Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
what is this vault everyone is talking about? did i miss something?	Dude recently moved in a house previously owned by drug dealers. Finds safe/vault in basement. Asked reddit how to open. Spawned a huge subreddit. [/r/whatsinthisthing](_URL_0_)	[ "Inside the Vault is an American news magazine television show hosted by Cris Collinsworth that focuses on today’s American man. The show debuted online on February 3, 2011, and February 4, 2011 on WGN America. After its first season no plans were announced for a second season.\n", "The treasure ends up not being...
Why does it seem that revolutions break out in waves (eg. 2011, 1989, 1968, 1848)?	It has been shown to be directly related to spikes in food prices. People can tolerate a lot of bullshit, but when they are starving they might as well revolt: _URL_0_	[ "There was a wave of revolutions in Europe, collectively known as the Revolutions of 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history, but within a year, reactionary forces had regained control, and the revolutions collapsed.\n", "The Revolutions of 1848 were a series of uncoordinated p...
what causes people (recently highlighted young muslims) to become radicalized?	Well, to give you the ELI5 answer it would be education. There is a lack of education in the Middle East, which in turn affects the income of the average person. Eventually, when you're stuck in poverty and your government (Iraq), which is created by some other Western Democracy (The U.S.), does nothing, you tend to bl...	[ "According to the George-Soros-funded Open Society Institute, after the murder of Theo van Gogh in November 2004, Minister of Integration and Immigration Rita Verdonk commissioned an inquiry into the radicalisation of young Muslims. The conclusion was that many of them experience alienation, feeling disconnected wi...
How long would it take, in SUBJECTIVE time, travelling at just below the speed of light (say, 299,000 km/s) to reach Alpha Centauri?	[Wolfram Alpha](_URL_0_) makes it really easy to calculate this stuff. Go to that site and enter: relativistic time dilation at 299,000 km/s You'll get a calculation page with another input box for moving time. Enter: 4 years The calculation will come back and tell you that the subjective time is 0.2906 years, or 10...	[ "The journey to Alpha Centauri B orbit would take about 100 years, at an average velocity of approximately 13,411 km/s (about 4.5% the speed of light) and another 4.39 years would be necessary for the data to reach Earth.\n", "The fastest outward-bound spacecraft yet sent, Voyager 1, has covered 1/600 of a light-...
What would happen if we put tons of radioactive waste on the Sun?	nope. 'a drop in the ocean' wouldn't even do it justice.	[ "For instance, over a timeframe of thousands of years, after the most active short half-life radioisotopes decayed, burying U.S. nuclear waste would increase the radioactivity in the top of rock and soil in the United States () by approximately 0.1 parts per million over the cumulative amount of natural radioisotop...
Was there a Tsarist secret police? What was the transition from the Cheka to the KGB? How much continuity has there been throughout the history of Russian espionage services, in general?	Pushing the character limit here — I hope this answers most of your questions, but happy to clarify anything I've glossed over. Anyway, let's get into it... #From Okhrana to Cheka There was indeed a Tsarist secret police force — or rather, a series of them, starting with the [Oprichina](_URL_5_) of the 16th century an...	[ "In the Russian Empire, the secret police forces were the Third Section of the Imperial Chancery and then the Okhrana. After the Russian Revolution, the Soviet Union established the OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MVD, and KGB.\n", "There was a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The first secret police afte...
what is the difference between the european union and the european commission and the european community?	The European Union (EU) is a group of 25 countries that have signed various treaties giving them close political and economic ties. The European Community is an older name for the same thing. The European Commission is the executive governing body of the EU, it is responsible for proposing legislation that will affec...	[ "The European Commission is independent of national governments and its job is to represent and uphold the interests of the European Union as a whole. It drafts proposals for new European laws, which it presents to the European Parliament and the Council.\n", "The European Commission derives from one of the five ...
when we look at stars in the sky that are light years away, are the stars there at the moment we look, or are we looking at a years-old after image?	Simply, yes - we're seeing stars after the light has travelled all the way to us. Ten light years isn't that far (space-wise) so some of the stars we see have already died. And there's lots of stars that exist that we can't see yet, because the light hasn't reached us.	[ "The star's apparent magnitude, or how bright it appears from Earth's perspective, is 14. It is too dim to be seen with the naked eye, which typically can only see objects with a magnitude around 6 or less.\n", "The star's apparent magnitude, or how bright it appears from Earth's perspective, is 14. It is too dim...
Is their a psychological or physical benefit to tennis players who "moan", "groan" or scream every time they hit the ball?	Comming from a martial arts background where we scream at the end of some of our techniques, here's why we do it: 1) Psychological - anything that distracts or disrupts the other person's concentration is a benefit to you. It doesn't take much when two people are evenly matched. If you're outclassed, this isn't goi...	[ "Louise Deeley, a sports psychologist at Roehampton University, believes that grunting is part of the rhythm for tennis players: \"The timing of when they actually grunt helps them with the rhythm of how they're hitting and how they're pacing things\". She also believes that banning grunting isn't the solution: \"T...
Did women of the renaissance have a renaissance?	In my very humble opinion, the question is ill posed. The renaissance is not a renaissance of man. It refers to the rebirth of interest in concepts of Antiquity, and encompasses changes and new ideas in science, society and art. It is described as a radical change in the view of the world. Women certainly were affec...	[ "The influences upon the development of Renaissance men and women in the early 15th century are those that also affected Philosophy, Literature, Architecture, Theology, Science, Government, and other aspects of society. The following list presents a summary, dealt with more fully in the main articles that are cited...
how are structures able to be built such as oil rigs or bridges where the foundations are hundreds of meters deep in water?	oops didn't realize oil rigs float	[ "The bridge has 49 piers of different heights, extending to a maximum water depth of 13.8 metres. Each pier rests upon concrete foundations cast on the excavated bed of the sea, inside a cofferdam. Some piers could be excavated and cast with the cofferdam empty of water, where the soil was sufficiently waterproof, ...
why is it called "latin" america when spain/portugal are the biggest european influences to the region?	Spain, Portugal, France and Italy(and a few other minor countries) make up Latin Europe. The all speak romance languages which evolved from Latin after the fall of the Roman Empire. Since as you mentioned Spain and Portugal had the biggest influence on them they are subsequently known as the Latin America similar to th...	[ "Latin America generally refers to those parts of the Americas of Spanish and Portuguese culture and language: Mexico, most of Central America, and South America. There is also an important Latin American cultural presence in the United States (such as in California, Florida, the Southwest, and cities such as New Y...
why do people rub their faces when they are tired?	Do you mean [rubbing your face in general,](_URL_1_) or [rubbing around the eyes?](_URL_2_) The second one is doing a multitude of things, such as clearing mucous from your eyes, moving the set mucous membranes, and very importantly, stimulating the [lacrimal gland](_URL_0_) to secrete its lubricant. From Junqueira's...	[ "Dry eyes can be exacerbated by smoky environments, dust and air conditioning and by our natural tendency to reduce our blink rate when concentrating. Purposefully blinking, especially during computer use and resting tired eyes are basic steps that can be taken to minimise discomfort. Rubbing one's eyes can irritat...
why don't television shows and movies show male genetalia as much as they do female genetalia? [nsfw]	You don't see pussies, you don't see dick. You'll see both topless, and the ass of both.	[ "The unusually strong female presence in a series about a boy—all major characters except Steven and Greg are female—is intentional according to Sugar, who intended to \"tear down and play with the semiotics of gender in cartoons for children\"; she considered it absurd that shows for boys should be fundamentally d...
Can the effect of semantic satiation occur in things other than words?	Maybe this is too far off topic, but it's reminiscent of the way we think about cliches and colloquialisms. If you hear a phrase repeated to you throughout your lifetime, you may stop thinking consciously about the literal meaning of the words while still understanding the implication of the phrase.	[ "The characteristic of orthographic satiation as opposed to semantic satiation is that meaning remains intact. It was suggested that this is different from semantic satiation and from the stimulus familiarization effect because orthographic satiation occurs after the perceivers have access to lexical meaning.\n", ...
why don't women ever have "butt-chins"?	Women do have chin clefts. I'm not sure why you think they don't. It happens. [Here is incredibly famous actress Sandra Bullock for one such example.](_URL_0_) You can Google Image Search "Woman Chin Cleft" to see plenty more examples. It's usually not as prominent on women as it is on men, but it definitely exists.	[ "In humans, females generally have more round and voluptuous buttocks, caused by estrogen that encourages the body to store fat in the buttocks, hips, and thighs. Testosterone discourages fat storage in these areas. The buttocks in human females thus contain more adipose tissue than in males, especially after puber...
why did people use to pickle vegetables to preserve them?	Because if you remove the oxygen from something and drop the pH below 4 or so nothing dangerous can grow. Pickling is the process of growing specific bacteria that consume oxygen and lower the pH. Yes these bacteria can survive, but they are safe to consume. Other bacteria that are dangerous can survive, but they can't...	[ "Historically, pickling was an affordable and practical method of preserving lemons for use long after their season and far away from where they are grown. Early 19th-century English, American, and (in translation) Indian cookbooks give recipes for lemon pickle and mention its use in sauces for salmon, veal, etc.; ...
why can't helicopters deposit large oxygen bottles strategically on mt. everest or pick up people in trouble by harness?	The air pressure at the top of Mt Everest (29,000ft) is only about 1/3 as much as at sea level so your helicopter can only generate 1/3 of the lift. In addition it's cold so you risk ice forming on the rotors, fuel and hydraulics freezing and finally the weather isn't always very nice.	[ "Helicopters do fly further, and higher, up to Everest Base Camp, but only for picking up exhausted or injured mountaineers or dropping critical supplies. Without altitude acclimatization, Syangboche is the highest point it is advisable to reach by aircraft. It is not uncommon for people visiting Syangboche to be o...
gear mechanics?	To ensure proper tooth mating, your "diametral pitch" on both gears has to match. Read [this](_URL_0_) for a technical brief if you want to know more.	[ "Gear works on numerical analysis, computer graphics, and software development. He is known for the development of BDF methods (originally introduced by the chemists Charles Francis Curtiss and Joseph Oakland Hirschfelder in 1952), a multi-step method for solving stiff systems of differential equations. Gear first ...
why can a baby scream endlessly for hours on end while an adult loses their voice after a short period?	It is because babys use the full potential of their lungs - kind of like opera singers. That way they don't Stress their vocal cords that much. We as adults don't do that anymore, our breathing is much more shallow, so we have to use our muscles as a compensation. And that is exhausting and you lose your voice. Source:...	[ "Diana König, journalist and broadcasting author, writes: “If the scream of babies is their first communication method, then the scream of adults is a recession from communication. By screaming, in the opposite of calling, the voice becomes overloaded and over-amplified, and it loses its control, its fundamental so...
What would happen to a small piece of neutron star matter if you were able to remove it from the star and place it alone in space?	The star matter stays so dense due to the immense gravity. If you plucked a chunk out and placed it into space, I bet it would explode rather violently. I'm no scientist, just dig physics, so don't take my word for gospel...	[ "If such a system emits signals that can be directly traced back to the compact object, it cannot be a black hole. The absence of such a signal does, however, not exclude the possibility that the compact object is a neutron star. By studying the companion star it is often possible to obtain the orbital parameters o...
how does the lever, one of 6 simple machines, work?	A first class lever trades range of motion for force, second and third class levers the opposite.	[ "A lever ( or ) is a simple machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or fulcrum. A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself. On the basis of the location of fulcrum, load and effort, the lever is divided into three types. It is one of the six simple machines identifi...
History teachers of reddit, I have a question...	It depends very much on the class. Mostly I TA sections for large (500+) survey lectures (I'm scheduled to teach my second class as instructor this summer - yay!); I don't know if you have those in Europe. They usually fill a GER, and that means you get a spread of students: Freshmen who never had a class before, sen...	[ "The History Teacher is a quarterly academic journal concerned with the teaching of history in schools, colleges, and universities. It began in 1940 at the History Department at the University of Notre Dame as the Quarterly Bulletin of the Teachers' History Club. Nuns attending the graduate history program in the s...
why do some sound systems not hurt your ears at high volume levels?	100% deaf here, and the loudest volumes possible do not hurt my ears but they hurt my eyes, and makes the hair inside my ears itchy. Like putting head next to speaker.	[ "Extremely high-power sound waves can disrupt or destroy the eardrums of a target and cause severe pain or disorientation. This is usually sufficient to incapacitate a person. Less powerful sound waves can cause humans to experience nausea or discomfort. The use of these frequencies to incapacitate persons has occu...
What would William Shakespeare's (~1564 - 1616) education have entailed?	Stand back, finally an r/askhistorians question I am qualified to answer! Shakespeare is often depicted as uneducated, but we have to understand what that means in context. Many literary figures of the day were Oxford or Cambridge graduates or drop-outs, and so it is tempting to depict Shakespeare as a simple countr...	[ "Shakespeare was educated at Radley College, Oxfordshire, taking A-levels in English, History, and History of Art; and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1984 to read Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic. He gained a MPhil degree from King's College, Cambridge, in 1991.\n", "A close analysis of Shakes...
Are the number of biological discoveries increasing or decreasing?	Even if you only categorize biological discoveries as finding new species, there is so much in the ocean, and still some in jungles we have likely not discovered yet. However, to classify biological discoveries as finding new species would be like classifying physical discoveries as finding new elements. There is so m...	[ "The EUR reported by the 2000 USGS survey of has been criticized for assuming a discovery trend over the next twenty years that would reverse the observed trend of the past 40 years. Their 95% confidence EUR of assumed that discovery levels would stay steady, despite the fact that new-field discovery rates have dec...
What happens to the umbilical cord when twins, triplets, etc. are formed?	It depends on what kind of twin it is. With fraternal (dizygotic) twins, each fertilized egg produces its own placenta (and umbilical cord), and thus each twin is completely independent of the other. With identical (monozygotic) twins, it depends on the stage at which the twins separated. If they separated very earl...	[ "In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or funiculus umbilicalis) is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologically and genetically part of the fetus and (in humans) normally contains t...
if regular sun exposure increases your chance of skin cancer, why do people in warmer states generally have lower rates of skin cancer?	Those statistics don't take into account racial distributions in the statistics. People with increased skin pigmentation have lower rates of skin cancer. Basically, the whiter the state, the higher the incidence of skin cancer.	[ "Greater than 90% of cases are caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. This exposure increases the risk of all three main types of skin cancer. Exposure has increased partly due to a thinner ozone layer. Tanning beds are becoming another common source of ultraviolet radiation. For melanomas and ba...
What makes metals like iron melt when exposed to very high tenperature?	Temperature is a representation of the kinetic energy within the molecules of a given material. In other words, temperature is a way for us to quantify how fast the molecules in an object are travelling - longitudinally (side to side), rotationally and vibrationally. When a metal like Iron absorbs a lot of heat, the ...	[ "Metals are heat resistant materials, marking metals requires high-density laser irradiation. Basically, the average laser power leads to melting and the peak power causes evaporation of the material .\n", "This strengthening occurs because of dislocation movements and dislocation generation within the crystal st...
How was stone transported all the way from Egypt to Rome?	The Parthenon is in Athens, not Rome. The Pantheon, built by Marcus Agrippa is in fact built of granite, although I don't know whether it's Egyptian stone or not, though I have no reason to doubt it (there were major granite quarries in Egypt that supplied the city). People in antiquity were perfectly capable of transp...	[ "Egyptian paper, made from papyrus, and pottery were mass-produced and exported throughout the Mediterranean basin. The wheel, however, did not arrive until foreign invaders introduced the chariot. They developed Mediterranean maritime technology including ships and lighthouses. Early construction techniques utiliz...
What would be the best method for us to use if we wanted to send and receive information across vast interstellar distances?	I don't know about the 'maser' wonderfuldog mentioned, so it's worth looking into that. I also don't know about this talk on Cosmos about the Arecibo Observatory. Last time I checked, there really wasn't any feasible way to transmit data over interstellar distances - the power required to overcome the inverse-square la...	[ "In a sequel, ironically, it is stated that the development of the Bistromathic Drive is to allow people to cross vast interstellar distances quickly \"without all that dangerous mucking about with Improbability Factors\".\n", "promises instantaneous communication across interstellar distances. This would allow E...
What happened in America during the English Cromwellian period, and how much did the influence of parliamentarians influence the nascent "American" ideology?	During the Cromwellian period we don't see a King James, James I was the king before Charles I, (the start of the Cromwellian) and Charles II whose directly after the Cromwellian, James II is after him. However we see a large migration of Puritans in this period, Cromwell himself was getting ready to leave directly be...	[ "As a result, the English Parliamentarians or Cromwellians (after Oliver Cromwell) were generally hostile to Scottish Presbyterians after they re-conquered Ireland from the Catholic Confederates in 1649–53. The main beneficiaries of the postwar Cromwellian settlement were English Protestants like Sir Charles Coote,...
Is 'staying up late' a new habit since the advent of the electric light, or have humans always been night owls?	The evidence from medieval Latin Europe is mixed. While we can trace adaptations to the shorter winter days even at the institutional, official level, it's clear there was plenty going on in the dark. I'd like to direct your attention to the wonderful discussions in this thread by me, /u/mikedash, /u/Limond, and /u/al...	[ "Early research into circadian rhythms suggested that most people preferred a day closer to 25–26 hours when isolated from external stimuli like daylight and timekeeping. However, this research was faulty because it failed to shield the participants from artificial light. Although subjects were shielded from time c...
Did the Romans have a sign laguage for deaf people?	You ask for Rome, I answer with Greek (but perhaps it will be a little bit helpful). So the Greek word for deaf - κωφός (kophos) - also means mute and unintelligent. In an oral culture where literacy rates are low, hearing, speaking, and intelligence are tightly associated. There aren't very many people who are explic...	[ "Prior to the 1860s, the American hearing community viewed manualism, sign language, as an art, and naturally beautiful. They also thought of deaf people who signed as being like the Romans because of the pantomimes that are a part of the language.\n", "An early reference to gestures used by deaf people for commu...
why do some analog watches contain quartz/rubies/other gems?	Synthetic rubies are used to mate moving parts to prevent metal-on-metal contact and wear. The reduced friction created by the rubies' hardness increases the lifespan of the tiny metal parts. Quartz is used in most modern electronic movements as a way of keeping time because it vibrates at a very precise frequency wh...	[ "Watches of any quality will be jeweled. A jewel in a mechanical watch is a small, shaped piece of a hard mineral. Ruby and sapphire are most common. Diamond, garnet, and glass are also seen. Starting in the early 20th century, synthetic jewels were almost universally used. Before that time, low grade natural jewel...
If it's true that the brain alone uses 25-30% of our calorie intake? How do they even measure that? And do smarter people or people who think more actively in general burn more?	> 25-30% of our total calorie intake for the brain seems like a lot The typical estimate is that your brain uses about 300-400Kcal per day (typically around the upper end) which is about 18-20% of an average height man's daily calorie intake. Yet the brain is only about 2% of your body weight. It is often erroneousl...	[ "A number of theories in evolutionary psychology that are hinged on the assumption that sheer number of calories constitute the only important bottleneck in nutrition are challenged by research on hidden hunger, types of malnutrition in which deficits of specific essential micronutrients cause diseases or even deat...
Am I really looking at individual atoms here?	Yes, it is an image reconstructed from [scanning tunnelling microscopy](_URL_0_).	[ "An atom is the smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter that has the properties of a chemical element. Every solid, liquid, gas, and plasma is composed of neutral or ionized atoms. Atoms are extremely small; typical sizes are around 100 picometers (, a ten-millionth of a millimeter, or 1/254,000,000 of an inch...
Can historians help explain the truth behind African Americans being Israelites and Africans being Hamites?	I haven't seen the meme, but the argument seems similar to the argument that was made in early US history when it came to defending slavery. When the abolitionist movement really began building up in the states, various ministers went to the Bible in order to show that slavery was not just unChristian, but also was n...	[ "Afrocentrist thinkers in the nineteenth century insisted that the Egyptians were black Africans, making it possible to provide an ancient and noble lineage that countered the degrading images proliferated by racist science and pro-slavery polemic. Prominent contributors to this debate include David Walker, James M...
Photographs from WWII almost always seem to show Soviet soldiers as not wearing helmets. Why?	There was no strict rule of wearing helmets in Red Army (and in memoirs Soviet soldiers were amused by US soldiers wearing helmets at all times). In early years of war lot's Soviet soldiers didn't want to wear helmets since they're were cumbersome, heavy and sometimes it was considered an 'unmanly cowardice' to wear a ...	[ "The Soviet equipment used in the film, including uniforms and weapons, are authentic captured Soviet stock. The Soviet officer's uniforms were made before the 1943 reforms of the uniform. The only exception are the aircraft used, the AT-6, which were captured in the Battle of France.\n", "The typical \"frontovik...
Are Bound Muons More Stable?	No. The binding energy of ~3 keV doesn't matter for the muon which releases 105 MeV in the decay. Even heavier nuclei won't affect its lifetime much. You can get "muon capture" as additional process, however, similar to electron capture.	[ "The muon is an unstable subatomic particle with a mean lifetime of , much longer than many other subatomic particles. As with the decay of the non-elementary neutron (with a lifetime around 15 minutes), muon decay is slow (by subatomic standards) because the decay is mediated by the weak interaction exclusively (r...
Is the earth a perfect sphere? How/why did it become this form?	I don't think the actual "why" of your question has been sufficiently answered so I'm throwing my hat in. First off, no, the Earth is not perfectly spherical. This can be easily surmised by noting that mountains exist, whereas a perfect sphere wouldn't have any protrusions. Even on a planetary-scale the rotation of th...	[ "The 'sphere of the world' is not the earth but the heavens, and Sacrobosco quotes Theodosius saying it is a solid body. It is divided into nine parts: the \"first moved\" (\"primum mobile\"), the sphere of the fixed stars (the firmament), and the seven planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury and th...
how does a python digest an alligator?	Pythons swallow all of their food whole. Large pythons often over estimate their ability eat something. _URL_0_	[ "Many amphibians catch their prey by flicking out an elongated tongue with a sticky tip and drawing it back into the mouth before seizing the item with their jaws. Some use inertial feeding to help them swallow the prey, repeatedly thrusting their head forward sharply causing the food to move backwards in their mou...
why is it that spicy tastes considerably amplify when a person chokes on it and it gets into the throat, compared to swallowing normally?	Your mouth is literally made to eat and experience taste, it's specially equipped to eat stuff! Your throat is made to transport all the goop you just chewed up into your stomach and the rest of your body, after your teeth break down the major chunks and your saliva gets in there and breaks it down even further. Ther...	[ "This affliction is a common cause of throat irritation. Normally the stomach produces acid in the stomach which is neutralized in the small intestine. To prevent acid from flowing backwards, the lower part of the swallowing tube (esophagus) has a valve which closes after food passes through. In some individuals, t...
if our eyes have a large field of view why cameras with wide field lens distort images spherically and our eyes don’t?	Being that a camera shows that distortion is a very good indication that there is in fact a distortion with the field of view of our own eyes, the reason why you don't perceive the distortion from your eyes, whether or not it's there, is because your brain regularly makes up for distortions and makes corrections to our...	[ "Knapp's Rule states that lenses placed at the anterior focal point of the eye, generally 15 mm in front of the eye, will create similarly sized images on the retina, whenever the disparity between the two eyes is due to a difference in axial length of the eyes.\n", "Correctly made rectangular or square lens hood...
why do the numbers on dice have the orientation that they have?	I don't know about larger sided dice, but the 6 sided dice is arranged such that the front and back of every orientation adds up to 7. If this is true with 20 sided dice, that would be part of the explanation. Otherwise, it is just a fluke with the 6 sided version.	[ "You'll notice that some sides of your dice have multiple symbols. This means that it can count as either, depending on what you are rolling the dice for. Sometimes you'll roll the dice because a card tells you to and you'll just look for the symbols the card asks for.\n", "Four dice are rolled, having symbols wh...
Suicide in the trenches. I have never heard of any discussion about this topic, but it had to occur. What information do we have about it?	As a clarification on your question. How would you distinguish between a fatality and a suicide, when the simplest form of suicide would be intentionally getting yourself killed? For example, simply standing up in some areas would be an almost certain death by enemy snipers.	[ "\"Suicide in the Trenches\" is one of the many poems the English poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) composed in response to World War I, reflecting his own notable service in that especially bloody conflict. Sassoon was a brave and gallant upper-class officer who eventually opposed the war, but he never lost his a...
why does smoking kill slower than smoke inhalation?	You're not totally absent of oxygen when smoking. If you're inside a burning room, the oxygen is helping to keep the fire going and is being replaced by smoke. Edit: I should add that firefighters are increasingly looking to test their gear to see if they've been exposed to anything harmful. I kinda sorta helped on a ...	[ "BULLET::::- Smoking – Smoking causes a delay in the speed of wound repair notably in the proliferative and inflammatory phases. It also increases the likelihood of certain complications such as wound rupture, wound and flap necrosis, decrease in wound tensile strength and infection. Passive smoking also impairs a ...
why are china and korea still litigating japan's ww2 behavior in the press, while the western ww2 countries have moved on?	Because Japan has been horribly negligent regarding their atrocious behavior during WW2. From ridiculous and furious denials after the war to a refusal to teach their younger generations about their transgressions. If the debate still rages it is because Japan has yet to fully make amends...if it had China and Korea wo...	[ "While there was initial hesitance by some in the US government to get involved in the war, considerations about Japan played a part in the ultimate decision to engage on behalf of South Korea. Especially after the fall of China to the Communists, US experts on East Asia saw Japan as the critical counterweight to t...
when you hear about pharmaceutical companies lobbying congress, what are they actually doing?	They're trying to prevent laws that might hurt them from being passed. This includes, but is not limited to, laws regarding the patents of medicines that are nearly identical to one that is public domain, regulation of the "disease mongering" ads where they take normal human behaviour and call it a disease (for example...	[ "The process aims to be fully independent of government and lobbying power, basing decisions fully on clinical and cost-effectiveness. There have been concerns that lobbying by pharmaceutical companies to mobilise media attention and influence public opinion are attempts to influence the decision-making process. A ...
The Chinese have historically always controlled large areas of land. The Korean peninsula is comparatively very small. Why have the Chinese never occupied the Korean Peninsula?	I think it's worth pointing out that under the command of Ögedei, the Mongols did conquer the Korean peninsula, and the Mongols are a recognised Chinese dynasty (the Yuan dynasty), so you could almost make the case that the Chinese did conquer Korea. Unless you mean specifically the Han Chinese dynasties, but in that...	[ "The Korean kingdoms had traditionally become client states of China under nominal tributary status. As western colonial and trade expansion into Asia occurred, it exposed the weakness of China due to centuries of isolation, and led Japan to modernize and nurture its own colonial designs, but many of the skirmishes...
In WWII European theatre and Pacific theatre, how would combatants on both sides dispose of slain enemies?	In both the European and Pacific Theaters, the primary U.S. Army unit tasked with the location, transportation, identification, and burial of friendly and enemy dead was the Quartermaster Graves Registration Company. Mass graves registration operations in the interwar period remained basically confined to the theoretic...	[ "Footage for \"A Defeated People\" was shot in the British Zone of Occupation, covering the north-west of Germany. Filming started in August 1945. The main location chosen for filming was the area in and around the devastated city of Hamburg, with scenes of Cologne, Essen and Aachen also used.\n", "During World W...
why do webpages seem to lose all aesthetic features on a bad internet connection?	The page's style is usually located in a separate file - the CSS file. This is done on purpose, in order to separate the page's contents from its appearance.	[ "There are two forms of linking: surface linking (which delivers the consumer to the linked website's homepage) and deep linking (which delivers the consumer to a non-homepage link of the website). Websites usually do not object to surface linking because it contributes to a growth in traffic and popularity, which ...
how does china justify censorship to its citizens?	Chinese here... Original answer got removed because it's too short. But in fact they don't admit censoring anything, so they don't need to justify it either. Also sometimes here on Reddit, I see some people think censor equals to banning the use of this word altogether, which is not the case.	[ "Censorship in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is implemented or mandated by the PRC's ruling party, the Communist Party of China (CPC). The government censors content for mainly political reasons, but also to maintain its control over the populace. The Chinese government asserts that it has the legal right to...
what are the main technologic advancements that make it possible to store so much more data in increasingly smaller circuits?	Our ability to make tiny transistors which is largely driven by the machines that build them. I wouldn't say there is on specific thing that allows it, chip companies put a lot of effort into developing the machines that make the chips, and it's many advancements that come together to make what it ultimately a smaller ...	[ "Technological advances have enabled very powerful and versatile computing systems to be implemented on smaller chips. As this allows a larger number of functions to take place in the same area, both current density and the associated power dissipation become more concentrated compared to larger chips. The power co...
Does Heartbeats per minute have anything to do with the length of a life?	So I spend my day as a cardiac electrophysiologist and academic dealing with questions of heart rates in people, and I can tell you that when you compare heart rates between species there may be some correlations you can draw between life span and heart rate. But within a species, and in particular among humans, there ...	[ "A resting heart that beats slower than 60 beats per minute, or faster than 100 beats per minute, is regarded as having an arrhythmia. A heartbeat slower than 60 beats per minute is known as bradycardia, and a heartbeat faster than 100 is known as a tachycardia.\n", "For a healthy human heart the entire cardiac c...
is there any real danger of muslims implementing sharia law in western societies?	There are already Sharia courts in the UK. These are for religious matters and for arbitration - when both parties agree to be bound by the decision of the Sharia court. They are not for criminal matters - needless to say it is a contentious subject. _URL_0_ Edit for clarity: legal matters to criminal matters	[ "The \"Sharīʿah\" () of Islam broadly influences the legal code in most Islamic countries, but the extent of its impact varies widely. In Africa, most states limit the use of Sharia to \"personal-status law\" for issues such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody. With the exception of northern Nigeria...
Are there contemporary accounts of how early modern bayonet versus sword encounters played out?	This would be modern, rather than early modern, but D.A. Kinsley's "Swordsmen of the British Empire" has a 30 page chapter comprised of contemporary accounts of Bayonet vs Sword combat in Indian and other colonial wars. The format of this book is just the first hand anecdotes rather than analysis, but I'll do my bes...	[ "Prior to World War I, bayonet doctrine was largely founded upon the concept of \"reach\"; that is, a soldier's theoretical ability, by use of an extremely long rifle and fixed bayonet, to stab an enemy soldier without having to approach within reach of his opponent's blade. A combined length of rifle and bayonet l...
why does sleep paralysis usually only occur when sleeping on one's back? does it have to do with blood flow or the inner ear?	I get it when I lay on my stomach most of the time. Only once on my back. Laying on your belly during sleep paralysis is worse IMO. More terrifying.	[ "The pathophysiology of sleep paralysis has not been concretely identified, although there are several theories about its cause. The first of these stems from the understanding that sleep paralysis is a parasomnia resulting from dysfunctional overlap of the REM and waking stages of sleep. Polysomnographic studies f...
why was /r/creepshots not ok (perv pics taken in public places), while it is ok to have entire subs dedicated to pictures of freshly murdered woman, or bloody babies recently aborted?	This post is not asking for a layman-friendly explanation to something complicated or technical, so it doesn't belong here and it's been removed. Entirely subjective questions generally belong in /r/askreddit.	[ "A year after the closure of r/jailbait, another subreddit called r/Creepshots drew controversy in the press for hosting sexualized images of women without their knowledge. In the wake of this media attention, u/violentacrez was added to r/Creepshots as a moderator, and reports emerged that Gawker reporter Adrian C...
Marco Polo is quoted to have said on his deathbed, "I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed." What things may he not have described to the public and why?	Jacopo da Acqui's report of Marco Polo's last testament should be put in its proper context. His family members were trying to get him to repent and disown all the lies he'd written, to which Polo sneered that he had not told even half of what he'd seen. Assuming the anecdote is true (or even if it's an invention by...	[ "Given that Marco Polo dictated his book in prison several years after he returned from China, the accuracy of his remarks may be suspect. Either his memory was clouded by that time, or his ghost writer was more imaginative than he was. Some suggest that he did not visit this part of China at all. Nevertheless, he ...
was there any efficacy to leaches or bleeding as a medical treatment? if not why was the practice so well accepted?	The practice of blood-letting was based on the idea that all medical problems are due to an imbalance in the four humors, blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phelgm. If you were sick, doctors would try to fix you by bringing the humors in balance, and blood-letting was a way of doing this. Now that we know more about...	[ "which is important for speeding the healing of chronic wounds. Some researchers have experimented with the use of tea tree oil, an antibacterial agent which also has anti-inflammatory effects. Disinfectants are contraindicated because they damage tissues and delay wound contraction. Further, they are rendered inef...
Why was it so important for us to take all the beaches involved in Operation Overlord.	The securing of the beaches also meant the denial of causeways leading to the beaches. An invasion on a broad front had to be accomplished fully to prevent traffic jams (which occurred anyways as resistance inland was fierce) and to deny the Germans a salient from which to hit the flanks of a beach-head. The delibera...	[ "In the immediate aftermath of the landings, the priority for the Allies at Utah Beach was to link up with the Allied landings further east. This job was tasked to the 101st Airborne, who had landed in the area and had been conducting raids against inland targets, such as artillery emplacements, and securing and cu...
how does the supreme court's decision affect laws nation wide?	In Law there is a concept of precedence which means that if judges make a decision in one form or another this is how decisions on similar cases should be made in future. Literally a lawyer will stand up and say that in this previous case,this happened and I'd like it to happen again and the judges will most likely agr...	[ "However, in the same document Madison explicitly argued that the states retain the ultimate power to decide about the constitutionality of the federal laws, in \"extreme cases\" such as the Alien and Sedition Act. The Supreme Court can decide in the last resort only in those cases which pertain to the acts of othe...
How many African countries aside from Egypt have a legitimate basis for national unity that goes further back than their colonial institutions?	I believe the question being asked is if there are any African nations that owe their shape and/or territory to native institutions (cultural or legal), or if they owe it to colonial politicking and treaties. I don't think Egypt is too proper an example. Its territory had been reduced and culturally developed through ...	[ "This is a list of the dates when African states were made colonies or protectorates of European powers and lost their independence. It only deals with modern times, thus the expansion of the Ancient Greeks, Roman Empire, and barbarian tribes into Africa is ignored. A number of regions such as the Congo and the Sah...
how is it that we can take our pulse and not completely block out veins/arteries when we do so?	You may temporarily reduce blood flow when you do this, but the body isn't so delicate that this would hurt you.	[ "Arteries and veins are part of the human cardiovascular system. Arteries carry blood away from the heart to the lungs or the rest of the body, where the blood passes through capillaries, and veins return the blood to the heart. An AVM interferes with this process by forming a direct connection of the arteries and ...
sun tzu - why exactly was he so great?	He carefully put into words many strategic principles and philosophies that hold true in all aspects of life. The art of war isn't simply his view or opinion on war, they are principles that have been proven time and time again to be correct. And he didn't write one or two well aimed statements, he wrote a comprehens...	[ "The \"Records of the Three Kingdoms\" (\"Sanguozhi\") describes Sun Quan as a tall man with bright eyes and oblong face. He was known as a wise and outgoing man who was fond of making jokes and playing tricks. Because of his skill in valuing the strength of his subordinates and avoiding their shortcomings, as well...
what does chemo do to your body?	There are many different categories of chemotherapeutic anti-cancer drugs, all of which have varied effects, but most of them are involved in disrupting the cell division and DNA / RNA synthesis of cells in the body. A cancer tumor is really just a large mass of cells that have stopped responding to the rest of the b...	[ "A Chemo-protective agent is a medical term that describes a drug that helps to reduce the side effects on the body while undergoing chemotherapy. These agents protect specific body parts from the harmful anti-cancer treatments that could potentially cause permanent damage to important bodily tissues. Chemo-protect...
How much did medieval and renaissance society know about the Ancient World?	This question is a difficult one to respond to, since it's both difficult to quantify, and of course the early Middle Ages were right after the Classical era, so it was, essentially, yesterday to them. By the time you get to the Early Modern period, Shakespeare is still writing plays about classical figures for popular...	[ "The knowledge of the ancient \"Western world\" was partly preserved during this period due to the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire and the introduction of the Catholic Church; it was also greatly expanded by the Arab importation of both the Ancient Greco-Roman and new technology through the Arabs from India an...
How is it that DNA is like a computer even though it seems nothing like a computer?	The DNA encodes a series of commands using a four-letter code. This code then has commands written into it for starting and stopping replication into RNA. Within the part that can be copied into RNA are three-letter instructions to direct ribosomes to make proteins. In this way, there is essentially a programming la...	[ "DNA computing is a form of parallel computing in that it takes advantage of the many different molecules of DNA to try many different possibilities at once. For certain specialized problems, DNA computers are faster and smaller than any other computer built so far. Furthermore, particular mathematical computations...
Did any Roman emperors attempt to have themselves elected to the papacy?	Essentially no. The position of pope as we recognise it now didn't really exist, and no emperor ever attempted to claim the position of the time we now call "pope". Those in the time period that we now call "pope" would have been seen at the time as simply the bishop of Rome. While this was certainly one of the more im...	[ "The election of a Holy Roman Emperor was generally a two-stage process whereby, from at least the 13th century, the King of the Romans was elected by a small body of the greatest princes of the Empire, the prince-electors. This was then followed shortly thereafter by his coronation as Emperor, an appointment that ...
can ocean water be used to extinguish large scale forest fires?	Ocean water is full of salt. Salt interferes with plant growth. Scooping up a bunch of ocean water and dumping it on vegetation might help put out a fire, if you ignore the logistics needed to transport ocean water like that, but you'd be screwing up the long-term health of the place.	[ "Water has long been a universal agent for suppressing fires, but is not best in all cases. For example, water is typically ineffective on oil fires, and can be dangerous. Fire-fighting foams were a development for extinguishing oil fires.\n", "The United States Environmental Protection Agency has approved conden...
why does it feel like hitting concrete when you jump into a body of water from 50 feet or higher?	Liquids have viscosity that differ. The thicker a viscosity the more it can mimic (for lack of a better word) the properties of a solid. Water has a relatively low viscosity compared to oil, but when you get to a certain velocity, that viscosity is enough to injure.	[ "If concrete is exposed to very high temperatures very rapidly, explosive spalling of the concrete can result. In a very hot, very quick fire the water inside the concrete will boil before it evaporates. The steam inside the concrete exerts expansive pressure and can initiate and forcibly expel a spall.\n", "Conc...
the science behind having naturally really dry skin	Many people wash their skin too much. Soaps strip the skin of the naturally occurring oils that protect skin and keep moisture in.	[ "Dry skin results from lack of water in the outer layer of skin cells (the stratum corneum). When this layer becomes dehydrated it loses its flexibility and becomes cracked, scaly and sometimes itchy. The stratum corneum contains natural water-holding substances that retain water seeping up from the deeper layers o...
Why is the eastern United States so different in climate compared to to the western United States?	One of the reasons is that the ocean water by California is much colder than the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean (currents push the water from near Alaska all way down to California). Colder water evaporates less and cools the air. Cooler air can hold less moisture as well. Also, mountains and hills filter moisture...	[ "The eastern United States was part of Pangaea's interior for most of the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic era. At the time, the area lay close to the equator and was connected to western Europe and Africa. The union of all of Earth's continents into a single land mass changed the way the atmosphere and oceans circu...
What was Adam Smith denouncing with his plea for ‘laissez-faire’?	I can't say much about all the English guilds in the 18th c. But I can say something about state-granted monopolies, or monopoly patents. & #x200B; The origin of such things seems to have been a recognition that some industries were useful and needed to be encouraged. If some French glass-makers, say,were interest...	[ "Other writers have argued that Smith's support for \"laissez-faire\" (which in French means leave alone) has been overstated. Herbert Stein wrote that the people who \"wear an Adam Smith necktie\" do it to \"make a statement of their devotion to the idea of free markets and limited government\", and that this misr...
when i have a tube filled with marbles and push in on one end, another pops out instantly. what if the tube was a mile? would it still be as quick?	> What if the tube was a mile? Would it still be as quick? Nope. There is the limit to the speed that a physical force can propagate through a medium. In fact, we have a name for this speed, based on one of the most common examples of a physical force propagating though a medium. It's an example that you're very f...	[ "Tube being hollow, it's not practical to use a simple punch operation to notch it, as it would be squashed. Although punching is possible, it requires support mandrels and awkward handling. Where tube is worked with a punch press other than for side notching, this is generally described as \"slotting\".\n", "The...
why are canadian and american accents almost indistinguishable, even to residents of either country? why are the two countries so similar?	Canadian and American accents both vary wildly. It's pretty easy to distinguish.	[ "There are a considerable number of different accents within the regions of both the United States and Canada, originally deriving from the accents prevalent in different English, Scottish and Irish regions of the British Isles and corresponding to settlement patterns of these peoples in the colonies. These were de...
pink lemonade. if it's not strawberry or raspberry, then what is the pink?	There is a pink lemon, but it's not used. Pink lemonade is just normal lemonade colored pink. It's dyed using artificial dye, raspberries, cherries, red grapefruit, grapes, cranberries, strawberries, grenadine, or, as in the origin story, cinnamon candy. The flavor may or may not be different.	[ "BULLET::::- Pink lemonade is a variant of lemonade that uses artificial flavors and colors as well as natural sources of juices (such as grenadine, cherry juice, red grapefruit juice, grape juice, cranberry juice, strawberry juice, and pomegranate) to give it a \"pink\" coloration. The earliest reference to the in...
why doesn't wifi quality correlate with wifi range?	Excellent question, I used to work on corporate and hospitality systems (think like the Marriott or Sheraton wifi) and this I had to learn fast. So a wireless signal transmits also called broadcasts a lot of information in the signal. Some of your signal is the data (we call it throughout), some of it is the wifi name...	[ "In wireless networks, the \"link spectral efficiency\" can be somewhat misleading, as larger values are not necessarily more efficient in their overall use of radio spectrum. In a wireless network, high link spectral efficiency may result in high sensitivity to co-channel interference (crosstalk), which affects th...
synthetic meat	No one has figured out how to make it cheap enough yet. Consider the price of ground beef, if you have a multimillion dollar lab making lab-grown beef then you're going to need to make millions of pounds to have it pay for itself. There are a bunch of companies work on it, but none of their products are commercially ...	[ "Meat is produced by killing an animal and cutting flesh out of it. These procedures are called slaughter and butchery, respectively. There is ongoing research into producing meat \"in vitro\", that is, outside of animals.\n", "Animal sourced materials include both animal manures and residues from the slaughter o...
what is a white dwarf star made out of?	To an extent it depends on the star that died. A White dwarf is essentially the exposed inerds of a sunlike star once the outer atmosphere has been cast off and nuclear fusion has ceased. What it's made of depends on it's mass and what it was last fusing before the reaction ceased. Stars begin and spend most of their ...	[ "A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to that of the Sun, while its volume is comparable to that of Earth. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored thermal...
What is the evolutionary reason to losing all hair on our faces besides eyebrows and, for men, beards?	We obviously lost quite a bit of hair if we compare humans and our cousins the chimapanzees, though maybe not as much on [the face](_URL_2_). Humans probably lost our hair [roughly 1.2 million years ago](_URL_0_). I don't know of one dominant theory of why there was hair loss in general, but it could be for cooling mor...	[ "The general hairlessness of humans in comparison to related species may be due to loss of functionality in the pseudogene KRTHAP1 (which helps produce keratin) in the human lineage about 240,000 years ago. On an individual basis, mutations in the gene HR can lead to complete hair loss, though this is not typical i...
what is redshirting in ncaa sports?	NCAA rules say that a player can only play for 4 years. They don't want students essentially becoming professional college sports players. The primary reason they're in college is supposed to be to get a degree. But, the team might not want a player to play in their first year. They may want a particularly good player...	[ "Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the four years of academic classes typically required to earn a bachelor's degree...
Did early humans (cavemen) have access to or eat rice, sugarcane, potatoes, etc.?	Hunter-gatherers ate the same plants we do today, but in their wild forms. Most plants we eat today, including rice, sugarcane and potatoes, are domesticated versions. These were only domesticated after the advent of agriculture, so they were not available to hunter-gatherers before agriculture, but their wild forms we...	[ "The earliest residents were living in temporary camps in an ancient wetland eating avocados, chilies, mollusks, sharks, birds, and sea lions. The oldest discovery of an avocado pit comes from Coxcatlan Cave, dating from around 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Other caves in the Tehuacan Valley from around the same time ...
how is phobias treated?	Education and Exposure mostly, depending on severity, you can generally treat phobias first by educating yourself on the actual risk and facts of the phobia, then exposing yourself to it. This doesn't mean if you're afraid of spiders you need to go handle a live spider, but it does mean approaching the situation in a w...	[ "Exposure therapy is the most successful known treatment for phobias. Several published meta-analyses included studies of one-to-three hour single-session treatments of phobias, using imaginal exposure. At a post-treatment follow-up four years later 90% of people retained a considerable reduction in fear, avoidance...
microfiber cloths. they seem to be recommended to clean everything? what are they and why are they so amazing?	1 they are cloths with a far higher surface area than more common ones 2 the surface area means holding more water and particles, so you can clean more easily. All are synthetic, and high quality ones can be squeezed almost completely dry as well. 3 no they are not the same. oh I don't know about brands 4 for most...	[ "For microfiber to be most effective as a cleaning product, especially for water-soluble soils and waxes, it should be a split microfiber. Non-split microfiber is little more than a very soft cloth. The main exception is for cloths used for facial cleansing and for the removal of skin oils (sebum), sunscreens, and ...
Is the lava from different volcanos around the world made out of the same material, or do different volcanos have diffetent lava composition?	There are indeed several different types. Lava is classified in various ways, SiO2 content increases from Komatiite (ultra low), to basalt, andesite, dacite and rhyolite (high) ([example of SiO2-based classification](_URL_0_)). There are also more subtle geochemical signatures recognized by trace elements (Zr vs Y, or...	[ "Lava domes are built by slow eruptions of highly viscous lava. They are sometimes formed within the crater of a previous volcanic eruption, as in the case of Mount Saint Helens, but can also form independently, as in the case of Lassen Peak. Like stratovolcanoes, they can produce violent, explosive eruptions, but ...
What was the Stalin era Soviet leadership's stance on Tsar era or before Russian military heroes and leaders like Nevsky, Suvorov and Bagration?	The 1930s witnessed a return of sorts by the Soviet state towards its Great Russian past. Both during the Revolution and the 1920s, the state had looked at the historical past of tsardom and its various forms of commemoration of it with a rather jaundiced eye. The Soviet government of the 1920s devoted relatively littl...	[ "Ivan's notorious outbursts and autocratic whims helped characterise the position of Tsar as one accountable to no earthly authority, only to God. Tsarist absolutism faced few serious challenges until the late 19th century. Ivan's legacy was manipulated by Communist Russia as a potential focus for nationalist pride...
How were the cracks and streaks on Europa formed?	The current theory is the moon is being flexed by Jupiter's gravitational tides, and the ice crust that floats over a liquid sea continually heaves and buckles under that stress. Water then percolates up through the cracks and leaves streaks of material behind on the surface of the ice, within those cracks.	[ "Europa displayed a large number of intersecting linear features in the low-resolution photos from \"Voyager 1\". At first, scientists believed the features might be deep cracks, caused by crustal rifting or tectonic processes. The high-resolution photos from \"Voyager 2\", taken closer to Jupiter, left scientists ...
why do tv shows and movies sometimes have to change the names/logos on items for copyright reasons? wouldn't it just be free advertisement for the company/product?	There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, it limits liability for trademark violations. If, for whatever reason, the company who has their products featured on a given show doesn't like the way in which the products are presented (or doesn't want to be associated with that particular show for some reason), that...	[ "A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service. Trademarks can be used by others under licensing agreements; for example, Bullyland obtained a license to produce Smurf figurines; the Lego Group purchased a license from Lucasfilm in order to be allowed to launch Lego Star Wars; TT Toys To...
What's the difference between an ionised hydrogen atom and a proton?	A ^(1)H^(+) atom is exactly the same thing as a proton.	[ "A hydrogen-like ion is any atomic nucleus which has one electron and thus is isoelectronic with hydrogen. These ions carry the positive charge formula_1, where formula_2 is the atomic number of the atom. Examples of hydrogen-like ions are He, Li, Be and B. Because hydrogen-like ions are two-particle systems with a...
how did disney delay mickey mouse from being in public domain?	Every time the copyright for Mickey Mouse is about to expire a bill goes into law stating that the length of time a copyright lasts is longer than the last one. First it was creators death, then +25 years, +50 years, ect. Honestly I wish it would end so we could listen to "I Have A Dream" and "Happy Birthday"...	[ "There have been multiple attempts to argue that certain versions of Mickey Mouse are in fact in the public domain. In the 1980s, archivist George S. Brown attempted to recreate and sell cels from the 1933 short \"The Mad Doctor\", on the theory that they were in the public domain because Disney had failed to renew...
union between countries (denmark-norway, austria-hungary etc)	In the case of Denmark-Norway the king of Norway (Håkon Magnusson) married one of the daughters of the Danish king (Margrethe). They had a son, Olav, who was hair to the Norwegian throne. All of Margrethe's siblings died, and her son, Olav, now was chosen as hair to Denmark to. Olavs grandfather, Valdemar king of Denma...	[ "The Kalmar Union (Danish, Norwegian, and ; ) was a personal union in Scandinavia that from 1397 to 1523 joined under a single monarch the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden (then including most of Finland's populated areas), and Norway, together with Norway's overseas dependencies (then including Iceland, Greenland...
what's the"resolution" of film photography?	There isn’t a specific “resolution.” It depends on two main physical characteristics of the film itself - the size of the film and the speed of the film - as well as the way that film is exposed. The first physical aspect is what format of film you’re using - there’s small, like a standard 35mm film that your average ...	[ "The resolution of film images depends upon the area of film used to record the image (35 mm, medium format or large format) and the film speed. Estimates of a photograph's resolution taken with a 35mm film camera vary. More information may be recorded if a fine-grain film is used, while the use of poor-quality opt...
how computer languages work in different (spoken) languages. if i wanted a computer to communicate with a computer in russia, would i have to speak russian, or is there some international standard?	Pretty much every programming language is in English, if that's what you're asking. People who can't speak English well have a very hard time learning to code, since it's harder to remember what (for example) an "if/else" command's name is if you don't know what if and else mean.	[ "Machine languages and the assembly languages that represent them (collectively termed \"low-level programming languages\") tend to be unique to a particular type of computer. For instance, an ARM architecture computer (such as may be found in a smartphone or a hand-held videogame) cannot understand the machine lan...
Regression after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire	Britain and Italy were two special cases of regression, it's not possible to guesstimate how things would have continued to evolve if the Roman Empire hadn't withdrawn from the West and how that compares to what happened in real life, but it's worth noting that each region was different. France, the Low Countries, and...	[ "The Fall of the Western Roman Empire was the process in which it failed to enforce its rule. The loss of centralized political control over the West, and the lessened power of the East, are universally agreed, but the theme of decline has been taken to cover a much wider time span than the hundred years from 376. ...
what was going on in libya when gaddafi was in power and why was he killed.	Gaddafi was about to introduce a new currency, the gold Dinar, made from real gold for the african countries. He would have then sold the petrol from libya for gold only, wich the usa cannot afford. So the usa went in to abolish the gold dinar	[ "On 20 October, Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed, by rebels, in the city of Sirte. On 23 October, the National Transitional Council (NTC) officially declared an end to the 2011 Libyan Civil War.\n", "In February 2011, protests in Libya began against long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Arab Sp...
why are recorders still taught in music classes in school if they all sound so terrible?	Because they are really cheap instruments you can't make everyone buy a $1000 violin.	[ "Manufacturers have made recorders out of bakelite and other more modern plastics; they are thus easy to produce, hence inexpensive. Because of this, recorders are popular in schools, as they are one of the cheapest instruments to buy in bulk. They are also relatively easy to play at a basic level because sound pro...
Why did Battleship design in the Pre-And-During WW2 Era seems to settle on the A-B X turret arrangement?	Balanced ship designs tended to have 8-9 guns for complex reasons linked to the interaction of armament weight vs armor weight to stop the same caliber of shells. A smaller number of guns makes it hard to fire rapid salvos, required to spot your fall of shot and thus shoot accurately against moving targets. Salvo spott...	[ "During the lengthy design process, new battleships being built abroad, particularly the British s, led to a re-design of the last four members of the class, resulting in the \"Liberté\"s. Foreign battleships began to carry a heavy secondary battery, such as the guns of the \"King Edward VII\"s, which prompted an i...
what exactly does "airplane mode" do and how does it keep my phone from disrupting airplane functions?	It disables the cellular transceiver in your phone. It just turns off the part of your phone that sends and receives data from cell towers. The idea is that you will not be creating electromagnetic interference that could potentially interact with the aircraft's instrumentation. The reality is that everything is so wel...	[ "Communication is a vital part of the job: controllers are trained to focus on the exact words that pilots and other controllers speak, because a single misunderstanding about altitude levels or runway numbers can have tragic consequences. Controllers communicate with the pilots of aircraft using a push-to-talk rad...

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