Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
if the smell of cut grass is a distress signal, what will the grass that receives the message actually do about it?	The grass sends it's nutrients etc. to it's roots so that they won't go to waste and can use them to regrow.	[ "Grass allergy is generally linked to hay fever because their symptoms and causes are somehow similar to each other. Symptoms include rhinitis, which causes sneezing and a runny nose, as well as allergic conjunctivitis, which includes watering and itchy eyes. Also an initial tickle on the roof of the mouth or in th...
how does the photo 51 of rosalind franklin show the evidence for a double stranded dna	This page has an interactive walkthrough of the image explaining everything along the way: _URL_0_ It's not perfect but gives a decent understanding of it using simple terms.	[ "The X-ray diffraction images collected by Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. While Franklin's experimental work proved important to Crick and Watson's development of a correct model, she herself could not realize it at the time. When she left King's College, Director Sir John Randal...
; it’s not the volts that kill you, it’s the amps?	That saying is just plain wrong. It’s the volts and the amps and the frequency and the duration that kill you. Sadly there is no really simple way to understand all the nuances of electricity. A typical static shock blasts you with a pulse of tens of thousands of volts, carrying about between 1 and 20 amps amps ...	[ "The ampere ( or (UK), symbol: A), often shortened to \"amp\", is the base unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), French mathematician and physicist, considered the father of electrodynamics.\n", "A volt-ampere (VA) is the unit used fo...
Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in the UK and not elsewhere? I have seen several theories, including colonialism, natural resources, Protestantism, capitalism and the rule of law. Is there any historical consensus on this?	No, there really isn't a complete consensus; there's even an entire group of people out there that believe it was a pure accident. But there is one very popular theory out there: Institutional Development Theory, which I take after. The general conclusion drawn from the theory that the small european states developed ...	[ "The Industrial Revolution began in England due to the social, economic and political changes implemented in the previous centuries. Whereas absolute monarchy stayed the normal form of power execution through most parts of Europe, institutions ensured property rights and political safety to British people after the...
How do self driving cars respond to traffic officers?	Most self driving cars right now have an actual driver in them whom can take control at any time. So this is not much of an issue. Edit- How will it work in the future? Implementing computer recognition of lights and sirens is no more difficult than what they do already. It may be a little odd for ambulance protocol w...	[ "Self-driving cars are already exploring the difficulties of determining the intentions of pedestrians, bicyclists, and animals, and models of behavior must be programmed into driving algorithms. Human road users also have the challenge of determining the intentions of autonomous vehicles, where there is no driver ...
Other than learning from mistakes of past. Why would you say it is important for a person in the present times to know and understand history? I like history a lot, but I find myself unable to expose its relevance to uninterested people. How is it a useful or important knowledge?	Hello there, I have worked in the public history field for about 2-3 years giving tours of historical sites to school groups. Oftentimes, they were initially very uninterested in what I had to say, I don't really blame them since they were very tired from their trips and probably stuck memorizing for standardized tests...	[ "Sze as “one of the initiators of the WHO”. Mr Høybråten quoted Dr Sze as saying “Of course we can learn from history. We learn from the mistakes made if not from the successes. Learning the reasons why certain things happened often saves us from making the same mistakes again”.\n", "BULLET::::- “It’s very import...
how do you get into medical school in the united states?	1. Complete a pre-medical program during undergraduate. This includes the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), which is a test of your knowledge in subjects such as chemistry and biology as well as your thinking andreasoning skills. Your score will be included with your med school applications. 2. Apply for medical...	[ "In the US and Canada, a potential medical student must first complete an undergraduate degree in any subject before applying to a graduate medical school to pursue an (M.D. or D.O.) program. U.S. medical schools are almost all four-year programs. Some students opt for the research-focused M.D./Ph.D. dual degree pr...
if a muslim was on the exact opposite side of the earth from mecca, where would they turn to pray?	They would probably move a bit.	[ "In Judaism, west is seen to be toward the Shekinah (presence) of God, as in Jewish history the Tabernacle and subsequent Jerusalem Temple faced east, with God's Presence in the Holy of Holies up the steps to the west. According to the Bible, the Israelites crossed the Jordan River westward into the Promised Land. ...
What did those in the English speaking world in the Victorian era consider "spooky" architecture?	Decay and decrepitude are kind of universal - I can give a couple of examples from opposite ends of the Victorian era (1837-1901): > I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and ...	[ "At this time the style was known as \"Old English\", and considered especially appropriate for vicarages and rectories, partly because they were usually next to the church, which was likely to be Gothic. Tudor style was \"almost infinitely adaptable, particularly to low, spreading houses\", and because the larger ...
can someone explain general relativity?	Ooooh, not exactly something that you can explain in 5 minutes, but I'll give it a shot. Keep in mind that I am far from an expert and on top of that I'm kind of bending the rules to make things easier to explain. First off, when I say "fast" I mean something like 100 thousand kilometers per second. The speed of light...	[ "General relativity is the geometrical theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915/16. It unifies special relativity, Newton's law of universal gravitation, and the insight that gravitation can be described by the curvature of space and time. In general relativity, the curvature of spacetime is produ...
Why is my non-dominant hand/arm able capable of doing some things and not others?	Simply put, practice. Your brain "learns" how to perform individual tasks by trial and error; attempting to perform a task and remembering the outcome of each attempt. The brain then incorporates the previous attempt and adapts accordingly. This is the basic concept behind [muscle memory](_URL_0_). However, this "memo...	[ "BULLET::::- \"Ambidexterity\", equal ability to use both hands, is exceptionally rare, although it can be learned. A completely ambidextrous person is able to do any task equally well with either hand. Those who learn it still tend to favor their originally dominant hand.\n", "While the human hand has unique ana...
how does physics work in calculus?	You get something called jerk. Its how quickly an acceleration changes. For example, An object that goes from an acceleration of 20m/s/s to 30m/s/s over 2 seconds will have a jerk of 5m/s/s/s.	[ "Calculus is of vital importance in physics: many physical processes are described by equations involving derivatives, called differential equations. Physics is particularly concerned with the way quantities change and develop over time, and the concept of the \"time derivative\" — the rate of change over time — is...
why do dogs cock their heads when their begging for something?	There are a few theories on why they do this. 1. They're trying to hear better Dogs have movable earflaps that help them locate the source of a sound, but they also have brains that can compute time differences between the sound reaching each ear. A slight change in a dog's head position supplies additional information...	[ "This breed is also very vocal in expressing their emotions. Kuchi dogs often growl to show either pleasure or displeasure, which can be misconstrued by many, especially children, as a sign of aggression - and lead to unwanted and potentially dangerous reactions on their part.\n", "The dog may yawn when someone b...
what will happen to the 0.1% of the germs that didn't get killed by the hand sanitizer?	Those that survive will often pass on this genetic advantage to their offspring, which will then be slightly more resistant and so on...This is natural selection and evolution in action. Bacteria and viruses have already evolved/mutated in response to our modern medical treatments, which has created new classes of drug...	[ "If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol (check the product label to be sure). Hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol is effective in killing Cronobacter germs. But use soap and water as soon as possible afterward because hand sanitizer does not kill all ...
Can a fathers abuse of alcohol affect the number of dopamine receptors in their child?	Don't call him out. There may be a genetic connection to dopamine production or uptake; I can't really speak to that because I'm a total noob to neuroscience (sorry!). However, the effects of growing up as a child of an alcoholic (abuse/trauma) can create biological changes in systems of the brain related to emotion an...	[ "Severe childhood trauma is also associated with a general increase in the risk of drug dependency. Lack of peer and family support is associated with an increased risk of alcoholism developing. Genetics and adolescence are associated with an increased sensitivity to the neurotoxic effects of chronic alcohol abuse....
why does music in 4/4 time sounds more natural to us?	Part of it is what we are conditioned to listen to. Lots of music is in 4/4 so it has a context we can fit it into. As a professional musician, I've played lots of music in many mixed meters, so those don't sound or feel awkward to me anymore. I've been conditioned to have a way to understand them compared to lots of o...	[ "Music inherently depends on silence, in some form or another, to distinguish other periods of sound and allow dynamics, melodies, and rhythms to have greater impact. For example, most music scores feature \"rests\", which denote periods of silence. In addition, silence in music can be seen as a time for contemplat...
why has there recently been an increase in ultra-nationalism?	The sad truth is that it's because the economy is lousy. Historically, whenever there has been a recession or a famine, xenophobia has risen. When things are going well, good jobs are plentiful, and opportunity abounds, nobody really cares about people of different ethnicities and lifestyles. There's a perception that...	[ "Expansionist nationalisms is an aggressive and radical form of nationalism that incorporates autonomous, patriotic sentiments with a belief in expansionism or recovering formerly owned territories. The term was coined during the late nineteenth century as European powers indulged in the 'Scramble for Africa' in th...
the fed and why people like it and dislike it	People dislike the federal reserve because they make money out of thin air every year which causes all of our money to decrease in value. This is much like a hidden tax on your currency on top of the taxes you already pay, and people hate taxes. At times they seemingly make money according to no set rules or plan, or f...	[ "\"The Fed\" controls the money supply in the United States by controlling the amount of loans made by commercial banks. New loans are usually in the form of increased checking account balances, and since checkable deposits are part of the money supply, the money supply increases when new loans are made ...\n", "...
How will the historian of the future sift through the billions of primary sources offered by the digital age?	That's a great question. Short answer: digital sources are readily handled by digital tools. While the amount of digital information is growing rapidly, the power of the tools we have for examining this information is already powerful, and it's fair to imagine that they will grow much more powerful in the future. & ...	[ "The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007, and some 5 zettabytes in 2014. This is the informational equivalent to 1.25 stacks of CD-ROM from the earth to the mo...
why do shark cages have gaps in them, which look big enough for sharks to fit through?	Could be because most dangerous sharks are still too big to get in. Could also be that if a dangerous shark did get in, the diver could escape. Edit: I found a video in which a man uses the gap on the side to escape _URL_0_	[ "A shark-proof cage is a metal cage used by an underwater diver to observe dangerous types of sharks up close in relative safety. This can include various species of shark, but the most commonly observed within the confines of a cage are the great white shark and the bull shark, which are both known to be aggressiv...
How exactly do scholars decipher an unknown writing system?	There are many ways. One of them, and probably the ideal case, is if you find a document where the same text is written in several different languages and scripts. The best example of that is the Rosetta Stone. _URL_0_	[ "The difficulty in deciphering these systems can arise from a lack of known language descendants or from the languages being entirely isolated, from insufficient examples of text having been found and even (such as in the case of Vinča) from the question of whether the symbols actually constitute a writing system a...
At what stage is cryonics and medicine at where a cryopreserved human body could be resuscitated?	Anhydrobiosis is a technique used naturally by living organisms to survive in a desiccated (dry) state. Surviving the extreme cold uses the same techniques, as it all boils down to preserving the lipid bilayers that make up cell membranes. One way to do this is "water replacement." Normal membrane function relies o...	[ "Cryonics is the process of cryopreservating of a body to liquid nitrogen temperature to stop the natural decay processes that occur after death. Those practicing cryonics hope that future technology will allow the legally dead person to be restored to life when and if science is able to cure all disease, rejuvenat...
How is dry ice made?	The CO2 gas is first compressed to about 150 psi or 1.0 MPa. The compression causes the gas to heat up significantly. The gas is then run through a heat exchanger a.k.a. condenser. cooling it back down to room temperature. This causes most of the gas to condense into liquid CO2. The pressure is then lowered back to ...	[ "Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide. It is used primarily as a cooling agent. Its advantages include lower temperature than that of water ice and not leaving any residue (other than incidental frost from moisture in the atmosphere). It is useful for preserving frozen foods where mechanical cooling is unava...
why does usb have fewer reliability issues than older interfaces?	USB was actually built to be hot pluggable, so they've got the ability to shut it down, reload it, and refresh the drivers, device everything HOT. This means that if there's a hiccup, timing issue, or crash during load they can handle it. Whereas the old games and such were built very bare bones, streamlined for spee...	[ "The standard connectors were designed to be more robust than many past connectors. This is because USB is hot-pluggable, and the connectors would be used more frequently, and perhaps with less care, than previous connectors.\n", "More recent standards such as USB, FireWire, and Ethernet take advantage of declini...
why every storm we get the radar shows it moving one way but the wind blows the opposite?	Because the wind is not pushing the storm along. That's not how storms work. Wind moves from areas of high pressure, to areas of low pressure. A storm front is a low pressure area, so wind will flow from the high pressure area in front of the storm, back into it. This also moves the storm, because as the wind moves it ...	[ "Weather radars are capable of detecting Doppler shift in returning waveforms. This information is used to extrapolate a mean relative velocity for all objects within the sampled airspace. Aeroecologists have used this information to distinguish among objects drifting with the wind (particulates such as dust, seeds...
in islamic countries, how are women who wear a face veil identified for official purposes?	As I live in an arabic country, I can tell you, that on their passport, or official ID card, women have a picture of their face. This is taken by a female photographer. At official purposes (such as imigration on the airport) they lift it just enough that the officer can check and the camera can scan the face.	[ "Most Islamic scholars and most contemporary Islamic jurists have agreed that women are not required to cover their face, though a number of scholars, particularly among the Salafi movement consider it to be obligatory. There exist a number of reasons why women may cover their face in public, and this practice must...
how does net neutrality continue to be threatened through legislation? haven't we already shot this down?	Unfortunately, there's no "double jeopardy" on bad legislation. They can try and try and try to pass it as long as they want.	[ "Net neutrality rules would prevent traffic from being allocated to the most needed users, according to Internet Pioneer David Farber. Because net neutrality regulations prevent a discrimination of traffic, networks would have to treat critical traffic equally with non-critical traffic. According to Farber, \"When ...
Why would someone be listed as a "Slave" in a 1910 US census?	Here is my thought: the constitution bans slavery except as punishment. It is possible that he was on some form of work-release from the prison. If he was not being paid as part of this, it would be slavery as punishment. That, or your great grandparents were real hard-asses, and the guy was being a smart Alec.	[ "The 1820 Census built on the questions asked in 1810 by asking age questions about slaves. Also the term \"colored\" entered the census nomenclature. In addition, a question stating \"Number of foreigners not naturalized\" was included.\n", "The first United States Census in 1790 classed residents as \"free whit...
how does fat in the body create more flesh?	You have dedicate fat cells that are specialized in storing energy as fat. To if you eat more food that you need you can stor it as fat in those cells. If you eat food with less calories then you need you start to remove the fat from the cells and use it for energy. When you use fat for energy you convert fat+oxygen- ...	[ "However, other subcutaneous fat tissues also might contribute to metabolic disease, if the fat cells become too enlarged and \"sick.\" Admittedly, subcutaneous fat cells typically are larger, and capable of storing more fat when needed. However, subcutaneous fat tissue represents the largest proportion of fat tiss...
Is there a substance that burns with a flame cold enough to touch?	The only reason that fire is fire, is because the chemical reaction is powerful enough to emit light(via electrons moving up and down specific orbits.) If you were to suppose a similar reaction, like oxidation of iron in the prescence of an oxidizer, you can often get the same kind of reaction albeit slowly. When you...	[ "In addition some solvents, such as methanol, can burn with a very hot flame which can be nearly invisible under some lighting conditions. This can delay or prevent the timely recognition of a dangerous fire, until flames spread to other materials.\n", "Solid objects that are hot can also cause contact burns, esp...
what the scientific meme is?	Are you talking about the Sociological concept of a meme? Well essentially it's a thought virus, a concept that quickly spreads from person to person. Most cultural norms would be considered memetic in nature.	[ "Susan Blackmore has made contributions to the field of memetics. The term \"meme\" was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book \"The Selfish Gene\". In his foreword to Blackmore's book \"The Meme Machine\" (1999), Dawkins said, \"Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore ha...
"The [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians." How accurate is this statement from a history textbook?	I took AP US history in the South too, welcome to the "Lost Cause" narrative. I started high school in the midwest, before moving south, everything remotely involving the civil war is taught differently. The ante-bellum period in the South was characterized by a sense of victimization, that the North came down and to...	[ "The Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization of whites that resisted what they saw as the excesses of Reconstruction. They sometimes terrorized and even assassinated Union League leadership. Founder Nathan Bedford Forrest grew uneasy about the group’s tendency to lawlessness, and disbanded it in the late 1860’s.\n",...
Worth your salt? From my understanding salt was worth more then gold at one point in time. If that's the case then how come people used to "salt the Feild's" of there enemy's wouldn't that be a cost prohibitive measure? Also couldn't they just boil down sea water to produce salt?	Hi, not discouraging further answers here, but meanwhile, you may be interested in a few previous posts on salt Salt vs gold * [Why was salt so important in trade? Was it ever "worth its weight in gold"?](_URL_0_) * [Why was salt so expensive in ancient times (close to it's weight in gold)? If so, how did poor peopl...	[ "BULLET::::- \"Sea salt\" (): The most important source. In earliest times, coastal and island salterns used earthen and then iron boiling pans to reduce sea water to salt. By the 3rd century BCE, workers filtered sea water through flat beds of ashes or sand into pits to produce a brine which could be boiled or eva...
Why do LEDs sometimes appear to "bounce" (e.g. if you chatter your teeth)?	There's a few possibilities. In each case, the light is pulsing on/off too fast for you to notice until you jar your eyes quickly and it becomes apparent because there is a part of your retina that gets more (or less) light than expected. With a clock radio, the displays are usually multiplexed to save on circuitry. ...	[ "LEDs start blinking immediately upon being turned on, but slight manufacturing differences mean the frequency is slightly off between them, and the LEDs soon appear semi-random when there are several together. Small groups may sometimes converge and then diverge again in the way that a group of cars may have turn ...
what happens in the brain when you decide to move a hand or leg?	It is a VERY long answer in reality, but I'll try to make it short. Your brain sends signals from the zones that are responsible for initiating movement to the muscles needed. It generates this signal based on various information (sight, balance, etc). While the muscles contract and perform said movement, your cerebe...	[ "In a variation of this task, Haggard and Eimer asked subjects to decide not only when to move their hands, but also to decide \"which hand to move\". In this case, the felt intention correlated much more closely with the \"lateralized readiness potential\" (LRP), an event-related potential (ERP) component that mea...
the situation in brazil right now.	Okay. Brazil's economy is really bad right now. The public are blaming corruption at the federal level. President Dilma Rousseff is being accused of altering the countries financial records to make Brazil look less in economic disaster. She's also being accused of being involved in a grand scheme by many involved in h...	[ "From mid 2014 to 2016, Brazil experienced a severe economic crisis. The economic crisis became coupled with a political crisis in Brazil that resulted in the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff and in widespread dissatisfaction with the political system.\n", "During the 2015–2018 Brazilian economic crisis, t...
why are some people so smart without even trying?	Genetics, just like some are born with faster building muscles, some are born with a brain that can make connections and send signals faster.	[ "\"I’ve made a career out of asking dumb questions. I mean, that’s our job—not to prove how smart we are but to elicit answers, and I think you sometimes have to ask what appears to be a dumb question. I am not out there to impress the audience that I have brilliant questions all the time. I am old-fashioned enough...
Are plant cells significantly more or less succeptible to radiation damage than animal cells? Also, how does damage typically manifest - do plants get cancer?	I don't know about the radiation part, but the pathogenic bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens causes something like cancer in trees. Crown gall disease. One big difference between plant and animal cancer, and also how body patterning develops, is that that plant cells have stiff cell walls and can't move. If a plant g...	[ "Cells accumulate damage over time, but this may be counterbalanced by natural selection to remove damaged cells. In particular DNA damage, e.g. due to reactive oxygen species, leads to the accumulation of harmful somatic mutations.\n", "Irradiation to a tissue creates response to both irradiated and non-irridiat...
How can I read history on Wikipedia in a responsible way, knowing what is useful information and what to be skeptical of?	As far as wikipedia goes, and I am thinking mostly of my subject area, one of the pitfalls is the extremely dated nature of many of the tertiary sourced used- or sometimes their inappropriate usage: miscitations, misuses, or misappropriations- generally claiming they say something they do not. Wikipedia's goal is not ...	[ "In the essay, \"Can History be Open Source?: Wikipedia and the Future of the Past\" (2006), the academic historian Roy Rosenzweig criticized the encyclopedic content and writing style used in Wikipedia, for not distinguishing subjects that are important from subjects that are merely sensational. That Wikipedia is ...
how is the universe constantly expanding when there is no edge?	The space between two points grows. Literally the space between them. It's not expanding into anything, and therefore the edge of space never becomes an issue. The space between the Milky Way and the next Galaxy (in this case, Andromeda) literally grows. It just grows a very small amount. On a solar system-scale,...	[ "Even if the overall spatial extent is infinite and thus the universe cannot get any \"larger\", we still say that space is expanding because, locally, the characteristic distance between objects is increasing. As an infinite space grows, it remains infinite.\n", "The expansion of the universe reaches an infinite...
how do escort ads still exist and how are they not all set ups?	ELI5: have you been browsing my web history?!? There are certain people who enjoy pie. They form an online community of pie lovers and pie makers. The pie makers get rated on their pies, from appearance to quality. If a pie maker hers a bad reputation, pie lovers will avoid in the future. Sometimes, a new pie maker c...	[ "It is very common for escorts to enter the business through referrals from friends who have been in the business. The effectiveness of ads in weeklies or specialized sites has been questioned by some operators as there are so many that they are diluted. Typically, an escort will interview with an agency.\n", "An...
why isn't there a list of ingredients on a pack of cigarettes, when it seems like anything else you buy has that information on their products?	Same reason there isn't an ingredients list on beer (assuming you're asking about the US). Food is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, under the Department of Health and Human Services. Alcohol and Tobacco are regulated by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau, under the Department of the Treasury. Becaus...	[ "As a result of tight advertising and marketing prohibitions, tobacco companies look at the pack differently: they view it as a strong component in displaying brand imagery and a creating significant in-store presence at the point of purchase. Market testing shows the influence of this dimension in shifting the con...
If humans evolved different colored skin from living in different climates, will skin colors change to some equilibrium now that people of all races live in the same areas?	We're not one breeding population. Obviously a lot of humans aren't constantly leaving their home countries to miscegenate, so we're not going to evolve to be in any environment on earth. Japan and Portugal have ethnic homogenity rates of 99%, and North and South Korea are both at 100%, although I'm not so sure if Sout...	[ "Approximately 10% of the variance in skin color occurs within regions, and approximately 90% occurs between regions. Because skin color has been under strong selective pressure, similar skin colors can result from convergent adaptation rather than from genetic relatedness; populations with similar pigmentation may...
how is it that your veins/arteries don't simply cut off whenever you sit or compress the body in normal circumstances?	For the most part veins and arteries are not on the surface so simply sitting won't compress them enough to "cut off" flow, but it can be significant enough to reduce flow to the point your leg "goes to sleep" , also why you should not have legs crossed when taking your blood pressure, etc. Also the circulatory syste...	[ "One reason veins are preferred over arteries for intravascular administration is because the flow will pass through the lungs before passing through the body. Air bubbles can leave the blood through the lungs. A patient with a right-to-left shunt is vulnerable to embolism from smaller amounts of air. Fatality by a...
How was the food on columbus' ship and other jouneys that span over several months?	The food carried aboard ship varied a bit between nations and years. I don't have my books handy right now to find out exactly what the Spanish would have provisioned their ships with, but the recurring elements across the board are salt meat(often beef), hard biscuit, peas, and oatmeal. Drink would have been water, be...	[ "On 30 June 1503, Christopher Columbus beached his two last caravels and was stranded in Jamaica. The indigenous people of the island welcomed Columbus and his crew and fed them, but after six months, the natives halted the food supply.\n", "On 30 June 1503, Christopher Columbus beached his two last caravels and ...
When and why did commissioning art die as a cultural concept? (ie. if I go to a museum it feels like 80% of art older than one century was a commission and only 1% of art made within the last 50 years was a commission)	In NYC, 1% of commercial real estate budgets above some threshold must be allocated for the commission of art projects. I know nothing of the rest of the world but this is how it works here......_URL_0_	[ "Modern and Contemporary Art has moved away from the historic value of craft and documentation in favour of concept, leading some to say, in the 1960s, that painting as a serious art form is dead. This has not deterred the majority of living painters from continuing to practice painting either as whole or part of t...
p-hacking and how to detect it?	_URL_0_ is probably the simplest example. Suppose you run a test on your data and find something that's highly unlikely to occur purely by chance: in fact, there's only a 1% probability it could occur by chance. That result would seem important, unless we learn that you've run over 100 (independent) tests on your dat...	[ "Hackers will uncover the IP address of the targeted person through interception software. They can also uncover personal information by discovering the Internet Services Provider of the IP address. Installing spyware and virus to the computer could misappropriate personal information either easily.\n", "Penetrat...
Is there any evidence of a slave trade in Eastern European and Asian countries?	Sure, there’s plenty of evidence. Let’s just look at the history of Tartar slave raids amongst the Russians, only in the period after the Russians began gaining independence from the Mongol and Tartar steppe hordes. (There was plenty of slaving of Russians earlier, and plenty of slaving of non-Russian peoples as well...	[ "European slave trade in the Indian Ocean began when Portugal established Estado da Índia in the early 16th century. From then until the 1830s c. 200 slaves were exported from Mozambique annually and similar figures has been estimated for slaves brought from Asia to the Philippines during the Iberian Union (1580–16...
why is honey and lemon good for singers when it never gets near the vocal cords?	Not sure what the honey does, but lemon water helps cut the phlegm in my throat. Makes it so I can sing without rattling or hitching.	[ "For chronic and acute coughs, a Cochrane review found no strong evidence for or against the use of honey. For treating children, the systematic review concluded with moderate to low evidence that honey probably helps more than no treatment, diphenhydramine, and placebo at giving relief from coughing. Honey does no...
Why are certain planes used in specific areas during WW2	Note, this answer largely deals with the Americans. Of the major warring powers, the US had the most extensive and far-flung aerial operations. And for clarity's sake Pacific Theater (PTO) and European Theater (ETO) speaks for these theaters in the broadest sense, including areas like the Mediterranean (MTO) or China B...	[ "During World War II, new technology was used to create aircraft, which were used in air raids. Aircraft during the war were used for transporting resources from different military bases and dropping bombs on enemy, neutral, and friendly targets alike. These activities damaged habitats.\n", "During World War II, ...
I just bought a re-usable toy hand warmer for my son that works by "clicking" a small metal clip inside the sachet of clear liquid. The liquid turns opaque in an instant and the sachet becomes warm. How does it work?	The sachet is filled with a supersaturated solution of [sodium acetate](_URL_0_). By clicking the metal clip, you're providing a nucleation site for crystals to form. Since the crystallization of sodium acetate is quite exothermic, heat is released. When you place the sachet under hot water, you're heating the solutio...	[ "The last two were filled with a granular solid in place of the viscous liquid found in the other figures. A vacuum pump, which attached to the heads of these figures, removed the air from within, which \"froze\" the toy in its stretched position.\n", "In 1999, Paddle Pop Malaysia & Indonesia market launched thei...
Universal expansion: movement in space or movement of space?	Not movement at all. Space is added between objects. (what you'd call movement of space, I guess). When we talk about accelerated expansion or gravitational collapse, what we mean is that the rate at which space is added is growing as time goes on. Similarly, if the universe didn't have dark energy, or had less of...	[ "Spacetime (the fabric of the universe) is expanding meaning everything in the universe is stretching like a rubber band. This motion is the most obscure as it is not physical motion as such, but rather a change in the very nature of the universe. The primary source of verification of this expansion was provided by...
How exactly did the dinosaurs die out? Why did the mass extinction target some types of animals (dinos) but not others (mammals, fish)?	I think there's still a lot of debate about many of these questions you raise. And some of them might be impossible to answer - 65 million years ago was a long time ago, and an event that took place over just a thousand years is really just the blink of an eye in geological terms. We do know some fairly well, though....	[ "Around 66 million years ago, a mass extinction event took place, known as the Cretaceous–Paleogene (\"K-Pg\" or \"K-T\") extinction event. The event wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs and many other species, and paved the way for mammals and eventually human beings to dominate the earth at the present time. It is n...
what’s hpv and how does it differentiate from herpes	Hpv is a skin virus that typically causes warts. Most people have hpv at various places on their body occasionally throughout their life. One type causes genital warts which is an std. herpes is a disease that causes skin blisters and again becomes an std when on the genitals	[ "HPV is the sexually transmitted virus that is known to be the cause of genital warts. There are currently more than 100 different strains of HPV, half of which can cause genital infections. It is worth noting here that although it is not usually the HPV strains that cause genital warts that are associated with the...
is there a highest temputare the human body can feel?	Well first, I don't think someone would notice the slight change of temperature. It's like feeling the difference between 73 degrees and 74 degrees but hotter. Also the heat would start to burn your skin and damage nerves which would tell your brain that it is hot. So the highest temperature someone could feel is the t...	[ "Tehuantepecers can be felt up to out to sea in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. Sustained winds at sea have been recorded as high as , with gusts as high as , with a wind event in February 1974 which sandblasted the ship which took the observation. These winds cause waves which then propagate as swell and are s...
how can lg and samsung produce amoled or oled screens for phones with great resolutions for relatively low price but can't do the same for tvs?	The manufacturing process doesnt scale up easily, is the short of it	[ "In June 2013 Samsung announced the Korean availability of a 55-inch curved OLED HDTV. Priced at 15 million Korean won (around $13,500). Samsung also reiterates the claim LG made when it launched its own curved OLED model that \"keeping all parts of the screen an equal distance from the viewer makes for a better vi...
why is it so much more difficult to chug cold water vs room temperature?	Ik for me the cold water can make my teeth hurt and kinda gives my mouth and throat a sort of "brain freeze".	[ "Mpemba paradox is that under certain conditions, hot water will freeze faster than cold water even though it must pass through the same temperature as the cold water during the freezing process. This is a seeming violation of Newton's law of cooling but in reality it is due to non-linear effects that influence the...
What makes electronic money officially money? Why can't people forge electronic money?	Assuming you're talking about money in banks' computers, the answer boils down to: 1) Becoming a bank isn't easy. 2) Being a bank is very profitable. 3) Cheating and just assigning yourself a bunch of money isn't worth risking getting caught (from the bank's perspective). An employee might want to, but they would h...	[ "Paper money or electronic money can be used as long as it is backed by one of these commodities at a fixed exchange rate (in other words the paper is just a contract stipulating that the bearer can redeem the paper for a fixed measure (weight) of that particular commodity). Until 1971 most currencies of the world ...
Monday Mish-Mash \| The Human Body	There's been some good research in the past fifteen years on so-called "freak shows" in the 19th century. Scholars have examined what individuals with physical abnormalities or transsexual characteristics meant in a modern world increasingly concerned with normalizing categories. P. T. Barnum [advertised dwarfs and g...	[ "\"Our Bodies, Ourselves\" is an international book written by 12 women, for women in 1969. The women at the workshop were talking about their experiences with doctors and trying to make a list of decent doctors. When they realized their list was too small, they decided it was time to take matters into their own ha...
When they simulate neural networks in Google deep-mind and other similar AI systems are they writing code that simulates neural networks or are they litterally building hardware that simulates neural networks?	Depends on the word "similar". Most neural networks are based of a very simple code... infact... I'll go grab one from when I wrote a neural network to recognize hand written digits: function g = sigmoid(z) g = 1.0 ./ (1.0 + exp(-z)); end That is the activation function for each "neuron" in the networ...	[ "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...
how do we know/guess how many died in historic plagues?	> but it got me thinking- how do they know? People wrote stuff down. Even back then it was important if people died, and keeping track of population was important for things like taxation. Researchers can look at a period of time and see how the deaths differed from normal and deduce about how many people died from ...	[ "In 1851, the census commissioners collected information on the number who died in each family since 1841, and the cause, season, and year of death. They recorded 21,770 total deaths from starvation in the previous decade, and 400,720 deaths from disease. Listed diseases were fever, diphtheria, dysentery, cholera, ...
Is it possible to predict where and how a glass will break?	It depends. With structural analysis finding the general areas and different modes of fracture is more or less straightforward. However, the specific fracture crack pattern and exact positions are very difficult or impossible to calculate because the outcome is sensitive to very small differences and imperfections. E...	[ "Even though the result of striking a glass object with a hammer does not exist before the act of striking it, that does not mean the broken glass is a creation of the observer. A particle accelerator is a sophisticated type of hammer, and the target particles are liable to end up as a heap of broken shards.\n", ...
Pictures used to load from the top down, now they load blurry and clear up as more data is received. Why?	Basically it's all about the file format and bitmap encoding. Certain file formats (as an example, JPEGs) can be saved in a interlaced encoded bitmap^^1 . This encoding works by sending a "rough draft" of sorts for what the image is. This "rough draft" is really just a subset of the image's pixels in which each pixel ...	[ "Early image and data storage servers also initially left the uploaded content unchanged. This would sometimes result in undesirable web page display problems, such as too high resolution causing page layout problems in discussion forums, or too high detail causing intolerably slow page loading times. The sharing o...
what's the appeal of 4chan? every time i try to read it doesn't make sense	Much of what happens on 4Chan is what's called shitposting. I.e intentionally posting drivel (either harmless or inflammatory drivel). There are also lots of inside jokes and bits of jargon that originated on that site, which a new viewer might not know. Kind of like how redditors might joke about Kevin, or a young man...	[ "\"4chan\" is an English language imageboard based on the Japanese imageboard Futaba Channel. This imageboard is based primarily upon the posting of pictures (generally related to a wide variety of topics, from anime and popular culture to politics and sports) and their discussion. The Guardian describes it as \"at...
how can we feel tense / bad atmospheres in certain places?	It's a purely psychological effect. The "atmosphere" isn't real, but lots of symptoms are -- these can include an odd smell, an unusual quiet, the presence of nervous-acting people, or objects arranged in a manner that's unusually messed up or unusually tidied up.	[ "People inhabiting tropical and subtropical climates acclimatize somewhat to higher dew points. Thus, a resident of Singapore or Miami, for example, might have a higher threshold for discomfort than a resident of a temperate climate like London or Chicago. People accustomed to temperate climates often begin to feel...
why do arcades use coins instead of quarters?	Arcades can also give you more tokens than you would normally get quarters to entice you to spend more and use it all in one visit. So, instead of 20 quarters for $5, they can give you 25 tokens for $5 and you're more likely to spend $5 than going to get 4 tokens for a dollar five times. $10 will get you 55 tokens an...	[ "The coins were never very popular, primarily due to their large size and weight which made them inconvenient to carry and the fact that very few vending machines were designed to accept them. They saw the greatest use in casinos, and one-dollar tokens in many United States casinos still approximate the size and we...
how does solid state memory work with no moving parts?	Essentially, Solid State memory functions by creating "cells" that can be written on to, and require no energy to maintain. To be more specific, like with the interior of a CPU, we encase super-tiny mechanisms called Floating Gate (FGMOS) transistors into divots in sheets of ultra-thin colorless sapphire (like what we...	[ "Solid-state storage devices typically store data using electrically-programmable non-volatile flash memory, although some devices use battery-backed volatile random-access memory (RAM). Having no moving mechanical parts, solid-state storage is much faster than traditional electromechanical storage; as a downside, ...
Where does the flap-flap sound of a helicopter come from? Do all helicopters sound the same?	The "thup thup" sound comes from the disturbance in air caused by the interaction between the main rotor and the tail rotor. They are both moving a lot of air, and the way those airflows interact cause a bunch of noise. The way those interact based on number of blades, speed, and general design change how they sound....	[ "While most noise from a helicopter is generated by the main rotor, the tail rotor is a significant source of noise for observers relatively close to the helicopter, where the higher-frequency noise of the tail rotor has not yet been attenuated by the atmosphere. Tail rotor noise is particularly annoying to the hum...
Why did we cultivate onions even though we couldn’t eat them the same way as apples or oranges?	Its more of an historical questions then biology. As you can very well eat an onion just like an apple - > if you use one that is not as strong in flavor like red onions. You can also eat it raw and make pickles...Onions where used hundreds of years before... to spice up food. As regular food (as it holds quite well o...	[ "Because the wild onion is extinct and ancient records of using onions span western and eastern Asia, the geographic origin of the onion is uncertain, with likely domestication worldwide. Onions have been variously described as having originated in Iran, western Indian subcontinent and Central Asia.\n", "Traces o...
why is heart cancer so rare?	This is because muscle cells (also called muscle fibers) don't divide, and cancer is most common in cells that divide a lot. Dividing cells are primed for cancer because: 1) a lot of the machinery needed to divide rapidly is already present in the cell so not a lot extra is needed to make it grow uncontrollably into a ...	[ "Ovarian cancer usually has a relatively poor prognosis. It is disproportionately deadly because it lacks any clear early detection or screening test, meaning most cases are not diagnosed until they have reached advanced stages.\n", "Most heart tumors begin with myxomas, fibromas, rhabdomyomas, and hamartomas, al...
What was life like for a Canadian infantry soldier in NW Europe during WW2?	If you haven't read Tim Cook's work, start there. His novels are incredibly easy to read and he does an excellent job capturing WWI and WW2 (The Necessary War, Fight to the Finish) in his two volume sets. That would be a good starting point anyway. There is also a video set that a Manitoba historian has been working ...	[ "In the summer of 1919 the First World War had been over for over half a year, but many of the British Empire's soldiers still had not been sent home. Unhappy at the delay in being returned to Canada, the men of some Canadian regiments stationed at Woodcote Camp on Epsom Downs became increasingly restive.\n", "Th...
when your body is submerged in cold water, it feels freezing at first, then starts to feel warmer and warmer. when your body is exposed to cold air, it feels okay at first, then gets colder and colder. what causes this phenomenon?	I'm no expert, but I think it has to do with body heat. In the water, your body heat and the temperature of the water find an equilibrium where both are at the same temperature, whereas in the air, it's always moving so it cools your body while your body heat doesn't have time to affect the air temperature.	[ "Cold shock response is the physiological response of organisms to sudden cold, especially cold water, and is a common cause of death from immersion in very cold water, such as by falling through thin ice. The immediate shock of the cold causes involuntary inhalation, which if underwater can result in drowning. The...
Do quantum computers, if developed to the same scale as regular PC's, have any use to a regular person?	you can do everything you can do with a normal computer with a quantum computer. Because of how quantum computers work, every step needs to be reversible. you can add 1+3 on a normal computer, and in the end you have 4, without knowing if the input was 4+0,1+3,2+2,3+1 or 0+4. You can not do that on a quantum computer....	[ "Quantum computers are expected to have a number of significant uses in computing fields such as optimization and machine learning. They are famous for their expected ability to carry out 'Shor's Algorithm', which can be used to factorise large numbers which are mathematically important to secure data transmission....
Are there any records, from ancient civilizations, of stars (or other celestial objects) that cannot be seen or found in the sky today?	> I'm assuming that thousands of stars that were visible during ancient times have supernova'd --- Answer is yes. But let me intrude a bit into r/askscience : There are just ~5,600 stars visible by [naked eye](_URL_7_). Strict definition: visible [by naked eye] are stars with V < =+6^m. That's [*apparent...	[ "Unexplained aerial observations have been reported throughout history. Some were undoubtedly astronomical in nature: comets, bright meteors, one or more of the five planets that can be readily seen with the naked eye, planetary conjunctions, or atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds. ...
if the airline industry is struggling, wouldn't it be better for them to sell unbooked seats for less at the last minute than operate at a loss?	They do it to some extent, although lowering prices too much is very bad business practice. * People who tend to book last-minute NEED the flight urgently and are willing to pay a premium. Suppose if the ticket costs $1,000 and one person books it at the last minute - that gives the airline $1,000 of revenue. If they ...	[ "Airlines may ask for volunteers to give away their seats or refuse boarding to certain passengers in exchange for a compensation that may include an additional free ticket and/or an upgrade in a later flight. They can do this and still make more money than if they booked only to the plane's capacity and had it tak...
What are some ancient Roman spooky tales?	My first article, which appeared in Arv: The Scandinavian Yearbook of Folklore in 1979, dealt with two legends from the 1st-century primary source, The Satyricon. One legend dealt with a soldier who changed himself into a wolf. The second described some witches who abducted a baby. These stories were characterized as b...	[ "Roman Tales () is a 1955 Italian comedy film directed by Gianni Franciolini. It is based on several short stories collected in \"Racconti romani\" by Alberto Moravia. The film won two David di Donatello Awards, for best director and best producer.\n", "Racconti romani (\"Roman Tales\") is a series of sixty-one s...
how can a government block targeted internet access once starlink is available vs traditional isp?	The first and simplest way would be to demand that SpaceX stop providing service when the government demands. Almost certainly they are going to agree to do so. Otherwise the government doesn’t give them a business license and makes doing business with them illegal. Now most people can’t get access because they can’t ...	[ "On 21 March 2006, the Labor Party committed to requiring all ISPs to implement a mandatory Internet blocking system applicable to “all households, and to schools and other public Internet points” to “prevent users from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications an...
how do the graphics card, ram, and processor all work together to determine performance of a pc?	CPU is its ability to do math. Everything a computer does is dictated by math, so this makes things faster. However you can't get faster than almost instant (dictated by speed of electrons wizzing around inside) so if the CPU is able to go at that speed, other things may slow it down instead. This is where we get to...	[ "Like other processor registers, the PC may be a bank of binary latches, each one representing one bit of the value of the PC. The number of bits (the width of the PC) relates to the processor architecture. For instance, a “32-bit” CPU may use 32 bits to be able to address 2 units of memory. If the PC is a binary c...
why is the tip of the human nose made of cartilage?	The actual reason, although rather vague, is that natural selection leads to traits that are more advantageous for survival to be selected for and thereby become more prevalent in a population. So having a cartilaginous tip to the nose allowed for better survival to reproduction. Probably because the nose sticks out ...	[ "Several bones and nasal cartilages make up the bony-cartilaginous framework of the nose, and the internal structure. The nose is also made up of types of soft tissue such as skin, epithelia, mucous membrane, muscles, nerves, and blood. In the skin there are sebaceous glands, and in the mucous membrane there are na...
what exactly makes cheap beer taste much worse than something more expensive?	Some of the big boys use rice in their beers. And their light beers are just overfermented then watered down. You can really taste poor quality ingredients.	[ "IBU is not determined by the perceived bitterness of the taste of the beer. For example, the bittering effect of hops is less noticeable in beers with roasted malts or strong flavours, so a higher proportion of hops would be required in strong flavoured beers to achieve the same perceived bitterness in moderately ...
why can my ipad play videos for hours straight without even having a fan, while my laptop reaches 85deg c and higher after streaming netflix for only 2 minutes?	> I would think the technology in my Macbrook Pro surpasses that inside of my iPad Not really. Tablets are a miracle.	[ "In contrast to desktop PC, laptop and notebook typically do not have power supply fans or video card fans, generally use physically smaller hard drives and lower power components. However, laptop CPU fans are usually smaller, so may not necessarily be quieter than their desktop counterparts - and limited space, li...
How did technology evolve from analog to digital?	The first step in digital electronics was the [flip-flop](_URL_1_), at around 1919. A flip-flop is a circuit with two stable states (which can be thought of as 0 or 1). Why is digital a good thing? Let's start with what analog is. Analog means an electronic circuit deals with a continuously variable signal. You have...	[ "However, digital technology has slowly replaced analog technology in all these domains in the past 40 years. The transformation began with the telephone system, in the 1970s and microchips and microcomputers in the early 1980s. Indeed, it was the combination of the telephone system and computers through a common d...
how do protesters have time to protest for days on end?	(I know, I know, not for literal five year olds, but this one was just too easy to convert) So you know when you come home from school, and you get to play with your toys after a long day of fingerpainting and learning your letters? Well some people who care a lot about a certain issue, like, say, their nice teacher...	[ "\" We will not stop our protests until our demands are realized right ! As warned before the gate of the Rector, the ten protests will be held on Monday, 10 February 2014 at 12:00. As in previous protests, students will gather in the Student Center dormitories, while others will gather at the square ' Skanderbeg '...
What were the reasons behind the rise of the Caliphate?	In short, it was a great number of factors. Early Orientalist scholarship loved to lay the blame on the "weakness" of the classical empires of Byzantium and Persia due to decades of near constant war between the two, but the reality is that this is a gross oversimplification. The older source that i_like_jam has cited ...	[ "While the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) originally gained power by exploiting the social inequalities against non-Arabs in the Umayyad Empire, during Abbasid rule the empire rapidly was Arabized. As knowledge was shared in the Arabic language throughout the empire, people of different nationalities and religions be...
why do bugs when outside fly around the same area with a bunch of other bugs instead of being spread apart? typically gnat like bugs.	They are making more bugs via the usual route. That requires them to be in close proximity. Think of it like you are walking through a bug night club.	[ "During certain times of the year boxelder bugs cluster together in large groups while sunning themselves on warm surfaces near their host tree (e.g. on rocks, shrubs, trees, and man-made structures). This is especially a problem in the fall when they are seeking a warm place to overwinter. Large numbers are often ...
Why are spinal discs so prone to hernias?	To add to other comments: L5/S1 is particularly prone to injury because the disc is situated along a steep slope just above the pelvis, and so it carries the weight of the torso not squarely on its face like all the other discs, but at a fairly steep grade. Additionally (and this is true throughout the spine), the lig...	[ "Symptoms of a herniated disc can vary depending on the location of the herniation and the types of soft tissue involved. They can range from little or no pain, if the disc is the only tissue injured, to severe and unrelenting neck pain or low back pain that radiates into regions served by nerve roots which have be...
How do particles turn to follow the circular path of the Large Hadron Collider?	The trajectories of the particles in the beam are curved using magnetic fields. Particularly, superconducting dipole magnets. You can read more about them [here](_URL_0_).	[ "On 7 March 1960, Touschek gave a talk in Frascati where he proposed the idea of a collider: a particle accelerator where a particle and its antiparticle circulate the same orbit in opposite direction. When bunches of opposite-moving particles and antiparticles collide, they annihilate and produce new particles dep...
music in dreams	Because your mind is beautiful and capable of an incomprehensible amount of creativity.	[ "The score to the psychological thriller \"In Dreams,\" by Elliot Goldenthal, is an avant-garde work filled with his trademark techniques and dissonance. Composed in 1999, and working again with frequent collaborator Neil Jordan, it also features songs by Roy Orbison and The Andrews Sisters.\n", "\"From Sleep\" w...
How did 'tribes' or 'tribal federations' work? E.g the Saxons or the Angles	I want to direct your attention to [this quite excellent post](_URL_0_) by /u/Aerandir. The context he wrote that was for a discussion about what the definition of tribe is/should be. I don't believe the concept of 'tribal federation' is really addressed in that comment, nor is the comment really meant to address it....	[ "In 3rd and 4th century Germany, great tribal confederations of the Alamanni, Bavarians, Thuringians, Franks, Frisii, and Saxons arose. These took the place of the numerous petty tribes with their popular tribal form of government. With the exceptions of the Saxons, all these confederations were ruled by kings; the...
why ice molecules are closer together than water molecules, yet ice of the same mass as water takes up more space.	They're not closer together, I forget what it's called and why they do it but at the very moment of freezing the particles basically jump away from each other. It's because of this that ice evaporates faster than water, the molecules are already farther apart.	[ "Water is an exception which has a solid-liquid boundary with negative slope so that the melting point decreases with pressure. This occurs because ice (solid water) is less dense than liquid water, as shown by the fact that ice floats on water. At a molecular level, ice is less dense because it has a more extensiv...
How do scientists refer to specific points in space without an up or down or polar directions (E,S,N,W)?	I actually don't know for sure, but I assume an X,Y,Z system using a common central point. I actually want to find this out now. To the Google! Found this site : _URL_0_ Is that what you are after?	[ "Pointing in a specific direction is necessary for Earth observation, orbital maneuvers, maximizing solar power, and some scientific instruments. Directional pointing accuracy can be achieved by sensing Earth and its horizon, the Sun, or specific stars. Sinclair Interplanetary's SS-411 sun sensor and ST-16 star tra...
movie trailers show "festival award winner". how do movies win awards before they are released?	Most movies are finished long before they're released. They're shown at certain film festivals or given limited releases in a few major cities before they get into theatres everywhere.	[ "The national film industry awards called Golden Arena are always presented at the festival. All the locally produced feature films made in the preceding 12 months are screened at the festival and everyone involved in making them automatically qualify for the Golden Arena award in their respective category. Therefo...
if you are alone with a tire in an empty space, if you spin the tire, will it go forever?	Is the tire on the ground or floating in a vacuum?	[ "A literal flat spot can occur on car tires if the vehicle is parked without moving for some time (generally longer than a week), and the tire deformation at the bottom of the wheel becomes semi-permanent. The flat spot gradually relieves itself when the car is driven but can temporarily give similar symptoms to an...
how did that consitition accommodate both federalist and anti-federalist viewpoints	United States 1.0, the Articles of Confederation, was a strongly federalist system. The central government in US1.0 could only act when the States were in consensus - which means each state had a veto on the actions of the whole country. United States 2.0, the Constitution, is a system that combines a strong central ...	[ "Anti-Federalism was a late-18th century movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, gave state governments more authority. Led by Patr...
how did u.s. colleges not only get into football in the first place, but also become so extremely invested in their stadiums, teams etc. over time?	It all began back just after the Civil War, Rugby had just come over to the states, and sort of caught on at the elite Easter schools (most of which would form the Ivy League). However nobody could really agree on the rules, so interschool play wasnt really a thing. But in 1869 Princeton and Rutgers's clubs agreed to ...	[ "College football is very popular throughout much of the United States, and the top schools generate tens of millions of dollars in yearly revenue. Top FBS teams draw tens of thousands of fans to games, and the ten largest American stadiums by capacity all host FBS teams or games. College athletes are not paid, but...
Dorian invasion, sea peoples, and Phoenicia. Any relations?	You may be interested in [this recent AMA](_URL_0_) with Eric H. Cline, author of 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed.	[ "Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus. Traditionally, historians have believed that the Dorian invasion caused the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, but it is likely the main attack was made by seafaring raiders (Sea Peoples) who sailed into the eastern Mediterranea...
what are the results of the indian elections, and what does it mean?	The Bharitya Janta Party (BJP; rough meaning Indian People's Party) recorded a solid landslide, gaining a clear majority in their own right in the Lok Sabha (People's house, analogous to the House of Reps), and with their coalition partners control a solid majority of the 543 member lower house. The Congress party that...	[ "The Election Commission of India held the indirect 4th presidential elections of India on May 6, 1967. Dr. Zakir Husain, with 471,244 votes, won the presidency over his rival Koka Subba Rao, who garnered 363,971 votes.\n", "The Election Commission of India held indirect 3rd presidential elections of India on May...
why do whiskey/bourbon have more carbs than vodka?	_URL_0_ They don't have any carbs	[ "The recent success of grape-based vodka in the United States prompted traditional vodka producers in the Vodka Belt countries of Poland, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Sweden to campaign for EU legislation that would define \"vodka\" as only spirits made from grain or potatoes. This proposition provoked heavy cr...
what actually make the teeth grow and push through the gum?	Root resorption - simply put when the tooth is developed (which is an entire process) the adult teeth begin to push on the baby teeth which causes the roots of the baby teeth to shrink, become loose, and fall out.	[ "Since there are a standard number of teeth in humans, the size of the dental arch is of vital importance in determining how the teeth are positioned when they appear. While the arch can expand as a child grows, a small arch will force the teeth to grow close together. This can result in overlapping and improperly ...
if vaping is just inhaling water vapor and some ingredients, why does the room get foggy with still smoke, instead of it just dissipating?	It's vapor of polyprolene glycol and glycerine. That stuff is a liquid at normal room temps. so when mechanically vaporized, it sticks around in vapor droplet form	[ "A smoke \"simulant\", usually a glycol or glycerine mixed with distilled water, is vaporised and then condensed in free air to produce the distinctive smoke-like effect. The particles produced are on average 0.2-2.0 micrometres in diameter, meaning that the fog settles very slowly (and therefore has excellent long...

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