question stringlengths 44 300 | answer stringlengths 151 13.2k |
|---|---|
when the large baby boomer generation begins to die and their homes flood the market, will real estate prices drop dramatically? | No, because for the most part their homes will pass to their children (who are, for the most part, currently renting off other baby boomers)
Hopefully it will help to "reset" some of the mess the Baby Boomer generation has left the housing market in, where so many of them own multiple homes that they rent to each othe... |
why have i learned so much about the holocaust and the war crimes committed by the nazis, but i have never learned anything about the japanese war crimes during wwii? | My understanding (in the US) is that post-war, Japan grew to become a vital trading partner with the US. As such, it would be better to avoid touching on "controversial" topics such as Japanese atrocities during the war, or the US's Japanese internment camps.
On the other hand, Germany kind of embraced a cultural sha... |
the old testament, new testemant, and the koran all have passages denouncing and prohibiting the practice of collecting interest on loans, so when and how did this practice become accepted in society? | It's not quite that extreme -- notably the Old Testament only said not to charge interest to the poor, or within the Jewish community. This left Jews free to charge interest to others.
It became more permissible over time, as the definition of usury moved from "charging any interest" to "charging an unfair amount of i... |
How will the waters actually recede from Harvey, and how do storms like these change the landscape? Will permanent rivers or lakes be made? | I Googled this yesterday cause I was afraid to ask on here. I am curious of the actual paths it takes to get to the gulf. The only thing I can imagine is how a tsunami rapidly recedes back to the ocean but I know that isn't how this works. |
Does the placenta have the DNA of the mother or the baby? What about the umbilical cord? | The placenta is fetal tissue! Very, very early on in development the blastocyst implants in the endometrium of the womb. The outer layers of cells in of the blastocyst become the trophoblast that becomes the placenta, embedding deeper and interfacing with the blood supply of the mother. The foetus essentially builds it... |
why is crying a natural response to both extreme sadness and extreme happiness, but not so much for anything in between? | Crying is a response to extreme emotion- I’ve seen people cry from being scared, angry (kind of the same thing) etc. it’s a natural way to release those pent up emotions. You wouldn’t need to cry over something mild happening, like say, your food order being late, unless you already had a bunch of unexpressed emotions ... |
Did the Allies in World War II ever entertain the idea of offering a conditional surrender to Nazi Germany before the end of the war? Do we know any details on what the conditions of these offers might have entailed? | The Allies had different goals of victory for the end of the war, so a discussion of conditional surrender has to take this into account. Churchill, coming from a more traditional British school of thought, was primarily focused on restoring the old European balance of powers system of international governance which re... |
In Medieval Europe, women were considered inherently lustful and prone to sexual sin. Would modern stereotypes of male sexual appetite apply to them? | No. Latin medieval culture could, and did, spin a fancy tale of the devil seducing Eve seducing Adam, and the humoral composition of women making them "leaky" and "open" to demonic influence. They made up theological and biological backing for this teaching.
Popular comic literature came down equally hard on both sexe... |
When a nuclear bomb goes off underwater. Does it create a giant air bubble? | It creates a massive steam bubble, it doesn't last too long (not sure on actual time it is there for) but something interesting happens when the "bubble" is there. The gas makes the bubble expand until it reaches the maximum size it can as the pressure forcing the bubble to expand becomes weaker the water pressure caus... |
why does a deep scrape on elbows/knees/shins stay white for a period of time before bleeding? | This is because initially after an injury, blood vessels contract in order to minimise blood loss. They increase again in diameter later to facilitate healing and the movement of specialised cells and materials towards the site of injury. You can see this contraction and subsequent dilation of blood vessels anywhere; t... |
In films like "The Pianist" and "Schindler's List," German guards seem able to kill prisoners at any time without restriction. Did concentration camps and ghettos have rules stating when and how soldiers could kill inmates? | The problem with camps was a lack of oversight once the initial responsibilities had been established. Meaning the answer to this question depends largely on who the camp commandant was and how tight a ship they wanted to run.
Let's start, not with concentration camps, but with Soviet POW camps. Soviet POWs were kept ... |
why is it that when my feet are cold and i put them under my covers, they start sweating but they're still freezing? | The control center in your brain for body temperature (the hypothalamus) is part of a different network than the sensory system for perception of heat (primary somatosensory cortex).
The control center for body temperature is more concerned about the temperature in your brain and other vital organs; so if your core is... |
why do some recent films from the 2000s need to go through a remaster process into higher resolutions like 4k? aren't the original source files already at their native resolution, especially if they were filmed digitally? | No, there was still a lot of film used in the 2000s. Even so, digitization for HD (1080) is very different from digitization for 4K (2160) because different bitrate limits are needed for the different formats. There might have been a 4K "digital" version for theaters with digital projectors in the 2000s, but that's n... |
how come being outside in 90 degree weather is uncomfortable, but 90 degree water is amazing...65 degree weather is very comfortable, but 65 degree water is awful? | The thing is, your body doesn't really measure temperature - it measures a little something known as heat flux.
Heat flux is pretty much the rate at which heat enters or leaves your body. For us, the most comfortable state is when we have a little bit of heat leaving our body.
In all of these cases, heat is moving f... |
Why is the French Revolution (1789) is considered much more important than English Revolution (1649)? | There are a number of contributing factors to this disparity. First and foremost is the wider global impact of the English Revolution, or rather the lack thereof. The French Revolution is particularly unique among revolutions(other than the Russian Revolution, but I won't get into that) in that the ideas of it spread t... |
How strong/muscular were ancient warriors? Did they know enough about muscle growth to be the same build as many athletes/bodybuilders now? When did humans start becoming adept at bodybuilding? | In general, the population today is much larger than they were during ancient or medieval times. Better access to food, especially rich in protein and fat has allowed the human population (at least in the western world) to become much taller.
That said, the population back then were much more accustomed to hardships a... |
if someone receives a full organ transplant will the organ be eventually replaced by the host's cells or will it remain as the the donor's cells for the rest of the host's life. | It will always be the donor's cells. It can be possible to wean off of antirejection drugs as your body gets used to the new organ, but if your whole liver is replaced by a donor liver, you do not have any of your own liver cells to replicate and replace the donor cells. |
how do frogs, toads and other amphibians know how and where to find new bodies of water? | Amphibians explore and migrate during cool moist weather. They can cover a lot of distance that way, especially if they can find damp places to take shelter in between stages of their journey.
Most animals (including us) are also perfectly capable of smelling water from a good distance. Wind blowing across a body of w... |
why are salmon from the pacific prone to parasites while salmon from the atlantic safe to eat raw? | I don't believe this is actually a thing? Atlantic Salmon also frequently have warnings put out about parasite risks. [The NHS publishes warnings in the UK](_URL_0_) about it.
Now you can get sushi-grade fish, of course, but that's fish that has been flash frozen to kill any potential parasites in the fish. That can ... |
Is the optic nerve stretchy or is there some slack to let your eye move? | The optic nerve in an adult has about 8mm of slack to allow the eye to move.
Nerves in general do not stretch very much, and the optic nerve in particular cannot stretch at all. That's because it is part of the central nervous system.
Because the nerve connects directly to the brain, it is covered in an extension o... |
if horse racing tips had any merits, why wouldn't the bookies adjust their odds to match? | Betting on horse races is fairly straight forward. If more people bet on a particular horse because they think it has a good chance to win, odds will adjust. The horses with low odds stay that way because few people will bet on them. The bookies do adjust the odds, in horse racing and pretty much any sporting event. |
Is it possible to ever encounter plastic in nature that wasn't made by humans? | Not in the strictest sense, as most definitions I have seen for plastic specifically use the words synthetic or man-made. As such a non-manmade plastic is impossible.
However plastics are really just polymers, long chain molecules that are usually organic (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, maybe a few heavier elements). The... |
why will youtube show people dying but freak out over nudity even non sexual nudity? | For the exact same reason a film can have dozens of deaths depicted yet remain PG but throw a couple breasts and swear words in and it's an instant R rating. American prudishness, pure and simple. All nudity is considered inherently sexual (not long ago there was a question on here freaking out about the idea of child... |
How did Buddhist-majority nations reconcile state violence (wars and so on) with Buddhist precepts of non-violence? Did they bother to do so? | A really interesting case study on this is japan during WWII and Zen Buddhism.
Two important works on this topic are "Zen at War" and "Zen War Stories " by Brian Daizen Victoria. These books examine how Zen Masters justified and contributed to pro war propaganda.
Here are some quotes from Zen masters during WWII:
>... |
why have some languages like spanish kept the pronunciation of the written language so that it can still be read phonetically, while spoken english deviated so much from the original spelling? | Spanish has an academy whose mission is to standardize and grow the Spanish language, so that helps Spanish to keep its strict pronunciation. English is, and has always been, a total shitshow, linguistically speaking.
[_URL_0_](_URL_1_) |
Are Tardigrades susceptible to viral and/or bacterial infection? Can they get ‘sick’? | Virtually all living organisms (probably all, but I am not 100% certain) can get infected with viruses. And many are susceptible to bacteria.
Surprisingly, a web search turned up the following article, [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) , which reports a tardigrade that was infected with a fungal pathogen. The most surprising part ... |
Are battle depictions of one or two extremely skilled swordsmen that kill dozens of men, while thousands of poorly trained infantrymen that usually die true? | The most important things to remember about battles is that if you're alone you're dead. Skill definitely plays a role, but so does morale, equipment and luck. The last two I think are most important - a good armour allows one to face many opponents and deal with them. And will save you when a bunch of people start hit... |
why do i never have to poop when i'm on vacation or camping, but as soon as i come home, i'm taking the biggest shit of my life within minutes? | I'm no poop expert but I think it's a territorial thing. Think about our evolutionary ancestors. They were comfortable and safe pooping in familiar territory. If they were on a hunt for a Wooly Mammoth or something, the act of pooping would put them in a vulnerable position. |
Theoretical physics- What if there was no speed limit like the speed of light? | TL;DR: In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, particles can't decay.
If you take the limit where the speed of light goes to infinity, but you keep ["Galilean relativity"](_URL_0_) (the notion of relativity we'd been using before special relativity), a very large change occurs at the level of elementary particle physic... |
If person A is travelling at a fast speed away from person B, why is it that person A's time runs slower when you could say that person B is travelling away relative to A? | Your assessment is spot on. They both see the others clock running slow, which is generally called 'the principle of reciprocity' in introductory textbooks.
If you have two space ships pass each other while traveling at constant velocities, each will feel 'at rest' with respect to the other. This results in each of th... |
How can a paper cup full of water not burn up on a 2400 degree billet of steel? | The reason is that, perhaps surprisingly, the paper simply does not get hot enough. Paper has an autoignition temperature (the temperature at which it will burst into flame) of about 210-250^o C. If you were to just put an empty paper cup on the hot steel, it would rapidly reach this temperature and start burning. Howe... |
britons of reddit, can someone explain the "first past the post system"? | The country is divided into "constituencies".
Each constituency elects a single representative, or MP. (Edit, as pointed out below): they do this by voting on the candidates, and the candidate with the most votes wins. The winner doesn't need a majority of votes, they just need more votes than anyone else.
Most MPs r... |
Was suicide among "commoners" normal during time periods like the renaissance? Or is it something that became more prevalent recently? | I have an earlier answer on [suicide in the Middle Ages in western Europe](_URL_1_). If you don't mind, I'll copy-paste it here for now so people have something to read while I work on one that extends into the Reformation/later Renaissance era. (Normally I'd just wait, but the topic seems to demand it.) ([Now posted!]... |
I've read that nazis' hate for jews derived of the fact that they were a race without a nation, and as a result were considered "parasites"[sic] of other nations. Would nazis then have approved of the construction of a jewish state like Israel? | Not really, no.
What is important to understand regarding the Nazi world view is that not only were Jews regarded as an existential thread due to their "international character" but also that Nazi policy did undergo an evolution during the Nazis' tenure in power.
As for the first factor: Rather than thinking of the J... |
why was cloning such a big deal in the 90's but now is rarely spoken about? | There were a lot of breakthroughs in the '90s, and that made it new and exciting and a big deal. And naturally also very blown out of proportion.
There are still advances being made, but nothing huge.
Cloning would not make a species viable, either. You need genetic diversity, which is the exact *opposite* of cloni... |
I'm a king in an average sized European castle in the Middle Ages. How do I get candles? Surely my candle use would be enormous. Do I have a guy whose sole job is candle maker, or do I have to import them from somewhere else? | I completely love this question.
The courts of the late Middle Ages used an absolutely *mind-blowing* amount of lighting--individual tapers, full candelabras and chandeliers, larger torches when brighter light was culturally significant. (For example, on either side of the altar at Mass, or using twice as many to ligh... |
how redbull can afford to sponsor so many different (and expensive) sports, yet their product is only a drink? | > They cant make that much money can they?
They really do. They brought in over 4 billion in 2011 (revenue, so that wasn't all profit of course).
Edit - It is ridiculous this is one of my highest upvoted comments. |
what happens short-term and long-term when a person defaults on their student loans? | The usual suspects. Credit score tanks. Collections calls start flowing in. Stuff gets repo'd or your wages get garnished until the debt is repaid.
Of course it might vary by state and by whatever agency granted the loan (federal vs state vs whatever), but the basic pattern of "this person owes us money" doesn't chang... |
Would two people pointing guns at each other have enough time to react to the first gunshot? | Let's take [600 feet per second](_URL_0_) as the speed of the bullet (this would be a pretty slow bullet). At 10 feet, the bullet would take ~0.02 seconds to get to the target. Average human reaction time is in the order of [0.2 seconds](_URL_1_). So to have any chance of reacting in time, you need a bullet traveling a... |
just how much less nutritious is food that has been frozen such as frozen fruits/meals | Calories should stay exactly the same. Mineral content will also be exactly the same. Some vitamins can be changed by various environmental factors including temperature. Vitamin C, for example, is degraded by exposure to oxygen. Freezing can actually help protect against oxidizing since liquid water more efficiently t... |
Why was Bill Clinton's approval rating so low in the first few months of his presidency? | As you said, at this point of his presidency a few months in, in early May of 1993, Clinton was at a 45% approval rating. Clinton's lowest approval rating then actually slipped to 37% - a low-point mark I believe he reached in early June of 1993.
The reasons for these low ratings early on were largely tied to what man... |
It is often said that middle age era male English skeletons are deformed due to excessive archery practice, are examples of such deformities found in warrior cultures as well? (Mongols, Huns, Spartans, etc) | To be clear before we start, "deformed" isn't exactly how I'd describe *os acromiale*, which is the condition you're describing. Very briefly, what happened to longbowmen (and current competitive archers, etc) was that the growing point (growth plate) on the scapula does not fuse with the bone itself; appearance of tha... |
Why were so many willing to fight for and defend the institution of slavery, even when they owned no slaves? | So when speaking about Southern society in the Antebellum period, what is important to understand is that the South was *not* simply a society in which people owned slaves, but rather it was a *slave society*. I hope that the difference is appreciable, but to make it clear, what I mean to say is that slavery permeated ... |
whats happening when a sneeze ‘gets stuck’ then just burns your nose and makes your eyes water. | Sneezes are a protective response to alert you to less than ideal breathing conditions and remove irritants/allergens from your nose. They’re triggered by the presence of irritants, but only a certain concentration, which is mediated by multiple nerve endings that generate “spikes” when they’re irritated. Once the numb... |
how can a human possibly survive a headshot? what would the bullet have to miss? | As long as the bullet misses the Medulla Oblongata, a small section of your brain responsible for basic life support, you could in theory survive the gunshot if you were treated for the complications afterwards, such as internal bleeding. Obviously you'll suffer massive brain damage as the bullet rips through your sku... |
what makes "the cloud" different from just a regular server? why is there a new term for something that was already done before? | The "cloud" is mostly just a buzzword to refer to a concept that is a little more abstract than just "server".
Instead of your data being stored on one particular server (e.g. that you own or rent), your data is being passed off to a third-party company (i.e. "the cloud") that handles the data for you and stores it as... |
If someone were to die today because of an accident involving an unexploded WW2 bomb, would they be added to the list of WW2 casualties? | I am not a historian and I've never posted here before. Please let me know if I've done anything wrong mods.
Let's start with who is considered a causality. That alone doesn't have an easy answer and is considered a controversial subject. Groups like the US Military, UNICEF, and [WHO](_URL_4_) all have their own defi... |
In 1095, the First Crusade is called to aid Byzantium, a Christian power, against their Muslim enemy. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade conquers the capital of Byzantium. How on earth did this happen? | While it is true that the relationship between the Catholic and Orthodox churches did decline this isn't them main reason for the 4th Crusade conquering Constantinople. The 4th Crusade wasn't called against the Byzantine Empire, infact the pope excommunicated the participants of the 4th Crusade because they weren't fig... |
Russian roulette - what is the origin? Has it actually been played? Are there testimonials from survivors? | One of the first mentions of Russian Roulette in literature was in a 1840 novel by Russian poet Lermontov "Hero of Our Time" (Full ebook available on [Gutenberg Project](_URL_1_), scene is in the last chapter of the book).
Since Lermontow was a Russian officer who served in Caucasus and at least some facts\stories in ... |
The United States Second Amendment starts with "A well-regulated militia...". What was intended by the phrase "well-regulated" if the right extends to gun owners who are not part of an organised group? | Looks like I am a little late to the party, however, I just answered a very similar question a few days ago, so [I will copy and paste it here:](_URL_3_)
Specific question I answered: "Why would Thomas Jefferson write in, and founding fathers put their signatures on, the 2nd amendment after Shays rebellion?"
This is ... |
Does the "will to live" among the very ill create biochemical changes in the body that helps keep them alive? | There are a number of articles and research papers indicating that a positive mental attitude towards an illness such as cancer can have a profound effect on the rate of recovery. The reasons for this are not particularly well known. It's potentially an extension or application of the placebo effect in that a person ca... |
Is it possible to determine the location at which a photo was taken based on the moon's position in the sky? | No, it won't tell you the location from which the photo was taken. What you'd actually need would be an image of the stars in the night sky, but even that would only narrow it down to a latitude, unless you knew the UTC time the photo was taken. |
How historically accurate is the quote: "The war wasn’t only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn’t want to."? | > verify the quote
There's zero evidence that this was ever said by Churchill, Truman, or anyone else involved in WWII. If one is to presume that the premise of the quote is accurate (that is to say, the war was fought by the allies to "conquer sales markets," why would they admit that after years of propaganda stati... |
why do you burn fat better at a lower heart rate than your cardio zone? | You don't. You burn a larger *percentage* of fat calories in that heart rate zone than in a higher zone. But, because you're burning more calories in total, you actually burn more fat calories in total at higher heart rates.
See _URL_0_ |
when having diarrhea, why is it i can sit there for 20-30 minutes after going and nothing comes out. but when i get up, i immediately have to go again? | You can get the sensation of excrement entering your anus without it actually being there. You technically feel like you have to go even while sitting down but that's only because you're actually contracting your "poo muscles." When your body doesn't feel itself trying to "go" any more, it tells your brain "hey, dude t... |
Adult adoption seems to have been very common by the late Roman Republic; was this a political development, driven by social forces, or interpersonal ones (or something else)? Was it particular to the aristocratic class or common in general? Do we know how it developed? | On his 62nd birthday, the emperor Hadrian - tormented by an illness that had crippled him and left him subject to bouts of murderous rage - convened a council of advisers at his bedside. Painfully shifting his dropsy-stiffened limbs, he delivered a short address about his succession plans. The historian Cassius Dio (wh... |
In the movie Kingdom of Heaven, Saladin is depicted as having a chest full of ice in his tent in the middle of the desert. How would he have gotten ahold of ice and preserved it? | This has been asked a few times before:
like [here ](_URL_1_) with an answer by /u/Eireika
and [another one](_URL_0_) with a nested comment by /u/Valkine adding the the scene was probably a creative freedom, mixing a historical known ice gift from Saladin elsewhere into the movies setting.
tl;dr: ice could be harves... |
how is it possible that isp's can see what your up to online? i thought https encrypted your traffic so it can't be read? | Sorta.
The ISP is your mailman. They need to get packages to where they need to go, Reddit for example is sending you a package containing this reply. You pay the mailman monthly for a rate at which they send packages from you and to you.
HTTPS encrypts the package’s contents, however the ISP’s responsibility is sti... |
Why did Staten Island remain mostly residential, and not develop more like Manhattan did? | Totally got this one. Native Staten Islander here, who has done research. I'm on my phone, so I cannot provide links at the moment though.
First, one has to realize that Staten Island is the least populous borough--I think the current population is only about 500-600k. Staten Island historically has also been sparsely... |
I know that in the middle ages many towns were rather small (often the largest still only consisting of tens of thousands of people). How vital to the national economy were towns? What sort of professions were people practising there and were there any that weren't as common in more rural locations? | "How important were towns" is kind of a tough question to answer, because the existence/increase of towns is both a sign and a cause of overall exonomic restructuring over the later Middle Ages. Towns were essential to the economic system they were a part of/helped create. You can say something like by 1300, about 65% ... |
How do anti-diarrheals work? Is a bowel movement is coming from the colon/rectum how does something like Imodium of pepto bismal work so quickly when digestion of food takes hours? | There are four different ways:
Anti-motility: they relax muscles in the digestive system to make sure more water is absorbed from the stool and it's less liquid.
Absorbents: these bind up excess water and toxins in the stomach and make the stools firmer.
Bismuth based: which nobody knows how they would work, if the... |
Why did China recieve Veto-power at the creation of the SC of the UN? | They were 'granted' this at the Conference of Cairo in 1943 by FDR and Churchill. The Americans needed the Chinese to continue the fight against the Japanese on the mainland, since most of the Japanese armed forces were occupied fighting the Chinese United Front (Both the Kwomingtang and the Communists). At Cairo FDR a... |
How do we know the age of the universe, specifically with a margin of error of 59 million years? | By measuring it. There are so many contributing measurements that it is difficult to list them all in a reddit comment. [Wikipedia has an article](_URL_0_).
The small uncertainty is simply a result of very precise measurements. |
How did Michelin, a tire company, become the creators of the definitive guide to fine dining? | As it should be when connecting tire companies with restaurant reviews, the Michelin Guide's popularity started to rise with the innovation of the "motor tourist," the vehicle-toting traveler. The Michelin Tyre company made its first *Guide Michelin France* in 1900. The first Michelin Guides were just driver's handbo... |
why do opera singers put so much vibrato on everything? is it the only way to get the volume they need? | Voice major here...
Vibrato ensures a continuous airstream from your diaphragm. It's an easy way to keep your muscles from gumming things up in the throat/jaw area, which can change the sound. Having your muscles truly loose and relaxed while singing makes for a truer more beautiful sound, and vibrato ensures that the... |
AskScience Cosmos Q & A thread. Episode 1: Standing Up in the Milky Way | Is it just me, or is that asteroid belt way too dense? Not to mention the Kuiper belt. On a related note, how dense are the rings of Saturn? Would you see a thicket of iceballs whizzing past you if you actually flew a spacecraft through them? |
What rank would a soldier have to be to avoid going 'over the top' in WWI? | That's a very interesting question, and relates a lot to a common perception that, once a certain level of authority is reached, the individual is less likely to participate in combat.
That is a very generalised view, of course, and as such not entirely correct. An army is a very rigid organization and must be tightl... |
what it that feeling of horrible burning when water goes up your nose when diving into a pool or just taking a shower and reaching down for something? | The main reason why water burns when it goes up your nose is because the salinity of the water does not match the salinity of the cells in your body. The salinity of freshwater is much lower than your body, so when water gets into your nose and into your sinuses, some of the cells that line the sinus and nasal cavities... |
I stumbled across an image of the inside of the Hagia Sophia, it appears Christian imagery was not removed by the ottomans, why was this? | These mosaics were painted over but not removed when the city was taken by Mehmed II. Minarets, minbar, and mihrab were added and it became a functional mosque. After the fall of the empire and the transformation of the Hagia Sophia from mosque into museum in the 1920s, restorationists removed some of the plaster and w... |
What's the difference between a tribe and an organized government in the medieval period? Why do we talk about the "Kingdom of Lombardy" or the "Duchy of Normandy", but at the same time we talk about the "Avars" or the "Aboriginal australians"? | I'm going to give two very short, simple answers and then one somewhat more complex (but still pretty short) answer. First short answer is that we say "Kingdom of Lombardy" and "Ducky or Normandy" because that is what they called themselves. Nine times out of ten the best term to use for a particular state or social gr... |
Confederacy fetishists often point to Lincoln not being on the ballot in 1860 as the "principal" cause of the Civil War, but *why* wasn't he on the ballot in southern states? Did they just refuse to put him on there, or was there some complications w/r/t the newly formed party and the dem split? | It's absurd to say that Lincoln not being on the ballot in 1860 is the principal cause of the Civil War. The only way that even makes minimal sense as a southern grievance is if southern state governments and a large portion of the white populace in the slave states wanted Lincoln on the ballot. They didn't and *that w... |
why can't we help fight global warming by painting things like cars, roofs, roads, etc. white? wouldn't it reflect sunlight just like the arctic snow does? | It [might not](_URL_0_) be as helpful as we'd like to think.
> Painting roofs white has been—like changing lightbulbs—one of the well-cited easy ways out of climate change. By reflecting more light and heat back to the atmosphere, a white roof should act like a natural anti-warming device, while also reducing your en... |
the difference between uhd 4k, super uhd 4k, dolby vision, hdr. | UHD - means "ultra HD" its a nonsense marketing term for 4K and pretty antiquated.
4K means 4K resolution
Super UHD - is a nonsense term, the "super" doesn't mean anything its just a tv line, like a Toyota "Corolla". These aren't even the top end TVs they make. Complete non-meaning in any way.
HDR: this is an image... |
If a varying electric field produces magnetism, can a varying gravitational field produce an analogous field? | There is nothing exactly like a magnetic field, but there are analogies between the two. For example, a rotating massive object causes an effect called frame dragging, where spacetime is in effect dragged around the rotating object. In the extreme example, near rotating black holes, there is a region where it is imposs... |
can fighter aircraft detect when they’ve been “locked on” like in the movies, if they can, how do they know? | Yes, it's absolutely possible for a fighter craft to know it's been locked onto.
In order to home in on something, you have to know where it is, and one way to know where things are is to use *radar* -- that is, send out a beam of radio waves that bounces off of objects and comes back to the transmitter, painting a pi... |
What happens when a bee or wasp hitches a ride in your car, then gets out of the car a long distance from home? | According to a study by the Australian National University, bees are very good at finding their way home, even over long dustances, and often rely on the position of the sun, the polarisation of light in the sky, the panorama view of the horizon and landmarks including towers, mountains or lakes.
From that article: “I... |
why does putting clear (scotch/packing) tape on a frosted window let you see through it? | Frosted glass is simply glass with a (chemically) roughened surface which causes the light passing through the pane to diffuse in all directions, instead of letting straight through.
(Scotch) tape is essentially a clear plastic surface coated with a thin layer of transparent adhesive. When you stick it to frosted glas... |
Why do we freeze for a split second when something startles us or makes us jump? | The freezing response is mediated by a circuit involving the amygdala and a part of the brainstem, the periaqueductal gray. This circuit can coordinate the typical motor output: freezing, jumping, yelping, etc.
Anyone can come up with plausible-sounding evolutionary "explanations," but this can easily spiral into just... |
What were Nazi Germany's plans post-WWII in the case of an (unlikely) Axis victory? | Territories in the east were to be governed as something like German colonial provinces called *Reichkommissariaten*, whose inhabitants would be mostly killed off by an engineered famine called the [Hunger Plan](_URL_0_), with the survivors being used as slave labour on German farms or forcibly relocated.
The Nazis p... |
What would it look like if I constructed a cube made of one-way mirrors, so a person could see into the cube but the inner walls were reflective? | The way one-way mirrors works is that the glass reflects part of the light, while transmitting some. This work _both ways_. The reason it _acts_ as a one-way mirror is because the side that looks like a mirror is much brighter than the other side. (For example, the interrogation room is brightly lit, while the observat... |
What happened to pre-Columbian dog breeds? Did they die off from diseases brought by European dogs? | There are several breeds of domestic dogs that were developed in North America. Some are breeds are still around, while others are extinct.
Among those that are still popular pets today you can find huskies and Malamute and their relatives, which have Old World counterparts in the Eurasian Arctic as well. Chihuahuas t... |
If carbon dioxide was once 20 times as prevalent in the atmosphere as it is now, why should we be concerned. | well, it's not that increasing carbon dioxide levels will destroy all life. If it spikes too quickly, it may cause a mass extinction of sorts. But life will still persist, and evolve into something different.
The threat is that we will turn the earth into an environment where we can't survive. It's a threat to humani... |
How did the people of Imperial Japan view their German allies in WW2 and vice versa? | I can't give a full answer but Imperial Japan was very strict on censorship. I'm pretty sure Mein Kampf was banned. Foreign influence, especially western influence was considered a bad thing. And at the same time Nazi Germany was at war with The USSR, Japan maintained a non aggression pact. This hurt Germany because it... |
why in 2014 is the ocean still such a mystery. we overcame obstacles to space travel 50+ years ago but can't figure out water. | We actually can do some pretty cool things in water. We get oil from miles below a surface that is miles below the waves, we explore at tremendous depths, and we lay cables that stretch the length of the oceans.
It's true that there's still a lot left to do, and we certainly could do a lot more. But the reason we s... |
What are the roots of anti-intellectualism in the United States? What is its history? | Awesome question. The classic answer can be found in Richard Hofstadter's 1963 book, *Anti-Intellectualism in American Life*. Hofstadter, who went on to win the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction for the book, wrote:
> "Anti-intellectualism . . . is founded in the democratic institutions and the egalitarian sentimen... |
Why was the Revolutionary War over after the battle of Yorktown? I never understood why the rest of the British forces didn't keep fighting, especially if they still had significant forces based in New York City, and if Cornwallis wasn't even the commander of British forces in the states. | Cornwallis had one of the armies in the South with Alexander Stewart commanding another in South Carolina around Charleston. The lack of a foothold in the states and resilience of the American army helped push the British surrender and evacuation. British forces held New York City, Charleston, Georgia, and other places... |
Did the USSR suffer from a reverse "Baby Boom", a slump in birth rates after World War II? | So while it isn't 100 percent focused on your question, you may find [this answer](_URL_2_) to be of interest, as it does touch heavily on the pro-natal policies of the Soviet Union during and following the war as they attempted to encourage procreation. Edit: I've gone and reposted it here with some small additions to... |
Why does your computer screen look 'liquidy' when you apply pressure to it (i.e. pressing your fingernail against your pc monitor)? | Because it *is* liquidy. The screen uses something called a "liquid crystal", which is a layer of a special liquid sandwiched between two pieces of glass or plastic (or one piece of glass and one piece of plastic).
This liquid is what forms the image, by changing how it interacts with polarized light depending on t... |
What are the consequences of missing a full night of sleep, if you make up for it by sleeping more the next night? | It's going to be difficult to tell you the exact consequences because we just don't know. Everyone is different, but there have been studies done about sleep debt and the adverse effects it has on our health. The negative effects of sleep deprivation are *not* simply cognitive. I think your argument is solely about not... |
What were the Germanic "Tribes" really like? Were they nomads without cities? Or were they more sedentary like Rome? | Romans wrote a lot of BS about 'the Germanic tribes', mostly because they defined 'Germans' as 'those who are not like us and who live outside the borders of the empire'. This definition lumps quite a lot of people together, while still throwing in loads of cultural bias as well.
It is much more interesting to look at... |
Why are camera lenses the size they are, and why can't they be scaled down to phone-size? | Miniaturizing the fancy lenses on SLR cameras would be a lot of work—they require extremely precise optical glasswork and tons of fiddly mechanical gizmos for focusing and such.
The really insurmountable difference between big cameras and small ones, though, is sensor size. The sensors used in digital cameras have tin... |
why is white pride racist, when no other "colour" pride is considered racist? | In general, the issue here is that when people say they have "white" pride, they are saying "I am proud that I am not black." as opposed to people having pride in their specific heritage. No one has a problem with people having pride in being Irish, German, Italian, Polish. Those get celebrated.
But "white" just mean... |
Why has Country Music remained so white? What cultural and industry forces kept the genre that so willingly borrowed from blues, gospel, norteño, and mariachi so completely dominated by white artists and tied to white identity? | Hey y'all,
If you are a first time visitor, welcome! This thread is trending high right now and getting a lot of attention, but it is important to remember those upvotes represent interest in the question itself, and [it can often take time for a good answer to be written](_URL_4_). The mission of /r/AskHistorians is... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.