question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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It is commonly said that in the colonial era, the colonists used infected blankets with diseases unknown to the natives, making them effectively bio weapons, did the opposite also occur? | /u/anthropology_nerd has previously answered [When Europeans brought diseases to the New World, how come Europeans themselves didn't get sick from diseases specific to the New World?](_URL_0_)
This topic was addressed broadly during anthropology\_nerd's series MYTHS OF CONQUEST for /r/badhistory in the entry ["Death by Disease Alone"](_URL_1_). | [
"Salish blanket weaving declined in the early 20th century. In 1884, a law was passed banning religious practices of the First Nations people as part of an attempt by the colonizers to \"civilize\" the indigenous population. This law stayed in force until the 1920s. The important potlatch ceremony was included in t... |
Is there evidence to support that the British Empire manufactured famines? | Irish writer and historian, Tim Pat Coogan has written a great book about Britains role in the Irish famine, The Famine Plot. Although some points are disputed by other Irish historians, most of the book is well cited and sourced. I don't have it at hand but it goes into great detail about how Britain contributed to the Irish famine even going as far as to argue that Britains policies in Ireland constituted genocide under the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide.
Although Coogan writes from a strongly Irish nationalist perspective, this book is factual and is a great read.
_URL_0_ | [
"During British rule, two devastating famines occurred costing millions of lives in 1770 and 1943. Scarcely five years into the British East India Company's rule, the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1770, one of the greatest famines of history occurred. Up to a third of the population died in 1770 and subsequent year... |
How is the brain protected from damage once a hemispherectomy is performed? | There is a really good answer about this provided by [The Naked Scientists](_URL_0_). There are a lot of factors, including structures, that provide stability to the brain after a hemispherectomy. These include, according to my source, the tentorium cerebelli and the falx cerebri. These two structures help to hold the brain in place and prevent it from moving side to side and up and down. [Here](_URL_1_) is a diagram of those structures. The meninges, the tissues that envelope the brain, provide some support as well. Additionally,
[this](_URL_2_) image demonstrates that the empty space fills with cerebrospinal fluid. | [
"This procedure is a modern adaptation of the radical hemispherectomy in which one brain hemisphere is removed to prevent the spread of seizures from one brain hemisphere to the other. In the functional version only a part of the hemisphere is removed but the connections to the other brain hemisphere are cut throug... |
What is the history of the cigar? | What in particular? The history of the cigar or at least it's origins from what I recall are a tad hard to pin down given that there aren't too many sources that I can find that are reliable. So I'll do my best with my passing interest in cigars and the one book I've read about the history of cigar production.
But at any rate, by the 16th century with the colonization of America and the Caribbean islands (at least the beginning of it) European empires like Spain and England began to import vast amounts of tobacco. Although tobacco usage in terms of the form of cigars purportedly have originated from the Taino Indians in the Caribbean, it's difficult to trace exactly where the idea of cigars came from. That said, with the proliferation of tobacco in Europe manifested itself in both the custom of rolling cigars or the smoking of the pipe depending on what areas of Europe. But that's the limit of my knowledge unfortunately.
In terms of the popularity of cigars, cigars would start becoming popular in both America and Europe by the 19th century. By the time the Civil War rolled around a large portion of Cigars in the United States were imported from the Caribbean. Although there was a large amount of tobacco grown in the United States in the strain of tobacco known as "Connecticut Leaf" since the late 1700s, it seems that cigar consumption and cigar tobacco came primarily from the Caribbean.
Given that Cuban Cigar Marcas are the ones with the most information I'll talk more about them. In Cuba, by around 1845-1850 investors from Europe including Germany, England, Spain and France began to start their own marcas based in Cuba. Marcas like H. Upmann, Ramon Allones, El Rey Del Mundo, and Partagas. These would be among the first wave of cigar brands in Cuba that began to standardize and mass produce cigars in their own factories. Practices such as packaging with cedar, the use of aluminium tubes, colored lithography on boxes, and many other practices would be utilized to create the current cigar trends today. Later on marcas like Romeo y Julieta would emerge as the cigar industry began to expand through the Civil War and after until the notable peak in production by the 1920s numbering over 7 billion cigars per annum.
The main cigar production hubs by 1920 would still remain in Cuba (notably Havana although tobacco was derived from regions like Vuelta-Abajo) and Tampa, Florida where cigar producers had fled to in the 1870s and 1880s due to the onset of conflicts in Cuba. The popularity of cigars would hold steady through the 1920s and 30s only to wane once the Cuban Revolution would happen. Due to the embargo on Cuba and the general reputation of Cuban cigars, the popularity of cigars began to wane until the late 1980s and 1990s where once again a cigar boom occurred. However this time, the hubs of cigar production were focused mainly in Florida with tobacco acquired not from Cuba, but from places like Nicaragua and Connecticut (which was still a prominent tobacco grower even in the 1800s). This "fourth or fifth" wave of cigar manufacturing would form the basis of today's cigar production in the United States and the world.
That said, there is a lot more to discuss since this is just a brief overview of a subject that spans 300 years and formed large economies over time. So if there are any follow ups I'll do my best to answer since this answer is a little all over the place.
Sources:
El Lector: A History of the Cigar Factory. | [
"The first cigars by Alec Bradley were known as \"Bogey's Stogies\" and were designed to be sold through golf pro shops for golfers to smoke on the course. Manufactured from 1997 to 1999 — the deepest years of the \"cigar bust\" which followed the faddish cigar boom of the 1990s — Bogey's Stogies proved an unprofit... |
How did bilge pumps work in the old sailing ships? | I have a book at home which has diagrams, if nobody's posted any by the time I get home I'll get you some pictures. But for now, [this is the best I can find](_URL_0_) (Source: _URL_2_)
Elm tree pumps, also known as chain pumps, were one sort of bilge pump used. You can see one in HMS Victory in Portsmouth. Two elm tree trunks, which are long and straight, were bored out to form long tubes. These tubes were placed vertically, side-by-side, running from the lowest point of the bilge to the deck. Then, a long loop of chain was run down one tube, around pulleys at top and bottom, and back up the other tube. At regular intervals on this chain were attached metal discs with rubber edges, which sealed against the inside of the elm trunk tubes. The pulley at the top was turned by manpower with a windlass, causing the metal and rubber discs to pull water up one of the tubes. As each disc reached the top, the water would spill over the top of the elm trunk, and into channels that directed it overboard.
There were other types of bilge pumps involving a pair of one-way valves and a similar wooden tube, pumped by a handle in a similar way to land-based hand water pumps of the time, but they were less efficient than the elm tree chain pump.
I hope that is clear.
Edit: [This thread](_URL_4_) has some more information and pictures.
Edit: Source is [The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600-1815, Brian Lavery](_URL_3_)
[Relevant bits](_URL_1_) | [
"Ancient bilge force pumps had a number of common uses. Depending on where the pump was located in the hull of the ship, it could be used to suck in sea water into a live fish tank to preserve fish until the ship was docked and the fish ready to be sold. Another use of the force pump was to combat fires. Water woul... |
what causes those static-like patches of white pixels when watching films on a disc that's been scratched? | Imagine it like this,
Yoi stretched out the dvd into one line, here you can see all the code for the laser which is etched into the dvd, if it gets scratched off the laser will see nothing an percieve it as zero and leave the screen white in places.
However sometines when scratched the laser can also percieve the scratches as random colors so you also see an array of colors | [
"In the context of image processing of monochrome raster images there is a type of noise, known as the salt and pepper noise, when each pixel independently becomes black (with some small probability) or white (with some small probability), and is unchanged otherwise (with the probability close to 1). An image const... |
Why is Pluto's (and other dwarf planets) orbit so unusual? | One reason is "chaotic" gravity. The dwarf planets beyond Neptune (and other objects in that region) can experience tumultuous gravitational influence from the outer planets and from each other. As an example, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Pluto's orbit is in resonance with Neptune's, meaning Neptune's gravity shaped Pluto's motion and for every x times Neptune goes around the Sun, Pluto goes y times and that's unchanging and repeats over time. At this point their orbits appear to be stable but that stability took time and "chaos" to achieve. | [
"Pluto has five known moons: Charon (the largest, with a diameter just over half that of Pluto), Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra. Pluto and Charon are sometimes considered a binary system because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body.\n",
"Pluto, a dwarf planet, has five moons. Its largest... |
when someone’s metabolism speeds up where does the extra energy go? | Your body is in a constant state of two processes:
[Gluconeogenesis](_URL_0_)- the building up of sugar chains in order to store and transfer energy
[Glycolysis](_URL_1_)- the breaking down of sugar chains to use energy to do work
What is important to know about these two processes is:
1) They are almost exactly the same, just reversed
2) Some energy is lost in each reaction as heat
For your example where the metabolism is higher in one person over another (but no additional work has been done); essentially the person with higher metabolism is performing the buildup and breakdown reactions more. As the reactions are performed more and more, more energy is lost as heat.
TL;DR- The body is artificially generating heat. | [
"Overall, the glycolysis part of the cycle produces 2 ATP molecules at a cost of 6 ATP molecules consumed in the gluconeogenesis part. Each iteration of the cycle must be maintained by a net consumption of 4 ATP molecules. As a result, the cycle cannot be sustained indefinitely. The intensive consumption of ATP mol... |
The history of Feminism. | Holy god, the assignment is to compare & critique the historiographic approaches of multiple generations of scholars? Are you a grad student in history or Women's Studies? The problem with writing "comparative history" is that you need to be well-versed in the subject matter and the primary writers in the field before you can effectively compare their approaches to it. Can you pick just one question or are you supposed to field them all? (Might check the assignment carefully to be sure about this.) Are you working from a textbook? What's the reading material for the course? I'll be honest with you, this question sounds a bit like "write my next undergrad syllabus for me." That said, I can try to help.
[The rule about homework here](_URL_0_) only says that people won't provide answers for you, but discussing the topic seems valid.
As for the actual question, hm. Assuming I really had to try to cover all of that ground in a single essay, the way I'd approach it is I'd pick a single feminist historian as a source, and discuss how he/she answers each of those questions. I'd go through the questions one at a time, probably reordering them so that they flow more logically one into the other (for example, chronologically, or perhaps address them in the order my author does). As I got to each question, I'd offer little bits of comparison to different historians who I think had a notably different view from the main source I'm focusing on.
For instance, if your main text is Mary Wollstonecraft's [A Vindication of the Rights of Woman](_URL_1_) (pdf) (as good a place to start as any), you can work your way through that relatively short document teasing out the parts where she talks about what "history" is, who writes it, and the need to rethink it & recover women's role in it, about gender roles in her time alongside her theory about the "natural" roles of men & women. You can also discuss her interlocutors briefly; Talleyrand in the dedication, writers in her time who offer demure advice to 'ladies' (i.e. the *Cosmo* of her age) she mentions in the introduction, etc. You'd also want to pick 1-2 writers of a later era to sketch in their approaches to each question with that of Wollstonecraft. And perhaps offer your own point of view. Wollstonecraft was one of the first European writers to take seriously the question of women's role or lack thereof in politics, history, the arts, etc., but that doesn't mean later feminist thinkers agreed with everything she wrote.
I was hoping to find a clear, concise summary of feminist history in a popular magazine, like New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, etc. I think the magazine format would probably give you the best insight into how to cover such a broad question in so few pages. But I wasn't able to find a good one, maybe someone else can help.
Judith Bennett has [a superb short overview of feminist history](_URL_2_) (pdf) on her USC page, to give you a more academically rigorous example of how to approach the topic. Good luck! | [
"The article was so influential to the development of women's history that, more than 40 years after its publication, it continues to be widely cited and discussed in major scholarly forums. As historian Claire Bond Potter pointed out to the Organization of American Historians (2015), “when feminist scholarship beg... |
Hi, Historians! Can you please tell me what the diet was like of an average person of your respective eras of expertise? I have so many questions! | The Aztec diet was more like hunter-gatherers than you might expect, in part due to the lack of domesticated animals that could be exploited for meat and milk. It was heavily biased towards a wide and diverse fruit/veg base, with animal protein being a more incidental occurrence. That being said, a lot of the foods I'm about to mention are still common in Mexican cuisine, particularly food from the DF and surrounding states. This is going to be less "menu planning" than "info dump" though. Think of it as the in-depth exploration of the Columbian (fuck that guy) Exchange that got glossed over in school.
__*Plants*__
**Grains and Sisters**
The Aztec diet (and Mesoamerican diet in general) had its staple grain: maize (i.e. corn). Saying this though, is like saying Mosepotamians ate a lot of wheat; it belies the variety of forms the grain took. After [nixtamalization](_URL_12_) of the kernels, the most common preparation was to make tortillas, but maize was also used for [atole](_URL_17_), [pozole](_URL_13_), tamales, or simply made into dumplings that were then prepared in a number of ways. Toasted tortillas, just to end this bit of cornographic material, were the staple food of Aztec armies on the march.
Then there were the other two sisters in "Three Sisters" of North American agriculture: squash and beans. Beans include any number of the [Phaseolus](_URL_4_) genus and appears to have had [independent domestication events](_URL_5_) in Meso and South America. Peanuts (*Arachis*), however, are indigenous to South America, though they were known of and cultivated in Mesoamerica. Squash, in this case, is referring to the [Cucurbita](_URL_10_) genus, which includes anything from pumpkins to zucchini. Squash actually provided a multifacted food source and would be consumed at various points along its development, from seeds on up. Squash blossoms, for instance, were common additions to the cannibalistic pozole enjoyed ritually (more on that in a bit).
There were other staple grains of Post-Classic Mesoamerica though, [amaranth](_URL_6_) and chia in particular. Chia is actually a seed, so that a bit cheating, and was also more of a staple crop in Southern Mexico (this is where the state of Chiapas gets its name). The seeds are also quite oily and would be pressed for that purpose.
Amaranth (*huahtli*), however, was the more popular grain in the NW Highlands of Mexico and was used in a similar way to any other grain, being turned into dough for various purposes. The leaves of the plant would also be used as a "green." My favorite and oft told anecdote is that amaranth cakes mixed with human blood and honey were made into representations of the gods and ritually consumed during Aztec festivals. This connection to the Aztec religion was enough to get growing amaranth banned in post-Cortes Mexico, seeing as how the ritual consumption of the blood and the body of the gods was an offense to the devoutly Catholic Spanish.
**Fruits**
There was a huge profusion of fruits in the Aztec diet. [Cherimoya](_URL_15_), papaya, guava, [mamey](_URL_2_), [zapote](_URL_8_) were all cultivated in Mesoamerica. Other fruits (that we might not think of as fruits) grown were avocados, tomatoes, and tomatillas. Tomatoes are thought to possibly be native to South America and later arrivals to Mesoamerica, but tomatillos were definitely an indigenous Mesoamerican domestication.
Then we have cacti, particularly the nopal cacti, which is featured on the [Mexican coat of arms](_URL_3_). This fruit (*nochtli*) was not only important in the diet, but also symbolically, as it represented the hearts of sacrifices. Once a heart was pulled from a sacrifice, it was literally called "Precious Eagle Cactus Fruit" (*tlazotli cuauhnochtli*). Anyway, aside from providing fruit the leaves of the nopal cactus can also be used in a variety of dishes (e.g. [huevos con nopalitos](_URL_7_), yum!)
Other cacti were cultivated but the second most important "cactus" was maguey, which is actually an agave. Most people probably know agave as the source of tequila and mezcal (tequila is to mezcal as champagne is to sparkling wine), but the leaves are edible and it also provided a large amount of the fibers that ended up as clothing. A *very* diverse plant! Through a complicated process of removing the flowering root, agaves can be made to produce large amounts of [aguamiel](_URL_9_), which can then be fermented into [pulque](_URL_0_) (pulque is to tequila as beer is to scotch). Don't start envisioning drunken Aztec frat parties though, they prized self-discipline and asceticism; public drunkenness was punishable by death (unless you were the equivalent of a senior citizen, in which case you had earned the right to wander the streets shitfaced).
**Spices/Condiments/Herbs/Etc.**
The one key element the we've yet to discuss is chili peppers, delicious, magnificent, exquisite [*Capsicum*](_URL_11_) spp., which were common additions to just about any dish. Chilies would be added fresh, smoked, dried, or just about any other way to any number of foods. That human flesh pozole I mentioned earlier, it's other ingredients would be hominy, squash blossoms, and chilies.
Other non-main foods that were would have been a part of the Aztec diet included [epazote](_URL_1_) and [achiote](_URL_14_), which the Aztecs prominently used to dye their cacao drink.
Cacao, by the way, is not indigenous to the Aztec core region, being a more tropical fruit than the Mexican highlands would accomodate. Still, by the time of Ahzuiotl's extension of the Aztec Empire down to [Soconusco](_URL_16_), cacao had been established as an elite beverage and (as beans) a form of currency. The best way to experience the bitter Aztec beverage would be for you to go get some unsweetened cacao powder, then mix it with some hot water and beat it until foamy, then drink. Depending on your preference you could add annato (from achiote) to dye it red, honey to sweeten it, ground maize, or even vanilla (*tlilxochitl*, another indigenous plant). In a way, it occupied the same status as coffee in 1600s Europe: an elite, somewhat exotic beverage, with stimulating properties.
This is going on a bit long so I'll end this post here and move onto meats and such. | [
"According to Adrienne Rose Johnson, the idea that the primitive diet was superior to current dietary habits dates back to the 1890s with such writers as Dr.Emmet Densmore and Dr.John Harvey Kellogg. Densmore proclaimed that \"bread is the staff of death\", while Kellogg supported a diet of starchy and grain-based ... |
where does our bodily energy go when we don't use it? | You're conflating the physical concept of energy with the abstract human feeling of being energetic. They are not the same at all. Being riled up doesn't mean your body contains more energy, it's just how you feel. Your body isn't a vessel that stores energy until it reaches some peak and explodes. That's not what potential energy is, that's a completely unrelated concept. Drugs don't contain calories so they don't give you any energy, only food does. In fact, stimulant drugs tend to speed up your metabolism which makes you burn energy even faster. You're always using energy from metabolizing food, and if you're consuming more energy from calories than you use, your body turns it into fat. | [
"About 70% of a human's total energy expenditure is due to the basal life processes taking place in the organs of the body (see table). About 20% of one's energy expenditure comes from physical activity and another 10% from thermogenesis, or digestion of food (\"postprandial thermogenesis\"). All of these processes... |
When you record sound on your phone at a concert, why does it pick up the sound of everyone around you over the speakers, but your ears pick up the soundsystem? | Humans have the ability to focus on a single source and mentally filter out background noises. Your phone does not. | [
"Sound around mode allows for real time overlapping of music and the sounds surrounding the listener in her environment, which are captured by a microphone and mixed into the audio signal. As a result, the user may hear playing music and external sounds of the environment at the same time. This can increase user sa... |
I keep hearing about outbreaks of measles and whatnot due to people not vaccinating their children. Aren't the only ones at danger of catching a disease like measles the ones who do not get vaccinated? | Sadly, no. Unvaccinated people are indeed at the highest risk, however, while vaccines are very effective, no vaccine is 100% effective. Most childhood vaccines protect between 85 and 99 percent of the population. For some reason, [a small percentage of folks who are vaccinated do not develop immunity](_URL_2_). This hasn't traditionally been much of an issue because with the vast majority of the population vaccinated for a particular disease, we develop "[herd immunity](_URL_1_)." The more folks are vaccinated, the harder it is for a disease to spread, and so epidemics become less likely.
Another issue (though not strictly what you asked) is that some children cannot receive the vaccine. Often this is because they have a compromised immune system thanks to a genetic disorder, or active cancer treatment. While these children cannot receive the protection of the vaccine, they *can* indeed receive the protection afforded by herd immunity. Unfortunately, as more people choose not to vaccinate their children, immunocompromised are put in particularly bad risk. In the case of measles, these children[ have up to a 50% mortality rate](_URL_0_).
**EDIT: Thank you everyone for the extensive and productive discussion, but please remember that personal medical anecdotes are not allowed in /r/askscience.** | [
"Choosing not to vaccinate is largely to blame for the recent outbreak of measles. Parents choosing not to vaccinate prevents herd immunity, which is what patients who suffer with immunocompromising diseases rely on to protect them. To prevent the measles outbreak of 2019 from getting worse it is necessary for anti... |
why do cables that plug into phones such as the iphone cable have multiple pins going out but ultimately its a 4 pin usb connection on the others end? | The iPhone dock connector was designed to provide multiple types of control & power. If you plug the phone into certain types of docks, it carries audio data & lets you control the device (play/pause, stop, next/previous track), along with providing power.
When you connect it to USB, you're only connecting power & data, ignoring all the other pins. | [
"BULLET::::- Mini USB connector is slightly non standard as the plastic lip that holds the electrical connectors on the cable needs to be slightly thicker to allow contact with the connectors on the phone. You may need to try a couple of different cables to find one that connects properly, or even slightly dent the... |
why do people want obama impeached over the benghazi attack? | The scandal originally was about when the attacks occurred the Administration, including Hillary Clinton, blamed it on reaction to some terribly made [anti-Muslim movie trailer](_URL_0_). In actuality it was coordinated effort by Al Qaeda.
This got the Republicans very upset. And they accused Obama of playing politics by covering up a security failure and Al Qaeda attack and pointing fingers at the movie and implying that Republican extremists were the cause.
Instead of the White House being grown ups and admitting they messed up they have parsed statements and shown that technically they did make some statements blaming terrorists rather than movie critics.
And instead of the Republicans being grown ups and getting over the whole thing they have conducted Congressional hearings to look into the thing.
The congressional hearings today are about how much warning there was before the attack. The Republicans are trying to find something but have no actual evidence the White House did anything drastically wrong.
| [
"BULLET::::- Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich suggested that Barack Obama could be impeached. Kucinich said Obama's action in Libya was \"a grave decision that cannot be made by the president alone\". He also claimed Obama violated the Constitution by failing to seek the approval of the Congress first. Republ... |
why is planter's trail mix allowed to use real m & ms? | Because they have a deal with Mars. It's mutually beneficial for the two companies since they don't directly compete. If you pay attention you can find this sort of thing all over the snack aisle. | [
"The X-Trail has had three model revisions, the Series 1 and Series 2 (using Nissan FF-S platform) and the Series 3 (using Nissan/Renault C platform). There were various cosmetic and engineering changes made between Series 1 and 2, but the Series 3 T31 is all new despite a similar appearance with new engines apart ... |
why is planting trees so important when farmers plant millions of plants every year? | Many reasons.
Trees are much larger than what a farmer plants. When they grow they provide homes for many animals and one tree is better for the environment than an acre of a crop.
Trees provide shade, they can live for many years, cleaning the air..
Trees have deep roots which are good for the soil. They reach deep and pull up nutrients and when established the trees don't need watering. To compare most crops have very shallow roots which means the farmer needs to add nutrients to the soil and they may need watering (irrigation).
Farmers crops are mono-culture (one type of plant). Mono-culture environments are sterile and don't support much other life, a tree will soon have a forest around it, including trees of other types, shrubs, moss, and so forth, all creating a nicer environment.
Also remember farmers crops are short lived - harvested after a few months and often the field is left bare after that and some top soil will even blow away (or get washed off in the rain). So you only have the benefit of the plants for a few months and the plants are pretty small in comparison to a tree and don't do much for reducing carbon from the air like a tree does. | [
"Planting of trees also serves other purposes like providing alternative fuel options, food for cattle, helps in soil conservation and more than anything offers a natural aesthetic beauty. Planting of trees also helps to avoid soil erosion which may cause floods. \n",
"The project has helped farmers achieve bette... |
why does my voice sounds weird on video/audio? | When you speak, you hear two things. You hear the sound of your own voice carried through the air back to your ears (having bounced off the walls or something), and you also hear the sound of your voice resonating inside your own body, in your chest cavity and your sinuses and all that. Both of these contribute to what you hear when you listen to yourself speaking.
Microphones can generally only record the part that comes through the air. Which, incidentally, is the only thing other people can hear too.
So microphones hear what other people hear, which is less than what you yourself hear from inside your own body.
Put another way, your voice sounds *normal* when recorded; it sounds weird when you hear it from inside yourself. | [
"There have been reports of microphone issues that result in weak and spotty voice quality. Google is investigating the issue, and it is suspected that the issue is partially caused by noise cancellation.\n",
"In film, the filmmaker places the sound of a human voice (or voices) over images shown on the screen tha... |
What can cause a person to change the language they are speaking, mid sentence, and not realize it? | It's entirely possible that this man has a form of aphasia (language impairment). [Here is an interesting study](_URL_0_) on the effects of aphasia on bilinguals (note: "L1" means "native language" or "first language" and "L2" means "second language" or "language learned later in life"):
> Bilinguals must focus their attention to control competing languages. **In bilingual aphasia, damage to the fronto-subcortical loop may lead to pathological language switching and mixing and the attrition of the more automatic language (usually L1).** We present the case of JZ, a bilingual Basque-Spanish 53-year-old man who, after haematoma in the left basal ganglia, presented with executive deficits and aphasia, characterised by more impaired language processing in Basque, his L1. Assessment with the Bilingual Aphasia Test revealed impaired spontaneous and automatic speech production and speech rate in L1, as well as impaired L2-to-L1 sentence translation. Later observation led to the assessment of verbal and non-verbal executive control, which allowed JZ’s impaired performance on language tasks to be related to executive dysfunction. In line with previous research, we report the significant attrition of L1 following damage to the left basal ganglia, reported for the first time in a Basque-Spanish bilingual. Implications for models of declarative and procedural memory are discussed. | [
"The learner's emotional state or affect can interfere with acquiring a new language because acquiring a new language inevitably involves practicing it in public and conversing with others. All these encompassed the possibility of making mistakes, resulting in embarrassment, and such anxiety can block the ability t... |
the difference between hate crime and terrorism | edit:formatting
**Hate crime** is targeted at a specific individual(s) and causing harm to those individual(s) solely because they are a member of a legally [protected class.](_URL_0_)
**Terrorism** is an act that targets a group of people broader than those harmed in the action taken. The intent is to cause fear that is felt across a large group of people that were not necessarily directly affected by the violent action. | [
"\"Hate crime\" generally refers to criminal acts which are seen to have been motivated by bias against one or more of the social groups listed above, or by bias against their derivatives. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, mate crime or offens... |
Is there anywhere on Earth which has experienced no conflicts in the past? | Well, every place on earth has seen some sort of conflict, military or not.
Greenland was (and still is) a colony of Denmark. In World War 2, Denmark was annexed by Nazi Germany, and Greenland came with it. It was only until the allies established minor bases on it that it was secured by the allies. Although it was never the location of a battle, it was the subject of a minor territorial conflict in the Second World War.
As for Antarctica and the Arctic circle, they are currently disputed zones, so technically they are seeing conflict right now even though there is no war going on. If you are looking for war zones, I guess you can leave these areas out, but it is important to note that much of it has seen military presence, especially between Canada and Russia in the Arctic.
| [
"Over one hundred years ago the planet earth was embroiled in its most dismal war. No one yet living remembers its exact cause, but no one was too young to be spared its merciless horror as rival terran and colonial clans waged bitter conflict throughout the Solar System.\n",
"In the year 2079 conflicts arose bet... |
if you throw a die you have a 1-in-6 (16.7%) chance of landing the desired number, but if you throw it six times you don't have a 100% chance of landing it. | For independent events like die rolls, probabilities don't add, they multiply. So the chance of getting a 2nd roll the same as the first is 1/6. And the chance of getting a 2nd roll the same as the first AND a 3rd roll the same as the second is 1/6 * 1/6, or 1/36. | [
"If one throws a die once, it is difficult to predict the outcome, but if we repeat this experiment many times, we will see that the number of times each result occurs divided by the number of throws will eventually stabilize towards a specific value.\n",
"So the player has an 87.2% chance of scoring even when th... |
how instant hot water showers work | There are several different configurations of shower but the main two are as follows.
Electric showers:
An electric unit on the wall of the shower heats up cold water as it passes into the shower unit. These are usually cheap as all you need is the shower unit on the wall. They are normally often don't give a particularly powerful water jet as they have to heat the water as it goes and electric heating can be inefficient.
Mixer shower:
These showers mix hot water from your water heater (in uk these are generally gas powered) with cold water to get a desired temperature.
They need a decent head of water (the water needs to fall from above to give enough pressure) so can require water pumps to give a powerful blast.
Mixer showers can simply mix the water and you have to fiddle with them to get the right temp or can be thermostatic which allow you to set a temperature that it tries to maintain.
Source: i worked for a bathroom retailer for a long time | [
"In 2015, the Dutch company Hamwells introduced the e-Shower at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in London. Citing hygiene issues in earlier solutions, Hamwells opted for a solution with a semi-closed loop where the water is used several times instead of the entire session. External hot water is used to maintain t... |
how do government agencies/big companies track internet usage of users, especially if there are hundreds of people using it at the same time? | The places sending you the information have to track you anyway in order to send it. All the government/companies have to do is copy and organize this data; when you have lots of very big servers, that's not particularly hard. | [
"There are many ways in which online tracking has manifested itself. Historically, when companies wanted to track users’ online behavior, they simply had users sign in to their website. This is a form of deterministic cross-device tracking, in which the user’s devices are associated with their account credentials, ... |
if everyone stopped dying altogether, right this moment, how long do we have before the earth is completely overpopulated? | I believe 14B is an accepted maximum capacity. For every 8 worldwide deaths, there are 19 births (2.375x). Around 55.3M people die every year. Since the population is currently ~7.4B, that means we need 6.6B more, so just under 116 years. | [
"On the same day across the Earth, the concept of death is suddenly nullified when it is found that people who have suffered mortal wounds or fatal diseases are unable to die. This is initially seen as a religious miracle, but the absence of deaths begins to strain medical resources and spread diseases around the g... |
why is it that as we get older, we find it harder to enjoy new things (ie. music) and instead focus on things that remind us of the past? | I'm not really sure that this is the case.
If it is, though, I would think the answer is in the question: since the very young have comparatively less of *anything* to remind them of good things in the past, they cling to whatever's current just by default, whereas anyone who's even 20 or older will have (increasingly with age) more and more things that remind them of good things in the past. | [
"When we were all younger it was like we just wrote and made music. We would get together in the practice space and just start playing. Somebody would start and everyone else would join in. And we started overthinking everything slowly over time. This was about trying to forget everything we'd learned and going bac... |
Why was Christianity so widely adopted by Europeans? Is there a reason for why Islam spread throughout the Middle East more than Christianity? | Not sure about the first part of your question (Constantine and his conversion definitely had a part, but how did Christianity even reach him? Trade routes?), but Islam spread through the Middle East because the people who conquered it were Muslims and allowed for easy conversion, at least according to [Fred Donner](_URL_0_). As I said in another thread, the Muslim conquerors allowed for religious freedom but also incentivized conversion: Muslims got better tax rates and were given plots of newly conquered land that had been seized from non-Muslims, which they could then use for farming. I also read that Islam spread faster because it allowed for more social mobility while essentially destroying the concept of a caste system when an Islamic empire finally reached India (the Mughals). | [
"Christianity originated in the region in the 1st century AD, and was one of the major religions of the region until the Muslim conquests of the mid-to-late 7th century AD. Christianity in the Middle East is characterized with its diverse beliefs and traditions compared to other parts of the old world.\n",
"In te... |
why are viruses so difficult to get rid of? if they mutate too quickly, how do they retain their orignal side effect? (common cold, hiv, herpes) | First of all, you have to distinguish between RNA and DNA viruses. Mutations rarely occurs in DNA viruses but are frequent in RNA viruses (just think about the common flu virus). The problem with viruses is that they use the transcriptional/traslational apparatus of the cell for their replication so their life circle would be linked to the one of the cell too. Due to that, any kind of treatment will inevitably affect also the cell. That's why bacteria infections are commonly more eradicable than viruses' and for the latter we prefer prevention (for example vaccines -- exception: some viruses don't have any antigen linked to the disease, like HCV).
[The most frequent drugs used for viruses have such targets: virus genome, virus proteases or virus polymerases.] | [
"Because many viruses integrate their own genomes into the genomes of their host cells in order to replicate, mutagenesis caused by viral infections is a fairly common occurrence. Not all integrating viruses cause insertional mutagenesis, however.\n",
"While viral latency exhibits no active viral shedding nor cau... |
What are the earliest examples of people putting collars on pets? Was there ever a significantly different way of identifying personal pets? | Egyptian art from the 4th millennium BC depicts dogs wearing collars and some of those have been discovered by archaeologists. We know the types of names they gave their dogs because of inscriptions on surviving collars. Names like 'Brave One, Reliable, Good Herdsman and North-Wind'
_URL_0_ | [
"There is evidence from ancient Egypt that people were using decorative collars to adorn their dogs. One collar was discovered in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian nobleman Maiharpiri in 1440 BC. It depicts hunting scenes embossed into leather. The dog's name, Tantanouit, is visible on the collar. He was a favorite ... |
if one country gets fined by another, how is the fine enforced? | I don't understand. It is impossible to fine other countries. If you are referring to reparations for war, that is different. It if you are referring to fines imposed by a treaty organization (I.e. UN, NATO, etc) that is also different. Can you please clarify. | [
"Imposing sanctions on an opponent also affects the economy of the imposing country to some degree. If import restrictions are promulgated, consumers in the imposing country may have restricted choices of goods. If export restrictions are imposed or if sanctions prohibit companies in the imposing country from tradi... |
how do stops in a pipe organ work? | Those are literally valves that direct air to different sets of pipes. Depending on the material, shape, length, etc., of the pipes, you can get different sounds. If you pull a stop, it opens a valve, and when you push it back in, it closes it. | [
"An organ stop (or just stop) is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air (known as \"wind\") to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; each can be \"on\" (admitting the passage of air to certain pipes), or \"off\" (\"stopping\" the pass... |
why are there print and television advertisements for things like cotton, plastic, clean coal or eggs. | Those campaigns are put on usually by lobbies for the entire industry. Their purpose is to influence and raise people opinion of the item in question so that people both buy it more/vote for proposal that they feel are in their interest. That's partially why you'll fine that those ads seem to be more about inspiring people then pushing any particular product.
| [
"Until the 1970s, commercial poster hangers always \"cooked\" their own paste, but since then many have bought pre-cooked instant pastes. It is applied to the backside of paper then placed on flat surfaces, particularly concrete and metal as it does not adhere well to wood or plastic. Cheap, rough paper such as new... |
What the heck happened after the American Revolutionary war? | This time is known generally as the Articles of Confederation period. The same agreements that unified the 13 colonies to fight the Revolutionary War pretty much continued, along with the Continental Congress. As the states acted more as independent countries, most governance was within the states- the Congress had fairly little power, and few talented politicians went there, preferring to go into state politics.
There have been various assessments of this time. The older one ( John Fiske, 19th c.) was that it was a time of crisis, because the weak Congress had a very limited power to conduct diplomacy and a very hard time dealing with the enormous debt of the War. One example of this would be [Shay's Rebellion](_URL_1_) in Massachusetts. The merchants of the Boston were unable to get further credit from their overseas European suppliers- those merchants didn't want to take any more notes and printed money from the Colonies, they wanted hard currency, like gold or silver. That hard currency was scarce in the Colonies, and many - especially in the western regions- were doing a lot of trading with just notes- like IOU's. The Boston merchants managed to get a new law passed that required all public debts ( like taxes) to be paid with hard currency, hoping to wring more hard currency out of people's pockets into the economy. This was very hard on the western farmers: if they couldn't find hard currency to pay their taxes, their farms could be sold by a court to anyone who could. So in 1786 there was a taxpayer revolt, with mobs of angry farmers preventing those courts from conducting business. In this older interpretation, the time of crisis, of course, was resolved by the adoption of the Constitution. Oh, and that Hamilton guy helped a lot after that was ratified.
On the other hand, there were some useful accomplishments under the A of C, maybe the most important being the Land Act of 1785 and the Northwest Ordnance of 1787 . The Land Act regularized the surveying of the new territories and land ownership, which had been a very large problem in the early Colonies, where deeds were often vague and overlapped each other. The Northwest Ordnance dispensed with all the previous overlapping claims of the Colonies for the new territories in the west and provided the framework for admitting them as new states ( eventually Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan) . It also stipulated that there would be no slaves in those new states. So, some ( like Merrill Jensen) have looked upon the A of C period as one of , well, if not dynamic growth, at least not crisis, saying perhaps the factional democracy of the individual states under the Articles better expressed the radical ideas of the soldiers in the Revolution than the Constitution would in 1787, and that, really, the Constitution should therefore not be considered as inevitable.
This short period of only several years also gets modern political interest- and bias. Libertarians today embrace the A of C period as something of a hopeful golden age , where true freedom reigned, before Americans were shackled and even crushed by a huge Federal government. Those who worship the Constitution tend to view it as a bumbling, disorganized prelude to 1787, during which everyone was saying, gosh, there's got to be a better way to govern this place let's have a Convention. I confess my own interest in history of technology puts me with the latter. One example of this bumbling would be the misadventures of John Fitch and James Rumsey, who had each invented a steamboat - very different ones. Fitch had vague monopoly patents with some states, including his home of Pennsylvania, and demonstrated his boat first. Rumsey had a vague design patent from Virginia and a claim to have been working on his boat before Fitch ever began his. In 1788 they got into a patent fight. There was no simple way, under the A of C, to have made sure their patents did not overlap before they were granted and to sort out the claims once there was a dispute, and it might have been very handy if the US had gotten a steamboat 20 years before Fulton.... Someone could say that eventually some patent agreement between the States might have been hammered out under the A of C... but the Constitution spelled it out immediately. And so Fitch and Rumsey got the first-ever hearing by the first ever US Patent Commission.
& #x200B;
Thomas J Slaughter [*Merrill Jensen and the Revolution of 1787*](_URL_0_) | [
"One of the causes of the American Revolutionary War was the dispute between the British government and the British colonials who wanted to settle in the region. During the course of the war, American forces captured outposts in the lower areas of the territory, but British forces maintained control of Fort Detroit... |
What happens to you physiologically when exposed to radiation from a nuclear bomb detonating? Sources? | The type of radiation emitted from a nuclear blast is ionizing radiation. These high energy particles interact with the molecules of your DNA and can cause breaks or can cause an alteration of the DNA conformity. Most ionizing radiation you come into contact with is such a low dose that the natural DNA repair mechanisms can cope with the damage. However, in the event of lethal doses of radiation, the repair mechanisms cannot salvage the DNA and the cells may undergo apoptosis, or carry forward mutations in the genetic code. In the case of apoptosis the cells cease to function and die, and in the case of a mutation there may be a loss of function of a specific protein or cell regulatory factor leading to possible malignancy. | [
"Non-radioactive injuries from the blast itself would result from the human body being thrown and from impacts from objects. The detonation would produce intense heat that will cause burns to exposed skin and eyes. There are two general categories of nuclear radiation produced in a detonation. First, is the prompt ... |
During the time of the 13 colonies/Europe what was the literacy rate? And with the population that wasn’t literate, did that understand the concept of percentages? | I'll defer to others regarding the literacy rate in Europe but can speak to the American colonies. Pinning down exactly what we mean by "literacy" is complicated and has changed over time. The definition wouldn't be standardized until the late 1800's and the rise of literacy tests for voters. Some government officials in the colonies counted every person who could sign their name. Others asked for self-reporting data (if the person considered themselves literate because they could recite religious passages and sign their name, they'd say yes. As would the tutor who taught Latin at Harvard.) which meant there are discrepancies even in primary sources. You'll often see claims that the American colonies were among the most literate in the world, with rates as high as 95%. This, to a certain extent is true. The number, though, requires some unpacking.
Many of the earlier colonists had a religious motivation for traveling to North America. Several of those religious groups, not all to be sure, saw education as essential to leading a good and spiritual life. Being able to read wasn't necessarily about being educated, it was about keeping Satan at bay. This means there were often uneven rates between the ability to read and the ability to write. While some societies in the colonies advocated literacy for all children, most notably Quakers, others focused only on sons. Meanwhile, those high literacy rates often focus only colonists.
Few white dominated societies attended purposefully to the literacy level of Black or enslaved people so they were rarely considered in the denominator. Additionally, reports of 95% literacy ignore the Indigenous people living in the colonies before, during, and after Europeans arrived. In effect, if you only count 100 white, land-owned white men and 95 of them report they can read contracts and scripture, you get a literacy rate of 95%. If they'd actually counted every person living on North American soil, the percentage would be dramatically lower.
There's a connection between the literacy rate and understanding percentages, to be sure. Those on American soil who experienced formal education (with a tutor or in a school like Boston Latin or Harvard), mathematics was essential to the curriculum. From a study of the history of teaching Mathematics in America^1:
> Other topics, also part of the standard abbaco curriculum, were also found in North American cyphering books throughout the 18th century and up to about 1860. Almost all colonial cyphering books that focused on elementary arithmetic included entries on compound operations, currency exchange, reduction, vulgar and decimal fractions, and percentage.
Early colonial newspapers spoke of percentages (often written as per cent, per Cent, or per-cent) to describe taxes, daily interest, and crop yields. The notion of percents and decimals were common in Europe in the 1600's^2, so it's reasonable to assume the educated men who came over would be familiar. Those men would use the concept with their wives who were often partners on the family farm or at their business or trade. Children were also instrumental in helping their parents so they would pick up the concept, even if they didn't experience formal education. Likewise, the enslaved and freed people who worked for/with them so it's safe to assume that the concept was widespread.
Finally, [this response](_URL_0_) by u/Bodombeachbod provides a different look at literacy through the lense of wealthy white women in the colonies.
___________
1. Ellerton, N., & Clements, M. K. (2012). *Rewriting the history of school mathematics in North America 1607-1861: The central role of cyphering books.* Springer Science & Business Media.
2. Whitrow, G. J. (1988). *Why did mathematics begin to take off in the sixteenth century? In C. Hay (Ed.), Mathematics from manuscript to print 1300–1600* (pp. 264–269). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. | [
"Although the present-day concepts of literacy have much to do with the 15th-century invention of the movable type printing press, it was not until the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century that paper and books became affordable to all classes of industrialized society. Until then, only a small percentage o... |
the implications of the detection of gravitational waves by the ligo team | "Well, gravitational waves give us another way to observe space. For example, waves from the Big Bang would tell us a little more about how the universe formed. Waves also form when black holes collide, supernovae explode, and massive neutron stars wobble. So detecting these waves would give us a new new insight into the cosmic events that produced them.
Finally, gravitational waves could also help physicists understand the fundamental laws of the universe. They are, in fact, a crucial part of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Finding them would prove that theory—and could also help us figure out where it goes astray. Which could lead to a more accurate, more all-encompassing model, and perhaps point the way toward a theory of everything." So. Einstein nailed it. -And not only do we have the data to prove it, but we've also got what we need to take our understanding to the next level, potentially resulting in a working Grand Unified Theory. Aka The secrets of the universe are now within short reach. | [
"In 2015, the LIGO project was the first to directly observe gravitational waves using laser interferometers. The LIGO detectors observed gravitational waves from the merger of two stellar-mass black holes, matching predictions of general relativity. These observations demonstrated the existence of binary stellar-m... |
How does ingesting sodium/potassium affect the "sodium-potassium pump"? | This is only a partial answer to your question but is still worth noting. Increased sodium intake increases your blood pressure because it pulls water into the blood stream from the interstitial space (space in between cells) and other cells. This is why you feel dehydrated after eating a high salt meal, and also why you shouldn't eat too much salty food.
Chronic high blood pressure can damage the heart. Physically, chronic high blood pressure has a similar impact on heart muscle as a partial vessel block. The heart has to pump more rigorously to get blood to where the blood needs to go (probably leading to a slight elevation in HR). Eventually those with chronic high blood pressure may develop cardiomyopathy (cardio = heart, myo = muscle, pathy = disease/pathology). Sometimes you might see "hyerptrophic cardiomyopathy" which is just a specific form of disease related to an enlarged heart (good for emotions, bad for your body).
I don't think that ingesting other ions would counter the effects of increased sodium intake because ion pumps are already working pretty damn hard to maintain equilibria in cells. Doubling your potassium intake wouldn't double the rate at which a Na/K pump can import 2 K+ and export 3 Na+ if it's already working at its top speed.
I'm not yet familiar with EKG readings so I can't provide any direct information on that. | [
"The sodium-potassium pump was discovered in 1957 by the Danish scientist Jens Christian Skou, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in 1997. Its discovery marked an important step forward in the understanding of how ions get into and out of cells, and it has particular significance for excitable cells such as... |
Vikings are famous for raping and pillaging, and undoubtedly more than one woman must have given birth to a half-Viking child who was a product of rape. How did societies treat these children? | Rape was the fear, expectation, the weapon, the reward for soldiers, and the terrible reality of medieval (ancient, early modern, *modern*) warfare. And by warfare, we're talking about short raids, longer "campout" raids that could last a week or a month, the stereotypical protracted siege culminating with "taking the city," an enemy army passing through a village, a *"friendly"* army passing through a village or demanding quarter, or just two feuding lords sending out parties to wreak havoc on the land with an eye towards ruining their enemy and/or claiming it for themselves. It was a given on all sides. In his version of the call to Crusade, Robert of Rheims has Pope Urban say, "What can I say about the evil rape of women [by Muslims], of which it is worse to speak than to be silent?" For his part, Ibn Hayyan writes of the rape and plunder by Christian soldiers rampaging through Barbastro (Iberia) in 1063: "There is no pen eloquent enough to describe them."
This diffidence in the sources is insightful. All sides face first the difficult reality that condemning their opponents as rapists is a quick and dirty way to cast them as barbaric and evil, but their own side's soldiers are just as guilty. (Legal decrees trying to reign in a wayward lord or lord-bishop, and, from the early modern era, firsthand accounts tell us that the accounts of devastation are not just propaganda.) But second, Latin Christians in particular could never quite shake the belief that while being a rapist was proof of a man's barbarity, *being raped* polluted a woman forever. Augustine had argued passionately c. 400 that as long as a woman didn't "enjoy it", rape did not pollute her *soul*. But his passion was directed at the argument he was actually making against suicide. Augustine was as concerned with the lives and emotions of women as the 10 commenters and 112 upvoters in this thread who think a question about the experiences of women who were brutally raped, and their children is best answered by *the distribution of haplogroups in the 21st century.*
On the other hand, Augustine looks postiviely cushy from a modern standpoint next to his sometime-correspondent and translator of the Vulgate Bible. Jerome took the position that virgins should kill themselves rather than "let" themselves be raped. The Latin Middle Ages inherited both of these traditions, and...well, they didn't quite know what to do. In theoretical mode as a safely-ensconced university scholar, Thomas Aquinas followed Augustine in accepting that a woman could still be pure so long as her will had remained pure. For vehement promoter of religious women Jacques de Vitry, ranging all over Christendom but always coming back to his beloved acolytes/spiritual mothers in Liege, the dilemma for his flock--and himself as their publicist--was anything but theoretical. And so he could recount with zeal, but also relief, that when Liege was sacked in 1212, the beguines (semi-nuns) of the city flung themselves into sewers and canals to *drown* rather than suffer rape--but, "miraculously," they were all spared.
So the Western chroniclers of life and war will tell us that the Earl of Buchan led an arm of the Scottish army on a rampage of raping "women dedicated to God as well as married women and girls, either murdering them or robbing them after gratifying their lust" (even here, rape is an *afterthought* of the chronicler). They will tell us that Abbess Ebba of Coldingham monastery, knowing her community would be raided by Vikings on the morrow, led her nuns in slicing off their noses and lips with a razor to make themselves too ugly to rape. (Of course, Roger of Wendover continues, the Danes were so upset at having their prizes ruined that they slaughtered everyone--thus averting the theological problem of rape and pollution.)
What we *don't* see from the male chroniclers are women's lives *after*. There are a couple of medieval women writers who touch on rape. Margery Kempe (15th century England) is scared to sleep alone at night in a town for fear of intruders; Christine de Pisan (14th-15th century France) describes the aftermath of rape as *grieving*, as mourning the death of a dearly beloved. They don't tell us about the "after", either. So can we pull anything out of the sources?
Gwen Seabourne and Jeremy Goldberg both make the point that over the course of the Middle Ages, the older practice of "kill the men and kill or enslave the women and children" more and more often gave way to "ransom the men and leave the women behind", although there are plenty of exceptions. Women who stayed in a town under siege were typically treated as enemy combatants and slaughtered if the town fell, for example. Or women might be seized (*rapio*) and held captive temporarily, for ransom and/or repeated sexual abuse. (To be clear, this is average towns- and village women, not the elite nobility). That sets out some of the guidelines for how sexual violence could affect women survivors of war: captivity and (typically) concubinage/servitude, temporary captivity and possible to probable rape, rape amidst devastation.
We have hints, first of all, that theological ideas about pollution in the case of rape, or a woman's perceiving "wanting it," had such deep roots they tore apart families. A group of raiders in Chester and Lancaster in 1378 were accused of operating a ransom scheme in which they would kidnap a woman from across jurisdictional boundaries, then demand a ransom from her parents. But it wasn't for the life of the daughter--it was for the life of the *parents*. They would die if they didn't pay. But if they did, they would be "forced" to take their daughter back. Let that sink in a moment.
It's undoubtable that rape would have resulted in pregnancy sometimes. Due to a combination of lack of sources and disinterest among scholars (no, really), we don't actually know that much about illegitimate children in the Middle Ages. There are plenty of articles about the illegitimate kids of an individual noble, or an individual natural child's life. But these are elite nobles. Illegitimacy mattered to the *child* when it came to inheritance, or possibly (for men) becoming a priest. (Although the ban on illegitimate sons taking holy orders had more to do with enforcing clerical celibacy by preventing natural sons from inheriting their fathers' trades, and was basically guaranteed an episcopal waiver anyway). We don't "see" illegitimate children on the average level.
One source I thought of checking was cases of infanticide. Margaret Lewis looking systematically at the more plentiful early modern German cases matches what I observed in reading some secondary scholarship on medieval English records: women just don't talk about rape in the context of infanticide. That obviously doesn't mean it didn't happen (Lewis calls it "extremely rare"), but we can assume that women who were raped and found themselves pregnant did not all kill their children (before or after birth), and, statistically, did not all miscarry.
Given the intense stigma on rape, and the potential for a rape case to turn into an adultery allegation (especially if pregnancy was involved, because there was an association of sex that led to pregnancy and having an orgasm, so being pregnant was often taken as a consent of the will), it seems likely that many rape survivors claimed the child was their husband's, if they were married; or found a husband, if not. The frequency of men's deaths in warfare-type situations may have abetted this. We know, after all, that flurries of marriages after a battle or a period of army encampment were not uncommon, and that this was treated as an especially crucial action for *women*. That would have legitimated a child, reduced *public* (certainly not internal) shame for the woman, and ideally created a more stable financial situation for her and her baby. The prospects for single mothers in medieval (and early modern, where we have more data) Europe were not great. They show up on poor rolls and in poverty-related petitions with sad frequency.
I want to caution against interpreting modern haplogroup percentages and geographic spreads as flat-out indications of rape. Contact, including sexual contact, and including between enemies or "enemies", took many forms in the Middle Ages and beyond: trade, raids, cohabitation, open warfare, embassies, encounters on pilgrimage, prostitution. Just looking at Iberia, for example, it's clear that Muslim, Christian, and Jewish women all entered into consensual relationships with men of other faiths despite their own religion's laws against it. Especially with a topic as hard-hitting and *modern* as rape in warfare, we can't let emotionality strip away all agency from women who made choices under differing amounts of pressure, to go to Iceland with that hot Viking or take that job as the crusader knight's "cook." But we also can't ignore the testimony of soldiers like the Thirty Years War's Peter Hagendorf, who threw a lavish wedding for his second wife and went to great lengths to secure an education for his beloved son. Hagendorf noted in his meticulous diary:
> [In Landshut] I got a pretty lass as my plunder. [...] I took a young girl with me from Pforzheim, too, but I let her go...I was sorry about this because at the time I had no wife.
~~
Some Further Reading:
* Jane Tibbets Schulenberg, *Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, 500-1100*
* Gwen Seabourne, *Imprisoning Medieval Women: The Non-Judicial Abduction and Confinement of Women in Medieval England, 1170-1509*
* Mary Elizabeth Ailes, "Camp Followers, Sutlers, and Soldiers' Wives," in *A Companion to Women's Military History*
* John Gillingham, "Crusading Warfare, Chivalry, and the Enslavement of Women and Children," in *The Medieval Way of War* | [
"The Vikings (Scandinavians who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late 8th century to the early 11th century), have acquired a reputation for \"rape and pillage\". Viking settlements in Britain and Ireland are thought to have been primarily male enterprises, with a lesser role for Viking females. B... |
do other animals actually have “human” facial expressions (smiles, frowns, furrowed brows) or is it just our minds wanting to see facial expressions in animals? | Sure. A dog will squint different way with either pain or pleasure. We humans pick up on it. | [
"Facial Mimicry defined is the resemblance shown by one animal species to another which protects it from predators, perceived or otherwise. Dimberg's research revealed that mothers tend to open their mouths in response to their infants opening and closing the mouth to feed. There is substantial and compelling evide... |
why was the native american code during ww2 so hard to break? | Languages are organized in families. English is part of the Indo-European family, so almost all European languages are from that family. There are lots of loanwords too.
The Native American languages were from their own family, so the linguists in Germany and Japan didn't have experience with them. Also, since pretty much everyone who spoke the language lived in a small geographic area inside the US, that made it even harder for other countries to study it.
Without the ability to study these languages in context, it's almost impossible to decipher the words, and then what the codes mean. | [
"German authorities knew about the use of code talkers during World War I and sent a team of thirty anthropologists to the United States to learn Native American languages before the outbreak of World War II. However, the task proved too difficult because of the array of native languages and dialects. Nonetheless, ... |
Why do fabrics become more resistant to tearing when wet, while other materials, like paper, become more prone to it. | Simply put because the wetness softens the fibers.
In a woven fabric, the fibers are basically going the entire width of the item in one strand. So when they become softer, they tend to stretch or slide past each other, and they still need the same amount of force applied to break each fiber, but it is harder to apply that force to each fiber.
In paper, they aren't woven. They are just laid down in the sheet, pressed and dried. So when the fibers soften, and slide past each other easier, it is that much easier to pull one fiber completely free of its neighbors.
Edit for clarity: In a fabric, they are purposefully woven so that the fibers don't pull free of each other easily, the hems and seams prevent fraying. In a paper product, they aren't.
So in a fabric you have to break every fiber in the ripped area, in a paper you just have to pull the fibers away from each other. | [
"Linen is a very durable, strong fabric, and one of the few that are stronger wet than dry. The fibers do not stretch, and are resistant to damage from abrasion. However, because linen fibers have a very low elasticity, the fabric eventually breaks if it is folded and ironed at the same place repeatedly over time.\... |
why does windows sometimes estimate copying time super incorrectly? | It takes longer to copy many smaller files than one large file. Sometimes you may be copying a combination of the two so windows thinks all the files are small and since the average copying speed has dropped copying the smaller files it increases the expected time to complete the rest of the files thinking that the remaining files will copy at the same rate. | [
"Because a single time code is made up of 40 consecutive bits, read errors can cause a timecode to be unreadable even if a single bit is misread. A bit that has become unreadable due to a scratch can make an entire 40 bit long time code permanently unreadable. Dust can have a similar effect on the time code. The ti... |
how does air move across a room? | Air pressure. My house has really weird pressure. I can close a door on one end of the house, and if the garage door isn't latched right, it'll open and then SLAM shut. | [
"An air door or air curtain is a device used to prevent air or contaminants from moving from one open space to another. The most common use is a downward-facing blower fan mounted over an entrance to a building, or an opening between two spaces conditioned at different temperatures.\n",
"In architecture, an airsh... |
how is dubai able to build so much infrastructure so quickly without much political opposition? | Dubai is an absolute monarchy: there *is* no political opposition. That doesn't mean that the ruling family does whatever they feel like doing without consultation, but they could. The largest property developers have state connections e.g. the founder of Emaar Properties, Mohamed Alabbar, was also a chief economic adviser to the Dubai regime.
It's also worth noting that outside the city centre, Dubai was pretty much empty desert. All those skyscrapers such as the Burj Khalifa, weren't built over existing infrastructure. | [
"The government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy, and to make Dubai the main hub of tourists in the world, has made and other developmental projects such as Dubailand, more valuable, resulting in the property boom from 2004 to 2007. There are over 1,500 major freehold developments and communities i... |
how do open source projects compete with for profit alternatives? | Poorly. They really cannot advertise, for the consumer market which is mostly free, nor compete much with Microsoft for being included on sold PCs. | [
"In contrast to traditional open source projects, a Single-vendor commercial open source project \"is controlled by exactly one stakeholder with the purpose of commercially exploiting it\". In this context, the open source community is less engaged in the development of core functionality, as they typically are in ... |
if suicide by subway train is prevalent, why don't the subway trains slow down enough to make a quick stop before they get to the platform? | Trains have poor stopping distances. The value of a subway system is rapid mass transit. Slow travel times undermine its use as competition with driving/walking.
Suicide by train is not that common in fact it's so rare that its often international news when it happens. Even if it were a problem, a much more effective and efficient solution is [platform screen doors](_URL_0_). | [
"Jumping in front of an oncoming subway train has a 59% death rate, lower than the 90% death rate for rail-related suicides. This is most likely because trains traveling on open tracks travel relatively quickly, whereas trains arriving at a subway station are decelerating so that they can stop and board passengers.... |
why does the tail rotor on a helicopter spin on an axis perpendicular to the main rotor on top of the helicopter? | The purpose of the tail rotor is not to create lift but to counter the torque produced by the main rotor, which would otherwise cause the helicopter to spin around uncontrollably. The thrust from the tail rotor is angled at 90 degrees to the main rotor in order to counter this tendency to rotate.
Some very large helicopters have two main rotors that spin in opposite directions so that there is no net torque. These designs do not need a tail rotor. | [
"The tail rotor is a smaller rotor mounted so that it rotates vertically or near-vertically at the end of the tail of a traditional single-rotor helicopter. The tail rotor's position and distance from the centre of gravity allow it to develop thrust in a direction opposite of the main rotor's rotation to counter th... |
what is preventing us to make more of the drug quaaludes since it doesn't exist anymore? (depicted in wolf of wallstreet) | It's mostly been replaced by better, safer, modern drugs. Benzodiazepines (eg - Xanax & Valium) have less problems with addiction, drug interactions & are harder to overdose on. Additionally, there's a wide variety to choose from, with different strengths, onset times & durations.
In parts of the world, clandestine drug chemists continue to make Ludes for the black market. Apparently, it's quite the thing in South Africa. | [
"These drugs are listed here either because they are not very effective (e.g., clarithromycin) or because their efficacy has not been proven (e.g., linezolid, R207910). Rifabutin is effective, but is not included on the WHO list because for most developing countries, it is impractically expensive.\n",
"Rep. John ... |
how did "aww" become a standard reply upon seeing/hearing something cute? | Perhaps it's because it sounds like what one says when they see or hear something cute. Basically a moan. | [
"In 1969, the Japanese oil company Maruzen Sekiyū released a television commercial featuring Rosa Ogawa in a mini-skirt that gets blown up by the wind and her lips forming an 'O' in surprise. This led to children imitating her line \"Oh! Mōretsu\" (Oh！モーレツ, too much, radical), and a fad for sukāto-mekuri (スカート捲り fl... |
What will airlines do when fossil fuels run out? | > So, are aviation-grade biofuels possible? Is it feasible/possible to have a jet engine capable of running on 100% biofuel?
Absolutely. It's a huge focus in engineering R & D by all the major aircraft/engine manufacturers. [You can read about it here.](_URL_0_) There have been many commercial flights that used a blend of biofuels and regular jet fuel, as well as some 100% biofuel flights.
> Electric cars and buses work fine, but I can't imagine a commercial airplane being powered by electricity. For starters, the batteries would be too heavy.
You're correct; a massive improvement in battery energy density would be needed to make this feasible. The propulsion itself (electric fan) is relatively simple and definitely feasible with current technology.
Really, running present-day turbofans with biofuels isn't a matter of scientific possibility, but more just tweaking the design of turbofans (which naturally have been highly optimized for traditional hydrocarbons) to better use biofuels. | [
"On January 7, 2009 Continental Airlines successfully completed a test flight from Houston, Texas using a 50/50 mixture of algae/jatropha-oil-derived biofuel and Jet A in one of the two CFM56 engines of a Boeing 737-800 Next Generation jet. The two-hour test flight could mark another promising step for the airline ... |
why is it that the stock market generally continues to go up forever? | I run a company. I made some profits. I use those profits to build new factory. I didn't have to go steal that factory from some other country or company, I just **made** it. (Or hired people to.) The stock value of the company I run has gone up, because now I have another factory which is a source of profits.
| [
"A 2012 Wall St. Journal editorial stated, \"One reason the U.S. economy isn't creating enough jobs is that it's not creating enough employers ... For the third year in a row the world's leading exchange for new stock offerings was located not in New York, but in Hong Kong ... Given that the U.S. is still home to t... |
why are certain things interesting? | My source for this is the book 'A Theory Of Fun' by Raph Koster in which he asks this question to neuroscientists but...
The human brain is constantly trying to identify patterns in everything, and it rewards us with dopamine for doing so. When we manage to discern a new pattern and get that dopamine hit we refer to it as 'interesting'.
However it's not as simple as 'all patterns are interesting', there's a sweet spot in the middle of a trade-off between patterns that are in line with our brain's processing power and patterns that we haven't yet experienced.
For example, take a game of naughts & crosses. As a child this is interesting because the patterns that you have to discern to win are at your intelligence level and they're all new to you. But as you get older and you've acknowledged all the ins and outs of the game it stops being fun.
Likewise take an action video game. To win you have to discern a pattern of strikes and blocks over a period of time. If the pattern matches your brain's power it's stimulating but if it's too easy the game gets boring. On the other hand if it's too difficult the game also gets boring because the pattern just looks like noise.
If you're 'interested' in this stuff I recommend that you read the same book I did. Also, have a look into the theory of storytelling with this in mind because a lot of the same neuroscience is behind it.
| [
"Unlike the blobby cute or the hyperactive zany, the aesthetic form of interesting has no external characteristics, it is a space of judgment. We recognize it through context, that is, through novelty, through the emergence of an unexpected element within a predictable sequence.\n",
"\"One thing people often miss... |
if an atom is mostly empty space, how are we able to touch anything, and how do atoms combine to make something solid? | Everything is mostly empty space because it is made of atoms. The nature of protons, neutrons and electrons is that they can't be pushed together more than a certain amount. The reason why is "quantum stuff", a bit beyond ELI5, but roughly because they can't be confined into a smaller space.
When the atoms of your finger come close to something else, or even the other atoms in your finger, the force stopping them getting closer than the distances allowed by their quantum nature translates to what we call "solid". | [
"\"[All things are made of atoms]. [Little particles that move] [around in perpetual motion], [attraction each other] [when they are a little distance apart], [but repelling] [upon being squeezed] [into one another].\"\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Āyojanāt\" (lit., from combination): Atoms are inactive. To form a substance... |
Would spraying boiling water over a fire put it out as effectively as room temp water? | The main mechanism of water to put out a fire is via evaporation. There are two reasons for this:
1) The latent heat of vaporization--converting water from liquid to gas at 100 degrees Celsius--requires about 2.2MJ per kg. That means, every kilogram of water on the fire will absorb 2.2MJ of energy from the fire, helping to reduce its temperature. This all happens at 100 degrees. The water vapor doesn't begin to rise in temperature until all of that energy is absorbed. The heat capacity of liquid water is around 4.2 kJ/(kg K). Almost 500 times less than what it takes to convert to steam.
2) Water Vapor is much less dense than liquid water. This expansion will displace oxygen in the region of the fire and retard the flame through oxygen starvation.
So to answer the question, using boiling water would do just as good a job putting out a fire (that is able to be put out with water) as room temperature water.
Of course, never use water to try and extinguish certain chemical or electrical fires. It'll just make things worse. | [
"French firefighters used an alternative method in the 1970s: spraying water on the hot walls to create a water vapor atmosphere and asphyxiate the fire. This method is no longer used because it turned out to be risky; the pressure created pushed the hot gases and vapor towards the firefighters, causing severe burn... |
How much does Solar Maximums and Minimums affect temperature here on earth? | To first order, we can talk about the difference in temperature caused by the difference in sunlight during solar maxima and minima. Note that this ignores more subtle effects, such as a slight increase in cloudy days due to increased particle flux at solar maximum.
We've observed that the averaged solar flux (i.e. sunlight) impinging the top of the atmosphere is [1365.5 W/m^2 at solar minimum, and 1366.5 W/m^2 at solar maximum](_URL_0_). The affect this has on global average temperature will scale as the fourth root of the ratio of solar flux.
If the average temperature of the Earth is 288K (15 C, 57 F) during solar minimum, then the temperature at solar maximum would be:
288K * (1366.5 W/m^2 / 1365.5 W/m^2)^1/4 = 288.05K
**TL;DR**: To first order, it's a difference of 0.05 degrees. | [
"Solar maximum or solar max is a regular period of greatest Sun activity during the 11-year solar cycle. During solar maximum, large numbers of sunspots appear, and the solar irradiance output grows by about 0.07%. The increased energy output of solar maxima can impact Earth's global climate, and recent studies hav... |
how does putting a lawyer on retainer work? what are the advantages of doing this versus just hiring/consulting a lawyer when you need one? | TV shows do not represent real life. The reason some gets a Lawyer on retainer is because it is *cheaper*. It is essentially buying in bulk. Someone pays the lawyer to be on retainer so that they can consult with them whenever they want/often. This is cheaper than paying the lawyer each time the person needs legal advice.
Normally this is only done for companies or people with a lot of wealth. | [
"In the United States, an up-front fee paid to a lawyer is called a retainer. Money within the retainer is often used to \"buy\" a certain amount of work. Some contracts provide that when the money from the retainer is gone, the fee is renegotiated. This is to be differentiated between a retainer in Commonwealth st... |
how do batteries (aa, aaa, b, c, d, etc.) get their names? what do they mean? | Every time you step up a letter, the batteries get bigger. Because we don’t have a letter smaller than A, we repeat the letter.
AAAA < AAA < AA < A < B < C < D
Edit:
Yes, there’s an A battery. Yes, there’s a B battery. No, they didn’t name them after bra sizes. No, that joke you stole from another post about “the louder they scream” isn’t hilarious. | [
"An AAA or triple-A battery is a standard size of dry cell battery commonly used in low-drain portable electronic devices. A zinc–carbon battery in this size is designated by IEC as \"R03\", by ANSI C18.1 as \"24\", by old JIS standard as \"UM 4\", and by other manufacturer and national standard designations that v... |
glass that is more scratch resistant is more brittle and prone to shattering. | It is more scratch resistant because it is harder, and in some materials more hardness means more brittleness. You see the same thing in machine tooling, tungsten carbide is well-regarded because it is hard and can cut through many materials, but one bad move and it shatters much more easily than say HSS steel. | [
"Broken glass is typically repaired in one of three ways: copper foiling (thin copper tape that is applied to both sides of the break and then soldered); epoxy edge-gluing; and silicone edge-gluing. Each of these has its own inherent benefits and problems. For instance, copper foiling produces a strong, reversible,... |
why do cops use fatal guns instead of tranquilizer guns just like used in animals? | Tranquilizing someone is an exact science, which is why anesthesiologists get paid the big bucks. You'd have to know the person's exact height and weight (plus a few other important factors, like if they're a natural ginger) to safely knock them out. If you give them too big a dose they die and if you don't give them enough it's not effective.
Theoretically you could shoot a bunch of darts with a low dose until they pass out, but that would not work in a situation with any sort of time limitation.
Tazers are a much better non-lethal option, but they have a limited range. Rubber bullets have a better range, but not much stopping power.
Other non-lethal options (like a sound cannon) are in the works, but thus far we haven't found a viable replacement for firearms. Not to mention that many criminals have their own weapons so arming the police force is, in part, self defense. | [
"They can also be armed with non-lethal (more accurately known as \"less than lethal\" or \"less-lethal\") weaponry, particularly for riot control. Non-lethal weapons include batons, tear gas, riot control agents, rubber bullets, riot shields, water cannons and electroshock weapons. Police officers typically carry ... |
Why are there no "of" or "from"s in English surnames? (Similar to Von, Da, De, Van) | To clarify your question some: there are location-based surnames in English (for example Sean Salisbury and Thom Yorke) but that doesn't explain why the "from" was dropped, when it isn't in other languages. | [
"In surnames, it can appear by itself or in combination with an article (compare French \"de la\", \"de l\"'). The most common cases of this are van de, van der and van den, where the articles are all current or archaic forms of the article \"de\" \"the\". Less common are van het and van 't, which use the similar b... |
how cannabinoid receptors are affected when we consume marijuana | Do you remember the toys you played with as a kid where you would try to put the square peg in the round hole? This is vaguely kind of how neurotransmitters work. The cannabinoids from pot will travel to your brain through your blood from your lungs or stomach and look for places where they fit. Once they reach their destination, they order a chicken quesadilla meal and go to town. | [
"There exist two primary CNS cannabinoid receptors, on which marijuana and the cannabinoids act. Both the CB1 receptor and CB2 receptor are found in the brain. The CB2 receptor is also found in the immune system. CB is expressed at high densities in the basal ganglia, cerebellum, hippocampus, and cerebral cortex. R... |
Did the Italian Establishment, together with NATO and/or the CIA sponsored far-right terrorism to stop Communism during the Cold War? | To be sure, the "anni di piombo" period is usually associated with left wing terrorism, of which the chronicles of the time are full. They culminated with the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro (at the time the head of the major christian democratic party) in 1978, and in the kidnapping and subsequent liberation of the US Army General James Dozier in 1982.
Both those kidnappings, and score of other killings, wounding, and other crimes were mainly done by an organization called the Red Brigades, and some other minor ones; those were certainly not a creation of politicians, the Mafia or the Catholic Church, but had their roots in the left wing movements that were born after the spring of 1968. Their targets were politicians, cops, journalists, judges and university professors. On the whole, the crimes of those organizations did not target the general populace.
There were also a number of bombings, killing a big number of civilians. The first was the bomb in Piazza Fontana in Milano, the most famous one is the bomb in Train station in Bologna.
For most of those bombings there have been not final convictions, so nobody is sure who did make them and why. Anyway, they are usually associated with right wings terrorists, some of which were long be suspected to be in contact with parts of the secret services, the italian ones or the CIA.
Anyway, no direct and provable link has really been found (at least in a judicial setting). | [
"According to Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, in order to prevent Communist party members from being elected in Italy following World War II, the CIA worked closely with the Sicilian Mafia, protecting them and assisting in their worldwide heroin smuggling operations. The mafia was in conflict with leftist... |
Why is meat, specifically bacon described as lasting days or up to a week without refrigeration in older books, but these days it’s recommended to throw out bacon left at room temp for more than two hours? | Keeping food over long periods of time was a great challenge in the pre-industrial world, before refrigeration. Even things like ice boxes ( and icemen to fill them) didn't become a common thing until the later 19th c. , after ice was developed as a commodity. The methods were few: but most still exist. Some things could be salted- fish, pork and beef. Some things could be kept in brine and allowed to ferment- ( pickled cucumbers, sauerkraut, kim chee) Some things could be dried- fruits, beans, fish, and other meats. Some meats could be smoked. Sugar could be used, as well. And if there was a place that was relatively cool and dry, salted meats could be hung and kept for a very long time. Potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate, wood ashes and even lye could be employed ( Norwegian lutefisk)
Hams and sides of bacon were generally salted, smoked, and hung in a dry larder. Sometimes they were also painted with a sugar solution as well. The salt content was high enough, however, that to be consumed they would typically be first soaked in water. To quote Lydia Maria Child's [The Frugal Housewife](_URL_0_):
> The old-fashioned way for curing hams is to rub them with salt very thoroughly, and let them lay twenty-four hours. To each ham allow two ounces of salt-petre, one quart of common salt and one quart of molasses. First baste them with molasses; next rub in the salt-petre; and, last of all, the common salt. They must be carefully turned and rubbed every day for six weeks; then hang them in a chimney, or smoke-house, four weeks.
>
> They should be well covered up in paper bags, and put in a chest, or barrel, with layers of ashes, or charcoal, between. When you take out a ham to cut for use, be sure and put it away in a dark place, well covered up; especially in summer.
>
> Some very experienced epicures and cooks, think the old-fashioned way of preparing bacon is troublesome and useless. They say that legs of pork placed upright in pickle, for four or five weeks, are just as nice as those rubbed with so much care. The pickle for pork and hung beef, should be stronger than for legs of mutton. Eight pounds of salt, ten ounces of salt-petre and five pints of molasses is enough for one hundred weight of meat; water enough to cover the meat well—probably, four or five gallons. Any one can prepare bacon, or dried beef, very easily, in a common oven, according to the above directions.
The bacon you find in the grocery now is nowhere near as salty as this. If you encounter country ham ( especially in the southern US) you will get a better idea of what bacon would be. Bacon today also is typically sold sliced up. The bacon in the days of Child ( 1830's) would remain in a large hunk until pieces were sliced from it, and that hunk would be salted and glazed- and likely some more salt rubbed onto where a piece had been cut. Sometimes mold would form over the outside of dried meats- that would be scraped off.
TL:DR your bacon is not their bacon.
& #x200B; | [
"The book claims that 71 percent of bacon is still consumed at breakfast or brunch. It includes 10 recipes for the early in the day meals and then covers appetizers, sandwiches, entrees and a few desserts, such as a savory bread pudding with Canadian bacon, multigrain bread, feta cheese, tarragon and wild mushrooms... |
when we say a list of names, how come some sound better in a specific order? | Like 60% of the time, when someone asks why a certain phrase sounds better in a certain order, the answer is rhythm. Phrases with repetition seem to make people happy.
"Evan and Emily" sounds good because it repeats the same pattern twice: a stressed syllable with an "e" sound follow by two unstressed syllables. Note that it has the exact same rhythm as "Guinness is good for you," which obviously sounded so good that a giant corporation took it and made it their slogan.
"Emily and Evan" sounds pretty good, because it almost sets up three pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables, but the "ly" in "Emily" is not stressed as strongly, so it's not as optimal. | [
"The pronunciation of French-language first and last names uses mostly-French sounds may be mispronounced by speakers of other languages. For example, the pronounced \"r\" sound and the silent \"d\" of \"Bouchar\"d\"\" may be both pronounced: . French-speakers and Quebec English-speakers are more likely to vary suc... |
Does Quantum Field Theory imply that the idea of "Four Fundamental Forces" is an incorrect simplification? | Each kind of particle is an excitation of its corresponding field, but each field does not correspond to a fundamental force. The Standard Model of particle physics has 12 "force carrier" particles, divided between three fundamental forces (one photon, three weak vector bosons, and eight gluons). | [
"In mathematical physics, constructive quantum field theory is the field devoted to showing that quantum theory is mathematically compatible with special relativity. This demonstration requires new mathematics, in a sense analogous to Newton developing calculus in order to understand planetary motion and classical ... |
why does copper powder not give a high conductivity when in water? | The path of current does not go THRU it to convey current. The water by itself is the pathway for current. If the pure elemental copper was combined as a salt, it would then be conductive in the water and aid in passing the electrical current.
| [
"Under many application conditions copper is higher on the galvanic series than other common structural metals, meaning that copper wire is less likely to be corroded in wet conditions. However, any more anodic metals in contact with copper will be corroded since will essentially be sacrificed to the copper.\n",
... |
is it actually bad for your brain to fall asleep to tv/music? | Music and tv is disruptive to sleep because your brain is still processing information, it doesn't just shut down when you fall asleep. You will have difficulty moving adequately through the stages of sleep because every change in tempo, sound level or light will cause an arousal or disturbance from the current sleep phase. Think of it like someone poking your arm every few minutes while your trying to sleep, its not very restful or refreshing. Lack of adequate sleep can lead to fatigue, memory problems and difficulty concentrating. Lack of sleep has also been linked to altering your body's insulin production and leading to onset diabetes type 2.
Source: sleep tech and current RN student; watched a few patients through the years insist music didn't affect their sleep as I watched their brain waves on my monitor continually be disrupted by the music they were playing. | [
"In another study, specifically looking to help people with insomnia, similar results were seen. The participants that listened to music experienced better sleep quality than those who did not listen to music.\n",
"Other types of auditory hallucination include exploding head syndrome and musical ear syndrome. In ... |
why don't politicians ever take contributions then act counter to the contributors wishes? | Most likely because whoever gave the contribution will go to their rival and make sure that person does not get re-elected. You typically don't bite the hand that feeds you. | [
"A 2016 experimental study in the \"American Journal of Political Science\" found that politicians made themselves more available for meetings with individuals when they believed that the individuals had donated to their campaign. A 2011 study found that \"even after controlling for past contracts and other factors... |
how do jpeg/jpg images get so pixelated and messed up? | In an effort to reduce the size of the image, JPEGs will reduce the quality (kind of like how MP3s work). Sometimes it's noticeable, sometimes it's not, depending on the image and the level of compression.
PNG files don't reduce the quality, but they are also larger than JPEGs. | [
"Those who use the World Wide Web may be familiar with the irregularities known as compression artifacts that appear in JPEG images, which may take the form of noise around contrasting edges (especially curves and corners), or \"blocky\" images. These are due to the quantization step of the JPEG algorithm. They are... |
Does the propagation of a gravity wave through a massive object encounter resistance from the mass of said object? | We have never observed gravity to slow down or gravitational waves to scatter from matter interactions. Theory states that at least the former does not occur, but we haven't really had the facilities to perform the necessary experiments to verify this to any certainty. The fact that our galaxy is very dense in the center, so that light is occluded, yet the gravity of distant objects appears completely unimpeded, *suggests* that this may be right. | [
"Note that for gravitational masses moving past each other in straight lines (or for that matter for electromagnetically charged objects), there is little or no retardation effect on the effect from them, which is mediated by \"static\" components of the fields. So long as no radiation is emitted, conservation of m... |
why is it that car insurance companies are telling me i am responsible for my children until they are 21, even though they are adults at 18? | Are they driving vehicles insured by you, or are you guarantor under the policy? | [
"In 2010, National Safety Council selected American Family Insurance as a recipient of its Teen Driving Safety Leadership Award. Through its “Teen Safe Driver Program,” the company has provided, a video feedback program (using the DriveCam system) in which parents can watch the actual driving actions of their teens... |
why does the cia sometimes refer to osama bin laden as "usama bin laden"? | Because his first name is spelled "أسامة", which doesn't have an exact representation in the Latin alphabet. Both "Osama" and "Usama" are correct. As are "Oussama" and "Usamah". | [
"bin Laden () is an Arabic language surname synonymous with Osama bin Laden (1957–2011); it may also pertain to the Saudi Binladin Group, a holding company for the assets of the bin Laden family, and other notable members of Osama's family.\n",
"There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic... |
why a billion dollar gaming industry hasn't produced a "gaming" operating system? | They have...it is called the XBox and the Playstation.
One of the advantages of PC gaming is you can still use your box for other stuff, and that usually means Windows or Linux. Setting up a dual boot partition and rebooting whenever you want to play a game is not something most consumers want to deal with.
Also, DirectX works well enough, and graphics cards manufacturers tune directly to it. It is unlikely a fledgeling OS would get the same support, and for a long time, it might actually be slower. | [
"Where a PC is multi-functional and will be purchased to perform tasks other than gaming, a dedicated gaming console must have games available for it to be successful. A good library of games will give a consumer reason to purchase the console and in turn create opportunities for more games to be created for it. Co... |
how can judges dismiss evidence that isn't "submitted correctly" such as videos that incriminate the accused? | [Here](_URL_0_) is part of the Illustrated Guide to Law that explains this with comics.
Basically, it's to protect citizens from police investigators overstepping their boundaries. The Constitution, which states the fundamental rights belonging to Americans, makes it clear that the government is to protect people from "unreasonable searches and seizures". In theory, this would mean stopping investigators from collecting evidence illegally. In practice, there are times when investigators (intentionally or unknowingly) go too far. Dismissing illegally collected evidence protects the accused from being negatively impacted by an illegal act by police and provides an incentive for them to make sure they perform searches properly. | [
"Sometimes, after a number of witnesses have been deposed, the parties will have enough information that they can reasonably predict the outcome of a prospective trial, and may decide to arrive at a compromise settlement, thus avoiding trial and preventing additional costs of litigation. Accordingly, while most dep... |
Why were Italian and Irish immigrants to America given such a hard time? Was this typical of every immigrant, and the Italians and Irish had just arrived in greater numbers? Or was there something unique about these immigrants that made them "lower-class"? | I can think of four things that distinguished Italians and Irish from other immigrant groups (bearing in mind that Chinese and Jewish immigrants faced different, and in some ways more severe, forms of discrimination):
1. They were predominantly Roman Catholic. The United States had long defined itself as a Protestant nation, and had inherited a tradition of anti-Catholicism that associated Catholics with despotism, ignorance and superstition. Until the mid-19th century, the overwhelming majority of immigrants to the United States were Protestant, but beginning with the Potato Famine Irish immigrants were increasingly Catholic - as were, of course, the Italians. Many of these Catholic immigrants wanted to educate their children separately from the public school system, which in the view of many - [including cartoonist Thomas Nast](_URL_3_) - threatened national unity and promoted a slavish adherence to the Pope.
2. In the case of the Irish, the immigrants tended to flock to the Democratic Party and used their numbers to control the machinery of municipal government in cities like New York and Boston. This political control, in turn, translated into ability to funnel patronage toward members of their own ethnic group - it's not a coincidence that the stereotypical policeman at the beginning of the 20th century was Irish. Many native-born Americans, particularly those loyal the Republican Party and its free-labor ideology, [viewed this trend with alarm](_URL_0_).
3. In the case of the Italians, a disproportionate number of them were low-skilled and had [little intention of staying in the United States](_URL_2_). In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, highly-skilled Italian migrants tended to go to South America (especially Argentina), while lower-skilled migrants made their way to the United States (and perhaps as many as a half of them ultimately returned to Italy once they had made enough money). They were consequently stigmatized as a [pool of cheap labor](_URL_4_) that drove down wages, while not making any effort to integrate into their host society.
4. The large waves of Irish and Italian immigrants came during the late 19th and 20th centuries, which was the peak period of immigration in American history. [The proportion of the population that was foreign-born was higher than it has ever been in the US.](_URL_1_) So many Americans, particularly old-stock Protestant Americans, were very concerned that the national character of the the country was under threat from immigrants who did not share the values of their native-born neighbors. | [
"The experiences of Italian immigrants in North American countries were notably different than those in South American countries, where many of them immigrated in large numbers. Italians were key in developing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. They quickly joined the middle and upper classes i... |
The Franks became Christian much earlier than many other Germanic groups. Why is this? When/where were the last Frankish pagans? | I'm going to do my best in answering this question as I feel it falls in my wheel house and I'm actually reading two books on the Gothic and Frankish peoples.
Starting off with the first part of your question I just want to make a minor correction.
> The Franks became Christian much earlier than many other Germanic groups. Why is this?
The Franks actually didn't become Christian earlier than many other germanic groups, for example Orosius of the 4th century writes.
> The barbarians, detesting their swords, turned to their ploughs and now cherish the Romans as comrades and friends, so that now there may be found among them certain Romans who prefer poverty with freedom among the barbarians than paying tribute with anxiety among the Romans . . . throughout the East and the West the churches of Christ were replete with Huns, Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians.
This is nearly 100 years before the conversion of the Franks, and there were already Vandal, Burgundian and Suebi Arians. So the Franks weren't the first to convert, but they were the first to convert to Orthodox Christianity, and the Frankish tales of Clovis' conversion are very romantic and remembered well. The story of Clovis and his hour of agonising prayer on the field of Tolbiac, and, perhaps most of all, the love and persistence of Clotilda, his wife, during their infants sickness is still taught in churches today.
So why did the Franks convert?
That's a harder question to answer. The preferred and best way of converting a population to Christianity during this time was to convert the local nobles and ruling lords, then the religion would shuffle down through the masses as laws and positions of power favoured those who followed the ruler's religion. So what the average person gained from converting was a lot more personal, things like having a greater connection with their community, a more secure afterlife, organized temples and churches that were all around Europe and obviously any personal or cultural influences that they might encounter in their daily lives.
As for the leaders it's a bit easier to see why they would convert, it allowed them a cultural tie with the Roman Empire that still stood in the East and the Papacy that remained in the West. Every local warlord wanted to be seen as the successor to Rome, and many had claimed that title during the Imperial Crisis of the 3rd century and the following centuries. Christianity granted Germanic kings who converted a powerful ally in the Church and legitimized their rule in the eyes of their non-pagan followers, but they also used it as a just cause to invade neighbouring pagans and heretics, such as when Clovis invaded Aquitaine under the pretense of liberating oppressed Catholics under Arian rule.
Of course converting to Christianity would also help unify the realm and keep qualms from religious differences to a minimum, but it certainly helped the conquered Christian people feel reassured their lord wasn't a savage pagan. But of course a ruler like any other person would have personal reasons too, maybe one of their children died with pagan prayers but their next lived after being baptised, or maybe they married a Christian wife.
I can't really speak to when the last hold out of Germanic paganism was or where it was in Francia so hopefully someone else can answer it, but if you have any followup questions I'll do my best to answer them.
> Sources
> The Franks by Lewis Sergeant
> The Story of the Goths by Henry Bradley
> Historiae Adversus Paganos by Paulus Orosius | [
"In the 8th century, the Franks became standard-bearers of Roman Catholic Christianity in Western Europe, waging wars on its behalf against Arian Christians, Islamic invaders, and pagan Germanic peoples such as the Saxons and Frisians. Until 1066, when the Dane and the Norse had lost their foothold in Britain, theo... |
why are some people well written but not well spoken? (myself included) | To be well spoken you need to construct well phrased sentences in a fraction of the time you have when you are writing something. This requires a lot more practice as you can't do it if you have to use a lot of your brains capacity for it. | [
"Writing for a class of readers other than one's own is very difficult. It takes training, method, and practice. Among those who are good at this are writers of novels and children's books. The writing experts all advise that, besides using a formula, observe all the norms of good writing, which are essential for w... |
what is the medical condition s.t. depression? | There are about 11 different serious medical conditions that can cause a cardiac ST depression.
***I highly suggest you or your mom call her cardiologist and tell them you don't understand his/her explanation and would like to meet to talk about it again. If they aren't willing to do that, then you need to find a new doctor.
I can explain the basics of an ECG, if that will help? I cannot allude to what your mom has been diagnosed with, because I don't know the specifics of the situation. | [
"\"Depression\" refers to a spectrum of disturbances in mood that vary from mild to severe and from short periods to constant illness. DD-NOS is diagnosed if a patients symptoms fail to meet the criteria more common depressive disorders such as major depressive disorder or dysthymia. Although DD-NOS shares similar ... |
In the US, did any of the founding fathers have thoughts about the Salem witch trials that happened within living memory? | Related question: when did the Salem witch trials become 'common knowledge' in America, for lack of a better term, and why the Salem witch trials as opposed to any other sort of tale of hysteria/superstition gone awry? | [
"One of the most widely known aspects of Salem is its history of witchcraft allegations which started with Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, and their friends playing with a Venus glass (mirror) and egg. The infamous Salem witch trials began in 1692, and 19 people were executed by hanging as a result of the false acc... |
Do animals experience menstrual cramps? | Yes. However, not many animals menstruate. Humans and old-world primates are about the only animals that undergo menses with the exception of bats. | [
"Many women experience painful cramps, also known as dysmenorrhea, during menstruation. Pain results from ischemia and muscle contractions. Spiral arteries in the secretory endometrium constrict, resulting in ischemia to the secretory endometrium. This allows the uterine lining to slough off. The myometrium contrac... |
what would we experience on earth if another earth-like planet were to collide with us? | We would all die in a matter of seconds. | [
"At the moment of contact, Atheria vanishes from existence...the Moon ploughing through the space it once occupied. Later, Koenig broods as he stares out a window into the empty space sky. He is joined by Helena, who begins apologising for her actions. He interrupts, insisting she did nothing wrong. His story \"was... |
If there was no official "Emperor" position in the Roman Empire, or in its early days at least, what exactly did the new Emperor inherit from his predecessor? What official title or position did the new Emperor inherit that gave him absolute rule? | The successor inherited nothing de jure. It was up to the Senate to grant him the same powers as his predecessor. What became common practice was that the current ruler would groom his successor, including him in the government and having him take bigger responsibilities. He would thus be granted offices by the Senate with the current ruler's recommendation. Eventually, upon the current ruler's death, the successor would have everything necessary to rule on his own. The best example of this practice in the early empire is the Augustus-Tiberius transition. The reason this transition was much more peaceful than the following was because of the efforts to ensure ability and familiarity with the new rulers. In fact, this specific practice is also one of the reasons why the Good Emperors suffered no overt problems while transitioning. | [
"During the transition from republic to the Roman empire, the constitutional balance of power shifted from the Roman Senate back to the executive (the Roman Emperor). Theoretically, the senate elected each new emperor; in practice each emperor chose his own successor, though the choice was often overruled by the ar... |
Now that summer is upon us: Is there any real conclusive evidence about sunscreen being bad for us? | I am a bit uncomfortable with this question, as the last paragraph makes it clear you are asking for medical advice (which we are not allowed to give). Please see [this post](_URL_0_). | [
"BULLET::::- Claims that many commercial brands of sunscreen increase, rather than decrease, the likelihood of contracting skin cancer with high UV exposure, and instead advocating the use of natural sunscreens, some of which he markets on his website. This view is not held by mainstream medical science; in 2011, t... |
Poisoning wells is a common espionage activity in fiction based in medieval times. Was well poisoning actually something spies would do? What would the exact goals of a well-poisoning be? | Words and water were both weaponized in medieval warfare, but it's questionable whether the same people would have been involved in both types of caper.
First, when talking about spies and espionage in the Middle Ages, scholars have overwhelmingly stressed the importance of intelligence gathering--in wartime *and* in peacetime. Spycraft in the medieval Islamic world is legendary from its first century. The Umayyads instituted a postal delivery network pretty much so mail-carriers could snoop on the mail that people were sending and eavesdrop on their reactions after reading it; Fatimid vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah turned his *mother* into an undercover secret agent, sending her to masquerade as the disgruntled mother of dead soldier complaining about that *horrid* vizier in order to find out who was truly loyal. I've written more about [medieval Muslim spies](http://www._URL_0_/2017/05/female-secret-agents-middle-ages/) for _URL_0_ a little while ago, if you're interested.
[In western Europe, too,](_URL_2_) scholars talk primarily about spies as a willing or unwilling intelligence corps. For example, in 1364, the garrison commander of Sancerre, with war stirring up in the area, planted agents in local garrisons in hopes of getting the edge up on any attack that might be coming. As it happened, the commander's *brother* managed to overhear the precise target of the attack, which specific captains would be bringing their companies to the battle, and the strength of the incoming forces.
Perhaps the best illustration of the medieval link between spycraft and intelligence comes with the 1381 Peasants' Revolt in England. Chronicler Thomas Walsingham accuses people of spying for the mere fact of *conveying the news of the revolt* up to Scotland. What we might call journalism was instead judged espionage.
Did spies ever move closer to subterfuge, disguises, gadgetry? In the Low Countries, it was fairly common for agents of towns at war to disguise themselves as merchants, pilgrims, or other "nonsuspicious" travelers. Unfortunately, the propensity for military commanders to impress *everyone* into spy service, even random fishermen, meant even disguises (or rather, the things people were disguised as) suspicious.
For a lot of the really good, fraught-with-danger-and-betrayal spy stories, we have to turn to Christian-Muslim warfare during the Crusades and then eastern European Christians facing off against Ottoman armies. This is where we get stories of the turncoat who either chose or was bribed to open one of Antioch's gates to the crusader army. And even better, of Christians and Muslims infiltrating each other's camps in disguise.
One of the more legendary accounts of this practice dates to the siege at Svetigrad (Albania) in 1448. The Albanian general-lord Skanderbeg was already a hero when our major account of events was written, so there is absolutely some embellishment. Nevertheless, we get an entertaining picture of the general's efforts at gathering intelligence.
First, he was deeply paranoid about traitors in his own camp and in nearby Christian towns. A small group (him, two close associates, and no more than 30 others) disguised themselves as common foot soldiers and worked to ascertain whether the villagers were conveying information to the Ottomans. (To my great frustration, even the origin Latin of Marin Barleti's account provides no further details on this mission). We also have reports of plots on his life from former Muslim Ottomans who had thrown in their lot with the Christians, including begging to be baptized (a fairly common trope in Barleti's account is Muslims falling all over themselves to convert and join Skanderbeg's side). So you can point to that kind of would-be assassin as a non-intelligence form of spying.
Second, Skanderbeg gave the Ottomans reason to fear the same thing. He sent an associate who had past experience *as* an Ottoman into one camp, lightly armed--evidently as a distraction, because the Albanian forces made quick and bloody work of that particular company.
Now, I've dragged myself through a case with basically zero English scholarship or translations of primary sources (unless you fancy a non-digitized 16th century text, apparently?) because there is one key rumor that Barleti repeats.
He sets the stage well: the perilous geographic placement of Svetigrad at the tip-top of a rocky hill, good for defense against a siege but very bad for access to plentiful water sources. Drawing out the themes of betrayal, Barleti condemns a local man for knowing exactly how to crush the citizens and soliders of the town psychologically as well as physically. This traitor, the story goes, cast the corpse of a dog into the local well. The town defenders had lost their source of water, and knew they had to give in.
Whether it really took a local traitor to poison a well or whether the Ottoman army was actually just very strategic at cutting off the defenders' access to nearby water sources is an open question. Barleti definitely has motive to use the first version; the second is *probably* more plausible but makes the Ottomans look much more effective.
For understanding water and warfare in the Middle Ages, though, the most important thing isn't whether someone cast a dog corpse into a particular well. It's the *panic* that the action was said to cause--a problem above and beyond the physical effects of the action. Because while access to water was indeed weaponized in the Middle Ages, with French and English troops filling in wells behind them to try to ward off easy attacks during the Hundred Years War, you cannot, *cannot* talk about well poisoning in the Middle Ages without talking about the tragic, bloody cases where there was no poison at all--just paranoia.
In the late Middle Ages, accusations that a person or a group had poisoned local wells became a central manifestation of fear over uncontrollable events scapegoated out onto a particularly hated local group. In 1321, as the Great Famine ground down western Europeans into starvation and the burden of encroaching royal authority grew heavier, rumors sprang up in southwestern France. *Lepers were poisoning the wells.* They were determined to make *everyone* into lepers. And wait, was it foreigners or lepers? How about both? And surely it was lepers put up to the task by Jews. When the panic spread to Spain, the Spanish had a new fear--Jews paid by Muslims!
Now, *obviously* southern France and the Crown of Aragon did not turn into lands of lepers. This poisoner-hunt was powered by panic. And yet it operated, torture session by torture session, execution by execution, through the legal systems of the principalities involved. This shows just how central to European culture the need to keep water pure and potable was.
And of course, fears of well-poisoning would manifest equally tragically during the Black Death, as panicked city after panicked city accused its Jewish population of, you guessed it, seeking to murder Christians by putting items associated with pestilence into the water supply--wells and sometimes even rivers. An anonymous chronicler in Avignon informs us that the *rumors* involved wicked Christians (!) poisoning wells with powders. But he is skeptical that this is actually taking place. In fact, that tends to be the general assessment of reports of well-poisoning in this era. Rumors fly, Jews gets blamed, Jews get burned...but it probably never happened at all.
So you might say that in the context of tactical intelligence and water in the Middle Ages, we're dealing with the most dangerous and fickle weapon of all: *false* information. | [
"Well poisoning has been historically documented as a strategy during wartime since antiquity, and was used both offensively (as a terror tactic to disrupt and depopulate a target area) and defensively (as a scorched earth tactic to deny an invading army sources of clean water). Rotting corpses (both animal and hum... |
why are bathroom hot air hand dryers better for the environment when they are using a non-renewable resource (fossil fuels) to save a renewable one (trees)? | To answer that question we need to know how much energy that particular dryer uses to dry your hands, what percentage of that energy is coming from burning fossil fuels, how much energy was used to produce the paper towel, and what resources were used to produce the paper towel. I have often pondered this as well, but I predict that the electric dryer ends up being much better after accounting for all the processes used to produce the paper. | [
"Beyond issues with venting exhaust, other improvised efficiency efforts with conventional dryers attempt to harvest an input source of pre-heated air rather than using the conditioned air of the living space. One notable source of heat to pre-heat dryer air is to install ductwork allowing the device to suck hot ai... |
Is it possible to put enough perfluocarbons into a lake or large body of water for people to be able to breathe underwater? | Well the most widely used fluorocarbon for 'liquid breathing' is [perfluorodecalin](_URL_2_). There are videos on YouTube of [mice being submerged in it](_URL_1_), then freaking out when they realise they can still breathe. The solubility of O2 in perfluorodecalin is about 49% w/v, cf air which is approximately 21% v/v. This means that there is potentially twice as much oxygen in perfluorodecalin as there is in real air. Consequently, it could be diluted by half without significant ill effect. However, this back-of-the-envelope calculation is as far as my expertise on the matter goes.
As far as I'm aware, and this is mild conjecture, having water in your lungs is bad for you, and can cause [pulmonary edema](_URL_0_). The presence of 50% water would probably also hinder the absorption of O2 from the perfluorodecalin, so there are a variety of possible complications with this. Perfluorocarbons are generally considered to be biologically inert, so unless the fish or other water-breathing organisms are particularly sensitive to decreases in oxygen, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. | [
"Other posited applications include deep sea diving and space travel, applications that both require total, not partial, liquid ventilation. The 1989 film The Abyss showed a fictional use of perfluorocarbon for human diving but also filmed a real rat surviving while cooled and immersed in perfluorocarbon. (See also... |
Is there a reason all the planets orbit the sun in approximately the same plane and direction? | Yes. Conservation of angular momentum. Our solar system started out as a rotating gas cloud. Over time, this cloud collapsed and denser regions formed the sun and the planets. But due to conservation of angular momentum, the rotation had to remain, which means that the solar system as a whole rotates around the same axis that the original gas cloud did. | [
"Most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic. The planets are very close to the ecliptic, whereas comets and Kuiper belt objects are frequently at significantly greater angles to it. All the planets, and most other objects, orbit the Sun in the same directio... |
how do top chess players look so many moves ahead? | Most of them don't look at all possible combinations. They only look for moves that they think are likely for an opponent (in a given position, this may be only one good move to as many as twenty). Also, they are familiar with particular positions. They know which positions to try to get to and which positions to avoid at all costs. So they aren't actually looking at every single possible combination of moves for the next twenty moves. | [
"Each player selects a maneuver. Both players then announce the corresponding numbers. Each player turns to the page number announced by the opponent, looks up his own maneuver there, and turns to the page number listed under it. After both players have done this, they are on the same (new) page, looking at new vie... |
what's the difference between "assault" and "battery"? | Assault is the threat of the violence, Battery is the actual violence.
From Wikipedia:
Assault and battery is the combination of two violent crimes: assault (the threat of violence) and battery (physical violence). This legal distinction exists only in jurisdictions that distinguish assault as threatened violence rather than actual violence. | [
"Assault and battery is the combination of two violent crimes: assault (the threat of violence) and battery (crime) (physical violence). This legal distinction exists only in jurisdictions that distinguish assault as \"threatened\" violence rather than \"actual\" violence.\n",
"Much confusion can come between the... |
has the olympics always (since 1896) been a major expense and drain to the host city/country? | The Olympic events themselves are, economically speaking, beneficial for a country. They attract a lot of visitors who will spend money at local establishments.
The burden comes from the infrastructure. Unless a city has hosted the Olympics before, they're very unlikely to have all of the facilities they needed for athletics, gymnastics, swimming, rowing, equestrian, shooting, and so on.
Even once they build the facilities the city needs to have a plan for what to use the infrastructure for once the Olympics has passed. Every now and again photos show up on the front page of reddit showing that Olympic facilities in both Athens and Beijing are largely unused and run down; in comparison parts of Sydney's Olympic park are still in use for sports and general entertainment events.
The [1976 Olympics in Montreal](_URL_0_) is generally considered to be the first Olympics which resulted in an overall burden to the city (as opposed to a benefit). Due to the large costs of building new facilities outstripping the income generated by the games.
The issue is worse for the winter Olympics. It is vary unlikely that any city needs, or can even use, an Olympic bobsled course outside of the Olympics; but if they don't already have one then it must be built for the games, there is no alternative. Historically the winter games have also attracted less international attention and attract smaller crowds. So they make less money than the summer games while still being expensive to host. | [
"The 1896 Olympics were regarded as a great success. The Games had the largest international participation of any sporting event to that date. The Panathenaic Stadium overflowed with the largest crowd ever to watch a sporting event. After the Games, Coubertin and the IOC were petitioned by several prominent figures... |
What were the main reasons the Russians lost WW1, and what were the consequences on their society and economic and military strength? | Well to start off' when the war broke out Russia was in no way prepared for a major conflict. They had been thrashed by the Japanese in 1904-1905 in the Russo-Japanese war, which left the economy in shambles, and Russia dangerously unstable. Even though Russia had the largest army in the world at the time, they lacked the industrial capacity to arm and equip their soldiers, with many common soldiers not even having rifles at the outbreak of the war, not to mention shortages of machine guns and artillery. The Russians allies attempted to alleviate these shortages through loans and arms shipments, but with the Dardanelles being blocked off by the Ottoman Empire and the German High Seas Fleet threatening the Baltic, these imports of materiel ceased. The loss of access to the Dardanelles was especially critical. Prior to the war 9/10 of Russia's exports went through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean. In addition to the strains put on the Russian economy, catastrophic military defeats like the Battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes had seen losses of hundreds of thousands of men. Although manpower was basically the one resource the Russians had in droves, it made no difference because the Russian army lost massive amounts of equipment that simply could not be replaced. Despite the Russians enjoying considerable success against the Austrians, it could not last when Germany came to bail out their weaker ally. By the end of 1915, the Russians had been forced out of Austrian territory, and the Central powers had occupied all of Russian Poland, and what is today Lithuania and Latvia. What really brought the Russians crashing was revolution. In 1917, the Germans transported Vladimir Lenin from Switzerland through Germany and into Russia, with the understanding that he would incite revolution and topple the Tsarist Empire. And thats exactly what he did. The first revolution in February toppled the Tsar and installed a provisional Government headed by Georgy Lvov, who was himself replaced by Alexander Kerensky. However the Provisional government was still intent on fulfilling Russia's obligation to her allies. Eventually this led to the divide between the anti-war Bolsheviks led by Lenin and the pro-war Mensheviks led by Kerensky. It wasn't until October 1917 that the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government with the intent of making peace at any costs.
And the costs were **staggering**. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918, losing all of Russian Poland, Finland, Courland, the Baltic States, what is now Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia, Bessarabia, and the returning Kars, Ardahan, and Batum to the Ottomans. This amounted to the loss of nearly 1 million square miles of territory, 55 million of its population, the majority of Russia's Iron and coal reserves and most of its industrial base as well. Lenin bitterly called the settlement “that abyss of defeat, dismemberment, enslavement and humiliation.” To give some context as to how much land was lost [here!](_URL_0_) is a map showing the full territorial changes.
The consequences of this defeat saw Russia plunge into civil war until 1923, in addition to widespread famine, a shattered economy, and a country that was in ruins and would not stabilize until the mid to late 20s with the inception of Soviet Russia.
If you have more questions please ask.
**EDIT**: Lenin was smuggled into Russia **after** the February Revolution. The Provisional Government had continued the war against the Central powers and the Germans hoped that Lenin would install a new government that would make peace.
Sources: *In Wars Dark Shadow* and *Passage Through Armageddon* by W. Bruce Lincoln. | [
"World War I put what proved to be unbearable burden on Imperial Russia's government and economy, both of which were dangerously weak. Mass shortages and hunger became the daily situation for tens of millions of Russians due to the disruptions of the war economy. Fifteen million men were diverted from agricultural ... |
why does earth's armosphere glow blue in pictures taken from space? | It is the same reson that the sky is blue from the ground. The atmosphere scatter the blue light more then the other colors so it looks blue. The amount of scattering depend on the wavelength of light. Blue scatter most and red on the others side of the spectrum scatter the least.
Is is the same reason that a sun set looks looks red/orange. The light passes trough more atmosphere when it is low so more light is scattered. The result is that the light that reaches you is primary red/orange.. | [
"One of the targets of particular interest was the crater Aristarchus. In 1963, Jim Greenacre saw a reddish glow in the region. This was confirmed by four other observers including the then-director of the Lowell Observatory. Apollo 15 was the first manned spacecraft to pass over the site. At the time it was not in... |
Can anyone help me interpret this political cartoon? All I know about it is that it is related to the Algerian War. | My knowledge of the Algerian war is limited, but I can tell you that the image is a visual reference to [the three wise monkeys](_URL_0_), which in turn refer to the saying "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." The cartoon is accusing someone of turning a blind eye to unethical behavior, though I don't know who the figures are. | [
"From 1954 to 1988, the massacres of Sétif and Guelma were commemorated in Algeria, but it was considered as a minor event compared to November 1, 1954, the beginning of the Algerian war for independence, which legitimized the one-party regime. The members of the FLN, as rebels and as State members did not want to ... |
why is red hair so much more rare than other hair colors? | Because red hair is the most recessive of the hair colors. So if you look at a punnet square it'll be easy to see that unless both parents have red hair then there is only a 25% chance of the child having red hair at best and since there are multiple hair colors when red heads mate with non red heads it's easy to see how the recessive gene will slowly disappear | [
"Red hair ranges from light strawberry blond shades to titian, copper, and completely red. It is caused by a variation in the \"Mc1r\" gene and is recessive. Red hair has the highest amounts of pheomelanin, around 67%, and usually low levels of eumelanin. At 1–2% of the population, it is the least common hair color... |
How were/are native peoples affected by the establishment of the US/Canada border? | There was no law or settlements in the Western Canadian prairies until the Northwest Mounted Police, newly established in 1873, arrived at Fort Whoop-up in 1874. Up until then there was no law nor any federal protection for the Indian tribes living in the Canadian side of the border and the US Cavalry was unwilling to become involved in disputes across the border.
The NWMP was formed 1873. Before that complaints of murder and mayhem going unpunished were reaching Ottawa so Colonel P. Ross Robertson was sent to Edmonton to investigate. He learned of 3 German families slaughtered by the Bloods, of a half-breed who brutally murdered his wife outside the gates of the fort and severed the sinews of an old Indian woman's arms who starved to death as she was unable to work. His report tells of a notorious Cree who was responsible for many murders and states that in 1871 some 88 Blackfeet were murdered as a result of drunken brawls. On top of this he says that the Indians code of honour includes murder and assassination which caused another untold number of deaths.
This report, *"A Report of a reconnaissance of the north-west provinces and Indian territories of the Dominion of Canada,"* got the attention of the Canadian government. Once word of [The Cypress Hill Massacre](_URL_0_) reached Ottawa they acted and formed the Northwest Mounted Police. It's purpose was to protect the Indians, stop the liquor trade in the area and we're also ordered to bring justice to the West. They arrived in Fort Whoop-up in 1874 and quickly earned the respect and trust of the local Indians.
I'm currently reading *The Range Men* by L.V. Kelly. It provides us with some of the history of the Indians, fur traders, ranchers and settlers that lived in what is now Southern Alberta. In his book Kelly tells us of Fort Stand-Off which got it's name from a group of whiskey traders who were running from the US Cavalry. When they crossed the border they stopped and turned around to taunt their persuers, who had to turn around and head home empty handed. Kelly goes on to tell us that while they respected the laws on the Canadian side of the border ,after the NWMP arrived, young warriors seeking fortune and adventure would cross the border in search of enemies to kill and horses to steal secure in the knowledge that they would be safe from prosecution once they returned to their side of the border.
Kelly goes on to say that the Blackfeet went to war with the Kootenay Indians in 1871. They were losing badly so set the prairies on fire in order to escape and force the Kootenais back to the mountains. This fire also chased the buffalo South across the border creating a shortage of food that winter. The buffalo were prevented from returning by the Sioux and were never to return to Canada.
Peter Erasmus was an interpreter for Methodist missionaries in early Alberta in his youth then went to on to be a trader, miner and guide for such events as [The Palliative Expedition](_URL_2_). His memoirs are recorded in the book *Buffalo Days and Nights*. In this book he tells us that he was hired by the Cree to represent them as their interpreter because they did not trust the government to be truthful to them when they negotiated [Treaty 6](_URL_1_). He was present during the negotiations and while the chiefs were debating the terms of the treaty and whether or not to sign it. During the Chief's private debates Erasmus said that Big Child was the chief who swayed the others to sign the treaty. In his speech Big Child said that had seen how his people were treated South of the Medicine Line and that there they were vulnerable to the depredations caused by the white man and had no protections while the Canadians treated them as equals. With the mass herds of buffalo quickly disappearing he felt that his people would be better off accepting the government's terms and signing the treaty instead of rejecting it and becoming drawn into battle defending their lands against the onrush of settlers who would away from them anyways.
If this history interests you I would highly recommend that you read the books I mentioned and also get a copy of *Bear Child: The Life and times of Jerry Potts. * Potts was a scout and interpreter for the NWMP when they first arrived in the prairies. He led a very colorful life, being involved in battles against the Blackfoot Confederacy, hunting down and killing his mother's murderer and stealing horses from both sides of the border. He was known to be a crack shot with a pistol who one time got into a drunken argument with a friend whereupon they went into the street and proceeded to shoot the ends off of cigarettes hanging from each others mouths. He was also hired to be an interpreter during treaty negotiations but his lack of words were of little use. Once, after a Chief spoke a long flowery and elegant speech introducing his tribe Potts simplified it and told the negotiating committee "He's damn glad you're here."
| [
"As a consequence of Article 3 of the Jay Treaty of 1794, official First Nations status, or in the United States, Native American status, also confers the right to live and work on either side of the border. Unlike the U.S., Canada has not codified the Jay Treaty. Canadian courts readily reject the Jay Treaty free ... |
What are some great examples of military deception throughout history? | During WW2 the Australian Prime Minister kept speaking of the Japanese pushing south and Australia being in danger of invasion as a way of deceiving the Japanese. The Allies had broken Japanese military codes and knew that the Japanese had no intention of invading Australia. However, before this was known the idea that Australia was in danger of being invaded had been openly discussed by the Australian government and so it was decided that if they suddenly stopped discussing it the Japanese might catch on that their codes had been broken and so the Australian government kept talking about it, and scaring the Australian people, so the secret that the codes had been broken wouldn't be revealed.
Not as exciting as inflatable tanks and the like but still deception. | [
"Probably one of the best-known deceptions of the modern era was Robert Baden-Powell's defence of Mafeking during the Second Boer War. Baden-Powell had been dispatched to the North West province of South Africa shortly before the outbreak of war with orders to raise a small force and conduct a harrying war against ... |
what is mk ultra? | It was a CIA project that started in the 50s and lasted the the 70s. It's goal was to identify drugs and techniques used for interrogation and counter intelligence. It included a lot of messed up experiments like daily LSD dosage on unknowing patients. It was illegal and didn't yield any real results. It did however drive a ton of U.S citizens bat shit crazy. The uni bomber was one of the more famous test subjects. | [
"In mathematics, an ultralimit is a geometric construction that assigns to a sequence of metric spaces \"X\" a limiting metric space. The notion of an ultralimit captures the limiting behavior of finite configurations in the spaces \"X\" and uses an ultrafilter to avoid the process of repeatedly passing to subseque... |
Was there anything like the American "temperance movement" in Europe in the 19th or 20th century? | There was a fairly strong temperance movement in Scandinavia. A number of both open and closed organisations were involved. An attempt was made in 1918 in Denmark to partially ban certain sorts of alcoholic drinks. A general drive to collect signatures for this managed 722,280 signatures (out of a pop. of 4 million). But the proposal failed in the parliament, and was not tried again. | [
"By the early 19th century, excessive drinking was considered to be a sufficient social problem that led to the founding of temperance societies in the United States and in Europe. The first founded in the U.S. was in 1808 in Saratoga, NY. By 1833, there were more than 6000 local societies in the country. At first ... |
What’s the difference between sleep and just laying down/resting? | Frankly, nobody knows for sure. It's one of the great unresolved questions in psychology and neurology. Hypotheses for the function of sleeping range from consolidating new memories to cleaning up metabolic waste products accrued in the brain. All we know that deprivation of sleep eventually incapacitates you no matter how much physical rest you get. Or, like some researcher once quipped, the only thing we know for sure is that we sleep because we get sleepy. | [
"Lying, also called recumbency or prostration, or decubitus in medicine (from the Latin verb \"decumbere\" ′to lie down′), is a type of human position in which the body is more or less horizontal and supported along its length by the surface underneath. Lying is the most common position while being immobilized (e.g... |
why do most americans seem to be suspicious of the federal government? | It's part of our culture. Our nation was founded by people with a fear and resentment of governments and kings. We were once a brave and rebellious assortment of people.
Also our government always gives us good reason not to trust. Sneaky bunch of motherfuckers. | [
"Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been illegally collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf ... |
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