id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
8r93u9 | when people go to the beach... men are shirtless with shorts (sometimes speedos 😳) and women are wearing a two piece (sometimes topless 😈) why is it that we freak out when people see us in our underwear, and we are perfectly fine when people see us in our “beach underwear” ? 🤔 | [
{
"answer": "Context is important. I'm not surprised to see a hot dog at a hot dog stand. I'd be surprised if I opened my wallet to pay for a hot dog and it only had a hot dog inside.\n\nI'm not surprised to see beach clothing at a beach, but would be concerned if I'm about to go into surgery and the surgeon sh... | null |
6ixc32 | what happens when you get new glasses? | [
{
"answer": "Pretty much, yeah. Your brain can adapt pretty fast. An experiment with upside down glasses revealed that it takes a few weeks for the brain to adjust. The person's brain literally adapted to it, and his vision flipped itself rightside up.\n\nYour brain just got used to a slightly blurred vision an... | null |
24o7v7 | why is it that when you're in a plane and the plane is turning sideways, your hair doesn't also gravitate towards the actual ground of earth but keeps gravitating towards the floor of the airplane? | [
{
"answer": "Same reason water stays in a bucket when you swing it over your head. Centrifugal force.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Because pilots use banking turns. They bank the plane (making the wings vertical) at the same time as they increase the pitch (raise the nose). If a skilled pi... | null |
4opyca | how does nicotine affect a body's dopamine level? | [
{
"answer": "There's really a ton of misinformation about this. \n\nPeople will tell you that nicotine releases dopamine because it's pleasurable, or it's pleasurable because it releases dopamine, but neither of those is very accurate at all.\n\nFirst off, there is no such thing as your \"dopamine level\". Neur... | null |
uwkog | how are blind people taught to understand the world? how much do they truly understand about their shape and the shape of other things? | [
{
"answer": "Blind people simply can’t see. They will never understand colour, or what it means for things to look beautiful, but they still have their other senses.\n\nDon’t underestimate how good sound is for building up an understanding of the space you are standing in. Blind people can also touch things and... | null |
2a2iek | If a duke in medieval England, France, or Germany wanted his second son to inherit his lands and titles, would he have any way of disinheriting his oldest son? | [
{
"answer": "In England, it would depend on a couple of things.\n\nIf the real property were held in fee tail (Entailed) a person would need the agreement of the heir to break the fee tail.\n\nIf a tail could not be broken, the ancestor/father could leave all of his personal property,money or unentailed re... | null |
68gu7m | why does coffee help a hangover? | [
{
"answer": "Hangovers, in ELI5 terms, are a specific case of dehydration. Caffeine is a diuretic, meaning it makes you pee more, which doesn't help the dehydration causing you to feel like crap.\n\nHowever, hangovers leave you feeling sluggish, tired and achey. Caffeine is a stimulant, which helps to perk your... | null |
25ml1w | why do diseases only do bad things to us? why are there no diseases/viruses that are actually good for us? | [
{
"answer": "There are though. A lot of bacteria helps you digest stuff. Also, I'm in total belief that a lot of non-microbial diseases are actually failed attempts at evolution...",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There are no good diseases because the definition of the word disease is typical... | null |
8pz2sv | how does the water table work? i just did deep enough and then there's water? why aren't deep caves flooded then? | [
{
"answer": " > I just did deep enough and then there's water?\n\nbasically. if you had a cup of water, and added sand until the top was dry, you would have a water table. you can do this near the beach. dig down a bit and the sand is wet. \n\nthe earth is a bit more complicated, though. for instance, certain ... | null |
36kie0 | What kind of spices did the ancient Mesopotamians use? | [
{
"answer": "From what we know (from texts and palaeobotanic studies), there were many spices that are also used in modern Middle Eastern cuisine, such as onion, garlic, coriander, cumin, fennel, cress, dill, mint, thyme, cardamom... \n\nIn addition, we have words for spices attested in the texts where we are n... | null |
3ihw2f | why after 30+ years of life do i still randomly choke on my own spit at random? | [
{
"answer": "Well besides being inconvenient, its not lethal, so natural selection saw no reason to weed it out. Take myopia (Needing glasses) for instance, besides being more than inconvenient, its not automatically lethal so we still see it today.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I've read tha... | null |
5ydojv | with websites like expedia, and the ease of access to the internet, what exactly do travel agents do nowadays? | [
{
"answer": "If something goes wrong, you've got a person to call who will do cartwheels to make it right for you. Any and all of it. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "My friend is one. She sells travel packages to people who just don't want to deal with it, and there are a lot of people like th... | null |
1qe0xp | How did WW1 armies know when individual soldiers died on the battlefield? | [
{
"answer": "They kept records of these guys and their families. Each soldier wears tags identifying them, find a body with tags a telegram is dispatched. If they don't find a body but the soldier fails to appear or report in they are missing and after a while missing and presumed dead.",
"provenance": null... | null |
95d6b2 | How many people were really being sacrificed every year in the Aztec Empire before the Spanish arrived? I’ve heard claims it was in the tens of thousands or much lower. | [
{
"answer": "There's always room for discussion, but perhaps the section [Human Sacrifice and Blood Sacrifice](_URL_0_) in the Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) portion of our FAQ will answer your inquiry.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'll try and cover a few of your specific points, ... | null |
2r3dcq | how slow can light be? | [
{
"answer": "Slow light is the propagation of an optical pulse or other modulation of an optical carrier at a very low group velocity. Slow light occurs when a propagating pulse is substantially slowed down by the interaction with the medium in which the propagation takes place.\n\nIn 1998, Danish physicist Len... | null |
4a05t6 | [Meta] Some thoughts on warnings | [
{
"answer": "Would you mind if someone from the modteam provides screencaps of your ban messages? You were temp banned as your third warning in this subreddit, not your first. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Rule #1 of reddit: Mods are dictators by nature of the system. \n\nThis sub understand... | null |
3hkwlg | why do opera singers put so much vibrato on everything? is it the only way to get the volume they need? | [
{
"answer": "Voice major here...\n\nVibrato ensures a continuous airstream from your diaphragm. It's an easy way to keep your muscles from gumming things up in the throat/jaw area, which can change the sound. Having your muscles truly loose and relaxed while singing makes for a truer more beautiful sound, and v... | null |
5r1znb | why is it that current pop songs' lyrics are repetitive verses repeated over and over, compared to the pas,t when lyrics were very diverse with different verses? | [
{
"answer": "Pop music is written around a formula that bastardizes the idea of the hook, which is the part of a song that draws you in and usually it's the part that gets stuck in your head. It's not a new idea for pop songs to just repeat the same lines over and over. It's been a popular method since the 1980... | null |
eihsud | why is light the fastest thing in the universe and not any other wave? | [
{
"answer": "when we use light in that statement we mean the entire spectrum, not just visible light. So essentially 'radiation' is the fastest thing in the universe",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "All massless particles travel through vacuum at *c*. It's a feature of our universe's spacetime, ... | null |
2z507y | What was European cooking like before the introduction of Asian spices? | [
{
"answer": "While you wait for more qualified people to answer, here's a section of the FAQ that may tide you over:\n\n_URL_5_\n\n\nAlso, you'll need to be a little more specific about time frame and/or location within Europe, as well as which level of society you're asking about. My understanding is that in 1... | null |
2kqufd | Why do women have 2 ovaries? Why can't there be just one ovary? | [
{
"answer": "The same question can e asked of why men have two testicles - the are developmentally synonymous. Procreation is the fundamental root of evolutionary biology, thus our ancestors with two gonads were likely more successful in reporducing",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"pro... | null |
wze97 | What was the mainstream Roman take on the god of the Judeans? | [
{
"answer": "The average Roman didn't think much of Judaism, because they didn't think of them at all. Among those who actually cared about such matters, Judaism was likely seen as another weird Eastern cult, but with respectable venerability. Jews themselves had a poor reputation, at least going by Tacitus, wh... | null |
1h9pjc | What would happen if we started pumping huge amounts of water into the middle of the Sahara Desert? | [
{
"answer": "For an understanding of how to do this and make it work, ie keep the water--in this case seas water--there and grow things with it, see the [Sahara Forest Project](_URL_0_). Their proposals involve using solar power to desalinize sea water, that would then be used to grow crops and trees, initially... | null |
60c3nn | if a room temperature object is left in outer space for an hour, would it come back colder, warmer, or the same temperature? | [
{
"answer": "Heat is also transferred by radiation, which does not require a medium (particles, like air/water/etc). Your object in space would radiate heat and start to cool, but you also have to account for incoming radiation (from the Sun, for one example). So, your answer depends quite a lot on where you pu... | null |
hy2y5 | Is there such a thing as being "in the zone" or "having momentum" in sports? | [
{
"answer": "There is a psychology term known as [Flow](_URL_0_)\n\n > Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychol... | null |
200ckd | AskScience Cosmos Q & A thread. Episode 1: Standing Up in the Milky Way | [
{
"answer": "Is it just me, or is that asteroid belt way too dense? Not to mention the Kuiper belt. On a related note, how dense are the rings of Saturn? Would you see a thicket of iceballs whizzing past you if you actually flew a spacecraft through them?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Does... | null |
fnoffk | If your body produces antibodies after defeating a pathogen indefinitely, when an individual gets exposed to many pathogens throughout their life, will they have a larger antibody density in their blood? Is there a limit to this? | [
{
"answer": "Antibodies are made as you require them. They are made by lymphocytes, after an infection you havea low number lymphocytes called memory cells in your blood these can build the antibodies required if you are exposed to the pathogen again.\n\nThe original process of producing an antibody for an infe... | null |
1v6tkf | why aren't there any laws limiting the use of plastic? | [
{
"answer": "Because people want plastic things, a lot. The innovation of plastic products completely changed the world. People in general don't want to stop using plastic.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The people who really makes tons of money from using plastic are very rich. They often h... | null |
46o166 | In "The Dialectic of Sex," Shulamith Firestone claims that childhood was essentially an invention of the 15th century, and that before that point male children were treated as adults and functioned perfectly well in adult society. Is this true? | [
{
"answer": "Is she focusing on a specific area? I doubt \"childhood as an invention\" in the 1400s was a global phenomenon.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Hmm... I was sure there were several great threads on the development of the ideas of childhood, teenagers, etc, but have only been able ... | null |
12v9wn | Is time dilation the same at every black-hole event horizon? | [
{
"answer": "Might I be able to also ask a question regarding black holes, their shape etc.?\n\nFrom what I understand, there's a region on the edge of the event horizon is a photon sphere where photons moving on a tangent to this will become trapped in orbit. \n\nHowever when I've seen pictures regarding black... | null |
4l984p | why is it so difficult for the medical community to give a straight answer about how much a procedure/appointment/etc. will cost? | [
{
"answer": "The doctors and nurses don't even *know* how much shit costs. They just say what work they've done & the billing department handles the prices.\n\nBilling can't give you a straight answer because they have different rates for cash payments or insurance. Every insurance company negotiates a set ... | null |
2rxlkk | do programs like lumosity have any measurable benefit to cognitive abilities? or is it all just hype? | [
{
"answer": "Using Lumosity regularly makes you better at Lumosity. It might be of more benefit to your cognition than staring at a wall and picking your nose, but it's mostly hype and pseudoscience",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I visited a friend who is getting his masters for psychology. He... | null |
7cplaa | How was helium identified from the continuous spectrum of the sun? | [
{
"answer": "The sun's photosphere is cooler than the regions below it, creating absorption lines. If you point a spectrometer at the sun you don't get a continuous spectrum, you get a continuous spectrum superimposed with black lines where the particular wavelength was absorbed by the cooler upper atmosphere. ... | null |
3z0ci3 | What would the ramifications of a lack of causality be? | [
{
"answer": "Unpredictability. The equations of motion lose existence and uniqueness. Given a certain initial condition at time t, there might not exist a solution to later time, or there might be infinite equally valid. Essentially the Universe doesn't know what to do with itself, and even if it does, there is... | null |
6j4996 | why do vodka sodas dehydrate me? | [
{
"answer": "The metabolism of alcohol requires the presence of water, and alcohol itself is a diuretic which results in less available water in your body. \n\nEdit: To expand on this, the amount of water in your mixed drink is probably insufficient to hold off dehydration after your body has processed the alco... | null |
6wt3dy | why when running on a treadmill usually i'm really tired at 15 min mark, almost dead at 20 min, and ok at 30 min mark ? | [
{
"answer": "I have similar experiences as runner. However, I don't often run on a treadmill so I experience this phenomena on the road. Also, I tend to feel the worst, including feeling out of breath, at the very start of my run. After about a mile my breathing usually regulates itself, however my legs usually... | null |
523pi7 | where did the term "fired" originate from? | [
{
"answer": "In the early 1900's at National Cash Register (NCR) there were high-ranking employees who were let go, and they were informed of this by seeing that their desks were carried outside and set on fire.\n\nHence, they got \"fired\".",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[Etymology Online](_U... | null |
2kgr77 | What rank would a soldier have to be to avoid going 'over the top' in WWI? | [
{
"answer": "That's a very interesting question, and relates a lot to a common perception that, once a certain level of authority is reached, the individual is less likely to participate in combat.\n\nThat is a very generalised view, of course, and as such not entirely correct. An army is a very rigid organiza... | null |
24juxz | how do some people become the mod of dozens of subreddits? | [
{
"answer": "You'd have to ask the people who made the decision to add them, we don't know. The thought process for each individual mod invite was probably different.\n\nI'm not sure but it's also possible that they did stuff like CSS work. There are some people who do design and CSS stuff for lots of subreddit... | null |
4b2jk6 | What was the video-recording format in the USSR/Ex-socialist countries ? Was there an equivalent to VHS ? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not an expert on The Soviet Union but I have a strong interest in and experience with tech. So a Soviet expert may be able to add a lot to the discussion. But to quickly answer your main question, the main format used popularly in the USSR was VHS and the VCR.\n\nThere were other forms of magne... | null |
8vrz47 | ; why can't they just give the 12 boys and the football coach who were found in the cave in thailand oxygen masks so they can swim out? why do they need to teach them to dive or wait for the flood to recede? | [
{
"answer": "There's a lot more to diving than just putting on a mask and swimming. For example, if one of the boys gets scared and holds his breath, then ascends, his lungs could rupture quite easily. They need to make sure that the boys can dive safely before they can use that as an escape method.",
"prov... | null |
ezutcu | - why is it so hard for companies doing political surveys to actually predict the elections? | [
{
"answer": "Really? The _vast_ majority of polling is very accurate - we just only pay attention to it in the few situations where the polling was \"wrong\".\n\nPolling is difficult because you are trying to take a small sample of people and extrapolate what you learn from them to a population as a whole. En... | null |
djivs4 | why is human diet so complex? | [
{
"answer": "A big part is just convienece and choice. Animals with \"higher\" capacity for reason can figure out optimal ways to get food and therefore the option to be picky.\n\nMost animals don't have the range primarily because they're both evolved to live in a certain area and they have a lower count of th... | null |
2w4gmd | What killed off the mega fauna? | [
{
"answer": "Traditionally this has been ascribed either to the influence of humans on the environment or climate change, although occasionally disease has been tossed around as a hypothesis. Lately, many scientists have been siding with the climate change view.\n\n[This study suggests otherwise.](_URL_0_) It... | null |
1mow4i | ip addresses, subnet masks and why some ip addresses can see others on the same network? | [
{
"answer": "An IPv4 address is just 4 bytes; each number between the dots is in a range of 0 to 255.\n\nTake 192.168.60.1\nIn binary that's 11000000.10101000.00111100.00000001.\n\nNow take a subnet like 255.255.224.0\nIn binary that's 11111111.11111111.11110000.00000000\nNotice how all of the bits are together... | null |
13rvbb | When accelerating close to c, the universe appears to contract. We see the universe as expanding. Is it possible that this is some related phenomenon and that the universe isn't actually expanding? | [
{
"answer": "No, these are two different phenomena (which are, by the way, both accounted for in the mathematics, so aren't being mistaken for one another!). Two observers who are moving at different speeds will measure lengths differently - this is what you're referring to with contraction - but there's no suc... | null |
corpvu | is space observation in real time? | [
{
"answer": "Everything you see is in the past to some degree. Distance and the effects of gravity are the main factors impacting your perception.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "hi so I’m not a scientist by any measure but I’m pretty sure because of the distance we’re actually seeing the stars... | null |
15hf71 | Are there any cells in the human body that don't need oxygen? | [
{
"answer": "Red blood cells! It actually makes quite a bit of sense, because red blood cells exist in order to transport oxygen, and if they required oxygen, they would be much less efficient in that endeavor.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Ninety-nine percent of the bacteria in the gut are a... | null |
1ggik8 | What were the different techniques used for making swords across different cultures and time periods? | [
{
"answer": "You're not the only one who loves swords! I was just saying the other day how much I miss the old *Highlander* TV series, but anyway... here's my quick round-up of posts discussing sword-making techniques. If anyone remembers any more, add the link as a reply & we'll create an entry in the \"popu... | null |
4iorwl | why do cities restrict the maximum height of structures? | [
{
"answer": "In London, certain view lines are [protected](_URL_0_), which severely limits the options for erecting tall buildings. Not only that but the land London is built on is an unstable river plain, so subsidence is a problem which would be more significant for heavier/taller buildings. Big Ben is tiltin... | null |
9a76yf | why are the soles of our feet so sensitive if they’re the main (and often only) point of contact with the ground? | [
{
"answer": "Most likely because you wear shoes which keep your feet baby soft.\n\nMy kids go barefoot a lot and can walk across gravel without a problem.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "That depends on you and how you treat your feet. Skin calluses and hardens as you use it, so you'll have rou... | null |
8mpo3x | Did 13th century English knights fight on foot? | [
{
"answer": "This answer focuses on the Anglo-Norman period, so earlier than the 13th century. But since OP was interested in English knights fighting on foot before the 14th century, I guess this will still be of interest. \n \nIn \"Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings 1066-1135\", Stephen Morrillo argues th... | null |
78b8ne | how is a modern minted coin ever worth more than its face value, isn't that exactly what money is a guarantee that you money will be what it says it's worth? | [
{
"answer": "....an official currency coinage is only ever worth exactly its face value.\n\nare you thinking about those tv commercials for gold clad coins? those coins are produced by a company named National Mint or something stupid like that. those are collector scams. they're not worth anything.",
... | null |
2og2ge | In what year and battle did the last recorded charge of knights in heavy armor occur? What conflict last saw widespread use of knights in heavy armor? | [
{
"answer": "The latest charge by armoured cavalry that I know of occurred during the Battle of Mars-La-Tour in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. These were a mixed force of Curassiers (armoured cavalry), Dragoons (mounted rifle men) and Uhlans (light cavalry), who participated in what is today known as Von Bred... | null |
3cs5lp | Another military or logistics question, how does an army pass a mountain, whether it's supposedly impassable or passable? | [
{
"answer": "They (typically. Some people tried some crazy things) just went through known passes, which is why mountains are such great natural defenses. If there are only a small number of passes the defending army knows exactly where their enemy is coming through and can wait for them. Many mountain passes (... | null |
3n8s9n | how does a pro gamer make a living after he / she retires? | [
{
"answer": "This is probably the biggest problem with pro gaming as a whole. Pro gamers have the shortest career of any \"sport\", and the potential fallback isnt much. A good amount of pros have presences on streaming platforms like twitch, so that + the tech experience they have getting a job at a gaming com... | null |
4ili19 | how do spam telemarketers make money since almost everyone just hangs up? | [
{
"answer": "With VOIP and cheap offshore labor, it costs virtually nothing to make those calls - partly *because* no one answers, or hangs up immediately. If you make 10,000 calls - that's every number in an exchange - and get three or four bites, you've made money.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answe... | null |
e24fp0 | since inflammation in the body causes numerous fatal diseases(cancer,heart disease, etc.),why can't we just pop a few nsaids like ibuprofen every day and be on our healthy way? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nIt's been recommended for a few decades now.\n\n > Aspirin can help prevent heart attacks in people with coronary artery disease and in those who have a higher than average risk. Only low dose, usually just 81 a day, is needed. But people who think they may be having an attack need an ex... | null |
34u1uc | How did the Roman people handle military defeats? | [
{
"answer": "How would we know what an \"average citizen\" thought? Every text we have is produced by the elite class. Whether people lost friends or family is impossible to know in the specifics.\n\nWe do know that military disaster did not affect the political careers of the generals involved. Rosenstein i... | null |
jkuq4 | the difference between iphone and android, and the pro's and con's of each. | [
{
"answer": "Things Android phones can do *without* being rooted (the same level of permission you currently have on the iPhone):\n\n* Change the keyboard input. [8pen](_URL_1_), [SwiftKey](_URL_0_), and [Swype](_URL_9_) are some good examples.\n* Use any appstore or download apps directly from web pages. The ... | null |
15rcvg | Considering all types of movement we're subjected to, how fast are we actually traversing through space at any given point in time? | [
{
"answer": "what is the reference point?\n\nthis question is asked all the time and it's always the same.. \n\n1. Do a search this has been asked before\n\n2. What exactly are we calling our fixed reference point? (the entire universe is in flux)\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "All motion is... | null |
73pmti | why does spain have strong, independent cultures (i.e. basque, catalonia) while other european nations seem to be more culturally and linguistically uniform? | [
{
"answer": "Well, the Scots and some other parts of the UK might not agree with that.\n\nSpain was assembled by a more recent war, and the Franco dictatorship didn't really accomplish much harmony.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "While I don't disagree with your question, let me find you some ... | null |
2gqah2 | why do guys insist on sending unsolicited dick pictures. does that ever really work? | [
{
"answer": "Because it gets them off. Depends on which side of the scale between mother superior and super-horny fairy-queen the recipient is.\n\nSource: I'm the latter, generally speaking.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Men are very visual creatures, and quick to arouse. A man can go from no... | null |
8yhsaf | how did early man manage to drink the recommended 2 litres of water a day without access to clean water and remain strong enough to maintain his active lifestyle? | [
{
"answer": "The \"recommended\" is a bullshit number brought on by lobbyists.\n\nHave you noticed how much you urinate when you drink so much water? Your body purges excess water.\n\nDrink when you're thirsty. Not because you're on a goddamn schedule.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The recomm... | null |
m1x6e | Does smoke have weight? | [
{
"answer": "All matter has mass, and on Earth, weight.\n\nYour experiment sounds reasonable. Another idea would be to weigh an air filter before and after it absorbed smoke.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Smoke has weight, yes, but that experiment is no way to find it. For example, try it wi... | null |
5uz3ie | how do you perform cpr and give compressions to a person who has fractured his chest bones? | [
{
"answer": "Whether or not they have a fractured chest does not have any relevance to Cpr.\n\nThe important thing is the forced contaction of the heart, damaged or not. \n\nIf they are dead they are dead regardless of whether or not their Ribs are being pushed into their heart. You cant make them more dead.\n\... | null |
449mbw | Why did the Japanese attack the United States to bring the US into WW2? Were they completely the aggressors or had some US policy given them reasons to attack? | [
{
"answer": "For about 40 years the US and Japan had been on a collision course. A whole host of factors made it so that the nations and populations felt each other was a natural foe, and that when war came it would be particularly brutal. \n\nTo go through a few:\n\n1. Residual Colonialism clashing with Japan'... | null |
6308fw | how did we figure out that burning rocks would make metal? | [
{
"answer": "Metal working is *way* past caveman times. \n\nWe figured out fire, and we figured out how to make *hot* fire (which we needed to make strong pottery, which we needed for storage because we figured out agriculture which, incidentally, meant we needed to figure out writing). \n\nA lot of this is, ne... | null |
1j9vrc | How did gunpowder weapons change siege tactics? | [
{
"answer": "A great example of gunpowder changing siege warfare, in my opinion, is the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. Sultan Mehmed used a corp of cannons to weaken and bring down the walls, ending the reign of a fortress that had only been taken once before. (The Fall of Constantinople, by Ni... | null |
87bczk | Palestine to Israel | [
{
"answer": "Do you mean, why did the State of Israel call itself “Israel” and not “Palestine”? The end of the British mandate on 14 May coincided precisely with the declaration of the State of Israel, which was made that evening. A few minutes later the United States recognized Israel. Recognition from other c... | null |
21feij | If measurement causes the wavefunction to collapse, and everything is constantly interacting with everything else in the universe via gravity, why haven't all wavefunctions collapsed all the time? | [
{
"answer": "Crudely, wavefunction collapse means the following. You allow your quantum system S to interact with a set of degrees of freedom M. The interaction entangles the state of S with the state of M, so that the probability distribution of some observable OS of S are correlated with observable OM of M. B... | null |
dm7eqf | glass is not biodegradable, and will perhaps take even longer to decompose than plastic. why isn't it made out to be as big of an issue as plastic? | [
{
"answer": "I believe that the answer lies in the fact that, if you crush up glass to extremely fine fragments, it is essentially sand. Plastic, as it breaks down, continues to float, pollute, and also mimics small water-borne organisms that larger organisms feed upon. Broken glass (sand) sinks, and essentiall... | null |
15ogth | Why was Australia not fought over the same way as Africa? | [
{
"answer": "No-one wanted it, no-one wanted to move there. The Portuguese, who were there first, described it as the worst place imaginable. At that time, there were lots of places to go if you wanted to leave your homeland, like the freshly depopulated Americas. Even the British didn't see much more use in it... | null |
6d0zul | what is net nuetrality? what is being for it? against it? do we have it? trying ti get it? | [
{
"answer": "John Oliver made a video a few years back and one weeks ago that touches on the subject well. Basically with net neutrality, everybody's internet speed gets treated equally regardless of what websites, browsers, etc. you use.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [... | null |
12iksr | If autonomous cars become the norm, how much time and gas would we save on a typical weekly commute? | [
{
"answer": "I can't answer our question, but I can add some more sources of waste that would be eliminated by self-driving cars.\n\nIn theory, you would not longer need to stop at intersections. The computer algorithm could very quickly work out a way to get everyone through [with nobody stopping](_URL_0_).\n... | null |
eacsao | considering how contagious vomiting bugs are like norovirus, why aren’t we always sick with them? | [
{
"answer": "\n > So why is it that people can go years before they catch this bug again when you’re immunity only lasts for about 6 weeks? \n\nSome people are born with a lifetime resistance/immunity. Their dna prevents them from getting sick when they encounter the virus. That's a lot longer than 6 weeks.\n\n... | null |
1i5fsk | why are credit cards and credit so important? what's wrong with just a debt card? | [
{
"answer": "Debit cards are fine, you just don't build credit with them. You're using cash you actually have in an account, as opposed to using a credit line.\n\nCredit is important because at some point in life, you will invariably need money you don't have. For example, you may need to take out a loan for a ... | null |
1m93bl | Does pollen carry or assist the spread of illness? | [
{
"answer": "Pollen can act as a significant vector for viruses (_URL_0_ you can only see the abstract, but that's enough to know that pollen is a viral vector), however pollen doesn't actually increase the amount of pathogenic particles leaving someone with a transferable disease unless they are allergic.",
... | null |
9go6jo | How did scientists recreate the 1918 Influenza Virus? | [
{
"answer": "Scientists were able to determine the genetic sequence of the 1918 virus using samples from a woman who had died of the virus and was buried in permafrost. Then, they used the sequence to rebuild the virus, likely by expressing the genome within a cell, which would produce viral proteins that assem... | null |
2uvomm | what does hydrogen peroxide do to earwax chemically that makes it easier to remove? | [
{
"answer": "It doesn't do anything chemically to the earwax, other than possibly diluting it. It works mechanically. The bubbles help loosen the wax. The bubbles are caused by an enzyme called catalase that exists in the dead skin cells in the wax. This enzyme rapidly breaks down the hydrogen peroxide, releasi... | null |
f6vsy | growing plants indoors with non-solar light...help understanding plant needs / physics | [
{
"answer": "If you go to the following forums: _URL_2_, _URL_0_ and _URL_1_ you will find a shit load of information. Now, don't get me wrong, they focus on growing one particular plant, but grow room design is essentially the same.\n\nThat said, lots of people use mylar, the issue with mylar is that if it isn... | null |
a3he6r | flight, how does it work? | [
{
"answer": "The basics are that because of the shape of the wing, air travels faster over the top side of the wing than the bottom side, which means there is more pressure on the bottom side of the wing (this is called Bernoulli's Principle), and because there is a larger pressure on the bottom side of the win... | null |
1fpwub | how does fat and energy work? how is it that you burn fat by exercising, but you can have fat and still be out of energy. if i just stop eating, why isn't it that i can be full of energy until my body is out of fat? | [
{
"answer": "This will be a little complicated.\n\nFat is energy, but it's not immediately usable as energy; since cells are the smallest living unit, fat has to be broken down into parts that the cells can use before it is actually usable. Of course, breaking down molecules takes time, as well.\n\nBreaking dow... | null |
a3i9ir | how does accutane exactly work, what does it do with the body system, and why do results vary from person to person? | [
{
"answer": "The Accutane molecule is similar in shape to Vitamin A. It stops sebaceous glands from working. Think of it as turning off the faucet that pumps the gunk into the acne. It doesn't work for everyone because it doesn't work for every time of acne. It works best for the big nodular acne, because that ... | null |
1jgpg7 | What really happened in melee combat? | [
{
"answer": "I recommend reading the first few chapters of \"Face of Battle\" by Keegan. It describes, with some detail, hand-to-hand combat in the Hundred Years War. It doesn't get into the classic hoplite battles you are probably referencing but it does go into things like the types of wounds suffered from ... | null |
75m3zu | What burns during re-entry? | [
{
"answer": "The other answers are right, but I'll add that sometimes there is something sort of \"burning\" on spaceships that is relevant to your question. One of the most effective ways to passively cool anything exposed to conditions as extreme as reentry or the inside of a rocket nozzle is to coat it with ... | null |
7foujg | how are there different "types" of spicy sensations from eating spicy food? | [
{
"answer": "Because there are different compounds interacting with different receptors.\nPeppers have capsaicin, which triggers the same receptors as hot temperature receptors.\n\nWasabi and mustards have isothiocyanates, a different compound. They are also short lived due to not being oily and volatile, meani... | null |
33g1zu | How is it that humans can learn vocal language to virtually perfect speech yet still be illiterate? | [
{
"answer": "Most of this is because the mapping of symbols on the page to sounds is arbitrary. When speaking you're mapping sounds to meaning. This is something you brain has specifically evolved to handle.\n\nFor written text we've invented some arbitrary symbols, we've decided that they map to specific phone... | null |
7oox29 | how do furnaces work? | [
{
"answer": "fire from natural gas (or whatever the gas source is) being pushed through the vents via a blower fan",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "52585846",
"title": "Industrial furnace",
"section": "",
"start_pa... | null |
v4bqz | Would it be possible for Jupiter and/or Saturn to ignite? | [
{
"answer": "If you did mean set on fire as in a spark causing the hyrdrogen to ignite, no. Oxygen is required for hydrogen to combust, and the composition of Jupiter as far as we're aware contains only a very small amount oxygen.\n\nAlso although not a very scientific approach, considering that it's 4.5billion... | null |
3y97dr | steam trading cards, gems, mystery cards, etc... | [
{
"answer": "**Steam Trading Cards are virtual cards earned by playing games on Steam. Sets of cards can be turned into game badges and tradable Steam community items.**\n\n**Once you’ve collected a set of cards you can craft them into a game badge. Like the current badges, they are tied to your account and are... | null |
51sysz | how is your normal facial expression decided? | [
{
"answer": "Genetics, Stressers and muscle memory. \n\nGenes is the first thing, you can't change these this can cause things from your skin, your face shape and where fat wants to reside. \n\nStressers like age, sun damage and sleep deprivations as well as allergic reactions affect the look of your face beyon... | null |
37daro | How much of their forces did germany devote to the eastern front in WWI? | [
{
"answer": "By February 1916 the Germans had c. 50 divisions on the eastern front; by September of that year, the number had risen to c. 70 divisions. When the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, there were 1.5 million German troops in the East, of which 500 000 were shifted to the Western Front by the spring ... | null |
kv9q1 | hypodermic needle model. | [
{
"answer": "The magic bullet theory is that for the every person in the world when effected by a specific message will have a specific reaction.\n\nThe general concept was that if a person was presented with advertising or propaganda they would react in a specific way as a passive participant in the process, b... | null |
4hscla | [Human Body] Is it possible to feel pain that is not actually there? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. The simplest example would be phantom limb syndrome. There are no nerves to stimulate in this situation. Phantom limb is considered neuropathic pain, but we still don't quite fully understand the mechanism behind it.\n\nBeyond that there are disorders that can lead to allodynia. This is when y... | null |
4ciopy | why do some things need 4 aaa batteries instead of fewer number of a stronger battery? example: why use 4 aaa when one might be able to use 2aa. | [
{
"answer": "AA are not \"stronger\" than AAA, they just have more power reserve. \n\nThey both put out the same voltage though AA can probably do so at a higher amperage if required. \n\n\nBy arranging the batteries in different combinations of parallel and series you can get different combinations of \"power\... | null |
76qlhy | Would a black hole really appear as a sphere like in Interstellar? | [
{
"answer": "The science advisor for interstellar was Kip Thorne, who just shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his modelling of the gravitational waveform emitted by two merging black holes. He had the movie studio run a relativistic ray tracing code to generate the images of the black hole (given a small acc... | null |
3jmayz | Would I move in opposite direction in space if I pushed smaller object then me ? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. If you give the bowling ball momentum in one direction, you will have the same momentum in the opposite direction. This is the same principle that allows rockets to work: exhaust goes in one direction, rocket goes in the other.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provena... | null |
2drlxm | Historically speaking, Ukraine wasn't where it is now. It's in what used to belong to Crimea. What's the logic behind Ukraine's placement after the fall of the USSR? | [
{
"answer": "I'm no expert so I don't have any answer, but could you clarify what you're talking about a little? If I look at some easy-to-find sources (wikipedia, etc.) on the history of Ukraine, I'm not seeing anything that looks like this:\n\n > Ukraine was in a completely different part of Europe than we th... | null |
1d6iwd | how do cameras focus, and why does the background get blurry? | [
{
"answer": "This will work better if you're nearsighted, but should work even if you're not. Look at something in the distance that's blurry because it's far away. Now squint--see how, for a little moment, it's easier to see because you're squinting? Cameras essentially focus by 'squinting' -- adjusting the le... | null |
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