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Why do night vision cameras cast a shadow?
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Many night vision cameras use an infrared lamp to illuminate the scene being recorded. You can't see that light, but the camera can. Hth.
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Why is it that the hair on our head grows without a limit, while the rest of the hair on our bodies only grows to a certain length?
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Because your head hair does grow to a limit. It's just a longer limit than the hair elsewhere
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East/West Berlin divide still visible from space due to different lightbulbs
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East Berlin uses sodium vapor lamps for street lighting that look yellowish, West Berlin uses mercury vapor lamps, and those produce blue-ish white light. Both are commonly used for street lighting. Sodium is more efficient, mercury produces a better light spectrum.
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How to calculators randomly generate numbers?
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computers and calculators, assumin no input, cannot generte random nunbers. what the do is invoke an algorithm (a series more specifically) that generates what appears to be a uniform and random series for all purposes. wait long enough and the patter eventully emerges, be it a million digit long.
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Why do news channels care so much about who breaks the story now? Doesn't the internet make everything break at the same time?
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You want people to watch your channel instead of your competition. If you have a reputation for only getting the story after everyone else, people will be less likely to watch your channel. Sure, the fastest way is to get the info online, but the majority of people who watch news channels do so because they don't want to have to track down the information themselves, but have a news channel do it for them.
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Why does toast bread keep all the cheese in while normal bread lets the cheese ooze out?
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I understand your question. In lots of places in Europe, they have their usual bread, which most of North America would see as fancy bakery bread. It's either a sourdough, a fluffy white loaf or a dark rye. What they call "toast bread" looks what a North American would think of as regular bread. A pre-sliced loaf that comes wrapped up in a plastic bag. Toast bread has a denser structure than the white bread you are used to. Therefore the air pockets are smaller and the cheese can't sink through them. Plus with the denser structure, it can hold the melted cheese better.
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How is it legal for to pay someone for sex as long as you film it and call it porn, but prostitution is illegal?
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Check [this](_URL_0_) out. Basically, "the distinction is that, at least in theory, porn stars are paid to act and prostitutes are paid for sex." Sex is a part of a porn star's 'role' - you could argue that they're being paid to act, not to have sex specifically, and therefore they're protected under the First Amendment.
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How did the Tupac hologram work ?
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firstly, it wasnt really a "hologram" as we would think of in a science fiction movie or something like that. it is an illusion technique called "pepper's ghost." the wiki entry is pretty good on it: _URL_0_
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Why are ancient ruins underground?
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Not all of them are. Plenty of ancient ruins are above ground. That said, the simply answer is detritus builds up. In old forests you are walking on layers and layers of decomposing leaves. Every year new layers of leaves, wood, mulch and other detritus are added while at the same timethe lower layers slowly decompose into compost and eventually earth. At the same time new life grows on top. In some forests that layer can be meters thick. It's not living material that constantly adds to the surface of the earth. Over the millenia, erosion can wear tall sharp mountain peaks into soft rounded cliffs. That's tons and tons of hard rock worn down into sand to be spread on the wind. In some places like the sahara, structures can disappear under the wind born sand in a matter of months if not cared for. Eventually all is rendered to dust on the wind. That which is not worn down will be buried long before that.
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Why do pictures of far away galaxies appear so crisp and beautiful but recent images of an asteroid near earth is grainy and of poor quality
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The difference is like: * Asteroid...looking at a golf ball, at night, located across the street from you. * Galaxy...looking at a spot light, at night, pointed at you from a block away.
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We see meteor showers around the same time every year.I would assume they would come at different dates as we rotate around the sun. How are they predictable?
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They occur when Earth passes through a large collection of space rocks. Since we go around the Sun on a round path that repeats every year, we know we are going to be back in that spot on about the same date.
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If you built a house several miles away from anyone else, is anyone (or any government department) obligated to provide you with electrical access?
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It kind of depends on how they are regulated. Here in Sweden, for example, the power companies operate under concessions. One of the concession rules is that the power company must connect a new customer *who is willing to pay the actual cost*. That means, basically, that they are legally forced to give you a reasonable cost proposal. And there is a government agency you can complain to if you feel that they were exaggerating the costs. But if you are unwilling to pay, they have to do no more for you.
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What determines the speed limit of a road?
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For traffic engineers it's the 85th percentile. In other words there is an assumption that 85% of drivers will drive at safe speed for road conditions. Speed studies are done, and this determines the speed limit. Unfortunately, the traffic engineers recommendations are often ignored by politicians, who set speed limits based on their own limited understanding of traffic control.
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how foodstuffs can sit on shelf a long time and then must be refrigerated after opening... is it just exposure to air that flips the switch?
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Right on, and exposure to bacteria. Moisture without oxygen in a sterile environment won't generate bacteria. Once opened you have all three, by refrigerating you actually just slow the enzymatic breakdown and reduce the suitability for bacteria to grow on the food
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Why can't we tax everyone the same percent?
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There is literally no government policy anywhere that *nobody* would complain about. In this particular case, it makes little sense to tax people who are already on government assistance (even aside from whether it's right to do so).
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How a Jeep is able to climb an almost vertical incline with not much trouble?
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a combination of low gearing, low center of gravity, and engine location. the engine being in the front means that the weight helps hold the front end of the jeep down, making it far less likely to flip while climbing. the low center of gravity also helps prevent flipping in the same way. the low gearing allows for very large amounts of torque, so while it wont be able to hit 100mph it can climb up damn near anything.
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Why is it that transplanted organs only have a short life span once transplanted?
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Primary reason is the person's immune system attacking everything that is foreign in the body, including the cells of organs that don't have the exact genetic markers that the immune system recognizes. So in a transplant situation, they have to match the blood type between the donor and the recipient, and it helps if the donor and recipient have even better matches (by being related - more similar DNA), but ultimately, for all transplants, the person has to take immunosuppressant anti-rejection drugs to disable their immune system somewhat, so it no longer attacks the new organs so fiercely. So they can't completely disable the immune system because the person would then get sick and die from even a common cold. Which means they can't stop the attacks on the organ, they can just slow them down.
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does drinking chocolate milk give the same benefits as drinking regular milk?
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The normal positive aspects of milk (Vitamin D, calcium, protein) will all be in chocolate milk. The downside is that chocolate milk usually has quite a bit of sugar added to it. Edit: and as for milk with chocolate cereal, it depends entirely on the cereal. You'd just get bits of the cereal leaking into the milk, and I can't see that being any different from eating the cereal anyway.
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At what heights do falls become dangerous?
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There are a lot of variables in that question. People have fallen and died from a standing position.
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Why are vaccines egg based? How are they made?
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They grow the virus with host animal cells, and eggs are high in supply.
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What this Tesla Model S thing is about?
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Journalist smears Tesla. Tesla responds with telemetry showing journalist lied about events in article.
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How durable are pandas?
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Like all bears, pandas have ridiculously large and thick bones which make them very durable in general. In addition, bears also have thick layers of fat which can absorb impact, as well as dense outer hairs which provide protection. These attributes combined with their huge muscle mass make pandas and other bears essentially walking tanks.
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How does crop rotation work?
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Crops have different effects on the underlying soil. Vegetables tend to be taxing on the soil because they're grown really densely, they need a lot of nutrients, and they don't leave behind deep root systems to help replenish the soil by decaying. Legumes (like alfalfa or clover) harbor nitrogen fixing bacteria in their root systems, so they actually leave the soil with more nitrogen compounds than before you planted them. This is basically like natural fertilizer. Cereal crops (corn, wheat, etc) have deep root systems which are good because when you harvest them, they leave a lot of dead matter to decay. So by rotating through these kinds of crops, you can get the harvest you want, while making sure your soil is well-replenished with nutrients.
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why did the SpaceX exhaust trail (or what ever that was) stay illuminated for so long?
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because the rocket was so high up, that it was not shaded by the earth. just like the moon that is also visible in the video. This was only possible because it was shortly after sunset.
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Is there a word, in any language -- that describes the deep, sinking feeling of knowing that life is short, and we're going to miss out on so much...
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Existential dread. Plenty of philosophers in lots of languages have discussed that feeling.
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Plasma, in the electrical sense. Why is it its own state/phase?
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Plasma forms when you heat up a gas to really high temperatures. The electrons get ripped away from the atoms due to their high energy. This is called ionization. This makes plasma highly electrically conductive. Plasma is its own state of matter because its properties are so fundamentally different from a gas, in the same way that a liquid's properties are fundamentally different than a solid's.
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What causes our muscles to feel weak when we are nervous/ in a high tense situation?
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When you are stressed, you're body reroutes blood away from your limbs to supply your brain and other areas. The lack of blood can give you that weak feeling.
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Why is it that when ants or other bugs fall from the ceiling to the floor they don't die/can still walk, but me falling from a short height could break my legs?
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Square cube law. They don't have nearly the volume per unit of surface area you do. So assuming approximately equal mass per volume, the ultimate force generated by the same fall and stopping with the same negative acceleration will be much higher for you because of the increased mass. F=ma Also chitin is quite a tough material
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Why are children more likely to fall off the bed while in deep sleep than adults?
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When you sleep your brain turns off your motor-cortex (the thing that controls your limbs) so that you are basically paralyzed. This is also the reason you sometimes feel like you are falling when you are about to fall asleep and suddenly jolt yourself awake. In children this function is still developing and sometimes it doesn't turn off all the way or at all. Thats why kids also sleepwalk much more often than adults.
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Why do Indians bob their heads forward and backward when they talk? [FIXED]
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The culture is different in india. A left to right wobble means "I agree". If they sort of bobble their head in a circular motion it means they are listening. If slow its friendly if fast its more like "I really understand".
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If Mary was a virgin (and had thus never 'known' Joseph), why does Matthew 1:1-17 explain the lineage from Abraham to Joseph as the Genealogy of Jesus?
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The lineage was to establish Jesus' royalty by identifying him as a son of David and heir to the Kingdom. It was not meant to establish strictly biological descendency. Notice that it does not say that "Jacob begat Jesus." It specifically says that Joseph was the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus. *Right after that*, in Matthew 1:18-25, they talk about how Jospeh was going to put Mary out, but an angel appeared and convinced him to take her as wife. In doing so Joseph became Jesus' father, legally, and therefore the heir to the Kingdom.
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Why do some companies or sites pay for annoying pop up ads when they only make us angry and less likely to buy their products?
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I can only assume these ad bring in a sizeable return. Businesses don't play around especially if it would only serve to ruin their reputations - but if something makes them money then they clearly wouldn't be competitive if they didn't take advantage of it.
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Why do we feel the urge to keep throwing up even if there is nothing left?
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It's because of the physiological mechanisms involved in throwing up. When you first start, it's in response to the body trying to expel something. The muscles around your stomach contract and squeeze it to propel the contents out (there are other elements involved, but they're not relevant to the question). After a while these muscles start spasming despite the fact that the stomach is empty, which is what leads to the continued retching afterwards.
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How do buffets make money?
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For everyone that eats 5 plates there are people who went to a buffet had a plate and then realized they were not as hungry as they thought.
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Why fizzy drinks like Cola are stored in aluminium cylinders, while milk in cardboard cuboids?
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Probably because cardboard doesn't keep the carbonation from escaping soda as well as aluminium.
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How can a plant which has always been an indoor plant and never been outdoors suddenly have ahids or gnats? Where did the bugs come from?
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Aphids are small enough to get through window screens and can be windblown onto screen from nearby plants, and most houseplants are kept near windows. They can also hitch a ride on you when you brush by aphid-infested plants then go inside. Most gnats seen in houseplants actually come from the soil, their larva feed on tiny roots. Cheap soil often contains the eggs/larva of these fungus gnats.
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- why, in the wild, does rigor mortis set in an animal carcass in just a few hours, but the meat from my butcher stays 'fresh' and limp for days?
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Rigor mortis is not permanent. Depending on several things it does goes away & the body relaxes after a few days (typically 72 hours or so).
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Do any other forces besides supply/demand factor in a company's stock price?
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Profit (technically) doesn't matter when it comes to stock. When you see a "price" for a stock, that's not the price sticker of the stock like an item on a shelf in the store, that's just the average price people are willing to pay for a share of it. You can sell your stock for less, you can sell it for more, as long as someone is willing to buy it. Therefore, the only real (ELI5) factor in determining stock price is how much someone is willing to pay for a share of that stock.
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Why does hot water (or heat generally) clean better than cold water (or cold generally)?
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It's all about the chemistry. Heat is a measure of kinetic energy, so hotter chemicals are moving faster. In most chemical reactions adding heat will speed things up as the faster moving molecules will collide more often and therefore are more likely to react. Because of this, hotter chemicals have a higher reaction rate than colder chemicals. Furthermore, in order to have a reaction at all, two molecules need to hit each other hard enough. Since chemicals move slower the colder they are, they may not react with one another until they reach a certain temperature.
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Why did the FBI publicly release the information about Patraeus's affair? Isn't that part of his private life?
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If he has something he wants to keep secret, that's an opportunity for blackmail. And blackmail is a big concern when you have access to top secret information. By making this information public, they remove a potential security risk, because you can't blackmail someone over something everyone already knows. Damage to his personal life is just a side effect.
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How are time statistics calculated? I.e: every 20 a kid dies and stuff like that. How accurate this kind of numbers are? What is the time interval used for sampling?
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It's not literal It's just an average based on totals over a total amount of given time Like if you knew in 1 year 12 people died from auto erotic asphyxiation the you would say that 1 person dies from it every month. Wheras the reality might be that they all died the same day at an auto erotic asphyxiation anonymous singles mixer
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Why are some people naturally talented with maths? How does it happen?
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I think this gets in to a nature vs nurture situation. It's likely he wasn't born with an ability, but had a recurring need for this ability through early childhood or something and it became thoroughly developed through time. Or just lots and lots of practice
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Why do cuts burn when you put hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol on them?
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The chemicals in rubbing alcohol when applied to an open wound activate the same nerve receptors in your skin that let you know that a flame is hot, giving you a burning or stinging sensation. 🔥
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After being bothered by mosquitoes, I began to wonder: Do mosquitoes have any purpose? Why do they bite certain people more than others? If mosquitoes were annihilated, would anything affect human society big time?
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I've often heard that "scientists" have said that mosquitoes could be made extinct without any adverse affect on the ecosystem, but I frankly find that hard to swallow. Bats would certainly not be happy if mosquitoes went extinct. As for purpose, to say that any living thing has "purpose" is more or less nonsense since all life on Earth is the product of natural selection causing poorly-adapted life forms to die out. Mosquitoes are very good at surviving long enough to breed, so they're still around.
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Why Comcast "Xfinity" ads are allowed to continue claiming they are the fastest ISP in the country when they are clearly lying?
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They offer 305mbit/s fiber residential service in certain metro areas - they are the fastest residential isp In those and likely other areas as well _URL_0_ edit: also they may be saying something like "fastest national ISP" because one-offs like Google Fiber are not a nation-wide ISP. And when they offer 305mbit/s vs FiOS' 300, they do have the edge in numbers too.
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Why is the post-WW2 50s decade considered the quintessential time period for defined gender roles when throughout the 40s women were in "men's" roles for the first time?
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Because after the war there was a push for women to go back to traditional roles, this didn't fly. So women have been fighting to gain equal footing as men in career roles ever since.
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why window tinting is black instead of white
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sane reason sunglasses are tinted dark or a color instead of white. It aborbing the light prevents it from coming in. Also if it was white it would reflect on the inside too. Possibly making glare which is opposite of the point. (car light lamp or otherwise)
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Why my computer was so brilliantly fast when I first purchased it is now intolerably slow after only a few months of use.
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So reinstalling Windows will really improve things? Is there a way to re-install while losing no data or settings?
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How older films can be made into 3D (eg Titanic, beauty and the beast). Can they do it with TOPGUN?
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I just want to mention top gun is being converted: _URL_1_
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Why does the US have so much more aircraft than any other country?
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One of the main tactics used by the American military relies on overwhelming air superiority. Ground forces discover enemy fortifications and locations, and call for bombing runs. And, of course, there's also the matter that the US military is often fighting around the world, and the fastest way to get across the world is to fly.
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Why does folding a piece of paper both ways help to tear a straight line?
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Folding paper weakens the bonds at the fold. The outer bonds are stretched more, so folding both ways weakens both sides at the crease. When you tear, the rip follows the path with the weakest structure which is usually the crease.
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why wireless devices/electronics can't be used in an airplane below 10k feet..
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Previously the FAA was worried that the small EM field generated by electronic devices could introduce interference to an airplane's internal electronics. This was well before shielded everything on these planes. Recently the FAA has come out in favor of consumers, saying they are going to recommend the allowance of using portable electronics gate to gate. Cell phones will still need to stay in airplane mode though. Source: I studied wireless communication in college. As for the FAA ruling, a quick google search for "FAA Electronics Policy" returns many news articles with much more information in them.
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Is Africa as unstable as the media portrays it to be?
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Africa's a pretty big place, and the experience can certainly vary depending on where you go. Blood Diamond was set during a civil war in Sierra Leone, so the shitshow factor is going to be pretty high in such a situation by default. If you went to some place like Nairobi, Cape Town, or Johannesburg, it'd be more or less like most big cities - some nice areas, some middle-class areas, some touristy areas, and some places you'd probably want to avoid.
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How do American street names work?
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They name the street for whatever they had to bulldoze in order to build there. Oak Street, Cypress Road, Forest Glen Lane, and so forth.
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Why are rainbows shaped like arches/parabolas
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You're only seeing a portion of the full circle.
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How is it legal for the US to conduct drone strikes in foreign countries that result in the deaths of innocent people without any repercussions?
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Who would stop them? Typically the drone strikes are done with the consent of the country in question (Specifically Pakistan). Public hand wringing doesn't necessarily equate to private Disapproval.
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why don't hockey teams hire a 500 lb. goalie to block the whole goal?
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There is a sports science episode covering this. It basically boils down to 1)It does not cover the whole net. And with the assumption that a 500lb guy isn't too athletic, the open part of the net will just be free goals. Also regulation sized protective equipement does not cover a 500lb man.
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How do new, unpublished writers ensure that their original work is not copied/stolen by the publishing house they give their work to consider?
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Copyright protection, unlike patent protection, exists automatically to protect a work. No registration or other action on the part of the author is required. So if a publisher were to steal an author's work, the author would sue the publisher and -- assuming they could prove that they indeed authored the work -- they would win.
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What does a part-time teenager do with his W-2 form?
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More than likely your parents will claim you and they should handle this. However you can file a return yourself (see below). Make sure to check with you parent if they are claiming you as a dependent. You can file a tax return and get any federal (and probably state) taxes you paid back in a refund check. Goto _URL_0_. [TurboTax® Freedom Edition](_URL_1_) is a good choice for electronic filing. Turbo Tax will charge you ($15) to file state tax returns. Most likely your state has an online filing for low income (you qualify) returns but you will have to check your state's website.
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why the news doesn't report on suicide (unless it's a celebrity)?
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Because comparatively few people care. It is not a story that has an effect on a significant number of people.
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Why does my pen work on a sheet of paper, but doesn't on another one?
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A ball-point pen requires a certain amount of friction between the ball and the paper in order for the ball to rotate, which moves the ink down from the reservoir to the paper. Also, the paper surface needs to be porous enough to pull the ink off the ball onto the paper. Other types of pens have similar requirements, even if they work differently. In my personal experience, most quests for a better pen are solved with better paper. Papers for other purposes can have coatings or formulations that defeat either of the above mechanisms.
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Why Do Animals Leave Permanent Water Sources?
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Staying in a place is making predator job easier and making it harder and harder to find near food.
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Why has iTunes been deleting all my music since 2004?
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Sounds like what is happening here is that you are syncing a device with a device with an unassociated library. An iDevice gets linked to a particular authorised computer + library file, and when you sync your device with an unrelated computer, it will erase the content. I know you said you manually manage the device, but the only thing I can think of is that something is going wrong in this process and erasing your device. I don' t mean this as a slightly against you. Itunes can be pretty ridiculous to work with at times. It just seems like that is the one consistent factor across your story.
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Where does the extra water go during low tide?
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It shifts to a different part of the earth causing a high tide in that region.
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What is happening, physically, when you feel like you've burned off your taste buds with hot tea, soup, etc?
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You've destroyed the nerve enedings. That's why sudden pain then numbness. The mouth regenerates very quickly however, thus feeling will come back in a relatively short amount of time.
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The Orch-OR (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) Theory
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I can't explain it, much less in terms a 5 year old could understand. Any explanation, at a minimum, is going to have to include introductory explanations of Platonic forms, Godel incompleteness, neurobiology and cell structure. All I can tell you, very simply, is that no one who is helping to create and refine the idea has any intention of the idea being used to address anything about the afterlife, and anyone using it for that purpose either doesn't understand it or is deliberately misusing it.
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why is turning your assets into cash called "liquidating"?
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This is known as a "metaphor". Money isn't literally liquid, but we *do* refer to it as "cash flow". Basically, having your assets liquid means you can easily move them from place to place.
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What is the point of internet contests, does anyone actually win?
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I won an Xbox 360 with Connect from an internet contest about 5 years ago, Mars candy corp I think. I entered like 20 times. It was legit, they just emailed me, I signed a form and they just mailed me the the Xbox. Then I sold it to my sister for $300. Best deal ever.
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Cardio gets the heart working which ultimately makes it stronger. So why do recreational drugs that do the same thing cause harm to the heart?
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when you exercise your whole cardio vascular (heart,lungs and arteries and veins) system adjusts to get more oxygen into your muscles, and also more waste out. All the components are working in tandem, increasing, decreasing and stabilising as required. Its a very nicely synced system when you take cocaine its JUST your heart that increases. its now out of sync with rest of the system, even pushing against it and making your heart strain. That's the problem. I suppose the cocaine case is a bit like having one formula-1 wheel on a car: its out of sync with the rest and you're gonna have a bad time.
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Caisson disease (the bends) and why the reverse doesn't happen (an astronaut going from low to high pressure)
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They're in a pressurized environment so there's no pressure change. Submariners don't get the bends either, for the same reason. Anyway the difference between space and sea level is only one atmosphere so it wouldn't be an issue anyway. You've done a one atmosphere change at something like ten meters underwater, to compare.
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why can’t light stay still?
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Light *always* has at least *some* energy. That's part of what it is. Light can't *not* have energy. When light loses its energy, for whatever reason, it literally stops being light (or stops existing, whatever — your choice of interpretation). Now, light is small. Very small. So small that, there's actually no way for it to *store* that energy — except through motion. So, in a sense, light moves because it has to do *something*, and it's so small that moving is all it can do. And, furthermore, light *always* moves at "the speed of light". It's just that, when it enters some materials, it gets bounced around by all the molecules a *lot*, resulting in an apparent reduction in speed.
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What happens when people fall asleep on their arm and it becomes unmovable completely numb?
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A nerve is getting pinched, blocking signal from reaching the brain. It's relatively harmless, but is uncomfortable (especially when your limb "wakes up", causing a flood of conflicting signals that were backed up to all get sent at once).
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Why do german and scandinavian languages use different letters for ö/ø?
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swedish and icelandic use the ö/Ö however, a likely explanation is that Ø came from latin Œ (a letter currently used in french), and that the slash was just a different way to write it. as for why the difference, it's theorized that the Ö was used in old norwegian texts in order to distinguish between the short Ö/Ø sound and the long Ö/Ø sound. related is the cyrillic letter Ө, which makes a similar sound in some languages such as mongolian and kazakh.
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how the show moonshiners works and how it is legal
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* All they show is people hauling clear liquids around...that is not sufficient proof of a crime. * Large portions of the show could very well be staged.
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Health Insurance for those that have not elected in 2015
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If you want to get coverage for 2016, the exchange should be open til December 10. The cost of coverage really depends on how much subsidies you're eligible for.
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How does countries calculate its land area?
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These days the most accurate answer comes from GIS data. This basically describes the shape of the country as a polygon, i.e., a shape made up of a sequence of straight lines connected together. There's a (relatively) simple [mathematical formula](_URL_0_) to determine the area of a polygon. There are some minor complexities involving islands, lakes, islands in lake, lakes in islands in lakes, and so on, but these can be handled with care.
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why isn't hunting lions and other endangered animals banned world wide?
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The reason it isn't banned world wide is that there is no governing body for the entire world and no enforcement agency that could legally enforce any sort of international treaty on it. This means that the countries with the animals are the governing body over those animals, and it is their sovereign right to do with them as they please.
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Why don't snakes choke when they devour large prey whole / is it ever possible for a snake to choke ?
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Yes, snakes can choke. Sometimes they start to swallow a prey, and when startled or find that it is too big, they reverse the swallowing process. It's usually not healthy for the snake to do repeatedly, and can hurt the snake. Also, snakes have a special extendable tube trachea they push forward to the front of their jaw when swallowing a large prey. It's like a snorkel for eating.
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How metropolises such as Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, other southwestern U.S. cities, get enough water to supply the huge population with no lakes or rivers near.
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All these cities share water from the Colorado River under an agreement called [the Colorado River Compact](_URL_0_). it is carried through the area by pipelines.
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How reactors don't melt if stuff going on inside them hit millions of degrees?
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What's going on here is they keep the stuff that's millions of degrees from touching anything else, and they only use very very tiny amounts of the stuff they're heating up. The most common way of doing this is to trap the little wee cloud of hot hot stuff within a very strong magnetic field. Because it's not touching anything, the heat it contains isn't conducted into the structure around it that's generating that magnetic field, and they can keep pumping more energy in. When they release it, there's so little hot stuff there that it doesn't really heat up its surroundings enough to damage them.
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Why can't your phone use wifi and 4G/3G together?
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[You can do it on Android](_URL_0_) In general it's undesirable because mobile bandwidth is far more limited. Something like watching youtube in high quality could easily use up all your limit in very little time if you fail to notice. It could also result in you being charged a lot of money, and people tend to hate this kind of thing.
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How do people keep "discovering" information leaked from Snowdens' documents if they were leaked so long ago?
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The documents were given to journalist/lawyer Glenn Greenwald. Snowden did this because he trusted Greenwald not to release any documents that would put anyone's life in danger. Greenwald is going through the documents and publishing them slowly to ensure this and to only show documents that implicate government wrong doing. edit: I should spell his name correctly. edit 2: Thanks for Gold! Only been here a month and I am grateful that anyone at all cared what I have to say.
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why do collegiate athletes from military schools (Army, Navy, Air Force) need permission to play in pro sports?
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When a person is accepted into a service academy, they don't pay any tuition but they make a commitment to serve a certain term of years in their chosen military branch after graduation. If that player is drafted by a pro franchise, they can ask the military to defer or waive their service requirement which in this case the Navy agreed to do.
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What causes us to wake up right before the alarm goes off?
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Your body has proteins that act like grains in an hourglass. When they run low your body knows it's time to go to sleep. While you sleep the hourglass fills back up until it's full enough that your body starts to wake up. If you keep a regular schedule, your body's natural cycle will start to sync with your artificial cycle (the alarm clock)...so your body will start to naturally wake up at the same time your alarm clock is set to wake you up.
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What exactly is happening when I put a cup or bottle to my mouth and suck the air out?
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You aren't creating a perfect vacuum, but you are reducing the air pressure inside the cup, causing the ambient air pressure outside to hold the cup to your face.
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Why can't web services simply scale up by buying more servers?
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It's all about initial design. Other users have described how "bottlenecks" can develop due to design limitations (/u/WRSaunders example of ticket sales is a great example). The next problem is how these "bad" designs start in the first place. Basically it's simpler and easier to write a program that only has to work on one machine. If we design a system that is completely "scalable" when we only have 20 or 1000 or even 100,000 customers, then we're probably "over-engineering" the problem and creating a solution to a non-existent problem. If we don't have literally millions of customers, then we can probably do just fine with a simple design that relies on one central database. This is why designs that "don't scale" exist in the first place. Most of the time companies don't need to scale, and building a "scalable" product takes more design and engineering effort in the first place. So if you make something "scalable" when it doesn't need to be, you're wasting effort and therefore money.
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Why were animals SO much bigger back then?
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When you say back then I'm going to assume you mean millions of years ago, and more specifically the Carboniferous period (300-260Mya). The reason organisms were much bigger then is due to the increased oxygen levels within the atmosphere allowing much larger organisms to be supported. An example of this that is quite interesting is the giant insects such as Arthropleura which are giant Centipede's around 3m in length and around 30cm wide. This website has a photo of the tracks left by one, the 2nd photo down. _URL_0_
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Why does antisemitism refer only to the Jewish people even though the term "Semite" encompasses both Arabs and Jews?
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Because the term was coined by people who used it to refer to groups that specifically hated Jews (Such as the Nazis), not groups that hated Jews and/or Arabs (For example, the Nazis got along pretty well with the Arab world, especially because of their shared antisemitism). _URL_0_
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What are Complex numbers, why, how and what for? How can square of number be negative?
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The thing you need to know about math is that it's an invention. It isn't some transcendental property of the universe it is just a man made set of rules. So mathematicians create a rule to call lowercase i the square root of negative one and that's that. Then if a number has a real part and an imaginary part, like 4-3i, then it is complex. Now as for uses, they are used in different ways by different people. Electrical engineers use them as a mathematical shortcut since you can prove that e^ix = cos(x) + isin(x) and adding sin's and cos's is hard. Physicists use them to describe how sub atomic particles move. This is also a mathematical shortcut, and when you multiply the complex numbers in such a way that the imaginary parts cancel out, it gives you an entirely real value which represents something tangible.
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Why don't we breathe in fully (deeply) with every breath?
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At rest the body does not require a lot of oxygen. It would be a waste of energy to expand the lungs fully each time we took a breath. Also try taking multiple deep breaths at a time, you'll start to feel quite light headed!
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Why does alimony exist in a world fighting for equal women rights? In other words, how is it okay for women to demand men's earnings after a divorce?
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Usually the man has a job in the marriage and it is by the highest earner not always by the man
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Why can time be dilated or compressed but never go backwards?
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Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why time moves forwards, not backwards. ](_URL_5_) ^(_5 comments_) 1. [ELI5: Why is time travel backwards not possible? ](_URL_3_) ^(_6 comments_) 1. [ELI5: What causes time to move forward? ](_URL_6_) ^(_28 comments_) 1. [eli5: How can we know if time travel is/isn't possible? ](_URL_0_) ^(_ > 100 comments_) 1. [ELI5: Why we cant travel backwards in time. ](_URL_2_) ^(_4 comments_) 1. [ELI5: Why time travel cannot exist ](_URL_1_) ^(_85 comments_) 1. [ELI5: Why can we travel forwards in time but not backwards? ](_URL_7_) ^(_3 comments_) 1. [ELI5:Why can't we turn back time? ](_URL_4_) ^(_20 comments_)
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What is the psychology behind competitiveness?
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Dominance. Usually being the best puts you in a leadership role. Leadership means success. And humans usually tend to strive for success.
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Why do we rely on donations from the public for disaster relief? Isn't this the government's responsibility?
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No, because if they did people would build in flood zones all the time for the pretty views. If you know that Hurricanes and Earthquakes are possible, and if you don't we have science class for that, then you should be buying insurance. Admittedly, companies may be uncomfortable since they don't have the risk science, so having FEMA draw maps makes sense because commerce depends on everyone having the same facts. Government should pay for infrastructure, repairs to public property, and they're unlikely to find underwriting for that so funding it themselves with emergency legislation is probably the only solution. The Government does not protect people from spending their money foolishly on a Gulf beach house, this is life in a free country. Such owners need insurance for that. The government protects you from not having a road in front of your house, because the government owns all the roads.
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What criteria do ingredients need to meet in order to be classified as "active/medical"?
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It needs to enact a physiological change on your body, as opposed to simply being processed like normal food. The change has to be noticeable and measurable, and often directed towards a specific medicinal goal.
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Why does it sometimes feel like time slows down and and I have enhanced reflexes?
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This usually happens when your brain senses that you are in danger (even if it might not seen dangerous to you) and to assess the situation better it 'slows down time' and enhances your senses
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How come humans need to eat three times a day to sustain good health?
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Eating three times a day is a relatively new thing. Eating once a day was quite common throughout most of civilised history, and before that eating once every couple of days may have been quite common. Humans are warm blooded mammals with a high basal metabolic rate (the amount of energy we use each day). We much eat quite a lot of food in comparison to other animals. That large amount of food can be eaten in one large amount rarely, or in small meals frequently. EDIT: Why is it that humans require so many calories? Our brains and we are warm blooded (we make our own heat). Our brains use about 20 - 25% of our daily calorie use.
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What's the problem with loaning money for college in the states?
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> Shouldn't the US support their citizens getting educations? The US government does, and this is exactly why education costs have spiraled out of control. There is a limited supply of top notch universities, an ever increasing number of students wanting spots in those universities, and a government all to willing to provide education loans for those students. More dollars chasing fewer spots is a recipe for increasing costs. Increasing the amount of loan money available will not solve the affordability problem. Price controls on universities will further increase the difficulty of getting in to a good university. The best solution is the complete abolishment of the federal loan system.
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How do we determine the directional source of a sound?
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I think it has to do with the time difference between one ear hearing the sound first, then the other.
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Where did the phrase "1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi" come from?
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The idea is that it takes one second to say Mississippi. So if you want to time something in seconds, you count it out while saying Mississippi.
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