id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
1vic95 | the difference in taste or texture, if any, when one orders their drink shaken, not stirred. | [
{
"answer": "Whenever I order a drink and ask them for specifics, I make sure I know what it tastes like before hand.\n\nSomething smooth and strong like a shot of vodka with a chaser is usually better stirred in my opinion because it distributes the flavours more evenly except each flavour is strong.\n\nShaken... | null |
2cf6r1 | what's the point of one-penny/one-dollar discounts? | [
{
"answer": "It's a ploy to make things appear subconsciously cheaper to the buyer",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It has a psychological impact, as the mind tends to crop the numbers nor round then. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "This question concerns one of the most freque... | null |
2guuhz | How was drinking water distributed during ancient Rome? | [
{
"answer": "Pompeii provides the most complete evidence, but it is worth noting that enough fragments can be found from other cities to lead to the conclusion that this was fairly common across the empire, so we don;t have to worry about falling into the Vesuvian trap. Another note is that it is common to read... | null |
3uz3ju | how come video compression is getting better all the time, but sound files are still the same size as ever? | [
{
"answer": "Audio compression is already really good, and has been for ages. People tend to be a bit more picky about audio quality (real or perceived) than they are about video quality, for some reason. \n\nThe bottom line is we don't really need better compression for audio files. ",
"provenance": null
... | null |
3ayxqo | why do planes crash into each other when they have so much open sky and space to fly in? when i look up at the sky, it seems almost entirely clear of planes. | [
{
"answer": "Almost all air accidents happen near takeoff/landing where all those planes are in a tight area. There is a very narrow path to use a runway.\n\nThat said, air accidents are EXTREMELY UNCOMMON. You're safer on a plane than you are in your own car, by a huge margin.",
"provenance": null
},
{... | null |
os5zv | Why does the moon appear to rotate during the night? | [
{
"answer": "It could be a number of reasons but the moon does \"wobble\" on its axis.\nIt's called [libration](_URL_0_).\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "5672031",
"title": "Orbit of the Moon",
"section": "Section::::Li... | null |
7a83fc | (us) why do car manufacturers promote horse power so much in their product marketing when you can’t even use it to its full extent? | [
{
"answer": "You can very much use it to its fullest extent. \n\nDon't switch gears, and let that needle climb all the way to the redline. \n\nIf you're asking why cars can go more than 100 mph when there aren't any roads where you're allowed to go that fast, the answer is that it's more fun to drive a 300 hp c... | null |
3hhlyc | how come hotel beds and pillows are so damn comfortable? | [
{
"answer": "i'm guessing the one at home you bought was some cheap POS mattress and some polyester fill pillow. investing in a quality mattress and down feather pillow/comforter goes a long way. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The hotel is probably figuring that if you have a comfortable be... | null |
7nlrvh | why does ecstasy make your jaw swing like a nine iron? | [
{
"answer": "It is a byproduct of the stimulant part of MDMA the MA stands for methamphetamine. Your central nervous system is being extremely stimulated and this causes your jaw to tighten and your body doesn't want tight/locked jaw, so you continually move it to keep that from happening.",
"provenance": n... | null |
n7ul8 | If Earth had the orbit of Mars could it harbour life as we know it? | [
{
"answer": "If you just moved the Earth the same distance away from the Sun as is Mars and all other factors were the same, I would argue that life as we know it would still exist there. Through Earth in it's new orbit would receive less solar energy, it's greater atmospheric pressure would still allow liquid ... | null |
4unj3b | Where did European classical singing arise and when did it spread throughout the continent? | [
{
"answer": "It is a bit mysterious how it came to be, but the short answer is Northern Italy, around the mid 16th century, in the church setting. No relation to yodeling at all actually. Yodeling has a [highly emphasized \"pop\" between vocal registers of head and chest,](_URL_1_) that's its signature move, no... | null |
2y0nyz | why is it uncomfortable to exercise? it does not seem to make evolutionary sense. | [
{
"answer": "You should keep in mind that for essentially every animal but present-day humans (and even for some of us today), famine is much more likely than feast. So all creatures are evolved with an emphasis on gathering, storing, and preserving reserves of energy in case of famine.\n\nThere is a part of yo... | null |
5d6nje | Why is geosynchronous orbit around the equator on Earth constrained to one radius? | [
{
"answer": "Because [orbital speed](_URL_0_) is completely determine by the gravitational field (that is, the mass of the planet) and the orbital parameters (that is, radius and eccentricity of the orbit). You don't get to choose your orbital speed without changing the others, and you don't get to change plane... | null |
3xppmk | In WW2, did Heer officer cadets got sent into battle before being promoted to actual officers? | [
{
"answer": "In the Wehrmacht and other Prussian-influenced military organizations such as the Finnish armed forces, officers first spend some time in an officer training school, and then do a \"residency\" among troops as a Fänrich/Oberfänrich, acting with the rank of a mid-level NCO but doing the work of an o... | null |
584e7q | Is noise additive in terms of causing hearing damage? | [
{
"answer": "I first want to mention that the \"long term safe\" levels aren't precise, and quieter is better.\n\nSound is measured in dB, which is a logarithmic unit.\n\nIf your headphones are emitting 80 dB to your ears, and let's say the airplane is emitting 80 dB to your ears, the total sound to your ears w... | null |
7r122f | In the movie Dr. Strangelove, the bomber aircrew are given survival kits containing a range of supplies both reasonable and comical. What sort of things would Cold War era American soldiers really be issued in these kits? If they got them at all. | [
{
"answer": " To get an idea, I used the list of things that were found on Francis Powers - a US U-2 pilot that was shot down over USSR while on a spy mission:\n \n - A poison needle containing \"poison from curare group\"\n - A gun with a silencer\n - A sort of a jackknife\n - An inflatable rubber boat\n - A s... | null |
11jvuz | Does the speed of light have any special meaning? Why is it the speed that it is? Is the scalar value of the velocity (disregarding units) unique somehow? | [
{
"answer": "It's the scale at which one unit of distance equals one unit of time. Imagine we measured horizontal distances in leagues and vertical distances in fathoms. We would need a conversion scale to tell us how many fathoms were in a league (~3038 or so). Well c is the scale that tells us how many second... | null |
28hlnw | What happened to heroin addicts that were drafted into WWII? | [
{
"answer": "You should try expanding your search to focus on drugs policies with regard to conscription and/or narrowing it to focus on a specific country. Finland, the country I'm most familiar with, is at the extreme end of the spectrum. A search for Finland heroin turns [this](_URL_0_) up.\n\n > “It was an... | null |
2777d4 | [Biology] Will increased ocean acidification have an effect on barnacles & other species that grow on ships? | [
{
"answer": "Without a doubt, OA is *the* dominant issue in Marine Ecology right now, so it is being studied furiously. However, we still have a lot to learn about its effects, and marine organisms have such complicated life histories and community interactions that it can be difficult to say exactly what to ex... | null |
3hort9 | why do some people's eyes dart back and forth while making eye contact? | [
{
"answer": "What do you mean dart back and forth? Like averting their gaze? Because eye contact can be awkward? They're looking at other things?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Ask someone to stare at you the entire time they're talking to you. It can be rather unnerving. Don't take it as them... | null |
4ftdsz | why do people hate limp bizkit so much? | [
{
"answer": "Two reasons really. Firstly, Fred Durst has the reputation of being kind of a douche.\n\nSecondly, LB sort of became the face of the Nu Metal, which a lot of people don't like. The consensus is it's shitty rap and shitty rock, doing neither very well. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer"... | null |
ko8mw | why is china seen as a threat to the united states? | [
{
"answer": "Because Americans don't like that they actually have to follow rules and use diplomacy (not the gunboat kind) when they're not the only dominant power in the world. \n\nIt's like a kid who gets angry when someone decides to disable cheats in a videogame.\n\nOn the other hand, China represents third... | null |
1m7tkc | Do all historians agree that Ancient Sumer was the first civilization | [
{
"answer": "What about Catalhoyuk? I'm fairly certain that including permanent settlements they also had agriculture and animal domestication. And then there's Gobekli Tepe. Surely that had to have required some sort of powerful society.\n\nAlso, Jericho has had urban activity since 8000 BC. Whether any of the... | null |
1finrw | why vitamin supplements can't be used as substitutes? | [
{
"answer": "Legally covering. Keep in mind 100% of the recommended value doesn't mean it is 100% for your size, sex, health, & diet. So, they don't want you taking their very simplified chart as a guide for your entire health.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Dietary supplements are not FDA a... | null |
3228ra | Why do we have so many surviving works of Plato, while most of Aristotle's writings are lost? | [
{
"answer": "The sad truth about the survival of our historical sources is that its just a matter of luck. What survives the night of times and what not its just that, luck. But maybe the most important reason in this particular case is the Macedonian origin of Aristotle. After the death of Alexander the anti M... | null |
3rg4l1 | If not all stars are massive enough to become black holes, then there must be point where a Star becomes massive enough. What is changing once that threshold is reached? | [
{
"answer": "The limit you are referring to is the Chandrasekhar limit, which is 1.39 solar masses. Basically, some stars at the end of their life will collapse down to white dwarfs, but these white dwarfs have a maximum mass of 1.39 solar masses. This is because they are held up by the electron degeneracy pres... | null |
cflqc8 | why can't surgeons just pull out huge chunks of body fat at a time with a glove or a modified vacuum hose? | [
{
"answer": "For real if I ever need to go under the knife for something I'd love to talk to the surgeon beforehand and be like \"Hey could you do me a solid? While you're in there feel free to pull out some fat. Like anywhere it looks all yellow and gnarly just like, pull that out and throw it away for me woul... | null |
97a9xo | is the saying "red sky at night, a shepherd's delight" true and if so, why? | [
{
"answer": "Red sky at night, sailors delight.\nWhen we see a red sky at night, this means that the setting sun is sending its light through a high concentration of dust particles. This usually indicates high pressure and stable air coming in from the west. Basically good weather will follow. \n \nRed sky in ... | null |
1iwvy6 | distillation as it pertains to alcoholic drinks | [
{
"answer": "Once the liquid that they are making the liquor out of has been fermented, and has alcohol in it, then the alcohol needs to be concentrated. Alcohol has a slightly lower boiling point than water, so they heat the liquid (which is called a mash by the way) to just below the boiling point of water. T... | null |
x1vlf | why h2o is vital to life, but h2o2 is dangerous | [
{
"answer": "the extra oxygen makes all the difference!\n\nperoxide is an oxidizing agent, which means that when the molecule breaks apart it will steal electrons from other ions and molecules. This in turn can de-stabilize bonds in other molecules, leading to a chain reaction.\n\nWe need some reactive oxygen s... | null |
56yhqp | why are we trying to colonize mars? | [
{
"answer": "To see if we can do it, we cant stay on earth forever, Elon and boeing know this. People like to do things that have never been done.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Just to do it. The race to the moon created tons of new technology and know how just by existing. Its exceedingly li... | null |
35ltcn | why does licking a seemingly dead pen make the pen able to write again? | [
{
"answer": "Pens are a chamber with ink in it and a steel ball jammed in a tight-fitting tube at the lower end. When you write, the ball turns, \"rolling\" the ink onto the paper, then rotating up into the ink supply to bring more down.\n\nPens with ink still in them often get jammed up if unused for a while b... | null |
b0w150 | Operation Market Garden | [
{
"answer": "The western allies had landed in northern France in Operation Overlord in June 1944 and then in southern France in Operation Dragoon and had encircled and routed the German counter-attack at Falaise in August 1944. After that, the western allies broke through and liberated most of France.\n\nHoweve... | null |
6egwp2 | How did parents give their kids 'the sex talk' before modern biology gave us the means to explain the details of reproduction? | [
{
"answer": "First off the modern \"Birds and the Bees\" discussion acts like sex is a taboo subject, as does our modern society as a whole. However in places like Ancient Greece we can see that was not so true. In places like America, in places like the US you can't show sex (actual not fade to black) or genit... | null |
15hpov | why isn't a zip code enough when entering an address, why must i give my state, city and zip code? | [
{
"answer": "ZIP codes are delivery points or zones for the United States Postal Service. There are commonly multiple cities (and sometimes more than one state) in each zone. The state and city further break down the location as the rest of the street address does.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer"... | null |
2e7idq | What keeps our gut bacteria from eating our live tissues? | [
{
"answer": "Our immune system stops them from invading deeper into the body by providing physical barriers, secreting antibodies (IgA) into the gut and sensing and fighting ones that get too invasive. For instance while it was previously thought that bacteria being in the blood was a rare and deadly event, it ... | null |
1nkgdj | Why would centrifugal space cylinders for artificial gravity work? | [
{
"answer": "In space, yes, you could be near the spinning surface and not be affected. In atmosphere, though, atmospheric gases would be affected by the spin, and thus centrifugal forces, and would slowly act on you until the centrifugal force became strong enough to \"pull\" you towards the outer cylinder.",
... | null |
28d5f6 | how does putting black charcoal marks below your eyes help you see better in sunlight? | [
{
"answer": "It reduces glare from light reflected under your eye and then into the eye.\nIt's like standing in the sand, the glare from the sand makes it harder to see.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Myth Busters did a segment on this. It does not work without a hat with cover over the eyes. ... | null |
b54aok | How did "The Eclipse of Darwinism" in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries occur simultaneously with the rise of eugenic Social Darwinism? Was there a schism in biology and anthropology at the time? | [
{
"answer": "The Eclipse of Darwinism was a period in which biologists doubted that Darwinian natural selection (with its heavy emphasis on gradualism) was responsible for species change. Alternative theories proposed and discussed at the time to explain speciation included orthogenesis (that there were \"inter... | null |
2m3loj | how come some countries' currency cannot be exchanged like incidentally mine (tunisia) | [
{
"answer": "Exchanging currency isn't really 'exchanging currency', it's selling your money like selling anything else. In order to 'convert' CAD to USD for example I must find someone willing to pay me in USD for my CAD. \n\nIf I can't find a buyer then I can't convert the money in exactly the same way if I c... | null |
1nb79t | how can the ups trademark the color brown? | [
{
"answer": "Cadbury also trademark the colour purple. I'm guessing it's only that specific shade and is only trade marked to delivery companies or chocolate. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They actually trademarked Pullman Brown, and the limitations of the trademark are likely to prevent oth... | null |
7ppmj8 | how does buying us treasury bills help in keeping chinese yuan low? | [
{
"answer": "If China spends yuan to buy dollars (which you have to do because T-Bills are sold in dollars), this increases the supply of available yuan and decreases the supply of available dollars. Due to the free market, this drives down the price of yuan and drives up the price of dollars.",
"provenance... | null |
99ip2r | If the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, does that imply that certain parts of the universe are in principle unobservable/unknowable? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. Although more and more galaxies will continue to enter our observable universe, any galaxy that is currently farther than about 65 Gly will never be seen at all. (For reference the current radius of the observable universe is about 47 Gly.) This occurs because of the acceleration of the expans... | null |
jmue0 | What happens when you try to fertilize a chimpanzee egg with human sperm? And a human egg with chimpanzee sperm? | [
{
"answer": "Chimps have 24 chromosome pairs, Humans have 23. I think the resulting fertilized egg would be unable to undergo mitosis.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Scientists, would a human-chimp hybrid 'mule' be possible?\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "We don't... | null |
3f6v5q | Did knights/athletes/anybody in the early to late middle ages know about stretching? Do we know if it was suggested or practiced? | [
{
"answer": "You could try asking on /r/wma, where they do a lot of reading of late medieval fighting manuals.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "493913",
"title": "Plate armour",
"section": "Section::::Renaissance.:Jousting... | null |
2ayd1g | Wasp Sealing Own Nest? | [
{
"answer": "They are sealing in their young. They will implant food and an embryo and seal it up to protect the baby till the baby can come out. It's sealed with the same thing the nest is made of - what that is I do not know.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They seal their eggs and a food sou... | null |
1avd5k | What was marriage like with the slaves in the United States? What were their traditions and ceremonies like? What reasons would they choose a partner? How did slave owners look at the marriages? | [
{
"answer": "A book that would help is Eugene Genovese's classic, *Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made*.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nNow, Genovese is a complex character, and understanding his changing historiography is a complex task. To put it another way, some historians disagree with him in many ways. But this ... | null |
104pkw | What areas of the earth would best weather global warming? | [
{
"answer": "The problem of global warming is not the change in climate itself - it is the rate of change coupled with the fact that we have adapted to a specific climate in the areas we inhabit.\n\nChange is harmful to most species that have adapted to a particular local eco-system. However, change also presen... | null |
3fsshh | Is there any truth to the idea that Coca Cola secretly made special "White Coke" without colouring, at the request of Soviet Marshall Georgy Zhukov? (x-post r/AskHistory) | [
{
"answer": "I'm assuming you've looked at the Wiki page for this, so I won't bother pointing you there. \n\nThe only vaugley scholarly source that addresses this in any detail is Mark Pendergast's *For God, Country, and Coca-Cola*. Basically, Pendergast concludes that the \"white coke\" story is at least pla... | null |
2lkv2t | i wipe my bottom very well until the tp comes back clean - without fail 20 minutes later i have to "re-wipe" - what the hell is going on? | [
{
"answer": "Your anus has two sphincters. When you're done and later have to wipe again, it's because the one that is deeper inside you relaxed slightly and some poo trickled down. Probably happens to everyone to some degree. Eat more fiber.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There is current res... | null |
6fxftk | Can the strands of DNA accidentally get tied into a knot? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. Any sufficiently long polymer has essentially a 100% chance of being knotted, and DNA is no exception. Viruses, which contain very compacted DNA, when they splort out DNA into cells [have a chance of splorting out knotted DNA](_URL_0_). In our cells, however, we have enzymes called topoisomera... | null |
2qd7v3 | Why weren't huge dinosaurs crushed under their own weight? | [
{
"answer": "They weren't fat, they were big-boned. \nBut seriously, they had big bones and big muscles, big lungs and a big heart, and had evolved into that body-size. Imagine an ant looking up at a human thinking \"how does it not collapse or fall over?\" : ). But sick, injured or sedated rhino's and elephan... | null |
24ak5q | What do EEG signals really mean? | [
{
"answer": "The EEG signal at the scalp is a measure of the mean voltage of an area of cortex induced by synchronous excitatory and inhibitory post-synaptic potentials on large pyramidal neurons. A negative amplitude peak at the scalp corresponds to synchronous excitatory post-synaptic potentials in at least 6... | null |
1jt0nh | Creative history writing assignment or project? | [
{
"answer": "One of my art history classes gave an interesting assignment where we had to curate a \"imaginary museum\". We had to draft catalog entries, exhibition labels, and bibliographies, as well as a initial proposal explaining the topic of our exhibit and the works to be selected that justifies why we ch... | null |
a89i5x | how do you doctors diagnose bacterial/viral illness? | [
{
"answer": "Clinically, some bacterial/viral illnesses have very distinguishing features that give you a hunch towards what the disease may be caused from. Symptoms such as a certain rash, whether there is a fever, whether there is any pus, etc., point you in the direction of viral, bacterial, or even fungal i... | null |
1xk37t | After WW2, how was Japan and Germany treated in the following Olympics? | [
{
"answer": "The 1948 Olympics were held in London and Germany and Japan were not invited to participate as a result of their role as aggressors. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "84318",
"title": "1952 Summer Olympics",
... | null |
6ya0dj | why do we rely on donations from the public for disaster relief? isn't this the government's responsibility? | [
{
"answer": "Yeah that's true, but private charities require donations to survive. Thus when a disaster hits charities go for donation drives and ask for money, part which will go towards disaster relief and part of which will go towards administrative costs that keep the charity afloat. \n\nPeople want to help... | null |
6q31lw | Why do some people have good sense of direction while other don't? Do we know how the brain differs in such people? | [
{
"answer": "This article explains it pretty well. It's like language, we are born with the ability and the amount of time we spend on tasks that use sense of direction directly influences how developed or underdeveloped our directional awareness becomes. There's a lot of cool ethnographic research about sens... | null |
6aklzp | Why is Sulphur used in the vulcanization process instead of some other element? | [
{
"answer": "Ok so I worked in Zinc Oxide which is used as a catalyst for the rubber curing. I only did a bit on the rubber side so hopefully someone can come and fill that in, but yes Sulphur I presume works to form di/trisulfide bridges similar to what it does with amino acid structure. Oxygen is more likely ... | null |
c82c5q | why are insulated cups made from seemingly highly conductive materials like stainless steel or aluminum? | [
{
"answer": "They are usually double-layered. Meaning, there is a metal cup inside another metal cup, insulated from each other by air, and only connected around the rim. Air makes an excellent insulator.\n\nMetal is used because it's way more durable, and with the air insulator the conductivity doesn't matter ... | null |
sln9s | Why do we recycle paper? | [
{
"answer": "It's better to let more trees grow and continue to fix carbon, by recycling paper, than cutting down MORE trees to make more paper, thereby reducing how much carbon is being fixed. Your argument would make more sense if we also replaced the trees that we cut down, which most of the time we don't do... | null |
bw9cuc | how does a store know i'm stealing something? | [
{
"answer": "I would rephrase this question to ask how the sensor monitors in stores detect the theft sensors on items.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I’m not sure if I can write enough words for ELI5:\n\nSensors by the door don’t work for everything, it’s only certain high value items, such a... | null |
5ayb93 | why do we sometimes think someone's first name fits that particular person? i.e; "you look like a dave" and when we try to associate a different name to them it feels weird and mismatched | [
{
"answer": "\nChong: Who?\nCheech: Dave, man. Open up.\nChong: Dave?\nCheech: Yeah, Dave.\nChong: Dave's not here.\nCheech: What the hell? No, man, I am Dave, man. Will you...\n(More knocks)\nCheech: c'mon! Open up the door, will you? I got the stuff with me, I think the cops saw me.\nChong: Who is it?\nCheech... | null |
1owd18 | Why when bacteria are becoming antibiotic resistant, are we not using Phages to attack bacterial infections more. | [
{
"answer": "The biggest obstacle is that each phage is relatively specific to one organism. One of the big obstacles is finding a phage that would work well against the specific problem organism. The medical system would need to isolate the problem bacteria, figure out which phage works against it, and then tr... | null |
rdheq | how the large hadron collider could help scientists understand how something can come from nothing. | [
{
"answer": "In order to even begin learning about the origins of the universe we first have to understand how the tiniest bits of matter actually work. In the world we know things are governed by basic physics (Newton's Law's of motion), but at the moment of the big bang the universe was, as they say, infinit... | null |
2dhesq | Force-carrying particles and other misc questions? | [
{
"answer": "Your confusion comes from the idea that interacting objects are constantly shooting particles at each other, which isn't the case. If that were true, we'd see, for example, glowing light between two magnets. Really, it's an idea that perturbations in a field due to a particle can be treated like an... | null |
2m6xhr | How do our lungs not freeze when we breathe in extremely cold air? | [
{
"answer": "The human nose simply does a great job at warming and moisturizing the cold and dry winter air and it will be warm enough when it reaches your lungs which is why you're fine with breathing it.\n\nThe above however doesn't apply when you are gasping for air through your mouth as you are inhaling muc... | null |
12jkfu | What would happen if Planck's Constant was much bigger than it is? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, things would act more quantum-mechanically. Atoms would be much larger, as electrons (and everything else) would be more spatially spread-out (\"wave-like\", if you want) because of this. You'd soon not have matter-as-we-know-it, as the ratio between electron and nuclear masses and Planck's co... | null |
6dggd8 | What happened to the women in the emperor's harem after the death of "their" emperor during the Qing Dynasty in China? | [
{
"answer": "I can't be sure this information applies to the system as it was under the Qing, but during the Tang dynasty an emperor's concubines would have their heads shaved and be required to retire to a nunnery after the emperor's death. This was because it would have been an insult to the dead ruler's memo... | null |
3skf5v | is it possible to do insider trading accidentally and be convicted? | [
{
"answer": "In this scenario, it doesn't sound like you have any insider knowledge. In order to be convicted, the prosecutors need to prove that you were in possession of inside information.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Standard disclaimer, IANAL\n\nIt would be very difficult to \"accidentl... | null |
4ddopv | the differences between "franchised" mcdonalds and non-"franchised" mcdonalds | [
{
"answer": "It's corporate and franchise stores.\n\nThe corporate ones are owned by McDonald's. The franchise store's owner pays a fee to corporate McDonald's to use the name, signage, menu and products.\n\nNot all the franchise stores are run exactly the same, which is why some MacDonald's never carry the ri... | null |
8hp1cb | How Long did it take to get places by ship? | [
{
"answer": "I hope that by '1800s' you mean 19th century, not only the first decade of it, as the following addresses almost whole century.\n\nIn the beginning of the 19th century, the speed of an average merchant ships used for transoceanic trade, such as British Indiamen was in the ballpark of 4 knots, i.e. ... | null |
74tugn | how do doctors keep up to date with new information/techniques? | [
{
"answer": "They are required to recertify every now and then, as well as being mandated to attend seminars and conferences about the latest of medical science in their fields.\n\nAlso, a doctor in a specific field is likely to want to learn about improvements in their field. They're clearly interested in what... | null |
5x9qk6 | Is it true that during the medieval era, the Islamic world was the home of science and research? | [
{
"answer": "As a follow-up question: I'm currently reading Jim al-Khalili's \"Pathfinders. The Golden Age of Arabic Science\". Is this considered a good and accurate popular science book on the subject?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Follow up question: Does the influence of Ancient Greece pl... | null |
1zllco | Could relations between Europeans and Native Americans have turned out any other way in the 18th century? | [
{
"answer": "This might be more of a question for /r/HistoricalWhatif ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "20134780",
"title": "Multiracial Americans",
"section": "Section::::Native American identity.:Native American lineage ... | null |
1ptl4s | Why don't sound waves of same frequenvies cancel out each other? | [
{
"answer": "It definitely applies to waves as well. For your example of sound waves, set up two speakers about 1m apart and then walk along in front of them a few metres away and you will notice loud patches and quiet patches. These patches are due to constructive and destructive interference.\nThis is the pro... | null |
8ue86r | How would the eruption of a volcano like Krakatoa compare to an eruption of The Yellowstone Caldera? | [
{
"answer": "Volcanologists have a scale called VEI - Volcanic Explosivity Index. It's a logarithmic scale based on how much rock an explosive eruption blasts into the air.\n\nThe Krakatoa eruption was a 6. The more powerful 1815 eruption of Tambora was a 7, meaning it erupted about 10 times as much material as... | null |
35cy7s | why did the hobbit movies use so much cgi (like in the famous ian mckellen crying picture) instead of real sets/ actors? | [
{
"answer": "I guess no one remembers how cgi intensive the lord of the rings were with the battle of Rohan. It would a lot more time and money to create those sets and hire the actors. The Lotr took a long time to film. While the hobbit wasn't that much compared respectively. So all in all many people wanted ... | null |
bbsumj | Can anyone tell me the history of this trench art? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nMore info: it has many names on it, including, although I’m sure unrelated, “Walter Churchill”. I’m just curious as to any info on “BTR” or their names, or anything. It’s quite a beautiful piece.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"w... | null |
4kiz80 | The Earth is an oblate spheroid, but what about the atmosphere? Does it fit the shape of the Earth or is it more perfectly spherical? | [
{
"answer": "The density profile of the atmosphere is fixed by the total force, gravitational + centrifugal. The Earth takes the shape it does, oblate spheroid, because most of it is really liquid and it flows until its surface is composed of points all at the same total potential (being gravitational potential... | null |
t8wmk | The Hindenburg disaster: The real cause for the decline of air travel by balloon? | [
{
"answer": "There was way more to it actually. Airplanes didn't help. But the main thing actually is probably that Germany lost World War 2. During the war, Germany stripped down and scrapped all the big dirigibles that they had in order to make combat airplanes for the war effort. They just never got rebuilt.... | null |
76eqwt | Is medieval portrayal of witches linked to anti-semitism? | [
{
"answer": "[This thread] (_URL_0_) with answer by u/TheLionHearted may interest you.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "48713575",
"title": "Medieval European magic",
"section": "Section::::Magic in the Later Middle Ages.:... | null |
4y36ig | uptown vs downtown | [
{
"answer": "Downtown usually refers to the heavy financial and commercial area of a city.\n\nUptown (less commonly used) can refer to either the primary entertainment area of the city or to the high-end residential areas where the wealthy reside.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Uptown refers t... | null |
4crt9o | Can epigenetics alter the expression of traits dependent on genetic tract length? | [
{
"answer": "Is there a reason you're asking about a 3 base pair repeat in particular? Variations in these kinds of repeats are usually associated with trinucleotide repeat syndromes, where having too many copies causes some sort of genetic syndrome. Huntington's disease and fragile X syndrome are probably the ... | null |
2la7ib | coal-fired power plants | [
{
"answer": "Burn coal. Gets hot. Boils water. Spins turbine. Generates electricity. Exhaust heat used to preheat the water. Soot captured with sulfur compounds for emissions. Makes gypsum for drywall and plaster.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Source: Went to a coal-powered plant for my work ... | null |
so10p | What is the next major evolutionary change the human race is most likely to undergo? | [
{
"answer": "In evolution there is nothing \"major\". There is no intention, direction and purpose. There are random changes that are confirmed or rejected by the natural selection mechanism.\n\nWhat humans can add to this is their ability to intervene in the natural selection process - by keeping alive and all... | null |
8jqykp | Is there any evidence to show Shakespeare's actions and response to his son Hamnet's death? | [
{
"answer": "Unfortunately we don't have much, if anything, to record Shakespeare's immediate emotional responses to his son's death; what we do have is rich grounds for speculation in the form of Shakespeare's plays. The impact of Hamnet's death on William Shakespeare is often interpreted through the lens of t... | null |
6jk2xt | What would happen if an Astronaut in a spacestation with artifical gravity due to a spinning station would jump? | [
{
"answer": " > shouldn't the Astronaut when making a little jump [...] negate the effect of the spinning wheel\n\nNo. During the jump the astronaut will keep moving sideways due to inertia. Since the astronaut is moving in a straight line and the floor is moving in a circle, eventually they will come closer a... | null |
8kfzme | how male animals know which young is theirs so they can protect it. | [
{
"answer": "They don't know. Many males of various species (like lions and gorillas) kill all the children once they rise to power, and they'll jealously and violently guard access to the females.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Why do you think animals can't connect sex with reproduction? Wha... | null |
24ah30 | is there a reason why humans have an arch in their feet or is it just from evolution? | [
{
"answer": "Everything is \"just from evolution\".\n\nSo... yes and yes?\n\nArched feet are easier to support a body that stands upright (like humans do). It also gives space for muscle which can soften the blow of walking and can be more springy, which wastes less effort when walking.\n\nI'm not sure it's ri... | null |
2d54vf | Does the human brain use any form of quantum entanglement? | [
{
"answer": "Probably not. You might want to read this article:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe abstract provides a very clear summary:\n\nWe argue that computation via quantum mechanical processes is irrelevant to explaining how brains produce thought, contrary to the ongoing speculations of many theorists. First, quantum e... | null |
1ubh1x | Do you get any of the benefits of sleep from just lying still in bed with your eyes closed (as happens with insomnia)? | [
{
"answer": "There's some discussion of this in [this thread](_URL_1_) about a year ago. That thread prompted [an article on the subject in The Atlantic](_URL_0_). The conclusion from that article is:\n\n > \"Lying down isn't completely useless -- it does help your muscles and other organs relax. But you'd g... | null |
4wlwrp | why does putting food in a plastic bag prevent it from going stale? | [
{
"answer": "Putting food in any container that doesn't allow air in will prevent food from going stale. Well, not *prevent*, but slow the process down. A plastic bag, when wrapped tight enough, does an okay job, but there are other, better things that work.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": nul... | null |
177t8x | How much energy is contained in the trace amounts of uranium in coal? | [
{
"answer": "From [this page](_URL_0_) I have that the uranium content of coal is optimistically on the order of magnitude of 10ppm, depending on the source. Fissionable uranium, however, only makes up 0.71% of naturally occurring uranium.\n\nAssuming, again optimistically, that coal is primarily elemental carb... | null |
21l9nv | what's the limiting factor in how much memory companies like sandisk can make sd cards? | [
{
"answer": "The circuits that make up the memory of the SD card take up a certain amount of space. Smaller components require more research time and more advanced manufacturing and so cost more money. Either 256 GB of memory cannot be made to fit or they would cost so much that nobody would consider spending 2... | null |
2jg5ht | I read that a large steel rod from orbit would hit a land target with the force of a small nuclear weapon. Does this mean it requires the energy of a nuclear weapon to get it into orbit? | [
{
"answer": "Time for some algebra. Let's assume that figure is calculated as the sum of the gravitational potential energy and the kinetic energy. Fortunately for us the [Virial Theorem](_URL_1_) tells us that for bodies in gravitational orbit, averaged over their orbit, their kinetic energy is -1/2 the potent... | null |
2hrdah | How did English language names for other countries/cultures originate? | [
{
"answer": "hi! there's room for responses covering more country names, but FYI, you can get started in the FAQ\n\n* [Why do countries have different names in other languages?](_URL_0_)\n\nand the /r/Linguistics FAQ \n\n* [Why are our names for countries so different from what the people call their own country... | null |
4f7zh0 | Christianization after converting Europe to Christianity - What did it entail? | [
{
"answer": "From how I understand your blurb, what you're getting at is the increasing orthodoxy of Christianity in Europe, following the conversion process. \n\nAs regards England, conversion began in the late sixth century with Augustine's mission to Kent. Whether the clergy today doesn't like the idea of pa... | null |
16fan6 | what is the difference between a bitmap and a vector image? | [
{
"answer": "Think of a bitmap image as a painting. It's a specific size, it has been created and each brush stroke is where it should be. If we were to take an image of that painting and stretch it out, it would start to look bad because it wasn't meant to be that size.\n\nThink of a vector as the painter who ... | null |
co8pei | if they use the same caliber and are similar in function, why is the ar 15 not used by soldiers? what is its catch? | [
{
"answer": "Because Armalite Arms did not get the contract to supply the US military",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The core difference is in function.\n\nSpecifically, the M16 and M4 are capable of automatic and/or burst fire, which means multiple shots fired, ejected, and chambered with one... | null |
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