id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
vhf8y | Is there any scientific truth to the idea that you shouldn't sit too close to the TV? | [
{
"answer": "No. However focusing on one spot for a long period of time can cause eyestrain, however that is only temporary.\n\nYou may find this interesting.\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "As others have already said, focusing on one spot for a long period of time can cause [eyestrai... | null |
2n2x4s | how is it that a vehicle can be good at towing but shit at carrying heavy loads? | [
{
"answer": "A vehicle can have a strong engine, trans and drive train to pull a heavy tow.\n\nIt needs a strong suspension system to carry a heavy load.\n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Because the trailers wheels take the brunt of the load weight. Imagine having a load spread across dozens... | null |
z7wal | What is the chemical reaction that occurs when you put ice cream into soft drink? | [
{
"answer": "No chemical reaction... the fat and sugars from the ice cream increases the surface tension on the bubbles, which means they don't burst. You see a bunch of bubbles because you've just introduced something with a bunch of nucleation sites. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
... | null |
1ivwrw | Besieging castles (pre cannons) | [
{
"answer": "I'm not an expert on sieges, but here's what I can offer:\n\n1. It would depend entirely on the technology available to both besiegers and besieged, as well as what was besieged. The First Siege of Rome during the Gothic war lasted a little over a year. When the Mongols under Batu Khan besieged Ki... | null |
ch7j4u | Why do we discuss Ancient Greece in terms of city-states? | [
{
"answer": "Many Greek city-states had slightly different setups, but their basic structure was the same: a single *astu* (city-center) with administrative control over a *chora* (territory). Athens controlled a large *chora* (Attica) as the result of *synoekismos,* or synoecism as the Brits would say. This is... | null |
7xthvq | How did Multi-track sound recording come to be and subsequently widely used? | [
{
"answer": "During World War II, some technically-minded people listening to German radio were puzzled: was Hitler really demanding that the Berlin Symphony Orchestra play Beethoven symphonies at 3am in the morning? It was a puzzle, because the sound was pristine, without the clicks and pops you get from a vin... | null |
9gftt7 | what would happen if there was a second big bang somewhere else outside of our own expanding universe? | [
{
"answer": "If it was outside of our universe it would also be beyond everything that we are capable of observing or understanding, so we would have no way of knowing that it even happened. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": " > Would the space from each just become one and the furthest stars\n... | null |
1vc9m0 | the four tigers of asia | [
{
"answer": "You could post this question in /r/AskSocialScience if it hasn't been asked there already.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The view in the early 2000s, which summarized a lot of research in the 1990s, [was that](_URL_0_):\n\n > Asian growth, impressive as it was, could mostly be e... | null |
5ix0x2 | why is there so much nudity in classical paintings? | [
{
"answer": "The human form was what they were presenting. So, you paint/sculpt nudes. And modern prudish society is actually pretty recent, seasonal, and geographical. You won't find many equatorial societies wearing layers, fur and all of the added insulation. \n\nIt's not everything, but it's a start.",
... | null |
62xwkn | why do people pass out/feel like they're about to, if the suddenly go from very warm water to very cold water or vice versa? | [
{
"answer": "It's because of the mammalian diving reflex. We experience bradycardia (slow heart rate) and vasoconstriction. Essentially all of our oxygenated blood is shunted to vital areas (Brain, heart, and lungs)only. This conserves oxygen allowing us to endure the cold water for a longer period of time fo... | null |
a4crh2 | Were people in the old west (1865-1890) able to listen to classical music? would the average joe be familiar with composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin etc...? | [
{
"answer": "Depends on who that \"average joe\" was. People played much more music for their own pleasure than we do today; small towns did have \"opera houses\" -- which while they didn't often play Verdi, did have aspirations to European culture. So, for example, we have records that in 1877, an opera by Ba... | null |
411ick | with woman's equality in military combat roles being normalized, why is it still absurd that woman play with men in the nfl and other major league sports? | [
{
"answer": "Because physically a woman in the NFL would not be able to stop most of the males.\n\nNow, if you have some sort of 6'4 275 she-hulk that would work.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Women have the *opportunity* to serve in combat roles if they are physically qualified. Although the... | null |
33sfcm | what is the body trying to accomplish when we dry heave? | [
{
"answer": "Your body is attempting to vomit but not succeeding. That's pretty much it. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2281037",
"title": "Emaciation",
"section": "Section::::Treatment.\n",
"start_paragraph_id"... | null |
avvo8z | Why were there only two American Aces in the Vietnam War? | [
{
"answer": "Remember that becoming an ace requires downing five enemy aircraft, and to down enemy aircraft the enemy needs to have some in the first place.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe VPAF had only started to receive jet fighters in 1964, and their aircraft were generally less numerous and less capable than what the ... | null |
205yq4 | Why did the brain of most animals evolve in the head and not in the torso? | [
{
"answer": "It would be more protected, yes, but we keep our seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting organs in our heads. If our brains were in our torsos, our senses of sight, smell, and hearing would be much less efficient (because the nerve signals would have to travel farther along pathways), and this would... | null |
2c3m4g | why can some animals give birth without help when humans can't? | [
{
"answer": "Humans can, it's just not ideal. The problem is we're bipedal animals evolved from quadrupedal animals. Plus, we've got active brains which require bigger skulls than other animals. Women's wombs just didn't keep up as well during our evolution to adjust for larger skulls and a bipedal lifestyle. ... | null |
33v3pw | The brain is remarkable energy efficient. Is there any limit to the efficiency in which information is computed? | [
{
"answer": "Information is a very important concept in physics (particularly in thermodynamics). At the most basic level information in physics is quantified as [entropy](_URL_2_), and the relationship between energy, temperature, and entropy can be understood in part through viewing [Boltzmann's constant](_U... | null |
8yxc0h | why do some acne medications cause an "initial breakout," making your skin worse, before making it better? | [
{
"answer": "Hi, it’s because your cells are turning over rapidly and pushing acne that is below the surafce to the top. This is quite normal. Now if at any point your acne become severe and it seems that the breakout is not normal for YOU, go to a derm just to make sure you are not allergic to the product. It ... | null |
4xnima | why do professional swimmers wear 2 caps when competing? | [
{
"answer": "I'm guessing, but most likely, the increased weight doesn't matter compared to the reduced drag from smooth-ass head.\n\nEdit: stack exchange is 100% better than reddit for these things.\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "So I was actually wondering this out loud the other ... | null |
bftfgp | What should one look out for when selecting historical works to read, especially ones on controversial matters? | [
{
"answer": "Brilliant question. \n\nSo it can often be very hard to know quite what to look out for with works of history, particularly when you are new to the field and can’t spot the problems. \n\nAcademic qualification is perhaps a good starting place, yet, as you note, many books are written by journalists... | null |
1ib0ed | Were number systems written down before words and language? | [
{
"answer": "OP, if you don't get a satisfactory answer here, try cross-posting to /r/AskAnthropology",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Sumerian cuneiform has its origin in accounting systems, particularly those used by temples to keep track of goods like cattle and grain. A sign could represent ... | null |
24mn2e | what defines a religion from mythology? | [
{
"answer": "A mythology is a set of traditional stories. The Jewish mythology is the Old Testament, the Christian mythology is the Old and New Testaments, the Greek mythology is... well, Greek mythology. Mythology doesn't have anything to do with whether the stories are true or not, it's an agnostic term. It s... | null |
3tubs2 | how did they predict existence of subatomic particles, black holes, multiple universes using maths and equations? | [
{
"answer": " > subatomic particles\n\nThey didn't predict those with math. They were largely experimentally discovered. Thomson's cathode ray experiment found that there were negatively charged subatomic particles we now call electrons, for example. \n\n > black holes \n\nThese were first thought of from New... | null |
21uqj6 | if your car gets stolen and your insurance covers it, what happens if the stolen car gets found after you have already gotten a new one? | [
{
"answer": "If you had comprehensive coverage (which is what total theft falls under) and your insurance company paid out on the claim, you either have the option to repay back the money for the value of the car or the insurance company simply takes possession of the vehicle. People choosing to retain the vehi... | null |
cfi5fu | what is the difference between normal steel and galvanized steel? | [
{
"answer": "Galvanizing is a process of adding a zinc coat to the steel. It should make the nuts last longer and prevents rust.\n\nThe actual process is slightly more complicated but this is essentially it.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id"... | null |
4nydrm | how are the "dark triad" traits in psychology different from each other? | [
{
"answer": "Psychopathy is a lack of empathy & understanding of how people feel.\n\nNarcissism is placing your own needs & wants over others.\n\nMachiavellianism is lying & manipulating people to achieve your goals.\n\nThey're called the \"dark triad\" because they do so often overlap & feed into each ... | null |
2vkn4b | Why don't we launch spacecraft using magnets? | [
{
"answer": "To get into low earth orbit with a rail gun would require an exit velocity so high that whatever you are launching would burn up immediately. It has been suggested as an efficient way to launch things from bodies without an atmosphere.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It's physical ... | null |
7go45y | how does winrar/7-zip just make my files smaller? | [
{
"answer": "Just about any set of information contains some repeating information. My paragraph contains the word contains several times. One means to reduce the size would be to put a short unique identifier in place of each word \"contains\" and a reference that the identifier means contains. \n\nSo a ver... | null |
17l2uv | model-view-controller pattern | [
{
"answer": "MVC isn't that hard. You have the view (or views). This is everything you see. It's a lot of rules about how to show the info. \n\nThen you have the model, which is the data. \n\nThen you have the controller. The controller takes the data and moves it into the view. If something changes, you tell t... | null |
1w8c0c | why do people like to believe in god | [
{
"answer": "1) if you've been raised in a religious household, it's hard to say that your family is wrong and taught you incorrect things\n\n2) it's comforting to think that everybody gets what's coming to them in the end, i.e. if you're good, you get rewarded, and if you're bad then you get punished\n\n3) man... | null |
dhgpfg | Why was Iran/Persia never colonized? | [
{
"answer": "While the area that is modern day Iran was indeed never colonized the way that India was, the country was picked apart bit by bit in the 1800s and what was left was more or less defacto colonized by Russia and Great Britain. Although there were resources to be had, nothing was quite so valuable as ... | null |
49qgaa | why do people go to the bathroom on a pretty regular schedule? | [
{
"answer": "Because generally your food/drink intake is fairly regular as well. You have coffee every day at 8am. Lunch at noon, dinner at 7 etc. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "42137175",
"title": "Open defecation",
"s... | null |
1q8dyd | why do prepaid visa cards ask for social security numbers? | [
{
"answer": "Its a bank account. Just like a bank. You can't open an account at a brick and mortar bank without using a SSN. Same applies to a non-traditional account.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "So they can't be used for money laundering. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer":... | null |
epfyhb | How often are planets found? | [
{
"answer": "Planets in our Solar System, or planets in general?\n\nIn our Solar System, only two planets still considered planets have been found in recorded history, Uranus in 1781, and Neptune in 1864. If Planet Nine is real, odds are we'll find that within the next 10 years or so.\n\nOutside of our solar sy... | null |
8p0w80 | whats happening when a sneeze ‘gets stuck’ then just burns your nose and makes your eyes water. | [
{
"answer": "Sneezes are a protective response to alert you to less than ideal breathing conditions and remove irritants/allergens from your nose. They’re triggered by the presence of irritants, but only a certain concentration, which is mediated by multiple nerve endings that generate “spikes” when they’re irr... | null |
4531yj | What was Moscow's relationship with Ceausescu before the Romanian revolution? What role, if any, did they play in the revolution? | [
{
"answer": "Ceausescu was something of a maverick in the Eastern Bloc, which is why your friend probably thinks that. Relations between Brezhnev/Andropov and Ceausescu were cool at best and outright frigid at worst, although they never reached the point of de facto breaking off relations, unlike in Beijing. He... | null |
2l7mzv | why do roosters "cock-a-doodle-doo" in the morning? | [
{
"answer": "They actually crow all day. Not just mornings.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "And can triple confirm.\n\nSpend some time in the third world and in some places it seems like everybody has *at least* one.\n\nThey crow 24/7 and if several are in a reasonably close vicinity they will ... | null |
z2fs9 | How Accurate/Bias was "Century of the Self"? | [
{
"answer": "I eagerly await the more informed responses here, but a key aspect to this history is the role Bernays played in the cult around his own personality. What I mean by this is that as a master of PR, Bernays was very willing and adept in talking up his own influence. I'd take the depictions of Bernays... | null |
cl5gwi | how does my (i)phone know which sounds to let through in a phone call / face time? | [
{
"answer": "There are several microphones. 1 intended to pick up your voice, the other(s) to pick up all the rest of the noise around you (lets call them noise microphones). The cell phone subtracts the sounds from the noise microphones from the sounds picked up by the voice microphone. The sounds that are lef... | null |
5wkcqd | In the post red giant stage of a star, why do the outer layers drift into space and not collapse onto the white dwarf? | [
{
"answer": "Two reasons. One is that as the star expands the surface gravity decreases and so it's easier for those outer layers to escape. Two is that it's not actually a \"drifting\" away in many cases but is in fact forceful; [stellar winds](_URL_0_) are generated which are blowing surface material away. We... | null |
6y9t3u | why can't facebook, twitter and instagram just shut down bot accounts? | [
{
"answer": "The problem is how do you actually figure out that a twitter user is a bot. You can use Machine Learning with certain features (like tweet sentiment) to analyze the data, but there's the possibility of false positives. Also, it's an arms race. Once they figure out what you're looking for all the bo... | null |
4xm5iy | why do higher impedance speakers yield better sound quality? | [
{
"answer": "It will be hard to keep this simple, but here we go. A larger voice coil SLIGHTLY improves quality. The larger the voice coil, the higher the impedance. The higher the impedance, the lower the volume. To maintain higher volume, you need higher voltage. Many phones and other portable music dev... | null |
548hbi | why did teachers always tell us to remove hats/caps when we enter inside a building? what does this signify? | [
{
"answer": "It goes back to olden times when a knight would remove his face gear. It's simply a sign of respect to remove head pieces when in someone else's \"home\", and as well as during the Pledge of Allegiance.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "What Saul/Paul of Tarsus wrote in 1 Corinthians... | null |
3vy6nk | Would having a more efficient/ faster brain affect our perception of time? | [
{
"answer": "I am by no means an expert, but I know (both firsthand and from [documented sources](_URL_0_) ) that your perception of time can be affected by life-threatening situations. These situations *probably (and I'm guessing here)* do something like speeding up your neuronal activity and cause your neura... | null |
2cmp6e | Are you born allergic to things or do you get it later on? | [
{
"answer": "Both. There are several different types of allergies. Type I hypersensitivity is caused when your body identifies something as an antigen and over-responds to it (for example, peanut allergies fall into this category). However, there is another type of hypersensitivity reaction, a type IV hypersens... | null |
2mj51d | Will the other side of the moon ever be facing earth? | [
{
"answer": "The Moon is [tidally locked](_URL_0_), meaning it's orbital period equals its rotational period. Thus, the answer to your question is that the same side of the Moon will *always* face the Earth. Viewing the Moon from Earth, we will never see the other side. Something very dramatic would have to hap... | null |
1ktrmb | Question about image scaling | [
{
"answer": "It's a bit more complicated than that. [Here's a very good explanation of how it's done.](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "When deciding how large to render an image, you have to arrive at an integer size at some point. This typically happens internal to the rendering API b... | null |
28xos6 | how exactly do organisms evolve and adapt to their environment? | [
{
"answer": "They don't.\n\nThere's a bit of variation between individuals of a generation, and traits that prove beneficial have a better chance of passing on than traits that don't.\n\n\nIf 95% of frogs of a species are green and 5% are red, so long as green is the preferred camouflage color, the green frogs ... | null |
7upuj5 | Why are galaxies the colour they are? | [
{
"answer": "The colors gives insight in the composition of the star population of the galaxy.\n\nBlue regions are composed mostly of young hot stars, while red regions are older, cooler stars.\n\nYou will often also see smaller, pink spots. These are huge clouds of hydrogen, the color stems from the characteri... | null |
jql28 | - why wouldn't it be possible to set up a solar heated steam pipeline that also removes salt, to get water to rural parts of africa? | [
{
"answer": "I guess because they can't afford it. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "In a lot of places it isn't the salt, it's microbes and general filth that makes the water bad. They have filters to get rid of this stuff, and a number of charities are handing them out currently. Just google w... | null |
3tey0h | how fresh water fish populations spread from one river network to another without going through (presumably deadly) seawater? | [
{
"answer": "I wondered that about fresh water mussels. So I asked. They have a free living form which basically hitches a ride in the gills of fish. This means the same species can be in one river system even though they are mussels.\n\nSimilar events can occur for other species. Egrets and other fish eating b... | null |
81r9m2 | Do we experience atmosphere tides? Do the molecules in the air get dragged according to the moons gravity causing “deeper” periods of time? | [
{
"answer": "I have recently encountered something called \"Density altitude\" Which has to do with the change in atmospheric density due to temperature extremes. To address the moon question directly, googling atmospheric tide yielded a [Wikipedia page](_URL_0_) that may be a good place to start.",
"proven... | null |
8v8fmp | what is the difference between losing weight because i am not eating any food vs losing weight while maintaining a healthy diet and working out to lose more calories? | [
{
"answer": "Losing weight is easy by not eating. But you will feel weak from lack of nutrition and you may still not have a good body composition. Working out and eating well you will feel energised and strong and will end up with a healthy body composition. \n\nBody composition is how much fat and muscle you ... | null |
4e3108 | why are blood stains on fabric so difficult to remove compared to other types of stains? | [
{
"answer": "Mostly because it's a complex substance, containing liquid, suspended solids, cells, fats, oils, and a plethora of other compounds. Most other stains are caused by small portions of these types of compounds. \n\nWine is mostly aqueous (water based), grease is lipid (fat) based, etc. Most solvent... | null |
2eq7ys | How long does it take to boot up a supercomputer? | [
{
"answer": "The only 'supercomputer' I have access to is a network of 128 computers, each with some xeon processors and lots of ram. These can be booted simultaneously, and boot into a minimally configured Linux environment, which is very quick. The master node then needs to start the cluster management softwa... | null |
rn6f5 | Does potential energy "count" as energy? | [
{
"answer": "I somehow miss your sub-question, and I gave an answer. I will keep some of what I wrote there, maybe you will like it.\n\nMaybe you didn't realize it, but gravitational energy is also consider/named potential energy. Why? because it has the potential to generate a force (gravitational force in thi... | null |
1gest2 | prism and the nsa scandal | [
{
"answer": "A low level contractor working for the NSA named Snowden leaked a document describing a classified program that collects data from the largest internet communities in the world, including microsoft, facebook, yahoo, google, etc. The internet companies themselves claim to be unaware of this.\n\nIt'... | null |
5w0930 | why does rubbing alcohol, vinegar, etc have expiry dates? how can they go bad? | [
{
"answer": "The FDA requires expiry dates on nearly everything aside from alcohol and cosmetics. The manufacturers have to put something, so they generally choose a date a few years out, that they are willing to guarantee the product will meet or exceed that date.\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
1aep2u | In the 60s, was japan's economy expected to overtake the usa's by now? | [
{
"answer": "In the 1980's, this was certainly a thing, but not in the 1960's. See for example [this book](_URL_0_) (from 1993, when the Japanese bubble had already burst.) The subtitle, The Myth of the Invincible Japanese, indicates that fear of Japanese power was a theme at the time. You don't write a book to... | null |
3rxomv | if one were to strike a billiards ball with the cue ball, and we disregard the deceleration as the target ball hits each bumper as well as other balls on the table, would the ball eventually, but always sink into a pocket regardless of where on the table it went? | [
{
"answer": "No, it won't always sink. It's easy to think of a situation in which it won't happen.\n\nIf you hit the ball parallel to any side of the table, it would bounce back and forth forever, never entering any of the pockets (unless it was right in front of the pocket already.",
"provenance": null
}... | null |
2hyg1l | germany just made all universities free, how do other countries do this? | [
{
"answer": "What do you mean by \"just\"? I can't find anything in the news.\n\nIf you're asking why they're so cheap:\n\n##THIS IS EXTREMELY SIMPLIFIED. GERMAN UNIVERSITIES ARE CONFUSING\n\nalso this is only about \"Universitäten\" and not tons of other places you can study. yup, confusing.\n\nThey aren't act... | null |
10kawg | why apple released ios 6 maps when it obviously wasn't ready for release. | [
{
"answer": "The official story is that Apple wanted voice navigated maps and Google could not deliver. However, Apple and Google have a relationship that is growing more and more hostile. Ever since Apple sued Samsung, and Google stepped in to protect Samsung, and sued Apple. ",
"provenance": null
},
{... | null |
2slyen | How is light that is as old as the universe travelling to us from 13 billion light years away? | [
{
"answer": "The universe was opaque until ~300,000 years after its formation. So the light from the CMB is around that age. \n\nNow, imagine an infinitely long ruler. Pick any marking on that ruler and place yourself there. When the universe became transparent, a photon from 10cm from you gets sent in your dir... | null |
75fdqo | why is the minimum age for ‘adult’ medicines usually 12? not 18 or 21? | [
{
"answer": "Because a lot of pharmaceuticals are dosed by patient weight. At 12 years old you are nearly full size.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It's just a rule of thumb to avoid overdosing, even if it's exact same active ingredient nobody is going to tell you to cut exact part of the pill... | null |
1297ym | How long after sperm enters the egg does it take to create the DNA for the baby? | [
{
"answer": "The term you're looking for is the \"zygote\"; this is the first cell that properly has all 46 chromosomes. In general, this takes about 12 hours to form after the sperm cell has entered the ovum.\n\nAs to whether it's the \"start of a life\", I guess you'd have to define what life is. Both the spe... | null |
rhj0a | What connection is there between the esophageal sphincter and your ears? | [
{
"answer": "Are you referring to the upper esophageal sphincter or the lower?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Alright here we go.\n\nThe esophageal sphincter is innervated by the [vagus nerve.](_URL_2_)\n\nThis nerve does also have a branch called [Alderman's nerve](_URL_0_) which goes to the ... | null |
rgmpb | farting and its relation to poop. | [
{
"answer": " > what purpose does farting serve?\n\nFarting serves the purpose of releasing excess gas in your digestive system. These gases are generally produced by (beneficial to you) bacteria that live within your digestive system\n\n > Why do they smell identical to the shit that I would imminently blast... | null |
3iybpu | Why did none of the southern states have ballots for Lincoln in the 1860 election? | [
{
"answer": "Something to keep in mind is that printed, government-supplied ballots happened relatively late in our political process. In 1860, one would vote by writing out a ballot for a candidate or slate of candidates, or alternatively by using a ballot that was printed in a newspaper or similar publication... | null |
414mp0 | Can somebody explain possible reasons why "Super Luminous Supernova" differ from the garden variety supernova? | [
{
"answer": "I mean... the best source is probably [the paper](_URL_0_) itself.\n\nBut, **TL;DR** we don't really know yet. It seems too energetic for most models, so the theorists will need some time to adjust.\n\n > Only within the past two decades has the most luminous class of supernovae (super-luminous su... | null |
3uxhup | if earth's orbit is elliptical, how is it that summer occurs when earth is furthest from the sun, and spring and fall, when earth is closest to the sun, is cooler than summer? | [
{
"answer": "The difference in temperatures between seasons isn't due to being closer or farther from the sun, but by the fact that you are tilted away from the sun in the winter, so you get less direct sunlight. And the amount that we are closer to the sun during the (northern) winter because of the elliptical... | null |
7wtxhx | -why is that if you get distracted, your muscles become weaker? | [
{
"answer": "Grip strength is a voluntary muscle movement, therefore by distracting them you are taking their mind off that action and so the signal to it will be decreased. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2648712",
"title": "Ey... | null |
295ex1 | What unified the Austrian-Hungary Empire - Religion, Culture, etc.? | [
{
"answer": "It was conquest! Always conquest.\n\n The Austrian Empire, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had its roots with the Habsburgs, and the Duchy of Austria. Austria and Vienna lay on trade roots coming east out of Italy, North out of the Balkans, and South and East out of the Baltics/Ukrainian steppe. Th... | null |
6io37x | why is it so much easier to spend money than to earn it? | [
{
"answer": "Because most employment will only pay you a set amount for an hour's work, limiting you in how much money you can make in a span of time, but you can never exhaust the human race's output of purchasable goods. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
... | null |
8lf3k2 | What is the process for a new atom or element to form, specifically from the beginning when there was only hydrogen and helium? | [
{
"answer": " > If all matter began from hydrogen and helium, how did we end up with 120+ elements?\n\nThere are 118 known elements, and some of them don't occur in significant amounts in nature.\n\n > Is it possible to create a specific element by mashing x amount of protons, neutrons, and electrons together?\... | null |
2ial7v | why do we try to keep people in vegetative states alive, who are not going to recover? | [
{
"answer": "There's several reasons. It's the medical team's ethical and professional duty to maintain the person's life; they have a duty of care to the patient. It could be considered medical negligent or even murder/manslaughter if they ended the person's life. Also, they can't say for sure whether the pers... | null |
fahc23 | why is it in the ingredients section, producers use ingredient a and/or b? do they know what they are putting in the food? | [
{
"answer": "It's usually because they may have switched ingredients, or different factories use different products for the same purpose. So instead of different wrappers this covers then all",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They either have multiple facilities with different suppliers or they a... | null |
a1xnvz | how having a good lawyer can get you out of serious charges. | [
{
"answer": "It's sort of like asking 'why hire a plumber, when any idiot with a wrench can do a pipe fitting?' Maybe so, but a professional is probably gonna get you better results.\n\nSo it is with lawyers; there are many particularities in the legal system that a good lawyer will know how to navigate/exploi... | null |
drpogv | the interstellar medium is hot? 54,000 degrees f? how is this possible? | [
{
"answer": "Key phrase: **near**-vacuum. The interstellar medium is so thin that it can be treated as a vacuum for all practical purposes, but it’s not a perfect vacuum. It contains the occasional particle, and such particles can be measured to derive a temperature.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answe... | null |
cymo2s | what would it take to change an atom? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, bombarding with neutrons is one of the ways, but it's really slow.\n\nThe same process happens when iron is created in the star's core. It starts collapsing so quick that the elementary particles are being crammed inside the atoms, changing iron to heavier metals like gold and uranium.",
"... | null |
3ileqr | what's so great about kevin bacon? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not so familiar with him myself, but just by the sheer volume and variety of films he has done, it's easy to pick something you like. Try typing \"bacon number [name of another actor]\" into Google, it will quickly became apparent just how well connected and involved he is.",
"provenance": ... | null |
czxrmd | why does a standing bike fall down but a moving bike does not? | [
{
"answer": "The spinning wheels act like gyroscopes to stabilize the bike. The heavier the wheels and the faster they spin the more stable the bike is.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The moving bike has the contact point of the front wheel behind the centre of rotation for the steering, so it... | null |
9h1sio | Do we know why there is nothing left of the Circus Maximus in Rome when compared to many other structures from the area? | [
{
"answer": "Contrary to popular belief, more of the Circus Maximus survives than one might think. The \"floor\" level of the race track is now about 10 meters below ground level, and has never been systematically excavated. The *spina* (the central median of the track) was partially dug in 1587 on the orders... | null |
3midoi | Did Vikings prefer sword and shield or two handed in the battlefield | [
{
"answer": "The favorite weapon set would be spear and shield, usually with some sort of knife or - if you could afford it - sword in case you needed to get more up-and-personal.\n\nFighting in the Viking Age relied heavily on shield walls - tight lines of men standing close together and protecting each other ... | null |
19itto | in the 1960s did most normal Russians still claim to believe in communism's superiority? | [
{
"answer": "When talking about Russian perceptions of Communism you have to be careful who you're talking about. I think at no point besides perhaps late 1917 would peasants have positive opinions of Communists, and that was simply because they weren't the Provisional Government. The Peasants, like most of the... | null |
23iui1 | why does hot chocolate mix/powder stay dry even when milk or water is poured on top of it? | [
{
"answer": "Water likes to stick to itself. That's why the surface of water and water droplets is smooth. \n\nPowder are full of little tiny holes. For water to go into the holes it would have to make a little spike of water. The water would rather stick to itself then make the spike.",
"provenance": n... | null |
2xkybe | at what point does the flow of air on an object go from cooling it down to heating it up due to friction? | [
{
"answer": "Never, it isn't friction but [air compression](_URL_0_) that heats the object. \n\nAs for at what point it out-factors the effect of the air whisking heat away, it depends on the shape. Basically a 'bad' aerodynamic shape will squish a lot more air than a 'good' aerodynamic shape, which will allow ... | null |
bgdpcu | the cause of the geometric patterns formed in sand with a tone generator | [
{
"answer": "[Standing waves](_URL_2_)\n\nIf you shake a string at right frequency \"knot\" points will form that stay stationary. \n\nThis is due to the wave created by the shaking and the wave reflected from the other end interfering with each other.\n\nVideo: Standing waves on a string _URL_1_\n\nObjects tha... | null |
esskzv | Commercial kitty litter was invented in 1947. Where did house cats pee and poop before then? | [
{
"answer": "If your cat was an indoor cat, you would likely provide them some sort of absorbent material. In the 1922 *Feeding and Care of the Domestic and Long-Haired Cat*, the following advice is offered:\n\n > Each room should also contain a fair sized granite pan, partly filled with sand or sawdust. I pref... | null |
7eslg9 | why were there tons of super giant creatures like dinosaurs a few million years ago, but there aren't now? why did everything shrink in scale? even a lot of bugs were much bigger then. did earth's gravity change? | [
{
"answer": "The prevailing theory is that our atmosphere had a lot more oxygen in it at the time (right now it's just over 20%). This let animals grow larger, especially with the scale of insects. Since most of them don't have a true respiratory system, they take in oxygen through their skin/exoskeletons. B... | null |
en497e | Are the any dinosaur hybrids ie (like the mule is a hybrid of a male donkey and a female horse)? | [
{
"answer": "animals in the wild hybridizing naturally is pretty rare, and a terrestrial animal becoming a fossil is also (in the scheme of things) pretty rare\n\nit's certainly possible but i've not heard of such a thing - which makes sense, as finding any evidence would be incredibly unlikely",
"provenanc... | null |
s1uvj | the united states' corporate taxes, and why ours are the highest in the world. | [
{
"answer": "The American tax code is like swiss cheese. There are so many loop holes that in order to actually **make** money off of it, you need to raise the overall tax rate so high that it outweighs the loop holes. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The US Statutory tax rate is 35% but it is ... | null |
2fqp0o | Thoughts on "The Forge of Christendom" by Tom Holland? | [
{
"answer": "I'm working through Tom Hollands 'Persian Fire' and he is very honest in the forward about the amount of embellishment and speculation in the work.\n\nI'm reading this with a few other people, and while they find it significantly more enjoyable to read, we all feel that we're reading exactly what h... | null |
19yy8k | what exactly is the bridge of the song? | [
{
"answer": "There are two ways to define the \"bridge.\" A little music theory 101:\n\nThink of how your favorite songs are built. There are choruses (which sound the same each time) and verses (which sound a little different each time). They might be put together like this: ABABA, with A being the chorus a... | null |
26bxor | how does a temp agency make money? | [
{
"answer": "Company pays temp agency $15/hour-head. Agency pays worker $8/hr",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "441390",
"title": "Temporary work",
"section": "Section::::Agencies.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 17,
... | null |
1srplj | how does using a debit/credit card work when used internationally? | [
{
"answer": "It displays in the currency of the ATM. So in the US its Dollars, in England its the Pound, in the Eurozone its the Euro and so on.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "With a credit card, there is no balance of course. The currency is all in terms of the country you're in. The credit ... | null |
3lxqik | how does the volkswagen emission software work? | [
{
"answer": "VW and Audi included software that could sense when the engine was being emission tested. Once a testing situation was detected, the engine was electronically governed to operate in a manner that would pass emissions testing - this would come at the expense of performance. \n\nWhen the software d... | null |
46c4zy | what is bio chemistry, and what do bio chemists do? | [
{
"answer": "Biochemistry is, simply put, the study of the chemical reactions that underlie biological systems. Think of the way proteins are formed, or how glucose is broken down into ATP. Besides academic study and aid of related fields like pharmacology, biochemistry has a lot of industrial applications nowa... | null |
qh46x | why are astronomers now using radio telescopes more than optical ones? | [
{
"answer": "Light and radio waves are the same thing, photons. \n\n\n\nOptical telescopes were used in the past because they were easy to make, and you don't have to process the image, you just take the photo and then look at it.\nRadio telescopes pick up light in the 'radio' range of the light spectrum, the d... | null |
3v5kic | how do recoilless rifles work? | [
{
"answer": "When the round is launched, it blows expanding gas out of the back of the tube. This balances the expanding gas that blows out of the front, along with the round.\n\nIt can't be used in tanks and the like because the back of the tube is literally where the crew sits. It would kill everyone inside... | null |
3q130z | why do night vision cameras cast a shadow? | [
{
"answer": "Many night vision cameras use an infrared lamp to illuminate the scene being recorded. You can't see that light, but the camera can. Hth.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "46953",
"title": "Chroma key",
"sectio... | null |
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