doesn't necessarily mean he did, or that there would necessarily be any record of it if he did.
Does the book mention any medieval sources for this information? | [
"From the late 11th century, the Ionian Islands became a battleground in the Byzantine–Norman Wars. The island of Corfu was held by the Normans in 1081–1085 and 1147–1149, while the Venetians unsuccessfully besieged it in 1122–1123. The island of Cephalonia was also unsuccessfully besieged in 1085, but was plundere... |
How much did the Mashal plan, and things like it contribute to the recovery of Europe and Japan post WWII? | It was quite helpful. While it only constituted roughly 5% of the GDP of the areas in which it was rolled out, as a morale boost, it had a tremendous effect. America emerged from the war with a GDP worth about 45% of the world's. It was largely untouched by bombs (Pearl Harbor and the Aleutians aside), had immense industrial capacity that had grown ever since it began supplying the Allies in 1940, and had claimed most of the world's gold reserves through its loans to the Allied powers starting in 1914. Thus, in 1945, when Europeans could very easily see the [world as having ended](_URL_0_), America's Marshall Plan came as an amazing assurance that everyone would get through this together.
In addition, it can't be overstated how important the private sector was in post-war reconstruction. Remember, Marshall Plan aid was to be used for the purchase of American goods, since America had developed such industrial capacity during the war that by 1945 & 6, without the demands of Total War, America was already slipping into a recession predicated on overproduction. So the Marshall Plan was meant to be a government subsidy to domestic corporate interests in a way that would also revive a strong European standard of living (read: consumption).
Before the war, American companies such as Woolworth's and Gillette had made inroads into the European market. But after the war, domestic European companies had been displaced and disrupted, and, perhaps most importantly, social mores of who shops where for what had been destroyed by the apocalyptic struggle. So American corporations were given carte blanche to show up with mass produced consumer items, available to all levels of society. This combined with populations who were fed up with war and demanded real change, especially in terms of quality of life. American advertising also played a huge role, convincing people that cheaply manufactured American products like refrigerators were not just the playthings of the aristocracy, but readily accessible material goods that were not just luxuries, but necessities of modern life.
The Marshall Plan is laughably small when seen today ($103 Billion in 2015 USD; compare that to our previous couple wars or bailouts), but its main purpose was to jumpstart various industries and really whole economies which had been halted while the continent devoured itself in war. That said, it truly was a terrifically successful plan which benefited most people whom it affected. From the Greek farmers who got their Missouri mules to French perfume makers who had their factories rebuilt and their customer base expanded to the wider populations of Europe and America to the American manufacturers and their employees who could count on well off Europeans to buy their products, the Marshall Plan shows how a stimulus, if executed correctly, can transform and revivify a totally destroyed society.
Sources:
Paul Kennedy, *Rise and Fall of the Great Powers*
Victoria de Grazia, *Irresistible Empire*: This is where all my info on consumption came from. Sorry if that was in a different direction than you were hoping, but I've been reading this book recently and it's a truly tremendous history on how America came to occupy a commercial and cultural hegemony in the 20th and 21st century | [
"The Fugu Plan was an idea first discussed in 1934, in the Empire of Japan, centered around the idea of settling thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Jewish refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe, in Manchuria and Japanese-occupied Shanghai. The Imperial government wanted to gain Jewish economic prowess while co... |
How does the elemental composition of 'average' planets change over a universe's lifetime? | There was a [Scientific American article](_URL_0_) which said that the ratio of heavier elements to hydrogen will increase in interstellar dust clouds due to supernova explosions sending heavier elements outward. Because of this, in the far future, stars will cough up more planets, including planets that are small and rocky, like Earth. Quote from article:
> Despite the diminishing rate of star formation, perhaps half or two thirds of all the planets that will ever exist have yet to be born.
In addition, stars will be smaller, because of less available hydrogen to form new stars. Smaller stars are not a problem though for life (the habitable zone will just be closer to the star), so in the far future the universe will be more hospitable for life, because there will be more habitable planets. Quote from article:
> At first, the proliferation of planets does not seem promising for life. Most of the stars of the far future will be much less massive and less luminous than the sun. Fortunately, even a low-mass, dim star can allow life to flourish. A star with as little as one one-thousandth of the sun's luminosity can maintain temperatures that allow liquids to exist on close-in planets, satisfying what seems to be a requirement for living things to exist.
And more:
> Planets should not only grow generally more common but also be enriched in the stuff of life. In addition to requiring a liquid bath, life on Earth, as well as almost all other forms of life that scientists speculate about, depends on the existence of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. As time goes on, the increasing relative abundance of these elements should yield planets more hospitable to life. Therefore, as star formation steadily diminishes, every newborn star should appear with a progressively greater probability of lighting one or more potential life-bearing planets. Some of these new stars will have the low masses and tiny luminosities that allow them to last for hundreds or thousands of billions of years (not that such immense lifetimes seem necessary for the origin and evolution of life). However full or empty of life the universe may be today, it should teem with more abundant and more varied forms of life in the future.
EDIT: got access to article. Can add in more details. | [
"Present day elemental abundances are superimposed on an (evolving) galactic-average set of elemental abundances that was inherited by the Solar System, along with some atoms from local nucleosynthesis sources, at the time of the Sun's formation. Knowledge of these average planetary system elemental abundances is s... |
Did medieval cities have addresses like we do today? | This being the European Middle Ages, the land where people spelled their name however they felt like that particular day (Beutler, Buetler, Beutlerin, Buttler, Bettlerein, Bütler...), it should not come as a surprise that addresses were likewise, shall we say, *less than systematic.*
A good example might be University of Paris financial records from the 14th century, tracking where some of the students and teachers live. What's not visible from the record itself is that medieval cities were divided into sections (sometimes "quarters," although rarely precisely 4) that had names. Sometimes they might actually be descriptive--a Dyers' Quarter might actually host most of the dyer population, since they needed good water access--but not necessarily.
The most important thing for addresses seems to have been street name. However. Not all addresses have them! Some students' residences are described as "by the gate of [p]" or "next to the monastery of [q]."
And then there's that frustrating bit in Eric Jager's excellent *Blood Royal* (a.k.a. CSI:Medieval Paris), where he keeps talking about the House of the Virgin Mary and the House of the Shepherds (or whatever; I'm spitballing) and it seems very serious and formal. No, he's basically talking about apartment buildings.
Just like businesses were marked off by symbols (think today's barber's pole or blue-and-green pharmacy cross), non-commercial buildings often had their own name. Surviving examples, and written evidence like the manuscripts Jager used, denote a statue or mold set into a recess in the building's wall. I always think of the *Fellowship of the Ring* chapter: "At the *Sign* of the Prancing Pony". (As Middle-Earth is NOT the Middle Ages, however, Tolkien felt and deserved to feel free to give it whatever literacy rates he wanted).
I hope that helps clarify things a little! | [
"In the early 19th century, when several important towns (especially The Hague) wanted to call themselves cities, the custom of granting city status was briefly revived. The last grant of city status in the Netherlands was to Delfshaven in 1825. But the city status granted during this period was quite different fro... |
Were there any Roman stone castles? | The Romans built many great stone forts.
The word "castle" is usually used to refer to the private fortified residence of a noble (though not always, there are Royal Castles, and castles of the military orders as well as the castles of nobility in Medieval times). The Romans did not build many (any?) of these types of "castles".
Some Roman stone forts still exist. Portchester Castle in Hampshire, England, is a well preserved example. (The Roman fort was re-purposed as a castle in Medieval times, and a Medieval stone keep built in one corner of the old Roman fort). The outer walls, built of stone by the Romans were the walls built to create a fort to defend the "Saxon Shore" of Britain against Saxon incursions. | [
"A wooden motte-and-bailey castle appears to have existed there at one time. The site was also possibly previously used by Roman soldiers, and an ancient church was founded there by Saint Beuno in the 6th century.\n",
"Until the 19th century very little was known about hill forts, as none had been excavated and t... |
Is plant breeding and animal domestication considered evidence of evolution? | Yes. Although the primary force of evolution driving changes in domesticated organisms is artificial selection rather than natural selection (at least initially). | [
"Unwittingly, humans have carried out evolution experiments for as long as they have been domesticating plants and animals. Selective breeding of plants and animals has led to varieties that differ dramatically from their original wild-type ancestors. Examples are the cabbage varieties, maize, or the large number o... |
what is the difference between a sponsorship and an advertisement? | What you're referring to is more frequently called underwriting. "Underwriting" and "sponsoring" can usually be used interchangeably (some organizations draw distinctions, though), but the FCC sets the rules for broadcasters and they call it underwriting.
When you pay for an advertisement, you are paying for some amount of airtime and can have the station play pretty much anything you want that doesn't otherwise violate general broadcast rules.
When you underwrite a program, you give money to the program to support it generally in exchange for recognition that you are an underwriter. There are much greater limitations on what qualifies as recognizing an underwriter. I don't have a list of all the rules on me, but generally you can't make any calls to action (that's why you always hear "more information at _URL_0_" instead of "go to _URL_0_ to find out more"), give price information, induce people to make specific purchases, or make qualitative claims about products.
You've probably noticed most sponsor recognition announcements on NPR state the company's slogan, something about how the company likes public radio, a positive bit about the company's history, and then tell you where to find out more information about the company. The reason they follow that formula is that it gives a good impression of the company without violating FCC rules on underwriting. | [
"Advertising is a marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea. Sponsors of advertising are typically businesses wishing to promote their products or services. Advertising is differentiated from public relations in that an advertiser pa... |
Why were book titles of the 19th and 18th century so long, as well as give away the plot? | We discussed this quite a bit in my 18th Century British Novel class. You're on the right track with advertising. The long titles got people interested and piqued their curiosity. Also, keep in mind that the 18th century marked the very beginnings of the novel itself. Up until then, there were none. There were epics and romances, but not novels as we know them now. Many of those in the upper class viewed them as not worthy of their time, and many authors of the first novel were writing for the growing middle class, which was becoming literate in large numbers for the first time.
Someone else will probably have a better answer. I'd love to read it.
As far as the spelling change you mentioned, I'd say that could just be attributed to language evolution. That was pretty common (and still is). But someone at /r/linguistics would definitely be able to answer that one more specifically. It likely has to do with vowel shifts, but I'm not a linguist. | [
"It was in the Victorian era (1837–1901) that the novel became the leading literary genre in English. Another important fact is the number of women novelists who were successful in the 19th century, even though they often had to use a masculine pseudonym. At the beginning of the 19th century most novels were publis... |
why is being on your tippy toes so important to ballet? | Pointe technique (French: [pwɛ̃t tɛknik]) is the part of classical ballet technique that concerns pointe work, in which a ballet dancer supports all body weight on the tips of fully extended feet. A dancer is said to be en pointe when the dancer's body is supported in this manner, and a fully extended vertical foot is said to be en pointe when touching the floor, even when not bearing weight. Pointe work is performed while wearing pointe shoes, which employ structural reinforcing to distribute the dancer's weight load throughout the foot, thus reducing the load on the toes enough to enable the dancer to support all body weight on fully vertical feet.
**Pointe technique resulted from a desire for female dancers to appear weightless and sylph-like**. Although both men and women are capable of pointe work, it is most often performed by women. Extensive training and practice are required to develop the strength and technique needed for pointe work. | [
"Ballet technique is the foundational principles of body movement and form used in ballet. A distinctive feature of ballet technique is \"turnout;\" which is the outward rotation of the legs and feet emanating from the hip. This was first introduced into ballet by King Louis XIV because he loved to show off the shi... |
Wednesday AMA | World War One, Early 20th C. English Literature | Ok. So there's this comedian, can't recall him name though, who talked about the reasons behind WW1. He had a narrative going linking supposed German railroad ambitions between Berlin and Baghdad and abundance of oil in "Mesopotamia". Then he went on to describe WW1 as the invasion of Iraq by Brittain.
Do you know this comedians name? Also; is any of this remotely true? | [
"BULLET::::- The literature of World War I makes its first appearance. John Masefield writes the poem \"August, 1914\" (published in the September 1 issue of \"The English Review\"), the last he will produce before the peace.\n",
"BULLET::::- August – The literature of World War I makes its first appearance. John... |
How popular were Jainism and Buddhism across the Indian subcontinent around 769 AD? | While it's hard to speak with certainty for this time period in particular, it's unlikely Jainism was the dominant belief system in India at this time. A more convincing argument could be made for Buddhism as the dominant tradition among the ruling class, while the faith of the people had likely remained eclectic.
The period in question (\~769 CE) falls within a relatively poorly documented period in North Indian history. The political turmoil following the death of Emperor Harshavardhana (c. 590–647 CE) of the Vardhana Dynasty led to a roughly 150 year gap in extensive contemporary writing. By contrast, the reign of Emperor Harshavardhana is among the most extensively documented in Indian history, with surviving records from multiple sources. The most important of these are the *Harshacharita* ("The Deeds of Harsha"), written by his court poet Bannabhatta, and the writings of the Chinese monk Xuanzang, who visited the court of Harsha and travelled extensively through India. A contrasting text roughly dating to after this fallow historic period is the *Shankara Digvijaya*, detailing the exploits of the Hindu philosopher Adishankara (born c. 788 CE). Overlaying these texts gives us some context for the religious makeup of India during the period in questions.
It's worth remembering that the faith of the lay public probably remained eclectic, drawing from disparate traditions, and moving fluidly across them. The ruling elite patronized religious institutions of all faiths, and this seemed to be reflected among the public. For example, decorative panels offered at Buddhist stupas demonstrate that Hindu merchants were also keen to seek the blessings of the Buddha. Emperor Harsha's court poet Banabhatta records Harsha as a devout Shaivite, while Xuanzang notes him to be a devout Buddhist. Both sources record Harsha donating generously to holy men regardless of their tradition. Xuanzang records a yearly charitable event for monks. While four days each were set aside for Hindu and Jain monks, 16 days were set aside for the Buddhist monks. It's unclear if the disparity was due to imperial favouratism, or simply reflects a skew in the number of holy men from each tradition. If Banabhatta is to be believed that Harsha was a devoted Hindu, then Xuanzang's record of the number of days would suggest that the Buddhist monks were much more numerous in the empire. This version of events is also supported by the concerns of writings of the traditions themselves. For example, the Hindu texts composed leading up to this period (The age of the Sutras) are devoted to apologia for their own philosophical school, and polemics against other philosophical schools, including other Hindu schools and the Buddhists (and to a lesser extent, the Jains). Contrast this with the writings of the Buddhists during the same period, and they are relatively unconcerned with the Hindus, who are treated as a philosophically spent force. The force of the arguments are reserved against rival Buddhist schools. Whether this is the blossoming of Buddhist commentary writing in general, or reflects the headspace of Buddhist writers as chiefly occupied with the heresies of other nominal Buddhists is anybody's guess.
If we now incorporate the religious landscape as laid out in the late 8th century *Shankara Digvijaya*, the Buddhists are established as the dominant religious tradition in the country. Shankara's writings are aimed towards solving the theological arguments raised by the Buddhists, and they are his chief rivals. It's also likely that the cultural importance of the Buddhists as an opposing force is overblown in the *Digvijaya*, to further enhance the cache associated with Shankara for defeating them. Nevertheless, when the *Digvijaya* was composed in the generation following Shankara, it wouldn't make sense to prop up the Buddhists as the chief rivals if they hadn't been a major force within living memory. This disparate sources of evidence would suggest that the Buddhists had been a major religious tradition at least upto the 8th Century CE. This time period also represents a major shift in the Buddhist schools in Northern India at the time, with the Theravada school losing out to Mahayana, and eventually Vajrayana.
None of these sources hold the Jains as a significant political or cultural power during this time period. While they were significant *communities* of Jains in South India, I am unfamiliar with a widespread Hindu or Buddhist engagement with them, though I could be mistaken. | [
"While the geographic impact of Jainism was limited to India, Buddhist nuns and monks eventually spread the teachings of Buddha to Central Asia, East Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka and South East Asia. Nalanda University and Vikramshila University one of the oldest residential universities were established in Bihar during ... |
how you become eligible to be knighted and the process that follows | The most common Order of Chivalry is The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, which has five "ranks." From highest to lowest, these are:
1. Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE), limited to 300
1. Knight Commander or Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE or DBE), limited to 845
1. Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), limited to 8,960
1. Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1. Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)
GBE and KBE/DBE automatically make the recipient a knight (male) or a dame (female), which allows them to use the title "Sir [Name]" or "Dame [Name]." Note that these honorifics are used only before the first name, so you would, e.g., refer to Sir Patrick Stewart or Sir Patrick, but never Sir Stewart.
As part of the British honours system, membership in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a **means of rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories**. All members of the order are appointed by the current British monarch, who is Sovereign of the Order. Typically, they do this under the advice of the governments of Britain and the Commonwealth. No more than 858 Officers and 1,464 Members may be appointed per year.
Other Orders of Chivalry include the Order of the Garter and the Order of the Thistle. Some Orders of Merit also come with an honorary knighthood at their highest ranks. Men may also be knighted separately from membership in one of these orders, giving them the rank of Knight Bachelor (Kt).
Only citizens of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth can be full members of these orders. Foreigners are considered honorary members only, and while they may use the letters after their name, they do not take the title of "Sir" or "Dame." | [
"A knighthood is granted to a man upon appointment to the High Court, usually made a Knight Bachelor; by convention, a woman on appointment to the High Court becomes a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE)). By convention judges of the Court of Appeal are appointed to the Privy Coun... |
Why do bags of chocolate inflate in the freezer? | it contains water. | [
"Chocolate is very sensitive to temperature and humidity. Ideal storage temperatures are between , with a relative humidity of less than 50%. If refrigerated or frozen without containment, chocolate can absorb enough moisture to cause a whitish discoloration, the result of fat or sugar crystals rising to the surfac... |
why did different species of leaves evolve to be different? especially if they are from the same place, what's the point? | Things don't evolve 'because of a point,' evolution is a random process that occurs generation to generation. Natural selection tends to favor beneficial outcomes, which makes it look 'after the fact' like things have evolved specifically to fit their circumstances.
Since the species you are referencing aren't the *same* species, they don't share the mutations amongst themselves from generation to generation, which means unless there's a strong selective pressure against it, you can see divergence of form. Basically, there's not some sort of 'leaf shape cop' going around and eliminating the changes. | [
"The shape and structure of leaves vary considerably from species to species of plant, depending largely on their adaptation to climate and available light, but also to other factors such as grazing animals (such as deer), available nutrients, and ecological competition from other plants. Considerable changes in le... |
To what extent were Nelson's manoeuvres at the Battle of Trafalgar influenced by the tactical genius of Admiral Ackbar? | The tactics of the Rebellion are built more on speed than the perfidious Nelson. The Rebellion did not have the level of ship building nor material advantage to fight a large and lumbering opponent. I would argue that their tactics are more based off of the Danes fTom The Gunboat War rather than Nelson. | [
"Lord Nelson described his tactics for the Battle of Trafalgar as inducing a \"pell mell battle\" focused on engagements between individual ships where the superior morale and skill of the Royal Navy would prevail.\n",
"The Battle of Trafalgar, on 21 October 1805, was an engagement between the British fleet comma... |
what is the difference between movies and films? also directors and filmmakers? | I forgot who said it but .... “a movie , you see and forget about in a day or even an hour after leaving the cinema. While A film, is a movie that you see and you think about weeks , months or even years after seeing it and it’s meaning is still more relevant to you than ever.”
A director is a certain specialization of a filmmaker. Like although all directors are considered filmmakers . Not all filmmakers direct. The term filmmakers is more broad while the term directors is specific. | [
"Generally, the sole superiors of the director are the producer(s) and the studio that is financing the film, although sometimes the director can also be a producer of the same film. The role of a director differs from producers in that producers typically manage the logistics and business operations of the product... |
If the moon was covered in a mirror like material would it look like a second sun? | No, in the same sense that a reflecting metal ball under a lamp does not look like a second lamp. | [
"Experiments with a mirror are used to show that the Moon's surface must be opaque and not a perfect crystal sphere as Simplicio believes. He refuses to accept that mountains on the Moon cause shadows, or that reflected light from the Earth is responsible for the faint outline in a crescent moon.\n",
"outer atmos... |
During WW1 & 2, how were senior ranks in the new divisions filled? | During WWII, most, if not all, of the commanders of the new infantry and armored divisions (on paper, major generals, but brigadier generals did serve as acting division commanders often) were career officers that had begun their military experience fighting on the ground as enlisted men or low-grade officers in World War I, or had commanded outfits stateside. Most were over 50 years old. Immediately before the war, many had risen to command battalions and regiments, or were even assistant division commanders. In general, division commanders *were* promoted or selected from existing high-grade officer ranks, and many did advance quite quickly, two or three ranks in the span of two years. By virtue of command experience and length of service, they would not be overwhelmed by this. Only the best officers were selected to command divisions.
When a [new division was to be activated](_URL_0_), the general officers (division commander, assistant division commander, artillery commander) were selected by Army Ground Forces Headquarters. The G-1 (manpower and personnel) section of the Army Ground Forces compiled a list of officers (not necessarily general officers yet) by efficiency rating that were already in the active Army and were eligible for promotions or transfers to such a position. This list was given to Lieutenant General Lesley McNair, head of the Army Ground Forces, who looked over it and made his nominations for division commanders to the War Department. The G-1 section picked the other positions off the list, subject to McNair's approval. The G-1 section also controlled the flow of division officers into their respective training schools, and then to the division's camp.
The G-3 (operations) section of the Army Ground Forces was responsible for facilitating and providing the general manpower strength to the new division, designating a camp for the division to train at, and informing all relevant agencies that needed to provide personnel and equipment for a new division that one was being activated.
Lower-grade officers like lieutenants were selected through training at Officer Candidate Schools and graduation from college ROTC programs. Before a division was to be activated, the officers underwent training relevant to their specific branches in order to best train the men they would command in their new division when it was activated. Noncommissioned officers generally advanced through promotion and training outcomes; all rifle squad leaders were "bumped up" from Sergeant to Staff Sergeant in mid-1943. Transfers during the training period and, later in the war, "stripping" of divisions that were stateside for want of replacements to send overseas diminished the cohesion of the divisions, who were supposed to stay together from day one of training until their first combat.
Source:
[*United States Army in World War II (The Army Ground Forces); The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops*](_URL_1_), by Robert R. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley, and William R. Keast (Historical Section, Army Ground Forces) | [
"In 1920, the Army rank and pay system received a major overhaul. All enlisted and non-commissioned ranks were reduced from 128 different insignias and several pay grades to only seven rank insignias and seven pay grades, which were numbered in seniority from seventh grade (lowest) to first grade (highest). The sec... |
why were the the bodies of those who died of a fatal dose of radiation at the chernobyl disaster still considered toxic and buried in zinc lined coffins? | Two things.
First, they probably got radioactive material from the accident site all over themselves. It's not just radiation that's escaping, it's also actual physical radioactive material that can contaminate body and clothes. This what they mean by nuclear fallout. So it's not like a bullet-riddled body, but more like a gun-riddled body, and those guns still shoot occasionally.
Second, one specific kind of radiation, neutron radiation, can actually make materials it hits radioactive. Neutron radiation is produced in nuclear reactors, and although it's hard to say whether it'd be still produced after the meltdown, it depends, it's possible that they were exposed to it. Then it'd be more like bullet fragments inside a body growing into loaded guns.
Those analogies were unexpectedly gross. | [
"As radioactive materials decay, they release particles that can damage the body and lead to cancer, particularly [[cesium-137]] and [[iodine-131]]. In the Chernobyl disaster, releases of cesium-137 contaminated land. Some communities, including the entire city of Pripyat, were abandoned permanently. One news sourc... |
Does a prism divide beyond the visible spectrum? Beyond what we consider light? Where does the effect end, and what causes it to stop dividing the electromagnetic spectrum? | Yes, this was actually how infrared radiation was discovered: someone (~~I forget who~~ William Herschel) noticed that a thermometer in the path of the refracted light would still heat up even if it was below the red part. Ultimately it is determined by the wavelength-dependent index of refraction. For very high* and very low wavelengths the index is pretty close to 1.0. You can see some sample data for glass [on the right here](_URL_0_). And [here](_URL_1_) is an example graph over a similar range.
*not 100% sure on that, someone correct me if I'm wrong. | [
"The refractive index of materials varies with the wavelength (and frequency) of light. This is called dispersion and causes prisms and rainbows to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors. As the refractive index varies with wavelength, so will the refraction angle as light goes from one material to... |
the difference between client, server, and driver. | Client and Server are related to each other. In the simplest terms, a client is an application that takes input, sends data to a Server to be processed, gets returned information, and presents the output.
A driver, on the other hand, is something related to hardware. It basically contains a mapping/translation so that an operating system can communicate with hardware. To greatly oversimplify, if you have two printers and one expects data to be output as < page size > < colour layer > < black layer > , another expects < color layer > < black layer > < page size > , and a third wants < full image layer > < page size > , their appropriate drivers will translate the raw data before it leaves the operating system. | [
"A driver in software provides a programming interface to control and manage specific lower level interface that is often linked to a specific type of hardware, or other low-level service. In the case of hardware, the specific subclass of drivers controlling physical or virtual hardware devices are known as device ... |
how do/did pirate radio stations get shut down? | Probably using a dish antenna, like satellite TV uses, and triangulation. The antenna picks up signal strongest from where it is pointing at, so they take three readings from three different places and trace the lines back to the source. Assuming that the signal is all they have to go on, this might take several tries, as the method is inaccurate from a long way off. But if they have some other clues that they could use to guess the general location of the broadcaster, then the amount of tries drops to as few as one. | [
"The radio station was founded by Peer Jansen and Ib Fogh. It was called a pirate radio, because it was considered a lawless attack on the monopoly of the Danish National Broadcasting Corporation, though the authorities didn't have any weapon in the first place to stop the \"radio pirates\".\n",
"Operators of non... |
why do some religions prohibit contraceptives? | I grew up Mormon. While I don't think it was prohibited, it was very frowned upon. The reasoning I heard was that Good commanded Adam and Eve to multiply. Contraceptives go against that because you aren't having kids. | [
"From very early times various methods of contraception have been practiced in Islam, and Muslim jurists of the two major sects of Islam, Sunni and Shia, generally agree that contraception and family planning are not forbidden by Sharia; the use of contraceptive devices is permitted if the marital partners agree. A... |
how do different waves travel long distances without any distortion? (ex:radio, wi-fi, cellphones, space transmissions) | Layman's version: There is distortion. Engineers make sure devices use enough power to overcome distortion.
Advanced: Engineers make a link budget that adds transmitter power output and antenna gains. Losses are included such as free space loss, attenuation, atmospheric lens loss, radome (or other enclosure), and so on. Free space loss is a big factor and it depends on frequency and distance. The further away you are, the greater the loss of power.
So it just needs to be powerful enough for the receiving antenna to pick up the signal at a certain distance. | [
"Low frequency waves can also occasionally travel long distances by reflecting from the ionosphere (the actual mechanism is one of refraction), although this method, called \"skywave\" or \"skip\" propagation, is not as common as at higher frequencies. Reflection occurs at the ionospheric E layer or F layers. Skywa... |
Do we know exactly which molecules fit in all our neurotransmitter receptors? | No, there are a hell of a lot. We know a lot about a lot of them, which you can find (many of) on _URL_0_ the protein data bank. The thing is, because there are so many, and you have to crystallise each one to run xray crystallography on it to find out it's structure, or NMR on some smaller ones, it takes a lot of time. We'll get there, eventually. | [
"Since many of the same neurotransmitters are found in the ENS as the brain, it follows that myenteric neurons can express receptors for both peptide and non-peptide (amines, amino acids, purines) neurotransmitters. Generally, expression of a receptor is limited to a subset of myenteric neurons, with probably the o... |
. will reclassification of internet as a utility have ramifications for personal privacy and government surveillance? | It doesn't seem like there'd be *more* government monitoring, since they are already monitoring it as deeply as technically feasible.
The classification would not make a difference in that regard. The government already has laws governing how and when it can monitor your traffic. ISPs do not stand in their way. | [
"The purpose of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights is to deter Internet companies from indiscriminate collection of personal information for targeted ads. In response, The Internet companies such as Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and AOL promised to provide a \"do not track\" mechanism so that customers can c... |
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