id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
6dnv9e | how do materials in an alloy create a substance that has different properties to the base materials, even though no chemical reaction takes place between the materials? | [
{
"answer": "Steel is a good example. It's made of iron and carbon. Iron atoms are relatively large compared to carbon atoms. If all you have are iron atoms, they pack together, but there are small spaces between the atoms. If you add carbon to the mix, the smaller carbon atoms can fit into the spaces, making t... | null |
370pf1 | why do cheap cars look cheap and expensive cars look expensive? | [
{
"answer": "No, there's no agreement between the carmakers, and it's not a cost-based thing. If Honda wanted, they *could* make an accord look crazy and sell it for the same price, but here's the reason: it wouldn't sell. \n\n\nYou have to look at the market for each car company to see why the cars look like t... | null |
5txayr | how come the north pole is considered the "top of the world" and the south pole, the bottom? | [
{
"answer": "The first map makers and globe artists lived in the northern hemisphere. They opted to depict their land on top.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It was an arbitrary choice. China, who invented the compass, considered it to point south (they even called it the \"south indicator\"),... | null |
1mg628 | What does it mean for worker bees to be "female"? | [
{
"answer": "They are female, because even the workers can lay eggs, but just male eggs, because the sperm is missing.\nEvery female bee is the same (So every worker is a queen), the workers are just \"castrated\" throught the queens pheromones and the diet in the larva-stadium.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
417vjb | new yorks hate for encrypted smartphones | [
{
"answer": "The state government wants to ban them to make it easier for the NSA (and similar agencies) to intercept texts. Any claims of terrorism prevention are excuses to distract from the real reason.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "People tend not to trust things they don't understand. Pe... | null |
18d5la | the process by which co2 turns into tree | [
{
"answer": "CO2 is made from carbon and oxygen.\n\nAlthough there are many, many steps in between, the basic chemistry of what's happening is that the tree uses energy from sunlight to split CO2 into carbon and oxygen. Oxygen is released into the air. Carbon is combined with nutrients from the ground to make a... | null |
38nlkp | 1 Besides the theory, What are the practicalities in the processes of shotgun sequencing? | [
{
"answer": " > When it comes to sequencing all the segments, to find the crossovers, the primers used to initiate the sequencing, are they universal primers?\n\nYes. You can see the basic process in [this picture](_URL_1_). After you break up the DNA into smaller pieces, each piece has adapters ligated to e... | null |
691kk2 | why do you always see things about break throughs in medical science (aids, cancer, etc.) but hear almost nothing about it being practically applied? | [
{
"answer": "Because people like to talk about things too early. Then the thing that could potentially be a magic breakthrough gets tested further and it turns out that it's either unsafe, impractical, doesn't work, or some mix of those. Or maybe it does work, but it has to go through multiple years of refining... | null |
48g70l | why do we have to buy domain names from companies instead of just claiming it ourselves for free? | [
{
"answer": "How are you going to convince other people that that domain name should point to your computers? Or even tell them, for that matter? And how are you going to convince them that they should listen to you and not the other people that are saying that _URL_0_ should point to their computers?\n\nYou'... | null |
40ovfb | whatever happened to the baby boomers bust we were told was going to destroy our economy? | [
{
"answer": "They've only just begun to reach retirement age (those born in 1945-1948). When the majority are retired and pulling social security, this will be a more noticeable issue.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It's happening right now. Read about the financial predictions in the world ne... | null |
2yccek | Do eukaryotic genes without introns exist? | [
{
"answer": "This is more tangential than eukaryotic genes that have evolved for millions of years without introns, but I don't have any scholarly resources for that situation.\n\nHowever, a class of microscopic animals called bdelloid rotifers has been discovered to have some amazing properties. An interesting... | null |
1ih5gx | Can a metal detector detect a higher amount of iron in our blood? | [
{
"answer": "The answer to your question is yes, but not from food intake. There is a disorder called Hemochromatosis which results in a higher than normal iron content in the body. A normal person has ~4 grams of iron in their body, while someone suffering from Hemochromatosis might have up to 50 grams in th... | null |
4o8ckt | What is the history of gun ownership in America? How did things change over the 20th century? | [
{
"answer": "This is a pretty controversial subject, and studies on it aren't helped [by a lack of hard data before the 1970s and 1980s.](_URL_0_?)\n\nIn general, however, **the number of guns has gone up, while the number of gun owners has gone down.** Fewer people are owning more guns. \n\nWe can look at [Gal... | null |
7owgtj | what is cloud mining? | [
{
"answer": "Cryptocurrency 'mining' is using computer power to perform work that helps run the cryptocurrency. To reward people for doing this work, a small percentage of the time work will result in a worker being given some of that currency. Trying to make money this way is called \"mining.\"\n\nCloud mining... | null |
4nl1pg | why do they tell us to save water when we actually use the same water over and over, just purified? | [
{
"answer": "Actually, in very few locations you use the same water over and over again.\n\nIn most places, water is gathered from rivers, or underground, and after being used is purified sufficiently to be dumped back in those rivers.\n\nBesides, even if the water is recycled, the recycling infrastructure is l... | null |
z4o44 | why reddit auto-downvotes? | [
{
"answer": "(For the OP)\n\nA lot of what is being speculated in this thread is just that... *speculation*. If someone gives an explanation without a source or link to a related comment by an admin I'd take it with a pinch of salt.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I know that sometimes Reddit w... | null |
4gnz5p | How did ideas of masculinity evolve in Victorian Britain? | [
{
"answer": "I don't believe I can answer this question fully, but I can certainly address one aspect of it.\n\nThere was a growing fear of degeneration during the Victorian Era, and this fear went hand in hand with the idea that men were becoming weaker, or more effeminate.\n\nThat idea then also contributed t... | null |
30vjx3 | Did the Vikings refer to themselves as Vikings or did that name come later? | [
{
"answer": "That depends on who your reffering to as vikings. the people who lived in scandinavia called people who was out raiding and pirating for vikings or that they where out doing viking. Meaning that viking was more of a verb than something you would call others.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"a... | null |
cvho45 | Which time period did drinking tavern/inns become a thing in Europe as depicted in fantasy stories such as LOTR? | [
{
"answer": "* [Medieval Pubs: Ireland](_URL_2_) by /u/gothwalk\n\n* [I'm a peasant visiting a 14th century alehouse. How would I be charged for my drinks and how easily could I skip the bill?](_URL_0_) by /u/sunagainstgold\n\n* [What wrong ideas about medieval Europe might one get from popular works of \"medie... | null |
6vq4qi | Since when do pies exist? | [
{
"answer": "you may want to xpost this over at /r/askfoodhistorians",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "5758239",
"title": "Anatolian hypothesis",
"section": "Section::::Criticism.:Dating.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 2... | null |
1a1ez3 | why did languages that developed independantly like japanese, romance languages, and hindi all base the names of the days of the week off the planets, and in the exact same order? | [
{
"answer": "This is a pretty complicated question, because it spans language and geography during a time where historical records are difficult to trace. However, to get the feel for it, you can see the [Japanese explanation here](_URL_0_). In short: they didn't **independently** come up with the same scheme; ... | null |
bmzivx | Can fish live (or at least breathe) in liquids that are not water? For example milk | [
{
"answer": "No. Fish can’t even live in water that has the wrong amount of salt or dissolved oxygen in it. Putting a fish in a liquid other than the correct water would be like putting a human in the Venus atmosphere. Sure it’s “air” but the concentration of oxygen, nitrogen, CO2, etc are all wrong. Every anim... | null |
4ljjaz | As Germany's military situation deteriotated, why was there never a popular uprising against Hitler? | [
{
"answer": "Well, the answer to that question is rather multifaceted and also still debated in scholarship. To simplify it a bit, here are some factors scholarship of the topic agrees on that they played a role:\n\n\n* The potential political leaders for such an uprising were dead, exiled or imprisoned\n\nGerm... | null |
7i1xyz | why do airlines charge less for flights out of small cities (stopping over in a major hub) and more just from that major city? | [
{
"answer": "It has to do with competition. A flight from city A to city B to city C is not competing with flights from city B to city C. It’s competing with A-D-C with different stopovers and A-C nonstop. If one airline dominates airport B (which is the case for many large US airports; just not the few lar... | null |
2tgiap | what is the differencies between motherboards? | [
{
"answer": "Okay. So practicality aside, since of course you could just use the motherboard that fits your needs instead of being the most decked out board ever. That is a given and should always be considered when building a PC. \n\nHowever, there are good reasons to buy the pricier boards. The biggest are Wa... | null |
7vpdpg | How were the ends of trench lines terminated during WW1? | [
{
"answer": "Here are some photos and info that might be what you're looking for.\n\n - The Western Front trench system ended at \"[Kilometer Zero](_URL_0_)\" on the the Swiss border, with the trenches literally running up to a barbed wire border and a Swiss bunker overlooking them to ensure that Swiss neutrali... | null |
2avp48 | why do radios have such bad audio but phones often have perfect audio | [
{
"answer": "radio uses analog transmissions which doesn't allow error correction or detection. Transmission errors will affect the signal.\n\n\nMobiles use digital transmission with high data rates. And even if a transmission error occurs you can figure out which bit is faulty and correct it. \n\n\nYou can cor... | null |
4k8zxw | given the sc ruling on roe v. wade, how is it ok for ok to make abortion illegal? | [
{
"answer": "It's not.\n\nHowever, it has to make it's way through the courts and inevitably get struck down.\n\nIt's a pretty horrible cocktail:\n\n* Abortion is effectively banned until the court eventually rules\n\n* It wastes the state and the federal governments money on a pointless court case\n\n* It take... | null |
1zx4wp | Is the TATA box transcribed? | [
{
"answer": "No, the TATA box is typically a few dozen bp upstream of the gene. Only about 25% of human genes have a TATA sequence in their promoter regions.\n\nSource: Molecular Biologist; wikipedia for that 25% statistic. Seriously though, the answer to this question is the third sentence of the wikipedia art... | null |
3gato4 | multiple hairs out of the same follicle. | [
{
"answer": "It's a weird, but not harmful, genetic disorder. Google \"Pili multigemini\" if you want more detail.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "3768204",
"title": "Demodex folliculorum",
"section": "Section::::Ecology.... | null |
1rkpux | how is it possible that we still have a full head of hair everyday even though a handful (esp. females) can fall out while showering? | [
{
"answer": "Your hair grows fast enough to replace it. Your hair is practically always growing. The strands you can see are growing longer, and the follicles you can't see are growing new strands.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "you have a -lot- of individual hairs, and you dont lose a true ha... | null |
bcyhes | why do videos freeze up when entering and exiting full-screen mode? | [
{
"answer": "Some video players will attempt to raise or lower the resolution of the video if you enter or exit full screen mode, which can cause the video to freeze while the different resolution footage is requested from the server.\n\nOn a really slow machine the process of switching in and out of split scre... | null |
1euqud | If I leave a mouthful of water in my mouth for a long period of time, will my mouth soak it up? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, it will.\n\nThe pure water will cause the ions in your cells and extracellular fluid to diffuse into your oral cavity (where the pure water is) until the two concentrations equilibrate. Simultaneously, the water will move into your cells/extracellular space via osmosis. Eventually, the water w... | null |
moesh | Why does marijuana exist? | [
{
"answer": "I don't know why this is getting down-voted. Perfectly legit question.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I don't know why this is getting down-voted. Perfectly legit question.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2... | null |
22nqe1 | When I put two tea bags in my cup of hot water, does this lead to a significant increase in concentration of tea or does one bag already saturate the water? | [
{
"answer": "Think of the tea in terms of adding powdered coco to milk. You can add as much coco as you want, increasing the concentration, until the point where the milk can no longer wet/absorb the milk. Same is true with your tea. Until there is not enough water to wet the bag, to pull out contents of the te... | null |
4pgr6l | what are the black dots that a human sees swimming in vision when suddenly standing up after lying down for a while (not sleeping) ? | [
{
"answer": "Or, just in general, you can always see fuzziness in your vision if you just try to notice it. I assume your brain just kind of blocks it out if you aren't trying to notice it.\n\nWhat is / causes that? I've always wondered if it's only me.\n\nedit: It seems it's commonly called \"visual snow\".",
... | null |
1dj2kw | Is the United Nations more effective than the League of Nations in preventing wars? If so, what made it so? | [
{
"answer": "The League of Nations had very little power behind it. Basically, all it could do was place economic sanctions on the country in question, and even those didn't go well. Participant countries, wanting to keep their allies, wouldn't place restrictions that were too harsh. \n\nAlso, the LoN lacked Am... | null |
r5h2p | Fascinated by stargazing/astronomy, worth investing in a telescope? | [
{
"answer": "The standard advice for beginners is to first buy a set of binoculars, before investing in a telescope. Get something like the Celestron SkyMaster Giant 15x70 Binoculars, should be well under $100.\n\nYou can see a lot with binoculars. Jupiter's moons, binary stars, Messier objects. ",
"prove... | null |
29wv9c | how exactly is data electronically stored on tiny devices like micro sd cards? | [
{
"answer": "Flash memory is stored in little devices called floating gate transistors. \r\r\rTransistors are the little electrical switches that computers use to process things and amplifiers use to amplify signals. They have three terminals, a source, drain, and gate. The voltage applied to the gate controls ... | null |
60d40r | why, even though i used to be tiny and have a fast metabolism, did quitting prozac (antidepressants) cause me to gain nearly 50 pounds in two months? | [
{
"answer": "It most likely affected your appetite causing you to eat more than you used to. Have you had any changes in how active you are?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Sounds like food became the primary substitute for your meds. I know when I'm sad I start binge eating like crazy. Maybe y... | null |
lu638 | What do the small temperature fluctuations in the CMB map tell us about the conditions in the early universe? | [
{
"answer": "I would start [here.](_URL_0_)\n\nAlso, if you are interested in how different cosmological parameters are affected by the power spectrum, [these movies](_URL_1_) are useful.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I would start [here.](_URL_0_)\n\nAlso, if you are interested in how differ... | null |
12nnj8 | On what points did Adlai Steveson criticize such a respected and popular public figure as Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election? | [
{
"answer": "In 1952, Stevenson campaigned on the record of the Democratic Party since 1932. The argument was basically that it would be better to trust the legacy of the New Deal to the party that created it than to the GOP, which they called the \"Party of Hoover.\" The problem with that strategy is that it w... | null |
3dncja | how bose noise cancellation work | [
{
"answer": "It doesn't deflect the noise, it literally cancels the noise out by playing the opposite noise through the headphones.\n\nSound travels as a wave. If you play a sound 180 degrees out of phase (aka, the opposite sound), it effectively cancels out and creates silence. [This is a really simple graph s... | null |
4ulu8q | Does the 9.81 meters per second per second acceleration rate decrease the father from the earth's surface you drop an object? | [
{
"answer": "The gravitational acceleration is GM/R^(2), where M = mass of earth and R = distance from center of Earth. So the acceleration is smaller the farther you are from Earth. If you are close to the surface of Earth, you can just use *g* = 9.8 m/s^(2). To put this into perspective, the acceleration does... | null |
9hlw81 | if grocery stores are said to have a markup of 10-15%, how do they afford to run sales of up to 50% off? | [
{
"answer": "Former Buyer here. There are a couple of things that make these sales worth while. First, the average profit may be 10-15%, but it varies widely by item. Items like Seasonal, Produce, Private label and HBA can make far More than 10-15%. Commodity items like milk and eggs make far less, and may... | null |
2lqcjw | how are musical prodigies able to play instruments with little or no instructions? | [
{
"answer": "I wouldn't quite say they sit down and play perfectly without ever being exposed before... It's more like they have an extremely high aptitude for it and learn the patterns very very quickly.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "... | null |
6hjb44 | what's the difference between a low end motherboard and a high end motherboard? | [
{
"answer": "Better solder\n\nBetter parts in general\n\nBetter/stronger material\n\nBetter heat/conductivity \n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The motherboard is a bit like a traffic system, with data being moved from the GPU, hard drives, memory, processors, ect. across your motherboard. A... | null |
7p59cd | if all produce is grown in an open climate, why does some produce like broccoli need to be stored in a fridge, while some produce like avocados can be stored at room temperature? how come some can be stored either way also, like strawberries or grapes? | [
{
"answer": "When fruits/vegetables are growing, they're part of a living plant. When you harvest them, they're no longer being supported by a living plant & you want to keep them in an environment that prolongs their freshness.\n\nLook at a slab of meat. That used to be an animal. Animals are fine *until ... | null |
20gjpz | Why do clothes unwrinkle when heat is applied? | [
{
"answer": "PhD Chemist here, and: huh, I don't actually know. It's a good question though. In fairness, I'm not a polymer chemist.\n\nTo hazard a guess, when you iron or press clothes, you need the fibers in the weave to rearrange back to a layout that naturally keeps the material flat: all the heat is doin... | null |
12qzoi | Which metal is stronger pure rather than alloyed? | [
{
"answer": "This is a tough question to answer, and may better be received in /r/askengineers, as you might happen to get a metallurgist to comment there.\n\nThe hardest metals are alloys, so it stands to reason that the above claim is true, but that doesn't explicitly imply that all metals can be hardened by ... | null |
76bo7n | In WWII, what was the Allie's reaction to the Tiger II? Did they fear it more than the Tiger I? Was the knowledge of the tank as widespread as the Tiger I? | [
{
"answer": "The first battle of King Tiger tanks was against British forces in France, on July 18th, 1944. Three King Tiger tanks were lost in this fight, including one that was stuck in a bomb crater, but it doesn't seem like the British took particular note of the new tank. A little while later, the Soviets ... | null |
84n2yn | What happened to Roman soldiers who were non-fatally injured, but who couldn't keep up with the pace of the legion when marching? | [
{
"answer": "Not to discourage any further answers but you'll probably enjoy\n\n[You are a Roman solider marching a long distance. Your leg breaks for whatever reason; what happens?](_URL_0_)\n\n[How likely would a Roman soldier be to survive injury on the battlefield?](_URL_1_)\n\nBy /u/Celebreth",
"proven... | null |
35hu38 | what would happen if every countries interest rate were to go to 0% | [
{
"answer": "If every country's interest rates went to 0% *because all the countries were unable to get out of local recessions at higher interest rates*, then the entire world would be in a \"liquidity trap\": that is, a nasty kind of depression that can't be cured with monetary policy because people are so fr... | null |
4nlcv2 | Do animals have meal times? | [
{
"answer": "Dogs will build up bile and barf it out if they don't eat for a while, so typically for domesticated animals there is a period within which they will get very hungry and need to be fed. I'm sure it's similar for wolves.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I study monkeys, and yes there... | null |
31mw06 | Why weren't the Maori of New Zealand effected by Old World diseases unlike the native Americans and Australians? | [
{
"answer": "They were.\n\n\"Introduced diseases were the major reason for the Māori population decrease. In the 1890s the Māori population had fallen to about 40% of its pre-contact size. Decline accelerated after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 and settlers began to arrive in greater numbers. This i... | null |
18tzqs | Why did Baptist denominations become the most prevalent form of Christianity in the American South? | [
{
"answer": "Churches acted as more than spiritual centers in early American cities up until the mid-19th Century. Simply put, different classes went to different churches to rub elbows together. Baptist and Methodist churches were where the lower and working classes went, and where you have a lot of lower and ... | null |
39e0kd | How far can the light from a traditional keychain laser pointer reach? | [
{
"answer": "The light keeps going forever unless absorbed or scattered by something. However, the intensity of the beam will decrease as it widens over distance. All lasers have beam divergence, so a simple keychain laser will become as wide as house a few miles away and very dim to your small eyes.",
"pro... | null |
22zmlu | throughout history, what led people to use different writing systems and alphabets? what influenced their choice of script and language? | [
{
"answer": "they were invented independently. there is no real answer to \"why it looks like this\". ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "\"Arabs\" don't use a \"graphic style\" of writing, if by that you mean a pictorial language where characters (called \"ideographs\") represent words rather tha... | null |
47uiom | Does the dark side of the Moon overall receive more light than the light side? | [
{
"answer": "No, with the small exception of lunar eclipses.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "By a very very small amount (about 0.5%), because when there is a new moon and the far side is illuminated, it is closer to the sun than when there is a full moon and the near side is illuminated.",
... | null |
36xkwm | Is it possible to burn ice? | [
{
"answer": "Well, ice and ice cream aren't flammable, even at room temperature... So no. But if you froze a flammable substance, like alcohol (albeit, it only freezes at extremely low temperatures), could you burn the frozen alcohol? Yes you could. Temperature or physical properties have nothing to do with how... | null |
2dq95w | On Earth we have salt water and fresh water - are there planets with other sorts of water? Are they possible? | [
{
"answer": "Water is capable of dissolving a huge variety of compounds and elements, not to mention its ability to form mixtures with many liquids. I'd say yes, as the different waters you referred to just refer to how much and what kind of \"stuff\" is dissolved in it. Salt water has lots of salt, fresh water... | null |
boteh5 | is there light in a closed box? | [
{
"answer": "The light in the box will have transferred it's energy to heat/radiation or whatever. There would be no light in the box. This is basic physics.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The light would bounce around in on the walls in the box. Every time a bounce occurs, most of the light's... | null |
5b25cy | can we yawn while sleeping ? | [
{
"answer": "While we are asleep our brain still has control over our muscles. Yawning is an involuntary reflex meaning, it just happens. Scientifically speaking yawning is one of the more challenging mammal traits we have. It provides no discernible benefits to the functioning of the body nor does it give any ... | null |
5slu5k | Is it possible to create Prince Rupert's drops from other materials, and if so, what properties would they have? | [
{
"answer": "From my elementary understanding of glass, I don't think so. Glass is dense, but still very fragile. Steel is dense, but is not as fragile as glass. The same shape might could be achieved with steel, but I don't think it would be under as much tension as glass, with tension being what makes the dro... | null |
2um22u | What makes a pulsar spin? | [
{
"answer": "Conservation of angular momentum. The star that the pulsar formed from was already rotating, and when the core collapsed to such a tiny size (most neutron stars have radii of around 10 km) the rotation rate increased dramatically in order to conserve angular momentum.\n\nIn some cases, neutron star... | null |
lrcva | why financial year starts at july instead of january? | [
{
"answer": "The fiscal year is *not* always July to June. The US government's fiscal year, to pick an example, is October to September. Apple Inc. uses the same fiscal year, while Walmart uses February-January, and Exxon Mobile's is January-December.\n\nIgnoring the matter of taxation, a company's fiscal year ... | null |
1jn140 | During the cold war, how did the U.S. manage to place its own missiles in Turkey aimed at USSR? | [
{
"answer": "Turkey joined NATO, since the Turkish government was worried about Soviet-backed communist instigators in their own nation (Greece joined NATO for the same reason).\n\nThe placement of [Jupiter](_URL_0_) mid-range nuclear missiles in Turkey, as well as Italy, was one of the main reasons why the USS... | null |
lr67p | If you could get to the centre of a black hole, would you just freeze in time? | [
{
"answer": "[Here](_URL_1_) is RobotRollCall's comment on that topic which you might enjoy reading.\n\nAlso, BH questions come up fairly regularly here, so there is a wealth of knowledge on the topic in the /r/AskScience [search archive](_URL_0_). ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Don't think o... | null |
34wx72 | if anyone can access the "deep web" by downloading tor, how are illegal sites not getting shut down immediately? | [
{
"answer": "Just because you can access the sites over the web doesn't mean you can find them. Tor is a system designed by the US military to protect US Intelligence communications online. It's designed specifically so that no one can tell where the sites are hosted. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"ans... | null |
rr9pw | Light and atoms | [
{
"answer": "Mostly. It can absorb and scatter some light, but if it's only a single atom thick, there's a pretty large probability the light will simply pass through it. Already gold leaf, the thinnest metal you'll easily produce, is fairly transparent, and it's on the order of thousands of atoms thick. (0.1 m... | null |
1gioir | Are there any estimates or statistics for how many Americans continued to drink alcohol during Prohibition? | [
{
"answer": "Alcohol consumption fell, at first, to approximately 30 percent of its pre-Prohibition level; but, over the next several years, increased to about 60-70 percent of its proir-prohibition level. At least 10,000 people died from alcohol poisoning ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[Here... | null |
4ivs7d | Do animals seek a variety in their diet? | [
{
"answer": "This largely depends on the animal! Some animals, like the leatherback turtle, whose diet consists solely of jellyfish, are specialists that lack variety in diet. Animals that DO eat several food sources generally do so because of two main reasons. \n\nFirst off, many food sources are only seasonal... | null |
7m9i7u | What happens to fish that die near the poles? | [
{
"answer": "If I recall there are migrating colonies of ocean life that move across the bottom of the ocean to break down deceased creatures. More specifically with large aquatic life such as sharks and whales, they can provide an ecosystem to small aquatic life for months to years as their bodies are broken d... | null |
12u7gm | Trade in Bronze Age Mesopotamia | [
{
"answer": "The best documented site for Bronze Age trade is Kanesh in Central Anatolia. This site has yielded approximately 12,000 tablets and 4,000 of them have been published, giving a great deal of detail on the Middle Bronze Age textile trade from the Mesopotamian... | null |
hafjj | I understand 'shooting stars' are actually meteorites, but how fast would a star at say 4 lightyears have to travel to appear to be shooting? | [
{
"answer": "Using trigonometry... much much much much much faster than the speed of light.\n\nLet's say this \"shooting star\" covered half the night sky over the course of one minute, ok?\n\nLet's also assume the star was 4 ly from Earth at the start and and the end of its trajectory, and that the trajectory ... | null |
m0w7p | what makes up the price of a gallon of gas? | [
{
"answer": "The Department of Energy has a web site that lists the breakdown.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn short, for Sept 2011, 63% of the price was crude oil, 14% refining, 12% distribution/marketing, and 11% taxes.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The Department of Energy has a web site that lists the b... | null |
3bkw69 | why do cops weave back and forth across lanes on the freeway? | [
{
"answer": "You said it. To slow down all of the traffic. I have seen them do it in San Diego, to slow traffic prior to an accident further down the road. Considering California traffic, it makes a lot of sense. Might be that there's a chase or something down the road and they want to keep people away. Or all ... | null |
vrb9r | If you dissolve a compressed spring in an acid where does the energy go? | [
{
"answer": "It's not going to all disolve all at the same time. One part will break, and the stored energy will be converted to mechanical energy as the spring expands again to it's normal length, this time just in two pieces. Basically, it's gonna break.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "On the... | null |
4m6x3j | What did Medieval soldiers do during sieges waiting for the fort/castle/city to starve? | [
{
"answer": "I can give you an idea of what a crusader army was doing and you may be surprised by how much activity was necessary to keep a besieging army in the field, even when it was static.\n\n**Food and water**: Although we might think of those trapped within a city as being desperate for food, it was ofte... | null |
6qmg7e | Do scientists understand the internal anatomy of Dinosaurs or only the skeletal system? | [
{
"answer": "The skeletal system gives strong hints about the internal anatomy, and in rare instances internal organs have been preserved to some extent. \n\nExamples of fossilized organs include a [brain](_URL_3_), [liver and intestines](_URL_7_), and [\"guts\"](_URL_6_). [Here](_URL_0_) is an article briefl... | null |
f9kokk | if you can see the sun and the moon at the same time, what happens on the other side of the world? | [
{
"answer": "So, despite the artistic clichés, the Moon is up during the day just as much as it's up during the night. You can have the moon up all day, or you could have the moon underground all night.\n\nIn this situation, someone on the opposite side of the world would just have a moonless night, which is co... | null |
ulgj1 | Will drinking alcohol while sick make worsen my symptoms or slow my recovery? | [
{
"answer": "You may have some temporary relief of symptoms from the direct effects of alcohol ingestion. Also, there is conflicting information on alcohol's effect on the immune system. While there is evidence of dysregulation of cytokine pathways being a factor in hangovers, this [study](_URL_0_) shows no eff... | null |
xt904 | why is this mars landing so much more hyped than the last few? | [
{
"answer": "Hyped is a bad word for the excitement of people, bbbuuuttt, in the past we have landed rovers by inflating a series of balloon around them, the rover will bounce and eventually land. This time how ever the rover was too heavy to do this, so instead the MSL had to go from 13000 mph to 1000 mph by A... | null |
3vc0r7 | Is Jordan a Palestinian State? | [
{
"answer": "This might be something I can contribute to. To answer you question, it depends on your definition of Palestinian, (and maybe your definition of what a \"state\" really is\") but probably no, Jordan can not be considered a Palestinian State. \n\nTo make matters more complicated, there really isn't ... | null |
14x8rw | Water as a faraday cage | [
{
"answer": "The conductivity of good conductive metals is more than [10000000 = 10^7 times that of sea water](_URL_0_).\n\n[The depth to which E/M waves penetrate a conductor](_URL_1_) is inversely proportional to the the square root of the conductivity (as well as the frequency of the E/M wave). So water wil... | null |
35k4ak | why is the philippines are prone to be hit by major typhoons? | [
{
"answer": "Geography. The same way that the nations/states/territories in the Gulf of Mexico get slammed by hurricanes every year, the Philippines has to deal with typhoons. \n\nWarm ocean currents mix with wind along the water's surface to produce these weather patterns in particular parts of the world, an... | null |
3gj3nn | How does brain translate nerve activity into conscious experience? | [
{
"answer": "This, my friend, is the holy grail of neuroscience. For a start, try reading Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "As others have said, nobody knows.\n\nWhat we DO know, however, is that it's probably not centralized, because you can lose PARTS ... | null |
5khebu | [Astronomy] Is the water on Europa all fresh water? | [
{
"answer": "It's thought to be salt water. \n\nEuropa is covered by a relatively smooth surface, which is thought to be ice. There's evidence from magnetic measurements made by Galileo that a subsurface conductive layer exists, implying salt water.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It would a... | null |
3joueh | why hasn't youtube/google made it possible to play sound from videos with the app closed? | [
{
"answer": "If you do it from safari on an iPhone I think you can... Just swipe up and play it again. And if you lock the phone, it may stop. Just press play again.\n\nHope that helps. :)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "YouTube is not a charity, they exist to show you ads, that's their only... | null |
1ki4jp | why do athletes make significantly more money than people like the president who have greater responsibilities in society? | [
{
"answer": "It's mainly the economics surrounding sports. Sports bring in billions of dollars through ticket sales, broadcasting deals, jersey sales, endorsements, etc. If getting a better player helps the team and leads to more money coming in, teams will pay more to improve the team. Needless to say, if a... | null |
bni8d2 | What would happen if you were hit by a beam from a particle accelerator? | [
{
"answer": "It depends on the accelerator. It could be deadly, or it could just give you a large, non-fatal dose of radiation. But for an example, see what happened to [Anatoli Bugorski](_URL_0_).",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "1041641... | null |
3i504d | How sure are we that the Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mayan Symbols are actually what we think they are? | [
{
"answer": "I can't speak for Mayan texts, but Egyptian being completely wrong is basically impossible. We have such an understanding of Egyptian text and language that we can tell when an Egyptian scribe makes a mistake. There may be elements that are incorrect regarding a particular glyph, but completely wro... | null |
3rp2go | why can't the government take back alcatraz from the park service and rehab it into a modern prison for gitmo detainees? | [
{
"answer": "Gitmo is located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. so that it exists outside the juristiction of the American Constitution. \n\nThis allows long term incarceration without trial and conviction and interrogation techniques that would be considered \"Cruel and unusual\" in the USA.\n\nAlcatraz is very much wi... | null |
jn3rp | What would be required for an AI to be considered mentally "alive" or sentient? | [
{
"answer": "People who actually work with AI do not come up with such requirements, because the field of study called artificial intelligence does not have the tools, ability, or desire to decide what does or doesn't count as sentience. You have to ask the philosophers.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"a... | null |
3gmizm | Is every black hole surrounded by a spinning disk of matter and heat? | [
{
"answer": "Nope, their are black holes with no disk but they are nearly impossible to find them since the disk is the reason we can see them, their are also theoretical atom sized dark holes all over the universe. As for your other question, it depends on the size of the dark hole and the amount of mater arou... | null |
9s1nmz | AskHistorians Podcast 123 - Historical Linguistics in the Balkans | [
{
"answer": "Very interesting. Fun fact about /u/rusoved, he may be the only person who is both a panelist on /r/askscience and /r/askhistorians.\n\nI have some poorly phrased questions about the intersections of linguistics and nationalism.\n\nIt seems over the 20th century there was a trend of smaller Slavic ... | null |
9h2sks | whats worst that can happen if i don't get enough sleep? | [
{
"answer": "The worst? Death. Chronic sleep deprivation can kill you.\n\nMost likely you aren't anywhere close to that point but it can also lead to a host of negative health effects to the point of taking years off your life. Quantifying exactly what the consequences of an individual getting too little sleep ... | null |
4k4s15 | How do cells that are touching not fuse together like soap bubbles? | [
{
"answer": "They do and they don't. There isn't enough force to fuse them normally, but cell membranes do fuse during cell division. Normally, though, the hydrophilic phospholipid heads repel each other. This is why tight junctions need separate proteins to bind two adjacent cells to each other.",
"provena... | null |
4rebsj | Which Roman emperor do we know the least about, which emperor is spoken about the least in primary sources? | [
{
"answer": "There are many Emperors whom nearly nothing is known about. But the majority of these cases are Emperors whom only ruled for a few months, or were co-emperors who held little actual power Sometimes both, such as in the case of Gordian II, who's only noteworthy achievement is being the brother of Go... | null |
a8fqn2 | How does the new air purifier in China work? It’s apparently working incredibly well and is probably a bio-engineering marvel. | [
{
"answer": "The base of the tower is constructed like a greenhouse, which traps heat and warms air. The warm air then flows up through a series of filters in the tower. This induces convection, which draws more cool air into the base, which is then heated. \n\nSimilar towers are used all over the world as cool... | null |
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