id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
7brri3 | were there any French troops in Normandy invasion? | [
{
"answer": "Always room for more, but as a starting point there's [a thread from a couple of years back] (_URL_0_) where /u/k1990 covers ground units and I chip in a bit about the naval and air forces.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "14... | null |
62kt68 | how do darknet dealers get drugs like cocaine and heroin in the first place? | [
{
"answer": "You just find a supplier and buy it with bitcoin, its actually real easy, took maybe half an hour to set up and make a purchase. I ordered over 20 times in large quantities and never got caught or lost a package",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "From drug suppliers, who get it from d... | null |
ec1b5e | whats the difference between sorting by best and sorting by top? | [
{
"answer": "Top: Highest score (Upvotes - Downvotes = Score)\n\nBest: [This is more complicated](_URL_0_). It takes all the current votes on a post as a sample and gives it a score that it is 95% confident it will end up with, given infinite time.\n\nEssentially, it prevents older posts with a higher score (si... | null |
10ynow | How do eyestalks (such as on slugs) work? How do they retract and extend? | [
{
"answer": "They inflate them with their haemolymph (or bodily fluid), and they have a retractor muscle, that when contracted, withdraws the tentacle.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "21687795",
"title": "Eyestalk",
"sect... | null |
uh8rr | How do we know the difference between good and bad? | [
{
"answer": "Its usually based on the frame of reference and other people. People are conditioned to think something is good or bad based on what they were taught as children. Therefore some people who grew up with parents who enjoy AC/DC think classical rock is better than hip/hop, so on so forth",
"proven... | null |
1jwtm3 | Did the Rosenbergs committ espionage or was it an unfair trial during a period of fear? | [
{
"answer": "I would say yes to both of your questions.\n\nMorton Sobell(tried/convicted with the Rosenbergs) admitted to spying in 2008 after maintaining his innocence throughout. Morton implicated Julius and said that Ethel was aware of what her husband was doing.\n\nMost of the strong evidence supporting the... | null |
1pbo34 | I have to complete a research essay on African history before 1800 and need a good essay topic. Any ideas? | [
{
"answer": "That's pretty broad. What are you interested in?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "What aspects of history are you interested in? Economic history? Religious history? Urbanization? State-building? The interaction between culturese (Europeans or Arab world interacting with African cul... | null |
38bif8 | Can someone give me a quick overview of how the Caliphates transitioned into one another? | [
{
"answer": "Is this a homework question? If not, could you please provide a little bit more information about what you're looking for?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "A short (believe me, I tried to be as concise as possible) answer to a very broad question is:\n\nAfter the Prophet Muhammad di... | null |
46f9oq | can we really clean pesticide off fruit by just rinsing them off? wouldn't that mean rain would rinse it off all the time? | [
{
"answer": "You're not cleaning off the pesticide. You're cleaning off dirt and other toxins that may have stuck to the wax they put on the fruit to make it shiny.\n\nPesticides stick to the fruit, but they are also absorbed by the plant and end up within the flesh of the fruit. ",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
zsoq8 | What kind of atoms are present in a vacuum? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\n > Of the gas in the ISM, 89% of atoms are hydrogen and 9% are helium, with 2% of atoms being elements heavier than hydrogen or helium, which are called \"metals\" in astronomical parlance",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Not a stupid question. But yes, like others said,... | null |
bg3rzi | how does illiteracy work? | [
{
"answer": "Can you elaborate on what you mean? Because illiteracy is the natural state of humans.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "If you’re asking WHY people are illiterate, there are a ton of different reasons. For the older generations, it wasn’t as frowned upon to quit school to work to he... | null |
3c30ut | What actually happens when a computer, server, or phone crashes? | [
{
"answer": "This is an extremely broad question. It depends on what the device is, what it's purpose is, and what the problem is. There are so many possibilities it is quite difficult to list them all. Here are some examples though:\n\n**Soda machine stopped giving soda.** The [embedded computer](_URL_3_) in a... | null |
20hqb8 | Finding the potential power a city may produce if it had installed solar PV panels in a certain capacity? | [
{
"answer": "%solar PV efficiency (eg. 18-22% is typical for consumer installations). You can multiply irradiance by this number to get the amount of energy produced and multiply this by surface area of solar PV to get the total energy consumption per hour.\n\nMost statistics provide solar PV installation as Wh... | null |
3i8vgu | how do the genetics of three-parent children work? | [
{
"answer": "We usually just think of our DNA as just being stored in the nucleus, but that's not the case. The vast majority is there, but some organelles also have their own, unique DNA. That's actually the basis of one of the theories on how we came to develop organelles, endosymbiotic theory. Basically, it'... | null |
633gj6 | what computer language is artificial intelligence written in and is it enough? | [
{
"answer": "One computer language is equivalent to another in terms of what they *can* do, but AI has historically been associated with Lisp, Prolog, Java, C, and Python. There's no reason you can't do it in whatever language you want, of course. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"prov... | null |
2caliu | Race & Slavery in Brazil | [
{
"answer": "I would recommend Chica da Silva: A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century by Júnia Ferreira Furtado as a good place to start along with Inhuman Bondage by David Brion Davis (He devotes a chapter specifically to Brazil). \n\nI think a film that really bears out what Robinson was getting at is Ci... | null |
288hcc | how can businesses like airbrush booths use licensed icons, logos, or characters legally? | [
{
"answer": "They don't. \n\nFor instance all that Calvin and Hobb's stuff, everything made is stolen, no merch has ever been liscenced.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "1813153",
"title": "Brand alliances",
"section": "S... | null |
1n2m4h | what is at stake in the us senate filibuster by ted cruz that has been going on all evening? | [
{
"answer": "He is attempting to make a point about how serious he feels it is to oppose the Affordable Care Act, and holding up the business of the Senate, but other work can proceeded elsewhere and he is not preventing any votes from being held. This can not effect the Affordable Care Act itself, as that is ... | null |
173tu2 | If the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, where exactly does that expansion happen? At the space between the atoms in my body, or somewhere else? | [
{
"answer": "So we have two types of movement here. One is movement through space and the other is a stretching of the fabric of space itself. The common analogy is an ant on a rubber band. The ant walking on the band is traveling through space but stretching the band with an ant on either end will still res... | null |
2msi1v | Why when welding metals are alloys other than the parent material used? | [
{
"answer": "You're confusing welding and brazing/soldering. With brazing or soldering a different material is used to join parts composed of another material. For example, you might use a tin based solder to make a physical and electrical connection between two contacts made out of copper. Welding is different... | null |
1ttadn | What psychological differences are there between adults and young adults? | [
{
"answer": "The same question came up recently on a podcast I download, when discussing frontal lobe brain damage and development.The quick answer I found is from [here](_URL_0_). \n\n\"...the nerve cells that connect teenagers' frontal lobes with the rest of their brains are sluggish. Teenagers don't have as ... | null |
2x45ah | Homework in American Schools? | [
{
"answer": "Well firstly I can point you in the direction for homework from the 19th Century.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThe library of the uni of Pittsburg has digitised it's collection. This is a collection of schoolbooks from that period, it would include any homework given.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer... | null |
7re6mp | what is a "flathead v8"? | [
{
"answer": "Flathead engines are ones where the valves are placed in the engine block, alongside the pistons. Compare to overhead valve engines, where it's up top.\n\nV8 means it has 8 pistons arranged in two sets of four, which meet at an acute angle, making a \"V\" shape.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
3m6zmf | short selling | [
{
"answer": "Suppose I want to make a bit of money and you lend me your car to do so. I could sell the car to somebody for $120,000 (Nice car!) and in a few months buy it back from them. Since they have been using the car for a while it has done more kilometers/miles so I only pay $100,000. I still have to give... | null |
8jf0gq | options and "buy to open," "buy to close," "sell to open," "sell to close." | [
{
"answer": "Options are a deal between two people, where one person pays the other for the opportunity to take an action later. Because they're a deal, we could create a brand new option from nothing (our agreement creates it) or we can trade our position in an already existing option. The exchange tracks al... | null |
75e2mr | why dont they make a usb connected laptop charger? | [
{
"answer": "In the USB 1.0 and 2.0 specs, a standard downstream port is capable of delivering up to 500mA (0.5A); with USB 3.0, it moves up to 900mA (0.9A). The charging downstream and dedicated charging ports provide up to 1,500mA (1.5A).\n\nBasically, it would take a long time to charge.",
"provenance": ... | null |
4chqvv | is it true that vaping marijuana with vaporizers such as the volcano make weed completely safe for the lungs? | [
{
"answer": "There is an insufficient amount of clinical data to answer this question with any level of confidence; vaping is a relatively new technology, and the negative effects of smoking are most prominent decades after first use. \n\nAnyone who answers this question with any more confidence than that is at... | null |
7rlx3o | is the concept of light speed defined by light itself, or does light just want to go infinitely fast but physics puts a cap on it? | [
{
"answer": "Light is fast, way faster than most people can even imagine, but thankfully our measurements are very precise as well, so we are able to measure it very accurately (First done by Fizeau and Focault in 1830ish, not like /u/ganganinja claims by sending lasers to the moon, we do that to measure how fa... | null |
3a3rkn | why don't networks like espn put their field reporters on a split second tape delay to remove the awkward pauses between a question and answer? | [
{
"answer": "Because, if they did, there would be the same awkward pause between the field reporter's response and the next question.\n\nThe only way around it is to edit the pauses out before putting the segment to air. But you can't do that live.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"prov... | null |
1xuqyg | Did people during the 1700s ever try to imagine life in the year 1800s? | [
{
"answer": "Hi there! Sorry it took me a few days to answer you. I needed to dig up a bunch of old notes to refresh my memory.\n\nSo yes, 18th century social theorists had a strong sense of futurism. In a broad sense an intellectual concern with the future had existed since the Renaissance rediscovery of Europ... | null |
138e50 | Is this company, StemCell100, a scam? Is there any evidence that this product does what it says it does? What exactly makes it a scam or not? | [
{
"answer": "* Seems to fix a large variety of symptoms, basically general aging symptoms and I don't look/feel great\n* Not FDA reviewed\n* Throws out a lot of scientific words and goes into long winded explanations about how this makes you younger/healthier on the front page of the website \n\nThis seems to r... | null |
2iy5t7 | How does the water-vapour runaway greenhouse effect work? | [
{
"answer": "So the C in your...\n\nS = C*T^4\n\n...takes the role of emissivity. It's fine for zeroth-order back-of-the-envelope calculations, but really doesn't work too well for getting good numerical answers when examining the greenhouse effect.\n\nThere are two problems here:\n\n- The Stefan-Boltzmann Law ... | null |
d90v9v | How did Spain transition from fascist dictatorship to its current democratic, constitutional monarchy? Is it true that Franco bequeathed the country to King Juan-Carlos and it was he that instituted democracy? | [
{
"answer": "Modern Spanish history is one of the most interesting topics I have found. Anyway, onto an answer:\n\nFranco approved a law of succession in 1947, saying that Spain was kingdom and would remain a kingdom. Of course, Spain would have no king while Franco was alive as he was acting head of state. The... | null |
1qp2p0 | Will oil and water mix in a vacuum? | [
{
"answer": "Their aversion to forming a miscible solution is due to differences in intermolecular forces and the entropy of the molecules at the interface, not gravity.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Gases always mix; liquids sometimes mix. In liquids, intermolecular forces are strong enough ... | null |
239g0n | Did 'No-go' areas that were controlled by the IRA in Northern Ireland show any fluctuations in crime levels? | [
{
"answer": "Why were there free areas where the RUC and British Army wouldn't enter?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "42200590",
"title": "Hillcrest Bar bombing",
"section": "Section::::Situation in Northern Ireland.\n",
... | null |
8ga2in | why is the war on drugs inherently flawed but a war on guns wouldn't be? | [
{
"answer": "That's an awfully broad question. There are a variety of tactics and solutions that can take place under either umbrella term, which can be good or bad. Beyond that, the abuse patterns in either are certainly not the same. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
... | null |
458cdy | how are non latin alphabet characters typed on a phone? | [
{
"answer": "What kind of keyboard are you talking about? Just like QWERTY keyboard, there are keyboard for plenty of non-Latin alphabets, as shown here: _URL_0_\n\nEvery keyboard software supports installing various keyboard layouts.\n\nEast Asian languages also have special keyboard, [as explained in each of ... | null |
51v9ug | why is the fine art trade a medium for money laundering? | [
{
"answer": "It's not just fine art - almost anything with intrinsic, lasting value is fair game for the criminals. Basically it's very difficult to give somebody a large sum of money without questions being asked but 'gifting' somebody a Van Gogh may be unusual but it isn't illegal. In doing that, the new owne... | null |
1t67jj | how the us stock market is not currently experiencing a bubble/overbought? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nThe answer remains mostly the same - the economy, while a factor in the stock market, is not so large a factor that it defines how the stock market will perform. Plus things like unemployment and GDP growth are not the only pieces of the economic puzzle - there is a lot more to it than j... | null |
9bt0rm | how do people die from too much plastic surgery? | [
{
"answer": "There's risks involved with any surgery, especially when anesthesia is involved. Things can go wrong - the person's heart stops, doctor makes a mistake, person gets an infection, etc. The odds of this for cosmetic surgery are low but if you keep going under the knife you're taking that chance each ... | null |
5kd874 | us drug adverts seem to mostly contain a voice over of the negative side effects so what is the point in having them? | [
{
"answer": "Interest-only, in many countries, search advertisements are illegal. Most other developed Nations don't allow drug companies to directly Market their concoctions to Consumers. Part of it is because of the things you've noticed, which is that most consumers basically ignore the side effects at the e... | null |
1vwvqu | There's a common condition colloquially known as "hypoglycemia," which doesn't actually meet the medical definition of hypoglycemia. What is it really? | [
{
"answer": "There is in fact a name for this: [idiopathic postprandial syndrome](_URL_0_. The syndrome was first described in the 1980s to distinguish between patients with true hypoglycaemia and those suffering only the symptoms you describe. The word \"idiopathic\" means \"of unknown cause\", so I can't give... | null |
8pecp2 | energy changes and transforms, but doesn't disappear. | [
{
"answer": "The saw and the log both heat up, so the chemically energy from your body is turned into thermal energy in the log and saw. Also, the sawing makes a sound, so some energy is lost to sound. \n\nEdit:\nI also want to talk about the “energy pool” idea. Certain energy transformations are basically non-... | null |
92vqgw | At the beginning of the 20th century, before refrigerators were commonplace houshold appliances, how did people conserve their food? Did they still use lots of salt and store it in the basement or was there some sort of interrim period where an alternative solution was found? | [
{
"answer": "First, people simply bought fewer perishables. Instead of going shopping once a week and storing everything you bought until you needed it, you'd go to the butcher on the day you were actually planning to make roast beef or whatever. This is why milkmen used to be a thing: people got around the fac... | null |
7ns0mf | what exactly gets lost when mass gets converted into energy? | [
{
"answer": "Nothing gets lost; the law of conservation of energy tells us that. Mass and energy are really just two forms of the same thing. Nothing gets lost from the fusion of hydrogen into helium, the difference in mass is just converted to Energy. And yes you *can* fission helium back into hydrogen but it ... | null |
2bzf3m | When did the guitar as we know it come about? | [
{
"answer": "This is an excellent question, and kind of depends on how you define \"guitar.\"\n \nIf you're just looking for the earliest time you could go back in time and look at an instrument and think \"Hey, that looks like a guitar,\" the earliest documented example is about 1200 BC, coming from a [Hittie... | null |
325d9s | In the year 1750, how different was the standard of living in Eastern Europe (ex. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) and Western Europe (France, England, Spain)? | [
{
"answer": "This question has to be narrowed down or the answer can only be yes and no.\nI'm going to assume that you mean the rural population which would be the most representative demographic for the country in general.\nIt could be argued that in 1750, Britain and The Netherlands would have higher living s... | null |
30yeqw | Why doesn't cream separate into fat and water? | [
{
"answer": "You have observed curdling, which actually is separation, or the process of \"flocculation\"; it just happens at a slower rate in cream than, say, a mixture of oil and water. Rate of flocculation is driven by several variables, but all boil (or flocculate?) down to the kinetics of the fat molecules... | null |
55u5n8 | What kind of deity or king/ruler is this statue? | [
{
"answer": "By the craftsmanship, chair, and general style this is definitely Chinese (or Chinese-esque), though nothing stick out at me to identify them. He could be Buddhist god or trickster given the expression, maybe a famous or deified member of Chinese history, although I do not recognise this one in par... | null |
3elwcn | why do schools in the u.s punish their students so harshly? | [
{
"answer": "3 major reasons. \n\n1) Everyone became somewhat insane because of school shootings here, so they can put the color of sense on stupid approaches to school violence. So having an overkill policy about \"weapons\" is not treated as being as dumb as it ought to be. \n\n2) Schools can be sued by pare... | null |
t3lw5 | Why are solar panels flat and not concave? | [
{
"answer": "I think you are confusing [solar panels](_URL_0_) with [solar furnaces](_URL_1_).\n\nA solar furnace typically *does* have parabolic mirrors like you described which reflect sunlight to some concentrated point with the hopes of using the heat energy (by say, boiling water) to generate energy.\n\nSo... | null |
4m1kyr | Why don't deBrogile wavelengths get infinitely large as an object's speed approaches zero? | [
{
"answer": "It does get arbitrarily large; Heisenberg's uncertainty principle implies that if you measure p close to 0 then the wave function will have to be spread out in space. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2175469",
"title... | null |
htyff | How much gasoline do various activities in one's car use up? | [
{
"answer": "You might want to look up 'hypermiling'; it is a method of driving aimed to maximise fuel economy. I'm sure someone in that community has run the numbers on all those sorts of things. \n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "(assuming you're American): 1 hp = 745 watts. Figure y... | null |
8enpem | how do electrical instruments work? | [
{
"answer": "No. Electrical musical instruments work by having magnetic pickups which output a signal based on the frequency of the vibrating metal string. This output current is then amplified and converted into sound by the amplifier.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "When you take a string, st... | null |
4r8011 | Monday Methods| Reading Historical Fiction | [
{
"answer": "I'm only an amateur historian, but I've always used historical fiction as a gateway to learning about the real stuff, and I've channeled that into teaching history to my teenage son (daughter & I do different things, because she has different interests). \n\nHe's not much of a book reader, so I u... | null |
1f4n6o | What is the probability of 2 snowflakes being the same | [
{
"answer": "Depends on what you define as \"the same\" snowflake (the same or merely looks the same). And how large your minimum snowflake needs to be before you consider it. The smallest ice crystals can easily be alike. For large complex snowflakes there are more possible shape configurations than atoms in t... | null |
amjl95 | Do other planets have weather? | [
{
"answer": "Oh yes.\n\n- **Venus**: There's hardly any axial tilt, so not much in the way of seasons. The atmosphere is so thick near the surface that it has a huge thermal inertia, so not much in the way of warm/cold fronts. Similarly, because the atmosphere near the surface is so sluggish, winds there never ... | null |
1v4ywi | Do we know that pre-historic Megalodon wasn't a hammerhead type shark? | [
{
"answer": "It's full name is *Carcharodon megalodon*, so it's in the same genus as the great white shark (*Carcharodon carcharias*). Their teeth are so similar that most scientists agree that this is the correct classification, and as far as I'm aware, there's no evidence to suggest that they belonged to Sphy... | null |
5dj1v4 | Why/how did some diseases receive names which sound like peoples' (last) names? (i.e., Crohn's, Parkinson's) | [
{
"answer": "Chrons was names after Dr. Burril Chron who described it in the 30s, Parkinson's was again after the person to describe it Dr. James Parkinson in the 1800s, ALS is Lou Gehrig's because of baseball player Lou Gehrig who was a very well known person who had it.\n\nAll these are Googleable btw",
"... | null |
2vkhlq | am i legally allowed to build a spaceship and launch into space? | [
{
"answer": "There are private companies that launch satellites on a fairly regular basis. But the FAA has some regulations you'd need to get around.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "If you live in the US, then you would have to get a license from the FAA (since you don't want it to hit any flyi... | null |
2f5gps | what difference will it make if i use soap instead of shampoo for my hair? what if i just use conditioner everyday instead of shampoo, will it be better for my hair? | [
{
"answer": "Short answer: maybe nothing, or maybe your skin gets a little drier with soap. Nothing but conditioner will leave your scalp a little more oily but you'd adapt to that eventually.\n\nLonger answer: Shampoo is (typically, if somebody chimes in saying BUT WHAT ABOUT THHHIISSS BRAND, please go away) b... | null |
3x0vex | Why are p-values reported as "significant" or not, vs. just giving the value? | [
{
"answer": "Pre-computers, computation of exact p-values used to be very hard, and the only available means of calculating p-values were tables, which were tabulated for a combination of convenience and compactness. Therefore, p-values calculated using tables were relatively low-fidelity, and 0.05 was chosen a... | null |
4yc8ip | why is crawling on hands and knees so tiring for an adult but babies have no problem? | [
{
"answer": "I think you are assuming that it's no problem for a baby to crawl around. Babies crawl because they want to start moving around but don't have the strength to stand on two legs yet. So they do what they can, which is crawl. You'll notice that babies crawl for a bit, then rest, on repeat. It's b... | null |
1b48vg | When doing something strenuous, such as lifting weights, why does it feel necessary to tightly close your eyes? | [
{
"answer": "I believe what you are talking about is called the valsalva maneuver. Which is defined as trying to exhale with a closed glottis (breathing out without letting air out). This along with the contraction of your thoracic and abdominal muscles makes your core more solid. A solid core better transfers ... | null |
26mi5a | What physical properties does a pH meter use to measure pH? | [
{
"answer": "At the tip of the probe there is a thin glass bulb. Inside the bulb are two electrodes that measure voltage. One electrode is contained in a liquid with a fixed pH. The other electrode responds to the pH of the water sample. The difference in voltage between the two probes is used to determine the ... | null |
48uksx | what's the explanation for physically recoiling when we see something really odd or disturbing? | [
{
"answer": "We were once animals (less evolved) and animals do it. \n\nThe instinct to recoil is stronger than our cognitive ability. Recoiling probably had an evolutionary advantage. It's just today we are in a bubble of safety, but the instinct hasn't evolved out of us. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
1bgpex | Does flying an airplane against the rotation of the planet result in a shorter duration of flight vs a flight with the rotation if the planet? | [
{
"answer": "The plane flies at a certain speed relative to the air, and the air rotates with the Earth, so no.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "16864766",
"title": "Polar wander",
"section": "Section::::True polar wander.... | null |
1syxy6 | In English, when did "ask" replace "ax" and why has "ax" remained in usage by some groups (like some African-Americans)? | [
{
"answer": "As your own question shows, “ask” did not replace “aks,” since “aks” is still in common use. You find it not only in African-American English, but numerous British dialects use it as well.\n\nThe better way to think about it is that these are two variants that have always been present. Some people ... | null |
qcbw6 | if the calender is based on astronomy, how did they do it in the dark ages? | [
{
"answer": "The leap-year was invented in ancient Rome (the Julian calendar).",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I've not heard that astronomy was ever heresy. But in any case Europe didn't change calendars during the Dark Ages. The [Julian calendar](_URL_0_) adopted by Julius Caesar was in use u... | null |
14wo2l | How were jewels cut and polished prior to the modern era? | [
{
"answer": "I had to dig for it but I found it. [link](_URL_0_)\n\nInteresting reading. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I do a bit of lapidary work, [I posed a similar question to other lapidaries on the Gemology Online Forum a while back.](_URL_0_) They posted some good source material.\n\n... | null |
1eaedf | What is the smallest radius planet that we could realistically walk on in earth like gravity? | [
{
"answer": "This depends. If you assume a planet can be made out of any thing, take enough of the heaviest known element to have the same mass as the Earth, then determine its radius from its density.\n\nIf you are talking about planets like the Earth, with the same mass and density profile, the answer is the ... | null |
1rp5hk | why after running for a while do my lungs get that painful burning sensation? | [
{
"answer": "If it happens in cold weather, it could be simply from the cold air, especially if you're breathing through your mouth. The cold dry air doesn't warm up through your mouth, but it does through your nose. So, when you breathe through your mouth in the cold weather, your lungs get cold dry air in the... | null |
c3dli0 | on some websites it says that venus is hotter than mercury because it has an atmosphere, however where does that heat energy transfer to if space is a vacuum? | [
{
"answer": "Planets can also emit excess heat through *radiation,* typically by emitting infrared light.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There are two sources for heat on Venus. The first is the planet's interior. When the rocky inner planets formed, they were giant spheres of molten rock, and... | null |
5mm0s4 | Eating can raise dopamine, but how exactly? | [
{
"answer": "Oh my, this is a very complex question. What is your background in, I would like to try and get this across in an efficient way, but if you are unfamiliar with any molecular biology, biochem and a bit of anatomy (specifically neuroanatomy) it would be very time consuming to go through it. I would l... | null |
36k9wd | how and why did the levees in new orleans break during katrina? what should have been done before hand, if anything? | [
{
"answer": "One of the major levees that failed was the 17th st Canal. Beginning in 1999 it had been refurbished. I remember walking my dog along it from my parents house during the refurbishing.\n\n\n > An upgrade of the canal levees, floodwalls, and bridges began in 1999. The canal was considered in good sh... | null |
frhrt | How long is a blink? | [
{
"answer": "between 300-400 ms\n\nScientists have found that the human brain has a talent for ignoring the momentary blackout. The very act of blinking suppresses activity in several areas of the brain responsible for detecting environmental changes, so that you experience the world as continuous.",
"prove... | null |
1te4ka | how does spinning make thread longer than the fibers of the raw material without falling apart when pulled? | [
{
"answer": "It's actually quite amazing, though on the scale you are speaking of it can be easily defunct by some finger work, it's actually all friction. The best way to explain it is to see it. Check out one of the best mythbuster episodes of all time to really understand what I'm talking about. Here's a cli... | null |
9olfci | what causes a bullet/missile to spin after exiting the rifle? | [
{
"answer": "rivots in tbe barrel are there to give the projectile a spin and thus stabilising it when travelling. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[That would be because of what is predictably called \"rifling\".](_URL_0_) There are ridges on the inside of the barrel that dig into the projecti... | null |
spm2p | the different data plans for mobile networks | [
{
"answer": "Neither AT & T nor Verizon will sell new accounts with unlimited data for smartphones; instead, you pay for a set amount (e.g. 2GB or 5GB), and you pay overages when you surpass that. T-Mobile also keeps track of how much data you have used in a month, but when you go over their limit (5GB, if I'm... | null |
z3xwq | . maybe a dumb question, but why didn't the vietnam war produce terrorists, like conflicts in the middle-east? | [
{
"answer": "I would think that it didn't produce terrorists simply because Vietnam won the war. Once Vietnam had won, it had all it wanted, so there would be no benefit to it in attacking America further. They couldn't hope to spread communism to America via terrorism, and they had their country back, which me... | null |
vedfc | Did Nazi Germany have propaganda cartoons? | [
{
"answer": "E.g. [Der Störenfried](_URL_0_), 1940. Subtle.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "5244880",
"title": "Nazis in fiction",
"section": "Section::::Films and cartoons.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 6,
"s... | null |
1jpeft | Which technologies owe their invention and/or diffusion to the porn industry? | [
{
"answer": "The lack of data can probably be attributed to a few things;\n\n• Individuals and companies involved with these sort of decisions likely don't have many interviews/discussion in the mainstream\n• The factors involved with the adoption of a technology or solution are likely multifaceted and it would... | null |
1utj4t | why is that sometimes you go into a "stare"; where your eyes fix to a certain place and slowly go out of focus? | [
{
"answer": "I don't know the answer to your question, but the term I've always heard for this is \"zoning out\". You might try asking or searching under that name.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Charles (\"Chuck\") in the movie [*The Man Without a Face*](_URL_0_) displayed an extreme case of ... | null |
19u3mp | Is it true that as much as 2,3% of ships were being sunken by U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic? | [
{
"answer": "Lets look at the math of the whole thing : \n\n* First of all - that 2.3 % of all ships were lost doesn't mean that 2.3 % of all men on the ships were lost. Plus the rate soon dropped to 1.1 % with the use of bigger convoys. \n\n* Second : The rate is actually not so bad. Look at the number from [... | null |
7oqfmy | How was knowledge ‘lost’ after the fall of Rome? | [
{
"answer": "So just looking at western Europe and north Africa (where the empire fell the first and furthest), there are several processes that take place. First, though, it is important to understand what people mean when they say that knowledge was lost. There are basically three things that this can mean. T... | null |
atalsn | have we been able to find the center of the universe mathematically? | [
{
"answer": "There is no center of the universe. You can pick any point arbitrarily and it would be just as valid.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "We don't know if the universe has a center because we don't know if the universe has edges or if it goes on forever.\n\nWhat we do know is that the ... | null |
10clur | OK Reddit, can someone please explain to me the idea of someone's 'reaction time'? | [
{
"answer": "Everyone brain processes information at different speeds. The signal of seeing the ruler drop has to go through many parts of the brain.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The transmission speed isn't the speed of light. It's very electrical in nature, but not completely analogous to ... | null |
8p4l4l | where does the term "in-law" come from? | [
{
"answer": "Marriage is a legal construct: when you are wed, you are bound to another person and their family legally. For a very long time, marriage was about the consolidation of wealth and property more than romantic notions of couplehood. So the family of your betrothed become your family, not in blood, bu... | null |
6bqqrx | What happens on an atomic scale when water is boiled? | [
{
"answer": "Oversimplified, but when water boils, enough heat has been added to water molecules that they gain kinetic energy, causing the interactions between water molecules to become more transient and letting some water molecules escape into the gas phase (water vapor). \n\nIn contrast and also oversimplif... | null |
17v2se | What's the likelihood that the legacy of King Richard III was mostly Tudor propaganda to secure their claim to the English Throne? | [
{
"answer": "Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) did a fun series of shows called \"Medieval Lives\" with each episode focusing different types of people in Medieval Europe. His episode on [kings](_URL_0_) covers the three Richards.\n\nI can't speak to it's historical accuracy but it's a well done program.",
... | null |
n6lc6 | Are there any gases that can conduct eletricity? | [
{
"answer": "They all do. The voltage just needs to be strong enough to overcome the dielectric between the terminals. \n\nSome of them just do it better than others. Are you familiar with neon lighting? _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They all do. The voltage just needs to be stro... | null |
65vy4z | Is there any validity to the claim that Epsom salts "Increase the relaxing effects of a warm bath after strenuous exertion"? If so, what is the Underlying mechanism for this effect? | [
{
"answer": "First I would ask what exactly are \"relaxing effects\" and how do you measure them. If they are talking about muscle pain or soreness, there is very little research and not much info on the purported mechanism.\n\nThis is a nice overview:\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": ... | null |
26jmf3 | why doesnt the world appear 2d if i close one eye? | [
{
"answer": "It does appear in 2d. However your brain is good at recreating the 3rd dimension by calculating parallax as you change position, as well as monitoring and comparing changes in known sizes of things.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Binocular depth perception only works at fairly clo... | null |
373mn0 | why is two-x chromosomes a default sub? | [
{
"answer": "The default subs are based on popularity, which is based on how many members they have and how many people view them. They just happen to be the most popular subs, for whatever reason.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Whatever group of people that are responsible for choosing it con... | null |
bh61ri | how long could an umbilical cord stay attached and would it give any benefits? | [
{
"answer": "The umbilical cord should fall off after about 1-3 weeks. If it doesn't, it could be a sign of infection or an immune system disorder. This is because the baby's body has a white blood cell called a neutrophil whose job is cut off the umbilical cord so it falls off. If there is an immune system pro... | null |
4u9eua | what are the dark bruises under a person's eyes that appears when they're tired? | [
{
"answer": "When you're tired, the body releases a hormone called cortisol to boost energy levels, cortisol increases blood flow in the body.\n\nThe skin around a persons eye is a lot thinner than the rest of the body, so all the dark patches are is the blood vessels showing underneath the skin. It is more not... | null |
2i4gm8 | Why do food labels say you shouldn't microwave raw chicken? | [
{
"answer": "Microwave ovens don't heat very evenly, as anyone who has tried to eat a Hot Pocket can tell you. So when microwaving a large piece of chicken, there is a fairly high chance that spots within the chicken will be undercooked, and therefore at a higher risk of spreading food-borne illness. Regular ov... | null |
88p0jk | Anti-Semitism in 1942-1945 Nazi Germany Propaganda | [
{
"answer": "Modified from an [earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_) \n\n > Enjoy the war, for the peace is going to be terrible- popular German joke in the last year of the war\n\nAs the fortunes of war turned against Germany after the Battle of Stalingrad, German propaganda found an imperative need to readjust to... | null |
605u59 | what does it mean to be "red pilled?" | [
{
"answer": "In the film *The Matrix*, the main character is offered a red pill that (indirectly) allows him to perceive the world as it really is for the first time (the alternative blue pill would have let him keep his illusions and never find out the truth).\n\nIn internet talk, people who have adopted contr... | null |
2hn0l2 | why can i drink flavored drinks until i'm stick, but i struggle to drink the equivalent of water. | [
{
"answer": "A gallon of water a day? That seems like a hell of a lot quite frankly and unless your doing some heavy work outs I doubt you need that much. Actually that's related to why you cant drink much. Water doesn't really have much of a taste But since it's not for the taste you drink it purely to quench... | null |
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