id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
2rkxgq | Why are there so many books on Rome, Greece, and Egypt, but hardly anything on Persia? | [
{
"answer": "Part of this is simply what we find in popular literature. Because the classical past is very prominent in western memory and is a \"prestige\" topic it is easier to sell and publish books on the topic; in addition there are simply more people out there with the background needed to write on Greece... | null |
36qfzc | How does the heat from the sun reaches the earth? Are the rays of light emited by the sun hot? | [
{
"answer": "Yes the rays are hot as in they carry a lot of energy. This energy is in the end what is captured by the earth and the plants and the solar cells to turn into other forms of energy. There are two reasons why the temperature in the Himalayas is still lower:\n\n* First of all the energy of this beam ... | null |
1lmsf9 | What would happen if you tried to manipulate a rod of material that was a lightyear in length? | [
{
"answer": "Just _some_ of the times the same question has been asked before:\n\n[If I pushed a button 10 light years away with a stick that was 10 light years long, how long would it take for the button to be pushed?](_URL_5_)\n\n[If I have a theoretical rod that is 1 light-year long and I have the ability to... | null |
38sd6o | how much luck is involved when something goes viral on social media? besides the merits of the content itself, what other factors contribute to it? | [
{
"answer": "You normally need a key person to comment or forward it. Someone who is followed or read by lots of other people to start a kind of cascade effect. A single comment by someone like George Takei will send an ordinary item into a potentially viral one",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": n... | null |
7jk2ao | would we still get hungry if everything our body needs is directly pumped into our bloodstream? | [
{
"answer": "There is TPN, total parenteral nutrition. It is expensive. Everything you need is pumped into the bloodstream. They are very prone to getting infections. It is a big catheter. \n\nPatients getting getting TPN are generally very sick. They do not complain about being hungry. But it could be that the... | null |
2t8y6j | if it is illegal to hire someone base on race, why does job applications still have you choose what is your race, why does it matter? | [
{
"answer": "Background information is used by HR departments for tracking purposes internally and isn't used for hiring. Legally any racial/personal information must be removed from the application before being forwarded to hiring officials. Also, offering that information is purely voluntary and can't be he... | null |
cg2kof | 1 out of 10 men are direct descendants of genghis khan. why men specifically? is it impossible for women to be direct descendants? | [
{
"answer": "Male descendants are just much easier to trace, because it has to be the same Y chromosome.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It's just easier to trace.\n\nHumans have two sex chromosomes - X and Y. Females have XX while males have XY. When a male is conceived, it can get either of t... | null |
99v1nn | in southern countries, was north originally considered south? | [
{
"answer": "[it's arbitrary. ](_URL_0_) There are historical occurrences of maps that are \"upside down\". So even though \"north\" meaning toward the North Star or magnetic north is always the same direction the way you choose to draw it on a map is up to you. It could just have easily been on the left or rig... | null |
24f6y5 | Are cancerous cells ever observed in non-animal organisms such as plants, fungi, etc...? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, plants can form tumors, but in general it is thought they are not as harmful as in animals because plant cells have cell walls while animal cells don't. Similar pathways lead to plant tumors as in animal tumors (ie they develop from stem cell niches). But, one of the key steps in cancer metast... | null |
1ji6i5 | What are the earliest examples of a North/South divide in England? | [
{
"answer": "This cultural / administrative divide can be traced back at least as far as 11th Century. \n\nIn the reign of Edward the Confessor, Northumbria was regarded as a bit of a wild backwater and was never visited by Edward in his entire reign. Indeed, their own Earl Tostig Godwinson spent a large part o... | null |
w7ke4 | What was the effect of marijuana on the ancient world? | [
{
"answer": "I don't actually know if they criminalised the drug or not, but the origin of our word cannabis is from the Akkadian word *qunubu*, meaning that in the Near East at least they had been aware of cannabis for a very long time. At least in a religious ritual context, it's clear that the Assyrians and ... | null |
41ay9v | herding dogs. how do they know where the livestock needs to go? how much is instinct, and how much is training? | [
{
"answer": "Where to take the animal is training, whatever method they use to do it is the genetics. Aussies will body block, nip heels, bark (very loud) and strafe. Other dogs like the Catahoula will be much more aggressive with the nipping, and I think Healers to some degree. A herding (or stock) dog will... | null |
245kwq | why is the us media overly sexualized, but then people are shamed for sexualization? | [
{
"answer": "What sells and what's \"taboo\" are often the same thing.\n\nDisease makes medicine sell.\n\nJoker makes Batman.\n\nIt's the oppositional defiance complex of humanity being used as a tool. If someone says \"you can't have that,\" but another says \"here's all of it\" you're going to go take it all.... | null |
9gr1za | why does jello pudding mix only work with dairy milk? | [
{
"answer": "They make ones that will work with non dairy milks. The proteins and fats and sugars in milk are pretty unique which is why they can make cheese. You cant make almond cheese or coconut cheese, and you cant make dairy pudding with them either. Maybe someone can explain the science behind the interac... | null |
1kffht | When did owning swimming pools become fashionable? | [
{
"answer": "In Rome and Greece, swimming was part of the education of elementary age boys and the Romans built the first swimming pools (separate from bathing pools). The first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the first century BC. Gaius Maecenas was a rich Roman lord and considered ... | null |
3qrkg3 | What happens to disease immunity from vaccinations if you're HIV positive? | [
{
"answer": "The body does still produce an effect but it is significantly reduced with a low CD4 count. Think of T helper (CD4) cells as basically the [bugles](_URL_1_) calling in the cavalry of the immune system; once an antigen presenting cell (APC) hands them some info and gives the T helper the secret hand... | null |
9aesjb | is there a difference between a racist and a bigot, and if so, what is it? | [
{
"answer": "A racist is intolerant towards people of other races. A bigot is intolerant of other people's opinions. But bigot can sometimes be someone who's prejudiced because of another person's identity (be it their sexuality, class, gender, disability, etc).",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": n... | null |
eytby | Questions about aspirin... | [
{
"answer": "1. I synthesized aspirin in my undergraduate organic chemistry class. We dissolved it in 100% ethanol, then added water for recrystallization. The aspirin dissolves completely in EtOH, but is not as soluble in the water/EtOH solution. So, I would go with ethanol. Edit: [this paper](_URL_0_) des... | null |
1bnb9k | what is today's news on google forking webkit and launching blink mean? | [
{
"answer": "Webkit is a web page rendering engine that Google chrome has been using for a while now because its lightweight and fast. Its also used in other browsers and is open source, meaning everyone can see how it works and more easily find flaws with it. Because its open its used in many other browsers ... | null |
25f887 | If I were to accelerate a pebble to 99% the speed of light aimed at the center of the earth....what would happen? | [
{
"answer": "A 10g pebble moving at 99% of the speed of light, hitting a solid surface, would release about 5.5*10^15 J of energy. This is similar to the energy of a 1-megaton nuclear bomb (by comparison, the Little Boy was about 1.5% as much and the Tsar Bomba 5000% as much).",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
1b1l9o | amanda knox trial | [
{
"answer": "From what I know:\n\nAmanda Knox, an American, was charged with killing her British roommate while in Italy.\n\nShe was tried and acquitted (which means she was found not guilty, or the charges were dropped), and so came back home.\n\nWell, apparently the Italian courts found new evidence or didn't... | null |
ek34xm | could australia use seawater to put out the fires, or is fresh water required, so as not to add a bunch of salt to the soil? | [
{
"answer": "We could, but it would have the consequence you mentioned. Also, transporting water inland is a very expensive thing to do.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "22832295",
"title": "List of desalination plants in Australi... | null |
1jlh1v | what is an integrated circuit, what does it do, and how does it do it? | [
{
"answer": "An integrated circuit is another word for s silicon chip where many components (transistors, resistors) are *integrated* on the same chip. Prior to the invention of the integrated circuit, all the individual resistors, transistors, diodes, and capacitors had to be wired into and soldered onto a bre... | null |
5ybraz | why do storage devices have capacities that are multiples of 8? | [
{
"answer": "Computers operate on a binary number system (0/1, on/off), and it was decided that 8 *bits* make up one *byte*.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Flash memory makers mass produce one chip that holds a certain capacity. This reduces cost for them as they only need to produce one chip.... | null |
35r2s0 | how can a butcher "age" beef for a large period of time (21 days etc.) yet if you were to take the same cut of meat not aged and leave it in the fridge for a time after its expiry it would turn rancid and have to be thrown out? | [
{
"answer": "It has a lot to do with conditions and surface area.\n\nA butcher hangs meat in all one piece in a cold room, such as a full \"side\" of a cow, and that side of beef isn't touching anything besides the hook it hangs from, and generally is not handled while it hangs. No flies are allowed in the area... | null |
61zs5d | Why did Hitler declare war on the US? | [
{
"answer": "Modified from an [earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_)\n\nAlthough it was in many respects a foolish blunder in hindsight, there was a lot of strategic calculation that went into German declaration of war on the United States. Hitler and the Germans did not so much see the declaration of war as the sta... | null |
2dk7wd | What was Damascus steel? | [
{
"answer": "Truthfully, we are still trying to understand the process of Damascus steel! We still don't know how the ancients did it.\n\nIt's widely believed to be the process of tempering steel to make it stronger, studies have shown Damascus steel to contains nano-fibres which greatly increased it's strength... | null |
ryiub | How Did DNA Evolve? | [
{
"answer": "What do you mean by **complex**? What would you like to know about DNA?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Based on your previous comments, it sounds like your main question is something like \"how did DNA evolve in the first place when we now know that many different proteins are req... | null |
1qmku1 | why don't baseball pitchers wear a protective helmet if a line drive could cause permanent brain damage among other things? | [
{
"answer": "Simply put, pitchers don't want to wear them. It's as simple as that. As far as I know, it's perfectly legal for players to wear helmets in the field and it has been done before (by first baseman John Olerud).\n\nHere are the reasons I've read about that account for the resistance to pitchers' he... | null |
7gtwim | How do we know the electron is a fundamental particle and not composed of something smaller? | [
{
"answer": "Theories that suggest a composite electron just aren't as effective or accurate as the ones that assume it to be an elementary particle (Namely the [standard model](_URL_0_)).\n\nFurthermore, high-energy scattering experiments have revealed that it has a very tiny, nearly spherical charge distribut... | null |
2e1s3j | when having diarrhea, why is it i can sit there for 20-30 minutes after going and nothing comes out. but when i get up, i immediately have to go again? | [
{
"answer": "You can get the sensation of excrement entering your anus without it actually being there. You technically feel like you have to go even while sitting down but that's only because you're actually contracting your \"poo muscles.\" When your body doesn't feel itself trying to \"go\" any more, it tell... | null |
4yvsck | Do insects, particularly cockroaches, use acid in their digestive system? | [
{
"answer": "It really depends on the insect. Mosquitoes, black flies and some lepidopterans actually have a basic stomach pH.\n\nHowever I did find a study on cockroaches that suggested that they seem to have an acidic stomach pH from around 6-2.\n\nIf you're interested here is the link\n\n_URL_0_",
"prov... | null |
42okwp | How legitimate are China's claims in the South China Sea? | [
{
"answer": "Disclaimer: I am a Filipino poster, but I am of Chinese ethnicity. I'm just calling it as I see it based on my knowledge of international law.\n\nIf we're going to go by the Nine-Dash Claim then quite frankly the claims are a whole bunch of nonsense.\n\nFirst of all, territorial waters are only sup... | null |
56qt9e | why does holding hands with your so feel nice? | [
{
"answer": "Because physical contact releases dopamine in your brain which is a feel good chemical. Lots of recreational drugs have a similar effects.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "165458",
"title": "Handshake",
"sect... | null |
9czq7k | Why aren’t underwater windmills more of a thing? | [
{
"answer": "A few reasons,\n\n1. Maintenance. It's very costly to maintain underwater infrastructure.\n2. Corrosion is a big problem in salt water environments. Meaning more maintenance is needed.\n3. Biological buildup. Again in saltwater, the blades are going to end up getting fouled by barnacles and o... | null |
2pdjpf | What did people in ancient times think of dreams? | [
{
"answer": "Well, at least in ancient Egypt, eating feces in your dream meant you were going to become wealthy. B. E. Shafer, ed., Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).\n\nIn Mesopotamia, dreams were usually matters of interpretation. Some adv... | null |
31dv0c | Why does the elephant have such a big brain? Is most of it dedicated to controlling a massive body? | [
{
"answer": "At its heart this is an Encephalisation Quotient (EQ) question, so we should start there.\n\nMost psychometric texts will talk of [encephalisation quotient](_URL_0_) (EQ) as a better predictor of intelligence than brain size. So many texts state this that that most assume they must be correct. Ther... | null |
3mq23p | Do some plants legitimately have medicinal properties? | [
{
"answer": "Your question sort of has two sub-questions that are non-trivially distinct:\n\n1. Do plants (used as a plant or plant extract) have medicinal properties?\n\n2. Do plants (any component thereof) have medicinal properties?\n\nAs to the first, the court is still out on the vast majority of candidates... | null |
wuefz | how does mazda's rotary engines work? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_ \n\nAnyone who has owned an RX7 will get this. \n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "146227",
"title": "Sports car",
"section": "Section::::Asia.:1959—1968: Beginnings.\n",
"start_paragraph_id"... | null |
2vfjsf | When the Titanic sunk due to hitting an iceberg, how iceberg filled was that part of the ocean? | [
{
"answer": "The Titanic had taken a somewhat more northerly route than most liners normally had, and it was also sailing into an area (near the Grand Banks) where it had received warnings of floating bergs. At the time, no large ship had been lost to an iceberg, and it was thought that bergs did not pose a lar... | null |
985l7t | Any studies of the changing preferences for androgyny vs. polarized masculinity and femininity through history? | [
{
"answer": "if the topic is overly vague: specifically I’m interested in any correlations between a timeline of these trends and the corresponding social moment, especially in terms of the political economy",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id"... | null |
1rzuyt | how does netflix stream movies in high quality smoothly while youtube can't even stream a minute long video without buffering? | [
{
"answer": "This might have more to do with your internet connection and how your ISP has set up its network - depending on how your ISP deals with making partnerships with other networks/ISPs in the area, its possible that YouTube's content delivery servers are slow because your ISP doesn't have the infrastru... | null |
h4zlu | What does intergalactic space look like? | [
{
"answer": "Disclaimer: I am a layperson.\r\n\r\nThe sky would be different--it would be completely black to the naked eye if you were at the center of the Boötes Void. At 250 million light years in diameter, if you were in the center, the closest galaxy would be 125 million light years away. The Andromeda ... | null |
bywccq | Collapse of the Tatars | [
{
"answer": "I wrote an [answer](_URL_0_) on the history and idea of Tatars a few months ago, that might be of interest.\n\nThe rough idea is that a Chingissid state called the \"Golden Horde\" , which in turn broke up into a number of successor states, that were conquered by Muscovy/Russia in the 16th-18th cen... | null |
aasfr1 | The Goonies got me to wondering -- was there ever any actual piracy along America's Pacific coast? If so, what was it like? | [
{
"answer": "Most of the piracy along the America's Pacific Coasts were privateers, not piracy, and were limited to the South American Coast. It tended to not be as blood thirsty and prisoners were routinely released. And it was nowhere near as common as it was in the Atlantic, Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico and Afri... | null |
5s8i03 | how will autonomous cars handle not being able to see the road, ie snow | [
{
"answer": "Unless road standards are followed perfectly and the roads mapped exactly, the extreme conditions will still defer control to the driver. \n\nThe typical rules the car has to follow will not be applicable in extreme conditions. \n\nYou could see it the same as a car driving across the desert. Where... | null |
2i5dao | What was religion like in the Palmyrene Empire? | [
{
"answer": "Like other religions of the Near East of the time. The polytheist religion of Palmyra worshiped a number of gods and goddesses. There was the triad of Beelshamem, Aglibol, and Yarhibol- who represent storm god, moon god, and sun god. Other gods worshiped there include Baal Hammon, Manat, El, All... | null |
welfw | What would be the consequences for the neighbouring areas of the Atucha Power Plant in Argentina if it underwent something similar to other known nuclear disasters? | [
{
"answer": "Just some context: the [plant](_URL_0_) is by a river, some 100 km upstream from Buenos Aires. What would be the risk to the city?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "You aren't really asking a question that is answerable in any clear defined scope. Plants within their design basis wil... | null |
euj350 | why is texture so important in our enjoyment of a food? | [
{
"answer": "Texture is a major indicator of food quality. A carrot that's mushy isn't good. We develop expectations for what foods are supposed to be like texture-wise and deviation in these expectations set off our reptile brain alarms",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Since in general most veg... | null |
1s32my | skylanders. specific questions about what things are. | [
{
"answer": "1. The series 1 and series 2 are the same thing/interchangeable/etc, as far as I know, but the series 3 portal is different due to the swappable characters in Swap Force. As for the portals connectivity to the different consoles, so far that I've seen from various comments, only the Xbox One doesn... | null |
4ue9mk | Were civilians able to cross "borders" during the US Civil War? | [
{
"answer": "It was definitely possible, though it wouldn't have been without considerable hassles, and a few favors cashed in along the way. So, I assume by the way OP phrased the question that they are referring to sanctioned crossings through enemy lines (and not stealth missions where permission wasn't gran... | null |
1l0dkq | how does image compression like .jpg work? a 500x500 pixel image can vary massively in filesize depending on 'detail' and file extention | [
{
"answer": "Compression, in general, aims to remove redundant information. Some forms of compression, such as a zip file, do this without much special knowledge of what it is compressing, and also has to make sure it can get back the exact data before it was compressed (ie be lossless). \n\nOther types of comp... | null |
1z1etm | why do pc's become slow and "aggravating" to use after little time, but macs seem to stay at top performace for a long time? | [
{
"answer": "IT professional here: Can you please define \"slow\"? This word is thrown around often when it comes to computer complaints but details matter. Is it taking a long time to boot up? Is netflix choppy? Is it slow when you open a third powerpoint deck? Those can help me answer you better.\n\nThe sho... | null |
6e2rai | why are there different levels of sunscreen? wouldn't someone want to use the highest level that is most effective against sunburns? | [
{
"answer": "[Here](_URL_0_) is an article detailing some issues with high SPF sunscreen with points that include:\n\n* High SPF only give marginally better protection, SPF50 blocks 98% of uvb rays, SPF100 blocks 99%\n* Different chemicals (or concentrations of chemicals) in high SPF sunscreen may cause differe... | null |
2k4dpw | how are large, intricate corn maze designs made? | [
{
"answer": "Using a board with strings attached to each end, the artist holds a string in each hand and keeps the board under foot pushing the cornstalks down with the board and using the strings to pull the board back up. The board is used to keep a uniform width of the lines in the corn, and the motion of ki... | null |
2vwx4k | when companies like facebook track their user's activity to sell it, who do they sell it to? and what do the buyers do with the data? | [
{
"answer": "Facebook doesn't sell it, not directly. What they do is they use it to target ads. If I'm making a product that I think will appeal to 18-22 year old women who like hip hop and live in the southern US, I can go to Facebook and pay them to show my ad to just those people (and then I don't have to wo... | null |
93a4mp | Can anyone recommend a good book of world maps with political borders from various periods throughout history? | [
{
"answer": "I can't give you any advice on the pre-USSR map specifically, but one I can personally vouch for is [this book](_URL_1_) called *Great City Maps*. It's a full-color collection of various surviving maps of great cities dating from Roman times up until about 1900. There are a couple of maps of Moscow... | null |
1syh0s | How did the Romans brush their teeth | [
{
"answer": "The Natural History by Pliny the Elder is a very good source for this. \nA substance called *dentifricium* which was quite similar to our toothpaste was produced from powdered pumice [Plin. HN 36.42](_URL_1_) (\"Considered medicinally, pumice is of a resolvent and desiccative nature; for which purp... | null |
8aaly5 | When did rhyming in poetry start? What culture implemented it, and how did it get passed on to the way we view rhyming poetry today? | [
{
"answer": "I will presume you're thinking of European poetry of Dante, Cavalcanti and Petrarca in particular as rhyme is found across the world, [including pre-Columbian America](_URL_0_) and [Ancient China](_URL_1_).\n\nUntil a better answer comes around I'll discuss the academic opinions known to the modern... | null |
24j50j | Does World War I actually deserve the title of World War? | [
{
"answer": "The UK in 1914 was a world power having bases and territory directly and indirectly under its control on every continent. \n\nGermany also had land (though much smaller then the UK) on several continents.\n\nThere where battles that took place outside of the trenches and the middle east. For exampl... | null |
27yirw | How did the lion, an African animal, come to be so prominent in Chinese art and sculpture? | [
{
"answer": "Not a direct answer to your question, but just to point out that historically, the range of the lion extended across much of the Near East and well into South Asia. See [this map](_URL_0_).",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": " > an African animal\n\n I can't comment on why Chinese cult... | null |
5axzal | how do spiders make noises? | [
{
"answer": "A couple ways.\n\nFirst, they have bristles all around their body that can be rubbed to make purring or buzzing noises.\n\nSecond, some types can force air out of their breathing holes (spiders don't breath through their mouths!) to create hissing or screaming noises (think, like a kettle with air ... | null |
5m9kum | Old paintings and portraits | [
{
"answer": "Could you specify what you mean by \"weird\"?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "18622193",
"title": "Painting",
"section": "Section::::Types of painting.:Portrait painting.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 133... | null |
1bf9p8 | how do billboards work? | [
{
"answer": " > Who owns them?\n\nMost billboards will have a small sign on them that states who owns it. Most in my area are owned by VIACOM. That might be true everyware or not, I assume it depends on area. \n\n > Who regulates them and determines how many billboards can appear in a certain area?\n\nSome... | null |
1jmgjs | Are there other theoretical dimensions that are not spatial or temporal? | [
{
"answer": "In relativity, the difference between a spacial and temporal dimension is how we measure distances. If two events are separated only by time (say you now and you still sitting on your chair in 5 minutes), the distance between these two events is negative (or positive, in the other convention). In t... | null |
6fblxy | how can it been cheaper to buy something new than to repair it? | [
{
"answer": "You have to pay for the labor too. It's not just buying parts, you have to pay for people to spend their time fixing it, and they're trying to make a profit too",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Manufacturing is a streamlined process. Especially now with automation and years of engin... | null |
1ip1zh | Does air quality get better after a storm passed through an area? | [
{
"answer": "This might be of interest:\n\n_URL_0_ ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Yes for a time air quality improves after a storm passes through. The mechanism is called \"precipitation scavenging\" in which droplets of rain will absorb particulate matter as they fall towards the ground. ... | null |
p5oby | Can a deaf person become bilingual? | [
{
"answer": "You're asking a few different questions here.\n\nFirst off, the deaf person in your example is already bilingual in English and a signed language. There are many different signed languages in the world, and they are not based on spoken languages. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign... | null |
1hptr6 | how did the u.s., a country only a few centuries old, become the world's largest economy so quickly? | [
{
"answer": "You've been somewhat misinformed. \n\n[The US is the worlds third largest producer of oil, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia](_URL_5_), as well as the second largest producer of coal and natural gas.\n\nThe US auto industry has been the largest in the world since the invention of the car, and it's on... | null |
8s03db | why does honey form small coils when it's being poured? | [
{
"answer": "Destin from Smarter Every Day has a video on this: _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "12582266",
"title": "Abbamele",
"section": "",
"start_paragraph_id": 2,
"start_character": 0,
... | null |
295tf6 | Is there anything saltier than table salt? | [
{
"answer": "Well, how strongly you taste something is mostly determined by how \"well-fitting\" molecules of the substance are to your tastebud receptors. For sodium, there are specific receptors that have evolved to strongly fit Na+, termed ENaC. Though there are other receptors that are taste ions from salt ... | null |
70pz3i | What did being wealthy look like in the bronze age? | [
{
"answer": "This is a pretty broad question both geographically and chronologically, so I'll limit my answer to Middle and New Kingdom Egypt and can provide comparisons with other regions and time periods if necessary.\n\nTurning first to houses, the site of Lahun provides examples of houses of different sizes... | null |
6km1it | why is plastic surgery "plastic"? | [
{
"answer": "It's not plastic - the material - itself. It's the fact that the body is \"plastic\" - it is modeled. Simple as that.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "\"Plastic\" means \"capable of being molded or shaped into forms\". The substance called \"plastic\" was named after this property, ... | null |
imiit | Is Carl Jung's work relevant? | [
{
"answer": "The psychiatrists I know don't think much of Jung (YMMV). However, I would point you to [Joseph Campbell](_URL_0_). His work is heavily derived from Jung's and is considered quite relevant in fields like cultural anthropology. In fact more people learn about Jung's ideas from exposure to Campbell t... | null |
8wjd2x | AskHistorians Podcast 115 - The Friends They Loathed - Quaker Religion and Persecution in the American Revolution | [
{
"answer": "Thank you as always to the incredible podcast team and all of you who participate on it! Looking forward to sitting down and having a listen. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I’m happy to answer any questions!",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "This was really interes... | null |
1dt203 | A couple questions about redshift and relativity. | [
{
"answer": "I don't think you need relativity. Non-relativistic Doppler effect alone tells you that the spectrum of the parts of the sun in front of the probe will be blue-shifted, and the spectrum of the parts behind it red-shifted.\n\nBoth the Sun and nearby stars produce not only visible light, but also ul... | null |
37q4oi | how do you train messenger birds? | [
{
"answer": "Messenger birds can't deliver messages to arbitrary locations. They're birds (generally pigeons) that have a homing instinct that helps them return to their roost over long distances. So you raise one at your location, release them from further and further away from their roost to help them learn... | null |
2fnwq6 | why is it illegal to record a phone call without the person's consent? | [
{
"answer": "Because there is a certain level of expect privacy when on the phone having a conversation from the privacy of your own home. \n\nOr at least this is the thought process when the laws were originally written. Obviously the vast use of cell phones have changed that, but many states still keep these ... | null |
1nmyx0 | Did Ancient Greece ever have sectarian conflicts? What were the major religious lines of division? | [
{
"answer": "By Sectarian, I’m taking from your question that you mean religious and not territorial sectarian violence. Because the Greeks had a whole lot of territorial violence that could be defined as Sectarian. Religions could be used as a spark for a conflict but there wasn’t constant sectarian religious ... | null |
4d4u0i | How did scientists figure out that the mantis shrimp can see 12 different wavelengths if humans can only see three? | [
{
"answer": "They extracted the proteins from the retina of the Mantis Shrimp. We have three types of cone cells in our eyes that are activated when differing wavelengths of light hit them. The mantis shrimp is the same, except they found up to 12 different types of detectors; each for a slightly different wave... | null |
33cfy7 | can we pump greenhouse gases into space? | [
{
"answer": "The boundary between our atmosphere and space is called the [Kármán line](_URL_0_) and lays at a height of 62 miles. It's not possible to build a 62 mile high chimney with current technology. even at that height the gasses would probably fall back down rather than dissipate.",
"provenance": nul... | null |
3x0brs | If you're breed into a war driven society like the Spartans, Mongols, Romans, etc. Is it a highly likely chance the soldiers still experience PTSD. | [
{
"answer": "Insofar as PTSD is the result of neurological changes due to overexposure to traumatic situations, there is no reason why conditioning and training should make anyone less susceptible to it. Arguably the training itself, depending on the methods used, could become a cause of PTSD in itself.\n\nIn a... | null |
dzvv6v | dry shampoo | [
{
"answer": "Dry shampoo is basically a powder that absorbs hair oils. No, it's not just laziness. Washing hair every day can be bad for your scalp (not only does it remove oil, as you mentioned, but shampoo ingredients can be incredibly harsh. Styling hair can also be incredibly damaging. If your hair gets wet... | null |
ux4k0 | Why is belly fat different from other fat? | [
{
"answer": "The idea is that the 'belly' fat surrounds and puts pressure on your important organs as opposed to say leg fat. The fat itself is the same.\n\nNutrition/sports nerd - no references except info picked up at seminars.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "abdominal fat is more correlated... | null |
tgkn1 | Is it possible that Earth has had moons in the past and they were destroyed? | [
{
"answer": "Not only is it possible, but there is actually evidence suggesting the Earth did in fact used to have two moons: _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The earth captures many small objects for short periods of time, making them transient moons of sorts. _URL_0_\n",
"provenanc... | null |
h9re5 | Power Transformer explosions in Ft. Worth, TX. What could cause this? | [
{
"answer": "I actually just saw a lecture about this. The explosions are caused when the oil used as a coolant ignites. The thing has to fail prior to this happening, for instance by a component melting.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Well there's a lot of things that can cause a single trans... | null |
6cqnyj | When PTSD was officially recognized as mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, were there a substantial amount of people that denied PTSD's existence/credibility? and why? | [
{
"answer": "The profession of clinical psychology in America actually came into being specifically because of soldiers suffering psychological distress as a result of their wartime experiences in World War II. In America during World War II, psychologists were seen as valuable by the U.S. military; of the ~400... | null |
2ydy17 | Have we ever found a species which does no fit into the genetic "tree of life"? | [
{
"answer": "The short answer to this is no. \n\nAll living things (I am excluding viruses from this discussion) are composed of cells surrounded by a membrane. They also all use DNA to store the instructions necessary to create proteins. Given these similarities, scientists have concluded that all life on Ear... | null |
91tnu4 | Does global warming on Earth affect the solar system at all? | [
{
"answer": "The Earth is part of the solar system.\n\nApart from that there is no relevant effect. The emission spectrum of the Earth shifts a tiny bit towards shorter wavelengths but that doesn't matter outside of Earth.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
... | null |
1h09dn | why won't flies and other insects react on sudden movements on the tv or computer monitors? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not sure about this, but I think flies and other insects move because of air moving around. As screens don't make air move, they ignore it.\nKind of relevant: _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Flies react to even the slightest sudden air movement, so a moving picture won'... | null |
51syon | why do wireless headphones produce a less quality sound than wired ones? | [
{
"answer": "Well to ELI5 (im sure someone will add a better technical information).....blue tooth technology used for wireless headphones simply transmits less information than wires. An analogy would be similar to comparing mp3 to cd quality audio.....mp3 simply has less of the information about the audio ... | null |
12yv58 | Are all solar systems formed within nebulae? | [
{
"answer": "The largest stars (O and B type) form inside H II regions. Well, this might be the wrong way to think about it. It's the largest stars that actually *create* H II regions. Here's how it goes:\n\n1. Big cloud of (mostly) neutral hydrogen molecules\n\n2. Gravitational collapse\n\n3a. If the gas gets ... | null |
3sekb6 | why are the republican/democrat debates called debates? there's hardly any debating going on. | [
{
"answer": "They're mostly called debates to lend some gravitas to the situation.\n\nWhat they are these days, however, is joint press conferences.\n\nIt would be nice to have actual debates, but that would require politicians who are willing and able to think on their feet, and argue in defense of a position,... | null |
ei21fz | Adult adoption seems to have been very common by the late Roman Republic; was this a political development, driven by social forces, or interpersonal ones (or something else)? Was it particular to the aristocratic class or common in general? Do we know how it developed? | [
{
"answer": "On his 62nd birthday, the emperor Hadrian - tormented by an illness that had crippled him and left him subject to bouts of murderous rage - convened a council of advisers at his bedside. Painfully shifting his dropsy-stiffened limbs, he delivered a short address about his succession plans. The hist... | null |
1o5hag | Is gravity the strongest at the surface of the earth? | [
{
"answer": "That would be true if the Earth was a sphere of uniform density, but since the core is much denser than the mantle and crust, gravity peaks at the barrier between the mantle and the outer core. [Graphs for comparison.](_URL_0_)\n\nYou can think of this as the amount of less dense \"stuff\" that the... | null |
5y15ts | why does nintendo create "artificial demand" | [
{
"answer": "Creating a huge production capacity and only using it for a short period of time is financially costly. Nintendo knows most people will be willing to wait a few weeks if they have to. So there is an incentive to not build a massive temporary capacity. \n\nWe saw this with the Wii, switch, and N... | null |
2cdbe3 | How would a Medieval castle's garrison (say, 1300's) work? How would one join it and how many would be employed at peace? | [
{
"answer": "Most castles did not have \"garrisons\" per se. The average castle in Europe was the home of a knight. The \"garrison\" would be the knight, any of his family (sons or brothers) who still lived at home and were of fighting age, and his servants and retainers (cooks, grooms, falconer, huntsman, et... | null |
48v6q9 | how come songs/music these days have so many writers yet they only last 3 minutes tops? | [
{
"answer": "most hits or really catchy tunes are right around there. there are exceptions but hell look at Beatles songs. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "3 minutes is the standard pop song length. Now why are there so many writers? The answer is usually \"samples\". Here's one of my favourite... | null |
33tiu4 | Looking for a couple of good books for two exams I have coming up. British society 1900-1950 ish | [
{
"answer": "I'd recommend Peter Clarke's *Hope and Glory* (2nd ed, 2004) as a good overview of social, political and economic history of Britain during the 20th century. Based on your interest in sufferage and the impact of the Great War, Id also recommend Nicoletta Gullace's *The Blood of Our Sons* (2002) whi... | null |
22fqrx | Why does physics assume the existence of elementary particles? | [
{
"answer": " > If so, then smashing / destroying say a quark would do what? If there are no other particles of which the quark is composed then what happens to the quark? Does E=MC2 come into the equation and nothing but energy remains?\n\nIt makes other particles. Physicists use Feynman diagrams to describe ... | null |
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