id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
2awwxi | why do humans have such small irises compared to other animals? | [
{
"answer": "There are a few ideas, one being the \"cooperative eye hypothesis\" which suggests that it is easier to follow another's gaze when communicating. We communicate a lot through our eye gaze, and it's easier to distinguish different communicative attempts from one another with the white part (sclera)... | null |
np8dp | would it be legal at all for godaddy to be specifically exempt from the sopa legislation? if not... how was that clause worked in? | [
{
"answer": "When you make the law, you can make anything you want legal. GoDaddy will probably just become a branch of the government, the one that controls domain name.\n\nIt's not like there was something governing what power the state should have over the citizen or how it should behave. \n\nMaybe we should... | null |
3t10gf | when software updates say they've optimised it to run faster, what exactly did they do and why didn't they do it before? | [
{
"answer": "Let's say you have an old PC game. The game is written to run on Windows 2000, but it still works on Windows 7. Sort of.\n\nWell that company might re-release the game *Optimized for Windows 7*.\n\nThey physically re-work the code of the program so it works better with the current system. \n\n____\... | null |
1s1jpn | when a large company (typically oil & tobacco) has "lobbyists in washington" how does that actually affect the passing of legislation? | [
{
"answer": "You know how when you want a family portrait *painted* you go to that person with the little cart in your local shopping mall, who has been there since before you were born, and you give that person a commission fee and they paint you a stunning portrait of your family?\n\nA lobbyist is the same th... | null |
16bl2d | Non-American scholars of US History: What inspired you start? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not completely US-oriented since I'm interested in the 19th century in general and not just the US, but I did take a lot of classes on US history and I was always fascinated by how much the US considered themselves special, from the puritans' concept of \"city on a hill\" to Manifest Destiny.\n... | null |
alkdxp | What would happen to a single photon going through a prism? | [
{
"answer": "Describing the statistics of photons passing through a prism, as though a classical electromagnetic wave were passing through it, and where this classical EM wave determines the photon statistics is a perfectly legitimate way to go. The quantum operators for the electric and magnetic field actually... | null |
2yj055 | why are white paints always bluish in color? | [
{
"answer": "There are lots of colors of white. It sounds like you are looking at \"cool whites,\" but there are also \"warm whites\" which use yellow or other warm colors as a slight tint.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "blue tint is added to white fabric to make it appear whiter. the blue tin... | null |
fngfw5 | why it is hard to think about death deeply? | [
{
"answer": "Imagination doesn’t actually ever create truly new things. It takes bits and pieces of experiences that you’ve had and uses those to construct what you’re imagining.\n\nIf you want to test this, try imagining a colour you’ve never seen.\n\nThinking deeply about death falls into the realm of trying ... | null |
a3o81v | genome vs. gene expression | [
{
"answer": "Genome are all of your genes in your DNA.\n\nGene expression is wheter or not a gene is expressed.\n\nWe, human, have lots of DNA but only a minority of it is expressed, it's called \"coding DNA\" , the non expressed part of our DNA is very much studied now because we realised how important it coul... | null |
46jgmu | Let's just say that the LHC had a place that you could open up and get inside the collider. What would happen if particles were accelerated to maximum speed and you stepped in front of them? | [
{
"answer": "[Nothing good](_URL_0_). A single beam in the LHC is about 100 times as powerful as the beam that Bugorski encountered. Even if the beam struck somewhere other than your head, the local nerves would probably be permanently damaged.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provena... | null |
4ajfbp | What would be the biggest boat I could build if I was a king or a rich person around 1000 CE in western Europe? | [
{
"answer": "It's hard to say with confidence how big of a boat *could* have been built at that time. A lot depends on the design and the resources said king could have pulled together. At the time a large cog would be about 50 or 60 feet in length, and carry maybe up to 150 tons. Supposedly, there were some le... | null |
753euw | For how long has October/Halloween/All Hallows' Eve been associated with spooky, mystical forces and the dead? | [
{
"answer": "The simple answer to your second question is yes, the modern Halloween associations with supernatural entities reflects 'a mindset from an earlier age' when these things were 'thought to be real and lurking in the dark corners of the world at any time of the year'. It also appears that the end of O... | null |
7qxy92 | why is it that certain weapons, like poisonous gasses, are banned from use in warfare by the geneva convention, yet countries and governments can still use them against their own population, such as tear gas to control riots? | [
{
"answer": "Geneva convention is largely a gentlemen agreement. No one wants their soldiers getting gassed or having to patch up wounds from hollow points. Its easier to just say no one gets chemical weapons and fight with conventional weapons, then it is to say \"there are no rules\" and everyone have them. I... | null |
to8bm | Why do humans make similar facial expressions in response to similar situations? Nature, or nurture? | [
{
"answer": "I would say the basic facial expression are a product of nature and cite the work of [Paul Ekman](_URL_0_).\n\nBTW, the TV show Lie to Me was inspired by his work on facial expressions and lying. However, the early work on basic human emotions and facial expressions pre-dated the lying work. \n\n\n... | null |
4wpz5c | whats the difference between christianity and orthodox christianity? | [
{
"answer": "Well, since you are asking this question, I assume you know what Catholicism is. With the Pope and the Vatican and the Baby Jesus.\n\nEastern Orthodox Christianity is essentially a different group of Christians, who believe they are the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, that was established... | null |
1t786s | how is it not entrapment when the fbi provides you the means to commit a crime? | [
{
"answer": "FBI > \"I hear you're looking for explosives, here you go\" \nvs \nFBI > \"Hey, you should blow up this airport. Here are some explosives you could use\"",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "216694",
"title": "Entr... | null |
2g5m0m | - what does a 3200 rpm stall converter mean, and why do i want it in my modified muscle car? | [
{
"answer": "You only want that if your camshafts power curve starts at 3200 rpm. Stall speed os the max slippage speed the torque converter will allow, ie. break torqueing your car will hold the rpm at 3200 where your cam makes its max power.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The idea is that to... | null |
5itkxm | how did articles in the roman languages come about? | [
{
"answer": "Actually, Ancient Greek did have articles: it had definite articles, but not indefinite articles. This is why some sticklers for correct grammar insist that you cannot say \"the hoi polloi\", because that translates as \"the the people\".\n\nAncient Greek's definite articles were derived from the d... | null |
826gsd | the weird lettering and symbols that are meant to “help” us pronounce words. | [
{
"answer": "You mean Diacritical or IPA?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "What else would you use? It is defined in the International Phonetic Alphabet. You need a system that complex to describe how word are pronounced.\n\nI would agree that is is not useful for most people as you need to unde... | null |
39zpn5 | How do plants change the pH of the soil? | [
{
"answer": "The assertion that Microstegium varieties raise soil pH by altering local nitrogen content is asserted by [Ehrenfeld](_URL_1_):\n\n > Soils directly beneath each of the two exotics had higher pH values and higher nitrification rates and often had higher net N mineralization rates than did soils ben... | null |
2gxhxw | What decade is this painting portraying? | [
{
"answer": "Based on the automobiles I would say the 20s/30s.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'm almost insulted by the idea that this is the 50's or 60's, as a former resident of SLC. Utah is backwards but not THAT backwards.\n\nIt'd have to be between the 1880s - when the first street cars ... | null |
15nu0f | Do you expend more energy running on a treadmill or a non-moving flat surface? | [
{
"answer": "If you look at the surfaces providing the normal force to hold the runner up against gravity, they are both moving in a circular fashion. Earth is rotating and the treadmill belt is rotating. If you stand still on either, you will expend no energy and stay in the same position on the surface as tha... | null |
2twj15 | if congress passes a bill that has a 'watered down' version of net neutrality, can't obama simply veto it? | [
{
"answer": "Sure, but it goes back to Congress after he vetoes it, and if over two thirds of both the House and Senate (voting separately) vote in favor of the bill, they can override the presidential veto.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Obama can veto any bill he wants. Content does not matt... | null |
26n46a | what was the point of ww1? was anything significant achieved? | [
{
"answer": "How the treaties among nations can bring them into a war they do not want to be in. \n\nFor future generations to learn from the mistakes from our past. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[Just listen to this - trust me](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It wa... | null |
1h8njz | Could we workout for longer if we inhaled pure oxygen during the process | [
{
"answer": "Inhaling pure oxygen would theoretically increase the rate at which your body could produce energy. However this is dependant on there not being any metabolic bottlenecks that exist so that the extra oxygen delivered to the muscle tissue is utilised in generating ATP. Your breathing rate will be re... | null |
1pql1e | why is the media not referring to the lax shooting suspect as a 'terrorist'? | [
{
"answer": "There is no evidence he was a terrorist, was involved in terrorism, had connections to terrorist organizations, or was doing this act for terror purposes. This was just a crazy/suicidal guy with a gun shooting people, though its currently thought he had \"anti-govt\" views, but not terrorism.",
... | null |
23belf | Are electricity and magnetism related in a similar way that space and time are related? | [
{
"answer": "An electric charge at rest \"produces\" an electric field but no magnetic field. When a charge moves it also produces a magnetic field, via the Ampère(-Maxwell) equation. When it moves faster, the magnetic field is larger.\n\nNow the quantity *E*^2 - *B*^2 is Lorentz invariant, which means that it ... | null |
52vinv | How much, if at all, does the moon's gravity effect satellite's orbits? | [
{
"answer": "It depends. There are a lot of contributing factors to the acceleration of an earth-orbiting satellite: earth gravity, atmospheric drag, the moon and sun, etc. The relative magnitude of these contributions depends largely on the *altitude* of the orbit. For example, for low-earth orbits (e.g., t... | null |
2c8qwj | why do so many games have a "start" screen where you have to push a button before they decide to start a several minute loading process? (i'm looking at you, battlefield 4) | [
{
"answer": "The primary reason is going to be player input. Let's say you omit that start screen, and just begin loading. All of a sudden, the player is sitting there, as you say, for minutes at a time, before anything happens. Is the game working right? did I do something wrong? is it frozen?\n\nBy forcing a ... | null |
3ut5zh | why is it that most corporate jobs don't have unions? | [
{
"answer": "Many corporate jobs are achieved by skill. So wage and benefits are given accordingly. There is a lot less likely of a chance of near slave labor in an office building than in a factory/warehouse.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "When I worked for Boeing, there was an attempt by som... | null |
40ftla | During WW2, were there any jews who actively collaborated with the Nazis to hunt down other jews? | [
{
"answer": "Ok, first off, it is important to understand that this is an extremely touchy and controversial subject even within academia today.\n\nThe short answer is that there were indeed Jews who collaborated with the Nazis though most of it was part of the perfidy with which the Nazis ran their system of g... | null |
342cyz | lagrange points for a planet with two moons | [
{
"answer": "It would depend a lot on the relative sizes and positions of the bodies. Taking the solar system as an example: Jupiter has fairly large concentrations of asteroids at some it's lagrange points, because it and the sun are much more massive than anything nearby which would disrupt the system. By con... | null |
3v10z6 | why hasn't microsoft word made times new roman the universal font? | [
{
"answer": "Because TNR is ideal for some uses, but would be awful for many other things.\n\nFor example, in a spreadsheet it would be hard to read, and on a shop-front it might send the wrong message.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It used to be the default font because it looks best when pr... | null |
5w8cd4 | if calories are the measure of how much energy there is in food - how can things be 0 calorie? | [
{
"answer": "Yes. It has zero nutritional value. Zero calorie stuff is just a bunch of chemicals that your brain tells you is tasting good.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Yes, you'd starve. 0-calorie food is made of stuff you can't digest. Since you can't digest it, it comes out in basically... | null |
ch8iq6 | How was the production of coins organised in ancient Greece / Rome (or even after)? How did rulers ensure the people who made coins didn't steal them? | [
{
"answer": "At least in the Late Republic, but I think also earlier and definitely later, the Romans had \"governmental\" mints. On the Roman Imperial coinage (RIC), the mark SC, Senatus Consulto, showed that the coin was created in one of these mints. Before that, usually the mint masters (tresviri monetales)... | null |
3ent4e | why does germany have such a strong influence over the eu? | [
{
"answer": "Germany is the EU's strongest economy and has the largest population. Why wouldn't they have a strong influence?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Germany does have the largest economy in the EU, and the largest population, but that is probably a little more simplistic than the actua... | null |
fnkud3 | Can anyone explain how someone can be an asymptomatic carrier of disease? | [
{
"answer": "There's always a portion of the population that falls into this category, even for virulently lethal diseases like the black plague. Some immune systems hit that point where the person shows no symptoms, but still carries a sufficient amount of the virus to infect others. Some people will not eve... | null |
2bghf7 | Why do a lot of little kids have freckles, but not that many adults? | [
{
"answer": "Two theories about the prominence of freckles in children are as follows:\n\n1. Freckles, being triggered by exposure to sunlight, are more common due to more frequent exposure to the sun and outdoors play, coupled with less care for sunscreen. \n\n2. Freckles, being clusters of melanin, are more ... | null |
xrgy5 | what is r/circlejerk? | [
{
"answer": "It is a subreddit where they mock the rest of reddit. The more time you spend on Reddit the funnier /r/circlejerk becomes ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It's a kids game that could alternatively be called \"Who can agree the loudest!?\". The idea of the game is no matter how rid... | null |
69tm5a | How well did the the late Roman(Byzantine) emperors know their history? | [
{
"answer": "I can't speak as well to the last Byzantine emperors but its early and middle leadership certainly were aware of their past connections and history to the earlier \"Roman empire.\" This awareness, if nowhere else, is apparent in the Byzantines' own term for self-identification: Roman (the identifi... | null |
129pv6 | Can cancer cells potentially mutate to virulent forms? | [
{
"answer": "[Yes, cancer can become virulent(potential NSFW GORE)](_URL_0_), and it is the main reason Tasmanian devils are endangered. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "You are looking for [Clonally Transmissable Cancers](_URL_0_). Three types are known, one for Tasmanian devils, one for dogs... | null |
23ccyk | why aren't we sexually attracted to our siblings or parents? | [
{
"answer": "[Westermarck effect](_URL_0_) - we're not attracted to thoe we grew up with.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Imo its more a cultural and societal thing because there have been plenty of cases of incest and lusting of or after family members. I think the average person is gonna tak... | null |
8xip0o | Did Nazi Germany get any tourism? If so, what countries visited? Were people who would be otherwise gassed (Jews, Blacks, homosexuals, etc) allowed there? Were they allowed to leave? | [
{
"answer": "Having written on the topic of forreign tourism before, I'll reproduce that here as it may be of interest, although more can always be said.\n\nNazi-era Germany wasn't necessarily destination number one for foreigners looking to travel abroad, but that isn't to say it wasn't seeing any visitors, an... | null |
1axomk | How did some species (i.e, humans) come to require proteins that they could not produce themselves? | [
{
"answer": "I think what you meant to ask is why some species have come to lose the ability to synthesize certain amino acids - not proteins. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. In the process of digestion, any protein that you consume are actually decomposed into the amino acid building blocks, w... | null |
43fiu6 | What was the relationship between knight and horse? | [
{
"answer": "I don't have an answer to knights of the medieval period in particular but the training and relationship between horse and trooper in the Napoleonic Wars and beyond is essentially that first and foremost that it was a primary mode of transport and fighting platform. In a sort of quid pro quo scenar... | null |
277dt0 | swift, apple´s new programming language | [
{
"answer": "While I can't talk specifically about Swift, seeing as I've not read much about it, I can tell you something about programming languages: new languages constantly evolve. Often as \"better versions\" of older ones. Each programming language has a different use and a different feeling to it. Certain... | null |
1mjs37 | how are large games abled to be rendered? | [
{
"answer": "Generally there are a few methods:\n\n* Intelligent clipping. You only draw the polygons that might be visible.\n\n* Variable Level of Detail. As objects become more distant, they get drawn more simply. A building might be very intricate up close, but at a distance might be rendered as just a si... | null |
1nqc1q | Why didn't every independent medieval ruler declare himself a king? | [
{
"answer": "Do you have specific examples?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "One does not just become a king. In almost all circumstances a higher power created kings. In the older kingdoms that trace back to antiquity that 'higher power' is often claimed to be descent from a god or the ancestra... | null |
7sk9lx | why aren’t more major electronics companies making video game consoles? | [
{
"answer": "The cost is way too high for the profits available. You have to invest huge sums in games and then make profit from selling hardware at very low margins. It's more a question of why anybody is still making consoles.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There is almost zero profit in c... | null |
5cxg3p | why is the ability to ride a bike something you can't lose once you gain it | [
{
"answer": "Muscle memory. You don't have to mentally remember anything because your muscles remember how to preform actions they've repeated over and over. Another example is that I learned how to solve a Rubik's cube in 6th grade by memorizing 10 or so algorithms but now I couldn't tell you what they are or ... | null |
4qs8um | Was there ever any protest or opposition to mandatory military service in ancient Greece and Rome? | [
{
"answer": "Nothing as dramatic as burning draft cards. Anyway, those people wouldn't have histories that survive. We do get a couple hints though.\n\nI'm assuming you aren't referring to mutinies - these are often not objections to service in general, but rather a way of bullying the state into giving the s... | null |
2i01og | Will the first Quantum computer disrupt worldwide encryption and security? | [
{
"answer": "It's going to be a long slow process from first proof-of-concept prototypes (which we've seen), to prototypes that work reliably, to prototypes that have an actually useful capacity, to demonstrations of breaking weak crypto as another proof-of-concept, then finally something usable in a lab, then ... | null |
5vrc53 | why does some scientists/countries still want to go on the moon ? | [
{
"answer": "The moon is the closest large object to earth in space, so going to the moon allows us to develop and test a lot of technology related to landing on and moving around on solid, non-earth objects. Mars would be better to colonize for several reasons (atmosphere, temperature, soil, similar hours in a... | null |
2kn286 | why do subreddits need mods to control posts? doesn't the voting system show what people actually want, whether it's shitty or not? | [
{
"answer": "If you have someone being abusive and harassing, simply down voting won't remove it from existing.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Hi! There are a LOT of things that really are better off not being seen by anyone. For example, sometimes there are accounts created solely to post spa... | null |
1hlb7a | why do royal families of defunct monarchies still exist? | [
{
"answer": "Even if they came with no money or lands, titles can still give you an edge. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "243883",
"title": "Succession to the Norwegian throne",
"section": "",
"start_paragraph_id... | null |
1af64u | We saw that bionic eyes can be a success. Could we make them better? | [
{
"answer": " > Could we modify such a bionic eye so that a person could see beyond the visible spectrum (..., radio, IR, UV, X-ray, Gamma, ...)?\n\nYes. Current high quality CMOS sensors in cameras already do this. They need filters and coatings to keep them seeing the visible spectrum instead of IR and UV.\n... | null |
2ojmc7 | how come space probes that travel to distant planets not collide with the smaller objects in space? | [
{
"answer": "Asteroid belts are nothing like in the movies. They are mostly empty space. Chances of getting hit are incredibly small. \n\nIt's like spreading millions of ants across a Sahara desert and stepping on one. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Yes: Collisions in space are pretty deadly.... | null |
9575nh | why can you feel capsaicin irritating your mouth, stomach, and butt but don't seem to feel anything when it's passing through your intestines? | [
{
"answer": "Oh I've felt it. You try some good peppers or other high scovile oily food and you feel it working it's way through. It's not the same sensation, but you know it's there.\n\nAs for why you feel it less sit is because capsaicin triggers pain receptors and your main gut just doesn't have many pain r... | null |
4jqyr2 | Tuesday Trivia | Treasure Hunters | [
{
"answer": "Heinrich Himmler, the infamous head of the SS, was a firm believer in the existence of ancient relics that had an immense power. Himmler believed that *Mjölnir*, the hammer of Thor, the god of thunder from Norse mythology, was an ancient electrical weapon. He believed that if this weapon was found ... | null |
7rt7zq | What really was Bushido? | [
{
"answer": "Not to discourage other answers but /u/bigbluepanda and /u/ParallelPain discuss Bushido in these answers from the FAQ\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2063083",
"title": "List of Teen Titans ch... | null |
4bfv96 | Why are far away galaxies redshifted, when they aren't actually traveling away from us, there's just more space there than there was before? Does light lose energy traveling through a vacuum? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, the light loses energy by being stretched as the Universe expands while it travels.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "5382",
"title": "Inflation (cosmology)",
"section": "Section::::Overview.\n",
"... | null |
1oa0n7 | How much, if any, correspondence occurred between opposing leaders during wartime? Is there more correspondence nowadays, or has it decreased over time? | [
{
"answer": "The first thing I thought of when I read your question was the ['Willy-Nicky Telegrams'](_URL_0_), an increasingly desperate series of telegrams exchanged between cousins (hence the familiar way they address each other) Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicolas II in the last days of July 1914 as Europe w... | null |
1f2wkr | Who was history's first recorded gay right's activist, in times of homophobia? | [
{
"answer": "It depends on what you define as an \"activist.\"\n\nKeep in mind that homosexuality as a category of identification really dates back to the late nineteenth century, when sexologists began to classify and medicalize homosexuality. This is also when the first real \"movement\" for homosexual rights... | null |
684kwn | how can a distiller like jack daniel's meet doubled demand within one year when their product takes 4 years to age? | [
{
"answer": "the article says the distillery was already almost 100 years old, so they probably already had enough stock to be able to sell 300,000 units",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Jack Daniels complies with \"straight bourbon\" classification, which requires a minimum of two years in barr... | null |
4tp910 | What's the longest single cell in the world? | [
{
"answer": "Informal estimates place the dorsal root ganglion of the blue whale at ~25 m on average.\n\nIf we include prehistoric animals, though, this figure would not be the largest by a long stretch. The recurrent laryngeal nerve, which does a loop down the length of the neck all the way to the heart (only ... | null |
906tuf | why old tech is being shown in new movies | [
{
"answer": "Because most people can't identify models in simple passing.\n\nIf someone pays for the rights to feature their latest and greatest, the studio would use it, but otherwise it's just a prop phone with the model being completely unimportant. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Not sure ... | null |
8b324m | bosons, do they facilitate all matter and how? | [
{
"answer": " > I was under the impression that energy is made matter through Bosons or something at that level.\n\nThis is not really a correct statement. It sounds like you're referring to force carrier particles, which are bosons (a boson is anything with integer spin). There are a number of force carrier pa... | null |
13wwa7 | What will happen when we run out of accessible stocks of rare-earth elements? | [
{
"answer": "Earth-bound rare earths will be around for a long time. This is why investing in [Planetary Resources](_URL_1_) might not pay off for a while, for example:\n\n[Japan finds major rare earth deposits](_URL_3_)\n\n > JAPAN has found a large deposit of rare earth minerals in its Pacific seabed, enough... | null |
el0liq | do nutrients in food change when heated/frozen, and if so, how? | [
{
"answer": "Yes and no. Freezing won't change anything about the nutritional value of food, but cooking will. \n\nThere are many molecules that the human body cannot easily digest, and therefor cannot extract nutrients from. Cooking food can help to break those down into digestible molecules, and allows people... | null |
26ed3t | why do many companies nowadays see tattoos as being "unprofessional"? | [
{
"answer": "Because in much of modern history the people with tattoos have been people very often associated with unsavory organizations, crime, and violence. I think you can understand why companies wishing to present a professional and safe environment would shy away from hiring those with tattoos. That gene... | null |
ci6qt5 | what purpose do continents serve apart from broad classification? | [
{
"answer": "There is not one but a few different models for the continets. Some of them are just for classification. Some are used to differentiate what is one landmass and what is another. I thing the most common models used are the geopolitical and historic political one. These differentiate between what yo... | null |
slk6r | Where did energy originate from? | [
{
"answer": "[This video is about pretty much exactly what you are asking for, watch it!](_URL_0_) ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "9649",
"title": "Energy",
"section": "Section::::History.\n",
"start_paragraph_i... | null |
2yxl7y | why are united states parents much more strict with the sexual life of their children compared to european parents? | [
{
"answer": "The main reason is because of the religious background of the United States. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Probably because of religious reasons/status/culture. I don't really know how to explain the phenomenon but what I do know is that for some reason one of the most liberal c... | null |
6j0o00 | how have beauty standards changed so much throughout the years? wouldn't what humans find attractive be genetically ingrained into our heads and not really allow standards to change over time? | [
{
"answer": "Humans are successful because we adapt to environment. We adapt by learning skills instead of genetically changing. Finding a potential mate is important part of successful survival. If traits we find attractive were genetically imprinted in our brains we wouldn't be able to adapt as fast and well.... | null |
6dhjkj | What happened to the French, Belgian and Dutch colonies when their European owners were conquered by Nazi Germany during WW2? | [
{
"answer": "I can answer in some detail where the Dutch colonies are concerned. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nThe Dutch had 3 major overseas holdings: the Antilles, Suriname and Indonesia.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nThe Dutch colonies in the West Indies became vulnerable after the Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1940. The Antil... | null |
22vje1 | what is passion and where does it come from? (passion for subjects or jobs.) how can it be created? | [
{
"answer": "This is a good question. Comparable to \"how do you knew when you've met the one?\" You just know. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "1329397",
"title": "Passion (emotion)",
"section": "Section::::As a motivati... | null |
170k8t | Why don't dead leaves smell bad like other decaying organic matter? | [
{
"answer": "It actually takes quite a while for leaves to decay - assuming the leaf was detached from the tree in the fall due to 'normal' circumstances. So, think a regular autumn leaf, not a bunch of leaves that fell off when a branch broke. \n\nDeciduous trees will actually begin pulling nutrients out of th... | null |
24c9pd | are you able to move your hand forward whilest traveling at the speed of light? | [
{
"answer": "every question you have that starts with \"i will be moving at speed of light\" is going to start at impossible. so answering it will be weird.\n\nthings with mass are not going to ever be moving at speed of light, your hand moving at speed of light would have more energy than is in the universe.",... | null |
tpfvx | Since the Earth is getting more mass in the neighborhood of 100 tons a day, will the gravitational pull be strong enough to pull the moon into it? | [
{
"answer": "100 tons compared to the mass of the earth (~6x10^24 kg) is barely a rounding error.\n\nIt would take approximately 1.8 x 10^14 years to increase the mass of the earth by 1/1000 of it's current mass at that accumulation rate. The universe is only about 13.75 x 10^9 years old. So the Earth's mass ... | null |
1ex7no | how vinyl record players can play not only the pitch but also other details of some sound | [
{
"answer": "Different instruments produce different shapes of sound wave. [Here](_URL_0_) are a few examples.\n\nThese are stored on vinyl by physically making the edge of the groove into the shape of the sound wave that the instrument makes.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenanc... | null |
ylowe | how and by whom are generation groups (x,y,z etc.) determined? | [
{
"answer": "Marketers, mainly. Most of the time, you get a steady drip-drip-drip of people being born every year; there's about as many 7 year olds as 5 year olds or 9 year olds or whatever. \n\nBut the World Wars, particularly WWII, fucked that up: All over the world, the young people who would normally be ge... | null |
n0wts | What originally defined the human size/mass? Why are most of us 1.5-1.9m tall instead of 0.5m or 20m tall? | [
{
"answer": "Evolution is an optimising process, it's always making tradeoffs between competing criteria to find the highest fitness for the environment. There are advantages to being bigger, as well as disadvantages. On the simplest level, if you're bigger you can win more fights, but you need more food. So ma... | null |
jmzpr | what is "fair trade" and why should i care that my coffee is labelled as such? | [
{
"answer": "Originally, fair trade was about a group of people that came together and said that they would pay the farmers that grew coffee a \"fair\" price. They wanted to do this in order to help them make more money, so that we weren't just using (exploiting) them. A lot of coffee comes from the poorest par... | null |
cnsa6a | how do cpu temperatures drop so rapidly? | [
{
"answer": "Depends on the exact configuation, but computers have fantastically efficient cooling systems onboard to keep the CPU at safe temperatures when just idling/keeping the OS running, that can max out to disperse more heat when it's doing heavy processing.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer"... | null |
23sgc6 | Is rain water pure H2O, or does it pick up other elements from the air on the way down? If not, why? | [
{
"answer": "No, rain water is not pure. For starters, it has to have a \"cloud condensation neuclei,\" basically a particle on which water forms. When the cloud becomes dense enough, rain begins to fall. The rain will react with various gasses and particulates on the way down, including hydrogen sulfide and ca... | null |
2pw4pu | paradox? | [
{
"answer": "Don't post just to complain.\n\nAlso, you're using \"paradox\" incorrectly.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Sometimes people don't always know how to phrase their answers right, sometimes people ask questions that necessarily demand a degree of technicality. It's nice for people to... | null |
4ai49v | why are so many americans hooked on opiate pain pills? | [
{
"answer": "We are a pharma loving people. There is a newer prescription pill epidemic and I think it partially reflects that. People tend to think that because someone gets a prescription for these pills that they are safe and sanctioned. And in ways it is better than heroin in that it is regulated. However, ... | null |
25mkqs | What made the United Nations significantly different from the League of Nations? | [
{
"answer": "One of the larger differences is that the League of Nations had no teeth, it had no military force of its own to physically put down an aggressor. The League of Nations provided that if an aggressor would not stop it could use military force but it having no force if it's own made it an empty threa... | null |
110o3n | humanism | [
{
"answer": "See /r/humanism\n\n > Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in th... | null |
2mt3su | Is it possible to melt snow (or whatever) with sound? | [
{
"answer": "I was the guy who made that comment on the other post. While technically you could input enough energy to melt snow, the amount of energy contained in sound is very small.\n\nAssuming you have 1 g of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orche... | null |
tf7wi | Why do plants go "limp" after you pick them? | [
{
"answer": "Plants use turgor pressure to maintain the rigidity of structures. When you pick the plants they lose pressure because they lose water. When they lose turgor pressure, they wilt.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2235142",
... | null |
4r2bxd | how is monster energy allowed to claim some of their drinks contain zero calories, yet there's 4g of carbs per can? | [
{
"answer": "The FDA allows numbers on Nutrition Labels to be rounded to the nearest whole number. If those 4g of carbs amount to less than half a calorie per serving, then the manufacturer is going to take advantage of the situation and put 0. \n & nbsp; \nAs for the erythritol, the regulatory definition of ... | null |
g1zy4 | With the recent horrifying earthquake that hit Japan, I'm curious: With today's technology and know-how, how difficult is it to predict an earthquake? | [
{
"answer": "Prediction of catastrophic failures is basically impossible. Scientists have been making progress in being able to measure tectonic pressures in earthquake hotspots, but it is still just an indicator and not a full blown predictive theory. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Basical... | null |
54fzqx | why does cannabis make people sleepy after the high wears off? | [
{
"answer": "CBN is a degradation product of THC and other cannabinoids. It is highly sedative.\n\nThere is also the issue of flooding the endocannabinoid system (which regulates our hormonal functioning and a number of other systems) with exogenous cannabinoids producing a temporary down-regulation. \n\nIf y... | null |
zi72o | Are most living organisms today considered to be more complex than those, say, 70 million years ago? | [
{
"answer": "No. First off complexity is a very hard thing to measure. Are ants more complex than non-hive insects? But most importantly most life on Earth (by any measure, number, mass, etc.) is single celled. So most life on Earth is just as complex as it was.\n\nNow there may be a slight increase on some \"a... | null |
alvd2w | AskHistorians uses a 20-year rule to consider something to be "history." Is this a common rule among historians, or is it just a pragmatic measure to moderate this community? If so, how do scholars decide when something can be called "history"? | [
{
"answer": "There's not a hard and fast rule among universities or historians in general to consider events beyond a certain number of years \"history\" vs. \"current events.\" One only has to look at ~~Mao~~ Zhou Enlai's (probably apocryphal) comments on the effects of the French Revolution being too recent t... | null |
9eglr7 | why do toddlers prefer to run everywhere instead on walking? it doesn't matter if it's indoor/outdoor or what distance. the first option is to run to get from point a to point b. | [
{
"answer": "Well, if you have energy to burn, and are impatient as someone who's only got 2 or 3 years of being alive, it only makes sense to run.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They have the energy and impulse control isn't developed in their brains yet. Won't happen til closer to 4. That's ... | null |
2dbzng | Why is it that a SSD (Solid State Drive) will eventually decrease in performance after a long period of time, but RAM doesn't? | [
{
"answer": "Two differences that contributes to write speed degradation:\n\n1) DRAM stores data as a charge in a capacitor. NAND flash used SSDs stores the data as a charge in a floating gate. In DRAM, the charges simply flow through the transistor into the capacitor. In NAND flash, writing requires tunneling ... | null |
71imyi | if atoms are over 99% empty space, how is it possible to create structures like spaceships that contain air and are airtight themselves while being surrounded by a vacuum?` | [
{
"answer": "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: I know that even though atoms are mostly empty space, we can't walk through walls because of electric fields, but if they're mostly empty, why isn't everything practically invisible? ](_URL_5_)\n1. [ELI5: If atoms are 99% empt... | null |
8yljle | Is there any historical documentation of the Viking Blood Eagle execution? | [
{
"answer": "More could be pried out of someone, but you might like to start with ['What are the chances the Vikings actually used the \"Blood Eagle\"? (previous highly rated answer has been deleted and other posts just link to the deleted answer)'](_URL_0_) by /u/mikedash .\n\nThis is not to discourage discuss... | null |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.