id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
3rx8bt | how does new york have a service economy when the rent is so high? | [
{
"answer": "They don't live in Manhattan or Brooklyn... they live in the less expensive boroughs like the Bronx or Queens. And they cram more people/family members into apartments than elsewhere.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "A waiter or cook at a nice NYC restaurant can make damn good money... | null |
1nwud6 | Monday Mysteries | Secret Societies, Cults and Organisations | [
{
"answer": "My favourite cult has always been the one created by [Hassan-i Sabbah](_URL_0_) and his assassins, which was adopted by the game Assassin's Creed, where it was loosely based on Hassan's group. It is said that the origins of the whole concept of an \"assassin\" is traced back to Hassan-i-Sabbah, who... | null |
1ipjoz | Have terrorists through history ever succeeded in achieving their political/ideological aims? | [
{
"answer": "In short, no, at least going off of the definition of terrorism you wish to be used. This isn't, however, to say that terrorist groups do not effect change in the domestic or international scene. There are really two levels of objectives for terrorist groups: short-term and long-term. Short term... | null |
5blgzi | when using virtual reality devices like the vive or rift, how do our eyes focus on 'distant' objects when they are really only centimetres away? | [
{
"answer": "The lenses in VR device put the image at a distance. Early prototypes used infinite distance because reasons(similar how stars are essentially infinite distance away as far as your eye focus goes), it didn't really affect immersion, but now I understand the distance they use is less than that, not ... | null |
39x3bm | why was dragon ball gt considered so bad compared to dragon ball and dragon ball z? | [
{
"answer": "I don't know what the general criticisms are, but, personally, Z did a better job building tension and had far stronger villains/plot arcs. GT felt like a hokey pseudo-parody of Z. Then again, I was quite a bit older when I watched GT as well.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "People... | null |
1obkn8 | A good biography of Lenin | [
{
"answer": "There's a great little book called [\"Lenin for Beginners\"](_URL_0_), which I highly recommend. \nIf you're looking for something more standard, give [this one](_URL_2_) a go. \n\n\nIf you ask me, I'd say you can't view Lenin in a proper context without understanding the workings of the Party as... | null |
4n8csp | are the acid levels in the hot springs at yellowstone park enough to dissolve a human body? | [
{
"answer": "The [pH of the water in the acid springs is in the 2-3 range](_URL_0_ ), that's in the lemon juice-vinegar range. This will not dissolve a human body for a very long time. Many of the pools and geysers have underground storage chambers, where the water is heated, from which a drowned human can't ... | null |
5z4wmm | Comrades: A World History of Communism - Its just me or this book is biased ? | [
{
"answer": "**Part 1**\n\nAh yes, Robert Service, focal point of lots of controversy and yet still somehow getting glowing press reviews for the most part.\n\nTo put it very succinctly: Your impression that Service is biased is completely spot on, at least for both his books *Comrades* as well as for his more ... | null |
bkaubt | if a helicopter were to hover 12 hours without moving forward, would it be on the other side of the world? | [
{
"answer": "No.\n\nAll of the air in the atmosphere is spinning with the Earth. If it wasn't there would constantly be very fast wind always travelling West - but there isn't.\n\nJust like how the air moves with the Earth, a helicopter moves with the air.\n\nThis is a good watch which is kind of on topic (10 m... | null |
4pmui9 | How have the nutritional value of crops such a wheat changed over the last 1000 years and why? | [
{
"answer": "This is nearly impossible to determine considering the chemical makeup of our foods hasn't been studied with modern peculiarity for very long. The history of enrichment and GMO sourcing would be a good start and you can almost rest assured that fortified foods are fortified for a reason. Unless t... | null |
4d38vd | Is it possible that dinosaur fossils played some role in the origin of dragon myths? | [
{
"answer": "It is possible, yes, that fossils (not necessarily just dinosaur fossils) did play a role in the development of dragon myths. It's mostly all speculation, really. \n\nMost fossils that people find are either recognizably some smallish organism, like a seashell or a small fish, or a disarticulated b... | null |
1olsf3 | why is hitting your child legal (corporal punishment) when hitting an adult isn't? | [
{
"answer": "the fuzzy gray line lies around intention to discipline not intention to inflict harm. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I've only spanked one of my children maybe three times in 19 years. Every single time it was over something that could have gotten her kidnapped, raped, and/or ki... | null |
32p4ql | how does edward snowden's protection in russia work? | [
{
"answer": "* Russia is not the US, so US law doesn't apply there. They can't just invade Russia and take him.\n\n* The US must ask for Russia to \"extradite\" him (meaning to willingly turn him over to US authorities). Russia can choose to say no.\n\n* They're saying no.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
41ip4n | Why do electric engines don't have gear box? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not an engineer, but I am a physicist with a car hobby, so I think I can answer. The simplest answer has to do with the speeds of the energy source involved. Let me explain:\n\nThe reason why an internal combustion engine, such as the [reciprocating engine in most cars](_URL_1_), has such a v... | null |
5z76m3 | when financial companies "buy" commodities, how are they stored? or they buying "rights" to have them at that price? | [
{
"answer": "They are buying \"futures\". These are contracts for a ton of soybeans in 4 months. Speculators buy them in hopes the price will be high and someone who needs soybeans to make their product will buy the contract for more than they bought it for.\n\nMany suggestions have been made that only firms ... | null |
azm7r0 | Has any virus or bacteria in humans ever mutated within us to then become a serious illness elsewhere in the animal kingdom? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nChitrid disease in amphibians which is single handedly wiping out species across the earth is apparently spread by skin to skin contact from a fungus sometimes found on the hands of people.\nIt doesn't really affect people as far as I know.\n\nEdit: And as far as I understand it didn't r... | null |
4bc8cu | what happens when a person such as myself, who's maybe worth $18,000 on a good day, gets sued for $10 million? | [
{
"answer": "Lawyer here.\n\nThe trial goes ahead to determine two things: Have you wronged the person suing, you, and if so, how much money do you owe them to make it right?\n\nLet's say a court orders you to pay someone $10 million. This is called a judgment debt. You don't have that money. The other person (... | null |
9jtv46 | why do computers have a shutdown process instead of just cutting it's own power? | [
{
"answer": "For the same reason that people generally lie down before going to sleep instead of just falling over: To avoid damage. \n\nAt any given time, a computer is running a lot of programs in the background, and they need to be safely closed before the computer shuts down. Many of them also save their... | null |
1mvyaz | internet infrastructure. | [
{
"answer": "Inside your computer is something called a NIC (Network Interface Card). It has two main jobs - send data, and receive data.\n\nHook it up to another computer via an Ethernet cable and you have a simple network. Your computer's send is hooked up to the other's receive and vice-versa.\n\nWhat if you... | null |
59b3zl | What are the best books on the everyday life of individuals in the past? | [
{
"answer": "Well, there is Greenwood Press's *Daily Life in ________* series. These are of variable quality, at least the ones I've looked at. One of the strengths is the narrow scope of their focus. Like, there is a \"Daily Life during the Spanish Inquisition,\" \"Daily Life in Renaissance Italy\", AND \"Dai... | null |
2ig2kw | What is the worst anachronism: To impose modern theory on the past, or to assume that we're able to understand history "as it was" | [
{
"answer": "Rankes 'bloss zu zeigen wie es eigentlich gewesen' is the core for your (and a historians) 'as it was'. Now, calling that an anachronism is in the light of Ranke a bit weird. \n\nIn 'as it was' histories, we are trying to recreate a (not the) picture of the past as best as we can, based on sources ... | null |
1v1oa1 | What actually causes you to throw up when you have the "stomach flu" ? | [
{
"answer": "\"Stomach flu\" is a generic term for any number of illnesses--usually something like gastroenteritis--that are caused by an infection of the stomach and intestines. This causes inflammation all throughout the gastrointestinal tract, and makes it more sensitive. So eating, which always irritates ... | null |
17osad | What would have pre-colonial North American battles looked like? | [
{
"answer": "**The Early Colonial Example**\n\nLooking at some of the earliest clashes between Colonists and Natives can give some indication of how groups at the \"tribe/complex chiefdom\" level of organization and population would have waged war. The general pattern is of a sort of sustained guerrilla warfare... | null |
f7qac | Does holding up your cell phone really increase reception? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, with conditions.\n\nJust this summer, i was in a hilly area away from the nearest town. I had to be outside on a hill to have any reception. If I was sitting on the ground, no reception. If I was standing, I got enough signal to send texts, and try to make calls, although I couldn't go very lo... | null |
1svgsy | why do we not have a universal chatting (im) service/client? or do we? | [
{
"answer": "Basically [this](_URL_0_). To expand, each messenging service does well enough on its own to allow for its continued existence. Furthermore, most of them have some feature that makes them better for certain tasks. Skype is the king of video chatting. Facebook Messenger is, well, tied to Faceboo... | null |
2qzdgx | can masturbating make your muscles bigger? | [
{
"answer": "To grow muscle you need to do few reps with high exertion. Masturbation is the opposite of this. You will improve muscular endurance in this way but that does not make your muscles bigger. That's why weightlifters are bulky and marathon runners are skinny.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"ans... | null |
3qyzdr | How appropriate is to call "The American Civil War", a "Civil War", instead of something like "Southern States Revolt"? | [
{
"answer": " There's a lot of debate on 'what' the war was, which has carried on to today. And revisionism is a hotbed topic between the majority of America and regional nationalists like the *League of the South,* or the *Sons of Confederate Veterans.* (Let alone the overtly racist KKK.) There are more than a... | null |
sm13a | Is there going to be a WW3? Why weren't there any major wars like WW1 and WW2 in the past 67 years? | [
{
"answer": "Because MAD pretty much makes this kind of thing impossible. \nAlso, define \"World\" war. \nI could, but probably won't argue that the 'Nam war was a \"World\" war. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "As DrNoFriends said, nuclear proliferation has played a huge role. The world's majo... | null |
p444c | What is happening when you drive on a highway and have only one window down? | [
{
"answer": "Pretty much the same thing that happens when you blow across a jug. Essentially, the stream of air hits the open window / jug top. The leading edge of the stream of air creates a vortex, and spins off. There's a low density region that follows, which helps to create the next vortex. This cascad... | null |
2wotg9 | why do so many free wifi hotspots have a gateway page? | [
{
"answer": "There are concerns that if you use a wifi connection and you commit computer crimes, libel or harassment the owner of the wifi connection could be held liable. The boilerplate text provides a mechanism for the wifi owner to disclaim liability for your actions.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
e1f99b | Did scientists at Los Alamos genuinely believe that atomic bombs could ignite the earth's atmosphere? | [
{
"answer": "No. Their general opinion was that the atomic bombs couldn't \"ignite\" the atmosphere (the suggestion was that the bomb might be able to trigger a fusion reaction). The only dissenting opinion was Arthur Compton, who was not convinced of the complete impossibility of it, but he didn't think it lik... | null |
35iifk | why bodybuilding competitions are not considered eating disorders? | [
{
"answer": "One of the defining characteristics of any mental illness is that it negatively impacts the life of the sufferer. \n\nIf your friend feels compelled to live in this style, against his wishes, then it may be a disorder. If it adversely affects his health, but he can't stop, then it may be a disorder... | null |
aqe5rx | Friedrich Engels owned multiple factories. Did he manage them based on communist principles? | [
{
"answer": "The simple answer to this is \"No, he did not\". Now, this is not because Engels was a hypocrite,but rather because of the following two reasons:\n\na) Friedrich Engels never actually owned any factories.\n\nThere were plenty of factories within the Engels estate, both in Germany and Britain, but b... | null |
3djjr1 | how come some peppers "burn" your skin if you touch them, but your mouth doesn't get burned if you eat them? | [
{
"answer": "So it depends on the pepper, but it's not a burn like a fire would cause.\n\nWhen it comes to spicy peppers, the reason you get the spicy sensation in your mouth is because of a chemical called Capsaicin. This chemical opens up the calcium channels in your tongue which tricks your body into thinki... | null |
26o0qp | how can thailand go through a military coup when the same king is still in power, and has been for so many years? | [
{
"answer": "The King of Thailand doesn't have any real power. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, just like England. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "5377695",
"title": "October 2006 Thai general election",
"section"... | null |
2wnqly | why does water taste worse when our throat is sore? | [
{
"answer": "Not a doctor but I get the same thing, and I would say it's because the throat is infected and you're getting teh bacteria into your mouth and on your tongue.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "310094",
"title": "Sore t... | null |
29goe1 | why does football go by scores of 7 instead of 1 ' s like hockey and soccer? | [
{
"answer": "It doesn't \"go by scores of 7.\" There are different ways to score points, and each type of score is worth a certain amount of points. Some are only possible in certain situations. A common misconception is that a touchdown is worth 7 points - it's actually worth 6.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
8b23ba | why are some viruses shaped like an icosahedron? | [
{
"answer": "Most likely because it's a compact shape that can be built easily (make a triangle of protein 8 times, join them together).\n\nViruses hijack the cells of other creatures (or bacteria) to reproduce, so they need to keep things super simple.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
... | null |
16j649 | why is gasoline sold per 9/10 gallon? | [
{
"answer": "Marketing. It makes the price sound a cent cheaper than it actually is.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It's actually 9/10 cent. So you see prices like 3.39^9/10 what that means is \"3 dollars, 39 and nine tenths cents.\" It's all about being able to get the most money from the co... | null |
bcbrpx | How CRT TV controls the beams so quickly back in the old days? | [
{
"answer": "Well superhuman speed maybe but when it comes to electronics it is a fairly low speed thing.\n\nRealize that the vertical refresh happens only 50/60 times per second - that's glacial speed, even for the 1930s electronics when tubes and oscillators running up to hundreds of MHz existed already. In ... | null |
2anu63 | Is there any plausible evidence for occurrences of single combat by "champions" or highly esteemed soldiers in the field of combat? | [
{
"answer": "Single combat is mentioned quite frequently in the history of Ancient Rome – the Horatii's defeat of the Alba Longan Curiatii in the 7th century BC is reported by Livy to have settled a war in Rome's favor and subjected Alba Longa to Rome; Marcus Claudius Marcellus took the spolia opima from Virido... | null |
16xf92 | what's all the fuss about megaupload? do that many people really need file storage? | [
{
"answer": "Online storage is generally seen as the way of the future. If you have a fire at home and your hard drive is destroyed, what happens to your data? If you collaborate with people on many projects, how do you keep your files in sync? If you work at home and on the road and in the workplace, how can y... | null |
31tiks | Does motion/speed influence sound waves? | [
{
"answer": "Absolutely. It's called the [Doppler effet](_URL_0_). A source moving towards the observer will sound higher pitched, and a source moving away from the observer will sound lower.\n\nThe same effect happens with light, too! Sources moving towards the observer look more blue, and away look more red... | null |
4b4t1n | since all digital memory has to be stored as physical hard copies, will we ever have an information technology crisis? | [
{
"answer": "We're going to have a lot of other problems before we run out of computer storage. Silicon is one of the most commonly occurring elements on Earth, and it doesn't take all that much to create a flash drive or solid state drive. Plus we can make storage out of other things too, like plastic (CD/DVD/... | null |
el7qqx | how do machines calculate body fat percentage? | [
{
"answer": "Usually scale use two electrod under your feet and use Tiny Ac current. By measuring the impedance and frequency responce of the human body they can deduce the ammount of fat and water.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The accuracy is a bit rubbish to be honest. \n\nExample. Hand he... | null |
11dqtk | Can a fruit without seeds be genetically modified? | [
{
"answer": "Most likely, no. Most fruits and vegetables are the result of simple breeding (that we've been using for millenia) experiments to develop produce with the most desirable qualities. If that's your friend's reasoning for not eating oranges, then there isn't anything see can eat except what she find... | null |
cda74g | How did Houston communicate with the astronauts on the moon? | [
{
"answer": "[USB](_URL_0_). But not the adapter type. Radio waves - the general method of communication in space for basically everything (laser links are a very recent development).\n\nBy changing the amplitude or (better) the frequency of the radio waves you emit many times per second you can transmit inform... | null |
7ohc36 | If male lyrebirds are so good at mimicking the sounds of other objects and animals , how do female lyrebirds know what is a bird and what is the real deal? | [
{
"answer": "Having seen many lyrebirds to the south of Sydney, it seemed to me that they're curious about any loud noise. I'm going to guess the the calls attract the female's attention, but it's the courtship displays which count the most.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance"... | null |
4nmlvl | Is the graphical fidelity of games limited by computational power available currently or is it very difficult to make a realistic looking game? | [
{
"answer": "It's both. You need a lot of data to represent all the realistic details, and that means either scanning them from real life objects (limited by scanner quality, issues with lighting, animation etc.), generating them procedurally (requires effort to make it look realistic), or creating them in the ... | null |
t63vz | Who really built the Kaaba in Mecca | [
{
"answer": "I am not an expert in pre-Islamic Arabia, but I do have some knowledge of the area; as I recall, the Kaa'ba was already a sacred artifact in the Arabian peninsula centuries before the rise of Islam, and the Koran makes it fairly clear that non-muslims in the area considered it sacred themselves, ot... | null |
6rqrkz | when you mix the same quantity of cold and hot water in a bucket, is the result the average of the two temperatures? | [
{
"answer": "In a perfectly closed system with no loss of temperature to the air or buckets, yes. A 50 degree bucket and a 100 degree bucket will make a 75 degree double bucket. \n\nIn reality it will be slightly less than 75 as some heat is lost to the bucket and the air. \n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{... | null |
2flkgl | what is the point of having the marine corps and the army separated? | [
{
"answer": "The missions of the Marine Corps and the Army are entirely different, those differences came out of design and necessity. The Marines are a department of the navy, operating as their own entity and are constantly defending why they exist.\n\nThe Marines are referred to as \"America's expeditionary ... | null |
1vqcuo | why does it seem like the large majority of movies from the 80s were set in either chicago or illinois in general? | [
{
"answer": "John Hughes was arguably the 80s movie king, and he filmed most of his stuff in and around Chicago.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Often it has to do with licensing costs and union obligations. New York is extremely expensive to film in, so Chicago provided an alternative that was... | null |
1rmalf | How much value has been placed on humor by societies of the past? Has being funny always been considered such a positive trait as it is today? | [
{
"answer": "Rhetoric scholar here. Cicero and Quintillian wrote extensively about the persuasive use of humor, and at least some of Cicero's reputation as an an orator derived from his wit. \n\nRoman jokes tend to seem [not too funny](_URL_0_) to contemporary taste, though.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
70jv3o | what keeps people who work at kfc/coca-cola from stealing a sample of their secret recipes, reverse engineering them, and then selling them? | [
{
"answer": "Not a huge amount, really. We already pretty much know what's in these products (I mean, with Coke, you can basically just read the label). The difficulty is only getting the exact formulation and mixing right. For most people, the prohibitive part of that is not knowing how it's done - it's having... | null |
1fe0hq | Nomadic animals | [
{
"answer": "Migratory describes species which regularly return to the same spot at a particular point in time. Examples (as you noted) are most frequently birds, but also many marine mammals (humpback whales for example) and sea turtles. These species usually move to foraging areas in one part of the world whe... | null |
2pj5b1 | how do manufacturers get the little "pop/freshness seal bubble" on the tops of jars to stay down? | [
{
"answer": "You can. /r/canning\n\nYou boil what is inside so the steam pushes out all the atmospheric gasses. Then when the can cools the water vapor condenses (mostly) back to water and leaves a vacuum.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id"... | null |
3z6tt5 | I am a typical peasant farmer in western Europe in the 16th century. Where do I get my drinking water from and how safe is it? | [
{
"answer": "There's always room for discussion, but perhaps the sections [Drinking Water](_URL_1_) and [Beer](_URL_0_) from our FAQ will answer your inquiry.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "One thing to keep in mind is that Cholera, one of the more severe pathogens spread through contaminated ... | null |
6d0bpl | how do teeth know how to grow in the pattern so they fit together when you bite down? | [
{
"answer": "They don't \"know\". Your body starts out with some stem cells. These are basically cells without an assigned function. They don't know where to go and what to do yet. They just divide. When your cells divide functions do get assigned to the new cells that form. This is done based on what it says i... | null |
3d9a4t | How did US gov't mints turn mined ore into coins? | [
{
"answer": "This also involves the Carson City federal mint in Nevada (drawing on the famed Comstock Lode), established in 1869. These mints purchased bullion, either directly from major mines or from banks, which purchased bullion from the market (including from smaller producers). Although the mints were cap... | null |
de4x3u | why doesn’t isopropyl alcohol damage electronics? are there other liquids that also don’t do damage to electrical components? | [
{
"answer": "it's neither corrosive nor conductive, so it doesn't dissolve or short anything. it also evaporates at low temperatures, so cleanup is a nonissue\n\ncandle wax shares the first 2 properties, but not the 3rd. this means letting a candle drip into your PC won't destroy it, but requires careful cleani... | null |
4vldsz | When is a rock's birthday? At what point in it's formation does a rock become a rock? | [
{
"answer": "That's a fun question.\n\nLet me distinguish between 2 things: the date when some geological material becomes a rock vs the date when a rock becomes \"the specific rock it is\".\n\nThe answer plays into the general classification of rocks classes [sedimentary, igneous & metamorphic].\n\n**Sedimen... | null |
2vsmva | Around 1975, almost every major progressive rock band "sold out" and started producing more radio friendly material. Why did this happen? | [
{
"answer": "Your question is unanswerable because its central premise is flawed. \n\nWith Genesis, the change is easily explained - Peter Gabriel left as bandleader, Phil Collins took over. Phil Collins has a different style and sensibility, so naturally their work reflected that. \n\nRush released their first... | null |
3egveu | There were ancient Pacific Islanders- were there Atlantic Islanders? What happened to them? | [
{
"answer": "In the north, the Irish and then the Norse settled the Faeroes before the Norse jumped off to Iceland, Greenland, and (briefly) the coast of North America. \n\nIn the south, the Canary Islands were inhabited by the Guanches, who were present on the islands around 1000 BC and were originally from No... | null |
1mx316 | how does fingerprint authentication store the fingerprint information? | [
{
"answer": "Fingerprint scanners are basically capacitive touchscreens minus the screen part. Fingerprints are made of ridges and valleys. When you press your finger against a scanner, it registers what parts of your finger are ridges and what parts are valleys based on what touches it. It then takes severa... | null |
hy27z | How can I understand the motion of gyroscopes intuitively? | [
{
"answer": "A gyroscope doesn't resist movement, it resists moment. So if you had a box with a gyroscope in it on a table, you could push it forwards/backwards/left/right with ease, but it would be difficult to spin it.\n\nTo see why this is, imagine you have a friction-less disk spinning clockwise and you wan... | null |
80g0e2 | What's the deal with the Celts and the Norse? | [
{
"answer": "One of the most thoughtful recent scholars on this subject was the late Bo Almqvist (1931-2013) - a Swedish folklorist who was the director of the Irish Department of Folklore at University College, Dublin. His \"Viking Ale: Studies on Folklore Contacts between the Northern and the Western Worlds\"... | null |
u5bzn | What is the total population of all life on our planet? | [
{
"answer": "Do you count bacterias? The rest of the animals are just a rounding error for the bacteria population.\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'm not sure about animals, but if you're interested in all life, prokaryotes outnumber everything else at about [5 * 10^30 members](_URL_0_).\n... | null |
2tt8jz | would 2 equally loud noises combine to make a louder sound? why or why not? | [
{
"answer": "Depends on where you're standing. Sound waves can add or cancel as they mix together.\n\n(That's the science behind noise canceling headphones, which actually create a sound that is opposite in phase to the noise it's cancelling.)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Sound travels throu... | null |
42xfsi | Have there ever been mafias/organized crime syndicates in the United States that were German, French, or Scandinavian? | [
{
"answer": "There has been one case of plagiarism, several jokes, and a number of contentless posts offered up as \"answers\" to the OP's question.\n\nThis is AskHistorians. We ask that your answers be in-depth, comprehensive, and such that an historian might give. You should also be able to back your post wit... | null |
3qow2p | since essentially everything nowadays causes cancer, should we just assume that we still don't really know what causes it? | [
{
"answer": "Here's the thing with cancer: at its most basic level, whether or not you get cancer comes down to statistics and randomness. Cancer happens when you get a combination of mutations that cause a cell to reproduce continuously, avoid cell-suicide, infiltrate other tissues, etc. All a carcinogen is is... | null |
a18tq2 | why are tickets (to concerts, sports events, etc) purchased through third parties (stubhub, ticketmaster, etc) as opposed to directly from the venue hosting the event? | [
{
"answer": "Back in the day you had to buy directly from the venue. You had to get in line and buy paper tickets often having to campout overnight for best seats or for high demand shows. Buying from a ticket seller is much easier for everyone. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"proven... | null |
4nw02z | us federal income taxes | [
{
"answer": "It is complicated, but the part that throws most people is the progressive tax rate. Think about it that instead of you specifically being taxed at one tax rate, each individual dollar you make is taxed at a changing rate. Let's say the first 10,000 dollars aren't taxed at all, dollars 10,000-20,00... | null |
gupi1 | How do surgeons sew arteries together? | [
{
"answer": "I'm really hoping someone will answer your question.\n\nAnd if you'll allow me to make a related comment: Does anyone know of a freely available source the general public can learn about surgical procedures *in detail*? I mean... say you take someone's intestines out. *How do you know how to fol... | null |
1sfqd3 | the negative effects of the industrial revolution | [
{
"answer": "Immediate or long term?\n\nThe immediate negative effects was the lowering of living standards (today we have higher living standards because of it). Working hours increased, deaths due to injury increased, pollution shot through the roof.\n\nLong term is, well, still the pollution. ",
"prove... | null |
34m8up | why are motorcycle helmets so heavy when the human neck is comparatively fragile? | [
{
"answer": "Now think about what happens in a car wreck. The body is fastened to the car via seat belt so in an accident, the neck is the moving part which gives you whiplash. In a motorcycle accident , your entire body is in motion as you flail across the horizon to your new destination. So there is no worry ... | null |
4w395y | how did bugs such as bees and ants come to have "queens"? how did physiologically different creature originate but remain the same species? why is there no "queen" human? | [
{
"answer": "Efficiency!\n\nA small number of specialized *breeding caste* is enough to supply eggs for the whole hive. Keep in mind the queen is not *in charge*, she is just another specialized caste like workers or soldiers or drones. \n\nWorker bees can override and evict a queen if circumstances require, an... | null |
8a588c | what makes deer/moose antlers symmetrical? | [
{
"answer": "A symmetrical set of antlers are called typical, as opposed to a set of non typical which are not symmetrical. Antlers are \"shed\" and regrow every single year, a mature rocky mountain elk can grow 1 1/2\" in mass a day during the peak. What trips me out about antlers... during the antler growt... | null |
3jztiq | How do technological changes affect musical styles? | [
{
"answer": "You're asking kind of a lot of questions here. Typically classical music developed and changed with technology. \n\nTake Baroque instruments, for example. You have [Baroque Horns](_URL_0_) with no valves, so they can only play in a handful of keys, and can't play scales, chromatics, and so on, so w... | null |
3amojp | why is the prices of games going up in canada even though the dollar has remained the same for about a year. | [
{
"answer": "There is an ever increasing competition between game makers, and the cost of development is increasing.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "7411469",
"title": "Nintendo Australia",
"section": "Section::::Controve... | null |
4wp1qe | if i try to hit a small insect, e.g. a fruit fly, with my hand at high speed, will i hit it or will the air which my hand pushes in front of it will save the insect? | [
{
"answer": "The air in front of it will actually be hitting it itself if you swing hard enough. Of course this is way faster than your hand can really go on its own. So it depends on what you mean by 'high speed'.\n\nThat's why the space shuttle coming down from space catches fire. Not from friction, but by pu... | null |
4927xa | in a microwave, can i heat my food on half the heat for twice the time? | [
{
"answer": "Pretty much that is what you can do. You can also in a sense turn it into a slow cooker if you set the power low enough. I do not know if your power level goes low enough, or why you want to do this at all.\n\nI use mine to prepare fine chicken soup inside ten minutes using things from the refriger... | null |
1kq15k | how do throttleable rocket engines work? | [
{
"answer": "Simply put you alter the fuel flow using pumps on the fuel line. More fuel means more thrust being generated in the combustion chamber.\n\nDue to the inability of the pumps to work arbitrarily fast and the inability of the combustion chamber to handle all fuel combusting simultaneously you have an ... | null |
5m76k4 | why does shaking (like in a train or bus) and rocking a baby's crib help us sleep? | [
{
"answer": "I am going to take a dig at this. I think the exact word you are looking for is \"Rocking to sleep\".\n\nAs to why Rocking helps us sleep, it is a matter of brain waves.\n\nFirstly, we have been put to sleep a hundred times since our birth by gentle swinging motions of our parents. Hence our **brai... | null |
l5y7v | why couldn't you lose weight by just not eating until you were thin? | [
{
"answer": "Your body can't produce all of the various things it needs to function properly on it's own. That's why we eat: it provides us with energy, as well as vitamins, proteins, etc, that we otherwise wouldn't have (but still need). If you simply stop eating, you're starving your body of that fuel. You'd ... | null |
5hhnah | How much farmland was needed to sustain classical/ancient cities? | [
{
"answer": "Quite a lot. Indeed, most large cities in the Mediterranean world got that way because they were able to exceed the production limitations of their surrounding hinterland by importing food. Few cities, even in the most productive regions, could sustain a particularly large population from their loc... | null |
1e83i9 | Why did the Germanic invasions of Britain result in conqueror's language becoming the spoken tongue compared to the rest of the Germanic conquests in Europe? | [
{
"answer": "The traditional narrative is that it was just that, a large scale population exchange with the Romano-British being killed, dying of plague and being driven West by the Anglo-Saxons, later becoming the Welsh and Cornish. The remaining small population of Romano-British in what became England and Lo... | null |
qss2j | If milk chocolate has milk in it, how does chocolate have such a long shelf life? | [
{
"answer": "Chocolate has almost no water in it. [There is a minimum water activity that is necessary for microbial growth](_URL_0_). Chocolate is below that, so microbes can't get in there and spoil it. Even when making things like truffles with liquid centers a lot of care is taken to make sure that the a... | null |
9qk271 | why is airplane fuel measured by weight instead of volume? | [
{
"answer": "Many aircraft are limited by their “maximum gross weight” for takeoff and/ or landing. It makes the math easier when you don’t need to multiply the gallons by the specific weight of the fuel / gallon. Make sense?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Volume changes with temperature. By u... | null |
3jwah1 | why are some photographs considered art? | [
{
"answer": "From google:\n\nart\n\nnoun: art; plural noun: arts; plural noun: the arts\n\n1. the expression or application of human creative skill **and imagination**, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.\n\nT... | null |
fhft8e | Why did England and France develop a strong centralized government while the Holy Roman Empire stayed decentralized and fragmented? | [
{
"answer": "#**Summary**\n\nPossible reasons for a decentralized and fragmented HRE\n\n1. Structural causes\n - Elective monarchy and papal coronation\n - No single \"capital city\"\n - Harder taxation and recruitment?\n2. Religious and political causes\n - Augsburg and Westphalia led to confessional stalemate... | null |
e5nvy0 | Do stars normally complete a full rotation around a galaxy? | [
{
"answer": "Our sun, roughly middle, takes ~225-250 million years to make a full trip around. (this is called a cosmic or galactic year).\n\nThere are stars that are much bigger, and as such burn so quickly, that they do not make it a full trip around.\n\nIt would vary heavily based on type of star, and orbita... | null |
2a85kq | Why is moonlight white? | [
{
"answer": " > why, on a brightly moonlit night, is everything so devoid of colour compared to the daytime?\n\nIt's a function of your eyes, not of the scenery.\n\nRetina:\nrods return something akin to luminosity (sensitivity peaking around the blue end of green) with no colour response;\ncones respond to co... | null |
5ettnl | what's happening in our brain when we're looking for an object, but we're actually holding it in our hand? | [
{
"answer": "You can think about the brain working in 2 modes, one is the Subconscious mod (or auto-pilot) and the Conscious mod. Due to evolution the brain is mostly relying on the \"auto-pilot\" when we do simple tasks like walking or breathing.\nWhen we do something like talking on the phone and looking for ... | null |
67y4pw | A recent Crusader Kings II expansion introduced a mechanic that allows your ruler to join a secret society of demon worshipers. Is there any actual historical precedent for the existence of anti-Christian, organized demonic worship in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages period? | [
{
"answer": "I haven't played the game, but this sounds a lot like the fate of the Knights Templar. \n\nBefore I go into this story, let's make one thing clear: There is no evidence of organized Satanic ritual activity on any scale. I assume there are small groups of iconoclasts who paint themselves as faux ... | null |
1zgkoh | what makes elevators so safe? seems like few deaths occur on what seems like a potentially dangerous machine. | [
{
"answer": "Elevators have many safety features built in whereas stairs, well, there's no accounting for stupidity. How hard is it to walk up and down stairs? ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There are usually triple redundancies on elevators. i.e. far more than one cable holds the weight, so ... | null |
4s0aup | How would early Anglo-Saxons decorate their shields? | [
{
"answer": "Frustratingly, we don't know. Everything we know about shields in this period comes from archaeological sites (we don't have any contemporary art showing shield faces), and the fronts of shield, along with any decoration they may have displayed, have never survived.\n\nWe do know from archaeologica... | null |
3i5yn8 | If dragonflies see almost 360 degrees how come they don't go blind looking at the sun? | [
{
"answer": "First a side note about insect vision, many insects, including dragonflies and damselflies, have ocellus. These are single lens eyes and are located on the top of the insect's head. So many different insects have \"eyes\" point up at the sun. \n\nTo answer your question: I'm not sure. [Schola... | null |
325mzk | numbers and letters on processor model? | [
{
"answer": "For starters, that's an Intel Chip. \n\ni7 is the product line. i3 is entry level, i5 is a step up, i7 is higher end.\n\n4710HQ is the model, which is assigned to that specific chip.\n\n4=4th generation (the current generation of the \"i\" product line)\n\n710=model number (the specific chip from t... | null |
8ywy5p | why is mouth breathing bad for humans and why are we able to do it? | [
{
"answer": "They don’t really say that mouth breathing is bad it’s just that breathing through your nose is better... the hairs in your nose “filter” the air hence why you get boogers(they are the “bad” stuff in the air)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Breathing through your nose is better bec... | null |
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