question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 7.04k | context listlengths 7 7 |
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Why does plasma create light, when it is just a superheated gas? | Everything emits [black-body radiation](_URL_6_), across a continuous spectrum of temperature which determines the distribution of emitted photons, "hot" things just emit significantly in our visual range.
Separate from that, when atoms or molecules transition from a higher to a lower energy state, [they emit specific... | [
"Plasma techniques are especially useful because they can deposit ultra thin (a few nm), adherent, conformal coatings. Glow discharge plasma is created by filling a vacuum with a low-pressure gas (ex. argon, ammonia, or oxygen). The gas is then excited using microwaves or current which ionizes it. The ionized gas i... |
what was so major about that debate yesterday? | I got majorly drunk playing the Debate Drinking Game...
It's not really that major. It's just a tool the Republican Party uses to gauge which candidates are least likely to be eaten alive in the public eye. | [
"As the day before the debate, November 13, was the day of the November 2015 Paris attacks, CBS announced that the debate would focus on foreign policy and terrorism. In addition, a moment of silence was held at the beginning of the debate in memory of the victims.\n",
"The debate started in 1999 with an exchange... |
Why do people experience cravings years after they have quit the substance to which they were addicted? | You should think about addiction as a *learned* behavioural response. Cravings are usually triggered by two events, first is when exposed to drug related stimuli (e.g. seeing a crackpipe, bong, watching people take drugs, walking past the pub, thinking about drug use) and the second is when exposed to stressors.
In ... | [
"A variety of addictive drugs produce an increase in reward-related dopamine activity. Stimulants such as nicotine, cocaine and methamphetamine promote increased levels of dopamine which appear to be the primary factor in causing addiction. For other addictive drugs such as the opioid heroin, the increased levels o... |
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... | [
"Wearing closed-toe shoes (\"e.g.\", ballet flats or pumps) without socks leads to accumulation of sweat, dead skin cells, dirt, and oils, further contributing to bacterial growth. Momentarily slipping off shoes whenever feet start to feel \"hot\" or sweaty can help prevent odor.\n",
"The main cause is foot sweat... |
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... | [
"In the spring of 2013, during its 86th year of existence, efforts began to convert to digital picture and sound (with the exception of productions that are only available in the movie reel format) and screened a free showing of \"Samsara\" to celebrate the transition. The switch to digital—in anticipation of an in... |
why does an extra oxygen atom make such a big difference between h2o (water) and h2o2 (rocket fuel)? | The bond between the two oxygen atoms in H2O2 is not very strong and, as a result, the molecule as a whole is rather unstable. H2O2 readily breaks down into normal H2O and O2, producing heat in the process. | [
"It just so happens that hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) are both diatomic molecules, thus we have H and O. To form water, one of the O atoms breaks off from the O molecule and react with the H compound to form HO. But, there is one oxygen atom left. It reacts with another H molecule. Since it took two of each atom to ... |
The Fukang meteorite is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, how is it that people manage to estimate its age? | The age of meteorites is measured the same way we measure the absolute age of materials on Earth, via [radiometric dating](_URL_0_). I'm going to venture a guess that your confusion might stem from a common misconception, namely that radiometric dating always equal carbon, or ^14 C, dating which is only useful over a f... | [
"Less than ten thousand years old, and with a diameter of or more. The EID lists fewer than ten such craters, and the largest in the last 100,000 years (100 ka) is the Rio Cuarto crater in Argentina. However, there is some uncertainty regarding its origins and age, with some sources giving it as < 10 ka while the E... |
why is it illegal to copy the appearance/design of others' inventions, but not illegal to copy the taste of other brands' foods? | Appearance or design seems much more quantifiable than taste, which is far more subjective and varies from person to person. | [
"Some artists, such as Girl Talk and Nine Inch Nails, use copyleft licenses such as the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license that don't allow commercial use. In this way they can choose to sell their creations without having to compete with others selling copies of the same works. However, ... |
Why is it so difficult to clean up oil spills that happen in large bodies of water? | Actually, compared to other liquids, lipids can be removed quite easily as they are less dense than water and therefore float. When you pour oil into a tub of water, you can simply lay a tissue on the surface and it is going to absorb the oil quite neatly. I think for oil spills on the oceanic level the problems are th... | [
"Cleanup and recovery from an oil spill is difficult and depends upon many factors, including the type of oil spilled, the temperature of the water (affecting evaporation and biodegradation), and the types of shorelines and beaches involved. Physical cleanups of oil spills are also very expensive. However, microorg... |
Does the age in which you procreate affect what is inherited by the child? For example, will a child that is conceived by 20 year old parents have traits very different than if the parents were in their 50's? | I know Autism is linked to the age of the Father.
_URL_0_ | [
"The effects of the fathers age on offspring are not yet well understood and are studied far less extensively than the effects of the mother's age. Fathers contribute proportionally more DNA mutations to their offspring via their germ cells than the mother, with the paternal age governing how many mutations are pas... |
Does the 5 second rule actually work - how do germs attach themselves to things? | [Residence Time and Contact Time: Testing the 5 second rule](_URL_0_)
Conclusion, contamination can be detected almost immediately on contact. This was only done with *S. typhimurium* which has pili for attachment onto M cells in the body, these probably play a role in surface attachment as well.
This bacteria is mo... | [
"The five-second rule was also featured in an episode of the Discovery Channel series \"MythBusters\". There was no significant difference in the number of bacteria collected. The aspects that affect the contamination process is the moisture, surface geometry and the location. Ted Allen put the rule to the test in ... |
Did Vikings have music and/or art (paintings, sculptures, etc)? | Art is so much and hard to define. I would argue that the Vikings were very artistic. Look at their wood carvings on boats especially. There are some very fine details you can see this very day on the well preserved **Oseberg Ship** for example.
The Vikings worked with material they had plenty off. Therefor is there ... | [
"Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries CE. Viking art has many design elements in common with Celtic, Germanic, t... |
why are most cars sold in muted colors as opposed to bright ones? | Bright colors (except red) typically do not sell very well as compared to greyscale or muted colors. Not that many people want bright colors like green/cyan/yellow, and cars used for commercial purposes are almost exclusively greyscale.
New Car dealerships, especially smaller lots, do not want to stock something th... | [
"The most popular car colours today are greyscale colours, with over 70% of cars produced globally being white, black, grey or silver. Red, blue and brown/beige cars range between 6% and 9% each, while all other colours amount to less than 5%.\n",
"Almost all the states prohibit the colors green, red and blue bec... |
What exactly is an analog computer and how do they work? | The linked example is actually a digital not an analog computer. The idea in that comic isn't that complicated. A digital computer keeps track of 1s and 0s as electric current and based on those does operations to them. Well, there's no reason you can't do something similar with stones, say having a stone by itself rep... | [
"An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuously changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically, as their numerical v... |
can someone explain to me what is right, far right, left, far left, middle right, middle left and such in politics? | There is no easy answer to this as it depends on both where someone is and their personal perception, as well as the perception of others, to an enormous degree.
First, the terms "right" and "left" come from France around the time of the French Revolution. In 1789, France convened something called the National Assembl... | [
"Far-right politics are politics further on the right of the left-right spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of extreme nationalism, nativist ideologies, and authoritarian tendencies.\n",
"The left–right political spectrum is a system of classifying political positions, ideologies and... |
do canadians have the same rights and freedoms as americans? | The US and Canada have different legal systems. While many rights and freedoms overlap between both countries you should never apply any legal advice regarding the US into the Canadian system. | [
"Similarly, Justice Hall argues that the \"Canadian Bill of Rights\" can only be fulfilled if it has the effect repudiating \"discrimination in every law of Canada by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex in respect of the human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in s. 1 in whatever way that... |
Books on Finland During the Cold War | You could look at *Urho Kekkonen: A Statesman for Peace* edited by Keijo Korhonen, written in 1975.
The book focuses on the long-term president of Finland, Urho Kekkonen, and his policies with respect to foreign relations with the Soviet Union and with Western Europe. It includes contributions from Finnish, American ... | [
"Hautamäki's book brings forth details and information about the last Finnish wars, which were not discussed in the Finnish main media - nor elsewhere - during the Cold War period, due to the sensitive and friendly Finnish-Soviet relations, in particular.\n",
"Ohto Manninen has focused foremost on second world wa... |
what is that warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach when you fall in love with someone? | That fuzzy feeling is actually a baby that starts to grow, if u love each other then it continues to grow until it comes out but if things don't work out then it shrinks back to inexistence | [
"Scientific study on the topic of lovesickness has found that those in love experience a kind of high similar to that caused by illicit drugs such as cocaine. In the brain, certain neurotransmitters — phenethylamine, dopamine, norepinephrine and oxytocin — elicit the feeling of high from \"love\" or \"falling in lo... |
Are there precious resources (ie gold, copper, titanium) on the moon? Would it be possible to mine them? | The moon actually has a fairly high abundance of titanium compared to most bodies in the solar system--so far as we're aware--and in general you should expect to be able to find all metals on the moon in rates comparable to Earth. It's nonmetals like carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus--all necessary to life--that are har... | [
"Prospecting operations will be aimed at locating concentrations of extractable lunar gems and minerals. High grade titanium, rare-earth metals and helium-3 (a potential fusion reactor fuel) are all known to exist on the Moon. Low cost flight of concentrated ores to the Earth is feasible using Solar Powered, electr... |
Why were there no medieval Eropean cities with a population as a high as first century Rome? | Because a city so large needed a massive amount of land and the centralization of power to control what happens on that land to feed it. The *annona* was, among other things, the tax with which the Roman empire fed the city of Rome. There was a Prefect of the Annona whose sole job was to oversee the supply of grain t... | [
"At its peak, after the Antonine Plague of the 160s CE, it had a population of about 60–70 million and a population density of about 16 people per square kilometer. In contrast to the European societies of the classical and medieval periods, Rome had unusually high urbanization rates. During the 2nd century CE, the... |
why does your leg jerk when you hit the ligament below the knee? | I'm not a native speaker but I'm pretty sure I know what your question is.
& #x200B;
The answer is kinda simple: It's supposed to tense the leg when falling/jumping on the ground to catch the bodies weight. The "shock" that goes through your body from landing would trigger this mechanism and tense (?) the leg to cat... | [
"Because the medial collateral ligament resists widening of the inside of the knee joint, the ligament is usually injured when the outside of the knee joint is struck. This force causes the outside of the knee to buckle, and the inside to widen. When the MCL is stretched too far, it is susceptible to tearing and in... |
how cameras work. how do they capture an image and print it? | Imagine if you were holding a piece of paper with a bunch of glue. Now imagine if someone put glitter in front of a fan, the paper would catch the glitter and you'd have a picture.
Now imagine if your sister stood in between the fan with a metal door she could open. You tell her to open it for 1 second only, and you'l... | [
"Photographers control the camera and lens to \"expose\" the light recording material to the required amount of light to form a \"latent image\" (on plate or film) or RAW file (in digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Digital cameras use an electronic image sensor bas... |
why don't gas pumps themselves accept cash? | Because if they did accept cash, they would need to be stocked with cash to dispense change and also have added security features to protect that cash and any cash you add to it. They would also need to hire someone to come and restock and collect the cash. No, they can not just get the clerk at the station to do it be... | [
"In states such as Oregon and New Jersey, where pumping your own gas is outlawed, automated cash handling has played an important role as a crime deterrent and economical sound system. Gas attendants now do not have to worry about being burglarized. With automated cash systems in place at these gas stations, everyt... |
Were the founding fathers radicals? | The most radical of the generally-recognized “founding fathers” was Thomas Paine—his views on politics and religion, and his bitterness at what he felt was betrayal by other revolutionaries, eventually made him an outcast in American society.
Paine also took an active part in the French Revolution—but by French standa... | [
"The \"Founding Fathers\" were strong advocates of republican values, especially Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.\n",
"These writers, and others such as the Abbé Sieyès, one of the main authors of t... |
how do gas stations make money, or account for the volatility when oil prices are falling? do they "buy" the gas when the fuel trucks refill the station or are their profits calculated at a spot price each day based on how much gas they sell? | Just for clarity—gas stations make minimal profits of actually selling gas. That’s not the business they are in. Yup, sounds odd, but gas stations aren’t really in the gas business
Gas stations make almost all of their profit in their convenience store—not gas! Cigarettes are particularly major for their profits.
T... | [
"Individual gas stations in the United States have little if any control over gasoline prices. The wholesale price of gasoline is determined according to area by oil companies which supply the gasoline, and their prices are largely determined by the world markets for oil. Individual gas stations are unlikely to sel... |
what’s the difference between a stratocaster and a les paul. | A big **difference between** the **Stratocaster** and the **Les Paul** is their scale length—the length of the strings measured from the nut to the bridge. ... The **Stratocaster's** longer scale results **in a** brighter, more chiming sound whereas the LP's shorter scale is to an extent responsible for its rounder, wa... | [
"The Fender Stratocaster is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and completed by Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster from 1954 to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with ... |
why is it that rap disputes are/were far more common, and typically more violent than other genres of music? | Rap and Hip-Hop grew out of gang culture: dance and rap battles were a way for gangs to solve minor disputes without resorting to violence.
This meant that many early Rap and Hip-Hop stars came out of gang culture; and when their rap battles grew heated and serious; they did what they had before: turned to violence. M... | [
"A controversial issue hotly debated in rap/hip-hop culture throughout its history is the use of violence and aggression as a feature of the hardcore styles of its music. But its social significance can't be removed from the factors it came from that births this debate. The prevalence of misogyny, sexism, and sexua... |
How do astronomers turn observations of a celestial object (eg. Halley's comet) into solid information about its position, size, orbit, etc, and be able to predict it's behaviour in the future? | Wow this a huge question so i'll try to keep my answer short and simple:
The position of bodies on the solar system are determined using either radar (for big bodies) or the parallax method for smaller ones:
_URL_0_
The orbit is extremely notorious to calculate, you need to fit the position points of the comet in a... | [
"In order to determine the unknown orbit of a body, some observations of its motion with time are required. In early modern astronomy, the only available observational data for celestial objects were the right ascension and declination, obtained by observing the body as it moved in its observation arc, relative to ... |
What causes the two big population spikes in China's population pyramid? | I believe the first "spike" was due to (a) the great leap forward in the early 1960s which killed a lot of people, and (b) decreased birth rates starting around 1970 due to a two-child policy and then one-child policy. Basically, starting in the mid 1960s, birth rates dropped. Consider also decreases in mortality, es... | [
"We can see how population pyramids change shape according to the country’s specific stage by using the demographic transition model (DTM). By looking at Taiwan’s population pyramid, the country is in stage 4 of the DTM and its shape contracts but it will soon enter stage 5. In stage 5 of the DTM, death rate gradua... |
why aren't red pandas and other cute/exotic animals bred as pets? | Not every cute animal would make a good pet, relatively few species out there can thrive while domesticated like cats, dogs, etc.
Many will never be tame, or may need a lot of space to be happy, or cannot be house trained, etc. You can try to breed pet-like qualities, but it won't necessarily be successful. Besides, i... | [
"Due to CITES, this zoo harvest has decreased substantially in recent years, but poaching continues, and red pandas are often sold to private collectors at exorbitant prices. In some parts of Nepal and India, red pandas are kept as pets.\n",
"Red pandas are excellent climbers, and forage largely in trees. They ea... |
Kilogram or Newton? | Because if you make the distinction between mass and weight while on the Earth, you're being a dick. | [
"It has long been an objective in metrology to define the kilogram in terms of a fundamental constant, in the same way that the metre is now defined in terms of the speed of light. The 21st General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM, 1999) placed these efforts on an official footing, and recommended \"that na... |
how do drag racers get grip at the beginning of a race by spinning tires? | They burn out to heat up their tires and soften the rubber to make it more sticky. When they race they carefully control the throttle and clutch so that they are right at the edge of breaking their tires loose into a burnout but not quite. If they accidentally do burn out during a race they will lose unless their compe... | [
"Drag racing is a point-to-point race that forces a player to use a manual transmission. Steering in this mode is simplified to simply allow for lane changes, while the game handles the steering along the lanes, and the player focuses more on maintaining an optimum speed for the car. The Nitrous Oxide meter is enla... |
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... | [
"In addition to long distances and elevation, the temperature can play a major factor. At the start in Badwater, temperatures can routinely be as high as degrees, but the temperature quickly drops at higher altitudes. Below freezing temperatures can be encountered near the Portal at night, making temperature swings... |
Would matter-antimatter annihilation be any different than nuclear explosion? | The annihilation reaction is much "cleaner" as all the reactants form photons with the same energy. There would be a large flash of almost monochromatic gamma radiation. A nuclear reaction leaves free neutrons and radioactive nuclei flying around. The dust, clouds, etc would depend on the environment that the bomb was ... | [
"The paramount advantage of such a theoretical weapon is that antimatter and matter collisions result in the entire sum of their mass energy equivalent being released as energy, which is at least an order of magnitude greater than the energy release of the most efficient fusion weapons (100% vs 7-10%). Annihilation... |
Why aren't small invasive species collapsing ecosystems? | They do.
For some reason invasion of tiny unmentionnables is just not that sexy a topic in journalism and it usually slides under the radar.
Yet there are huge problems with (for instance) [the introduction of earthworms to northeast N America](_URL_1_), or [the uncontrolled expansion of the Mountain Pine Beetle](_UR... | [
"Invasive species are a worldwide epidemic threatening ecosystems and costing billions of dollars to control. The reason these invasive species thrive in these locations is due to no predators to hunt them. With no predators, they are able to grow in population quickly but they are taking up too many of the resourc... |
Which civilization in the ancient (latest being Early Middle Ages) world held the highest literacy rate? Were there any authors who weren't scholars in that civilization? | > a stone tablet that had a joke
> gossip-type documents
You might be interested in [graffiti from Pompeii](_URL_0_). Warning, a lot of this is explicit and NSFW!
* *Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog*
* *Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates me... | [
"Literacy emerged with the development of numeracy and computational devices as early as 8000 BCE. Script developed independently at least five times in human history Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus civilization, lowland Mesoamerica, and China.\n",
"But the availability of a technology of literacy to a society is n... |
what is the difference between the different types of antidepressants? (ssri, snri, tca, etc.) | Finally something psychology based that I can answer!
Okay, I don't know how much you know, so I'm going to explain everything that I need to. Here goes:
The biological theory of psychology states that mental illness is caused by imbalances in chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters. In most cases of depressi... | [
"SNRIs, along with SSRIs and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (NRIs), are second-generation antidepressants. Over the past two decades, second-generation antidepressants have gradually replaced first-generation antidepressants, such as tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), as ... |
My grandfather was a German soldier in WWII and I found this map in his old Atlas. | The retreat from Warsaw that's plotted on the map corresponds in time and places to the so called "wandering cauldron of Kielce" of parts of the 342 Infantry Division - more specifically the XXIVth Panzerkorps. "Cauldron battle" is the German term for an encirclement battle - the troops were encircled by the Soviet tr... | [
"Ih his memoir of World War I, A S Bullock recalls the night of 24 October 1918 when he was among the reserves helping the Gloucestershire Regiment in a final push against the Germans at Vendegies-sur-Écaillon. He notes that although 'maps were scarce', he managed not only to obtain one but to retain it after the w... |
[Mathematics] Is there a faster way to multiply (large) numbers? | There's two operations in here: multiplication and addition. Addition is considered cheap in that the trivial algorithm runs in linear time, which is optimal. So I won't consider the number of additions needed in what follows (there'll be some linear term).
Your algorithm is the standard long multiplication algorithm,... | [
"However, if a fast multiplication algorithm is used, one may modify the Euclidean algorithm for improving the complexity, but the computation of a greatest common divisor becomes slower than the multiplication. More precisely, if the multiplication of two integers of bits takes a time of , then the fastest known a... |
why do our toes taper down in size? | The big toe is a left over from our days as apes. Their feet were shaped more like our modern hands and the big toe functioned like a thumb, allowing us to grip onto branchs to avoid falling. [Human vs Chimp foot](_URL_0_)
Although good in trees, this wasn’t useful when our ancestors switched to standing and walking o... | [
"In mammals, the growth rate of nails is related to the length of the terminal phalanges (outermost finger bones). Thus, in humans, the nail of the index finger grows faster than that of the little finger; and fingernails grow up to four times faster than toenails.\n",
"The most common digit to become ingrown is ... |
since animals do not brush their teeth how do they prevent cavities? how do they get fluoride for their teeth enamel? | -They don't prevent cavities. (more later)
-Fluoride exists in nature, and most water sources to some degree or another, but isn't _necessary_ for enamel formation it's just helpful to improve its toughness. So the fluoride question is sort of "where do bears buy styling conditioner for their fur?" Human's use of fluo... | [
"Toothpaste (dentifrice) with fluoride is an important tool to readily use when tooth brushing. The fluoride in the dentifrice is an important protective factor against caries, and an important supplement needed to remineralize already affected enamel. However, in terms of preventing gum disease, the use of toothpa... |
if real estate in downtown toronto, (specifically toronto, not the gta in general), is so overvalued, why does the population continue to grow at a relatively consistent pace? | "Overvalued" isn't really a functional concept. In practice, it's just used when something is more expensive than someone wants it to be.
The real estate in any given place is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. If the prices are high, it means people are paying a lot of money for it, so that's what i... | [
"In March 2017, the cost of owning a home in the greater Toronto area had grown 33% in just one year's time, with 19% of that growth occurring in just the two most recent months. Even the less desirable, semi-detached homes have surpassed $1 million in value. Suburbs have seen large price increases as well. Homes t... |
why is buying from small businesses better? | It's not, necessarily. There are both advantages and disadvantages to buying from a small or large business.
Small businesses make up the bulk of businesses, pretty much everywhere. Money that you spend at a small business is much more likely to stay in the community. I.e., if you buy product X from a small, local re... | [
"BULLET::::10. Buy what you want, not what someone wants you to buy: A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term. A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based not on a national sales plan but on their own interests a... |
How many Decibels can kill a human? | This was covered back in 2001 by [The Straight Dope](_URL_0_).
tl;dr - "German physicist Jürgen Altmann, who has written about the physiological effects of high-intensity sound, tells me the threshold for suffocation or embolism following lung rupture is 2.6 to 11 times atmospheric pressure, depending on pulse duratio... | [
"The official number of recorded deaths is given as 5,573, representing nearly 3% of the area's inhabitants, with a further 1,583 injured. Other estimates of the death toll are in the range 4,000 to 6,000.\n",
"An official with the ministry also confirmed the figure yesterday [Nov. 10, 2006], but later said that ... |
what does this german sign mean? | > **NATO military bridge classification signs**. Posted near bridges and viaducts and indicates the safe load-carrying capacity of the bridge for military vehicles.
[source](_URL_0_)
[See also](_URL_1_)
To ELY5:
It means that tanks and trucks that are heavier than that number can't cross the bridge or else the bri... | [
"Although the sign might initially appear to be in German and uses an approximation of German grammar, it is composed largely of words that are either near-homonyms of English words or (in the cases of the longer words) actual English words that are rendered in a faux-German spelling. As such, the sign is generally... |
What determines whether the country uses its indigenous language as the main language or a foreign language as the main language? | The Finns always remained in Finland, even when they were under Russian occupation. Similarly when the Swedes owned the land the language never "died out" as such, as it was still spoken by the majority of people - Swedish became Finland's second language however, as the nobility spoke it.
On the other hand, the Ameri... | [
"BULLET::::- Internationalization: the adoption of a non-indigenous language as a means of wider communication, as an official language or in a particular domain, such as the use of English in India, Singapore, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and South Africa.\n",
"Many regions, notably Canada, Australia, Indi... |
How bloody was the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands? | Considering the revolt of the Netherlands lasted 80 years, this varied greatly by period. Regents such as Mary of Hungary was able to increase the wealth of the region through trade, although she was over-ridden by Charles V who captured and executed leaders of the Ghent revolt to discourage further objections to highe... | [
"This shocking event stiffened many in the Netherlands, even many Catholics, against the Spanish Habsburg monarchy; and further tarnished Philip's declining reputation. The States General, influenced by the sack, signed the Pacification of Ghent only four days later, unifying the rebellious provinces with the loyal... |
i hang around my friend who is sick for one day and i get sick, but my dog who lives with me all the time doesn't get sick from me... why is that? | The germs that get humans sick, don't necessarily make other animals sick. That's why malaria doesn't kill mosquitos, and the avian flu was so scary. | [
"Symptoms are not necessarily distinguishable from other kinds of distress. A dog might stand uncomfortably and seem to be in extreme discomfort for no apparent reason. Other possible symptoms include firm distension of the abdomen, weakness, depression, difficulty breathing, hypersalivation, and retching without p... |
the eu election results. can't really find a broken down explanation online. | _URL_0_ for an overall result.
Eurosceptics were the first party in important nations such as UK or France, but they overall get around a fifth of the seats in the European Parliament.
Traditional, eurosupporter parties such as EEP or S & D still have over the 50% of the seats together. | [
"The European Union made it clear that they would not recognize the results of the election. All 25 member countries of the EU summoned their ambassadors from Ukraine in order to register a sharp protest against what is seen as election fraud.\n",
"Varying estimates of the elections led to a scandal. On October 1... |
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... | [
"The origin of strength athletics lies within prehistory. Testing each other in feats of physical prowess has been something humans have done throughout their existence. This is encapsulated in the modern Olympic motto of \"Swifter, higher, stronger\". There are records in many civilizations of feats of strength pe... |
If the heart is a muscle that needs blood to function how does it and whose blood does it pump at first? | The heart gets its blood supply from two coronary arteries, and their branches. These arteries begin immediately after the aortic valve, the valve that prevents blood from flowing back into the heart from the aorta. It is composed of three leaflets, two of which have the opening to a coronary artery immediately adjacen... | [
"The heart is typically a muscular tube that runs just under the back and for most of the length of the hemocoel. It contracts in ripples that run from rear to front, pushing blood forwards. Sections not being squeezed by the heart muscle are expanded either by elastic ligaments or by small muscles, in either case ... |
why can certain electrical items turn on for a split second when they're not plugged in? | I've never been able to see an item turn on when not plugged in, but certain ones I've seen remain on momentarily after being unplugged.
Either way, the answer is the same, capacitors. Capacitors are devices that store small amount of electrical energy. They are kinda like really fast charging/discharging batteries,... | [
"Due to the electromagnet in the contactor, if power to the machine should fail the contactor will automatically disengage. Unlike machines with an ordinary latching switch (such as a common light switch), when the power is resumed the machine will not operate until being turned on again. As a result, magnetic star... |
what is a bond and where does that money paid go to? | A bond is a promise to pay someone money at a future date. Governments and business will issue bonds to raise money. Investors give money to the government or business and get the bond in exchange. When the bond matures the government or business will give whoever holds the bond the money that they promised. In between... | [
"Thus a bond is a form of loan or IOU: the \"holder\" of the bond is the lender (creditor), the \"issuer\" of the bond is the borrower (debtor), and the \"coupon\" is the interest. Bonds provide the borrower with external funds to finance long-term investments, or, in the case of government bonds, to finance curren... |
Is there a limit on the mass of a spaceship built in space? (Due to gravity, etc.?) | The only theoretical limit would be the point at which it becomes a black hole. For a spherical spaceship with radius *r*, the upper limit on mass would be:
m = r*c^(2)/2G
Where *c* is the speed of light and *G* is the Newtonian gravitational constant. | [
"A notable difference between the orbital context of space architecture and Earth-based architecture is that structures in orbit do not need to support their own weight. This is possible because of the microgravity condition of objects in free fall. In fact much space hardware, such as the space shuttle's robotic a... |
If our stomachs churn/mix our food, why don't we feel it moving around? | The stomach isn't innervated with sensory neurons so no feeling, same reason why you don't typically feel any other internal organ doing its job | [
"The vagovagal reflex is active during the receptive relaxation of the stomach in response to swallowing of food (prior to it reaching the stomach). When food enters the stomach a \"vagovagal\" reflex goes from the stomach to the brain, and then back again to the stomach causing active relaxation of the smooth musc... |
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. | [
"Many societies have a system for organ donation, in which a living or deceased donor's organ is transplanted into a person with a failing organ. The transplantation of larger solid organs often requires immunosuppression to prevent organ rejection or graft-versus-host disease.\n",
"Bone marrow transplant can rep... |
what is the process for getting a job with mi5/mi6/secret service? | For the US Secret Service, candidates must be U.S. citizens and must submit to urinalysis screening for illegal drug use prior to appointment. All Secret Service positions require a Top Secret security clearance. All applicants must undergo a full, Secret Service-specific, Top Secret clearance process regardless of cur... | [
"The Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service serves as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also commonly known as MI6), which is part of the United Kingdom intelligence community. The Chief is appointed by the Foreign Secretary, to whom he directly reports. Annual reports are also made to the Prime M... |
AskScience AMA Series: I am pfisico and I build instruments to study the cosmic microwave background radiation. Ask Me Anything! | My question is a bit more basic than the other's here. What is, as you see it, the most important, or most exciting, science currently going on that could use your CMB data?
| [
"Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Labs used the Holmdel Horn Antenna located on Crawford Hill to take measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation. They were awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for these efforts that supported the Big Bang theory. For more information, see \"Discovery of cosm... |
Can you heat a metal until it turns into a gas? If so, does this ever happen or is it just a theoretical state? | Absolutely; mercury vapor lights, some metal plateing processes use vaporizing the plateting material. | [
"Often, the metal's sensitivity to heat must also be considered. Even a relatively routine workshop procedure involving heating is complicated by the fact that aluminium, unlike steel, will melt without first glowing red. Forming operations where a blow torch is used can reverse or remove heat treating, therefore i... |
does anything significant happen to our bodies when we are shocked with low-level electricity? | We get shocked. We are mostly composed of water, which conducts electricity, and being exposed to electricity will jolt your whole body. That's why we react so quickly if we've ever been shocked.
It'll probably depend on voltage but it can be anything from muscle pain(including abnormal heart rhythm) all the way to b... | [
"Electricity is hazardous: an electric shock from a current as low as 35 milliamps is sufficient to cause fibrillation of the heart in vulnerable individuals. Even a healthy individual is at risk of falling from a high structure due to loss of muscle control. Higher currents can cause respiratory failure and result... |
Am I causing myself any harm by heating my food in a plastic container? | Heat will thermally degrade some polymers into their constituent monomers and many of them are *potential* carcinogens. You are more likely to melt the polymer than break it down to monomers at microwave heat, however, so it isn't likely there is substantial contamination. Some contain plasticizers like BPA which may... | [
"Consumer groups recommend that people wishing to lower their exposure to bisphenol A avoid canned food and polycarbonate plastic containers (which shares resin identification code 7 with many other plastics) unless the packaging indicates the plastic is bisphenol A-free. The National Toxicology Panel recommends av... |
Historically, what has been the most successful form of government for an empire? | This is hard to answer because most empires changed government over time. The Roman Republic lasted centuries, and the Empire lasted over a millennia if you count Byzantium. The Holy Roman Empire did too, but how it was run changed over time. It's impossible to find an unchanged system for any length of time, even if t... | [
"Politically, it was typical for either a monarchy or an oligarchy, rooted in the original core territory of the empire, to continue to dominate. If governmental authority was maintained by controlling water supplies, vital to colonial subjects, such régimes were called hydraulic empires.\n",
"Since antiquity, mo... |
During the American Civil War, was Washington D.C. actually the "most fortified city on earth"? | Follow up question, what would these fortifications look like? How large was DC's Garrison? | [
"During the American Civil War (1861–65), Washington County contained a partial circle of defensive fortifications that made Washington one of the most heavily fortified cities in the world at that time. The forts surrounding Union-held territory in Virginia completed the defense circle. The Battle of Fort Stevens,... |
Does climate change effect the occurrence of different cloud types? | The effect that global warming has on clouds is actually a very difficult scientific question! To answer your questions directly though; 1) it would be difficult for a person to notice changes in cloud cover or cloud types without some systematic study - mostly because any significant changes will happen over 10, 20, 3... | [
"The number and type of CCNs can affect the precipitation amount, lifetimes and radiative properties of clouds as well as the amount and hence have an influence on climate change; details are not well understood but are the subject of research. There is also speculation that solar variation may affect cloud propert... |
portuguese drug laws | Well, I'm portuguese. My only experience is with marijuana so I will only talk about it. Marijuana isn't legal, but it isn't really criminalized, I mean, you can have with you up to 5g, if you have more, you'll be charged with Possession of drugs, but less than that it's generally fine.
About smoking, some places are ... | [
"The drug policy of Portugal was put in place in 2001, and was legally effective from July 2001. The new law maintained the status of illegality for using or possessing any drug for personal use without authorization. However, the offense was changed from a criminal one, with prison a possible punishment, to an adm... |
what is the science behind being a good socialiser? what makes a 'good conversation'? | The gift of bullshit is an important one. That's number one. Second, it does help to be educated across the board, but if this fails, fall back on number one. Don't talk about yourself either. Not everything has to relate back to you. Those people are the worst. | [
"BULLET::::4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. The easiest way to become a good conversationalist is to become a good listener. To be a good listener, we must actually care about what people have to say. Many times people don't want an entertaining conversation partner; they just want ... |
in print, especially transcribed interviews, what is the reason for the brackets? "jane said [tom] never had a bad thing to say about anyone." | The brackets are usually replacing a pronoun, a nick-name or first or last name only when context isn't present to make it clear who they're referring to.
It would say something like "Jane said he never had a bad thing to say about anyone", which is confusing if they haven't specified that it's Tom they're talking abo... | [
"That and almost everything else could be forgotten amidst Jane Ace's linguistic mayhem, much of it provided by her wry husband's scripts and enough improvised by her. (Mary Hunter's real laughter, at Jane's malaprops or Ace's arch barbs, was practically the show's laugh track, years before anyone ever thought of u... |
Why does 2-stroke engine exhaust smell different from 4-stroke? | Primarily because in a 2-stroke engine there's no dedicated lubrication system, so you have to mix oil directly into the gas. The combustion of that oil means you end up creating a lot of smoke compared to pure gas, which burns cleaner.
Additionally a car is going to have a lot more bells-and-whistles related to clean... | [
"The engine is also 4-stroke — unusual when almost all pedal-equipped mopeds used simpler 2-strokes. Soichiro Honda disliked the sharp noise of 2-strokes, and the 4-stroke does not require oil to be mixed with the gasoline at every fill-up.\n",
"Unlike a four-stroke engine, whose crankcase is closed except for it... |
how a sql index works? | Imagine I've got a pile of Lego, and I'm looking for a piece. Without an index is like looking at every piece individually until I find the one I'm looking for.
If I made a note of every piece of Lego was when I took it out of the box, when I wanted to find a piece, I could look up this list of Lego pieces and it wo... | [
"A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of additional writes and storage space to maintain the index data structure. Indexes are used to quickly locate data without having to search every row in a database table every time a database... |
why are islamic extremist groups predominantly sunni muslims rather than shia? | Sunni Muslims make up about 85-90% of all muslim groups, however there are a pretty large percentage of Shia Muslim extremists, because of the Shiite population in Iran, Iraq and other areas in politically unstable regions (Sunni's are also in this area, but are more concentrated to Eastern Asian areas and Northern Afr... | [
"Within Islam, there has been conflict at various periods between Sunnis and Shias; Shi'ites consider Sunnis to be damned, due to their refusal to accept the first Caliph as Ali and accept all following descendants of him as infallible and divinely guided. Many Sunni religious leaders, including those inspired by W... |
what does it mean when the potus says that china is illegally manipulating it's currency. | You trade 2 baseball cards for 2 candy pieces, or you can trade 2 cards for 2 sandwiches, or 2 cards for 2 books. But then a new kid shows up and starts giving you a trade at 2 cards for 4 candies. Pretty sweet deal, you start trading a lot with that new kid.
Baseball Cards = $US Dollar. Candy = Chinese Dollar (Yuan).... | [
"Trump has vowed to label China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office. \"Washington Post\" fact-checker Glenn Kessler, citing experts such as C. Fred Bergsten, found that \"Trump's complaints about currency manipulation are woefully out of date,\" noting that \"China has not manipulated its currency ... |
Is there information on the distribution of stars by metallicity? | Overall disclaimer: The metallicity of any given star is a complex mess, especially when you start talking about stars cooler than our Sun (which represent the bulk of stars). It's really tough to measure the overall metallicity of a given star, even with high resolution spectroscopy, and it's doubly complicated when ... | [
"A star's metallicity measurement is one parameter that helps determine whether a star has planets and the type of planets, as there is a direct correlation between metallicity and the type of planets a star may have. Measurements have demonstrated the connection between a star's metallicity and gas giant planets, ... |
if 0.1 amps can be lethal to a human, then why don't i die when touching the contacts of a phone battery, which is 3.8 v and 1500-3200 ma? | When you touch the contacts of a battery, the current that flows through your body is governed by [Ohms law](_URL_0_).
Because your body, and in particular your skin, has a high electrical resitance, the current that results from a 3.8 Volt potential difference is in the range of micro Amperes, which typically will no... | [
"Voltages greater than 50 V applied across dry unbroken human skin can cause heart fibrillation if they produce electric currents in body tissues that happen to pass through the chest area. The voltage at which there is the danger of electrocution depends on the electrical conductivity of dry human skin. Living hum... |
How much gas could the world economy save daily by capturing the pump spillage after fueling up? | There was something on Gizmodo about this the other day: _URL_0_
| [
"The world's first industrial extraction of natural gas started at Fredonia, New York, USA in 1825. By 2009, 66 trillion cubic meters (or 8%) had been used out of the total 850 trillion cubic meters of estimated remaining recoverable reserves of natural gas. Based on an estimated 2015 world consumption rate of abou... |
How ubiquitous are infectious germs on household surfaces? | I wouldn't call any surface in a home sterile. Go ahead and take swabs of any surface and grow them, you will find growth. Even the dust from our skin contains germs, and that flies everywhere. Wind carries spores, and the air isn't pure since even a virtually airtight home still has it's doors opened and dirty occupan... | [
"Scientists are still trying to understand the microorganisms within PM particles and how they are spread through pollutants. Research indicated that many kinds of pathogens and bacteria can be spread through PM smog and cause diseases. For example, Chinese researchers have found that smog in Beijing contains signi... |
Why didn't China save Pakistan from India in 1971? | China wanted to avoid the war in South Asia as much as they could. They wanted Pakistan to come up with a political solution and to end it as soon as possible. Furthermore the Chinese realized that a war with India would not be as easy as it was in 1962.
India had a 'friendship treaty' with the Soviet Union, meaning t... | [
"While Western nations did not view Chinese actions favourably because of fear of the Chinese and competitiveness, Pakistan, which had had a turbulent relationship with India ever since the Indian partition, improved its relations with China after the war. Prior to the war, Pakistan also shared a disputed boundary ... |
why are brass knuckles called knuckle dusters? | Duster comes from the type of coat, and I suspect that it refers to a covering for your knuckles.
_URL_0_ | [
"Brass knuckles, also sometimes called knuckles, knucks, brass knucks, knucklebusters, knuckledusters, an English punch or a classic, are weapons used in hand-to-hand combat. Brass knuckles are pieces of metal shaped to fit around the knuckles. Despite their name, they are often made from other metals, plastics or ... |
Was Atahualpa immune to smallpox? | Could you elaborate a bit? Are you asking if he contracted smallpox prior to Cajamarca? | [
"In the years between 1524 and 1526, the European germ smallpox, introduced from the conquistadores in Panama and preceding the Spanish conquerors in Peru through transmission among natives, had swept through the Inca Empire. Smallpox caused the death of the Incan ruler Huayna Capac as well as most of his family in... |
How can anything ever reach any event horizon ? | According to an external observer, yes, that's completely correct. According to the poor bloke falling into the black hole, there's nothing special about the event horizon, just a continuation of the same old impending sense of utter doom. | [
"There is an event horizon in the universe where light (and therefore any information) cannot and will never be able to reach an object, because the cosmic acceleration outpaces the speed of light: the cosmological comoving horizon. If the object accelerates in one direction, a similar event horizon is produced: th... |
why can't the us (or any country in general) alleviate their external debt by collecting their external credit? | When you are talking about debt on a governmental scale, that is a highly structured, desirable investment option.
It is not like when you borrow fifty bucks to a friend and you can call up tomorrow and demand your money back. When money is loaned to the government, it is in the form of a bond. A bond has very specifi... | [
"Governments create debt by issuing government bonds and bills. Less creditworthy countries sometimes borrow directly from a supranational organization (e.g. the World Bank) or international financial institutions.\n",
"Since a sovereign government, by definition, controls its own affairs, it cannot be obliged to... |
At what level does the circulatory system of each indivdual start to differ? | Most of the major named arteries follow the same course, but there's a great deal of variation. There isn't some set point at which they occur (it's not like you can say '3 branches off the aorta, things start to diverge'), but generally smaller vessels and areas with a lot of anastamoses tend to feature more variabil... | [
"A circulatory anastomosis is a connection (an anastomosis) between two blood vessels, such as between arteries (arterio-arterial anastomosis), between veins (veno-venous anastomosis) or between an artery and a vein (arterio-venous anastomosis). Anastomoses between arteries and between veins result in a multitude o... |
How did medieval Russia interact with its nomadic Asian neighbors prior to the Mongol invasion? | I have a great deal of information on the subject, but I'm a little busy looking for information on another subject right now. Reply to me and I'll get back to you after I've gotten some work done on my paper.
Here's the real quick and dirty of it: Russian principalities interacted with steppe nomads a lot like how th... | [
"Mongol invasion of Rus can be divided in two phases. In winter of 1237-38 they conquered Northern Russia (principalities of Ryazan and Vladimir-Suzdal) with the exception of Novgorod, but in spring of 1238 retreated back to Wild Fields. The second campaign, aimed to Southern Russia (principalities of Chernigov and... |
Is it possible that psychedelics like psilocybin increase the spectrum of colors that we can see? | It really doesn't physically change how many colors we can see or how we hear. Your visual receptors have a specific range of wavelengths that they can detect, same with your ears. Taking a psychedelic won't change this fact. Psychedelics change your brain chemistry in certain ways that can make you see colors you woul... | [
"Psychedelic experience includes the full range of mystical or religious experiential phenomena. Two scientific studies have concluded that psilocybin (a typical psychedelic compound that occurs naturally in psilocybin mushrooms) reliably triggers mystical-type experiences. The more recent study at Johns Hopkins Un... |
is there a link between diet soda consumption (i.e. aspartame) and cancer? if not, why does the general public continue to think there is. | There are biased, non-peer-reviewed studies that make this link, but there's no real evidence of any link. Unfortunately some people like to latch on to any study that promotes FUD without considering any of the facts. | [
"In a report released on 10 December 2013, the EFSA said that, after an extensive examination of evidence, it ruled out the \"potential risk of aspartame causing damage to genes and inducing cancer,\" and deemed the amount found in diet sodas an amount safe to consume.\n",
"Coca-Cola has been under fire since 201... |
what determines the strength of someones vocal chords, e.g. how loud they are? | Loudness comes much more from breathing than from your vocal chords. The more air you can push past them, the louder you can be.
Vocal coaches will tell you to practice breathing from the diaphragm which isn't as easy or natural as it may seem. There are tons of videos on YouTube demonstrating this. Basically try tak... | [
"The perceived pitch of a person's voice is determined by a number of different factors, most importantly the fundamental frequency of the sound generated by the larynx. The fundamental frequency is influenced by the length, size, and tension of the vocal folds. This frequency averages about 125 Hz in an adult male... |
why does japan have such a high conviction rate? | Fewer rules against how evidence is gathered, so the discovery and investigation parts of the system are faster with fewer pieces of damning evidence thrown out due to "procedural" or "paperwork" errors. | [
"Japan has a conviction rate of over 99%. In several cases, courts have acknowledged confessions were forced and released those imprisoned. To combat this, a law was passed in 2016 requiring some interrogations to be videotaped. However, this only applies to people accused of serious crimes, such as murder, arson a... |
why do some people get annoyed when you say america instead of the united states? | Depends on what you mean by 'most people.' It's that attitude that annoys people. I don't have a problem with it myself, and am used to saying it, but that's because I'm from the U.S. Someone from outside the U.S. but who is also from 'the Americas' might take offense that we are claiming everything as our own like col... | [
"BULLET::::- US/America/North America: The terms 'America' and 'American' are frequently used to refer only to the United States and its people. This sometimes causes resentment among some non-US Americans, especially Latin Americans, who tend to respond by referring to the people of the US as Unitedstatesian (or '... |
What would happen to a single photon in a perfect vacuum? | A photon in a perfect vacuum will travel in a perfectly strait line until it hits something. If you put a photographic plate in the way, you would see one dot of light surrounded by darkness. | [
"BULLET::::- Perfect vacuum is an ideal state of no particles at all. It cannot be achieved in a laboratory, although there may be small volumes which, for a brief moment, happen to have no particles of matter in them. Even if all particles of matter were removed, there would still be photons and gravitons, as well... |
Can 3 objects orbit each other? | Yes, it's not super rare. The most common configuration is that two of them are much closer together than the third one, and they orbit each other while the third one orbits both of them (Alpha Centauri may be like this).
_URL_0_ | [
"Considering possible hovering positions or orbits of the tractor around the asteroid, note that if two objects are gravitationally bound in a mutual orbit, then if one receives an arbitrary impulse which is less than that needed to free it from orbit around the other, because of the gravitational forces between th... |
How does heat transfer within a solid differ from heat transfer between a solid and air (convection)? | In equilibrium, everything will reach the same temperature. If we assume that the room as a whole is a closed system, the answer is as easy as calculating the total heat capacity and the total heat.
Let's make the problem even easier: We have a small room of 10 m^3 in volume. In this room, we have an iron cube that w... | [
"In conduction, the heat flow is within and through the body itself. In contrast, in heat transfer by thermal radiation, the transfer is often between bodies, which may be separated spatially. Also possible is transfer of heat by a combination of conduction and thermal radiation. In convection, internal energy is c... |
why are languages all so different... but body language is so similar everywhere? eye-rolls, shrugs, clapping, skeptical eyebrow raises etc.. | Body language is *not* similar everywhere. In fact, some gestures mean exactly the opposite of what you expect in other cultures. [Here's a page](_URL_0_) that talks about the topic.
And [another](_URL_1_) short page with some of the confusing gestures from around the world.
| [
"Languages, understood as the particular set of speech norms of a particular community, are also a part of the larger culture of the community that speaks them. Languages differ not only in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, but also through having different \"cultures of speaking.\" Humans use language as a w... |
How do the antibodies in a blood donors blood behave in the blood recipients body? | They work just fine; this is basis of [immunoglobulin therapy](_URL_0_). However, they don't work very long; half-life of various immunoglobulins is only a few days.
What blocks the significant response from the recipient's immune system is that the recipient has to be immunosuppressed to receive a transplant (in whic... | [
"Blood donors with exceptionally strong anti-A, anti-B or any atypical blood group antibody may be excluded from blood donation. In general, while the plasma fraction of a blood transfusion may carry donor antibodies not found in the recipient, a significant reaction is unlikely because of dilution.\n",
"The dono... |
why does a muscle become stiff when cold and limber when hot? | When cold, blood vessels contract so they are further from the skin's surface, losing less heat. This constriction means blood does not flow through the veins as much, limiting blood flow to muscles.
When hot, blood vessels expand so they are closer to the skin's surface to release heat. Wider vessels means more bloo... | [
"Increased muscular activity results in the generation of heat as a byproduct. Most often, when the purpose of the muscle activity is to produce motion, the heat is wasted energy. In shivering, the heat is the main intended product and is utilized for warmth.\n",
"Ice can be used to decrease inflammation of sore ... |
How do extended-reach oil wells change direction underground? | Not my field of specialty but since no one has chimed in yet I'll give it a go:
[Directional Drilling](_URL_1_) can be done by controlling the orientation of the drill-bit at the bottom of the hole. I think usually it is accomplished by [hydraulic actuators](_URL_0_) located on the sides of the drill bit. These actua... | [
"The earliest oil wells in modern times were drilled percussively, by repeatedly raising and dropping a cable tool into the earth. In the 20th century, cable tools were largely replaced with rotary drilling, which could drill boreholes to much greater depths and in less time. The record-depth Kola Borehole used non... |
how do radio signals (4g, wifi etc.) manage to retain their information after passing through trees, buildings and other obstacles? and how are they not mixed up, intertwined? | They are, the key is there are error correction and detection algorithms that work to counter the problem. In bad environments they don't always work.
Also, many newer devices actually utilize the attenuation and reflections to improve signal quality. Take a look into [MIMO](_URL_0_) technology. They do what is called... | [
"BULLET::::- Cognitive radio techniques: each radio measures the spectrum in use and communicates that information to other cooperating radios, so that transmitters can avoid mutual interference by selecting unused frequencies. Alternatively, each radio connects to a geolocation database to obtain information about... |
how do skin grafts work? | " how does that help the area you took it from."
It doesn't hurt it because you only take a small amount. It's more like gary has two apples, and both of your apples explode, so now you're going to starve. Gary gives you one apple so you won't starve, and now only has one apple.
BUT NEITHER YOU OR GARY WILL DIE AND ... | [
"Skin grafting is patching of a defect with skin that is removed from another site in the body. The skin graft is sutured to the edges of the defect, and a bolster dressing is placed atop the graft for seven to ten days, to immobilize the graft as it heals in place. There are two forms of skin grafting: split thick... |
if a planet or meteor the size of pluto collided with earth what would it be like for the people on the opposite side of earth? what would they see or feel? | We would all be dead | [
"A large asteroid or comet could collide with the Earth's surface with the force of hundreds to thousands of times the force of all the nuclear bombs on the Earth. For example, the K/T boundary impact has been proposed to have caused extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Early estimates of thi... |
washington dc | Well... for one the whole point of the thing is that *it isn't a state or a part of a state*.
Its a neutral ground. Beholden to no state so that the Federal Government (representing all 50 states) can conduct its business.
So the reason no state (basically Virginia and Maryland) is trying to annex DC is because that... | [
"Law enforcement in Washington, D.C. is complicated by a network of overlapping federal and city agencies. The primary agency responsible for law enforcement in the District of Columbia is the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The MPD is a city agency headed by the Chief of Police, currently Peter Newsham, who ... |
when the internet goes down in my neighbourhood, what normally happened? how is it fixed? | You probably have a router or a switch that lets you connect several computers at once to your single internet connection. Simply put, your ISP has larger, more powerful routers and switches that Connect the neighbourhood to a larger part of the internet.
something with these probably failed. it could be a software er... | [
"Under certain conditions, a network component shutting down can cause current fluctuations in neighboring segments of the network leading to a cascading failure of a larger section of the network. This may range from a building, to a block, to an entire city, to an entire electrical grid.\n",
"One way natural di... |
why is the law to own a pistol 21, while to own a long gun is 18? | It isn't everywhere, it varies by State. As far as potential
Justifications for it, Long guns can be used for hunting, and are good for self defense in the home as well. Hand guns are good for concealement, and are the weapon most likely to be used in crimes. | [
"At the age of 18 or up, it is legal to buy a pistol with a purchase license from a private seller, at the age of 21, it is legal to buy a firearm from a Federally licensed (FFL) dealer. No purchase license is required to purchase a long gun (a firearm that is more than 26 inches long) in Michigan. According to sta... |
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