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why is it illegal to fight back on a "no knock warrant"?
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No knock warrants just mean they don't knock. They will loudly and repeatedly identify themselves as law enforcement agents, and they will be wearing vests with POLICE in large letters on both sides. So there's really no way you could legitimately not know if they are are law enforcement agents.
|
[
"No-knock warrants are controversial for various reasons. There have been cases where burglars have robbed homes by pretending to be officers with a no-knock warrant. There have been many cases where armed homeowners, believing that they are being invaded, have shot at officers, resulting in deaths on both sides. While it is legal to shoot a homeowner's dog when an officer fears for his/her life, there have been numerous high-profile cases in which family pets lacking the size, strength, or demeanor to attack officers have been shot, greatly increasing the risk of additional casualties in neighboring houses via overpenetrating bullets.\n",
"In a similar manner, where officers reasonably believe that exigent circumstances, such as the destruction of evidence or danger to officers will exist, a no-knock warrant may be issued. However, despite police awareness that such future exigencies will exist, they are generally not required to seek such a warrant; in this case, police must have an objectively reasonable belief, at the time of executing the warrant, that such circumstances do in fact exist.\n",
"Federal judges and magistrates may lawfully and constitutionally issue \"no-knock\" warrants where circumstances justify a no-knock entry, and federal law enforcement officers may lawfully apply for such warrants under such circumstances. Although officers need not take affirmative steps to make an independent re-verification of the circumstances already recognized by a magistrate in issuing a no-knock warrant, such a warrant does not entitle officers to disregard reliable information clearly negating the existence of exigent circumstances when they actually receive such information before execution of the warrant.\n",
"As justification for the no-knock warrant, the Atlanta Police Department initially claimed that the police were searching for drug dealers after a police informant was said to have bought crack at Johnston's home. However, the informant later denied having bought drugs at her house, and suspicion about the incident sparked a federal and state investigation. In the affidavit police used to obtain a search warrant for Johnston's house, Atlanta narcotics officers alleged their informant bought drugs inside Johnston's home earlier in the day from a man named \"Sam\", and that the home had video surveillance equipment justifying the no-knock warrant. In an interview with Atlanta television station WAGA a few days after Johnston's shooting, the informant denied having gone to her house and said that after the shooting, police pressured him to lie and say that he had. The informant denied that he had ever been to Johnston's house. According to WSB-TV in Atlanta, Detective Junnier subsequently told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that some of the information used to obtain the search warrant on Johnston's home was false. Several experts said that even if the warrant information had been entirely legitimate, the informant's word would not have been enough to legally justify the no-knock warrant.\n",
"In the United States, a no-knock warrant is a warrant issued by a judge that allows law enforcement officers to enter a property without immediate prior notification of the residents, such as by knocking or ringing a doorbell. In most cases, law enforcement will identify themselves just before they forcefully enter the property. It is issued under the belief that any evidence they hope to find can be destroyed during the time that police identify themselves and the time they secure the area, or in the event where there is a large perceived threat to officer safety during the execution of the warrant.\n",
"A common law rule from Great Britain permits searches incident to an arrest without a warrant. This rule has been applied in American law, and has a lengthy common law history. The justification for such a search is to prevent the arrested individual 1.) from destroying evidence or 2.) using a weapon against the arresting officer by disarming the suspect. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that \"both justifications for the search-incident-to-arrest exception are absent and the rule does not apply\", when \"there is no possibility\" that the suspect could gain access to a weapon or destroy evidence. In \"Trupiano v. United States\" (1948), the Supreme Court held that \"a search or seizure without a warrant as an incident to a lawful arrest has always been considered to be a strictly limited right. It grows out of the inherent necessities of the situation at the time of the arrest. But there must be something more in the way of necessity than merely a lawful arrest.\" In \"United States v. Rabinowitz\" (1950), the Court reversed \"Trupiano\", holding instead that the officers' opportunity to obtain a warrant was not germane to the reasonableness of a search incident to an arrest. \"Rabinowitz\" suggested that any area within the \"immediate control\" of the arrestee could be searched, but it did not define the term. In deciding \"Chimel v. California\" (1969), the Supreme Court elucidated its previous decisions. It held that when an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the officer to search the arrestee for weapons and evidence. However, in \"Riley v. California\" (2014), the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that police must obtain a warrant to search an arrestee's cellular phone. The Court said that earlier Supreme Court decisions permitting searches incident to an arrest without a warrant do not apply to \"modern cellphones, which are now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy,\" and noted that US citizens' cellphones today typically contain \"a digital record of nearly every aspect of their lives — from the mundane to the intimate.\"\n",
"No-knock warrants may be issued in every state except Oregon (where state law bans no-knock warrants) and Florida (in which a 1994 state supreme court decision prohibited no-knock warrants). 13 states have laws explicitly authorizing no-knock warrants and in twenty additional states no-knock warrants are routinely granted.\n"
] |
Many technological advances in the past decades can be attributed to NASA. How much (if any) technological advances can be attributed to the Soviet space program?
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I know it may not be what your looking for but I think a lot of your answers will inevitably be in regards to rocketry.
On that front, the Soviets developed a number of advanced rocket engines, some of which are still some of the best in the world. The [RD-170](_URL_1_) for instance maintains the title as the most powerful rocket engine in the world. Most people believe this title goes to the American F-1 engine which was used for the Apollo program. However the F-1 is only the most powerful single cone engine, and comparatively the RD-170 outputs over 1,000,000 more Newtons of thrust.
Secondly the [NK-33](_URL_0_) rocket engine which was originally developed for the Soviet Moon program has the second highest thrust to weight ratio of of any rocket. Similarly, it also has a very high specific impulse. It's only other contender is the SpaceX Merlin 1-D which was developed very recently.
|
[
"During the Cold War, the world's two great superpowers — the Soviet Union and the United States of America — spent large proportions of their GDP on developing military technologies. The drive to place objects in orbit stimulated space research and started the Space Race. In 1957, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite, \"Sputnik 1\".\n",
"During the Cold War, the world's two great superpowers—the Soviet Union and the United States of America—spent large proportions of their GDP on developing military technologies. The drive to place objects in orbit stimulated space research and started the Space Race. In 1957, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite, \"Sputnik 1\".\n",
"NDEA was among many science initiatives implemented by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 to increase the technological sophistication and power of the United States alongside, for instance, DARPA and NASA. It followed a growing national sense that U.S. scientists were falling behind scientists in the Soviet Union. The early Soviet success in the Space Race catalyzed a national sense of unease with Soviet technological advances, especially after the Soviet Union launched the first-ever satellite, Sputnik, the previous year.\n",
"The Soviet Union placed great emphasis on science and technology within its economy, however, the most remarkable Soviet successes in technology, such as producing the world's first space satellite, typically were the responsibility of the military. Lenin believed that the USSR would never overtake the developed world if it remained as technologically backward as it was upon its founding. Soviet authorities proved their commitment to Lenin's belief by developing massive networks, research and development organizations. In the early 1960s, the Soviets awarded 40% of chemistry PhDs to women, compared to only 5% who received such a degree in the United States. By 1989, Soviet scientists were among the world's best-trained specialists in several areas, such as energy physics, selected areas of medicine, mathematics, welding and military technologies. Due to rigid state planning and bureaucracy, the Soviets remained far behind technologically in chemistry, biology, and computers when compared to the First World.\n",
"Soviet technology was most highly developed in the fields of nuclear physics, where the arms race with the West convinced policy makers to set aside sufficient resources for research. Due to a crash program directed by Igor Kurchatov (based on spies of Cambridge Five), the Soviet Union was the second nation to develop an atomic bomb, in 1949, four years after the United States. The Soviet Union detonated a hydrogen bomb in 1953, a mere ten months after the United States. Space exploration was also highly developed: in October 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit; in April 1961 a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, became the first man in space. The Soviets maintained a strong space program until economic problems led to cutbacks in the 1980s.\n",
"The following is a list of technologies sometimes mistakenly attributed directly to NASA. In many cases, NASA popularized technology or aided its development, due to its usefulness in space, which ultimately resulted in the technology's creation.\n",
"NASA as created in the act passed by Congress was substantially stronger than the Eisenhower administration's original proposal. NASA took over the space technology research started by DARPA. NASA also took over the US manned satellite program, Man In Space Soonest, from the Air Force, as Project Mercury.\n"
] |
Why is the myth that conscripted make up the bulk of medieval armies so prevalent?
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I have a theory that the reason for this is fairly simple: miscommunication.
"Medieval" usually refers to the European Middle Ages, a period that stretched from the Fall of Rome in 476 until the Fall of Constantinople in ~~1492~~ 1453. There are about a thousand differing start and end dates, but using the demise of two Roman empires is convenient and a little poetic -- because, unlike dating it to Gutenberg's printing press, we don't have to quibble over whether to point at when he started or the vague "c. 1525" figure that better represents the spread of the printing press. But what's important here is that, no matter the exact start and end dates, the period corresponds to a stupidly long period of time. If we go with a more conservative figure of dating the start to 800 when Charlemagne founded the Holy Roman Empire, we're still looking at a period of nearly 700 years from start to end. More time separated a Genoese soldier on the walls of Constantinople in 1492 from Charlemagne than what separates this sub from Columbus himself. That's the first thing that makes communicating on this subject rather difficult at times.
There's also the matter of nomenclature. How do you define "peasant," exactly? For most people, especially those who don't study medieval history, a peasant is probably just someone who occupies the second lowest strata of society (being just one step above slaves). A farmer, basically. Maybe a fisherman or hunter.
If we look at the English at Agincourt, 5/6ths of their army could probably be classified as "peasantry." Yes, the longbowmen absolutely did go to war with a fairly extensive kit and a very specialized skillset. Yes, those longbowmen had to meet various requirements to actually qualify for service (like actually being able to draw and fire one of those massive warbows). Yes, those longbowmen would have been paid for their time and entitled to various rights while on campaign (most notably looting). But they weren't men at arms (who could very well have held sizable tracts of land) and they absolutely were not of the proper nobility (who comprised, perhaps, 100 of the 6,000 English soldiers at Agincourt).
Now let's return to the first sentence in this post. Even if we get past all the traps above, the miscommunication *still* arises from the fact that when I say the English army was largely comprised of the peasantry, I'm referring just to social standing. If someone who is not as well informed on the subject were to then read that part of my post and see me classify the English army as peasantry, said person could, not knowing any better, simply conjure up the stereotypical image that Hollywood likes to give us of the peasant: dirty, dressed in earthy tones (bonus points for dirty brown), and probably featured on a set that is just as drab-looking as they are.
There are probably another half dozen factors that would contribute to the miscommunications that seem to breathe new life into these misconceptions on a regular basis, but I think that you've got the idea.
|
[
"Though usually the aspect of financing of a military force is seen as \"derivative,\" in the case of the States Army it played an important formative role, and influenced the peculiarities of the organisation also. Though 16th-century armies were usually preponderantly mercenary armies, there often were elements of feudal levies and volunteers also. These were lacking in the States Army (the civic militia or Schutterij was not part of the army). Apparently it never occurred to the authorities in the Republic to organize a volunteer or conscript army; mercenaries were the only feasible option. This had already been the case under the Habsburg rulers, when the States of the several provinces were asked to pay for the raising of the Habsburg armies, and played a role in their financial administration, like mustering. The authorities of the rebel provinces continued where they left of in this respect. They were, however, content to limit their role to financial administration and the raising of the necessary money via the financing of a fiscal-military state (see the financial history of the Dutch Republic). The latter formed already a considerable burden on the public finances of the provinces in the time of Charles V, and contributed to the formation of early-modern institutions for the management of the public debt in which the Dutch had a pioneering role.\n",
"Until the 11th century, the majority of the conscripts were from rural areas, while the conscription of craftsmen and merchants is still an open question. From then on, professional recruiting replaced conscription, and the increasing use of mercenaries in the army was ruinous for the treasury. From the 10th century onwards, there were laws connecting land ownership and military service. While the state never allotted land for obligatory service, soldiers could and did use their pay to buy landed estates, and taxes would be decreased or waived in some cases. What the state did allocate to soldiers, however, from the 12th century onwards, were the tax revenues from some estates called \"pronoiai\" (). As in antiquity, the basic food of the soldier remained the dried biscuit bread, though its name had changed from \"boukelaton\" () to \"paximadion\".\n",
"Thus the scutage was introduced, whereby most Englishmen paid to escape their service and this money was used to create a permanent army. However, almost all high medieval armies in Europe were composed of a great deal of paid core troops, and there was a large mercenary market in Europe from at least the early 12th century.\n",
"After the 2nd Punic War (218–201 BC), the Romans acquired an overseas empire, which necessitated standing forces to fight lengthy wars of conquest and to garrison the newly gained provinces. Thus the army's character mutated from a temporary force based entirely on short-term conscription to a standing army in which the conscripts were supplemented by a large number of volunteers willing to serve for much longer than the legal six-year limit. These volunteers were mainly from the poorest social class, who did not have plots to tend at home and were attracted by the modest military pay and the prospect of a share of war booty. The minimum property requirement for service in the legions, which had been suspended during the 2nd Punic War, was effectively ignored from 201 BC onward in order to recruit sufficient volunteers. Between 150-100 BC, the manipular structure was gradually phased out, and the much larger cohort became the main tactical unit. In addition, from the 2nd Punic War onward, Roman armies were always accompanied by units of non-Italian mercenaries, such as Numidian light cavalry, Cretan archers, and Balearic slingers, who provided specialist functions that Roman armies had previously lacked.\n",
"Until c. 550 BC, there was probably no \"national\" Roman army, but a series of clan-based war-bands, which only coalesced into a united force in periods of serious external threat. Around 550 BC, during the period conventionally known as the rule of king Servius Tullius, it appears that a universal levy of eligible adult male citizens was instituted. This development apparently coincided with the introduction of heavy armour for most of the infantry.\n",
"Until c. 550 BC, there was no \"national\" Roman army, but a series of clan-based war-bands which only coalesced into a united force in periods of serious external threat. Around 550 BC, during the period conventionally known as the rule of king Servius Tullius, it appears that a universal levy of eligible adult male citizens was instituted. This development apparently coincided with the introduction of heavy armour for most of the infantry. Although originally low in numbers the Roman infantry was extremely tactical and developed some of the most influential battle strategies to date.\n",
"When it was time to draft additional soldiers into the military, they would look to their citizens for assistance in the defense of Rome. In the writings of Polybius it was in the natural order of a Roman citizen to fight in the military. However, the military was divided by class and wealth. The poorer citizens made up most of the light infantry (\"velites\") of the legion. The higher class \"equites\" were drafted into the cavalry because they could afford a horse.\n"
] |
what stops cops from simply planting cocaine in your pocket and arresting you?
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It happens. Cops have been known to plant drugs on suspects to arrest them.
Why don't they? Well should they be caught the will be on the other end of that jailtime.
|
[
"A man goes looking for cocaine on an island. Some cops (undercover) offer to help by taking the map and getting the coke in exchange for half. The cops (still undercover) send the man a picture of a hole with a bag in it, implying that cocaine is in the bag. They ask the man to come to a parking lot to give him his cut. At this time they arrest him for conspiracy. It was a witch hunt.\n",
"A pattern of arrests of individuals who were charged with gun possession, made by officers in Brooklyn's 67th Precinct station house, was reported to be allegedly tampered, according to a 2014 newspaper report. The suspects stated that the police had placed the guns on their person, and the report said that \"each gun was found in a plastic bag or a handkerchief, with no traces of the suspect's fingerprints.\" Defense attorneys have said in court filings that the arresting officers may have been inventing informers as a way to satisfy arrest quotas and to collect $1,000 rewards from an anti-gun community safety program.\n",
"In order to snatch the drugs from the police station, the thugs plant bombs in the station, forcing the officers to leave the building while they pose as SDU members and go snatch the drugs from the evidence room. However, they were penetrated by Shek and after battling alongside Pierre against the thugs, the thugs managed to escape after one of the thugs Sean (Shawn Patrick Berry) was arrested.\n",
"Most cases of false arrest involve accusations of shoplifting, and are brought against security guards and retail stores. A guard cannot arrest someone merely on the suspicion that person is going to commit a theft. In most jurisdictions, there must be some proof that a criminal act has \"actually\" been committed. For example, a guard does not have reasonable and probable cause if a shopper has not yet paid for merchandise they are carrying in the belief that the person intends to leave without making payment. Instead, there must be an actual act committedthe person \"must\" make an actual attempt to leave the store without paying for the merchandise.\n",
"the police to turn in the drugs to get good credit or an award, but the police get the wrong impression and think they are drug dealers. Commissioner JD Mehra (Jackie Shroff) releases them after telling them not to leave the country until they are proven innocent. Then while search of a heroine, Bunty and Gulab Singh take help of Guru (Shakti Kapoor), a local don who is a drunkard and they end up breaking his (Guru's) legs. Guru sends his goons to thrash Bunty and Gulab Singh but they escape. They bump into Munni (Lara Dutta), who is trying to commit suicide. Bunty saves her and brings her to the theatre group to be the heroine.\n",
"Without obtaining a warrant, the police opened the backpack and found illicit drugs. They charged the student who owned the backpack with possession of marijuana and psilocybin for the purpose of trafficking.\n",
"Colombian drug cartels have used narco-submarines to smuggle cocaine from Colombia to the United States. Their fiberglass construction makes them nearly invisible to radar, sonar, and infrared. After unloading or when intercepted, the crew scuttles the submarine. With the main evidence of trafficking gone, the crew go from suspected traffickers to castaways who, in accordance with maritime law, must be rescued and cannot be charged. However, laws were recently changed to address what was seen as an exploitation of legal loopholes. The United States now considers the operation of an unflagged (unregistered) vessel, designed solely for the clandestine transport of contraband, a crime in and of itself that carries severe penalties.\n"
] |
Can cancer go away on its own?
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[Coley's toxins](_URL_0_) were developed from when William Coley observed a small number of patients whose incurable cancers went into remission following sepsis caused by streptococcal infections. In this sense, the spontaneous remission followed infection, so it didn't go away "on its own," but it did go away without intervention.
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[
"Treatment and survival is determined, to a great extent, by whether or not a cancer remains localized or spreads to other locations in the body. If the cancer metastasizes to other tissues or organs it usually dramatically increases a patient's likelihood of death. Some cancers—such as some forms of leukemia, a cancer of the blood, or malignancies in the brain—can kill without spreading at all.\n",
"Although most benign tumors are not life-threatening, many types of benign tumors have the potential to become cancerous (malignant) through a process known as tumor progression. For this reason and other possible negative health effects, some benign tumors are removed by surgery.\n",
"In the example shown in Figure 2, a tumor is found after the cell growth rate has slowed. Most of the cancer cells are removed by surgery. The remaining cancer cells begin to proliferate rapidly and cancer chemotherapy is started. Many tumor cells are killed by the chemotherapy, but eventually some cancer cells that are resistant to the chemotherapy drug begin to grow rapidly. The chemotherapy is no longer useful and is discontinued.\n",
"Those who survive cancer develop a second primary cancer at about twice the rate of those never diagnosed. The increased risk is believed to be due to the random chance of developing any cancer, the likelihood of surviving the first cancer, the same risk factors that produced the first cancer, unwanted side effects of treating the first cancer (particularly radiation therapy), and to better compliance with screening.\n",
"There are several reasons for this high death toll from cancer in developing countries. Due to poverty, lack of resources and vast distances, public access to treatment maybe difficult or non-existent. There is also not enough awareness (public or professional) about cancer to help either prevent the disease developing or to support early diagnosis. As a result, 80% of cancer patients present with advanced/incurable cancers. Unfortunately, in many cases, palliative care will not be available to them at the end of their lives.\n",
"With the right medical help, cancer doesn't have to be a death sentence. Those who can afford it travel to other countries to pay for their treatment and care. Those who can't are left to suffer and die.\n",
"Chemotherapy does not always work, and even when it is useful, it may not completely destroy the cancer. People frequently fail to understand its limitations. In one study of people who had been newly diagnosed with incurable, stage 4 cancer, more than two-thirds of people with lung cancer and more than four-fifths of people with colorectal cancer still believed that chemotherapy was likely to cure their cancer.\n"
] |
Is it possible to have a solid block of something floating in a gas?
|
~~Yes! Here's a [video](_URL_0_) of an aluminium foil ship floating in sulphur hexaflouride.~~
Wait, this isn't what you asked at all. Sorry, ignore.
|
[
"Gas bubbles with a radius greater than 1 micron should float to the surface of a standing liquid, whereas smaller ones should dissolve rapidly due to surface tension. The Tiny Bubble Group has been able to resolve this apparent paradox by developing and experimentally verifying a new model for stable gas nuclei.\n",
"Substances with a relative density of 1 are neutrally buoyant, those with RD greater than one are denser than water, and so (ignoring surface tension effects) will sink in it, and those with an RD of less than one are less dense than water, and so will float.\n",
"If a substance's relative density is less than one then it is less dense than the reference; if greater than 1 then it is denser than the reference. If the relative density is exactly 1 then the densities are equal; that is, equal volumes of the two substances have the same mass. If the reference material is water then a substance with a relative density (or specific gravity) less than 1 will float in water. For example, an ice cube, with a relative density of about 0.91, will float. A substance with a relative density greater than 1 will sink.\n",
"A floating system is a system where it floats on gastric fluids due to low-density. The density of the gastric fluids is about 1 g/mL; thus, the drug/tablet administered must have a smaller density. The buoyancy will allow the system to float to the top of the stomach and release at a slower rate without worry of excreting it. This system requires there are enough gastric fluids present as well as food. Many types of forms of drugs use this method such as powders, capsules, and tablets.\n",
"Strictly speaking, the liquid must have a free surface to constitute a slosh dynamics problem, where the dynamics of the liquid can interact with the container to alter the system dynamics significantly. Important examples include propellant slosh in spacecraft tanks and rockets (especially upper stages), and the free surface effect (cargo slosh) in ships and trucks transporting liquids (for example oil and gasoline).\n",
"There is, of course, no guarantee that the other conditions will be found that allow liquid water to be present on a planetary surface. Should planetary mass objects be present, a single, gas giant planet, with or without planetary mass moons, orbiting close to the circumstellar habitable zone, could prevent the necessary conditions from occurring in the system. However, it would mean that planetary mass objects, such as the icy bodies of the solar system, could have abundant quantities of liquid within them.\n",
"A floating object will seek the highest point of the membrane and thus will find its way to either the center or the edge. A similar argument explains why bubbles on surfaces attract each other: a single bubble raises the liquid level locally causing other bubbles in the area to be attracted to it. Dense objects, like paper clips, can rest on liquid surfaces due to surface tension. These objects deform the liquid surface downward. Other floating objects that are seeking to sink but are constrained by surface tension will be attracted to the first. Objects with an irregular meniscus also deform the water surface forming \"capillary multipoles\". When such objects come close to each other they rotate in the plane of the water surface until they find an optimum relative orientation. Subsequently, they are attracted to each other by surface tension. \n"
] |
Books about Diogenes of Sinope
|
*Diogenes the Cynic*, L. Navia (2005)
|
[
"BULLET::::- Lost works of Diogenes of Sinope He is reported to have written several books, none of which has survived to the present date. Whether or not these books were actually his writings or attributions are in dispute.\n",
"The Liexian Zhuan, sometimes translated as Biographies of Immortals, is the oldest extant Chinese hagiography of Daoist \"xian\" \"transcendents; immortals; saints; alchemists\". The text, which compiles the life stories of about 70 mythological and historical \"xian\", was traditionally attributed to the Western Han dynasty editor and imperial librarian Liu Xiang (77-8 BCE), but internal evidence dates it to the 2nd century CE during the Eastern Han period. The \"Liexian Zhuan\" became a model for later authors, such as Ge Hong's 4th century CE \"Shenxian zhuan\" (\"Biographies of Divine Immortals\").\n",
"Judging from the scant extant fragments, his philosophical views seem to have followed his master Lyco pretty closely. Diogenes Laërtius, after enumerating the works of Aristo of Chios, says that Panaetius and Sosicrates attributed all these works, except the letters, to Aristo of Ceos. Whether this attribution is correct we are unable to determine. At any rate, one of those works, \"Conversations on Love\", is repeatedly ascribed to Aristo of Ceos by Athenaeus. One work of Aristo not mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius was entitled \"Lyco\" in gratitude to his master. There are also two epigrams in the \"Greek Anthology\" which are commonly attributed to Aristo of Ceos, though there is no evidence for the validity of their authorship.\n",
"Dio Chrysostom was part of the Second Sophistic school of Greek philosophers which reached its peak in the early 2nd century. He was considered as one of the most eminent of the Greek rhetoricians and sophists by the ancients who wrote about him, such as Philostratus, Synesius, and Photius. This is confirmed by the eighty orations of his which are still extant, and which were the only ones known in the time of Photius. These orations appear to be written versions of his oral teaching, and are like essays on political, moral, and philosophical subjects. They include four orations on Kingship addressed to Trajan on the virtues of a sovereign; four on the character of Diogenes of Sinope, on the troubles to which men expose themselves by deserting the path of Nature, and on the difficulties which a sovereign has to encounter; essays on slavery and freedom; on the means of attaining eminence as an orator; political discourses addressed to various towns which he sometimes praises and sometimes blames, but always with moderation and wisdom; on subjects of ethics and practical philosophy, which he treats in a popular and attractive manner; and lastly, orations on mythical subjects and show-speeches. He argued strongly against permitting prostitution. He also claimed that the epics of Homer had been translated and were sung in India; this is unlikely to be true, and there may have been confusion with the \"Mahabharata\" and the \"Ramayana\", of which there are some parallels in subject matter. Two orations of his (37 and 64) are now assigned to Favorinus. Besides the eighty orations we have fragments of fifteen others, and there are extant also five letters under Dio's name.\n",
"Diogenes Laërtius (; , \"Diogenēs Laertios\"; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving \"Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers\" is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek philosophy. His reputation is controversial among scholars because he often repeats information from his sources without critically evaluating it. He also frequently focuses on trivial or insignificant details of his subjects' lives while ignoring important details of their philosophical teachings and he sometimes fails to distinguish between earlier and later teachings of specific philosophical schools. However, unlike many other ancient secondary sources, Diogenes Laërtius generally reports philosophical teachings without attempting to reinterpret or expand on them, which means his accounts are often closer to the primary sources. Due to the loss of so many of the primary sources on which Diogenes relied, his work has become the foremost surviving source on the history of Greek philosophy.\n",
"Although it is at best an uncritical and unphilosophical compilation, its value, as giving us an insight into the private lives of the Greek sages, led Montaigne to write that he wished that instead of one Laërtius there had been a dozen. On the other hand, modern scholars have advised that we treat Diogenes' testimonia with care, especially when he fails to cite his sources: \"Diogenes has acquired an importance out of all proportion to his merits because the loss of many primary sources and of the earlier secondary compilations has accidentally left him the chief continuous source for the history of Greek philosophy\".\n",
"Scholars have tended to take it as a given that Lucian of Samosata had Diogenes' work principally in mind when he wrote his celebrated parody, the \"Verae Historiae\" (\"True Histories\"), but J.R. Morgan has more recently questioned this accepted notion upon extensive comparative study of the two works.\n"
] |
Is it true that the quantum states of two related electrons can be entangled, making it so that changes to one effect the other, regardless of distance? If so, why? [Layman Here]
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It's kind of a version of Schrodinger's Cat, also known as the EPR paradox. For the wiki article, read:
_URL_0_
Here's it in short - one type of subatomic particle (a muon) can decay into an electron of spin up and an electron of spin down. However, before you measure the spin on the electron, you don't know which one is spin up and which one is spin down. Actually, it's funny, they both exist in *both states*, with 1/2 probability for either way. Until you measure it, they exist in both states. However, let's say you separate these two electrons by some distance. Now, if you measure the spin on one of the electrons, and it comes out positive, you know with 100% certainty that the other electron is negative. This means that you have just transmitted *information* in zero seconds, and if velocity is distance/time, and distance is non-zero, you've just transmitted information at infinite speed, which is actually greater than the speed of light. This is the nature of the paradox that Einstein shat himself over for 20 years.
There are lots of interpretations, most of which I'm not familiar with, but have a huge section in that wikipedia article, so I'm going to read that now and you're welcome to join me in that if you'd like.
If you don't want to read the wiki, well, here's what Feynman has to say about it:
_URL_1_
Basically, experiment is experiment. There is no 'why', just 'how'. Later we figure out the why, but usually it's pretty hard to understand because we don't have everyday experience about it. It's just the way nature acts! You don't have to like it, you just have to know it's true.
|
[
"If two different quantum registers are entangled (they cannot be expressed as a tensor product), measurement of one register affects or reveals the state of the other register by partially or entirely collapsing its state too. An example of such a linearly inseparable state is the EPR pair, which can be constructed with the CNOT and the Hadamard gates (described above). This effect is used in many algorithms: if two variables A and B are maximally entangled (the bell state is the simplest example of this), a function F is applied to A such that A is updated to the value of F(A), followed by measurement of A, then B will, when measured, be a value such that F(B) = A . This way, measurement of one register can be used to assign properties to some other registers.\n",
"Bound quantum states have discrete energy levels. When applied to atomic orbitals, this means that the energy differences between states are also discrete. A transition between these states (i.e., an electron absorbing or emitting a photon) can thus only happen if the photon has an energy corresponding with the exact energy difference between said states.\n",
"When two nearby atoms have unpaired electrons, whether the electron spins are parallel or antiparallel affects whether the electrons can share the same orbit as a result of the quantum mechanical effect called the exchange interaction. This in turn affects the electron location and the Coulomb (electrostatic) interaction and thus the energy difference between these states.\n",
"Quantum Coupling is an effect in quantum mechanics in which two or more quantum systems are bound such that a change in one of the quantum states in one of the systems will cause an instantaneous change in all of the bound systems. It is a state similar to quantum entanglement but whereas quantum entanglement can take place over long distances quantum coupling is restricted to quantum scales.\n",
"In quantum mechanics, two particles can be in special states where the amplitudes of their position are uncorrelated. For quantum amplitudes, the word entanglement replaces the word correlation, but the analogy is exact. A disentangled wave function has the form:\n",
"BULLET::::- Entanglement based protocols : The quantum states of two (or more) separate objects can become linked together in such a way that they must be described by a combined quantum state, not as individual objects. This is known as entanglement and means that, for example, performing a measurement on one object affects the other. If an entangled pair of objects is shared between two parties, anyone intercepting either object alters the overall system, revealing the presence of the third party (and the amount of information they have gained).\n",
"Quantum mechanics dictates that once two separate quantum systems (two particles for example) have interacted or if they have a common origin, they cannot be considered as two independent systems. The quantum mechanical formalism postulates that if a first system possesses a formula_1 state, and the second a formula_2state, then the resulting entangled system is represented by a quantum superposition of the tensor product of both states: formula_3. This notation clearly shows that the physical distance between the two systems plays no role in the entangled state (because no position variable is present). The entangled quantum state remains identical — all else being equal — whatever the distances between both systems.\n"
] |
why do some drinks like arnold palmer have a faint marijuana-like taste?
|
Could be that ganga you just smoked? I personally haven't had this experience.
|
[
"The Arnold Palmer is a name commonly used for a non-alcoholic beverage that combines iced tea and lemonade. The name \"Arnold Palmer\" refers to the professional American golfer Arnold Palmer, who was known to often request and drink this beverage combination; some attribute the invention of the beverage to the golfer.\n",
"The dominant flavour in these other drinks is usually sassafras or wintergreen, both now derived artificially rather than from the plant itself, in part because during the 1960s safrole, the major component of the volatile oil of sassafras, was found to be carcinogenic in rats when administered in relatively large doses. All of these drinks, while tasting similar, do have their own distinct flavour. Dandelion and burdock is most similar in flavour to sarsaparilla. The drink has recently seen an increase in popularity after previously poor sales.\n",
"In 2012, an ESPN \"30 for 30 Shorts\" documentary was produced on the drink, featuring Palmer, beverage experts, a group of PGA golfers and comedian Will Arnett discussing the drink's history and popularity. In the film, Palmer attributes the spreading of the drink's name to an incident in which a woman copied his ordering the drink at lunch while working on a golf course in Palm Springs, California, saying \"I'll have that Arnold Palmer drink, too.\" Palmer preferred three parts unsweetened tea, to one part lemonade, but when mixed equal parts tea and lemonade, the drink is sometimes called a \"Half & Half\".\n",
"The drink has been sold under the Arnold Palmer trademark via a licensing arrangement with Innovative Flavors since 2001. Arizona Beverage Company began marketing and selling the beverage with Palmer's picture and signature on the bottle in 2002 and has handled distribution ever since. The line has expanded to include various flavors including Green Tea, Southern Style Sweet Tea and Pink Lemonade, Zero Calorie, Strawberry, Peach, Mango and Natural Energy. Lemonade combined with iced tea is also sold without the Arnold Palmer trademark by other companies, such as Nestea, Lipton Brisk, Honest Tea (as Half and Half), Nantucket Nectars (as Half and Half), Country Time, Sweet Leaf, XINGtea, Snapple, and Peace Iced Tea (as Caddyshack). It has 43 mg of caffeine per 23 oz drink.\n",
"BULLET::::- United States: In the United States, a non-alcoholic half-and-half mix of traditional lemonade and iced tea is popular and is known as an Arnold Palmer, after the famous golfer. Created on an ad hoc basis at first, Palmer commercialized the mix and licensed use of his name and image on cans of the drink which are produced and marketed by the Arizona Tea company.\n",
"There is a growing popularity in the United States of a mixed drink called \"half and half\". Half and half is a mix of iced tea and lemonade, giving the drink a much sweeter taste. Often called an Arnold Palmer (although Palmer himself preferred 2:1 tea:lemonade), the drink was eventually marketed by Snapple, Nantucket Nectars, and AriZona Iced Tea. In 2012 an ESPN short documentary was produced on the drink, featuring Palmer, beverage experts, a group of PGA golfers and comedian Will Arnett discussing the drink's history and popularity. A John Daly is an alcoholic version of the drink, often made with sweet tea, vodka, and lemonade.\n",
"Results from taste tests have been mixed. In a taste test conducted by a local Westchester, New York magazine, tasters noted that the Mexican Coke had \"a more complex flavor with an ineffable spicy and herbal note\", and that it contained something \"that darkly hinted at root beer or old-fashioned sarsaparilla candies\".\n"
] |
why there's no algae over the surface of oceans ?
|
There is. A lot of it. But constant turbulence of the surface prevents it from getting too clumped up. Additionally, there are a *lot* of things eating the algae, too, which keep algal populations manageable.
Sometimes those things get out of whack and you end up with [massive algal blooms](_URL_0_) that cover huge swaths of the ocean.
You rarely see solid mats of algae, though, because of the constant motion and turbulence. Algae that *does* clump together has evolved into different forms that are strong enough to deal with the ocean currents and don't *look* like algae, like [giant kelp](_URL_1_), which is, in fact, algae, not a plant.
|
[
"\"S. algae\" is of great interest to the United States Department of Energy because of its ability to reduce the amount of radioactive waste in groundwater by making it less soluble. An example would be:\n",
"Algae's strong photosynthesis creates a large affinity for nutrients; this allows the seaweed to be used to remove undesired nutrients from water (as for instance in dead zones). Seaweed also generates oxygen, which benefits hypoxic (=oxygen-poor) dead zones. Nutrients such as ammonia, ammonium nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, iron, copper, as well as CO are rapidly consumed by growing seaweed. Reefs and lakes are naturally filtered this way (seaweed is consumed by fish and invertebrates), and this filtering process is duplicated in artificial seaweed filters such as algae scrubbers. China could remove its entire phosphorus effluent by increasing seaweed production by 150%.\n",
"Blue-green algae causes numerous severe health consequences for the marine ecosystem as well surrounding human populations. Blooms result in reduced dissolved oxygen concentrations, alterations in aquatic food webs, algal scum lining the shores, the production of compounds that cause distasteful drinking water and fish flesh, and the production of toxins severe enough to poison aquatic as well as terrestrial organisms. Blooms have been reported throughout the continental United States, and resulting cyanotoxins have been associated with human and animal illness and death in at least 43 states. Most cyanobacteria produce the neurotoxin beta-N-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) that has been implicated as a significant environmental risk in the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The cyanobacteria has also been linked to liver cancer, chronic fatigue illness, skin rashes, abdominal cramps, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.\n",
"Algae are important as primary producers in aquatic ecosystems. Most algae are eukaryotic, photosynthetic organisms that live in a wet environment. They are distinguished from the higher plants by a lack of true roots, stems or leaves. They do not flower. Many species are single-celled and microscopic (including phytoplankton and other microalgae); many others are multicellular to one degree or another, some of these growing to large size (for example, seaweeds such as kelp and \"Sargassum\").\n",
"Although not plants and therefore incapable of photosynthesis themselves, many sea anemones form an important facultative mutualistic relationship with certain single-celled algae species that reside in the animals' gastrodermal cells, especially in the tentacles and oral disc. These algae may be either zooxanthellae, zoochlorellae or both. The sea anemone benefits from the products of the algae's photosynthesis, namely oxygen and food in the form of glycerol, glucose and alanine; the algae in turn are assured a reliable exposure to sunlight and protection from micro-feeders, which the sea anemones actively maintain. The algae also benefit by being protected by the sea anemone's stinging cells, reducing the likelihood of being eaten by herbivores. In the aggregating anemone (\"Anthopleura elegantissima\"), the colour of the anemone is largely dependent on the proportions and identities of the zooxanthellae and zoochlorellae present. The hidden anemone (\"Lebrunia coralligens\") has a whorl of seaweed-like pseudotentacles, rich in zooxanthellae, and an inner whorl of tentacles. A daily rhythm sees the pseudotentacles spread widely in the daytime for photosynthesis, but they are retracted at night, at which time the tentacles expand to search for prey.\n",
"Other algae live in or on the sea ice, often on its underside, or on the seabed in shallow areas. Over 700 seaweed species have been identified, of which 35% are endemic. Outside of the ocean many algae are found in freshwater both on the continent and on the subantarctic islands. Terrestrial algae, such as snow algae, have been found living in soil as far south as 86° 29'. Most are single-celled. In summer algal blooms can cause snow and ice to appear red, green, orange, or grey. These blooms can reach about 10 cells per mL. The dominant group of snow algae is chlamydomonas , a type of green algae.\n",
"Brown algae have adapted to a wide variety of marine ecological niches including the tidal splash zone, rock pools, the whole intertidal zone and relatively deep near shore waters. They are an important constituent of some brackish water ecosystems, and have colonized freshwater on a maximum of six known occasions. A large number of Phaeophyceae are intertidal or upper littoral, and they are predominantly cool and cold water organisms that benefit from nutrients in up welling cold water currents and inflows from land; \"Sargassum\" being a prominent exception to this generalisation.\n"
] |
Weapon ownership in Medieval Europe
|
In Iceland it certainly, from a Saga perspective (from the viewpoint that they reflect society in the Sturlung period, that is from about 1200 onwards) does not seem uncommon for 'farmers' (in Medieval Iceland nearly everybody was a farmer, as there were not urbanised areas/ towns|), or lower class landowners, to possess an axe or spear at least.
Axes and spears have the virtue of being relatively cheap to make; only a small amount of poor quality iron was necessary, and although I am not convinced by the argument axes did have utilitarian purposes.
|
[
"\"Weapons\" is a compendium of virtually every edged or impact melee weapon used in any medieval or primitive culture. \"Weapons\" is an indexed sourcebook describing hundreds of different melee weapons, each illustrated. Weapons are covered in six sections: Swords, Knives, Hafted Weapons, Spears, Pole Arms, and Miscellaneous.\n",
"The reign of the Catholic Monarchs and the weaponry of Late Middle Ages, is also represented by weapons from various sources that frame the activity in this period. Are preserved Contemporary war weapons to the Granada War, consisting of illustrative defensive pieces of the Spanish, Italian and German workshops; and two of the oldest portable fire weapons known in Spain, even debtors in some ways, of the archery that supersede with the time. Within this group it deserve special mention the helmets and the armor pieces associated with a peculiar prestigious peninsular production, whose workshops have not yet been identified, but are supposed are from Aragonese origin; The Nasrid sultanate of Granada is present through a small but important sample of its panoply, since are preserved an example of each of the three types of weapons of Granadan creation; one genet from the collection of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria; one leather shield preserved in the armory of Charles V; and a dagger wing associated with a belt with pouch and a holster for a Quran, those latter captured at the Battle of Lucena to Muhammad XII (Boabdil), and those presented to Alfonso XIII by the Marquis of Viana as part of the Villaseca legacy.\n",
"During the Middle Ages, rival Christian and Muslim kingdoms forbade the trade of particular goods to enemy kingdoms including weaponry and other contraband items. The popes forbade the export of these commodities to the Islamic world. The Ottomans too forbade the export of weapons and other strategic items, declaring them \"memnu eşya\" or \"memnu olan\" to Christian states even in peace treaties, however friendly states could import some of the prohibited goods through capitulations. Despite these prohibitions, trade of contraband occurred on both sides. The European merchants traded in illegal goods with Muslims. The Ottomans were unable to suppress the trade with smuggling being undertaken mainly in the winter when the Ottoman Navy stationed at the Istanbul Arsenal was unable to stop Ottoman and non-Ottoman vessels from indulging in the trade.\n",
"The first of the three empires to acquire gunpowder weapons was the Ottoman, as by the 14th century, the Ottomans had adopted gunpowder artillery. The adoption of the weapons by the Ottomans was so rapid that they \"preceded both their European and Middle Eastern adversaries in establishing centralized and permanent troops specialized in the manufacturing and handling of firearms.\" But it was their use of artillery that shocked their adversaries and impelled the other two Islamic empires to accelerate their weapons program. The Ottomans had artillery at least by the reign of Bayezid I and used them in the sieges of Constantinople in 1399 and 1402. They finally proved their worth as siege engines in the successful siege of Salonica in 1430. The Ottomans employed European foundries to cast their cannons, and by the siege of Constantinople in 1453, they had large enough cannons to batter the walls of the city, to the surprise of the defenders.\n",
"Firearms ownership has a very long tradition in the country. The English term \"pistol\" originated in 15th-century Czech language. \"Mariánská skála\" in Ústí nad Labem is Europe's oldest still open shooting range, established in 1617. The Czech lands have been the manufacturing center (including weapons industry) of Central Europe for over two centuries. Firearms possession was severely restricted during German occupation and the subsequent communist dictatorship, with ownership rates gradually rising ever since return of liberty following the 1989 Velvet Revolution.\n",
"There were few recorded attempts to control arms during the period between this and the rise of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 8th and 9th centuries AD, swords and chain mail armor manufactured in the Frankish empire were highly sought after for their quality, and Charlemagne (r. 768-814), made their sale or export to foreigners illegal, punishable by forfeiture of property or even death. This was an attempt to limit the possession and use of this equipment by the Franks' enemies, including the Moors, the Vikings and the Slavs. \n",
"A guisarme (sometimes gisarme, giserne or bisarme) is a pole weapon used in Europe primarily between 1000 and 1400. Its origin is likely Germanic, from the Old High German , literally \"weeding iron\". Like many medieval polearms, the exact early form of the weapon is hard to define from literary references, and the identification of surviving weapons can be speculative.\n"
] |
Why didn't the Jews attempt to rebel or "rise up" in WW2 against their Nazi captors?
|
You are right, it isn't that simple.
First of all, the nazi persecution of the Jews happened incrementally, not all at once, and it was by no means clear that "they were going to die anyway". It is clear to us in hindsight, but you have to keep in mind that the concept of rounding up men, women and children, putting them on trains, unloading them at a purpose-built death camp, and gassing them, was never before encountered in the history of the world. It was so novel and alien an idea that hardly anyone at the time believed it was happening *even when they were told about it by eye witnesses*. Escapees from Auschwitz and Treblinka told their fellow Jews and were disbelieved initially. The same escapee reports were relayed through the Polish government in exile to the Western allies, and they disbelieved it too.
Secondly, "the Jews" were not a nation with an army. They were a people who were a small to tiny minority in a number of separate occupied countries. They had no governing structure or access to arms. They were not unified structurally in any way.
Thirdly, and most importantly, there *was* Jewish resistance, what's more, it even arose in the most dire and impossible of circumstances.
There were uprisings in several Polish ghettos, most notably those of Warsaw in January and April-May 1943, and in Bialystok in August 1943. They were of course brutally suppressed and everybody to the last child was carted off to Treblinka and killed.
There were Jewish partisan groups fighting the Germans in Poland, the Baltic states and the Soviet Union. The reason there were separate Jewish partisans is, by the way, is that often Polish and Baltic partisans refused to admit Jews as members and even went so far as to kill them...
Lastly, there were uprisings in the death camps themselves.
There have been three large-scale uprisings in Nazi death camps. As the odds were stacked heavily against the inmates, these stories make for some bleak reading.
**[SonderKommando revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau](_URL_0_), October 7, 1944**
The Sonderkommandos were groups of Jewish prisoners charged with processing the belongings and handling the cremation of other prisoners. They knew that they would not be allowed to survive the war and had gathered some makeshift weapons and explosives. On the fateful day, they managed to set Crematorium IV on fire and kill three SS men. Some of them escaped briefly but all were recaptured and killed. In all, the revolt cost the lives of 451 members of the Sonderkommandos.
**[Treblinka uprising](_URL_1_), August 2, 1943**
300 inmates of Treblinka managed to escape, of whom 200 were recaptured (sometimes with the help of the Polish inhabitants of the region) and killed. According to various estimates, about 60-70 of the Treblinka escapees were still alive at the end of the war. Three guards were killed in the uprising, as well as about 600 of the 800 to 900 inmates. After the uprising, two more transports of Jews arrived and were killed. Shortly afterwards, Treblinka was dismantled, ploughed over and turned into a farm. The remaining inmates were killed at Sobibor.
**The Sobibor Uprising on October 14, 1943**
12 German officers were killed in the revolt as well as a number of Ukrainian guards. As Sobibor was strictly an extermination camp, where those that arrived by rail were immediately gassed, the number of prisoners was very small, just enough to keep the camp running. 300 out of 700 inmates managed to escape during the revolt. Many were recaptured and killed rather quickly, others were killed by the Polish resistance they met in the forests around the camp, still others were betrayed by Polish inhabitants of the region. Some were helped by the Poles, though, mainly in return for money and valuables belonging to gassed Jews that they had smuggled out of the camp. It should be remembered that to harbour Jewish refugees meant an almost certain death sentence at the time. Only about 50 of the escaped survived the war.
Immediately after the revolt, all remaining prisoners in Sobibor were killed and the camp was dismantled.
|
[
"If the Germans discovered people were involved in the resistance, they were often immediately jailed. It was the social democrats, Catholics, and communists who started the resistance movement. Membership of an armed or military organized group could lead to prolonged stays in concentration camps, and after mid-1944, to summary execution (as a result of Hitler's orders to shoot resistance members on sight – the \"Niedermachungsbefehl\"). The increasing attacks against Dutch fascists and Germans led to large-scale reprisals, often involving dozens, even hundreds of randomly chosen people who, if not executed, died after being deported. Most of the adult males in the village of Putten for example, which had 600 inhabitants, shared this fate.\n",
"Prisoners regardless of ideology often taunted their captors, such as saluting with Sieg Heils when forced to attend the lowering of the United States flag. They secretly celebrated Hitler's birthday and other Nazi holidays after the Americans banned them, and many became upset when Jewish American officers supervised them. Less than 1% of all prisoners of war in America attempted to escape, however—about half the rate of Italian prisoners and less than the rate in the civilian prison system— and most were unsuccessful. The likelihood of an escapee returning to their forces overseas was very remote; the wish to avoid boredom was the reason most often given by those who attempted to escape, often hoping to reach Argentina. Prisoners who died during escape attempts usually received military funerals with US government-provided Nazi flags.\n",
"During World War II, Morocco was controlled by Vichy France, which attempted to deport Jews to concentration camps as part of the Holocaust. This order was blocked by Mohammed V, technically still the sultan of Morocco under the French protectorate. However, some Nazi race laws were still implemented despite Mohammed's protests, and he was forced to sign certain laws barring Jews from certain schools and government positions.\n",
"German communists, socialists and trade unionists were among the earliest opponents of the Nazis and among the first to be sent to concentration camps. Before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler issued the Commissar Order, which ordered the execution of all political commissars and Communist Party members captured. \"Nacht und Nebel\" (\"Night and Fog\") was a directive of Hitler in December 1941, resulting in the disappearance of political activists throughout the German-occupied territories. Because they refused to pledge allegiance to the Nazi party or serve in the military, Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps, where they were identified by purple triangles and given the option of renouncing their faith and submitting to the state's authority. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that between 2,700 and 3,300 were sent to the camps, where 1,400 died; in \"The Holocaust Encyclopedia\" (2001), Sybil Milton estimates that 10,000 were sent and 2,500 died. According to German historian Detlef Garbe, \"no other religious movement resisted the pressure to conform to National Socialism with comparable unanimity and steadfastness.\"\n",
"The Nazi response to the \"Edelweißpiraten\" was relatively minor before the war, because they were viewed as a minor irritant and it did not fit in with the policy of selective terror. As the war went on, and some 'Pirates' activities got more extreme, the punishments did too. Individuals identified by the Gestapo as belonging to the various gangs were often rounded up and released with their heads shaved to shame them. In some cases, young people were sent to concentration camps for youth or temporarily detained in prison. On October 25, 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered a crackdown on the group and in November of that year, a group of thirteen people, the heads of the \"Ehrenfelder Gruppe\", were publicly hanged in Cologne. Some of these were former \"Edelweißpiraten\". The \"Edelweißpiraten\" hanged included six teenagers, amongst them Bartholomäus Schink, called Barthel, former member of the local Navajos. Fritz Theilen survived.\n",
"In November 1943, Jews were declared 'enemy aliens' in accordance with the manifesto of the Italian Social Republic, to be arrested and their property seized. Although some Jews managed to escape to neutral Switzerland or Allied-occupied southern Italy, over two hundred were rounded up, most between 5 December 1943 (when approximately 150 were arrested) and late summer 1944. They were held at the city's Marco Foscarini college, the women's prison on Giudecca, the prison at Santa Maria Maggiore and subsequently at Fossoli concentration camp, before being deported, in most cases, to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. Those arrested later in 1944 included some 20 residents of a Jewish convalescence home, the Casa di Ricovero Israelitica (including Venice's Chief Rabbi, Adolfo Ottolenghi, who chose to follow the fate of his fellow deportees) and 29 from a Jewish hospital. Most of those arrested in the summer of 1944 spent time incarcerated at Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp, Trieste. Although a figure of two hundred and five Jewish deportees from Venice between November 1943 and August 1944 is often quoted, one source give the higher figure of 246, which includes those deported to Trieste, some of whom died there, and a smaller number of arrests after this point up until the end of the war. Only 8 Jewish residents of Venice emerged from the death camps. The 1938 Jewish population of Venice (2000) was reduced by the war's end to 1500, or in some sources 1050.\n",
"After the German invasion in 1943, the anti-Semitic persecutions increased. The Fascists and the Germans began arresting the Jews and sending them to concentration camps. When Calò had learned about the capture of his family and the fact that they had been kept in Florence's Le Murate prison, he tried to organize their escape. His efforts were in vain. In May 1944 they were all deported to a concentration camp in Fossoli, and on the 16th of that month were sent on a transport to Auschwitz. His wife Carolina Lombroso gave birth to their fourth son while on the train. His family was killed by the Germans immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz.\n"
] |
How well accepted is the theory that the Minoan civilization was devastated by a massive tsunami and that this event lead to the the myth of Atlantis?
|
Not even a tiny little bit.
* Just to be clear, strictly speaking "Minoan" is the name of a style of material culture. It is often dangerous, and often wrong, to equate that with a particular ethnic group, language, or political entity. Certainly by the historical period Crete had a very diverse ethnic composition. Having said that, it is very possible that "Minoan" does equate to a single political entity controlling the island from Knossos (there's some archaeological evidence suggesting that; but it's not crazy to disagree with that conclusion and see Minoan Crete as a group of autonomous palace cultures).
* As a bit of background, the so-called "Old Palaces" of Crete were destroyed in the mid-18th century BCE, and it is often supposed that earthquakes were the cause. This destruction did not interrupt ongoing development, however, whatever the real cause.
* The palace (i.e. "Minoan") culture of Crete didn't come to an end until ca. 1450 BCE.
* There have been attempts to pin this on the eruption of Thera/Santorini, to be sure. Geological evidence of a powerful tsunami has been found at various points on the coast of Crete.
* However, these attempts are just a tiny bit flawed by the data we have relating to the date of the eruption. Dating by pottery evidence is extremely contested in terms of absolute dates, but relative dates are secure; the eruption belongs to the period known as Late Minoan 1A, yet we know there was a building boom in the Late Minoan 1B period. Even without absolute dates, that's fairly damning. Moreover, radiocarbon dating has pointed to an earlier date still, in the late 17th century. Even before that, some archaeologists had already been arguing for a 17th century date (Stuart Manning's 1999 book on the subject argued for 1628/1627, based partly on ice-cores taken from Greenland, evidence that has subsequently been challenged); one olive branch that was buried alive in the eruption has been radiocarbon dated to 1627-1600 (95% confidence). Even without consensus on the dates of pottery styles, there's a pretty good consensus putting it, if not before 1600 BCE, then certainly not much later. You can't blame events in the 1400s on an event with that kind of dating evidence.
* (Having said that, it is moderately safe to say that the Minoan settlements on Thera itself were wiped out by the eruption.)
Instead, evidence of destruction caused by human agency in the LM 1B period, followed by evidence of Mycenaean material and textual culture on Crete in the LM II and III periods, points to Mycenaean invasion as the occasion of the downfall of the Minoan palace culture. Attempts to drag Thera into it are unnecessary and unfounded.
"Atlantis" doesn't even enter into it. That's a "legend" that was invented for a specific occasion by a 4th century BCE philosopher, and which he set in the Mesolithic (in the 10th millennium BCE, to be specific). And in myths recorded after 800 BCE, it takes some believing to see historical events even in the Iron Age, let alone in the Mycenaean period, let alone in the Minoan period.
**Edits:** formatting error; added a bit more detail about Manning's book.
|
[
"Around 1600 BCE, a tsunami caused by the eruption of Thira devastated the Minoan civilization on Crete and related cultures in the Cyclades, as well as in areas on the Greek mainland facing the eruption, such as the Argolid.\n",
"The Thera eruption, dated to the seventeenth or sixteenth century BC, caused a large tsunami that some experts hypothesize devastated the Minoan civilization on the nearby island of Crete, further leading some to believe that this may have been the catastrophe that inspired the story. In the area of the Black Sea the following locations have been proposed: Bosporus and Ancomah (a legendary place near Trabzon).\n",
"Many archaeologists believe that the eruption triggered a crisis, making the Minoans vulnerable to conquest by the Mycenaeans. According to Sinclair Hood, the Minoans were most likely conquered by an invading force. Although the civilization's collapse was aided by the Thera eruption, its ultimate end came from conquest. Archaeological evidence suggests that the island was destroyed by fire, with the palace at Knossos receiving less damage than other sites on Crete. Since natural disasters are not selective, the uneven destruction was probably caused by invaders who would have seen the usefulness of preserving a palace like Knossos for their own use. Several authors have noted evidence that Minoan civilization had exceeded its environmental carrying capacity, with archaeological recovery at Knossos indicating deforestation in the region near the civilization's later stages.\n",
"The Minoan civilization on Crete was the dominant sea power of the eastern Mediterranean, with large cities and temples, but after 1400 BC only small villages existed. Archaeologists believe that some abrupt event changed society, but an invasion is unlikely because of the Minoan fleet. After the discovery of the Minoans at Knossos on the island by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900, theories linking the disappearance of the empire with the destruction of Atlantis were proposed by K. T. Frost in 1913 and E. S. Balch in 1917. This theory was revived by Spyridon Marinatos in 1950, Angelos Galanopoulos in 1960,\n",
"During the second millennium BC, the volcano on Santorini exploded with a VEI estimated at 7. Research suggests that the eruption generated a tsunami which inundated Crete, possibly triggering the downfall of the Minoan civilization.\n",
"Significant Minoan remains have been found above the Thera ash layer and tsunami level dating from the Late Minoan I era, and it is unclear whether the effects of the ash and tsunami were enough to trigger the downfall of the Minoan civilization. Some sites were abandoned or settlement systems significantly interrupted in the immediate aftermath of the eruption. As the Minoans were a sea power and depended on ships for their livelihood, the Thera eruption likely caused significant economic hardship to the Minoans. Whether the effects were enough to trigger the downfall of the civilization is intensely debated. The Mycenaean conquest of the Minoans occurred in the Late Minoan II period. The Mycenaeans were a military civilization. Using their functional navy and a well-equipped army, they were capable of an invasion. Mycenaean weaponry has been found in burials on Crete. This demonstrates Mycenaean military influence not many years after the eruption. Many archaeologists speculate that the eruption caused a crisis in Minoan civilization, making them vulnerable to conquest by the Mycenaeans.\n",
"Around 1450 BC, Minoan culture reached a turning point due to a natural catastrophe (possibly an earthquake). Although another eruption of the Thera volcano has been linked to this downfall, its dating and implications are disputed. Several important palaces, in locations such as Malia, Tylissos, Phaistos and Hagia Triada, and the living quarters of Knossos were destroyed. The palace in Knossos seems to have remained largely intact, resulting in its dynasty's ability to spread its influence over large parts of Crete until it was overrun by the Mycenaean Greeks.\n"
] |
why haven't we researched more into tunnelling through the earth as a means of travel?
|
It's simply far, far, far, far, far, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar simpler to travel across the surface.
Maintaining (for that matter, even creating) a tunnel through the earth is beyond our technological capabilities for the far forseeable future. Even if we could do it, it would be astronomically expensive, with the total benefit of shaving a few hours off however many vehicles we could fit through it.
Additionally, the center of the earth itself is a solid metal ball, with liquid metal around it, and above that viscous rock.
|
[
"A major tunnel project must start with a comprehensive investigation of ground conditions by collecting samples from boreholes and by other geophysical techniques. An informed choice can then be made of machinery and methods for excavation and ground support, which will reduce the risk of encountering unforeseen ground conditions. In planning the route, the horizontal and vertical alignments can be selected to make use of the best ground and water conditions. It is common practice to locate a tunnel deeper than otherwise would be required, in order to excavate through solid rock or other material that is easier to support during construction.\n",
"Underground tunnels move traffic away from street level, avoiding delays caused by traffic congestion and leaving more land available for buildings and other uses. In areas of high land prices and dense land use, tunnels may be the only economic route for mass transportation. Cut-and-cover tunnels are constructed by digging up city streets, which are then rebuilt over the tunnel; alternatively, tunnel-boring machines can be used to dig deep-bore tunnels that lie further down in bedrock.\n",
"Another usual type of tunneling method is called bored tunneling. Here, construction starts with a vertical shaft from which tunnels are horizontally dug, often with a tunneling shield, thus avoiding almost any disturbance to existing streets, buildings, and utilities. But problems with ground water are more likely, and tunneling through native bedrock may require blasting. (The first city to extensively use deep tunneling was London, where a thick sedimentary layer of clay largely avoids both problems.) The confined space in the tunnel also limits the machinery that can be used, but specialized tunnel-boring machines are now available to overcome this challenge.\n",
"The proposed tunnel faces a number of criticisms. One of the major hindrances is the location of both entrances in national parks, Fiordland National Park in the west and Mount Aspiring National Park in the east. While the proposed new road sections would be very short, they have already led to criticism from the environmental group Forest and Bird which noted that the Department of Conservations's general policy forbids the construction of new roads in National Parks. The disposal of up to 250,000 cubic metres of soil from the tunnel excavation is also considered problematic. Southland and Te Anau business interests are also concerned that the tunnel proposal will cause tourism to bypass Te Anau and overwhelm Glenorchy.\n",
"The mountainous terrain that the line passes through has necessitated heavy reliance on tunnels. The Iwate-Ichinohe Tunnel on the Morioka–Hachinohe stretch, completed in 2000, was briefly the world's longest land rail tunnel at , but in 2005 it was superseded by the Hakkōda Tunnel on the extension to Aomori, at . In 2007 the Lötschberg Base Tunnel (), and in 2010 the Gotthard Base Tunnel (, bored through and due in service by 2016) in Switzerland superseded both.\n",
"The proposed tunnel would be long, deep below the surface of the sea, and would carry a double-track railway. Arguments brought forward in favour of a tunnel include its starkly reduced environmental impact, its independence from weather conditions, as crosswinds can have considerable impact on trucks and trailers, especially on a north–south bridge. A bored tunnel was deemed too expensive.\n",
"A tunnel, as an alternative crossing, was advocated by the Council for the Protection of Rural England and others, on landscape and safety grounds. This was rejected primarily on environmental grounds, the site being within and by Special Protection Areas. \n"
] |
Why have the majority of governments adopted parliamentarian republicanism rather than presidential republicanism?
|
The premise of this question is rather flawed. In democratic Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, Westminster-style systems are the distinct minority. Far more common in the aggregate are three other systems: strong Presidents (i.e., not only executive Presidents in the US sense but possessed of significant legislative power exercisable by decree), US-style systems, and French-style hybrids, with an executive President who shares authority with a Prime Minister and Cabinet somewhat or entirely responsible to the majority of the lower house of the legislature.
Where Westminster-style systems prevail, it's for one of three reasons. Mostly commonly, because the state was a former British colony, felt comfortable with that system, and never had a post-democratization crisis which required (or permitted) a strong Presidency to take shape. Secondly, because the state wanted to become a constitutional monarchy (such as the Commonwealth states which retained the Queen, or Japan or Thailand) and the Westminster system is the obvious solution to the state having, by definition, a head of state who is both non-elected and required to be above partisan politics. Third, pretty much only in Eastern Europe, because a state had a legacy of mistrust of authoritarian leaders and wanted to emulate the Westminster style systems prevailing among their western European (new) peers.
|
[
"Politically, republicanism is officially supported by the Labor Party and the Greens, and is also supported by some Liberal Party members of the Australian parliament. Australian voters rejected a proposal to establish a republic with a parliamentary appointed head of state in a referendum held in 1999.\n",
"In American politics, the Republican Party is the largest political party with some socially conservative ideals incorporated into its platform. Social conservatives predominantly support the Republican Party, although there are also socially conservative Democrats who break ranks with the party platform. Despite this, there have been instances where the Republican Party's nominee has been considered too socially progressive by social conservatives. This has led to the support of third party candidates from parties such as the Constitution Party, whose philosophies more closely parallel that of social conservatism. While many social conservatives see third parties as a viable option in such a situation, some high-profile social conservatives see the excessive support of them as dangerous. This fear arises from the possibility of vote splitting. Social conservatives, like any other interest-group, usually must find a balance between pragmatic electability and ideological principles when supporting candidates.\n",
"Republican republicanism is thus a political philosophy tending to increase the scope of activities entrusted to the State, by setting up a planned economy with a powerful public sector and a gradual socialization of property; in the meanwhile private ownership has to be fraught with legal burdens for the common good. This doctrine borrows a number of ideas from the traditions of the British Fabian Society, French solidarism and German chair-socialism as well as the Spanish school of Krausist philosophers and lawyers who inspired the II Republic (1931–1939), whose Constitution he takes as a paradigm.\n",
"In Australia, the debate between republicans and monarchists is still active, and republicanism draws support from across the political spectrum. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was a leading proponent of an Australian republic prior to joining the centre-right Liberal Party, and led the pro-republic campaign during the failed 1999 Australian republic referendum. After becoming Prime Minister in 2015, he confirmed he still supports a republic, but stated that the issue should wait until after the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The centre-left Labor Party officially supports the abolition of the monarchy and another referendum on the issue.\n",
"Republicanism is a representative form of government organization. It is a political ideology centered on citizenship in a state organized as a republic. Historically, it ranges from the rule of a representative minority or oligarchy to popular sovereignty. It has had different definitions and interpretations which vary significantly based on historical context and methodological approach.\n",
"Republicanism was based on Ancient Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and English models and ideas. It formed the basis for the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), and the Bill of Rights, as well as the Gettysburg Address (1863).\n",
"A republican Constitution was approved in 1911, inaugurating a parliamentary regime with reduced presidential powers and two chambers of parliament. The constitution generally accorded full civil liberties, the religious liberties of Catholics being an exception.\n"
] |
Tell me about ANZAC soldiers roles in WWII
|
ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) is actually mostly a WWI term which didn't have a whole lot of application to WWII. However, it is commonly used as a moniker for all Australian and NZ land forces in WWII.
As part of the British Empire, Australians and New Zealanders were deployed alongside other Commonwealth forces, mostly in two theatres: they served in North Africa with the Eighth Army and then in Italy with the same unit. They served in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, the latter theatre mostly being in defensive dispositions.
Some major and famous battles involving large ANZ forces are:
(1) Tobruk: the Australian 9th Division was surrounded by the German Afrika Korps in the harbour town of Tobruk where it survived a seven month siege April 1941 - November 1941.
(2) Battle of Second El-Alamein: the above Australian unit and the New Zealand 2nd Division were closely involved in major parts of this battle, in which British General Montgomery broke through Rommel's (Stumme's) defences and reversed the Axis offensive momentum in North Africa.
Rommel was very complimentary to the New Zealand troops in North Africa, and the Australians too. They say that Rommel said that if he had to capture hell, he would use Australians to take it and New Zealanders to hold it. But I am not sure if he ever really did say that.
(3) Battle of Greece. Big disaster, but not their fault. It was a bad move.
(4) Australian troops were deployed to defend Singapore from the Japanese. These units did not perform very well. Many were captured with some dishonour (if you want to think about it that way). The Australian commander in this battle escaped Singapore while his troops marched into captivity and became quite an unpopular person for this.
(5) Australian troops protected the city of Port Moresby in New Guinea, which was the closest port facility to Australia that Japan could reasonably occupy. When US carrier units forced the Japanese away from an amphibious landing, they went overland, through dense jungle, along the Kokoda Track. Australians repulsed them in very difficult fighting.
A lot of people seem to be prone to saying that Australia/New Zealand troops were the "shock units" of the British Empire (they also say this about Highland troops, Gurkhas, Canadians, et cetera). There's not a lot of evidence to support this. If you look at the Australian Army in WWII you find units of varying calibre. Some were excellent, some were not. The British deployed the Australians and New Zealanders were they were needed and they went to those places and fought the Germans, Italians, or Japanese there.
However, as Japan got closer to Australia, significant Australian units were withdrawn to protect Australia, a military decision the British were not too happy with but that they couldn't politically resist. Australia raised large military forces, but many were simply used for the defence of Australia against a potential Japanese invasion.
|
[
"Anzacs (named for members of the all volunteer ANZAC army formations) is a 1985 Australian five-part television miniseries set in World War I. The series follows the lives of a group of young Australian men who enlist in the 8th Battalion (Australia) of the First Australian Imperial Force in 1914, fighting first at Gallipoli in 1915, and then on the Western Front for the remainder of the war.\n",
"Sons of the Anzacs is a 1945 Australian documentary about the exploits of Australian soldiers during World War II. It covered nine campaigns up until the fall of Lae. It was later re-made and updated, in 1968, to cover the entire war.\n",
"The Anzac spirit or Anzac legend is a concept which suggests that Australian and New Zealand soldiers possess shared characteristics, specifically the qualities those soldiers allegedly exemplified on the battlefields of World War I. These perceived qualities include endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, larrikinism, and mateship. According to this concept, the soldiers are perceived to have been innocent and fit, stoical and laconic, irreverent in the face of authority, naturally egalitarian and disdainful of British class differences.\n",
"ANZAC Girls is an Australian television drama series that first screened on ABC1 on 10 August 2014. The six-part series tells the rarely told true stories of the nurses serving with the Australian Army Nursing Service at Gallipoli and the Western Front during the First World War. The series is based on Peter Rees' book \"The Other ANZACs\" as well as diaries, letters, photographs and historical documents.\n",
"The term \"Anzac\" began as an acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in World War I, but it was soon accepted as a word in its own right. The Anzacs formed part of the expeditionary force organised by Britain and France to invade the Gallipoli Peninsula and clear the Dardanelles Straits for the British Navy. The Australian Anzacs represented the national effort from a young nation taking its part in the Great War and reports of the courage they displayed at Gallipoli became the most enduring legend of Australian military history (Government Architect's CMP, 2007).\n",
"The ANZAC acronym came from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, formed in Egypt prior to the Gallipoli Campaign during the First World War. The corps was the higher formation for all Australian and New Zealand soldiers. It then gave its name to ANZAC Cove, on the Gallipoli peninsula, and at first was only used to identify the men who took part in the Gallipoli landings, although it later came to mean \"any Australian or New Zealand soldier of the First World War.\" Both the 'ANZAC' and the 'Anzac' versions of the acronym have been protected by the Commonwealth Government of Australia.\n",
"Anzac Day is a day of remembrance in Queensland, Australia. It is a public holiday held on 25 April each year. The date is significant as the Australian and New Zealand troops (the ANZACs) first landed at Gallipoli in World War I on 25 April 1915.\n"
] |
is it more politically correct to say indian or native american? is one preferred by the race?
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Indians are from the Indian subcontinent. Native Americans were in the US before it was the US.
|
[
"Some Indian Americans who were unfamiliar with the ethnonymic conventions used in the United States, mistakenly indicated that they were \"American Indian\" as their race in the 1990 US Census, because they were unaware that this term is used in the United States to refer to Native Americans.\n",
"Compared with the primarily European American, African American, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American communities, American Indians, comprising 1.5% of the population, are the most underrepresented group. Tom Cole, a Chickasaw, is the only registered American Indian currently in the House. Tracking Native American members of Congress is complex, since many people of mixed blood are not registered as part of the American Indian population. Charles Curtis, who was three-quarters Native American and had ancestries from a variety of different tribes, was elected in 1892 as the first U.S. representative from this group. Curtis accomplished several other firsts during his political tenure. He became the first American Indian to serve in the US Senate (in office 1907-13 and 1915–29), to lead a major party (served as Republican Senate Majority Leader from 1925 to 1929), and to obtain the office of Vice President. \n",
"Native Americans are also commonly known as \"Indians\" or \"American Indians\". A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred \"American Indian\" to \"Native American\". Most American Indians are comfortable with \"Indian\", \"American Indian\", and \"Native American\", and the terms are often used interchangeably.\n",
"Compared with the European American, African American, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American communities, American Indians, who comprise 1.5% of the population, are the most underrepresented group. Tom Cole, a Chickasaw, and Markwayne Mullin, a Cherokee, are the only registered American Indians currently in Congress. Tracking Native American members of Congress is complex, since many people of mixed blood are not registered as part of the American Indian population. Charles Curtis, who was three-eighths Native American and had ancestry from a variety of different tribes, was elected in 1892 as the first U.S. representative from this group. Curtis accomplished several other firsts during his political tenure. He became the first American Indian to serve in the US Senate (in office 1907–13 and 1915–29), to lead a major party (served as Republican Senate Majority Leader from 1925 to 1929), and to obtain the office of Vice President.\n",
"The racial classification of Indian Americans has varied over the years and across institutions. Originally, neither the courts nor the census bureau classified Indian Americans as a race because there were only negligible numbers of Indian immigrants in the United States. For most of America's early history, the government only recognized two racial classifications, \"White\" or \"Colored\". Due to racist immigration laws of the time, those deemed \"Colored\" were often stripped of their American citizenship or denied the ability to become citizens. For these reasons, various South Asians in America took the government to court to try and be considered \"White\" instead of \"Colored\", using various rationales. It wasn't until 1980, amid pressures within the Indian community for recognition, that the census created an \"Asian Indian\" category. Around 360,000 people identified as such in 1980; in the last census, in 2010, this grew to 2.8 million. \n",
"In the past few years, opinion polls on the subject have not been much help in defining Native American opinion on the subject. In 2002, a Peter Harris Research Group poll of those who self-declared Native American ethnicity on a U.S. census showed that 81% of self-identified Native Americans support the use of Indian nicknames in high school and college sports, and 83% of Native Americans support the use of Indian mascots and symbols in professional sports. However, the methods and results of this poll have been disputed. A separate poll conducted by the Native-run newspaper \"Indian Country Today\" in 2001 reported that 81% of those polled \"indicated use of American Indian names, symbols and mascots are predominantly offensive and deeply disparaging to Native Americans.\"\n",
"The U.S. Census Bureau has over the years changed its own classification of Indians. In 1930 and 1940, Indian Americans were classified as \"Hindu\" by \"Race\", and in 1950 and 1960, they were categorized as \"Other Race\", and in 1970, they were deemed \"white\". Since 1980, Indians and other South Asians have been classified according to self-reporting, with many selecting \"Asian Indian\" to differentiate themselves from peoples of \"American Indian\" or Native American background.\n"
] |
Why is digital camouflage preferable to more traditional styles?
|
Some references [here](_URL_0_)
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[
"\"Active camouflage\" (or \"adaptive camouflage\") is a group of camouflage technologies which would allow an object (usually military in nature) to blend into its surroundings by use of panels or coatings capable of changing color or luminosity. Active camouflage can be seen as having the potential to become the perfection of the art of camouflaging things from visual detection.\n",
"Multi-scale camouflage is a type of military camouflage combining patterns at two or more scales, often (though not necessarily) with a digital camouflage pattern created with computer assistance. The function is to provide camouflage over a range of distances, or equivalently over a range of scales (scale-invariant camouflage), in the manner of fractals, so some approaches are called fractal camouflage. Not all multiscale patterns are composed of rectangular pixels, even if they were designed using a computer. Further, not all pixellated patterns work at different scales, so being pixellated or digital does not of itself guarantee improved performance.\n",
"Digital camouflage provides a disruptive effect through the use of pixellated patterns at a range of scales, meaning that the camouflage helps to defeat observation at a range of distances. Such patterns were first developed during the Second World War, when Johann Georg Otto Schick designed a number of patterns for the Waffen-SS, combining micro- and macro-patterns in one scheme. The German Army developed the idea further in the 1970s into Flecktarn, which combines smaller shapes with dithering; this softens the edges of the large scale pattern, making the underlying objects harder to discern. Pixellated shapes pre-date computer aided design by many years, already being used in Soviet Union experiments with camouflage patterns, such as \"TTsMKK\" developed in 1944 or 1945.\n",
"Active camouflage or adaptive camouflage is camouflage that adapts, often rapidly, to the surroundings of an object such as an animal or military vehicle. In theory, active camouflage could provide perfect concealment from visual detection.\n",
"While camouflage tricks are in principle limitless, both cost and practical considerations limit the choice of methods and the time and effort devoted to camouflage. Paint and uniforms must also protect vehicles and soldiers from the elements. Units need to move, fire their weapons and perform other tasks to keep functional, some of which run counter to camouflage. Camouflage may be dropped altogether. Late in the Second World War, the USAAF abandoned camouflage paint for some aircraft to lure enemy fighters to attack, while in the Cold War, some aircraft similarly flew with polished metal skins, to reduce drag and weight, or to reduce vulnerability to radiation from nuclear weapons.\n",
"Non-military use of camouflage includes making cell telephone towers less obtrusive and helping hunters to approach wary game animals. Patterns derived from military camouflage are frequently used in fashion clothing, exploiting their strong designs and sometimes their symbolism. Camouflage themes recur in modern art, and both figuratively and literally in science fiction and works of literature.\n",
"No single camouflage pattern is effective in all terrains. The effectiveness of a pattern depends on contrast as well as colour tones. Strong contrasts which disrupt outlines are better suited for environments such as forests where the play of light and shade is prominent, while low contrasts are better suited to open terrain with little shading structure. Terrain-specific camouflage patterns, made to match the local terrain, may be more effective in that terrain than more general patterns. However, unlike an animal or a civilian hunter, military units may need to cross several terrain types like woodland, farmland and built up areas in a single day. While civilian hunting clothing may have almost photo-realistic depictions of tree bark or leaves (indeed, some such patterns are based on photographs), military camouflage is designed to work in a range of environments. With the cost of uniforms in particular being substantial, most armies operating globally have two separate full uniforms, one for woodland/jungle and one for desert and other dry terrain. An American attempt at a global camouflage pattern for all environments (the 2004 UCP) was however withdrawn after a few years of service. On the other end of the scale are terrain specific patterns like the \"Berlin camo\", applied to British vehicles operating in Berlin during the Cold War, where square fields of various gray shades was designed to hide vehicles against the mostly concrete architecture of post-war Berlin.\n"
] |
why, in some videos i've seen recently, is the snow not melting and just turning black when people try to melt it with lighters?
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because the flame isnt hot enough, so it's basically just spitting the gas residue onto the snow.
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[
"The orange snow was malodorous, oily to the touch, and reported to contain four times the normal level of iron. Though mostly orange, some of the snow was red or yellow. It affected an area with about 27,000 residents. It was originally speculated that it was caused by industrial pollution, a rocket launch or even a nuclear accident. It was later determined that the snow was non-toxic; however, people in the region were advised not to use the snow or allow animals to feed upon it. Colored snow is uncommon in Russia but not unheard of, as there have been many cases of black, blue, green and red snowfall.\n",
"Although ice by itself is clear, snow usually appears white in color due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the scattering of light by the small crystal facets of the snowflakes of which it is comprised.\n",
"Snow is a mixture of air and tiny ice crystals. When white sunlight enters snow, very little of the spectrum is absorbed; almost all of the light is reflected or scattered by the air and water molecules, so the snow appears to be the color of sunlight, white. Sometimes the light bounces around inside the ice crystals before being scattered, making the snow seem to sparkle.\n",
"BULLET::::- Fake furs are not able to keep snow from melting and re-freezing on the fiber filaments; this is very important, especially in hiking, mountain climbing, skiing and other outdoor activities which are done in extreme conditions.\n",
"\"White as Snow\" is a song by Irish rock band U2 and the ninth track on their 2009 album \"No Line on the Horizon\". It was written from the perspective of a dying soldier serving in Afghanistan, and lasts the length of time it takes him to die. The track is based on the hymn \"Veni, veni Emmanuel\", and is the only political song on the album.\n",
"Russia's environmental watchdog originally claimed that the colored snowfall was caused by industrial pollution, such as \"waste from metallurgical plants.\" It stated that the snow contained four times the normal quantities of acids, nitrates, and iron. However, it would be nearly impossible to pinpoint a culprit if pollution were the cause, as there are various industries nearby, such as the city of Omsk, which is a center of the oil industry in Russia.\n",
"This orange snow may have been caused by a heavy sandstorm in neighboring Kazakhstan. Tests on the snow revealed numerous sand and clay dust particles, which were blown into Russia in the upper stratosphere. The speculation that the coloration was caused by a rocket launch from Baikonur in Kazakhstan was later dismissed, as the last launch before the event took place on 18 January. \n"
] |
according to the cdc, the transmission rate for hiv and other stds are statistically low. why exactly is this?
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The human immune system is pretty good.
You don't get a cold every times somebody sneezes around you. You don't get e.coli every time somebody undercooks a burger.
...and you don't get HIV every time your dick touches somebody.
|
[
"Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health challenge in the United States. CDC estimates that there are approximately 19 million new STD infections yearly. The two most commonly reported infectious diseases with 1.5 million total cases (2009) are chlamydia and gonorrhea. Adolescent girls (15–19 years of age) and young women (20–24 years of age) are especially affected by these two diseases.\n",
"There are more than 600 million cases of STI's worldwide and more than 20 million new cases within the United States. Numbers of such high magnitude weigh a heavy burden on the local and global economy. A study conducted at Oxford University in 2015 concluded that despite giving participants early antiviral medications (ART), they still cost an estimated $256 billion over 2 decades. HIV testing done at modest rates could reduce HIV infections by 21%, HIV retention by 54% and HIV mortality rates by 64%, with a cost-effectiveness ration of $45,300 per Quality-adjusted life year. However, the study concluded that the United States has led to an excess in infections, treatment costs, and deaths, even when interventions do not improve over all survival rates.\n",
"levels of infectivity. Gonorrhea is estimated to have a 47% chance of transmission in a single encounter, while HIV is estimated at having a very low infectivity of about 1%. This implies that it is considerably more difficult to spark an epidemic of HIV than it is for other STDs, and that it requires extraordinary circumstances to do so.\n",
"The estimated adult HIV prevalence was 0.32% in 2008 and 0.31% in 2009. The states with high HIV prevalence rates include Manipur (1.40%), Andhra Pradesh (0.90%), Mizoram (0.81%), Nagaland (0.78%), Karnataka (0.63%) and Maharashtra (0.55%).\n",
"US CDC has changed reporting standards for AIDS related deaths (again in 2014); HIV case reporting is not uniform among states that also implement their own surveillance. Globally, some 35.3 million are living with HIV/AIDS, World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 36 million people have died since the first cases were reported in 1981 and 1.6 million people died of HIV/AIDS in 2012. Using WHO statistics, in 2012 the number of people living with HIV was growing at a faster rate (1.98%) than worldwide human population growth (1.1% annual), and the cumulative number of people with HIV is growing at roughly three times faster (3.22%). The costs of treatment is significantly increasing burden on healthcare systems when budgets remain stagnant, causing cutoffs in funding to healthcare providers.\n",
"According to a CDC study, HIV prevalence in the MSM population of the U.S. varies widely by ethnicity. \"As many as 46% of black MSM have HIV\" while \"the HIV rate is estimated at 21% for white MSM and 17% for Hispanic MSM.\" In the United States from 2001–2005, the highest transmission risk behaviors were sex between men (40–49% of new cases) and high risk heterosexual sex (32–35% of new cases). HIV infection is increasing at a rate of 12% annually among 13–24-year-old American men who have sex with men. Experts attribute this to \"AIDS fatigue\" among younger people who have no memory of the worst phase of the epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as \"condom fatigue\" among those who have grown tired of and disillusioned with the unrelenting safer sex message. The increase may also be because of new treatments. In developing countries, HIV infection rates have been characterized as skyrocketing among MSM. Studies have found that less than 5% of MSM in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have access to HIV-related health care.\n",
"Expert estimates the actual number of HIV patients may be between 3 and 5 million. Adult prevalence is much higher in cities (13–20%) than in rural areas (5%). Heterosexual transmission is the primary mode of spread, and people with multiple partners—especially those with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and prostitutes—have significantly higher infection rates.\n"
] |
why are buildings in australia and america not built with sturdier materials, to deal with the regular natural disasters?
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So, *nothing* holds up against tornadoes. You can build a tornado-resistant house, but it's extraordinarily expensive and frankly not worth it. You essentially need to build a missile-proof bunker. Bricks will not stand a chance against one.
|
[
"The hard grey stone is one of the most durable materials available and helps to explain why the city's buildings look brand-new when they have been newly cleaned and the cement has been pointed. Unlike other Scottish cities where less durable stone, such as sandstone, has been used, the buildings do not weather, and need very little maintenance.\n",
"Until the 20th century, masonry buildings in Europe and North America were generally constructed from highly permeable materials such as stone and lime-based mortars and renders covered with soft water-based paints which all allowed any damp to diffuse into the air without damage. The later application of impermeable materials which prevent the natural dispersion of damp, such as tile, linoleum, cement and gypsum-based materials and synthetic paints is thought by some to be the most significant cause of damp problems in older buildings.\n",
"Materials used will become heavier, more solid and more durable. They may also become more complicated and more expensive, as the capital and labour required to construct them is a one-time cost. Permanent dwellings often offer a greater degree of protection and shelter from the elements. In some cases however, where dwellings are subjected to severe weather conditions such as frequent flooding or high winds, buildings may be deliberately \"designed\" to fail and be replaced, rather than requiring the uneconomical or even impossible structures needed to withstand them. The collapse of a relatively flimsy, lightweight structure is also less likely to cause serious injury than a heavy structure.\n",
"Rebuilding after natural disasters and in low-income regions around the world has included earthbag. Although heavy earthen walls are usually dangerous in quakes, Nepal's spring 2015 earthquakes left earthbag buildings in good condition near destroyed buildings. \n",
"Post-World War II the industry had to face the decline of buildings built during the heyday of the material, 1910–1940. Structural problems resulting from incomplete waterproofing, improper installation, poor maintenance, and interior corroding mild steel made the material unpopular in newer constructions.\n",
"In North America, most structures are demolished because of external forces such as zoning changes and rising land values. Additionally, buildings that cannot be modified to serve the functional needs of the occupants are subject to demolition. Very few buildings on the continent are demolished due to structural degradation.\n",
"In history there are trends in building materials from being natural to becoming more man-made and composite; biodegradable to imperishable; indigenous (local) to being transported globally; repairable to disposable; chosen for increased levels of fire-safety, and improved seismic resistance.. These trends tend to increase the \"initial\" and \"long term\" economic, ecological, energy, and social costs of building materials.\n"
] |
Is there an animal who can control their digestive systems?
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Many animals including birds and insects have the ability to purge their stomach contents on command. Bird feedings and flies vomiting stomach acid is an example of this phenomena. Once it goes past the stomach there is usually in mammals at least a one way valve that prevents food from going in the opposite direction.
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[
"The arthropod digestive system is divisible into three areas: the fore gut, mid gut, and hind gut. All free-living species exhibit a distinct and separate mouth and anus, and in all species, food must be moved through the digestive tract by muscular activity rather than cilia activity since the lumen of the fore gut and hind gut is lined with cuticle. Digestion is generally extracellular. Nutrients are distributed to the tissues through the hemal system.\n",
"Some animal phyla, including vertebrates, have a complete digestive system, with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other. Which end forms first in ontogeny is a criterion used to classify animals into protostomes and deuterostomes.\n",
"Digestive systems take many forms. There is a fundamental distinction between internal and external digestion. External digestion developed earlier in evolutionary history, and most fungi still rely on it. In this process, enzymes are secreted into the environment surrounding the organism, where they break down an organic material, and some of the products diffuse back to the organism. Animals have a tube (gastrointestinal tract) in which internal digestion occurs, which is more efficient because more of the broken down products can be captured, and the internal chemical environment can be more efficiently controlled.\n",
"A monogastric organism has a simple single-chambered stomach, compared with a ruminant organism, like a cow, goat, or sheep, which has a four-chambered complex stomach. Examples of monogastric animals include omnivores such as humans, rats, dogs and pigs, carnivores such as cats, and herbivores such as horses and rabbits. Herbivores with monogastric digestion can digest cellulose in their diets by way of symbiotic gut bacteria. However, their ability to extract energy from cellulose digestion is less efficient than in ruminants. \n",
"Single-celled organisms as well as sponges digest their food intracellularly. Other multi-cellular organisms digest their food extracellularly, within a digestive cavity. In this case the digestive enzymes are released into a cavity that is continuous with the animal's external environment. In cnidarians and in flatworms such as planarians, the digestive cavity, called a gastrovascular cavity, has only one opening that serves as both mouth and anus. There is no specialization within this type of digestive system because every cell is exposed to all stages of food digestion.\n",
"In the first multicellular animals, there was probably no mouth or gut and food particles were engulfed by the cells on the exterior surface by a process known as endocytosis. The particles became enclosed in vacuoles into which enzymes were secreted and digestion took place intracellularly. The digestive products were absorbed into the cytoplasm and diffused into other cells. This form of digestion is used nowadays by simple organisms such as \"Amoeba\" and \"Paramecium\" and also by sponges which, despite their large size, have no mouth or gut and capture their food by endocytosis.\n",
"The planarian has very simple organ systems. The digestive system consists of a mouth, pharynx, and a gastrovascular cavity. The mouth is located in the center of the underside of the body. Digestive enzymes are secreted from the mouth to begin external digestion. The pharynx connects the mouth to the gastrovascular cavity. This structure branches throughout the body allowing nutrients from food to reach all extremities. Planaria eat living or dead small animals that they suck up with their muscular mouths. Food passes from the mouth through the pharynx into the intestines where it is digested by the cells lining the intestines. Then its nutrients diffuse to the rest of the planaria.\n"
] |
What makes James Dean an icon?
|
You might get a good answer on r/truefilm as well.
|
[
"Dean was named the first \"Producer in Residence\" at New York University, for the 2010–11 academic year. About.com ranked him number 27 on its list of the \"Top 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Producers,\" and \"The Source\" included him on its list of the \"20 greatest producers\" in the magazine's 20-year history. Fellow American rapper and producer Kanye West called Dean \"the best rap producer of all time.\" Aside from music, Dean has also added multiple entrepreneurial endeavors to his repertoire, including fashion design, art collecting, and board directing. He's been a member of trustees at the Brooklyn Museum since 2015, and a creative director for the companies Monster Cable and Reebok. Dean is married to American musician Alicia Keys, with whom he has two children. The two were featured in their first cover shoot in 2018 for \"Cultured Magazine\".\n",
"Dean was also lauded for his role as a cocaine-addicted, has-been movie star who is accidentally re-launched on the road to fame and fortune by a fan in \"Starstruck\". \"Variety\" noted that Dean \"nails his role with precision\". He was also lauded for his performance as a mysterious small-town psychologist in \"Mumford\" (1999). Dean's performance was considered \"plausible and generous,\" and he was favorably compared to a \"young Charles Grodin.\"\n",
"Dean went on to mix, produce, and master widely throughout American hip hop. He has become known for his work with Kanye West. After initially contributing to the mixing of West's albums \"The College Dropout\" and \"Late Registration\", Dean contributed as producer on West's \"Graduation\", \"My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy\", \"Yeezus\", \"The Life of Pablo\", and \"Ye\" albums. He also co-produced with West on his collaboration album with Jay-Z, \"Watch the Throne\". Dean was an additional producer on \"Mercy\" and \"Higher\" on GOOD Music's 2012 compilation album \"Cruel Summer\". Dean has made particularly heavy contributions on West's last albums, and is credited on most tracks.\n",
"\"James Dean\" was first written as for an album originally intended to have a theme on anti-heroes. According to Glenn Frey, he together with Don Henley, Jackson Browne, and J. D. Souther were jamming together after attending a Tim Hardin show at the Troubadour in 1972, and they came up the idea about doing an album about anti-heroes. From this came the songs \"Doolin-Dalton\" and \"James Dean\". The album however evolved into a wild-west themed album \"Desperado\" which was released in 1973, and \"James Dean\" was shelved. When recording began for \"On the Border\", the song was immediately pulled off the shelf and completed. The song was written mostly by Jackson Browne according to Henley.\n",
"Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. The \"Gay Times\" Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, \"No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.\" Bast, Dean's first biographer, once said he and Dean \"experimented\" sexually, but without explaining, and in a later book describes the difficult circumstances of their involvement.\n",
"Dean is a member of the show's River Boys group, who were introduced in 2011 with the arrival of the Braxton brothers. Dean was branded \"the new bad boy of Summer Bay\" by Jonathon Moran of \"The Daily Telegraph\". O'Connor told a reporter from \"New Idea\" that playing a \"bad boy on Home And Away is something a lot of actors want to do.\" He added that it allowed him to have fun with the drama the character creates. While O'Connor described him as \"cheeky\" and said that he loves AFL. The actor added that he likes that his character has tattoos, as he has always wanted one. O'Connor felt honoured to play a River Boy because he believed their backstory and role in \"Home and Away\" to be iconic. He told a 7plus reporter that \"the role of a River Boy is appealing to me because of the rebellious nature of the character. As a teenager I’d always wanted to test the boundaries and I feel as though I can do that within the role of Dean.\" \n",
"Dean's first appearance on a TV reality show was on UPN's \"America's Next Top Model\". In 2006, he joined model Frederique van der Wal on TLC's \"Cover Shot\", in which \"supermoms\" were transformed into \"supermodels\".\n"
] |
how do they measure the time a car needs to accelerate from 1 to 100 km/h? does this not heavily depend on the driver?
|
It actually does depend on the driver, and other factors. Manufacturers are known to cheat a little bit with this, but usually not so severely that it results in a grossly inaccurate time. The following factors are important:
1) Condition of the pavement or strip (wet, smooth?)
2) Temperature, humidity, and ambient air pressure
3) Weight of the car
4) Sunny or cloudy (affects temperature of track and tires)
5) Intake temperature (engine revving can destroy performance)
6) Use of rollout in determining time
7) and... of course... they're going to be using a skilled driver, who will try different combinations of launch rpm and wheelspin
8) Fuel -- highest recommended octane for that vehicle
note: fuel is a real kicker, as the proper fuel provides cooling and maximum power availability for a well-designed engine. using a lower octane will cause the engine's computer to reduce engine output. using a higher octane will waste fuel and result in a lower efficiency and less acceleration
|
[
"In another study drivers were asked to indicate how much time they feel can be saved when increasing from either a low (30 mph) or high (60 mph) speed (Fuller et al., 2009). For example, participants were asked the following question: \"You are driving along an open road. How much time do you feel you would gain if you drove for 10 miles at 40 mph instead of 30 mph?\" (Fuller et al., 2009, p. 14). Another question had a higher starting speed (60 mph) and two other questions asked about losing time when decreasing speed (from either 30 or 60 mph).\n",
"The manufacturer claims a top speed of , depending on the gear ratio setup. The car has claimed acceleration times of 2.8 seconds for 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) and 9.4 seconds for 0-200 km/h (0-125 mph), though no independent tests have been conducted. There was a demonstration of the car by W Motors in 2013 in Dubai, in which they claim to have recorded the car's performance.\n",
"Tested performance figures by Road and Track magazine include a acceleration time of 4.9 seconds, a quarter mile time of 13.4 seconds, braking distance of 132 ft from 60 mph and 233 ft from 80 mph along with skidpad acceleration of 0.94 g. The car's tested top speed by the magazine amounted to .\n",
"Numbers from the March 1985 road test by \"Road & Track\" magazine are comparable. Their car ran from 0-60 mph in 7.9 seconds and reached the end of the quarter mile in 16.0 seconds. Lateral acceleration was measured at 0.767 Gs and the car ran through the R&T slalom at a speed of 59.7 mph. Their car's fuel economy was measured as .\n",
"To estimate the time, a driver can wait until the rear end of the vehicle in front passes any distinct and fixed point on the roadway—e.g. a road sign, mailbox, line/crack/patch in the road. After the car ahead passes a given fixed point, the front of one's car should pass the same point no less than two seconds later. If the elapsed time is less than this, one should increase the distance, then repeat the method again until the time is at least two seconds.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Time mean speed\" is measured at a reference point on the roadway over a period of time. In practice, it is measured by the use of loop detectors. Loop detectors, when spread over a reference area, can identify each vehicle and can track its speed. However, average speed measurements obtained from this method are not accurate because instantaneous speeds averaged over several vehicles do not account for the difference in travel time for the vehicles that are traveling at different speeds over the same distance.\n",
"The sheer bulk of the car is reflected in its performance figures. An example tested in 1938 by The English Autocar magazine returned a top speed of 140 km/h (87½ mph) and a 0 - 60 mph (0 – 96 km/h) time of 16.8 seconds. The overall fuel consumption quoted from that road test was .\n"
] |
How do we know the age of the universe, specifically with a margin of error of 59 million years?
|
There's a phenomena called the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB. If you point a radio telescope in any direction, you see radio waves from the CMB. Looking at radio waves from the CMB is kind of like looking at visible light from the sun. If you go far back enough in time, the universe was denser and hotter, so dense and so hot that hydrogen atoms filled all of space ~~and there was fusion happening everywhere~~. But as time went on, the universe became less dense and less hot, until ~~fusion stopped happening and~~ the light could travel freely through space. The light we see from the CMB is from the moment that light could freely travel.
Interestingly enough, both light from the CMB and light from the sun follow a blackbody spectrum. In fact, anything with a temperature emits blackbody radiation. If you measure the intensity of the light at different frequencies, you can fit the temperature. Right now the CMB is in radio, which is cold (about 2.73 kelvin), but if you go back in time the CMB light was much hotter. The reason it's colder now is because light is a transverse wave. As the universe expanded, the peaks and troughs of the light waves expanded with the expanded space. This phenomena is known as red-shifting.
Anyway, if you look in different directions, the original temperature of the CMB is almost exactly the same in every direction, to about one part in 100,000. But it's not exactly the same in every direction. If you look at different angles, the temperatures can be slightly different. If you look at temperature deviations as a function of different angles, you can calculate what's called a Power Spectrum. The Power Spectrum allows you to solve what are called the Boltzmann Equations. The Boltzmann Equations are thermodynamic equations which constrain many parameters of the universe, such as its age, the expansion rate, the density of normal matter, density of dark matter, etc. Solving the Boltzmann Equations constrains the age of the universe.
As a side note, the Boltzmann Equations are perhaps the most compelling argument for dark matter, since it's impossible to fit the Power Spectrum without a dark matter component (but this argument is so technical that many people are not familiar it).
edit: if anyone is interested in learning more, this is a good resource: _URL_0_. It's the 2015 Planck results, an experiment to map the CMB super precisely.
edit2: As others have mentioned, the period of fusion was between 10 seconds and 20 minutes after the big bang, and is known as big bang nucleosynthesis. The period when light could travel freely was much later, about 380,000 years after the big bang, and is known as the time of last scattering.
Also I should mention there are easier, more intuitive ways of calculating the age of the universe, such as measuring the Hubble Constant directly from redshifts and distances and calculating T = 1/H. However, the current best margin of error of 59 million years comes from precise measurements of the CMB Power Spectrum.
|
[
"The age of the universe based on the best fit to Planck 2015 data alone is billion years (the estimate of billion years uses Gaussian priors based on earlier estimates from other studies to determine the combined uncertainty). This number represents an accurate \"direct\" measurement of the age of the universe (other methods typically involve Hubble's law and the age of the oldest stars in globular clusters, etc.). It is possible to use different methods for determining the same parameter (in this case – the age of the universe) and arrive at different answers with no overlap in the \"errors\". To best avoid the problem, it is common to show two sets of uncertainties; one related to the actual measurement and the other related to the systematic errors of the model being used.\n",
"More recent measurements from WMAP and the Planck spacecraft lead to an estimate of the age of the universe of 13.80 billion years with only 0.3 percent uncertainty (based on the standard Lambda-CDM model), and modern age measurements for globular clusters and other objects are currently smaller than this value (within the measurement uncertainties). A substantial majority of cosmologists therefore believe the age problem is now resolved.\n",
"Since around 1997–2003, the problem is believed to be solved by most cosmologists: modern cosmological measurements lead to a precise estimate of the age of the universe (i.e. time since the Big Bang) of 13.8 billion years, and recent age estimates for the oldest objects are either younger than this, or consistent allowing for measurement uncertainties.\n",
"In 2015, the Planck Collaboration estimated the age of the universe to be billion years, slightly higher but within the uncertainties of the earlier number derived from the WMAP data. By combining the Planck data with external data, the best combined estimate of the age of the universe is old.\n",
"Calculating the age of the universe is accurate only if the assumptions built into the models being used to estimate it are also accurate. This is referred to as strong priors and essentially involves stripping the potential errors in other parts of the model to render the accuracy of actual observational data directly into the concluded result. Although this is not a valid procedure in all contexts (as noted in the accompanying caveat: \"based on the fact we have assumed the underlying model we used is correct\"), the age given is thus accurate to the specified error (since this error represents the error in the instrument used to gather the raw data input into the model).\n",
"BULLET::::- Cosmic age problem (1920s–1990s): The estimated age of the universe was around 3 to 8 billion years younger than estimates of the ages of the oldest stars in the Milky Way. Better estimates for the distances to the stars, and the recognition of the accelerating expansion of the universe, reconciled the age estimates.\n",
"Like carbon dating over longer timescales, the uranium clock measures the age of a star. It shows that this star is 12.5 billion years old. Because the star cannot be older than the universe itself, the universe must be older than this. This agrees with known cosmology, which gives an age of the universe of 13.8 billion years. The star (and the Milky Way) must have formed soon after the Big Bang.\n"
] |
Would an object falling to Earth fall faster if it is in the Earth's path as it revolves around the Sun?
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Well that depends on where the object originated. For example, if it was simply floating in the space that the Earth is moving into, then yes. It will fall like a normal object with an initial downward velocity equal to the speed of the Earth. If the object originated from Earth's frame of reference, it would not matter which side of the planet it launched from because in both cases it would have the same initial velocity. I hope that helps
|
[
"With the Earth move [...] all things that are on the Earth. If, therefore, from a point outside the Earth something were thrown upon the Earth, it would lose, because of the latter's motion, its straightness as would be seen on the ship [...] moving along a river, if someone on point C of the riverbank were to throw a stone along a straight line, and would see the stone miss its target by the amount of the velocity of the ship's motion. But if someone were placed high on the mast of that ship, move as it may however fast, he would not miss his target at all, so that the stone or some other heavy thing thrown downward would not come along a straight line from the point E which is at the top of the mast, or cage, to the point D which is at the bottom of the mast, or at some point in the bowels and body of the ship. Thus, if from the point D to the point E someone who is inside the ship would throw a stone straight up, it would return to the bottom along the same line however far the ship moved, provided it was not subject to any pitch and roll.\"\n",
"According to Newton's 3rd Law, the Earth itself experiences a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that which it exerts on a falling object. This means that the Earth also accelerates towards the object until they collide. Because the mass of the Earth is huge, however, the acceleration imparted to the Earth by this opposite force is negligible in comparison to the object's. If the object does not bounce after it has collided with the Earth, each of them then exerts a repulsive contact force on the other which effectively balances the attractive force of gravity and prevents further acceleration.\n",
"He also points out that attempting to prove that the Earth doesn't move by using vertical fall commits the logical fault of paralogism (assuming what is to be proved), because if the Earth is moving then it is only in appearance that it is falling vertically; in fact it is falling at a slant, as happens with a cannonball rising through the cannon (illustrated).\n",
"At different points on Earth, objects fall with an acceleration between and depending on altitude and latitude, with a conventional standard value of exactly 9.80665 m/s (approximately 32.17405 ft/s). This does not take into account other effects, such as buoyancy or drag.\n",
"The fact that heavy bodies have always a tendency to fall to the Earth, no matter at what height they are placed above the Earth's surface, seems to have led Newton to conjecture that it was possible that the same tendency to fall to the Earth was the cause by which the Moon was retained in its orbit round the Earth.\n",
"In fact, a ball falling from such a height wouldn't fall behind but ahead of the vertical because the rotational motion would be in ever-decreasing circles. What makes the Earth move is similar to whatever moves Mars or Jupiter and is the same as that which pulls the stone to Earth. Calling it gravity doesn't explain what it is.\n",
"The reason why the object does not fall down when subjected to only downward forces is a simple one. Think about what keeps an object up after it is thrown. Once an object is thrown into the air, there is only the downward force of earth's gravity that acts on the object. That does not mean that once an object is thrown in the air, it will fall instantly. What keeps that object up in the air is its velocity. The first of Newton's laws of motion states that an object's inertia keeps it in motion, and since the object in the air has a velocity, it will tend to keep moving in that direction.\n"
] |
How successful was Friedrich Engels as a businessman? And how were the living conditions of his employees?
|
Engels was not in charge of the business he was sent to Manchester to join - a cotton thread factory. It was majority-owned, and run, by his father's business partner, Peter Ermen.
Ermen suspected that the younger Engels had been sent to spy on him, so he refused to place him in positions where he had much responsibility or participated in strategic decision-making. Engels was largely restricted to mundane clerical duties in what he called "the bitch business", spending 20 years maintaining an extensive correspondence with suppliers and clients, while systematically raiding Ermen's petty cash box for some of the funds he passed on to help support his colleague Marx.
As for the living conditions of employees, it was horror at the appalling slum conditions that he found in Manchester that prompted Engels to write his first book, *The Condition of the Working Class in England* and which inspired much of his radicalism. It's well worth mentioning in this connection that, while Engels had the money to live comfortably, and from a social point of view was expected to do so, he actually preferred to spend most of his time living in cheap lodgings under an assumed name with his mistress, an Irish worker named Mary Burns.
I have written in much more detail about Engels's time in Manchester, conditions in the city, and his relationship with Mary Burns, [here](_URL_0_). It's a fascinating story.
|
[
"Having accumulated considerable wealth, he financially supported several European botanists and donated large sums to various scientific institutions at home. He bequeathed his estate to the University of Uppsala.\n",
"Via the \"Arnold Georg AG\" and the \"AG für Steinindustrie\" (both headquartered in Neuwied, Germany) Friedrich Wilhelm invested successfully part of his inherited wealth in a diverse range of industries. Furthermore, he owned 5,500 hectares (13,590 acres) of forest and 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of farmland near his hometown of Neuwied, Germany. In addition he bought 25,000 hectares (61,775 acres) of forest in British Columbia, Canada. In 1974 he established the \"Beaumont Timber Company\" (Salmo (British Columbia)) to manage his Canadian forest interests. It is now one of the largest private timberland owners in British Columbia.\n",
"Eventually Johan Lohe started his own business with great success. He was one of the richest people in Sweden, and managed a trading company, a shipping business, a sugar refinery and ironworks. However, he became most known for his banking business as a moneylender, by which he acquired an enormous fortune and counted the king of Sweden among his clients; he was ennobled in 1703. \n",
"Friedrich Engels ( ; ; sometimes anglicised Frederick Engels; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German philosopher, communist, social scientist, journalist and businessman. His father was an owner of large textile factories in Salford, England and in Barmen, Prussia (what is now in Wuppertal, Germany). \n",
"Due to the education of the younger members of the family becoming a financial worry, on 10 March 1843, Carl Wilhelm Siemens left for London. He was acting as an agent for his brother Werner, and he hoped to earn enough money by selling a patent in England to help support and educate his many brothers and sisters. He felt a keen desire to see England and the journey cost him £1. William had already shown himself to be an enthusiastic businessman, having financed his trip by selling an invention of his brother's, an improvement to the gold and silver plating process, to George Richards Elkington. He was well aware, as he wrote to Werner, that his visit might achieve nothing, but if all went well he intended to remain. This indeed proved to be the case.\n",
"Wilhelm Ralph Merton (14 May 1848 in Frankfurt–15 December 1916 in Berlin) was a prominent and influential German-born entrepreneur, social democrat and philanthropist. Among his most notable accomplishments, he was a founder of the University of Frankfurt and Metallgesellschaft AG, which became the largest non-ferrous mining company in the world and the second largest company in Germany.\n",
"Friedrich (Frederick) Weyerhäuser (November 21, 1834 in Nieder-Saulheim, Rhenish Hesse – April 4, 1914 in Pasadena, California), also spelled Weyerhaeuser, was a German-American timber mogul and founder of the Weyerhaeuser Company, which owns saw mills, paper factories, and other business enterprises, and large areas of forested land. He is the eighth-richest American of all time, with a net worth of $85 billion in 2016 dollars. He was known as the \"timber-king of the Northwest.\"\n"
] |
Was there ever an official reason as to why the Confederate Army chose not to invade Washington DC in the beginning days of the Civil War when the city was completely unprotected?
|
Your question presupposes a couple of things that aren't necessarily true. First, the Confederates weren't in any better position to just storm "Washington City" (as it was known then) than the Union was to march straight into Richmond. The early months of the war saw both sides consolidating and, even more importantly, drilling the civilian-soldiers pouring into the respective capitols. Moving an army en mass is an extremely complicated undertaking, and neither side (but especially the Confederates) had the infrastructure in place to get their armies and supply trains organized for a major offensive (let alone a siege). If nothing else, the timeline illustrates this clearly. The war started in April 1861, and the first major clash of the armies came at Manassas/Bull Run in late-July of that year. If it was as easy as just sprinting the 100 or so miles to take the other city, both sides would have tried to do so: but it just wasn't feasible. Either side trying such a thing so early in the war would have been playing with an all-in proposition with extremely green troops (and with no one left behind to guard the capitol just abandoned in case things didn't work out). So in the Spring of 1861, it was a risky proposition at best, and a reckless one at worst.
Second, Lincoln was keenly aware of the strategic and symbolic importance of holding Washington, and some of the first actions he took when assuming office was to reinforce and fortify the city. The accounts you mention of Lincoln saying "why won't they attack" sound vaguely familiar, but I don't immediately recall a source for that. Do you have one? To my mind, that conversation or recollection had to do with the period immediately after 1st Manassas/Bull Run, when the Union was on its heels a bit (though never in any real danger of losing Washington).
The truth of the matter is that both sides in the Spring of 1861 had extremely raw armies with little formal training outside of the officer corps. The armies had neither the infrastructure, numerical strength, or knowhow to pull off so audacious and difficult an operation as sacking the other side's capitol. Even in 1862, when McClellan had a well-trained, sizable army at his disposal, he was unable to take Richmond (a city with far fewer defenders and defenses than Washington). To think that the Confederates could have sacked Washington so early in the war just doesn't jive with the facts and what leaders then (and historians now) understood about the actual capabilities of the Confederate army, such as it was.
[Sources, Bruce Catton, 'Mr. Lincoln's Army'; James McPherson, 'Battle Cry of Freedom'; Doris Kearns Goodwin, 'Team of Rivals']
|
[
"In May, it was decided to move the Confederate capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, in part because the defense of Virginia's capital was deemed vital to the Confederacy's survival. On May 24, 1861, the U.S. Army moved into northern Virginia and captured Alexandria without a fight. Most of the battles in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War took place in Virginia because the Confederacy had to defend its national capital at Richmond, and public opinion in the North demanded that the Union move \"On to Richmond!\" The successes of Robert E. Lee in defending Richmond are a central theme of the military history of the war. The White House of the Confederacy, located a few blocks north of the State Capitol, became home to the family of Confederate leader, former Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis.\n",
"The Confederate's need for war materiel played a very significant role in its decision to move its capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond in May 1861, despite its dangerous northern location 100 miles south of the United States capital in Washington, DC. It was mainly for this industrial reason that the Confederates fought so hard to defend the city. The capital of the Confederacy could easily be moved again if necessary, but Richmond's industry and factories could not be moved.\n",
"In April 1861, shortly after the Civil War began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter by rebel forces, Walker predicted that Washington, D.C. and Boston would fall to the Confederacy before May 1 of that year. However, this never happened, and the last time that General Robert E. Lee's army ever invaded the North was his Pennsylvania Campaign, which ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, which the Union forces won. The Confederacy would never again attempt to invade the Union after that. \n",
"The capital's defenses, for the most part, deterred the Confederate Army from attacking. One notable exception was the Battle of Fort Stevens on July 11–12, 1864, in which Union soldiers repelled troops under the command of Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early. This battle was the first time since the War of 1812 that a U.S. president came under enemy fire during wartime when Lincoln visited the fort to observe the fighting.\n",
"Action during the American Civil War (1861–65) also skirted Kingsmill Plantation lands. In 1862, Union troops under Major General George B. McClellan engaged in a failed attempt to seize the Confederate capital of Richmond. Slowly and carefully, much to the frustration of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, McClellan assembled huge naval forces and a massive siege train of land-based troops, arms and supplies around a staging area based at the union stronghold of Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, where the harbor of Hampton Roads had been under federal control via siege for about a year already.\n",
"Much of the Army of Northern Virginia, local defense troops and a battalion of sailors as well as Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, were able to escape from Petersburg and Richmond just in advance of the Union troops entering those cities on April 3 because Confederate rear guard forces, especially at Forts Gregg and Whitworth, Fort Mahone and Sutherland's Station, fought desperate delaying actions on April 2 to give most of the Confederates a head start on Union Army pursuers.\n",
"Faced with an open rebellion that had turned hostile, Lincoln began organizing a military force to protect Washington. The Confederates desired to make Washington their capital and massed to take it. On April 10 forces began to trickle into the city. On April 19, the Baltimore riot threatened the arrival of further reinforcements. Led by Andrew Carnegie, a railroad was built circumventing Baltimore, allowing soldiers to arrive on April 25, thereby saving the capital.\n"
] |
What were the scale of the battles in both the world wars? I have a hard time imagining millions, plural, dying.
|
OK, here are the top ten deadliest battles of both wars. You have to remember that these "battles" were often more like "offensives" or "campaigns" - they could last up to several weeks or months (in WWI), and weren't settled in a day like most medieval battles. People died in their thousands or tens of thousands in a daily meat grinder.
**WWI**
1. The Hundred Days Offensive (1,855,369 casualties), 1918
2. The Spring Offensive (1,539,715), 1918
3. The Battle of the Somme (1,219,201), 1916 (The British lost 60,000 men in a single day, more than the Americans lost *in all of Vietnam*).
4. The Battle of Verdun (976,000), 1916
5. Battle of Passchendaele (848,614), 1917
6. Serbian Campaign (633,500+), 1914-1915
7. First Battle of the Marnes (483,000), 1914
8. Battle of Gallipoli (473,000), 1915
9. Battle of Arras (278,000), 1917
10. Battle of Tannenberg (182,000), 1914 (The only one on the Eastern front)
**WWII**
1. Battle of Stalingrad, 23 August 1942–2 February 1943: (1,250,000–1,798,619)
2. Battle of Berlin, 16 April–2 May 1945: (1,298,745)
3. Battle of Moscow, 2 October 1941–7 January 1942: (1,000,000)
4. Battle of Narva, 2 February–10 August 1944: (550,000)
5. Battle of France, 10 May–25 June 1940: (469,000)
6. Battle of Luzon, 9 January–15 August 1945: (332,330–345,330)
7. Second Battle of Kharkov, 12 May–28 May 1942: (300,000)
8. Battle of Kursk, 5 July–23 August 1943: (257,125–388,000)
9. Battle of the Bulge, 16 December 1944–25 January 1945: (186,369)
10. Battle of Monte Cassino, 17 January–18 May 1944: (185,000)
So, if you're wondering why we Europeans aren't all that gung-ho about wars and invading Irak and bombing Iran and having civilians running around with assault rifles, you can read the reason in the numbers above. Most of us our countries were invaded (or were attempted to) and people died like flies and lay rotting in the streets and in fields and in the forests. It's sickening and there *has* to be a better way.
|
[
"Three of the ten most costly wars, in terms of loss of life, have been waged in the last century. These are the two World Wars, followed by the Second Sino-Japanese War (which is sometimes considered part of World War II, or as overlapping). Most of the others involved China or neighboring peoples. The death toll of World War II, being over 60 million, surpasses all other war-death-tolls.\n",
"World War II is a prime example of paramount number of military operations with a long history of military conflict involving 30 countries, lasting from 1939 to 1945 and being the deadliest wars, killing over 70 million people across the globe. There are many factors that contributed to World War II which were the World War I, the Great Depression, militarism, nationalism, expansionism and fascism. During the years of violence, significant amounts of physical capital were destroyed through the years of bombing and ground battles, hunger was common within Western Europe, families were separated from each other, children lost their fathers as they were sent to the army to fight the war, horrendous acts of violations were committed and because of that, political and economic systems were permanently modified. Militarisation activities in World War II changed the long term economic growth of many countries, affecting capital stock through the bombing of the environment, productive capacity which resulted in the reallocation of food and other production into military resources. The development and production of new weaponry during the war had many environmental consequences, as aircraft were used to drop highly advanced bombs such as the Fat man, which was dropped onto Hiroshima, killing 70000 people, buildings,trees, paths and contaminating the air, water, soil and food sources causing Japan to immediately surrender and ending World War II. The use of chemical weapons, aerial warfare and conflict had significant environmental impacts which caused to the depletion of global flora and fauna, as well as a reduction in species diversity, these effects of chemical weapons eventually became more deadly as more were developed and deposited in the oceans which run the risk of the corroding and leaching of harmful chemical properties they contain. In ground battles many forests were destroyed from fighting during the war as trees were cut down and blown up to clear the path for combative and strategic purposes, thus exploiting many trees. The length and the magnitude of the war had adverse effects on the environment across the globe with the mass of destructive weapons eroding the lands, buildings, pollution of the air and waters of chemical and nuclear weapons, forest, wildlife and animal habitats were ruined and alterations into atmospheric disturbances caused by the weapons of mass destruction led to climate change and weather changes. Although the war was the most horrific historical event, it played an end in the Great Depression. The unemployment rate fell from 1.9% by 1945 towards 20% of the population employed into the workforce, levels of GDP and consumption significantly increased over time due to government spending, the substantial amounts of military operations and debt financed resulted in gross debt reaching 120% of GDP and the end to excess capacity.\n",
"In \"Statistics of Deadly Quarrels\" Richardson presented data on virtually every war from 1815 to 1945. As a result, he hypothesized a base 10 logarithmic scale for conflicts. In other words, there are many more small fights, in which only a few people die, than large ones that kill many. While no conflict's size can be predicted beforehand—indeed, it is impossible to give an upper limit to the series—overall they do form a Poisson distribution. On a smaller scale he showed the same pattern for gang murders in Chicago and Shanghai. Others have noted that similar statistical patterns occur frequently, whether planned (lotteries, with many more small payoffs than large wins), or by natural organisation (there are more small towns with grocery stores than big cities with superstores).\n",
"BULLET::::- Major conflict occurs across the world such as the Chaco War, the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the Spanish Civil War, the Chinese Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939.\n",
"Of the battles, the largest, best-known, and most costly in human suffering was the Third Battle of Ypres (31 July to 6 November 1917, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele), in which the British, Canadian, ANZAC, and French forces recaptured the Passchendaele Ridge east of the city at a terrible cost of lives. After months of fighting, this battle resulted in nearly half a million casualties to all sides, and only a few miles of ground won by Allied forces. During the course of the war the town was all but obliterated by the artillery fire.\n",
"The majority of battles in the scenarios are based on genuine historical events, such as the American Civil War, Alexander the Great's conquests, the Crusades and World War I. However, there are also a few fantasy scenarios including the stopping of an alien invasion, and surviving after a nuclear apocalypse.\n",
"World War III is referenced in the 1996 film \"\". William T. Riker states that 600 million people were killed, most major cities were destroyed, and very few world governments were left after a 3rd world war occurring sometime around 2053. At almost the same time, Kim Stanley Robinson featured a character dissecting World War III 40 years after the fact in Green Mars. Robinson's war featured transnational corporations taking over national governments and using them to attack each other in the year 2061, with only 100 million people being killed by the war.\n"
] |
why do people keep saying 'splenda is poison'
|
One thing people don't understand is that a molecule isn't necessarily toxic just because a toxic molecule was used to make it. For example, I'm currently trying to make an anti-tumor drug but a few of the reagents are carcinogenic.
|
[
"Poison is the story of a rebellious human teenager living in the swamp town of Gull with her father, stepmother, and her baby sister Azalea. She struggles against the oppression in her life, particularly with her strained relationship with her Stepmother, Snapdragon. Her only friend in Gull is the old traveler, Fleet, who tells her tales of the old wars and phaeries and maintains that Poison has some of the “Old Blood” in her. On Soulswatch Eve, Poison’s baby sister is taken and replaced with a Changeling. After consulting with Fleet, Poison sets out from Gull to rescue her sister from the Phaerie Lord. She pays the Wraith-Catcher Bram to take her to Shieldtown to seek out the creature Lamprey, whom Fleet has referred her to. Once in Shieldtown Poison encounters a young woman heading back to Gull, and asks her to relay a message to her parents. After proving herself to Lamprey, Poison is sent to the home of the Bone Witch.\n",
"A euphemistic word for goofering is \"poisoning,\" which in this context does not refer to a physical poison but to a physical agent that, through magical means, brings about an \"unnatural illness\" or the death of the victim. Even more euphemistic is the special use of the verb \"hurt,\" which is often defined as \"to poison,\" with the tacit understanding that \"to poison\" really means \"to goofer.\" The more general verbs \"fix\" (meaning to prepare a spell) and \"trick\" (meaning to cast a spell) are also applied to goofering.\n",
"Though wentals are not hostile in nature, some aspects of their essence (under certain circumstances) can become 'tainted' due to strong selfish desires of their hosts. When trying to save Cesca from her excessive wounds, the wentals informed Jess of how tainted wentals had been formed in the past and caused great destruction. Fortunately, tainted wentals cannot propagate, but are eternally enraged by everything around them. They seek to replace order with chaos (what they feel is the 'Natural order') and thus attack all those around them. Tainted wentals can either be destroyed by killing the host body, or extracting the tainted essence and purifying it (a process which also kills the host). Karla Tamblyn became a Tainted Wental after Jess recovered her frozen body from within the ice of Plumas where she had died many years before. She was reanimated by tainted wental energy and almost completely destroyed the Clan Tamblyn homestead and water mines before Jess and the newly imbued Cesca returned and saved them.\n",
"\"'Poison's about having something to complain about and in my world that thing I'm complaining about is love and being 24. You forget what real life is sometimes and it's not about pretending to have an upper hand on someone, it's about knowing the truth and keeping it moving.\"\n",
"Tabun or GA is an extremely toxic chemical substance. It is a clear, colorless, and tasteless liquid with a faint fruity odor. It is classified as a nerve agent because it fatally interferes with normal functioning of the mammalian nervous system. Its production is strictly controlled and stockpiling outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. Tabun is the first of the \"G-series\" nerve agents along with GB (sarin), GD (soman) and GF (cyclosarin).\n",
"Poison is also a significant theme in the film. In the world of martial arts, poison is considered the act of one who is too cowardly and dishonorable to fight; and indeed, the only character who explicitly fits these characteristics is Jade Fox. The poison is a weapon of her bitterness, and quest for vengeance: she poisons the master of Wudang, attempts to poison Jen, and succeeds in killing Mu Bai using a poisoned needle.\n",
"All living things produce substances to protect them from getting eaten, so the term \"poison\" is usually only used for substances which are poisonous to humans, while substances that mainly are poisonous to a common pathogen to the organism and humans are considered antibiotics. Bacteria are for example a common adversary for Penicillium chrysogenum mold and humans, and since the mold's poison only targets bacteria humans may use it for getting rid of bacteria in their bodies. Human antimicrobial peptides which are toxic to viruses, fungi, bacteria and cancerous cells are considered a part of the immune system.\n"
] |
why don’t car manufacturers design cars that cannot be started without seatbelt being fastened
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Emergencies. What if there is some sort of accident while you’re driving and you can’t pull over? What if you want to pull over and sleep with the heat on? What if you need to jump start your car alone, hopping in and out.
Also it’s too easy to trick the car. It also creates another system that could go wrong and cause the car not to start. That’s no good.
What if the kids in the back seat undo their belts while you’re sailing along.
It’s just a terrible idea. Now... breathalyzers connected to the ignition are a good idea!! Hahah
|
[
"In the United States, the Legacy was introduced with automatic seat belts due to United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulations stating that all cars produced from April 1, 1989 were to be equipped with a passive front passenger restraint system that would protect front occupants from frontal impact without occupant participation. This regulation was enacted to force manufacturers to install air bags in their vehicles. In 1991, Subaru added a driver side airbag only (as an option) for 1992 models which didn't satisfy the U.S. regulation. The 1993 and 1994 models all had a driver side airbag standard. If a vehicle had dual air bags, the passive seat belt systems could be removed, which Subaru did in 1995, with the Second Generation. The monocoque body integrated a steel safety cage that surrounded the passenger compartment, with collapsible engine and trunk sections for added passenger protection. Steel beams were added inside the front and rear door to protect passengers from side collisions. To increase the rigidity of the front and rear bumpers, a styrofoam insert is added, which is used on vehicles sold only in North America.\n",
"The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard № 208 (FMVSS 208) was amended by the NHTSA to require a seat belt/starter interlock system to prevent passenger cars from being started with an unbelted front-seat occupant. This mandate applied to passenger cars built after August 1973, i.e., starting with the 1974 model year. The specifications required the system to permit the car to be started only if the belt of an occupied seat were fastened after the occupant sat down, so pre-buckling the belts would not defeat the system. \n",
"Seatbelts that automatically move into position around a vehicle occupant once the adjacent door is closed and/or the engine is started were developed as a countermeasure against low usage rates of manual seat belts, particularly in the United States.\n",
"The effects of seat belt laws are disputed by those who observe that their passage did not reduce road fatalities. There was also concern that instead of legislating for a general protection standard for vehicle occupants, laws that required a particular technical approach would rapidly become dated as motor manufacturers would tool up for a particular standard which could not easily be changed. For example, in 1969 there were competing designs for lap and three-point seat belts, rapidly tilting seats, and airbags being developed. But as countries started to mandate seat belt restraints the global auto industry invested in the tooling and standardized exclusively on seat belts, and ignored other restraint designs such as air bags for several decades\n",
"Retro-styled (color-coded with chromed buckles) 2-point and 3-point seat (safety) belts are manufactured according to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). However, most classic car bodies (manufactured before the late 1960s) did not include safety belts as standard equipment, and do not include readily available reinforced mounting points, on the vehicle body, therefore it can be problematic to install such equipment properly: specific studies and calculations should be performed before any attempts. Proper installation is critical, which means locating attachment points on the body/frame, assuring the strength by proper reinforcement, and following the seat belt installation instructions properly to reduce the risk of malfunction or failure. Some classic car owners are reluctant to retrofit seat belts for the loss of originality this modification implies. There have also been instances of cars losing points at shows for being retrofitted with seat belts.\n",
"Seat belt legislation requires the fitting of seat belts to motor vehicles and the wearing of seat belts by motor vehicle occupants to be mandatory. Laws requiring the fitting of seat belts to cars have in some cases been followed by laws mandating their use, with the effect that thousands of deaths on the road have been prevented. Different laws apply in different countries to the wearing of seat belts.\n",
"Canadian spec Legacy were not fitted with automatic seat belts due to objections from the Canadian Government and current United States owners have been known to convert the automatic seat belts to the Canadian version when the mechanism fails to retract. Replacing the failed automatic seat belt is currently cost-prohibitive due to current Subaru pricing for failed parts.\n"
] |
how does sound work on a microscale? eg if i've shrunk myself to insect size could i hear a spider chew its food if i stood next to it?
|
You can hear it without shrinking, you just need to get close with your ears. Maybe the spider has to sit in your ear chewing on its food.
It is not your size really that determines that, it is more that evolutionary your ear are not designed to hear something like that, since it was never important for your survival.
Edit: Typo
|
[
"Communication using surface-borne vibrational signals is more widespread among insects because of size constraints in producing air-borne sounds. Insects cannot effectively produce low-frequency sounds, and high-frequency sounds tend to disperse more in a dense environment (such as foliage), so insects living in such environments communicate primarily using substrate-borne vibrations. The mechanisms of production of vibrational signals are just as diverse as those for producing sound in insects.\n",
"Very low sounds are also produced in various species of Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Mantodea and Neuroptera. These low sounds are simply the sounds made by the insect's movement. Through microscopic stridulatory structures located on the insect's muscles and joints, the normal sounds of the insect moving are amplified and can be used to warn or communicate with other insects. Most sound-making insects also have tympanal organs that can perceive airborne sounds. Some species in Hemiptera, such as the corixids (water boatmen), are known to communicate via underwater sounds. Most insects are also able to sense vibrations transmitted through surfaces.\n",
"Insects were the earliest organisms to produce and sense sounds. Insects make sounds mostly by mechanical action of appendages. In grasshoppers and crickets, this is achieved by stridulation. Cicadas make the loudest sounds among the insects by producing and amplifying sounds with special modifications to their body to form tymbals and associated musculature. The African cicada \"Brevisana brevis\" has been measured at 106.7 decibels at a distance of . Some insects, such as the \"Helicoverpa zea\" moths, hawk moths and Hedylid butterflies, can hear ultrasound and take evasive action when they sense that they have been detected by bats. Some moths produce ultrasonic clicks that were once thought to have a role in jamming bat echolocation. The ultrasonic clicks were subsequently found to be produced mostly by unpalatable moths to warn bats, just as warning colorations are used against predators that hunt by sight. Some otherwise palatable moths have evolved to mimic these calls. More recently, the claim that some moths can jam bat sonar has been revisited. Ultrasonic recording and high-speed infrared videography of bat-moth interactions suggest the palatable tiger moth really does defend against attacking big brown bats using ultrasonic clicks that jam bat sonar.\n",
"\"Gryllotalpa vineae\" is believed to produce a louder sound than any other insect. The male stridulates by raising and lowering his wing cases repeatedly while scraping the rear edge of the left forewing, which forms a plectrum, against the lower edge of the right forewing, which has a ratchet-like series of teeth. The vibrations that these rapid movements make are produced at a frequency of 3500 per second, and the \"harp\" (part of the wing) vibrates at the same frequency and acts to amplify the sound. The male stridulates in his burrow, which is Y-shaped with two horn-shaped openings on the ground surface, and a smooth-walled bulb on the stem of the \"Y\". This is just larger than the mole cricket, and he faces into the bulb with his tail near the tunnel fork. The bulb acts as a resonator and augments the sound dramatically so that one metre from the entrances, the sound intensity is ninety decibels, and can be heard away.\n",
"Males of \"Heteropoda venatoria\", one of the huntsman spiders that seems to easily find its way around the world, have recently been found to deliberately make a substrate-borne sound when they detect a chemical (pheromone) left by a nearby female of their species. The males anchor themselves firmly to the surface onto which they have crawled and then use their legs to transmit vibrations from their bodies to the surface. Most of the sound emitted is produced by strong vibrations of the abdomen. The characteristic frequency of vibration and the pattern of bursts of sound identify them to females of their species, who will approach if they are interested in mating. This sound can often be heard as a rhythmic ticking, somewhat like a quartz clock, which fades in and out and can be heard by human ears in a relatively quiet environment. \n",
"When searching for prey they produce sounds at a low rate (10–20 clicks/second). During the search phase the sound emission is coupled to respiration, which is again coupled to the wingbeat. This coupling appears to dramatically conserve energy as there is little to no additional energetic cost of echolocation to flying bats. After detecting a potential prey item, microbats increase the rate of pulses, ending with the terminal buzz, at rates as high as 200 clicks/second. During approach to a detected target, the duration of the sounds is gradually decreased, as is the energy of the sound.\n",
"Using sound, vertebrates and many insects are capable of sensing their prey, identifying and locating their predators, warning other individuals, and locating potential mates and rivals by hearing the intentional or unintentional sounds they make. \n"
] |
coffee culture
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My good friend The Oatmeal can explain it all in [a handy infographic!](_URL_0_)
Lets break down your question. Size? I comes in small, medium, and large. Starbucks loves to use Italian names for their sizes because foreign branding works. Ingredients? Ground coffee, milk, sugar, cream and maybe in very select cases [Chicory Root](_URL_1_).
Your different types of drinks depend on how its brewed and what's added to it. You can brew coffee by drip, steam, press and cold brew to name a few but it all comes down to putting water through ground coffee beans. Whats added to it in the process also determines what it is. A Cappuccino is steamed coffee and milk put together. They have weird names because coffee was considered very foreign and a product of the elite so the foreign branding and elite-ish culture stuck around.
Edit: Straight black coffee is typically far too strong for most people to drink. For your first drink I recommend a Café au lait (say it "Cafe-o-lay), that's standard drip coffee with steamed milk added. It's easy to drink and one of my favorites.
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[
"Coffee culture is a phrase that describes a social atmosphere or associated social behaviors that depend heavily on coffee, particularly as a social lubricant. The term also refers to the cultural diffusion and adoption of coffee as a widely consumed stimulant. In the late 20th century, espresso became an increasingly dominant drink contributing to coffee culture, particularly in the Western world and other urbanized centers around the globe.\n",
"Coffee has played a large role in history and literature because of the effects of the industry on cultures where it is produced and consumed. Coffee is often regarded as one of the primary economic goods used in imperial control of trade. The colonized trade patterns in goods, such as slaves, coffee, and sugar, defined Brazilian trade for centuries. Coffee in culture or trade is a central theme and prominently referenced in poetry, fiction, and regional history.\n",
"Much of the popularization of coffee is due to its cultivation in the Arab world, beginning in what is now Yemen, by Sufi monks in the 15th century. Through thousands of Arabs pilgrimaging to Mecca, the enjoyment and harvesting of coffee, or the \"wine of Araby\" spread to other Arab countries (e.g. Egypt, Syria) and eventually to a majority of the world through the 16th century. Coffee, in addition to being essential in the home, became a major part of social life. Coffeehouses, qahwa قَهوة in Modern Standard Arabic, became \"Schools of the Wise\" as they developed into places of intellectual discussion, in addition to centers of relaxation and comradery.\n",
"Much of the popularization of coffee is due to its cultivation in the Arab world, beginning in what is now Yemen, by Sufi monks in the 15th century. Through thousands of Muslims pilgrimaging to Mecca, the enjoyment and harvesting of coffee, or the \"wine of Araby\" spread to other countries (e.g. Turkey, Egypt, Syria) and eventually to a majority of the world through the 16th century. Coffee, in addition to being essential in the home, became a major part of social life. Coffeehouses, qahwa قَهوة in Modern Standard Arabic, became \"Schools of the Wise\" as they developed into places of intellectual discussion, in addition to centers of relaxation and comradery.\n",
"In the United States, coffee culture is often used to describe the ubiquitous presence of espresso stands and coffee shops in the Seattle Metropolitan area, along with the spread of massive, international franchises such as Starbucks. Socializing in coffee culture settings offers access to free wireless internet for customers, many of whom do business or personal work in these locations. Coffee culture varies by country, state, and city. For example, the strength of existing café-style coffee culture in Australia explains Starbucks’s negative impact on the continent.\n",
"The heritage of coffee grown all around the world can be found in the forests of Ethiopia, where the theory of its origins also resides. According to local legend, a goat herder named Kaldi saw his goats eating coffee \"berries\". This caused them to gain extreme amounts of energy, preventing them from sleeping at night. He brought this information to local monks, who created a drink with the coffee beans. One monk who drank the concoction found that it allowed him to stay up all night and pray. As this information spread to other Ethiopian monks, it began to spread across the civilized world.\n",
"Coffee is grown and processed in the mountain areas near the coast, especially in the municipalities of Santa María Huatulco, Pluma Hidalgo, Candelaria Loxicha, San Miguel del Puerto, San Mateo Piñas, Santiago Xanica, and San Pedro Pochutla. This tradition dates from the 17th century when the coffee plant was introduced by English pirates, later developed in the 20th century by German immigrants.\n"
] |
How does the intestinal flora re-establish?
|
1) This would depend on the gut flora and how they respond to the treatment. A lot would die from the antibiotics, although some do survive. This can cause gastrointestinal distress because the antibiotics essentially change the biodiversity in the intestines. You end up having high abundance of some, low abundance of others, and this really messes with the intraspecies controls that they exert on one another that will promote high population growth of microbes that are normally kept low due to interactions with other microbes. So to answer, the biodiversity changes.
2) The flora can fix itself because you never really 100% kill everything in your gut. If you did, you would have more problems than runny poo because of malnutrition and what not. Also, a lot of food carries these microbes, and when ingested, will re-establish a normal community. If it is a serious concern, then probiotics and things can be taken.
|
[
"In humans, a gut flora similar to an adult's is formed within one to two years of birth. As the gut flora gets established, the lining of the intestines – the intestinal epithelium and the intestinal mucosal barrier that it secretes – develop as well, in a way that is tolerant to, and even supportive of, commensalistic microorganisms to a certain extent and also provides a barrier to pathogenic ones. Specifically, goblet cells that produce the mucosa proliferate, and the mucosa layer thickens, providing an outside mucosal layer in which \"friendly\" microorganisms can anchor and feed, and an inner layer that even these organisms cannot penetrate. Additionally, the development of gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT), which forms part of the intestinal epithelium and which detects and reacts to pathogens, appears and develops during the time that the gut flora develops and established. The GALT that develops is tolerant to gut flora species, but not to other microorganisms. GALT also normally becomes tolerant to food to which the infant is exposed, as well as digestive products of food, and gut flora's metabolites (molecules formed from metabolism) produced from food.\n",
"While the first part of the large intestine is responsible for the absorption of water and other substances from the chyme, the main function of the descending colon is to store waste until it can be removed from the body in solid form, when a person has a bowel movement.\n",
"Intestinal bacteria convert the conjugated bilirubin that is excreted by the bile duct into the intestine into urobilinogen and stercobilinogen. Part of the urobilinogen is reabsorbed in the intestine then circulated in the blood to the liver where it is excreted. A small part of this recirculated urobilinogen is filtered out by the kidneys and appears in urine (less than 1 mg/dl urine). The stercobilinogen can not be reabsorbed and remains in the intestine.\n",
"In the large intestine, the passage of the digesting food in the colon is a lot slower, taking from 12 to 50 hours until it is removed by defecation. The colon mainly serves as a site for the fermentation of digestible matter by the gut flora. The time taken varies considerably between individuals. The remaining semi-solid waste is termed feces and is removed by the coordinated contractions of the intestinal walls, termed peristalsis, which propels the excreta forward to reach the rectum and exit via defecation from the anus. The wall has an outer layer of longitudinal muscles, the taeniae coli, and an inner layer of circular muscles. The circular muscle keeps the material moving forward and also prevents any back flow of waste. Also of help in the action of peristalsis is the basal electrical rhythm that determines the frequency of contractions. The taeniae coli can be seen and are responsible for the bulges (haustra) present in the colon. Most parts of the GI tract are covered with serous membranes and have a mesentery. Other more muscular parts are lined with adventitia.\n",
"When the gut flora first started to be studied, it was thought to have three key roles: directly defending against pathogens, fortifying host defense by its role in developing and maintaining the intestinal epithelium and inducing antibody production there, and metabolizing otherwise indigestible compounds in food; subsequent work discovered its role in training the developing immune system, and yet further work focused on its role in the gut-brain axis.\n",
"Intestinal bacterial populations entrenched in the appendix may support quick re-establishment of the flora of the large intestine after an illness, poisoning, or after an antibiotic treatment depletes or otherwise causes harmful changes to the bacterial population of the colon.\n",
"The gut flora is the complex community of microorganisms that live in the digestive tracts of humans and other animals. The gut metagenome is the aggregate of all the genomes of gut microbiota. The gut is one niche that human microbiota inhabit.\n"
] |
why is christianity in decline in the western world?.
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Expanding religions have historically grown most in times of colonial power structures or population booms. As the people of the western hemisphere have lost new places to expand into and supplant existing cultures with their own, and don't have as many children as the rest of the world, there has ceased to be an avenue for growth. Islam and Hinduism lose plenty of adherents over time, but high birth rates means those religions are still expanding.
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[
"The decline of Christianity is an ongoing trend in Europe. Developed countries and denominations in the post-World War II era have shifted towards post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural and multifaith societies. Infant baptism has declined in many nations, with thousands of churches closing or merging due to lack of attendees. There is also evidence of decline in North America. Despite the decline, Christianity remains the dominant religion in the Western world, where 70% of the population is nominally Christian.\n",
"In the 20th century, Christianity declined in influence in many Western countries, mostly in the European Union where some member states have experienced falling church attendance and membership in recent years, and also elsewhere. Secularism (separating religion from politics and science) increased. However, while church attendance is in decline, in some western countries (i.e. Italy, Poland and Portugal) more than half the people state that religion is important, and most Westerners nominally identify themselves as Christians (e.g. 59% in the United Kingdom) and attend church on major occasions, such as Christmas and Easter. In the Americas, Christianity continues to play an important societal role, though in areas such as Canada, a low level of religiosity is common as a result of experiencing processes of secularization similar to European ones. The official religions of the United Kingdom and some Nordic countries are forms of Christianity, even though the majority of European countries have no official religion. Despite this, Christianity, in its different forms, remains the largest faith in most Western countries.\n",
"Reports are mixed on the extent and rate of the decline of Christianity. A 2015 analysis of the European Values Study in the \"Handbook of Children and Youth Studies\" identified a \"dramatic decline\" in religious affiliation across Europe from 1981 to 2008. However, Christianity is still the largest religion in Western Europe, according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, where 71% of Western Europeans identified themselves as Christian. According to the same study, 83% of those who were raised as Christians still identify as such. The European Values Study found that in most European countries in 2008, the majority of young respondents identified themselves as Christians. Unlike Western Europe, in Central and Eastern European countries the proportion of Christians has been stable or even increased in the post-communist era.\n",
"The significant growth of Christianity in non-Western countries led to regional distribution changes of Christians. In 1900, Europe and the Americas were home to the vast majority of the world's Christians (93%). Besides, Christianity has grown enormously in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Pacific. In 2010, 26% of the world's Christians lived in Europe, followed by 24.4% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23.8% in Sub-Saharan Africa, 13.2% in Asia and the Pacific, 12.3% in North America, and 1% in the Middle East and North Africa. The study also suggested that by 2050, the global Christian population will change considerably. By 2050, 38% of the world's Christians will live in the Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by 23% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 16% in Europe, 13% in Asia and the Pacific and 10% of the world's Christians will live in North America .\n",
"Christianity is still the largest religion in Western Europe, according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, 71.0% of the Western European population identified themselves as Christians. According to the same study, a large majority of those who raised as Christians (83%) in Western Europe, still identified themselves as Christians today. On the other hand, Central and Eastern European countries did not experience a decline in the percentage of Christians, as the proportion of Christians in these countries have mostly been stable or even increasing.\n",
"According to a 2005 paper submitted to a meeting of the American Political Science Association, most of Christianity's growth has occurred in non-Western countries. The paper concludes that the Pentecostalism movement is the fastest-growing religion worldwide. Protestantism is growing as a result of historic missionary activity and indigenous Christian movements by Africans in Africa, and due primarily to conversion in Asia, Latin America, Muslim world, and Oceania. According to Pew Research Center, Christianity is declining in the United states while non-Christian faiths are growing.\n",
"Some scholars have disputed the global decline of Christianity, and instead hypothesized of an evolution of Christianity which allows it to not only survive, but actively expand its influence in contemporary societies.\n"
] |
Is there any historical/archeological record regarding the beginnings of widespread hair styles? If so, where and when did it begin, and which gender was more likely to participate?
|
It's not like people were putting together catalogs of what was in style for the season, but ideas and styles were communicated visually as well as aurally. Men and women would have both been interested in hair styles, but in the West women's styles were often more elaborate. There is actually a really great record just in the art that each culture left behind, but it is notable that there are much fewer depictions of the working classes than upper classes. I personally like sculpture for hair styles since you get to see things all the way around. I love [this Minoan fresco](_URL_1_) but it's hard to tell exactly what is going on, compared to this [Etruscan sarcophagus.](_URL_0_) One of the more notable hair styles in ancient Roman art is the [bust of a Flavian woman](_URL_2_). I also took [this picture](_URL_3_) at the Getty Villa (which is all antiquities) earlier this year because of how well it shows all the detail, but I'm kicking myself for not getting the information on it.
Anyway, to answer your question, there is a MASSIVE record of hair styles from Mesopotamia to the renaissance. Let me know if there's any culture or time period or region or kind of style (mens/long/braids etc.) that you're more interested in and I'll try to find you some sources!
|
[
"The oldest known depiction of hair styling is hair braiding which dates back about 30,000 years. In history, women's hair was often elaborately and carefully dressed in special ways. From the time of the Roman Empire until the Middle Ages, most women grew their hair as long as it would naturally grow. Between the late 15th century and the 16th century, a very high hairline on the forehead was considered attractive. Around the same time period, European men often wore their hair cropped no longer than shoulder-length. In the early 17th century, male hairstyles grew longer, with waves or curls being considered desirable.\n",
"Between 27 BC and 102 AD, in Imperial Rome, women wore their hair in complicated styles: a mass of curls on top, or in rows of waves, drawn back into ringlets or braids. Eventually noblewomen's hairstyles grew so complex that they required daily attention from several slaves and a stylist in order to be maintained. The hair was often lightened using wood ash, unslaked lime and sodium bicarbonate, or darkened with copper filings, oak-apples or leeches marinated in wine and vinegar. It was augmented by wigs, hairpieces and pads, and held in place by nets, pins, combs and pomade. Under the Byzantine Empire, noblewomen covered most of their hair with silk caps and pearl nets.\n",
"In ancient civilizations, women's hair was often elaborately and carefully dressed in special ways. Women coloured their hair, curled it, and pinned it up (ponytail) in a variety of ways. They set their hair in waves and curls using wet clay, which they dried in the sun and then combed out, or else by using a jelly made of quince seeds soaked in water, or curling tongs and curling irons of various kinds.\n",
"Since Roman men tended to wear short-cropped hair, female hairstyles are a better source of evidence for changes in fashion. The female portraits suggest a coarse chronological scheme: Simple hairstyles with a central parting in the Tiberian period are followed by more complex ringlet hairstyles, nested plaits and curly toupées over the forehead in the late 1st century. Small oval nested plaits dominate the time of the Antonines, simple central-parting hairstyles with a hairknot in the neck occur in the second half of the 2nd century. The time of Septimius Severus was characterised by toupée-like fluffy as well as strict, straight styles, followed by looped plaits on the crown of the head. The latter belong to the very final phase of mummy portraits, and have only been noted on a few mummy wrappings. It seems to be the case that curly hairstyles were especially popular in Egypt.\n",
"At most times in most cultures, men have worn their hair in styles that are different from women's. American sociologist Rose Weitz once wrote that the most widespread cultural rule about hair is that women's hair must differ from men's hair. An exception is the men and women living in the Orinoco-Amazon Basin, where traditionally both genders have worn their hair cut into a bowl shape. In Western countries in the 1960s, both young men and young women wore their hair long and natural, and since then it has become more common for men to grow their hair. During most periods in human history when men and women wore similar hairstyles, as in the 1920s and 1960s, it has generated significant social concern and approbation.\n",
"From the 16th to the 19th century, European women's hair became more visible while their hair coverings grew smaller, with both becoming more elaborate, and with hairstyles beginning to include ornamentation such as flowers, ostrich plumes, ropes of pearls, jewels, ribbons and small crafted objects such as replicas of ships and windmills. Bound hair was felt to be symbolic of propriety: loosening one's hair was considered immodest and sexual, and sometimes was felt to have supernatural connotations. Red hair was popular, particularly in England during the reign of the red-haired Elizabeth I, and women and aristocratic men used borax, saltpeter, saffron and sulfur powder to dye their hair red, making themselves nauseated and giving themselves headaches and nosebleeds. During this period in Spain and Latin cultures, women wore lace mantillas, often worn over a high comb, and in Buenos Aires, there developed a fashion for extremely large tortoise-shell hair combs called peinetón, which could measure up to three feet in height and width, and which are said by historians to have reflected the growing influence of France, rather than Spain, upon Argentinians.\n",
"Men's hair was generally short and neat until the late Empire, and often is shown elegantly curled, probably artificially (picture at top). The 9th century Khludov Psalter has Iconophile illuminations which vilify the last Iconoclast Patriarch, John the Grammarian, caricaturing him with untidy hair sticking straight out in all directions. Monk's hair was long, and most clergy had beards, as did many lay men, especially later. Upper-class women mostly wore their hair up, again very often curled and elaborately shaped. If we are to judge by religious art, and the few depictions of other women outside the court, women probably kept their hair covered in public, especially when married.\n"
] |
How do babies get the essential bacteria in their large intestine, if the slightest infection will nearly or just outright kill them?
|
They get it from mom.
Vaginal birthed babies aspirate as they pass through, breast fed babies get it as they nurse (from the skin), and they otherwise acquire it in the classic stick-everything-in-your-mouth stage.
|
[
"During birth and rapidly thereafter, bacteria from the mother and the surrounding environment colonize the infant's gut. The exact sources of bacteria is not fully understood, but may include the birth canal, other people (parents, siblings, hospital workers), breastmilk, food, and the general environment with which the infant interacts. However, as of 2013, it remains unclear whether most colonizing arises from the mother or not. Infants born by caesarean section may also be exposed to their mothers' microflora, but the initial exposure is most likely to be from the surrounding environment such as the air, other infants, and the nursing staff, which serve as vectors for transfer.\n",
"Upon ingestion, the bacteria pass through the gastrointestinal tract until they reach the small intestine. There they begin to multiply until they reach the large intestine. In the large intestine, the bacteria cause cell injury and the beginning stages of Shigellosis via two main mechanisms: direct invasion of epithelial cells in the large intestine and production of enterotoxin 1 and enterotoxin 2.\n",
"The small intestine can also become involved, leading to bacterial overgrowth and malabsorption of bile salts, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins. The colon can be involved, and can cause pseudo-obstruction or ischemic colitis.\n",
"The overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine is prevented by various mechanical and chemical factors which include the constant peristaltic movement of contents along the length of the gastrointestinal tract and the antibacterial properties of gastric secretions, pancreatic secretions and bile.\n",
"Individuals with LAD suffer from bacterial infections beginning in the neonatal period. Infections such as omphalitis, pneumonia, gingivitis, and peritonitis are common and often life-threatening due to the infant's inability to properly destroy the invading pathogens. These individuals do not form abscesses because granulocytes cannot migrate to the sites of infection.\n",
"The small intestine contains a trace amount of microorganisms due to the proximity and influence of the stomach. Gram-positive cocci and rod-shaped bacteria are the predominant microorganisms found in the small intestine. However, in the distal portion of the small intestine alkaline conditions support gram-negative bacteria of the \"Enterobacteriaceae\". The bacterial flora of the small intestine aid in a wide range of intestinal functions. The bacterial flora provide regulatory signals that enable the development and utility of the gut. Overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine can lead to intestinal failure. In addition the large intestine contains the largest bacterial ecosystem in the human body. About 99% of the large intestine and feces flora are made up of obligate anaerobes such as \"Bacteroides\" and \"Bifidobacterium.\" Factors that disrupt the microorganism population of the large intestine include antibiotics, stress, and parasites.\n",
"The large intestine hosts several kinds of bacteria that can deal with molecules that the human body cannot otherwise break down. This is an example of symbiosis. These bacteria also account for the production of gases at host-pathogen interface, inside our intestine(this gas is released as \"flatulence\" when eliminated through the anus). However the large intestine is mainly concerned with the absorption of water from digested material (which is regulated by the hypothalamus) and the re absorption of sodium, as well as any nutrients that may have escaped primary digestion in the ileum. \n"
] |
Can a photo-realistic game be run on a super computer?
|
Warning. I am not a graphics researcher so my answer is an educated guess. I would say that we aren't even close.
Photo realistic stills are still very difficult. Graphics research would be a lot less exciting if all they did was make existing systems render faster. Advances in the way we handle light are still being made (I think). This is critically important for making things like skin and hair look correct. Then we have to deal with physics engines, which are still extremely rough approximations of the real world. Getting rigid objects to behave correctly is tricky, let alone fluids. While this is partially a product of our limited resources when rendering at 60fps, remember that Brave and Tangled were considered to be huge tech achievements in how they handled hair. Those stills are rendered by supercomputers working for a long time. Getting the render time down to 0.02 seconds is not easy.
I think it is tempting to say that CGI in movies is photo realistic but I don't think we can say that yet. Remember when you saw the star wars prequels and they looked amazing? Look again and notice how far we have come since then. It is difficult to imagine how much we can improve our tech. The recent hulk movies are another good example.
You could probably cheat a bit and make a game in an environment that was easy to handle. Limited light sources along with hard and smooth surfaces are much easier to handle than grass, skin, and water.
|
[
"Today there are several different computer programs that simulate things like cars and airplanes. An obvious example is a flight simulator, another would be video games where players drive cars. But neither of these tools is designed to help movie makers and content-creators to make editable, recorded animation material. None of those technologies are an aid for Maya and 3ds Max.\n",
"Calvin Hubble of Game Revolution noted the poor artificial intelligence, but praised the character animations for bearing resemblance to their film counterparts, and wrote that the graphics were \"decent enough to pass.\" However, Hubble noted that each of the game's menus and loading screens \"have an extremely simple, bold, solid-color font. […] I could have made a better interface given Photoshop and about a day.\" Kim Randell of \"Computer and Video Games\" called the game's first level \"incredibly pedantic,\" and wrote, \"The combat system is fiddly, and the murky backgrounds sometimes make your grasp of the scene less than complete. Later on it looks and sounds cool, but with a continuing frustration factor.\"\n",
"Computer simulations are realized by running computer programs that can be either small, running almost instantly on small devices, or large-scale programs that run for hours or days on network-based groups of computers. The scale of events being simulated by computer simulations has far exceeded anything possible (or perhaps even imaginable) using traditional paper-and-pencil mathematical modeling. Over 10 years ago, a desert-battle simulation of one force invading another involved the modeling of 66,239 tanks, trucks and other vehicles on simulated terrain around Kuwait, using multiple supercomputers in the DoD High Performance Computer Modernization Program.\n",
"A major section of the software is a custom graphics language, which is an early scalable vector graphics format. Hundreds of images of objects and locations are drawn in the game using this custom tool. Perspective of a limited kind is achieved by permitting images to be drawn scaled down within another image. For example, a castle model would be designed for close up view, but could also be drawn as a subroutine for a distant castle in a desert. The graphics speed was about 10 polygons per second, so the game could not afford to write background polygons and over fill. Images are just created by flood fills, such that each screen pixels is filled only once. A modern PC (using an emulator) can paint these pictures instantly, but the original game owners would need to wait three or four seconds for the screen to paint.\n",
"Charles Ardai of \"Computer Gaming World\" noted that the PC port of the game had performance and graphics issues when played in full-screen mode. Best performance was achieved when the screen was set to a postcard-sized frame. He found the action to be basic, although there is a variety of animation. He added that it is \"suffused with all the monster movie fun that was conspicuously lacking in the recent \"Godzilla\" film\".\n",
"Atkin found the cockpit and terrain graphics to look \"almost real\". He commented, \"Every few years a sim comes along that lets reviewers use the 'sets new standards for graphics' cliché, and \"Flight Unlimited\" is the 1995 entry in this club.\" Bob and John Nolan called \"Flight Unlimited\" \"the ultimate show off piece for your new Pentium\", thanks to \"unbelievable\" graphics superior to those of any other computer game. Gaudiosi concurred: he characterized the visuals as \"photo-sharp\" and \"better than any I have seen\". \"PC Magazine\"s staff found the graphics \"impressive\" and \"even more stunning than those in \"Microsoft Flight Simulator\"\". Ware noted the \"stunning 3-D photo-realistic scenery\", while Bailey stated that the \"graphics are brilliantly rendered and whiz by smoothly\". Buchanan called \"Flight Unlimited\"s terrain \"just superb\" and Vizard described it as \"amazingly real\". Buchanan believed that \"what you hear in \"Flight Unlimited\" is every bit as good as what you see\", thanks to \"utterly convincing\" sound effects. Atkin praised the instructor as \"one of the best uses of voice ever in a multimedia title\".\n",
"While it has been argued that computer wargame video games lack the realism of traditional games, they may include features that are impractical for tangible games. One such approach is using fog of war, whereby players are unable to see the landscape beyond the simulating viewing distance of their units. This is made practical in digital games by the fundamental difference of competing against artificial intelligence or remote competitors with their own view of the playing field.\n"
] |
why is it so hard to remove pharmaceuticals from water?
|
Molecules are really small and difficult to deal with on an individual basis. It isn't like you can just strain them out like with a sieve.
|
[
"Traces of prescription drugs — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been detected in drinking water. Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) discarded from human therapy and their metabolites have been found to not be completely eliminated by sewage treatment plants and have been found at low concentrations in surface waters downstream from those plants. The continuous discarding of incompletely treated water may interact with other environmental chemicals and lead to uncertain ecological effects. Due to most pharmaceuticals being highly soluble, fish and other aquatic organisms are susceptible to their effects. The long term effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment may affect survival and reproduction of such organisms. However, levels of medical drug waste in the water is at a low enough level that it is not a direct concern to human health. However, processes, such as biomagnification, are potential concerns in impacting human health.\n",
"There have been indications that some pharmaceutical compounds (medical drug traces from human use) may not always be sufficiently removed by bank filtration, and that in areas with substantial contamination of this type, additional treatment may be needed.\n",
"Trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in both groundwater and surface water are far below what is considered dangerous or of concern in most areas, but it could be an increasing problem as population grows and more reclaimed wastewater is utilized for municipal water supplies.\n",
"Since the 1990s, water contamination by pharmaceuticals has been an environmental issue of concern. In addition, it is important to note that many public health professionals in the United States began writing reports of pharmaceutical contamination in waterways in the 1970s.” Most pharmaceuticals are deposited in the environment through human consumption and excretion, and are often filtered ineffectively by municipal sewage treatment plants which are not designed to manage them. Once in the water, they can have diverse, subtle effects on organisms, although research is still limited. Pharmaceuticals may also be deposited in the environment through improper disposal, runoff from sludge fertilizer and reclaimed wastewater irrigation, and leaky sewer pipes. In 2009, an investigative report by Associated Press concluded that U.S. manufacturers had legally released 271 million pounds of compounds used as drugs into the environment, 92% of which was the industrial chemicals phenol and hydrogen peroxide, which are also used as antiseptics. It could not distinguish between drugs released by manufacturers as opposed to the pharmaceutical industry. It also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging were discarded by hospitals and long-term care facilities. The series of articles led to a hearing conducted by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Transportation Safety, Infrastructure Security, and Water Quality. This hearing was designed to address the levels of pharmaceutical contaminants in U.S. drinking water. This was the first time that pharmaceutical companies were questioned about their waste disposal methods. \"No federal regulations or laws were created as a result of the hearing.\" \"Between the years of 1970-2018 more than 3000 pharmaceutical chemicals were manufactured, but only 17 are screened or tested for in waterways.\" Alternately, \"There are no studies designed to examine the effects of pharmaceutical contaminated drinking water on human health.” In parallel, the European Union is the second biggest consumer in the world (24% of the world total) after the USA and in the majority of EU Member States, around 50% of unused human medicinal products is not collected to be disposed of properly. In the EU, between 30 and 90% of the orally administered doses are estimated to be excreted as the active substances in the urine.\n",
"Professor Ken Harvey, a member of the World Health Organization team that formulated criteria for the promotion of medicinal drugs and a member of Auspharm Consumer Health Watch, states that the product is \"no more than salty water\", and that most forms of water carry some dissolved oxygen. The Federal Trade Commission has prosecuted some makers of such products for making \"blatantly false and unsubstantiated health claims\", although it has not banned the sale of such products.\n",
"Many pharmaceutical substances are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. They have been found in tiny concentrations in the drinking water of several US cities affecting at least 41 million Americans, according to a five-month inquiry by the Associated Press published in March 2008. Pharmaceutical substances are used worldwide and are a big part of some peoples lives. These substances not being regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act has potential to have major impact on the lives of many individuals. At any point a region can face strong pollution and the pharmaceuticals made in that area can have a large chance of being contaminated as well causing possible harm to the consumers. According to the AP report, researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals.\n",
"\"Pharmaceutical pollution is now detected in waters throughout the world,\" said a scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. \"Causes include aging infrastructure, sewage overflows and agricultural runoff. Even when wastewater makes it to sewage treatment facilities, they aren't equipped to remove pharmaceuticals.\"\n"
] |
AMA: The Economy of the Ancient Roman Empire
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This is something I've long wondered:
During the height of the Empire, Rome had a population close to a million people, and most of those people lived in apartment blocks. They presumably didn't have any arable land as part of their personal property. So what did those people do all day? Did they work 9-5s like we do today? Did they leave the city to work in agriculture? Did they just not work in an organized fashion?
TL;DR What was the typical job of a city dweller like?
|
[
"The Ancient Economy is a book about the economic system of classical antiquity written by the classicist Moses I. Finley. It was originally published in 1973. Finley interprets the economy from 1000 BC to 500 AD sociologically, instead of using economic models (like for example Michael Rostovtzeff). Finley attempted to prove that the ancient economy was largely a byproduct of status. In other words, economic systems were not interdependent, they were embedded in status positions. The analysis owes some debt to sociologists such as Max Weber and Karl Polanyi.\n",
"The early Byzantine economy describes the economy of Roman Empire following the changing of its capital from Rome itself to the newly founded city of Constantinople (or \"Nova Roma\") by the Emperor Constantine I. It was essentially a continuation of the old Roman economy but with a shift in trade flow towards the newly burgeoning Greek city on the Bosphorus rather than Rome itself.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Ancient and Pre-modern Economies. GDP in Roman Empire and Early Modern Europe\", in de Callataÿ, François (ed.), Quantifying the Greco-Roman Economy and Beyond, Bari: Edipuglia, 2014, pp. 229–51 (co-author),\n",
"BULLET::::- Lo Cascio, Elio. \"The Early Roman Empire: The State and the Economy\", in W. Scheidel, I. Morris and R. Saller, eds., \"The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World\" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 619–47.\n",
"The economy was greatly stimulated by the construction of the Via Egnatia, the installation of Roman merchants in the cities, and the founding of Roman colonies. The Imperial government brought, along with its roads and administrative system, an economic boom, which benefited both the Roman ruling class and the lower classes. With vast arable and rich pastures, the great ruling families amassed huge fortunes in the society based on slave labor.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"The Early Roman Empire: The State and the Economy\", in Scheidel, Walter; Morris Ian; Saller, Richard (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 619–647,\n",
"The economics of the Roman army concerns the costs of maintaining the Imperial Roman army and the infrastructure to support it, as well as the economic development to which the presence of long-term military bases contributed. Supply contracts with the military generated trade with producers near the base, throughout the province, and across provincial borders.\n"
] |
How did Michelin, a tire company, become the creators of the definitive guide to fine dining?
|
As it should be when connecting tire companies with restaurant reviews, the Michelin Guide's popularity started to rise with the innovation of the "motor tourist," the vehicle-toting traveler. The Michelin Tyre company made its first *Guide Michelin France* in 1900. The first Michelin Guides were just driver's handbooks, with tips for vehicle maintenance and nearby petrol stations. These pocket Michelin Guides were given out freely for "l'instruction sur l'emploi des pneus Michelin pour voitures et automobile" (instructions for the use of Michelin tires on cars and automobiles). The ultimate goal was to reassure new drivers that, even if they left town in their new motor vehicles, they could still find petrol stations, mechanics, and even post offices. As Kory Olston points out in her study of *Michelin* maps, the guide's popularity was indebted to the rise of motor tourism in turn-of-the-century France. The *Michelin* maps were designed differently than standard travel guides; town plans were relatively sparse and two-tone, with major roadways taking the focus instead of urban landmarks. The guide catered to bourgeois drivers, offering a "more restrained number of tourist venues" with a "clarity of display to make it easier for their readers to traverse unfamiliar municipalities easily."
In 1926, these "tourist venues" finally included restaurants for motor tourists to frequent on their holidays in the countryside. The *Guide* of 1926 included a "restaurant star," or a single star to denote a particularly special dining experience. A decade later, the second and third stars showed up, along with a criteria: one star for "Une très bonne table dans sa catégorie" (a good site in its category), two for "Table excellente, mérite un détour" (an excellent site worth a detour), and three for "Une des meilleures tables, vaut le voyage" (one of the best sites, worthy of a trip). Within three decades, the *Guide* had gone from a mechanic's handbook to a special purchase for rich motor tourists looking to get the best out of their journeys.
The three-star feat is more difficult to explain. One possible reason for its "impossibility" may come from the fact that the third star didn't exist during the WWII era. During the War, the *Guide* was simply reprinted from its 1939 edition, and then post-war shortages forced Michelin to put a halt on three-star ratings until 1950. *Guide* critics are anonymous, so there's not much testimony on the elusive three-star review--but we can guess that the restaurants that *do* have three stars have supreme quality of ingredients, consistency between visits, and head chefs with dedicated personalities.
Sources:
Kory Olson, *Maps for a New Kind of Tourist: The First Guides Michelin France (1900–1913)*. Available [here](_URL_2_).
*Michelin Guide History*. Provence and Beyond. [Here](_URL_1_).
*The Michelin Guide: Over 100 Editions and a Century of History*. ViaMichelin. [Here](_URL_0_).
|
[
"François Michelin (15 June 1926 – 29 April 2015) was a French heir and business executive. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Michelin from 1955 to 1999. Under his leadership at the helm of a family business founded by his grandfather in 1889, Michelin became the number one manufacturer of tires globally, dominating the marketshare in Europe and the United States. A practising Roman Catholic, he was idiosyncratically non-hierarchical and conducted business from his hometown of Clermont-Ferrand in the rural Auvergne.\n",
"Michelin in France designed, developed, patented, and commercialized the radial tire. There is no evidence that Michelin had knowledge of Arthur Savage's earlier work. The first Michelin X radial tire for cars was developed in 1946 by Michelin researcher Marius Mignol. Michelin owned the leading automaker Citroën, so it was quickly able to introduce its new design, including on the new 1948 Citroën 2CV model. In 1952, Michelin developed a radial truck tire.\n",
"In 1968, Michelin opened its first North American sales office, and was able to grow that market for its products rapidly; by 1989 the company had 10% market share for OEM tyres purchased by American automobile makers.\n",
"Also in 1988, Michelin Group, a subsidiary of the French tire company Michelin et Cie () proposed to acquire the Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company and took actions towards acquiring a stake. By May 1990, Michelin Group had completed its buyout of Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company from Clayton & Dubilier of New York. The deal was valued at about US$1.5 billion. B.F. Goodrich surrendered its 7% warrant to Michelin Group, and received $32.5 million additional revenue from the sale.\n",
"Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books published by the French tire company for more than a century. The term normally refers to the annually published Michelin \"Red Guide\", the oldest European hotel and restaurant reference guide, which awards up to three \"Michelin stars\" for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a star can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant. Michelin also publishes a series of general guides to cities, regions, and countries, the \"Green Guides\".\n",
"Michelin dominated the French tyre industry for decades and remains a leading player in the market. It was one of the leading advertisers; to this day its famous guidebooks are widely used by travellers. Bibendum was depicted visually as a lord of industry, a master of all he surveyed, and a patriotic exponent of the French spirit. In the 1920s, Bibendum urged Frenchmen to adopt America's superior factory system, but to patriotically avoid using the \"inferior\" products of those factories. As automobiles became available to the middle classes, Michelin advertising likewise shifted downscale, and its restaurant and hotel guides likewise covered a broader range of price categories.\n",
"By May 1990, Michelin Group completed its purchase of Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company from Clayton & Dubilier of New York. The deal was valued at about US$1.5 billion. B.F. Goodrich surrendered its 7% warrant to Michelin Group for US$32.5 million.\n"
] |
Tuesday Trivia | Where Are they Now? Surprising Legacies of Historic Places and Things
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On the main square of the old centre of the Sicilian city of Syracuse stands the [Duomo di Siracusa](_URL_0_). On the outside, it is a beautiful 18th century High Sicilian Baroque church.
On the inside, it is a [Greek temple](_URL_1_).
The columns that still support the roof of the church date to the 5th century BC. The building was originally a temple to Athena; it is mentioned in the writings of Plato (who lived in Syracuse for a while) and Cicero.
|
[
"Many visitors investigate their genealogy at historic immigration sites such as Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Other tourist destinations include the Empire State Building, for 41 years the world's tallest building after its construction in 1931, Radio City Music Hall, home of The Rockettes, a variety of Broadway shows, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, housed on a World War II aircraft carrier, and city landmarks such as Central Park, one of the finest examples of landscape architecture in the world. New York City has encouraged tourist shopping by eliminating its sales tax on clothing and footwear. In the past, the World Trade Center was an important tourist destination before the September 11 attacks, which devastated the city and its tourist industry. Tourists were scarce for months, and it took two years for the numbers to fully rebound with fewer international, but more domestic visitors, due in part to an emphasis on \"patriotic tourism\". The World Trade Center site itself became an important place to visit, and visits to the World Trade Center have increased, especially with openings of new buildings on the site in recent years.\n",
"Set in the 19th century of London, the whole city has an old rustic vibe, yet still appears to be modern. Landmarks one of such is the Big Ben is present in the story giving an insight of the foreign world of English history.\n",
"The Greatest Wonder of the World and the American Tobacco Warehouse and Fancy Goods Emporium are of state heritage significance for aesthetic values as now rare examples of rough, \"erected-in-a-hurry\" vernacular buildings built to service the burgeoning gold rush population around Gulgong-one of the richest goldfields in NSW. The 1876 remodelling of \"The Greatest Wonder of the World\" is of significance as an example of the innovative reuse of a simple earlier structure as a more substantial building, signalling the evolution of the town from camp to village. Together these buildings are of state heritage significance as they together demonstrate a pattern of construction and development typical of the development of gold rush towns in NSW.\n",
"The city's most important historical buildings include the Catedral Santa María La Menor, the first cathedral of the Americas, which states its distinction; the Alcázar de Colón, the first castle in the Americas, once the residence of Viceroy of the Indies Don Diego Colón, a son of Christopher Columbus; the Monasterio de San Francisco, the ruins of the first monastery in the Americas; the Museo de las Casas Reales, in a monumental complex that includes the former Palace of the Governors and the building of the former Royal Audiencia of Santo Domingo; the Fortaleza Ozama, the oldest fortress in the Americas; the Pantéon Nacional, a former Jesuit edifice now hosting the remains of various renowned Dominicans; and the Dominican Convent, the first convent in the Americas.\n",
"The Grand Place was named by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1998. The place is now primarily an important tourist attraction. A number of guild houses have been converted into shops, terraced restaurants and brasseries. Notable institutions include Godiva Chocolatier and the \"Maison Dandoy\" speculoos confectionery. One of the houses owned by the brewers' guild is home to a brewers' museum.\n",
"In 1999 the old town was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as a well-preserved example of a Southeast Asian trading port of the 15th to 19th centuries, with buildings that display a blend of local and foreign influences. According to the UNESCO Impact Report 2008 on Hội An, tourism has brought changes to the area which are not sustainable without mitigation.\n",
"The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy. Its old town, besides being one of the biggest examples of baroque architecture in Italy, is a World Heritage Site, protected by UNESCO.\n"
] |
Engineering/Environmental Science: How viable are solar panels when considering when material production concerns?
|
Depends on the type of panels. For crystalline Silicon (most common), energy payback times (how long it takes to produce the energy required to make it) are a few years. Silicon is the second most abundant element on the planet, so supply isn't really an issue. The problem for c-Si is centered around cost -- growing crystalline wafers is very expensive. There are a variety of other technologies which could replace or improve on c-Si. These are all in varies stages of development from on the market now to a decade or more from commercial manufacture.
|
[
"Its negative impact on the environment lies in the creation of the solar cells which are made primarily of silica (from sand) and the extraction of silicon from silica may require the use of fossil fuels, although newer manufacturing processes have eliminated CO production. Solar power carries an upfront cost to the environment via production, but offers clean energy throughout the lifespan of the solar cell.\n",
"While solar photovoltaic (PV) cells are promising for clean energy production, their deployment is hindered by production costs, material availability, and toxicity. Data required to investigate their impact are sometimes affected by a rather large amount of uncertainty. The values of human labor and water consumption, for example, are not precisely assessed due to the lack of systematic and accurate analyses in the scientific literature.\n",
"The use of solar energy minimizes the creation pollution indoors, where kerosene have been linked to cases of health issues. However, photovoltaic panels are made out of silicon and other toxic metals including lead that can be difficult to dispose of.\n",
"In the case of photovoltaic solar panels, the IEA method tends to focus on the energy used in the factory process alone. In 2016, Hall observed that much of the published work in this field is produced by advocates or persons with a connection to business interests among the competing technologies, and that government agencies had not yet provided adequate funding for rigorous analysis by more neutral observers.\n",
"Solar panels are an icon of the 'green power' movement, however the process of manufacturing the quartz based panels can be detrimental to the environment. Raw quartz (silica) used to create solar cells must be mined using harsh chemicals that harm the surrounding environment, as well as those working in the mines. Silicosis is a form of lung disease that is caused by the inhalation of crystalline silica dust resulting in nodule lesions in the lungs. The silica must be cultivated into metallurgical-grade silicon, the process requiring a massive amount of energy as the quartz is placed into electric arc furnaces. The metallurgical grade silica must be processed into polysilicon. This process also produces tetrachloride, a toxic substance that, if not disposed of correctly, can be harmful to the surrounding environment. Hydrochloric acid is formed when tetrachloride interacts with water, lowering water and soil pH. Incidents of tetrachloride spills are common in China, as the production of solar panels has shifted from Europe and the United States to Asian countries within the early 2000s. Because of such, the villagers of Gaolong are unable to leave their homes due to air and soil becoming toxic. This was due to Luoyang Zhongui High-Technology Co. repeatedly dumped tetrachloride in a nearby field for almost a year.\n",
"BULLET::::- Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, and (large) Concentrating solar power plants. PV solar panels made from low-cost photovoltaic cells or PV-cells which have first been concentrated by a Luminescent solar concentrator-panel are also a good option. Especially companies as Solfocus make appropriate technology CSP plants which can be made from waste plastics polluting the surroundings (see above).\n",
"There are many practical applications for the use of solar panels or photovoltaics. It can first be used in agriculture as a power source for irrigation. In health care solar panels can be used to refrigerate medical supplies. It can also be used for infrastructure. PV modules are used in photovoltaic systems and include a large variety of electric devices:\n"
] |
does it take more energy to run with 4 legs than it does 2?
|
The really simple answer is that humans run more efficiently because we let gravity do a lot more of the work; when we go forward we're basically putting one foot out and falling forward, then pulling ourselves forward and repeating the process with the other foot. When quadrapedal animals run, they need to propel themselves forward with their front and back legs; the advantages of this are that they can put more of their total muscle mass into running and you get more sources of speed, and run faster/quicker; pretty much any quadraped can out-sprint a human. But humans are the undisputed champions of distance-running on Earth, partly because their run is more energy efficient.
The other thing that helps us run, just as a sidenote, is the fact that our bodies are really good at not overheating. A cheetah for instance can only keep up their vaunted 60 mph run-speed for a very short distance without overheating and exhausting themselves. But our ability to have the airflow of our forward motion wick heat away by evaporating sweat off of us is one of nature's best heat regulation mechanisms, and allows for humans to run for hours on end without stopping, when properly trained.
|
[
"Compared to a conventional bicycle, a tandem has double the pedalling power, without necessarily doubling the speed, and with only slightly more frictional loss in the drivetrain. It has about the same wind resistance as a conventional bicycle. High-performance tandems may weigh less than twice as much as a single bike, so the power-to-weight ratio may be slightly better than that of a single bike and rider. On flat terrain and downhill, most of the power produced by cyclists is used to overcome wind resistance, so tandems can reach higher speeds than the same riders on single bicycles. They are not necessarily slower on climbs, but are perceived as such, in part due to the need for a high level of coordination between the riders, especially if the physical abilities of the two riders are very different, requiring a compromise on cadence.\n",
"While running, tendons are able to reduce the metabolic rate of muscle activity by reducing the volume of the muscle that is active to produce force. The timing of muscle activation is very important for utilizing the mechanical and energetic benefits of tendon elasticity. Power attenuation by the use of the tendons can allow the muscle-tendon system the ability to absorb energy at a rate beyond the muscles maximum capacity to absorb energy. Power amplification mechanisms are able to work because the spring and muscles contain different intrinsic limits of power. Muscles in a skeletal system can be limited in their maximum power production. Power amplification by the use of the tendons allows the muscle to produce power beyond the muscle’s capacity. The mechanical functions of tendons contain a structural basis and are not subjected to limitation of power production.\n",
"Running is characterized by a spring-mass movement. Kinetic and potential energy are in phase, and the energy is stored & released from a spring-like limb during foot contact. Again, the whole-body kinetics are similar to animals with more limbs.\n",
"Running and walking incorporated different biomechanisms. Walking requires an \"inverted pendulum\" where the body's center of mass is shifted over the extended leg, to exchange potential and kinetic energy with each step. Running involves a \"mass spring\" mechanism to exchange potential and kinetic energy, with the use of tendons and ligaments. Tendons and ligaments are elastic tissues that store energy. They are stretched and then release energy as they recoil. This mass spring mechanism becomes less energetically costly at faster speeds and is therefore more efficient than the inverted pendulum of walking mechanics when traveling at greater speeds. Tendons and ligaments, however, do not provide these benefits in walking.\n",
"Taken together, the flexibility in diet and the enhanced usage of fuel heightens the previously mentioned finding that, unlike quadrupeds, hominins do not have a single energetically optimal running speed. For quadrupeds, increasing running speed means increasing the demand for oxygen and fuel. Due to skeletal structure and bipedalism, hominins are free to run energetically over a broader range of speeds and gaits, while maintaining a constant energy consumption rate of approximately 4.1 MJ per 15 km. Thus their utilization of energy is greatly enhanced.\n",
"The Super-Cycle is a piece of quasi-living New Genesis technology; it resembles a small three-wheeled car, rather than a motorcycle, and can carry several passengers. Despite having an open top, it can travel at supersonic speeds (on the ground or by flying) without harm to its passengers using electrons; it can also turn itself and its passengers intangible.\n",
"Power assisted bicycles are classified in two categories in Saskatchewan. An \"electric assist bicycle\" is a 2 or 3-wheeled bicycle that uses pedals and a motor at the same time only. A \"power cycle\" uses either pedals and motor or motor only. Both must have engines with 500 watt power or less, and must not be able exceed 32 km/h (20 mph), i.e., electric motor cuts out at this speed or cycle is unable to go this fast on a level surface. The power cycle has to meet the Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (CMVSS) for a \"power-assisted bicycle\". The power cycle requires at least a learner's driving licence (class 7), and all of the other classes 1–5 may operate these also. The electric assist bicycle does not require a licence. Helmets are required for each. Both are treated as bicycles regarding rules of the road. Gas powered or assisted bicycles are classified as motorcycles regardless of engine size or if using pedals plus motor. Stickers identifying the bicycle's compliance with the Federal classification may be required for power cycles by some cities or municipalities.\n"
] |
What is the definition of Boiling Point?
|
Ever try and do a push up with someone sitting on your back? (Don't do that.) It's kinda like that.
External pressure modulates *where* the boiling point is, the mechanism is still the same, but it's where the thermodynamic scale tips in favor of phase change. A high pressure provides a lot of surface force onto the liquid (though molecular collisions) which force the liquid molecules to be of even higher thermal energy to escape into the vapor phase.
You can do this at home with some water and a pump and a sealed jar of water. As you lower the pressure, the water will begin to boil at room temperature. Here's a chart of this for water:
_URL_0_
|
[
"Boiling-point elevation describes the phenomenon that the boiling point of a liquid (a solvent) will be higher when another compound is added, meaning that a solution has a higher boiling point than a pure solvent. This happens whenever a non-volatile solute, such as a salt, is added to a pure solvent, such as water. The boiling point can be measured accurately using an ebullioscope.\n",
"The boiling point is the temperature at which there is equilibrium between liquid and gas phases. At the boiling point, the number of gas molecules condensing to liquid equals the number of liquid molecules evaporating to gas. Adding a solute dilutes the concentration of the liquid molecules and reduces the rate of evaporation. To compensate for this and re-attain equilibrium, the boiling point occurs at a higher temperature.\n",
"The boiling point corresponds to the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the surrounding environmental pressure. Thus, the boiling point is dependent on the pressure. Boiling points may be published with respect to the NIST, USA standard pressure of 101.325 kPa (or 1 atm), or the IUPAC standard pressure of 100.000 kPa. At higher elevations, where the atmospheric pressure is much lower, the boiling point is also lower. The boiling point increases with increased pressure up to the critical point, where the gas and liquid properties become identical. The boiling point cannot be increased beyond the critical point. Likewise, the boiling point decreases with decreasing pressure until the triple point is reached. The boiling point cannot be reduced below the triple point.\n",
"Boiling point is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid is equal to the surrounding pressure, causing the liquid to rapidly evaporate, or boil. It is closely related to vapor pressure, but is dependent on pressure. The normal boiling point is the boiling point at atmospheric pressure, but it can also be reported at higher and lower pressures.\n",
"The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the pressure surrounding the liquid and the liquid evaporates resulting in an abrupt change in vapor volume.\n",
"The normal boiling point (also called the atmospheric boiling point or the atmospheric pressure boiling point) of a liquid is the special case in which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the defined atmospheric pressure at sea level, 1 atmosphere. At that temperature, the vapor pressure of the liquid becomes sufficient to overcome atmospheric pressure and allow bubbles of vapor to form inside the bulk of the liquid. The standard boiling point has been defined by IUPAC since 1982 as the temperature at which boiling occurs under a pressure of 1 bar.\n",
"Boiling is the rapid vaporization of a liquid, which occurs when a liquid is heated to its boiling point, the temperature at which the vapour pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure exerted on the liquid by the surrounding atmosphere. There are two main types of boiling: nucleate boiling where small bubbles of vapour form at discrete points, and critical heat flux boiling where the boiling surface is heated above a certain critical temperature and a film of vapor forms on the surface. Transition boiling is an intermediate, unstable form of boiling with elements of both types. The boiling point of water is 100 °C or 212 °F but is lower with the decreased atmospheric pressure found at higher altitudes.\n"
] |
If the brain is split, are some tasks harder if the input comes from just one eye/ear, or if the input moves from left to right eye/ear?
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Just to clarify, the thing that makes split-brain patients interesting is that they can highlight cognitive difficulties (things to do with thoughts being broken), which we were not aware of prior to these experiments. The reason we were not aware of these difficulties is that they do not manifest in daily life. You will find very few, or maybe no, situations where information is coming into just one of your two sense organs.
Wikipedia has a really nice article on [split-brain patients](_URL_1_), and there are descriptions of case studies. YouTube also has a [video of one of these patients being tested](_URL_2_) by [Michael Gazzaniga](_URL_0_). It's only ten minutes and worth a watch.
|
[
"The brain contains areas that are specialized to deal with language, located in the perisylvian cortex of the left hemisphere. These areas are crucial for performing language tasks, but they are not the only areas that are used; disparate parts of both right and left brain hemispheres are active during language production. In multilingual individuals, there is a great deal of similarity in the brain areas used for each of their languages. Insights into the neurology of multilingualism have been gained by the study of multilingual individuals with aphasia, or the loss of one or more languages as a result of brain damage. Bilingual aphasics can show several different patterns of recovery; they may recover one language but not another, they may recover both languages simultaneously, or they may involuntarily mix different languages during language production during the recovery period. These patterns are explained by the \"dynamic view\" of bilingual aphasia, which holds that the language system of representation and control is compromised as a result of brain damage.\n",
"The optic nerves from both eyes meet and cross at the optic chiasm, at the base of the hypothalamus of the brain. At this point the information coming from both eyes is combined and then splits according to the visual field. The corresponding halves of the field of view (right and left) are sent to the left and right halves of the brain, respectively, to be processed. That is, the right side of primary visual cortex deals with the left half of the \"field of view\" from both eyes, and similarly for the left brain. A small region in the center of the field of view is processed redundantly by both halves of the brain.\n",
"In vision, about half the neurons of the optic nerve from each eye cross to project to the opposite hemisphere and about half do not cross to project to the hemisphere on the same side. This means that the left side of the visual field is processed largely by the visual cortex of the right hemisphere and vice versa for the right side of the visual field.\n",
"Split-brain is a computer term, based on an analogy with the medical Split-brain syndrome. It indicates data or availability inconsistencies originating from the maintenance of two separate data sets with overlap in scope, either because of servers in a network design, or a failure condition based on servers not communicating and synchronizing their data to each other. This last case is also commonly referred to as a network partition.\n",
"In the 1950s, Roger Sperry developed split-brain preparations in non-human primates that emphasized the importance of information transfer that occurred in these neocortical connections. For example, learning on simple tasks, if restricted in sensory input and motor output to one hemisphere of a split-brain animal, would not transfer to the other hemisphere. The right brain has no idea what the left brain is up to, if these specific connections are cut. Those experiments were followed by tests on human beings with epilepsy who had undergone split-brain surgery, which established that the neocortical connections between hemispheres are the principal route for cognition to transfer from one side of the brain to another. These experiments also formed the modern basis for lateralization of function in the human brain.\n",
"The cerebrum has a contralateral organisation with each hemisphere of the brain interacting primarily with one half of the body: the left side of the brain interacts with the right side of the body, and vice versa. The developmental cause for this is uncertain. Motor connections from the brain to the spinal cord, and sensory connections from the spinal cord to the brain, both cross sides in the brainstem. Visual input follows a more complex rule: the optic nerves from the two eyes come together at a point called the optic chiasm, and half of the fibres from each nerve split off to join the other. The result is that connections from the left half of the retina, in both eyes, go to the left side of the brain, whereas connections from the right half of the retina go to the right side of the brain. Because each half of the retina receives light coming from the opposite half of the visual field, the functional consequence is that visual input from the left side of the world goes to the right side of the brain, and vice versa. Thus, the right side of the brain receives somatosensory input from the left side of the body, and visual input from the left side of the visual field.\n",
"Both hemispheres of the brain contain a visual cortex; the visual cortex in the left hemisphere receives signals from the right visual field, and the visual cortex in the right hemisphere receives signals from the left visual field.\n"
] |
why did it change from chinese new year to 'lunar new year' if multiple other cultures have lunar calendars with different dates for new years (ie islam, judaism, etc)?
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It is technically called Lunar New Years because, as you know, the calender is based off the phases of the moon. It is commonly called Chinese New Years in the west because "white people" first heard of this from the Chinese immigrants who came during the California Gold Rush of 1849 to 1860s. Chinese New Years has been changed to be known as "Lunar New Years" now because Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese culture also still/used to celebrate this Lunar New Year.
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[
"The lunisolar Chinese calendar determines the date of Lunar New Year. The calendar is also used in countries that have been influenced by, or have relations with, China – such as Korea, Japan and Vietnam, though occasionally the date celebrated may differ by one day or even one moon cycle due to using a meridian based on a different capital city in a different time zone or different placements of intercalary months.\n",
"Greater China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam traditionally observe the same lunar new year. However, Japan has moved its New Year to fit the Western New Year since the Meiji Restoration while Korea later also moved to Western New Year since the 1970s.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year, occurs every year on the new moon of the first lunar month, about the beginning of spring (Lichun). The exact date can fall any time between January 21 and February 21 (inclusive) of the Gregorian Calendar. Traditionally, years were marked by one of twelve Earthly Branches, represented by an animal, and one of ten Heavenly Stems, which correspond to the five elements. This combination cycles every 60 years. It is the most important Chinese celebration of the year.\n",
"The date of the Chinese New Year accords with the patterns of the solar calendar and hence is variable from year to year. However, there are two general rules that govern the date. Firstly, Chinese New Year transpires on the second new moon following the December solstice. If there is a leap month after the eleventh or twelfth month, then Chinese New Year falls on the third new moon after the December solstice. Alternatively, Chinese New Year will fall on the new moon that is closest to \"lì chūn\", or the solar term that begins spring (typically falls on February 4). However, this rule is not as reliable since it can be difficult to determine which new moon is the closest in the case of an early or late Chinese New Year . \n",
"Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year, celebrates the beginning of a new year according to the Chinese calendar. During this period of about 15 days, many Taiwanese people celebrate its traditions and more importantly, strictly adhere to the superstitions the come with this occasion. \n",
"Chinese New Year (or generally referred to as Lunar New Year globally) is the Chinese festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional Chinese calendar. The festival is usually referred to as the Spring Festival in mainland China, and is one of several Lunar New Years in Asia. Observances traditionally take place from the evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February. In 2019, the first day of the Chinese New Year was on Tuesday, 5 February, initiating the Year of the Pig.\n",
"Chinese calendar defines the lunar month with winter solstice as the 11th month, which means that Chinese New Year usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice (rarely the third if an intercalary month intervenes). In more than 96% of the years, the Chinese New Year's Day is the closest new moon to lichun () on 4 or 5 February, and the first new moon after Dahan (). In the Gregorian calendar, the Lunar New Year begins at the new moon that falls between 21 January and 20 February.\n"
] |
My friend's farts always smell like death. Do people really have distinctive fart smells?
|
The answer to both your questions is yes. People do have colonic bacterial ‘fingerprints’, but they are not static and change over time depending on a multitude of factors. The bacterial biome can change the odor of a persons flatulence but that is also dependent on diet, illness, etc. For example the smells associated with a *C. diff* infection are quite unique.
The gut biome is usually initially colonized during birth as the baby passes through the vaginal canal. C-sections are of course a different mechanism. You inherit fart smells from your mother in most cases.
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[
"The effect his scent has had now confirms to Grenouille how much he hates people, especially as he realizes that they worship him now and that even this degree of control does not give him satisfaction. He decides to return to Paris, intending to die there, and after a long journey ends up at the fish market where he was born. He approaches a crowd of criminals gathered in a cemetery and pours the entire bottle of his final perfume on himself. The people are so drawn to him that they are compelled to obtain parts of his body, eventually tearing him to pieces and eating them. The story ends with the crowd, now embarrassed by their actions, agreeing that they did it out of \"love\".\n",
"Gus has a very refined sense of smell and has nicknamed his nose \"the Super Sniffer\". He is able to recognize the base component of a perfume by smelling it and can perform the same trick with food. The talent seems to be hereditary, as it has been displayed by both of his parents, and has led to the uncovering of crucial evidence in several cases. He has been shown to have a fear of dead people, having run away from a scene where a dead person is present on more than one occasion. He has showed the dislike of seeing blood on occasions. He is also well-versed in high-tech locks or safes, as demonstrated by his ability to crack an electronic lock on his first try.\n",
"What a farce it all is ... this little spot of black sogginess is a reconcentrado pen, with a dead line outside, beyond which everything living is shot ... Upon arrival, I found 30 cases of smallpox, and average fresh ones of five a day, which practically have to be turned out to die. At nightfall crowds of huge vampire bats softly swirl out of their orgies over the dead. Mosquitos work in relays. This corpse-carcass stench wafts in and combined with some lovely municipal odors besides makes it slightly unpleasant here.\n",
"the mixture of scents that arose from mundungus, tobacco, foul feet, dirty shirts, stinking breaths, and uncleanly carcases, poisoned our nostrils far worse than a Southwark ditch, a tanner's yard, or a tallow-chandler's melting-room. The ill-looking vermin, with long, rusty beards, swaddled up in rags, and their heads—some covered with thrum-caps, and others thrust into the tops of old stockings. Some quitted their play they were before engaged in, and came hovering round us, like so many cannibals, with such devouring countenances, as if a man had been but a morsel with 'em, all crying out, \"Garnish, garnish,\" as a rabble in an insurrection crying, \"Liberty, liberty!\" We were forced to submit to the doctrine of nonresistance, and comply with their demands, which extended to the sum of two shillings each.\n",
"Dave Jardine, another old miner, lived in a log cabin situated on Pine Creek, south of Granite, till his death in 1953. Jardine always carried a \"doodlebug\", a pendulum similar to that used for dousing, to tell the future or just for advise. Dave, or \"Stinky Dave\" as he was called, loved dogs and had 5 or 6 strays which he kept in his cabin at night. He had deep chronic venous ulcers on both ankles that may have been the cause of his bad odor, and may well have been the cause of his death. According to county records, when authorities discovered him he had been eaten by his dogs after he had died alone in his cabin.\n",
"On his way to Grasse, Grenouille travels the countryside and is increasingly disgusted by the scent of humanity. Avoiding civilization, he comes instead to live in a cave inside the Plomb du Cantal, surviving off the mountain's sparse vegetation and wildlife. However, his peace is ended when he realizes after seven years that he himself does not possess any scent: he cannot smell himself and neither, he finally understands, can other people. Traveling to Montpellier with a fabricated story about being kidnapped and kept in a cave for seven years to account for his haggard appearance, he creates a body odour for himself from everyday materials and finds that his new \"disguise\" tricks people into thinking that it is the scent of a human; he is now accepted by society instead of shunned. In Montpellier, he gains the patronage of the Marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse, who uses Grenouille to publicize his pseudoscientific theory about the influence of \"fluidal\" energies on human vitality. Grenouille manufactures perfumes which successfully distort the public perception of him from a wretched \"caveman\" into a clean and cultivated patrician, helping to win enormous popularity for the Marquis' theory. Seeing how easily humanity can be fooled by a simple scent, Grenouille's hatred becomes contempt. He realizes that it is within his ability to develop scents described as \"superhuman\" and \"angelic\" that will affect in unprecedented ways how other people perceive him.\n",
"\"The Stinking Corpse\" is an Aztec myth that tells of the body of a giant, killed by the Toltecs, which released a stench that would kill anyone who smelled it. Versions of it are recorded in the \"Legend of the Suns\" (part of the Codex Chimalpopoca), the \"Anónimo Mexicano\", Torquemada's \"Monarchia Indiana\", and elsewhere.\n"
] |
why do conditioners make little to no foam unlike shampoos?
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It is about their purpose. The foam in soaps and shampoos is part of what makes it able to clean the dirt and oils from the hair and scalp. Conditioner is there to add back in some of what is lost since not all those oils are required to be stripped away as part of that cleaning, so they are made differently, conditioner is not a soap.
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[
"Conditioners are often used after shampooing to smooth down the cuticle layer of the hair, which can become roughened during the physical process of shampooing. There are three main types of conditioners: anti-oxidant conditioners, which are mainly used in salons after chemical services and prevent creeping oxidation; internal conditioners, which enter into the cortex of the hair and help improve the hair's internal condition (also known as treatments); and external conditioners, or everyday conditioners, which smooth down the cuticle layer, making the hair shiny, combable and smooth. Conditioners can also provide a physical layer of protection for the hair against physical and environmental damage.\n",
"Conditioners are available in a wide range of forms including viscous liquids, gels and creams as well as thinner lotions and sprays. Hair conditioner is usually used after the hair has been washed with shampoo. It is applied and worked into the hair and may either be washed out a short time later or left in. For short hair, 2-3 tablespoons is the recommended amount. For long hair, up to 8 tablespoons may be used.\n",
"One reason is concern about the effect of ingredients typically found in commercial hair care products. Shampoo typically contains chemical additives such as sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate, which can irritate sensitive skin or if not thoroughly rinsed. Such chemical additives are also believed by some consumers to dry out their hair. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) compared the ingredients in 42,000 personal care products against 50 toxicity and regulatory databases and found that most shampoos have at least one chemical that \"raises concern\" (although the hair care industry counters by claiming that the chemicals are safe in the concentrations used). The group flagged the following groups of ingredients as hazardous: fragrances, due to containing unknown constituents, parabens, possibly linked to endocrine disruption and neurotoxicity, DMDM hydantoin, due to possible allergy concerns, and 1,4-dioxane, which the Environmental Protection Agency has labelled as a probable human carcinogen. Some disagree with the EWG’s assessments while others think they aren’t strong enough. \n",
"Some shampoos also include silicone derivatives (such as dimethicone), which is claimed to coat the hair. While it is claimed that silicone derivatives protect the hair and make it more manageable (dimethicone is a common ingredient in smoothing serums and detangling conditioners), the film that proponents assert coats the hair is also claimed to prevent moisture from entering the hair, eventually drying it out.\n",
"Hair conditioner is a hair care product used to improve the feel, appearance and manageability of hair. Its main purpose of is to reduce friction between strands of hair to allow easier brushing or combing, which might otherwise cause damage to the scalp. Various other benefits are often advertised, such as hair repair, strengthening, or a reduction in split ends.\n",
"In lower concentrations, it is found in toothpastes, shampoos, shaving creams, and bubble bath formulations, for its ability to create a foam (lather), for its surfactant properties, and in part for its thickening effect.\n",
"Anti-foams are added in certain types of detergents to reduce foaming that might decrease the action of the detergent. For example, dishwasher detergents have to be low foaming for the dishwasher to work properly.\n"
] |
Why does both heating and cooling my house dry out the air?
|
With very few exceptions, air has a certain level of water vapor in it, which is what we refer to as humidity. Air can only hold so much water vapor in it until it is completely saturated, and this is what we mean when we say the (relative) humidity is 40%: currently, the air has 40% of the maximum amount of vapor it can hold. The amount of vapor air can hold is dependent on temperature and warmer air can hold more vapor while colder air can hold less.
A related quantity is called the dew point, which is the temperature where the relative humidity (RH) would become 100% (the air cannot hold any more water). So if the temperature is 70F and 50% relative humidity, the dew point is 60F, which means if we cooled the air to 60F without adding or removing any water vapor from it, the RH would be 100%, which makes sense since cold air can't hold as much vapor as warm air.
So when you take your 70F/50% air and run it through your air conditioner, it is cooled to well below the dew point. Since you can't have greater than 100% RH, that means that some of the water vapor has to come out of the air. When it gets pumped into the room, it gradually warms back up to 70F, but since it lost some water vapor in the air conditioner, your relative humidity will now be lower.
Similarly, when you heat air, you're raising the amount of water vapor it can hold without actually adding any vapor to it, so your RH will go down.
As an aside, natural gas heaters produce water vapor as a product of combustion, but I don't know if that vapor makes it into the heated air or is condensed/exhausted elsewhere.
EDIT: Corrected a dew point typo
|
[
"To conserve energy the cooling air is not refrigerated but is cooled by being passed through a labyrinth of pipes buried under the house at a depth where the temperature remains suitable all year round. The house is designed so that the maximum temperature should not exceed .\n",
"The house is designed to maintain a comfortable temperature with little power from the grid. \"Water in the black tubes is heated by the sun throughout the day. At night the stored heat is radiated back into the interior of the house walls and provides radiant wall heat.\" For cooling, the house is set 1.5 meters into the ground, eliminating the need for air conditioning.\n",
"Evaporative coolers tend to feel as if they are not working during times of high humidity, when there is not much dry air with which the coolers can work to make the air as cool as possible for dwelling occupants. Unlike other types of air conditioners, evaporative coolers rely on the outside air to be channeled through cooler pads that cool the air before it reaches the inside of a house through its air duct system; this cooled outside air must be allowed to push the warmer air within the house out through an exhaust opening such as an open door or window. These coolers cost less and are mechanically simple to understand and maintain.\n",
"Throughout the house, it has natural ventilation and a passive evaporative-cooling system that uses the sloped site as an advantage. Moreover, air is circulated through the house with the use of a passive evaporative cooling system that takes the prevailing south westerly wind over the grass embankment and under the house where it flows through the floor vents to the east end of the building. The fine water mist sprays, placed at the top end of the embankment, cools down the air further.\n",
"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 heat is pumped across a larger temperature difference and this leads to higher efficiency and lower energy use.\n",
"The building replaces 100% outside air; no air is recirculated through the system. Two underground tubes exchange outside and inside air eight feet beneath the ground, passively warming or cooling the air to match the temperature of the ground (~55°F year round). The house transfers heat between the outgoing air and the incoming air before it reaches the rooms, resulting in a difference of less than 10°F between the incoming fresh air and the desired room temperature, even in the midst of Minnesotan winter.\n",
"Because window air conditioner units have condensers and expansion units, some of them can be used as makeshift dehumidifiers by sending their heat exhaust back into the same room as the cooled air, instead of the outside environment. If the condensate from the cooling coils is drained away from the room as it drips off the cooling coils, the result will be room air that is drier but slightly warmer.\n"
] |
Why did the Danube valley fail to produce a great early civilisation, like the Nile, the Euphrates, the Indus, the Yangtze etc.
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/u/cthulhushrugged is right on here. The question can't be answered, and if it could, it would be an anthropological question just as much as a geo-climactic one.
A note on the latter, though: the Danube watersheds were largely primeval forests in prehistory (though this is a gigantic region and can't really be so easily categorized in any period). The others you mention (Nile, Mesopotamia, China, Indus) were naturally more predisposed to farming for surplus, which is the key to "getting ahead" (as Diamond might put it).
And a second note: as attractive as they are, arguments based on geographical determinism are almost always flawed. They work well on paper, but not in practice.
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[
"The Indus Valley Civilisation went into decline around the year 1700 BC for reasons that are not entirely known, though its downfall was probably precipitated by an earthquake or natural event that dried up the Ghaggar River. The Indo-Aryans are believed to have founded the Vedic civilisation that existed between the Sarasvati River and Ganges river around 1500 BC. This civilisation helped shape subsequent cultures in South Asia.\n",
"Urban centers of the Indus Valley Civilisation were abandoned and were replaced by disparate local cultures, due to the same climate change that affected the neighbouring areas of the Middle East. many scholars believe that drought and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia caused the collapse of the Indus Civilisation. The Ghaggar-Hakra system was rain-fed, and water supply depended on the monsoons. The Indus valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BC, linked to a general weakening of the monsoon at that time. The Indian monsoon declined and aridity increased, with the Ghaggar-Hakra retracting its reach towards the foothills of the Himalaya, leading to erratic and less extensive floods that made inundation agriculture less sustainable. Aridification reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter its population eastward.\n",
"The Indus Valley Civilisation was localised, that is, urban centers disappeared and were replaced by local cultures, due to a climate change that is also signalled for the neighbouring areas of the Middle East. many scholars believe that drought and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia caused the collapse of the Indus Civilisation. The Ghaggar-Hakra system was rain-fed, and water-supply depended on the monsoons. The Indus valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BCE, linked to a general weakening of the monsoon at that time. The Indian monsoon declined and aridity increased, with the Ghaggar-Hakra retracting its reach towards the foothills of the Himalaya, leading to erratic and less extensive floods that made inundation agriculture less sustainable. Aridification reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter its population eastward.\n",
"Some paleo-environmental scientists have proposed that the Hakkra was fed by Himalayan sources, which made it a mighty river, but dried-up between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE, due to tectonic disturbances which caused a tilt in topography of Northwest India, resulting in the migration of rivers. According to this theory, the Sutlej moved westward and became a tributary of the Indus River, while the Yamuna moved eastward and became a tributary of the Ganges, supposedly in the early 2nd millennium BCE, while reaching its current bed by 1st millennium BCE. The Drishadvati bed retained only a small seasonal flow. The water loss due to these movements caused the Ghaggar-Hakra river to dry up in the Thar Desert.\n",
"Some paleo-environmental scientists have proposed that the Hakkra was fed by Himalayan sources, which made it a mighty river, but dried-up between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE, due to tectonic disturbances which caused a tilt in topography of Northwest India, resulting in the migration of rivers. According to this theory, the Sutlej moved westward and became a tributary of the Indus River, while the Yamuna moved eastward and became a tributary of the Ganges, supposedly in the early 2nd millennium BCE, while reaching its current bed by 1st millennium BCE. The Drishadvati bed retained only a small seasonal flow. The water loss due to these movements caused the Ghaggar-Hakra river to dry up in the Thar Desert.\n",
"Irrigation was developed in the Indus Valley Civilisation by around 4500 BCE. The size and prosperity of the Indus civilisation grew as a result of this innovation, which eventually led to more planned settlements making use of drainage and sewers. Sophisticated irrigation and water storage systems were developed by the Indus Valley Civilisation, including artificial reservoirs at Girnar dated to 3000 BCE, and an early canal irrigation system from circa 2600 BCE. Archaeological evidence of an animal-drawn plough dates back to 2500 BC in the Indus Valley Civilisation.\n",
"Recent geophysical research shows that during the time of the Harappan Civilisation the Ghaggar-Hakra system was a system of monsoon-fed rivers, not Himalayan-fed, and that the Indus Valley Civilisation declined when the monsoons that fed the rivers diminished at around some 4,000 years ago. Subatlantic aridification subsequently reduced the Ghaggar-Hakra to the seasonal river it is today.\n"
] |
Besides Market Garden, what are some other notable and interesting Allied failures of World War 2?
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While this might be a bit of a stretch since in the end it is billed as an Allied military victory, I think the Battle of Anzio and its after effects failed to accomplish their primary objectives.
At the end of 1943/beginning of 1944 the Allies were bogged down assaulting the Gustav line, a series of German defensive works that spanned the Italian peninsula west to east, with its anchor in the town of Monte Casino. Churchill's idea was to land two infantry divisions to the northwest of the Gustav line near the city of Anzio. According to Rick Attkinson's book *The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944* this attack appeared to demonstrate two benefits, it would either force the Germans to divert troops from the Gustav line, making an Allied breakthrough there more likely, or the troops at the Anzio beachhead could advance inland and trap the defenders between several Allied Divisions.
The first landings took place in January 22, 1944, and at first things looked great. The Allies managed to land 36,000 soldiers and 3,200 vehicles without any casualties at all and the American General in command at the beach, John Lucas, quickly consolidated the beach head. Unfortunately, after this, things just got worse and worse for the Allies. With only two infantry divisions and no supporting armor, it was important for Lucas to advance rapidly inland, as the Anzio beachhead was surrounded by high ground, perfect for the defensive mastermind Albert Kesselring, who commanded the German forces in Italy. According to Lloyd Clark’s book *Anzio: The Friction of War. Italy and the Battle for Rome 1944.* Lucas considered his force too small for his mission, and worried about Kesselring’s inevitable counter-attacks that would feature heavy artillery and tanks, he also declined the aid offered to him by Italian partisans, who claimed they could help his divisions navigate the local, hilly terrain.
Thus, Lucas spent too much time consolidating the Anzio beach head, and Kesselring could move minimal reinforcements to the hills and mountains surrounding it, and a long battle of attrition that resembled the stalemate at Monte Casino grinded on for about four months. In the end, the Allies took the town and Abbey of Monte Casino after assaulting it directly 5 times, and it was only after Allied armies began marching north that Major General Lucian Truscott, who had replaced Lucas coordinated a successful breakout of the beachhead. Clark’s book also points out that in the aftermath of Anzio yet another Allied failure shows it head; as Truscott was driving east to capture retreating German division from the Gustav line, his commander, Lieutenant General Mark Clark ordered Truscott’s corps northward to liberate Rome, in what is widely considered a purely symbolic victory for the Allied armies. This decision by Clark allowed thousands of German soldiers and their equipment to withdraw to the Gothic line, another set of defenses similar to the Gustav line that was towards the north of Italy.
Thus we see not only did Anzio not directly lead to the Allied breach of the Gustav line (you could even argue the troops who breached the Gustav line were the ones that allowed the Anzio breakout), but the Allied divisions that landed failed to trap retreating German forces. So despite the fact that the Allies eventually “won” the battle of Anzio, the poor planning and decisions made would help the Germans keep the fight up in Italy until almost the last days of the war in Europe.
Sources:
The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944; Rick Attkinson
Anzio: The Friction of War. Italy and the Battle for Rome 1944; Lloyd Clark
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[
"Operation Market Garden was a failed World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. It was the brainchild of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, planned primarily by Generals Brereton and Williams of the USAAF. The airborne part of the operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. The objective was to create a salient into German territory with a foothold over the River Rhine, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by seizing a series of nine bridges by Airborne forces with land forces swiftly following moving over the bridges. The operation succeeded in liberating the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, creating a salient into German-held territory limiting V-2 rocket launching sites. It failed, however, to secure a foothold over the Rhine, halting at the river.\n",
"Amid regular rationing of food in Britain, the United States Department of Agriculture encouraged the planting of victory gardens during the course of World War II. Around one third of the vegetables produced by the United States came from victory gardens. It was emphasized to American home front urbanites and suburbanites that the produce from their gardens would help to lower the price of vegetables needed by the US War Department to feed the troops, thus saving money that could be spent elsewhere on the military: \"Our food is fighting,\" one US poster read. By May 1943, there were 18 million victory gardens in the United States – 12 million in cities and 6 million on farms.\n",
"Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II. George Washington Carver wrote an agricultural tract and promoted the idea of what he called a \"Victory Garden\". They were used along with Rationing Stamps and Cards to reduce pressure on the public food supply. Besides indirectly aiding the war effort, these gardens were also considered a civil \"morale booster\" in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. This made victory gardens a part of daily life on the home front.\n",
"BULLET::::- Operation Market Garden ended in defeat for the Allies when they failed to cross the Rhine. The operation was mostly overlooked in popular histories of World War II until the 1974 publication of the book \"A Bridge Too Far\" by Cornelius Ryan, which was the basis for a film of the same name released in 1977.\n",
"\"Market Garden\" had two distinct parts. \"Market\" was to be the largest airborne operation in history, dropping three and a half divisions of American, British, and Polish paratroopers to capture key bridges and prevent their demolition by the Germans. \"Garden\" was a ground attack by the British Second Army across the bridges. It was assumed that the German forces would still be recovering from the previous campaign and opposition would not be very stiff for either operation.\n",
"In March 1917, Charles Lathrop Pack organized the US National War Garden Commission and launched the war garden campaign. Food production had fallen dramatically during World War I, especially in Europe, where agricultural labor had been recruited into military service and remaining farms devastated by the conflict. Pack and others conceived the idea that the supply of food could be greatly increased without the use of land and manpower already engaged in agriculture, and without the significant use of transportation facilities needed for the war effort. The campaign promoted the cultivation of available private and public lands, resulting in over five million gardens in the USA and foodstuff production exceeding $1.2 billion by the end of the war.\n",
"\"Market Garden\" is the second add-on module, released in October, 2013. As described at the web site, \"Combat Mission: Market Garden depicts allied Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's September 1944 dash across Holland [sic] in a daring gambit to leap the Rhine river and enter the heartland of Germany itself. Fielding U.S., British and Polish forces, Operation Market Garden was meant to be the lightning stroke which would end the war that year.\" Several new terrain types, such as large bridges, new buildings, and larger maps were added, in addition to new types of vehicles and troop formations. The \"Market Garden\" module requires version 2 of the base game. It does not require the \"Commonwealth Forces\" module.\n"
] |
if lava is melted rock, why is it so fertile when it cools down?
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It's not. Take a look at the [western coast of the island of Hawaii](_URL_0_). The land on the western coast is considerably more recent than the land on the eastern coast. The weather and mountain range plays a large role as well but the fresh land was so rocky and porous that it could not hold water sufficiently to make fertile land.
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[
"Because lava usually cools and crystallizes rapidly, it is usually fine-grained. If the cooling has been so rapid as to prevent the formation of even small crystals after extrusion, the resulting rock may be mostly glass (such as the rock obsidian). If the cooling of the lava happened more slowly, the rock would be coarse-grained.\n",
"Chemical and mechanical erosion of the old lava flows is caused by reactions of the surface with the atmosphere in the presence of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide (see carbonate-silicate cycle for details). These two gases are the planet's first and third most abundant gases, respectively; the second most abundant gas is inert nitrogen. The reactions probably include the deterioration of silicates by carbon dioxide to produce carbonates and quartz, as well as the deterioration of silicates by sulfur dioxide to produce anhydrate calcium sulfate and carbon dioxide.\n",
"When magma cools it solidifies and forms rocks. The type of rock formed depends on the chemical composition of the magma and how rapidly it cools. Magma that reaches the surface to become lava cools rapidly, resulting in rocks with small crystals such as basalt. Some of this magma may cool extremely rapidly and will form volcanic glass (rocks without crystals) such as obsidian. \n",
"When rocks are pushed deep under the Earth's surface, they may melt into magma. If the conditions no longer exist for the magma to stay in its liquid state, it cools and solidifies into an igneous rock. A rock that cools within the Earth is called intrusive or plutonic and cools very slowly, producing a coarse-grained texture such as the rock granite. As a result of volcanic activity, magma (which is called lava when it reaches Earth's surface) may cool very rapidly while being on the Earth's surface exposed to the atmosphere and are called extrusive or volcanic rocks. These rocks are fine-grained and sometimes cool so rapidly that no crystals can form and result in a natural glass, such as obsidian, however the most common fine-grained rock would be known as basalt. Any of the three main types of rocks (igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks) can melt into magma and cool into igneous rocks.\n",
"These volcanic rocks formed through melting of the earth mantle. After magma generation, lava flowed out over the surface, in successive flows. Some part of it disappeared within the next 1 to 3 million years due to weathering and erosion, while other parts remained present. Within the basalt, columnar joints occur as a result of cooling; they are visible along the flanks of the ridges. The columnar joints are perpendicular to the surface of the lava flows; they are mostly vertical, but may also be strongly inclined. The lower succession, the one that overlies the Amba Aradam Formation and the Adigrat Sandstone holds vertical and closely spaced columnar joints. A common characteristic of the columnar joints observed in the Ashangi Basalts is their pentagonal or hexagonal shape (in plan view).\n",
"Because the eruptions occur with the volcano underwater, the form of lava typically erupted is pillow lava. Pillow lava is rounded balls of lava that was given very little time to cool due to immediate exposure to water. Water pressure prevents the lava from exploding upon contact with the cold ocean water, forcing it to simmer and solidify quickly. This stage is thought to last about 200,000 years, but lavas erupted during this stage make up only a tiny fraction of the final volume of the volcano. As time progresses, eruptions become stronger and more frequent.\n",
"Lava is molten rock generated by geothermal energy and expelled through fractures in planetary crust or in an eruption, usually at temperatures from . The structures resulting from subsequent solidification and cooling are also sometimes described as \"lava\". The molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites, though such material located below the crust is referred to by other terms.\n"
] |
What is wrong with the "Black Legend"?
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Here's three things:
1. Most of the perpetrators of the Black Legend weren't simply saying "the Spanish are very oppressive to indigenous peoples." The Pope called them "the scum of the Earth." Immanuel Kant, in *Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime*, calls the Spaniard cruel, centuries behind in science, lazy, ignorant of reform, and un-European (derogatively). These are not objective utterances. Pope Paul IV, for instance, had what you might call a personal vendetta against the Spanish, having hated growing up there and being a political opponent of its royalty. Black Legend wasn't always a criticism of deeds, but the defaming of a people.
2. In modern popular accounts, criticism of the Spanish is typically tied with a hidden "noble savage" motif. The narrative is as follows: the Inca are living their happy peaceful life in the Andes. They've got a lot of cool things: roads with regular storehouses/rest stops, a diverse religious culture, nifty stoneworking techniques, etc. Then the white man comes with his horses and guns and tramples over them, forcing them to near slavery in tin and silver mines. Poor Inca! That was rightfully their land, and they never did anything to deserve that!
What's wrong with this? Any time you see this story, the Inca are the good guys and the Spanish are bad. As targustargus tried to point out, this completely lacks nuance and knowledge of Andean prehistory. For instance, the Inca were only native to the Cuzco area. They had conquered the rest of the Andes within the past hundred years, and they were still conquering places in the far north when the Spanish first arrived. Like the Spanish, they were a small ethnic group with big ambitions for conquest who laid their own culture and infrastructures on top of subjugated groups and who appropriated resources, culture, and religion for their own goals.
Additionally, the mit'a system you bring up was in fact an effective method of creating an infrastructure. In the Inca empire's brief existence though, this was often an infrastructure for conquest, with roads to facilitate troop movement and storehouses to extend campaigns. If a people joined the empire through treaty, then such a taxation might be reasonable. But if you're a former citizen of the enormous city of Chan Chan, defeated by Topa Inca Yupanqui's army ~1470, being forced to help replicate your own destruction is unspeakably humiliating. As an archaeologist of pre-Inca cultures, I am regularly frustrated by how much cultural knowledge has been lost due to the Inca conquest.
3. In addition, popular accounts focus on the Spanish actions and downplay native agency. It's always "The Spanish conquered the Inca" and it's never "The Inca attempted political intrigue and military outmanuevering against the Spanish, but failed." The conquest changed the Spanish as it did the Andeans.
**TL;DR Popular narratives downplay any benefits of the Spanish conquest and romanticize the prior Inca conquerors.**
Some good sources for complex looks at the conquest period:
Gose, P. (2008). Invaders as ancestors: on the intercultural making and unmaking of Spanish colonialism in the Andes. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.
Mumford, J. R. (2012). Vertical empire [electronic resource]: the general resettlement of Indians in the colonial Andes. Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press.
Ramos, G. (2010). Death and conversion in the Andes: Lima and Cuzco, 1532-1670. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.
Wernke, S. A. (2013). Negotiated settlements : Andean communities and landscapes under Inka and Spanish colonialism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
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[
"A black legend is a historiographical phenomenon in which a sustained trend in historical writing of biased reporting and introduction of fabricated, exaggerated and/or decontextualized facts is directed against particular persons, nations or institutions with the intention of creating a distorted and uniquely inhuman image of them while hiding their positive contributions to history. The term was first used by French writer Arthur Lévy in his 1893 work \"Napoléon Intime\", in contrast to the expression \"Golden Legend\" that had been in circulation around Europe since the publication of a book of that name during the Middle Ages.\n",
"The black legend is cited in films such as \"Victoria & Abdul\". In his essay \"Why Spaniards Make Good Bad Guys\", Samuel Amago analyzes the persistence of the legend in contemporary European cinema. The American Council of Education reported anti-Hispanism in textbooks in 1944, identifying basic errors and biased portrayals and concluding, \"The abolition of the black legend and its effects in our interpretation of Latin American life is one of our main problems in the educational and intellectual aspect, as well as in the political sphere\". According to Philip Wayne Powell in 1971, however, the core textbook errors still remained. The black legend can be said to contribute to white supremacy, erasing the ethical and intellectual contributions of southern Europeans and reducing the power and competence of Native American empires before and during the Spanish conquest. \n",
"The Black Legend, or the Spanish Black Legend, is a black legend consisting of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda which started in the 16th century, originally as a political and psychological weapon by Spain's rivals in the attempt of demonizing the Spanish Empire, its people and culture, and countering its influence and power in world affairs. The assimilation of primarily English and German propaganda into mainstream history created an anti-Hispanic bias in subsequent historians and a distorted view of the history of Spain, Latin America, and other parts of the world.\n",
"Though black legends can be perpetrated against any nation or culture, the term \"The Black Legend\" has come to refer specifically to \"The Spanish Black Legend\" () when not otherwise qualified, the theory that anti-Spanish political propaganda from the 16th century or earlier, whether about Spain, the Spanish Empire or Hispanic America, was sometimes \"absorbed and converted into broadly held stereotypes\" that assumed that Spain was \"uniquely evil\". The absorption of political propaganda and outright fabrications into mainstream academic interpretations of Spanish history, along with their use to conceal or sanitize inconvenient facts about other nations, resulted in a systematic repetition of such anti-Spanish bias and distortions. Commonly cited examples of this include the Spanish Inquisition and the relationship between Spanish colonists in the New World and the indigenous peoples of the Americas.\n",
"Arnoldsson's theory on the origins of the Black Legend has been disputed as confusing the process of Black Legend generation with simply a negative view or a critique of a foreign power. In general, they raise the following objections:\n",
"Roca Barea, among others, argues that The Black Legend is founded on a spin-off, a reused version of the anti-Semitic narratives forged and circulated through England and most of Central Europe from the 13th century on.\n",
"The term \"black legend\" was first used by Arthur Lévy about biographies of Napoleon in the context of the opposition between a \"golden legend\" and a \"black legend\": two extreme, simplistic, one-dimensional approaches to a character which portrayed him as a god or a demon. \"Golden\" and \"black legends\" had been used by Spanish historians and intellectuals with the same meaning in reference to aspects of Spanish history; Antonio Soler used both terms about the portrayal of Castilian and Aragonese monarchs. At an 18 April 1899 Paris conference, Emilia Pardo Bazán used it for the first time to refer to a general view of modern Spanish history:\n"
] |
asteroid belts and planetary rings
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Orbiting happens when you continuously fall towards the planet but keep missing. Missing the planet happens because of sideways motion, you drop towards the planet a bit, but your sideways motion has taken you so far the planet is still just as far away as it was before.
If you orbit too fast, you will just fling out, if you orbit too slow, you won't be able to miss the planet, your free fall ends in a crash.
Now, the curious thing is, gas cloud can have momentum, that is, spinning energy. And this energy will be retained unless external force acts on the system. And in space, there aren't that many external forces. So if gas cloud spun one way, so does the star that forms from it, and so do the planets that eventually orbit it.
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[
"The asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter. It is made of thousands of rocky planetesimals from to a few meters across. These are thought to be debris of the formation of the Solar System that could not form a planet due to Jupiter's gravity. When asteroids collide they produce small fragments that occasionally fall on Earth. These rocks are called meteorites and provide information about the primordial solar nebula. Most of these fragments have the size of sand grains. They burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, causing them to glow like meteors.\n",
"Although diamonds on Earth are rare, extraterrestrial diamonds (diamonds formed outside of Earth) are very common. Diamonds not much larger than molecules are abundant in meteorites and some of them formed in stars before the Solar System existed. High pressure experiments suggest large amounts of diamonds are formed from methane on the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune, while some planets in other solar systems may be almost pure diamond. Diamonds are also found in stars and may have been the first mineral ever to have formed.\n",
"Asteroids and asteroid belts are a staple of science fiction stories. Asteroids play several potential roles in science fiction: as places which human beings might colonize; as resources for extracting minerals; as a hazard encountered by spaceships traveling between two other points; and as a threat to life on Earth due to potential impacts\n",
"Asteroids and the asteroid belt are a staple of science fiction stories. Asteroids play several potential roles in science fiction: as places human beings might colonize, resources for extracting minerals, hazards encountered by spacecraft traveling between two other points, and as a threat to life on Earth or other inhabited planets, dwarf planets, and natural satellites by potential impact.\n",
"Researchers Rebecca Martin and Mario Livio have proposed that asteroid belts may tend to form in the vicinity of the frost line, due to nearby giant planets disrupting planet formation inside their orbit. By analysing the temperature of warm dust found around some 90 stars, they concluded that the dust (and therefore possible asteroid belts) was typically found close to the frost line.\n",
"The main-belt asteroid was named after physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild (1873–1916), who had died earlier that year. He was director of the observatories in Göttingen and Potsdam, known for his work in photometry, geometrical optics, stellar statistics and theoretical astrophysics, most notably for producing the first exact solutions to Einstein's field equations. At the time, it was custom to give feminized names to minor planets.\n",
"On the longer term, asteroids can transfer between horseshoe orbits and quasi-satellite orbits. Quasi-satellites aren't gravitationally bound to their planet, but appear to circle it in a retrograde direction as they circle the Sun with the same orbital period as the planet. By 2016, orbital calculations showed that four of Earth's horseshoe librators and all five of its then known quasi-satellites repeatedly transfer between horseshoe and quasi-satellite orbits.\n"
] |
why can luxury restaurants charge $60 for a single ravioli on a white plate?
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Well, lets start with the food itself. The food components used in a luxury restaurant like a Michelin-starred one are generally of very high quality and fresh. Where "normal" restaurants may substitute with e.g. pre-made sauces and pasta, a luxury restaurant of certain reputation will always prepare everything fresh and by themselves. Deep fried products and other convenience foods are (almost) never used. So, besides the high purchasing prices of the components used in "luxury" food, you have to add the cost of time needed for its preparation. Producing a stack of self-made ravioli, for example, takes a lot of time.
And all this time that is needed forces a luxury restaurant to have enough kitchen staff/cooks to deal with the immense workload they have to deal with if the restaurant is full. Cooks in luxury restaurants are usually very well-educated and have a lot of experience, so they are paid very well. This is especially true for the chef (de cuisine), since he is the one that designs the product and is responsible for its success. A huge amount of creativity, sense of taste and understanding of different kinds of tastes and cuisines is necessary, so you can imagine that they'll earn a lot.
But it doesn't end at the kitchen staff. If you go to a luxury restaurant, you expect excellent service which is provided by well educated and experienced waiters, lead by an even more experienced Maitre d'. Additional services usually include a Sommelier who counsels you on your choice of wine for your dish. All these people want to get paid, too.
Then you have the equipment. Tables, chairs, chinaware, silverware, tablecloths, napkins... you name it. Where "normal" restaurants might not concern themselves too much with the condition of your silverware, a luxury restaurant cannot afford anything less than perfection, so theiy'll replace anything that looks remotely worn out quickly. Costs that have to be covered, too.
And on top of that you have an owner, who wants to drive a Porsche, too. Usually a renown chef with years of experience who likes to earn six figures a year at least. Add all that up and you easily get a $100 three course meal.
|
[
"Kaiseki is often very expensive – kaiseki dinners at top traditional restaurants generally cost from 5,000 yen to upwards of 40,000 per person, without drinks. Cheaper options are available, notably lunch (from around 4,000 to 8,000 yen (US $37 to $74), and in some circumstances bento (around 2,000 to 4,000 yen (US $18 to $37)). In some cases counter seating is cheaper than private rooms. At \"ryokan,\" the meals may be included in the price of the room or optional, and may be available only to guests, or served to the general public (some \"ryokan\" are now primarily restaurants). Traditional menu options offer three price levels, Sho Chiku Bai (traditional trio of pine, bamboo, and plum), with pine being most expensive, plum least expensive; this is still found at some restaurants.\n",
"BULLET::::- The \"all-you-can-eat\" buffet is more free-form; customers pay a fixed fee and then can help themselves to as much food as they wish to eat in a single meal. This form is found often in restaurants, especially in hotels. In some countries, this format is popular for \"Sunday brunch\" buffets.\n",
"French toast, sandwiches, various Fried rice and Chinese noodles. For drinks, it offers Hong Kong style milk tea, coffee, ‘Yuanyang’, lemon tea and so on. The price of the buffet ranges from $40 to $80. In one of the restaurants, consumers can choose to have either a $40 or $80 buffet. Consumers who choose to have $40 can have breakfast, lunch or tea buffet. Those who pay $80 can have the dinner buffet. Both these two sets of buffet provide one free drink to consumers.\n",
"The restaurant is known for its seafood influenced cuisine, as well as for staying true to Japanese culture and traditions with a lot of the staff wearing traditional Japanese clothes. The restaurant is at the higher end of the price scale, with the average cost being around £300 per person. \n",
"In February 2004, Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud was mentioned in \"The New York Times\", where it was reported that lunch cost $36 and dinner was available for $124. Guilbaud's food was described as \"seriously good\" and was served in \"seriously elegant surroundings\", with \"reservations advised\" by the newspaper. Food on offer included roast quail coated with hazelnuts.\n",
"Providing a variety of price categories allows people also to choose the diversity of delicacies which they can afford. Relatively high priced Poon choi includes luxury food such as abalones, shark fin, oyster, which people may select to gain honour by showing that they are generous and wealthy. Those who prefer a reasonable price can have a tasty meal with more common ingredients.\n",
"Fine dining establishments are sometimes called \"white-tablecloth restaurants\", because they traditionally featured table service by servers, at tables covered by white tablecloths. The tablecloths came to symbolize the experience. The use of white tablecloths eventually became less fashionable, but the service and upscale ambience remained.\n"
] |
if the nsa can easily mine most/all data and circumvent encryption methods, why can't they easily locate groups like anonymous?
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They aren't allowed to. NSA's main goal is to investigate/surveillance foreign intelligence(foreign military threats to the US and since 9/11, terrorist plots and threats , Not *foreign intelligence services* ) And they can only investigate US citizens if they can find a link between that citizen and a foreign terrorist and with a warrant acquired by the FISC court(Foreign intelligence services court, a 11 member panel appointed by the chief justice of the supreme court himself)
Plus they are legally bound to as of current, three laws of which that deals with terrorism. The Patriot act, Protect america act of 2007 and FISA amendments of 2008.
TLDR: They are legally and constitutionally barred from surveillance of anything other then foreign threats(terrorists/plots/attacks/ enemy military actions)
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[
"Due to new technologies, it was necessary to update cryptographic algorithms. This need has raised the level of complexity of techniques used for encrypting the data of individuals to guarantee network security. Because of the difficulty of deciphering data, government agencies have begun to search for other ways to conduct criminal investigations; one such option is hacking.\n",
"To conduct searches and gain remote access on a regular, large scale, legal attempts have been made to change encryption. Weaker encryption would make technology less secure overall. Governments could copy, modify, or delete data during digital investigations.\n",
"Deniable encryption and anonymizing networks can be used to avoid being detected while sharing illegal or sensitive information that users are too afraid to share without any protection of their identity. The information being shared could be anything from anti-state propaganda, whistleblowing, organization of narcotics distribution, illegal pornographic content, distribution of reports from political dissidents, anonymous monetary transactions, etc.\n",
"The NSA encourages the manufacturers of security technology to disclose backdoors to their products or encryption keys so that they may access the encrypted data. However, fearing widespread adoption of encryption, the NSA set out to stealthily influence and weaken encryption standards and obtain master keys—either by agreement, by force of law, or by computer network exploitation (hacking).\n",
"It was revealed that the NSA was harvesting millions of email and instant messaging contact lists, searching email content, tracking and mapping the location of cell phones, undermining attempts at encryption via Bullrun and that the agency was using cookies to piggyback on the same tools used by Internet advertisers \"to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance.\" The NSA was shown to be secretly accessing Yahoo and Google data centers to collect information from hundreds of millions of account holders worldwide by tapping undersea cables using the MUSCULAR surveillance program.\n",
"\"The Guardian\" opined in 2013 that most of these things cannot be detected by other NSA tools, because they operate with strong selectors (like e-mail and IP addresses and phone numbers) and the raw data volumes are too high to be forwarded to other NSA databases.\n",
"One can argue that both layer 2 and layer 3 encryption methods are not good enough for protecting valuable data like passwords and personal emails. Those technologies add encryption only to parts of the communication path, still allowing people to spy on the traffic if they have gained access to the wired network somehow. The solution may be encryption and authorization in the application layer, using technologies like SSL, SSH, GnuPG, PGP and similar.\n"
] |
Are different sections of our bodies different temperatures? Everyone talks about internal body temp, but how much variance do we normally see in the temperature in extremities and such?
|
In humans the average internal temperature is 37.0 °C. However, we don't always has exactly the same temperature at every moment of the day. Temperatures cycle up and down, controlled by our circadian rhythm. The lowest temperature occurs about two hours before we normally wake up (Altough the circadian rhytm can be altered). Temperatures also change according to activities and external factors.
It really depends, if it is cold outside, your limbs will be much cooler than the rest of your body.
|
[
"Normal human body temperature varies slightly from person to person and by the time of day. Consequently, each type of measurement has a range of normal temperatures. The range for normal human body temperatures, taken orally, is (). This means that any oral temperature between is likely to be normal.\n",
"Individual body temperature depends upon the age, exertion, infection, sex, and reproductive status of the subject, the time of day, the place in the body at which the measurement is made, and the subject's state of consciousness (waking, sleeping or sedated), activity level, and emotional state. It is typically maintained within this range by thermoregulation.\n",
"Seminiferous epithelium is sensitive to elevated temperature in humans and some other species, and will be adversely affected by temperatures as high as normal body temperature. Consequently, the testes are located outside the body in a sack of skin called the scrotum. The optimal temperature is maintained at 2 °C (man)–8 °C (mouse) below body temperature. This is achieved by regulation of blood flow and positioning towards and away from the heat of the body by the cremasteric muscle and the dartos smooth muscle in the scrotum.\n",
"The temperature can be measured in various locations on the body which maintain a fairly stable temperature (mainly sub-lingual, axillary, rectal, vaginal, forehead, or temporal artery). The normal temperature varies slightly with the location; an oral reading of 37 °C does not correspond to rectal, temporal, etc. readings of the same value. When a temperature is quoted the location should also be specified. If a temperature is stated without qualification (e.g., typical body temperature) it is usually assumed to be sub-lingual. The differences between core temperature and measurements at different locations, known as \"clinical bias\", is discussed in the article on normal human body temperature. Measurements are subject to both site-dependent clinical bias and variability between a series of measurements (standard deviations of the differences). For example, one study found that the clinical bias of rectal temperatures was greater than for ear temperature measured by a selection of thermometers under test, but variability was less.\n",
"Reported values vary depending on how it is measured: oral (under the tongue): (), internal (rectal, vaginal): . A rectal or vaginal measurement taken directly inside the body cavity is typically slightly higher than oral measurement, and oral measurement is somewhat higher than skin measurement. Other places, such as under the arm or in the ear, produce different typical temperatures. While some people think of these averages as representing normal or ideal measurements, a wide range of temperatures has been found in healthy people. The body temperature of a healthy person varies during the day by about with lower temperatures in the morning and higher temperatures in the late afternoon and evening, as the body's needs and activities change. Other circumstances also affect the body's temperature. The core body temperature of an individual tends to have the lowest value in the second half of the sleep cycle; the lowest point, called the nadir, is one of the primary markers for circadian rhythms. The body temperature also changes when a person is hungry, sleepy, sick, or cold.\n",
"Thus, when local thermodynamic equilibrium prevails in a body, temperature can be regarded as a spatially varying local property in that body, and this is because temperature is an intensive variable.\n",
"It was not until the introduction of thermometers that any exact data on the temperature of animals could be obtained. It was then found that local differences were present, since heat production and heat loss vary considerably in different parts of the body, although the circulation of the blood tends to bring about a mean temperature of the internal parts. Hence it is important to identify the parts of the body that most closely reflect the temperature of the internal organs. Also, for such results to be comparable, the measurements must be conducted under comparable conditions. The rectum has traditionally been considered to reflect most accurately the temperature of internal parts, or in some cases of sex or species, the vagina, uterus or bladder.\n"
] |
How (If at all) do rainstorms interfere with cellular phone reception?
|
Rainfall certainly does; as well as interference caused by the leading edge of a storm front. The general phenomenon is called [rain fade](_URL_0_).
Radio and TV are just colors of light that we can't perceive with the human eye. They can be affected by physical objects (like raindrops).
|
[
"Cell Broadcast is not affected by traffic load; therefore, it is usable during a disaster when load spikes of data (social media and mobile app), regular SMS and voice calls usage (mass call events) tend to significantly slowdown mobile networks, as multiple events have shown. \n",
"The rainstorm warning signals are a set of signals used in Hong Kong to alert the public about the occurrence of heavy rain which is likely to bring about major disruptions such as traffic congestion and floods. They also ensure a state of readiness within the essential services to deal with emergencies.\n",
"In addition, the weather may affect the strength of a signal, due to the changes in radio propagation caused by clouds (particularly tall and dense thunderclouds which cause signal reflection), precipitation, and temperature inversions. This phenomenon, which is also common in other VHF radio bands including FM broadcasting, may also cause other anomalies, such as a person in San Diego \"roaming\" on a Mexican tower from just over the border in Tijuana, or someone in Detroit \"roaming\" on a Canadian tower located within sight across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario. These events may cause the user to be billed for \"international\" usage despite being in their own country, though mobile phone companies can program their billing systems to re-rate these as domestic usage when it occurs on a foreign cell site that is known to frequently cause such issues for their customers.\n",
"Cell phone reception can be sporadic and, when available, signal strength and clarity is poor. Although the surrounding mountainous terrain is the primary reason for this, the limited presence of, and/or proximity to, cellular communication antennas to receive and transmit signals along the route contributes to the problem.\n",
"According to NOAA, reliable signal reception typically extends in about a 40-mile radius from a full-power (1000 W) transmitter, assuming level terrain. However, signal blockages can occur, especially in mountainous areas. As of 2016, there are over a thousand NWR transmitters across the United States, covering 95% of the population. Because each transmitter can cover several counties, typically a person will program their weather radio to receive only the alerts for their county or nearby surrounding counties where weather systems are most likely to move in from.\n",
"Specific reasons as to why these clouds are dangerous to electronic and communication equipment include the overloading of large power transformers, which can cause lengthy power outages over wide geographical areas. Long, metallic structures like oil and gas pipes, water pipes, and communications antennae can also carry excessive electric current from the air, causing them to corrode faster than normal. This can possibly lead to early, unexpected ruptures. These signals also create anomalies in the ionosphere, disrupting wireless technologies such as GPS, cellular phones, television, and radio.\n",
"The simplest way to compensate the rain fade effect in satellite communications is to increase the transmission power: this dynamic fade countermeasure is called uplink power control (UPC). Until more recently, uplink power control had limited use, since it required more powerful transmitters - ones that could normally run at lower levels and could be increased in power level on command (i.e. automatically). Also uplink power control could not provide very large signal margins without compressing the transmitting amplifier. Modern amplifiers coupled with advanced uplink power control systems that offer automatic controls to prevent transponder saturation make uplink power control systems an effective, affordable and easy solution to rain fade in satellite signals.\n"
] |
How/why did the tribes who took over areas of the old Roman empire go from speaking Germanic languages to Romance ones? And why not in England?
|
One must remember that when Rome fell, the people in the provinces did not simply disappear. They, for the most part, stayed right where they were. The people of Gaul spoke a vulgar form of Latin, but it had become region specific, displacing much of the Celtic languages that were there before.
A linguist might be better suited to answer this question.
However, once Rome fell, the provinces were open for invasion. Here is where your tribes come in. Let's take, for example, the Franks. The Franks raided into Gaul even before Rome fell. Some of them stayed. Various people who were called Franks were some times enemies and some times allies of the Roman. When Rome fell there were Franks in the Roman army. Thus it can be assumed they spoke vulgar Latin, or something very similar.
Slowly the Franks gained control of much of Gaul and there developed Old French, which was based completely in Latin, thus a Romance language.
England did not have as long a period of assimilation with Rome. Rome was not as entrenched and so Latin did not become as wide spread. The same goes with Germany. If the average person did not speak it, it did not last.
Of course Latin remains an important language in England, as in the rest of Europe, partially because of its ties with the Catholic Church.
------------------------------------------
[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)
[Gregory of Tours History of the Franks](_URL_0_)
|
[
"The \"cisrhenane Germani\" eventually ceased to be restricted to a band of occupation near the border, and all Roman provinces west of the Rhine were eventually conquered by Germanic tribes, speaking Germanic languages: the Franks (Germania inferior, Francia), the Alemanni (Germania superior, Alemannia), the Burgundians (Burgundy), the Visigoths (Visigothic Kingdom), and so on.\n",
"Towards the end of the post-classical history period and the onset of the Middle Ages, there were various invasions, which led to the settlement of a large and collective body of Germans in Roman Gaul. One of the earliest invasions of the Roman Empire was conducted by the Visigoths, that were a major group of Germanic peoples. However, this invasion was very far from affecting the Romans who held on strong until the year 9 A.D. when the Romans were defeated and Germanisation seemed imminent as the Romans were pushed into defence against various Germanic peoples who were impatient to push the boundary and enter Roman territory. Many scholars agree that if there had not been a sudden and alarming influx of populations from the Germanic peoples into Gaul and other regions, the Roman Empire might have collapsed completely much earlier than it actually did.\n",
"There is strong evidence that in many areas of England taken over by Germanic speaking settlers, the native British (Wealas) remained undisturbed, farming the same land they did when the Romans left. Over time they just adapted to the new conditions and forgot their Celtic tongue (similar to Old Welsh/Cornish) for the language and culture of the newcomers in order to climb the social ladder, or were coerced to do so. It was in the Anglo Saxon interest that the native British carry on as usual to ensure the economy produced food and goods for the new landowners.\n",
"Between AD 409 and AD 711, as the Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe, the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Germanic peoples of the Migration Period. The occupiers, mainly Suebi, Visigoths and Buri who originally spoke Germanic languages, quickly adopted late Roman culture and the Vulgar Latin dialects of the peninsula and over the next 300 years totally integrated into the local populations. After the Moorish invasion beginning in 711, Arabic became the administrative and common language in the conquered regions, but most of the remaining Christian population continued to speak a form of Romance commonly known as Mozarabic, which lasted three centuries longer in Spain. Like other Neo-Latin and European languages, Portuguese has adopted a significant number of loanwords from Greek, mainly for technical and scientific terminology. These borrowings occurred via Latin, and later during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.\n",
"Germanic peoples lived in what is now Poland for several centuries, during which many of their tribes also migrated southward and eastward (see Wielbark culture). With the expansion of the Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes came under Roman cultural influence. Some written remarks by Roman authors that are relevant to developments on Polish lands have been preserved; they provide additional insights in conjunction with the archeological record. In the end, as the Roman Empire was nearing its collapse and the nomadic peoples invading from the east destroyed, damaged or destabilized the various Germanic cultures and societies, the Germanic peoples left Eastern and Central Europe for the safer and wealthier southern and western parts of the European continent.\n",
"The interactions of the migrating Germanic peoples and the deteriorating Roman empire formed the basis of the history and society of most of Western Europe from the Early Middle Ages and up to the present day. By the middle ages, Germanic tribes were no longer seen as a single ethnic grouping, and instead we can only speak of peoples who speak Germanic languages, though these are no longer mutually intelligible.\n",
"At the beginning of the period, no Germanic language was spoken east of a line from Kieler Förde to the rivers Elbe and Saale, earlier Germanic speakers in the Northern part of the area having been displaced by the Slavs. This area did not become German-speaking again until the German eastward expansion (\"Ostkolonisation\") of the early 12th century, though there was some attempt at conquest and missionary work under the Ottonians.\n"
] |
how can someone survive a 3500ft fall and expect to make a full recovery?
|
The article says the parachute malfuctioned, not that it didn't open at all. The full story is that the parachute partially opened and that she hit the ground at 50 mph instead of terminal velocity. Also, she landed in a way in which her legs absorbed the power of the fall.
|
[
"In October 2018, at least two fairing recovery tests were performed, involving \"Mr. Steven\" and a helicopter, which would drop a fairing half from the height of about 3300 meters. The actual outcome of the tests is unclear.\n",
"In 1942, DeHaven started the Crash Injury Research project at Cornell, and published the classic \"Mechanical analysis of survival in falls from heights of fifty to one hundred and fifty feet\". He concluded:\n",
"While these injuries happen, the authors imply they did not happen often. However, someone who climbs 3-4 days a week might take 1000 lead falls a year. With that in mind, Schöffl and Küpper suggest climbers should fall with their hands up and slightly forward and with feet down and slightly forward as well. They explain that this method of falling would allow the climber to make contact with the wall with limbs that can absorb force, rather than with other less-absorbent parts of the body. After impact, Schöffl and Küpper instruct the climber to grab the rope (it is completely stretched out and unable to cause injury) in order to refrain from tipping upside down. This method of falling will eliminate injuries caused by prematurely grabbing the rope or other pieces of protection, as well as virtually eliminating neck injuries.\n",
"In 2016, together with Ondřej Mandula, they reached 7,700 m, but they were pinned down at 7,500 m with no way to escape for eight days. By the time they got down, Holeček sustained frostbite on his feet, resulting in more than six months of recovery.\n",
"The severity of injury increases with the height of the fall but also depends on body and surface features and the manner of the body's impacts against the surface. The chance of surviving increases if landing on a highly deformable surface (a surface that is easily bent, compressed, or displaced) such as snow or water.\n",
"Two people have survived falls by not falling more than a floor. On December 2, 1979, Elvita Adams jumped from the 86th floor, only to be blown back onto a ledge on the 85th floor by a gust of wind and left with a broken hip. On April 25, 2013, a man fell from the 86th floor observation deck, but he landed alive with minor injuries on an 85th-floor ledge where security guards brought him inside and paramedics transferred him to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.\n",
"The severity of injury increases with the height of a free fall, but also depends on body and surface features and the manner that the body impacts on to the surface. The chance of surviving increases if landing on a soft surface, such as snow.\n"
] |
How much would the Roman Colosseum cost if it were to be built today?
|
Woah something I can answer. I work at an architecture firm, so I can give some insight but I've never worked on a stadium. I mostly work on large higher ed. and hospital projects.
The Colosseum is a load bearing masonry structure. Large scale projects stopped being built this way around 1900. The last great examples in my city, Chicago, are the [Monadnock Building](_URL_1_) and the [Auditorium Theater](_URL_4_) (bonus trivia, this is where Frank Llyod Wright started practicing architecture under Louis Sullivan).
The reason almost no one builds this way anymore is that it requires a lot of labor and as a very rough rule of thumb labor makes up about 2/3's of the cost of a building project (applies in US anyways, in China it's 1/3 labor 2/3 material). I mention this because the final number I come to will be lower than it would be to build this out of brick and stone. I'm not sure what the premium would be, 50% maybe?
Here's the size from [Wikipedia](_URL_2_):
> It is elliptical in plan and is 189 meters (615 ft / 640 Roman feet) long, and 156 meters (510 ft / 528 Roman feet) wide, with a base area of 6 acres (24,000 m2). The height of the outer wall is 48 meters (157 ft / 165 Roman feet). The perimeter originally measured 545 meters (1,788 ft / 1,835 Roman feet). The central arena is an oval 87 m (287 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, surrounded by a wall 5 m (15 ft) high, above which rose tiers of seating.
That gives you an area of about 246,340 SF or 22,900 m^2 . This completely ignores the fact that the actual area is not two dimensional (multi-story). I can't find a resource to provide this info which is definitely a limitation of this answer.
I'm taking the area:cost ratio for recently constructed stadiums from this article in [The Atlantic](_URL_3_). I made a [quick spreadsheet](_URL_0_) to come up with a cost of $473/SF or about $5,100/m^2.
246,340 SF x $473 = ~$166,500,000
Again, this ignores the fact that the area is much larger than this. The Colosseum held 50,000 people which is about the size of a modern baseball park in the US. The ranges in the spreadsheet go from about 1 million to 1.3 million SF (about 93,000 - 120,000 m^2). This would give us:
Low
1,000,000 SF x $473 = ~$473,000,000
High
1,300,000 SF x $473 = ~$615,000,000
So $500-600 million plus a huge premium for the fact that it's load bearing masonry. You're probably looking at a **$750 million to $1 billion building** (570-750 million euros) if you were to build this today.
**Edit:** formatting and forgot to divide by four for the equation of an ellipse which is (A x B x 3.14)/4 with A and B being half the long and short axis.
At the risk of being incredibly facile I will mention that, to a large extent, the construction process and methods used to build the Colosseum would be very familiar to us today. Obviously the tools have changed but the guy laying the stones? Basically the same. On a much smaller scale this is how many buildings are still built today in the developing world.
|
[
"In Malta, a replica of about one-third of Rome's Colosseum was built, to a height of 52 feet (15.8 meters), mostly from plaster and plywood (the other two-thirds and remaining height were added digitally). The replica took several months to build and cost an estimated $1 million. The reverse side of the complex supplied a rich assortment of Ancient Roman street furniture, colonnades, gates, statuary, and marketplaces for other filming requirements. The complex was serviced by tented \"costume villages\" that had changing rooms, storage, armorers, and other facilities. The rest of the Colosseum was created in computer-generated imagery using set-design blueprints and textures referenced from live action, and rendered in three layers to provide lighting flexibility for compositing in Flame and Inferno software.\n",
"The Colosseum is today one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions, receiving millions of visitors annually. The effects of pollution and general deterioration over time prompted a major restoration programme carried out between 1993 and 2000, at a cost of 40 billion Italian lire ($19.3m / €20.6m at 2000 prices).\n",
"Most of the construction cost in excess of their original estimates and total costs ended up being over £550 million (approximately $935 million). Rome's Stadio Olimpico which would host the final was the most expensive project overall, while Udine's Stadio Friuli, the newest of the existing stadia (opened 14 years prior), cost the least to redevelop.\n",
"Most of the construction cost in excess of their original estimates and total costs ended up being over £550 million (approximately $935 million). Rome's Stadio Olimpico which would host the final was the most expensive project overall, while Udine's Stadio Friuli, the newest of the existing stadia (opened 14 years prior), cost the least to redevelop.\n",
"Construction of the Colosseum started under Vespasian in a low valley surrounded by the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine hills. The site became available to Nero by the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64 and redeveloped for his personal enjoyment with the construction of a huge artificial lake in the Domus Aurea, and a colossal statue of himself.\n",
"the Colosseum of Pompeii in Italy was the only other known structure in the world engineered by digging a hole then using the displaced dirt to build the surrounding wall or berm. The Bowl had the largest seating capacity for a stadium in the world upon completion of construction. Head coach Carm Cozza likened the feeling of running through the tunnel then onto the Bowl's to a gladiator entering the arena.\n",
"The Colosseum was designed by Schwartz & Gross and built by the Paterno Brothers, Charles and Joseph, in 1909-1910. The luxury four-bedroom apartments with sweeping views of the Hudson River rented for $150 to $175 a month.\n"
] |
how much of the sky do we see at any given moment in time? (lying on a beach on at night, what percentage of the sky am i currently seeing with a naked eye)?
|
Human vision is 210 degrees wide and 150 degrees high. But if you lay on the ground you are on a flat plane so you can only see 180 degrees wide. 150 degrees is 150/360=0.41 of a circle. So you can see maximum of 41% of the sky without moving your eyes.
A more complex question if that mound of that field of view you can process and notice. We usually move our eyes and look directly at what we are interested in.
The the percentage of what is out there we can see with a naked eye is small.
There is a estiamtion of 43000 object that is possible to see with a naked eye but most o them are hard to see.
There is a estimation of 200-400 billion stars in out galaxy but the majority cant be observed by any human telescope.
There is a estimation of 100 billion galaxies observable universe. We can see a 9 with a naked eye byt the look like a fuzzy small object or like a star.
So the percentage of what is out there we can see is close to 0%
|
[
"A human can see objects in starlight or in bright sunlight, even though on a moonless night objects receive 1/1,000,000,000 of the illumination they would on a bright sunny day; a dynamic range of 90 dB.\n",
"The very large field of view of the telescopes and the short exposure times enable approximately 6000 square degrees of sky to be imaged every night. The entire sky is 4π steradians, or 4π × (180/π)² ≈ 41,253.0 square degrees, of which about 30,000 square degrees are visible from Hawaii, which means that the entire sky can be imaged in a period of 40 hours (or about 10 hours per night on four days). Given the need to avoid times when the Moon is bright, this means that an area equivalent to the entire sky will be surveyed four times a month, which is entirely unprecedented. By the end of its initial three-year mission in April 2014, PS1 had imaged the sky 12 times in each of 5 filters (g,r,i,z,y).\n",
"I have never seen anything like it before or since, and I have spent a lot of time where the night sky could be seen well. This suggests that the phenomenon involves a comparatively rare set of conditions or circumstances to produce it, but nothing like the odds of an interstellar visitation.\n",
"The location of α Andromedae in the sky is shown on the left. It can be seen by the naked eye and is theoretically visible at all latitudes north of 60° S. During evening from August to October, it will be high in the sky as seen from the northern midlatitudes.\n",
"The star's magnitude as observed from Earth is 9; this signifies that the body is not visible with the naked eye, but can be seen with a telescope. HD 2039 lies roughly 280 light years from the Sun, which is about as far from the Sun as the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus.\n",
"The best time for observation in the evening sky falls in the months between May and September; from both hemispheres of the period of visibility remains approximately the same, thanks to the position of the star not far from the celestial equator.\n",
"Globe at Night observations identify the dimmest stars that are visible given the surrounding conditions. Assuming normal visible acuity and clear skies, it is possible to approximately convert Globe at Night naked eye limiting maximum estimates into other units:\n"
] |
the sign on the utility pole says "we buy houses, cash" - who are these guys and why do they advertise this way?
|
Rich investors with lots of cash buy houses for cheap, from desperate sellers who need the money fast. Then they can take their time, fix them up a bit, and sell them at full price when ready.
|
[
"Typically the goods in a garage sale are unwanted items from the household with its owners conducting the sale. The conditions of the goods vary, but they are usually usable. Some of these items are offered for sale because the owner does not want or need the item to minimize their possessions or to raise funds. Popular motivations for a garage sale are for \"spring cleaning,\" moving or earning extra money. The seller's items are displayed to the passers-by or those responding to signs, flyers, classified ads or newspaper ads. In some cases, local television stations will broadcast a sale on a local public channel. The venue at which the sale is conducted is typically a garage; other sales are conducted at a driveway, carport, front yard or inside a house. Some vendors, known as \"squatters,\" will set up in a high-traffic area rather than on their own property.\n",
"As a catch phrase, “Buy Local” has become generic to the point of being easily manipulated. In some circles, “buy local” refers to the producer or manufacturer of goods. In others, however, the term is used interchangeably with “shop local,” which refers to point-of-purchase but excludes business models that are service-oriented. In 2009, numerous national chains (also known as “big-box stores”) began advertising themselves as “buy local” options if they sold even a small amount of produce grown nearby.\n",
"Shop A Docket is an Australian coupon company, founded in 1986, based in Brisbane, Australia. It is a provider of coupons that appear on the back of receipts in supermarkets and variety stores and outlets including Woolworths Supermarkets, Target Australia, Kmart, Big W and IGA. \n",
"An honesty box is a method of charging for a service such as admission or car parking, or for a product such as home-grown produce and flowers, which relies upon each visitor paying at a box using the honour system. Tickets are not issued and such sites are usually unattended. When used in camping sites and other park settings, they are sometimes referred to as an iron ranger as there is often an iron cash box instead of an actual park ranger. Some stores also use them for selling newspapers to avoid queues at a Cash Register.\n",
"Buy As You View (BAYV) is a retail and consumer finance company, selling a range of electrical goods and home furniture. It provides a coin meter repayment and credit facility for products bought on a hire purchase, weekly payment basis with no deposit or credit checks. Hire purchase contracts are regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974.\n",
"A garage sale (also known as a yard sale, tag sale, moving sale and by many other names) is an informal event for the sale of used goods by private individuals, in which sellers are not required to obtain business licenses or collect sales tax (though, in some jurisdictions, a permit may be required).\n",
"In a retail context, the term has a similar meaning: customers pay cash for the goods they purchase (the retailer does not offer credit accounts) and carry them away themselves (the retailer does not offer delivery service).\n"
] |
How stable is the planetary orbital structure of our system?
|
Highly stable. Looking at the surface geology and chemical composition of the planets, there's no evidence that they've moved significantly in the past few billion years. All the movement happened at the very beginning of the solar system.
Without gravity, planets would move in straight lines. Gravity pulls them toward the sun, bending their path into nearly-circular orbits, but does not make them spiral in closer and closer. Sun + gravity + one planet is a stable system. For a planet to move closer to the sun, it must trade energy and angular momentum with other nearby objects, through collisions or close fly-bys.
The various planetary migration hypotheses, including your article, are talking about the very earliest history of the solar system, when the planets were surrounded by a cloud of gas and tiny bits of rock called planetisimals. In that time, there was plenty of mass for Jupiter to trade energy with: its gravity pulled on planetisimals, throwing them farther from the Sun: by action vs reaction, this pushed Jupiter closer in.
But eventually, almost all the planetisimals got swept up to build the planets, or ejected out of the solar system. Now there's nothing left for planets to push against, so they're locked in place. Now it's true they could push against *each other*, but they're far enough apart that their pull on each other is too weak to do much... and Jupiter, being the biggest, is especially hard to move.
|
[
"Orbital resonance from major orbiting bodies creates regions around the Sun that are free of long-term stable orbits. Results from simulations of planetary formation support the idea that a randomly chosen stable planetary system will likely satisfy a Titius–Bode law.\n",
"Long-term numerical integration shows that the orbit is stable. Kimmo A. Innanen and Seppo Mikkola note that \"contrary to intuition, there is clear empirical evidence for the stability of motion around the and points of all the terrestrial planets over a timeframe of several million years\".\n",
"Since the inclination of the planets' orbits is unknown, only minimum planetary masses can presently be obtained. Dynamical simulations suggest that the system cannot be stable if the true masses of the planets exceed the minimum masses by a factor of greater than three (corresponding to an inclination of less than 20°, where 90° is edge-on).\n",
"Mathematicians and astronomers (such as Laplace, Lagrange, Gauss, Poincaré, Kolmogorov, Vladimir Arnold, and Jürgen Moser) have searched for evidence for the stability of the planetary motions, and this quest led to many mathematical developments and several successive \"proofs\" of stability for the Solar System. By most predictions, Earth's orbit will be relatively stable over long periods.\n",
"Since the discovery of Newton's law of universal gravitation in the 17th century, the stability of the Solar System has preoccupied many mathematicians, starting with Pierre-Simon Laplace. The stable orbits that arise in a two-body approximation ignore the influence of other bodies. The effect of these added interactions on the stability of the Solar System is very small, but at first it was not known whether they might add up over longer periods to significantly change the orbital parameters and lead to a completely different configuration, or whether some other stabilising effects might maintain the configuration of the orbits of the planets.\n",
"Given the two-planet configuration of the system under the assumption that the orbits are coplanar and have masses equal to their minimum masses, an additional Saturn-mass planet would be stable in a region between 0.9 and 1.4 AU between the orbits of the two known planets. Under the \"packed planetary systems\" hypothesis, which predicts that planetary systems form in such a way that the system could not support additional planets between the orbits of the existing ones, the gap would be expected to host a planet.\n",
"Stability analysis reveals that the orbits of Earth sized planets in HD 221287 b's Trojan points, located 60 degrees ahead and behind the planet in its orbit, would be stable for long periods of time.\n"
] |
multiple life sentences.
|
The murderer was charged with and convicted of two crimes each carrying a life imprisonment sentence. The sentencing judge ruled that the sentences not be served concurrently.
The two charges now exist independently of one another, and can be appealed and removed independently. This means that if the murderer can later prove he didn't do one of the crimes in an appeal, he's still got another life sentence.
|
[
"The laws in the United States divide life sentences between \"determinate life sentences\" and \"indeterminate life sentences.\" For example, sentences of \"15 years to life,\" \"25 years to life,\" or \"life with mercy\" may be given, which is called an \"indeterminate life sentence.\" A sentence of \"life without the possibility of parole\" or \"life without mercy\" is called a \"determinate life sentence\" because a sentence of \"15 years to life\" means that it is a life sentence with a non-parole period of 15 years. Parole is not guaranteed but discretionary and so that is an indeterminate sentence. Even if a sentence specifically denies the possibility of parole, government officials may have the power to grant an amnesty, to reprieve, or to commute a sentence to time served.\n",
"In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence which lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for parole (officially termed \"early release\") after a fixed period set by the judge. This period is known as the \"minimum term\" (previously known as the whole life \"tariff\"). In some exceptionally grave cases, however, a judge may order that a life sentence should mean life by making a \"whole life order.\"\n",
"Life imprisonment is legal under the Greek penal code, and is the most severe punishment available under the law. It can be imposed for multiple murders, mass murder, treason, terrorism, aircraft hijacking, and aggravated hostage taking. Such life sentence is mandatory for multiple murders and any act of terrorism, including aircraft hijacking. For a single life sentence, an inmate can become eligible for parole after serving 16 years. For those who receive multiple life sentences, parole eligibility can begin after 20 years. Parole is not mandatory, and if rejected, the inmate can reapply every 2 years. There are an average of 25 life sentences per year. \n",
"Other countries either allow multiple concurrent life sentences which can be served at the same time (e.g. Russia), or allow multiple consecutive life sentences with a single minimum term (e.g. Australia), thus allowing earlier release of the prisoner.\n",
"The whole life order (formerly a whole life tariff) is a court order whereby a prisoner who is being sentenced to life imprisonment is ordered to serve that sentence without any possibility of parole or conditional release. This order may be made in cases of aggravated murders committed by anyone who was aged 21 or above at the time of the crime. The purpose of a whole life order is for a prisoner to be kept in prison until he or she dies with almost no chance of eventual release, although parole can be granted in exceptional circumstances. \n",
"In principle a half-life, a third-life, or even a (1/)-life, can be used in exactly the same way as half-life; but the mean life and half-life have been adopted as standard times associated with exponential decay.\n",
"On 28 August 1975 Konstantinos Karamanlis declared: \"When we say life [sentence], we mean life [sentence]\", meaning that the commutation of the sentences from death to life imprisonment would not be followed by further reductions.\n"
] |
Why was the center of the Arabian Peninsula ignored by so many conquerors?
|
The other responses in this thread have it basically correct.
The interior of the Arabian peninsula is not a hospitable place. It is [very dry](_URL_0_), and isn't traversed by any permanent rivers. This affects both the *why* would people conquer it and the *how* would people conquer it.
The climate meant that the few people who did live in the interior of the peninsula were small groups of nomadic herders. These groups neither posed any significant threat to larger polities, nor had much in the way of cities and wealth worth taking.
Even if people did want to add the peninsula to their domains, there really wasn't any feasible way to march or garrison any significant number of troops across/within the desert. The land isn't fertile enough for an army to forage or for a garrison town to plant gardens. There aren't rivers to drink out of or ship food to garrisons in the interior.
Conversely, the coasts of the Arabian peninsula have long supported agriculture, fishing, and mining economies. Coastal population centres were well integrated into East African and south Asian maritime trade networks, and the rise of Islam and its tradition of the Hajj provided major financial, political and religious incentives for empires to control Mecca and Medina.
*Edit:* I see the other comments are now dropping like flies. If there's part of this answer that doesn't meet subreddit standards or needs elaborating, please mods, let me know and I'll do my best. But please keep in mind that this question is a counterfactual one, and it's difficult to provide sources, documentation, and explanation of things that *didn't* happen.
|
[
"The Iberian Peninsula was the westernmost tip of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus and was under the rule of the governor of Ifriqiya. In 720, the caliph even considered abandoning the territory. The conquest was followed by a period of several hundred years during which most of the Iberian peninsula was known as Al-Andalus, dominated by Muslim rulers. Only a handful of new small Christian realms managed to reassert their authority across the faraway mountainous north of the peninsula.\n",
"In the 8th century, nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered (711–718) by largely Moorish Muslim armies from North Africa. These conquests were part of the expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate. Only a small area in the mountainous north-west of the peninsula managed to resist the initial invasion. Legend has it that Count Julian, the governor of Ceuta, in revenge for the violation of his daughter, Florinda, by King Roderic, invited the Muslims and opened to them the gates of the peninsula.\n",
"In Anatolia, the Muslim expansion was blocked by the still capable Byzantines with the help of the Bulgarians. The Byzantine provinces of Roman Syria, North Africa, and Sicily, however, could not mount such a resistance, and the Muslim conquerors swept through those regions. At the far west, they crossed the sea taking Visigothic Hispania before being halted in southern France by the Franks. At its greatest extent, the Arab Empire controlled 3/4 of the Mediterranean region, the only other empire besides the Roman Empire to control most of the Mediterranean Sea. Much of North Africa became a peripheral area to the main Muslim centers in the Middle East, but Al Andalus and Morocco soon broke from this distant control and became highly advanced societies in their own right.\n",
"In the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks took over much of the Middle East, occupying Persia during the 1040s, Armenia in the 1060s, and Jerusalem in 1070. In 1071, the Turkish army defeated the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert and captured the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV (r. 1068–71). The Turks were then free to invade Asia Minor, which dealt a dangerous blow to the Byzantine Empire by seizing a large part of its population and its economic heartland. Although the Byzantines regrouped and recovered somewhat, they never fully regained Asia Minor and were often on the defensive. The Turks also had difficulties, losing control of Jerusalem to the Fatimids of Egypt and suffering from a series of internal civil wars. The Byzantines also faced a revived Bulgaria, which in the late 12th and 13th centuries spread throughout the Balkans.\n",
"It is commonly held that the relative ease with which the Great Muslim armies conquered the Iberian Peninsula was due to the centralized nature of government under the rule of the Visigoths. After the defeat of Roderick, the Visigoth dominion over the Iberian peninsula folded and fell apart from the Northern coast of Spain, and the province of Septimania (an area of France going from the Pyrenees to Provence), all areas previously under the rule of the Visigoths were under Islamic rule.\n",
"The Arabian peninsula already played a role in the power struggles of the Byzantines and Sasanians. While Byzantium allied itself with the Kingdom of Aksum in the horn of Africa, the Sasanian Empire assisted the Himyarite Kingdom in what is now Yemen (southwest Arabia). Thus the clash between the kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar in 525 displayed a higher power struggle between Byzantium and Persia for control of the Red Sea trade. Territorial wars soon became common, with the Byzantines and Sasanians fighting over upper Mesopotamia and Armenia and key cities that facilitated trade from Arabia, India, and China. Byzantium, as the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, continued control of the latter's territories in the Middle East. Since 527, this included Anatolia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt. But in 603 the Sasanians invaded, conquering Damascus and Egypt. It was Emperor Heraclius who was able to repel these invasions, and in 628 he replaced the Sasanian Great King with a more docile one. But the fighting weakened both states, leaving the stage open to a new power.\n",
"In the eastern Mediterranean, the Byzantine Empire struggled with the incursion from invading Muslim Arabs from the 7th century, leading to fierce competition, a buildup of fleet, and war galleys of increasing size. Soon after conquering Egypt and the Levant, the Arab rulers built ships highly similar to Byzantine dromons with the help of local Coptic shipwrights from former Byzantine naval bases. By the 9th century, the struggle between the Byzantines and Arabs had turned the Eastern Mediterranean into a no man's land for merchant activity. In the 820s Crete was captured by Andalusian Muslims displaced by a failed revolt against the Emirate of Cordoba, turning the island into a base for (galley) attacks on Christian shipping until the island was recaptured by the Byzantines in 960.\n"
] |
why doesn't everyone keep their money in tax haven accounts?
|
Generally speaking you aren't taxed on your savings, you are taxed on your income. The only advantage to moving it overseas is to prevent a garnishing of your assets. For the most part tax haven accounts are more for companies and corporations. The idea being if it is cheaper to do business in another country and pay import/etc taxes many companies will do it. Not everyone can because it makes things more complicated from an accounting/structure standpoint which has costs and corporate structure associated.
|
[
"All of the funds in the account are exempt from income tax and capital gains tax, including at maturity. However, the 10% dividend tax payable on franked income (UK share dividends) cannot be reclaimed. The UK government has stated that at age 18 it will be possible to transfer the entire CTF into an ISA to keep the tax-free status of the investment. If the CTF is withdrawn as cash, the tax benefits will be permanently lost.\n",
"Some wealthy people will set up their official address at a low rent location in a low tax jurisdiction to avoid paying taxes at a higher rate in the jurisdiction where they actually live. They will continue to be present most of the time in the place where they really wish to live but not pay taxes there.\n",
"U.S. citizens are required to report unlawful gains as income when filing annual tax returns (see e.g., \"James v. United States\") although such income is typically not reported. Suspected lawbreakers, most famously Al Capone, have been successfully prosecuted for tax evasion when there was insufficient evidence to try them for their non-tax related crimes. Reporting illegal income as earned legitimately may be illegal money laundering.\n",
"However, corporate tax havens still retain close connections with traditional tax havens as there are instances where a corporation cannot \"retain\" the untaxed funds in the corporate tax haven, and will instead use the corporate tax haven like a \"conduit\", to route the funds to more explicitly zero-tax, and more secretive traditional tax havens. Google does this with the Netherlands to route EU funds untaxed to Bermuda (i.e. dutch sandwich to avoid EU withholding taxes), and Russian banks do this with Ireland to avoid international sanctions and access capital markets (i.e. Irish Section 110 SPVs).\n",
"Earnings from an ABLE account are exempt from federal income tax, so long as money spent from the account is used for qualified expenses, such as education, housing, transportation, and job training. Some states make contributions to an ABLE account deductible from state income tax.\n",
"One almost trivial example relates to tax simplification: A large group of companies and individuals make money from helping their clients negotiate the complexity of the US income tax system—and would lose money if it were simpler. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gets most of the information needed to complete an income tax return for most citizens and could send taxpayers a draft return. Taxpayers could either accept the IRS bill as is, submit it with modifications (similar to how consumers challenge charges on a credit card they didn't make), or create a new one completely from scratch. Intuit, the developer of tax preparation software TurboTax, spent over $1.7 million to kill a program like this in California (ReadyReturn).\n",
"Even those who don't need to pay income tax may still owe some social security or Medicare taxes. So very low-income individuals who are self-employed may need to file returns whereas comparable individuals who work as an employee (whose income is withheld) may not.\n"
] |
Why do lipophilic molecules diffuse THROUGH membranes?
|
If a molecule is too lypophilic it will get stuck in the membrane and won't come out. Certain membrane dyes used in molecular biology work this way and are used to label the membrane for imaging. A good drug has a balance of hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups.
In general, a drugs preference for where to go can be measured by determining its partition coefficient. In pharmacology the partition is usually measured between octanol and water.
|
[
"Polar molecules and large ions dissolved in water cannot diffuse freely across the plasma membrane due to the hydrophobic nature of the fatty acid tails of the phospholipids that make up the lipid bilayer. Only small, non-polar molecules, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, can diffuse easily across the membrane. Hence, no nonpolar molecules are transported by proteins in the form of transmembrane channels. These channels are gated, meaning that they open and close, and thus deregulate the flow of ions or small polar molecules across membranes, sometimes against the osmotic gradient. Larger molecules are transported by transmembrane carrier proteins, such as permeases, that change their conformation as the molecules are carried across (e.g. glucose or amino acids). \n",
"Lipid bilayers are generally impermeable to ions and polar molecules. The arrangement of hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails of the lipid bilayer prevent polar solutes (ex. amino acids, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, proteins, and ions) from diffusing across the membrane, but generally allows for the passive diffusion of hydrophobic molecules. This affords the cell the ability to control the movement of these substances via transmembrane protein complexes such as pores, channels and gates.\n",
"BULLET::::- 1935 – Hugh Davson and James Danielli proposed that lipid membranes are layers composed by proteins and lipids with pore-like structures that allow specific permeability for certain molecules. Then, they suggested a model for the cell membrane, consisting of a lipid layer surrounded by protein layers at both sides of it.\n",
"Ordinarily, most lipids do not spontaneously exit membranes because their hydrophobicity makes them poorly soluble in water. LTPs facilitate the movement of lipids between membranes by binding, and solubilising them. LTPs typically have broad substrate specificity and so can interact with a variety of different lipids.\n",
"Discrete lipid domains with differing composition, and thus membrane fluidity, can coexist in model lipid membranes; this can be observed using fluorescence microscopy. The biological analogue, 'lipid raft', is hypothesized to exist in cell membranes and perform biological functions. Also, a narrow annular lipid shell of membrane lipids in contact with integral membrane proteins have low fluidity compared to bulk lipids in biological membranes, as these lipid molecules stay stuck to surface of the protein macromolecules.\n",
"The first proposal that the membranes within cells form a single system that exchanges material between its components was by Morré and Mollenhauer in 1974. This proposal was made as a way of explaining how the various lipid membranes are assembled in the cell, with these membranes being assembled through \"lipid flow\" from the sites of lipid synthesis. The idea of lipid flow through a continuous system of membranes and vesicles was an alternative to the various membranes being independent entities that are formed from transport of free lipid components, such as fatty acids and sterols, through the cytosol. Importantly, the transport of lipids through the cytosol and lipid flow through a continuous endomembrane system are not mutually exclusive processes and both may occur in cells.\n",
"Some lipids can self-assemble into biological membranes. A lipid membrane consists of a lipid bilayer in which proteins and other molecules are embedded, being able to travel along this layer. Through lipid bilayers, substances are transported between the inside and outside of membranes to interact with other molecules. \n"
] |
Why does burnt food like milk stick to the bottom of the pot and why is it almost impossible to remove?
|
The milk contains proteins and sugar. The excessive heat applied to the pan caused the proteins to coagulate and bind to the source of the heat. The first amount of protein has thermal insulating properties that allow the pan to get even hotter, since less of the heat gets transferred to the water content of the milk. The higher heat of the pan causes the proteins and sugars to brown then burn through partial pyrolysis and caramelisation (Maillard reaction). You can remove the protein without scraping several ways. You can remove the liquid and heat the pan even more, generating huge amounts of smoke and stink until the pyrolysis is complete and the proteins turn to ash. Ash is easy to wash and rince away. Or you can use solvents and heat to dissolve the proteins and sugars. Water is a good solvent. Leaving the pan soaking overnight in water will hydrate most of food particles enough to clean the pan with light scrubbing. You can also alternate soaking, heating, and light scrubbing for several repeated cycles. You can also use an acid like vinegar or home strength hydrogen peroxide to soak for a while. The acid will react and dissolve the protein very well. That's why hydrogen peroxide is used in a lot of soft contact lens cleaners - to dissolve proteins that have built up. Acids are a bit less safe to use around kids, pets, and ignorant adults.
Don't heat milk over excessive heat. Heat slowly and continue to stir constantly, not leaving it unattended for a second. When you're heating milk, what else is so goddamned important that you have to leave it? Pretty much nothing. If someone needs emergency assistance while you're heating milk, turn off the heat source, move the pan off the heat to a safe place to cool, then go administer the aid and call 911. Better yet, microwave the milk in a microwave safe container for one minute. At least it has a timer to shut itself off.
|
[
"The food inside the pot loses little to no moisture because it is surrounded by steam, creating a tender, flavorful dish. Water absorbed within the walls of the pot prevents burning so long as the pot is not allowed to dry completely. Because no oil needs to be added with this cooking technique, food cooked in clay is often lower in fat than food prepared by other methods.\n",
"When the process is applied to food and the water is evaporated and removed, the food can be stored for long periods of time without spoiling. It is also used when boiling a substance at normal temperatures would chemically change the consistency of the product, such as egg whites coagulating when attempting to dehydrate the albumen into a powder.\n",
"Saprotrophic bacteria attack and decompose organic matter. This characteristic has posed a problem to mankind as food such as stored grains, meat, fish, vegetable and fruits are attacked by saprotrophic bacteria and spoiled. Similarly milk and products are easily contaminated by bacteria and spoiled.\n",
"When raw milk is left standing for a while, it turns \"sour\". This is the result of fermentation, where lactic acid bacteria ferment the lactose in the milk into lactic acid. Prolonged fermentation may render the milk unpleasant to consume. This fermentation process is exploited by the introduction of bacterial cultures (e.g. \"Lactobacilli sp., Streptococcus sp., Leuconostoc sp.\", etc.) to produce a variety of fermented milk products. The reduced pH from lactic acid accumulation denatures proteins and causes the milk to undergo a variety of different transformations in appearance and texture, ranging from an aggregate to smooth consistency. Some of these products include sour cream, yogurt, cheese, buttermilk, viili, kefir, and kumis. \"See Dairy product\" for more information.\n",
"When milk is boiled, soluble milk proteins are denatured and then coagulate with milk's fat and form a sticky film across the top of the liquid, which then dries by evaporation. The layer does not need to be discarded and can be consumed, as protein's nutritional value is unaffected by the denaturation process. Milk film is often considered to be desirable and is used in several recipes for various foods.\n",
"Salt may be added to the water if boiling artichokes. Covered artichokes, in particular those that have been cut, can turn brown due to the enzymatic browning and chlorophyll oxidation. Placing them in water slightly acidified with vinegar or lemon juice can prevent the discoloration.\n",
"On occasion, the top of the bag can turn over while pouring, causing the milk to spill. Spillage can be avoided by cutting a secondary hole at the other side of the bag for air intake, by pinching the top of the bag while pouring, or by using a pitcher with a lid to keep the milk bag in place.\n"
] |
What is this weapon? Are there any historical records of it's usage?Any famous historical or mythological users?
|
It looks like [a guandao](_URL_0_). According a legend it was invented Guan Yu (~200 AD), but there is no evidence it existed before the 11th century.
|
[
"The weapon, along with and , is listed as one of \"three great spears\" in the \"Kyōhō Meibutsucho\", a listing of famous Koto blades made before the Nanbokucho period and compiled by the Hon'ami family during the Kyōhō era (1716–1735).\n",
"The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a 16th-century combination weapon in its armaments collection. The weapon is an 89 3/4 inch boar spear with two wheellock pistol barrels fused to both flat sides of the spear's head; the intent of this design was to provide the wielder with the extra stopping power of two .41 caliber musket balls that could be fired at targets out of the reach of the spear. Some sources posit that such weapons were instead experimental pieces or curiosities. The 9 lb, German-made weapon was donated to the Met's collection by the Roger's fund in 1904.\n",
"Glanshammar may also refer to a mythic weapon wielded by Oden, and later by Thor. The weapon was never clearly described in Norse mythology, but is often referred to in vague, and almost reverential, terms. Oral tradition in Icelandic and Norwegian lineages indicates that the weapon may have resembled a spade or even a small, wide obelisk. It may have been used in conjunction with the more widely known Hammer of Thor, but in and of itself, it was a said to be a formidable implement, and in some ancient traditions, was considered to bestow invincibility upon its master.\n",
"The \"atgeir\" was a type of bill or halberd, from Old Norse \"geirr\", \"spear\". The \"atgeirr\" is thought to have been a foreign weapon and is rarely mentioned in the sagas, but is famous as the favorite weapon of Gunnar of Hlíðarendi. In Njál's saga this weapon is shown as used mostly for thrusting, but also for hewing.\n",
"The \"niuweidao\" or \"oxtail saber\" is a heavy bladed weapon with a characteristic flaring tip. It is the archetypal \"Chinese broadsword\" of kung fu movies today. It is first recorded in the early 19th century (the latter half of the Qing dynasty) and only as a civilian weapon: there is no record of it being issued to troops, and it does not appear in any listing of official weaponry. Its appearance in movies and modern literature is thus often anachronistic.\n",
"The weapon supposedly comes from the time of the Yongzheng Emperor during the Qing Dynasty. There are stories and crude drawings detailing the appearance, but no clear instructions on the use or method of production are known to exist. The consensus is that it resembled a hat or flattened dome with a bladed rim and a long chain or cord attached to the weapon's top.\n",
"Evidence of the weapon in use at the Battle of Elfsborg (Alvesborg) 1502 is provided by Paul Dolnstein, a landsknecht mercenary who fought in the battle, who refers to the Swedes carrying \"good pikes made from swords\". He also provides sketches of the weapon.\n"
] |
why do flatscreen/lcd monitors display random colours and bizzare shapes or patterns upon being cracked?
|
Like others have mentioned, it can be the glass breaking and causing rainbows (from diffraction). You asked specially about Liquid Crystal Displays, the liquid can flow around when the display is (more accurately, the pixels are) broken.
“Flatscreen” is a physical shape and not a method of building a display - these can have many methods. LCD is one type, the others will have different reasons for weird behaviors when they break.
|
[
"Flat panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. LCD (liquid-crystal displays) and OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays are largely the same, except that an LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, where as an OLED display consists of electroluminescent organic materials (that include carbon, thus the name organic) that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD and OLED displays are driven using TFT, LTPS, IGZO, and A-SI transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminesent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use Indium tin oxide(ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCD displays, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel where as an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. \n",
"Flat-panel LCDs use a bright light source and filter out half of the light with a polarizer, and then filter most of the light to produce red, green and blue (RGB) sources for the sub-pixels. That means that, at best, only 1/6 (or less in practice) of the light being generated at the back of the panel reaches the screen. In most cases the liquid crystal matrix itself then filters out additional light in order to change the brightness of the sub-pixels and produce a color gamut. So in spite of using extremely efficient light sources like cold-cathode fluorescent lamps or high-power white LEDs, the overall efficiency of an LCD is not very high. Although the lighting process used in the FED is less efficient, only lit sub-pixels require power, which means that FEDs are more efficient than LCDs. Sony's 36\" FED prototypes have been shown drawing only 14 W when displaying brightly lit scenes, whereas a conventional LCD screen of similar size would normally draw well over 100 W.\n",
"The blocks of colour on the sides would cause the picture to tear horizontally if the sync circuits were not adjusted properly. The closely spaced lines in various parts of the screen allowed focus to be checked from centre to edge; mistuning would also blur the lines. All parts of the greyscale would not be distinct if contrast and brightness (both internal preset settings and user adjustments) were not set correctly. The black bar on a white background revealed ringing and signal reflections. The castellations along the top and bottom also revealed possible setup problems.\n",
"Vertical-alignment displays are a form of LCDs in which the liquid crystals naturally align vertically to the glass substrates. When no voltage is applied, the liquid crystals remain perpendicular to the substrate, creating a black display between crossed polarizers. When voltage is applied, the liquid crystals shift to a tilted position, allowing light to pass through and create a gray-scale display depending on the amount of tilt generated by the electric field. It has a deeper-black background, a higher contrast ratio, a wider viewing angle, and better image quality at extreme temperatures than traditional twisted-nematic displays.\n",
"In each round, pairs of Popoons of various colors (the set of colors varying with the character(s) chosen by the player(s)) descend from the top of the screen. These can be rotated and placed by the player. The immediate aim is to create groups of three blocks of the same color arranged either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. When such a group is created, the member blobs blow up, disappearing from the screen. Any blobs above the disappearing group then drop to fill any resulting empty space.\n",
"BULLET::::- Liquid crystal display (LCD) screens filter the light emitted by a backlight. The gamut of an LCD screen is therefore limited to the emitted spectrum of the backlight. Typical LCD screens use cold-cathode fluorescent bulbs (CCFLs) for backlights. LCD Screens with certain LED or wide-gamut CCFL backlights yield a more comprehensive gamut than CRTs. However, some LCD technologies vary the color presented by viewing angle. In Plane Switching or Patterned vertical alignment screens have a wider span of colors than Twisted Nematic.\n",
"The screen technologies used to create curved LCD screens are Vertical Alignment, which helps to reduce any white glow that may affect an angular view, and IPS Panels, which are more susceptible to distortion.\n"
] |
the front page of reddit
|
Your front page is made up of the top topics from the subreddits to which you subscribe. Each person starts with default subreddits to which they subscribe, but subscriptions can be changed simply by hitting subscribe or unsubscribe on the right side of a subreddit topic's screen.
When someone refers to the front page in a general sense, they mean the front page of r/all, the "subreddit" that includes all subreddits. The link to r/all is at the top left of the screen, next to to "my reddits". This is the front page for all reddits and is considered to have the most important front page.
So, how does reddit decide which posts get listed in the top 25? [Here's a good explanation.](_URL_0_)
|
[
"The front page is often an important community related news story, featuring a large captioned picture. The pages that follow contain an assortment of columnists' contributions, local news stories, community bulletins, and business advertisements. Beyond these pages, the newspaper has several sections including an education page, horoscopes, classified advertisements, a service directory, police files, a community calendar, celebrations/announcements, and obituaries. The final pages are usually titled \"Scuttlebutt,\" and are intended for jokes and community gossip.\n",
"Reddit (, stylized in its logo as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called \"subreddits\", which cover a variety of topics including news, science, movies, video games, music, books, fitness, food, and image-sharing. Submissions with more up-votes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough up-votes, ultimately on the site's front page. Despite strict rules prohibiting harassment, Reddit's administrators spend considerable resources on moderating the site.\n",
"This is a timeline of Reddit, an entertainment, social networking, and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links, making it essentially an online bulletin board system.\n",
"Front-page rank—for both the general front page and for individual subreddits—is determined by a combination of factors, including the age of the submission, positive (\"upvoted\") to negative (\"downvoted\") feedback ratio, and the total vote-count.\n",
"The most popular posts from the site's numerous subreddits are visible on the front page to those who browse the site without an account. By default for those users, the front page will display the subreddit r/popular, featuring top-ranked posts across all of Reddit, excluding not-safe-for-work communities and others that are most commonly filtered out by users (even if they are safe for work). The subreddit r/all does not filter topics. Registered users who subscribe to subreddits see the top content from the subreddits to which they subscribe on their personal front pages.\n",
"Reddit is a website comprising user-generated content—including photos, videos, links, and text-based posts—and discussions of this content in what is essentially a bulletin board system. The name \"Reddit\" is a play-on-words with the phrase \"read it\", i.e., \"I read it on Reddit.\" , there are approximately 330 million Reddit users, called \"redditors\". The site's content is divided into categories or communities known on-site as \"subreddits\", of which there are more than 138,000 active communities.\n",
"As a \"WYSIWYG\" (What You See Is What You Get) editor, FrontPage is designed to hide the details of pages' HTML code from the user, making it possible for novices to create web pages and web sites easily.\n"
] |
Why do frogs hatch from eggs as tadpoles and not baby frogs?
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> I was never taught why frogs are born as tadpoles instead of miniature frogs.
Some frogs do have direct development:
_URL_1_
Many salamanders do too, like many of the Plethodontid salamanders like Redbacks.
> Other than insects such as butterflies
That "other than" covers [most animals](_URL_0_).
> I can't think of any other species that aren't born as tiny versions of the adult form.
Tunicates, Cnidarians, marine crustaceans like lobsters and barnacles, many marine fishes (flounders, eels), etc. flukes, echinoderms (starfish, urchins, and sea cucumbers), many salamanders, etc.
Having a larval stage is typical of animals, not unusual. A tiny animal is unlikely to occupy the same ecological niche as a large animal: it experiences the physical environment differently, it must eat different prey, it will have more and different predators. So why should a tiny individual have the same body plan as a big inidividual? Individuals also must disperse at some point. Sessile organisms like barnacles and tunicates must have motile larvae the same way plants must have motile seeds. Butterflies that are good dispersers as adults but do not grow have larvae that are poor dispersers but very good at growing.
Losing the larval stage tends to happen in organisms that are mobile as adults and those that invest more resources in a few offspring rather than spreading them out over many offspring (these have a direct trade-off, if an animal has many offspring they cannot be large). Having large offspring (relatively speaking) means that a specialised fast-growth-from-tiny-size stage can be skipped.
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[
"Adult frogs lay their eggs in moist places, including on leaves, in plants, among exposed roots, and elsewhere. Once the eggs hatch, the adult piggybacks the tadpoles, one at a time, to suitable water, either a pool, or the water gathered in the throat of bromeliads or other plants. The tadpoles remain there until they metamorphose, fed by unfertilized eggs laid at regular intervals by the mother.\n",
"They reproduce by fertilizing eggs outside of the female's body (see frog reproduction). Of the seven amplexus modes (positions in which frogs mate), these frogs are found breeding in inguinal amplexus, where the male clasps the female in front of the female's back legs and squeezes until eggs come out. The eggs are then fertilized.\n",
"While the length of the egg stage depends on the species and environmental conditions, aquatic eggs generally hatch within one week. Unlike salamanders and newts, frogs and toads never become sexually mature while still in their larval stage. The hatched eggs continue life as tadpoles, which typically have oval bodies and long, vertically flattened tails. As a general rule, free living larvae are fully aquatic. They lack eyelids and have a cartilaginous skeleton, a lateral line system, gills for respiration (external gills at first, internal gills later) and tails with dorsal and ventral folds of skin for swimming. They quickly develop a gill pouch that covers the gills and the front legs; the lungs are also developed at an early stage as an accessory breathing organ. Some species which go through the metamorphosis inside the egg and hatch to small frogs never develop gills; instead there are specialised areas of skin that take care of respiration. Tadpoles also lack true teeth, but the jaws in most species usually have two elongate, parallel rows of small keratinized structures called keradonts in the upper jaw while the lower jaw has three rows of keradonts, surrounded by a horny beak, but the number of rows can be lower (sometimes zero), or much higher. Tadpoles feed on algae, including diatoms filtered from the water through the gills. Some species are carnivorous at the tadpole stage, eating insects, smaller tadpoles, and fish. Cannibalism has been observed among tadpoles. Early developers who gain legs may be eaten by the others, so the late bloomers survive longer.\n",
"Some frogs protect their offspring inside their own bodies. Both male and female pouched frogs (\"Assa darlingtoni\") guard their eggs, which are laid on the ground. When the eggs hatch, the male lubricates his body with the jelly surrounding them and immerses himself in the egg mass. The tadpoles wriggle into skin pouches on his side, where they develop until they metamorphose into juvenile frogs. The female gastric-brooding frog (\"Rheobatrachus\" sp.) from Australia, now probably extinct, swallows her fertilized eggs, which then develop inside her stomach. She ceases to feed and stops secreting stomach acid. The tadpoles rely on the yolks of the eggs for nourishment. After six or seven weeks, they are ready for metamorphosis. The mother regurgitates the tiny frogs, which hop away from her mouth. The female Darwin's frog (\"Rhinoderma darwinii\") from Chile lays up to 40 eggs on the ground, where they are guarded by the male. When the tadpoles are about to hatch, they are engulfed by the male, which carries them around inside his much-enlarged vocal sac. Here they are immersed in a frothy, viscous liquid that contains some nourishment to supplement what they obtain from the yolks of the eggs. They remain in the sac for seven to ten weeks before undergoing metamorphosis, after which they move into the male's mouth and emerge.\n",
"Midwife toads (\"Alytes\") are a genus of frogs in the family Alytidae (formerly Discoglossidae), and are found in most of Europe and northwestern Africa. Characteristic of these toad-like frogs is their parental care: the males carry a string of fertilised eggs on their back, hence the name \"midwife\". The female expels a strand of eggs, which the male fertilizes externally. He then wraps them around his legs to protect them from predators in the water. When they are ready to hatch, the male wades into shallow water, where he allows the tadpoles to leap out of their eggs. Five separate species of midwife toad are found across western Europe, northern Africa, and Majorca.\n",
"Female frogs and toads usually spawn gelatinous egg masses containing thousands of eggs in water. Different species lay eggs in distinctive and identifiable ways. For example, the American toad lays long strings of eggs. The eggs are highly vulnerable to predation, so frogs have evolved many techniques to ensure the survival of the next generation. In colder areas the embryo is black to absorb more heat from the sun, which speeds up development. Most commonly, this involves synchronous reproduction. Many individuals will breed at the same time, overwhelming the actions of predators; the majority of the offspring will still die due to predation, but there is a greater chance some will survive. Another way in which some species avoid predators and the pathogens eggs are exposed to in ponds is to lay eggs on leaves above the pond, with a gelatinous coating designed to retain moisture. In these species the tadpoles drop into the water upon hatching. The eggs of some species laid out of water can detect vibrations of nearby predatory wasps or snakes, and will hatch early to avoid being eaten.\n",
"These frogs emerge after rain to feed on small arthropods such as ants, termites, beetles, moths, woodlice, amphipods, juvenile millipedes, and caterpillars. Reproduction also occurs during the rainy season. Choruses start immediately after heavy rains, although this may be delayed in colder areas. Eggs are laid in chambers below the surface of the soil, rocks, or fallen logs. After hatching, the movements of the tadpoles make the remains of the egg mass into a froth. The female remains close to the egg chamber until the tadpoles are fully developed.\n"
] |
Why do popping noises sound the way they do?
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There has been a [related investigation.](_URL_0_)
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[
"A hum is a sound made by producing a wordless tone with the mouth opened or closed, forcing the sound to emerge from the nose. To hum is to produce such a sound, often with a melody. It is also associated with thoughtful absorption, 'hmm'.\n",
"Many popular aquarium fish such as goldfish and loaches have these structures. Members of the genus \"Botia\" such as clown loaches are known to make distinctive clicking sounds when they grind their pharyngeal teeth. Grunts (family Haemulidae) are so called because of the sound they make when they grind them. Molas are said to be able to produce sound by grinding their long, claw-like pharyngeal teeth.\n",
"Popping sounds occur particularly in the pronunciation of aspirated plosives (such as the first 'p' in the English word \"popping\"). Pop filters are designed to attenuate the energy of the plosive, which otherwise might exceed the design input capacity of the microphone, leading to clipping. In effect, the plosive's discrete envelope of sound energy is intercepted and broken up by the strands of the filter material before it can impinge on, and momentarily distort, the sensitive diaphragm of the microphone. Pop filters do not appreciably affect hissing sounds or sibilance, for which de-essing is used.\n",
"BULLET::::- Hollow (e.g. ): This hollow accepts a large volume of air that is forced through a typically narrow aperture that directs a high-velocity jet of air against the teeth, which results in a high-pitched, piercing \"hissing\" sound. Because of the prominence of these sounds, they are the most common and most stable of sibilants cross-linguistically. They occur in English, where they are denoted with a letter \"s\" or \"z\", as in \"soon\" or \"zone\".\n",
"Noises from the TMJs are a symptom of dysfunction of these joints. The sounds commonly produced by TMD are usually described as a \"click\" or a \"pop\" when a single sound is heard and as \"crepitation\" or \"crepitus\" when there are multiple, grating, rough sounds. Most joint sounds are due to internal derangement of the joint, which is a term used to describe instability or abnormal position of the articular disc. Clicking often accompanies either jaw opening or closing, and usually occurs towards the end of the movement. The noise indicates that the articular disc has suddenly moved to and from a temporarily displaced position (disk displacement with reduction) to allow completion of a phase of movement of the mandible. If the disc displaces and does not reduce (move back into position) this may be associated with locking. Clicking alone is not diagnostic of TMD since it is present in high proportion of the general population, mostly in people who have no pain. Crepitus often indicates arthritic changes in the joint, and may occur at any time during mandibular movement, especially lateral movements. Perforation of the disc may also cause crepitus. Due to the proximity of the TMJ to the ear canal, joint noises are perceived to be much louder to the individual than to others. Often people with TMD are surprised that what sounds to them like very loud noises cannot be heard at all by others next to them. However, it is occasionally possible for loud joint noises to be easily heard by others in some cases and this can be a source of embarrassment e.g. when eating in company.\n",
"BULLET::::- With the alveolar clicks, written with an exclamation mark, , the tip of the tongue is pulled down abruptly and forcefully from the roof of the mouth, sometimes using a lot of jaw motion, and making a hollow \"pop!\" like a cork being pulled from an empty bottle. These sounds can be quite loud.\n",
"Rattles may be the primary cause of the instrument's sound, as in the maraca, or they may modify its sound, as in the sizzle cymbal, or they may be used for both purposes depending on how it is played, as in the tambourine.\n"
] |
how do squatters take over homes.
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The reasoning behind it is, for the most part, to prevent honest people from being made homeless because of dishonest landlords/owners. In theory, you could get a gullible person to pay rent without a lease, and the moment the cash is in hand, the landlord calls the cops and gets them hauled out. Without a paper trail saying that they were truly tenants and paid rent, there's nothing stopping this from happening. Honest people are now homeless and without the money they paid because they were taken advantage of. So instead of dragging them out by the ankles, the cops leave it to the courts to decide who is actually in the right, and then act accordingly.
It's not a perfect system, and people certainly take advantage, but not as many as you would think. There's a reason these stories are newsworthy, they're the exception. It's also not true that you can't do anything about it, you can. You just have to file with the courts to get them removed. It's inconvenient and you're unlikely to get your filing fee back as they're probably just going to disappear, but it works.
TL;DR - The justice system would rather have an honest property owner be inconvenienced than for an honest tenant to be homeless because they were taken advantage of.
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[
"Squatting presents a non-economic way for people to transfer parts of the bundle of rights. Depending on the applicable laws, a squatter can acquire property rights by simply occupying vacant land for an extended period of time. Areas with high concentrations of squatters are sometimes thought of as \"informal settlements.\" Squatters face great instability due to their lack of title and governmental efforts at \"blight removal\".\n",
"Squat 'eviction' parties occur when the squatters residing in a building have been given a final date for their eviction, and as a final act of resistance organise a large scale party and protest in order to try to withstand the police or bailiffs.\n",
"Squatting is a criminal offence in Scotland, punishable by a fine or even imprisonment, see Trespass (Scotland) Act 1865. The owner or lawful occupier of the property has the right to evict squatters without notice or applying to the court for an eviction order, although when evicting, they cannot do anything that would break the law, for example, use violence.\n",
"Local Authority Housing Departments, facing rising court costs when evicting squatters, often resorted to taking out the plumbing and toilets in empty buildings to deter squatters. In the 1970s, some housing councils would attempt to deter squatters from entering their properties by \"gutting\" the houses, rendering them uninhabitable by pouring concrete into toilets and sinks or smashing the ceilings and staircases.\n",
"Squatting gained a legal basis in the Netherlands in 1971, when the Supreme Court ruled that the concept of domestic peace (\"huisvrede\") (which means a house cannot be entered without the permission of the current user) also applied to squatters. Since then, the owner of the building must take the squatters to court (or take illegal action) in order to evict them. A law was passed in 1994 which made it illegal to squat a building which was empty for less than one year.\n",
"During the fall of 2017 the Gazette had multiple articles about \"squatting\" (a practice that involves people moving into vacant homes and claiming residency there despite not owning or renting the property). Hill cosponsored the \"Protecting Homeowners And Deployed Military Personnel Act\", which made it easier for homeowners to remove squatters.\n",
"Squatting in England and Wales usually refers to a person who is not the owner, taking possession of land or an empty house. People squat for a variety of reasons which include needing a home, protest, \n"
] |
when people go to the beach... men are shirtless with shorts (sometimes speedos 😳) and women are wearing a two piece (sometimes topless 😈) why is it that we freak out when people see us in our underwear, and we are perfectly fine when people see us in our “beach underwear” ? 🤔
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Context is important. I'm not surprised to see a hot dog at a hot dog stand. I'd be surprised if I opened my wallet to pay for a hot dog and it only had a hot dog inside.
I'm not surprised to see beach clothing at a beach, but would be concerned if I'm about to go into surgery and the surgeon shows up in a speedo.
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[
"Underwear is sometimes partly exposed for fashion reasons or to titillate. A woman may, for instance, allow the top of her brassiere to be visible from under her collar, or wear a see-through blouse over it. Some men wear T-shirts underneath partly or fully unbuttoned shirts. A common style among young men (2018) is to allow the trousers to sag below the waist, thus revealing the waistband or a greater portion of whatever underwear the man is wearing. A woman wearing low-rise trousers may expose the upper rear portion of her thong underwear is said to display a \"whale tail\".\n",
"Not everyone always wears undergarments between their skin and their outer clothing. Going without underwear to separate the genitals from outer clothing may be called going commando, free-balling for males, or free-buffing for females.\n",
"Wearing clothes is also a social norm, and being deprived of clothing in front of others may be embarrassing. Not wearing clothes in public so that genitals, breasts (for women) or buttocks are visible could be considered indecent exposure.\n",
"Men's swimsuits commonly resemble shorts, or briefs. Casual men's swimsuits (for example, boardshorts) are rarely skintight, unlike competitive swimwear, like jammers or diveskins. In most cases, boys and men swim with their upper body exposed, except in countries where custom or law prohibits it in a public setting, or for practical reasons such as sun protection.\n",
"\"According to the dictionary, nudity means that you are not covered with a single item of clothing from head to toe. But in this scene, I have worn a sari and I am trying to cover my body, except for my back\".\n",
"Legal and social dress codes are often related to sexuality. In the United States, there are many rules against nudity. An individual cannot be naked even on their own property if the public can see them. These laws are often considered a violation to the constitution regarding freedom of expression. It is said that common sense needs to be used when deciding whether or not nudity is appropriate. However, in Hawaii, Texas, New York, Maine, and Ohio allow all women to go topless at all locations that let men be shirtless. In California it is not illegal to hike in the nude, however it is frowned upon. Also in state parks it is legal to sunbathe in the nude unless a private citizen complains then you are to be removed from the premise by force if the individual doesn't comply. Breastfeeding in public is considered wrong and mothers are encouraged to either cover themselves in a blanket or go to the restroom to breastfeed their newborn. There are no actual laws that prohibit the action of breastfeeding in public except two places in Illinois and Missouri.\n",
"Some individuals find it attractive when a woman wets herself in a skirt, since it allows for upskirt views of the accident. This can combine with uniform fetishism, and pornography with skirted performers dressed as high school girls and office workers is common, as well as depictions of skirted women in casual dress.\n"
] |
what happens when you get new glasses?
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Pretty much, yeah. Your brain can adapt pretty fast. An experiment with upside down glasses revealed that it takes a few weeks for the brain to adjust. The person's brain literally adapted to it, and his vision flipped itself rightside up.
Your brain just got used to a slightly blurred vision and adjusted accordingly. Now you give it super sharp vision, which is kinda like seeing everything slightly magnified. You'll adjust fairly quickly.
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[
"The glasses appear to be more susceptible to damage than the screwdriver; in \"The Girl Who Died\", a Viking warrior takes the glasses off the Doctor's face and easily breaks them in half. Nevertheless, the glasses continue to appear via replacement or repair until the end of the season. They return the following season during the Doctor's temporary period of blindness, showing the ability to scan his surroundings and transmit the information to his brain, as well as transmit any data recorded to them. However, while he is able to tell things about a person such as height, weight, gender, age, and even heart rate, he doesn't get enough detail to know faces, clothing, etc. (\"Extremis\") He was once able to tell that a person was holding a computer tablet, but not what was written on it, as well as 'see' a combination lock but not the numbers. (\"The Pyramid at the End of the World\")\n",
"In October 2015, a leaked online video showed an early version of the new glasses, dubbed \"Spectacles.\" In mid 2016, news outlets reported that Snapchat was hiring engineers from Microsoft, Nokia and Qualcomm. Reporters speculated that the hires were to build the new glasses. \n",
"The new product was unveiled on September 24, 2016 and released on November 10, 2016. The glasses were sold through Snapbot, a proprietary vending machine for the smartglasses, which was located near Snap's headquarters in Venice, Los Angeles.\n",
"Circular bullseyes, linear cracks, crack chips, dings, pits and star-shaped breaks can be repaired without removing the glass, eliminating the risk of leaking or bonding problems sometimes associated with replacement.\n",
"There have also been concerns over potential eye pain caused by users new to Glass. These concerns were validated by Google's optometry advisor Dr. Eli Peli of Harvard, though he later partly backtracked due to the controversy which ensued from his remarks.\n",
"Over time, thorium decay causes F-centers to form in the glass, resulting in an amber discoloration. The discoloration can be repaired by exposure to a source of ultraviolet radiation, such as direct sunlight.\n",
"New Year's glasses are novelty eyeglasses in the numerical shape of the coming year usually worn during New Year's Eve parties. They were invented and patented by Richard Sclafani and Peter Cicero in 1990, although other companies have produced similar versions. New Year's glasses' inspiration and popularity arose from the fact that the two digits in the middle of the year number (9 and 0 from the years 1990-2009) had holes suitable for looking through or mounting lenses into.\n"
] |
why is it that when you're in a plane and the plane is turning sideways, your hair doesn't also gravitate towards the actual ground of earth but keeps gravitating towards the floor of the airplane?
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Same reason water stays in a bucket when you swing it over your head. Centrifugal force.
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[
"Another problem in this maneuver is that higher lift from the faster moving outside wing will roll the airplane to the left (or to the right). Most pilots find holding forward right (or left) stick necessary throughout the pivot.\n",
"no rotational acceleration (a turn). If you turn either your aircraft or your head, the canal moves with your head, but the fluid inside does not move because of its inertia. As the canal moves, the hairs inside also move with it and are bent in the opposite direction of the acceleration by the stationary fluid. This hair movement sends a signal to the brain to indicate that the head has turned. The problem starts when you continue turning your aircraft at a constant rate (as in a coordinated turn) for more than 20 seconds.\n",
"If the aircraft heading is different from the aircraft's direction of motion, a sideways force is exerted on the wheels. If this force is in front of the centre of gravity, the resulting moment rotates the aircraft's heading even further from its direction of motion. This increases the force and the process reinforces itself. To avoid a ground loop, the pilot must respond to any turning tendency quickly, while sufficient control authority is available to counteract it. Once the aircraft rotates beyond this point, there is nothing the pilot can do to stop it from rotating further.\n",
"However, because the planet is rotating underneath the atmosphere, and frictional forces arise as the planetary surface drags some atmosphere with it, the air flow from center to periphery is not direct, but is twisted due to the Coriolis effect, or the merely apparent force that arise when the observer is in a rotating frame of reference. Viewed from above this twist in wind direction is in the same direction as the rotation of the planet.\n",
"As the Earth turns around its axis, everything attached to it, including the atmosphere, turns with it (imperceptibly to our senses). An object that is moving without being dragged along with the surface rotation or atmosphere such as an object in ballistic flight or an independent air mass within the atmosphere, travels in a straight motion over the turning Earth. From our rotating perspective on the planet, the direction of motion of an object in ballistic flight changes as it moves, bending in the opposite direction to our actual motion. \n",
"An alternative explanation is that the moving arms have precession torque on them which set the body into twisting rotation. Moving the arms back produces opposite torque which stops the twisting rotation.\n",
"In a single-propeller plane, the result of the torque effect is a tendency of the plane to want to turn upwards and left in response to the propeller wanting to turn (bank) the plane in the opposite direction of the propeller spin.\n"
] |
how does nicotine affect a body's dopamine level?
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There's really a ton of misinformation about this.
People will tell you that nicotine releases dopamine because it's pleasurable, or it's pleasurable because it releases dopamine, but neither of those is very accurate at all.
First off, there is no such thing as your "dopamine level". Neurotransmitters are not like hormones. Hormones get released into your body's general circulation, and if there's more testosterone (for example) in your system, then testosterone receptors throughout your body will get stimulated more.
But with neurotransmitters, one group of neurons can be using neurotransmitter X to send a particular message to some other group of neurons, and a different group of neurons (even in the same area) could be using the same neurotransmitter to communicate with some other group of neurons about something completely different.
As for nicotine:
Nicotine blocks nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter, and nicotinic ACh receptors are a subtype of that receptor, which is also present in most of your muscles).
ONE of the systems in your brain that uses dopamine, the mesolimbic system, is related to motivation / goal directed behavior (this is often misrepresented as being a "reward system" but that's quite wrong). This is often called a dopaminergic system, but that is still misleading, because only a small part of the system is dopaminergic. As with most neural circuits, it's composed of many different groups of neurons that send signals to each other using various neurotransmitters, including glutamate, GABA, dopamine, acetylcholine, and others.
Some parts of the system have nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, and nicotine affects these.
ELI5:
There are systems in your brain that help govern goal directed behavior. A small part of one of these systems is dopaminergic, but most of it uses other neurotransmitters, including acetylcholine. Nicotine blocks acetylcholine receptors, changing the behavior of the system.
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[
"Nicotine activates nicotinic receptors (particularly α4β2 nicotinic receptors) on neurons that innervate the ventral tegmental area and within the mesolimbic pathway where it appears to cause the release of dopamine. This nicotine-induced dopamine release occurs at least partially through activation of the cholinergic–dopaminergic reward link in the ventral tegmental area. Nicotine also appears to induce the release of endogenous opioids that activate opioid pathways in the reward system, since naltrexone – an opioid receptor antagonist – blocks nicotine self-administration. These actions are largely responsible for the strongly reinforcing effects of nicotine, which often occur in the absence of euphoria; however, mild euphoria from nicotine use can occur in some individuals. Chronic nicotine use inhibits class I and II histone deacetylases in the striatum, where this effect plays a role in nicotine addiction.\n",
"Various causes have been proposed to explain the causes of nicotine withdrawal. Nicotine binds to nicotinic receptors in the brain that, in turn, cause an increase in dopamine. Dopamine is the major chemical that stimulates reward centers in the brain. The brain recruits an opposing force to dampen the effects of nicotine and this causes tolerance (the reduction in the effect of nicotine). The onset of this opposing force and the fact that the brain becomes used to and dependent on nicotine to function normally is known as physical dependence. When nicotine intake is decreased, the brain's opposing force is now unopposed and this causes withdrawal symptoms. It also appears that opiate, serotonergic, glutamic, cannabinoid, and corticotrophin receptors may play a role in nicotine withdrawal.\n",
"Pre-existing cognitive and mood disorders may influence the development and maintenance of nicotine dependence. Nicotine is a parasympathomimetic stimulant that binds to and activates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain, which subsequently causes the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin, gamma-aminobutyric acid, glutamate, endorphins, and several neuropeptides. Repeated exposure to nicotine can cause an increase in the number of nicotinic receptors, which is believed to be a result of receptor desensitization and subsequent receptor upregulation. This upregulation or increase in the number of nicotinic receptors significantly alters the functioning of the brain reward system. With constant use of nicotine, tolerance occurs at least partially as a result of the development of new nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain. After several months of nicotine abstinence, the number of receptors go back to normal. Nicotine also stimulates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the adrenal medulla, resulting in increased levels of adrenaline and beta-endorphin. Its physiological effects stem from the stimulation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which are located throughout the central and peripheral nervous systems. Chronic nicotinic acetylcholine receptor activation from repeated nicotine exposure can induce strong effects on the brain, including changes in the brain's physiology, that result from the stimulation of regions of the brain associated with reward, pleasure, and anxiety. These complex effects of nicotine on the brain are still not well understood.\n",
"Because cotinine is the main metabolite to nicotine and has been shown to be pharmacologically active, it has been suggested that some of nicotine's effects in the nervous system may be mediated by cotinine and/or complex interactions with nicotine itself.\n",
"Nicotine is a parasympathomimetic stimulant that binds to and activates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain, which subsequently causes the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin, gamma-aminobutyric acid, glutamate, endorphins, and several neuropeptides, including proopiomelanocortin-derived α-MSH and adrenocorticotropic hormone. Corticotropin-releasing factor, Neuropeptide Y, orexins, and norepinephrine are involved in nicotine addiction. Continuous exposure to nicotine can cause an increase in the number of nicotinic receptors, which is believed to be a result of receptor desensitization and subsequent receptor upregulation. Long-term exposure to nicotine can also result in downregulation of glutamate transporter 1. Long-term nicotine exposure upregulates cortical nicotinic receptors, but it also lowers the activity of the nicotinic receptors in the cortical vasodilation region. These effects are not easily understood. With constant use of nicotine, tolerance occurs at least partially as a result of the development of new nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain. After several months of nicotine abstinence, the number of receptors go back to normal. The extent to which alterations in the brain caused by nicotine use are reversible is not fully understood. Nicotine also stimulates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the adrenal medulla, resulting in increased levels of adrenaline and beta-endorphin. Its physiological effects stem from the stimulation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which are located throughout the central and peripheral nervous systems. The α4β2 nicotinic receptor subtype is the main nicotinic receptor subtype. Nicotine activates brain receptors which produce sedative as well as euphoric effects. Chronic nicotinic acetylcholine receptor activation from repeated nicotine exposure can induce strong effects on the brain, including changes in the brain's physiology, that result from the stimulation of regions of the brain associated with reward, pleasure, and anxiety. These complex effects of nicotine on the brain are still not well understood. Nicotine interferes with the blood-brain barrier function, and so raises the risk of brain edema and neuroinflammation. When nicotine enters the brain, it stimulates the midbrain dopaminergic neurons situated in the ventral tegmental area and pars compacta, among other activities. It induces the release of dopamine in different parts of the brain, such as the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and hippocampus. Ghrelin-induced dopamine release occurs as a result of the activation of the cholinergic–dopaminergic reward link in the ventral tegmental area, a critical part of the reward areas in the brain related with reinforcement. Ghrelin signaling may affect the reinforcing effects of drug dependence.\n",
"By binding to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain, nicotine elicits its psychoactive effects and increases the levels of several neurotransmitters in various brain structures – acting as a sort of \"volume control.\" Nicotine has a higher affinity for nicotinic receptors in the brain than those in skeletal muscle, though at toxic doses it can induce contractions and respiratory paralysis. Nicotine's selectivity is thought to be due to a particular amino acid difference on these receptor subtypes. Nicotine is unusual in comparison to most drugs, as its profile changes from stimulant to sedative with increasing dosages, a phenomenon known as \"Nesbitt's paradox\" after the doctor who first described it in 1969. At very high doses it dampens neuronal activity. Nicotine induces both behavioral stimulation and anxiety in animals. Research into nicotine's most predominant metabolite, cotinine, suggests that some of nicotine's psychoactive effects are mediated by cotinine.\n",
"The activation of receptors by nicotine modifies the state of neurons through two main mechanisms. On one hand, the movement of cations causes a depolarization of the plasma membrane (which results in an excitatory postsynaptic potential in neurons) leading to the activation of voltage-gated ion channels. On the other hand, the entry of calcium acts, either directly or indirectly, on different intracellular cascades. This leads, for example, to the regulation of the activity of some genes or the release of neurotransmitters.\n"
] |
how are blind people taught to understand the world? how much do they truly understand about their shape and the shape of other things?
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Blind people simply can’t see. They will never understand colour, or what it means for things to look beautiful, but they still have their other senses.
Don’t underestimate how good sound is for building up an understanding of the space you are standing in. Blind people can also touch things and easily understand their shape. Without vision you can build up a pretty good idea of the world around you. If you were born blind then you will have learnt naturally how to utilise your other senses to understand the world and would not need to be taught by someone else how to understand it.
Most people who are considered legally blind are not fully blind, they can see to some extent. Of course this is not true for all blind people, but the majority of blind people have some vision.
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[
"A sighted child who is reading at a basic level should be able to understand common words and answer simple questions about the information presented. They should also have enough fluency to get through the material in a timely manner. Over the course of a child's education, these foundations are built on to teach higher levels of math, science, and comprehension skills. Children who are blind not only have the education disadvantage of not being able to see: they also miss out on the very fundamental parts of early and advanced education if not provided with the necessary tools.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Just as without eyes one cannot see the material things of the world, so also without knowledge it will be impossible for us to see or understand the reality of this world and the eternity where God dwells in. As those who have no eyes are called “Blind”, so too those who have no learning are to be called “intellectually blind” Hence it is the responsibility of priest to teach the faithful and of parents to teach their children.\"\n",
"The blind spot metaphor refers to the physiological blind spot in human vision in which perceptions of surroundings and circumstances are strongly impacted by their expectations. Beginning practicing educators tend to overlook the importance of novice levels of prior knowledge and other factors involved in adjusting and adapting pedagogy for learner understanding. This expert blind spot is in part due to an assumption that novices’ cognitive schemata are less elaborate, interconnected, and accessible than experts’ and that their pedagogical reasoning skills are less well developed (Borko & Livingston, 1989: 474). Essential knowledge of subject matter for practicing educators consists of overlapping knowledge domains: subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content matter (Borko, Eisenhart, Brown, Underhill, Jones, & Agard, 1992: 195). Pedagogical content matter consists of an understanding of how to represent certain concepts in ways appropriate to the learner contexts, including abilities and interests. The expert blind spot is a pedagogical phenomenon that is typically overcome through educators’ experience with instructing learners over time.\n",
"One way to understand the moral sense is to draw an analogy between it and other kinds of senses. Beauty, for example, is something we see in some faces, artworks and landscapes. We can also hear it in some pieces of music. We clearly do not need an independent aesthetic sense faculty to perceive beauty in the world. Our ordinary five senses are quite enough to observe it, though merely observing something beautiful is no guarantee that we can observe its beauty. In the same way, a color-blind person is not necessarily able to perceive the green color of grass although he is capable of vision. Suppose we give a name to this ability to appreciate the beauty in things we see: one might call it the \"aesthetic sense\". This aesthetic sense does not come automatically to all people with perfect vision and hearing, so it is fair to describe it as something extra, something not wholly reducible to vision and hearing. As the aesthetic sense informs us about what is beautiful, we can analogically understand the \"moral sense\" as informing us of what is good. People with a functioning moral sense get a clear impression of wrongness when they see puppies being kicked, for example.\n",
"When a person has become blind, in order to “see” the world, their other senses become heightened. An important sense for the blind is their sense of touch, which becomes more frequently used to help them perceive the world. People that are blind have displayed that their visual cortices become more responsive to auditory and tactile stimulation. Braille allows the blind to be able to use their sense of touch to feel the roughness, and distance of various patterns to be used as a form of language. Within the brain, the activation of the occipital cortex is functionally relevant for tactile braille reading, as well as the somatosensory cortex. These various parts of the brain function in their own way, in which they each contribute to the effectiveness of how braille is read by the blind. People that are blind also rely heavily on Tactile Gnosis, Spatial discrimination, Graphesthesia, and Two-point discrimination. Essentially, the occipital cortex allows one to effectively make judgements on the distance of braille patterns, which is related to spatial discrimination. Meanwhile, the somatosensory cortex allows one to effectively make judgements on the roughness of braille patterns, which is related to two-point discrimination. The various visual areas in the brain are very essential for a blind person to read braille, just as much as it is for a person that has sight. Essentially, whether one is blind or not, the perception of objects that involves tactile discrimination is not impaired if one cannot see. When comparing people that are blind to people that have sight, the amount of activity within the their somatosensory and visual areas of the brain do differ. The activity in the somatosensory and visual areas are not as high in tactile gnosis for people that are not blind, and are more-so active for more visual related stimuli that does not involve touch. Nonetheless, there is a difference in these various areas within the brain when comparing the blind to the sighted, which is that shape discrimination causes a difference in brain activity, as well as tactile gnosis. The visual cortices of blind individuals are active during various vision related tasks including tactile discrimination, and the function of the cortices resemble the activity of adults with sight.\n",
"The understanding of three-dimensional space in humans is thought to be learned during infancy using unconscious inference, and is closely related to hand-eye coordination. The visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions is called depth perception.\n",
"Individuals with a visual disability not only have to find ways to communicate effectively with the people around them, but their environment as well. The blind or visually impaired rely largely on their other senses such as hearing, touch, and smell in order to understand their surroundings.\n"
] |
If a duke in medieval England, France, or Germany wanted his second son to inherit his lands and titles, would he have any way of disinheriting his oldest son?
|
In England, it would depend on a couple of things.
If the real property were held in fee tail (Entailed) a person would need the agreement of the heir to break the fee tail.
If a tail could not be broken, the ancestor/father could leave all of his personal property,money or unentailed real property any way that he chose. Theoretically an heir could inherit a parcel of land/estate and have no financial means to keep it up.
An heir could voluntarily abjure a title. _URL_1_.
I am not aware of a means to force an heir out unless the parent filed a writ to have him declared a bastard. Until the 20th century bastards could not inherit a title or take from a parent who died intestate.
On teh Continent, in what we call France and some of teh German principalities, Sa;ic Law governed civil law issues including inheritance.
I am less familiar with Salic Law provisions
_URL_0_
|
[
"The duke, a descendant through a morganatic marriage of the royal family of Württemberg, was the elder son of Albert's aunt, Princess Florestine of Monaco. Although he was ineligible to inherit the crown of his patrilineal ancestors in Germany, given the line of succession to the Monegasque throne at that time, there was every likelihood that the principality would pass by lawful inheritance into Wilhelm's \"German hands\" upon the death of Prince Louis. However, given the bitter relations between France and Germany at that time – a socio-political legacy of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 and then of World War I – France deemed it unacceptable for a country over which it had exercised \"de facto\" or \"de jure\" hegemony, intermittently since the 17th century and consistently for half a century, to fall into the hands of a German aristocrat.\n",
"In 1648, at the end of the war, Frederick V's son Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine, was able to recover his titles and lands. To strengthen his dynasty, Charles I Louis arranged the marriage of his daughter Liselotte to Philip I, Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIV, king of France. In 1685, after the death of Charles Louis' son, Elector Charles II, Louis XIV laid claim to his sister-in-law's inheritance. The Germans rejected the claim, in part because of religious differences between local Protestants and the French Catholics, as the Protestant Reformation had divided the peoples of Europe. The War of the Grand Alliance ensued. In 1689, French troops took the town and castle, bringing nearly total destruction to the area in 1693. As a result of the destruction due to repeated French invasions related to the War of the Palatinate Succession coupled with severe winters, thousands of Protestant German Palatines emigrated from the lower Palatinate in the early 18th century. They fled to other European cities and especially to London (where the refugees were called \"the poor Palatines\"). In sympathy for the Protestants, in 1709–1710, Queen Anne's government arranged transport for nearly 6,000 Palatines to New York. Others were transported to Pennsylvania, and to South Carolina. They worked their passage and later settled in the English colonies there.\n",
"The ducal line is not had the possibility to continue straight from father to son, after the death of the 3rd Duke, another line had to be recognised by the crown. The descendants of François II continued the line of dukes. In the 17th century the dukes had large connection in the Holy Roman Empire, and no difficulties to find a bride of good house.\n",
"William III (1375 in Munich – 12 September 1435) (German: \"Wilhelm III., Herzog von Bayern\"), was Duke of Bavaria-Munich (1397–1435), together and in concord with his older brother Ernest, Duke of Bavaria.\n",
"The second duke's two sons both predeceased him, making the French dukedom extinct in 1755. However, the second duke had been given a Spanish dukedom when he was ambassador there, which could be inherited through the female line, and descendants continued to use this title until the 19th century. \n",
"In 1921 the former king Wilhelm II of Württemberg died, without leaving a male heir. While the 2nd duke of Urach was technically the senior male descendant from the Württemberg royal family, it had already been decided that the succession would pass to his cousin Duke Albrecht because of the morganatic marriage of the parents of the first duke of Urach.\n",
"In 1012 Henry II, King of Germany, gave the Duchy of Swabia to Ernest following the death of its childless ruler Hermann III. In order to further legitimatize his rule as duke, he married Gisela of Swabia, the eldest sister of Hermann.\n"
] |
why does coffee help a hangover?
|
Hangovers, in ELI5 terms, are a specific case of dehydration. Caffeine is a diuretic, meaning it makes you pee more, which doesn't help the dehydration causing you to feel like crap.
However, hangovers leave you feeling sluggish, tired and achey. Caffeine is a stimulant, which helps to perk your body up, helping you overcome several of the "worn down" symptoms of the hangover.
Caffeine also makes veins constrict a bit, which slows blood flow especially in the brain, which means it can do a little to help with headaches.
|
[
"Coffee enemas can cause serious side effects (some common to other types of enemas), including infections, sepsis, severe electrolyte imbalance, colitis, proctocolitis, salmonella, brain abscess, and heart failure. If the coffee is inserted too quickly or is too hot, it could cause internal burning or rectal perforation.\n",
"Coffee is darkly colored, bitter, slightly acidic and has a stimulating effect in humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is one of the most popular drinks in the world, and it can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte). It is usually served hot, although iced coffee is a popular alternative. Clinical studies indicate that moderate coffee consumption is benign or mildly beneficial in healthy adults, with continuing research on whether long-term consumption lowers the risk of some diseases, although those long-term studies are of generally poor quality.\n",
"Coffee is slightly acidic (pH 5.0–5.1) and can have a stimulating effect on humans because of its caffeine content. It is one of the most popular drinks in the world. It can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways. The effect of coffee on human health has been a subject of many studies; however, results have varied in terms of coffee's relative benefit.\n",
"Like Gibbs, Abby enjoys caffeine, primarily in the form of large cups of a fictional drink called \"Caf-Pow\". At times, when she is worried about the caffeine interfering with her sleep, she drinks \"No-Caf-Pow\" instead. (According to Perrette, the cups were originally filled with Hawaiian Punch, but when she stopped eating and drinking refined sugar, unsweetened cranberry juice was used in its place.) When changing the artwork in her lab during \"Hung Out to Dry\", she states that she has a \"Chagall feeling\", a reference to Marc Chagall, a Jewish Belarusian artist whose main works came from fantasy and dreams. Her favorite term for something out of the ordinary is \"hinky\". It is also shown that she enjoys attending concerts, but her failure to wear earplugs at one of them left her with temporary hearing loss the next day, forcing her to ask DiNozzo for help analyzing some audio evidence.\n",
"The coffee is naturally produced given that synthetic fertilisers and pesticides are too expensive and unobtainable which results in coffee with naturally low levels of caffeine and acidity. Papua New Guinean coffee is said to have medium body, low to medium acidity, a syrupy mouthfeel and often fruity notes.\n",
"Coffee enemas can cause numerous side effects, including infections, sepsis (including campylobacter sepsis), severe electrolyte imbalance, colitis, polymicrobial enteric sepsis, proctocolitis, salmonella, brain abscess, and heart failure, and deaths related to coffee enemas have been documented.\n",
"Coffee consumption is associated with a lower overall risk of cancer. This is primarily due to a decrease in the risks of hepatocellular and endometrial cancer, but it may also have a modest effect on colorectal cancer. There does not appear to be a significant protective effect against other types of cancers, and heavy coffee consumption may increase the risk of bladder cancer. A protective effect of caffeine against Alzheimer's disease is possible, but the evidence is inconclusive. Moderate coffee consumption may decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, and it may somewhat reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. Drinking four or more cups of coffee per day does not affect the risk of hypertension compared to drinking little or no coffee. However those who drink 1–3 cups per day may be at a slightly increased risk. Caffeine increases intraocular pressure in those with glaucoma but does not appear to affect normal individuals. It may protect people from liver cirrhosis. There is no evidence that coffee stunts a child's growth. Caffeine may increase the effectiveness of some medications including ones used to treat headaches. Caffeine may lessen the severity of acute mountain sickness if taken a few hours prior to attaining a high altitude.\n"
] |
why do diseases only do bad things to us? why are there no diseases/viruses that are actually good for us?
|
Yes, there are good diseases. For instance, retroviruses and bornaviruses account for 8-9% of the human genetic code, and the same is true for most mammals and birds. One pretty useful thing retroviruses help with is the formation of the placenta and differentiation early in fetal development. These genes have been proven to come from multiple strains of human endogenous retrovirus (herv), and suppressing them slows and hinders development and the ability to latch onto the uterine wall. Just one example of a beneficial virus, and 8-9% of our DNA comes from them.
There are a surprising number of retrovirus genes that protect and aid the development of the fetus. It is kinda strange, but it fascinates me.
|
[
"Common human diseases caused by viruses include the common cold, the flu, chickenpox and cold sores. Serious diseases such as Ebola and AIDS are also caused by viruses. Many viruses cause little or no disease and are said to be \"benign\". The more harmful viruses are described as virulent.\n",
"In \"Germs Go Global: Why Emerging Infectious Diseases Are a Threat to America,\" TFAH concludes that these diseases have real consequences for the nation's public health system, delivery of medical care, economy, and national security.\n",
"This group of diseases has been overlooked because they mainly affect the poorest countries of the developing world and because of recent emphasis on decreasing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Far more resources are given to the \"big three\" diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis) because of their higher mortality and public awareness rates. Neglected tropical diseases do not have a prominent cultural figure to champion the cause.\n",
"Predicting adverse events accurately represents a significant challenge to both the pharmaceutical industry and academia, the reason being that our existing knowledge of biology, disease mechanisms (i.e. how a disease affects the healthy state of a human) and drug design is incomplete and sometimes incorrect. On top of that, the biological complexity and differences between living organisms is such that even if a treatment appears to work in the laboratory it may not work in humans.\n",
"Infectious diseases are often public health concerns because they can spread quickly and easily, affecting large numbers of members. The World Health Organization has an acute interest in combatting infectious disease outbreaks by minimizing their geographic and numerical spread and treating the affected. Other conditions for which there is not yet a cure or even effective treatment, such as dementia, can be viewed as public health concerns in the long run.\n",
"The name \"diseases of despair\" has been criticized for being unfair to the people who are adversely affected by social and economic forces beyond their control, and for underplaying the role of specific drugs, such as OxyContin, in increasing deaths.\n",
"Of the many diseases of humans that were found to be caused by viruses in the 20th century one, smallpox, has been eradicated. The diseases caused by viruses such as HIV and influenza virus have proved to be more difficult to control. Other diseases, such as those caused by arboviruses, are presenting new challenges.\n"
] |
how does the water table work? i just did deep enough and then there's water? why aren't deep caves flooded then?
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> I just did deep enough and then there's water?
basically. if you had a cup of water, and added sand until the top was dry, you would have a water table. you can do this near the beach. dig down a bit and the sand is wet.
the earth is a bit more complicated, though. for instance, certain materials can form a barrier to water. clay is quite famous for it. a layer of clay can trap the water and keep it lower than it normally would be, or elevate it so its closer to the surface than you would expect because the water can't slip through.
solid rock can also keep water out, and the water in the ground will go around it.
> Why aren't deep caves flooded then?
most of them are. the ones that aren't are the exception, and mines spend huge amounts of resources keeping water out.
most caves are formed by water. a small fissure in rock has water flow through it for millions of years and it slowly erodes it, opening the fissure wider and lower as gravity pulls it down.
|
[
"It is estimated that a cave cannot exceed in depth due to the pressure of overlying rocks. For karst caves the maximum depth is determined on the basis of the lower limit of karst forming processes, coinciding with the base of the soluble carbonate rocks. Most caves are formed in limestone by dissolution.\n",
"According to a survey by experts, the cave was formed in the beginning of the transition phase after the last glacial climate change of the Quaternary Period, when the Mediterranean Sea rose , flooding the bottom of the cave. The change in the hydrological regime helped preserve the cave formations such as stalagmites and stalactites. Due to being under water, they have remained unaffected by atmospheric changes to the present day. The lake's water is brackish to a depth of , while deeper water is saline.\n",
"Originally open at both ends, collapsing ground closed one of the caves when the underground water flow sharply diminished. This cave now ends with basins at ground level formed by limestone deposits left by the water.\n",
"The cave is a karst cave, formed by surface water trickling down through cracks in the limestone. When the surface water meets the groundwater, it starts to dissolve the limestone and widen the cracks into passages and halls.\n",
"The plan of the cave reveals a fractal-like dendritic pattern that is not random but organized along certain preferred directions. Presumably the cave was formed during the Pliocene about 3 to 2 million years ago. Water had infiltrated the bedrock along certain zones of weakness and dissolved the limestone. Today this process has come to an end, and the cave is mostly dry except for the rivulet along the base level.\n",
"Geologically it is a doline which is periodically filled with water, particularly after snowmelt or after long periods of rain when the groundwater level reaches the surface. In dry periods, the depth of the water table may be up to 40 metres; the deepest point of the groundwater-storing basin lies about 48 metres below the earth's surface. The background to the large variations in water level are the caverns of the Dinkelberg (which consists mainly of muschelkalk) which can fill very quickly with water, but only empty slowly.\n",
"The caves began to form when earth movement caused the hard limestone to bend and buckle under the ocean and rise above the sea floor. As the rock was exposed to air, it separated and created cracks and weaknesses that allowed for water to flow through them dissolving the limestone and over millions of years large caves were formed.\n"
] |
What kind of spices did the ancient Mesopotamians use?
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From what we know (from texts and palaeobotanic studies), there were many spices that are also used in modern Middle Eastern cuisine, such as onion, garlic, coriander, cumin, fennel, cress, dill, mint, thyme, cardamom...
In addition, we have words for spices attested in the texts where we are not entirely sure what plant/spice they refer to.
I'm not a 100% sure that the word for sumac has been correctly identified, but it is a fair assumption that it would have been used in cooking.
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[
"The ritual use of spices was common in the classical era, in many instances spices were used in oils by soaking them or creating fragrances by burning them. However many of the spices that became common place in the late classical period were spices that were originally from countries outside of Roman territory and acquired through trade.\n",
"In Ancient Egypt, cinnamon was used to embalm mummies. From Hellenistic times onward, Ancient Egyptian recipes for \"kyphi\", an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia. The gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cassia and cinnamon.\n",
"Other imported spices were saffron, cinnamon, and the silphium of Cyrene, a type of pungent fennel that was over-harvested into extinction during the reign of Nero, after which time it was replaced with \"laserpicium\", asafoetida exported from present-day Afghanistan. Pliny estimated that Romans spent 100 million sesterces a year on spices and perfumes from India, China, and the Arabian peninsula.\n",
"The earliest written records of spices come from ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian cultures. The Ebers Papyrus from Early Egyptians that dates from 1550 describes some eight hundred different medicinal remedies and numerous medicinal procedures.\n",
"Spices have been around in conjunction with human use for millennia, many civilizations in antiquity used a variety of spices for their common qualities. The variety of spices were used for common purposes among the ancient world, and they were also used to create a variety of products designed to enhance or suppress certain sensations. Spices were also associated with certain rituals to perpetuate a superstition, or fulfill a religious obligation, among other things.\n",
"Largely due to Alexander the Great's conquest, of Asia Minor and the Hellenic World, was he able to gain access to many Eastern spices. Many Eastern spices like pepper, cassia, cinnamon, and ginger were imported by the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates, often called the \"Father of Medicine,\"wrote many treatises on medicinal plants including saffron, cinnamon, thyme, coriander, mint, and marjoram. One of the most important Greek medicinal spices was used as early as the 7th century BCE and was known as Silphium, a plant that went extinct in the 1st century CE.\n",
"BULLET::::- Spices were obtained from Chinese and Persian traders, who met with the Viking traders in Russia. Vikings used homegrown spices and herbs like caraway, thyme, horseradish and mustard, but imported cinnamon.\n"
] |
why after 30+ years of life do i still randomly choke on my own spit at random?
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I've read that as we were evolving to allow for complex speech, the larynx dropped lower in our throats. This makes it a lot easier for us to choke, though. So it's just an annoying trade-off for being able to speak.
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[
"According to Brittany, her mother also has an eating disorder and in an interview, Brittany describes how they would have \"the greatest time\" with \"chew and spit\"; chewing \"bags and bags of candy\" and spitting it out without swallowing. Her mother's experience of anorexia is touched upon in greater detail in an interview in the film's companion book, also titled \n",
"While it works in preventing speech, a person who has been stuff gagged can easily spit it out by pushing it with his/her tongue. However, it is for this reason that the stuff gag is one of the safest gags to use during self bondage, as the person with his/her hands tied can still spit the gag out if he/she feels any kind of discomfort. However, the risks of asphyxiation and choking are still present for someone who is not careful.\n",
"Spitting three times, usually accompanied by the sounds 'pooh, pooh, pooh', is a common superstition performed in response to something particularly good or evil. This superstition is considered to have evolved from a medieval ritual that clears the minds of individuals. This was originally done to ward off dark magic and demonic creatures, however, today it is performed as a precautionary measure to prevent great tragedy. Ancient and medieval Jewish physicians often described the positive value of saliva, perceiving it to have healing powers, which suggests a reason for why this action is done. Spitting three times is also performed when something exceptional happens, such as on a wedding day or the birth of a healthy baby, as it is a precautionary measure to ward of the potential for evil spirits.\n",
"Vomiting or choking during feeding can trigger laryngospasm that leads to a BRUE or ALTE. This is a likely cause if the infant had vomiting or regurgitation just prior to the event, or if the event occurred while the infant was awake and lying down. In healthy infants with a suggestive GER event, no additional testing is typically done. In infants with repeated episodes of choking or repeated acute events, evaluation with a swallowing study can be helpful.\n",
"If, at any point during or immediately after the contest, a competitor regurgitates any food, he or she will be disqualified. Vomiting, also known as a \"reversal\", or, as ESPN and the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest call it, a \"reversal of fortune\", includes obvious signs of vomiting as well as any small amounts of food that may fall from the mouth deemed by judges to have come from the stomach. Small amounts of food already in the mouth prior to swallowing are excluded from this rule.\n",
"When you were hungry, you began to cry, because you could not speak. You were seven months without teeth, always sucking. But after you got one, you began to gnaw a crust of bread. It was not long before another came pop. At ten months you had four pretty white teeth, and you used to bite me. Poor mamma! Still I did not cry, because I am not a child, but you hurt me very much. So I said to papa, it is time the little girl should eat. She is not naughty, yet she hurts me. I have given her a crust of bread, and I must look for some other milk.\n",
"Tensions start to rise within the first few minutes, as some contestants appear to bite off more than they can chew. It doesn’t take long to realize that one team clearly has what it takes while the other fails miserably and there is plenty of blame to pass around.\n"
] |
with websites like expedia, and the ease of access to the internet, what exactly do travel agents do nowadays?
|
My friend is one. She sells travel packages to people who just don't want to deal with it, and there are a lot of people like that. There are people who don't "use the internet" or "trust the internet", there are people who just want to go somewhere and don't want to bother with the details of finding a hotel, flight, car, etc. they just want to walk in to an office, talk to a real person and say: i want to take my family of 4 on a 2 week vacation in may, we want to go to Paris, can you get us there and arrange everything?
There'd also people who are going on their first vacation, first flight, etc. to some people planning flights is hard.
And finally there's also people who maybe don't have the confidence of organizing themselves. Maybe they don't speak the language that well. Maybe they're worried about shady hotels. Maybe maybe maybe.
They provide a service to all of these people and more.
My friend also hates her job because it's 99% a sales job. She's forced to upsell and to sell expensive packages. To an internet savvy person with some common sense you could arrange everything yourself for a better deal, but that's not their audience.
|
[
"In response, travel agencies have developed an internet presence of their own by creating travel websites, with detailed information and online booking capabilities. Travel agencies also use the services of the major computer reservations systems companies, also known as Global Distribution Systems (GDS), including: Amadeus CRS, Galileo CRS, SABRE, and Worldspan, which is a subsidiary of Travelport, allowing them to book and sell airline tickets, car rentals, hotels, and other travel related services. Some online travel websites allow visitors to compare hotel and flight rates with multiple companies for free; they often allow visitors to sort the travel packages by amenities, price, and proximity to a city or landmark.\n",
"Many travel websites are online travelogues or travel journals, usually created by individual travelers and hosted by companies that generally provide their information to consumers for free. These companies generate revenue through advertising or by providing services to other businesses. This medium produces a wide variety of styles, often incorporating graphics, photography, maps, and other unique content. Some examples of websites that use a combination of travel reviews and the booking of travel are TripAdvisor, Priceline, Liberty Holidays, and Expedia.\n",
"A travel website is a website on the world wide web that is dedicated to travel. The site may be focused on travel reviews, trip fares, or a combination of both. Approximately 587.3 million consumers are expected to book travel plans online in 2018.\n",
"The construction of a travel itinerary may be assisted by the use of travel literature, including travel journals and diaries, a guide book containing information for visitors or tourists about the destination, or a trip planner website dedicated to helping the users plan their trips. Typically a travel itinerary is prepared by a travel agent who assists one in conducting their travel for business or leisure. Most commonly a travel agent provides a list of pre-planned travel itineraries to a traveller, who can then pick one that they're most satisfied with. However, with the advent of the internet, online maps, navigation, online trip planners and easier access to travel information in general, travellers, especially the younger ones prefer a more do-it-yourself approach to travel planning. \n",
"A travel itinerary might serve different purposes for different kinds of travellers. A typical business traveller's itinerary might include information about meetings, events and contacts with some time for leisure travel, while a leisure traveller's itinerary would predominantly include destinations, points of interest and transportation means. Online trip planners like Sygic, Roadtrippers and Triphobo.com help cater to different traveller profiles by providing easier access to information and a tool to organise a travel itinerary more efficiently. \n",
"The website uses global distribution systems such as Amadeus IT Group and Travelfusion for flights, and CarTrawler for online car hire bookings. Most revenue is generated from Pay per click (PPC) advertising, as well as an extensive affiliate network. All Travelstart websites use Thawte to secure online payments.\n",
"Many digital nomads tend to come from more developed nations with passports allowing a greater degree of freedom of travel. As a result, many tend to travel on a tourist visa. While it is technically illegal for a digital nomad to work in a country on a tourist visa, many digital nomads tend to reside in locations with a lower cost of living while working remotely on projects outside their country of residence. In most countries, as long as the nomad is discreet and is not taking a job away from a local person, the authorities will turn a blind eye to nomad work. Visa runs are also often common in the digital nomad community. Some nomads have also attempted to legalize their stay by taking up part-time jobs in teaching English as well as taking university courses in their host country. In addition, digital nomads are often using their status as permanent travelers to escape the tax liability in their home countries without, however, immigrating to the tax system of another country. Nevertheless, this practice is considered controversial amongst digital nomads.\n"
] |
How did WW1 armies know when individual soldiers died on the battlefield?
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They kept records of these guys and their families. Each soldier wears tags identifying them, find a body with tags a telegram is dispatched. If they don't find a body but the soldier fails to appear or report in they are missing and after a while missing and presumed dead.
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[
"The men at the front had to struggle with supply problems–there was a shortage of food; and disease was rife in the damp, rat-infested conditions. Along with enemy action, many soldiers had to contend with new diseases: trench foot, trench fever and trench nephritis. When the war ended in November 1918, British Army casualties, as the result of enemy action and disease, were recorded as 673,375 killed and missing, with another 1,643,469 wounded. The rush to demobilise at the end of the conflict substantially decreased the strength of the British Army, from its peak strength of 3,820,000 men in 1918 to 370,000 men by 1920.\n",
"In the pilot episode, two World War I soldiers stumble across the body of an officer while crossing no-man's land under heavy gunfire during the Battle of Amiens in 1918. Assuming the officer is dead, one soldier, Alf Stokes, attempts to rob the officer, much to the disgust of his comrade, James Twelvetrees. After it becomes apparent that the unconscious officer is not dead, the two men see their chance to escape the battle by carrying the officer to a field hospital. The two soldiers are later called to see the officer, The Honourable Teddy Meldrum, who says he is eternally grateful for their services, and tells them he will always be in their debt.\n",
"At various times during the war—particularly early on—official truces were organised so that the wounded could be recovered from no man's land and the dead could be buried. Generally, senior commands disapproved of any slackening of the offensive for humanitarian reasons and so ordered their troops not to permit enemy stretcher-bearers to operate in no man's land. However, this order was almost invariably ignored by the soldiers in the trenches, who knew that it was to the mutual benefit of the fighting men of both sides to allow the wounded to be retrieved. So, as soon as hostilities ceased, parties of stretcher bearers, marked with Red Cross flags, would go out to recover the wounded, sometimes swapping enemy wounded for their own.\n",
"The 620,000 men in service were most remembered for combat in the trenches of the Western Front; there were 67,000 war dead and 173,000 wounded. This total does not include the 2,000 deaths and 9,000 injuries in December 1917 when a munitions ship exploded in Halifax.\n",
"During the First World War, many volunteers from the Defence Force travelled to Great Britain and joined the British Army, and many of them were killed in action. One of them mentioned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was Private Jacotine of the CLI, who was the last man left alive in his unit at the Battle of Lys, and who continued to fight for 20 minutes before he was killed.\n",
"A large number of soldiers who died in the war were never found, and similarly bodies were recovered that could not be identified; once again, this required new forms of memorial. The scale of the issue was once again huge: 73,000 Allied dead were never found at the Somme, for example, either because their bodies had been lost, destroyed or were unrecognisable, more than one in ten of the losses in the battle.\n",
"BULLET::::- There are three published official figures for army deaths. One: official figures issued by the British Army in 1921 put their losses at 673,375 dead and missing from all causes in combat theaters. Two: the summary in the 1922 report of the War Office put army and Royal Naval Division dead from the British Isles at 702,410. The authors of the War Office report did not explain the difference between their figures and the official figures issued in 1921 by the British army, however the difference is more than likely due to the inclusion of the Royal Naval Division and deaths outside of combat theaters. Three: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database available online identifies by name 758,000 army dead, not including the Royal Naval Division\n"
] |
how slow can light be?
|
Slow light is the propagation of an optical pulse or other modulation of an optical carrier at a very low group velocity. Slow light occurs when a propagating pulse is substantially slowed down by the interaction with the medium in which the propagation takes place.
In 1998, Danish physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau led a combined team from Harvard University and the Rowland Institute for Science which succeeded in slowing a beam of light to about 17 meters per second, and researchers at UC Berkeley slowed the speed of light traveling through a semiconductor to 9.7 kilometers per second in 2004. Hau later succeeded in stopping light completely, and developed methods by which it can be stopped and later restarted. This was in an effort to develop computers that will use only a fraction of the energy of today's machines.
In 2005, IBM created a microchip that can slow down light, fashioned out of fairly standard materials, potentially paving the way toward commercial adoption.
Lifted from _URL_0_
|
[
"A Slower Speed of Light is a freeware video game developed by MIT Game Lab that demonstrates the effects of special relativity by gradually slowing down the speed of light to a walking pace. The game runs on the Unity engine using the own open source OpenRelativity toolkit.\n",
"Light propagates at 299,792,458 m/s, often approximated as in a vacuum. The speed of light (or \"c\") is also the speed of all massless particles and associated fields in a vacuum, and it is the upper limit on the speed at which energy, matter, information or causation can travel; the speed of light is the limit of speed for all physical systems.\n",
"As speeds approach that of light, the acceleration produced by a given force decreases, becoming infinitesimally small as light speed is approached; an object with mass can approach this speed asymptotically, but never reach it.\n",
"The speed of light is (by definition) exactly 299,792,458 m/s, very close to 300,000,000 m/s. This is a pure coincidence, as the meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the Earth's pole and equator along the surface at sea level, and the Earth's circumference just happens to be about 2/15 of a light-second. It is also roughly equal to one foot per nanosecond (the actual number is 0.9836 ft/ns).\n",
"Then, at a speed of 13,400,000 m/s (30 million mph, 0.0447) contracted length is 99.9% of the length at rest; at a speed of 42,300,000 m/s (95 million mph, 0.141), the length is still 99%. As the magnitude of the velocity approaches the speed of light, the effect becomes prominent.\n",
"BULLET::::- December 7 – Danish astronomer Ole Rømer measures the speed of light by observing the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, obtaining a speed of 140,000 miles per second (approximately 25% too slow).\n",
"This constancy of the speed of light means that, counter to intuition, speeds of material objects and light are not additive. It is not possible to make the speed of light appear greater by moving towards or away from the light source.\n"
] |
[Meta] Some thoughts on warnings
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Rule #1 of reddit: Mods are dictators by nature of the system.
This sub understands that better than any around. Sounds like you were being a bit stone-minded about reposting an already removed comment. That *does* make perfect sense, and doesn't merit an extra rule in the list, as far as I'm concerned as a non-mod. The rules list is not meant to be a "Here is a point-for-point explanation of what is and is not appropriate". Else it'd be filled with every little arbitrary rule they could think of.
That's ridiculous. Rules of subreddits are not *laws*. They don't have to be enforced to the letter, or even posted at all.
I get that you think that it should be simple enough for a mod to simply message and ask courteously, but compound that by a thousands. That's how often they'd have to do it. Because you're just one user among thousands. When you've received two warnings already, I think a temp ban for the third is totally justifiable.
|
[
"BULLET::::- \"Warnings\" are messages explaining negative events, such as heavy acid rain falling on a world and therefore causing much damage there, medical problems with previous technological breakthroughs, major enemy military movements, or a toxic gas leak on a planet that results in losing the civilian population (any ground bases remain unaffected). Enemy threats also appear here.\n",
"The purpose of warnings are to notify the population of a danger that threatens their lives. Individuals must go to the shelters or their homes, lock the doors and the windows, take the appropriate protective actions, and listen through the radio and television to the instructions of civil defense.\n",
"In combination, indications and warning (I&W) provide alerts of potential or highly probable threat on the part of a hostile organizations. Indications may suggest preparation, such as an unusual pace of preventive maintenance, troop or supply transfers to shipping points, etc. Warnings are more immediate, such as the deployment of units, in combat formation, near national borders. Positive indications and warning may call for more specific \"news reports\" and briefings.\n",
"BULLET::::- Warnings to indicate the need for and status of control (explicitly considered in the pyramid formulation to be a distinct hierarchy option to clarity the details of any warnings being used and to emphasize the growing capabilities and availability of real time sensors and monitors; whereas in other systems, warnings are sometimes considered part of engineered controls and sometimes part of administrative controls),\n",
"Warnings are sometimes given by the entities about the possibilities of future calamity resulting from current trends in human society such as warfare and the development of weapons of mass destruction or pollution and environmental concerns. Sometimes the entities go a step farther and issue specific prophecies of future disaster. The entities often claim that they will attempt to help humanity recover in the aftermath of the prophesied calamity. At times abduction claimants have reported that specific dates were given to them for a disaster to occur yet none of these specific prophecies has ever come to pass.\n",
"A trigger warning is a message presented to an audience about the contents of a book or other media, to warn them that it contains potentially distressing content. Scientists with knowledge in this area and research on the topic suggest that trigger warnings may be counterproductive and actually increase anxiety and PTSD symptoms. \n",
"BULLET::::- an agreement as to who can initiate an alert. In some countries all warnings are transmitted by a single command center, while in others (such as the United States) a host of local, regional, and national agencies are authorized to initiate warnings.\n"
] |
why do opera singers put so much vibrato on everything? is it the only way to get the volume they need?
|
Voice major here...
Vibrato ensures a continuous airstream from your diaphragm. It's an easy way to keep your muscles from gumming things up in the throat/jaw area, which can change the sound. Having your muscles truly loose and relaxed while singing makes for a truer more beautiful sound, and vibrato ensures that the muscles don't mess up the airstream. It's a healthy way to sing that will preserve stamina, something opera singers need to get through 4 hours of Wagner.
True ELI5?
Vibrating their voice like that forces them to keep their muscles loosey goosey, which makes singing easier and more beautiful.
|
[
"Traditionally, however, the deliberate cultivation of a particularly wide, pervasive vibrato by opera singers from the Latin countries has been denounced by English-speaking music critics and pedagogues as a technical fault and a stylistic blot (see Scott, cited below, Volume 1, pp. 123–127). They have expected vocalists to emit a pure, steady stream of clear sound — irrespective of whether they were singing in church, on the concert platform, or on the operatic stage.\n",
"Operatic vocal technique evolved, in a time before electronic amplification, to allow singers to produce enough volume to be heard over an orchestra, without the instrumentalists having to substantially compromise their volume.\n",
"Prior to the advent of the charismatic Rubini, every well-schooled opera singer had avoided using a conspicuous and continuous vibrato because, according to Scott, it varied the pitch of the note being sung to an unacceptable degree and it was considered to be an artificial contrivance arising from inadequate breath control. British and North American press commentators and singing teachers continued to subscribe to this view long after Rubini had come and gone.\n",
"Famous singers who personify this technique include Leontyne Price, Mariella Devia, Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe di Stefano, Jussi Björling and Luciano Pavarotti. Certain dramatic singers may also employ \"squillo\" as opposed to volume over the course of a performance, for example Birgit Nilsson.\n",
"There is another kind of vibrato-linked fault that can afflict the voices of operatic artists, especially aging ones—namely the slow, often irregular wobble produced when the singer's vibrato has loosened from the effects of forcing, over-parting, or the sheer wear and tear on the body caused by the stresses of a long stage career.\n",
"The rate and extent of the variation in pitch during vibrato is controlled by the performer. The extent of vibrato for solo singers is usually less than a semitone (100 cents) either side of the note, while singers in a choir typically use narrower vibrato with an extent of less than a tenth of a semitone (10 cents) either side. Wind and bowed instruments generally use vibratos with an extent of less than half a semitone either side.\n",
"Vibrato is a technique in which a sustained note wavers very quickly and consistently between a higher and a lower pitch, giving the note a slight quaver. Vibrato is the pulse or wave in a sustained tone. Vibrato occurs naturally and is the result of proper breath support and a relaxed vocal apparatus. Some studies have shown that vibrato is the result of a neuromuscular tremor in the vocal folds. In 1922 Max Schoen was the first to make the comparison of vibrato to a tremor due to change in amplitude, lack of automatic control and it being half the rate of normal muscular discharge. Some singers use vibrato as a means of expression. Many successful artists can sing a deep, rich vibrato.\n"
] |
why is it that current pop songs' lyrics are repetitive verses repeated over and over, compared to the pas,t when lyrics were very diverse with different verses?
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Pop music is written around a formula that bastardizes the idea of the hook, which is the part of a song that draws you in and usually it's the part that gets stuck in your head. It's not a new idea for pop songs to just repeat the same lines over and over. It's been a popular method since the 1980s at least. Songs like Electric Boogie, Gonna Make You Sweat, Stayin' alive, etc. all depend on that initial chorus.
|
[
"Some of their lyrics are notable for their unusual meter patterns; a prime example of this is their 1972 hit \"Reelin' In the Years\", which crams an unusually large number of words into each line, giving it a highly syncopated quality.\n",
"Most of the songs have only a few verses and the majority of them are about flirting. For example, the most popular one is a ditty with only one verse called “Formiga que doi e jiquitaia”, which translates to “When an ant bite, it is jiquitaia”. This song is danced by the dancers scratching their bodies as if they have thousands of ants crawling over them. People from the area say that this dance originated one day when people were dancing on top of an ant farm and the singers noticed that people started to scratch themselves so instead of stopping the music they just incorporated to their repertoire and kept on dancing.\n",
"Because rap revolves around a strong 4/4 beat, with certain syllables said in time to the beat, all the notational systems have a similar structure: they all have the same 4 beat numbers at the top of the diagram, so that syllables can be written in-line with the beat numbers. This allows devices such as rests, \"lazy tails\", flams, and other rhythmic techniques to be shown, as well as illustrating where different rhyming words fall in relation to the music.\n",
"The song is intentionally brief and humorous, with Turner claiming that it was meant to include fewer than 30 words, \"since we always do songs with a thousand words\", an approach borrowed from Iggy Pop. \"Even though it is dumbed down, we know it, and it's got a sense of humor … (t)here have always been jokes all over our songs; I originally started writing lyrics to make my friends crack a smile, which is difficult.\"\n",
"Some of the humour derives from the incongruity caused by differences between the songs involved. They may differ wildly in genre, structure, tempo, and time signature, but unlikely combinations have sometimes worked surprisingly well. Having the same metre helps. Examples include:\n",
"N.B. There is no particular significance to why some songs are numbered \"9a\", \"10a\" and so on, except 1a (reprise of 1). It probably just indicates that additional songs were added after composing had begun and the scores were never renumbered to reflect it. It does not, for instance, indicate that the songs run into each other.\n",
"Because the overwhelming majority of Western popular music is in song form, it would seem that most popular music is programmatic by nature: it has lyrics, therefore it is about something other than the music itself.\n"
] |
why is light the fastest thing in the universe and not any other wave?
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when we use light in that statement we mean the entire spectrum, not just visible light. So essentially 'radiation' is the fastest thing in the universe
|
[
"In the abstract for her paper, \"Complex Speeds and Special Relativity,\" Asaro writes \"The quest to find faster‐than‐light particles has intrigued physicists for decades, though it has yet to turn up any real candidates. Even if a superluminal universe does exist, we have no way to reach it given that we must go through the speed of light, which to the best of our knowledge is impossible. In this paper, I show that by making speed complex, we can go around the speed of light in a manner analogous to the way a car faced with an infinitely tall road block might leave the road to go around that barrier. The treatment is a mathematical device; no known physical interpretation exists for the imaginary part of a complex speed. However, it can provide an entertaining problem in special relativity, one that may encourage students to think about the connections between equations and the physical universe.\"\n",
"Huygens assumes that the speed of light is finite, as had been shown in an experiment by Olaus Roemer in 1679, but which Huygens is presumed to have already believed. The challenge for the wave theory of light at that time was to explain geometrical optics, as most physical optics phenomena (such as diffraction) had not been observed or appreciated as issues. It posits light radiating wavefronts with the common notion of light rays depicting propagation normal to those wavefronts. Propagation of the wavefronts is then explained as the result of spherical waves being emitted at every point along the wave front (the Huygens–Fresnel principle). It assumed an omnipresent ether, with transmission through perfectly elastic particles, a revision of the view of Descartes. The nature of light was therefore a longitudinal wave.\n",
"The fastest possible speed at which energy or information can travel, according to special relativity, is the speed of light in a vacuum \"c\" = metres per second (approximately or ). Matter cannot quite reach the speed of light, as this would require an infinite amount of energy. In relativity physics, the concept of rapidity replaces the classical idea of speed.\n",
"Along with João Magueijo, Albrecht independently proposed a model of varying speed of light cosmology which posits that the speed of light in the early universe was a trillion times faster in order to explain the horizon problem of cosmology.\n",
"He goes on to explain that in Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, the rule that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, does not apply to galaxies in an expanding universe. He further explains that while that rule may apply in a preexisting static space, it does \"not\" apply in an expanding universe. In an expanding cosmic universe galaxies can travel away from each other at speeds in excess of the speed of light. As a result of this there are galaxies so far away that the light from them have not reached earth yet and therefore we don't even know they exist. Ferris refers to this phenomenon as a boundless steadily increasing and changing universe with a changing density.\n",
"Another adjunct, the varying speed of light model was offered by Jean-Pierre Petit in 1988, John Moffat in 1992, and the two-man team of Andreas Albrecht and João Magueijo in 1998. Instead of superluminal expansion the speed of light was 60 orders of magnitude faster than its current value solving the horizon and homogeneity problems in the early universe.\n",
"For many practical purposes, light and other electromagnetic waves will appear to propagate instantaneously, but for long distances and very sensitive measurements, their finite speed has noticeable effects. In communicating with distant space probes, it can take minutes to hours for a message to get from Earth to the spacecraft, or vice versa. The light seen from stars left them many years ago, allowing the study of the history of the universe by looking at distant objects. The finite speed of light also limits the theoretical maximum speed of computers, since information must be sent within the computer from chip to chip. The speed of light can be used with time of flight measurements to measure large distances to high precision.\n"
] |
What was European cooking like before the introduction of Asian spices?
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While you wait for more qualified people to answer, here's a section of the FAQ that may tide you over:
_URL_5_
Also, you'll need to be a little more specific about time frame and/or location within Europe, as well as which level of society you're asking about. My understanding is that in 12th-century England and northern France, for the lower classes, they ate a mostly vegetarian diet of barley, rye, beans, and leafy vegetables like kale and spinach. Herbs like rosemary, lavender, basil, sage, thyme, and garlic were all available through foraging. People also ate flowers, something we don't do much nowadays. People drank water, small beer (produced on a household level, often by women), cider, mead, and whey. Meat was rare, especially beef since cows needed a lot of food. Pork was relatively common since people could let their pigs wander and feed in the woods for most of the year. Hunting and fishing were tightly regulated by the local lord, who also usually had a monopoly on millstones and ovens for making bread. Overall their diet was pretty good, lots of high quality protein and fiber.
Reading you may be interested in:
[Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society](_URL_0_) (Examines cultural attitudes toward food.)
[Food in Medieval Times](_URL_4_) (More focused on what was generally available to the average person.)
[The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages](_URL_3_) (This is more focused on the upper classes.)
EDIT: Here is some information concerning [forest laws](_URL_1_) and [charters of free-warren](_URL_2_), which should help cast some light on the kinds of restrictions that common people faced in finding food.
Also, as mentioned below, I forgot to say that dairy in general was pretty important. It was a good source of nutrition, especially since cheese keeps forever. Cows were generally more valuable alive and producing milk than dead and eaten.
|
[
"Beginning in the 16th century, successive waves of Europeans—the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British—sought to dominate the spice trade at its sources in India and the 'Spice Islands' (Maluku) of Indonesia. This meant finding a way to Asia to cut out Muslim merchants who, with their Venetian outlet in the Mediterranean, monopolised spice imports to Europe. Astronomically priced at the time, spices were highly coveted not only to preserve and make poorly preserved meat palatable, but also as medicines and magic potions.\n",
"After the conquest and during the colonial period, many other spices and ingredients were brought and have had a greater influence in the cooking here than in other parts of the country. From Europe, the Spanish brought saffron, parsley, thyme, marjoram, bay laurel, and cilantro as well Asian spices such as cloves, cinnamon, and black pepper. The Spaniards also brought wheat, rice, almonds, olives and olive oil, garlic, and capers. The latter three are essential ingredients in what is perhaps the most famous specialty of the region, huachinango a la veracruzana, red snapper in a spicy tomato sauce. Caribbean imports such as sugar cane and pineapple were adapted as well as the peanut, brought from Africa by the Portuguese (although the peanut is originally from South America).\n",
"Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them expensive. From the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian maritime republics and city-states. The trade made the region rich. It has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages. The value of these goods was the equivalent of a yearly supply of grain for 1.5 million people. The most exclusive was saffron, used as much for its vivid yellow-red color as for its flavor. Spices that have now fallen into obscurity in European cuisine include grains of paradise, a relative of cardamom which mostly replaced pepper in late medieval north French cooking, long pepper, mace, spikenard, galangal and cubeb.\n",
"From the 7th century onwards, the Arabs introduced a variety of spices, like saffron, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, which contributed and influenced the culinary culture of North Africa. The Ottoman Turks brought sweet pastries and other bakery products, and from the New World, North Africa got potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini and chili peppers.\n",
"The discovery of the New World, the establishment of new trade routes with Asia and increased foreign influences from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East meant that Europeans became familiarized with a multitude of new foodstuffs. Spices that previously had been prohibitively expensive luxuries, such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger, soon became available to the majority population, and the introduction of new plants coming from the New World and India like maize, potato, sweet potato, chili pepper, cocoa, vanilla, tomato, coffee, and tea transformed European cuisine forever. \n",
"Central among the various plannings was to establish direct and permanent trade of the highly priced spices, that were native to Southeast Asia, included pepper, cloves, nutmeg, mace and cinnamon. Competition among the various nations was fierce and violence commonplace in order to secure exclusive access to the centers of production. Eventually, the Dutch and the Spanish wrestled control of it from the Portuguese in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the British, who became increasingly engaged in Southeast Asia over their interests in India, gained control of it from the Dutch.\n",
"The 15th to 17th centuries was a time known as the “age of discovery” in Southeast Asia because of the recognition and demand of SE Asia's natural resources from European powers. In SE Asia, spices were useful and popular for creating flavor in food. Spices were in high demand and were imported and exported through the Silk Road, which flourished during the colonization period. It included black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, nutmeg, and cloves, nutmeg, etc. Nutmeg was the most popular and most expensive to get because of how scarce it was.\n"
] |
Why do women have 2 ovaries? Why can't there be just one ovary?
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The same question can e asked of why men have two testicles - the are developmentally synonymous. Procreation is the fundamental root of evolutionary biology, thus our ancestors with two gonads were likely more successful in reporducing
|
[
"Birds have only one functional ovary (the left), while the other remains vestigial. Ovaries in females are analogous to testes in males, in that they are both gonads and endocrine glands. Ovaries of some kind are found in the female reproductive system of many animals that employ sexual reproduction, including invertebrates. However, they develop in a very different way in most invertebrates than they do in vertebrates, and are not truly homologous.\n",
"The ovary is an organ found in the female reproductive system that produces an ovum. When released, this travels down the fallopian tube into the uterus, where it may become fertilized by a sperm. There is an ovary () found on the left and right sides of the body. The ovaries also secrete hormones that play a role in the menstrual cycle and fertility. The ovary progresses through many stages beginning in the prenatal period through menopause. It is also an endocrine gland because of the various hormones that it secretes.\n",
"The ovaries lie within the peritoneal cavity, on either side of the uterus, to which they are attached via a fibrous cord called the ovarian ligament. The ovaries are uncovered in the peritoneal cavity but are tethered to the body wall via the suspensory ligament of the ovary which is a posterior extension of the broad ligament of the uterus. The part of the broad ligament of the uterus that covers the ovary is known as the mesovarium.\n",
"The ovaries are considered the female gonads. Each ovary is whitish in color and located alongside the lateral wall of the uterus in a region called the ovarian fossa. The ovarian fossa is the region that is bounded by the external iliac artery and in front of the ureter and the internal iliac artery. This area is about 4 cm x 3 cm x 2 cm in size. The ovaries are surrounded by a capsule, and have an outer cortex and an inner medulla.\n",
"Both sexes possess pairs of gonads, opening via a channel called a gonoduct into a common genital opening, the gonopore, which is located on the rear ventral side. Both the gonads and the gonoduct are derived from true coelom tissue. In females, the two ovaries are joined in the middle and to the horizontal diaphragm. The gonoduct appears differently depending on whether the species is live-bearing or egg-laying. In the former, each exit channel divides into a slender oviduct and a roomy \"womb\", the uterus, in which the embryos develop. The single vagina, to which both uteri are connected, runs outward to the gonopore. In egg-laying species, whose gonoduct is uniformly constructed, the genital opening lies at the tip of a long egg-laying apparatus, the ovipositor. The females of many species also possess a sperm repository called the receptacle seminis, in which sperm cells from males can be stored temporarily or for longer periods. Males possess two separate testes, along with the corresponding sperm vesicle (the vesicula seminalis) and exit channel (the vasa efferentia). The two vasa efferentia unite to a common sperm duct, the vas deferens, which in turn widens through the ejaculatory channel to open at the gonopore. Directly beside or behind this lie two pairs of special glands, which probably serve an auxiliary reproductive function; the rearmost glands are also known as anal glands. A penis-like structure has so far been found only in males of the genus \"Paraperipatus\" but has not yet been observed in action. There are different mating procedures involved. In some the males deposit their spermatophore directly into the female's genitals opening, while others deposits it on the female's body, where the cuticle will collapse and allowing the sperm cells to migrate into the female. There are also Australian species where the male place their spermatophore on top of their head, which is then pressed against the female's genitals. In these species the head have elaborate structures like spikes, spines, hollow stylets, pits, and depressions, whose purpose is to either hold the sperm and/or assist in the sperm transfer to the female. The males of most species also secrete a pheromone from glands on the underside of the legs to attract females.\n",
"The terminology of the positions of ovaries is determined by the insertion point, where the other floral parts (perianth and androecium) come together and attach to the surface of the ovary. If the ovary is situated above the insertion point, it is superior; if below, inferior.\n",
"Which of the two ovaries—left or right—ovulates appears essentially random; no known left and right co-ordination exists. Occasionally, both ovaries will release an egg; if both eggs are fertilized, the result is fraternal twins.\n"
] |
What would happen if we started pumping huge amounts of water into the middle of the Sahara Desert?
|
For an understanding of how to do this and make it work, ie keep the water--in this case seas water--there and grow things with it, see the [Sahara Forest Project](_URL_0_). Their proposals involve using solar power to desalinize sea water, that would then be used to grow crops and trees, initially in an onsite greenhouse, and later outside around the facility. They opened a pilot site in Qatar last year to test the system.
|
[
"The first person to suggest flooding large parts of the Sahara desert was the writer Jules Verne in his book \"Invasion of the Sea\". Plans to use the Qattara Depression for the generation of electricity reportedly date back to 1912 from Berlin geographer Albrecht Penck. \n",
"Scientists agree that the existence of a desert in the place where the Sahara desert is now located is due to a natural climate cycle; this cycle often causes a lack of water in the area from time to time. There is a suggestion that the last time that the Sahara was converted from savanna to desert it was partially due to overgrazing by the cattle of the local population.\n",
"In deserts, water inflow is low and loss to solar evaporation high, drastically reducing the formation of complete drainage systems. Closed water flow areas often lead to the concentration of salts and other minerals in the basin. Minerals leached from the surrounding rocks are deposited in the basin, and left behind when the water evaporates. Thus endorheic basins often contain extensive salt pans (also called salt flats, salt lakes, alkali flats, dry lake beds or playas). These areas tend to be large, flat hardened surfaces and are sometimes used for aviation runways or land speed record attempts, because of their extensive areas of perfectly level terrain.\n",
"A greening of the Sahara on the one hand may allow agriculture and pastoralism to expand into hitherto unsuitable areas, but increased precipitation can also lead to increased water borne diseases and flooding. Also, expanded human activity may be vulnerable to climate reversals as demonstrated by the droughts that followed the mid-20th century wet period.\n",
"The Qattara depression is a region that lies 60 m below sea level on average and is currently a vast, uninhabited desert. By connecting the region and the Mediterranean Sea with tunnels and/or canals, water could be let into the area. The inflowing water would then evaporate quickly because of the desert climate. This way a continuous flow of water could be created if inflow and evaporation were balanced out. With this continuously flowing water, hydroelectricity could be generated. Eventually, this would result in a hypersaline lake or a salt pan as the water evaporates and leaves the salt it contains behind. This would return the Qattara Depression to its current state but with its sabkha soils tens of meters higher.\n",
"On 11 September 2015, the Egyptian army began to pump water from the Mediterranean Sea into the tunnels. According to the Egyptian president Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, flooding of the tunnels had been carried out in coordination with the Palestinian Authority. A number of Palestinian factions condemned the flooding of the border with sea water, because it posed a serious threat to environment and ground water. In November 2015, indeed large areas of soil collapsed as a result of the flooding, threatening Gazan homes in Rafah near the Saladin Gate. Salty water flew out from the ground, contaminating the soil and make it unusable for agriculture. The seawater further damages the natural aquifers, \"already depleted by the Israelis, who dig wells thousands of metres deeper than ours,”.\n",
"desertification; very limited natural fresh water resources; the Great Manmade River Project, the largest water development scheme in the world, is being built to bring water from large aquifers under the Sahara to coastal cities\n"
] |
if a room temperature object is left in outer space for an hour, would it come back colder, warmer, or the same temperature?
|
Heat is also transferred by radiation, which does not require a medium (particles, like air/water/etc). Your object in space would radiate heat and start to cool, but you also have to account for incoming radiation (from the Sun, for one example). So, your answer depends quite a lot on where you put the object. If the object is radiating more heat than it's receiving, it will get colder.
|
[
"If changes in external temperatures or internal heat generation changes are too rapid for the equilibrium of temperatures in space to take place, then the system never reaches a state of unchanging temperature distribution in time, and the system remains in a transient state.\n",
"Human comfort levels must also be considered. Storage areas can often get away with slightly lower temperatures than display areas since they are not accessed as often, and it is most likely that those who do enter the space will be prepared for the conditions. In galleries, however, viewers must feel comfortable enough with the temperature to spend time there, otherwise the collection will simply not be viewed and lose its purpose in being on display.\n",
"Here on earth, the sun delivers lots of bounce, and the atmosphere surrounds it with a wall that reflects the energy back in. In outer space, however, there’s nothing — a vacuum — and the bounce all disappears very quickly, leaving very little moving. Lack of motion means little heat, and almost no transfer — very cold. Closer to home, if you wrap your hot coffee in a thermos — a hollow cylinder with all the air sucked out of it — there’s also very little in the way of excitable particles to move the energy from your hot coffee to the cold air around it. Your coffee stays hot.\n",
"The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach during the day. Despite the high temperature, an observer or object will experience cold temperatures in the thermosphere, because the extremely low density of gas (practically a hard vacuum) is insufficient for the molecules to conduct heat. A normal thermometer will read significantly below , at least at night, because the energy lost by thermal radiation would exceed the energy acquired from the atmospheric gas by direct contact. In the anacoustic zone above , the density is so low that molecular interactions are too infrequent to permit the transmission of sound. \n",
"BULLET::::- Homogeneous interior temperature: it is impossible to have single rooms (e.g. the sleeping rooms) at a different temperature from the rest of the house. Note that the relatively high temperature of the sleeping areas is physiologically not considered desirable by some building scientists. Bedroom windows can be cracked open slightly to alleviate this when necessary.\n",
"For preservation purposes, cooler temperatures are always recommended. The temperature of the display space should not exceed 72 °F. A lower temperature of down to 50 °F can be considered safe for a majority of objects. The maximum acceptable variation in this range is 5 °F, meaning that the temperature should not go above 77 °F and below 45 °F. As temperature and relative humidity are interdependent, temperature should be reasonably constant so that relative humidity can be maintained as well. Controlling the environment with 24-hour air conditioning and dehumidification is the most effective way of protecting an exhibition from serious fluctuations.\n",
"Because the space environment is essentially a vacuum, heat cannot be lost through heat convection, and can only be directly dissipated through thermal radiation, a much slower process. Thus, even though the environment of space can be extremely cold, excessive heat build-up is inevitable. Without an LCVG, there would be no means by which to expel this heat, and it would affect not only EVA performance, but the health of the suit occupant as well. The LCVG used with the Apollo/Skylab A7L suit could remove heat at a rate of approximately 586 watts.\n"
] |
Is there such a thing as being "in the zone" or "having momentum" in sports?
|
There is a psychology term known as [Flow](_URL_0_)
> Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.[1]
> According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task[2] although flow is also described (below) as a deep focus on nothing but the activity - not even oneself or one's emotions.
> Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the moment, present, in the zone, wired in, in the groove, or keeping your head in the game.
Whether there are hormonal changes going on is something I can't help you with but it seems likely.
|
[
"Roy Palmer suggests that \"being in the zone\" may also influence movement patterns as better integration of the conscious and subconscious reflex functions improves coordination. Many athletes describe the effortless nature of their performance while achieving personal bests.\n",
"The concept of \"being in the zone\" during an athletic performance fits within Csíkszentmihályi's description of the flow experience, and theories and applications of \"being in the zone\" and its relationship with athletic competitive advantage are topics studied in the field of sport psychology.\n",
"Players initially moved around the zones by jogging or using a minor speed-increasing power such as \"Sprint\". As heroes grew in level and accumulated more powers, they could choose among four higher speed traveling powers: Teleportation, Super Speed, Super Jumping, and Flight.\n",
"The third wave evolves into the normal offensive play when all defenders not only reach the zone, but gain their accustomed positions. Some teams then substitute specialised offence players. However, this implies that these players must play in the defence should the opposing team be able to switch quickly to offence. The latter is another benefit for fast playing teams.\n",
"\"Big League Sports\" is about putting players right into the action in the most thrilling situations in their favorite sports. There are multiple disciplines to master within tennis, basketball, football, soccer, lacrosse and hockey. But unlike other games the focus is not on the team – it is on whether or not you can deliver in specific, adrenaline pumping moments. Whether it is acing an opponent in tennis, hitting a basketball shot at the buzzer, or bending free kicks around a goalie in soccer, Big League Sports offers a fresh interpretation of what a sports game can be on Wii. \"Big League Sports\" features a total of 22 events. The game supports up to 4-player local multi-player. A character creation feature allows players to craft a character to their liking with dozens of customization options. Players can view their statistics and overall progress, as well as the trophies they have won.\n",
"One thing in football that you don't see in track is quickness. He's incredibly quick and his lateral movement is unbelievable and his ability to go in one direction and get in another. The perception people have is that's speed. That's not speed, that's quickness.\"\n",
"In sports that require a player to play on offense and defense, such as basketball and ice hockey, a two-way player refers to a player who excels at both. In sports where a player typically specializes on offense or defense, like American football, or on pitching or batting, like baseball, it refers to a player who chooses to do both.\n"
] |
AskScience Cosmos Q & A thread. Episode 1: Standing Up in the Milky Way
|
When I majored in astrophysics, I was taught that the universe is 13.7 billion years old. In Cosmos tonight, Neil deGrasse Tyson was saying 13.8 billion years. Has it really been that long since I was in university?
|
[
"\"Standing Up in the Milky Way\" is the first aired episode of the American documentary television series \"\". It premiered on March 9, 2014, simultaneously on various Fox television networks, including National Geographic Channel, FX, Fox Life, and others. The episode is presented by the series host astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, directed by Brannon Braga, produced by Livia Hanich and Steven Holtzman, and written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter.\n",
"\"Standing Up in the Milky Way\" was critically well accepted. John Teti from \"The A.V. Club\" gave the episode a mark of \"B\". He stated \"Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is both ambitious and quaint. It attempts to convey humanity’s most expansive ideas in the space of a weekly 44-minute TV series. That’s ambitious,\" giving a positive review on the show's creation. He did criticize the show for its \"sloppy scripting that crops up more often later in the episode.\" Max Nicholson from IGN gave the episode a grade of 8.5 (\"Great\"), concluding \"the docu-series is unapologetic in its somewhat controversial depiction of organized religion, but it extends an olive branch for creative thinking and plays with concepts of faith in its whimsical view of the macrocosm.\" A positive review was also given by \"Slate\" journalist Phil Plait, who said that he sees the episode \"as making the more interesting and bigger point about suppression of thought and the grandeur of freedom of exploration of ideas.\"\n",
"The third video in the series is 4 minutes, 21 seconds in length and was released on November 23, 2009. \"Our Place in the Cosmos\" features Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Michio Kaku, and Robert Jastrow. Samples were taken from \"Cosmos\", \"Genius of Charles Darwin\", a TED talk, \"Stephen Hawking's Universe\", interviews and visuals from \"Baraka\" and \"Koyaanisqatsi\", History Channel's Universe series, and \"Cosmic Voyage\".\n",
"Explains the Milky Way Galaxy in 11 steps beginning with Earth, the moon and the solar system, and then farther and farther away in distance and time to the Hubble Deep Field and the end of the universe.\n",
"One way of thinking about this is to imagine being on the ocean when the waves are very high, or standing in hilly terrain. The next rise in the waves or the hills blocks the view of what lies beyond. In the same way, the next rise in the galactic structure is blocking view of what lies beyond, which apparently is a significant portion of the galactic disk. Based on the distance of the Monoceros Ring, the diameter of the Milky Way increases from 100,000-120,000 light years to somewhere around 150,000-180,000 light years across. In this revised paradigm, rather than lying at two-thirds of the galaxy's radius, the solar system lies about halfway between the core and the edge.\n",
"Towards the end of the show, the audience experiences a simulated flight through clusters of galaxies, into the Milky Way Galaxy, our solar system, skimming the surface of Mars, where the probable and tragic loss of oceans beckon the audience to wonder about the future of our planet, and then finally returns to Earth, landing on the front lawn of Griffith Observatory.\n",
"The second third of the book examines the remote universe. Andromeda is seen as it was before humans evolved on the plains of Africa, and galaxies are all seen over time spans that dwarf our existence. The next stop is the massive Coma cluster of galaxies, a swarm of thousands of galaxies bound by invisible dark matter. This section continues with a visit to galaxies that created their stars long before the Earth formed and it finished with the time when stars first congealed out of gas in the expanding universe, 200 million years after the Big Bang.\n"
] |
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