question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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how does an electric current produce a magnetic field? | The short super unsatisfactory answer is that it just does.
The longer answer is that what we define as a charge is actually a disturbance in the electric field, which is part of the electromagnetic field. A moving charge creates a disturbance in both the electric and magnetic field. The two phenomenons are intertwine... | [
"Magnetic fields can also be used to make electric currents. When a changing magnetic field is applied to a conductor, an electromotive force (EMF) is induced, which starts an electric current, when there is a suitable path.\n",
"A rapidly changing magnetic field induces a circulating electric current within a ne... |
how exactly does carbon-14 dating work? would it work on diamonds (which were once organic matter, i think), or are they just too old? | Carbon-14 dating is primarily for dating formerly living things. Carbon 14 is made in the atmosphere so its absorbed by living things through respiration. It maintains its levels while the thing is alive. When it dies the respiration stops replenishing the carbon so it starts to decay away since carbon 14 is radioactiv... | [
"The first method uses the principles of radiocarbon dating. A technical review (CEN/TR 15591:2007) outlining the carbon 14 method was published in 2007. A technical standard of the carbon dating method (CEN/TS 15747:2008) is published in 2008. In the United States, there is already an equivalent carbon 14 method u... |
why do appliance's volumes (eg. tv, radio) use an arbitrary 1 to x value instead of basing the value on decibels? | High-end stereos for audiophiles, or studio monitors, typically do use decibels.
The problem with decibels is that either you'd have relative loudness - where 0 is the maximum and anything softer is a negative number - or you'd have absolute loudness, in which case headphones would only go up to some small number and ... | [
"There are multiple volume adjustments for different inputs and outputs on the system. The master volume affects all of these settings. The default and recommended value is 50% for all sources, which actually equates to a 0 dB amplification (none), while a 100% value causes a 16 dB amplification.\n",
"A volume un... |
what is all this controversy with thefinebros about? | Search before submitting | [
"On 24 July 2008, Hasbro formally sued Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, along with their company, RJ Softwares. The suit claimed Scrabulous violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and infringed upon Hasbro's intellectual property rights. On 29 July 2008, Scrabulous was shut down on Facebook for users in North Amer... |
Geographers Diener and Hagen claim that Pacific Northwest tribes had a concept of property similar to modern Americans' - contrasting common claims that Native Americans had no concept of ownership. Where did the idea that Native Americans had no concept of property emerge? | Can you please expand on what Diener and Hagen said?
Speaking for groups in Washington State (Coast Salish, Quileute, Sahaptin, Chinookan), I'm finding a little hard to see property concepts being that similar to Modern American ones (there's some overlap but the differences are pretty significant). | [
"The Native Americans originally did not understand the concept of \"land ownership\". They consisted of many hunter-gatherer tribes who would overlap territories and occasionally had tribal wars, but did not \"own\" land. They believed in taking only what was immediately necessary from nature, and considering the ... |
are wi-fi and/or bluetooth, signals harmful to our health? | No, it's not true at all. They're completely harmless. | [
"\"Healthline\" has quoted Moskowitz's concerns about wireless Bluetooth devices, which \"because of the proximity... to the body or the head\" can result in exposures \"half as much or a third as much as you might get from your cell phone\".\n",
"The position of the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency (HPA... |
Questions about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis | 1) No consensus whatsoever. The Navy's orders to Capt. McVay were to "zigzag *at (his) discretion*, weather permitting." These orders are equivocal, and when the *Indianapolis* was sunk, he was not zigzagging. The prosecution said that McVay should have been zigzagging. However, the commander of the Japanese submar... | [
"USS \"Indianapolis\" (CL/CA-35) was a heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. At 00:15 on 30 July 1945, she was struck on her starboard side by two Type 95 torpedoes, one in the bow and one amidships, from the Japanese submarine , captained by Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, who initially thought he had spotted t... |
seeing all of these harambe & deez nuts votes in the presidental elections, what would happen if one of them actually got the majority of the votes? | If the person behind the name *was* eligible, then he or she could get the job. In the last election in the UK, Lord Buckethead stood against Prime Minister Theresa May in her constituency: if he had one, she would have lost the PM job (since the PM has to be a MP), and he would have become an MP. | [
"An indirect presidential election was held in South Africa on 25 September 2008 following the resignation of the President Thabo Mbeki. The ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), with a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly of South Africa, elected Kgalema Motlanthe as President. The ANC indicat... |
why do i find baby animals super cute, but human babies ugly? | Because baby animals are cute and human babies are ugly. | [
"In the opposite direction several animals who have a non-threatening appearance and actually look cute, cuddly, graceful and playful are often portrayed as adorable: rabbits, dogs, mice, kittens, sheep, seals, dolphins, chipmunks, monkeys, ladybugs, butterflies. Various pet owners tend to treat their pets almost a... |
how is it that mars has lost it's atmosphere to solar winds, but earth hasn't | The churning of earth's core creates our magnetosphere which protects us from the solar winds, it's like a shield protecting us from the sun's "bullets" (charged particles). The stronger the core churns, the stronger the magnetic field or shield. Mars' core is dead or dying, so it no longer has a strong magnetosphere t... | [
"On November 5, 2015, NASA announced that data from MAVEN shows that the deterioration of Mars' atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms. That loss of atmosphere to space likely played a key role in Mars' gradual shift from its carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere – which had kept Mars relatively warm ... |
What Is The Difference Between Basic Medicines? | don't look at the brand but the ingredients
tylenol is acetominophen an antipyretic and analgesit (decreases pain and fever)
acetominophen the brand name is irrelevant and many companies including big chains can market their own brand under whatever name they want.
how it works is pretty complex but [here](_URL_0_) ... | [
"Medicines can be used to heal ailments on the exterior or interior of the body, to control the ageing of the body, or even to prevent death. The term medicine and elixir are virtually interchangeable because of the array of ailments they can influence. The difference between defining an elixir from a medicine was ... |
Why does even a laser beam spread out after a long distance? Can't we prevent that via lenses? How does this relate to focusing light that came to us over billions of light years? | The catch is that real laser beams experience diffraction and don't simply travel as rays. This means you have to take into account physical optics (the intrinsic wave-like nature of light) as opposed to geometric optics (treating the light like a bundle of rays).
Because of these physical optics effects, a beam with ... | [
"Because of the non-uniform power density distribution in a Gaussian beam (as found in laser resonators) the refractive index changes across the beam profile; the refractive index experienced by the beam is greater in the center of the beam than at the edge. Thus a rod of an active Kerr medium functions as a lens f... |
How did Vikings and Lapps deal with gnats and mosquitos? | This doesn't address Scandinavia specifically, but you might be interested in [this earlier answer](_URL_0_) about the *ubiquity* of little itchy things in medieval Europe and how people just had to deal. | [
"Walruses are most known to attack people in boats, and can cause serious harm with their tusks or by capsizing the boat or kayak. A 1918 memoir notes a case in Spitzbergen where walruses capsized a boat, killing all aboard.\n",
"Some 33 British Vikings, fitted with slat armour, were deployed to Afghanistan at th... |
why do lemons sometimes become all green and moldy, while other times they become rock-hard when you forget to eat/use them? | If the fruit/food/meat dries out faster than bacteria/mold/fungus can replicate, then you just end up with a dried up husk or jerky. No matter the food, once the moisture content is low enough nothing will grow on it.
So that usually means items in areas of high airflow will end up in the hard state, whereas those in... | [
"The Moroccan professor Henri Chapot discovered that the acidity in the more common citrons or lemons is indicated by red on the inner coat of seeds specifically on the chalazal spot, violet pigmentation on the outer side of the flower blossom, and by the new buds that are reddish-purplish. The acid-free varieties ... |
Why did the descendants of Proto-Indo-European come to dominate so much of the world? | While welcome here, this might reach more informed audiences at r/askanthropology and r/linguistics | [
"Despite medieval invasions by Eurasian nomads, a group to which the Proto-Indo-Europeans had once belonged, Indo-European expansion reached another peak in the early modern period with the dramatic increase in the population of the Indian subcontinent and European expansionism throughout the globe during the Age o... |
How do historians distinguish between the Medieval and Renaissance periods in Europe? What are the major signs? | Similar question from 2 weeks ago:
[What ended the Middle Ages?](_URL_0_) | [
"As with all periods, there is a wide drift of dates, reasons for categorization and boundaries. In particular, the Renaissance, more than later periods, is thought to begin in Italy with the Italian Renaissance and roll through Europe.\n",
"Renaissance – cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17t... |
If I steep a tea bag in hot water, will it eventually reach equilibrium and stop diffusing flavor and caffeine? | Depends on how much flavoring and caffeine are in the teabag and the solubility of both in the water at your given temperature.
If the amount of flavoring and caffeine in the teabag is less than the maximum solubility of them in water, all of it will be dissolved into the water.
If you had numerous tea bags steeped... | [
"In addition to CO process extraction, tea may be also decaffeinated using a hot water treatment. Optimal conditions are met by controlling water temperature, extraction time, and ratio of leaf to water, where higher temperatures at or over 100 °C, moderate extraction time of 3 minutes, and a 1:20 water to leaf wei... |
Is the universe making us smaller? | The metric expansion of space only happens on the very large scale. On a more local scale, the scale of galaxies and such, gravitational attraction overrides the expansion. | [
"The size of the Universe is somewhat difficult to define. According to the general theory of relativity, far regions of space may never interact with ours even in the lifetime of the Universe due to the finite speed of light and the ongoing expansion of space. For example, radio messages sent from Earth may never ... |
why aren't tv shows that follow criminals, like drug smugglers, forced to hand over footage? | Aren't they "handing it over" by publicizing it? | [
"While some captures featured in the show were easy and straightforward due to obvious oversights or mistakes by the offenders, many others were much tougher and sometimes required greater resources. Many criminals put together their game plan beautifully but were tripped up by a simple oversight (such as forgettin... |
Italian army during WW2 - what were conscription practices and how possible was it to avoid military service entirely? (Researching for a work of fiction) | How much "entirely"? Give him a "war-priority" job, or make him a very lucky career officer.
If you can read Italian, then you should probably check [Virgilio Ilari's *Storia del servizio militare in Italia*](_URL_0_).
As a general word of caution though, the idea of avoiding military service entirely (as in, sitti... | [
"Recruiting military forces was difficult for the RSI, as most of the Italian army had been interned by German forces in 1943, many Italians had been conscripted into forced labour in Germany and few wanted to fight on Nazi Germany's side after 8 September 1943. The RSI became so desperate for soldiers that it gran... |
inspired by an earlier post on Germany, wondering how the formation of Germany’s states gave rise to the failed democracy in the Weimar Republic? | The fate of democracy in the Weimar Republic is the source of no small amount of debate within modern German historiography. Certain factors, however, can be generally agreed upon as contributing to the less than robust state of Weimar democracy in the run up to Hitler’s rise to power. Among these, the ones that seem m... | [
"In 1919 a new democracy was formed in a German town known as the Weimar Republic. This new government was thought to be doomed from the start and after the hyperinflation of 1923, “money became so worthless that children could play with stacks of it.” Despite civil unrest in Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe... |
How does hydrogen peroxide make hair a lighter color? | Hydrogen peroxide is unstable, particularly in light, and emits oxygen free radicals. These oxygen free radicals combine with whatever materials they touch - in this case, hair. When they bind to a pigment, they damage the pigment molecule, which tends to produce a lighter color. Melanin is one common human pigment ... | [
"Low levels of catalase may play a role in the graying process of human hair. Hydrogen peroxide is naturally produced by the body and broken down by catalase. If catalase levels decline, hydrogen peroxide cannot be broken down so well. The hydrogen peroxide interferes with the production of melanin, the pigment tha... |
Does the human body utilize the nitrogen in air? | [Molecular nitrogen](_URL_1_) is too inert to be used in any biochemical processes, and doesn't play a role in human metabolism.
Humans do use nitrogen (in the form of [ammonium](_URL_3_)) in various biosynthetic processes, but that nitrogen is derived from [amino acids](_URL_2_) obtained by breakdown of proteins (wh... | [
"Nitrogen dioxide is an irritant of the mucous membrane linked with another air pollutant that causes pulmonary diseases such as OLD, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and sometimes acute exacerbation of COPD and in fatal cases, deaths.\n",
"Nitrogen occurs in all living organisms, and the nitrogen cy... |
What were some of the long term effects of the 1953 Iranian Coup? | These things are slippery of course. But there seems to be a pretty good argument for two major long term effects:
1. Short term: restoration of the shah as the center of power in Iran. At the time of the coup he was essentially in hiding, not from any major threat to his life, but from his responsibilities in gener... | [
"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to se... |
is time standing still at the speed of light? | this is kind of breaking my brain. so a photon at the speed of light (and time standing still) can travel EVERYWHERE and back again in the universe in no time at all?
universe
y u no easy to understand | [
"Special relativity indicates that, for an observer in an inertial frame of reference, a clock that is moving relative to him will be measured to tick slower than a clock that is at rest in his frame of reference. This case is sometimes called special relativistic time dilation. The faster the relative velocity, th... |
how long does a fly have to spend on your food before it has done anything that may pose any sort of health risk? | The analogy I always use to debunk any kind of "five second rule" type of thinking is a person with fingerpaint on their hands. If they touch something, a bulk amount of the sticky substance transfers to the surface the very instant that they make contact. There isn't a minimum amount of time that the paint-covered fin... | [
"The larvae emerge in 24 hours and feed for a period between 8 and 16 days, before crawling to a drier spot to pupate. The phorid fly's egg-to-adult lifecycle can be as short as 14 days, but may take up to 37 days.\n",
"The fly commonly infects humans by laying its eggs on wet clothes, left out to dry. The eggs h... |
How fast does something have to spin before it looks like a blur? | Your eyes can't detect any changes that happen under 10 milliseconds. Did you know the digits on your alarm clock aren't on all at the same time? They rotate every few milliseconds to save on power consumption / prolong life. | [
"If the same rotating object is viewed at 61 flashes per second, each flash will illuminate it at a slightly earlier part of its rotational cycle. Sixty-one flashes will occur before the object is seen in the same position again, and the series of images will be perceived as if it is rotating backwards once per sec... |
My teacher says that the 1800 election was the first time in world history that power was peacefully transferred between parties. It seems too general to be true. Is he right? | This seems to me like the kind of claim that can only be supported with a ton of goalpost moving on the terms of "peace," "transfer," and "party" against counter-examples.
EG 1 In 1714 the Throne of England was transferred from the House of Stuart to the House of Hanover. I would call this a peaceful transfer, but a... | [
"The 1800 United States elections elected the members of the 7th United States Congress. The election took place during the First Party System, and is generally considered the first realigning election in American history. Perhaps most significantly, this election was the first peaceful transfer of power between pa... |
Can you use embryonic stem cells to change someone's sex? | You can probably take some of your own cells, add some Yamanaka factors (which cause differentiated cells to revert back to stem cells) and grow those into sex organs to be transplanted. But if you are asking whether or not stem cells can permanently change a biologically male/female to the opposite sex I think the ans... | [
"Inducing differentiation of certain cells to germ cells has many applications. One implication of induced differentiation is that it may allow for the eradication of male and female factor infertility. Furthermore, it would allow same-sex couples to have biological children if sperm could be produced from female c... |
If photons travel along waves with varying frequencies, but these waves all traverse distance at the same speed (c), then are the photons in higher frequency waves, which would be longer, traveling faster? | Both photons travel in straight lines.
The wave is not the path that the photon takes. The wave is a representation of the electromagnetic field associated with that photon.
| [
"Assuming a sinusoidal wave moving at a fixed wave speed, wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency of the wave: waves with higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies have longer wavelengths.\n",
"BULLET::::3. The interactions between the waves on the surface generate longer waves ... |
where did the idea of bears being cuddly and lovable and the idea of teddy bears in pop culture come from l, and why did we pick a animal that's a killing machine to give this image to? | President Theodore Roosevelt once became the subject of controversy for refusing to shoot a tied up bear during a hunting expedition considering it unsportsmanlike.
Teddy was his nickname, although he loathed being referred to as such.
This story resulted in the creation of various political cartoons depicting the st... | [
"Bears are popular in children's stories, including Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, Gentle Ben and \"The Brown Bear of Norway\". An early version of \"Goldilocks and the Three Bears\", was published as \"The Three Bears\" in 1837 by Robert Southey, many times retold, and illustrated in 1918 by Arthur Rackham. The... |
When an animal dies, what causes the individual cells to die out? | The cells in a multi cellular organism are kind of like people living in a community. Different people (cells) have specialised roles, like a farmer, who's role is to produce food, or a doctor who keeps people healthy.
With out all the roles being performed, people in the community would start to all die out. similarl... | [
"In an animal, cells are constantly dying. A balance between cell division and cell death keeps the number of cells relatively constant in adults. There are two different ways a cell can die: by necrosis or by apoptosis. In contrast to necrosis, which often results from disease or trauma, apoptosis—or programmed ce... |
Are there any more effective methods than helmets to reduce the risk of brain injuries? | This is a major problem in NFL football these days, but as long as there is contact to the head there is a risk of injury. There is an idea floating around that removing helmets altogether would increase safety via a lack of security (knowing you'll be at risk) but I don't think anyone will go for that.
Sorry, not an... | [
"BULLET::::- The US Army utilized the ARAMIS High Speed Camera system to see how ballistic impact would affect their helmets used in the field in order to see what changes could be implemented to reduce head trauma and damage.\n",
"In 1995 Swedish neurosurgeon Hans von Holst began evaluating the general construct... |
how come when a neutron star spins incredibly fast, it creates radio jets and becomes a pulsar? | Every neutron star spins rapidly and produces radio jets. This is because as the star gets compacted down it has to maintain its angular momentum, the same way a dancer brings their arms in to spin faster. The radio jets come from the fact that you have a lot of mass spinning very very fast, which produces very strong ... | [
"These stars gradually slow down over the eons, but those bodies that are still spinning rapidly may emit radiation that from Earth appears to blink on and off as the star spins, like the beam of light from a turning lighthouse. This \"pulsing\" appearance gives some neutron stars the name pulsars.\n",
"More plau... |
why do other countries (outside of the us) have little or no commercial breaks on tv? | As an example, I believe England has their stations technically run by the government, kind of like PBS here
The US on the other hand leases out different bands to companies (nbc, cbs, etc) so they have to pay for their costs | [
"In Denmark, commercial breaks are strictly prohibited and advertising targeted to children is restricted. Channels like Kanal 5 and TV3 are allowed to interrupt programs, as these channels are being broadcast via satellite from the United Kingdom.\n",
"In Norway, all advertising containing political messages and... |
why does mold grow slower in colder temperatures? | Life is just chemical reactions. Chemical reactions either produce heat, or take heat from their surroundings.
The act of reproduction is lots and lots of chemical reactions, some of which need heat from the surrounding environment. If there's less heat in the environment (it's colder), those reactions go slower. The ... | [
"Few molds can begin growing at temperatures of or below, so food is typically refrigerated at this temperature. When conditions do not enable growth to take place, molds may remain alive in a dormant state depending on the species, within a large range of temperatures. The many different mold species vary enormous... |
what functions do d3 and 2 have in automatic cars and what situations should i be using them? | Those are your "low gears". They're good for climbing steep grades, towing, and you can also use them as an "engine brake" when you're going down a steep hill so you don't have to hit your brakes as much and wear them out. | [
"A level 3 vehicle is actually considered the first tier of highly automated vehicles, so vehicles equipped with this technology could be considered automated vehicles, although only in a very limited sense. Automated vehicles have what are referred to as Operational Design Domains (ODDs) which are individual sets ... |
Is a "runner's high" a minor form of Hypoxia? | Runner's high is caused by the release of endorphins caused by the strain of using your muscles for a prolonged time. | [
"Continuous aerobic exercise can induce a transient state of euphoria, colloquially known as a \"runner's high\" in distance running or a \"rower's high\" in crew, through the increased biosynthesis of at least three euphoriant neurochemicals: anandamide (an endocannabinoid), β-endorphin (an endogenous opioid), and... |
how cold does it have to be for food not to spoil? | All living organisms have a certain temperature range in which they function best. The reason why we refrigerate out foods is because all the most common contaminates have this range around 20-40C. So while the lowered temperature does not completely prevent growth, it greatly reduces it.
When you freeze food well bel... | [
"Foods that spoil easily, such as meats, dairy, and seafood, must be prepared a certain way to avoid contaminating the people for whom they are prepared. As such, the rule of thumb is that cold foods (such as dairy products) should be kept cold and hot foods (such as soup) should be kept hot until storage. Cold mea... |
Philippines during Latin American Wars of Independence | I think this is a good opportunity to point out a major issue with historiography of the Philippines. That is, when people talk about Philippine independence they are doing so through the lens of mainly the Tagalog people, and to a lesser extent some other groups such as Bisayans. This naarative is of course quite domi... | [
"The Commonwealth of the Philippines was attacked by the Empire of Japan on December 8, 1941, nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor (the Philippines is on the Asian side of the international date line). The United States of America controlled the Philippines at the time and possessed important military bases ... |
- how were roads built and paved before large machines were invented? | Mostly by hand. They'd have [lots of people](_URL_1_) involved, though. Sometimes crews of hundreds or even thousands.
Even today, with all the large machines, there are inaccessible places or places where there's no financial incentive or other means to pay for it where they have to do it by hand. (In one such place... | [
"In the Industrial Revolution, John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836) designed the first modern highways, using inexpensive paving material of soil and stone aggregate (macadam), and he embanked roads a few feet higher than the surrounding terrain to cause water to drain away from the surface. With the development of motor... |
How accountable was the average member of Nazi German groups such as the Einsanzgruppen and the Reserve Police Battalion for the Holocaust? | In an academic sense, there are three categories to place those responsible for the Holocaust: perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders. (_URL_0_ - just one academic example, but Google searches for "Perpetrators collaborators bystanders" will bring Holocaust studies to the top; 'rescuers' are also included in these ... | [
"The \"Ordnungspolizei\" encompassed virtually all of Nazi Germany's law-enforcement and emergency response organisations, including fire brigades, coast guard, and civil defence. In the prewar period, \"Reichsführer-SS\" Heinrich Himmler and Kurt Daluege, chief of the Order Police, cooperated in transforming the p... |
does celibacy contribute to increased proficiency and productivity? | ELI5 rules dictate that I can't just reply with "no" but if I could, I would. Yes, there were some notoriously brilliant people who were celibate, but there are millions of people out there in the world right now who are celibate (either by choice, or because nobody will have sex with them) with absolutely no great abi... | [
"\"Greater understanding of human psychology has led to questions regarding the impact of celibacy on the human development of the clergy. The realization that many non-European countries view celibacy negatively has prompted questions concerning the value of retaining celibacy as an absolute and universal requirem... |
How does an advance in telescope technology allow us to look "further back in time" when the speed of light obviously hasn't changed? | Very distant objects (such as the most distant galaxies observed to date, at about 12.7 billion light years away) - are extremely dim (because they are so far away).
The telescope where I work uses a 27 ft primary mirror (the worlds largest single piece mirror). TMT telescope, which is being constructed, will have a ... | [
"Different physicists have attempted to measure the speed of light throughout history. Galileo attempted to measure the speed of light in the seventeenth century. An early experiment to measure the speed of light was conducted by Ole Rømer, a Danish physicist, in 1676. Using a telescope, Rømer observed the motions ... |
the tariff war in 2002 and how the proposed 25% tariff for steel imports from canada will hurt the us economy | This is argued every day with many viewpoints. This is ELI5.
If the leaders of a country want their industries to grow they impose tariffs, taxes on imported goods. That helps local companies produce these goods which means locals have jobs. Seems good.
Now imagine taking this further. You want your town to have ind... | [
"The temporary tariffs of 8–30% were originally scheduled to remain in effect until 2005. They were imposed to give U.S. steel makers protection from what a U.S. probe determined was a detrimental surge in steel imports. More than 30 steel makers had declared bankruptcy in recent years. Steel producers had original... |
how does someone live without a gallbladder? does it change how they eat? if so, how? | I live just fine without a gall bladder. I have not changed my diet in the slightest.
A gall bladder allows me to store bile, so that in theory, if I suddenly ate (say) an entire bucket of lard, I would have enough bile ready to digest it.
Instead, I am now relegated to eating that lard in small spoonfuls evenly thr... | [
"The main purpose of the gallbladder is to store bile, also called gall, needed for the digestion of fats in food. Produced by the liver, bile flows through small vessels into the larger hepatic ducts and ultimately through the cystic duct (parts of the biliary tree) into the gallbladder, where it is stored. At any... |
I was brought up in Texas in the mid-late 90's and during middle school Civil War history we were taught that Robert E. Lee was a well organized masterful tactician, while Grant was a drunk who won more so due to resources and fortunate circumstances. How true is this? | It's hard to overstate just how off-base and factually incorrect this analysis is, at least from the Grant side of things. No offense meant to OP, who seems to have been the victim of what was, for a time, a standard Lost Cause interpretation of Lee and Grant, but this view is patently false.
Very quickly on Lee, the... | [
"Joseph Lewis Hogg (September 13, 1806 – May 16, 1862) was a politician and a Confederate States Army general from Texas during the American Civil War. He was also the father of Texas Governor Jim Hogg.\n",
"In the post-Civil War era, two of the most important Republican figures in Texas were African Americans Ge... |
Is it possible for an embryo to continue growing without developing into a fetus? | Theoretically, the cells that form the inner cell mass of the blastocyst could progress through division without initiating the process of differentiation, however, that would result in the spontaneous abortion of the embryo. Basically, even if it did just continue to divide, the embryo would be deemed unviable by the... | [
"Typically, a fetus develops from the viable zygote, resulting in an embryo. Gestation occurs in the woman's uterus until the fetus (assuming it is carried to term) is sufficiently developed to be born. In humans, gestation is often around 9 months in duration, after which the woman experiences labor and gives birt... |
[For everyone] I'm looking for examples of riots that were started for reasons we now find ridiculous... | I'd like to think that a hundred years from now we'll find any and all sports-related riots like the [Vancouver Stanley Cup riots](_URL_0_) completely ridiculous, but I'm not sure I have that much faith in people. | [
"The riots came on the back of a period of civil unrest, variously sourced from feelings transferring from the French Revolution, further changes in the Corn Laws, food shortages, and a general unhappiness of the population with their leading figures in politics and law. A proclamation banning \"seditious writing\"... |
why do we have an easier time sorting things by strings of numbers vs by strings of letters? (ex: t#124567 vs t# asedtz) | The order of numbers is meaningful, 2 comes before 7 for a reason. We are also used to counting up and counting down, which reinforces this order in our minds.
The order of letters is arbitrary, we could rearrange the alphabet and it wouldn't make much of a difference. There is nothing innate about K that makes it c... | [
"Pigeonhole sort, counting sort, radix sort, and Van Emde Boas tree sorting all work best when the key size is small; for large enough keys, they become slower than comparison sorting algorithms. However, when the key size or the word size is very large relative to the number of items (or equivalently when the numb... |
How can people predict when the next eclipse ,years from now, will happen, but can't predict the weather more than a few days from now? | Orbits and whether are both chaotic, so a tiny inaccuracy will grow exponentially until our model is useless. But with orbits, that's a *really* tiny exponent. With weather, things interact quickly. Small errors build up fast. With planets, you can model it almost perfectly as the planetary systems all orbiting the sol... | [
"This verse, and so many others like it, attempts to predict long-range conditions. These predictions have stood the test of time only because they rely on selective memory: people remember when they have predicted correctly and forget when predictions don't hold. One possible factor which could provide these predi... |
if dna contains informations about our whole body, why can we not regenerate certain body parts if they gets removed? | IKEA instructions do not equal a finished IKEA cabinet :) similarly, if you build the cabinet you no longer have the materials to build another one, even though you still have the instructions. You need more materials (which, for humans, basically boils down to stem cells).
This isn’t perfectly 1 to 1, though. Most o... | [
"Cells cannot function if DNA damage corrupts the integrity and accessibility of essential information in the genome (but cells remain superficially functional when non-essential genes are missing or damaged). Depending on the type of damage inflicted on the DNA's double helical structure, a variety of repair strat... |
The Alaska Purchase in 1867 is often called Seward's Folly, dubbed so by detractors. Did many Russians oppose selling the land? If so, on what grounds? | Great question. **The principal Russian reaction against the sale was driven by people who had financial interests in the Russian American Company and those who saw it as a retreat from empire.**
First, let's talk about why the sale took place. The Crimean War of the 1850s had exposed a significant problem with Russia... | [
"In 1867 Russia and the United States concluded the sale of Alaska, a process which had begun as early as 1854 during the Crimean War. Gorchakov was not against the sale but always advocated for careful and secret negotiations, seeing the eventuality of the sale but not the immediate necessity.\n",
"The purchase ... |
What is the historical consensus on Reagan's presidency | The consensus is still forming. However, Reagan is neither the icon he is portrayed as on the right or the demon of the left. The historical consensus on Reagan's presidency is still developing and is an exceptionally contentious topic, though I think it will ultimately settle on the notion that Reagan was a strong p... | [
"Despite the continuing debate surrounding his legacy, many conservative and liberal scholars agree that Reagan has been the most influential president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics through his effective communication and pragmatic compromis... |
how do ancestry reports work? | Scientists have collected DNA from different ethnic groups all over the world. There are certain markers on DNA or RNA, they can calculate what mutations have occurred and how fast they happen.
Mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) are only inherited from your mother and have their own separate DNA, so you can c... | [
"When estimating ancestry, most methods use nonmetric traits, or observable traits. The researcher looks at different morphological traits indicative of an ancestry. This causes more biases in the estimation. Researchers can also use metric traits from \"Standards\" and input the measurements into FORDISC to receiv... |
I'm aware of why so many Irish left their homes in the 19th C, but what about Scandinavians, Germans and Chinese? What made them come to North America in large numbers? | From Sweden, mainly
* an increase in population
* failed crops 1867–1869.
* no religious freedom
* the pull factor of emigrants writing back/helping others to emigrate
Obviously the causes changed over time. The small village where I'm from, many left in the mid 1800's due to religious reasons, later it was more e... | [
"As a result of the Great Famine in Ireland, many Irish families were forced to emigrate from the country. By 1854, between 1.5 and 2 million Irish had left their country. In the United States, most Irish became city-dwellers. With little money, many had to settle in the cities that the ships landed in. By 1850, th... |
Spanish / Latino Historians: How long did it take for countries (Mexico for example) to comprehensively adopt Español as their national language? | You might want to clarify your use of "comprehensive." You can still find villages in Mexico where every single person speaks Tzotzil or Tzeltal or something, and only one or two speak Spanish. | [
"In the Philippines, a variation of Spanish that was primarily based on Mexican Spanish was the \"lingua franca\" of the country since Spanish colonization in 1565 and was an official language alongside Filipino (standardized Tagalog) and English until 1987, following a ratification of a new constitution, where it ... |
how did kings know how much was in their coffers and avoid having it picked at by treasurers? | This is still a problem in the present day. The answer is: you have another, independent person (an auditor) come in and make a separate count. And you warn the treasurer that this is going to happen, again and again, so they'd better not cheat because they'll get caught.
For a while the Chinese Emperor forgot to do t... | [
"The master of the treasury or treasurer (, , , ' or ', ) was a royal official in the Kingdom of Hungary from the 12th century. Although treasurers were initially responsible for collecting and administering royal revenues, they adopted more and more judiciary functions and turned into the highest judges of the rea... |
how did the united states first distribute and get people to use the dollar? | Early dollars were silver coins. Minting coins was just creating a standardized amount of silver to simplify using it as a commodity.
More generally, governments promote the use of their currency by requiring that tax and court-ordered debts be paid in it. If you have to pay your taxes in dollars and you don't have en... | [
"After the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, discussion arose over what sort of currency should be adopted in the United States. At the time, people in North America relied upon a mixture of foreign coins, none of which were struck to a consistent standard, making day to day financial transact... |
Saturn V Launched From The Moon; How Fast Would It Go? | By my rough calculations, the three stages of a Saturn V with no payload unencumbered by gravity or air resistance would be able to achieve the following speed relative to their initial velocity:
5.7 km/s + 5.6 km/s + 10.3 km/s = 21.6 km/s which is 48,000 mph. | [
"The Saturn V was launched 13 times from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with no loss of crew or payload. the Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful (highest total impulse) rocket ever brought to operational status, and holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capac... |
when and why did universities start inflating their tuition rates so much? | because maximum profit can't be made if you don't raise prices when customers are able to get a free loan and pay | [
"Between 2007-08 and 2017–18, published in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions increased at an average rate of 3.2% per year beyond inflation, compared with 4.0% between 1987–88 and 1997–98 and 4.4% between 1997–98 and 2007-08. One cause of increased tuition is the reduction of state and federal... |
the differences between 501c4, 501c3 and llc, and 527. | The ones that start with numbers are tax-exempt organizations under the IRS tax code.
501c4 is for social welfare organizations and employee assosiations.
501c3 is pretty broad and includes religious institutions, charities, educational institutions, amateur sports institutions, animal cruelty prevention, etc. etc. e... | [
"501(c)(3) organizations, named after the section of the Internal Revenue Code that defines them, are the most common category of nonprofit organization in the United States. They make up 74% of all tax-exempt organizations as of 2013, encompassing organizations with charitable, educational, or religious missions.\... |
what is the common ancestor of birds? | A dromaeosaur theropod definitely seems to be the best fit. Archaopteryx seems to be fairly basal (close to the ancestor of all birds). | [
"With the new insights generated by the DNA-DNA hybridisation studies of Sibley and his co-workers toward the end of the 20th century, however, it became clear that these apparently unrelated birds were all descended from a common ancestor: the same crow-like ancestor that gave rise to the drongos. On that basis th... |
is there a way to get over phobias? | Different things work for different people. Some people get help from hypnosis, some have a really gradual desensitization/exposure therapy. [This is a link](_URL_0_) to a self desensitization therapy. My advice would be to skip past the nonsense pre-reading to "step 1." Essentially the most common way to get over a p... | [
"Another method used to treat patients with extreme phobias is prolonged exposure, in which the patient is exposed to the object of their fear over a long period of time. This technique is only tested when a person has overcome avoidance of, or escape from, the feared object or situation. People with slight distres... |
why do we grab our chest when we are startled? | I just did a quick google a managed to find a little info that may help
The responses of people to a startling incident vary widely between the fight, fly, or freeze options. When startled, people may wildly flail their arms, or suddenly raise their limbs in protective poses, or duck to avoid an object. The shocked an... | [
"BULLET::::- Crackles, rattling or ‘junky’ feelings deep in the chest associated with breathing effort – usually progressively worsening with increasing shortness of breath and may be cause for a panic attack\n",
"\"No sooner did I make this suggestion than I thought I sensed the appearance of a marvelous trembli... |
what is a sanctuary city in the usa and what is typical daily life like for illegal immigrants who live there? | A sanctuary cities is one whose local government refuses to help the Federal government in checking to make sure an immigrant is here legally, or retaining someone who is here illegally till the Federal government can take them into custody. The Federal government can still send agents after you, they just do not get h... | [
"There has been controversy around sanctuary cities, one response from the state and local governments. Many American cities have designated themselves as sanctuary cities and many other state and municipal governments discourage the reporting of illegal immigrants to U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement. A san... |
how do lotteries that reward $1000 a day work? | That really is not that much money in lottery terms. That is $365,000 a year. Over 10 years that is only $3.65 Million, and $14.6 Million over 40 years.
$14.6 million is not that much money in lottery terms. | [
"In some online lotteries, the annual payments are only $25,000, with a balloon payment in the final year. This type of installment payment is often made through investment in government-backed securities. Online lotteries pay the winners through their insurance backup. However, many winners choose lump sum, since ... |
I just watched Armageddon and it got me thinking, if an apocalyptic-sized asteroid were on a collision course with Earth, does Nasa have any plans in place to destroy it before contact? Or would we actually all be screwed? | You wouldn't want to destroy it, you'd just end up with a big ball of sand coming at you (if it didn't reform), which would impart just as much energy onto earth, just in a different way, and still have catastrophic results.
What you want is a [gravity tractor](_URL_0_), which will slowly deflect it.
Do we have one... | [
"In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported \"It's 100 per cent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 per cent sure when.\" Also in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book \"Brief Answers to th... |
Did lancers really use their lances as javelins? | From the video link you seem to suggest that you are talking about "lances" in the sense of the Crimean War period. Could you please clarify this is what you mean?
Actual kontos and thrusting spears (such as those used by cataphracti) were fully 3 to 4 meters long and would *wholly* unsuitable for throwing. They wou... | [
"The lance is a pole weapon designed to be used by a mounted warrior or cavalry soldier (lancer). During the periods of classical and medieval warfare, it evolved into being the leading weapon in cavalry charges, and was unsuited for throwing or for repeated thrusting, unlike similar weapons of the javelin/pike fam... |
How much more advanced and safer is a nuclear power plant built today compared to one built in 1986? | Engineering?
Chernobyl was based on a stupid reactor type that is not built any more. In addition the operators were actively overriding multiple safety rules and mechanisms - something that won't happen any more because we have an example how that can end. Another accident like Fukushima is not completely impossible ... | [
"The next nuclear plants to be built will likely be Generation III or III+ designs, and a few such are already in operation in Japan. Generation IV reactors would have even greater improvements in safety. These new designs are expected to be passively safe or nearly so, and perhaps even inherently safe (as in the P... |
If energy cannot be created or destroyed, how come the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate? Where does the energy for this expansion come from? | "Energy is conserved" is a "lie to children". What I mean is that it is a statement that is close to true that we are told to keep things simply. Like all lies to children it is not complete. The full statement is "Energy is conserved in flat, unchanging spacetime". From a mathematical point of view, energy is conserve... | [
"The expansion of the universe reaches an infinite degree in finite time, causing expansion to accelerate without bounds. This acceleration necessarily passes the speed of light (since it involves expansion of the universe itself, not particles moving within it), causing more and more objects to leave our observabl... |
why does gillette advertise against their own product? | Gillette is by far the leader in the razor market. The Fusion blades are more expensive than the Mach 3 blades, so they get the most bang for their buck by convincing Mach 3 users to upgrade rather than getting others to switch from competitors. | [
"However, the advertisement faced criticism and threats of boycotts, for misandry, constituting left-wing propaganda, virtue signalling, and promoting contempt against Gillette's customer base while never mentioning or showing razors or shaving in the commercial. British journalist and television personality Piers ... |
why isnt the number 11 pronounced onety-one? | English is a Germanic-derived language, and Germanic cultures counted by twelves sometimes instead of tens. This is why the concept of a "dozen" exists.
The words *eleven* and *twelve* come from *einliff* and *twaliff*, Germanic words meaning "one left" and "two left", i.e. you have one/two left after taking ten away... | [
"11 (eleven) is the natural number following 10 and preceding 12. It is the first repdigit. In English, it is the smallest positive integer requiring three syllables and the largest prime number with a single-morpheme name.\n",
"Eleven derives from the Old English ' which is first attested in Bede's late 9th-cent... |
I found this piece of paper behind a photo of a German WW2 soldier can someone help me identify it? | Hiya,
From my limited German, it appears to be an issue of orders to an [occupation force? Literally "something-land-service."]. I'll leave it up to any number of actually-fluent German speakers to provide more information. More importantly, I'm chiming in to note that under our [Privacy rule](_URL_0_), any personally... | [
"On 2 May 1945, in Kleinmachnow just outside Berlin, two Red Army soldiers stopped Lampe demanding his papers. At this point, Lampe had lost so much weight he did not resemble the photograph on his papers. He was shot a few minutes later because he failed to explain himself to the soldiers.\n",
"In 1961 and 1966,... |
Did Roman propaganda have any basis in fact? | I can speak a bit about the Parthians. In essence, it was a mixed bag, because in some cases, there was respect, in others not so much.
Here is a quote from Justin epitomizing Trogus:
"Each man has several wives, for the sake of gratifying desire with different objects. They punish no clime more severely than adultery... | [
"Another striking example of propaganda during ancient history is the last Roman civil wars (44-30 BC) during which Octavian and Mark Antony blamed each other for obscure and degrading origins, cruelty, cowardice, oratorical and literary incompetence, debaucheries, luxury, drunkenness and other slanders. This defam... |
why are kids taught to use "x" to mean multiplication until the age of ~11, when they switch to "·"? | It is very important that they learn what a punctuation mark or decimal point is. It may be difficult for young kids to discern the difference between . and · especially when handwritten.
x as a multiplication symbol only works until you need to learn algebra. Then x becomes a variable. It is then necessary to use... | [
"Although there has to be a stark difference in the choices for infants to recognize the correct matching set of numbers (1:3 vs 1:2), this seems to prove that infants have an innate numerical sense, but it may not be the same numerical sense as older children. Around the age of three and a half years children lose... |
Are there any theories/speculation which attempt to explain the logic behind quantum information decomposing following observation? | The electrons don't actually change from a wave to a particle, that's just a convenient (but now severely outdated) approximation. The particles actually follow the same rules all the time. [Here](_URL_0_) is a very good introduction that uses the many worlds interpretation (which is poorly named, it just means using t... | [
"Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence. In quantum mechanics, particles such as electrons are described by a wave function, a mathematical representation of the quantum state of a system; a probabilistic interpretation of the wave function is used to explain various quantum effects. As long as there ... |
where do we find the room to bury the dead? | Individual graveyard burial generally doesn't last forever. Eventually the soft parts of a body will decompose and the remains are dug up and stored more efficiently in something like an [ossuary](_URL_0_).
Also not everyone practices burial in this way. Cremation (burning the body and collecting the ashes) remains p... | [
"A tomb (from \"tumbos\") is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called \"immurement\", and is a method of final disposition, as an alternative to for example cremation or burial.... |
how much water is on the international space station? | Yep, recycling is critical, since there's really no feasible way to constantly be sending new water tanks into space to refill drinking water supplies.
From what I've read, the ISS is able to keep a reserve of 530 gallons of drinking water in case of emergencies. Since the ISS is made up of various modules that wer... | [
"Final internal transfers continued throughout the day. Around 1,400 lbs of water from \"Atlantis\" to the Space Station was handed over. During 5 days of joint work, the crews also transferred 2,100 pounds of to be returned experiments and items.\n",
"BULLET::::- 2007 Peter O. Andreychuk, Leonid S Bobe, Nikolay ... |
The Nazis refered to themselves as socialists, but also spoke of their struggle against marxism. How did they distinguish their beliefs from the Soviets? Was it just thinly veiled xenophobia? | At first, the National Socialist Party did have a leftist component, and the party even put out a plan that called for the redistribution of capital. Hitler, however, only promoted socialism in order to garner as much support as possible--he supported rightist policies that appealed to the upper class at the same time... | [
"The Bolshevik movement and later the Soviet Union made frequent use of the \"fascist\" epithet coming from its conflict with the early German and Italian fascist movements. It was widely used in press and political language to describe either its ideological opponents (such as the White movement) or even internal ... |
different types of radiation | Think of radiation as a wave. The energy of a particle determines what wave it is. Kind of like light from stars. The higher the energy the whiter it is. On the lower energy scale you get red. Now as an atom starts to decay certain particles are released due to the weakness of the atoms containment energy. Depending on... | [
"Radiation is the evolutionary process of diversification of a single species into multiple forms. It includes the physiological and ecological diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. There are many types of radiation including adaptive, concordant, and discordant radiation however escape and radiate coevol... |
how humans didn't get eaten by predators who heard babies screaming when humans lived in the wild. | Predators (at least modern ones anyway) look for easy meals. It's not worth risking injury.
If you find a human child *by itself*? Snacktime.
If you hear a crying child, go to the noise, and find several adult humans with pointy sticks and fire? Not worth the risk. | [
"The children and the animals hear a commotion upstairs, which is the result of the carnivores feeding on the poultry, so the children decide to climb on the giraffe's neck, but are overcome by the others. The tortoise convinces most of the carnivores to eat the children next, only the lion and one of the cats are ... |
What was Kurdish society like before the Arab invasion? What do we know about Pre-Arab Kurdistan? | One thing that I remember that really stuck out to me when I read the Anabasis, by Xenophon was when they were traveling through the Kurdish mountains of what modern northern Iraq/turkey.
In the book, a unit of Greek mercenary hoplites gets stuck deep in Persian territory, after their Persian rebel commander is kill... | [
"Kurds fled to Jordan as a result of the Kurdish massacres in Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s, more Kurds arrived to Jordan from Palestine during the Nakba and the 1967 Palestinian exodus and later Kurdish refugees arrived to Jordan from Iraq after the Gulf War. There are also many Iranian Kurds in Jordan as refugees... |
when would a doctor use stitches, and when would he use staples? | They are interchangeable. Sort of.
A stapled wound and one closed with a non-absorbable suture are similar. Both require medical aid to remove, and for this reason day surgery and short stay surgery usually use absorbable sutures. These dissapear over a few weeks as the body breaks them down.
Certain procedures ar... | [
"Stitches is a 1985 American comedy film directed by Rod Holcomb as Alan Smithee and starring Parker Stevenson, Geoffrey Lewis, and Brian Tochi. It depicts the misadventures of three students in medical school.\n",
"Popularly known by the brand name Band-Aid, an adhesive bandage is a self-sticking taped and small... |
If our sun didn't give off UV rays could we stare at it without damaging our eyes? | no. It's not just UV rays that are the problem. (otherwise, with glasses on, with a UV coating, you would be able to. **you should not try this**). It's the fact that your eye's lens focuses light. Like a magnifying lens on an ant. It's simply depositing too much energy into your retina and can damage the tissue.
I wo... | [
"Viewing the Sun through light-concentrating optics such as binoculars may result in permanent damage to the retina without an appropriate filter that blocks UV and substantially dims the sunlight. When using an attenuating filter to view the Sun, the viewer is cautioned to use a filter specifically designed for th... |
how is it that populations of people all across the planet in different countries all developed at relatively the same rate, when there was no means of communication between them? | They didn't develop at the same rate, it's just that the weaker ones were destroyed/absorbed by more powerful and technologically advanced ones. There's just little record of them left.
We know about Native Americans being decimated by the colonists from Europe with far superior tools and tech. There are still tin... | [
"Small world networks, which are common in traditional societies, are a natural consequence of alternating \"local\" and \"global\" phases: new, long-distance links are formed during the global phase and existing links are reinforced (or removed) during the local phase. The advent of social media has decreased the ... |
How does the size of an atom change as you move through the periodic table? | Atoms rarely exist in isolation; they're bonded with other atoms, and that tends to change their sizes. For example, Oxygen picks up two extra electrons and this bloats it enormously. Beryllium gives up two electrons, and that shrinks it enormously. Here's a [table that shows both the isolated and the ionized sizes](_U... | [
"Generally speaking, the number determines the size and energy of the orbital for a given nucleus: as increases, the size of the orbital increases. When comparing different elements, the higher nuclear charge of heavier elements causes their orbitals to contract by comparison to lighter ones, so that the overall si... |
Since Temperature is a measurement of how fast molecules vibrate, would it be possible to heat molecules to a point where their vibration approaches the speed of light? | Well it's not just the vibration, it's the rotational and translational kinetic energy, and in fact _all_ forms of energy in a solid contribute to their temperature, but it doesn't really matter to the question.
Anyway, while there's nothing stopping you from adding more energy, and more vibrational energy does mean f... | [
"Note that in this example we have assumed that temperature is low enough that heat capacities are not influenced by molecular vibration (see heat capacity). However, vibrational modes simply cause gammas which decrease toward 1, since vibration modes in a polyatomic gas give the gas additional ways to store heat w... |
can defense attorneys 'throw' a case if they know their clients are guilty? | Yes, they could 'throw' a case.
However, that's a serious ethics violation which would almost certainly cause disbarment if found out, and not only that, the conviction could then be appealed based on ineffective assistance of counsel (embodied in the 6th amendment).
If it makes it easier to wrap your head around, th... | [
"A defense attorney tries to prove the innocence of his client on a murder charge, despite witness after witness testifying against him. However, during a cross examination of a crucial witness, the lawyer is able to establish the real truth.\n",
"Even when the charges are more serious, prosecutors often can stil... |
How did the Romans farm? Did the way they do it change throughout the ages? | The really quick answer: The Roman *ideal* was that of the yeoman, or small landholder, who self-sufficiently farmed his own little plot with the help of his family and a handful of slaves. In reality, however, this ideal was already decaying by the time we start to have good data on Roman life; by the middle Republi... | [
"In the 5th century BC, farms in Rome were small and family-owned. The Greeks of this period, however, had started using crop rotation and had large estates. Rome's contact with Carthage, Greece, and the Hellenistic East in the 3rd and 2nd centuries improved Rome's agricultural methods. Roman agriculture reached it... |
How much would a Roman Denarius be in USD today? | This is not a simple question to answer, unfortunately. Different goods had drastically different price ranges back then due to differences in supply and technology. Since the prices of goods are the only real metric by which we can compare currencies, this means you could get a wide range of values.
[Doug Smith](_U... | [
"The Roman emperor Augustus collected funds for his military aerarium in AD 6 with a one percent general sales tax, known as the \"centesima rerum venalium\" (hundredth of the value of everything sold). The Roman sales tax was later reduced to a half percent (\"ducentesima\") by Tiberius, then abolished completely ... |
why isn't time read literally as numbers but instead the letter o is said to represent zero? | In English (at least American English) unless you have a bunch of zeros in a row you almost always say "O" for every single number, not just time. | [
"There is a need to maintain an explicit distinction between digit zero and letter O, which, because they are both usually represented graphically in English orthography (and indeed most orthographies using Latin script and Arabic numerals) with a simple circle or oval, have a centuries-long history of being freque... |
standard error in measurement. i have no idea. what is it's relation to standard deviation? (rhyme not intended) | Standard Deviation refers to variability in general. If you're learning this in a class, it probably is implicitly meant as the standard deviation of the sample in most cases.
Standard Error is the standard deviation of whatever measure you're trying to estimate. Since in statistics you're typically looking for the me... | [
"In regression analysis, the term \"standard error\" refers either to the square root of the reduced chi-squared statistic or the standard error for a particular regression coefficient (as used in, e.g., confidence intervals).\n",
"Standard deviation refers to the extent to which individual observations in a samp... |
how do reality shows record reactions in monologues like they are happening for the first time? | The people giving the interviews are asked to reenact their initial reactions. Its all just good (or in most cases, bad) acting. | [
"Generally the format follows that of a reality show where live video taping is done in areas with paranormal activities or hauntings. Sometimes re-enactments or experiments are done to explain a specific phenomenon or sightings. At the end of the episodes, live call-ins allow home viewers to ask questions or infor... |
How can gravity possibly be accounted for by quantum theory? | What we don't know is how to solve for the curvature of a particle that doesn't have reasonably precise position and momentum (quantum particles). So far no approach we've thought of has really worked out right... | [
"While a quantum theory of gravity may be needed to reconcile general relativity with the principles of quantum mechanics, difficulties arise when applying the usual prescriptions of quantum field theory to the force of gravity via graviton bosons. The problem is that the theory one gets in this way is not renormal... |
how does viagra actually work..? | Without getting really technical, Viagra is a type of drug called a Vasodilator. Vasodilators relax the muscles and arteries so more blood can flow through them. Think of a Vasodilator as a hose. If you have a hose that has a 1 Inch Diameter, only so much water can flow through it at full blast. A Vasodilator would tur... | [
"In the US even though sildenafil is available only by prescription from a doctor, it was advertised directly to consumers on TV (famously being endorsed by former United States Senator Bob Dole and football star Pelé). Numerous sites on the Internet offer Viagra for sale after an \"online consultation\", often a s... |
bedsores | When you press down on your skin it prevents your blood from moving naturally. This lack of blood to the area causes the tissue to break down over time, if left over a prolonged period of time it can cause pretty severe damage and infection.
Safe rule of thumb for prevention and healing of minor injuries, change posi... | [
"Flaser beds are a sedimentary, bi-directional, bedding pattern created when a sediment is exposed to intermittent flows, leading to alternating sand and mud layers. While flaser beds typically form in tidal environments, they can (rarely) form in fluvial conditions - on point bars or in ephemeral streams. Individu... |
how do leases work? | Be careful if you drive a lot, there are sometimes fees for excessive mileage.
Also, most people consider Leasing, financially, the worst possible choice in terms of "owning" a vehicle. So I would recommend you be absolutely 100% sure that having a brand new vehicle means that much to you before going forward. | [
"Lease and release is literally the lease (tenancy) of non-tenanted property by its owner followed by a release (relinquishment) of the landlord's interest in the property. This sequence of transactions was commonly used to transfer full title to real estate under real property law. \"Lease and release\" was a mode... |
since the hypothalamus is located near the brain and it regulates the body's temperature, how would the human body react if the head is at one extreme temperature and the rest of the body is at an opposing extreme temperature? | The hypothalamus doesn't sense its own temperature in order to regulate the body. It gathers the data from nerves all over the body and uses that. If most of your body is hot but your head is cold, the hypothalamus will "know" that and will tell the body to cool itself down.
Also, your body is usually pretty good at ... | [
"In many respects, the hypothalamus works like a thermostat. When the set point is raised, the body increases its temperature through both active generation of heat and retention of heat. Peripheral vasoconstriction both reduces heat loss through the skin and causes the person to feel cold. Norepinephrine increases... |
how do actors appear dead in movies and films so that their chest isn't moving from breathing and their heart beating | The simplest method is for the actor to hold their breath during the take. The heartbeat isn't a problem, because that's not noticeable.
A scene involving a dead body may last quite a long time, but like most scenes will typically be composed of a number of different shots, each shot lasting just a few seconds -- so a... | [
"In several cases, actors or actresses have died prior to the release of a film: either during filming or after it has been completed, but is yet to be released. In the case that the actor dies during filming, their scenes are often completed by stunt doubles, or through special effects. Only people who actually ap... |
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