question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Are there any obligate carnivores that are omnivores? | I think grizzly bears fit the bill. They are mostly carnivorous omnviores. They prey on large mammals like deer and moose, and they love fish. They also eat nuts, berries, tubers, and grasses. They probably eat more meat during the the fall so as to store as much fat as possible to prepare for torpor during winter.
Here's a good guide: _URL_0_ | [
"Though Carnivora is a taxon for species classification, no such equivalent exists for omnivores, as omnivores are widespread across multiple taxonomic clades. The Carnivora order does not include all carnivorous species, and not all species within the Carnivora taxon are carnivorous. It is common to find physiolog... |
if alcohol tastes terrible, why do people drink it? | I think you start drinking it for the effect and then start to enjoy it after a while. It's like coffee as a kid I thought it was gross and then started liking it as I got older and like the affect.. maybe it's the same. It definitely doesn't taste great but it kind of tastes like relaxation and good times 👍🏽 | [
"Vomiting excessive amounts of alcohol is an attempt by the body to prevent alcohol poisoning and death. Vomiting may also be caused by other drugs, such as opiates, or toxins found in some foods and plants. Food allergies and sensitivities, such as lactose intolerance, can cause vomiting.\n",
"Alcohol can be a d... |
Why can't bacteriophages infect eukaryotic cells? | All viruses look for a specific site on the cell wall of the cell they are trying to infect. The sites that bacteriophages are looking for only exist on bacteria. This is one major reason why there is a significant risk of viruses being transmitted between humans and other mammals, but almost no risk of viruses being transmitted between humans and insects.
Additionally the way cells handle replicating DNA is significantly different between bacteria and eukaryotes. | [
"Gramicidin's bactericidal activity is a result of increasing the permeability of the bacterial cell membrane, allowing inorganic monovalent cations (e.g. Na) to travel through unrestricted and thereby destroying the ion gradient between the cytoplasm and the extracellular environment.\n",
"Though neutrophils can... |
if having a straight back is the 'proper' position, why isn't it the 'natural' position? | You are asking about natural posture, but you have probably never seen a human who lives in a natural habitat. Chairs, and a sedentary lifestyle, are the reason that most people don't have good posture. [Hunter gatherers have great posture and make it to old age with few back and hip problems](_URL_1_)
Western Europeans and Americans are the worst of all. Asian cultures like Japan where it is common to sit on the floor have healthier posture, and even [Eastern Europeans who squat more](_URL_0_) have better hip and spine mechanics. Many weightlifters have to practice "third world squats" in order to develop leg mobility- which simply means sitting like a human being who didn't grow up in a chair.
In addition to the lack of flexibility and strength, sedentary lifestyle prevents us from developing an accurate sense of exactly what our posture should be. This is why Yoga does more to help back pain than simple stretching, it also involves paying deep attention to the sensations of posture and movement. Any healthy person has the strength to stand up straight, at least for a while, habit is the reason it doesn't feel natural. | [
"In general, the back should be flat. Overarching causes stiffness, rounding not only looks bad, but affects the rider's balance. A slightly rounded back is acceptable cross-country when used in the safety seat.\n",
"On the left are represented the more traditional and descriptive terms \"end\" and \"slotback\" (... |
with modern technology, why do pharmacists still exist as a profession? | Pharmacists are the human check of symptoms against legit prescriptions against frequency of dispensation. Advice of drug interaction between patients and a computer system cannot assess the individual patient's needs.
& #x200B;
They also provide advice for all customers and potential patients for low-level non-doctor health complaints.
& #x200B;
Many prescriptions are also written out for non-standard dosages which need to be compounded especially by a pharmacist. | [
"Unlike Europe, the United States has never produced practicing pharmacist-scientists of the caliber of Carl Scheele or Joseph Pierre Pelletier, who made important discoveries in the laboratories associated with their pharmacies. It should be noted, however, that the sciences were becoming increasingly specialized ... |
Why did East Germany do so well in the Olympics, in relation to West Germany and Germany today | **Part I**
It is very tempting to reduce all of the GDR's success in the Olympics from the late 1960s to 1988 to the state's use of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. The GDR's program for these substances was quite large and substantial. Although other Olympic teams used such substances, the GDR's program eclipsed the other use both in breadth and direct state resources channeled into their development. But steroids and the like are only one part of a much more complex picture of sport inside the GDR, and to focus exclusively on their use obscures a number of other developments inside the GDR's sport program. Moreover, the outsized attention paid to steroids use also neglects the more important question as to *why* the GDR created such a program in the first place. Steroids were a part of a much larger pastiche of a state-funded and operated programs that increasingly prioritized Olympic sports at the expense of other types of sports. The GDR's status as an Olympic titan as far as medals were concerned, had important international as well as domestic advantages for the ruling SED party.
Like other dictatorships of the twentieth century, the SED recognized that the Olympics were a major propaganda tool to showcase the health and vitality of the nation. Olympians were to be representatives of the nation, and their physical triumphs stood in for the collective health of the nation, thus building on long entrenched discourses on the physical health of the body being synonymous with the larger polity. Both Fascist Italy and the Third Reich pioneered the trend of politicized Olympiads, and the Cold War added further impetus to using triumph in sport as a political triumph.
But even among these contemporaries, the GDR was in a somewhat unique position that made the medal count even more important. German division, which was nominally temporary until a final peace treaty was settled, wrecked havoc with the Olympics. The IOC initially ruled that "Germany" could only have one team, and between 1956-68, Olympians from both Germanies participated in a unified team. This compromise position favored the FRG in many respects as it denuded the publicity of GDR athletic successes and added weight to the FRG's notion that the GDR was a temporary anomaly until a final reunification could take place. The IOC's abandonment of the unified team, which tentatively started in the 1968 games, meant that the GDR could finally compete as its own sovereign state in the 1972 Munich games. These games, held in the GDR's chief ideological competitor, meant that the SED made a deliberate effort to dominate. The timing of the end of the unified team concept was also important. By the late 1960s, it was clear that of the two Germanies, it as the GDR that was the more successful of the two. Although the planned economy had stabilized from the dire days of Ulbricht's *Aufbau Sozialismus* of the 1950s, the GDR was materially much poorer than its Western rival. The state's international standing had also been greatly damaged by the erection of the Berlin Wall, as well as the association of the SED with other Stalinist hardliners within the Warsaw Pact. International sport thus became one arena in which the GDR could actually "win" against the FRG. The SED leadership did recognize this fact and actively championed it by funneling tremendous resources into its Olympic training programs.
But Olympic-mindedness also had a strong domestic component to it. Beyond the bread and circuses appeal of mass sport, the SED saw sport as a useful tool to shape its domestic population. The USSR provided both a paradigm as well as a rationale for the state to invest money into sports programs. According to Soviet practice, athletics and healthy bodies were barometers of socialism's success via capitalism. The fact that people could devote time to athletics was a sign that the planned economy provided its toilers ample time for leisure and self-improvement. There was a socialist pedagogy to athletics as well, because the team-building nature of athletics helped inculcate class solidarity. Participation in mass sports allegedly helped foster a more healthy population, which would be of utility both in peace and war. The SED imbibed these lessons from the USSR's athletic program and expanded upon it.
One of the crucial innovations of the GDR's sports program was the *Spartakiaden*, first created in 1965, a series of sports competitions held for GDR children under the auspices of the mass sport collective, *Der Deutsche Turn- und Sportbund* (DTSB) . Named after the Thracian gladiator, the *Spartakiaden* became a nation-wide program to get the GDR's youth involved in Olympic events. These sporting competitions became opportunities for localities to engage in a form of boosterism and the state lavished special attention on the ceremonial and mass mobilizing aspects of these competitions. As the *Spartakiaden* became more regimented, it soon became both a training ground and a scouting opportunity for the GDR's Olympic teams. The mass datasets created by having so many athletes further helped the GDR's state authorities to scientifically pinpoint the physical characteristics of potential Olympians among these children. By 1973, the DTSB had formally allied with the Ministry of Education to form national evaluation and testing plans to identify potential Olympians among primary school students, and prepare them to into the pipeline for full-time training. As mass events, the *Spartakiaden* became a vital intersection for the pyramid-like structure of training academies, sport schools, and clubs that had ensconced themselves within the GDR's educational system. *Spartakiaden* success helped potential Olympic athletes advance up the rungs of this pyramid to where they would become a sporting elite.
Medal-winning Olympians were to be state heroes within the GDR and the state lavished both praise for them, as well as various special perks. Again, the timing for this process- the late 1960s- was quite important. As memories of the Third Reich and the war faded, the pantheon of socialist heroes like Ernst Thälmann appeared more geriatric and remote figures for the average GDR *Staatsbürger*. The regime did celebrate figures like Che or Lumumba, but there was a dearth of postwar Germans that the SED could be comfortable in elevating to the pantheon of socialist heroes. Stakhanovism was a limited option as its prolonged use engendered a certain cynicism about the planned economy. Olympians, however, fit into this void quite well. They were to be socialist heroes of a new mold that symbolized the successes of the GDR. State propaganda was not just about the medal count, but also stressed how the winners were exemplars of the GDR's own brand of socialism. The SED not only prioritized beating the FRG, but also its own superpower patron the USSR.
These massive investments in Olympic gold were not without their costs though. Aside from the health issues associated with steroid abuse, GDR Olympians were under intense pressure to succeed and were under very tight surveillance from the MfS. The scientifically-geared process of identifying and culling out potential Olympians at a very young age worked well for sports like gymnastics or track & field, but such technical-scientific approaches tended to fail for more complicated team sports. There was also considerable friction between various power blocs within the GDR over the increasing importance paid to Olympic training. Margot Honecker, as Minister of People's Education, successfully fought against the DTSB efforts to screen for gymnasts and figure skaters among kindergartners as an unwelcome diversion for youth education.
The Olympic-mindedness of the SED also was a source for increasing discontent among the wider GDR population. The SED's 1969 *Leistungssportbeschluss* (Resolution on Achievement Sports) had already decreed that international sporting competitions would receive state priority for funding. This meant that in the stalled planned economy, resources for equipment and facilities for non-Olympian sports grew shorter. Thus while the GDR became a powerhouse in some Olympic events, its popular domestic sporting scene became quite anemic. By the 1980s, local facilities were often dilapidated save for a few special clubs that enjoyed state patronage. These tensions boiled over in the GDR football scene, with regional rivalries becoming quite sharp, especially between Saxony and Berlin when the MfS-backed Dynamo club ordered Dresden's best players to move to Berlin in 1954. Dynamo became one of villains in GDR football circles with rumors that the MfS pressured referees and used other unsavory tactics to ensure it won its matches. Far from encouraging socialist harmony, non-Olympic sport was doing the opposite by the 1980s.
| [
"East Germany did however achieve significantly greater success in Olympic football than the amateur teams fielded by the Western NOC of Germany. In 1956, 1960, and 1964 both states had sent a United Team of Germany. For 1964, the East German side had beaten their Western counterparts in order to be selected. They ... |
why does technology seem to develop linear instead of in jumps? | The bleeding edge of research does move in jumps, but manufacturing doesn't.
The stuff that reaches consumers has to be produced in mass quantities in giant factories. You can't go retrofit the entire assemly line every time there's a research breakthrough, so there's a slow incremental change in production capacity over time as engineers figure out how to turn new technology into financially feasible production runs. | [
"Simulations can be performed offline (as in apart from when they are viewed) in the development of special effects for movies. Speed is therefore not strictly a necessity in the production of special effects but is still desirable for reasonably responsive feedback and because the hardware required for slower meth... |
why do printers decide to randomly do...something every so often? | Ink jet Printer heads need to have the ink wiped off of them before it dries, and also the head needs to be sealed to reduce risk of blockages. It doesn't do this right away because you might still want to print something. It has some logic which tells it it's time to clean during printing, or that it's sat idle for long enough that it needs to be cleaned and sealed. | [
"When printing a web page, the ease of printing depends on the length of the page, compared to shorter web pages with pagination. In longer web pages which have infinite scrolling (for example, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter), it is harder to print all pages as the total number of upcoming pages is unknown. Therefo... |
how are these kind of space images captured? | Yah they are taken with the hubble space telescope or other ground based telescopes. None of the colors are real though. They colorize the spectrum so that we can see them and distinguish things. A lot of awesome space photos are taken in the microwave spectrum which we cant see at all so they just assign colors to each wavelength to generate the photo. | [
"A digital photograph may be created directly from a physical scene by a camera or similar device. Alternatively, a digital image may be obtained from another image in an analog medium, such as photographs, photographic film, or printed paper, by an image scanner or similar device. Many technical images—such as tho... |
why proper emulation of older systems is still hard on new computers | Honey, let's take a break from the games and eat your peas.
Also: difference of dedicated processors v. multi-tasking within an already high-functioning OS. | [
"Earlier emulators had sought to accurately emulate all low-level operations of a target machine; this worked well for consoles such as the Super NES and Genesis that were substantially simpler than the computer running the emulator.\n",
"While the emulator is no longer updated and has become obsolete as other em... |
Any help would be appreciated
concerning history from 1800 - present | 1) Science does not conflict with religion, many prominent early scientists were quite religious. Believing in a God in no way hinders your abilities to make advances in science. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just being close-minded (this goes for both Theists and Atheists.)
2) Ironically, I would say that nationalism itself led to the rise and domination of Western Civilization. It united the people, taking them from a bunch of warring kingdoms and tribal lords, and turning them into actual unified nations. This allowed them to make significant advances in both warfare, economics, science, and various other fields. While the Ottoman Empire and the Far East had been unified earlier on, by the time the West began to truly come into its own, they had degraded into what Europe once was. In a way, the scale shifted from one spectrum to the other.
Asia--for the longest time--had held many of the dominant cultures in the world. This is because at many various points they were united under one ruler, with a similar culture. The Persian Empire, the Greek Empires, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Chinese Dynasties. All of this time, Europe was just a backwater, full of a bunch of disunited communities that fought all the time and could never get along. While they could have peace for a while, and make alliances, they never had the capabilities--the resources--to grow, like the eastern nations had.
Eventually, however, the Europeans took a lessons from the Romans, and the powers of antiquity, and unified, creating strong nations with the abilities to do things that individual city-states could not. While this was happening, due to various reasons--in fighting, political greed, natural disasters and raiders--the east was falling into what Europe once was. Eventually, the Europeans and Western Civilization just took off. By that point, they were so far ahead it wasn't even a race.
It all comes in waves, really. In 500BC, Eastern Civilization was the pinnacle of human innovation and technology. 2,500 years later, Western Civilization is. This is because nationalism was able to bring people together under a common cause.
Sorry if I rambled, I just find this idea to be very interesting. And this is all my opinion, not fact. It's up to you to make your own conclusions on the topic :) | [
"Robert Roswell Palmer (January 11, 1909 – June 11, 2002), commonly known as R. R. Palmer, was a distinguished American historian at Princeton and Yale universities, who specialized in eighteenth-century France. His most influential work of scholarship, \"The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of... |
Why are there mushrooms growing in a trail in my back yard? | Cool picture!
Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungal mycelium.
_URL_0_
The threadlike mycelium is growing under the ground there in the shape of that line. If I had to guess why, I would say they are associated with a tree root that is growing in that shape, as basidiomycetes (the type of fungi that make mushrooms) are commonly associated with woody material. Basidiomycetes are one of the few organisms that can degrade lignin, the polymer that makes wood hard.
If they are in a circle it could be a fairy ring. _URL_1_ | [
"This mushroom is common in grassy woods, and on roadside verges in Britain, Europe, Asia (Iran) and parts of North America, growing on rotting wood. It particularly favours wood-chip mulches in gardens, and parks.\n",
"Mushrooms are mostly found during hot spells in summer and autumn, growing in mycorrhizal asso... |
How realistic is widespread nuclear energy? Does the Earth have enough uranium deposits to provide power long term? | I'm hoping someone with more concise data comes in to add numerical content, as I don't have a lot of my data/notes available at work.
From a qualitative perspective, it depends on a lot of things. One of those things is what type of nuclear reactors we use in the future. Current plants generally use about 1% of the uranium they dig out of the ground. This is primarily because we can only utilize U-235 in the majority of the world's reactors, and that is only present in about .7% of all uranium. The remaining 99.3% (approximately) is not directly usable in existing reactors, however there are reactor designs, like fast reactors, which can make use of nearly all of it.
There's also thorium, which is four times more abundant than uranium, and through thorium breeding reactor designs like LFTR, we could utilize virtually ALL thorium.
This means that the answer for how long earth could utilize 100% nuclear power is heavily dependent on the technologies we use. Numbers tend to vary from hundreds to tens of thousands of years. It depends if we are stuck into our current policy of only using 1% of uranium (light water reactors) or if we include future reactor technology. | [
"Various agencies have tried to estimate how long these primary resources will last, assuming a once-through cycle. The European Commission said in 2001 that at the current level of uranium consumption, known uranium resources would last 42 years. When added to military and secondary sources, the resources could be... |
i dont understand spacetime and its relevance with gravity, eli5 please... | To understand the answer to this question, we first have to understand what curved spacetime is, and how it relates to falling objects.
Spacetime is a four dimensional object. Three of these dimensions are spatial, and one is temporal. In classical mechanics, space and time are the stage on which things move: they are static, constant, unchanging. In relativity, however, spacetime is dynamic. It interacts with the objects that move through it, and time and space are not strictly separate.
As gravity is modeled through the curvature of spacetime instead of a force, an object under the influence of gravity is force-free. Thus, an object does not undergo acceleration through gravity. We call such an object free falling, and its path through spacetime a [*geodesic*](_URL_1_). You can imagine geodesics as a straight lines on a curved surface.
For example, all the lines on [this sphere](_URL_0_) are geodesics, as they are straight lines on the surface. If you were an ant on the surface of a sphere, and you started walking straight ahead without turning left or right, you would follow one such "geodesic", or straight line.
Two free falling objects in their respective gravitational fields follow such geodesics, as they are both falling freely. Hence, both objects are force free.
Our intuition says, that two force-free objects should not experience relative acceleration, right? If one object moves at v*_1_* and another object moves at v*_2_*, their relative velocity should be constant and given by v=v*_2_*-v*_1_*.
This result holds true for flat spacetime. In curved spacetime, however, things get more complicated.
Consider [this](_URL_2_) example: Imagine two objects that are moving along the lines perpendicular to the equator. They start out parallel, and move in a straight line upwards. Despite the fact that neither of them is turning, the two objects that started out moving along parallel lines will meet at the north pole.
This implies, that relative acceleration between free bodies is possible in curved geometries.
This fact is expressed mathematically by the [Geodesic Deviation Equation](_URL_1__deviation).
To come back to your example: despite the fact that both objects (the falling object and earth) are force-free, they experience relative acceleration due to the fact that earth's gravitational field curves spacetime.
| [
"Special relativity eliminates absolute time (although Gödel and others suspect absolute time may be valid for some forms of general relativity) and general relativity further reduces the physical scope of absolute space and time through the concept of geodesics. There appears to be absolute space in relation to th... |
How close are we to being able to create a video game that interfaces directly with the brain? | Surgeons are capable of implanting electrodes directly into the brain that react when that area of the brain is activated (i.e. when the person has a specific thought), providing a direct form of Brain-Computer Input. One problem with this method is that the control method is not intuitive. To "go forward" in a game, for example, would not require the user to think "go forward", but instead would require them to think in a specific way according to the position of the electrode. Another problem with this method is that few people want to volunteer to have invasive brain surgery just for the sake of assisting computer science / serious game researchers with their studies.
As pathophrenic pointed out, there are less invasive BCIs that work via electrode contacts in a headset. The downside is that these are much less accurate and responsive than surgically-placed electrodes. Generally, these headsets read vague thoughts such as "relaxation" and "concentration", although some work in conjunction with temple muscle movement or eye movement to provide a more complex input method. You could potentially use one of these devices to play a simple game (e.g. a puzzle game or straight-forward platformer), or link it to a specific action in a game (e.g. concentrating causes your gun to fire), but as it stands these devices are currently too unresponsive to allow a user to successfully play, say, Call of Duty without the aid of any other form of input. The good news is that BCIs are being improved at a fast rate - they became available to every-day consumers around 4 years ago, and since then they've been getting increasingly cheap and accurate. You can always buy one of these devices and see how well it works for yourself - the low-end ones only cost around $100.
tl;dr: Neuroscience will give us the Matrix eventually, but not within this decade.
Source: PhD in Serious Games, some experience with Neurosky. | [
"BULLET::::- Google DeepMind – The company has created a neural network that learns how to play video games in a similar fashion to humans and a neural network that may be able to access an external memory like a conventional Turing machine, resulting in a computer that appears to possibly mimic the short-term memo... |
is there a non-cynical explanation for rich people running for office? or interested at all in cabinet positions and politics in general? | It's pretty simple: Running a campaign costs money. People who have lots of money don't have to go to work to get their paycheck. They can devote 100% of their time and energy to campaigning. They can afford all the flags and banners and employees and commercials that are required to run a successful campaign. And they are likely to have lots of rich friends who can donate to their campaigns and introduce them to other rich and powerful people.
You could be the most brilliant leader in the world, but if you are poor you just won't have the resources to invest in running a campaign. | [
"There is also the so-called Carnegie effect describes the effect of how inherited fame and political network may decrease one's incentive to work hard. Most hereditary politicians were able to get a political position with relatively less effort compare to those who had no political background. Inherited advantage... |
When the Greeks fought the Romans, did they use short 6' spears or long 22' ones? | The short answer is both. The longer answer is far more complex.
'The Greeks' were not a monolithic entity. Nor was their military innovation static in the 300-odd years during which Rome fought with cities and nations that laid claim to Greek heritage.
The Macedonians, and the other Successor States of Alexander's Empire (Syrian Seleucids, Egyptian Ptolemy dynasty, etc.) generally fought with the longer spears you describe with armies that drew inspiration directly from Alexander the Great's armies and tactics.
The Greek City-States, of which there were many that dotted the shores of the Mediterranean, would often still fight with the shorter spear you describe (although it was often more like 8' or 9' in length). But depending on the era, some of these states may have fought with long, pikes like the Alexander-style infantry. And later on even the Alexandrine Successor States began to implement reforms that moved away from the pike altogether, to lighter and more flexible infantry.
If you want more detail on anything specific I'm happy to provide it, but I don't want to dump a wall of text on you if you aren't looking for it. | [
"Legionaries of the late republic and early empire often carried two \"pila\", with one sometimes being lighter than the other. Standard tactics called for Roman soldiers to throw one of them (both if time permitted) at the enemy, just before charging to engage with the \"gladius\"; however, Alexander Zhmodikov has... |
what's the behind the meaning of a "neckbeard"? | A decent beard should be, to at least some degree sculpted or manicured. Just basic hygiene really.
A "Neckbeard" refers to someone who has a beard not because they want one, but most likely simply as a result of inattention to grooming. Usually paired with wrinkled, smelly clothes, a surly attitude, and poor social skills. | [
"\"Neckbeard\" is a pejorative term and stereotype for men who exhibit characteristics such as social awkwardness, underachievement or pretentiousness. The term is associated with the currently (2010–present) unfashionable facial hair style known as a neck beard, and by extension, to a stereotype of overweight, ath... |
why is an earthquake- warning system valuable when it only gives a warning a few seconds prior to the actual earthquake, at best? | The way I'm reading the articles is that the warning system itself was successful (as a prototype), and that 4 seconds is an indicator that they might be able to get more in the future (30 or 40 seconds) -- not that the 4 seconds was a successful warning.
30 or 40 seconds is enough to evacuate a small building, or stop a subway train. | [
"Earthquake warning systems strive to rapidly detect earthquakes and alert the population in advance. When the system detects an earthquake, a potentially large number of people in affected locations not too close to the epicenter can receive the warning several seconds (5 to 60) before damaging shaking occurs. Thi... |
what does franchise tagging mean in the nfl? | When a player completes the last year of his contract, he becomes a free agent and is allowed to entertain offers from any team in the NFL with one exception. The team that previously employed him has the option of employing the "franchise tag" so that he stays on their team one more year. As of the new CBA, they are forced to pay him the average of the top player at his respective position over the last 5 seasons or pay 120% of his previous year's salary, whichever is greater. The salary is fully guaranteed.
Each team is only allowed to franchise tag one player per year. Franchise tagging a player is a way for teams to hold on to players with whom they can't reach a long term contract. For example, Drew Brees is coming off a career season and will hit the open market if he can't reach a new deal with the Saints. The Saints aren't exactly excited about paying him Peyton Manning-like money even though statistically he's earned it because they've seen the risk it poses for their team to have so much money tied up in one player. By placing the franchise tag on Brees, he will be forced to play for the Saints for roughly $16M next year. It's expensive for teams to continue franchise tagging the same player year after year because they must increase his salary by a minimum of 20%. Here's an interesting link describing some [franchise tag situations in the NFL this year.](_URL_0_)
In the NBA, small market owners like Dan Gilbert of the Cleveland Cavaliers wish they had something similar to the franchise tag, mainly so he could have forced Lebron James to continue playing in Cleveland. | [
"NFL Players Inc. was created as the for profit marketing subsidiary of the National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA. Its stated goal is helping players in the National Football League use their commercial licensing rights to secure marketing and business opportunities. When players enter the NFL and ... |
why can people hold their breath for a relatively long amount of time, but feel out of breath after a few seconds of chugging water? | I’m sure it has something to do with how our brains react to different situations. If someone were to try to inhale water while in a pool, it would be extremely difficult because our brains know that it isn’t the right action to take. | [
"When not breathing for long and dangerous periods of time in cold water, a person's body undergoes great temporary changes to try to prevent death. It achieves this through the activation of the mammalian diving reflex, which has 3 main properties. Other than Bradycardia and Peripheral vasoconstriction, there is a... |
since reusable rockets can reduce the costs, why nasa never had the interest or investment like spacex ? | NASA was hugely interested in it. The Space Shuttle was a completely reusable rocket powered spacecraft. It brought back and reused the engines, the most expensive part of the launch system. The Solid rocket boosters on the sides were also reusable. Only the big fuel tank was destroyed each flight, and that was one of the cheapest parts of the system. A lot of investment and engineering went into that. | [
"If SpaceX is successful in developing the reusable technology, it is expected to significantly reduce the cost of access to space, and change the increasingly competitive market in space launch services. Michael Belfiore wrote in \"Foreign Policy\" in 2013 that, at a published cost of per launch to low Earth orbit... |
If it takes a few minutes for your brain to die without oxygen, why do people lose consciousness and die almost instantly when shot/stabbed through the heart? | > Physiologically, a determined adversary can be stopped reliably and immediately only by a shot that disrupts the brain or upper spinal cord. Failing a hit to the central nervous system, massive bleeding from holes in the heart or major blood vessels of the torso causing circulatory collapse is the only other way to force incapacitation upon an adversary, and this takes time. For example, there is sufficient oxygen within the brain to support full, voluntary action for 10-15 seconds after the heart has been destroyed.28
> ...
> Psychological factors are probably the most important relative to achieving rapid incapacitation from a gunshot wound to the torso. Awareness of the injury (often delayed by the suppression of pain); fear of injury, death, blood, or pain; intimidation by the weapon or the act of being shot; preconceived notions of what people do when they are shot; or the simple desire to quit can all lead to rapid incapacitation even from minor wounds. However, psychological factors are also the primary cause of incapacitation failures.
From ["Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness"](_URL_0_) | [
"Under normal conditions, humans cannot store much oxygen in the body. Prolonged apnea leads to severe lack of oxygen in the blood circulation. Permanent brain damage can occur after as little as three minutes and death will inevitably ensue after a few more minutes unless ventilation is restored. However, under sp... |
how does gas-x work? | The active ingredient in Gas\-X is Simethicone. This compound acts by making small bubbles of gas combine to form larger ones which are passed more easily. | [
"Gasotransmitters is a subfamily of endogenous molecules of gases or gaseous signaling molecules, including NO, CO, . These particular gases share many common features in their production and function but carry on their tasks in unique ways, which differ from classical signaling molecules, in the human body. In 198... |
why did us congress pass a law to ensure all helium in the us national helium reserve is sold by 2015? what benefit does this have? | In 1995 We had gathered a stockpile of over 1 billion cubic meters but had also racked up a debt of $1.4 billion doing so. The law was not to sell off all stockpiles, it was to start selling off the stockpile until that debt was covered. It was all part of a plan to privatize the harvesting of helium and get the control of it out of government hands. | [
"By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been stored, but the reserve was US$1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to phase out the reserve. The resulting \"Helium Privatization Act of 1996\" (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of the Interior to empt... |
Is there any portion of your field that is limited by mathematics? | Oh see I find we have the exact *opposite* problem right now. We have so many different choices for the math, and we don't have the data to know which one is correct. | [
"Mathematical challenges generally refer to more basic mathematics such as that experienced in elementary or junior high school, but can extend to any realm of the study. It is commonly accepted that mathematics is a difficult area of study. Even so, it is generally agreed that the difficulty experienced when one a... |
How was the American civil rights movement covered in the media of apartheid era South Africa? | I'm afraid I can't offer specific information on headlines relating to major events, but I do know a little regarding the general social attitude, which was reflected in the media discourse of the conservative white newspapers.
I'm basing most of this on a collection of essays edited by Sue Onslow, *Cold War in Southern Africa*. I remember reading a second book which more explicitly described the contrast, but sadly I'm about 5,000 miles from my footnotes - if anyone else can remember what the title is, please let me know in the comments!
The rhetoric of apartheid was broadly based on two strands: a nominally non-racial anti-communism, as reflected by the use of the *Suppression of Communism Act* (1950) to censor anti-apartheid activists; and an explicitly racialised fear of non-whites, in particular blacks.
Although these two strands can be identified, in practise they were heavily reliant upon each other. Communism was particularly associated with black anti-colonial uprisings of the kind feared by white South Africans. As in the Southern US, anti-apartheid activists were regularly accused of being communists. Many were, indeed, communist, and the South African Communist Party (SACP/CPSA) was closely involved in a number of anti-apartheid activities - Mandela himself was a member of their central committee. Nonetheless, fears of communism were largely expressed in lurid terms of Marxist takeovers and orders from Moscow. The aspersions cast upon leading civil rights movement characters were echoed, and much of the civil rights movement in the US was interpreted as the impact of communist agitation. Communism, however, was something of a secondary fear compared to the view of the US South as a vision of a South African future.
The more significant racial component was the focus of many of these fears. White South Africans explicitly drew connections to the US South, both in terms of demographics and policy. To them, the US South was an example of the failure of any kind of desegregation, and proof that small acts of segregation (e.g. schools, drinking fountains, beaches) were simply too little. The acts of protest and resistance were interpreted as the social disorder stemming from allowing blacks to live alongside whites. The Fanonian ur-fear of miscegenation also featured heavily in popular white imaginings of the US South, with images of sexually predatory black men and vulnerable white women used to bolster arguments for more complete systems of segregation.
These reactions, of course, only represent the white response to the civil rights movement, and their profound discomfort when faced with the spectre of majority rule. I'm sadly not too familiar with black responses to the civil rights movement. The 1960s were a comparatively quiescent time for the anti-apartheid movement, and by the 1970s the explicitly peaceful message of Martin Luther King Jnr. was being rejected (with some qualifications) by the Black Consciousness Movement. My reading is a little too light to speak with much authority, but certainly in my reading of their work they tend to draw upon African / Caribbean thought to a greater degree than US - the likes of Fanon, Senghor and Cesaire providing a more tangible connection to post-colonialism.
In short, for whites the US South and the civil rights movement represented a failure and a feared vision of what could happen in South Africa if apartheid was, at any point, relaxed. While black South Africans were certainly aware of the movement, it was - although I qualify my opinion - less of a cultural touchstone than the anti-colonial writings of Africa and the Caribbean.
| [
"In the late 1980’s South Africa was a bedrock for mass protest action met with violence from the apartheid police. By 1988 Aggrey Klaaste was the editor of The Sowetan (previously The World) which was the largest circulating black newspaper in the country at the time. The ANC accused The Sowetan of showing prefere... |
Is it possible to view the moon landing sites through a powerful enough telescope? | [This](_URL_0_) is about as much detail as we have so far....will we ever make a powerful enough telescope to see this? maybe..who knows.
The problem is that the objects are quite small, and the moon is a *long* way away. This heavily reduces the amount of photons being reflected by these objects, back to earth and into the telescope. | [
"Moon-landing conspiracists claim that observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope should be able to photograph the landing sites. This implies that the world's major observatories (as well as the Hubble Program) are complicit in the hoax by refusing to take photos of the landing sites. Photos of the Moon have bee... |
I just read up on the Russian Sleep Experiment and the Milgram Experiment. Can anybody give me a list of similar experiments i can research? | The Russian Sleep experiment isn't a real thing. It's a work of fiction. | [
"\"The Russian Sleep Experiment\" (also referred to as \"Orange Soda\") is the name of a short Internet horror story and urban legend – a creepypasta – written by an anonymous author. The anonymously penned short story has since inspired artists in other media and has resulted in the publication of films and a nove... |
why does water on the horizon look as if it is above ground level when it is flat? | You're not used to seeing such an uninterrupted expanse (to the horizon).
The water lays at eye level, essentially.
A flat desert would look the same. | [
"Under ideal conditions, an observer looking up at the water surface from underneath sees a perfectly circular image of the entire above-water hemisphere—from horizon to horizon. Due to refraction at the air/water boundary, Snell's window compresses a 180° angle of view above water to a 97° angle of view below wate... |
how does a computer program arrange transistors to run a program? in other words, if transistors are so small, how can a computer ever know how to create the circuit required to run a program? | A computer does not "arrange transistors". They aren't moved around to form circuits to run programs, they already are in the required configuration within the CPU. The CPU is manufactured that way with everything already in place as needed.
Computer programs simply interact with the CPU as it is designed to perform their tasks. It is a matter of writing the program in such a way as to interact with the CPU in a desired way, and for that the size of the transistors is irrelevant. | [
"A computer program is a list of instructions that can be executed by a central processing unit. A program's execution is done in order for the CPU that is executing it to solve a specific problem and thus accomplish a specific result. While simple processors are able to execute instructions one after another, supe... |
Why is it that the Gothic religion of Arianism died out as opposed to the more Roman-Orthodox sects of Christianity? | There's certainly more to be said, but you might [ find elements of answer ](_URL_1_) in t[hese posts](_URL_0_)
Basically, "Arianism" ( a pejorative name for Homoian creed, identifying it with actual Arianism) was a creation of the imperial court adopted by Goths at first to pay-lip service to the emperor (there's no indication Ulfila, their evangelizer, was himself Arian, Homoian or Nicean) and then to maintain a distinct Barbarian "political package" to stress the difference with Romans they were essentially similar to.
Eventually, due to the prestige of Goths after Adrianople and proselytism to other Barbarians (never to Romans, there was actually significant social and legal obstacles to that), this package was adopted by other Barbarians including peoples that had previously adopted a Nicean creed to display good will to the emperor, as Burgundians did.
Liturgical and theological differences between an Homoian and Nicean credo being quite limited, it served to distinguish who was a Barbarian (often a Roman adopting Barbarian social codes) and who was a Roman which was fine with Romans until the former began to rule over them, with the idea Barbarians would eventually "catch-up" especially as the heresies among Romans still existed and possibly "confusing" Barbarians.
The growing and necessary interaction between Barbarians and Roman elites favored a modus vivendi. Mostly, it took the form of Barbarians maintaining privileges and social standing of the Nicean clergy (especially as episcopal career became an important complement or alternative to a changing civil service) the same way the late Empire did.A "Niceanization" looked probable in the early VIth century : Clovis either already converted or was on the verge to, and Alaric II was preparing a "reconciliation" council between Homoians and Niceans, probably leading up to an effective religious switch of western Goths (likely a reason for Clovis to attack when he did, to prevent Alaric's rule in southern Gaul to be thus cemented).
The defeat of Visigoths before Franks (which led to an important political crisis that crippled the stability of Gothic kingship until its end) and the collapse of Vandals and Ostrogoths enshrined both the political triumph of Nicean creed in the west and the disappearance of Homorian creed which relied on a distinct Barbarian elite to exist, at the exception of Gothic Spain. Finally, the "christiaization" of the state (instead of being a "state of Christians" so to say) and the requirement of political and religious unity favored a powerful Nicean clergy, not without internal conflict, especially as the search for a stable Gothic dynasty (which eventually failed) could have found in it a powerful ally. | [
"The Gothic War also affected the religion of the Empire. Valens had been an Arian Christian and his death at Adrianople helped pave the way for Theodosius to make Nicene Christianity the dominant form of Christianity for the Roman people. The Goths, like many barbarian peoples, converted to Arianism.\n",
"Gothic... |
What are reliable sources of information on the Scandinavian invasion of the Anglo-Saxon England and their presence there from 793 till 1066? | Your go-to primary sources are *The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle* and Asser's *Vita Ælfredi*. Exercise standard cautions. It's also worth looking through William of Malmesbury.
Your standard work is Stenton's perennial *Anglo-Saxon England*. There's a whole library of literature on the reigns of Alfred and his descendants, but I'd briefly recommend Ryan Lavelle's *The Danes in Wessex* and *Alfred's Wars*, Hill *et al*'s *The Burghal Hidage*, Baker and Brookes' *Beyond the Burghal Hidage*, and Baker, Brookes and Reynolds' *Landscapes of Defence*. | [
"After 800, records of Viking raids (as in the example above) also make up a large number of entries. Other entries include observations of astronomical events, such as a solar eclipse that took place on June 29, 512. Some events outside Ireland also appear in the Chronicle; during some parts of the eighth and nint... |
how does so much oil exist on earth? | The oil was formed over literally millions of years.
And we *are* using it up. At current consumption rates it could be gone in well under 200 years. | [
"Due to its high energy density, easy transportability and relative abundance, oil has become the world's most important source of energy since the mid-1950s. Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics; the 16 percent not... |
Does antimatter reflect photons? | The electromagnetic force (which is mediated by photons) does not distinguish between matter and antimatter. In other words, the electromagnetic force has [charge conjugation symmetry](_URL_0_). | [
"Seen another way, the photon can be considered as its own antiparticle (thus an \"antiphoton\" is simply a normal photon). The reverse process, pair production, is the dominant mechanism by which high-energy photons such as gamma rays lose energy while passing through matter. That process is the reverse of \"annih... |
Are there examples of cultures and acculturation in nature outside of the homo genus? | Cultures have been described in many primate species and aspects of cultures in other [animals as well](_URL_1_). For instance, in chimps and other primates certain groups use certain types of tools in very specific ways. One individual comes up with this novel use and then passes this use onto other individuals in its group. Usually only very young individuals can acquire new skills, once primates reach a certain age (about the time that infancy is over) they can no longer acquire skills. If an individual from one group disperses to a new group where that skill is not known, then it is possible that young individuals in the new group will pick up and learn the new skill as well. For instance, some groups make and fashion spears from sticks and use them to hunt bushbabies. If an individual from this group were to travel to a new group it is entirely possible that the new group would acquire this skill.
Other cultural traditions do not relate to foraging at all. In some [chimp societies](_URL_3_), while [grooming they will raise their hands above their heads](_URL_0_) - a gesture that probably has some social significance, but not necessarily a survival one. [This book](_URL_5_) talks about chimp culture in more detail.
In humans, our ability to build complex cultures is the result of our ability to accumulate knowledge. The general consensus is that while other animals have culture (learning, customs, traditions etc.) that are past down from one generation to the next there isn't always an accumulation of traditions or knowledge or at least its very hard for these traditions to accumulate. In some primates accumulation of traditions or culture has been shown but its still unclear why it is not to the same extent as we see in ourselves.
Whereas in humans it appears we have the ability to do this on much larger scales - we are able to individually and collectively store more knowledge. Scientist sometimes refer to this as '[cumulative culture](_URL_4_)' [This may offer you some more explanation](_URL_7_) although the source is not great - it gets to the point. Anatomically modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years, but around ~60,000 years ago we appeared to have gone through a 'cultural revolution' - art, artifacts, tools become more elaborate, intricate and symbolized. "By the beginning of the [Upper Paleolithic ](_URL_6_)period (50,000 BP), full behavioral modernity, including language, music and other cultural universals had developed." Its not entirely clear what caused this, in any case it looks like if you picked a random human from that time they should be able to do anything we do now - they would be able to understand math, biology, physics, economics, learn languages etc. if they were taught (just as we are taught).
I have to counter argue that we really have only begun to scratch the surface of what animals are capable of, and our methods of testing and assessing their intelligence, cultural capabilities and other soci-cognitive skills are really improving. In the end we are finding out that animals can do plenty of things we can so far we just appear better at some things - like cumulative culture.
[More Sources](_URL_2_) | [
"A further key critique of cultural evolutionism is what is known as \"armchair anthropology\". The name results from the fact that many of the anthropologists advancing theories had not seen first hand the cultures they were studying. The research and data collected was carried out by explorers and missionaries as... |
time (before you downvote, please look) | No. Time passed before humans / earth existed. Matter collecting into planets takes *time*. | [
"\"Back in Time\" presents the most relevant events in history using a 24-hour clock as a time analogy. This analogy scales the entire age of the universe (13.7 billion years) into a single day (24 hours) so that the beginning of the universe (Big Bang) started at 0:00h and at present time the imaginary clock reads... |
What was pre-Christian Slavic society like? | The facts are is that we know very little about pre-Christianity Slavs. What little we do know is from Christian sources and, sadly, they're very biased against the Slavs. However, it's highly unlikely that they were as barbaric as they were depicted. As for the common people, very little would have changed for them, even over a two-hundred year period. In fact, many peasants would have been pagan for generations after the "christianisation" of the Slavs, since Christianity was enforced from the top down. | [
"The organization of early Slavic society seems largely to have been based in small towns run by a group of people rather than a single leader, and had a strong emphasis on one's family unit. The area proposed as the homeland of Slavic peoples is roughly around modern-day Eastern European countries. East Slavs emer... |
how can it take more than 5 minutes for an airline to know exactly who was on a plane that went down? | Another point I haven't seen is that families are contacted first and unfortunate verification that the person in particular was on this flight would probably get verified in this manner. It's a time consuming process. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Nothing else comes close to those first few seconds after leaving the plane, because once you take that last step there is no going back. A racing driver or a skier or climber can pull over and stop, have a rest, but with parachuting, once you cross that threshold, you have to see it through.\"\n",
... |
In the winter, if your door is open, do you let the heat out or the cold in? | Both, as hot air flows out and cold air flows in. | [
"The thick stone walls and dome of the trullo that cool pleasantly during the summer, tend to become unpleasantly cold during the winter months, condensing the moisture given off by cooking and breathing, making it difficult to feel warm even in front of the fire. The inhabitants simply leave the doors open during ... |
why does sand stick to everything even though it doesn't feel sticky? | Sand sticks to things in many ways just like flour does. Flour particles aren't sticky at all (while dry), but small enough to be caught in tangles of fabric fibers, attracted by even the slightest charges, or "grabbed" by microscopic droplets of water or oil (and the human body is literally covered with oil-drop and water-drop emitting organelles: sweat glands and sebaceous glands). Flour is many times smaller, so more sticks of course, but at the size level of a grain of sand a human body is covered in a rough shag of fibers, and sticky oil and water films.
None of these hold on very tightly, but tight enough to resist gravity and most movement, so the sand doesn't just fall off when you stand up. Brushing the area is more forceful, and tends to knock off every grain of sand hit - but again, sand is so small it can "hide" in the fabric or get missed by a rough hand brushing. | [
"Sand grains will always stick together unless the sand is reasonably fine. While dry sand is loose, wet sand is adherent if the proper amounts of sand and water are used in the mixture. The reason for this is that water forms little \"bridges\" between the grains of sand when it is damp due to the forces of surfac... |
How do USB power adapters convert power from outlets to that usable for our phones? | A power adapter is more than a transformer and rectifier. It first rectifies the AC into 170 or 340VDC (depending on whether you have 120 or 240 VAC service). Then a transistor switches the DC at around 100kHz and that is applied to a transformer. The transformer converts the switched DC (which is effectively AC now) into lower voltage and a rectifier converts it to DC. A capacitor smooths the DC.
The high frequency increases efficiency and makes the transformer smaller. It is called a switched mode power supply. | [
"Since the Universal Serial Bus specification provides for a five-volt power supply (with limited maximum power), it is possible to use a USB cable to connect a device to a power supply. Products based on this approach include chargers for cellular phones, portable digital audio players, and tablet computers. They ... |
what makes a dry martini "dry?" | There are two kinds of vermouth, sweet and dry. Sweet is red, dry is clear. A martini is made with gin or vodka and dry vermouth. When you ask for a dry martini, you're saying you want a minimal amount of vermouth. You're not specifying dry vermouth, since a martini is always made with dry vermouth. A very dry martini is almost straight gin or vodka.
The two usages of "dry" are different and unrelated. One is dry as apposed to sweet, the other is dry as opposed to wet.
Interestingly, the original martini was 2:1 gin and vermouth. The ratio has changed dramatically over the last century to include less and less vermouth. And yet there is no clear definition of a dry martini, a very dry martini and an extra dry martini. In fact, most bartenders I've watched make a martini in the last 20 years put a splash of vermouth in the glass, swirl it around and dump it out.
Michael Ruhlman makes the best martini I've ever had. The recipe is online.
| [
"In a dry martini, \"dry\" refers to the amount of vermouth used in the drink. A \"perfect\" martini – or any other cocktail that uses vermouth, such as a Perfect Manhattan – is a martini made with equal parts dry and sweet vermouth.\n",
"BULLET::::- A \"dry martini\" uses less dry vermouth than normal, perhaps a... |
how is energy from renewable sources, like wind or solar, stored? | That’s actually a big issue holding us back from 100% renewables that they are still working feverishly on.
Right now, though, we can avoid the storage problems by having back-up energy capacity installed. Basically: if the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, we just burn more fossil fuels to compensate for the shortage. | [
"Renewable energy is generally defined as energy that comes from resources that are not significantly depleted by their use, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat. Renewable energy is gradually replacing conventional fuels in four distinct areas: electricity generation, hot water/space heat... |
quantum superposition | In a normal situation, things that you measure have that value before you try to measure them. You are in your parking lot before you look it up on GPS. You are moving 55 MPH before the cop radar blasts you. If you try to measure the speed or location of an electron, it actually doesn't have one until you take the measurement. Before you measure it, the electron is in a "superposition" of all the possible locations or speeds. Some locations or speeds have a higher likelihood of being measured. When you take the measurement, the superposition "collapses" and one value becomes the state of the electron. | [
"Quantum superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. It states that, much like waves in classical physics, any two (or more) quantum states can be added together (\"superposed\") and the result will be another valid quantum state; and conversely, that every quantum state can be represented as a s... |
From what I understand, epic poems (Homer etc) were recited aloud from memory. Were there specific techniques the ancients used to memorise long passages? | Memory is pliable. Training in mnemonic techniques can be used to improve memory. The military academies require multiple things to be memorized at all times to enhance memory improvement.
Epic poems weren't recited word-for-word every time, at least not in our sense of the word. A poet would have a bag of tricks - epithets, phrases, and stock paragraphs - that he could use to stick with the meter and keep the story going. The technique has often been compared to jazz. A jazz trombonist can draw from a number of riffs and tricks to play along with a tune. Even if he's played it fifty times, it might come out differently every time, but it's the same song. Same with any blues standard. Different every time, but the same every time. You eventually get to where you got to be.
Milman Parry (and Albert Lord) studied the bards and oral tradition in Yugoslavia, which he then compared to Homeric recitation. When he'd ask a bard to repeat exactly the performance from the night before, they'd riff as always. When Parry noted the differences, they'd insist it was the same tale. Because it's the meter and the main elements of the tale that matter. The exact words don't. The concept of an absolute fixed rendition would be bizarre to a bard.
The Parry and Lord stuff makes for some interesting reading. | [
"Research by Milman Parry and Albert Lord indicates that the verse of the Greek poet Homer has been passed down (at least in the Serbo-Croatian epic tradition) not by rote memorization but by \"Oral-formulaic composition\". In this process extempore composition is aided by use of stock phrases or \"formulas\" (expr... |
Russian Historians, any idea as to the context of this picture? | > Its a photograph entitled "Viktor Bulla's Pioneers in Defense Drill, Leningrad (1937)"
> It appears on page 79 of a book of photographs called "Propaganda and Dreams" by Leah Bendavid-Val.
Found [here](_URL_0_). | [
"In the words of the 2004 Encyclopædia Britannica, his \"History\" \"wove a vast body of data into a unified and orderly whole that provided an exceptionally powerful and vivid picture of Russia's political development over the centuries. The work inaugurated a new era in Russian scholarship with its depiction of R... |
Does one strand of DNA contain more genetic information than the other? | Both strands of DNA carry the same exact genetic information, just "mirrored" through base pairing. The genes are "stored" on both strands of DNA, that is how cells are able to copy each other via binary fission and not lose any genetic information. When it comes to the *reading frame* of a particular gene, this involves the strand that the RNA Polymerase will actually *read* from, I can't give a solid answer. I believe that organisms will usually have them on both strands and in humans it's not 50/50. | [
"Both strands of double-stranded DNA store the same biological information. This information is replicated as and when the two strands separate. A large part of DNA (more than 98% for humans) is non-coding, meaning that these sections do not serve as patterns for protein sequences. The two strands of DNA run in opp... |
Is there an opposite to clinical depression, a sort of "chronic happiness" or something like that? | To be classified as disorder, the condition must have negative effects to the person, his ability to to function, or to his environment. Mania is in some sense opposite of depression, but it comes in cycles in almost all cases, even if not every bipolar person has clear depression between manic episodes.
I think [hypomania](_URL_0_) in some cases might be what you are looking for. | [
"A recent study analyzes time-dependent rhythms in happiness comparing life satisfaction by weekdays (weekend neurosis), days of the month (negative effects towards the end of the month) and year with gender and education and outlining the differences observed. Primarily within the winter months of the year, an ons... |
Why do temperatures seem more extreme when we first wake up? | Possibly because temperatures *are* more extreme early in the morning?
The side of the earth which faces away from the sun cools as much of the day's heat is radiated away into space. This is particularly true on cloudless nights.
From a more science-y standpoint, your metabolic activity decreases while sleeping, which is why many prefer to sleep with blankets. That same metabolic activity keeps us warmer during the day, especially while we're active and moving around.
Ever get cold after you eat? That's because your body redirects much of it's hear energy to the stomach to help break down the food you've just eaten.
I imagine that your body becomes more sensitive to temperature changes after having slept under blankets all night, at a relatively constant temperature. | [
"Sleep disturbances also affect temperatures. Normally, body temperature drops significantly at a person's normal bedtime and throughout the night. Short-term sleep deprivation produces a higher temperature at night than normal, but long-term sleep deprivation appears to reduce temperatures. Insomnia and poor sleep... |
im british and ive always heard jeff sessions's name bought up negativly...why are people protesting/ angry that he has been fired? | He recused himself from the investigation into Russians tampering with the 2016 election favoring Donald Trump. Meaning the investigation into Trump’s possible collusion with Russia and obstruction of Justice was being done by Sessions’ deputy, Rod Rosenstein.
By Firing Jeff Sessions, Trump can more easily stop the body that is investigating his possible criminal wrongdoing. | [
"On September 15, 2017, Travis appeared as a guest on CNN, with anchor Brooke Baldwin, to discuss free speech, specifically whether ESPN personality, Jemele Hill, should be fired for calling Donald Trump a “white supremacist” and stating that police officers were “modern day slave catchers” on her personal Twitter ... |
why don't our lungs clog from all the tiny things we inhale? | In addition to the lung clearance provided by the ciliae there are tiny cells in the alveoli wall (the tiny bubbles the lung tissue is made out of) called macrophages whose task it is to basically "eat" rubbish and get rid of any foreign bodies. | [
"The lungs of mammals are spongy and honeycombed. Breathing is mainly achieved with the diaphragm, which divides the thorax from the abdominal cavity, forming a dome convex to the thorax. Contraction of the diaphragm flattens the dome, increasing the volume of the lung cavity. Air enters through the oral and nasal ... |
Why are humans still susceptible to superstitions? | There are a few reasons:
1) From an evolutionary perspective, there is a far greater risk in a false positive than a false negative. Think of the case of hearing a rustle in the bushes. You have to choose quickly whether it's a predator or not. If you think predator and you're wrong, you may feel foolish or waste some energy but you're alive. If you think *not* predator, you're lunch and don't pass on your genes.
2) Some theories posit that it's an over-generalisation of a biological urge to trust authority. You've probably heard of the Milgram experiments (authority figure instructed participants to give incredibly painful electric shocks to a 3rd party) which showed how willing we are to act out of character if told to do so by an authority. Most superstitions are also presented by authority figures (religion generally runs in families, people who proport to be more educated present 'facts' about alternative medicine etc.)
3) We are poor estimators of causality. You've probably heard the phrase that correlation doesn't equal causation. This is of fundamental importance to understanding the world objectively but consider how recent the scientific method is. Humans have to make rules about the universe and correlation is often a good short-hand rule.
4) Humans are poor at changing their opinion or beliefs. Two concepts are important here; cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological discomfort with conflicting answers. We're programmed to try and eliminate this dissonance because we want the world to be explicable. The way we do this is primarily by confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is a bias wherein we over-estimate the importance and truth of information that supports our current belief and derogates the importance and truth of dissonant information. There have been some amazing studies on this - Most notably, a seminal study that showed participants who were given *less* money to participate in an incredibly boring task actually enjoyed it more as they had no way to rationalise their involvement.
5) Mortality Salience and Terror Management Theory - This is somewhat more controversial but I think there's some merit in the data coming out. Terror Management Theory is the idea that our awareness of our own mortality (mortality salience) provides psychological discomfort. To combat this, we try to act in ways that give us life after our death, such as having a family, creating a legacy, giving charity, believing in life after death or being a part of something bigger than us (such as science or a shared belief).
It's important to note that all of these factors affect skeptics, atheists and scientists alike. There are methods of inquiry that limit our propensity for error but don't make the mistake of thinking that you're not as likely to make fundamentally flawed attributions and conclusions.
**I'll add to this list later but I'm at work at the moment and it's the best I can come up with off the top of my head.** | [
"In modern society, relying on superstitions has declined as there is more of an emphasis on rationality. As a result, many people are critical of acting on superstitious beliefs. Blindly turning to superstition, however, can still comfort the mind.\n",
"Psychologist Stuart Vyse has pointed out that until about 2... |
Why isn't spiciness a basic taste? | Spiciness, as in what you "taste" in peppers, is not a taste. It's actually a reaction between [capsaicin](_URL_1_) and the [trigeminal nerve](_URL_0_). Similarly, it's why you wouldn't call "minty" a basic flavor -- similar reaction, same nerve.
What capsaicin does to the trigeminal nerve is that it tricks the pain receptors into responding. Responding in such a way that your nerves believe they have warmed up, as in being burned.
**EDIT** for a bit of further clarification, "spiciness" would qualify as a _sensation_, not a taste. Though, it does impact subjective perceptions of ~~taste~~ [flavor](_URL_2_). | [
"It has the unusual property that it either tastes very bitter or is virtually tasteless, depending on the genetic makeup of the taster. The ability to taste PTC is often treated as a dominant genetic trait, although inheritance and expression of this trait are somewhat more complex.\n",
"For most people, phenylt... |
If I donate blood while under the influence of some substance, will the receiver of said blood experience the effects of that substance? | They test blood for things such as this, they don't just take the blood right from you and give it to others without checking it first.
Now if you're asking whether they would hypothetically experience it, that would depend on how much blood of yours they received. Remember that your blood alcohol is a measure of the level of alcohol in *all* your blood (roughly). General dilution math applies to this scenario. The adult human body has roughly 5 litres (10 pints) of blood, although it differs with weight somewhat. If the hypothetical person were to receive, say, 100mL of blood, then the amount of alcohol in your blood would be diluted 1/50, and unless your blood was pure alcohol, I doubt they would feel anything. Blood alcohol is in grams/decilitre, and 0.08 g/dL diluted even just by a factor of 4 would still make it unlikely they would feel anything.
This all being said, I'm skeptical as to whether it would work this way, but since the blood is outside the body, the liver cannot cleanse the blood with alcohol dehydrogenase, and I'm not sure how long the alcohol would stay in that blood. | [
"Donors sometimes have adverse reactions to the sodium citrate used in apheresis collection procedures to keep the blood from clotting. Since the anticoagulant is returned to the donor along with blood components that are not being collected, it can bind the calcium in the donor's blood and cause hypocalcemia. Thes... |
why does putting sugar on some things make it taste sour? | I'm pretty sure the coating is a mixture of sugar and citric acid. Citric acid is the main chemical that makes citrus fruits taste sour. | [
"Generally regarded as the most pleasant taste, sweetness is almost always caused by a type of simple sugar such as glucose or fructose, or disaccharides such as sucrose, a molecule combining glucose and fructose. Complex carbohydrates are long chains and thus do not have the sweet taste. Artificial sweeteners such... |
Could a cannibal contract AIDS from eating an AIDS infected person? | It's possible. The acids of the stomach would probably destroy the HIV virus, but if the cannibal has any sort of small cut or opening anywhere in their mouth or digestive tract and infected blood comes into contact with this abrasion, they can contract the virus that way. HIV is prevalent among gay men because during anal sex the lining of the rectum rips very readily, even unnoticeably, and the virus is able to enter these tiny rips or cuts. Oral sex with an HIV positive male can still cause somebody to contract the virus, but again it's only if the giver of said oral sex has some sort of abrasion or open sore in/around their mouth. | [
"Baboons and pigs carry myriad transmittable agents that are harmless in their natural host, but extremely toxic and deadly in humans. HIV is an example of a disease believed to have jumped from monkeys to humans. Researchers also do not know if an outbreak of infectious diseases could occur and if they could conta... |
the difference between coke zero and diet coke, surely you only need the one product? | It's actually a really interesting story! In my opinion, anyway, though it might be more interesting or relevant to people who remember the failed experiment with "New Coke" in the mid 80s.
In the early 80s, diet sodas pretty much sucked. They tried to replicate the formula of the non-diet version just without sugar, but I guess food science was in its infancy at the time and the result usually wasn't so great. Diet Pepsi was arguably the leader, and the Coke executives went back to the drawing board. They decided not to try and replicate the Coke formula, but to make a new diet cola from scratch that would taste best, taking into account the drawbacks of artificial sweetners. They came up with a slightly sweeter cola than Coke that tested well and sold it as Diet Coke. It went over like mad and was soon the runaway leader for diet colas.
Here's the interesting part. It did so well that Coke executives said, well I bet people will like it in a non-diet formula as well. They were a bit desperate at the time as Pepsi, a sweeter cola than Coke, had recently been making huge gains in market share. So, they came up with an advertising campaign for this relaunch of their flagship brand and called it: New Coke. That's right, New Coke = non-diet Diet Coke.
Yeah, that didn't work out so well. Anyway, fast forward 2 decades and food science has advanced enough that they can make a diet cola that tastes a lot like Coke: Coke Zero.
So Coke Zero is based on the Coca-Cola formula, while Diet Coke is an original formula made specifically for the Diet Coke brand.
e: As to why they continue to carry both instead of just switching over to Coke Zero (or sticking with Diet Coke), they learned the lesson once about discontinuing a popular product and so weren't about to cancel the standard Diet Coke. They likely thought there was a market for a more "Coca Cola" flavored diet cola that would not steal market share away from either Coke or Diet Coke and so launched it. FWIW, it's my cola of choice on the rare occasions I drink soda.
e2: Thank you for gold, mysterious benefactor! | [
"Coke Zero was originally specifically marketed to men, who are shown to associate \"diet\" drinks with women. It was primarily marketed towards young adult males and it has been nicknamed \"Bloke Coke\" in the UK. In the U.S., advertising has been tailored to its targeted market by describing the drink as \"calori... |
how does gorilla glass work? | It is done using using the ion exchange process:
"Ion exchange is a chemical strengthening process where large ions are “stuffed” into the glass surface, creating a state of compression. Gorilla Glass is specially designed to maximize this behavior. The glass is placed in a hot bath of molten salt at a temperature of approximately 400 degrees C. Smaller sodium ions leave the glass, and larger potassium ions from the salt bath replace them. These large ions take up more room and are pressed together when the glass cools, producing a layer of compressive stress on the surface of the glass. Gorilla Glass’ composition enables the potassium ions to diffuse far into the surface, creating high compressive stress deep into the glass. This layer of compression creates the surface that is more resistant to damage."
| [
"Gorilla Glass is a brand of chemically strengthened glass developed and manufactured by Corning, now in its sixth generation, designed to be thin, light and damage-resistant. Gorilla Glass is unique to Corning, but close equivalents exist, including AGC Inc. Dragontrail and Schott AG Xensation.\n",
"Gorilla Glas... |
Why did Egypt's Old Kingdom fall? | I couldn't find another thread that explains this, which surprised me, but here is another discussion of the Old Kingdom by u/mp96 which gives some background such that I can skip over some basics: _URL_0_
To begin with, know that the ending/changing of 'Kingdoms' isn't anything noted by contemporaries, but is a modern (Antiquarian) way of organizing the staggering history of pharaonic Egypt. Even then, the Dynasties which have made up the Old Kingdom [OK] and the successive First Intermediate Period [FIP] have changed (The 7th and 8th Dynasties have rejoined the Old Kingdom after previously making up the beginning of the intermediate period).
But as for the Old Kingdom, it's good to think about it as being the first time power along the Nile is consolidated into a small group of people (a Pharaoh and his immediate courtiers). The Old Kingdom 'ends' when political power in that region begins to swing in the other direction: more diffused, local power held by regional nobles. This is marked by increasing social mobility (in other words a middle class that begins to do very well for themselves), a period of successful and productive marriages between nobles, uninterrupted passing on of that power to coming generations, and eventually, the intermarrying of Pharaonic princess to those same provincial nobles as they reached equal footing in terms of political power.
As far as the archaeology of this transition, you can look at the changing trends in noble's tombs. Where at the beginning of the Old Kingdom, wealthy folks wanted to be buried in proximity to Pharaohs (for an eternity of ass-kissing presumably), by the end of the Old Kingdom nobles were being buried wherever they please and decorated their tombs with iconography typically reserved for royalty.
Another faction which dramatically increased its political power during this time were priests, who (I kid you not) lobbied for and extensively benefited from tax exemptions. Their accumulated wealth and increasing independence from royals took a good chunk of power from an already suffering centralized power.
A third and final factorthat is worth noting is (likely) a change in climate around this time. Poor flood seasons would have caused a food shortage, which at the same time would have drawn periphery populations closer into the Nile, putting further strains on resources. Think of the environment around a gas station when an oil shortage is announced and everyone converges on the remaining resources. And the station management is locked in the bathroom by the attendants. That gas station is Egypt around 2160 BCE.
And it's worth noting along with that last fact that, religiously, it is one of the Pharaoh's chief responsibilities to maintain the physical 'health' of the land of Egypt. Good kings caused good flood years, that sort of thing.
A weakened system of central power, faced with two competing sources of power (the middle class and the priesthood), and symbolically undercut by a failure to fulfill their primary role, lead to the wishy-washy Egypt of the First Intermediate Period.
Egypt was by no means 'weaker' during the Intermediate period, art, architecture, and trade all flourished under local leaders, but it's less 'fun' than a nice, orderly Egypt with a single Pharaoh at the head of everything.
Eventually, we enter the Middle Kingdom about 100 years later when Egypt is reunified under a strong central monarchy. Driving home the point of change between the OK and the FIP.
Hope that helps!
All information comes from Ikram 2010
(Edited twice for format and to credit user u/mp96) | [
"The fall of the Old Kingdom is often described as a period of chaos and disorder by some literature in the First Intermediate Period, but mostly by literature written in successive eras of ancient Egyptian history. The causes that brought about the downfall of the Old Kingdom are numerous, but some are merely hypo... |
stock grants | If you choose to sell your stock, you will sell it at whatever price you get, and be taxed on that.
For stocks in the US you will be taxed at the capital gains tax rate. You are not taxed until you sell, because until you sell your stock, the value is $0. Stock prices can change every millisecond. It could be $50 one second, and $0 the next second. So you are ONLY taxed when you actually make money on the sale. Until then, nothing happens.
When you sell, you will be taxed on the total amount you get from the sale. Depending on your other income you will be taxed different rates. This can be 0%-20% depending on how much other income you have.
However for you, lets get real, we are not talking about much money...
At say $43 x 116 shares = ~$5000.
Yeah just $5k, total, if you sold today. It's just $5000, thats not gonna make or break you. How much taxes are you paying on that? Well it depends on your other income. From your post I have to assume you don't have much money, so its most likely you will pay either 0% or 15% depending on how much money you make.
Either way, even at 15%, thats what like $750 in taxes, thats low.
| [
"Common stock grants are similar in function but the mechanism is different. An employee, typically a company founder, purchases stock in the company at nominal price shortly after the company is formed. The company retains a repurchase right to buy the stock back at the same price should the employee leave. The re... |
What happens to the probes that land on Venus? | Only the very first probes would have been crushed. In 1967, the Soviet probe *Venera 4* measured the atmospheric pressure. The next two Russian probes, *Venera 5* and *6*, would have imploded or collapsed, possibly a bit like [this](_URL_2_). In 1970, *Venera 7* landed without being crushed.
NASA's Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, which launched in 1978, deployed several probes that survived the atmosphere and transmitted data from the surface.
Russian space programs continued dropping landers and weather balloons through the mid 80s.
The real problem is what /u/i_invented_the_ipod mentions, the extreme temperature. Even after lander design evolved to withstand the heat and pressure (structurally), keeping the instrument cool long enough to record data and transmit it was and is a massive challenge.
The surface is much hotter than a standard oven, with a mean temperature of 462 °C (863 °F). Basically anything going to Venus is designed with as much insulation as possible. NASA's probes were just spherical pressure vessels encased in an aeroshell, with no cooling. The Venera probes, however, used active cooling with a circulating fluid to stay cool as long as possible. The Venera 9 - 12 landers all looked like [this](_URL_1_). Their later Venera probes and Vega probes were a similar, updated design.
Future mission proposals call for even more advanced cooling systems, like a Stirling cooler powered by a nuclear power source. If that system is proven to be effective and reliable, then a probe could withstand the surface for very long periods of time.
There are other considerations as well, like the sulfuric acid, so special coatings are required.
Most of the above and lots more can be found at [this Wikipedia page](_URL_0_).
**TL;DR: Early probes were crushed from pressure, but later ones died because the electronics eventually burn up, so it's really the temperature that is the biggest challenge.** | [
"After a successful S-IVB burn, the spacecraft would pass approximately 3000 miles from the surface of Venus about four months later. The flyby velocity would be so high that the crew would only have a few hours for detailed study of the planet. At this point, one or more robotic probe landers would separate from t... |
if people are born in palestinian territories what citizenship do they have? | _URL_0_
People born to Palestinian parents get a Palestinian ID card with the approval of the Israeli government. They are Palestinian citizens, even if it technically means they are stateless (since Palestine is not an independent state).
P.S. Only some countries practice "jus soli" ("right of the soil") - i.e. they give citizenship based on where you were born. Most countries, Israel included, practice "jus sanguinis" ("right of blood") - they give citizenship based on the citizenship, ethnicity or nationality of your parents or ancestors. | [
"The Jewish Agency promised to the UN before 1948 that Palestinian Arabs would become full citizens of the State of Israel, and the Israeli declaration of independence invited the Arab inhabitants of Israel to \"full and equal citizenship\". In practice, Israel does not grant citizenship to the refugees, as it does... |
does juice expire and how? is it more about the taste goong bad or is it unhealthy to drink juice that has expired a few months ago? | Juice can mold because of the sugar content. This would likely only occur if it was previously opened so the mold spores could enter, but nonetheless I would proceed with caution. | [
"After the juice is filtered, it may be concentrated in evaporators, which reduce the size of juice by a factor of 5, making it easier to transport and increasing its expiration date. Juices are concentrated by heating under a vacuum to remove water, and then cooling to around 13 degrees Celsius. About two thirds o... |
History of Abraham in Arabia | Hello,
As of this time, we have no archaeological or extrabiblical evidence that mentions Abraham, Ishmael, or Isaac. We haven't found any texts from Mesopotamia or Egypt that mention him, we haven't found his tomb, and writing was not prevalent or used much in the land between Mesopotamia and Egypt until about 800ish years after Abraham's suggested lifetime.
In general, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to find evidence of a particular person in antiquity, especially in areas where there was no writing. This means, in the case of the Hebrew scriptures, until the time of King David during the 10th century BC.
As far as I am aware, the Quran was written after 600 AD, well after the time period in question. We have other ancestral stories regarding Abraham, from his other descendants, that were recorded over a thousand years prior to the Quran, which is the Hebrew Bible, so I suppose you could read that for some older perspectives on what Abraham is supposed to have done, but we have nothing from contemporary times. | [
"In addition to the Islamic tradition that Hagar and Ishmael settled in Bakkah, the Quran relates that Abraham came to Mecca to help his son Ishmael build the Kaaba adjacent to the well of Zamzam. However, in the Bible and ancient Jewish, Christian, and pre-Islamic tradition, Abraham is never mentioned as traveling... |
Does the Oberth Effect actually increase the delta v of the burn or does it just mean an equal delta v performed at high velocity has a larger affect on the orbit? | It actually increases the delta v of the rocket. To an observer on the rocket, the fuel is always leaving the rocket at the same speed. This means that to an observer who is stationary with respect to the frame the rocket is flying in, that the faster the rocket is moving the slower the expelled exhaust is. Thus, the less energy the fuel has, the more energy that must go into the rocket. | [
"Another effect is the Oberth effect—this can be used to greatly decrease the delta-v needed, because using propellant at low potential energy/high speed multiplies the effect of a burn. Thus for example the delta-v for a Hohmann transfer from Earth's orbital radius to Mars's orbital radius (to overcome the sun's g... |
why is the price of gas so much more fluid than any other good we purchase? | It changes often because the profit on gasoline is so thin and there is no way to spread that out. Most of the stations are franchised or lease the right to the brand name. That means that the station owner will lose money if the cost of the new shipment goes up by say five cent. Couple that with four stations on opposing street corners, and knowing that most people will go to whatever station is convenient, and the price can change twice in one day.
Let's make this an example involving actual five year olds. I have a lemonade stand on the Southeast corner of Elm and Maple. I also sell high profit items at my lemonade stand like porn and crack. I know that if I can get people to buy my lemonade they may buy crack from me. I only make one cent per glass of lemonade, but I make $1 for every porn mag I sell. I make $40 per gram of crack.
Let's say Shelly sells beer and pot on the Southwest corner. Shelly makes her money on the beer and pot. She makes 2 cent per glass.
Charles is on the Northwest selling lemonade also. He makes his money with lottery tickets and condoms. Charles is making a penny a glass of lemonade.
Doris sells lemonade, pencils, and Ecstasy. Doris makes about a penny and a half selling her lemonade on the Northeast corner.
We each pay our lemonade supplies what they ask for the cost of the lemonade. They are all made from Florida lemons. They are all lemons, water, and sugar. The cost of lemons is flat. The cost of labor is the same for everyone, only subtle market changes in the cost of lemons changes.
We each want someone to come to our lemonade stand for the extras we sell, but we each know that most of our customers will only stop for a glass and move on. So we keep the prices about the same and only change when our supplier changes his price. Best of all would be if I could get more people to buy crack from me when they want lemonade, but I know that if I set my lemonade price too high they will smoke pot or buy lottery tickets. | [
"Crude oil is the greatest contributing factor when it comes to the price of gasoline. This includes the resources it takes for exploration, to remove it from the ground, and transport it. Between 2004 and 2008, there was an increase in fuel costs due in large part to a worldwide increase in demand for crude oil. P... |
how did mit become internationally renowned compared to other state technical colleges and universities? | MIT isn't a state school, it is private. So like Harvard they can be selective which allows them to cultivate a reputation for excellence. | [
"MIT was informally called \"Boston Tech\". The institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker. Program... |
Would an instrument sound different in gravity that is different than Earth's gravity? | Yes it would, the way we percieve sounds differs from one matter to the other. (Things sound different underwater then they do through the atmosphere). It also depends on the density of the matter. Under a significantly different gravitationnal force, the density of air would be different therefore soundwaves would travel at a different velocity, which would make it sound different to your ear. You can search speed of sound on Wikipedia and have more details about it, or take an engineering program that has fluid dynamics in its cursus! | [
"Many musical instruments are capable of very fine distinctions of pitch, such as the human voice, the trombone, unfretted strings such as the violin, and lutes with tied frets. These instruments are well-suited to the use of meantone tunings.\n",
"Many pitched acoustic instruments are designed to have partials t... |
how does a fertilized egg develop into the different parts of a fetus so specifically? | One could literally describe details on this for pages and hours, and if you want to get into the weeds, people work on researching this information as a career. I'm pretty sure they're still not entirely sure on the details. But because of where we are (and because embryology is one of my weak points) I can give a massively abridged version. Just ask for further explanation if you're curious.
The embyro isn't symmetric. It has/develops regions where certain proteins are higher concentrations than others or genes are more or less expressed. This basically acts like a complex coordinate grid, allowing the combination of genes/proteins/growth factors/signalling molecules to direct development at specific points.
So, for example, lets say that a certain point on the embryo has a lot of protein 1 (P1, this isn't an actual protein, just an example). At that point, P1 levels are high, and as you go farther from it within the embryo, P1 levels drop. In addition, P2 levels are high, P3 is low, and p4 is at a moderate low. There's only one place that would have this combination of proteins (we'll call it R1). P1-4 acts on genes in R1, telling it to turn into R1*. R1* might be, say, part of the neural tube and can use a similar scheme to develop further.
Again, really ELI5, and I'm not the best at embryology (someone smarter might come in and explain it better), but this seems to roughly be the understanding of determining the axis of the body.
| [
"Fertilization usually occurs in the Fallopian tubes and marks the beginning of embryogenesis. The zygote will then divide over enough generations of cells to form a blastocyst, which implants itself in the wall of the uterus. This begins the period of gestation and the embryo will continue to develop until full-te... |
How many workers died while building the national highway system? | There's no way to come up with a firm number, as the network of highways in the US was built over a period spanning centuries, by many different companies and agencies. Even if you're talking only about the Interstate System, those were built by hundreds of firms under the direction of 50 different state highway agencies plus assorted tollway authorities, and in many cases were merely upgrades of roads that already existed.
In the first half of the 20th century, bridgebuilders had a very rough (and somewhat morbid) prediction that a large project would cost a construction worker's life for every million dollars—but few roadbuilding projects involve underwater digging (for support piers) or steel work high in the air. | [
"On April 15, 1982, part of a ramp under construction collapsed during concrete pouring operations near the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, killing fourteen highway workers and injuring eighteen more. In 1987, the state designated the route between US 12 and the Indiana Toll Road as the Highway Construction Workers ... |
why does 'republican' mean something completely different in europe compared to what it means in the us? | Because it is the name of the other major party of the US, so the political ideology and goals of that party greatly define what republican means in the US. In Europe on the other hand there are still a lot of monarchies (UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain) so republican is more understood as the opposite of monarchist. | [
"The term 'republicanism' is derived from the term 'republic', but the two words have different meanings. A 'republic' is a form of government (one without a hereditary ruling class); 'republicanism' refers to the values of the citizens in a republic.\n",
"The Republicans (, REP) is a national conservative politi... |
Is there an understood neurological difference between imagined vision ( mind's eye ) and actual sight? | There are some recent studies that indicate that imagery seems to activate similar populations as actually seeing the object, at least in higher visual areas (e.g., [Stokes et al., 2009](_URL_2_), [Cichy et al., 2012](_URL_1_)). In both of these articles, if I recall correctly, they are seeing to what extent activity during imagining can predict activity during actual seeing.
The closest studies I can think of in which a person has their eyes open and is asked to imagine seeing something in addition to what is there are those in which subjects engage in imagined rotation of objects or changes in viewpoint. As you might expect, there are differences in some areas when you engage in imagery and little detectable difference (again, using fMRI) when you don't ([Zacks et al., 2003](_URL_0_)).
I'm afraid that here we are running into a limitation of fMRI/PET studies -- we can point to pictures of brains/fMRI activity and say, "look, here it's the same and over there it's different when you engage in these two tasks" but they can't tell us what's going on at the computational level. You may be interested in some of the work of Stephen Kosslyn; he has worked on imagery for a long time and has some ideas about what might be happening when we imagine.
edit: clarified a sentence | [
"However, while there exists to be two different hypotheses regarding the processing of vision in the human brain, it is still possible to accept both. Recent experiments prove that difficulties arise when deciphering between vision for action and vision for perception. A clear distinction between the two is diffic... |
is phantom pain considered psychological pain or actual physical pain? | It is actual pain. It occurs at the end of the nerves where they were severed. Those ends are exposed and aren't properly "wired" into the body and it causes the illusion of pain beyond their end (where the limb used to be). If you have a modern surgeon do an amputation, you shouldn't suffer from this condition because they can make sure the end of the nerve is properly treated.
Stuff You Should Know did an interesting bit on it, that's their explanation of it. | [
"Phantom pain refers to dysesthetic feelings in individuals who are paralyzed or who were born without limbs. It is caused by the improper innervation of the missing limbs by the nerves that would normally innervate the limb. Dysesthesia is caused by damage to the nerves themselves, rather than by an innervation of... |
Is it possible to experience withdrawal symptoms off of a placebo? | Asked and answered 11 days ago:
_URL_0_ | [
"It has been shown that, due to the nocebo effect, warning patients about side effects of drugs can contribute to the causation of such effects, whether the drug is real or not. This effect has been observed in clinical trials: according to a 2013 review, the dropout rate among placebo-treated patients in a meta-an... |
Do male Lions hunt differently than female Lions? | It used to be thought that male lions rarely hunted, with lionesses doing most of the work. More recently, though, it’s been shown that this is not true; it was simply a case of looking under the streetlights. Lionesses and lions have very different hunting strategies, and lionesses were easy to see hunting because they did so out in the open while lions hunt at night in denser, more hidden areas:
> Male lions, which are thought to hunt less cooperatively than females, have generally been regarded as less successful than their female counterparts (Scheel & Packer 1991). However, recent studies revealing that males are as capable as females in their hunting skills are changing these attitudes. It remains unclear how male lions compensate for their lack of cooperation to achieve the same success as females (Funston et al. 1998). … Similar observer bias may explain why earlier studies perceived male lions as less successful hunters than females. Before the availability of GPS telemetry, lion kills had to be located through field searches alone. Studies of lion kills were easier to do in open habitats such as the Serengeti and Etosha (Scheel & Packer 1991; Stander 1992).
Basically, male lions tend to be solo ambush hunters that take advantage of denser vegetation to get very close to their prey, while females are group ambush-and-pursuit hunters that can attack from further away by taking advantage of their numbers. They prefer more open areas, presumably because that helps them see and coordinate with each other better.
> While male lions killed in landscapes with much shorter lines-of-sight (16.2 m) than those in which they rested, there were no significant differences for female lions. … our results provide a mechanism, ambush hunting versus social hunting in the open, to explain why hunting success of male lions might equal that of females.
Quotes are from [Lion hunting behaviour and vegetation structure in an African savanna](_URL_0_).
Lions tend to take medium to large prey, like eland, but in spite of their size they’re less likely to take very large prey like buffalo than lionesses, which can take them on as a group.
That said, lions and lionesses are very versatile animals, live in areas with a wide range of vegetation, and are perfectly capable of modifying their behavior to match their surroundings. In any case, the idea that lions don’t hunt but simply sponge off the females is long since out of date. | [
"Young lions first display stalking behaviour at around three months of age, although they do not participate in hunting until they are almost a year old and begin to hunt effectively when nearing the age of two. Single lions are capable of bringing down prey much larger than themselves, such as zebra, wildebeest, ... |
Opium Dens | They were smoking opium. Bootle diggers frequently find small long bottles with small openings and a long narrow interior, and they refer to these as opium bottles. They are not! These may have contained Chinese medicines, but they could not contain opium, which came in a black, sticky, tar-like substance packaged in tins. The tar was then placed in the bowl of an opium pipe and then ignited and smoked. This [wiki article](_URL_1_) provides an illustration.
In our excavations of various sites in Virginia City, Nevada, we found an assortment of "needles", but these weren't what we think of today: they had broad apertures, and to "inject" the drug, one had to open a vein and work the "needle" around while irrigating the opening (while hoping some of the drug would enter the victim's - er, I mean patient's - bloodstream). This wouldn't have been an efficient means to injecting an opiate.
I discuss some of this in my book, [Virginia City: Secrets of a Western Past](_URL_0_) (2012) | [
"An opium den was an establishment where opium was sold and smoked. Opium dens were prevalent in many parts of the world in the 19th century, most notably China, Southeast Asia, North America, and France. Throughout the West, opium dens were frequented by and associated with the Chinese, because the establishments ... |
why is it that some of the sugar i put in my coffee dissolves, but some always seems to remain at the bottom of the mug? | Let's look at this with the knowledge of chemistry from school that hasn't left me in the 20 years in between.
* The liquid could be over saturated. That means there is more sugar in there than the liquid can absorb. The rest would just stay crystallized. Since this would make your coffee pretty much syrup, I believe this can be ruled out. I very much hope so.
* Sugar needs some time to dissolve.
* It dissolves quicker when energy is added. This can be in the form of motion or heat.
Ergo: You stirred too little. If your coffee is too cold you need to stir even longer. | [
"Iced coffee may be served already chilled, or poured hot over ice. Because sugar does not dissolve readily into cold liquids, it must be added either directly to the hot base, or to the finished product in the form of syrup.\n",
"Designs in a syrupy solution of sugar or Camp Coffee are painted onto the metal sur... |
positive, negative and ground in an electric circuit. | The way a battery works is that it sets up a difference in potential energy (electric potential is *slightly* different but let's ignore that). The electrons at the negative terminal have a high potential energy, like a ball on top of a hill. The positive terminal is like the bottom of the hill (low potential energy), so if we connect a wire between them, the electrons want to flow from the negative terminal to the positive terminal (roll down the hill).
The bottom of the hill isn't the lowest the balls could go though, and you could imagine that if you started throwing tons of balls down the hill that things could get jammed up and start making a pile, so it's harder and harder to get them to the bottom. The ground is like we dug a gigantic hole near the bottom of the hill that can hold tons and tons of balls.
In the analogy the potential energy comes from gravity. In a battery, you have a chemical reaction that pulls electrons out of the positive terminal and puts them into the negative terminal. Since they're all negatively charged, the electrons don't want to be all jammed together in one spot, so if you hook up your wire, they get the hell out of there. Instead of gravity, we're using the fact that charges repel other charges of the same type. | [
"For power-supplies sometimes one of the supply rails will be referred to as ground (abbreviated \"GND\") - positive and negative voltages are relative to the ground. In digital electronics, negative voltages are seldom present, and the ground nearly always is the most negative voltage level. In analog electronics ... |
why are the democrats and republicans rigorously fighting over the next successor of justice scalia? | The Supreme Court has nine justices. Before Scalia's death, there were five conservative justices and four liberal justices. Scalia was one of the conservative justices. Whoever gets his old job will determine which way the balance of power is tipped. | [
"Political commentators at the time widely recognized Scalia as one of the most conservative members of the Court, and noted that President Barack Obama had an opportunity to name a more liberal replacement, a move that could alter the Court's ideological balance for many years into the future. The president ultima... |
What single event played the most pivotal role in changing human history in your area of expertise? | I consider my real specialty to be modern Malaysia, but for both modern Malaysia and modern Southeast Asia, IMO probably the most pivotal event has been WWII. The Europeans got the hell out of their Southeast Asian colonies after WWII because Japanese conquest:
1. Thoroughly demolished the myth that Europeans would always dominate Asians;
2. Encouraged the rise of local nationalist movements (the Japanese wanting to make their colonies think "Hey, the Japs aren't so bad, they liberated our nation from the West and now we are free!");
3. Left a power vacuum post-Nagasaki which local nationalist movement leaders easily stepped into.
The story of decolonisation in almost every Southeast Asian country after WWII (the Philippines might be an exception) follows almost identical patterns. Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh, Aung San, Onn Ja'afar and Tunku Abdul Rahman, Lee Kuan Yew -- all can trace their status as Southeast Asian founding fathers in some way to the aftermath of WWII. | [
"The most important event in the regions history occurred in the 19th century. On 16 November 1846, during the Patuleia conflict, a movement that was apolitical turned bloody, resulting in the deaths of 200 people, before the wave proceeded into the lands of Murça.\n",
"The early twentieth century was a time in w... |
Why does Virginia have no major cities? | For the record, Virginia is certainly not unique in this way. New Jersey has a slightly larger population but New Jersey's largest city (Newark) is significantly smaller, population-wise, than Virgnia Beach and similar in size to Richmond. | [
"Virginia has 11 Metropolitan Statistical Areas; Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and Richmond-Petersburg are the three most populous. Richmond is the capital of Virginia, and its metropolitan area has a population of over 1.2 million. , Virginia Beach is the most populous city in the Commonwealth, with Norfolk an... |
why do containers form a vacuum when being heated in the microwave with their lid on? bowls with cling wrap do the same. | Because the microwaves excite the water, causing it to expand as steam, leading to pressure in sealed containers, some steam seeps out, then when the microwaves stop, the water loses the extra energy and begins to cool which causes a retraction in the air. If you had a very well sealed container(like an egg or something), it would explode which is why most microwavable foods say to cut a slit or vent somehow, to allow the steam to flow out easier. | [
"Vacuum packing is a method of packaging that removes air from the package prior to sealing. This method involves (manually or automatically) placing items in a plastic film package, removing air from inside, and sealing the package. Shrink film is sometimes used to have a tight fit to the contents.\n",
"Vacuum-p... |
if easter is more significant than christmas, theologically speaking, then why do americans and many others make a bigger deal of christmas--for example, making christmas a federal holiday but not giving any days off for the easter weekend, as opposed to most european countries? | Christmas was not such a big deal until the big department stores in NYC started pumping it up as a holiday. Until the late 1800s, Christmas was a minor holiday, and some Christian sects actively tried to prevent them from being anything other than that. After they invented the rotund Santa Claus, and made up stories like 'The Night Before Christmas' etc., the genie was out of the bottle and the rest is history. And when the saw what a good job they had done with Christmas, then they started with Valentine's Day, etc.
TL/DR It got as big as it is because Macy's told us we had to buy things from them to make people happy. | [
"Many American Christians still celebrate the traditional liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas, especially Amish, Anglo-Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Moravians, Nazarenes, Orthodox Christians, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics. In Anglicanism, the designation of the \"Twelve Da... |
What actually happens when a city is sacked? | In ancient Greece, if you were in a city taken by siege, it was generally understood that you were not going to have a good time:
> It is a law established for all time among all men that when a city is taken in war, the persons and the property of the inhabitants belong to the captors.
-- Xenophon, *Education of Kyros* 7.5.73
Greek authors rarely go into any detail when describing the fall of a city, so if we want to know what this really means, we are to some extent forced to use our imagination. However, it's clear from what little we hear that Xenophon's 'universal law' usually meant 3 things:
* All movable property was taken
* All adult men were killed
* All women, children and elderly men were sold into slavery.
The first of these points is least well attested, but probably most widespread. Every warrior who was sent against an enemy settlement would hope to come away with a profit. Homes could be stripped of furniture and metal objects; temples could be robbed of their dedications and temple treasuries emptied. If there was time, even the rooftiles and wooden fittings of houses could be torn off and carried away. The simple fact that large amounts of ancient coinage and jewellry was preserved in its hiding place (buried, thrown into wells, etc.) shows that people were quite concerned to keep their valuables out of the hands of greedy invaders.
The second point is better known, because it was a matter of justice and pride. When a city was attacked, it could choose to surrender; if it did not, it forfeited any claim to mercy. Those who had decided to resist their enemies would get what they deserved. The most explicit example of this is the fate Agamemnon desired for Troy:
> Not a single one of them must escape sheer destruction at our hands. Not even if a mother carries one in her belly and he is male, not even he should escape. All together they must be exterminated from Troy, their bodies untended and invisible.
-- *Iliad* 6.57-62
There are loads of examples from Greek history of sieges ending with the slaughter of all adult men. These massacres removed the defeated community's ability to fight and ensured that there would be no further resistance.
The third point arises from the fact that the Greeks seem to have considered it barbaric to kill captured women and children as well as men. The few examples of this in Greek history were condemned as savage. Once the needs of revenge had been satisfied, the remaining population was instead considered a potential source of profit:
> When they were delivered to her by the Persians, Pheretime took the most guilty of the Barkaians and set them impaled around the top of the wall; the breasts of their women she cut off and planted around the wall in like manner. As for the rest of the Barkaians, she told the Persians to take them as plunder.
-- Herodotos 4.202
There was substantial money to be made from this, which is why commanders sometimes tried to restrain the bloodlust of their victorious troops. Even if it was just, as well as satisfying, to kill the defenders, it still amounted to the destruction of a source of income:
> Dionysios' entire army burst into the city (...) and now every spot was a scene of mass slaughter; for the Sicilian Greeks, eager to return cruelty for cruelty, slew everyone they encountered, sparing without distinction not a child, not a woman, not an elder. Dionysios, wishing to sell the inhabitants into slavery for the money he could gather, at first attempted to restrain the soldiers from murdering the captives, but when no one paid any attention to him and he saw that the fury of the Sicilian Greeks was not to be controlled, he stationed heralds to cry aloud and tell the Motyans to take refuge in the temples which were revered by the Greeks. When this was done, the soldiers ceased their slaughter and turned to looting the property.
-- Diodoros of Sicily 14.53.1-3
The beginning of this passage is unique in actually describing a scene that must have been typical when a city fell to a Greek army. Most successful siege assaults were not the result of elaborate circumvallation, but of a surprise assault or betrayal. As a result, rather than bottling up the helpless enemy from all sides, the attackers usually entered the city from one point and began their rampage from there. Those left in the city therefore had two choices: either to resist or to flee. The former would result in the brutal fate sketched above - but the latter explains how Greek communities often seem to have survived a lost siege despite the genocidal intent of their attackers. It was often possible for a substantial part of the population to get away.
Their ultimate fate would then depend on what the victorious enemy intended to do with the settlement. Sometimes (especially in the Archaic period) their intent was to seize the territory for themselves; in these cases the town would be razed, and the fugitive population cast adrift. Fear of this outcome was supposed to keep the Spartans in the fight against the Messenians early in their history:
> The most wretched of all things is for a man to leave his city and its fertile fields, reduced to the life of a beggar, wandering with his mother and aged father, his little children and wedded wife. Wherever he ends up, he will be as an enemy dwelling among them. He will succumb to need and detestable poverty, bring shame upon his family, disgrace his splendid looks. All forms of dishonour and misery will dog him. Since this is how it is and no one cares for or respects a wanderer or his offspring at all, let us fight hard for our land and die for our children without sparing our lives.
-- Tyrtaios fr. 10.3-14
If they had friends elsewhere, they might be able to obtain a temporary home, or even gain resident status and a home away from home, as the Plataians did at Athens when the Spartans razed their settlement in 427 BC.
In the Classical period, the intention was often rather to plant settlers on the conquered territory in order to expand the victorious city's number of land-owning citizens. This is what Athens did with the land of most of its defeated enemies from 506 BC onward. In such cases, the captured city might be reinhabited - at times by the new settlers along with the old population of women and children, whom they took as wives or slaves.
Alternatively, once due vengeance had been exacted, the remnants of the city's population could simply be allowed to return to it, often subjected to tribute and an imposed political regime. When the Athenians finally lost their fleet at Aigospotamoi in 405 BC, fear washed through the city, because the Athenians fully expected to meet the same fate that they had inflicted upon other Greeks throughout the decades of their Empire - the eradication of their community, the death of their men, and the sale of their women into slavery. However, for reasons that are still debated today, the Spartans decided to spare them. They got away with "only" a sack, the destruction of their walls, and the imposition of the tyrannical yoke of the Thirty.
| [
"Because of its wealth and its strategic location near the coast, the city was sacked several times during and after the fall of the Roman Empire, by Goths, Vandals and, finally, by the Saracens who destroyed it in 827. The inhabitants subsequently moved to the ancient acropolis and founded a new community.\n",
"... |
why do humans take so long to fully develop? | The body is ready for reproduction around 13-14 years (and in some populations even earlier than that). This isn't that much longer than many other large-ish mammals.
It takes a long time for our brains to develop and learn properly (~18-25 years) because our brains are just so big and complex. And we have to go through a lot of cultural learning, with our culture being very complex because of language. No other animal has this. | [
"The most important years of learning begin at birth. During these early years, humans are capable of absorbing more information than later on. The brain grows most rapidly in the early years. High quality teachers and preschools can have a long-term effect on improving outcomes for disadvantaged students.\n",
"D... |
how is saudi arabia on the un panel, when they have beheaded more people than isis, in 2015? | Look under the sand there. Guess what you'll find? Lots of oil. A state can behead as many people as they want if without much objection if they have enough oil. | [
"BULLET::::- 11 November: Islamic State has executed 40 civilians in Mosul. Islamic State has also announced it has beheaded six of its own fighters for deserting the battlefield. The Islamic State shot dead 40 civilians before crucifying them for \"treason\", and killed 20 more for \"leaking information\". They al... |
Did the Romans have something like Wall street/ The stock market? | They certainly invested in each other (by offering loans with interest); [this article, published by the US Federal Reserve, covers the topic very well, offering sources for your delectation]( _URL_0_). It is worth noting that Roman society was highly personal; the invention of limited companies is a later phenomenom. Business deals would be between individuals (assisted by clerks and such) rather than through an agency like a stock market. | [
"Rome was a subsidised city at the time, with roughly 15 to 25 percent of its grain supply being paid by the central government. Commerce and industry played a smaller role compared to that of other cities like Alexandria. This meant that Rome had to depend upon goods and production from other parts of the Empire t... |
ambulances carry teddy bears to give to kids after accidents. psychologically, why does the teddy bear help? | Being able to hold something warm and fuzzy is very comforting and offers a feeling of security. [Harry Harlow](_URL_0_) performed a whole bunch of experiments on using monkeys and fuzzy objects which demonstrated that this desire for a soft, warm companion is quite powerful, so if you want more info, Google his name.
By the way, I'm not sure how widespread this emergency teddy bear practice is. I'm an EMT and I've never seen a stuffed animal stored on an ambulance for this purpose. | [
"Because police, fire and emergency officials found that giving a teddy bear to a child during a crisis stabilized and calmed them, NAPLC created the Teddy Bear Cops program to distribute teddy bears to police, fire, and emergency officials throughout the United States, for their use in providing teddy bears to chi... |
What did the Queen (Elizabeth II) say of the Rhodesian Republic? | Having read several biographies about QEII, I seem to remember that she did and said nothing publicly about this situation.. The Queen is a sphinx when it come to her personal opinions and rarely if ever lets them slip out. | [
"Until late 1969, Rhodesia still recognised Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, even though it opposed the British government itself for hindering its goals of independence. The Queen, however, refused to accept the title \"Queen of Rhodesia.\" Eventually, the Smith government abandoned attempts to remain loyal to... |
what happens to all the oil we use after we dispose of it? | It gets taken to a recycling plant, super heated and filtered and filtered again to get all impurities out. Then boom, back to the shelves. Or filtered and used in bio-diesel engines. | [
"Waste oil can be disposed of in different ways, including sending the used oil off-site (some facilities are permitted to handle the used oil such as your local garages and local waste disposal facilities), burning used oil as a fuel (some used oil is not regulated by burner standards, but others that are off-spec... |
During the end of WWII is there a record of the suicide rate of German soldiers and officers? | There's been some really interesting work done on suicide in Nazi Germany. When considering suicide, as an "illness" or as a product of it's context. A purely pathological view of suicide negates any questions regarding the choice and historical context. On the other hand, since the late 19th century, suicide has been also seen as a lack of integration with society and as a state of the wellbeing of a society. It could be divided into three categories: egoistic, altruistic, and anomic. The first, egoistic comes from a lack of integration with society (e.g. by being different), altruistic is about the betterment of society and anomic means from a complete turnover of norms and values. [1]
All three have relevance when considering Nazi Germany. [2]
* Nazi Germany encouraged the idea of altruistic suicide in soldiers (although towards the end of war, also in civilians drafted in the guerrilla war). However, as suicide was seen as selfish, this was typically called a hero's death, rather than suicide!
* Egoistic suicide would apply most to those who killed themselves because of society. That has been considered to apply for those the Nazi regime prosecuted. However, there has been considerable debate if suicide under what is effectively duress, is suicide in the same way. Obviously, being a mostly ethical question, there is no clear conclusion. Other specific examples would be the fear of retribution & the fear of the Red Army (see link below) as well as fear of air raids which for example caused suicide rates to spike in 1943. [2b]
* Anomic suicide refers to changes in norms and values, so when, towards the end of the Nazi regime soldiers, generals and Hitler himself knew that the coming world would be a very different one, this was too much for the to cope with. The spike in suicides in Berlin in 1945 is generally attributed to this, with an especially high spike in April. [3] [3b]
Suicides in Germany had been increasing since the end of WWI. The devastating end of the war, the terrible living conditions post-war and following the depression and the new reforms in government meant that life was difficult and strange for many Germans. Germany had higher suicide rates than the UK and France but lower than Austria which also suffered post WWI. [4]
It should be noted that counting suicides in Germany is very difficult as recording practices were not what they are today. In Catholic areas, suicides would often be recorded as an accident [5] while Nazi's were more likely to attribute deaths of Jews to suicide while not recording other suicides as such (to promote the view that society was healthy and happy).
Lastly, it is interesting to note that after the war, suicide rates fell in West Germany but not in East Germany.
As you asked specifically about soldiers, you may also find this thread interesting:[ "Why did the Nazi leadership commit suicide on defeat? Had any losing war leaderships ever done this before?"](_URL_0_?) It deals with the thread of the Red Army who were in propaganda depicted as incredibly ruthless (a view certainly based on reality). Especially women suicides around that time are attributed to the threat of rape in the aftermath of the war. [6]
[1] Emilie Dunkan: His Life and Work (1973) by Steven Lukes
[2] Suicide in Nazi Germany (2009) by Christian Goeschel (Introduction & chapter 1)
[2b] Suicide in Nazi Germany (2009) by Christian Goeschel (Chapter 6)
[3] Suicide in Nazi Germany (2009) by Christian Goeschel (Figures 13 and 15 & chapter 5)
[3b] Suicide at the End of the Third Reich (2006) Christian Goeschel in the Journal of Contemporary History
[4] Suicide in Nazi Germany (2009) by Christian Goeschel (Figures 1 and 3 & chapter 1)
[5] Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871-1918 (2003) by Matthew Jeffries (Chapter 1)
[6] Suicide at the End of the Third Reich (2006) Christian Goeschel in the Journal of Contemporary History | [
"BULLET::::- Died: Ernst-Günther Baade, 47, German general (gangrene from wounds sustained in battle two weeks earlier); Paul Giesler, 49, German Nazi official (suicide); Werner von Gilsa, 56, German military officer (suicide after being captured by the Russians); Wilhelm Rediess, 44, German commander of SS troops ... |
how do we make paper out of trees? | Paper mills liquify the pulp of the tree and turn it into thin slices. Paper reverts to its pulpy state when it gets wet. | [
"Paper is both made and used to make crafts in Mexico. Paper-making is a skill that goes back to pre-Hispanic times. The bark of two trees are primarily used, that of the morus or mulberry family for white paper and that of the ficus or fig family for darker varieties. Traditionally, the bark was cut and scraped by... |
why did the british army not attack loyalist paramilitaries as well as the ira during the troubles? | Because the Ulster Volunteer Force & Ulster Freedom Fighters regarded themselves as 100% British. They also had MPs in British Parliament as the Ulster National Party.
The IRA killed a lot of British soldiers, as they were regarded as the occupying force (equally, the SAS would assassinate members of the IRA).
If British soldiers killed the UVF/UFF it would be the equivalent of killing your own.
At the beginning the British soldiers were seen as a peace keeping force & treated well, but then horrible things such as Bloody Sunday occurred which really made the Irish Catholics hate the British & eventually (because Thatcher was an ardent supporter of keeping Northern Ireland as part of the UK amongst other reasons) the campaign then came to the UK, with the Birmingham pub bombings, an attempt to assassinate the Queen & many more.
There's far more to it than that, you need to read a good few books really. | [
"BULLET::::- 1969–97 Provisional IRA campaign 1969–1997 during The Troubles During Civil Rights Marches in the North, the British Army opened fire on its own citizens, sparking a blood feud that committed large numbers of Catholic Nationalists to use physical force in the form of terror bombings, sniping, raids, 'k... |
if a sizable spacecraft was hovering over earth, would we be able to see it? | You can spot satellites and the ISS from the ground already.
They look like shooting stars, but you can see them. | [
"Any planetary sized body 180 degrees from Earth should also have been visible to some space probes, such as NASA's STEREO coronagraph probes (two spacecraft launched into orbits around the Sun in 2006, one farther ahead of and one behind the Earth's orbit) which would have seen the Counter-Earth during the first h... |
How do scientists separate "science" from "non-science?" | Any thought is considered a valid hypothesis if it can be tested and disproved. Scientists across the world try to devise experiments that try to disprove the hypothesis. If they succeed, the hypothesis is discarded or modified. If the experiment can't disprove the hypothesis, it gains the confidence of the community.
Other experiments and hypotheses build on top of this hypothesis and if any of those eventually lead to invalidation of this hypothesis, they're all discarded or modified to fit.
If any hypothesis survives this test of time for years and years, it gets to be called a theory and much later, a law.
This is how science grows. | [
"Modern science is typically divided into three major branches that consist of the natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study nature in the broadest sense; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences (e.g... |
Why do certain flavours go well together? E.g. chicken/coleslaw, tomato/mozarella, spinach/garlic, walnuts/honey, tuna/mayonaise? | I read an [article](_URL_0_ ) recently on why gin and tonic is such a great combination. The article said it was because certain flavor compounds had shapes that “fit” with other flavor compounds, forming what the brain perceived as a new flavor compound. | [
"Flavours include minestrone, chicken noodle, tomato soup and chicken and vegetable. Low-calorie versions also exist in the UK, under the name \"Slim-a-Soup\", and include slightly different flavors, such as Mediterranean tomato. 2007 saw the introduction of \"Cup-a-Soup Extra\", individual sachets of soup and past... |
How did Romans prepare for bed and what kind of clothing (or lack thereof...) would they wear to bed? | From [Daily Life in Ancient Rome](_URL_0_), by Jerome Carcopino:
pp. 152-153:
> "On a base of interwoven strips of webbing were placed a mattress (*torus*) and a bolster (*culcita*, *cervical*) whose stuffing (*tomentum*) was made of straw or reeds among the poor and among the rich of wool shorn from the Leuconion flocks in the valley of the Meuse, or even of swan's down. But there was neither a proper mattress nor sheets above. The *torus* was spread with two coverings (*tapetia*): on one (*stragulum*) the sleeper lay, the other he pulled over him (*operimentum*). The bed was then spread with a counterpane (*lodix*) or a multicoloured damask quilt (*polymitum*). Finally, at the foot of the bed, *ante torum* as the Romans put it, there lay a bedside mat (*toral*) which often rivalled the *lodices* in luxury.
> A *toral* on the pavement of the bedroom was almost obligatory. For the Roman, though he sometimes protected his legs by a sort of puttees (*fasciae*), wore nothing corresponding to our socks or stockings and went barefoot when he had taken off his sandals to go to bed. His normal footwear consisted either of *soleae*, a kind of sandal such as Capuchins wear, with the sole held by a strap passing through their eyelets, of *calcei*, leather slippers with crossed leather laces, or of *caligae*, a type of military boot. On the other hand he was no more accustomed to undress completely before going to bed than the oriental of today. He merely laid aside his cloak, which he either threw on the bed as an extra covering or flung on the neighboring chair.
> The ancients in fact distinguished two types of clothing: that which they put on first and wore intimately, and that which they flung around them afterwards. This is the difference between the Greek *endumata* and *epiblemata*; and similarly between the Latin *indumenta*, which were worn day and night, and the *amictus* which were assumed for part of the day only.
> First among the *indumenta* came the *subligaculum* or *licium*, not as is sometimes supposed, a pair of drawers, but a simple loin cloth, usually made of linen and always knotted round the waist. In early days it was perhaps the only undergarment worn either by nobles or by labourers. Manual workers had no other."
p. 166:
> "Whether she slept in a room of her own or shared a room with him, the Roman woman's morning toilet closely resembled her husband's. Like him, she kept on her undergarments in bed at night: her loin cloth, her brassiere (*strophium*, *mamillare*) or corset (*capitium*), her tunic or tunics, and sometimes, to the despair of her husband, a mantle over all. Consequently she, like him, had nothing to do when she got up, but to draw on her slippers on the *toral* and then drape herself in the *amictus* of her choice; and her preliminary ablutions were as sketchy as his. Pending the hour of the bath, the essential *cura corporis* for her as for him consisted of attentions which we should consider accessory."
| [
"The Romans also used a daybed for reclining in the daytime and to sleep on at night. Developed from the Greek prototype, the Roman daybed was designed with legs carved in wood or cast bronze. The Romans also adapted a chaise longue style chair for the \"accubatio\" (the act of reclining during a meal). At Roman ba... |
Unusual paths to a History PhD? | Have a Masters myself and know lots of history Ph.D's. None are employed in a history field. I usually try to avoid being overly negative to people looking into things like this. But bottom line is even if you went Ivy League and had publications it's an uphill battle.
Don't do it. It's not just hard to make it. You almost certainly won't. | [
"The Institute's MA in book history, which started in 1995, is credited as the United Kingdom's first postgraduate course in the subject. The Institute currently offers MRes, MPhil, and PhD programmes. \n",
"Helen Meriwether Lewis Thomas (1905–1997) was the first woman, second American, and third person to earn a... |
atomic bombs | This seems fairly comprehensive: _URL_0_
Search the subreddit for a few more. | [
"In July 1945, the first atomic explosive device, dubbed \"Trinity\", was detonated in the New Mexico desert. It was fueled by plutonium created at Hanford. In August 1945, two more atomic devices – \"Little Boy\", a uranium-235 bomb, and \"Fat Man\", a plutonium bomb – were used against the Japanese cities of Hiro... |
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