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Why did the Plantagenet kings bear lions on their coat of arms? | I've [written about this before](_URL_0_) in reference to the royal standard, which includes lions. A user in that thread who's now deleted their account pointed out that "lion" and "leopard" are two different heraldic descriptions for the same animal; the difference is in how they're posed. | Lions were native to Europe. In classical times, they were living in Greece. Until several hundred years ago, they lived in North Africa and the Middle East. |
Do we really live in the Most Peaceful Time in History? What about Ancient times? What about the Natives? | > What about the Natives? Which natives are you talking about? The idea of the peaceful aboriginal (at least in Latin America) is outdated, simplistic, and generally wrong. There was everything from Maya wars for royal succession and regional political dominance to Inca and Huari wars of conquest to border and interchiefdom skirmishes between the Moche and Recuay. It's hard to call a time perio particularly peaceful when they drilled holes through defeated enemies' heads and wore them on lanyards. | I just read that the state of the Earth right now is much more peaceful than it has ever been. |
If Silver is the most conductive element, why don't we use it in electronics as opposed to Copper and Gold? | Silver is the best conductor, but is expensive and oxidises easily, making it unsuitable for uses where it's exposed to oxygen or large amounts are required. Gold doesn't oxidise*, but is expensive, which is why it's often used as a coating for electronic connections like HDMI cables. Copper is abundant and has good conductivity and oxidation resistance for its price, making it the most cost effective for general use, especially when it's not exposed to air (for example in rubber coated wires). *it does, but negligibly under standard conditions. | Simple answer. Gold and silver are dangerous and expensive to mine and are needed in pratically ever electronic technology we have today. With the way tech is growing, the demand for silver and gold with continue to climb. Someone else can give you the technical explanation like how its great conductor of electricity and such. |
Why do random twitter accounts follow me when I say something, however random, relevant to their interests/business? | Because they're hoping you'll think "RealtorBot's following me, eh? Who's that? Someone from _URL_0_, let's check that site out." It's basically Twitter junk mail. They follow thousands and thousands of people and hope that some of them will click the URL on their Twitter profile, and that some of the people who click that URL make a purchase or become a customer or see their ads. Obviously not many people do, but running a Twitter bot like this costs so little that even if only 0.2% of the people who get followed actually go through the site and do something, it's a win. | People have an innate desire for being noticed and to some extent, manipulating people. Sometimes people get this fulfillment by posting bogus content that other people feel compelled to respond to. This is the idea behind chain emails and these Facebook posts are like a newer version of those. |
Why is it that some people need to adjust their sitting posture every 2 minutes but some people can sit in the same posture for one hour? | I was actually thinking about this the other day because I'm the kind of person seems to never get comfortable. I found out if you stretch and loosen up your muscles you'll have an easier time sitting still or even falling asleep at night. | Because you experience postural hypotension - low blood pressure with a change of posture (usually from lying or sitting to standing). Not usually dangerous and often just a symptom of having generally low blood pressure. |
If I was teleported back millions of years ago to when the dinosaurs lived, how long would I possibly be able to survive? | You could breathe the air and drink the water. There was enough oxygen for us to breathe back to perhaps 500 million years ago. You wouldn't have the same plants that we have today, and while some of them would likely be edible it would be difficult to determine which ones. And you should be able to eat dinosaur meat (I had some for dinner tonight) but there's a pretty good chance that one would eat you. Edit: Tappert's 2013 paper suggests much lower oxygen levels, which would have made survival much more difficult. But most of the evidence supports high levels of oxygen during the Mesozoic. _URL_0_ > We conclude that there is no model-based support for low atmospheric oxygen concentrations during the past 200 m.y. High Mesozoic O2 is consistent with wildfire records and the development of plant fire adaptions | Between now and 100 years. Depending on luck and lifestyle. Edit : if your theory that everything will be curable there still is a limit to lifespan. Because we have limited memory in our brains. Not really a limit, if you dont mind losing your mind and memories every day. |
I've heard a lot of people on reddit say that everyone does what VW did with emissions, VW just happened to get caught. Is this true? | If a reputable brand like VW was able to do it I don't think that says much for a few others (cough cough GM cough cough). The EPA will probably be doing a few in depth tests on other brands. | There is. In a car, it is called the 'catalytic converter', which removes pollutants like nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons. Modern diesel engines also include filters that remove the carbon dust. Of course, there is nothing we can do about the big pollutant, carbon dioxide. It is the main output of combustion. If we did capture it, then what would we do about it? There is an awful lot of it! |
What is a major key and a minor key? | When learning a song by ear, usually a good start is to ask "is this a major or a minor key?" If a song is "happy" sounding its in a major key. If its "sad" then its in a minor key... then from there you can figure out what exact key the song is in by playing a lead of sorts over it. | We've taught ourselves to associate major keys with upbeat, happy emotions, and minor keys with sad or scary emotions. It's conditioning. For years, you've heard major keys played during happy moments, and minor keys played during sad. That repetition sinks in, and you associate each key with an emotion. [Here's an article about it.](_URL_0_) |
Why does a magnet fall slowly when dropped down in a copper pipe? | The magnetic field of the falling magnet induces a magnetic field in the copper pipe. The direction of this induced magnetic field is opposite to that of the magnet's (look up Lenz's law). In this case, it is opposite to that of gravity's, hence the magnet slows down. | Induction. As the magnet falls through the tube, it induces an electrical current, which produces a magnetic field that is opposite that of the magnet and thus slows its fall. |
When Napoleon sold Louisiana to the USA, what did the people actually living there think of it? | Follow up question because it's something I've been wondering about for a while: How long did it take for it to become common knowledge both within Louisiana and among the majority of people in neighboring parts of North America (and in relevant parts of Europe, for that matter) that the territory had secretly been sold to Spain in 1762 (Treaty of Fontainebleau) and secretly re-acquired by France in 1800 (Third Treaty of San Ildefonso)? Did America try to keep their acquisition of the territory a secret for a while too? | France assisted the US during the Revolutionary War under orders from Louis XVI, primarily because the French and the British have a long history of cultural and martial rivalry and they wanted to weaken England's foothold in the New World. American victory could have helped France to strengthen its political and financial interests in North American, but this plan came to nothing because of Louis XVI' untimely decapitation. During the French Revolution, France turned its energies away from the New World, eventually culminating in Napoleon selling France's north American land claims to the US as the Louisiana Purchase. The US arguably benefited more from French politics than any other group in the world. On the French side it was all loss; they invested in supporting us but due to changes in political priorities during the revolution, they never really saw a return on that investment. |
Why does Soda cost so much less than water? | Does it? I get water out of my tap for about 700 gallons for a dollar. Bottled water is more expensive because it's been found that people are willing to pay that much for convenience, but water itself is quite cheap in the US at least. | This depends entirely on what brand you're looking at. Some bottled waters are much cheaper. The expensive ones, quite frankly, are just making a big profit at your expense. |
What are the evolutionary benefits to being bipedal and having our knees face the way they do? Reversed knees seem more practical. | Knees face the same way on almost every species of animal. If you look at an ostrich's skeleton, you will see that it has an incredibly short femur which is hidden under it's feathers. What appears to be it's shin is the equivalent of our foot, and that it walks on its toes. Horses are the same way, along with any animal that appears to have "backwards knees". [Skeleton](_URL_0_) | It is involved in your ability to run and balance on two legs. Since humans were persistence hunters for much of their evolutionary history, the ability to run long distances was key. Basically, bipedal organisms need junk in the trunk to lay the mac down. |
Speed of gene expression | It depends on a lot of factors, though I'm afraid I can't give you numbers. For example, there are some gene expression cascades that go through many intermediates--receptor to second messenger to long kinase cascade--and which also require the methylation/acetylation state of the histones and DNA in the region of the gene to be changed and polymerase to be recruited before transcription can begin--and then some genes have complicated downstream processing events as well. Alternately, there are systems in some organisms that involve only one or two steps and have the DNA waiting in an "open" conformation or a polymerase already "poised" at the site. There are some methods of control that happen at a translational level, so you don't even have to wait for transcription and RNA processing, and the protein will begin being translated almost instantly. And there are various combinations of these methods of regulation. So it very much depends on the organism and how the gene in question is controlled. | You need to be more specific. What reaction are you referring to? Nothing occurs truly instantaneously. Biological reactions tend to be particularly slow, depending on what you mean by reaction. The infection of a cell by a virus, for example, can take days/weeks for the complete life cycle. Human cells can take hours to replicate DNA. So yea, need to be more specific. |
how the virtual first down line, virtual line of scrimmage, etc, work. | Alright, so you've got part one down: the green (or a set of greenish colors, making up a palette of colors) is what the computer looks for in order to paint the line. The harder part is figuring out where it'll go. This requires two things: * a microchip on each and every camera, which tells a main computer the tilt, zoom, etc., of the camera. This effectively tells the main computer where each camera is looking and what it can see. * a really good 3-Dimensional model of the field. Each field is *almost* the same, but they have a little bit of slope and maybe some weird lines (like when football is played on a baseball diamond). So every field needs its own 3D digital model for the main computer. With these two things, and the green colors on hand, the main computer can know where the camera is looking and where it needs to paint the lines. If you want to read more, you can google the name of this computer system, which is called "1st & Ten" and is run by the company Sportvision. | Virtual particles are just a calculational tool. They are not a description of an actual physical thing. All particles influence all the fields around them. One way we try to calculation those influences is using virtual particles, however any time this tool is used to calculate something it is only done as an approximation. Physicists often are lax with their language and talk about an interaction as being "an exchange of a single virtual photon" but that is just wrong. What is meant is that the interaction can be roughly approximated using a particular mathematical framework using virtual particles. You can not detect something that is not real. |
Is there a reason we ejaculate in spurts rather than a continuous stream like peeing? | So imagine you have a turkey baster. You have a certain amount of fluid in there that you want to get out. If you squeeze it gently, you'll get a dribbling stream. It doesn't go very far and a bunch is still left inside. Now take that same turkey baster, and squeeze it hard. The fluid shoots out and goes further, right? But now you still have liquid left inside, so squeeze again. Keep on doing this till all the liquid is out. In the end, most of the liquid ends up further away from the tip. If you really want to make sure everything is out, squeeze it a bunch more times. Those are the dry contractions at the end of orgasm. The volume of urine is a lot bigger than the volume of ejaculate. So the urinary bladder contracts to squeeze out the urine, like squeezing a water balloon before you tie it closed. That's why urine comes out in a stream, unless you're an unlucky sod who has prostate problems.. You have a lot less ejaculate than you do urine. | No. Ejaculation is mostly caused by contraction of the [bulbospongiosus muscle](_URL_1_) expelling the contents of the urethra. So each pulse of ejaculate corresponds to maximal contraction of this muscle. This is unlike urination, where the [detrusor muscles](_URL_0_) lining the bladder contract to expel the entire contents of the bladder down the urethra. |
How do we get sweaty hands if there aren't any pores on the skin there? | There are [sweat glands](_URL_0_) on your palms but you don't get acne there because the palms lack [sebaceous glands](_URL_1_). | Your palms get sweaty only because they're getting prepared to clean up the vomit on the sweater already (typically mom's spaghetti) |
How do we know how hot the Earths core is? | Well, we don't, exactly. But we can estimate, since we know how big the Earth is (and thus how much pressure there is there) and what the Earth is made of (and thus how much radioactive decay is heating it). | The main contributors of the earth's internal heat are gravitational heating (dense stuff moves toward the core, trading gravitational potential energy for thermal), and radioactive heating (heat production by decay of unstable radioisotopes, particularly U, Th and K). The top few tens of meters of the crust are mediated by environmental effects. Once you're below that, the rate at which temperature increases within the crust is highly dependent on how thinck the crust is (shallow crust gets hotter quicker with depth). See here for examples:_URL_0_ Once you're down through the lithosphere, a more globally standardised temperature profile exists: _URL_1_ |
Why are there so many sink holes in Florida? | Much of Florida is built on limestone. Add in warm temperatures and heavy rainfall, and a complex underground network of caves and rivers forms over the years. Water falls as rain, sinks into this system, and after an average of about 20,000 years it comes bubbling up again in a spring, like [this one](_URL_0_). Some people enjoy scuba diving into the underground caves. They see some spectacular views, but it has about the highest fatality rate of any hobby. A sinkhole is just the opposite of a spring - it's where the water leaves the surface and enters the underground caves. Of course, they seem to appear suddenly, but anywhere built on this kind of geology might have a water-filled cave just below the surface, that has been slowly growing for millions of years. | Sinkholes are usually caused by water undercutting material supporting an area of land such that a cavern develops. This cavern eventually collapses and a pit is formed on the surface. This only appears to be a recent problem because you haven't been paying attention. |
in music why does the DO note correspond to C and not to the first letter of the alphabet? | The A-B-C-D-E-F-G notation system dates to the 6th century AD, at which point it the Aeolian mode (analogous to the modern-day natural minor scale) was one of the most common in Western music - and certainly more common than the Ionian (or major) mode. The solfege/Do-Re-Mi system dates from the 11th century, at which point the Ionian mode was gaining in popularity. The names derive from the syllables on each note in a popular hymn at the time, *Ut queant laxis*. All the other answers so far are referring to the moveable-Do system, but they're useless for your question, which is referring to the fixed-Do system, as used in the Romance and Slavic languages. **ELI5 version**: The "A-B-C" system is older than the "Do-Re-Mi" system. The "A-B-C" system was designed around the minor scale, and the "Do-Re-Mi" system was designed around the major scale. | The musical scale that western music created included 12 pitches per octave, 7 of which are included in the major and minor scales. We needed to name those 7 notes, so they used A-G. Then they made the C scale the one that included all natural notes, and added sharps and flats to name the notes in the other scales. That's also why there's no E# or B# - those are the two notes in the C major scale that are followed by a half step up, so the next note was designated a natural note (F and C) even though it was only a half step difference. |
If water is compressed with no escape, what would it feel like?? | It'll probably feel like water, though you probably won't be able to touch it in the first place. Liquid water is very hard to compress (basically incompressible), so you'll have to use some pretty powerful machines to compress it (or a massive planet with really powerful gravity, like Jupiter). Eventually, under extreme pressure and specific temperatures, water will form exotic forms of ice, like ice III, ice IV, etc. If you try to touch it, you'd be crushed into a soup of organic compounds. | Water does not compress. If you want to occupy the space that some water is in, the water has to move out of the way first. If you are moving in faster than the water can move out you hit what is essentially, a solid object. |
if I have a 2 gram pill of 600 substance concentration and I cut it in 2, does a half equal 1 pill of 1 gram and 300 concentration, or a 1 gram pill of 600 concentration? | 1 gram, 600 concentration. You cut the two gram pill in half, but did not "cut" how concentrated it was; the pill presumably has the same ratio of < substance > to < filler > in either size (assuming a perfect distribution). To change the concentration, you would have to add or remove specific ingredients to/from the pill, not just half of the whole. Make lemonade, pour a glass. You have a smaller portion with the same concentration as the pitcher. Add sugar to your glass, now the concentration is different. | The pills aren't 500mg, the dose of the drug is. Some drugs need to be buffered differently so they will be absorbed by your body properly without causing a reaction. That could very well make a 10mg dose require a bigger pill than a 500 mg dose of a different drug. |
Capital Gains tax and Income Tax, why do rich people have lower rates? | Other responses have explained the difference between income and capital gains tax, however it is a misconception that the rich pay a lower effective rate. People forget that the average middle income taxpayer takes a plethora of deductions and credits which significantly lowers their actual rate from the marginal tax rate they fall into based on their income. [See here](_URL_0_) for a quick breakdown, as it relates to Romney's taxes for example. | Simply put, many rich people make money by earning things like dividends and interest, instead of traditional income. These are called "Capital gains" and they are taxed at a lower rate than "income". In numbers: Income tax ranges from 10% to 35% Long term capital gains is 15% no matter what. |
If we mine the moon, how much would it affect our orbit or the earth's gravitational pull? | The mass of the Moon is 7.35×10^22 kg. If you mined a billion tons, that's only 10^12 kg, i.e. completely negligible. | No. The moon is simply way too big that mining operations as we know it could have any noticable impact on tides. The total amount of all mining humans have done on earth since ever is smaller than the margin of error we have on the our estimation on mass of the moon. |
Why do we need so many different types of screw heads? Straight, Phillips, Torx, Square, Hexagon, etc... couldn't we settle on just a few? | The simplest screw head, the flat head, allows your tool to slide out at the slightest misalignment. Phillips heads solved that problem, but introduced another: the screws strip easily when the driver cams out due to excessive torque. Newer designs have different balances of torque protection, size, manufacturing ease, etc. You also have a bit of this going on: _URL_0_ | You've got some good answers here already, but they're all leaving out an important aspect, which is how the screw and screwdriver deal with fouling. Dirt, oil, weld slag, multiple layers of paint, whatever. If you're in an environment where you don't have to worry about that, a complex geometry is fine. But on a factory floor, Phillips or torx can get irreversibly fouled. Allen head screws can be relatively easily cleaned, but the master of this is the shittiest of all screw heads, the flat head. The *only* tool you need to clear the slot of a flat head screw is the screwdriver you're going to use to unscrew it. No other screw type has that ability. |
Why do nuclear reactions release so much energy? | Nuclear reactions are more energetic because [nuclear binding energy](_URL_5_) (involved in nuclear reactions) is orders of magnitude higher than [electron binding energy](_URL_1_) (involved in chemical reactions) or [gravitational binding energy](_URL_6_) (involved in objects falling). The [nuclear binding energy per nucleon is usefully measured in MeV](_URL_0_) (mega electron volts) whereas the [first electron ionisation energy](_URL_1_#mediaviewer/File:First_Ionization_Energy.svg) is usefully measured in tens of eV (electron volts). This in turn is due to the fact that [the nuclear force](_URL_3_) is orders of magnitude stronger than the [electrostatic force](_URL_1_#Electrostatic_explanation) or the [gravitational force](_URL_2_). | The stable iron isotopes are near the peak of the [binding energy per nucleon curve](_URL_0_). The amount of energy absorbed or released during a reaction is related to the difference in binding energies of the initial and final states. If you're already near the highest binding energies per nucleon, fusing into a heavier system is less favorable than the current arrangement. This reaction *takes* energy rather than releasing it. |
How do cellphones (amongst other things) know how much power they have left in their battery? | As a battery drains, the output voltages [decrease in predictable ways](_URL_0_). You can use an [analog-to-digital converter](_URL_1_) to convert the voltage provided by the battery into a digital signal (i.e. a number) that can be interpreted as the battery level by the phone's operating system. It's a little more complex than that - the voltage discharge curve, like the one shown above, does depend on a bunch of other factors. For example, most phones also have a built-in temperature monitoring system, since this will also affect the voltage provided by the battery, but that's the general idea. | It measures the voltage, yes. But voltage is an imprecise measure. On lithium batteries it stays [nearly flat](_URL_0_) for a long time. So it also measures current flow. As batteries degrade the estimation can get out of whack. That's why sometimes you can see a phone that shows 15% left, then suddenly it decides it's completely out of battery and shuts down. |
The relationship between UNIX, LINUX, and Ubuntu | Think of it like Lego. Unix is the set of rules that define how the different bricks connect to one another. Linux is the bricks themselves. Ubuntu is a Lego set that you'd buy that completes a certain project. OSX is Mega Bloks (follows the same rules outlined by Unix, but has different bricks) Windows is K'Nex (doesn't follow the Unix rules at all, has a totally different building set) | Unix and Linux (and also Mac OS X) are all pretty similar to each other -- they all comply with a standard called POSIX that outlines things such as file structure, the way programs interact, etc. Also, the graphical user interface isn't directly built into Linux or Unix -- they both started out as command line OSs and now have things such as X11 that layer graphics on top. Unix/Linux is very much based around a client-server model, even for things where that doesn't actually make sense. Windows is not POSIX compliant except as a compatibility layer, and has its GUI built into it at a deep level. |
Why does higher quality sound feel more distant? | Haven't hear anyone describe it like that before. However, my best guess is that since the lower quality version is more heavily compressed, all the sounds sound more mashed together, whereas the less compressed (higher quality) version has more information (more frequency range and bitrate), so that all the sounds can be more "distinct". | It's mostly down to shape of your pinnae (the outer ears). Sounds are attenuated at different frequencies depending on the path they take to your inner ear - whether they've passed through or bounced off your pinna, for example. Your brain learned, years ago, how to interpret those intensity changes. You brain can still be fooled though - by simulating how sounds interact with pinnae (or, for example, making recordings using a fake rubber head), you can play sounds back via headphones which recreate the feeling of distance and direction. This is one of my favourites: _URL_0_ |
How does Google's new reCAPTCHA detect bots with just a checkbox? | It tracks activity from your IP across all Google services/analytic affiliates. The CAPTCHA is somewhat superfluous when they have so much information about users, they can update Google Maps in real-time to reflect traffic congestion. If you aren't clicking "I am not a robot" 10 times in a minute or accessing random web hosts across the world, there is no suspicion of you being a bot. | The "I'm not a robot" captcha takes into account more than just the click itself. It takes into account factors like "time spent on page before click", "mouse path to button", "accuracy of click", et cetera, to predict whether you're an automated software or an actual person. |
What would food look like at each stage of the digestive system? | Food that is partially broken down in the mouth is mixed with saliva and enters the stomach as a bolus, which is basically a mass of food that will look somewhat like a mashed up and slightly more liquid version of what you ate. After leaving the stomach the food is called chyme, which has more of a semiliquid state after mixing with the gastric juices in the stomach. Macronutrients are absorbed in the small intestines, while water, fiber, and some ions are absorbed in the colon. The material entering the colon will more or less be in a liquid form as well. Some metabolites (e.g. vitamins) are also synthesized by gut bacteria and absorbed by the large intestine. | Your stomach is a sack of muscle filled a bit with digestive juices and coated in slimy mucus. At one end, it's the "intake valve" where food comes in. At the other end, there's the "output pipe" AKA start of your small intestine, the duodenum. You stomach twists around a bit while it's digesting food. It'll move that food to the small intestine when it's "ready". If you eat some food, and it's digesting (digestion time mostly depends on exposure time to the digestive juices and content of the food) it will move to the small intestine when it's ready to go. If it happens that you eat something else while "digesting" that first meal, it could also move to the small intestine with the first round of food. In short, I think the answer to your question is a no. |
Why isn't the summer solstice (longest day of the year) exactly halfway through the year? | Because the calendar is not calibrated against the solstices. If the summer solstice was halfway through the year, the winter solstice would be at the very end/beginning. It isn't. | Why is the solstice the beginning? It's not. Summer is June, July, and August. From the Straight Dope: > There is a widespread misconception in [the United States]—which extends, I might note, to the makers of most calendars, dictionaries, and encyclopedias—that summer "officially" starts on the day of the summer solstice, June 21 or 22, which is the longest day of the year. Americans also believe (1) that there is some valid scientific reason for doing it that way, and (2) that everybody in the Northern Hemisphere does it that way, and always has. > None of these things is true. So far as I have been able to discover, no scientific or governmental body has ever formally declared that summer starts on the solstice. > Certainly there is no good scientific reason for doing so. ... [Read full article.](_URL_0_) |
How does recondensation of liquid (during cavitation) produce shockwave? | The gasbubble implodes (opposite of an explosion) - the gas obviously takes up way more space than its fluid phase so when it condenses back into a fluid, the additional space it used up has to be "reclaimed" by the surrounding fluid. Because the condensation happens very fast, the bubbles also collaps very fast which creates a schockwave. Again it's strongly linked with the process of an explosion. The only difference is that an explosion is a rapid expansion of volume which leads to a "push" on the surrounding medium whereas an implosion is a compression of volume which leads to a "pull" on the surrounding medium. However, as you can easily confirm with a simple guitar string, whether you push or pull the surrounding medium, both will create rapid vibrations aka shockwaves. Edit: So i'd say one could probably compare it to that waterhammer phenomenon linked below if you imagine that the pipe is ALSO the surrounding fluid. | You can actually do this by using a focused laser to create a collapsing vapour bubble at the center. The shockwaves propagate outward. |
Is there any substance that dissolves more easily in cold water than warm water? | Yes there is. And it is vitally important to marine life: oxygen. Cold water will have a higher oxygen concentration than hot water. This happens because it is thermodynamically more favorable for the [O2 to dissolve](_URL_0_). Incidentally, this is why power plants that discharge directly into streams can damage the marine life, even if the water contains no contamination. It can reduce oxygen levels to the point where the animals suffocate or get sick. | pretty sure that goes for any solid in any liquid - salt in water, sugar in milk, corn in diarrhea. heat speeds up rate of reaction, dissolving is a reaction |
What's the difference between regular batteries and rechargeable batteries? | Both batteries produce energy through an electrochemical reaction that involves an anode, cathode, and electrolyte. When the battery is discharging energy, the anode is the negative terminal and the cathode is the positive terminal. These two components, referred to as electrodes, occupy the most space in a battery and are also where the chemical reactions occur. When they are connected to an electrical conductor, an electrical charge flows freely between them, from anode to cathode. The medium that supports this flow of charge is the electrolyte. The difference between both batteries is that the chemical reaction is reversible with a rechargeable battery: when electrical energy from an external source (e.g., a charger) is applied to the battery’s secondary cell, the negative-to-positive electron flow that occurs during discharge gets reversed. As this happens, the cell’s charge gets restored. | Batteries are a chemical process. They use a chemical reaction that requires electrons at one place, and produces electrons at another. The two places are kept separate, and the positive terminal is at the place where electrons are required, and the negative terminal where electrons are released. All of these processes can be reversed by pushing more electrons in where they are already in excess, and pulling electrons out where they are already scarce. This basically pushes the current backwards, forcing the reaction to reverse. With non-rechargeable cells, this process isn't stable - for instance, with a old carbon-zinc 'heavy duty' cell, you are, in effect, electroplating zinc back on one electrode, but instead of plating smoothly, you build up spikes of zinc that quickly reach across the cell and short it out. Rechargable cells have chemistries and design that ensures that the reversing process happens smoothly and completely. |
So there are dominant and recessive genes. Why is the recessive gene recessive? | Say that the first version of the gene produces X protein, and the second version does not. If you have any copy of the first version, your body will have some X; the only way you can end up with no X is if you get two copies of the second version. Now, if your body has some process that doesn't care about how *much* X you have, but only whether or not X is present, the first version will be dominant and the second will be recessive. | There are dominant and recessive genes (example: R for dominant, r for recessive). Each person has two copies of a gene, one from each parent. If a gene is dominant, even if there is a recessive gene, the dominant gene is the one that determines physical traits (example: RR has the same physical traits as Rr). If a gene is recessive, you need two copies of the recessive gene, because Rr results in the dominant trait instead (example: rr for recessive trait). Red hair is recessive, so it requires either two parents with red hair or two parents with genes for red hair (example: Rr paired with Rr, which has a chance to produce rr). If his parents do not have red hair but he does, it means that his parents both had Rr as their genotype. |
Can someone explain the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Augment your Preorder debacle? | Large parts of the gaming community don't like pre-orders at all. As they are inherently anti consumer. In combination with the fact that game companies often embargo reviewers so they can't release their reviews until the day the game goes on sale. So if the reviews are all negative because the game is crap, if you have pre-ordered it's already too late as you have paid for it. Deus Ex is just the latest and maybe most outrages example of ridiculous bonuses to try to get people to pre-order. For example extra levels and such as a rewards. [This is probably the best explanation of what is going on](_URL_0_) In short, never pre-order. Always watch/read reviews from people you trust before buying a new game. Else you will fooled in to buying games that are shit. | Imagine that you live in a world where the only thing anybody wants is pizza, and each day one pizza is made, with exactly 100 slices, with varying toppings. There are exactly 50 people in this world, and every day, you dig holes, and for every hole you dig you get a dollar. At the end of the day, the pizza slices are auctioned off. One day, the money god decides to pay everyone two dollars per hole, but no more pizza is made. So now you, and everyone else, has twice as much money. But you all still want to eat, so you all bid twice as much, and nothing in the system has changed except for the numbers written on your money. |
Why does it look like stuff is coming out of the top and bottom of a black hole when it sucks in a star? | The jets consist of matter that never entered the black hole in the first place. The accretion disk is plasma spinning extremely rapidly, and in the process of matter falling onto the black hole, electromagnetic effects cause a small portion of the infalling matter to be ejected at highly relativistic velocity (the exact launching mechanism is not well understood). | The question shouldn't be "why are black holes so dense" but rather "why do dense things collapse into black holes." Although, if the density of supermassive black holes is actually pretty low. Neutron stars form when there is enough pressure to squish the electrons and protons of atoms together to form neutrons, so this generally fits your "empty space" description. Objects that are too massive to form stable neutron stars will still experience this, but collapse further into a black hole. |
If the Graviton is discovered, could we use it to create artificial gravity in an other way than centripetal force? | Two things: 1) there is basically zero chance the graviton will be discovered in the lifetime of anybody alive today (we haven't even found classical gravitational waves yet). 2) if you use gravitons to produce a gravitational effect that is a real gravitational field- not something which mimics it. | We have a few ideas about artificial gravity, or a more correct term would be mimicked gravity. [Read a bit about this here.](_URL_0_) I did not know about this before, but this is quite interesting: [successfully produced and measured a very weak gravitomagnetic field](_URL_1_) This could be something to keep an eye on. |
Why are criminals sometimes sentenced to something like 263 years in prison? | Sometimes that is just how the legal math works out. If you rob ten banks, and the punishment for robbing a bank is ten years, 10 x 10 = 100. Also, it keeps sentences from becoming confusingly entangled. If you just got life in prison for robbing those banks, what happens when one turns out to be a copycat? Do you go free? Do you stay in prison for 90% of your life expectancy? Keeping the sentences separate makes it easy to drop anything that gets overturned or otherwise modified. Finally, it can give prosecutors political cover for plea bargains, especially in cases where the death penalty applies. Trials are expensive, capital cases doubly so, and are often overturned on appeal anyway. A plea bargain with a crazy high impossible to serve prison term will often mollify a public demanding execution for a high profile crime, like in the recent Ariel Castro kidnapping case. | Because they want it to. For the prosecutor, longer time means more time to comb through the evidence, interview witnesses, plan a trial. For the defense, it's "obvious" he's guilty, he's going to get executed or life in prison. So their goal is to save or prolong his life by any means necessary. Contest every bit of evidence, how it was collected, argue he's not able to stand trial because of a mental defect. By delaying, witnesses die or move out of the area, forget details, evidence gets lost or damaged, prosecutors change due to promotions, changes in career, etc. Any delay tactic they can, they will use. Why hurry a date with the executioner? |
How do we know sharks have been around for around 400 million years? | Fossils! When you're looking through sediment, layers of sediment get dropped on top of other layers of sediment, like a Tiramisu. So when you're looking at a cross section of sedimentary rock, the deeper down you go, the further back in time you are going. So as you go downward in the sediment, you should be seeing different animals for different periods in the past. If we are in an area we know to be ~400m years old, look at any specimens in that strata and we can say "this is a shark, and it's in the 400 million year old section we are studying." | Well, that's a very subjective system. If you're asking why sharks today aren't as scary as megalodons, they are. They just aren't as big, Megalodons were believed to have gone extinct because it was near impossible for them to find enough food to support their massive size. But modern day sharks are just as terrifying, if not more so, they are even more efficient than megalodons, able to survive at most depths in the ocean and still being considered the near perfect predator. Hell, they are immune to cancer, that in itself is scary. |
What goes into to making a new cable standard? | > what requirements would you have to meet? Whatever requirements are needed for it to work in the intended application, and to ensure interoperability between cables made by different vendors. > And how do you get it standardized? Anybody can publish a document and call it a "standard". You could introduce your new cable as Fiery17 Standard Cable #001, if you want. If you want it standardized by IEEE or IEC or ANSI or some other existing body, you follow their procedures for developing the standard, which usually involves convincing them that a new standard is needed, allowing any other interested party to join a committee, writing the standard together with that committee, and then submitting the resulting document to the standards body for publication. | The cables just carries patterns of electricity. The more important part is the stuff on the end that interprets the patterns. Newer standards can read shorter, more compressed signals. Think of it like writing on a piece of paper. With the same size paper, you could fit more data if the person writing could write very small letters and the person reading had a magnifying glass. You could fit even more data by overlapping different colors ([like this](_URL_0_)) as long as the reader can filter out one color at a time. It's all still the same sized paper, and it fits in the same envelope but one carries more data than the other. |
How do ticks know when they're on a dog's neck? | It’s not they they know “neck” as much as they know (through various sensory organs) that the surface they are on is close to a source of food. In this case, your poor doggy’s blood. Ticks are patient parasites and are quite adept at traveling a hosts body unnoticed as they “hunt” for the optimal feeding spot within a certain radius. | The collar produces a scent that ticks don’t like. Since the ticks do not like the scent, they don’t bite you or the animal the collar is on. Others like mosquitos work in a similar way |
Why does dropping a firecracker in an enclosed space (e.g. sewer/manhole or mine shaft) create such a large explosion? | It *can* cause an explosion because of the buildup of sewer gases as a result of decomposition. There is a lot of methane and other compounds which is flammable that accumulates in those confined spaces. Adding a spark or flame can set the whole thing off. You can also see the same phenomenon in swamp gas and ordinary flatulence ~~if~~ when you light it. | Imagine the ground as being a house of cards. There is air inside but the shape is held together by the structures supports. The explosion would knock out these supports (rocks/clay/dirt) and the ground falls in, like you see there, with air escaping upwards because it has nowhere else to go. The reason you don't see dirt flying up is because the explosion didn't have enough energy released to lift all the mass above it. It probably does lift but only enough to make the structure unstable. |
Crash Course Biology said that chlorine is so destructive because it 'wants' to bond with anything to satisfy it's electron orbital count. Is this true of all molecules with a near-ideal count of electrons? | I'm a little leery of that description, but reactivity IS related to filling electron orbitals. The property you're talking about is generally called electronegativity, a "catch all" value for describing how easy it is for an element to gain outer electrons. Electronegativity is directly related electron configuration so it's tied to an element's group (the vertical columns on the periodic table). That means potassium and sodium have similar reactivity as do chlorine and bromine. Groups IA and VIIA are special because it only takes one electron to either empty their outer orbital (IA) or fill their outer orbital (VIIA). If you look at an electronegativity table chlorine has a MUCH higher value than sodium, showing how the two differ in gaining or losing electrons. Hope that helps... I'll be happy to follow up if you have other questions. _URL_0_ | Chlorine gas is yellow, not purple. Colors tend to reflect the local bonding environment of the atoms, and don't necessarily correlate with the elements themselves. And there are other effects besides bonding that make things look colored. Chemical bond energies just tend to be one of the common causes of color. The colors assigned to atoms in diagrams are arbitrary, though some (such as red for oxygen and black for carbon) are commonly used. They don't have physical meaning, though. |
Why do ants all follow the same trail and how do they know what to follow? | It's by scent. Ants leave little scent trails that other ants from their colony will follow. | Usually ants need to follow a pheromone they produce that leads them back to nest. Thats why when you wipe away at a line of ants they get disoriented. |
Why are popsicles included in the "novelties" section at the grocery store? And what makes them a novelty? | It refers to ice cream novelties. That's anything made of ice cream that isn't just ice cream in a tub. So popsicles and ice cream sandwiches and Klondike bars are all novelties | When the pops are first frozen, both ice and "flavor crystals" form; two solid phases. The flavor crystals are ice crystals with "flavor molcules" trapped inside. As the water in the "flavor crystals" starts to melt, the "flavor molecules" get inside the water and act like the salt on the sidewalk in the winter - lowering the melting temperature of the ice ([freezing point depression](_URL_0_)). This causes the surrounding ice to melt faster, dissolving all of the "flavor crystals". Other parts of the popsicle don't come into contact with the "flavor molecules" and don't melt as fast - they remain frozen as pure ice. The result is what you experience. Edit: Revised per discussion with rupert1920 |
Why can't America deploy the National Guard to areas like South Side of Chicago to help with the overwhelming crime rate and eventually restore order. | Because the Governor of Illinois hasn't decided to ask them to. He can, because Posse Comitatus doesn't apply to the Guard, but it the political fallout would probably be pretty bad. | Because there are provisions in the law that allow National Guard units to temporarily be federalized and placed under active Army command. And States get money from from the feds if their governors offer up the States units to active service. |
why wasabi gives you a 10 second pain in your sinuses and back of the head. | Certain chemicals, including wasabi and spicy peppers, cause a reaction in a person's body's cells that is similar to high heat. It's a function of TRPV1 and what passes into the cells: _URL_0_ | Because the sinus is basically an empty chamber with a couple pathways in and out which, when having an allergic reaction might get clogged. So lets say you're having an allergic reaction in which a bunch of histamine swells up all the membranes around the passages in your ears, nose, and throat. Lets say this happened at the top of a mountain. The pressure inside your sinus cavity is stuck at mountain pressure. Now you drive down the mountain and the pressure outside is increasing but it cannot equalize with the pressure in your sinus so you feel this inward pressure and sometimes pain. This is why you yawn and "pop" your ears when changing elevations, to equalize your sinus cavity. |
Were there any notable anarchist societies throughout the course of human history? | You may be interested in these previous questions: * [Has there been successful case of anarchy?](_URL_1_) * [What was anarchist Ukraine like?](_URL_0_) * [What were the flaws in Anarchist Spain?](_URL_2_) | Marx only believed in the transition to a stateless society after the bourgeoisie had been completely defeated. I.e the entire world is socialist. This is the reason no communist states attempted it. However, anarchists believe that a post-capitalist society should immediately transition to a stateless society, and so there were a few groups that have attempted this. These include the Revolutionary Insurrectionary army of Ukraine, an anarchist group in Ukraine during the Russian civil war, and the CNT-FAI, an anarcho-communist group in the Spanish civil war that controlled parts of Catalonia. |
"Space is expanding"; is it also fair to say instead "matter is shrinking"? Is this perspective any different? | The short answer is no. That wouldn't work. When space expands, the distance between all points in space increases. Particles of matter are, themselves, already points, and consequently have no size which could decrease. If you were to dilate everything so that their sizes decreased, then the distance across a ruler would be unchanging relative to the ruler's distance to a distant object like a galaxy. That's not what we observe. Relative to the length of a ruler, distant objects are getting further away. | No, because the measurements indicating that the universe is expanding have nothing much to do with mass and everything to do with the red shift of light. |
Stars in earth rise picture? | The second picture looks like the contrast is brighter. Look how the features on the Earth are "washed out". If that is true, the higher contrast would bring out the stars that you otherwise couldn't see. | Because the Earth is really really bright when the sun is shining on it, and stars are really really faint. If you wanted to see the stars, you'd have to overexpose the Earth, and the picture is much less attractive with a big bright smeary blob of light in the middle. |
How does Saturn maintain such uniform patterns on its disks? | Saturn's rings are inside the Roche limit. That's the minimum distance a moon can orbit a body without being torn apart by tidal forces. Once a.moon gets closer than that it will break up and form a ring system. Initially it will be chunky and have lots of rocks of different sizes, but over time the larler rocks will get broken down by collisions with smaller rocks in nearby orbits, until the all the rocks are roughly the same size and aren't likely to keep bumping into one another. Also bear in mind that we've only been looking at Saturn's rings for a very small amount of time . If you could make a time lapse video of the rings over thousands or millions of years, it probably wouldn't look so unchanging. | The solar system formed from a cloud of gas that had rotational momentum, so all the planets tended to form around a common plane of rotation. |
How is China devaluing their currency, and what impact will it have? | Devaluing domestic currency gives an international trade advantage. That's why many things you see are made in China and why many politicians complain about China keeping it's currency artificially weak. An American dollar will buy you much more in China than it will in America because of their weak currency, therefore trading with China is often cheaper than manufacturing in country. Basically an inflated currency will lose you international buying power, but increase international exporting power. | I don't know how specific of an answer you are looking for, there are a lot of factors. But basically china is known to be keeping its currency at artificially low rates. When their "dollar" is weaker, we can buy more shit from them with our dollar. about 6 yuan to one USD. This is important because assume they pump out a toothbrush that costs 1 "dollar". We can now buy 6 of those. this is the ( cheap imports) On top of that, the laws in china regarding labor, factory safety, workers rights, are much less strict than our own. So they can legally work someone long hours for shit pay in a rusty building. Long story short, its cheaper to pay someone 5 Yuan an hour. ( less than 1USD) and then pay to ship it overseas than it is to build the factory here, hire unionized workers for 10 bucks an hour. AND deal with all the legal stuff. Pensions, Workers comp etc. |
What are third parties in US politics? | 'Third party' is any party/organization that *isn't* Republican or Democrat. The R & D are the 'big ones' that get the most press coverage and 98% of the voting public identifies (or at least votes for) with one of the two. | > If there was going to be a third political party The US has five [major political parties](_URL_4_), and 28 [minor political parties](_URL_0_). The problem is that our [first-past-the-post](_URL_2_) voting system naturally settles into having two dominant parties. The only real way to change that is to change how voting for congress works (switch to a [proportional representation](_URL_3_) system), and/or changing to an [instant runoff](_URL_1_) voting system to remove the spoiler effect of third parties. |
Why are rape+homicide rates so high? What motivates someone who is simply out for sexual gratification to rape (and possibly end up murdering the victim) and why is that seen as a better alternative than paying for sex? | Ive studied violent crime in grad school a bit. It’s not as simple as looking for sexual gratification. In fact the sex is secondary for most, and the real thrill comes from overpowering and beating the system if only for a little while. Sex is just a means to that end for many. | There are a lot of factors to this. I'll talk about three of them. [Statistically](_URL_0_), most rapes are perpetrated by someone the victim knew, not by a criminal leaping out of a dark alleyway at night. This betrayal of trust can hurt a lot. In addition, sometimes people will climax during a rape, despite their conscious wishes. This feels like your own body turning against you. The way rape is viewed culturally can also have an impact. "Don't drop the soap" jokes trivialize male rape victims' experience, and many people don't even think men can be raped. Legally, not every area recognizes this possibility, depending on how they define rape. Contrary to how it may seem in the media, female rape victims are still made to feel like it was their fault for trusting the wrong guy, wearing the wrong thing, drinking too much, etc. |
MySQL engines. InnoDB vs MyISAM. | [Here](_URL_0_) is nice quick-comparison of the two. In short, the two engines are built differently, giving you more optimal query performance in different situations. Furthermore, your ability to repair, recover data, etc varies from one engine to the other. | do you mean IMDB? and IMDB isnt considered more official or truthful than wikipedia, theyre handling totally different things. Theyre bot databases, but one is strictly working with movies, while the other works with everything else. |
Why are there galaxies made up of matter, but no galaxy made up of antimatter? | This is one of our current big mysteries. We assume that there should be an equal amount of matter and antimatter in the universe, and yet we rarely see antimatter (we can create small amounts of it in things like particle accelerators, but that's it). | It probably doesn't. Why do you ask? The more popular hypothesis is that the universe is made of matter, and that was the result of a slight numerical imbalance between the amount of antimatter and matter. We don't know how that imbalance was generated, but we're looking. |
Why does it seem like we're driving faster on smaller roads than motorway's, even when going at the same speed? | On smaller roads there is way more perceptible detail, camber in the road, uneven road edges, road-side features such as shops or sign posts etcetera, whereas a motorway is smooth and uniform in shape and mostly void of road-side features. Thus the brain is fooled into thinking there isnt much happening on a motorway which results in it feeling like you're going much slower than what you really are. Contrary to that on smaller roads there appears to be a lot of things happening and flying past your window, resulting in the feeling that you're going faster. | Highways make more people travel by car. This effect is often bigger then the size of the highway so you might inadvertently cause traffic to move slower. For example if you were to build a highway from a city to a nearby town then a lot of people will move out of the city to the town and a lot of the people living in the town would take work in the city instead of locally. And not only work but people would go to the city more often for events and other things. So by creating the highway you now have a massive increase in traffic. |
How are the TSA allowed to have their locks on suit cases sold across the world? | Locking your suitcase doesn't make it immune from inspection. If they choose your suitcase to be searched, they will just cut the locks off without a second thought. The TSA brand ones are designed so that the TSA's master key can open it. This way, you can put a lock on your suitcase without them cutting it off. They'll unlock and relock it for you. It is legal because you fully consent to all searches of your property & person & rectum upon booking a flight. | Because the TSA's rules are arbitrary and meaningless. |
the difference between rythym, beat, time signature and metre in songs? | **Meter** is one complete segment of a music. It's kinda like one sentence in an essay if the essay is the whole song. **Time signature** tells musician how many notes fit (not play) in one meter. 4/4 time signature means four quarter notes fit in one meter. (probably the most common and used in almost all pop songs) 3/4 time signature means three quarter notes fit in one meter (happy birthday song is an example) 6/8 time signature means six eighth notes fit in one meter (it gives that swinging left and right feel) **Beat** is just a blimp of a pulse of the music that dictates speed. Beats per minute or BPM is used to set the speed of the song. BPM of 132 means there are 132 beeps or blimps or pulse in one minute. **Rhythm** is sorta subjective but mostly it's just a repeating pattern. Think of a drummer playing a beat to keep everything together. | In the context of music the difference is called [timbre](_URL_2_). |
How does a progressive web app(PWA) work? | From my understanding: It’s an application hosted on a web browser. Let’s say you open an application, like any other, it feels and looks like one. But on the back end it really opened up a web browser to host the software on. This way, the software is always up to date, bugs can be repaired quickly, etc. | It's done deliberately by the ISP. It makes web pages feel fast without them having to provide bandwidth for downloads. |
Do transplanted organs also replace themselves every 7 years? | Worth noting that the cells that replace those transplanted tissues are coming from stem cell reservoirs within those tissues, so they're still going to be "transplanted." It's not as if the tissue identity is going to slowly revert to the genotype of the transplant patient. | No. Organs for transplant are inspected carefully, they have to be close to perfect. A failed heart would have damage from lack of blood flow at the very least |
Basic Basketball Strategy | /r/NBA had an amazing contributor, /u/Mens_rea, who put together an excellent series on the fundamentals of basketball strategy. Check it out; it's pretty close to ELI5 level. _URL_0_ | While it's not as obvious in basketball as it is in football, there are formations, patterns, and plays in basketball. The coach has to develop those, see which his or her team is better at, what makes sense at what point in the game. Also, they determine when to rest starters and bring in bench players, and how long to leave the bench players in. |
In the American Civil War, what did the Union soldiers fight for? | I'd like to add a historiograpic rider to this question and ask how historical perceptions of Union soldiers' motivations have changed over time. | As far as veterans of the civil war fighting in subsequent wars, the Spanish-American war was seen by both north and south as a "great healing" between the two. President Mckinley's administration went out of it's way to appoint ex-confederate generals to leadership positions in order to bind up old wounds. Notably, Gen. Joseph Wheeler from Alabama fought for the Confederacy and was at the battle of Shiloh. During the Spanish-American war, he volunteered and was placed in command of the cavalry division sent to Cuba. This put him in charge of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Rider outfit. As far as WW1, the youngest soldiers from the civil war would have been in their mid-to-late 50s at the beginning of America's entrance to that fight. John Clem was the last civil war veteran to retire from the US army and he did so in 1915 _URL_0_ |
It is well-known that there is an increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria due to overuse in oral antibiotics. Can overuse of over the counter (OTC) topical antibiotics contribute to this problem? | Yes, topical antibiotics do produce resistance and this is well beyond the skin. See _URL_0_. If you have a skin infection,by all means use them. This also applies to antimicrobial soaps, and triclosan should be avoided: _URL_1_. | Short answer, Yes. Long answer, Yes because it leads to dysregulated use of antibiotics and increased resistance particularly in the natural flora that people carry around on a daily basis. This means that when an uncomplicated infection occurs, many natural flora can donate genetic elements to the infectious species that confer resistance to previously used antibiotics. This is particularly common in organisms like Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Clostridium difficile, that are becoming a global problem but more so in countries like Mexico. There is a strong positive correlation throughout the world between antibiotic usage rates and resistance levels. |
How is Instagram worth money if it doesn't make money? | Let's say you own facebook. Your friend own's google plus. Even though right now Instagram is not making money, you and your friend both believe that you could use the technology or the product to make money somehow, perhaps by integrating it with your service. If your friend gets control of Instagram entirely, you won't be able to do this, and so you will be missing out on money you could be making. Likewise, if you get control of Instagram, you can make money, and your friend won't. Perhaps you can see where I am going with this. The least messy way to get control of Instagram is to simply buy the company, in which case you now control its employees, its trademarks, its patents, everything about it. But your friend wants it too. So you make offers to the current owner of Instagram, and because you are now willing to pay for it, Instagram is worth money. Generally, people would say it is worth whatever the highest bidder is willing to pay for it, and this price will be driven up by competition. | If a website has no advertising, then they have to get money by other sources, like being bought by another company (like when Instagram was acquired by Facebook) or by getting Venture Capital (people who think you have a good idea that can be made profitable, and they want in on the ground floor). It's the difference between a restaurant on the corner of a busy intersection and a restaurant in the middle of a small street. Literally the traffic makes it worth more because more people go past it, giving it more potential to be profitable. |
Is the nucleus best visualized as many discrete quark triplets or as a sea of quarks? | Quark triplets (properly termed Baryons). We have another type of material that's a seamless sea of quarks, called a Quark Gluon Plasma. | No, it’s more of a sea of nucleons/quasiparticles (nucleon pairs, alpha clusters, etc.). It’s not simply a homogeneous sea of quarks. |
- Wind getting knocked out and getting it back | Your lungs dont go completely flat, that would be a collapsed lung or something. No when you're winded it's basically your diaphragm spasming due to the hit. Due to the spasm the diaphragm won't move properly as it usually does to draw air in/out of your lungs so your breathing is effectively paralysed for a few moments. | The first one breaks the wind resistance for the others, when the leader gets tired he falls back and someone else takes his place. |
Are perennial plants more evolved than annuals? | I too am no botanist, I study bacteria. I do though know a bit about evolution. It's not correct to think about evolution as something that you can have more of or less of. In a sense, everything has been evolving equally long up until today. You should think, which of these species is most successful and what is their niche. A silly example may be dolphins and lettuce. Obviously lettuce is a terrible ocean dwelling predator, and dolphins are poor crops, but both are very well suited to their niche and have been evolving into that form since the dawn of life. I don't have many plant examples, but if both annuals and perennials still exist today, then their different life strategies must have worked for them. Maybe being a perennial will prove less efficient and in 4 million years they'll all go extinct, let's wait and see. | That depends. Plants are numerous and very diverse. The easiest example I can think of is the Venus Fly Trap. The biggest mistake short of not giving them full sun is that people bring them indoors to keep them warm over the winter. These plants require a cold, relatively dark winter dormancy or they will die of stress after two or three missed dormancy. Other plants might be fine, and others might enter and leave dormancy at arbitrary points. It depends if the dormancy is strictly required or not. As for annuals, it depends if it is a true annual or just a plant that happens to live as an annual. True annuals will die after reproducing regardless of temperature. Plants that happen to live as annuals in the area can live much longer, but are killed by unfavorable environments first. True annuals will live no longer, and might live shorter indoors, while plants that are really perennials will live for years if you actually take care of them. |
Why we're trying to inhabit Mars before we inhabit the Moon first? | Mars has some semblance of atmosphere, a half decent amount of gravity, and a reasonable day night cycle. The moon has none of these things. | Because of money. We could go to the moon if we wanted, but it would require a massive budget to do so. And there really is no reason to go back at the moment. |
How involved was Emperor Hirohito in the atrocities committed by Japan in WW2? Were there ever any attempts to prosecute him by the allies or others during or after the war? | More can be written, but you might like to start with a few previous discussions. For involvement: ["Hirohito often gets lumped in with Hitler as an evil dictator in popular parlance, but to what degree can we actually lay the blame for Japanese atrocities like Nanking and Bataan on him?"](_URL_3_) by Catfulu. For attempts to prosecute him: ["What was Emperor Hirhohito not considered a war criminal once the Allies won?"](_URL_4_) : \[deleted] provided links to answers by /u/phoenixbasileus (who discussed the possibility of indicting Hirohito), /u/tayaravaknin , and /u/TheWinStore . This is not to discourage discussion. More questions, data, and debate are welcome. | You may be interested in past posts on this topic: * [_After the Empire of Japan's defeat in WW2, why wasn't Emperor Hirohito put on trial for war crimes?_](_URL_3_) ^(26 Feb 2014 | 3 comments) ^In [^(this answer)](_URL_0_)^(, /u/phoenixbasileus gives a detailed overview of Allied motivations and planning surrounding the matter.) ^In [^(this answer)](_URL_1_)^(, /u/tayaravaknin gives a lower level analysis of American policy.) * [_Why wasn't Emperor Hirohito tried for war crimes following WWII, and what reasons did General MacArthur have for steering things this way?_](_URL_2_) ^(06 Jan 2014 | 4 comments) ^(/u/TheWinStore details how the matter fit into US post-war goals using primary source evidence.) For followup questions, use username mentions in this thread to direct questions to specific commenters. |
Can non-light electromagnetic waves such as gamma and radio waves be focused by a lens? | There is actually already a device made to do this _URL_0_ . It uses a technique called Negative Refraction _URL_1_ This phenomena essentially allows electromagnetic waves to be focused through "double negative" materials which focuses the wave by achieving a negative permittivity and permeability. To actually go in depth I would check the link because the actual explanation of how Negative Refraction works requires understanding of multiple factors (such as permittivity and permeability) and while the wiki mentions light a lot, the machine described above shows how it can work with electromagnetic waves as well. The takeaway from all this is that it is possible to focus electromagnetic waves such as radio waves | If by electromagnetic frequencies, you mean electromagnetic waves, then yes. Light is a type of electromagnetic wave, and reflects off mirrors easily, as do certain wavelengths of infra-red and ultra violet. Ouside of that, you can start to get troubles. The mirror can completely absorb some low energy radio waves (although depending on the mirror, the metal will reflect some), but will be completely ignored by gamma waves. To make gamma waves reflect, you require something much thicker than the average mirror, at least several metres thick. As for radio waves, long range radio works by reflecting the waves off the atmosphere and the sea so that it ricochets across the planet. |
Why are kitchen knives sharpened by pushing the blade into another surface, while straight razors are sharpened by dragging the blade against another surface? | You are confusing honing with stropping. When you sharpen a straight razor you DO push blade first. You only lead with the spine of the razor when STROPPING. Honing (AKA Sharpening) is essentially grinding the metal down to the shape of a blade. This is done on a wet stone (AKA honing stone), blade first STROPPING (what you see done to a straight razor on a leather strap) is not done to "sharpen" the blade in the sense that it's reshaping the metal. Stropping sets the "fin" on the blade. Metal has many layers, so the heat and abuse a razor gets from the act of shaving disrupts the fine microscopic edge of the metal. With tiny metal flakes going every which-a-way (think bed head) after stropping the tiny metal layers are all lined up and organized (think mohawk) When you hone a razor, you do indeed go blade first. It's only when stropping that you lead with the spine. Source: Been shaving with a straight razor for a while and owned knives for even longer. Also /r/wicked_edge | Serrated blades focus the pressure onto many smaller points of contact, and those contact points are at a higher angle, both of which works better to cut some surfaces or materials. It isn't quite as smooth of a cut, though. |
Would it be harder for bacteria to grow on a salty processed meat like Spam if left out in a few hours at room temp | Firstly, very few things will go bad in a few hours. But, yes...salt prevents the growth of bacteria. This is cornerstone to preservation of many kinds from curing of meats to pickling. Most bacteria won't grow in a very salty environment. | Some bacteria need very little to live. Any of these bacteria already living in the meat would be able to decompose some of it, for a little while. However, the small percentage of these bacteria, coupled with the *extreme* coldness of space would make any such decomposition virtually unnoticeable. More importantly, the water in the meat would boil from the low pressure and the steak would essentially become freeze-dried. Could you eat it? ... .... .... probably. |
Were Indian attacks as much of an issue for settlers as Western Movies would have you believe? | Yes and no. We must understand that, as with everything Hollywood, Indian attacks in cinema are often stylized and over the top. They were brutal as far as men killing other men was during that time period (although they introduced a few novel rituals like scalping). However, I feel like a large majority of these movies miss a larger aspect of Native American raids, namely the motivation for the indigenous peoples. | That same question was asked here a while ago, [this](_URL_0_) or [this](_URL_1_) thread should help you. The consensus is that no, they really didn't, though subcontinental Indians may have. |
What is the "Fairness Doctrine" and why did the FCC revoke it? | Basically, broadcast television, when talking about a controversial issue had to show multiple viewpoints about it, and couldn't be one-sided. President Reagan (through his FCC appointment) had it revoked as a first amendment issue. | The internet is mostly run by companies who own infrastructure (like wires and shit). The institution you're talking about (assuming the FCC) gets to decide what these types of companies are allowed to do. Right now they are FORCED by the FCC to treat all traffic equally. We are worried that the FCC will change their mind and no longer force these companies to do this and thus the big greedy companies will do more greedy stuff. The reason it effects the world is because the US is big and rich and important so stuff that happens here has consequences elsewhere. That doesn't mean that this decision changes how the law works for everyone. Some countries already have service providers that do exactly what people in the US are worried will happen. |
What direction is the solar system moving? | Our solar system is currently travelling through the [Local Interstellar Cloud](_URL_1_) which it entered some 50-150 thousand years ago and will leave in around 10-20 thousand years. (*Edit*: The Sun is moving towards Lambda Herculis at 20 kilometers per second (or 12 miles per second). Our own solar system is tipped by about [63 degrees](_URL_3_) with respect to the plane of the galaxy, so the planets orbits are in no way aligned with the path our solar system takes through the galaxy ([our solar system is not a vortex](_URL_2_), as sometimes claimed). We're currently around 27.000 lightyears away from the galactic centre and move around it with an ~~angular~~ orbital velocity of about 218 km per second, also the sun is slowly moving upwards out of the galactic plane with ~7 km per second. *Edit:* I found a [nice picture](_URL_0_) showing the solar system's way through the galaxy. | [Here](_URL_0_)'s an excellent site to demonstrate the movement of Sun in general. At the bottom left is a check box to show the analemma. The lengthwise, or up and down, movement is due to axial tilt of Earth. In the summer the Sun is higher up than in the winter. The sideways movement is because Earth's orbit is slightly eccentric (meaning elliptic). When Earth is nearest the Sun, Earth moves faster on its orbital path. This causes the Sun to lag behind a bit. The opposite happens at the other side of Earth's orbit. This causes the sideways movement in the analemma. It's asymmetrical because Earth spends more time at the far side of the orbit than the near side. That's because the orbital speed is slower at the far side. |
If you and a sound travelled at the same speed, what would you hear? | I think you would here nothing of that sound wave. Sound is the oscillation in time of the density of a material, let's assume it's air. The faster you travel along side of a sound wave, the lower the frequency of this sound wave would become. This is because you would see less crests per second. In the extreme case in which you travel exactly at the same speed as the sound wave, there would be no oscillation of the air density in time, just a static dc air pressure of some value. Of course the air you are travelling through however will produce sound which in general will become noisier the faster you go. But this sound is unrelated to the original sound wave. | If you're travelling faster than the speed of sound, the sound waves will never catch up to you. |
How does a sequence of DNA result in me having green eyes, or any other trait for that matter? | You have gene X. The cells in your eye read gene X, and produce proteins by it. Some of those proteins allow the production of pigments, which color your eye. | For a really simple explanation - blue and sometimes pale green is the colour of an eye that does not produce any pigment (melanin). It is this colour because of a process called [Raleigh scattering](_URL_0_). Brown is when you have lots of this pigment, and hazel/dark green is somewhere in between. |
What's the difference between OTF and TTF fonts? | OTF also supports ligatures (e.g. fi and fl as a single character) and choice of uppercase and lowercase numbers, among the things that were already mentioned. | The Typeface is the design of the letters themselves, such as *Times New Roman* or *Arial.* The Font is a cumulation of the typeface, Size, whether it's italicized, etc. So *This* word and **This** word are the same typeface but different fonts. |
Why is it so hard for me to run fast in my dreams? Similarly, I can never punch very hard either, why? | The part of your brain in charge of muscle control is mostly deactivated during sleep, to stop you from physically running around while you're not conscious. The part of your brain in charge of dreams doesn't see that, though, so it thinks you're still able to run/punch/etc, but then when you go to punch, your brain doesn't get feedback from your muscles that it's expecting, so it feels like it "didn't work" | Because in reality, you are getting a wide range of sensations when you throw a punch that you don't get when you do the same in a dream. The air rushing off your hand, your muscles contracting, the resistance when your punch lands- you don't feel any of this in your dream, which is why they feel so weak and empty. |
Where and why did the ideas of unicorns come about? | Marco Polo apparently described seeing a unicorn on his voyages. It is thought that he actually saw a rhinoceroses. As to where Mythical Creatures actually originate, it's really hard (or impossible) to tell. All we can do is theorise, and with unicorns... well, the modern depiction of unicorns and giant white horses with a single horn is fairly modern. They originally were more of a goat/horse hybrid. Possibly there were some mutated or diseased goats with one horn, several thousand years ago, and the stories spread. Possibly some shaman put a single horn in a goat skull to mess with people. Again, all we can have at this point are theories. | Nobody knows how the Unicorn came to be Scotland's "national animal", but it was at the heart of Celtic mythology, symbolising purity, life and happiness. The earliest we can trace it to in Scotland is on the Royal Coat of Arms at [Rothesay Castle](_URL_0_) on the Isle of Bute which is believed to have been carved prior to the 15th Century and during the reign of King James III gold coins were minted that bore the design of a [unicorn](_URL_1_) and indeed today you'll still find a unicorn on the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom. Also, Unicorns are badass. |
If the human ear can only hear frequncies up to about 20-22KHz, then what's the point of using a higher sampling rate in digital audio, such as 48KHz? | Read what you said. The Nyquist theorem needs double the frequency, and humans can hear up to 20khz... =40khz minimum. At that sampling rate, there are bad modulation issues, so the sweet spot for playback was considered 44.1khz using 16 bits. Increased sampling and bitrate does improve the perceived quality of the recording up to a point when dithering back down. | Analog signals also have a [data limit](_URL_1_)! Noise (which is unavoidable) will limit the accuracy that you can get from an analog recording. On the other hand, as soon as you record the ones and zeroes of a digital recording, you can reproduce it perfectly from then on. The fact that digital signals are definite streams of on or off is actually their greatest strength, since it's possible to correct them when the data channel is noisy (since the on and off state are much easier to tell apart than the .27336 vs .27337 of analog audio). And since humans can only hear sounds up to about 20,000 Hz, we can use the [Nyquist theorem](_URL_0_) to perfectly reproduce any sound signal with a sampling rate of at least 40,000 Hz. The only limit is the bit resolution of the sample, but it's easy to reduce that to below the level that humans can tell the difference. |
How do breathing or feeding tubes placed down the throat get past the epiglottis? | You move the epiglottis forward (ventrally) with a laryngoscope and then you can visualize the vocal cords. You then just push the tube through the cords and presto, tube in place. Source: I used to be a paramedic | Your epiglottis seals off your trachea (wind pipe) when you eat and drink so that it can go down your esophagus (food pipe). If this doesn't happen properly, you can end up with water in your trachea. The body's natural reaction is to cough so that you get the fluid out of your lungs and into the correct tube. |
Why is the Jamaican bobsled team qualifying for the Sochi Olympics such a big deal? | You don't usually see too many winter sports teams coming from tropical islands. A Jamaican team qualified in the 80s as well and inspired the movie [Cool Runnings](_URL_0_) | They contribute to the initial acceleration of the bobsled, and help steer by leaning. |
- What AD and BC mean in terms of time. Also, is there a difference between BC and BCE? | AD means Anno Domini - "In the year of our Lord." AD 0 is meant to indicate the year of birth for Jesus of Nazareth, and counts upwards from that point. BC means "Before Christ" - years before the birth of Jesus. (Fun fact: Most historians now think that Jesus was not born in 0 AD, but 4 BC.) CE and BCE mean "Common Era" and "Before the Common Era." * CE = AD * BCE = BC They are exactly the same as their counterparts, but with the Jesus/religious stuff taken out of it. | So, in the original terminology, AD stands for Anno Domini (Year of our Lord) and BC stands for Before Christ. The newer terminology is CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before common era). The old one is still used more just because it's the convention, and most non-Christians don't care enough to really try to change it. The problem with "adding" is that, for one, where do we count from? The earth was formed billions of years ago, and even when civilization rolled around more recently, there aren't a lot of hard dates we can nail down. Also, most people don't really have a hard time understanding the difference between AD and BC. To change it, you'd basically have to rewrite every history book and change the dates to the new standard. That's a lot of effort, for really no benefit. |
What happens to the molecules of paper when they become wet? | Paper is made of very tiny fibers that are basically glued together and then pressed firm into a sheet. When those fibers absorb water they expand and damage the bonds between them. When the water evaporates they shrink back down and the damage created is made more apparent. | Paper and most clothing is made of long chains of molecules that will attract and loosely bind water. When they get wet the structure of the molecules that make up the paper or cloth changes slightly allowing more light to pass. |
What would it mean to Canada if Quebec seceded? | I live near Montreal, and im french so forgive me for my possible mistakes. Quebec will never sperate from Canada. There are 2 big political party in Quebec: the Parti Liberals (pro canada) and the Parti Quebecois.. (pro quebec) We (Quebec) already did 2 referendum in the past. To separate Quebec from canada. one of them was in 1980 and the second one was in 1995. The population voted NOT to separate from canada by a very narrow margin of 50.58% to 49.42% But that was the last time we will ever witness that. The reason i say that, is that the french population % keeps getting lower and lower, and with the immigration that is going on here, its no suprise. Also keep in mind that the french canadians dont procreate as much as immigrants do. | When you say "different," I'm going to assume you mean "Why didn't they revolt?" /u/TRB1783 wrote about this [here](_URL_11_) in our FAQ. In short, Canada had been conquered from the French in 1763, and as a result the Thirteen Colonies, who had been British since their inception, were no friends of the Catholic Quebecois. The Thirteen Colonies expected to gain that land for themselves and Protestantism, but instead the Quebec Act of 1774 let the Quebecois keep their religion and ensured their allegiance in the coming revolution. In fact, the Thirteen Colonies invaded Quebec before the Declaration of Independence was even signed. |
Why do I get addicted to stupid idling games like Cookie Clicker? | because they are: 1) simple 2) engaging 3) rewarding It is my personal theory that if you make something be all three of these things that people will do it - it doesn't matter what it is. Games are just conducive to being these three things. Now just because something isn't all three doesn't mean people won't do it - but if something is all three then people basically will have no choice and will do it. | Because money goes into design, research of technology, parts, marketing and ofg course lots of profits. When people spend a lot of time playing games, they want their connection the the computer, of which a mouse is one, to be the best. |
Why is it when you drink a lot of alcohol and "black out" you function properly and do things like you normally would, yet you cant remember anything you did? | Not a biologist, chemist, medical specialist or expert to any degree, so I'd happily accept any corrections from people who know more than I do. My understanding is that the alcohol in your system somehow prevents your brain from being able to form long-term memories. So you can do everything you could normally do (at least while drunk, which I imagine you'd tend to be while blacked out), but totally unable to remember it, because your brain was simply unable to store the events in your memory. | Alcohol is an antagonist for NMDA receptors in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. These receptors bind glutamate, which deems them excitatory. Alcohol is also an agonist for GABA receptors, which are inhibitory. This serves as a positive feedback loop, and if you have enough alcohol it can be strong enough to inhibit something called long term potentiation. LTP is basically a strengthening of the synaptic connection between neurons so that the response is stronger to the stimulus (you trying to remember something). If you're unable to reach LTP you're unable to recall the memory in a long term context, therefore you black out. |
Best Introductory Books on the Ottoman Empire? | *Osman's Dream* by Caroline Finkel. Great book that gives a good overview. *The Ottoman Empire* by Colin Imber is also very good but a little long. If you want some interesting social history (like I do), you can read Ralph Hattox's book on Ottoman coffee houses named *Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Middle East*. I found this last book to be especially interesting because social history is so god damned fun. edit: Jane Hathaway's book, *The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule*, is also very good if you want to learn more about the Ottoman Empire outside of Anatolia. | The one I have is "A History of the Modern Middle East" by William L. Cleveland. Doesnt seem too biased and starts you off from the Ottomans. Its also essentially a textbook. |
Why is the British Navy and Air Force called 'Royal' while the British Army is not? | Essentially the British Army has it's roots in Cromwell's New Model Army fighting *against* the crown in the English Civil War. Furthermore over time it grew by absorbing regiments and other armies (eg the Scottish Army) each with their own histories and traditions. Some of these regiments in fact *are* royal such as the Royal Fusiliers. In contrast the RN and RAF were formed by royal decree (Henry VIII and George V) respectively *Apologies for mobile post* | Historical reasons. The army is allowed to exist by order of the parliament, whereas the navy was personally controlled and raised by the monarch. The army exists, legally, because parliament allows it to. The distinction is less relevant today than once it was, obviously. |
Thorium has no risk of a nuclear meltdown, enough material to power civilization for 1000 years, cannot be used to create a bomb, and produces 1000 times less waste than uranium. Is there a scientific reason why it isn't being used right now? | Engineering. Making a nuclear reactor is hard, an we have about 60 years of practice doing it with uranium and plutonium...that's why we know a lot about their drawbacks. With thorium, everything is speculation. It sounds really good, but mostly because we haven't used it enough to find out what's bad. | Thorium is a fuel. There is no such thing as a "thorium reactor". But there are many reactor types that can use thorium or are optimize for thorium like the LFTR, liquid flouride thorium reactor. It still uses the nuclear fission process to release energy, just like a conventional nuclear reactor. |
What does 20/20 eyesight mean? How can someone have better than 20/20 vision? | It means you can see at 20ft what the average person with good eyesight can see at 20ft. 20/10 means you can see clearly at 20 ft what average person with good eyesight would need to see at 10ft to be clear. Meaning you have better than average sight. It's not strict objective numerical quantitative scale. | Eye doctors have decided what a "normal" human being should be able to see when standing 20 feet away from an eye chart. If you have 20/20 vision, it means that when you stand 20 feet away from the chart you can see what the "normal" or average human being can see. In other words, your vision is "normal" -- most people can see what you see at 20 feet. If you have 20/40 vision, it means that when you stand 20 feet away from the chart you can see what a normal human can see when standing 40 feet from the chart. That is, if there is a normal person standing 40 feet away from the chart and you are standing only 20 feet away from it, you and the normal person can see the same detail. 20/100 means that when you stand 20 feet from the chart you can see what a normal person standing 100 feet away can see. 20/200 is the cutoff for legal blindness in the United States. Source _URL_0_ |
Why are people saying Libya is "worse than ever" right now? What is the current situation? | Matthew Vandyke isn't exactly an unbiased source. Quick Google search shows he believed in the rebels so much so that he flew over there and enlisted to fight along side them. Now that the nation is in civil war he is defending his actions of going to war and working to overthrow the government to improve conditions. The fact of Libya is that there is currently far less peace. Perhaps in the future things will turn out better, but currently the situation is that the nation is in a state of anarchy and violence. | Politics aside, the US is the richest, most powerful, and most influential country in the world. That makes it very visible. If Ecuador or Ghana or Hungary enacted some new policy, its not going to have much of an impact outside of their countries. Even if it is a bad policy, it won't effect people on a global scale and will be mostly unnoticed. But just about everything the US does has a global impact. So no matter what choice is made, *somebody* is going to be unhappy. If they use their military in Libya, they are anti-Arab bullies, if they don't use their military in Libya, they are letting Arab civilians die. The US makes good decisions and bad decisions, like any other country. But because they are so visible, those decisions get criticized more often. |
Why are PC games generally cheaper than their console counterparts? | Why are they $50 as opposed to $60? Console manufactures charge a fee (I believe its a licensing fee, I could be wrong) to put games on their consoles. PC is an open platform. | Because consoles are almost always sold at a loss. Making and marketing a home video game console is pretty damn expensive, and nobody expects to actually make a profit on the console. The point of the console is to get you into their game/media environment. Because games are basically all profit for the console manufacturers. |
Why are earthquakes always depicted on a map as radiating outwards from a central point? Shouldn’t the strongest vibrations occur in some sort of line, such as along a fault line? | This article from Nature clear states in the abstract that there was an earthquake resulting from slippage of the entire length of the Cascadia subduction zone, some hundreds of miles long: _URL_0_ I’m not sure if this is normal for earthquakes (which do tend to be described as having “epicenters”), but the Cascadia subduction zone at least can produce earthquakes which originate from lines rather than points. | It's the fact that different types of waves travel at different speeds. The P waves (compression waves, like what we normally think of as sound) travel the fastest. Then the S waves (transverse waves) travel a little bit slower. Slower still are the surface waves, Rayleigh and Love waves. Every earthquake generates all of these types of waves, so the duration of the quake is a function both of the actual duration of the quake and the time between the first and last wave arrival, which naturally increases with distance. Essentially, the fast waves have more space to get a lead on the slow ones. There are other effects, too, like the number of reflected paths that exist at long distances, but the main thing is probably the different wave speeds. Hope that answers your question! *Edit: Also, there's dispersion, where waves of the same type (but different frequencies) travel at slightly different speeds as well.* |
What are the fundamental differences between the bonds in a coordination complex and covalent bonds? | They're all just bonds. Coordination bonds are about one half to one third as strong as your typical carbon-carbon single bond. They tend to be more polar than typical covalent bonds, but it isn't really appropriate to call them ionic bonds, either. This is especially the case for more electronegative late metals like cobalt, nickel, and copper. | Chemistry and bonding has to do with electrons. Valence electrons are the velcro of chemistry. Ionic bonds are made with very unequal sharing of electrons. The ions gain or lose electrons, become ionized, and this causes them to be associated with one another. Covalent bonds describe a situation where both atoms have equal grip on the electrons. Polar bonds are somewhere in between, the electrons "spend more time" at the more electronegative atom. Hydrogen bonds are different from the above 3. They are loosely bind molecules, namely water, because hydrogen has a loose grip on its electrons, is therefore slightly positive and is attracted to slightly negative parts of other molecules. Don't you have a TA or some shit? |
Napoleon tried to commit suicide by poison the night before his first abdication. Is there any evidence the poison he consumed could have caused the stomach issues that later killed him? | I think we know the poison had diluted over time from when he first received it and it several years prior. He wore it around his neck on the battlefield to drink if he ever got captured but he never changed it out for new product | Normally, swallowing strong acid or alkaline might be able to damage your internal linings sufficiently that you bleed in to your respiratory or digestive system, and cough up blood. Poison wouldn't normally do this. However, there are stories from certain haberdasheries around the time of the civil war where poisons were known to create explosive oral bleeding. |
If humans were to ever come in contact with colours beyond our colour receptive cones, what will we see ? | We come into contact with "colors" beyond our color receptive cones everyday. Your eyes are only able to pick up on certain wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, this is what we see as light. If the wavelengths are shorter (like x-rays) or longer (like radio waves) then you simply won't be able to see them. | Firstly, we interpret colours independently of the wavelength they happen to fall on (though unlikely, what is green to you may theoretically appear purple to me). Short wavelengths of supposedly blue light also slightly activate the red cone in our eyes. Source: _URL_0_ _URL_1_ |
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