id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
2v4zxo | Why do quasars emit so much light? | [
{
"answer": "Essentially, because there is a lot of material falling into the black hole. When things fall down a gravity well, they lose gravitational potential energy. Drop something off a cliff, and gravitational energy gets transformed into kinetic energy, which upon hitting the ground will partly turn into... | null |
4970ho | why is it that "time flies when you're having fun"? | [
{
"answer": "I think because you focus much harder on the task at hand you stop thinking about the time so much.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The psychology term you are looking for is [flow](_URL_0_\n \nWhen you are engaged in something and our attendion is focused on it. Our perception of... | null |
ci65v2 | what are the grey areas that we can see in the moon from down here? | [
{
"answer": "They're called mares. It means \"sea,\" but these are actually more like patches of the surface that had melted and re-hardened in the distant past.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They're called maria. They're large, flat basaltic lava planes from from when the moon was geological... | null |
5uezov | since blue whales have aortas large enough to swim in, do they have fewer issues with blood clots? | [
{
"answer": "Or do they just have man-sized blood clots?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "considering they have an extremely active lifestyle (swimming constantly all the time) and a relatively low cholesterol diet (mostly plankton and krill iirc) they are presumably at very low risk for blood c... | null |
c8j7cp | When heating something to high temperatures it becomes “red hot” and then continues to change color to orange, yellow, and then white; why doesn’t the hot object start to glow green or blue after yellow? | [
{
"answer": "The \"red hot\" appearance of an object is due to its thermal radiation. This is EM radiation emitted by every object and the spectrum of which is determined by the temperature. Objects at room temperature emit thermal radiation in the infrared part of the spectrum, but once objects get hotter, the... | null |
154xvd | why does fabric (temporally) change colour when it gets wet? | [
{
"answer": "First of all, you have to look at how colour works. When light hits something, most of the light is absorbed by whatever is there, in your case, the backpack. What you see is only the light that isn't absorbed, it's reflected back at you. So, when you add water (rain) the reflection back is differe... | null |
407qel | what will happen if a republican president is elected in 2016 and signs the obamacare repeal bill? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, it could be repealed, and what would happen depends on what exactly is in the bill repealing it.\n\nWhile the Affordable Care Act is one discrete public law, it is codified by inserting provisions into various titles and sections of the U.S. Code (statutes) that deal with health care and insu... | null |
3e6jks | why there is no radio function in iphones (not sure about androids) radio was avaliable in almost all old phones | [
{
"answer": "Because you need to add yet another chip which can receive the right wavelength, which adds complexity, costs, and takes away space for things you'd rather put in.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "8841749",
"title": "... | null |
8wp994 | Did any Native American civilization possibly know that there was land and people beyond the Americas? Did they have any mythological tales about the rest of the world? | [
{
"answer": "I think, from my understanding, you are asking about concepts of aboriginal knowledge- this is \" including traditional teachings, empirical observation, and revelation\" (1). I caution that I have only an amateur background in the histories, but hope to answer the concept of your question.\n\nOf t... | null |
9mtitf | why are australia's vast empty planes simply not covered in solar panels to help with their power productions crisis? | [
{
"answer": "The same reason they're not spinning up new gas plants - Money and maintenance. It's not like you just stick solar panels out in the middle of a dusty wasteland and that's that. They need to be continuously cleaned to deliver anything close to their rated output.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
7j0dnk | why is it recommended to cook with cold water instead of hot water? | [
{
"answer": "There are 2 reasons, that I know of, \n\n1. Hot water can leach minerals and metals out of pipes/ lining of the hot water heater affecting taste/ heavy metals are no fun.\n\n2. If a hot water heater does not properly cycle to high temps (160 I think) it can become a reservoir for legionnaires disea... | null |
1ae3eu | What properties make an object heat faster in a microwave? | [
{
"answer": "You are observing the dielectric properties of the various materials. Some materials like dry ice are transparent to microwaves and will not heat up in a microwave because it has low dielectric loss. Some ceramic plates and bowls have higher dielectric loss than others meaning they couple with the ... | null |
3zjfk3 | How much of Real Madrid's early success was because of Francisco Franco? | [
{
"answer": "Hi, just a note that this sub isn't always the deepest in sports historians, so if you don't get answers here - or even if you do - consider x-posting this to /r/realmadrid, /r/soccer, or /r/football",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Sid Lowe's book 'fear and loathing in la liga' goe... | null |
44x4gb | how is it possible that we encounter plateaus when losing weight even if we continue to operate at a caloric deficit? | [
{
"answer": "There are a lot of possible explanations. One big thing to keep in mind is water weight.\n\nWhat are the physical things that make up your weight? Bones... Fat... Muscles... Organ tissues........ and Water! You're actually mostly water, by the way. And the amount of water sitting inside of you can ... | null |
3xzax9 | How does our body keep track of time? And how might this effect space travel? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\nInteresting read",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "On your question about the role of the sun and the implications for space travel, there were a series of interesting studies a while back that provides part of the answer. The goal of these studies was to determine if our no... | null |
2kp9m9 | How does graphite bind to paper, and how does an eraser remove it? | [
{
"answer": "[So this is what paper looks like close up](_URL_0_)\n\n[This is what graphite might look like close up](_URL_1_)\n\nWhen you write, the graphite becomes all dusty and lands on the paper, and into the holes of the paper and all over it. But it isn't bonded to it. This is why, after long periods of ... | null |
3ovsqp | Royal chefs in Middle Ages | [
{
"answer": "The first German language cookbook was written by a woman named Sabina Welserin in 1553 (you can read it [here](_URL_0_)). Not much is known about her life but she mentioned in one recipe that the cook for Count of Leuchtenberg instructed her to cook fish a certain way hinting she is a professional... | null |
2c1k27 | why would human poop be white? | [
{
"answer": "White stool is not normal and should be evaluated promptly by a doctor. White stool is caused by a lack of bile, which may indicate a serious underlying problem.\n\nBile is a digestive fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Stool gets its normal brownish color from bile, which i... | null |
fik4y3 | what is actually in contraband (cheap) cigarettes and why are they so cheap and illegal? | [
{
"answer": "Because some states like New York tax cigarettes heavily. Contraband cigarettes are purchased out of state to avoid the taxes and sold at a discounted rate.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "40593794",
"title": "Illic... | null |
5l3lf2 | Winston Churchill often spoke about his "little black dog" (i.e. depression) that constantly followed him around. Did any Nazi leaders suffer from depression or other clinical mental disorders? | [
{
"answer": "Suicidal tendencies were a sufficient problem in the SS that Himmler made a point of saying that funerals shouldn't be given for officers who committed it for \"trivial\" reasons. Between July and September of 1942, 30 members of the SS committed it. One particular case was a SS Brigadier named Fr... | null |
32nv6x | If I unraveled the DNA in a human cell, how strong would it be? | [
{
"answer": "What you're looking for is the tensile strength of DNA compared to the tensile strength of something like, say, nylon. It takes about 1 nN to break a strand of DNA, which at around 2nm wide and roughly circular, gives you a tensile strength of about 318 MPa. This is compared to somewhere in the n... | null |
nusvn | why everyone seems to hate /r/politics. | [
{
"answer": "Reddit as a website skews young, especially on the default subreddits. Reddit also skews liberal (which I am too).\n\nAs a result, you get a bunch of 15-18 year olds yelling about politics they have only recently started to be interested in and learn about and which they barely understand. They l... | null |
5eimdc | during the cold war, how did the united states (and by extent, the soviet union) know that a nuclear missile was fired at thier respective country early enough so that they could deploy countermeasures? | [
{
"answer": "Both countries deployed radar stations and other surveillance set ups around each other, looking for the distinctive sounds or signatures of a missile launch. This wasn't a perfect system, we nearly had some false alarms that ended humanity.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Radar sy... | null |
69mjxt | Do rainbows also have sections in the infrared and/or ultraviolet spectrum? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, definitely! You can easily see that in [this series of images](_URL_0_) taken in the ultraviolet (UV), visible, and infrared (IR) parts of the spectrum. As you can see there is a UV band below the violet edge and an IR band above the red edge, which you obviously can't see with the naked eye.\... | null |
2nos65 | how can we identify different instruments playing at the same time if it is the same air that is vibrating? | [
{
"answer": "The amazing human brain takes all the sound waves in as a raw input just as you say, but the truly spectacular thing is that it can decode this information for us into separate sounds all playing at once. I don't think neuro scientists have discovered exactly how the brain does such a feat but it m... | null |
2x3vbn | what is the reasoning behind above-ground power lines? germany buries them, mostly, but the usa keeps them exposed to the elements. | [
{
"answer": "A few factors:\n\n1. It's cheaper initially, even if it has significant costs due to more damage.\n2. When a part of a 10 mile power line breaks, the power company has no idea where it happened. They drive down the road to find out where the failure happened. If the wires are underground that do... | null |
eukkeu | how do free mobile games make money when all the ads in the game are from other free mobile games? | [
{
"answer": "In game purchases are the primary income stream for that kind of game. Advertising is a thing too - last quarter [Zynga reported 18% of revenue in advertising](_URL_1_) - but it's not what the business is built on. \n\nIt's worth remembering that a large portion of the income in this kind of in g... | null |
ks1r6 | how do man-made canals work? like the suez, erie, panama canal? | [
{
"answer": "Their purpose is to move boats between places that don't directly connect. This saves a lot of money on shipping things, because then you don't have to steer your boat all the way around Africa or South America if you're shipping stuff from Greece to India or from New York to San Francisco. They ar... | null |
3tjvgf | why are electoral votes all or nothing(for the most part)? why are they not divvied out representative to popular vote? | [
{
"answer": "Because each state chooses to use all of its electoral votes to elect the person the majority of the electorate in that state voted for. Each state chooses to not divvy up its electoral vote.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "... | null |
3n2we6 | Why is the strong force repulsive at small distances? | [
{
"answer": "My favourite [link](_URL_0_) for \"why\" questions, especially of this nature.\n\nAlso the Strong force itself isn't repulsive over short distances, just an effective description of it for use between nucleons is.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
... | null |
478d9y | What are your favorite historical books about great empires and/or historical figures. | [
{
"answer": "Caesar: Life of a Colossus\nAdrian Goldsworthy\n\nFantastic well researched life of quite possibly the worlds most interesting man that is a great approachable read.\n\nAmerican Ceasar\nWilliam Manchester\nSometimes a bit heavy but riveting all the same. Makes this complicated controversial man und... | null |
1tvxzq | What did pre-Columbian indigenous nations do with the dead bodies of people who they fought? Did they just leave them on the field? | [
{
"answer": "I can't speak to the specifics of Aztec battles, but the huge diversity of pre-Columbian nations over thousands of years and across two continents gave rise to a variety of methods of treating fallen combatants. There will be as many answers to this question as there are distinct cultural traditio... | null |
4gv5a4 | why do we get random bouts of euphoria? | [
{
"answer": "Well, there are a couple of reasons. Number one, when we lower our expectations for something, we are usually pleasantly surprised with the outcome. An example of this is a rainy day. On rainy days, we wake up and go, \"Looks like today is gonna be crappy.\" In thinking like this, we have already l... | null |
3jit73 | why does ssds have a specific number of reads/writes. | [
{
"answer": "The way my boss describes it is like this:\n\nWhen you write to a cell, you're basically shooting it with a shotgun (electrons). This makes it return a different signal when you apply power (to read it). \n\nWhen you erase that cell, you take a giant magnet to rip the bullets out. Unfortunately som... | null |
322sd2 | Why do so many aerosol products use things like propane and butane as propellants? Why not air or nitrogen? | [
{
"answer": "Propane and butane are liquids when compressed. This allows a lot of the gas to be stored in a small space. Normal compressed air is still a gas, and has to be compressed at much higher pressures to even approach the compact storage of the usual propellants. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"... | null |
7x9iye | In WWII, did anyone become an ace as either a pilot or gunner of a bomber? | [
{
"answer": "There are certainly gunners credited with five or more kills. Albert E. Conder's *The Men Behind The Guns: The History of Enlisted Aerial Gunnery 1917 - 1991* has a section, \"Some of the Aces\"; Conder says \"The thousands of enemy fighters downed by Gunners were counted as a \"team\" effort, rath... | null |
3mka2j | why should i bother getting married? | [
{
"answer": "Do you live in some religious autocracy where that carries the death penalty? If not probably nothing stops you.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "From a secular point of view, a marriage is a contract between (usually two) people. They agree to pool their resources. The general ide... | null |
80nfb1 | how do mesh networks maintain speed? | [
{
"answer": "Any wireless mesh network will lose speed each hop because of the overhead. Even wired networks you will lose some speed each hop but it is not near as noticeable because there is much less overhead in wired communication. Basically each wireless node takes the data off the wire, encapsulates it in... | null |
1s2i36 | why do i see product placement at big events in the form of only the name of a brand? | [
{
"answer": "When you go to buy, say, a TV, you might see a Sony and a Magnavox. If you see Sony's name over and over again, you'll be more familiar with the brand name and think it more reputable.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2748504... | null |
1icu4a | What was the power relationship between USSR "spy agencies" and the Communist Party up until the fall of the Soviet Union? | [
{
"answer": "First off, it's important to remember that the KGB didn't exist until the 1950s. The Cheka, OGPU and NKVD all came before. After NKVD director Lavrenty Beria fell in 1953, intelligence gathering was done by more than one agency, though KGB certainty had the most influence. \n\nThe answer to your q... | null |
16psa0 | Could a large object come close enough to Earth to cause people to temporarily float without knocking the planet out of orbit? | [
{
"answer": "For that to happen, the surface gravity of the object would have to be greater than the surface gravity of Earth. Such as object, presumably made of some sort of rocky material, would have to be of comparable mass to the Earth. The only way this object would careen past the Earth at super close ran... | null |
1qozzs | What was happening along the rest of the eastern front during the Battle of Berlin? | [
{
"answer": "On the Balkans, the Croatians and Heeresgruppe F were retreating under the combined pressure of Titos (by now regular) army, the Soviets and elements of the Bulgarian army. They were mostly attempting to make contact with the British in western Austria to surrender to them in a vain hope to not be ... | null |
j2pag | can someone explain to me what a tax bracket is? | [
{
"answer": "When declaring your income while doing your taxes, a \"Tax Bracket\" helps the government know which % of tax you owe based off of said income.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The government taxes your income based on a percentage of how much you make. If you make more money, the ... | null |
iu41x | Why is there so little known about seizures? | [
{
"answer": "I think we know more about seizures than you'd think, and are learning more and more with the advancement of technology. It's just that this information isn't yet to the point where it is truly helpful to doctors.\n\n > Doctor's cannot even tell us why it happens\n\nDo you mean why seizures happen... | null |
f28oya | how does billing work for toll roads? | [
{
"answer": "Will be helpful to list the specific system you are talking about \n\nIn many cases in the US, tolls may be assessed on certain entry/exit points and certain points along the road.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "In Massachusetts we have gantry open road tolling now, every gantry c... | null |
2gpcqo | You're in a medieval European city and you need to find yourself a place to call home. Who do you talk to? A medieval realtor? | [
{
"answer": "Obligatory \"medieval Europe can mean a lot of different times and a lot of different places.\" You should probably make your question a little more specific.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "1245575",
"title": "Day-t... | null |
2m3jxq | why does it hardly rain in southern california, despite being adjacent to the pacific ocean? | [
{
"answer": "Proximity to an ocean is only one of the factors when determining rainfall. There's lost of deserts in the world that are ocean adjacent. \n\nThe overall weather patterns play a much more significant role. So air currents, ocean temperature, as well as land features like mountains. There's more ... | null |
yvjn1 | Mom says you will catch a cold if you go out in the cold weather or rain without a coat. Do these actually contribute to getting you sick? And how? | [
{
"answer": "No, the temperature outside will not cause a viral illness (catching a \"cold\").",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The 'common cold' is usually caused by a rhinovirus. Cold temperature itself does not cause illness. [However, temperature effects may facilitate viral infection:](_U... | null |
qixcl | Instead of a space elevator, how (un) feasible would a railgun /coilgun be to shoot things into orbit? | [
{
"answer": "The basic problem is that the initial speed for shooting something out of orbit is astronomically high. Even ignoring drag the escape velocity of Earth is 11.2km/s. According to [stackexchange](_URL_0_) the escape velocity including drag is roughly 13.5km/s for a 1kg bullet-shaped object (minimizin... | null |
13scsp | Hypothetically, if someone with a cold ate ice cream out of a tub of ice cream and then the rest of that ice cream tub was put back into the freezer, would all the cold germs "freeze to death" making it safe for someone else to eat that ice cream? | [
{
"answer": "Bacteria are not going to \"freeze to death\", they are frozen at much lower temperatures on a normal basis (a normal lab freezer is set to -20C). Ice formation in the bacterial cells can lead to them \"freezing to death\", but this is unlikely in your freezer. I suppose if you waited long enough, ... | null |
7mx6gy | how does an iud work? | [
{
"answer": "There's two basic versions of a an iud; one uses hormones while the other does not. \n\nThe non-hormonal one simply makes the uterus a non hospitable environment for the zygote, even if the egg gets fertilized. The hormonal one also acts as a physical deterrent, with the added bonus of super slow ... | null |
3hc45c | When I take medicine that supresses symptoms, do I prolong the sickness? | [
{
"answer": "[Here](_URL_0_) is a study that suggest that the flu could be prolonged by use of antipyretics. More study trials are needed to form a definite conclusion on the matter. It likely depends on the sickness in question, as well as which medicine is being used. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"a... | null |
1om37o | if what we see and hear has happened in the past does that mean that time outside our sphere of awareness is moving faster? | [
{
"answer": "It's all \"going at the same speed\", so to speak. The brain just takes a fraction of a second to 'boot up', and so it is starting out on the back foot.\n\nA bit like... if you have two identical marathon runners in a race, but one of them is given an 80ms handicap. You wouldn't say that time is no... | null |
35lviz | Is there any evidence to suggest that the Coliseum was flooded for sport? | [
{
"answer": "Seutonius passes over it quickly in his *Life of Nero*:\n > But he compelled four hundred senators and six hundred Roman knights, some of whom were well to do and of unblemished reputation, to fight in the arena. Even those who fought with the wild beasts and performed the various services in the a... | null |
27d2rq | Were there ever any battles that involved artillery units targeting each other? | [
{
"answer": "It's a frequent occurrence known as counter-battery fire. It's one of the more basic artillery strategies there is, employed as far back as there's been artillery. I suggest picking up John Norris' *Artillery: A History*. It's a good introductory primer to the history of big guns.",
"provenance... | null |
1gcx4e | why does adobe publish so much software for free? | [
{
"answer": "They dont. Most of Adobe's software is at least a couple hundred bucks. What software (other than reader) are you referring to?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "By publishing so much free software, they can get their name known to pretty much every computer user in the world.\n\nT... | null |
2a23lq | if the europe-central map projection used in most places is inaccurate, why isn't a more accurate created and used instead? | [
{
"answer": "Are you talking about the distortion of certain maps, physically? Or are you talking about the fact that it's centered on Europe, and people think it should be centered elsewhere?\n\nIn general, though, there is no \"accurate\" flat map of the earth. The earth is round, and a map is flat. That will... | null |
4bv9m4 | what is the tech bubble burst that everyone keeps talking about will happen soon? | [
{
"answer": "Tech is part of our daily lives now and it's unlikely that will change any time soon so the demand for tech is comfortably high. But what is happening is the nature of that tech is always changing.\n\nConsumers are opting for tablets and smart phones over computers and laptops so the industry has t... | null |
1o3u0p | What was the original motivation, intent, and context of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, specifically in regards to the public debt? | [
{
"answer": "The primary motivation for the section was unquestionably to confirm that the U.S. would neither assume nor even recognize the validity of Confederate debt. \n\nThis part of the amendment was not heavily contested, so there is a relative lack of contemporary statements explaining its meaning, but h... | null |
w1513 | why do we pronounce the "w" in words like "swore," but not in "sword?" | [
{
"answer": "Not sure about those two words specifically, but common English words come from many different langauges, often using the same letters. If the words of origin are vastly different (like not just different words but from different langauges) it is not surprising the pronunciations would be different... | null |
eg0mdx | how can you get pregnant when not taking the pill every day at the same time/missing a day or when leaving the hormonal ring out for more than 3 hours? doesn't hormonal bc have a longer-term effect on women's bodies? | [
{
"answer": "As I understand it (and I'm not an expert or anything close), hormonal birth control stops you from ovulating, and the part that it stops doesn't take very long. If it gets messed up, that little part will happen, then when whole process starts and you can be fertile.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
167oe5 | why is it we find walking outside in 90 degree heat unbearable, yet sitting in a 90 degree sauna is so relaxing? | [
{
"answer": "Part of it probably has to do with the sun. The temperature isn't really the unbearable part, the burning from the sun is. In a sauna it is dark and moist. Even so I still hate them. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I find saunas insanely stressful! \n\nIt's the ability to step out... | null |
2kzsaj | How did the US become solely a British Colony when originally there were so many different colonial powers in the area? | [
{
"answer": "Remember that the French controlled Louisiana (a territory that does not match the boundaries of the State of Louisiana) until well after the American Revolution. We bought it during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. \n\nEach area has its own history of turning from non-English controlled areas... | null |
6i7jl3 | Why isn't Juneteenth a national holiday in the United States? | [
{
"answer": "Juneteenth does not commemorate the actual emancipation of slaves; that happened in January 1863 for the states in rebellion, and with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in Dec. 1865.\n\nJuneteenth celebrates when news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas in June 1865. ... | null |
135g5i | the expulsions of the germans in european countries during and after ww2. | [
{
"answer": "By the time of the World Wars, German speaking populations existed in many places throughout Europe, including Central Europe and along the Baltic Sea. These maps both show Prussia and other German states [before WWI](_URL_4_) and [before WWII](_URL_0_). Note how the territory is larger than modern... | null |
9uptiz | Why wasn't Augustus one of the "5 good Roman emperors"? | [
{
"answer": "I think the best explanation in this case is the simplest one: the term “5 Good Emperors” refers specifically to the chronological succession of five emperors (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, and Marcus Aurelius) who were lauded for their expansion of the empire and the relative stability of... | null |
1hscck | How does the fact that heat moves from warmer objects to cooler objects relate to IR emitted from greenhouse gases? | [
{
"answer": "No, that is a entirely unreasonable argument. \n\nAs an illustration, which do you think would heat up to higher temperatures? An oven with the door open or an oven with the door closed?\n\nIf you consider the surface of the planet to be the IR source in the oven, and greenhouse gasses to be the ov... | null |
3jeee7 | How did Plato's name become root word for non-sexual friendship? Platonic. | [
{
"answer": "Mainly because of his dialogue the *Symposium*, which is effectively a prose drama showing several people making speeches about the nature of love/desire. All of the speakers are in agreement that physical desire is the \"lowest\" kind of love, and as the drama progresses there's a kind of escalati... | null |
2bprp3 | how do the "double irish" and "double irish w/ dutch sandwich" tax avoidance techniques work? | [
{
"answer": "The EU operates a free trade regime such that a state can't attempt to tax an entity based in another country selling to its citizens. In the US context its very similar to the way US states behave, if I live in NY and buy something from a company in MA then NY doesn't tax the company in MA for pro... | null |
1ix976 | how do they get water up large skyscrapers | [
{
"answer": "with pumps! the pressure that is supplied by the water main available in most cities is usually only adequate to get water up around 6-8 stories. any building higher than that needs to supplement the water pressure in its system with pumps. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\... | null |
6epw9w | how did media control symbols become standard (play, pause, fast forward, etc.)? do other parts of the world use different symbols? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nThere is actually an international standard for all forms of icons.\nI'm going off of personal knowledge here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but during the 80s when electronics started to become more widespread globally and production switched from the west to the east, many of the manufac... | null |
2wkmeo | what does 'all property is theft' mean? | [
{
"answer": "It is a saying that implies that anything you can own involves the exploitation and/or abuse of someone or something that is not being compensated, and that you can't separate the property itself from it's origins... That you can't, for examply, own a pair of shoes without separating them from the ... | null |
6fwbo1 | why has the global temperature spiked so dramatically in the last 10-20 years even though that's the timespan we've become aware of global warming and started trying to combat it? | [
{
"answer": "Guess what happened before 20 years ago? Rampant pollution while being oblivious. \"Just exhaust it, planet Earth will pick up the slack and balance out\" was the mentality back then.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Because awareness doesn't imply doing something about it, the ef... | null |
h6fal | How do trees grow in such a way as to not fall over? | [
{
"answer": "I think it has more to do with the roots than with the branches. If trees had to balance their branches in order to stay upright, they would get blown over all the time.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'm not a scientist in any way, but all I can guess at is that any trees that di... | null |
j6md7 | How did the idea of the atom advance beyond a theory? (other questions inside) | [
{
"answer": "Atomic theory came from chemistry, from the realization that there must be little indivisible bits of each element. (Actually atomic theory is often said to go back to antiquity and the Greeks, but that's a bit misleading, because until the 19th century it all amounted to little more than \"I bet s... | null |
5uf2rk | AskScience AMA Series: We're a group of paleontologists here to answer your paleontology questions! Ask us anything! | [
{
"answer": "How did the ancestors of crocs fare during the mass extinction event 65M years ago?\n\nDid they actually survive, or was it just a case of convergent evolution? If yes, why and how did they survive?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "What do you think is some of our greatest evidence ... | null |
9ue6yk | would hiv/aids cancel out leukemia? | [
{
"answer": "Not really, HIV is a virus, AIDS is a deficiency of CD4 white blood cells, and leukemia is a cancer causing elevated abnormal nonfunctioning white blood cells (there are more types than just CD4) \nThat about as ELI5 as I can get, there is alot more science behind it, between the progenitor cell li... | null |
3ttoqe | Why were the Channel Islands not liberated soon after D-day? | [
{
"answer": "There was a plan to liberate them as early as 1943, called Operation Constellation. Drawn up by Lord Louis Mountbatten, based on aerial reconnaissance.\n\nThe problem was that, as it stood, the Channel Islands weren't actually much of a strategic advantage. Obviously if the Luftwaffe were to establ... | null |
fdbhvi | how did mining work back in the day? did people just picaxe long tunnels into the rock hoping they’ll find something useful? | [
{
"answer": "Yes and no. Depending on what's being mined.\nTypically they'd find a vein and surface level evidence. (Think of gold washed down a creek, it comes from a vein somewhere)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Historically, prospecting involved thoroughly searching a wide area looking for... | null |
4ajoum | how does someone go from being christian to jewish and vice-versa? | [
{
"answer": "It really depends on the sect of either faith. I'm not an expert on Judaism so I won't comment there.\n\nTo become Christian you have to either (depends on the group):\n\n* Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Personal Savior. Either publicly or privately depending on the group.\n\n* Have a testimo... | null |
44q1tm | Can you recommend any sources (book or journal articles) that summarize issues related to Oral Tradition? | [
{
"answer": "All sources - every bit of evidence about the past - requires source criticism to evaluate what flaws have insinuated themselves into the weave of information presented. The difference between a written primary source and recorded oral testimony that is not first hand can be summed up with the foll... | null |
atk6l6 | why is feet bone structure much more complex and composed of so many bones, while hands are much more simple? | [
{
"answer": "There are 27 bones in each hand. There are 26 bones in each foot. Can you please explain what you are talking about?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "What makes you say the structure of a foot is more complex than a hand?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"pr... | null |
1rte90 | what exactly happens to my body when i get the flu. | [
{
"answer": "For most viruses, all the symptoms are your body's attempt to slow the progression of the virus while it searches for an antibody.\n\nThe virus is taking over cells and reprogramming them to produce more of itself. The only way to actually stop it is to produce the right antibody. I don't really kn... | null |
c2tryo | The M60 was the only machine gun authorized by the Army to be used on gun trucks in Vietnam. How did officers react when they saw gun trucks armed with M2s and miniguns? | [
{
"answer": "The officers were the ones leading the development of the Vietnam era gun trucks. Company, Battalion, and Group (Brigade equivalent) level transportation officers in Vietnam were heavily involved in these field modifications, and they also were the ones creating the doctrine to allow their units to... | null |
2hs5vg | air conditioning | [
{
"answer": "[This](_URL_0_) is the basic cycle of the refrigeration cycle. There is a lot of thermodynamics but basically it works on the fact that the liquid inside the air conditioner has a low boiling point and can transfer thermal energy well/ as it it pumped through the cycle the liquid experiences phase... | null |
17svrl | is there such a thing as a material that is completely impermeable? For example, can some molecules get though a plastic baggy? | [
{
"answer": "Small molecules such as water may diffuse through most plastics, so even an airtight container is \"porous\" on a microscopic level. In any case, unless the bag is perfectly sealed by melting the plastic, chances are that the moisture can diffuse through small leaks at the sealing.",
"provenanc... | null |
4by43y | why is it a mark of quality for a watch to be "swiss-made"? couldn't a swiss company make a crappy watch? | [
{
"answer": "Of course - but like much advertising it trades on beliefs and mystique rather than facts.\n\nSwitzerland does produce some truly amazing watches, but it doesn't have a monopoly on it.\n\nNot sure whether they'd bother to produce really poor quality stuff these days simply because anything they cou... | null |
80zclg | Is it possible for an astronomical body to have a molten core, without orbiting a star? | [
{
"answer": "Sure. If a planet forms and then gets ejected from its star system, there's no reason it couldn't have a molten core for a while. The Earth's core isn't molten because of the Sun, it's molten because of residual heat from planet formation plus radioactive heating from decay within the crust. ",
... | null |
5jiwxf | if working out is just damaging and repairing muscle tissue, couldnt we just mechanically damage the tissue and recouperate saving time and energy? | [
{
"answer": "You can actually build muscle with electro stimulation. By putting electrodes on your skin in the right place the muscles will contract with each pulse of electricity. It's not a pleasant feeling. My roommate had a stimulator for his back muscles when he was injured and to fuck with me he just thre... | null |
juqgy | Chemistry - A few questions about pH buffers. | [
{
"answer": "Your monobasic phosphate (KH₂PO₄) will dissociate into H₂PO₄^- , while your dibasic phosphate (K₂HPO₄) dissociates into HPO₄^2- . Your mixture will buffer by going in between these two ions, by adding and removing protons.\n\nChanging the ratio of the primer (by primer I assume you mean the ratio o... | null |
2lcmrg | When fat is burned via exercise, which is burned first: the most recently stored fat or the oldest fat in the body? | [
{
"answer": "Links, and abstracts to three papers pertinent to the question. Its a bit long, but (I think) very interesting. I have **bolded** a few key statements for those who would just like to skim\n\n_URL_1_\n\"**Fatty acids are the most abundant source of endogenous energy substrate.** They can be mobiliz... | null |
5q092t | how do composers write music? | [
{
"answer": "It's all a grand formula called music theory. With Hans Zimmer and most other composers the steps go kind of like this: find a theme, build a central melody and build around the melody. Finding a theme is first step of the creative process and a theme can be deliberately sought after by a composer ... | null |
28sfsi | Did Sherman purposely let the Confederate garrison in Savannah escape? | [
{
"answer": "\"Sherman, along with Federal forces in Hilton Head, could have prevented Hardee's escape. Sherman was aware that the Confederates were building a pontoon bridge to South Carolina, yet upon his departure for Hilton Head Island on December 19, he left orders for his army not to attack the Savannah w... | null |
8xwx0x | Are there more planets or more stars? | [
{
"answer": "Based on what the Kepler space telescope has found, there are almost certainly more planets out there than stars.\n\nBefore Kepler it was hypothesized that few enough star systems had planets that there might be more stars than planets, but it turns out there are a lot more planets out there than e... | null |
a44r4v | if atoms have a positive nucleus with electrons that orbit it, why don’t they collapse into themselves? | [
{
"answer": "There are 4 forces in an atom. Strong, weak, gravitational and electromagnetic. It's the electromagnetic force that's responsible for keeping the electron orbit stable. Think of a rope with a ball on the end and you're holding the other end. Your hand is the nucleus and the ball is the electron, no... | null |
ax7z5u | Does cold have diminishing returns, e.g. does -40 degrees generally really feel that much colder than zero degrees? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, it's hard to explain but the wind chill plays a big part in it too, before the polar vortex in Wisconsin a few weeks ago it was -10 or so with no wind and you could go outside in a sweatshirt. But with the wind a week later -10 felt like -50 and it was horrible. You had to wear aparka with a s... | null |
g2dfxm | what makes rent so high in some areas for small apartments, and so low in others for relatively large apartments? | [
{
"answer": "It can be largely based on surrounding areas income but it’s mostly just location. Are you in close proximity to a large employer (like a medical center?), close enough that people wouldn’t *have* to drive? Then it’s gonna be higher, marketed towards medical employees. It’s based on a lot of factor... | null |
4uh618 | why do bulbs (that glow white) become green and stays illuminated for a while? | [
{
"answer": "I assume you're talking about fluorescent bulbs. They work by having a gas inside which generates intense ultraviolet light when you pass an electric current through it.\n\nThe inside of the glass tubes is coated with phosphor, this is a range of chemicals which glow in different colours when they... | null |
21ln84 | can anyone explain if there is any actual valuable take-away from schrödinger's cat? or just an abstract thought experiment? | [
{
"answer": "Schrodinger's Cat helps explain the idea of superposition in quantum theory -- superposition being the idea that things can be in many states at once, and it's only once they're observed or measured that they take on a specific form (which can be influenced by their observation). It's one of those... | null |
540bkc | Should the Chinese Emperors' mausoleums be excavated? | [
{
"answer": "That's a very hard question to answer and honestly - I am\nNot quite sure if I am qualified for it. Especially not for the imperial tombs in china. \n\nWhat I can answer is what happens if things get done too fast, without a clear preservation plan and without a clear idea of what you want to achie... | null |
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