query stringlengths 8 249 | answer stringlengths 45 7.8k |
|---|---|
How and why was no one charged after the NSA Scandal? | By and large, the programs the NSA operates/operated are legal. They comply with statutes passed by Congress and unless the Supreme Court interprets the Fourth Amendment to apply, these programs do not violate the Constitution. So until that happens, the NSA isn't doing anything illegal . This means the real debate isn... |
Why does everyone hate Dr Oz? | Basically he's lied on his show about the details of certain diet pills that in reality aren't nearly as effective as he stated. He did this for money from the company so many are angry he has lost his doctor integrity. |
What's up with that thing that happens with wheels where when they're going really fast and it looks like its spinning forward and backward? | It has to do with a difference in how fast an object, such as spokes, are moving and the frame rate the eyes or camera recording it are capturing the image. In the instance of the helicopter video it appeared the blades weren't moving when in fact a blade was in the same position every time an image was captured. Here ... |
if some viruses can be dormant in your system for years without showing symptoms, why does it matter that you get tested for it? | To add on to what has already been said, it really depends on what virus you're talking about. Everyone else has given examples of the bad ones, so here's some that you don't get tested for. * HSV-1: a type of herpes virus that pretty much every single human has. Causes cold sores in some people, in others doesn't real... |
Why does turning airplane mode on and off make my phones internet faster? | It makes your phone search for service from scratch. Its possible to be pulling data from not the most ideal tower. When you resync your likely to get the best connection rather than when it's switching live while taking data. |
Why does irish music sound like pirate music? | I've noticed too. You're not crazy. My wife listens to a Irish folk music and it always gives me flashbacks to playing Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Sometimes the songs have nearly the same melody and even similar lyrics. Not sure why this is the case, but I've noticed too. |
What would happen if you never got a cavity filled? | Not a dentist, but I've had lots of dental work done, including 2 root canals. They are expensive and not fun. Cavities don't go away or heal, they just get worse. The injection will get deeper into the pulp of the tooth and will eventually reach where the nerve lies. Assuming you continued to flat-out refuse to see th... |
why is heroin completely addictive from one hit, while other drugs can take several hits, or never at all produce the same results? | It's not. Physical dependence takes weeks of daily use. The one hit and you're gone thing is not true. I have used heroin ten maybe twenty times over the last decade, smoked, snorted and injected, and I can take it or leave it if it's put in front of me. Last time I did it was 7 months ago. No cravings. No wd symptoms.... |
I clean about 2 pounds of dust from my room every month. What does this means for my lungs ? | Not much, unless the dust is something allergen inducing , or with carcinogenic/irritating physical properties like asbestos. Or unless you have a compromised respiratory system, like from asthma or smoking. Healthy lungs do a great job handling everyday amounts of dust by using mucous to trap foreign particles and cil... |
Why were the planes in the video(see comment) flying wobbly and why some of the runaways aren't flat? | I haven't watched the entire video, but for most of them I've seen, you can see plenty of evidence of very heavy crosswinds. Most of them have audible wind noise in the recordings and you can see the way the dust kicked off by touchdown gets blown to the side fairly strongly. As for the runways, I'm not certain so I'll... |
Can germs from my own poop make me sick? | There's bacteria in your lower GI tract that you don't want getting into other parts of your body. |
Why do photographs have different pixel densities (or even a pixel density at all) if a camera takes pictures by taking a snapshot of light? | The CMOS sensor. It's a big grid of photodetectors, and the lens is designed to focus incoming light to hit the big grid of sensors. Each spot on the grid translates to one pixel in the final product. CMOS censors vary in how big their grid of sensors are and how many are packed into one space. |
Why do our bodies require such variety of vitamins and minerals when we (as a species) have never had sufficient resources until recently? | I've always wondered how much of a generalization dietary recommendations are b/c for example, milk and dairy weren't part of the typical east Asian diet for thousands of years, so IIRC most of them are some degree of lactose intolerant so even if dairy is recommended in general, their bodies can't really process it, s... |
why do people cover up the cameras on their laptops with stickers or post it notes? | Of course there are cases like this School's spying on kids with webcams? Where are we going in this country |
why globalization is bad for America, and why it's good for China and India? | As someone who works in the International Relations/Foreign Trade field, your original question is not the 100% agreed upon consensus that many people think it is. Globalisation has been excellent for America in some ways, and catastrophic for China and India in other ways. It's an ever-changing phenomenon that has a b... |
How Yoga helps in reducing weight when it doesn't involve cardio and most of it is done in sitting position? | I tried yoga as an out of shape guy. I was drenched after the 1 hour session. Try planking with a straight back with only your toes and forearms touching the floor. You aren't moving but you will suffer soon enough.There are different types of yoga that can be done at different levels of intensity. One way it can help ... |
Why does TV shows picture look different than movies picture? | One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is budget. Movies tend to have much bigger budgets than TV shows, so they can spend more money on better cameras, better lighting, better post-production etc. The overall effect is that movies just tend to look *better* in some intangible way. |
Elon Musk's new Hyperloop system will run at 700 mph. Will passengers feel that amount of speed? | Part of me says is really for r/answers. You don't really feel speed, you feel acceleration which is the change in speed. For example, you feel the take off and landing in an airplane, because the airplane is accelerating to take off, or slowing down as it lands. That acceleration during take off is the pushed into the... |
In soccer/football why do the players when entering the pitch hold the hands of little boys? | Because they are die-hard fans from families of supporters who want the opportunity to meet the players. It's not just boys either, it's often girls too these days, just more regularly it's boys because because I guess highly dedicated football supporting is still a bit more male dominated. Really don't know why you'd ... |
How freezing meat effects the expiration date. | After thawing, you want to cook as soon as possible. The freezing process has compromised the meat and it will spoil faster than if it wasn't frozen. You can keep meat a very long time in a freezer with no ill effect, but once it's thawed, it can go bad quickly.There are two things that make meat go bad: bacteria, and ... |
Why is California such a magnet for people? | Because people always move to coastal areas. Land-locked regions have a much harder time importing and exporting goods. Coastal regions have ports and become natural centers for commerce and industry. Anyone immigrating to America from Pacific is likely to arrive in California and just settle there, unless they have a ... |
How does Saudi Arabia get to be in the UN Human Rights Council, while they're also mass-executing people? | From a Canadian perspective, if we were to ban Saudi Arabia from the UNHRC for capital punishment, we'd have to ban the US, too. And that's silly. Every country in the world - including Canada - has some questionable human rights issues. In our case, it's how we treat our First Nations peoples. Improving human rights i... |
Why can I listen to a song over and over and never learn the lyrics | You probably remember the lyrics a little better when they're part of a song than if someone was just reading a poem in a regular speaking voice. |
When someone sues another someone for money and that other someone doesn't have the money to pay, how does that someone get their money? | Lawyer here! If someone doesn't have the money on hand to pay, , you look to any valuable assets that might be seized or wages that might be garnished. Generally speaking, judgments are effective for a long time after they're entered , which gives you some time to chase down a judgment-debtor, and execute against money... |
EKI5: What is the anthropic principle? | combined with the awesome power of the Copernican principle, it can explain anything you want or at least keep you busy pondering your navel for hours. An example: This morning I got up, went to check the mail from yesterday and discovered a hotdog in my mailbox. Why? Well, assuming that I am not the center of the univ... |
If it's better and less painful to stand up straight, then why do some people slouch all the time? | Weak abdominals. It takes effort to tilt your pelvis forward, engage your abdominals, and keep your scapulae in their proper position . The weak abdominals are what you see everywhere in the people who have the distended belly sticking out all the time. They need to work on core strength and focus on pulling their abdo... |
How would comets get organic molecules? Do planets such as the earth not have carbon molecules already? | Organic compounds aren't just carbon and carbon dioxide. Organic compounds often means longer chains of carbon, then single bound carbon atoms. When scientists talk about finding organics on another planet. While carbon itself is very common , larger organics like ethane, or kerosene, or alcohol are very uncommon. Espe... |
Why you can safely leave a crockpot unattended for 10+ hours, but not an oven on low heat for two hours? | I'm not very smart but I really don't think leaving an oven turned on for a few hours is that bad in general. To me, people seem to think leaving ovens on and irons plugged in will cause a fire after a few hours. Maybe if there is a spark in the outlet or if there is something in it that can catch on fire then you'd ha... |
If a bullet can travel 2200m before falling, and I am standing at the 2199m mark. Can the bullet still hit me, or does it just touch my skin and fall? | It would hit your toes, while still traveling very quickly. Bullets are very aerodynamic, they don't slow down much during their flight. however they are pulled down by gravity the whole time. This means that bullets follow a parabolic arc, just like a baseball, or any thrown object. Which means its flight ends when it... |
If a judge makes a decision that is later found unconstitutional, what repercussions are there for the judge? | What country are we talking about here? But overall legally, all that would really occur is an appeal from the party that had experienced that unconstitutional decision.Unless very severe, judges don't get in trouble legally, but may be suspended pending enquiries from within the court system. |
How can we prove that a problem is NP if we don't know whether or not P=NP? | NP doesn't stand for non-polynomial. It stands for non-deterministic polynomial. It's the set of decision problems that can be solved in polynomial time by a [lucky Turing-machine]. When a process could take multiple directions, a regular Turing-machine would need to investigate each direction before it could decide wh... |
Why does the Arctic not exist on Google Earth? | Because the arctic isn't land. It's just a region sea ice that grows and shrinks with the seasons and changes as ice moves around. There is some land in the polar region that's considered the arctic and that's all on google maps. Antarctica is an actual continent. There's land underneath the ice, and while the ice shap... |
So many Earthquakes in Nepal and South Eastern Asia | Think of plate tectonics like slowly stretching out a rubber band. You spend a majority of the time simply stretching it until all of a sudden it snaps. Likewise, plates in the Earth's crust is slowly moving and colliding with each other and building up potential energy until one day it just snaps. Now the reason why s... |
What happens to a fart when you don't let it out but the need to fart goes away? | Peristalsis moves things through our gut. When it reaches the end point, your butthole, and you consciously hold this enough, it inhibits the neural system that controls peristalsis. In fact , evidence exists to say this inhibition actually reverses rectal peristalsis and moves your dump or fart backwards slightly. You... |
Why are major news outlets and newspapers allowed to endorse and donate to candidates? Is that not a conflict of interests with a clear bias? | Yes, it is a clear and obvious bias. However, news organizations are private companies, and absolutely don't legally have to provide bias free news. Besides, its almost impossible to be bias free, once you've accounted for the personal biases of the staff, pressures from advertisers, and the need to gain and maintain a... |
Why is it in Netflix's best interest to hide all the categories and make browsing for something difficult? | I read somewhere that it was because they didn't want you to realize how small their streaming library really is. But I don't have a source to back that up.I just want to see "Sort by Production Budget." Seems like it would be a good way to drop most of the lame shit to the bottombecause netflix doesn't want to be repr... |
how does a megathread become a megathread? | Mods will create and designate it as a mega thread and delete all other threads about that topic. It's to reduce the amount of new threads about a single popular topic. |
Why does "heartache" physically hurt my chest? | I can't speak to any of the scientific reasons, but my experience with anxiety and depression might offer something: Almost every kind of stress that you feel will manifest itself physically. I had a great degree of tightness in my chest, and chronic lower back pain when I was going through a period of clinical depress... |
How do courts decide what parents get custody? | I got/have full custody of my son simply because his mother didn't show up to court. They gave her three chances to show. That's two more than they would give a man. I reside in Ohio. |
How do hackers create keygens for products that have been out hours? | Also, many retail software uses pre-existing security software to DRM their products . It's just a matter of exploiting known faults in these security protocols to crack the code. |
Why is Lucozade good for you when you're ill? | Also, not sure if it's still true, it was loaded with caffeine too. Give your ill kid some lucozade and watch them perk up and run round like mad. Must be magic! |
Why is the "claimed" battery life of a product always significantly more that the actual battery life of a product? | I have done battery testing to make a high-tech product better! Firstly, there are just plain bugs in all software that are lurking and chew up battery life for some people, some of the time. Secondly, lots of programs and devices can be tuned -- like your phone's touch-screen can be tuned to be more reactive or less r... |
Why do people dance and how/why do I not enjoy it, but instead just find it silly and pointless? | It's just fun. How you feel about dancing is how I feel about sports, fishing, or reality tv, but other people enjoy those things. |
When excited, particles start to warm up, but why is this the opposite for fans? | The fan cools you off because it's causing wind to blow on you. The fan itself is not creating coolness and does not become cool. Touch a motor area of a fan that's been running, it will be hot. |
Theoretically, what would happen if an executive department like the DHS refused to follow a federal court order? Does the judicial branch have the resources (like the Marshalls) to force them? | In addition to marshals and fines, the judiciary could also refuse to act to benefit the agency: hard to enforce your contracts or get people deported if the federal courts won't hear your cases or issue orders on your behalf. It would be an extreme step, but it's also a possibility. |
What causes the discomfort in the ears when a sharp metal object scrapes against a dull metal object? | Can the same explanation be applied for the discomfort I feel when I hear a blunt pencil writing on paper? Could never listen to Eminem's 'Stan' because throughout there's the pencil scribble noise in background.Bill Beaty has a plausible hypothesis that this is an old pain response to the sound of tooth enamel being d... |
Why is it legal for restaurants to make the servers pay for food if people "dine 'n dash?" | It's not. Places that try to shove it into an employee contract are breaking the law and trying to skirt the burden off to the employees, who are likely too scared to fight it to not risk losing their job. |
Why do humans tend to cover their mouths when expressing shock? | Has to be like the God Bless you thing right? SO it gets passed down through generations, and we do it because we see it? Yet, if people do it who haven't seen it, it must be an evolutionary thing Sorry no answer, but I'd love to see a 90% accurate one |
How can celebrities admit to spending millions of dollars on cocaine and not be charged with any crimes? | Because there is really no existent statute of limitations for drug charges. You basically have to be caught actively possessing, buying, or selling it to be charged with anything. Your statement that you did something with drugs years ago just isn't enough to warrant charges.I murdered a bunch of people. See? Just say... |
Why is the autism spectrum so incredibly broad and diverse? | It's just a theory really, like most mental health conditions. All or none of those people could have the same condition. There's no objective test. |
why England is always rainy | There are two big factors coming into play here. England's lattitude and it's position in the Atlantic Ocean. Oceans currents and winds are very big influences on what kind of weather you experience and England is perfectly positioned to get more rain than it's neighbors to the South. If you picture the Atlantic ocean ... |
Why do only humans cause the ecology crisis? | Other creatures do sometimes affect the environment. Most notably, life is the reason that there is oxygen in Earth's atmosphere at all. |
Why in the US each state has its own laws? Wouldn't it be better to create federal laws for all states? | What's good for the people in New York is not necessarily going to work for the people of Wyoming. What works in Boston doesn't necessarily work in South Carolina. People from other countries sometimes forget how HUGE America really is. Sometimes it's like going to a completely different country just from one city to a... |
How can we have heart-lung bypass and kidney dialysis but not liver dialysis? What makes creating liver dialysis so difficult? | I can give you an in-depth explanation about the physiology of the kidneys and circulatory system in contrast to that of the liver. But since this is ELI5 the simplest answer is that we know how the kidneys work and can replicate that, the same holds true to our blood supply. On the other hand we simply don't yet fully... |
If you ate a diet of foods that had substantial water content, could you stave off thirst? | We get a fair portion of our daily water intake from food, and some animals almost always get water from their food rather than drinking liquid water. What keeps our mouths and tongues moist and wet is the production of saliva more than just drinking liquid water. If you were to eat soggy food to get your water in that... |
How complicated is it to fight a forest fire and why? Why can't air support just drop water on it and around it to contain it when it spreads? | Only within the past decade or two have we understood how critical fires are to a forest's *health*. Naturally-occurring fires should typically happen frequently enough that only a small amount of energy is expended; large, established trees survive; seed cones that need fire to open are opened; and space is freed for ... |
Why has there not been a mass shooting event in Australia since the Port Arthur Massacre? | I was born the year of the Port-Arthur massacre, the same year the gun reform was legislated. I don't think I've ever seen a privately owned firearm. I know people who hunt rabbits and stuff on their farms but that's about it. Little to no guns makes massacring a lot harder.Following the Port Arthur Massacre the Austra... |
How can Motorcycles hit and maintain ~10,000 RPM's, whereas my 6 speed car feels like it's about to fall apart at 7500? | Smaller engines have shorter piston strokes, essentially. If you've ever watched a Formula 1 race, you've observed that the cars have a high pitched whine, like motorcycles, despite being 8 or 10 cylinder engines. Same principle at work. |
WiFi, and other electromagnetic waves that don't require a medium to travel in. What exactly is being transmitted, and how? | Before the development of the field theory, it was theorized that there WAS a medium through which they traveled, which was known as 'the ether'. You still will come across references to it in speech sometimes. |
If stalking is a crime,why are paparazzi tolerated? | You don't have to be a celebrity for it to be okay. There's a guy here in Seattle who follows random people around with a camera to make some point. He's an asshole, but as far as I know he hasn't been arrested for stalking. > [‘Creepy Cameraman’ pushes limits of public surveillance — a glimpse of the future] > People ... |
What do they do if someone pulls the fire alarm in a hospital when they're in the middle of a major surgery (open-heart bypass or something)? | I've been in an operating theatre when the fire alarm went off - a naked acutely psychotic man was crawling through the ceilings of the hospital, setting things on fire. Seriously. False alarms go off quite often, so nobody panicked, just rolled their eyes. But smoke started seeping in under the theatre door so then we... |
Of my $12.00 movie ticket, how exactly does that get split amongst all the parties involved. | Can't someone just make a pie chart to answer this?", '12 dollars a ticket? My local theater is five. |
Why are some people well written but not well spoken? (myself included) | To be well spoken you need to construct well phrased sentences in a fraction of the time you have when you are writing something. This requires a lot more practice as you can't do it if you have to use a lot of your brains capacity for it. |
Why do computer manufacturers still include USB 2.0 ports alongside 3.0 ports? | It's cheaper to build a 2.0 than a 3.0. And most devices aren't going to be able to use the speed -- mouse and keyboard, which are the two most common USB devices, won't benefit from the speed. It's nothing new -- we saw 2.0 ports next to 1.1. I thinl eventually you'll see the phaseout of all 2.0 ports in favor of 3.0.... |
What are some valid reasons for Fermi Paradox? | One interesting one is that the universe isn't old enough to have a lot of intelligent life. Earth has been around for four billion years, about a third of the age of the universe. So, there might be a lot of stars like ours that formed a few billion years later that haven't had a chance to develop life. Others include... |
How did vanilla come to be associated with white/yellow even though vanilla is black? | I think it is because of advertisement aspect of the product. The vanilla beans are black and the vanilla flowers are white. Putting a long, round, black thing on the label isn't the most attractive thing to that consumer. Putting a white flower, on the other hand will make the product looks a lot more attractive and a... |
Today the Koch brothers offered millions of dollars to every congressman who votes against the new health bill. Why did the FBI not immediately arrest them for bribery? | There is stuff here that isn't wrong, but for the full ELI5: It's because news stories are using the word donate to be lazy/catchy. They're not giving so-and-so a bunch of money. They'll just spend money criticizing/praising them. Telling someone you'll criticize/praise them if they do/don't do something you don't like... |
Why do dealers sell new cars for so much more than MSRP in the US? | Very few people pay MSRP on anything. It's mostly a marketing trick. For example AV equipment has huge markups. I'm talking between 40% to 70% and not just on high price electronics, even the metal racks and brackets are marked way up. Why? Because many manufacturers have a dealer system and the giant markups lets the ... |
Why are imperial British soldiers often portrayed as "pansies" in US TV/movies? Surely they were some of the toughest warriors to ever live; conquering the largest empire that has ever existed. | Officer positions were often given to higher class British citizens, of whom many probably had a very privileged and sheltered life. I'd bet the stereotype came from some of the the commanding officers being dandies not so much the regular soldiers. |
Why do we hear a weird high-pitched noise when there’s silence? | Yeah same here, mild tinnitus from 10 years ago. Sometimes it seems worse because I use ear plugs at work and this makes it much more noticeable while the ear plugs are in. If only I'd used ear plugs in the past ", 'When it is silent your ears might not like it and they make a sound to compensate for the lost sense', "... |
How come Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States all use the dollar, despite having all been colonies of Britain which uses the pound? | For the US, it's because during the colonial period, one of the most widely circulated currencies was the Spanish Dollar, and a subsequent early currencies were pegged to the Spanish Dollar. When the Constitution was ratified and Congress established the modern US dollar, the name just stuck. |
What makes black licorice taste horrid? | Liquorice. It's subjective whether you like it or not. Otherwise why would they sell it. With that out of the way, our liking for different tastes is made up from an innate preference and a learned preference. Innate - We are genetically predisposed to liking certain tastes, like sweet things, fruit for instance as it ... |
What factors allow some mass shooters to injure/kill a large amount if people, while some harm very few during their rampage? | You'd have to think it's the density of people that determines this. If an airplane dropped a bomb on a crowded stadium the result would be different than the same bomb on a sparely-populated beach. In areas with a lot of walls/doors there are more obstacles. An open area like a theater or gym has fewer things to hide ... |
We've all heard the phrase you can't shout fire in a crowded theater, what law are you actually breaking, what is the punishment? | If your speech gets people in a panic and people are knocked down and trampled, that speech ain't protected.In my state, West Virginia: > §61-6-20. Falsely reporting an emergency incident.A person is guilty of reporting a false emergency incident when knowing the information reported, conveyed or circulated is false or... |
Why do high screeching sounds, like a fork scratching on a plate, make people uncomfortable, while some are unfazed? | I wonder if that's related to pink noise - which some mercedes cars blast right before you crash in order to protect your hearing. Makes your ear muscles tense up |
Why do some planes look like they're going 12 mph right before they land? | Your question isn't very specific but I'll try to explain what I can 1. Some aircraft have a very very low stalling speed, as such they can fly incredibly slowly before landing 2. The speed at which an aircraft stalls is taken in regard to theirs speed through the air, not speed over the ground, so for example in a pla... |
why do touch screens fuck up in the rain? | They work by measuring the average dielectric coefficient at any given location on the screen. In simple terms, that is the ability of a certain area to resist or weaken an applied electric field. A lot of substances have molecules with an uneven electric charge distribution on them. When an electric field is applied t... |
Why is it so hard to climb Mount Everest? And why there are so many dead bodies there? | Top of Everest you're literally slowly dying from lack of oxygen. Thus uf you stay there too long or exert yourself too much on the way up, or down, you drop to the ground, and freeze to death. |
Why is it OK to get my hips X-Rayed when I have to wear a lead apron when I get X-Rayed at the dentist? | Good news, bad news: the bad news is that you're constantly being exposed to radiation at all times whether you're at the dentist or not; the good news is that it doesn't really matter . Here's a handy little table that shows some relative radioactivities: [_URL_0_] Sure, that chest x-ray is four times as much exposure... |
Why is soil pH so important for determining which plants will grow best in the area? | It effects what kind of food the plant can eat. Some plants can't absorbe certain nutrients if the soil is too acidic or alkaline, they can absorb a little but not enough. |
How are there more than 3 dimensions? How do we know they exist? | We need to be clear what we mean by 'dimensions'. If we mean in physical space, the existence of dimensions beyond the usual 3 space + 1 time is theoretical; it allows some elegant theories about behavior on really small scales. If we mean mathematically: because there is nothing special about 3 dimensions that makes i... |
Why do we become infatuated with/"fall in love" with celebrities? | I don't think you're going to get an amazing answer to this here based on the two that have been posted so far basically making fun of you for it. I'd say the answer you're looking for is either psychological or can be explained through neuroscience to some extent, thus potentially /r/askscience or /r/asksocialscience ... |
If the Somalian pirates are so bad why doesn't anybody (including their own government) do anything about it? | While the other posters have made it clear that Somalia is a failed state and what little government they claim to have is weak and ineffectual, I feel they are missing another point. Identifying the pirates isn't actually that easy. They attack from finishing boats, which many people have, with AK-47s, which many peop... |
How do wills work/do I need a will if I have never married or had children but my parents are still living? | A will is basically how you decide your assets will be dealt with after you die. If you die without a will, there are a set of default rules for what happens to your assets. While I can't say what the actual rules are without knowing your jurisdiction , the most common rules would say that since you have neither a spou... |
What cancer patients actually die of? | Cancer is basically a lump of stuff that should not be there. It blocks the flow of blood, displaces organs and generally makes life for your body difficult. If it's in your lungs, you'll suffocate. If it's in your stomach, you can no longer eat. Wherever it causes the most damage, thats where it will kill you. |
Why politicians hate imports and love exports | No, imports are not bad for a country. Quite the opposite. However, when imports compete with domestically-made goods, they can upset the status quo, which makes some people mad. Those people are then willing to lobby the government to restrict imports, while on the other hand everyone who gains from the imports wouldn... |
Why Is It So Difficult to Inflate a Balloon Inside of Another Balloon? | In addition to the double thickness, if the two were totally deflated and expanding together you are probably fighting the friction of the balloons as well. They will inflate ever so slightly different rates which might mean that it is trying to slip past the outer balloon a bit. And if you take two balloons and rub th... |
What's the deal with the religious hospitals in the US? | I do need to add that religious hospitals aren't unique to the US. I know at least two Catholic hospitals in Amsterdam: St. Lucas Andreas Hospital, and the Our Lady Hospital. The reason for this was a Dutch phenomenon called [pillarisation], in which different religious and political societies barely had any interactio... |
Would it be possible for humans to learn animal language? | Contrary to popular belief, there is no digg language. Humans brought up by animals often can respond to cues, but just the same way your dog does. He can't understand you, but he knows what he did was wrong, through the tone of your voice. |
Why are cigarettes available in soft and hard packs? Is there some difference or purpose? | Hard packs don't get crushed nearly as easily in a front pocket. From the small amount of time I have spent in jail, inmates like soft packs. They open a small part of the bottom instead of opening the pack at the top. That way, if they give someone a cigarette, whoever is grabbing the cigarette touches the part of the... |
Why has there yet to be a cure to the common cold? | The common cold is caused by a virus and we don't have a way of killing off viruses, yet. With bacteria we have antibiotics but viruses are bit more difficult since they aren't considered to even be living due to the their simplicity. Their life cycles also make it difficult to cure because they take over host cells an... |
Why would someone drink a decaf espresso shot? | Placebo affect maybe? Maybe they actually enjoy the taste. I know for a fact my step dad has a really bad heart murmur so he drinks decaf because he really can't drink regular. Other than that I'm not too sure sorry bud.I drink decaf espresso because im super sensitive to caffeine so the small amount the decaf has is e... |
With all our technical advancements in modern materials and engineering, why do we still use wooden poles to hang up wires in the US? They seem so primitive. | Yes, but they are inexpensive and durable -- they last for decades. Also, it's a renewable resource. Just because it's an old technology doesn't mean it's not ideal.We have lots of trees at very low prices that can be turned into standardized poles. The cost of wood is lower than the cost of metal. Wood is easy to work... |
Why is a flat tax beneficial to the wealthy and harmful to the poor? | I think the actual top tax bracket on earned income is more for the wealthy than it is for the middle class - the issue is that most of the super rich don't get their money from earned income but from investments, real estate, etc . Mr. McMillionaire might be paying a high tax rate on the $300,000 he earns annually at ... |
Why can famous celebrities get away with doing drugs? | I think the [Legal Incidents section in Snoop Dogg's wikipedia page] might help clarify this. He was arrested for possession shortly after high school, and spent the next three years in and out of prison. Note that at the time, he was neither rich nor famous, and very much just another young black male from the ghetto.... |
What is the incentive for a university to have classes and majors that are unorthodox and not commonly seen as viable for the job market? | Where I live, universities didn't used to be businesses. They were institutes of learning. Attending was free for students, fully taxpayer-funded. And they provided courses in things like Ancient Latin and Viking Poetry because studying the humanities teaches to you reflect on what humanity is, who we are, what we valu... |
Why are "Limited Time" promotions only offered for a limited time? Does it cost too much to maintain these goods, or is it a test run for the product? | Depends on the specific deal. It could be both those things you mentioned, or a third option: Many limited-run items come in when the item being sold is temporarily less expensive to produce. For example, McDonald's only sells the McRib sandwich when pork prices drop. Then prices go back up, and they stop selling it.It... |
Can you catch germs through your eyeballs? | Yes, your membrane around your eye is super thin. That's why any infections that involve the eye is taken seriously because it can get to your cornea very easily making the problem a lot worse. |
What exactly are antibiotics? | Antibiotics are chemicals which target specific parts of bacterial cells and stop them from working. They are the equivalent of poisons to bacteria. For instance, [Tetracycline] stops the bacteria from forming certain important proteins. [Penicillin] breaks down cell walls. [Erythromycin] makes it so the bacteria can't... |
How did our ancestors not get sick continuously from drinking stream or river water? | Actually they did boil their water; it's called tea, coffee, and soup. Brewing methods for beer and wine also resulted in liquid that was relatively free of harmful pathogens. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.