id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
zpyh3 | under the affordable care act, patients can't be refused coverage if they have preexisting conditions - but what stops insurance companies from pricing it beyond what they can afford? | [
{
"answer": "A few things,\n\nFirst: A certain amount has to be spent on patient care, so if they charge more in general, it'll have to be refunded.\n\nSecond: [Exchanges. ](_URL_0_) this comes with a tax credit if he makes less than 400% of the federal poverty rate, which is $92,000 for a family of 4. Unfortu... | null |
2gohch | To what extent did Japan aid the Allied cause in WW1? And to what extent was the war fought in the orient, if at all? | [
{
"answer": "At least in the Pacific Japan seized upon World War I as a means for taking control of the German colonies in Micronesia (or today, the nations of Palau, Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas (US), and Federated States of Micronesia). Generally speaking there were no great battles in the Pacific dur... | null |
1lhauj | Solo cup with water doesn't melt? | [
{
"answer": "Water has an extremely high specific heat, much higher than almost any other substance. It's able to very quickly pull heat away and distribute it. This is why we use water (steam) to carry heat energy around in almost all forms of electricity generation from coal, to nuclear. ",
"provenance": ... | null |
7g9r94 | why when we pour a waffle or pancake mix in a pan it gets solid rather than becoming more liquid or evaporating? | [
{
"answer": "Batter isn't liquid or solid. It's a solid (the flour/other dry ingredients) suspended without a liquid. Pour it into a cool pan, and that's what you've got. Add heat, and those suspended starch molecules burst and further trap the liquid. The end result, you wind up with a sold as you cook tho... | null |
aym0xz | why are overbites much more common upon people than underbites? why are underbites more common in animals? | [
{
"answer": "Probably because overbites can be caused by behavior and bad habits (thumb sucking, prolonged pacifier/bottle/sippy cup use). Also chronic mouth breathing can cause all kinds of dental issues. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Humans evolved from apes. Apes have an protruding jaw; i... | null |
5lx0lw | Were darker skinned Asians discriminated against? | [
{
"answer": "Very much so. I won't talk about current complexion prejudices among Indians but historically the preference for fair skins was also a thing- all the way back in the Rig Veda a distinction is made between the arya and the dasa, comparing the righteous, holy, fair skinned god fearing Arya to the sla... | null |
3ig8m1 | why was europe "lagging" in scientific discoveries and knowledge during the medieval period? | [
{
"answer": "It wasn't lagging as such, it certainly wasn't behind the Roman Empire, but progress wasn't particularly fast.\n\nThe problem in a word: Aristotle.\n\nWhen Aristotle was re-discovered, everything he wrote was taken as fact. Perhaps it needed to be re-interpreted with the help of the New Testament, ... | null |
7dhhc0 | Why is it that even when a donated organ is a match, the recipient still has to go on anti rejection drugs? Furthermore, why is it way harder to find a match for a donor organ than it is for donor blood? | [
{
"answer": "You'll have to take immuno-suppressants for the rest of your life if you receive an organ transplant. Your body will always recognise the new organ as a foreign object and reject it if you're not on immuno meds. It's easier to donate blood than an organ, therefore there's a greater amount of availa... | null |
2s0dtv | Why doesn't vaccination have the same problem of resistance that antibiotics do? | [
{
"answer": "Simple answer: The immune system attacks many, many different components of the pathogen, while antibiotics attack just one. Therefore one mutations, or a small number of mutations, may be enough to develop antibiotic resistance, while it would take a large number of mutations to develop resistanc... | null |
4pgvfq | why is the ar-15 not considered an assault rifle? what makes a rifle an assault rifle? | [
{
"answer": "The AR in AR-15 does not refer to Assault Rifle, but to its brand, Armalite.\n\nAssault Rifle is not a real \"type of weapon\", it's at best an invented term to describe a machine gun or a selective fire arm with a military design.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The AR-15 is a gun... | null |
2m95c2 | If gravity is the bending of space-time does that mean that the other forces (weak, strong, electromagnetic) also bend their fields? | [
{
"answer": "No and there's a very simple explanation as to why that is. \n\nGravity is fundamentally different from all the other forces of nature in that it obeys something called the equivalence principle. In short, the equivalence principle states that (locally) there is no difference between an accelerated... | null |
9mqvh9 | why has the world or if easier to explain, solely the u.s. not abandoned coal mining and the burning of coal? | [
{
"answer": " > Are there no other feasible energy option to supplant coal at this time?\n\nNope. Fossil fuels are the only fuel capable of supporting the bulk of our energy needs and the choices truly are to either keep burning them or not perform many of the tasks which make modern life possible. That may be... | null |
46rrm1 | Since the gravitational wave experiment is identical to the Michelson-Morley experiment, has the aether been confirmed? | [
{
"answer": "Not really as the MM experiment was trying to find the relative motion of the Earth compared to the Aether. They did not find it, and neither did any subsequent experimenters. The signal seen at LIGO had little to do with relative motion, but everything to do with an event signal coming in from the... | null |
160o5w | Why & how do drugs [shrooms,marijuana] make you more introspective? | [
{
"answer": "I have some post graduate work in neuropsychopharmacology, and I don't think there's a satisfactory answer to your question. Depending on the drug we can tell what receptors it acts upon and various changes in the brain, but I don't think anyone has ever isolated a chemical/opioid/neurotransmitter ... | null |
499jqi | What, if any, Stealth Aircraft did the Soviet Union deploy throughout the cold war. | [
{
"answer": "The Soviets did not deploy any real substantial low-observable aircraft during the Cold War, which was ironic because one of the major scientific breakthroughs on radar refraction, Pyotr Ufimtsev's 1962 paper *Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction* was came from the Moscow Inst... | null |
16obk7 | Why is the the Earth's Moon gradually drifting further away from us, rather than gradually spiraling in as what I would seem to consider more intuitive? | [
{
"answer": "First make sure that you understand how orbits work in general. After that it's fairly easy to see why it's spiralling out. So if we ignore atmospheric and some other minor effects, then orbits will not spiral in any direction. When something is in orbit, it stays in that same orbit forever. So as ... | null |
1mnklv | why do people ask questions on eli5, _url_0_ and other internet forums instead of just taking the five minutes to research their own answers? | [
{
"answer": "Most people have no idea how to Google or research honestly. Most people I've seen Googling don't search using Google, they ask it questions as though it has an understanding of human speech. (It doesn't... yet.)\n\n\"What's the weather?\" is a terrible Google search for example.",
"provenance"... | null |
2bqbx3 | How significant was the loss of HMS Hood to the Royal Navy? | [
{
"answer": "Considering there were hardly any future engagements, it's hard to argue that the Hood was a massive loss. Air power had then largely eclipsed the battleship and battlecruiser. There was one one subsequent British battleship action in the war (Battle of the North Cape, where Duke of York and esco... | null |
a2tzkz | what is a dns record composed of? what data can it store? | [
{
"answer": "A \n\nAn A record (Address Record) points a domain or subdomain to an IP address. For example, you can use it for _URL_12_ or _URL_5_ and point it to where you have your store. This is a common practice for people who use Amazon, eBay, Tumblr, etc.\n\nAs an example, an A Record is used to point a l... | null |
178lkr | Central Asian Tribes - where and when? | [
{
"answer": "This is a very big question! But I'll give it a go.\n\nI'm going to assume you don't mean Central Asia in the strictest sense, which is essentially Kazakhstan and its southern neighbours. The Eurasian steppe—the vast grasslands that make the unique way of life of the Scythians, Huns, Mongols, etc. ... | null |
a2gx6v | why are only a small percentage of shishito peppers very spicy? | [
{
"answer": "The small percentage of peppers that are spicy can be due to genetics or changes in environmental factors such as less water which makes it produce more capsaicin. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "47839266",
"title":... | null |
a121tz | are the gm plant closures just about closing us union factories and moving to non-unionized locations? | [
{
"answer": "It's more to do with the recent tariffs driving up the cost of materials, I believe. If they produce the cars outside of the US they don't have to pay the tariffs, and since they're only on raw goods they won't have to pay them when they import the completed cars to sell.",
"provenance": null
... | null |
1oav6s | Why did the Forum Romanum fall into disuse? | [
{
"answer": "When the [aqueducts were destroyed](_URL_1_) by invading tribes the city center lost its water supply. The people living there were forced to relocate mostly to the [Campus Martius](_URL_0_), where plenty of water was still available.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"prove... | null |
2jqek3 | Why did many American police departments abandon the black and white color scheme for their cars? | [
{
"answer": "Is this really a question for historians?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "3612161",
"title": "Police vehicles in the United States and Canada",
"section": "Section::::Markings and appearance.\n",
"sta... | null |
ceelsx | Most fierce moments of Italian army in WW2 | [
{
"answer": "Yes. There were several actions undertaken by the Italian military during WWII where they preformed very well and impressed their opponents and allies alike. In fact, much of the poor reputation the Italian military has in WWII can be traced to a number of factors. Primarily the poor quality of the... | null |
1yzq42 | what is securitization? | [
{
"answer": "Taking an asset and making a security from it. In the case of Freddie and Fannie the asset is a pool of mortgage loans. A mortgage loan is quite hard to trade because the credit of each borrower and each home's value differs slightly and the seller almost certainly knows more than the buyer about... | null |
8e7jps | why do people from the us say ass instead of arse? | [
{
"answer": "It appears that the shift from arse to ass came about from a dialect shift in 1785 to 1860 which tended to remove the leading r from in front of an s (burst/bust, curse/cuss, barse/bass, etc.). ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id"... | null |
108tac | Burning off gas at oil fields or at oil refinerys. Why is it done? | [
{
"answer": "The assiciated petrolium gas is very raw. It is not profitable to transfer, clean and use it somewhere out of the oil field, it will cost too much; burning it right on the site is much cheaper and safely solution. Source: my father was an oil field worker.\n\nAlso: _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
... | null |
dloabf | Is Manufacturing consent by Noam Chomsky historically accurate? | [
{
"answer": "Is there a specific claim you're questioning? The book is largely an analysis of media; as such, while people can disagree or agree with the more normative assertions and analysis, the core factual content is relatively uncontroversial. Newspapers do rely on advertising, etc. \n\nThe only section t... | null |
1a4rox | Why are oranges pre-sliced by nature? | [
{
"answer": "Each \"slice\" of the orange is a separate carpel, the part of the flower which produces the ovule. Each carpel contains many ovules (what becomes the seed) and many other sugar-water filled cells.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I found [this](_URL_1_) in a [collection of notes](_... | null |
3ryx36 | what would happen if the russians dropped and atomic bomb on the yellowstone super volcano? | [
{
"answer": "It's hard to know what would happen, since the super volcano structure is not well understood. However, since it's not in a densely populated area, the damage might be superficial. The US would be quite unhappy, and nothing good would come of that. Hardly the sort of thing one would want to exp... | null |
1bd4t1 | What influence did trade unions, socialism, syndicalism and the workers' movement in general have in US history? | [
{
"answer": "This is a huge topic that I don't think can be adequately covered in a reddit post.\n\nFor more about the IWW's history, check out the [history section of their website](_URL_0_).\n\nThese chapters of Zinn's *A People's History of the United States* may be informative.\n\n* [\"Robber Barons and Reb... | null |
16uix2 | A question just for the flaired users: why do you choose to post in AskHistorians? | [
{
"answer": "Because most of us enjoy sharing our knowledge. Not all of us want to be professors (myself among them), but all of us like answering questions. It is pleasing to us to know that people care about something we care about. \n\nWe also like showing off to :D",
"provenance": null
},
{
"ans... | null |
emfml9 | why does a smaller f stop number in camera gives a shallower dept of field? | [
{
"answer": "You can make a pinhole camera by poking a very small hole in the side of a box and viewing the resulting image on the inside of the far wall of the box. The pinhole acts like a very small aperture lens. \n\nImagine a man standing some distance in front of the pinhole. The light reflecting off th... | null |
2rz0hx | If water is odorless, how can I smell the steam and fog? | [
{
"answer": "- It's possible there are impurities in the water and you are smelling those impurities when the water is vaporized to steam/fog. Dust, rust particles, dirt, organics, etc.\n\n- It's possible that steam itself does interact weakly with smell receptors in our nose. Although pure water vapor doesn... | null |
4z485c | why is papa john's garlic sauce's consistency not...consistent? | [
{
"answer": "Yeah my experience has been that if its cold, it gets creamy, and then eventually to the consistency of unrefrigerated butter if I put it in the fridge, but if its warm like when it has been in the hot pizza box for a bit or it I stick it in the microwave it gets thin and oily\n\nEdit: spelling bec... | null |
2bk34v | how does lead get into water? | [
{
"answer": "How does lead get into my drinking water?\nThe major sources of lead in drinking water are corrosion of household plumbing systems; and erosion of natural deposits. Lead enters the water (“leaches”) through contact with the plumbing. Lead leaches into water through corrosion – a dissolving or weari... | null |
11f8ly | Why are solar panels only square? And a related question | [
{
"answer": " > The entire roof wasnt covered because there are no corner pieces. My question is why are they only square? Is there some scientific reason?\n\nWhen you manufacture an object, the way to produce them with least waste is square. If you're cutting them in circles, you have all that excess panel th... | null |
5fowp8 | what happens in the body if one exercises immediately after eating a full meal? | [
{
"answer": "Blood shunting occurs. Essentially the body is using blood to digest whatever the person has eaten. However blood is also needed to distribute oxygen around the body. This is why people sometimes get cramps or stitches around the stomach.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"p... | null |
3bqnbi | When was the first time the German 88 was used as an anti tank weapon? | [
{
"answer": "The usage of the 8.8 in ground support role predates the Second World War. During the Spanish Civil War the potency of the 8.8 while attacking ground targets was already known. The first major use against tanks was likely the Battle of Arras.\n\nEven 8.8 units which were pure anti aircraft units wo... | null |
4qeijq | where did the "butt craze" come from and why is it so prevelant | [
{
"answer": " > but there almost no scientific reasoning behind it\n\nthat's where you're wrong, a nice butt tells you:\n\n1) sexual maturity\n\n2) overall fitness/wellbeing\n\n3) whether or not they're sufficiently nourished to bear children\n\nevolution, not rap videos",
"provenance": null
},
{
"a... | null |
43eneh | in days of american slavery, were africans the only people who were forced into slavery, or were there other races as well? why were some groups forced into slavery while others immune? | [
{
"answer": "It depends heavily on the period you're asking about. Nowadays, people usually have slavery in the 19th century in mind, which was racial and essentially limited to Africans. The practice was justified through moral and religious arguments--that the uncivilized man of Africa needed to do labor to o... | null |
mde6x | Do you sleep longer if you like the dream you are having? | [
{
"answer": "While we're on the topic, I've always wondered about the flow of time while dreaming. Do dreams happen in \"real-time\" (the speed at which you perceive the dream), or does your brain just assign a logical timeline and the actual \"dream\" might only occur in a few seconds?",
"provenance": nul... | null |
4bxw7b | why most high caliber sniper rifles are shown as having low capacity magazines? | [
{
"answer": "Because if you had a 30 round magazine of 50bmg, it would be 2 ft long, weigh 10 pounds. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[.50bmg is a BIG bullet.](_URL_0_) This means it takes up more room in magazines and is heavier to carry around. \n\nThe most famous gun to use that round, th... | null |
6oliit | why do some headphones have a frequency response of 40khz even though human hearing range is only 20khz at best? | [
{
"answer": "I can only think of two reasons; \n1. A bunch of 'headroom' above and below what we can hear means no compression is needed.\n2. I suspect its simply a marketing ploy.\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Like someone else said: it's hard to make a small speaker have that tight of a r... | null |
2s58md | if you arrive in a country with some sort of incorrect visa, do they just send you back home? | [
{
"answer": "Well, they will detain you in some holding area in the checkpoint, while they try to ascertain your identity - whether it's a genuine mix-up or error, or if you are someone more sinister - like a drug mule, terrorist, or a refugee who has no actual business in this country you are in. The immigrati... | null |
2owoef | Are there any examples of a volcanic eruption and lava flow influencing the course of a battle? | [
{
"answer": "Sort of... in this case the volcanic eruption/blast and lava flow influenced the outcome of a war, more than a single battle.\n\nDuring the course of Kamehameha's unification of the Hawaiian islands in the 1790s, he benefited a great deal from volcanic activities, which gave the impression to at le... | null |
47n30n | are household pets aware that they eat the same thing everyday? | [
{
"answer": "They know, but they dont care, in nature what matters is food, not variety. Cats will even refuse sudden changes in diet.\n\nYet, they know there are other options out there. My cats eat the same thing every day, but if I open a can of tuna, which I only do for them, they go nuts before I csn even ... | null |
25hioh | how pushing a magnet through a coil of wires creates electricity. | [
{
"answer": "The movement of the magnet (and thus the magnetic field) pulls the electrons into the conductive material (the coil of conductive wires).",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "This is going to be my first crack at ELI5. (Won't be perfect, might not even be pretty.)\n\nEverything is made... | null |
5bmive | Why are the Kurds targeted so often? | [
{
"answer": "I'm interested in this topic as well. Can I piggyback off the OP? Here is my question for further clarification, if anyone knows.\n\nWhat was the relationship between the Kurds and the Ottoman Empire? Is the current relationship with Turkey (tense/bad/hostile) a reflection of the Ottoman relationsh... | null |
6jfx94 | How did previous generations (say romans) deal with acne? | [
{
"answer": "Follow up: if possible please touch on hemmoroids, plantar warts, cysts and other similar maladies if related. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Try these bad boys on for size:\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_4_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": nu... | null |
4h9e35 | You are a fairly well-off Londoner in Victorian times. How would you "park" your horse-drawn carriage without it being stolen? Did someone have to stay with it at all times? | [
{
"answer": "For a short visit like a social call, your driver (and possibly footmen) would stay with the horses outside. For a longer event, like a dinner party, ball or night at the theatre your carriage would drop you off, then return and collect you at a pre-arranged time, which is why grand formal invitati... | null |
dz2fkw | Whats the relation of entropy in physics and entropy in information theory? | [
{
"answer": "Both forms of entropy measure the number of possible microstates of a system. Alternatively, it can be considered as a measure of the degree of uncertainty you have for a given system or incoming message.\n\nHowever, there is no second law of thermodynamics in information theory, because informatio... | null |
25f249 | How does this fog in a water bottle trick work? | [
{
"answer": "There is always water vapor in the air that surrounds us. When you close off the bottle and twist it, you are compressing the air inside it. When air compresses, however, it also gains heat. Conversely, when air is allowed to decompress, it loses heat. When you pop the cap off the bottle, the rapid... | null |
4xcio8 | Are there any books about Greek religion (mythology) as the Greeks themselves understood it (to the best of our knowledge)? | [
{
"answer": "*Greek Religion* by Walter Burkert is one of the best works on the subject. Burkert died about a year ago, but was pretty much *the* name in the study of Greek mythology and religion.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Most of our information about Greek religious practices comes from... | null |
6t50oo | Are BBC history documentaries good? | [
{
"answer": "As a very broad-brush answer, yes. They nearly always feature a deeper level of knowledge than your average American history documentary. (As do other British ones from Channel 4.) There is no such thing as total freedom from bias: that's a basic lesson of historical methodology! It may simply be b... | null |
1en0vk | Can gums grow back? | [
{
"answer": "In what instance would someone lose their gums? Gums go all the way down to your jaw bone. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'm a dentist. Gum health and the underlying bone health are closely linked. The typical progression of 'gum recession' looks like this: Your body prefers to ... | null |
2l9r59 | How much plunder did the Nazis actually acquire from concentration camp victims? | [
{
"answer": "Aly Götz wrote a book about that called «Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State». The German families could place appeals to the local government for looted commodities and the decisive factor that was the formal justification. If it said your Hans was a blue eyed b... | null |
4jaezz | how did the irs "catch" al capone? what did al do? | [
{
"answer": "He ran a massive criminal organization and wasn't the least bit subtle about it. Which made the FBI and a lot of other law enforcement agencies rather cross with him. One day, somebody said \"Hey, you think Capone pays taxes?\" and a great idea was had.\n\nGuy is rich, he flaunts it, and he has no ... | null |
30qfw1 | Does π start with two identical decimal sequences? | [
{
"answer": "We don't know and it'll probably be extremely difficult to prove this in either direction. To show that no such n exists would basically be implying some property on the continued fraction expansion of π, which is certainly going to be complicated, given that we currently know of no pattern in π's ... | null |
2s38wl | If you were in space and took a picture, at what shutter speeds would stars be seen? | [
{
"answer": "Depends how good your film is (or if you're using a digital camera, the quality of the detector) and how big your camera lens is. You could probably see Sirius at almost any shutter speed.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Exposure is entirely dependent on three things, aperture, shu... | null |
61w7s6 | How do doctors stop internal bleeding? | [
{
"answer": "Surgery. In most cases bleeding can be managed with administration of fluids, blood transfusions and correction of any underlying coagulopathy. However, some organs can bleed profusely if injured. If the spleen and its capsule are ruptured we do a splenectomy. If a lobe of the liver is lacerated we... | null |
35n00n | How long does it take the planet's in the asteroid belt to orbit the sun? | [
{
"answer": "Well, there are no planets in the main asteroid belt, although there is one dwarf planet, Ceres. Ceres contains about 1/3 of the total mass of the asteroid belt and orbits with a period of 4.6 years.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The second most massive object in the asteroid bel... | null |
2ufvo5 | why isn't the supreme court chief justice chosen from existing supreme court justices? | [
{
"answer": "The Chief Justice may be selected from those among the court or from those outside the court. For example, William Rehnquist was elevated to Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan while sitting on the court. There's nothing requiring it to be either way.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Th... | null |
1nd62f | What are some "breakthrough" discoveries throughout history - things that provided immediate answers to long-recognized problems/conditions? | [
{
"answer": "James Watt's refined steam engine. \n\nThe steam engine allowed human kind to bring continuous power where it was needed instead of having to harness an existing source.\n\nConsider the ramifications of that for a minute. Everything in the modern world is predicated on the idea of portable power. H... | null |
3nkt5y | What lead to Spain's possession of two small enclaves in Northern Africa? | [
{
"answer": "Ceuta was originally taken by the Portuguese in 1415, at the same time that the Portuguese started a strong programme of exploration that includes conquest and/or settlement of the Canaries and the Azores. \n\nThe crown of Portugal was united with the crowns of today's Spain -- namely Castile, Arag... | null |
6s1ogu | why men sometimes piss in two streams? | [
{
"answer": "I love when front page posts trickle down into other subs. Its when a substance dries up over the pee hole. Usually experienced after sex.\n\nEdit: Just saw OP is named Tristan. Either we are getting trolled, or Tristan isnt getting laid. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
... | null |
40s6er | why does some commercial airplane wings are bend and the end? | [
{
"answer": "Do you mean the wingtip? Your question is hard to understand.\n\nAnyway, because of the way air flows around the wingtip, little vortices are crafted there that cause the wing to oscillate making thr aircraft unstable. The upturned wingtip reduces the formation of vortices.",
"provenance": null... | null |
ydqfd | How reliable are scientific results from computer simulations? | [
{
"answer": "It's what you make of it, really. While not for use in physical sciences, my own personal use of monte carlo simulation allows me to control the conditions under which I want to test specific models. The laws of probability hold regardless of whether I found it in nature or I set it with my code",
... | null |
4ok8q9 | How solid were the alliances of WWI prior to the actual fighting? | [
{
"answer": " > Were there treaty clauses that gave these powers a way out?\n\nThe Franco-Russian Entente and the Triple Alliance were all defensive in nature. There was no obligation to enter hostilities on the side of a signatory if that signatory was the aggressor. Hence Italy's actions in July 1914; as Aus... | null |
4fdg5b | Food sources for those in Ancient Arabia? | [
{
"answer": "There are no major rivers but there is ground water coming from the mountains in the west. There are several places where ground water is accessible, eg. places close to Riyadh or Hufuf Oasis in Eastern Province which is one of the largest oasis in the world. That ground water also supplies Bahra... | null |
2d2vsk | why does rolling clothes take up less space in a suitcase? | [
{
"answer": "When the clothes are rolled, there is less air content between the layers of fabric. This can be seen to a more extreme extent with vacuum sealed clothes. You could fit the same amount of clothes by cramming it into a bag, but the rolling keeps it in that position without external pressure.\n",
... | null |
57qaru | How do you take notes when you read? | [
{
"answer": "Personally I avert taking notes in the book itself, but I do use sticky-notes for future reference.\n\nThe types of notes are dependant on the type of research I am conducting. I will not make a note on the '1990's Automobile Production' in a certain book when I am researching 'The Ecological Effec... | null |
4wisvb | why does the signal from the stomach to the brain (i'm full) take 20 minutes as opposed to all other signals which seem to be instant? | [
{
"answer": "Because there is an evolutionary advantage to being able to gorge yourself. You never know when the next meal is coming. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The signal that you're full is mainly transmitted via hormones and not nerves. Unlike electrical signals that travel through ner... | null |
3b7qha | why do mosquito bites leave bumps and getting a shot at the doctors office doesn't? | [
{
"answer": "The bump isn't from the small hole, it comes from the chemical that the mosquito injects into you. The saliva chemical they use prevents the blood from clotting and clogging up their tube. \n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Mosquitoes inject a chemical* into the site of the bite ... | null |
9t3zj2 | How do you identify if a trait has a genetic basis, and then which gene(s) cause it? | [
{
"answer": "There are a lot of ways to look for if a trait has a genetic basis. Perhaps the main way is to notice that it runs in families. By carefully tracking pedigrees, you can even figure out if it's autosomal or located on one of the sex chromosomes. You can also use things like twin studies to see if id... | null |
bpk00q | How big was the influence of the Papacy in Rome? | [
{
"answer": "When? Between the end of the Roman Empire up until the Unity of Italy, the Papacy exerted enormous political and social control in the running of the city, and between the ninth and nineteenth century outright managed a large Central Italian polity. And even after Italian Unification, the Papacy co... | null |
1zktd4 | what exactly does sodium toxicity do? | [
{
"answer": "Sodium intake does not lead to sodium toxicity. The body has many homeostatic (\"keep things in balance\") controls to keep your sodium blood levels in check.\n\nSodium toxicity is more commonly seen from dehydration, for example. It is called [Hypernatraemia](_URL_0_).\n\nWhat you probably mean ... | null |
29ejwm | why are we set up to not eat healthy? | [
{
"answer": "If by \"set up\" you mean biologically it's because some nutrients were much rarer then others and over time we became hardwired to seek those particular nutrients more so over others since obtaining those nutrients required more effort. Now in modern times those nutrients are quite abundant but we... | null |
a1k25r | the ISS is a pretty well closed system. Every astronaut has brought their own microbiome, do we know anything about what they leave behind and what survives? | [
{
"answer": "[_URL_2_](_URL_2_)\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEDIT: Found the paper I describe below -- [_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nGoing to space also makes bacteria much more resistant to antibiotics. I'm guessing that has something to do with gravity as well, with antibiotics ending up \"walled in\" by cl... | null |
1ir1on | difference between cheap and really expensive caviar | [
{
"answer": "Really expensive caviar is wild fish's eggs. There is strict selection for quality. And of course a fish doesn't make by itself tons of eggs, especially since you have to kill it. The beluga, the most expensive, is really hard to preserve, and the species is in danger.\n\nLess expensive one is farm... | null |
atmucn | In 1956 Malta voted to join the United Kingdom. It did not join the United Kingdom. | [
{
"answer": "First, the results: out of a total electorate of 152,823, the number of people who cast their vote was 90,343 or 59.1%; the number of \"Yes\" votes was 67,607 and \"No\" votes 20,177; the invalid votes amounted to 2,559. Although the percentage voting against was relatively low, the very high abste... | null |
8hxg6u | How Can a Reader Tell If A Book Is 'Pop' or 'Factual' History? | [
{
"answer": "First of all, those two things are not mutually exclusive. There are plenty of pop historians that do good, factual work.\n\nIf I'm interested in a book from an author I'm unfamiliar with, the first thing I do is read their bio on the back flap. What are their credentials? Do they have advanced deg... | null |
feu8a3 | why while we watch a film our perspective adapts to that represented in the story and we are not surprised by things that are unrealistic in reality but are normal in the footage? | [
{
"answer": "It's called \"suspension of disbelief\" and is fundamental for most fictions. You're able to intentionally (intentional doesn't mean you have to concentrate to do it) lock out of your thought process anything that would be surreal in real life but fits in the movie you're watching.\n\nLet's say, in... | null |
6qtc45 | What was the stance on Atheism in Ancient Greece? Were people punished for not conforming to religious expectations? | [
{
"answer": "There's at least one very famous example of a Greek being charged, ostensibly because he didn't conform to religious expectations: Socrates. Plato's *Apology* describes Socrates' defense in the Athenian court against the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Socrates neatly summarizes the ch... | null |
44g0ru | what would the earth's atmosphere be like without the heat from the sun? | [
{
"answer": "Frozen solid. The ambient temperature of space is cold enough to freeze most of the gasses in our atmosphere.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Colder. The question is how cold. The coldest temperature ever recorded was -128.6F (-89.2C). So it'd get at least that everywhere.\n\nWith ... | null |
78jcr5 | Are black holes fixed at one point in space, or do they move through space as fast as planets do? | [
{
"answer": "Bear in mind, a black hole is a star remnant and a \"normal\" stellar mass black hole actually tends to have a mass of 5-10 solar masses. So, even a black hole is generally more massive than our Sun.\n\nAlthough it has some very special properties in relation to the density of the object itself, i... | null |
2p8asr | Why exactly do the Olmec stone heads look African? | [
{
"answer": "It's stylistic. Exaggeration of features is very common in art around the world, even in the modern day.\n\nThis kind of topic gets into an area that is rather vilified in the archaeological community. Links from one cultural group to another (i.e. \"Semitic features\" being present in some South... | null |
mmcn5 | How can there be so many different languages within Europe when the countries are all so close together? | [
{
"answer": "Actually Europe is pretty language poor, relatively speaking. New Guinea is the size of Great Britain and France combined, and has 1024 documented languages! India has more than a hundred.\n\nLanguages differentiate when groups of people don't talk to each other regularly. For instance, when the... | null |
1f9qyx | How did NASA plot Voyager's course to avoid objects that might affect its path through our solar system? | [
{
"answer": " > How did they avoid gravitational pulls from planetary bodies\n\nOn the contrary, NASA used the gravitational influence of planets to aim and accelerate the Voyager spacecraft, via [gravity assist](_URL_0_) maneuvers. Yes, the paths were calculated before launch, and the missions were planned to... | null |
1dfs4m | how do the time travel rules work in doctor who? | [
{
"answer": "Here's the 10th Doctor explaining it definitively (from Blink): _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They work in whatever way is convenient to the plot at the moment.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Basically, some events are set in place and cannot be changed ... | null |
62x3wv | how did the western world lay underwater telegraph lines as early as 19th century with their level of technology? | [
{
"answer": "They has steamships, and with big spools of cable they could lay underwater cables. Specialized ships even allowed cables to be retrieved and repaired.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The Victorians (as we call them this side of the pond) were actually pretty good at organising la... | null |
34025u | how can cereal companies afford to print such colorful boxes when ink is so expensive? | [
{
"answer": "They charge you for it in the price of their cereal. Somewhere along the way an analyst figured out that having the colorful box increased sales enough to justify the cost, or that the colorful box made people willing to pay more for the product than the extra cost of the ink/packaging.",
"prov... | null |
16br3z | What is the real deal with eggs? | [
{
"answer": "[This](_URL_0_) post has a really good link for your first two questions.\n\n > * Eggs, when consumed by healthy persons in the range of 1-6 a day (higher levels not really studied), usually do not adversely affect blood lipids. Some studies note no increases, some studies note a benign increase ... | null |
zue9m | How did Curiosity send picture all the way from
Mars? | [
{
"answer": " > I find it hard to believe that it was sent all the from Mars, a straight shot to Earth \n\nRadio waves spread out in a cone-shape, you only have to shoot them in the general direction of the receiver. \n\n > and without interruption. It didn't hit anything on the way? \n\nSpace is mindblowing... | null |
23ts4m | where do governments keep lending all these billions from? will they ever pay it back? if not, why are there still lenders? | [
{
"answer": "1) Citizens, Corporations, other Governments. \n\nI'll speak to the US because that's what I know. The US Treasury is considered the \"risk free asset\" in the financial world. This means that people trust its good for the money. Many people, corps and governments like to hold US debt because i... | null |
2u7vcb | what is the point of a number lock and scroll lock button? | [
{
"answer": "Number lock allows you to toggle between using the number pad (on the right of a standard keyboard) to enter numbers or to navigate (notice on [this keyboard](_URL_0_) there are arrows on some of the numbers and other movement functions on others)\n\nScroll lock switches the function of the arrow k... | null |
1zk3k0 | why doesn't the weight of soil above a deep bored tunnel cause it to collapse? | [
{
"answer": "It WILL, if there is insufficient support. That's why they pay geologists and mining engineers moderate bucks to figure out exactly what's above the tunnel.\n\nTunnels are typically bored through rock, and then only when the strength of the rock above it is enough to support the initial digging. Af... | null |
1ncv73 | Has the global percentage population of LGBT people historically increased over time? | [
{
"answer": "History is surprisingly gay.\n\nIn fact, it often got [really most extremely gay](_URL_3_) [but also kind of awesome](_URL_5_).\n\nYou had [gay kings](_URL_6_) and [lesbian nuns](_URL_4_) and joint Egyptian tombs containing [both of the pharoah's male nail stylists painted in position for man and w... | null |
x9nb5 | Some genetic mutations cause disease when inherited from the mother, but not the father. What is going on? | [
{
"answer": "Epigenetics and imprinting are at play in the case where different diseases are caused by inheritance from different parents. There are also diseases that are only inherited from fathers. The other post here so far describes X-linked inheritance, which is a different scenario than what you are tr... | null |
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