id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
2r7gqt | store tells me to rub the chip when my debit card is not recognized? the chip is clean, so why does this help? | [
{
"answer": "Sometimes a fine layer of oil forms on the chip. Rubbing it removes this layer",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Cashier here, bend the card only slightly so the chip is directed further in the machine. That always work.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"prov... | null |
qt6rp | How did Julius Caesar's mother and father raise him? And what effect did his upbringing have on his personality? | [
{
"answer": "Little is known about Julius Caesar's early life; his father died when he was relatively young (about 16 years of age) and thus Julius was thrust into the position of pater familius at somewhat of a young age. It's extremely difficult to comment directly on how he was raised and his early life due ... | null |
5o2k46 | Why did iced tea, rather than hot tea, become popular in the United States? | [
{
"answer": "While hot tea was extremely popular in the colonies that would become the United States, taxes on tea became a point contention for many colonists, leading to boycotts and the adoption of coffee as a preferred patriotic drink. \n \nAs such, coffee is the standard hot drink in many American homes, a... | null |
21crs7 | showering after a meal | [
{
"answer": "For a warm shower: Blood gets diverted to the skin, to lower your body's temperature (which increased all of a sudden when you're under hot/warm water). \n\n\nSince this happens on a large surface area (almost your entire body's surface area), there is a chance for your blood pressure to drop, sinc... | null |
69x23k | why does the same setting in the shower feel warmer in the summer than in the winter? i've noticed on a warm day, i need to turn the shower down because it feels too hot, but surely it's the same temperature? | [
{
"answer": "The water starts warmer in warm weather.\n\nImagine the heater raises the water temp by 20 degrees. If it's 90 outside, it goes to 110. If it's 50 outside, it goes to 70.\n\nThis is a gross oversimplification, of course. But that's the gist of it.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Th... | null |
z4vdq | the difference between routers, switches, access points | [
{
"answer": "For this example we will keep it simple.\n\nRoutes are smart switches, they can assign IP addreses and handle local and internet traffic.\n\nSwitches are not as smart as routers, they basically add more ports to your router, they allow more devices to access the functions of the router. however th... | null |
2l9zhx | why car companies have such a problem with the destruction of their cars in video games , but apparently not that much in the movies ? | [
{
"answer": "It depends on the video game. Manufacturers like certain video games and license their vehicles to those games because they put the brand in front of young and impressionable consumers. They also like their product in movies for the same reason. The ability of the manufacturer to control how their ... | null |
ahy4j8 | How did people keep track of time during the middle ages? | [
{
"answer": "In Western Europe, certainly in ecclesiastical and monastic contexts, the day was broken up into eight parts by the Canonical Hours. These were times which were specified for different prayers and services (I believe these are still in use today in at least some Catholic monasteries.) \n\nThey star... | null |
5032e9 | Where there any inhabited places on Earth that were totally unaffected by World War II? | [
{
"answer": "This is kind of a broad question. By \"unaffected\" are you purely referring to military action, or just any involvement with the war effort? ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2377645",
"title": "Gunparade March",
... | null |
92aym0 | what exactly happens with the moon during a full eclipse? | [
{
"answer": "The Earths shadow lines up with the moon completely blocking out the light from the sun which usually lights it up during the night, like if you put your hand in front of a torch, whatever you were shining the torch at becomes unlit *Your hand is the earth)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"an... | null |
cji5bq | why is it that a lizard can jump off insane heights but not take any damage and be fine but if we scaled us down to the size of a lizard we'd die from that high of a fall? | [
{
"answer": "Lizards weigh less, so the impact when they land is a lot lower. If I fall, it's equivalent to a 100 pound person landing on me. If a 300 pound person falls, it's equivalent to a 300 pounds of person landing on them. The gecko just takes a few ounces of weight.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
73ijaa | how did medical care become standardized? | [
{
"answer": "Many, many smart inventions. I'm not a history geek, so I'm unsure about the specifics, but the conventional microscope was only created in the last hundred - two hundred years. From this, people discovered bacteria, viruses, amoebas, cells, and how each related. This spawned vaccinations to stop s... | null |
b02tgm | How will the James Web Space Telescope orbit AROUND L2 lagrange point? | [
{
"answer": "If you look at the individual coordinates then the point is unstable in the radial direction but stable in the other two. Overall that makes the point unstable but it gives a plane where you can orbit.\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Have a look at [halo](_URL_0_) and [l... | null |
2n5dv4 | why do we need the give the security code off the signature strip of credit cards when we buy things online? | [
{
"answer": "It's an additional layer of security for online purchases. If someone were to obtain your credit card number (even with the exp date), they would likely be unable to use it online as just about every retailer will require that security code.\n\nIn addition, most credit card issuers dictate that the... | null |
byd58i | If you control for accidental death/death by misadventure, crime related deaths and suicide, how much longer is female life expectancy than male? | [
{
"answer": "I don't think there's a good answer here. How do you count child birth? Or differences in nutrition? Or that women go to the doctor more often to get checked? Depending on the local culture, life might be harder or easier for women vs. men, this also contributes to health and mortality. So dependin... | null |
5ujhy3 | Has surface of the Earth always been covered to 71% by water? | [
{
"answer": "We do know a lot more than is generally realised but it is scientific subject and not particularly interesting to teachers and the media. \n\nThere have been seven supercontinents of the Earths crust since the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago. \n\nUr (Vaalbara) formed 3.6 billion years ago follow... | null |
3l81yj | How accurate if the movie, "Inherit the Wind"? | [
{
"answer": "One of the most glaring omissions in both the play and the film is leaving out defense attorney Dudley Field Malone, who gave an impressive speech on why the government should not step into religious matters, among other things citing the religious wars of Europe in the 17th century. It was an imm... | null |
4hv2ij | why does sweet and salty food taste better together? | [
{
"answer": "We generally do not like the taste of bitter. Salt has the miraculous ability to block the taste of bitter. When we say salt is a \"flavor enhancer\" what we're typically talking about is its capacity to block bitter, allowing other flavors to come forward. So, the flavor profile of caramel gets ... | null |
1h0th8 | Do we really know how much protein we need per day? | [
{
"answer": "There are all kinds of calories and estimates, and formulas for determining this, however what it really comes down to is every person is different. A person's caloric and nutrition needs are unique to themselves and defined by many different factors (predominantly metabolism but also activity leve... | null |
jaxjs | bosnia | [
{
"answer": "A place where bad people go. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "A place where bad people go. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "42399",
"title": "History of Bosnia and Herzegovina",
"section": ""... | null |
7nlae9 | If I cook something at 200 Degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, why can’t I cook it for 10 minutes at 400? | [
{
"answer": "It takes time for heat to penetrate food; if you cook at a higher temperature, the outside can be overdone while the inside isn't done yet. So, you generally pick a temperature that is a compromise to get an acceptable result.\n\nThere are techniques that cook at low or high temps...\n\nStir frying... | null |
1qkvpa | Questions About the Greek War of Independence | [
{
"answer": " > \n > Why did the greeks rebel?\n\nThe spread of Nationalism in Europe after French revolution and Napoleonic war. Also fueled by atrocities of Ottoman administrators in Greece and legal discrimination on Greek Christians population (They're allowed to practice Orthodox Christianity but could... | null |
7xdahg | During the American Civil War, what happened to the sitting Representatives and Senators of the seceded Southern states? Did they resign their offices, or maintain them? | [
{
"answer": "They resigned...mostly. Seeing as their states had, per their lights, left the Union they viewed their service in the Congress at an end. After resignation, most went right home where they either sought some kind of office with the Confederacy or left politics for a while. One of the knock-on effec... | null |
3m7rvl | when employers take 1+ weeks to get back to you after an interview, what are they waiting for? | [
{
"answer": "They are interviewing other people. There's really no reason to reject someone immediately, for two reasons: one, it limits their options, and two, it takes time. It's easier to send a rejection notice after someone has accepted the offer.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Lots and l... | null |
p86sv | Is whale sperm any bigger than human sperm? | [
{
"answer": "[In male humans, sperm cells consists of a head 5 microns by 3 microns and a tail 41 microns long.](_URL_2_)\n\nWhale sperm vary in length according to species: [73.8 micron for a porpoise, 40.6 for a sperm whale, 52.5 for a humpback whale.](_URL_1_)\n\nI couldn't find it for the blue whale though,... | null |
1pz138 | What evidence is there for the use of the Roman pilum? | [
{
"answer": "There are many account's of the pilum being thrown before an infantry charge. For example, in Caesar's own account of the decisive battle of Pharsalus in chapters 3.88 his Civil War (as translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn):\n\n > Our men, when the signal was given, rushed forward with the... | null |
3az6so | What is this I found at my grandma's house? (UK) | [
{
"answer": "That is a form of currency- a note issued not by the Confederate States government or the State of South Carolina but by the Cotton Planters Loan Association. Or it appears to be- I'm no paper currency expert but I do know Confederate currency has been widely faked. Perhaps you should post this to ... | null |
7m57ks | difference between led, amoled, lcd, and retina display? | [
{
"answer": "Retina display refers to a display with pixels small enough that the human eye is physically incapable of distinguishing the difference between adjacent pixels, at a given distance. This is kind of funky because our eyes don't work with pixels but it's probably a decent approximation.\n\nLCD stands... | null |
fhc2t | Schizophrenia and optical illusions… | [
{
"answer": "Well, the Wired article that ablackhat linked has a decent description of the \"what\" that happens:\r\n\r\n > When healthy subjects looked at the concave faces, connections strengthened between the frontoparietal network, which is involved in top-down processing, and the visual areas of the brain... | null |
c1gecc | Question regarding British cruisers during WWII. | [
{
"answer": "The shift towards smaller cruisers in the late 1930s was driven mainly by the 1936 London Naval Treaty. The 'Town's were built under the regime of the 1930 London Treaty, which placed a maximum cruiser tonnage of 10,000 tons. The 1936 treaty lowered this limit to 8,000 tons for ships laid down afte... | null |
3emyvl | what is the difference between economic espionage and corporate espionage? | [
{
"answer": "In most contexts they mean the same thing. Specifically referring to China they may be avoiding the term corporate espionage because in a lot of instances the government of China is the one doing the spying and then handing the information they gather over to state-run business to make use of.",
... | null |
2p4viz | In what ways does gender appear in archaeology? | [
{
"answer": "Gender archaeology can be a tough nut to crack. Working with various sites within the Virginia City Landmark District in Nevada, we initially thought we were seeing evidence of women with some small, delicate buttons, but then a button expert said that they could have just as easily been from some ... | null |
bbwc8o | Was there a scientific reason behind the decision to take a picture of this particular black hole instead of another one ? | [
{
"answer": "Because it's really big. It's so big, that it looks bigger on the sky than closer black holes.\n\nWe can talk about the \"angular diameter\" or \"apparent diameter\" of an object. This is how big it looks on the sky, rather than how big it really is. For instance, the Moon and the Sun have about th... | null |
6nsqhf | why is lifting weights with long arms heavier than with short arms? | [
{
"answer": "It deoends on how you're lifting the weights, but usually the shoulder or the elbow will act as a pivot when lifting dumbbells.\n\nThis is because when a force is applied along a rod (arm/forearm) that is fixed to a pivot (shoulder/elbow), the horizontal distance between the pivot and where the for... | null |
2enbqh | why is it bad to defrost/heat up meat twice? | [
{
"answer": "Commercially frozen meat is often flash frozen, this means that the ice crystals formed are small and don't damage the meat cells very much. If you freeze meat at home it's a much slower process, Large ice crystals form an like little spears puncture the cell walls of the meat. This means that when... | null |
1aiu11 | Is James Frazer's The Golden Bough 'true?' In other words, are its representations of ancient magic and religion accurate? | [
{
"answer": "[I cross posted this answer on AskSocialScience, but if you want to reply, reply here]\n\nNo, it's not. Well, it depends on what part you're talking about, and which edition; it faithful quote ethnographic material in parts, but the overall question is flawed. Check out the article **\"When the Bou... | null |
206gmp | Who in Poland was most responsible for letting the partitions of the 18th Century be successful? | [
{
"answer": "A combination of both. The Polish Sejm in the 18th Century was an extremly inefficient system as any member could veto any bill with just 1 vote. Essentially all it took was the Russians paying off a single member to create a destructive deadlock that allowed for the partitions. The Poles also did ... | null |
b2icys | Brits in the IRA | [
{
"answer": "It depends what you mean by \"Brits\", technically during 1916 and the War of Independence we were all Brits! James Connolly was born in Scotland to Irish parents and was one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, Sir Roger Casement was, as hit title suggests, knighted for diplomatic service to the Cro... | null |
34uft1 | Why do small children seem to like the color red so much? | [
{
"answer": "This is actually a very interesting question. Newborns show a preference for red over other colors (as measured by preferential looking time) ([Adams, 1987](_URL_0_); [Bornstein, 1976](_URL_1_); although see [Zemach et al. (2007)](_URL_2_) < - sorry, couldn't find non-paywalled versions of some of... | null |
14qiix | what if all people with the HIV virus died ? | [
{
"answer": "I knew it had been asked before (the reddit search is worthless), here you go:\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2340554",
"title": "Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS",
"section": "",
"start_paragraph... | null |
1r2o1k | water damage is horrible for houses. so what about when constructing a house, and it's completely exposed for weeks, and it rains? | [
{
"answer": "Water damage is bad because the house traps moisture in, allowing mold to grow and wood to rot.\n\nWhen a house is incomplete and exposed to air, it is able to dry completely.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "A little bit of rain isn't a problem. However, during a storm or if it's e... | null |
3i978w | Did the Nazi's ever destroy ancient and/or culturally significant buildings and sites in the same way ISIS are currently going about destroying important buildings in Syria, such as Palmyra? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, they did. The destruction of monuments, artwork,etc. by the Nazis took two different forms. Either they were doing it to humiliate/culturally destroy an occupied people, or they were destroying German monuments/artwork/etc. to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Its also worth noting t... | null |
c4u0wg | physical mimicry in nature | [
{
"answer": "Evolution occurs by natural selection.\n\nWhat this means is that, in every generation, some individuals will reproduce and some will not. In this case the key point is whether or not each individual was caught by a predator before it had a chance to do the deed.\n\nTherefore it follows that a crea... | null |
6mycyt | how do you distinguish when to use one hyphen and when to use two? (- vs --) | [
{
"answer": "The \"two hyphens\" you're referring to is called an em dash, which is actually the length of three hyphens. It's used to structure or interject a sentence in a similar way a comma or parenthesis would. For example: \"The two sisters—although strange—mean well.\" You can also use it as a colon in s... | null |
1p38w3 | how does someone determine if a company is a shell company or not? | [
{
"answer": "If the company has no registered assets and doesn't do any business, its a shell.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "846633",
"title": "Shell corporation",
"section": "",
"start_paragraph_id": 1,
... | null |
8braah | Is development of muscle memory partially performed outside the brain? | [
{
"answer": "I think the answer is no. \n\nAs far as I’m aware there is no evidence of neuroplasticity in the neuromuscular junction or within the muscle. \n\nThere might be something to say about muscle development (in size/strength and vascularity) and that may contribute to fluent performance of the task (eg... | null |
a5qtg8 | How does an electric arc choose it’s path in air (ex: a lightning bolt or Tesla coil)? | [
{
"answer": "If you watch a [slow-motion video](_URL_0_) of a lightning strike, you'll see that before it hits the ground it sends out small \"feelers\" that go out somewhat randomly, but mostly downwards. Once one touches the ground, the path it took gets very bright (this is the most visible part of a lightni... | null |
4qd8d8 | What are the physics behind different baseball pitches? | [
{
"answer": "The spin in which the pitcher imparts on the ball as they release it. So the way they hold their fingers causes the ball to rotate. The friction of the air on the ball spinning causes draft and thus ball moves oppositely",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "My time to shine! There are r... | null |
4iqvjb | Why does silica gel absorb water so effectively, and why only water? | [
{
"answer": "I usually work with proteins dissolved in water, but I imagine it is approximately the same mechanism at play.\n\nSo first, silica gel absorb tons of water because it has a huge specific surface area. We're talking about 800 m^2 /g of silica gel. Our lungs pale in comparison. When something gets we... | null |
b2vo43 | How long does it take sedimentary rock to form? | [
{
"answer": "Hello, so this is a great question but the answer is hard to pin down.\n\nIn general, there are a two processes that go into forming a sedimentary rock:\n\n1) Lithification (i.e. deposition and compaction, weathering etc)\n\nThe deposition of material which will go on to form the later rock. This c... | null |
w828r | the rules of rugby | [
{
"answer": "There are 3 main rules of Rugby you need to know:\n\n1 the ball must go backwards unless kicked from the feet. Any time the ball goes forward it is a scrum (where 8 of each team must try to win the ball by pushing the other team over it when the ball is placed in the middle, with an advantage for t... | null |
40t4wk | how do dictionaries determine the earliest known use of a word? | [
{
"answer": "It's the first \"known\" use, so they take the first use that they are aware of and put it in. There's no guarantee it's the actual earliest use of the word. If an earlier use of the word shows up, then they will update the entry in the next edition. Most of the first known uses come from old docum... | null |
5jbz6r | Why does a piece of cloth act as such a good filter against odors and aromas and gases? Wouldn't the airborn molecules easily pass through the pores? | [
{
"answer": "A piece of regular cloth often *isn't* a good filter because a lot of molecules, viruses, even bacteria can get through. If you're in a hospital and dealing with a patient with some airborne diseases you need to wear specially constructed masks that are relying on trapping droplets more than indivi... | null |
73v7he | in cases of mass shootings with one perpetrator, why do witnesses often report seeing multiple attackers? | [
{
"answer": "Gunshots are very loud. That means that they echo in situations where other sounds wouldn't have audible echos. They hear shots from several directions, and tell that to the police, who decide to play it safe and act as though there are multiple attackers.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"a... | null |
24de1d | if families like rockefeller and rothschild have are famous for being rich and powerful, how come none of their members appear on rich lists online? | [
{
"answer": "I think there are a couple reasons. First, old families get very adept at hiding their assets. Second, over time the wealth becomes very diffused so not one person holds that much money (i.e. the Vanderbilts). Sort of the opposite of the primogenitor laws of England where all the money stayed co... | null |
j9j68 | the process of applying to and going to a four year college. | [
{
"answer": "Those are some good questions! It's been a few years since I've had to complete the whole process, but I'll do my best.\n\nIn order to go to college, you need to do a few things. You need to either be on your way to graduating high school, have already graduated high school, or have a piece of pape... | null |
9ym0fz | There has been an increase in electric car sales. How do we dispose of their batteries, once their lifespan ends? And would disposing batteries release less pollutants compared to gas engines? | [
{
"answer": "Lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars get worn out when they can only retain about 80% of their charge. That being said these batteries are still perfectly good for other applications like backing up solar or wind power. So these batteries are first repurposed once they can no longer be used ... | null |
ospx4 | When you are developing in the womb, how does your body know which way is up? | [
{
"answer": "Hopefully, a developmental biologist will chime in and give you a more detailed response. Until then, I'll give it a go.\n\nThere are a number of different strategies that organisms use to develop developmental axes - for us chordates, the primary axes are dorsal/ventral (front/back) and anterior/p... | null |
339ex1 | Is it possible to turn electricity (energy) into matter? (metal, for example) | [
{
"answer": "Particle colliders such as the LHC are essentially extremely inefficient machines that turn electricity into particles.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Electricity is a flow of electric charge. The flow *has* energy, but it's not energy itself.\n\nIt is possible to interchange mass... | null |
1qfn50 | If the Hashemites trace their ancestry to Fatimah and Ali, why is the King of Jordan a Sunni Muslim? | [
{
"answer": "I assume you meant 'descendants'. \n\nWhile Shia Islam began with the followers of Ali, Ali was and remains a celebrated figure within Sunni Islam, just like Peter within Protestant Christianity despite Catholics believing him first Pope.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"p... | null |
1iot22 | In the time when maps were still rare enough that most people had ever seen one, how much did the average peasant know about the geography of the surrounding world?(their province, island, nation or continent). | [
{
"answer": "FYI, here's a similar recent post (I'm sure there have been others, but this is the only one I could find quickly)\n\n[I'm a peasant living in 16th century Britain, what do I know of the world outside my village?](_URL_0_)\n\nedit: finished my sentence!",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer... | null |
4665mv | why does the smell of heated food spread easily? | [
{
"answer": "A scent is actually physical particles that have spread out into the air and get inhaled into your nose.\n\nHotter gases or molecules have more energy, and move around much more quickly. \n\nThat means that the hot food item is sending off more excited particles into the air than a similar cold ite... | null |
2i1ser | what's the big deal about the internet of things? why do people think it will change the world, and why do they think it will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars? | [
{
"answer": "It means extending the configurability, extensibility, easy of access, and all the other perks of the Internet to everyday objects. It'll be amazing. Right now it's trivial to integrate your email to your cellphone, or some app to some other service. Imagine your bed talking to your central heating... | null |
299kd3 | if you were an English peasant in 1100 (after the Norman conquest) would you life likely be in anyway substantially worse or different than it would have been if lived in the same place 100 years before (before the Norman conquest)? | [
{
"answer": "Ooh! I always like it when something comes up I can answer. I'm going to leave judgement value behind and mainly answer a long the lines of what changed after the Norman Conquest.\n\nNow the historiography has been a real long one but around the 20th century, around the rise of inter-disciplinarian... | null |
3pi0mm | How did King Stephen de Blois of England die? | [
{
"answer": "Stephen fell ill with a stomach disorder and died on October 25, 1154, at Dover Priory while traveling. He was buried at Faversham Abbey with his wife Matilda and son Eustace. \n\nKing, Edmund, *King Stephen (The English Monarchs Series)* Edit to add the author is a professor at the University of S... | null |
5y6y56 | why do we often feel more sad when viewing or hearing about animal suffering/death, than we do about the equivalent in humans? | [
{
"answer": "There's a thing called the [Just-World Hypothesis](_URL_0_). Humans want to think that the world is a fair place; so when we hear about something bad happening to someone, there's a tendency to think of a reason they *deserved* it.\n\nThe most common moral frameworks don't hold animals accountable... | null |
3b7ns8 | why are words like "queue" and "tea" have so many unnecessary letters behind them? | [
{
"answer": "Some of them indicate a specific pronunciation. For example, the *ea* in \"tea\" indicates that it should be pronounced with the long e sound (\"eeee\"). Removing the a from the end would give you *te*, which could be pronounced \"teh\", \"tay\", or \"tuh\".\n\nOthers, like queue and colonel, are... | null |
pstrb | the mindset of very rich people that are trying to get even richer | [
{
"answer": "You ever seen the show \"Hoarders\"? Some people do that with money.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Some people decide that there is a direct connection between happiness and money. From their perspective, the more money you have, the happier you are. There is no limit to how muc... | null |
1j0vtg | why do a lot of mentally disabled people look alike? | [
{
"answer": "Typically they have similar genetic defects, thus similar appearance.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "People with similar conditions (i.e. Down Syndrome or severe autism) will look alike but I'd argue that mentally disabled people with different conditions don't look that much alik... | null |
2pjwss | why does it make sense to design new paper money that is harder to fake, if the old bank notes are still valid? | [
{
"answer": "I'd imagine it's because the old bank notes would be slowly weeded out of circulation, but the process cannot begin without the new bank notes.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Unless artificially aged, brand new counterfeit banknotes in the style of old ones would be rather easy to... | null |
gb4pt | I have a question about an orbiting system? | [
{
"answer": "There's nothing unusual about that orbit, it just looks odd because it's not relative to the frame of reference of the barycenter of the two bodies. If you were to look at the Earth-Moon system from the perspective of the Sun you would see something similar. The Earth-Moon system travels at 30km/s ... | null |
22zfwn | what types of jobs do people in the cia actually do? how many people actually work as secret agents and whatnot? | [
{
"answer": "Nice try Putin.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There are tons of jobs in the CIA, from accountants and doctors to special operations types. The closest thing to James Bond would be guys from the Special Activities Division, the special operations arm of the CIA. they are recruited... | null |
1abl8z | Remind me - in the early years of World War II, why did so much of the fighting take place in the deserts of north Africa? | [
{
"answer": "Because of the Berlin Conference, many European nations had colonized Africa, including France. France got most of the northern part of Africa, Algeria being a good example. The French fell quickly, and the Italians and Germans wished to take Africa now that it had no army to defend. Not wanting to... | null |
1vx9ml | Are there any society-wide (epidemiological) consequences to the widespread use of flu vaccines? | [
{
"answer": "Usually, when a vaccine works, the pathogen is eliminated, and doesn't have a chance to survive, therefore it doesn't have a chance to adapt and evolve new mechanisms of survival.\nSo, that's why you don't see things like \"Super Polio\" popping up, because some vaccines pretty much work very effec... | null |
3dqki6 | Can a human gain calories from eating common leaves? | [
{
"answer": "The calories that are available to humans even in the leafy greens we eat like spinach aren't much. It would take like 10-15 pounds of spinach per day for you to get enough calories to survive and at that point the amount oxalate you'd be getting would be a serious problem.\n\nWhat makes leafy gree... | null |
490i91 | why are for-profit universities (devry, ashford, phoenix, etc.) under so much scrutiny? | [
{
"answer": "For-profit universities tend to be HUGELY profitable, but there's no real mechanism for shutting them down when they're bad. The government doesn't license higher education, so they have no power to do so. Traditional universities seek accreditation from professional associations, like the AACSB ... | null |
12cfbz | Any precedence in US History for a natural disaster effecting a nation-wide election date? | [
{
"answer": "I just did a quick google search and found this: _URL_0_\n\nF. Glenn Abney and Larry B. Hill, \"Natural Disasters as a Political Variable: The Effect of a Hurricane on an Urban Election\", *The American Political Science Review*, Vol. 60, No. 4, 1966, pp. 974-981.\n\nApparently, Hurricane Betsy flo... | null |
5uwsbl | how does a common cold give me a headache? | [
{
"answer": "The cold virus reproduces by hijacking the genetic machinery of host cells and causing host cells to manufacture copies of the virus. The virus then destroys the host cell outer membrane so that copies of the virus can escape the host cell and infect other cells.\n\nWhen the host cell membrane is d... | null |
1mj7tx | When will humans reach carrying capacity? | [
{
"answer": "depends on how you weight different things, whether or not we implement population control, when/whether we develop various technologies, whether or not we adopt certain cultural/lifestyle changes like heavily cutting down on meat consumption. some estimates say we passed it, some say we have yet ... | null |
1mwv4p | What Limits Our Running Speed | [
{
"answer": "There are two ways to answer this, physics and biology. Power required for acceleration increases exponentially with speed. Meaning that it takes significantly more power to accelerate from 18 to 20 mph than it does to accelerate from 8 to 10 mph. This is why almost anybody can run 15 mph but very... | null |
4b4wkr | erdogan's politics. turkey is a democratic country, why is he still in power? | [
{
"answer": "He is in power because more people support him than oppose him. Turkey is, in a way, an extreme form of the US in that it's split between eastern turkey and western turkey. Eastern Turkey is very islamic and the entire country has tilted that way several times since Ataturk created a secular nation... | null |
5snncf | Did FDR campaign to Hoover's right during the 1932 election? | [
{
"answer": "No, FDR did not campaign to the right of Hoover in 1932. He campaigned very much to the left of him. However, the Democrats *did* call Hoover a \"Socialist\" during the 1932 campaign, but not for the reasons you assume. The attack was political payback for what had happened four years earlier.\n\nI... | null |
bo3t39 | Why did Davy Crockett oppose the Indian Removal Act? | [
{
"answer": "This one is pretty straightforward. Crockett was a Whig, and the Whigs were against it. He doesn't seem like he would have been a Whig. Outwardly he seemed the epitome of a Jacksonian Democrat, being a self-made man of humble origins from the new western states ( even Jackson's home state of Ten... | null |
1caybj | the end of the movie stanley kubrik's "the shining" | [
{
"answer": "i assumed he was possessed by the spirit of the previous caretaker. basically the hotel is evil and the spirits inside consume him. the photo appears after his death- and now he is one of the ghosts doomed to haunt the hotel. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Kubrick liked to leave ... | null |
9azwl8 | if the universe is infinite, why is there doubt that there are other lifeforms? | [
{
"answer": "The universe being infinite doesn't necessitate that everything happen in that universe. A unique event could still exist. Nor do we know the starting conditions of life, and with a sample size of one, we have no easy way to assign probability to its occurrence. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
g2qlz | How many years do you reckon it would take good ole earth to repair itself from a nuclear holocaust? | [
{
"answer": "What does it mean to be \"repaired?\"",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "In most of the models the southern hemisphere would be pretty much fine as the fallout, aerosols, and particulates would just swirl with the jet stream around the northern hemisphere. All the radioactive fallout ... | null |
3bogqb | if a hospital has to be evacuated, what happens to patients that are in the middle of surgery? | [
{
"answer": "Standard practice would be to get them stable enough for transfer. There would be a lot of variables depending on the type of surgery, and how far along they were in it. Evacuation of a building as large as a hospital is not a fast process so they would likely have time to get the surgery far enoug... | null |
18lxiv | If we knew the exact positions of all particles in the universe, and simulated the universe on a computer starting at those positions with the time sped up, would we effectively be predicting the future? | [
{
"answer": "No. Since I'm on the phone, this is going to be a bit terse (and linkless) but here we go.\n\n1. Just the position of all the particles doesn't fully quantify the system. You need velocities too.\n\n2. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says you can't jointly know the exact position and velocity ... | null |
2mafct | What was it like in Post-Revolutionary War America in terms of establishing government, democracy, and popular opinion? | [
{
"answer": "Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this!\n\nThere were a number of questions facing the United States after the War ended. There was a nominal national government in the form of the Continental Congress, but it had barely survived the war and was in many ways powerless.\n\nArguably the most imme... | null |
b7kz74 | Do fat people have more muscle as they have to move more weight around? | [
{
"answer": " [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) \n\n \"The consensus is that obese individuals, regardless of age, have a greater absolute maximum muscle strength compared to non-obese persons, suggesting that increased adiposity acts as a chronic overload stimulus on the antigravity muscles (e.g., quadriceps and calf), thus... | null |
2tj7kv | why are people able to get away by not paying child support? | [
{
"answer": "It's very difficult to get someone jailed for not paying what they owe. You have to prove that they *could* pay but choose not to; even when that's possible, we're generally uncomfortable with the idea of jailing people for not paying debts.\n\nThe other solution is taking their money. But we don't... | null |
at1m2i | ancient languages deciphered | [
{
"answer": "Your specific example of Sanskrit actually never needed to be “discovered”, because people didn’t stop using it. It became kind of like Latin for India and Asia, and continued to be studied by scholars throughout the centuries.\n\nThat said, language changes over time, and linguists do have to do s... | null |
a2uuu6 | how do football clubs know who in a stadium has committed an offence in order to ban them? | [
{
"answer": "CCTV surveillance and a security staff.\n\nThere is usually at least one guard per section watching the crowd.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "456100",
"title": "Penalty kick (association football)",
"section... | null |
3rh2ny | why does draining a large body of water cause it to form a vortex? | [
{
"answer": "You know how a dancer or skater spins fast when they pull their arms close to their bodies? Or how you can spin faster or slower on a rotating chair by adjusting your arms and legs? Well, it is the same story with a draining container.\n\nThere will be some rotation in the body of water. As the wat... | null |
yoaa5 | why is the us national debt/spending preventing businesses from creating jobs? | [
{
"answer": "Yeah, it's kind of convoluted.\n\nThe argument is that if federal spending goes unchecked, then people will have less faith in the government's ability to repay its debts. If that's the case, then people will be less willing to buy treasury bonds, and so the interest rates will go up. Since every o... | null |
tbhxn | austerity | [
{
"answer": "Kids, when you were small, Daddy took some money from Mr. Jones. Daddy gambled the money away. Mr. Jones wants his money back. Daddy has no money to pay him. Daddy is going to take you kids out of school on Monday. You will now go to a new place. In this new place you don't need teachers any more. ... | null |
1d5ves | How does the brain decide the "best" way to recite long strings of numbers/alpha-numeric characters? | [
{
"answer": "There's a psychological principle known as chunking by which people tend to automatically or at will divide large, unmanageable amounts of information into smaller, more useful pieces or chunks for the purpose of memorizing data.\n\nThink of a phone number. You don't remember Jenny's phone number a... | null |
1w3fht | How can cancer be Sexually Transmitted? | [
{
"answer": "Think of it as more like a bacterial infection or parasite. These cancers started out at one point as a typical cancer in one animal. Somehow as the cancer developed rather than the usual mutations that just allow it to grow faster and metastasize, it also picked up changes that allowed it avoid be... | null |
10q0rj | If flies and bees were biting raw chicken outside, then it were to later be cooked, would that be a health risk? | [
{
"answer": "It would be more dangerous if they landed on cooked food which was then eaten. Flies can carry harmful bacteria, but assuming the food is cooked quickly and thoroughly after contamination, the bacteria will not have had enough time to produce enough harmful toxins to make someone sick, and the bact... | null |
74p2cc | What drove the Ottomans to declare war in the first Balkan war before they could fully mobilize? | [
{
"answer": "Your understanding of the beginning of the First Balkan War is not correct. There was no ultimatum: the war started when Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire on October 8. 1912 and the rest of the Balkan Coalition (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece) joined soon afterwards.",
"provenance": null
... | null |
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