id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
8zad9w | why do objects kept in the pockets of trousers often make a white-ish outline in the material? | [
{
"answer": "The hard object in your pocket creates raised areas in the fabric, and they do not give way when you brush up against an object. When you move around, you are constantly brushing up next to stationary objects, and your pants being soft, just move out of the way. But the hard items in your pockets c... | null |
wn9j9 | why should i switch from rgb to cmyk? | [
{
"answer": "Computer screens use [red, green, and blue lights](_URL_1_) in varying combinations/intensities to display colors, whereas printers use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (\"K\"). By creating something in CMYK mode, you ensure your colors are more accurately represented when printed. If you never pri... | null |
5peo3m | how do ticket-less rallies like the women's march calculate attendance? | [
{
"answer": "We know about how many people fill up each area from previous inaugurations. We also can calculate the metro trips too for some ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Although the task of determining how many people attend something as large as say, a political rally or a protest may see... | null |
9qdhre | Can you recommend a book on the history of western fashion (approximately 20th century)? | [
{
"answer": "I could have sworn that I put in a fashion section, but maybe I just suggested someone else paste my own list in. Anyway, I do have a [booklist in my profile](_URL_0_), though it does not have much in the way of description.\n\nHere is the problem, though - \"scholarly and in-depth\" generally don'... | null |
y9y6i | Gaius Marius and the Roman Republic | [
{
"answer": "That is a popular view, but I take a somewhat different view. Loyalty to the generals did not happen by accident. It came about because the Senate was generally bad about paying the troops what they were due. Had the senate kept its promises consistently, things might have gone very differently.... | null |
6luigk | why does a weird wavy patter appear if a small chequered pattern moves across a screen? | [
{
"answer": "As always, there's [a relevant xkcd](_URL_0_) for that!\n\nWhat you're seeing is a [moiré pattern](_URL_1_), which happens when a repeating pattern (lines, dots, a grid, etc) is more fine than the sensor/resolution of whatever is photographing or displaying it. Think of aliasing in videogames, whe... | null |
ffst65 | how does thermal imaging work? | [
{
"answer": "You build a camera that can see the color of light just slightly lower than red on the spectrum.\n\nThen show the intensity of this light as a color scale. White for a lot of intensity, black for none.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Heat sources emit electromagnetic radiation wit... | null |
29qhwr | We know that there's a superior speed limit in the universe, the speed of light. Is there an inferior speed limit? | [
{
"answer": "Motion is relative. You can always construct a perfectly consistent picture of the Universe (called a reference frame) in which you're at rest, or a particular given atom is at rest, and so on. In other words, complete rest is whatever you define it to be; there's no way to distinguish motion with ... | null |
5fzxou | In the history of mankind, is it likely that two people have had the same fingerprints? | [
{
"answer": "There have been people who have shared 15+ minutiae on a single finger. Unfortunately we didn't find this out until following a terrorist attack in Spain, where an Algerian? man bombed a rail station?, and fingerprints found on a detonator matched an American lawyer. However, there are 100s of minu... | null |
2e0q69 | If you throw the water out of a glass, in space, would the water move or remain in the glass? | [
{
"answer": "If your throw was very weak, surface tension may be strong enough to keep the water in the glass, but a reasonable amount of acceleration would probably be enough to overcome surface tension and allow the water to freely flow from the glass. You would probably cause one or a few large globs of wate... | null |
8jtrz9 | how many people lived in the city of Carthage in 150BC(IE right before the last punic war)? | [
{
"answer": "Followup question how many people were there in Rome at this time?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "6555",
"title": "Carthage",
"section": "Section::::Topography.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 12,
... | null |
abfw81 | why are burmese buddhists so violent? | [
{
"answer": "They’re so violent because they’re human.\n\nIn Myanmar/Burma, the Buddhists are the entrenched conservatives. The Rohinga are the foreign interlopers to them that won’t let things be done the good and proper way. When social pressure and non-violent pressure didn’t get them to conform, those in ... | null |
1hvl3v | Why doesn't a course of antibiotics for a urinary tract infection kill off all the good bacteria in my digestive system? | [
{
"answer": "There are several reasons. Firstly, different antibiotics target different bacterial systems (eg protein synthesis, cell wall formation etc) and differences in these systems between bacteria make some bacteria susceptible to treatment and some not. These bacteria would survive, continue to divide a... | null |
ij0f0 | Anyone out there an expert in opiate pharmacology and physiology? | [
{
"answer": " > It could be another process like activation of the reward/motivation pathway in the \"limbic system\" of the Basal ganglia, or due to decreased release of cortisol or norepinephrine. I can't find a single study on this particular phenomenon, at least not directly addressing the question.\n\nThi... | null |
c5z493 | when a large company is broken up via anti-trust litigation, how is it decided who owns the new, smaller companies? | [
{
"answer": "The same people who owned the larger company get an equal percentage of each of the smaller companies.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "396723",
"title": "Diseconomies of scale",
"section": "Section::::Solutio... | null |
2ago51 | if the countries debt is so massive ($17.075 trillion?) why don't the gov't just go all out and spend even more? the amount of debt doesn't seem to matter | [
{
"answer": "It doesn't seem to matter but it does. Technically the U.S. has a great credit score when it comes to paying off its loans. Our total debt is massive, but in the past the US has always paid off what it owes. If the US were to spend without check, it is more and more probable that they would in fact... | null |
rbxb1 | Can someone with a neuro-biology background tell me if this research is bunk or not? | [
{
"answer": "The only way someone can tell you if the research is legit or not is if they try to recreate parts of the experiment themselves... But since it has been peer reviewed and published I would venture to say that it has some merit... it would be more easy to confirm if I could access the full journal a... | null |
3ud3ot | if we managed to somehow go beyond the edge of the expanding universe in a space ship, what would we find? | [
{
"answer": "If the universe is finite then the answer to that question is very simple and this is why the Universe is so interesting: We do not know.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "This has always interested me too. They say the universe is always expanding but what is it expanding in too?",
... | null |
5erkj5 | Does the heat produced by combustion engines have an effect on Earth's temperature? | [
{
"answer": "The \"chemical waste\" also leads to heating, and much greater heating than that produced by the heat from internal combustion engines. Also, a lot of the energy from fossils fuels goes into move the cars.\n\nThe greenhouse gases, water, carbon dioxide and methane (from livestock), act as a 'blanke... | null |
10qplq | How do up and down quark decays produce W bosons? | [
{
"answer": "The *W* bosons created in this process are examples of *virtual particles*. They are able to exist for a brief period of time, despite what you would expect from energy/momentum/mass properties of the physical particles, thanks to the uncertainty principle, but for the same reason, they cannot eme... | null |
40mjv0 | There is a bird inside a large cargo plane. Does the plane weigh less if the bird flies inside the plane? | [
{
"answer": "The original answer to this question is of course correct.\n\nYou are wrong to assume that the \"downward pressure\" (or better said downward momentum of air) *dissipates* before reaching the floor. In fact it *disperses*. That means the momentum transferred by the wings onto few air molecules is t... | null |
1x3847 | Before the system broke down, how effective was enforcement of the parole system in the American Civil War? | [
{
"answer": "I'm still looking to find a complete answer, but I came across this fact that I didn't know before I started researching. Apparently there was a scale of which soldiers could be exchanged. For example, a General was worth more than one private in a one for one swap. I think of it like a deck of ... | null |
aw42l3 | the need to pee and proximety to the toilet? | [
{
"answer": "It has to do with \"Pavlovs Dog\", basically we're so used to or \"conditioned\" to associate the toilet with urinating.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "25657577",
"title": "Urine diversion",
"section": "Sect... | null |
dam4td | how do political polling places find people to use for their data? | [
{
"answer": "This is a very valid question. Obviously they didn't do a great job of this in 2016.\n\nThere are different methods, from talking to people in the street \"randomly\" (that would depend on what part of town you're in, and time of day, etc). letters to houses and hope people answer randomly. The b... | null |
7y9wxz | what is a viral vector? | [
{
"answer": "a viral vector is how a virus transmits. Viral means it duplicates and passes from person-person thing to thing, vector is just a direction, colloquially equivalent to \"way\".\n\nSo airborne viruses use air as a viral vector, things like aides use bodily fluids. Malaria uses Mosquitos as a viral v... | null |
est3a6 | why is assaulting a cop more serious than assaulting anyone else? | [
{
"answer": "Part of the reason is that police carry weapons. It may also have something to do with Police represent the law, and an assault on a police officer is therefore an assault on the law (older thinking?). That is just speculation though.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I don't have ... | null |
1w4vdu | How did the first person with a contagious disease get infected with it? | [
{
"answer": "infectious diseases evolve just like any other creature, and by doing so they also enable themselves to explore new places to live and be successful.\n\nIf the disease stays on one host, there is not really a patient zero, since evolution is a highly parallel and complex and many times rather conti... | null |
4x227u | Why was Sufi Islam particularly strong in Ottoman Empire when compared to other places? | [
{
"answer": "What makes you think that it was? Sufism was incredibly popular long before the rise of the Ottomans. It was and is extensively practiced, for example, in the Indian subcontinent and in South East Asia. Sufism was embraced by the Ottomans but I'm not sure I would describe it as being quantifiably s... | null |
4swimn | how do celebrities get social media handles with their names? do companies like twitter or instagram assist celebs in getting a marketable handle? | [
{
"answer": "Pretty much. They just message who ever owns one of those handles and just offers them money.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "As it is, yes. \n\nPeople who deliberately do this are called \"squatters,\" and while not looked highly upon, companies will still give big cash to the own... | null |
o2zmu | So, I was dumping out an old bottle of generic dayquil, and found two clear crystals, can you explain what I found? | [
{
"answer": "Could you give me a sense for how big they are? It'd also help to get a picture from another angle, possibly in some lighting with a little less glare.\n\nThe generic answer is: I don't know, and its difficult to tell without some analytical tests.\n\nI can be more specific than that, though. Dayqu... | null |
23r5dc | If I increase the Frequency of a sound wave will it travel further over a distance? | [
{
"answer": "If I understand you correctly, you are asking whether the rate at which the intensity/loudness of a wound wave decays over a finite distance depends on its frequency? If so, the answer is yes. If so, the answer is yes. The simplest model for this attenuation (weakening) of the wave in a fluid such ... | null |
6ub0zq | What's the difference between the Holocaust and the Shoah? | [
{
"answer": "Shoah is a Hebrew word, which means \"disaster.\" Holocaust is an English word derived from Greek, and as you pointed out, it means a sacrifice that's entirely consumed by fire (as opposed to other sacrifices, where only part is burned up and the rest is eaten), so it came to mean a total massacre.... | null |
3igu38 | Did anyone from past eras produce writings solely for the purpose of future historians to study? | [
{
"answer": "Many people do keep diaries for the purpose of reading them later and remembering/keeping a record of past events. They can be valuable for historians, especially if the diarist is unusual for their place/time in keeping a diary. Martha Ballard is kind of a canonical example of this -- she was an 1... | null |
jtvxe | We've seen pictures of Stellar Nurseries, huge nebulae created by the death of a star. How can the mass of a single star create a nebula that goes on to create many new stars and accompanying planets? | [
{
"answer": "I think you might be confusing stellar nurseries, like the [Orion Nebula](_URL_1_), which is a huge cloud that had a mass thousands of times the mass of our Sun before any stars formed in it, with planetary nebulae, like the [Ring Nebula](_URL_0_) which are the expelled layers of old/dying stars. P... | null |
2eh84l | why is zoe quinn being defended? | [
{
"answer": "The are uninformed and they try to fight misogony, thinking that the only side of the story is her getting harassed on the internet. Just lack of resaserch on their part.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "She is a person in a creative field open to commentary by the internet. There a... | null |
3x39r1 | how is it that for two months california has had a methane leak and it won't be fixed until spring? | [
{
"answer": "In order to fix the leak, workers have to drill 8500 feet down into the earth, find the underground well, and pump it full of concrete. This process will take months, and can't realistically be sped up.\n\nEDIT: For a more detailed answer, see u/WalterLSU below.\n\nEDIT 2: More info with pictures:\... | null |
1fu633 | When and why did English orthography stop using Þ (thorn) and ð (eth)? | [
{
"answer": "As far as thorn goes, early English printing presses used imported type that didn't include thorn. Printers would either use \"th\" or use a y as a thorn, which wasn't too much of a stretch (a handwritten thorn looked like a y). Sort of like how typewriters would use the same character for lowercas... | null |
bjbh6h | Why does beta plus (β+) decay happen in proton-proton chain reactions; why don't the two protons just form helium instead of deuterium? | [
{
"answer": "Helium-2 is unbound, so it decays on extremely short timescales. The only way to combine two protons into a bound system is to rely on the weak force to change one of the protons into a neutron, producing a deuteron.\n\nThis is not a beta decay, it's a nuclear reaction which involves the weak force... | null |
2ki93r | Has anyone ever become a Saint in their lifetime? | [
{
"answer": "I don't believe that has ever happened. An integral part of being declared a saint (canonized) in the Catholic Church is that the person is declared to be in Heaven, so that precludes still being alive on Earth. The Dominican priest (and professor) who inspired my username asserted that the Churc... | null |
258lzc | when a body decays, where do those white maggots(?) suddenly come from? | [
{
"answer": "Flies are really good at detecting rotting meat, land on the meat to eat and breed and lay eggs, then the eggs hatch into maggots. Flies are tiny and quick so you won't really see them on a timelapse video.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Flies. Flies lay eggs, those eggs hatch, a... | null |
3c4u8e | why is the world not on a universal time? in other words why is it not "13:00 pm" all around the world - some would come to see it as daytime afternoon, others late afternoon, and yet others early morning. | [
{
"answer": "The military uses this for large scale operations, in their use of \"Zulu Time\".\n\n\"Zulu\" time is that which you might know as \"GMT\" (Greenwich Mean Time). Our natural concept of time is linked to the rotation of the earth and we define the length of the day as the 24 hours it takes the earth... | null |
19ia5l | Is there actual evidence that the ancient Irish sucked their kings' nipples to display fealty? | [
{
"answer": "Thank you for posting this as it's a really good question. I'm by no means an expert on Irish (especially early-Irish) history so I would wait until somebody else gives you a definitive answer on this. As the article you link to suggests, it does appear that sucking nipples was a means to pledge lo... | null |
cdwowv | Resources to learn about US colonization/imperialism in Latin America | [
{
"answer": " [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) \n\nHow to Hide an Empire is a pretty good source for American influences in Latin America, there is some focus on the Pacific islands and the Philippines but that is also pretty closely tied to Latin America in terms of Spanish influence",
"provenance": null
},
{
"a... | null |
92jmbc | Why doesn't carbon monoxide turn into carbon dioxide when additional oxygen becomes present? | [
{
"answer": "Once it's out in the atmosphere yes some of it may oxidise to CO2 but a lot will remain as CO and cause low-level pollution and in turn health problems. So a catalytic converter is used to speed up the rate at which the CO oxidises to CO2 whilst it's still in the hot exhaust gases.",
"provenanc... | null |
56gpkn | Why does cellular regeneration degrade as an organism ages? | [
{
"answer": "This was recently discussed in the comments section on a post about an anti-aging substance found on Easter Island. I'll do my best to repeat what I learned. \n\nDNA has empty sections reserved for errors when replicating. Each time DNA is replicated these lengths, called telomeres, get shorter. Fo... | null |
coqey5 | the whole jeffrey epstein situation | [
{
"answer": "So he was charged with sexual trafficking of minors and was awaiting trial in jail. Two weeks ago he was found in his cell unconscious with neck injuries, he was placed on suicide watch and released a few days later. Today he was found dead, reported hanging himself. Those are the facts. \n\n\nWhat... | null |
tvz1t | [meta] what if i told you that you could get the most out of [eli5] if you brought an already correct answer to a question that interests you, but you just need someone to *explain* it to you. | [
{
"answer": "Another suggestion, stop down voting correct answers that are hard for you to understand, even hard for anyone to understand. Save your down votes for \"bad explanations\" of correct answers or \"incorrect answers\". \n\nThis subreddit should be about up voting great explanations of correct answers... | null |
1b8qjt | Did the United States government ever consider allying with the Axis powers in WWII? | [
{
"answer": "No chance as long as Roosevelt was president. No real chance even without him, for that matter. There were some \"pro-Axis\" men in congress, but their numbers were small. The pro-Axis faction was more focused on keeping America out than on getting them in on Germany's side. They tended to focu... | null |
1tq100 | why does david cameron want mandatory porn filters for uk internet users? | [
{
"answer": "Information control. Australia's government tried to same thing a couple of years ago but it failed. Turned out that porn was just going to be the first step and then after that it was going to be everything the government didn't like. Whoever controls the information has the power. The idea is... | null |
7zchm5 | Is there any evidence of trench warfare in the Civil War before Petersburg? | [
{
"answer": "I would caution against the anachronistic use of the term 'trench warfare' in the American Civil War. The term is typically used to describe the Western Front of WWI, where the numbers, firepower, and dispositions of the combatants allowed the continuous front lines to extend from the Alps to the ... | null |
9kvxlw | Does adding more heat to a pot of boiling water make it cook things faster? | [
{
"answer": "This is the thing about latent heat. No matter how much heat you give to a pot of water, until all of the water has turned to steam, temperature of that vessel will not cross 100 degrees Celsius (212 F). More heat will boil the water quickly, for the same quantity of water ",
"provenance": null... | null |
62ui2r | Why were the Gracchus Brothers allowed to be People's Tribunes? Weren't they patricians? | [
{
"answer": "No, the Gracchi were members of the *gens Sempronia*, an old plebeian *nobilis* family. The senatorial class had included plebeians for centuries by the time of the Gracchi, since the resolution of the Conflict of the Orders, and by Caesar's time the patrician order had essentially ceased to exist.... | null |
1c726r | what it is to default on a debt. what are the consequences? | [
{
"answer": "Let's forget about bonds for a minute, and think about a personal loan which you might take out from the bank (which is essentially the same thing on a smaller scale).\n\nNo one can force you to repay that loan. If you fail to pay it, though, then your credit rating will suffer. You will have to pa... | null |
26ulna | how is the sat scored? | [
{
"answer": "It has been a while since I have taken the SAT and it might have changed more since I have taken it. First there is a raw score. For this score in the multiple choice section, you get a point for each question you get right, zero points for questions that you did not answer and lose 1/4 of a point ... | null |
3ctoxa | How were Americans treated/viewed in Japan (Tokyo specifically) during the Taishō era? (1912-1926) | [
{
"answer": " > Were US students allowed to attend the University of Tokyo?\n\nI don't know if they were allowed earlier, but the first non-Japanese American to graduate from the University of Tokyo was Don Cyril Gorham, who graduated in March 1941. So if there were any American students in the Taisho period, ... | null |
cs94dh | Why did the German Army invade Netherlands in World War II, when in World War I, Dutch armed neutrality deterred the Germans? | [
{
"answer": "Hello! As a Dutchman this post stood out to me, while I am not an expert on WW2 history, I will explain the history behind the German invasion of the Netherlands as I understand it.\n\n**World War 1**\n\nThe Netherlands maintained an armed neutrality throughout WW1 and declared itself to be neutral... | null |
7zhdcc | describe the process of gaining weight. from ingestion to digestion and so on. | [
{
"answer": "When you eat food, your body breaks down the larger nutritious molecules into simple glucose molecules. Glucose is the fuel that your body uses. The body takes a few steps to do this starting with physically grinding up the food with your teeth, then chemical breakdown with your saliva, then furth... | null |
33y1c4 | What determines the frame of reference for us to feel acceleration? | [
{
"answer": "You would feel the same force on you independent of the earth. If you were flying and accelerating you would feel the same force. It is only created through your inertia that \"presses against the acceleration\". Your inertia will keep you in place for whatever direction and speed you were moving w... | null |
cu632r | What weapons were popular with Vikings during raids? Did they ever use siege engines? What kind of armor was commonly worn? | [
{
"answer": " > Did they ever use siege engines? What kind of armour was worn?\n\nI wrote an answer about the phases of Viking raiding activity [here](_URL_0_), but whether for opportunistic profit or as part of a diversion strategy, Viking raiding parties aimed to be as highly mobile as possible. Despite what... | null |
q974p | Why can't surgeons always implant an artificial heart instead of giving a heart transplant? | [
{
"answer": "The short answer is that the technology just isn't there yet. \n\nThe heart is often called a pump, but its not just a pump. It is two intelligent pumps.\nIt adjusts its stroke volume, its cardiac output, its heart rate, all automatically. If you need more blood, your nervous system can stimulate i... | null |
ut6um | How do glow sticks work? | [
{
"answer": "The glow stick has two main components: a mixture of diphenyl oxalate and various dyes, and a small glass tube filled with hydrogen peroxide. By bending the stick, you break the glass, releasing the hydrogen peroxide. The H2O2 decomposes the diphenyl oxalate, producing 2 phenyl groups and a molec... | null |
aq5qcc | what is being woke and what does it mean to be woke? | [
{
"answer": "Being \"woke\" is slang these days for being \"awakened to the truth\" so to speak. In lamens terms, being aware of global issues that are usually ignored by the ignorant.\nVeganism, global crises, conservation, the meat trade, government conspiracies etc are all things that \"woke\" people stereot... | null |
10jzlr | Why is the Earth's freshwater supply diminishing? | [
{
"answer": " > it goes to the sewage cleaning facility, and then back to our water taps. \n\nThis isn't quite right, most of our treated sewage does not get sent back to the water supply as it's not fit for drinking and we either drain it into the ocean or use it for irrigation and other non-drinking uses. Mo... | null |
3tvfts | whats the difference between honey and syrup? | [
{
"answer": "Honey is made by bees. Syrup is (at heart) made by plants -- though cooks process the heck out of it before we put it on pancakes.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "61319715",
"title": "Honey syrup",
"section"... | null |
9l8jeg | How do PET scans work? Confused between gamma emitters vs positron emitters. | [
{
"answer": "Emitting a positron and emitting a gamma ray are two totally different kinds of nuclear decays.\n\nAs the P in PET implies, it’s very important that a positron emitter is used, and not just any gamma emitter.\n\nThat’s because the emitted positron comes to rest somewhere near the place where the de... | null |
apmk34 | What are historically the most peaceful countries? | [
{
"answer": "Mostly countries who have a lack of natural resources that other countries desire. This includes countries like iceland or as you said new zealand. But there is also the factor that these countries(like the ones listed above) were protected by powerful empires.\n\nThere is also the factor that thes... | null |
9baj0n | how does the finance industry benefit society? | [
{
"answer": "Depends which part you are talking about. You can get a financial advisor which will help you manage your assets and set you up so you can retire. You can deal with people that forecast costs a business will have to spend so you can plan for it. You can buy stocks and bonds which help 1 party get m... | null |
ah7h8e | how does a company go about separating, like with activision blizzard? | [
{
"answer": "I can’t say In activisions case. But my old company simply bought themselves a majority share. This means the company took all of their profits and bought back their own stock. In my old companies case it took around 10 years to complete but with enough capital a company could do it overnight.",... | null |
fhoi9 | If the Earth was a smooth, frictionless object (still spinning and revolving around the sun) and if I were to set an equally smooth ball rolling, would it circle the Earth forever? | [
{
"answer": "I don't think that saying that your ball is \"frictionless\" allows it to overcome wind resistance. So even if touching Earth's surface didn't slow it down, the air around it would.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "If it were truly frictionless, you wouldn't even need to roll it. Gr... | null |
82f2sa | why would a company spend money making offices in a leased spaced. doesn't the landlord "own" and benefit from all of the enhancements? | [
{
"answer": "There are two basic issues here. First, the benefits and drawbacks of owning vs leasing and second the issue of \"improvements\" as you put it.\n\nThe pros and cons of buying vs renting/leasing are well understood and have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Generally leasing is better for cash ... | null |
1aetkc | why do conspiracy theorists care if drones patrol our cities? | [
{
"answer": "Do you care if the police install cameras in your house, your bedroom, your toilet, or your shower? Why? Unless you're committing a crime who cares?\n\nThe idea is that people like having privacy even if it isn't to commit a crime. I don't think you're a conspiracy theorist if you'd like to have... | null |
2mwj4y | why does every text to speech synthetic voice pretty much suck? | [
{
"answer": "We've been trying to get computers to understand natural languages for 50 years. We still haven't succeeded at that. And until we get that, we're not going to be able to get the cadence right. There's a ton of research in this area- companies like Google and Microsoft are throwing tons of money at ... | null |
inmms | For other planets, how do scientist determine which pole is the North one? | [
{
"answer": "Just for clarity, the Earth's north and south poles do not align with the magnetic north and south poles. If a planet has a magnetic north and south pole then it is easy to determine which is which by just following the magnetic field. \n\nFor the geographic poles they are determined by convention ... | null |
155i4k | How large would the universe be if there was no empty space between protons, neutrons, and electrons? | [
{
"answer": "In the primordial, young, small, hot universe, there weren't protons and neutrons at all. Nucleosysnthesis didn't occur until there was enough space to have them around. So the question is sort of ill posed. Expect varying answers.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I suppose we co... | null |
5tzvng | Is it true that baths and personal hygiene were considered dangerous for your health during the 16th/17th century in Europe? | [
{
"answer": "In the mid-1480s, Nuremberg printer Hans Folz published a guide to the various public hot springs and baths he had encountered in his travels, stretching from Germany to the border of Spain. In rhyming verse, so people would remember. In 1638, on the other hand, Francis Bacon advised that it was be... | null |
5kh4i6 | why does thinking about our subconscious actions make them manual? | [
{
"answer": "It doesn't. Your breathing isn't manual. You're just aware of it. Being aware of your breathing does not put you in imminent danger of asphyxiation. \n\nPeople who buy into this myth are expecting their breathing to become manual, so they hold their breath and then choose to stop holding their brea... | null |
2ao8tc | how come my dog can sleep in crazy positions and not hurt her neck but if i sleep just slightly off my pillow or at an odd position my neck hurts all day. | [
{
"answer": "Partially because we evolved to walk upright, that changed the way our spine works in relation to quadrupeds, and means we have a lot less flexibility in our neck than they do. The movement of our head is severely restricted, for this reason our neck muscles are a lot less powerful and developed th... | null |
956ftm | Have there ever been any conflicts between the Republic of Congo and DRC over who gets the name "Congo? | [
{
"answer": "Supplementary question - what was the origin of the name \"Zaire\" and why was it dropped in favour of the current (confusing) DRC?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "13728759",
"title": "Republic of the Congo (Léopoldv... | null |
3i0eym | why do "million" and "millennia" sound the same, but one refers to millions and the other refers to thousands? | [
{
"answer": "Both derive from the word 'mille', thousand. But million refers to thousand thousands, whereas millennia refers to thousand years, or 'mille anni'.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "1045999",
"title": "1,000,000",
... | null |
147q0s | The spread of Confucianism to Japan and Korea | [
{
"answer": "Since no one has answered, I'll mention that in Vietnam from the 15th century on, the ruling dynasties adopted Confucianism as the core state ideology because 1.) the Vietnamese elite found it appealing to adopt and modify the cultural identity of the Chinese elite and 2.) because the Confucian/Chi... | null |
d9v7pp | why can't we put a metallic grille on plane reactors to keep birds from getting to the engine? | [
{
"answer": "We can’t do this because if a bird we’re to hit the grille and damage it, it could cause more damage as the grille will become entangled in the engine.\n\nMost engines only take ~20% of air through the core of the engine, everything else is bypassed and creates thrust",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
1idhit | Do we know exactly how strong the Olympians of ancient Greece were compared to the Olympians of today? | [
{
"answer": "Keep in mind that the Olympics was a ritual rather than a purely athletic event. Ancient Greeks did not generally record the distances, weights, or times of the races and competitors. All that mattered was beating everyone else - lifting more than all the previous people, finishing this race first.... | null |
2pn166 | Was the M4 Sherman a good or bad tank? | [
{
"answer": "As we can see from my flair I'm hardly a tank expert, but if flammability is the only criterion for being a bad tank the M4 was certainly a whole lot better than most of the tanks that one might laud as excellent. The Tiger was know for catching fire even when it hadn't been shot, as was the Panthe... | null |
vsvsx | why are the trees still standing with green when the homes are charred? _url_0_ | [
{
"answer": "The level of moisture in living trees is much greater than that of lumber and other building materials.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "5192445",
"title": "Parkinsonia microphylla",
"section": "Section::::Des... | null |
bhnubv | if cameras can take videos with fps equaling single shutter speeds, why do photographers take dedicated still shots instead of video recording everything and later just isolating single frames for “photographs?” | [
{
"answer": "In some cases you can, but when you take a single frame you have more control over the light. When you take a photo you can balance the depth of field, aperture size and iso- getting the right ratio of the three can give you much needed control in certain scenarios. When you record video- most of... | null |
2gi3uf | Which bacteria did mitochondria come from? | [
{
"answer": "you're close. [cyanobacteria are thought to have given rise to chloroplasts,](_URL_2_) not mitochondria.\n\nBut your professor is probably also wrong. It's still controversial, but [mitochondria are thought to have come from something like Rickettsia](_URL_0_), maybe (s)he meant [alphaproteobacter... | null |
4ifeq8 | Why does buoyancy equal the density of the fluid multiplied by the submerged volume times the gravitational acceleration, g and not the density of the object submerged? | [
{
"answer": " > why does buoyancy have to do with the weight of displaced fluid rather than the weight of the object submerged?\n\nThe weight of the object is the irrelevant to the buoyant force. The water doesn't \"know\" what the weight of the object is, it just exerts a pressure on it. The total force (which... | null |
ai4cnu | how do large companies send bulk letters? | [
{
"answer": "I worked at a company where I spent one whole week with just printing letters (I had data from excel worksheet), putting them into envelopes and then bringing them to post office. I had to take one colegue with me, because every day, it was like 60 kilograms of envelopes. \n\nSo it’s mostly repetit... | null |
4pdk2x | how does the sit in that is going on in the house of representatives work? | [
{
"answer": "In the civil rights movement, sit-ins were very popular. Another word for it could be incompetence, but not in a bad way.\nWith these people, they are basically saying that they will not leave the floor until a bill is passed to increase gun control. The house cannot continue with a normal session ... | null |
1qi4fn | how do polygraphs work. | [
{
"answer": "They detect abnormal changes in heartbeat, blood pressure, etc. They prime these machines by asking you simple questions (like, \"what is your name?\") to see how you react when telling the truth. Theoretically there should be physical results when you lie that you have no control over. Problem is ... | null |
5bc6k4 | Did the Romans have any racial prejudices that they held, particularly when they conquered other lands with people of darker skin tones? Did this factor into who was or wasn't sold into slavery? | [
{
"answer": "Hi, hopefully someone can drop by with an answer particularly wrt slavery, but meanwhile, you may be interested in a few earlier discussions\n\n* FAQ section [Pre-History of \"Race\" and Racism](_URL_5_), particularly the following\n\n * [Racism in the ancient world?](_URL_0_) featuring /u/einhverf... | null |
42hl8t | what are eyeballs doing when looking at autostereograms (magic eyes) and why can some people not see the hidden image? | [
{
"answer": "Typically, your vision is diverging, although some stereograms are designed with a cross-eyed view.\n\nYou are basically tricking your brain into thinking you are looking at something three-dimensional.\n\nWhen you diverge your eyes, you are focusing them at a point *behind* the paper. Normally, th... | null |
6ht017 | How was the Republic of China able to fight off the Japanese between 1937-1945, while also fighting against the Communist Party 1927-1950, and being split between warlords? | [
{
"answer": "Both the Communists and Warlords were a significant distraction for the Nationalists during the war against the Japanese, however the Nationalists did not fight all three at the same time.\n\nThe Nationalists actively avoided engaging with the Japanese until 1937 (the invasion of Manchuria occurred... | null |
ff974 | What's the status of the conclusions of the Miller-Urey experiment today? | [
{
"answer": "Well we're finding evidence of things like [left handed amino acids on asteroids](_URL_0_). IMO, the Miller-Urey experiment is a good *demonstration* that amino acids and organic compounds can be formed by spontaneous means, but the earth need not have done it through lightning and methane and wha... | null |
1m8dr3 | At what point did self replicating molecules become what today is known as life? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not sure I'm understand the question, since I would consider \"self-replicating molecules\" be a definition of \"life\", which would then make your question \"At what point did life become life?\".",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipe... | null |
5472ai | Why can't the Navier Stokes equations be solved in 3-D? | [
{
"answer": "Simple explanation: this Nonlinear PDE does't have a closed form solution. We approximate in a way that is analogous to Riemann sums in integral calculus which is what is known as CFD. \n\nThe millennium prize has a good write up on why this hasn't been solved. \n\nTrivia: A famous physicist once s... | null |
184dti | I am 23 years old, does my body still have the atoms in it that made up the sperm and egg cell that made me? | [
{
"answer": "No, around 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced each year.\n\n- _URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'm just an undergraduate chemistry student, but I would venture to say that it is very likely that you still have atoms in your body that made up the egg and sperm that yo... | null |
nswmh | Is developing near or far sightedness something unique to humans, or could other animals conceivably develop poor vision? | [
{
"answer": "Lots of animals have bad distance vision..they tend to use other senses for sensing far away, or spend most of their time in enclosed spaces. Rhinos are notorious examples, but lots of mammals are this way.\n\nWorth noting that human nearsightedness appears to be largely environment induced, and i... | null |
30il3l | the sounds a computer makes when downloading | [
{
"answer": "Downloading data is silent. What you're likely hearing is the sound of the hard drive writing the data to disc. For old HDDs (not newer SSDs), the data is stored on magnetic platters and read/written by a read/write head at the end of an articulated arm. The movement of the arm along with the sp... | null |
3ddafb | why is there such racial tension between australian aboriginals and australians? | [
{
"answer": "After taking the land, killing the bulk of indigenous Australians, forcibly removing their children, systematically destroying their culture, then dragging them into an English style European society which we then excluded them from actually taking part in. They had a few good reasons not too like ... | null |
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