id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
1br7u0 | why is it bad to stick a knife in a toaster? | [
{
"answer": "The heating elements in the toaster are electrically insulated, but could easily be nicked by a knife, causing you to be electrocuted. Even if you have it off or unplugged, you could still knick the element, causing a short circuit or electrocution next time it's used.",
"provenance": null
}... | null |
24m4gf | how do social media communities start when they have no users? | [
{
"answer": "This is the reason most of them fail. The genius of Facebook was that it started with a small, elite community and expanded from there. You need a ton of capital because it takes a long time to get up to a critical mass that makes it usable for the general public.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
3f7mqo | If the Bible remained (mostly) untranslated from Latin and Greek in Medieval Christendom and church services were conducted in those languages, how did language-specific forms of Biblical names enter the vernacular? | [
{
"answer": "Since these names would have first been introduced before the liturgical/spoken languages diverged (and not from later localized figures like saints), language-specific versions of names developed through the same process by which, say, Latin evolved into the Romance languages. At a given point in ... | null |
b6x0su | AskHistorians Podcast 133 -- We Have Met The Enemy and They Are U.S. -- The Militia and the War of 1812 | [
{
"answer": "Great episode. My hometown was the site of [a battle of the War of 1812](_URL_0_) that puts on a re-enactment every year so I always enjoy hearing more about the war. \n\nSmall correction: the song \"The White House Burned (War of 1812)\" is commonly misattributed to the Arrogant Worms, but it's by... | null |
3c254s | What does pure protein look like? | [
{
"answer": "the term protein is rather vague. different proteins in different configurations will have different optical properties. pure isolated individual amino acids as you would purchase from a scientific supplier such as sigma aldrich would be a white powder.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer... | null |
45qz8w | I've heard the Viking Conquest happened due to overpopulation back home. What caused this? | [
{
"answer": "Historians in the 1800s and early 1900s thought that overpopulation may have driven viking raids because the sources said so—and perhaps because overpopulation seemed to be a cause of their contemporary problems as well. But modern historians are more skeptical. We now acknowledge that early mediev... | null |
vcvza | If the DNA is the same in every cell, how does the body know to build an arm here, run a blood vessel there, put a femur in the thigh, and put 4 chambers in the heart? | [
{
"answer": "It is very complicated but there are many transcription factors that can inhibit or enhance different genes from being expressed in the DNA and even at the chromosomal level some of the chromatin is never unwound so it can be translated and transcribed into proteins it is dependent on many factors ... | null |
cjnn8j | how do japanese internet users use so many different characters to make custom emoticons and why did no one else do the same? | [
{
"answer": "As a non-japanese person with a basic understanding of the japanese language:\n\nBecause Japanese uses the chinese characters (of which there are many thousands) they just have a autocomplete-like feature where they enter a word in one of their syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) and can choose fro... | null |
bbox3h | why won’t “old phone” be able to work in a 5g network? do we have to get new phones when 5g becomes a more prominent thing? | [
{
"answer": "The way I like to explain it:\n\nThink of network technologies like languages. \n\n5G speaks Arabic.\n\n4G speaks Chinese.\n\n3G speaks English.\n\nYour phone now only speaks Chinese and English. You will need a new one to understand Arabic. \n\nIt gets more complex than this, in a technical sense,... | null |
7ot57z | can you define "time" without using a concept associated with it? | [
{
"answer": "Science has already done this.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nNumber of vibrations of a certain atom. In the past things it's been defined by things such as revolution of the earth, lunar cycle, oscillations of a pendulum, how long it takes earth to orbit the sun, etc. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer... | null |
237246 | How is the result "1+2+3+4+...=-1/12" used in string theory if it's based on a faulty proof? | [
{
"answer": "My apologies but this is a hard question to answer without some analysis, I hope it's understandable, I've tried my best but it goes pretty deep.\n\nThis question rests deeply on what kind of limit you are using to evaluate the sequence. They are using an unusual sort of summation so it seems weird... | null |
2hjxgp | when a top starts to slow down and begin to tip over, the spin reverses direction. why? | [
{
"answer": "That's an optical illusion created by it rotating slower.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "10025116",
"title": "Tippe top",
"section": "Section::::Description.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 4,
"sta... | null |
101t0d | Jobs/Careers circa 18th century Europe | [
{
"answer": "You would have soldiers and officers, bakers, cobblers and cordwainers, some apothocaries and even fewer doctors of physick...Think of all the things you need in life and then who would have to make them if you couldn't just go to the store and get what you needed. Who killed the meat? Where did cl... | null |
3ghsh9 | why are republicans stereotyped as racist when lincoln (who emancipated the slaves) was republican, and democrats perpetuated and enforced jim crow era laws? | [
{
"answer": "The Republican and Democrat parties switched ideals and viewpoints over the years, as the States which they tried to keep aligned with their parties shifted in views and desires.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Well, the only reason any group stereotypes another is in order to deva... | null |
r0z2g | why is blackmail illegal? | [
{
"answer": "its coercion or extortion involving a threat of harm or slander.\n\nyoure basically demanding money under threat of harm. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "230390",
"title": "Blackmail",
"section": "Section:::... | null |
2ji7zo | what does data actually cost the mobile operators? | [
{
"answer": "Your phone company is paying for bandwidth not data.\nIt's not about how much they download, it's how much can they download at ONCE.\n\n1gb a second, 500mbit, 5gb etc.\n\nBut what about things other than the cost of data?\nSomeone has to pay to put those mobile towers everywhere.\nSomeone has to p... | null |
3jotha | how come when you tilt your head sideways you can still read words and everything looks normal, but if you're upside down everything becomes upside down. why doesn't the world become sideways? | [
{
"answer": "Get real close to a mirror and look at your eyes. Continue gazing into your eyes as you tilt your head side to side. You will see your eyes rotate to compensate.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "You can learn to read upside down. The easiest thing to do is read right-side up. A slig... | null |
868hui | If the universe is expanding, what is it taking the place of? | [
{
"answer": "Don’t think of it as a balloon with edges. The universe doesn’t seem to resemble one.\n\nHere’s the starting point that helped me: the Big Bang wasn’t a tiny dot that exploded outwards into empty space. The Big Bang happened *everywhere you look*. More *space* happened.\n\nIt still is happening, bu... | null |
48jchi | when watching poker on tv, how can the graphic calculate the chips bet so quickly? | [
{
"answer": "The obvious answer is that you are not watching a live feed and the graphics were edited in afterwards.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "43472670",
"title": "The Amazing Race 6 (Latin America)",
"section": "Se... | null |
tw1oy | how are proteins formed? | [
{
"answer": "Proteins are basically long long chains of molecules called *amino acids*. The particular sequence of amino acids in a protein determines the shape it will bend itself into, which determines what it will do. For example, some proteins are the perfect shape to grab two other molecules and smush them... | null |
1ljdu5 | what are the lines across some bodies of water on large satellite image maps? | [
{
"answer": "Those are where the satellite took a long series of photos as it passed overhead in lines, and the photos were later stitched together with imperfect colour correction, so you see the edges of the photo series.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Because your post isn't asking a simpli... | null |
2025mm | is it possible that the human race could evolve to live without rest/sleep? | [
{
"answer": "This is a great question! I have absolutely no scientific proof to back this up, but, given enough time (billions of years) I think ANYTHING is possible in regards to evolution. We evolved from single-cell creatures. No reason to think we can't evolve to not need rest.",
"provenance": null
},... | null |
8604e2 | how does mdma make people feel happy and magical? was the happiness already inside the mind in the first place? | [
{
"answer": " > Was the happiness already inside the mind in the first place?\n\nYes. MDMA releases all of your serotonin in your brain. That's what creates the feel good feeling.\n\nOf course, you can squeeze all that out at once at the cost of never feeling good about anything the next couple of days until ... | null |
d82lme | how do massive companies like thomas cook airlines go bust? | [
{
"answer": "By having expenses that are even greater than the amount of money they bring in. For example an airline has to lease incredibly expensive planes, and pay for vast amounts of fuel and labor.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Earlier this year in May they issued a profit warning that d... | null |
1s1a8j | Why are some alloys better for some musical instruments than others? | [
{
"answer": "Different metals behave differently when forces are applied to them (be it by percussive nature, or by the air itself). One measure of this is the Young's Modulus. Simply stated, the higher the modulus, the stiffer a material is.\n\nYou can see [here](_URL_0_) that brass/bronze are similar, whilst ... | null |
1diyml | If natural or artificial flavorings are supposed to taste like fruit, why does sugar need to be added to soda? | [
{
"answer": "Naturally sweet things have sugar too. Fruit, fructose, notice the entomology there? Its on purpose. Fruit can have an enormous amount of free sugars",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "485220",
"title": "Fruit wine",
... | null |
1okfgm | Did historical army recruits go through basic training? | [
{
"answer": "There is quite a lot of information out there on the subject of Roman army recruits, and a lot of it can be found in Vegetius' *[De Re Militari](_URL_0_)* which I strongly recommend anyone interested in this topic to check out. I could really go on for ages about this, but I'll try to keep it short... | null |
aw38e4 | what is an operating system kernal and what does it do exactly? | [
{
"answer": "An operating system can be divided into two basic parts, a kernel and a shell. The kernel refers to all the aspects that directly interact with the system itself, and which humans can never really directly observe. Meanwhile the shell refers to the user interface. You have to have both the kernel... | null |
5lvlzr | how much power does the computer need to fully emulate human's brain? | [
{
"answer": "since we don't have anywhere near enough knowledge of how the human brain works to be able to make a computer emulate one, the correct answer is:\n\nNo one has a clue. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Deep blue, a super computer took 30 or so minutes to simulate 1 second of average... | null |
4bl9z9 | What's the earliest book we know that teaches (actual) history? As in, do we know the oldest history textbook? | [
{
"answer": "Herodotus is known as \"the father of history\". He wrote *The Histories*, which is about the history Greek world and the ethnography and culture of the region. It isn't exactly accurate, but he attempts to tell a somewhat fact based story, rather than relying on the oral tradition like Homer. He ... | null |
1hrzoc | Did anyone make a fortune from the 1929 stock market crash and the depression that followed? How did he/she/they do it? | [
{
"answer": "(edit: not a historian, just have a passion for all things about financial history :D)\n\nBenjamin Graham is a pretty notable example of somebody who made money during the depression years because he modernized the academics around investing.\n\n\nAfter losing most of his wealth in the crash, he de... | null |
2mqfw8 | are there any differences between prison labor and slave labor and should we worry about the future of privately owned prisons? i know slavery is not entirely illegal according to the 13th amendment. so it's kinda scary to imagine what could happen, am i worrying for no reason? | [
{
"answer": " > ... should we worry about the future of privately owned prisons?\n\nI don't think you need to worry about the future, privately owned prisons are a concern **today**.\n\nInstead of working solely to rehabilitate inmates, the prison industrial complex is very involved in lobbying government to in... | null |
vdczi | So, say a blind person develops a heightened auditory sense. What would happen to this heightened sense if their vision was restored? | [
{
"answer": "First of all, blind people do not really \"develop\" heightened senses. They learn to use their existing senses in ways that could be learned by sighted people if they were pressured to do so.\n\nBy and large, these increased learned capabilities would be intact if vision were returned, and would g... | null |
625611 | why do we study limits in calculus? | [
{
"answer": "Limits are essential to proving that calculus works. Much of an intro calculus class involves proofs of how & why calculus works & exists.\n\nThe derivative is the limit of the slope of the line from from f(x-δ) to f(x+δ) as δ goes to zero. Integrals are similarly defined.",
"provenance":... | null |
3erlqp | why is it that normal pencils will rub off with an eraser, but color pencils won't? | [
{
"answer": "Color pencil pigment is carried by wax, which only smears around when it's written on something and then erased. You're essentially writing with a form of grease that carries a coloring agent, and like rubbing your finger across a greasy frying pan, doesn't remove it that well without some other fo... | null |
p2xz0 | why i dont have to pay sales tax on most things i buy online | [
{
"answer": "You do. You just have to pay it yourself come tax time. You can only be charged sales tax online if you live in the same state as the site you're buying from. If you don't, you're supposed to, as part of your state taxes, calculate how much you spent on online purchases, then pay the state sales ta... | null |
22wtph | why after i take a photo of my computer monitor on my phone, if i open the photo and zoom in and out, the lines change almost like they're animated? | [
{
"answer": "You mean the moire effect? It's because, unlike normal stuff you see in the world, displays make up an image with small, visible blocks called pixels. They are in a rectangular pattern and don't fill all space completely. When you zoom in and out, the zooming and image scaling brings out different ... | null |
3e7fyw | how come in america when a bill is passed through the senate, it can have its title and contents completely changed? | [
{
"answer": "So, in order for a bill to become law, it has to be passed by both houses. A bill will start in one house, they'll study it in committee, make changes, vote on it, make more changes, vote on the changes, etc, and then they will eventually reach a consensus. \n\nOnce the bill is passed by the firs... | null |
5tmdzk | does the movie studio pay the movie theater to show their movie? or does the movie theater pay the movie studio to bring in customers by letting them show their movie? | [
{
"answer": "The movie studios and the theaters split the income depending on when people buy tickets to the movie, basically, each side gets a percent of ticket sales\n\nFor example:\n\nWeeks 1 & 2: 90% studio / 10% theater\n\nWeeks 3 & 4: 70% studio / 30% theater\n\nWeeks 5+: 50% / 50%\n\nThis can and wil... | null |
20a9kt | what really happens when i stall my manual car? | [
{
"answer": "You stall because your car is heavy and takes energy to get it moving. Without enough fuel to burn to provide enough energy to move, your car is basically sitting still with the engine turning. This is literally impossible, and since it can't make the car move since it doesn't have enough fuel, the... | null |
6t8lbr | what are the practical uses of logarithms in real life ? | [
{
"answer": "As one example, logs are used in a lot of finance, data, and statistical analysis... which then translate to real world stuff. Let's say you're walking down the street to get a coke at 7/11. The street lights may be placed and time based off this analysis. The 7/11 may have been placed in that spot... | null |
1pwrv5 | what are "logistics" companies i see in industrial areas? | [
{
"answer": "They are typically for goods distribution. I'm guessing you see a lot of Eastern European companies that handle import/export work.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Logistics is basically transport and warehousing, but with the added service of making sure that the desired goods tur... | null |
3laxut | if weight gain/loss is just a matter of calories in and out, why is it so hard to keep weight off? | [
{
"answer": "Well a smaller body uses significantly less maintenance calories so you can't go back to eating the same after losing weight or you'll just gain it back.\n\nThe other (and more likely) thing is that unless you're rigorously counting every calorie you can't be sure you're npt actually eating more th... | null |
ngmly | I just saw in NatGeo that if you touch a 500 kV wire you would desintegrate from the electrical shock. Is this true? | [
{
"answer": "Usually, you die from a steam explosion, and often your head pops off like a cork because the water in your 'guts' nearly instantly vaporizes. Idiots try to steal wire from high tension lines fairly regularly, especially in Eastern Europe. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Usually, ... | null |
1eqqij | how come trix stopped making the shape cereal? why is it only circles??? | [
{
"answer": "I would speculate that it is a cost issue. Or time.\n\nImagine you had to shape a bowl of Trix for yourself. To make all of those shapes with different colors would take a while, but if you only had to make the spheres, then you would be done in a third of the time, probably saving you some materia... | null |
431ixo | the origin of college spring break? | [
{
"answer": "Back when the US was more religious, Easter was a pretty big holiday & people would get time off to travel & see family.\n\nFor schools on a quarter system instead of a semester system, spring break is the period between winter & spring terms.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": n... | null |
cbddvr | At what point in human history did we start drawing dicks? | [
{
"answer": "I'm sorry, but we don't allow 'First'/'Last' questions on /r/AskHistorians, and so we have removed this submission. It's not that the question is bad; it is simply that, given the rules of this subreddit, these types of questions are ill-suited to its format. We've found that they tend to get respo... | null |
1j0q2y | why has there been, seemingly all of a sudden, a big push to block pornography on the internet? | [
{
"answer": "It's the thin end of the censorship wedge; once censorship of porn \"for the safety of children\" is accepted as the norm, it will be so much easier to bring in more censorship of other types of speech/expression that someone wants to suppress. \n\nPorn was chosen as a type of literiture that enoug... | null |
e1s7n8 | why is it safe to eat salmon raw as sushi but not safe to eat it rare when you eat a salmon filet? why is tuna different? | [
{
"answer": "None of those statements are true. \n\nIt is safe to eat salmon raw as sushi and it is also safe to eat salmon rare .. in a trusted restaurant or setting. It is also safe to eat tuna rare for the same reason - most fish are not susceptible to botulism or salmonella the way other meats are. \n\nBut ... | null |
3dpkmx | Multiple questions about Gamma-Ray Bursts. How dangerous are they to Earth? | [
{
"answer": " > 1\\. Would we be able to detect a Gamma-Ray burst heading towards Earth before it hit Earth?\n\nNo, but with a pretty big catch. \n\nThey don't come from nowhere. It would be impossible to detect something coming at us at the speed of light, but we'd know it was coming thousands of years in adva... | null |
5viovo | how do islands float? | [
{
"answer": "The thing in the video is basically a *boat*, not an island. Islands are connected to the ground under the water.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[Floating islands](_URL_0_) exist, but they are rare. Most islands are connected to land below the water line. Floating islands can hap... | null |
hfa54 | How do astronomers know the trajectory of very far away objects? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not sure what you're referring to. We can measure the radial velocities (those towards or away from us) of galaxies due to redshift, but tangential velocities (those tangential to our line of sight) we can't. At least not that I'm aware of (never discount an astronomer's ability to find some cl... | null |
7jvsut | How do traditional filament lightbulbs fail? | [
{
"answer": "The tungsten evaporates from the filament. You can tell a new filament from a well worn one by looking at it under a microscope. As it ages, it develops more resistance at the thinnest spot. Eventually, the filament breaks. Old bulbs can have a dark coating of tungsten on the inside of the glass bu... | null |
126emd | how does spotify work? | [
{
"answer": " > with unlimited access to their music for free?\n\nFirstly, it's not free. Either you subscribe and straight up pay them money or you get ads which means the companies buying the ad space are paying spotify in the hope that you'll buy their product.\n\nAs far as convincing bands it's not about c... | null |
2w3a0g | How does both internet and cable data travel through a coaxial cable? | [
{
"answer": "Different TV channels are separated into different frequencies using [frequency division multiplexing](_URL_3_). They are all transmitted at the same time, and internet data is transmitted/received at the same time as well, in separate frequency bands. There is a great explanation in the \"how it w... | null |
5xb991 | what is diarrhea? what causes it to happen? the cramps, the sounds, the smell, the result. | [
{
"answer": "The final stages of digestion happen in the large intestine. The last bits of nutrients are absorbed, but most importantly, the large intestine absorbs most of the water back out of the digestive waste. Food, as it's digested, is mixed with a whole lot of water and basically turns into a soupy me... | null |
qap6z | - surrealism | [
{
"answer": "Purple monkey dishwasher.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The doctors say I have insufficient mactelinium in my diet. But mactelinium is a fictitious substance and I've never seen a doctor in my life, and I am a doctor. What should the government do? It's important, because we can'... | null |
2p3swb | why do banana slices split so easily into thirds? | [
{
"answer": "Banana the fruit is made of 3 wedge shaped strips.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "45402203",
"title": "Banana custard",
"section": "Section::::Preparation.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 3,
"start... | null |
1vahrq | why does the human body store extra food (energy) as fat, while allowing extra vitamins and minerals to be passed through your body within hours? | [
{
"answer": "Your brain needs a constant flow of glucose to survive. And to be sure your brain gets what it needs, even in rough times with no food (evolution), your body stores glucose. It has a little glucose storage in your liver, but the rest is stored as fat. When your body doesn't get enough energy to sup... | null |
ccn7qi | How far away are asteroids from each other? | [
{
"answer": "It depends entirely on what kind of sizes you want to talk about, as there are far more light asteroids than heavy asteroids, but in general the answer is \"really really far away\".\n\nNote that the total mass of the asteroid belt is only 4% of the mass of the Moon ([1](_URL_1_)), while being spre... | null |
1nrv88 | The British people, who were "Protestant Christians", were the ones who colonized India. How come most Indians are "Roman Catholic" instead of protestant? | [
{
"answer": "Most Indians under British rule didn't change their religion, they are still mostly Hindu, only 2.3% are Christians. The tiny state of Goa in western India on the other hand was under Portuguese rule for centuries and long before the British were there. In fact it didn't join the rest of India unti... | null |
6oc6fz | why does it seem sometimes to require more physical and mental effort to stay still than to move/ jig/ sway? | [
{
"answer": "Making yourself sit still requires some form of mind/body focus, which can require immense amounts of mental energy. Also, evolutionarily speaking, human beings naturally aren't used to maintaining a still posture for hours on end. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provena... | null |
1i0jhx | japanese-korean relations, and why korea is constantly asking for compensations and apologies when they were given. | [
{
"answer": "Germany invaded and occupied other European countries for about 2 3-year periods.\n\nJapan occupied Korea for 40 years straight.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": " > Why is Korea asking for apologies when Europeans aren't asking Germany for apologies?\n\nThey probably would be asking... | null |
47omlm | How did the Catholic Church respond to the theory of Evolution? | [
{
"answer": "Are you looking for an official response by the Catholic Church to Darwin's work or a history of the CC's handling of the theory of evolution?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There have been few papal statements on the issue of evolution. In general, the Church has declared that t... | null |
6j22pw | movies and film from past decades still look fairly decent. why do live sports from the same eras look so bad? even highlights from just 10 years ago look greatly inferior to nowadays. | [
{
"answer": "Film is a really high resolution medium, and your current HDTV can show you an HD scan of film made decades ago at full resolution.\n\nTV, that was pretty bad 10+ years ago. 480 lines of resolution is 25% of the pixels your TV is showing you. Film highlights, like the ones from NFL Films, look gr... | null |
e79yeb | why is it that we’re always told to stay away from power lines as they could kill us, but birds and squirrels have no issue running/sitting on them? | [
{
"answer": "Earthing. \nLots of birds and small animals do get killed by powerlines when they touch both the live wire and an earthing path.\nIf you only touch the one wire and nothing else, in theory, you'll be ok.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "If you notice, those animals don't touch the g... | null |
39f4v8 | how reddit makes money, please. | [
{
"answer": "People buying gold,ads?? ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Just like any other sites pushing content, Reddit makes money off reddit gold(almost like subscription fees), ads, reddit store and reddit gifts. There's also redditTV and RedditRadio which they get paid for through a contra... | null |
5hvl66 | what's a neocon? | [
{
"answer": "So, starting in the 1960's a lot of democrats at the time rejected the leftward shift the party had started to take, and made a transition to the GOP.\n\nIn modern US politics, neoconservative is probably a fitting label for most \"mainstream\" U.S. Republicans -- Reagan, George Bush (Jr and Sr), R... | null |
3s3edi | how come former british colonies do not have nobility? | [
{
"answer": "The British Empire did not grant Lordships to those who ruled or owned land in their colonies and by the time those countries gained independence they had developed cultures without nobility. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": ... | null |
29pxeh | What's at the center of Jupiter? | [
{
"answer": "That's hard to answer because current models are bas on estimations and computer calculations. The best model suggests, that jupiter has a inner solid core made of iron and therefore siderophile metals aswell and sillicate rock. It is surrounded by by an also solid layer of hot ice. \n\nThese are t... | null |
620nqa | why can a capacitor let through alternating current and not direct current? | [
{
"answer": "Electric current can be likened to a system of pipes full of water. The capacitor, in a water system, would be a rubber film blocking the flow of water. When you induce a flow in one direction, the water can stretch the rubber, but the elastic film will not let the water through. When the pump is t... | null |
1heo55 | Are there any historical instances of spies or agents being turned due to acceptance of "enemy" ideology? | [
{
"answer": "Here's a documentary about an Army Private that defected to North Korea:\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Well we don't actually know much about his original motivation (i.e, if he meant to turn from the beginning or not) but [Agent Zigzag](_URL_0_) aka Eddie Chapman is a... | null |
1b5lhi | What happens if you add a catalyst to a chemical reaction that reacts with one of the reactants? | [
{
"answer": "How can a catalyst promote a reaction if it does not react with one of the reactants? The role of the catalyst is to interact with your reagents. The key to promoting catalytic reactions is being able to regenerate your active catalyst. A simple example is the Pd(0)-- > Pd(II) cycle, as shown in [H... | null |
6tzlf0 | what does kombucha do for the body exactly and what makes good bacteria different? | [
{
"answer": "Nothing that any other fizzy sweet drink doesn't do.\n\nKombucha has no real health benefits. It's all hype.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "My girlfriend makes kombucha at home. She drinks it because she found out she doesn't have IBS flare ups after drinking it for a while. She f... | null |
bpdaty | At what point in European history were black powder weapons introduced? At what point did they become very common artillery weapons on the battlefield? | [
{
"answer": "I happen to be doing a bit of research on this at the moment, looking at gunpowder weapons in 14th century London. I can't really comment on explosives, because England doesn't seem to have bothered with them, but I can talk a lot about cannons. \n\n**Short Answer**\n\nSimple gunpowder weapons emer... | null |
70ppt7 | i've always heard that lightning won't strike my car because the tires are rubber. so, 1) what about rubber repels electricity, and 2) how does lightning know my car has rubber tires? | [
{
"answer": "Lightning can absolutely strike your car. It happens from time to time, and it can fry the electronics. \n\nIf you're in the car, you'll probably be fine however. Not because of rubber tires, but because the current will travel the shortest path to ground around the exterior/frame and through the t... | null |
26zxud | why does google maps use computer-generated "imagery" instead of actual satellite imagery in the high arctic? | [
{
"answer": " the satellites probably aren't able to get good images of the extreme poles because their orbit doesn't take them far enough north/south",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "30831822",
"title": "Geographic information sy... | null |
tacwf | details & ramifications of the new socialist french presidency | [
{
"answer": "Point of clarification: Hollande's not a \"socialist\", that's just the name of his party. He's more of a center-left social democrat. This gets confusing to Americans because we're sort of unique in the negativity we ascribe to the term.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Picture i... | null |
rz9ek | Why does smoking marijuana seem to eliminate many symptoms of a hangover? | [
{
"answer": "We could speculate, but since we don't know precisely what causes hangover (current research suggests it is a complex interplay of an immune response, acetaldehyde toxicity, hypoglycemia, and dehydration), we couldn't tell you exactly why any \"cures\" do or do not work. With cannabis, there is kn... | null |
vs7vs | How is a drug "born"? | [
{
"answer": "Both can happen. For example, [statins](_URL_1_) were discovered from a culture of penicilium that a scientist was using for antimicrobial research. When tested, it was found to have effects on cholesterol, and further investigation and refinement resulted in a new drug class. (Another more comm... | null |
1od66s | Were any of the pre-Colonial societies north of Mesoamerica imperialistic? | [
{
"answer": "One of the most warlike and military active Native American tribes in North Eastern North America was the Iroquois. They fought a series of wars of conquest (basically Iroquois against all) for about 130 years, from 1540? until the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701. These wars are sometimes called ... | null |
6hrmzy | A good map for Gaul and the surrounding in The Gallic Wars | [
{
"answer": "The excellent site _URL_3_ has these (small) maps:\n\n[The Provence](http://www._URL_3_/site/assets/files/21076/caesar_map_6.gif), [Northern Gaul](_URL_2_), [Gaul](_URL_0_) and [Alesia](http://www._URL_3_/pictures/a/maps/map-of-the-siege-of-alesia/).\n\nYou could also use this [larger map](_URL_1_)... | null |
18p1fi | Would a man and woman who 'excelled' at today's standards of beauty be judged "most beautiful" at points in the past? | [
{
"answer": "A shapely bosom always went down well in 18th century France. Louis XV's first words to the Duc de Choiseul about the arrival of the new Dauphine Marie-Antoinette were famously 'How is her bosom?' to which the Duke replied 'I did not look at the Archduchess' bosom,' to which the King in turn replie... | null |
36sxiv | how does a game on pc get poorly optimized? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, either game code being more complicated than it needs to be, wasting clock cycles and RAM. Or, on the driver side of things, which someone more knowledgeable can explain ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Depends on the game, actually. If it is made for Console, porting it to PC... | null |
1j2dx1 | Historical Method Question | [
{
"answer": "The greatest shift I remember experiencing between undergrad and grad work was that I had to re-learn how to read a book. We had to read so many, it was not physically possible to read through them all as one did as an undergrad. Instead, we took the book apart: read the intro, read the conclusion,... | null |
5yzqrw | What did regular western Europeans understand by the word "socialism" in the late 19th century? | [
{
"answer": "Can you narrow down who you're talking about? A French peasant and a worker in a Manchester factory would have quite different understandings. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "289862",
"title": "Social",
"sec... | null |
aekasg | if you would go into space, and go out of space 12 hours later, would you be on the other side of the earth? | [
{
"answer": "Theoretically yes, but space travel is done by orbiting bodies with gravity. In earth's case, you'd be moving *faster* than the earth's rotation, so you'd actually end up on the other side of earth after a couple of hours. If you *could* go straight up and hover, then yes, you could come back down ... | null |
2fl0we | Ottoman sultans - fratricide and infertility | [
{
"answer": "The murder of brothers was allowed, yes; but not every prince committed the act. Sometimes, when an heir claimed throne, there was already a brother or uncle in the picture no one really cared about. Mustafa I, Murad IV and Ibrahim the Deranged are the first ones that come to mind.\n\nAnother thing... | null |
18jc1a | Could a donor organ live forever if constantly donated before each persons death? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nSummary: A kidney can be reused, but scar tissue will build up as it is integrated into the new person making reuse each time more difficult. A kidney will only last a decade or two with current anti-rejection medications. Transplant patients regularly die of oth... | null |
4259az | how come you need to "re-login" websites, especially when both the username and password is remembered by the browser? | [
{
"answer": "You need it because the password remembering thing is made by your browser and not the website. So it's the user's fault for not being secure enough. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Well, in this case this is your problem, and eventual security breach will be your fault. The compa... | null |
1jrc9i | why is the jump from 240p to 360p so extreme, but 360p to 480p is so minor? | [
{
"answer": "Part of this could be that if YouTube defaults a video to 240p, it's because the video was already recorded with a potato (great wording, by the way. I'm stealing that phrase). If you record something in 240p, even if you scale it up to 1080p it's still going to look terrible.\n\nHowever, the gains... | null |
21qobl | How much closer would a human have to travel (Mi./Km) towards the Sun to feel a noticeable rise in temperature? Vice verse for traveling away from the sun? | [
{
"answer": "Are we in space or on earth? The sun transmits heat via radiation (vs convection or conduction).\n\nThe amount of energy transmitted follows an inverse square law (1/x^2) so if you are twice as close to the sun, you experience 4 times the energy transfer.\n\nYou have a LOT of variables to consider ... | null |
1du9tk | Does Germany have any fund/program in place to aid the families of Holocaust victims? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. Germany began an (extremely controversial) reparations system in the 50s. It compensated Israel for absorbing refugees, as well as property and labor confiscated from people who were killed (those figures were all approximations, of course). There are also reparations programs to compensate ... | null |
54ln6v | how are meals like ramen or sichuan (which are largely based on fatty meats and lots of oil) more healthy than a meal like a burger? | [
{
"answer": "It's not, necessarily. It depends on size and ingredients. \n\nAlso, \"Sichuan\" is an entire region (and an entire genre of cuisine), not a particular dish. \n\nAll in all, ramen has similar macronutrients to a burger. Plenty of fat in the broth and meat, some protein in the meat, and lots of ... | null |
2lani1 | / what is color? | [
{
"answer": "The atom is the smallest part of matter that still retains its physical properties (such as color). So yeah, if you get any fixed amount of gold atoms only, it will always be golden; the same golden. Since most objects are not made of single kinds of atoms, but substances, we have to think about th... | null |
ebiii9 | how exactly do non-red blood cells get oxygen from the red blood cells? | [
{
"answer": " > How exactly do non-red blood cells get oxygen from the red blood cells?\n\nNon-red blood cells produce CO2 by reacting sugars or fatty acids with oxygen. \n\nCO2 combines with water in the blood to form small amounts of carbonic acid. \n\nCarbonic acid lowers the pH of the red blood cell. \n\nOx... | null |
38ph05 | most 3d renders (like blender) can render via gpu or cpu? why not both at the same time for maximum efficiency? | [
{
"answer": "It takes a lot longer to send information from the CPU to the GPU and back than you would think. Processors are fast, but transfer speeds between parts on your computer slow compared to that, so it would take longer to have both the CPU and GPU working on it at the same time than it would for just ... | null |
2fb00j | Why did Ottoman Sultans take so many consorts from the Caucasus? | [
{
"answer": "The Ottoman spent centuries fighting the Persian Empire within the Caucasus. As a result each side forged alliances with the various rulers for varying amounts of time. To help forge these alliances, daughters/sisters would be sent to Constantinople as a means to keep favour with the Turks. Its als... | null |
1ckv2k | Can I get some reliable sources on the percentage of equipment used by the UK and USSR that came from Lend-Lease or was otherwise manufactured in the United States during WWII? | [
{
"answer": "I googled a little bit and found for example [this chart](_URL_0_) on [this page](_URL_1_). That's only for China, but imagine that other chapters might have similar charts?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "585098",
... | null |
24fgk9 | what causes the light pain in joints/injuries before a storm? | [
{
"answer": "Please remember to search before posting, as this question has already been asked, but I will answer anyways.\n\nWhat's happening is that part of your is more susceptible to changes in barometric pressure. (Fairly sure it's due to excess fluid, don't quote me, I'm not a doctor, I only play one on R... | null |
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