question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
|---|---|---|
why by do we use exchange rates to represent value of currency (eg: strong vs weak dollar)? | If you never leave your own country, and never buy anything not 100% made in your country, then it matters not at all. However, this is pretty much impossible, as pieces and parts are sourced from all over the globe, usually based on where the cheapest to get resources are.
Example of how it matters:
Imagine I own a... | [
"The real exchange rate is a more informative measure of the dollar's worth since it accounts for countries whose currencies experience differing rates of inflation from that of the United States. This is compensated for by adjusting the exchange rates in the formula using the consumer price index of the respective... |
Why does my bathroom mirror fog up but my phone screen doesn't? | The H2O in the air will condense on your mirror forming a fog, so it is passing from the gaseous to the liquid state, so it need to cool down. This is possible because your mirror is relatively cool and the H2O can form the fog, whereas due to the circuit and light in and on your phone screen, the phone is not cool eno... | [
"Mirror lock-up is a feature that can be added to both the Kiev 88 and Kiev 60. This removes the small amount of motion blur that can be caused by the mirror hitting the top of the mirror box just before the shutter opens. (Other sources of motion-blur still remain however). It is most useful when the subject is gr... |
Why does water gather together? | Yay finally a question I can answer!
Water molecules want to bond together and form hydrogen bonds between each other. This causes them to exhibit surface tension. The water molecules at the surface of the liquid don't have as many other molecules to bind to. Therefore, the surface molecules create stronger bonds with... | [
"When water is in contact with solid particles (e.g., clay or sand particles within soil), adhesive intermolecular forces between the water and the solid can be large and important. The forces between the water molecules and the solid particles in combination with attraction among water molecules promote surface te... |
why do dogs suck at hide-and-seek when they have a super sensitive olfactory sense? | Remember that their noses are so sensitive that to them, the whole house is saturated with the smell of everything. Imagine trying to find one hidden bottle of perfume in the perfume department at macy's - it's just too much sensory input to be accurate in all those "smells" - (not saying you stink or anything . . .... | [
"Some dogs are trained to silently locate booby traps and concealed enemies such as snipers. The dog's keen senses of smell and hearing would make them far more effective at detecting these dangers than humans. The best scout dogs are described as having a disposition intermediate to docile tracking dogs and aggres... |
Why does the force of gravity appear to have contradictory effects in the solar system? | Nobody has yet pointed out...the moon *does* orbit the sun. In fact, it has almost exactly the same orbit as Earth. However, it (and Earth) go in and out a bit due to their relative interaction.
Looking at the moon's orbit as a whole, in what sense could you say that it does not revolve around it directly, or that it ... | [
"In addition to stepping in to re-form the solar system, Newton invoked God's active intervention to prevent the stars falling in on each other, and perhaps in preventing the amount of motion in the universe from decaying due to viscosity and friction. In private correspondence Newton sometimes hinted that the forc... |
i understand the first level (employer-employee) of direct deposits but how does it work between my bank and my employer? | I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain it is just a simple banking transfer.
Your company runs a "payroll application" most likely bought from a vendor like ADP. That application runs through all the information for each employee, pulls out the correct amounts of tax (as specified by your W-2 and the state you are... | [
"In banking, a direct deposit (or direct credit) is a deposit of money by a payer directly into a payee's bank account. Direct deposits are most commonly made by businesses in the payment of salaries and wages and for the payment of suppliers' accounts, but the facility can be used for payments for any purpose, suc... |
how does washing detergent work? | All soaps are surfactants. A surfactant is a molecule of which one end is attract to water (hydrophilic) and the other end doesn't like water (hydrophobic) but likes oils and dirt. Oils and dirt stick to the hydrophobic end and are washed away by water which attached to the hydrophobic end. | [
"In most household contexts, the term \"detergent\" by itself refers specifically to \"laundry detergent\" or \"dish detergent\", as opposed to \"hand soap\" or other types of cleaning agents. Detergents are commonly available as powders or concentrated solutions. Detergents, like soaps, work because they are amphi... |
how come the middle-eastern and asian civilizations got surpassed even though their knowledge and techniques were far superior to those of the western world? | Copied from googling.
China was centrally controlled by a leadership that made a deliberate choice to focus inward and turn it's back on the world and technology. So just as the Renaissance was waking up Europe, China was going to sleep. The Arabs were very advanced through much of what was in Europe the dark ages, b... | [
"Said said that the Western world sought to dominate the Eastern world for more than 2,000 years, since Classical antiquity (8th c. BC – AD 6th c.), the time of the play \"The Persians\" (472 BC), by Aeschylus, which celebrates a Greek victory (Battle of Salamis, 480 BC) against the Persians in the course of the Pe... |
Do internally ingested radionuclides tend to accumulate in certain tissues as opposed to others? | Yes, some radionuclides accumulate in certain tissue (based on their chemical properties), and the internal dose models account for this.
The ICRP internal exposure model is a compartment model, and they assume uniform distribution of a nuclide throughout a *compartment* (not the whole body).
The model calculates th... | [
"Radioresistance may be induced by exposure to small doses of ionizing radiation. Several studies have documented this effect in yeast, bacteria, protozoa, algae, plants, insects, as well as in \"in vitro\" mammalian and human cells and in animal models. Several cellular radioprotection mechanisms may be involved, ... |
Who are Slovenians and what's their history? | Not exactly.
The Slovenes are a Slavic-speaking ethnic group living primarily on the eastern region of the Dolomite Alps, historically known as the 'Julian Alps'.
Slavic-speakers probably began entering the region in the 7th century, but for almost 100 years did not likely impact the local culture. By the 9th century... | [
"The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( ), are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Slovenia, and also to Italy, Austria and Hungary in addition to having a diaspora throughout the world. Slovenes share a common ancestry, culture, history and speak Slovene as their native language.\n",
"Slovene ( or... |
Why does semen begin thicker immediately after ejaculation and then later "dissolve" into a much thinner liquid? | Thankfully, Wikipedia has a crystal clear answer for this:
"During the process of ejaculation, sperm passes through the ejaculatory ducts and mixes with fluids from the seminal vesicles, the prostate, and the bulbourethral glands to form the semen. The seminal vesicles produce a yellowish viscous fluid rich in fructos... | [
"Semen has an alkaline nature and the spermatozoa do not reach full motility (hypermotility) until they reach the vagina, where the alkaline pH is neutralized by acidic vaginal fluids. This gradual process takes 20–30 minutes. During this period, fibrinogen from the seminal vesicles forms a clot, securing and prote... |
what is the point in separating the armed forces into army, navy and air force when they all have their own foot soldiers, planes and ships? | In the US it's largely tradition, other countries may have other reasons like intentionally weakening their military to prevent coups.
There's also an argument that can be made that having separate branches with specializations allows them to be better at their jobs by focusing on a narrower set of missions rather tha... | [
"An army aviation unit is an aviation-related unit of a nation's army, sometimes described as an air corps. These units are generally separate from a nation's dedicated air force, and usually comprise helicopters and light support fixed-wing aircraft. Prior to the establishment of separate national air forces, many... |
How were ancient generals educated in the art of war? | I don't know enough to give you an informed answer however I would recommend you narrow down your question to a specific country (or at least region) and include some sort of time period you're interested in.
You have a really interesting question, I just feel you should be a bit more specific. | [
"The profession of soldiering as part of a military is older than recorded history itself. Some of the most enduring images of classical antiquity portray the power and feats of its military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the defining points of Pharaoh Ramses II's reign, and his monuments comme... |
Is it realistic to say that nothing in the universe exists that is at a completely stopped state? | > Since the planets are all moving, and galaxies are all moving away from each other, that would mean that everything is in some sort of motion at all time?
Depends on your reference frame. All motion is relative. | [
"An easy example would be the statement ″the sun will rise tomorrow″. Although many reasons could be devised for which that statement could turn out to be false (the Earth could stop turning, aliens could destroy the Sun with their star-killer doomsday weapon, the universe might be a simulation and could be shut do... |
i understand 4th dimensional space. but what exactly is 5th dimensional space? does it exist outside time and space? | The universe, as far as we can tell, has 3 dimensions of space and 1 of time. If there were 4 dimensions of space instead, everything would be the same except there would be another independent direction to move in besides up/down, left/right, and forward/backward. That's all dimensions are: directions to move around i... | [
"A five-dimensional space is a space with five dimensions. If interpreted physically, that is one more than the usual three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension of time used in relativistic physics. It is an abstraction which occurs frequently in mathematics, where it is a legitimate construct. In physics an... |
Ancient Egypt | Not to discourage further comments, but take a look at the [Ancient Egypt section of the AskHistorians book list](_URL_0_). Some of those ought to provide good information for you.
I'll leave the question of "covering up" things to someone with more knowledge of the topic. | [
"Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in the place that is now the country Egypt. Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3100 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unifi... |
How did a Holy Roman Emperor differ from the kings of England or France? | The organization and hierarchy of the Empire were complicated to say the least. It wasn't a Kingdom in the true meaning of the word, like France or England for example. It had some republican characteristics, but it wasn't a republic either.
In the Empire, there were thousands of settlements: villages, towns, convent... | [
"While earlier Germanic and Italian monarchs had been crowned as Roman emperors, the actual Holy Roman Empire is usually considered to have begun with the crowning of the Saxon king Otto I. It was officially an elective position, though at times it ran in families, notably the four generations of the Salian dynasty... |
why does my phone's battery drain so much faster when it's hot? | Lithium-ion batteries perform well at elevated temperatures; however, prolonged exposure to heat reduces longevity. You've probably shortened your battery's life permanently through excessive exposure to heat. Time to get a new one. | [
"BULLET::::- Some users have complained that the battery drains too fast and the phone overheats. Aloysius Low from CNET Asia did not notice such a fast rate of battery drain on other smartphones even with the same usage pattern. The issue was fixed in the Portico update.\n",
"older phones tend to draw more batte... |
Road Salt and road longevity | Road salt increases the number of freeze/thaw cycles that you mentioned, which in turn causes faster deterioration. I would also think that the chloride ion in salt could cause corrosion in bridges reinforced with steel.
Edit: [Gotta have sources](_URL_0_). | [
"A salt road (also known as a salt route, salt way, saltway, or salt trading route) refers to any of the prehistoric and historical trade routes by which essential salt was transported to regions that lacked it.\n",
"The subject of salt roads reappears throughout the novel; the roads are the spiritual connection ... |
why are governments often referred to by their country's capital in news articles? | Because there are not enough government names. "The Prime Minister said ..." could be any of dozens of people. Using their given name sounds like they are just an opinionated person, it doesn't carry the prestige of their office. Name plus title takes too many letters for headlines or intro taglines.
It's a little ... | [
"News media often use the name of a capital city as an alternative name for the country of which it is the capital or of the government that is seated there, as a form of metonymy. For example, \"relations between Washington and London\" refer to \"relations between the United States and the United Kingdom\".\n",
... |
Why does reading often trigger yawning? | Are you lying in bed? | [
"Yawning (\"oscitation\") most often occurs in adults immediately before and after sleep, during tedious activities and as a result of its contagious quality. It is commonly associated with tiredness, stress, sleepiness, or even boredom and hunger. In humans, yawning is often triggered by others yawning (e.g. seein... |
Why is there so little French influence except for names of places in the American Midwest unlike in Quebec? | France didn't establish many major trading posts or cities in the Midwest, so cultural influences didn't stay strongly tied to the land. Look at this map:
_URL_0_
There aren't any significant French settlements in the Midwest, but in the Louisiana area we see New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Mobile, and in the Quebec ar... | [
"The main difference between New Orleans and other Southern cities was its unique cultural heritage as a result of formerly having been a French and Spanish possession. Promoters emphasized this cultural legacy, in the form of its architecture, cuisine and traditions, to attract tourists to New Orleans.\n",
"In t... |
why haven't avocados been bred to have tiny pits? | You can't just "breed" things arbitrarily to have whatver quality you want. You have to find one that naturally mutated that feature, then breed that plant. For example, no one bred seeds out of grapes. They found a grape vine that mutated to grow no seeds, then they grafted that vine over and over until seedless grape... | [
"A stoneless avocado, marketed as a \"cocktail avocado,\" which does not contain a pit, is available on a limited basis. They are five to eight centimetres long; the whole fruit may be eaten, including the skin. It is produced from an unpollinated blossom in which the seed does not develop. Seedless avocados regula... |
is it better to put your computer on standby, hibernate or turn it off after every session? | It comes down to your preferences, that's why there's so all the different options. Your computer components will most likely never fail due to heat cycling or starting and stopping and save a hardware defect will be obsolete before their mechanical life expires.
Each successive step you asked just uses less power a... | [
"While some PCs allow low power settings, there are many situations, especially in a networked environment, where processes running on the computer will prevent the low power settings from taking effect. This can have a dramatic effect on energy use that is invisible to the user. The monitor may have gone into stan... |
why do some playstation one game discs have a blue coloring while others are black? | Former Sony employee here. I worked in the Replication factories where PS1, PS2 and PS3 games were made.
PS1 games are constructed like CD's. One thick Polycarbonate wafer is injection molded with data on the label side. That side is metalized then a protective coating is spun over the metalization. Then the label app... | [
"BULLET::::- Black cartridges (Also known as class B or Dual Mode) are compatible with all Game Boy systems, excluding Game Boy Micro. Although the games on these cartridges are programmed in color, they can still be played in monochrome on Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light and Super Game Boy (and its Japan... |
what did de blasio say to piss of the cops that they turned their back on him? | He said something mildly critical after the cops tackled and choked an unarmed fat black man to death for selling black market cigarettes. | [
"De Atley quoted a passage from the wiretaps which stated Navario said: \" \"it was 'fun to ... around with people,' that he gets 'to beat somebody's ... because they're drunk,' \"\". De Atley noted that the court papers did not include evidence Navario had beaten vulnerable members of the public for kicks.\n",
"... |
If I were to analyse the DNA of a newborn baby, and then wait 80 years before analysing that person's DNA once more, how genetically dissimilar might I expect the two samples to be? | Several things would be different:
- At the end of your DNA, there is a a series of repeated nucleotides called 'telomeres'. Telomeres basically just serve to protect the DNA that is actually important, since a little bit of the ends of your DNA are lost each time during replication. As you age, you have a smaller and ... | [
"DNA profiling is also used in DNA paternity testing to determine if someone is the biological parent or grandparent of a child with the probability of parentage is typically 99.99% when the alleged parent is biologically related to the child. Normal DNA sequencing methods happen after birth, but there are new meth... |
how, when, and why did it seem everyone decided white was the go to color for toilets? | Toilets are generally ceramic, and ceramic is white unless it's dyed some other. Dyeing ceramic is expensive, so a non-white toilet will be more expensive and is therefore more likely to be found in homes than public bathrooms. | [
"Colored toilet paper in colors such as pink, lavender, light blue, light green, purple, green, and light yellow (so that one could choose a color of toilet paper that matched or complemented the color of one's bathroom) was commonly sold in the United States from the 1960s. Up until 2004, Scott was one of the last... |
what would happen if i soaked my body in a tub of vodka? | You would likely absorb enough to kill yourself. But before that happened, you would get drunk and sparkly clean. | [
"Pierre and Andrews then propped each of the victims into sitting positions and forced them to drink the liquid, telling them it was vodka laced with sleeping pills. Rather, it was liquid Drano, that immediately caused blisters on the victims' lips, and began burning their tongues and throats, and peeled away the f... |
what makes us emotionaly numb when we are depressed? | Emotional numbness is one of the key markers in the first step of diagnosing things like major depression, but also PTSD and depersonalization disorders and they sometimes have different causes.
With depression, it's often heavily influenced by the imbalance of chemicals in your body and brain like serotonin, norepine... | [
"High or low expressed emotion makes the patient feel trapped, out of control and dependent upon others. The patient may feel like an outsider because of the excessive attention received. In bipolar patients relapse from manic to depressed can be triggered by a family member's comments. Expressed emotion affects ev... |
What is the best place to find primary documents about New France? | I'm not sure what kind of sources you're looking for, but you can start with books on whatever topic you're interested in and check their footnotes. One particularly good book I've read is Bonds of Alliance, by Brett Rushforth | [
"Other sources and background information is drawn from a range of French letters and articles from the era as well as historical documents. It refers often to the writings of French explorer Samuel de Champlain who was the first to explore New France and encounter the Huron people.\n",
"The site includes interac... |
why pug's tails curl. | I misread this as "why pig's tails curl"
While I'll be happy to find out about pugs' tails, now I'm going to wonder about why pig tails curl... | [
"The tail has been shown to contain fast and slow particles; the slow particles are on the side and the fast particles are encompassed in the center. The shape of the tail can be linked to the sun sending out fast solar winds near its poles and slow solar wind near its equator more recently. The clover-shaped tail ... |
why is it that the larger dominoes fall slower? | The bigger something is, the more inertia it has. That is to say, the harder it is to get it to stop doing one thing and start doing another.
In this case it would be stopping it from just sitting there and making it fall over. | [
"Besides playing games, another use of dominoes is the domino show, which involves standing them on end in long lines so that when the first tile is toppled, it topples the second, which topples the third, etc., resulting in all of the tiles falling. By analogy, the phenomenon of small events causing similar events... |
why does some cheese cost so much more than others when they all seem be made of milk & bacteria and are made the same way? | Many time and resource consuming factors can go into making a cheese, and ultimately the price of a cheese. For example, some cheeses are aged, meaning they must be stored and preserved and therefore cannot be produced as quickly, meaning a more expensive cheese in the supermarket. Some cheaper cheeses aren't even 100%... | [
"Cheese is another product made from milk. Whole milk is reacted to form curds that can be compressed, processed and stored to form cheese. In countries where milk is legally allowed to be processed without pasteurization, a wide range of cheeses can be made using the bacteria found naturally in the milk. In most o... |
To what extent could the Cold War be attributed to the transition from Roosevelt to Truman? | This is one of those questions that has consumed historians pretty much since the Cold War began. This is a fierce historiographical debate on top of a complicated factual question, but I'll try and lay out the various positions.
Roosevelt is pretty famous for having been extremely controlling in his conduct of foreig... | [
"Truman's presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. During his first year in office, Truman approved the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and subsequently accepted the Surrender of Japan, which marked th... |
how do the algorithms work that convert audio to a faster speed without changing pitch? | Imagine you have a tape of someone playing a song on a piano. If you play the tape fast, the pitches are all higher, which you don't want.
But since you're a really excellent musician yourself, instead, you listen to the notes and write sheet music for the song, then you play it yourself on a piano at the faster spee... | [
"In higher performance audio synchronizers, the rate of delay change is allowed to be much faster, generally in the order of 25%, and the resulting pitch error is corrected with a pitch correction circuit. The pitch correction circuitry is frequently a proprietary design, due to the difficulty in performing correct... |
why do you see a normal picture after looking at a negative picture and then at a white background? | Your retina has light sensitive pigments. When light strikes them it causes a chemical reaction. The pigment is saying "I have been struck by a beam of light to which I am sensitive. I am bent out of shape." Its nerve sends the signal to the brain. I takes a while for the pigment to bend back into shape. During that ti... | [
"A negative photocopy inverts the colors of the document when creating a photocopy, resulting in letters that appear white on a black background instead of black on a white background. Negative photocopies of old or faded documents sometimes produce documents which have better focus and are easier to read and study... |
the casimir effect | I'm a grad student working with the Casimir force right now. I'll admit, my theoretical knowledge isn't complete, but I'll give the best explanation I can.
So at a really, really small level, light is popping into existence and then going right back into nothing. It's doing this all around you right now.
If you tak... | [
"The Casimir effect can be understood by the idea that the presence of conducting metals and dielectrics alters the vacuum expectation value of the energy of the second quantized electromagnetic field. Since the value of this energy depends on the shapes and positions of the conductors and dielectrics, the Casimir ... |
Why was cannabis, a drug used for thousands of years in the Middle East, banned by Western nations in the 1800s even though they found little to no harmful effects? Was there an element of xenophobia? | There's always more to say on the subject, but [here's a previous thread](_URL_0_) with an answer from u/Roggenroll that may be helpful. Basically, it was almost entirely due to xenophobia, with very little consideration given to the drug's actual (non-exaggerated) effects. | [
"The Muslim nations of Turkey and Egypt were instrumental in banning opium, cocaine, and cannabis when the League of Nations committed to the 1925 International Convention relating to opium and other drugs (later the 1934 Dangerous Drugs Act). The primary goal was to ban opium and cocaine, but cannabis was added to... |
Is there any physical limit to the Periodic Table? Or could we theoretically just keep fusing elements together to make heavier ones? | > "My basic understanding is that heavier elements are typically made when 2+ lighter elements are fused together"
Absolutely right.
> "could we theoretically just keep fusing elements together to make heavier ones?"
No, not indefinitely.
What causes a nucleus to continue existing is its stability. There are cert... | [
"Although that formula gives the maximum in principle, in fact that maximum is only \"achieved\" (by known elements) for the first four shells (K, L, M, N). No known element has more than 32 electrons in any one shell. This is because the subshells are filled according to the Aufbau principle. The first elements to... |
AskHistorians Podcast 049 - Shaft Tombs of West Mexico | Because I am a very visual person and talking about some of these shaft tomb figures or the architecture isn't the same as actually seeing it, I've collected a bunch of links to different figure styles, photos of guachimontones and shaft tombs, as well as linking to what I think are important papers about the region an... | [
"The Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition or shaft tomb culture refers to a set of interlocked cultural traits found in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, and, to a lesser extent, Colima to the south, roughly dating to the period between 300 BCE and 400 CE, although there are disagreements on this end-d... |
why is there the colours in vertical stripes on when you put in an old vcr tape? | It is a color test that the consumer can use to adjust the color saturation on their television. It was produced by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and is refereed to as the SMPTE color bars | [
"Stereo audio applications use either black and red, grey and red or white and red RCA connectors; in all three cases, red denotes right. White or purple may also be replaced by black. Some older tape recorders, and equipment like receivers designed to connect to them, use a 5-pin DIN connector to connect left and ... |
How Did British People of the Early 18th Century View Americans? | Although Franklin wasn't a typical American, the way the Brits treated him in London is certainly worthy of mention. He went to London a few times, and while he loved the City life, there were always things that drew him back to America.
While he's most famous for getting excoriated in Parliament right before the Revo... | [
"Even before the American Revolution, Americans were well aware of how much they owed to their British background, and the British institutions had always contrasted favorably against their European counterparts; as early as 1823, Britain backed up the American Monroe Doctrine, and the two countries cooperated in n... |
How can receipt paper be able to leave a "pencil like mark" when you score it with your nail? | A lot of receipt printers use thermal paper, which show marks with heat. The heat from friction between your nail and the paper could be doing it. Try putting a lighter near the receipt sometime—if it’s using thermal paper, it will leave a mark from the heat. | [
"Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail of solid core material that adheres to a sheet of paper or other surface. They are distinct from pens, which dispense liquid or gel ink onto the marked surface.\n",
"A piece of matte board, a plastic \"card\", or a wad of cloth is often used to push the ... |
the movie primer (spoilers) | Everything after your #1 is pretty far off the mark.
They didn't make money from sports betting. They made money from the stock market. Every afternoon they checked the closing prices of different stocks and looked for one that gained a lot of value over the day, but that traded in very large volume. Then they waited ... | [
"A spoiler is an element of a disseminated summary or description of any piece of fiction that reveals any plot elements which threaten to give away important details. Typically, the details of the conclusion of the plot, including the climax and ending, are especially regarded as spoiler material. It can also be u... |
What was the first, real city? | Because we are always unearthing new ancient findings, this answer changes over time. Currently, however, the city of Jiroft, uncovered in 2001 in modern day Iran, is currently considered by many the oldest city and the first civilization. It was a radical shift and the beginning of civilization. Prior to this, we beli... | [
"The origins of the city date back to the early Middle Ages. The earliest written reference to the town dates from 984, but a treasure of about 500 4th-century coins (discovered in 1884) indicates an even earlier settlement.\n",
"The city is first mentioned in Egyptian sources as a city conquered by Pharaoh Thutm... |
is there a good reason why we need to wear socks with shoes? | Reduce friction. Absorb sweat. Keep insides of shoes cleaner, fresher. Adjust fit of loose shoes.
I've searched tha seven seas fer an answer. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:
1. [ELI5: why do we wear socks with closed shoes? ](_URL_0_) ^(_5 comments_)
1. [ELI5: Why does putting socks, which... | [
"Modern variants of toe socks are designed primarily for either comfort or athletics. In 2004, a patent was filed with the Intellectual Property Office in the United Kingdom for a product called \"toe socks\"; however, their description differs: \"A half sock which covers the toes to provide comfort under footwear.... |
Was the moon landing ever (implicitly or explicitly) set as a "win condition" for the space race? | Modified from an [earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_)
As popular as the narrative of the "race to the moon" is in popular culture and discourse, both the Soviet and US leadership balked at the escalating costs and dubious rewards from manned spaceflight.
The Eisenhower administration was cool towards space exploration a... | [
"On the way to the Moon landing, the two space programs compete for prestige in order to secure funding. Players gain prestige points through space exploration \"firsts\", which include historical milestone missions that improve lunar mission safety, but also ancillary achievements, such as the first Mars flyby (hi... |
What's up with the Hubble constant disparity and changing universe age (as 12.5b years)? | This is a really important question, but we don't really know what the reason is yet. The most we can say about it is that the disparity is between measurements of the Hubble constant in the *early* universe (from Planck measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background) and the relatively late universe (from supernovae)... | [
"However, in the late 1970s to early 1990s, the age problem re-appeared: new estimates of the Hubble constant gave higher values, with Gerard de Vaucouleurs estimating values 90–100 (km/s)/Mpc, while Marc Aaronson and co-workers gave values around 80-90 (km/s)/Mpc. Sandage and Tammann continued to argue for values... |
what scientifically stops us from creating life? | By some definitions, we already have. We can create 100% artificial DNA, use it to replace the DNA in a single celled organism, and get a new, novel lifeform that uses that synthetic DNA.
What we can't do is create everything from scratch, we still need a natural organism to kick start it. The question is when does ... | [
"Research on how life might have emerged from non-living chemicals focuses on three possible starting points: self-replication, an organism's ability to produce offspring that are very similar to itself; metabolism, its ability to feed and repair itself; and external cell membranes, which allow food to enter and wa... |
how did people subsist on mostly grains in the past? iow, why did a failed wheat harvest cause a famine? | Grain-based foods like bread or rice are pretty much the most efficient calorie delivery mechanism available. Today we think about watching what we eat and trying not to get fat, but in those days the main concern was not starving to death. Bread was cheap, really cheap, and since the vast majority of the population li... | [
"Bad weather in 1980, 1990, 1997 and 1998 significantly reduced maize harvests, but famines were avoided. In 1997 and 1998, famine was avoided by the release of government grain reserves and overseas maize purchases, whereas in 2001 and 2002, when harvests were not as bad as in 1997 or 1998, deficiencies in grain r... |
With the use of lightning rods, would it be possible to store/utilize the power of lightning? | Another issue is that lightning does not contain a ton of energy relative to how much energy we consume. The entire planet generated 22.6 TWh (8.2e19 J) of electricity in 2012. The average lightning bolt releases about 500 MJ of electricity, and there are roughly 1.4 billion lightning "events" per year. If we perfectl... | [
"A technology capable of harvesting lightning energy would need to be able to rapidly capture the high power involved in a lightning bolt. Several schemes have been proposed, but the ever-changing energy involved in each lightning bolt renders lightning power harvesting from ground-based rods impractical – too high... |
why does one get paranoid at times? in other words, are there receptors for paranoia in the body? | The endocrine system regulates your flight or fight response, releasing various chemicals that attach to your receptors and make you feel scared.
Paranoia is a reaction to fear, such as is anger.
If there is no immediate threat, your brain is going to rationalize your fear.
It's why we get pissed when someone pulls o... | [
"Paranoia is a belief system heavily influenced by fear. This extreme fear mostly becomes so strong that it leads to delusion or irrationality. The paranoid thought usually consists of someone or something plotting against him or her. Paranoia can be caused by simple fears, exposure to/experience of trauma, etc. Th... |
Why was Romania the only Communist Country not to cut ties with Israel? | It seems hard to believe now, especially after Ceausescu clung by his fingernails to power while the rest of Eastern Europe turned away from Communism, but during the seventies and eighties he had a reputation as something of a pro-Western (or at least not stridently anti-Western) "reformer" who worked hard to cultivat... | [
"During the Cold War, Romania was the only communist country not to break its diplomatic relations with Israel. Throughout the period of Communist rule, Romania allowed limited numbers of Jews to emigrate to Israel, in exchange for much-needed Israeli economic aid. By 1965, Israel was funding agricultural and indus... |
how is netflix cheaper than cable without ads while cable has them? shouldn't it be the other way around ? | Netflix is about the same price per month as a premium cable station like HBO or Showtime. So, I am not sure why you think it's substantially cheaper.
If you are comparing Netflix to cable service as a whole, remember that the cable bill includes getting the content to your house. Netflix doesn't cover that. | [
"With the advent of broadband Internet connections, multiple streaming providers have come onto the market in the last couple of years. The main providers are Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. Some of these providers such as Hulu advertise and charge a monthly fee. Other such as Netflix and Amazon charge users a monthly fe... |
why can't engineers remove the violent left/right movement and shakes of trains better? | The technology exists, but it's too expensive so most manufacturers don't bother because rail companies won't buy it. | [
"To combat this, the ARU launched a boycott on Pullman, where ARU would refuse to run trains with the cars. The extensive use of Pullman cars across the country further crippled the railroad industry and stymied rail traffic. The twenty-four Chicago railroads represented by the General Managers' Association rallied... |
What percentage of our urine is water? Why do we not hold/process more water and then simply pee thicker urine? | There's a few factors which come into play. Firstly, urine isn't simply useful as a means of getting rid of urea, you also get rid of a lot of other metabolic wastes through urine. Secondly, unless you've drunk a lot of water recently, your urine is already really quite concentrated (typical osmolality of 800mOsm/l and... | [
"About 91-96% of urine consists of water. Urine also contains an assortment of inorganic salts and organic compounds, including proteins, hormones, and a wide range of metabolites, varying by what is introduced into the body.\n",
"The total solids in urine are on average 59 g per person per day. Organic matter ma... |
Why is bleach so effective both at removing stains and at sanitizing? Is it the same chemical property that is responsible for both functions? | Yes.
Bleach is an oxidizing agent. When it reacts with coloured material in your clothes, it oxidizes it into a colourless form. When it reacts with molecules on the outer surface of bacterial and viral cells, it oxidizes them into non-functional and / or degraded forms, which kills the cells. | [
"The broad-spectrum effectiveness of most bleaches is due to their general chemical reactivity against organic compounds, rather than the selective inhibitory or toxic actions of antibiotics. They irreversibly denature or destroy many proteins, making them extremely versatile disinfectants.\n",
"A bleach solution... |
frost at above-freezing temperatures | You (or the weatherman) are measuring the temperature of the air. You should try taking the temperature of the car. | [
"Frost is rare but does occur on some winters, and temperatures within a few degrees of freezing occur every winter. The record low is -4.9 °C (23.1F), a surprisingly low value given the latitude, the vegetation and the low elevation of the area.\n",
"Ground frost refers to the various coverings of ice produced b... |
I’m trying to better understand Marcus Crassus’ portfolio. What does it mean to be an ancient billionaire? How did he spend his money, and where did his wealth go when he died? | Two authors estimate Crassus' wealth. According to Plutarch, he assessed his own property at 7,200 talents of gold. Pliny the Elder tells us that he possessed the equivalent of 200,000,000 sesterces. Attempts to calculate the modern equivalents of these amounts are [usually based on bullion value](_URL_0_), and so fail... | [
"Marcus Licinius Crassus (; c. 115 BC or 112 BC – 6 May 53 BC) was a Roman general and politician who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is often called \"The richest man in Rome\".\n",
"The notoriously wealthy Marcus Crassus was around sixty-two when he embark... |
If solar cells were 100% efficient how much land mass would it take to support the world's current power production? How about the projected power production of 2050? | According to [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) the solar intensity on the Earth's surface is about 1400 W/m^2. According to [Wikipedia](_URL_1_) the amount of energy generated in 2012 was 22,668 TWh. Assuming that half of the world is getting 1400 W/m^2 of intensity and the other half is getting 0 you would need 177318.86 Km^2 of 1... | [
"In 2010, the International Energy Agency predicted that global solar PV capacity could reach 3,000 GW or 11% of projected global electricity generation by 2050—enough to generate 4,500 TWh of electricity. \n",
"In 2017 a study in Science estimated that by 2030 global PV installed capacities will be between 3,000... |
Are quantum mechanics interpretations falsifiable? | Overall they give the same predictions for the same obsevables. However, they arrive at the answer in slightly different ways. There are tests of locality and “hidden variables” that could hypothetically predict these, but by tests of Bell’s inequality, we know that if hidden variables exist, they must be nonlocal (ie ... | [
"Some of the historically relevant approaches to quantum mechanics have now themselves become \"minority interpretations\", or widely seen as obsolete. In this sense, there is a variety of reasons for why a specific approach may be considered marginal: because it is a very specialized sub-variant of a more widely k... |
how close are we to build engines capable of travelling at roughly the speed of light? | > How close are we to build engines capable of travelling at roughly the speed of light?
Not even remotely close.
> I often hear about how we some day will be able to travel at the speed of light.
If our current understanding of physics is correct we will never be able to travel at or faster than the speed of ligh... | [
"Although faster-than-light travel has been seriously considered by physicists such as Miguel Alcubierre, Tough speculates that the enormous amount of energy required to achieve such speeds under currently proposed mechanisms means that robotic probes traveling at conventional speeds will still have an advantage fo... |
why does tapping wood and tapping metal produce different sounds? | you know when you put a ruler on the edge of a table and push it down and let it go and it makes that woioioioinggggg sound? And if you vary the length of it off the table, the sound changes and the speed at which the end of the ruler goes up and back down changes? This is the natural frequency of the ruler when it is ... | [
"Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other. It is similar to the technique of hammer-ons and pull-offs, but used in ... |
How did Gregorian chant develop? What musical traditions does it descend from? | This is a very difficult question to answer.
Asking about music before the so called Gregorian chant gets you to deal with oral traditions from many centuries ago (the earliest notations we have would be from the 9-10th century). Gregorian chant had to be REVIVED in the 20th century, after about 500 years of decay, a... | [
"Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope G... |
why does my hair stand up every which way when i wake up? | I can best explain this by having you pretend you've parted your hair. When you part your hair, you're training it to prefer to stay in one way or another. When you have short hair, or cowlicks as some people call them, you've slept on your hair so that it sticks up at an angle and you've trained it to stay that way. T... | [
"Environment is a large factor which affects hair pulling. Sedentary activities such as being in a relaxed environment are conducive to hair pulling. A common example of a sedentary activity promoting hair pulling is lying in a bed while trying to rest or fall asleep. An extreme example of automatic trichotillomani... |
why does all mainstream virus protection software mcafee kasperky norton etc all take 1 hour+ yet malware bytes take 5 mins and actually find the problem? | This is because they have wildly different use cases.
First off, don't be fooled by terminology. Just because a software is called "Antivirus", it doesn't mean it will only protect you from viruses, which is only a subset of threats out there. This is just a traditional term for anti-malware solutions.
Traditional A... | [
"Malware removal and blocking performed well, setting or meeting records in \"PC Magazine\" testing. It achieved a detection rate of 98%. The highest out of 12 tested antivirus products. The exception was blocking commercial keyloggers, where Norton made an above average score. File operations took 2 percent longer... |
the newest change in facebook privacy settings. do they actually use my info/pictures/messages? can they actually make my account public? | This might be what you're talking about, and may help you. I'm not sure without more detail though. _URL_0_ | [
"Most users are not aware that they can modify the privacy settings and unless they modify them, their information is open to the public. On Facebook privacy settings can be accessed via the drop down menu under account in the top right corner. There users can change who can view their profile and what information ... |
So you are a red blood cell of an average human. How long does it take to visit every part of the human body? | It'd depend on what you define as "every part". Your entire blood supply passes through the heart roughly once a minute, although where each cell goes is pure chance.
They "live" for about 120 days, which is more than enough time to reach every major organ and all the major vessels. But, every organ has different par... | [
"In humans, mature red blood cells are flexible and oval biconcave disks. They lack a cell nucleus and most organelles, in order to accommodate maximum space for hemoglobin; they can be viewed as sacks of hemoglobin, with a plasma membrane as the sack. Approximately 2.4 million new erythrocytes are produced per sec... |
Can genes be partially-methylated? | Yes genes can be partially methylated, it's a sliding scale from 0-100% methylation and can be calculated several ways depending on what you're interested in. A single gene in a single cell will have many cytosines. While an individual cytosine is either methylated or not (ignoring for now that most genes have 2 copi... | [
"DNA methylation can result in long term downregulation of specific genes. Repression of functional proteins via asRNA induced DNA methylation has been found in several human disease. In a class of alpha-thalassemia, a type of blood disorder that has reduced level of hemoglobin leading to insufficient oxygen in the... |
How did the mycaneans (and their ancestors) know about lions? | Lions were fairly common in southeastern Europe as of the time of Herodotus. We are told that Xerxes encountered a few during his attempted invasion of Greece. They were driven extinct around 100 BC. It's believed that European lions were similar to the Asiatic lions present in the Middle East. | [
"The earliest fossils recognisable as from lions were excavated in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and date to between 1.4 and 1.2 million years ago. From East Africa, lions would spread throughout the continent and into the Holarctic and the Indian subcontinent with the expansions of open habitats.\n",
"Priscileo (\"A... |
why does heartburn at night cause nightmares and a racing heart? | I'm no Dr but I am a chronic sufferer of acid reflux, especially at night. I have never experienced this. It may be psychosomatic. I used to experience muscle spasms and stinging feelings in my back as a child and they were always accompanied by dreams of bee stings. I've experienced these feelings while awake and alwa... | [
"The universal feature of night terrors is inconsolability, very similar to that of a panic attack. During night terror bouts, people are usually described as \"bolting upright\" with their eyes wide open and a look of fear and panic on their faces. They will often scream. Furthermore, they will usually sweat, exhi... |
Why is the the Fibonacci sequence shown in bubble chambers all the time? | If by bubble chambers you mean the [Fibonacci spiral](_URL_0_) then it's just an interesting mathematical play on the sequence. If you start with one square whose side we consider to be equal to 1 (the unit of measurement is irrelevant) and then proceed to attach sqares to the side of the shape in a Fibonacci sequence,... | [
"The Fibonacci sequence appears in Indian mathematics in connection with Sanskrit prosody, as pointed out by Parmanand Singh in 1985. In the Sanskrit poetic tradition, there was interest in enumerating all patterns of long (L) syllables of 2 units duration, juxtaposed with short (S) syllables of 1 unit duration. Co... |
how do doctors/paramedics know what's wrong with a person if they're unconscious? | By examining the patient for the more common causes of being unconscious. Typically when in an accident it's not going to be totally unexpected that they took a bump to the head if they're unconscious and in most cases unconsciousness doesn't last very long. | [
"When an unconscious person enters a hospital, the hospital utilizes a series of diagnostic steps to identify the cause of unconsciousness. According to Young, the following steps should be taken when dealing with a patient possibly in a coma:\n",
"Other vital signs such as pulse, heart rate, blood pressure, and ... |
what is tommy john surgery, and why do so many baseball players have it? | Tommy John Surgery, known in medical practice as ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction, is a surgical graft procedure in which the ulnar collateral ligament in the medial elbow is replaced with a tendon from elsewhere in the body.
The patient's arm is opened up around the elbow. Holes to accommodate a new ten... | [
"For baseball players, full rehabilitation takes about one year for pitchers and about six months for position players. Players typically begin throwing about 16 weeks after surgery. Prior to his surgery, John had won 124 games. He won 164 after surgery, retiring in 1989 at age 46. Other pitchers to extend their ca... |
How strong a gravity could humans adapt to? | [Rats in a centrifuge](_URL_1_) develop denser bones and stronger muscles and are mostly fine at 2-3 g. They have [some difficulties getting pregnant](_URL_0_) though.
Humans are not rats though, and the differences might be very important. We are strangely built bipeds with our brains above our hearts and our weight ... | [
"It is not yet known whether exposure to high gravity for short periods of time is as beneficial to health as continuous exposure to normal gravity. It is also not known how effective low levels of gravity would be at countering the adverse effects on health of weightlessness. Artificial gravity at 0.1\"g\" and a r... |
Protestant teaching under Luther's Two Kingdoms suggests that church and state should be separated. So why did the English monarch become the head of the Church of England? | Hey there! While I'm in no way an expert in this area, I was researching it recently and hope to provide even just a little insight!
From what I understand, a key element of the English Reformation is just that - it was an English Reformation, relatively separate from the German debates occurring contemporaneously. It... | [
"From the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 to the end of the First World War and the collapse of the German Empire, some Protestant churches were state churches. Each (state or regional church) was the official church of one of the states of Germany, while the respective ruler was the church's formal head (e.g. the King o... |
why do us universities favor professors who are better at research than teaching? | Guess which one makes them more money, and gains better publicity, which brings more students.... and more money. | [
"Faculty members might also become better teachers due to their work on cutting-edge research. Colleges may also assess undergraduate research as part of departmental productivity. Taking part in undergraduate research can help faculty members in the long run because the students they work with can train future und... |
how can ed sheeran's song "thinking out loud" win song of the year at the grammys when it wasn't released in 2015? | [This thread](_URL_0_?) gives an explanation.
Hint: Searches often help. | [
"After a month of voting, on March 31, 2014, \"Billboard\" declared the song to be the winner of the 2014 Hot 100 March Madness and their favorite Top 5 single from the past year. It defeated songs like \"Holy Grail\" by Jay-Z & Justin Timberlake, \"Best Song Ever\" by One Direction, \"Applause\" by Lady Gaga, \"Ti... |
why do auctioneers still use "auction chants"? | 3 reasons:
1. because most auctions are small events that are fairly bare bone affairs. an auction company comes in, sells a bunch of stuff, gets a commission, and leaves. usually there isn't any extra room or time to deal with flashy items.
2. if the auctioneer has a ringman (or ringmen at larger auctions) its a way... | [
"Auction chant (also known as \"bid calling\", \"the auction cry\", \"the cattle rattle\", or simply \"auctioneering\") is a rhythmic repetition of numbers and \"filler words\" spoken by auctioneers in the process of conducting an auction. It is universal in North America, but much less common elsewhere. The chant ... |
if the middle east is seemingly so rich with oil, why is there so much poverty and civil unrest? | Because the governments of most Middle Eastern states are totalitarian and embezzle all that money away into Swiss bank accounts long before it ever reaches the people. In the case of Saudi Arabia and Iran they then use the money in those accounts to fund and export their particular flavor of insane fundamentalist reli... | [
"As many of the world's major oil producing countries are in the Middle East, the unrest has caused a rise in oil prices. The International Monetary Fund accordingly revised its forecast for 2011 oil prices to reflect a higher price, and also reported that food prices could also increase. Additionally, concerns abo... |
why does putting a band-aid on a minor wound cause it to hurt slightly less, even if it’s not open and bleeding? | It stops the skin stretching die to the numerous microtears in the skin created the resulting wound. You may not be able to see it but the skin becomes more stretchy and delicate as a result of this. By having a bandaid you keep the wound in place and stop friction and movement which are things which cause pain. | [
"The risk of injuring the ACL is very high for an athlete, as most professionals say it is worrying how common the injury is becoming. As there is no real way to stop an ACL injury from occurring, there can be ways to lower the risk. Once an athlete does an ACL injury it is extremely difficult to be able to come ba... |
Was the Carolingian Empire related to the Holy Roman Empire? | The Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire are directly related.
The Carolingian Empire was started by Charlemagne, who descendants then split his territories into several smaller kingdoms but predominantly West and East Francia. West Francia is the forerunner of what we call France, while East Francia was situa... | [
"The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crow... |
Any interesting or remarkable tales of WWII Italian fighting skill or courage? | There were many instances of not only stubbornly fought military actions, but also successful engagements by Italian forces in WW2. I should first establish the strong military tradition that surrounds the young Italian nation. When she was formed, there are several elite branches that serve different purposes, and Ita... | [
"Raffaele Cadorna Jr. (12 September 1889 in Pallanza – 20 December 1973 in Rome) was an Italian general who fought during World War I and World War II. He is famous as one of the commanders of the Italian Resistance against German occupying forces in north Italy after 1943.\n",
"Shortly before the First World War... |
does stretching after a workout really do anything regarding muscle soreness the next day? | Absolutely. It releases lactic acid that builds up in your muscles during a workout, which in turn allows you to have a greater range of motion and be less sore.
When you exercise (and especially when you lift weights), you are tearing the fibers in your muscles and they are regrowing to be stronger. That is what stre... | [
"Most practitioners agree that spasm, strain, or pain in any muscle can often be treated by regular stretching exercise of that muscle, no matter the cause of the pain. Stretching is recommended every two to three waking hours. Anterior and posterior movement of the hip joint capsule may help optimize the patient's... |
Why'd it take so long to beat the Confederacy? | This is a bit late, but it was sitting in my upvote folder, and now i have free time!
A lot of reasons, on the operational, strategic, and grand strategic levels. In the broadest sense, the rate of Union advance was limited by the size of the area they had to occupy, and it took time for the Union's greater industria... | [
"The reaction in the Confederacy was more muted. There was little public celebration as the Southerners realized that despite their victory, the greater battles that would inevitably come would mean greater losses for their side as well. Once the euphoria of victory had worn off, Jefferson Davis called for 400,000 ... |
On the declining popularity of "virtue" | Alasdair MacIntyre's 'After Virtue' tackles exactly this question. I'm not sure to what extent he admissible in the sub as a source, seeing that he's a philosopher, and the book is one of philosophy, but he does employ a specifically historico-philosophical method. He outlines this point in the book, saying that his pe... | [
"Though the tradition receded into the background of European philosophical thought in these centuries, the term \"virtue\" remained current during this period, and in fact appears prominently in the tradition of classical republicanism or classical liberalism. This tradition was prominent in the intellectual life ... |
Why did the javelin, once prevalent in the ancient world, disappeared from the battlefield during the medieval era ? | First off- the javelin was actually used up into the 1800's by tribes in Africa. The Zulu were probably some of the best known warriors who used spears (including javelins) up until they were finally crushed by the British.
I THINK I see your point though - you're speaking of the Javelin losing popularity in Europe..... | [
"Javelins were often used as an effective hunting weapon, the strap adding enough power to take down large game. Javelins were also used in the Ancient Olympics and other Panhellenic games. They were hurled in a certain direction and whoever hurled it the farthest, as long as it hit tip-first, won that game.\n",
... |
Old unidentified Japanese object | It’s nothing I or my (Japanese) family have seen before. It’s most likely to be part of something, eg a netsuke.
The Ikeda crest isn’t a big deal, I’m afraid, because that symbol is used just as a pretty symbol on clothes and accessories.
Is it wood with no space inside, right? | [
"Valuable Japanese historical documents are designated in the category . There are 62 items or sets of items in this category, ranging from letters and diaries to records. One National Treasure is a linen map, and another is an inscription on stone. However, all other objects in the category were created with a wri... |
do insects have the same sort of internal organs as us? | No, they do not. They have analogous systems, but they can vary wildly in function. For example, the respiratory system of most insects is trachea, not lungs; they do not have a pump that hauls air to and fro, they absorb oxygen by diffusion.
Only vertebrates have truly the same organs as us, because they evolved from... | [
"Tympanal organs occur in just about any part of the insect: the thorax, the base of the wing, the abdomen, the legs, etc., depending on the group of insects. The structures are thought to have evolved independently many times. As a result, their position and structures are often used to help determine the taxonomy... |
how does flint, mi still not have clean water? | The mistake that led to Flint's toxic water was a water purification error that corrupted the actual *pipes* the water flows through. So the water itself can be perfectly clean, and on the way to your house, the pipes will leech toxic amounts of lead into it.
In order for Flint to repair its water problem, it has to r... | [
"BULLET::::- August 11 – MDEQ releases a letter stating that Flint has \"significant deficiencies\", which among other issues include source water, financial, distribution system, management and operations.\n",
"It is also effective for chronic diseases of stomach and duodenum. Flint water can reduce the sugar le... |
how does gene diversity develop if we all came from common ancestors? | Mutations. Genes change. Your genes aren't exactly duplicated from your parents. The differences are slight, but given many generations they really do build up. | [
"Phylogenies confer important historical processes that shape current distributions of genes and species. When two species become isolated from each other they retain some of the same ancestral alleles also known as allele sharing. Alleles can be shared because of lineage sorting and hybridization. Lineage sorting ... |
how does " save game " and "load / continue " work? | Short Explanation: The game runs a chunk of code which pulls a bunch of data currently stored in the computers RAM, (it's storage space for the memory it's currently dealing with) and records it to a hard drive for permanent storage.
Details: The reason it doesn't always act the same is that it doesn't always make sen... | [
"Quick saving and quick loading allow the player to save or load the game with a single keystroke. These terms are used to differentiate between the traditional saving mechanism where the player is required to invoke a menu or dialog box, issue save the order, specify a title for the game being saved and, if applic... |
if you were to breathe in extremely humid air, for long periods of time, would you eventually ‘drown’? | You could potentially, if your lungs were colder than the ambient temperature, which would allow the water vapor to condense down back into a liquid form rapidly enough to prevent the lungs from expelling them through normal processes. It could also occur under different atmospheric pressures than are generally found o... | [
"This can have an effect on respiration. In very warm air (35 °C) the proportion of water vapor is large enough to give rise to the stuffiness that can be experienced in humid jungle conditions or in poorly ventilated buildings.\n",
"Increased water intake may also help in acclimatization to replace the fluids lo... |
Considering how long humans have been in control of fire (somewhere between 120k and 400k years ago) do we have different/better burn response/recovery than other animals? | 100kya is an eye-blink for people who take 20 years to make a new generation. I think most of the problem was handled with software changes. | [
"The control of fire enabled important changes in human behavior, health, energy expenditure, and geographic expansion. As a result of \"domesticating\" fire as previously achieved with plants and animals, humans were able to modify their environments to their own benefit. This ability to manipulate their environme... |
why do millionaires only have a small percentage of their wealth in cash or liquid assets? | Cash and liquid assets don't make you any money. If you invest your wealth, it can make you more money, but it's not in a form that you can immediately spend.
I wouldn't have a million in cash on hand unless I had an immediate need to spend a million dollars on something. | [
"While millionaires constitute only a small percentage of the population, they hold substantial control over economic resources, with the most powerful and prominent individuals usually ranking among them. The total amount of money held by millionaires can equal the amount of money held by a far higher number of po... |
When did Medical Gloves become a common practice for all Pre-Hospital/Hospital workers? | No one quite knows who first introduced rubber gloves into surgery. Galvanized rubber and subsequently gloves were developed in the middle of the 19th century. In surgery, this was the time of Lister, Koch, and Pasteur (that is, the acceptable of sterilization, then germ theory). As such, by the 1870s in Europe (and b... | [
"Caroline Hampton Halsted (20 November 1861 – 27 November 1922) was a nurse who became the first to use medical gloves in the operating room, at the instigation of her spouse-to-be William Stewart Halsted.\n",
"He published an article in 1897 recommending surgeons use rubber gloves and boil them in water before w... |
why are retainers needed after braces? | It's because your gums are no longer as resilient as they were before. You move all your teeth by pushing and pulling them where you want them, the gums lose their strength slightly.
Imagine pouring concrete, you need a frame to pour it into, until it hardens, so it'll maintain shape on it's own. | [
"In order to prevent the teeth from moving back to their original position, retainers are worn once the treatment is complete. Retainers help in maintaining and stabilizing the position of teeth long enough to permit reorganization of the supporting structures after the active phase of orthodontic therapy. If the p... |
dreaming for people who were born blind. | I work for a state school forr the Blind. All of the students that have been blind from birth say that they just dream in sound. Same goes for the deaf community. They just dream in pictures and no sound. | [
"Jastrow found that people who had lost their eyesight after age six still were able to see in their dreams, and that people who had lost their eyesight before the age of five could not. This same difference in perception and age was true for people with partial vision loss. Jastrow concluded that sight was not inn... |
why is satanism commonly connected to occultism? | Theres a huge difference between the different types of satanism.
There's LeVeyan satanism which is the stuff you hear about a lot. The 11 rules are a part of that. [here](_URL_0_) is a lot more about them, they less literally worship satan and more base around the golden rule philosophy. LeVeyan satanism actually de... | [
"Ivey notes that everything occult is considered evil from a fundamentalist Christian perspective, and \"the term \"Satanism\" is commonly understood in Christian societies to include a wide range of unconventional or occult beliefs and activities\". The SAPS website also listed 41 \"warning signs of possible destr... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.