id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
6hwo5f | Why is the domestication of dogs not considered the beginning of the agricultural revolution? | [
{
"answer": "Hi, this question would be worth x-posting to our sister sub, r/AskAnthropology: while there are some specialists in pre-history here, there is a greater focus on early time periods over there.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id":... | null |
zs3z1 | What's the earliest evidence we have of jokes? What is the oldest one we know? were there jokes as we known them today back when Ancient civilizations stood? | [
{
"answer": "To paraphrase:\n\nA man walks over to a slave trader\n\"It's this slave you sold me yesterday. He's died\"\nthe slave trader says\n\"That's odd, he never did that when he was with me\"\n\nThis is an Ancient Greek joke found etched on a stone tablet. \n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answe... | null |
1zq3x2 | Civil War literature suggestions? | [
{
"answer": "Depends on how committed you are, but Shelby Foote's *The Civil War: A Narrative* is pretty much the gold standard in Civil War history. It's a three volume work, very long and thorough. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "If you haven't already, you might consider watching Ken Burns'... | null |
90667h | To what extent was local law allowed in the Roman Empire. | [
{
"answer": "Local law was very much allowed in the Roman Empire, as a holdover from Republican days, whether the matter was civil or generally criminal. Governors of provinces generally allowed local courts to handle legal matters, only stepping in when cases were referred to them; at this point, generally th... | null |
6ir7vp | why betting the same amount on two boxers to win will not always give a payout due to differing odds. | [
{
"answer": "Any real-world bookie is going to adjust the odds and payouts so that they get a cut for themselves (the vig). They're not working for charity.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Like any gambling operation, the total of the payouts is always inferior to the total of the bets. That's... | null |
tv8mr | I'm diabetic and I want to know about the industrially production of insulin | [
{
"answer": "[Wiki](_URL_0_) says this:\n\n > Recombinant human insulin. Thanks to study introduced by Ivan Garelli PhD, recombinant insulin has almost completely replaced insulin obtained from animal sources (e.g. pigs and cattle) for the treatment of insulin-dependent diabetes. A variety of different recombin... | null |
nel3i | Is their a theoretical limit to how much a pound of muscle can do? Is it possible to calculate, knowing a single persons muscle mass, how much they would be able to lift? (this is factoring in a healthy person, with full tanks of energy and no injuries.) | [
{
"answer": "This is pretty hackneyed, but I'll post it anyway:\nkonstantin konstantinovs is a super strong Latvian powerlifter. He weights around 268lbs and has maxed out his deadlift at 938lbs. He's pretty lean for a powerlifter, so I'll guess that he's around 10% (26lbs) body fat and take that off his total ... | null |
2rs54w | how the fuck is spreading jelly (i.e.vapo rub) on my chest supposed to help congestion? | [
{
"answer": "You put it on your chest because you're going to be drawing air in to your lungs from that area. The vapors from the jelly mix with the air you breathe.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The biggest cause of congestion is inflamed tubes.\n\nThe goop is full of menthol, which evaporat... | null |
1nuyi8 | Would World War I be classified as a "World War" if the US never got involved? | [
{
"answer": "The first known use of the proper name \"World War\" (as opposed to \"Great War\" or \"European War\") was in 1919, if the *OED* is to be believed. It was used as a general descriptor (\"a world-war\" or the German *Weltkrieg*) for the conflict as early as 1914 so the idea existed well before US e... | null |
32pgkz | why do people look slimmer in certain colors? | [
{
"answer": "[Here's](_URL_0_) an article about how wearing black (or other dark colors) can make you look slimmer: \n\n > If you have a very light T-shirt on, your shape will be noticeable within the fabric. Any curves, bulges, or flat areas will be noticeable beneath the white fabric. If the T-shirt is blac... | null |
atsgk4 | why does hand sanitizer feel so cold? | [
{
"answer": "Hand sanitizers are made to be spread over the hands and then dry quickly. Usually this is done by dissolving the sanitizing agent in a highly volatile (means evaporates or vaporizes quickly) liquid, usually alchohol.\n\nSo it acts like sweat on steroids, it evaporates so fast, and so much at one t... | null |
2c449l | Does lightening ever travel up, above the clouds to interact with planes etc.? | [
{
"answer": "Well, lightning doesn't care about direction, only about the electric potential. There are plenty of strikes [between or inside clouds](_URL_1_).\n\n[Planes also get struck by lightning all the time](_URL_0_), which is generally harmless since they act as Faraday cages.\n\nThe specific thing you se... | null |
2fleis | the meaning/significance of all the nazi stuff in pink floyd's the wall. | [
{
"answer": "It's about shutting out things that are not like ourselves and withdrawing by being unpleasant to people around us. Pink has been so hurt by all of the things that have happened in his life that he is pushing people away so that they won't hurt him any more.\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},... | null |
2j7m9e | [Medicine] Do flu shots really contain only one strain of influenza? If so, how is that one particular strain chosen every year? What are the reasons we cannot inoculate with multiple strains? | [
{
"answer": "Most flu vaccines protect against 3 viruses (two influenza A viruses (an H1N1 and an H3N2) and an influenza B virus) with some providing protection against 4 viruses.\n\nThe makeup of each vaccine that will be licensed for use is ultimately up to individual countries but they are strongly influence... | null |
2f65ot | when a stock market crashes and everyone is desperately 'selling', who is actually willing to 'buy'? | [
{
"answer": "Smart people with cash. Buying when the market crashes is a great investment, **IF** you can afford to wait until the market recovers to realize your gains.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The fact that not many people are willing to buy is what *causes* the crash. If as many peop... | null |
2n0o0k | Is it possible for things we consider to be waves to exhibit particle like behaviours at a quantum level? | [
{
"answer": "It works both ways: Quantum objects exhibit the characteristics of both particles and of waves, but are they themselves neither.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": " > If at a quantum level things we consider to be particles are able to exhibit wave like behaviours, is it possible for ... | null |
ein8rj | why is it that lobsters have the possibility to be born with so many rare colorations? | [
{
"answer": "Short answer:\nEach lobster has color pigments (red, blue, yellow), that determine the color of the shell. \n\nSpecific mutations change the amount of pigment and thus the color.\n\nSome mutations that influence (for example) blue pigment naturally appear more often than others, that is why blue lo... | null |
1tt92d | why doesn't water help with dry skin? | [
{
"answer": "You would think that putting water on the skin would moisturize it more, but the opposite is true. Plain water that comes in contact with skin evaporates and takes with it many of the skin's natural oils called natural moisturizing factor (NMF). The more frequently that skin comes into contact with... | null |
10tzg2 | what a "trust fund baby" is and exactly how a "trust fund" works. | [
{
"answer": "Trust funds are basically special savings accounts that pay you an allowance. A young person with an inherited trust fund is called a trust fund baby.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "A trust is a specific legal entity that allows someone to separate themselves from an amount of the... | null |
4vgset | it is said that children are (almost) immune to motion sickness up to the age of 2. why? | [
{
"answer": "The main reason for motion sickness is our body has trouble reconciling the visual cues for no movement with the physical sensation of movement. The difference causes our bod to freak out, and we throw up to expel whatever apparent poison we've consumed.\n\nChildren don't have the history to reali... | null |
6007xy | court mandated community service is like forced labour? | [
{
"answer": "Court mandated community service is offered to people who commit a small crime, such as stealing a chocolate bar. The judge or justice of peace may give you an option to show that you are not a bad person by doing something such as community service or even writing an apology letter to the person y... | null |
6i531w | if the reason most mammals have testicles outside their bodies, what about sea-mammals (seals, whales etc)? how do they get around the issue of high body temperature affecting sperm? | [
{
"answer": "Sea mammals keep their testicles in internal pouches surrounded by thick tendon-like tissues that keep the temperature lower than the surrounding muscles.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "67193",
"title": "Testicle",
... | null |
1r7jb6 | why are musicians/composers like mozart regarded so highly? if something almost just like it came along now, would it be regarded as highly? | [
{
"answer": "W.A. Mozart is considered by most musicians to be one of the most influential composers for a variety of reasons:\n\n(WALL OF TEXT WARNING, I'm on mobile, sorry)\n\n-Prolific composer: He composed over 600 works throughout his lifetime, for a large variety of mediums (symphony, string quartets, tri... | null |
fa5sfy | why can some women be in labor for more than a day and some give birth in less than an hour? | [
{
"answer": "That’s just the way it goes. There will always be a range of time periods. Some babies, especially the second and third births, are more ready and able to make their escape.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "45460517",
... | null |
5kq0ko | how do colony based insects, such as ants, decide who to make the queen (or king) and how does that one get so much bigger/different in appearance? | [
{
"answer": "The queen ant mates with a male and his sperm is used by her to produce eggs. The fertilized eggs develop into females and the unfertilized eggs develop into males(haplo-diploid sex determination). The workers feed the larvae and on the basis of each ones diet they develop either into workers or q... | null |
fvyxti | how is it that some drugs are metabolised through the kidneys and others through the liver? | [
{
"answer": "Metabolism of drugs means that a certain chemical in the body, typically an enzyme, does something to the drug. Obviously, those enzymes can't operate anywhere else than where they are; certain enzymes are present in the liver, while others are present in the kidneys. That determines where a drug w... | null |
57eygu | How does the revised galaxy count effect Dark Matter? | [
{
"answer": "No the gaaxy count does not matter at all for the dark matter hypothesis. In order to be able to explain the scalar power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background you already need to assume something like dark matter. Since the CMB stems from a time before galaxies even formed, the galaxy number... | null |
1acdlx | Are octopuses equally skilled with each arm or do they prefer one or more arms over the others like humans? | [
{
"answer": "[This abstract](_URL_0_) of an article from the *Journal of Comparative Psychology* (J Comp Psychol. 2006 Aug;120(3):198-204.) indicates that researchers did find evidence for octopuses favoring particular limbs.\n\nFull abstract:\n\n > Previous behavioral studies in Octopus vulgaris revealed later... | null |
cv7dfh | How do stimulants affect your heart rate? | [
{
"answer": "Stimulants increase the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. They increase or mimic the action of adrenaline. Basically, there are 3 types of stimulants:\n\n- Releasing agents (like cocaine) release more adrenaline.\n\n- Reuptake inhibitors (like amphetamine) prevent the removal of adrenalin... | null |
703fyj | i'm a casual sports watcher. what's the difference between the level of skill/play between the nfl/nba and their ncaa counterparts? | [
{
"answer": "Well, \"Some of these colleges they literally live and die on their sports programs\" isn't really true. Their educational efforts are perhaps not as splashy, but they are the university's enduring accomplishment.\n\nThe big difference is that there are 347 NCAA Division I teams. That means each ... | null |
53qvm7 | why people see 'waves' of color in the dark. | [
{
"answer": "Because there's light, and your visual centers are doing their thing, but without enough information to make sense of it. \n\nYou might enjoy this article: _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "29150377",
"title": ... | null |
2jul65 | How are gasses commercially produced? | [
{
"answer": "There are quite a few ways to make gasses, though once a gas is made and purified it is usually compressed using some type of mechanical pump.\n\n\nLets look at oxygen for example. You could use a cryogenic distillation process or [pressure swing adsorption](_URL_0_) to extract oxygen from the air... | null |
c968cw | why is the amazon being deforested? is it just for the wood or are there other reasons? | [
{
"answer": "Its to provide grazing land for cattle. And also for palm oil farms. \n\nThey cut down the rainforest then plant either grass or lots of just one type of tree.\n\nIts not really for the wood that much at all.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
... | null |
3dgj12 | At what point could you escape a planet's gravity by jumping? | [
{
"answer": "Jump. Measure how high you jump in meters. Call this height \"h\". sqroot(2\\*h\\*9.81) should be your initial velocity. We want this to be equal to escape velocity, which is sqroot(2gr), where g is the surface gravity and r is the radius of the object. Simplify everything, and you get g=9.81(h/r)"... | null |
a41luk | how does the weather get reported by each town to the weather app on my phone? | [
{
"answer": "There are organizations (large groups of people) who have satellites (giant cameras and sensors in outer space) which send the information they find to weather apps.\n\nThe satellites along with local meteorologists (weather analysts) provide information to weather apps, which show you the informat... | null |
444p8e | if we keep raising the minimum wage then won't it just decrease the value of a dollar and cause to prices to rise because of inflation? | [
{
"answer": "It does cause inflation, but minimum wage proponents don't see it that way. Yet uf you look at countries where minimum wage is high, the price of goods is higher as well.\n\nThe reason people want to raise minimum wage is because they feel better about earning more. But usually they just circle bac... | null |
3tzj1c | is there a laser color stronger than the others? if so, why? | [
{
"answer": "Blue is the strongest colour that we can see because it has the highest frequency of visible light. That means that there is more energy per second being delivered by a blue laser than a red laser. A UV laser would be stronger, and an X-ray laser stronger still.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
bz3b8q | Altitude Sickness? How sudden can it take effect, what can happen? | [
{
"answer": "The cabin altitude of most airliners when in the cruise is about 8000ft. For most healthy people being suddenly raised to 8000ft pressure altitude and spending many hours there is a complete non-issue. There are plenty of long haul flights over twelve hours and 17 hours is the longest scheduled ser... | null |
cc674h | octonions - what exactly are they? | [
{
"answer": "The complex numbers are a sort of two-dimensional extension of the real number line, with an imaginary axis (i, 2i, 3i, ...) along with the ordinary real axis (1, 2, 3, ...). It turns out that you can extend this idea even farther to have four distinct axes (\"quaternions\"), or eight (\"octonions\... | null |
2fxamy | why does yeast in bread-making not produce alcohol like yeast in brewing? | [
{
"answer": "It does, a little. But the amount produced is very small - bread rises for a matter of a day or two, brewing can take weeks or months.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "You can make drinkable alcohol using baking yeast (and great bread using brewers yeast).",
"provenance": null
... | null |
2weikj | it is a famous brag that England was never successfully invaded after 1066. So why doesn't the Dutch Army lead by William of Orange count? | [
{
"answer": "This isn't my area of expertise, so someone else might be able to provide a better answer or more references, but as I understand it there are two issues here, one to do with the particular circumstances of William's 'invasion,' and one to do with British conceptions of our own 'history'.\n\nThe si... | null |
2xl9kn | what is the ultimate luminosity? how many photons can we fit in a unit of 3d space? | [
{
"answer": "Interesting question. My first response is an infinite number. Quantum field theory puts no limit on the number of photons that can be in the same place. But quantum field theory doesn't account for the gravity of the photons.\n\nAt some point, you'll have so many photons in one place and so much e... | null |
c9ud11 | after a natural disaster, what is the benefit of declaring state of emergency? | [
{
"answer": "Not sure about insurance. But declaring a state of emergency will activate funds that have been set aside for clean up, repairs, and other needed things for after a disaster.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I know this is pretty far fetched since you're probably wondering about the... | null |
2ert10 | When was the ironclad warship firs proposed? | [
{
"answer": "It's hard to say when the first ironclad warship was proposed, as many people came up with the idea of putting iron plating on warships at many different times. For example, the \"atakebune\" warships of the 16th century Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga allegedly had some form of iron plating on their... | null |
7cgn2s | what holds fingernails in place? how far under the skin do they go? | [
{
"answer": "Your fingernails and toenails are made up of cells that form into a hard surface called keratin. Keratin is also what makes up your hair and other parts of animals, like horse hooves and rhino horns. Underneath your fingernail is a soft surface called the nail bed. This is what produces the cells t... | null |
4sz7lr | Why wasn't LVT's used at D-day beach landings? | [
{
"answer": "At the time, there was not enough LVTs for use in both the European and Pacific theaters. The initial stages of Operation Forager (the invasion of the Mariana and Palau islands) underwent preparation and execution at about the same time as D-Day, and few of the vehicles could be spared. Redeploymen... | null |
2mpcso | from newborn onesies to blouses, shirts and pants... why do men's and women's clothing fasten in opposite directions? | [
{
"answer": "Men's jackets were made to be unbuttoned with their right hand so they could take it off with a cane in one hand. Women were dressed by other people so it's made to be easy for right-handed maids to button them up. Then the tradition stuck ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Back in ... | null |
2eg14v | how do these child sex allegations get proven 30+ years later if there is no pictures/videos? e.g cliff richards atm | [
{
"answer": "Rape cases are very difficult to prove especially with no physical evidence.\n\nNot sure who Cliff Richards is, but like when Sandusky got convicted. There were so many people that all told similar stories. It's a he said she said thing, but when so many people are all telling the same story the ju... | null |
3nwj4q | Why were the Swedish armies in the 17th and early 18th century so effective/had high morale? | [
{
"answer": "There is a great previous answer here that should answer your question:\n[How Carolean army was set up and what made it work](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "8475835",
"title": "Allotment system",
"s... | null |
8sqhlk | Is Earth losing oxygen? | [
{
"answer": "Sort of. Most oxygen production on earth happens in the oceans (algae), so loss of forests, while impactful in many ways, isnt going to cause us to suffocate. Increase in CO2 does remove oxygen from the atmosphere through combustion, and we have increase CO2 concentrations substantially, but its st... | null |
fh5jjw | normal "system" memory versus graphics memory | [
{
"answer": "Graphics memory is designed for ludicrous throughput and custom applications. Graphics cards need access to massive memory bandwidth to do their job, a single 4K frame is ~25 MB and the GPU will be expected to generate at least 60 of them per second requiring a minimum of 12 Gbps of memory bandwid... | null |
8wir82 | Why did exotic exploration seem quite popular around the turn of the century? | [
{
"answer": "[1/2]\n\nUnlike the so-called \"Age of Exploration,\" this period doesn’t have a codified name, in part because I don’t think that it has as large a place in our popular narrative of \"history of Western civilization\" the way that earlier explorers like Columbus, Magellan, and others do. However, ... | null |
1d2yrf | If photons are Massless bundles of concentrated electromagnetic energy, why is there an interaction with electrons and light? Why don't photons just pass straight through objects instead of reflecting off of them? | [
{
"answer": "What holds human-size objects together is electromagnetic forces (electric, mostly) and quantum effects. It's not mass. Solid objects are solid due to molecular forces, which are electric in nature (built on a quantum scaffolding).\n\nSo photons have plenty of stuff to interact with.\n\nAlso, about... | null |
49hkaa | if you're not supposed to eat or drink before midnight before a surgery, what about emergency surgeries? | [
{
"answer": "In a regular surgery, the idea is to make the procedure as uncomplicated as possible, hence the restrictions.\n\nIn emergency surgery, the concern is keeping people alive. As such, there may be extra complications in the surgery that may be due to something they have drank/eaten, but it usually pal... | null |
15beye | Do black holes have "layers" of light around them? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. It is called the [photon sphere](_URL_0_) (two of them actually...see link). Basically this is an area where light orbits the black hole instead of falling in or flying away.\n\nHowever, it is a very precarious balance to get a photon to do that so they will rarely make more than a few orbit... | null |
pypo0 | Why is nitrogen fixation evolutionarily beneficial? | [
{
"answer": "It's beneficial because it allows the organisms to survive in the absence of oxygen. In that case, they use nitrogen as the final electron acceptor (instead of O2). Keep in mind that the enzymes regulating nitrogen fixation are O2 sensitive, and genes that produce those enzymes are inhibited in the... | null |
eda6a0 | Has there been a higher peak than Mt. Everest on Earth throughout its history? | [
{
"answer": "This is one of the most asked questions in the Earth Sciences category on this sub, for example, here are a variety of answers to this question (or flavors of this question): [1](_URL_13_), [2](_URL_14_), [3](_URL_6_), [4](_URL_12_), [5](_URL_15_), [6](_URL_9_), [7](_URL_1_), [8](_URL_8_), [9](_URL... | null |
7jqvkr | Why and when did we start bombing civilians in World War II? | [
{
"answer": "No, that is not true. In the \"Weisung Nr. 17 für die Führung des Luft- und Seekrieges gegen England\" ^[1] from August 2, 1940 Hitler already ordered the Luftwaffe to prioritise the carpet bombing of cities over air-to-air combat and specificially included \"Terrorangriffe\" against civilians. Ger... | null |
408xe5 | Was Ho Chi Minh Really A Tyrant? | [
{
"answer": "Ho Chi Minh is a difficult figure to analyze because he deliberately cultivated at least two different personalities. The first was of the kindly, elder nationalist and father to the nation. But he also was a committed communist internationalist. He was both. Not one or the either. But, this is pre... | null |
3yihsu | Why is the factorial of 1/2 equal to sqrt(Pi)/2 but the factorial of both 1 and 0 is equal to 1? | [
{
"answer": "The way to extend a function from a smaller domain to a larger one is to find some kind of formula that has the function in it that, in some way, suggests what the function should be at values outside of it's original domain.\n\nLet's say that we want to know what x^(-n) has to be, assuming we only... | null |
du5eqr | Why does food lose some vitamins when baking or frying, compared to steaming or boiling? | [
{
"answer": "When you expose things to heat, things change in them. You have seen this before--imagine you have a pumpkin. It's pretty hard--if you put it in boiling water for a while, it will get softer, will change color, and will change flavor. This is because when exposed to heat, many of the components cha... | null |
708u85 | what is happening in the brain when you are not paying attention to someone saying something and you hear what they said inside your head some minutes after they've said it? | [
{
"answer": "There are different levels of consciousness layered on top of each other that make up your reality. Some you are very aware of/in control of, others are kind of like \"auto pilots\" that let you do stuff like drive a car without really thinking about it, or wake up on time even though your alarm di... | null |
c7zmgx | Why didn't Abrahmic religions gain as much ground in Japan as in Korea did during the 1900s? | [
{
"answer": "Short answer: Buddhism was indigenized in Japan by the 1900s, with a history extending back *centuries* and so was only a \"foreign\" religion by a technicality, but not in any practical term. That said, Buddhism in Japanese society had a very *very* high place, oftentimes intertwined with governme... | null |
4zozmt | What did it really mean to be released from a Gulag? Where would one be "dropped off" after serving their time in a camp? | [
{
"answer": "The gulag was a massive system over a large period of time, so it's difficult to talk about it just as one thing. In fact, it was incredibly variable - that might have been its most defining feature in the end. So let's look at one particularly instructive moment - the 1945 amnesty. There is an abs... | null |
449m7b | Did Protestants, after the Reformation, use large-scale violence to convert differing groups in a manner similar to The Crusades? | [
{
"answer": "A reply to /u/teaandabook \n\nI'm not sure the context of your question. Are you aware of the religious wars in France and Germany, also known as the Thirty Years' War, that saw widespread destruction and violence by all sides of the conflict? Or the Dutch rebellion, known as the Eighty Years' War?... | null |
w26ki | the difference between a thc pill and smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes. | [
{
"answer": "There IS a drug on the market (Dronabinol) that contains the main THC in marijuana. However marijuana has a lot more cannabinoids (the class of substances that THC belongs to) and when smoked have a much quicker effect than ingesting a pill.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Cannabis... | null |
4kjx31 | Is it possible to know what color a material will be without actually seeing it? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. Color is determined by the band gap of materials. Band gaps between 3-5 eV correspond to visible light (color). We can roughly calculate these electronic levels for a given material computationally (though imprecisely), but know it easily through experiment. Thus, if you have information o... | null |
3ai835 | How "French" were the Franks? (plus some bonus questions) | [
{
"answer": "I can't answer your question because I don't know enough about the time period, but I did want to address your use of names as evidence. Charlemagne was actually called \"Carolus Magnus,\" it was just 'french-ified' to Charlemagne. Germans call him Karl. In the same manner, Louis is called Ludwig b... | null |
abj0jz | how are broken bones in non-castable areas fixed? | [
{
"answer": "The cast is mostly to prevent further damage. It is not strictly necessary but is more comfortable. It is possible to cast a larger area in order to protect the fracture site from further injury but this will likely be less comfortable then just not putting on a cast. It is mostly the extremities t... | null |
2m7dap | Why is Cyprus not part of Greece? | [
{
"answer": "Greece was under Ottoman control and revolted in the 1830s while Cyprus was under British control and gained independence from them in the 1960s. Cyprus maintained its independence but there were those that wanted it to be apart of Greece, both in Athens and on the island. A Greek sponsored coup in... | null |
fztgox | why your feet tingle after you almost slip or sometimes when something slips from your hand | [
{
"answer": "It's a small spike of adrenaline. When you're about to slip or drop something, your adrenal glands start pumping in case you need to respond quickly with power, strength, or heightened reflexes.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id"... | null |
45g6by | most americans i've met are very smart, sensible people who generally seem to have been educated far better than i; how is it that there's such a prevalent cultural stereotype of the dumb american? | [
{
"answer": "In the same vain that \"the squeaky wheel gets the grease\", our dumbest are generally are our loudest. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Think about the context you've met them in. Was it traveling? Was it through work? I highly doubt you've a representative sample of Americans.",
... | null |
cf89tq | how the hell do deep fakes work? | [
{
"answer": "Without going into the details of that actual technology - Computers have advanced to the point where we can create very realistic looking images using existing material. That has extended to speech as well, so for someone who is particularly well covered (like a politician) it isn't particularly ... | null |
11lz0j | why do people say we aren't recovering from the recession? | [
{
"answer": "There are still no jobs. The health of the stock market means absolutely nothing to people who have no jobs.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I don't think anybody says the economy *isn't recovering.* At least, I don't think anybody *seriously* says that.\n\nWhat some people say is ... | null |
1uevra | Is the reach of gravity infinite? | [
{
"answer": "I just wanted to drop by with some numbers. If you had an empty and infinite universe and placed two hydrogen atoms one million light years apart, a nonrelativistic calculation says that they will collide in 7*10^43 years. That's a 7 followed by 43 zeroes. To give some perspective, the accepted age... | null |
viinf | A question about optics.... | [
{
"answer": "If this indeed happened then the only reasonable explanation I can think of is that it was a semi-transparent skirt to begin with and looked more opaque due to [ polarized specular reflections. ](_URL_0_) When his glasses partially filtered out the reflected light, the skirt appeared more transpare... | null |
4z9jyg | Why are significant figures so stressed in chemistry, yet unimportant in physics? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not sure where you've heard that significant figures are not important in physics, but that's absolutely not true. Significant figures are important in every field of science that works with measurements and experimental data.\n\nMany mathematical operations cause the outcome to have more digit... | null |
15x5mz | my co-pay is $20, but without insurance it's thousands of dollars. how does the insurance company make any money? | [
{
"answer": "In part, because the insurance company doesn't actually pay that \"uninsured rate\": because they are a huge customer, they negotiate much better rates for the drugs/services. You will never see what they pay: they get an invoice for the face amount, and then get a discount off that.\n\nIt's somewh... | null |
5bfkym | why do we sweat and tear up when we vomit? | [
{
"answer": "When you vomit you are emptying your stomach. It is surrounded by large and strong muscle fibers that are responsible for \"chewing\" the food using your stomach walls as \"teeth\". Vomiting implies those muscle fibers to suddenly contract: the food goes up and exits using your mouth. Also, there i... | null |
10q6c5 | What has to happen to grapes(or any fruit for that matter) for them to become seedless? | [
{
"answer": "I'm a horticulturist that specializes in food, but I'm only on my phone and many of my sources are books that I have. However, I hope someone can help me verify what I'm about to talk about and tell me if I have something wrong. \n\nThe answer to your question is pretty long though, although a shor... | null |
1dy9fm | Why is the Byzantine Empire purple? | [
{
"answer": "The real question, in my eyes, is \"Why did the Romans like purple so much?\"\n\nJust ctrl+F this article for \"purple\"\n_URL_0_\n\nPurple had a \"regal\" [sic] context to it even in times of the republic. The Byzantines piggybacked on that to some degree. Everyone likes to relive the \"former glo... | null |
2p0xbt | how can there be updates on disc games? | [
{
"answer": "They store the updates on the hard drive. All files have to be loaded into RAM before they're used anyway. When the game goes to load a file, it checks the hard drive to see if there's an updated version. It doesn't actually update the disk.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
... | null |
10onro | Were any of the U.S. founding fathers alive during The American Civil War? If so what did they think about it? Or did they speak/write publicly about it at all? | [
{
"answer": "None were alive. By greatly stretching the definition of founding father, you can get to 1848 with JQA. But Generally Madison, Marshall and one other guy who can't recall at the moment are considered the last living founders, and they died well before the start of the war.\n\nEdit: Of course Madiso... | null |
2thm3o | why do polar bears live at the northern pole and penguins at the southern? | [
{
"answer": "I'd assume they could survive in either places. But neither animal would travel the length of the globe without human assistance. And they exist in those places for the same reasons that gorillas live in Africa and kangaroos live in Australia. They evolved there, they're specially adapted to that p... | null |
fqkrm6 | what are they doing in those numbered free mason lodges? | [
{
"answer": "Networking, it's mostly small business owners being part of a fraternity. They help each other out and also do a lot of charity work. They are secretive, but that's just part of being a brotherhood. There is nothing sinister about Masonic Lodges.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Fre... | null |
6pks7y | king solomon and his temple | [
{
"answer": "According to the Bible, Solomon was the son of King David, and the third ruler of the Kingdom of Israel. He is supposed to have been the one who commissioned the construction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which became the place of worship for what is now the Jewish religion. In the year 586 BCE,... | null |
e5khlo | I have heard plenty of times that the communist system in the Soviet Union is not what Karl Marx intended. | [
{
"answer": "It was quite far away, for a multitude of reasons. There are many different factors, but this is a very broad summary of why the Soviet Union was never “real” communism.\n\nFirst off, the communism Marx intended for was mainly for advanced industrialized western European countries such as England, ... | null |
1qm5o1 | with all of our technological advancements, why haven't we been able to recover the titanic yet? | [
{
"answer": "It is possible, but to what ends and who would finance it. It would be outrageously expensive and they would be bringing up nothing but nearly rotten metal. But it can be done, check this [link](_URL_0_)\n*edit for spelling",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Its expensive, and peopl... | null |
57mzju | is it possible to convert ocean (salt) water into drinking water? or is there some inherent property preventing this? | [
{
"answer": "Generally, the basic concept is evaporating the water (which leaves the salt behind) and re-condensing it into purified water. The big drawback is that this takes a lot of energy, so it usually makes it more expensive than finding existing sources of freshwater.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
1ew8p9 | Has there ever been an event similar to the Arab spring? | [
{
"answer": "The term 'Arab Spring' in itself is a call back to the 1848 Springtime of Nations, when a wave of revolutions beginning in France spread across all of Europe. Unfortunately I can't give you any information beyond that and so this is quite a poor answer, but if you're interested you should look into... | null |
lnyj5 | why do people still vouch for supply-side economics? | [
{
"answer": "This is an answer I gave this in r/asksocialscience about a month ago _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "This is an answer I gave this in r/asksocialscience about a month ago _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wik... | null |
fgx0ft | Do satellites maintain the same velocity forever? | [
{
"answer": "I'm going to answer your question, but just because somebody will \"correct\" me if I don't touch on it first: in an elliptical orbit, the velocity does change, because the speed and direction of the satellite's motion is changing throughout the orbit. But of course I understand what you mean - whe... | null |
p4mwt | What is the trick to making a Rupert's drop? | [
{
"answer": "When I did it in my materials science lab as an undergrad we used a bunsen burner to melt glass stirring rods and let it drop into a bucket of ice water. How are you doing it?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "1574904",
... | null |
brb4t7 | how do all these different fruit and plant seeds form? | [
{
"answer": "There wasn't an identifiable first apple or orange seed. They would have evolved from some preceding plant species slowly over time. So over thousands of generations the preceding plant becomes more and more like an apple or orange tree until eventually it matches what we would recognize as an appl... | null |
4xxrsj | What significance did the shape of the bomb dropped in Nagasaki have? | [
{
"answer": "The \"active\" part of the Nagasaki bomb was an immensely heavy egg-shaped collection of high explosives, uranium metal, a plutonium core, and a lot of complicated electronics. The casing was developed to hold all that together and keep it from rolling violently (which could damage the electronics)... | null |
erfec8 | how is that alcohol 70% is better than alcohol 90% as disinfectant ? | [
{
"answer": "70% alcohol has 30% water, and that water is necessary for the alcohol to interact at all with the cells it’s killing.\n\nIt’s like cooking pancakes. You know how when your pan is really hot and you put in pancake batter, it cooks the outside really fast? And then you can flip it, but it does the s... | null |
4d7sa0 | Why is mathematics so applicable to all the phenomena we can observe and describe in the universe? | [
{
"answer": "Why is painting so good at reproducing the way the universe looks? Because we invented painting in order to be good at reproducing the way the universe works. Why is math so good at describing the things we observe in the universe? Because we invented math to be good at describing the things that w... | null |
5hc3og | please explain how the current wage gap in america works. | [
{
"answer": "There is no wage gap. At least not in how you likely think. \n\nThe 75% number often thrown around for women is based on all jobs for women averaged and compared to all jobs for men averaged. That gives you false information. Men hold a larger percentage of the top paying jobs. This is often becaus... | null |
1l2xh0 | I heard that diamonds do not show up on x-rays. Is this true and if so, why? | [
{
"answer": "All matter absorbs X-rays depending on the atomic density: the higher the density, and the heavier the element, the more X-rays are absorbed. Since carbon is about as lightweight an element as you can get, X-rays can pass through diamonds without being absorbed (meaning they \"don't show up\" in a ... | null |
5wwq9m | Did Napoleon and Wellington ever meet face-to-face? | [
{
"answer": "No they never met face to face. Though they faced each across the battlefield at Waterloo Napoleon fled for Paris after his defeat and eventually surrendered to the British at Rochefort. At no time despite his captivity in British custody did he and Wellington ever meet face to face.",
"provena... | null |
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