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the psychological reason people can still not believe an argument when presented with evidence. | It's because they believe in something else more than the validity of the argument. The argument might have flaws, after all.
Let's say you think wine causes lung cancer and they think cigarettes do. If they are 99.99% sure that cigarettes cause cancer and your argument that it's caused by wine has only a 95% chance ... | [
"3. Judgments can be true or not true. Psychologists argue that judgments are true because they become \"evidently\" true to us. This evidence, a psychological process that \"guarantees\" truth, is indeed a psychological process. Husserl responds by saying that truth itself, as well as logical laws, always remain v... |
why is seafood much more fragrant/smelly than land based animals? | Trimethylamine oxide. It's odorless, but after you kill the fish bacteria break it down into ammonia. | [
"\"Odorigui\" refers to the consumption of live seafood while it is still moving, or the consumption of moving animal parts. Animals usually consumed in odorigui style include octopus, squids, ice gobies, and other similar animals. Consumption of live seafood without remarkable movements, such as sea urchins, is us... |
why does faraway smoke look like it's staying still? | The same reason airplanes look very slow. A plane flying 400 mph looks like its crawling along because its so far away. Smoke rising a mile away is only going, I dunno, ten miles per hour, so it looks completely still because of the same principle. | [
"Backwoods Smokes were advertised heavily throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with virtually no changes being made to their target group during this time. An example advertisement from 1983 shows a man climbing the side of a snowy mountain, with the phrase \"If you ever wanted to climb Mt. Rainier, you're a natural Bac... |
What are the earliest accounts of 'roleplaying'? I assume children always played pretend but what did adults have any kind of pseudo-D & D in the past? When did these hobbies start to become 'a thing', basically? | Having asked my colleagues at #Twitterstorians, they suggested the following piece, which should answer your question.
_URL_0_ | [
"\"Dungeons & Dragons\" was the first modern role-playing game and it established many of the conventions that have dominated the genre. Particularly notable are the use of dice as a game mechanic, character record sheets, use of numerical attributes and gamemaster-centered group dynamics. Within months of \"Dungeo... |
how do it departments handle frequent cyber attacks? | Almost any publically accessible IP address is constantly bombarded by various attacks and scans. At home your router most likely protects you from a direct assault on your home computers by forbidding direct connections unless you've explicitly set up your router to allow it.
Same is true in the corporate world. Dep... | [
"The department is also working extensively in the areas of cyber security and homeland defense. Reliable and secure voice and data communications are important in mission success and in providing assurances to the public. Electromagnetic wave analysis regarding fallout may become necessary after a physical attack.... |
Does special relativity apply to circular velocity? | I misread your question, there is not a time dilation effect between the Earth's pole and equator. While pure circular motion should induce such dilation, the special relativistic and general relativistic contributions cancel out because the Earth buldges from centrifugal effects. Here's a more detailed overview I foun... | [
"Many of the concepts of special relativity are illustrated through the biquaternion structures laid out. The subspace corresponds to Minkowski space, with the four coordinates giving the time and space locations of events in a resting frame of reference. Any hyperbolic versor corresponds to a velocity in direction... |
shouldnt we burn a lot of calories when eating ice cream because our body works to raise the temperature of the ice cream? | We do burn calories when eating cold food - it takes energy to keep the body warm, and to counteract the effects of cold food - but it doesn't take that to heat up a few scoops of ice cream, especially compared to the calories you take in by eating it.
For one thing, ice cream really isn't that cold - a freezer is typ... | [
"Asides from risk of illness, eating too much ice cream can lead to high blood cholesterol levels, due to its high milkfat content of at least 10%, which in turn can increase ones risk for heart disease or stroke.\n",
"An ice cream maker has to simultaneously freeze the mixture while churning it so as to aerate t... |
the moral and ethical implications of genetically modifying people | I could be all nerdy and shit and direct you to Gundam Seed, but that would waste too much of your time. Imagine this:
Your friend James is perfect in every sense. He won the genetic lottery - Blue eyes, blond hair, 6'4, face to die for, amazingly healthy, and has a 12" dick just to top it off. Not to mention, he has ... | [
"Genetic modification in humans is a contested issue due to the variety of social and ethical issues it raises. One such controversy is the ability to modify the genes of future offspring to decrease the likelihood for certain diseases or modify the expression of chosen traits. In a recent case, an American teenage... |
why are untruthful political ads still protected under the first amendment while ads that lie about consumer products are not? | Most political ads are misleading, not fraudulent. They are careful not to say things which are demonstratively and objectively untrue. | [
"Justice Stewart wrote a concurrence explaining how the holding of this did not limit the states’ ability to restrict deceptive or false advertising. He cited various libel cases to demonstrate that while the press cannot be harshly restricted for fear that journalists may occasionally get their facts wrong, an adv... |
in the wolf of wall street, what did they do involving the steve madden stock that was illegal and how did it make them so much money? | It was a "pump and dump" scheme. Buy up a company that is doing terribly, talk it up like it is doing wonderfully along with faking your income reports, then sell off some shares while everyone thinks it is hot stuff. Then vanish with your gains before people discover it was all smoke and mirrors. | [
"During this period, Madden turned down the opportunity to buy an \"unlimited\" number of options for EA stock in its initial public offering, a decision he later called \"the dumbest thing I ever did in my life\".\n",
"Data found stored on Hu’s personal laptop allegedly contained confidential business informatio... |
why are some colour combinations painful to look at when placed alongside each other (eg. red and green?) | _URL_0_
This kicks me right in the eye-nuts. | [
"Matching colors or (in British English) colours usually refers to complementary colors, pairs or triplets of colors that harmonize well together. It is an effect of human trichromacy, the use of three color receptors in the human eye, and varies somewhat in other animals. Its effects are studied as a part of color... |
how does a knife work on a molecular level? | It doesn't. Knives work on the micrometer level, either tearing out tiny chunks of the material, like a saw, or forcing themselves into, and then forcing open, gaps in it, like a wedge.
Those chunks that are torn out, or those gaps that are opened, are the size of hundreds of millions of molecules, which get on with t... | [
"The basic method involves repeatedly striking the spine of the knife to force the middle of the blade into the wood. The tip is then struck, to continue forcing the blade deeper, until a split is achieved.\n",
"Sharpening these implements can be expressed as the creation of two intersecting planes which produce ... |
How did "...berg" and "...stein" become Jewish last name suffixes? It seems like they should be universal names for Eastern Europeans. | I think you're falling victim to a bit of a logical fallacy here. The "-berg" and "-stein" names have become stereotypically Jewish in the Anglophone world because many Jews have them, but by no means were these names exclusive to Jews in Europe. Fair warning, I'm not Jewish myself, but:
Jews did not really even have ... | [
"Until the early 19th century, the names of most Central European Jews consisted of a Hebrew first name, a German second name, the patronymic \"ben ... \" (son of ...) and, if an upper one, the class - HaCohen (or \"Katz\") or HaLevy. The German name was chosen to fit the Hebrew one: thus \"Zvi\" or \"Naftali\" wen... |
traditionally, why do conservatives support israel while liberals do not support israel? | Both parties in the US support israel. At this moment, however, we've got political gamesmanship. The GOP invited a foreign leader to speak to Congress in an unprecedented move, because they want to undermine the POTUS and Sec. of State's negotiating power so that they have an election item to sqwauk about. Similarly,... | [
"He has argued that voters in the American Jewish community do not necessarily embrace candidates based on their support for the state of Israel as much as they passionately oppose candidates based on their identification with Christianity, especially the Christian Right. Medved also states that the Orthodox commun... |
flat personal tax/consumption tax. | A flat tax is inherently regressive, and puts more of a burden on the people who can least afford it.
A consumption tax is even worse, because the people who can most afford to be taxed also spend the lowest percentage of their income on essentials.
A progressive income tax solves these problems, but is complex to im... | [
"A direct, personal consumption tax may take the form of an expenditure tax, that is, an income tax that deducts savings and investments, such as the Hall–Rabushka flat tax. A direct consumption tax may be called an expenditure tax, a cash-flow tax, or a consumed-income tax and can be flat or progressive. Expenditu... |
why is audio/voice quality so bad between crucial communication lines (soldiers/police/pilots etc.) | Main reason is bandwidth - I'm not talking about the amount of data you use a month, but the range of frequencies a radio signal takes up. Soldiers, police, pilots, truckers, taxi drivers, firefighters, and lots of other businesses and professionals all want their own radio frequencies so they can communicate.
As a r... | [
"Combatants in every branch of the United States’ military are at risk for auditory impairments from steady state or impulse noises. While applying double hearing protection helps prevent auditory damage, it may compromise effectiveness by isolating the user from his or her environment. With hearing protection on, ... |
what is a high functioning alcoholic and what is the problem with that? | (1) They are doing a lot of damage to their liver and physical health in general - which is entirely their choice and right.
(2) They may have underlying psychological issues which they are very good at masking, but may turn out to be a problem in the long-term (e.g. PTSD)
(3) They may not be a High Functioning Alcohol... | [
"Alcoholics can typically be divided into two categories, uncomplicated and complicated. Uncomplicated alcoholics do not have nutritional deficiency states or liver disease, but have a reduction in overall brain volume due to white matter cerebral atrophy. The severity of atrophy sustained from alcohol consumption ... |
what causes that feeling a split second before your realize you're about to have a very big accident? | Its your fight or flight response.
When you sense that you are in danger, your body releases a bunch of chemicals that prepare you to either fight the threat or run away from it. Your get more alert, stronger, faster and more coordinated to facilitate either action. | [
"Hedeman lasted four seconds. Looking back at the ride, Hedeman feels he was \"overconfident and underprepared\". \"When I nodded for him, the first jump felt fine,\" he said. \"Then, all of a sudden, whack! When I hit the ground, I felt numb.\" What Hedeman could not see was how his face really looked; how much bl... |
why is air less dense at higher altitudes? | Imagine you stacked 100 cardboard boxes on top of each other. The one on the bottom would be crushed due to the weight of the other boxes on top of it. It being compressed would cause it to become denser than the other boxes above it.
Replace the cardboard boxes with air and magnify the effect. That is why the air is... | [
"At high altitude, atmospheric pressure is lower than that at sea level. This is due to two competing physical effects: gravity, which causes the air to be as close as possible to the ground; and the heat content of the air, which causes the molecules to bounce off each other and expand.\n",
"Although the shortag... |
Why does North Korea have such few allies? | North and South Korea both claim to be the one true Korea with the other one being an illegitimate government. Historically, both sides have legitimate claims with Pyongyang and Kaeseong both being major capital cities of former dynasties during Korea's 5000 year history.
After the Korean War, both sides attempted to ... | [
"For much of its history, North Korean politics have been dominated by its adversarial relationship with South Korea. During the Cold War, North Korea aligned with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The North Korean government invested heavily in its military, hoping to develop the capability to r... |
Can there be an object of sufficient mass that light would orbit the object due to gravitional lensing? | Yes. If an object with mass M has a radius less than 3GM/c^(2), [light can circle entirely around the object](_URL_0_). The density required for this is pretty extreme; it's limited mostly to black holes. | [
"The possibility of gravitational lensing was suggested in 1924 and clarified by Albert Einstein in 1936. In 1937, Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky (1898 - 1974), working at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, realized that galaxies and galaxy clusters far out in space may be sufficiently compact and massive t... |
Why do European monarchs almost always have adjectives applied to their names? (i.e. Louis "the Pious" of France) | For both Louis the Pious and his son Charles the Bald, these were both names by which they were known during their lifetimes. As for Charles' opinions on his nickname, we've no record of how he felt about it, but he might well have like it and found it funny, since it's possible that it was ironic, and that he was in f... | [
"With the House of Bonaparte and the Bourbon Restoration, additional \"Kings of the French\" and \"Emperors of the French\" ruled in 19th century France, between 1814 and 1870. All rulers to have held the title \"King of the Franks\", \"King of France\", \"King of the French\" or \"Emperor of the French\" are liste... |
why does american culture put so much emphasis on "moving out of the house" and being independent from one's family, when other cultures (e.g. asian and spanish) live with their extended family under the same roof throughout their lifetimes? | Rugged Individualism. It's the concept Americans have hard wired in our brains. The mark of being an adult is going out on your own and providing for yourself. It's a sense of pride and accomplishment to leave the safety of your parents house and pave your own road to success. This mindset has its advantages, as well a... | [
"“It’s important to embrace your culture today because there are so many different ethnicities in America. At the end of the day, you are you. You’ve got to stay true to yourself, and you can’t change yourself in order to fit in or to make someone else feel comfortable.” \n",
"Because of the United States' contin... |
how comic distribution works? | Most American comics are produced on a monthly basis, about 22 pages per month. These comics are published by a publisher (DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Etc.) and then distributed by a company called Diamond, who pretty much have a monopoly on comic distribution. These individual issues are pretty much only sold in comic boo... | [
"American comic books can be sold through the direct market. Formats include single issues, trade paperback, and graphic novels. Graphic novels may also be known as \"prestige format\" comics for single issues. Issues may be published as one shots or periodically.\n",
"Print syndication distributes news articles,... |
what causes the urge to move around after hurting yourself? | You gotta run the pain off. For real, in the wild, if you get hurt, there's probably someone or something that hurt you and your body wants to get away from them asap so you don't sustain any more injuries. | [
"Many people who self-harm state that it allows them to \"go away\" or dissociate, separating the mind from feelings that are causing anguish. This may be achieved by tricking the mind into believing that the present suffering being felt is caused by the self-harm instead of the issues they were facing previously: ... |
When the mars rover went to mars were they able to remove all bacteria and small life from it? If not could any of the bacteria be able to live in the harsh conditions of mars? And how do they obtain soil samples looking for bacteria if it could possibly be from the rover itself? | Anything that is sent to Mars is thoroughly inspected, cleaned, and sanitized {[_URL_1_](https://_URL_1_/msl/mission/technology/insituexploration/planetaryprotection/)}. There are some microorganisms that can still survive a trip to Mars, such as a well-known [Tardigrade (Wiki)](_URL_0_). That's the main reason rovers ... | [
"Towards the end of July 2005, it was reported by the \"Sunday Times\" that the rovers may have carried the bacteria \"Bacillus safensis\" to Mars. According to one NASA microbiologist, this bacteria could survive both the trip and conditions on Mars. A book containing this claim, \"Out of Eden\" by Alan Burdick, i... |
how is it the island of java can support it's 140+ million people in area the size of north carolina? | by depending on trade for food and other resources, and coping up with less personal space. there's still some farms and forests, but yeah its hard to get away from other people.
the total north carolina population is about 10 million? heck, Jakarta (the largest city in Java) alone has 20 million people...
source: i l... | [
"With a combined population of 145 million in the 2015 census (including Madura's 3.7 million), which is estimated for 2014 at 143.1 million (including 3.7 million for Madura), Java is the most populous island in the world and is home to 57% of Indonesia's population. At over 1,100 people per km² in 2014, it is als... |
Treatment of French colonies | Hey there, AskHistorians allows homework questions, but other people can't do the work for you - for the way HW questions are treated on here see [the rules](_URL_0_) and [this roundtable discussion](_URL_1_). To boil it down, you have to show that you've done some work yourself and specify the question - where do you ... | [
"A hallmark of the French colonial project from the late 19th century to the post-World War Two era was the civilising mission (\"mission civilisatrice\"). The principle was that it was France's duty to bring civilisation to benighted peoples. As such, colonial officials undertook a policy of Franco-Europeanisation... |
why is chemotherapy used the way it is? | Chemo attempts to stop cells from dividing. Ideally the cells that stop dividing are targeted (hence the plethora of drugs for various cancers; different drugs = different targets) but because the chemistry is nowhere near an exact science, lots of other fast-dividing cells get hit too (hair, muscles, skin, white/red b... | [
"Chemotherapy is a treatment that uses chemicals to interfere with the cancer cells ability to grow and reproduce. Chemotherapy can be used alone or in combination with other therapies. Chemotherapy can be given either as a pill to swallow orally, an injection into the fat or muscle, through an IV directly into the... |
Where does the church's money come from? | This goes well within the 20 year rule, you may want to ask this on a religious oriented sub, such as /r/Catholicism or /r/Christianity.
As an aside, the church can have jobs outside just being a priest. I know my local pastor is also a successful doctor, and a local brotherhood prints and publishes books, though they... | [
"Meanwhile, the church moved the majority of its income-generating assets (which in the past included a great deal of land, but today mostly take the form of financial stocks and bonds) out of the hands of individual clergy and bishops to the care of a body called the Church Commissioners, which uses these funds to... |
what causes the cloud rings to form around and above a nuclear or thermonuclear bomb? | The immense force of the blast creates a wave of high pressure in the air, traveling outwards from the centre.
Following this high pressure is an area of extreme low pressure, this low pressure causes a drastic temperature drop.
Dropping temperature results in water in the air condensing, causing the ring of "cloud" ... | [
"Mushroom clouds are formed by many sorts of large explosions under earth's gravity, but they are best known for their appearance after nuclear detonations. Without gravity, the explosive's by-product gases would remain spherical. Nuclear weapons are usually detonated above the ground (not upon impact, because some... |
How did "x" become the conventional, go-to variable? | > You'll find details on this point (and precise references) in Cajori's History mathematical notations, 340. He credits Descartes in his La Géometrie for the introduction of x, y and z (and more generally, usefully and interestingly, for the use of the first letters of the alphabet for known quantities and the last ... | [
"In mathematics, \"x\" is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value. The modern tradition of using \"x\" to represent an unknown was introduced by René Descartes in \"La Géométrie\" (1637). As a result of its use in algebra, X is often used to represent unknowns in other circumstances (... |
Question about tooth decay and evolution. | Yes, we got cavities. Go google image some pics of old skulls. | [
"Tooth decay can be managed by modifying behavior and controlling its causative factors, i.e. reducing the intake frequency of fermentable carbohydrates from food. This will reduce the chance of the dental biofilm developing into cariogenic biofilm. The bacteria in cariogenic biofilm produce organic acids when carb... |
(Math) Do we know everything there is to know about math? Or are there new discoveries being made in mathematics? | No, we don't know everything there is to know.
One good way of getting a quick view of recent advancements in mathematics is to read the list of winners of the [Fields Medal](_URL_1_) and the [Abel Prize](_URL_4_), paying attention to the citations. In general, though, recent advancements in mathematics are very diffi... | [
"Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge is a book by Morris Kline on the developing mathematics ideas, which are partially overlap with his previous book \"\", as a source of human knowledge about the physical world, starting from astronomical theories of Ancient Greek to the modern theories.\n",
"What is mathe... |
Does every neuron contain every neurotransmitter? | I can answer the following question: "Does every neuron have the genetic capability to *create* every neurotransmitter?" **Yes** (short answer). The two main excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters are glutamate and GABA, which are both derived from Amino acids. In fact, almost all neurotransmitters are either deri... | [
"There are literally hundreds of different types of synapses. In fact, there are over a hundred known neurotransmitters, and many of them have multiple types of receptors. Many synapses use more than one neurotransmitter—a common arrangement is for a synapse to use one fast-acting small-molecule neurotransmitter su... |
Would a plant/crop grow faster if it had artificial sunlight and perfect conditions all the time? | It is not so much 'growing faster' but 'just growing with minimum light'.
A(not very satisfactory) explanation is [airmass](_URL_0_), if a plant grows during spring in the Nordic countries with (due to airmass) only 15% of available light, then on the same area in Southern countries you have enough sunlight for ... | [
"Plants can grow as much as 50 percent faster in concentrations of 1,000 ppm when compared with ambient conditions, though this assumes no change in climate and no limitation on other nutrients. Elevated levels cause increased growth reflected in the harvestable yield of crops, with wheat, rice and soybean all show... |
what does hormones actually do to our brains, how it makes us think, and if we extract all the hormone and hormone producing glands will the person be dead or lose his ability to think and feel? | Hormones is a functional name for dozens of chemicals that serve as messengers between organs, and mediate physiological processes. They basically change what cells/tissues/organs do by changing the chemical environment in which said cells are. If you removed all glands, yes a person would die, probably in a diabetic c... | [
"Hormones work at very small doses (part per billion ranges). Endocrine disruption can thereby also occur from low-dose exposure to exogenous hormones or hormonally active chemicals such as bisphenol A. These chemical can bind to receptors for other hormonally mediated processes. Furthermore, since endogenous hormo... |
could an organism living in the ocean at a pressure of 5 tons/in^2 survive a hit from a sledge hammer? | You have to remember that organisms living at the bottom of the ocean are filled with water. They aren't resisting 5 tons of pressure like a submarine would. The water inside their bodies is at the same pressure as the water outside their body. So, they don't feel the pressure at all. | [
"Because pressure in the ocean increases by about 1 atmosphere for every 10 meters of depth, the amount of pressure experienced by many marine organisms is extreme. Until recent years, the scientific community lacked detailed information about the effects of pressure on most deep sea organisms because the specimens... |
how do united states defence contractors make money when they are not needed? | Many still have personnel overseas re-building infrastructure, training foreign and US troops, and cleaning up everything afterwards. Weapons and equipment are still used and destroyed in training (things wear out or break), even in peace time. Some of them sell to foreign governments. A few do environmental cleanups, ... | [
"Work on contracts approved and funded by the U.S. under the Foreign Assistance Act, which among other things provides for cash sale of military equipment, materials, and services to its allies, if the contract is performed outside of the United States;\n",
"Some defense agencies are the responsibility of separat... |
Is there a 4 dimensional analog to a sphere like a tesseract is for a cube? | Yes, the sphere *S*^(3), which is the *three-dimensional* sphere (embedded in Euclidean four-dimensional space), is the set of points (*x**_1_*, *x**_2_*, *x**_3_*, *x**_4_*) such that
*x**_1_*^2 + *x**_2_*^2 + *x**_3_*^2 + *x**_4_*^2 = 1
Similarly for higher number of dimensions. | [
"A 3-sphere is a higher-dimensional analogue of a sphere. It consists of the set of points equidistant from a fixed central point in 4-dimensional Euclidean space. Just as an ordinary sphere (or 2-sphere) is a two-dimensional surface that forms the boundary of a ball in three dimensions, a 3-sphere is an object wit... |
As an international programmer, how do you deal with using computer science in languages from different countries? | I am an American working for a Japanese astronomical observatory in Hawaii.
All code is in English (mostly C, Python, Java, some C++ and some Objective C). Documentation around the code may be in english or japanese. Stand-alone documentation is often in japanese only (depending on the author). | [
"In recent years, computer-assisted language learning has been integrated into foreign language education and computer programs with varying levels of interactional relationship between computer and the language learner have been developed. Language learning aids such as foreign language writing aid and foreign lan... |
What would a gas giant look like from within? | "About 500 kilometers over the dense cloud cover, we enter Jupiter’s troposphere, and keep diving. This “haze” area is filled with all kinds of odd compounds, most interestingly hydrazine and the increasingly important polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons created by UV-blasting of methane that circulates out too far from c... | [
"Given the planet's high mass, it is most likely to be a gas giant with no solid surface. Since the planet has only been detected indirectly through observations of the star, properties such as its radius, composition, and temperature are unknown.\n",
"The planet is a gas giant that is about in diameter. Like mos... |
are the black panthers a racist hate group? | The Black Panthers started as a community activist group meant to protect the Black community. You gotta remember that during that time period, law enforcement's idea of "due process" in a lot of places consisted of rounding up the nearest black guy and beating him until he confessed to whatever you needed. So, the BP ... | [
"The Black Panthers (, translit. \"HaPanterim HaShhorim\") were an Israeli protest movement of second-generation Jewish immigrants from North Africa and Middle Eastern countries. It was one of the first organizations in Israel with the mission of working for social justice for Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, drawing ins... |
nominalism | 4 upvotes and no comments, wtf?!?!? | [
"In the foundations of mathematics, nominalism has come to mean doing mathematics without assuming that sets in the mathematical sense exist. In practice, this means that quantified variables may range over universes of numbers, points, primitive ordered pairs, and other abstract ontological primitives, but not ove... |
Is it correct (Scientifically) to refer to Humans as Omnivores? | We are omnivores by design, even if we arent all by habit. Same way that someone with backwards sleep habits would not put our status as diurnal as any different. | [
"The word \"omnivore\" derives from the Latin \"omnis\" (all), and \"vora\", from vorare, (to eat or devour), having been coined by the French and later adopted by the English in the 1800s. Traditionally the definition for omnivory was entirely behavioral by means of simply \"including both animal and vegetable tis... |
What are these straight line formations in the middle of Australia and what caused them? | I believe the other answer is incorrect. The algorithm is getting it right. [Simpson Desert](_URL_0_), the location of the straight lines, has very long parallel sand dunes up to 200 km long. They're up to 30 m tall, so a detailed elevation map is likely to have captured them.
The algorithm is showing where water woul... | [
"The circles are numbered in sequence 1 to 4, with number 1 being the most southerly of the group. Circle 1 is in diameter, with a surviving ditch up to wide and deep. It has several gaps, but the one to the north-north-east was a causewayed entrance feature. Circle 2 is in diameter, with a bank up to 6 m wide and ... |
what exactly is a time share? | It's partial ownership in a property. In a simple example, you and 25 other people would get together to buy something very expensive, like a condo that would cost millions of dollars. Then you all agree to each spend two weeks per year in the condo.
The problem with timeshares is they are almost always run by predato... | [
"A time interval is the intervening time between two time points. The amount of intervening time is expressed by a duration (as described in the previous section). The two time points (start and end) are expressed by either a combined date and time representation or just a date representation.\n",
"The 'half time... |
If dreams are memory solidification processes; What are nightmares? | > From what I understand, dreams are the loose association process needed for short term memory from the day to turn into long term memory.
This is not known to be true. Right now, we don't know what dreams are, nor what is the benefit in having them, if any.
We know that there are a number of important cognitive a... | [
"From an evolutionary standpoint, dreams might simulate and rehearse threatening events, that were common in the organism's ancestral environment, hence increasing a persons ability to tackle everyday problems and challenges in the present. For this reason these threatening events may have been passed on in the for... |
How often do electrons move energy levels? | This is actually quite complicated. In short, it depends on the specific atom and how its electronic structure is. It is not possible to further understand this from Bohr's model which just considers the different energy levels n=1,2,3... as you described it.
To go into a little more detail: If you calculate the possi... | [
"The actual energy levels cannot be solved analytically for more than one electron (see \"n\"-body problem) because the electrons are not only affected by the nucleus but also interact with each other via the Coulomb Force.\n",
"At the same time, there will be a process of atomic absorption which \"removes\" ener... |
in the restaurant industry, why do prices increase from breakfast through lunch and into dinner? | I'm not sure about breakfast, but my first guess would be that most breakfast ingredients are cheaper.
As for lunch to dinner, the basic answer is portion sizes. Even ordering the exact same entree, if you order from the lunch menu, your potion will be smaller than if you order during dinner hours. I've worked in kitc... | [
"Many industries change prices depending on the time of day, especially online retailers, whose customers usually shop the most in during weekly office hours between 9AM-5PM. Raising prices during the morning and afternoon and lowering prices during the evening is a common practice with dynamic pricing.\n",
"In k... |
how is exercise an anti-inflammatory? | Think of inflammation as coming in two different flavors.
Acute inflammation is temporary and strong. It breaks down your body in a temporary way and when your body is done repairing itself, you just made it stronger and better than it was before.
Chronic inflammation is a different beast. It's asymptomatic. You don... | [
"Developing research has demonstrated that many of the benefits of exercise are mediated through the role of skeletal muscle as an endocrine organ. That is, contracting muscles release multiple substances known as myokines, which promote the growth of new tissue, tissue repair, and various anti-inflammatory functio... |
What is going on inside a battery to establish the potential difference that causes electric current to flow? | See [galvanic cells](_URL_1_).
Basically, you have two [half cells](_URL_0_) that, when put together, undergoes a spontaneous reaction. Instead of letting that happen, you insert your load in between the electrodes such that in order for the spontaneous reaction to occur, the electrons must flow through the path that ... | [
"A battery or galvanic cell in use has a cathode that is the positive terminal since that is where the current flows out of the device. This outward current is carried internally by positive ions moving from the electrolyte to the positive cathode (chemical energy is responsible for this \"uphill\" motion). It is c... |
What causes the dark coloration around anuses? Poop? Friction? Is it just the same process that darkens genitals and nipples in puberty? | Similar threads - [1](_URL_0_), [2](_URL_1_) | [
"During the female sex flush, pinkish spots develop under the breasts, then spread to the breasts, torso, face, hands, soles of the feet, and possibly over the entire body. Vasocongestion is also responsible for the darkening of the clitoris and the walls of the vagina during sexual arousal. During the male sex flu... |
Why can't medical scientists collect data from a group of people and use the same human control group for every medical experiment in the future so that participants in a study don't have to risk taking a placebo? | The major issue with that is it wouldn't be a good control *because* of the lack of a group taking the placebo. When they do most trials they do them double blind. Neither the subject nor the doctor knows who is getting the real drug and who is getting a placebo (until afterwards, of course). | [
"In controlled experiments of medical treatment options on humans, researchers randomly assign individuals to a treatment group or control group. This is done to reduce the confounding effect of irrelevant variables that are not being studied, such as the placebo effect. \n",
"In medicine, anecdotal evidence is a... |
Why do lights dim briefly sometimes when lightning strikes nearby? | If lightning hits a power line or transformer, it could greatly increase the voltage of the lines relative to Earth ground, and a lot of equipment connected to those power lines would be damaged. Varisters or Transorbs are places across power line components to protect them form sudden increases in voltage. While these... | [
"During the American Physical Society's 2014 March meeting, research was provided that gave a possible explanation for the reason why bright lights sometimes appear during an earthquake. The research stated that when two layers of the same material rub against each other, voltage is generated. The researcher, Profe... |
why are animals and fauna no longer as large as they once were? what has changed about our world that mega fauna and mega animals no longer exist? | We don’t *actually* know but some theories are that temperature of the earth was the major factor for mammals getting so big. If the ambient temperature is lower, the heat/energy of a larger mammal is much easier.
For insects (and maybe plants), there was a much higher concentrations of oxygen in the atmosphere that... | [
"A 2019 study published in \"Nature Communications\" found that rapid biodiversity loss is impacting larger mammals and birds to a much greater extent than smaller ones, with the body mass of such animals expected to shrink by 25% over the next century. Over the past 125,000 years, the average body size of wildlife... |
why don't 'unincorporated territories of the united states pay taxes? why aren't they considered a state? | Well in the US we have a thing about taxing people who don't have representation in the body that decides what those taxes are. They aren't states either because the don't want to be, or Congress won't admit them, or both. | [
"Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions overseen by the federal government. They differ from U.S. states and Native American tribes, which have limited sovereignty. The territories are classified by incorporation and whether they have an \"organized\" government through an organi... |
how are open-world video game maps designed? | They actually do "draw" the world piece by piece. It's usually done by groups of people, not just one dude. They first make a rough terrain curves (hills, rivers, canyons...) then they just polish it till it looks really nice. Then they have to add all the props, like trees, buildings, people...
So yeah, they are act... | [
"Some open-world games, to guide the player towards major story events, do not provide the world's entire map at the start of the game, but require the player to complete a task to obtain part of that map, often identifying missions and points of interest when they view the map. This has been derogatorily referred ... |
why is drinking sea water lethal, but soups with massive sodium content are acceptable? | Because soups with massive sodium content are still much, much, ***MUCH*** less salty than sea water. That's not to say they're healthy, though, Americans eat way too much sodium as it is.
Edit: in fact, salt water is so salty, that getting a mouthful of it is known to cause immediate vomiting. It's happened to me be... | [
"Many canned soups, including Campbell's condensed and chunky varieties, contain relatively high quantities of sodium and thus are not desirable for those on low-sodium diets. However, Campbell's Chunky, Healthy Request and other soups, as well as their V-8 and Tomato juices, are claimed by Campbell's to contain re... |
How genetically dissimilar are different dog breeds? Could a Sheppard donate a kidney to a Lab? Could a Great Dane donate blood to a Chihuahua? | Great question! Both cats of different breeds and dogs of different breeds are of the same species (*Felis catus* and *Canis lupis familiaris* respectively). As such, they can act as donors within their own species of both blood and organs.
That being said, there are things that you have to watch out for.
1. When it ... | [
"Ullmann was a pioneer of renal transplantation research. In 1902, he performed the first successful renal autotransplantation in a dog. Reportedly, the kidney remained functional for five days. Soon afterwards, he was unsuccessful in trying the first renal xenotransplantation (cross-species transplant) between a g... |
why is it that whats politically correct sometimes isn't the same as the opinion of the majority? | Let's start off with a statement, society evolves towards increased compassion for all members of society. On the forefront of that evolution is radical thought that tends to be less judgemental of others. For example, native Americans are equal humans (1920s), women are equal humans (1940s), Blacks are equal humans... | [
"By solely acknowledging voting patterns, one cannot make an accurate conclusion as to the presence or absence of political polarization, because in the United States, there is a limited number of presidential candidates in the two-party system. To assume that the majority of voters are mostly or completely in agre... |
How can paper be sharp enough to cut through human skin? | Microscopically the edge of paper is like a saw blade rather than a razor, it has to slide along the skin in order to make the cut.
| [
"BULLET::::- Plastic blades are usually not very sharp and are mainly used to cut through vegetables without causing discolouration. They are not sharp enough to cut deeply into flesh, but can cut or scratch skin.\n",
"A clean cut through a thick stack of paper cannot be made with a traditional inexpensive sickle... |
is gordan ramsay actually a good chef? | There's not really an objective way to answer your question, tastes can certainly vary. His restaurants have earned 16 Michelin stars, which are pretty sought after, so you may take that as an endorsement. At least some of these stars have been earned while he has been head chef at a location. He's undoubtedly technica... | [
"Ramsay's reputation is built upon his goal of culinary perfection, which is associated with winning three Michelin stars. His mentor, Marco Pierre White noted that he is highly competitive. Since the airing of \"Boiling Point\", which followed Ramsay's quest of earning three Michelin stars, the chef has also becom... |
was Nero (the emperor) crazy from the beginning ? | I wrote [an answer](_URL_0_) to a similar question a few months back. The tl;dr of it is that Nero likely never was crazy, he was just really unfit to be an emperor of Rome. | [
"BULLET::::- \"The Adventures of Nero\": The title character Nero is named after Nero. In his first debut appearance the character believes himself to be the Roman emperor after drinking poisoned beer. Later he regains his sanity, but all characters kept referring to him as \"Nero\" from that moment onwards. In the... |
Are there any studies that show other species to be capable of lying/dishonesty? | This was a guestion in AMA with Sir David Attenborough:
In all your time of shooting nature programs, what is the most human thing you have ever witnessed an animal do?
A chimpanzee does in fact tell lies. If you can believe that. Also, when some Colobus monkeys find a very precious piece of food, it calls the alarm ... | [
"Researchers from the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa, while observing gelada during field studies, discovered that the monkeys were capable of 'cheating' on their partners and covering up their 'infidelity'. A non-dominant male would mate surreptitiously with a female, suppressing their normal m... |
I was spinning in my chair today (question about centripetal and -fugal forces.) | The construction of the inner ear (see [semicircular canals](_URL_0_)) allows you to detect the direction of acceleration. Once the turbulence in your inner ear settles, you will perceive yourself to be at rest as long as you don't feel acceleration, ignoring the sorts of small details mentioned in other comments. | [
"In Newtonian mechanics, the centrifugal force is an inertial force (also called a \"fictitious\" or \"pseudo\" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It is directed away from an axis passing through the coordinate system's origin and parallel to the axis of rotation... |
In the 1970s UK sitcom Fawlty Towers, a few guests are shown to live permanently at the hotel. Was this common during this time? What factors led people to choose life in a hotel, and did this have a long history? | Hotel living has a *long* history--the *Eloise* books by Kay Thompson are probably the most famous example. I can talk a little bit about some of the earlier history, specifically, hotel living in Paris!
*(This is adapted from several of my earlier answers with some new stuff thrown in).*
Paris is the City of Lights.... | [
"The hotel's heyday was in the early 20th century, when it played host to royalty, politicians and film stars as well as staging many dinners, concerts and dances in the Grosvenor Suites. King George VI, Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, Charlie Chaplin, James Cagney and Joe Louis attended functions or stayed... |
What do we know about the fowl of the roman empire? | Fortunately there is a cook book from the late 4th or early 5th century CE. That book is Apicius. Keep in mind these recipes would have been for the upper class of society. There is a section on fowl which includes chicken, pheasant, goose, duck and doves. It also includes ostrich and peacock along with a few others. I... | [
"Caltrops were known to the Romans as \"tribulus\" or sometimes as \"murex ferreus\", the latter meaning 'jagged iron' (literally 'iron jagged thing'). They were also used in the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC.\n",
"Pliny reported in \"Natural History\" that a grub which he gives the name \"cossus\" was considered a ... |
the plot of the legend of zelda series | It's hard to attribute a chronology to Zelda, though some aspects can be assumed ( like Wind Waker seems to be a post-apocalyptic Hyrule, the Great Sea having flooded the world ), and each of the games has similar themes for the most part. Seeing as Link is the "hero of time", I always saw the series as two omnipresent... | [
"The story of \"The Legend of Zelda\" is described in the instruction booklet and during the short prologue which plays after the title screen: A small kingdom in the land of Hyrule is engulfed by chaos when an army led by Ganon, the Prince of Darkness, invaded and stole the Triforce of Power, one part of a magical... |
What causes the double sonic boom of Falcon rockets landing? | Practically all objects that breaks the sound barrier cause a double sonic boom. First at the front of the object, where it is pushing away the air, and second at the end of the object, where it stops pushing away the air. At both these points there is a big and rapid change in pressure.
The F9 actually creates three ... | [
"According to witnesses no sonic boom was heard. It is claimed that this was because of the short distance between the observers and the deafening sonic waves from the combined liquid and solid-fuel rockets used to propel the vehicle. Standing shock waves in the rocket exhaust produce continuous supersonic shock wa... |
In the UK, how did political power shift away from the nobility? | It was taken from the hands of the nobility in 1999 when Labour removed the rights of peers to sit in the House of Lords, which is the UK's second chamber.
92 hereditary peers are left there today, along with 26 Princes of the Church. The rest are members of political parties that were ushered while their party was in... | [
"The influence of the Crown was increased by the civil wars of the late fifteenth century, which destroyed the power of the great noblemen. Both houses of Parliament held little power during the ensuing years, and the absolute supremacy of the Sovereign was restored. The domination of the monarch grew further under... |
What's the science behind the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs? Why were they still airborne when they detonated? | Both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were devices meant to create a supercritical state in a mass of enriched uranium (Hiroshima) or plutonium (Nagasaki), which allowed for an explosive nuclear fission chain reaction. In more layman's speak, this means that they quickly created the conditions so that [splitting one at... | [
"In Europe and America the effects of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not fully understood. The photos produced by Masao Horino contributed to the world wide cry for the bombs to never be used again.\n",
"Details of nuclear weapon design also affect neutron emission: the gun-type assembly Hirosh... |
what makes facebook so valuable? why would it be a 100 bn $ company? | They do have a product they sell, a very valuable one... You.
All those statuses, all those 'likes', all those location check-ins... That data isn't just there for your friends to see. It is organized and categorized and analyzed and creates an unbelievable source of data for directed advertising. You dump every det... | [
"Facebook ranked No. 76 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue. Most comes from advertising. One analysis of 2017 data determined that the company earned per user from advertising.\n",
"Facebook did accept investments from companies, and these investments suggested fluct... |
is there an evolutionary benefit to the type of hair you have? | I can tell you that having really curly afro hair in the summer heat means that I can sick my fingers in my hair and it feels like there is a little private AC unit in there. It keeps my head cool, I imagine it does, and has for other afro haired humans who are almost entirely of recent African descent, where it would ... | [
"It has been hypothesised that, in an alternate type of mutation, positive selection for increased expression of the FGF5 protein was one of the contributing factors in the evolutionary loss of hair in cetaceans as they transitioned from the terrestrial to the aquatic environment.\n",
"Markus J. Rantala of the De... |
when nasa created the golden record that they sent with the voyager probe, how did they know that another intelligent species who found the probe would be able to read/play it? | They printed instructions on how to play the disk in pictograms onto the disk cover.
see this picture on the explaination of the pictograms
_URL_0_ | [
"Launched in 1977, the Voyager probes carried two golden records that were inscribed with diagrams depicting the human form, our solar system, and its location. Also included were recordings of images and sounds from Earth.\n",
"The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both ... |
what's a tarif? | A tariff is a tax on imports or exports.
For example, if you have a 100% tariff on iron, that means someone wanting to import (or export) iron into your country must pay 100% of the value of the iron in taxes. | [
"In computing, tar is a computer software utility for collecting many files into one archive file, often referred to as a tarball, for distribution or backup purposes. The name is derived from \"(t)ape (ar)chive\", as it was originally developed to write data to sequential I/O devices with no file system of their o... |
How does hydrogen peroxide work to remove stains? | It either oxidizes the material responsible for the coloration to the point that it becomes water soluble and rinses away or until it no longer absorbs light in the visible spectrum (organic dyes absorb light in certain color bands based on the energy level of their electrons - adjust the electronics and you adjust the... | [
"Oxidation using hydrogen peroxide is often used as a low cost pyrogen destroying solution. The mechanism for this destruction is unknown, but hydrogen peroxide can easily be removed further downstream in the purification process, and is therefore a useful method of pyrogen removal. However, like acid-base hydrolys... |
How did the first century Greeks and Romans view women? Further, how was this different from how Christians treated women? | This is mainly about the upper classes, as a necessity mandated by our sources. But an extremely brief summary: Greek and Roman medical theory believed that women had not received enough heat in the womb, and thus had failed to mature into full humans, i.e. men. So women are considered inherently biologically inferio... | [
"Whereas neither the Jewish, nor the Roman family would warm the hearts of a modern feminist, the early Christians were sympathetic to women. Paul himself insisted in his early writings that men and women were equal. His letter to the Galatians was emphatic in defying the prevailing culture, and his words must have... |
what went down in the ows subreddit? | I only have a tenuous grasp of the situation, but what I gathered was that some dick (username: [TheGhostOfNoLibs](_URL_0_)) finagled his way into a moderator spot on [/r/occupywallstreet](/r/occupywallstreet). Several people were complaining that he directly opposes just about everything the OWS movement stands for, h... | [
"OWS Media Group, Inc. is a group of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which achieved media attention after filing a lawsuit to re-obtain control over the Twitter account, @OccupyWallStNYC, which was hijacked by one of tweetboat's former members and password holders, Justin Wedes.\n",
"On June 10, 2015, a post on ... |
Why is it human nature to enjoy the pain of others? | It is not human nature to enjoy the suffering of others, quite the opposite in fact. Empathy is the one of the very important reasons our society functions well.
Sometimes however, the relief that we are not the ones suffering can be mistaken for enjoyment.
In modern day it can be seen as weak or soft to be empathe... | [
"A benefit of tracing good to pleasure and pain is that both are easily understandable, both in oneself and to an extent in others. For the hedonist, the explanation for helping behaviour may come in the form of \"empathy\"—the ability of a being to \"feel\" another's pain. People tend to value the lives of gorilla... |
Is there an auditory processing disorder that is similar to dyslexia? | There is a disorder literally called Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) that is similar to Dyslexia. It is an abnormality in the processing of sound in the central auditory nervous system and it affects the brain’s ability to filter and process sounds and words. Most people that have Dyslexia also tend to have this dis... | [
"Dyslexia is thought to have two types of cause, one related to language processing and another to visual processing. It is considered a cognitive disorder, not a problem with intelligence. However, emotional problems often arise because of it. Some published definitions are purely descriptive, whereas others propo... |
How did James Maxwell determine that electromagnetic waves create their own medium? | To get the speed of light, you can take Maxwell's equations, assume there are no charges anywhere, and 'pluck' the electric or magnetic field and watch what happens. The solution to these assumptions is a wave propagating through the EM field at the speed *c*. Maxwell proposed that light might be an EM wave because thi... | [
"With the addition of the displacement current, Maxwell was able to hypothesize (correctly) that light was a form of electromagnetic wave. See electromagnetic wave equation for a discussion of this important discovery.\n",
"In 1864 Scottish mathematical physicist James Clerk Maxwell proposed a comprehensive theor... |
Does the electromagnetic spectrum abruptly stop at gamma rays.. or are there higher energy/shorter wavelengths out there? | No, there is no sharp cut off, though we don't have a standard term for super-high energy photons. Typical gamma rays from nuclear have energies of 10^(5) to 10^(7) eV. Astronomical sources can yield energies around 10^(13) eV, indicating that they coming from processes other than radioactive decay. If you can find ... | [
"In the few radio-loud Seyfert galaxies that have been observed, the radio emission is believed to represent synchrotron emission from the jet. The infrared emission is due to radiation in other bands being reprocessed by dust near the nucleus. The highest energy photons are believed to be created by inverse Compto... |
Monday Methods | An Indigenous Pedagogy | Another very fascinating write-up, thank you. I actually have a few questions.
In most threads on indigenous or marginalized/subaltern peoples of any kind, there is a common caveat that accompanies any historical answer on this subreddit. For example, from a recently excellent answer about Native American perceptions ... | [
"Critical Indigenous Pedagogy focuses on resisting colonization and oppression through education practices that privilege indigenous knowledge and promote indigenous sovereignty. Beyond schooling and instruction, CIP is rooted in thinking critically about social injustices and challenging those through education sy... |
why are some seasonal fruits, like apples, available all year round, but others aren't? | Seasonal fuits are grown in both the northern and southern hemispheres and shipped all over the world. A lot of summer fruits that are available in grocery stores in the winter in northern countries are grown in Chile, Argentina, New Zealand etc. The same is true of winter fruits that are available in grocery stores in... | [
"While the season usually lasts only 9 or 10 months, they are able to last all year round. However, due to some apples continuing to be grown in some orchards, and the fact that they can be refrigerated for some months, leads to the availability of the Gala apple year-round in some Australian markets. These usually... |
how do they fake apps/operating systems in movies/tv | Usually you would want to do it in post-production because screens don't film well due to different refresh rates. They may have prompts on the screen if the scene calls for it though. | [
"Virtual influencers are sometimes considered fake influencers too, given their profiles do not correspond to real individuals. It can be argued, however, their presence and role on the platform are different, in the sense they are not automated (bots) nor implemented with the purpose of generating fake likes, fake... |
why do game consoles not need a 3 prong plug with a ground wire but things like amplifiers and pcs do? | The 3rd prong is just an added safety precaution. To be approved by the UL anything with an exposed metal case needs to have the 3rd prong so if a wire inside the device comes loose and into contact with the case the current will go down the ground prong and not to you if you touch it. game consoles have plastic case... | [
"Historically, pinball machines have employed a central fixed I/O board connected to the primary CPU controlled by a custom microcontroller platform running an in-house operating system. For a variety of reasons that include thermal flow, reliability, vibration reduction and serviceability, I/O electronics have bee... |
How does the rate at which a star burns up scale with temperature? | Just taking some of the relationships from [here.](_URL_0_) We have:
- Lifespan is proportional to M^-2.5
- L is proportional to M^3.5
- L is also proportional to T^4
(where L is luminosity, T is temperature and M is mass). So combining all of these, we get lifespan is proportional to T^-10/3.5 or T^-20/7 . | [
"The surface temperature of a main sequence star is determined by the rate of energy production of its core and by its radius, and is often estimated from the star's color index. The temperature is normally given in terms of an effective temperature, which is the temperature of an idealized black body that radiates... |
how is downloading movies/books online any different than going to your local library to check out movies/books for free? | First sale doctrine applies to libraries, video rental outfits, etc.
From [Wikipedia](_URL_0_)
> The doctrine allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e., sell, lend or give away) a particular lawfully made copy of the copyrighted work without permission once it has been legally obtained. This means that the copyright ho... | [
"Used bookstores can range in size offering from several hundred to several hundred thousands of titles. They may be brick-and-mortar stores, internet-only stores, or a combination of both. A book town is a locale where numerous bookstores are located and serve as the town's main attraction to tourists.\n",
"The ... |
what would happen if somebody broke the nato treaty? | Sending military support is only one way NATO countries can show support. They can also provide financial aide, legal aide, or advisory aide.
Unless one NATO country attacked another, I can't imagine a situation where the other NATO countries wouldn't provide some sort of support, no matter how indirect. | [
"At the time the treaty was being negotiated, NATO had in place secret nuclear weapons sharing agreements whereby the United States provided nuclear weapons to be deployed by, and stored in, other NATO states. Some argue this is an act of proliferation violating Articles I and II of the treaty. A counter-argument i... |
Why are Hydrogen(1) and Helium(2) highly abundant in the universe, while Lithium(3) and Beryllium(4) not that much? | Production of lithium from helium is highly *Endothermic*, meaning that it consumes massive amounts of energy instead of creating it. Secondly the fact that it's endothermic results in a significant *Energy Barrier* that needs to be overcome, on top of the powerful electrical repulsion between nuclei.
The most likely ... | [
"According to modern cosmological theory, lithium—in both stable isotopes (lithium-6 and lithium-7)—was one of the three elements synthesized in the Big Bang. Though the amount of lithium generated in Big Bang nucleosynthesis is dependent upon the number of photons per baryon, for accepted values the lithium abunda... |
why does putting the air conditioner on 25°c in a cooling mode feel different from the same 25°c in heating mode? | The unit isn't putting out air at 25 C.
If it's in cooling mode, it's putting out very cold air until the ambient temperature reaches 25 C.
If it's in heating mode, it's putting out very warm air until the ambient temperature hits 25 C. | [
"Switching the direction of heat flow, the same system can be used to circulate the cooled water through the house for cooling in the summer months. The heat is exhausted to the relatively cooler ground (or groundwater) rather than delivering it to the hot outside air as an air conditioner does. As a result, the he... |
land bridges | Here's a NOAA map of the last ice age sea levels at their peak (trough) _URL_0_
| [
"A land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonise new lands. A land bridge can be created by marine regression, in which sea levels fall, exposing shallow, previously submerged sections of continenta... |
what's the deal with tuxes, blazers, etc, when is each appropriate, what kind of occasions? | In descending order of fanciness:
- **[White Tie](_URL_2_)**, otherwise known as Evening Dress or Top Hat And Tails.
This is as formal as it gets in Western fashion, and is generally restricted to very high occasions like state dinners, royal functions or very formal balls and evening weddings. White Tie is strictly t... | [
"Blazers are worn with a wide variety of other clothes, ranging from a dress shirt and necktie to an open-necked polo shirt, or even just a plain T-shirt. They are seen with trousers of all colours and fabrics, from the classic white cotton or linen, to grey flannel, to brown or beige chinos, and also jeans.\n",
... |
How do weather satellites measure barometric pressure in the atmosphere from space? | Satellite radar systems can correlate a specific band of the electromagnetic spectrum with surface pressure, but according to my relatively limited knowledge of remote sensing, this technique is not commonly in use. Surface pressure is generally recorded in the ocean by anchored buoys, or potentially by [dropsondes](_... | [
"A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis to help find surface troughs, pressure systems and frontal boundaries.\n... |
Volume of Earths atmosphere? | The volume of Earth's atmosphere, using the [accepted definition of the edge of the atmosphere](_URL_0_) is approximately 5.18*10^19 m^3 . Not very useful without something to compare it to, but it's a place to start. | [
"The composition of Earth's atmosphere is largely governed by the by-products of the life that it sustains. Dry air from Earth's atmosphere contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and traces of hydrogen, helium, and other \"noble\" gases (by volume), but generally a variable amou... |
why do stores offer cash-out, if it seems like they don't make any profit off it. (they charge your card, and give you that amount in cash) | The store benefits by getting rid of physical money and using electronic funds transfer - less money to transport in an armoured truck, less loss if they are robbed | [
"The combination of these two factors means that the retailer can save money by offering the cashback service. It does not cost the retailer more in commission to add cashback to a debit card purchase, but in the process of giving cashback, the retailer can \"offload\" cash which they would otherwise have to pay to... |
Why does a single gas molecule which is hot rise above another one which is cool? | Metrics such as temperature describe the behavior of a system that is made up of components. These types of properties are termed emergent properties because they are derived from the behavior of the system as a whole and are not observable if you were to look only at the components.
So, for your specific question, i... | [
"Molecules, such as oxygen (O), have more degrees of freedom than single spherical atoms: they undergo rotational and vibrational motions as well as translations. Heating results in an increase in temperature due to an increase in the average translational kinetic energy of the molecules. Heating will also cause, t... |
how was space x able to build better rockets than nasa having less budget and experience? | I think the other people have missed the critical element here.
The critical element was the shift from disposable to reusable rockets. Now, to their great credit, NASA did make that move in the 70s with the space shuttle, but it was a bit too early, and the whole shuttle project was a bit of a logistical and politica... | [
"Congressional testimony by SpaceX in 2017 suggested that the unusual NASA process of \"setting only a high-level requirement for cargo transport to the space station [while] leaving the details to industry\" had allowed SpaceX to design and develop the Falcon 9 rocket on its own at substantially lower cost. \"Acco... |
Is it true that there have been 29 years free of war in all of human history? | It rather depends how you define things. If you count tribal disputes as wars, then it is unlikely there was ever a year without war. If you don't count tribal disputes, only formal armies, then the majority of human existence was without war. Mind you, most of human existence was before history. | [
"BULLET::::4. \"The Long Peace\" – The powers of 20th Century believed that period of time to be the bloodiest in history. This led to a largely peaceful 65-year period post World War I and World War II. Developed countries have stopped warring (against each other and colonially), adopted democracy, and this has le... |
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