Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
Music Historians, how did the standard drum kit originate and what were previous incarnations of it?	The modern drum kit began to emerge with early jazz and syncopated marching band music. Originally it was actually just a hodge-podge collection of various instruments. You'd probably find the evolution of the kit very interesting. Some of the instruments evolved into newer versions of themselves (the hi-hat used to be...	[ "Percussion in early 20th-century klezmer recordings was generally minimal—no more than a wood block or snare drum. The snare drum is the more \"authentic\" of the two. Wood blocks were introduced by modern klezmorim to imitate recordings from the early 20th century that replaced snare drums—which tended to overwhe...
is it possible to amputate your own leg/arm and use that as food?	The vsauce video basically says that it takes more energy to consume and digest your own limbs than it gives you in.	[ "It is also important to collect and to preserve those amputates which do not look \"replantable.\" A microsurgeon needs all available parts of human tissue to cover the wound at the stump and thus to prevent further shortening of the stump. In some cases (e.g. forearm) the task of an important joint (e.g. elbow) c...
! how can a country go bankrupt.?	In most cases, it can't in quite the same way that a person or corporation does. A person can be made bankrupt and then whatever they own is taken and sold off to pay off the debts, and this is enforced by the country they live in. But there's no power to force a country itself into bankruptcy. Rather, a country can ...	[ "BULLET::::- It is not only individual persons and businesses that go bankrupt as a consequence of the fact that there is more debt than money in circulation. Many states have gone bankrupt and some states have done so many times. The debt problem is particularly severe for developing countries that have debt in fo...
What is the border between a program with an Artificial Intelligence, and one without?	All sorts of things are considered to be 'artificial intelligence'. The most obvious example is AI for non-human players in computer games, but there is a whole field of Computer Science called Artificial Intelligence, which is related to things like [machine learning](_URL_1_), creating systems that learn what to do r...	[ "Although Artificial Intelligence and Computational Intelligence seek a similar long-term goal: reach general intelligence, which is the intelligence of a machine that could perform any intellectual task that a human being can; there's a clear difference between them. According to Bezdek (1994), Computational Intel...
Have any scientists here experienced "the decline effect" in their experiments? What do you theorize is going on?	The Nature article you link to offers the same explanations I would. If scientists test something many times, eventually someone is going to get a statistical outlier that exaggerates the effect. A very strong effect is more likely to get noticed and reported by the scientist. And it's also more likely to get publishe...	[ "To gain an accurate result from experiments, the experimenter must consider outside factors that could effect the dependent variable. Continuing from the advertising example above; did sales increase because of a festive seasons at that particular time.\n", "The experiment resulted in a growth in employment and ...
what is the difference between a "good" and a "bad" bottle of wine?	Honestly, whether or not you like it. There are a lot of complex factors that can go into it, like specific techniques for making the wine, other ingredients, what kind of grapes were used, where the grapes are from, etc. while all of that does have an impact on the taste of the wine, what makes any bottle “good” or “b...	[ "Other drinks called \"wine\", such as barley wine and rice wine (e.g. sake), are made from starch-based materials and resemble beer more than traditional wine, while ginger wine is fortified with brandy. In these latter cases, the term \"wine\" refers to the similarity in alcohol content rather than to the product...
why do companies such as nintendo region lock certain products? what exactly is region locking?	Nintendo region locks their consoles for a few reasons. One is cultural differences; for example in Bravely Default the Japanese versions' costumes are much skimpier and the characters are younger whereas when it was localised for the West they were aged up and were given more 'modest' clothing. Nintendo also doesn't b...	[ "Nintendo initially stated that while the Nintendo 64 units for each region use essentially identical hardware design, regional lockout chips would prevent games from one region from being played on a Nintendo 64 console from a different region. Following the North American launch, however, they admitted that the c...
How do astronomers calculate the orbits of planets?	If you're asking how to describe the orbits, there are a couple ways. The more generalized method is to write differential equations that describe all of the forces in the system given the current state, which can then be used to simulate the system numerically from the current state onwards. There is inherent error a...	[ "Suppose there are three planets revolving around a star which take \"l\", \"m\" and \"n\" units of time respectively to complete their orbits. Assume that \"l\", \"m\" and \"n\" are integers. Assuming the planets started moving around the star after an initial linear alignment, all the planets attain a linear alig...
how my cpap senses my breathing in and out.	A diaphragm (fabric that is suspended along an opening or a valve) will either be pushed or pulled based on the air flowing through it due to negative pressure. These diaphragms can be wired along a calibrated sensor that measures your breath. A reference voltage is applied along the circuit, and as the diaphragm cha...	[ "Automatic positive airway pressure (APAP) is a form of CPAP that automatically tunes the amount of pressure delivered to the patient to the minimum required to maintain an unobstructed airway on a breath-by-breath basis by measuring the resistance in the patient's breathing.\n", "Once the airway has been opened,...
I saw on a horrible history channel that the Aztecs use chocolate as money. Wouldn't all the chocolate melt during the summer, thus crashing their economy?	Aztec economy was much more complicated than just cocoa beans (chocolate) as currency. They also used cotton sheets and copper axes, and a lot of bartering. Here is a good thread on Aztec economy featuring answers by /u/DownvotingCorvo and /u/400-Rabbits [_URL_0_](_URL_1_)	[ "By the 15th century, the Aztecs gained control of a large part of Mesoamerica and adopted cacao into their culture. They associated chocolate with Quetzalcoatl, who, according to one legend, was cast away by the other gods for sharing chocolate with humans, and identified its extrication from the pod with the remo...
can you guys help me understand this paragraph	It's saying that the tourism sector is responding to climate change by trying to reduce their impact on the climate, and by trying to adapt to a changing climate. One way to reduce the impact is to promote more slow travelling, which is staying in one place for a while and enjoying it rather than travelling to a whole ...	[ "He has lectured at numerous American universities and research institutes and at the following U.S. military and foreign institutions: the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. National War College, West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Marine Command and Staff College, the U.S. Air Force Command and Staff Co...
if my pc freezes why are my sound keeps playing?	because sound data is still stored in the sound card buffer. The sound card runs seperately from the CPU so it will keep going over the same data over and over and over since it is not being updated by the CPU.	[ "The cartridge is inserted into the console cartridge slot. If the cartridge is removed while the power is on, and the Game Boy does not automatically reset, the game freezes; the Game Boy may exhibit unexpected behavior, such as rows of zeros appearing on the screen, the sound remaining at the same pitch as was em...
Is there any possibility now or in the future that some form of solid light could exist?	There has been some theoretical work done on suggesting of combining light particles together to form this kind of stuff. I believe recently, within the last year or so, they've started to make actual progress on getting light particles to interact and form a kind of "molecule" of light. I put that in quotations becaus...	[ "Solid light is a hypothetical material, made of light in a solidified state. Theoretically, it is possible to make such a material, and there are claims this material was already made, including claims from MIT and Harvard.\n", "A different class of technicolor dark matter candidates light enough to be accessibl...
Is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle connected to determinism?	Quantum mechanics says that the results of experiments are subject to strict random distributions, and this prediction has been rigorously tested (and debated). It is thus both deterministic and nondeterministic, in a sense. It is deterministic in that the prediction for two identical experiments is always the same (t...	[ "The term Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics was often used interchangeably with and as a synonym for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle by detractors (such as Einstein and the physicist Alfred Landé) who believed in determinism and saw the common features of the Bohr–Heisenberg theories as a threat. Wi...
Are there any former SS members who worked at concentration camps that are still alive?	Here's a list of the most wanted nazi war criminals according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center: _URL_0_ Some of them are SS. Looking through their pages I can't see any that were in camps apart from Alois Brunner who is probably dead. He'd be 100 years old now.	[ "Otto Hermann Wilhelm Moll (March 4, 1915 - May 28, 1946) was a sadistic SS non-commissioned officer who was executed for atrocities he committed while working at Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. The \"SS-Hauptscharführer\", who held the rank of Quartermaster Sergeant, is said to have perso...
Is the Voyager probe orbiting the Galactic center? Is it orbiting anything?	Although it's an unsupported claim, I'd say that Voyager is more attracted to the sun or even Proxima Centauri(our closest star) than it is to the center of the Galaxy. Considering the distance to and the mass of the black hole at the center, you get a gravitational force of about 5.886e-12 Newtons acting on Voyager I...	[ "Since the \"Voyager 2\" flyby, the Neptune system has been extensively studied from ground-based observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope as well. In 2002–03 the Keck telescope observed the system using adaptive optics and detected easily the largest four inner satellites. Thalassa was found with some image pr...
How would you fix something like the Guatemala sinkhole?	I was mostly convinced that was photoshopped, then googled it. Blimey. From the article I read on it: Typically, officials fill in sinkholes with large rocks and other debris. But the 2010 Guatemala sinkhole "is so huge that it's going to take a lot of fill material to fill it," Currens said. "I don't know what they'...	[ "The sinkhole was created by fluid from a sewer eroding uncemented volcanic ash, limestone, and other pyroclastic deposits underlying Guatemala City. The hazards around the pipe have since then been mitigated, by improved handling of the city's wastewater and runoff, and plans to develop on the site have been propo...
Are all the Pharaohs' tombs accounted for?	Without checking, no, they have not all been found yet. Egyptology has very much moved on as a field, and has shifted towards settlement archaeology away from royal tombs and palaces in a very real way, and there are many Egyptologists who claim they would rather find a workers' cemetery than a royal tomb--probably in ...	[ "Valley of the Kings in Thebes: Due to theft from tombs within pyramids, 26 pharaohs of the eighteenth to twentieth Dynasties including Tutankhamun, Ramses the Great and Tuthmosis III had their tombs carved into the rock of the Valley of Kings. There are further tombs in the Valley of the Queens.\n", "Sometime du...
why are humans so drawn to the water? (srivers, seas, ocean,...)	I don't think its so much the view that attracts people as it is the activities available there. Fishing, boating, jet skiing, sunbathing, parasailing, seafood, swimming, the wildlife, the list goes on and on. The change of scenery is nice every once in a while. If you live in a big city with the constant traffic, no...	[ "The ocean covers nearly two thirds of the Earth's surface, and is continuously threatened by human behaviors and practices. By taking so many fish from the seas, humans have managed to remove entire links from the aquatic food chain. This causes a chain effect, leading to an overall upset of the delicate balance o...
Increasing mass of black holes and problem with relativity.	> (because of relativism) Relativism says that Hitler wasn't a bad dude because all morals are relative. Relativity says that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. If you're standing on the Earth's surface, and I ask you to tell from its gravitational field whether its mass is evenly distributed or wheth...	[ "A lower limit to the mass of the central black hole can be calculated using the Eddington luminosity. This limit arises because light exhibits radiation pressure. Assume that a black hole is surrounded by a disc of luminous gas. Both the attractive gravitational force acting on electron-ion pairs in the disc and t...
how hard is it to survive on minimum wage?	Depending on where you are, it can be practically impossible. I'm in WI, where the minimum wage was set in 2009 at $7.25 an hour and hasn't changed since. Assuming you worked a 40 hour week, this would net you about $1000 a month after taxes. For comparison as to what that will get you here in WI, my previous dwell...	[ "The minimum wage is the minimum wage required for human life and the basic right guaranteed by the Constitution. Considering that low-wage work below the minimum wage is illegal, policy efforts must be followed to eradicate passion. First, the most fundamental measure is to create more good jobs for high-wage, whi...
Is the universe the same age everywhere?	Essentially no. The pace of time depends on the gravitational potential. In the Earths core time runs a bit slower: _URL_0_ The effect would be largest for neutron stars. For black holes "age of the universe" does not really apply inside the event horizon.	[ "Since the universe must be at least as old as the oldest things in it, there are a number of observations which put a lower limit on the age of the universe; these include the temperature of the coolest white dwarfs, which gradually cool as they age, and the dimmest turnoff point of main sequence stars in clusters...
what defines a song's genre?	Instrumentation used, beats per minute, type of singing, key,...	[ "Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways. The artistic nature of music means that these classifications are often subjective and controversial, and some genres may overlap. There are even varying academic definitions of the term \"genre \"itself. In his book \"Form in Tonal Music\", Dougla...
what causes your vision to become gradually worse? are video games and/or continual staring at phones a factor in today's society?	I read somewhere that there was a study done in Japan that the more time school children spend away from sunlight the worse their vision is. I have had terrible eyes since I was a child, it started about the time that I started reading books a lot and staying inside. Since I heard of that study I have been more cognisa...	[ "Video game playing may be associated with vision problems. Extensive viewing of the screen can cause eye strain, as the cornea, pupil, and iris are not intended for mass viewing sessions of electronic devices. Using video games for too long may also cause headaches, dizziness, and chances of vomiting from focusing...
how can photon travel at light speed with so less/negligible energy.	Photons have literally 0 mass, as all massless particles they travel at light speed. No particle with mass can travel at light speed, no particle without mass can travel at any speed but light speed. The energy of a photon is irrelevant to it's speed, there is no mass to be moved.	[ "In quantum field theory the Heisenberg uncertainty relations indicate that photons can travel at any speed for short periods. In the Feynman diagram interpretation of the theory, these are known as \"virtual photons\", and are distinguished by propagating off the mass shell. These photons may have any velocity, in...
Could an astronaut go back to earth without spacecraft ?	From space to Earth in a straight drop: probably yes. The edge of space is [arbitrarily defined as 100 km](_URL_0_) and there has been a dive [from 41 km](_URL_1_), so that seems feasible. From orbit: no. Things in orbit are going sideways very fast and when they come back to Earth they get very hot from the air in ...	[ "Astronauts may not be able to quickly return to Earth or receive medical supplies, equipment or personnel if a medical emergency occurs. The astronauts may have to rely for long periods on their limited existing resources and medical advice from the ground.\n", "NASA investigators determined that on-orbit repair...
Graduate students and history professors, can you explain the common requirement to learn another language for grad school admissions?	History programs at the grad level do, in the US at least, usually require at least one non-English language and there is usually the expectation that you will acquire another language during your time as a PhD candidate. The reason for this is that there is very little history where the primary source documents are in...	[ "For foreign language courses, students are given two options of Chinese and Spanish. There are 5 levels for language courses, from 1 to 4 and an AP course. For English, students are required to take two English courses until their senior year. Freshmen take General Literature and Communications, sophomores take Am...
how many of martin Luther's 95 theses were nitpicks?	None of them / all of them. You are asking for a subjective answer. Luther's theses were points of academic debate. Each one is an argument against or helps construct the debate against the sale of indulgences. Which ones were nitpicks? Well, none of them are in the sense that they all are valid ways of arguing ag...	[ "95 theses published by North German Lutheran pastor Heinrich Hansen at Reformation jubilee 1917. Theses were published both in Latin and German and the number of theses refers to the 95 Theses of Martin Luther. Title of Hansen's theses refer to Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament:\n", "Martin Luther's \"\"...
why is john lennon's death generally referred to as an "assassination" and not just a murder?	Assassination is the killing of a prominent person, either for political or religious reasons or for payment.	[ "The central conceit of \"Death of a President\" was much criticised by those who believed it exploited the subject of presidential assassination, and that by doing so, was in bad taste. Gretchen Esell of the Texas Republican Party described the subject matter saying, \"I find this shocking, I find it disturbing. I...
How do random mutations result in naturally selected evolutionary traits across an entire species?	It's a statistical thing. You're right, some organisms with beneficial mutations end up dying anyway because they got really unlucky. But on average they tend to be slightly more successful and pass on the mutation more often than not, and over very long spans of time, it becomes widespread in the population. Remember...	[ "Random mutations are the ultimate source of genetic variation. Mutations are likely to be rare and most mutations are neutral or deleterious, but in some instances, the new alleles can be favored by natural selection.\n", "One advantage of directed evolution is that the mutations do not have to be completely ran...
how do texting apps generate a phone number that hasn't already been claimed?	It doesn't exactly work like, phone companies arn't the only ones who can control phone numbers. Apps can use online services such as [Twilio](_URL_0_) that allow their systems to get phone assign phone numbers and access SMS. By chain the company who makes the SMS app is paying a service like Twilio for SMS. ninjae...	[ "The major phone sex and adult chat lines spend millions of dollars in advertising every month. Thanks to technology, their marketing departments can track the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns by assigning unique phone numbers to each advertising campaign, regardless if it includes TV, print, online or ...
At the end of battles did medieval era knights kill the opposing sides archers ?	So, I found an unsourced bit of wikipedia after some discussion with another person trying to answer your question. It states that summary execution was standard practice for prisoners of war. _URL_0_ > The bowman etymology is unlikely, since no evidence exists of French forces (or any other continental E...	[ "In order to avoid more losses, the enemy knights finally attacked. Then the infantry hidden behind the carts used firearms and crossbows to ward off the attack, weakening the enemy. The shooters aimed first at the horses, depriving the cavalry of its main advantage. Many of the knights died as their horses were sh...
why does drinking water on an empty stomach hurt?	I drink warm water do you drink it cold? I won't pretend I know what I'm talking about but my mentor told me it's easier on your stomach to drink room temp.	[ "Other medical professionals contend that binge eating can cause stomach perforations in those with ulcers and gulping large quantities of water during training can lead to water intoxication, a condition which dilutes electrolytes in the blood. Gastroparesis, also known as stomach paralysis, is also a concern amon...
In WW1 why didn’t the English sail behind the front and land men to charge the Germans from the other side?	While more can be said, I've previously discussed British plans for amphibious assaults during WWI in the following threads: * [ I was listening to the podcast on the Battle of Jutland, and "..Land a million Russians north of Berlin, and boom..The War's over in a few weeks" caught my ear.](_URL_3_) * [Why didn't the t...	[ "Upon leaving England a pilot would drop down to 500 feet over the channel to get under German radar. Crossing the French coastline was one of the more dangerous aspects of the trip, as German forces and anti-aircraft guns were present over much of the coastline opposite England. Cabourg was the favored spot to cro...
meta: why does it seem like the same questions get asked every hour?	It's a combination of two things: not searching and there's probably an article in the news or on a popular website that brings up the question. Multiple people see the same thing that inspires the same question. They then either ignore or don't notice the instruction to search, or presume that their question is uniq...	[ "Questions are initially open to answers for four days. However, the asker can choose to pick a best answer for the question after a minimum of one hour. However, comments and answers can still be posted after this time. To ask a question, one has to have a Yahoo! account with a positive score balance of five point...
How much was the Soviet's space program influenced by Nazi/Germany scientists and technology?	Both the US and Soviet programs were essentially based on German rocketry in their early days, very explicitly using the V-2 as the basis of their work. The American Redstone missile was just a scaled-up V-2, and the Soviet R-7 was a clustered set of V-2-like rocket engines. Both countries of course significantly dive...	[ "Soviet technology was most highly developed in the fields of nuclear physics, where the arms race with the West convinced policy makers to set aside sufficient resources for research. Due to a crash program directed by Igor Kurchatov (based on spies of Cambridge Five), the Soviet Union was the second nation to dev...
why and how laundry detergents are used in the drug community.	Some small non-chain stores will buy it from you at a fraction of retail price so they can resell it. They're also easier to steal than booze or other items that are more closely watched. If you were to steal 10 of them, and sell them at 1/4 price you could use that money to purchase drugs. Similarly, some drug dealers...	[ "Laundry detergents contain mostly anionic and non-ionic surfactants. Cationic surfactants are normally incompatible with anionic detergents and have poor cleaning efficiency; they are employed only for certain special effects, as fabric softeners, antistatic agents, and biocides. Zwitterionic surfactants are rarel...
how did scientists identify humanity's common ancestor?	Imagine evolution to be like a book, something written long before the invention of printing. Like the bible. So it was copied over and over by monks, who even though they worked very thoroughly, occasionally made a mistake. Since there are so many more words than mistakes, the chance that two monks do the same mistake...	[ "BULLET::::- 11 February – Scientists find evidence, based on genetics studies using artificial intelligence (AI), that suggest the existence of an unknown human ancestor species, not Neanderthal, Denisovan or human hybrid (like \"Denny\" (hybrid hominin)), in the genome of modern humans.\n", "In February 2019, s...
are there any laws against independent space travel without government consent?	Lawyer here! The answer to your core question is "generally, no." Most spacefaring nations require compliance with statutes/regulations before they'll permit a private entity from launching. In the U.S., for example, private launches are controlled by the [Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984](_URL_1_). This requires a...	[ "Nonetheless, until 2004 NASA kept private space flight effectively illegal. But that year, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 required that NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration legalize private space flight.\n", "In addition, the new law made extensive modifications to the patent law and ...
do websites make absolutely no money off ad block users?	Free websites that rely on ads make no money off any users, whether or not they use ad block. Instead they make users off businesses who buy their ad spaces. These business make extra money by attracting new users/customers to their paid services/products. People who use ad blocks are not exposed to these ads, so if a...	[ "Ad blocking can also save money for the user. If a user's personal time is worth one dollar per minute, and if unsolicited advertising adds an extra minute to the time that the user requires for reading the webpage (i.e. the user must manually identify the ads as ads, and then click to close them, or use other tec...
Can swallowing gum act like fiber?	Not really, it won't bind water or break down enough to add bulk to you faecal matter. Fiber also has many other dietary benefits such as cholesterol regulation and nutrient absorption of which gum would obviously not help, but I'm assuming you meant mostly with respect to bowel movements.	[ "Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its texture is reminiscent of rubber because of the physical-chemical properti...
is the air around me packed full of atoms, like peas in a can, or is there space between? how can i see through it? are atoms transparent?	It's like looking through a screen door, but much, much farther apart. They aren't transparent, but when spread out, you have no issue seeing through it.	[ "Fig. 4 is a \"space-filling\" representation of formic acid, where atoms are drawn as solid spheres to suggest the space they occupy. This and all space-filling models are necessarily icons or abstractions: atoms are nuclei with electron \"clouds\" of varying density surrounding them, and as such have no actual su...
Questions about Longstreet's plan of disengaging at Gettysburg and matching to the right.	its hard to say exactly which ground L. is talking about. Obviously the Pipe Creek area is what Meade had in mind but that presumably would already be taken. The area around Emittsburg has some high hills, you can see them from route 15; they must be some sort of extension of the Cactoctin Mountains, which I guess the...	[ "Longstreet's actions at the Battle of Gettysburg would become the centerpiece of the controversy that surrounded him for over a century. Longstreet arrived on the battlefield late in the afternoon of the first day, July 1, 1863, hours ahead of his troops. By then, two Union corps had been driven by Ewell and Hill ...
why does weather move from west to east, but wind can be blowing from any direction?	Weather doesn't have to move west to east. Look at the Hurricanes! They move southeast to northwest on the east cost of North America.	[ "Wind and weather observations will be different for a low passing to the north of the observer than for one passing to the south. When a low passes to the north, the winds typically pick up from the east, swing to southerly (possibly accompanied by light precipitation, usually not) with the passage of the low's wa...
how does the electric company categorize my usage?	They use something called Power Signature Analysis. Basically, you have to imagine your homes power usage as a graph. When you turn something on, there will be a small increase in the graph, and decrease when it's turned off. Certain devices create patterns in usage. This data includes both voltage and amperage. Smart ...	[ "An electric utility is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major provider of energy in most countries.\n", "The concept is much like ...
Why didn't artillery in WW1 render trench warfare useless?	It’s a good question. One answer is the lack of High Explosive (HE) shells. In 1914, shrapnel shells were far easier to produce because the metallurgical and chemical components were more straightforward. Indeed, within the British army, the first HE shell for the 18-pounder field gun (the standard field artillery piec...	[ "Artillery dominated the battlefields of trench warfare. An infantry attack was rarely successful if it advanced beyond the range of its supporting artillery. In addition to bombarding the enemy infantry in the trenches, the artillery could be used to precede infantry advances with a creeping barrage, or engage in ...
how can you measure the speed of light if nothing goes faster than its speed?	Speed = Distance / Time You don't need a on object with a similar or greater velocity to compare it to. Now here's a fun way you can confirm it at home: Remove the rotating plate from your microwave, and place an upturned plate over the rotor in the middle. Butter about 4 slices of bread with an even covering right...	[ "For example, in SI units, the speed of light has been given a \"defined\" value in 1983. Thus, it was meaningful to experimentally measure the speed of light in SI units prior to 1983, but it is not so now.\n", "The speed of light is a dimensional quantity and so cannot be measured. Measurable quantities in phys...
What is "real politik" and how was it applied in Europe?	This is a very broad question and so I'll do my best to supply you with a general definition and then a specific example. You might get an answer closer to what you're looking for by narrowing down the question on time period and geography. Realpolitik is at its heart the setting aside of "ideological" motivations whe...	[ "Realpolitik (from ; \"realistic\", \"practical\", or \"actual\"; and '; \"politics\", ) is politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises. In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical appr...
Why were poor whites in the Southern States usually pro-slavery, when in all likelihood, it made their lives more difficult?	Think of the antebellum South as a hierarchy, with the planter elite at the top, and the black slave at the very bottom. Directly above the slaves were the poorest white people. Regardless of how they fit into the rest of white society, they still exerted power over the lowest group in the pyramid. The American slave s...	[ "Much of the character and condition of Poor Whites is rooted in the institution of slavery. A review of the historical literature on this subject is available here. Rather than provide wealth as it had for the Southern elite, in stark contrast, slavery considerably hindered progress of whites who did not own slave...
what determines if you are burning fat, muscles or calories?	I assume you meant > What determines if you are burning fat, protein, or carbohydrates? It is dependent on a number of factors, the type of exertion does not matter. Running or weight lifting alone do not determine which energy source your body uses. As I think you meant to say, there are three energy reservoirs ou...	[ "Diet itself helps to increase calorie burning by boosting metabolism, a process further enhanced while gaining more lean muscle. An aerobic exercise program can burn fat and increase the metabolic rate.\n", "A positive energy balance, when more calories are consumed rather than burned, is required for anabolism ...
Why would water push larger and heavier rocks/boulders farther up shore than smaller and lighter rocks?	If I'm reading the info you provided right, you might be looking at this backwards. You say the mouth of this river is established in a layer of glacial sediments. Now, there are a lot of different kinds of glacial seds, but one of the most important ones is Till. Till is interesting in that one of its properties is...	[ "The surf overturns boulders of all shapes and sizes, but smaller boulders are overturned at a more frequent rate, allowing less time for plants and animals to use them as a resource. From this information it appears that the larger boulder would have the greatest diversity, however Sousa found that this hypothesis...
Why Descendants of those who survived the plague in europe are immune to HIV?	Short answer: They aren’t. Longer answer: It was proposed that the relatively high frequency of the CCR5-Δ32 mutation in Europeans was selected by surviving bubonic plague, but that was just a hypothesis that wasn’t tested in the original paper, that hasn’t been supported by testing, and that doesn’t match what we kn...	[ "The diseases that have come to be associated with AIDS in Africa, such as cachexia, diarrheal diseases and tuberculosis have long been severe burdens there. However, high rates of mortality from these diseases, formerly confined to the elderly and malnourished, are now common among HIV-infected young and middle-ag...
Are there any recordings of Hitler where he's not screaming and yelling?	Hitler was amazingly guarded about his public image, and because of this, there is very little out there in terms of candid recordings. The one extant recording we have was made June 4, 1942, during a visit to Finland. Ostensibly, he was there to greet Mannerheim, the Finnish supreme commander, for the occasion of his ...	[ "Only one known recording exists of Hitler's voice when not giving a speech. An engineer for Finnish state broadcaster YLE secretly recorded 11 minutes of Hitler's 1942 meeting with Finnish leader Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (see Hitler and Mannerheim recording).\n", "Hitler's Madman is a 1943 World War II film a...
If in-breeding produces weak/deficient/deformed offspring, why doesn't asexual reproduction do the same?	In breeding results in homozygosity (the same allele in both positions). This means that conditions which are autosomal recessive are brought to the fore where before there was enough genetic diversity for this not to happen. Asexual reproduction is just cloning - there's no genetic crossover - so the offspring are i...	[ "Females can mate with multiple males (with as many as five), but it is not necessarily advantageous, because unnecessary matings waste time and energy. Polyandry may contribute to outbreeding if females preferentially mate with unrelated males. Polyandry can occur if the benefits of mating more than once are great...
what is a computer script?	One way of categorizing programming languages is according to whether they are interpreted or compiled. In an interpreted language, a program is simply a plain-text file containing the commands that you want to run. This file is called a script. You feed this file to a program called an interpreter which then exe...	[ "A scripting language is a high-level programming language that is used to control the software application, and is interpreted in real-time, or \"translated on the fly\", instead of being compiled in advance. A scripting language may be a general-purpose programming language or it may be limited to specific functi...
how do 'dry' wines taste dry when they're a liquid?	"Dry" is just the wine lingo word for "not sweet." Sugar tends to make us salivate a little bit, which might explain why "dry" is used to mean a wine with little sugar - because the sour, bitter, and tannic flavors in wine can make the mouth feel drier without much sugar to compensate. However, it is mainly the tanni...	[ "When referring to wine, \"dry\" is the opposite of \"sweet,\" and does not refer to astringency. Wines that contain tannins and so cause an astringent sensation are not necessarily classified as \"dry\", and \"dry\" wines are not necessarily astringent.\n", "Dryness is a property of beverages that describes the ...
why singapore is doing better (economically) than its neighboring countries	It is a former British trading port which achieved independence but retained its importance as a trading hub.	[ "The Singapore government has noticed the country's weakness and its special geographical location. It is because that the population of Singapore was much less than other surrounding countries, so soon its manufacturing status would be replaced by other Asian countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, China, etc. Also, ot...
how are weather percentages determined?	In order to forecast the weather, a lot of model simulations are run. This is called an ensemble, and each ensemble member has a slightly different set of initial conditions (to account for uncertainty in measurements). Percentages are calculated based on the results of the ensemble. For example, if it rained in a pa...	[ "Typical meteorological year is a collation of selected weather data for a specific location, listing hourly values of solar radiation and meteorological elements for a one-year period. The values are generated from a data bank much longer than a year in duration. It is specially selected so that it presents the ra...
Is it accurate to say that in wwII Mexico was approached by the nazis to attack the US but instead joined the fight in opposition.	Are you sure you are thinking about World War II? Most of this sounds like it is a description of World War I and the Zimmerman Telegram. Give a look at [this older thread](_URL_1_) or [this one](_URL_0_), or [this one](_URL_2_). (Although to be sure, Mexico never joined in for either side there)	[ "Mexico declared war on Germany in 1942 after German submarines attacked the Mexican oil tankers \"Potrero del Llano\" and \"Faja de Oro\" that were transporting crude oil to the United States. These attacks prompted President Manuel Ávila Camacho to declare war on the Axis powers.\n", "On 22 May 1942, Mexico dec...
what are "zoning laws" and "neighbourhood commities". they're either a tiny thing or not a thing at all in the uk	Zoning laws designate what type of structure and/or business can be located in a certain area. For instance, a city may not want a car repair shop plopped right down in the middle of a neighborhood. If by neighborhood communities you mean Home Owner Associations, these are collective organizations in which homeowner...	[ "In France, the Code of Urbanism (\"Code de L'Urbanisme),\" a national law, guides regional and local planning and outlines procedures for obtaining building permits. Unlike England where planners must use their discretion to allow use or building type changes, private development in France is permitted as long as ...
What causes the aftertaste one gets when administered certain anesthetics and illicit IV drugs?	This happens frequently with IV medications. It seems to be especially common with prefilled saline syringes. The mechanism is that when certain volatile compounds enter a vein and get circulated, within a few seconds they pass through the lungs. The compounds evaporate into the lung airspace and are exhaled. The sme...	[ "BULLET::::- Increased chance of overdose — Because IV injection delivers a dose of drug straight into the bloodstream, it is harder to gauge how much to use (as opposed to smoking or snorting, where the dose can be increased relatively incrementally until the desired effect is achieved; this gives a user who is in...
lbw in cricket	Leg Before Wicket: it's the simplest way for a batter to get put out in cricket. If he stands in front of the wicket and gets hit by a pitched ball that would have hit the wicket but for his body block, he's out. If you know baseball, it's like leaning into the strike zone. In baseball, such a pitch would just be ruled...	[ "BULLET::::- No LBW - As many backyard cricket games are without umpires, or self-umpired, or played with juniors, teams may agree to not use the relatively difficult LBW rule. Another alternative is \"Auto-LBW\", by which the batsman is \"always\" deemed to be out in almost any possible LBW scenario; it also has t...
how can idle clicker games that offer little to no gameplay become popular?	People like to micromanage and people like easy on-the-go games to play while they're taking breaks at work or are on the shitter.	[ "Incremental games (also known as idle games, clicker games, or clicking games) are video games whose gameplay consists of the player performing simple actions such as clicking on the screen repeatedly (\"grinding\") to earn currency. In some games, even the clicking becomes unnecessary after a time, as the game pl...
Why did the Harlem Globetrotters never join the NBA?	1927-1950 the globetrotters did play real competitive basketball and were one of the best teams in the world. However, they were based out of Chicago and only used the Harlem moniker to reference their connection to black culture. At first, they would play regional as well as one national tournament called the world ...	[ "After the integration of the NBA, the Harlem Globetrotters started to focus on international touring and exhibition performances, including comic routines. These tours helped to popularize basketball internationally, and gave the Globetrotters the reputation as Basketball's goodwill ambassadors.\n", "Even after ...
Why were women considered bad luck to be on a ship? When and how did the superstition start?	It's been years since I've actively studied anything related to the Age of Sail but once a fangirl, always a fangirl, I suppose. So, to answer your question, women were considered bad luck on ships because they were believed to be too physically inferior to be of any use in actually sailing the vessel while also distra...	[ "In 1860, John Angell James in Female Piety or A Young Woman’s Friend and Guide expresses that “the nature of the women derive from Eve, who was the cause of the sin and death in our world as well as the reason why mankind was driven out of the Garden of Eden. She is a temptress who caused the fall of the man by te...
Why are some people able to bend their pinky finger without moving the rest of their fingers, while other people cannot?	I'm not sure but sitting here bending my pinkie reminded me of the time some redditor had me trying to taste the salt at work	[ "The pad-to-pad pinch between the thumb and index finger is made possible because of the human ability to passively hyperextend the distal phalanx of the index finger. Most non-human primates have to flex their long fingers in order for the small thumb to reach them.\n", "Patients with finger agnosia may have dif...
In the Middle Ages, how common was literacy in one's own language as opposed to literacy in Latin or Greek?	Vernacular literacy in 13th to 14th century England was on the way up, so that some estimates say that as many as half of the adult male population was literate enough to transact business in writing. This link has [more information,](_URL_0_) with interesting insights into just what we mean by "literate".	[ "Literacy began to decline, perhaps dramatically, during the socio-political Crisis of the Third Century. After the Christianization of the Roman Empire the Christians and Church Fathers adopted and used Latin and Greek pagan literature, philosophy and natural science with a vengeance to biblical\n", "During the ...
Peerage Titles and Military Ranks	Formally it's military rank followed by the honorific or title, for example Admiral the Viscount Nelson, Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington or Marshal of the Royal Air Force the Viscount Trenchard. Informally these may be shortened to Lord Nelson, The Duke of Wellington or Lord Trenchard respectively. Indeed any ...	[ "The highest ranks, senior to the five-star ranks, are General of the Armies (in the Army) and Admiral of the Navy (in the Navy). These ranks are sometimes called six-star ranks, but holders of the ranks have never used six-star insignia. Only three people have ever held these ranks, which are sometimes considered ...
Would a thimbleful of a neutron star which weighs approximately 100 million tons on earth, remain the size of a thimble if it were removed from its neutron star?	The star's gravity is the reason that we conclude it has such high density. It is unknown if a smaller amount of this dense neutron material would be stable in that form, as a neutron star is only about 10 km in diameter, and it's obviously stable. Some theories hold that this amount of neutron star on Earth would ex...	[ "Despite their small diameters—about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers)—neutron stars boast nearly 1.5 times the mass of our sun, and are thus incredibly dense. Just a sugar cube of neutron star matter would weigh about one hundred million tons on Earth.\n", "In 2010 it was estimated that the neutron star's mass was at l...
the reddit policy against self promotion	Reddit has very few hard rules (i.e. rules which may cause your account to be shadow-banned if broken), however there are a number of soft rules (primarily outlined on the [reddiquette](_URL_0_) page) that guide 'proper' behavior on the site. In terms of hard rules, the only one which is relevant to your situation is ...	[ "Sponsors of overt negative campaigns often cite reasons to support mass communication of negative ideas. The Office of National Drug Control Policy uses negative campaigns to steer the public away from health risks. Similar negative campaigns have been used to rebut mass marketing by tobacco companies, or to disco...
Looking for resources on Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic period	I recommend beginning with Harriet Crawford's Sumer and the Sumerians and Postgate's Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History. Susan Pollock's Ancient Mesopotamia is excellent but very dry, as is Crawford's edited volume The Sumerian World. I also highly recommend *Archaic Bookkeeping: Ear...	[ "In the early 20th century excavations were carried out at Carchemish, Turkey by D. G. Hogarth and Leonard Woolley, the latter assisted by T. E. Lawrence. The Mesopotamian collections were greatly augmented by excavations in southern Iraq after the First World War. From Tell al-Ubaid came the bronze furnishings of ...
I'm an able bodied man from East Germany during the cold war, if I really wanted to, how hard would it be for me to get to west Germany and how likely would I be to succeed?	Acording to [this table](_URL_0_) your chances of succes would have been like 20-25%. The 2nd collumn is all succesful attempts of that year and the 5th collum are all unsuccesful attempts. How hard it would have been is dependent on a lot of factors, it could be easy for instance: you are allowed to travel to the west...	[ "During the Cold War, it was difficult for West Germans to visit East German relatives and friends and impossible vice versa. For East Germans, especially after the building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 and until Hungary opened up its border to the West in the late 1980s, thus allowing hundreds of thousands...
Why did Ashkenazi Jews who lived outside of German-speaking areas speak Yiddish?	Short answer: Because they lived in Yiddish-speaking areas, doh. Long answer: The Yiddish language is indeed related to some German dialects currently spoken in what used to be Roman Germany but doesn't share the innovations that appeared in German after the 15th century. What might be the reason? [The Jews arri...	[ "The divisions between Yiddish speaking Jews and Jews of German backgrounds extended beyond the synagogues as well, and in many ways it was as though there were two separate Jewish communities. The perception of the German Jewish community was that the Yiddish Jews were of a lower class, possibly a threat to the ca...
can blind people even understand the concept of color?	Check out Tommy Edison on youtube. He's a blind comedian, and he's got a whole series of videos on being blind...and he's hilarious. One specifically where he's trying to guess the color of a Magic Marker by smelling them...	[ "In the philosophy of mind, the phrase often refers to knowledge that can \"only\" be acquired through experience, such as, for example, the knowledge of what it is like to see colours, which could not be explained to someone born blind: the necessity of experiential knowledge becomes clear if one was asked to expl...
Why are male ligers "sterile", but not the females?	This is called "Haldane's rule": if there is sterility in a hybrid population, it is more likely that the heterogametic sex (that is, the one carrying XY) will be the sterile one. In mammals, the male is XY, while in birds, it's the female that's XY (called ZW, but that's just terminology), and so hybrid male mammals ...	[ "Males with LNS do not reproduce due to the characteristics of the disease. However, if a male with a less severe phenotype reproduces, all of his daughters are carriers, and none of his sons will be affected.\n", "Leydig cell hypoplasia does not occur in biological females as they do not have either Leydig cells...
why is taking an aspirin before the surgery harmful?	It prevents your blood from clotting properly! Hence, if you want to walk out of the surgery without blood gushing from your wounds you shouldn't take an aspirin right before it :) EDIT: words	[ "Aspirin is used in the treatment of a number of conditions, including fever, pain, rheumatic fever, and inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, pericarditis, and Kawasaki disease. Lower doses of aspirin have also been shown to reduce the risk of death from a heart attack, or the risk of stroke in pe...
Does exercise burn more calories at different parts of the day? What time of day is the body most efficient at fat burning?	You'll burn more fat at times when less carbohydrates are available for energy, it's that simple, and the first article says exactly that. Second article is not about cardio, it's about resistance training, so I don't know why you are trying to apply its facts to cardio.	[ "Diet itself helps to increase calorie burning by boosting metabolism, a process further enhanced while gaining more lean muscle. An aerobic exercise program can burn fat and increase the metabolic rate.\n", "Phillips maintains that aerobic exercise is more effective for fat loss when done first thing in the morn...
How was the Electoral College in the US related to slavery?	- The voting population of slave states was small compared to it's total population, free and slave. - Due to the 3/5 compromise slaves counted for the purposes of apportionment. - Congressional representation determines the number of electoral votes a state has. - The North had a larger population and was growing. [By...	[ "At the Constitution, the Electoral College was authorized a majority of 49 votes for northern states in the process of abolishing slavery, and 42 votes for slave-holding states (including Delaware). In the event, the first 1788 presidential election did not include Electoral College votes for unratified Rhode Isla...
what exactly makes ramen noodles so unhealthy, and if you eat ramen often, will you have a shorter life expectancy?	Ramen in and of itself is just noodles in soup. But instant Ramen, the kind you buy in a store, has a lot of salt. Too much salt is bad for you.	[ "Before the automatic noodle machine was invented in 1950s, the processing of Chinese noodles were made with four steps, including Fresh - The noodles are often consumed within 24 hours of manufacture due to quick discoloration. Their shelf life can be extended to 3-5 days if stored under refrigeration; Dried - Fre...
Are the planets really in a ring around the sun?	Yes, the planets orbit the Sun on the same plane, more or less. This question has been answered before. Be sure to check out the [FAQ's](_URL_0_) next time. Quoting my answer from the FAQ's on this subject: > The reason is the physical principle known as conservation of angular momentum. > > Before the planet...	[ "The rings of the Solar System's gas giants are aligned with their planet's equator. However, for exoplanets that orbit close to their star, tidal forces from the star would lead to the outermost rings of a planet being aligned with the planet's orbital plane around the star. A planet's innermost rings would still ...
During WWII were elderly or vulnerable adults evacuated out of London in the Blitz?	Evacuees were mostly children, either unaccompanied or with their mothers, but others were also included in the government scheme including "homeless persons, expectant mothers, children in nurseries, camps and hostels, invalids, old people, the crippled, and the blind" (Richard M. Titmuss, Problems of Social Policy)...	[ "In 1940 and again in 1944-45, London suffered severe damage, being bombed extensively by the \"Luftwaffe\" as a part of The Blitz. Prior to the bombing, hundreds of thousands of children in London were evacuated to the countryside to avoid the bombing. Civilians took shelter from the air raids in underground stati...
why is the media so selective about the things they report?	They have to be. They only have so many reporters, so many photographers, so many pages or minutes of airtime... They can't report on everything. As a result, they must pick & choose.	[ "The images that media create and carry the weight of social responsibility and the right side of social value. Audiences learn and conduct their political sights of view from reading, listening to the political analysis and evaluation. The mass media are powerful guardians of proper political behavior because audi...
How did the Fleur de Lis and the color blue become integral to the symbology of Royal France?	Fleur-de-lis was at first a religious symbol. It is believed that the flower of lily was used to baptize King Clovis I. It is likely that the kings of France therefore kept this flower to commemorate their ancestor's (all kings of France were his descendants) conversion to Christianity. During the 12^(th) century King ...	[ "Blue and red are the traditional colours of Paris, used on the city's coat of arms. Blue is identified with Saint Martin, red with Saint Denis. At the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the Paris militia wore blue and red cockades on their hats. White had long featured prominently on French flags and is described a...
why is ac better than dc ?	The main benefit is that you can easily change voltages/amps with AC using a transformer. Voltage and Current have inverse relationship, but power used/lost depends mostly on current, so being able to transport it as a very high voltage, and very low current means you can use much smaller wires, which cost a LOT less ...	[ "The electric power is generally DC rather than AC, even though this requires large rectifiers. DC motors were formerly more efficient for railway applications, and once a DC system is in place, converting it to AC is generally considered infeasible.\n", "One advantage of direct current over AC is that DC current...
Where cannon balls explosive as seen in movies or where they just balls of metal?	The other post is wrong, as far as I understand - the word cannonball refers to things that weren't rockets, grapeshot, or exotics like carcasses. However, there are 'shot' cannonballs and 'shell' cannonballs. The Huolongjing, a famous 14th century Chinese treatise, references both, specifically talking about round, ho...	[ "Adam and Jamie tested several cannonball myths involving improvised cannon ammunition and whether they are lethal or not. Using a Civil War-era cannon nicknamed \"Old Moses\" that had been used to help test \"Cannonball vs. Shrapnel\" on the first Pirate Special, the MythBusters fired various improvised materials ...
how come light doesn't go through objects like walls of their atoms are made of mostly empty space as proved by the gold foil experiment?	A forest is mostly empty space too, but if you run a car into one at 100 miles and hour you're likely going to have a tough time making it very far.	[ "When light falls onto a block of metal, it encounters atoms that are tightly packed in a regular lattice and a \"sea of electrons\" moving randomly between the atoms. In metals, most of these are non-bonding electrons (or free electrons) as opposed to the bonding electrons typically found in covalently bonded or i...
Why do males have two testicals as opposed to one?	Bilateral symmetry. Humans, at least, begin life as female in the womb. After a certain point of development, If you are meant to be male, you differentiate into a male. Labia fuse to form the scrotum, ovaries differentiate into testes, and the clitoris becomes a penis.	[ "The relative sizes of male testes often reflect mating systems. In species with promiscuous mating systems, where many males mate with many females, the testes tend to be relatively large. This appears to be the result of sperm competition. Males with large testes produce more sperm and thereby gain an advantage i...
Why are we able to feel any part of our body when we think about that certain part?	Well technically your brain ignores certain feelings until they surpass a signal threshold and or you stop blocking the signals. Imagine you live near a busy street. After a while of constant noise you will begin to block it out until you think about it, then it's obvious. So the brain is constantly blocking signals yo...	[ "Because human beings \"are\" in an ongoing interaction with the world (they breathe, eat, and interact with others in every context and in any field in which they work), their bodies \"are\" a \"knowing\" which is more than conceptual and which implies further steps. Thus, it is possible for one to drive a car whi...
what is data mining?	Looking for patterns in large amounts of data. A well known case from a while back was this: retailers have a huge database of what customers bought. An analyst had this idea: You can tell when a woman has just had a baby because for instance she has started buying diapers. But is there anything in a woman's buying pa...	[ "BULLET::::- Data mining is the extraction of consumer information from a database by utilizing software that can isolate and identify previously unknown patterns or trends in large amounts of data. There is a variety of data mining techniques that reveal different types of patterns. Some of the techniques that bel...
Why did American revolutionaries keep place names like "New England" and "New London" after the expulsion of the British?	I'm not sure if anyone has examined this subject in a conclusive or comprehensive way, but the few examples of names either changing or staying the same during and after the Revolution tend to depend on local politics more than a centrally-planned national campaign to change names. Most of my examples will come from Ne...	[ "Based on the expedition, Smith published a map in 1616, which was the first to bear the label \"New England\", though the native placenames were replaced by the names of English cities at the request of Prince Charles. The settlers of Plymouth Colony adopted the name that Smith gave to that area, and other placena...
why can't spacex let the used rockets land in the ocean, then retrieve them rather than trying to land on a barge?	Cleaning the salt and other ocean contaminants off of the rockets is expensive. What you propose is what the [Space Shuttle rockets did](_URL_0_). While a reliable system at the time, the same benefits could be achieved for less cost by landing the rockets on a barge or other area such that the refurbishing costs are ...	[ "In May 2015, a specialized press article stated that due to the technical success of the landing attempts on the sea on the autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS), SpaceX was planning on using the New Mexico site for testing the returned stages. But to date, no work has occurred at the facility.\n", "Therefore, ...
why can places like newegg ship ups for free when it costs regular people so much money?	Volume. Carriers like UPS commonly offer discounted rates to companies that do a lot of business with them. It's not hard to see why; a company that does a lot of shipping can choose among several worldwide shipping companies, and not getting that business means losing a lot of revenue. So carries are highly incenti...	[ "Due to its location and weather conditions, transportation to the island is very expensive. Having very few economic development opportunities and a tight budget, the city charges non-business visitors arriving by plane or boat a $50.00 fee.\n", "The £9.2 million grant from the UK government came with the strang...
what would be the environmental issues with sinking large quantities of trash into the mariana trench?	You didn’t deal with the problem you just dumped it out of sight. It’s like sweeping dirt under the rug. Eventually you’re going to have to pull up the rug and clean that up too. So you just delayed the problem and potentially made it worse from pollutants leaking out of the garbage.	[ "Like other oceanic trenches, the Mariana Trench has been proposed as a site for nuclear waste disposal, in the hope that tectonic plate subduction occurring at the site might eventually push the nuclear waste deep into the Earth's mantle, the second layer of the Earth. However, ocean dumping of nuclear waste is pr...
Were the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War thankful for the help of the International Brigades, or were they viewed as a nuisance?	One thing to keep in mind is that the Spanish Civil War was incredibly chaotic. The fate of a particular town or city could be decided in mere minutes. Whomever could muster the most firearms in the least amount of time would end up in control. This was often an army unit, but was also commonly a militia or even a...	[ "As the war unfolded, the Spanish Republican Army would include regiments, divisions, corps and field armies. Most of the foreign volunteer combatants would be part of the International Brigades' (\"Brigadas internacionales\") own sections until they were asked to withdraw in order to satisfy the demands of the Non...
Are there any millionaires alive today who's only source of wealth is inheritance from slave owners.	You may be interested in the [Legacies of British Slavery](_URL_0_) project. When Britain emancipated its slaves, it paid compensation to the slaveowners. This project traces the families and institutions that benefited from that payout.	[ "Half of the money went to slave-owning families in the Caribbean and Africa, while the other half went to absentee owners living in Britain. The names listed in the returns for slave owner payments show that ownership was spread over many hundreds of British families, many of them (though not all) of high social s...
Could you clone a woman by transplanting the nucleus from one of her normal cells into one of her own egg cells?	Yes, it is definitely possible. This, in fact, is how most animal cloning is done. Except that the egg donor is usually a different animal from the nucleus donor. See [this description](_URL_0_) of the first successful cloning of a mammal.	[ "The process of somatic cell nuclear transplant involves two different cells. The first being a female gamete, known as the ovum (egg/oocyte). In human SCNT (Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer) experiments, these eggs are obtained through consenting donors, utilizing ovarian stimulation. The second being a somatic cell,...
if drunk people are unable to consent, what happens when both parties are equally drunk and have sex?	Usually yes. However, it is possible for people to give consent beforehand. For instance, an established couple might consume drugs and then have sex while under the effects. Because they have an established relationship, and previously consented, I think it would avoid the definition of rape.	[ "Some have noted gender-specific and variable standards for intoxicated consent. In a recent lawsuit against Duke university, a Duke administrator, when asked whether verbal consent need be mutual when both participants are drunk, stated, \"Assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of t...
why were people like the nazi ss able to such horrible things without remorse?	You have to understand a few things in the context of History. Even in the late 1930s most of Europe was still trying to recover from WWI which devastated millions of people and human life was not perceived as an especially precious commodity. In fact, casual murder runs all throughout human history, even in America ...	[ "Secondly, many Nazis had been indoctrinated in unquestioning loyalty to the party and with it its cultural ideology of preferring death over living in defeat. Finally, others killed themselves because they knew what would happen to them following defeat. The Soviets, Americans and the British had made it clear in ...
Can Anyone Point to a Time in History When Trickle Down Economics Worked?	The gilded age was define by hands off, laissez faire economic policy and in terms of raw economic growth, it seemed to have worked pretty damn well. Obviously the workers were struggling but the economy as a whole grew tremendously.	[ "The economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted that \"trickle-down economics\" had been tried before in the United States in the 1890s under the name \"horse and sparrow theory\", writing: Galbraith claimed that the horse and sparrow theory was partly to blame for the Panic of 1896.\n", "Trickle-down economics, also...
if the energy is consumed at the time it is produced how come there is always electricity at the electrical outlets ?	Because it is produced in anticipation of you using it. And with a million people using it at the same time, you turning on your blender is balanced out by someone else turning off their blow dryer. Also, there is enough "slack" in the system that what one or two households so isn't going change how much total power ...	[ "Thus, all electrical energy is potential energy before it is delivered to the end-use. Once converted from potential energy, electrical energy can always be called another type of energy (heat, light, motion, etc.).\n", "A characteristic of electricity is that it is not primary energy freely present in nature in...

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