query
stringlengths 8
249
| answer
stringlengths 45
7.8k
|
|---|---|
Why can I Crack my knuckles multiple times a day but never multiple times in a row?
|
The "crack" you hear is caused when a bubble of vacuum is formed in the synovial fluid in the joint. Gasses which had formerly been dissolved in the synovial fluid rapidly fill the joint resulting in the sound . You can't crack it again until the gasses dissolve back into the surrounding fluid and a new vacuum pocket can be formedThere needs to be time so that a pocket of nitrogen gas can build up in the knuckle. That is what you are hearing when you "crack" them. If you can crack a joint multiple times in a row, there might be something wrong with the joint and you should see a doctortag-on question: what is going on when some knuckles CAN be cracked repeatedly? I can do that with my knees, for example, and elsewhere, although some are limited to only several repetitions. Is that not the same kind of knuckle, or am I just a weirdo?
|
Why do we know so little about ancient Egypt?
|
Our troubles with understanding Egyptian culture and history are multifaceted. Part of it is that we don't necessarily understand the language quite so well as we understand Latin- there's been an unbroken scholarship of the Latin language since Latin was actually spoken thousands of years ago. We've never NOT known Latin. Ancient Egyptian was largely lost to time, and was only made translatable by the Rosetta stone 200 years ago- before which, we literally knew nothing about the Egyptian language for thousands of years. There are MASSIVE gaps in understanding the evolution of the language. Part of it is grave robbers, defilement, and destruction. People in the past generally cared even less about preserving history than we did today. The interiors of the Pyramids are still studded with thousands of years of graffiti. Entire tombs were raided and destroyed by robbers. Hell, some Ancient Egyptian tombs were destroyed by OTHER Ancient Egyptians- a Pharoah of the 17th dynasty might destroy all the tombs of the 16th dynasty to erase any memory of that history. Part of it is also, to some degree, cultural. Cultures which we know a lot about are cultures which wrote a lot, and wrote on things which were well preserved. Why do we know more about the atrocities committed by the Nazis than the atrocities committed by the Japanese in WWII? The Nazis were meticulous record keepers compared to the Japanese. Why do we know so much about the Roman empire compared to other civilizations? The Romans fucking recorded EVERYTHING. They had incredibly intricate systems of bureaucracy which left behind volumes and volumes of records which we can study today.
|
Why was the King of Thailand so revered by his people?
|
The recently-deceased king of Thailand is generally well-loved by the population. There are many reasons for that, but generally speaking, it is a combination of his long and quite successful reign , as well as a very good public image due to his general lack of conspicuous consumption and extravaganza , as well as being rather diligent in his work. It is quite famous of him that he would be visiting other part of his country to see how his people lives, and there are records and news report of him personally helping the people. While one might claim it is all publicity stunt to keep his throne, all these actions nevertheless cultivated a genuine love and respect from the people. Another factor is that Thai politics is far from being stable, as indicated by the semi-regular interval of military coups. In many cases, especially the more recent ones, the king is tend to empower the military to overthrown unpopular governments and have them reform the government in a more acceptable way. Despite having influence more than constitutional monarchy would usually have, the king generally only use said power when it is needed, further reinforcing his image of being a compassionate and just ruler that safeguard the people from the occasional corrupt officials.
|
Why do salt lands have such reflective properties? Example: Salt Land in Bolivia looks like the world's greatest mirror
|
They're formed by dried up seabeds, so they are perfectly flat. When it does rain, the rain has nowhere to drain to, so it forms a perfectly flat reflective puddle.
|
How do we know that we are "done" with a hug?
|
There are many subtle clues. One person will slightly loosen their grip, and the other person will take this as the cue to end the hug. There also tends to be a "normal" hug time, which you also subconsciously track. After the "normal" amount of time is up, you loosen up, and the other person gets the message that it's time for the hug to end.
|
How do people eat and drink in space? wouldn't the food just float around and not go straight to the stomach?
|
Swallowing does not rely on gravity. The muscles around your esophagus contract in series to squeeze food through you. This motion is called "peristalsis." As for getting the food in your mouth, that's just a matter of getting a food that clumps together pretty well, directing it to your mouth, "Here comes the airplane," and then nom. Some foods are also eaten from tubes/pouches that can be squeezed directly into the mouth.The digestive system works by peristalsis, whereby food and drink is forced into the stomach by regular muscle contractions in the throat. Once in the stomach, solids and liquids are kept there by a sphincter which closes off the access to the throat and stops it coming back up. You can stand on your head against a wall and drink from a cup and it'll still go to your stomach.
|
Why can't/don't we use salt water in our toilets?
|
This would require running two separate water lines into your house, one containing salt water specifically for your toilets, and keeping that water separate from the rest. It would also require towns / cities / whatever to have two water reservoirs - one for salt water and one with fresh water for everything else. This is, obviously, impractical to solve a problem that isn't really a problem in 99% of locations.
|
Why do job applications ask for my ethnicity when they are apparently not going to be used in my application for equality purposes?
|
Companies are required to ask and keep that information so that it can be reviewed if there were ever a complaint. The company isn't required to hire to maintain any ethnic balance, but they have to show that they are not discriminating in hiring because of ethnicity. If someone complains, and there's an investigation, the investigator will compare who was actually hired and why to the pattern of the applicants. 99 white guys and 1 Hispanic on the shop floor might or might not be evidence of discriminatory hiring practices depending on who applied and their qualifications.The only reason I can think of is that they collect the information for "trending" purposes ? Like saying they have 30% white employees, 28% blacks, 10% Asian, yada yada yada 52% males, 48% female then again, it would make more sense to collect this information AFTER someone has been hiredSo that if they are ever accused of racism they can show them the ethnicities of everyone who applied and everyone who was hired to show that they were not discriminatingI always put "Other" for every form that has that bullshit on it and you should too. If you keep drawing the line, then the line will always be there.
|
Why is Adele's Hello song & album, 25, released in 2015 nominated for the 2017 Grammys?
|
The Grammys don't use the calendar year for eligibility, instead they use October 1-September 30. Since *25* was released in November of 2015, it's part of the 2016 eligibility year .
|
How do mom porcupines and hedgehogs give birth without the babies' spines causing any harm to the mother's insides?
|
A porcupine's quills are hair, not stiff rods. When they give birth, the quills are soft and wet. That is also why the quills can be replaced constantly.
|
Why did we ever start counting things in 'Dozens'? Why not in tens, or something easier to work with?
|
Base 12 was used in ancient Egypt. You can count to twelve on one hand, using your thumb to move on each finger joint . Arguably, base 12 and base 60 make more "sense" than base 10, because you can count to 12 on the one hand and keep track of five groups of 12 with the other. Some have argued that this using 12 carried forward directly, some argue that it developed independently in lots of different places, which makes sense to me because it works really well12 can also be divided evenly into more combinations.. with base 10, you either have 1 group of 10, 2:5, 5:2, or 10:1.. Base 12 would be 1:12, 2:6, 3:4, 4:3, 6:2, 12:1This is actually a very interesting question and I once looked into this in very much detail. The 12-base counting system was used by many ancient civilizations but it is believed it was first used by the Sumerians . While there are a lot of advantages to a base 12 system, it is not plainly obvious as to how this could easily make use of this in daily life. With a base-10 system, one can easily keep track of the numbers on their hands, using each finger to count as one digit. Before computers or writing systems, it would be essential for this "finger counting" to keep track of numbers, so how does one count to twelve with their hands in an easy and simple way? Well its actually ingenious. Using the thumb as a pointer, each segment of one hand can be counted until tallying up to twelve as seen at this [link]. As you see, our four fingers each have 3 separate segments. So instead of counting with whole fingers, one can simply use the segments of their fingers. This was actually taken a step further by the Babylonians. They had a base-60 counting system This can be achieved by counting the same way as before, but then the other hands digits can serve as a place holder, so you can count all the way up to 60.
|
If most water is absorbed in the colon, then why does thirst resolve immediately after drinking?
|
Yes, but it's your brain and not your colon that makes the decision of whether you feel thirsty or not. There are whole lot of times there will be a disconnect. Consider the experiments with infinite soup bowls. People will eat more when offered bigger portions, regardless of hunger, and if you covertly keep filling up their soup bowl, they will very rarely stop.Most of the water by volume is absorbed by the small intestines, not the colon. But the water absorbed by the colon is the water hardest to absorb, even though it is smaller in volume. The water that was in the chyme when it entered the large intestines is not there because no other part of the digestive is capable of absorbing it; it is there because its presence is necessary for digestion to work properly. If you drink a lot of water without a meal, it will be absorbed quite quickly because it is in excess of what is needed to aid digestionActual ELI5: After drinking, your brain fools you into being satiated until the water has actually been absorbed. Non-ELI5: This actually only recently has been found out by research. In the end, there are two parts of your brain that interact: one part that registers your actual body's need for water , and a part that for lack of a better term, is a "gulp counter". That part knows how many gulps of liquid are enough to change the slow-changing water balance in your body. What the research found was that this second region is activated to a certain level when you are thirsty, and every time you drink a gulp, the activation would diminish with each gulp until it was entirely gone. The suppression stayed around until your water balance was equalized, after which you *truly* aren't thirsty anymore. Interesting side outcome of the research: cold water makes the counter go down faster, that's we feel cold water is more refreshing.
|
Why are written and spoken English so different?
|
English is the result of a linguistic mishmash of Low German dialects, Norman French, Scandinavian languages, Church Latin and Scientific Greek, and loanwords from a hundred other languages from Italian to Arabic to Swahili to Cherokee to Hindi to Japanese. As a result, it has lots of different rubrics for how letters should be pronounced inherited from its various parent languages that often contradict one another.As a native English speaker who has been reading almost as long as I've been speaking, I had trouble getting through that right.
|
Why do undercooked potatoes taste disgusting, even though other root vegetables like carrots and parsnips are fine to eat raw?
|
Because of the starch content; potatoes basically store their energy as starch, whereas carrots store energy as sugar.
|
Why is jupiter considered a planet when it is basically just a big ball of gas without surface?
|
Because "solid surface" isn't a requirement to be considered a planet. The current classification is as follows: A "planet"1 is a celestial body that: is in orbit around the Sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium shape, and has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. Jupiter easily suffices. It's also fair to say it is more complex than simply a \'big ball of gas,\' while there is no discrete boundary where air becomes \'ground\' you would instead gradually transition to more solid resistance as you descended.
|
What's the difference between androids and robots?
|
A robot is at it's simplest: an automated mechanical/electrical device that is made to operate with minimal or no human control and preform specific tasks. An Android is a robot, a robot made to be specifically human looking or human like. A Cyborg is a combination of mechanical/electronic parts with biologic parts to make a half machine-half living organism thing.Robots are used in assembly lines to take automobiles from start to completion. Androids are used in hotels to take Japanese businessmen from start to completion.
|
Why is it that when ice cream melts and refreezes it gets icy and its texture isn't how it's supposed to be
|
Part of the magic of making ice cream is that little tiny air bubbles get whipped into it, and tiny globules of fat are mixed throughout the ice crystals. When it melts and re-freezes, all those bubbles get released and the fats can separate a bit, so you're left with something closer to greasy ice.
|
Why do we say "huh?" or "what?" when a person says something, even though we already heard it and answer the question before a person repeats themselves?
|
for me personally often times is because I was really suprised to hear the person talk. It came out of nowhere and I was kinda "unprepared" to listen, so I intuitively interrupt them with "huh what?" to give my brain some time to prepare. But most of the time I understood them anywaysyou are still trying to process it, and you want to speak next time you are in a convo with someone and they are talking and not listening when you do, real quickly say to them, "do you wait to talk or listen?" say it fast and usually people will be like, what? or even say 'right\' because people want to talk. it doesn't fit 100% with what you asked, but it works. it's your mind still processing what they said, but your mouth wanting to talkI read an article or heard something on the radio about this exact phenomenon. If I remember correctly .. Basically, it's a processing delay in your brain. The act of recognizing that you heard something is a separate neural function from language processing. This makes some sense, as it's related to how quickly you can react to danger. Also, language is a fairly recent development in human history and isn't really related to survival in the same way. The number I remember them giving out is 3 seconds. If you can train yourself to wait that long before asking "What?" you'll probably not need to anymore.I do this all the time. Hard habit to break that's for sure. I think it's because I am not paying full attention to the person who is speaking with me so I say what? and then I realize I actually did hear what they said so I respond.
|
Why is there so much backlash against Iggy Azalea in the hip-hop community, but not against other white rappers?
|
Because she doesn't make good music, and she's made it to the mainstream music's Eye.
|
The difference between the Common Law System that we use in the US/Britain and Civil Law System used in most countries around the world.
|
In Civil Law, everything is written down, if there isn't a law against, it isn't illegal. In Common Law, judges are given more latitude to interpret laws and derive legal principles from them. Those interpretations are recorded and serve as precedent, non-binding mini-laws that other judges will take into account. Common Law tends to be more flexible, you have fewer situations where someone can do something terrible just because no one bothered to write a law against it. But it also tends to be more contentious and inconsistent, as different judges have different opinions at different times, giving lawyers more to argue about. In a Civil Law system, handguns are illegal if there is a law making handguns illegal. End of story. But if someone invents a shoulder mounted knife launcher that isn't covered by existing laws, it is legal until a new law is passed. In a Common Law country, even if there is a law, it might conflict with precedents set others, less specific laws, which can require a complex and contentious legal process to sort out. But that same law can more easily be applied to unforeseen situations.
|
Is it possible to make paper out of the outermost peel of onions or shallots or garlic?
|
It is probably possible to make onion peels into paper. Handmade papers are just wood or rag pulp dried in a mold. But it would take a lot to be useful and nobody is going to peel onions all day just to make paper when they could just buy paper that’s thin and translucent—which is called onionskin!
|
Does a drug that prevents the spread of HIV mean we could eradicate the disease? If so, how do we coordinate that kind of effort?
|
Supposing it was 100 percent effective, and we could get absolutely everyone to take it, and it could prevent transmission mother-to-child, then we could eradicate it in a generation. But the first two assumptions, at least, are false: the pill has 99 percent efficacy , and there's no way we could finance it for everyone, distribute it to everyone, and get everyone to take it, , so it would take a great deal of time. This would be like eradicating polio; find the places it's most prevalent, dose as many people as possible, and spend a few generations stamping it out. Then, stay vigilant for outbreaks.
|
Why do people have pairs of chromosomes? What does that do?
|
You get one chromosome from each parent. It increases genetic diversity by giving you one from each parent, rather than just one chromosome from one parent.
|
Why cant you see stars in pictures taken from the moon, but you can see stars in pictures taken from earth.
|
Because the Moon is too bright. If you just try to take a normal picture of the sky from Earth, you probably wouldn't see any stars either. The picture from Earth where you see stars are usually long exposure photos, captured in a very dark location. If you try to take a similar picture from the Moon, you'll also see stars.
|
If it is true that male humans have better sense of smell, how is this possible?
|
Do you have a source? Every resource I have ever read says the opposite - that women have a much better sense of smell than men. It is even suggested that during ovulation that women's sense of smell increases significantly. _URL_0_
|
Why are the states of matter quantized? i.e. there are 4 distinct states of matter that are not arbitrarily defined.
|
The difference between water boiling and hot water is where the energy goes. states of matter are defined by what kind of bonds break. Heat up water. Start a fire to add a quantity of heat to the water. Sometimes,that energy will raise the temperature of the water and sometimes it will go to turn the water into a gas. When water is cool , the added energy of the fire gets the molecules in the water vibrating. It raises the temperature. When water is hot that added energy does not raise the temperature of the water. Instead it creates steam at 100C. A calorie of heat no longer raises the water temperature. Instead the work goes into breaking the intermolecular bonds. There are 3 basic states because different forms of bonds can be broken. In ice, there are crystalline hydrogen bonds. Each hydrogen bonds to 4 different H2O molecules. Add too much heat and instead of the temperature going up, the energy goes into moving the molecules around so much that they can't be a crystal. The hydrogen molecules now forms weak bonds with 3.4 molecules of H2O instead. Some materials skip this partially bonded state. Dry ice sublimates directly to a gas. Heat up liquid water to much and the hydrogen bonds give way alltogether and only the covalent bonds between the H and the O are left. That's steam. Heat steam too much and the molecule itself breaks down to the atoms. The covalent bonds break and the ions are left exposed as a plasma. You can go hotter and break down subatomic bonds as in a super collider. You can go cooler and form superstates as in a Bose Einstein condensate.
|
If gay marriage is made legal (which is a good thing) what arguments would one use to keep polygamy illegal?
|
It makes an absolute mess of family law. Right now, a marriage is between two people & a child has, at most, two parents. What happens to the children in a 3-marriage if A divorces B & C because B is abusive? Obviously, we would want to minimize B's custody rights but that would unfairly penalize C. What about a 4-marriage where A & B separate from C & D and A & B are the biological parents of children? Divorces can also be tricky - what about a 3-marriage where A & C want nothing to do with each other but still want to stay with B? Allowing gay marriage doesn't require any major changes to the legal framework of marriage - we simply change the definition to allow any two people rather than a man & a woman. Allowing poly-marriage would require a *major* reworking of the laws to accommodate arbitrary family size & structure to satisfy the needs of an *incredibly tiny* minority of people.
|
Why did the Japanese "let the emperor still be emperor" ?
|
I think it's kind of like how the Queen is still the Queen, but Parliament actually runs the country.
|
What does alcohol consumption feels like?
|
It burns against your throat and down into your belly. Then it kinda fizzles into a warm happy feeling that spreads through your body. The effects on your brain can be completely unnoticed initially, but continued drinking exacerbates them. For me I smile more, talk more, and become more relaxed. If I get drunk I think everything is funny, I involve myself in every conversation, and I slump or lean on things. I've learned to identify this stage and stop drinking. Because if I continue the silly/happy feeling turns into anger and sadness, I shout a lot, and my arms and legs seem to operate on a delay.
|
Why do people shit themselves with fear?
|
Most animals have a natural aversion to fecal matter. As such, it can be an effective escape/survival strategy to shit yourself and hope that a predator smells/sees it and leaves you alone. It can be hardwired into the "flight" part of fight/flight as it's a pretty good deterant/distractionWhen your "fight or flight" reflex activates, your body redirects as much blood as possible towards your limbs so you can actually fight, or run away. That means that the rest of your body will get less blood than usual. That's the sinking feeling you get sometimes. Your digestive system might not like that, and become "unstable" the muscles that keep your different outlets shut will not get enough blood to do their work correctly. Also, as Rich_Nix0n said. Poop smells bad.It's kind of like octupi and ink. It serves to confuse predators. source: me.
|
Why is it easier to "see" things in your mind, rather than "touch" or "smell"?
|
Note: I'm not a neuroscientist. It is possible that the modern human brain has more dedicated visual processing over the other senses which my allow for "visual thought" to be predominant. I 've also heard it said that the sense of smell is a better trigger for memories than any of the other senses. Also, I may be talking out my assI'm curious why you didn't include hearing and feeling into the question. When you hear something, like singing a song in your head, it's called audiation. Try singing "Happy Birthday". Now, sing it in your head without making any audible noise. That is called audiation. You're asking about visualizing as well as the equivilant for smell and tase . I would venture a guess, as per Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, that whatever your strongest areas of intelligence are transfer most easily into the mental state equivilant . I can mentally smell fresh baked cookies, and mentally feel how my girlfriend rubs my hand. I think this also offers a solution as to why some people can easily perform math equations in their head . See:_URL_0_
|
What is the advantage of spending more money to buy an unlocked phone?
|
The only advantages are that you can choose any provider and you can get a prepaid plan. If you text/ring a lot, it's better to not get an unlocked phone and just get a contract.
|
How is it that you can have some or all of a brain hemisphere removed and maintain motor function on that side, yet a stroke can cause lifelong paralysis?
|
The short answer is that the brain is fucking weird. The long answer is that the muscles are controlled in clumps spread through the brain. But those clumps are mostly together. That's why a stroke will often hit only certain muscles, if it's a small one, the blood to certain bits of the brain was cut off long enough to cause brain damage. In a larger stroke it will hit large parts of the brain, and so might get all or most of your muscle functions. And then the part about the Brian being weird, the brain can often shift stuff around to compensate for damaged or missing bits depending on what's missing and how. So you can have one hemisphere missing, and the brain will be able to compensate . But, that takes time, people have learned to do stuff like talk, post stroke. But they had to give their brain time to rewire. So in the short term, they loose mototr functions. See: _URL_0_
|
Why do teeth occasionally hurt when you eat something sweet?
|
I get the same thing. Dentist didn't really have an explanation, but said it wasn't cavities.I am in the dental field and this is common. I would say go for a routine check up that includes cavity detecting X-rays. This is to rule out if you do have cavities or not. Most insurance companies cover your cleanings, exam and x-rays. The other thing I would recommend, is switching to a sensitivity toothpaste and use it religiously for 4-6 weeks to notice a difference. It doesn't matter what brand, just one made for sensitivity. Without going too much into anatomy of your teeth, they essentially have pores that are really called "dentinal tubules." These tubules are the source for most sensitivity problems. And of course lastly, floss. Just do it. That's a conversation for another daythey should not hurt, you either have cavity or your teeth emale is very fucked up, either way you should talk with your dentist', "I'm a dentist so I can answer this as best possible. Basically you have nerves in your teeth. Sometimes when you have decay or a large filling the sugar and additives in sweeties get down to the nerve and cause a short sharp pain. This can be avoided with your usual check ups and radiographs however some people just have sensitive teeth, in which case I have a top tip; rub toothpaste onto your teeth half an hour before you brush and keep it on until you brush. Helps a lot.
|
Waking up suddenly at 4:30AM feeling full of energy vs falling back asleep for another 30mins and waking up feeling like you could use another 6Hrs.
|
One possible reason is that we have sleep cycles that dictate how we feel when we wake up. If you wake up at the end of one, you feel good. Too early or too late while you’re in deep sleep, and you feel horrible. Going back to sleep after waking can slip you back into your cycle, and you end up in the middle of a new one after 30 minutesWhen you sleep you need them to be in 2 hour measurements.Usually with a minimum of 6 hours. That extra 30 minutes seems like a great idea but you cannot fall asleep fully in 30 minutes.
|
How difficult would it be to intentionally build an immunity to a lethal poison, a la The Princess Bride?
|
There isn't a blanket answer to this. Some poisons you simply cannot develop an immunity to, and they will end you no matter how hard you try. If you were curious, the practice itself is named Mithridatism.
|
How do non-partisan entities maintain nonpartisanship? Don't presidents, chairs, board members, justices have internal biases?
|
Level headed people are able to see when they have a bias about something and view the opposing side and their own without their bias and determine a course of action based on that. It is similar to a woman saying she would not have an abortion but at the same time not wanting to make that choice for another woman by voting to outlaw abortion as a whole.By compromise. Something completely lost in American society, buy yeah. You can have ideological beliefs and still not stop all progress because it doesn't adhere exactly to your view.
|
Why is writing a paper check totally free for both parties while any kind of electronic transfer has fees?
|
While I agree with the previous poster, as someone who works in Banking/Finance/Investments I can tell you the real reason is: Checks bounce. Bounced checks have huge fees which means money for banks Electronic transfers remove the potential for bounced checks I.e. Banks lose the revenue from bounced check fees To offset the loss of revenue, they charge an upfront fee for electronic transfers. This same thing happened with overdraft fees a few years back. Checking accounts were free but overdrafts incurred huge fees. When banks could no longer charge them without customers opting in, free checking evaporated overnight I.e. They charge a fee for those accounts now to make up for lost revenue from overdraft fees. If this were called explain like I'm 50: The hardware costs cited above are ultimately capitalized and depreciated by any financial institution as that's an asset to the company. So while yes that is also a motivating factor for the fee, IRS accounting rules offset the initial investment to build all infrastructure and applications required to process the electronic transfers.An electronic transfer requires the corporation many things. -The data must pass through the servers taking up a lot of internet traffic -Database part costs -Database maintenance and up keep -Paying employees -Finally all/most companies main goal is profit!!!! so any new feature will require a cost no company will make an e-transfer will be setup for free
|
How does a vending machine recognize a dollar as opposed to a dollar sized piece of paper?
|
They take a picture. Your piece of paper doesn't look like a dollar bill. They read the fine patterns. Your piece of paper that you tried to commit counterfeitting does have the fine patterns that a real dollar bill has, because your printer isn't capable of printing the fine lines. Take a magnifying glass to right side of 5 dollar bill, you'll see "five dollars" repeated in the side bar. You'll see "USA five" on the purple 5. You'll see names on top of the Lincoln memorialThe ink is magnetic and the bill acceptor has a magnetic head that can read the pattern of ink. The newer machines backlight the bills and scan them as they come in looking at patterns and shadows. There are also ultra violet markers on the bills that can be detected. If you scanned a bill and printed it with magnetic ink you might be able to fool an older machine from the 80s, but nothing newer.
|
What is happening to someone physiologically when we get our "second wind" of energy?
|
Our bodied realize they are under undo stress so they release adrenalin. The release of adrenalin makes us feel better and more energeticYour body has a base level of energy. If you compare it to a battery, your body makes sure that you never go below, say, 60%. Then you get hungry and feel the need to "recharge". In stressful situation however, being able to tap into that extra energy can be a life saver. For instance in a survival situation where you can't find food fast. To get to this extra energy you need the help of hormones like adrenalin, endorphin or cortisol. Getting that "second wind" means you 've convinced your body into releasing the necessary hormones.
|
Why are boobs attractive?
|
This is more of a shower thought that I had a few months ago, but everyone loves boobs. Gay, straight, male, female, so there has to be some basis in biology. My hypothesis is that everyone loves titties because they're babies primary biological food source and therefore breasts are associated with feeding time, cuddles, and good times. Even as a 24 year old male when I see a nice pair I think, "wow I 'd like to nuzzle up and suck on those". To add to the biological basis, there is significant social pressure to find boobs attractive, again regardless of sexual orientation. Gay guys and girls have much greater access to breasts than I ever will, friends of women with nice boobies will just squeeze then and say " wow your tits look amazing " whereas when I do that it's all "stop you perv" and "what are you doing in the women's locker room"I always thought that the "distinctly gender" traits were why things were sexy. Like, it is distinctly male to have larger biceps, larger shoulders, a larger jaw, a beard, etc. So those things are sexy. It's distinctly female to have larger breasts, larger hips, and have socially constructed female traits like longer hair & wearing high heels. So, "sexy" means distinctly female. At least, that's what I always thoughtMonkeys mate 'doggy style\' so when a male looks at a female, he looks at her ass. Breasts have shifted to be a \'front butt\' to give the same impression. So the human brain is now wired to 'this appearance of two globes is attractive\'. "Tits or ass" is a fun game where it's a picture, but only shows the cleavage/crack, and it's very difficult to tell the difference sometimes
|
How did "ZZzZZzzz" come to represent sleep and how did it become so common?
|
Someone thought it was a good onomatopoeia for the sound of snoring and it stuckThe onomatapoeia theory is, as far as I'm aware, correct stemming from 1852. It's first published use was from Henry Thoreau who referenced the sound of sleeping locusts when he first wrote "…the dry-z-ing of the locusts is heard." It caught on, though, in the first 10 years or so of the 1900s in the advent of comic books who needed a shorthand for snoring. Which comic used it first is not settled upon. It was first referenced in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1924, implying it was already part of the lexicon some time before. Edit: I can't spell
|
how does the military keep on getting hacked?
|
The kind of hacking that is being done is not the ordinary wire fraud hacking. The US military is being hacked by professionals in other countries who have a similar budget, both for cyberdefense and cyberwarfare. We hack into their systems as much as they do ours , but they don't publicly acknowledge it like the US does.
|
What is the bends?
|
When you go underwater to a deep level, the increase in pressure forces nitrogen gas into your blood, just like increased pressure can force CO_2 into pop/soda. When you come up too quickly, the drop in pressure decreases the solubility of the nitrogen, and it comes out of solution and forms gas bubbles in the vascular system . These bubbles can cause what is called an air embolism, which is when air "blocks" a blood vessel and prevents the transmission of oxygen. Since gas goes up due to buoyancy, the bubbles go to your brain, and when your brain gets no oxygen you have big problems. If you come up slowly, the nitrogen leaves through your lungs instead of forming bubbles in your blood vessels, and your live to dive another day.
|
Why do videos from the 80's-90's always look like someone smudged grease on the camera lens?
|
Video quality has improved since then. And so has playback quality.With an older video there is less information there. The older video has information for a smaller number of lines of pixels. So when you play it on a new screen, the screen can display many more pixels than it is getting information for. So your computer or tv or whatever has some ability to extrapolate what it needs to fill in spaces, but will mostly use more than 1 of its pixels to show the information that was 1 pixel 20 years agoBecause they are shot on videos from the 80s and 90s. Videos were not designed to last and were of poor resolution and have deteriorated over the years and were not designed to be shown on the high resolution screens of today.
|
what even is Ebola and what are it's effects?
|
Ebola virus disease , formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.EVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%.EVD outbreaks occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus.Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. No licensed specific treatment or vaccine is available for use in people or animals. **Signs and Symptoms** EVD is a severe acute viral illness often characterized by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding. Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes. [Source and More Information: World Health Organization]
|
Why has there been a vinyl resurgence in the music industry?
|
You can get them cheap. They have a slightly different sound quality, and many people enjoy that difference. Album art is pretty great in and of itself. You can roll a joint on an album cover, but you can't on digital music. People like actually having physical items. They have a cool factor that dates back more than a century . If you are into certain scenes, 7" singles are a great way to pick up and try out new music in a more interactive way than simply going through youtube. Many people enjoy the nostalgia factor. You can give them away as physical objects to people who also enjoy albums, and that beats the hell out of just sending them a link. You can leave them to your kids. You can get them from your parents. People like them.I'm risking sounding super hipstery here There are 2 huge reasons I got into vinyl. For one, a vinyl record jacket doubles as fantastic wall art. These artists usually put a lot of time into their album covers, and a basic MP3 thumbnail or even a cd cover just doesn't do it justice. I use them to decorate a wall of my theatre room behind my projector screen. Secondly, and more importantly for me, a vinyl record forces you to both buy and listen to an entire album, not just cherry pick the songs you like. As a music lover there's something comforting about that; so much so I have a separate room in my home for listening to music . Also, as mentioned above the price is the same now as buying a digital copy, and vinyl records come with a digital download key in most cases. It's nice to have something tangible. _URL_0_
|
Why do we make that "hurr-durr" voice when mockingly impersonating someone? Why does that voice signify stupidity?
|
It sounds like someone with a mental disability, like Down's syndrome. They are seen as stupid, so its a natural voice to use to convey stupidness", 'That particular voice, usually accompanied with a contorted face and hand motions like you're ineffectively trying to stab yourself are stereotypical symptoms of mental retardation. It is saying "you are so stupid, you must be retarded"
|
How is this man able to hold on to this chopper for that long?
|
That's very little acceleration on top of 9.8 m/s^2 of Earth gravity. Downwash probably adds a little more effort. Still, it isn't much more physically demanding than holding on to a stationary bar. Mind that it's pretty easy to hang even from a single hand. With two hands it's a piece of cake. You don't have to pull yourself further up just to hang. It isn't so much that you're likely to fall as that the consequences are big if you do fall.
|
Why do car wheels sometimes appear to be spinning very slow, or backwards?
|
Our eyes can only interpret and update what is going on at a certain speed. Wheels can be turning very fast. Imagine your eyes are capable of 'updating' to your brain what is going on every 1/20th of a second. Now imagine you are looking at a special clock where the big hand is at 12:00 exactly. If the hand rotates from 12:00 back to 12:00 within 1/20th of a second, our eyes won't be able to see that it traveled all the way in a circle because it happened at an internal too small for us to visualize. If the hand actually moved from 12:00 all the way through 12:00 and then to 12:00:01 within the span of 1/20th of a second, then all the way around again past 12:00:01 to land on 12:00:02 within the next 1/20th of a second, and so on and so far, we would be able to see this as the hand slowly moving from 12:00:00 to 12:00:20 within the first second, and it would appear to be moving 1 minute ever 3 seconds, even though it's actually rotating the entire length of the clock + a little every 1/20th of a second! It would only appear to be moving forward, but faster than normal, when it's really going much faster than normal. Similarly, if every 1/20th of a second it rotated 59 minutes 59 seconds around the clock, it would appear to actually be moving backwards. If it rotated exactly 24 hours each interval, it would appear motionless. It's basically just an optical illusion caused by how fast our eyes and brains can interpret what is going on.
|
What is the difference between a republic and a democracy? Which one is the U.S.?
|
A republic means a small group of people are chosen so that they can make the governing decisions of a country. A democracy means that the people vote on the governing decisions of the country. The United States is a democratic republic. The people vote to choose the small group that will make the governing decisionsThese are terms that have had different uses over time, which leads to some confusion. Political scientists tend to use *republic* to mean "not a monarchy," and *democracy* to mean "a state where sovereignty is constitutionally vested in the people, and leaders are chosen through regular elections with universal suffrage." Thus, they have no trouble calling the United States both a republic and a democracy. This use differs somewhat from how that of classical antiquity. Many ancient writers criticized democracy as being mob rule, because the passions of the people were not restrained. By contrast the Roman republic was primarily governed by officials drawn from the ranks of the patricians, a social elite class, while the plebeians elected tribunes whose primary power was a veto right. When people complain that the U.S. is not a democracy but a republic, they're not using the commonly accepted meaning of those terms. The distinction they usually mean to make is between *representative democracy*, where government is primarily exercised by elected leaders, and *direct democracy*, where the people frequently set policy by referendum. The United States is a representative democracy, most strongly so at the federal level, with the states varying in how much influence the people have directly. The Founders tended to use the term "republic" to describe the American constitution, because it contrasted so strongly with the monarchies that were the norm at the time. With the French revolution and the great changes in Europe during the 19th century, terminology changed, and they way we speak today tends to come from the latter half of the 19th century, hence the difference.
|
What does contemporary military jet fighting look like?
|
It mostly involves a lot of talking. The problem with locking on to enemies 30-40km away is that you can't see them. Therefore you have to be absolutely sure that whatever you're shooting at is really the enemy. This is especially true in modern guerilla/assymetrical/highly mobile war - if you are never sure where the enemy is, and your own forces are all over the place, and you preferably want to avoid killing civilians as well, you will lose a lot of time on confirming targets. This can actually take so long that, especially if the planes you're targeting are closing in, by the time you're allowed to fire most of the range advantage is gone. And if both you and the enemy miss/evade the initial strike, then you're pretty much on top of each other already. Dogfighting can and certainly does happen, even in modern air combat. For example during the Persian Gulf war the term "furball" was coined - which describes a dogfight involving multiple friendly and enemy planes. There are other advantages to high maneouverability as well, such as better ability to evade missiles. Finally, though here I enter the territory of pure speculation, I assume that maneouverability is actually quite cheap to achieve. For most modern planes it is done almost entirely with thrust vectoring engines which, considering the overall price of the plane, are a relatively minor investment[Simulation games seem fairly close to the real thing.]', "> What does 21st century dog fighting look like? With missiles that can lock onto targets from 30-40 kilometres away. It doesn't. Pop quiz: when was the last time an American pilot shot down an enemy plane? [1991.] The last pilot to shoot down an enemy plane? He's a General now. That's how far away we are from any air force from challenging ours. The US hasn't lost a fighter to air-to-air combat since Vietnam.
|
How does calling an african-american "black" make you a racist?
|
I don't think it does at all. People call me 'white' and not an American. So why would it be racist to call someone 'black' instead of African American?", 'You have to understand what the culture of the whole society of the USA was like in the 1850s, the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1970s to understand why such a useful and descriptive word as "black" to refer to someone with dark complexioned skin used to be such a term of distaste, dislike and oppression. Blacks don't use the front door, they go around the servant's entrance, even if they are not a servant. Blacks don't sit down and take a meal or a cup of tea in a room with you. Blacks aren't given a bank loan for anything, EVER. Blacks who marry your daughter get killed. Literally killed with no legal repercussions. "Black" is a word with lots of historical baggage in the USAI think the opposite is true in a way. People call blacks "african-american" just to AVOID using the word "black". Most of the time they're just "American", not "African-American". Sometimes it's just completely wrong such as with my Jamaican friends! They aren't African-American :( Also, for some reason the rules say you can't identify as "african-american" is you're white which is weird It's as if white people don't exist in Africa
|
why Obama is criticized for going golfing?
|
It's part of the partisan bickering that comes with a two party system. If the President is a member of your party and takes a break, he's been working really hard and deserves it. If he's a member of the opposition, he's a lazy bum.
|
what is epigenetics and how does it differ from evolution?
|
Epigenetics refers to heritable information that *not* encoded in the basepairs of your DNA . Epigenetics works through a few different mechanisms, not all of which are completely understood, but include DNA methylation, histone placement and modification, and, for some organisms, subnuclear localization of chromosomes. The effects of these mechanisms are all similar: to change what genes your cells actually express. For a long time, scientists thought that how your genetic makeup interacted with the environment was a one was street: Your genes were your genes and if you had bad genes for your environment, you dead. Epigenetics is actually a way for your *environment* to modify your genes "semi-permenantly" to adapt to changes, increase survival, or increase fitness. And because epigenetics is heritable, your kids can benefit from this change as well. When conditions change again, the epigenetic changes can be reverse or in other ways changed to suit the environment.
|
Why does anyone attend for-profit colleges like ITT Tech when anyone can attend community college?
|
People just plain get duped. The see the ads, and it all looks legit enough. You go into the sales meeting, and the representatives are trained to do literally whatever it takes to convince people to sign on for attending the schools. It's not until it's too late that they realize how worthless the degree is after they graduate. Community Colleges are, however unfairly, seen as "lesser" degrees than other schools. For Profits like ITT Tech prey on that and manage to convince people who don't matter that their degrees aren't worth even lessOne of the main reasons to go to a trade school is to be certified in a certain field. This can help someone get a job or start a career in that specific trade taught. Community Colleges are for associate degrees. This is a much more generalized degree that does not allow you to specialize in one field. Most community colleges are set up to prep you for you standard 4 year university. With an AS/AA you might have a harder time finding a job because you are more generally educated, but you have more options on the field you go into. With a trade school degree/certification, you know what field you are going into and would have a hard time finding another field job that would hire you. Based on the training you have received at least. These school are not always scams, but they do serve a very different purpose from CC. It really depends on what you want to do. I am speaking generally, of courseCC are great and lot of folks use them to transfer to a 4 year U. I went to El Camino College and it was pretty rad and high level.
|
How does "RNG"/Random work in Video games?
|
Pseudo-random number generators use an algorithm to generate a number. The algorithm starts with a "seed" value to create the number. Then it crunches through the algorithm . Since it is an algorithm, if the seed is the same, the result is the same. So systems will try to pick a seed value that is essentially random. For example, when the event occurs that triggers the RNG, take a few of the least significant numbers of the system clock. Such a system is generally good enough for a video game "random" number. If you are using cryptography to protect something valuable, however, you might want something that is more robustAwesome responses. I 've seen this question been answered before, but the premise of a "seeded" number is a bit confusing :).
|
Bandwidth. What exactly is it and how does it work?
|
Bandwidth originally is from transmission techniques that use bands of frequencies . Each station gets a range of frequencies to use and is allowed to fill up that band with their broadcast transmission. With clever technologies, you can send multiple different broadcasts within the band you were given. the size of the range, or bandwidth, determined just how many streams of information you could send at once. More generally, the term is now used to refer to how much stuff can be sent through something at one time. For instance, if you have a 100 Mbps connection, it means you are able to send, at most, 100 million bits of information through the connection every second. TL;DR: bandwidth is the maximum amount of stuff we can stuff through a pipe within a given time frame.Let's make believe data is water in a lake. Then there's a dam that holds the water. The dam delivers water to nearby town via pipes. The MAXIMUM amount of water that can flow through the pipes is called bandwidth. There are things along the way that change the maximum allowable flow. Like latency, different protocols or distance. The final amount of flowing water at the end of the pipes is called throughput. The actual number that you see when it gets to someones house. Theoretically the dam can provide billions of gallons of water per second. But realistically you only see a few million per second by the time it gets to your house. That's the same concept when it comes to data.
|
how come the rings of Saturn orbit on a flat plane around the planet, as opposed to evenly spread out?
|
Same reason why the planets are in a relatively horizontal plane around the sun. Angular momentum is conserved, so as orbiting materials collide, they eventually settle into a disk. What conservation of angular momentum means, is that the total sum of each particles momentum, must but equal to their ending momentum. So you get a lot of chaotic collisions when the cloud first starts, but as more and more collisions take place, more and more of the upward and downward momentum is converted into horizontal momentum. This creates the plane or disk.
|
How do people who went through transsexual procedures change their voice?
|
Basically it's hormones. Women who transition to men will notice a bigger change in their voice when they start taking male hormones. But, men who transition after they've gone through puberty won't be able to change as much because the physical changes the voice box goes through at that time are hard to undo.
|
Why are college textbooks so expensive when other non-fiction authors - ie Noam Chomsky - release books on similar topics for substantially less?
|
The simple answer is, of course, because they can. Students are required to buy their books, so they can charge whatever they want for them. To elaborate on some other points: * Noam Chomsky's books probably don't have massive problem sets and accompanying solutions -- those take a *lot* of time to come up with.* Other books tend to not have nearly as many pictures, drawings, and diagrams. Someone has to get paid for all of those.* Typesetting plain text non-fiction books takes much less time than typesetting a 1000 page book with 5 pictures and 6 different fonts on each page.* Textbooks will probably go by many more editors and reviewers before being published compared to non-peer reviewed non-fiction* Textbooks are almost always hardcover, which is more expensive, and they are often glossy full color pages, which are more expensive", 'Supply and demand. You need the book so they can charge anything
|
When cloning an animal (let's say a dog), how much of that cloned animal is exactly the same as the original animal?
|
Essentially, a clone of an animal is the same thing as an identical twin. 100% match genetically, but everything else is a wildcard. Anything that is directly genetically controlled will be the same, such eye or fur color. Anything that is affected by environment, habits, temperament, coat quality, size, health, etc Will be up to chance essentiallythis is hard to answer as this argument deals with the whole nature vs nurture debate. looks wise, they will look the same baring some environmental disaster. personality/habits would also depend on how they were raised.Well, it depends on the dog. Grossly, probably pretty similar. If the coat color was solid, then it would probably have the same coat color. But if it was a pattern, the exact pattern would be different. Also, point mutations in individual follicles would create those odd mis-colored hairs in a completely different patterns in either case. If you have a breed that can have either floppy or straight ears, what you end up having could be of a different type in your clone than the parent. This is because ear shape isn't directly controlled by gene, rather in the level of hormone expression during development Environmental factors during development can alter hormone levels and you could end up with entirely different ears. Behavior, temperament, personality - total crap shoot. All tings being equal they may come out very similar, but even identical twins can have radically different personalities from day 1, to say nothing about how experiences may change such traits as the animal experiences life.
|
Please explain this joke, I'm having a hard time
|
It sounds like an anti-joke. The standard setup is inverted and that is the cause of the humor. The bartender sees the joke coming and want's nooo trouble in his place. I don't think it's funny, but we've all got different tastes in that regard.I 've heard the punchline as, "What is this, some kind of joke?" The bartender realizes that it's a stereotypical setup and doesn't want to be the butt of the jokeIt is like "why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side". An anti joke.Usually a joke like this continues into a discussion/scenario where each of the individuals stereotypes are exploited however in this case the bartender is so exceedingly racist he immediately turns them away before anything else can take place. It's for the shock value.its just cause the bartender is racist, so he wants them to get the fuck out of here!
|
What happens in a factory to cause chocolates such as Kitkats to be made without the Wafer inside?
|
Usually that would be some issue in timing, and given how fast the line moves for something mass market like candy, a little "off" timing can create some real problems. In the case of Kit Kat, it's probably usually an issue of the wafer bouncing out of, or missing the mould, which then just gets filled with chocolate.
|
NES games could be up to 1MB in total size, but Final Fantasy II for Android is 170MB. What is the additional 169MB?
|
MIDI music resembling actual instruments as opposed to a simple chiptune and far more detailed graphics for the most part. It may not sound like much, but remember that 170 MB is but a small fraction of what a CD can hold; but a small drop in modern technology.
|
Why do extremely big things seem to move slower and extremely small things seem to move faster?(Realtive to human hight etc.)
|
If something extremely big moved without it looking slow it'd have to have close to supernatural strength. Take a human that has 3 times our height, and everything in proportions. That'd mean it has about 27 times our mass. Not if he moves on the same rate as we do, it'd take 27 time as much energy as is, but to appear moving on the same rate as we are it'd take 81 times as much energy. There is no living creature that could intake 81 times as much energy as we do - basically eat and drink as much a day as we do in 3 months' time.You said it, perception of scale. Bigger objects are simply bigger, it takes more speed to travel their full length compared to a smaller object, at least in the same amount of timePower/mass ratio. Power in animals is determined by the cross section of muscles while mass is volume. If you scale things up, volume grows more than area, so big animals have less power/mass ratio and accelerate slowlier, and the opposite if you scale things downAlso: bigger body parts have more mass and as such thus take more time and energy to move and to stop.
|
Why do we need discipline?
|
Discipline is what keeps you going when you run out of motivation for a task. Imagine you're climbing a mountain. You have more motivation than people just sitting in front of the TV because you want to drive out and climb that mountain! You get to the base of the trail, get all your gear, and pump yourself up for the climb! But as you start climbing, your motivation starts to waver. You don't think you're in shape enough for the climb. Maybe it was more difficult than you expected. The sunny day seems to be getting more cloudy and it might rain. When you run out of motivation, you probably just want to go back home. This is when discipline kicks in. Even though you're suffering now and your motivation is gone, you still want to power through it because the climb may be worth it in the end. Self-discipline is one of the best traits in a person because it is necessary for people to complete tasks. It's very easy to start something but it's difficult to see it through. There's a rule called the 80/20 rule where completing the first 80% of a task takes 20% of the time while the last 20% takes 80% of the time. It's very motivating in the beginning to see something progress quickly but it takes discipline to spend a great deal of time finishing the jobFirst, you need to look up the definition. Second, self-discipline allows you to make the right decisions in your life using critical thinking and to make yourself better even though you may not necessarily want to. Literally means: "the ability to control one's feelings and overcome one's weaknesses; the ability to pursue what one thinks is right despite temptations to abandon it". So instead of like .. pounding down that half tub of ice cream every night, put it away and grab some carrots and hummus instead.
|
If you went back 10 years with an iphone 6 and handed it to a high-tech corporation to dissect. Could they use it to increase the rate of technology?
|
It would very likely be a mixture. The UI and design could be picked up on easily enough The actual manufacturing of the phone in large quantities would be difficult. Especially for things like the screen resolution. Even with the tech example the high res screen would costs tons if it were even possible to create it. They would definitely take parts of it as good examples and possibly clone them. But they would not be able to make the same phone for a while. Even if they created one at the time it would cost well over $1000 for the single phone. It would not be cost effective to create copies. Now they could make lower quality clones and use the UI and design aspects quite easily. That then brings up the idea that apple released the first iphone about 9 years ago. So the company you sell it to would need to act very quickly, more quickly than possible to produce a lower quality clone to beat apple to the punch. But it would still give them an advantage so long as it was given to a very wealthy company. Five year old answer: They would think it's cool and maybe use a little of it. It would give them some smart ideas.
|
How come some phones/cars can supercharge like 40% of the battery in minutes, but the remaining of the battery takes hours to fully charge?
|
Think of it like a balloon you are trying to blow up. You can start huffing and puffing with great abandon as the balloon isn't going to pop. but when it gets to certain size you start to worry, You want the balloon bigger but you worry it might go bang. So you have to slow your puffing down.
|
What is the "revolving door" in politics?
|
When you work in government agencies, you build up contacts within those agencies. Then, when you leave, you get hired - for fairly substantial salaries - to lobby your former colleagues on behalf of people who have business with that agency. The questionable part about this arises because you *know* that's your career path. So when you're attempting to perform your duties for the government, you're also in charge of regulating the same people who will - in a few short years - be paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars to do little more than take your former colleagues out for drinks. The 'revolving' part comes into play when you're high enough in the hierarchy that you cycle in/out based on political cycles. So you'll spend some time in government building up your contacts, then some time in the private sector exploiting those contacts for a big payday.Generally what people mean by the "revolving door" is government executives moving between regulatory agencies and the businesses they regulate. It isn't uncommon, for example, for high ranking Treasury officials to have been employed by banks and brokerage firms. Often multiple different times. People object to this because they feel that these executives get a little too friendly with the people they're supposed to be policing.
|
Why does lemon juice "cook" fish when making ceviche?
|
It doesn't actually cook the fish. The acid just denatures the proteins in fish meat in a similar process to cooking. It won't, for instance, kill pathogens in the fish.Proteins are very long chains of a type of molecule called amino acid, hundreds or thousands of them. These chains tangle in a more or less random way , however organisms guide the tangling process so they end up in a specific shape that makes them useful. When you apply heat to a protein, these chains will move, and if they become hot enough, they might untangle a bit and then tangle again, which can cause them to change their shape. This process is called "denaturisation", and is what makes meat, fish and egg change their colour and texture if you heat it up. Acids like lemon juice will lower the forces that hold the chains together, which makes it easier to untangle them. Therefore, the temperature at which a protein will denaturate is lowered. But as StupidLemonEater pointed out, this will not affect bacteria and parasites that can survive the stomach acid, which are usually killed off by high temperature. In that regard, you need to be just as careful as when you're making sashimi or carpacio.
|
Why were popular songs of the 50's so short (2 min) in comparison to popular songs of today (4-5 min)?
|
Up until the early 60s the most singles were distributed on 10" 78rpm records which could, at most, hold about 3 minutes of audio per side.
|
Could quantum entanglement be used for long distant instant communications/High bandwidth data transfer?
|
> From what I understand, once you entangle two quantum bits a change in one bit's state will immediately affect the state of the other. This is the main reason most people misunderstand the entanglement. Changes to one particle does not affect the other once they are split up. Entangled particles are more like a sheet of paper with 'A' and 'B' written on it. Cut the paper in half so one letter is on each piece and stuff them in separate envelopes. Send someone with one envelope to a far off place while the other stays put. The far off person can check their envelope at any time and know what was left behind. If the traveler has B in their envelope, then they know that A was left behind. Erasing the B and writing in C does nothing to the piece of paper which has A on it.
|
Histogram on my camera screen
|
A histogram is simply a graph of the amount of colour in the image. So for example if your lens cap is on, the graph will have one side with a very high rating and the rest with a low rating. If your shooting the sun the opposite will be true as the sun will over power the camera making the whole picture white and the histogram very weighted to the white side. Some camera's will display multiple histograms that allow you the see the amount of red/green/blue in the image. They are used by photographer that are really concern about shadows and highlights and determining how much information is in them. So for example if I wanted to take a picture where half the person face is in darkness I would look at the histogram to make sure about half the value of the image is black.The histogram is a graph of how much of the picture has any given level of light. Black is at the far left of the histogram, white is at the far right, and the height of the graph indicates how much of the picture is at that level.
|
Does a YouTube video with a static image use the same amount of data as a normal YouTube video?
|
No. A static image will be compressed a lot more by the video editing software. There are fewer keyframes for the software to deal with and make pixels for, so it's a lot "simpler" for the software to shrink the video down. To see this for yourself, you can use a youtube video downloader and download a music video for a song, then download a video for the same song that uses a static image. The static image should be drastically smaller than the one with actual video. If you don't want to hassly with downloading videos, just watch the loading bar for a video that has plenty of slow, still shots and a few quick cuts with drastic movements. You'll see that the slow scenes load quicker than the quick ones. This is the same effect of compression software being able to squeeze more video into a smaller amount of data.
|
How do we know so much about the different stages of a star's life if they last for such a long time?
|
We can examine the life stages of a human without having to watch one in particular for its entire life. Similarly with stars, we see them at all different stages of their lives. We see the transitional states so we know in what order they occur.
|
Difference between "buffering" and "loading"
|
Just technicalities. Buffering is partially loading something for streaming. Loading is loading the entire thing', "Buffering is really just pre-loading.. It's basically just loading something before someone is actually going to see the information. As a picture loads, you see the picture start to appear on your screen. When a video is buffering, it's really just loading up more frames of the video, ones you haven't actually seen yet. Loading is a more generic term for getting content ready for viewing, whether it's at that moment, or in the near future. Buffering is specifically get content ready for consumption ahead of time so there's less lag or wait time. If you buffer a video ahead of time , then even if your internet connection can't quite load the video as fast as it's playing, you still have the 'buffer' there to prevent the video from stuttering.
|
Since the US president is the commander in chief of the armed forced, how does the US constitution prevent him from planning a coup and ordering the military to do something potentially unconstitutional?
|
The Oath taken by all military personnel is to support and defend the Constitution. Training is given reminding servicemembers that they should not obey an unlawful or unconstitutional orderA military officer is not required to follow an illegal order. For instance, an officer can refuse to act if he is ordered to shoot unarmed civilians.And like the other poster stated, the Posse Comitatus laws prevent military forces from being used for domestic purposes. _URL_0_', "The constitution is a piece of paper. It doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. If it did, then no one could do anything unconstitutional. So the only thing preventing a President from using the military to stage a coup is the military's willingness to go along with it. If he got the backing of the entire US military then we're fucked. Even if state militias and national guards band together to rebel, I doubt they're equipped to successfully repel the might of the US Military. But I think it'd be extremely unlikely that any president could muster the entire US military. It's simply too large and too diverse.A constitution can never prevent a coup because a coup is by definition unconstitutional. But the armed forces can ignore any unconstitutional command. Every soldier has the right to ignore any unlawful order by the way.
|
The universe is expanding, but where is the center of the expansion? is that the point in which the big bang happened? And where are we relatively to it?
|
Every point is expanding away from every other point. There's no "center of the expansion". Imagine an infinitely large rubber sheet, with a 1" grid drawn on it. Now stretch out the rubber sheet so that the grid lines are 2" apart instead, everywhere. Is there a "center" to this stretching? Every point is moving away from every other pointThe idea is that space itself was a product of the big bang. So every point around you and in the universe was concentrated at a single point at the beginning. This would make every point in the universe the center of the universe. So the universe is expanding relative to every point in the universe. A result of that is that no matter where you look from, the universe is always expanding outwardsIf you were to bake a fruitcake, you put the raw mix into the oven and it begins to expand and rise. The pieces of fruit inside the cake are moving away from each other inside the fruitcake mix. From each piece of fruits perspective every other piece is moving away from it. If there is any center, then the individual piece is it because every other piece is moving away with expansionThis is a common question both [in ELI5] and is in the /r/askscience FAQ , [twice]). Tip: askscience will get you more accurate answers. tl;dr There is no center. The universe is infinite. Everything expands away from everything elseThere is no center. All points are expanding away from all other points. As a result, if you want to get down to brass tacks, the Big Bang occurred at **all** points in the Universe.
|
Isn't the CBC reporting on Jian Ghomeshi a conflict of interest?
|
It is a conflict of interest. News organizations have conflicts of interest all the time, but that doesn't mean they stop reporting news. Journalism ethics says so long as you disclose the conflict, so people can judge if you are being biased, you are covered.
|
How would acquiring (for lack of a better word) temperatures below absolute zero be used to provide obscenely large amounts of energy?
|
In a normal system , adding energy results in an increase in "entropy" - the tiny bits and pieces that make up the system move around more. In a system with [negative temperature], the bits and pieces that make up the system already have as much entropy as they possibly can - their entropy level is saturated. Heating them further *reduces* their entropy. This is not possible with a normal system in classical physics. But it can occur with some quantum systems. How does this provide large amounts of energy? I don't think it does. It *requires* relatively large amounts of energy. For a system to reach entropy saturation, it has to have a large amount of energy before it can even get into negative temperatures - but I don't think it *provides* large amounts of energy. I may be wrong here though. This whole field is very new. [Here is an article] describing it being achieved - the article doesn't say when this happened, but the date on the article is earlier this year. It also discusses some of the potential uses of this state - for example, creating a gas cloud that defies gravity - but there's no mention of providing large amounts of energy.
|
Where do files go once they're deleted? I just don't accept that they disappear...
|
Imagine your hard drive as a giant wall, like the Great Wall of China. Now imagine that your files are painted on this wall . When you delete a file, your computer finds the spot on the wall where that file was painted, and marks that section of the wall as "free". It doesn't scrub off the painting, but the next time your computer needs to store a file, it can just re-paint over the "free" portion of the wall, and that's when the original painting will be gone/replaced. The computer *could* scrub away the painting at the moment you delete the file, but marking it "free" is quicker and takes less work. There *are* ways to tell your computer to scrub off the painting at the moment you delete the file, but normally there's no need to do that. You can even run a program later on that will walk along the entire wall, and scrub off any old paintingsThey don't go anywhere! Your computer just marks the space they occupy as available, and records over the space the next time it needs room. Now, most computers consider space marked for deletion to be free, so when you "delete" something it just appears as free. That's because "the file is still here, but the next time I need room I'm going to overwrite this area of your disk" is a silly thing to say.
|
How we can say the earth is tilted on it's axis, when it's a sphere?
|
The tilt is the angle between earths rotational axis and the orbital axis . [Like this]What is meant by "tilted" is that the earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the plane of its rotation around the sun.
|
how the hell did line dancing to "aches breaky heart" become a Mexican party tradition?
|
I have no idea but you should repost this to /r/TIL as > TIL line dancing to "achey breaky heart" is a Mexican party tradition.They think it's fun to dance to. It's super simple and anyone can get into it I've seen kids rock out along. Also, you have to understand they don't dance to achey breaky heart, they dance to [no rompas mas] Which is just a reimagined and translated cover of Cyrus' song followed by the sister song [el payaso del rodeo]. I wouldn't call it tradition either, no one leaves one of those parties upset if they didnt hear the song play. I think you've just been lucky to hear at every mexican party.As a mexican, I can say 99% of all weddings and graduations dance to these songs, i think its because everyone can dance to it, so nobody feels left out, even if you mess up
|
Why does everyone hate comic sans?
|
This should explain it both entertainingly and fiveyearoldishly. _URL_0_I think it probably stems from the fact it looks like something a five year old would use, unprofessional and such. Beyond that I think it's just something that's "cool" to hate, like Nickleback.The typical answer is that Comic Sans is used in inappropriate places , and this misuse has spread to a general dislike of it. For me, it's mostly that it's overused, period. It's shorthand for 'whimsical', but it is in fact just generic cheese.
|
How a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) works.
|
Have you ever ridden a bicycle with multiple front and rear gears? The difference between the size of the gears, or ratio, helps balance how much work you do with how fast you go. On a 10-speed bike, you have only 2 gears in the front and 5 in the back with a chain connecting them. With a CVT, you have two cones with a belt between them. By moving the cones in and out you can achieve *any* gear ratio, rather than just a handful discrete gears give you. As an added bonus there's never a point where you stop delivering power because of shifting - it's always moving. The specifics of how they move & how the belt stays in place start getting more complicated quickly.
|
What causes "asparagus pee" and how does it happen so fast after eating it?
|
Short answer is that asparagus contains a natural chemical aptly named asparagusic acid. This acid is broken down by the body into sulfur-containing compounds. Those sulfur compounds smell. This is the same reason rotten eggs smell. And once made, the breakdown products end up in your urine. Because they are highly volatile, they make it into the air as you pee, and float on up your nose! I don't know exactly why it shows up so quickly, but my best guess is just that the smelly compounds are made from asparagusic acid very quickly, as soon as you begin digesting the asparagus. Source: _URL_0_ Not an asparagus expert, nor a pee expert. Just googled your question and found a good article.
|
When someone is given the death penalty, why are they on death row for so long?
|
There's an appeals process that has to be followed, and that can take years because the courts are really very busy. Then there's the fact that issuing stays of execution is a very easy, low-cost way for governors to earn brownie points with more liberal constituencies who understand how many innocent men have danced the sisal two-step because the State was in a rush to punish someone.
|
Why do some injuries hurt when partially submerged and then feel better fully submerged in water?
|
If the injury is to a weight-bearing part of your body, the extra weightlessness of being in water can relieve it. It’s also why older people do a lot of exercise in pools, it’s less impact on your body
|
how many more satellites can we launch into space before we run out of room and are there any viable methods for clearing out space to fit more?
|
Others here are right, space is infinite. Except that there's only one geostationary orbit, and there's only room for ~3600 active satellites there , otherwise their radios might interfere with each other.One complication the answers so far have missed: The Kessler Syndrome. As we launch more and more satellites into Low Earth Orbit, we also launch more and more misc debris with those satellites. This debris is mostly all tracked, and results in a panicky maneuver on the ISS every few months to avoid a collision. However, at some point there will be too much debris to avoid, and hyper velocity impacts with satellites will start occurring with some frequency. Those impacts, in turn, produce even more debris, etc, etc, etc. _URL_0_', "If I'm not mistaken, it's kind of a self-correcting problem. Satellites are in a very low orbit, so they tend to fall out and burn up in the atmosphere after their useful life is over. In fact, i think it's part of the design
|
Why is 1 meter 1 meter?
|
There have been a few basis for the definition of the meter. One of the earlier methods was tying the definition as a fraction of the lenght of the line between the north pole, passing through Paris, to the equator. Another method that came about was the lenght of a "prototype meter", a physical artifact that represented the lenght of a meter Then we tied it to the wavelength of the radiation from a specific isotope of Krypton, and then later we defined the meter as a fraction of the speed of light in a vacuum.The meter was originally the distance market on a Platinum-Iridium bar, but then was re-defined in terms of the speed of light for a more fundamental definition. The meter is defined as the distance traveled by light in 1/299,792,458 seconds; it's that precise number because we didn't want to re-work the original meter, and based on a the constant 'c'.A meter equals a meter because of the Law of Identity, the first of the three classical laws of thought. Those laws are as follows: 1) Whatever is, is. 2) Nothing can both be and not be. 3) Everything must either be or not be. Anyway, the meter is the length it is because it was defined to be so. Originally it was considered to be one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the equator along a meridian through Paris, at least as best they could determine. In a practical sense it was defined by the length of a particular iron bar kept in Paris.I'm not sure if it's true or if it's one of those stories you tell kids, but I was told that a bunch of french scientists went and measured the distance between the equator and the North Pole, then cut it into some significant fraction, Google says it's 1/10'000'000 and saved that on an iron bar which is now in a vault somewhere.
|
how the University of Phoenix works.
|
My friend's cousin who I met a couple times was doing an MBA at the University of Phoenix. She didn't think her grades were reflective of her effort; she would work hard and be surprised by how low the mark was, and sometimes hand in crap and be surprised by how high the mark was. Then she handed in a blank paper and got 80%. I really hope this was just one a-hole lazy prof teaching one class and the place in general is not like that.
|
Force Touch on the new iPhone and other phones that have it. What are the real benefits or features?
|
Force Touch on the MacBooks acts like a right click. 3D Touch on the new iPhones adds a 3^rd option, users can now tap, tap+hold, and deep press. So for app icons, a deep press will bring up shortcuts; so for camera, instead of opening the app and switching to video, you just deep press the icon and slide your finger down to video record, it saves nanoseconds, but those add up. I am waiting to see what in-app functions it can utilize.
|
how do Dan Aykroyd and Eddy Murphy make Mortimer and Randolph go broke at the end of Trading Places.. how did they get rich?
|
Short selling. At the beginning of the trading day, the Dukes have a fake, unreleased forecast report saying that there will be a shortage of oranges, and therefore the price of frozen concentrated orange juice will go up. The Dukes\' goal is to buy as much FCOJ as they can before the report is released and take advantage of the price increase. Lewis instead waits for the price to go way high and then starts *selling* FCOJ he doesn't even own. Basically, he's borrowing shares and promising to buy them back later. The real crop report comes out, saying there is no shortage of oranges. The price of FCOJ tanks, and Lewis finishes his short sale by buying back the shares he has to own to cover his earlier sale. Lewis sold high and bought low, in that order. The Dukes bought high, much more than they could actually afford, and what they own now is worthless, so they can't pay back the exchange . This bankrupts them. _URL_0_
|
Are Black LED's a thing, and if so how do they work?
|
No - there is no light source capable of producing "black light" as black is defined as the absence of light.
|
Why is quantum physics so often mentioned in philosophy and so-called "enlightenment" texts?
|
One of the main points of overlap between philosophy and quantum physics concerns whether or not there is true randomness-not just events that are beyond our current predictive ability but things that just truly cannot be pinned down or explained beyond "random." If those truly random events exist, that's a huge blow to a strict determinist worldview and a big boost to those who believe in freewill. Similarly, there's another big overlap on the macro end of the physics spectrum and philosophy too. Determining the mass of the universe and whether it's continuously expanding or if it will expand and then begin to contract again has huge implications for physicists as well as philosophers', "Because quantum mechanics is so counter-intuitive and difficult to grasp, even by the greatest scientific minds on the planet, spurious snake-oil salesmen have hooked onto the terminology and pretend there is some profound connection with the bunkum they are propounding to a gullible audience. Even the cosmetics industry, whose general product consists of an oil and water emulsion with dye and smells added, have got 'quantum' this and that. Quantum means discrete quantities. 'Quantum Mechanics' kind of works in jerks. As a thing reaches a certain amount, it can be increased no further until it becomes something else entirely. It's not gradual, but incremental, if you like . That's rather over simplified, but it's as good an analogy as needed for this discussion. 'Quantum Mechanics' is the scientific principles which underpin so much of our modern world. Even telephone cabling must be kept in a tangled mess SPECIFICALLY to stop certain corruption taking place in digital signalling by quantum effects. One thing it is NOT, is philosophy !
|
the concept of financial aid and student loans for university students?
|
Or do you want the rationale? Here, you'd have to go into an explanation of progressivism in politics. The general idea behind subsidizing education like this seems to be that in the long run-- not in individual cases, but in a much longer time frame-- this will make the country stronger, more economically productive, and will increase material and cultural wealth for everyone.
|
Why is it so much easier for the brain to be depressed than positive?
|
It is personal, not everyone is that way. Those of us who are just have to learn to live with it . The ELI5 story is that your brain handles certain chemicals that work in the brain in ways that prevent you from feeling 'normal'
|
What is RedPill and BluePill philosophy and what's their main differences? (No bias please)
|
In the movie "The Matrix" the protagonist is offered two pills. If he takes the red pill he will wake up from the computer simulation he has unknowingly been living in while if he takes the blue pill he will forget he was ever told it was a simulation. So, a group of people take the red pill as symbol for their ideology. They say they believe that men should be masculine; brave, loyal, assertive and that society is putting women first at the expense of men. They believe that women want "Alpha males" and if you are not one then women will leave you and cheat on you. The blue pill is in opposition to this, they believe that the red pill is just people being dicks to women. They say that RP encourages using tactics like "negging", insulting women to keep them feeling worthless and so she feels like she couldn't do better than the man she is with. They have also found examples of Red Pillers calling women inferior to men.
|
Why does rock music and classical music fit together so well?
|
All western music is based on the same music theory of melodies and harmonies created from the major and minor scales and the different modes of them. But rock, has closer ties with classical than, say, R & B because some of the more unusual modes and scales are shared by both. Rock guitarists learn a lot of classical scales in their early years and so they natural influence the songs they write later on.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.