id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
sfbu6 | What is definitely known about the subconscious/unconscious? | [
{
"answer": "So first, both subconscious and unconscious, like nearly every other word used in psychology, are just handy descriptors with arbitrary and changeable definitions, they aren't like \"gravity\" or something where there's some kind of measurable physical constant. Depending upon which definition you... | null |
avenvv | how does science disprove religion? | [
{
"answer": "It doesn't. Science and religion address and cover completely different things. Religious people, who say otherwise, are stupid and atheists, who say otherwise, are stupid.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Who says \"Science disproved religion\"? That seems like nonsense.\n\nScienc... | null |
yh8uh | If I could physically manipulate atoms, how much force would it take to smash or combine two? | [
{
"answer": "Warning: Not a particle physicist.\n\nFirst, for colliding hydrogen and oxygen to make water, that's not exactly what happens. When you add a certain amount of energy to hydrogen and oxygen (the activation energy), they are able to break up and recombine to form water and heat. This reaction is not... | null |
48f9gs | What did the Romans ever do for the Ancient Israelis? | [
{
"answer": "Well we do know about a rather large ramp construction up to Masada due to Flavius Josephus but that was military rather than civilian!\n\nCaesarea was s provincial capital back in Roman Judea. According to Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, it was rebuilt under Herod/Roman Rule and the Romans wi... | null |
8aoqx3 | why does water make white t-shirts see-through? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nTo sum up the article (correct me if I'm wrong), it's basically about the complexity of the material and how many surfaces there are.\n\nCloth is made up of lots of fibers all woven together, so there are a lot of air-cloth surfaces in there. So when light hits the cloth, it gets bounced... | null |
43prlk | What is the largest non-self-propelling object that we can shoot into Low Earth Orbit? | [
{
"answer": "You actually can't get anything into the orbit of earth without a small rocket. Not because of a not powerful gun, we could get to orbital velocity just fine. However, the apoapsis would still be in the atmosphere where the cannon was fired, so you would have to do a small burn at periapsis to rais... | null |
3cy6qg | was black and white as a film medium necessary before the evolution of colour? | [
{
"answer": "There are a couple reasons we couldn't really have jumped straight to color film.\n\nOne is that early photographic film was sensitive only to blue-green, blue, violet, and ultraviolet - so we had no way of recording red light. We could never make full-color pictures without a dye sensitive to red... | null |
18sov3 | What was the strength of the post-WWI German Monarchists movement and is there any meaningful support for it still? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not going to delete this question since it does seem to be predominantly historical, but it is a borderline case. The last half of this question *does* violate our pre-1993 rule. \n\nFor commenters: Please only make analysis on historical German Monarchism. While you can quickly answer the seco... | null |
ju5x5 | Is blue cheese mould benign because it's in very small quantities, or because it's a different kind of mould? Can you get ill from eating too much? | [
{
"answer": "It's a non-pathogenic mold so knock yourself out.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Fun Fact: There are thousands of different molds that can grow on cheese, and NONE of them are toxic. \n\nThis is why it's ok to just cut off the moldy part and still eat the cheese.\n\nThis is only t... | null |
7qxown | what is needed to get matter to being a bose-einstein condensate, the least known about state of matter? | [
{
"answer": "You want bosons in a system(usually weakly or noninteracting- typically using a dilute gas) at a low enough temperature. \n\nAt it's core, a BEC is a bunch of bosons sitting in the same ground state. You want bosons as opposed to fermions because Pauli exclusion won't allow fermions to all chill in... | null |
79yckt | Why is the elementary charge not redefined to be one-third of its current value to avoid the fractional charges of the quarks? | [
{
"answer": " > Why is the elementary charge its current value instead of one-third, so that the charge of any fundamental particle is truly elementary? Is it a matter of historical convention, so that -e is the charge of the electron?\n\nWe discovered protons and electrons a long time before we discovered quar... | null |
2uobsd | How would one enroll in a Medieval University, and how did they pay for it? | [
{
"answer": "I'm actually quite interested in this. While someone is on it, could you answer this for the Renaissance, Colonial and Imperialist eras as well?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'm only familiar with the ~11/12th century universitas and its creation, so I can't answer for later sch... | null |
atn07y | how does a space telescope judge distance? | [
{
"answer": "Parallax is the most common type for near-ish objects. \n\nPut something in front of you. Look at it with only one eye open, then the other. You notice how you can use those two slightly different images to judge the distance? That's ***basically*** how we do it for nearby objects too. We can look ... | null |
11o9ue | How can photons move in waves if they have a constant speed? | [
{
"answer": "Photons don't move in waves. Photons **are** waves. Well, kind of.\n\nPhotons act *like* particles in some circumstances. They act *like* waves in other circumstances. The truth is that they're quantum objects that have some properties that are analogous to those of particles, and some properti... | null |
1h0a8q | If the U.S. Constitution framers were so concerned about federal government asserting to much power and the executive (Presidential) branch becoming a Monarch, how come they didn't establish term limits on the Executive branch? | [
{
"answer": "The issue came up multiple times in the Constitutional Convention, as well as the Ratification debates.\n\n1. They believed voting was enough to counter any bad side-effects of no term limits. People would only vote for Presidents if they didn't think they were a tyrant. If they *did* do something ... | null |
d9mtbw | What caused the Turkic migrations? In the 7th century, they seemingly were mostly confined to the steppes. By the 11th century, Turkic states, mercenaries and slave-soldiers were everywhere throughout the Middle East and dominated the political scene. What happened? | [
{
"answer": "Phew, good question. Bear with me as I try to help you understand this situation. (part 1)\n\n**Turkic Confederations**\n\nLuckily for us, Persian chroniclers tell us that in the 10th century, the lands of modern-day Northern Kazakhstan are shared by a Nomadic Steppe people known as the Kirghiz and... | null |
5thd0i | how does an iv drip work? how does the body accept and process that fluid? | [
{
"answer": "It's a windy day outside. You're holding a glass of water and turn it over. The water spills out. Does it fall straight down? No - it falls at angle in the direction the wind is blowing. \n\nThis is similar to the fluid entering your blood. When the needle enters the vessel, the fast moving blood \... | null |
1yfguy | How did KGB spies work there way through the U.S.? Did the Red Scare actually help in their capture? | [
{
"answer": "First off, are you familiar with the declassification of VENONA?\n\nDuring that period, the Soviet relied on one-time pads to send ciphers. Given that WW2 demanded many more ciphers for military ops, the Soviets ended up having to recycle some pads. Once you start recycling crypto, it becomes cra... | null |
axlvel | why can my phone not connect to two different bluetooth devices? | [
{
"answer": "It should, devices have been able to connect through multiple Bluetooth channels since like 2.1. My smart watch is always connected via bluetooth, and then I can pair my earbuds with no issue.\n\nIf you're specifically talking about like, bluetooth speakers, then the device has to support it (The s... | null |
8c2wct | what would happen to the economy if the entire world decided diamonds, gold, silver, etc were worthless? | [
{
"answer": "Well they all have uses in everyday products, so their value would be re-evaluated. As for any country with a gold standard, their economy would most likely crash.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There would be an initial shock as those commodities lost value on the stock market. B... | null |
3j319z | overthrow of hawaii monarchy | [
{
"answer": "Sugar cane farming was the major export from Hawaii. White American plantation owners moved over in mass in the mid-1800's.\n\nAlong with the plantation owners came American missionaries. The powerful influence of religion and profit doomed the Hawaiian Monarchy in the long term.\n\nThere were a ... | null |
bunchi | Why did the Fukushima nuclear plant switch to using fresh water after the accident? | [
{
"answer": "Salt water is corrosive. If you have a choice then fresh water is much better.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Salt is corrosive. As water boils in the core, the salt concentrates, and you get deposits that impinge heat transfer. With enough salt you can eventually have molten salt... | null |
21fav7 | Why was a revolver type mechanism never adopted for military rifles? | [
{
"answer": "There were military issued revolving cylinder mechanisms on rifles. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n\nThere's one example used in the Civil War- over 4 thousand were purchased for the Civil War, and it was used at some level by both sides. \n\n\n\nThe issue was basically cost and reliability. The carbine had a repu... | null |
16pnfv | the manti te'o situation. | [
{
"answer": "Manti Te'o is a very good American college football player for the University of Notre Dame. He plays linebacker, a defensive position, and plays it so well that he was voted second place for the very important Heisman Trophy, a prize that defensive players almost never win.\n\nIn September, Manti ... | null |
1z3e5v | When an embryo is developing, how do the first few cells "decide" which end will be the head and which end will be the feet? | [
{
"answer": "After the blastula, the embryo undergoes gastrulation where the germ layers are formed. These 3 germ layers will become all the different body tissues, and I'd recommend reading up on [germ layers](_URL_0_). Cells that differentiate do so by signalling cues from other cells through the process of s... | null |
66ro6w | when you buy land, what do you actually own in terms of height and depth? and who dictates this? | [
{
"answer": "Well, first off it's important to note that the land may not include mineral rights. So you can purchase the land, but you may not have the rights to any valuable things in it, like oil or gold or whatever.\n\nFrom a practical view, you own enough land beneath the ground level, and enough air above... | null |
25oaxg | Why didn't the US Civil War get as trench-y as WW1? | [
{
"answer": "Technology, basically. \n\nThe advantage of trenches is that, for the defensive side, you see him before he sees you. That's a reasonably advantageous position to be in when you've got a musket rifle, but when you've got a machine gun and snipers, it's even more stacked in your favour. \n\nDuring t... | null |
ee6f4t | how is it determined that a very specific chemical or food (e.g. bacon) causes cancer? | [
{
"answer": "Salt cured pork belly doesn't cause cancer. Nitrite and nitrate preservatives used in bacon making causes cancer.\n\nThese interact with the red meat cells to make N-nitroso compounds, which cause cancer in bowels",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There are multiple ways they determ... | null |
5ufvhe | What's the difference between Special Relativity and the Lorentz transformations? | [
{
"answer": "The Lorentz transformations are an integral part of SR. They are how you transform between different inertial reference frames.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[There is an extremely detailed and interesting article on Wikipedia on the history of special relativity.](_URL_0_)",
... | null |
5f2791 | the situation at standing rock | [
{
"answer": "As far as my understanding, it's being built on land that's been procured by the army corp of engineers, so technically private. The Sioux of that area say the land was taken from them in violation of a treaty, some years ago. Their main concern is that it will go under the Missouri River, a vital ... | null |
2lp862 | re-financing my mortgage | [
{
"answer": "Okay, he means no money out of pocket. All those closing costs would get rolled into your loan, slightly driving up the principal(what you owe).\n\nWhat you want to do is get the breakdown of what it will really cost,and calculate your break even point (the point where your savings on your payme... | null |
1lvizd | How far above the earth does gravity lose its pull? | [
{
"answer": "Way beyond our atmosphere (holds the moon in orbit right?). Just as an example the ISS experiences about 90% the gravity we do. The simplified model for gravity is G(Mm/r) where G is a constant the 'm's are the masses of the objects in question and r is the distance between their centers of gravi... | null |
1wi3bp | Historically, are USSR and Soviet Union synonymous? | [
{
"answer": "I believe your teacher is incorrect. Russia is not the same as the USSR as Russia is one republic in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Perhaps that is what your teacher meant. Unless there's some obscure nuance I'm unaware of the USSR and the Soviet Union are the same thing.",
"provenan... | null |
1hg62k | How many of the French aristocrats who fled to England/Austria/wherever after the Revolution of eventually managed to come back to France? Did Napoleon allow any of them to return? | [
{
"answer": "Napoleon did offer an amnesty to those emigres (I think in 1801) and some took it up. Note that many aristocrats never left, a lot of his officers were nobility that had proven themselves by merit. If my notes from a course on European history are correct, it was part of his concordat with the Pope... | null |
3t0e09 | How does the optic nerve know what color a particular photoreceptor in the eye is responsible for? | [
{
"answer": "The same way the nerves in your arm \"know\" which finger touched something. \n\nIn short, they don't. They just transmit a signal. Your brain is responsible for making sense of those signals. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I think a useful way of understanding OPs question is th... | null |
4ycrkp | if calories in = calories out, what difference would 3000 calories of bread compared to 3000 calories of protein have in terms of weight loss? | [
{
"answer": "So long as you are getting all of the nutrients you need in the day there is no practical difference between sources of calories and it is the raw number in compared to the amount of energy you are burning that matters. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
... | null |
1pypa5 | why do i get sick from old raw chicken, even if i cook the hell out of it? | [
{
"answer": " > Considering germs are supposed to die at a relatively low temperature (i.e., less that 200 degrees)\n\nAt that point, it's not the germs you have to worry about. Rather, it's the toxic chemicals that they release as part of their metabolism. Cooking doesn't help with that.",
"provenance": ... | null |
3etprw | why are some u.s. cities, like nyc, designed in a nice grid-system while others, like boston, look like something a drunken toddler with a magic marker drew on his parents' walls? | [
{
"answer": "It's all in the plan of the city. If people slowly moved in and decided to put a house wherever they felt like it, it's going to have drunken toddler streets. But if the people building the city knew how big it would be from the beginning, they may decide to block it off into a grid pattern. ",
... | null |
fu882y | do animals in the wild fail to produce milk in the same way as humans? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, some mothers fail to produce milk, especially in hard times when food is less available. And, yes, those babies generally just die. Sometimes they're abandoned before they die because mom is desperate for food herself and can't afford to keep trying to produce inadequate milk. Baby's going to ... | null |
517cp8 | I have heard that people before the 20th century drank huge amounts of alcohol from an early age because water was not safe to drink otherwise. If this is true, how did teetotal groups (most obviously, Muslims) survive? | [
{
"answer": "You may find [this AskHistorians thread](_URL_0_) from a few years ago has some discussion on yhe subject, at least until this one takes off.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2701591",
"title": "History of alcoholic d... | null |
36y4lt | Do insects get thirsty? | [
{
"answer": "Insects do require water for their metabolism. However, they are very small and have an exoskeleton, which means they do not lose much water through evaporation. Their water requirements are therefore rather low. Many insects obtain enough water from their diet, for example when they feed on plant ... | null |
89u27w | Why don't astronauts use steroids to prevent muscle atrophy? | [
{
"answer": "Likely because steroid use comes with its own set of drawbacks and side effects. Seeing as space travel is already quite unhealthy (i.e. radiological hazard is higher), its not a good idea to introduce even more potential problems.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Steroids do not wo... | null |
upviz | Do nonlinear differential equations truly have no analytic solutions or have we just not discovered a method of solving them? | [
{
"answer": "We don't have any **general** solution, but it doesn't mean we don't know how to solve some of them.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Generally speaking, you could describe a Turing-complete computer as a non-linear ODE/PDE , and then perform arbitrary computations in it. \n\nIf an ... | null |
65rlaj | why do high schools and colleges press so hard on learning a second language? | [
{
"answer": "bc it's useful for the students, in today's world you have to know others languages, especially if you aren't from an english speaking country",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "In some places, schools are allowing computer code as a replacement for Spanish, etc.\n\nMainly, it used to... | null |
2m61e9 | How did people of Rome at the time react to Paul's Epistle to the Romans? | [
{
"answer": "Do you mean the church in Rome? There is no direct evidence for this. The best I suppose one could do would be to analyse 1 Clement which appears to be from an elder in Rome to the church in Corinth, and would provide some very indirect evidence on the church of Rome, but even this is dated to late... | null |
to2ae | Is it true that marijuana can cause (activate?) schizophrenia in people predisposed to it? | [
{
"answer": "There is definitely correlation. Causation is up for debate.\n_URL_0_\nThis article tends to lean towards at least partial causation. But you'll find a lot of people argue the other side.\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Yes. [Here is a past thread](_URL_0_) which I (while obvi... | null |
6h4lck | what barriers are in place to stop an up-and-coming drug company from undercutting the epi-pen monopoly? | [
{
"answer": " > So why is it that nobody has made some new kind of plastic autoinjector that works as easily as an Epi-pen and packs the same dosage of Ephinepherine? \n\nParts of the delivery system are still under patent. You would have to be careful not to violate those patents while making your new kind o... | null |
9jsd8d | The destruction of the 2nd Temple is remembered as a terrible event in Jewish history and, in some ways, a part of the Jewish identity. With the establishment of the state of Israel, was there ever a movement to create a 3rd Temple? | [
{
"answer": "Rebuilding the Temple has been an extremely fraught issue, accelerated considerably since Israel regained control of the Mount after the Six Day War. The Israeli PM at the time, Levi Eshkol, ceded official control of the Mount & the Al Asqa Mosque to the Muslim Waqf, where it continues to this da... | null |
5yzv0u | if everyone wore respirators for 1 year, would every cold and flu virus go extinct? | [
{
"answer": "No. Many new flu epidemics happen from inter-species transmission. New variants often appear first in chickens or other birds, then spread to pigs, and then spread to humans.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "24104011",
... | null |
g3q22l | if two offspring come from the same parents, how come their genes/characteristics are different from each other? | [
{
"answer": "Imagine a woman drops in 100 red balls in a vase and a man dropps in 100 green balls. Now you go ahead and pull 100 balls out if that vase. Each ball symbolises a gene, one of them is dad's curly hair the other one is mom's eyes. Etc. Now do that 10 times. Each result will be easily different. And ... | null |
1vdh1d | if the aca is giving insurance to everyone, why do i still pay $350 per month for insurance? | [
{
"answer": "The ACA does not directly provide insurance. It expands existing programs for the poor, like medicaid, (though this is done through the states and the states can stop it) and it provides subsidies for the purchase of insurance on private markets or on state run \"exchanges\" of private insurers. \... | null |
zbhjo | why in american culture, is using the middle finger as in "flicking you off", considered offensive? | [
{
"answer": "Because it's basically saying \"Fuck you.\"",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "From [Wikipedia](_URL_0_)\n\n > The middle finger originated in Classical antiquity, where the gesture was used as a symbol of anal intercourse in a manner meant to degrade, intimidate and threaten the indi... | null |
eh4hpi | why use median vs mean for household income data? | [
{
"answer": "In places where the income spread is relatively narrow (400 - 1000%) such as Scandinavian countries, then high or low income outliers are well treated by the data.\n\nIn places where the income spread is wide (1,000,000%) such as Russia or the USA, a small number of outliers can seriously skew data... | null |
8gp6hv | how do viruses with a high mortality rate actually manage to survive and spread out in the wild? | [
{
"answer": "Some viruses have reservoirs - meaning that they can stay in hosts that aren't affected by the disease (the mosquito *Aedes aegypti* can carry a number of viruses that can give humans diseases, e.g. yellow, Zika and dengue fever).\n\nOther times, a virus doesn't need its host to survive for very lo... | null |
q2egf | In a busy office environment is it more efficient to boil a full kettle, then re-boil for subsequent cups, or boil small amounts of water for each cup? | [
{
"answer": "The heat capacity of water is near constant, it changes by less than a percent between room temperature and boiling. So it requires the same amount of energy to heat a given amount of water from 20 to 30 C as from 90 C to 100 C. That means you don't gain anything from heating water that's already w... | null |
1ycgsm | why is it so easy to stream a live event, and seemingly impossible to stream a live event in hd? | [
{
"answer": "There is a user that streams hockey games for a specific team who I won't rat out. I once asked him why he does not stream in HD and he said there were a few reasons, first is that the equipment is more expensive. Secondly, he needs a higher upload speed than he currently has, which also costs more... | null |
45ulbl | how can game bundles be profitable to the seller? | [
{
"answer": "Most games in bundles like that aren't new. The people who made them game have already made their investment, these are just the excess copies, they bundle them together because while you might not pay $10/game, you might pay $20 for three games.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Hu... | null |
3kkhfl | what benifit / purpose does day trading on the stock market serve? | [
{
"answer": "One of the big purposes of the stock market is to provide liquidity - the ability to quickly sell any stock that you own. When investors price any particular asset, they take liquidity into account; lower liquidity (harder to sell) means that the price is also lower.\n\nThe markets don't have a bi... | null |
l0nv3 | Is there an evolutionary and selection aspect to the exponential rise of technology in the last 150 years or so? | [
{
"answer": "really interesting thought, have definitely wondered the same thing in the past. [this](_URL_0_) really helped put this topic in perspective. personally, I liked the \"tools - > machine - > automation\" approach because it certainly explains the 'exponential rise\" you are speaking of.",
"p... | null |
1dw0ir | How does tap water stay clean through transit? | [
{
"answer": "Pipes in any finished water distribution system are supposed to be cleaned/flushed out according to an established regimen, depending on the diameter and length of pipe, water quality, average flow rate and other factors. A common standard in such systems is that each segment gets thoroughly flushe... | null |
28jw5c | Was military combat more often performed by highly trained warriors before the introduction of firearms, or is that an invention of film and fiction? | [
{
"answer": "While there is an element of truth in your main question (whether combat required \"better trained troops\" vs. \"less trained ones,\" the thesis you read seems rather suspicious.\n\nThe best comparison for your argument is that of a longbowman vs. an arquebusier. An arguebusier usually took only ... | null |
18cbx4 | Pre-Columbian Civilization in North America | [
{
"answer": "What you really need to read is the book [1491](_URL_0_) by Charles Mann. He gives the best treatment of this out of anybody, and it's an awesome read.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It was probably The Atlantic Monthly's excerpts from Charles Mann's 1491. _URL_0_",
"provenan... | null |
27aogq | explain some of plato's most important philosophical ideas | [
{
"answer": "Really there's only two things you need from Plato: forms, and the philosopher king.\n\nForms are a little tough. Plato liked to use analogies to describe it, like the cave dwellers staring at shadows on a wall, but I'm going to make an original one. Imagine there is a god of the color blue. Everyt... | null |
1mx7w9 | why is the ring finger so connected to the middle and little finger? | [
{
"answer": " > Why can't I move my ring finger without moving my little or middle finger,\n\nI can. Is that abnormal? ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I can move all mine individually... you must be broken. Or not practicing. Or not explaining how you're trying to move them.",
"provenanc... | null |
89nrex | the hanging gardens of Babylon weren't in Babylon but in Nineveh is this true?? | [
{
"answer": "While it doesn't directly address the article you cited, you'll be interested in [this](_URL_0_) answer by /u/mythoplokos!",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "66786",
"title": "Hanging Gardens of Babylon",
"secti... | null |
15x3jy | What was the Mongol government like during the time of Genghis Khan | [
{
"answer": "It's complicated; but you can sort of think of it like a protection racket.\n\nEvery hegemonic military empire runs that way. They would come to town and whoop everyone's ass. After the fighting was over the aggressors would settle some terms. Generally, the defeated would have to put up x amount o... | null |
5lhdts | why do we capitalize "happy new year"? | [
{
"answer": "New Year's Day is the name of a holiday. Because of this it is capitalized like every other proper noun.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "My guess is that happy is capitalized because it's the beginning of a sentence, and New Year is a proper noun (shorthand for New Year's Day).",
... | null |
emgfy4 | why do ed medications, whether prescription or otc supplements, also delay orgasm? | [
{
"answer": "We'll,using the ED Rx for many years( diabetes) I think it may be that the increased blood flow seems to reduce some sensation. It's great to be \" rock hard\" and fun for my partner to have a young man's erection to play with, but it does take a good while to come.\n\nI'm a bit older( 63) and whil... | null |
1j9vcd | If hydrogen is so low in mass how did it ever coalesce into population III stars? | [
{
"answer": "i think you need to have a large planet to keep the solar wind from blowing away the upper atmosphere of hydrogen of something like a gas giant....\n\nthere is not really a solar wind in a star forming nebula. What happens is a sufficient mass of gas exists in an area small enough that it is gravi... | null |
2lqiaj | what it means when actors are "classically trained" | [
{
"answer": "It means they trained in a program which focused on the work of Saint-Denis and Stanislavski. Most modern techniques of acting are derived from their works. A classically trained actor has learned the science and history of their craft in a way that a common actor who is merely talented has not. Th... | null |
2071d8 | Where did the Carthaginian and Roman Rivalry come from? How did it start and why? | [
{
"answer": "Damnit, I should be studying. I blame you for this.\n\n\nSo a group of mercenaries in Sicily (calling themselves \"Mamertines\" after an Oscan god) had been let into the city of Messana which they took over.\n\n\nSo the tyrant of Syracuse (Hiero) wasn't terribly fond of this and began attacking. A... | null |
20w7j8 | How close were the Romans to completely conquering England, Wales & Scotland? | [
{
"answer": "As you are no doubt aware, most of Scotland isn't that productive in terms of land. Scotland could have been conquered easily but there was no material benefit to doing so, particularly when Hadrian's wall was such a brilliant defensive position and the infrastructure around the wall was so well de... | null |
73c78l | Is there a way or has there ever been a case where protons are removed from the nucleus of an atom? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, we can remove protons from a nucleus using various kinds of nuclear reactions.\n\nIf you're asking whether there exists any nucleus with only neutrons in it (besides a single neutron), no such nucleus is bound. There are only resonances, like the dineutron and the tetraneutron, which decay wit... | null |
1ri6wx | the us occasionally has drone strikes in yemen (i.e. we have airplanes dropping bombs on a foreign country), yet we are not at war with this country in any way. how is this possible? | [
{
"answer": "I may be wrong here, but I remember hearing that the Yemeni government supported some of the drone strikes, as the strikes were on essentially rebels against their government. I think it came out in one of the diplomatic cable releases that a Yemeni official had said \"We'll keep saying they're our... | null |
bfli88 | Spin is an intrinsic property of a particle; how does it interact with other particles' spin if it isn't a force? | [
{
"answer": "Let's think of this classically first. When modeling a rotating electrically charged body using classical E & M, the rotation or \"spin\" will induce a magnetic dipole moment, and thus there is a corresponding magnetic field. This is where the force comes from (in this case, the relevant boson is t... | null |
20a3q2 | Is there any evidence that Pope John Paul I was murdered? | [
{
"answer": "There are conflicting stories as to who found him and when, which raised questions, but the Vatican hasn't investigated it and believes that there was no wrongdoing. Because of the \"in-house\" nature of dealing with a pope's death, there was never anything credible for conspiracy theorists to go o... | null |
ph12u | Why did the Founding Fathers of America choose a plurality voting system? | [
{
"answer": "I'm dodging your question because I don't know the precise answer. I don't care much about third parties, but I do agree we could have a much better system (IRV with batch elimination would be a nice start). I re-read Federalist 10 yesterday. I'm not sure that Madison would consider our system toda... | null |
t3hcx | - why "artificial" elements that are man-made are significant and put onto the periodic table. | [
{
"answer": "Well, each element on the periodic table represents a completely different kind of atom. This is important from the perspective of physics. It just so happens that some of those atoms do not exist in nature (or, possibly do exist, but then disappear so quickly we could never observe them). Any h... | null |
70ot7c | how does checking out a book from the library support the author or publishing company of a book? | [
{
"answer": "It doesn't, your library subscription does however allow your local library to buy new books, supporting those authors.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The library has to pay for each copy of the book that they own. If a particular book is checked out frequently enough, the librar... | null |
5olp8r | what happens when you recycle something that isn't recyclable? | [
{
"answer": "Dang it, I read an article about this just recently and now I can't find it. There are people whose job is to watch the stuff come down a conveyer belt, and they pick out what is not recyclable. They can miss things, though, which then go into the recycling, uh, machines (I should really find the a... | null |
2aufkc | why do we get homesick? | [
{
"answer": "Familiar surroundings, people, and routines provide a sense of security and comfort. In a new place, you may find yourself missing the comforts of home and loved ones. Those homesick feelings are completely normal.\n\nSome people may only feel a little loneliness, sadness, or anxiety. Others may fe... | null |
3cq2mu | what's with the british parliament and pedophilia? | [
{
"answer": "There are currently 650 MPs in the House of Commons, and 700+ Lords in the House of Lords. These sex offences go back to at least the 70s, so there must be several thousand people who have been in Parliament during that time.\n\nChances are out of those thousands, several will have paedophilic tend... | null |
236vrq | How did vertebrates evolve a "backwards" retina? | [
{
"answer": "It may be useful to consider the vertebrate process of [neurulation](_URL_0_) that forms the [neural tube](_URL_1_). Insects don't do this. The eyes branch off the forebrain, i.e. part of the inside of the neural tube. As a result the you might say the eye is \"backwards\" relative to where it w... | null |
1fo5ep | Historically, how much did the Catholic church charge for indulgences for various different sins and what is today's value (inflation considered)? | [
{
"answer": "That depends on several things: (i) who was issuing the indulgences, and (ii) the social standing of the person seeking indulgences. If you were getting an indulgence from an archbishop, you would be charged significantly higher than if you were getting an indulgence from a pastor. In addition, kin... | null |
2pgja0 | what are the facial differences between men and women? | [
{
"answer": "Men in general have hard and rugged facial features, while women tend to have soft and smooth facial features. Testosterone has the effect of making men more aggressive than woman, leading to a more \"angry-looking\" facial expression.\n\nTo me, this has a lot to do with the curvature of features a... | null |
36ikcv | Louisiana used to be one of the crowns of the French Empire. What happened to it? | [
{
"answer": "First, we are talking two hundred years, and Louisiana had a [very different shape](_URL_1_) when it was French : US history basically happened between now and then. Second, is it Louisiana, or is it the Southern states that are poor and unequal ? Look how similar its neighbours are in the two indi... | null |
262r3d | [Astronomy] If the dark side of the earth points outwards from the sun, how come we see the same constelations throughout year? | [
{
"answer": "We don't. For example, Orion cannot be seen in the Northern summer.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2703",
"title": "Aberration (astronomy)",
"section": "Section::::Explanation.\n",
"start_paragraph_i... | null |
157vdw | Why does the Japanese Imperial family not have a last name? | [
{
"answer": "His original name is Tsugu Akihito. In Japan I don't think the imperial family needs a last name because it is a commonly accepted fact that emperors have reigned over Japan for more than 1500 years, and that they have all descended from the same imperial family. \n\n\"The Imperial House of Japan ... | null |
1s0dlb | how can i help anyone with depression. | [
{
"answer": "Read [this](_URL_0_), for one. It is vaguely humorous, but it addresses arguably the worst thing about depression. \n\nIf a person is depressed for legitimate situational reasons, the best thing to do is give them passive support and encouragement.\n\nIf a person is depressed because of problems ... | null |
8wjb6r | In the Christian religion Lucifer punishes the evil in hell, despite him being "the fallen angel" who will fight god at the end of days.... Why would he punish his supporters/followers? How did this belief come about? | [
{
"answer": "This question isn't inappropriate for this subreddit, as there is certainly an historical answer to be had regarding where this belief came from, but you may also want to ask it at /r/AcademicBiblical, where the theological implications you bring up can be explored.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
yduif | how could there be so little voter fraud in us without photo id before? | [
{
"answer": "because if you're really trying to fix an election, having individuals show up at polls claiming to be a person who's registered there, but won't show up, is a really inefficient way to do it.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There's not a lot of money in it (for individuals). We h... | null |
df5at4 | prenuptial agreements | [
{
"answer": "So you basically sign an agreement with your soon to be wife/husband stating that in the event of a separation/divorce your spouse won’t be able to take you for everything you have.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Essentially, it's pre-planning a divorce. It's a legal document deta... | null |
2yt10y | Light bends around massive objects. Could there be something so massive that light orbited around it? | [
{
"answer": "**Short answer:** Yes. If you're near a black hole. \n\n**Longer answer:** So you already hit on the fact that light can't escape black holes, and it turns out that if you are at just the right distance from the event horizon (which is sort of the point of no return- where the black hole begins and... | null |
fxqbku | objects turn darker when wet, why do hands not turn darker when wet. | [
{
"answer": "Now I'm no water scientist or anything but the stuff that gets darker when wet is the stuff that absorbs the water, like paper towels or fabric or something. Spill some water on some plastic or metal and it doesn't get absorbed. Therefore, humans are made of plastic or metal",
"provenance": nul... | null |
1d3hhj | When are a human fetus's senses first activated? What effects would these "new" senses have on it? | [
{
"answer": "Receptors begin to develop within the first several weeks. However, neural pathways for many of these (pain, for example) will not exist until the third trimester, with development of the thalamus. Check out results in: \n\n**DISCOVER** (*When does a fetus feel pain?*)\n\n**JAMA** (*Fetal pain:\nA ... | null |
2ntosj | even if we were to figure out light speed travel how can it possibly be safe? | [
{
"answer": "Not an expert or anything, just a layman. Space is big. I mean BIG. it is incredibly huge. While you certainly have to calculate a given route, any collision would almost have to be a piece of space debris that was unpredictable, and again, space is big, so even that is unlikely. If anyone else has... | null |
1ueeao | why can't we put windmills on things like air conditioners and cars to generate energy as they use it? | [
{
"answer": "Because they pull more energy out of the system than they give back. The AC unit will have to work harder to maintain the same air flow rate if there are turbines blocking its outlet.\n\nIt's always a net-loss, in a perfect, frictionless, non-conductive universe the best you could hope to do is br... | null |
4s9wcc | why do individuals vomit after a concussion? | [
{
"answer": "Did you know that there is a part of the brain that controls vomitting? See: _URL_0_ \n\nWhen the brain encounters a physical shock, it is possible that this part of the brain becomes triggered. Once that happens, nausea may occur, which sometimes leads to vomitting. Because of the triggering, t... | null |
10rxus | What language preceded Ancient Greek? | [
{
"answer": "Here's a family tree of Indo-European languages.\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "148363",
"title": "Ancient Greek",
"section": "",
"start_paragraph_id": 1,
"start_character": 0,
... | null |
2row94 | how do us government agencies "recruit" new (young) agents? | [
{
"answer": "That particular instance might have just been a family connection. His sister talked her boss into giving him a job.\n\nI do know that many government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA) recruit people off of college campuses through career fairs and seminars. Its all fairly mundane stuff though.",
"prov... | null |
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