id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
6jicc4 | Do humans ears "pop" if they are aboard a diving submarine? | [
{
"answer": "No. When flying the cabin isn't airtight, and at 30k feet atmospheric pressure drops inside the cabin to a pressure roughly equivalent to 6-8k feet above sea level. This change in effective pressure in the cabin causes ears to pop. \n\nWhen diving in a submarine the sub is watertight and there is t... | null |
12oxs4 | How did fascist governments achieve syncretism? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not a scholar of the period by any means, but I think the best and simplest answer is that they didn't, at least nearly as successfully as they would have wished.\nJapan's WWII government isn't widely considered fascist, as far as I know.\nItaly's tried to implement a series of education reform... | null |
sowbi | Why are some harmonies (octaves, fifths, etc) generally considered more pleasant than dissonant harmonies, or 'out-of-tune' instruments? | [
{
"answer": "When a sound is produced in nature, it isn't a single frequency (which you can get from some synthesizers) but rather a multitude of frequencies. The note we refer to it as is the lowest audible frequency, or the fundamental frequency. The other frequencies sounded are all the integer multiples of ... | null |
1n4ii6 | Hydrogen Combustion Engines & Climate | [
{
"answer": "Even though water vapor is actually the gas that causes most of the greenhouse effect on our planet - responsible for roughly 30 of the 33 degrees of greenhouse warming Earth experiences - it reaches equilibrium on the order of a couple days. If water vapor climbs too high, it rains. Too low, and t... | null |
ailnjv | What language(s) did Kublai Khan speak? | [
{
"answer": "Kublai Khan is thankfully well documented in our history, to the point where some of his writings survive. Furthermore, the Yuan Dynasty kept multilingual records and with the aid of Tibetan Lamas developed the 'phags-pa phonetic script that was used as a standard for languages within.\n\nAs we al... | null |
fmsu4h | How Far Would Roman Soldiers (mainly non-Europeans) Travel for War/Military Orders? | [
{
"answer": "They would travel quite far actually. During the time of the Republic, the Legions went where they were needed, and you would often end up fighting and garrisoning in regions of the world thousands of miles from home. The Legions that took part in Julius Ceasar's invasion of Britain for example, in... | null |
3ccziz | What was the organization and centralization of the Han dynasty military? | [
{
"answer": "So the thing about the Eastern Han (which directly turned into the Three Kingdoms) was that it wasn't all that militarized in terms of having massive professional standing armies. The Eastern Han Dynasty specifically did not have large standing armies as it didn't want to recreate the chaos of the ... | null |
88xgtw | how does a b-2 bomber fly and maintain stability without a vertical stabilizer? | [
{
"answer": "The B-2 uses what's called a split rudder to maintain yaw stability. [Here](_URL_0_) you can see the split rudder in operation.\n\nEach split-rudder is actually two separate panels that swing out opposite vertically of each other. When the left split-rudder opens it produces drag and causes the B-2... | null |
2p7mx0 | why do censored tv versions of movies make up weird phrases to fill in for bad words instead of just using normal more mild phrases? | [
{
"answer": "If you pick a phrase that's pretty phonetically similar to the original one, it's going to match pretty closely with how the actor's lips move. For someone who hasn't seen the original, the change will be less noticeable.\n\nAs for phrases that don't make sense, I remember watching Snakes on a Plan... | null |
1iubc5 | How were mixed-blood African American--Native American individuals viewed within both African American and Native American communities/societies prior to the 20th Century? | [
{
"answer": "This is a great question. I don't have a full answer for you, unfortunately as I'm no expert on this topic.\n\nOne place to start might be investigating histories of slavery among Native peoples. It was not uncommon for male native masters to become involved sexually with their black female slaves.... | null |
4pw2rh | what's the strategy businesses have when giving away free product with no purchase necessary (dominos' free pizza, chipotle's free burrito)? | [
{
"answer": "I think it's more of an incentive for them to retain their client base by rewarding the customers one day out of the year with free product. For me as a customer, it leAves a positive impression on the company that just hooked me up with a free pizza/ burrito",
"provenance": null
},
{
"... | null |
1qd23k | who pays for what is done on reality tv shows and how these shows make a profit. | [
{
"answer": "Reality shows, like game shows, are super cheap to make.\n\nA top show like *NCIS* is paying millions of dollars per episode in actors salaries alone, not to mention writers, sets, and a huge production crew.\n\n$100K in remodelling is cheap by comparison.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"ans... | null |
9hmz8m | Are there any recorded battles of submarines fighting other submarines? Or is that not a thing? | [
{
"answer": "Submarines were used to fight submarines in both World Wars. In most cases, the targeted submarine was on the surface; only one submarine, *U-864*, was sunk by another submerged submarine. Attacks on surfaced submarines were still difficult. A submarine was a small target, hard to spot or to measur... | null |
7d8ibn | how is it so difficult for video game publishers to detect cheating on pc? | [
{
"answer": "The fundamental problem is that the user has physical control over their own PC and the only information the game manufacturer gets is whatever their PC sends.\n\n > Doesn't their code have digital signatures?\n\nSure, and those can always be defeated someone with enough time and perseverance. Let... | null |
9snl6v | During the passage of the 14th Amendment, what was the understanding regarding 'birthright citizenship'? Did Senators anticipate that it could be used to grant citizenship to children of immigrants? How soon after it's passage was it used to grant citizenship to non-slave immigrant children? | [
{
"answer": "Okay, so given that I've been having this conversation with several different people today and have been working on issues regarding immigration and refugee policy for the past couple of months, I can answer this question fairly well, though I welcome anyone else who has different perspectives and ... | null |
db4lit | how did social security start in the us in 1935? | [
{
"answer": "As for your last question, absolutely. Even today we have serious issues, mostly with elderly people, concerning their ability to vote because they were born at home, never got a birth certificate, never got a SS number. Not that many decades ago you could manage pretty well without all the documen... | null |
1m4mfk | Apple announced new camera for their iPhones and are touting the superiority of "larger pixels" on the camera's sensor. How does having larger pixel area on the CCD improve digital image quality? | [
{
"answer": "Especially in low-light situations, which pixel is likely to capture any one given photon, the smaller or larger one? Extrapolating to normal light situations, a larger pixel can capture more photons more quickly, and thus form an image sooner (think like shutter speed here)",
"provenance": nul... | null |
8bxiz4 | How libertine was sexuality in the Weimar Republic? | [
{
"answer": "This isn't mean to preclude further answers and discussions but /u/kieslowskifan has made several good points about this [in this thread here](_URL_0_) discussing the research by Magnus Hirschfeld among other things. They correctly point out that the idea of a pro-sex Weimar Republic and an anti-s... | null |
v6k7u | Seen a lot of unlikely "friendships" in animals (prey-predator). How likely is this to occur in the wild? | [
{
"answer": "This is likely possible in house pets or captives because they are well fed and somewhat infantilized. I suspect that if you withdrew food from a cat/mouse \"friend\" pair, once the cat became hungry it would eat the mouse. House pets are also bred for their docile characteristics, which resemble t... | null |
4hb0og | how do psychologists differentiate between someone with a personality disorder and someone who's just kind of an ass? | [
{
"answer": "People with actual personality disorders aren't inherently assholes (many of us are very kind, thank you), and assholes actually have specific diagnostic criteria to meet to qualify as having a personality disorder.\n\nSee the following link for lists of the actual diagnostic criteria for all curre... | null |
3djd0u | how does lag compensation in games like cs:go work? | [
{
"answer": "Lag compensation is a way for server to calculate players position based on the lag. For example, you looked north and went forward. You have lag, for 20 miliseconds. Normally \"from your point of view\" the screen would froze (and you would have reconnection screen). But instead of that, the serve... | null |
zqom2 | why do people become less creative as they age? | [
{
"answer": "This is anecdotal at best, who do you think is writing books, producing movies, making games and inventing everything you use? Not children. \n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "People think of their past in high regards. Sure you may like to think that you had an amazing imaginati... | null |
3n5y1v | is sharia law a legitimate threat in the us? | [
{
"answer": "Muslims form less than 3% of the US population. I don't see how such a tiny group could impose its own laws on the US, any more than tiny Christian populations can impose Christian laws on Islamic countries. Even when the British rules vast swathes of the Islamic world they could not impose Christi... | null |
8ppkm1 | how payouts/odds are determined for superfecta bets in horse racing | [
{
"answer": "/u/WeDriftEternal implies this, but doesn't come out and state it:\n\nThere really is a **separate** pool of money for each bet type -- i.e., a Win Pool, a Place Pool, an Exacta Pool, and so forth. When you put $5 to place on horse 2, you're betting ONLY against other place bets.\n\nAnd so it goes... | null |
2o1bhk | how do drugs work? | [
{
"answer": "The aim, on most cases, is to activate your synapses by trying to imitate molecules that your body is producing on a daily basis. There's, of course, a wide range of effects, depending of which one you're activating on purpose.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Depends on the drug, a... | null |
mf3vi | Why do we believe that extra (dark) matter is responsible for the increased gravitational force observed on galactic scales? | [
{
"answer": "[good thread on this topic](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "basically, there is a lot more evidence than you think. Pretty much everything except extra invisible matter has been ruled out. \n\n_URL_0_\n\n\nthey also talk about the [bullet cluster](_URL_1_) in there. Thi... | null |
5d2xir | if lower frequencies mean less energy, why does bass seem so much more powerful than treble? | [
{
"answer": "humans like high energy bass, and dislike high energy treble, so are generally exposed to high energy bass often, and high energy treble close to never. so you're comparing powerful bass to weak treble.\n\nif you were ever the victim of a sonic weapon you wouldn't even think of asking such a thing... | null |
zb1pj | How open were previous civilizations to children about sex? | [
{
"answer": "Going to throw this out, though it's by nature very difficult to source.\n\nThose who worked in agriculture would be around farm animals...dogs, sheep, goats, pigs, cows, horses, etc. All of these animals would at some point engage in sex or there would be no calves, foals, lambs, etc. It would n... | null |
g2tq1g | In Western cultures, it seems "normal" to have a different main meal everyday, but I would think this was not common before refrigeration and when most of society was agrarian. When did this become "normal"? | [
{
"answer": "You might want to post this question also on /r/AskFoodHistorians \n\n(Mods, I hope this is not a \"bad\" comment.)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "18589377",
"title": "Lunch",
"section": "Section::::History... | null |
3g237t | if almost all of the things we do are now digital resulting in paper usage dropping majorly, why is deforestation suddenly a massive issue? | [
{
"answer": "The wood used for paper tends to be from sustainable forests that are primarily soft-wood. These trees tend to grow to their final height in 10-25 years. Deforestation in the Amazon and Borneo (just two examples) are of old-forest and hard-wood trees that take much longer to grow and sustain a much... | null |
dlm8u5 | How were the pre Norman British kingdoms structured? | [
{
"answer": "Hello, I wrote an answer [here](_URL_0_) a little while ago which addresses the how contentious and flawed the idea of **the** *Witan* in; to whit, it's largely an invention of Victorian Whig historians who wanted to create a false history of English Parliamentary democracy.\n\nThe question boils d... | null |
13hwu5 | is stock market a zero sum game? | [
{
"answer": "No, because wealth can be created in the market through appreciation and dividend.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "In a zero-sum game, when one party gains, another party loses exactly the same amount. No value is created. Options and future markets, for example, are true zero-sum ... | null |
42fi0x | why don't the stars appear red near the horizon? | [
{
"answer": "We do see this effect for the other objects. The moon is orange-tinted when close to the horizon. The same for stars, though it's near impossible to spot by eye. Human eyes have a really bad time seeing colours at low intensity and moreover the Rayleigh reddening is quite less than the variation in... | null |
7opkh1 | Do boats play a part in ocean levels? | [
{
"answer": "The worlds oceans aren't just big, they are *really* big. At 360 million square miles across, times 1/8 of an inch, that's a rise of 710 cubic miles of water, 7.818 x 10^14 gallons, or 3.262 x 10^12 tons of water. The worlds largest ship, according to google, is an Ultra Large Crude Carrier (ULCC... | null |
j35ir | please explain dmr or drm li5 | [
{
"answer": "DRM is short for Digital Rights Management. (Or sometimes refereed to as Digital Restrictions Management, which is more accurate in practice)\n\nWhat DRM does is restrict how a piece of purchased media can be used by using licences, It works by tying a piece of content to a particular device.\n\nFo... | null |
1ligj6 | excluding all religion, why are we not going insane over the fact that one day we, and everything and everyone, will die? | [
{
"answer": "It is inevitable and there is nothing we can do about it. When you boil it down, you really only have two options. \n\n1 - You can live your life for today, do what makes you happy, raise your family to continue your blood line and try to live a fulfilling life.\n\n2- You can stress about the ine... | null |
10sh35 | why is moving the pawn in front of the king in chess, the most common first move? | [
{
"answer": "It opens the way for two powerful pieces, the queen and the bishop",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "You get advantage in chess in two ways.\n\n1. Taking enemy pieces\n\n2. Opening your higher pieces. \n\nFrom my amateur understanding of chess:\n\nMoving pawn near the rooks does noth... | null |
68y7dx | how do large ships with large anchors lift anchor to move again? | [
{
"answer": "The anchor is designed to dig in when the ship is at some distance, so the anchor chain is at a shallow angle (far from vertical). To weigh anchor (re-raise the anchor), you move the ship close to the anchor so the chain is near vertical, then you winch it up.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
5tl9p7 | Why didn't the European Empires for a collation and try take down the UK during its height? | [
{
"answer": "I think you mean \"coalition\" and will avoid doing the joke about it. But, in short: Why would they have?\n\n(Schematic summary incoming)\nIn 1815, the Congress of Vienna reorganised european politics under the form of the \"Concert of Nations\" - five Great Powers were to dominate the continent: ... | null |
e4ah1r | why do certain sounds cause extreme discomfort when heard, despite not necessarily being too high/low pitched? | [
{
"answer": "It's got more to do with sound frequency not sound level also known as decibels. Don't get me wrong 150 decibels is ungodly loud but at 10000 hertz you ain't gonna hear it so much a feel it. Feeling it can be worse sometimes.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [... | null |
1c1wpk | Did the NKVD/Red Army actually shoot at retreating troops in WWII ? | [
{
"answer": "Yes they did, there were 10 201 documented cases of russian barrier troops (this is the general term for such units) shooting retreating soldiers. The vast majority where however merely detained and returned to active duty (~650 000 cases) or arrested (~25 000 cases).\n\nAccording to Stavka order ... | null |
6bcrrs | in the us, why do more politically conservative states tend to receive more federal funding than liberal states but their politicians tend to want to cut federal funding levels? | [
{
"answer": "Lots of low income people are not very educated and are easily persuaded to vote against their own economic self interest. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Politics isn't some rational thing where people have good ideas and put them into practice to do sensible things. I do economi... | null |
5qwxh3 | why does some water freeze into ice while other water turns into snow? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not a meteorologist but from what I understand, snow occurs when the freezing temperature is at an altitude sufficient to freeze the cloud. While sleet occurs when the freezing temperatures are below the clouds and freeze already falling rain. Now when you Google your question to verify my ans... | null |
1zv0zk | Did post-WW2 USSR purchase foreign weaponry in any significant quantity? (not just for reverse-engineering) | [
{
"answer": "The info published by the US government in [1985](_URL_0_) indicates that weaponry accounted for .9% of Soviet imports that year. The table on the next page indicates that between 1981 and 1985, the Soviets imported 2 billion dollars worth of munitions from Poland, and 1.1 billion worth from Czecho... | null |
5rgs4g | if a supreme court judge is supposed to be unbiased how can be considered left of right wing (isn't that a bias to begin with)? | [
{
"answer": "There's no such thing as unbiased. Humans aren't robots and even if they were, different experiences would change their interpretation of things. \n\nThis thread from earlier today may be helpful: _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wik... | null |
fbdmua | straws float in soda? | [
{
"answer": "The dissolved carbon dioxide forms (nucleates) in bubbles that affix themselves to the inside and outside of the straw, particularly where the straw's surface isn't totally smooth. These act as little buoyancy devices, and make the straw act as though it's lighter than the soda around it.",
"pr... | null |
2fdchz | if our brain can apply "motion blur" to fast moving objects we see in real life, why doesn't it apply the same to high framerate video or other fast moving objects on a screen? | [
{
"answer": "Let's pretend your eyes only register 5 \"dots\". When you don't see anything, you might see \"oooo\". If you're looking at a static object, you'd see \"Xoooo\". Something moving at regular speed would go \"Xoooo\", \"oXooo\", \"ooXoo\", and so on.\n\nMotion blur comes in when something moves ac... | null |
rus9c | why the french and english didn't constantly invade each other during their wars, despite being narrowly separated? | [
{
"answer": "Although the English channel isn't wide there are a couple reasons why invasions of each other were relatively rare (although there were instances of England attacking the French homeland during Medieval times and more recently during D-Day):\n\n- It would take so long to prepare an amphibious inva... | null |
19ug40 | all the video file types and media types are blowing my mind. please help me understand vob,mov,avi,mp4,mkv, and h.256, mpeg-4, mpeg-ps, avc... and codecs | [
{
"answer": "Ok, first things first, the extension just tells us what file type we're using. It's just some characters, after all. For example, `.mp4` tells us the file is using the MPEG layer 4 technologies.\n\nSo what is that? Well, they're usually containers. What is meant by \"container\" is that it contain... | null |
bsfz18 | African Diet before the Columbian Exchange | [
{
"answer": "To start off, I want to clear something up. In North America at least, the terms yam and sweet potato are often used interchangeably. However, botanically speaking, true Yams are numerous species all in the family _Diosocorea_ while sweet potatoes are in the family _Convulvaceae_. \n\nAll this mean... | null |
1dy6ob | retro eli5: how did those "pirate cards" work that unlocked all satellite tv channels during the late 90's - early 2000's? | [
{
"answer": "The cards are smart cards (think of it like a sim card for your phone, but it works for TV instead). \n\nHackers found you could change the information on these cards with some rather basic smart card read/writers after some bugs were found in how the cards work. The card held only a little bit o... | null |
bgsujx | Is it true that during parts of 1942 the entire operational German surface fleet was stationed in Norway? | [
{
"answer": "Yes but the operative phrase here is *operational*, the *Sharnhorst* and *Gneisenau* were both damaged during the Channel Dash/Unternehmen Zerberus. After the completion of Unternehmen Zerberus the state of the Kriegsmarine surface fleet was as follows:\n\nBismarch Class Battleships: \n*Bismarck* ... | null |
2bailj | How much light is absorbed in the deepest part of the ocean? | [
{
"answer": "It's dark because the water above it is kilometers thick, not because the water is inherently dark. If you were to turn on a (waterproof, pressure proof) flashlight down there, it would illuminate.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Water is not completely transparent. It absorbs a ce... | null |
3v8loj | is there a maximum amount of energy that can be harnessed from wind on earth? | [
{
"answer": "hmmmmmm this is an interesting question. it kind of depends on what you mean by \"maximum\" For example, at any given time there is a maximum amount of energy that we can harness at that time. this is because of conservation of energy. However, the wind isnt going to stop blowing. so over time ther... | null |
8pmp3v | is there a biological reason why men don't appear as frightened as woman during dangerous situations? | [
{
"answer": "I don't think men appear less frightened. Have you ever seen pictures taken at haunted houses? The men react just as badly as the women in most cases. If they do react less strongly, it would be because they were socialized to believe that equates to strength and attractiveness. Nothing to do with ... | null |
6z1n85 | Is the surface of the ocean relatively flat (i.e. the biggest difference in height are waves and the occasional storm surge) - or are there notable peaks and valleys? | [
{
"answer": "Due to water’s cohesion, mountains on the ocean floor can cause a measurable bump on the surface. It would not be noticeable from a normal person’s point of view, though. The moon’s gravitational pull and the earth’s rotation also cause the oceans to be deformed. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
9q8vyc | how can your eyes sense that the lights are on in a room even when you've placed for hands over for eyes? | [
{
"answer": "Because even when your eyes are closed some light still gets through your eyelids. Your pupils are also designed to expand when its dark so they can detect as much light as possible. If I’m not mistaken they can detect as little as one photon of light if it’s really dark. \n\nSo even if your eyes a... | null |
1zgx85 | What's the difference between an explosion and a very quick burn? | [
{
"answer": "Firing a bullet from a gun does involve an explosion; burning the powder results in a very rapid expansion of gases. However, the powder does not *detonate*, which I think is what you're really asking. When something detonates, the flame front moves through the material supersonically. When some... | null |
90ydcj | Why is it that some muscles «burn» while exercised hard, while in others you experience more of a fatigue-like feeling? | [
{
"answer": "Fatigue may come from many things like lack of nutrition or hydration. It may also come from generally overworked muscles (every day work outs or work routines), understretched/cold mucles or underexperienced mucles, which means the lift is too heavy. Im willing to bet it is the understretched issu... | null |
by02sc | why are utility poles made of wood? | [
{
"answer": "wood is cheap and nonconductive. light poles where the wires are stretched from pole to pole can be wood as well. but light poles where the wires go down into the ground need to be hollow because you don't want the wires exposed to pedestrians, and that's easier with metal since it still needs to b... | null |
1bbg5q | how are chords made from a scale? | [
{
"answer": "There are four major types of chords: major, minor, augmented, and diminished.\n\n**Major**\n\nMajor chords are the basic chords that make up any song you listen to. Every other chord is just a major chord with a little bit difference. That being said, the major chords are the simplest of all the c... | null |
pqcpd | i don't know anything about basketball. how big of a deal is jeremy lin? | [
{
"answer": "He is pretty impressive - not just because of his race. Coming out of Harvard, not necessarily known for producing NBA superstars, he has shocked most people. He came off the bench to score the highest first 5 games of a person's career point total. Or, he has scored more points than has anyone els... | null |
4g1299 | why do so many people get away with downloading torrents? | [
{
"answer": "For sites like The Pirate Bay, they're usually hosted in countries where it's difficult to get them removed.\n\nAs far as the downloading of torrents, after the whole Napster/Kazaa thing in the 90's, it was VERY bad PR to prosecute downloaders. They prefer to chase the uploaders now.",
"proven... | null |
6odctp | why is laptop performance worse while using battery than while plugged into power? | [
{
"answer": "Simply because your computer is trying to save on power. You can set it up so it's the same but your battery will drain really fast. Also, when your plugged in your computer doesn't need to care about battery depleting since it's charging it.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
... | null |
4d87eg | How did the majority of young men being war veterans shape society in the 1920s and 30s? Is this thought to have had an impact on the rise of extreme governments in Europe? | [
{
"answer": "Oh yes indeed. Impromptu militias and the presence of armed political action committees catalyzed the rise of fascism in Italy. \n\nItaly did not come out of the First World War in good shape. Between 1919 and 1920 frustrated (and unemployed) demobilized soldiers who came home from the front to a c... | null |
22usym | Difference between the Shogun and the Emperor in Japan? | [
{
"answer": "What you wrote is a common way the two systems are characterized, but it's vastly oversimplified in a couple of ways. First, we need to narrow down when we're looking at since the shogun system was around for about 600 years. Second, we need to define the concept of \"state\" that we're working w... | null |
bpa64x | how can airport security scanners detect certain things, rather than just metal? how can it determine the difference between a gun and a watch if they're both made of metal? | [
{
"answer": "Are you confusing an X-ray and a metal detector? \n\nA metal detector will be set off by anything metallic, your keys, change, laptop or a gun. It doesn’t really scan for things.\n\nA X-ray will show you the contents of a bag, and you can (sort of) visually distinguish each item",
"provenance":... | null |
xvo38 | explain cricket like i'm 5 (and american) | [
{
"answer": "Boring. (Australian and not even mad.)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Batsmen hit the ball and bowlers from the opposing team bowl the ball to the batsmen. There are two teams who take turns bowling and batting. This occurs over a period of 50 \"overs\", where each over comprises ... | null |
q7ntn | If the sun were to suddenly vanish, what would we feel first? The effects of no light, or the lack of gravitational effects from the sun? | [
{
"answer": "It takes about eight minutes for sunlight to reach the earth. Any consequence of gravitational affects likely would not be attributed to the Sun's disappearance in under eight minutes. (especially since the equations can take longer than eight minutes to work out.) So we would notice the lack of ... | null |
w9sqh | How valid is the analogy between Conway's Game of Life and biochemical complexity? | [
{
"answer": "I think the Game of Life is mostly useful as an illustration of how very simple rules can result in very complex behaviours. While I haven't heard of anything resembling actual life spontaneously arising in a Game of Life (as you correctly pointed out, any structures above a certain level of comple... | null |
121jnh | What was the justification for the CIA's coup of Iran in 1953? What benefits, if any, stemmed from this action? | [
{
"answer": "I think the British asked for help to protect their oil interests in Iran, but I could of course be incorrect.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I would like to, first of all, say that this entire comment is open to heavy scrutiny because I'm just piecing this together from various s... | null |
1g7ujj | How did the Greek city states organize, and communicate in order to organize, there collective forces in order to repel the Persian invasion led by Xerses I? | [
{
"answer": "According to Herodotus, the Greek city-states were willing to accept Spartan leadership. \n\nSo even though the Greek navy was at least half Athenian, and the Spartans were not known for their naval ability, and in fact the strategy was set by Themistocles the Athenian, the official commander of th... | null |
38dskr | if cologne is so cheap to make, why can we so easily tell the difference between a "cheap" cologne and a good cologne? | [
{
"answer": "Cologne for the most part is cheap to **manufacture**. Finding fragrances that have mixtures of scents and undertones that complement each other well in a mixture of certain proportions and strengths is more of an art rather than science. Cheap colognes care less about the intricacies and go for ea... | null |
1g202v | why do we suddenly care about the nsa and what it is doing? what has changed? | [
{
"answer": "Up until this most recent whistleblower came forward, it was widely suspected that the NSA was engaging in mass domestic spying. The only difference is that now we have official confirmation of it. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia... | null |
18j0hu | how do non-conspiracy theorists explain the points that 911-theorists point out? | [
{
"answer": "Building 7 collapsed because debris that hit it from the Twin Towers set fires in the building. There wasn't enough water available to put out these fires, so they eventually melted key structural components, making it fall.\n\nThe better question is, how do *conspiracy theorists* explain the colla... | null |
2eox30 | Is the "Teddy Roosevelt read 1 book every day" fact true? | [
{
"answer": "While there were certainly some days when reading was impossible, he did average several books a day and was considered, along with Jefferson, to be one of the most well-read presidents in American history according to David H.Burton's The Learned Presidency and Edmund Morris' Roosevelt Trilogy com... | null |
3gi9p9 | How do soldiers know they have been defeated, and what happens to them afterward? | [
{
"answer": "I can speak with regards to current military. There are Standard Operating Procedures with regards to POWs, and in any attack, from 8-man section to a 10,000-man division, the first thing done is called an Ammo/Cas report. That stands for Ammunition and Casualties. This is done by a specific member... | null |
14fqq1 | Has three generations of heirs to the UK throne ever happened before? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, in the 1890s. Queen Victoria is still the longest reigning British monarch, and in the 1890s there was her heir Edward VII, his heir George V, and his son the eventual Edward VIII all living.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Edit: sorry, misread the question, my example (Edwar... | null |
16jq95 | who was aaron swartz and what is the controversy over his suicide? | [
{
"answer": "[His Wikipedia article has a pretty good and easy summary](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically, Swartz was one of the guys behind RSS and the early beginnings of reddit.\n\nIn 2011, Swartz accessed a database of academic journals through ~~free trials~~ MITs network and then ~~redistributed~~ downloaded about 4 ... | null |
3cefgv | . if i watched 15 minutes from a 90 minute youtube video, do i get charged data for the entire 90 minute file ? what about the ads . | [
{
"answer": "Your data carrier does not care *what* you are watching, including ads -- it costs them exactly the same amount to transmit any amount of stuff whether it's ads or not. \n\nNor are they the ones getting the money for those ads.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "you don't stream the e... | null |
504bpk | 2 people recently died in Italy because of a WW2 unexploded ordnance. Are they eligible to be counted as civilian war casualties? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_ This has been answered before, and generally casualties are restricted to the active dates of a war. Credit to /u/DoctorWhoToYou",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "24353161",
"title": "Hamilton Road Cemetery, De... | null |
1pvvx1 | If humans can get extra chromosomes, can other creatures get extra ones too? | [
{
"answer": "Yes this would be absolutely possible though I'm not aware of any specific syndromes in animals. \n\nIt is important to note though that the issue with Down Syndrome is not necessarily an extra chromosomes. The extra copies of the DNA, throwing off the genetic balance in the genome, is the issues. ... | null |
ahapv4 | why, after a restaurant goes out of business, do people often remodel and open a new similar restaurant in the exact same location? | [
{
"answer": "Someone always thinks they can do better-- and often times they do. But no matter where you are, the restaurant business is quite hard, so don't kill someone for trying and failing, most restaurants fail, even in prime locations!\n\nThat being said... opening a restaurant is very expensive and dif... | null |
3cetie | vote brigading. what is it? | [
{
"answer": "its akin to [not searching](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "its essentially when someone, or some group of people go into another sub and downvotes either another sub, or a user or someone with a different opinion. For instance if every Arsenal fan went into the Chelsea su... | null |
6b7ofx | how have so many cold blooded animals been able to survive through the various ice ages? | [
{
"answer": "For one thing, no Ice Age completely covered the world in ice. We think the equatorial regions we're always free of ice. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "24037139",
"title": "Pagophily",
"section": "Section::... | null |
1186ts | When you get a cut or open wound within the body say, the colon, how does it not become quickly infected and thus possibly lethal? How does the body defend against the possibility of serious infections within the body in areas that have so much bacteria like the intestines? | [
{
"answer": "[Gastrointestinal perforation](_URL_0_) is nasty business. [This overview](_URL_1_) of perforative peritonitis in India is pretty readable.\n > There are 3 progressive stages of peritonitis. Primary stage, which lasts for a period of 2 to 24 h, is characterised by initial response of peritoneal cav... | null |
1jwq5d | How large can a gas planet become before it turns into a star? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, there is a maximum size for gas planets, above which they become a substellar object and then a star.\n\nAt about 13 times the mass of Jupiter, a planet starts to transition to a brown dwarf. The coolest brown dwarfs have temperatures around room temperature. These get as large as ~80 Jupite... | null |
ooq98 | Given an infinitely powerful computer, what are the minimum preconditions it would need to simulate a universe similar to our own? | [
{
"answer": "We don't know the answer to this yet. It depends on what the fundamental rules of physics end up being. It could simulate *very nearly* a universe that is very similar to our own excepting the very early stages of the big bang and maybe certain quantum processes would be adjusted by \"fudge factors... | null |
3xdpkz | why do we need to turn off the car when pumping gas. | [
{
"answer": "One *should* turn off the engine when pumping gas considering that while you pump the gas into the tank, some gas fumes escape and occupy the air around you. If those gases reach an ignition source, it could be quite disastrous for those nearby. \n\nHaving lived in upstate NY during the winter myse... | null |
8kgivg | Why is the radiation level so high on the surface of Europa? | [
{
"answer": "The magnetic field of Jupiter traps charged particles (mostly electrons, protons and some heavier nuclei) from the solar wind and Io's volcanic eruptions, causing them to form belts in the space around the gas giant. Europa and other moons orbit within this region of trapped radiation. At the surfa... | null |
64jf8p | Who was Tito, and why was his death a cause of the break up of Yugoslavia? | [
{
"answer": "Follow up question: how do historians generally regard Tito? I've heard some people praise him for both doing his own thing and preventing the ethnic tensions of Yugoslavia from becoming a full war (as it did in the 90's). Do historians agree with that sentiment? ",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
bczdev | Approximately when, and why/how, did Saturday become a traditional day off from work in North America and Europe? | [
{
"answer": "The Saturday day off was first created by the England mill company in 1908 for the Jewish Sabbath which they are not religiously allowed to work but the company that made the 5 day work week a popular thing was most likely ford",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance":... | null |
9fn7bv | how does the us protect its technology from being stolen when selling f-35s and other military technology to foreign nations? | [
{
"answer": "First, we generally only sell technology to our allies. This means that we aren’t too worried about those people stealing from us, because it’s easier for them just to buy more rather than trying to build their own.\n\nNext, that shit is *really* complicated. While it’s certainly possible to copy t... | null |
5dvpmu | what are some known barriers to learning? | [
{
"answer": "Nothing! Failure is sometimes the best teacher you can have. Those things are confusing to tons of people...not everyone is willing to admit it though. So you've learned that!",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "214737",
... | null |
1dnwit | when were we, the human species, separately classified as our own species? | [
{
"answer": "So before there were humans there were an unknown number of humanoids—animals that were somewhere between our common ancestor with other primates and ourselves. Some were very like us like neanderthals and others were very different. There were periods when humans would interbreed with these other ... | null |
26jxu6 | Why is plasma opaque to radiation? | [
{
"answer": "It has to do with the plasma cutoff frequency. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nEssentially, there is a point in a plasma where the EM waves will always reflect off the plasma. So it forms a sort of wall that prevents light with a frequency below the cutoff frequency from escaping. It is also what causes the gamm... | null |
9uq8hy | what does it means if something is "basic" on the ph scale. and how is it different form acid. why do acuds and bases both burm, melt, dissolve things | [
{
"answer": "In liquid water, the water molecules tend to dissociate into hydrogen ions (H+) and hydroxide ions (OH-). In pure water there are always equal amounts of H+ and OH-, so the pH is neutral which is 7 on the pH scale. An acid is a substance that also has at least one hydrogen that can dissociate from ... | null |
39z8k6 | How accurate is Downton Abbey? | [
{
"answer": "Just a note that not everyone who may know the intricacies of 20th century British life also watches the show. May help to specify particulars you're interested in.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Until someone else comes along, I made a [post](_URL_0_) in r/BadHistory a while back... | null |
1gfhxx | metabolism and the effects of anorexia and smoking can have on it | [
{
"answer": "I'm not sure what effect smoking has but with anorexia you aren't taking in much or any food and you're body doesn't like that. You're body is then unsure of when it's next meal is going to come so it slows down you're metabolism in order to conserve the energy it currently has.",
"provenance":... | null |
aqdazl | Will sea levels ever go down and if so, how? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, sea levels have, can, and will (eventually) go down. This [paper](_URL_1_) is a good reference for (1) presenting records of how sea level has changed in the past (e.g. Figure 2) and (2) discussing mechanisms that influence sea level (e.g. Figure 1). Let's consider the mechanisms generally and... | null |
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