Split (3)

train · 273k rows

title stringlengths 0 299	text list
Why "crazy people" have that distinctive look to their eyes	[ "In many psychotic individuals, the wide eyed look is because of their intense anxiety levels. It's more than just the eyes though. In someone psychotically agitated, you'll see facial grimacing and body postures indicating stress or aggression as well.\n\nThe scariest patients are the ones that have a flat affec...
The NASA twin study. I know what it is. Just explain their findings. Like I'm 5. Years old. Thanks.	[ "There are a lot of effects on the human body from being in space. Micro gravity affects your muscles and bones, there are weird particles that pass through your body (including your eyes and brain, which cause [strange flashes](_URL_0_)). It's hard to study the long-term effects of being in space, though, because ...
What is the point of money?	[ "It helps to understand the barter system. \n\nBefore we had money, you would travel to a central trading post a few times a year to get things you couldn't make yourself. You would haul things with you to trade - maybe a stack of animal pelts, or jars of jam, or sacks of wheat flour. You would negotiate with th...
Why does charge build up in a cloud?	[ "Bits of dust stick to the water or float through the air. The dust and water rubs against each other and every time they do, some electrons get passed from one to the other. Then the particles wander off again before the electrons get passed back. This goes on enough, and tons of electrons get thrown around u...
the hypothetical turtle on an island in the sun question?	[ "I think what you are taking about is a test from the book \"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep\" on which the film \"Blade Runner\" was based.\n\nIf so, the test aims to distinguish humans from androids ('replicants') through their emotional response to questions requiring empathy.\n\n_URL_0_", "I've met a fe...
how does a home equity loan work?	[ "A home equity loan is a loan that is based off the difference between the value of the house and the current balance of the primary mortage.\n\nIf you paid $50,000 for a house that's worth $75,000, you can get $25,000 in equity loans. Subsequently, if your house was worth $75K when you bought it and it's now wo...
In English, what is the rule for the use of “An” or “A”	[ "An is used for words that start with a vowel sound.\n\nExamples,\n\nAn owl, an hour, an eight, an apple, an onion.\n\nA is used for all others.", "It has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with how the word sounds. If a word starts with a vowel sound, you use 'an', otherwise, you use 'a'.\n\nNote this is h...
Why do we have two small nostrils and not one larger nostril?	[ "It's usually not noticeable unless you sniff harshly, but one nostril is usually more open and free-flowing than the other. \n\nThe nostril that's closed usually swaps back and forth after several hours throughout the day. When a nostril is more closed, it's swollen, because the blood vessels inside the nose are s...
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)	[ "I stumpled across this subreddit and saw this and said, what an excellent chance for me to jump in for once.\n\nI am a network Engineer.\n\nBGP is a very, very complex routing protocol that the entire internet pretty much runs on.\n\nI don't know how familiar you are with routing protocols, but there a lot of thin...
Why do car rims appear to be rotating backwards after a car accelerates?	[ "/r/flooey is partially correct. That is the reason wheels appear to move backwards on film. This effect can be leveraged with a stroboscope [for an odd illusion](_URL_0_) even in real life, by imitating the film effect and only allowing your eyes to see individual 'frames' in time.\n\nHowever, as you probably noti...
How the heck do authorities determine who started a massive fire in the middle of the woods somewhere?	[ "The first arriving units will most often be at the fire before it gets large, so they can relay to the investigators where the fire was and how big it was when they arrived on scene. \nFires will also leave lots of clues as to how fast and hot it burned but also the direction that it came from. There are origin in...
How do film/tv productions handle deaths of actors? Examples?	[ "Usually it leaves them scrambling. I know when John Ritter died they actually had to write that death into \"8 Simple Rules\".", "It depends on the situation, how much the actor has already shot, if it's an ongoing series etc. Ledger hadn't shot many scenes of Dr. Parnassus if I remember right so they put in wh...
Does the Sound Increase in Real Life when Someone on Television Increases the Sound?	[ "The volume control on your laptop or speakers essentially controls the loudest volume you can get - anything that tries to be louder can be distorted. But anything quieter than that is possible.\n\nSo what might be happening in the movie is that the radio might start at a quarter of the maximum volume level. When ...
What would happen if all the countries wiped all the debt incurred by and owed to each other?	[ "Not an expert in the topic but I have some knowledge\n\nDebt isn't necessarily a bad thing as it represents a flow of money. This is why the average lifestyle in America is comfortably more lavish than those of in China. This is made possible because Americans are in better position to take out large loans and pay...
How is complimenting a woman on the street considered street harassment?	[ "Part of the issue is that like many things in life the difference between something being nice, acceptable, and annoying has to do with how often something happens. If you don't see another car on the road for an hour it can be a relief to see one, a few cars are okay, and a lot of cars results in road range. In t...
What is fake meat made of and how do they get the texture to be so similar to real meat?	[ "Soy burgers = soy protein. (dont eat too much soy: hormone mimickers). Texture is naturally kinda 'meaty'. \n\nMyco burgers = mycelium. That's what mushrooms are grown from. They can't call em mushroom burgers, because mushrooms are the fruit the mycelium would produce. The mycelium is just a really fast reproduci...
Why is it sometimes hard to find something that is right in front of our eyes.	[ "Human eyes are way better at detecting moving objects than resting ones. Plus, a change in perspective may present the object in a better contrast/less obscured by other objects.", "I literally hadn't eaten toast or anything that required a toaster since moving into my home just under 2yrs ago. Recently SO and I...
Why doesn't the body produce oil like the face does?	[ "Actually your entire body produces the oil, but since your face is usually dryer (being in the sun for example) those glands work harder, not to mention think of how much you touch your face throughout the day, transferring more oil. Sometimes, certain foods etc will kick the sebaceous glands into overdrive, that'...
Dash cameras in Asia?	[ "Yeah, a lot of cars have dash cams which record the last 5 minutes, continually recording and saving whilst deleting anything older than 5 minutes old. When an accident occurs, the camera can either automatically detect something has gone wrong and continue recording beyond the 5 minute limit, or can be manually t...
Why do some people get brain freeze?	[ "As long as it doesn't touch the roof of your mouth, you won't get brain freeze." ]
Why is second day chili better?	[ "The acids in tomatoes, peppers, and onions take time to break down carbohydrates (beans) and proteins (meat). So overnight the beans and meat absorb more of the delicious spicy flavor.", "The water in the chili is a solvent, dissolving various tasty molecules from within the other ingredients, mixing them aro...
How does the _URL_0_ door knocking audio clip do such a good job of making it sound like the audio doesn't come from your headphones?	[ "Ha, had the speakers on when I played that audio clip and the cat freaked out. Apparently that knock knock fools animals into thinking someone's at the front door too.\n\nYour brain determines the location of a sound's source by a few different factors. Namely, distortion differences between each ear, and dela...
Computer/TV Screen Size Pricing	[ "Easier, yes, in the sense that the assembly requires less pricise equipment. Not necessarily cheaper, though, because of the material costs.", "Pricing is determined by a few factors, including cost of materials, cost of R & D, economy of scale (meaning that the more of something you make, the cheaper each indi...
If you have no sense of taste can you feel the heat/spiciness from something like a pepper?	[ "Yes. Capsaicin (the chemical responsible for the spiciness of peppers), interacts with neurons, not taste receptor (although taste receptors are similar to very specialized neurons) so they would still feel the heat" ]
Why can we only use ~0.35 volts of batteries?	[ "The notion that voltage and capacity are the same thing is where you've gone wrong. A battery will supply a certain amount of energy (usually measured in milliamp-hours^* ) over it's lifetime. But it will maintain roughly that 1.5V starting voltage for ~90% of that life. Only as it begins to die will the voltag...
Why do people think Yellowstone will explode and destroy the earth, but not worry about Hawaii's volcano eruption?	[ "Imagine you're filling water balloons.\n\nOne of them has a hole that lets out the water about as fast as you are filling it. You could stand there all day and be fine. That's how Kilauea erupts.\n\nThe other one is huge. It is also intact. Eventually, it will burst and soak you. That would be a Yellowstone erupti...
How does cutting down trees to plant other vegetation for the purpose of cultivation (such as avocado farming) contribute to global warming?	[ "When you cut down highly developed forests to replace them with cultivated land you're seriously lowering the amount of CO2 that can be absorbed.\n\nA big tree that is several decades old will take in WAY more CO2 than several seedlings that are planted to replace it. Additionally, all of the undergrowth that is i...
Mattress Sizes?	[ "It's called twin because a long time ago you bought two of them, one for each person in a husband/wife partnership. You only slept together to make babies, you sinners! Then along came the Full which was meant for two people (though no room to move!). Queen was a luxury: they added 6\" in width and 5\" in leng...
What happens to Lactose when ingested by Lactose-Intolerants?	[ "So, from what I've understood in the past, people who are lactose-intolerant aren't able to break down lactose. Their body doesn't produce enough lactase, which is an enzyme that breaks down lactose. So, depending on how much lactose is taken in, it usually is broken down by bacteria instead in the gut. This cause...
If Helicopters need tail rotors to stabilize themselves from spinning, how can turboprop airplanes have only one rotor and not spin in circles?	[ "On a helicopter the main rotor blades are the wings, a plane has fixed wings that use the air to resist the torque of the prop that's trying to make the plane roll (this is also why single prop driven planes roll to one side faster than they can to the other)", "Fixed wing single engine planes do have to com...
What is the difference between an air-conditioner and a "marine" air conditioner (commonly used on boats)?	[ "Caveat - I mess with boats but I'm not expert or pro. In general marine equipment is made with more corrosion resistant materials,such as stainless steel. The A/C on my boat exchanges the heat in the cabin air into water that flows through the other side of the heat pump, so this is an air/water heat pump where mo...
Why do people bother keeping savings in banks/currencies which are potentially unstable?	[ "I see two reasons:\n\n1. In most European countries you need a residence permit to open a bank account. In other words, you must live in the country where you want the bank account. Some countries, like Switzerland, allow foreigners to open bank accounts without a permit. However, the banking fees are high for suc...
Why does water freeze from top to bottom? Deep in the ocean it’s below freezing, why doesn’t it freeze?	[ "There are several reasons. The salt in the ocean lowers the temperature needed to make it freeze. Currents stop the ice from bonding, and if Ice did freeze, it is less dense and floats. But the main reason is the pressure, especially in deep water. To freeze, water needs to expand. Deep in the ocean, the pressure ...
how they catch digital pirates who use hotspots or do they?	[ "Normally, They don't. If they actually want to track down someone who is using a proxy, they will be able to; but for something as harmless as pirating(relative to say, hacking a company's system) it is not worth their time and money just to find out who you are.\n\nTorrents from a hotspot are also not easy to tra...
The voting rights of citizens in the District of Columbia historically differ from the rights of citizens in each of the 50 U.S. states. Why can't the U.S. just add an amendment to fix that right now?	[ "Because politics quickly becomes political. Currently D.C. is extremely Democratic, so Republicans don't want 2 new Democratic Senators. If the situation was reversed it's likely that the sides would quickly flip and Democrats would be blocking the amendment.", "Because they have to want to do it. Understand ...
Why did it take so long to invent the printing press?	[ "Tske into consideration the literacy rate.\n\nMost people could not read and had no reason to.\n\nNecessity is the mother of invention, that is a true idiom.\n\nThere wasn't a need for it.\n\nAs was stated, the Chinese invented movable type a few centuries before Europe.\n\nBut we did have related items. The Roman...
I've been reading up on nukes. Did the Nevada nuclear tests have nuclear winter? Why or why not?	[ "Nuclear Winter is not a local effect resulting from an atomic blast, but rather a hypothetical effect from lots of nukes going off. The theory is that the nukes would kick a lot of soot and dust up in to the air, blocking out the sun. The blocking out of the sun would result in lower temperatures since the sun c...
How come cars are able to go up to 220 km/h but highways only allow speeds of up to 110 km/h. Wouldn't it be wiser to have cars max out at 110 km/h-ish and reduce the engine capabilities?	[ "How long do you want to take to accelerate? Merging onto the highway in a reasonable time takes far more power than maintaining a constant speed. There are plenty of 1.0 l cars for sale in Europe. They take about 17 +/- seconds to reach 100 kph, but they are very fuel efficient. No one would buy them here in the U...
Is it ever possible in the future to have matching finger/thumbprints?	[ "The idea that everyone has a unique fingerprint isnt really scientifically proven. There is a real possibility that you and someone else currently living have identical fingerprints." ]
How a military can overthrow a government?	[ "The people with the guns stop doing what the president says, and they use their guns to do what they want. That's basically how it goes.", "Basically they shoot it. All civilian governments have exactly as much power over their military/police forces as those forces choose to allow them, political power grows ...
How do we go from binary codes to basic programming languages?	[ "The lowest level instructions in a computer are the instructions of the CPU architecture. This varies between CPUs but there's two main ones currently: x86 used by Intel and AMD processors, and the one used by ARM processors.\n\nThese instructions usually look something like \"MOV 1, 2\" which might mean to take t...
why does spicy food stay spicy when it comes out the other end?	[ "Spiciness isn't a flavor, it's a reaction to the chemical capsaicin, which irritates any tissue it contacts, not just your tongue. This is also why the area around your lips gets sore while eating wings.", "Your digestive system is not %100 efficient. Sometimes raw food makes it all the way though. Spicy is just...
Why do posts on reddit not start on 0 (what's the purpose of allowing one to vote for oneself)?	[ "To reward you for making a comment even if no one else does.", "So you have the satisfaction of having a +1 post and another person has the satisfaction of down voting that satisfaction from you.", "When your post gets upvoted, its ranking goes up using what's called a [logarithm](_URL_0_). Basically, the more...
if you light a lighter in front of a TV, why does the reflection show 4 tiny rainbows around the flame?	[ "This is to do with, not the display itself, but the layers of diffusers that make up the backlight behind the display\n\nAn LCD TV consists of a backlight and an LCD panel. The backlight's job is to produce an even spread of light across the display. You first have an array of LEDs, but those LEDs are point source...
How does copyright work with references?	[ "US copyright has a Fair Use clause, which a minor reference like the ones you are mentioning fall under. You don't need to pay royalties for something like mentioning \"I saw something like this on Star Trek once!\" or \"This is like Episode 79 of the Original Series, Turnabout Intruder! They got bodyswapped!\" \n...
Why does China take claim to Taiwan?	[ "Before the 1930's the Island of Taiwan was part of the nation of China. During the 1930's China suffered a civil war with many factions, the most prominent of which were the communist party(CPC) and the Government(KMT). This civil war spanned world war 2 and reached a physical conclusion in 1950 when the Communist...
Why is the word 'cunt' such a taboo word in the U.S.?	[ "People have made it so. Words can be given such power based on how they're used in the culture. I remember when Austin Powers 2 came out (it was called Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me), and that was seen as quite vulgar for British people. In the US, Shagged is a cute word (like using Poop in place of ...
why is it so easy for people to start working out regularly but it’s hard to stop eating certain foods or cutting back?	[ "Human being are designed to eat as much food as they possibly can, because in nature food is a whole lot rarer. We crave salt, fat, and sugar. This is a problem today because we have industrial farming and society. When he had to hunt down all out food ourselves it was a lot harder to eat enough to actually.make u...
Why is the USA drinking age set at 21 when in most other respects you're an adult at 18.	[ "In the 60s and 70s, the US had a lot of fatalities as a result of teenage drunk driving. Waaay more than any other country did.\n\nReally, there were two options available to them: raise the drinking age, or raise the driving age.\n\nI think they made the right choice.", "As someone already said it was becau...
Why do I not smell perfume I've sprayed on me but other people do?	[ "Why don't you see your nose? It's within your vision.\n\nYour brain filters out your nose, because it's always there, and likewise, it filters out smells that are \"always there\". \n\nThe phenomenon is called [sensory adaptation](_URL_0_), this is the brain caring less about constant stimuli. Olfactory neurons...
How does a two headed reptile/siamese twins work? How do they move their bodies assuming there are two brains?	[ "Typically each twin controls a different part of the body. Like the twin girls Brittany and Abigail Hensel. They give the appearance of being one body with two heads, though they have two of each organ above the waist. They have two arms, each controlling one. And from the waist down, they have one body, with each...
How do human voices work? What makes our voices seem so unique?	[ "Finally a question that being a voice major has equipped me to answer! (Avoiding the proper terms for parts because that's what Google is for):\n\nAir passes from your lungs in between your vocal folds (roughly right behind your Adam's apple, that's a front projection of the mechanism that protects it). They're ...
why aren't AK47's an "accurate" rifle	[ "1. AK-47's distance between the sight and post is very short which makes it so that for longer ranges, it is extremely difficult to line up an accurate shot as you are more likely to be misaligned with your eye to the sights.\n\n2. It uses a relatively low velocity round, meaning it arcs more and spends more time ...
Why can I not remember what happens when I'm drunk?	[ "Memories enter the brain first as short term memory, that is then transformed into a long-term memory. \nThis is evident because the majority of short-term memories that we experience are lost before they ever make it into what we will call \"long-term\" storage. \n\nWhen alcohol is consumed it affects your abili...
Why does having noise in the background (TV, music, etc.) make me feel safer when I'm home alone?	[ "Your ears are sensitive through a wide ride of volumes. When it is very quiet, you hear faint noises you are unaccustomed to, which can be disconcerting. Background noise hides those sounds with ones more familiar to you, restoring your comfort level.", "I have had kids in my house for a lot of years, and it i...
Isn't the freshwater we have to work with just going in a cycle? How are we losing fresh water?	[ "When the water ends up in the oceans, it slows down the cycling a lot. Water in aquifers (the stores under the ground that we access when we use wells) and water on Earth's surface are the cheapest to use. We have been either polluting these (surface) or using them too fast for new water to filter in. We have a...
Why is there such a large Insane Clown Posse (Juggalo) following?	[ "A lot of it is because the group tries to make its fans into a \"community\" (Juggalos). Like, fans of a band like, say, the Black Keys, are just people who happen to like the Black Keys. But ICP specifically encourages fans, \"Hey, dress up like us, be like us, be part of something,\" and then the fans encourage ...
What's the best/safest/quickest way for a relatively skinny but unhealthy guy to get big using weights (w/ or w/o protein powder)?	[ "The gist of it is to lift weights and eat a lot of food. A program like Stronglifts is great for beginners. \n\nProtein powder isn't magic, it's just a cheap and easy source of protein. Most people find it easier to drink a protein shake than to eat a bunch of steak. It's probably healthier than other sources ...
Why metal at room temperature feels cold while, say, fabric at room temperature doesn't	[ "I believe it has something to do with the rate at which heat from your body is transferred to the material. Your body is hotter than both the fabric and the spoon, which are at the same temperature, but the spoon conducts the heat at a faster rate and so you feel it as being colder. Please correct me if I am wro...
A neighborhood cat comes to your home and you feed it. A day/week later, other cats appear at your house looking for food. How did the other cats find out that you're a food giver?	[ "Kitties talk among themselves, just like humans. They may not make a sound, but they do communicate ... and follow each other around.\n\nSeriously: you can/should check out [Alley Cat Allies](_URL_0_) for all sorts of info about hungry kitty visitors.", "I think they hang out together and the others smell it on ...
Why do southern states freak out over a little snow?	[ "There is essentially no infrastructure to deal with snowfall in southern states because it happens so rarely. Roads are not salted or plowed so they are covered in ice, and nobody has snow tires or much experience driving in snow. It is sort of like how everyone up north has trouble with a little heat wave where i...
What is the origin and meaning of "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government."	[ "It's a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The \"strange woman lying in pond\" is the Lady of the Lake from the Arthurian legend.\n\n_URL_0_", "It is talking about the legend of King Authur, whereby the Lady of the Lake bequeathed unto him a sword that proved he was to be the rightful King.\n\nThe peasan...
What are those bastardly little tongue sores you get from eating too much salt or sugar, and how do you get rid of them?	[ "The condition is called aphthous stomatitis, or commonly, canker sores. They are NOT inflamed tastebuds. Rather, they are small ulcers (areas of inflamed, healing tissue) that are characteristically painful and confined to the mucosa (soft tissue) of the mouth (including surface of the tongue) by definition. There...
Why are swearing words related to genitals and/or sexuality?	[ "Swear words come from things we consider taboo or distasteful. In English-speaking society, we have a lot of taboos surrounding sex, even in this day and age. We also put a very high level of importance on hygiene, so words relating to waste and where they come from are also taboo. \n\nCertain words automatically ...
How does a bird know to not sit on its unfertilized eggs?	[ "They don't...They will sit on plastic eggs. The hen eventually gives up and deserts the nest and will try again...Yeah,the eggs rot if something like a squirrel, or another bird does not eat them before they go bad.\n\n_URL_0_" ]
Why does Basic Income Decrease "Werkgelegenheid" and is this the same metric as "Job Opportunities"?	[ "> isn't employment rate supposed to reflect how many people are voluntarily employed compared to unvoluntarily employed?\n\nIf you consider those who need the money to live but if they didn't wouldn't work as \"involuntarily employed\" and not part of the employment rate, then your employment pool would be near z...
How does Task Manager's "Set Priority" work, does it increase performance significantly, and how/should I use it?	[ "Windows is built for multitasking. The 'Set Priority' feature is intended for managing what processes have a higher priority for resources (CPU) than other processes.\n\nApplications set to normal will go 50-50 on the resources with other running applications (when demanding resources).\n\nIt's better practice to ...
the Venezuelan election results	[ "Not the exact answer you're looking for, but might provide context if you'd like it - _URL_0_" ]
How can Pewdipie make $4M a year?	[ "Most of his money would come from Youtube views and advertising. Having as many views as Pewdipie gets would certainly net you a lot of money from Youtube.", "Youtube gets paid by advertisers to show their adverts.\n\nYoutubers can 'monetize' their videos by making them show ads before the vid, or little banner ...
Where exactly is a woman's G-spot located, and how do you find it?	[ "Straight in, stick to the top, two o clock (yes always) until about the second bend in your fingers, if you've hit your knuckles that's way too far. It all generally feels the same to you but it has sort of an interesting texture. So I know perhaps you've always been told to do the \"Come here\" motion but it's ac...
Why do we hear static from radios and TV's when there's nothing being broadcast? Shouldn't we just hear silence?	[ "Because there isn't nothing there.\n\nEvery spectrum is full of random noise from stars, radioactive decay, all sorts of things like that. It's just terrestrial broadcasts are so much stronger that it overwhelms the random noise. This is why when you start reaching the edge of the coverage area for the station y...
why you can't put metal in the microwave but nothing happens to the metal that it's built from	[ "You can put metal in microwaves, which is a lot come with racks, you just can't put metal with sharp edges/points such as forks and aluminum foil. As for the interior, most microwaves have their interior painted to prevent these issues." ]
How do street lights know when cars are there?	[ "There's a couple ways that traffic lights know there are cars there. \n\nThe first (and probably most common) is sensors under the road. They use coils of wire to detect when something magnetic (like the steel in a car) passes overhead. You can actually usually see them if you look at the lanes, there will some...
Why do people age?	[ "Nothing is perfect. Even our bodies, the result of billions of years of evolution from the simplest single-celled life forms, begin to fail after awhile. All of the things that make our body run, our stomachs, hearts, brains, kidneys, will eventually stop working. But the main thing that causes people to age is th...
The size of the universe.	[ "There's more than one way to measure cosmological distances.\n\nOne way is to use what's called the \"lookback distance.\" It's just the distance measured in units of time. If light from an galaxy has been in transit for a billion years, then you can quite accurately say that galaxy is a billion years away. (This ...
Why do school hours not match working hours?	[ "That means teachers would go home at 7 or 8pm, school buses would have to contend with commuter traffic, and students would be walking home in the dark most of the time.", "It's because when the times were setup it was to take into account farm jobs, not the modern 9-5 city jobs. That is also why summer vacation...
Why do dogs go absolutely crazy after getting a bath?	[ "I'll probably get another NO BLATANT SPECULATION response from the wannabe mod we have lurking here, but here's what I've found looking around for you: Nobody actually 100% knows the scientific reason, but dog experts have been able to put together some good guesses based on what we know about dogs. Many of t...
What was the warsaw uprising	[ "Warsaw was under Nazi rule. People didn't like that, especially the Jews living in the ghetto. People were purposely starved, killed in the streets. The Polish Underground State was formed - a resistance paramilitary which was made of several groups that wanted to liberate Poland (and save Jews). \n\nSome folks wi...
How did the Romans express numbers in speech and/or calculation?	[ "This is a really good question, you should probably chuck it over onto /r/AskHistorians, they'd be more likely to have an actual, factual answer.\n\nEDIT: Someone has already asked it over there, the best answer last year came from /u/rosemary85 and goes as follows:\n > No. The Latin words for numbers are fairly ...
What's the difference between Genetic Drift and Natural Selection?	[ "Both of these concepts deal with traits within a population changing over time. With natural selection, one trait is more advantageous, so organisms with that trait survive and reproduce more effectively, resulting in more organisms with that trait. Genetic drift is when a trait becomes more common within a popu...
Why do professional athletes have a significantly lower pulse than the average person ?	[ "Because they have increased stroke volume. Their hearts are strengthened so that they are able to move more blood with each pump, so their hearts don't need to pump as many times.", "You have an empty pool and you need to fill it with water. The bigger the bucket you can carry, the less trips you will need to ma...
Pirate Bay Megathread	[ "Pirate Bay's existence is NOT the result of a want for piracy. This is the misconception that has the industry execs spending HUGE amounts of time and money trying to control the symptom of a much larger issue.\n\n People, like water, follow the path of least resistance. If the resistance becomes too much, we ma...
How, with the proliferation of free porn websites like youporn, does any porn production make money?	[ "You like pink crayons a lot. There is this place where you can get free pink crayons, but you have to deal with ads and possibly malware. Also the pink crayons are low quality and the place may not have the specific type or model of pink crayon you are looking for. Now there is this other place where if you pay a ...
How do landlords make money	[ "so essentially making money from letting requires a large amount of time and/or starting capital?", "You're making the assumption that the market price of the house today (which is presumably where you got the mortgage repayment figures from) is the price for which the landlord bought it.\n\nAs a resident of the...
Why do DVDs in widescreen format play with black bars on top and bottom on my widescreen TV	[ "Just because it's \"widescreen\" doesn't mean that it's the same exact aspect ratio as your TV. A movie with black bars on the top and bottom was filmed in an aspect ration that's even wider than your widescreen TV.\n\n\nLook [here](_URL_1_). Most widescreen TV's are 16:9 (the third from the bottom on that page),...
How do spammers spoof a cell phone number to make scam calls?	[ "When you make an outbound call, the calling system gives the phone system the caller ID information. The reason this can be (legitimately) different from the actual call is for example a business that has both direct lines to each extension and a main line. An employee calling out would show up with the main line ...
How have wolves impacted Yellowstone?	[ "This is just one example. \n\nMore grazing animals means less vegetation for other animals to use as a home or shelter from prey.\n\nThey also took vegetation away from the river banks causing more erosion. (The roots held the soil in place)\n\nThe reintroduction of wolves stopped that and kept the grazing animal ...
How do we move our body?	[ "Planning and decision making for motor movement happens in the [premotor cortex](_URL_0_). To see where it is, find a spot on the top of your head that's about three inches back from your hairline. This is the section in your brain that makes the decisions about lifting limbs and looking at the ceiling. It take...
What is the difference between a CEO and the President of a company?	[ "\"President\" is a term that is often based on the law of the place where the company is created. For example in the United States, most states require that a corporation have a person with the title President. That title carries with it some legal obligations that tie the individual to the actions of the compan...
Why does smoking cause some people to lose limbs/develop cancer while there are lifelong smokers who never have these problems?	[ "The short answer is that at the chemical level biology is very complicated. We tend to think of all sickness and injury the same way we think of, say, a bullet wound---a single, distinct harm that directly interferes with how something in the body works in a simple way. \n\nBut that's not how all harms work. Nico...
Why is it, that when I get really tired, everything is so much funnier?	[ "The phenomenon of being more easily amused falls under Emotional Lability which means emotional changeability or instability. You're probably more likely to cry too. In extreme cases, this is a medical condition, see _URL_0_ but in regular life, it's just that the parts of your brain which keep you on an even keel...
Why you need to be grounded to get an electric shock?	[ "Electric currents aren't like Austin from middle school, they don't come out, wander around, bug people, and then go back home. \n\nElectricity flows from negatively charged objects, to positively charged objects, until the system is neutral. That's all there is to it. If electricity flows from one location, that ...
How do people get infected with plaque?	[ "Plaque isn't just one bactera it is what is known as a biofilm. Layers and layers of diferent bactera and their extracellular matrixs. Pretty much any bactera can eventually form biofilms. Everyone has bactera on and in their bodies called their natural flora. Your natural flora bactera grow into the plaque on you...
Why is it that a hard drive disc can have a capacity of 5TB+ but DVDs can only have a maximum of 9GB?	[ "In addition to what's already been said about the actual technological differences, one major difference is working conditions.\n\nHard Disks are produced and sealed in clean factories to ensure there is no contamination. They are encased in thick unbend-able metal. From the day you start using it, you can't bend ...
How much racism/discrimination do Europeans who live in India or Africa face?	[ "Maybe it's not racism or discrimination in the traditional sense, but I've heard anecdotally that whites in Sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to be targeted by robbers because they stand out it's presumed that they have money.", "A fair amount, depending on the country. Zimbabwe (Under Mugabe) for example, seiz...
Why does a company like Boeing need to make a commercial? It's not like anyone watching is going to buy one.	[ "Companies that have to choose between Airbus or Boeing still consist of people (who can be manipulated through commercials), and they can sadly often do so with bias even though they're supposed to run the numbers and make an informed decision.", "brand recognition. They want you to value that your flying on ...
How do American football have bruised lungs without also having broken ribs? Isn't that the point of ribs?	[ "This is actually one of the major issues with American football. The padding protects from the blunt hit and spreads out the impact so you aren't taking a lot of force to a particular place on your body, but your body is still being shoved really hard as a whole. This means the force is spread out and absorbed a...
What are dentists actually doing when they scrape at your teeth with those metal picks?	[ "I think my dentist was counting money while my hygienist was scraping my teeth.", "Scraping off the plaque build up. And it is usually the dental hygienist not the actual dentist.", "Most of the time they're looking at how much plaque is on or around your teeth. In other instances they're determining texture o...
When did we stop having to type in 'www.'? Why did we have to to begin with?	[ "It's because servers where traditionally named according to the services they provide. So a world wide web server had www., a file transfer protocol server had ftp., et caetera. We stopped having to type it because nowadays, the www._URL_0_ and _URL_0_ URLs both refer to the same server (URL is like a set of coord...
What is the difference between real and imaginary numbers?	[ "\"Imaginary\" is a bad word for them because they definitely exist, they're just part of the complex plane.\n\nImagine the number line, which contains all \"real\" numbers going off left and right into infinity. Left is negative, right is positive. Take a step to the right and you're at 1, a step to the left and...

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